Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan, January 2012 “Fuckin’ sand’s workin’ for the Taliban,” the Air Force guy behind the PAX terminal counter grumbled. “Ain’t nobody gettin’ nowhere outta here today, especially you.”…
Underwater rumblings off the coast of Oregon, apt occurrences while I ponder seismic waves crashing through my brain. How much pain can you possibly cause all these years later? The…
Under the white dresser near the closet in our master bathroom, surrounded by an impressive collection of dust bunnies, sits a pair of women’s shoes. The shoes are brown low-top…
Rose petals lie open to the wind. Vibrant fuchsia has faded to a soft blush, the color now muted of its former vitality. A few petals have fallen and now…
A Note from the Editor: Many of the photographs you will see in this issue are from Asher — no last name, simply as is. Asher is a sculptor from…
She knows that there is something wrong with her when there have been no flowers in her house for weeks. The air smells of uninhabited hearts and crushed moths and…
A boy slumps sideways in a wheelchair, a breathing tube attached to his mouth like an umbilical cord. Riley could have been him if he had lived. The boy wears…
After dinner we have time Daddy’s feeding tubes cleaned his pillows fluffed so Mommy, Paula, and I spread puzzle pieces on the basement tile floor. Manicured gardens surround an old…
I’m lying in the ditch, bleeding. My son has died. I can’t move, can’t climb. I will never be the same. I will never be the same. I hear you…
Your mami first appeared to you on a Friday morning, three hours after her death. Minutes before, your classmate Nzeli’s bad news, that your mother had given birth and bled…
My wife tells me, pulling weeds between squash and okra, the cardinal that sings outside out our window is Cody, returned on the anniversary of his death in the form…
a light rain is falling. perhaps, like the trace of a breeze it will bring a fresh spirit of peace to a world that’s imploding. shattered seeds scatter, soft, floating,…