Sister Earth

Tess Avery

My sister followed me by a year and nine months, and then I followed her for the next 40 years. I love my sister. Of course I do. And so does everyone else. It’s just that she has always been a little bit more than me-or less than me if you take it in terms of body fat. I laughed at the thought of that myself just now, but have to admit it hurts. It was as if my parents had me for practice, then a year into the trial period thought, “okay, now we can do better,” then set about to create their masterpiece. I wish I knew what I know. That is, I wish I felt in my heart what I “know” intellectually: that I’m as good as she is. That’s what it boils down to really. I don’t feel like I am. What I attempt, she’s achieved. What I wish for, she’s received. What I dream, she’s lived. It is not fair. I am not okay with this. I am worthy of more. This I know. Yet I have failed to manifest anything beyond her orbit.

My earliest memory is of my sister. I don’t know if this exact scene occured because I’ve realized I do have false memories, but this is it: she was riding in a stroller, a stroller that had previously been my ride. She was radiant, the sun reflecting off her wispy spun gold hair, soft breeze lifting it into a glowing halo, and her tiny smile lighting up the world as bright as the sun itself. She gurgled and cooed pure love and everyone on the sidewalk paused to bask in her. She was mine. I was proud. I was also invisible.

I’ll fast forward to my second grade holiday program at school. She was in kindergarten. I was Mary in the living nativity, an important and revered dramatic role in our catholic school. She sang Frosty the Snowman with her class, front row center in her ruffled red and green dress, sparkly bow in her hair. She stole the show, rocking in time with the music and singing just a little louder, shining just a little brighter, than the rest of her class. After the show, as families milled about nibbling cookies and sipping sickeningly sweet punch from paper cups, my parents dutifully shuffled us to my teacher as she held court in the doorway of her classroom. As we approached, she clasped her hands together and gasped, looking down on my sister. “Well, she oughta be on a Christmas card!” she gushed. No mention of how I nailed the pious nature of Mary, or got 100% on my last three spelling tests, or was chosen to

be a crossing guard in training, which was practically unheard of for second graders. It was just all about how adorable my sister was.

She may have been conceived on my birthday. My parents joked about this openly, though I wasn’t let in on the joke until my teens. I think it was my sixteenth birthday in fact, that they suggested she was my greatest gift. Huh. At the time I giggled at their cleverness to perhaps convince myself it was true.

In college I double majored in marketing and communications, was admitted to the honors program sophomore year, and made friends who I think really liked me. I felt like I had escaped her gravity, the moon that broke free and became a soaring comet. My sister took a gap year to win pageants, then studied art history abroad, then was “discovered” by her now ex- husband who took her to LA to star in the films he produced.

When I turned thirty there was a reckoning. I was working for a respectable nonprofit, truly making a difference in the lives of those women and children, making rent and my Subaru payment, going home to my loving cats. I wish I hadn’t, but I asked my sister how much they paid her to be photographed sitting in that Lamborghini. I laughed out loud when she told me, admitting that in one hour she made more that twice what I made in a year. Then I couldn’t hide my tears. Why didn’t I just work for her she said. Of course, I declined at that moment, but she drew me in like she does, and I became her publicist.

What followed were honestly the best years of my life. It wasn’t just that she paid me so much more money than I would have ever made anywhere else, it was because she made me feel valued. She listened, she made sure I had the support I needed, she respected me so others in our circle did as well. The two of us were a team. In fact, she made me feel like her equal. She’s the only one who ever has. And as we sat together on my last birthday, drinking her present to me––the best Cabernet that has ever existed––I told her she was in fact my greatest gift. And I meant it. Now here I sit at her bedside, attempting to balance my own grief with the responsibility of guarding her public image.

She was found on her bathroom floor two days ago, maybe three by now, I’ve lost track of the hours. She was not found in the nude, like Marilyn, but in her own lingerie design. I’m still trying to figure out if that will be good or bad for sales. The toxicology report confirms the suspected overdose.

My mother has crumbled, and my father is ablaze. She refuses to get out

of bed, insisting she just needs a little more sleep to face the day. He is blaming my sister’s therapist, has filed a lawsuit against her, and has slandered the poor woman in the press. She’ll have to turn over ten plus years of treatment notes to my father’s lawyer and I’m sure they’ll be leaked. They’re worth way too much money. But my father can’t hear my warning. My words are insignificant again. He asks how she could have not known. How could WE have not known? She was in therapy forever and I never asked her about it. I looked at therapy as another luxury item she bought for herself just because she could. I never asked. My parents never knew. She suffered.

They say she will not regain consciousness. She is brain dead. Yet here she lies, luminous as ever, soft rose tinting her cheeks, gentle lavender rimming her eyes. My parents cannot turn off life support and I will not. She’ll remain in the care center, flipped at regular intervals, her wealth evenly draining. And I will remain in her orbit.

What comes of the moon when the earth has ceased?

HOW TO FIND OUT IF YOU ARE LOVEABLE

Rebekah Gunderson

How to find out if you are lovable:

Open browser search on your phone and type, What is love? Haddaway, 1993––baby, don’t hurt me.

Select. Backspace. Where is love? Where does love come from? A Psychologist Explains.

How to know what love feels like:

Astrology might have the answer. Hey Google––what does my sign say about love? Allure, HelloGiggles, Insider.

Click, Every Sign Has a Love Language Click, Signs You’re in Love According to Your Zodiac Sign Click, How the Signs Show They Love You.

How to show love backspace tap tap taptaphold key:

Birth chart love life. Venus, goddess of love. Placement of Venus in your chart. Venus in Cancer? Ruling planet––the moon.

Search flowers that bloom only at night. Tropical white morning-glory, Marvel of Peru, the orchid cactus.

How to find out if you are loved:

Make a playlist––start with “Moon River.” There’s such a lot of world to see. Sisters of the Moon. Piano Sonata No. 14 in C-sharp minor.

Take le voyage out into dark grass. Open camera on your phone and look up and take a picture,

and send it to your mom.

TRANSVERSE ORIENTATION

McKenzie Heileman

The moon gapes outside my window. I feel I have never seen its light so bright, radiating a whitish hue over my covers. I toss the blankets off and decide to take a walk around my neighborhood.

I’ve walked for six blocks in a direction I don’t usually go. It’s not surprising when I see a church I don’t recognize. I pause in front of it. It’s lovely, as most churches are, with a spire that grasps at the indigo sky and vivid stained glass. I cannot see the tip of the spire, it is so overhead and deep within the dark heavens.

I bring my eyes downward, to the lightbulb encased in stained plastic that casts a yellow glow upon the concrete stairs leading to the entrance of the church. Moths surround the enclosed bulb, and I frown.

The church reminds me of my childhood, Sundays spent in a building not unlike this one, constructed tall and intimidating with prolonged pews within. I would stay quiet, placing an insubstantial wafer on the tip of my tongue during communion, only to quickly shove it up to the roof of my mouth, where it would remain the rest of the day, sticky and viscid. Instead of paying attention to my surroundings, or the words falling from the pastor’s mouth, I would concentrate on Jesus hanging limply on his cross above the altar. He was damned forever to this brown room, stinking of the breath of old women. When it was over, and my mother and grandmother led me out through the doors to the lemony sunshine of April, I’d blink rapidly, suddenly feeling directionless without the flaccid man on the cross telling me where to look. To him, to him, always, I thought.

I believed in this emaciated man. Though he appeared small in stature, his presence loomed large enough to force my eyes to him, his soft face and closed eyes. Closing my eyes to match his, I would imagine how I would always know what is right, just as long as he shepherded me.

A low, indistinct buzzing catches my attention. I glance back at the moths, still fluttering around the flickering light. I frown again.

I think, where did they come from? How did this light, outside of one of the many churches in this city, shine bright enough to lead them here? I think,

they are not ignoring the moon, but have only flown to what is brightest, to what they think they know as truth.

I pull on the door’s handle, only to feel it knock against its frame, not allowing me to enter. What a cruel injustice, rejected from seeing the northstar of my childhood, the man on the cross, the one said to absolve us from sin. I am young again, and I remember the feeling of comfort knowing I was safe because of this figure. I didn’t understand how he had this ability to love every individual, but because I could see that so many others did understand, I did too. They’d sing lulling hymns, say ardent praises, and drink strong smelling juice, all in his name. I felt strong, like I knew where to go, what to say, and how to act while tucked away inside a church. With Jesus’ eyes considering me, my actions and, after an initial shock of surprise, my thoughts, I thought I always knew what was correct. If I ever doubted, my eyes would dart over to his perpetual resting place, the place he hung and directed me, no matter the church I was in. Then I understood myself, what it meant to be carried.

A moth flits across my vision and I release the door handle, my hand falling to my side, a loose and pendulous thing. The moth redirects itself toward the light, where it will fly the remainder of the night, and then it will hide, probably in the bark of a tree, close its wings, and rest. How long will this cycle repeat, this cycle of resting and then finding whatever brightest light they think will guide their way?

Staring up at the moon, I see what a tiny thing it is from so far away. I cannot decide; I am a moth, or the moon? I think about moths. A thing distracted by what they think is truth, what they think will guide them in their insignificant lives, only doing what ancestors have done before them, that they cannot remember the moon will always hang in this indigo sky. I think about the moon. It is so wan and so powerless in the face of this lightbulb. The moths don’t even notice the moon. So still, I cannot decide.

I cannot say I believe in the withered man’s influence on my life any longer, but this was a gradual realization. I am twenty-three now, so young in comparison to the book from which his story comes. Who am I to know what is real and what is not? But this is doubt, and I am tired of feeling led by something that I know is so cruel.

