The Fat Lady of the Circus

by April Agustin and Leica Chang Illustration by Adam David From The Literary Apprentice Lite 2006 (c)

Duties by Sarah Matias

It is every mother’s duty to tell her daughter that she is beautiful,
and if this is impossible, she has to make her daughter beautiful

because mothers shouldn’t lie, and so my mother would
scrub my high-noon-sun-kissed skin twice a day with liquid

whitening soap she bought from an officemate who had a sister
working in some Asian country doing God-knows-what.