Exterminating Angel Press

Creative Solutions for Practical Idealists.

family

Indefinitely.

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by Cheryl Vargas.

 

The legal size manilla envelope is too long to fit in the basket alongside my other folders, its size is as awkward as its contents. Inside are two long pieces of paper weightless, a sparrow’s feather.

I am pretty sure my brother’s death certificate can be shredded now. Five years is a long time to hold onto a useless date and cause.

It feels as if the ink has not completely dried on my mother’s document.

Loneliness is my father’s proper name. The envelope holds space enough for him. A paper trail, white and thin, a distant marker of surrender marching towards.

Grandfathered In.

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by Katherine Olsen. The alcohol running through my veins started in my grandfather’s. Who said that my inheritance would only come from grandma’s side? I never understood why my father would never watch us playing catch, I couldn’t understand why mom sent me off to grandpa, made me ask. My skinned knees trophies of athleticism, […]

Pop Song.

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by Virginia Bell. after Diane Seuss I met my father again in The Pleasure Chest on North Milwaukee, in the garden center on Clarke called Gethsemane, in a nightclub in Spain back when everyone was playing The Police on repeat, and he said to me, is that you, little chickadee, he said, like a monk […]

Compromise with the Air.

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by Marissa Bell Toffoli. The edge of the world glows in the evening, enchants city buildings. Take in the view from on high. Gossamer bridges span dappled bay water, the skyline floats above foundations. You stand like a lighthouse, rigid with responsibility, signaling endlessly from your precipice. Watch as a crow swoops through the scene. […]