A corner nook with gravelly soil held six sister slips of chokecherry.
They grew sturdy in time, thick waisted in summer sun, through autumn’s vagaries, winter light and rejuvenating spring.
A thicket burgeoned, berried branches interlaced. For fledged sparrows, rosy finches and chickadees, a darkened refuge from the family cat.
Deborah lives and writes in Northwestern Montana. Her stories can be read in The Ekphrastic Review, Thin Air Magazine Online and 50-Word Stories.
Sister apple trees, one fuller than the other, transform to white confections every May.
Tirelessly, bees buzz from bloom to bloom. A long rain nourishes roots and hidden tendrils.
Infant fruit withstands wind, insect borers, and waterless days.
Freckled young apples grow, blush pale red, ripen, ready to be eaten.
Deborah lives and writes in northwestern Montana. Her stories can be read in The Ekphrastic Review, Thin Air Magazine (Online) and The Potato Soup Journal among others.
Papa truly surprised me, said it all in his native Sicilian. Never once flinched or flushed.
“Egg waits, many sperm swim madly, battle for a single triumph. Ignition. Growth. Our beautiful Stella arrives.”
My papa, a poet. You would think such intimate conversation would have been with ma. Not so.
Deborah lives and writes in northwestern Montana. She is busy creating very short pieces in between assembling scenes for a forthcoming short story.
Salvation for the bee: early pastel crocus, fringed yellow aconite, sweet drooping snowdrops. Word will out in late winter weather. Parched and hungry bees emerge from months of chilly sleep and embrace the blooms. Nourished, hydrated, they dance their way day to day to the fine quickening greenery of spring.
Deborah writes fiction, flash, and creative non-fiction in northwestern Montana. Her work has been published in Thin Air Magazine, Ekphrastic Review and Common Ground among others. Her story, “Hardened Road,” was long listed in CRAFT’s 2019 Short Fiction Contest. Her flash, “Family Legend,” was anthologized in Ekphrastic Review’s Lucky Seven Writing Marathon, 2022, judged by Meg Pokrass.