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She Bikes for the First Time

“Keep peddling!” I call.
Not prepared to watch her fall.
I hold the bike steady
and let it go when she’s ready.
She turns her own wheels
when I’m used to being at her heels.
Is it always this hard to let go?
To watch kids grow?
I jump up and cheer
but inside I have this fear
that she won’t need me anymore
to pedal the bike of life and soar.

BIO: Miriam Manglani, a native of Boston, is pursuing a three-year Fiction MFA certificate at WVU. She is a member of the Word Weavers poetry group and the Kidz Korner Group. Miriam has three children and she works as a Technical Training Manager.

Tachinomiya

Julie Bissell

We were exhausted by Tokyo. Exhausted from the excitement of having finally arrived, from steering through the crowds and having our ears rattled by the strident chatter all around us, jetlagged, sand-bagged by the sauna heat of the city’s streets. Exhausted above all by the people of Tokyo. ...

Walter’s Last Model

Willy J

It was 3:25 when Walter walked into Bongart's Cleaners on Eighth Street. He approached the counter and dinged the silver bell. By the time he got the claim ticket from his wallet, Sally came out from the back room through the curtained doorway.

Though Sally was middle aged...

We Can Be Friends

Brigitte Whiting

“Hey, fatso,” someone shouts, awakening Petticoat, the hippopotamus, from her snooze. She shakes her great head and bares her teeth and tusks. “I wouldn’t do that,” she says. “I'm unpredictable, you know, when I'm frightened.” She squints her tiny eyes looking for the culprit.

“Here, here!” A small...

To Humor a Lunatic

Nitin Mishra

The lunatic was not a lunatic previously in his youthful days. He used to be a young, handsome student with a very genial nature and an ever-charming smile always hung on his oval plump face. His eyebrows were so perfectly aligned over his twin eyes that sometimes his...

Autumn Winds

Patrick Curran

My eyes closed, moments from sleep, I hear a voice. I hold my breath for a moment, my heart racing in protest.

“Bill, is that you?”

Other noises follow. I’m as still as the bed beneath me.

At last I realise it’s from the TV downstairs. I feel...

Resolve

Brigitte Whiting

One spring afternoon, you watched the neighbor kids playing with a spotted puppy. They had company so maybe it was theirs. If they brought the dog into your yard, you’d shoo them off.

You certainly didn’t want to raise a puppy. Or a dog to run your...

Safe

Brian Hunt

Everyone wore a mask now, but why they did was no longer a question. Those who asked either disappeared or, after a suitable period of re-education, joined their faceless colleagues. The masks kept us free not just from airborne threats to health but from the complexities of signalling...

Eagles’ Run

Sandra Niedzialek

Sarah Jensen works at the county morgue. It’s the only job available, her probation officer tells her. She’s a lousy thief, it seems. Gah, she hates scrubbing stainless steel. She’s the only one in the morgue because her shift is from 4 p.m. to 11 p.m. As she...

How Horrible the Moon

Brian Hunt

How horrible the moon. How horrible the pale light it cast upon my grave as it called me to my duty.

In a few short hours I would leave the comfort of my grave to walk among the living. I scared most of them, but now after over...

The Woman in the Mirror

Miriam Manglani

Jack pulled the comforter over his head and clamped his hands over his ears, but it did
little to block out his parents’ screaming. If it got any worse, he would hide in his closet.

“I told you I wanted shrimp for dinner,” Amit, Jack’s father, scowled and...

To the Moon

Brigitte Whiting

"How terrible the moon," Mr. Abrams said each time there was a full moon. "There's sadness with beauty."

At first, when the future Mrs. Abrams met him, she thought it was odd. When he was young, he'd wanted to ride on the back of his older brother's motorcycle...

Eight Ball

Maggie Mevel

Morgan smiled at the barista taking her cappuccino order. The coffee a small indulgence to celebrate a fantastic day. Two job offers. The gods were smiling on her, finally. She set her purse on the counter, and a rack of keychains beside the cash register tinkled at the...

One Precious Day

Paul K. McWilliams

“We love those who know the worst of us and don’t turn their faces away.”
-Walker Percy

Mike Hanlon, an old childhood friend of mine, had cultivated the pot, not for kicks or profit, but expressly for relief. He was a poor and suffering soul growing...

