Photo by Kevin Jay Photography Pajama Dolls They weren’t just any dolls, these gifts from our grandparents, but, an aunt said, special ones, with skirts you could unzip to reveal secret compartments for storing pajamas. My cousin Melinda’s was pink, mine blue, vastly unfair, since my room was pink and hers was blue but our aunt said it would…
The lizard suns herself. She looks happier than I ever have. She blinks one eye, then the other. She doesn’t look at me. Does she know that, like me, she once belonged to you? The days wind like hours on a clock. I try spending more time outside. Lying flat on the ground and soaking up the rays of…
By L.A. Hunt Monsters hide in plain sight in Cadwell Turnbull’s second novel, No Gods, No Monsters. At the midpoint, when crowds take to the streets to advocate for the rights of the newly discovered monsters, Turnbull writes, “Even in a cause that is stacked against them, no one is alone.” Turnbull deftly examines what it means to live…
In this month’s Voice to Books, we’re highlighting Native American authors and their stories. The colonized view of native people often mashes together diverse communities and nations into a misrepresented and false narrative of who they are. By giving space to their individual experiences, better representation and understanding can take place. The works listed below are as varied as the…
My calendar’s automated alerts remind me to check up on my enemies. Once, twice, three times a year, depending on the severity of their insults. I occasionally come across a detail that brings me satisfaction, but generally, my enemies seem to be doing pretty well for themselves. Everyone seems more accomplished online. I know that even at knifepoint they couldn’t…
by Kristi Daune-Edwards Rabe Each December, the world slowly turns to sparkles and hope as well as stress and the special holiday anxiety that requires strong eggnog. Holiday romances become havens of joy and wonder that we revisit like old friends each year. Beyond classic films and made-for-TV movies we binge watch while wrapping gifts and making cookies, holiday romance…
dedicated to a cowgirl… Torn ticket to a rodeo, stained upside-down wooden raspberry basket, teal, brocaded pincushion the size of a child’s hand, dried bee balm bouquet. Well-worn lasso, shredded and dusty, rusted Campbell’s soup can brimming with marbles, baby bootie scuffed, eyelets misplaced. A black silk stocking, lace on its ankle, draped over rosewood branches crossed to the…
All over this blue earth, life calls to life, dog to man, girl to an arum lily. Here, dear (insert your name), we have soup on the stove, steadily simmering but likely to fail again, blown-out lentils, too much sea salt. I open a book, examine a myth of survival, Celtic spirals, new moons. Blood soaks the stories— dancing…
I had never seen a bird flatten itself until I spied a sparrow slip through a slit in the eave of Aunt Ginger’s roof. It wore a black mask around its eyes, like people do around their fear-of-COVID faces, its feathers beautiful shades of black, gray, and green. I wonder what it would be like to gracefully flatten. I…
No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. —C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed The way the afternoon light floods our front porch helps make my sadness bearable today. I scan the other houses on our block, their yards darker, but with greener grass, and wonder how ours, the one with the dead child, has the brightest light.…