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.
NIKITA LADD
The koi fish I’d sometimes see at the bottom of Mimi’s pond,
back when she was still in Atlanta and alive, they’d graze
the bottom of that algaed water and flash their orange and white
up at the sky. We’d be there for Easter often, egg hunts under
the red and white oaks. Uncle John crouching down to explain
the rules, before setting us loose on the lawn. Kids all over.
A swing, maybe, I remember, and Thatcher huddled over the slate
stones with a magnifying glass, burning leaves. The armoire
inside filled with toys, and the time Mimi let me to pick one––
the stuffed Piglet from Winnie the Pooh I took home and kept
till college. How we had grandmothers, but not grandfathers
then, and always in my lifetime. How they hung at the edge
of the frame, Edward and Jonas. How their wives lived on
and made us. But god, if Easter isn’t a strange place
for an atheist to look for memory; if old homes aren’t a tough
space to find family. God if this poem couldn’t unfurl forever.
Hunting around corners to remember something else of that place,
or those people. To remember something small.
Nikita Ladd (she/her) is a poet and creative nonfiction writer based in Brooklyn, NY. She is currently an In School Programs and Partnerships Coordinator at the DreamYard Project in the Bronx. She received her BA from Wesleyan University, where she studied Neuroscience and Writing. Her work is out or forthcoming in Rejection Letters, HAD, Pornstar Martini Magazine, Fruitslice, and Discount Guillotine. She won the Creative Nonfiction Prize in 2021 for Hunger Mountain Review.