A Day to Remember

Brigitte Whiting

Annie had dreamed of her wedding day since she was six years old and received a bride doll. She'd even planned and revised how the day would unfold a hundred times. Her mother had read the notes and lamented how she didn't remember her own wedding. Annie vowed...

Thanksgiving Thought

Dub Wright

Oily rags covered her toes and loose leather straps ran around her heels. A hint of blood seemed to darken each step she took through the falling Thanksgiving snow.

“Hav ye ah pence, kind sir?”

A single coin flew through the cold air, and a rag-covered hand suddenly...

Dashing Past

Paul K. McWilliams

He recalls an old mill pond. He sees with ease the boy he was, a child smoking while watching the small red and white bobber he has cast out to the edge of the lily pads, hoping mostly for a bass or a pickerel while expecting a perch, ...

Coulda

Paul K. McWilliams

Jim Keohane drops his razor into the basin of hot soapy water as his body slumps suddenly with the news coming over the radio. Bobby Kennedy was fatally shot at the Ambassador Hotel just after midnight in Los Angeles, just after 3 AM, Eastern Standard Time. Alone, no...

SkippyGraycoat

Peter Mancusi

Skippy Graycoat woke up early to the chirping of birds. It had been a long night for the young squirrel. He spent hours fixing up his new apartment, a fancy little hollow inside of an old, maple tree, and he was happy to finally have some privacy. No...

A Pot Full of Beans

Brigitte Whiting

Clara Beth didn't remember that she'd promised to fill the cast iron bean pot for the Smithville Annual Bean Hole Bean Pot supper until late Friday afternoon when she received the call that the bean hole was prepared, the embers hot and ready. "Almost ready," she lied. What...

How You Can Go Wrong

Lisa Benwitz

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Angelina scoffed at Sam, her husband of sixty years. “You’re not leaving. You won’t last a day without me.”

“I can’t deal with you anymore,” he said as he walked out the door. As if she’d been the one to disappoint, to betray.

Angelina’s sagging...

Emerson

Paul K. McWilliams

He hurts, body, mind, and soul. Death has made its introduction and he has given it a knowing nod. At this moment he’s in a hospice unit. The head of his bed is elevated and he’s in the consoling company of his dog, Emerson. The dog proved quickly...

The “Ely Kay”

Paul K. McWilliams

It’s my boat yard, and I don’t much care for the look of her. It’s a point of pride. You should be able to take a level to a boat up on lumber. Every day with her list, she stares me down. She looks guilty and sad with...

What We Long For

Cyril Dabydeen

Creating an imaginary garden
with real toads in it.
--Marianne Moore

Frogs circle the yellow-and-black snake in the trout stream by instinct, no less. Mr. Yorick, tall, but roundish, ...

The Piano

Nitin Mishra

The old grand piano sat in lonely corner of the room. Dust covered the piano body, and insects crept in through the keys. For the house’s inhabitants, the grand piano was merely a dead wooden sound-making device mechanically operated. No one ever tried to infuse life into the...

Makers and Takers

Kim Bundy

Jake dropped the baby off at daycare early that morning and replaced three water heaters by lunch. There were two HVAC systems left to service, so he wolfed down a sandwich as he drove between jobs. When he got back to the shop that afternoon, his boss called...

Paper Wasps

Brigitte Whiting

I'm sorry, but you’ll need to go. I'm afraid to step out on the deck now after the morning before yesterday when you swarmed out of your nest and hung like a large black shadow, angry looks on your faces. We could have lived together, me on my...

Leaving You

Miriam Manglani

It was a morning in December of 2006 when we left you there. You could still walk then with help; someone had to hold your shaky right hand and wrap the other arm around your waist to steady your wobbly body. I helped you put on your white...

RICK'S CAFÉ

Cynthia Reed

We’re in Casablanca. I’ve been here before but Derek has not. “It would be beyond belief to go to Casablanca and not go to Ricks Café,” he famously said when we planned this trip – and here we are. ‘Casablanca’ is his favourite film of all time, no...

