One Day in the Life of Donna DeSimone
Donna, you will never become less deaf, her audiologist informs. Keep learning, she encourages herself. In ASL she has reached the letter L. Keep living. She buses down to Pike Place Market to purchase potatoes and greens, maybe collard. Downtown, she deboards into the midst of an ICE raid. Masked goons are throwing a well-dressed, screaming woman to the asphalt. People are holding up phone cameras, yelling Fuck you! Get out! A tall man is photographing. She knows that old camera. Husband of her youth. Why had she left him? Henry! He looks up. Donna! she sees his mouth say.
Priscilla Long
Priscilla Long is author of nine books including Cartographies of Home: Poems (MoonPath Press, 2026) and On Spaces and Colors (University of New Mexico Press, 2026). Her work has appeared in publications such as The Hudson Review, The Southern Review, and The American Scholar. Her awards include a National Magazine Award and ten of her essays have been honored as “notable” in various years of Best American Essays. She has an MFA from the University of Washington and grew up on a dairy farm on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. To learn more, go to www.priscillalong.com.
