The Coat
Robert Aquino Dollesin

He enters the bedroom and smells a faint trace of breast milk and talcum powder. From the mobile above the crib, plastic circus animals clack against one another. His wife is tucked into the window alcove, staring out at the rain. Her face is lit by the yellow glow of the tasseled lamp beside her. She has on the same faded housedress she's been wearing for days.

He crosses the room, stands before her, and says, "I have to go back to work this morning."

She doesn't turn from watching the rain fall outside the window. He reaches for her, but she draws away, wraps her arms around her knees and says, "I'm sorry I didn't come down to make your breakfast."

"I don't have much of an appetite, anyway."

"I'm sorry I didn't come down to help you on with your coat."

His coat? He remembers it's still downstairs, draped over the kitchen chair where he left it yesterday when he didn't go out. "The coat's not important," he says.

Several moments pass before she snaps her head up to stare at him, her eyes big in the glow of the lamp. "What are you saying?" she says. "It's important to me." She raises her hands and shakes her head, as if lost. "Helping you on with your coat is important to me."

The rain continues to tick against the window. He knows he can't leave the house yet, not for another few days.

CP

Robert Aquino Dollesin was just a kid when he left the Philippines. He now resides in Sacramento, where he occasionally jots a few words down in one of many, many notebooks. He sometimes blogs here.

Emily's Last Day
Deanna Hershiser

On the trip to Emily's house, Neil rode beside his brother Ben, who drove. Passing Harrisburg, Neil reached into his ear and pulled out what looked like a small wad of Playdough. He tapped the minuscule antenna. "I got hearing aids."

"Good for you, Neil. About time."

Neil grinned. "When you and I go out to the lake in April, I'll notice the birds. If a trout splashes, I'll hear it."

"I'll have to get a better reel," Ben said.

Neil settled comfortably into his seat, glad to talk fishing. He decided if Emily had been with them she'd likely have commented, "Enjoy the day, boys. No long faces."

At last they parked in front of her house. Their other sisters and their nieces hugged them at the door. Beyond everyone, Emily lay in a hospital bed, her eyes closed. She lay on her back, the family nose aimed at the ceiling. The cancer had ravaged her frame, and the blankets tucked to her chin couldn't soften her emaciated form.

"Emily," Neil said. "You snore like I do."

She closed her mouth.

"Hey, she heard me!"

The women nodded. "She's aware of us."

They went to the kitchen for food. There were orange wedges, triangle sandwiches, and paper plates. Then they sat in the living room, balancing the plates on their laps, surrounded by Emily's knick-knacks and paintings. The orange tasted sour.

Emily had never married. She had worked all her life, and her coworkers stopped by to pay respects. With his new hearing aids, Neil listened to soft conversations humming. Finally people began to drift away in the late afternoon. His sisters, who'd been caring for Emily for weeks, looked weary. A hospice nurse would be in later to stay the night.

Neil lingered at Emily's bedside, wishing she'd open her eyes.

"Let's sing a hymn," Ben said. The family grasped hands and almost encircled the bed. Neil didn't know all the words to Amazing Grace, but he listened intently to the haunting song. In the silence afterward, he bent to hug Emily's wasted shoulders.

"I'll never forget," he whispered, "how you saved me from Billy Hanson when he had me down that day in second grade."

Neil kissed Emily's cheek and her face twitched. "I couldn't beat anyone," he said. "So you did. I saw his bloody nose. Good punch."

Emily's breathing shifted slightly. He knew she'd heard him.

"Thanks, Sis. I love you." Neil kissed his sister again and let go of her hand.

A few minutes later, the brothers said their goodbyes and stepped into the evening air, where Neil stood on the porch for a moment, listening. He could hear sparrows singing hymns in the trees.

CP

Deanna Hershiser lives in Oregon with her family and a small dog and large cat. Her essays have appeared in Relief: A Quarterly Christian Expression and Runner's World, among others. She blogs here.

Camp Coffee
Thomas Sheehan

When we fished the Pine River
for thirty-some years—Ed, Walter,
Brother Bentley and I—coffee was the glue;
the morning glue, the late evening glue,
even though we’d often unearth our beer
from a natural cooler in early evening,
a foot down in damp earth.

