Tag Archives: reminders

MIRIAM N KOTZIN: Seashore Relics

Artistic, Submissions, , , , ,

Hole in the left upper, insoles shot, cushioning gone. When I wear them, I find sand between my toes—I haven’t been to Wildwood for fifteen years.

Holding hands, we’d strolled the boardwalk, ferris-wheeled, carrouselled, roller-coastered, oceaned, and beached.

I dangle the sneakers by their laces. They’ve seen better days.

Miriam N. Kotzin writes fiction and poetry. She is the author of five collections of poetry, two collections of short fiction, and two novels—most recently the novel Right This Way (Spuyten Duyvil). Her 50-word stories have been published in 50-Word Stories, 50 Give or Take, and Blink Ink. She teaches literature and creative writing at Drexel University

ANN MARIE POTTER: Marjorie’s Umbrella

Adventure, Artistic, Submissions, , , , ,

I destroyed Marjorie’s umbrella a dozen times: a trip to the library dumpster, to my brother’s Pennsylvania farm and his burn barrel. Every time, it reappeared in the break-room where Marjorie had left it that day she got caught in the sudden rainstorm, the day before she died of pneumonia.

Ann Marie Potter is in her last year of a PhD program at Oklahoma State University while enjoying her first year in the beautiful state of Wyoming. Her work has been published in The Storyteller, The Meadow, Peauxdunque Review, and Literally Stories.

ELODY DAWN: Chamomile

Submissions, Touching, , , , ,

Carefully retrieved, the smooth ceramic warms my palms.

The bag promised none of the memories that soon blossom in my mind.

Just as well, for if the tea makers knew their power over me I might be broke on chamomile alone. Nonetheless, I thank them for echoes of the past.

Elody Dawn is a joyful mother of three. She studied anthropology before turning to writing full-time. In partnership with her husband, she writes on relationships and how to form deeper connections with the ones that you love.

ANDY HEDGECOCK: Votive

Artistic, Submissions, , , ,

Refugees from closing time without change for the meter. Emergency candle lit with a zippo. Wine. Chatter. Laughter.

The flame dies. Silence. Quivering kisses.

Four decades later, my hand trembles in a church’s vaulted gloom as a zippo’s flame kisses the wick of a tealight. And I remember another candle.

Andy Hedgecock lives and works in rural Nottinghamshire, UK, close to an Iron Age earthwork, the remains of a Roman fort, a decommissioned coalmine, and a disused railway line. It’s a place of scars, erasures, and stories.

ERICA PLOUFFE LAZURE: The Haircut

Artistic, Submissions, ,

An ex-girlfriend cut his hair free one night over too much grocery store prosecco, too long ago. And now his hair grows long and he thinks of her, of her scissors, whenever the wind blows through his hair. And he wants to forget her, but the wind continues to blow.

Erica Plouffe Lazure is the author of two flash fiction chapbooks, Sugar Mountain (2020) and Heard Around Town (2015), and a fiction chapbook, Dry Dock (2014). Her collection of short fiction, Proof of Me + Other Stories, is forthcoming by New American Press in 2021. Her fiction is published in McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, Carve, Greensboro Review, Meridian, American Short Fiction, The MacGuffin, The Southeast Review, Phoebe, Fiction Southeast, Flash: the International Short-Short Story Magazine (UK), Hippocampus Magazine, The Iron Horse Literary Review, and elsewhere. She lives and teaches in Exeter, NH and can be found online at ericaplouffelazure.com.

MONICA PEREZ NEVAREZ: Facebook Friends

Artistic, Submissions, , , ,

The picture on my timeline shows a victorious twenty-something in a designer wedding dress, studiously ignoring the besotted groom beside her.

I thought I had healed the wound carved by boyfriend-snatching ex-friends and wayward lovers months ago.

But Facebook is filled with daggers and I have no armor against them.

Monica Perez Nevarez is a sustainability professional by day and a writer by night.