Views and Mechanics Publisher's Note Memories of the Body Broken Review of Ambition Is Not a Dirty Word Review of The Blood of Flowers Review of The Girl Who Stopped Swimming Review of The Poet Laureate of People Who Hate Poetry Creative Nonfiction My Boo Radley By Rebecca Ward A Walk in the Park By Madonna Dries Christensen Poetry Hearts and Diamonds By Andrena Zawinski It Was Then I Kissed Her By Andrena Zawinski In By Andrena Zawinski Death of Word By Tony Brown Fiction Being Caught Up With My Ego By David Landrum A Voice In My Head Screamed By J. A. Tyler About the Contributors © 2008, 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 - Kenneth Weiss, Ed.D 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 Senior Editor - Patti Kurtz Editor - Elizabeth Murray Copyeditor - Kathy Skaggs Publicity Director (PA) - Geri Stock-Ross For information about submissions, visit http://www.riverwalkjournal.org/subs.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 VolunteerMatch. |
It Was Then I Kissed Her By Andrena Zawinski The sky a flutter of birds just before the day turned dark, she sometimes might be sitting sometimes might be reading something a Conrad or Faulkner novel, something she salvaged from thrift shop stacks. The night a clamor of crickets rubbing their wings in early dark, she sometimes might be sitting, sometimes writing something, long letters in fine points of memory traveling short distances, just across town. The nightbirds rioting the green of trees, a cacophony of crickets under an indigo sky, she sometimes might be complaining about something, those next door kids out too late, the plot of grass she paid to have mowed turned a dried mud patch. The crickets almost a deadening drone, Nightbirds a mutter settling into the trees, I sometimes might be leaning into her then to kiss her quickly on her cheek, she most times pulling back, shooing me off like some unexpected Junebug grazing the face. And night birds would flutter the trees, and crickets would rub in the dark and kids would go in for their beds, and the book would close in on its leaves, and letters would be licked shut, and she would frown when she thought I wasn’t paying attention to something. And neither of us would ever admit it was not much longer for this kind of living, and then when the sky went really dark, and the birds were really quieted and the crickets stopped their wild song, then, for the first time, in her casket, I kissed her, hard, and on the mouth. |