I’ll See You Again

by Joan MacIntosh


Life streams 
through
sticks of bracken
caught
with ice blossoms

Your ghost
draws near
in a rose tasseled shawl
auburn hair wafted

Here
then gone
leaving the river’s
tinkling current

I’ll see you again
on the rosehip path,
pine bough sanctuary
soft spiral
of a lone feather


* * * * *

Joan MacIntosh lives in St. John's, NL and writes poetry and prose. Her poetry is currently featured in The South Shore Review as well as previously in TicleAce, Leafpress and others.

Friday Night at the Candlelight Lounge

by Alexis Rhone Fancher

She was better than I expected, hunched over the mic, arms and legs entwined with the silver stand like she was fucking it. My ex-lover, Pete, said she sang jazz ballads mostly, throaty and low. Almost like Billie, he said, how she lagged behind the beat, her voice catching on the blue notes. Pete said I should catch her act, if I was in town. Look, it was June in L.A. — the gloom fogged my vision. Pete warned me. Careful! She’s bad news. Lonely. Clingy. But those days I was needy, too. I could care less that her nose was crooked, that her speaking voice was little more than a whisper. I overlooked her slouch and her wandering eye, and those clothes she wore, wrinkled Dockers and a food-stained shirt. After her set, she stood in the doorway. Her untamed black hair, a frizzy halo. Her hands were in her pockets. Her eyes were on me. She made my fingers ache. I got up from my ringside table, left my jacket on the chair. You want a drink? I asked her. When I returned from the bar with two tequila shooters, she was sitting in my chair. Wearing my jacket. A noticeable improvement to her outfit. We clinked glasses. Salud! Pete said she was a cheap drunk. Two rounds after each set, he laughed, she turns into a slut on wheels. Already her head sagged against my shoulder. She had a tiny snore I found endearing. Whatever you do, don’t take her home, Pete warned. Of course, he’d say that. He had what they call ‘graveyard love’ that ‘I don’t want you anymore but I don’t want anyone else to have you’ kind of love. The kind of love that makes me want to do the exact opposite of whatever he asks. So after the club closed, I took her home. Invited her into my bed. She was ravenous. It wasn’t just sex or tequila, she consumed my thoughts, my marijuana stash, my peace of mind. She raided my closet. Stole my favorite thigh-high boots. When she forged my name on checks, I forgave her. When she rearranged my furniture, re-hung all the art, I looked the other way. And when Pete snuck into the bedroom one midnight, begged for forgiveness, wanted a threesome, I welcomed him. Look, I know it’s crazy, but none of this mattered. What mattered was how she sang love songs in the shower. What mattered was that first night, at the Candlelight Lounge, how she stood in the doorway after her set, backlit and dangerously beautiful.


* * * * *

"Friday Night at the Candlelight Lounge" was first published in Book of Matches.

Alexis Rhone Fancher is published in Best American Poetry, Rattle, Hobart, Verse Daily, Plume, Tinderbox, Cleaver, Diode, The American Journal of Poetry, Spillway, Nashville Review, Poetry East, Gargoyle, and elsewhere. She’s authored ten poetry collections, most recently, Triggered, 2023 (MacQueen’s Publishing); Brazen, 2023 (NYQ Books); and Duets, (2022) an illustrated, ekphrastic chapbook collaboration with poet Cynthia Atkins, published by Harbor Editions. Alexis’s photographs are featured worldwide including the covers of The Pedestal Magazine, Witness, Heyday, Pithead Chapel, and The Mas Tequila Review. A multiple Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, you can find her at: www.alexisrhonefancher.com 

 

Cruel Choices

by Alexis Rhone Fancher


When my husband’s two grown daughters are in town, the three of them go to the movies, or play pool. Share dinner every night. Stay out late. I haven’t seen my stepdaughters since my son’s funeral in 2007. When people ask, I say nice things about the girls, as if we had a relationship. When people ask if I have children I change the subject. Or I lie, and say no. Or sometimes I put them on the spot and tell them yes, but he died. They look aghast and want to know what happened. Then I have to tell them about the cancer.

Sometimes, when the older daughter, his favorite, is in town, and she and my husband are out together night after night, I wonder what it would be like if that was me, and my boy, if life was fair, and, rather than my husband having two children and I, none, we each had one living child. His choice which one to keep. 

Lately when people ask, I want to lie and say yes, my son is a basketball coach; he married a beautiful Iranian model with kind eyes, and they live in London with their twin girls who visit every summer; the same twins his girlfriend aborted with my blessing when my son was eighteen, deemed too young for fatherhood, and everyone said there would be all the time in the world.


* * * * *

©Alexis Rhone Fancher, 2016, "Cruel Choices" was first published in Askew and nominated for the Pushcart Prize.

Alexis Rhone Fancher is published in Best American Poetry, Rattle, Hobart, Verse Daily, Plume, Tinderbox, Cleaver, Diode, The American Journal of Poetry, Spillway, Nashville Review, Poetry East, Gargoyle, and elsewhere. She’s authored ten poetry collections, most recently, Triggered, 2023 (MacQueen’s Publishing); Brazen, 2023 (NYQ Books); and Duets, (2022) an illustrated, ekphrastic chapbook collaboration with poet Cynthia Atkins, published by Harbor Editions. Alexis’s photographs are featured worldwide including the covers of The Pedestal Magazine, Witness, Heyday, Pithead Chapel, and The Mas Tequila Review. A multiple Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, you can find her at: www.alexisrhonefancher.com 

Enough

by Jen Barber

At ten she is a reader.
Borrowed books crammed in backpacks and shoved under car seats and hidden between bedsheets. She’s allergic to grass but will sit in a field for hours. The itching less urgent than the need for one more word, one more page, one more chapter.

At twenty she is a partier.
Nights often stretch until morning around bonfires, on beaches, or in barely lit basements. Her tired body yearns for more of everything that it ingests.
More cigarettes, more alcohol, more thin white lines and tiny pills to sate the desire to dull the ache.

At thirty she is a spiritualist.
She’s found yoga, breath work, and sacred texts to be read by candlelight. She climbs mountains and attends workshops. She’s hungry for universal truths and meaning. She weeps at the brilliance of sunrise, and swoons at the coos of babies.
And still she craves more.
More love, more peace, more grace, more sleep.

At forty she shifts gears.
Limitless consumption takes a backseat to the regimentation of restraint. Now she finds power in abstinence rather than excess. Stripping things down instead of filling them up.
No gluten, no animal products, no alcohol, no food between the hours of 7p and 11a.
No days without the routines of downward dogs and meditation, tea and chocolate.

Will these rituals finally bring the liberation and freedom she desires, or will they bind her in a prison of her own creation?
Will anything ever be enough?


