Mama wants another glass of Malbec.
“Just one,” she says, motioning to her wine glass, festooned with red and golden swirling leaves.
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Tag: grief
Screens By Yash Seyedbagheri
I awaken to computer or phone screens with emails beckoning. Mostly junk, links to New Yorker articles, reminders of delinquent dues on this card or that. CONTACT US IMMEDIATELY, black words growl on a sterile background.
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Crack by Yash Seyedbagheri
The train horn rises through my window. It starts as a hum, but rises to a wail, insistent and bursting, fragments of noise burying themselves in my ears, in my body.
I cover my ears again, sitting on my bed. Mother tells me to think of anything else, moving closer and closer. She plops beside me, a defeated little plop.
“Close your eyes, Nicky,” she says, her lips quivering. “Take your mind elsewhere.”
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It’s All I Can Do by Thomas Elson
Look closely. Near the walnut bookcase a friend built for my son. Can you see me? I visit here every day.
A couple of weeks ago, I told my son it was time. There were no miracles cures for me – ninety-two years old – not really high on the list of miracle-cure candidates.
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Renaissance by Yash Seyedbagheri
Spring breaks through my empty walls and drawn curtains, an impenetrable fortress. It spills onto cell phones where sisterly jokes about my old-school wardrobe and loving and laughing face emojis no longer wait. Sunlight taunts the charcoal-colored shadows that keep me company on empty couches that smell of musk, armpits, Malbecs, and sativas.
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Rewind by Yash Seyedbagheri
Streaming services kill our multiplex. The multiplex my sister and I went to Friday nights, as regular as anything. They don’t say it outright, but I know Fridays, Saturdays, Mondays even, people are hiding behind the glow of screens, including some of my own friends. They sink into names like HBO, Netflix, Amazon Prime, contrivances with big letters and feigned cleverness.
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Front Seat by Yash Seyedbagheri
In the still of night, I sneak into Dad’s Chevy Bel-Air. Slide into the front seat, the seat that was Mom’s. A seat that Dad has proclaimed will remain empty.
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Empty Histories by Yash Seyedbagheri
At the coffee shop, all the tables are full, both the rectangular tables and the smaller square ones. People fill each side, hunched over computers and stacks of notes. There are boyfriends and girlfriends in turd-colored hoodies and skimpy white tank-tops, parents and children dissecting fractions and Abraham Lincoln, laughter, hugs, shoving, F-bombs deployed with cheer, fusillades of life fired into my ears.
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Sunday Papers by Darren A Deth
Bill McCullister is usually tilling in the garden, sweeping off the porch, or oiling the hinges on the banged-up screen door. Except Sundays. He wakes in the morning and washes away soil and sweat not worked into his weathered skin. Two quick swipes through what hair is left him and the comb is deposited into the broken-handled mug on the porcelain sink. A clean tee shirt mostly by faded overalls, work boots, and a tattered baseball cap promoting a grain company no longer in business completes the look. If the wind is especially biting, he might toss on his wool coat. He drives the ‘58 Ford truck down the shady lane to Hagmans Crossing, the rusty rocker panels and fenders rattling. Stones kicked up from the tires bang against the undercarriage. The road ends on Route 10 and he cranks her hard to the right, rolling through the stop sign, heading for Ashwell. Bill watches the signpost for the county line slide across the chipped side view mirror before he pitches over Devil’s Hill.
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All My Darlings Waiting by Antony Osgood
I caught her eye. Recognised a kindred spirit. Her head then converted into cruor popcorn. Colour of grey nail varnish, millet porridge. Scarlet white and woeful.
I feared I’d lose my lonesome bench for good.
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