Dream About You

by Mish (Eileen) Murphy


Last night I dreamed about you:
You were a pirate.
Not one of the dirty ones,
but a high-class pirate with the whitest teeth.

Sexy, but dangerous.
Yum.

We were on the deck
of a sailing ship,
no land in sight.

You’d tied me to one of the masts
with ropes.
I was hoping
you were going to ravish me.

You wore three gold earrings,
and I wondered in the dream:
Where’s the tattoo with my name on it?
I thought you had one, but…

The scenario shifted
to a cocktail party
in the suburbs
on a backyard deck.

I wore a long white linen dress.
Well, it was more of a nightgown,
a gauzy one
that made me look
half-naked.

Despite that,
you left me tied up
and wandered off,
holding a goblet of red wine,
looking for your partner.

Then I was
in my college dorm room
in a swivel chair,
sitting on
my boyfriend’s lap.

Whee—I squealed.
Let’s spin the chair.
Spin, spin, spin.

Suddenly, an alarm began to wail.

Fire, I heard somebody yell.
Put it out, said somebody else.


* * * * *

Mish (Eileen) Murphy is Assistant Poetry Editor for Cultural Daily (www.CulturalDaily.com). She teaches English/literature online at Polk State College, Lakeland, Florida. A Pushcart nominee, she has published two poetry collections—Fortune Written on Wet Grass (2019) and Sex & Ketchup (2021)—and a poetry chapbook, Evil Me (2020). Mish graduated with a B.A. from New College, Sarasota, in French /Russian, and Columbia College of Chicago, in Fiction Writing/Teaching of Writing. She is also an award-winning digital artist, photographer, and book designer.

Antitheses

by Ruth Chad


I see the tide   
drawn in by Selene’s moon

her celestial lantern
luring

waves wilding
whelk body     

reaching  
with muscular foot—

siphon brings oxygen
tentacles sense prey

in deep green    water
swelling and retreating

hope and despair

~

In the old fir tree
outside my window

pine needles
raked and unraked

by wind    scattering cones
carrying their scent

night by night
day by day

our losses inevitable

~

Seeds in a swirl
spiral

down

to moist earth    settling    
wisdom in the roots

and the seed shall be prosperous


* * * * *

Ruth Chad is a psychologist who lives and works in the Boston area. Her poems have
appeared in the Aurorean, Bagels with the Bards, Connection, Psychoanalytic Couple and
Family Institute of New England, Constellations, Ibbetson Street, Muddy River Poetry
Review, Lily Poetry Review, Amethyst Poetry Review, Writing in a Woman’s Voice, and
others. Her chapbook, The Sound of Angels, was published by Cervena Barva Press in
2017. Her forthcoming book, In the Absence of Birds, will be published by Cervena Barva
Press in 2024. Ruth was nominated for a Pushcart prize in 2021.

Mines

by Gail Brown

A wall loomed ahead. The wall led to the mines. Kendra stopped and stared at the gates. It was highly illegal for her to step beyond them. For another fifteen years.

She wouldn't be here another fifteen years. Trista, only twelve, depended on this burst of income, and Kendra's death insurance to support her until adulthood.

Kendra wiped a tear from her cheek. She couldn't go in crying. The cancer would kill her before the mine. Even if the mine wasn't legal for anyone her age. She wouldn't be having more children. She wouldn't be there to raise Trista.

People pushed by her. Mostly older men who would spend the last few years of their lives in the mines, where they would make more money in a month, than in a year at any other job.

A song began behind her. The song of the miners.

Kendra squared her shoulders and marched to the gate.

The man checking identification was familiar.

She had changed her name, and had new identification cards created so she could take this job. He shouldn't recognize her.

He checked her card. "Kendra. Starting today?"

She nodded.

He smiled. "No need to be afraid. Wait over here. After the shift is all in, I'll take you to your station. You'll be outside, sorting."

Kendra nodded and moved to the appointed place. A rocky bench. Sorting. The pay for sorting was one-third the pay for inside work. She needed money. Fast. Her doctor had given her less than six months to live. Her daughter needed money for food and rent until she was old enough to work.

The last miner walked through the gate.

The gatekeeper closed the gate and locked it from the inside. He walked up to her. "We do have office openings."

"What? I'm here to be paid to work and leave support for my daughter."

He smiled. "Sorry. You look young for this work. Most women over forty have a few wrinkles. At least around their eyes. I'm sure the bosses approved your application. I'd rather you didn't run the risks. I'm Travis." He held out his hand.

She touched his fingertips. The risks. Cave-ins, slides, methane, water, oil, fracking fluids, and other forgotten hazards. Most miners only lived a few years, if that. It was a place the dying went to hasten the end. "I know the risks."

Travis tilted his head. "You don't look, or act, like the typical woman who comes here."

"I know. I have my reasons."

"They all do."

"You mind the gate."

Travis laughed. "I have almost no exposure to the dangers. It's one of the safer jobs. Supposed to train a replacement, if I want to go deeper into the mines."

"Do you?"

"Not really. I have too much to live for. Come on. I'll take you to sorting."

"Wait. I want to work deeper in the mine."

He stared at her. "You are an enigma. There is plenty of time. A week in sorting is required." He turned and walked to an entrance to the right of the mine entrance.

She sighed. It probably was. An enigma? Did anyone use words like that anymore? Those were only used in ancient paper copies of books. Barely legal to own.

The door to a brick building leaned on its hinges. A mountain loomed behind it.

"Sorry. Can't go in. This is sorting. Good luck. Should see you tonight."

"You can't go in?"

"Not for another month." He smiled at her and turned back to the locked gate.

Kendra smiled. He must be not quite of age as well. Though, they let him work the gate. He must recognize she was too young to legally be here.

 

A week of sorting. Kendra wiped her sweaty brow. The mines would be cooler. Except when dust storms erupted from falling rock.

