What We Think We Need, by Gwen Glazer

In a house:

• furniture

• dishes

• computers (multiple)

• clothes for all seasons

• 20 pairs of shoes (rain boots, hiking shoes, high heels, sneakers, walking sandals,       

   strappy sandals, etc. etc. etc.)

• photo albums

• backup hard drives

• gardening equipment

• empty cardboard boxes

• empty reusable bags

• empty yogurt containers

• broken things you think you'll fix eventually

• spare keys

• many bottles of nail polish

• a library's worth of books

• 10 million chargers and cords

• everything old that might be useful someday

• everything your grandmother ever gave you

• your spelling bee trophy from fourth grade

In a single room:

• furniture, less

• dishes, fewer

• computer (one)

• as many clothes as you can jam in the closet

• only your favorite shoes

• all the photo albums

• forget the backup hard drive and your yellow walkman that still plays tapes and the   

   stupid trophy

• no more gardening equipment; there is no more garden

• a few boxes and just enough empty yogurt containers to store leftover soup

• your favorite 7 shades of nail polish only

• your favorite 70 books only

• only the chargers and cords for electronic devices you actually still own

• nothing old that no longer serves a purpose

• nothing broken

• only your grandmother's best oil painting of the rooftops near the river, and the silk 

   scarves she loved, and the rolling pin her own grandmother gave her

In a single suitcase: 

• 7 pairs of underwear, 2 bras, 1 pair of jeans, 1 pair of yoga pants, 1 skirt, 3 T-shirts, 

   1 cardigan, 1 rain parka

• hiking shoes and sandals

• 1 "best of" photo album

• no backup anything

• no spare anything

• forget the dishes, you'll find some when you get there

• 1 empty plastic bag

• 3 books, chosen because they have the most pages and the smallest print and will 

    keep you occupied for the longest amount of time

• your phone charger and your laptop only

• nothing old OR new

• the prettiest silk scarf

In a small backpack:

• underwear, cardigan, 2 shirts, jeans

• only the shoes on your feet

• only the lightest book, with the best photos stuck inside

• the laptop (can't live without)

• nothing empty

• keep the scarf

In a shoebox:

• forget the extra clothes

• the laptop won't fit no matter how you try it

• a thick mass market paperback

• the scarf

• the photos

Inside your own fist:

• can you figure out a way to get the scarf inside, like a magician, so not even a tiny  

   corner of the blue paisley silk pokes out?

3 Short Pieces, by Sara Robbins

1.

Maybe it's O.C.D.

But I think of you too often —

A person who no longer exists.

I wear a perfume from the past —

No one notices but me.

My secrets ooze from my pores,

Silent but present.

And when I wake up,

And when I lie down,

And when I dream:

You are still with me.

2.

You'll need directions

Don't be alarmed

It's off the beaten path

Oh you've heard about it

Well, go slowly, the driveway is rough

Yes, the winters can be long

Yes, the road gets plowed

But the wind! You should feel the wind!

Even in winter, that's a joke by the way.

The summer breeze, that's what you'll want to feel.

Up here, up on the top of a big hill,

There's always a sweet clean breeze.

Wear walking shoes and hurry.

3.

Come on over and eat garlic with me.

We have all that fresh stuff that

somebody grew — just harvested.

Come and sit next to me while

I peel and chop garlic,

and onions and even shallots

or leeks from that farm you'll

drive past to get here.

Come over and sit right there.

Olive oil, garlic — it goes from there —

and soon

we're simmering.

Something smells wonderful.

Use what you have.

Today we have garlic.

Come over.

To My Big Sister, by Margaret Strumpf

There was that one hour

when we climbed into my bed together, 

each wearing white flannel pajamas 

with red apples on them, 

and waited to hear Santa land on our roof.

There was the hour that I spent lying on my stomach

outside our bedroom door

breathlessly awaiting

the next installment of your comic strip

to be completed and released from the other side.

There was the hour after I saw you

as the beautiful lead in the high school play,

dressed in satin and so convincingly someone else altogether

that I burst into tears of relief 

when you came out of the green room door

as yourself.

There was the Barbra Streisand hour.

You gave me her album for my birthday

because you knew I would love it,

be impaled by the voice and the sentimentality.

I stood over the turntable mouthing every syllable,

imagining I was as talented as she, as talented as you.

There was the hour you spent painting me in water colors, 

naked and fresh from the shower, 

hair in a towel, arms over knees in a pose that is my own.

You change mine to a gypsy's face to protect my privacy.

There were the hours spent recording stories for my children;

told with growly bear voices and squeaky mouse voices,

told by grumpy kings and cockney milkmaids,

replete with purring villains and feminist heroes. 

We all laughed together, young and old, as we listened

on our long car trips.

