Seattle Sunrise
Lindsay Pucci
Author: Marcelle Newbold
A Strong Man
A Strong Man
Jennifer Mills Kerr
Summers, our bikes leaned against the front porch; winters, our boots piled in heaps by the door. Chris and I couldn’t wait for his mom’s pancake breakfasts on Saturdays. Mrs. Riley was a round woman, freckled, cheerful. I was eleven when she died; an accident, everyone said, nothing more.
Soon afterward, Mr. Riley moved the family away — though he refused to sell the house. None of us knew why.
Now 34 Edgefield Road remains, sinking into the earth, dilapidated, forlorn. This morning, I watch sparrows fly in and out of its broken windows. Do they sing inside those empty rooms?
No sound except the sigh of wind through the elms, dappled light, a golden murmur around my feet. I imagine the tiny birds chirping inside the house with its creaking floors and scent of dirt, of rot — I can see it so very clearly — but if anyone invited me inside, would I go? Where’s Chris now?
I haven’t told my wife how frequently I come here since Arthur died. We still have Susan, of course: a promising girl, very different from her brother. Art came into this world burdened by melancholy. There was nothing I could do to change that. Sharon and I tried, but our son was just too heavy for us to carry. And I’d always imagined myself a strong man.
They found Art in his dorm room. Where he got the pills no one could say. Or would.
My heart, banging inside my chest as if to break loose. What was it Mrs. Riley always said? Let me get you a drink, sweetheart. You look spent. Iced tea, sweet and tart and cold. She’d watch as I gulped it down. There, now.
Suddenly, a sparrow appears from inside the house — though it doesn’t fly free. Instead, it perches upon one window’s jagged glass, preening, flickering its wings. There, now.
I wait. Not for the creature to sing, but to watch it fly, to a tree or into the light, anywhere, anywhere else. I’ve got to see.
The Light Fantastic
The Light Fantastic
Frances Boyle
I am new to this dancing, no more
the child who darts like rain
in and out of the circle. A woman
now, I follow the others, trip along
as grandmother shapes the steps,
shift and bend like she does, beginagain. We young women shimmer
in motion. Grandmother leads,
we all follow fascinated, take up
grandmother’s dance, we echo
the moon, little lights in our steps
we shift sideways, bend waists.In the row following grandmother,
I am learning her steps, making
each move shiny as I can, side turn,
step, clap and bend. Sun-shadow
pivot, bend and bow, side and back
forward now, with the shifting beams.And the mothers weave their steps fantastic
no longer following but embroidering
dazzling threads in steps and hops, shimmies
and shudders. Yes, sometimes, a shudder
of colour will unstitch one of the mothers’
prisms within the dance’s warp and weft.Variety in how we quilt the world, needing
the comfort of cloth. Conjure a cake box,
crushed, a lindy hop, tango tour
de force, two-step, or flamenco clap
and stomp. Step and sidestep, step and slide,
shift spectrum a nudged inch towards new.We heed the slide of lightning bolt,
its rusty screech and creak. Grandmother
dances beside us, with us, close enough
for comfort, approximately equal
but never identical. But, close enough
for jazz, we improvise starbursts freely.crystalline micropoems
In the leadup to our seventheeth issue ’crystalline’, we shared a series of micropoems from our talented submitters:
Letter from the Editor Crystalline Issue
Letter from the Editor
Dear Reader
Happy 2023, dear readers! We’re delighted to bring you this year’s first issue of Nightingale & Sparrow Literary Magazine, our seventeenth overall. For those who’ve been with us with the start—isn’t it strange to think that our little corner of the literary world has come so far?
When we announced our call for crystalline submissions, we offered the following prompt: “Whether they’re shining in the sunlight or sitting in a spell, crystals are quite literally multi-faceted. Tell us about icicles shimmering and quartz clusters gleaming. Write us an incantation or bring your most sparkling visions to life. Give us a glimpse of something crystalline.”