"Water?" The woman beside her handed her the bucket. Already brown from dust. She choked some down. Her throat was too dry for words.

The inspector walked through. "Any gems? Any ores?"

Kendra pointed to a few tiny rocks, and one with pretty lines on it. At least, they looked like lines in the semi darkness. Most of the rest had been passed to the next person in line.

"You better be able to recognize them by the first level, if you want to go next week." He dropped them into his collecting tins.

"I do. Will." She croaked.

He walked away.

She turned back to her job of sorting.

The older woman beside her had pointed out half of her finds the last few days.

Pain increased from the cancer. No treatment was known for it, though some doctors said there had been help once. The mines might be the best place for her. Or so they said. At first, she had thought they meant her to go there and die.

Now, she heard of miraculous reduction of some symptoms while working at level 3. That was her goal. To reach level 3, and stay there as long as she could. Deeper levels paid better. Some in the deepest levels never left the mines. Levels 3 to 5 left only on weekends. It was too far down to return every single day.

A sharp gust of air blew through the door from the mines. With the air came grit, dust, dirt, and a few coughing miners from level one.

Everyone hurried out the narrow door to stand outside and wait until the all clear was given.

"Did everyone get out?"

"Line one," the speaker coughed, "Went to level two."

Kendra listened as people greeted each other. These people knew each other well, and the dangers. Often, they were from generations of late life miners. She leaned against the wall as a spasm of pain shot through her body.

"You okay?" Travis stood beside her.

She nodded.

"Are you scared?"

Kendra smiled weakly. They'd expect her to be scared. A good cover up. Not really a lie. Her pain was too strong to speak.

"Come on, they are closing up today. Level two, and three will have to come out the back entrance." Travis led the way back to the gate.

The back entrance. Little more than an air hole. An ancient elevator shaft that had long stopped working. Still used to transport supplies down to the lower levels, and people up to the higher levels in an emergency by rope.

Kendra glanced that way. The rescue team would already be at work. "I should go help."

"No. No first week people may help."

"Are they afraid we will quit?"

He laughed as he opened the guard shack. "Perhaps. Dead bodies are often discolored and disfigured."

"I've seen dead bodies." She sat on the bench he gestured to.

"Really? Bodies broken by tons of rock?"

"Maybe not rock."

"Or discolored and bloated by bad air?" He leaned against the door as miners stepped out of the gate.

"You mean?"

Travis held his finger to his lips.

Of course. They'd have to chat carefully here. Supervisors might be listening. Methane, radon, and mercury all had strange effects on the body. Only, now, they were only called bad air. The names of these, and other gasses, were long forgotten. Except in books. Where they existed.

The noisy miners exited the gate.

Travis stepped outside and closed it. He didn't lock it. "Rescuers will need to be able to get out." He sat beside Kendra.

She nodded. There was something she needed to tell him. Would he understand?

"Can you leave for the day?" That sounded wrong.

"Not if I want to keep my job." He smiled at her.

Her heart fluttered. If only she could live. No. Trista needed someone to support her. "I don't mean like that. The rescuers may be hours."

"Or days. We can sit outside the gate." He shook his keys.

Kendra laughed. She led the way to a bench outside the gate. A place the miner's families could come and bring them meals, or wait for word from rescuers.

Travis sat beside her. "Surprised you didn't go home."

"My daughter isn't there right now." Trista was at boarding school. Learning to live without her mom.

"No other children?"

"No."

Travis moved his mouth closer to her ear. "I'll tell you a secret."

She was startled. Her own secret weighed deeply on her mind.

"I'm not supposed to be here."

Was he trying to draw a confession from her? "Are you sure you should be telling me this?"

He leaned back. "Probably not. You seem nice enough. I want someone to know."

"Why?"

Travis glanced through the slatted fence gate. "I won't be here much longer."

Kendra pulled away. He could be trying to trick her into telling him her secret. "Why?"

"I'm going away. Across the water."

She covered her mouth so no one would see her speak. "Across the water?" The land across the water was forbidden. Illegal. Even to speak of it, would bring serious consequences.

He nodded. "Come with me. Bring your daughter."

She stubbed her toe in the dirt. "I can't. I. Can't."

He took both of her hands in his. "I've seen you walk. I know the symptoms. I can get you help."

"Really?"

He nodded. "They still have books. And more. Everything we lost."

"Hush. If the bosses hear you, they may kill us."

He smiled. "No. Not me. I know you can read. I've been testing you."

She groaned. "You won't let them know, will you?"

He laughed. "They come from across the ocean. They sometimes take people to treat them, and train them to live there."

"Some of the miners who don't return?"

Travis nodded. "I'm going to college."

"College? I didn't think there were any anymore."

"Not here. Come with me? Tonight?"

"My daughter. She's at boarding school."

"I'll send for her to join us."

Kendra looked into Travis's eyes. It could be a trick. His eyes were shiny and bright, with no hint of deception. "I'll go then."

He stood up. "I'll let them know, and we can leave." Travis walked back into the gate.

Kendra's heart fluttered. This went against everything she had ever been taught. It felt right. Safe. Safer than here.

Her daughter would have a future, where reading was legal, even if the doctors couldn't help her. She stood up and hobbled to the gate.

Travis stepped out and took her arm.

They walked down the pathway toward her sleeping place to gather her few belongings.

* * * * *

"Mines" was previously published in Concurrent Earths (2021) and Mirror Worlds (2019 as April D. Brown).

Gail Brown writes paired science fiction internal journey stories and novels full of hopes and dreams. She found science fiction brings hope and light through worlds of colorful dreams. It mirrors daily life as it could be. Perhaps should be, in some ways. Worlds where disability is accepted, and people live their lives without overwork and fear.

Hedgerow

by Chioma Odukwe


She left her handkerchief with her name, written, embroidered as a reminder that I did not fall from the sky.

She plucked the scab of shame left behind from the loss she felt when I was snatched away, taken to homes with motherless babes where love is forbidden.

