The Wardrobe's Best Dressed: Ready or Not by Robin Wright

This selection, chosen by Guest Curator Amanda Judd, is from Ready or Not by Robin Wright, released by Finishing Line Press in 2020.

After the Funeral

Shelves of books surround me
as I stare out a window.

Rocky Mountains evicted
my uncle from his home
fashioned of cancer.

Outside, trees boast elderly ecru
and infant green leaves.

My brother and I battled
road construction, rain, and darkness
for sixteen hours straight.

A jackhammer rumbles the corner
where a medical school graces the future.

Uncle Mike, past but no longer present,
locked in the minds of those who viewed
his silent ash.

Students will run to class, learn strategies to fight
bodies that strike back against themselves.

Robin Wright lives in Southern Indiana. Her work has appeared in One Art, As it Ought to Be, The Drabble, The New Verse News, Bombfire Lit, Young Ravens Literary Review, Olney Magazine, Rat’s Ass Review, Muddy River Poetry Review, Sanctuary, and others. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee, and her first chapbook, Ready or Not, was published by Finishing Line Press in October of 2020.

After a 25-year career as a paralegal, Amanda Valerie Judd returned to school to earn her AFA in Creative Writing from Normandale Community College. She is currently attending Southern New Hampshire University working to earn her BFA in Creative Writing – Poetry. In 2020, she won the Patsy Lea Core Prize for Poetry. In 2021, her poem “My Only Label” was nominated for “Best of the Net 2021.” Her work has been published or is forthcoming in PAN-O-PLY Magazine, MockingOwl Roost, Trouvaille Review, Prospectus, and Talking Stick 31.