The Bluebird Word

An Online Literary Journal for Poetry and Flash

Page 27 of 50

The Trapped Door

Nonfiction by Daniella DiMaggio

When I was a girl, my grandma showed me a trapdoor in our house. She lived in the basement apartment, where the trapdoor was. I want to say that the door was by the staircase or in the alcove where the washer and dryer were, but I truly cannot remember. When you opened the door, there was a red ladder that took you far down into a white room that was filled with wonders that I cannot recall now. In my mind’s eye, it was filled with toys, and it was vaster than vast. It was the universe, ever expanding.

I want to say that I visited this trapdoor multiple times in my childhood. And I want to say that it was not in one single instance that this door disappeared. I want to say that as I continued to visit it, the door became more and more transparent; the handle, at first, difficult to turn, and then impossible to find. I want to say that the square outline of the door slowly faded into the wall.

I have many dreams that I’m somehow journeying through the foundation of my childhood home. In the dream, it doesn’t always look like my childhood home, but I know that’s what it is. There are secret passageways in the walls that allow me to contort and climb through. They don’t do much of anything other than transport me from one room to another.

I’m reminded of when my sister and I were girls sharing a room. We had a large white dresser, it almost reached the ceiling (or maybe I just thought this because I was small), and she used to climb on top of it and crawl across it to my bed. It wasn’t until we were older that we realized how dangerous this was, the top half of the dresser not being nailed down to the bottom half. My sister never realized that she was a precarious leaf on a branch. We laugh about it now.

I sometimes wonder if the trapdoor disappeared or if I disappeared. If I became stuck down there and slowly the wonders just vanished, and one day, a day close to my dying, in a new long lived-in house of my adult years (a house I’ve yet to even meet), I will discover a small square frame with a knob and realize that no one has been looking for me.


Daniella DiMaggio is a recent graduate of the Queens College MFA Program where she studied fiction. She teaches at Queens College and Plaza College.

Strategies for Defeat

Poetry by Erin Lunde

Are you mad at me? means: I’m worried about something I said to you/about you/around you a few days ago.

Are you mad at me? means: I’m waiting for you to be mad about the thing I said to you/about you/around you a few days ago.

Are you mad at me? means: You’re never mad at me, so I know I’m ridiculous.

Are you mad at me? means: You’re never mad at me.

Are you mad at me? means: Why aren’t you ever mad at me? Why aren’t you ever anything at me?

Are you mad at me? means: I feel like a child.

Are you mad at me? means: Take care of me like a child.

Are you mad at me? means: I’m waiting.

Are you mad at me? means: Something happened and I want you to know it.

Are you mad at me? means: Something happened and I didn’t tell you about it.

Are you mad at me? means: I am so mad at myself.

Are you mad at me? means: I should have told you about that thing that happened the other day and that it continues to happen every day.

Are you mad at me? means: I should tell you.

Are you mad at me? means: I probably never will.

Are you mad at me? means: Why don’t you ever ask me?

Are you mad at me? means: About anything?

Are you mad at me? means: See, it’s happening again, right now.

Are you mad at me? means: I’m mad at you, but you’ll never know because you won’t ask:

Are you mad at me?


Erin Lunde writes in Minneapolis, MN where she lives with her family of five. Her writing is published in Flash Fiction Magazine, The Bangalore Review, Intrinsick, Openwork Mag and others. She writes “Fiction at Five” on Substack; she’s on Instagram @everythingerinlunde, and at erinlunde.com.

62

Poetry by Corinne Walsh-Williams

my age feels like a vapor
sinking into my skin
seeping inward
to the warm
watery places where
my dreams are swimming
in the lukewarm juices
of my soul –
and everything
all that is left at least
is simmering to a broth


Corinne Walsh-Williams currently resides in Providence, Rhode Island where she earned her Master’s degree in Creative Writing. Covid gave her the poetry bug and she considers herself an emerging poet.

The Landscape of Childhood

Nonfiction by Janice Northerns

R-r-r-r-r-d-d-d. That sound, the bumpty-bump-bump of our car passing over the two cattle guards near our rural West Texas farmhouse, framed my childhood. Cattle guards, metal pipe contraptions used in place of a gate across a road, are designed to let vehicles pass through while keeping livestock in; however, they meant much more than that to me.

On the long trips back from town almost 30 miles away, crossing those cattle guards often jolted me out of a sound sleep or a dreamy reverie. But it was a comforting jolt, a rumbling almost home, almost home.

My mother sometimes used the cattle guard as a boundary marker when we went out to play: “Don’t go past the second cattle guard,” she’d warn.

Daddy referred to the cattle guards as landmarks when giving directions: “Turn at the first cattle guard, go across the second one, then take the right fork in the road and you’re there.”

