October 2026 | poetry
I am not the housewife of perfection
Saturated with gin and academic takes on subjectivity
I sit surrounded by summer sunflowers and the cosmos
I sowed beside the patio and wonder how to continue
in a body, in a world, that does not think it needs
this body, even as the planet turns, taking along
me, my dog, our companionable silence in waning sunlight.
I should sweep the patio, exile the effluvia of trees
and plants that fell here, tidy up the crumbs
beside the woodpile. I am not the housekeeper
of the backyard. I am not the housewife of perfection.
I reject the broom, the whisk, the great dustpan of time.
Shriveled flowers of linden, yellow leaves of elm,
curls of outer bark, here you may linger. Rest
beside the cricket, ready to serenade the diminishing
sun and warmth, the ants following the highway of sand
between the pavers, and the shucked body that was bee.
Cricket, genius of late summer, dutifully stridulating your wings,
this tune insists on the lowering of stage lights,
the show ending earlier each day, and a pause,
as if for applause, to gauge the audience’s investment.
The dog sits at attention, but his ears are tuned
to other sounds, his eyes on the street, watching children run home.
Merie Kirby
Merie Kirby teaches at the University of North Dakota. She is the author of two chapbooks, The Dog Runs On and The Thumbelina Poems, and has been published in several journals, including Whale Road Review, SWWIM, West Trestle Review, and North Dakota Quarterly, with work forthcoming in The Prose Poem and Scientific American. You can find her online at www.meriekirby.com.
October 2026 | nonfiction
Wonder Forgives
The nice thing about not knowing what you planted is that you never know what you’re going to get. In the moment I order bulbs or seeds (I’ve given up on vegetables), I am certain I will remember where they go. But every year I plant pollinator flowers, as well as any other perennials the deer won’t eat; I am surprised when they bloom. I don’t remember planting bee balm— look at the gorgeous reds! Or I planted something long ago and gave up on it growing. This year, the lupines I put in the ground years ago came bursting up all over the yard with their purple spikes and long parasol leaves. Surprise! Living, rather than just surviving, is rooted in the capacity for wonder.
But the surprise that comes with death leaves wonder behind. Death always shocks us. Our brains are wired for denial. My late husband never said anything about dying, even through four separate cancers and countless treatments. He would be one of the slim percentages that live after going into hospice. I was devastated when I woke up one morning to find him gone from his body. Why the surprise? Perhaps our logical brains get beaten down by our emotions. It was years before I saw beauty again without feeling guilty that he wasn’t there to share it.
They say that planting a garden is a belief in beauty, in hope. I didn’t think so when I was a newly grieving widow. I saw gardening as a way to dig out my frustration. Few things are as satisfying as pulling a weed out by the roots. I saw it as a way to mow down my feelings, or clip out the anger. In the thirteen years since his death, I have found that wonder is also a part of grief.
The hummingbirds chitter each other away from the feeders and the butterflies open their wings to the sun. I believe in nature’s magnificence. I feel wonder coming back to me. She forgives my denial. She allows me awe.
Lisa Christina St John
Lisa St. John is a writer living in the Hudson Valley of upstate New York. She is the author of two poetry books, Ponderings (Finishing Line Press) and Swallowing Stones (Kelsay Books). She won first place in Anthology’s 2024 Poetry Award for “Through the Membrane” and is a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee for “War is a Human Child.” Her poetry has appeared in The Poet’s Billow, Light, Entropy, New Verse News, SWWIM, and The Ekphrastic Review, and “Mowing the Lawn” was shortlisted for the Fish Poetry Prize. Her travel writing appears on GoNomad.com, and her essays in Grief Digest Magazine and Sleet Magazine. She is currently working on a memoir when the poems allow it. Lisa believes that art is hope and that there is beauty in possibility. Find more on her website, lisachristinastjohn.com.
October 2026 | fiction
A Woman Walking Not Alone
dreams of marmalade cake and silk throw pillows to lean upon, to rest her swollen ankles when she comes home from stocking Aisle Two of the local WaWa, a bus, two blocks walking, and a second bus away. A woman walking not alone hears in the beat against her ribs a Vivaldi, a Dr. Dre, Taiko drummer when she sits on the toilet to relieve her always-full bladder, day-dreaming of future ifs. A woman walking not alone must be cautious who she is walking not alone with, must use X-ray vision to peer into the dark alley she passes to get to her front stoop, must meet the eye of every not-aloneness she passes to let them know that she is not the one they want. A woman walking not alone is always thinking of what may be and why nots, even as the bearing pains seize her and split her in two. Even after her not-aloneness becomes a two-ness of lone souls.
Elizabeth Rosen
Elizabeth Rosen is a native New Orleanian and a transplant to small-town Pennsylvania. She misses Gulf oysters and Southern ghost stories but has become appreciative of snow and colorful scarves. Her stories have been nominated for the Pushcart, O. Henry, Best of the Net, and Best Small Fictions. Colorwise, she is an Autumn. Rosen still wants her MTV and has the T-shirts to prove it. You can order her flash chapbook, Survival Skills, through her website www.thewritelifeliz.com.