* * * * *

Jen Barber is a lover of words, of people, of the natural world. She has always been moved by the subtleties and complexities observed in life. She is drawn to what exists beneath the surface of things and is awed and humbled by what she discovers there. Through poetry, Jen hopes to share the essence of how she experiences the world with others.

LOST IN TIME

by Emily Black


Eight months pregnant and 22-years-old,
I walk on the graveled edge of a two
lane coastal road not highly traveled

in those days. I am wearing a royal-blue
romper suit. It’s my beach attire. My young
skin is lightly tanned and my hair glorious,

glorious in the morning sun, thick
and shiny in the way only pregnancy
can bestow. I am walking all alone,

cherishing my aloneness. My then-husband
has left me to myself and gone to the racetrack
in Daytona. I am walking to a little diner

that looks like a chrome-trimmed train car.
It’s on the inland side of the road, shaded
by wind-sculpted scrub oaks.

At the diner, in a shiny-red plastic booth, 
I order a glass of water, scrambled eggs,
toast and hash browns, today’s special.

I daydream about my baby and wonder
how I got to this place in life so soon. I’d
planned to travel and explore the world.

This little beachside spot is about a two hour
drive from home. Well, I think, it’s different
here and I can imagine I’m even farther away.


* * * * *

Emily Black, the second woman to graduate in Civil Engineering from the University of Florida, enjoyed a long engineering career, and in time, blended that with a career as a Doctor of Oriental Medicine. She 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.

 

AN UNSEEN FORCEFIELD

by Emily Black


It is so still today, it’s eerie, like being
in the eye of a storm. There’s not a breath
of wind. Spanish moss hangs placidly,
heavy with wanting, like a lover, wanting

to be stirred by an outside force. Only
gravity exerts a pull, it’s forcefield unseen.
A limp flag in front of the courthouse clings
tightly to its metal flagpole, the two as tranquil

as an old married couple behaving as though
the world were at peace. In this calmness,
no birds are about, though a weak, watery sun
rose an hour ago and failed to color our gloomy

horizon. The sky looks gray and bleak. I, too,
feel like I’m suspended, waiting for something
ominous to happen. No bombs drop, no guns
are fired. We are not at war. At least…
                                                              not yet.


* * * * *

Emily Black, the second woman to graduate in Civil Engineering from the University of Florida, enjoyed a long engineering career, and in time, blended that with a career as a Doctor of Oriental Medicine. She 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.

 

A Story from the Mountains

by Debbie Robertson


             The story of a life goes on…but only when it is told in a story….


“Marie, not again!  Come here this instant!”

A large woman stood in the doorway to the stable, one hand firmly on her hip and the other wagging an accusing finger at the scene in front of her.

In a goat stall in the far corner, where one shaft of morning sunlight sent dust motes of hay drifting in wisping, wayward figure-eights, nine-year-old Marie, woolen-socked feet tucked under the hem of her blue smock, stirred slightly.  One arm was still wrapped around the neck of a baby goat who was snuggled in a warm ball at her side.

As Marie’s eyes pried themselves open, the baby goat untangled itself and scrambled away, bleating for its mother.

“It was the storm, Mama.  The lightning was ripping up the sky, and the thunder shook me in my bed.  I was so afraid, and I knew Mimou would be scared, too.”

Her mother, though, was no longer there.

Marie stood up to shake out a thick, red blanket and then folded it carefully.

Through the clatter of pans in the kitchen, her mother’s voice rang out, “Your grandmother will want her milk.  We’ll need two pitchers for breakfast!”

The four goats that comprised the entire herd of the Arnaud family needed no coaxing to be milked.  Marie’s hands were gentle and sure, and she talked to them as she worked, having beckoned each by name.

When the milk bucket was full, she quickly ladled out a dipper of pellets for the three rabbits whose noses were twitching hungrily through the wires of their cage, tossed an armful of fresh grasses into the trough for the goats, and gave an abbreviated hug to Bernadette, the cow.  “I’ll be back in ten minutes.  Don’t you worry,” she reassured her, and firmly taking the bucket by the handle, Marie made her way to the house.

Her grandmother, sitting in the swivel rocking chair at the head of the table, scowled at Marie’s tousled hair and rumpled smock, bits of hay clinging to the sleeves and peeking out of the pockets. 

“You’ll need to sweep the front steps before school.  The wind last night left many twigs and leaves.”

“And don’t forget the stable,” her father grumbled by his armchair by the fireplace.

“Yes, Grand-mama; yes, Papa.  I will do it all,” she replied, her head bowed.

Marie poured the milk into two white ceramic pitchers, saving back a half a cup or so, which she emptied into a low yellow bowl.  Walking with the bowl to the back door, she called, “Here, kitties,” and five cats suddenly appeared, nuzzling her legs and lapping up the milk eagerly.  After a scratch behind the ears for each—and a sharp rebuke from her mother that she still had many chores to do, Marie allowed herself a sigh.

She milked Bernadette, freshened the hay in all the stalls, cleaned the rabbits’ cages, washed the breakfast dishes, swept the porch steps, and tidied her room.  Then, hair now neatly combed, sturdy shoes laced up tightly, and her heavy book bag biting into her shoulders, she headed down the street to school.

Her footsteps dawdled once or twice, first, when a mountain chickadee alighted on a thistle in Madame Coste’s garden and again when two white butterflies zig-zagged lazily in front of her.

The school bell clanged, and Marie, late again, dashed through the door and scuttled into her seat, just as Madame Rouget finished writing the last flourish of the date, September 22, 1939, with a new piece of chalk. Then, wiping her hands on a freshly ironed handkerchief, she turned, unsmilingly, from the blackboard to face the class.

This school day was like all the others: recitation, math, reading, and dictation, with the children sitting straight on their stools under the hawk-like eyes of Madame Rouget.  That is, all but Marie.  She couldn’t help the squirming of her feet under the desk, trying, in vain, to hide her impatience.  But she kept her head down, intent on forming each letter in her notebook with utmost care, fearful of leaving a blot of ink, and only imagining the flowers and the bees and the leaves and the birds she wished to sketch in the margins. She knew all too well that if she wandered, even slightly, into a lapse of concentration, the rod would come out, Madame Rouget delivering a swift whack across her knuckles.  Marie had had her share of that, and white scars across the backs of her hands were strong reminders.

The twelve bongs of the church bell signaled a respite, as children scurried home for lunch.

But by two, they were all back again. Marie secretly counted every endless second, and, with her stomach filled from a stew that she, herself, had made the night before, her drowsiness could not stop her daydreaming.

She was soaring, diving, drifting, flapping her wings.  Sometimes, she was a swallow, sometimes a yellow butterfly, sometimes an eagle, but flying, lost in the sky, in another world, far above the village, the chores, and Madame Rouget.

