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Tag: love (Page 2 of 6)

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Poetry by John Hoyte

I grabbed it from the bookcase, to read before bed.
The Problem of Pain, a two shillings and sixpence
Fontana paperback, from my college days.
It tackles the question, If there is a loving God,
why does He permit pain?
I chose it to see if C.S. Lewis’s writing
still resonated for me.
A bookmark fell out.
The Grand Hotel, Taipei, Taiwan.
Pain came surging back, engulfing me
in sorrow, though bitterness had gone.

The year my wife died had been a year of devastation.
To get away, Lisa, my daughter, and I flew
to Taiwan on a business trip.
We stayed at The Grand Hotel, and felt like royalty.
External opulence, internal grief.
I look back over thirty years.
My daughter’s daughters are in college
and I have just turned ninety-one.

I went to sleep in gratitude, thinking of my daughter
who has stood by me with love, grace and courage.


John Hoyte is a retired engineer, artist, and explorer.

Swing

Poetry by Rachel Beachy

Pushing her swing back and forth
with the baby on my chest
I do not know
the day the time or how
to finish a thought
all the hours go into something like this
returning to baseline
a pendulum swinging from
mess to order
hunger to fullness
chaos to calm, repeat.
And all along
they are growing —
I see it now
her hands wrapped tightly around the chains of the
big girl swing
she could not reach last week
how I watch her flying forward and yet
going nowhere at all
these days
thank god
thank god
how they always come back
to me.


Rachel Beachy is a graduate of the IU School of Journalism (2014) and worked in broadcast radio/tv before several years in marketing. Since 2020, she has worked from home and has enjoyed finding an enthusiastic community of writers and readers. She resides in Louisville with her husband and two daughters.

For the Love of Color: Ochre

Poetry by Linda Allison

Ochre is a wanderer
Embarking from deep yellow, it charts its way across the palette,
eventually landing somewhere in the vicinity of terracotta.
Ochre is the paprika in my soup and the cinnamon on my toast.
It is a farm-fresh egg, dark yolk dancing in the skillet,
and a hoo-doo rising from the floor of the Palo Duro Canyon.
It is the west Texas sky moments before the sun drops below the horizon.
My memories of Big Bend are all in ochre.

I am a study in ochre. Lids dusted, cheeks rubbed, warm golds and earthy red-browns,
Maybelline Autumn Copper and Almay Sunkissed Bronze
My hair and my sister’s hair, too, different ends of the spectrum: ginger and auburn
both now faded by the years

Isn’t it interesting that what ancient cave art remains was all drawn in ochre?


After forty years in finance, Linda Allison is enjoying a second life as a writer, photographer, and explorer. Her work has appeared in Bright Flash Literary Review, Pile Press, 2023 Utah’s Best Poetry and Prose Anthology, and others. Find her photography in Persimmon Tree and Burningword Literary Journal.

One Out of Ten

Nonfiction by Stephanie Shafran

“No one has feet like mine,” my ninety-three-year-old mother announces to the hovering doctor. 

“Well, let’s see what brought you here today,” the young doctor smiles as she pulls up a stool directly facing her new patient. After removing the sock as if it were a ticking time bomb fastened to my mother’s foot, she examines the flame-red toe yielding to her curious, slender fingers. It is the third toe on her left foot, rubbed raw by my mother’s second toe, which has long ago snaked over the big one—and twisted itself into an awkward, but permanent position. This deformity is a logical consequence of my mother’s lifetime habit of jamming her foot into ill-fitting shoes. 

When I arrived at her apartment yesterday, I found my mother sitting on the bed, cradling her bare foot in her lap. Spotting me in the doorway, she stood up— a grimace spreading across her face as her left foot touched the floor. 

“It’s my damn good-for-nothing toe again,” she’d scolded.

