Tag: adkarts

For my daddy, to tell me if there is a brother or a sisterFor my mommy, she helps me to patch up my blisterFor my brother, oh no, I set the couch on fireFor my sister, get out, I hate you, little spierFor my boyfriend, I’m sorry it’s not you, it’s meFor my fiancé, yes … Continue reading Masked, bandaged and waiting by Joni Youse

Dragonflies flit, birds here and gone.A white cloud appears, dissolves.Another thickens, floats on by.Dawning sense of three dimensionalityIn the skyIn myself,A swelling inside. I am that three dimensionality.A moment of stars twinkling in the vast blue,Thousands of stars. A chipmunk investigates.Two blue jays do reconnaissance.Deer flies come, go, come again.Drowsy, I take deep breaths to … Continue reading Sky Gazing by Fran Yardley

Joanne is in her living room alone. She is working on the sofa in front of her TV (which is on the news channel with the sound just audible. The current news is all about the Coronavirus). She is surrounded with phones and memory sticks and coffee cups and half eaten food. Her computer has … Continue reading In the beginning by Jennifer Weston

Does it cost more to die on Friday night?You know, overtime for the ambulance, emergencyRoom, pathologist, mortician, or is thereA Friday night special for folks from the slumFree bullets if you grab a taser and fleeFree call to my baby mama to let her know I died running Free obits in the morning paper so … Continue reading Rayshard Recalls by Charles Watts

I have taken to my porch. I hardly go anywhere else this summer. But friends come and sit there with me, and we visit for hours and watch the world go by. They usually bring a snack and a drink, and sometimes they'll try something I've made, although a few won't touch anything I offer. … Continue reading My Porch in the Time of Coronavirus by Eleanor Sweeney

My quarantine has been a privileged one. I live most of the year in the flat humid desolation of Middle America, where I’m paid to sound profound. Scarcely a week after I heard the news, I’d packed my belongings into a Montana-bound rental car. I type these words in a house I’ve been coming to … Continue reading My summer vacation by Brandon Sward

Every night from March through July, as the pandemic raged beneath my seventh floor Harlem apartment, I fantasized returning to Saranac Lake. To block out the incessant wail of the sirens on Amsterdam Avenue, I covered my ears with headphones and watched YouTube videos featuring scenes of Adirondack serenity and longed to be back in … Continue reading The World is Upside-Down by Carla Swett Stockton

It was foggy the morning I wanted to hike St Regis, so I went for coffee nearby. I saw someone’s grandma at the deli’s Green Mountain Coffee dispenser. Her mask was below her chin. She saw me with my mask on, and scurried to put hers up. I found it funny, because I was doing … Continue reading St. Regis and Buck Pond by Matthew Schechter

In late June, I met a boy in a field. I was lying in the grass, wearing a red scarf draped over my face, and when he arrived, I lifted the veil. We sat a safe distance from each other without wearing our shoes. We talked easily, about life, about quarantine, about marriage and divorce … Continue reading The Woman in the Red Scarf Goes Wild by Jana Rose