-----

And so the years went by.  The work, her grandmother’s scowl, the coldness of her mother and father, the threat of the rod were ever-present.  Storms continued to shake the mountains, sending boulders into the river Bachelard and sending Marie to the stable to find comfort in—and to comfort—Mimou.

But, in the springtime, in an apple tree near her bedroom window, a pair of magpies made a nest.  “You’re building a world of your own, aren’t you?” she mused, watching them both deliver pieces of moss and twigs of various shapes and sizes.

And, in the summer, a clearing of Queen Anne’s lace below Sugarloaf Mountain became her quiet glade.

Autumn brought a cathedral of color to the forest around the mountain aptly named Gentleman’s Hat. 

And in winter, she left open the shutters to her room, letting the glitter of snow under the moonlight surround her in her slumber.

Alone, she created a world.  But in her world, she was all alone.

-----

Meanwhile, the world outside was busy.  For through it all, side by side, sometimes far away and sometimes too close, the threats of war and then real war roiled and raged. Neighboring countries, one just miles away across the border, ceased to be neighbors anymore.  True neighbors’ sons went off, their chests puffed out in their uniforms of bright gold buttons, and they came back in coffins made of wood.

Her father, cursing at his crippled leg, took to drinking more and more.  Her mother’s face was stone, saying nothing, her eyes dark, her mouth a grim line.

And, of course, the work.  The house, school, the increasing demands of her grandmother.  They all went on.  Marie’s dreams of flying far, far away came more and more.

-----

Six years later, the war, as all wars do everywhere, ended.  It was over in the halls of government and power, yes, but not over for the many, many women of the village who would never wear anything but black again. 

Little by little, farms were worked once more, and the border agents, more philosophical than most, welcomed the young men from Italy coming across to find employment. 

Three years passed, and lives were beginning to be somewhat normal.  The village festival of 1948 was eagerly anticipated, full of great promise. 

Marie, now eighteen, had blossomed.  Her hair, well below her shoulders, shimmered with streaks of sunlight, and her cheeks mirrored the pink of an evening sky over the mountains just before twilight.  She was lithe, yet strong, her years of work providing her a great advantage.

Coming in from the stable on the morning of the festival, she glimpsed at the calendar on the kitchen wall, noting the date, June 26.

Little did she know that it would be a day she would never forget.

That evening, as darkness descended onto the valley, the village square, festooned with strings of colored lights, gave a cheery welcome.  Small children played hide and seek under patterned tablecloths and tables laid heavy with plate of cheeses and raspberry tarts and baskets of bread.  Each household had brought its finest, and the men and women were proud and pressed in their Sunday best.

Marie placed a cushion on a bench under one of the four ancient linden trees that marked the corners of the square. 

Two fiddlers were tuning up on a makeshift bandstand, and an accordionist was strolling amidst the gathering crowd.

At the edge of town, a small car had pulled up, and a young man got out, laughing good-naturedly as he checked his reflection in the side mirror, jauntily angling his hat over his right eyebrow.  He strode into the square, capturing curious eyes who quickly ascertained he was Italian.  The older men and some of the women turned their backs, for memories of sons and grandsons lost in the war were still too vivid, too close.

Marie had not noticed.  She was studying the pattern on her dress, tracing the outline of a rose with her finger.

Only when a pair of dark linen pants and a hand holding a jaunty-looking hat appeared in front of her did she look up.  For in that moment, the first notes of the first dance of the night had begun.

“May I?” A tanned and calloused hand reached out, and warm brown eyes framed a dazzling smile.

Marie noted the accent, but shyly nodded assent.

The young man took her arm, leading her to the center of the other couples who had also been taken in by the merriment of the music.   He was so solid, so sure.

As they began to dance, Marie found a strange sensation overtaking her.  Her feet were floating on air, and, more perplexingly, her heart was feeling like it was taking wing, too.  Not astonishingly, his was as well. 

The rising moon smiled as it saw the young couple, but three other faces in the crowd most certainly did not.

Marie’s father spat on the ground. 

“You must stop it immediately,” her grandmother said through gritted teeth.

“Does she not think of her cousin and her uncles, their corpses cold and crumbling in a cemetery not one-hundred yards away?  This I will not allow,” her mother marked with finality.

But already, enough words had been spoken.  Secrets had been exchanged.  He was nineteen, and thus too young for the fighting, a carpenter from the valley just across the border, now helping to rebuild the towns destroyed by the Germans as they had made their retreat.  She had told him of Mimou, of the mountains she loved, of her apple tree and its nest of birds, and of the rod of Madame Rouget.

His name was Marco, and his hair was curly and black.  His gentle hands on her small waist as he lifted her into the air at the end of the dance felt right, so very right.

But at that precise moment, her mother’s stern face appeared behind him, and an icy hand grabbed hers, dragging her down the street and through a door that slammed behind them. 

Oh, cruelty upon cruelty!  She had been torn away!  But, in truth, she had left her heart behind.

Crying, Marie retreated to her room, and opening her shutters, took refuge in the moon.

Through the branches of the apple tree, where green balls that would be apples come fall were starting to show signs of pink and red, the moon shone down on her tears. 

She did not know that Marco, having followed her after her hasty abduction, was under the self-same tree, gazing, too, upon her cheeks, wet with tears that glistened in the moonlight.

-----

The next morning, upon rising, she found a gift on her windowsill: a small stone in the shape of a heart.

In the days and weeks that followed, other gifts appeared: other heart stones, carvings of birds and butterflies, and notes with words she dared not share with anyone.  In the bottom drawer of her dresser, she arranged these objects into a little world all her own, daring to touch them tenderly and dream.

Secret meetings were arranged.  She could go into the mountains to gather wild spinach for ravioli, pansies for tea, and rosehips for jam.  Her mother and father never suspected, but her grandmother did note Marie’s smiles upon her return, only making her own frown even deeper.

Years had to pass.  The legal age of twenty-one had to be observed: the age one could marry without the blessing of one’s parents.  But for Marie and Marco, the years were rich with promise and plans.

He built them a house, in a clearing of Queen Anne’s Lace at the base of Sugarloaf Mountain, and he fashioned all the furniture, each piece bearing his signature, a heart.

He planted a garden of bluebonnets, the color of her eyes, and one of roses, the tint of her cheeks. 

On her birthday one year, he planted an apple tree beneath the window that was to be their room.

He made a stable for goats. 

He left food for cats. 

He waited.

And, on the day of Marie’s twenty-first birthday, dressed in his first suit and with new black shoes, he boldly knocked on the door of her parents’ house and pushed past her grandmother, who had opened it.

To her father, in his customary chair by the fireplace, he strode without hesitation.  Her mother, hearing the commotion, hurried from the kitchen. 

