Aftermath by Jill Michelle

Aftermath | Jill Michelle

           after Charles Jensen

In February 2007, after the water broke and I lost a son at 21 weeks, my father took me to brunch. Sitting across the Perkins booth, he reached for my tissue-free hand as I cried over a plate of chocolate chip pancakes instead of eating them. In February of 2008, after a second baby died the same way, I took Dad to lunch, sat across the TooJay’s table—view of Health Central, where I’d lost a daughter yesterday, where I’d lose him in 2012, over his left shoulder. We held hands next to his uneaten Reuben as he sobbed, caught in the 40-year-old memory of arriving at his first Navy ship only to be flown home at the news of his mother’s death.

Quiz on this section:

1. Pinpoint the day between February 11th, 2007 and February 22nd, 2008 when the Alzheimer’s plaques overran the narrator’s dad’s brain.
2. How did the narrator feel handing her babies back over to nurses?
3. How did the narrator feel handing her dad over to the nursing home?
4. Draw a diagram of your heart. Color in its shadows. Label them with the middle names of your dead.

About the Author:

Jill Michelle is the author of Underwater (Riot in Your Throat, 2025) and Shuffle Play (Bottlecap, 2024) and winner of the 2023 NORward Prize for Poetry. Her newest work is forthcoming in The Florida Review, Free State Review, The Indianapolis Review, MQR: Mixtape and Pangyrus Lit Mag. She teaches at Valencia College in Orlando, Florida. Find more at byjillmichelle.com.