Category: Theme Issues

Years pass and the floorboards in the attic

creak. A memory of an untouched dollhouse,

a miniature carousel, a stuffed elephant

with a black plastic eye hanging on

by its last two threads. Dust so

thick it chokes, floats—

at sunset the day’s last beams

shoot straight through the round window

that resembles a clock with no hands,

just a tic-tac-toe grid from the

freshly painted white grilles.

If she knocks, I’ll open the door

and let down the ladder, sure.

She’ll sneeze and feel hair in

the back of her throat she didn’t

know she had.

Nick Godec’s work has been published in Grey Sparrow, Pennsylvania Literary Journal, Rue Scribe, and Steam Ticket. He studied history at Columbia University, received his MBA from Columbia Business School and now works in the financial industry. Nick lives in New York City with his wife, Julia, and their miniature pinscher, Emma.

—after William Wordsworth

Mary entered the tomb and lay beside

her son. It was cold and the

stone slab unforgiving. Her eyes a lake

without end, the earth moaning beneath

her, ground fossils of ancient lives the

world forgot and turned to soil. Trees

stood high around the tomb, moths fluttering

and resting on the green leaves. Cocoons and

habits transformed. Once there had been dancing

and knowing in a small plot of forest in

a ripe season. But now Mary sobbed. She loved the

Man, who grew and left softly, like a breeze.

Nick Godec’s work has been published in Grey Sparrow, Pennsylvania Literary Journal, Rue Scribe, and Steam Ticket. He studied history at Columbia University, received his MBA from Columbia Business School and now works in the financial industry. Nick lives in New York City with his wife, Julia, and their miniature pinscher, Emma.

Nothing here beyond us—plastic dolls

in a dark factory basement.

Lights turn off row by row.

This room is full of blank bodies.

Once I whispered dreams

through the dividing glass.

You called for sexy swimwear.

Your dollars dropped at our feet.

You kept us with the living,

made us believe we were alive.

Seeing you from the window made us

blind to our own facelessness.

They leave us here

in tight formation.

We dream a return

to the window,

waiting for

adoration and praise.

The moment never comes.

This plastic body isn’t mine.

Yet here I am.

Nick Godec’s work has been published in Grey Sparrow, Pennsylvania Literary Journal, Rue Scribe, and Steam Ticket. He studied history at Columbia University, received his MBA from Columbia Business School and now works in the financial industry. Nick lives in New York City with his wife, Julia, and their miniature pinscher, Emma.

And the nuances of counting are gone,

And the sun and the moon have confused their shifts,

And we flee like refugees of any given season,

The toll of the tower loses its math,

Day and night are only songbirds of the horizon.

Jason Visconti has attended both group and private poetry workshops. His work has appeared in various journals, including “Literary Yard”, “Valley Voices”, “California Quartely”, “Allegro Magazine” and “The American Journal of Poetry”. He especially enjoys the poetry of Pablo Neruda and Billy Collins.

She’s a magician with presence in every booth,

A poet whose signal flair has sung,

An artist who brings the canvas through,

A dancer with no one to fall upon,

A lover who tells her body what to do.

Jason Visconti has attended both group and private poetry workshops. His work has appeared in various journals, including “Literary Yard”, “Valley Voices”, “California Quartely”, “Allegro Magazine” and “The American Journal of Poetry”. He especially enjoys the poetry of Pablo Neruda and Billy Collins.

This is an alphabet that goes beyond mere words,

The infant in his crib scrambling for a sign,

His arm he surrenders to almost vanish as it swerves,

All for the recreation of keeping time,

If recreation can fill a hall in turn.

Jason Visconti has attended both group and private poetry workshops. His work has appeared in various journals, including “Literary Yard”, “Valley Voices”, “California Quartely”, “Allegro Magazine” and “The American Journal of Poetry”. He especially enjoys the poetry of Pablo Neruda and Billy Collins.

I had been looking forward to lunch – I’d met Taylor and Alyssa at Parent/Child Pilates and (unlike Nicole, Samantha, Claire, and Leah) they hadn’t squinched away – and I’d scored 12:15 Saturday reservations at The Porch, a surf-and-turf restaurant with an outdoor seating area, a cedar deck over the river – and now Taylor’s Lily is French-braiding her American Girl doll’s hair and Alyssa’s James is paging through The Monster at the End of This Book with a Princetonian air – and my Riley has gotten her head lodged in the lattice.  

She just hasn’t realized it yet.

A few moments ago, she demolished her spaghetti, then detected the cinnamon-tinted-diamond fence ringing the eating area.  Obviously, if her head fit, it was meant to traverse that magical threshold.

Three, I think.  Two.  One…

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!” begins Riley.  I sally forth to extract my panicky, stentorian, flailing-limbed young land-octopus from her paling necklace.  I think of how many weeks of pilates it has taken to overcome the inherently misnamed “pants incident”.  How many yoga mat owners have embraced tactical retreat once our purple-pineapple floor-banner unfurled.  How many micro-bladed eyebrows have arched.  I try talking her through it.  I crane her delicate neck left and right, like the finicky faucet of an antique shower.  Nope.  Then I’m trying to coax the head backward: an anti-birth.  

I fail.  

As I susurrate, chanting the eternal mother’s mantra, It’s going to be OK, I’m lying to myself and to her.  Because she’s always going to be the child who gets her head stuck in the fence.  

All nearby mothers arrange a dutiful fireman’s (firewoman’s?) brigade, passing me pats of butter, napkins, water, the weight of their smug judgment.  Alyssa moves to comfort James, who has dropped his Little Golden Book to clutch his tiny peachy ears.  Lily is demanding her mother cede her own ponytail holder to secure the braid for Blaire, a detail which seems sadly spot-on.  Riley’s animal screams have brought dining to a standstill four restaurants away.  

She has so much energy, my mother always says, charitably.  

Hence the pilates.  Our rec department had gotten imaginative, realizing they had to appeal/cater to Working Moms Who Rue Those Lingering Ten Postpartum Pounds But Feel Guilty About Taking Any Time Away From Their Children During the Weekends.  So they offer the equally democratic “Parent/Child Yoga” and “Parent/Child Tai Chi”, even though it’s eleven mothers and one bemused, widowed father.  They don’t have Branded Exercise for Desperate Introverts Who Love Their Children But Don’t Particularly Like Them.

Ten minutes later, after the real fire brigade has arrived but before they’ve tested their axes, I ease Riley’s head out.  She promptly burrows into my chest, her tears leaving a dark spot directly over my nipple.  Taylor and Alyssa coo haikus:

We’re so glad she’s safe

We had a lovely time but

Better get going.

Riley waves to the other two children; they don’t wave back.  She looks up at me with haunted squid eyes.

It’s going to be OK, I murmur.

Linda McMullen is a wife, mother, diplomat, and homesick Wisconsinite. Her short stories and the occasional poem have appeared in over one hundred fifty literary magazines. She may be found on Twitter: @LindaCMcMullen.