Natalie De Paz

Natalie De Paz is a poet and aspiring screenwriter of Cuban descent who was born and raised in South Florida. She is the winner of the 2017 Puerto del Sol Poetry Contest and her work has been published in The Southampton Review, Tule Review, and City Works Journal. She is currently an MFA candidate and Turner Fellow in the Creative Writing Program at Stony Brook Southampton.

360° Still Frame:

by Natalie De Paz

The Room with the Birds of Paradise Bedspread,
Lunchtime, 234 East 7th Street

360°-270°

An old Zenith TV sits bloated in the wall unit. Not baseball season, only
local channels can be caught with the glow-in-the-dark remote control buttons.
In the next cube over, from Left to Right: Erika, 18, prima ballerina, not yet
third-grade teacher; Andy, 8, kneeling with a soccer ball instead of an army rifle.
Next cubby down, Natalie, 3, sits on a white stepladder in her Minnie Mouse overalls, laughing like it is the only thing she knows how to do.

270°-180° (More …)