Grow

by Saheli Gosh

Hurricane, tempest, storm

Make sure you choose a name for your soul refusing to sleep.

Friday, Saturday, Sun                                                                                    

The week begins as it ends in the sobs and the weep.

Longing, craving, thirst

Your movements must know what conjures within.

Flashlights, streetlights, Moon

In the world of returns, have their own ways of leading.

Fingers, forehead, chest

Practise planting kisses in every deserted corner.

Formals, black dress, Tee-s

Every next keeps reminding you of the former.

Rantings, dancing, smiles

Stolen moments are what keeps you alive.

Groceries, bookshelves, toys

It's so often that you ask yourself, "How could I be so naive?"

Evening, midnight, dawn

That's all it ever took the universe to regenerate.

Strength, belief, hope

Keep them close as you learn not to bring yourself to hate.

* * * * *

Saheli Ghosh is an English Language Teacher at the Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture in Kolkata, India. She has completed her Masters in English and is currently pursuing her B. Ed. from Loreto College. A wandering soul, she believes herself to be a phoenix willing to make the ashes count through words. Her works have been published in the Ariel Chart International Literary Journal.

Lessons Learned: A Life in Under 2000 Words

by Pam Munter

            If I were to be mugged, the newspaper reports would call me “elderly,” but most days I don’t feel like that. In some ways, I’m just getting started, even though I know the days “dwindle down to a precious few.” The upside is the sense of perspective over the course of a lifespan, the patterns, the growth and the trends. The goal has been to inhabit a life well-lived with lessons learned along the way. Here are a few of them.

The First Decade (0-9)

1943-1952

            I was a much-anticipated baby, the first to be born after several miscarriages, but I think my parents were afraid of me and didn’t know what to do next. It was the 1940s, a rule-bound era struggling through a war and its aftermath. My parents relied on outside forces for guidance, ceding to the escalating pressures to conform, and sought to regulate my life in stereotypical ways. The result was that I often felt I was falling short of their expectations. They weren’t happy when I questioned norms so I began to decipher critical episodes for compliance. I joined the Brownies, became a Girl Scout, got good grades, made my bed and ate my vegetables. My parents didn’t know about the times I was sent to the principal’s office for goading other kids or talking back to the teacher. By ten I had learned how to be a covert subversive, losing myself in books and fantasy. To add to the rebellion, I started a girls’ baseball team, a revolutionary act in the early 1950s, predictably ridiculed by the adults around me. I learned that trust must be earned and not conferred by heredity alone. And that girls are not equal.

The Second Decade (11-20)

1953-1962

            At the same time that my father was critical and retreating (likely due to his many affairs, I would later discover), I was battling regularly with my mother who used shame as her primary M.O. I spent more time in my bedroom or away from home – on my bike, in the movies or in the library after school. By adolescence, I had figured out that the most predictable way around adult judgments was through achievement. I took drama classes in junior high, wrote a musical revue in high school with a boy I was crazy about, played in the band and orchestra and started writing movie reviews for the school newspaper. Still the rebel, I decided my career goal was to run a movie studio, even though women remained menial sex objects in nearly every venue, especially that one. I was cajoled into going to college by a newspaper column written by a neighbor, even though I saw no value in doing so.

The Third Decade (21-29)

1963-1972

By the end of adolescence, I had discovered I could be creative and think at the same time. In fits and starts, I graduated from college with three majors and earned two master’s degrees. It was the 1960s, a time of social and political turbulence. My inner turmoil had externalized into full-blown feminism and active advocacy for civil rights. After a series of false-start careers, I followed my instincts (which I had learned to trust by now) and taught political science at a university. But my curiosity and introspective nature provoked a switch to psychology, eventually earning a Ph.D. Just before I graduated, my father died suddenly of atherosclerosis while in the company of my mother’s best friend. I fell in love with another iconoclast and decided to marry, hoping for a happier pairing. I was concerned that my window for a coupling opportunity was running out, not only because of my age but because – as my mother put it – “with all those degrees, you’re pricing yourself out of the market.”

The Fourth Decade (30-39)

1973-1982

            My happy ending was not to be. The marriage was a turbulent one from the start. He turned out to be a thief, a narcotics user and a philanderer with an amoral set of values. Once again, I learned that trust must be earned not assumed, and was not necessarily part of a romantic package. I gave birth to a son and had emergency surgery for a benign uterine tumor during the fourth month, rendering further pregnancies too risky. The husband and I divorced after nine years of struggle and volatility, reminding me of the importance of honest communication on a daily basis. It was an ending but also a beginning, as most life eras are.

