by Robin Gaines

Toss my ashes over the sand and water that moved beneath you the night I was conceived. Free the grit and bone of me from the plastic box forgotten on a closet shelf in a house you do not share. Buried. The hopeless memory of me: plump, quiet, and blue lipped, now particles of a broken heart that broke your hearts and the marriage and the bank with medical bills. The lost love of me, encased like souvenir sand. Waiting.

Robin Gaines’s fiction and essays have appeared in various journals and anthologies including Slice and Crack the Spine. Her novel, Invincible Summers will be published by ELJ Publications in spring 2016. She has a master’s degree in journalism from Michigan State University and worked as a music journalist for several years before diving into the deep end of the writing pool.