She left her flame braided onto my hair in wide rows, a vision she went through hell to keep me hidden in the heat of July.

She took the pain branded onto my skin so that I forget the clawing of her nails, when she refused to let go. She was dragged and beaten for bidding me goodbye.


* * * * *

Chioma Odukwe is a poet and public servant from Houston, TX.  She currently lives and works in Japan. She actively strives to memorialize the mundane and remarkable events in her life through poetry. She draws her inspiration from the Harlem renaissance specifically from the works of Langston Hughes.  Her writing has been published by Washington Post and four of her poems are forthcoming in Eunoia Review and Academy of the Heart And Mind.

 

THIS SIDE OF ETERNITY

by Emily Black


One more thing to think about, damn!
After years of deliberation, my husband
and I had chosen a burial site on a beautiful

hillside plot. We’d made all the elaborate
arrangements and put the matter behind us.
Now, I awaken in a cold sweat

wondering what I’ll wear in my casket.
It is too much. I’ve made all the decisions
I can make on this matter.

We had finally arrived at our choice based
on the fact that I’d said, Given the way our
 elected officials are running things, I want

to be able to turn over in my grave. It was a funny
reason for such an important decision, but it stuck.
We were finally able to move forward with our plans

and were happy and satisfied, until this morning
I woke up in a state because of the “what-to-wear”
conundrum. Oh, why didn’t I pick cremation.


* * * * *

Emily Black, the second woman to graduate in Civil Engineering from the University of Florida, enjoyed a long engineering career. She began writing poetry recently and is published in numerous journals. Her first poetry book “The Lemon Light of Morning,” was published by Bambaz press in 2022 and her second poetry book, “We Feed Dragons to the Moon” by the same publisher in March 2024. Emily wears Fire Engine Red Lipstick.

RELICS OF DAYS GONE BY

by Emily Black


We go to estate sales in our neighborhood
not so much to buy things, but to see how
people lived in these stately old homes.

At a three-story hilltop home overlooking
the Tennessee river, we soaked up lavish
remnants of days gone by.

Children’s dolls, old wooden toys, holiday
decorations, and many fascinating items
in the kitchen and butler’s pantry

held us in a spell of nostalgia. I did buy
a few things: some antique Christmas
tree ornaments to go with my collection

that includes some from my childhood,
an antique hand-powered eggbeater,
and a small, oval covered dish, a nice

hand-painted China dish with life-like
parsley sprays in a verdant green color.
We’d never met the couple who’d owned

this house, nor their children or grandkids,
but at Christmas when we decorate our
tree, I think of them and their lovely,

lived-in home. I use the parsley dish often
and feel blessed to have a touch of their lives
mingled with ours.

They are gone now, but live on in their family
and in the hearts of strangers who relish artifacts
of their lives so well lived.


* * * * *

Emily Black, the second woman to graduate in Civil Engineering from the University of Florida, enjoyed a long engineering career. She began writing poetry recently and is published in numerous journals. Her first poetry book, The Lemon Light of Morning, was published by Bambaz press in 2022 and her second poetry book, We Feed Dragons to the Moon, by the same publisher in March 2024. Emily wears Fire Engine Red Lipstick.

 

The Green Chairs

by Stella Juliana Bonifazi

The summer I turned ten, I grew out of childhood sitting in those green metal chairs. The ones that sat out in the field at the farm under the big, winding hackberry tree that had the branch real low to the ground, so you’d use those green chairs as a stepping stool to climb all over that tree. The ones that Papaw and Granny sat on every morning with a cup of coffee, not speaking, just looking out towards the pond with their elbows on the armrests next to each other. Those green chairs that had sat under that tree for generations, seeing weddings and funerals and birthdays and Christmases, seating sons and daughters and grandkids and cousins and all that while staying that same seafoam green in our little landlocked world.

That summer, I was sitting there with my aunt drinking grape juice out of her fancy wineglasses—green ones, to match the chairs and the early-summer, storm-threatening sky. It was late May and that last tornado of the season was still trying to hang on. The wind had been whipping the boughs all around the whole day.

Aunt Jenny? I asked.

Aunt Jenny let me sit with her that night because she said I was one of the grown girls now. She could see how mature I’d gotten. It must’ve shown all over me, I could feel it like it was a tangible thing.

Yes, Mary-Anne? she asked back.

She smiled at me through her wine glass filled with real wine. She was quite a bit younger than Mama was but all her boys were older than me. I remembered in that moment how much I used to envy her, how much I wanted to be her when I was truly grown. She was gorgeous: dark auburn hair that waved down to her hips, and she had somehow managed to grow out of the family nose, opting instead for a cute little thing that you’d see on a fairy or Elly May Clampett, but in the pictures of her as a kid she looked just like me. Her boys didn’t look anything like the rest of us, didn’t even hardly look like each other.

Aunt Jenny had told me they even wrote a story about how pretty she was in the local Tribune when she was a teenager. Mama used to talk about how she was the one who actually worked for the Tribune, that she was the one writing the stories, yet all anyone cared about was how Aunt Jenny looked in the photo of her wearing that skimpy little bikini. She’d won the Spring Harvest Beauty Pageant and was a local celebrity from then on.

We sat in the green chairs and watched the weather whipping around. I almost didn’t ask her. Almost just left things be, like Mama always taught me was most polite.

What were you and Mama arguing about earlier? I asked.

I thought you were asleep this morning, when I got here. How come you didn’t come see me?

I heard when Aunt Jenny arrived that morning. Her boys were out in the field causing a stir. I felt they always despised me for not being a boy for them to play with. I felt they always despised Mama for it too.

I jumped out of bed and threw on my clothes from the day before. As I started racing down the steps I heard Mama and Aunt Jenny whisper-shouting at each other over the clanging of the kettle and the enamel mugs.

‘Cause I heard you and Mama fighting, I said.

Oh, it wasn’t a fight, she said. Just some silly old sister grudges, is all.

