Margo Solod
	What We Bring My fashionista sister creates a photo scrapbook - My practical sister, Team J t-shirts and hats. My father will be 80, Frank Sinatra's age, his hero I make only my way to this Thanksgiving gathering, this non-celebration all he will permit. Three daughters, three grandchildren. Not even. I am his child without children. We'll eat a turkey dinner ready-made from Kroger, wear the t-shirts and hats, tell stories pulled from memory by old snapshots. Later, my sisters will take the children to sales at the mall, and I will sit with my father, watching football games that last into the night. He'll ask if I am ok for money, and I will tell him yes. Then, silence. I will sit with my father. What I bring to the table. His daughter. A Letter From My Aunt Requires Careful Contemplation You ask me for a wild turkey feather, one found on the road in the morning as I trail behind the dogs. Your request demands reflection, I've a treasure trove of riches. Tail feather or wing? Or soft down from a chick who scuttles single- file behind his mother in the spectral dawn of spring light; there are ten or more at first but there's a high attrition rate. Hawks, maybe the cougar we have never seen yet track hopefully in the first fresh snow each winter. As they grow their numbers steady, and by fall the only way to tell the chicks from the adults is by how easily they startle. It's been almost six years since we had a hunter on the land, (how long can turkey memory exist?). The mothers do not leave the road until they're ready, not for anything, the truck, the dogs; we slow our stride to their pace until a stand of ripening wild grape or autumn olive tempts them back into the woods. How to bring these sights and sounds and scents to you when you can barely leave your house, a careful turn about the garden, jacketed and booted even in the summer's heat. The walkers and their dogs go past you on the street and you can only watch. After careful contemplation, I pack the largest, brightest tail feather between four postcards back to back, old women smiling at one another and at you. In your hands this lack of explanation will be fine. Stories often tell themselves to you. This feather will summon woods and roads; then you'll see me and the dogs, and -just there - that early morning light that helps to weave this plume of tales together.