A Twist of the Vine by Naomi Ulsted We seemed to be stopped in the middle of the road for no reason. I leaned over my baby brother Adrian’s chubby legs to peer out the window while he shoved at me. Outside, just past the dirt road where our wood-paneled station wagon sat motionless, was a wall of forest. The air smelled of recent rain, but late spring sun dried the droplets trying to cling to the dense mass of underbrush leading into the damp darkness of the forest. Well , Mom said, turning around in the front seat to face me. What do you think? Think of what? I asked. Mom’s long brown hair was fixed in my favorite style, with two sections pulled into a gold clip at the back of her head. The remaining strands fell over her shoulders. Adrian, who had been clambering around the back seat during the thirty-minute drive from my grandmother’s house, reached hands smeared with teething biscuit toward her hair. She absentmindedly pushed them away. This! she announced, gesturing her arm out the window toward dense woods. The property for our new home! I thought of my grandmother’s tidy lawn with its perfectly rounded shrubs and straight mowed lines in the grass. I suspected the surprise Mom had been promising me today was not going to be a fun surprise, like a trip to The Farmette for an ice cream cone. This was going to be one of those grown-up surprises that are kind of boring until they are kind of complicated, like when my brother came along or when I got my new dad. Even though I thought Mom and I had been doing just fine on our own. You see? she went on, smiling back at me while Dad leaned over the steering wheel, trying to distance himself from the gooey teething biscuit my brother was waving. I told you we’d get our new place before you started second grade. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to be seeing. There were only trees and dusty road, but my mom was happy in a way she usually wasn’t. We had moved from Nebraska a few months after she and my brother came home from the hospital. After barely surviving Adrian’s birth, Mom may have wanted the extra support from her parents, who lived here on Camano Island, in Washington. Camano Island is a large island located in the Puget Sound and, at the time we moved there, was populated primarily by people who wanted to live off the beaten track. People who didn’t want close neighbors, people who lived in log cabins or A-frame houses, surrounded by towering trees and deep moss. Nearly equidistant between Seattle and the Canadian border, both seemed equally foreign to me, as Camano was pretty much our whole world. Although we lived on an island, as I grew older I found I often needed to explain we didn’t get there by ferry or some other kind of boat. Rather, there was one road off the island that crossed a bridge into the town of Stanwood. Even the bridge wasn’t particularly stunning. Although Port Susan was to the south of the bridge and Skagit Bay to the right, the bridge itself basically crossed over a large cow ditch of stagnant water. Although Stanwood was home to a population less than 2000, it was our hub for shopping, school, and supplies. Nonetheless, Camano was a small and as of yet, undiscovered oasis. A short drive from anywhere on the island would take us to the edge of the Sound, where we could play in the placid waves, gather driftwood and look for tiny crabs. Although I’d been born in Seattle and coming back to Washington meant coming home, it didn’t feel like it to me. Mom and I had moved from Washington to Oregon, then to California where I got my new dad, then back to Oregon, and then to Nebraska where my new brother was born. So for us no state felt like home. For me, only Mom and her yellow Volkswagen Beetle felt like home, and the Beetle had been sold to help pay for Mom’s wedding. I tried to muster more enthusiasm than I felt. Great! I offered. I had to pee, and I hoped we could just appreciate the trees through the car windows and go home. Out! Adrian demanded, fiddling with the door handle where he’d been riding on my mother’s lap. Come on, Chuck , Mom said. Let’s explore . I almost asked to stay in the car, but didn’t think that would go over well, so I got out and we all stood at the side of the road, dwarfed by an imposing wall of ferns, pine and fir trees, nettles, wildflowers, and blackberry bushes. Although it was still warm, as days in June were long, the sun dipped low in the sky. Follow me, Dad said. Blackberry bushes rose thick and imperious, although the berries were only hard green nubs. As I stepped onto a trail leading into the woods, a loud buzzing from inside the bushes that towered over all of us, even Dad. Mom picked huckleberries from bushy clusters of tiny leaves as she held Adrian’s hand and he toddled along until he toddled into a stinging nettle and shrieked in pain. She picked him up and continued to chatter about the five acres they’d just purchased. We just have to decide where to build our house , she said. We thought we would build on the south side of the property, but if we built a little farther from the road, we’d get more sun. We’ll need to put in a nice long driveway . Her hair caught in a