Marie, at the top of the stairs, suitcase in hand, closed her eyes.

“I have come to marry your daughter.  And this, I shall do.  To you, it is complicated.  To me, it is simple: I love her.  She loves me.  We want to build a world together.”

Marie’s footsteps flew down the stairs, and then she was at his side.

“You must remember how it is to love so much.”  She looked back and forth between her mother and father.

“I remember my brother Jacques killed by a bullet made in Italy.”  Her father turned away.

Her mother, who had stood listening in the doorway, disappeared into the kitchen.

There was nothing to do but leave.

And though, for one moment, as her feet clicked down the porch steps, she thought, “I’m leaving my home.  I’m leaving my home.” 

But then, just as quickly, as Marco’s hand wrapped around hers, another thought replaced it.  “No, I am going to my home.  Our home.”

The ceremony at the mayor’s office was brief.  Madame Gontard, his secretary, was the only witness.

And when Marie and Marco reached their house in the mountains, he carried her across the threshold and closed the door.

-----

Their world was complete.  Their world was the only world.  Daydreams of flying away left her, so happy she was on the ground.

As for Marco, he continued to build houses for others, up and down the valley, for he was good.  He earned the villagers’ respect, but not their friendship.  Their memories were too long. 

And, each night, when he returned from a day of work, he would bring her a gift: a stone in the shape of a heart.

For Marie, the goats and the cats, the birds in the apple tree, her flowers, the butterflies, and Marco, of course, were all she needed.  She began to draw, for all the things around her called for her hand, and the walls of their little house were hung with color and light.

Four years skipped by, four years of total joy.  A daughter was born, and they named her Lisette.

-----

One morning in late September, the skies over their house in the mountains hung gray with rain.  Lisette was sleeping by the fireplace, and Marie, in the chair beside her, was rocking the cradle gently back and forth with her foot. 

Marco, at the kitchen table, firmly put down his cup of coffee and announced, “Rain or no rain, off to work I go.  There’s the framing of a roof I have to finish today.”

“Must you?  It’s so dreadful out there,” Marie looked up.

He leaned over to kiss her, “The rain will stop.  I’ll be back by lunch.”  Then, gazing down upon the peaceful Lisette, with a smile, he was out the door.

The rain didn’t stop.  As the morning wore on, the skies grew darker and darker.  Lightning flashed all around Sugarloaf Mountain, and thunder crashed up and down the valley, loosening stones on Gentleman’s Hat.

Marie held Lisette close, but her eyes were on the storm outside. 

The clock on the mantelpiece ticked off the hours, and the time for lunch appeared and disappeared.  The storm lessened, and fell into a pattern of light rain.  Just at the chime of one o’clock, there was the crunch of gravel, and Marie flew to the door, Lisette in her arms, her heart beating in her chest.

It was not Marco’s tender face that met her there.  It was that of Doctor Aubery, his shoulders stooped and his eyes weary. 

He reached out to bring both of them in, and his voice broke as spoke. “He worked through the storm.  A bolt of lightning…He fell from the very top of the roof.  The neighbor brought him to me.  I could not save him.  His last words, “Lisette…Marie…”

-----

Marie dug the grave with her own hands.  She buried him behind the house in the mountains, for the villagers, all who had sons and husbands and brothers and uncles in the war, still could not bring themselves to forgive.

She lived on, raising Lisette and tending her garden and her goats and her cats, and she watched Lisette grow up and move far away to America.  The years slipped away.

More and more, Marie would look at the sky, and the flight of birds or the flitting of butterflies, and she wished once more to fly to another world….

-----

It is late June.  I am standing behind a small wooden house at the base of mountain called Sugarloaf.  A story from my childhood in Texas rings in my ears.  It was told to me by an old woman, my neighbor, my friend, whom everyone called Mrs. Johnson, but I called Auntie L.  I reach into my bag and unfold a drawing she had given to me long ago, now faded with age.  It is of a different time, but it is timeless.  I look at the picture and I look back at the house.  It is wrapped in roses.  Bluebonnets and Queen Anne’s Lace blanket the clearing around it.  A pair of magpies chirp in a gnarled old apple tree, together building a nest. 

I turn again.  In front of me are two simple graves, completely covered in small stones, all in the shape of hearts.  Butterflies dance above them, catching the last rays of sun over the mountains.

I stand for a long while, not counting the time, and the moon rises over Gentleman’s Hat. 

I can’t explain the feeling here.  For the moment, it is too overpowering. 

I think a poet would call it peace.  I know it is love. 

I place the small stone I have brought with me among the others, a stone, too, in the shape of a heart. 

I try to absorb this place into my body, closing my eyes, not moving, until I can feel it in my bones.

Then I walk down the road.


No, they shall not be forgotten, for I have told their story. 

It is now yours, yours to remember and pass on.


* * * * *

Debbie Robertson divides her year between the United States and France, loving the summer and winter skyline sunrises of Houston, Texas, and reveling in the spring and fall mountain sunsets in the Alpes de Haute Provence. Her works have appeared most recently in Heimat Review, Academy for the Heart and Mind, Writing in a Woman’s Voice, Ekphrastic Review, and Toute la Vallée, a French journal. She has written plays and “operas” for children’s theatre, and parallel text (English-French) short stories.

 

Yours not Mine

by Frances Sheridan Goulart


The house I don't live in
is atop a hill watching the waves in the ocean I don't swim in
The car I don't drive is sleek and smart and takes the husband I’m not married to 
(alongside the dog I don't own)
To a city whose streets I don't walk purposefully through
And the photos of the vacation I didn't take
lie next to the family photo I’m not in 
on the piano I’ve never played.
in the house I don't live in. 


* * * * *

Frances Sheridan Goulart is a poet, artist, personal chef and the author of 16 books on health, food and spirituality. She lives in Ridgefield, CT with her cat Madhu.

Fledgeling’s First Date, Recalled Six Decades Later

by Judy Kronenfeld


My straitlaced immigrant Mom—so wary
of the ways of men—was disturbingly excited,
offering her finest matte plumage—her black velvet
sheath with its silk cummerbund. Neither of us
knew how wrong that was for a high school play.
I was fourteen, wings untried.

It felt like she was pushing me
out of the nest, shooing me off to the sort
of festival my Moroccan-born son-in-law,
fifty years later, would tell me takes place
in an Atlas Mountains village:
the adolescent girls and boys cut loose,
but expected to return paired for life—
like rare monogamous birds—in two days.  

My date was this kid of sixteen I’d danced with
twice at one of my girls’ school mixers.
His dancing was cloddy and didn’t entice.
He didn’t inspire flights of fancying.
But wasn’t all that beside the point?
The prerequisite for going out was being asked.

