The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Squirrel SpiritBy Luna Lark QuailBellMagazine.com I should begin with an apology, Squirrel. I did not wish to take your life.
When the sky was green and the grass was blue, my mother used to read me Aesop's Fables. She'd sink into a deep velvet armchair and then unfold her glasses. Once bespectacled, she slowly turned the golden pages of her age-old tome so I could admire all the illustrations. I learned about the lion and the mouse, the fox and the crow, the frog and the ox...and many others. But after hearing “The Sportsman and the Squirrel,” I never imagined I would become the Sportsman. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
House of GlassBy Ruth Dominguez QuailBellMagazine.com i live in a glass house of rumors violent whispers from fiery tongues in the winter the ice perpetually creeps forward, inching slowly and retreating again from the heat as if oceans' tide during the night frost decorates the windows in icy formations of various fractions and angles and during sunrise they melt away peel away the clear view of snow the sun is my friend and enemy in my glass house i accept sunrays in their full force on cloudless days sunset is nostalgic and dusk is the haunting lonesome love of dying lovers i observe the sun's ever-changing color of the world from views in my glass house my pipes are glass and even my waste is delicately seeped in solar energy i flush, shower, and gargle in the sun in the evening i climb my winding-stair of glass comb my hair with a glass comb lay flat on my bed and wait for the sky to deepen and pierce with star-light my motion on the orbiting, rotating earth, is as a jagged clear crystal a fossil with life-breath victim of fog and storm sun's companion. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
The Quail's HeartBy Christine Stoddard QuailBellMagazine.com In a land neither here nor there roamed a stressed—some might say aggrieved--quail. If she had had thumbs, she would have twiddled them until they became raw. Instead, she had wings and she dared not twiddle them because she feared her feathers would fall out. That would not do for such a vain little creature. Thus she continued agonizing over the plight of motherhood with all of her feathers intact. If the quail could have hired a surrogate mother, she would've made the phone call right away. But such an option does not yet exist for quails. And even if it did, they would have to begin using phones and printing their own phone book first. Otherwise, how would anyone get in touch with a surrogate? The quail hated motherhood for several reasons. She did not look forward to her plump figure becoming even plumper. She also decided that, with a lifespan of only four or five years, it did not seem just that she should have to spend at least half of it tending to hungry, shrieking “goblins.” The quail did not want to find seed for anyone but herself. She figured she exercised enough as it was. After bitterly carrying 18 little eggs inside of herself for months, the quail laid them as quickly as could. With her lady parts still sore, she promptly left the eggs to attend a retreat. Being a quail, she had no nails and therefore did not consider getting a “mani” or “pedi”--, though, being as vain as she was, the quail would've if she could've. But sitting and complaining about motherhood to other animal mothers instead of to a nail technician seemed plain fine to her. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Two-thirds a Love PoemBy Nick Chandler QuailBellMagazine.com If I could just touch your ankle. Like a light and hollowed breeze who’s breath tugs at your hem line Then, in a slip, recedes back into the new world, over old and fresh-built homes as it remembers itself, cold and ephemeral hungry and lost, as it grazes more feet and laps at the misty heated windows The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
All Around UsBy Joey Tran QuailBellMagazine.com The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
MidsummerBy Megan Arkenberg QuailBellMagazine.com The village of Lapider-dans-la-Rivière was shrinking, just like the Gray Forest and the Twilit Lands within it. Many of the fae, I know, do not like to admit that Faerie can change; but they are the young ones who have never gone out on a midsummer’s eve to the Sunlit Land, who have never touched mortal flesh or tasted mortal blood. Everything fades in the sunlight. There is nothing that, once held by a human, can ever fail to change. I took the road through the poppy fields, past the little white-stone church with its yard of stones, over the low hill that had hosted the midsummer market where, thirteen years before, I met Blanchet. The market had moved farther south. I looked for her as I passed through, looked for a head of red curls and a hard, handsome face. Many girls gathered there, most young, all beautiful; from the hungry way their eyes followed my movements, I knew that at least one of them would have been willing to observe the old rites with me in the Gray Forest. But I did not want any of them. I wanted Blanchet—the love of my youth, the mother of my child, the keeper of my soul. Finally, I stopped one of the flower girls braiding chains of clover at the card-reader’s tent. |