How Frida Kahlo Understood Love
 
Diego, she said, was an accident,
one she had barely survived.
He was a streetcar that struck her broadside
when she was young and still unformed.
 
She was really talking about love, 
the steel rod launched by Cupid 
that pierces bellies and crushes bones;
ironic love that sprinkles gold powder 
on naked, broken girls.
 
Love burned itself into her forehead.
It was her heart visible in her chest.
It was a wounded thigh, a bandaged foot,
a collar of thorns piercing her neck.
 
Frida and Diego, woman and man, 
night and day, soil and sky, 
gathered in the arms of the universe, 
even as death, the great nothing, 
proclaims itself the fate of the world.

Catherine Reef

Catherine Reef's poetry has appeared in The Moving Force, Visions International, and The Ekphrastic Review. She is a poet and an award-winning biographer, whose most recent book is Sarah Bernhardt: The Divine and Dazzling Life of the World's First Superstar. Catherine Reef lives and writes in Rochester, New York.

Editor's Note:

I recently had the privilege of teaching art history, poetry, and expressive writing to young people in a course with Hong Fook Mental Health Association in Toronto. We explored visual art on a variety of themes such as artists with mental health challenges, hope and resilience, and personal and cultural identity. I have been so inspired by the unique, thoughtful insights on art and the expressive poetry of these wonderful people. These are works by participants who were willing to share their poetry publicly. Thank you so much, Winsome, Caroline, and Janet! 

Facilitator's Note: 

The Writing for Self-Expression workshop was one of our first courses co-produced with young adults in Hong Fook’s Youth and Family Services Discovery College program. Courses and workshops in the Discovery College focus on offering youth opportunities to discover their strengths, talents, and skills to help connect them with their community and shape their sense of identity.
 
This was a wonderful and unique experience from design to delivery. Youth were involved in coproducing the course with Lorette and our community partner, the Collaborative Learning Center at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. In a two hour session, youth shared their opinions and ideas on what would make this workshop a great experience for participants. From those conversations Lorette selected art and artists that reflected the specific themes youth had wanted to explore, including the themes of mental health, hope, personal transformation, relationships, and identity:  gender, cultural, and social.
 
As well, thanks to the generosity and our partnership with the Art Gallery of Ontario, students also had a chance to visit the Art Gallery of Ontario and offer recommendations to Lorette on art that they wanted to talk or learn about. This was truly an immersive experience.
 
There is a lot that I can say about the value of a workshop like this and the impact that it has on youth. One of the highlights that we saw was how the workshop offered students a platform to reflect on their own experiences and each of the themes. It invited them to explore the topics in greater depth through art and conversations. We have run a similar workshop with Lorette in the past and are always inspired by the way youth are able and willing to engage in meaningful, rich, and honest conversations around art, life, and writing.
 
The result of this process is the celebration of all the beautiful pieces that you see in this showcase. Thank you to all of the youth, Lorette, and everyone involved in making this a memorable workshop. Congratulations to all of our students and writers!
 
Moshe Sakal, Peer Coach

 
Looking Glass
 
You can remember it like last week:
 
a few steps from the table / the high echo of porcelain clinking,
muted conversation; but warm, and jovial,
No one is looking as you exit, stage left.
 
a path illuminates ahead… is it dark? / no, you feel the sun, still.
the forest shies away, retreats from you: as if your presence chases it.
each step on the stones, one follows another
 
You bring something with you on each measured motion,
though you’ve already brought it before / whether you know it or not.
 
And suddenly, It is somewhere else.
And so are you.
 
A few steps from the table / onward to Tomorrow.
No one is watching… before you know it,
You’re there, like me.
 

Expansion
 
In a place full of choices that feels endless and stretches outward in all directions,
All that I can see seems full of fears.
 
Sometimes they push me stronger that way - or this,
And then there are times when I am pulled, drawn in, enticed.
 
For the times I am moved to go,
Towards it,
Steps, resolute
To the way of the things that scare me.
 
Sometimes the pursuit of the only things I am sure of: the fears.
My fear.
When I reach out to wrap my fingers and cup it in my hands,
I open my palms and see me reflected back.
I am gathering pieces of myself, all along.
 