Coffee, camp coffee for your information,
has a ritual. It is thick, it is dark,
it is pot-boiled over a squaw-pine fire,
it is strong, it is enough to wake
the demon in you, to stoke the cheese
and late-night pepperoni. First man up
makes the fire, second man the coffee;

but into that pot has to go fresh
eggshells to hold the grounds down, give
coffee a taste of history, a sense of place.
That means at least one egg to be cracked
open for its shells, usually in the shadows
and glimmers of false dawn. I suspect
that's where scrambled eggs originated,

from some camp like ours, settlers rushing westerly,
lumberjacks hungry, hoboes lobbying for breakfast.
So, coffee has made its way into poems,
gatherings, memories, a time and thing not
letting go, like old stories where
the temporal voices have gone downhill and
out of range, yet hang on for the asking.

CP

Thomas Sheehan’s latest books are Brief Cases, Short Spans and From the Quickening. A collection of cowboy stories, Where the Cowboys Ride Forever, is now in the hands of a western publisher. His work has also appeared in many print and online publications. Sheehan has several Pushcart nominations and won the Georges Simenon Award. His web site is here.

Sicilian Cats
Earle Davis

The Sicilian cats are worse than rats
around a battlefield; tile-gray in color,
they are wild and slinking.

They feed on human flesh
and become more vicious
with the taste of blood.

I woke up once to find three perched
on the rail at the foot of my bed.

They were all staring at me.

—From An American in Sicily, originally published in 1944

CP

Earle Davis (1905-1991) served in World War II as a U.S. Army officer with the 1st Infantry Division. An academic after the war, Davis also authored Vision Fugitive: Ezra Pound and Economics, and The Flint And The Flame: The Artistry Of Charles Dickens.

Outpost
Robert Rogge

Ian had eleven rounds in his rifle, ten in the magazine and one in the breech. He had a five-round clip lying on the ground. There were more clips in the cloth bandoleer, but they were hard to pull out in a hurry. Ian hoped that sixteen rounds would bring help before the Jerries got to him.

He was on outpost duty, a hundred yards along the sunken road. He watched them move across the field toward him with the steady motion that showed caution. They knew what they were doing and Ian was afraid as he raised his rifle. He fired and they went down.

A stray shot? A coalscuttle helmet raised slowly, eyes searching the hedgerow for movement. Nothing. He came up to one knee, Schmeisser leveled.

Ian’s bullet took him squarely in the chest. The others fired back from the ground, scything the hedges, bullets whipping and crashing through the branches, spraying earth in long, ragged geysers.

Numb with fear, Ian fired again and again at the faint muzzle hazes and felt savagery when he saw the jerk of a hit.

The bullets came thicker, and he slid down as branches rained on him and the ricochets screamed. He crawled away and peered through the foliage. They were up now, and running, and he sent the nearest one sprawling. They were closer, too close.

Livid with fear, Ian fired. They were going to kill him! He could see the twisted faces, as filthy and as terrified as his own. The deep helmets hid their eyes as they panted, straining to reach the hedgerow.

They’ll kill me! Jesus Christ, save me! He fired, yanked the bolt open and rammed it home. It slammed shut too easily. The rifle was empty.

Frantic, slobbering, Ian clawed at the bandoleer, but the clip would not come free. He saw a contorted face rise up in the hedge, the gray tunic blotting out the sky, and he jammed blindly at the monster, sobbing.

The eight-inch spike bayonet went in to the muzzle and months of his half-forgotten training made Ian jerk it out. A wretched, choking scream erupted from the man. He saw the slavering mouth, the red frothing behind the teeth, spilling over the stubbled chin.

The man grabbed fiercely at the hole in him and went to his knees, yelling and spitting blood. He fell forward, twisting, kicking at the hedge. Ian glared, frozen, the red spike pointing uselessly.

Another man crouched, swinging his Schmeisser at Ian. Bullets came across the lane and cut him down. A voice shouted, there was more firing, and Ian sobbed hysterically until the sergeant whipped him across the face.

Ian looked at the bayonet, but he could not look at the doubled-up thing in the hedge.

The sergeant spoke to him and Ian nodded. He reloaded his rifle and rammed the spike into the ground to clean it. His face stung as they walked back down the lane.

—From Fearsome Battle

CP

Robert Rogge, an American, fought with the Canadian Army in World War II. He wrote of his experiences in Fearsome Battle. Under the pen name, Robert Elliot, he is also author of The Eagle's Height, a novel of air combat in World War I.

SPEWED UP
Joanna M. Weston

Holding Mike over the toilet
while he vomits mixed drinks,
I am not going to be ashamed
of myself for being
part of the mixing and drinking,
not going to be disgusted
at the smell of sick
or the feel of his trembling body.
I look at the white gate-legged bath
against the white wall
and want the evening to bury itself.

