Tess Taylor

Cockle-shell shaped, each cavern-window lies in its valley, its low promontory. Whisper. Climb through one. Let yourself into its antechamber. Find how in spirals, its narrow bone-stair ascends in a thin portico. Its walls are taut and translucent as drum skins. Doors quiver lightly as you pass through and enter the rounded, dim vestibule that […]

My grandmother taught me it is always Margaret we grieve for. I watch her sleep, catheter in. When she’s awake she’s partly here, leapfrogging. into lacunae of pasts, poor Elly who Emeline took in despite having 12 children already, the mountain doctor coming the day she prayed that God not take Nancy. He took a […]