Delmarva Review

Spy Reprints “WOW” by Doris Ferleger

By

DorisFerleger

Author’s Note: “When my beloved husband was dying at age 59, I felt compelled to write…in the middle of the night…about living in the bardo of dying. (“As the Moon Has Breath,” published by Main Street Rag.) As years go by, new memories about our life together keep emerging. “Wow” was written as I pondered how calm we both were upon hearing his grave diagnosis. That calmness, looking back, was a tribute to the depth of our connection, and our shared spiritual practice that included facing, with fear, courage, tenderness and awe, the fragileness and impermanence of life. (Steven’s father died suddenly at age 57 two weeks before our son’s birth.) I write with immense gratitude to my dearest Steven, who announced at his 50th birthday party, it was his decade to practice dying and then began dancing like a phlonic bird with widespread wings.”

WOW

"NOTHING MUCH SURPRISES ME ANYMORE, except for the day my fanatically fit, nutritionally balanced husband was diagnosed with a Stage 4 brain tumor, but even then…"[Continue Story]

Spy Reprints “Godwit” by Michael Salcman

By

MichaelSalcman-1poem

Author’s Note: “We live in a migratory center for several of nature’s long-distance flyers, most famously the monarch butterfly, the subject of an earlier poem of mine. In 2016, I read a newspaper article about the Godwit, a bird that travels almost non-stop to South America after hatching in Canada’s Hudson Bay and visiting our shores for food and rest. No one knows how it does this. As a retired brain surgeon, poet and forty-year Chesapeake sailor, I was naturally drawn to the Godwit as a poetic subject.”... [Continue Story]

Spy Reprints “Confinement” by John R. Murray

By

JohnMurray

Author’s Note: “This short fiction explores that tension between what we think or know we should do and what we’re capable or willing to do. Inspired by people, places, and stories from my childhood, the piece focuses on a teenager trying to remain optimistic despite the resignation or limitation of the people surrounding him. One afternoon without planning it, he rejects the status quo, and a new world begins to open to him."...[Continue Story]

JohnMurray

Spy Reprints “Yes, Who Were Those People?” By Michael Brosnan

By

MichaelBrosnan

Author’s Note: “The occasion for this poem was attending a friend’s 50th birthday party and seeing his younger brother for the first time in 30-plus years. That small shockwave of recognition and surprise at his aging sent me heading down this poetic rabbit hole, where I found myself wanting to hold the moment briefly, then accelerate time at warp speed — as a reminder (mostly to myself) of this precious continuum that links us all.” ... [Continue Story]

Spy Reprints “The Beautiful Impossible” by Carl Boon

By

CarlBoon

Author’s Note: “The Beautiful Impossible”—speculative and oddly detailed—imagines the speaker before he was born, a figure who inhabits Nebraska and falls in love with a woman who ultimately turns away from him. At its core, the poem plays with questions we all ask at times: What would’ve happened had I done this instead of that? Would I be happier were I another? [Continue Story]

Boon Picture

Spy Reprints “Meditative Ducks” by Tara Gilson Fraga

By

TaraGilson

Author’s Note: For the last few years I have had the honor of working with children in special education. It has been a humbling and educational experience. Every time I think I understand, I realize how little I know. Christopher, the protagonist of this nonfiction story who has now graduated high school, is one such student who taught me much more than I expected...[Continue Story]

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