These fears are things I know well enough to transform into shadows.
I am collecting the pieces to reveal myself as I was, as I am, and as I could be. 

Inspired by  Ideograph, by  Bernice “Bingo” Bing (USA) contemporary. Click here to view.
 
Thought Abstraction (a “Korean sijo”)
 
The residue of language;     these swirling lines take new form.
My mind full but now quiet,     silent hums all spilt upon the page.
Transference of the day’s spirits;     Understanding has come to pass.

 
One Self (a “Korean sijo”)
 
In the mirror: Radiant delight.     It beams forth in earnest.
From shadows beneath,     vigilant inner child repeats numb words.
What peace might be built in Balance;     two sides reconciled at last.
​

Untitled

The bright, sunny days that once were like a spotless teapot.
Now cracked and stained with grime that used to be fine.
Joyful colours dulled and warped by the storm in which none could be warned.
Scrub once, no gain.
Scrub twice, just pain.
Scrub again and again to find the bright, sunny days of the past.
I see it. A glimpse of the smiles and warmth from before.
I see it. The scowls and frigid swords that tore.
I see it. The new patterns and colours given birth by the dirt.
I see it. A new future where okay, maybe I’ll be hurt.
The bright, sunny days that once were like a spotless teapot.
Now shining differently in a way that says, “I’ll be just fine.”

​

Untitled
​
Stifling, rigid, unspoken expectations. Both internal and external. Fear and anxiety like a blanket that feels safe, threatening and suffocating all at the same time. Will I say or do the wrong thing and be cast out again? Will I give my trust only to be ripped apart? Can I use that dread to connect the threads of stories and emotion like an explosion? Maybe I can make a journey feel like an uphill climb by wrapping it up in a blanket of art? What kind of art? A song perhaps? Something that seems so natural and unintrusive like sound. I’ve always wanted to write music. The more I think about it, the more right it feels. If I write about it, talk about it, maybe I can convince myself again to give it a go. To give it my all without trying to viciously stomp and blow out this flame.

Tree of Hope

Born with a disability, 
         feeling weak, numb and unwanted

Raised in captivity,
         weighing life that was a gift to me

Shrouded by invisibility,
         accepting fate as I rest

The Undercoat 
 
The question of the embroidered cat 
never came up in our forgiveness 
though I knew each of us 
swallowed 
a throat-full. We’d worn off 
most pleasures, tried not to 
respond or seem pellucid  
scouted in detailed brush work 
what we could of the sparrows 
fluff of feathers between 
the cat’s teeth. 
Your wrist
broke before I knew you,  
the truck ploughed into 
your ribs, breaking them 
all. You resembled the cat’s 
tabby stripes, I’m sure. Longed 
to sleep curled up, 
but pain within chambers 
of a pomegranate didn’t allow. 
But this is all an attempt
to forgive ... (or whatever) - show
One day I examined the cat’s ears, 
blood vessels like a road map for 
where we’d gone or could have 
ventured if we had agreed. But really 
the lines simplified as trees mattered 
more to the cat’s life than ours, 
branches to hang from and trunk 
to claw. Cats, as they grow older 
unclouded even with cataracts 
eyes that can’t hide like a court jester’s 
rituals like the undercoat 
fine down, and the paws. 
Just waiting. And we, with our own 
undercoat, more visible, less 
fine, an awkward forgiveness. ​

Laurel Benjamin

Laurel Benjamin is a native of the San Francisco Bay Area, where she invented a secret language with her brother. She has work forthcoming or published in Lily Poetry Review, Flash Boulevard, Turning a Train of Thought Upside Down: An Anthology of Women's Poetry, South Florida Poetry Journal, Trouvaille Review, One Art, Ekphrastic Review, Midway Journal, MacQueens Quinterly, among others. She is affiliated with the Bay Area Women’s Poetry Salon and the Port Townsend Writers, and holds an MFA from Mills College. She is a reader for Common Ground Review. Find her at: https://thebadgerpress.blogspot.com Twitter at @lbencleo  Instragram at cleobenjami

Weapons of Crass Destruction
 
Where siege was laid to mind and soul
that wile could conquer and control,
attack was made on core belief
by victor and irreverent thief
 
of dignity when cats abused
were grimly as munitions used
to horrify in fortress walled  
--  by heresy to leave appalled  --
 
the hearts far more afraid of wrath
that would forever stalk their path
as furtive, ghostly fang and claw
of retribution raking raw
 
the body that was disinclined
to halt the war on god maligned,
where faith was not the love that feared
the deity that it revered.

