Rain in Fort Valley, VA

By: Joshua Sinel

That rain 

Over there

Coming in

Will march

With tiny feet

In soldier rows

Clamoring and crowding

Pushing and rolling

Knees over knees

Tiny little diamond feet

Tap-tap-tapping

bending blades

moving along

singing the secret soldiers’ song

To stop for a moment

the rock of rocking chairs

on broken floors

beyond repair

the back and forth

the tit-for-tat

and all the endless this and that

---

Joshua has had stories published in Quarterly West, Sequoia, the anthology American Fiction, and the anthology Writers at Work. His most recent work, “Horse Sense” appears in the Summer 2022 issue of The Bangalore Review.

He was awarded 3rd Prize by Judge Wallace Stegner in American Fiction #4 and was awarded 1st and 2nd Prize by Judge Bob Shacochis in the Writers at Work Competition. His novel, Half Moon Racing Club was named a semi-finalist in last year’s James Jones First Novel Fellowship Contest, among the top 30 out of 737 submissions. Joshua received his MFA from the Writing Division at Columbia University.