Four of us sitting around
experimenting with tastes, mixtures,
laughing, getting a bit cross-eyed,
but I am feeling grown-up at last:
this is what grown-ups do...

until the world is turning sideways and
Mike needs a bathroom and
I must show him where it is
but he needs me to stay
and I do, suddenly sober:
earth no longer tilts, wobbles,
as he bends over the toilet.

I face the stupidity
of what we have done
and I could have stopped it
because I am twenty
and he's eighteen; but
it’s no good because it has happened:
I disgorge self-disgust
over Mike's shaking back.

—First published in Psychopoetica anthology, 1995

CP

Joanna M. Weston has had poetry, reviews, and short stories published in anthologies and journals for twenty years. She also has published a middle-reader, Those Blue Shoes, and a book of poetry, A Summer Father.

HUNGER
Stephen Jarrell Williams

Robbery
at the grocery store

Tuesday night
parking lot near empty

cop car flashing
a guy in cuffs

screaming and crying
he had no food

I kept my distance
saw he was thin

apple pie
smeared around his mouth

a small crowd gathering
they pushed him into the cop car

he had holes
in the bottom of his shoes

he looked at me
as they drove him away

he could have been me
he could have been everyone

circumstance dictating
hunger eating away his mind.

—First published in Blue Collar Review

CP

Stephen Jarrell Williams has done everything from mowing lawns to being an executive at a software company. His poetry and short stories have appeared in over a hundred publications. He loves to write, listen to his music, and dance late into the night.

Skating on the Lake
Suzanne Lehmkuhl-Beste

Well, it happened. For the first time since we moved here, there were perfect conditions for the lake to freeze as smooth and beautiful as glass. Young and old alike were out on the ice, ripping it up.

I played hooky from work this afternoon and took the kids to the lake. We got out the skates, hockey sticks and pucks. Not balls--what do I know about hockey? Even Cassie got on skates for the first time in her young life.

I'd never skated on "real" ice before. Sammy was more interested in the naturally occurring ice sculptures on the edge of the lake and he used his hockey stick to investigate those while Alida chased the boys around the ice.

Soon an older man started passing the puck with the kids. Between cradling Cassie, taking pictures, and tossing a stick for the dog, I overheard the man take a phone call. It sounded so important; he spoke about the Democratic Party, legislation, and other pressing concerns of the day.

I looked closer and saw it was Howard Dean, wearing an old hand-knit hat and rumpled cold weather gear. He had on beat-up skates and looked comfortable just being on the ice and playing with the kids, coaching them. He finished his call and hit the ice again, having a blast with the kids. Then he took a nasty spill, sprawling flat, and they all rushed over to check on him, but he bounced up, ready to play again.

As the sun set over the Adirondacks and we packed up to head home, Dean put on a pair of ratty sneakers, slung his skates over his back, waved goodbye, and quietly walked away.

I reminded the kids who he was and they said, in true Vermont fashion, mildly unimpressed, "cool," and we headed home for dinner.

CP

Suzanne Lehmkuhl-Beste, a native of California, currently lives on the shores of Lake Champlain in Burlington, Vermont, with her three young children, two cats, four newts, and six chickens. In her spare time she is a systems engineer, and in her not-so-spare time, she enjoys running, Telemark skiing, hiking, backpacking, and volunteering as a math and Spanish teacher.

Jayne Pupek

THE LIVELIHOOD OF CROWS

You ask me to explain the livelihood of crows.
I say nothing, only point to the darkening expanse

above where birds saw holes in shapes
like themselves. We are all replicas, Jackson.

In the field, a man spreads manure on the ground
where white cabbages grow. I saw his face this morning,

tilted toward the sun, and he looked as if he felt gratitude
for his shovel of dung, his stretch of land.

In the evening, when you go back to your sick wife,
I won't quarrel. I'll stand at my stove and boil

one of the cabbages down to soup.
I'll look out my window and watch the red eyes

of your taillights disappear down the road,
while overhead, black crows divide the sky in half.

I'll return to the stove, drop in chopped herbs, and onion.
I'll put up my hair, wash my face, and go on.

Years later, when I think of you lying beside me,
I won't regret these things we've done.

—This poem first appeared in Stirring, 2008

CP

Jayne Pupek is the author of the novel, Tomato Girl and two books of poems, Forms of Intercession and The Livelihood of Crows.

Last Flags on the River
Thomas Sheehan

Dangers are everywhere about the river:
the porous bog whose underworld
has softened for centuries, the jungles
cat-o-nine tails leap up into.

Once, six new houses ago,
one new street along the banking,
two boys went to sea on a block of ice.
They are sailing yet, their last flag
a jacket shook out in dusk still hiding
in Decembers every year.

