​a murder of crows
on a wire converse loudly
then fly, verdict reached


R.D. Ronstad writes mainly humor pieces and poetry. His work has appeared at Defenestration, Points in Case, Robot Butt, Bindweed Magazine, Lighten Up Online and many other online sites. A native Chicagoan, he currently lives in Phoenix, Az.

​new-mown grass smells like
yesterday, before the fall
before the troubles


R.D. Ronstad writes mainly humor pieces and poetry. His work has appeared at Defenestration, Points in Case, Robot Butt, Bindweed Magazine, Lighten Up Online and many other online sites. A native Chicagoan, he currently lives in Phoenix, Az.

People everywhere. Clustered in tight groups around the tall tables spread with precision throughout the room. Settled into banquettes along the terra cotta walls. Leaning against the glossy, dark wood of the bar. Coming and going from the facilities. Passing by on the sidewalk outside the floor-to-ceiling windows lining one side of the raised, corner stage. Leaning against the wooden frame of the inner, double doors. Servers flit between them all, balancing black circular trays laden with glassware in various states of use.

Though I do not taste these elixirs, I know them by their scents. Guinness’s creamy chocolate, Smithwick’s malty caramel, Harp’s grassy yeast, Jamison’s peppery florals, and Magner’s apple-y bouquet. Together, they seem to alchemize this moment from a singular experience, to an eternal one.

Glassware clinks, and a babel of pleasant chatter competes with the basketball game on the flat-screen TVs. The musicians in the corner seem oblivious to the din. Sitting in a circle on the stage, drinks at their feet, instruments in hands, they are lost in their own conversation. Guitarists strum chords in time with the bodhran’s steady rhythm. Fiddlers glide out notes, playing a lilting duet with the penny whistles and flute. An accordion drones and tapping feet emphasize the downbeat as the musicians fly through a reel.

In the pause between tunes, the flutist stands, declaring time for a song, and calls me over. Unbeknownst to me, the other musicians do not share his enthusiasm. I am greeted with challenging stares as the musicians lay down their instruments and pick up their glasses. There is no microphone and the sounds of the pub suddenly seem loud to me. My heart beats swiftly as a flutter of nervous energy pervades my being. The flutist smiles and nods his head. I turn my back to the open windows and face the crowd, looking over the heads of the musicians in front of me. Ignoring their stares, I swallow my fear, take a deep breath, and open my mouth. Within three notes, a hush falls over the room. The servers mute the televisions, and time stands still. People stop mid-drink, holding glasses aloft. They freeze on their way to or from the facilities. They halt in, and by, the doorway. They stop on the sidewalk outside, and press into the windows. I sing on.

The nervous energy gives way to something else. Something ethereal and incandescent. And as I look around the room while singing a tale of love and longing, I am aware that everyone here in this terra cotta space, the sports-lovers, the craic sharers, the casual diners, the musicians, the people now crowded into the open windows and doorway, the barkeep, the servers – all of us are held in some kind of magic, woven by the song. Together, we are in a sacred moment, a shared experience. Transcending time. In this exact instant, I know in my blood and bones, I am not alone. My body holds a power older than time itself and I am not singing. I am being sung. 


Sarah Dinan is a vocalist and author with a passion for storytelling and an abiding love for nature. She’s been a teacher, actress, martial artist, radio DJ, Turkish cuisine connoisseur, hair model, belly dancer, arborist, Celtic singer, and ropes course facilitator. She’s also an unofficial ambassador for hydration, and a fierce advocate for following your dreams. Her writing has been published in Ariel Chart Literary Journal and The Orchards Poetry Journal, and featured on Jericho Writers. Sarah lives in Austin, Texas with her husband, son, and battle cello, Tilda.

​Writer at her desk--
Sea of paper and promise,
I aim to slay you

          Ink me if you dare 
          Fail to capture the idea 
          I am THE STORY... 

Harpoon inked, seasick
White whale—smooth, archival grade
Let’s die a good death!


Monique S. Simón is a native of Antigua, Caribbean.  She writes poetry and short fiction. She is also known to convert the text messages of close friends into lyrical prose for mutual entertainment.  She lives in Upstate, New York where she is cultivating a formal garden and a taste for solitude.

Some girls flit like fireflies,
Smiles that shimmer & shine,
Laughter like wind chimes,
Kisses like candy, 
Lift your heart like helium.
This girl,
She slinks like a panther,
Smile like smoky whiskey
Her laughter like jazz, 
Her kiss is dark chocolate dope,
And she holds your heart in velvet chains. 


J.S. Mueller (a pen name) has an urban core but resides on 34 acres in south-central Kentucky. They are kept amused by their husband of three decades, their 6 kids (half of whom are young adults who've not yet fled the nest), three cats, two ferrets, and a pit bull with an insect phobia. Their stories have appeared or are soon to be published in Red Fez, Mystery Tribune, Night Shift Radio, and Flash Fiction Magazine. 

The first carolers are intent on chasing sun out of bed.
She takes her time, stretching long limbs into the day.
Pink diaphanous morning wear streams across horizon,
crescendos to scarlet. Rising into her fierce power, she blazes 
a hole in silhouetted trees.

Birds alight!


​Liz Kornelsen is a prairie poet from Winnipeg, Manitoba and the author of Arc of Light and Shadow: Poems with Art. To dance lightly on the earth in solitude, with other humans, or with other forms of nature, is one of her greatest joys.

summer winds tickle
leaves into silver-rippled 
laughter, twinkling stars


​Liz Kornelsen is a prairie poet from Winnipeg, Manitoba and the author of Arc of Light and Shadow: Poems with Art. To dance lightly on the earth in solitude, with other humans, or with other forms of nature, is one of her greatest joys.

