Flying Home

Flying Home

My father keeps samara seedssafe insidesmall matchboxes. He holds his handout to me,a seed in his bark-like palm. This seed has wingslike a dragonfly.I’ve had it for so many yearsthat I don’t knowif she will want to see the light. I touch one of her wingsand it...
Sometimes the Red in Wisconsin

Sometimes the Red in Wisconsin

Sometimes the red symbolon a white backgroundis a swastika on a Sheboygan garage in 2017 sometimes it is the Kimberly High School “K”on the KHS_white_club Instagram accountposted on the first day of Black History Month in 2021 terror remains, alive today: it did not...
Everything Burns

Everything Burns

Before I step through the doors of the cigar factory, I smell the aroma that has followed my sister, Rosario, home since she started working here. As my eyes adjust to the dim light, I make out the figures of rollers already at their cutting boards. “May I help you?”...
A Good Death

A Good Death

The word “doula,” from the Greek for “female servant,” has come to describe a person who provides emotional and physical support throughout the process of childbirth. This kind of care has been extended in recent years to the end of life, a passage as important and...