Karen Walker

The Gods took Papa. So where is spring? Winter drips from the thatch. He was a good papa, a careful weaver of roofs. Drips into a puddle in the doorway. Mama gathers her cloak, hops. Hush, hush! she whispers, afraid. The new man who lies with her nightly, who is not good, follows. Leaps, keeping his pointy shoes dry. He hisses, Blasphemous girl! I dig the puddle deeper. Was Papa not enough? Into a sacred pool, churning the bottom to mud, to a deep sleep. Would I be? And sink, sink, joining Papa with my long braids tied tightly around my neck.

Karen writes short in a low Canadian basement. Her work is in or forthcoming in FlashBack Fiction, The Bear Creek Gazette, Emerge Literary Journal, Bullshit Lit, Blank Spaces, Ghost City Press, Funny Pearls, Versification, and others. She/her. She tweets @MeKawalker883.