THAT OTHER FAMILY — MORGAN HARLOW
/She had thought of that family often, the dissolution complete even as she was daydreaming happily of its continued existence now she was grown up and starting her own family, or perhaps because of this, she could recreate the life of that family, the family she had taken to heart, the family she had wanted as her own had it only been possible and so she would find a small bungalow as they had lived in, and a German shepherd like theirs, a hedge of currant bushes on the property line, and she’d encourage her partner to fly a plane and join the volunteer fire department as that family’s father had, then she would make brownies from a mix, smoke cigarettes all day, watch soap operas in a terry cloth bathrobe, her hair styled in curls using bobby pins, hang laundry on the clothesline, shake orange juice instead of stirring, the only thing missing the sour green apple tree next door and oh, yes, the children, but it would be a while before she awoke to this as from twilight to dawn, from being comfortable not knowing to the searing truth, beginning with the changing colors of sunset and the dreamy late night fragrance of honeysuckle outside the window, the memory of daytime, taking turns touching their tongues to the honey tip of nectar, and indoors the always closed door, the girl sullen and sitting in the den all day, why, she had never understood, the tears in the mother’s eyes and her smile, indignant, and how suddenly the family moved away, she never really knew them after all, that once in a lifetime perfect family.
Morgan Harlow's work appears or is forthcoming in Blackbox Manifold, Miramichi Flash, New World Writing, The Moth, Washington Square Review, BULL, and other journals. She teaches writing in Madison, Wisconsin and is the author of a full-length poetry collection, Midwest Ritual Burning.
