Cherries
Doug Holder
I was here, there, nowhere...
Sitting with a crumpled bag of cherries
in Washington Square.
Far from the Midtown Tunnel
and the suburban bubble.
I watched the Greenwich Village livestream
junkies, poseurs, Three Card Monty shysters, closet queens, people of means,
fashion queens.
I thought I would get a room in the Washington Square Hotel
heard Dylan, Baez once lived there
cheap digs
a garret of
a writer
not yet
bloomed.
I was here, there, nowhere.
Looking across at the old man
on a bench facing mine
with a bag of crumpled cherries
he stared at me
and I at him
amidst the hawker's din.
He seemed like he never left
that bench
it sort of suited him.
I got up
and walked under the triumphal arch
to Boston
a garret of a room
the cherries were
pits in my stomach.
Doug Holder is the founder of the Ibbetson Street Press. His new book of poetry is The Essential Doug Holder: New and Selected Poems from Big Table Publishing Company. The Doug Holder Papers Collection is being processed at the University at Buffalo. Holder was recently the judge for the Frank O'Hara Award for the Worcester County Poetry Association.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
Summer Heat
Elizabeth Tornes
I straddle my first bike, a red Raleigh 10-speed
and go for a ride in the country, zinging past
tree-lined streets, past tennis courts
and the Bexley pool, where cicadas buzz, past
the mansion where Mr. Jeffrey hung himself
out to the rocky potholes, the asphalt roads
which melt and bind the tires, searing
my nostrils with a burnt rubber smell as heat
reflects up, and sweat puddles in my eyes.
Grasshoppers spring from blonde
grasses, fly into the spokes
like a thousand playful fairies.
I stop at an intersection between
two cornfields, when suddenly a pickup
roars behind me. The brakes screech,
a red truck pulls up: two men drinking beer.
The red-faced man in the passenger seat smiles,
You want a ride, sweetie?
No thank you, I say, very polite,
as I was taught to be. Screw YOU!
—they laugh, gun the engine and roar
down the road in an endless cloud of dust.
I mount my bike, start pedaling again
into the merciless light of my thirteenth year.
Elizabeth Tornes has published three award-winning poetry collections, Between the Dog and the Wolf, New Moon and Snowbound. Her work has been published in The Boston Literary Review, Boulevard, Field, Illuminations, Main Street Rag, The North American Review, Page & Spine, Ploughshares, and Yellow Medicine Review. Her poems have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and appeared in Poetry Daily. She’s also published a collection of Ojibwe oral histories, Memories of Lac du Flambeau Elders (University of Wisconsin Press, 2004). She earned a Ph.D. in Creative Writing from the University of Utah, and lives in Lac du Flambeau. Wisconsin.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
Creeping Charlie in the Graveyard
C.T. McClintock
I spend my time among dead people lately
to avoid getting sick and joining them
as the Catholic graveyard on the edge of Brooklyn
is where living humans don’t congregate
but the clovers talk to the creeping charlie
and the robins hop from Burgun to Wertzien
to the cryptic Steil-Ross, then into the oaks
and I wonder why so many graves lack first names
the footpaths laid in 1890-something
are warped and gnarled like the tin headstones
and the dwindling granite benches are lichened
only on the southern-facing sides
is this what it means to be truly grounded
with no purpose except to mark the greenery
to be kept away from the churn of the world
that has deadened into a standstill
still, those butterflies that look like real butter
spiral in the madness of procreation
and the petals from a blooming dogwood
have hitched a ride on the breeze to my feet
twice I've buried my sage ashes under the oaks
I idly wonder if that makes me responsible
and the adjacent L train stirs these thoughts
as it arrives for the 10th time in a row
for no one
C.T. McClintock is a writer and scholar of expressivism, trauma theory, and literacy theory living in Brooklyn, NY. Her poetry frequently appears in the indie journal circuit and can be found in Visitant, SoFloPoJo, and Remington Review among others. When she’s not busy fussing over writing, she is busy fussing over her tomato plants and romping around the various Northeastern coastlines.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
Where is my Room?
Mugunthan Ganesan
Everyone had a room. Except me.
Their laughter bounced off
of the corrugated cardboard walls,
rolled down the balsa wood floors
and besieged the thin metal gates
of that model. Of our soon-to-be home.
