{"id":5359,"date":"2018-03-16T01:07:31","date_gmt":"2018-03-16T01:07:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/?p=5359"},"modified":"2018-03-16T01:07:31","modified_gmt":"2018-03-16T01:07:31","slug":"pearl-gloria-heffernan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/?p=5359","title":{"rendered":"PEARL &#8211; Gloria Heffernan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Iridescence<br \/>\nborn of irritation,<br \/>\nthe traditional gift<br \/>\nmarking thirty years of marriage.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n\u201cNever much cared for pearls,\u201d<br \/>\nshe says, taking a drag on the lipstick-<br \/>\nstained cigarette that smells<br \/>\nlike tomorrow\u2019s dirty laundry.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nThey loved each other once,<br \/>\nbefore the grains of sand<br \/>\ngot trapped in the nacre,<br \/>\ncalcifying layer upon layer.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nNicotine and resentment<br \/>\nemanate from her pores,<br \/>\nlike ribbons of steam<br \/>\nfrom a rusty kettle.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nShe taps the beads against her teeth,<br \/>\ntesting their authenticity,<br \/>\nimagining the oysters<br \/>\nthat produced them.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n\u201cI guess they\u2019re the real thing,\u201d<br \/>\nshe says, exhaling a long puff of smoke,<br \/>\nwondering what gems<br \/>\ntoday\u2019s irritants may yield.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nGloria Heffernan&#8217;s work has appeared or is forthcoming in over forty publications including: <em>Chautauqua Journal, Columbia Review, Louisville Review, Stone Canoe, Jabberwock Review, The New York Times Metropolitan Diary,<\/em> and <em>Talking Writing<\/em>. She received the 2016 Best Prose Award from Blood and Thunder, the literary journal of the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine. She teaches part-time at Le Moyne College in Syracuse and holds a Master\u2019s Degree in English from New York University. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Iridescence born of irritation, the traditional gift marking thirty years of marriage. &nbsp; \u201cNever much cared for pearls,\u201d she says, taking a drag on the lipstick- stained cigarette that smells like tomorrow\u2019s dirty laundry. &nbsp; They loved each other once, before the grains of sand got trapped in the nacre, calcifying layer upon layer. &nbsp; [&#038;hellip<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5366,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5359","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5359"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5359\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5363,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5359\/revisions\/5363"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}