Do It Again

By Kat Moore

Faster, faster, I scream as the golf cart barrels down the hill, my sister, 11, in the driver’s seat, me, only 6, small, gripping the metal edges of the passenger’s side, laughter rumbling out from my mouth as the cart shoots a corner, raises up on one side and glides tilted for a moment, I reach out to my sister, with her left hand, she clasps my right hand, and then the cart slams back onto the asphalt, our father running behind us on the dark narrow road that runs the length of the golf course, the golfers, the sandboxes, the ponds that we pretend have alligators, the trees that have coyotes and deer, the colors green and brown blur like an impressionist painting, which I don’t yet know about, but I know my sister, the way she impresses on me, her eyes large, her mouth open, I think she is laughing, but she may be screaming, she has lost control of the golf cart, but I believe in her, soon we will be home and she will read to me, show me the lines in the book for me to read aloud to her, to practice the words I don’t know, then we will watch movies, of little girls, like Helen Slater as Billie Jean in her short hair to look like St Joan of Arc, like Molly Ringwald as Andie in her pretty pink, who move faster faster than the speed of light, always trying to catch their light, my sister’s light, I believe in her to keep us safe, to steer the golf cart back to our parents, for her foot to find the brake, and she does, she always does, and the cart slows, her hand on the wheel, her right leg stretching, pushing down on the brake, and we stop, we laugh, and I clap my hands, Do it again, the way now, a lifetime later, on June 25th, 2022, approaching my mid-forties, my sister not yet fifty, I wish we could do it again, relive the life I had with my sister before a wreck took her from me, do it again, I pray, days I sit here by her side, remembering, remembering for her, asking her to wake-up now, the monitors go silent, now her breath stops, now I kiss her face and clasp our hands together one last time.

Kat Moore has essays in/forthcoming from Image, Reed, Bellevue Literary Review, Brevity, and more.

Art by Debi Babb.

Without Ever Reaching the Horizon

By Sarp Sozdinler

Now I am far, but one day I would like to love someone close, a tall person with laughter that climbs trees and eyes that change color with the sky, who wears shoes too big and leaves them at the door, I would like to love this person and live with them in a narrow house tucked between two train tracks, and in the house there will be one long table scarred with knife marks, three mismatched chairs, a jar filled with buttons, two tin cups, a chipped plate, a sewing kit, a clock that never works, some old pictures of our hometown nailed to the wall, a box of candles, one broom with crooked bristles, two pairs of socks always drying on the radiator, a stack of newspapers tied with string, one pair of scissors that only cuts fabric, and a book with half the pages missing, and every day this person and I will drink chamomile tea sweetened with sugar, race the trains as they pass, tie wishes to the clothesline, fold paper birds and send them sailing out the window, buy bruised fruit from the corner stall, draw chalk circles on the pavement, balance on rails until we nearly fall, collect stones smooth as coins, and write letters to people who are either long dead or never existed in the first place, every day we would do this and every day we would laugh at this and brainstorm to perfect our oeuvre, and every night I would press my ear against this person’s chest and listen to the words I don’t know yet, but the rhythm is steady like water in pipes, and this person I would like to love will know many things, but to me they will only tell the kinds that feel like secrets kept safe in a dirty pocket, and every night, over and over, they will begin with something like, “When the trains are gone, I’ll run you to the horizon,” and I will love love love a person like this, and every night I will be completely at home, I will be constantly nearing the horizon, running and running and running.

Sarp Sozdinler has been published in Electric Literature, Kenyon Review, Shenandoah, Wigleaf, HAD, Hobart, X-R-A-Y, Maudlin House, and Pithead Chapel, among other journals.

Art by Sarp Sozdinler.

Spilled Milk

By Dan Weaver

Imagine: you’re a glass of milk–the liquid part: you’re milk–trapped in a glass you’re considered a glass of milk even though you’re just milk, and then, bam, you get spilled and you’re going all over the place: running along the tabletop every which way; some of you is dripping over the edge; some of you is getting soaked into a placemat or a sleeve; you’re also kind of pooling around a plate or something; also now, because of the dripping, you’re on the floor; some of you is traveling in the grout of the tile; the dog is lapping up some of that part of you so you’re on his tongue and inside his body–you have just troubled his bowels(!); some of you is still in the glass but just sort of dribbling out and also settling in; you’re making unpredictable shapes and transformations wherever you are, you are all the milk but also each of the different parts and you are bringing to life thousands or billions of variables just by interacting with all there is, you are disorder of the most ordered sort, you were never taught how to be this milk; imagine that.

Dan Weaver writes in Vermont; more of his work can be found at supernaturalfeat.com.

Art by Dan Weaver.