On the final day of the Quit Smoking Class, I brought the 12-ounce jam jar the teacher said to get, to empty out and clean. It was to become the receptacle to put the butts of our cigarettes in – The good morning cigarette. The ten o’clock cigarette. The lunchtime cigarette. The mid-afternoon pick-me-up cigarette. … Read more
The auctioneer holds in his hands all the years we yearn for. Not that far from high school we already see the hardness of our wishes, how we would’ve shed our allowances to go to an auction where adult years were sold cheap. Where for a single night we could be eighteen or have sex … Read more
In those days, Janet was always hungry. It seemed to her that the space behind her bellybutton was just that, a space. No number of fish fingers or baked beans seemed to be able to fill this gap within her, and, just lately, Janet had begun to suspect there was something missing inside her. That … Read more
The demons under the house and eating clay. The demons in the ashtray or teasing the dog. That steer burning airliners into an ocean. Demons in the underbrush and sucking on stones. Demons beneath the skin and writing curses, writing sermons with broken soda bottles, writing poems with the blood of your mama. Legions of … Read more
Mad Mary isn’t truly mad, especially when compared to many others on the list of tyrants and despots and those that murder indiscriminately. Mad Mary, who’d be burnt as a witch or stoned as a martyr. Who’d be beatified in medieval circumstance. Saint Mary, they’d call to her, lighting a candle in her name, a … Read more
Early June. Music turns the street into a pool of sound where we float together in the summer dark, the scent of peonies and roses behind the hot grease from the Belgian waffle tent. Now the pool drains, street becoming street again, residue of plastic cups, cracked spoons, empty cans. I’m slow to rise, still … Read more
1. PARABLE OF THE SEXBOT Since we’re all dead, there’s no one to tell the last chatbot to stop looking for you tonight, so burning its backup generators, it asks again and (as programmed) again, Are you there are you there hello sexy don’t be shy. Decades pass. We are still dead. 2. PARABLE OF … Read more
She says pine nuts. He says walnuts are fine. She says pine nuts are better. He says why. She says they’re just better and why does it need an explanation. He grabs another handful of walnuts from the bag; they have no food processor so he has to hold each in place, watch his fingers … Read more
Fall 2015 The literary work featured in this journal is under copyright protection by the individual authors and artists and may not be duplicated or reprinted without their permission. Copyright © 2015 Two Hawks Quarterly
Two Hawks Quarterly Editors, Winter 2016 Pictured (left to right) From left to right Mario Gutierrez, Samantha Parker, Ashley Okonma, Will Stegemann, Deborah Lott, Nick Wenzel, Zoe Marzo, Amy Ballard, Stephanie Teasley Two Hawks Quarterly Editorial Consultants Deborah A. Lott, M.F.A. Deborah A. Lott is the author of the book In Session. Her creative nonfiction has … Read more
The Fall 2014 issue features Creative Nonfiction from Marcia Bradley, Stanzi, Frei, and Sara Walters. Fiction from Lynne M. Hinkey. Poetry from Jim Bartruff, Scott Chalupa, Carol V. Davis, Nadya Rousseau, Jeremy Voigt, Barry Yeoman and many more.
I balanced a cup of strong coffee on the dashboard of my patrol car and watched the transgender woman I knew as “Misty” leave the free medical clinic in the Tenderloin. She walked with a dignified, stiff posture that I admired considering she was 6’2” and wearing a flower print dress with little puffy sleeves … Read more
Though the hall is packed, no one will sit near her in this noisy temple of tables and folding chairs. Surrounded by their clovers and animal feet, their river of cards, they are wary of prophesy. Seduced now by games of chance, Cassandra mutters her madness of letters and numbers, a whispered voice one step … Read more
Sipping the drink named after her, she tells me how each bartender makes it slightly different. All night I listened to her complaints: Not enough Southern Comfort. Inferior brand of cranberry juice. Too much lime. The years have found their tomorrow in her. Her 17″ waist gone to Doritos and Little Debbies, pale skin lost … Read more
I died once. Have you? I can tell you this because I didn’t stay dead for very long; as it were, someone clumsily revived me, and interrupted me from a pleasant stroll down a mist-filled hallway towards the light at the end. As I recall, I was approaching what looked to be a big man … Read more
He said he prepared the space shuttle. Because of him, men walked on the moon. If we were young, we could have worn parachutes or held on to pillows, floating through air, or I’d fly an airplane straight to the Amazon, spanning across countries. I was leaving Regal Heights Nursing Home, waving goodbye to my … Read more
Sometimes at night, we lie awake, windows wide open, shoes by our beds, dreaming about the day before when we could return love so easily. We whisper, “I’m sorry,” our words fall like dust to the floor and rise to the roof into the air we breathe. (My mother said it was from the streets; … Read more
An undertaker in his twenties moved to town with his wife and their brand new baby and silver dog. They made their family home in the upstairs of the funeral chapel where no one had lived in years. They drove the hearse everywhere with that dog’s shimmering head stuck out the front passenger side window. … Read more
Rust-stained but clear in the morning light, the brook fell into the lake, a string of deer bones paying from its mouth; jaw bones algaed, vertebrae sowed among the cobbles, they lay beyond the shadows of our fishing poles and false hellebore that lined the bank. We named the stream “Deer’s Peace” in our awkward … Read more
Every time I kiss you I think about the history of your mouth, your first kiss, the way your lips must have felt, and what other lips felt like to you. Then I think of all the people you have kissed, the lovers, romances, mistakes. I imagine them all kissing you while I am kissing … Read more
When my mother died, Easter was just a few squares away. The day felt like a porcelain basket of fruit dropped to the ground. A thousand bottles of red wine flowed across the living room floor and I felt the miscarriage begin of the child I had carried my entire life. I became someone without … Read more
On an early Friday morning in June of 1946, I started walking down to Mount Pleasant Cemetery with Sonny and Jimmy. My parents were still asleep and I knew my mother wouldn’t like to know her nine year old son was walking all the way down to the end of Seattle’s bus line. We walked … Read more
I tried to focus on the pink lamp, the one my grandmother gave me on my tenth birthday, before she had the stroke. The thing made me think of her, and when I thought of her, I could make it through what my mind said was impossible, like a 30-mile drive on icy roads in … Read more
You told me you were dying only slowly, one cell at a time so we couldn’t see it. You told me four years ago that only slowly, one cell at a time you’ll smear into dust on my palms. You told me four years ago and I almost forgot you’ll smear into dust on my … Read more
She tells me: if you open it, you finish it. The first time wine touched my tongue I was too young to know, in communion you shouldn’t smack your lips and say ahhh when the priest tips the chalice back. Now, 18, I felt the bitter warmth that tasted like Sunday. So similar in memory, … Read more