My family still feels the ardor of belief. Writing this, the guilt that accompanies writing this, is both a very difficult test and a very cathartic

process. The guilt is self-condemnation, but it is not enough to stop me from continuing to type at my keyboard. Even still, I cannot help but feel the eyes of Jesus watching my fingers as I write these words, the words I was never supposed to say.

I remember my moths and my moon. I remember younger me. What insignificant things we all are, this cohort of three. Yet, I will still say, “You were made that way,” as if Jesus is a craftsman, building small unborn children to place delicately in their mother’s womb in order to know them forever. I do not feel known by a large figure in the sky. I look up at the sky and I think, “Ah, there is the moon,” and I see myself there, and that is all I see.

MOON SHADOW

Did it take long to find me? I ask the faithful light Oh, did it take long to find me? And, are you gonna stay the night?

CAT STEVENS, MOONSHADOW

74

STORIES TOLD BY THE MOON

Annie Hindman

Harvest Moon

It’s just before dark and we sit out back in the summer when the sun is not burning our scalps, but we can still be barefoot in the grass and not need a sweater. The moon starts to clear his throat, leans in with that faraway look and acts as if he doesn’t see us sitting there but knows very well our ears are preparing for a story.

“I remember,” he begins, and the memory story takes shape in the shadows that come from a little sun that begins to bounce off his face, but it gives him those weathered features we know so well from all our years looking up.

And we’ve heard this story more than once, so we almost see it playing out through the light beams he projects on our backyard fence.

There’s a child and a tree in the tale and we ask all the right questions at all the right places.

“Did you really stay up in the tree all night?”

We know the answer, but part of the story is playing our part and we smile and glance at our very own maple tree, which is tipping a little as if to listen in on the story too.

“Could we, could we sleep in our tree?”

And Mom says No and Dad says Maybe and the tree seems to ask, why

not?

Then our yawns take over and we plead, but not so much, and we’re gathered into the house to brush our teeth and pile into our beds and the moonlight gets in a last word at the window so we know it’s possible we’ll dream of trees with nests so big to hold us safe.

Supermoon

They love to ask about when they were born, that long long night when they just wouldn’t come and the moon waited and waited with anxious breaths and short breaths and low moans. She was back and forth across the sky and the wild animals were anxious too, (she likes to add, and the children like to add little howls like wild animals when she tells them) and the animals kept

watch and waited and waited. And finally, the babies did slip into view and they were all squawky, like wild animals, and the moon said she just beamed and beamed and glistened with happiness that they decided to join her.

On nights like this the children wonder about how it was before, before they were, and what did the moon spend her nights doing, since she slept so much in the daytime? She says it was always about the watching, watching for what was coming even before she knew it was coming. Every night was wonder and imagination and hope.

She carries on with dreamy lullabies and rhymes about cows and spoons till the children are deeply asleep and stays around just a little longer to see their chests rise and fall with that steady breathing impossible to fake. She still keeps aware of any eyelids that might flutter open, looking for her bright presence.

She’s got every joy and sadness etched across her face in memories. They look to her for reassurance, peeking up through the hair that falls in their eyes, knowing that just seeing her out there is enough sometimes.

Blue Moon

I’m all grown now, still following the rhythms of the day and night but in a different dance. It’s late and I slump down trying to hide in the shadows and escape notice from my worries. If I think too deeply, I hear every sigh throughout the neighborhood as every other grown up seeks a place to be alone and not under constant gaze.

I put my child to bed, answer my emails, scroll through my stories, looking for something and nothing. So much is expected of me. I pull the tides of responsibility and keep to the calendar that marks each wax and wane of all the matters of consequence. What happened to those gasps of wonder and feelings of certainty? I am certain that the cycle keeps going, until it doesn’t. I can’t rest because I can’t let it end.

The light I see in every window reflects back on me with understanding. This is a book I’ve read cover to cover. Slipping out the back door, I let the light shine out a little, and it touches the light on each side of me, from every open doorway. I glance around and see every story connecting into one. And when I do I remember the beginning, and I step into the night. I look up and the moon is still there. Then I come to understand that we are the stories and we are the light.

TWILIGHTS HAVE THE SOFTNESS OF OLD PAINTINGS, OR, FIRST LOVE

After Maurice Denis’ painting of the same title Alyssa Stadtlander

Twilights have the softness of old paintings, and in this pallet of fading pigment you now live—a shadow of color and gentle edges that glide from the piercing

blue of your eye to the firm bulk of your broad flanneled shoulder to the soles of your unremarkable running shoes that blend into the watercolor of the grass like the soft trunk of a birch tree; still,

you remain, refusing to decay. My favorite pieces of you still sprout here this way— do you know this?—so sometimes, when the evening is pink with wonder, I come

to visit you and wish you’d break free from your twisted roots, and, uncomplicated, float towards me like tufts of white dandelions through the silvery warm magic of time, and wearing shoes I can remember.

Once, long ago, your eyes lit up, golden and sure, like Boise under the night sky in late August; you gazed at me

with fixed intention, casting a spell. Your generous laughter gave me the moon.

I kept it.

This way, in my painting, you are still beautiful.

SHE HAS A NAME

Jan Schlicht

Moon, they call her, though she has a name a real name. Theia. And a story, a story of hurtling headlong, a rock in space, slamming (the physicists say) into proto-Earth (Earth before the aching beauty of summer rain, meadowlarks in spring, the sublime taste of peaches and cream).

Part of her was at that moment subsumed into the core of Earth. (the details of this go far beyond the realm of poetry; talk to a geologist) The remainder of her perfectly circular geometry was pulled into orbit around Earth.

So. Theia has two parts.

Paradox is her jam. She is half within and half without. She is light and dark, she invites us to look at the shine but also at the shadows Shape-shifting, and yet so predictable (waxing crescent, waning gibbous... )

She is powerless, dependent on reflected light from Sun but powerful The power to pull mighty oceans to and fro The power to enchant (amplified silence, full moon) (falling in love) The power to mesmerize (moonlight on rippled water)

Sun, so powerful, resents Theia Resents her easy and inviting beauty Becomes furious witnessing her power to extinguish him (eclipse) Resents her comfy burrow deep inside the Earth where he can never go. Wonders what powers she keeps hidden there.

Theia keeps on shining. She has been waiting a long long time. She is feminine power transfigurative wielding power that may yet change the world.

LONG WINTER, NO SUN

M.R. Smith

My selfsame shadow once walked beside me, more defined than I, growing taller as the day aged, while I grew more sore at every damn thing.

We were uncomfortable in darkness, yet duplicitous confronted with moonlight. I’m a realist, he’s a dreamer.

Fair weather seems unlikely this spring, 100 days and no light at the end of the tunnel.

moon shot

Jason Morales

if I could write the perfect poem when I write the perfect poem will I write the perfect poem if I could will a perfect poem for Alice, Alice what have you done for me, Alice what will you think if again? Alice, your long hair, your needling eyes, your hard eyes, your lusts before readers for your readers because readers because for your readers lusts you lay long hair over what ears, for your readers brains and fears, your long hair hangs over your ears and in your fingers as you lean in to read your perfect poem. Alice, what have you done for us this time? tell us how it happened, then and this time, some shit hole light, this way of processing unknowing everything. make us giddy how you seem to know everything, your long hair everywhere, your fingers feeling for the podium, now themselves,

for this moment for us. it isn’t perfect, is it. when was it, perfect, maybe, if ever, now only in remembering. my poem will not be anything but remembering, it will be anything but perfect. yet it will be here for me, this poem as she was here for us, for you, Alice.

THURSDAY JUST PAST MIDNIGHT AT THE MOONLIGHT DINER

Julia McCoy

Every night, Lucia climbs into the dumpster behind the Moonlight Diner to search, just to be sure. Almost a year to the date, she found James there. She almost threw the trash bag on top of him, missed by inches. The sound startled him enough to cry, a wet mewling. She hoisted herself inside and there he was, wrapped in a tight blanket, face newborn wrinkled. She carried him out and into the diner, incredulous at the human being in her arms, shifting and whimpering. Unlikely as it is to happen again, she always looks.

Nothing. She hefts the bag into the dumpster and goes back to finish her

shift.

Mac looks up at her from behind the register, a towel wrung tight in his hands. “He’s late.”

“He’ll be here,” she says, though she doesn’t know if she believes it. “I’ll keep an eye for a while.”

He nods, swings the towel over his shoulder, disappears behind a swinging door into the kitchen.

Lucia’s stomach clenches. She sits on a stool, stares out the window and watches the headlights pass on their isolated stretch of highway. No one stops. It’s almost midnight, and he’s not here. No accidents on the highway, the weather is good. Nothing to prevent him from stopping at the diner except divine intervention. Which, if God knows what they’re up to, it might be.

Lucia drums her fingers at the pace of her heartbeat. She has to do something to distract herself from her thoughts, from the ticking clock, from the voices whispering damnation at the back of her mind. Wipe the counter, clean the coffee maker, sweep under the red topped tables. But it doesn’t take long before she finds herself in the kitchen behind Mac.

“Mac, you’re sure it’s him?”

His face falls into exhaustion. “We’ve been over this, Lucky.” “I know, I just...”

“He has my son’s face.”

When she found the baby, she knew something was wrong. His cry was uneven and gasping. She couldn’t calm him. Mac asked her if he could try. He cradled him, whispered music in his ear until the newborn quieted. Cleaned

him with new dish rags and clothed him in his apron. Before they could decide what to do, Mac fell in love.

Except, he couldn’t keep him. Five years and a felony, just a minor drug incident. He reformed, opened the diner. He was the model of success. Lucia knew how hard it was to change. Mac found her in the same kind of trouble twenty years earlier, on her last penny and no hope. Mac saved her life. But none of that mattered to the system. So they kept quiet about the baby.

