As a young professor, when I first taught studio art, one of the printmaking portfolios I assigned was titled “Earliest Childhood Memory.” Students chose moms, dads, siblings, birthday cakes, teddy bears, tricycles, and family camping trips as subjects. There was a fire and a tornado. Takane, a student from Kyoto, Japan, created a delightful recollection in linocut relief in which her hand grasped a pair of chopsticks which in turn clutched a fish, her lunch, just before her cat snatched it from her.

My earliest memory remains vivid and frightening. When Mom and Dad were starting out and Dad drove a delivery truck for City Cleaners, they rented a sad, tiny cottage just down the highway from Gambier, Ohio. I don’t remember the interior of the house, but I was later told that the base of the home was rotted, which allowed unannounced visits from various small creatures. Grandpa and Grandma toiled over a ramshackle farm just a few miles away and though Grandma worked in the kitchen at Peirce Hall for many years cooking for privileged east coast students, we were all an ocean away from the social machinery of Kenyon College. I was two. My face and belly were sticky with something sweet. There were several neighbor kids who lived in the red house with the flat roof next door. All were older than me, between five and nine, and they were shouting, chasing me around the yard. Barefoot and dressed only in my underwear, I ran and laughed blissfully with a kitchen knife in my hand through the grass, slippery with dew. Mom was nowhere around.

            For a short while after college, I was a caseworker for the county Child Protective Services. One beautiful spring day (I thought, how could I discover anything heartbreaking on a day like this?) the office responded to a call from an aunt, and I was sent to check on the welfare of her nephew. My little hatchback barely negotiated the mud of a deeply rutted driveway. Towering thistle and a wide variety of other unchecked weeds dominated the place and there was little distinction between yard and barnyard. Sharp, rusted farm implements like steel obstacles from the beaches of Normandy lay about ready for use but likely hadn’t been operated for some time. A trailer, their home, sat listing somewhat, orange rust stains ringed the roof and green mold painted the remainder. Tires, lumber, and other unidentifiable items were stuffed beneath the home and hundreds of beer and soda cans, more than I’ve seen in one place except a recycling center, accumulated beneath a rickety dry-rotted porch.

            The mom and dad sat at their kitchen table smoking and drinking coffee when I entered. They were polite folks and seemed equally unsurprised and unconcerned with my arrival. The walls of the kitchen were greasy from fried food spatter and yellow from cigarette smoke. Enormous black flies buzzed lazily about several encrusted fly strips, curled dangling from the ceiling. I provided my usual caseworker bit and asked if I might look around. The dad said nothing and though the mom offered me a cup of coffee and consented, she made no effort to guide a tour. The hallway to the remainder of the trailer was filled the entire length two feet deep in clothes. I was obliged to walk unsteadily upon their wardrobe and duck in places. When I opened the bathroom door, I was astonished to discover that the back wall of the shower wasn’t there. The room was completely open to the elements and provided an unobstructed view of the barn and distant pastures.

            Outside, I found the boy, about four or five, running about the yard in his underwear. Here was a familiar image. He could have been an impish cupid or a little buddha. He was barefoot and his legs were smeared with mud. And he was happy. Exceptionally happy. He offered that type of smile in children where you are sure he would burst out laughing at any moment and for any small reason. It was a smile that said he was loved. Thirty-five years later, I wonder what memories this boy reminisces from his childhood.      

David Sapp, writer and artist, lives along the southern shore of Lake Erie in North America. A Pushcart nominee, he was awarded Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Grants for poetry and the visual arts. His poetry and prose appear widely in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. His publications include articles in the Journal of Creative Behavior, chapbooks Close to Home and Two Buddha, a novel Flying Over Erie, and a book of poems and drawings titled Drawing Nirvana.

Snowflakes cry on the rooftops as I dial 911
and sirens sing the blues on Jefferson St.
while my daughter would not leave my hip.
3:45 a.m. the skeleton that was her father bangs
on the door vile, like a winter storm, wild words
flow out of his mouth breaking my courage
and almost the door.
Snowflakes that graze the top of crow’s heads
perch on telephone wires while old Mary Grace
is thrown off her porch and lay on the cement
the side of her face cracked like a porcelain doll.
Snowflakes listen as my neighbor screams
and blood drips from her mouth making red
snow angels on the ground.
Snowflakes dance at my window as I entertain
a male guest. “Maybe you’ve heard about this,”
he said. “I did not.” I reply. “It was a summer
years ago, two buddies and I. An old lady down
the street.” He points his hand lean, beautiful,
and dark as a Hershey Kiss.
“We were high on drugs. They raped and killed her.
One stuck a broom up her snatch. I didn’t do a thing.”
he said. “But took her money and some old coins.”
He didn’t do a thing, I thought, as his tongue slips into
my mouth while snowflakes dance at my window.