Cicadas Sing
cicadas singing
strong drink and a warmer night
summer, welcome home

Summer Ditty
crickets play a tune
outside the window, bright moon
Shining through the night


​Michelle Olivier is a registered nurse by day and a poet by night. When she's not saving lives, she has her nose in a book or a pen in her hand.  

I find myself in
again and again
ready to turn left
at the intersection
where I learned left turns
listening to a song
from those same late early years
singing along half wrong
learning or remembering
—remembering learning—the lyrics
as my car climbs a familiar road
my hands not so much steering
as rereading this hill: the sameness of the slope
and the humidity, as if seasons stay put
and we keep visiting them, as if melodies
and dashboards were time-travelling machines

in the silence between songs, I am here

at the stop sign (another left)
surrounded by green and memory
between the playground and the swim club
between the library and home
beneath the blue June sky
 
and despite the renovations
everything seems just as it was
only more so—the insects louder, the leaves denser
—the ghost breeze swaddling
all the years between then and then compressed
compressed in now, turning again

as I learn to remember learning
the way home, the way through
this growth and warmth, this summer


Ceridwen Hall is a poet and book coach. She helps poets and novelists plan, create, and revise compelling manuscripts with one-on-one coaching and inspiring feedback. She holds a PhD from the University of Utah and is the author of two chapbooks: Automotive (Finishing Line Press) and Excursions (Train Wreck Press). Her work has appeared in TriQuarterly, Pembroke Magazine, Tar River Poetry, The Cincinnati Review, and other journals. You can find her at www.ceridwenhall.com.

​now thunder rolls in, as well as birdsong
the rustling of wet leaves, a distant ambulance
the neighbors’ flute practice, traffic, a few stray moths--

all disrupting or becoming thoughts

memories and dreams, meanwhile, leak

out into the wide green world where horses run
in the dusk and geese land on ponds, where cars circle
the hill and deer rip new lettuce from gardens
and people pause in the warm dark before a storm

where summer insists on growth
and some of us call this hope


Ceridwen Hall is a poet and book coach. She helps poets and novelists plan, create, and revise compelling manuscripts with one-on-one coaching and inspiring feedback. She holds a PhD from the University of Utah and is the author of two chapbooks: Automotive (Finishing Line Press) and Excursions (Train Wreck Press). Her work has appeared in TriQuarterly, Pembroke Magazine, Tar River Poetry, The Cincinnati Review, and other journals. You can find her at www.ceridwenhall.com.

Dusk colors the sky;
a precocious preschooler. 
Look! It earned a star.

Art; life flat-lining.
Seventeen beats. Three straight lines.
Heart breaking. Yours. Mine.

Light/dark. Different? 
Two sides of the same thin coin. 
Dawn; like night and day.


Renate Wildermuth's poetry has been published by The Postcard Press, Poetry Jumps off the Shelf and the online journals Mannequin Envy and Literary Mama.  She is a freelance writer for The Albany Times Union. Her articles have also appeared in Adirondack Life Magazine, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Miami Herald, and The Charlotte Observer. She has been a commentator for North Country Public Radio and have appeared on New Hampshire Public Radio’s Word of Mouth program. Her creative nonfiction has been published by Syracuse University’s journal Stone Canoe. She teaches German at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania.

​What I ask
is a memory. What I get is a story
about the sun. The smell
of seagulls, sand, oarweed,
the smell of rot, outfielder stats,
the sheer fountain of brown
waves over the feet of an unwanted
son. I get chatter of divorce, 
tubular daughters,
the smell of pot, talk of war, and its harsh 
tentacles hanging
in the air. Some sky writer’s joke
about drunk co-eds, a pun that echoes down
the OC boardwalk meat. The heat
is not the illusion, but the joy
is, unseen as it is. Unwanted sex running
down legs, long hooks
of sweat fall into blankets, into the bookbag hidden
with beer. My wrinkled hands go thick
and vampiric.   

Some days you drink
for meaning, some days
to keep the world in place.
Today the booze’s burn keeps
the blood interesting,
I focus on getting through, 
the skin of my arm becomes
an ocean of anger I always understand.


C.L. Liedekev is a poet/dreamer who lives in Conshohocken, PA, with his real name, wife, and children. He attended most of his life in the Southern part of New Jersey. His work has been published in such places as Humana Obscura, Red Fez, MacQueen's, Hare’s Paw, River Heron Review, amongst others. His poem, “November Snow. Philadelphia Children’s Hospital” is a finalist for the 2021 Best of the Net. 

​
We promenade our dreams
down streets of life,
          places we lean into
          when darkness rolls over.

We wave at wee folk, wasps,
and the woman whose just discovered whiskey,
          distilled
          like so many other intoxications.

We open our mouths to June dry -  
manatee mermaids and lightning bugs
          show up on floats
          telling stories we believe.

We cheer mystic mentors who step simply
on the warm, round womb beneath us
          and toss diamonds and stars
          to us on sidewalks, hands open.


Karen Pierce Gonzalez is a San Francisco Bay Area writer whose chapbooks include True North (Origami Poems Project) and the forthcoming Coyote in the basket of my Ribs (Alabaster Leaves Press), Down River with Li Po (Black Cat Poetry Press).

​
After waiting through
an extra hour of traffic
(three lanes becoming one,
road repair---black asphalt patches
amidst gray concrete)
I am in the garden.

In front of me white flowers
appearing to be daffodils
are contained in a brush
of foot high greens. 
In the center of the gaggle
lives a spread of shorter grass.
Adult trees with white flowers,
and a red Japanese maple
border the meadow’s western wall.

