My Father

Maria Barnes

We hadn’t spoken much
even before
his specter
erected walls around me.

He has never talked to me about boys,
blue winters, and polar bears.
But once he pointed at a white hare
in deep snow and said,
“He has ears of an elephant.
Do you know who he is?”

Maria Barnes is an author based in St. Petersburg, Russia. She has been writing fiction in English and Russian for over twenty years, and she has been studying literature and English online since 2018. Her work has been published in Sheepshead Review and Phantom Kangaroo.

© Variant Literature Inc 2021