United States
Born and raised in New York City, Tom Cowen, currently lives in the beautiful New England town of Ridgefield, CT. He is an above-average software sales engineer, retired amateur boxer, and barely serviceable hockey player. His work has been published in the Forge Literary Magazine, Montana Mouthful, Connecticut Literary Anthology 2021, The Good Men Project and Daily Inspired Life. He is a graduate of New York University and the Newport MFA at Salve Regina University. He writes about courage and his incredibly brave son, Justin.
Volume 4, Issue 3. Montana Mouthful is an independent nonprofit literary magazine devoted to short fiction and nonfiction, poetry, and visual artwork. Each issue is themed. We aim to publish three times per year.
My essay, Finding Dylan Thomas, appeared in the Connecticut Literary Anthology in October 2021.
I took the ramp hard, swerved back and forth over the rumble strip as we exited the highway. Onward, a New York City reservoir on my right, down a steep embankment, a graveyard of trees and jagged rocks, deep, dark waters filling tunnel-sized pipes. It was night's darkest hour, as I pressed the pedal harder.
A long tube arrived, postmarked British Columbia. In it, a black and white poster of a police car lighting the wet road and a man, his mop of curly hair, his legs, one like a tree trunk and the other a steel rod. Words below, Today, we got up at 4:00 AM.
At first glance, it took me less than twenty-four hours to create a new word. In reality, it was only a variation and had taken my entire adult life. It was, after all, not a trivial word, but a word that moved nations, won wars, and saved lives: courage.
Dear Justin, I'm sorry. Sorry that Mets' opening day on March 26th never happened. Sorry, we couldn't get there early to watch Pete Alonso take batting practice, maybe hit one out of the stadium and two off the scoreboard. Sorry, we couldn't go to the concession stand in between the second and third innings.