Lily Crowder
could be because of solitaire on the desktop computer or Sprite and Jack Daniel’s when you can’t barely hear. could be because of pork chop cooked just right or hot-pink nail polish and light pink wine. the little city sits silent in his absence, cooed to bed by the song of her long-forsaken deep sleep snore, everyone cradled in her palm like she birthed the whole damn state. grandkids from his various lovers visit her, hold her tight but not as tight as she holds them. he didn’t have to ask her to love them like blood, but she does, maybe more. it’s not every day the first wife is also the last with a few in between. at their second wedding, Grandma said I could keep either her flowers or her hat, and I took the hat because flowers die. it isn’t every day hats make you think about semi trucks or glass bowls of old candy makes you think about gray lungs or not breathing when you want to. maybe it’s got something to do with empathy or cancer or karma or watching him sleep to make sure there’s a breath after a breath after a breath
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Lily Crowder is a writer from the coast of North Carolina, now living out West in a travel trailer. She received her MFA from the University of North Carolina Wilmington in 2024. Her work can be found in the Bangalore Review, Poets Choice, Atlantis Magazine and more.