“You know what kind of bastard he is, Lucky. He probably got some poor child pregnant, and when she had the baby he discarded it. Hell, he probably discarded her, too. He’s a murderer, and if he ain’t, it ain’t for lack of trying.”

They spent almost a year narrowing down their list, comparing James to the faces of the men that passed through the diner. Their regulars, men Lucia trusted less and less with each passing day. The more she wondered if they were capable of great evil, the more she believed it. That man was a monster. That man deserved to die. But which man, she wasn’t as confident about.

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure, Lucky. Trust me.” He squeezes her shoulder. “All you gotta do is serve him. I’ll take care of the rest.”

The rest is a bottle of eye drops in his food. He’ll be fine when he leaves and die on the road. Simple.

“I trust you.” More than anyone.

It’s hard work, Mac had reasoned, driving across the countty. Hard on the body, hard on the mind. Death isn’t that unusual. Lucia knew someone who died that same way three years prior, one of their regulars. Fell asleep in his cab and never woke up. And he isn’t a young man, isn’t a fit man, isn’t a man looked out for by others. Simple. Except she’s dreamt of the moment for weeks. Putting the plate in front of him, watching him take a bite, another, another, while the poison blossoms. Every night it’s something different. Sometimes he dies right then and there, sitting at the lunch counter, blood draining from his mouth. Sometimes he gets close but doesn’t die, comes back bloodless and skeletal and kills them both. Then there are the dreams of Hell, where he will surely go, but her, too. There is no distinction for murderers. She wants to tell Mac, but in daylight the dreams stick in her stomach and knot up when she wants to speak, so she keeps quiet and trusts him.

The door chimes again, and they know it’s him. His presence is heavy, not

just for the space his body takes up, but the way he moves, slow, but with the threat of being able to move faster. Lucia imagines the girl who was James’s mother. How afraid she must have been, how any struggle would have been in vain. It’s not hard to do. She’s been there herself. And that man deserves it, too. Simple.

“Make sure you give him enough, Mac. He’s a big man.” Lucia leaves the kitchen smiling.

“Evening, Lucia.” He squeezes himself into a booth.

“Evening.” She won’t say his name. Hasn’t said it since they figured out it was him. “The usual?”

“I think I’ll take a menu.”

“Sure thing.”

She notices his hands. His fingers are short, but his thumb is stubbier than the rest, bulging outwards instead of upwards. Brachydactyly. That’s what the doctors called it.

Nothing more than a footnote in James’s medical history, inherited from a biological parent.

“Let’s see... “ His gaze runs down the menu, then he laughs. “You know, I’ll take steak and potatoes. I’m a creature of habit.”

“Alright.”

He glances around the empty diner. “Not too busy tonight.”

“Not too busy.”

Mac stares at him from the the kitchen window, cheeks sucked in, but otherwise relaxed.

“Steak and potatoes, Mac.” She leans in close. “He’s got James’s thumb, Mac.”

Mac relaxes his jaw and nods, and she wonders if he wasn’t so sure. “Steak and potatoes.”

James isn’t alright. He’s not walking yet, he’s half blind. Doctors weren’t sure he would make it even this long. It was at one of his stays at the hospital, when Lucia came to visit, that Mac told her his plan. They were all three in the chapel, Mac and Lucia in the back pew, and his wife praying the rosary at the Virgin’s feet.

“When we find him, Lucky, I’m going to kill him,” Mac’d said, so only Lucia could hear. “But I’m going to need your help.”

She nodded. Lucia would help him.

The kitchen bell rings and Lucia jumps. “Order up.”

The steak and potatoes. She wonders which food the poison is in, knows she would have put it in both just to be sure. Steam rises up from the plate, and she pulls her face back to not breathe it in.

“Here you go, hun.”

The plate hits the table, and he’s already cutting into the steak, blood streaking onto the white china. “Thanks, Lucia.”

“Of course.”

He takes a bite. She traces its path down his throat until she can no longer see it. She should walk away. It’s not like her to stand here, but she can’t help herself. She has to know.

“You got any kids?”

“Kids?” Does she imagine it, or do his eyes widen, just a fraction?

“No kids.” “Me neither. Never wanted them, truthfully.”

“Mmm...”

He’s eaten nearly a quarter of the steak. He explained once he needed to get back on the road, meet his deadlines. Except that night, he didn’t come at all, then not for months. It took them a while to realize it wasn’t the men who stopped by they should suspect, but the one who didn’t.

“Mac’s got a son, you know. James. Fragile thing. Had a rough start. But he’s doing better.”

He puts down his full fork. “That so?”

“Resilient kid. He’ll be just fine.”

“Real glad to hear it.” His shoulders shift.

“Enjoy.” She leaves him, satisfied, and watches in the reflection of the coffee maker. With each bite, her heart loosens. When he’s done, he takes a ten out of his wallet, then slides out a handful of extra bills. He leaves them all on the table.

“Thanks, Lucia. I’ll see y’all.”

He hefts himself out of the booth, but Lucia doesn’t turn.

“Appreciate it.” She watches him go, not yet realizing he will never really leave.

Lucia collects the bills from the table, counts them. Almost a hundred. She runs them through her fingers as she listens to the engine rumble, watches the

headlights pull back and away from the diner. When the truck is swallowed by darkness, she clears his plate. Simple.

CROSSINGS

Stephanie Nelson

George tiptoes across the floor of his own home. It’s past midnight, the house is silent, and the moon hangs low over the ocean. He waits until he’s sure––sure as he can be––that Pearl won’t stir.

The home is a lonely brick and mortar bird perched high on the bluff. A wall of windows overlooks the sea. George looks over his own hands while standing in a shaft of moonlight.

Knobby joints covered in papery skin, flecked with brown spots. White hair juts out of his arm. He didn’t used to have white hair. When he realizes he’s stopped walking, he shakes his head.

Stay the course, he thinks.

Shag carpet is easy to cross and he does it without effort as the fibers muffle shuffling feet. George’s slippers reach the threshold where carpet turns to kitchen linoleum. He smells years of his wife’s cakes, rosemary pot roast, her oyster stew. It’s not real. Betsy’s lying in bed and she can’t cook anymore besides. He blinks hard to regain focus and takes deliberate steps across the linoleum. This is the hard part. He must go slow so the grip of his slippers don’t make a clack on the hard floor like last time. Pearl had heard, and that’s when she began locking them in the bedroom every night for their own good.

Should he remove his slippers? It’d be quieter, but what if his socks can’t land on the slick floor and he falls? No. Slippers on, then.

George must get into the refrigerator, but he can’t risk drawing Pearl’s attention. He takes a step and waits on the linoleum, listening so as to measure the impact. Is she coming? The slower he goes, the louder his heart thrums until he can’t hear the waves against rocks outside anymore.

His hand is just about to touch the metal handle of the Frigidaire when the bedroom door creaks open.

George turns away from the refrigerator.

Abandon ship! Get to Betsy before she sounds the alarm.

Before Pearl hears.

He’s too slow. Needs to move faster, but he can’t on the linoleum. He puts one foot in front of the other. It feels like his feet are blocked in concrete. The work is tiring, but he’s almost on carpet and then he can rush. It’s just one step

away––

“George?” Betsy says at full volume.

He winces and loud-whispers across the living room, “Bets, go back to bed.”

“George?” Betsy again. She doesn’t hear him.

One foot and then the other takes refuge on carpet. He moves to the bedroom before she can holler a third time. George turns her body around with care and guides her into darkness. He follows behind and closes the door.

“Where were you?” Betsy asks. He takes her twisted hands and helps her into bed.

“We talked about this, remember? I’m getting us food.”

“Cottage cheese and peaches?”

“ ... And turkey slices. Maybe bread for a sandwich.”

Not cottage cheese and peaches though. Too dangerous. The Corel bowls clinking as he tries to take just one from the stack in the cupboard. The cupboard door escaping his careful hand to slap against its frame. The rip and pop of the cottage cheese lid. His hand rustling around in a drawer for spoons to scoop the stuff.

“Sorry I called you back, but you were gone so long,” she says. He kisses her forehead, waxy against his lips.

Betsy’s stomach roars and George says, “I have to try again. You’re so hungry.”

“I’m alright. Don’t feel much like eating,” she says and then yawns. “Just don’t lose time while you’re out there. I worry about you.”

George pretends not to hear. “Remember when we used to sneak down the path to the boat on clear nights like this? When the moon was our only light?” (Why did they sell that boat?)

He can’t see her nod through darkness, but her hair whooshes against the pillowcase.

“We packed up a bottle of wine and some cheese and crackers. We could spend hours down there, staring at the sky,” he says.

“And the kids were there,” Betsy says. “Rory and Vic and...” she swallows so hard George can feel tears pinching at her nose.

“And Pearl. It’s alright to say her name, sweetie.” “And Pearl,” she whispers, drifting toward sleep.

“We pulled the children out of warm beds and they wandered like ghosts behind us. We laid them on the bed in the cabin. They snuggled down and went right back to sleep. We said one day when the kids were grown, we’d take that boat down the coast to California... “ (They never did that. Why?)

George slinks out of bed when he hears Betsy snore. He repeats every movement from before, but with success this time. He comes off the linoleum a champion holding trophies in each fist––a ream of saltines and five cheese sticks.

George passes by the windows, walking faster since he’s on carpet. A flash at the edge of his eyesight stops his feet. The moon is a white gleam out where the ocean curves into a globe and kisses the navy sky.

Or is it the moon?