Even the fake Gulmohar,
with its orange plastic flowers
and fern-like leaves -
who also had a spot
on the dark green grass mat -
couldn’t stop snickering.
What was funny about a simple
where is my room?
It was beyond the mental fences
of a nine-year-old.
The architect took a red marker
whose felt tip bled pity
and drew a small square
on the second level
and in one stroke made me belong -
at least in that model,
our perhaps-soon-to-be home.
I never lived in that room,
never got to put up posters of
Maradona, Tendulkar, or A.R.Rahman
on teal-painted concrete walls.
My copies of Advanced Calculus
and Oliver’s Story never lay open
on that brown mosaic tiled floor.
I bought a home with rooms
for everyone.
There are real succulents -
and orchids and peace lilies.
The walls are covered in
discounted art from Pier 1 imports.
The silent hardwood floor
holds each of us
and all that we carry.
This is home now.
Yet, I still sometimes wonder
where is my room?
Mugu Ganesan is an emerging poet based out of Minneapolis, Minnesota. He writes poetry in English and Urdu. His poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in The Hindu, Burning House Press, and Scarlet Leaf Review. He has participated in poetry workshops at the UCLA Extension and The Loft Literary Center. Mugu’s poetry is focused on expressing the strife that comes with being human through his observations and life experiences across cultures and continents.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
Solitary Migration
~ for Bridget
Kathleen Williamson
Long before sunrise
she is on her bike,
her legs like pistons
on the old post road.
She sought solitude
but now she feels it
in her throat—
tears blur her path.
To rally she sings
in the dark, an old
song about surrender.
Out of the woods,
as if summoned
by her song,
bounds an eight-point buck.
He gallops beside her.
Clipped to her bike,
she pedals faster,
the buck keeps pace.
She never thinks
to stop. Her voice
is silenced, the only
sound the clatter
of hooves on pavement.
Her breath beats
time with his.
She smells his musty,
mushroom scent,
feels the heat
of his body
sees her reflection
in his black eye.
Kathleen Williamson won the runner-up prize in the SLAB Elizabeth R. Curry Poetry Contest and was a winner in the Poetry in the Pavement project in Sleepy Hollow, New York. Her work has been published in Ponder Review, Newtown Literary, The Healing Muse, Inkwell and The Westchester Review. She attended the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference and takes classes at Sarah Lawrence College, Poetry Barn, and the Hudson Valley Writers' Center.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
Shadowland
Larry D. Thomas
Before last Saturday evening’s vacate order,
he lived on a vacant lot overgrown with weeds
in a ramshackle dwelling of cardboard and twine.
I’ve seen him off and on for twelve years
in the neighborhood at all hours of day and night,
walking, often toting a well-worn paperback.
He still lives somewhere nearby,
because I saw him again this morning
during my walk at daybreak. In the drizzle,
suddenly, and out of nowhere he appeared,
walking down the middle of the street.
He wore a hat fashioned from a grocery bag.
At first I thought it was a makeshift crown
and he the strange king beneath it.
We moved with the stealth of shadows,
tenuous as the script of our names,
each a wormy little noun flung helplessly
against the bold, black verb of the universe.
Larry D. Thomas, a member of the Texas Institute of Letters and the 2008 Texas Poet Laureate, has published twenty-two print collections of poetry, the most recent of which is In a Field of Cotton: Mississippi River Delta Poems (Blue Horse Press 2019). A longtime (and proud) contributor of poems to the Boston Literary Magazine, he has also recently published poetry in the Arkansas Review: A Journal of Delta Studies, Valley Voices: A Literary Review, Louisiana Literature, Delta Poetry Review, Red Dirt Forum, San Pedro River Review and elsewhere. A resident of Las Cruces, New Mexico, Thomas and his poetry will be featured in a forthcoming issue of the Delta Poetry Review.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
In Another Tree
Jeffrey Zable
Surely there are those who still want to live
and will spend their time creating some meaning
out of thin air whereas I gave up on trying to do that.
I just live as if I’m already dead and keep the bad news
to myself because I no longer care to engage with others,
and what goes on in the world is no longer of concern
so long as I have some milk to put on my cereal and
they keep playing reruns of the three stooges on one
of the cable channels. Other than that, I do enjoy watching
the monkeys in the tree outside my kitchen window
and often wish I could join them because they do seem
to be having the time of their lives, and when I throw
them bananas they always give me a thumbs up which
makes me feel good for a moment even though it never
outweighs my feelings of not wanting to be here which
I think is something I was born with and will be with me
until the monkeys find someone else to feed them bananas
in another tree . . .
