STIRRING
Founded in 1999, Stirring is one of the oldest continuously publishing journals on the internet.
Stirring is an electronic quarterly journal.
Founded in 1999, Stirring is one of the oldest continuously publishing journals on the internet.
Stirring is an electronic quarterly journal.
HEATHER TRUETT
It's not the geese. I'm mourning
my dad. I'm grieving
goodbyes. But it's also
the geese coming back
every spring, goslings
in the green just as
turtle shells show
above the pond's rim
and I unfold another card
board box, rearrange each
memory to fit the corners. I peel
aging tape, layers
of labels. I cry
in the closet, Dad's
shaky love words
in a birthday card, folded
beside the time
he says I was afraid
of grass and I open
my big book of birds to read
about how geese grieve. Instead
the fun facts are all about
how goslings recognize the goose
and gander that hatched
them. My youngest son turns
eighteen. The whole world is an open
womb. I crawl across
carpet back inside the box
labyrinth we're building, the summer
migration at last at hand. I never
even stroked one feather. I refuse
to write a metaphor about the empty
nest on the wooden dock. It's too
obvious. This isn't about my
own child. This is about Dad
and home and
the geese. The geese are just
themselves. I am only ever
me.
Heather Truett holds an MFA from the University of Memphis. Her debut novel, KISS AND REPEAT released from Macmillan in 2021, and she teaches fiction at Interlochen Fine Arts Camp. She has work featured or upcoming in Spoon Knife, Hunger Mountain, and Abandon Journal. Heather is represented by Hilary Harwell at KT Literary and is a PhD candidate at FSU. Find out more at heathertruett.com.