George shambles nose up to the full-length window. The coldness of glass hovers near his skin. It’s the boat! White like the moon, but not the moon at all. He knew it! He’d never sell that boat.

He smiles, watches black waves move, foam dance, and his pale boat dip and rise across the sea. It’s coming closer, as if summoned. George squeezes his fists, but doesn’t think about the scraps of sustenance in this prison. Instead, he feels Betsy’s young fingers interlocking his behind the back as she follows him down to the dock. He tastes salt in the air. He sees nothing but the boat ahead, bobbing against the waves. Hears nothing but her laugh behind his ear. Her body presses up against his to discern the next footstep in the dark.

The ocean swells, brings the boat even closer. It’s coming for him. A white apparition, gaining time across the miles. It won’t stop until he steps through his front door and puts a slipper on its shiny wooden deck.

Pearl was such a beautiful child. Cradled in the boat as the water rocked her tiny frame. The bell buoy rang like a lullaby. What went wrong? The others turned out alright. Vic’s in the army; Rory works a job in New York City. When did George last see them? Thanksgiving? Christmas? He could only remember back when Betsy made oyster stew and Pearl breathed softly on the boat’s bed. He’s not ready.

George blinks and the boat is gone.

The moon sits alone against a diamond speckled backdrop.

“Dad? What are you doing?”

George hears her voice and whirls around.

“You alright?” Pearl asks. “You’re hungry. The turkey sandwich tonight wasn’t enough?” She nods at what his droopy hands hold.

“M-Mom’s hungry,” he stutters.

“She’s dying, Dad. I doubt she’s very hungry.”

“Mom is fine. We’re both fine.”

Pearl gives a loose sigh and closes in on him, saying, “Let’s get you back to bed.”

She steps into the shard of moonlight George occupies. Wrinkles circle her eyes, her mouth. He hair is pinned up, but peppered with silver.

“You’re old,” George says, touches her face.

“I’ll say! Dad, you’re 89. How old do you think that makes me?” She turns his body toward the bedroom.

“I’m calling Rory and Vic! You can’t lock us up like this!”

“Vic’s been dead for years, Dad. Heart attack, remember?”

“No, Vic’s stationed in Germany.”

“He was. In 1977.”

George spins to half-ask, half-state, “Rory? Rory’s in New York.”

“Rory’s gone too. Cancer took him ten years ago. It’s just us, Dad.”

The bedroom door clicks shut behind him.

“Dear? You okay?” Betsy asks, stirring from sleep.

“I’m okay. Pearl caught me, but I brought you some food.” He drops cheese and crackers on the bedspread.

“Did you say Pearl caught you?”

“Uh-huh. And she locked us in here again.”

Betsy moves her frail body into a sitting position. Her wan face glows in the dark. “Door’s not locked, George.”

He reaches for the knob and it turns open on the first try. George sits on the edge of the bed. He presses fingertips against his brow. He’s baffled, on the edge of grasping something that feels impossible to hold.

“Why did we sell the boat, Bets?”

“Dear, don’t think about that.”

“I have to.”

“You already know,” Betsy whispered. “Pearl drowned as a child while we were out there one night, remember?”

Saltwater fills George’s eyes. If he blinks it’ll carve paths through wrinkles, years of life Pearl never got to live.

“How old would she be now?”

Betsy is silent for a beat, calculating, “62 in December.”

“So, it’s just us then,” George whispers.

“Been just us for a while now.”

SWALLOW

Tomas Baiza

Remember the time you thought you bit into a dismembered finger?

Remember how your eyes got all big and scared, and you looked up at your mom wondering if it was a trick or something? Like, a test. In your panic, you asked yourself: Is this what it felt like when an Aztec priest raised his head to the Sun and bit down on the flesh of the sacrificed? Is this how you prove to yourself and the world that you’re the real deal? But, as your tongue explored the horror in your mouth, you realized it was just a chunk of limón that got lost in the pollo asado street taco.

And when you swallowed the limón, you felt tough––and relieved that you didn’t blow chunks in front of your mom. Because you just knew that she would have sneered and asked whether she should have bought you a Quarter Pounder.

And then that time, on the way home from middle school, when Roberto, Manuel, Eddie, and Mario said your sister was a total puta. You made sure to leave your book bag––the sketch blue Converse tote with all the holes––safely on the porch next to your mother’s potted geraniums before you walked back out into the street, alone, and started swinging. You and Manuel got all tangled up, holding each other’s collars y tirando chingazos until the left sides of your faces swelled up like you were hockey players.

As if any Chicano kid ever played hockey, right?

You traded right fists in front of everyone, both of you knowing you were on a one-way slide to hell until someone tapped out––and then, thank god, Manuel started to cry and Roberto and Eddie and Mario were too scared to jump you because they saw the death in your eyes. You waited, wanted, for one of them to come at you because then, and only then, would you become someone to be reckoned with. Only then would you be authentic.

Sometimes still, decades later, you find yourself sitting quietly, fingers twitching and chewing on a taco de pollo asado con un limón chunk hidden inside, waiting for them to come.

Do you remember in high school, when Mikey picked you up to go out and get wrecked, but he had to step into the house first so your mom could

look him over? Mikey yes-ma’amed and no-ma’amed her like a good whiteboy, so much like Eddie Haskell that you got embarrassed for him, and then on the way to the car yelled all loud, Duuude! You’re fucking Mexican? and you could hear your mom and sister choking from laughter inside the house.

You got extra-wrecked that night.

And then in college, when your professor said, with pity in his eyes, that maybe you didn’t have the aptitude for advanced scholarship––despite the fact that you had straight A’s and had made sure to never, ever, talk like you did at the bus stop or 7-Eleven or cruising El Camino in high school with Raul and Jimmy and Paloma, and took care to put all the right endings on the words and make them sound like carefully-stacked wooden blocks and not like the sharpfanged serpents they really were. You wanted to grab ese pinche pendejo by the tie and give him a proper, Prague-style defenestration. Cold self-interest, not mercy, stayed your hand.

Manslaughter would have almost certainly reflected poorly on your gradschool applications, ¿no crees?

And then that time your boss said that you had all the tools and were sooo well-spoken, but sometimes... you know, that look on your face, it’s a tad intimidating. Maybe you could smile some more?

By then, you were old enough to know: Act like you’re listening, stay quiet and go deep––so far under that your ears pop and their voices sound like they’re coming from far away, distant enough to let you reflect on how your mother never prepared you for this. Shit like this was always her problem, you tell yourself, her burden, her cross.

Not yours.

But then... crouched in the hallway, your child-self catches a glimpse, through the crack of the door that’s been left ajar, of your mother crying on her bed, her face twisted in rage at what the gabachos did to her again––the ogling, the whispering, the extra work, late nights, weekends, the Alma-we-need-you-totranslate-this-into-Spanish-by-tomorrow-c’mon-be-a-sport-you’re-the only-one, and the dog shit left on her desk chair when she wouldn’t agree to a date with her supervisor.

Which one was it this time, Mami? And if your boss could make you––you: tall, light-skinned, all the benefits of

maleness and, by accident, whiteness––feel so utterly worthless, so...alien, then how could your mother have waged her own war for so long before going mad, before she was found wandering dark streets in her nightgown, lost and saying she had to get to work, where she was needed, where she belonged?

Do you even have a 1ight to feel anger, to feel the blood turn to acid in your veins, like a xenomorph, ready to explode and melt everything around you into sizzling oblivion?

From the shade of a nearby juniper tree, you chew on your lunch and watch as the line in front of the taco truck gets longer. Businessmen, afraid to display their ignorance to the girl behind the register, point dismissively at the numbered menu beneath the order window. Brown tradesmen in their neon green landscaper shirts flirt with the girl whose round face is framed by the window in the side of the truck––a face clean of makeup except for the perfectly lined lips that her mother or tias probably taught her to do before she could even talk. Her name tag says Luna, but the Mexican dudes call her things like nena, amor, bendita, la sexy, and maybe even culóna, if they’re feeling particularly horny. Up last come the fraternity brothers who practice their gabacho Spanish on the cashier who is still blushing from what the landscapers just said to her.

Distracted by the people in line, you fuck up. A total rookie mistake.

You close your eyes and sway, tongue fumbling on the too-large bite of tortilla, chile, and pollo asado. The mashed bolus of street taco says fuck you to the epiglottis and threatens to dash down the windpipe and not the esophagus. You are seconds from causing a scene, from choking like some gabacho tourist.

Shame keeps you from vomiting up what should be second nature to you. As your eyes water and your Adam’s apple jerks in instinctive panic, a distant, wet memory... the chunk of limón, the stinging thickness sliding down your throat... your mother staring down at you, wondering if you can handle it.

The swallowing of your pride, the bulge of it in your neck, the pain of the stretching muscles burning into you a gasping hope that, if you can get this down without dying, you will be real.

MOON SHINE

We are here and it is now. Further than that, all human knowledge is moonshine.

H. L. MENCKEN

98

MOON PIES OVER GEORGIA

Eric E. Wallace

It was hard to say which was the more sluggish: the fatiguing air or the murky brown Chattahoochee, curling along lethargically, a river showing minimal interest in going anywhere fast.

It seemed an apt metaphor for this town. Little ambition to be found here. Aside, perhaps, from some of the soldiers out at Fort Benning. Like Sgt. Tommy Dukane.

Velma pushed aside strands of her blonde hair and blotted sweat from her forehead.

“You sure you want to do this, Tommy?”

“God, yes. I gotta compete. It’s a genetic thing.”

She started to say something, checked herself, turned toward the town.

Hand in hand, they walked across the field toward the fairgrounds, kicking up little sighs of red clay dust. Behind them, the late afternoon sun softened, spreading the sky with an ochre haze. Strands of music and merriment wove through the steady drone of crickets.

