by Jason Grant The entire king-sized bed is mine now, but I can’t seem to move from the left side to the right because on the nights you were here—laying there—if I dared move from my side to yours in the middle of the night it was like I-was-crossing-some-boundary you-needed…
by Tracy Covel I’ve never liked uncertainty and I hate indecision. I’d rather stay with absolutes and always with precision. Doubts they lead to sadness and sadness leads to pain. The odds are stacked against you if you choose to play the game. The glass can be half-empty, or the…
by Richard Compean Janice got to the registration desk at the Lakeland Econo Lodge just in time to hear the desk clerk inform the elderly couple in front of her that they had gotten the last available room, not their only disabled access room, but a “studio king” on the…
by Isidra Mencos It was turquoise green with black side panels—a simple sheath in stretchy nylon that fit in a fist. When I tried it on I instantly knew it was mine. I stepped out from behind the folding screen and into the main room where my friend Marisa and…
by Caroline Bruckner He had no name and no place to stay. They called him The Hood sometimes, after Robin Hood, because of the way he lived. Not that he ever stole anything. Nothing worth much, anyhow. If he ever had stuff, he gave it away. He wanted nothing. He…
by Connie Bedgood McWilliams When I was 47 years old, Jeremy Adam Nicholas was born. I was at the Heights hospital in Houston, Texas, along with my three sons and wives. Danny, who is my youngest son’s best friend, his wife and a few week old son were in the waiting room. Of…
by Lynn Doiron 1. I found nubby letter R’s meant for jackets, meant to brag, meant to say to everyone, I got this one for swimming, this one for track. I found the Iwo Jima buckle, brass and never worn. I found the ball-strike counter from his kneeling days behind…
by Sherry Rind Dear Blankenship, Crow Pickins magazine, famous for instant turn-around, kept my poems for 6 weeks before returning them. Does that mean I came close to an acceptance? Should I feel better about the rejection? Yrs, Pariah Dear Pariah, Sometimes a reply is slow because the ms…
by Michael C. Keith And then we ease her out of the worn-out body with a kiss, and she’s gone like a whisper, the easiest breath. –– Mark Doty The two-room, third floor flat is ice cold. Its radiators no longer make their loud clanking noise…
by Stephanie Zingeler Caroline suckled a nicotine baby every hour or two, dressed in camel UGGS, seen on nipple-pinching cold days, eyes squinting to thin almonds as she inhaled mouth wrinkled around the cigarette’s lean physique, hip thrust out to support the weight of her logoed Louis Vuitton bag balanced…
by Michael C. Keith When Nature Changes, Make Lemonade Throughout the autumn everyone waited for the leaves to change color, but they didn’t. The businesses in New England that depended on the revenue from visiting leaf peepers were in a virtual frenzy. This had never happened before. Even in the…