We could barely work out how
to talk. Of course he draped his arm
around my shoulder after the last curtain call
and steered me towards “a walk”
through the dark corridors of his school. I knew
his kiss was coming, but wanted to duck.

I once saw a cardinal—carrying a seed—
touch beaks with a female, so she
could accept his gift. My dream
of a first meeting of lips was that delicate.
But this boy thrust his tongue into my mouth
like a burrowing snake, so deep
I gagged. What was this?

At least he didn’t persist. It was 1957.
He escorted me home on the bus.
I flew out of his grasp to my door,
and, when he called a week later,
was “busy” every day he broached
for a repeat. At last I’d found
my own territorial sweet song.


* * * * *

Judy Kronenfeld’s six full-length books of poetry include If Only There Were Stations of the Air (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions, 2024), Groaning and Singing (FutureCycle, 2022), Bird Flying through the Banquet (FutureCycle, 2017), Shimmer (WordTech, 2012), and Light Lowering in Diminished Sevenths, 2^nd edition (Antrim House, 2012)—winner of the 2007 Litchfield Review Poetry Book Prize. Her third chapbook is Oh Memory, You Unlocked Cabinet of Amazements! (Bamboo Dart, 2024). Her poems have appeared in such journals as Cimarron Review, DMQ Review, Gyroscope Review, MacQueen’s Quinterly, New Ohio Review, Offcourse, One (Jacar Press), One Art, Rattle, Sheila-Na-Gig, Valparaiso Poetry Review, and Verdad.

 

Dance of the Sanderlings

by Ann Christine Tabaka

Little sanderlings
Playing tag
With the incoming tide
Feet ablur
While racing the waves
For tasty morsels
Buried in the wet sand
Bully gulls invade
Scattering the smaller birds
Circling around
They land once more
To continue their eternal waltz
With the ocean


* * * * *

Ann Christine Tabaka was nominated for the 2017 & 2023 Pushcart Prize in Poetry; nominated for the 2023 Dwarf Stars award of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association; winner of Spillwords Press 2020 Publication of the Year; featured in the Who’s Who of Emerging Writers 2020 and 2021. Selected as a Judge for the Soundwaves Poetry Contest of Northern Ireland 2023. She is the author of 17 poetry books, and 1 short story book. Her most recent credits are: The Phoenix; Eclipse Lit, Carolina Muse, Sand Hills Literary Magazine, Ephemeral Literary Review, The Elevation Review, North Dakota Quarterly.

Imagination

by Ann Christine Tabaka


The fog closes in
It surrounds me
It dampens my senses
It impairs my vision
But at the same time it enlivens me
I feel a tingle of excitement
I am transported to another time
To a distant shore
Into a story I once read
Where ships traverse dangerous waters
While lighthouses atop craggy rocks guide them
Back to a time of sea monsters and damsels in distress
A time of mystery and wonder
But then the fog begins to lift
And I must come back to earth
But just for one moment
Time stood still and the fantasy was real


* * * * *

Ann Christine Tabaka was nominated for the 2017 & 2023 Pushcart Prize in Poetry; nominated for the 2023 Dwarf Stars award of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association; winner of Spillwords Press 2020 Publication of the Year; featured in the Who’s Who of Emerging Writers 2020 and 2021. Selected as a Judge for the Soundwaves Poetry Contest of Northern Ireland 2023. She is the author of 17 poetry books, and 1 short story book. Her most recent credits are: The Phoenix; Eclipse Lit, Carolina Muse, Sand Hills Literary Magazine, Ephemeral Literary Review, The Elevation Review, North Dakota Quarterly.

This month another Moon Prize, the 142nd, goes to Amanda Hawk's vigilant poem "Femme Silencio."

 

Femme Silencio

by Amanda Hawk


Little girls learn
to be quiet.
Hands on desk,
feet on the ground.
Sit upright.
Lock their lips.
Listen for the boys
as their bell clapper tongues
clang out war zone warnings
before pulling little girls’ hair and skirts.
Girls begin to listen
for chalk scratches at doors
and blackboard predators.
Consent,
a secret language
little girls teach each other
on playground
near vacant swing sets.
Teachers tell little girls
quiet is another word
for wisdom.
Pinch marks and bruised shins
are every day for them.
Adults pluck cries for help
from small bow mouths
and tell girls their tongues
are tattle tale sirens.
They learn to only be silent
and as women,
quiet is another word
for danger.
Fashion fingers into lockpicks
to pry open
latch lock mouths.
Safety is noisy stomps
and jangling keys
tucked between fingers.
Quiet is the name
of the stranger
five steps behind,
or the hand resting
too high on the thigh.
Women learn
to unscrew institutionalized politeness
and become wailers
for their bodies, which hold
a black and white history
of muffled denials and broken laughter.
Women learn quiet
is another word for appendage.
They stitch themselves back together
with remnants of plastic barrettes
and old school pictures of smiles
behind locked doors.
They teach themselves the word no
with patched up
memories.
They learn silence costs them their
flesh, blood, bones and identity.


* * * * *

Amanda Hawk is Best of the Net-nominated and Pushcart Prize-nominated Poet.  She lives in Seattle between the roaring planes and the city’s neon lights.  Amanda has been featured in multiple journals including Volney Road Review, Rogue Agent and the winnow magazine.  She released her first chapbook in 2023 called Rain Stained City.  Recently, she placed second in the Seattle Crypticon Horror Short Story contest.

 

This month, the 141st Moon Prize goes to Martyna C. Miller's spellbinding poem "On a Train Between Boroughs."


ON A TRAIN BETWEEN BOROUGHS

by Martyna C. Miller


you’ll think of a small painting
you couldn't afford
at a winter market
and you’ll see
Venus riding the MTA.

Tonight it looks exactly like it.
The plush bathrobe falling away from the globe
of a blemished shoulder.

While peeling porous citrus with burgundy nails
popping the tiny pockets of pulp,
the sweets fill the cart.
Along with her, fawning, spilling desires
like hot coffee on sticky nora.
Dashed tailored suits and vests                                                                         
gleaming eyes
and whiskered casual carnivores
blow the bugle horn
starting the hounds on an unbarred track.

What if I could sew the cloud to the sky to stop its relentless drift?

The sky has turned to the innards of a blueberry pie
and I’ve just remembered the laundry.
The needles fall through the couture left outside
sewing them down to the earth
and the beating breasts of geese
leave a running stitch in the sky.

I’ve seen
the way a spider fractures the air with its long web
shattered mirrors slivers of silver.

I’m back at the winter market
trying to bargain with the man for the moon again.


