How It Happened by Chelsea Rathburn

How It Happened

by Chelsea Rathburn

published in New Ohio Review, 2011, republished at Verse Daily

I blame that little village in Spain,the one with the whitewashed houses in a crescent along the sea,a fleet of pastel fishing boats,and that celebrated coffee with brandy.

A sour wedge of apple lurkedat the bottom like a tea-leaf fortune.

Because we couldn’t afford the fishwe ate pizza with peaches and oreganoon the beach, the sun and breeze conspiring.

Seeing us there beneath the cl...