As always, our incredible submitters delivered this and more. In this first-ever N&S issue featuring exclusively poetry and visual art, we bring you work such as Karen Pierce Gonzalez’s “Amethyst Bark,” Jesse Breite’s “The American Style,” and “Amethyst Summer” by Cindy Rinne, each embracing a sense of sparkling stones.
Moving into the new year, we here in the “nest” are as grateful as ever for everyone who helps us bring this vision to life. With each new issue, press title, or announcement, we’re honored to present work from creators around the world.
Again happy new year—and enjoy crystalline.
Juliette Sebock
Editor-in-Chief, Nightingale & Sparrow
crystalline
Contents
ISSN 2642-0104 (print)
ISSN 2641-7693 (online)
Editor’s Letter
Founding Editor, Juliette Sebock
Poetry
The American Style Jesse Breite
Equestria Sarah Beck Mather
Hardened Clarity Danny Fantom
Smoke and Optimysticism R Hamilton
Opal Tide Emma Atkins
the prophecy is pink when I open it A.K. ShakourVisual Art
Dear Snowy Owl Cindy Rinne
Amethyst Bark Karen Pierce Gonzalez
A Dragon’s Tears Cindy Rinne
Emerald Sweet Gum Seed Karen Pierce Gonzalez
Amethyst Summer Cindy Rinne
Radiant Mel Piper
Metallic Bark Caves Karen Pierce GonzalezCover Image
Blue Crystal Bark Karen Pierce GonzalezMicropoems
In the leadup to poetry, we shared a series of micropoems across social media:
the prophecy is pink when I open it
the prophecy is pink when I open it
A. K. Shakour
some may say the future is Rosé
bottled from the south of France,
but i just care about how the grapes feel
when they hit my heart. truthfully,
i really don’t know what i want out of life
i wish i could uncork the answers to my questions
scream HAPPY NEW YEAR every single morning
because each day has 1440 minutes for my use,
lifetimes exist in the dirt under my fingernails,
how can i just pour this hope into my mouth?
i want it all, the big beautiful house and the babies
that i breast feed with the ease of a soldier.
i crave a wrap-a-around porch, purely for the aesthetic
since it’s the prettiest place to sit during the sunset,
but more than that i want to pack all my belongings
drive across the border to Vancouver, become
a nomad with a pen, scribble until i stop breathing.
i want to spend every last penny i have on plane tickets,
i’d be the main character in the movie, just for a second.
maybe i could be a baker in Europe, kneading bread
in a quaint cobblestone town. i want more experiences than
what will fit within the tight glass neck of a wine bottle.
meanwhile, i do nothing.
i sip the prophecy out of a sunflower mug given to me
as a gift on my birthday. i wish i could be reborn each day,
live in a mutant ninja turtle shell. be invincible,
or perhaps invisible. what is the difference?
the lines are fuzzy, pink panther mysteries,
do i want a diamond or a cat? i could explode.
i don’t want red or white, i want to bleed bubblegum pinkOpal Tide
Opal Tide
Emma Atkins
You took an opal ring from your pocket the second time we met.
It sparkled in the sunlight like ice-cream frost.
Secretive and sombre, you launched it into the water
and watched it sink ‘til it was lost.We’d waved at two boys floating past,
buoyant with youth and taken by the tide.
As it had them, the sea would steal away that past lover’s ring:
another opal pebble for the ocean to hide.Smoke and Optimysticism
Smoke and Optimysticism
R Hamilton
This time’ll be different, you’ll see.
This time, in the future I’ve laid out
for us together, the icicles are thicker
and colder and the snow much more
firmly packed as we retreat messily
before the burgeoning, hot-breathed
Spring. It will all work out fine, I know
now, if we can only unhear the squeals
and cracks of our self-absorbed footsteps
splintering the bright veneer of blinding,
frozen crust stretching out endlessly to the
North, South, West and East, and elsewhere.
