I used to live in New York, city of horsies and all-you-can-eat chici all-night sushi. I moved there after my husband passed. I thought I’d hate living alone but it was great. I went around to parks, shopping, art, brunch, parks, long walks, stores. My friend, Debbie Denise – she taught Math History Biology at the same place I taught – told me to write everything down. If you write words, you can savor save them. I always wanted to be a writer. Instead of doing what they paid me for correcting kids essays and helping them pass all the tests they had to take, each year more tests until the kids looked dead-eyed and I wanted to burn the tests and spend the day reading what is her name, the poet that never left the house? If I was grading this paper, I’d give myself a D. Well, maybe a C minus for effort. That woman I worked with said writing would jog my memory and I remember that Jack, my husband, oh I miss him my Jackie he used to go jogging back when they didn’t have fancy things on your feet sneakers to do it in and I remember this, I remember thinking why is everyone trying to go faster what’s the hurry? Dickinson. Emily Dickinson. She’s the poet I was thinking of. I started early took my dog. Started for where? What happened to the dog? Once I read that Emily never had time to write. In my head I can see her sitting in her not a living room, they called it something else back then. Sitting in that place, pretending to housework workabout do what they told her and all the while she was poem-ing. I tried to write a poem. Bat cat mat. Those were supposed to be at the end of the sentences lines, but Emily would never have used those words she wrote one about a spider it was really about something to do with God. Was the dog God? I once had a student who couldn’t speak English but liked tasting words anyway, the weight of them. Her name was – I don’t know. She had eyes like walnuts diamonds black snow.

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Beth Sherman has had more than 200 stories published in literary journals, including Ghost Parachute, Fictive Dream, Bending Genres and Smokelong Quarterly. Her work is featured in Best Microfiction 2024 and Best Small Fictions 2025. She’s also a multiple Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee. She can be reached on social media @bsherm36.