Jeffrey Zable is a teacher and conga drummer who plays Afro-Cuban folkloric music for dance classes and Rumbas around the San Francisco Bay Area. His poetry, fiction, and non-fiction have appeared in hundreds of literary magazines and anthologies. Recent writing in Nauseated Drive, Hypnopomp, Pensive Stories, Untitled Writing, After The Pause, Third Wednesday, Brushfire, Smoky Blue, Alba, Green Silk, Corvus, The Stray Branch and many others.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
Did Their Best
Niles Reddick
After Mama had back surgery, she took a lot of Valium for pain and shouldn’t have been driving any more than Dad who had a stroke on his right side, couldn’t see out of his right eye, and was unable to shift gears in his truck with his right hand. He pulled the knob into second, but couldn’t shift up, and the Tacoma whined across town at thirty m.p.h.
None of us imagined, however, Mama would run over a college student cycling to the mall, that she would lug him to the back seat of her Lexus and cram the bike in the trunk. “He was speeding so fast down that hill that I never saw him,” she told the police.
“I did the right thing,” she told the officer. “I got him to the ER like the good woman I am.”
“He filed a suit against your insurance.”
“This isn’t about suing for mesothelioma or talcum powder. Shouldn’t sue one trying to do a good deed.”
In her mind, the good deed erased the first one, and she believed she’d keep her insurance rates low and not get cancelled, but she didn’t. We took their keys and eventually their vehicles, and they tell anyone who will listen how evil their kids turned out, how’d we’ll end up in hell, and how they did their best raising us.
Niles Reddick is author of the novel Drifting too far from the Shore, two collections Reading the Coffee Grounds and Road Kill Art and Other Oddities, and a novella Lead Me Home. His work has been featured in thirteen anthologies and in over three hundred publications including The Saturday Evening Post, PIF, New Reader Magazine, Forth Magazine, Cheap Pop, Flash Fiction Magazine, With Painted Words, among many others.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
A Promise
Brett Dixon
she’s supposed to meet me out front of the shelter at 9:00 o’clock. it’s 9:34. no call. i step out from the shade of the entryway and into the oppressive june sun, the heat rising from the pavement in waves. the earlier the better, she told me when we scheduled our check-in. the rest of her day she’s busy sharing a handle of vodka with violent, tortured men. 9:35. she emerges, dragging her feet, walking this way. her head is hung. i walk out to meet her. she hides her face in her donated t-shirt, a size too big with the neckline irreparably worn. i don’t want you to see, she insists. see what? she lowers her shirt. a fresh bruise, purple and red, spreading like an oil spill across her cheek. he sucker punched me, she says. i help her take a seat on the curb. she fumbles through her bag, retrieving a half smoked cigarette and lights up. i didn’t want you to see, she repeats out of the corner of her mouth, taking her first drag. promise me you won’t tell anyone you saw me cry. there’s a lump in my throat. tangled words resembling a promise i don't want to make. i hand her a tissue. my last one. she refuses the offer and wipes her tears with the back of her arm, revealing a tattoo that says TRUST in bold blue. the words unravel. i promise.
B. Dixon is an emerging poet whose writing draws on his study of Zen Buddhism and his work with those experiencing homelessness in Boston, MA. His writing has been printed in the J Journal, the *82 Review, the Frogpond Journal, Right Hand Pointing and the Unbroken Journal, among others. B. Dixon has also contributed articles to the Institute for Meditation and Psychotherapy's Quarterly Journal, Cushion and Couch.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
Class Dummy
Zvi A. Sesling
We called him Elf because he was barely five feet tall. He did, however, have a great sense of humor, cracking jokes or pulling practical jokes on everyone in class. That he graduated high school is a matter of luck, or perhaps teacher charity. After flunking out of college he went to Canada to work on an oil pipeline. The last anyone heard he lost the job and chose to live among the natives near the Artic Circle. No one heard from him until the fortieth high school reunion when he showed up in a Rolls Royce with his six-foot blonde wife. He wore a tuxedo and a Rolex watch. She was decked out in diamonds. It was to let us all know – the doctors, the lawyers, the Madison Avenue executives – that he was wealthier than all of us. Living with the natives at the Arctic Circle he had grown fond of native art and statues. Oh, by the way, back in high school he was a real hot rod fanatic, working on engines and getting work in drag race pits. As a result he could fix any engine – car, truck, boat, snowmobile. If it did not run, he would get it to go. So when their vehicles broke down the natives paid him in art. Then they signed a contract that gave him rights to their work and he opened a store in Toronto, then Montreal and finally a string of stores in the United States. He made millions in commissions he earned from selling the art.
