by Sara Denne-Bolton It all started with the not finishing. He would get up in the morning to find the kettle boiled but not poured over the coffee, the wet clothes from yesterday’s wash in the dryer, which wasn’t turned on, the toast half buttered and left on the plate, the toothpaste on the unused […]
by Madelaine Zadik I know my aunt Helga in black and white. All the old photos, except for some in that sepia color, have kept her grey for me. I never saw the tones of her flesh, the brown of her hair, and suddenly I realize that I don’t know the color of her eyes.
by Siegfried Haug “Looks like gout to me,” Herman, my doctor, says. I had gingerly, very gingerly, pulled down my sock for him. “I’ll give you some prednisone. Start with 60 milligrams. Then you titrate.” I was in pain and uncharacteristically compliant. Not being a pharmacology devotee, I opt for a supplementary alternative addition: Four
by Barbara Corrigan Okay, here she comes. I know her routine. She puts on the Keurig coffee pot and grabs a banana. She is always the first one up. She used to put on the TV, which interrupted the silence I felt all night. I am so old now that I am happy when it
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by Sarah Cooper-Ellis During the summer that my mother was pregnant with her fourth child, my older sister and brother and I were left to play alone. As the youngest, I was the target. “Crybaby,” they called me. We loved to explore my grandmother’s barn. One day, my brother and sister decided to jump from
by Anita Pappas-Raposa My father was a big man in a small town, well-known as a Veterans Agent and local politician. Brassy and bold, funny, and high-spirited; everyone seemed to know “Peter, the guy who got things done.” In the first eighteen years of my life, there was little talk of World War II and
by Beth Ann Jedziniak Yesterday morning on the elevator, a woman said, “I love your cane. Where did you get it?” While my cane is made of wood and looks hand-carved, I purchased it off the shelf at Walgreens. She seemed disappointed with my answer so I added, “But perhaps I should come up with
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by Amy Gordon My voice with the dancer’s waist and antique grace always told me how every cricket creaks before dawn, how oak trees shed their acorns. And my voice liked to tell me how worms boast how they ate through the eyes of Aristotle, would eat through them books of his, too, but too
by D.K. McCutchen One chilly second-Sunday in May, I complained, “Why can’t I hotflash on demand?” And my daughter said, “you’re not a superhero, Mom.” But I AM! Menopausal-Mom! Forgetter of small facts, able to power small (sweaty) cities for minutes at a time! I flipflop between the guilty miracle of air-conditioning – magical moments
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by AM Grout When I pick up a pen, I consider if the words are worth writing. I make this decision by how the inspiration and the influences that surround the idea of writing them affect me. Some ideas appear in dreams like the one in which I was running military-style to give a message
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