It was not the girl’s blood, but she took it, smeared it all over her cheeks, the same cheeks her mother kissed before she walked down the street to get on the school bus, and as I sit on my couch and watch the news, I can’t stop wondering what her mother fed her for breakfast that morning, before she borrowed her friend’s blood, before the DNA swabs and the cookie jars filled with thoughts and prayers, and as I continue to watch the news, I can’t stop wondering when a number stops being a number, or when fog grows weeds. I’d ask my therapist, but I don’t have a therapist. Is that something I should admit? I am sad in a sad way. I haven’t felt the same since I imagined Sandy walking around with a hook for a hand. Still, yesterday my daughter said the word bubbles. Still, I’ve never shot a gun, but this morning I fed my daughter waffles—her mouth full as she hummed the word yum in reverse. Right now, she has her thumb in her mouth, her stuffed rabbit clutched against her chest, as she watches an episode of Sesame Street. What the politicians on the news keep saying is that two doors is too many, and that locks don’t have to be broken in order to not work. By the time the episode of Sesame Street ends, my daughter has dropped her stuffed rabbit and is reaching for her wand of bubbles. Soon, I will take her outside, spin the wand full of soapy water around as she chases the bubbles, trying to catch what was never meant to stay.

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Leigh Chadwick is the author of the poetry collection Your Favorite Poet (Malarkey Books, 2022) and the collaborative poetry collection Too Much Tongue (Autofocus, 2022), co-written with Adrienne Marie Barrios. Her poetry has appeared in Salamander, Passages Identity Theory, The Indianapolis Review, Pithead Chapel, and Hobart, among others. She is the executive editor of Redacted Books and is also a regular contributor at Olney Magazine, where she conducts the "Mediocre Conversations" interview series. Find her on Twitter at @LeighChadwick5.