Zvi A. Sesling is Brookline, MA Poet Laureate. He edits Muddy River Poetry Review and is author of The Lynching of Leo Frank (Big Table Publishing, 2017)and six other poetry books. His flash fiction book Secret Behind The Gate will be published in early 2021 by Cervena Barva Press. He has published poetry and flash fiction both in the U.S. and internationally. He lives in Brookline, MA with his wife Susan J. Dechter.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
When I Floated By
Michele Rappoport
The river last summer and me, swimming with the fish in the sari-colored water. Remembering how he waited for me to float back so he could die. Angry to see his life flashing in front of him on the hanging TV, loud as a banshee. How his hospital pillow whispered it was time. I told him Dad, it’s okay to let go, and for once, somewhere in the deepening night, he took my advice. The lawyer said chin up. He left you nothing, and believe me, it’s easier that way. I drank with the lawyer. He left me nothing, too.
Michele Rappoport is a writer and artist who splits her time between Arizona and a hill on the western slope of the Colorado Rockies. Her writing has been published, or is forthcoming, in many literary journals, including Delmarva Review, High Desert Journal, The Centifictionist, Poetica Magazine, and Art in the Time of Covid-19, an anthology of pandemic writing and art.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
4 Boys in the Merrimac River
Louis Phillips
6 yrs old: Behind
My father’s restaurant,
What did customers eat for 75¢?
With my Flash Gordon space gun,
And my German Shepherd
I knew nothing about Thoreau
& his boat trip past Lowell,
Past so many things
But I was on the Merrimac’s banks
When our Greek Chef,
Whose name I do not recall,
Angry at a couple who added
Salt to his special dish
Before they even tasted it,
Tossed down his tall toque,
Ran out the back door
Of Louie’s Chicken Coop
To toss himself into the river,
Cold brown water swirling,
& him shouting in English
“I’ll never cook for such barbarians!
Never again,” and my father
Wading in, pulling him out,
“Never cook for American barbarians.”
Did he return to fried chicken
& lobsters? I do not remember.
I was just a small boy, a witness
Worrying about starting school.
It did not occur to me then,
Nor to my dog Skippy
That the Merrimac
Was just one more river
For children to drown in.
Louis Phillips has published over 50 books for children and adults.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
Behind the Pizzeria
Tim Suermondt Jalai, the owner, is tossing a bag into the huge blue trash bin. He sees me and says “Be sure to come next week, every pie will be fifty percent off.” I thank him, clutching my box of slices like a trophy. I cut across the basketball courts— no one playing there, but I see myself doing my spin moves, clumsily but still beautiful for all that. By the street near home I hear a man on his phone, pleading and calmness attempting to work together: “Damn it, Estelle, come back. Won’t you?” I want so much to return too, things I didn’t realize I needed. In the elevator I momentarily forget the floor number to push, numbed by time with its loveless disregard— Estelle, please, do come back.
Tim Suermondt is the author of five full-length collections of poems, the latest is Josephine Baker Swimming Pool from MadHat Press, 2019. He has published in Poetry, Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, The Georgia Review, Bellevue Literary Review, Stand Magazine, december magazine, On the Seawall, Poet Lore and Plume, among many others. He lives in Cambridge (MA) with his wife, the poet Pui Ying Wong.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
Jack Ruby Forgets His Gun
Christopher Alden
At the penultimate moment, I dig for my snub-nosed Colt, coming up empty. What the hell?
Flashback. Me clambering from my Olds. Thumb clicking the lock down as I shut the door. An angry November gust stealing my Fedora. The sun ricocheting off something on the passenger seat, blinding me.
Now Oswald, crowded, pinched and manacled, shuffles toward me. Lunging forward, I drive my fist deep into his yielding gut. His little face twists in painful surprise, Adams apple bobbing furiously. Angry dragons pummel me to the cool pavement. Before blacking out, I see him smile, his story still alive.
