fiction – Jill Szoo Wilson

Jill Szoo Wilson on Eva Mozes Kor, Forgiveness, and the Seeds We Plant

I was asked to lead a formation for my team at work this week.

As I pondered what to share with this group of creative people from all walks of life, all of them living in the same current world climate, the idea of peace came to mind.

Naturally, I turned to the words of my dear friend and forgiveness advocate, Eva Mozes Kor.

I’m sharing those notes here for anyone who teaches, leads, mentors, facilitates, or gathers people and asks them to think.

Borrow what serves you.

Adapt what doesn’t.

Ask good questions.

Here are my notes.

From 2013–2016, I spent most of my time interviewing and traveling with a woman who stood at 5’1″; she was in her eighties, very feisty, she called at all hours of the day or night, and she was a survivor of The Holocaust. Her name was Eva Mozes Kor.

When she was 10 years old, Eva was sent to Auschwitz II-Birkenau along with her father, mother, and twin sister, Miriam. Upon arrival, the twin girls were sent to the barracks in Birkenau that housed the twins upon whom Dr. Josef Mengele was conducting gruesome medical experiments.

The rest of her family was sent directly to the gas chambers.

In January of 1945, Eva and her sister were liberated from the death camp at the age of 11 by soviet soldiers who, as she often remembered, gave her “Chocolate, hugs, and cookies.”

Eva went on to marry and have two children. She also lived with a great deal of anger. Anger so destructive that she described it as eating her from the inside out.

So when Eva was in her fifties, she went on a trip to Germany to meet with one of the Auschwitz doctors who knew Dr. Mengele. The doctor she met with was Dr. Hans Münch.

Eva was meeting with him because she wanted to find out whether he knew what Mengele had injected into the girls when they were prisoners, because by this time, her twin sister Miriam was dying from the long-term effects of the experiments. Miriam’s kidneys had never grown beyond the size of a ten-year-old’s. Eva thought that if she could learn what harmed her sister, they might have a chance of finding a cure.

While she was there, Eva asked Dr. Münch:

“Do you remember what happened in the camps?”

To which he replied:

“Yes. It is the nightmare I must live with every day of my life.”

This response shocked Eva. A nazi doctor filled with regret? Seeing the pain, regret, fear, and humanity in Dr. Münch, Eva made a decision that shocked even her.

Over the course of their meeting, she decided to forgive Dr. Münch. And she would be very careful to also say that she forgave him in her name only. This was a personal decision.

Now, I’m leaving a lot out here, but some time later, when Eva was in her 50’s, Eva also decided to forgive Dr. Mengele, in her own name only, for the things he did to her and her sister.

She later described this act of forgiveness as an act of freedom. And seeing how much that freedom began to change her own life, and return some measure of peace and joy to it, she became a forgiveness advocate, and she began telling people about her decision.

She was met with a great deal of pushback and hatred, but also…

I personally witnessed crowds of 3,000 to 5,000 people filling stadiums to hear her tell her story, and utter silence filling the entire space. Every time.

Afterward, people of all ages came to tell Eva their own stories about the people they were having a horrible time forgiving:

Parents.
Friends.
Neighbors.
Themselves.

Her message began spreading.

She described it like this:

Each one of us has the power to, like a pebble in a pond, pursue acts of goodness that ripple outward.

And her most recognizable message is this:

“Anger is a seed for war. Forgiveness is a seed for peace.”

If I handed each of you a seed right now, and that seed could grow anything in your life, or in the lives of the people who come after you, what would you plant?

Peace?
Courage?
Truth?
Mercy?
Forgiveness?

And just as importantly, what are you already planting?

For more of Jill Szoo Wilson‘s writing about Eva Mozes Kor and forgiveness, click here.

I took this photo of Eva Mozes Kor at a news station when she was speaking in Indianapolis.

Micah Sees the World

By Jill Szoo Wilson

“My superpower is not flying,” Mr. Bird squawked as he wondered where this lady hailed from. “Flying is just my thing. It’s what I do. If I had a superpower, it would be something no other bird could muster. The dogs don’t refer to their barking as super, nor do the mice think themselves superior for eating cheese.”

“Mussster?” hissed Miss Snake. “That is a big word for a bird. Got any more in there? Or was that the only big one you know?”

“Let’s get back to business,” said Dr. Chipmunk, who had a milk mustache and probably should have used a straw. “We are gathered together today to discuss the topic of young Micah’s new glasses. You see, he cannot see . . . wait a moment. I said something funny just then. Did you hear? I said, ‘You see, he cannot see!’ Ha! I don’t usually crack hilarious jokes but . . .”

“You didn’t crack one this time either, Dr. Chipmunk,” said Mr. Bird.

“Come now. Be nice,” hissed Miss Snake. “Go on, Dr. Chipmunk.”

“I will say it in a different way so we don’t all get caught up in giggles and forget the importance of the day,” Dr. Chipmunk once again overestimated his comic genius. “Young Micah was having a hard time reading his books at school and, as I overheard his brother saying to a friend, he was even beginning to have difficulty seeing the games on his XBox. So, Micah’s father had a wonderful idea, as Micah’s father is wont to do. He has decided that young Micah will get glasses.”

“Glasses?” asked Mr. Bird.

“Glasses?” asked Miss Snake.

“Yes, glasses,” answered Dr. Chipmunk.

Miss Snake rolled onto her back and looked toward the sky. “Oh my! Glasses! What a lucky boy he is! I have always wished I could wear glasses but, as you can see, my face is too small and my eyes sit too far apart. But, oh my! Glasses look so handsome on our human friends.”