There was that hour, not far past dawn, 

when I awoke to find you studying the metro map

so you could guide me smoothly around Paris.

Later, in the Tuileries Gardens, you had your tall beer and I my short aperitif,

still perfect companions. 

(inspired by the poem "The Book of Hours," by Joyce Sutphen)

Of Patience, by Donna Holt

The cup that holds the tea

doesn't question the leaves' right to steep

doesn't judge them

for needing heat and time

to release their full flavor.

The cup doesn't think the tea weak

for the tears of condensation that

run down its sides

collect in a puddle at its base

leave a ring on the table beneath.

The cup doesn't ask the tea why it can't be

more like coffee

or hot cocoa

or soup.

The cup just holds

— just holds.

Blessed be the cup.

Blessed be the tea.

Blessed be that both might be me.

(inspired by the poem "The Patience of Ordinary Things," by Pat Schneider) 

Missed Connections: Craigslist, by Kathy Schaufler

That’s a lot of yearning, a lot of wishin’ and hopin’

From nothing, everything can just grow out of your head…

Two smiles, and she is calculating the number of bridesmaids.

LouAnn said: I can tell he’s the one. He lives in Indiana and now I’m seeing Indiana license plates all over.

LouAnn said: Okay, this is the one. He’s a cyclist and I’m seeing bikes all over.

LouAnn said: This is the one. He lives in a cabin on a lake in Tully.… but he didn’t. When he wasn’t with her, he was living with another girlfriend in Endicott.

LouAnn said: Okay, really. This is the one. We finish each other’s sentences. Time passes effortlessly when we’re together. He’s given me his dead mother’s necklace. It’s real silver. My kids like him. My dogs like him. But his wife is so possessive, like, she won’t let him leave.

I said: He’s a freelance writer. He’s easy to talk to. He answers all my questions. His stepdad got sick and died last year, so he knows what’s going on with me. He wants to walk with me in my woods. He wants to go out to eat in all the local restaurants.

I said: He has at least three ex-fiancés. He doesn’t really like dogs.

I said: He proposed and they accepted, but then they wised up and left. The one named Velvet even kept the ring.

Then I said: He will like my dogs.

Then I said: He isn’t going to visit. But maybe I’ll visit him.

Then I said: He said he would kick the old dog.

So I said: He wouldn’t really. Look, he wrote a poem about her.

And Joni Mitchell said: When you gonna realize they’re only pretty lies…

…

And the web said: There’s a point where he has the same response to you that he has to a toaster he has broken.

…

…

So I said: Okay, you’re all absolutely right. I’m letting go because it’s the right thing to do.

…

…

…

But my heart said: You were the beautiful, tall, acerbic one. We would have been perfect together.

…

…

…

…

Then LouAnn said:

That looks like a broken toaster somebody just kicked down the stairs.

I Would Like To Paint, by Natalie Detert

I would like to paint

                the tears clinging to her long dark lashes

                the feminine way she always holds her body

                the carpet of dew left behind in the lifting fog

                the words the cat spoke to me as I stroked his hot fur in a

                bath of sunlight

                the smell of fermenting yeast bubbles, rising from the

                bowl into the kitchen to greet me

                the self-doubt of parenting

                the air she wears in 3-inch heels

                the tendril of her hair, fallen from her haphazard bun to

                the nape of her neck

                the feel of her cheek’s tender, waking skin on my

                parched lips with a good-morning kiss

                the electric currents that flow through the closed circuit

                of hands held in love and desire

                the inner workings of his steel-trap mind

                the questions I never ask, the truths I never speak, and 

the fears I always suppress

                the allure of a majestic tree

                the human heart of darkness in each of us

                the sprout, bursting at the seams of its seed shell

                the chorus of robins that descended into the garden for

an impromptu concert of familiar song by an 

                unknown composer

                the openness of learning

                the disregard of her chocolate-smudged face as she

                savors every lick of the ice cream cone

                the dust in the air of my father’s furniture workshop 

                the sound of church bells competing on Sunday morning

(This piece was inspired by the paintings of Lilla Cabot Perry)

The Tourist, by Susan Dixon

The narrow street gives no hint of where it has come from and where it is going. The buildings that line it loom over the occasional passersby, encouraging them only to hurry on their way and not speculate about what might be behind the doors. This is the land of troubadours and heresy, foie gras and truffles. Nothing in guidebooks is of any use. To get answers, one needs connections.

Behind a cloudy window set into the front of one of these buildings, a cat perches on a shelf, watching for the mice that often run along the window frame. Beside her are five books lined up side by side. Not recent titles, nor even particularly interesting. The dust jackets are faded and their edges curled. I look at my map and the Post-it I have stuck on it with the address — 45 rue Catarine. This has to be it.

