Contributions by Karen J. Weyant

Issue 21 | Winter 2019

Spotlight

By | Nonfiction

Karen J. Weyant thoughtful essay touches on the rural and urban divide: "City people was a code word that we all used for those who came up from Pittsburgh. These people simultaneously admired our beautiful wildlife in northern Pennsylvania yet wondered out loud how 'anyone could possibly live like this,' in reference to our small towns with single stoplights, two or three gas stations, and no fast food restaurants or malls. "

Issue 3 | Summer 2008

The Girl Who Turned Cartwheels

By | Poetry

It’s dusk. And dry. Boys in the neighborhood ride their bikes, back tires kicking up dust, spokes spinning like the cartwheels I turned that summer those kids disappeared. For hours every day, I too, vanished without explanation. The rails are better than school balance beams, I explained, coming home with blood on my elbows, cinders in my knees. My aunt clutched her rosary beads, prayed to Saint Nicholas. My mother hugged me. And then had nightmares. I felt trapped in a car trunk, she said to my father, sure I wasn’t listening. I didn’t understand the crime done so far away, the local girl and her kids now gone. I just practiced more — until my back was straight, until my arms locked tight, until I no longer fell. When my fingers burned on the August steel, I moved to the shade. Only the sumac noticed, bowing to my dismounts, applauding through the rustle of dry leaves. I didn’t stop until the rails trembled. I was sure ghosts were there, somewhere, making the metal beneath my fingers, my hands, my toes, tremble. Karen J. Weyant lives and teaches in Western New York. A 2007 Fellow in Poetry from the New York Foundation for the Arts, her most recent work can be seen or is forthcoming in 5 AM, Barn Owl Review, The Comstock Review, the minnesota review, and Slipstream. Her first chapbook, Stealing Dust, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press in early 2009.