Like Charlotte in Anne Tyler’s Earthly Possession, I think we all live in a web of connections, “crisscrossed by strings of love and need and worry.” In “Salad Days,” food memories anchor the crisscrossing strands of Dottie’s story—her alcoholism, the romantic veneer of her marriage, her life as a loved child and carefree young woman. My love for her remains entangled with my first wakening to the sorrows and hungers of adult life.  

Linda Mills Woolsey is a Western Pennsylvania native whose work is rooted in the human and natural world of northern Appalachia. Her poems have appeared in The Christian Century, The Windhover, Northen Appalachia Review, Wild Roof, St. Katherine Review and other journals.

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