By Samantha Padgett

Featured Art: Plague Brunchers by Jon Ward

You asked for my forgiveness six months ago
in the parking lot of a Cracker Barrel—

just two sentences scrawled on a 3×5 notecard
you didn’t bother to memorize. Alone

in the kitchen, I drink a four-dollar bottle of rosé
for your eleventh month sober. Outside,

the aluminum bones of my mom’s
wind chimes clatter together

like the beer bottles under my seat
as you drove me to soccer practice.

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Samantha Padgett is an MFA Candidate at Sam Houston State University. Her work has appeared in Moon City Review. She lives in Huntsville, Texas.

Artist’s website: https://jonward8.wixsite.com/website

Originally appeared in New Ohio Review 29.