While I feel less than perfect---
it is a perfect day; blue sky,
no clouds, cool breeze.  
A carnival of color in front of me.
As I gaze on this scene 
recollections of dismal days past bubble
into my consciousness.  
In those times I stopped believing.
Today, in the gentle garden
I find a bit of hope.


Ed Krizek holds a BA and MS from University of Pennsylvania, and an MBA and MPH from Columbia University.  For over thirty years Ed has been studying and writing poetry.  He is the author of six books of poetry:  Threshold, Longwood Poems, What Lies Ahead, Swimming With Words, The Pure Land, and This Will Pass All are available on Amazon.com.  Ed writes for the reader who is not necessarily an initiate into the poetry community.  He likes to connect with his readers on a personal level.

Kayacks and paddleboards glide
across.  Gentle Breeze.  Sunny day.
Children play in the shallows 
screaming about the cold water. 
Pleasant vibes from all.
The lake is a sanctuary
from daily troubles. Content
to sit on the shore. I watch.
Life goes on around me.
While others paddle and glide
sitting in the shade is glorious
and restful.  Perhaps
this feeling is what is meant by
equanimity.   


Ed Krizek holds a BA and MS from University of Pennsylvania, and an MBA and MPH from Columbia University.  For over thirty years Ed has been studying and writing poetry.  He is the author of six books of poetry:  Threshold, Longwood Poems, What Lies Ahead, Swimming With Words, The Pure Land, and This Will Pass All are available on Amazon.com.  Ed writes for the reader who is not necessarily an initiate into the poetry community.  He likes to connect with his readers on a personal level.

​crushed a lanternfly
beautiful harmful creature
please don’t kill the trees

warm summer morning
each dewdrop is a prism
shattered by footsteps

shaft of white moonlight
spikes the fine lines of her face
it should be raining

​sun kissed
early summer's sun
broken by my sago palm
retribution burns

cabin dance
hot, sweaty, sticky
your perspiration now mine
you dance next to me


​Sabrina Sanchez is a writer and artist living in Charleston, SC. The former Editor-in-Chief of The Troubadour, she is currently working on her first chapbook, all my dead birds.

​Tea Time
the perfect moment
one pot of tea, two teacups,
and a rose garden

First Song
a startling sound
robins sing to fading stars
just before dawn breaks

Gibbous
a separate thing
far above this wilting world
the half-melted moon


Carolanna Lisonbee is a writer, English teacher, and globetrotting adventuress from Utah. Her first collection of poetry is WISP OF FOG MOMENT. Her poems have been included in the collection TEA-KU: POEMS ABOUT TEA, by Local Gems Press, and her translations of Chinese poetry appear in issue 10.1 of the journal Reliquiae, published by Corbel Stone Press. She posts on Instagram as carolanna_joy_poetry, and writes #ScienceNewsHaikus on Twitter as @carolannajl.

​Out of Sorts
June squall in Japan –
   confusing the car’s wipers
      for the turn signal

Resolved
a gray sapling blinks
   on the summer-withered shore –
      heron at sunset

The Bee
a tired honeybee
   resting in a sunhat’s crown
      much too big to wear


David Joiner is the author of the novels Kanazawa (Stone Bridge Press, 2022), Lotusland (Guernica Editions, 2015), and The Heron Catchers (Stone Bridge Press, forthcoming). He has also published short fiction and nonfiction in a number of journals and magazines.

The wind chimes jabbering dances across the lake,
     the water a conduit, copper wire electrified by glass
          the wind is toying with, an alert to the air’s mischief,
black sky bullies its way through the back door.
     Soon the pelting starts. Wrathful raindrops dump
          from belching clouds. Thunder announces
lightning contestants that jab the dark, 
     pummel the afternoon’s serenity into submission.
          The storm nature’s villain.
The character that forces everyone to shelter inside.
     Hide from the anger, uncontrollable crying,
          bellowing intimidation.
But a voice, a streak of blue, breaks the sky.
     Hints the yelling, the pounding tears, electrocuted remarks,
          will end. Submit to a clear unclouded truth.


Doug Van Hooser's poetry has appeared in Roanoke Review, The Courtship of Winds, After Hours, Sheila-Na-Gig online, and Poetry Quarterly among other publications. His fiction can be found in Red Earth Review, Flash Fiction Magazine, and Bending Genres Journal. Doug’s plays have received readings at Chicago Dramatist Theatre and Three Cat Productions. More at dougvanhooser.com.

​The Poet’s Mirror I                                                                         
                                                                                                   
Spirits assail under cover of dark
     to suborn the poet’s ink

how close are prayer and poetizing
     wrestling the ineffable

the half-finished poem is a blind man feeling 
     his way on a dark night

or a lover groping with passionate hands
     toward his consort’s bed

how the autonomous words
     blow where they list

the bell of the Sorbonne, the guttered candle
     the frozen inkpot

warn against the Promethean stroke
     which re-orders the world 



The Poet’s Mirror II

The poet indites his hope
     of immortality
          in evanescent tracery

of loneliness, love and loss;
     concupiscence and copulation
          synecdoche for life itself.   


Lloyd Jacobs is a former surgeon and university president, now writing daily. His poetry has been published in The Wallace Stevens Journal and The Main Street Rag as well as by other small magazines.

That’s where my Dad was born: Whiskey Hill. It did perch on a hill, and local history has it that quite a bit of whiskey flowed down the hill into the valley below.

