Cover image courtesy of Southword Editions.
Father dies during the appetizers. Mother
keeps on eating. How’s work? she says. I
pour more wine. She passes
just before dessert arrives. Shame,
says the waiter, poised to whisk
away her Eton Mess. Leave it, I say
and sit there, orphaned, staring at both puddings,
wondering how I am ever going
to lift my spoon again.
Tania Hershman is the author of a poetry chapbook, ‘Nothing Here Is Wild, Everything Is Open’ (Southword, 2016), and two short story collections: ‘My Mother Was An Upright Piano: Fictions’ (Tangent Books, 2012), and ‘The White Road and Other Stories’ (Salt, 2008). Her debut poetry collection and a third short story collection will be published in 2017. Tania is curator of ShortStops, celebrating short story activity across the UK & Ireland, and is working on a hybrid prose/poetry book inspired by particle physics for her PhD in Creative Writing.
