Fiction: The Boy They Hadn’t Seen
He had it coming to him, alright. Everyone in the neighborhood agreed that Marty Polks deserved whatever he got. He yelled at the kids who ran onto his lawn to retrieve stray soccer balls. He harrumphed the neighborhood moms who waved to him when he came out to get his paper every morning. His wife hurried in and out of the house after arguments, ashen face inscribed with abuse and neglect. “I heard he’s been beating his wife for years,” Tilda McHuen said, half-covering her mouth so as to appear concerned with not being perceived a gossip. Mary Holt leaned over the caution tape wrapped around the perimeter to get…
Deep are the Memories: A Poem
She sank into the depths of her memories Which cushioned her as she plucked them one by one From the cavernous heart that remembered how It felt to twirl in the surf and awaken At dawn to see the sun rise over the water Where flickering candles illuminated The pearls of his teeth and threadbare jacket As she leaned over and inhaled the spicy scent Of first dates and eternity to follow as She sank into the depths of her memories They stung like stepping on tentacles of Jellyfish whipping around a stray ankle Each time she recalled the vicious slap On her lover’s cheek before he left home And venomous words spewed forth…
Fiction: Chance Encounters and Shakespeare
It was almost serendipitous, the way I looked up from the sink just in time to see Mercutio running down the street. “Shit,” I muttered, dropping the lettuce I’d been cleaning and running out the front door, grabbing the leash from the hook as I left. Jogging after him, a quick glance behind confirmed that yes, the door had failed to latch after I unloaded the groceries. I really need to be more careful about that, I thought. Mercutio was not the kind of dog you wanted running around the neighborhood – he was the kind of dog you wanted when you were a single woman living alone at the…
Independent Reflections
The sunscreen glues to my skin Caking my pores The soft down of my arms laced with Traces of thick white fondant. I lay on the deck Sunning myself like a lizard On New Mexican granite The heat reflects off the radiant surface Further cooking skin Like crackling bacon. With no pool parties to attend No watermelon to slice open Juice running in rivulets To culminate in sticky ponds No laughing knitted community To engage with jokes and company I spend a solitary holiday Contemplating what it means to Be American. I decide I like the pool parties The barbecues, the cluster of Closely woven friendships The freedom to bare…
Origins
My life began with a funeral A fresh start from a bloody goodbye The harmful root wrenched free and yet I weep for what is no more than an Absence. Standing alone, I jump from the edge Suspended above water, space, which Expands to meet me as I greet it with A kiss – both bitter and relieving Romantic For what is more complex than this To risk both all and nothing Life is short and so is my grief But I always remember the Funeral From whence it began, this journey Of solitude where I seek out The innermost secrets of being Me, on the verge of some great…
Reservations at Nine-Thirty
She traded it all for a silver kiss. At least, that’s how it went in her mind’s eye. As Rhonda sat in her trailer, ignoring her publicist and picking at her non-existent split ends, she imagined the camera panning from the reflective lake to their unified silhouette, the moment of her decision. Cliche to end all cliches: she went and fell in love with her costar. His chiseled chin and squinty blue eyes practically demanded she fall in love with him. They had to fake being a couple of ex-lovers who rekindle their romance on a spontaneous holiday weekend, so it wasn’t really her fault. There was too much manufactured sexual tension floating around…
Shovel
He dug himself a hole in the ground a place to burrow dreams for safekeeping while he tended to responsibilities Locked them tightly in a brass tin and kept the key hidden from sight as dreams belong to youth and freedom in an age before lost chances and untraveled roads laid the tin down and shoveled layers of dark earth, blanketing wishes forgotten ambition. Neglecting the hole in the ground trudging in and out of the room that represented the key kept stowed away like buried treasure work clasps wrists together in irons of promises and paychecks a black and white way for which he did not remember asking as years accumulated in…
One Viable Egg
Suddenly she was noticing eggs everywhere. A nest in the tree outside her apartment, half-off cage-free at Whole Foods, window dressings in the Village featuring perfectly speckled porcelain specimens snug in faux-nests. She couldn’t escape the symbols of fertility popping out at her where before she hardly noticed. In fact, here they were again this morning, leftover paper decorations from Easter taped to the windows of PS 41. Melissa slowed her usually brisk morning walk to the subway, stopping for a closer look. Colored sloppily with gentle lavenders, blushing pinks, delicate blues, hazy yellows, names written in scrawling attempts at penmanship. Hunter. Emma. Joshua. Olivia. Row after row of poorly cut-out paper…
The Room at the End of the Hall
I had been aware of Margery’s affair for some time, even if only subconsciously. A man of patience, that’s how I like to think of myself. I merely looked the other way at her subtle tells; the nights when she’d return from whist long after I’d left the club, her furtive glances when the post came, the letters fleetingly buried under a stack of correspondence as I entered a room, the awkward blushes in public around a certain mustachioed gentleman. Then one day the behavior stopped, and we went on with our lives as if nothing had transpired. Though it had been many years since the indiscretion, I never forgot. While we were…
The Salon
It was impossible. No woman, much less a lady of nobility, should be exposed to such filth, though it masqueraded as art. Monsieur le Beau had already fought with the others to keep the painting out of the Salon, although really it was no contest. None of the other members of the Académie would have dared accept such a piece anyway. But now this Salon de Refusés attracted so much attention, all because of Monsieur Manet’s painting! Monsieur le Beau set down his fountain pen and sealed the envelope, hoping his influence and entreaties would prevent the Vicomte’s daughter from entrance to the exhibit. The Vicomte’s friendship and patronage over the years ensured…