Mr. Bird, reluctant to agree with Miss Snake, chimed in, “I must say, Miss Snake, you and I have something in common. Perhaps only this one thing: I, too, find the human folk look rather charming when they don glasses atop their noses. Especially the little ones. Why, glasses make the young ones look debonair, charming, and, dare I say, dashing.”

“Oh, please,” cried Miss Snake, “ssstop with the big words! And for the love of all that is good, please come to your point much quicker!”

Mr. Bird lifted his beak into the air and flapped his wings twice, too quickly to fly. “Miss Bird! I will thank you not to critique my every word! I am simply saying that glasses are quite pleasing to the eye.”

The milky-faced Chipmunk giggled. “Glasses? Pleasing to the eye? Oh, now you’ve made a joke, Mr. Bird!” Dr. Chipmunk continued giggling while Miss Snake rolled her wide-set eyes in his direction and Mr. Bird stood staring at the sky, wondering, “Why?”

Realizing he had begun to lose control of the meeting, Dr. Chipmunk cleared his throat and began again. “The problem, friends, is this: Micah feels, well, a little embarrassed about wearing his new glasses to school. He isn’t sure the other children will like them, so he is refusing to wear them.”

“Well, that is preposterous, Dr. Chipmunk!” squawked Mr. Bird. “Glasses not only look dashing, but they are also quite helpful. In fact, they offer superpowers to all who wear them. That is really quite amazing!”

Miss Snake raised the top half of her body. “Now I must agree with Mr. Bird for the second time in one day, which is certainly a record. Sure, glasses look great but they are also . . .” Miss Snake’s voice trailed off and then she whispered, “powerful.”

Dr. Chipmunk shuddered at the word itself and answered, “Both of you are right. Contained within the lenses of young Micah’s glasses is a special potion, concocted by our Greek friend, Mikanos the Mouse.” Now it was Dr. Chipmunk’s turn to whisper. “Within the potion are elements that dance together, as the Lords and Ladies once did in the great halls of the most prestigious castles, and then the dancing elements tiptoe into young Micah’s eyes, giving him the superpower of . . . seeing as far as the birds can see.”

Miss Snake rolled around on the ground while Mr. Bird flapped his wings so hard he flew straight to the tops of the trees. “Amazing!” said Mr. Bird from his leafy perch. “So, you are telling us that young Micah will be able to see far and wide? He will be able to discern all the bright colors in the world, pinpoint every detail from miles away, and see his prey in ultraviolet hues?”

“Now, now,” Dr. Chipmunk said in an effort to calm Mr. Bird. “Young Micah will not be able to see ultraviolet hues but . . .” his voice grew with excitement, “He WILL, however, be able to see far and wide! He will be able to discern all the bright colors in the world and pinpoint every detail from miles away!”

Miss Snake composed herself. “That IS a superpower, Dr. Chipmunk! You were right! The dancing elements inside young Micah’s glasses will allow him to read all the books he’s ever wanted to read and to see all the details in the world so he can draw them, or paint them, or even write about them himself!”

Mr. Bird energetically tweeted, “And what if one of our animal friends falls into trouble? Like the time Katherine the Kitten was trapped on top of the slide at the playground. Why, young Micah would be able to see that she was in need and run to help her! That IS a superpower, indeed!”

“Yes,” exclaimed Dr. Chipmunk. “Now you’ve got the idea! Young Micah’s glasses will not only make him look handsome but will also help him become a hero!”

All of the animals cheered together.

“There is only one problem,” said Dr. Chipmunk as he looked toward the ground. “Remember, young Micah doesn’t really want to wear his glasses.”

“Not wear them?” Miss Snake slithered closely to Dr. Chipmunk. “But he must! He can become a hero, and the world desperately needs heroes, Dr. Chipmunk. Don’t you agree? Young Micah has a heart of gold, and I know that if he could see all the details of the world, he would surely help lost kittens, or help his friends at school if their expressions looked sad. He may even create new things and bring more beauty to the world! What can we do to convince him?”

“I am glad you asked,” said Dr. Chipmunk before he took another drink of his milk. “I have written an itinerary for the two of you.” Then Dr. Chipmunk burped and continued, “Here is the plan! Miss Snake, I would like you to retrieve the glasses from our Greek friend, Mikanos the Mouse. He has prepared the potion, placed it into the lenses, put the lenses into the frames, and now they are ready for young Micah to wear. All you need to do is pick them up. Can you do that?”

Miss Snake squinted her eyes as though a great amount of focus had fallen into her mind. “Yes, sir! I will retrieve the glasses at once! Right now!” Miss Snake slithered away as quickly as her slim body could go.

Dr. Chipmunk turned to Mr. Bird. “And you, Mr. Bird. When Miss Snake returns with the glasses, I would like you to deliver them to young Micah as swiftly as you can. The quicker he puts them atop his nose, the quicker the world will become a safer place to live.”

“I will do as you ask!” Mr. Bird felt proud of his assignment.

After receiving his mission from Dr. Chipmunk, Mr. Bird flew straight to his nest, which sat in a tree overlooking a beautiful lake. He retrieved his backpack, a sleeping bag, and his magical Smart Wand, which could work as a GPS to guide him wherever he needed to go. The backpack was large enough to hold young Micah’s glasses, and Mr. Bird figured the sleeping bag might be useful if he grew weary after his flight and needed to rest atop a tall tree.

At about the same time, both Mr. Bird and Miss Snake returned to Dr. Chipmunk, who was blowing bubbles in his milk.

“I got the glasses!” Miss Snake said, a little out of breath. “As you can see, I wrapped the lower half of my body around them and slithered back as quickly as I could.”

Mr. Bird, who did not often compliment Miss Snake, replied, “Good work, Miss Snake.”

Miss Snake blushed. But only a little bit. “Thank you, Mr. Bird.”