Portly Bard

​Portly Bard: Old man.  Ekphrastic fan.

Prefers to craft with sole intent
of verse becoming complement...
...and by such homage being lent...
ideally also compliment...

Ekphrastic joy comes not from praise
for words but from returning gaze
far more aware of fortune art
becomes to eyes that fathom heart.

My Sweet Tigre
 
I am sick of being a girl with a uterus.
I lie here on Grandmother’s sofa, cramps 
roiling through my stomach.
 
My friends all dance, laugh, and flirt
with the senior boys who always show up
at the Sock Hop before a game. 
 
Peter will look for me but turn to Glenda, 
aptly named as a witch. If I could throw off
this golden robe, I would be out the door--
 
who says girls have to stay home every
month of this curse. This is only bearable
because of sweet Tigre, her calm head
 
on my arm, enfolded in my warmth.
Her claws sheathed she purrs and plays 
with the fringe on my wrists.
 
Last week going to Teresa’s for a sleepover, 
red candy-cane P.J.s  under my arm, 
Gram made me put them in a bag,
 
said it wasn’t seemly to have night
clothes showing with a boy in the car.
It might give him evil thoughts. Oh Gram
 
evil thoughts are the most fun of all.

Jackie Langetieg

Jackie Langetieg has published poems in journals and anthologies and won awards, such as WWA’s Jade Ring contest, Bards Chair, and Wisconsin Academy Poem of the Year. She has also been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She has written six books of poems, most recently, poetry,  Snowfall and a memoir, Filling the Cracks with Gold. www.jackiella.wordpress.com

Pyari billis (sweet cats) and the dire fire!
(Five monokus)
 
i.
Go to sleep, pyari billis, the world is on fire. Dire. Almost always.

ii.
Mice sprint. Pyari billis squint. Tom-Jerry’s a cartoon. Fire simmers. Dire.

iii.
Whistledown's pamphlet's out. Pyari billis, whisper, “Dire, fiery trickster”.

iv.
Pyari billis, gossip alone. Classics are dire and fired up. Not tired.

v.
Unslept. Still impish. Not Blimpish. Dire fires to douse for pyari billis.

Anita Nahal

* Pyari billis: Means sweet cats in Hindi 
* Lady Whistledown: A character in the Netflix series, Bridgerton who writes a pamphlet on society scandals

Anita Nahal, Ph.D., CDP is a poet, professor, short story writer, flash fictionist, and children’s writer. She teaches at the University of the District of Columbia, Washington D.C.  Her poems and stories can be found in national and international journals in the US, Uk, Asia and Australia. For more on Anita: https://anitanahal.wixsite.com/anitanahal

​Herr Katz Calls on Fraulein Kitty
After "Amulet" by Ted Hughes and The Bouquet by Sophie Sperlich
 
Within the gilded drawing room, the elegant chair.
Against the elegant chair, the silk parasol.
Next to the silk parasol, the taffeta shawl.
On top of the taffeta shawl, the fur trimmed bonnet.
Beside the fur trimmed bonnet, the pressed Morning coat.
Above the pressed Morning coat, the waxed whiskers.
Below the waxed whiskers, the manicured paw. 
Clasped in the manicured paw, the ivory envelope.
Inside the ivory envelope, the billet-doux.
Around the billet-doux, the bouquet of pink roses.
Beneath the bouquet of pink roses, the royal blue ribbon.
Above the royal blue ribbon, the expectant eyes.
Behind the expectant eyes, the gilded drawing room.

Jane Salmons

​Jane Salmons is the author of the poetry collection The Quiet Spy, just released from Pindrop Press. She writes and publishes poetry and microfiction, studies and teaches in England, and creates handmade collages.