An old man has strawberries in his backyard.
They run rampant part of the year.
He planted them the year his sons caught
the last lobster the last day of their last storm,
and remembers summers and strawberries and
salt mix on the high air in the middle of December.

A truck driver, dumping snow another December,
backed out too far and went too deep. His son
stutters when the snow falls. His wife
hung a wreath at the town garage.

At the all-night diner a waitress remembers
how many times she put dark liquid in his coffee.
When she hears a thunderous Mack or a Reo or a huge
cumbersome White big as those old Walters Sno-Kings
used to be, she tastes the hard sense of late whiskeys.
He had an honest hunger and an honest thirst,
and thick eyebrows, she remembers, thick, thick eyebrows.

CP

Thomas Sheehan’s latest books are Brief Cases, Short Spans and From the Quickening. A collection of cowboy stories, Where the Cowboys Ride Forever, is now in the hands of a western publisher. His work has also appeared in many print and online publications. Sheehan has several Pushcart nominations and won the Georges Simenon Award. His web site is here.

A Writer's Journals
Alice Folkart

I have literally cases of journals packed up and ready to go with me to the Bardo or wherever after I die. For anyone unfamiliar with Buddhism, the Bardo is sort of like Limbo or Purgatory. I don't really concern myself whether what's in the journals is good or bad.

Nor do I care what embarrassing entries anyone finds in them after I'm gone. I'll be dead, so what would it matter? I moved to Hawaii a year ago and my new friends tell me that books and papers become moldy and fall apart here. At 68, I'll perhaps live another ten years or so. By that time the journals probably won't be readable anyway.

I dipped into my journals when I unpacked, trying to decide whether to put them in bookcases or leave them in boxes. I was appalled at the writing—the whining, the anger, the dullness, and the self-centeredness of it all. But then I remembered that the journals were first of all therapeutic.

I've had a hard life as a single mother, working many jobs to put myself through school, life always in crisis, threatening to spin out of control. And that's what I wrote about. But the point is...Ta Da!...it kept me writing. I didn't consider myself a writer, but year by year by year, I became more conscious of how I put things on paper. I began to separate my need for therapy from my need to create. In short, I began writing.

Someone introduced me to The Artist's Way. I didn't have the time or money to attend any of the groups so popular then, but I read the book and followed the steps. One said to write every morning before being fully awake and let the unconscious and subconscious have their best chance to reveal themselves. So, being more than a little obsessive—how else could I have survived?—I wrote every morning for half an hour, no matter what. Those pages are the most interesting. They are about the interior me—creative, surprising, exciting.

I don't go back to my journals for material. It's all still in my head, a great treasure trove. But I do cherish one from 1972 and keep it close, like an intimate friend, because of a special entry.

One night I came home from work so enraged that I just had to write. I started with a benign accounting of the day, but soon got around to my evil boss. I detailed the many humiliations he subjected me to, the faults he found, the pain he inflicted that left me feeling powerless. The pen flew as I spilled my anger onto the page.

The writing stopped where the pen ripped a hole in the paper. Then there were furious scritches and scratches back and forth, ending in an inky jumble, blurred with what must have been tears.

It's one of the best things I ever wrote.

CP

Alice Folkart writes on the island of Oahu, where she lives beside the sea with her musician husband and her intellectual cat. Her work has been seen in a number of on-line literary journals, and she is a co-administrator on several writing websites.

Bravery
Earle Davis

Bravery boasts itself in citations and medals;
courage hides in the heart of man alone.
I saw a soldier wait the order to charge
up a hazardous ravine today;
he trembled visibly, kept biting his lip;
his eyes had a glassy cast. Every time
we had gone into action, soul-crushing fear
had shown in his face. What tremendous force of

will

made him move into danger, I cannot estimate.
He always obeyed; he never ran away.
The man shall be nameless, for he rushed up
that ravine and got a bullet through the heart.

Medals are won by men like me.

—From An American in Sicily, originally published in 1944

CP

Earle Davis (1905-1991) served in World War II as a U.S. Army officer with the 1st Infantry Division. An academic after the war, Davis also authored Vision Fugitive: Ezra Pound and Economics, and The Flint And The Flame: The Artistry Of Charles Dickens.

Absent
Ethel Rohan

I stand huddled with the other parents at the edge of the Astro-Turf, chatting and catching-up, our daughters' soccer game about to start. Chilly, we're well muffled-up in coats and scarves. I wish I'd had time to get coffee like some of the others, for its warmth between my hands.

My youngest daughter's small damp hand is inside mine. She's tugging on me.

"I want to show you something," she repeats.

"Wait."

