Tag: memories (Page 1 of 3)

a basket of lemons, limes, and oranges — Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash

A Question of Fruits and Kitchens

1 October 2026 / Editor

Poetry by Kira M. Tjomsland

Perhaps we were feeling slightly hungry as we browsed the art gallery,
stopping before an oil-on-canvas
where ripe oranges made a branch bow low,
and you turned and asked me,

“If your kitchen had a fruit theme, what fruit would it be?”

The question exhales, and from it I inhale
the citrusy-sterile smell
of Grandma’s kitchen,
where dish soap stings my nose with the acidic tang
of the towels, of the bowls, of the plates, of the tiles on the wall
all distinctly, blatantly, unapologetically lemon.

Like a candle with a layered scent profile,
I whiff the undercurrents that made their way
into my own mother’s kitchen,
where the hand soap is always lemon, grapefruit, or tangerine
and the essential oils diffusing are always lemongrass or lime.

While I enjoy lemon-flavored desserts
and a wedge of lime in my water,
is it wrong of me to now associate the smell
with the drudgery of cleaning?

Maybe a strawberry or an apple theme
would better suit my counter’s red appliances;
raspberry doesn’t scream “kitchen” to me,
and cherries are an absolute no.

I think of my childhood friend’s new kitchen,
each appliance painted with a different piece of
a colorful fruit salad.
I think that I’m too picky of an eater
to really pull that off.

But as we meander to the next displayed easel
and I think of the dishes waiting for me,
I glance back over at the orange grove canvas
and think maybe that citrus isn’t so bad.

Kira M. Tjomsland is an award-winning author and poet, Creative Writing MFA candidate, and co-founder of Wandering Lights Literary Magazine. In her free time, she enjoys baking as much from scratch as possible. To read more of her work, see her website kiramtjomslandauthor.com and follow her @kiramtjomsland.author.

envelope with light purple flowers inside — Photo by Anita Austvika on Unsplash

Dear Dad

1 October 2026 / Editor

Nonfiction by Leslie Lisbona

Dear Dad,
I wonder if you are still 85. Although I’m not sure that’s the age you would want to be for eternity.

I have vague and sweet memories of you in your early 40s. I would wait for you to come home from work. It was the last thing I got to do before going to bed. You would squat down, open your arms, and hug me. I was so excited I could barely stand it. And I made you laugh, mixing up my French and English by telling you, “You are piquey.” Your face was too rough, and I should have said, “Ca pique.” But you knew what I meant, and your laugh felt like a rumble in my chest.

You had your own store by then, Ripley’s, right near the Park Avenue entrance to Grand Central. Ripley’s was small, the walls crammed with electronic equipment. It had a stool that you propped me up on while you and Mom shared a cigarette over my head and murmured to each other in French and Arabic.

Or maybe you are 50 years old. I remember your 50th birthday because I was 10. Debi and I went out to get you a card and a Carvel cake in your brand new car. Debi swung her long hair back as she reversed too fast. We hit a pillar in the garage of our building and the car was totaled.

Or you might be 60. That is when you had Spectra on Madison Avenue, still small but bigger than Ripley’s. Sometimes if Mom asked you for money, you would say, “I don’t have a penny.” I remember feeling confused, not knowing if we were on the brink of financial ruin.

A bit later you had the first of your open-heart surgeries. That was when I realized I could lose you.

I wonder if you and Mom are together again? I wonder what ages you are – maybe you are both in your 60s, even though you died 15 years after she did. Mom wouldn’t like that you married Nina. Debi slipped your wedding ring off your finger in the funeral home. She didn’t want Mom to see it, especially because you never wore one in all the years you were married to her.

Do you remember the trouble you gave me when I finally moved out? I loved my first apartment, on Eighth Avenue and 53rd. I had Aaron then but not yet Oliver. I still saw you every Friday night for a movie, and once a week you double-parked on 6th Avenue near my office and I would hop into the elevator, pressing the lobby button over and over because I couldn’t wait to see you. Sometimes I teased you and said, “Aren’t you glad you had me?” and you would laugh and laugh. Once you knocked on my apartment door at 7am with bagels and coffee. I knew you were missing me. I felt like crying, which made it hard to swallow my bite of bagel. After we ate, I got ready to go to work and you went home to Queens, alone.

