The flowers have wilted now. Burnt orange half moon pistils burst forth from a sea of darkening, lily white. Amid the detritus living on the kitchen counter: discarded dirty socks, molding dish sponge, half-empty casserole pan, unsigned school assignments, sits a yellow vase. I find myself furious at the browning, crinkled remnants of life so … Continue reading One Week After
Here are Hidden Peak Press' 2022 Pushcart Prize nominees. Listen, I Need to Tell You Something by Andrea Lawler A Dead Thing by Adam Greenfield A Study of Skeletons / A Cherry Tree Picked Clean by McCaela Prentice The Clearing by Mathieu Cailler Metaphysical Twitch by Margaret Saigh Friend of Pig by Peter Alterman The … Continue reading 2022 Pushcart Prize Nominees
As the train sends ripples into the Hudson, I imagine bloodwood carvings awakening beneath the surface to be baptized in mud, to commune with an assembly of tadpoles. I think of the components of a river when I am traveling, but more often now as the Mississippi and the Colorado recede. I remind myself it’s … Continue reading Southbound Amtrak
IT IS A HUMID NIGHT in D.C. and the air feels clotted and dense, like it’s on the verge of hemorrhaging outside instead of raining. It’s sick air, damp and shameless; the perfect conditions for reminiscing. I slow my pace back to my hotel where Frannie is already waiting for me in the lobby bar … Continue reading A Dead Thing
The forest is carpeted with October. The ochre, red, and gold hold an old dog firm as he limps through the dry crackling. Horse tails swat at the last of the flies, and the geese pond hop across the county. Snow, sleet, and ice loom; sheets of white stripping the earth, blanketing the conifers. Until … Continue reading Changing Seasons
The wolves of Smyrna howl from their refuge to their timber kin by the Boundary Waters, to the coyotes beyond the fencing, to the yellow labs at the autobody shop. We humans hear it and long to answer the call like some futile response to untamed sorcery. We forage for cow pies to pick psilocybin … Continue reading Wolf Mountain Center, Central New York
Because I’m the seer deep within the tower, preferring the whip to the prayer cords, the rough wool & hard stone to the downy pillow, it’s too easy to hear it from you, such prophecies of who I am & will be — how can I believe unless an old book says my name in … Continue reading The Prophecy
She was right, you do resemble the moon. A vision. Dim light The opening of a mouth, a door, a soul I reach my fingers through your corridors “Am I interrupting?” It’s a delicate space, pink rooms filled with glass The tip of my toes trying hard not to touch them I was never one … Continue reading fans over knobs
Sean Doherty slammed the big glass door open and stormed across the lobby toward his office. “Sean?” Terry, the receptionist, looked up in surprise. “Trouble with Cramer again?” “With Cramer? Never. He’s a paragon of clienthood! A saint!” Sean threw his notebook down the hallway ahead of him and ripped off his tweed jacket. When … Continue reading Working Title
FOR A MOMENT she pictured herself living somewhere else. Somewhere far away where women fixed things in order to live… in some desert somewhere or in a war-torn town… walking home from the vegetable market with a basket balanced on her head. She was connected in some way to all of them. For a moment … Continue reading There Was A Falseness To Her Life