Then Prohibition came along, and the good town fathers (there were no women in government back then) changed the name to “Freedom”, as if somehow partaking of whiskey for so many years actually got you to Freedom. Maybe it did. Maybe it didn’t.

The road to Whiskey Hill is still there. It is a narrow path, cutting off of Freedom Boulevard, hardly wide enough for one car. I can only imagine old Model T’s puffing their way up the hill to grab a keg of that stuff, whatever it was. If you didn’t know the road was there, odds are you would never see it behind the massive oak trees and overgrown poison oak.

My father’s cousin was the last of the family to still live on Whiskey Hill. He lived right across the Presbyterian Church that spewed its bellowing out over the whole area on Sunday mornings. Everyone congregated at that Church, there wasn’t much else to do on Sunday mornings on Whiskey Hill. By the time my father’s family left, a new access road to Freedom had been built, and a freeway connected all of central California, with the town center relocated to the respectable valley below.

I became the mostly respectable librarian in Freedom. One day at lunch I sat at a counter next to a young man who was wandering the West. His eyes truly glowed as he told me how he took the freeway exit labeled “Airport Blvd/ Freedom.”  He didn’t find an airport – that was on a different road entirely – and although he found Freedom, Whiskey Hill would have eluded him but for the happenstance meeting of a  mostly respectable friend. 


MaryAnn Shank spent much of her life in the shadow of Whiskey Hill. She wrote of her unexpected adventures in the Somali Peace Corps in the historical novel "Mystical Land of Myrrh". Her poetry has appeared in a number of publications, and she is presently engaged in bringing to life the story of another historical figure. Find her at http://mysticallandofmyrrh.com. 

“There are people who are unable to think," Abbot Corby said, "and there are those who can't feel. And there are people like you who can't do either. No matter how much you teach them, it won't do them any good.”
​
These were the exact words Abbot Corby said to his pupil, the unintelligent Charles, who ten years later would become King of the Franks and of the Lombards and Emperor of the West. Charles remembered well the lesson the abbot had given him, and one day, after drinking from a bottle of intoxicating power, he ordered his teacher brought to him and, when he was brought in, bound hand and foot and gagged, Charles asked, "Do you still consider me incapable of thinking and feeling? 

And when the abbot was silent because he could not speak, Charles ordered that the gag be taken out of the teacher's mouth.

“Answer!”

“I still think I was right," answered the teacher. 

The King of the Franks and Lombards and the Emperor of the West gave orders to tie the abbot to a pillar of shame. Townspeople were commanded to throw rotten eggs and other foodstuffs at the old man.

Two days later a new order came out: Untie him from the pillar and bring him to the throne room.

“Do you continue to think as you did before?” the old teacher was asked by the Emperor of the West, the Lord of the Francs and the Lombards. The teacher said nothing, just nodded faintly. The Emperor of the West, the Lord of the Francs and of the Lombards ordered to hang the abbot. When he was already standing at the gallows with a noose around his neck, the emperor went up the platform and again asked if the teacher had changed his mind about his former pupil.

The old man answered with his eyes: No. The emperor nodded to the executioner and the executioner drew up the rope.

The old teacher's body hung in the air. And it seemed that even his dead legs, swaying from side to side, were saying: "I was right."


Nina Kossman is a poet, memoirist, playwright, editor, and artist. She has authored, edited, translated, or both edited and translated more than nine books in English and Russian. She was born in Moscow and currently lives in New York. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nina_Kossman

It was a cold night in late March and the moon rose somewhere over Kansas. The wind screamed, the way it does over metal, sharp and unrelenting, forcing me to shelter behind my pack. I stuffed a t-shirt into my wool hat to cover my face and peered though it like a mask. I was bound for home and classes on a freight train out of Amarillo—almost broke, exhausted, happy. 

The train stopped. I moved to the front of the car—an empty automobile carrier with sides like a guard rail rising three levels—and stepped down into the night. Fields still slumbered in dark winter, flat to the horizon where low stars and distant farm lights mixed. With luck, I’d ride as far as Chicago. 

After a two-year absence, I was eager to return to the university and finish my degree. But this night, in this cold place, I was having second thoughts. What did sitting behind a desk have to offer? I had floundered in one program or another, searching for answers, yet hardly knowing the questions to ask. School, I was convinced, was not going to bring out my best self, so I left to pursue what I thought a more worthy life. What’s the use of all that noise and money? asked the Tang Dynasty poet Han-shan, named for the place he lived, Cold Mountain. His words became my calling. Freed from the weight of expectations and a career track, I wandered, trespassed, dared—and moved in awe of a new world.
 
On the road I felt at once both centered, and unhinged; there were no wrong turns. Not knowing in what railyard (or backyard), or under what tree or star I’d spend the night, I lived in the moment— a delightful anxiety—out of fear from looking past it. Happy, yet scared, seemed to be my lot in life. 
Of course, dropping out and leaving were easy; coming back whole, and having something to say, less so. 

Now the train’s brakes hissed, it shook and lurched, and I scampered back on. The swaying, windswept car made more conventional rides— bounding along in the cab of an 18-wheeler, for example, or sharing the bed of a flatbed truck in Mexico with a drove of pigs—appear first class. Wherever I kneeled—even lying down—the wind penetrated to my bones. 

The train moved with all the speed of a weather front. Until it didn’t. At a long and captive layover outside a small town south of Wichita—I followed the tracks on a road map—I slept much of the following day. Woke up, plucked a freeze-dried beef with potatoes from my pack, and boiled water on my small gas stove. This train apparently was going nowhere.
 
Dozing, I missed the first eastbound that rolled into the deserted yard and waited until dark for the next.

