Photo by Wilfried Santer on Unsplash
by Lisa K. Buchanan
The gleaming kitchen looks onto a terraced garden and handcrafted birdhouse. A granite countertop hosts museum-shop placemats, while five o-clock chairs swivel next to the picture-window creek and distant snow-capped mountains. Wearing her mannered upbringing and a skirt from some transcontinental excursion, she serves charming cookies on charming plates. Even her autologous breasts and copper curls are souvenirs from a disease I couldn’t afford to survive. Did a great-great-great-grandpa in her family exploit a great-great-grandma in mine? My own kitchen window, above the alley’s reeky garbage cans, is sealed shut, and no amount of pounding or scraping will open it.
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Lisa K. Buchanan Notable, Best American Essays 2023; First Place, Short Fiction Prize, CRAFT, 2022. Here’s what she has been reading lately: The Nightstand
