by Amy Fleury
Back in the bed of our gone son’s begetting
we drift on the raft of our grief. You join
our fingers together, your wedding band
glinting in the rivering dark. My tears salt
your shoulder. Your whiskers catch my hair.
We have only endured a week of ever-after. Continue reading
by Erika McKitrick
Remember the cemetery
the crypt, French theme
Gentle freckles
Me.
Continue reading
Filed under Poetry
by Timothy Pilgrim
We’re making the bed
after the night of failure
not that it’s always like that. Continue reading
Filed under Poetry
by Laurel DiGangi
Nathan was restless. He’d been waiting far too long with nothing to occupy his mind. No phones, zines, or screens. No landscape either: just an endless grassy knoll and sluggish queues of naked people extending to the horizon. The sun, or some other glowing orb, had not budged since he arrived an hour, week, or year ago.
Filed under Fiction
by Jennifer Randall Hotz
Mrs. C. will tell you she doesn’t mind
that the children never ask her what
she thinks about anything important
or that her husband, when she cooks
him breakfast, rushes out the door,
claims he only has time for coffee.
How often does she sigh looking out
the kitchen window, hoping for
something she can’t quite put her finger on?
When The Fonz shows up,
striding into every scene
in a leather jacket
sleek as a seal’s head,
she kisses him on the cheek,
calls him by his real name:
Arthur. He takes her hand in his,
looks deeply into her eyes,
sees what’s really there:
her whole life on endless repeat,
standing at the stove in dress, pearls,
apron, lips pursed as she scrapes
the skillet with short, sharp strokes,
trying to make something out of the raw
ingredients she has at hand.
Jennifer Randall Hotz’s work has appeared in Burningword Literary Journal, Naugatuck River Review, Connecticut River Review, Literary Mama, and SLANT, among other publications. She won 1st place in poetry for the Virginia Writers Club 2023 Golden Nib Awards and was nominated for a 2024 Pushcart Prize. Find her at: www.jenniferrandallhotz.com.
Filed under Uncategorized
Hawaii Pacific Review 