A Dedication

About a month ago, one of my poems was published in Glass Mountain. It was published over a year after I'd finished my final draft. It was published in the fifth journal I'd sent it to. It was published. But this post isn't about my dedication to getting poems published; it's about to whom that particular poem was dedicated. On the 59th page of the 2019 issue of Glass Mountain, beneath the title, "Mother's Day," the words for Vera appear in italics. I wasn't quite sure if I should capitalize the "for"---I'd never dedicated a poem before.

During my senior year at Seattle Pacific University, I lived with my friend Vera in an off-campus apartment. Before that could happen, though, we had to convince her family that I wasn't an evil seducer (/was a reasonable person to sign a lease with). So I visited her family home with her during May in 2018. I wore baggy clothing & prayed at dinner & helped with the dishes... & in the evening I played a board game with her & her father & her sister. Her mother had died a little over a year before.

I'd never dedicated a poem before because, simply, I'd never written something for someone before. But this poem, "Mother's Day," is for Vera, one of my closest friends, who walked with me (literally) through one of the darkest periods of my life & who shared beauty with me in her own grief. She shared her family home with me, then shared an apartment with me. & in all this generosity, after several dedicated years of friendship, it felt right to include a line, a nod to the source, in a dedication of my own.

You can purchase a copy of Glass Mountain here.