​The Puzzle of Cats

Haiku for A Crossword Puzzle

Mordecai
My first feline love
Gentle seal point Siamese 
Too mild for trailer life

Othello
Gorgeous passion cat
Fierce protector of our home
Held us together

Lysander
Fluffy Maine Coon 
Saw me and jetted to our home
Sweet, sweet Lysander

Percy
Gray tuxedo cat
Peed in all the wrong places
But we still loved him

Michelle
Bringer of kittens
Found a safe home for her kittens.
Michelle, my bell

Cyrano
Small tuxedo cat
Imitated other cats
Such a sweet kitty

Angus
Cappuccino cat
He knows how to get his way
My heart is hostage

Crossword Puzzle

Siamese An Asian cat.
Othello A Shakespearean tragic character
Maine The name of a state in the US is part of the name of this breed
Percy The nickname for one of the heros in Greek mythology.
Michelle The title of a Beatle song.
Cyrano A literary figure with a sizable nose.
Cappuccino A hot beverage of espresso and steamed milk.
Heart The part of the body that pumps blood.
Hostage To hold someone against their will.
Protector A guard
Lysander One of the lovers in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Kittens Baby cats
Tuxedo Black and white cat

Margo Stutts Toombs

Margo Stutts Toombs enjoys writing, performing and filmmaking. She performs her monologues at Fringe Festivals, art galleries and anywhere food and beverages are served. She was the flash fiction winner for the Ekphrastic Sex contest, with The Care and Feeding of Your Penis Tree. 

​Tom’s Time Museum
 
There’s joy in repetition. Prince
 
Tom touches my hand 
(years later)
in the Time Museum.  
His silver paw is soft
and he purrs under his breath
as we wander through the rooms.
We discover the Girl with Orange Dress
by William Thompson Bartoll.  The girl 
holds her cat loosely, the way 
I always have.
This was us, Tom says.  I raise 
my eyebrow and he nods.  
Us in another life.
I laugh, tell him he looks nothing 
like the cat in the painting. 
He grins like a Cheshire, murmurs
I am in the orange dress.
I smile, ask him what number 
life are we on now; I don’t remember.
                 Tom doesn’t answer.

Tricia Marcella Cimera

Tricia Marcella Cimera is a Midwestern poet with a worldview. Her work appears in many diverse places publications. Her poem ‘The Stag’ won first place honours in College of DuPage’s 2017 Writers Read: Emerging Voices contest. She was a judge for a recent contest at The Ekphrastic Review. She lives with her husband and family of animals in Illinois, in a town called St. Charles, near a river named Fox, with a Poetry Box in her front yard.

Congratulations to the authors of all of these stories that placed as finalists in our Ekphrastic Cats contest! The six finalist stories, are below, with the winning story first and the finalists in alphabetical order by author.

Ekphrastic Cats Flash Fiction Finalists

Orange, by Karen Crawford
Bastet's Protection, by JKForward
The Decision, by Nancy Ludmerer
One for Sorrow, by JP Relph
Treasure, by JP Relph
Familiar, by Jane Salmons

Ekphrastic Cats Flash Fiction winner is One for Sorrow, by JP Relph.

With many thanks to our guest judge, Kathryn Kulpa.

All flash fiction entries were read blind.

Guest Judge's Note: 

When I was a kid, I thought of myself as incontrovertibly a dog person. Cats crept up on me slowly, the way cats do, with a subtle and quiet affection. Now I can't imagine living my life without them. These artworks and stories capture the elusive charm and changeable nature of cats: they are mystical, even godlike; mischievous and funny; fierce hunters; loving companions; beings that, as the legendary familiars of witches, seem to have a bit of magic about them, an ability to slip between worlds. The winning story, "One for Sorrow," captures this otherworldly quality in the black-and-white cat Magpie who helps two children dealing with crushing grief. Magpie appears when he is most needed, but leaves the narrator wondering if "he was ever our cat, or a cat at all, really." Some of the stories, like the heartbreaking "The Decision," focus on the human-cat bond; others, like "The Treasure," show us the world from a cat's point of view. I found something to admire in all of them, and choosing the winner and finalists was a true challenge--like choosing a favourite from a litter of kittens!

Kathryn Kulpa

You can read the poetry finalists for Ekphrastic Cats here.

