Author: Constance Brewer
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Origin Stories – Carol Deering
The Rio Grande Café by Carol Deering See the taco lady her ruby slippers hanging out one side of a papier-mâché taco, her arm bent over her eyes. She’s resting while the jukebox slides another oldie and the toy train roars around again. Each flash of light as the doors swing open, she’s off in…
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Origin Stories – Gloria Heffernan
Elegy for the Magi Trees by Gloria Heffernan I called them the Magi Trees since the first time I saw them. Three giant Norway Spruce just behind the rise of the drumlin beyond our backyard. Regal trees bearing wisdom and gifts. always on the verge of scaling that small hill, always on the brink of…
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Origin Stories – Alfred Fournier
Warning! by Alfred Fournier Do not feed honey to infants under one year. They may give up the breast. They might sprout mandibles and gnaw the crib rail restlessly, fly from the window with a craving for wildflowers and forsake human form. And who can blame them? Distillation of floral nectar gathered in a million…
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Origin Stories – Gloria Parker
Pet by Gloria Parker You bring her home, give her a bell and collar– a litter box—a name you think she’ll answer to. For your amusement, the stripy little wildcat stalks the rooms of your house under its aging roof, till one day—maybe she’s at a window, licking a paw, when her whiskers twitch and…
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Origin Stories – Jonathan Yungkans
Duplex Beginning with a Line by Paul Vangelisti* by Jonathan Yungkans The progress of remorse and dripping faucets deepens a sharp-edged furrow between rocks on anxiety’s edge. eroding my neighbor. My neighbor’s forehead is where grass bleeds. It’s his clue I’m wasting hemoglobin, to be more diligent on sprinkler heads— leaky sprinklers an overbearing, offensive…
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Origin Stories – Nancy Botkin
Icelandic by Nancy Botkin I’m down on my knees scraping paint off the floor with my thumbnail, washing my hands over and over, but it’s like trying to get blunt force trauma and strangulation out of the news. I went back and forth between Icelandic and Moonmist, colors suggesting cool and distant, colors with blue…
