My Published Works

Inspired by “Valentine’s Day, 1980” by Amy Ludwig VanDerwater

I remember
Anna
the beautiful, gray,
yellow-eyed girl
that always loved me.

Anna who had come as a foster.
Anna who knocked my trash can over when it got too full.
Anna whose cancer came quickly and silently.
Anna who died five months after we began fostering her.

I cried my eyes out,
my mother
holding me.

And not too long after
Nefret came to me.