blackberry bush, and I helped her untangle it as she went on. Besides, a long driveway will keep us away from the noise of the road. It will be nice and quiet. Although the drive from my grandmother’s was only around thirty minutes, for the last fifteen we’d swapped the smooth pavement for a series of dirt roads that became dirtier and bumpier as we went along, passing fewer and fewer cars. As I would find, the school bus wouldn’t even drive all the way back into those woods. Instead, I would walk the two miles to the junction where the dirt roads met the paved roads, my sneakers streaked with dust in the early fall, or mud the rest of the school season. When a truck passed by me, clouds of dirt billowed behind it, swirling like a mini version of the tornadoes we’d seen in Nebraska. I bent down to pick a stem of wild peppermint. I crushed its leaves and breathed it in, then popped it into my mouth. When we lived in Oregon the first time, Mom and I had eaten greens we gathered from wooded areas surrounding whatever apartment we were staying in at the time. Mom hadn’t had any kind of traditional job since I was born. She forced me to attend daycare for three weeks once, so she could go to work as an administrative assistant. However, after paying for rent and day care, where I sobbed at each drop off, there was barely enough left to buy food. So she quit her job and went back to receiving her monthly welfare check, which gave us lots of time together to search for herbs. She made tea from the tiny yellow chamomile buds, which I would drink after stirring in large spoonfuls of honey. I once picked some from my grandmother’s driveway and brought a handful to her to make for tea, but she just asked me why I was dragging weeds into the house. This was all before my mom met my new dad, who married her last year and adopted me. Up until then, it was just us two, gathering herbs in the woods, selling crafts at outdoor markets, moving from one apartment to another. I didn’t think about the empty space where a “dad” was supposed to be. My mother and I had grown from the rich dirt of the forest together, all at once. We were like one organism, flitting from place to place, spinning in our homemade skirts, drinking in the sun and the rain as though that were all we needed. Then Mom told me she was marrying Dad because I needed stability. Because I needed two parents and Mom was not enough for me. I pleaded with her to let us keep just being one thing together, but I knew the real truth. I was not enough for her. Dad stopped abruptly, causing me to nearly run straight into his backside. Here , he said, waving his arm in front of him. Linda , he put his arm around Mom. This is the perfect place for a new house. The tiny trail continued ahead, flanked on both sides with deep woods. There was a scurrying sound in one of the bushes near me. Where? I asked, confused. It will be perfect! Mom said. We just have to clear it. As we stood peering into the bushes at nothing I could recognize as house-worthy, Dad reached around and tugged me close to him, He pressed my face into the scratchy denim of his jacket for a moment, until I pulled away. I reached around Mom’s middle to hold her tightly. My head was now just past her waist. Leaning into her soft side, I breathed in chamomile and sunshine. She shifted Adrian over to her other hip where he kicked me solidly in the head. Let go , she said, barked at me. I’ve told you I can’t have you clinging to me when I’m carrying the baby. Chuck , she said, what do you think about putting in a nice deck? Looking out over the garden? I was ready to go back to my grandma’s house. She was making my favorite tonight - fried chicken. Should we have the garden on the south side? Dad asked. Where should we put the greenhouse? It was also Tuesday night and we always watched “Happy Days” and “Laverne and Shirley” on Tuesday nights. Well, don’t forget we need to have a space for cows and sheep, Mom replied. I want them to have lots of space to exercise and be comfortable. As they continued to talk about houses, animals and gardens that didn’t exist, I felt my own needs becoming more pressing. Mom , I said, I have to go to the bathroom. Honey, it’s the woods – go ahead and go. Where? Go behind a tree. If you have to go number two, wipe with a leaf. Although we had spent time gathering plants in the woods, I still wasn’t used to just dropping my pants in the middle of nowhere. In first grade, I’d held my bladder all day once because I couldn’t go to the bathroom if there was a girl in a neighboring stall. I’d just sit there on the toilet, panicking until I gave up, my face reddening as I washed my hands for no reason. I walked a few feet off the trail into the woods. Adrian sat on the trail poking at the ground with a stick. He lifted it toward me, waving. Finding a tree I thought might be large enough to hide behind, I squatted down, feeling exposed, thinking of snakes and centipedes and spiders. I tried to relax. And peed all over my shoe. Shifting my feet, I snagged my sneaker on a vine, lost my balance, and toppled over, landing stomach first on a sharp snag poking up from the ground. The vine that had