Pockets Full

July 2023 | fiction

Her wish came true.

From then on, she always had in her pocket the exact amount of money she wanted. She bought a house, an SUV, thousands of computers for underprivileged girls, a guided tour around the world, a private jet, a horse, alexandrite.

Until that fateful day. Her dress had no pockets.

 

Kaisha A. Girard

Kaisha A. Girard is a graduate of Saint Leo University pursuing her Master’s in English & Creative Writing through SNHU. Her publication credits include, among others, Sandhill Review, Dots Publications, and Ember Chasm Review where her work was nominated for 2021 Best of the Net. A native Rhode Islander and proofreader for Wild Roof Journal, Kaisha hopes that her love of editing the world will someday blossom into a proofreading career.

When the Butterflies Dance

July 2023 | fiction

“Momma, where’s Mamaw?”

“I think she’s out in the yard somewhere.”

Regina Woody opened the back screen door and called out, “Mamaw!  Mamaw are you out here?  Then she spotted the old lady down along the fence standing very quiet and still.  She was watching something.  Regina Woody walked down past the peach trees to where her grandmother stood.  “What you doing?” she whispered.

“Look Honey,” said the old lady.

“What?”

“It’s the Little Yellows.  See?  The Little Yellows are out.”  She pointed to the honeysuckle growing along the fence.  There were eight or ten small yellow butterflies fluttering above the green leaves in the morning sun.  See how the dance,” said the old lady, “Like darting yellow petals.  They are another of the Lords simple gifts.”

The small yellow insects flittered like tiny dancing marionettes in the bright sunshine.  It was as if they moved in time to some sweet melody that only they could hear.  But the old lady must have heard it too.

“They’re beautiful,” said Regina Woody standing very still beside of her grandmother.

“When I was a little girl just about your age my momma made me a Sunday dress out of material with Little Yellows on it.  Oh, how I loved that dress.  Momma told me that they were a reminder of God’s love for us.  They’re only here a short time.  Then they’re gone again for another year.”

As Regina Woody watched the tiny butterflies it seemed to her that the world opened up around her, the clear blue sky, the distant green hills and the sweet smell of the honeysuckle there before her.  It felt as if she and her grandmother were standing at the very center of the universe with the colors and shapes spinning slowly around them.  Is that the gift of God, she wondered?  Is that why the butterflies dance?”

 

James William Gardner

Author of, “DEEP AUGUST: Short Stories from the American South,” and “THE HEALING GROUND,” James William Gardner writes extensively about the contemporary southland. The writer explores aspects of southern culture often overlooked: the downtrodden, the impoverished and those marginalized by society. His work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net.  Gardner is a graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University and lives in Roanoke, Virginia. His work has appeared in numerous publications including Deep South Magazine, Newfound Journal and The Virginia Literary Journal.

Objects Near Fenway Park

July 2023 | poetry

I thought I was Li Po,

had moonwine midnight

feelin’ alright,

but my Mandarin was a nightmare

and all the trolleys stopped

at Harvard Sq. when it was still called

Peking, a long walk

down a dark hall, the door to out.

 

Oh, there was Jesse Colin

Young in the Fenway across

from the Gardner with its lost Rembrandt.

At the movies with Lara and Omar,

A Man and A Woman,

Juliet of the Spirits.

Is it any wonder then the grape jam

and Jif, the nasty PCP, horrific

spider plants, piano dances,

Mozart and endless drum solos.

 

You were gone in a flash, a screech of empty space.

Maybe a god hears the collisions, collusions

spontaneous combustions on the shy

trolley that speeds slow over the black

Charles living below.

 

That strap to hold on to,

the flat place to stand.

Everything looked obvious, solid

square like a windowpane, the street

outside melting like a Dali, this chair

from which there is no falling,

in the thinnest slit of morning.

 

Before ink, blood,

before blood, water, ochre

stick figures with spears

saying I love you in stone.

You were always somewhere.

I don’t know? Chicago?

Between us the wet

spot where I drew concentric

on your unrecognizable

abstract, Cubist, small, fantastic.

 

Michael Crowley

Michael Crowley is a retired English teacher living with his wife and cat in Cranston, RI.  His poems contain bits of twisted nostalgia for his past, using scattered reflections, half-finished expressions, allusions to pop culture, partly developed images and enough odd humor to avoid sentimentality.

Nice Girls Say Please

July 2023 | poetry

Unicorn and Pegasus sat down with the Queen.

Unicorn’s horn went somewhere obsc –

“Cream with your scones?”

Nice girls say please.

 

Knock, knock?

Who’s there?

Mother told me not to swear.

Knock, knock?

Go away, come again another day.

Knock, knock, knock.

Go away, nasty girls who want to play.

One has a phone; one has a knife.

One’s barely clinging onto life.

 

“Raspberry jam?”

Nice girls say please,

hide the bruises on their knees.

Knock, knock?

Who’s there?

I said, who’s there?

Nobody loves you; nobody cares.

 

Too many sweets will make you sick.

Mother call the doctor, quick, quick, quick.

Nobody loves you. Nobody cares.

Let’s push Pegasus down the stairs!

 

Sticky-sticky hands, covered in jam.

Simple Simon broke her hymen.

Mother call the doctor, quick, quick, quick!

He smashed her face with a candlestick!

 

Nobody loved her. Nobody cares.

Nice girls don’t meddle in others’ affairs.

 

Megan Cartwright

Megan Cartwright is an Australian college teacher and poet. Her work has appeared in Arteidolia Press, Authora Australis, Blue Bottle Journal, Meniscus Journal, October Hill Magazine, and oddball magazine. She also has poems due to feature in upcoming issues of Fatal Flaw, Tabula Rasa Review, MONO, and Quadrant Magazine.

Tetman Callis

July 2023 | visual art

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Microfiche 14

 

 

Tetman Callis

Tetman Callis is a writer and artist who lives in Chicago. His stories and poems have been published in a variety of literary magazines. His photographs, painting, and mixed media pieces have shown in galleries in Albuquerque and New York City. His photographs have previously appeared in Burningword. He is the author of the memoir, “High Street: Lawyers, Guns & Money in a Stoner’s New Mexico” (Outpost 19, 2012), and the children’s book, “Franny & Toby” (Silky Oak Press, 2015). His website is www.tetmancallis.com, and he can be found on Facebook.