Beauty

editor's note

Beauty by Stacy Brazalovich
My fiancé and I would organize a weekend in Michigan’s wine country to share with our closest friends and family. There would be cookouts, garden fresh flowers, and the natural beauty of beaches and vineyards. At some point, we would make s’mores because s’mores are happiness.

poetry

Saint Augustine Grass by Barbra Daniels
Slender stalks of sea lilies continue
to turn into shining stone.
I Touch You in the Dark by Steve Klepetar
Your hand, that rudder steering my red
heart along some shadow-wooded path
The Beauty of Life by Lora Keller
Sometimes wet, sometimes dry,
you cannot predict my terrain.
What Fashioned Me by Merridawn Duckler
Eventually I went double breasted and found a sweet heart neck,
despite some serious high-water jeans neglect.
Postcard from the Ruins by Melissa Carl
The Japanese beetles have returned, all mouth and iridescence,
the roses’ leaves now skeletal, the only ruins I travel to.
Bridal Bushes by Melissa Carl
Every spring those leaves turned dark and lovely,
a few lacy blooms tatting across the top.
Fixing the Flowers by Kristin Camitta Zimet
The ones past prime, you said to pinch
or slide from foam, no longer proper part
of the arrangement.
My Parents’ Faces by Marjorie Thomsen
When those minutes were gone, gone as anything
I’ve ever known to be gone, I leapt from the lavette
to the bed where my mother was still asleep

fiction

At the Hotel El Loro by Rebecca Burns
At the Hotel El Loro, the pool tended to empty by six o’clock. Families would drift up to their rooms to dress for dinner, staining the marble stairs in the reception with shiny footprints. The heat of the day was swallowed by the cool tiles, in such a pleasing way that some residents lingered in the foyer, pacing skin-to-cold surface until bodies chilled and became comfortable again. Kimberley was one of those who hung by the lifts and flowerpots, inching her way slowly up and down the corridor in bare feet.
Beautiful Scents by Tina Wayland
The smell of it roused her. Fiery. Burnt. It pulled Greta up from some dark part of sleep. Crept in through the open window. A cigarette, maybe, left to burn on the grass. The smoke from a bonfire somewhere down the street. It smelled beautiful. Ignited memories of long-distant happiness.
A Dress for the Address by Anne Goodwin
I step back from the mirror and look again.  I turn sideways and stare back at my reflection from over my shoulder.  I narrow my eyes so the greens merge as in an impressionist painting.  But it makes no difference.  No way is this the sartorial statement of a serious scientist at the summit of her career.  I rip off the jacket and tear myself out of the dress and stand, wretched, in my bra and knickers.
Polish Polka Band by Adam Reger
It was seven o’clock on a Sunday evening in May and the light was still strong outside. The window was behind the couch and the blinds were open and on the living room carpet blotches of light were formed and dissolved by the swaying branches of the oak tree in Richard’s front yard. Chad, his roommate, was out of town and they had the place to themselves.
Service Animals by James Robert Herndon
“Do you know why the Americans with Disabilities Act used to let you register a snake? A snake's belly can sense subterranean vibrations like a Richter scale, and if you let a snake rest around your neck, it'll know what's going on inside you. Everything that moves: every pump, every secretion, every rise and fall, every clench and release. All of you. Spend enough time with a snake, learn how to listen, and the snake will tell you things about your own body that you'd have to pay another person $5,000 to tell you.”
Undeterred by Erik Svehaug
About six years ago, a dark-haired, thirtyish man in a white T-shirt pushed an arresting young woman in a wheel chair up the main aisle of the hardware store. She had intense brown eyes, smooth tan skin like her companion, and exuberant, thick eyebrows.

nonfiction

Dad by Amanda Felice
My dad, with his East Coast mannerisms, obvious accent, dry sense of humor, and uninhibited foul mouth has always stood out among our small town community. He could make anyone laugh and could make a joke out of anything.  His use of words such as “pocket book” and “soda” made me giggle every time I heard them. No one else I knew ever used words like that. He had a love for gigantic Cadillacs, Italian food, and the ocean.
The Truck by Phyllis Green
“I believe we love your house and yard as much as you do.  Your home looks like a gorgeous vacation lodge and your rocky stream with the grasses and flowers alongside are a picture.  When we bought our house, one of the main reasons was we could look across and see your beautiful place.  So, when your son comes to visit could you please ask him to park his truck around the corner so our breathtaking view is not obstructed.”
Sugar-Free is for Sissies by Linda McHenry
In no room was Grandmother Marie a more formidable figure than in the kitchen, anyone’s kitchen, everyone’s kitchen.  She lifted every lid, sniffed every pot with the nose of a bloodhound – Gendarme Marie – for she preached two very important culinary axioms, insisting that both be adhered to without exception.
Tumbleweed by Ellen Woods
When I saw the tumbleweed rolling through the parking lot at the outlet mall near Phoenix, I just knew that it was the solution to my eleven-year old daughter Lulu’s and my holiday tree dilemma.  My mind, exhausted from hours on the road, was suddenly flooded with a vision of this perfect sphere strung with lights and hanging from the twelve-foot ceiling in our living room back in Berkeley.

reviews

Catching the Barramundi by Rebecca Burns by Sherri Miller
Catching the Barramundi spirits you to far flung places, requiring only that readers find a shady spot on the beach or a comfy place to sit and put one’s feet up to enjoy an extended voyage of what was and what might be.