by John E. Simonds
We run through a world of recovering people,
proud of their problems
but unclear they’re over.
Their lives, like our jogging, one step at a time,
in parks by the sea
where the same sunset works. Continue reading
Happy Hours
Filed under Poetry
The Northern Lights
By Brett Roth
His dog paced anxiously for relief, but snow was up to Dixie’s stubby tail, and Juice understood her reluctance. He was grateful the electricity stayed on. His wife’s cancer was in remission, but Juice’s worry was unrelenting, and firing up a generator to keep the house warm was extra. On snowy days in Massachusetts, Juice missed the serenity of mountains.
The smell of coffee was an antidote against the wind’s insistent bellowing. The radiators gurgled with heat. Although Juice was quietly sipping coffee, the house was noisy and alive. His wife, Priscilla, slept fitfully in their bedroom, her sister, Pamela, snored in the guestroom, her appearance as expected as the storm. Pamela gambled and won a free weekend at a casino in Connecticut. She frequently visited after her luck ran out. Dixie’s nails clicked softly on the hardwood floor. Continue reading
Filed under Fiction
Afghanistan
By John Davis
It was several years before I told you how close I came to death.
It had been months.
I was trying to sew memories
of home into my back pocket.
I looked for moments to
rip them out and make them move like something alive. Continue reading
Filed under Poetry
Lollipop
By Mark Belair
A toddler in a stroller
was absorbed in
a one-on-one encounter
with a lollipop
she held
so close to her face
her eyes crossed
as she talked with a frown Continue reading
Filed under Poetry
Baobab
by Doug Ramspeck
He can’t be certain how much he actually remembers and how much he has been told by his mother. The stories and his memories are the vine and the tree so intertwined you can’t know to distinguish one from the next. He does know he was very young in that time before they left for the United States. His father showed him how to hide beneath the Baobab tree behind their house. It was a great tree, as old as the moon—or so his father teased—with spirits waiting in the fruit from which they sometimes made a porridge. Continue reading
Filed under Fiction
Hawaii Pacific Review 