Michael Fontana ICE After the snow came ice. It thickened itself around tree limbs, strangled telephone and cable wires so they drooped and sometimes snapped. Several houses around ours were consumed in darkness as the storm wore on. The…
Robert Kostuck The False Aleph With apologies to the memory of Jorge Luis Borges. After everyone else leaves the Chacarita cemetery and the gravediggers finish tamping the soil with their spades, the four of us remain…
Michael Caleb Tasker Washed-out Horns When Sig started quoting Bob Dylan, like the words to the songs actually fit what was happening, I tried to get away. I liked it better when he was drinking, when he was showing off…
Holly Hilliard Endurance When we were nineteen, Makenna Solomon was my best friend. She did all the things I thought best friends should do: she told me secrets, she lay in bed with me while we watched reality TV…
Richard Zabel A Kaddish for Caspar Glass Caspar Glass, trusts and estates, worked alone in his corner office, high above the darkening city. His last client of the day, Harry Oxman, 76, the seventh generation of Oxman in the…
Tim Loperfido NORTHBOUND TRAIN TO PENN STATION, 2001 New Jersey transit into the city is always busy on Christmas, but just enough seats remain empty on the train so that no one has to stand. Kristin and…
Richard Paik MOST DIFFICULT On the first Friday in December, Alan distributed the poetry unit handout to his Senior Honors English class. Each student must select a poem. In making your selection, you need not limit yourself…
Kirby Wright BOULDER BLUES We sat near the continental air access tunnel. My father wore a Lilly Daché button-up, khaki pants, and blue joggers. Daddyo was upset that my mother and Jen were visiting the airport gift shop. He…
William Roebuck SCALING MOUNT WHITMAN: LEAVES OF GRASS AND AMERICA’S FIRST GREAT ‘AWOKENING’ Cards on the table. I’m not a Whitman scholar. Put me down, I guess, as a plain old reader who likes literature. As I’ve gotten…
Deborah Copperud MVMOMS On my last trip to the Washburn branch of the Hennepin County Library as a volunteer book reviewer, I elbow the automatic door opener. I am oblivious that, before my next visit, I will resign my…