by Diane Payne
At the quiet neighborhood beach, I notice two women calling out a boy’s name. The mother points to her nine-year-old son and says, “He was supposed to be watching him.” Nine months pregnant, I jump into the lake and start searching for the boy. I find him with his snorkel mask on and yell for someone to call 9-1-1. I haul the boy to shore and try to revive him. The EMT folks takeover and the mother turns to the other kids and asks if they’d like a peanut butter sandwich. I touch my swollen belly and feel an unbearable hunger, a foreseeable loss.
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Some of Diane’s most recent publications include: Cutleaf Journal Miracle Monacle, Hairstreak Butterfly, Invisible City, Best of Microfiction 2022, Another Chicago Magazine, Whale Road Review, Fourth River, Tiny Spoon, Bending Genres, Your Impossible Voice, Book of Matches, Watershed Review, Superstition Review, Windmill Review, Dunes Review,Table Feast Literary Magazine Lunch Ticket, Miramichi Flash, Mukoli: The Magazine for Peace The Offing, Elk, and McNeese Review. More can be found here: dianepayne.wordpress.com.
Image: Cam Brennan
ID: a shoreline with grass, trees, and sand.
Psaltery & Lyre 