It was cold in the National Cathedral that rainy night forty-one years ago, and smelled of stale air and incense.
My feet can't reach the water where waves have caressed me before. I stretch to touch her with my toes.
Ms. Cookie Paul, a black businesswoman in our small Texas town, mentored us black girls.
I peer at the prices in the gas station and comment that chocolate shouldn’t cost so much.
Unidentified pain wakes me, though awareness filters slowly.
With three school-aged children, our family squeezed in a trip over winter break despite the expected frigid weather.
The gravel road ascended Mount Defiance, a Revolutionary War site.
Later, we would find out that Jeff had survived . . .
This is what happened, but it’s not when it began. We don't know when that was.
She picked up a lone sock and a jacket in one hand, a crumpled moist tissue paper in the other.
At six weeks old she is a wisp of a being who collapses against me in total repose before she finishes most bottles.
Dented and dirty, it rolled right out of my façade of middle-classness.
The sky was gray; the thunder rumbling quietly, as if it knew, like it was mourning too.
I drove with anxious anticipation, little flutters keeping me present in my body.
A fantasy turned nightmare. Ripped tights, blood on gravel – a sacrifice.
As you guide the lane line roller around the diving well, the grit behind your eyes clicks.
Every Wednesday in winter, when there was hardly anyone else there, I went down to the beach and read until sunset.
My name is YaYa. I’m sitting here in the corner of my daughter’s home, surrounded by toddlers and their parents.
The micro-spikes I’ve strapped to the bottom of my trail runners make me feel confident.
I remind you of my generational trauma as you carry another box to the moving truck, but you don’t respond.