by Jennifer Griffin

​I sit and watch the rivulets of rain as they slide down the window, dropping out of sight. The quiet of the room insulates us in our thoughts, you on the bed, me in the chair. It is our 17th wedding anniversary and we are in a private room overlooking the Hudson. The view is spectacular but no one envies us this setting.

The nurses of 6HN enter the room bearing cake and a candle. They have come to know us well over the past few months. Better even than family in our insulated isolation that only they can penetrate. 

They toast our marriage, our love, our devotion. But also, the specter that hangs over us. 

This is to be our last anniversary together. Soon the tumors that we have beat back again and again will finally take over, squeezing until there is no room left for you.

I can not say that I wish that anniversary back. And yet I can not wish it away either. The essence of marriage is in acceptance. And if I can not change what has happened, I accept it as part of our love.

I vow to hold your hand, to comfort you, to make you laugh, to anchor you, to keep you safe, to keep you close, to share the fear, to share the pain. And hardest of all, to let you go when staying is for my sake and not for yours. 

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Jennifer Griffin (Gaul) is a musician. Writing entered late in her life after the death of her husband, jazz musician Scott Sherwood. She writes to process, explore, explain, and expound. She is happy if her words connect but primarily it’s the act of writing that keeps her at it.

by Morgan Chalfant

Everyone has baggage
Mine’s a backpack
Nothing snooty
Two straps and heavy
Nothing fancy
Filled with the norm:
A disappointed old man
Lost keys to the past
Friends I wish still were
And a little secret pocket of aspirations

* * *

Morgan Chalfant is a novelist, poet, and an instructor of writing at Fort Hays State University. He is a native of Hill City, Kansas. He received his bachelor's degree in writing and his master's degree in literature from Fort Hays State University. He is the author of the horror/thriller novella, Focused Insanity, and the urban fantasy novel, Ghosts of Glory.

by Michael Brockley

I ramble the noonday route through my neighborhood wearing new Keen hiking boots. When the small dogs on Berkeley bound across their lawn to greet me, I boast about their territorial imperative. The pleasures harmonized by their pacing the fence beside my joy. Along Lanewood, I inhale the fragrance from a pie someone is baking. Perhaps cherry crumb, a confection deliciously sweet and sour. When my left shoelace works loose, I tighten both shoes on a bench by the free library box. It is the day the last pear petals fall, the time before serviceberries ripen from pink to plum.

* * *

Michael Brockley is a retired school psychologist who lives in Muncie, Indiana. His poems have appeared in The Prose Poem, Last Stanza Poetry Journal, and Gyroscope Review. Poems are forthcoming in Stormwash: Environmental Poems, Volume II and 912 Review.