Tag: Issue 13

  • Death in Autumn

    A garden wheelbarrow fills with rain, worms escape their drowned burrows, a toad squats on flagstones, expelled ……………from its leaf shelter. Inside her house, I clean every room, scrub bathrooms gleaming white, while rain traces patterns on windows, ……………focuses the light. Goldenrod sways outside the nursing home under gold-leafed trees. I sort her clothes, sweaters…

  • Morning at Starbucks

    You see them at Starbucks scrambling below patio tables searching for pastry crumbs. These are the Brewer’s blackbirds, the English sparrows, the common grackles—disenfranchised souls bereft of countryside and village green. Some limp on deformed feet; others hobble on one leg, victims of urban treacheries. I watch as a Brewer’s blackbird struggles beneath my table;…

  • Reconciliation

    I have space in my heart for two trees, uncoiling. They look as though they’ve been twisted in summer, in peace. In mourning and defiance. I see them in the Saturdays we spent breathing out flies, sucking sand into our throats. The air smelled of honeysuckle and weeds and I found myself looking up to…

  • The Summer of Disappearing Moms

    IT STARTED THAT SUMMER with Bookie & Reynaldo’s mom, the one with blonde hair who looked like T-Boz from the R&B group TLC. The boys and their mom lived in an apartment down the street from us until one day their windows were boarded up and they were gone. My friend Nina, who had a…

  • Rogue Valley

    IT WAS THE FOURTH OF JULY, and when he showed up it was still early enough that the heat hadn’t reached triple digits. The dry lightning–sparked fires that had burned for weeks across the border in California were still smoldering, sending russet clouds into a bloodshot sky. The mountains were nearly invisible in the haze.…

  • Social Studies

      NEVER USE THEIR FIRST NAMES, the trainer said, and don’t tell ‘em yours. You call’em Inmate Zamora, Inmate Kavanaugh, Inmate Benally. That keeps ‘em in their place. They hate that word “inmate,” so use it to your advantage. You’re the alpha dog here. You’re nobody’s friend.  You don’t get chummy with these scumbags —…

  • Issue 13

    Issue 13

  • Mary Wolff

    MARY WOLFF lives in Orlando, Florida. She studied creative writing at the University of South Florida. Her work appears in Nota Bene, The Lascaux Review, 34th Parallel Magazine, and other publications.

  • Cary Simowitz

    CARY SIMOWITZ is a playwright and lawyer hailing from South Florida, currently serving as the Dramatists Guild of America’s Regional Ambassador for St. Louis.  He holds his MFA in playwriting from UCLA’s School of Theater, Film, and Television. Cary’s plays have collectively garnered him modest recognition in over two-dozen competitions across the country. His play,…