Gary Presley

What Keeps Us Together

We searched for the one thing that would hold us together that Friday night, and we burned through the early morning hours rumbling through the inventory of all the things that were wrong, were painful, were intent on pulling us apart.

By four in the morning, we had argued our way into the car, and I drove for thirteen hours straight down through the hills and across the great alluvial plain and then onto the flat river bottom, and finally across the Old Man and down through Mississippi, each milepost marking one more wrong turn during the seven year detour we had called a marriage.

I left the woman I loved in a way I never understood where I had found her those years ago: on her mother's front porch six blocks off Canal in New Orleans.

She stood one step above me, red-eyed, flanked by a backpack, three pieces of luggage, and her old cat Cinder in a rickety pet crate.

"Have a good life," I said, kissing the splash of freckles on the bridge of her nose.

"Could you be any more of a jerk?" she asked.

I was on the fifth fairway at Crossfield Country Club the next Thursday evening when my cell phone began to vibrate. I knew the number, and when I cracked the little Nokia open, she said "I'm pregnant," and hung up her phone.

I walked directly to my car, sat on the front seat and counted the cash rubber-band-wrapped around my driver's license and debit card. Twelve hours later, night-crossing the great river, speeding through the pulp pines of the Delta, I turned off Canal and covered the blocks to that same front porch.

I saw her where I left almost a week before, dressed in the same blue jeans and one of my worn blue button-down dress shirts, her backpack in one hand and the three pieces of luggage on the stairs behind her. I didn't see Cinder, the cat.

"And so who's the father?" I asked with one step remaining.

"You wouldn't be here if you didn't know," she replied. "Let's go home and try to do this thing right."

CP

Gary Presley's memoir, SEVEN WHEELCHAIRS: A Life beyond Polio, was published in October 2008 by the University of Iowa Press. Find links to his other work at http://www.garypresley.com

J. Bradley

Miscellany

I often confuse trilling
for tribbing; both can end
with the same results.

I can't spell maintenance;
my bookshelf smiles gap-toothed.

Someone told me today
I walked like Charlie Chaplin;
If he only knew that wasn't
the kind of tramp I used to be.

CP

J. Bradley is the author of Dodging Traffic (Ampersand Books). His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in wtf pwm, decomP, Dogzplot, Writers' Bloc among other journals. Find out more about him here.

Susan Thomas

My Very Being

They placed your warm body in my hands
You, my very being lay naked in my arms.
Your skin all pink and wrinkly as the aged
But soft and melting to my touch.
Wailing as though not yet ready to come out
To take up another journey in a new world.
Then two little eyes blinked at me,
To ask who this strange creature was.
The warmth and scent of my body
Must have been too familiar to him,
But the face was of a stranger's.
Then he was taken away from me
His initial moment of parting.
I remember closing my eyes and
Passing through a journey of long slumber.

CP

Susan Thomas, born in India, now resides in the USA with her husband and young son. She blogs here.

Shannon Peil

OUTSIDE

He's watching so very intently
as I pull up and park
and I can't even remember what it's like
to think 'outside' is so very exciting

Because I spend all this money every month
for a place to put my stuff in
with a roof

All he wants is to climb that tree
and roll around in the leaves I raked
he wants it so bad he'll dodge between my legs to escape
and once he's out there I'll spend all evening catching him
to put him back in a place he can't wait to run away from

is this love?

CP

Shannon Peil works a desk job that he prefers not to talk about. He also edits and occasionally writes at http://amphibi.us.

Ross Eldridge

—Photo by Ross Eldridge
Thomas Eldridge. My 5th Great-Grand-Uncle, 1752-1843
All Saints' Church, Lubenham, Leicestershire

Time—The Greatest Thief of All

Few things are more deceptive than memories.
—Carlos Ruiz Zafón

A while ago, on 29 September to be exact, I noticed the date, and there was a tintinnabulation, one that I had, apparently, missed the day before. I do not doubt that I saw 28 September 2009 any number of times. So what? My mother died on 28 September 1992, and this was the first year that I did not think of her passing when I saw the day and month. Seventeen years to forget? Or was it just seventeen years to not remember?

On Tuesday 29 September I thought: "Good grief! Yesterday was the anniversary of my mother's death. I missed it."

