January 2023 | fiction, Pushcart nominee
They played on the rug, Erica Hashimoto and her mom, they played the clapping game. Her mom said the words, and they clapped their hands across the empty air.
Willy was a German,
Willy was a thief,
Willy came into my house,
And caused a lot of grief.
Erica knew the game. Her mom had learned it in camp, where she and the other girls had clapped their mittened hands and laughed, and the only variation was to say it louder than the last, because in camp what else was there to do?
Her mom stopped playing on the rug. She got up. It was 1965, and there were lots of things to do. The moms were coming over for the big luncheon. Becky Sakamoto and Erica and the other girls were to play in the front yard.
* * *
Willy was a German.
Erica could see the moms through the big window. They were seated in the living room around the rug and talking. What were they talking about? Erica was bored with the girls’ games, so she went in to sit on her mom’s lap. She watched the women smoke cigarettes and talk in allusions she did not understand.
Willy was a thief.
“What is camp anyway?” she finally burst.
Silence.
Willy came into my house.
Erica slipped out of her mom’s lap and went back to the other girls, her bobbed hair bouncing. Click of white leather sandals. Erica was not curious about camp. Not really. And her mom never suggested that she should be.
And caused a lot of grief.
Erica found her dad on the front lawn, watching the children play in the street. He was standing on their half of the duplex lawn, beside the dried out vegetables patch with its little Popsicle sticks that told you what had tried to grow. Erica took his hands, and allowed herself to be spun, round and round, saying “Willy was a German, Willy was a thief, Willy came into my house…” Then Erica’s white sandals dragged in the brown grass. Her dad was done. They held hands. He said nothing. He fought for breath.
“We don’t say those words,” he wheezed.
And caused a lot of grief.
Erica didn’t ask her dad about camp. She knew the story, how they called him Charlie Hustle, the way he ran the bases, even when the dust was bad, he ran so fast, and the dust stuck in his lungs, and Erica didn’t ask because she knew. Walking out to the girls in the street, she held her dad’s hand. He didn’t hold hers back. She didn’t expect him to.
We don’t say those words.
We don’t say any words at all.
Evan Morgan Williams
Evan Morgan Williams has published over fifty short stories in literary magazines famous and obscure, including Kenyon Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, ZYZZYVA, Witness, and Antioch Review. He has published three collections of short stories: “Thorn,” winner of Chandra Prize at BkMk Press in 2014, “Canyons: Older Stories” self-published in 2018, and “Stories of the New West,” published by Main Street Rag Press in 2021. Williams holds an MFA, tattered and faded, from the University of Montana in 1991. He has just retired after 29 years as a Language Arts teacher in Oregon’s toughest middle school.
January 2023 | poetry
I wasn’t prepared for the body
the stillness of it, a life muted,
how the gray sets in
how small a man can be.
The stillness of him, a life muted
in a hospital room, thin blankets
against his rails of bone
how the gray sets in,
the breath still in him,
I learned
how small a father can be
when I’m too afraid
to touch him.
to touch him
when I’m too afraid,
how hollow a father can be
I learned
to still breathe,
as the gray sets in
rails of bone, against
thin blankets, and his hospital room
in stillness, a life muted,
how gone a father can be
when the gray begins
stillness, our lives muted.
I wasn’t prepared for my father’s body.
Lisa Rua-Ware
Lisa Rua-Ware is a poet in central Massachusetts. Her work has appeared in San Pedro River Review, Muddy River Poetry Review, and Lily Poetry Review. When she’s not chasing her two rambunctious kids, she works as a technical writer, loves drawing, journaling, list making, and all things paper crafts.
January 2023 | poetry
Emilio’s
—Sorry, We’re Open!
The young lady is served ribollita
with a fresh chunk of bread and a question:
What is it you prefer about a man—
his propensity to cheat—or to kill?
The young lady is perplexed—first time here—
stares at her soup, steps on her boyfriend’s boot,
knocks a can off the counter. Young lady,
please don’t be upset. We are all friends here.
Whatever you say, please—say it in Greek.
