No fair treaty can be reached with this leech of a man He mans a window seat, leers from a walker with Dunlop feet A feat for his age, still making us prey We pray to escape his lens, we endure his sins But sense always that we are reluctant idols We idle, eyes downcast, …
The narrow brook below our hill was a place of dreams where nothing ever happened—sleepy remnant of another time, murky water barely moving—deeper after winter snows, ebbing as lady slippers bloomed pink under pines planted as a watershed. Old oaks stood close by, and a swamp where I picked wild grapes, holding my nose against …
Cars usually worked well. Joey or Alan would decide which way to go, and I would run away, try to angle a path to my house, hoping I would outrun them at least to my yard, believing I would be safe there. Getting beaten up felt like a hobby I had taken on, not of …
Onward to knighthood, gold, and glory, glittering in the armor of Armani suits, Rolex and tanned bodies reflecting the sun. They find amusement in lance and parry, trampling others under their steeds, these 1 percent, aligning with the 5, conquest and dominion their thrill in being alive. The throng beneath the glitter is gifted with …
Continue reading “The Circle We Share” By S. Michael Kozubek
Too swift, she says, too insatiable. Don’t you know these things take planning? Father was salt-skinned and whiskey; built coffins in the mustard plants, in the hard mud. Chopped boards from the porch. From my bed-wall, my exorbitant spine. Back to river, bones to fish: perfect thief, I started small: sticks of butter from the …
When Anna and Greg decided to start trying to have a baby, Anna specifically made it a point that she didn’t want them to go crazy. “I don’t want this to become a chore—I don’t want us to obsess over it all the time,” she said, but futilely, since Greg had already purchased a copy …
Vietnam Draft Father: My father born exactly one week later is drafted. He leaves the repair shop at Kimbers and smooches Miss July goodbye for jungle brothels and napalm. One night he strips naked because the bullwhips of heat julienne his skin forged in rural frost. A ripple of gunfire whistles across his mouth like …
Continue reading “My Three Other Fathers” By Jeffrey MacLachlan
A reflection of stars, smoke, and clouds of red. They ripped my father’s prayer book. Men with square chins, freshly shaven faces contorted and red, shouting “Juden!” The clocks in my father’s shop, smashed like cockroaches. They dragged him out to the stone streets, laid him on his back, encircled by screaming people who had …
Continue reading “The Night of Broken Glass” By Daniel Beilman
“Try the coffee.” The suggestion was a simple one, delivered warmly by an attendant in a Turkish restaurant in the heart of Istanbul one July day. But what she didn’t know was that I wasn’t a coffee drinker. I shook my head and pointed to my half-finished cup of warm Turkish tea instead, the drink …
Down in the woods you must go to find where the thing doth grow! Through the fields and past the weeds far from the trees that lay their seeds. Deep in the forest dark and dim growing in the strangest grim. Hidden from a hobbit’s view fully crispened in the dew. Tender to thy …
Continue reading “Hobbits Sing a Mushroom Song”By Angelica Kingsley
Burnt Pine 