Because We Never by Emily Geminder
“Because We Never” by Emily Geminder never in cars never on a dare never in the back room of somebody’s basement never playing never have I ever never once except once because I didn’t think it was so bad but they said it was bad because those sluts they would know those sluts meaning had sex meaning car riding glitter jeweled meaning nelly was cool hot in herre...
This Girl by Ellie O’Leary
“This Girl” by Ellie O’Leary Everybody in Somerville is either Irish or Italian and we’re Irish. Everybody is Catholic except a few are Protestant and we are High Episcopal. Everybody knows we are supposed to be Catholic but I know...
Entwined Moon by Lauren Triola
“Entwined Moon” by Lauren Triola I wanted to catch the moon. Wrap it in a string, wear it around my neck. I could drag the tides as I walked, guide my way with milky white, keep it on my desk at night and watch it wax and wane all for me. But then they told me no, I couldn’t catch the moon. Impossible, they said. Ridiculous. It’s not just a light in the sky, it’s a massive body of stone. It would crush me,...
Nice Girl by Cindy Lynn Brown
“Nice Girl” by Cindy Lynn Brown Nice Girl has greasy fingers and trouble breathing. She digs a basement underneath the house. She will use it as rehearsal space. Nice Girl always rehearses before speaking, before brushing herself free from dandruff and before mixing the ingredients. Nice Girl keeps many tiny things in boxes and drawers: shiny stones, creased playing cards and salient disappointments. Her most...
Sister’s Night Walk by Abbey Chew
“Sister’s Night Walk” by Abbey Chew Her nightgown, white and long, breaks the dark like a ship’s prow, then lets the night come together again around the flitting hem. Her breath shags out — just as white, just as white as the cotton — from her mouth only to drift back, curl over her ears, and away. As she moves, her body lights up the night for brief moments that seem like praise, the air around her...
This Girl by Melissa Grossman
“This Girl” by Melissa Grossman She carried a dead coyote to class, this girl who kept to herself. Roadkill in her car, she drove to school, this girl, with thick, unkempt hair. When she told the professor of her desire to draw the dead animal, he polled the other students. The drawing class gathered in the courtyard, seated around the dead coyote, sketch pads tilted, raspy sound of charcoal on paper. This...
Chicharon by Salud Mora Carriedo
“Chicharon” by Salud Mora Carriedo Bisaya Chicharon (Kilab Nga Sugilanon) “Chicharon! Chicharon! Tag-baynte ang pak!” “Tagai ko’g usa, Day,” matud sa babayeng miduol. “Hutda na lang ni, Nang, para makauli na ko. Tulo singkwenta na lang.” Gibayran sa babaye ang dalagita. Nagsuot kini’g pug-awg asul nga sayal. Ang iyang puting blaws nagdag na, may nektay nga pareho’g kolor sa sayal ug pug-aw na sab. “Imo...
Trash Day by Therése Halscheid
“Trash Day” by Therése Halscheid This is how it really looked long ago…. This is myself back in time, a girl with sallow skin, dragging metal cans to the curb, notice how I stand for awhile that far from our house watch how my lips, bright as scars, are parting open with words so the great air can take them out of their mystery — see how my thoughts form the storms, how the morning sky fills with dark...
Bonfire Girls by Roxanna Bennett
“Bonfire Girls” by Roxanna Bennett My abortion your whatever, iceberg. Sometimes boys are ways to mark a space with caution tape, identical parks, collapsible homes, your bluebird this ghost word. We’re adrift in an ocean of fuck. Your orbit slow motion, I am weeks without weather. You storm soaked, late, heavy, never gaining traction. Stuck, stuck, but sometimes hurricanes in mason jars. Blame Mercury for...
The Third Thing by Kathleen Kelly
“The Third Thing” by Kathleen Kelly Grandma Agnes, like me, believes all things bad come in threes. My father’s recovered love of whiskey, Uncle Virgil’s violet eyes in milky disguise, the May twister churning at our cellar door. Hinges contorting like Comaneci’s saltos and somersaults. Grain silos gouged, groaning— holding their sides. The auger mangled. Yet her sweet peas survive, thrive even, tendrils...
