by Rhonda Browning White
She hangs bundles of lavender, peppermint, catnip, and chamomile that
dangle
like
hands tied at fragile wrists
drying into skeletal bones to be crumbled
into usefulness beyond their death
Dangle
like
hands tied at fragile wrists beside
stitched chimes of leather britches, beans she will
soak back to life in winter, boil nearly dry again,
ladle in laden scoops over butter-slathered
cornbread, hot from the iron pone
She dangles
her
hands, shakes fragile wrists
weak from stitching beans together, stitching quilts together, from
lifting laden ladles and heavy iron pones
hot from the flame
In winter, she will soak cotton in liniment she created from
crumbled lavender, peppermint, catnip, and chamomile in camphor,
dangling and
shaking her
fragile wrists
back to life before bedtime, when she'll curl beneath a hand-stitched
quilt and dream of breakfast, of molasses drizzled over butter-slathered
cornbread, hot from the iron pone
Send Flowers
by Jeff Hersch
Rhonda Browning White is a misplaced Appalachian residing near Daytona Beach, FL. She received the 2019 Press 53 Award for Short Fiction for her short-story collection, The Lightness of Water and Other Stories. Her work appears in Entropy, Prime Number Magazine, Pine Mountain Sand & Gravel, Qu Literary Journal, Hospital Drive, HeartWood Literary Review, Bellevue Literary Review, Steel Toe Review, Ploughshares Writing Lessons, Tiny Text, New Pages, South85 Journal, The Skinny Poetry Journal, WV Executive, Mountain Echoes, Gambit, Justus Roux, Bluestone Review, and in the anthologies Ice Cream Secrets, Appalachia’s Last Stand, and Mountain Voices. Four of her stories have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her blog “Read. Write. Live!” is found at http://www.RhondaBrowningWhite.com. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from Converse College in Spartanburg, SC and was awarded the Watson Fellowship from Eckerd College’s Writers in Paradise. She has recently completed her first novel.
Jeff Hersch provides analog collages for the modern being. Like his thoughts, these pieces are often constructed in short, frantic spurts of energy, with bursts of self-doubt, though calm and subtle. Also like his thoughts, these pieces represent everyday observations and conclusions about the vast world that erratically suffocates us, with little time for a quick escape or chance to relax, as we are currently inhabiting an advanced state of infinite stimulus.
His works lend themselves to your own interpretation of meaning – if any – but should also serve as inspiration and demonstrate the simple notion that you too can and should create something/anything on a regular basis.
When he’s not hunched over his desk cutting and gluing clippings, Hersch finds the time to play in bands (Glazer, Civic Mimic, Postman Agitator) and volunteer as the executive director of Flemington DIY, a non-profit community arts space in the town he grew up in.
Ignatian Literary Magazine 