Caroline Weaves My Rugs
Sarah Black
I was fascinated by the colors. The landscape around Rough Rock is tumbled rust and yellow sandstone,
rough, scrubby plants like rabbitbrush and snakeweed, dusty sage green with pale yellow flowers, prickly pear
with its deep rose fruit, juniper and pinion pine.
Whisper
Adam Cogbill
He wonders if his mother ever has the urge to make brownie batter
and stick her head in the mixing bowl and eat herself sick. Maybe
his father would like to spray the driveway with water and let it
freeze.
Respite
Dane Myers
My husband likes tame sex-slow, gentle, and quiet. His clothes smell like Right Guard and the vanilla scent he gets at the car wash. Now I'd like a full-mooned night of wild, end-of-the-world, sweaty sex with furry velvet ties, drops of fuchsia wax, and clawed fingernails, or so I imagine.
Rock Music
Mark Joseph Kiewlak
Bobby placed his fingertips gently upon the pebbly surface of the rock. Wouldn't it be happier if it could play the piano, too?
Churning
Tara Selby Smith
John showed me things. Like where to find wild strawberries in
June, how to tell the time by the sun and my way by the stars, which mushrooms
made good eating...But he wasn’t like Pa at all. No, being with John was like
picking the first peas in the warm July sun after a long winter.
Backward and Forward
Joy Raab-Faber
Aiming from below my hip, I pressed the shutter, again and again;
walking backward in front of her, I captured the images of her leaving,
resolute, pressing forward, out of my life.
A Blue Turncoat
Gerard Sarnat
Baseball being a sport of tradition and statistics...who do you
vote for as the greatest player ever?
And Somewhere Men are Laughing
Len Joy
I can’t begin to explain why sitting in the hot sun on hard wooden seats for
four hours watching the Cubs lose to the Padres or the Pirates or the Mets
would be so much fun.
Send comments to: editor (at) slowtrains (dot) com.
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Rave On
August 27, 2008
Welcome to Slow Trains, where the postcards never stop.
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Slow Trains in print & Best Online Journals, guest-edited by Pam Houston
La Chispa
Susannah Indigo
The production of something does not make you an
artist, according to Estes, and it's hard to argue with that when
you think of the considerable production of junk in our world.
The soul makes you an artist.
sophistication pales
against
the rhythm
of slow trains
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Radio Springsteen
John G. Rodwan, Jr.
I thoroughly enjoyed seeing Springsteen at Madison Square Garden, but I might never have gone there if, years before, I had not heard the right song at the right time on the radio somewhere.
A Tribute to Winter
Susie Weber
Frozen in their yogic formations, the branches delicately extend like the fragile fingers of a dancer—a silhouette of limbs. The trees stand tall outside my window as I lie warped on our wine-colored couch, lost in the emptiness of my mind.
On Harmony
Kaitlin Dunnevant
The melodic third, for instance, is much more than a melodic third. It can layer a chord with richness, New York cheesecake drizzled with dark Godiva chocolate.
Our continuing section on peace & politics during these critical times
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Ringo, What Am I Living For?
Mary Ann Mayer
I light up in bars. / Get ideas. / Like Ringo. /
Who knew he’d composed more songs than Lennon-McCartney?
From a Roman Villa
Marciano Malvar Guzman
Turn around / Beneath your window / the things we love / are bursting /
into a world of daylight
Cashmink Smile
Carl Leggo
how would my life be different if / when Jesus said /
Take my yoke upon you / I had heard Take my joke upon you
Van Gogh
Laura Sobbott Ross
Was it the lead paint, / the absinthe, the canvas walls /
he hovelled and howled behind?
The Fish Dream
Yun Wang
A six pound carp leaped into my lap, its round mouth reached for
my breasts. I jumped and saw a black pond in which galaxies swim.
In the Neighborhood of Chocolate
Jeff Dutko
I love its neatly sectioned off rows /
and imagine driving through them / in a tiny confectionary Porsche convertible
Long Division
Patrick Carrington
All the geometry she tried / the bending before Mary / the slanted walks in the rain /
couldn't stop the reversal to what / I told her was not quite true
osprey
devin wayne davis
dawn, come upon the rail / as morning trains / continue to pull in & out
My Mother’s Doves
Julie Eger
Fifteen years later she told me about the doves / how she pictured them every day, pecking away /
the little pieces of cancer and carrying them / to a place where they couldn’t hurt her anymore

Books from Slow Trains writers
All material in Slow Trains is copyrighted to the original authors and may not be reproduced without permission. Violators will be prosecuted.
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