Didn’t sound like something silly. Mama sounded real mad with you.

Well your mama’s always mad at something, I’m just an easy target.

Mama was angry a lot, I thought. She’d yell at me at least once a day, about a stain on my shirt or for running around with my shoes untied or for playing with the ducks instead of doing my homework or for letting our dog Rocko up on the couch. I thought back to that morning while we sat in the green chairs and watched the weather whip its way through the grasses and trees, flower petals flying around in the air and stripping the last remnants of spring from everything.

You can’t just keep showing up like this, Jenny, Mama had said.

Like hell I can’t, Aunt Jenny said. This was my home, too, same as yours.

It was. Not anymore. You’re grown now—in fact, you decided that a long time ago.

They didn’t say anything for a second. I heard the sink running and then the kettle banged against the stovetop.

What happened with this one? Mama asked.

Same old, same old, Aunt Jenny said.

Silence again. The kettle started whistling.

Let me see, Mama said.

It’s not all that bad, Aunt Jenny said.

Show me.

More quiet. Mama hissed.

There’s some rubbing alcohol in the bathroom, behind the—

Behind the detergent, I know. You’re just like Mom.

There were bustling sounds coming from the kitchen. I wanted to go down there and say hi to Aunt Jenny, show her how different I was after the few months since she’d last seen me. Instead I just sat down on the steps and waited to hear more. Aunt Jenny hissed next.

Hold still, Mama chastised. It was the same voice she used when she was pulling my hair too tight on picture-day mornings.

I can do it myself, Aunt Jenny said.

Fine, do it then. But this is the last time, Jen. I don’t wanna see you crawling back here crying ‘cause you made another poor decision.

Don’t worry, I won’t make the mistake of thinking you cared again.

Aunt Jenny made a groaning sound. You got anything stronger than coffee in here? She asked. This burns like hell.

I heard an enamel mug bang down on the tiled kitchen table and I heard Mama’s footsteps coming around the corner. I hid behind the wall of the stairs and watched as she stormed out the side door and strode off to her garden. I watched her angrily pull weeds until I heard the kitchen cupboards open and close several times, then I snuck back up to my room and crawled back in bed with my dirty cut off shorts still on.

Everyone around knew Aunt Jenny, which I guess wasn’t that far-fetched since we all knew everyone who so much as breathed on our little town. But Aunt Jenny was more than just known around town like they’d know the mailman or the grocer. They talked about her even when she wasn’t there, like they were all just awaiting her return. She used to get free cookies at the diner, and the butcher would pile on a little extra meat every time. She even said all the boys from all the high schools within a three-town radius would drive up and down our streets hoping to give her a ride, but she told me she’d never settle for anything less than a sports car and that neither should I. Those boys in those beat-up old trucks won’t do us ladies any good, she’d said. That all they ever did was use us and dump their mistakes on us and then drive off with their tires squealing and their mufflers hanging off like the trash they were.

Just like many celebrities though, I suppose, she became a little less famous and a little more infamous. I used to believe every story she told me, about all the boys that chased after her and the girls who hated her because they could never be her. About how all the little old ladies in town always complimented her dresses and all the little old men would kiss her knuckles when she’d tell them hello.

But that past year or so, when she’d take me into town to get an ice cream or to tag along while she did her shopping, I’d started to notice people didn’t look at her like she was a beauty pageant princess anymore. The old ladies at the makeup counter never wanted to help her. Often when she’d pick up the hot pink lipstick from the display, I heard them whispering words I didn’t know back then and was too afraid to ask about, though I knew they were an insult from the way they dragged out the vowels and said them just over a whisper. They’d call her things like a tramp or a lush. I didn’t know what they meant but I knew Mama would slice the thinnest, greenest switch off the hackberry the second any of those words left my mouth, so I never asked. The boys all still looked at her but they almost looked ashamed to be doing it. Some would stare long and hard with a little crease on their sweaty foreheads. Others would just push their sunglasses up after a second, shake their head, and drive off. Those must have been those nasty boys in the beat-up trucks Aunt Jenny was warning me about, I was sure of it. And she was right, I thought, they wouldn’t ever do us ladies any good.

I would always imagine the way it must’ve been when she’d tell me her stories of her teenage days, being admired by everybody, and how nice it must’ve been. When she’d take me out to town and I’d see everyone sneer at her while she just walked on with her same big, pretty smile and her long, shiny hair blowing in the summer wind, I’d just tell myself she was one of those real-life princesses like from my movies and everyone in town was just like the evil stepmothers.

Aunt Jenny? I asked again.

Yes Mary-Anne, she said and gave a long, quiet sigh. Her eyes were closed and her glass was empty.

What happens if the tornado comes through here? I asked her real nonchalant-like, trying to convince us both I didn’t care whether it did or didn’t.

I could feel the green from the sky and the humidity like a damp wool blanket covering me on a hot beach. It had gotten so still. The new leaves were stagnant, the birds and the squirrels had stowed themselves away deep in the trees, and the clouds had started to turn into a dense wall of grey. We were all outside watching to see how it developed. Aunt Jenny and I were all prim and proper and sophisticated in our metal green thrones while Daddy and her three dumb boys were out playing with our coon dog, Rocko, in the tall grass. They kept antagonizing him, throwing sticks at him and calling him each and every way ’til he’d get mad and start howling and snipping at the air.

Nothing, she said, ’cause there’s no way that tornado’d dare to come through here.

Well, but what if it does?

No way.

How do you know? You’re not the weatherman.

Well, I thought you knew already. I told your daddy to tell you, you’re old enough.

Tell me what? I asked her. I started to get excited and turned around in the chair to face her better, sloshing my grape juice around. Aunt Jenny gave me a sidelong glance and looked down to where the juice had landed on my cut-offs. I turned back around all calm and graceful-like.

