Brooke L. Davis

I am no man’s wife, the mother of no child. I live as a single candle burns, alone on the windowsill, a pinprick of light in a dark...

I wandered the streets of Marrakech amidst the din of bargaining and the smell of spices and roasting meat. When I came upon the ring...

In early winter, I walk the river’s edge as snow falls silent as a dove’s wing on the mountain. Scattered flakes whirl, lifted by the...

Mary struggled to open the old wooden trunk in the sweltering attic of her late grandmother’s house. When the lid finally popped open,...

As little children, we feared the monsters under the bed. Sent to devour us as we slept, they held us captive in the dark. As adults, the...

Rich and I sat and held hands on the rocky outcropping as the sun rose. We’d chosen to come to the wilderness to watch the meteor’s final...

What began as a summer encounter now drags itself inexorably through a painful slog toward an uncertain end. I see what you cannot say...

As Jason and I left the restaurant after one of my best first dates, I could hardly believe it was raining. I’d felt an instant...

There were signs, signals, and warnings a subtle crack in the mind, an internal unwinding. Overwhelmed, you fled outward, away, against...

Laila ambled down the dusty trail toward the river. In the distance, the Gallatin Range rose to meet her, ablaze in the morning light....

You are trapped in the box canyon of my heart its high jagged yellow ochre walls a western New Mexico no-man’s-land. You whirl like a...

Molly and seven-month-old Ike watched the hills roll away as the train clacked through the verdant English countryside. When the train...

In the collected humid light of dusk, an orange sun slowly sinks below the hayfield, and we come to the farmhouse in the relief that is...

As Jake and Sarah drove east, she prayed they’d left soon enough. The earth still smelled of smoke, and ash coated the windshield. When...

I sat in the back of the library with my seventeen- year-old friends. With heads down, we flipped through bridal magazines and whispered...

Emily sat beneath the open weave cotton blanket on the beach and inhaled the scent of chocolate and cinnamon from her steaming cup of hot...

I slay my fears and place them on the altar, the last obstacles preventing our union. Though a pagan, I kneel, sing the hymns, pretend to...

Carly discovered the tattered maps as she cleaned out her parents’ closet. Circles and X’s marked the towns, off the beaten path tourist...

March roared in, a lion breathing snow, ice, wind, and bitter cold as it drug winter along behind, like the hock of a dead animal. It...

Regan almost couldn’t bring herself to return to the beach where she’d lost Josh. The rescue team had never recovered his body, and she’d...