Tag: relationships

Essay in Southern Humanities Review: Fragments of Bone, Fragments of Light

The world I had imagined as inanimate was coming into animation—rock and plant in constant motion, each species of animal living along its own vivid timescale. And while I had always struggled with the idea of death, I now found myself wondering why I had only been troubled by this future I would not witness—and not everything in the past that I had already missed.

Read excerpt and purchase the full print issue at Southern Humanities Review

New Publication in Sugar House Review: Moving Poem

Excerpt from “Moving Poem,” newly published in the Summer 2024 issue of Sugar House Review:

There is a game we play
where one of us hides,
only letting a sliver of ourselves show,
and waits to see how long it will take
for the other to notice us.

Sometimes, I wait so long
that I can’t decide
if we’re still playing or not.
__________

The full poem can be read by
purchasing the full print issue here

Essay in Southeast Review: Cumberland by Sail

“I am tiny on the scale of sand and sea—but whether or not I am here to see them, it’s reassuring to think that, at any given time, somewhere beneath the rippling surface among the beds of seagrass, manatees graze. I’d like to think that Cumberland is a lesson in tenacity, but barrier islands have always been shaped by the sea in response to the elements. Now, I wonder, will they last?”

Read the full essay in Southeast Review
or purchase the full print issue here!

New Essay & Photograph in Khôra: Scarification

“All summer, crowds have come to the canyon in steady currents, yet I’ve only felt small and solitary; deeply rooted is that particular form of loneliness that blooms in company. I kneel with the memory of your warm hand on my skin and unsown lands spread in my imagination. Every day I water and weed and watch the light change across striated stone blotted with juniper and cliff rose; formations I can put names to.”

Read the full piece in Khôra

Poem in Flyway

Excerpt from my prose poem in Flyway’s Winter 22-23 Outside Issue:

It’s easy now to forget about summer bearing down, the stories about fried eggs on the sidewalk. These are days I can believe each grey branch of the mesquite tree might be resurrected with spring leaves. And sometimes I think I don’t ask for so much—a lover who makes me feel wanted, creatures going about their own business, the potential for regeneration—and sometimes I think this is so much to ask for.

Read the full poem and check out the entire issue by clicking here.

Two Summer Publications: Camas & Pidgeonholes

POINT COUNTS AND SHIFTING BASELINES in Camas Magazine

Photograph of the magazine cover with a painting of a Joshua Tree against a bright blue background.

Can we celebrate the wild just beyond the doorstep without conflating it with the wildness of places far from any doors? If we expect the wild to adapt to our cities and our lifestyles, where do we adapt to theirs. We must leave space and silence and open places for them to build their own nests, make their own paths through the desert, and communicate with each other in whisper songs.

Purchase the issue to read in full

THE FIRST TIME in Pidgeonholes

“He sounds like one of the mice that live in the house I will move to the first time I try to leave him, the ones I will set hard metal traps for in the kitchen. I will hear the bitter snap and squeak of them at night when I try to fall asleep but instead replay a recent conversation in which he tells me I am easy to love.”

Read the full piece online

Image of a gray concrete building with a white curtain blowing out of an open window. Over this image is the following text: Nonfiction. THE FIRST TIME by Nell Smith.