April Salzano
I Will Leave My Sons a Letter
to read when I am dead, if they have not
already figured out the truth about their father.
They will find it as they bag my clothes to shove
in a dumpster, or one of those yellow Planet Aid
bins that people use to remove death's stubborn
reminders from a closet. The only daughters
I had died in miscarriage and abortion,
so there will be no one to appreciate my collection
of stylish boots in various lengths and shades of leather.
Neither will want the wedding band, a bent circle
of low carat to symbolize that first marriage, doomed
to repeat itself like a Mobius strip, a wheel I had to
dive from mid-spin if I was to survive at all. The cuts
healed, the skin grew back. I will tell them
I married my soul mate, and then he ate my soul.
Bio
April Salzano teaches college writing in Pennsylvania where she lives with her husband and two sons. She recently finished her first collection of poetry, for which she is seeking a publisher and is working on a memoir on raising a child with autism. Her work has appeared in journals such as Poetry Salzburg, Convergence, Ascent Aspirations, The Camel Saloon, Centrifugal Eye, Deadsnakes, Montucky Review, Visceral Uterus, Salome, Poetry Quarterly, Writing Tomorrow and Rattle. The author also serves as co-editor at Kind of a Hurricane Press.