by Jeremy Giles
I was named Emma like Grandma beneath the Sycamore Moon tree, crying against Mom as she whispered, “I love you so.” I fell asleep under the Kansas stars and woke up in New York at six, in a strange rocket bed. Planets hung above like Heaven; Mom said that's where Grandma was. My eyes blinked, confused, then closed so she’d disappear.
I awoke at nineteen, in Boston, a dorm full of dishes. I found a mirror, had long hair, long legs, a long face. I watched myself cry cause Mom died, used my long legs to make her angels in the curbside snow. That night, I drank all the cosmos, then collapsed.
I turned thirty-five in Seattle, a baby on my chest named Emma after Grandma, not me. I whispered to her, “I love you so,” not sure what else to say. There was a man with cute dimples, tiny craters. “Going to work?” he asked. “Where?” He looked at me, concerned. “NASA.” I rolled back over.
Fifty-three, no one was there, so I went right back to sleep.
Seventy, Emma came back. I bought Grandma’s old home. There was a new Emma now. I knit her a galaxy sweater. At midnight, I fell asleep under the Kansas stars. Two Emmas buried me beneath the Sycamore Moon Tree.
Jeremy Giles (He/Him) writes fiction and poetry about the end of the world, among other things. As an MFA candidate at CalArts, he is creating a systematization of climate fiction. You can find his work at jeremygileswrites.com and on instagram @jeremygileswrites.
Emerge Literary Journal 