A Meaning for Wife

Your wife is killed by a cashew (anaphylactic shock), but there isn't time to grieve because your toddler son is always at your heels--wanting to be fed, to be played with, or to sleep next to you all night long. A change of pace seems necessary, so you decide to visit your parents in order to attend your twenty-year high school reunion. What begins as a weekend getaway quickly becomes a theater for dealing with the past--a past that you will have to re-imagine in order to have any hope of a future for you and your son. Told in second person, A Meaning for Wife is the story of a man trying to come to terms with the sudden death of his wife, the aging parents he has long avoided, and the tribulations of single parenthood. Mark Yakich is the author of two poetry collections, Unrelated Individuals Forming A Group Waiting to Cross (Penguin Books, 2004) and The Importance of Peeling Potatoes in Ukraine (Penguin Books, 2008). He lives in New Orleans, Louisiana, where he teaches English at Loyola University.