My heart slumped, remembering her excuse for refusing to undergo the surgery years ago to remove it. Three weeks off her feet and out of work! she’d whined. I knew the truth—her fear of misshapen body parts. At the Boston skating rink, there was a girl whose stumped arm had barely developed beyond the shoulder. After three Sundays of spotting her on the ice, my mother made excuses whenever I asked why we weren’t going skating anymore.

“Let me see it, Mom. Sit down.” 

Plunking her body back on the bed, she lifted the foot an inch from the floor and pointed to the swollen, tomato-colored toe. 

“Yikes, that looks infected. We’ll have to see a doctor.” 

“You’ll take care of it, won’t you?” 

“Yes, of course. By tomorrow, I hope.” 

I’d have to take her to urgent care, take time off from work, cancel my afternoon hairdresser appointment most likely.

A day later now, we’re seated side by side on grey metal chairs in the clinic’s examination room. The throbbing in my head has finally quieted. 

The doctor’s slender fingers wander across the bloated flesh.

“Does this hurt? Or this?”

Savoring this caress, my mother lets out a deep sigh. She shakes her head from side to side, yet her brow furrows and her eyes shudder as the doctor probes the toe. 

“I was wondering, Doctor, will you have to amputate this corkscrew toe?”

The doctor lifts her soft brown eyes to my mother’s.

“Heavens no. We’ll just treat the infection on the toe next to it. You’ll be free of pain in no time.”

My eyes moisten. This doctor’s reassurance to my mother—like a mother to a needy child.

Now the doctor swivels her stool to face me.

“I’ll write a prescription for a two-week course of antibiotics. I’d like to check her toe in three weeks.” 

Then she swivels a half-turn, shifting her gaze to my mother. 

“You must be proud to have a daughter who takes such good care of you. I imagine she learned that from you.” 

“Well, I don’t know if she’d agree.” My mother’s eyes ping pong between the doctor’s and mine.  “At least I made sure she had a new pair of shoes every September. For the new school year, of course.”

She offers me a shy nod. I can’t deny it—yearly trips to Stride Rite Shoes in Brookline each August, just before the start of the new school year. Choosing a new pair of shoes with sturdy soles and laces, sized correctly to fit my feet, whether I loved the color and style, or not.

As the consultation wraps up, I lift the sock from my mother’s lap. Like a suppliant, I kneel at her feet and lift the bruised foot into my hands. As I do, my mother’s hand reaches to rest on my shoulder. After a long intake of breath, she announces,

“Nine miscarriages. I almost gave up—your father convinced me to try for ten. And then you, one out of ten, like a miracle.” 

Her foot still in my lap, I give its heel a gentle squeeze.


Stephanie Shafran’s recent writing appears in literary journals such as Emulate, Persimmon Tree, and Silkworm. Her chapbook “Awakening” was released in 2020. A member of both Straw Dog Writers Guild and Florence Poetry Society, Stephanie resides in Northampton, Massachusetts; read more at stephanieshafran.com, including monthly blog posts.

Everything You’ve Ever Loved

Poetry by Robin Greene

Forty years have passed, and this morning you find yourself
alone at sunrise—red and orange overtaking the forested
mountain in front of you, as you sit there, as early light
opens the day, turning it into something mutable.

Most of your life is behind you, but sitting there
on that old wicker chair, you hear a mourning dove’s
coo from a distant tree as a murder of black crows
sweeps the sky. Only then, you remember the midwife

lifting your firstborn from your body—his initial cry marking
the next two decades of your life—a life now almost over.
Then, you’re at a hospital, hearing your mother’s labored
breathing as she lies there, covered in white blankets,

mouth open, eyes closed, and you encourage her release.
Forty years dissolve into weightless memory on this chair,
as you realize that everything you’ve ever loved will leave you,
and that the cooing of the mourning dove is not so premature.


Robin Greene is a former English professor and current part-time yoga and writing instructor, living in NC. She’s published five books: Real Birth: Women Share Their Stories (nonfiction Kindle bestseller); A Shelf Life of Fire (novel); Lateral Drift (poetry); Memories of Light (poetry); and Augustus: Narrative of a Slave Woman (novel).

