Lunch at the Blacksmith
by Cornelia Nixon
I think at last I will give up the Blacksmith House. I’ve liked the place since college, when my best friend Celia and I would meet for coffee in those frugal, scrubbed-pine rooms.
Q
by Lee Martin
The president, Donald Trump, had been chosen by God, according to those who believed in Q, to arrest thousands of members of the cabal on a day of reckoning known as The Storm.
1969
by Kathryn Kulpa
You gave up chocolate for Lent but it didn’t take. You aren’t good at saying no. Hungry girls want everything.
The Escape Artist
by Partridge Boswell
In the museum of trauma, you stand back at least ten feet from each painting. Out of respect for other patrons mainly and the tacit rules of viewing.
So Slow That It Sounds True
by Vanessa Tamm
You remember running barefoot on a long road that spiraled down a mountain, and the road was wet, and bits of gravel cut into your soles.
Things Are Different Now
by Karen McIntyre
Every morning, I make a neat grid with 10 perfectly square boxes, each square worth 100 calories, and that’s what I get for the day.
Brooklyn Bridge
by Grace Shuyi Liew
As soon as I’m released to the store floor, I turn against the company. I scan every third item the customers bring to the register. Buy one item, get two free.
First-Person Eye-Witness Reports: The Factual Sightings of Nessie
by Meg Pokrass
Probably the weirdest and most wonderful report of all was that made by the elderly Ms. Margarita Polkraski on June 8th, 1993.
Height Determined by Distance
by Tommy Dean
We’re in the car again. Dad drunk and playing with the radio from the passenger’s side, his knuckles bruised and swelling. He takes his anger out on the walls.
In the Museums of Heaven and Hell
by Goldie Goldbloom
On either side of the halls of Heaven and Hell are the great glass-fronted cases displaying the glories of this world.
It all began around a campfire…
Beautiful language
is meant to be heard as well as read, and in fact words were vocalized eons before they were ever committed to clay or parchment. Storytelling began around campfires. We seek prose and poetry that continue the tradition.
Contributor Spotlight:
Love and Hot Chicken
by Mary Liza Hartong
Open Contests
by Stephen Parrish, with the editors of The Lascaux Review