A poem by Lisa Stice

Morning shadows rise and walk with us
down the stairs where we eat our breakfast—
brown sugar stirred in oatmeal, currant juice
and daily vitamins—my daughter’s head burns

under my kiss. This is a day for staying home.
She asks why there is sickness—another question
added to the unanswerable queue—You need
rest, I say and pull a blanket over her. Neither

of us will leave the house. An ant crawls across
the kitchen counter. And so, I kill it. I crush its
small body under the tip of my index finger—
still, I can see the silhouette of what it used to be.

This work was featured in our spring/summer 2020 issue.