Churning

Poetry by Robbie Hess

The sun will rise again tomorrow,
but I’m thinking of my dad tonight
churning the butter of my sorrow.

He beamed a peppery amber glow,
and knew words that made broken hearts all right:
The sun will rise again tomorrow.

He taught me about the bayou willow,
and that gravy rests on the onion’s might,
churning the butter of my sorrow.

Now he is gone, and I am hollow
as an egg without a yolk or white.
The sun will rise again tomorrow.

I sprinkle his ashes in shallow
swamp water and begin to write,
churning the butter of my sorrow.

I wish we’d had more time to borrow.
My heart weeps over this forlorn fight.
The sun will rise again tomorrow,
churning the butter of my sorrow.


Robbie Hess is a Southern poet, and a recent graduate of The University of Alabama.

Lucky Girl

Nonfiction by Carol E. Anderson

It’s 1950. I’m three years old, standing in our backyard next to a patch of wildflowers as tall as I am. My tiny right fist peaks out from the sleeve of my oversized double-breasted coat with crisscrossing lapels. Chubby knees extend into sturdy legs that lead to small feet housed in white anklet socks and polished white tennis shoes. Whisps of blonde hair flow back in the wind. My bangs, short and choppy, look like I took the shears to them myself. Atop my head is a tiny woolen cap.

My face is turned up. Eyes squint as I smile at my mom with the camera—my gleeful expression punctuated by a slight suggestion of a dimple in my left cheek. I’m anticipating something wonderful. The zoo? The circus? A birthday party?

I’m unaware that by the end of my fifth year, my father will suffer a visual disability wrought by incompetent doctors. He will never work again. My mother, a secretary, will numb her fingers typing away in a tiny cubicle to support our family, working for a boss half as smart as she. I will wish her to be like all the other moms and stay at home, fix me snacks after school, and teach me how to ride a bike. My brother will withdraw into a world of thoughts and books. We will never be friends.

Standing on the lawn in my miniature peacoat, I don’t realize that by the time I’m fifteen, I’ll be rejected by the Baptist church for loving a woman. I’ll begin to understand the word hypocrite. I’ll believe my parents’ teachings of love, kindness, generosity, and fairness are principles everyone strives to live by—tenets issued by God. I won’t know these tenets have exclusionary clauses invisible to innocent eyes, that I will witness Christian fundamentalism grow in twisted power and gird its flocks to act with naked cruelty on the belief that difference is a sin.

I don’t realize that at the age of twenty-one, I’ll be outed by my college classmates, introducing terror into my daily life. I’ll be astonished that all my efforts to guard this secret are as useless as a sheet of transparent tissue paper.

I am unaware that at age twenty-six, in my attempt to be straight, my boyfriend will dump me on our six-week road trip to be with a woman he met at his brother’s wedding the week before—and he will not repay the $800 he owes me.

Looking up at the camera without knowledge of the need for hope, I don’t know that my father will die one month before my twenty-eighth birthday, and that I’ll survive—that I will remain wrapped in the shimmering cords of his love even decades after he’s gone.

I am unaware that at age thirty-two I’ll start my own business as an organizational consultant and will coach leaders to inspire people rather than control them—that this work will help me understand the complexity of human beings, and their scars.

I don’t know that on my fiftieth birthday I’ll start a non-profit called Rebellious Dreamers to lift up women to reclaim their dreams—that it will last twenty-five years and eventually fund microloans for women in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

I don’t realize that when I turn fifty-four, I’ll meet my great love, each of us destined for the other, that knowing her will smooth the jagged edges of terror and loss, that we will build a home on nine acres of land surrounded by trees and be rich in our chosen family of friends.

Standing with my beloved, in our own garden now, I’m anticipating something wonderful.


