My best friend and next-door neighbor
—thirteen, happy, taller, stronger—
challenged me for the right to carry
my knapsack
on a summer hike across the Delaware and back.
So why, two lifetimes later,
do I still feel guilt and anger?
How was I to know
I was the better swimmer?

Erik Cederblom, a San Francisco Bay Area Writer, prefers the short form: 6-word wonders, dribbles, drabbles, flash, and short stories. (Who coins these terms?) His stories have been shared in The Iowa Review, The Military Experience and the Arts, inScribe, Typishly, and others.