Excerpt from “Crayon”

My father finishes the sports section and picks up the classifieds as a breeze snaps the plastic flags back and forth on the house for sale next door. Somewhere in the neighborhood a screen door slams and a lawn mower buzzes to life.

There’s a hunger inside me; I ache with a longing I can’t articulate. Will my life always be this uneventful, this ordinary?

Copyright Susan K Maciolek 2010, Published in Midwestern Gothic 2013 

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Excerpt from “Desire”

The roar and rumble of the passing motorcycle is deep, primal, setting off a throbbing in her loins as she remembers when they rode together, her hair streaming, arms tight around him, legs spread, the noise and heat and desire all one. She watches him with someone else. She takes aim.

Copyright Susan K Maciolek 2010, Published in Blink Ink 2011

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Excerpt from “Dirge”

Late November – gray, cold, grim. The radio blared Christmas music between bulletins about a fire at a grade school. A report on the number of bodies, kids and nuns who died in the fire, was followed by ‘The Chipmunk Song.’ That silly novelty tune suddenly seemed like a dirge.

Copyright Susan K Maciolek 2010, Published in Blink Ink 2011

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Stories of only 12 words

Departure My lips part, my legs part, awaiting you – why must we part?

Spot If I’d met you first, he’d be on a leash, not you.

Copyright Susan K Maciolek 2010, Both published in Vestal Review 2010

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Excerpt from “Girls in White Dresses“

Three little Mexican girls in frilly white dresses run up and down the hallway in their sock feet, trilling in delight. They slide on the shiny linoleum floor laid out like a checker board, sail past crash carts and drinking fountains with black hair flying, skirts billowing, and ribbon sashes floating behind . . .

Copyright Susan K Maciolek 2010, Published in Thunderclap! Issue #3 2010

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Excerpt from “The Office was Closed“

The soldier was her first love. They wanted to marry. When they went for the license the office was closed. The soldier shipped out. They wrote to each other. She got word of his death and felt her own life was over. In time she married a friend of her brother’s. They made a home, had three children, grew old together. Every day of their married life she compared him to the soldier. Every day she found him lacking.

Copyright Susan K Maciolek 2010, Posted on Postcard Shorts 2010 

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Excerpt from “Road Trip” 

Eating Reduced Fat Pringles from a nested stack on the
console as we cruise down I-75 outside Knoxville in
the rain, surrounded by semis that block the meager light,
hurtling past exits for Days Inn and Museum of Appalachia –
attractions/lodging/food/gas – I try to make small talk. But
you’re cloistered in silence, remote from the heave and
roil of ordinary conversation, and the words just scatter
into space.

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Excerpt from “To the Poet“

Jean, if you could have seen the guy who showed us

to our seats at your service like an usher at a wedding –

bad skin, bad suit, and smarmy smile – he tried to flirt with

Becky and called your ashes cremains;

you would have laughed.

Jean, if you could have heard the minister carry on

about you, and then after a while – getting heavy into

scripture – just carry on (at least he read your poetry,)

you would have laughed.

Your family wept, and Becky thought us cold for

having no more tears. But my tears were spent, and

it warms my heart to know you’re finally out of

pain and free to roam the cosmos.

Copyright Susan K Maciolek 2010, Both poems published in Thunderclap! Issues #3 & #4 2010