Brooke L. Davis

Snow swirls through valleys. Trudging through drifts, they forage, surviving winter. Ice melts swelling streams. Earth’s new life sings,...

Death stares out at us through the frame with broken glass atop the casket. The remembered face bright and alive, smiles at us a light,...

Three months after I turned forty, I awoke from a terrible dream gasping for air at the thought of my own corpse buried six feet under,...

Each day we try in vain to spit out the bitter taste of our ordinary lives and fail. Instead, we choke and drown on our own vinegar, too...

The crows circle above your open grave, their disturbance a harsh unnatural sound emanating from the black blot that blocks out the sun...

We all die, haunted by the chances we did not take, the alternative life, unlived. The iron bed rusts from the love we did not make in...

I pack the last of my belongings into the red duffle and fling it into the back of Scott’s ancient Jeep. “We’re doing it.” I grin, my...

In your absence, I explore the soaked beaches alone and watch the skies drench the cottage roof with tinkling music. In your absence, I...

“Tomorrow I’ll be five,” Emma whispered to her American Girl doll as they snuggled under Emma’s pink comforter with the lace border. Emma...

During the long hot days, stone-faced angels stand guard over their monuments until sunset. They watch as the mourners walk slowly...

We are all small boats cutters, sloops, schooners bobbing in personal safe harbors. Beyond the spit end, jagged piled rocks, the...

As I shaved her head what remained of her hair fell softly, like her tears. After the treatments, it had fallen out in clumps, long...

As the sun blistered the pavement outside, Raymond and I sat beneath the whirling ceiling fan and plotted our escape; retrieve the loot,...

We write the bitter fictions of our lives to escape the crushing disappointment of our reality. The pages swallow our rage so that our...

At 2 am, we emerged from the woods. Exhausted from trudging through snow and tripping over fallen timber, we sat down and admired the...

When I was young, my iron spine gleamed as I stood in the stream and resisted the current. Time passed, and I still stand but the current...

In the dimly lit room with red velvet walls you ask the same question as before because last time, the Universe misunderstood. It’s all...

At the end flesh melts from bone, the earth becomes dust again in the eye of the great sun. At the end steel breaks, rocks crumble,...

As Anjelica and Tommy sped up the coast in the turquoise Mustang convertible, the ocean rolled by glittering in the afternoon sun. ...

He lived a bachelor without indoor plumbing except for the kitchen sink where he filled the wash basin and shaved in front of the mirror...