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Consider/a/Caretaker of the Dead By Heidi Richardson

6/1/2019

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When the dying time came, like a gavel struck demanding pallor and ash, you receded from a house to a room to a box, destined for a closet sharing flat caramel carpet with these feet. You are boxed and taped and I am full—possessing your images, your proof’s—of jury seats, divorce decrees, of love letters resealed by time, of certificates of birth and fevered secrets poked in drawers—of Jew and Black etudes—clamoring, when all I crave is erudition; your counsel of skirt hems and bad men, of how many bags form a lazy man’s load, up these stairs, up my steps and not your own. Where do you end/ I start, orphaned ridiculously old, mourning this closeted quay at which I sometimes cower; confused sole cantor seeking words, rustling sermons that append pogroms, lunch counters, tar paper shacks and vile beginnings, but not too much—not to unceasing oppression, a sole source in readiness—for here there is no silo to grease lest rats steal our grits, nor chilblains to treat, nor blood-soaked rags to hang on a line, there is only me.


Heidi Richardson is originally from San Francisco and is a Creative Writing alumna from California State University, San Bernardino. A 2014 Pushcart Prize nominee and 2016 Cave Canem Book Prize finalist, her work has previously appeared in Ghost Town Literary Journal and Pacific Review. ​
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    FLASH GLASS: 
    A MONTHLY PUBLICATION OF FLASH FICTION, PROSE POETRY, & MICRO ESSAYS


    Categories

    All
    A Grave Duty
    Amy Sugeno
    Atlas Sweating
    Audrey DuBois
    Christina Harrington
    Consider/A/Caretaker Of The Dead
    Cori Bratby-Rudd
    Daniel Dagris
    Davis-s-osgood
    Dennis-finnell
    Directions-lost-and-chosen
    Dreaming-of-the-netherlands
    Elisabeth-preston-hsu
    Flash Fiction
    Gingko
    Hammonasset-mica
    Heidi-richardson
    Howard Nemerov's After Party
    I-find-my-death-in-a-corn-maze
    Jennifer Companik
    Jimmy Hollenbeck
    Lenny Dellarocca
    Lisa Romeo
    Micro Essay
    Poetic Entanglements
    Prose Poetry
    Resurrecting The Warbird
    Robin Lewis
    Sandra Cimadori
    Saved By A Scott's Oriole
    The Day My Tia Maria's Face Fell Down
    To Be Wrong Or To Be Whole.
    Vanessa Zimmerman
    What I've Drawn And What You've Done
    Winded


    Cover Image: "A Peaceful Coexistence Part II" 
    Laurie Borggreve
    ​Issue 18


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