THREE POEMS FROM REBECCA FOUST AN AUTIST’S MOTHER REFLECTS afraid to die before you but in this wild dark New Hampshire meadow fireflies glow like downed pulsars all incandescence like your face & no trace of errant gene or…
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THREE CREATIVE NONFICTION PIECES FROM LINDA MICHEL-CASSIDY TWENTY-TWO She thinks she needs to have her life figured out. At her age, I was in a rigorous graduate program, terrified of each day, unable to free myself from a…
THREE POEMS FROM ANGELA NARCISO TORRES LILLI’S URN Jolted awake by a flash— a text from my college freshman awake in his dorm at 2 a.m. I rub sleep from my eyes, find an audio clip he’s written for…
Dorothy Rice HOME MOVIES Grace arrived home and lingered in the darkened hallway, unnoticed. Her nineteen-year-old daughter, Lucy, home from college for the weekend, sat cross-legged on the floor, too close to the TV, hands in her lap,…
TWO POEMS FROM DAYE PHILLIPPO SOON, SPRING Snow is falling softly past the windows, no wind to drive it, so the flakes take their time, turning, some rising a bit again like the clouds of gnats one sees…
THREE CREATIVE NONFICTION PIECES FROM MARIA BENET IMPRINT At the end of Spielberg’s film, “A.I.,” David, the prototype robot child built with the sole purpose to love unconditionally, survives for millennia in a world ravaged by uncountable and…
Jacqueline Doyle CHEATED When Dina arrives at the Social Security office at 9:15 am, clutching the envelope stamped URGENT, there’s already a long line at the door and no seats left inside. The waiting area looks more like…
TWO POEMS FROM STEPHANIE NOBLE UMBILICUS Umbilicus, long since buttoned, now invisible, a tightrope I walk, no safety net one misstep a fall from grace. COURTSIDE Perched on bleachers we watch our grandson, Number 22, and…
Devon Balwit MENTATION On the bus, I talk to myself, reviewing the day’s tragedies. For each humiliation, I shake my head like a dog clearing mites or like a person battling Parkinson’s. The oddness intensifies as I throw up…
Karen Rile RUNNING ALONG THE SCHUYLKILL My daughter skates faster than I will ever run. I struggle to keep her in my line of sight as she strokes past the boathouses. Men my own age follow her with their…