I was not alone on this one. Two Mexican teenagers, laughing and coatless, dashing and daring, jumped from a boxcar as the train slowed, beckoning me to follow them. I didn’t comprehend. “How is this?” I yelled. “Where to? Adónde?” 

“La máquina! La máquina!” The younger one shouted, pointing to a second locomotive at the front of the train, coupled back-to-back to the main engine. I followed their lead. We climbed the steps and made ourselves at home on the narrow floor. 

“Yo soy Marcos,” I told them. 

“Arnulfo,” said the younger boy. The older one seemed distant, yet at the same time watched me with a closeness that was unnerving. He wouldn’t tell me his name. Perhaps if I had had a mirror, I wouldn’t have trusted the person in it either. The two were cleaner-looking than me. Their hair was cut, their faces smooth—if indeed they were old enough to use a razor. I had a good beard going, and shoulder length hair. They were better dressed as well, however insufficiently, in shirts and trousers. I had on five layers, flannel and wool, a down jacket and rainsuit. The Michelin Man from hell. 

“Hermanos?” I asked.

“Primos,” Arnulfo said. Cousins.

Spanish was at least one course I had finished at school. Arnulfo said they hoped to find work and send money home. They had nothing to eat. I gave them a freeze-dried meal of something or other (they all taste the same after a while) which they tore into and devoured dry, like cereal. He said they’d hopped a train some days ago in El Paso and survived the frigid nights hunkering down in deserted engine rooms, drinking the potable water there. In the warmth of this new shelter, my sleeping bag now draped over the three of us, I would survive too.

The train’s rhythms were riveting, even hypnotic from our uneasy berth, which at best was not unlike the rocking of a cradle. Or, at worst, the steady back-and-forth churning of a washing machine. And we were the oversized, unbalanced load that hadn’t set off any alarms. Yet. The train whistle (or horn) was loud, too, its frequency indicating the size of the town we rumbled through, and my heart skipped a beat—as it still does, to this day—listening to the unquiet wonder of it piercing the darkness. 

As we crossed the heartland, I thought of perhaps the first whistle I’d ever heard, alongside my brother a lifetime ago in an Iowa motel room near tracks, and of a train I’d been on too, a dateless journey into the night with my father somewhere near Niagara Falls. Trips I cannot put into context other than to say there was a train, night, a whistle, family. Plaintive sound—or bold warning—the sound of a train is more or less a wrinkle in time that announces the past is ever present, and the present—in the blink of an eye—is already past. 

In the middle of the night, as the train eased into a small yard in central Kansas, a man entered our locomotive, stumbled upon us and abruptly left. Spooked, the boys and I fled that engine at the next stop, literally hit the ground running, found an open door down the line and thrust ourselves into a dank and empty boxcar. At once, and in silence, we worked the heavy ironlike doors almost closed, leaving them open just enough to breathe in the bitter fresh air. The collective fear of being locked in and entombed in this bleak car needed no translation.

Moving through the din and darkness of morning, staring through the gap in the doors at the tree line across the tracks, I had the improbable and magical feeling that wherever we were going, wherever we ended up, I’d been to. Trains can turn your world upside down like that. 
​
For much of my life I’d gazed longingly at tracks, steel rails that seemed to beckon and bend and dissolve in the heat, disappearing in a destiny of their own beyond anything I could imagine, and the sound of a coming train—the whistle in the air, the humming of the ground—was an invitation to jump aboard; a song I had to know. Looking back at that time and the wisdom of taking such risks, today I wonder if I had lost my mind—or was simply more willing to find it.

Toward dawn we approached Kansas City, its bright lights spilling through the peephole of our boxcar doors, reminding me that I was one step—or yard—closer to home. The old desire to fit in, to be stamped and graded pulled at me as relentlessly as the wind had pushed. I wanted to be, well, wanted. Accepted. Loved. I was torn between Cold Mountain, Han-shan’s world, and the one chasing approval. I came to the understanding that the road away—painfully, joyfully—frames what home is and is not, as well as the people you run from, or to. The road back is merely one seeking acceptance, and I wanted to come in from the cold.

As I would. Wearing every last shred of clothing I had, the sleeping bag again draped over our bodies, I thought of grabbing it and my pack and jumping from the train. 

Railroad security, however, would spare me that. Drifting in and out of sleep, I hadn’t realized that we had reached the yard. Suddenly a flashlight was in our faces. A second man barked his what-the-fuck at us. Forced off the train, they frisked, handcuffed and sat us down, like stones on a stone wall, guarded by one agent as two others searched one-by-one the remaining cars with their imposing Maglites.
​
The great yard shook with life in the early morning. Tens and tens of tracks merged and straightened and curled like a sea of black snakes as cars of all shapes, tall as bulldozers and flat as dominos, were joined or uncoupled amidst the clamor of bells. The smell of diesel was thick like mud. Switchmen sprung up like jacks-in-the-box, jumping and hollering to rearrange whole trains with a whisk of their wrists and lanterns, their sharp cries splitting the frosted blue-gray air. I thought of Studs Terkel. Sinclair Lewis. Gary Snyder. Marty Robbins.

In their tight blazers and pencil thin neckties, the two agents who busted us seemed out of place in this expansive yard teeming with workmen in coveralls. But they too had roles, and drove us to a still dark, modern brick building less than a mile away. One agent led the Mexican teens to another room and then went to search for the janitor who spoke Spanish, while the other interrogated me at his desk. He asked if I was carrying any drugs, and whether I had a Buck knife, which he clearly coveted. I had neither, and little else other than a few granola bars in my pack and some change in my pockets. He returned to his paperwork as I again thought of home—Michigan was another 600 miles east—and my time away from it.

