Before she died, my grandmother
\ntold us her tablecloths were filthy
\nwith the howls of injured dogs. The only thing
\nfor it was bleach, but even that can’t lift
\nthe noise from this napkin, the wads of silly
\nputty, pink glitter, sand. The way a life<\/p>\n
can smell like smoke from other
\npeople’s fires, pi\u00f1on burning sweet
\nthrough the window frames into towels,
\ndust motes. My clothes are speaking
\nin its voice again. A bunny pancake.
\nA blueberry smile. Outside, clouds<\/p>\n
fold down their tissue:\u00a0To Mom <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Before she died, my grandmother told us her tablecloths were filthy with the howls of injured dogs. The only thing for it was bleach, but even that can’t lift the noise from this napkin, the wads of silly putty, pink glitter, sand. The way a life can smell like smoke from other people’s fires, pi\u00f1on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2292,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[81],"tags":[25],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Jypy-4Vj","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18929"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2292"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18929"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18929\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18931,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18929\/revisions\/18931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\non her special day.\u00a0<\/em>I untie the smoke.
\nThe napkins cough, peel membrane
\nfrom the sections of my lungs. The arils
\nshine their hidden ratio. I fill them
\nwith air. They burst in my mouth.<\/p>\nBetsy Mitchell Martinez<\/b> <\/a><\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"