“Beth Israel” by Dara-Lyn Shrager

The baby arrived with legs that swung out like doors set backwards on their hinges.Across from the building where he was born, another building to tell us he will walk or no. So we went, wrapped in scarves against the sideways snow. Just one day after that blue coil sprung away from him then back, dropping onto my belly with a wet thud. And the red river pooling in the shallows where the floor was worn, painting the soles of white clogs dancing all around my hospital bed. I did not feel the pouring but I imagined I could. That next day, we rode the escalator that swallowed its own silver teeth.Faces stamped blank. If you have ever stolen anything then you know how we left that place, hunched over our new possession, eyes down, mouths tight, ready to sprint if anyone called our names.

Dara-Lyn Shrager is the co-founder and editor of Radar Poetry. She holds an MFA from Bennington College. Her poems appear in many journals, including Southern Humanities Review, Barn Owl Review, Salamander, Yemassee, Whiskey Island, Tinderbox, and Nashville Review. Her full-length collection, Whiskey, X-Ray, Yankee, is forthcoming from Barrow Street Press."Dining Room Once", charcoal on paper, 18" x 24", 2016.

Katharine Morrill's work has been exhibited nationally in such venues as the Weatherspoon Art Museum in Greensboro, North Carolina; the Nelson Gallery in Virginia; The Hive Gallery in Boston; the Center for Visual Arts in Greensboro; The Visual Art Exchange in Raleigh; and the Southfirst Gallery in New York City. She received her MFA from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (2014) and her BFA from the University of New Hampshire (2011). She lives and works in Broadway, North Carolina.