December Spotlight
Yemassee Online’s December 2019 offerings of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry possess both a gravity and a softness fitting for December. Collected together in the spotlight, we feel they form a surprising but harmonious union in the year’s final month.
Poetry: “For K” by Darren Donate
The great lone Spanish words, like a Castilian ship
come into full view when the air is still.
Poetry: “Falling In the Direction of Up” by Kurt Luchs
Are birds jealous of angels
because they can fly in realms beyond the physical?
Poetry: “Hunger Strike” and “Say anything but” by Ashley Roach-Freiman
What kind of violator are you?
The world is a ridiculously human place
that wounds forever.
I want to be hungry ‘til I die.
Poetry: “THE LIL’ CLOUD FACTORY” by Pablo Piñero Stillmann
OK, so they were right: it’s not financially viable. We put an ad in the local paper, but no one has any interest in purchasing our Franco-Austrian cloud machines. Abby writes a titan of industry reminding him that clouds have cool names like stratocumulus.
Fiction: “All Parent Email” by J.S. Dewey
Dear Parents,
I wish I could say I was up at the whiteboard this morning, on my feet, differentiating clauses and verb choices for students, making their sentences pop with a medley of dry-erase colors. Instead I’m bunkered into the corner of my classroom typing a defense of my lesson.
Non-Fiction: “Wait” by Ron Riekki
One of the EMTs talks about a medic walking into his ambulance company to ask for directions. The H.R. person is there, gives him the directions. Before he leaves, he happens to mention that he’s a medic. She tells him to hold on, would he like a job?