Singing Soprano at the Senior Home

by Lisa Lynn Biggar

Stop that damn whistling
my grandmother would say
while we were digging
crabgrass from her yard.

And stop banging
on that piano—
the player piano at 
The Potter Game Club
where we would
gather for reunions
needing no one
to play it really,
the keys magically
playing on their
own, but I still
liked to give it
my own spin.

I don’t remember
my grandmother
ever singing, or
dancing, or even
tapping her feet to
any beat, but, now,
in the senior home,
post-pandemic, she
sings soprano in the
halls, the dining room,
the notes piercing, shattering
time, the staff and other
residents rattled, but
these are notes of survival,
of perseverance, and
when I sing to her
now, she smiles.

Lisa Lynn Biggar received her MFA in Fiction from Vermont College and is currently completing a short story cycle set on the eastern shore of Maryland. Her short fiction and poetry have appeared in numerous literary journals including Main Street Rag, Bluestem Magazine, The Minnesota Review, Kentucky Review, The Delmarva Review and Superstition Review. She’s the fiction editor for Little Patuxent Review and co-owns and operates a cut flower farm on the eastern shore of Maryland with her husband and three cats.Varada J.M is a 10th-grader based in Kerala’s Koyilandi, studying at Rani Public School, Vadakara. After hurriedly doing homework, Varada divides her time between practicing classical dance and watching horror films. She loves dogs but nobody at home wants one.

Pre Covid-19

by Lisa Lynn Biggar

Before the storm
we found a quiet
New York: inside
St. Patrick’s lighting
candles for our grandmothers;
upon a bench in Central Park,
where we watched a stray
dog bounding for joy,
skyscrapers beyond so
majestic and still;
ensconced in
St. Thomas, where
the angelic voices of
a Boy’s Choir
held us mesmerized—
in the wonder of
the moment—
where, today,
I retreat in
silence.

Lisa Lynn Biggar received her MFA in Fiction from Vermont College and is currently completing a short story cycle set on the eastern shore of Maryland. Her short fiction and poetry have appeared in numerous literary journals including Main Street Rag, Bluestem Magazine, The Minnesota Review, Kentucky Review, The Delmarva Review and Superstition Review. She’s the fiction editor for Little Patuxent Review and co-owns and operates a cut flower farm on the eastern shore of Maryland with her husband and three cats. Varada J.M is a 9th-grader based in Kerala’s Koyilandi, studying at Rani Public School, Vadakara. After hurriedly doing homework, Varada divides her time between practicing classical dance and watching horror films. She loves dogs but nobody at home wants one.