Kitchen table. Nurse practitioner. An hour and half discussing my blood work, DEXA scan, and urine analysis. I have been too ill for regular office visits, so primary care, phlebotomy, even X-rays and ultrasounds have come to me. It might have been otherwise. No co-pay. No premium. Just healthcare. Oregon Health Plan, the State of […]
Nonfiction
Safety Net
Killing My Exes
by Leslie C. Youngblood
If we’re unmarried at this stage in life, it’s deliberate. I despise when people act like this isn’t a valid option or that we’re unaware of the circumstances and decisions that have brought us to this point. Maybe I was too eager to toss that white flag, surrendering the sacred space I cultivated while single […]
Downstream Was Never Innocent
by Marvin Garbeh Davis, Sr.
The camp was built close to water, but never close enough to protect us from it. A creek ran between the rubber farms, cutting a narrow, patient line through the plantation. Rubber trees pressed in on both sides, planted as tightly as the land would allow. The company planted rubber in every inch of visible […]
Inventory of My Prison Classroom
by Michael Wayne Hampton
The student who asked me if people on the outside can really make phone calls from their watches. Africa. GED Test Prep Workbook. One dead stereo. A list of 100 companies that hire a felon. Nitrile examination gloves, size XL. A whiteboard without markers. The Declaration of Independence. The student who grew up in a […]
The Squirrels and the Pecan Tree
by Elizabeth J. Wenger
We wanted the pecans. The squirrels also wanted the pecans. And therein, as they say, lay the problem. Let us start another way. Say the pecan tree is a symbol sprouting in the grassy lawn of my youth. A symbol of what? you ask. Let’s say a symbol of my family’s dominion. Our domain. Our […]
My Other Sister: Understanding My Mother through her “Forgotten” Pregnancy
by Delia Lloyd
In November 2017, I stumbled upon a photo of a person I didn’t recognize. Buried amongst my mother’s socks, it was a picture of a baby girl in a white, ruffled dress. The girl—I’d guess she was about a year old—was seated alone in the middle of a long, mid-century vinyl sofa with brass buttons. […]
The Pieces
by KM Kramer
**** Mrs. Beasley’s Lessons I. Mrs. Beasley: my mother presents her as a hand-me-down. I instantly dislike the doll for the stain, suspiciously pooh-colored, on her blue polka-dot outfit. So I toss Mrs. Beasley in my bedroom’s extra closet—the one that contains my mother’s evening gowns and dress shoes, which hang in floor-length shoe bags. […]
Dikembe
by Jacqueline Goyette
When Dikembe Mutombo dies of brain cancer at the age of 58, I watch old footage of that time the Denver Nuggets upset the Seattle Supersonics in 1994 and Mutombo wagged his finger over and over again at players who tried to dunk on him. He blocked all their shots, like he always did, his […]
Birthdays For Life
by Angela Townsend
How do you get on the birthday list? You exist in my vicinity. How do you get off the birthday list? You don’t.
The Day When the Sun was Brighter than Ever
by Gouri Mehra
The Day When the Sun Was Brighter Than Ever On a sticky June morning, when the sun is brighter than ever, I hold onto my mother’s free hand as we make our way through streets lined with people, vehicles, cattle, more people. Turning left into a narrow opening, she follows the herd (of people, not […]
