29 June 2026
“Then” (1979) by Gregory Orr
I THEN
My parents and the parents of others were pillars of meat the sky's blue roof rested on. Around them grew flowers with stalks so thin they bent double with their own red weight, their blossoms brushed the dust.
2 THE CHANGE
All that summer a gray flotilla of clouds drifted above; clouds that had hauled up into themselves all earth's tears. Clarity of air. Each dusk I watched them lower their anchors into the parched fields: heavy glass statues of women.