Perhaps if I lived in Bermuda where she is buried, I would have planned a visit to her grave days or weeks beforehand. Some day when she came to mind and I'd have remembered those last hot days of the summer of 1992 which my mother spent in the hospice as the cancers crawled through her body and, at about three o'clock in the afternoon on 28 September, reached her fingertips. They turned dark purple as I held onto them in the hour before she stopped breathing.

I remember that remarkably well.

The only sound, a loud gasp, from the older of my mother's brothers, also in the room. Not forgotten.

I haven't a single photograph of my mother now. However, I can picture her in quite a few photographs that I grew up with, taken in her infancy and through the sixty-something years she lived. As I sit here, I cannot see her in my mind from general times in her life, as a person unposed, because her life, as it affected me, was a photographic plate exposed for about forty-two years (my age when she died). Except for that final moment. I can see her just dead on the bed. Eyes wide open. Back arched slightly. Her hair had been shampooed and cut by a hairdresser friend the day before and my mother looked quite tidy.

We've had several television programmes this past fortnight on the subject of death. Documentaries on our attitudes towards death and dying over the centuries were particularly interesting.

Cremation has only really been a going concern in the UK for about 120 years. Acceptance by some of the major churches, like the Church of England, is quite recent, but most dead folks here are cremated now. People still seem to look forward to a funeral service of some sort. Funeral homes now do most of the work. My great-grandparents would have been laid out in their coffins in the front room at home. Family and neighbours would have washed and dressed the body.

It is clearly becoming increasingly difficult to pop around to the graves of family members when the anniversaries of their deaths (and Easter Sunday) come around. I'm looking forward to being cremated, with no funeral service, and scattered off in the wild somewhere easily forgotten by a stranger.

Will anyone think of me when the anniversary date rolls around? I'm not sure that I give a hoot. I'd much rather somebody thought of me while I was alive to enjoy it. Perhaps a postcard?

CP

Ross Eldridge lives in a tiny North Sea town on the coast of England near the Scottish border. He reads a good deal, has a go at photography, and researches family history. Ross has written a weekly newspaper column, but is now content to blog at Barking Mad in Amble by the Sea, dedicated primarily to his little dog, Cailean.

Wayne Scheer

One Happy Family

So I say to Maggie, "When pigs fly, that's when I'll apologize."

"And when they come out your ass, that's when I'll accept your stupid apology. " She screams and slams the bedroom door so hard she wakes Emma.

I go to her and kiss her tears.

"Why are you and Mommy fighting?" she asks.

"Everything's okay, sweetie. Me and Mommy just need to let off some steam, is all."

I see Maggie standing at the door. She sits down on the bed, squeezing herself between me and Emily.

"It's all right, honey. Mommy and Daddy are here."

Emma stops crying and I see how cute she looks in her little pink bunny pajamas. I also notice that Maggie's nightgown is riding up her legs.

It's hard staying angry when your daughter looks so damn cute and your wife's flashing pubes.

Maggie holds out her hand and I take it.

"Pigs don't really fly, do they?" Emma asks. "And they won't come out of Daddy's—"

"No," I say.

And we all laugh like one big, happy family.

CP

Wayne Scheer has published hundreds of short stories and essays, including, Revealing Moments, a collection of twenty-four flash stories, available here. Wayne has been nominated for four Pushcart Prizes and a Best of the Net.

Jack T. Marlowe

solstice

exhausted, autumn
has just clocked out

her shift is over
but the workday
isn't over yet
for some of us

and the unshaven
sky bristles
with greybeard
clouds

and the leaves are
turning black

and wooden benches
creak their aching joints

as weathered hands
crack open and
bleed upon
cold cobblestones

an offering of
sangria over ice

or a shot of
red liqueur:

a tribute to
Old Man Winter, CEO
on the occasion of
his birthday.

CP

Jack T. Marlowe is a working-class malcontent from Dallas, Texas. A writer of poetry and fiction, he is also a veteran of the open mic. His writing has appeared in Zygote in My Coffee, decomP, Red Fez, Word Riot, and elsewhere. Jack is also the editor of Gutter Eloquence Magazine.

Nana Ollerenshaw

WASHED UP

Everyone is staring at
the fishing boat washed up,
the bobcat, pumps and tug
waiting for high tide to pull it off.
Crowds can't know
the unexpected force that
washed the deckhand overboard.
His mates asleep below
could not have heard his cries,
the cold, the water's choke,
terror of what lies beneath,
unable to get back or even near
the cliffs of wooden planking,
fear, hoarse from shouting
seeing hope drift further
from the boat, alone
beyond a reach.

