This selection, chosen by guest editor Merrick Sloane, is from A Hard Silence: One daughter remaps family, grief, and faith when HIV/AIDS changes it all by Melanie Brooks (Vine Leaves Press, 2023).

                                 How It Could Have
                                     Been Different

   “You  know what  I keep coming back to?”  Dr. B  said,  uncrossing his
legs  and  repositioning himself in his chair. His forehead  creased  with
the  intensity of  his  thought. “I  keep  coming  back to that pastor.  The
one your dad tried to talk to.”
   “Yeah,”  I said, hugging my arms close and folding a little at the  waist
into  my protective  posture. Lately, we’d been venturing into  the  vola-
tile territory of faith. The most difficult territory to navigate because  of
my general disillusionment. But even  when I determined to, I  couldn’t
fully  abandon  it. Despite  my  dismissal, I  felt  a  pull to  try to  resolve
things. The figuring out part was perilous therapy ground.
   Dr. B kept going. “I’d sort of like to punch that guy in the face.”
   He   feigned  shame  and  took  an exaggerated look around the  small
office  as  though  someone  else  might   have  overheard  him.  Talk  of
punching pastors was  not typically  understood as the “good  Christian
behavior”   we  had  both  been   taught  in  our  strikingly  similar  faith
backgrounds, but  he was not apologetic. His  late father  was a  Baptist
minister.  He  grew  up in  the  evangelical world—a  place you  have  to
have  lived  to  know.  In  our  second   session,  when  I’d  recognized  a
familiar  logo on  the coffee mug  he was drinking from, I’d  discovered
that we’d both graduated (eighteen years apart) from  Gordon  College,
a  non-denominational, Christian liberal arts school on  Massachusetts’
North Shore.
   I  also knew from small anecdotes he’d shared that faith had not been
an  effortless  path  for him  either. He’d  encountered  his own  periods

of  disillusionment,  so an ease had  emerged in our work together  over
the  past  three years that made  it  okay  for us  to  say  what we  meant,
shocking  or not, appropriately  “Christian” or not. And  though he  was
using  the  bluntness of  this  statement  about  punching  the  pastor  to
allow  space for my anger,  an authentic part of him meant exactly what
he said.
   I smiled even though I felt like crying. Gratitude draped over me, and
I loosened my arms. “I know the feeling,” I said.
   We’d  been   moving   cautiously   into  conversations  about  how   the
Christian,  particularly   evangelical,  response   to  AIDS  early  on—the
intolerance, the  bigotry,  the  turning  of  backs,  the  hateful  messages
from  powerful evangelical  leaders—was  such  a  critical factor in  how
isolated  I felt when my  dad  was sick. A factor that  tied  to my  doubts
about whether there was a place for God in my life now.
   The  story of  this pastor was  one  I’d told Dr. B a long time  ago,  and
I  was moved, not simply because  he would contemplate punching this
guy on  my behalf, but because he’d earmarked this event as significant
enough to hold in his memory. It was a  story that I only learned  about
long  after the  fact  when  I’d sat  alone  reading the  manuscript of  my
parents’  book in my basement  room in Halifax.  A story that  I  wished
I  had  the power to rewrite  because  its outcome solidified a  trajectory
that, twenty-five years later, landed me on this couch.
   Here are the facts as I know them from three stark paragraphs in The
Book:  On a Sunday  afternoon in  1987,  two  years after his  diagnosis,
Dad  was  home alone and  struggling  with  vivid thoughts  of  suicide.
He  called the   pastor of the large, downtown church we attended  and
asked  for an urgent  meeting. The  pastor   agreed, came to our  home,
and  my father disclosed to him the  secret of his HIV infection and  his
anguish. The  pastor offered a  short  prayer and then  made an  abrupt
exit,  leaving my father alone  without  counsel or  support.  The  pastor
later  called  my  mother and told  her if  she and  my father needed  his
help, he would  like them  to come to his office so he would not have  to
visit them in their home.
   They never heard from the man again.