No one knew how their small county fair had bagged the regional moon pie eating contest, but the news instantly drew an abundance of entrants, ants rushing from nowhere toward fallen grains of sugar.

Here in Columbus, here in Georgia––here in the entire South, it seemed––everyone loved moon pies. Everyone loved speed eating competitions. Put those together and it was: well, heaven, according to Tommy, born and bred in rural Georgia, if now ready to soldier into the world.

“Grew up with moon pies and RC Cola,” he drawled happily, maybe for the sixth time since he snagged his contest slot. “You know how it is in these parts. Hush puppies, fried catfish, cheese straws, moon pies––all of that. Food defines us.”

Tommy himself was well-defined indeed, Velma thought, playing with the word as she glanced sideways. He was tallish, muscular, with a Stone Mountain kind of face: solid, but ready for a little more shaping. He had kind blue eyes, short sandy hair and a slightly-ruddy complexion.

He was smart, too. He’d chosen the military not in desperation or as an

afterthought, but with planning. He wanted training, travel, motivation, a clear way to escape his hardscrabble youth.

Velma wasn’t from here. Born in California, she was the proverbial army brat, lived all over. But after her father’s posting to Benning, she was old enough to say she was staying put. She earned a business degree at Columbus State, landed a great job at a bank. She enjoyed living in this town, with its slower pace, but Atlanta and its big city attractions were within easy reach.

And, almost to her surprise, Velma had met not one but two young men she really liked. There was Slim Nelson, a bright young loan officer at the bank––the epitome of handsome and Southern charm. And Tommy Dukane, the fledgling sergeant––fun, clever, with an endearing sweetness underlying his toughness. She glanced at him again.

As they walked, he was chewing gum with savage intensity. He noticed Velma’s raised eyebrows. “Supposed to help strengthen the jaw,” he said. He grinned, tried to blow a bubble, instead got a puckered tongue and a sad lump of gray gum poking from his lips.

Velma laughed. “Disgusting.”

“Necessary.” He continued chewing determinedly. If anyone could grin and chew at the same time, Tommy was the one to do it.

As they reached the fairgrounds and strolled up the midway, a bustling mosaic of noises and colors, Tommy expounded on a salient topic––which is to say moon pies.

Back there at the river, they’d gone over the other hot topic again-their possible future. His upcoming overseas deployment was to last six months. She’d said she would try to wait for him. He accepted the ‘try’ with reasonable grace. Young, but not foolish, they both knew life was uncertain.

“Moon pies used to be simple,” Tommy was saying. “Big old round Graham cracker chocolatey sandwiches with marshmallow in between. At some point they started doing other flavors-banana, vanilla, strawberry, even salted caramel. Began making double decker versions. But I like the straightforward, old-fashioned ones.”

“That’s you, all right, old-fashioned.”She squeezed his hand.

“You know, people are weird,” Tommy said. “Me included, of course, wanting to chow down hundreds of moon pies. But people love pigging out in eating contests-hot dogs, oysters, bacon, pancakes, pizza, you name it.”

“One way to get fat,” she said, reaching around and patting his stomach. “I thought you Gis were supposed to be the fittest of the fit.”

“We are. That’s all muscle, girl. Hey, look, we’re about there.”

Just past the Ferris wheel was a large canopied stage bearing five long tables, the edges decorated with green and yellow bunting. Workers were busily laying out boxes of moon pies and large bottles of water. At the back, a big sign announced Southern States Moon Pie Eating Competition. Rows of folding chairs sat in the grass at the front. Many of the seats were already occupied.

“Suddenly I’m more aquiver than the first time I held a live grenade,” Tommy said.

Velma chuckled. “Well, surely a moon pie won’t explode in your face.”

“Oh, don’t count on it. Them pies can splatter you to death.”

Tommy signed in, received his name tag and contestant t-shirt. He began scanning the sheet of rules.

“Hey, Velma.” The voice was deep and musical. “Come to see the Champ?”

Tommy looked up. Velma introduced Slim Nelson, lean and tall and annoyingly handsome, sporting a Tom Cruise million-dollar smile. And wearing a contestant shirt.

“It’s actually Jacob, but everyone calls me Slim.” The hazel eyes danced, but were assessing. “Not a very genteel name for a banker, except’n I get lots of farmer clients, so Slim slides down real good. Nice to meet you, Tommy.”

Tommy nodded politely. “You been in these contests before?”

“Yep, once over in Auburn and once up in Charleston, where I took a third––71 pies in eight minutes. Today, I’m gunning for first.” Slim smiled at Velma. “So, consider me a rival, eh, Tommy?” He spun away, elegant as Ashley Wilkes leaving a ballroom floor.

“Well,” Tommy said, “extra incentive, I guess.”

Velma looked at him. “Better put your t-shirt on. In case any blood gets spilled.”

The languid air was filled with nervous expectancy, ready gluttony. The contestants––17 men and eight women––took their places behind stacks of moon pies and placards showing their names, including fictitious ones like Miss Piggy, Moongeline, Crackersmacker and Flypie. There were brightly-colored sweatbands, showy bandanas, crazy hats.

“Yahoo!” A chubby emcee in a straw boater twirled his microphone. “Y’all get ready!” he yelled. “You got eight minutes to scarf ‘em down! On your mark... get set... open wide... go!”

Music blasted, a rock amalgam of moon-related tunes at fast tempos. A giant digital clock pulsed.

Twenty-five people, from the self-assured to the desperate, reaching, drinking, chomping.

A moon pie disassembly line. Flecks of cracker and marshmallow flying. Heads thrown back. Adam’s apples twitching. Rapid gulping. Again. Grab, bite, drink, swish, swallow, shake it off. Again.

Slurping, slushing, burping, gasping, snuffling, spitting, chugging, chewing, gnashing. Music thumping, emcee wisecracking, audience cheering.

Sweat rivering down faces, chins, necks.

Velma looked at the two men she knew.

Slim Nelson, self-composed, focused, plowed ahead. Incredibly handsome, sleek, ambitious. Should go far in the bank, in whatever else he does.

Tommy Dukane, red-faced, intent, working rapidly. Fair, stocky, insistent. Knows what he wants from life.

Reaching, gulping, biting, gurgling, smacking, dribbling, choking. Crumbs sailing. Waves of laughter, shouts of encouragement.

Discordant smells: sweat, Gatorade, cola, masticated flavors––was that strawberry?––new-mown grass, popcorn, cotton candy, fried foods and––oh, dear––vomit. Volunteers, standing discretely by, leapt forward with buckets, assisted, retreated.

Flies buzzed, having a joyous, zany old time. Referees roamed, scrutinizing, tallying.

Slim Nelson, poised, graceful, had a fine rhythm going. Velma watched him. Once he appeared to glance her way, but he looked right through her. Swallow, gulp.

With only seventy seconds left, Tommy Dukane did something startling.

Tommy paused. Just long enough to look up and out, find Velma’s eyes, gaze at her, transfix her, send her a tender message.

He rushed back into action, faster than ever. The electronic clock blinked.

In the final twenty seconds, the crowd counted down, a raucous chanting ending with a huge burst of cheering, giggling and applause.

Contestants raised their fists, still holding half-eaten moon pies. Others sank wearily over the table. Some tossed hats into the air. Two rushed off, obviously in search of buckets.

The judge checked the tallies.

Tommy Dukane had set a regional record of 74 moon pies in eight minutes.

But that affectionate look at Velma had cost him. Despite his achievement, Tommy still came in second. Slim Nelson set an even better record. By one pie. After the awards ceremony, Slim, cool, relaxed and proud, stood among a crowd of well wishers. Tommy saluted him, jumped from the stage.

Velma darted forward, pulled Tommy to her.

Their kiss tasted of grahamcrackersmarshmallowstrawberrybananavanillachocolate. With tiny overtones of sea salt. And of promise.

MISSING YOU

Karen Passey

Without you who would show me the tiny green shoots of snowdrops?

Who would coax me out at midnight to make the first footprints in the whitened streets?

Who would follow me into the night to see a sillouette of an owl high atop a pine?

Without you with whom would I speak of the moon?

SKY GAZING IN THE DARK SKY RESERVE OF STANLEY

Barbara Olic-Hamilton

full moon on clouds slide across moon off

clouds slip away moon on

clouds scudding past moon off moon off

moonlit Morse code dots dark sky its October dispatch undeliverable

I don’t speak Moon

does its cold beauty have a message a meaning or is it just itself on or off just a moon

LAST NAME, FIRST

Debbie Gray

Snapshot. Mugshot.

Dazzle shocked eyes Stare down accusing strobe Exploding from booking room lens Broken glance reflecting Freeze-frame patrol car Rear view mirror Blue lights pale moon death Red lights flash bang rage Spiral out no Way back.

Silence. Breathless. Breathe less.

Rest now one last round Soft flesh hard knocks Chaotic love hate screams From a twisted front porch Sucked down the hall Slammed shut wide open Bedroom door second On the left right next to Fresh painted pale green nursery The indifferent cow jumping over the Moon shadowed fear

Waiting. Welcoming.

One year past due Carrying this ignorant Version of love Over sacrificial threshold In hard razor wire arms Courthouse wedding rite No family less money Tremor fault line

No. My fault. Pressure valve release. Comply tiptoe sigh never cry.

Barking push. Caressing pull. Control question command Sudden searching sunlight shift Burns bright chainsaw hot Eyes clash Foreshadow gut punch First met intersect

THIS MAY NOT BE AN ODE TO THE FULL MOON IN JANUARY

Sarah Goettsch

Oh, I spot your bold rotund show high, high up over the snowed in pasture, cracking shadows on the forested ridgeline. I know you as the unraveler of dreamtime, the maker of darkness.