entangled my foot spread across the forest floor, sending tendrils up and around the tree truck. I lifted my shirt to see a spot of blood right above my belly button. I wailed. Dad appeared, shoving his way through the underbrush. What happened? he demanded, examining the large welt on my skin and the tiny drops of blood. I tried to pull up my underpants, but Dad picked me up and hauled me toward the trail. What’s wrong? Mom said, annoyed. She just took a spill , Dad said before I could respond. You’re fine , she said. Pull up your pants. Dad set me down and I pulled up my pants. I picked a large leaf and wiped at my wet shoe. Can we go home now? I asked. This IS your home , Mom snapped. I meant Grandma’s house , I said, lamely. I really hadn’t meant to say “home.” We had been living with my grandparents for two months we’d been back in Washington. In Nebraska my new dad had been doing public relations for a friend’s non-profit. Although it was better money than working as a stringer with the newspaper in Santa Cruz, California, where he was paid by the line, it wasn’t enough to support a family of four. So when Mom’s parents offered to let us live with them while Dad found a job, we crammed everything we could into our station wagon, gave the puppy I’d only had for a few months to the neighbor, and drove away from the flat yellow of the Midwest to the tangled woods of Washington. Dad had just gotten word he’d be starting his new job as a draftsman. My grandma had nodded approvingly at him and the house seemed a little less crowded after that. Although our noise and dirt and clutter clashed with my grandparent’s perfectly color-coordinated home, I loved being there and wasn’t in a hurry to leave. But now I saw the two lines form between Mom’s eyes that always appeared when she was angry. Grandma’s house is NOT your home. Now, stop whining and act your age. She turned and walked deeper into the wood. I sat down with a plop in the dirt. I’d make her turn around and come get me. But when I peeked up, I saw only their backs, Mom holding Adrian on her hip. They were talking again, already forgetting me. I dug in the dirt with a twig, then touched the swollen welt on my belly gingerly. Finally, I got up and scuffed over to join them. Mom reached out and stroked my hair as we all gazed at our imaginary new home. Share: Facebook X (Twitter) Copy link Back Back to First Issue This is the first chapter of my memoir, A Bouquet of Weeds: Growing Up Wild in the Pacific Northwest (High Frequency Press, forthcoming in 2026). Although part of a larger work, it stands-alone as well. I love this piece because of the child narrator’s voice used. I really enjoyed telling the story of my mother’s attempt to transition from a wandering lifestyle to one that would be more settled and stable, albeit the wild environment she and my stepdad selected doesn't feel either settled or stable. .................................................................................................................................................................................... NAOMI ULSTED writes young adult fiction and personal essays. She is the author of The Apology Box (Idle Time Press, 2021). naomiulsted.com Next - Something to Surrender To by Austin Holmes Next

< Back to Breakthroughs Issue FOUND Shari Zollinger I entered psychedelic space for the first time with a microdose. Alice, who once fell through, was offered a red pill or a blue one. Adriana offered me gray green on the morning of an eclipse. My body clearly and without hesitation chose which dose (a tiny bite of a tiny piece of filigree fibrous cap) and which environment (supine on a brown leather couch in the middle of the living room with the Moab red rock desert reflecting through). Time travel was/wasn’t possible? Eyes closed. What if we’ve left parts of ourselves out there, along the continuum? What if the cold-framed window in the Taipei, Taiwan hospital waiting room still existed and she was still waiting there looking out at the night? What if, along that continuum, there were points where it was possible to make changes? Scroll back along the thread-gauzy timeline, web-filamented, to check for the nodes that need attention. In astrological terminology, eclipses were both omen and boon. We don’t know if this is true, yet it seems to hold across the timeline when we’re looking for possible wormholes, when we’re bending back toward where she sat waiting. Where she’d waited a long time. It was a surprise to see her there. Had it been 15 or 20 years since she’d gone to the Taipei hospital to seek assurance, wondering how fast and furious the body breaks, how quickly the psyche can sit down like a cipher without language sturdy enough for meaning? It was a thing to recognize her. Wonder how she’d passed the time. How many names for the color of night she had coined and counted out that window. Did she always know someone would return for her? Did she count time or build mnemonics or hear the distinct click of a metronome reminding her that she wasn’t exactly alone? And how did she know what to do? The first thing—to walk out into the sunlight that was there beyond the hospital