10/7/23 – 10/14/23

I learned last week that there are several
species of immortal jellyfish
that begin life anew in the wake of decay.
This week, I’ve been telling everyone I know.
Hope is a good storyteller, my mom hears
on the news, from the mouth
of a dad of a dead six-year-old.
What does it mean? she wonders, a bolus of
bloodshed stuck in her throat.
No good answers, I say, only scientific names:
Turritopsis dohrnii and Laodicea undulata.

Kyra Lisse is an MFA candidate and graduate assistant at Hollins University. She serves as Editorial Fellow for Jewish Book Council and as a nonfiction reader for Orison Books. Her work has been published in Sky Island Journal, Paper Brigade, and Assay: A Journal of Nonfiction Studies, among others.