Fall 2012: Young Voices

Fishing Float

Fiction by Sage Freeburg

You are a green glass balloon, a lone bubble in a ball of sealed breath. You are a surface of hills and valleys, a cooled liquid. A frosted face and even skin.

You are old.

You were at sea, bobbing in the water under rain and stormy skies with a line to separate tempests and fish. You are a sailor's safety. You are thick. You are stained and dirty and dense. You own the shadows of the night sky.

Once you belonged to a gray-bearded man sitting on a steel stool, wrapping you around an iron pole and offering you his last breath. You took his air inside you and he gave you shape and meaning and life before he threw you into the ocean. You floated. Bobbed up and down, and your moment was the storm. The storm that let you ride on waves, swinging you into the sky. And you liked to circle in the salt water, make friends with kelp and gasp for air. And you liked to trick the sailors into wanting crab, and they would reach in and grab you and you would laugh, spin in their hands and dive back down until the pressure of water shot you up. You landed on the beach. And the rain cleaned you and you sat. You waited and waited and sat and waited for something. The old man's breath inside you.

Poetry Fourteen poets fill this section with mothers, daughters, sons; with dreams, promises, hauntings; with joy, pain and what lies in between.		Prose I am a world creator ... . I am a voice finder. (S. H. Aeschliman, “On Voice”) Meet five prose writers who will guide you into unique worlds and invite you to hear their creative voices.		Artwork Three photographers and two painters make the pages of this journal sparkle with color, light, variety.		Young Voices We are proud to introduce five emerging writers whose work shows a depth of talent and creativity that will delight you.		Contributors Here are the 27 authors and artists whose work make our first online issue so extraordinary.

LETTER FROM THE EDITORS POETRY         To the Friend Who Talked Me Down by Amy Schutzer         Memorial Day on South Greeley Avenue by Penelope Scambly Schott         Lost Rubies by Deborah Brink Wöhrmann         Everything between your palms by Jaime R. Wood         315C by Kristen Roedell         In 4th Grade, Sally Teaches Me the Bases by Betsy Fogelman Tighe         Swan Song by Jaime R. Wood         We by Carrie Padian         The Supplicant by Emily Pittman Newberry         Jailhouse Call by Kelly Running         spoon by Brandi Katherine Herrera         my in mind ungrammared kiss by Melanie Green         Beyond Reach by Leah Stensen         You must give up your dead by Kristin Roedell         Tree Ghosts by Tricia Knoll         Personal Interview by Penelope Scambly Schott         Fairy Tale I Haven't Read Yet by Donna Prinzmetal PROSE         One Small Thing Right by Nicole Rosevear         How Mom Played Sad by Sally K. Lehman         Running with Dragons by Trista Cornelius         High Priest by Robin Schauffler         On Voice by S.H. Aeschliman ART         Lush iii by Tina Tran         The Commuter by Denise Hrouda         Which Witch by Denise Hrouda         The Center of Two by Jolyn Fry         A Knot Unties by Jolyn Fry YOUNG VOICES         weight bags by Calli Storrs         No Parking by Frances Bringloe         Falling in Love by Chaquita McClendon         Go On Then, Gunslinger by Allison Stein         Fishing Float by Sage Freeburg CONTRIBUTORS