Little Crown
       

I was tossing a ball up and down while my mother

explained the series of events that led her to this town.

At one point as a girl she had to wake up each morning

for a year and pretend to be herself. At one point

as a girl she found a drowned man in the creek behind

her parents' house. Even then, she understood life

was a test, so she placed a single cloudberry like a little

crown on the dead man's thumb, and never told

anyone what she had seen—until now, telling me.

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Copyright © 2017 Mikko Harvey All rights reserved
from West Branch
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission