by Tad Tuleja

I do not often see the faces of the dead. But sometimes, in a lucid dream, they tug at my memory, reminding me of what I have gained and what I have lost. In the hour of the wolf one October morning, the chill just whisking down from Alberta to Texas, I am half awake in the darkness and watching a parade.

I am five or six years old and sitting on the curb, just near the spot where Livingston Avenue runs into George Street. The parades come down Livingston from the high school,

by Joyce Lee

You know the insanity has always been there, hidden within the stories, secreted from the norm.

It’s there when, as a child, you sit by the lake with your younger cousins, weaving stories of sun fairies and shadow gnomes that dance on the wind-kissed water. They giggle and ask for more, and it’s just a story to them, but you see defined essences latent in the alternating sparkles and shadows, skimming the skin of your reality even as they skitter across the surface of the water, a refined actuality that soothes and satisfies,

by Laurie Blauner

photo by Tony Wallin-Sato

As a teenager I was exuberantly ashamed of my crooked teeth, although they weren’t my only problem. If I did smile, I covered my teeth with my palm. So my usual facial expression was comprised of rococo motifs that formed an impression of seriousness and concentration. This was fixed with braces and a horrible contraption called an “orthodontic headgear” that consisted of metal rods, one that circled the outside of my mouth and one inside that was connected to my braces, plus a strap around the back of my neck that forcibly moved my teeth with its cinching.