“Now we are ready to move forth with the mission!” Dr. Chipmunk jumped up and down, as much as a chipmunk can jump, and said with elation, “Mr. Bird! The mission is in your hands. Miss Snake and I know you will do your best to deliver young Micah’s glasses safely.” Dr. Chipmunk thought for a moment. “I do have one extra request, Mr. Bird. Now, I don’t want to burden you with too much, but if you could take a photograph of young Micah wearing his glasses, I would love to see it. I would like to know what he looks like as a superhero!”

Mr. Bird thought it a reasonable request and thought of his Smart Wand, which could also take photos. “I will do my best,” he replied.

Mr. Bird prepared himself for flight. First, he entered young Micah’s address into his Smart Wand so he would know the way. Second, he shook his tail feathers behind him and flapped his wings slowly to stretch the muscles he would use. Third, he began to tweet into the air. “I am ready to go,” said Mr. Bird with confidence and determination.

Mr. Bird lifted himself into the air, following his wand. He soared high above the trees, above buildings and cars, people and trains. His focus was fierce, and his wings rested on the currents of the wind, which carried him higher and higher. Mr. Bird sang hello to the other birds he passed along the way (though he had to sing out of the corner of his beak so as not to drop his Smart Wand), and when his mouth became dry, he lowered himself to the puddles and streams below—but not for long. He continued on until, finally, he arrived at young Micah’s house.

Mr. Bird looked for a soft spot to land and chose a patch of fluffy grass in Micah’s backyard. He peeked through the windows of the house to see if he could spot young Micah. He looked through the basement windows, then the main floor—the kitchen, the living room, the dining room. When he did not see Micah there, he flew higher, to the second floor. “There he is!” Mr. Bird squawked to himself.

Micah was sitting at his desk, drawing a picture with both markers and colored pencils.

Mr. Bird landed softly on the windowsill just above Micah’s head. He put his Smart Wand in his backpack and lifted the glasses with his beak. He tapped on the windowsill, and Micah looked up.

“What a silly bird,” said Micah as he exchanged his red marker for a blue one. “Go away, you silly bird!”

Mr. Bird would not be deterred. He flapped his wings hard and tapped again.

Micah ignored him at first, but as the tapping grew louder, he looked again. “This bird is the rudest bird I have ever met!” he said to himself. Then he spoke to Mr. Bird, “Excuse me, you rude bird. I am trying to draw a picture, and I cannot concentrate because you are making too much noise! Didn’t your mother teach you any manners?”

Mr. Bird shook his head and opened his beak. The glasses fell onto the windowsill.

“What the?” Micah noticed the glasses for the first time. He squinted and leaned in close to the window. Then he opened it. “How did you get these, you silly, rude bird? These look like human glasses. In fact, they look like the pair my father wants me to wear. But . . . how did you get them?” Micah was puzzled and a little amazed.

Mr. Bird tweeted a song to Micah. The melody was slow and calm, and it filled the room with a light-hearted mood.

“Hm,” thought Micah. Then he said, “Though our meeting was strange, and you did distract me from my drawing, I like you, little bird. You have a nice voice, and your colors are pure. Black and blue, like a raven. I can see that you want me to wear these glasses, but I just . . . well, I just don’t want to.”

Mr. Bird continued to sing. First it was a beautiful aria, filled with melodies so graceful that Micah almost fell asleep. When Mr. Bird saw Micah’s eyes begin to close, he changed the song completely. The second song was loud and energetic, filled with rhythms that caused Micah’s toes to start tapping. Soon, Micah was dancing around his room and jumping on his bed.

“Okay, okay, you little bird. I can see you are not going to leave me alone until I do as you wish. I will put the glasses on my face. But I assure you, I will not like them!”

Micah stepped to the windowsill, reached for the glasses, and placed them atop his nose.

Suddenly, Micah’s lips turned into a broad smile. He looked around his room and saw details he had never seen before. Then he ran back to the window and looked out into the world.

“I can see far and wide! I can discern all the bright colors in the world! I can pinpoint every detail from miles away!” Micah looked here and there, up and down, side to side. “It is all more beautiful than I had ever realized!”

Mr. Bird tweeted and hopped along the windowsill. He was proud of Micah and happy for him, too.

As Micah ran around his room looking at everything as if for the first time, Mr. Bird tweeted his good-bye and began to fly away. Micah saw that the bird was about to leave and stopped him.

“Wait, little bird!” Micah picked up the drawing he had been working on when Mr. Bird first interrupted him. “Please take this drawing. I would like you to have it, as a thank-you gift.” Mr. Bird was touched. He felt one teardrop well in the corner of his eye and fall onto the windowsill beneath his feet.

Mr. Bird tweeted, “Thank you, young Micah,” and then lifted his wings and flew away with the drawing in his beak.

Micah ran to the kitchen where his father stood cooking.

“Dad,” said Micah. “Look!”

Micah’s father turned and smiled a big, beautiful smile. “My boy! You are wearing your glasses! I am so proud of you!” Micah felt proud, too.

“May I go outside to play now, Dad?”

“Of course you can, son. Have fun.”

Micah stepped through the front door and into the sunshine. He could see the edges of the clouds above and the silhouette of each blade of grass below. He giggled as he walked down the sidewalk and noticed the bricks in the houses and the spokes on the hubcaps of the cars that drove by. Micah could see the whole world, and he was amazed by it.

Suddenly, Micah heard something crying. The cry was high and loud.

“What the?” said Micah to himself.

As he ran toward the sound, the elements in the special potion concocted by Mikanos the Mouse began to tiptoe from Micah’s lenses into his eyes. He could see that a puppy was trapped under a bush near the entrance to the park. Micah ran to the puppy and saw, quite clearly, that its paw was wrapped around one of the branches. Micah lay on the ground, unwrapped the paw, and pulled the puppy to safety.

