The Swing
Published in Electric Literature, September 2023
For weeks after, empty chains hung from the swing set. And then one day, a new swing appeared. Only it wasn’t new; it was worn in the seat. The blue was whitened at the stress points. Which suggested that this swing had been taken from a different playground, maybe a better playground, which had been upgraded. Or maybe a worse playground, where rainwater pooled in the slides and the mulberries made a mess and the yellowjackets lasted past Halloween.
I Could Be a Tree
Published in Rooted Two: The Best New Arboreal Nonfiction (Outpost 19), August 2023
Kristen and I have two kids apiece and they have climbed our trunks and whispered wishes into our hair and demanded impossible gifts with no shame.
How the Lark Got Her Crest
Published in Orion Summer 2023
I have learned that when a lark builds a nest, she builds it in the ground. She knows it is a grave.
The Girl the Girls Piece Together
Published in The Kenyon Review.
The pears in the orchard have been numbered with ink. When the hungry runaway scales the stone wall, studies the branches, she takes a moment to choose.
The Body is Loyal
Published in Ruminate.
In one variation, the Children ask the Mother for permission to move their bodies in certain ways across the field. She’s across the field, a figure turned away from them, gaze fixed on something in the trees. The Children are limber. The Mother, unpredictable.
Luck Now
Published in The Rupture.
If I take any heed from Beatrix, I will bring you to life only after boiling your bones and sleeping with them, half-articulated, under my pillow. That was her idea of childhood. Mine might have looked similar had I not felt so brittle next to death. And water. And heat. And sleep. Mine was a pink room stuffed with two sisters.
The Hill Was Flat
Published in Ruminate.
I, too, have lost my child in bear country. Show me a mother who hasn't.
I, too, have felt fear grow legs, gallop through me, snap my sternum. Have run to any thicket that could hide a child and her empty pail. When you run, you could run faster.
You Call That Wild
Published in Oxford American.
The sailboats of imagination only float so far. When your Max settles into his, surrenders to the sea, in and out of weeks, he is nowhere new. His boat is any boat.