This place is magic, she whispered, turning to me with her eyes getting real big and holding the smile that her mouth was hiding. That’s how it’s stood here all these years. Didn’t you wonder how everything here is always a bit brighter than everywhere else? How the flowers always smell a bit sweeter? Nothing bad can ever happen here.

I knew magic wasn’t real. That was kid’s stuff, my teachers had told me as much. I didn’t want to believe her, to show her that I couldn’t be tricked like a little baby anymore, but I did believe her. I believed her with everything I was—at least for all of an hour or so.

I’d drunk the last of my juice and she took my glass without a word and went inside to get some more for the both of us.

Mama was inside cooking dinner with the door open. It was the first day of summer vacation and I’d ended the year with all As and one B, so she was making my favorite to celebrate—fried chicken with cornbread and fruit salad. I think she was even making her double chocolate cake, though she was trying to keep that bit a secret.

Aunt Jenny’s boys were in the field with Daddy and Rocko. I was watching the way they played with that poor dog while I waited for Aunt Jenny to come back. They were pulling on his big floppy ears when he’d get close enough and then one of the others would come up behind him and yank on his tail. I wished more than anything, my whole life, that Aunt Jenny’d had girls instead.

Knock it off, I yelled at them.

They ignored me.

Oh, we’re just having fun Mary-Anne, Daddy said. The boys and Aunt Jenny are our guests, let them indulge a little.

I remember not knowing what “indulge” meant but I wanted nothing to do with it. I did anything Daddy told me back then, though. He was funny and kind and sometimes he’d slip me some leftover cake for breakfast if Mama was still asleep, which I was hoping he’d do the next morning, so I obliged. Though really I just wanted to pull on those boys’ ears real hard and see how they liked it. I’d hoped Rocko would get ahold of one of them and bite real hard ‘til they bled. I watched in anticipation of it.

It was just the three of us here most of the time: me, Mama, and Daddy. Aunt Jenny and her boys lived about an hour away in the bigger city, so they would come over for all the holidays and most summers. Daddy had a job in town and he’d drive me to school each morning during the rest of the year. We’d listen to his music the whole way there and back. I knew all the words to all The Beatles’ songs by the time I was in kindergarten and he’d tell me how smart I was, which pleased me to no end. Mama had always told me girls were smarter than boys, but it was nice to have some proof of it.

The weekends were always for me and Mama, though. She’d teach me how to bake and cook, how to sew, how to look like you were minding your own business when really you were the mastermind behind everything. All the things a growing young woman should know, she’d tell me, just like Granny had told her.

I was still looking out to the boys and Rocko with what I thought was my most menacing scowl when I heard Aunt Jenny and Mama shouting at each other. The chairs were set too far away from the house so I couldn’t hear what they were saying. They were always bickering about things, even in the best of times. Aunt Jenny, as Mama put it, was always too boisterous and devil-may-care and Mama, as Aunt Jenny put it, always had a stick shoved too far up her ass. I thought that had to be uncomfortable, so whenever Mama would get mad at me, I ’tried not to blame her cause I would just imagine having a stick up inside me and thought I’d be mad all the time too.

But Aunt Jenny was the one who would tell me all of her—and everyone else’s—secrets, so I would always take her side. She’d told me about the time she stole a lip gloss from the pharmacy when she was in junior high, or how Mama had about seven boyfriends before she met Daddy. She told me about all the adventurous and daring boyfriends she had. She’d confide in me about how Granny didn’t like her anymore and how she had to do everything on her own. It felt like we were a little team, like she understood me when no one else did, so I had to stick with her. Not in any big way that would certainly get me in trouble, but I’d scoot towards her a little or shoot a quick frown at Mama. It was just enough that everyone knew it but no one could say it out loud ’cause it’d make the fighting worse.

With Aunt Jenny here, though, everything felt untouchable. Like our little world would remain frozen in time and we’d spend eternity sipping grape juice in the green chairs under the full tree and the warm air. But the sky was still too green and the air far too still.

Mama and Aunt Jenny’s fighting didn’t go on for long but they sure were loud. I’d heard some glass shatter and then Aunt Jenny was quickly walking back out towards me. I always had known better, somehow, to not bring up how they’d fought once it stopped. Daddy must’ve known this rule too, ’cause he just kept a steady gaze on the boys and Rocko out in the grass.

Here you go, darling, she said as she started to sit back down in the chair next to me.

Aunt Jenny handed me my wine glass again and I took a big gulp of it. I nearly spat it back out, but she was watching and told me to keep it in. It was bitter and it hurt my throat, but I did as she told me.

I think you’re grown up enough to have some big-girl wine with me, she said. It’ll help rid those fears of yours, about the storm and such.

She looked away from me and out towards the pond past the rough housing, just gazing off at nothing. I hated my fears. I felt stupid when I was afraid. It wasn’t something a grown girl was supposed to be. Daddy was never afraid. Those boys thought they were never afraid and they always teased me when they thought I was, though I saw their faces when they weren’t minding Granny and she would whip out her little pocketknife and search for the thinnest, greenest branch she could find. Even Mama never seemed like she was afraid, always going at everything that came her way with a high chin and a strong voice. So, I drank some more, and it never got to tasting any better but I got this funny feeling like I’d get after playing on the merry-go-round in the school playground for too long, when we’d all have a contest to see who could go the fastest and the longest without throwing up.

I sat there real still, sipping out of my glass ’til it was empty and was still watching the boys mess with our poor dog some more. I thought they’d have to get bored of it sooner or later. Rocko was starting to look like he was getting real tired of it too.

Then one of the boys, the oldest one, shouted, Watch this! and tossed a big rock towards our duck pen.

The ducks were mine and Mama’s. Daddy never saw much of a purpose to them. He always thought chickens were more practical, always saying they tasted better either grown or shelled. The rock hit the door to the pen real hard and scared all the ducks.

Leave them alone, I screamed. They didn’t do nothing to you, quit messing with my animals.