Early in the decade, I had been hired to teach in the psychology department in a state I had never visited. At the same time, I opened a private practice. It was a frantic decade of risk and achievement, which by now I knew were important components of my identity, a time of existential merit badge collecting. In addition to the two full-time jobs, I was singing in jazz clubs at night. I had decided to live my life full-out. Within a year of the marriage ending, I met and fell in love with a woman, which was surprisingly easy. She, my son and I formed a family unit with a minimum of upheaval, other than the predictable but horrific judgments from my mother. She and I subsequently ham-handedly glued our relationship back together but it would never be the same. Friends had become my family.

The Fifth Decade (40-49)

1983-1992

            By 40, I had quit my tenured job at the university to devote full-time to the practice, which my partner and I shared. I learned I didn’t want to work under anyone and honored my independent nature. We worked long hours, enjoying what seemed a joyful, uncomplicated relationship. At home, I studied about financial investments so we could retire in another ten years, another step toward self-reliance. I loved being a shrink, though it was often stressful due to its very nature. It was hard to find time to do much else but the high level of satisfaction made it eminently fulfilling. We found the time to play in a softball league for a couple of years, fulfilling a childhood fantasy. And I continued to sing in clubs, giving it up only when I recognized I wasn’t good enough to do it professionally. It was a major disappointment. With some astonishment, I learned how invested I had been in this bubbling passion called show business.

The Sixth Decade (50-59)

1993-2002

            By this decade, the managed care movement had devoured the entire health care system, limiting my treatment decisions and the freedom with which I consulted with my clients. There was more bureaucracy, excessive amounts of paperwork, and fewer allocated sessions before the busywork would start all over again. It felt not only oppressive but unethical; I wasn’t able to provide the level of care required. With significant ambivalence, I left behind my safe and prestigious professional identity to fulfill that siren song – the nagging pervasive fantasy in my life. I started producing and hosting a TV show as part of my role as president of the local arts association, found an agent and acted in independent films and commercials, resumed jazz singing and performed in cabaret clubs throughout the country. I felt truly alive, almost vibrational, living as a creative person every day. Recording a CD tribute to my childhood idol, Doris Day, at Capitol Records was a peak, transcendent experience. The travel for gigs required me to be away from home for a month or more at a clip. I had to learn to juggle my roles and commitments. When my partner started to experience obvious cognitive problems, once again I terminated the performing career. This coincided with the conclusion I had reached once before: that I wasn’t as good as I needed to be to satisfy my own expectations. The decision to walk away left me with a huge void and a major depression that would hang on for the next few years. Living life all out had its costs.

The Seventh Decade (60-69)

2003-2012

            After a couple of fogged-out years, I opted for a geographical cure, a move to another state. Within two years, feeling more myself, I had returned to music. By now, I could hear the ticking of the mortality clock. Fulfilling another childhood dream, I taught myself to play the cornet, founded a Dixieland band and sang with two other bands. During this decade, I returned to nonfiction writing, researching and publishing dozens of long essays about less-familiar movie stars from the Golden Age of Film. These creative activities gradually extricated me from the depression, even if they didn’t replicate the joy of the previous decade. Re-energized, I became active with the ACLU, serving as its local president. I had been so immersed in all these recovery efforts that I failed to focus on my partner’s further personal deterioration, noticing only our increased disengagement. After her secretive drug and alcohol use was uncovered, she was admitted to the Betty Ford Center. Within a month of her discharge, she was drinking and using again. Under the influence of drugs and alcohol, she crashed her new car into a palm tree a few blocks from home and was rushed to the hospital. The car wasn’t the only thing wrecked; I knew I could not live like this any longer; my trust had been fractured. I helped her move to an assisted living facility where she could be in a structured and protected setting. I found myself alone for the first time in decades. In shock and devastation, I stopped all involvement and retreated into the familiar psychological cocoon, leading a structured, controlled, subdued life under the radar. In the months prior to the car crash, my beloved son had been falsely accused of (and plea bargained to) a felony and served time in jail. My support, my predictability, my sense of reality had evaporated. I had to relearn how to be resilient and stand on my own.

