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Tag: family (Page 4 of 4)

At Dawn Where Two Worlds Meet

Nonfiction by Hope Nisly

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don’t go back to sleep.
-Rumi

The light of early morning is magic, pure and simple and full of possibility. I believe this, even when I am rudely jolted awake by the ring of my phone and it is barely light out. A voice asks, “Can you be ready in five minutes? I’ll pick you up. I want to show you something.” Because the voice belongs to the quietest of my five brothers, the one who seldom displays strong emotion or succumbs to any hint of urgency, I respond quickly and without a clue of what might be coming.

Now here we stand quietly at the fence row of a neighbor’s farm. We are looking out over a convocation of bald eagles, at minimum forty, that landed in a field newly-covered with the aromatic debris from a farmer’s barnyard. I take a deep breath and hold it, as if any movement or sound might obliterate the tranquility of this early morning tableau.

In several weeks, this field will be covered with green shoots pushing up through the rich, muck-covered soil. This morning, however, it is covered only with majestic birds that swoop and peck at the dung, hunting for a mischief of mice or a labor of voles too slow to evade their talons of death. The eagles, so recently snatched back from the edge of extinction, ignore our curiosity.

In the pink glow of the rising sun, our shoes damp with dew, all hints of our political differences have faded into the shadows of this flood of early light.

Words are superfluous in this light. Side-by-side, we stand in silence and solidarity and hope, basking in this breath-taking view of these birds of prey. I am content to stand quietly in the lengthy early-morning shadow cast by my brother, this quiet man whose soul is full of love for all living things, who wants to share this with me just because I am; just because he is; just because we are.


Hope Nisly is a retired librarian living in Reedley, California where she gets up early to catch the full moon going down and watch the sun rising in its wake. Her writing has appeared in Mojave River Review, Fredericksburg Literary and Arts Review, and Persimmon Tree. Her stories have aired on Valley Writers Read, a program of the local NPR-affiliate station.

The Single Story of a Latinx Pinocchio

Poetry by Amelia Díaz Ettinger

1.
My Puerto Rican aunt in North Carolina, lived in pearls, three-inch heels, and illusions.
There is bigotry for blacks, but we are white.
And yet a woman stopped her car at my aunt’s Corinthian columns
How much do they pay; I can pay you double.
The Gucci suit and diamonds was no shield.
Still, my aunt, mi tía, insisted; “ignorance vs. prejudice.”
(A PhD from Columbia in New York assured her notions had to be right).
What’s the difference?” I asked.
Don’t be impertinent.

2.
A woman with puffy bleached hair, and a ‘T’ shirt of compassion says,
Tell me your hardship story,” empathy fills her eyes, and I almost laughed.
I know what she wants, but living in a palace surrounded by cultured men would unhinge
what she expects and I am tired
half a century of talk. I want calm, and I want peace, and I want somehow to fit
in this olive brown skin, so I gift her;
Born in a shack without water or electricity. It was the slums, el barrio.
She tearily pats my knee, my father in his grave protests, ‘Remember Caruso and Barcelona’,
he says and I silence him, so I swallow memories in surrender
and I become the Latinx Pinocchio.

3.
It is easy to release a single story,
harder to pretend virtue,
so I talk in a soft voice,
when pain blinds me in anger.
And I work harder,
three times, five times, a billion times,
knowing it would not be enough
I still will be the sleeping effigy
under a large sombrero.
Above all entomb lust under a blue tarp,
along with my ambitions,
my culture, mi gente,
and my nose grows long,
but I can’t bury the rhythm of my hips,

4.
I can accommodate, I can give and I will take, will sigh after I cry, and smile until I make a grimace, but when my children are denied— yes— then, I will justify this constant view,

I will lose my temper.
Time after time, my children were told:
You can’t write Hispanic in these forms.
What do you want? Some sort of privileges?
You are white
I see the pain each time they denied
my part in them.

