Contributor: Susan Sweetland Garay

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I heard stories
of his harshness,
but never felt it -

how could I have,
I was just a little girl,
always able to charm him
into opening the jar
of candy

even when it
was only minutes
before dinner.


- - -
Susan Sweetland Garay lives in the Willamette Valley with her husband and daughter where she works in the vineyard industry. She has had poetry and photography published in a variety of journals, on line and in print, and she was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2014. Her first full length poetry collection, Approximate Tuesday, was published in 2013 and her second book Strange Beauty is forthcoming from Aldrich Press (2015).