The red roses my father gave me.

by Zunaira Butt

The gentle hand of my father grabbed my hands;

as mine grabbed his neck,

clinging to his back,

I tried to make out words,

but his voice only echoed in the warm cage of his chest,

they couldn’t reach past the tiny fingers plugging the soft canals.

My tiny fist wrapped around his rough finger,

little feet skipping,

trying to keep up with his giant steps,

my eyes soaked in the kindness dripping from the corner of his mouth,

when he blessed a stranger passing by,

the sweet drizzle left sticky marks on the face in the young blue lake.

He scooped the water onto my soapy hands,

trying to get the dirt out from between the fingers,

once clean, he dried them off with his white shirt,

clipped the nails short,

still trying not to let the rivulets flow,

but the red buds bloomed in defiance like a bride’s henna;

on the back of my hands and up my arms,

and up, still, my throat until they grew roots in my throat,

until the soft red petals were all that fell from my lips.

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From Lahore’s shadows, Zunaira’s words emerge, shaped by trying seasons with quiet grace. Her verses, guided by life’s rhythm, offer comfort where others cannot. Writing in a once-foreign tongue, this first whisper marks the beginning of her literary journey, stepping into a world of shared expression.

Stonecoal Creek

By Skyler Lambert

O’ Stonecoal Creek, precious stream of the Besoco hills, how you carry generations of sweat and blood and coal dust, the toil of men who dug these mountains inside out. How you hold the tears of hill women who watched their husbands and sons and grandsons and brothers go underground to die; you, Stonecoal, are the wives and mothers and grandmothers and sisters, the steady hands that cook and care and pray too much. With every mountaintop blown to shreds, every mine excavated, every death, you, Stonecoal, keep churning.

O’ Stonecoal Creek, you were there, ebbing next to my father as his life expired, your murmur rocking him to forever sleep. Did you feel his heart aching on your banks? Did his final breaths rise on the winds above you? Was his spirit carried away in your trickling touch?

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Skyler Lambert grew up in the coal camp of Besoco, West Virginia. His writing is published or forthcoming in Appalachian Journal, riverSedge, Meat for Tea, and Hedge Apple. Skyler serves on the board of a community arts incubator and shares a home with his partner and three pets.