Bra
Lola Willis
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I turn the remains in my grieving fingers, black satin thinning, dotted by tiny specks of pink lint. He outlived the pronouns you tossed into the mouth of the beast along with the last scratches of your identity: Army-green jacket, bruised guitar, scarf paint-stained, broken phone—what we covet in our collective nightmares, now in the hands of a scavenging stranger or degrading in a landfill grave. You were once alive in my apartment living room, tank top loose over new breasts breaching, hormones stable, serving you well. After all the coming undone, all you had left that spoke for you, This is who I am: precious scrap of fabric hurts the worst.
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Lola Willis lives and writes in Leesville, Louisiana with her husband and six children. She lost her transgendered daughter, Rain, to suicide in May 2024, which fuels her poetry and activism for suicide prevention, particularly in the LGBTQ+ community. Her poetry, short stories and parenting articles have appeared in both online and print publications including “flashquake” and “The Danforth Review.” She published her first collection of work in 2024 entitled “November Keepsakes.”
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