And the cattle guards themselves, all those wide spaces between treacherously smooth metal pipes with looming chasms beneath, presented formidable obstacles to be crossed on foot when I was small. It was a test of bravery to see if we could make it across quickly without having to grab the triangular side rail.

For many years most of the place markers of my childhood remained intact, long after I left home. But I still remember the day when I mourned the absence of one of them. It was on a trip to see my parents, and as usual, when I turned at the first cattle guard, its low rumble whispered almost home, almost home. But as I approached the second cattle guard, I saw that something was not quite right. The road had been filled in, the cattle guard removed.

No more ditch to cross, no more bumpy jolt.

Instead of enjoying the newly smooth blacktop, I had the distinct urge to hang on for dear life as I crossed that spot in the road, as if I were driving across a high, narrow bridge with no guard rails. It was a visceral, physical sensation, one that surprised me. How silly, I thought. It’s just a cattle guard. But there was no denying that this change in my childhood landscape left me momentarily unmoored. This no longer felt like the road home.

My father explained the removal of the cattle guard. It was in need of repair, and since my parents hadn’t owned any livestock for years, there was no longer a reason for a cattle guard. It made more sense to simply fill in the road.

I puzzled over why such a simple change affected me so strongly. Perhaps there was no longer a practical purpose for that cattle guard, but for me it served as a talisman. The bumpty thud of cattle guards marked every entry and exit to and from the larger world, a border crossing into my home country. If the borders, or the border markers, change is there still a country to enter?

Of course, it’s only natural that those external markers of childhood become fewer as time passes. Other changes have happened over the years. The old schoolhouse down the road, empty for many years, was at last removed. Houses of childhood playmates have been gone so long that not even a trace of the foundations remains. My parents are also gone now, and the house where I grew up, though still there, is no longer ours. The cottonwood trees that I played in as a child have been cut down. But those cottonwoods, their leafy green summer stirrings, are as vivid to me now as when I last set eyes on them more than 15 years ago.

Maybe I really don’t need external markers to find my way. The landscape of childhood, far from fading away with the removal of its landmarks, seems indelibly etched on some map of memory:

It is a July day in 1965 and I am not quite nine years old. My little brother and I clutch sweaty nickels and dimes in our palms as we walk to the tiny country store located just around the bend after the second cattle guard.

Barefoot, as always, we race to the first cattle guard, keeping to the side of the road where the dirt is cooler than the blacktop pavement.

At the cattle guard, my feet curve to grip the hot metal pipes as I struggle to keep my balance, hang on to my money and scamper to solid ground. Safely across, only then do I look back and down, down into the ditch my little brother and I have once more successfully traversed.

One more cattle guard and we’re at Halley’s Grocery. The interior of the store is cool and dim. We luxuriate in the cement soothing the blistered soles of our bare feet, sidle up to the Coca-Cola chest cooler and open wide the glass lid for a blast of icy air.

On the way home, we swig cold orange Nehi sodas, a bag of peanuts dumped into them. As I make my way across the last cattle guard, there is no bumpty-bump rumble; I’m on foot.

But the sound is still there, always, in my head. I look up and the house is within sight.

Almost home, almost home.


Janice Northerns is the author of Some Electric Hum, winner of the Byron Caldwell Smith Book Award (University of Kansas), the Nelson Poetry Book Award, and a WILLA Literary Award Finalist in Poetry. The author grew up in Texas and now lives in southwest Kansas. Read more at www.janicenortherns.com.

home for the holidays

Poetry by Nicole Farmer

the cold the waiting
the airport the anticipation the anxiety
the arrival the introductions the hugs
the car the road the talking
the home the familiar the suitcases
the shopping the cooking the eating
the mess the cleaning the dishes
the board games the laughter the competition
the fire the warmth the stories
the traditions the movies the quoted lines
the photos the misunderstandings the confrontations
the alcohol the overeating the teasing
the gifts the hugs the texting
the sore throats the tea the tissues
the cold the grey the wind
the accusations the whispers the hurt feelings
the love the irritation the exhaustion
the suitcases the packing the loading
the car the road the silence
the airport the departure the hugs
the cold the relief


Nicole Farmer is a reading tutor living in Asheville, NC. Her poems have been published in many magazines. Her chapbook entitled Wet Underbelly Wind was published in 2022. Her book Honest Sonnets: memories from an unorthodox upbringing in verse will be published by Kelsay Books in 2023. Read more at NicoleFarmerpoetry.com

Breaking Open Joy

Poetry by Stacie Eirich

Focus the flow, let the gentle waves glide and roll,
rippling across the velvet smooth surface
of sand. Feel the wind settle gently into twilight— golden, shimmering.

Find gentle respite in the cool relief of night,
welcome the peace of nature’s sounds, night’s embrace
of sleepful solace. Listen to the nightingale’s melody— golden, shimmering.

