Susan Mockler

Gathered in a circle in her living room—some of us meeting for the first time, cups of herbal tea and chocolate chip cookies that looked like they came from the grocery store balanced on our knees, she asked us to introduce ourselves by name only to the people on either side of us. You are going to want to know who these people are, she said. You’ll be running into them often in the next several months. She didn’t waste time with icebreakers. Instead, she took out a clipboard and pencil, rapping the pencil against the table like a symphony conductor. Let’s get down to business. We need to make a schedule, she said. And there it went. Pay attention. She rattled off the assignments, barely waiting for someone to raise their hands and volunteer: someone would need to drive her to chemo every other Friday; hold her hair back (as long as there were any hair left) as she vomited; shop for the wig(s)—blond preferred, she said, since she always had dark hair; stock her freezer with popsicles—cherry and banana, though banana is hard to find, she warned us. Our tea was getting cold. The room was oddly quiet.

Susan Bucci Mockler’s collection, Covenant (With), was published by Kelsay Books in 2022. Other work has appeared in the Mid-Atlantic Review, The Delmarva Review, The Cortland Review, The Paterson Literary Review, and Lunch Ticket, among others. She teaches writing at Howard University.