Lisa Dordal is the author of the poetry collections Mosaic of the Dark; Water Lessons, a Lambda Literary Most Anticipated Book for 2022; and Next Time You Come Home, a Lambda Literary Most Anticipated Book for 2023. A recipient of an Academy of American Poets University Prize, as well as the Robert Watson Poetry Prize, she holds both an MFA in poetry and an MDiv from Vanderbilt University, where she is a writer in residence. She lives in Nashville, Tennessee.

Parallel Universe

by Lisa Dordal

It was the early seventies—

July or August—when my mother wandered off


into a parallel universe. The six of us—
my parents, sister, two brothers, and me—


heading north to see my father’s family
and we had stopped at one of those toll-road oases—
People on couch
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