by Bette Clark

She always apologized for her words, as if they would not measure up to something. When she let them out they danced through the air, hovering like dragonflies over a pond, not quite sure where to land but content to stay suspended, wings of gossamer glinting in the sunlight.

Once she wrote about shapes that were characters she carried around in her pocket to keep her company. These words sat cozily next to her skin, shielding her from the cold and urging her to venture out when she was tempted to stay hunkered in. There was a triangle with a giggle, a circle with an air of mystery, and a mischievous square.

This is not quite accurate because her words were difficult to catch: they moved quickly from a state of rest to one of random motion, like the light of fire flies captured briefly in a glass jar. They were ephemeral yet tangible, bursting with color yet quietly subdued. They were all these things because they were made from waves of light, sometimes like Japanese brush strokes, earth tones on an ecru canvas, barely visible yet spare and lovely. Other times they were bits of phosphorescent algae piercing black water with long-tailed comets of silvery white.

Her words were paintings in the air, not frozen on a surface, but suspended like drops of water, sometimes coming to rest, other times, evaporating, yet other times dripping like a tear. These were her words and they could not be measured.

by Leslie Yasner

I can remember how wonderfully secure I always felt when my grandmother held my hand. I felt invincible. I knew that nothing could ever hurt me as long as she was by my side.

On my first day of school I screamed like a banshee when my mother let go of my hand and turned to leave the classroom. I felt so alone and vulnerable.

Because I could not see well, I always felt so protected when someone would hold my hand. I knew for a fact that I would not get lost.

As I got older, hand holding took on a very different meaning. When my date held my hand I always felt a strong connection. I felt as if, for just that moment, the two of us were one.

I remember when my mom was dying in the hospital how very important it was for me to take her hand as soon as I entered her room. We could be there for hours and neither one of us could let go. It seemed as if the very act of hand holding could prolong her life on earth.

And when I go to funerals, I always like it when someone takes my hand. I feel so protected from any evil forces that may try to harm me. It also takes away some of the extreme sadness of the moment.

I am glad I have two hands, because whenever I’m walking with children I can extend a hand to each of them. That way they know that they are equally loved.

I wonder what it will be like for me to be in my grave. Whose hand would reach out to me, to comfort me, to make me feel safe?

By Elizabeth Shell Carr

Inspired by Langston Hughes’ “A Dream Deferred”

Once upon a time I was twenty, twenty-one years of age and I dreamed big. I wanted lots of hair, my Caribbean friends called it “tall” hair; girls of the Jersey shore described it as their “big” hair for Saturday nights. I dreamed of hair cascading around my shoulders, spilling down my back like a waterfall. In reality the resemblance was more like the short spurts of a water fountain. But, to be young is to be a dreamer.

Having big hair was not my only deferred dream. I dreamed too of having big breasts. I gazed for endless hours in the mirror, willing the little plums that sat there to morph into melons overnight, causing my knit sweaters to snuggle a little bit closer. What happens to a dream deferred? It strained and groaned and reshaped itself over time and over years-slowly the fruits of belaboring grew from plums to oranges. When finally the oranges became small grapefruits in size, along came a jokester called “aging” whose prancing steps led him into my dream to try and squeeze all the plumpness away!

But in 1970, I was dreaming the impossible dream. It lay sleeping, snoring loudly when president Lyndon B. Johnson woke it up. LB plunked his Texas tail down and by a stroke of his pen, designated my little working class neighborhood in East Flatbush, Brooklyn, a poverty zone. The bitter label of “poor” was sweetened by the opportunity of attending college. With a stipend…and with no tuition!!! Could a 26 year old married woman dare to dream of matriculating? Go to classes on the beautiful green quadrants of Brooklyn College? Yes! She could and she did. Once again, the dream deferred took on a life and shape heretofore unseen in my family. I became the first of the Shell sisters and brothers, parents and grandparents to graduate with a college degree. It was a time of turbulence and students protested the everyday normalcy while war was waged in Vietnam; many of them disdained wearing a gown. I, however, felt proud to wear the little white collar, that was draped atop the black shiny gown. And on my head sat the mortarboard. This was a really big moment. When my name was called, I moved in a dreamlike state to the podium, reaching for the scroll, glad my husband was present.

Still another dream was deferred since neither of my parents had made the trip from South Carolina to celebrate this achievement with me. They never dreamed of traveling so far from home. Other dreams have surfaced, danced in my head, took tentative steps toward slightly cracked open doors. I have had a life long affair with books and explicative words. The exigency of putting my own words into a form that endures beyond the present is now reaching, no, grabbing and twisting a response from within my being. I must write.

Maybe I’ll write the poems, the pointific prose, the memoir, the sublime or the ridiculous. But I must write it, or I will surely wilt up and dry up.

I’ve learned a small truth: that we need not be constrained by the accepted application of words whether big, huge, gigantic, immense, infinite, tremendous, or extraordinary; whether adjectives, nouns, or verbs. Life offers up those moments-fleeting and nonpareil-that a writer must try to capture faithfully or lose forever. I want to be that writer.

June 18, 2010 ESC/Brooklyn, NY

by Maryam Avazi

My master made me for the purpose of sitting in a modern art museum. My master made me to be aesthetic—that’s why humans continually come to look at me Tuesday through Sunday all year round. They are intrigued by the rope that surrounds my spirit.

by Shirley Williams

Where I’m from
I’m from a home where Mom’s always at work.

Where Dad sits in front of the T.V.
Watching the news or the sports channels.

Us children rushing to do homework before the sun goes down.

Playing street games.
Running around, sometimes in the rain.

Watching Mom cook special meals for us.
Smiling and learning to imitate her and what she does.

Saying I’m going to be a good cook just like you one day.
Not knowing that those words made her day.

Sun’s gone down, tomorrow’s a new day.
I guess we’ll start it all over again the same ole way.