CP

Nana Ollerenshaw grew up in Connecticut, married an Australian, and moved to Australia in 1965. She changed from school teaching to nursing in 1988, and currently lives in Buderim on the Sunshine Coast of Queensland.

Judith Quaempts

Frontier Night on the Rez

We're doing a hundred and twenty miles
an hour in our '67 Mustang, my husband at the wheel,
Big D in back screaming, Goddamn it, partner, slow down!

It's Friday night, the work week done
and we're on the way to the Frontier
to celebrate with friends.

When we walk into the smoky tavern
we make the rounds, shake hands,
How you doin? Then get our beer.

Leo is at the bar drinking 7-Up.
Lutie and Don are shooting pool,
making impossible shots and trading insults.
Lutie's big body shakes with laughter. ­
Don must be winning the war of words tonight.
The Spencer brothers sit at a corner table
one-lining each other; their loud Aiees
follow every sentence, making everyone laugh.

Too soon the barmaid yells last call.
Too soon. But then someone cries,
Let's go 49! We look at one another,
grin, and rush the bar for six packs to go

We form a long procession back to the rez
driving on our best behavior
to avoid Sheriff and Staters
parked in the shadows along Mission road.
Indians are easy pickings.
Who needs a license anyway?

A quick stop at Taz's for his drum.
He sits in back with it
clasped between beefy arms.
The J grounds are gonna rock tonight!

We hang a right off the highway,
follow a dirt road to a clearing and park.
Taz and D climb out to start a fire.
Car doors slam one by one.

Kay's husky voice rises,
Anyone got a cigarette?
Another voice, maybe Stella's,
Lotsa monkey vine growing here;
roll your own.
Oh you! Kay shouts,
choking on laughter.

I start to move.
Wait, he whispers in my hair
and pulls me to him. His kiss
is long and sweet—tobacco, beer
and chewing gum.

Someone says, where did those two go?
Big D snorts. They're in the car making out.
Vernon shouts, What in hell?
They already got four kids.
Everyone laughs, including us.

We join our friends in the deep warm night.
In the darkness I can barely see
the shapes of trees but oh God,
how bright the stars.

Taz beats his rawhide drum. Arm in arm
we dance, the men singing in high voices,
I can't kiss you cuz I'm married
Ay, ay, ay…


Gone now—husband,
Taz, Big D—all of them.
Where we drummed and danced
bulldozed flat, filled with offices,
a clinic, a Longhouse with the entrance
facing east the way it should.

But every time I pass the place
I see the ghosts of cottonwoods
against a star-bright sky.
I hear laughter around an open fire.
And in my heart I sing:

I can't kiss you cuz I'm married,
Ay, ay, ay…

—the first stanza originally appeared in 50 to 1

CP

Judith Kelly Quaempts lives in rural eastern Oregon and is an active member of Internet Writers Workshop. She has been published in 50 to 1, Flash Fire 500, Drunk and Lonely Men, and T-Zero.

Steve Calamars

psychotic break

these girls with
these asses

thick, juicy and phat

stuffed into jeans, skirts
and spandex

jiggling when they walk
down the street

bouncing when they run
on the treadmill at the gym

popping when they climb
a flight of stairs

these girls with
these asses

are leaving me with
no other options

but to start looking into
real estate with white
padded walls and foam
floor carpeting

and shopping around for
a plastic black helmet and a
gently-used, but still in good
condition, off-white
straight-jacket—

CP

Steve Calamars lives in San Antonio, TX. He has a B.A. in Philosophy and works in a grocery store. His first poetry chapbook, American Violence, will be released April 2010 from New Polish Beat. He blogs here.

Sarah Savage

Important Things

She's on a train full of dead people masquerading as Powers That Be.

Nearly a corpse herself once, she escaped by the soles of her feet. For three months she walked with the rhythms of the Earth through rain, snow, and heat.

From crowded schedules to simplicity, from seasonal designer clothes to necessities, from business woman to hiker at home in the woods, she was recreated, phoenix-like.

Now, at this train's destination of concrete and artifice, she's considered eccentric.

CP

Sarah Savage is a horsewoman and an avid hiker currently living in New York. She writes to make sense of her outdoor experiences.