She won't let me be, pulling and pleading. At six, she can wear me down till I feel threadbare, more stubborn than her older sister ever was.

When I can't take anymore, I let her lead me across the stadium, and up into the bleachers to show me her "special place." As we walk, I think about the groceries we need, laundry to be done, bills to be paid, my mind click, click, clicking.

My daughter points to a bench. "See, this is my special place."

It's just a bench.

"That's nice, sweetie, let's go back."

She doesn't want to go back.

Now it's my turn to pull and plead. "The soccer's about to start."

She doesn't care about her older sister's game. I threaten to confiscate her Nintendo DS for the day. That gets her cooperation. We turn around and I stop short. We're standing at the top of concrete stairs. There must be thirty steps.

"Did we come up this way?" I ask.

She looks up at me, registering surprise. "You don't remember?"

I didn't. No more than three minutes could have passed and yet I didn't remember climbing a single step. My stomach drops somewhere around my knees. I look down into my daughter's tiny, anxious face. What else have I been missing?

CP

Born and raised in Dublin, Ireland, Ethel Rohan now lives in San Francisco. She received her MFA in fiction from Mills College, CA. Her work has appeared in or is forthcoming from Cantaraville, SUB-LIT, Word Riot, Miranda Literary Magazine, and Identity Theory, among others. Her blog is here.

—Photo by Ross Eldridge

The Staff of Life
Ross Eldridge

I live a few doors down from the only real bakery in Amble. There is another chain bakery outlet further down which has goods delivered each morning, brought in from who-knows-where. They have no aroma though. Lost somewhere on the motorway? Our minimart has bread and bakery items trucked in as well, for some reason most of these come from France. "Consumers please note this product may contain traces of frog and/or snail." Our nearest supermarket, ten miles inland, has fluffy white breads if you like that sort of thing. I don't. It's not even fit to chum fish or feed the jackdaws.

I like a locally baked (just this morning) (still warm from the oven) (fragrant) (soft) (crispy crust) (tasty) (whole wheat) (reasonably priced) loaf. I buy a small loaf twice a week, and have the counter girl slice it in medium slices, which are the thinnest (go figure) one can get nowadays. I pay £0.85 for a loaf. A large loaf to last seven days would work out less expensive, but I like the freshness of two smaller loaves, one on a Friday, one on a Tuesday.

My grandmother, the one who lived much of her life in Bermuda, bought a loaf of whole wheat bread, thicker slices than I prefer, once a week. Actually, because the Crow Lane Bakery was not close enough for Grandmother to walk to once she became truly elderly (she lived to be 104 and ate bread till the end), I was the bread-buyer. The Crow Lane Bakery was situated in the middle of a traffic nightmare and I hated trying to get to it by vehicle or on foot. However, I do understand my grandmother's dedication to the small-town bakery product.

Amble's Bread Bin Bakery is smaller than Bermuda's Crow Lane. The bread is better. Like the Crow Lane, there are other items: Sausage rolls, scones, pies, fairy cakes, fruit loaves, sandwiches, waters and fruit drinks and colas, honey, jams and marmalades, and gingerbread cookies, and more.

I sometimes get a sausage roll for lunch, or a prawn sandwich, and an orange drink. If I'm having company I'll buy some plain cake and a Victoria sponge. But I'm really a bread customer. The girls know what I'll be wanting, I think. I should ask for something completely different: Perhaps a tea cake for toasting. I don't have much time left to bamboozle them with that request, the building the Bread Bin is located in was sold to a developer, the new owners did not want the business, and the employees were given a week's notice.

I shall miss the counter staff, certainly, but it is the small town, right-out-of-the-oven whole wheat loaf on a Tuesday and Friday that I shall really miss. My Dad had a bread-making machine at the end of his too-short life (he'd have been my present age when he got it). If I could get the recipe for the Bread Bin's whole wheat loaf, and got a machine...

I wonder. I'm not very mechanical, but necessity being...

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. His blog is called Barking Mad in Amble by the Sea, and it is dedicated primarily to his little dog, Cailean.

In the Days after the Earthquake
Rhonda Palmer

—At an elementary school, May 12, 2008, Sichuan Province in southern China

He carried the tenth, and then the one hundredth
small bundle into the room and with every step
ashes blew up into his face, covering his lashes
with a veil that might never leave.

Swirling eddies of ash blew around his heavy feet,
as he lay yet another small burden on the hot metal table.

Wood was brought in again and another fire kindled,
another fire kindled.

Here was true alchemy, as the solid gold of small hearts
became particles indistinguishable from the heart
of a dead star, floating dark and sullen in the deeps
of space, where no sound ever stirred to wind or water.

