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

Spooked

Forty-four years ago when we moved into this home, I found two potatoes on the basement floor. They weren’t in a bag, they were just lying there, begging to be picked up, washed and cooked. Was it an offering to Joseph, the saint Catholics say help you sell your house? Did they fall from the last box brought up from the basement? For the past five minutes, in the early morning dark and alone in the house, I’ve been lying in bed, hearing footsteps. Has the previous owner died and returned as a ghost, hoping to retrieve his two potatoes?

Wilda Morris, a widely-published poet and workshop leader, is not easily spooked. Her most recent book is Pequod Poems: Gamming with Moby-Dick. Find Wilda at wildamorris.blogspot.com.

Bright Pink Pill

Trincomalee