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  • about
    • history
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  • Current Issue
    • read Issue 30
    • letter from the editor
    • looking glass spring 2025
    • interview with Dale M. Kushner
    • interview with Jessie vanEerden
  • submit
    • submission guidelines
  • looking glass
    • spring 2025
  • editorial content
    • book reviews
    • opinion
    • interviews >
      • Dale M. Kushner
      • Jessie vanEerden
  • flash glass
    • flash glass 2025
    • flash glass 2024
    • flash glass 2023
    • flash glass 2022
    • flash glass 2021
    • flash glass 2020
    • flash glass 2019
    • flash glass 2018
    • flash glass 2017
    • flash glass 2016
    • flash glass 2015
  • media
    • art
    • audio
    • video
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GLASSWORKS
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Whereas by Kathleen McGookey

12/1/2017

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The girl in the feather skirt gets tired of waiting for her story to start. When would the mushroomy underside of the moon explode? Darling, she writes, I’ve sold your clothes. She loves the slash and glister of her pen. By the time you read this, my ship will be en route. Here on board, gold-tasseled tablecloths sway. Petal by petal, an inchworm crosses the centerpiece of lilies and phlox. The galley door swings, dishes clink, a kettle hisses.  Sometimes she strokes the cricket in her pocket for luck. Here on board, staircases unfold into silken dark and tenderness begins at its regularly scheduled time, nothing like a coin purse snapped closed. Snowflakes fall like whispers and someone keeps shaking the globe.
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Kathleen McGookey has published three books of poems, most recently Heart in a Jar (White Pine Press).  Her work has appeared in journals including Crazyhorse, Denver Quarterly, Epoch, Field, Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, and Quarterly West.  She has received grants from the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Sustainable Arts Foundation.​
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She Steers Toward the Horizon by Kathleen McGookey

12/1/2017

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The girl in the feather skirt opens door number two. Behind door number one are rain and hail, tornadoes, a roiling mess.  Door number three conceals a hearse. She doesn’t mind silence, so she drives around her island.  She just got her learner’s permit. It’s slow going, but she likes the wind on her skin, how the hearse gleams like polished leather, even the steep hills with no barriers between herself and the sea. Alone on the road, the girl tightens her seatbelt as kitchen windows blink past: a woman peels carrots:  a man sharpens knives. A dog howls behind a picket fence. The girl in the feather skirt never thinks about the other doors. She hums. A door is not the story of a bright blue sky. She memorizes fractions and their decimal equivalents. She pets her skirt which she wears like an invisible shield. Like an opal, its color changes by increments, depending on the light.


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​Kathleen McGookey has published three books of poems, most recently Heart in a Jar (White Pine Press).  Her work has appeared in journals including Crazyhorse, Denver Quarterly, Epoch, Field, Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, and Quarterly West.  She has received grants from the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Sustainable Arts Foundation.
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The Girl in the Feather Skirt Sends a Postcard by Kathleen McGookey

12/1/2017

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To Whom It May Concern: Today I plunged into the living room and the lovely bubbles of my breath rose through the crystal ropes of the chandelier. Sunlight on water makes waves like fish scales, iridescent even from underneath. The pale overstuffed couch swayed. Blurry shadows soared above the surface, calling each other with reedy, two-step notes. The windows are open but the water will not leave the house. That’s one hidden rule. Here’s another: inside my sleep I am never lonely. I’ve set out white teacups on the windowsill for us, a little trail of bones.
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Kathleen McGookey has published three books of poems, most recently Heart in a Jar (White Pine Press).  Her work has appeared in journals including Crazyhorse, Denver Quarterly, Epoch, Field, Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, and Quarterly West.  She has received grants from the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Sustainable Arts Foundation.
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    FLASH GLASS: A MONTHLY PUBLICATION OF FLASH FICTION, PROSE POETRY, & MICRO ESSAYS

     


    Categories

    All
    Aimee Parkison
    American Ingenue In Russia
    Ann Howells
    Erinn Batykefer
    Extinct Carnivores
    Flash Fiction
    Girl In Finger Web
    History
    Hybrid Genre
    Julie Gard
    Kathleen McGookey
    Mark Trechock
    Micro Essay
    Noiseless
    Patient
    Persistence
    Prose Poetry
    Samuel J Fox
    She Steers Toward The Horizon
    Sisters
    The Girl In The Feather Skirt Sends A Postcard
    Victoria Dym
    Vocabulary Lesson
    Whereas
    William Doreski
    Woman Who Flies An Aeroplane


    Cover Image: "Yellow Red Wine Glasses, Paris"
    ​Roger Camp | Issue 7


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​All Content on this Site (c) 2025 Glassworks
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