The Florist

By Jessika Grewe Glover

Both tires turned from bright, commercial white, to the grit of living north of Calle Ocho. Two weeks earlier, I traded my saved cash for the red and white all-terrain scooter. It seemed logical to use it on this early morning in June to get my mom a birthday present. At eight, I knew it was two blocks west, two blocks south from the house my mom, brother, and grandparents shared in a lower middle class neighborhood in Miami. The increasingly grubby white tires bumped over unmaintained sidewalks and driveways, past the Dade County library on Calle Ocho, the carniceria, Everglades Lumber, which I found much later in life had been involved in a cartel scheme, and to the train tracks. At eight, I was trepidatious around the tracks. Even then I knew that was where the prostitutes stood each night, able to continuously cross Eighth Street each time a police car pulled up. South of Calle Ocho was Dade County police, north was City of Miami. Neither had the jurisdiction over the other and as long as the women of the night tripped their heels along the tracks, wavering between the demarcation of departments, they were free.

Continue reading “MARCH 2022” →

Men I have Given a Fish

By Rachel Rodman

“What do you think?” I asked him, heart in my throat.

He gave me a wan smile. Then, leaning forward, he gave the plate that I had so carefully prepared a sniff.

“It kind of smells like fish,” he admitted.

*

He had enjoyed our date to the Aquarium. So, for our one-week anniversary, I wanted to go big.

Making a pilgrimage to the Sea Witch, I secured for him dominion over all the fish in the ocean.

In exchange for my soul.

As we stood on the dock, I showed him how to flutter his fingers so that, in a gesture of obeisance, a thousand fish would erupt from the water at once.

He was certainly surprised.

“Does this include the dolphins?” he asked finally.

“No,” I said.

“Oh,” he said wistfully.

*

Continue reading “JANUARY 2022” →

Echoes

By Filip Wiltgren

When Raphael was born his mother took him to church. His father, not being inclined to such things, held the boy in his lap and read him the newspaper.

When Raphael was five, his mother took him to choir, and his father took him to play-school.

“Such voice,” said the priest.

“Such brilliance,” said the teacher.

“It is clear he has a calling,” said the priest.

“It is clear he has a gift,” said the teacher.

And Raphael’s mother and father smiled, and congratulated themselves, and basked in the radiance of their offspring.

When Raphael was ten he was a soloist in the diocese choir, where the old, soberly dressed matrons cried at the sound of his voice and kissed his mother on both cheeks.

“He is blessed by the Lord,” they told her, and Raphael’s mother nodded and smiled.

Continue reading “SEPTEMBER 2021” →