An Online Literary Journal for Poetry and Flash

Month: November 2024

Rhubarb Pie Day

Nonfiction by Summer Hammond

The summer I turned ten, Mom made her first rhubarb pie. It happened to be the Fourth of July. And we were Jehovah’s Witnesses.

That evening, Dad propped a ladder against the side of the house. Let’s have an adventure. We climbed onto the roof. Dad, my sister, then me. Mom brought the pie up, nestled in a backpack. We circled around her. She lifted the towel, revealing her masterpiece. Sunset glow, rich ruby juices. Mom, it’s beautiful. Mom, it’s art. She carved the pie into thick, luxurious wedges. We dipped our spoons in, blissful. Sitting together on sun-warmed tiles, cross-legged. A roof-top picnic, sugared crust, and sweet tang of rhubarb. Fireworks bloomed a meadow of sparks over our heads.

We were Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Was it a sin to watch the fireworks?

Even if you happened to be sitting on your roof, eating rhubarb pie?

Was it a sin to watch them, shyly, from beneath your eyelids, from your peripheral, in quick, furtive glances, spoonful after spoonful?

Or was it only a sin to find them beautiful, to want them to go on and on, to see them even with your eyes closed, your lids like dark palettes, the fireworks painting wildflowers across the stars?

We were Jehovah’s Witnesses.

We did not swear our loyalty to any human government. We didn’t vote. We didn’t serve in the military. We didn’t sing or stand for the national anthem. We didn’t say the Pledge of Allegiance.

We did not celebrate the Fourth of July.

We celebrated the pie. We celebrated being happy together.

Every year, from then on, we called the Fourth of July – Rhubarb Pie Day.

In my secret heart, I loved them, and let sin explode.


Summer Hammond grew up in rural Iowa and Missouri, one of Jehovah’s Witnesses. After parting ways with the faith, she went on to achieve a BA in Literature, and earned her MFA from the University of North Carolina-Wilmington. She won the 2023 New Letters Conger Beasley Jr. Award for Nonfiction.

Injury Lessons

Poetry by Nicole Farmer

The words tendinitis & torn meniscus get thrown
around doctors’ offices & at home leaving

me to come to terms with immobility & mandatory
rest, while my body revolts, my mind riots

& old age cackles in my ear all the fears
of dependency – send my mind reeling in doom,

despair, confined to a chair or couch
to slowly atrophy & wither away to obscurity.

Then just this morning the trees spoke to me –
underground roots rough raspy voice saying

hold tight, stand still & breathe in the day
be like us and sway your trunk/torso

do what you can to reach your limbs/arms up
move with the gentle wind.

Oh yes, there will be chair yoga & stationary
bikes in your future, but right now

slow down, stop racing & look around
delight in the early yellow light & the drying leaves.

August is evaporating so enjoy these last days
of simmering summer swelter.

So, I moved my reading chair to the deck & embraced
a long-awaited repose in the shade of the old maple.


Nicole Farmer (she/her) has published Wet Underbelly Wind (Finishing Line Press 2022) and Honest Sonnets (Kelsay Books 2023). Her poems have been published in Wisconsin Review, Suisun Valley Review, Apricity, Wild Roof Journal, Poetry South, Drunk Monkeys, Sad Girls Club, and many other journals. She lives in Asheville, North Carolina.

Houston in August

Poetry by Stacie Eirich

There aren’t any birds here
the only wings in the skies
silver steel, we counted 30
in the space of an hour
over our heads, lights flashing
in early evening skies
drone of engines replacing
songs of sparrows.

On the streets, traffic flows
fast and heavy, whooshing
and swooping across lanes
in swift ascent. Dog-walkers abound
with the dawn, joggers rounding
corners, mothers pushing prams
scores of cars and buses lined up
for drop-off, a continuous cycle
of bicycles, scooters, pedestrians
crossing in pre-dawn light.