                                                          — 
   My  father was a proud man. He was used to being the guy in  charge.
The  one  always  in control. Nothing  would  have  been riskier for  him
than  being in that  position  of  vulnerability that day  with  the  pastor.
So  exposed. When I try to imagine  the courage it took for him  to  pick
up  the telephone that  Sunday  afternoon, I feel a  clenching fist in  the
pit  of my stomach. And  when I think about that  moment of  rejection,
picture  that pastor turning away  from Dad’s obvious torment, a disap-
pointment bigger than any other threatens to strangle me.
   Because  that  was  the  one  shot. The  one  shot  to  prove that  Dad’s
fears of being ostracized by those around us—ostracized by those in the
Christian   community—were wrong.  The  one  shot   to  break  through
the loneliness of this terrible secret and get the support that he needed.
That we all needed.

                                                       — 
   The  good-girl  me wanted to give the pastor the benefit of the  doubt.
To  extend him some grace. Was  it  unfair for me to stack the  outcome
of  our story squarely on  one man’s shoulders? 1987 was  a  scary  time
when  it came  to  AIDS. I’d  lived  the history. No  one seemed to  know
the  right  way  to   respond. There  was  so  much  ignorance.  So  much
mystery  connected to this illness that took the lives of so many. Maybe
I could forgive him. I had been scared then too.
   A  few  years  earlier, after  recounting this story for  the  first  time  to
Dr. B, I’d gone home, sat down at my laptop, and typed the man’s name
into  the  Google  search  bar.  His  bio on  the  New  York  City  church’s
website  was  the  first thing  to pop  up. When I clicked  on the link, his 
face appeared at the top of my screen.It took me a moment to recognize
him: he was bald and sported a trendy goatee and dark rimmed glasses.
But  I knew his face and my stomach seized. I scrolled  through the  site
and  read about his work and  the impact he’d had on his  congregation.

I  read about his family. Those kids I used to babysit were married  now
with children of their own. He was somebody’s grandfather.
   So,  I wanted to excuse him. I wanted to believe that he simply  hadn’t
been  equipped with the proper tools for the unique nature of my  dad’s
situation. I wanted to chalk it up as one bad blip on the broader  screen
of  his  successful  ministry.  He  was  the  good  guy  in  so  many  other
people’s  stories.  I wanted  to stop thinking that  everything  he’d  done
since 1987 was negated because of one mishandled incident.
   But I couldn’t.
   I couldn’t because in the thirty years since he’d turned his back on my
dad,  on  my whole family,  he’d  never looked  back. Never  apologized.
Never  questioned  his  behavior  enough  to  clarify or  remedy  it.  Dad
died,  but the rest of  us didn’t. We were there  the  whole  time,  coping
with the grief, railing against the loss. And some of us still felt the  pain
and  confusion and  loneliness  of that  experience  as deeply as we  did
then. Maybe more so.

Melanie Brooks (she/her) is the author of A Hard Silence: One daughter remaps family, grief, and faith when HIV/AIDS changes it all (Vines Leaves Press 2023) and Writing Hard Stories: Celebrated Memoirists Who Shaped Art from Trauma (Beacon Press 2017). She teaches creative nonfiction and narrative medicine in the MFA program at Bay Path University. She holds an MFA from the University of Southern Maine’s Stonecoast program and a Certificate in Narrative Medicine from Columbia University. She’s had numerous interviews and essays on topics ranging from illness, loss, and grief to parenting and aging published in the The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, The Toronto Globe and Mail, HuffPost, Yankee Magazine, Psychology Today, Ms. Magazine, Creative Nonfiction, and other notable publications. She lives in NH with my husband, two kids (when they are home from university), and chocolate Lab.

