Day #15, 10 Mar 2022 You’ve got an hour to decide what to carry from your life. I look at my phone, charger, passport, password list, wallet, and one 16lb cat, one 8lb cat, a chicken, and a husband. On your way to the border, you remember what you couldn’t carry: the 100 year old piano, a change of clothing, an extra jacket, and tooth paste. If you and your belongings make it to the border, how will you feed your cats, chicken, and husband? How much will a sandwich cost when your lives cost nothing? Listen to the prayers made before your body was unrolled from the tarp. You were loved.
—Submitted on 09/28/2022
Melinda Thomsen is the author of Armature (Hermit Feathers Press, 2021. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Artemis, Poetry Miscellany, Hermit Feathers Review, The Ekphrastic Review, THEMA, and Salamander Magazine. She is an advisory editor for Tar River Poetry. She lives in North Carolina with her husband, two cats, and one chicken.
Editor’s Note: The series title Flush Left refers to the fact that, due to our limited WordPress skills, we are only considering poems that are flush left. Poems already in our Submittable queue that have simple non-flush-left formatting may be considered for publication.
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