The Dreamer Returns Home

by Robert S. King
This was not my house the day / it grew smaller over my shoulder. / The family my blind rage left would not / know me now, nor would I know more / than who they were.

Redemption

by Michael O’Keefe
I want you to know two little known facts about me. One: I don’t like name-dropping. Hate it. Loathe it. Abhor it. Really. And I don’t like name-droppers either.

Visitation Rights

by Dino Parenti
He’d pick me up from Mama’s early Saturday while she slept, always waiting in his truck down the street and staring down the sun while gnashing on a spicebush twig.

Accidents

by Midge Raymond
We’re having the same argument before my sister and her kids come over for a barbecue. I’m running out of reasons he hasn’t heard before, so I tell him, “This morning I saw a woman at Stop & Shop with a bullet on her key chain.”

Piano

by Joyce Sutphen
Somehow, it keeps itself in tune. / Each key remembers its name / and loves its neighbors— / black and white.