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.