night, because it could be there because she was found in-continuum where narrative couldn’t demand length or cord or fibrous linearity, where the weather could change every second and day and night could click in time with the metronome. Sunlight came to her skin first as fire. And she said watch as her body burned down like an incense cone starting with her head, a thousand points of ash scrolling down her frame as she gave herself permission to translate into a substance that the wind could move. And finally, she moved. Each piece companioned to the unseen. And she said the thing I didn’t know then was that it was okay to let a piece of me die. It was okay to blow away. She left a small diamond on the concrete sidewalk outside the hospital in Taipei, Taiwan. I took the carbon remnant in hand—returned to the brown leather couch, to Moab, the supine position, my own unmoving body making its way from closed eyes to open where I saw red rocks obscured by night. "Found" was written after attending a lecture on the lyric essay, a medium I'd been curious about but hadn't spent much time with as a writer. I've enjoyed exploring the genre, defining and redefining its framework to fit the needs of my writing. It was a breakthrough to crossover into this form, and the piece itself was written at the crossroads between breakdown and breakthrough. Previous SHARI ZOLLINGER is a Salt Lake City-based poet, essayist, and bookseller whose work examines memory, place, and the traces we leave in both landscape and life. She currently reads for Sugar House Review and has spent 25 years in independent bookselling as a buyer and community advocate for literary programs. Her work has appeared in Sugar House Review , Redactions: Poetry & Prose , The Shore Poetry , and Ephemeral Magazine. sharizollinger.substack.com Next

< Back to Breakthroughs Issue BECAUSE WE CAN Brock Dethier When asked why he was attempting to be the first to climb Mt. Everest, George Mallory said, “Because it’s there.” He died on Everest in 1924. It’s not because it’s there that we climb the highest mountain. It’s because we can. Adventurers know that our abilities can change instantly and will inevitably change slowly, so the climbing route, the powder line, the 20-knot windsurfing blow that you can just barely handle today will be beyond you tomorrow. I did 4000-foot-vertical hikes because I could. I ran every other day for thirty years, hating every step, because I could. I tried every drug that came my way, often more than once because I could. I skate skied up Green Canyon nonstop because I could, just barely. I swam underwater to the Green Room behind the travertine falls because I’d lost my mind. I can’t do any of those things now. Nor can I drive a golf ball out of sight, hit a forehand passing shot, or backpack nine miles into the Wind Rivers. Somehow when I wasn’t looking, my body’s motto went from “Whatever you need, whenever,” to “Nope, can’t.” What can my body still do that’s worth doing and I might well lose tomorrow? C’mere Babe. “Because We Can” is a new poem. I grew up with Mallory’s “Because it’s there” in my head, wondering what it meant and why I too embarked on pointless, dangerous adventures. The insight is of limited benefit to me now that I’m 73, and it might not make sense to someone who’s young enough to feel that there will always be another tomorrow. But understanding WHY we should seize the day was a breakthrough for me. Previous BROCK DETHIER retired from Utah State University after directing the writing composition program for 11 years. His publications include From Dylan to Donne: Bridging English and Music (Heinemann, 2003), First Time Up: An Insider’s Guide for New Composition Teachers (Utah State University Press, 2005), Twenty-One Genres and How to Write Them (Utah State University Press, 2013), and two books of poetry, Ancestor Worship (Pudding House Publications, 2008) and Reclamation (Popcorn Press, 2015). Next

Mike White < Back to Breakthroughs Issue DOUBLE LIFE Mike White 00:00 / 01:03 DOUBLE LIFE Mike White No man ever steps in the same river twice. -Heraclitus If anyone and I mean anyone knows where she is . . . pleads her father on the news, and I curse under my breath, releasing incomprehensible hosannas of Good God Good God before invoking his only child, Jesus Fucking Christ, who in my childbrain had once led a secret double life as a lamb. In the early spring, ice can give way, so it does, a red snowsuit here one minute and the next and the next and the next until only the river keeps moving, a river that is never the same . . . up to his waist, a father still calling and calling her name. “Double Life,” is a brand new poem, and comes at the theme with a particularly literal rendering. Previous MIKE WHITE is the author of How to Make a Bird with Two Hands (Word Works, 2012) and Addendum to a Miracle (Waywiser, 2017), winner of the Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize. Next

Thank You Thank you for considering a donation to support THE NOMAD, a nonprofit literary magazine and a labor of love. First Name Last Name Email Message Enter the amount you wish to donate: $ Donate Now Thanks for your support!