He was a magician, then, and his own heart burned up
with each small bundle carried into the hot room.

Ashes blew up the muddy hill and settled on the ruined school.

CP

Rhonda Palmer is a poet and hospice nurse working and writing in Columbus, Ohio. She was most recently published in Heather Rose Review and Ars Medica.

Jeannette Angell

Missing You

—for Spike, cat-companion of fourteen years

Since you’ve gone
the earth has turned on its axis
so many days and nights
I’ve lost count of the time

(although at first I knew,
measuring what remained of my own life
as Day One, Day Two, calculating
the long lonely stretches
of time without you)

I hear the news, and know

my grief is small: there are more pressing problems
in the world.
My grief is small: just large enough
to drown my heart.


I know that I'll survive and carry on

(though many times I wish
I wouldn’t)

and that one day I will wake up
and my first thought won’t be
of how much I miss you—

And then you’ll be truly gone.

CP

Jeannette Angell is a novelist, playwright, and occasional poet who lives and works in an old sea-captain's house at the tip of Cape Cod. More at www.jeannetteangell.com.

GHOSTS
Stephen Jarrell Williams

In bed with your back to me as usual
a wall that plays sleep-dead.

What I have done I only have clues
making no sense for the degree of punishment.

What happened?
I don't know.
What is happening?
I don't know.

Sometimes I feel vibrations from the other side
of your barrier, some strange movements haunting
our room with pale ghosts in our skin with our voices
whispering...
I will always love you, always want you,
always, always, always...

Those I suppose were lies...

Our bed is now a coffin
counting the ticks till dawn,
when we rise to open and close the doors behind us.

CP

Stephen Jarrell Williams has done everything from mowing lawns to being an executive at a software company. His poetry and short stories have appeared in over a hundred publications. He loves to write, listen to his music, and dance late into the night.

fingertips

by Josh Thompson

my fingertips
beginning
to hurt.

I put
down
the poem
and retire
to a cup
of coffee
and a sunset
to match the
freckles on my face—
worn thin
from the wind
and the city days
that
keep
winding
by.

CP

Josh Thompson is a poet and short story writer from New York City. His work has appeared in The Coe Review, The Ugly Tree, Thick With Conviction, Poetry Superhighway and A Tender Touch and A Shade of Blue, among others.

you don't know pain
Tammy Kaiser

jungle war desert war
beer is all the same
when you can get it

i built a shrine
because I had to
it wasnt the jesus
id ever known
but it worked
on the nights
I needed it to

the good thing about music
is you can make it
wherever you are

a single light bulb
looks like the sun
if you stare at it
long enough

walker runner hiker
what does it matter
you've got feet

a campfire never
smells the same
once human flesh has
burned your nostrils

you don't know claustrophobia

water drops from a leaf
like blood
from a fingertip

When you're in shock
you can still try
to put your guts back in

CP

Tammy Kaiser is a mother of three, Holocaust and WWII Victim's Tracer for the American Red Cross and survivor of a workplace shooting. Kaiser is author of Godwrestling, published by Brandeis University. She is a graduate of the University of Washington Writers' Program and hails from a long line of survivors.

Two Poems

The March
C.P. Stewart

Somewhere
back there
something died.

Or was left behind.

We did not stop.

Now, eager for sleep,
we tell ourselves stories.

It was only a dream,
and of no practical use,
even to our enemies.

—The March first appeared in Monkey Kettle

Missed
C.P. Stewart

You never stayed long at their side;
it was the same on every walk,
you’d push ahead or fall behind,
they didn’t mind, knowing,
that sooner or later,
you would run to catch them up,
or be waiting, there, around the bend.

Until you went both ways at once.


CP

C.P. Stewart lives with his family in North Yorkshire. Formerly singer and songwriter with the cult band Laughing Gravy, his poetry has been widely published in England, Canada and the United States. He is currently the poetry editor of Sotto Voce magazine.

The Dispatch Rider
Robert Rogge

The canvas-and-leather dispatch case clung wetly to the Don R's back. He cursed wearily and struggled in the flooded ditch with his heavy Norton motorbike. Tire tracks, rapidly flooding away in the teeming rain, marked his path off the road, across the slick grass berm, and into the ditch.

Soaked through his leather jerkin, the Don R flung his helmet to the ground. Rain streamed down his face as he strained at the awkward machine, gradually hauling it out of the water to where he could grip the handlebars. His left leg ached from the fall and the rain splattered the blood on his gashed hand.

