What is Happening?!? by Emily Littlewood
I used to laugh at my husband and call him old man (he’s nine years older) when he would reminisce on his childhood, and how much better it was than children’s lives growing up now. But I’ve started to yearn for previous days myself as this country descends further into chaos and mean-spiritedness. There has always been racism and misogyny and classism and religious prejudice in this country, but it feels like everyone is just letting their hate out as much as possible, in as many ways as possible, in the current climate. Self-interest has … Continue reading What is Happening?!? by Emily Littlewood
The Weight of Words by Fred Wilbur
A few years ago, a friend of mine was compelled to downsize as she moved from her cottage and asked if I would relieve her of a large dictionary and its slope-topped table. I said I would pick it up and did so in a matter of a few days. I was thankful; she was thankful. It is a Random House Unabridged Dictionary, 1966, with many reprint dates over the years. It measures 9 ½ inches by 12 and is 3 ½ inches thick. Too thick to grasp on the run. Not the OED, but … Continue reading The Weight of Words by Fred Wilbur
Complicity—A True Fiction Of Now by Erika Raskin
Lissy is already dressed, her dolls arranged next to the bed in the space that is sometimes a boat, sometimes a park, and often a doctor’s office. The toys are all hues, different nationalities, from newborn to school-age, with sizes that don’t really make sense when placed next to each other. The two Barbies, who were inexpertly gifted to my daughter, live in the closet. Their boo-zooms, career ensembles, and matching footwear are of no interest to the kindergartner. “Hello, little girl!” I say. “Hello, little mother,” she smiles. “Whoa, why does Susan have all … Continue reading Complicity—A True Fiction Of Now by Erika Raskin
At the Buffalo Roundup by Kristin Laurel
The buffalo are gone And those who saw the Buffalo are gone~ Carl Sandburg I. The sun rose and spread her long fingers of light onto the grasses and great plains of Custer State Park. Over twenty-thousand tourists are herded to parking areas where we line up on both shoulders of the valley to witness twelve-hundred buffalo race through the grasslands, kick up muck, feel their weight pound the earth beneath us. II. When the buffalo come down through the valley, they shuffle like cows going to slaughter. We are told it is too warm … Continue reading At the Buffalo Roundup by Kristin Laurel
Grater by Debby Mayer
“There’s something you should know,” was how he would put it. He would say this while she was doing something else—years later, in a Solana Beach cottage two blocks from the Pacific, Annie could still remember exactly where she’d been, what she’d been doing, the way one does looking back at a national tragedy. These were not national tragedies but at once less and more, news that struck to the bone, altering her immediate world more than a presidential assassination. What Andrew remembered was how she stopped what she was doing and turned her … Continue reading Grater by Debby Mayer
New Photography by Kate Salvi
“I choose to take photos because I liked the idea of being able to stop time for a moment,” says Rhode Island photographer Kate Salvi. “I live with anxiety and manic depression so being able to stop for a minute and focus on something beautiful that takes me away from my thoughts is very intoxicating.” When she was twenty-two, Salvi was given a Canon camera by her mother who appreciated … Continue reading New Photography by Kate Salvi
tunneling with my friend mole by Susanne S. Rancourt
into earth muffled dark with fear that i hold in risen shoulders, sacral plate, pelvis, vertebrae. my earth heart sends a radio signal, a star wink, dragon fly’s glance & wing clicks resonate through my body mass – doubts, societal expectations such as a body can only be whole if white or a vanilla mind must coordinate with skin like matching gloves, hats, shoes & purse ‘50’s style my vertebral discs are collapsing, degenerates, generations crushed from carrying false beliefs squeezed out, cut from the herd, don’t fit transcriptions, images iconically worshiped politicized dirt digging … Continue reading tunneling with my friend mole by Susanne S. Rancourt
With a Little Help From My Friends by Trudy Hale
In the pre-dawn morning, thirty-six hours before my daughter’s wedding, she enters my bedroom. Her flashlight beam wakes me. Good heavens. Half awake, I wonder, is Tempe looking for a necklace? In the dark bedroom, she whispers, “Marcos’s mother didn’t make it.” She’s waking me up to tell me the mother of her fiancé died that morning. Marcos’s aunties reached him in the pre-dawn from Toronto General Hospital. His mother’s unexpected death a day and a half before the rehearsal dinner. I can’t believe it. His mother and I planned to do the “mother’s dance” … Continue reading With a Little Help From My Friends by Trudy Hale
Tackling the Digital Afterlife by Elizabeth Bird
“Hi, lol, xd. Hello ppl, xd.” My sister forwarded me this cryptic Skype message, received from our father on his ninety-sixth birthday. He’d apparently sent it to her daughter in New Zealand. Jokey acronyms were hardly his style, so in other circumstances we might have worried about his state of mind. We were indeed rattled, but for a different reason. He’d been dead for the last eighteen months. Our first thought was that our dad’s account’s been hacked, though it seemed a strange way to launch something sinister. And rather late in the game, since … Continue reading Tackling the Digital Afterlife by Elizabeth Bird
A First Visit to the Uffizi by Patrick T. Reardon
Looking for Theopista who is called a saint, painted by Lippi who is called by Browning a brothel-john in monk’s clothing and, in the poem, admits his out-of-boundsness, and paints Job nearby with a label “Job” and made long love to a nun and got away with it because, rich Cosimo de Medici the Elder told anyone who would listen, Lippi was a heavenly form in fleshy flesh, no dray horse he. Looking for and finding the woman of the lost-luggage cab. And finding the woman of middle-age elegance pushing a wheelchair. And finding the … Continue reading A First Visit to the Uffizi by Patrick T. Reardon