Views and Mechanics Publisher's Note Editor's Note Review of A Man Without a Country Review of Gail's Place Review of Three 1-Act Plays Review of Yesterday's A Dream Crossword (Solution Posted in May. Printable version in pdf format of journal.) Jan/Feb Crossword Solution Creative Nonfiction Imagining Nora By Lisa Norris Loving the Fat Girl By Christina Fisanick Nate's Fish and Poultry Shop By G. David Schwartz The Folly of Valentine's Day By Andy Martello Poetry Hawk King By Wanda D. Campbell After the Rain By Wanda D. Campbell You Cannot Fold the Flood. By Mariela Perez-Simons And Darkness Fell By Beth L. Block Demise of a Family Resort By Carolyn Howard-Johnson The Asparagus Cutters By Joe Wilkins Fiction Voices By Ed Boyd Little White Sambo By Brett Alan Sanders Dies Irae By Timothy Reilly Follow By Dawn Paul Crumbs By Kim Tremblett Cover Art Photography by Seth Brown About the Contributors © 2006, River Walk Journal and respective authors and artists. All rights reserved. Do not use or reproduce without permission. River Walk Journal, Inc. Board of Directors Chairman - Elizabeth Ross Vice Chairman - Joseph Koch Secretary/Treasurer - Geri Stock-Ross Editorial Director - Patti Kurtz, DA Literacy Director - Bill Mausteller Policy Director - PA State Rep. Jess Stairs Advisory Board Chairman - Patti Kurtz, DA Asst. Chairman - Dan Lachenman, PhD Samuel Hazo Christopher Leland Edwin Yoder Joseph Bathanti Journal Staff Publisher - Elizabeth Ross Editor-In-Chief - Joseph Koch Sen. Fiction Editor - Patti Kurtz Sen. Poetry Editor - Neeldhara Misra Sen. Creative Nonfiction Editor - Brenda Coxe Contributing Editor - Robert Dittman Publicity Director (PA) - Geri Stock-Ross For information about submissions, visit http://www.riverwalkjournal.org/submission.html. Questions about promotions, subscribers' services, and advertising should be sent to publisher@riverwalkjournal.org. River Walk Journal, Inc. is a non-profit corporation run entirely by volunteers. For information about volunteer opportunities and internships, visit http://www.riverwalkjournal.org/volunteer.html. |
The Asparagus Cutters By Joe Wilkins The slender woman touches her face and feels the lines of the sun no more than a half hour old. She rubs a wet grit of dust across her skin. Her knife slides from her hand and falls. The girl, the sunrise of her hair wild about her face, looks up to see the knife blade slip into the earth and tremble, then slowly, still. The girl knows dirt dulls a knife, and she sees that her mother is crying again. And the muddy boys chase grasshoppers because they do not like creamed asparagus on toast and have no desire to contribute to its creation. Yet they have promised to fill their grocery bags with the soft green spears so they can run and root out the skunk smell of the woods their mother promised them. They run and run and laugh the crooks of the cottonwood trees, for unlike their older sister they do not yet understand what death means, even when it is the death of a young man who leaves behind a slender woman he loves, a daughter, and two small boys. |