JP Reese

Crossroads

I passed Iniquity a long ways back. There was only one bar with a Shiner sign blinking brokenly through the dust-flecked window and a one-pump gas station with a soaring red horse painted on the bathroom door. A violet-tinted old lady in ankle-rolled hose sat on a braided lawn chair beside a wicker basket full of turnip greens at the crossroads. Robert Johnson wasn't there at all.

CP

Joani Reese (JP) is the author of two poetry chapbooks: Final Notes and Dead Letters. Her poetry and fiction have been widely anthologized and featured in many print and online venues. A senior poetry editor for Connotation Press—An Online Artifact and an annual fiction guest editor for Scissors and Spackle, Reese won the first Patricia McFarland Memorial Prize for her flash fiction and The Graduate School Creative Writing Award from The University of Memphis for her poetry, where she also earned her MFA. Reese lives and works in Texas.