Wilted Lily

Sarah awakened from a frightening dream, her nightgown pasted to her body in sweat. Her husband, Mark, was still asleep, so she gently lifted the covers, went to the bathroom, and splashed cool water on her face. She stared at her reflection in the mirror and remembered every detail.

It was her wedding day. At the altar she couldn’t breathe, her body slowly disappeared, and her bouquet of lilies fell to the ground.

“It was just a bad dream,” she whispered to herself.

She softly kissed her husband and went back to sleep.

Under the bed, rested a wilted lily.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

Ontological Question Within A Dream

I know I am asleep. I am floating, cruising through an old neighborhood. I recognize every detail of the houses and the trees. Perhaps I am just exploring the deepest, untouched basement spaces of my memory, where everything is stored? I float by an antique shop. The elderly owner, opening it up, looks at me. Now I muse: am I experiencing astral projection within my dream? I float by a little boy in black: going to a funeral? He is snagged on my floating robes, which are also black. I wonder: is this how one becomes, all unknowing, a witch?

From Guest Contributor Cheryl Caesar

Cheryl lived in Paris, Tuscany and Sligo for 25 years; she earned her doctorate in comparative literature at the Sorbonne and taught literature and phonetics. She now teaches writing at Michigan State University. Last year she published over a hundred poems in the U.S., Germany, India, Bangladesh, Yemen and Zimbabwe, and won third prize in the Singapore Poetry Contest for her poem on global warming. Her chapbook Flatman: Poems of Protest in the Trump Era is now available from Amazon and Goodreads.

Punishment Without Crime

Oompah-pah music and traditional German drinking songs floated up from the street festival into the third-floor courtroom. I shifted uneasily from foot to foot as I stood before the scowling judge. One prosecution witness after another had described in specious detail my attitudes, conversations, habits, and interests. There was even testimony about the transparent Jewishness of my penis. Now it was finally my turn to speak. I had just begun when the judge interjected, “Spare us your life philosophy.” His face was grave. He studied me with cold, squinty eyes as if calculating exactly how much a person can bear.

From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie is the author of THE DEATH ROW SHUFFLE, a poetry collection forthcoming from Finishing Line Press.

Honest

She rarely lied. Sure, there was the occasional well-intended compliment to spare someone's feelings. She might make a prevarication of convenience when the full story would take too long to explain. She didn't consider these lies.

And it certainly wasn't dishonest to keep her genuine opinions hidden when the truth could serve no purpose but to engender an argument. Even when she was honest, he would challenge her and pick apart every little detail, hoping to catch her in a falsehood. So what difference did it make if not everything was one hundred percent the truth?

But she rarely lied.