I turn down the radio and listen
for each next turn, navigating
a maze of one-ways, interchanges
and tollways. Siri leading me
to the next somewhere else
somewhere new, exciting as it is
unfamiliar and frightening.
It isn’t the size that frightens me,
or the humanity—but that cold silver
in the skies, feathers and song replaced
with aluminum alloys.

101 tons of titanium circling above
our homes, our heads, our children
in the blazing sun of a 106-degree
afternoon, humid and buzzing
with dragonflies, our ears adjusting
to the constant drone of engines
through the night, our hearts longing
for the melodies of
the Carolina Wren
the Eastern Bluebird
the American Robin
the Northern Cardinal.

Our memories full
of blue Louisiana skies
painted with wings
of feathers and light
melody and song drifting down
to meet us in greening grass
brassy winds playing a background
breeze of second-line jazz in our
small-town backyard.


Stacie Eirich is a mother, poet & singer who recently moved to Texas. In 2024, her poems have appeared in Kaleidoscope, The Bluebird Word, Synkroniciti, and Elizabeth Royal Patton Poetry Prize Anthology. In 2023, she lived in Memphis while caring for her child through cancer treatments at St. Jude. Find her at www.stacieeirich.com.

My Wife Explains How My New Book is One Long Love Poem

Poetry by Steve Cushman

They’re all love poems,
Julie says, holding up my new book,
and I say, I don’t know about that.
What about the sad dog poems?
Love poem, she says,
The broken bones of childhood poems?
Love poem, she says,
The difficult relationship with my father poems?
She bites her lower lip. Definitely love poems.
And the ones about you,
which are sort of true, but also
an idealized version of our life?
Those, she says, are the loveliest of all.


Steve Cushman has published four poetry collections.

Sikwate

Poetry by Nicole Hirt

a steaming cup
rests in my mother’s hands
water and cacao mixed
into a comfortingly bitter brew
while rain thuds on Philippine palms
water knocking at the door

twenty years later
her feet have found American soil,
and her hands now rest on mine
helping me crush saltines
to plop in the cocoa

now
I am alone in my apartment
raindrops slamming on the windows
a cup of sikwate
warming my hands

I have exchanged water for milk
and added a spoonful of sugar
but the crackers are getting soggy

so I take a sip and a bite


Nicole Hirt is a freelance writer based in South Florida. She is an editor at Living Waters Review, where several of her poems and prose have appeared in past issues. In her free time, she enjoys wandering through cemeteries, much to the confusion of the general public.

On the Deck

Poetry by Theresa Wyatt

in my cushy chair it is the end of summer.
The community noise of lawn mowers moves chipmunks
underground for hours & hummingbirds toward the lake.
Grass outside the gate is yellow from drought.

Parallel thoughts generate questions – will it be cool enough
to sleep with the windows open – will roaming creatures
slow the spices’ heart rates – will the apple crop yield both
sweet & tart, and did the Farmer’s Almanac discern
a mild winter? Dry leaves stand ready to turn.

When winter comes,
I’ll look out at roped chairs without cushions,
the covered air conditioner will be soundless, lawn mowers
will hibernate. Apple pies and sauce will be stacked neatly
in the freezer – pesto will be tightly sealed.

When it comes, I’ll go out on the glistening deck
frosted with crystals – cardinals will bear witness
while Tai Chi arms caress the wind breathing
through the fence – all of us & everything
finding new rhythms in between the white.


Theresa Wyatt is the author of The Beautiful Transport, a Moonstone Press 2022 chapbook finalist, and Hurled Into Gettysburg (BlazeVox Books, 2018). Her work has also appeared in New Flash Fiction Review, Spillway, The Ekphrastic Review, and The Healing Muse. A retired educator, Theresa resides near Buffalo close to Lake Erie.

Golden-Crowned Kinglets

Poetry by Michael Magee

Little Golden-Crowned Kinglets in
the fir trees flash gold as leaves
in their cameo roles.

Today there was snow in the air
small patches of light that
brushed against my jacket.

