Nonfiction Issue #13: Animals & Health July 24, 2023 How A Stray Dog Infiltrated My Writing Life by Kurt Schmidt t was the smell of hot dogs that drew the male beagle into our yard. Without pausing to see if this was friendly territory, he headed straight for the barbecue. I said, “Get the hell out of here.” He wagged his tail as though he thought I loved him and went directly to my wife, Lexxie, who ...
Read MoreNonfiction Issue #13: Animals & Health July 24, 2023 The Three Graces by Carole Duff he Phone Calls My daughter, Jessica, stopped in the middle of the narrow sidewalk and pulled out her cell phone. “It’s Dave,” she said, her younger brother, my son David. It was Sunday morning for us in Hong Kong, Saturday night in Dallas where he was. Jessica looked up. “Dad’s gone.” The news was expected, given my ex-husband’s terminal cancer, yet unsettling, ...
Read MorePoetry Issue #13: Animals & Health July 24th, 2023 Six Poems by Darcy Smith Community Room Memorial 300 lbs of sinew, he collapsed on concrete, a sudden streak of blood on the sidewalk. No one knew what took him or what put him on the ward, a locked life didn’t suit him. He needed a field for his towering tai chi, his lumbering decorum, origami boxes, cranes, stars. We couldn’t name his demons but felt their whip and chase when his eyes dulled, when ...
Read MorePoetry Issue #13: Animals & Health July 24th, 2023 Two Poems by Judith Skillman God Knows Any sixteen-hand Paint can trample a man. That’s why you’ve got to be careful of a skittish horse. I walk behind my daughter, perched in all her glory on Sid, name my father adopted because he was teased for being Oscar. Oscar four eyes, Oscar four eyes. God knows I am not afraid of horses. Rode English when I was young. Turned out into a ...
Read MorePoetry Issue #13: Animals & Health July 24th, 2023 Car Cure by Joe Cottonwood Car Cure Blended with the floor boards, so we named him Oak. Stood like a sawhorse blocking a child from the street as if to say I will not let you die. A predator, ate teddy bears. More than anything loved to ride in our car. Stumbled one day groaning to the yard, collapsed on a bed of blooming lilies. In the house Rose discovered he’d eaten most of a braided ...
Read MorePoetry Issue #13: Animals & Health July 24th, 2023 Bobbi, I am Healing by Hadley Dion Bobbi, I am Healing You spend your last afternoon looking out the front screen door. Your kidneys practicing betrayal, your sophisticated stance, all bone and bloat. Hosting your own memorial. Neighborhood strays and patio spiders paying their respects. After euthanasia, the vet lets me take you home, your body wrapped in woven nap time blanket. I lay you on the living room table and drink prosecco until the sky swallows the ...
Read MorePoetry Issue #13: Animals & Health July 24th, 2023 Three Poems by Grace Downey Black Matte Nail Polish 1 Ink She asked me if I’d ever been manic. I said I’d swallowed a many-eyed spy so he could observe the function of my liver instead of my brain. I once considered ingesting the soft and oh so palatable ribcage of a paper wasp nest. It would be peppery yet sweet, like how lovers who smelled of bourbon should have been. 2 Break Room He touched my breasts. I thought ...
Read MorePoetry Issue #13: Animals & Health July 24th, 2023 Three Poems by Lucia Owen Barn Chores Whispers in soft syllables, coven of healing, they stand together around him, my old horse, the four young girls who help with barn chores, after they found him rolling, kicking in his paddock in the mud, not getting up, nipping at his flanks - Colic - and they ran for help on such a hot stormy summer night, when they knew he could have twisted a gut and ...
Read MorePoetry Issue #13: Animals & Health July 24th, 2023 Animal, Human, Tree by Lisa Romano Licht Animal, Human, Tree He hasn’t walked all week. Tonight four little legs agree, march the lawn and looming street At the corner his face surveys the evening’s offering. Sniffs the potpourri of animal, human, tree Behind our neighbor’s house the sun descends, dusts gold onto his honeyed fur, failing eyes His gaze meets mine—gentle surprise—as if to say: This is all good, it’s very good. Then things I had stopped seeing, shine: his creature-kind expression, regal stance, twilight’s water-colored page, the leaving leaves that ...
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