Kari Gunter-Seymour: Heartland Hospice
When I was a kid, sick, he’d sing Hank William’s
Hey Good Lookin,’ call me his best girl.
Doug Anderson: The Tyrant
The people beat him so badly
that afterward
they could not distinguish him
from the pigs the rebels slaughtered
Gerald Fleming: Work
Today you’ll work in the room behind the barn. For years there’s been a stain on the sheetrock where the rain drips in, and the place smells of rot, and when the other day you yanked off a chunk of sheetrock, thinking might be rotten wood in there, thinking you’d maybe have to replace a few studs, you found, in that damp place, everything rotten.
Majid Naficy: The Engraver
You put on your eyeglasses
And read me your daughter’s will
Word by word.
Patricia Jabbeh Wesley: When I Shut the Door
The news arrived by e-mail — a scribble of a long, single sentence, broken up, like little chunks of wood, the way a year is broken up into months and weeks, days, hours.
Andrew J. Bacevich: My Son Was Killed in Iraq 14 Years Ago—Who’s Responsible?
The Islamic Republic? George W. Bush? Both answers feel like evasions.
Paul Christensen: What the Rain Says
She would die soon but neither of us knew that. Right now, the precious hours were dissolving in the pale afternoon light, just as the rain began again.
Jo McDougall: This Morning
A woman laughs
and my daughter steps out of the radio.
Grief spreads in my throat like strep.
Deborah Bogen: Sisters
I’m the last sister standing — but tonight I mean to lie down, to practice being in the box
Valerie Bacharach: Gratitude Journal
I was sure that I had failed my mother, unable to keep her in her home, as I had once promised.
Jason Irwin: Giuseppe the Shoe-Maker
Giuseppe, a simple shoe-maker,
who never learned English, stood
banging his head against the wall,
cursing God in his native tongue
Laure-Anne Bosselaar: Arroyo Burro Beach
Look at me, writing circles around what I must face:
The man I love is dead.
Tony Whedon: Field of Vision | Blues and Greens
Between this and that, my wife, my dear little cowslip,
was misdiagnosed with heart failure and everything I loved
lost its pigment. The old reds weren’t red anymore,
the rose bushes on the path by the river had lost their pink
Video: Six Shooter
Directed by Martin McDonagh and starring Brendan Gleason, this film, which mixes darkness and humor, won the 2006 Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film.
