Do You Have a Family? by Z. T. Corley

All the dresses I never wore. The worms I studied like paintings.

Do You Have a Family?

by Z. T. Corley¹

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When asked about my family, why do I think of the spiders I have allowed to live? My mother with a cigarette, a crown of smoke around her head. Tennessee in January. Flowers I’ve trampled, nameless and numerous. The cities I claim but who don’t claim me. My grandmother in a hospital bed. The vultures on the side of the road. South Carolina in June. The sound of beads. The blackberries I ate. The urn on the mantel. Not my father, but the beer he let me taste—the bitterness of it. Fireflies at night. Georgia in July. Rainbows on the ceiling. Grass stains and mosquito bites. Leaves in my hair. All the ashes I won’t eat. The taste of cornbread. My grandmother’s brown eyes—both ringed blue. The rabbits I chased. Dandelions in spring. The butterflies I’ve held. Church on Sundays. My great-grandmother’s hands. The hot comb’s hiss. Long dirt roads. A man—not my father—standing in the doorway like a dark pillar. California in December. All the dresses I never wore. The worms I studied like paintings. The stench of coffee. The scabs I’ve picked and who, like an estranged family, attempted to recover
themselves even while I scraped and gouged with fingernails sharper than the beak of a condor. What was the question again?

1. First published in Roanoke Review, 2025.