Lucinda Madsen She towers tall above the hammocked peace, her labyrinth branches piercing through the sky in claim. In sapling youth, she had to vie for space to stretch her limbs out first and seize the light to muscle down. Now she can cease the hustle. Now her waist grows thick, the ply of flesh… Read More Box Elder

Lucinda Madsen Here, the murres are all on the big sea stack, where that wave just struck. At the top you can see them huddled together, chatting, preening, mating– we can only presume, we can only see the crowd, white belly black body after white belly black body. Kinda like penguins–but not, of course, alcidae… Read More You can borrow my binoculars

Sydney MacGilvray standing in the museum of natural history I am struck by the comfort of bones, their warm interlocking symmetry: vertebrae slipped snug into vertebrae, ribs cradling taut air still soft from ancient lungs. the long slim femurs pressed strong into the arch of the spine– a body, a bridge. meanwhile, evolution smooths down… Read More natural history

Ciara Farris You weave across the dew-dropped fields out back of the old intermediate school, Harrumphing and bumping and stumbling along. Almost accidentally, you find the trail. Trodden by the pummeling of feet, it weaves through leaves, up and up. Left past the wicked, twisted oak, into the circle where A shrike of memory strikes,… Read More This story is not about you.