Stephanie King
I figured highly on the view. For one fish to shine the way I’d like, I’d give my life. I thought about that before, hanging delicately, just so. But that isn’t a likely present. Instead, I’d need to open up myself.
Fish don’t exist here. I’ve given them up, one flaky carp after another.
My doorway is warm enough. I’ve hung a nest in the arch of it to welcome birds. A bird in my house is worth more than any gold. I am no heronry maker. But, my sticks remind them of a time. There’s a dead tree nearby and I need a good climb.
Stephanie King currently teaches and resides in West Virginia with her husband, Nicholas, and two cats, Kitsch and Face. Her work has recently appeared or is forthcoming in such magazines as The Laurel Review, Pank, POOL, and The Cimarron Review.
“My brother and I used to spend large quantities of our time on our first front porch, convincing clover mites onto white sheets of paper. Then we would draw circles around them with an ink-pen. They couldn’t get out.
“This was the same porch that my father would sit on for hours and hours, drinking beer, and talking to passersby. He was always in a black Harley Davidson tee-shirt. Once, I went to call him for dinner and he didn’t hear me. I went outside to tap him on the shoulder, but he was a Doberman.
“On our second porch was a swing. On that swing, my brother and I sang about our impending sister. We didn’t care if she was a boy or a girl, and we sang that to be sure. She was a girl.
“We buried a time-capsule in a ditch next to that porch. We filled it with pushpins, pennies, and my sister’s polly-pocket.
“This porch was later torn down by our dog, Bo.”