Jamie Etheridge We are (not) fish tales She can’t breathe and I can’t breathe because we are underwater. Only she has no gills and I have no fins and we are not fish. This is not a fairytale. Not…
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Cheryl J. Fish Abecedarian: Spit Three Times After a compliment, after a friend or stranger remarked how Beautiful, your grandchildren, my grandmother spit three times. Concentrating on our foreheads, saying “poo, poo, poo.” Delivering protection against that dreadful Evil…
Megan Gannon Dispatch from Another Familiar Fairy Tale We did not abandon them there, though it was my idea: the two of them alone together in the wilderness of a Midwest shopping mall at Christmas, not holding hands but…
Heidi Fiedler Selkie Past the wolves, and goblins too, The seals fatten in the sun, Transforming from solid to liquid As they dive through swirls of seaweed. There our selkie swims free. Ebb. Flow. Crash. Want. Need. Love. When…
Hannah Grieco This is a story about a girl who fixes and lifts and carries and if she stops, who will know she’s somebody, and if she stops maybe she’ll be nobody, a nothing, a space where a person…
Hess Love Crab Cakes Supposedly Hester was out of her mind, however, she was also brilliant. Hester made and sold so many crab cakes that she was able to buy her freedom. Hester was my great, great, great…
Jonie McIntire Snow White in Hardin County Snow White started no revolutions, never protested her place among the dwarves, simply swept and cleaned and shaved herself pretty. She was nothing like my mother. In dungarees streaked with paint…
Chloe Yelena Miller Baking with my child The joke is I never follow the instructions. Me, the mom! I don’t bring the eggs or butter to room temperature or separate the dry and wet ingredients. He’s learning to bake…
Susanna Rich Knock on Wood, Grandmother Mumchy taught me, if anyone says anything good. And not just any wood. Can’t be a door, its jambs, or a windowsill. Knocking on doors or windows (as others might to be let…
Lynne Schmidt Bodies Like Gods It would be easier to imagine that there was no blood. That she did not scream in agony as she waited for you to leave. It is easier to pretend that that lighting…