You are the spotlight left on after the exhibit’s closed, gone home, the bodies put to bed rest. You are a pill I pop to avoid nodding off. You are a sky loogie hocked up, spat out, sputtering on the star canvas, trying to rid Earth of her gout.

Oh, Moon.

You are the unblinking monocle of an ancient physician, pressing a cold stethoscope to my bleating booming chest––breathe in for me?––and out. Do stars have heartbeats, too?

Oh, Moon, your atrocious luminosity, the heft of reflection, reverberating ice on a skid-steered lawn, pushing, always pushing thru, connecting roads to ruins.

You are an unblinking caution light strewn on a wire above the deserted intersection of sleep and memory. Can you teach me how to watch so intently, and not weep as the forest melts?

TWELVE

Eileen Earhart Oldag

For Hattie, 1895-1978 and Sadako Sasaki, 1943-1955

The floor, the green linoleum floor, is the first cool thing I have felt all day. I lie by my grandmother’s bed as the coolness of floor threads its way through quilt, through my cotton gown, washed in Oxydol, line dried. Outside, piglet, cow, rooster, cat, fly, mulberry worm–– each has burrowed down into coolness, into still. If animals dream, they are dreaming of sow’s warm milk, of softened cud, of tick. Of the sly mouse, or the slick rind. Of purple-juiced mulberry.

A full moon waxes through flow glass of the east window, its shine washing across the floor, across my covers, to the bed where my grandmother uncovers, rises, pulls down the window shade warning me in her Czech-tinged English If you sleep in moonlight, you’ll have crazy dreams. Through the cracks of sleep, I slip past the soft rasp of air in an aging woman’s throat, through my own shining to that bright young dream where the world is wide, whole, safe from every crazy thing.

BLOOD STORIES

Anita Tanner

“Every woman owns a blood story.” -Sherman Alexie

Every girl by her tenth year starts checking for blood once a month, fear waxing and waning in the schoolyard, her purse stuffed with padding and an eye on the nearest bathroom.

Moon cycle fear turns to shame in dreams and nightmares when she needs to change and can’t find a bathroom, her search turned desperate, trickling down her legs and pooling in her shoes.

Motherhood blood begins at birth, running down the lives of children, multiplies with all the bloody noses, rocks to the head, knocked-out teeth, abrasions and contusions everywhere the eyes can look.

Menopausal blood that clots and comes whenever it pleases is the story one can get extremely heated over when sleeplessness and moodiness move in like distant relatives.

So maybe under moon’s dangerous and uncanny dark side you can tell me your blood stories and I’ll tell you mine. Maybe in that history we can find faith in the transfusion from which all stories come.

112

MOON STONE

We had our breakfasts––whatever happens in a house, robbery or murder, it doesn’t matter, you must have your breakfast.

WILKIE COLLINS, THE MOONSTONE

114

OBAACHAN’S GRAVITY

Laureen Leiko Scheid

On the crescent moon, an aged sumo wrestler sits cradling the Earth.

FULL MOON, DROUGHT

Alexandra Ellen Appel

Are we a drop in the gulf

of arbitrary existence in the unknown vast

of what we thought we wanted, we flip and flop

gulping for air fighting an extraction of too many elements.

Call the rains: feed our broken heart

where the Light lives, come in

or otherwise wake from the dream

which is not a dream

THE WELL

Allison Wood

She was stripped of her robes and her mouth was sewn shut before she was taken away and banished to the well. For years, she had carried their burdens until one day, her belly too full of their shame and anger, some had made their way past her lips and back out in to the world.

“It’s what you deserve,” they said before they left her. And from her mother, “Maybe we’ll forgive you in time.”

The well was dark and damp, and at first, people would lean over the edge to drop their unwanted wishes and secrets upon her. She would hug the stone walls, her face turned away, but there was nowhere to hide.

At night, the little birds that kept her company with their singing would tuck themselves away and the owls would take their place, whooing to each other through the trees above. Whooo? Who? Coyotes howled in the distance while woodland creatures hurried back to their nests and their hovels.

She would sit on the crude steps inside the well, lean her head against the stone wall, and watch the blue sky turn dark, imagining all the things happening above her, remembering the feel of grass and bark, biting into an apple picked from its tree, the sun slanting through the little window in her room. The air would cool and the crickets would begin their serenade as moonlight spilled down on the steps above her.

Sounds of celebration would carry across the wind and down to her ears. As the music played, as she hummed along, tears would slide down her cheek. They weren’t coming for her. She knew that now. It had been a long time since anyone from the village had come to check on her, to satisfy their curiosity, to ensure their secrets were safe. Her mother had come once, looked down and dropped a small parcel, crumbs from her table. Muted, she reached out to her, but her mother turned away.

There had been a stranger, a traveler that stopped one night on his way to the village. He leaned over the edge of the well and called down to her. “I see you, there! Your toes are giving you away. Step out into the moonlight and let me see you.”

She pulled her feet back in to the dark, ashamed of the pale, gaunt figure she had become. She touched her fingers to the tight stitching across her

cracked lips and waited for him to leave. Many had tried to lure her with their tricks.

He held up a wineskin and cloth-wrapped loaf, and said, “I’ve got food and drink. Come eat with me.” He tore off a chunk of bread and poured wine into a small wooden cup, reaching down and leaving them on a step just out of her reach. “There now, come on. I don’t like to eat alone.”

Embarrassed, she stepped out of the dark and reached out her thin, gray fingers, touching the bread, lifting crumbs to her nose before setting them back down. Oh, how she longed to taste them, to fill her belly with something good.

She looked up, bore her face to him, and then returned to the shadows. When a songbird flew down and started to peck at the bread, he gently swatted it away.

“I’ve heard of you,” he explained. “I wanted to see if the stories were true. I see that they are, and I’m sorry.” He reached in to his pack and pulled out a small, sharp knife. Its blade glinted in the moonlight when he held it up. “I’m going to leave this here with you. You know what you must do, don’t you? You don’t have to stay here any longer.” When she didn’t answer, he said, as kindly as he could, “It has to be you. You have to decide. And it’s going to hurt, it’s going to be really painful, but you’ll be free then. You can leave and go wherever you want.” The man leaned over and left it next to the cup, searching for her face in the dark. “I will come back soon. I’ll come back for you.”

When he had gone, she thought for a long time, eyeing the knife as her anger and despair grew with each passing day. Every night, as she listened to the music and thought of her mother, she felt with a fingertip the smooth bone of its handle, glowing in the twilight. It has to be me, it has to be me.

She woke to silence. The full moon began to darken as the Earth’s shadow stole its light. Not even the crickets made a sound in the early morning hour. Her heart raced as she stepped in to the remaining moonlight and grabbed the knife. It felt good in her hand, it felt right. She climbed the stairs, afraid, but determined. When she reached the last step and caught sight of the trees against the night sky, she paused, out of breath. Finally, she stepped out of the well, her feet on the earth again. A warm wind blew through the leaves and over her skin, lifting her thin, lifeless hair. She walked over to the big tree whose branches had swayed above her for years, touched its bark, and wept.

When the land turned black and the moon turned red, she knew it was

time. She lifted the knife, tucked its blade in to the comer of her mouth and quickly ran it across the threads keeping her mouth closed. She cried out in pain and did it again, releasing the remaining ties as a rush of secrets, stony and hard, came streaming out, dropping her to the ground. After, she clutched her misshapen belly and rested, running her fingers across the stretch marks, watching as the light reappeared above her.

She slept then until the man returned, as he had promised. He offered her food and wine, but she refused. She wasn’t ready yet. But soon.

He pointed to the mountains, and asked, “This way?”

She looked down toward the valley where the moon shone across the water. “That way,” she said. “Follow me. Bring the knife.”

RIFT

Tina M. Johnson

When they arrive at the river it is already too late. Bluegills peep in and out of the car windows like chicks in a yard, all green water.

Only cattle in the field witness divers who drop the cement black as stones to breathe in measured gasps across each darkening zone.

They pry him loose and float him up, the body transformed to watercraft, the soul a raft

that lifts across the fields, skims the heads of cows and comes to rest among the spaded leaves of cottonwoods.

When the moon is free to rise, it does, and floods the broken fields igniting the scales of bluegills, little lanterns flashing in the dark.

RELICS OF A LESSER SAINT

Judith McConnell Steele

In 1702, on a fine spring day, with water running high and muddy in the Rio Branco, our Santa Elisa first took leave of her senses, falling from the sloping bank where she was casting a sadly patched net into the roiling fish below.

The vision that came to her was bewildering. A large man, bleeding not from his hands, but from his wrists, leaving a trail of blood as he staggered past her watery eyes. She sank amazed, as she was meant to do, staring through the churning river, seeing bright colors in the brown murk.

When she was hauled from the water by her long, dun-colored hair, she could recall nothing, a sorry state for a young girl marked a visionary. Her specter had to come again and again, more exhausted each time, angry that she could not remember, bleeding so close it seemed she would be lifted from the river covered in his blood instead of streaks of black-green mud.

The other women fishing with her wearied of pulling her out of the brown water, her nets in a hapless tangle. Even her mother, the large and fatigued Dona Tera, took to berating her, as she untied the strong knots in her daughter’s spellbound nets. Dona Tera began to suspect that her daughter was either mad or lazy, afflicted with worms of the brain or bringing on illness to keep herself from the hard life of the river.

For a while, it seemed Elisa might drown of her own accord, fall in blank and stunned and find no one, not even her overworked mother, willing to pull her out.

