by Marjorie Tesser

On the bus trip to the store, my stomach growled. They didn’t hear, the other campers up front in happy pairs. That morning my bunk mates had been playing keep-away with my sneaker. I’d given up, gone to the nurse for solace and missed breakfast. I was the youngest, the baby, wasn’t sure what else they whispered. On the way back, I nursed my milkshake, its rich sweet chocolate, my cold comfort. My chief tormenter approached, smiling. “Gimme a sip.” I was meek, helpless, but this time I shook my head. “See,” she said, “this is why nobody likes you.”

Marjorie Tesser’s poetry and prose have been published in SWWIM, Cutleaf, and other journals and anthologies. She is the author of two poetry chapbooks, one a Firewheel Chapbook Award winner. Marjorie earned her MFA from Sarah Lawrence College and received the 2019 John B. Santoianni Award from the Academy of American Poets. She has co-edited three anthologies of poetry and prose and is editor-in-chief of MER-Mom Egg Review.