Merrick Sloane (they/them) is a neuro-Queer 90’s kid and nonbinary poet, editor, and researcher from Oklahoma who’s a sucker for expletives and second languages. They hold an MFA in creative writing from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and are Associate Poetry Editor of Doubleback Review. Merrick’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Central Dissent: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality, BLEACH!, citizen trans* {project}, Arcana Poetry, Puerto del Sol, ANMLY, Fruitslice, among others. Merrick’s poetry was recently selected as a winner of the Garden Party Collective’s contest on Neurodivergence / Intersectionality and as a winner for AWP’s 2025 Intro Journal Awards. Their work has received support from the DreamYard Rad(ical) Poetry Consortium, Poets House, and Sundress Publications. When they are not writing or editing, Merrick loves to serve as a pillow for their cat, Kitten, while getting lost in new worlds written by other dreamers. Merrick is deeply committed to helping create a world that liberates us all.

This selection, chosen by guest editor Merrick Sloane, is from A Hard Silence: One daughter remaps family, grief, and faith when HIV/AIDS changes it all by Melanie Brooks (Vine Leaves Press, 2023).

                                        Epilogue

                                                             —   
No one had bothered to turn  on the  outside  lights,  and the  dim  glow
from the shaded  cottage windows  did  little  to  disperse  the  darkness
around  me  when  I stepped  out into the night.  The  air  was dewy and
warm  against  my  skin.  The  gravel  crunched under my flip flops as  I
followed  the   path  to our cottage. I  stopped halfway across  the  space
between  the two  buildings  and  tilted  my  head  back   to  look  at  the
stretch  of sky  overhead. Something  about  the  island  geography,  the
nearness  of  the  ocean,  made the sky feel bigger here. Stars punctured
the black, tiny pinpricks of light shaping into familiar constellations.
   “Here, I’ll help you trace it,” Dad’s  voice echoed  somewhere  deep  in
the  recesses  of my brain and a memory sharpened. We  were sprawled
side  by  side  on  a thick, shag carpet in the family room of our summer

cottage  in  New  Brunswick. The  lights  were  off so we could stare  out
at  the  night  sky  through  the panoramic window that took up most of
the  front  wall and showcased the view of the river. On this night when
I was  about  nine,  it  was so clear we could see satellites tracking paths
among  the  brilliant  sea  of  stars.  While Mom and David searched for
signs  of  the  anticipated  meteor  shower,  Michael and Mark had been
pointing  out  the  different  constellations, competing to see who could
spot them first.
   “I see Orion,” Mark declared with triumph.
   “I found that five minutes ago,” Michael said.
   I was still trying to locate the Big Dipper.
   Dad  closed  his  hand over mine and pointed  my  finger to a particu-
larly bright star. “That’s the North  Star,” he said. “Always  look for that
one  first.  It helps  you to clear the  clutter  of  all  the  other  ones.”  He
moved  my  finger in a straight line from that star to another bright one
a few inches below it. “Now this is the edge of the Big Dipper,” he said.
“It’s  made  up  of  these seven bright stars.” He  drew a shape  with  my
finger. “Think of a big soup ladle, or even the shape of a  wheelbarrow,”
he said.
   I  focused  my eyes on those stars as  he traced the  shape again.  And,
just  like   that, I  saw it. “There!”  I  cried, triumphant  satisfaction  and
wonder mingling in a single word.
   “There,”  Dad  said, and drew  my  finger back  up  to  the  North Star.
“Now,  see  if  you can  find  the Little Dipper too. The North  Star  is  at
the tip of its handle.”
   I found it right away. Dad released his grip on my hand,  and I  rested
my  head  against  his shoulder and stared up at  the Big Dipper and the
Little  Dipper,  tracing  their  lines with  my  finger over and over again.
The  two  constellations  stood out from all of the other stars. I felt  like
I’d been let in on an important secret.
   “From  now   on,   you’ll   always   know  how   to  find   them   without
anybody’s help,” Dad said.
   More  than  thirty  years later, the same starry canvas gazed down  on
me where I stood between the cottages and I couldn’t help feeling  that

