by Stephen D. Gibson

My eighteen-month-old daughter tries consonants and vowels. Again and again, making the music of a language still foreign to her. This Sunday morning, as her mother rests next to us between sleep and the world, my daughter shakes juice from her bottle onto her palms. Drips of orange color the white bed sheets and pillows. She rubs her hands together. She watched her sleepy mother do this with lotion the night before. Then, tottering on the mattress, almost singing, she pats my face. Her cool fingers anoint my chin, cheek, my gritty stubble.

Stephen D. Gibson studied writing at Purdue University and the University of Houston. His fiction has appeared in The Southeast Review, Quarterly West, StoryQuarterly and elsewhere.