They had been at it for two days. Stony silences and rock-hard words. All over the number of throws and the placement of cushions; silly. A thirty-year journey from their childlike pillow fights as newlyweds. They shouldn’t have enjoyed it so much, laughing inside, adamant in their commitment. Eternally wedlocked.
Robert Ludemann is hppily retired and trying to say as little as possible.
A comet graced the violet sky of their fourth year. They swigged bottle cap equivalents of cheap wine in the produce section, then laughed their way around the sundry aisles. In the parking lot, she proposed. He wondered why she didn’t grab a knee and if he’d get a ring.
Karen Lozinski hails from NYC and lives in New Orleans. She’s a multidisciplinary artist who earned her MFA at the California Institute of the Arts. At work on a novel and poetry collection, her writing appears in Talon Review, Scapegoat Review, Red Ogre Review, The Dead Mule, Chapter House Journal, ellipsis… literature and art, The Citron Review, 300 Days of Sun, Mantis, and here and is forthcoming in Defunkt.
What William heard first from grandmother was that in every woman’s heart there exists “the one that got away.”
What he heard next from grandfather was that in every man’s head there exists “the one they should have run from sooner.”
What William later heard was a big grandparent fight.
Kent Oswald teaches at CUNY and tweets at @oswalke.
How I remember the day we met: my beagle strayed into his yard; Christmas lights; strains of music!
We became friends. Then lovers. He promised more.
Years later, his eyes welled as he took wedding vows. I stood behind his bride; relieved at not being deceived by promises twice over.
Mandira Pattnaik writes in India. Her work has appeared in Eclectica Magazine, Lunate, Runcible Spoon, FewerThan500, 50wordstories and elsewhere. She tweets at @MandiraPattnaik.
Stacy and Jake were in a loving relationship. They were committed and decided to marry.
They were also aware of today’s realities. Thus, Jake was not surprised when Stacy suggested they change one word in the traditional wedding vows:
“Do you take Jake… so long as you both shall love?”
Bill Diamond lives in the Rocky Mountains and writes to try and figure it all out.
You astonish me one day
by quoting poems I never knew
you’d read.
After all these years
of knowing you, I still don’t
fully know you. Who can
ever really know the inner of an
other? But
I know what it’s like
to be with
you.
And I like it.
Jennifer L. Freed likes her daily dose of 50WS, likes the challenge of trying to write with such brevity (she can lean toward wordiness at times!), and likes poetry more than she ever thought she would when she was young. She has other poems and a chapbook available at her website, jfreed.weebly.com.