Lisa Johnson Mitchell

Lisa Johnson Mitchell’s work has appeared in Fictive Dream, Cleaver, and Litro Online, among others. One of her stories placed in the Top 10 of the 2020 Columbia Journal Short Fiction Contest. Another received an Honorable Mention from Glimmer Train and was a Semi-Finalist in the ScreenCraft Cinematic Short Story Contest. She was a resident at the Vermont Studio Center and holds an MFA from Bennington College. She has a rescue pup named Cornbread.

DIRTY LAUNDRY by Lisa Johnson Mitchell

I pour bleach over the mound, purging, once again, the family secret: Daddy’s arrest—indecent exposure. Socks fall in. Slipped them off right before having sex with my husband, during which I thought of Benjamin, high school lover.  Will Mom die today? Bed sore as big as a baseball. Not eating or drinking. Been seven days. Hampton Gardens is five minutes away, thank Christ. Flannel nightgown, shove it in, hope I don’t have another nightmare where I’m digging into my giant thigh with a knife, the insides like a Christmas ham. I told Mom I loved her, that she was the…

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