My grandfather was a winter man a dedicated bird man a serious joke man an always-thinking man who cupped tight pale lips with tight pale hands and mimicked the hoots of — and the trills of — who strode with bowed legs across heathery paths who quizzed me on the birds he wished to attract […]
Alina Zollfrank
Alina Zollfrank dreams trilingually in the Pacific Northwest. Her work has been nominated for Best of the Net and The Pushcart Prize and recently appeared in SAND, Sierra Nevada Review, Door Is A Jar, Another Chicago Magazine, Full House, and several anthologies. Alina is a grateful recipient of the 2024 Washington Artist Trust Grant and committed disability advocate.
And
I. Yesterday my old beagle almost found a dead rat with his young nose. Flattened in the middle of the road, a dried husk. Aged pancake with shrivel tail. Rodent jerky. And so forth. II. The silent heart monitor glued to my sternum tracks life. A minuscule button to push when things don’t feel right, […]