This must have egged them on. It had always been so easy to get me worked up, that wildness always just something that was sitting there ready to be provoked, and they seemed to think that was funnier than anything they could find on the television. I didn’t have the same authority Mama did, though she tried to teach it to me. I was too soft, she’d say, with a squeezing hand on my cheek and a hint of a grin on her face. All three of the boys started tossing every rock they could find at the pen then, each hitting it hard and rattling the screen door on its rickety hinges.

Then it was like all at once things had tilted. The air went wholly still then, not even a hint of a breeze anymore. There weren’t any birds chirping or tree frogs singing, just the sound of the ducks hissing and quacking and Rocko barking. I don’t know which one of them had thrown it, but one rock hit the latch just right and it came undone. The ducks were already riled up so they busted the lightweight door open in a second and ran out at all directions. We didn’t have a lot of them so it wouldn’t take too long to get them back in there, but no one seemed to even be thinking about that. They were all just laughing as those sweet little birds ran around in a frenzy.

Aunt Jenny, Daddy, do something, I screamed at them.

Oh, don’t worry honey, Daddy said, we’ll get ’em back in there before the storm hits.

I tried to get out of the chair but I couldn’t stand right. I stumbled all over myself and fell out of it. My glass fell to the ground and the last sip that was left seeped into the dirt by the leg of the green chair. They were all laughing harder then and I could feel all the heat in me rise to my face. I was embarrassed that I couldn’t get my legs to work like I was some big baby learning to walk all over again and all I could think of was how those stupid boys had invaded my little piece of magic out here and ruined everything. Aunt Jenny had brought them here when it was my celebration. I didn’t want them there in the first place. I knew all they’d do was wreck things and eat all my cornbread.

The wine hadn’t worked like Aunt Jenny said it would. It did not one bit of good to stop my fears. I didn’t think Aunt Jenny would ever lie to me. Not me. Not her special little Mary-Anne. I was the one she’d take with her to get treats without anyone else even though the boys would whine about it for hours afterwards. I was the one that she’d come to every summer night, when everyone else was asleep, and we’d sit under my sheets with a flashlight and tell secrets about ourselves and the family and our friends and the world. Everyone else lied, I knew they did. I certainly did, too. Whenever I wanted to get out of trouble or when I wanted to stay up late on a school night to watch my favorite show, I would lie. But never to Aunt Jenny. Never to her.

No one was watching Rocko anymore, but I saw him as he started to point. Before I could try to call him off, he charged on the smallest duck at breakneck speed. He was always a good hunting dog, coming home with Daddy in the fall with a whole bouquet of quail or rabbits or some other small animal, so it was no wonder he’d been so good at catching ducks, too.

That smallest duck was my favorite one. It was always so much littler than the others, ever since it hatched, and it had grown this real pretty green spot on it as it lost its down feathers. I’d sit out in the yard with them on every afternoon I could. All the others would mostly ignore me unless I was sharing my snack, but I’d read my schoolbooks while that little duck would waddle all around me and come stand on my feet.

Mama and Daddy always told me not to name the ducks ’cause I’d get too attached and they weren’t pets, but I named this one. I called him Bucky and would giggle to myself when I called him Bucky Duck, admiring how clever I was. And now, as he was trying to run away from Rocko, not able to fly, I was screaming his name and crying on the cold grass in front of those chairs. Rocko snatched him up by the neck and shook him around as hard as he could.

I’d always loved Rocko; he was a sweet boy and, in the winter, I’d sneak him up into bed with me at night. But I forgot all that as I ran out there best I could and whacked Rocko over and over with the nearest stick I could find. I tried to conjure every power I saw in Mama and Granny when they’d get that switch out for me or the boys. I thought if it worked half as well as it did on us, it’d have to work on Rocko. He wouldn’t let go though. He had that duck in his grasp now.

Aunt Jenny came up behind me and picked me up by the waist, wine glass still in her other hand. I was kicking and screaming and crying and telling her how much I hated her, how much I hated all of them. All I could hear was the rush of the blood and the wine in my head and everyone’s laughter, including Aunt Jenny’s.

Mary-Anne, now, stop all this fussing, she said in my ear. They’re just being boys; they’re just having some fun.

I broke out of her arms and ran back to the house, swerving left and right and barely able to keep myself up. I ran straight past Mama and the usually delicious smelling food that now just turned my stomach and locked myself in my room for the rest of the night. No one came after me for a while, though I heard Mama and Aunt Jenny yelling at each other again. I didn’t care what they were saying to each other, and my thoughts were too fuzzy anyway from grief and the wine for me to remember it. Mama did come up after dinner to check on me, but I’d shoved my chair up under the doorknob like I’d seen all the crying girls on the television do when they didn’t have a lock. I spent the rest of the night listening to everyone eating my celebratory dinner and laughing with each other and thinking how I’d never be able to trust a one of them again.

The next morning, I went outside real early, before anyone else got up and the sun was just barely lighting up the clear sky. I went out to sit on those chairs. Branches were scattered all over the lawn but those chairs were still upright and sturdy as ever. It was still a little chilly and I sat down in the rainwater that had collected from the storm the night before. It had raged on long and hard, pounding against my windows and shaking them in their frames. I hadn’t slept a wink, just knowing there was something terrible happening out there but going crazy not being able to tell what exactly it was.

As the sun came up more and started lighting up the farm, I could see that the tornado had wiped out the old barn to the west. It was the one where Mama and Daddy got married, and Granny and Papaw before them. I had birthday parties in there, I’d play hide and seek with Daddy or Aunt Jenny behind the old, unused stables. I was supposed to get married in there one day to some handsome prince and it would be like a fairy tale. That’s what everyone promised me. But Aunt Jenny had lied to me, just like the rest of them. There wasn’t an ounce of magic in this place.

