Tag Archives: loss

TORCHÉ JOHNSON: For Old Times’ Sake

Submissions, Touching, , ,

Crunching gravel and canned cherry freshener.

You, me, and the endless road, twisted like black licorice.

Remember?

Your favorite toy—the squeaking pig—steals your passenger seat spot with equal measures of innocence and callousness. I give her a good squeeze and crack open the window for old times’ sake.

Author’s note: In memory of Haus, the coolest Jack Russell

Torché is passionate about God, anime, and writing. She combines these three elements in her manga (that she co-writes with her sister), TheRemnant: This Is Not Flesh & Blood.

JESS DUBOIS: The errant muse returns but briefly

Artistic, Submissions, , ,

A creative thought flashed through my brain. I dashed up the stairs two at a time, pushed open the office door.

Furniture, hidden beneath mountains of miscellaneous debris and detritus.

I gaped.

A recollection weeviled into my mind.

Gone.

The fog enveloped me again, and I turned and stumbled downstairs.

Jess Dubois, a retiree living near the coast in Kent, has just started writing flash fiction. When not writing she enjoys juggling all the writing, painting, and baking in her life.

JEFF MOSS: Third Pandemic Mourning Dove

Poetry, Submissions, Touching, , , ,

Another mourning dove
didn’t heed
the door opening,
the scrambling,
panting,
scraping,
of Sofi,
75 pounds of bounding
collie/retriever/chow.

Other creatures-
cardinals, jays, squirrels-
fled the feeder.
This dove continued pecking
at scattered
seed.

Sofi pounced,
the bird
a tossed
tennis ball.

She delivered it,
lady-like
at my
feet.

Again?

Jeffrey G. Moss is a Brooklyn born and bred author. He is branching out more and every day.

JOHN HANSEN: Here and Gone

Artistic, Submissions, , ,

The night smells of dirt and scratches on my lungs.
In pin-pricked blackness I search the heavens.
Out of the northeast a meteor streaks;
tangential, it’s snapped up and devoured whole.

This August night,
seen by me and you,
no longer with child,
its insides desolate, yearning for a meteorite.

John Hansen received a BA in English from the University of Iowa and an MA in English Literature from Oklahoma State University. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Summerset Review, Verse-Virtual, Trouvaille Review, One Sentence Poems, Schuylkill Valley Journal, Eunoia Review, Amethyst Review, Sparks of Calliope, and elsewhere. He is English Faculty at Mohave Community College in Arizona. Read more at johnphansen.com.

KIP KNOTT: Home Repairs

Artistic, Submissions, , ,

The non-stop drip drip drip from the faucet is my own private water torture. Each drop that falls into the pile of dirty dishes cluttering the sink pops, the way your kiss used to pop on my cheek every night in bed just before you would snap off the light.

Kip Knott’s debut full-length book of poetry, Tragedy, Ecstasy, Doom, and so on, is available from Kelsay Books. His second full-length book of poetry, Clean Coal Burn, is forthcoming later in 2021, also from Kelsay Books. More of his work may be accessed at kipknott.com.

GEORGE GUTHRIDGE: Bearing the Bering Sea

Artistic, Submissions, , , , ,

Sleet beats against my parka. No more whaling: banned by those whose ancestors slaughtered bowheads to light the lamps of Boston.

Above, Rapallo-chuted, thermal-suited, oxygen-tanked daredevils crisscross the aurora, surfing the dancing green-gold: Tourists riding boards among colors of my soul.

I stab my harpoon into shelf-ice and walk away.

In 1997, George Guthridge and friend, the late Janet Berliner of South Africa, won the Bram Stoker Award for the Year’s Best Horror Novel. His short fiction has three times been a finalist for the Nebula and Hugo Awards for science fiction and fantasy, and he has won multiple awards for screenwriting. He is Professor Emeritus of the University of Alaska Fairbanks, where for 25 years he trained teachers in teaching writing to Alaska Natives. He lived for several years in a Siberian-Yupik village on a blizzard-swept island off the coast of Siberia.

LUCY McMAHON: Growing Pains

Submissions, Touching, , , ,

After the funeral, we started emptying her house.

“Do you remember her blackberry rhubarb crumble?”

“No.” I don’t.

“I remember. It was delicious.”

“I’m allergic to rhubarb. Gives me a rash.”

My sister looks away. “I’m sorry.” She’s not apologizing for being forgetful.

It’s easy to clear a stranger’s home.

Lucy McMahon is a student at the University of Bristol. She enjoys writing, painting, and baking.

RACHEL CANWELL: Never Knowing

Submissions, Touching, , ,

Wrapped in an unbreakable silence, she stares down at the silent, perfect child in her arms. Her face is drawn, wet with endless tears.

Fingers tracing his eyelids, translucent, indefatigably closed, pause, as with a sudden, unbearable clarity she realises the colour of his eyes will be for ever unknown.

Rachel Canwell is a teacher and book blogger, writing in secret for years but starting to put her head about the parapet!

JESS COSTELLO: Sharps

Artistic, Submissions, , , , ,

It took three large men to move the piano. I never played; those ivory rectangles were the last thing you touched.

When the legs finally cleared the doorway, while the lid clanged onto that moving truck, a square of light poured from the window, pale snowflakes trilling above like possibility.

Jess Costello is a graduate student and writer based in Massachusetts. Her writing has appeared at Boston Hassle, Boston Accent, and The Blue Mountain Review. She is currently at work on another novel and drinking too much tea.

SUSMITA RAMANI: The Leap

Adventure, Artistic, Submissions, , , ,

He said, “Don’t jump!”

She pulled him, too. Into life.

By her side, he trekked high mountains, hot air ballooned into clouds, rode horses, surfed dangerously large waves, and saw salmon-gold sunrises and sunsets from every continent.

When she died, he lived on. (Twice as hard, for both their sakes.)

Susmita Ramani lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband and two children. She’s a lifelong writer, and passionate about mindfulness and the environment. She’s published essays for various blogs, and is working on a collection of short stories. Follow Susmita on Twitter at susmitabythebay.