My wife, Mary, and I sit on the deck of The Boatyard, a Sarasota seafood restaurant. Since our retirement, we lunch here several times a month. Mary is eating a hamburger because she is allergic to seafood. I am devouring fish-and-chips, which I have smothered with malt vinegar.
Continue reading “Biff Malibu by James Hanna”
Mother, the one who birthed us, was the one who turned the oven on. Tossed us in there, my older sister Nan and me, as though we were turkeys at Thanksgiving. She was too strong for us to resist, though we tried, squirming, kicking. But she was still strong.
Continue reading “Step by Yash Seyedbagheri”
Sunday morning, and some idiot is trying to start his piece of crap car, cranking it over and over. Will that battery never die? There’s no fuel or no air or a lack of both and all the hope in the world is not going to light that sorry engine off. Give it a rest, will you please, for the love of all things holy, or if not divine then at least civil?
Continue reading “Quiet Longed For, and You by Marco Etheridge”
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A Saturday Morning, 1975 b.c.e
One, two, three, four, five…
One, two, three, four, five…
One, two, three, four–
As she lay in bed, Tess shoved the early morning hum of the street and small under-noises in the apartment out of her mind and focused solely on the little clicks she heard in Anna Lou’s room.
Tess knew about Anna-Lou’s habit. Her mother was a careless telephone gossip, especially when in her wine, which was pretty much always. “The doctor’s been feeding her Percodan and God knows what since they shot Lincoln.”–or something similar, was what Mom said to friends on the phone when the subject was Great Aunt Louise. For some boozy reason, Mom believed if she lowered her voice to a confidential tone that neither of her children would make a special effort to listen.
Continue reading “1975 b.c.e. By Leila Allison”
I came back in the autumn for a short weekend. I’d forgotten that it was autumn; where I live the trees are like monuments that never change, but nothing lasts forever does it?
Continue reading “The Way You Always Were by Otto Alexander”
Fittingly, it began at the end of the world, New Delhi. The job now over, the American was about to board the first of many trains west when a slumped and shambling beggar in a ratty shawl stopped him on the platform. “Rupees, rupees,” the familiar whine. The American sighed and smiled and said, “Sure, all right. For old time’s sake.” It was eight-thousand miles to Madrid, but God damn India had a way of converting distance to years.
He offered the wretch a few coins, but the figure in the shawl slapped them away, which caused a hell of a scrum amongst other beggars on the platform.
“Hi, hi, what for hell’s sake is this, I’ll show you,” said the American. He had a temper, and often raised his hand. But the beggar stood erect and kept on standing until he was at least a foot taller than the American, not a small man himself. Arms lashed out from under the shawl and hands of unimaginable strength grabbed the American by the shoulders and lifted him near, toes scraping the boards. Despite the violence and surprise of the situation, the American wasn’t a coward. He summoned the nerve that had distinguished him from others in the Great War and looked up at the face under the shawl. All he saw was darkness.
Continue reading “It Lets the Air In By Leila Allison”
Lizzie’s dark curls held sparkling rain diamonds. Her eyes were bright. Julia! Lizzie often arrived unexpectedly, coming through the walls or the door.
I brought you a present. A box, Lizzie said. A little box, she added, her eyes laughing.
Continue reading “Boxes by Shira Musicant”
It’s Friday, and on the radio, Ronald Reagan is wheezing his way through a speech. I hear him often, he’s always on the news, on TV, on the radio. This is his decade, and from his sibylline delivery I learn that his economic policies will one day make me rich. I cannot understand how, and he does not explain it either; so, for now, I just hope that my mates and I can keep our jobs.
Continue reading “On the Radio, Ronald Reagan is Wheezing by Adelino de Almeida”
Macey McGarry was a face licker.
In her early years this was a trait or an obsession that she was never able to indulge in as much as she needed.
Continue reading “Macey by Hugh Cron”
I was out of the waiter game, quit when a chef threw a cruet that just missed my head; oil splattered my new, old tux I bought from a formal wear rental joint. Only an asylum inmate would be able to summon a voice that said I’d bettered myself. I was working at a fast food joint, The Burger General, home of the Five-Star Half Pounder. I’d added eight published poems to my Good Knots chapbook so I wasn’t complaining about work conditions or pay. I kept a few copies under the counter in case I sensed kindred vibes from a customer. Jake Perez, the janitor found one in the trash. If a fry weren’t a bookmark he might have left it but he thought it was a hoot and shared his kicks with my fellow workers before returning it to me. A high school kid working the drive-thru told me my poems were baffling and so was I but she quotes lines occasionally and said her mom gave me a thumbs-up. Columbia University had recently published the freshly greased poem, “Ghost Shipping” in its literary magazine. Octavia’s Ristorante returned in sharp focus. Elise shanghaied my mind.
Continue reading “Dreams Away at Octavia’s by Thomas M. McDade”