​
One For Sorrow
 
Summer could have passed in tortured silence but for the orange girl and the cat. I was on my bike, going nowhere, wheels held by grabbing weeds. A lawn battled somewhere beneath me; memories of football and cricket matches in the roots, the scars of two boys’ pounding feet on bruised blades. I kept my eyes firmly away from the only shuttered window – my brother Nathan in bed, dead-but-not-dead – saw the girl burst from the house next door. Everything about her bright, my eyes wrenched from tangled green, only to see my misery mirrored in her face. 

#

When the doctor said Nathan was “in a coma”, I heard Dad whisper vegetable and I laughed. Dad dragged me from the room, slammed me into a sticky-plastic chair. I wanted to say I’d remembered Nathan sneaking veggies to the dog under the table. How the dog always farted something awful and Mum didn’t know why. I didn’t say. Dad’s face was hardening like concrete, impenetrable. A nurse brought me orange squash but it tasted sour in my mouth.

#

Clementina – who preferred Tina – had been forced to live with her grandparents: tiny, iron-haired prunes who seemed improbable caregivers. They’d glower and grumble when Nathan and I played outside, scuttle between immaculate flowerbeds like silverfish in matching cardigans. Tina had brought only important things with her, her grandparents despising “clutter”. Favoured books, science posters, a pumpkin-coloured bike, and her cat. A solemn-faced monochrome moggie called Magpie, he’d turned up the night after the funeral, winding round her black tights as she clung to the steps of a house with a For Sale sign already dug in. Tina made him a collar from orange ribbon and his generous purr would later soothe her to sleep in a stripped-bare bedroom, pearls of cream bobbing on his whiskers. 

#

When the firemen pulled Nathan from the water, his hair tar-black against his blue-blushed face, I believed he was dead. I was wrapped in silver foil, scrunched in the back of a Police car, trying to hold my bones still. Swirling lights jewelled the lake ice, making onyx of the black maw that had swallowed Nathan, frigid teeth biting. I’d slid on my belly, gripping his hand until mine purpled and numbed and he slipped like a fish and my screams were white feathers.  

#

Tina and I favoured the woods, the lake’s shady side, the churchyard. We wanted concealment, escape from the sun’s brand. Magpie followed, equally content with chilled places, the numbing quiet of trees and stones. Tina always wore orange; russet dungarees, satsuma dresses. An apricot swimsuit when we ventured into the shadow-darkled water, Tina leading me like a skittish pony. Her hair looked like cheese curls, pulled into brutal bunches that made almonds of her hazel eyes. She said the happiness of all the orange hid the grey inside her. I imagined her crying topaz tears into velvet-black fur. Wished I could. 

#

Preoccupied with bed-baths and herbaceous borders, nobody noticed us straying. We ate too much cereal, didn’t brush our teeth, stayed out beyond dark. We were wraiths finding substance in our connection. Lying on a mattress of spongy moss and sweet violets, staring through the dark-green canopy with just a peek of painful blue, Tina took my hand. Her cheeks had flushed, were striped with escaped curls that were red as the autumn to come. Our smiles were light as woodland moths, but our chests felt unbearably heavy, crushed. 

#

One morning Tina was waiting on my doorstep, arms around an urn in her lap. Magpie’s tail enwrapped one wrist – a brilliant-white bracelet on a carnelian sleeve. His pale eyes, like shelled pistachios, blinked slowly up at me. I nodded. 

We got a train to the coast, drank colas and watched the landscape change. Magpie coiled next to me, tail flicking at distant birds. Tina opposite, hazel eyes staring at nothing but her own pale reflection, marigold trainers resting on my knees. 

It was cold by the water; I was grateful for Magpie’s heat against my chest. Tina waded into the thrashing wavelets, upturned the urn and a sea-wind took her mother away. We walked the sand, huddled together, followed wheeling gulls to a chip shop. On the train home, Magpie snoozed between us, snores strident with cod flesh, and Tina pressed her salty ginger curls into my shoulder. I went to bed feeling empty and full at the same time. Stared at the wall separating me and my brother.

#

We were tidying my garden, pulling weeds with green-striped hands, Magpie chasing midges with kitten-like abandon, when I found the Spiderman toy. I picked it up, wiped it on my jeans. It was Nathan’s. Perhaps abandoned on that cold day we’d been bored and snuck to the lake. I looked up at the shutters, my whole body shaking until Tina wrapped her arms around me and I absorbed her orange warmth. Magpie walked to the house, looked over his shoulder and meowed loudly. Tina gave me a gentle kiss on the cheek. The beautiful burn of it lingered all the way upstairs and into my brother’s room, where I sat in the rocking chair by his bed with Magpie purring in my lap, and cried and cried. My tears were ice-cold and tasted lake-dark.

