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Tooth by Angela C.
I received it from my sister
who received it from the zookeeper
who received it from the crocodile
himself.
Ivory, smooth surfaces
with razor sharp edges;
It was once surrounded by
many others like it.
But when the time came
and the crocodile
no longer needed it,
he sent it on its way.
Down the throat,
through the tubes,
and out it came
to be found by the zookeeper
Who gave it to my sister
who gave it to me
to hang
as a charm on my keychain.
Rush Hour by Charles H.
The sound a piggy bank makes when it shatters is the sound I think a car accident would make if it was that small. I try to imagine all the coins that would fall out of the tailpipe. And when I stagger out of the car, bleeding copper and tin, will anyone come and funnel it into a vial for the black market? Will anyone help me? Or will they run out onto the highway undaunted, the sound of coins against porcelain, the clanging of piggy banks, roaring over the oncoming traffic.
I Am Salmon by Zhanna M.
I am salmon. I am not a salmon. I am not the salmon. I am salmon.
It would be too much to give myself a title suggesting individuality. All salmon are the same, with identical pink underbellies and translucent fins and similar spotted dorsal patterns that face the surface. So many, too many, of us intertwine ourselves between each other, forming currents of flashing tails.
We are salmon. We swim, feed, and mature together as a mass of salmon clones. We are the idea of salmon, the image of salmon. We do nothing but fill the void in the Earth where salmon are supposed to be.
Two years ago, I was born in a freshwater stream. It is my origin, where I was created and born, but not my home. If it really were my home, I suppose I would feel much more remorseful about leaving this temporary abode, but nature wills us to gather and swim with the tide away from the only waters I have known. Now the heavy tides impel me onward.
And with only a slight feeling of guilt over my allegiances, I marvel. I know what it means to travel. It’s an amazing feeling to move from place to space. It makes me conjecture over salmon and purpose, and if there is any relation between the two. For the first time since my primal moment of birth, I can experience the power of something new. After two years of the same rocky patterns on the seabed and the unchanging, gray presence of murk, I see things that I don’t expect to see. I no longer know what is coming next. The water is so clear here, that when I swim close enough to the surface, a mirror image with my likeness glides above me. Fresh crops of seaweed wave at me from the rocky bottom and, every so often, a single folio strokes and tickles my underbelly.