Some warmth is irrational. Like seventy degrees in January. Like open windows and rolled up wool sleeves. Not like the southern waters we peer into but do not touch. 

At the edge of the dock, memories leak from us: salt waves sweeping the Shelton shores. The house with no photographs. Our walk to the boat house where your father got married. After the ceremony, you drove the drunk man home. I should have asked for more. I should have asked about the night. The music. The dancing. The texture of the current. Memory does not flinch at my interrogation. I can’t go back. I leave it there alone.

In Lusby, the cabin is warm. The firewood is plenty. The cardinals yawn. The well is frozen. The basil and tomatoes are left on the cutting board. The boats along the inlet do not mark the end of our imagination. There is always something beyond what we can see. I draft pictures in my mind as the sun melts into the wake. You want a dinner table like this one. I want flowers in every vase.

In the morning, you are asleep. Ice rain soothes January’s hunger for humidity. I wonder how our day would be spent if the well wasn’t frosted over. I wonder what would have happened if you awoke before I did. I trace the curve of your head on the pillowcase with my eyes. I do not wake you. I watch the morning dew wrinkle on the skylight above. I look out the windows and watch the lake carry the rain.

Published October 13, 2024

Kailah Figueroa is a rhetorical engineer, memory archivist, and part-time prose stylist. Her work is research-based, invoking lyrical, visual, and hybrid forms, and has been featured/forthcoming in Poetry Northwest, Black Warrior Review, Torch Literary Arts, Pigeon Pages, and others. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee and has been awarded fellowships from the Fulbright Commission and Vermont Studio Center. She received her BA in Creative Writing at Susquehanna University in 2023 and is a current Poetry MFA candidate at Rutgers-Newark '25. You can find more of her work at kailahfigueroa.com

April Werle is a narrative painter based in Missoula, Montana, whose work explores mixed-race identity, family, and belonging. Her recent solo exhibitions include Secret Life of a Multicultural Couple, Bell Projects, Denver, CO; Halo-Halo: The Mixed Children, ZACC, Missoula, MT; and Mga Hunghong Sa Diwata (Whispers of Spirits), Holter Museum of Art, Helena, MT. Her work has been featured in group exhibitions at the Missoula Art Museum and The Other Art Fair Los Angeles. Werle is the recipient of the Emerging Artist Residency at Centrum, Port Townsend, Washington (2024). She was honored with the Creative West BIPOC Artist Fund Award (2024), the Montana Arts Council Strategic Investment Grant (2023), and the Montana Arts Council ARPA Grant (2022). April Werle has been invited to speak about her work at Montana State University, as the keynote speaker for A.S.I.A.’s 2nd Annual Multicultural Night (2024). Werle’s work has been published in New Visionary Magazine, Kapwa Magazine, and Mahalaya.