#

Then summer was over. Tina grizzling in school-grey, cheeky orange bobbles in her plaits. In our homes a sudden peace had settled like autumn leaves. Dad ruffled my hair at breakfast. Tina’s grandma knitted her a carrot-bright scarf. We laughed more, kissed more, her warm hand now part of mine.
​
Magpie vanished on a light-frost night; his handmade collar left on Tina’s doorstep. Although we searched for days, hearing ghosts of his meow, we knew he was really gone. He was never our cat, or even a cat, really. He hadn’t left a single black or white hair on any of our clothes. We grieved this loss together too, finding our way to joy before snow fell and covered the orange ribbon. 

​JP Relph

​JP Relph is a working-class writer from North West England. Her writing journey began in 2021 with Writers HQ and is mostly hindered by four cats and aided by copious tea. A forensic science degree and a passion for microbes, insects and botany motivate her words, which can be found in  Splonk, Noctivagant Press, Full House Literary, Moss Puppy Magazine and others.  Twitter - @RelphJp

Bastet's  Protection

​Perched in the prow of the family felucca, I felt as elegant as I knew
I looked, especially as I was wearing a new jewelled collar.  Down the
Nile we glided.  Above us, the tall and narrow triangular sail was
taut in the warm morning breeze; it would luff and flap as Man tacked
back and forth across the wide river, doing his best to navigate
around other craft large and small.  On the shore, the great pyramids
were blindingly white in their limestone coats, and the rising sun
rivalled their golden caps.

We were wending our way to Bubastis and the festival at the temple of
Bastet, Cat Goddess of protection.  The Family was excited and
chattering noisily as they breakfasted on partridge-filled pastries,
figs and grapes.  My ears turned, keeping track of Toddler as she
scrabbled about behind me, a rope around her waist in case she should
fall overboard.  Toddler tried in vain to capture my tail as I swept
it back and forth, snake-like; our favourite game.
Woman approached and gently laid partridge meat before me, then
collected Toddler to take her, complaining, to the stern and to leave
me to eat in peace.

At last, the boat nosed into the reeds at the riverbank’s edge and Man
and Boy jumped into the knee-deep water, splashing me where I balanced
on a gunwale.  They turned quickly, apologizing, and then slowly drew
the boat in so it stopped smoothly on the silty river bottom.  They
bowed, standing aside for me to gracefully leap ashore.  I stood still
on the hot dry soil, tail twitching, my senses alert.

Toddler squealed behind me as Woman lowered her into the shallow
water.  She splashed towards me, almost hidden by the reeds, calling
my name, “Cat!”

But I was distracted; a movement in the sun-bleached grass had caught
my eye.  I crouched, hiding behind the blades, my gaze intent.  Only
the tip of my tail twitched slightly.  Toddler saw it and rushed
forward.  In that moment, Cobra rose from the grass, its hood flaring,
a tail’s-length from the two of us.  Woman screamed, Boy bent to pick
up a stone, Man leapt forward.  It was I who foiled the fangs meant
for the child.  And I died.

Today Toddler, Woman now, kneels before me where I stand erect on an
altar at the Temple of Bastet, embalmed in honey and resin, wrapped
crosswise in linens.  The scent of incense and flowers mixes with the
tones of reverence and thankfulness in her voice as she relates this
oft-told Story of Me.

JKForward

JKForward is a writer who enjoys both reading and writing the short form.  A favourite place to wander for a day is either a museum or an art-gallery where she enjoys gathering ekphrastic stories with the butterfly net of her mind.  Nature also inspires her.

​The Decision 
 
Had I known even the gentlest creatures do not go gently, I would have done things differently.  I wouldn’t have said the vet could come here while you slept on your soft new bed.  I would have said no, not yet, insisting that you decide, not me. And as unreasonable as my insistence would have been, I am sure you would have done it, signing on the dotted line in your own good time and at the right time, not like me, my signature wobbly and indecipherable. And even though you had never signed a thing before, had only licked the ink of my scribblings or gripped my pen in your fangs or hid it between your paws, all things you were too weak to do that day or not inclined to do that day, you would, I am sure, have done it if you had only known how afterwards I would never get over it.  You would have done it for me.

