January 2016 | fiction
It rained all day that Saturday. In the evening Dad saw frogs in the garden and wondered where they had come from. Mom said that she had heard tell of frogs that fell from the sky. I said that frogs were the second plague of Egypt and that they invaded the bedrooms of the Egyptians. That worried Dad.
I went out with Stacey that night. It rained the whole night as we went from bar to bar giggling and laughing in the rain.
When I got home the next morning the rain had stopped. Dad was in the garden wearing his Sunday suit. He was hitting frogs with the yard broom. The frogs sat quite still as though awaiting their fate. When Dad saw me watching him through the window he threw the broom down and rushed into the house.
“You shouldn’t look at me as though I’m some kind of a fool,” he shouted and stormed out of the house to go to Mass. That’s when I saw Mum standing in the hall in her shabby old dressing gown.
I checked what food there was and went to the supermarket. I cooked a traditional Sunday dinner with apple pie for pudding. Mum tried to help but just got in the way so I made her sit and watch.
Dad patted his stomach and said what a fine dinner I had cooked and that I was a good girl. Mum pushed her food around the plate and left most of it. When I emptied her plate into the trash it had started raining again. I looked for the bodies of dead frogs but there were none and I wondered if the rain had washed them away into the soft receptive earth.
by James Coffey
James Coffey lives and works in Coventry, England.
January 2016 | poetry
Written in response to the Mali Hostage Crisis
Burn.
Imagine a hotel room
a splitting open inside
a dark heat
a hymn
shining
like sparrows
in this cavern
A dua*
being whispered
for peace.
*Dua is the muslim word for personal prayer/supplication.
by Caitlin Springer
Caitlin Springer currently resides in a small coastal town in central New Jersey, where she is serving in the United States Coast Guard. Her latest published work can be found in the Fall 2015 edition of Origins Journal.
January 2016 | poetry
I.
Little girls starving themselves brittle
and family secrets glossed in simper
abide by midnight curfews,
closing their barbed cage doors behind them.
Not women in crimson juice on taffeta,
eyes in conflagration.
Not you.
II.
When broken birds cannot be distinguished from timber
we’re forced to burn it all.
Reducing the innocent to the ash
you dust on cheeks of snow.
A charcoal mask begging for sympathy.
III.
Prosaic princes are so easily hoodwinked:
Plastic action figures empty
as dropped goblets just after the crash.
Disentangled from clamshell packages with box cutters,
all twist ties and tape and embalming fluid.
Ferried to yearly balls on golden gurneys
to dens of cougars and sparkle.
IV.
Shake out your librarian bun
as the dance floor rises to meet you,
for lucite shoes are nothing new
to the feet of a princess.
by Amy Friedman
Amy Strauss Friedman teaches English at Harper College and earned her MA in Comparative Literature from Northwestern University. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Lunch Ticket, Typehouse, *82 Review, Menacing Hedge, Rogue Agent, After the Pause, Fractal, Extract(s) and elsewhere. Amy lives in Chicago, where she is a regular contributor to the newspaper Newcity.
January 2016 | poetry
The fencer lunges forward
the opponent parries but fails
and both collide corps-a-corps
while the blades flash and clash
and leave their signatures
in oozing blood that coagulates soon.
Steamy tears in droplets
combine into streams of
hot molten lava
and flow on the obdurate terrains
digging deep furrows
that soon get lined with scabs of moss.
The keel of steel slices through
the chest of the ocean
the propellers turn and churn
slip streams spiral
leaving a gash behind in the wake
ultimately fading into a mirror that it was.
Patches of infectious clouds
steal the blue from the skies
and jets streak past
leaving their tell tale trails
eventually to crumble and dissipate
wiping the slate once again clean.
by Dilip Mohapatra
Dilip Mohapatra (b.1950), a decorated Navy Veteran started writing poems since the seventies . His poems have appeared in many literary journals of repute worldwide. Some of his poems are included in the World Poetry Yearbook, 2013 and 2014 Editions. He has three poetry collections to his credit, the latest titled ‘Another Look’ recently published by Authorspress India. His fourth book P2P nee Points to Ponder is a departure from his poetic passion and is a collection of his musings on various themes which are meant to act as points in a mariner’s compass helping the reader to navigate his life better in rough waters. He holds two masters degrees, in Physics and in Management Studies. He lives with his wife in Pune. His website may be accessed at dilipmohapatra.com.
January 2016 | poetry
Has Death asked me to step out on the floor? For a tango,
long and difficult? Will I need attitude, strength
to learn new steps?
I don’t expect a polka. With luck a waltz, a whirl
of warm music in which I’ll get lost rising
and sinking in my partner’s arms.
If the evening is long, I’d like breaks. Catch breath
on a chair pushed back from foxtrotters. Fade
with wallflowers.
But it might be a marathon that ends with collapse,
then the rat-a-tat-tat of his tap dance
for which I have no shoes.
by Catherine Gonick
Catherine Gonick’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in Boston Review, Caveat Lector, Crack the Spine, decomP, DIAGRAM, Front Porch Review, Ginosko, Amarillo Bay, Word Riot, Soul-Lit, Sukoon, Forge, Jet Fuel Review, Notre Dame Review, and Jewish Women’s Literary Annual. Her poetry has also appeared in the Crack the Spine Winter 2015 Anthology. She was awarded the Ina Coolbrith Memorial Prize for Poetry.
