“Buy the dip! Buy the dip! Buy the dip! Buy the dip!”
With steepled fingers and crossed legs, Charlis Yano beheld the gaggle of coveralls-wearing fishers slamming their fists onto desktops while chanting the very words one latched onto whenever the Halifax Stock Exchange found itself in a tug of war between red and green digits. On the one hand, turning challenges into opportunities could pay off further down the line.
On the other hand. Or rather, on the other side of the room…

Maya almost missed the turn.
The GPS told her, in a voice that sounded both apologetic and bored, to take the next right. Only there was no next right, just a paved shoulder and a strip of sand where grass tried to grow and failed. The sign itself appeared at the last moment, a rectangle of worn blue metal almost the same color as the January sky.

I was standing in a line that stretched out the door and down the sidewalk as we gathered to clock in. It was only 6:15 a.m., but already it was over eighty degrees. I could see sweat stains beginning to form on the shirt backs of the few men directly before me in line. Ahead lay nine and a half hours upstairs, on the second floor of the old factory building

This morning the divine is wearing my Land’s End robe
and demanding chai. It seems unwise to deny her appetite,

given I don’t often wake up with her, but usually spring
from my bed like some ludicrous toy that hones

Light, shadow, and sometimes color are used to layer dozens of carefully edited images together, which echoes an altered reality of both truth and illusion. Each newly created configuration becomes much like a shadow box of my most cherished treasures, symbolizing my desire to protect the natural world I so revere.

The Petrov’s are a married couple who built a biotech company in Boston. The CEO, Dimitry Petrov, 45, a doctor, was born into poverty in Russia. His wife Anastasia Shevchenco, 39, is Ukrainian and considered a genius in math. She is heavily involved in AI research. She is also a vocal leader in the global efforts to convince U.S. and foreign governments

I’ve been to New Guinea five times, and in 2025 was looking forward to my sixth visit to explore the world’s second-largest island – this time to venture deep into the remote, swampy terrain of the Kombai. A unique expedition, to participate in a sago palm grub festival. There’d be dancing, and chanting, and I’d probably make a fool of myself trying to mimic their rhythms.

when sweetness was simple
fruit split easily
their light filled my mouth.

the world was
clear juice, spring air
round and right as a grape.

On the cobblestone street in De Wallen, Alexis stands beside her friend Hannah and the two men who’ve just bought them a round of drinks. The glare of the streetlamps brightens the men’s faces: Greg and Dustin, American finance professionals visiting their company’s Dutch office. Although they’ve only been acquainted for an hour, the four of them have shared enough travel anecdotes

My Nonna’s kitchen was a symphony of aromas. For my Italian grandmother, cooking was her love language. The air was always thick with the scent of olive oil, garlic, and her signature homemade tomato sauce (sugo). Her dishes nourished us and always left us wanting more. The lingering taste of only the freshest homemade ingredients was part of her signature style in the kitchen.

I was sweating
through the dress
I had picked for someone else.

The club was closing.

The relief I felt at my father’s funeral was something the old timers had told me to look forward to. Savor it, they’d said. It’s the end of the beginning.
I was sad, of course. But the relief was stronger.
My mother’s funeral, a year prior, had been the beginning. There was much to do, and my two siblings and I did our duty to our mother.

Particularly at this time
I like to look out of the window

Tree branches cutting the picture into pieces
Hanging wires crisscrossing from the poles
The garage roof with its wall block the sight below

Frank never minded the small things, and as the squeak from the cartwheels bounced off the naked, white walls, he didn’t mind that either.
The hall was dark except the faint glows of the half-lit fluorescent lights that shone on the linoleum tiled floors. The halls themselves weren’t too long, but long enough for Frank’s left knee to start acting up again.

Wake Up!
Wake up, Celi!

No, not yet, Cinth
I am far too cold
I need a long shower
I feel like mold

We would walk on the white beach of Marco Island with stale bread wrapped in a recycled red-and-blue polka-dot bread bag. We tossed hardened crumbs while droves of seagulls descended into my mother’s hands peeling shrills of joy. “Jennifer, get a picture of these maniacs!” My mother would laugh with complete abandonment. She would be encircled like a Hitchcock movie with seagulls eating right from her hands.

“He’s coming.” Krystina is the first nurse who spots the new patient’s stretcher in the hallway. Two paramedics walk on each side of the stretcher. Each one holds the rail: one is slightly in the front, the other in the back on the opposite side.
Krystina rushes into the corner room where Julie and Jenny are preparing the patient’s arrival. She waves at Julie, the charge nurse, and then points to the door. Julie gives her a nod of understanding and gestures to Jenny and Krystina to stand by the bedside, one on each side. She straightens her scrub uniform and waits by the door.

When our mother’s back was turned, my sister and I dug our fingers into the warm pie. We felt for stones inside the mushy fruit—feeling for a hardness, sharp at its edges. We were seven and nine. If my father didn’t come home, my mother retreated to her bedroom at the far end of the house, drew the curtains, and closed the door.

DNA remembers…the passage
ancestors transferred, morsels of
inheritance
safely kept in tiny packets
memories within cells
red headed, blonde, brunette
ebony haired mothers

The fluorescent lights of Sunnyvale Manor didn’t flicker, but they hummed with a low-frequency dread that matched the static in Helena’s brain. For six job-searching months, Helena’s world had been the size of a mattress. She knew the topography of her ceiling fan better than the faces of her friends.

in small acts i
carry what came from before me
that fire where:
earth met heat, kept shape, kept
catechisms
on my lips.

Margaret Mary Alacoque saw the Man in the loincloth when she was returning home fromthe dancing and festivities at the great ball which her cousin Corinne had been planning for months. At the time she saw the bearded Man, Margaret Mary was wearing a tight-fitting rose-colored satin gown and was holding her blonde hair in cascading golden curls, all in an effort to play up her beauty and attract potential suitors. When she first saw the bearded Man in the loincloth, she thought He was a specter, for His bloodied body glistened like the moon in the darkness of the night and His smooth lustrous skin appeared to be transparent like a crystal.

I can remember each and every sting. And how even a dead bee can sting. “Hm, look at that,” my father said. And to my five-year-old eyes, the gold-and-black stripes on the hallway mat looked like a key—a shiny key that would unlock who knew what magical adventure. So I picked it up. I don’t remember much else except that I went to kindergarten late that day, my thumb still swollen and red.

The rain started on a Thursday night and it never quite stopped again. The moments which were not absolute downpours were marked by dark, heavy hours of gusting wind and gnarled thunder from some far-off place outside the city. It was as though the sun had turned in her resignation papers. Or was forced to resign in some galactic government coup.