Issue 6 – How did you spend your summer vacation?

What they closed with: I know you will be great.
What they meant: Goodbye!
Or in other words: The bloom of potential you wear in your buttonhole never blossomed in our heat, and while I trust it to someday flower, I just won’t be around to see it happen.

Oh summertime, let’s call it quits. The cold weather waits, the weeks wind down and your fair-weather flirt bids farewell, or maybe your spouse vanishes without even a toodle-oo. Your pet rabbit keels over, small x’s on its eyelids. The breeze picks up and your house shudders; a tornado forms and it disappears. You emerge from your cellar and board a biplane, a brigantine, a bicycle built for one, you point yourself point-blank at the future and sing out, “So long!”

The publishing date declares this our End of Summer issue, but really, we feel these things year-round: want, hope, redemption, loneliness, sweat, shame, dreams and departure. They more or less describe Issue 6, not to mention my summer, and, I expect, yours as well.