< Back to Breakthroughs Issue REV. T. SCOTT KINCANNON KEEPS SOME SECRETS FROM HER FLOCK Michael Shay 1. Trixie is her given name . She was named after her grandmother, Trixie Armstrong, who ministered to the lepers in post-war Japan. Some of her elementary school classmates thought she might be named for Trixie Belden in the mystery novels. T even looked like Trixie’s drawing on the book jackets. One sixth-grade afternoon, Mary Ann Smith announced that Trixie was “a hooker’s name.” Hookers were a rarity in small-town Wyoming but you know how pre-teen girls are, and Mary Ann was more popular than Trixie. In the summer before eighth grade, when the family moved from Riverton to Cheyenne, she changed her first name to T. “Just T?” asked her eighth-grade homeroom teacher. She told her classmates, “You can call me T.” Nobody called her T. 2. She had premarital intercourse five times. T (née Trixie) gave in to her boyfriend Jimmer Dean in the early morning hours following East High School’s senior prom. Next up was Telson, her steady beau in Divinity School, who had all the makings of a shepherd-to-be for some large and well-heeled flock. He talked T right out of her drawers on three occasions. He used colorful condoms! Their final frolic was followed the next morning by Robert’s revelations that he was seeing a sorority girl from the U whose father was a state legislator. The break-up hit her hard. She vowed to stay away from talkative men with funny names. 3. What about the fifth time? T’s D School female cohorts told her not to mess with the guys from Huskerville on the other side of town. Two weeks before graduation she went to a party in Huskerville. She met Kevin Michael Kincannon, the op-ed editor at the school paper. He wrote crazy things. He called President Reagan a sniveling old codger! And he wanted to save the planet. But she didn’t care. He had curly red hair and an almost mustache! Kevin invited her to an intramural softball game. Kevin jacked the ball over the left field fence and the first thing he did after crossing home plate was smile up at her and doff his cap. She smiled back. That’s all it took – that and two post-game beers. It’s true what they say – D School girls can’t hold their liquor! 4. She sometimes hated her forthright mother. On her one-month anniversary as assistant associate pastor in Sheridan, Wyoming, T phoned her mom with the somber news of a pre-marital pregnancy that, in most cases, only affected others. “Call him,” said her loving mother. “It’s his, isn’t it?” 5. Details of the marriage proposal. On her one-month-and-one-day anniversary as assistant associate pastor in Sheridan, she called Kevin Michael Kincannon. She laid it all out for him. Silence on the other end. She could hear a siren wailing in the background. Life as a big city reporter in Phoenix! She wondered why the window was open, why he didn’t have air conditioning in that hot city. He said this, “Will you marry me?” “Yes,” she said. 6. Secrets of not-so-immaculate conceptions. It’s possible that four of their five children were conceived on four different Sundays in four different churches throughout the Rocky Mountain region. This was due to (contended Kevin) the highly charged eroticism engendered by T’s sermons. The way her lips moved. The taut skin of her throat vibrated as she spoke. When ovulating, she always inserted “to know” into the sermon, an antiquated Biblical term for fornicating with the goal of procreation. She ended with “my door is always open.” After service, followed by the traditional doughnuts and coffee, she returned to her office to await her husband. The door opened and closed quietly. He whispered “you said your door is always open” as he unwound her sand-colored hair. She stood, grabbed the desk and leaned forward. He would have pulled down her undergarments but she never wore them on Ovulation Days. He kissed the back of her thighs and removed her shoes. He was a busy little bee under her dress. And then he stood and his hands were on her shoulders. He said “talk dirty to me” and she said “fuck me you big ape,” and he said “your blessed pussy calls my name.” She rocked forward with each thrust, watching the desktop work a groove into the eggshell-white wall. He called her Trix . Kev , she replied. They sometimes fucked face-to-face sitting up, which was tough on office chairs and couches. Many rugs came unraveled in the name of love. Even in its proper Biblical role, sexual congress can be tough on furnishings. 