The Eighth Decade (70-76)

2013-2020

            When I saw an ad in the local paper for a low-residency MFA program in creative writing in my area, I applied and was admitted. It has turned out to be much more than the time-filler I had hoped. During this decade, I have published a memoir, numerous nonfiction essays, short stories and plays. I’ve been nominated for several writing awards and been published over a hundred times. The lifelong pattern has resumed: solace in achievement and a merging of the creative and the intellectual. I’m still in regular contact with my former partner who is doing well in her current environment and I have a warm relationship with my son and his spouse. I have maintained long-standing friendships with several people, mostly via email. Many of my friends are dying, and not only the older ones. I’ve been to more funerals in the past ten years than I have in my lifetime. They serve as a reminder. Carpe diem.

At 77 I’m having the predictable genetic and age-related medical issues that will likely shorten my life. Most every joint that could be replaced, has been; I’ve had several TIAs, and recently undergone triple bypass, open-heart surgery. Relationships have offered both the highs and the lows in my life but living alone has opened up a sense of freedom and serenity. I’ve learned I am happier on my own. I have done most everything I wanted to do in my life and value having no unfinished business anywhere. I remain open new discovery, prepared to meet the inevitable challenges I know will engulf me in time.

Significant learning happens throughout the lifespan. Each decade has taught me about my strengths and limitations but, the most important lesson I’ve learned is that I can make it through anything if I trust in my inner voice. It seldom fails.

* * * * *

Pam Munter has authored several books including When Teens Were Keen: Freddie Stewart and The Teen Agers of Monogram, Almost Famous, and As Alone As I Want To Be. She’s a former clinical psychologist, performer and film historian. Her essays, book reviews and short stories have appeared in more than 150 publications. Her play, “Life Without” was nominated by the Desert Theatre League and she has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Pam has an MFA in Creative Writing and Writing for the Performing Arts. Fading Fame: Women of a Certain Age in Hollywood will be published in early 2021.

            

No One to Know

by Jen Schneider

Invisibility, I know you. By name. You are:

… a seat at the center of a rectangular table for twelve as animated voices float over and around your seat.

… a solitary soul alone in a crowded room full of pairs and groups of three.

… the utterance a sound – Hello – that is never heard.

… clothes a mix of red, burgundy, and orange hues that blend just right – complement your complexion – but which remain hidden under a jacket – a size too small – that was never removed.

… to sit on a crowded train – delayed – with no AC – holding an antique typewriter – with keys that neither click nor clack – that demands ribbon no longer manufactured.

…a disconnected landline listed in directories near and far. All seven digits and a spelling error – a before e – in your very common first name.

… struggles to swallow a softly steamed broccoli stem. Bitter. A vegetable you’ve always disliked.

… cough, breathe a sigh of relief when the passage clears, and realize no one noticed.

… offers of an eight-letter Scrabble word – not telling, sorry – that no one recognizes or approves.

… memorized jokes – Knock, Knock, Who’s There – that are never told.

… pauses to view yourself in the mirror but not recognize who you see.

… to want nothing more than to be anywhere else but here. But to have nowhere else to go.

… to have so much to say but nothing anyone wants to hear.

… to see people everywhere but know no one.

And have No One to Know.

* * * * *

Jen Schneider is an educator, attorney, and writer. She lives, writes, and works in small spaces throughout Philadelphia. Recent work appears in The Popular Culture Studies Journal, Toho Journal, The New Verse News, Zingara Poetry Review, Streetlight Magazine, Chaleur Magazine, LSE Review of Books, and other literary and scholarly journals. 

Invisibility Is Not a Choice: Daily Meditations on Finding A My Voice

Week 21, Day 1: Nothing More to Say

  

Hello, __day -  the __ day of the month of ___.

You look the same. Do I?

Sirens roar in the near and far distance. Again.

Tones range from high soprano to low alto. Unlike days of decades

past, when children danced safely in the streets and porch gatherings

were times of festive camaraderie. Dusty shoebox photos – blurred

in black and white ink - proof my memory is not the source of the daily

betrayals that parade before – on, through, over – us. Now, eyes darken

and elders of all ages shoo offspring inside. Hurry, now. Balls away.

Nets tucked behind fence. Careful now. Locks twist right. Nighttime

Games of tag with no winners await. Curtains draw. Lights off.

Bedtime comes early for the children

these days. Bedtime comes early – and increasingly earlier – for all.

