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.
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.
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.
