Two Flash & One Poem

This week, our short reads consist of the following:

A flash fiction piece by Kate Finegan that was first published in Gigantic Sequins, but can now be found at Fractured Lit.

A creative nonfiction piece called by Tara Stillions Whitehead that I first read when I was an assistant editor at Pithead Chapel and immediately loved.

A poem by Allie Marini that captures Florida so perfectly that you’ll feel as though you’re there and can feel the humidity on your skin.

Let us know which one is your favourite in the comments below.

Two Flash & One Poem – Our Selection of Riveting Reads

• “And Even Still the Rivers,” by Kate Finegan

“In this time of lips like callouses, tongues of pumice, it feels wrong to see you smile. In this time of so little sweat, no beads for this tongue to suck, no slick of skin on skin, too tired. No good morning, here’s a glass of water, sparkling, full color spectrum on the sun-drenched bedroom wall refracted. No drink it down so I can drink you up, no drink it down so you can scream my name. No finger-knots in hair. No get down to the delta of this body, take it all the way to roiling sea. In this time, all we have is smiles.”

Kate Finegan

• “2001” by Tara Stillions Whitehead

“That was the year we chased ghosts in Elfin Forest and got blacklisted from Motel 6. When we fell in love with New Radicals and Radiohead. That was the year all those last-call tourists were hit by Amtraks near Boar’s Crossing, when we chain-smoked Camel Red Lights in Nikki’s garage and plucked our eyebrows into oblivion.”

Tara Stillions Whitehead

• “If Florida Was A Man, This is How I’d Miss Him,” by Allie Marini

“If I could just see Florida again,
I swear I’d stop at every roadside stand with

HOT BOILED P-NUTS 

spray-painted on plywood,
just so he could ladle a Styrofoam cup full for me.”

Allie Marini

Which one of these is your favourite? Let us know in the comments below.

-Isabel & Marilyn