Mr. Bird, who had not yet flown far, stopped to watch Micah’s heroism from atop a nearby chimney. He snapped a photo with his wand, as Dr. Chipmunk had asked. Then Mr. Bird said to himself, “Micah’s first act of heroism. The first of many, I am sure.”

With that, Mr. Bird turned toward the sky and began his flight home, as Micah sat on the grass, comforting the puppy and giggling as it licked his neck and cheeks.

© Jill Szoo Wilson, 2026

The Rooms Where Truth Presses In: On Tennessee Williams and the Work of Being Seen

By Jill Szoo Wilson

On a hot night in New Orleans, a woman steps into a narrow apartment carrying a suitcase that seems too heavy for what it holds. She pauses just inside the doorway, taking in the room with a kind of alert delicacy, as if the air itself might register her presence too quickly. Before anyone asks a question, she begins to speak. The sentences arrive shaped and careful, each one placed between herself and the world she has entered.

“I don’t want realism,” Blanche DuBois says not long after. “I want magic.”

The line is often treated as confession or ornament, a moment that captures her fragility in a single phrase. It works differently onstage. It establishes a method. Blanche does not speak to describe reality. She speaks to manage it. Language becomes the surface she can still control, even as the conditions around her begin to shift.

This is where Tennessee Williams places his audience. Not at the point of discovery, but inside a room where something is already known, already circulating, already shaping the behavior of everyone present. The tension does not come from what will be revealed. It comes from the effort required to keep that knowledge from settling fully into the space.

In A Streetcar Named Desire, that effort organizes every exchange between Blanche and Stanley Kowalski. She expands, adjusts, softens. He narrows. He asks, presses, produces. When Stanley lays out the papers from Belle Reve, the moment lands without flourish. There is no rhetorical victory, no extended argument. The fact of the papers changes the room. Blanche continues speaking, but the ground beneath her language has shifted. The audience does not need to be told what is happening. It can be felt in the distance that opens between what she says and what the room now holds.

Williams returns to this condition again and again, though the texture changes. In The Glass Menagerie, the room is quieter, almost suspended. Amanda Wingfield sits at the table and begins to describe her youth, the gentlemen callers, the afternoons that seemed to promise a future she still attempts to extend into the present. The story arrives polished, complete, ready to be believed. For a moment, it reshapes the apartment. The past becomes available again, not as memory, but as something that might still organize the life.

Across from her, Laura remains still. Tom watches, listening and not listening at the same time. The story continues. It always continues. When it ends, nothing in the room has actually changed. Amanda begins again.

The effect is cumulative rather than dramatic. Each telling reinforces the distance between the life that is spoken and the one that is lived. The audience begins to track that distance, to hear the effort in the repetition. Amanda is not deceiving in any simple sense. She is maintaining a structure that allows her to proceed.

In Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, the structure gives way to something more direct. The room is fuller, louder, more openly confrontational. Brick Pollitt lies on the bed, his leg broken, his body angled away from the others. Around him, the conversation continues. Maggie talks, circles, tries again. Big Daddy enters and begins to ask questions that do not permit easy deflection.

“What is it that makes you so g****** disgusted with yourself?”

Brick answers, but the answers do not resolve the question. They reduce, redirect, and close down. The subject remains present, shaping every line that moves around it. The play does not build toward a moment in which the truth is finally spoken and understood. It builds pressure around the fact that it cannot be spoken about cleanly at all.

What emerges across these plays is a distinct relationship between language and knowledge. Williams does not treat speech as a transparent medium. It carries weight, beauty, even urgency, yet it rarely stabilizes what it names. It reveals strain. It marks the point at which something begins to exceed articulation.

That excess often appears first in the body.

Stanley’s presence in Streetcar organizes the space long before he asserts himself verbally. He moves through the apartment with a certainty that does not need explanation. The poker table fills, the room tightens, the air thickens. When he strikes Stella, the act does not read as escalation. It reads as something that has already been present finding its form.

What follows is harder to hold. Stella returns to him. The text does not justify the choice. It does not expand it into an argument or an explanation. It remains where it occurs, in the body, in the space between them. The audience is left to register what has happened without being guided toward a conclusion.

Elsewhere, the body withdraws rather than asserts. Laura’s movement through The Glass Menagerie defines her more clearly than any line she speaks. She handles the glass animals with care that borders on vigilance, as if contact itself might alter them irreparably. When Jim dances with her, briefly, the shift is visible at once. The body responds before the language can follow. When the unicorn’s horn breaks, Laura adapts the object with a single sentence, and the moment settles. Something has changed. The play does not insist on its meaning.

Brick’s stillness in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof creates a different kind of pressure. He does not withdraw from the room. He remains in it, yet refuses to participate on the terms being offered. Maggie moves toward him, speaks to him, tests the limits of his attention. He does not meet her. The distance between them becomes the central fact of the scene. It is held in space, not resolved in dialogue.

For actors, these moments resist interpretation in the usual sense. The line cannot be treated as the primary unit of meaning. The work begins earlier, in the conditions that make the line necessary. What does the character need at this point? What are they attempting to secure or avoid? How does the body register what the language cannot fully carry?

Blanche’s speeches, for example, require precision rather than expansion. The language is already full. The actor’s task lies in allowing it to respond to the shifting conditions of the scene. Stanley changes something. Mitch changes something. The room changes. Blanche adjusts. The movement occurs inside the line.

Stanley, by contrast, depends on alignment with the space. His authority does not come from volume or intensity. It comes from the fact that he belongs to the world he occupies. When that alignment holds, very little needs to be added.

Brick presents the opposite problem. The stillness must remain active. Silence cannot read as emptiness. It must carry what has not been said. The audience should sense the presence of that withheld material even when it is not articulated.

Directors, working within these plays, face a similar demand for restraint. The environments Williams creates do not need amplification. The Kowalski apartment, the Wingfield home, and the Pollitt bedroom already contain the conditions necessary for tension to emerge. The work lies in allowing those conditions to register clearly. Proximity matters. Movement matters. What cannot be escaped matters.

This is why Williams’ plays continue to feel immediate, even as their settings recede into another time. They do not depend on surprise. They depend on recognition. The audience is asked to remain in the room long enough to feel the pressure build, to notice the distance between what is said and what is known, to register the point at which language begins to give way.

The truth, in these plays, does not arrive. It presses.

To read other essays in the playwright series by Jill Szoo Wilson, click the links below:
Sam Shepard
Arthur Miller
Harold Pinter
Lanford Wilson

Whisper the Passing Time

Memory sifted through their hands

Like water

Or like sand—

The kind of sand that lays flat

On desert ground

And all around the blistered feet

Of those who stand and watch the sun

With faces red

And cracking under heat

Filtered through dust—

Or like water.


Like water

In trickles

Between fingers pruning with excess

Trying to keep it there

Sickeningly aware

Of the weakness in the spaces

Between their fingers

And their hands—

Their memories fell right through

Splashed around their ankles

In a shallow pool

Reflecting upward

Not what was held

But what remained.


Recollections darkened

Not gone—

But changed

Into purples and blues

Certain as midnight

Uncertain as morning.

The light from those days

Did not disappear

It bent

Casting shadows

From the figures they had formed

In the mind—

Standing still

Even as everything else moved.


Not that they lied,

They simply could not see

That the laughter of then

Would return differently

That what once rang out

Clear and effortless

Would come back softened

Carrying weight

They had not yet learned to name.


They heard the voices

Of those they knew

From long ago days

When laughter was simple

Easy as something rolling

Downward

Without resistance—

Smooth in the hand

Bright in the light

Held up and turned

Until color revealed itself

And then slipped away again.


Recollections continued

Not fixed

Not held—

But moving

Across the surface of them

As water does

As sand does

Shifting

Settling

Lifting

And falling

Without asking permission.


Their memories were old

But inside them

Something remained

Not unchanged—

But present.

A trace

A tone

A warmth

That did not belong

Only to the past

But to the shape

Of what they had become.


Memory sifted through their hands

And still

Something stayed—

Not in the grasp

But in the holding

They could no longer see.


Recollections whispered

The passing time—

Not hurried

Not still—

Simple as a falling grain

Intricate as the path it takes.


© Jill Szoo Wilson, 2026

Poem: Algorithms of Fathers and Sons (And Daughters, Too)

There is a jukebox in the corner

Where saddle shoes used to tread

Under skirts and socks with lace

Splattered with drippings from

Chocolate malts and shakes,

Where pearls would bounce

And roll across the floor.


Tile black and white—

I know it sounds trite

Like paisley on a bow tie

But patterns and bow ties

Bring order to the madness—

Also hamburgers, French fries

Ponytails and Snake Eyes.


He came to this place

Where the music was stuck—

Records displaying

Yellowed faces

Songs replaying

Grooves worn low

Weary, dull and much too slow.


Going backward

Isn’t really his thing

But there came a day

When his soul melted

Slipped through his lungs

Leaked and oozed

Puddled around the soles of his shoes.


Forward

No longer

Was an option for him—

What was he supposed to do?

Walk away, a shell of a man

Empty but for the wind

Whistling through?


He stood

Until noon traveled around him

Draped over the moon

Darkness descended,

Then fell his soul

Standing stuck

He heard the rattling of a rancid truck.


“Move aside,”

Said a man

Who smelled like Linus looks

Plus the tan lines of a garbage man,

“You’re in my way,

and what is this filth

at your feet?”


Accustomed to the dross

Of the city streets

With fetid hands the garbage man

Began to lift the spilt soul

Which was running into the ditch but,

“Wait!,”

Cried the empty man.


“That is not junk

though it lacks the glow

of gold

please leave it here

with me

it is all I have

if the truth is told.”


“All you have?”

Laughed the man

With the smell of human waste

On his hands,

“Then pick it up.”

Then came the second truth,

“I can’t.”


“I need your help,”

The wind spun around his tongue

Then played the space

Between his ribs

And his lungs

Like a concerto for weakening

Flesh and bone.


“Damn it all,”

The collector of trash replied

As he bent at the waist

To clean up the spill

That rolled down the hill

Before it crusted, caked and dried

Under the heat of the sun.


“I’ll put it in your pocket

now move along

get something to eat

there is a diner

across the street

that serves the lost

and the weak.”


And so, this is how he came

To the place echoing with the past—

The jukebox, the pearls

Where nothing was meant to last—

Fate brought him low

Then brought him here

To face the time where it all began

(Thanks to the garbage man).


“I don’t understand,”

He thought to himself

Then said it out loud

As his eyes rolled around

Searching for some logic

He could grip

Or some algorithm

He could apply to the script.


And then

Entered a ghost

With matted hair

On the sides of his head

Coming out of his ears,

A limp in his knee and

Teeth glowing green.


“I don’t believe in ghosts,”

Said the empty man

“Tough shit,”

Said the apparition

Blunt in his delivery and

Over dramatic

In his long flowing livery.


“Do you have a cigarette?”

Coughed the ghost

To which the live one replied,

“Do you always start with small talk?

I don’t mean to gawk but

your presence and general

demeanor are starting to piss me off.”


“You are here for a reason

and so am I

we need to get some things straight

before it’s too late

for you.

As you can see

it’s already too late for me.”


