by Francine Witte
We never forgot the pinch of time, my father always in a hurry and my mother clicking shut her compact, her never-shiny nose. We were always late, my sister always halfway down the stairs, her lemon-wedged smile over some new boy. How she always forgot something and had to go back upstairs. We would never leave without my sister, her ringlets like ever-swimming ducks around her face. We never said a word when she didn’t come home that last night, car crash, other-car drunk. We never forgot the sick of roses, of bouquets in the funeral home or my father who would never again be unbroken, slowing down now, trying to pinch time shut.
Francine Witte is a flash fiction writer and poet, and the author of the flash collection RADIO WATER. Her newest poetry book, Some Distant Pin of Light, has just been published by Cervena Barva Press. Her work has been widely published, and she is a recent recipient of a Pushcart Prize.
