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

Damage

I was swinging ever higher on the swing mounted on a sturdy branch of the immeasurably ancient oak. And then I was on the ground, a few fingers mangled and awaiting the trip to the emergency room. Sitting there, the wonder was that I had no memory of slipping from the seat, of my fingers challenging the swing’s suspension, of any wound at all. No knowledge of landing upright or prone and then rising to sit. I knew then I would swing again, perhaps in this very tree. To my young mind, I could outpace physics. I could enviably soar.

Ken Poyner has four flash and four poetry collections out there. He watches his world-class powerlifting wife at meets, and once worked wrangling computers. Find Ken at www.kpoyner.com, www.barkingmoosepress.com, on Facebook at ken.poyner.9, and on Twitter @KenPoyner2.

Phosphorescence

14 Years Later