The beginning and the end

Sounded like a riddle

But somewhere in the middle

The living man

Recognized the voice,

“Dad?”

He squinted and then stuttered.


“No shit,”

Said the ghost and then

Once more,

“Do you have a cigarette?”

The living man

Almost fell to the floor

“Here, one of my last four.”


They sat in a booth,

The jukebox began to croon

They ordered hotdogs with ketchup

Had no forks

Cut their food with a spoon,

“I don’t mean to pry

but why have you come?”


“I met her here in 1952

we were both too young

to know what to do

so we loved and had fun

and then she had you

I thought of staying

but I couldn’t follow through.”


They sipped coke through a straw

To fill the long pause,

“Again, I wonder

why are you here?”

The ice clinked

In the ghost’s tall curvy glass,

“I know I was an ass

I feel kind of bad

I heard you needed me there

but I didn’t know—

shit—

it was hard to stay away

and hard to stay

I wanted to say . . .”


A pause.


And a tightening of the throat

Both the man and the ghost

Turned and squirmed,

“But why today?”

Asked the living son

Who wanted to run but chose to stay.


“Before I go to my final space

I was given the gift

once more

to see your face

and written there

I saw your hopelessness—

it rendered my journey motionless.”


“Is that when my soul

dripped all the way out?”

The ghost whispered back,

“That wasn’t your soul

it was fear and self-doubt

and I couldn’t help but

notice my name

on the puss that spilled out

so I used my airy powers

to stop your feet

with the little time I have left

I wanted to meet

in case my song repeats

after I’m gone.”


The air was still

Atmosphere heavy

Like before a storm

The ground felt shaky

And covered with worms

Snakes, anteaters and obese germs.

“I took a bit of you

and left too much of me

dropped you in a hole

of anonymity

no sure identity

as is given by a dad

and when you reached for me

your hand collapsed

empty

confused

your confidence slid—

but hear me now:

you are the best thing

I ever did.”


The living man

Felt a peace begin to grow

In a place he did not know

Existed before today

Above his ribs, above his lungs

Where scabs were hung

Replaced with Band-Aids.


“I didn’t know

and I have a lot of questions

but I feel your time is fleeting

so I will ask only one

why wait

so late

to have this meeting?”


“Time is made of seconds and of hours

each tick devours each tock

as we ignore the face of the clock

take for granted the breath

and selfishly hold the seasons

in vaults of the mind we keep locked

for prideful reasons.

But I tell you,

my son,

you are not

hopeless

I see your shine

and as long as you are living

there is still

time

so live

and be the you that is

free

of the weight of me

and my stupidity,

I am sorry.”


Then the ghost

He didn’t believe in

Vanished

To whence he came

But left a ray of something

Maybe hope

And the jukebox continued to play.


© Jill Szoo Wilson, 2026 (updated)

Poem: And She Flew

Currents of wind
Grasping blue
From the sky

Mixing colors—
Translucent white
Floating by

In puffs
Like smoke
But water

Cascading
Masquerading
As clouds, drifting down
To rest upon
The ocean’s top

Atop the undercurrents
Pulling dark and light
Together

In a haze
Under the phase
Of the moon

Where fullness
Steers the darkness
From the light.

At night the sense of
Flight
Alights

In dreams and hopes
A knotted rope
Hangs from the stars

And swings
As she sings
Like a bird

Whose song is sung
Carelessly
Without thought

She calls into the night
Filling it
From empty
To bright

And falls into
The space where
Downwind caresses
Upwind lifts

And buoyancy calls her
Higher still.

As hummingbirds swing
Creatures below
Sting

With venom held
Inside teeth
Red with the catching

Stories repeat
Through dust and mold
Dark with lies

Whispered inside
By unseen spies
Who feed on souls

Who fill the roles
Like actors
Paid to play

Unable to reach
The heart
And open—

Unfold
Like art.

The ones below
Whose wings were clipped
Set a scheme

Narrow as a
Tightrope
A balance beam

A trap
Set with bait
And they waited

Inside a box
Designed to promise
The only way

Into hope
From hopelessness—
To pull her down

To steal her crown

A crucible
Of fire
Inside folded walls

Where stories
Cease to be told.

She flapped her wings
Tilted her head
Toward the earth

Wondered
Then wandered
Through the expanse

Where freedom
Takes its chance
On little birds

Such as she

She caught a breeze
Saw her reflection
In the sea

Caught a glimpse
Of her worth

And floated down
To the cardboard flaps
Of the box

The dark ones
Moved
Like worms

The kind of worms
Eaten by birds.

It looked easy enough

Fold the second flap
Then the first
And follow the way

They had planned

To be kept
From the sky
From the breeze

From the warmth of the sun
The turn of the season

From the spring
That would
Enchant her

Like a lover
Enhance her

With colors
Vibrant
Breathing
Beating

With life
To romance her.

“No,” she thought

And then—

“No,” she said

The comfort of that dark
Is stark

The safety of that space
Is small

A quiet that settles
For an hour

Sweet at first
Then turning

She felt it
And knew it

And chose—

She rose

And she flew
And she flew.

The Wait

I couldn’t find an artist for this piece. I’d be happy to attribute it upon discovery.

He arrived early.

He always arrived early. It gave him time to rehearse the version of himself he planned to be. The diner sat off the highway with wood paneling darkened by decades of smoke and winter. A Budweiser mirror hung behind the counter. The jukebox near the bathrooms blinked in patient pinks and greens, waiting for quarters.

He chose the booth against the window. The vinyl was cracked in two places and repaired with strips of clear tape that had yellowed over time. He slid in, set his keys on the table, and checked his watch. The red numbers glowed briefly against his wrist before fading back to black.

7:42.

He trusted the red glow. It felt decisive.

