On Memory

By Sonya Spillmann

In the shade of a canopied backyard, ten feet away from the base of the giant oak (from which I often pulled bark, I’m sorry, tree) I hold out my thin young arms in a rigid “T.” An imitation. An imagination. I wear white-piped shorts and a page-boy haircut. I must stay as still as possible. 

I cannot keep my arms up like that now, a woman in her forties, for more than a minute without shaking but then, as a girl of seven, I became the shape of a letter for what felt l...