Elisha Emerson

This piece is part of our Winter 2023 print issue, available for purchase here.          

You held my eyes from the back of Advanced Studies of Dramatic Literature as if you were a tousled debauchee from an unrated foreign film, the kind with a sophisticated plot line, sure, but also plenty of straps, leather, and velvet. Years after our son’s autism diagnosis and days after your own, we sit at

1. A cousin second-removed asks me to pray for her in a Facebook comment, and I nurse indignation for days. She reaches out kindly enough, to express support for my youngest son whose Zoom-accessible play I’ve advertised on social media. She says she’d love to watch, asks me how I am (It’s been years!) and