Or Italian. Or even English. Think:
here we are on the brink of disaster
and only you— your answer—can save us.
She thinks. She says, “I don’t care for either.”
Her boyfriend smiles. She smiles. Emilio
smiles—like Socrates in the Agora:
Ah, good! So then: ta chrimata paidi mou.
In this Dark World and Wide
He lived inside his head; his lust
lay with books. He read, he wrote.
(Some of his works are mind-numbing.)
He’ll go blind, they said, you watch.
And they were right. One poor eye patched,
one weeping, there was no doubt—
(though he didn’t see it coming)—
that paradise was lost.
And going blind he made a list
of every angel God let
out of heaven—his mind combing
Lucifer’s by feel, by touch.
The dark night of the soul. The match.
The smoldering intellect
smoking out free will. That humming
in the wings? His wife. The last.
John Perrault
John Perrault is author of Jefferson’s Dream (Hobblebush Books), Here Comes the Old Man Now (Oyster River), and Ballad of Louis Wagner (Peter Randall). A Pushcart Nominee, John has published in Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Blue Unicorn, Christian Science Monitor, Comstock Review, Poet Lore and elsewhere. John is a former Portsmouth, NH poet laureate. His chapbook, Season of Shagginess, has just been published by Finishing Line Press. www.johnperrault.com
January 2023 | poetry
She handed me her heart —
a red ceramic music box
she painted for me, kiln fired for me
in the heat of summer, in the dark
of basement, with tiny brushes,
shimmer chalk & glaze. Mamma
with her hair ragged back by gingham. Hands
knotted, tucking curls under cotton. Hands hinging
the lid & notes hammering. Mamma —
held out a heart that was hollow
as an empty cup, frigid as porcelain
beneath my palms those nights I stayed up
gripping the rim & waiting for the moon
to pass right through. My mamma
was girl, is a sunset at dawn, will be
an artist waking to breath’s echo in the sink.
This heart is a dam. The melody is a dam.
Her daughter is a damn opening
of the lid. She tells me the notes will play
a thousand times before the battery dies & she will live
for as long as I can make it last. Mamma —
molds mortality out of clay, leaves me
with a heart that defines the future
in terms of ration, in terms of choosing which days
are worthy of a play. Tomorrow is now
lifting the lid & listening for the time
when silence answers back.
Her heart is a fragile thief
I immediately break.
Lorrie Ness
Lorrie Ness is a poet writing in a rural corner of Virginia. When she’s not writing, she can be found stomping through the woods, watching birds and playing in the dirt. Her work can be found in numerous journals, including THRUSH, Palette Poetry and Sky Island Journal. She was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2021 and her chapbook, “Anatomy of a Wound” was published by Flowstone Press in July of 2021.
January 2023 | poetry
Holy the lone juggernaut! Holy the vast lamb of the middleclass! Holy the crazy shepherds of rebellion!
— Allen Ginsberg, “Footnote to ‘Howl’ ”
Answers are demanded of too many questions.
Write the vision, plain as a tabletop,
carved into barroom wood.
Vision has a time appointed,
presses on, will not lie. Wait for it.
Let go, ungrasp.
Let go, free.
Promissory note, hope.
The structure of bread.
A new moon over Highway 77.
Reptile, ogre, jackal, mud
— pure as any other thing.
Singer-king leapt and whirled
and claimed his loot, sinner
that he knew himself to be and prophet.
Wisdom is queen.
Patrick T. Reardon
Patrick T. Reardon, a three-time Pushcart Prize nominee, has authored twelve books, including the poetry collections Requiem for David (Silver Birch), Darkness on the Face of the Deep (Kelsay) and The Lost Tribes (Grey Book). His memoir in prose poems Puddin’: The Autobiography of a Baby was published in November, 2022, by Third World Press with an introduction by Haki Madhubuti. His website is patricktreardon.com. His poetry has appeared in Rhino, Main Street Rag, America, Autumn Sky, Burningword Literary Journal and many others. His poem “The archangel Michael” was a finalist for the 2022 Mary Blinn Poetry Prize.