7. She had a wicked jealous streak . Kevin was in Indonesia for a month. He emailed photos of jungle and city. One of them showed him with his photographer, a dark-haired, thin Belgian in tank top and khaki shorts. Her name was Ava. Of course. He was with Ava in the jungle for a month and then he arrived home and then was busy with deadlines and then he flew off to D.C. and then to Belize. More jungle and Ava! Two weeks chasing anacondas run amok in the Everglades. She was juggling math homework and a church governing board that questioned her every move. When will she get anacondas and sweaty jungle sex? 8. She had an affair. She didn’t mean to. Kevin was always away. On Sundays, she waited for the unlocked office door to open behind her and one day it did and it wasn’t Kevin but she let the man in anyway. A board member, divorced, handsome with a streak of silver in his perfect black hair. They began with handshakes and a formal discussion of plans for the church addition. Then his hand was up her ministerial dress and her tongue was down his throat. “Not here,” she said, glancing at the desk. She went to his place, several times. She bought condoms for the first time to limit risk-taking. The affair is over before it started, or so she thought. She feared an incident of pokies during service, a wardrobe malfunction. She was ready to break it off when he announced he was moving to Salt Lake. Mercifully, it was over before Kevin arrived home from the jungle. He shared news that he had a new photographer, a scruffy guy from California named Jason. 9. She cared more about her marriage than her flock . She told Kevin about the affair. “Why?” he asked. “Ava,” she said. He shook his head. “Ava’s a lesbian.” So she was the one, the fallen woman, Eve consorting with a silver-streaked serpent? It would never be the same. In public, the couple acted as the oh-so-marrieds. The woman pastor and her loving spouse. Fine brood of kids. “That little one will pitch for the Lord,” announced the board chair, a Cubs fan, one Sunday at doughnut time. Behind the scenes, there was dust. This went on for years and several church postings. Kevin was away even when he was home. The kids had their own lives. Three in college all over creation and two were still in high school. Kevin spoke to them but not to her. Then one day, he returned from a trip to some jungle. He was very sick. The docs diagnosed malaria. He spent a month in the hospital. When he came home, he was skeletal and indifferent. Before he had just been indifferent. He was so sick and he needed her, really needed her touch and her chicken noodle soup. 10. Rev. T sweated blood over her sermons. The congregants thought of them as smooth and effortless. T tried to work the old magic. But not for the chubby old couple in the front row or the young people in the choir or any other congregant. She wanted to heal herself, mend the rift, make amends to her husband. If it engendered some highly charged eroticism in the process, so be it. 11. She is not just saying this: “I have faith beyond measure .” Every Sunday after service, following doughnuts and coffee, she is in her office awaiting the opening of the door. The door locks now. There is just the single key clearly labeled “office door” that hangs with other keys in the house. “I now lock my office door,” she announced to Kevin one Sunday morning. Was he listening? Will she again be known in the Biblical sense by her husband? There is no groove worn in this office wall caused by an erotic Reverend banging the desk against a wall as she is being known intimately by her husband. Not yet. She thinks she hears something. She awaits the key in the lock. A very short story about a woman minister with a story to tell. I am learning to listen to other voices. I hear them rising out of my strict religious background which I worked hard to escape, but now know there is no escape so why not have some fun with it. That’s a breakthrough. Previous MICHAEL SHAY 's shorter works have appeared in New Flash Fiction Review , Silver Birch Press , and In Short: A Norton anthology of Brief Creative Nonfiction . He is the author of a book of short stories, The Weight of a Body (Ghost Road Press, 2006), and a historical novel, Zeppelins over Denver , forthcoming from The Ridgeway Press. Mike is a Colorado native who spent 33 years in Wyoming and now lives in Florida. Next

< Back to Breakthroughs Issue STILL LIFE WITH FLY Shawn Dallas Stradley Two concrete strips separated and edged by weeds run between red brick walls, past a corrugated steel garage door, bare lightbulb, crooked wood door, past the weed patch of leftover space at the end of the dead end. Why there's a garage door alongside the alley is a good question, no vehicle could make such a tight turn. Raised, the door provides ventilation, natural light. Closed, it secures. Inside, two dusty double-hung six- over-six divided light windows look out to morning glory, sow thistle, other brick walls, let in muted light, cast shadows. For consistency and night, a couple of flood lights on poles provide directed light, harsh and bare, or softened with a scrim. Tea cups, angel wings, fabric, rusty train shock springs, spoiled fruit, skulls––one human found in a basement among medical school training supplies, one cat found in the corner of the weed patch by the downspout, one beaver found by the river––old books, empty vodka, whiskey, wine bottles. Mason jars filled with marbles, fortunes, rocks, air, pennies, turpentine, thinner. Dolls' arms, radio tubes, bones––vertebrae, jaw, femurs from deer or cow––statues of saints, rosaries, forty-hour candles wrapped with prayers, used coffee filters, condom wrappers, a shopping cart, mannequin torso, the ball cap left by last