by Leo Coffey
I never told you this before, but we knew about the pills. Jacob, Uncle Tommy, James, all of us. That night you came inside to rest. The rest of us were outside shooting fireworks by the barn. It was the Fourth of July and the air smelled like hotdogs and burnt wax. I drank one too many Mountain Dews and had to pee so bad I ran inside with one hand gripping my crotch and the other holding a Roman candle. Continue reading
Filed under Fiction
by Sonia Beauchamp
We never argued when making dumplings for soup.
When rain blanketed the pine trees in gray mist
and chicken broth simmered shrouds of steam,
I stood tiptoed on the wooden stool with uneven legs.
Irregular seconds beat across the kitchen floor.
Filed under Poetry
by Anneli Matheson
The day after my mother’s memorial service I sort through her jewelry box. Like her, it’s colorful and disorganized. Gold plumerias and pearls rest beside costume brooches perched atop tangled silver chains and errant earring backs. After her cancer diagnosis my mother rarely wore jewelry, fearing the metals were polluting her body. As I hold one of her favorite pairs of earrings, the gold filigree drops with the red stones I pretend are rubies, I’m tempted to bifurcate her life into Before and After the Diagnosis. Continue reading
Filed under Nonfiction
by Gail Tirone
A crowd formed on the beach
awed and aghast
as the gray mass surfaced
battered by wave after wave
until the surf with a grotesque belch
heaved it onto the shore Continue reading
by Jan Walker
O`ahu, January 2000
A soft silver moment crosses the sand on Kailua Beach as sun burns through clouds at the horizon. Turquoise swaths slash the azure sea, a rose blush dusts the sky. I’m running at water’s edge, aware of sharp sand and chilly water, and a sense of Dad beside me, reassuring me that leaving my mainland home, moving to Kailua to care for Aunt Meg, is the right choice for this tangled time in my life.
My head turns, as though by Dad’s hand, to view the Ko`olau Mountains, veiled in morning haze, where he’s conjured an image of the Rain Shelter in Lyon Arboretum. Dad’s never been to these islands, never seen that shelter, but there it hovers as he says, in my head, Go there, Eve. Go now.
Hawaii Pacific Review 