Lee Anne Gallaway-Mitchell
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Back to Issue 9 |
Dust storms may exist,
warn yellow signs on nowhere highways. I grew up in a dry land with a dry heat. Don’t talk to me about being anchored or unmoored. We had dirt storms, spinning devils of earth. We did not drown, though we choked on the soil that fed us. Earth eaters, every single one of us. Grit got into everything, in creases and cleavages, in the cracks of chapped lips. You forget that all places get dusty. You see it in a certain light suddenly revealed, and you stop what you are doing to remove it. You dust to dust, verb to eliminate noun. I am reminded: So much dust is skin shed, our bodies flying above us on the blades of ceiling fans. Paternal GrandfatherI have no idea what to call you,
but in the picture you eat a cantaloupe. You have your sleeves rolled up, arms all brown and strong and work worn. But first you crouch down and savor a bit of melon, one you’ve picked from the field and broken into bits on the ground. Is it the end of your day? Is it just the beginning? The fruit is the brightest thing in the photo, This melon that you have chosen, all orange, semi-sweet pulp inside a reticulated rind that holds secrets while giving them away. When you brought it up to your nose and inhaled that knowledge, became privy to a ripe confidence, before you smashed its world into the dirt, and bit into its flesh, did you know the juice would drip down those work-weary, sun-bit arms and into your rolled-up shirtsleeves? Or did you even notice? |
Lee Anne Gallaway-Mitchell is a writer, educator, and caregiver living in Tucson, AZ. Originally from Texas, Lee Anne writes about memory, war, and mental illness. Her work is forthcoming in Sun Star Review, and she was a finalist in the 2016 Tucson Book Festival Literary Awards for nonfiction.
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