Follow the dawn into tomorrow, unloading grief and sorrow,
stress and struggle, letting happiness in, breaking open the boundaries
for joy. See it waiting in wings of light— golden, shimmering.


Stacie Eirich is a poet, singer & mother of two. Her poems have recently appeared in Last Leaves, The Journey (Paddler Press), Synkroniciti Magazine and Valiant Scribe Literary Journal, among others. Her home is near New Orleans, La; her heart is wherever a song can be found. www.stacieeirich.com

Heartbreak Hotel

Special Selection for One-Year Anniversary Issue

Poetry by Nancy Byrne Iannucci

My dad always thought I looked like Lisa Marie Presley.
He was obsessed with Elvis, an Italian immigrant,
who could never quite pronounce “Presley”
without it sounding like “Pretzel.”

I was five years old when Elvis died.
my parents mourned and mourned,
I thought he was my uncle.
I screamed whenever my father put on an Elvis record.

I thought if I listened to Elvis I would die, too,
or my parents would die, or my brother,
picked off like guitar strings
if they were in earshot of Heartbreak Hotel.

When I became a teenager,
I fell in love with a dead man, James Dean.
I went on a Manhattan walking tour
when I was sixteen.

The guide took us to all of James Dean’s haunts:
night clubs, restaurants, and his abandoned apartment,
where I ripped off a piece of wallpaper
and put it in my pocket.

A woman on the tour said,
“My friend and I think
you look like Lisa Marie Presley.”
She had a tattoo of Elvis on her arm.

That night in Penn Station,
waiting for a train to take me home,
a drunk man fell on the third rail,
it shook him like a possession.

Heartbreak Hotel was playing
on the 6 o’clock news this morning.
Lisa Marie Presley died,
and now you’re ready to go.

Your backpack strapped to your back,
I watch you walk onto the platform,
blowing kisses
at my childhood triggers.


Nancy Byrne Iannucci is a widely published poet from Long Island, New York who currently lives in Troy, NY with her two cats: Nash and Emily Dickinson. She has been published in 34 Orchard, Defenestration, Hobo Camp Review, Bending Genres, The Mantle, Typehouse Literary Magazine, and Glass: a Poetry Journal. www.nancybyrneiannucci.com Instagram:  @nancybyrneiannucci

Seen

Poetry by Jennifer Campbell

After being unseen
for so long
     a whiteout weekend
color drew us
     outdoors away
from anything but
a good lens
to document
the summer hues
layering the sky
two days after
a blizzard

blood orange poet’s sky
     spread across suburbs
and hard hit city center
cummings’ pied piper
     guiding walks
through soft swaths of pink
     carnation   coral    watermelon
     to tangerine    persimmon    flame
so many colors to consume
under a slim December moon


Jennifer Campbell is an English professor in Buffalo, NY, and a co-editor of Earth’s Daughters. She has two full-length poetry collections, and her chapbook What Came First was published by Dancing Girl Press in 2021. Jennifer’s work has recently appeared in Caesura, Flare, and Indefinite Space.

Taboule

Nonfiction by Leslie Lisbona

Perched on a footstool, I plunged my five-year-old hand into the sink full of cold water and grabbed for the parsley leaves that my mother had soaked.  They were elusive;  it took me several tries to catch just one. My mom was behind me, close enough that I could smell her Bal à Versailles perfume.

Although the kitchen was small, it didn’t feel cramped.  The window was open, and the spring air wafted in.  I placed the leaves on a towel on the counter to dry, my hands dripping water to my elbows.  My mom used a handheld metal contraption to shred the parsley.  It was about the size of a book and had a crank that she wheeled around.   She pushed her dark hair off her face with her wrist. Her eyes were lined with kohl.  After a long while, we had a salad bowl full of leaves. 

We soaked bulgur wheat into a big bowl of water.  My mom said it in Arabic: burhol.  She chopped scallions and let me sprinkle a thick layer of salt on top.  She cut up tomatoes into little pieces as her gold bangles made soft chime-like sounds.  She guided me to press the lemon halves onto a glass juicer.  She smiled and said we needed a rest.

We lay on the hammock on the terrace overlooking 83rd Avenue and the empty lot across the street.  We lived on the second floor, and the terrace was an extension of our living room.  My mother smoked a cigarette, pressing her red lipstick onto the filter tip, while I slid alongside her silk dress. I played with her gold bracelets.  Pigeons swooped around the courtyard below.  She opened her book and slit a page open with a butter knife, leaving a jagged edge.  Only the French books were like that.

In the afternoon, we returned to the task.  Back on the footstool over the sink, I took a handful of bulgur wheat from the water, and I squeezed as hard as I could, tightening my stomach to get every drop out.  I farted with the effort, and my mother laughed, her mouth open, her head back. I couldn’t help but laugh, too. 

