Nonfiction
-
This is Not a Photo of My Mom By Lindsay Lee Wallace
This is Not A Photo of My Mom
By Lindsay Lee Wallace
My mom Debbie would have been 67 today. I’m eating scrambled eggs in a green vinyl booth, listening to a little girl across the linoleum count down the minutes until she turns eight while sparkly letters sway on springs atop her festive headband and wish the entire diner a Happy Birthday. She encircles her trove of blueberry silver dollar pancakes with her arms, protecting them from the greedy hands of the other kids packed into her booth and declaring,
-
In Remembrance of Summer by Gina Chung
Above: Standing Girl, Back View by Egon Schiele
Of all the things that I’d like to be doing now, instead of waiting for things to get better, waiting until there are no longer sirens haunting my neighborhood every hour with their banshee wails, waiting until it feels safe to no longer feel so afraid—I’d like to be wearing a light cotton dress on a hot summer day here in Brooklyn, on a rooftop that’s really just a glorified patch of silver-painted asphalt but feels like something holy in the orange glow of a July sun.