The waitress, whose hair was sprayed into a shape that both defied and paid tribute to gravity, poured coffee into a thick white mug without asking. “You waiting on someone?” she said, already knowing the answer.

“Yeah,” he replied, with a smile he practiced in rearview mirrors.

He adjusted the sleeve of his Members Only jacket. He pressed the edge of the paper placemat flat with his palm. The placemat advertised a local car dealership and smelled faintly of ink and grease. Outside the window, the parking lot held his car and one pickup truck that had been there since he arrived.

He imagined her walking in.

He imagined the bell over the door ringing once. He imagined not looking up immediately. He imagined letting her cross the room before lifting his eyes, as if her arrival were incidental and not the center of his evening.

He lifted the mug. The coffee was hot enough to require patience. Steam rose and vanished.

The door did not open.

7:58.

Maybe she was late.

Traffic collects where it pleases. A woman might linger at her kitchen counter, turning a ring around her finger. She might rehearse the first sentence and discard it. The evening could still be intact, only delayed.

The door did not open.

The first flicker of heat came when the clock above the counter clicked to 8:00, and the jukebox changed its lights. He felt it low in his chest, the way a swallowed word lingers. He realized he was counting the seconds between passing headlights in the parking lot. One. Two. Three. The gap stretched longer each time, like the space between lightning and thunder when the storm is blowing away.

He folded his hands on the table. He pressed his thumb against the rim of the mug to steady a tremor he refused to acknowledge.

The booth across from him remained empty.

The fire began quietly.

It gathered itself first, narrow and deliberate, like a man straightening his tie before stepping into a room. The flame rose from the center of him in a single, disciplined line, bright without frenzy. It kept its posture. It traced the length of his body with precision, as though even humiliation preferred form. The vinyl held. The napkin lay flat. The sugar caddy caught the light and gave nothing away. The fire belonged to him and to no other surface.

He did not look around.

He knew what it meant.

It was the heat of being visible without being chosen. It was the temperature of a man seated in plain sight while the woman he waited for occupied some other evening entirely.

He slipped his hand into the pocket of his jacket and felt the soft crush of a Marlboro pack. He considered lighting one. He imagined the smoke blending with whatever rose from him. He left the pack where it was. It might smell more like nicotine and less like Stetson.

8:17.

He could leave.

He could stand, slide a five-dollar bill beneath the saucer, and nod at the waitress as though something had come up. He could step into the night before anyone calculated how long he had been there. He could revise the story later. He could say he changed his mind first.

Instead, he stayed.

He let the fire narrow him.

It burned through the scene he had rehearsed on the drive over. The way she would tuck her hair behind her ear. The way she would say his name as if it surprised her. The way the first silence between them would feel charged instead of awkward. Each imagined moment flared and collapsed, bright and brief.

The waitress wiped down the counter with a cloth that smelled faintly of bleach and Ranch dressing. A man in a trucker cap fed a quarter into the jukebox and selected a song that crackled before finding its melody.

The booth across from him held its vacancy with composure.

He understood then that absence makes an entrance of its own. It sits across from you and asks nothing. It leaves you to supply every explanation.

The heat climbed higher.

He felt it behind his eyes, where pride waits. He felt it in his throat, where apologies gather. He felt it in the small, involuntary tightening of his jaw.

He closed his eyes.

Behind his eyelids, color pressed and thinned, as if light were searching for a seam. The closed door no longer mattered. The parking lot no longer held narrative weight. What remained was the outline of himself, suspended in brightness, and the steady recognition that nothing outside him required explanation.

The fire thinned slowly, like steam from cooling coffee.

He opened his eyes.

He lifted the mug and drank what remained. The coffee had cooled into the color of old pennies. A bill lay beneath the saucer like a quiet offering. He stood and drew his palms down the front of his jacket, smoothing it as though pressing the last ember flat.

The bell above the door rang when he pushed it open. Just once.
“Yes,” he murmured. “That’s right.”

The night received him in its thin winter air. Gasoline, frost, distant highway. His breath moved cleanly now.

Inside the diner, nothing smoldered. The booth remained intact. The coffee cup cooled into porcelain silence.

The ash had settled elsewhere.

It lined his lungs. It sifted softly behind his ribs. It marked the place where waiting once stood.

He crossed the parking lot lighter by one imagined future.

Poem: Lucy, After

History prefers its geniuses solemn.
Preferably male.
Preferably seated.

Preferably holding a cigar—
not a cigarello
between long red fingernails.

Instead—
a woman with hair like an emergency flare.

Tell me:
who approved that color?
Which committee of grey
signed off on scarlet?

She slips on grapes.
The floor does not conspire.
Gravity does what gravity has always done.
The miracle is timing.

A conveyor belt advances chocolates
toward frenzy.
She does not manage the machinery.
She collaborates with it.

Is this not a form of authorship?
To be devoured publicly
and still shape the rhythm?

Another spoonful.
The vowels lose confidence.
A nation repeats the error
faithfully.

Behind the laughter—
what?

A pen moving.
A contract reconsidered.
A chair dragged two inches closer to the head of the table.

Two inches is nothing.
Two inches is history.

The cigars call her difficult.
Smoke prefers obedience.
Fire prefers oxygen.

Which one endures?

The camera adored her.
Which is to say
it surrendered.

Or did she surrender first—
learning its angles,
its appetite,
the exact duration of a silence
before an audience inhales?

Meanwhile, another actress waits
in a hallway that smells faintly of carpet glue
and compromise.

How long has she been there?
Since childhood?
Since the first “maybe next time”?

Lucy opens the door.

The actress who had trimmed her ambition
to fit inside the cigars’ shadows
discovers a window.

Somewhere, years later,
a woman walks into a room
and does not think to apologize.

