Poetry by Sarah Small

Sarah Cummins Small, originally from the Finger Lakes region of New York, lives in Alcoa, Tennessee, at the foothills of the Smoky Mountains. Her poetry has appeared in Salvation South, Appalachia Bare, Cider Press Review, Smokies Life Journal, and Willawaw Journal, among others, as well as in the anthologies Breathing the Same Air and Migrants and Stowaways. Her chapbook, Stitches, was published in 2025 by Finishing Line Press. For over 20 years, she taught creative writing, literature, and composition to students at various levels, from elementary to college. She holds an MA in English/creative writing from Iowa State University. 

Remains

I got rid of that leather recliner
as soon as possible. Listen:
it was worn and sticky.
Used tissues tucked in the cushions—
cookie crumbs in the cracks,
toothpicks discarded between seat and arms.
Ask me how it feels

to snake fingers into a crevice and get pricked
by a wooden stick my father once used to dig
bits of corned beef and cabbage
out of his teeth.
That brown chair is not where nor how
I want to remember him:
his head slumped on the pillow, mouth
a red cave open in a snore, a thin old man
bundled in blankets
legs limp on the footrest, feet swaddled
in bright orange socks.

No, this is my father:
The man who would shed his red coveralls
and brown work boots on the back porch
before entering the house for supper, who smelled
of pesticide, tractor oil, apples, soil.
My father of a dog-eared book in every room.
My father with pruners in his right hand
or the sailboat’s tiller
the garden hoe
a paring knife.
My father who halved apples, studied their seeds,
strengthened their rootstocks, offered
us slice after slice.
My father who would wax our skis on a winter’s night
so we could glide under a full moon together,
he breaking trail and the rest of us,
following in his packed tracks.

My father two rungs up
a tripod ladder, stable
on the uneven orchard ground,
pausing his pruning
to cradle me, baby girl at last
in of a field of sons,in a blue dress piped with pink
under white apple blossoms,
my small hand pressed to his mouth.

Or before me, before my remembering
begins, before any of us began:
my sepia child-father perched
on the edge of a wooden chair,
in a ruffled white shirt and black
short pants, eager
for his long, long life to begin.