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 Crossing

Ahead, a wide road of surging behemoths. KFC stands tall opposite. My part-time dad holds my hand. “We will make it.” He is a skinny giant, head balding. “Wait for it.” I look at where he is looking, his hold becomes a grip, and we rush headlong into the wind. My short legs barely touch the ground. A pause in the middle, a look to the left, then the carry-forward, and we stop. I try to catch up with that momentary force. He grins at me as if we have won. I grin back. KFC has never tasted so good.

Arthur Neong hails from Malaysia and taught for eleven years before doing his MA. He finds poetry and short prose capture essence like nothing else.


Yeller