top of page

Family Secrets

In this family we never see each other cry, die of broken hearts, never see golden age–cancer eats us–bracken swamps in our cells, inherited from my tobacco-picking kin. My great-grandfather carried a whiskey barrel on his thin back, walked the railroad track, scrawny pine sentinels silhouetted against a full moon, in Eastern Carolina darkness. A local ghost story tells how his soul lingers near the tracks, stumbles into oncoming light.



Christina Xiong


Honoring Our Ancestors:

An Anthology by Spell Jar Press

Recent Posts

See All

I come from a long line of mothers, stretching back and on the backs of Mothers. Both sides. My mother’s mother escaped a war zone. A little girl survived falling stars as a country collapsed around h

bottom of page