A small card beside the door mounted in a brass frame reads:

Cristophe Durand

Scholar, Bookfinder, Bookseller

M,T,W 10-12, 2-4 and by appointment

“He knows more than anyone else,” the man in the café had said. “Runs in the family, you know.”

Well, I didn’t know but I have always wanted to find something wonderful in a flea market — the perfect lamp or an undocumented early Picasso — and an old bookshop is just as good. There is something about this street, though, that makes me think a man in a top hat and walking stick might come round the corner. I feel out of place in my jeans.

I look again at the little card. “Scholar, Bookfinder, Bookseller.” It will have to do. I glance up as though expecting someone to lean out over the wrought iron balcony. There is only the light on the cracked stucco. I turn the heavy knob. The door sticks and I have to put my weight against it. It scrapes open, jangling a little bell that hangs from the frame.

The room is lined with bookshelves on all sides and each shelf is jammed with books, standing up, lying down, and, towards the floor, jumbled willy-nilly. On top of the shelves, below the ceiling are bits of stone carved in strange shapes — grimacing faces, hybrid animals, and fantastic plants curling around twisting birds. The room smells of dust, leather, and tobacco smoke.

Piles of inventories and invoices cover a desk. The cat jumps onto one of the piles and waits for me to explain myself. In a sudden panic I realize that no one in the world knows where I am. Will the man in the café remember he talked to me when someone comes round asking officially concerned questions? Why did I ever think anyone would tell me anything? I have only the one clue to go on and no one on any of the forums ever heard of such a thing. I think of the woman in the hotel who gave me a blank look as though my question was only to be expected from someone “not from here.”

Anyway the cat is freaking me out, so I turn for the door again when a small, wiry man wearing a smock and beret emerges from the back carrying a stack of books. He evidently does not expect to see me, in spite of the jangling bell, and he looks at the cat as though they both think I might be some kind of mutant mouse.

He humphs a greeting through teeth that clench his pipe, crosses the room, and begins moving books about to make inadequate space for the new ones. I stand waiting, my fingers playing with the strap of my backpack. I might be a new and none-too-welcome potted plant for all he pays attention to me.

“No wonder he has no customers,” I think.

No point leaving now, though, so I say, “Sir, excuse me … “

“What is it?” He does not pause in his work.

“I am looking for something and an old man at the café told me …”

“An old man?” he says, rather more sarcastically than strictly necessary. 

“Well,” I say. "He was sitting by the fire. I thought ..."

The man shoves books onto the shelf, his back to me. I am getting nowhere but I try one more time.

“He told me about the wine. He said I should talk to you.”

He does look at me then, taking the pipe out of his mouth. I have said something that got his attention.

“I assume,” he says, “you have come about the ghost.”

Buttons are a Big Deal, by Peggy Adams

Buttons are a big deal. Think about it — buttons jump into sayings more than safety pins, maybe even more often than needles. She’s cute as a button. All dressed up in her buttons and bows. Button your lip! Feeling unbuttoned.

Buttons are cute, little, precious, innocuous. Buttons are old or young — nobody over 24 or under 83 is cute as a button. Buttons are round, useful, everywhere you look, unnoticed, unimportant until you lose one. The best buttons are simple — if your winter coat has four buttons, each black and shiny with a blue rhinestone in the middle, and you lose one, and the coat-maker has not sewn an extra one into the lining, you are out of luck. 

The Amish, the plain people, find buttons too worldly, too decorative, too proud — pins or hooks-and-eyes for them, they shun buttons. Nobody Amish ever says, “Cute as a button.”

If you lose your buttons you are nuts, but in a cute and inoffensive way. You bumble around, you are ditzy, you forget things. You lose your buttons in the same place you lose your marbles, probably. Losing your buttons is not as bad as not having a full deck.

“Buttons and Bows”— a song I always think is from "Annie Get Your Gun," though it’s not. Must be the part about “East is east and west is west.” Buttons and bows are East: prim, proper, fastened neatly, decorated. Annie Oakley, the gun-toting Queen of the West, did not wear buttons and bows with her fringed buckskins and her cowgirl hat. No buttons and bows for Annie!

Button your lip. Now, that’s a little gangsterish, right? I bet your mother didn’t say, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, button your lip!” It’s more Al Capone to Bugs Moran — not cute, curt. A lot more like “Shut up!” than “Please be quiet.”

Feeling unbuttoned — ahhh, that’s better. Feels good to be among friends, unconstrained, not too worried about being covered up.  Undo a couple of buttons, let your shape slump or bulge, no need for caution.

Button, button, who’s got the button? Little buttons. Not so little.  They keep our clothes on, which is often a good thing. They litter our junk drawers, and often, our conversations.