Asphalt streets and concrete sidewalks spew unpredictable fury

after dark. Temperatures rise. Ninety-nine, One hundred,

One hundred and one. Rest calls. Daytime frolics grow shorter. Lifespans, too.

Measured in decades. Did he reach his third?

Times differ – daily’s shutter, go digital – and fear persists. Was she let go, too?

I need coffee. No cream. No sugar.

Percolate and brew – steam reveals a rising sense of unease

that fails to temper or cool. Too hot to touch. Stand back. Step away.

Yellow tape, solemn faces.

What now?

Heads turn right, then left,

then right again. Eyes lock.

Stories vary, yet truths remain the same.

Another shot. Mark made. Life lost.

Him? Her? Both?

Why? What? How? NO.

Not again. Again.

No. Yes.

How?

“There’s nothing more to say”, we say. On repeat, as we fade into dust

and our stories evaporate into the gray air we call our temporary home

on our path to nowhere. And everywhere. Tents line 8^th. 9^th. 10^th, too.

But there is. There’s much to say and say we must.

We must ensure the stories persist.

…Pursuits of Ms. M. and Mr. D.

... Hobbies of young Miss F.

…Dreams of Teen T.

…Toys of Tot P.

…More.

That we persist. Through speech. Loud, high-pitched yells. Low, deep-bellowed

moans. Quick, eager whispers. Punctured text. Succinct replies. Mass emails. Hand written

letters. Marches. Petitions. Sign here. On the dotted line. Pieces we call poems.

Call it what you wish, but for whatever you wish – then write.

We must.

Well-constructed arguments built on scholarly evidence and mountains

of sound quantitative and qualitative data.

Formal and informal logic. Formal and informal speech.

Simple if-then statements mask complexities

revealed in hindsight only.

…If stay at home orders are to work, everyone needs a home.

…If stay at home orders are to work, all homes must be safe.

…If we live in a democracy, all voices deserve a vote.

…If drug dependencies require treatment, all souls require care.

…If temperatures rise above 100 degrees, milk and minds sour.

Shall I continue? It’s getting dark…

When contra-positives falter, we must continue to find ways

to ensure our voices and the stories

of those who cannot speak for themselves

are shared.

First Amendment protections frayed

and fractured. Neighbors speak in whispers only.

First Amendment protections stifled

and stomped. Visitation rights on uncertain – and search

dependent – terms.

Privacy scorched and pruned. Behind the

Curtain. Turn. Bend. Cough.

Like the bare

wilted and ever so sad _____ tree with no recognizable name

or identity in my own backyard.

We speak not of the terms of our visits.

Only that they occurred. Twelve noon.

We had a fine time. Lovely, yes. Of course, we did.

No one utters his name. Fear it’s contagious, maybe.

In everyone’s own backyard. ____, there, everywhere.

Ashes and embers

flicker, as [nameless] boots on the ground tromp, trudge, and slog

through the crushing news

bites, media clips, ____ streams, and 24/7 assaults that flood

our planes, trains, automobiles,

phones, and minds. No wonder I have a headache.

Week 21, Day 2: Tell Me Why

When asked why I write, I think how can we not?

The times when “there’s nothing more to say”

are the times when there’s nothing more important than saying – anything, everything –

we can. If we can’t speak to one another, then we write. Loudly. Of the headlines,

the daily news, and the stories [ the _____, the _____, and the _____ ] of our everyday,

ordinary, uniquely extraordinary, increasingly silenced lives. 

Week 21, Day 3: Time Waits for No One

Clock alarm buzzes.

Body coughs. Bones growl. Wake up.

Hello, World. Let’s go.

Right toes curl. Left stretch.

Flannel quilt drops. Knuckles crack.

Sirens roar. Ready? Go.

Fingers find Red Bic.

Spiral notebook on nightstand.

Capture nighttime thoughts.

Vague wonderings turn

real as phantom “Thinks” transform

to physical “Things”

with a familiar name and a familiar voice.

No.

All that which is documented persist beyond nighttime dreams – the good and bad – and daytime

wonderings – the good and bad, the right and wrong, the acknowledged and the ignored.

Write. Now.

Week 21, Day 4: Marking Every. Single. One.