 

* * * * *

Stella Juliana Bonifazi is a queer photographer and emerging author. She has received an MFA in creative writing and is pursuing an MA in English, both at Arcadia University. She is originally from Tulsa, Oklahoma and is now living in Philadelphia. She attended the Kansas City Art Institute and received a BFA in creative writing and a BFA in photography. Her work has been featured in issues 15 and 16 of Sprung Formal, the April 2024 issue of Nowhere Girl Collective, and issue 46 of Fabula Argentea.

This month, the 138th Moon Prize goes to Isabel Cristina Legarda's poem "Blackberries."

BLACKBERRIES

by Isabel Cristina Legarda


After cherries and strawberries peaked in mid-June
he appeared at the farm with his truck and those boots
that I didn’t much like. But I needed the help,
so I hired him then – a decision I knew
I might come to regret. And at first it was fine –
just a look here and there, or a casual smile;
I had total control of where that could all go.
But then blackberry season arrived, sticky heat
that made droplets of sweat trickle down and around
muscled arms, wisps of hair, and the napes of our necks.
There were deer flies and dragonflies, fireflies at night,
wood debris to burn, down in the meadows at dusk,
willing bodies to lift and lean over and lie
with, exhausted, when aprons and work shirts came off
so the breeze could waft over the salt on our skin.
It was in such a lull that an evening of talk
could become something more, and a lingering gaze
would reveal the deep longing of one lonely soul
for another. That summer was ages ago;
I was young, unattached, free to live as I pleased.
I have since learned that love’s not enough to succeed.
There’re now lines on my face and brown spots here and there,
and you’d think that the memory of such a time
would be all but forgotten, a dream, a mirage,
insufficient to quicken an old woman’s pulse.
But my grandson went grocery shopping today,
and the berries he brought me were ripe as could be,
from an orchard that made its own jam and mulled wine,
and my past came back, shockingly intimate, hard,
in a well of desire in my pelvis and chest,
in the blackberries crushed in the roof of my mouth
bleeding sweetly within, purple taste, like his kiss.


* * * * *

Isabel Cristina Legarda was born in the Philippines and spent her early childhood there before moving to the U.S. She is currently a practicing physician in Boston. Her work has appeared in the New York Quarterly, Smartish Pace, FOLIO, The Dewdrop, The Lowestoft Chronicle, West Trestle Review, and others. Her chapbook Beyond the Galleons was published this year by Yellow Arrow Publishing. She can be found on Instagram: @poetintheOR.

Writing in a Woman's Voice is on solstice break this week. Posts will resume on June 23, 2024. Happy days to all of you!

Between Jobs

by Diane LeBlanc


Such time and space didn’t exist
in our yellow house on Franklin Street
where my father’s clean uniforms lived
in a narrow closet like a spare dad.

We measured week days in diesel grunts—
his truck leaving, his truck returning—
then Sunday in hours dripping 
into pot roast gravy. 

I still see him standing at the sliding window
of the creemee shack where I twirled vanilla 
soft serve onto a sugar cone, his pride and pity  
enough to melt my first lopsided effort.

And there he is at the door of my grad school office
snapping a picture of me sitting at a desk 
stacked with work that he drove 
two thousand miles to see.

In therapy after a stroke, he unbuttoned 
sentences one word at a time then stripped
his tongue to hope learning to say
when I go back to the shop. 

The molting I feared now ruptures my seams,
my torn skin a parachute as I leap into
a divide where no one waits with some cash 
and fistfuls of unspoken faith.  


* * * * *

Diane LeBlanc is a writer, teacher, and book artist with roots in Vermont, Wyoming, and Minnesota. She is the author of The Feast Delayed (Terrapin Books, 2021) and four poetry chapbooks. Poems and essays appear in Bellevue Literary Review, Cimarron Review, Mid-American Review, and Southern Humanities Review, among others. Diane is a holistic life coach with emphasis in creativity practice. She is a professor and writer in residence at St. Olaf College. Read more at www.dianeleblancwriter.com.

The Fly           

by Melanie Choukas-Bradley


Whenever I stay at the Badlands Motel
A single lazy fly
Stays with me

I assume I’m annoyed by its presence
But after last night
I wonder

Didn’t I leave the door of my lit room
Open long enough
As I unpacked after dark

To allow the fly to enter?
And didn’t it fly in?
Wasn’t I a little lonely in darkness before it did?

My father caught fast flies in his hand
As a young man
Always letting them go

I believe he could still catch
This lazy fly
As it hovers, occasionally landing on tickling feet

At age 95
He could, but it seems I can’t or won’t
I’ve tried


* * * * *

Melanie Choukas-Bradley is a naturalist and award-winning author of seven nature books, including City of Trees and A Year in Rock Creek Park. Her book, Wild Walking—A Guide to Forest Bathing Through the Seasons will be released in June. Melanie began writing poetry during the pandemic and had the good fortune to discover Beate Sigriddaughter’s Writing in a Woman’s Voice. The site has featured many of her poems, including “How to Silence a Woman,” “If I have loved you,” “The Water Cooler,” and “Muddled Grief,” which won Moon Prizes. Her poetry has also appeared in New Verse News.   

Let’s Be
                                                by Melanie Choukas-Bradley          

Our powerful loving selves
Not shrunken and bitter

It’s a choice
Although we forget

Under the tsunami
Of electronic misfires

And real war
Post-Covid isolation

And all the other loose and missing
Connections of today

Let’s remember how
As Rumi says

There are a thousand ways
To kneel and kiss the ground


* * * * *

Melanie Choukas-Bradley is a naturalist and award-winning author of seven nature books, including City of Trees and A Year in Rock Creek Park. Her book, Wild Walking—A Guide to Forest Bathing Through the Seasons will be released in June. Melanie began writing poetry during the pandemic and had the good fortune to discover Beate Sigriddaughter’s Writing in a Woman’s Voice. The site has featured many of her poems, including “How to Silence a Woman,” “If I have loved you,” “The Water Cooler,” and “Muddled Grief,” which won Moon Prizes. Her poetry has also appeared in New Verse News.   