Do you know that I am 61 years old and that I haven’t set eyes on you in almost two decades?

Now we live in a different house that reminds me of our house in Queens. We have a dog named Rhoda. Val lost his father a few years ago. We have started traveling together, just the two of us, and it is wonderful. Aaron is 28 and engaged to be married; Oliver is 25 with a serious girlfriend. They work virtually, from home.

This is new: You can work from home now.

I wish I had had that option. I ached for Aaron and Oliver while I was in my glass office in midtown.

Here are some things that have happened since you left:

We sold the Queens house a few months after your death.

Nina died a few years after you did.

Debi and Dorian are grandparents. Debi goes by Nonna like your mom, and Dorian goes by Gido like you. The three of us are close, talking to each other all day long.

Congestion Pricing: You have to pay $9 to drive into the city. It turned out to be a good thing – less traffic and fewer pedestrian deaths.

Electric cars: I have one. I can turn on the heat from my phone before I get in the car. I have a charger in my garage. We are not far from self-driving cars. Actually, I think mine can do it, but I’m not sure how.

I miss you iktir, a lot, especially when something really good happens and maybe an inch more when something awful happens.

Here is a good thing: I stopped working in a bank and now I am a dreamer like you.

Here is a bad thing: October 7. The attack nearly destroyed my family life and the whole world turned against us. I needed you so much then, Dad.

Even though parenting wasn’t your thing, you turned out to be a good parent to us when Mom died. I’m glad you and I had the chance to get close, to get to know each other, to enjoy time together: all those Friday night movies, a few Broadway shows, just you and me. Imagine that.

I love you,
Lozay

Aside from The Bluebird Word, Leslie Lisbona‘s work has appeared in numerous journals and magazines such as The Queens Review, Synchronized Chaos, JMWW, Smoky Blue Literary & Arts Magazine, and Welter. She was also featured in the Style section of The New York Times. She is the child of immigrants from Beirut, Lebanon, and grew up in Queens, NY. You can find her online at leslielisbona.substack.com

letters with roses — Photo by Ranurte on Unsplash

My Father’s Love Letters

1 October 2026 / Editor

Poetry by Laurie Miller

Cleaning out my mother’s apartment after her death.
So many things will be thrown away or donated.
I have no room for anything, even though I want everything.

I want to hold objects that might not mean much, but I’ll know
She once touched them, and they meant something to her.

I walk through the apartment, opening closets and drawers.
In the hallway cabinet, I see what I assume is a photo album
Or a scrapbook.
I drag it out and sit on the couch.

On the front page is a handwritten list in faded blue ink in
my mother’s elegant and meticulous handwriting.
#1, then the date, beginning in 1942.
The list goes on to over 300 entries.

She numbered letters. So many letters. All of them are from my father.

My parents met on a blind date.
My mother was 26, considered “old” to still be single. Almost a spinster.
My father was 31 and in the army.
Sparks flew, as did my dad, when he reported to the Army a few weeks later.
Landing in Oklahoma.

I opened Letter #1 and blushed.
My father was telling my mother that he’d rather be making love to her
than be in Oklahoma.

My dad????
I knew they loved each other, but
I rarely saw them hug or kiss.

I couldn’t stop reading.
I was witnessing their courtship.
Well, at least his side of it.
He told her when he went to the movies on the base.
He loved movies and would say when one was “swell.”
Or a “bomb.”

He told her when he went dancing at the USO.
He was a superb dancer, adept at the foxtrot, Lindy Hop or a waltz,
and would have a “swell” time.
But none of the girls held a candle to my mom.

He was such a romantic!
He’d tell her he’d been a “good boy.”

He’d tell her when he went to a Sabbath dinner or Passover Seder.
He and the other Jewish soldiers were treated differently by the other soldiers
And citizens in Oklahoma.
He tried to ignore it and keep his faith.

He went overseas and kept on writing.
The anti-Semitism among the troops got worse.
Nothing “swell” to report, except
counting the days until he could return home to “his girl.”

A year after he returned home in 1945, my parents were married.

I took the album home, and over several weeks I read every letter
I put them in order in acid-free sleeves.

I wanted my son to read them. He would learn about the
Grandpa he never knew,
as I learned about the father I loved and missed so much.

The movie buff. The charming dancer. The man of faith. The wonderful writer. The man who was smitten by the girl back home, and stayed smitten for 47 years until his last breath.