* * * * *

Martyna C. Miller, a native of Brooklyn, NY, graduated from Brooklyn College with degrees in Creative Writing and Linguistics. Her work has appeared in college-run publications such as The Junction Magazine and Stuck In The Library. In addition to writing poetry, she is currently working on her debut dystopian surrealist novel. When not writing, she can often be found maintaining her fish tanks.

 

Long Marriages

by Judy Kronenfeld

i
Mother of stone, none of us gathered
in your hospital room know
until I bend over you, the crash cart
rushes in, everyone’s shouted out,
CODE BLUE stabs our eardrums—
Dad and I watch from the hall, squeezing
our eyes against chest compressions, shocks
to your heart that make your torso leap—all merely
methodical. We’re herded into the waiting area
where the others sit, helpless, until the two of us
are allowed back, after you’ve been
pronounced, the tube still protruding
from your mouth. Dad collapses into a chair,
head dropped onto his chest, weeps into the palms
of his hands like a broken Rodin.

I kneel in front of him, fling my arms around
his neck. I loved you fiercely, old-world mother,
but Dad is the easier parent, you know,
and some part of me thinks—if not in words—
better you first.  

I whisper through my own tears,
Don’t worry Daddy, don’t worry, please.
I’ll take care...

As if my care were the question, Mom,
as if a daughter can compensate
for the country with its own climate,
temperate or not, its own customs,
its own unwritten codes, that is wiped off
the map when a spouse of 55 years dies.

ii
Thirty years later—Dad, too, long gone—
I rise from our bed to find you, beloved,
reading the paper in the kitchen of our country,
and reach for you, and you put your arms
so easily around me, and I feel the exactness
of your chest, the stubble of your cheek,
I smell your never-been-peppermint breath.

Our daughter or son—who’ve lived with us
barely a third of the time we’ve lived with each other—
will one day too soon put their arms around you
or me, saying: Don’t worry Dad, or Don’t worry, Mom,
don’t worry, please. I’ll take care of you.

If it’s me, I’ll know, then, in my fragile bones:
you, only you, can console me
for your own death.


* * * * *

Judy Kronenfeld’s six full-length books of poetry include If Only There Were Stations of the Air (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions, 2024), Groaning and Singing (FutureCycle, 2022), Bird Flying through the Banquet (FutureCycle, 2017), Shimmer (WordTech, 2012), and Light Lowering in Diminished Sevenths, 2^nd edition (Antrim House, 2012)—winner of the 2007 Litchfield Review Poetry Book Prize. Her third chapbook is Oh Memory, You Unlocked Cabinet of Amazements! (Bamboo Dart, 2024). Her poems have appeared in such journals as Cimarron Review, DMQ Review, Gyroscope Review, MacQueen’s Quinterly, New Ohio Review, Offcourse, One (Jacar Press), One Art, Rattle, Sheila-Na-Gig, Valparaiso Poetry Review, and Verdad.

 

First Bath

by Suzanne S. Rancourt

            “Did they show you how to bathe newborns before you left the hospital?”

            I’m from a different generation and a most provincial, rural Maine upbringing.  I was holding my preemie grandson.  He wasn’t dirty and certainly emitted that classic newbie scent recognized across all species as vulnerable, innocent, and precarious.  My grandson’s Neptune eyes offered a wonderment of deep Piscean curiosity, a tad joker, and a wee bit of indignation that he was in a situation where he couldn’t bathe himself.

            “No” his mum replied, “they didn’t.”

Only home from the hospital a couple of weeks, I’d been asked to come and help out where I could while my first born son travelled for work. 

I remember the conversations my mother had with me with my first pregnancy and birth which did not include spinal taps such as hers. There were some incredibly positive things about my mum’s tutoring. 

“Look,” my mum instructed with one of her flamboyant knife hand precursors, “when you breast feed, this is what you do to cover up so you can nurse anywhere.  The baby comes first. Feed them when THEY are hungry.  Hold them when they cry. If someone says you can’t nurse, or children aren’t allowed, then leave because that’s probably not a good place to be anyway.”

I never realized how lucky I was or how progressive my mother was until too late in many cases and just in time for others. I had miscarried a child in the early stages of

pregnancy. I often feel that that was my daughter.  I don’t know how I know this.  I just do. She attempted entrance into this world between my oldest and youngest boys. Myself, her dad and a few others from university, hiked Mt. Katahdin, The Great One, up Wall Face, down Knife Edge. Wall Face was closed years ago due to its dangerous ascent. We were ill equipped hikers at best. Ignorant youths, I suppose.  Perhaps Kataahdin pitied us. We had a future ahead of us, a destiny. Kataahdin, the highest peak in Maine, the final ascent, or the starting point, of the Appalachia Trail, sacred mountain to the Wabanakis Nations, nesting roost of the great Wind Eagle with eyes that shoot lightning bolts. Katahdin does not suffer fools lightly - hiker death data proves. Perhaps the ethers of such atmospheric pressures were too much for her.  Or, she simply cleared the way for another. Or, perhaps, a sacrifice was made. I had no idea that I was pregnant until 24 hours later when the hand of God wrung out my uterus and I spontaneously aborted a small mass of marble like in those twisted Japanese soda bottles.

A women’s body can hold bits of spirit from all those that land in lush uterine gardens and then leave – energetic debris – remains – particulates left behind from water drained – life shriveled.  My mother miscarried several times before my cataclysmic entrance.  The souls that precede those that stick the landing are a bit like those thousands that stormed Normandy, Chosin, Hue, Fallujah – to clear the way – make fertile the Earth- bloody the womb that may, or may not, bear harvest. A Mother’s body remembers each and every death. No blood, no life.

In the kindest and most respectful tone, in sincerest empathy, cradling this miracle peanut preemie bundle, I turned to my daughter-in-law and said, “Would you like me to show you? It can be really scary. We can do this together.”

It is scary to admit when something is scary. It is scary to be a new mum without support. It is scary to be incredibly intelligent, educated, professionally competent, and yet, carry self doubts about parenting for the first time while all those memories of little beings arriving, only to exit, still lap the shores of uncertain motherhood.

In that week or so that I was there, I often slipped my grandson into a marsupial like Snuggly that placed him warmly to my chest, heart to heart. We walked this way along the Potomac bike path – our Ancestral Algonkian lands - I sang songs I knew, songs I made up, called his name repeatedly, welcoming him here into this family, how much we loved him. I introduced myself and spoke of the beauty in spring. The blossoms we were smelling on our walk – Red Buds, lotus, fig tree, kudzu and even the poison ivy. I invited him to hear the bird song we were listening to. The throated lollie of male cardinals, ravens, crows, seagulls, red tailed hawks, the peep of eagles, twitter of sparrows and wrens, squawking jays, quiet robins.  I didn’t lie about how the world was in trouble and needed special people, souls like his to help make the world better.  I spoke of how we prepared for him, and how honored we are to have him in our family. 

