Pitch:   The Castillo family spirals through change after Susan’s miscarriage. As she recovers, husband Frank struggles with his business while grandparents care for their young daughters. Guilt forces both Susan and Frank to grapple with infidelity mirrored by betrayals in their parents’ lives.

Chapter 18

The Way Back

Susan inhaled the fresh air as Frank drove down the mountain through stands of tall pine. The picnic had been his idea. That was a switch. Whatever had inspired him to whisk her into the sylvan wild had done its magic. She realized how cooped up she’d become and promised herself she’d get out more often.

He reached over and smoothed her thigh. An unexpected shiver coursed up her spine. His doting surprised her. Frank was acting like he wanted to make things right.

“Be my, be my baby,” Frank sang out before his voice subsided into a few bars of humming.

Today’s Fruit

Entering the mercado, I see an altar lit with candles.

We wander the stalls. Tomatoes, avocadoes and mangoes

glisten with color. I breathe so as not to be tempted

by false hunger or lust for so much.

I pick up several papayas, looking for the one,

becoming pensive.

Is it ripe? Should I buy two?

The shopkeeper smiles at me.

The light of his chocolate eyes washes into mine.

“Here, he says, “this one is today’s fruit.”

@ Katherine Posselt 2004

The Green Pepper Who Gave Me Her Placenta

I thank the green pepper who gave me her

placenta, without a single seed stuck there.

The soup I made for my husband will be

sweet, very and not too much sweetness.

I split the green pepper with a Japanese

steel blade in three precise cuts. No seeds

but for the few that fell from her slightly

withered placenta. I scoop them with a

spoon in honor of Susan, who will have

a harder time than my effort making

a delicious soup. And she will make it.

I wonder how many women have

suffered in childbirth, or in surgeries

that removed female parts, but no

woman’s soul, one of the most,

powerful resources on Earth. I cry

a few tears for those who have suffered.

Not me, not yet, but for the anger that

made me a force for right. I walked

The Flow

 I rush, a stream fed by spring rain,

harbinger of new. How did you find me,

grasping my legs as if I were

an oak to save you from rushing water

overrunning the bank?

My laughing eyes? Do they gurgle?

You do, sweetness, you gurgle,

whirl foam, churn up bottom sand,

deposit it on the shore, a new bed.

We climb in, trembling.

I sit down in currents, bathe parts

of me I want you to knead.

Curiosity makes you a goat sucking

its mother’s teats. You suck them.

You plunge. I grab your hair.

We climb the bank in search of tall,

soft, green grass where our bodies

cradle, stroked by sunlight, soothed

by rushing water, born again, unto

ourselves this new day of the flow.

@ Katherine Posselt 2015