A 2022 Story, Part 9
Part 9 You can read part 8 here: https://www.melindacoppola.com/a-2022-story-part-8 The skies grew dark earlier and Moon stayed longer. Sun still warmed the skies, but the air was crisp and cool. Trees on the banks of Big River dropped bright, wide leaves or dry brown needles into the swirling waters, and still Little Stream and Wee […]
Hush
I’m pleased that my poem, ” Hush”, was published in Amethyst Review today. Hush Is it by aging alone that I landed in this sparse, harsh forest, where most branches are sharp, all bark is sandpaper, and even the birds., diligently practicing their scales, can sometimes shake my equilibrium, scrape my eardrums with their […]
A 2022 Story, Part 7
A 2022 Story, Part 7 You can read part 6 here: https://www.melindacoppola.com/a-2022-story-part-6/ Part 7 A spark of something wonderful rose inside Little Stream as she waited for Wee Lily Pond to push her towards the banks of Big River. Hope! There would be a way out of this soon. She could feel her friend […]
It Goes Like This
You smile down on me from a slightly precarious perch on the shelf above my messy desk. It’s my favorite photo of you—young and exuberantly happy, arms flung wide, dressed in colorful layers that reflect your signature style. I’d never seen this picture until your Memorial Service, but I loved it immediately. My second favorite […]
A 2022 Story, Part 6
And why, you might be asking, is she still working on a 2022 story? We are, after all, a few sturdy strides into 2023 spring. The answer is in the story itself. If you’ve been reading these discontinuous pieces, thank you! A 2022 Story You can read part 5 here: https://www.melindacoppola.com/a-2022-story-part-5/ Part 6 […]
(She is) Unbroken
Unbroken There were times I imagined you different. My young mother mind pictured you— normal, typical, non-disabled. I can’t use those words anymore for their opposites evoke— lack, absence, tragedy, and you, my child, are a celebration of plenty, a bounty of delight, a well of fascination. In fact, you stand against the backdrop of […]
First Digit Singular
This Is What Really Happened Trigger warnings: Run-on sentences. Querulousness. Thirteen days ago I had my thumb joint reconstructed. This was elective and a long time coming—both carpo-metacarpals whittled down to bone on bone, naked osseous matter grinding boorishly against its equally unclothed neighbor, hyaline cartilage having fled years ago. I chose the off […]
A 2022 Story, Part 3
A 2022 Story Part 3* Nudge, nudge. Tap, tap. There it was again! A pattern, far from random. Little Stream was weary from the effort of holding herself together for an unknown number of suns and moons. Could she summon the energy to speak again? Try. I’ll try, she thought. Her voice rose again, but […]
A 2022 Story, Part 2
Little Stream Part 2* Little Stream could feel herself being pushed and pulled and hurried along in Big River’s watery trajectory. For the first time in her flowing life she lost track of the passage of days. Whole moons or suns got lost when she was tugged under a strong current or squeezed perilously against […]
A 2022 Story
There was a little stream—more of a rivulet, really—that dribbled and dripped and murmured along through a swath of untamed land. Many moons and suns cast their light upon her waters as she found her way around boulders and hills and the wide trunks of venerable trees. She was free of any precepts that […]