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I would like to give you a metaphor that describes what it’s like to potentially pass on to one’s children a pathogenic variant that will possibly go on to kill them, but everything I am coming up with is histrionic.
By Debbie UrbanskiJune 2021And two months after the cancer finally ate through / the last tissues that separated him from death, / I get a message from his e-mail address, / urging me to click on a link I know I shouldn’t
By James Davis MayMay 2021I read all the literature hospice brought: Give the gift of comfort and calm. Give them support, permission. Give them more than they gave you.
By Stephanie AustinFebruary 2021When Sarah’s mother, Penny, got sick four years into our marriage, we decided to move back to Mississippi, considering it penance for the sins of our youth. We signed a lease on a house, a white one-story on the historical register with a wraparound porch and angels, stars, and the moon painted on the transom above the front door.
By Terry EngelNovember 2020sees the old woman — wheelchair bound, pushed by her daughter — glance / out the window, and goes in back / to fetch a shower cap. The woman tugs her daughter’s shirt and says, almost / inaudibly, It’s raining. / And it is raining. Barely.
By Benjamin S. GrossbergJuly 2020It begins like this: You drop your son off at kindergarten. His first day of school. You think that nothing in your life will be as big as this: the moment he drops your hand, he who has clung to you since birth, since that first breath of air, first scream, first frantic rooting for the breast.
By Louise A. BlumMarch 2020Facing the police, facing your parents, facing the truth
By Our ReadersFebruary 2020One of the reasons we’re lonely . . . is that we’ve cut ourselves off from the nonhuman world, and have called this “progress.”
By Fred BahnsonDecember 2019after my mother’s funeral standing in the receiving line just / below the altar rail shaking hands with people I hardly knew / when Kenny a face I hadn’t seen in twenty years appeared and / grabbed me and hugged me so damn hard the wind went out / of me
By Jim BishopNovember 2019— from “Almost Done” | My wife has taken Pepper to the vet this morning. She is losing her hair, doesn’t like her food, has growths on her skin, moves slowly after eighty-four dog years.
By Jory PostOctober 2019Personal, political, provocative writing delivered to your doorstep every month—without a single ad.
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