There’s an introspective and meditative quality to “Sometimes Grief is a Moonrise” by Allison Field Bell, published in Fractured Lit. The atmosphere/mood of the piece is set, in part, by the distant narrative voice—a third-person POV—which simply reports the setting and actions of two friends standing on a porch. Through this recall of setting and actions and dialogue, Bell creates a feeling of unease, vulnerability. And yet, the thing around which the two friends talk and smoke is left unstated. Unstated, yes, but clearly understood (I won’t give it away. You’ll have to read for yourself.).

Also, a wonderful refrain of words and images throughout: the porch, cigarettes, a road, the moon and sky, an apple orchard, an owl. The reoccurring images create a looping feature that is at once hypnotic and connects us to the natural world: sky, owl, orchard.

This is a piece that explores a complicated kind of loss: “[The] kind of loss that is an extraordinary relief. Gratitude. Freedom.”

The entire piece is the processing of this loss and gratitude and freedom—how to make sense of it (read the title once more). One woman wants to be alone/silent, the other doesn’t want to leave her friend, for fear of being a bad friend. There isn’t much talking, but the smoking—neither person smokes regularly—becomes the activity around which the two keep company.

Bell shows her vast writerly ability in what is probably 500-600ish words. She shows us the complications (and freedom) of such loss, and, most importantly, conveys the emotional weight of such decisions through a masterful use of POV, tone, setting, and details.

Read the piece here.

Allison Field Bell is a multigenre writer from California. She is the author of two forthcoming collections: Bodies of Other Women (fiction, Red Hen Press) and All That Blue (poetry, Finishing Line Press). She is also the author of three chapbooks, Stitch (forthcoming from Chestnut Review Books), Without Woman or Body (Finishing Line Press), and Edge of the Sea (CutBank Books). Find her at allisonfieldbell.com.

Keith Pilapil Lesmeister is the author of the story collection We Could’ve Been Happy Here and the forthcoming Ask Me About the Money. More info at: keithlesmeister.com