My father, long-divorced, proclaims the joys of fucking women. Not making love. Not sexual intimacy, even. Fucking. He prowls dating sites, beady black eyes assessing thin-figured women with names like Irina, Tatiana, Sandra, Svetlana, Lara. Of course, they’re not only thin figured but voluptuous. He’s always kept abreast of that.
Continue reading “Looking At Women by Yashar Seyedbagheri”
Betty sat on a 2B pencil as if on a bench, her high heels hooked against a dip nib pen that lay at the base of an inkwell. Elbows on her knees and chin cupped in her palms she stared at a black smudge smeared across an eight-and-a-half by eleven sheet of white paper tacked to a drafting board. She followed its diagonal downward path onto the desktop until it ended at her feet.
Continue reading “Escaping the Good Old Days by Mark Russo”
One Christmas many years ago there was for me one present from my parents, a little, done-over red wagon with a long hauling handle, and slatted sides. The sides were for extra cargo! For overload! The name, the logo, of the wagon has not stuck with me, but its ownership has. That the wounded wagon, from some wars of its own, had been touched-up, repainted, a bit of rust covered over, two wheels replaced, had no interest for me. Early and mid-Thirties had all ready made their impressionable slash in the mind of a seven-year old. This one, now, was mine!
Continue reading ” A Little Red Wagon, a Long-remembered Face III by Tom Sheehan”
My life is a sea of ifs.
What if I’d published this collection? if I’d studied harder? If I hadn’t shot off my mouth at home? What if I hadn’t eaten too many potato chips and drank too much Merlot?
On my thirtieth birthday, they all rise up like the ghosts of Christmas past, whispering. If, if, if, a hollowed-out word that sits next to me in the coffee shops, follows me on my nightly walks, snuggles too close to me.
I procure the biggest whiteboard possible. Eliminate ifs. Draw up concrete whens in lavender marker. No red markers bleeding with psychological pressure, thank you. I lay out goals and visions.
Continue reading “What If? by Yash Seyedbagheri “
At Phil’s small memorial—we took his ashes home to the ocean—a man I didn’t know who patronized Phil’s beach asked about his drinking.
I drove a 1963 Flamengo-orange Thunderbird, wore navy blue tennis shoes, and sat eating a banana split at the A&W. It was 1986. In White Haven, Tennessee, where truck drivers were thought to be rich, it was still considered a big deal to go to the movies. Girls looked forward to losing their virginity in the back row at the Malco Theatre.
Continue reading “Shake or Float? By David Lohrey”
Even with a personality of its own, my Saugus River is hard-pressed to be itself… so many things have happened to it, on it, with it, because of it. Did I dream all these scattered events, these small terrors? Perhaps. I was dreamy as a boy, romantic as a young man, possessed now. Possessed.
Continue reading “Hard-pressed My River Is by Tom Sheehan”
I try to leave Mom a voicemail. Again.
The voicemail cannot be delivered. Again. She always stores old voicemails. Always says you never know when they might come in handy. Especially if you’re in a jam and need proof that you communicated with X at Y time. Pre-empt the world.
Continue reading “Voice by Yash Seyedbagheri”
The year becomes indented, single-spaced, and winter edged with summer grammar. Every stamped boot is a syntax-wish for warmth, a yearning, for once upon a time, happy ever after, when things were and always will be, somehow, golden, likely better, bountiful, without end. Each shudder this morning is modified by such expectations. This is an English season to be endured.
Continue reading “Christmas Lights Icicle Frost by Antony Osgood”
It had been a year since the separation, and she was still trying to get a divorce. Domestic violence. Or ‘family issues’, as they would say. Her husband admitted he’d made mistakes, but he’d do better. Be better. A better man. She didn’t want him to be a better man. Or anything else, in fact. Only to agree to the divorce. But the court needed evidence. Specific evidence of maltreatment or betrayal.
Continue reading “They Always Welcomed Visitors by Mariam Saidan”
literally stories 