We arrived, two little ladies, starched and bowed, delighted with 
our sitter’s corona of white curls, clean little home, its porcelain 
figurines, chubby doily-dressed chairs. A needlepoint home simply 
framed. And she must have known, sensed it even if no one told her, 
Mother—in her fur hat over unwashed hair, sour reek of cigarettes—
was struggling. Beside the flowered teapot and dish of cookies, a small 
square box for us, pert silver ribbon, and cellophane window. A sweet 
boutique to gaze into the chocolate orange inside. 

We loved the sitter for this strange non-fruit, 

its pocked orange peel, a sticky planet 
in our palms. Though we knew 

all it takes is one good tap, 
for something so precious, 
to fall from its core into pieces. 

—Short-listed Finalist in MacQ’s Cheribun Challenge #3

Tina Barry’s

third collection, I Tell Henrietta (with art by Kristin Flynn), was published in August 2024 by Aim Higher Press, Inc. Tina’s first two books were released by Big Table Publishing: Beautiful Raft (2019) and Mall Flower (2016). Her writing can be found in American Poetry Journal, The Best Small Fictions 2020 (spotlighted story) and TBSF 2016, The Fourth River, Gone Lawn, Gyroscope Review, The Indianapolis Review, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Maryland Literary Review, Mslexia, Nasty Women Poets anthology, ONE ART, Rattle, South Florida Poetry Journal, Sky Island Journal, SWWIM, trampset, Verse Daily, and elsewhere.

She has five nominations for the Pushcart Prize and several Best of the Net and Best Microfiction nods. Tina teaches at The Poetry Barn and Writers.com.

Author’s website: TinaBarryWriter.com

More on the Web: By, About, and Beyond

⚡ I tell Henrietta that before I left my boyfriend and It’s Ed Sullivan’s Fault, microfictions by Tina Barry first published in MacQueen’s Quinterly (Issue 18, April 2023), and reprinted in her collection I Tell Henrietta (August 2024)

⚡ Inside the amazing brains of Laura Rodley, Tina Barry, & Robert Slais by Big Table Publishing in Boston Literary Magazine (February 2023); includes Tina’s poem “Lilies”

⚡ Beautiful Raft: An Interview with Tina Barry by Hannah Grieco in Empty Mirror (28 February 2020)

⚡ “A Friend’s Daughter Dies” by Tina Barry in American Poetry Journal (Issue 14, Summer 2017)