THE DOVECOTE was published in Loch Raven Review.

Viv had skin as thin as tissue paper, she said, and it tore easily on thorns and the blade edge of tall grasses. But she was covered in mostly bruises. Said her skin succumbed easily to pressure and turned a palette of nightshade colors: eggplant and toadstool. It began after she delivered my mother, she said. A child will change you, she said.

Author’s Note: I interwove several threads throughout this story’s theme of loss and resilience. It was a very visual piece for me, and I worked to make the language both poetic and aesthetically evocative.