by James Ryan No one shall be forgotten who was great in this world. Søren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling Hot it was, wincing hot. Just another radiator-bubbling August afternoon for the drivers of southwest Missouri. But not for me, a thin-blooded, pale-faced Bronxite from New York City. I felt the…
by John R. Murray The worst thing about arriving at the food coalition’s kitchen was getting one of the other volunteers to come downstairs to let me in. It was on the second floor of a church on a busy corner of Pico Boulevard, and even though the kitchen windows…
by Eva-Maria Sher There is a moment when a familiar shape feels foreign, when your pretty porcelain cup spills from its shelf to reveal its substance when the lute—startled resonates with a new song, when you realize the captive bird in its cage by the window holds the key to…
by Olaf Kroneman I feed the starving. I feed the dying. I’m no Mother Teresa, but the act of feeding the unfortunates who can’t eat appeals to me. How could you not like the person who feeds you? You don’t bite the hand. I feed people, patients, whose stomachs are…
by Gloria Holsinger Sassyfras swiftly dug up the ginseng roots with well-practiced hands, then placed them in the burlap sack she always carried on such missions. All the while she kept her ears perked for unusual sounds in the forest. She pushed her wild, strawberry blonde hair away from her…
by Marc Mayer Okay, I admit it…I’m a hoarder. No, I don’t mean one of those nutjobs you see on the TV news being led out of their hopelessly cluttered—with boxes of shit from the 1950s—home along with their thirty-two cats and eighteen dogs. I’m just your average “I never…
by Eva-Maria Sher Come Sleep Let’s ride Your dream-sheep Let’s glide Knee-deep Into tiramisu. I swim and lap in Lovely goo You wrap yourself In midnight blue. Come Sleep Come, keep me Company, you Fickle bumblebee You tease! Come soon I’ll bring you wings While Moon On silver strings Weaves…
by Joseph Mills Even after Dale reaches the bleachers and Jackie has started stretching on the field, Sally and the boys are still in the van. Doing something. God knows what. It’s why Dale hates it when she drives. She get in and sits there, adjusting her seat, getting out…
by Michael H. Brownstein When I pass to the nether world, my dearest, watch for me in the rain. Do not go outside in gentle dress— I will be the acid from hammer fist clouds. When the weather changes, be sure to salt the walkway as you go. I will…
by Nancy Ford Dugan I was showing my driver’s license to my mother to prove I was her daughter when I looked out the window and saw two guys maneuvering a body with a plaid sheet over its face into an SUV. “Don’t be silly. You’re not Sally,” said my…