Stephen Jarrell Williams

THE DREAMER

I've always wanted
a simple existence,
to be at ease in the sun,
quiet walks beside the river,
smooth flow of water,
deep thoughts,
call of someone in the distance
bringing me home,
sleeping beside her,
keeping me from running wild.

CP

Stephen Jarrell Williams was born in Fort Belvoir, Virginia, to native Texans. He has lived most of his life in California. His work has appeared in hundreds of publications. He loves to write, listen to his music, and dance late into the night.

Jack Swenson

Just Doin' Our Job

Bert takes care of Number One. He's not interested in the birds of the air or the beasts of the field. I'm the one who spots the baby ducks in the parking lot huddled up against the curb. It is just before Christmas, and we have just finished our morning walk.

"Leave 'em," Bert says. He figures the mother duck will find them.

I'm not so sure. I call my wife on the cell phone. She calls the animal shelter, and they tell her some ducks don't make very good mothers. My wife tells me to take them to the shelter.

Bert heads for his truck, and I tell him to come back and help. He does, but he’s not happy about it. I have a paper sack in my truck. I tell him to hold the sack, and I’ll grab the ducks.

When we approach, the babies stir uneasily, but they don't scatter like I thought they would. I kneel down on the asphalt next to the ducklings, and one by one I put them into the bag.

When the truck gets moving, they begin to protest. They aren’t at all happy with this turn of events.

I set the bag of ducks on the counter at the shelter. "What you got there?" a young woman asks. She is a beefy gal with red hair and freckles. She opens the bag and peers inside. "Hey, Patty!" she yells. "Come here and get these ducks!" She tells the other girl to stick them in one of the incubators in the back room.

She thanks us for bringing in the ducks. I stick a twenty dollar bill in the collection jar on our way out. Bert sticks his hands in his pockets. Charity begins at home, as far as he is concerned.

The next day before I leave the house I call to check up on the ducklings. They are doing fine, the gal says. She thanks us again for bringing them in. I tell Bert when I get to the business park. He nods, and the corners of his mouth curl up in what passes for a smile.

CP

Jack Swenson's stories have appeared in or been accepted by Wigleaf, Ghoti, Staccato, Fiction at Work, Boston Literary Magazine, Grey Sparrow, and many others. He is a teacher and writer living in California.

Rebecca Gaffron

A Sort of Homecoming

There is something about the kitchen that makes me uncomfortable.

Not overtly. Not an obvious disturbance I can pinpoint.

Even after I've swept up the scattered mouse droppings and despite sanitized assurances provided by the lingering scent of bleach and lemon cleaner, some little disquiet tugs at the back of my mind. I can't place its reason, but it acts as a catalyst for my doubts.

Maybe this isn't the right place. Maybe we should have gone somewhere else.

I ignore these thoughts. After all, we've paid the deposit. And boxes of my life are waiting to be opened. The items inside need to be unwrapped, sorted, washed and placed in the freshly scoured cupboards.

When the hand-carved Celtic plaque emerges from a ragged dish towel cushion, it's like an unexpected gift. My breath comes sharp—almost a gasp—that I could have forgotten something so dear. I turn the golden wood over and run my finger across the grooves of Claidhbh's name. I return for a moment to the golden sunshine of a warm spring afternoon along the Boyne and the sound of my middle son speaking a few Gaelic words—Cad é mar a tá tú ?—and Claidhbh's delighted smile.

But even as I place the carving on a window ledge, a prominent bit of me imposed on this new place, the unease lurks. I shake it off and remove plates and bowls from other boxes. I begin to order our new space. Pots by the stove, tableware close to the dining area, pint jars we use as glasses near the sink; my husband's teapots won't fit anywhere.

Boxes are emptied and jumbled together like some cardboard monster, trailing tails of packing tape and leaking newsprint innards. My sons tell me it feels more like home now, surrounded by familiar things. What they mean is familiar piles of chaos. Most of the stuff has not found a place due to the lack of shelves and furniture. Only the kitchen items can be put away.

I find a box of keepsakes from my Grandma Hilde and put her resin fairytale castle on the counter. For a split-second I'm no longer standing in a grotty, rented house, one that will have to do until we find the perfect place. I stare at the castle. I've seen it before, in a place exactly like this. I look around. The curve of the back splash, the oak grain cabinets with brass-colored pulls like ones I've touched a thousand times, the rounded glass light fixtures. Again I find myself amazed by what we forget.

I smile at my oldest son standing by the counter. "Do you recognize all this?"