My Father’s Coat by Christy O’Callaghan-Leue
“My Father’s Coat” by Christy O’Callaghan-Leue I pull your unwanted Army green dress coat from a box of crap sent home with us and lay it on my bed, bodiless, discarded because it no longer fit. Angry because you spoke to my brother’s history class but wouldn’t walk five doors down the hall to speak to mine. Typical. I remove the patches one of your wives had lovingly sewn. Airborne Ranger. Special Forces. I...
Space by Lisa Rosenberg
“Space” by Lisa Rosenberg My father brought home the blue-jacketed, government-issued views of the surface of the moon. Parsed, printed, and bearing the crosshairs of our optics on mottled fields where illusion made bubbles of craters as we watched; my small body tracking toward a moon-cycle still years away. Toward wings I would seek to merit, and a paper to confirm my degree in postulating the deep workings...
On Shawano Lake by Lora Keller
“On Shawano Lake” by Lora Keller I wrap an orange life jacket around my shoulders like a crusty stole. You thread the loose canvas tie through the two silver rings at my waist and tug it tight, twice. It’s my turn, my one time all year to be alone with you. Your sons are still asleep and jealous. Your other daughter is afraid of worms. Our Evinrude fractures the quiet morning and soon we stop at the edge of a...
Tanka for Precious and Angie and Vivian, in Particular by M. Nzadi Keita
“Tanka for Precious and Angie and Vivian, in Particular” by M. Nzadi Keita Daffodils name you ‘home of delicate things.’ They know your yellow mind. Pollen trumpets secretly nod. Hear them open their throats? ____________________ Share your response to this work, in any form, here M. Nzadi Keita’s Artist Statement: M. Nzadi Keita’s collection of persona poems, Brief Evidence of Heaven...
Mothers by Chloe DeFelippis
“Mothers” by Chloe DeFelippis green eyes & her mother’s television echoing, she’s learned to sleep on the couch. greens eyes & her mother’s brown bags full, she collects packets of salt, pepper, ketchup. green eyes & her mother’s handwriting on index cards, she cries when shredding paper. green eyes & her mother’s dead infant daughter, she’s learned to walk away from needy little girls sad...
Ethel Finds Money by Karen Heuler
“Ethel Finds Money” by Karen Heuler My adopted sister Ethel sat opposite me at the dinner table, waiting for the food to arrive in the multicolored bowls Mom had gotten long ago, to cheer Ethel up and encourage her to eat. Ethel was humming to herself, kicking her legs back and forth; I could tell because her body rocked rhythmically. She often did it. She picked up her fork, examined it, and put it down. My...
Bouncers by Linda Melick
“Bouncers” by Linda Melick Mother made me and brother go out to the apple orchard to pick up all the bouncers. The farmer got the good fruit, but we could have the leavings. We dragged them home in a beggared wooden barrel that reeked of wine. She would sigh at them as she cut the bruises out with a small sharp knife. Then she peeled their skins off in one continuous piece. We snatched up these spirals,...
Downed Limb by Karen Skolfield
“Downed Limb” by Karen Skolfield The deer’s eating an oak limb as if it were a salad or something juicier, strawberries with crème freche. Evidence of early winter’s hunger. The leaves papery brown, exact color of the deer. It looks like it’s eating itself, working away at its shoulder, not even glancing up. When we consume ourselves, we think no one cares enough to watch. The girl in high school who carved...
Driving Home by Melissa Grossman
“Driving Home” by Melissa Grossman She haunts me, this young woman I drove home one evening. Wan with hollow cheeks and mussed blond hair that fell over her face, she kept me captive in my car, told stories about the room she rented in a big house where no one talked to her. She stared at a box of Girl Scout cookies on the floor by her feet, so I gave her one. Watched her from the corner of my eye, hold it to her...
Kitchens by Michel Wing
“Kitchens” by Michel Wing Bread cut in thick slabs, warmth pooling the butter. Swirled peaks of meringue, the lemon tart, sweet. Dinners of simple leftovers, always enough for one more. The kitchens of childhood friends opened wide for me. I entered hungry for mothering, left full-bellied, whole. ____________________ Share your response to this work, in any form, here Michel Wing’s Artist...
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Witness Nov 29, 2024