He was really swell.

Laurie Miller recently retired after 30 years as a grant writer, raising funds for foster care advocacy, the arts, and college access. Her work appeared in Vestal Review and Purrseverance: Inspiring Stories of Cat Resilience and Hope. Laurie lives in California with her husband and senior pets Ruby and Snickers.

framed artwork and frames leaning against wall — Photo by Jackie Hope on Unsplash

What remains after the walls are stripped bare before the whole house is painted after thirty years

1 July 2026 / Editor

Poetry by Susan Hodara

The nails that held the artwork
The holes left by nails that once held different artwork
The chipped plaster wounds around nails improperly but relentlessly pounded in
The narrow strips of glue that ensured the tiny print wouldn’t fall off the wall that now won’t come off the wall themselves
The never-resealed square opening in the basement stairwell where my husband had to cut through to retrieve a dropped wire, forgotten until the vintage metal Ambre Solaire advertising sign was removed
The thumbtack in the window frame where I dangled a ceramic angel

The cracks that slash from floor to ceiling
The crumbling plaster that has broken through the paint on the lower corners of so many windows
The yellow brush-stroked circle with yellow rays that my then-teenaged daughter painted up near her ceiling
The shard of masking tape from an unframed poster replaced long ago by something framed
The flaking paint everywhere

The smudges of dirt from this bump or that, a box rubbing, a suitcase banging
The black scrapes made by straightening the corners of canvases, a little up on the right, now down to the left
The stinkbugs that congregated, then died, along the top edge of the window in our bedroom
The phone jacks emitting wires that no longer lead anywhere
The dust that clings to the backs of bookshelves and paintings and dressers and furs the walls and moldings behind them, like dirty gray clouds

Susan Hodara is a memoirist, journalist, and teacher. Her work has been published in The New York Times and assorted literary journals. She has taught memoir writing for nearly two decades. She is co-author of Still Here Thinking of You: A Second Chance With Our Mothers (Big Table Publishing, 2013). Read more at susanhodara.com.

Papa’s Garage

1 January 2026 / Editor

Poetry by Sarah Pouliot

I stood in your garage, inhaling sawdust
like incense as you unveiled the new altar:
a dove and an olive branch etched into peeling
cedar, curled shavings scattered on cement
like split ends at a barber shop.

“There’s a sculpture inside every sapling;
my job is to set it free,” you told me—
voice as rusty as the metal bench I leaned on.
I didn’t know you were quoting Michelangelo
until “Taps” resounded from a bugle

and two men folded an American flag
into a perfect triangle—the day New
Hampshire’s bleached sky became
an ocean of arctic terns, white wings
coalescing behind their captain.

Now, I stand in your garage.
It’s cleaner than ever.
No shavings stick to my soles
as I glimpse the sallow glow of Christmas lights
Dad hangs with your hammer.

Sarah Pouliot is a poet from Titusville, Florida. She believes that poetry holds the power to bring stillness and meditative reflection amid life’s chaos, and she hopes that her writing can do this for you—even if only for a moment.

The Singing Lake

1 January 2026 / Editor

Poetry by Sandra Hosking

Sacheen Lake sings in winter
Though its surface is still
It sounds like a hammer on a metal roof
A rap on a hollow oaken door
A ghost desperate to escape the attic

The lake wants to tell you a story
It knocks, it bangs, it reverberates
Tales of fallen fishermen
An osprey dropping its prey
Splashing children
A lost oar, floating free

It holds these memories
Beneath its frozen shell
Until the sun returns
To release them

Sandra Hosking is a Pushcart-nominated poet, playwright, and photographer in the Pacific Northwest. Her chapbook, Forces of Nature, was recently published by Dancing Girl Press. Her work has appeared in The Ana, Red Ogre, Havik, Black Lion Review, and more. She holds M.F.A. degrees in theatre and creative writing. Visit sandrahosking.com.

Following Fireflies

1 August 2025 / Editor

Poetry by KB Ballentine

A dream in midsummer lures
each of us to those thin places
where we abandon our fear
as sun and moon slip into their dance
of lights. We adore the mock-orange
sweetness anchored in our memories—
ones we neglect through busy-ness.
Weary, we welcome this longest day,
grumble of darkness faint for now.
Soon, Hercules will usher Scorpius
across the night horizon. But tonight,
if we listen, we can hear the dead speak.