He looks at me with cool teen confidence, waiting.

"Grandma Hilde's kitchen was just like this one," I say. "The cupboards and the...."

Recognition and wonder change his face. He smiles. "It is," he says and reaches over and squeezes my shoulder.

I begin to feel at home.

CP

Rebecca Gaffron is a sometimes writer, sometimes procrastinator, and hopes she will be forgiven for both. She can be found here.

DsD

Armpits

It's all I can do not to make the snarky, dagger-like remarks that come to me so often. They're how I express my pain these days. I just need to inflict it on him, I think.

I should probably swallow them or write them down or wait until the heat's gone out of them, something. Then maybe ask him if he's ready to hear them.

So here's one.

Our son called his father into the bathroom tonight. "Dad, Dad, look! I'm growing hair in my armpits!"

He's four.

My husband said, "I knew Billy wanted to be like his dad, but I never realized how much."

I wanted to say, "Oh? He's having an affair?"

CP

DsD lives and writes in the raw. Trapped in a cave, she tends her cubs by day and licks her wounds at night.

xTx

In the City Where Bukowski Died

There is this diner just south of here that serves this tower of pancakes covered with fresh fruit and shit; whipped cream. Same diner has home made biscuits n gravy.

Chorizo.

Home fries.

Chicken fried steak.

Line out the door. Fisherman. Dock workers. Men with real faces. Jackets come off and get hung on a rack that gets fat with them. Waitresses are welcoming and proud like they own the shit. I hate them for this. I wanna be a proud waitress. I wanna smile and serve hungry men with hard hands. I wanna bring them hot plates and ask them if they need anything else. My heartbeat will still while waiting for the answer I want to hear. Eventually, I’ll hear it. It will never be enough, even with a 20% tip.

Let’s go out back, boys, got some fresh hot muffins for ya.

Keep ‘em comin’. Keep ‘em fuckin’ comin’.

CP

xTx has her stuff all over the web, along with collaborations and an e-book you need tongs to handle. Read all about her and her work here.

Nancy Calhoun

Catching My Breath

wrecked on a beach
washed over by tidal
cycles, starfish in my hair
silken strands of seaweed
slip beneath my head
the effort to move
too great

depleted, used up,
worn down
hope expired,
catastrophe and monotony
drain the pool of energy
that nourishes

pinned down by gravity,
lodged in the surging
deluge I search for reprieve
where can I go to breathe?
a moth with sodden wings
unable to rise, barely sentient.

I think I may slip to the brink,
then, the sky is gone mad
with light and music
that lies unbidden
in the crater of my heart
compels what remains
of my passion to push
up the hill to the face
of the mountain
where fear goes to die

pausing in the deep shadow
where the wind blows
across my wings, I feel
my lungs begin to fill
with the sweet calm air of peace
I am, at last, home
where everything has changed
but nothing is different.

—From Sip Wine, Drink Stars


CP

After several years as a business executive, opera singer, and general seeker-after-enlightenment, Nancy Calhoun has found her calling as a poet. Her first collection is entitled Sip Wine, Drink Stars and is available here, along with more about her and her work. Nancy lives in southeast Arizona’s wine country, and writes beside a panoramic view of mountains, grasslands and wildlife.

Mark Jackley

When Gil Told the Office
His Wife Had Terminal Cancer

No one, least of all me,
wept or wailed.
No one pounded his fists
against the walls
or chanted in prayer.
For we are not a primitive people,
so we stared, mumbled regrets
and let the shadow pass,
then slipped back into
the coolness of our cubes.

—From There Will Be Silence While You Wait


CP

Mark Jackley is the author of three chapbooks, most recently Cracks and Slats (Amsterdam Press). His first full-length collection, There Will Be Silence While You Wait, is available from Plain View Press. He lives in Sterling, VA.

Carolyn Srygley-Moore

Regarding Larry

Just before he said he had feelings for me
no longer—not even hatred—I watched a movie
about cast fishing lines & rivers
& brothers outliving brothers, the younger
leaning more toward the treacherous: I fell in love
with the reckless one, & couldn't care less
for his dispassion, his flippant erasure
of whole ships & horizons.

Anger at his abandon was quelled by light
diving through attic planks
into the parlor, where in the dollhouse
pianos played & contentment
of the tourist occurred: for being home here
I was homesick elsewhere. The wild
fig tree bloomed. The fruit was sweet
sweet; walking the hall of mirrors

frightened by nothing, not even
the face I was growing into.