On HelenR and Writers’ Village University

Zurina Saban

I cannot tell you why I decided to write. Perhaps circumstance nudged me or perhaps curiosity or perhaps a desire to find the words to process the world, the human condition. Perhaps I wanted to find out how I feel or how my eyes see the world. Perhaps...

Milkweed and Monarchs

Brigitte Whiting

Each fall, Maine’s monarch butterflies migrate two thousand miles to spend the winter in Mexico. Then the following February, the butterflies begin their trek north. It will take three to five generations—the adult monarchs laying eggs, the caterpillars growing, forming themselves into chrysalises and metamorphizing, and new butterflies...

Bibliosmia

Penny Camp

My love for reading started early. I traveled the world and rode dragons, fought knights, stormed castles, stole treasure with pirates and rescued kidnapped princesses. I floated down rivers in the deepest regions of unexplored lands. I climbed trees and mountains and flew on clouds.

Mom read to...

To Thwart a Wild Turkey Hen

Brigitte Whiting

A flock of wild turkeys has wandered in and out of my yard for years. I have a raised deck so my birdfeeders stand ten feet off the ground and the turkeys graze under them. They are timid birds, and typically when I step out onto the deck, ...

Lessons Learned

Sandra Niedzialek

I joined a writing critique group in the spring of 2019. I wanted to learn how to write both fiction and nonfiction. I was rather confident that I wouldn’t have any problems. How hard could it be after writing business letters and lesson plans for thirty years? Plus, ...

Home

Penny Camp

What makes a place a home? I grew up on a small farm in Sunnyside, Washington, where my dad raised sheep and my mom took care of the house and yard. For almost twenty-two years I called this place home. But home wasn’t the location, Sunnyside. It was...

The Style of No Style

Frank Richards

I must be the Charlie Brown of writers because I’ve never been able to figure out what “style” is all about. What does that word, ‘style,’ mean? I’ve always had a problem with it. If there were such a thing as “styleblindness,” a disease like colorblindness, I’d be...

To All Recovering Wrecks

Paul McWilliams

Like the many millions that have come before you, and like the still many millions around you, you may find yourself facing both a troubled past and an uncertain future. Initially and unavoidably, both your past and your future need to be faced concurrently. In so doing, you...

Corona Clean

Fran Schumer

The Corona virus presents new challenges. Stuck at home, and with more of us sleeping, eating and working here, and a dirtier house, I was finally going to have to figure out how to use my new vacuum cleaner. Ordered a year ago, it mostly sat in its...

Enjoy the Ride

Penny Camp

Get up early. You can’t ride all day if you sleep in. Braid your hair tight — you don’t want it flapping in the wind. Make sure you don’t wear the undies with the seams down the back because after a long day of riding they will make...

Occasional Neighbors

Brigitte Whiting

I understand a little bit about wild turkeys. They're on a constant hunt for food, drifting through the neighborhood scrounging what they can. But I don't know how it happens that a few will either be left behind by the flock or leave it. This past fall, I'd...

Cocoa and Biscuits

Penny Camp

Saturday mornings were special occasions at our house when we were growing up. My friends begged to spend the night so they could be part of the Saturday morning ritual.

Mom would take out her green plastic bowl and splash in a little water, a little cocoa powder, ...

Livin’ the Dream

Holly Miller

When I was a child, my mom and Aunt Leona would pack us six kids into our blue Chevy Belair and drive to a local mobile home dealer (they were known as trailers back then). We would walk through the new homes, just for something to do. How...

Fall in Maine

Brigitte Whiting

Autumn is falling in Maine, harder this year than I remember over the last few falls. We've had two nights of close to freezing temperatures, not enough to ice over the birdfeeders or kill any of my plants yet, but cold enough to turn the furnace on. My...

Best Laid Plans

Penny Devlin

Every year shortly before spring, the Gurney’s Seed & Nursery Co. catalog shows up on my doorstep. The cover is plastered with a WARNING label in big black letters informing me that if I don’t order now, this will be my last catalog. It also has coupons: $100...

One January Morning

Brigitte Whiting

Mornings, I like to have a Kindle eBook open on the dining room table so I can read and look out into the backyard to see what might be happening.

