No dogs allowed. John said they would eat his tortoises. My husband was a whale biologist and many of the former residents of our California beach bungalow reflected this interest.
With Dogs as My Shepherd by Corinne Heyning Laverty
Category: Essays
An archive of all of the personal essays we’ve published at Hippocampus Magazine over the years.
Chewing Gardens by Mary Lide
I chew the collars of my shirts until they’re ragged as my fingernails. This drives my mother crazier than when I used to chew my hair, which tasted like peppermint despite the fact that I did not use peppermint shampoo.
Blue Rider by Lisa Baird
It begins in the dark of day. It begins with the turn of a key, a familiar road. The commute, the commute of years, begins without fanfare, without manifesto.
Abol Bridge by David Young
“Bobby, it’s me. We hear that you… ran into some difficulty yesterday.” A bit of an understatement, considering he collapsed on the trail and was carried out by a rescue team, but it’s what comes from my mouth.
Universe by Linda Dunlavy
We’re in the forest looking for acorn shells, because they make good bathtubs for the fairies. I have only one daughter, and she thinks a pinecone would be a good hiding place – fairies like to play hide-and-seek.
Take Arms by Matt W Miller
I know as well as anyone the ridiculous, bread and circuses fascination America has with sports but sometimes I just get sucked into its narrative, just like people do with afternoon soaps, teenage vampires, or reality “talent” shows.
Object Lessons by Carol Smith
I wake up sweating and lie there as the adrenaline ebbs, running through what I would take, if I had to leave. The mental cataloging starts: what I have lost already; what I have yet to lose; an inventory of what matters.
The Sound of Ice by Tyler Lacoma
The first sound is the foot sound, the break sound, the cracking crunch that hikers know… It is a stubborn, short sound, underneath your boots. Ka-krack, krunch, it says. It says little else.
Until We Have Loved by Jeanine Pfeiffer
The bat is so itty-bitty-teeny-tiny her body embraces only half my thumb, to which she clings during our first moments. Clings to with eyes shut: either because she naturally re-immersed herself in torpor, or from exhaustion.
Lessons from My Sire by Cynthia Jalynski
I never knew what to say when people asked me what my father did for a living. Sometimes I joked, “He’s involved with high-risk investments.” — “Stocks? Bonds?” — “More like ponies and dice.”