Eileen Patterson lives in in Cudahy, Wisconsin. Along with fellow poets she has read her poetry at the local library. She enloys long walks and reading. Her work has appeared in Underwood, Bombfire, Medusa’s Kitchen and Darkwinter.

A drunkard first, who goes a jolting, weaving way;
A tethered madman next, who rages at the day.

Matthew J. Morris is an attorney. He lives with his wife in Brooklyn.

After the reading, a few of my favorites
left in the pockets and backpacks of strangers.
Carried through the door,
down a sidewalk,
to a café or pub or home,
no doubt some were left
with small bills beside a napkin holder
or ended up on a pile of papers at the back of a desk.

On their own,
these small eyes on the world trot,
like spotted colts through a gate left open,
no one chasing after them
in a panic.

Paul Miller is retired and lives, with his wife, on a mountain lake in the highlands of Guatemala. Watching lizards, birds and butterflies is a pleasant diversion from writing, cooking and fixing whatever needs attention.

Waffle House yellow
Pepto-Bismol pink
Parchman Farm blue
insomnia grey

Paul Smith writes poetry & fiction. He lives in Skokie, Illinois with his wife Flavia. Sometimes he performs poetry at an open mic in Chicago. He believes that brevity is the soul of something he read about once, and whatever that something is or was, it should be cut in half immediately.

I sit quietly
because if I am not my
own friend who can be?

Heather Griffith lives in Santa Cruz. She is a writer, mother, and physical therapist. Her work has been published by Poetryfest and the California Arts Council.

After the difficult delivery, Dr. Fransblau, the obstetrician, turned to Gloria, the obstetrical nurse.

“Thank God that’s over.”

Sylvia had carried Ralph for nine months–and ‘carried’ was the word. She was exhausted by the time she was wheeled into the delivery room, never mind out of it. She might as well have had a suitcase loaded with rocks along with her. All those nine months, and Ralph was the result.

“It’s over, right?”

Gloria nodded. “I’ve had two myself.”

“How’d you ever do it?”

They had not been Ralph.

In the nursery, he looked around. He glimpsed a few overhead lights and several other red, wrinkled newborns. Since conception, Ralph had put up a fight. Could he continue?

Another baby–who happened to be named Fred–was wheeled in.

Fred started crying. One of the lights flickered. Ralph had to pee.

“Get that one ready.”

That one? It was Ralph they were after. Ready? His relatives had come to Sylvia’s room.

“Look at that. Dry him up.”

Dry? And relatives, including his exhausted mother, Uncle Leo, and Aunt Edna?

It was worse than he thought.

David Sydney is a physician. He writes fiction in and outside the EHR (Electronic Health Record).

Do plumb, do leeward sink
into peat toward playback, go down
as far as possible, beneath the hurled
grudge-worm to the slime-dank
apostrophe, the core’s crepuscular gem where,
the glistening superlative, the Key of M
resides—Mother Score, if the key goes turn,
and the dark absence creaks ajar,
is there a chance we’ll glimpse
Madame La Fleurie in the mirror?

Originally from Michigan, Carol Durak lived in various parts of the country before settling in Maine, where, aside from writing, she made a living in book conservation, restoration, and fine binding. In 2019, she left the East Coast and now lives in northern New Mexico.

We let the present moment slip
then look for it as if, forgetful,
we had placed it somewhere else.
Nor can we find the past
beneath the ever-present clutter
of the ever-present now.
Small wonder then, we cannot see
the future that we make, or trace its roots
from unknown past – to a present
which is so firmly lost.

Richard West” was Regents’ Professor of Classics in a large public university and has published numerous books and many articles, as well as poetry in more than thirty literary journals. He now lives in the Desert Southwest, where he enjoys outdoor activities, learning to cook, and attempting to add flavor to his poems.

My mother has asked for no
celebration of her life.

She wants to be
gone when she’s gone,

no speeches, no PowerPoints, no
strumming of acoustic guitars.

Just a single photo,
forty-four in her favorite skirt.

Just two roses,
one white, one red.

Just the rest of us, rising up
from the meditation chairs,

wiping our eyes and walking
to the kitchen for cake.

Natalie Wolf is a writer from the Kansas City area and currently pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing at the University of Kansas. She is an editor for Ambidextrous Bloodhound Press and a former co-editor and co-founder of Spark to Flame Journal. She is a major fan of baking, cats, and anything with rainbows and/or sparkles. You can find her on her website (https://nwolfmeep.wixsite.com/nmwolf) and on Instagram @nwolfcats.