• Submit to Five South

  • Submissions are open for flash, poetry, long fiction, and non-fiction. Read our submission guidelines.

  • Recently Published

    • Robbing the Pillars by Marie Goyette
      Ruth stood on the narrow iron bridge, gripping her father’s obsidian necklace, and wondered how many years it would take before the river wore them both down to nothing.
    • Roll for Love by Cidney Mayes
      She holds the dice up to me. “For good luck?”
    • The Call by Eben E. B. Bein
      I hungered into that quiet until— there—unbelievable!— a wolf spider scuttled onto a leaf.
    • Saturation by Claire Oleson
      I no longer harangue every desk nurse at every hospital for a taxonomic breakdown of her bills. I don’t ask for the numbers of the Benadryl, the water cups, the abdominal touches done with gloved hands. I am the most American I’ve ever been—she costs what she costs and I eat it.

    • Caught by Chris Bullard
      Old lungs puffing like gills, I beg to be thrown back to boyhood’s clear waters.

Inheritance by Willie James

August 16, 2022
Reading Time: 1 Minutes

Spring 2022 Poetry Contest – Honorable Mention

My sister and I are beginning to inherit

the lightning blond crabgrasses and balding planes

of our father and mother’s wealth.

They sneak these to us:

recipes for deviled ham, ticket stubs from Broadway, a mermaid’s compass

from my grandmother’s house.

They began as little gifts —

hidden next to the chocolate in our stockings, wedged like mints through mail,

stuffed into pockets when we’re hugging to say goodbye —
but soon —

a hundred-dollar bill stuffed into a children’s book, my car’s lease paid off,

plane flights free with all-inclusive cruises.

It felt lonely

spotting their hopeful eyes studying us

for approval, then disappearing

with the snowbirds to the Florida coast;

to the condos tiled

a pearl’s weak white and the pinks forgetful

as the crush of receding shores. They’re waiting there.

They’ve even made up a spare bed in their studio for me.

My father proudly announces

my name is in the lease. He explains

it’ll be so simple. When I arrive at the gate, I can just flash my ID.

They’ll show me where to go.

Share

Poetry

James, Willie
Willie James is a poetry editor at the Pacifica Literary Review. He is the recipient of scholarships from the Breadloaf Writers Conference and WxW Tomales Bay Workshop; as well as the runner up for Rhino’s 2017 Founder’s Prize poetry contest. His work has appeared in Rhino Poetry, the Jet Fuel Review, as well as the Peauxdunque Review.

Read More by James, Willie:


You might also like

Caught by Chris Bullard
November 19, 2024
Second Winter Solstice During an Epidemic by Marianne Worthington
September 26, 2024
Beautiful Generative Machine by David Fowler
September 17, 2024