Cell Absorbed by Deborah Daline
The couple sitting in the restaurant is very attractive, as is the table setting, and the wait people. It is a popular restaurant and the other tables are full. Everybody seems especially animated, talking, laughing. A very young child totters by their table, followed closely by a young father. The ambiance is festive even though it isn’t a holiday. It could be a very special occasion for this particular couple, because she expects him to propose marriage, and if he doesn’t, she will. They have been seeing each other for a vear, and it’s time for somebody to pop the question. She is almost forty, and feeling the intense desire to have a family. And he seems a perfectly acceptable partner; he’s intelligent and fun and financially stable. They have some things in common: they both like light jazz and suspense novels and sudoku puzzles. Of course, he’s not perfect, does have a few small flaws, and just as she thinks this, the waitress comes with their wine and his cell phone rings.

Bread Therapy by Teresa Mason
When my niece Rebecca, a mother of four, is stressed, she locks herself in the bathroom and has a long soak in the bathtub. Everyone knows that the house had better be on fire before they consider disturbing her. My daughter Rachael plays video games on the computer for hours to de-stress herself. These therapies work for them; but they’re not for me. Baking bread is my therapy; the homey ritual forces me to slow down my hectic pace, reminds me of my grandmother, reconnects me to my body, and brings my family closer.

Organic Beef by Linda Wentz
We named the calf Dum Dumb. Wesley purchased him at an auction; he was my husband’s utopian attempt at raising food without antibiotics, growth hormones or anything untoward. The smell of fresh straw and baby calf swamped the air as I climbed up on the back fender and peered over the railing. He looked as if he was a child’s stuffed toy, with legs snuggled up under his soft velvet black and white newborn body. Huge, sad black eyes with eyelashes down to his nose looked up at me, and I believed his wet little nose to be the softest, pinkest, most adorable nose I had ever seen.
A small, pitiful voice cried out, “Maaa Maaa”
“How could you?” I whined from my perch. The thought of this helpless calf destined to adinner plate, let alone my plate, was appalling.

Poetry

My First Winter Solstice in a Town by Emily Mendelbaum
Living in a city
I yearned for darkness,
To be smaller than the night,
Chased shadows scattered homeless by glitter,
Those sparkling nervous tics of the season
Spread tinsel thin over gift-strewn barrens,
Chaining winged creatures of myth and song to lighted frames.

Billions of Light Years by Kathy Anita Gonzales
Here in the secret of the womb—
universe of its own,
a cell more minute than a fleck of dust
floats weightless
ready to travel billions of light years from home
up a spiral staircase built from genes and chromosomes
that explain the shape of nose, the color of eyes—
even gender begins here

Pre-Dawn Winter Blue by Patrick Loafman
Blood orange moon
Black coffee and the sky
Is an upturned cobalt bowl
She sleeps and I wait
The last star has faded
A sparrow sings two notes