Until the day she smelled her visitor, smelled his clotting blood and, awakening from her swoon, suddenly remembered the dark odor of him. She stammered out a confused story, patched together from his many visits, and someone recognized him as an obscure saint protecting their fish or perhaps the water itself, no one was sure. So it was right and proper that she should begin to bleed herself, mostly from the mouth, whenever she had a spell.

She didn’t last long that way, finally had an attack that laid its hands on her and choked her comatose. She lay dumb three weeks, eating nothing, drinking only the few drops of water forced down her throat by her sweating mother. When she awoke, she described––at last––a vision that included several

angels in stunning blue robes and some sort of music. Her brothers scoffed, which was required for sainthood, then watched her fade again, dying without really helping anyone at all.

We take her out from time to time, parade her in front of our Gloria de Todos os Santos church, her jumble of slender bones in a mahogany box with a pane of glass set in one side for disbelievers. The processional is short, once around the moon-lit square. Many of the followers, crossing themselves vigorously, disappear into the bar that beckons opposite our holy church. A disgrace to Santa Elisa, but she never seems to mind. Her remains lie quiet as she’s marched back into the dark church. The little window glass, her only view to the carnal world she left so abruptly, is always fogged, as if she’s breathing in there somehow through the tiny holes and pits appearing in her bones.

Some time ago, her skull was sent off to Portugal for examination and never returned, despite pleas from a mayor or two in our humble town. But you can see long thigh bones, small pelvis, which it’s better not to think about, hinged fingers and toe bones, vertebrae and ribs, collarbone and kneecap. It’s a miracle we haven’t lost more of her. A miracle no one has pried up the wooden lid to borrow a thumb joint to wave over every dying baby or grind into an all purpose curing powder.

Yes, it is a miracle, and, as the devil will tell you, the only miracle from our little saint. Still, we do worship her. She is, God knows, all we’ve got.

THE NEW MOON IN AQUARIUS WANTS YOU

Diane Raptosh

The New Moon in Aquarius Wants You to Work for Change, says Astrology.com. I therefore un-don the order of tiepin, declare the deer human and ode around the room on doe-eared tiptoe. I’m told that the moon will trine with the Node of Fate in the North. It may just sound odd, but the Greek root of beauty is calling. I won’t have to marry the bed, throw up my hands. It’s clear how the goose egg’s lack of care for keeps laying its background: The aqueous moon wants everyone’s we to wage queer dissent: to bassline a doe, to quarry past light, to free-range an aeon.

ELK HUNT ON BEAR WALLOW RIDGE

Marri Champié

Twilit ride under a light-limned darkfall, the last pale west a blush behind your silhouette as we give the horses their heads, hoping not to miss the ridge trail in a skiff of star-tagged snow. When the moon spills over Granite Basin Ridge like a forty-thousand watt Halogen I remember reading how the Chinese believe each month on this night Yi, the archer, traveled home. Did Yi also bring his fresh kill wrapped in a heavy hide? Or some other gift perhaps for moon-wife Cheng-o?

Antlers atop the packhorse tangle the branches; gleamed platinum settings to bezel the giant opal floating the ridgeline––a surprise engagement between us and the night. Tanged rocks, chipped by iron shoes, spark the snow––windsong a sting of pine and fir. Horses huff their effort in clouds at their muzzles and the bits tsing. I calculate the difference between the elk’s red-tumbled crash, the tsunami-drowned white night, and your hunkered shape: which more lovely?

You turn, check my distance. Blood smell rises, musky, elemental, from my vest, my gloved hands, and I jerk the pack-horse rope as if to weigh the price per pound.

THE CABIN is a Boise, Idaho literary arts organization. We forge community through the voices of all readers, writers, and learners.

An annual publication by The Cabin, WRITERS IN THE ATTIC (WITA) is a contest designed for Idaho writers, both emerging and established, to publish work related to a one-word theme. (Past years’ themes have included song, game, and rupture.) With submissions blind-judged by a local writer of acclaim, selected poems and fiction are published in a yearly anthology. Selected writers are also invited to a book launch party and reading celebration in late August each year.

2022 Theme. This endless supply of cheese and nightlight to the stars is feared by werewolves, lamented by lovers, and reflected in nature’s pools of water, coyly playing peek-a-boo. Butt cheeks in a school bus window, the frenemy of horror movies and monsters, a golden egg of Space Force, and the object of Jimmy Stewart’s lasso, as Frank likes to sing it, Fly Me to the Moon with stories and poems 1500 words or less loosely related to our theme, MOON.

CMARIE FUHRMAN is the author of Camped Beneath the Dam: Poems (Floodgate 2020) and co-editor of Native Voices (Tupelo 2019).

She has forthcoming or published poetry and nonfiction in multiple journals including Emergence Magazine, Yellow Medicine Review, Cutthroat a Journal of the Arts, Whitefish Review, Platform Review, Poetry Northwest, as well as several anthologies.

CMarie is a regular columnist for the Inlander, the Translations Editor for Broadsided Press, Non-Fiction Editor for High Desert Journal, and Director of the Elk River Writers Workshop. She teaches in the low residency MFA Program at Western Colorado University and is the 2021-2023 Idaho Writer in Residence. CMarie resides in the mountains of West Central Idaho.

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MEET THE WRITERS

Alexandra Ellen Appel’s writing has been published in In The Light of Peace (Bayit Press, Fall 2021, Williamstown, MA), The Freedom of New Beginnings (Fall 2022, San Francisco CA), Cirque: Literary Journal of the Pacific Northwest (Anchorage, AK), and Writers in the Attic (Boise, ID). A first collection of her work, A Mouthful of Hardship and Honey, is set for publication early Winter 2023 (Hedgehog Press, Clevedon UK). Appel is very much a visual poet of place, which, hopefully you will see and feel as you read her work.

Tess Avery is a Midwest native who has made Idaho her home since 1991. She seeks the light in people and aims to shine her own into the world in a loving and respectful, not at all intrusive manner, on a nearly daily basis. The darkness she encounters in others festers in her psyche like a cancer hidden in shame. From this she molds the characters in her stories, showing the human, endearing side of people easily dismissed as assholes.

Tomas Baiza is originally from San José, California, and now lives in Boise, Idaho. He is the author of the novel, Delivery: A Pocho’s Accidental Guide to College, Love, and Pizza Delivery, and the collection A Purpose to Our Savagery (both forthcoming in 2023). Tomas’s work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best American Short Stories anthologies and has appeared in various print and online anthologies and journals. When he is not writing, Tomas is running trails, obsessing over bonsai trees, and playing guitar way too loud.

Jim Baxter is a retired administrator from the West Ada School District who loves to fly fish and write, in that order. A former high school and college football coach, he has been published in Scholastic Coach and Athletic Journal magazines. Jim and his wife, Kathy, will soon publish their first novel, The Gold of Ghost Canyon. Most of his teachers never thought he would read a book, much less write one.

Dené Breakfield’s stories have appeared in cold-drill, Nebo, Writers in the Attic, Rectangle, Boise Weekly’s Fiction 101, Plays magazine, and elsewhere.

Three-time Dell Award recipient, Marri Champié, has ridden horseback into the heart of the world—The Sawtooth Wilderness—countless times, and holds an MA in English, with minors in Art & Earth Science. Pushcart nominated for poetry in 2015, her work has appeared in Cicada, ROAR, The Tishman Review, Alcyone, Abyss & Apex, and others. She received a Boise State University President’s Writing Award for fiction & poetry in 2013, & an Oregon Poetry Association Award in 2018. Her novel, Silverhorn, was released by Kasva Press in 2018. She works as a wildfire support driver, and lives on a small ranch overlooking the Idaho Prairie with her horses and Jack Russell terriers. www.WriteIdahoWriter.com

christy claymore (she/her) is a writer, researcher, freelance editor, and former adjunct English professor. she is an emerging poet whose work has been included in the previous three anthologies published by The Cabin, as well as in “The Panorama Project,” a pandemic arts segment underwritten by The Idaho Press Tribune and Surel’s Place. Christy lives in Boise, Idaho where she loves supporting the arts, running in the foothills, and raising her two wild boys.

Originally from Sonoma, CA, Captain Bill Collier flew helicopters for 32 years, first for the USMC in Vietnam, then for the CIA in Laos for 30 months, then all around the world, including four summers in Alaska, months in Saudi Arabia, two years in the South Pacific and decades around the West coast of the USA. He recently moved from Sandpoint, ID to the Olympic Peninsula in WA to escape forest fire smoke, where he resides with his wife of 28 years. He is an award-winning author (three books) and a blue ribbon organic gardener. He writes the occasional article about his many flying adventures.

Healthcare worker turned nonfiction storyteller, Candice Dawson, is a devoted journalist, photographer, and cyclist. She regularly contributes kids gear reviews to RascalRides.com, enjoys documenting her touring adventures, and can often be found chasing her toddler down the local trails.

Sarah Goettsch is a gal grown in the old soul soil of Iowa, currently living in the chimney stack of Idaho. When she’s not scratching in the snow with a stick, putting postage on envelopes, or photographing fawns, she’s researching land stories or

teaching restorative movement. Her work is published on her sister’s fridge and scattered on Instagram @thebikepoet.

Debbie Gray grew up on a dryland wheat farm/cattle ranch in a remote valley in southeastern Idaho. She earned a B.S. in psychology/sociology/social work and an MS in Environmental Science from the University of Idaho, where she is employed as a grant writer. She lives in Moscow, Idaho, with her husband and several kitties. She loves reading, learning, gardening, community volunteer work, and the act of creating—including poetry, photography, watercolor, and mosaics.

