By A. J. Bermudez

My uncle
(great uncle, great)
born in ’38

was a baby in the war,
later, a reverend, who,

when he reads the book
in which it is glaringly clear
that I am not straight
nor narrow

praises
with joy too big for afterthought
with only yes,

and it’s the springing open of a fist
the candybar that might have been a knife

the fountain, drained, not empty
but carpeted in pennies.

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A. J. Bermudez is the author of Stories No One Hopes Are About Them, winner of the 2022 Iowa Short Fiction Award and a 2023 Lambda Award Finalist. Her writing has appeared in Kenyon Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, McSweeney’s, Electric Literature, Story, and elsewhere. She’s a recipient of the Pushcart Prize, the Diverse Voices Award, the PAGE International Screenwriting Award, the Alpine Fellowship Writing Prize, and the Steinbeck Fellowship.