I got your jewelry, a couple of scarves, and an old dress I claimed just because it looked like you. But familiar though the earrings are, the scarf, the dress, the emerald pin, no matter how I squint into the past I can’t make out your face and now I fear I never really saw [...]
Inheritance
by Darlene Young
Dying Hair
by Darlene Young
Leaning over the bathtub rinsing the dye out of my hair, I notice that the droplets splattered on the porcelain look like blood. It reminds me of my mother, whose death had nothing to do with blood or bathtubs or hair-dye, but who had always prided herself on not coloring her hair: “It crosses the [...]
Threads
by DeAnn Campbell
I AM CLEANING OUT THE GUEST ROOM closet in my dad’s house when I find a quilt wrapped in plastic with only its backside showing. I call to my brother Matt. He has lived here the longest and seems to know the most about the closets and their contents. He’s been married only a few [...]
Somewhere
by Sharlee Mullins Glenn
She strains toward heaven arms outstretched like a child wanting to be held then falls back, outspent subdued by gravity’s ponderous sway How long must she stay suspended as she is between fire and air between here and there incarnation and release? Do not rage, mother (leave the raging to the poet and his father, [...]