Blossom

by David M Wallace

In August were buttercups, lady slippers, snapdragons. Bluebells, cockleshells, eevy, ivy, over. Hopscotch and skipping rope. All around the mulberry bush and the ice cream truck. Then September and polka dots and am I pretty? All those tears and scattered leaves.

Anaglypta Dresses

by Justin Rulton

I watch them through the jockeying parade, merging with the walls, pinned like prisoners awaiting execution. Hidden in plain sight, hoping without precedence for something good to happen.

They just want to be asked, “Would you care to dance?”

Instead it’s more likely to be, “Wanna go to my place?”

The corpse of romance trampled underfoot, bleeding out under the pulsing lights.

Desperately numb, they aren’t even considered. Buttressed by my own wall on the other side of the hall, all I can offer is my empathy.

Leftovers go cold if they’re abandoned for too long.

I know.

I am.

The Empty Cupboard

by Jim Latham

His pantry held two kilos of chocolate, two kilos of coffee, two bottles of mezcal.

The chocolate ground with almonds, cinnamon, and sugar and pressed into discs the size of silver dollars.

The coffee grown in the shade by people who preferred the language of their ancestors to that of the Spanish invaders.

The mezcal distilled from wild magueys in small batches by gray-haired masters in villages beyond the reach of paved roads.

He’d eat and drink little else in his few remaining days. Life had been sweet. He wanted to leave it with his favorite tastes in his mouth.