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Like Sunshine by Helen Rowe
It is June. We are staying at your parents’ house on your two-week leave before you deploy again. I always love coming here. Not just because we are surrounded by family, and your mom is the best cook on the West Coast, but we have so much history here. Our relationship took root in this valley, it bloomed and grew and became a stepping-stone to the rest of our story. Our first apartment was in this valley town and the memories are saturated in these streets like the hot summer sun.
We are in your parents’ pool. Little Man is inside playing with Grandma, and we are enjoying the momentary break from being parents. We’re both floating on ridiculous pool toys. We’re darker than when we first got here. My tan, round belly is sticking up out of the water. I am almost four months pregnant with our twins. Our baby girls will join us later this year. I look over at you. You are tanned and relaxed as you float and look up at the cloudless sky. I am so in love with you.
No Good Word For That Alchemy by Paul Barach
Every time I stand beneath a Coastal Redwood my mouth hangs open as a thousand words try to escape from my chest all at once.
Every time, the only one that makes it through is a confounded “How?”
How can something grow so titanic?
I know the short answer: it’s a plant, a genetic byproduct of water, carbon dioxide, and sunlight. Redwoods just get a little overzealous about it.
I even know the long answer; a seed the size of a grain of sand falls hundreds of feet to the soil. With enough sunlight, water, luck, and time, a sentient monolith the width of a Boeing 747 soars into the sky, spreading out branches the size of tree trunks with twigs the size of saplings, tall enough to shade the Statue of Liberty’s torch.
And still, “How?”
What other word fits when witnessing a miracle?
A Letter to Sekani Isaac by Judy Cuellar
This morning I woke up from dreaming or it was more like a visitation to another timeline of another version of my life. Somehow, I found myself lucid dreaming. I was telling you how I thought I should share about our abortion story. Funny thing… how the Divine eases us into the deep murky waters of the places we’ve convinced ourselves were a closed chapter.