Saturday night's trick, dead flowers. Stretched canvases lean against bare brick walls, too much accumulated amid the buzz of a single fly. The couch sags. Open beer flattens. There's not enough time to paint it all out, step back, take it all in. Turpentine rags stained crimson, violet, fern and blue, used to clean brushes, wipe up spills, unstain hands, litter the floor like jock-straps in a strip-club backroom––spontaneous, combustible. "Still Life with Fly" was published in Exit 7: A Journal of Literature and Art . The personal breakthrough in this poem was derived from the concept that the next thing always belongs. If that is true, then why not keep going, keep adding? So I did. I’ve always been fascinated with artists' studios, the mess, the clutter, the curiosities, all the bric-a-brac, the inspiration. To me, these spaces have always held an air of potential eroticism. It’s all so exciting? Based on my many studio visits over the years, I imagined and I wrote, and I brainstormed, and I kept writing, and adding. In this case, even the gradual increase in line length keeps building to the chaos, the clutter, the potential. After the additions though, there is always the work of revision, grammar, sentence construction, flow, enjambment. Are these tools helping to build, helping to hold together? In a "kitchen sink"-type poem, I believe they have to. Previous SHAWN DALLAS STRADLEY grew up in Utah and California. He holds a B.S. in Horticulture from BYU, and a Master of Landscape Architecture from the University of Colorado. He earned an MFA in Creative Writing and Translation from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Shawn began writing poetry at age 16. His mystical fascination with the natural world weaves throughout his work, and mixes with the urban. Shawn became active in the Utah poetry scene in 1997 and published his first full-length poetry book in 2003: Beyond October (Black Rock Books). Shawn has worked with poets and artists to produce chapbooks and a collaborative catalog for the art exhibit, The 9 Muses . Two chapbooks of Shawn's poetry were published in 2025 by Moon in the Rye Press, Fragile House and a group collaboration, When Cupboards Open . His poetry has been published by City Weekly , Exit 7 , Panorama , The New Era , Nine One One , The Poeming Pigeon , and My Kitchen Table. Next

< Back to Breakthroughs Issue HOW TO MAKE A BASKET Jan Mordenski for Henry Taylor Take a walk down Canal St. Buy one of those crispy horn-shaped buns from the lady at the corner bakery. Eat it as you watch the two boys dangling their lines off Salmon Weir Bridge. Sit inside St. Benedict’s. Watch the sputtering rows of vigil lights, the way the wax bends the air as it evaporates. Take delight in tangled things: your daughter’s coppery hair, the fading lines of your fingertips, the trail a swallowtail makes as she tastes the asters in the garden. You need not concentrate on strictly rural images. Park across from the power plant; follow the grimy path of one fat black pipe. Keep your eye on the red Trans Am as it volleys down Telegraph Rd. This is easy. Move on, now, to the more difficult preparations. Study openings, memorize the patterns of house windows, the shifting lulls in your conversations. Dwell on one vast vacant area: your own loss of hearing, your inability to understand, the memory of the palms of your mother’s hands. Then go into the field. Find something that grows, something long and aspiring that points to the sky, tries, in fact, to be part of it. Explain to it how it will be better this way. Take it in your hands, not reverently exactly, but with respect. And keep it wet. Remember that little thrush you saw this morning at the edge of the canal? Try to see her now: a disoriented worm in her beak, her claws, two tiny scythes, gripping the gentle mess of twigs and feathers and string into which she put her children. Hold all this as you begin the chosen pattern. "How to Make a Basket" was first published in BLACK RIVER REVIEW . At my father's suggestion, I had enrolled in a few classes in basket-making and that (like many crafts) provided time for reflection - on my homelife, teaching, writing. I came to realize how many separate aspects of life are actually interwoven . This poem celebrates that breakthrough, and one of my poet-mentors, the great Henry Taylor. Previous JAN MORDENSKI was born in Detroit, Michigan. She is the author of the chapbooks The Chosen Pattern (Quadra-Project, 1988) and Blue Prairie of Darkness (Michigan Writers Cooperative Press, 2026 ). Her poem "Crochet" was published in Plainsong and in Ted Kooser's series, American Life in Poetry . poetryfoundation.org/poets/jan-mordenski Next

