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Author: River & South

A Letter From Our Editor

by River & SouthPosted onDecember, 2021January, 2022

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…

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The First Man

Sarah Bruenning

by River & SouthPosted onDecember, 2021January, 2022

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…

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Oyster Crackers

Robin Gow

by River & SouthPosted onDecember, 2021January, 2022

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.…

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Talking Her Way In

Sarah Martin

by River & SouthPosted onDecember, 2021January, 2022

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…

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Second Base

Donna Weaver

by River & SouthPosted onDecember, 2021January, 2022

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.…

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The Day I Did a “Billie Jean” on a “Don”

Jennie Franklin

by River & SouthPosted onDecember, 2021January, 2022

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…

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On the Bank of a River Styx

Virginia Laurie

by River & SouthPosted onDecember, 2021January, 2022

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…

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Burial

Anne Rieman

by River & SouthPosted onDecember, 2021January, 2022

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.…

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Ode to Sadness

Candice Kelsey

by River & SouthPosted onDecember, 2021January, 2022

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,…

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Neighborhood Séance

Vincente Perez

by River & SouthPosted onDecember, 2021January, 2022

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…

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Margaret O’Connell from the Projects

Amy Soricelli

by River & SouthPosted onDecember, 2021January, 2022

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…

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Tangerine

Anastasia Jill

by River & SouthPosted onDecember, 2021January, 2022

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…

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today is father’s day

Ruby Mary Gill

by River & SouthPosted onDecember, 2021January, 2022

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…

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Bergamot

Shauna Shiff

by River & SouthPosted onDecember, 2021January, 2022

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…

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A Letter From Our Editor

by River & SouthPosted onMay, 2021June, 2021

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…

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The New Jim Crow Pantoum

Charles Payne

by River & SouthPosted onMay, 2021June, 2021

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…

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The Fertile Mountains of West Virginia

John Repp

by River & SouthPosted onMay, 2021June, 2021

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…

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Vladimir

Donald Capone

by River & SouthPosted onMay, 2021June, 2021

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…

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The Barbara Jean Story

Charles Payne

by River & SouthPosted onMay, 2021June, 2021

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…

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Signs

Alan Perry

by River & SouthPosted onMay, 2021June, 2021

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…

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Leave No Mousie Purse Behind

Leah Lederman

by River & SouthPosted onMay, 2021June, 2021

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…

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Night School: A Cadralor

Carolyn Martin

by River & SouthPosted onMay, 2021June, 2021

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…

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Florida Man Breaks into House He Used to Live In Because He ‘Felt at Home’

Paul David Adkins

by River & SouthPosted onMay, 2021June, 2021

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…

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Felicity

Carrie Magness Radna

by River & SouthPosted onMay, 2021June, 2021

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…

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Earlier, and Again Since

Brendan Todt

by River & SouthPosted onMay, 2021June, 2021

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…

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Botfly

Susana Case

by River & SouthPosted onMay, 2021June, 2021

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…

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Absolution

Diane Kendig

by River & SouthPosted onMay, 2021June, 2021

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,…

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See Translation: Evil Tongue

Shoshana Tehila Surek

by River & SouthPosted onMay, 2021June, 2021

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…

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A Letter From Our Editor

by River & SouthPosted onDecember, 2020December, 2020

“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…

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Kindred Spirit

Cricket Lesso

by River & SouthPosted onDecember, 2020

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…

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On Finding Out My Wife Wants to Shave Her (Almost) Invisible Mustache

Jean-Luc Fontaine

by River & SouthPosted onDecember, 2020

Only when sweat spatters              the thin blonde tips, can I spot it—               …

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Post Script

John Berry

by River & SouthPosted onDecember, 2020

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…

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Rain Turns to Snow

Katie Budris

by River & SouthPosted onDecember, 2020

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…

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Tennessee Waltz

Cricket Lesso

by River & SouthPosted onDecember, 2020

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…

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Tiny Letters

Cleveland Wall

by River & SouthPosted onDecember, 2020

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…

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Tipping Point

Larry Pike

by River & SouthPosted onDecember, 2020

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…

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Horse Drawn Buggies and Flying Cars

K. Rae Haight

by River & SouthPosted onDecember, 2020

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…

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A Night Funeral

Rebekah Reisig

by River & SouthPosted onDecember, 2020

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…

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Can You Please Keep Up?

Carl A. Taylor

by River & SouthPosted onDecember, 2020

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…

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Tabled

Darrell Parry

by River & SouthPosted onDecember, 2020

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…

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