The Tulip-Flame by Chloe Honum
“The Tulip-Flame” by Chloe Honum My sister’s painting this: a hill, a lane that winds around the hill, and a wide field of tulips with a centered tulip-flame. She rolls her brush through gray and adds the rain in tiny flicks, glinting arrows of cold. My sister’s painting this: a hill, a lane. Last year our mother died, as was her plan. It’s simpler to imagine something could have intervened. The centered...
At Lock and Dam No. 10 by Kathleen Kelly
“At Lock and Dam No. 10” by Kathleen Kelly Twenty-two minutes without Coppertone, the first warning sign, a pinking around the eyes, the ears. The skin shimmers, opal-white. I stay afloat, my face lifting toward Iowa skies. A beginner. I was once afraid of the water, the skimming dragonflies, territorial mallards. A quick kick of my ankle jetties me farther. Away from shore. Farther away from her. Earlier,...
A Crown of Crows by Melissa Coss Aquino
“A Crown of Crows” by Melissa Coss Aquino I Upon her return she will be different. They gave her a clean slate, upon which to write a new life, for herself and me. New and transformed, no shadow of unmet hunger in her eyes; gone the bony grip, insatiable in its seeking and want. She will be clean and new and all things shiny like the plastic beads I used to love to wear in second grade. Will I be a reminder...
Leah by Lee Ingram
“Leah” by Lee Ingram There is sadness in the movement of my mother’s hands, a hesitation in the way she wraps her arms around my shoulders. There always has been. That hesitation dogs her steps, even basic movements like breathing, like sleeping. She walks gently so as to not disturb her sister, sleeping in the other room. She always has, like quiet is all she knows how to be anymore. We have the same whiskey...
Interloper by Berwyn Moore
“Interloper” by Berwyn Moore Like a hand, insomnia covers her mouth. She thinks of chores and spills and bills unsent, of Gertrude’s cough and fourteen weeks of drought. The attic shakes. Her body bristles. The misspent night she wills to light and fuss, to the chaos of breakfast, laundry, kids with gifts of earth between their toes, diversions from the loss of sleep, the jangled nerves, the doubtful worth of...
Does the sea remember everything? I wonder.
Does she absorb everything? Does she keep it safe?
Virginia Woolf
. . .
The Q: Can you fathom the spectacle that would be created if we moved together, arms outstretched, close enough to touch?
The Q: What echoes through you that longs to take form—a poem, an image, a mark, a whisper of becoming?
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fathoms Feb 28, 2026 -
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