by Sheila Nickerson
Not every tortoise who waddles up your driveway
brings a message. But sometimes you wonder.
Here is Tortellini, from Terrace Place—
a block away and down the hill—
coming toward your door. It took her four days,
her people say, and she has done this before.
Quickly, we discuss the patterns on her back,
the meaning of her visit, our dreams and fears.
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Filed under Poetry
by Ace Boggess
they’re making a movie about my childhood basement
Hollywood producers overcome by all the monsters there
fire-eyed slobbering winged-like-flies arising from everywhere
as with heroes fighting in their blanket capes
Filed under Poetry
by Midge Raymond
The vet tech’s name was Kristy, and she had a shrill, candied voice that grated on Monica’s nerves. Her husband, Louis, was the one who usually took the dog to the vet.
“Oh, poor baby,” Kristy crooned as she took the dog from Louis’s arms. “What happened to you?”
“She had a seizure,” Louis said. He started to follow them into the back, but another tech intercepted him.
“If you can just fill out these forms,” she said, “we can get started on treatment right away. What happened exactly?”
Filed under Fiction
Topolobampo, Mexico
Filed under Poetry
by James Warren Boyd
Though the Laguna Beach hospital was familiar to me, the ICU was not. The entrance seemed like something out of a Cold War spy thriller, with its doubled-paned glass on thick doors, flat rectangle of steel covering the lock case, flashing lights, and wall-mounted phone. I picked up the handset, identified myself as the son of Eva Marie Boyd—so strange to use any name other than “Mother”—and was admitted with a loud buzz and the metallic thunk of the door being unbolted. The nurses’ station directed me to a room across from their administrative island. When I walked in, my Dad looked up me, his eyes puffy and swollen, and then back at my mother. I followed his gaze. A large tube, which stretched one corner of her half-opened mouth, jerked and hissed to initiate her chest’s rise and fall. I approached the bed and reached for her hand, getting tangled in the wire clipped to her forefinger. Continue reading
Filed under Nonfiction
Hawaii Pacific Review 