Five Minutes explores five minutes of a life in one hundred words. Five minutes is edited by Susanna Baird, with editorial support from managing editor Maria s. picone, newsletter editor kate meen, and founding reader bobbi lerman, plus our rotating team of guest readers, who you can meet in the latest newsletteR. Five Minutes was founded in October 2020, with the Salem (Mass.)-based writing group Carrot Cake Writers supplying the journal’s first pieces. We’d love to read your five. Submit here

A Step Forward

Last week I only dared watch, but now, under the baubled lights that sway over a tree-lined square swollen with longing, I buckle my black tango shoes, hold my breath like a platform diver preparing to plunge in, wonder if tonight I will be asked. Couples slide across the square, their embraces a circling dialogue of pulse and pause, self and other. I shift my feet, coltish. Then this, the tilt of a head beneath a fedora, an elderly hand stretched out from an immaculate pinstriped suit, a '¿Quiere bailar?' I nod, hold up my palm, step into the space.

Becky May used to dance tango at milongas in London, Buenos Aires, and Granada but now mostly dances in her kitchen. Find her on Twitter @beckymaywriter.

Floriography

Stupid Is