Tag: 2023
-
Origin Stories – James Penha
Cows by James Penha The cows in the field lumber from patch to patch of grass and weeds; mouths pull and chew and swallow and cuddle with an eagerness their big brown bodies belie. Contented—as those dairy bovines who produced Carnation Condensed Milk had been advertised for decades—cows need not run. They amble. They lumber.…
-
Origin Stories – Laurie Rosen
Slow Flow Lava by Laurie Rosen When he asked, I didn’t say yes right away, fearing myself embedded like a xenolith, bits and pieces torn off, trapped in his magma, thwarted from traveling my own journey. And for years it seemed so. Traces of me wiped away, my core weakened — spun off-course, momentarily interrupted…
-
Origin Stories – Robbi Nester
Worst Fear by Robbi Nester Halfway through the revolving door of prose, I see Poetry disappearing into a crowd. It happens in the old Wanamakers department store on Market Street, in Philadelphia, long since closed. While I am stalled by the throng, she slips smoothly by, in her neat summer frock, and enters the gilded…
-
Origin Stories – Kelly Sargent
Seeing Voices by Kelly Sargent My twin sister used to shut her eyes to shut me up when we argued. Born deaf, she held the advantage in any girlhood fight. I had no choice but to be instantly muted — her eyelids, a remote control when static sounded like me. I would steady my hands…
-
Origin Stories – Jess Parker
Origin Story v_2 by Jess Parker It was She that brought the first He and the many after. Man enveloped by woman (contained by) and set loose when ready. Otherwise, where would the ‘w’ sneak through with its many elbows— or the ‘o’ an ancient infinity symbol, turning, starting itself over. A portal where one…
-
Origin Stories – Yvonne Zipter
Tenacity by Yvonne Zipter Across the world, there’s a war going on, the latest in a long line of self-important potentates who believe the world belongs to them, destroying what they mean to keep, taking lives like pennies at the convenience store register. But life is as hungry as death. Lupine flowers, cunningly wolfish, sprout…