infinite  space cluttered with so many of my  habitual  questions always
too  big for answers. Why didn’t the boys and Mom linger in their grief
the  way I did  when confronted with images of what  could  have been?
Why  weren’t  the words of regret and loss and longing I  so  wanted  to
speak  the same  words that  rested on  their  tongues? Why  were  they
so quick to shut  down moments  like  tonight  that opened up space  to
remember?  As  the disappointment of  yet  another  gathering of  unre-
alized  expectations  tried to take hold, a concession  funneled  into  my
mind.  I  couldn’t  know  what was inside of  them  any  more than  they
could  know  what  was  inside of me. A  fresh  question  surfaced.  Why
did  their  responses matter so much? And that night, for the first  time,
I considered a new answer.
   Maybe they didn’t.
   It  felt  like  opening  a  release  valve on  a  pressurized  tank.  All  the
pent-up  frustrations  leaking  out in one,  swift  whoosh,  leaving  room
for an emerging, gentler clarity.
   It didn’t matter whether my search was their  search.  What  mattered
was  that  my  search  was  leading   me  toward  something  that  I   was
starting  to recognize as important and  necessary even though  I  could
not yet see the constellation for the stars.
   I  could  not  yet see that reaching  back and  tracing  the  history  that
landed my family  where it did would be my path forward. That I would
eventually  choose to let go and leave behind some of the questions that
weren’t really mine to answer.

                                                         —   
   I  could not yet see  that at  the very  moment I’d be  ready  to  publish
this book, a new  pandemic would  rage  across the globe, impacting  us
all,  and  carrying  with  it  haunting  reverberations  of  the  early  AIDS
crisis. That twenty-five years  after my father’s death, his  story and  the
stories  of  countless other victims of HIV/AIDS  would hold lessons for
our present crisis and continue to resonate.
   But  that  August  night, I  couldn’t  see any  of  these  things.  What  I
could  see was the  North  Star, still  and sure at the  center of  the  sky.
A  fixed point.  A beacon. In various cultures across the world,  the  Big
Dipper  is  part of the cultural mythology. In Greek  stories,  it’s  known

as  the Great  Bear. In Ireland  and the  UK,  the  Plough.  In  Germany,
it’s  called the Great Cart, and in Italy, the Great Wagon.  However,  in
an  old  Arabic legend, the four stars that make up the asterism’s  bowl
symbolize  a coffin, and the three stars of the handle are the  mourners
who follow after the deceased.
   I  stretched  my  finger  and  followed  an  ascending  path  to the  star
representing the final mourner at the tip of the Big Dipper.
   “There,” I said softly and dropped my  hand to my side. The sound  of
my voice drifted on the air and trailed upward, expectant. Limitless.

Melanie Brooks (she/her) is the author of A Hard Silence: One daughter remaps family, grief, and faith when HIV/AIDS changes it all (Vines Leaves Press 2023) and Writing Hard Stories: Celebrated Memoirists Who Shaped Art from Trauma (Beacon Press 2017). She teaches creative nonfiction and narrative medicine in the MFA program at Bay Path University. She holds an MFA from the University of Southern Maine’s Stonecoast program and a Certificate in Narrative Medicine from Columbia University. She’s had numerous interviews and essays on topics ranging from illness, loss, and grief to parenting and aging published in the The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, The Toronto Globe and Mail, HuffPost, Yankee Magazine, Psychology Today, Ms. Magazine, Creative Nonfiction, and other notable publications. She lives in NH with my husband, two kids (when they are home from university), and chocolate Lab.

Merrick Sloane (they/them) is a neuro-Queer 90’s kid and nonbinary poet, editor, and researcher from Oklahoma who’s a sucker for expletives and second languages. They hold an MFA in creative writing from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and are Associate Poetry Editor of Doubleback Review. Merrick’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Central Dissent: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality, BLEACH!, citizen trans* {project}, Arcana Poetry, Puerto del Sol, ANMLY, Fruitslice, among others. Merrick’s poetry was recently selected as a winner of the Garden Party Collective’s contest on Neurodivergence / Intersectionality and as a winner for AWP’s 2025 Intro Journal Awards. Their work has received support from the DreamYard Rad(ical) Poetry Consortium, Poets House, and Sundress Publications. When they are not writing or editing, Merrick loves to serve as a pillow for their cat, Kitten, while getting lost in new worlds written by other dreamers. Merrick is deeply committed to helping create a world that liberates us all.

