Brenna Walch: My Mother is a Changing Season

My Mother is a Changing Season

Spring is the orange rows of tiger lilies outside my mother’s kitchen window. Spring is the orange of the clementines in our backyard orchard where the branches hang so low that I named them after martyrs. Spring is the orange juice I drink every morning, and it’s the orange fruit flesh left beneath my mother’s fingernails. Spring is the orange-flavored lip gloss buried in my purse. Spring is the orange of my mother’s hair dye and the post-Pyridium toilet bowl.

Spring is the orange tabby cat that sleeps in the sunset of my mom’s front porch, and the orange collar labeled ‘Tangerine’. Spring is the orange construction cones I pass while driving to the hospital. Spring is the orange zest essential oils lining my mother’s bedside table. Spring is the orange soda we race to finish, fizz hissing in our mouths, teeth stained and laughter bubbling up.

Spring is the orange sticky notes of prescription medication on the fridge; the pill bottles on the dining table; the get-well-soon cards stuffing citrus in our mailbox every morning.

Brenna Walch is the poetry editor for the online literary magazine Lodestar Lit and an MFA student in Creative Writing Fiction at West Virginia Wesleyan College. Her poetry has been published in Oddball Magazine, and her fiction has been published in Sky Island Journal, Jokes Literary Review, and All Your Stories. Brenna is currently working on a novel duology, a short fiction collection, and a few creative nonfiction pieces.