Carol Rose Little
reprieve, n. Temporary respite. As in drifting down the boardwalk, salted licorice, waves like bolts of Chantilly lace, seaweed tendrilling our ankles, our toes, the lapping cool, lying there, the sand beneath us. From the din. As in the track, the waiting racecars, the lull before the other side of this day, almost touching the quiet, driving through the marshes, past the mountains scattered with trees, the freeway, back to that heat. I remember this, together, that calmness between.
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Carol Rose Little is an assistant professor of linguistics at the University of Oklahoma. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Beaver Magazine, Wild Greens, and World Literature Today.