Dear Readers, Welcome to the Winter 2022 issue of River and South Review! In a 1981 Washington Post interview about how she draws the reader in with…
He holds in his hand a photo of me with a giant lollipop—half-sucked, colors relocated from the candy to my little mouth and he tells…
I wanted to be tossed in your salt water where the blue edges toward green and a siren pulls everyone’s hair down past their shoulders.…
The August sun’s penetrating rays pierced through the glass of a curved windshield, illuminating the interior, and creating a brilliant light show, cascading from seat…
6th grade: I woke up, found my nipples, they were no longer pink. They were brown suntanned, dry skin, not soft like the rest of my body.…
It was all in the newspapers, and on the radio and the television, that Billie Jean King had just defeated Bobby Riggs on the tennis…
We were too busy enjoying the dregs of our summer, the last August of adolescence, to pay much mind to the cloaked figure in the…
That morning, I buried a baby bird. She was small and brown as any bird who lived a few days in a box and died.…
a not admitting of the Wound Until it grew so wide that all my Life had Entered it ~Emily Dickinson Unzip me from the inside,…
My friends were fist fights we broke each other down. To withstand what was ahead We ate and spat prophecies misinterpreted as code-switching cyphered with streetlight hymns…
Margaret was the smartest girl in the class because her lunch bread was stale and her windows were dirty. She spent most afternoons hiding from the streaks…
I called my own answering machine to hear my mother’s voice. She’d run away again, this time, with the woman who taught science at my…
today is father’s day says every billboard in the city the mugs are on sale the surcharge on the brunch is exorbitant and the pub beers…
Someone labored over this swatch of grass, removing sod with hoe then shovel, creating too-perfect a rectangle, severe straight lines with the crisp, stark angles…
It is always a challenge to put together a new issue of River and South Review. Each of us reads every submission. We discuss the…
Imagine a large herd of zebras grazing on grassy green pasturesFrom the scrub, a Lion sprints towards the optical illusion of black and white stripesInstincts…
She adored rhododendrons & the festivaldedicated to them.Imagine each lung is a sponge said the pulmonologistbearing the shiny frown of his profession. She smoked those…
It was just past noon when the county cop stopped Vladimir as he walked along the grassy shoulder of the Saw Mill River Parkway. The…
Built by big, broken, and blistered Negro handsto serve the citizens of South Bend.They named me Public Natatorium,the largest indoor swimming pool in Indiana.I could…
He looked troubled as the requestcame over the intercom.Blind and deaf, he didn’t hearthe flight attendant or see the girlwho pressed the call buttonand said…
The lights came up and lifted me from my trance, the last note of the orchestra still vibrating from my seat into my limbs. The…
1. Exhausted sheep have left the room.Too many nights fence-jumping beneathtoo many pounds of wool, they headfor pastures greener and compassionate. 2. A poem that…
Who hasn’t wanted to do that?He probably had the key,felt the familiar give of the tumblers. He knew the house wasn’t his,but wasn’t it? He…
I wanted to walk down the aisle& see your beaming facethrough my lacy veil but my car was slammedinto the river; the veilthat now covers…
The delivery driver usually leaves your packages at the garage, but the muddy footprints lead up to the door. They cluster on and around the…
Vaseline, to get the botflyout of his forehead again.He’s had to do it three times; they creepthrough the sticky film to breathe. Do it, the…
For putting the coffee cone back in the cupboardwith its used wet grounds, I forgive youas I forgive you all your lapsed cleaning, the tubscrubbed,…
Rascal was a small horse with club feet, rescued from a slaughterhouse feedlot where he had learned how to fight for every meal. At feeding…
“The stuff of the world is knit—out of chaos in the first place”—Cleveland Wall, “Tiny Letters” Here it is, the week before Thanksgiving in the…
Little bird,your heart beats fastagainst the glassof the closed windowinside my porch.Hold still.My warm handswrap around you.I turn,take one step, two.In the open doorway,I slowly…
Only when sweat spatters the thin blonde tips, can I spot it— …
It used to be the afterthoughtat the end of a letterthat final smirk of wit, that wistfultraveler meandering late to the fair. That was when…
Like the last dayI would see you. Smiling— Wheels skidding on iceas I push you from parking lot to in-patient. Your handsuddenly becomes a child’s…
I dance the Tennessee Waltzwith Charlie,Old Charlie Blue Eyesin his thick tan sneakers.I hold him under the armsas we waltz, stiffly,two paces from his wheelchair.His…
I wrote them on adding-machine paper with ballpoint pen. I was always at it.Even before the reply to the last had comeI was crafting the…
That frigid Saturday midnightmy mother’s car rolledout of the garageafter me because I failedto park four wheelson the plane of cementthen compounded my errorby leaving…
We didn’t know what that meant – the future. Every time you said that word, we thought of rocket ships and flying cars. Living on…
He wanted a nighttime funeral. We thought he was joking. Connor didn’t have a will. He wasn’t the sort to plan ahead. His days were…
You were peaked well before Millinocket, and I shouldn’t have missed the signs. But in truth, I didn’t miss them after all, but ignored. I…
I sympathizewith the dining room table.The one that’s too big for the space it occupies.You have always taken care of itbecause you use it everyday,but…