This selection, chosen by guest editor Merrick Sloane, is from A Hard Silence: One daughter remaps family, grief, and faith when HIV/AIDS changes it all by Melanie Brooks (Vine Leaves Press, 2023).

                              The Ryan White Story,
                                       and Mine

   A  made-for-TV  movie  had a happy ending.  Ryan’s  family moved to
a new  community  where  they  found  acceptance  and  tolerance.  The
final scene showed Ryan  arriving  at  his  new  high school. With news-
paper photographers’ cameras flashing,  the  principal shook his  hand,
saying, “We’re happy to have you.” He led Ryan to  a crowd of students
who  walked  him  toward  the  school  building. Hope  broke across his
mother’s  face as she  watched. Waving and smiling, she  drove away to
the catchy beat of Elton John’s “I’m Still Standing.”
   I  turned  off  the  TV  then  and  stared into the empty screen. A fresh
dread squeezed my insides. I knew Ryan’s story was not over.
   The dying part just hadn’t happened yet.
   At home, I climbed  into bed, curled into a ball,  my knees once  again
hugged  to  my chest,  and burrowed beneath my duvet. I  couldn’t  stop

thinking  about what I’d watched. All these  things  didn’t  feel  like  they
were  supposed  to  belong  in   my  world: the  terrible  accusations  and
assumptions  about  how  Ryan  had contracted  HIV;  hatred from both
strangers  and  people  who’d   known  him  his  whole  life;  people  who
treated him like the disease was his fault.  His  family  lost  their privacy
and with it, security—something they’d  always  taken  for  granted.  But
the worst were  the  moments  when  Ryan  was  so  sick he  couldn’t  lift
his  head  from the  edge of the toilet  seat. Hidden under my covers, the
boding  presence  I’d  felt with me  ever since we moved  from  Moncton
seemed  so much  bigger.  A  pressing  question  hammered  against  my
skull: What’s next? What’s next? What’s next?
   This question hung on my tongue  the  next morning in the car on our
way  to  school.  I  glanced  at  Mom. Her  short brown permed hair was
still a bit damp from her shower, and  the mousse-crusted curls needed
to be brushed out. Her face was smooth, even without makeup.
   She steered the car down Abbeyhill  Drive, approaching the  entrance
to the school. I  drew in a shaky breath,  held  it,  and  then  blurted, “Is
Dad going to die?” It came out as a  question, but I was not  asking. The
answer had been there all along. I just needed to hear it.
   The car slowed. Surprise registered on  Mom’s  face. She  opened  her
mouth to speak and then closed it. Her lips pressed together.  My  ques-
tion was a cavern between us.
   “Mel,” she began, and I could already sense in  her tone  that  she  was
about to downplay, deflect, or reassure, the same way  she  downplayed,
deflected,  or  reassured anytime I got  brave  enough  to  ask  questions
about Dad’s illness.
   “Just tell me.” My voice was  steady,  but  the  plea  behind  the  words
made it sharp.
   We approached the school. Cars crowded the  rectangular parking  lot
out front, and students stood in clusters on  the  snow-packed  sidewalk
by  the   main  entrance,  backpacks  tossed  over  their  shoulders,  their
coats pulled close  against the cold.  Near  the  glass  doors  leading  into
the school, I  saw  my  friends:  Penny, John, Russell, Sunita.  They were
waiting for me before heading inside.


