Purple Kwame Dawes For Akua Walking, I drew my hand over the lumpy bloom of a spray of purple; I stripped away my fingers, stained purple; put it to my nose, the minty honey, a perfume so aggressively pleasant—I gave it to you to smell, my daughter, and you pulled away as if I was giving you a palm full of wasps, deceptions: “Smell the way the air changes because of purple and green.” This is the promise I make to you: I will never give you a fist full of wasps, just the surprise of purple and the scent of [...]

Doilies Jacqueline Bishop In the house off Constant Spring Road, the one with the short spreading Julie mango tree   in the front yard, the lime tree   with their dark green leaves and delicate   white flowers; the palm-sized   burnt orange hibiscuses,   poisonous butter yellow allamandas,   I remember, I remember,   how my mother’s hands kept moving   as she produced one white crochet doily after another. The slender silver hook and the fragile symmetry. A Ford Escort was parked in the garage of that house. Oil-slicked men tried stealing that powder blue Ford Escort one night as we slept uneasily in the house— Discussions began immediately about leaving  one [...]

Lost Letter Tory Adkisson I watched as the white marble chipped, watched as the coast eddied with elegiac seafoam and two men plunged their hands into the deep recesses of a small, seaside cave. I held the silver letter opener to my breast like a sword. I didn’t know what I was protecting myself from. My friend, if you find this letter in Paris or Parnassus, remember how the statues of boys bent toward each other like Actaeon’s hounds bared themselves against their master’s throat—an interminable thirst for the flesh consuming their primitive minds. And remember me, sitting across from you [...]