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

From the Window

The cat licks around his kill spot on the patio as you might clean a lover’s wound. He is intent, thorough, keen. He snaps up the last smooth glob: Heart? Kidney? Soul? He eats open mouthed, jaws working like machinery. I imagine a Foley artist expressing the visuals through sound. Scouring pad sandpaper blancmange emery board crushed clothes pegs pebbles slap of a rump steak chewing a wishbone knitting needles stabbing an old balloon filled with syrup. I pick up my coffee cup and doughnut, first licking off all the sprinkles then plunging it in, right to the bottom.

Marie Little lives with her husband, three sons, and a very silly cat. She used to teach; she now makes Play-Doh bricks and writes in fields. Find Marie on Twitter @jamsaucer.

Again

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