By Sister Chain Standing at the duty-free shop with a dad who didn’t care on our final holiday together I ask him to recommend a bottle of whisky, “for who?” “a friend” “If it’s a good friend, then this one’s best,” he regally points to a smoky 12-year-old single malt that’s way above the budget of an English major, and does not offer to add it to his cart. Nor do I ask. I bring the fancy bottle in a cab tracing the embossment to avoid the driver and try not to make a big dea

By Bill Homewood Once upon a never-dreamt-of time The strangest-ever truth appeared to me ; It manifested in so great a rhyme That all the world must hear it urgently. I chose a leather chair and took a pen, Turned my notebook to an empty page: This would change the lives of other men, Would make them richer, blessèd in old age! I penned the opening line with trembling hand— Who would have thought I could be quite as wise!— “An idea so important and so grand In verse this mor

By Kevin Sandefur I never knew there were so many lilacs out here on the outskirts. I guess we never spent all that much time at the graveyard. We didn't dream that it ever would come out here, not in our wildest. We were immune from that. It was a city thing, surely. Out in the open air, germs can't be transmitted. Who needed face masks? Big skies meant freedom and choosing our own paths to follow. If you're afraid, then stay home, but don't tell me what I can or can't do. I