Bags are unloaded from the trunk and I look on with trepidation. This is not the first time my cousins’ old clothes have shown up, yet I hope that something will fit. My mom lifts the first item out of the bag: Girbaud jeans—so cool. I will the fabric to contain me. I look at the tag: “SLIM.” Slllliiiimmm. My cousins are tall, skinny, gangly like fawns. I am more like a pack mule; my legs have heft and girth. I put my right leg into the coolest pair of jeans I’ve ever seen. It stops at the knee.
Catherine Levine is based in Western Wisconsin. She holds an MFA from Hamline University where she served on the editorial board for Water~Stone Review.