Violet Jelly
picking the leaves Monday early in a cool rain huddled in wet sweatshirts. Hours in the grey, knees and fingers numb. Our skin smells of violets while they soak in the red pan overnight till we boil the green. Then the pectin turns them lilac. We pour them into glass, amethyst the sun comes thru on the window after...
Read MoreI Try to Forgive Your Absence, Facing the Snake in the Kitchen
I mistake it for a night crawler, which recalls my father forcing one into jumpy nine-year-old palms so that I can ruche its long succulence onto a hook. But this one, the color of giblets, spans two checkerboard tiles and looks stunned, as I am: How’d I end up here? A whiplash tongue tastes the air. No Brother Francis, I swallow fear and loathing, seize Tupperware, and then, stifling dry heaves (En garde!) poise bin over reptile—which thrashes into spitfire life, sidewinding into the living room, all snap and writhe. A montage of past insults replays the Why me? refrain: A...
Read MoreFeatured Works: Week of Oct. 26 (Other Worlds)
“Beginnings” by Lynda Bullock on Flickr For the week of Halloween, a time when minds turn to the imagination, our contributors take us to other worlds. “The Society” by Marla Johnson is a sequel to an earlier piece, also published by Wild Violet, about a young werewolf seeking vengeance. In “Robotomy” by Joe Andriano, two androids fall in love and kick off a robot revolution. “The Briar Speaks” by Gabriella M. Belfiglio provides a different perspective on a well-known fairy tale. In “Obsession” by Megan Sierra Smith, two girls bond...
Read MoreObsession
Her latest obsession was clouds. Books on clouds of all varieties, from picture books to nonfiction, were piled in her corner of the room next to her graying cot. On the rare occasion it was safe to be outside, Imogen would lie on her back and try to name them. She could tell cirrus clouds from their soft, cotton candy threads, while cumulus clouds were the soft cottontails that piled on top of each other in fluffy heaps like a litter of rabbits. Sometimes she struggled to identify a patch of clouds, and the frustration could plague her all through the night. Grace hated those times. Imogen...
Read MoreThe Briar Speaks
Her curse was our period of glory. Everything became so quiet—no galling chatter of humans, no jarring barks of dogs, not even the buzz of a fly. Only the subtle hum of our parents—sky and earth, stretching our verdant vines, plush flowers, and ...
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