Found Mr Daffodil in the bed after his shower, all fresh-skinned and dewy. Hard to ignore. But he doesn’t fool me. I know he won’t hang around— he’ll be gone before summer. So, I’m keeping my eye out for Mr Zinnia. Sturdy. Reliable. He’ll keep his colour well into fall.
Louella Lester is a writer/photographer in Winnipeg, Canada, author of Glass Bricks, contributing editor at NFFR, and is included in Best Microfiction 2024. See more at louellalesterblog.wordpress.com.
Spring: Dare to say hi.
Summer: Tease them about wearing a scarf; actually, you love it, you adore everything about them, they make you fizz with joy and the world shades beautiful and you lose yourself in their emerald eyes and electric touch and heady scent…
Winter: Return the scarf.
Jennifer Busch usually submits things seven seconds before the deadline.
Dark hues color the ever-expansive sky
The cloud-folk veil every last ray of sunlight
Foggy droplets slowly seep into my soul
My veins crack wildly with each thunderous echo
As I drift away into an eternal mist,
I float above the clouds, ascending sunward until I find my way home.
Sam is a high school student from northern Florida. His love for the English language began while studying for the spelling bee, where he competed at the National level.
Bitterest winter.
Creator sends warmest hug.
Son embraces soul.
Yellow crocus bud
Peeks through blanket of white snow.
My heart rejoices.
God’s grace comforts man
Who, contrite, offers poem,
Homage to nature.
Eternal haiku —
Seasons change, calendar flips.
Written word remains.
Short unrhymed verses
Capture essence, glorify
God’s smallest wonders.
Marieke Steiner is a Virginia (US) writer of mainly short stories. She lives in Hampton Roads and works as a technical writer. More of her fiction can be read at marieke-steiners-website.yolasite.com
A single breath of crisp fall air. A single golden leaf, fluttering, beckoning. A single magpie stoically ignoring. A single squirrel chattering, proclaiming from its favorite branch. A still brown hare peering from its borough. A single step, and then another, away from summer, stepping into the earth’s annual glory.
Eileen finds autumn days uplifting, comforting, and full of joy and hope.
When you tell me you no longer love me, the late autumn sky is rose petal-red, and by winter solstice, you’re gone.
I retreat, wake only to eat. Hide away. Hibernate.
Spring trumpets its arrival, the days long and light like daffodils. I awake, I emerge, ready to live again.
Laura Besley is the author of (Un)Natural Elements, 100neHundred, and The Almost Mothers. She has been widely published in online journals, print journals and anthologies. Having lived in the Netherlands, Germany and Hong Kong, she now lives in land-locked central England and misses the sea. She tweets at @laurabesley
I’d barely put away the Christmas tree lights when the lilacs bloomed.
Before I could smell them, the trees turned gold.
Before I could rake leaves, the pond froze over.
The seasons used to linger, each in its unique glory. Now they fly by as if auditioning one last time.
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. Her stories often reflect the privilege and vicissitudes of aging.
Those TV liars promised peonies, polliwogs, picnics. I’ve been duped! I scream from my rooftop. Only old Agnes, a lip reader across the street, hears. She marches over, shakes the base of my ladder, mouths Come down! I sit, pat the shingles around me. It’s warmer here, near the sun.
Mikki Aronoff’s work appears in New World Writing, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Tiny Molecules, Bending Genres, Milk Candy Review, Gone Lawn, Mslexia, The Dribble Drabble Review, 100 word story, The Citron Review, Atlas and Alice, trampset, jmww, and elsewhere. She’s received Pushcart, Best of the Net, Best Small Fictions, Best American Short Stories, and Best Microfiction nominations.
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.
cold wind blowing
colder than tasting frozen-crunchy
tart strawberries
icy snow blasting
against delicate yellow star-shaped flowers
blooming too soon on a hill
a few warm days
winter has abated
reappearing today with frigid temperatures
deep drifts and icicle cascades
bushes of tiny golden forsythia
blooming too early in snow
Hazel Ann Lee is a Black American author of published works on science fiction and fantasy, education and science. Her book of original science poems and science fiction short stories is titled The Astronaut’s Window: Collection of Poems and Short Stories Celebrating Nature. Her poetry has appeared in 50-Word Stories, Star*Line, Utopia, and Frost Zone Zine. Her short story was also published in Frost Zone Zine.