Art by Lisa-Marie Greenly
Young Sins
By Beth L. Voigt ● 2015
“Mom, what’s a sin?” Mom straightened the newspapers on the coffee table, picked up my brother’s two sweat socks and his blue Highland Groveland baseball shirt, and moved the armchair
What’s in a Name?
2015
“All over (America), Negro boys and girls are growing into stunted maturity, trying desperately to find a place to stand, and the wonder is not that so many are ruined—but that so many survive!”
JAMES BALDWIN 1955
The Drive
2015
Not wanting to alarm my husband and infant son, in case they’ve fallen back asleep, I don’t call. I don’t even text. But I do take a picture with my camera-phone, because I need proof that I’ve done it, that I’m actually here: sitting in a 2005 toyota Matrix, outside the Saint anthony Park library. this is incredible.
In Praise of Aging
2015
In praise of buses rattling through the streets
In praise of passengers jostling for a seat
In praise of a transfer I didn’t need to buy
In praise of snow falling from the sky, and my down coat
Bought secondhand but warm
Silverheels
2015
It was my mom’s first marriage proposal. At eight, she was the older woman. George was only six. After hasty consideration, Mom turned him down. As she explained to her mother, she couldn’t marry George. He liked carrots. She didn’t.
Of Arthur “Chan” McWatt (March 10, 1926–April 3, 2012)
2015
Saint Paul recently lost one of its most sterling examples of what it means to be a responsible, useful, and compassionate citizen. That individual was Arthur Chandler McWatt.
Home Is Knowing the Path to Her Door
2015
I laughed out loud when Bobbie finally confided to me the thought that struck her when she first heard my voice on the phone: “Oh, Lord. Another white woman looking for a Black care provider for her Black child.”
Graphic Memoir
2015
THE ARTIST PATRICIA OWEN worked for the Peace Corps in Senegal. “They give you a mission, and when you get there, you find one for yourself.
The Restaurants of Frogtown
2015
Left everything. Left Laos in ’78. Followed a husband following Vang Pao.
Bird in Hand
2015
MY NEIGHBOR DEREK LUSCHE was seeking the center of gravity in his new bird sculpture. “I am going to hang it and maybe make it part of a mobile.”
From Somalia to Kenya, to Somalia to Minnesota
2015
I am Hamda Ahmed Essa. I am twenty-two years old, I am single, and I live in the Twin Cities. In 1991 when I was a little girl in Somalia my family and relatives had to run away from the war.
Fabel’s Shoe Store
2015
On Saturdays when I was a kid, my friends and I took the streetcar—later the bus—to downtown Saint Paul. Sometimes we went to the library, where the wise librarians knew how to help active boys find books that would hold their interest and keep them coming back for more.