By Kim Magowan
There was a window when one could grocery shop without a mask. There was a window after my mother stopped chemo when she felt better, gained a few pounds. The color returned to her face.
By Katelyn Moorman Though the girl had died, she didn’t rot, so the dwarves kept watch over her body. First she was in a glass covering out front, but they thought that gaudy...
By Rich Gravelin The antique mall reeks of nicotine-stained cotton and cold cream. I hunt vintage cufflinks; he buys other families’ photos. Groups of redheads are his Grail.
By Ryan Griffith Where are you Andy Warhol, in all these acres of antiseptics and ointments? Are you hiding under the racks of slacks like a petulant child too cool for his mother?
By Sam Baldassari At the hospital, I’m the bad news. My sister, however, lives. She grows, laughs, and bleeds. Wears clothes and removes them. Scribbles in a journal. Prays.
By Jess D. Taylor My second March without a backyard, and while yes, I miss things about the last place we rented together (especially the thick grass where the girls ran circles), our first rental is what I keep conjuring.
By Kathleen Latham The dog trotted onto the frozen pond to fetch an errant stick. That is how I picture it, at least. The boy trudging along the snow packed shore.
By Natalie Warther It could be a tire term, or the title to a story about two duckies in the bath. It could be a waterproof turtleneck company, or even a condom-to-neck sex slang.
By Maureen Aitken When it was too late, we realized all the punks here dressed like birds. Ravens in the corner, sipping Cape Cods. Hector, with his Kodachrome Mohawk, surely a parrot.
By Andrew Stancek Still waiting for Dad, three days later, with enough kibble for Rocko, a half-full bag of birdseed for Raa, the heel of a pumpernickel for us. Mr. Stefan is sure to drum on the door today, squeezing out rent money.
By Jayne Martin Our food, untouched and cold, sat forbidden until he had finished his. Tears only brought his fist slamming against the table, upending our dishes, twisting our stomachs into painful knots.
By Elizabeth Zahn At the Twisted Stitchers meeting, I held up my first, nearly finished, crocheted baby blanket. They oohed and ahhed. “But look,” I said, “There’s a mistake 40 rows back. Should I frog it?”
By Susan Hatters Friedman My deep purple vase sat proudly on the dining room table of our tiny home. Black sand from Te Henga was the temper I had worked into the clay.