Zelia Jamieson
Fiction Executive
My mother believes in reincarnation,
so I grew up thinking every pair of animals
was my grandparents visiting me.
But I was raised Catholic and she is Catholic still,
and they don’t believe in worldly rebirth.
Death, Purgatory, Heaven if you’re lucky,
but your feet will never strike Earth’s dirt again.
Yet the newborn deer that ran across the road
did so with a familiarity for the land.
That was my mom, my mother said.
We did not feel guilty for thinking such a thing.