Kerrigan

You were an angel to everyone of a certain age, including my mother. I felt the pressure of 
comparison even though I never ice-skated. “Like a young Audrey Hepburn” my mother used to 
say as she watched you in the Olympics--as if that was all that anyone ever need be. The only 
time I was able to sit next to my mother on that yellow crusty couch recruited for basement T.V. 
viewings, the only time my hair was stroked in a lovely, absent minded way from top to end and 
back again. I wear this red skater skirt for you, Nancy. For our comparison days. Before your 
knee got bludgeoned with a police baton.





Jennifer MacBain-Stephens attended NYU, but has spent a large part of her life moving up and down I-95 and I-80 in the Midwest and recently moved to the DC area.  She is the author of the chapbook “Clotheshorse,” (Finishing Line Press, forthcoming, 2014,) and the chapbook “Every Her Dies” (ELJ Pubilcations, forthcoming 2014.) She has written four YA non-fiction books (Rosen Publishing) and has poems published in Emerge Literary Journal, Foliate Oak, Superstition Review, Stirring, Eunoia Review, Thirteen Myna Birds, Menacing Hedge, and Red Savina Review to name a few. Her work has been nominated for Best of the Net and has appeared in public places in Iowa.  Recent work can be seen/is forthcoming at The Blue Hour, NonBinary Review, Vector Press, The Golden Walkman, Split Rock Review, Toad Suck Review, and Hobart.  For a complete list of publications and other odds and ends visit: http://jennifermacbainstephens.wordpress.com/