​Nancy Ludmerer

Nancy Ludmerer's fiction and flash fiction appear in Kenyon Review, New Orleans Review, Electric Literature, Mid-American Review, Grain, and Best Small Fictions 2016 (a River Styx prizewinner). In 2020, her stories won prizes from Carve, Masters Review, Pulp Literature, and Streetlight.  She lives in NYC with her husband Malcolm and their recently-adopted 13-year-old cat, Joseph. Twitter: @nludmerer 

Treasure                    
                                    
Heat crackles in every grain of sand, intent on transforming the red-blonde waves into glass. The oasis of verdant shadow and chill lies far behind her now – no hint of the green scent in her nostrils, just a dry-baked rustle. Her measured steps kick up alarmed puffs as she takes a circuitous route to the building which shimmers with promise.  
 
Heat slips like molten gold down her spine, pools in the back of her neck. She longs for sleep – a sunpuddle slumber – but the sand is no place to linger. It is made living by the pounding sun: it shifts and slips around her feet as if waiting for the perfect moment to snag them, pull her under. She’s so close now, stones resolve from the heat-veil. Burnished bronze with lichen lacework, they offer shady respite, and so much more. A treasure she needs, to survive. 
 
Heat halts at a wall of shadow, as if turning from day to dawn in a step, she shivers. In the lee of the building, the sun’s relentless charge is repelled, the sand glitters silver, gives way to a ribbon of chilled pebbles. Fine hairs stand up on the back of her neck: there’s danger ahead, if she’s caught here. She must be stealthy and sure-stepped to remain undetected. There’s a hole in a door she can just slip through; mouse-like, hugging shadows. 
 
Heat is just prickling in the silent space; hot fingers reaching just one far corner at this time of day. She has learned that this is the best time: when there’s nobody to see her, catch her in the act. She can hear water dripping, smell something bright – like the ramsons in the woods. Her sharp, greengage eyes survey quickly, alight on the prize. She approaches, padding on spider-soft feet. 

#

The boy crouches in the living room, one blue eye pressed to a narrow gap between door and frame, breath held behind a wide smile. She’s come again, seems unaware of his presence. She crosses the shade-filled kitchen to the bowl of mackerel, her ears and tail constantly twitching.

Daddy moved them to this house a month ago – the cat turned up a week later, looking for something. Daddy joked she was a “cat burglar”, which confused the boy (wasn’t that someone who stole cats?), reckoned the old lady who’d lived here probably fed the cat, installed the cat-flap. Daddy also said it could be just a wily cat, skilled at marking out a good score. The old lady had also made a strange desert landscape of the garden. Children’s play-sand, fake boulders and plastic cacti all the way to the Leylandii at the bottom, beyond which is woodland. Daddy was going to get rid of the sand, make a lawn for football. The boy would miss the swirled patches where the cat had slept in the sun, the trails of cute pawprints going in all directions. He wanted a cat very much. Daddy said they could go to a shelter, but the boy wanted the shy cat. She was like him. Hanging out alone. Needing a friend. One who’d treasure her. So, he’d started leaving food out and, eventually, she came inside for it. Eating fast, darting away. 

Now, his knees starting to ache, the boy watches the cat eat the mushed fish. She’s small with a round face and where she isn’t dusty-white, she looks like a fluffy mackerel. He loves the moist chewing sounds she makes and the way her ringed tail wraps around her back legs. He longs to stroke her.

#

Heat starts to spread through the space, like golden syrup spilled. She sits for a risky moment, licking and licking, wetting her paw to clean the delightfully oily fragments shimmering on her whiskers. Her morning meal was more feather than flesh and, while she thrills with the hunt, this is infinitely tastier. There’s water too - she has a long drink before she starts her journey back through the burning sands. 

#

The boy’s legs cramp, one foot shoots out and hits the kitchen door.

#

She starts, cleaning abandoned, tail an instant bristle-brush. She darts for the hole in the door.

