We spent summer Thursdays this way:
sat in ratty lawn chairs on the bayou bank,
Daddy with his Heineken, me with a Coke,
getting giddy when we saw a snake flicking its tail
in wide S-es through the muddy brown water.
Daddy hopped to, whipped his rifle onto his shoulder, and shot.
I giggled as snake bits bubbled up,
blood spreading murky through the sludge.
Sometimes he missed.

Now I’m afraid of snakes
and I don’t know the last time my father picked up a gun.
We sit on hot metal patio furniture,
Daddy with his Heineken, me with a Diet Pepsi,
on the balcony of his New Orleans apartment,
Mardi Gras beads glimmering on phone wires like snake skins.
It is the first time we’ve been alone together in months.
We let the sounds of the city wash over us,
thick, and chaotic, and decadent.

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Anna K. Pellerin is an LGBTQ+ author from Saint Martinville, Louisiana. She holds bachelor’s degrees in creative writing and English from Spring Hill College. Currently, Anna is an MFA student at Wichita State University studying fiction. She is the Editor-in-Chief for her school’s literary magazines, Mikrokosmos and mojo. Her fiction can be found in Inscape Journal, Canyon Voices Literary Magazine, and The Orange Rose Literary Magazine.