A lumbering convoy growled past, spraying mud and water, seeking traction in the muck. None of them stopped. They saw the Don R up, fighting his machine, and knew he was not injured.

He got the Norton onto its wheels and pushed it to the berm, leaning against the handlebars, head down, gasping in the rain. He got his helmet and stuffed his torn leather gloves into a pocket and straddled the machine.

He fiddled with the controls, raised his right leg, and lunged down at the kick starter. The engine hacked and he gunned it with the twist grip, venting his anger.

He sidled into the convoy and moved down the middle of the road, slit-eyed, spraying his own small wake. He threaded the traffic, avoiding the worst holes, aware that if he went down this time, he would have a three-tonner up his arse.

At a crossroads an MP urged them on, one by one. A German salvo screamed down through the rain, exploding fountains of mud in the fields. Splinters whined across, slapping sharply against truck metal; clods of soggy earth splattered the line of vehicles.

The Don R, behind the bulk of a lorry, saw his chance. He kicked the Norton into low gear and funneled across and away in a long shower of mud.

He dodged ahead as another salvo came in. Heavy smoke, logy with rain, drifted downwind. The roadside ditches were brimful. This message must be worth gold. Twenty-five miles in this muck. They had field phones, didn't they?

The big brown stuttering machine turned into the tire-rutted filth of the farmyard. A clutch of low, red-tiled buildings, looking bloody in the rain, surrounded three sides of a square with a high wall and a double gate on the side facing the road. He kicked down into low and, standing, rode the stirrups as he guided the machine to the buildings. He leaned the bike against the wall and ducked through the door. He opened the dispatch case and fumbled for the sodden envelope.

The captain took it, thumbed up the flap, and read. "They might have spared you your ride, private." He nodded at the field phone. "We had this three hours ago."

The Don R stood dripping and wanting a smoke.

"Go tell the cooks I said to feed you," the captain said. "You kip down here tonight. See the QM sergeant for blankets."

The Don R went into the rain and spread his gas cape over the Norton's saddle and the ticking, still-hot engine. Then he went to the cookhouse and watched the rain pour off the eaves as he ate warm stew.

—Adapted from Fearsome Battle

CP

Robert Rogge, an American, fought with the Canadian Army in World War II. He wrote of his experiences in Fearsome Battle. Under the pen name, Robert Elliot, he is also author of The Eagle's Height, a novel of air combat in World War I.

The Earth
Edith Parzefall

There's so much between me and my man.
A whole planet. A big lump of fire,
water, mud and rocks.

It sucks. Which is good.
Otherwise we'd float away—
Just like the air we're breathing.

We can crawl around it.
Even if it takes awhile,
Till we hold each other again.

CP

Edith Parzefall studied literature and linguistics in Germany and the United States. She works in Information Technology, but her true passions are writing and traveling. Edith lives in Nürnberg, Germany, and spends part of the year in Australia.

Burning Down the House
Julie McGuire

"I'm going to burn the house down," he said.

"Did you take your meds today, Dad?" I asked.

"Poison pills. I flushed them down the toilet." My father-in-law wouldn't look at me. "I hope the boys aren't home," he whimpered, staring out the car window.

I wished the line at the Burger King drive-thru would move more quickly. "We agreed, Dad. You have to take the meds or you can't live with us anymore."

"There's a dead body in my room, Julie. I have to burn it."

I took a deep breath hoping for patience not panic. I fished my cell phone out of my purse and sent my husband a text to meet us at Tucker Psychiatric. Again.

"The dead bodies go away when you take your pills."

"I'll be the dead body if I take my pills. You're trying to kill me, aren't you?"

I patted his hand. "Let's go for a drive, Dad. It's snowing outside. I know how much you love the snow."

"Trying to kill me," he muttered. "I'll be the dead body."

"You're going into a feedback cycle, Dad ­ repeating yourself. Take a deep breath."

"Dead body. Will be the dead body."

I blasted my horn, desperate to get out of the drive-thru line. "What would you like for dinner, Dad?" I asked. I hoped it would break his thought pattern.

"I'm going to burn the house down." My father-in-law's eyes were glazed over.

"Not until you've had dinner. How about pork chops and beans with corn?"

He glared at me. "Pork chops are for Thursday night. This is Sunday. You can't trick me, Julie."

"We can have whatever you want, Dad."

"You'll put the poison in the beans. I'll be the dead body."

We finally got our food. He tore open the Whopper wrapper, and took a bite of his burger. I pulled out of the parking lot and turned right.

"That's not the way to the house," he said. A moment of clarity.

"I know."

"Where are we going?"

"For a drive in the snow, Dad. You love the snow."