Rebekah Gunderson is a colorful femme spirit haunting Garden City. Her hobbies include organizing her Google Calendar and reminding you to drink water. She loves Mary Oliver, horror stories, and her dogs, Thor and Juno.

Heather Hamilton-Post is a poet and essayist who lives and works in Caldwell, Idaho. She is the author of publications across the web and in print, including past WITA anthologies, magazines, and a variety of literary journals and blogs. A technical writer and editor by day, Hamilton-Post spends her evenings watching baseball with her husband, three children, and poorly behaved dog. Her work is forthcoming and forthcoming and forthcoming.

McKenzie Heileman is a reader and writer based in Boise, Idaho, with her two cats, Cherry and Clementine. McKenzie reads, writes, knits, and embroiders in her free time. She is consistently working on a variety of projects, written and not, and tends to focus on the mundanities of life and what it means to be human. McKenzie hopes to make an impact on her community and loved ones in some way and in some time.

Annie Hindman’s work has been published with The Good Mother Project and Mothers Always Write. She has also volunteered as a Creative Nonfiction reader and editor with The Tishman Review. Living in Boise with her husband and son, Annie writes between the lines of her days.

Tina M. Johnson writes poetry, personal essays, and short stories. Her work has been published in Inkwell, Atlanta Review and Bellingham Review as well as other small literary journals. She lives in Star, Idaho.

JoAnn Koozer writes from the countryside of Nampa, Idaho where wild things still roam and Moon casually observes it all. A member of Poetry in the City of Trees in the Boise area, she relishes the camaraderie of talented poets for inspiration and their challenging critiques. She has enjoyed having poems accepted by past WITA challenges as well as The Elpis Pages.

Abbey T. Lotter is a retired teacher having taught elementary music and orchestra for 32 years. Her career took her from Caldwell to Ketchum, to Boise, then Almaty, Kazakhstan, and back to Boise. She has spent many trips around the sun writing children’s musicals and songs for her students, primarily about the environment and conservation. She is now focused on writing fiction and sees herself as a new moon when it comes to the art of stories. She is a member of a once-a-month group of women writers, and thanks them for their friendship, support and valuable critique of her work. She has have been honored to be previously published in The Cabin’s WITA anthologies Animal, Song, and Apple, and is currently experiencing a month-long writing residency in Belgrade, Serbia.

Julia McCoy is a middle school teacher, world traveler, and long-time member of Writer’s Write. This is her fifth publication in WITA.

Jason Morales is the founder of MING Studios, Contemporary Art Center & International Artist in Residency Program based in Downtown Boise. He began writing poetry in high school and went on to study literature and creative writing at UCLA, where he received his Bachelor of Arts in English. Jason is a poet, producer, professor, advisor, and strategist, who aims to inspire Creators and Leaders to invest in Community and to express themselves through artful experiences and dialogues. He created a podcast that he co-hosts, called “Ideate: Rethinking Data & AI in Education”.

Heidi Naylor grew up in Pennsylvania and has lived in Idaho for thirty years. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and she received a fellowship from the Idaho Commission on the Arts. Find her at heidinaylor.net.

Stephanie Nelson (she/her) is a horror writer living in Boise, ID with her husband, kids, dog, and cat. She has a short story forthcoming Oct. 2022 in Dark Matter Presents: Human Monsters. She’s a Horror Writers Association and Codex Writers Group member working to publish her first novel. This is her second WITA publication.

Eileen Earhart Oldag was a founding member of Upper Gladstone Writers’ Workspace in Shreveport, LA, and continues to value the poets and critics in local writing circles. This is her third appearance in WITA, and she’s most recently published in The Elpis Pages: A Collective and Better Than Starbucks. She writes from Boise.

Originally from a suburb of Chicago where city lights bleached the night sky, Barbara Olic-Hamilton moved to the dark skies of rural Idaho in 1976 and then to Boise in 1980. After a long career as a secondary English teacher, she worked as a part-time bookseller at Rediscovered Books. 16 years in the same book club and 36 years in the same writing group furthered her immersion in words. Recent publications include book essays in BookWomen and The Limberlost Review, and poetry in Ireland: You Can’t Miss It.

Deralyn Owen is a student at Boise State University studying health informatics and information management as well as creative writing. Born and raised in Boise, she can’t imagine living anywhere devoid of mountains. In her free time Deralyn likes to cross-stitch, make collages, and attempt to play any instrument she gets her hands on.

Dani Parmenter is an emerging writer with a small scattering of published pieces. Her writing has appeared in Boise Weekly, Idaho Statesman, Stonecrop Magazine and elsewhere. She studied English Literature at Idaho State University, where she

Troy Passey is a conceptual artist who lives in Boise.

Marissa Genta Pineda lives and writes in a house with more bookshelves than walls and curates an extensive private library. She has lived in Idaho for 23 years and currently resides in Kuna with her family.

Diane Raptosh’s collection American Amnesiac (Etruscan Press), was longlisted for the 2013 National Book Award in poetry. The recipient of three fellowships in literature from the Idaho Commission on the Arts, she served as the Boise Poet Laureate (2013) as well as the Idaho Writer-in-Residence (2013-2016). In 2018 she won the Idaho Governor’s Arts Award in Excellence. She teaches literature and creative writing and co-directs the program in Criminal Justice/Prison Studies at the College of Idaho. Her seventh collection, Run: A Verse-History of Victoria Woodhull, was recently published (Etruscan 2021). www.dianeraptosh.com

graduated in 2012. Dani currently lives and writes in beautiful Downtown Boise and has no plans to leave the Gem State.

Karen Passey lives in Boise with her husband, son, and border collie. She has been a teacher for many years and currently teaches 7th grade English. Karen composes poetry on her daily runs and sometimes, takes a moment to write down a couple of lines.

Hannah Roberts spent the first thirty years of her life reading Winnie-the-Pooh and eating marmite sandwiches. These habits dwindled after she emigrated from the U.K. to Boise in 1989. Her writing efforts consist primarily in writing long letters to friends and family extolling the virtues of automatic garage door openers and pleading with them to visit. Her attempts to write in other genres have been hampered by an inability to come up with plots and a pathological urge to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. She was liberated from these twin burdens by Elizabeth Sharp McKetta, who introduced her to the concept of creative nonfiction. Since then she has regurgitated her life history embellished by whatever little flourishes she fancies and without including the more embarrassing details. Even so, she would write nothing were it not for the encouragement of her wonderful writing friends.

Hannah Rodabaugh has an MA from Miami University and an MFA from Naropa University. She is the author of three chapbooks of poetry, including We Don’t Bury Our Dead When Our Dead Are Animals, a collection of ecological elegies. Her writing has appeared in Berkeley Poetry Review, ROAR Magazine, Horse Less Review, K’in Literary Journal, Linden Avenue Literary Journal, and elsewhere. She has received grants from the Idaho Commission on the Arts and the Alexa Rose Foundation and has been an Artist-in-Residence for the Bureau of Land Management and the National Park Service. She teaches creative writing at The Cabin.

Laureen Leiko Scheid loves her family, living in Idaho, and being a dog mom. Writing, dancing hula, and hugging her husband and children are her favorite therapies. Laureen is thankful to be a part of this year’s anthology.

Jan Schlicht has lived in Boise since 1973, when she arrived with her husband in a Plymouth Satellite station wagon, after departing Wisconsin and exploring all of the Rocky Mountain west with backpacks and not much money. She got a job at St. Lukes where she worked as a nurse until her retirement. She enjoys working and playing with words, and with watercolors, and with fabrics. She loves time spent in the garden, with friends and on the trails, enjoys reading and puzzles, and likes to stretch out with yoga and shake a leg dancing.

M.R. Smith is a technology executive writing in Boise, Idaho. His work has appeared in publications such as Camas, The Literary Bohemian, The Red River Review, The San Pedro River Review, The Innisfree Poetry Review, the FutureCycle Press anthology What Poets See, and the Western Press Books anthology Manifest West among others.

Alyssa Stadtlander is a writer, teacher, theater artist and musician who loves crafting meaningful stories both collaboratively and individually through song, movement, and words. She is a music and theater teacher, a copywriter for the creative consulting agency SolidCreative.Media, and a regular blog contributor for the mindful faith company, Dawn. More of her work can be found in Ekstasis, The Poet’s Corner with The Page Gallery, and in the anthologies Advent: Having Wings, Poems for the Great Vigil of Easter, and The Cabin’s Writers in the Attic: Rupture, with upcoming pieces in Mudfish Magazine, The Sunlight Press, and The Windhover. When she isn’t submerged in words, she spends her time biking along the greenbelt, hiking in the

foothills, eating really delicious food, spending time with her family, and playing music with friends. For more, visit www.alyssastadtlander.com, or find her on Instagram @lyssastadt11.

Judith McConnell Steele is a published poet, writer and writing teacher. She is the author of a novel, The Angel of Esperanca. She has been known to dance on her back lawn under the light of the moon. As always, her writing is dedicated to her husband, Richard, who encouraged her writing and loved what she wrote.

Anita Tanner has been widely published including a book of her poetry, Where Fields Have Been Planted. She never tires of reading and writing, akin to breathing!

Eric E. Wallace lives in Eagle, Idaho. Eric has published three short story collections (Undertow, Hoar Frost and Stonerise) and three literary novels (Emperor’s Reach, The Improviser and Mind After Mind), and his work has appeared in many literary journals. This is the ninth Writers in the Attic anthology to include one or more of Eric’s stories. His website is www.ericewallace.wordpress.com.

Allison Wood, originally from Montana, has lived in Boise with her family for over twenty years. When not writing, she can be found walking along the river, contemplating her unread pile of library books, and planning with her husband their next great adventure.