fall 2021
Table of Contents
Return to Home PageTrust the Trees Wendy Wisner
Swans at the Golf Club Ruth Daniell
She's a Pretty Bird Susan Zimmerman
Say It Delicious Berry-Picking Laura Cesarco Eglin
Making the Most of Our Voices Ken Victor
A wrist, a wren, a small knife Ellen Stone
Between Then and Then Millicent Borges Accardi
On the Straightaway to the Rockies Great Grandpa's Grain Elevator A Nova Scotian Night Light Ryan Smith
Upon Watching the Rotation of the Earth Charlotte Vermue Peters
No One Knows How to Be Good Emily Kedar
Somewhere within Kostanay, Kazakhstan Justin Timbol
The Graveyard Metaphor for Euphoria Kaye Miller
What We Carry on a Pilgrimage Granada, Take Three Elena Johnson
latchkey fragments Frances Boyle
Boy With Orange Phillip Watts Brown
i decay, bro erica hiroko isomura
Late August at the End of the World Bren Simmers
When I See Lake Water Kristin LaFollette
Trust the Trees
Erin walks through the woods, cramping and bleeding,
the baby unpeeling inside her.
Levana asks, Would you rather go home and rest?
Erin says, I’d rather feel this way in a forest than on my couch.
I’m home on the couch, the baby inside me
almost done, his legs crooked branches.
Who chooses the ones who live,
the ones who die? This morning on my walk,
a cool breeze, the dogwood fruits
ripe and fallen, splattered across the lawn,
the oak leaves already turning yellow and brown.
Eleven years ago today it was humid and sticky.
My husband walked over the bridge
while I sat on our stoop in Brooklyn,
the smoke from the buildings,
from the bodies, already wafting across the water.
Erin’s message to my baby is Trust the trees.
Interpret it however you want, she says.
I didn’t trust my husband would make it home
even as I saw his ashen body walking toward me.