CP

Carolyn Srygley-Moore lives in upstate New York with her husband and daughter. Her work has appeared widely in journals to include Antioch, Mimesis, The Pennsylvania Review, and the antiwar anthology, Cost of Freedom. She is a Pushcart nominee and her digital chapbook Enough Light on the Dogwood is available here.

George Moore

—Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons, CC-BY-SA

Northern Ireland Redux

After The Troubles come the tourists.
And between winter wheat that might finally take root
and the rueful laments of the fighting boys:

I’ve seen a hell of a lot more than I care to believe,
a priest reiterates. In travel, there is always some unspoken
possibility of freedom, a coffee in a sidewalk café.

The hierarchy of needs demands we evolve.
The Opera House has bullet holes just above the level
of a soprano’s breastbone. Seems today,

they sing a different tune. The fungicides and fratricides
heal, miraculously, reminding some of the eyes
of bleeding saints.

The stone is rolled away from the tomb
of the government office so cars can park on the street again.
And paint is no longer on sale.

B&Bs have sprouted up like wild clover
in the well-kept gardens of the worshipping elite,
and the lovers are in green again.

CP

George Moore teaches literature at the University of Colorado and is widely published both online and in print, to include Poetry, The Atlantic Monthly, North American Review, among others. In 2009, he was nominated twice for a Pushcart Prize and has garnered many other accolades. His latest book is All Night Card Game in the Back Room of Time.

John Grey

DREAM REQUEST

I would like to see dreams flow,
descend from the hills into
the flat and sunny fields of morning.
I want it to be a case
of ice-caps melting overnight
and my life suddenly fluid and free
as the kinds of tears that clear the sorrow.
Sure the grass can be uncertain in the wind
and maybe some weeds might upset
their clear green pattern
and stalks of corn reflect
the need for human industry.
But I want something to come out of night,
not more of its oblivion.
Maybe some birds taking off from distant river banks.
Maybe an old truck spluttering by
with a tribe of kids clinging to the running board.
How about trees in the distance,
the still and stately kind,
and a cloud of butterflies,
fluttering about, unconscious of their beauty.
And a dog with tongue out and tail wagging
that even comes up to strangers.
I want dreams to clear out all the questions
that require a "no"
so that when I awaken, my eyes, my mouth,
can say yes to everything.
I want a dream that's not a soporific
for the darkness but a flush,
a cleansing agent.
Dream me pain like it's the end of it.
Dream me doors so I can feel outside.

CP

John Grey, born in Australia, has lived in the USA since the 1970s. His work has recently appeared in Slant, Briar Cliff Review, and Albatross and is forthcoming in Poetry East, Cape Rock, and REAL.

Beth Camp

—Harry Rubin, immigrant from Kiev, Russia, ca. 1905

The Oracle

What oracle speaks
from fading family photographs?
Even the handsome man
with a small dark bow tie,
his blond moustache
combed and curled,
has enigmatic eyes.
Who stands next to whom?
Who touches the loved one,
as if she or he would fly away
in a wind so unexpected
that stories need to be invented?
Generations later, what memories
do we breathe in,
what histories do we invent?

CP

Beth Camp writes poetry and is working on a novel set in 19th Century Scotland. Currently in Costa Rica, she writes of her travels here and her writing, here.

Gwendolyn Joyce Mintz

Fly Freddie. Fly.

Don’t ever see that nigga till he want something. Mama shushing Daddy. The children, she say. Daddy glancing at us, frowning; his eyes narrow, brows almost touching. He know we love Uncle Freddie. Freddie pockets full of good time and candy. Daddy asking, You gonna pay the dentist bill when they teeth fall out? Uncle Freddie winking at us. In a whisper, he say, We’ll put ‘em right in here. He pats his pocket. Next to the candy. We laugh. Oh Freddie!

Two boys running wild. Gangly dark arms and torn jeans racing down any path till Daddy turn this way. Freddie, come on. But Freddie don’t. Cain’t wait on you. Go’n then. Freddie don’t want Daddy’s road. He say, Man, I gots to fly.

Freddie got a plan. A man with a plan. A man gots to have more than that, Daddy tell him. Gotta have some kinda work to go with it. And what make you think I ain’t working it? Daddy laugh. ‘Cause you sitting up in my house talking it. Freddie get all mad in the face. It pucker like he ate the sour candy he sometime bring. You’ll see, he tell Daddy, as he storm out the door. It snap shut, his footsteps sharp till they go away.