I live in a raised ranch with an attached two-car garage. My deck, which is off the kitchen...

The Ruins and the Writing Technique of Negative Space

Sarah Yasin

A book club I’m part of recently discussed The Ruinsby Scott Smith. It’s not a book I would have finished reading based on the first 50 pages, but sticking with it afforded me insight into what a narrative voice can do. The story is about a group...

A River of Words

Penny Devlin

Go to work every day. Do your job. Do it well. Always learning, getting better every day. Soaking in the letters that become words, that lead to success.

Meetings, instructions, to-do lists, directions — the words start to drown like a river of brown muddy water rushing through...

Canada, Marty, and The Exorcist

Jen Lowry

On our homeschool adventure today, we dreamed aloud of the places we would travel to if we could. My kids and I agree: Ireland and Scotland are our top two places to visit. We played music from Spotify and sang aloud to the merry tunes of the Irish.

...

Truth

Angela Hess

I am twisted, bent, and deformed on every side. Everyone trying to use me to serve their own purposes, to justify their own beliefs and actions. Their eyes constantly sliding away from my pure, unaltered form, too brilliant and painful to behold without their chosen filters to dim...

A Monarch Chrysalis

Brigitte Whiting

The monarch caterpillar couldn't decide where to turn itself into a chrysalis. He wandered across my front stoop so many times I was afraid I'd step on it so I stopped using the front door. One time, he'd be crawling up a post of the front railing. Another...

Monarch Butterflies

Brigitte Whiting

I had no idea what milkweed looked like because I'd never seen it, but I'd always wanted it to grow in my yard so I could see the monarch butterflies.

For the longest time, I've hoped the patch of wonderfully fragrant plants with pale purple flowers growing...

For Meno

Glenda Walker-Hobbs

Dedicated to my sister Marilyn Anne Walker Potoski

When I was little,
You were my protector.
I called...

Overheard

Glenda Walker-Hobbs

as I ride the elevator, the door opens,
two men, one grey-haired, the other red-haired,
dressed in immaculate...

A Haibun

Louise E. Sawyer

In our Japanese Poetic Forms class, we studied the haibun form. It is an inspiring event in the...

The Guardian

Glenda Walker-Hobbs

The lone poplar tree has watched over
the back yard for fifty years.
It has been a haven...

Stranded

David Yerex Williamson

Airport runway lights
smashed again
we wait
for the sun
cold coffee in paper cups
torn night
draped...

Kisikisotowaw Awasisak

David Yerex Williamson

breeze over empty shoes
whispers stories from those
who the land gave
lowered flags on stone buildings
hush
...

Septembering

David Yerex Williamson

Half-way through
the old argument I study the recipe
on the Pacific Evaporated Milk can
harvest milk and...

The Living

David Yerex Williamson

If you want to learn to live
truly
fall in love
with one who is dying.
...

March 1st at Lochside Drive

Louise E. Sawyer

I crunch my boots into the snow,
stare at the daffodil shoots,
which struggle to bloom soon,
attempt...

Sonnet for Yanni

Glenda Walker-Hobbs

Yanni’s my black and white tuxedo cat.
He’s christened after Uncle John, our friend.
He supervises birds from...

Springtime in the Valley

Frankie Colton

When it’s springtime in the Valley
Here is my advice to you
Stay inside, the wind is blowing
...

The Hundred Stairs

Glenda Walker-Hobbs

The practical reason for building
the Hundred Stairs
was to create a shortcut
between Third Avenue and uptown...

Why Can’t I Be Happy With How I Look?

Gerardine Gail Esterday

Why can’t I be happy with how I look?

Why do I wish for her...

The Cat Days of Summer

Daniel Novak and Gerardine Gail Esterday

The long, slow climb to the highest branches stretching into an open sky.
Focusing on the ground, a...

Lynn’s Tree

Glenda Walker-Hobbs

Lynn’s maple tree
was always the last to emerge
from winter’s sleep,
when it burst into leaf,
the...

The Scream That Is Also a Song

Enza Vynn-Cara

Free verse on the page that
is my tongue; raw flesh,
smooth and thin, dipped
in blood-tinted ink—

...

