Byron’s Band
In eighth grade, I joined the miniature orchestra at my private Christian school: Jake played violin, John the baritone horn, James, Eric, and Wendy were our clarinet section, while Byron, Warren, and I played alto saxophones. Our band teacher, Mr. Gravestone, waved a thin white baton and wore a thick brown moustache. Smirking at us, Gravestone stroked his moustache like ... Read More
Pilgrimages
You can find a lot of reasons to keep living in a crackly French language cult-film, you know which one. Thereâs a man and a woman walking to the Main Street Pharmacy, in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, a short distance from their home near the university. It is said that Isabel, Karlâs wife, has a law degree or is a rocket scientist ... Read More
Mermaids Wanted
The rage in the manâs voice: This is the kind of bullshit vacation Iâdâve gone on if Iâd stayed in Saluda and had kids with Erin. He stood next to his sports car yelling at a girl leaning against the car with her head down. A gold rope chain at his neck shone dully in the sun. The girl murmured, ... Read More
Postcard from Colorado
When we observe calmly, BashĆ said, we discover all things have their fulfillment. Overturned canoes along Lake Dillonâs western shore rendered into general shapes, valley fields made tabula-rasa white. He sat alone in the cabin watching cloud shadows range mountains. Solitude and morning laziness, pine branches sagging beneath late-season snow ... Read More
Favonius
You wonder what else can happen, now that snowdrops spangle the high pastures in the Merla days and you can wade the Great River in mid-Lent. Now that the winter spirits have vanished, fled without notice, to end up annulled in the absolute freeze of outer space. What will the May hay bring along? As you wonder this, and more, ... Read More
All That’s Fit for Letting Go
I donât take up too many pandemic hobbies but one of my distractions from the many kinds of grieving is reading physics books. I fail to understand them for the most part, the content too dense, the words mostly impenetrable. But I like how small it makes me feel. I donât mind how unsurmountable the sentences are. It reminds me ... Read More
The Zipper
You switch on cable news at lunch, a peanut butter and honey sandwich. Youâre watching as much to see what the Anchor is wearingâ today, a structured designer A-line white dress. A zipper down the front, a sense of professionalism hinted with sex (the zipper) and then the newsâan ex-President, a future President, a war, more candidates, the election is ... Read More
The Witnesses
David Mellin was his real name, but we all called him Melon Head. Junior had hung that cartoonish moniker upon him on the very first day of camp for good reason, in our view. With a massive ovular head resting uneasily atop a chubby little torso, Melon Head looked like a cartoon character. He had pale, almost translucent skin, with ... Read More
Aeaea
[eye-ee-ah] n. a mythological island said to be the home of the goddess-sorceress circe i had no mama to show me round the kitchen for she took her last breath as i took my first. my skin honeyed and caramelized kept me in the big house, away from my own, hidden from kin but not the ruthless one always hovering ... Read More
The Doctorâs Appointment
Hi there, DeVarius. D, okay then. Itâs nice to meet you, uhm, D. We have? Well! I donât⊠Letâs see here. Oh, back in October. Sinus infection. Thatâs right. I thought I remembered you. Well, Iâm glad I could fit you in today. Thatâs whatâs nice about being on campus, huh? So. Tell me what the trouble is. I see ... Read More
Emily as I Offered My Tongue as Bookmark
She is ungentle most of the time, but weâre twenty years of her never shelving me. Iâm out, ribboning both sides of her curve. I like to be active & wait for her to thwap me into position ... Read More
Mr. MagnetismÂ
lives in the forest gaps where power lines run taller than trees. He soars down these green expanses until he reaches a power station and gets juiced up again, so he can squeeze out sparks, a party trick crowd pleaser. His earliest beginnings were kidâs birthday parties until he melted a cake with the snap of a finger. Mr. Magnetism ... Read More
An Anniversary
Before I pull off the four-lane highway, I make sure the shoulder is wide. Amish families live in the area. They drive their buggies along this road, and yet, despite the paved shoulder, I pick a spot where an open field seems level enough to take my right-side tires as insurance. When I open the door, there is plenty of ... Read More
Manon, Christophe, and the Sea
Whenever Manon awoke from dreams in which she still played for lâOrchĂšstre Symphonique de MontrĂ©al, the feel of the cello lingered between her knees, and the whitecaps of her lifeâthe echoing arcs of before, during, and after the accidentâcame crashing in her thoughts once more. The instrument remained with her throughout the day like a phantom limb. It was still ... Read More
I mention the deerÂ
I preferred my friendâs father. Mine sat silent in cigar smoke, suave in a cheap suit. Hers, a suburban cowboy, weather-worn in plaid flannel, loud with love. âAw, girl,â heâd say when I visited, patting my cheek, âyouâre so darn cute.â On warm evenings, heâd walk with my friend, head bent to listen, one hand holding their muttâs leash, the ... Read More
THE ODDSÂ
for Arnold Gold, 1922-98 I am certain that if I heckled you long enough, chuckling sarcastically, supplying a few particulars, you would eventually recall those final games of one-on-one, the two of us alone in that schoolyard in Rego Park. You brought your A game that day, the lickety-split moves in the paint, the soft touch, playing better than Iâd ... Read More
â4/2Â Â 9:10 pm 44Âș Clear
The lone patrol car rolls. A commercial trash truck idles. Empty trains rattle below. A stranger quick draws a bird on brick. Suspended without suspense, time is elusive in limbo. Unseen bottles clink, clatter into some recycle bin. A woman scrapes her garbage can to the curb. No thrum from the great city. I might be lost in the forest, slogging through an all white ... Read More
Two Poems by Caleigh Shaw
Appropriate Dress Length
If I was a church-going child in 2021, Iâd be able to find a midi-length skirt or dress, past my knees no problem. I could have saved so much time in the Belk dressing room. When I flipped through the Deliaâs catalogue, I needed a thirty-three inch dress, but all the cute ones were thirty-two. No need ... Read More
Covenant
The horses thought they were waiting for you to bring them in from the pasture, in from damp night air, where sweet alfalfa, oats, hay, would be, where they always areâthe horses names etched in wooden plaques over their stalls: Comet, Midnight, Scarlet, black iron latches securing them in, safelyâ but they were waiting for you to make them whole ... Read More
Fan Fiction: Paradise Lost
The Argument
Sin and Death are guarding the gates of hell when Satan arrives. Sin remembers how she got there, and Satan orders her to open the gates.â Paradise Lost, Book II
âMy babies, oh it hurts!â I cry, as the little hell hounds burst out yet again. They swarm past my face and fly up among the smoky ... Read More
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