Chérie Newman

by Danell Jones

I'm overeasy for you —

After four hardboiled decades
you glaze my heart
icing dissolving on my tongue

Call me your sweet, your dariole, your bonfemme

You'll be my crown roast, my deep dish, my potatoes O'Brien

You'll be my always

my cupful

my round

my fill

Excerpt from Sugartbeet Falls, Volume 1:  Fantastic Friends, by Ryan A. Arca

Pops walked through the door carrying an ancient-looking chest that appeared to be older than both Xander’s grandpas combined. It looked like it weighed about half a ton, even in Pops’s long, strong arms.

“What the heck is that?” Xander asked, gaping.

by Dave Caserio

My brother, expecting, thinking, what?
That the wind would waft our father's ashes
Gently out of his hand, convey them
As though a squall of butterflies, as
White bits of the soul, as wafer
Upon the tongue, to dissolve

by Elizabeth Cain

When you can walk a milefrom your front door in August
and eat wild strawberries,
something changes
inside.

Months later you thrive
when the snow tumbles
down the mountain
and the roads ice up
and you can't even see
your way to the barn.

by Mari Hall

When I was a child, my mom never understood why I seldom played with the toys she bought.

“Why don’t you play with that Bratz swimming pool I bought you?”

I always tried to make it seem like I played with it more than she thought, or that the times I did play with it, she wasn’t in the room. But that wasn’t true. It wasn’t that I didn’t appreciate the toys my parents bought me; I was just often seen with a pencil in hand and paper sprawled out in front of me. In my stories, there were boxy figures, exaggerated clouds, smiling suns, and clashing colors of reds, blues and purples. My handwriting looked just like it does now, but larger and shakier. I would staple papers together to make small booklets and my mom would buy me bound journals from the dollar store. She always said that was one of the gifts I was the most excited about. At a young age, I wanted to be a writer.