October 2024 | poetry
You mourn yesterday’s bare branches when
not a single cherry blossom was
on them. The silent neighbor who takes
slow walks, where is he? You can’t get over
their absence, how they settled into your
invisible calendar, tracked life
so you didn’t have to ponder life’s
unanswerable questions when
3:00 in the morning haunts and acts your
nag. There is no present, only was.
You don’t want to know this play is over
so decades of scenes come back, take
you on journeys the future would take
you on, if you believed in it. You guess life’s
mysteries have answered themselves over
time—Who are your loves? Your friends? When
your brother-in-law died young–wasn’t
that day the most tragic? A late baby–your
happiest? Done. You walk past the house your
mother lived in, relive all the outtakes
of the movie that starred only you, was
boys, tears, edge-of-your-seat drama, life
that was always about to happen when
the sun rose. She watched. And it’s over.
Even your father’s judgments are over.
That report card he frowned at, that boy you’re
still wild about, the career you’d start when
you got real, the money he’d say it takes
to survive in the world, make a full life.
You didn’t know all those strictures were
your spine. You Google old boyfriends, always
a bad idea. Most are dead and over
you. Actors alive during your whole life
slip away. Why do you care? But losing your
touchstones means finding new ones. That takes
an open heart. Living backwards started when?
Dreams are no better. They take over
where the day left off, flashing their childhood
pictures when your life was going to be.
Rosanne Singer
Rosanne Singer is a poet and memoirist living in Baltimore and just about to finish an MFA at the University of Baltimore. For 25 years, she was a teaching artist in the Maryland schools and also part of small arts teams working with wounded warriors and their families at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, MD, and with pediatric patients at Georgetown Hospital in Washington, DC. Her recent poetry appears in Allium Journal and 1-70 Review, and her recent memoir appears in The Baltimore Fishbowl and Fatal Flaw Literary Magazine.
October 2024 | poetry
Keeping Score
The score 983 to 735
he’s quite a bit ahead
(as you can see)
46 points for washing my car
52 for buying me flowers
minus 10 because slightly wilted
I lost 66 points when I called him fuck face
after he watched four hours of women’s
beach volleyball, focused on barely-there bikinis
and 358 when I dropped our tax return in the toilet
but wait, just in
579 points for fixing his phlegmatic computer
saving us a small fortune
I gloat and glee around the room
eternally grateful to You Tube
the god of Fixing All Things
I love this game
but the score suddenly shifts
I lose 937 points for flouncing & swaggering
I collapse on the sofa & swig straight gin
(lose 88 more points)
who cares
stupid ledger
stupid game
Cutting Onions
My husband is cutting an onion with a spoon,
an almost impossible task. I notice
there’s a lock on the drawer with knives,
the first drawer on the left, under the counter.
Is he slow-sliding into dementia? Our kids
are long gone, no need to hide knives, especially
since I just sharpened my Kyoku carving knife
to slice tonight’s roast chicken. What of the row
of wine bottles lined up like empty soldiers?
Did he pour out all that expensive chardonnay?
And where is the thick cotton clothes line
that just arrived from Amazon,
the god of Good Things? I watched
a YouTube video on how to make a clove hitch
that won’t come untied, even under the weight of wet sheets.
Is it time to call Dr. Campbell? Am I losing my husband
to a one-way disease? Could Aricept help?
What of coconut oil or Coral calcium
or maybe twenty jumping jacks a day?
The onion is reduced to a soggy goo.
My husband frowns and tosses it in the trash.
For sure a call to Dr. Campbell first thing in the morning.
Tonight I will drive across the Golden Gate Bridge
and gaze down at the currents of swirling water.
If only I could find my car keys.
Claire Scott
Claire Scott is an award-winning poet who has received multiple Pushcart Prize nominations. Her work has appeared in the Atlanta Review, Bellevue Literary Review, New Ohio Review, and Healing Muse, among others. Claire is the author of Waiting to be Called and Until I Couldn’t. She is the co-author of Unfolding in Light: A Sisters’ Journey in Photography and Poetry.
October 2024 | nonfiction
My wife sends a text: I love you. I’m sorry I take you for granted.
I text: Where are you?
Her text: Doctor’s office.
Fear. I call. She answers.
My wife mentions the call I received last night from my 99-year-old kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Merritt. She turns 100 in a week. She begs forgiveness for not doing something about my father. I touch an old scar on my chin as I listen. I stroke the seam on my cheek from the old fracture. I feel the bump on my nose. Old injuries yet still, sharp ticks of pain.
Times were different, Mrs. Merritt says. That’s what I say to myself. But I know now and I knew then. I should have told the sheriff.
Pause. I can hear her breathe. Labored breathing.
Alan, her voice quavers. Can you ever forgive me?
Of course I forgive you Mrs. Merritt, I say.
Silence. For a few moments I think the call dropped.
But? she prods.
Oh, Mrs. Merritt, I say. Don’t worry about it.
But? she repeats.
But inside me is a boy who will never forgive anyone. Never. Ever.
Mrs. Merritt cries.
Oh Mrs. Merritt, I say. Don’t cry. My brother and I love you.
She continues to cry. Oh that hurts, she says. So bad. Do you still love your father?
This horrible question. I grit my jaw hard. This question maddens. This question hurts. This question burns and wrecks.
Why, Mrs. Merritt? I say. Why does a child beaten and injured by a man remain attached to such a man? Because a child wants a father. But one day, a child wants a different father.
Oh, Mrs. Merritt cries. I know you do. I know your brother does too.
Alan? my wife says.
Yes, I say.
So, my wife says, a 99-year-old can have a crisis of conscience.
So? I say.
So. So I don’t want to let things slip away, then bite me that way. I don’t want take you for granted anymore.
No no no, I say. No. Please. Don’t say that. You always can take me for granted.
Alan Nelson
Alan Nelson, a writer and actor, received nominations for a Pushcart Prize, Best of Net, and Best Microfiction. He has work published or forthcoming in journals including New York Quarterly, Hong Kong Review, takahē, B O D Y, Blue Unicorn, Litro, Stand, Acumen, Maryland Literary Review, Main Street Rag, Texas Observer, Arc, California Quarterly, Connecticut River Review, Adirondack Review, Red Cedar Review, Wisconsin Review, South Carolina Review, Kairos, Ligeia, Strange Horizons, Illuminations, Review Americana, Whale Road Review, North Dakota Quarterly, and Eunoia Review. He played the lead in the viral video “Does This Cake Make Me Look Gay?” and the verbose “Silent Al” in the Emmy-winning SXSWestworld, and narrated New York Times videos on PEPFAR.
Page 6 of 12« First«...45678...»Last »
