“Half-Price Wednesday”, one of three pieces by Cassandra de Alba in our Winter 2015 issue, may be a very tiny poem but it gives us some awfully big shivers.

{ X }

THREE WEEKS AFTER YOUR GRANDMOTHER DIED
in these boots I bought them at Salvation Army
for the change in my back pocket. Wore them casual
with paint-stained jeans and dirty sweaters. Wondered
when my fingers started to tremble as I turned pages.
Developed a taste for good gin. Didn’t question
until the morning I woke up without feet.

{ X }

CASSANDRA de ALBA‘s work has appeared in Skydeer Helpking, The Nervous Breakdown, and Vector Press, among other places. She is a grad student in the greater Boston area and can be found online at outsidewarmafghans.tumblr.com.