What’s best? The little flash
of a Kinglet that moves so fast
it leaves behind its color.

Or this snow-fleeting day
coming out of nowhere to appear
at my side like a sunflower.


Michael Magee‘s newest collection “Shiny Things” (MoonPath Press) is coming out in January 2025. He lives in Tacoma, Washington.

Lazy Man’s Pie

Nonfiction by Marilyn Paolino

What was Lazy Man’s Pie?

Just the other day, I was skimming the Beechwell cookbook, whose thirty-eight yellowed pages easily fit in my palm, when I spotted this pie with a friendly name. Lazy Man’s Pie shared the page with the French cherry and old-fashioned lemon pies.

The recipe looked familiar—except for the name and the stick of oleo. Oleo margarine was popular in the 1950s when Cooking Favorites of the Beechwell Community was probably published. The cookbook came from Aunt Judy’s attic. Before moving, she sent me several boxes packed with family photos, records, and journals dating back to the early 1900s.  

Of course! Lazy Man’s Pie was our family’s famous fruit cobbler, I thought.  


Dessert first. (Then back to my family project.)

I had a habit of reading cookbooks from back to front, starting with basic bars, cakes, and cookies. Eager to experiment in the kitchen, I began baking when I was nine or ten years old. Dad and I baked together on Sunday afternoons. Nothing fancy. I chose a cake box mix from lemon, white, and orange flavors that Dad liked best.

But we made cobbler from scratch. The recipe was forgiving, unlike pies that required practice to produce crusts with a delectable duo of texture and taste.


My parents were forgiving, loving people. During lunch celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary, my brother and I asked them what the secret was to a happy marriage.

 “There is no secret. It’s hard work,” Mom said, without hesitation.

Her answer left us to reflect on our own relationships. My brother married his high-school sweetheart, and I wed my soul mate decades later. My parents were strong role models who during their sixty-two years together treated one another with respect. They made married life look easy.   

Yet, family relationships were often fraught. I heard the hurt in Mom’s voice, some thirty years ago, when she told me my aunt and uncle opposed their marriage. They did so under a loving guise because they served as my father’s guardian, raising him as a son after both his parents died.  

Dad’s childhood lacked sweetness because he was orphaned at eight years old. Maybe that’s why as an adult, he craved sweets like fudge, pudding, cakes, and ice cream.

During the holidays, we made a rich chocolate fudge. We relied on the Fannie Farmer recipe, which called for a can of sweetened condensed milk (large) and four and a half cups of sugar.

However, ice cream was an every day treat for Dad. He heaped a generous glob of vanilla ice cream in his oatmeal and a tablespoon in his morning coffee. Usually, he ate a healthy diet, but kept a tub of “cheap” ice cream in the freezer. He lived for 89 years.

Mom grew up during World War II, an era of waste not, want not. She abided by the rule, making sure she ate food before it spoiled. In our house the running after-supper joke was, “Can this leftover be saved?” Yes, and the dish returned to the fridge. Anyone who raised doubts took a spoon and ate the last bites. Either way, we saved the food.


Before the family cookbook arrived, Mom and I had made cobbler after receiving more peaches than we could eat. Mom recited the recipe with ease: one stick of butter, one cup each of flour and sugar, a tablespoon of baking powder, a pinch of salt, and one cup of milk. We preheated the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and melted the butter in the 9 x 13 glass baking dish.  

Eager to get baking, we lined up the blemished to bruised fruit on the counter. We washed the fruit and removed the pits. I sucked off the flesh from the pits and thought, waste not, want not. We didn’t bother to blanch and peel the soft peaches whose sticky ripeness covered the counter and dripped from our hands.

In a large bowl, I measured and mixed the ingredients, and poured the cake-like batter over the butter. I plopped the cinnamon-sprinkled peaches in the middle of the pan. Do not stir, that was the secret. I confess, I’m tempted to swirl the fruit around, but learned to trust what I’ve lovingly prepared. Cobbler always tasted better when I used fresh fruit from the farmer’s market. But I have used store-bought canned fruit to satisfy my craving.   


