The Hard Way

by Allison Whittenberg

Allison Whittenberg is an award-winning poet, short story writer, playwright, novelist, and teacher for the Indiana Writers Center. Her novels are Sweet Thang, Hollywood and Maine, Life is Fine, and Tutored (Random House 2006, 2008, 2009, and 2010). Her work has appeared in Flying Island, Feminist Studies, Inconclast, and The Ekphrastic Review. She is author of the full-length short story collection, Carnival of Reality (Loyola University Press, 2022). Whittenberg is a six-time Pushcart Prize nominee.

The Hard Way

You never know people

till they die

you gingerly page

through their privacy

Those fresh, fateful photos:

mothers in mauve miniskirts,

fathers frying hash browns, wearing floppy hats

After there is nothing at stake,

you find out all that you could have given

A little air comes in,

combats the forming mold that corrupted keepsakes, contaminated

these attic memories

This knowing threatens to sun the was

the is, now, will be more forgiving

---

… and, Joan Crawford left her daughter

nothing

in her will,

not even

a wire hanger.