Father's Path

by Eileen Patterson


In a world where I am nothing
much less a creature of God.
I follow my father’s path.
Addiction closer to me than anyone.
No bottles or powders satisfy me.
I’m addicted to this isle of misery,
Cancerous fog eats light before it
gets through. Roads covered with thorns
it’s hard to walk toward something.
My eyes burn with need, I want
everything life has to offer.
But I bind the hands, given to me,
I grab crumbs from some other's life.

The tarot readers throat full of grief says,
You are so alone but you prefer it that way.
Standing in shame, I whisper,
I know.


* * * * *

Eileen Patterson lives in in Cudahy, Wisconsin. Along with fellow poets she has read her poetry at the local library. Her work has appeared in Underwood, Bombfire, Medusa’s Kitchen and Darkwinter.

Do Not Hide

by Shelly Blankman


Do not hide your face. Do not live his shame.
You were a wildflower dancing in a field 
speckled with the jeweled colors of spring
when he plucked you, so rare, so fragile.

He said he would nourish you, nurture and
protect you. Then he closed the door, shut out
the sun, left you to drown in thick tears of 
his liquored crime, your soul to wither and die.

But wildflowers do not die. They wait for rain
and grow again. Do not hide your face or live
his shame. Let us see your beauty through 
your pain, keep you safe as you bloom again.
A wildflower is not a weed. 


* * * * *

"Do Not Hide" was first published in First Literary Review.

Shelly Blankman lives in Columbia, Maryland with her husband of 43 years. They have two sons, Richard and Joshua, who live in New York and Texas, respectively. They have filled their empty nest with four rescue cats and a dog. Richard and Joshua surprised Shelly with the publication of her first book of poetry, Pumpkinhead. Her poems have appeared in The Ekphrastic Review, Verse-Virtual, Muddy River Poetry Review, and Open Door Magazine, among others.

 

The Acorn

by Shelly Blankman


A small college weekly with Goliath goals. The Acorn,
mimeographed on leftover stock of yellow paper, its print
the color of mud, its content the acorns of awareness that 
would grow into oaks of actions to change the world.


The Acorn stayed buried, except for campus news and movie reviews –
until a short piece on abortion. Strangers became confidantes as secrets 
of shame, pain, and desperation began to emerge in tides of tears.
Razor-sharp wounds from family rejection still open. Rape victims


still reeling from experiences in underground efforts to abort
their babies in dark places, where instruments were few, infections
were frequent and only the dying could go to the hospital. I think
about those women today – 50 years later. Do their emotional scabs


still bleed? Were they left sterile? Did they ever marry? Have children?
Sheets drenched in sweat from fear and pain don’t dry with time. What
happens when new laws turn back time? Women are fighting new battles 
with old white judges using gavels as weapons. They can crush an acorn


but they cannot crush an oak. Women will continue to fight like hell to make
this right. Axes dull over time. Women have sharpened their words in protest.
Over five decades later, women are still oaks. Honed gavels cannot hew 
the power of women to protect ourselves. We will stand together.


* * * * *

Shelly Blankman lives in Columbia, Maryland with her husband of 43 years. They have two sons, Richard and Joshua, who live in New York and Texas, respectively. They have filled their empty nest with four rescue cats and a dog. Richard and Joshua surprised Shelly with the publication of her first book of poetry, Pumpkinhead. Her poems have appeared in The Ekphrastic Review, Verse-Virtual, Muddy River Poetry Review, and Open Door Magazine, among others.

 

Salt

© 2024 Marie C Lecrivain


The salt of your love
at first, was delicious, 
with a briny top note 
and diamond sparkle.

But the more I indulged,
the more ill I became,
as your bitterness
corroded my heart.

I'm glad you're gone;
but I wonder 
if I’ll be chasing 
that brief high
that was you
for the rest of my life.


* * * * *

Marie C Lecrivain is a poet, publisher, and ordained priestess in the Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica, the ecclesiastical arm of Ordo Templi Orientis. She currently curates two literary blogs: Dashboard Horus: A Bird’s Eye of the Universe (travel themed poetry and art), and Al-Khemia Poetica: Women’s Art and Literary Journal. Her work has been published in California Quarterly, Chiron Review, Gargoyle, Nonbinary Review, Orbis, Pirene's Fountain, and many other journals. She's the author of several books of poetry and fiction, and editor of Ashes to Stardust: A David Bowie Tribute Anthology © 2023 Sybaritic Press, www.sybpress.com).

XVIII: The Moon
(Rider Waite Tarot)

© 2023 Marie V Lecrivain


Here’s another dream
where you're encased in armor
that’s ornate and fussy.
You wonder how you
acquired it, or why you need it,
but the answer becomes apparent
as you emerge from the water,
and see two canine cousins
howl at the moon,
drunk on its phantom nectar.

You hope they won’t spot you
and decide you're dinner,
then you remember,
in this recurring dream

you've been the dog,
who wags his tail
in excited distress,

you've been the coyote,
who howls to awaken
the urge within the dog
to shed its domestic narrative,

you've been the moon
pie-faced and indifferent,

and you've been
the scorpion
ready to strike.

What you long to be
is the road,
experienced and open,
with no secrets
except for where
you're supposed to go.


* * * * *

Marie C Lecrivain is a poet, publisher, and ordained priestess in the Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica, the ecclesiastical arm of Ordo Templi Orientis. She currently curates two literary blogs: Dashboard Horus: A Bird’s Eye of the Universe (travel themed poetry and art), and Al-Khemia Poetica: Women’s Art and Literary Journal. Her work has been published in California Quarterly, Chiron Review, Gargoyle, Nonbinary Review, Orbis, Pirene's Fountain, and many other journals. She's the author of several books of poetry and fiction, and editor of Ashes to Stardust: A David Bowie Tribute Anthology © 2023 Sybaritic Press, www.sybpress.com).