Whatever it is that young men search for, I was in the hunt, trying to find a life without adornment, blather and harm—and I was inexplicably drawn to trains. Perhaps the attraction was simple; the tracks led away from home, school and a predicable life. But tracks, of course, run in both directions; and home, as they say, is where your story begins. At times, telling mine seems within reach. 

The agent, finished with his report, took a phone call, then put the receiver down. “The highway is a few miles from here,” he said, nodding toward my pack. “You can likely find a ride there.” And I thought, it’s a weary thing, the simple act of holding your thumb out and relying on the charity of others. I wasn’t looking forward to it. I thought too of the teens, soon to be homeward bound themselves with the clothes on their backs and probably not much more. Just then I turned to the waiting room to see them enter and sit. The older, quiet one raised his cuffed hands and smiled at me through the glass. 

“Pablo,” he said, loud enough for me to hear. “Pablo from Magdalena de Kino. Vaya con dios, Marcos.”

“They’ll be detained for Immigration,” the agent said, following my gaze. “You’re free to go. But I’m warning you: We have what we need to know about you. Do not ride the Santa Fe through Kansas again.”

And I wouldn’t. Not in Kansas.


B.L. Makiefsky was the winner of the 2012 Michigan Writers Cooperative Press chapbook contest, for the short story collection Fathers and Sons. Among publications his work has been featured in (or is forthcoming) are the Detroit Free Press, Dunes Review, Thoughtful Dog, Pithead Chapel, Brilliant Flash Fiction, Fiction Southeast, Flash Fiction Magazine, Hypertext Magazine, Jewish Literary Journal, the Great Lakes Review, On The Run and jewishfiction.net. In addition, Makiefsky has written three stage plays, one of which (a one-act) was produced.

Spring has returned to Long Island. I wake early and lace up the blue and silver New Balance walking shoes I bought a few weeks ago in anticipation of this year’s equinox. I’m hopeful that the exercise will strengthen my bones and jumpstart my goal to lose ten pounds. Waiting for the school buses and morning commuters to clear the neighborhood, I strap on the new Fitbit my daughter gave me for my 68th birthday. 

The warmth of the morning is soothing. I wear only a heavy sweater over fleece-lined leggings and a worn pullover, removing my gloves three blocks into the walk. I round the corner on Anne Street and spot a man with a burly gray bread. His white robes are bellowing in the wind under a down jacket, and sandals expose his toes as he walks sluggishly down the other side of the street. We glimpse at each other with a brief curiosity and then walk on. I remember a movie I recently saw with Helen Mirren who played a woman wanting to learn to drive after her husband dies. She found a middle-aged man from India to teach her and after a few months, they had a loving but short-lived affair. I wonder where this man across the street hails from. Is he from India, Pakistan, or Tibet? Or is he wearing pajamas he bought at Kohl’s? That’s the trouble with the world, in a nutshell, assumptions. It’s like when I meet Asian people, I think they’re bi-lingual. Maybe I’ll see the man in the sandals again another day and I will speak to him and figure it all out.

Returning to my house, and still looking for my husband’s Honda Civic missing from the driveway, makes a dent in my heart and I sigh as deeply as a lion’s roar. His death was too sudden. How long do I grieve?  Is there a timeline for loss? After enduring a dark winter, I look forward to sunshine in the days ahead. Sipping a cup of mango tea, I think about what to plant in my garden. Then I consider baking a loaf of sourdough bread and tomorrow I can eat it for lunch outside on the deck, after my walk.

The next day I lace up my walking shoes and head out. Walking alone each day becomes monotonous unless I have a diversion. I could listen to Spotify on my iPhone, but then I might miss a crack in the sidewalk and fall on the cement, only to break my hip or cause a head injury. Attempting to be mindful of the birds singing to each other, the luminous clouds in the sky, and the lovely homes with well-groomed lawns, my mind defies me. Stories and thoughts jump in my head and I struggle with this mindfulness matter. I survey the neighborhood as if collecting data for the census when actually all I’m hoping for is to spot the man in sandals. I turn the corner and see him across the street. We make eye contact and I smile, then we both walk in opposite directions. 

Today I am bold. It’s been nine months since my husband David died. The same amount of time as gestation, the phase needed to grow a life. My morning walks have moved from days into weeks and my fascination with the man in the robe grows. I close the door to my home, take a deep breath and walk on the same side of the street as he. I turn the corner and we meet head-on. When we are face to face, I stop short and say, “Hello.”

His smile is broad when he answers, “Hello to you.” I hear the sharp /t/ and recognize a British accent. 

I bet he’s from India, but dare I ask. I continue the beginnings of a conversation. “It’s a beautiful morning for a walk.”

“Indeed, it is.”

The man in sandals introduces himself. “My name is Aakash Devi.”

“My name is Barbara Fried.” After some hesitation, I ask, “Which way are you walking?”

He tilts his head forward; his eyes are dusty gray. “That way, would you like to join me?”

“Yes, thank you.”

We continue walking half a mile exchanging niceties and comments about the beautiful weather. 
My curiosity takes over. “Are you visiting from India?”

“Not precisely. I am from India, but I’m not visiting. I now live with my son, here in Huntington.”

I’d like to know more about Aakash. I stop myself not wanting to overstep any boundaries, and so we walk a mile discussing neutral topics- the weather, local places, and music until we go our own ways. We continue to meet near Anne Street as if by coincidence but really on purpose. The spring is coming to an end and summer’s heat begins to encroach on our walks. We accept that our meetings are intentional and decide to meet earlier since the days are growing longer and so are our walks and conversations. I think it’s time for more personal questions.

