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  • Issue #27 Spring 2024
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      • Irina Greciuhina Spring 2025
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    • Issue #29 Poetry Spring 2025 >
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      • Sara Fitzpatrick Spring 2025
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Jenny Boully

First Death


The moon was a disorderly thing that stuck and then unstuck and then stuck again.
 
We went camping a lot.
 
It was the summer of darting minnows.
 
The edge, the lake, the lapping of waves, the stones skipping out forever against all of that.
 
Sunburn and then the blister and flake and freckle of it.
 
Glinting on the waves were sequins that stuck and then unstuck and then stuck again.
 
There was a lot of hiding under beds.
 
We children had snuck into the Na Pon’s room and found the clutch there.
 
The clutch contained hundred dollar bills.
 
The gleam of the sequins, the bright stars, her wig just a few feet away.
 
We did not know she wore a wig.
 
The wigstand just a white egg.
 
Life was a false thing that stuck and then unstuck.
 
We were amazed: the amount, the domination; we had never seen so many, so much.
 
She had been saving them to send home.
 
It was the summer of dandruff and peeling skin.
 
Our mothers had never seen so much.
 
The smell of head emanating from under the beds.
 
The yard sale: we had come to see the dead woman’s things; we had come to see Uncle Ron, to see if he needed anything.
 
The wig just a few feet away.
 
I thought I should like to be the one who brushed that hair: Na Pon who was so beautiful and little and lovely.
 
But now she was dead.
 
It was the summer of faceless eggs.
 
In the photo album, in the photograph, Uncle Ron tall and blond, baby-blue suit and white bucks and the tan and brown Coor’s can.
 
The black and white wallet portrait of Na Pon in my mother’s album: the sad look, the future too near.
 
A young Thai bride who had come to America just to die.
 
(The wig was just a few feet away.)
 
Another photo: Uncle Ron naked and spread-eagled on their bed.
 
We thought that was what adults did.
 
The corsage in the other photograph, the short, frilly pink dress: were these her wedding best?
 
It was the summer of coconut flakes, the crazy cake that didn’t take.
 
We children snuck the snacks under the beds.
 
We invent a story: all those bills, the pretty clutch, the naked photograph.
 
We thought that was what adults did.
 
The cake coconut, the carpet white shag, the yellowing custard of the wig pad.
 
Now she was dead.
 
We thought that was what adults did.
 
Home was a thing that unstuck then stuck then unstuck again.
 
The young brides were horrified. The body embalmed, the casket, the body underground.
 
No one had called any monks to help find the way.
 
All summer, under the stars, we wished we may we wished we might have the wish we wished tonight.
 
Nothing ever came of it.
 
Camp fire was a thing that extinguished itself by morning.
 
Things went wrong; nothing straightened right.
 
Our mothers came after us with fury.
 
Life was a thing that unstuck and then could not stick again.
 
We children hid under beds.
 
It was the summer of slushy drinks.
 
The juice of it stained us deep red.
 
We children collected the points on the cups for things our Thai mothers didn’t know how to redeem.


           

--
Jenny Boully is the author of The Body: An Essay, The Book of Beginnings and Endings: Essays, [one love affair]*, and other books. She has a new collection of essays forthcoming from Coffee House in 2018.