Carol E. Anderson is a life coach whose passions are travel and photography. She holds a doctorate in spiritual studies, and an MFA in creative nonfiction. She is the author of You Can’t Buy Love Like That: Growing Up Gay in the Sixties. Carol lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Target, at Christmas

Poetry by Allison Baldwin

All it takes is the laughter of children,
the screech of shopping carts
to remind me of love.

In the aisle on my left,
red shirts in straight lines
waiting to be purchased
one by one.

Several feet away,
my best friend, walking, in an opposite direction
toward Starbursts, Sweet-Tarts, Goobers.

I know her: a sugar queen,
even as she asks me not to let her be.

I know me: last minute shopper, buying gifts for family
even when the task is far from easy.

In a basket:
Two small notebooks
A Yoshi hat my brother will never wear
A pair of Mario socks he will.
Some dog toys.

Love is not always easy, either.
But it holds its weight.

At the register, my friend gives into temptation,
buys the candy anyway
yet I follow through, tell her not to.

(The secret: I’ve already bought her
the sweets she seeks)

When she wonders why,
I say, “I am just doing my job.”

We laugh,
and the clerk joins in.


Allison Baldwin is a poet who combines authenticity with sass. Her work has been published in print and online, with an essay forthcoming in Folkway Press’s Right to Life anthology. She holds an MFA in Poetry and Poetic Medicine from Dominican University of California.

How Poppi Met Nonni

Nonfiction by Tarah Friend Cantore

I place the delicate ornament into the small box, nestled in the green tissue paper. It is a pink ceramic baby shoe with Baby’s First Christmas on it.

I imagine it is the year 2033. My family is gathered for the holidays at our New Hampshire home.


My youngest granddaughter, Ella, giggles and says, “Poppi, tell us the story about how you and Nonni met!”

From the kitchen, I can see Vinnie sitting in his leather chair in the great room. Bode climbs onto his knee, exclaiming, “Yeah, Poppi!” Ella is occupying the other knee, grinning from ear to ear. The four-year-old inseparable cousins are curly-haired, brown-eyed bookends.

Hazel runs from the kitchen to join her brother and cousin. As the flour from her auburn hair releases, a cloud of white dust trails behind her. At only nine years old, she has entered the Children’s Baking Show, and this afternoon, she is schooling us in the kitchen, baking Linzer cookies with raspberry filling.

My daughters, Brittany and Molly, as well as Molly’s wife, Jordan, are with me in the kitchen. Jordan is sitting at the island, where Molly is standing next to her, caressing her pregnant belly. I bring my favorite blue-glazed mug to my lips, appreciating the warmth in my hands and my heart.

“Bake at 350 degrees!” I shout at my new oven. Apparently, it will sense the temperature of whatever is baking or cooking so as not to overcook or undercook. While I am confident it will be efficient and accurate, there’s something to be said about slightly undercooked, gooey cookies. Besides, perfect baking doesn’t exactly fit with my hope to give my grandchildren the gift of imperfection, something I never had.

Hazel’s younger sister, Lydia, momentarily pops her head up from reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone when Hazel enters the room, then she resumes reading. She is sitting in the “cubby” with her father, Bo. When our daughters were little, they referred to the “cubby” as the spot at the end of the couch where they would sit in the bend of someone’s legs. When our grandchildren come to visit, they fight for the spot, yelling, “I want the cubby.”

Lydia is seven years old and a real bookworm. She will likely complete the first Harry Potter book and bring The Chamber of Secrets home with her. She has wavy, auburn hair and resembles Hermione, one of the characters in her book.

Vinnie begins, “Well, first of all, I had a crush on your Nonni before we even met.”

Ella inquires in her soft little voice, “What is a crush?”

He tilts his head slightly towards Ella. “A crush is when you really like someone and believe you could even love them.”

Ella and Bode nod in sync.

Hazel looks at her father. “Dada, did you have a crush on Mama?”

Bo smiles and says, “I did!”