#

The boy wishes she’d stay longer, whispers bye kitty as she leaps over his foot.

#

She stops at the hole, turns towards the human in the doorway to the rest of the building. She’s never been through there. He’s small, has a nice face; soft and kind, and she smells the fish on his fingers. 

#

The boy breathes so slowly, his blue eyes meeting her sand-gold ones. The cat blinks, once, twice and he hears the slightest rumble in her chest. 

#

She rubs her cheek against a grass-soil-fungus scented shoe, meows and pours through the hole like a fish from a net. 

#

The boy feels the loss as soon as she’s gone, but he’s certain she’ll come back tomorrow. He spends the night thinking of the perfect name. 

#

Heat crackles in every grain of sand, intent on transforming the red-blonde waves into glass. The oasis of verdant shadow and chill awaits her: the pungent tang of hedge, the duskier scent of woodland beyond. She’s fast across the baked sand, no longer concerned with stealth. Her belly full; she has sleep on her mind. Glancing back; the boy’s face is at the window. She recalls another face that once watched her. A brown, crinkled face. Later, a warm blanket in a cardboard box when it rained or snowed; a sliver of salmon to tempt her further inside. Then it was all gone and many strange people came and went – noisy, disruptive - and she’d retreated to the relative safety of the woods. 
​
She sees the boy waving; he’s the new keeper of the treasure. Summer is going to end and she does wonder about what’s beyond the shady space. With the promise of tomorrow’s oil-slick meal on her tongue, she passes from sand to coniferous shade, scattering sparrows.

​JP Relph

​JP Relph is a working-class writer from North West England. Her writing journey began in 2021 with Writers HQ and is mostly hindered by four cats and aided by copious tea. A forensic science degree and a passion for microbes, insects and botany motivate her words, which can be found in  Splonk, Noctivagant Press, Full House Literary, Moss Puppy Magazine and others.  Twitter - @RelphJp

Familiar

Through the trees, she hears them creeping, snapping twigs under hobnail boots, the creak of lanterns swinging.  She hears their treacherous curses find the slattern, damn the imp, burn the hag. Still as death, she rootles to the earth. To calm his mewls, she clutches Willow to her chest, strokes his fur, whispers shush, my loyal friend.  Her mud-caked petticoats remind her of the dried up well, the blackened hearth, her husband spitting bile.  Her throat is as parched as rotten bark, her hunger stings like nettles but still she hides within the woods, the voices getting louder.  They say she vomited pebbles as large as eggs, suckled a grimalkin at her teat, struck dead a herd of cows with elf-bolt.  Their gurning faces float before her eyes, she smells their rancid breath.  The physician’s words ring in her ears, her womb is restless; she harbours melancholia.  As twilight falls, Willow’s eyes flash from glittering green to demon red, a murder of crows swarms the sky and on the soles of her feet, she feels the lick of flames, the crackling peat, the rising heat.

Jane Salmons

Jane Salmons is the author of the poetry collection The Quiet Spy, just released from Pindrop Press. She writes and publishes poetry and microfiction, studies and teaches in England, and creates handmade collages.

Repast 
 
after La Fourchette (The Fork) by Andre Kertesz (Hungary), 1928 (Click to view.)
 
Spotless counter, squeaky-bright   
plate. Lean silverware, poised for a serving of  
what? Imagine what you like,  
gooey chocolate cake besmearing  
white chinaware or robust meaty casserole  
whose sauce could be sopped up  
with day-old bread. The French thrive  
on that. One thing’s certain,  
the spear appears immaculate.  
This is pre-meal,  
not post-gargantuan feast.  
The utensil’s tabletop shadow suggests  
this is no fork but tong  
meant to capture the most elusive morsels.  
Tines, regulation-straight, yet their mirror image,  
wavy along the plate’s rim. Formal 
presentation as prelude to elbow workout.  
The dark space beneath the rim                       
could become a haven for  
crumbs. My pudgy unmanicured fingers  
tingle with want. Oh to reach out,  
grasp the sturdy instrument  
used Sundays only  
for duck cassoulet or beef bourguignon  
meant to soften the week’s      
vexations. This pointy instrument, immortalizing   
love of artifice, a moment extended  
in time and mind.   
   
Margo Davis