Steven Ratiner – Drum
Drum (Jedwabne, Poland) It was my father’s drum – but he was ill, and so when they summoned his musicians, I hauled the gold and crimson tub into the square, strapped it on. The killing had already begun. The Germans had stripped us of our guns, but the townsfolk made do: sticks and stones, scythes, […]
Emily Frisella – Album, August 1938-1944
Album, August 1938-1944 Summer vacation— a picnic at the lake lazy beer bottles and drifting cigarette ash charcoal of the barbecue the cousins in their bathing suits the cooler of ice they must have bought specially for the day—the air hazy, the weather unusually warm. Radiant like an old-time movie star, my grandmother sits on […]
Zachary Lunn – MEDEVAC
MEDEVAC Salah ad-Din Province, Iraq When the bird touches down its rotors cloud the air with dust, red cross marking its side like a headstone. The flight medic steps out, stoops low, starts towards us. I watch her and remember the names of every mangled man she’s lifted away. Strands of brown hair peek […]
Kerrin Sharpe – after my father
after my father after my father the Kommandant read Hansel & Gretel he never left me in the forest or anywhere near his busy factory chimneys he was a true father who obeyed his boss a loving father who kept German Shepherd dogs behind high wire fences some nights he counted stars once when there […]