"There's no snow at the hospital."

CP

Julie McGuire is a paralegal by day and writer at heart. She is the fiction editor at The Internet Review of Books, and her work has appeared in numerous publications, including The Christian Science Monitor. She lives in Virginia with her superhero husband and their two remarkable teenage boys.

—Photo by Christopher Woods

Winter Tree
Christopher Woods

This is the sleeping season.
Forget about reaching out
to all of us who walk beneath you,
who hover in your shade,
who look to you and remember
what it is like to merely be.

This is the dreaming season.
Don't awaken yet.
Spring and sun will stir you
soon enough.
For now, remain naked,
remind us what we were like
in infancy, in innocence,
before we looked to trees
for the solace we cannot feel
on our own, among our own kind.

CP

Christopher Woods has published a prose collection, UNDER A RIVERBED SKY, and a book of monologues for actors. His photographs are forthcoming in ANDERBO, PUBLIC REPUBLIC, BAP QUARTERLY and NARRATIVE MAGAZINE and can be seen online at THE TEXANA REVIEW GALLERY.

Sister Mine
Anita Saran

There were times when we sisters were one. We hunted for wild blackberries the sunning lizards so loved to gobble; chased butterflies, captured the seed fairies of the dandelion, and gathered succulent mangoes felled by the dust-laden winds of summer.

On Diwali, at the Festival of Lights, we fought over the pink and blue clay pots and pans and tiny platters and spoons; the white porous candy and the puffed rice. Our gigantic house was transformed into a fairytale castle, glittering with hundreds of oil lamps. The skies were full of stars that fell to earth, trailing glory.

Yet we never loved as sisters should. There was a wall between us, built by Mother's cruelty to me and love for her.

A week before she died of a broken heart, she told me she was going to kill herself. Could I suggest some easy way? When I suggested she see a psychiatrist, she said she was already seeing one. I said, "You have your whole life before you. You'll meet the right man eventually."

But my love wasn't enough. She needed a man's love. "You do not understand, Ani" she said. "I'm a one-man woman."

She wanted us to meet more often, but my possessive lover held me back. When she hanged herself, I was ravaged by guilt.

On the morrow of my sister's suicide, I woke up weeping. I did not have the courage to look upon her tortured body. All I saw in the end was a pot of ashes. On our way to the sacred river, I held it on my knees with a kind of numb horror, and Uncle Shyam, noticing my discomfort, took the pot from me. Even her ashes I could not face.

Life is strange. We poured her ashes into the same river that had almost drowned me many years ago. It was very beautiful there. While Uncle Shyam held the pot of ashes over the water, a brilliant blue kingfisher darted into the overhanging trees. As her ashes drifted away upon the river, words filled my head like a prayer:

Do you remember, sister mine,
our rambles among
the dandelions on the hills?
Sunrise over the snow,
turning the mountains gold,
when you and I were
one with the sun?
Do you feel our father's gentleness,
his hand soft upon your brow?

All of us must bear our crosses, but Nature softens every blow. Our loved ones live again in the tears we sow.

CP

Anita Saran lives in Bangalore, India. Her short stories have appeared in various online venues, including Cezanne's Carrot and Sniplits. She is the author of Dolphin Girl and other Stories and Aditya, the Underwater Boy, a science fiction novella that won the National Award in the Nehru Children's Book Trust competition. Her first novel, Circe, will be published in 2009 by Mojocastle Press.

The Railroad Crossing
Wayne Scheer

Charles saw the flashing red warning lights of the railroad crossing and instinctively took his foot off the gas pedal of his Toyota Camry.

He saw no train. The road before him and behind him lay empty.

He recalled a comment made by a friend from Scotland. "Americans are the only people who, on a deserted road at midnight, would stop for a red light." He also remembered the words of Fran, his ex-wife. "I fell in love with you because you were safe, but I fell out of love with you for the same reason."

Charles opened his windows and heard nothing but the chirping of cicadas.

He calculated it would take only a second or two to cross the tracks. Even if a train appeared in the distance, he'd have plenty of time to make it to safety.

The road before him and behind him remained empty. He tightened his seat belt and inhaled deeply. Images of Fran raced through his mind.

Charles brought his Camry to a complete stop, as he knew he would.

—Originally appeared in The Green Tricycle, Vol.15, 2004

CP

Wayne Scheer retired from teaching writing and literature in college to follow his own advice and write. He has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and a Best of the Net. His work has appeared in The Christian Science Monitor, Notre Dame Magazine, The Pedestal, flashquake, Flash Me Magazine, The Internet Review of Books and Eclectica, among others.