“Is your wife with you at your son’s house?” 

“No, she passed last year.” 

“Oh, I’m so sorry.”

“What about your husband,” he asks. “Is he at work while you walk?” 

“No. he had a heart attack last fall and died suddenly.” I want to run home. I haven’t said that out loud in a while, especially to a stranger and to a man, no less. I feel naked as if I’m standing without clothes and at the same time my skin is longing to be warmed by touch. 

He slows his pace. “I’m sorry for you, too.”

“Thank you. I think I’ll turn down this block, my house is near the next corner.”

We part. I quickly walk home, pour myself a shot of Jameson on the rocks, sit on the couch and weep. My morning walks stop for the next few days, instead, I ride the stationary bike in my den. I’m too raw to walk in the wind and there is no amount of sunscreen that can protect me from nature’s rays. I wonder if Aakash will miss me on his walk or is he too feeling vulnerable and staying inside reading a book. It’s been a week now and my courage reservices on this lovely summer’s day. With my shoes laced up, I begin walking and spot Aakash at the end of the next block. I pick up my pace to meet him.  

His gentle gaze is comforting, and he asks, “Are you alright? I’ve missed seeing you.”

 “I’m fine. I was just tired.” We begin together at a slow pace. 

“Would you like to sit on the bench in the park?”

“Yes, that’s a good idea.”

I sit back on the bench and let the shade of the oak trees cool me from the early August humidity. The park is full of small children and their mommies and nannies. Looking out at the children on the swings, I’m optimistic and filled with hope that I too can be free to glide in the air, secure that gravity will hold me up. 

I ask Aakash, “Does your son have children?” 

“Yes, three. One is already in college.” 

“You must be very proud.” I’m an inquisitive person, eager to find out about things that may be none of my business. But then how do I build relationships if not by asking questions. “How long were you married?”

“Forty-two years. I hardly knew my wife before we married. I only met her twice, after seeing her picture. Arranged marriages are common in India.”

“I’ve read that in many arranged marriages, couples usually maintain a long and loyal relationship, learning to love each other by caring for a stranger. But I suppose we’re all strangers who become intimate in a marriage either by our choice or someone else’s plan.” 

“Are you a philosopher?” We laugh, and I’m happy that the man in sandals is becoming my friend.  
“What was your wife’s name?”

“Pallavi. She was from Amritsar, in the state of Punjab. My family is from Punjab. We lived in Chandigarh where the University is. My parents were professors.” Aakash looks up at the cloudless sky and then continues. “In India, most women are groomed to be a wife and taught to run the household, care for the children, and keep things orderly, those responsibilities were deep-rooted in Pallavi. Then when our children grew, she wanted to study at the university and become a teacher.”

“Did your wife become a teacher?”

 “No, she got sick. It was a genetic blood disease.”

“That must have been hard for both of you.” I sit quietly for a few minutes. When I sense the heaviness lift, I continue, “I was like Pallavi, but the difference is I finished college before I married. I also raised my children and took care of the household. Then I worked as a teacher in an elementary school near my home.” After a pause. “What kind of work do you do?”

“I’m a physician, what you call internal medicine, a family doctor. I worked in our city and retired before I moved here.” He turns to look at me. Looking back at him, intrigued by his delicate, defined features. Our boundaries are becoming blurred. I feel a twinge-like hunger that morphs into a cascade of nerves, I stand up. “Let’s walk.”

The summer progresses and so do our walks and conversations. This morning when I leave my house, the sky looks threatening, and rain is predicted. I venture out anyway eager to see Aakash. We meet near the park. As we walk the rain begins, only a few blocks from my home.

“Why don’t we walk this way,” I point in the southern direction. “We can stop by my house and I can make tea if you would like that?” 

“Yes, I would. You’re very kind.”  

We enter the warmth of my home and I guide Aakash into the living room to sit on the couch. “Please make yourself comfortable, I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

I return with a pot of honeyed Irish breakfast tea and a plate of cookies. I pour tea into matching mugs, give him the cup and sit on the loveseat across from Aakash.

“Thank you. The tea is lovely and those cookies look delicious.”

“I love to bake, It’s therapy for me.” I hand him a plate with three cookies. 

He bites into one but cannot resist putting the entire cookie into his mouth. “I’ve never tasted this confection before. It’s very good.”

“They’re thumbprint cookies. The little dimple in the center is for all kinds of jam, but I use strawberry, my mother’s favorite.” 

“Are your parents still alive?”

“No, my parents both passed away, but I have some of my mother’s recipes and this is one we used to make together.”

Aakash sips his tea and then asks, “Are your parents from America?”

“My father was American.” 

“What about your mother?” 

“My mother and her first husband were from Germany.” I pour more tea into his cup.

Aakash sips his tea. “I always wonder where people are from who live in the US. In India, we’re from the same place for many generations, but that hardly happens in America.”

“Well, during the war, my mother, her husband, and their little girl were sent to concentration camps. By the time the war ended, my mother’s daughter and husband were dead. She had nothing left to live for in Germany. A Jewish refugee organization helped her find relatives in New York and she came to America. She met my father and they married, and my older brother and I were born here.”

“I’m so sorry for your family. War and hate are terrible. In India, Islam is the minority religion in Punjab. We’re always threatened, our mosques burned and people are terrorized and killed. Fortunately, my family and I were safe. But after Pallavi died, my son was worried about me and insisted I come to America and live with him. I also have a daughter also lives in the US. She’s in Massachusetts with her family.”