Ball point ink runs dry. Please forgive the tiny pencil scrawl. Cannot – will not – miss a day. Not a single one…

Hidden behind the numbers and volumes of data that “speak” objectively of thousands of traumas –

physical and sexual assaults, rapes, and batteries - are the faces. Fingers tap, then click. Weary eyes

await, as tired souls seek refuge and transportation. Entering a vehicle with a smile and leaving

with a forever scar. Behind statistics that emphasize percentages, odds ever in our favor, and phrases

of “only” one for so many thousands, is the question: When will one – every one – matter?

Students of eighteen years, tourists of twenty, workers of thirty, travelers of forty, explorers of fifty,

friends of sixty, families of seventy, experts of eighty, and elders of ninety years of age.

Parades of lives upended – each and every one – as car processions occur on the daily -

out of a basic need to arrive at one’s destination safely. Ending a late-night shift. Avoiding drivers

with penchants for drinking. Splurging on a direct ride home. Choosing license plates over subway

unknowns. Seven months pregnant with tired feet and an aching back. Office staff spending wages

to save time. End of paying the ultimate price. Each one – Losing everything. Unknowingly entering

contracts about to be broken. Transactions meant to take one safely from point A to point B - where

loved ones, rest, and sweet dreams await, lead instead to a destination – for one and for all –

of a lifetime of tossing, turning, and haunted nights. 

Darn. My pencil point broke. Hang tight. I have one more.

Week 21, Day 5: Daily Edits

The alarm clock rings at 6 AM, though the world

runs non-stop despite our need for rest. First thumbs,

then hands push Sleep twice, then shower, dress, drive. Again.

Coffee brews at 7 AM as incoming emails and outgoing

replies light up the airwaves – 24/7 without fail -

and enter the stratosphere of our daily

To Do’s with a relentlessness that never fails

to impress. Careful and cursory reads alike

generate further clicks and clacks

on keyboards that next morph into 8 AM meetings

and talk of policy, appropriate responses, and reviews

for tone. “Where’s my draft?” On it. STAT. Check

grammar, get sign off. Be careful of copies. Blind CC only,

please. Copy him. Not her. Not her? Yes, Sir. Yes, M’am.

On it. STAT. Careful now. Clock minute hands tick, emails

beep, phones ping, all the while I long for a mandatory – thank you

Federal laws and regulations – 15-minute break – my time to write.

Clock out. March to break room. Unzip

clear plastic backpack. Color tints not allowed.

Must see all. All must be seen. Always.

Open journal.

Wait – STOP. No more robot. You’re not

on company time. Relax. Write.

Smile to co-worker. Glance right. Then left.

Okay to chat? Breathe. Be. Write.

What’s writing? Freedom.

Freedom to cover, process, share

a story

however, whenever, wherever

I choose.

Freedom to speak and to be

whomever, whatever, whenever

I wish.

Freedom to take rides down rabbit

holes and emerge only for air, not

a new pressing lead or need.

Freedom not to dwell on what others –

might think, but only to encourage

thought.

Freedom to toss the manual, the samples,

the relentless checks

and line edits that strip

life, and its glorious peculiarities,

like chocolate whipped cream frosting

on eggs (Not for you? No problem. Works

for me), from the story

and myself.

Sorry. Not sorry. No one has to read

What we write, after all.

Response requested options

left at the sterile office.

No “Poem Read” requests

Required. Not YET.

Freedom to write

to find a story,

rather than tell the story

I’m asked to write.

Most of all, Freedom

to Just BE.

YOU. ME. WE.

Until the alarm bells rings. Break over.

Time to go back to work.

Week 21, Day 6: Pick-Up Sticks and Media Clips

Games of pick-up sticks.

Pick one. Touch none. Ready or not.

Lives crumble daily.

Prime time news tells all

stories no one wants to hear.

Ten second clips of fear.

… Quick. Count down from ten. Backwards, yes.

Nothing ever looks right side up again.

Do you hear the sirens? The baby’s cries? The squelch

of the car breaks? The snap of the yellow tape. The roar

of the thunder? Two seconds remaining? No worries,

there’s more. Always more. The rush of the winds. The collapse

of the building. The slam of the door. The screams?

And the monotone voice of the concerned anchor persists…

Blink. Fast. Sound bytes play.

Media runs on steroids.

Remotes click and clack.

Pick up ball point pen.

Find last yellow Number 2 pencil.

Write to remember.

Week 21, Day 7: The Question

My logical side knew the Question would present itself. One day.

