Moving Back

Born in Iowa in 1880, Frances Toyne tried not to fixate on that slippery knot of early memories. Tragedy prompted her removal across the country to a private orphanage before the age of reason. There, she mastered the fine art of how to be a real lady, both independent and useful, moving whenever opportunity or imaginary friends could give her a lift.

These poems and stories, like a lock of her mother's hair pinned to the inside of her bodice, allowed Toyne to barter. Empowered with a remarkable gift of play, she ran the gauntlet through the Gilded Age, the Progressive Era, the Great Depression, Jazz, and wars between worlds and generations.

Now on the other side, hollering with cupped hands, she invites us to make it through our modern-day chaos and dawning of the age of Mars, telling us that the fire is real, but we don't have to remember a password to enjoy it. Maybe, if we remove our earbuds, we will hear her.