The plane ascends. Women disrobe, crossing into Turkey’s airspace. Their hair cascades like waterfalls. I lift my skirt to let my legs breathe. So much sin is compressed between my teeth & my toes! I stride over the pavement. The wind runs through...
Alice Bloch is the author of Mother-Daughter Banquet: A Memoir, the winner of our 2018 memoir contest. Her prolific writing career includes the memoir Lifetime Guarantee, the novel The Law of Return, and publication in several anthologies. She also wrote a column for...
It’s no secret that our staff loves books. Reading is our superpower. We read submissions for Minerva Rising and tons of books and journals for our own personal edification. Here’s what we’ve been reading over the summer: Brooke —...
By Holly Day I feel the wings flutter under my skin as I tell them about my childhood, about how things were before I had children of my own. I hint at the type of insect I was make it more beautiful—I was a butterfly, a damselfly a fluorescent leaf-hopper, something...
By Marti Rhode All I want now is a pair of turquoise cowgirl boots. You know what kind, the ones with doily stitching around the top, and pointed, cowgirl toes. I want one of those twirling skirts with white rick-rack trim, and fringe, somewhere. ...
By Gail Peck This new place on the second floor I call my tree house. I can’t get used to saying apartment. There are trees all around and a twenty-five-foot balcony. Still, I miss the private backyard we had, especially the Japanese Maples we planted and could...
By Katie Vagnino This is what happens when you sign up for a yoga class online and don’t read the fine print. It is an honest mistake, one I realize the moment I enter the studio and am confronted with posters of women smiling blissfully, their hands delicately...
By Jury S. Judge Sundial peaks cast their angular shadow By the way of blessed pines Light travels in splintered sheets Through the dense virgin forest Fiddlehead ferns unfurl nervously Look at the darker edge of green Soft moss responsive to rain...
By Rachel E. Layton I was raised by a witch doctor. She taught me voodoo, and how to track down a killer by listening to his victim’s maggots. She took me to visit convents of shamans; They’d let me dig bones from owl pellets. I found a...
By Ashley Gonzalez Butterfly Hearts, Sisters of Fits and Starts, lend me your wings, those feathery things that make even shakiest voices sing. King of Brothers, lend me your crystal cutters, shining prisms of Light over lover’s skin. No sin in...
