Phebe Jewell

Phebe Jewell’s recent work appears or is forthcoming in MonkeybicycleSpelkEllipsis ZineNew Flash Fiction ReviewCrack the SpineBrilliant Flash Fiction, and The Cabinet of Heed. A teacher at Seattle Central College, she also volunteers for the Freedom Education Project Puget Sound, a nonprofit providing college courses for women in prison.

¿CÓMO ESTÁ TU MADRE? by Phebe Jewell

Every morning Mom digs in the garden plot behind our house, dressed in a faded red shirt and ripped jeans. She refuses to wear black. “I’m done mourning,” she says. “I’ve been grieving since the day he enlisted.” Kneeling in the dirt, Mom turns the soil with a hand spade. It’s a small plot, maybe five by seven. She says she’s putting it to bed for the winter. No cover crop seeds yet, so there’s nothing to bury, just dark loamy soil she churns and churns. She’s still there in the afternoon when I open my Spanish workbook at the…

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