Allyson Petrek lives in Cincinnati, Ohio with her husband and two young children. A Pushcart Prize nominee, her short stories have won the grand prize in TulipTree Review’s 2025 Wild Women contest and first place at the 2024 Books by the Banks festival.
In the late afternoon
of a high summer day
my eyes swam in the long, thick grass
as my children screamed and laughed
and played at the park.
There, I found it—
a four-leaf clover.
I plucked it,
brought it home,
set it in a shot glass
filled with water.
I counted the leaves,
just to be sure.
One, two, three,
four
bright green leaflets
buoyed by the water and a
slippery promise.
I tucked it up high,
on a shelf,
away from eager little fingers.
The days nestled themselves
under mounds of laundry,
snotty noses,
dirty dishes,
and lost hours spent
doing nothing and also
everything.
When I looked again,
the water had
vanished,
and all that remained was
this clover—
dried, paper-thin ghost leaves,
stuck to the glass.
Almost
transparent.
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Start things off in the worst way—dark and wet and cold. Can’t see
can’t hear avoid the puddles. Clothes become heavy, skin
drenched. Sopping hair squishing shoes. Goosebumps cold fingers
numb toes. Keep going keep going don’t stop keep going. Only ten
miles to go, eight, six. Follow the arrows the cops the other
runners. Another puddle bigger faster drops it’s all the same. At
this point, let it rain. You’re already wet. You can’t get any wetter.
You can’t remember what the sun feels like. You can’t remember
where the last few miles have gone. And you won’t even see the
blisters between your toes until you’re home, until you’re peeling
off those soaking wet socks.