I'm featured in Collected Magazine's newest issue. Read an excerpt here.
Clark’s tongue slides like a slug. The tip hits the lemon slice’s bitter flesh and retreats. He winces and kicks his nine-year-old feet. A wild shout and a trio of laughter erupt at my kitchen table. Leo and Felix, age six and two, admire the bravery their brother carries tall in his imaginary backpack. “Your turn,” Clark says and passes them each a lemon slice. They imitate the quick sour tongue-touch and overreaction. But as the citrus sting subsides, all three lap at their sunshine wedge like puppy dogs. It’s a race of tang with no clear finish line, only the paradoxical sweetness of play. Lemonade. The boys learn the three-step recipe and soon sand dunes of bleach-white sugar cascade daily into tap-water-and-lemon-juice-concentrate-filled jugs. That’s probably why I buy the big tin of instant powder; to save my lemon juice for salad dressing, but also because of the way the plastic lid lifts open to a fine sweet mist that prickles your nose and, if inhaled, induces uncontrolled coughing. Have you ever tried to send your children back in time? To give them a glimpse of your childhood, of crystals spinning in a clear glass and the taste of them gulped down half-dissolved? Click here to read the full story.
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Chavon BarryChavon is a new writer from Victoria, British Columbia. She wrestles with simple answers and is learning to listen, to be still with God. Archives
April 2022
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