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

The Box

I was sure it was a head in the box. When I picked it up, it gave a sort of solid and liquid tumble. My wife was sure it was a box of money, and that I had imagined the liquid part. We were lost in thick fog and we almost hit the box with our van. It was about ten-by-ten inches and sealed tightly with tape. We couldn’t help but stop and pick it up. Wouldn’t you? But we didn’t open it. Something held us back. We just drove off. My wife always said we would have been rich.

Robert Allen lives with his family in Oakland, California, where he writes poems and coaches poets in their craft. www.robertallenpoet.com Twitter: @RobertAllenPoet

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