“This is how it is done” I said to his mum showing how the natural crook of my left elbow supported his neck and noggin while my left hand curved gently under his bird sized torso, my pinky and ring finger hooking gently his left armpit and miniature upper arm. “You do this to ensure that his head and neck are secure and he can’t slip from your grip and go under.”


* * * * *

Suzanne S. Rancourt, Abenaki/Huron, Quebecois, Scottish descent, USMC/Army Veteran; author of the Native Writers’ Circle of the Americas First Book Award, Billboard in the Clouds, NU Press; 2023 Poetry of Modern Conflict Award murmurs at the gate, Unsolicited Press; Old Stones, New Roads MSR Pub.; Songs of Archilochus, Unsolicited Press, 2023. Expressive Arts Therapist, and Saratoga County Veteran Peer Mentor, she continues to teach writing, and travel.

 

Femme Silencio

by Amanda Hawk


Little girls learn
to be quiet.
Hands on desk,
feet on the ground.
Sit upright.
Lock their lips.
Listen for the boys
as their bell clapper tongues
clang out war zone warnings
before pulling little girls’ hair and skirts.
Girls begin to listen
for chalk scratches at doors
and blackboard predators.
Consent,
a secret language
little girls teach each other
on playground
near vacant swing sets.
Teachers tell little girls
quiet is another word
for wisdom.
Pinch marks and bruised shins
are every day for them.
Adults pluck cries for help
from small bow mouths
and tell girls their tongues
are tattle tale sirens.
They learn to only be silent
and as women,
quiet is another word
for danger.
Fashion fingers into lockpicks
to pry open
latch lock mouths.
Safety is noisy stomps
and jangling keys
tucked between fingers.
Quiet is the name
of the stranger
five steps behind,
or the hand resting
too high on the thigh.
Women learn
to unscrew institutionalized politeness
and become wailers
for their bodies, which hold
a black and white history
of muffled denials and broken laughter.
Women learn quiet
is another word for appendage.
They stitch themselves back together
with remnants of plastic barrettes
and old school pictures of smiles
behind locked doors.
They teach themselves the word no
with patched up
memories.
They learn silence costs them their
flesh, blood, bones and identity.


* * * * *

Amanda Hawk is Best of the Net-nominated and Pushcart Prize-nominated Poet.  She lives in Seattle between the roaring planes and the city’s neon lights.  Amanda has been featured in multiple journals including Volney Road Review, Rogue Agent and the winnow magazine.  She released her first chapbook in 2023 called Rain Stained City.  Recently, she placed second in the Seattle Crypticon Horror Short Story contest.

I’m Not Angry.  I’m Just Tired.

by Amanda Hawk


I am ready to be gentle.
To soothe my swollen vocabulary
as I pull black-eyed sonnets from my papercut tongue.
I want to be more than an offering plate of palms

holding the alphabet and my mother’s teeth.
I need to learn to read beautiful in the grime under my nails
and spell dangerous with each jerk of my hips.
Introduce my skeleton to a dance floor dialogue

where my body learns to sway
through matchstick rooms with a gasoline smile,
clicking my tongue to the rhythm,
and swallowing down strobe lights.

To have my feet dance over sidewalk cracks
and dig my fingers into midnight.
For my body to create a survival guide of how to remain alive
with a dry throat and emotions spilled on the floor.

I want to breathe. 
To feel my vertebrae unhinge,
and to fall away
with each exhale.

* * * * *

Amanda Hawk is Best of the Net-nominated and Pushcart Prize-nominated Poet.  She lives in Seattle between the roaring planes and the city’s neon lights.  Amanda has been featured in multiple journals including Volney Road Review, Rogue Agent and the winnow magazine.  She released her first chapbook in 2023 called Rain Stained City.  Recently, she placed second in the Seattle Crypticon Horror Short Story contest.

For the Birds

by Chris Wood

 
Yellow blooms lace the tomato plant 
under a makeshift cage. It's Monday, 
the same cycle as last week 
from pillow to car to desk 
and back again. Barn swallows persist, 
build a nest over the front door 
leaving their mark on the welcome mat.
 
At lunch, two kids fidget in front of me. 
A woman paces back and forth 
between them and an old man 
perched at the first table. 
His mouth droops a little, left arm hangs limp. 
She speaks to him, slowly,
patient but insistent on getting his order. 
 
I watch the tender moment 
until one kid, pecking at the other, 
bumps into me, leaving a mark on my foot. 
I look to their mom who stares 
at the bright menu overhead. 
 
The clock ticks slowly through the afternoon, 
the commute even slower.
Lavender and mint fragrance my path
from the driveway to the porch. 
Basil and rosemary wisp, wave like candlelight 
glowing dark shadows against the soft brick.


* * * * *

Chris Wood manages numbers by day, spends most evenings cleaning up dog hair from the abundance of love she receives from her fur-babies, and in between, she writes to balance her right brain from her left. She has a bachelor’s degree in accounting and works for a REIT. Her work has appeared in several journals and publications, including Black Moon Magazine and Salvation South. Learn more at chriswoodwriter.com. 

 

Stand By Me

by Sarah Collins

I start my day, as I always do, by yanking back the sheer curtain and observing the sherbert orange and raspberry swirl mixed in the sky as the sun rises over the edge of the Outer Banks. The cotton ball-like clouds float and create shapes. When I was young, I thought the Outer Banks was the most beautiful place in the world. But somehow, being here has changed that. The light has become dark. The beauty has vanished within the storm clouds.

            Every afternoon, the morning sun is replaced by an angry grey that encapsulates the sky, and the air grows heavy with the scent of impending rain. Here, darkness has washed upon me like never before, and I yearn for the light and beauty of the Outer Banks that once occupied my world.

I trace the edge of my wheelchair, swirling it in circular motions. My legs, once strong and agile, now lie dormant. I was an athlete, a tumbler, and a woman full of life. But not anymore. Instead, my once vibrant body has been replaced with an old, decrepit one. Time has etched deep fissures on my forehead and scratch-like marks around my eyes. My body was tight and smooth, but now it sags and wrinkles. My husband used to tell me daily about how beautiful I was, but those words are a distant memory now.

The doctors and nurses tell me I've been here for almost a year. I don't believe them since it feels like five. I'd run away if I could walk, and they'd never find me. The monotony of my square-shaped room, the bland and mundane food, and the constant surveillance by the nurses all weigh on me. I yearn for the days when I could walk to the edge of the Outer Banks and feel the sand between my toes. I ache to see my husband, John, and have him hold me in his arms. That's my idea of freedom, the escape from the prison of this room.   