The Clock, by Sue Perlgut

It sat over the fireplace. An ornate clock, coppery gold with a large face and two keys to wind it. My father's job. Almost like a meditation, every morning he would take the key and wind. The soft gear turning was my signal that all would be well. Everyday, the key, the winding, my father. The world orbiting as it was supposed to. 

I would stand on my toes and watch the clock hands turn and if I was lucky, I would be there for the hour ding. The click first, as if the hand were getting ready for a big job. Then the ding. Every hour. 

I own that clock now. When my brother and I were cleaning out my father's place, and were being kind to each other, I pointed to the clock and he nodded yes. It got packed up and sent back East in one of the 13 boxes of stuff that I couldn't live without. I'm the sentimental one. 

On the Tuesday morning I was to leave California and all the things that were familiar to me from childhood, knowing whatever I left behind would be gone forever, I grabbed the quilt and blanket off the bed I had been sleeping in and thrust them at my brother, asking him to please pack them up and send them to me. That's what I mean about being sentimental. 

I've always lived in small spaces. My bedroom growing up was the smallest room in the house. It was supposed to be my brother's room, but the painter made a mistake and painted it pink. It became mine. 

Living in New York City all my apartments were small, so I developed the ability to live compactly and without a lot of stuff. 

Our house in Ithaca is compact too. My husband waited with trepidation for the 13 boxes to arrive, wondering where they would all go. I just smiled and told him not to worry. 

They started to arrive two or three at a time. I unpacked them as quickly as possible, but got diverted with memories as I carefully unwrapped the green depression glass plates, tea cups and saucers that my mother had eaten off of when she was a child. The wine red and green pottery vases that were as familiar to me as my right hand. The white fluted bone china that my parents had purchased in London in the mid-50's. Dinner plates, lunch plates, soup bowls, dessert bowls and plates, tea cups, saucers, demitasse cups and saucers, serving dishes, gravy bowl, sugar bowl and creamer. Twelve of each dish. I like a challenge 

I set the clock on top of the piano and smiled. I ran my fingers across the now tarnished body that was more brown than gold. As if I were still that little girl waiting for the clock to chime, and with great anticipation I opened the glass covering of the face, took the key and turned it. And, nothing. No satisfying gear turn, no click, no ding. 

No father to ask how to do it. No father to ask. 

No father. Mute like the clock. No click, no ding. Never again. 

Red Door/Black Door 406, by Alice Damp

This piece was inspired by a photograph taken in 2006 of a storefront that had two different doors with the same address.  It’s located on Tompkins Avenue between Jefferson Avenue and Hancock Street in New York City.

While his mom went in red door 406 she said he could go into black door 406. That was ok with him because that’s where the toys were. Also stationery, but who would be interested in that? You could tell it was a good toy store because there were no dolls in the window – just cars and model airplane kits and Star Wars action figures. The place was a storefront in the City. Curiously, both doors were numbered the same, but it was unclear where the red door led – up some stairs maybe.

They knew him pretty well at black door 406 because his mom went in red door 406 fairly often. Sometimes she gave him money to buy something. “What’ll it be today?” asked Jerry behind the cash register. He had bushy eyebrows and black beard stubble. He and his brother Larry ran the store.

“I don’t know, I have to look.” Hands in his pockets he walked slowly down the toy side of the store, eyes roving slowly and judiciously over kits of model airplanes, trains, and ships. He stopped and turned a revolving display of die-cast old cars: Thunderbirds, Mustangs, Corvettes, race cars.

He felt the sweat drip down his cheeks underneath his driver’s helmet. The motor throbbed beneath him. The dirt track was clear through his goggles. Just up ahead he could see the green fenders of the last car he had to pass before he was ahead. Then it was a clear straight run to the checkered flag. A hundred thousand dollars would be his! His mom could quit going to red door 406 and his dad could quit his second job. He couldn’t hear it because the engine noise was too loud, but the crowd was roaring. They were on their feet, waving pennants and cheering!

“Aren’t you going to visit me today?”  The whisper in the back corner of the store broke through his day dream. More a hiss than a whisper. He opened his eyes, and turned toward the bookshelf in the corner. The book stood upright and slightly open on the shelf. “Psst,” it said. He looked around. Jerry was talking to a customer at the front of the store.

The book ruffled its pages. He walked slowly toward it. “I’ve got information for you,” it said. “What?” he said. “I think you should know what your mother does at red door 406,” it said. “Why?” he said. “I think you’re old enough now,” it said. “What does she do?” he said. “Before you do anything about it, you have to tell me what you’re going to do,” it said. “Why?” he said. “So I can talk to you about it,” it said. “Why?” he said. “Look at my title,” it said.  “Grimms’ Fairy Tales,” he read aloud.  “Yes,” it said. “Because we aim for as many people as we can to live happily ever after,” it said.