My youngest daughter requests facts. Floral-printed cards litter the counter, attempting to temper our loss with calligraphy in pastel hues. Grief is a journey, curved letters proclaim. But no map exists for this dark forest. No charted stars beckon from the endless, inky night. Trail markers blur; the path doubles back on itself, creating an … Continue reading While Seeking to Understand Her Brother’s Death
I wake up dreaming, undress myself to go out into the world. Cars are being driven in the ditches; the roads are all empty. On the sidewalks, dogs are walking their owners on a short leash, and a thoughtful bee just returned pollen to a weed. I try to get my boyfriend to look outside … Continue reading I Wake Up Dreaming, Undress Myself
I worry about: gardeners spading through the worm's afterlife ghost geese tormenting the park's clairvoyant toddlers daffodils mown down, lingering to announce spring the after-death hive-mind of army ants a river of unfinished business the size of the world — letters unsent — words unsaid tumbling over the edge if they go anywhere, how can … Continue reading Alternate Hauntings
Extraterrestrials — we chart the topographies of feeling. We abducted grief, poked and prodded: found nocturnes, saline solutions, saxophones thrown through broken windows. The cartography shifts. Lost, we erase memory. Light-years distant from even ourselves, we miss most the missing time. — MARK L. ANDERSON Mark L. Anderson lives and writes in Spokane, Washington. He … Continue reading Close Encounters
Let’s take a break. Let’s take five. No, seven, in honor of the seventh day. No, in honor of the cigarette, which takes exactly seven minutes to smoke all the way down. Let’s call it quits. Let’s take a liquid lunch and not come back for days, weeks, months. Let’s not and say we did. … Continue reading Quits
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