Phone ringing in the middle of the night. Daddy’s face full of sudden tears. I told him, he say, shaking his head. I told him.

A man with a plan. It gonna take him somewheres. This time. For sure.

—First appeared in Black Magnolias, 2009.

CP

Gwendolyn Joyce Mintz is currently working on several projects revolving around the Civil Rights Movement in Nashville.

Suzy Devere

ANGST ON A SHELF

You come over to

get me and I

stand

boldly

in front of that shelf

full of

books I know I'll introduce you to,

and photos we'll talk about,

and angst that will climb on top of me

and strangle us both

at some point.


I grab my hat and a

lucky penny;

out we go.


CP

Suzy Devere is a prostitute, a drug addict, a Dr.'s wife, a Lawyer's wife, a mistress to a famous Saudi Sheik, a mother, an intellectual, an academic, an athlete, a painter, a drawer, a photographer, and writer who feels utterly, stunningly alone. Her work has appeared in various sites on-line including Black-Listed and 3:00 AM. Suzy has lived all over the world but right now lives next door to you.

Hattie Wilcox

—Photo by Hattie Wilcox

Lime-Green Fluffy Pillow

a lime-green fluffy pillow
sits on my face
I breathe in a fur
made of the finest
hairs of plastic

my cat sleeps on my stomach
I don't move
the off-and-on purring
a hiccup in my
remembering

your voice, images of you
running through
my mind erratic
tease me
in the stillness

my tongue visits my dry lips
lashes flicker
just out of reach
the peace
of not missing you

CP

Hattie Wilcox's love of poetry and piano led her to songwriting and the 2008 release of her debut CD, Red Bird Tattoo. She has won prize money for her lyrics and has lived to see her first royalty check. She continues to write poetry—her first love. Find out more here.

Matt Hlinak

A Good Night's Sleep

I don't know what time it is. All I know is that I have to roll over, that if I lay in this same position any longer, I'll never fall back asleep. I may even lose the use of my arm. I feel a tingle in my fingertips that dances up my forearms until it hits the elbows that curl around my loved ones. My wife dozes peacefully with her head on my right shoulder, her small body pressed against my larger one to ward off nightmares. My cat has flopped down on my left bicep, where he sleeps with his four legs splayed out onto my chest.

If only one arm were trapped, I could probably extricate it without waking my bedmates. But with both arms pinned down, I will need to jerk one out first, which will wake the one sleeping on it. If I wake my wife, she will huff at me before rolling over to her side of the bed to dream mean things about me. If I wake my cat, he will bite me.

I decide it's better to have my cat mad at me than my wife. I jostle my left arm a bit to wake him so it won't be a total surprise when I yank my arm out. This is a mistake, however, because he is immediately irritated, inching his tiny black face with its four hypodermic fangs closer to mine. I shoot my arm down fast, tucking it to my side like I'm making a snow angel.

My cat topples onto his side before lurching forward to clamp his teeth onto the tip of my nose. One of his lower fangs slips into my nostril and punctures the tender flesh inside. I let out an expletive and shove him to the floor, which wakes my wife, who huffs at me before rolling over to her side of the bed to dream mean things about me.

CP

Matt Hlinak is an Academic Coordinator and Lecturer for the School of Continuing Studies at Northwestern University where he teaches English and law. His work has appeared in Birmingham Arts Journal, NewCity Chicago, and Mississippi Crow Magazine. He lives in Chicago with his wife and daughter.

Judith Quaempts

The Visit

Silence
except for wind
whispering over empty fields.

Silence
but for a ragged V of geese
flying overhead.

Three mule deer graze
a hundred yards away.

I pick my way around rocks
and through weeds.

Silence follows me.

Just inside the gate I kneel
and place three bright pinwheels
on a grassless mound.

Then carefully,
so each message shows,
I press candy hearts into the soil.

Around the white buffalo,
around the eagle with outspread wings
around the toy cars and trucks
that mark his grave.

I'm here, I say.
I'm here.

CP

Judith Kelly Quaempts lives in rural eastern Oregon and is an active member of Internet Writers Workshop. She has been published in 50 to 1, Flash Fire 500, Drunk and Lonely Men, and T-Zero.