Everyone Says The Parents Did Their Best, by Roberta Beary

The Boy (Charlie Hanson), by James McNeill Whistler (USA) c.1873-1875

Everyone Says The Parents Did Their Best
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they try everything enroll him in classes that teach how to strut like a man hire a voice coach to kill the soprano squeak sign him up for little league karate ice hockey buy him a cowboy hat and boots with spurs but no toy gun they don’t believe in guns they take away the doll the tutu the sparkly silver wand and throw them on the bonfire while his sea green eyes grow wide and he never cries and neither do they not even when the police bang on their door and tell them it wasn’t their fault and after that

Roberta Beary

Roberta Beary has work in The New York Times, Atticus Review, Litro, New Flash Fiction Review, and the Best Small Fictions 2020, and Best Microfiction 2019/2021 anthologies. The longtime haibun editor at Modern Haiku, she recently collaborated on One Breath: The Reluctant Engagement Project, which pairs her writing with artwork by families of people with disabilities. Carousel, her most recent poetry collection, won the Snapshot Press UK book award contest. She lives in the west of Ireland.