was an arrowhead, placed clean in the middle of a corn-stubble field. I don’t cross the fields alone. I carry the hopeful little girl, who never had much of a dream, who didn’t ask for anything, ever. Who is this quiet girl, and why is she clinging to my neck?  What did we do in our last life to deserve this one, living on a fault line? Sometimes you can’t feel the earthquake. Sometimes our arms cross, hands on opposite shoulders, and we curl into each other, wait for the shaking to stop.

Melanie Dunbar tends flowers for a living. She writes her best poetry while weeding someone else’s garden. Her poems can be found in MacQueen’s Quinterly, Sweet: A Literary Confection, Gargoyle and elsewhere. She lives in Southwest Michigan with her family and their rooster, Mr. Beautiful.