Photo by Abbie Bernet on Unsplash
by Beth Sherman
Will you remember laughing gulls, their claws scratching stars in the sand? Or faded rowboats, oars pulled tight as broken wings? Two days from now, or five, or seven, will you still want to give me daisies or call me pixie bear? We sit on the porch without speaking, as tides stain the shore, the boardwalk a tongue of splintered wood. I am marking time. How many minutes spent watching our sunrise and flicking grains of wet sand from my knees and counting clouds before I tell you goodbye?
Beth Sherman’s writing has been published in more than 100 literary magazines, including Flash Frog, Gone Lawn, Tiny Molecules, 100 Word Story, Fictive Dream, and Bending Genres. Her work is featured in Best Microfiction 2024 and she’s the winner of the Smokelong Quarterly 2024 Workshop prize. A multiple Pushcart, Best Small Fictions, and Best of the Net nominee, she can be reached on X, Bluesky or Instagram @bsherm36.
