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

Learning to Fly

Hanging sheets on the clothesline, I spot a red-shouldered hawk circling above the trees. I crane my neck to follow him, the laundry forgotten at my feet. Mighty wings flap once, twice—silent in the morning sun. The hawk coasts on warm air currents, loose, wavy orbits around an invisible center. He climbs higher—a black speck in the swell of blue sky—his appearance surely a sign to guide me, comfort me, remind me of my place. But does the hawk worry about signs? Or does he bask in this moment, and the next one, and on and on? Maybe.

Brigitte Watson, an emerging writer, is located in Tiohtià:ke (Montreal, Québec). She hasn't learned how to fly yet, but it's coming along better than expected!

Michigan

Dublin, 1973