Author: stephaniesantosgrant
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it
not long after my adoption was finalized i made a second neighborhood friend named rebecca whom everyone called becky. we road the big yellow school bus together and were in the same grade at our small-town elementary school. some years we even had the same teacher. becky was chubby in a ‘childhood is sweet’ kind-of-way…
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born twice
that’s what she was. not ‘again’ like a christian, god no, but rather like a seed that’s been planted, grown to a seedling and then one day ripped from its root, taken to soil not matching its own, tasked to create life and viability from someone else’s dirt. the first time it happened was on…
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pineapples
after my adoption was finalized i spent lots of weekend and summer afternoons in the warm glow of a shiny green and gold kitchen two houses down from the rosens. a friendly young girl named jodi lived there with her younger brother, matt and their beloved family dachshund. there were a couple years between matt…
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all souls
the veil is thin, ‘gone’ she said. its absence and presence abound, the worlds are one. she feels it not only in the air or the ether but deep within her earthly bones and buzzing at the surface of her skin. there was that unsettling dream with the crown of her hair missing and then…
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stay
the leaves are beginning to fallthey carpet sidewalks nowspilling marigold secretsto a quiet restless road ocean tides leavemountain tops stayi am not from herebut i do belong bodies bendrefract backthe curvatureof a iridescent moon,so much stays hidden hearts beathollowed chestsfiery sun raps‘round red love and cool angersleeping, shiningsleeping, shining air filled lungsthat need not ito…
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foster lot
it isn’t a wonder they upend mei was a ward of the state once and only forever will be againwith just 7 years in the systemi understand public property and servitudestraight white lines drawn around empty stuck spacesonly ever coming or going,no stayingor resolveonly waitingwith desire,and ignominyfor things that do not come to foster lots…
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conscious uncouplet-ing
from the high tight corner of an old breakfront hutcha chain of sturdy green leaves grows up and over down the side of a cracked terra cotta pot.at once, the plant vine dangles then snaps in the chubby hand of a triumphant toddler below.the jutted brown stalk is left empty a second stem with only…
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fairy tigers
an animated tigersings sweetly to my attentive daughterpretending words that don’t rhyme do:‘grooown-ups come backkkkkkk’ my children,(my dear, sweet, innocent children)are being raised by a woman whose grown-ups didn’t come backsome days it feels like i’m giving them more than i had just by being here-other days, all forgotten lies & fairy tales.
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unrelinquished
i want it to be goodi believe, that if it issome of the goodness on the page therewill leap up from it and impale itself in me i will stop feeling the sleight of my delinquency then my possession of bones and skin, a heart, both handswill relinquish themselvesfrom the lovethat made them give it…
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the school bus
it doesn’t stop in front of our house. ours is the kind of house no one stops in front of. stares at? sure. whispers about? certainly. but only ever from the safety of their moving cars or curious bodies. our bus driver’s name is kimberly, but she isn’t one; she’s tough, a single working mother…
santos scribes 