Kaecey McCormick

My Father Told Us

Girls can’t do math. When we lost points on a quiz,
he’d say, It’s not your fault. Then he’d say, Biologically
you’re doomed. You’ll never understand the way boys do.
He isn’t a bad person. He thought his words offered protection.
Rubbing alcohol poured on a wound. Still, the burn.

My sister and I wished him right when doctors told us
her chances of survival: < 3%. We started to calculate
our lives in days instead of years, trying to + time.
5,500 + 1 days the day she was diagnosed. We estimated
what we’d look like when we were ~16,000 days, like mother.

My sister said, You’ll be be the one with the spreading hips.
Then she said, My hair will be starting to grey. By 25,000,
we calculated, we’d be grandmothers. When she died,
I wished my father right again. Wished I couldn’t calculate
6,055 days ≠ a long enough life.

Kaecey McCormick writes in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her poetry and prose has found a home in different publications, including Baltimore Review, The Pinch Journal, Clockhouse, Jabberwock Review, Pedestal Magazine, and Pine Hills Review as well as her chapbooks Sleeping with Demons (2023) and Pixelated Tears (2018). When not writing, you can find Kaecey hiking, painting, or reading a book. Connect at kaeceymccormick.com