   “Tell me,” I said again, this time less steady, as Mom pulled up against
the  curb  and  turned  in  her  seat  toward  me.“ Is Dad going  to die?” I
turned too and faced her directly. My eyes locked on hers.
   She  gripped  the  steering wheel with her  gloved hands and  inhaled a
measured  breath. Then,  speaking  in  a  defeated  voice I’d never heard
before, she said, “Yes.”
   The single  word  ripped   through  the  protective  blanket   that  she’d
wrapped  around  me  for  the  last  four  years. It tracked into my mind,
sinking like a stone to the ocean floor, where it settled for good.
   “Okay.”  I  stretched  for  my  backpack  on  the floor  and clutched  the
door handle. “Okay,” I said again. I  pushed  the door open and  climbed
out  into the  frigid  air, welcoming it into my lungs. I walked toward my
friends,  plastered a  smile on my face, and  shoved everything else back
down.
   Just  before  I  entered  the school, I looked  back  toward  the  car and
lifted my  hand to wave. Mom  still gripped  the  wheel, her gaze trained
on  me. She  waved  back  and tried to smile, but tears traced lines down
her cheeks. She put the car into gear and drove away.

Melanie Brooks (she/her) is the author of A Hard Silence: One daughter remaps family, grief, and faith when HIV/AIDS changes it all (Vines Leaves Press 2023) and Writing Hard Stories: Celebrated Memoirists Who Shaped Art from Trauma (Beacon Press 2017). She teaches creative nonfiction and narrative medicine in the MFA program at Bay Path University. She holds an MFA from the University of Southern Maine’s Stonecoast program and a Certificate in Narrative Medicine from Columbia University. She’s had numerous interviews and essays on topics ranging from illness, loss, and grief to parenting and aging published in the The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, The Toronto Globe and Mail, HuffPost, Yankee Magazine, Psychology Today, Ms. Magazine, Creative Nonfiction, and other notable publications. She lives in NH with my husband, two kids (when they are home from university), and chocolate Lab.

Merrick Sloane (they/them) is a neuro-Queer 90’s kid and nonbinary poet, editor, and researcher from Oklahoma who’s a sucker for expletives and second languages. They hold an MFA in creative writing from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and are Associate Poetry Editor of Doubleback Review. Merrick’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Central Dissent: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality, BLEACH!, citizen trans* {project}, Arcana Poetry, Puerto del Sol, ANMLY, Fruitslice, among others. Merrick’s poetry was recently selected as a winner of the Garden Party Collective’s contest on Neurodivergence / Intersectionality and as a winner for AWP’s 2025 Intro Journal Awards. Their work has received support from the DreamYard Rad(ical) Poetry Consortium, Poets House, and Sundress Publications. When they are not writing or editing, Merrick loves to serve as a pillow for their cat, Kitten, while getting lost in new worlds written by other dreamers. Merrick is deeply committed to helping create a world that liberates us all.

This selection, chosen by guest editor Merrick Sloane, is from A Hard Silence: One daughter remaps family, grief, and faith when HIV/AIDS changes it all by Melanie Brooks (Vine Leaves Press, 2023).

                                        Prologue

   Four days earlier, Randy died  from  complications  related to AIDS
after  a  period  of prolonged illness. In the final two  years of  his  life,
Randy’s had become one of  the most recognizable faces of a  national
tragedy: Canada’s  tainted   blood  scandal.  Between  1980  and  1985,
close to two thousand Canadians, most  from  within  the  hemophiliac
community, were infected with  HIV from  contaminated  blood. More
than  seven  hundred   have  since  died. A  person  with  severe  hemo-
philia, Conners had contracted HIV sometime in the early 1980s  from
Factor 8, a government approved blood-clotting product  derived from
donated  human  blood plasma.  He’d  learned of his infection  in 1987.
Despite   Randy’s  doctors’  repeated  assurances  that  there  was  little
chance he could infect his  wife, the couple learned in 1989  that  Janet
was also HIV-positive.
   The  Conners’s  heartbreak  encapsulates  what  has  been  character-
ized as Canada’s “worst-ever” public health disaster. Despite mounting
evidence that infected blood products were known  to  be  transmitting
HIV, administrators of Canada’s blood supply  were slow to implement
adequate measures to  protect  the  public.  Appalling  mismanagement
by the Canadian Red  Cross  and  its  regulators and systemic corporate
greed by blood-product manufacturers and distributors showed blatant
disregard for  public safety and allowed infected  blood to be knowingly
distributed  nationwide. The tragedy  is the result of a complicated web
of  action  and  inaction  by the  parties involved, whose biggest failures
included  a  lack  of  proper  screening  to  eliminate   high  risk  donors,
unnecessary  delays   in  implementing  available  screening methods of
the  blood  products for HIV, and  fateful  decisions  to  save  money  by
using up inventory of suspected contaminated products.

