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

Sleepless in Corona

Little fingertips prod my eyelids, scouting before the assault. A hand, small and warm, seeks my softest spots. I’m the exhausted battleground. Sharp bones poke as she folds into the shadow of my sleep. A fireball bundled in down, her cough rattles against her ribs and my shaking limbs. We are fetid with decay, eucalyptus the scent of our salt-steeped fevers. My breath is heavy, my tongue listless, drying like a whale caught on sand. She stills. I don’t dare move. Her descent's too fragile a thing, a butterfly wing unfolding. “Mummy, what’s inside hair?” There'll be no sleep tonight.

Mary Rothery is a writer working on her first novel. A mum of one, Mary writes in moments between mothering and her part-time job. Find Mary at maryrothery.com and on Instagram @mrotherywrites.

Lesvos 2013

Floriography