Once on a boring summer afternoon, tired of our whining, she took from her wooden jewelry box two snarled balls of necklace chains and showed us how to roll the mess between finger and thumb until it relaxed a little, how to slip a sewing needle into the stubborn knots. We were there for hours: minds blank, house gone soft with the quiet, coaxing slow space into the gnarled tightness until the sun grew weak through the diamond windows. And oh, I want one more afternoon like that. Want forgiveness that feels like that— a hard-earned loosening that ends in open palms holding sleek ropes of gold: neat, shimmering, attached to nothing.
Christy Lee Barnes is an educator originally from Los Angeles, who now lives in Seattle with my husband and toddler son. Her writing can be found in Prairie Schooner, Plume, Cream City Review, Cagibi, Spillway, Tin House's "Broadside Thirty," The Seattle Times, McSweeney's, and elsewhere.
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The imagery, the feeling, the message - all so great!! REALLY like this!