My name is Poetumma and when I was about 16 I had an argument with my dad. I can't remember what it was about

but I think it was about my deep desire to become a Protestant because I was convinced

that Protestantism was the way forward and he was telling me that I didn't know what I was talking

about. Anyway, I stormed out and I went for a walk. We lived in the country.

Along the way, something occurred to me which was to say,

like I can walk for hours now, and I often did.

Or I could just go home and see if something new could be said.

I came home, he must have been expecting me to be away for hours as I normally was

when I came in the door. He was surprised and he said to me you stormed out like an American

and he used a metaphor stormed in the verb there and then assimilate like an American and I said

sorry and he was shocked by the sorry and it didn't entirely change the dynamic.

I was still 16, I was still overly dramatic,

but certainly it faced with it myself

and there was something about me turning around

that helped me think maybe I could do something different here.

How the dung beetle finds its way home by Eugenia Lee

The Milky Way's glinting ribbon helps the dung beetle roll his good ball of shit back to the ones he loves.

But blind him to the sky with as little as a hat and he will swerve like a drunk who, if he makes it home alive, might find

the family, soured with waiting, gone, drawers cleared, beds cold, even the watercolor arc of giraffes and raptors pulled from the face of the fridge.

See, I want to tell my missing father, it's a metaphor so simple it's almost not worth writing down.

Even Beatles need the stars to nudge them back to where they need to be when they need to be there, toward their little ones gummy

grins ever pardoning the grisliest parent.

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