Christopher Alden is a retired Coast Guard Veteran who has traveled to unusual places including the South Pole, Greenland and the Arctic. He grew up in the Detroit area and earned his BA in English from the University of Michigan with a focus on creative writing. He writes flash, micro and short fiction when he’s not working on honey-do lists, walking the dog or goofing off.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
The Football Star
Randy Zuniga
Just hours after football practice and hugging his white cheerleader girlfriend, Jordan kneels in a dark field, hands tied behind his back and a bag over his head. A bourbon-scented voice reminds him of someone familiar, uttering threats as Jordan struggles to free his hands. He feels a rope slide over his neck. Screaming and thrashing, his hands slip loose and grab the man still under the darkness of his blindfold, fingers wrapping firmly around the voice’s neck … Both Gasping … Struggling … Gurgling, until the familiar voice is gone. Tearing off the bag, he finally sees. His coach … His girlfriend’s Father.
Randy Zuniga is an award winning screenwriter from San Diego. His accolades come from many film festivals ranging from Los Angeles to Austin to Madrid. He also wrote a script for a movie shot in Pakistan, The Window, that is now in post-production.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
Good Evening, Death
Sarah Mackey Kirby
Let it be tonight.
Okay, not tonight
exactly. Too much
to wrap up. But a night like this.
Star-covered and simple.
After Scrabble. No, not Scrabble.
No sense in giving him
a double whammy.
Chess or canasta,
so he can have the last win.
After cherry pie.
Because he’ll have
gotten to sneak-watch me in the kitchen
and time his entrance
as I’m dough-covered,
struggling to reach more flour.
So he can walk over, lip pouted,
pat me on the head and say,
“Aww, I’ll get it for you.”
I’ll give him my hands-on-hips,
pretend-offended stance.
On that kind of night.
Couch-curled, watching
one of the Vacation movies.
Or better, during George Carlin’s
Flying on the Airlines standup bit.
Definitely not during
football. I don’t want football
ruined for him forever.
And for me,
for obvious reasons …
But yes, watching something funny.
With the screen door
collecting nighttime
sounds. Crickets. Wind chimes.
Neighbors porch-talking.
Let the breeze feel chilly,
so I move closer to him.
Because I love his warmth
and need his coziness,
the relief that comes when
a car alarm stops screaming.
Help him remember his glasses
and the time I told
him to remarry
in case something ever,
well, you know...
I want him to have someone
to watch comedy with.
He forgets things.
And let me yawn
the try-to-stay-awake-but-
I-just-can’t kind.
Blanket-wrapped
in his arms. Listening
to him crack up at the TV.
His laughter filling
the room as I drift away.
Sarah Mackey Kirby is a Kentucky poet and writer. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Connecticut River Review, Front Porch Review, Impspired, Muddy River Poetry Review, and elsewhere. She holds an M.A. in Teaching and a B.A. in Political Science. She and her husband live in Louisville with their sweet cat and misbehaving Cockapoo.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
Compost
John Bateman
Seven springs later, Marigold knew the Mount Zebulon Garden Society would never know that her third spouse made the best compost.
John W. Bateman was the first person in his family to leave the fly-over states in more than 200 years. It didn't last. John writes and looks for stories in the Deep South. His work has appeared in The Santa Fe Writer’s Project Quarterly, OneNewEngland, Glitterwolf Magazine, Huffington Post, TIMBER, Nately's, as well as on the silver screen. He has a secret addiction to glitter and, contrary his southern roots, does NOT like sweet tea. John is a recipient of a 2018 Emerging Filmmaker Grant from the Mississippi Film Alliance. His first novel, Who Killed Buster Sparkle? was released June 12, 2019, by Unsolicited Press and has appeared on the weekly Top 10 Mississippi Reads list nearly a dozen times. He'd really like for you to buy a copy so that his mother isn't his only fan.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
Tyndall Pup
Laura Rodley
No clicking nails on hardwood floor,
no ferocious barking at trucks
ascending the hill,
no barking at food in her food bowl,
sitting down and barking at it,
lying down, then standing,
eyeing her ferocious food,
no meandering for each leaf
with most alluring scent,
where a weasel, raccoon, rabbit,
squirrel has wandered, hackles
raised for bear, though she did
not smell snakes, leaped back
if one slithered by, barked
at their thin bodies winding,
no more snapping at the air
catching bees, horseflies, lightning bugs,
no more staring at toads, wondering
why they did not move,
no more smelling roses, sticking
her hound-dog nose close to thorns,
neck protected by her thick ruff,
no more fur requiring immediate vacuuming,
no more barking at Mr. Cat when
he entered our bedroom, how dare Mr. Cat
sleep on our bed when Tyndall
was not allowed, nor the couch
though often when our son Joe lived here
between semesters and post-college,
I entered the living room to find them both
curled up on the long couch, now long gone.
