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I am not so sure it is “we” who look back. The commemorating imagination seems to come alive on its own. We are not the sole instigators of remembering; memory seems to push itself on us.
By James HillmanFebruary 2022“Hi, it’s just me.” This might be the only phrase I know for sure / was on the years of messages the phone company erased / when they — inexplicably — changed my number. / The messages are gone, but the grief is still there, / ripe, a fullness I’m glad I possess. We think we want grief / to pass, but what would I do if it were gone, / like the messages, irretrievable?
By Jane HilberryFebruary 2022A new feature in the magazine, A Thousand Words features photography so rich with narrative that it tells a story all on its own.
February 2022I wondered if I had stumbled upon some universal principle: the more beautiful the illusion, the more egregious the lie.
By Sam RuddickFebruary 2022I counted because I had told myself that if the count was right, my mother would be spared. My father would not die. My older sister, Jeanne, would make it to high school. But only if I kept the count.
By Gary PercesepeFebruary 2022Seeing and hearing are selective. We register what is needed at the moment and unconsciously ignore other input. It may seem that our eyes are like a camera and our ears are like microphones, objectively recording everything, but . . . our senses are not at all like those devices.
By Mark LevitonFebruary 2022Six weeks ago my wife walked into our living room to find me curled up on the couch, sobbing. In our twenty-one years of marriage we had experienced a lot of griefs, big and little, but she’d never seen me cry like this.
By Lisa DordalJanuary 2022Staying at home with my books and out-of-tune piano / and a cat who loves me only when she’s out of food is nothing new. / I’m OK. Thank you for asking. I have become quite used to sending / thoughts and prayers to those who keep the world going round / while I spin old punk records — Dead Kennedys, Buzzcocks, Crass — / lamenting days long past.
By Norman MinnickJanuary 2022Lovely things, the railings. When it’s raining just right — half raining, the way it so often does here — the spiderwebs spun across the rails collect mist and shine, so that the Corrib looks like it’s swathed in sequined cloth.
By Mohan FitzgeraldJanuary 2022No one would admit that they’d stolen my phone, so Manager threatened to call a juju priest to settle the issue spiritually.
By Blessing J. ChristopherJanuary 2022Personal, political, provocative writing delivered to your doorstep every month—without a single ad.
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