Without Lydia’s eyes leaving her book, she adds, “On the softball field.”

“That’s right! But that’s another story,” says Bo.

Hazel plops down on the rug in front of the fireplace and focuses on Vinnie.

He says, “I saw her that night at Minerva’s. The closer I got, the more pretty she was-“

Bode interrupts, “What’s Minerva’s?”

“It was a bar in Burlington where Nonni went to college.”

Lydia sits up from the cubby and exclaims, “You and Nonni met at a bar?”

“That’s right.”

He had all of the children’s attention now.

“I asked Nonni if she remembered me, and she did. We talked some. I was about to ask her to dance, but my friend, Mark, was bugging me to leave. I asked her if I came back, would she dance with me? She smiled shyly and said, ‘Yes!’ When I returned later, I found her, and we danced. But then she said she had to leave.”

I recalled the sticky bar floor, the 80s music, and his adorable face.

“When we walked out of the bar, I leaned over and tried to kiss her.”

Bode wrinkled up his face and said, “Gross, Poppi!”

Vinnie refrained from laughing. “Well, she didn’t let me anyway, Bode!”

I was no floozy.

“She gave me her phone number, though.”

“And that is how Nonni and I met!” Vinnie nods and falls silent.

Hazel pops onto all fours on the rug and shouts, “But what happened next?”

Lydia chimes in, “Yeah! What happened next?”

“Well,” Vinnie orchestrates the perfect suspenseful pause and then says, “I didn’t call her.”

Hazel shouts, “How rude, Poppi!”

“Very rude. I imagine she was disappointed. And maybe a little mad.”

Lydia shakes her head with disbelief. “Well, how did you ever fall in love with her?”

Hazel inquires further, “And get married?”

“Well, she called me a couple weeks later when she was home visiting Gigi. I guess I didn’t make a bad first impression after all.”

“Why would you, Poppi?” Hazel asks.

“Because I had a little too much liquid courage.”

Bode reaches up and takes Vin’s face in his little hands. “What’s liquid courage?”

“Well, I drank too many beers. I thought I needed them to be brave enough to talk to her.”

Hazel yells, “But you didn’t! You didn’t at all!”

“Why do you say that, Hazel?”

She replies, “Because Nonni had a crush on you too!”

I walk into the great room, like I’m accepting an Oscar, and say, “I really did!” I give Vinnie a kiss. My family applauds, hoots, and hollers.


I return to the present moment. I wrap the ornament in candy cane-striped paper and tie a red velvet ribbon around it. I feel the smooth velvet between my fingers, inspecting the asymmetry of the loops, and decide to leave them uneven. Vinnie and I used to joke about which version of the story we would tell our grandchildren, when we were old and gray, about how we met in a bar. This one is perfect.


Tarah Friend Cantore has published a non-fiction memoir incorporating her artwork in tough & vulnerable, in addition to her novel, Spiral Bound. Her poetry has been published in The Bluebird Word and in the Telling Our Stories Through Word and Image Anthology.

A Good Night

Poetry by Paul Cummins

Already with thee, tender is the night.

John Keats, “Ode to a Nightingale”

Not fancy, not a dream—truly, Nancy kissed me goodnight,
Her lovely face lifting tenderly to meet mine,
That magical midnight, that innocent June,
Yes, she kissed me on the lips and I knew.

Then, with a strange new lightness to my gait,
I glided down her lawn to my moonlit Chevrolet,
Dizzying home in a popular-song sort of bliss—
Recalling a lifetime later the sweetness of that kiss.

So say to me whatever you may and know,
Say Paul, that day over half a century ago,
And I shall reply with enduring delight,
Beautiful Nancy kissed me that good night.


Paul Cummins is an educator, writer and social entrepreneur. From classroom teaching he went on to the founding and co-founding of six schools—including independent schools and a Public Charter School. From educational outreach programs to groundbreaking ventures, Cummins champions quality education, especially for at-risk, foster and incarcerated youth.

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