Stanley was driving fast enough to beat the minutes, checking off mile marker after mile marker, hurtling over the rivers and through the woods in his mad dash to get up there before the warden departed, the pizzas breathing in Stanley’s back seat, heater vents wheezing to keep them warm, buckled in to keep them from sliding and spilling downwards, toppling onto the chassis floor, hungry pies made of God knows what, corporate-certified The Works©, masses of fatty meat and regimented veggie shards, scattered across prefabricated crusts, smothered in low-grade salt-ridden bulk-manufactured warehoused tasteless cheese, which All-American Pizza© delivered daily by the truckload to All-American Pizza Courts© scattered across America like plastic houses on a Monopoly© gameboard, yet still, despite their All-American mediocrity, their aroma, warm and savory, strapped in place in Stanley’s back seat, locked up with him alone at the helm in the confines of his lonely dashing car, provided Christmas hope, for indeed it was Christmas Eve, and despite all the red tape the warden had wrapped around it, finally, to Stanley’s surprise, miracle of miracles, the warden granted permission for Stanley to cut through it all and purchase the pizzas for one last gathering of his Correctional Education class, just like in the outside world, a pizza party on the last day of class.…
...continue reading
All night long I’ve been cruising the dimly lit streets of West Philly. Nearing the sunup, I stop a mother and son up over the dumpsters at 8th and Wolf, their faces bathed in the red-blue lights of the police car. She demands to know what it’s that gave her away but my eyes are fixed on this tendril of ivy slithering across the pavement just behind her son, sprawling toward where the sun spills its early taupe over the low-slung buildings. My stepdad and I used to weed out the ivy festooning all over the side of our house, inching closer toward the front porch every day, every minute, determined, diligent as if out on a secret mission. That was the house I was born in and soon had to get evicted from after the cops took Mom away for her daily consumption of meth and crack and everything else in between.…
...continue reading
Time isn’t patient. It isn’t kind.
I thought a lot about how to open this story. I needed some sort of beautifully poetic anecdote to show how she haunts me and will continue to until I die. But the truth is that she finds me in every moment. In every dance performance, every song, every reflection, she sits on my shoulders like a perched raven.
Though I want to tell you this story, I myself am still piecing it together.
But I’ll try. Everyday I try to make sense out of something that is impossible to understand.
My oldest sister lives in Seattle. She’s an artist and a writer. At least that’s what I tell people when they ask how many siblings I have. It’s easier that way.…
...continue reading
Max Ernst, oil on canvas
February,
snowdrops
by the side
of the house.
Petal light
chases winter
away. Blossoms
last a couple
of weeks or so,
pack pleasure
into brevity. Soon
crocuses will purple,
pink, and yellow
early March, blooms
we welcome, doomed
to wither.
– Kenneth Pobo…
...continue reading
—for antwerp
where cobblestones crunch toes
and elevators plateau:
basement resale lamp shop,
mudslide bikes, traveling
piano…
window display decorator
fumbles hulk-green
zippo.
bags of bottles chime
as we cross underwater
to the wooden robot.
we’re already mixing tequila and vodka. tonight
we’re hoping for the best.
– Rebecca Ferlotti
Note: This piece was originally published in the now-defunct The Carroll Review in 2015.…
...continue reading
When the bus lost contact with the pavement, it was still traveling the path of the road, but in the wrong lane. And uncomfortably aloft.
As we sailed forward like a low-flying plane, I hoped I might drift toward the windshield with enough intention and elbow room to at least guard my head with my forearms. But I was not alone floating above the seats toward the front of the bus. The full load of passengers was gliding airborne through the pasturelands lining the Pan-Am Highway—and perhaps a few knots faster than the bus itself. There would be no clean landing.
The driver, moored to his seat by virtue of bracing himself with the steering wheel, was madly stomping on the brake pedal, a wild grip paling his knuckles.…
...continue reading
The back door slammed shut. The woman looked up from her laptop and ran her fingers through her short gray hair. Her sister?
She plodded downstairs in scruffy slippers, one hand gripping the oak handrail, the other clutching drugstore reading glasses. It wasn’t her sister.
It was the boy.
#
The boy’s mother had knocked on her door two years ago. They had just moved in next door. Her boy had tripped on a maple seedpod and scraped his hand. Did she have a Band-Aid?
The woman grabbed a bandage from the bathroom and handed it to the mother. The boy was studying his sneakers. He looked lost in an oversized Eeyore sweatshirt.
His mother brushed the boy’s black curls away from his big eyes. She explained that the boy did not like talking to people other than her.…
...continue reading