How does permission travel?
Through blood?
Through rumor?
Through reruns?

The grapes are now wine.
The pratfall loops.
The Martian is still loitering
on the windowsill.

Was she a clown?
An executive?
A wife staging chaos while drafting order?
Yes.

Is solemnity the only costume
genius may wear?

If so,
why did the room tilt
when she leaned?

She falls.
She rises.

The laughter echoes.

The chairs remain turned
toward hers.

Poem: Lighthouse Hero

She called to him

Beneath a veil of night

When summer wore

Its hottest mask

Wax and dripping

Onto the earth

Leaving sticky puddles

Drenched and drying fast.

He was ill equipped

From skin to guts

No cape in his wardrobe

Or spectacles to hide his eyes

Paralyzed

By the fear–

No not the fear–

The knowing.

Knowing that his will

To fight for love

Was vacuum packed

And wrapped in moth balls,

It wreaked of age and of

The stench of desperate attempts

And falls–

Memories of unanswered calls.

Calls for him to be the one

The victor in the storm

Brimming to capacity

With strength enough to

Hold her heart–

At least her hand–

Across jagged tightropes

Stretching over pits of sand.

Quicksand questions

Lined with glue

Meant to close the chasm

Between expectation and

What is true–

Catechisms from the past

Never brought to light

Long enough

For queries to last.

What lasted was uncertainties

And now he paid the price

Not wanting to lose

Her

But unprepared to fight

All he could muster

Was a broken hero’s

Journey into night.

Night fell

Long past its time as

Summer solstice

Lazily drew its haze

Upon a sultry sky–

Like the afterglow

Of a camera’s flash

Imprinted behind the eye.

Eyes heavy with fatigue

Propped open by ambition

He pulled his jeans up high

Belted at the waist

Sat on the dew-drenched seat

Slicing through salt

Like he was a Sodomite Sculptor

Entering the competition.

A competition

Against himself

Against the doubt

Bubbling through

His tightening veins

Waking him from

Slumber of uncertainty to

Valor through adversity.

Adverse conditions

In the black

Gave way

As light he carried

Burned a path

Radiant as day–

Along the way he set it down

The dread that he had nothing to give.

He gave her a coordinate–

It was all he had–

A map written in the air

To help her find him

Approaching beneath a beacon

Brave and bright

Like a compass

More meticulous than starlight.

Starlight led her way

Across a stretch of sand

The edge of land

And water

Lapping against her skin

Deep and

Deeper still

She wandered toward the glow.

Glowing first as though a firefly

Small and far away

His vessel cutting through

The foam, mocking delay

For time no longer mattered

As slow their paths came near

He, soaked with ocean

She, doused in tears.

Her tears were anvils

From her soul

Releasing injured expectation

She felt her heaviness go–

Fly

Into the heavens

Where drafts outweighed

The currents swirling down below.

She never saw below

The hidden treasure trove

Inside his hidden space

The place

Where thought and emotion

Ruptured like burdened banks

To flood his heart and

Overflow–

Overflows of adrenaline

Like rain

Saturated and drowned his pain

Leaving only

In the boat

He and the lighthouse he kept

For her

A flame no longer detained.

No act of the Furies could detain

His passage toward her eyes

The two he knew without seeing

He could feel at the side of his neck,

Glimpse behind the pillow

Where once she lay

Inside his dreams

And–in the middle of day.

The glow began to grow

He rowed like a man

Pursued by death

And she

Released a laugh

That tore his heart

From two parts into one–

He dropped the oars so he could run.

He ran to just before her

Then stopped to etch her

All

Inside his mind

Where secrets forever kept

Could burrow, rest and hide,

"I came for you,"

He said–

She already knew

But she feigned a big surprise,

"I wondered at that

single point

upon the horizon growing

never knowing

whether I should run away

or stay."

"I am glad you stayed,"

He kicked some sand

Between his shoes

And cleared his tightening throat,

"Now that you have

would you allow

this reluctant pirate

to stay here, too?"

She blew out the candle

Burning above his face–

No need to keep it lit

Inside this place

Where journey’s end

Had come to rest–

"I never really lost you,” he said–

"Then I was never really lost."

© Jill Szoo Wilson, 2026

Poem: The Us We Can See

I am stationed at a wooden table
the size of a reasonable thought.
It does not wobble.
This feels like a small mercy
after watching my Americano
sway back and forth on the last.

Here, the Americano steams steadily
as if rehearsing confidence,
dark, uncomplicated,
uninterested in my opinions.

I wear fingerless gloves,
a compromise between dignity and survival.
My knuckles remain unconvinced.

Winter returns again and again
through the green-painted door,
carried on the backs of coats,
slipping in at ankle height,
lingering like someone
who has already said goodbye
but remains.

A woman at the counter
counts her change twice,
the last of her pennies
now a relic of a simpler time
when 1-2-3 meant something more.

A man near the window
keeps turning his cup
until the logo faces forward,
forgetting the face
with every sip,
which ends with a new turn.
A familiar dance, a waltz?
Sip-2-3, sip-2-3.

A woman with wiry white hair
removes a bright turquoise hat, 
carefully crocheted,
leaving one thread to dangle
from a curl.
The thread hesitates.
So does she.

Heavy oak chairs keep their positions,
pretending not to notice
who chooses them and why,
practiced at holding
what is briefly certain.

A barista with inked forearms
wipes the same spot again,
loyal to a principle I do not know.

The clock on the wall yawns
while declining comment,
stretching its hands
in a familiar reach,
analog-2-3, sameness-2-3,
predictable without irony.

I lift the white mug,
my fingers watching and ready,
and remember how warmth
asks to be held,
while cold does not.

—Jill Szoo Wilson, 2025