But hopefully not today. Not tomorrow, either. Of course, those

questions we are most reluctant to address are those most

likely to knock. Doorbells while we shower. Ticket collectors. Traffic

fines. Probation officers. Boyfriends. Do you love me? Him? Overdue

library books. I’m still looking for the copy, I promise I will return

it by week’s end. Whether by chance. Like wrong numbers, reply

all emails (Did I really just do that?), and a single empty seat

on an otherwise standing room only bus. I sit, knowing I might need

to talk when all I want to do is write. Most questions are intentional

and life’s a bargaining process, after all. Though I’d much prefer

anything else. Well, not anything. But not the Question,

either. “I read something, in a journal, it had your name on it… is it you?”

Me? I do not know. How could I? I do not know who writes the words

I see emerge on the page. The screen. The air between you and I. Are the words

Mine? Yours? Ours? The piece – you’ve read it. Processed it. Even interpreted it.

So, now, might it not be some of you? Perhaps. And who I am? That I say, depends

on whose asking, and when you ask.  But wait. It’s my stop. I must go.

Thank you for sharing your seat.

Week 22, Day 1: Seeing Double.

Calendar page flips

as left-hand grips new red Bic.

Blank lined pages wait.

* * * * *

Jen Schneider is an educator, attorney, and writer. She lives, writes, and works in small spaces throughout Philadelphia. Recent work appears in The Popular Culture Studies Journal, Toho Journal, The New Verse News, Zingara Poetry Review, Streetlight Magazine, Chaleur Magazine, LSE Review of Books, and other literary and scholarly journals. 

ORIGIN STORIES OF MERMAIDS

by Alice Campbell Romano

In the shower after sex I wash my hair,

so long and thick I could smother. 

Seaweed adrift on water. Mermaid hair.

Venus, on a scallop shell.

Zephyr blows. Venus’s red mane

strays, ripples down, shelters her sex.

Voyagers, lonely in arctic cold,

train wishful spyglasses

from sailing ships on fat brown sirens

that loll in bulges like Delacroix’s

Women of Algiers in Their Apartment,

but on carpets of blue ice.

An illusion. Sailors wield bludgeons, harvest

thick skins, blubber, ivory tusks, on which to etch

perfect tiny women over the long voyage home. 

A goddess in Assyria kills her mortal lover by mistake.

She wishes, for her punishment, to turn herself

into a fish, but when a lake god halts the mutation—

to spare her beautiful face, he says—

she manages only her bottom half and so she is left

impenetrable by fish or man.

The whole story is a myth, devised by a high priest

who conjured death, monstrosity, isolation,

to caution women against desire,

female desire, disrupter of social order.

In shower stream, I soap, rinse, condition.

Three thousand years women

have been warned off the pleasures

of their lower halves. Or maybe not.

Maybe tired women invented mermaids.

* * * * *

Alice has worked in film and TV in Italy, her native New York, and Los Angeles. Her first chapbook of poetry trembles on the brink of completion while she polishes the novel begun at Sarah Lawrence’s Writing Institute. Alice’s poetry and short stories have appeared in Atlantic Review (finalist in International Competition), Antiphon, Mudfish Review, Front Porch Review, Thema, among other on-line and print journals.  

SCRAPING THE BARREL

by Alice Campbell Romano

All your lipsticks are down to their nubs,

even that Florida-hag orange from an event gift bag,

even the purple that makes you look dead

because these last few months

you used them all just to put something on,

leave the house groomed, you know what I mean.

All the nail polish has turned to glue,

and your comb-over is as obvious as a vain old man’s.

You hope you’re disguising your roots.

Lady, that day is here again, and this time

you’re pushing hard at the door of old age.

You recall other times you had to skimp

on the little vanities: most recently

you were fifty, climbing out of Chapter 13.

Hell, Woman, once you were forty,

and still had brains which you used

to fight the creditors

back and back and back.

Girl, all those years,

whenever you ran out of dough

and a decent scented soap

you said a prayer and

shared a room

And took another job.

But it’s so much harder now.

* * * * *

Alice has worked in film and TV in Italy, her native New York and Los Angeles. Her first chapbook of poetry trembles on the brink of completion while she polishes the novel begun at Sarah Lawrence’s Writing Institute. Alice’s poetry and short stories have appeared in Atlantic Review (finalist in International Competition), Antiphon, Mudfish Review, Front Porch Review, Thema, among other on-line and print journals.