No more straining at the leash, something
I could never break her of, don’t pull, don’t pull,
or me pulling her to keep going when a smell
captivated her, total obedience not
in her repertoire. No more waggling
in circles the propeller of her long tail,
delighted when we arrived home, a greeting
each time even if we’d just been outside,
no more enthusiastic welcome home,
I’m so glad you’re here.
Laura Rodley, Pushcart Prize winner is a quintuple Pushcart Prize nominee, and quintuple Best of Net nominee. Publisher Finishing Line Press nominated her Your Left Front Wheel Is Coming Loose for a PEN L.L.Winship Award and Mass Book Award. FLP also nominated her Rappelling Blue Light for a Mass Book Award. Former co-curator of the Collected Poets Series, Rodley taught the As You Write It memoir class and has edited and published As You Write It, A Franklin County Anthology volumes I-VI, also nominated for a Mass Book Award. Latest books Turn Left at Normal by Big Table Publishing and Counter Pointby Prolific Press.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
For the Record
Jim Reynolds
Scientists on Earth
believe oxygen on Mars
is behaving strangely.
But how would they know?
They have never visited
that remote red rock.
And who made them judges
of what is normal and what is strange?
When they know nothing of normal
and they, themselves, are so strange.
Have they considered instead
that maybe oxygen behaves
normally on Mars and behaves
strangely on Earth?
Or maybe oxygen
can behave no other way
because Mars is nasty
and treats oxygen like
a noxious gas.
The HR department believes
I’m behaving strangely.
But how would they know?
They have never endured
the daily indignities
I am subjected to.
Have they considered instead
that maybe I’m behaving normally -
given the circumstances?
Maybe they wouldn’t judge
if you had been nasty to them;
treated them like a noxious gas;
left them to live life
like cockroaches in the dark
wondering what will happen
when the light turns on.
So for the record,
if there ever is one,
this is not my fault.
If you had only returned
my calls, texts, emails,
or come to the door
when I pounded on it,
your basement window
wouldn’t be broken.
I wouldn’t be bleeding
in your airless closet.
James W. Reynolds lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. His work has previously been published in Defenestration, Ariel Chart, Lighten Up Online, Parody, The Broadkill Review, The Loch Raven Review, and Scarlet Leaf Review.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
Nadine
Edward Sheehy
I’m at the airport and this woman sits down next to me at the bar
constant chatter stream
on her way to Atlanta
on some business-related business
maximizing downstream assets
it’s like we were in a play by Sartre
her name is Nadine
she drinks an Old Fashion
just to steady her nerves, you know
she pays and leaves the bar
and when I look down
I spot her leopard-print neck pillow
the one she adored
So I knew how much it meant to her
I quickly grab the pillow
and dash to the Delta gate for Atlanta
hoping to see Nadine
across the rope line
and hold up the pillow
and she’d run over
and act all appreciative
and we’d somehow end up in an embrace
and I would board the plane for Atlanta
instead of Minneapolis
and we would…
alas, no Nadine
she must have already boarded
I turn and look around
then stuff the pillow in the nearest trash bin.
Short stories by Edward Sheehy have appeared in The Write Launch (online); the Book Smuggler’s Den (online); and in an anthology, Lake Street Stories, published by Flexible Press. Dog Ear Publishing released his novel, Cade’s Rebellion. Forthcoming in 2020, a short story in Frontier Tales (online) and two poems in Jerry Jazz Musician (online). He lives in Minneapolis, on the west bank of the Mississippi River.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
The Scientific Method
Phil Temples
University of South Africa Professor Frederick Isenberg’s announcement of a large meteor poised to strike the Earth in eleven days sent shockwaves throughout the scientific community and the entire world. The impact from the asteroid, estimated to be ten kilometers in diameter, would result in environmental devastation of monumental proportions leading to massive die-off of crops, wildlife, and eventually—all human life. Economists predicted the end of human civilization.