Melanie Brooks (she/her) is the author of A Hard Silence: One daughter remaps family, grief, and faith when HIV/AIDS changes it all (Vines Leaves Press 2023) and Writing Hard Stories: Celebrated Memoirists Who Shaped Art from Trauma (Beacon Press 2017). She teaches creative nonfiction and narrative medicine in the MFA program at Bay Path University. She holds an MFA from the University of Southern Maine’s Stonecoast program and a Certificate in Narrative Medicine from Columbia University. She’s had numerous interviews and essays on topics ranging from illness, loss, and grief to parenting and aging published in the The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, The Toronto Globe and Mail, HuffPost, Yankee Magazine, Psychology Today, Ms. Magazine, Creative Nonfiction, and other notable publications. She lives in NH with my husband, two kids (when they are home from university), and chocolate Lab.

Merrick Sloane (they/them) is a neuro-Queer 90’s kid and nonbinary poet, editor, and researcher from Oklahoma who’s a sucker for expletives and second languages. They hold an MFA in creative writing from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and are Associate Poetry Editor of Doubleback Review. Merrick’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Central Dissent: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality, BLEACH!, citizen trans* {project}, Arcana Poetry, Puerto del Sol, ANMLY, Fruitslice, among others. Merrick’s poetry was recently selected as a winner of the Garden Party Collective’s contest on Neurodivergence / Intersectionality and as a winner for AWP’s 2025 Intro Journal Awards. Their work has received support from the DreamYard Rad(ical) Poetry Consortium, Poets House, and Sundress Publications. When they are not writing or editing, Merrick loves to serve as a pillow for their cat, Kitten, while getting lost in new worlds written by other dreamers. Merrick is deeply committed to helping create a world that liberates us all.

This selection, chosen by guest editor Merrick Sloane, is from A Hard Silence: One daughter remaps family, grief, and faith when HIV/AIDS changes it all by Melanie Brooks (Vine Leaves Press, 2023).

                                         Prologue

A  little  over  a  year  before    his  own,   my   father  attends  a   funeral.
It’s  Saturday,  September   17,  1994.  Somewhere  inside the  expansive
Cathedral  Church  of  All  Saints  in   the  South  End  of  Halifax,   Nova
Scotia,  he sits,  deliberately  beyond the reach of any  camera lens there
to  capture  the  sea  of  recognizable  faces of  the  over 600  mourners—
including local  and  national  community leaders,  news  reporters,  and
a  handful  of  provincial  politicians. Tension rides the lines of  his  body
as  he  hunches  low  in  the wooden  pew and grips my  mom’s hand  for
support.  He  wears his dark tailored suit, crisp white shirt, and satin tie,
handsome  and  robust despite concerted  efforts to make himself  small.
No visible  physical   signs  yet forecast that in fifteen  months,  when his
lungs  are  ravaged  by   pneumocystis  pneumonia   (PCP) and  his  body
emaciated  by  other  unidentified   opportunistic  infections, he  will die.
   White-robed   choir  members  and  participating    officiants  with  red
ribbons pinned at their hearts process down the long aisle of the narrow
sanctuary to the front chancel,  and  the resonant timbre of  the church’s
pipe  organ  fills  the  space  with  the  rich notes  of the  Anglican  hymn,
“Alleluia! Sing to  Jesus.” Beneath the  gothic architecture—ornate wood
carvings,  towering  arches, and vaulted ceilings—the wooden  pews  and
additional  blue  folding  chairs are  packed with the family,  friends, and
followers   of  thirty-eight-year-old  Randy  Conners.  In   the  front   row,
Randy’s   widow,  Janet,  dressed  in  a  long  black  gold-buttoned  jacket
over  simple   black  slacks,  leans  her  slim  frame  against her fourteen-
year-old son  as she dabs her tear-filled eyes with the tissue she  clutches
in her fist.

