Category: Fiction
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Loitering by Sherry Shahan
I am four-years-old. Sitting on the edge of the porcelain tub while my mother paints on her cat-eyes. It is not enough to watch her in the reflection of the tri-fold mirror. I want her to face me, to feel her arms around me, to squeeze me until bedtime. Instead,…
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From a Past Rooted in Pain by Christine Mooney
Leaving behind nights of terror and fearInto a daybreak that’s wondrously clearA constant vision of my greatest joyThe lone stealer of love, this mama’s boy You may shoot me with your wordsYou may cut me with your eyesIn a dawn clear of anguish, full of songbirdsThis beaten down once upon…
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Caddo by Colleen Halupa
“George Murata found some pearls here in the lake,” said Otis. He burst into the bar where I was resting drinking a beer after a long day working on a gasser at Caddo Lake. “Who the hell is George Murata?” I drawled. I looked at Otis, his…
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At the Beach When I Was Young by Lois Perch Villemaire
I’m longing to kick up my legs and perform a series of perfect cartwheels in the sand, all the way to shoreline, where tiny ripples appear passive and harmless, then march into the salty ocean until it’s too deep and I have to swim breaststroke beyond white sudsy foam icing, over the crests of…
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Let It Go by Barbara Hurwitz
The Rabbi Spokeon Yom Kippur ofthe importance of Forgiveness.He acknowledged thepain of rejection, ofinsult,rebuke,abuse,and the daily burden ofcarrying unwanted memories. Let them gohe implored us.Let them go and beFree.Free of the spirits occupying too much space in your mind,leaving little room for Peace,Love andJoy that surrounds us.Letting go does not requireforgiveness.He said,Letting go offers…
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The Empty Schoolyard by Abby Coutinho
She wears a fur coat when the thermostat reads ninety, yet she can’t seem to stop herself from running through the dandelion littered grass. She runs through the field with the carefree indifference of the children who trotted here months prior, causing the white globes of seedlings to explode and…
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Ortolan in Winter by Mercedes Payton
“Ortolan in Winter” is a vivid poem that sing like a bird. The poet, Mercedes Payton, is a graduate of Kansas State University and librarian.
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Chocolate, Chocolate by Erin Schallmoser
At first, I thought my apartment was being robbed. I got home from work, rode the elevator up to the fifth floor of my apartment building, and walked down the hall. Usually, by this point, I would hear my cocker spaniel, Jerry, panting and pawing behind the door, eager to…
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These are the Days/Beach Baby by Parrish
“These are the Days” by Timothy Parrish recounts romance from a unique perspective. He is a writer and critic living somewhere in California.