I tossed the drained bulgur into the bowl with the leaves.  Then we did the same with the scallions.  The juice from the scallions was viscous, turning my hands slimy. She added the tomatoes, lemon juice, and olive oil and mixed it all together. Then she gave me a taste.  “Maybe more lemon,” I said through a mouthful of parsley, and she hugged me saying, “Ya rochi,” my darling.

Debi, my sister, came home from Russell Sage Junior High, her long blond hair hanging like ribbon past her shoulders.  “Ohhh, taboule,” she crooned. She went to our room, and I followed her like a magnet. She threw her bag on the waterbed, and I fell beside it, making waves, my body jerking up and down.  She kissed me and called me Leslie Pie.  She smelled like rebellion, cigarettes and Herbal Essence shampoo. 

My brother, Dorian, came home from work and said, “Oh wow, taboule!” and I scrambled to follow him around the apartment.  “Hey, Arn,” his name for me, and he picked me up and swung me onto a shoulder.  I loved the sheer strength of him. I rested my hand on top of his head, his dark wavy hair laced around my fingers.

My dad came home, and I ran into his outstretched arms.  His cheeks were prickly, and I put my hands to mine to protect them.  He kissed my neck. I giggled. “We made taboule,” I said.  “I can’t wait,” he said. 

I stood in the middle of my family as they moved around one another, reaching for bowls from the cabinet.  We ate the taboule with whatever else my mother must have cooked when I wasn’t paying attention.  The parsley stuck to our teeth; “Don’t ever eat taboule on a date!” my mom said. The taste was kaleidoscopic, citrusy, dense, complex, and comforting. 

My parents talked to each other in Arabic, with French words mixed in.  My mother called my dad “Cherie.” The singsong of their voices was tender and affectionate, their expressions frozen in time and unchanged since they had left Lebanon in 1949. 

The taboule gone, my mom washed the bowl and laid it on a towel on the counter, swatting the hair from her eyes and exhaling deeply.  She smiled at me and checked that her nail polish wasn’t ruined.  Sleepy, I went to the living room, dragging my feet on the tan shag carpet to find my father asleep in front of the TV, still in his suit and shoes.  I reached up and changed the channel to “I Dream of Jeanie.”  I sat on the rug near my father as he dozed, the sensation of taboule and the nearness of my mother still present in my body.


Leslie Lisbona has been part of a writing workshop for ten years. She recently had her first piece published in Synchronized Chaos. She is the child of immigrants from Beirut, Lebanon, and grew up in Queens, NY. Most of her writing has to do with her upbringing.

Fish Tales

Special Selection for One-Year Anniversary Issue

Fiction by Foster Trecost

Boredom lurked like a silent companion, sometimes causing him to see things that weren’t there, sometimes causing him to miss things that were. Such was the case when he caught sight of something he’d never noticed before, though it had been there all along. He moved in for a closer look, so close his nose nearly touched the glass, and what he saw, in the language of his age, was an assortment of creatures, some big, some small. They moved about the confined space and he wondered if they were bored, too.

His brother, a bit older and much wiser, knew things and knew how to explain them. “Where’s my brother,” he asked. 

“With his friends.” The answer was always the same, just like everything else. But the creatures through the glass were trapped, they weren’t going anywhere and neither was he. 

“What are you looking at?” His brother had returned. 

“Them,” he said, then streamed a series of questions so fast, each was asked before the prior could be answered.

“Slow down. One at a time.”

“That one,” he said, pointing to a large figure hovering in the back. “Why is that one bigger than the others?”

His brother presented a different view: “She’s the biggest because she’s everyone’s mother. All the others are her children.”

“All of them?”

“Not the skinny one. He’s the father. He worries all the time, that’s why he looks sick. They’re just like us.”

He believed every word and should have because every word was true, or at least the truth as his brother believed it. He spent the following days matching his newfound knowledge with what he saw, and concluded, just as his brother had, that they weren’t so different.

“You still thinking about them?” asked his brother. “Don’t waste too much time. It’s hard enough understanding our side of the glass.”

“You’re right.”

“Not always, but most of the time.” The two boys laughed, then his brother said something he’d never said before. “Come on, let’s go play.”

“I can come?”

“Sure, the others are waiting.” They turned away from the glass. “You want to race?”

“Can I have a head start?”

“Okay, but you better take it now before I change my mind.”

Without another word he swam away, his fish tail all that could be seen, swishing from one side to the other, and his brother swam after him just as fast as he could.


Foster Trecost writes stories that are mostly made up. They tend to follow his attention span: sometimes short, sometimes very short. Recent work appears in Potato Soup Journal, Halfway Down the Stairs, and BigCityLit. He lives near New Orleans with his wife and dog.

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