“I guess we both have many stories to tell.” We smile at each other, a warm moment of connection.
 Aakash sits back on the sofa and crosses his legs. “My son is making a 70th birthday party for me in a few weeks. I would be happy if you attended.”

“I would love that. Is it at his home?”

“No, it’s at our mosque, in their party room.”

At first, I’m uncomfortable not knowing what to expect. I’ve never been to a mosque, but I care for Aakash and want to accept his invitation. After a short pause, I respond, “Of course, I’ll be there.”

The next few weeks rush by. I try to decide what’s appropriate for a Jewish woman to wear to a birthday party at a mosque. After going through many outfits from my closet and debating with myself about buying something new, I choose my navy-blue suit with gold jewelry accessories.  On Saturday, I drive along Jericho Turnpike and see a sparkling green dome up ahead, shining like morganite. It’s the Islamic Center. I turn into the street with an impressive beige stone building and powerful pillars. Red begonias line the entrance. After parking in the spacious lot, I go to the side door which opens to a long hallway. Walking in the direction of the loud voices and aromas of Chicken Biryani, I enter the room. Aakash waves to me and walks over in his shinny brown oxfords, no bare feet today. “I’m glad you’re here.”

 “You look very handsome in your American clothes.” 

“Thank you and you look pretty in yours.” We joke and I immediately relax. Then he leads me to a small table where his son and daughter-in-law are seated. 

“This is my friend Barbara.” 

His family warmly greets me. During our meal of kebab with lime, green chutney, basmati rice, garlic mustard fish fillet, and roti, we chat. The meal ends with a silky sponge cake and Masala chai tea. Aakash and I excuse ourselves and walk out on the veranda. The evening breeze is soft.    

“I have something to tell you.” Aakash straightens his striped necktie. “My son is moving to Atlanta; he’s relocating because of his job.”

The ease of our time together stops, as quickly as it began. “I guess you’re going with him.” I swallow hard to restrain my tears.

“Yes. I have to.”

There are no words for a few moments, as I process this news. “I’ll miss our walks.” 

“Me too.”

“When are you leaving?” 

“The end of December, before Christmas.” 

In mid-December, a few days before Aakash leaves for Atlanta, I invite him to dinner. We relish the favors of roast chicken, braised asparagus, and baked sweet potatoes. We drink tea, eat chocolate ganache cake and talk about the similarities of our culture’s appreciation of food. I present Aakash with a gift of Marimekko Kukka stationery. He opens it. His even white teeth contrasting his silky brown completion, he says, “We can be pen pals.”

“That’s funny. I remember in elementary school I had a pen pal in Ireland. I enjoyed reading about her bike rides on the mountains and writing back to her about movies I saw.” 

“I never had a pen pal, but I’d like to have one now.”

The evening ends and it’s time to say goodbye. “It’s been special to know you and I wish you only the best.” I’m not sure whether I should hug Aakash or just shake his hand. When I lean in, it’s as if I have no control over my body, I hold him and he returns the embrace. We separate, and the hazy light of dusk is a backdrop to the intense look on his face. “The pleasure of your company has been important to me; I will not forget you.” He puts on his coat and gently closes the door.

For the next few weeks, every morning after my walk, I check the mail looking forward to receiving Aakash’s letters. Writing back immediately about the neighborhood, news of Long Island, and my critiques of the documentaries on PBS. The last week in February his letters stop appearing in my mailbox. Nevertheless, I continue to write to him. In a couple of weeks in early March, when the daylight and the darkness are equal and the earth’s equinox is imminent, I receive a letter addressed in unfamiliar handwriting. I open it. Dear Barbara, I’m sorry to tell you sad news. Last week when my father was walking in the morning, he was struck by a car. He was taken to the hospital, but the doctors couldn’t save him and he died a few days later. I’m in disbelief as I re-read these sentences over and over again, my eyes moistening with each reading. I wipe my cheeks and continue. My father enjoyed your friendship and it gave him a pleasure to read your letters. 

The rest of the day passes by while I re-read all the letters Aakash had written to me, I saved them in a file on the kitchen table. The next day I drive to the mosque where we spent Aakash’s birthday celebration and give a donation in his memory. I’m also searching for comfort and for answers, which do not exist. When I sit in my car about to leave the mosque for an instant I forget how to drive. I take a deep breath, wipe my tears and resume the presence of life.

In my weariness, I attempt to accept death as part of being human and experience my emotions as I comport with a renewal of the seasons. I miss Aakash when I take my morning walks. I opened up to make space available for new happenings and experienced a relationship that I wouldn’t have expected. Soon the Northern hemisphere will welcome springtime and I can consider which new trails I’ll take. Maybe I’ll join a gym, take a dance class, plant vegetables in my garden, and plan an al fresco cocktail party with friends late in the evening, as the sun sets.   


Edna Schneider’s previous writing experience includes two non-fiction books (Living Thin, published by Jason Aronson, Inc., and Sure, a self-published memoir) as well as numerous published professional articles. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Dramatic Arts from Emerson College, Boston, and a master’s degree in Speech-Language Pathology from C.W. Post, Long Island, NY. She has worked as a Clinical Specialist in Speech-Language Pathology at Rusk Rehabilitation/NYU Langone Health treating patients with stroke, traumatic brain injury, Parkinson’s disease, Multiple Sclerosis, concussion rehabilitation, and other neurogenic communication disorders. She was fellowship-trained at the Rehabilitation Hospital of the Pacific in Hawaii. Prior to a career in Speech-Language Pathology, Edna was a professional puppeteer working with Jim Henson’s Muppets, FAO Schwartz, and marionette companies in USA and Belgium.