[KATHERINE LEONARD]

The Moment It All Went Wrong

When the name Adam meant person in Hebrew.
When I ate fruit from the Tree of Life and became mortal 
and knew I was not Adam
	to my family.
When the Fairness Doctrine was repealed. Long before the 80s.
When you hit your head.
When I lost the thread in the labyrinth. 
When the light was just the light and nothing more. 
When I forgot to say I’m sorry when I heard
	howling wounded children 
	and sent only prayers.
When my marrow failed the treatment.
When your airplane.
When hope became a four-letter word and war a sporting event.
When winter did not come.
When Sarajevo.
When the Northern Lights went south.
When the price of insulin went north.
When I was hungry and ate you.
When China ate Tibet.
When love did not evolve.
When Vietnam did not come home.
When the boy in the bubble went free.
When you lost your anchor and drifted on the Trade Winds 
	to God’s waiting room.
Cuando mi casa no es su casa.
When breathe when breathe when breathe.

[about]

Katherine Leonard grew up as a post-WWII Navy brat traveling to Massachusetts of John F Kennedy at the time of his assassination and the segregation of rural Texas at the time of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination. She continued the pursuit of diverse outlooks with careers as a chemist, a geologist and an oncology nurse/nurse practitioner. She currently lives and writes in the Central New York area and is actively involved in the YMCA’s Downtown Writers Center.

Her writing has been deeply influenced by time spent in New Mexico, Texas and Colorado for space and heat and Vermont and Maine for ice and clarity and by living in Washington, DC for lies and redemption.

Her work has been previously published in literary journals, including Sonora Review, Hole in the Head Review, Speckled Trout Review, FERAL, and Stone Canoe. Her work is upcoming, Allium and the Central Texas Writers Society Anthology