I had hoped that someone would have found me by now. The days have dragged on, and still, I haven’t seen any family or friends. For as many days as I can remember, I asked Nurse Rosie if anyone had come for me. And every day, she’d say not today, Mrs. Betty. Recently, I had the idea of putting an ad in the newspaper because John reads the newspaper every morning. He specifically checks the ad section.

For weeks, I had asked Nurse Rosie if she would send a letter to the local newspaper editor that I would draft. Her answer was always an excuse: I don’t have time; it’s not a good time; the doctor says no.

But last week, she finally agreed, probably because she had grown tired of my constant nagging. So, I prepared a letter and gave it to her. In my letter, I requested my ad to be run today because it’s John’s birthday.

Suddenly, I hear the rattle of salt and pepper shakers, and I know Nurse Rosie is approaching. She’s a respectable woman with bouncy scarlet hair. Her white mid-length dress hugs her body, revealing her slim figure.

“Good mornin’, Mrs. Betty,” Nurse Rosie says, setting my breakfast tray on the table. It has orange juice and oatmeal on it. “How are ya doin’ this fine day?”

“I’m fine,” I say, swishing my hand at her. I lean over my wheelchair, staring at the tray, ignoring the food. “I’d like the newspaper. My ad was supposed to run.”

Rosie sits in the chair next to me, “Come on, Betty, let’s eat before we get into this again. Some oatmeal?” she says, handing me a bowl of beige paste.

I put my hand in front of the bowl, forcing her to put it back on the tray; otherwise, it’d fall. “Rosie, I’m done playin’ these games with you.”

“Mrs. Betty, there’s no ad today.”

“But how will John know where I am? It’s his birthday.” My hand trembled as if I were on a rickety rollercoaster, and I pounded my slipper on the floor like a child throwing a tantrum. “Get me a phone. I’ll call the newspaper myself. Today was supposed to be the day.”

“I’m sorry to disappoint ya, Mrs. Betty,” Rosie said while fixing to leave. “It was the doctor’s orders, Ma’am. He wants ya to rest. He says he’ll talk with ya in due time.” 

John and I met when we were teenagers in high school. He was the football quarterback, and I was the head cheerleader. He was the most handsome young man with his ash blonde hair swished to the side and his sky-blue eyes. John pursued me for months by giving me flowers and candies; naturally, we fit together. But it was so much deeper than that. John understood me. He saw the worst sides of me and loved me all the same. He saw me for who I was and never tried to change me. Even when we weren’t together, I could feel his presence inside me. Our souls intertwined like a gnarled tree’s branch. There was no me without John. We’d been together for 50 years, a testament to our enduring love. He’s all I’d ever known. Even when his looks faded and his hair turned white, I loved him, nonetheless.

Since I have been here, John has visited me in my dreams every night. He would tuck my hair behind my ear and hum “Stand by Me” by Ben E. King. I’d never liked the song and didn’t understand what it meant, but I’d grown used to it. His presence in my dreams served as a bittersweet reminder of the distance between us.

By suppertime, I was feeling the heat of the sweltering summer. The longing inside of me had grown insurmountable since the morning. I had never missed John’s birthday. I couldn’t endure another moment of this unbearable separation. Only with John could I find solace, could I feel safe. Once he laid eyes on me, surely, he’d understand. He’d convince Nurse Rosie and Doctor Lane that I was ready to leave. They’d have to believe him.

I never rang the nurse call button. It’s like pulling a fire alarm for an emergency, but this was an emergency. I pressed the call button with a force that imprinted my thumb.

Nurse Rosie swung open my door. Out of breath, she braced her hip. “Betty, I came as fast as I could. What’s the matter?”

I attempted to stand, wobbling my way onto my feet. “I want to see John. He doesn’t know where I am. You people are keeping me here against my will.”

Rosie ignored me while tilting her head towards the doorway, “We have an Emergency Doctor Lane.”

Doctor Lane rushed in, and his stethoscope hung lopsidedly. “What’s the matter, Rosie?” He peered at me while I attempted to stand, “Betty, you can’t walk. Please, sit down in your wheelchair.”

I hung onto the loveseat as if I were hanging onto a cliff edge. “I want to see John. It’s been too long. He needs me at home. You can’t keep me here.”

Nurse Rosie and Doctor Lane exchanged a knowing glance, their authority palpable in the room. “Alright, Betty. I’ll tell you where he is. But you must sit down,” the doctor said.

I plopped into my seat, squishing my cardigan. Finally, some answers. I was going to see my Johnny. 

The color drained from Rosie’s face, making it indistinguishable from her stark white uniform. “Doctor, no, it’s too soon to tell her. She isn’t ready.” 

The doctor waved his hand at her, “It’s time we told her.” He stared at me unassumingly.

“Spit it out,” I said.

The doctor continued, “Betty, there was an accident. You’re here because of a car accident. John was driving.”

My chest ached. An accident? I couldn’t remember one. “And where is he now? Is he here, too?”

“No. No. John didn’t make it, Betty,” the doctor said.

“What, do you mean he didn’t make it?”

Suddenly, memories of broken glass stained with blood filled my memory. My Johnny slumped over, “Stand by Me” playing on the radio.

“Why haven’t I remembered until now?”

“The crash caused head trauma-related amnesia,” the doctor said. 

I sat silently, unable to speak for the remainder of the day. With the doctor’s few words, my world had ceased to exist. I had nothing. My hope was gone. My future was gone. No one was coming for me. John was gone.

*

That night, I fell into hibernation; my body relaxed, and my brain stopped turning. I had my answers. I woke to a song echoing through my ears. “When the night has come, and the land is dark, and the moon is the only light we'll see. No, I won't be afraid. Oh, I won't be afraid. Just as long as you stand by me.”

John rested in my doorway; his hand firmly planted in his right pocket. A cloud of daffodil yellow surrounded him, his skin unwrinkled and his hair blonde. 

I called out to him, my voice quivering with desperate hope: “John? Johnny? Is that really you?”

He walked to the edge of my bed, reaching for my hand. “Yes, Betty, it’s me. I’ve come to take you away.”

“They told me you were dead. I’ve wished for you for so long.” 

He enveloped me in his arms, his voice filled with a joyous relief. “I’ve missed you, Betty, and your radiant beauty.”

I peered at him, “But why have you come now?”

“Because you have remembered.” He grabbed my unwrinkled hand, and our hands intertwined like they had many years ago. “It’s time, darlin.”

John and I walked hand in hand outside and to the ocean's edge. The waves of the Outer Banks crashed against the shore in a rhythmic, soothing motion. 

He tucked my hair behind my ear, “My Betty, I’ve been waiting for you.”

* * * * *

Sarah Collins lives in a small town outside Portland, Oregon, with her husband and three dogs. She's a part-time graduate student who enjoys reading classic literature. Her main passion is uplifting women through writing.