by Carol Casey The path is trodden, dusty, level.You know it will take youwhere many have gone. Step off—tangles of brambles,sometimes with blackberries,more often with little clawsthat catch on clothes and skin;and tortuous tree roots—inconvenient, sacred data unearthed—subterranean snakelets somehowsifted into snarls for feet to catch.There are stems that twine…
by R.M. Juillerat Life went on when the rain didn’t stop. It started with the glaciers melting. Then the tsunamis and hurricanes, eyes small, teeth barring, hit the coasts. No one listened. Earthquakes decimated eighty percent of countries, and no one listened. No one listened when the rain came, when…
by Carol Lindsey “Girls, come on,” Mildred Smith called. “We’ll miss the bus.” Mildred looked over the two girls bounding down the stairs. “Very nice, Evelyn. Rhonda Sue, where are your gloves? A lady never leaves the house without being properly dressed.” Nine-year-old Rhonda Sue pulled a pair of white…
By Benjamin Jackson Sweat-scented sheets which once wrapped legs and limbs, limbered by love and lust and expansive, demonstrative selves now sit clean and sterile, cast aside on a lonely shelf like trophies commemorating a sport no longer played. You folded them crisply with your distant hands, just before you…