In my kitchen, I chose the modest cobbler over pie because it’s welcome at every meal and won’t let me down.

People who claim it’s “as easy as pie” probably haven’t made one. In my hands, crust turned tough and chewy or soggy as if the fruit itself sobbed into the dough. My lattice came out lopsided. And my fruit slicing, layering, and arranging skills lacked pie-filling appeal.   

As we cleaned the kitchen, I tried to recall the last time dad and I made cobbler. We used canned cherries swimming in thick syrup.   

I checked on the cobbler in the oven as the scent of cinnamon filled the house. About forty minutes later, we had a bubbling, burbling celebration of fresh fruit. I cut a fresh-from-the-oven-corner chunk for each of us and added vanilla ice cream. The Lazy Man’s Pie, with its golden brown, bumpy crust and juicy peach filling, was easy to make, true to its name. We saved the jammy middle for the next day.

Warm cobbler topped with a dollop of ice cream takes me back to my childhood baking days those Sunday afternoons, savoring unmeasured lazy time—simple, sweet, and easy. Dad couldn’t have any cobbler with us that day, but he passed down his recipe for a joyful life: work hard, share love, and forgive all.


Marilyn Paolino is a writer who collects family stories and cookbooks. She had a career in public relations before leaving to write full time. Early in her career, she was a newspaper reporter who accepted all the leftover assignments. She lives in the Philadelphia area.

Landscapes

Poetry by Miguel Rodríguez Otero

we hear trains rumbling away
from homes we’ve known
neither of us yet fully awake
vaguely wondering where
they may be bound for
a coastal town
some place across the border
we are not yet aware
that we’ve fallen in love

but we don’t stir
we pray the clatter on the tracks never ends
each clack a word we haven’t uttered yet
a stitch that sews the wounds
we’ve come here to soothe

our bodies travel
they explore sentences and certainties
in this room that has taken us in
we throw away the passports
disregard seat numbers

we speak of books and oranges and wine
in foreign languages
often leave questions unfinished
conversation crumbles into shorter words

our talk travels too
and the keys on the bedside table
jingle as the train rolls along
our senses suddenly sharpen

one day we will cross that border
hop that freight and look at landscapes


Miguel Rodríguez Otero’s poems appear in The Lake, Book of Matches, The Red Fern Review, Wilderness House Literary Review and Scapegoat Review, and are forthcoming in Last Leaves Magazine and DarkWinter Literary Magazine. He likes to walk country roads and is friends with a heron that lives near his home.

One Long Song

Poetry by Laura DeHart Young

It played in the key of reed –
clarinet, oboe, and sax –
notes raspy but clear.
They rose into an instrumental aria
unsung and unfinished –
yet the breathy chords
still hit, pure and insistent,
an orchestral surge cresting
on a wind that blew from the north.

Restless lake water,
chopping and spilling onto sandy rock –
that’s where the
final trailing notes were bound
at the end of a long autumn song.

Flung across the newly chilled shores
like skipping stones,
the equinoctial tune landed in my lap.
I caught it and put it in your mouth.
You hummed,
holding my arms around your waist.
A pileated kept time on a nearby tree –
tapping a backbeat on the offbeat.
Leaves scattered
in tune with autumn’s exhale,
color long gone – brittle in death.
They rustled and twisted with percussion,
merengue style,
floating and dipping in kinetic flurries.

One by one the notes blew into us.
We plucked them out of the air
with our fingertips,
swallowing them whole –
swaying and rocking
until I rolled you in that bed
of musical leaf debris
between boat docks
stacked and stowed.
You stopped humming.
I stopped listening,
the autumn timbre fading
into winter’s cymballistic brass.


Laura DeHart Young graduated with a degree in English and enjoys a career in the communications field. She is currently pursuing poetry writing. Laura is the author of seven novels published by Bella Books Inc. She has also written book reviews for Lambda Book Review in Washington, D.C.

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