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.

Alzheimer’s

You stand on the sidewalk, head down,
staring at your shirt, twisted
blue lines running through black.
Your worn grey pants bag as you turn,
shuffle to the corner.

A block away, a fire truck’s siren jolts
the air. Your gaze travels from black and blue
to screaming red, your bruised mind
trying to light a fire
of remembrance.

A yellow-bricked school beckons
from another direction, basketball goal
holding court in the schoolyard.
You reach out your hand,
pull it back
empty.

You pack that hand into your pocket,
stumbling away
from what you once knew.

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.