KB Ballentine’s newest collection is All the Way Through (Sheila-Na-Gig Inc., 2024). She has eight previous poetry collections and was recently awarded Poetry Society of Tennessee’s 2025 Best of the Fest and Writer’s Digest November 2024 PAD Chapbook Challenge. Learn more at www.kbballentine.com.

Memories of Old Things

22 July 2025 / Editor

Poetry by Peter A. Witt

Bedroom closet is full of ghosts,
not the kind that lay siege with angst,
no, the kind that recall the warmth
of a spring day, when soon to be wife,
Sally, was the victim of my indiscreet kiss
as I wore my still favorite blue-green shirt.

An old skate brings memories of doing twirls
on the frozen pond until Mr. Smithers
chased us near teens off, afraid we’d
all plunge to our deaths, or worse yet,
having to rescue us.

Coin collection reminds me of Uncle Fred,
the dear old man, who used the tarnished gelt
as props to tell us endless stories about places
he’d visited, but really hadn’t, we listened anyway.

Under a shadow of dust is a painting,
the brush by numbers kind, done in third grade —
like the rest of my life, colors spilling
over the boundaries and mismatched.

Finally, a baseball caught on the day
Sandy Koufax pitched a no-hitter for the third time,
at least that’s what I told people, and would
pass onto my grandson without correcting the story.

Cleaned out the closet as I packed for the retirement home,
no room there for anything beyond a few faded pictures,
last year’s Christmas cards, my favorite reading chair,
a pile of books I’ve meant to read for years,
and a heavy blanket I’ll lay over my lap,
while I finish a painting with my unsteady hand.

Originally published in The Bluebird Word in April 2023.

Peter A. Witt is a Texas poet and a retired university Professor. He also writes family history. His poetry has been published on various sites including Verse-Virtual, Indian Periodical, Fleas on the dog, Inspired, Open Skies Quarterly, Active Muse, New Verse News and Wry Times. Read his poem “Garden Reading” from The Bluebird Word‘s January 2023 Issue.

Making Beds

7 May 2025 / Editor

Poetry by Alexandra Newton Rios

I throw the clean sheet up into the air
that my mother bought us
from the United States
to stretch it across the wide algarrobo bed
and as I center the white-and-light gray striped top sheet,
tuck each side along the bed
with the tips of my fingers
because the top sheet has not held bodies,
cradled them across the years
unlike the bottom fitted sheet grown threadbare
and sewed back into life several times,
I think of my mother before she is gone.
I have been doing this a lot lately
and wonder if the memory of her
will remain in the sheet
when I fly it into the air
and let it down on my bed.
Will memory cover me and warm me
when I need to be warmed?
How do we suddenly stretch memories
so that out of the old the new may come?
My mother taught me to fold
hospital bed corners at the end of the bed
holding sheets and blanket together.
I gained a Housekeeping badge
as a Junior Girl Scout.
We are so different.
Throughout my years in another land
where she was born I have only needed
to know she is still living.

Alexandra Newton Rios is the mother of five children and a marathon runner. Nueva York Poetry Press published Poemas de Georgia/The Georgia Poems, one long poem in 34 parts as a dialogue with American artist Georgia O’Keeffe in November 2024.

Sparks

1 July 2024 / Editor

Poetry by Daphne Riddle

A night in September
surrounded by water
that’s when we first sparked

gentle as ever
I never felt better
meeting your light with my dark

your hands in my hair
that shirt that you wear
our love summed up in parts

the sparks aren’t there
and I wish that you’d care
I’m lost here in the dark

I look for you everywhere
and you just carry on
I’m questioning all those years
but all I really want
is floating in September

with all of the fish
and the stars
and the songs
and the sparks

Daphne Riddle is an artist from Southern California. She is a music student at CSU Long Beach and an active songwriter. She is largely influenced by her study of international art song and her career as a musician. Writing is her foundation to heal.

Tag: memories (Page 1 of 3)

A Question of Fruits and Kitchens

Dear Dad

My Father’s Love Letters

What remains after the walls are stripped bare before the whole house is painted after thirty years

Papa’s Garage

The Singing Lake

Following Fireflies

Memories of Old Things

Making Beds

Sparks

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