Jo Angela Edwins __________ Vignette The girl at the bus stop faces her boyfriendwho stands one foot to the side, his faceturned so he’ll catch first glimpse of the buswhen it rounds the distant corner. She slips her handsin the pockets of his jacket, the sharp windsthis morning the coldest…
Read MoreLaine Derr __________ A Golden Red Oncea lankyboy, Ihungfroma tree,cherriesshiningw/ love. __________ Inheritance Like my motherI learned to cryin a car, behinda wheel, a childin the back seatsinging along – songs we learnto forget, but Irefuse to followthe ones, notesblue and yellow,green or red, who believe in horizon,a boundary of…
Read MoreTroy Coll __________ Whirlpool My first memory of dirt is the griton the slick plastic floor of Maw Maw’sabove-ground pool. Too smallto swim, I hold my breath and sink crouch leapI break the blue meniscusto the smell of cut grasscharcoal and Virginia Slims. I inch along the rail as the…
Read MoreApple Slices Tess Woodhouse __________ Sometimes she thinks about her mother. A house in Scotland, goats, cats, the warping edges of an idea of a man. Her mother tells stories. ‘We had these three little goats, I would go out in the early mornings to milk them, and laugh at…
Read MoreAnd She Still Has Her Christmas Lights Up in June, Too Chelsea Stickle __________ The dogs noticed first. They yapped at every passerby, so none of the neighbors noticed for awhile. It was when Ivy was late to walk her dog that she saw a woman in ballet flats—her face…
Read MoreOlives Lori Sambol Brody __________ In our hotel room overlooking Marrakech’s Djemaa el Fna, you feed me olives you bought in the Medina. Reaching into pink plastic bags bulging with fruit. Green olives cured with lemon, olives seasoned with harissa, wrinkled black olives desert-dry, olives tart with vinegar, olives brined…
Read MoreThe First Rule Alex Morrow __________ Hélène stares blankly out of her suite window at the fortified steel cage that sits at the edge of her compound. It has been nineteen days since her prisoners were locked away, and six since the stronger of the bunch had begun to consume…
Read MoreLetter from the Guest Editor Taryn White __________ Sometime in January, Lynn asked me if I wanted to guest edit one last issue of Boudin as the managing editor. At that time, I was trying to complete my thesis, acclimate to a new job, prepare to defend my thesis, juggle…
Read MoreBrydon Caldwell __________ Trapped It was one of the last times that I saw my mother truly irate. Standing in the middle of the driveway, wrapped in her blue terry housecoat, in full volume against the animal control officer. She’d forgone her wig, so lonely wisps of hair clung to…
Read MoreThe South Rim Ashley Graegin __________ On the mantle sat a framed photograph: my family and I standing on tri-colored sedimentary rock, behind us, an endless landscape of canyons. Well, most of us were standing. Reese sat on a layer of rock, and my other sisters leaned in so that…
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