Atlas & Alice | Issue 6, Spring 2016
Like Mother, Like Daughter Autumn, and your mother’s hands are starting to change again, salmon in the backyard creek reversing course. In this life the two of you are leaning against your father’s ghost like wind. And even the rain knows to stay away from the house, whole drafts of it missing the porch, your mouth filling with silver the way the dying tremble beneath the coins over their eyes. On quiet afternoons you can hear her nails beneath the door or from the pantry, once entering the kitchen to find each one palm up on the table, clasping the first knife they could find, ready to ward off the only intruder they ever knew.
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