My grandfather let it slip like a joke that years ago in Widener’s Valley, back in that Virginia sawmill town, Grandmother drove herself to the…
I washed your clothes that smelled of urine and vomit, twice through the cycle, with colorfast bleach and the hottest water. I folded them, matching…
The kitchen smells of cleanser, bread and spices. I sit among them when we talk, my elbow on the table, window ajar despite the cold…
Once I drew the conclusion that love is a loosely officiated charade, I pooh-poohed any notion of ever being worthy of redemption. I felt I’d…
In my fairy tale life my friend would never have hung herself. My other friend would have survived the self-inflicted bullet she shot through her…
No hiding from it. That Sunday night I had to ride the forty miles, reckoning I’d outrun the storm grumbling up behind. Ambushed at half way,…
My fingers fit perfectly in the spaces between his. At night he would wrap his arms around my shoulders, I’d lay my leg across his…
River & South Review is a student-run literary journal. We seek new work by emerging writers of any age who have not gone on to a…
Lake sensed carnivorous eyes examining her body from the damp, dark corner of the cell. It was just a rat. She hoped. But even a…
“The great blessings of mankind are within us and within our reach; but we shut our eyes, and like people in the dark, we fall…
*Honorable mention for fiction in the 2nd Annual Arizona Writer’s Conference. Starr stood on the dock and stared across the water at the Escape. Angry clouds boiled…
*Winner for nonfiction in the 2nd Annual Arizona Writer’s Conference. I’m standing against the sink, hands elbow-deep in suds and floating spinach. Picking up a…
You are the Dead Sea, The Wind that burns my fragile skin, The Salt I taste, in the air, caressing my lips and Whipping my…
Dear Houdini, I’m sorry you’re not cool anymore. I’m sorry, I love you. But I’m not. Then again, I’m not sorry I’m not the new…
The poem cannot wash clothes mop the floor pack a bag or make this bed. The poem does not whisper, Eres muy bonita dance to, Let’s Stay…
*Honorable mention for poetry in the 2nd Annual Arizona Writer’s Conference. Mongkok Street is congested as a head cold you get when the seasons change, the…
“How does it feel to be old?” “It’s horrible.” My grandpa recently went to Alabama where he buried his older brother. Most of his friends…
He died so close to prom we decided to bring him anyway Fit him for a tux Called the hearse a limo We brought flowers…
I never wanted to play in Little League. My legs were more fit to be crossed in front of a Nintendo than to be dragged…
he was a tree, struck by lightning. [tall, thin, blackened] but his skin was metallic silver when the light hit just right and his hair…
*Poetry winner in the 2nd Annual Arizona Writer’s Conference. Zephyr slips around stiff and swaying branches spends a moment with every individual leaf moves on to the next tree trailing a tailing of movement I am mesmerized by the gentle play through the green this wind that is the same pushing and turning heavier trees with creaking and groaning and snapping Each leaf is caressed in a massage of some godliness making me want to climb into high bending limbs to be touched that same way like I’ve not been I can’t help but watch the tops of tall trees before the rain their arms all lifted up in the constancy of perpetual prayer as the airstreams rustle them like a benign distracted parent What if these small breezes all the way to Kansas twisters are not just the breath of our god but god itself speaking in a thousand tongues all at once and everywhere What if that air is a measure of love and indifference of gentleness so great our hearts are broken open with it…