Tracie Adams | Wonder Lust

Short nonfiction from the coalitionist mixed bag. Sunpatch.

She poses a bride in a green field, veil blowing in the breeze. She kneels in mud to capture a family leaning against a barn. She lies flat on her back in the middle of the road, long dark hair spread out like eagles' wings, zooming on redwoods, a sun flare.

My daughter’s superpowers make her invisible, cloaked in black, flashing like lightning, wielding her camera like a wand. She sees the graduate, the mother of the groom, the expectant mother. I see her, glowing like the evening sun. Fingers adjusting aperture, shutter speed, switching out lenses for wider angles, softer portraits, dappled landscapes.

Smiles stretch across faces, chins lower, shoulders lift at her command. I am the sidekick, handing her flashes, tripods, whatever she needs to capture the world. I can’t take my eyes off her, the maker of magic, the keeper of memories, the light of my world.

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Tracie Adams writes flash memoir and fiction from her farm in rural Virginia. A retired educator and playwright, she now spends her time with five short people who call her Glamma. Her book, Our Lives in Pieces, debuts this spring. Her work was nominated for the Pushcart Prize and appears in over fifty literary journals and anthologies including Cleaver, BULL, Frazzled Lit, Trash Cat, Brevity Blog, Raw Lit, and more. Visit tracieadamswrites.com and follow her on X @1funnyfarmAdams.

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