In the grocery store today
I skim several greetings
Rejecting one inane rhyme after another
He hovers
Mute to my “Excuse me”
Oblivious to personal space
Never removing a card from the rack
Or his eyes from me
As I leave with my choice
I hear a breathy “Happy Anniversary”
Carol Tymann lives in upstate New York where her instinct is to believe most people are innocently interested and kind, but sometimes she wonders about their motives. Is she too trusting?
The brown bess watches him undress
at night, bones and naked, shivering
like men shiver.
Today, it is too cold to go to war,
he says, It is human to suffer;
and soldiers watch him as he sinks back
into his tent where he sobs silently,
like an old widow.
Jack Galati is an MFA candidate at Northern Arizona University. His fiction and poetry has appeared in a number of journals and magazines including Mignolo Arts, The Closed Eye Open, and Lone Mountain Lit.
In the year 9757 the great one died for the thousandth time so a celebration of the lives and loves of his/her/their incarnations was organized by familiar souls. Timeless glimpses of mistakes and failures were snap-flashed on the face of Earth’s moon, demonstrating countless imperfections working out happily ever after.
Bob Thurber is the author of six books. Regarded as a master of Flash and Micro Fiction, his work has appeared in Esquire and other magazines, been anthologized 60 times, received a long list of awards, and been utilized in schools and colleges throughout the world. He resides in Massachusetts. Visit his website at BobThurber.net.
Breathtaking how photographs can yank you back into long-forgotten moments: birthdays, graduation, Niagara Falls with my hyper-competitive sister.
Blurred years whistle by. I can’t even remember what I had for breakfast. What I did before sneaking through Sis’s album.
This photo of my terrified face… falling a hundred water-soaked feet.
Michelle Wilson’s words have appeared in A Thin Slice of Anxiety, Rejection Letters, Potato Soup Journal’s Best of 2021 Anthology, Maudlin House, Litro Magazine, The Drabble, 50-Word Stories, Flash Fiction Magazine, and Mr. Beller’s Neighborhood, among others. Her story ‘Fish Brain’ was nominated for Best of the Net 2022. She lives with her partner in Miami Beach, Florida.
I asked Mama why he spent every holiday with us. He’d bring flowers and caramels, tell jokes, and do magic tricks. He didn’t mind Grandma’s poetry readings, my father’s pipe smoke, my annoying little brothers, or the burnt roasts. “Look around,” she said. “We were the only family he had.”
Liz recently discovered listening to mooing cows is very relaxing. Find her at lizmayers.com.
on tuesday, intense with possibilities,
yet at lack for comfortable weather,
emily in a long white dress
writes a poem on pain. notice how
my glance over her shoulder
causes her thoughts to pause. is it
pain that suppresses her adjectives
and verbs from their tumble
to paper of white?
The story of the week for October 2 to 6 is…
40 Acres Done Today by Dan Johnson
Andrew swept the stone patio hidden under the green columns of cypresses whispering in the wind. Violet and yellow inflorescences danced in the clear air following his broom, and Andrew left the purple flesh of the fallen plums for chirping birds, who would soon accompany him on the last journey.
Nelly Shulman is a writer based in Jerusalem.
It’s fall, and nature is strutting her stuff. “Look at me,” says the tree; “Carve me,” says the pumpkin; “Press me,” says the apple. I close my eyes, remembering the smell of burning leaves, the chill air filled with excitement—as though tomorrow I’ll be shopping for brand-new school shoes.
A prolific writer, Carol Reeves is loving the freedom and challenges of 50 word stories. Her memoir, “All the Little Miracles,” was published last year. She often writes of the privilege and vicissitudes of aging.
“You’re so ornery, Zara,” said Emily, adjusting the chihuahua’s translator.
“It’s in my blood,” Zara retorted.
“Your ancestors were little brats, too?”
“Brats? They ruled the Ice Age! Battled saber-toothed cats! Hunted for—”
“Their own food?”
Zara sheepishly eyed the treat jar. “Some traditions are best left in the past.”
David Dezell Turner is an astrodynamics PhD student at the University of Colorado Boulder. When he isn’t giving directions to real spaceships, he’s writing about fictional ones. Check out more of his work at daviddezellturner.com.