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  • Home
  • About
    • Our Story
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  • Issue #27 Spring 2024
    • Issue #27 Art Spring 2024 >
      • Kristina Erny Spring 2024
      • Luiza Maia Spring 2024
      • Christy Lee Rogers Spring 2024
      • Erika Lynet Salvador Spring 2024
      • Marsha Solomon Spring 2024
    • Issue #27 Poetry Spring 2024 >
      • Terry Belew Spring 2024
      • Dustin Brookshire​ & Diamond Forde Spring 2024 Spring 2024
      • Dustin Brookshire​ & Caridad Moro-Gronlier Spring 2024 Spring 2024
      • Charlie Coleman Spring 2024
      • Isabelle Doyle Spring 2024
      • Reyzl Grace Spring 2024
      • Kelly Gray Spring 2024
      • Meredith Herndon Spring 2024
      • Mina Khan Spring 2024
      • Anoushka Kumar Spring 2024
      • Cate Latimer Spring 2024
      • BEE LB Spring 2024
      • Grace Marie Liu​ Spring 2024
      • Sarah Mills Spring 2024
      • Faisal Mohyuddin 2024
      • Marcus Myers Spring 2024
      • Mike Puican Spring 2024
      • Sarah Sorensen Spring 2024
      • Lynne Thompson Spring 2024
      • Natalie Tombasco Spring 2024
      • Alexandra van de Kamp Spring 2024
      • Donna Vorreyer Spring 2024
    • Fiction #27 Spring 2024 >
      • Bryan Betancur Spring 2024
      • Karen George Spring 2024
      • Raja'a Khalid Spring 2024
      • Riley Manning Spring 2024
      • Adina Polatsek Spring 2024
      • Beth Sherman Spring 2024
    • Nonfiction #27 Spring 2024 >
      • Liza Olson Spring 2024
  • Issue #28 Fall 2024
    • Issue #28 Art Fall 2024 >
      • Eric Calloway Fall 2024
      • Matthew Fertel Fall 2024
      • JooLee Kang Fall 2024
      • Jian Kim Fall 2024
      • Robb Kunz Fall 2024
      • Sean Layh Fall 2024
    • Issue #28 Poetry Fall 2024 >
      • Jodi Balas Fall 2024
      • Clayre Benzadón Fall 2024
      • Catherine Broadwall Fall 2024
      • Sara Burge Fall 2024
      • Judith Chalmer Fall 2024
      • Stephanie Choi Fall 2024
      • Sarah Jack Fall 2024
      • Jen Karetnick Fall 2024
      • Ae Hee Lee Fall 2024
      • Svetlana Litvinchuk Fall 2024
      • Mary Lou Buschi Fall 2024
      • Angie Macri Fall 2024
      • Gary McDowell Fall 2024
      • Sam Moe Fall 2024
      • Camille Newsom Fall 2024
      • Elizabeth O'Connell- Thompson Fall 2024
      • Olatunde Osinaike Fall 2024
      • Jessica Pierce Fall 2024
      • Diane Raptosh Fall 2024
      • Isaac Richards Fall 2024
      • Robyn Schelenz Fall 2024
      • Christopher Shipman Fall 2024
      • Alex Tretbar Fall 2024
      • Ruth Williams Fall 2024
      • Shannon K. Winston Fall 2024
      • Wendy Wisner Fall 2024
      • Anne Gerard Fall 2024
    • Issue #28 Fiction Fall 2024 >
      • J​oe Baumann Fall 2024
      • ​Morganne Howell Fall 2024
      • Matt Paczkowski Fall 2024
      • Ryan Peed Fall 2024
      • Gabriella Pitts Fall 2024
      • James Sullivan Fall 2024
  • Issue #29 Spring 2025
    • Issue #29 Art Spring 2025 >
      • Irina Greciuhina Spring 2025
      • Jesse Howard Spring 2025
      • Paul Simmons Spring 2025
      • Marsha Solomon Spring 2025
      • Elzbieta Zdunek Spring 2025
      • Na Yoon Amelia Cha-Ryu Spring 2025
    • Issue #29 Poetry Spring 2025 >
      • Deborah Bacharach Spring 2025
      • Diego Báez Spring 2025
      • Jaswinder Bolina Spring 2025
      • ​Ash Bowen Spring 2025
      • Christian J. Collier Spring 2025
      • ​Shou Jie Eng Spring 2025
      • Sara Fitzpatrick Spring 2025
      • Matthew Gilbert Spring 2025
      • Tammy C. Greenwood Spring 2025
      • Alejandra Hernández ​Spring 2025
      • Ben Kline ​Spring 2025
      • ​David Moolten Spring 2025
      • ​Tamer Mostafa Spring 2025
      • ​Rongfei Mu Spring 2025
      • Cynthia Neely Spring 2025
      • Pablo Otavalo Spring 2025
      • ​Bleah Patterson Spring 2025
      • ​M.A. Scott Spring 2025
      • ​Liam Strong ​ Spring 2025
      • Alexandra van de Kamp Spring 2025
      • ​Cassandra Whitaker Spring 2025
      • Angelique Zobitz Spring 2025
    • Issue #29 Fiction Spring 2025 >
      • Vanessa Blakeslee Spring 2025
      • K. J. Coyle Spring 2025
      • Meredith MacLeod Davidson Spring 2025
      • Jessica Mosher Spring 2025
    • Issue #29 Nonfiction Spring 2025 >
      • JM Huscher Spring 2025
      • Qurrat ul Ain Raza Abbas Spring 2025