This selection, chosen by guest editor Jillian Fantin, is from If I Could Write You a Happier Ending by Mary Warren Foulk, released by dancing girl press in 2021.
How to Mourn a Brother
—after Anne Pinkerton’s “Having a Dead Sibling is Full of Contradictions”
Worry about your own death Return to the scene Make your bed hospital corners Sit in his empty chair Visit the grave site Create a shrine Remember each birthday Wonder why Count the days months years Look up often the cloudless sky Enjoy his favorite places Post pictures on social media Relive those hours Medicate to sleep Share your favorite memories with your children Beg them not to forget Love still Live Open heart Will my heart
other loved ones look for ghosts some days your only salvation feel guilty if you forget me decades since books theatre keep his memory alive panic at the lack of recall fantasize his smell with anyone who will listen even after you're gone still close heart stay open
Mary Warren Foulk has been published in Fjords Review, The Hollins Critic, Pine Hills Review, Palette Poetry, Silkworm, and Steam Ticket, among other publications. Her work also has appeared in (M)othering Anthology (Inanna Publications), and My Loves: A Digital Anthology of Queer Love Poems (Ghost City Press). Her chapbook, If I Could Write You a Happier Ending, was selected by dancing girl press (2021) for their annual series featuring women poets. Her manuscript Self-Portrait with Erosion was a finalist for the 2021 Gival Press Poetry Award.
Jillian A. Fantin is a writer with roots in the American South and north central England. They are a 2023 Sundress Publications Editorial Intern, a 2021 Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing Poet Fellow, and a 2020 Jefferson County Memorial Project Research Fellow. With writer Joy Wilkoff, they co-founded and edit RENESME LITERARY. Jillian’s debut chapbook, A Playdough Symposium, will be released this coming summer from Ghost City Press, and more of their writing appears in American Journal of Poetry, Homology Lit, Tilted House, Spectra Poets, Barrelhouse, and poetry.onl, among others.
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