Melanie Brooks (she/her) is the author of A Hard Silence: One daughter remaps family, grief, and faith when HIV/AIDS changes it all (Vines Leaves Press 2023) and Writing Hard Stories: Celebrated Memoirists Who Shaped Art from Trauma (Beacon Press 2017). She teaches creative nonfiction and narrative medicine in the MFA program at Bay Path University. She holds an MFA from the University of Southern Maine’s Stonecoast program and a Certificate in Narrative Medicine from Columbia University. She’s had numerous interviews and essays on topics ranging from illness, loss, and grief to parenting and aging published in the The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, The Toronto Globe and Mail, HuffPost, Yankee Magazine, Psychology Today, Ms. Magazine, Creative Nonfiction, and other notable publications. She lives in NH with my husband, two kids (when they are home from university), and chocolate Lab.

Merrick Sloane (they/them) is a neuro-Queer 90’s kid and nonbinary poet, editor, and researcher from Oklahoma who’s a sucker for expletives and second languages. They hold an MFA in creative writing from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and are Associate Poetry Editor of Doubleback Review. Merrick’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Central Dissent: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality, BLEACH!, citizen trans* {project}, Arcana Poetry, Puerto del Sol, ANMLY, Fruitslice, among others. Merrick’s poetry was recently selected as a winner of the Garden Party Collective’s contest on Neurodivergence / Intersectionality and as a winner for AWP’s 2025 Intro Journal Awards. Their work has received support from the DreamYard Rad(ical) Poetry Consortium, Poets House, and Sundress Publications. When they are not writing or editing, Merrick loves to serve as a pillow for their cat, Kitten, while getting lost in new worlds written by other dreamers. Merrick is deeply committed to helping create a world that liberates us all.

This selection, chosen by guest editor Merrick Sloane, is from Mud in Our Mouths by Luiza Flynn-Goodlett (Northwestern University Press, 2025).

       
       
      At Love’s Truck Stop, Laramie, WY

Above gas pumps, the sky nurses

a cheek purpled by rain as the dirt

road snakes into prairie, and now

a swallow, I graze each fence post,

prong of barbed wire, bless it with

a sharp wing. Matthew, it’s spring,

the season farthest from your death

along this road, like any other, yet

here you are, drawing wildflowers

about shoulders like a cape when

my wife, having braved the ladies’

room, emerges unscathed again as

a trucker leans on his horn, turns

onto the freeway, headed home.

Luiza Flynn-Goodlett is the author of Mud in Our Mouths (Northwestern University Press, 2025) and Look Alive (Cowles Poetry Book Prize, Southeast Missouri State University Press, 2021), along with numerous chapbooks, most recently Lossland (forthcoming from Black Lawrence Press). Her poetry can be found in Fugue, Poetry Northwest, Third Coast, and elsewhere. She serves as a poetry editor for the Whiting Award–winning LGBTQIA2S+ literary journal and press Foglifter.

Merrick Sloane (they/them) is a neuro-Queer 90’s kid and nonbinary poet, editor, and researcher from Oklahoma who’s a sucker for expletives and second languages. They hold an MFA in creative writing from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and are Associate Poetry Editor of Doubleback Review. Merrick’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Central Dissent: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality, BLEACH!, citizen trans* {project}, Arcana Poetry, Puerto del Sol, ANMLY, Fruitslice, among others. Merrick’s poetry was recently selected as a winner of the Garden Party Collective’s contest on Neurodivergence / Intersectionality and as a winner for AWP’s 2025 Intro Journal Awards. Their work has received support from the DreamYard Rad(ical) Poetry Consortium, Poets House, and Sundress Publications. When they are not writing or editing, Merrick loves to serve as a pillow for their cat, Kitten, while getting lost in new worlds written by other dreamers. Merrick is deeply committed to helping create a world that liberates us all.