after from the dining table

Amanda Pendley

we set the burners on high

feel our feet catch fire

and dance sideways into July

make kitchen into a different kind

of creation and cry ourselves home

to tile set and soaked

we had no dining room

only counter space cleared

for she who was not made here

the height marks on the wall are not her

heartstrings, though she grips them gently

to know how I would have felt

I reach through to tell her i-

but can’t unwind the walls

or unspool the years taken back

Amanda Pendley is a queer twenty-one-year-old writer from Kansas City, who is currently studying creative writing and publishing at the University of Iowa. Her recent and forthcoming publications include Homology Lit, Vagabond City Lit, Savant Garde Literary Magazine, and JUKED. She is a 2020 Best of the Net nominee for her poem “afterword on movement song” published by Savant Garde Literary Magazine. She often finds inspiration in Lorde songs, contemporary dance, and Harry Styles’ suit collection.