When I was on molly and Mitra was my mom, I started to feel like it all made sense. We stood, two (or three) of us, and my shoes stopped hurting. Her eyes, big, dark, and kind, looked nothing like my own. Her husband, he had eyes, too, but I don’t remember seeing them. I just remember knowing that Mitra was my mom, that time could be tender if I softened my grip.

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Eileen G’Sell is a poet and culture critic with recent contributions to The Baffler, Fence, Oversound, The Hopkins Review, Current Affairs, Hyperallergic, Reverse Shot, LARB, and other outlets. Her first full-length volume of poetry, Life After Rugby, was published in 2018 by Gold Wake Press, and she is a 2023 nominee for the national Rabkin Foundation award in arts journalism. She teaches at Washington University in St. Louis.