Tag: Responding II – 2020

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 … 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 … 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 … 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 … 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 … 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 … 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 … 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 … 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 … Continue reading The Woman in the Red Scarf Goes Wild by Jana Rose