by Alison Amato
Mom always told me to be home before two a.m.–
All the drunks are on the road after that.
And there we were, a pair of young drunks, minutes shy
of three a.m., using our loud whispers at your brother’s kitchen island.
Author Archives: epawlowski1
Young Drunks
Filed under Poetry
Royalty
by Franz Neumann
My parents naming me Royalty wasn’t enough. My praised voice and songwriting, and all the gigs—not enough. I needed to gild myself with an origin story to break through. I needed Touch Ferguson, music executive, to discover me.
I did my homework and had myself hired by Like Heaven, the service that cleaned Touch Ferguson’s house on the beach. I always brought my A game: hair, make-up, and as much allure as my Marian-blue maid outfit would allow.
“You got a date with a mop, Your Majesty? You trying to impress the bathroom mirrors, Princess?”
To clear the audition stage, I told my teasing co-workers that I’d clean the house solo. They didn’t need convincing to nap in the Like Heaven van. I sang as I cleaned, making certain to come off as genuine and not thirsty as I lingered near the security cameras. Touch who?
Filed under Fiction
Night Poem
by George Freek
I stare into the lake,
where the moon is reflected
like a shrunken pear. Continue reading
Filed under Poetry
The Limbo
by Zach Murphy
The cicadas are extremely loud this summer, and so are my mother’s outfits. The leopard print high-heels, the oversized sunglasses, and the hat with the pink floral arrangement on its brim are some of the more understated pieces in her wardrobe.
“You don’t hear about the sun when it’s behind the clouds,” she once told me as she put her beet-red lipstick on in the mirror. Continue reading
Filed under Fiction
Sutton Hoo
by Bex Hainsworth
For Mercie Lack and Barbara Wagstaff
Summer, 1939, and the past is pressing itself
against windowpanes like the children
in your classes when the planes fly overhead.
Gas masks clunk in cardboard, there is
a parade of plague doctors in the playground.
Time doesn’t feel linear: it folds like an accordion,
like the earth beneath a plough.
Filed under Poetry
Hawaii Pacific Review 