The quote from Joan Didion has stuck with me since the seventies when I first read Play It as It Lays. To me, it represents hitting bottom in a very female way. I still remember the sink that former tenants of my old apartment in Boston might have bathed in; it was so deep. I remember being quite alone there, and still in my teens fearing those sardine cans like Maria in the novel.

Jane Edna Mohler is a Bucks County Poet Laureate Emeritus (Pennsylvania) and a two-time Pushcart nominee. Kelsay Books published her collection Broken Umbrellas in 2019. Recent publications include Gargoyle, American Journal of Poetry, Quartet, and One Art. She is Co-Editor of Poetry for the Schuylkill Valley Journal.