This Time

Blount wanted to cut down and burn the mimosa but Maggie said to leave it standing, “a shroud of shade instead of ashes.”

Now in the spring he can believe for a moment his boy sits among the bloom-veiled branches, this time reaching down for his father to catch him.







Scott Ragland has an MFA in Creative Writing (fiction) from UNC-Greensboro. Before taking a writing hiatus, he had several stories published, most notably in Writers’ Forum, Beloit Fiction Journal and The Quarterly. More recently, his work has appeared in the Noctua Review, apt, The Conium Review, Kindred and NANO Fiction.