Astrophysicists across the world raced to confirm the existence of 2021FI with their telescopes but were unsuccessful. The scientists assumed that their inability to corroborate Isenberg’s findings was due to inferior tools. After all, few observatories in the world could compete with Isenberg’s 9.2-meter SALT, or South African Large Telescope. Many were embarrassed over their failure and remained silent on the matter. But a few unscrupulous astrophysicists went so far as to falsify data to make it appear they had confirmed Isenberg’s findings.
In the meantime, markets around the world cratered and economies collapsed. Churches and mosques were packed day and night with both believers and non-believers, while doomsday cults sprang up overnight. A few days before the estimated impact, Lethabo Mahlangumade made a startling discovery of his own. The SALT technician was performing routine cleaning on the telescope when he discovered the presence of a single aphid of the Pemphigus genus slowly crawling across the surface of the lens. He wiped it clean, thus saving the world from destruction.
Phillip Temples resides in Watertown, Massachusetts. He's published five mystery-thriller novels, a novella, and a short story anthology in addition to over 140 short stories. Phil is a member of the Mystery Writers of America.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
Garden Party
Steve Klepetar
We sat under the weeping willow, the three of us,
while our parents drank and smoked and talked on the deck.
There were other guests, the bachelors with the same name,
and sometimes they laughed, sometimes disagreed.
We could hear them shouting, then a door slammed.
It got quiet. They were all a little drunk,
except for the one bachelor who didn’t drink anymore.
He didn’t smoke, but he argued, and the host shoved him,
so my dad had to hold him back.
Then he was going to leave, but since we came in his car,
my mom tried to calm him down in the living room while the host
stumbled off to bed. His wife served coffee and Gugelhupf.
I was freaked, but my cousin Magda,
wise in the ways of the circle our parents travelled in,
said “Listen Stevie, you’ve got to realize our parents are nuts,
that’s your starting point, and I don’t mean nuts
like the other kids’ parents. They’re nuts like that too,
but more because the war and everyone they know is an immigrant.
Whatever they tell you, nod and smile but don’t believe a word.
They know shit about America.” Her sister hit me with a pinecone
and the battle was on, three of us racing around the yard,
which our parents called the garden, hurling missiles, diving on the grass.
Steve Klepetar lives in the Berkshires in Massachusetts. His work has appeared widely and has received several nominations for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. He is the author of 14 poetry collections including Family Reunion, published by Big Table.
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Dusty and Miss Lamour
Rob Dinsmoor
Miss Lamour was not only beautiful but exotic, with flaming red hair, dark eyelashes, short skirt, white boots, and piercing eyes. She looked like she belonged on TV, maybe as one of the Golddiggers on the Dean Martin Show. When she showed up to teach music, the fourth grade class at Elm Heights Elementary School in Bloomington, Indiana had never seen anything quite like her.
The boys all perked up, especially a backwoods smart-ass named Dusty. As she strummed her guitar and tried to lead us in a song, Dusty made comments like “Did anyone ever tell you you’ve got great legs?” and ”Is red your natural color?” She tried to ignore him but it was clearly difficult.
When we finished the songs, she asked, “What shall we do next?”
“Let’s take our clothes off!” Dusty shouted, raising an eyebrow. A few kids chuckled. I didn’t laugh because I didn’t want Miss Lamour to think that I was as childish as Rusty.
I figured she’d threaten to report Dusty to the principal but instead she narrowed her eyes and said, “Kid, you wouldn’t know what to do once you had them off!”
The classroom erupted into laughter and Dusty shut up for the rest of the class.
After class, all the boys swarmed him. “What was that all about, Dusty?”
“She’s a stripper up in Indianapolis. My brother told me all about her.”
Years later, I was flipping channels when I saw the red hair, the familiar face, and the short skirt on the Indianapolis TV station. It was “Chatting About the Arts with Jane Lamour.”
I felt like applauding, and I had to agree with Dusty about one thing—she did have great legs.
Rob Dinsmoor has written dozens of scripts for Nickelodeon and MTV and published stories in many literary magazines, two of which were nominated for Pushcart Prizes. His latest short story collection, Toxic Cookout, was published by Big Table Publishing in 2019. He hails from Bloomington, Indiana and now lives on the North Shore of Massachusetts with his dog Jack, a fellow Hoosier.
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