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

Mommy Dovey

My son leans into me, his hot body a hot brick against mine. He leans his full weight into my side and into all my tender points as though he knows I will never let him fall, pure trust in his thoughtless plop down next to me on the love seat. He pauses from his video game long enough to put both his baby-like hands on each of my cheeks and he shakes my head side to side as he says, “Mommy dovey. Mommy dovey.” Then he kisses my cheek and turns back to his game. We sit like this.

Melissa Flores Anderson is a writer from California. She has been published in two dozen journals and is a reader/editor for Roi Fainéant Press. Website: melissafloresandersonwrites.com Twitter: @melissacuisine Instagram: @theirishmonths 

End of an Era

Exhalation