The Moods of McCorquodale

Glenda Walker-Hobbs

Our very first visitor was a cat.
Corkie came for a day, adopted us.
He soon had his...

Haunted House

Glenda Walker-Hobbs

a grey woodsy coloured house
stands abandoned
in the midst of a haunted wood,
its windows are broken,
...

Déjà Vu

Enza Vynn-Cara

She went into the woods to find
the wolf that haunted her

She went to the brook to...

Be Leery Of What Falls From Above

Gerardine Gail Esterday

My forest dances on the wind, swirling above the green and brown copsewood. Above, branches split, held up...

ARS Poetica

Glenda Walker-Hobbs

I paint with words

I see
the pink tinge of fluffy white clouds
at sunset

I see
my...

Lake Katherine

Glenda Walker-Hobbs

turquoise water of the lake
stretches for miles,
as far as the eye can see

two spruces wave
...

Neighborhood Walk Meditation

Lina Sophia Rossi

Vultures gather on the old man’s neighbor’s barn,
‘decorated with ravens and barren trees.
A small cottontail stirs...

Dream Metaphor

Glenda Walker-Hobbs

I shiver in the darkened room,
stretch, try to pull the covers higher,
suddenly I am floating near...

A Whitmanesque Inventory: Spring

Phebe Beiser

So glad it rained last night. Now, late morning, sun shines,
an unexpectedly warm early March. What a...

Solitary

Malkeet Kaur

For eons now, the very core of my being
has become inaccessible.

Solitary.

Once it used to be...

The Blanket Hugs Me

Louise E. Sawyer

I’m grateful that I have a daybed
downstairs where I can rest during the day
with my Guinea...

On Love and Dreams

Miriam Manglani

1.
Love is a beast and angel and dream on fire.

2.
Your soul wakes in your dreams.

...

The Writer’s Breastplate

Louise E. Sawyer

…apologies to St. Patrick

Creative Spirit with me,
Creative Spirit before me,
Creative Spirit behind me,
Creative Spirit...

The Sweater

Malkeet Kaur

As I rummage through the clothes,
I spot it, the well-worn white sweater
that now had aging spots...

The Holly Tree

Nolo Segundo

We have a large holly tree
in our backyard—
is it foolish to say
you love a tree?

...

waiting on an email

Gerardine Gail Esterday

rain beats against the metal awning.
winds whipped up against two storms
racing each other over the Mississippi
...

Search the Square

Main Menu

Tachinomiya

Julie Bissell

Walter’s Last Model

Willy J

We Can Be Friends

Brigitte Whiting

To Humor a Lunatic

Nitin Mishra

Autumn Winds

Patrick Curran

Resolve

Brigitte Whiting

Safe

Brian Hunt

Eagles’ Run

Sandra Niedzialek

How Horrible the Moon

Brian Hunt

The Woman in the Mirror

Miriam Manglani

To the Moon

Brigitte Whiting

Eight Ball

Maggie Mevel

One Precious Day

Paul K. McWilliams

A Day to Remember

Brigitte Whiting

Thanksgiving Thought

Dub Wright

Dashing Past

Paul K. McWilliams

Coulda

Paul K. McWilliams

SkippyGraycoat

Peter Mancusi

A Pot Full of Beans

Brigitte Whiting

How You Can Go Wrong

Lisa Benwitz

Emerson

Paul K. McWilliams

The “Ely Kay”

Paul K. McWilliams

What We Long For

Cyril Dabydeen

The Piano

Nitin Mishra

Makers and Takers

Kim Bundy

Paper Wasps

Brigitte Whiting

Leaving You

Miriam Manglani

RICK'S CAFÉ

Cynthia Reed

On HelenR and Writers’ Village University

Zurina Saban

Milkweed and Monarchs

Brigitte Whiting

Bibliosmia

Penny Camp

To Thwart a Wild Turkey Hen

Brigitte Whiting

Lessons Learned

Sandra Niedzialek

Home

Penny Camp

The Style of No Style

Frank Richards

To All Recovering Wrecks

Paul McWilliams

Corona Clean

Fran Schumer

Enjoy the Ride

Penny Camp

Occasional Neighbors

Brigitte Whiting