By Michael Finn A Grandma punched another Grandma In the face. She knocked her down And made her bleed Profusely. She did it for Love. Twisted horns jutted beneath crusty scalp. Grandma’s piercing, shrilling, thundered, “Stay Down you old bitch!” Grandma’s crucifix flipped upside down…
By Carol Hamilton Today is Halloween, and the sky does not look spooky…but I remember our house of many demons set back on a rutted Ohio road at the edge of a ravine that roared with snowmelt, dried up in summer, birthed a hillside of infant snakes one spring. My middle…
By Susan Dale Stacy Dale Dear Editor of Rambunctious Literary: Unnamed: Unheralded: Unknown: I enjoyed reading the stories on your webpage: well, some of them, anyhow. But by the fourth story of sexual encounters after underage drinking … one at the beach, one in an empty bus, and two in…
By Julie Young Kara skipped into our cluttered kitchen with a huge lace bow tied in front of her silky red dress. Her smile created dimples on each side of her porcelain cheeks; her caramel eyes sparkled with pride as her little fingers untied the bow and then dipped lace…
By Amy Fontenot Mother checked her lipstick in the rear-view mirror as we pulled to a stop at the red light. We’ve driven hours to Atlanta so that we wouldn’t run into my mother’s social circle. My stomach churned again, either from the nerves or the hormones. Mother glanced with contempt at my small…
By Alex Scarelli Abby told me she had Stage IV breast cancer. There would be no miracle cure, no last minute turnaround. She would die in six months, three if she declined evasive medication. Sitting across from one another in the kitchen of our apartment, still dressed in pajamas and…
By Gerald Solomon Pictures of an artist’s pictures, in a book. Diego. He sits on a chair. All of a piece. A chair, curve-backed, body-shaped― already something of a puzzle. (A chair says it must be itself alone if to mimic human flesh and bone.) A bare floor, an elder…
By Grace Maselli I was born into worry the way some people are born into money. Vexation meets me in the morning, opening its cloaked arms, drawing me near. I worry about my kids and my husband. I’m filled with concern about the future, the past, pesticides and cortisol flooding….
By William Worsham I have spent most of the meaningful years of my life being a father. So I only do what I know. I tell you, “Go this way!” Or that. You go your imprudent way through subsistence somehow despite me. You drift along, a leaf upon a sidewalk…
By Dawnell Harrison The shrouded veil of clouds Lingers like ghosts In a graveyard as the vexing Moon shines her shattered Light to the ground – A kaleidoscope of golds Filter down from the yellow Moon in waves.