Now, my grandson is too young to understand,
“Yes!” he screams, “she IS my Nana,” Confusion in his eyes.
To me, carrying them in my arms:
“Where did you go to adopt these children?”
“Tell me the truth, are they adopted? Or are they albino?”
“No! You can’t possibly be their mama!”
This I cannot give.
Here I draw the threshold.
I will cut this wooden nose to spite my face.


Amelia Díaz Ettinger is a self-described ‘Mexi-Rican,’ born in México but raised in Puerto Rico. As a BIPOC poet and writer, she has two full-length poetry books published; Learning to Love a Western Sky by Airlie Press, and a bilingual poetry book, Speaking at a Time /Hablando a la Vez by Redbat Press, and a poetry chapbook, Fossils in a Red Flag by Finishing Line Press. Her poetry and short stories have appeared in literary journals and anthologies and have received honors and awards. A new full collection of poetry will be released by RedBat Press in the fall.

Morning Texts

Poetry by Jon Wilder

Hi Good Morning, can you remember to call Grandma today, it’s her birthday and yes I know she didn’t really encourage you growing up so your allegiance isn’t there and yes I know she has support where she’s living, but after Grandpa died she’s just kind of pacing around the house reading magazines and sewing his old shirts into pillow cases so she can still sleep with him at night. Can you please just call her, I love you have a good day.


Jon Wilder is a poet and musician living in Portland, OR. He writes, records and releases music under the name Boom Years and his poetry has been featured in Levee Magazine, Duck Lake Books, Sonder Midwest & Salem State. His first book “Bullpen no. 1” was released in 2016 and his second collection of poetry “Original Fear” comes out on May 13.

Maybe Death Smells Like Onions

Fiction by Pamela McCarthy

Presentation is important. Set the table with good dishware, with the silver placed just so, with the napkins folded. Maybe light a candle or two.

Who am I talking to? I guess I’m talking to you, ghosts.

Make something that won’t tax your resources and that will be delicious. What I mean is, use what you have on hand. Cut things evenly, add salt—always add some salt—add the spices and flavorings you want. Maybe cook with a little of the wine you were going to drink in the hopes it would lead you to where everyone is, where you can at least visit with them for a while.

This is why it’s important to buy the ingredients before things go to shit. Before you can’t get to the Indian grocery store and can’t get your hands on asafoetida. Well, I got the asafoetida a while ago, it’s been in my cupboard. Its stench is legendary, like death according to one vlogger, so when I sniffed it, I was disappointed. It smelled like onions to me. It still does. Old onions, I suppose, but …onions.

Where was I?

Make something that can accommodate the remaining chicken in your freezer. Something that will tie the past and present together. Something you would proudly serve to your family or friends, if they were here to eat it.

We won’t think about that.

Pour yourself a glass of wine while the chicken roasts in the marinade you prepared. The power could go out any minute. Pour yourself another glass of wine when it goes out just after you take it out of the oven. Toast the grid. The grid is dead, long live the grid.

After raising your glass, remember why you’re doing this. Why am I doing this? Well, we all do things like this for a reason, I’m sure you have your own. Maybe it’s to remember eating with your loved ones.

Look at the photographs of your family, your friends, the ones who can’t be here because there’s no safe passage any longer, the ones who can be here because they are ghosts. Remember that you have to eat what you’ve prepared. You are on your third glass of wine, you lush! Haha, I am hammered. Alone. Drinking alone was never on my bucket list, and it wasn’t anything I did before all…all this.

The chicken is good with the asafoetida. Resolve to use more of it in your cooking, then realize that the grid is sputtering in its death throes like everything else. You’re in a condo, one that’s been awfully quiet. Did everyone die? Wouldn’t there be a smell? Would it smell like the asafoetida?

I know I’m drunk. Here I am, giving instructions and advice on cooking to ghosts. If you pay attention, you can see them from the corner of your eye in the shadows thrown by the candles you lit for ambiance, but which are now for light.


Pamela McCarthy spends her days working in healthcare fundraising and her nights writing short fiction. When she is not working or writing, she is buying seeds for her garden, creating more garden space because she bought so many seeds, or reading.

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