< Back to Breakthroughs Issue THE GARDEN YOU MADE Maureen Clark we planted our oak tree saplings on the same day our husbands raced their carts to the garden center check-out they grew even when we were no longer speaking and were still growing when we mended we always knew they would outlive us our little lives short by comparison to their ringed calendars I would not be surprised if they met on moonless nights to gossip about us our human foibles and I wonder if our oak tree sends messages of condolence to yours now that both of you are dead and the garden you made is gone In "The Garden You Made," the breakthrough I had was the ability to write in a more minimal style, leaving out much of the detail to get to the emotional truth of the poem. Previous MAUREEN CLARK is the author of the poetry collection This Insatiable August (Signature Books, 2024 ) and has received two nominations for the Pushcart Prize. Her memoir, Falling into Bountiful: Confessions of a Since Once Upon a Time Mormon Girl , is forthcoming from Hypatia Press. maureenclark.art Next

< Back to Breakthroughs Issue WHEN HE HAD TO TRAVEL Carol Coven Grannick I remember how I’d pat the sheets— dark green—when he was gone, a rhythmic touch with gentle beats I remember how I’d pat the sheets read poems brimmed with love conceits and woke alone at dawn. I remember how I’d pat the sheets— dark green—when he was gone. “When He Had to Travel” is a poem that marks a breakthrough in my journey with the man I was dating. He travelled a lot for his work at that time, and this triolet marks the night I decided I wanted to marry him. I wrote it in the last year during his final illness, and read it to him. He loved it. Previous CAROL COVEN GRANNICK is an award-winning poet and children's author of Reeni's Turn (Fitzroy Books, 2020). carolcovengrannick.com Next

< Back to Breakthroughs Issue HARD TIMES Lev Raphael Fifty+ years ago, I was bullied in fifth grade, but not by other students: My teacher was the culprit, and she seemed to take special delight in tormenting me. Today I wonder if she knew I was gay decades before I did, given my obvious crush on our dazzling class president, and it revolted her. Thanks to the alphabet and our last names, I sat right across Michael who was tall and curly-haired, with blue eyes and brilliant white teeth. I was nothing like him. Sitting in the row furthest from the door, he seemed to always live in a penumbra of light from the giant windows piercing the nearby wall of our neo-Gothic elementary school. I longed to be his friend without being able to articulate that to myself or understand it could mean something vital about who I was. Mrs. Zir must have observed me fawn over him—when I could—like the time he dropped a pencil and I stooped faster than he did so I could grab the precious yellow cylinder and hand it to him, hungry for a smile. He was kind in an off-hand way. Mrs. Zir herself was scarier than Cruella de Vil though she lacked the sharp angles and swirling robes. Muscular and six feet tall with a large, oval, sneering face and thinning gray hair trapped in a forbidding bun, she loomed above us kids like an adamantine, implacable god. Zir's clothes were almost always some shade of gray that matched her hair and her derisive eyes. In a horror movie today, I think that CGI would be used to make her an alien storm cloud roiling with nauseating thunder and lightning, disguised now and then as a human being. This woman with the harsh last name stalked our classroom in big-ass sneakers you felt could crush you as easily as one of her savage, nonverbal put-downs. When she shook her head at your wrong answer to some question, that gesture said you were hopeless and she was disgusted. Mrs. Zir seemed to especially enjoy humiliating anyone who couldn't think fast when she swept up and down the five rows of six desks each, jamming a cruel index finger your way and demanding an instant answer to a multiplication problem. "Six times six! Five times seven!" It was a tsunami, and if you hesitated, she abandoned you to your ignorance and shame, turning instantly away to torture someone else. Just seeing her start this inquisition left me sweating and breathless because I was so anxious to begin with in her class. Arithmetic was like a black hole to me and written quizzes were my doom no matter how much I studied beforehand: hard-core proof of my inadequacy. The classroom with its scarred wooden desks--so old that they had inkwells--felt like a prison that whole year of fifth grade. Zir bullied me and anyone else whenever she got the chance. She was the queen and we were her lowly subjects, or most of us were. She had her favorites, the pretty girls and handsome boys (like Michael) whose parents apparently flattered her at parent/teacher conferences. Mrs. Zir knew that my parents had lived in Belgium, and when she said something to my mother in French at their first parent/teacher conference, my mother acted puzzled: "What language are you speaking? It's not familiar to me." That reply apparently left my teacher speechless. My mother relished this anecdote when she reported it to me at home because she thought Mrs. Zir was pretentious and a snob—on top of having an atrocious accent. As much as I enjoyed hearing an adult mock my teacher, I quailed inside when I heard what took place at the conference because I knew there would be revenge. It followed swiftly. In auditions for our class's production of The HMS Pinafore , I was cast as Ralph Rackstraw, the lowly seaman in love with the captain's daughter, but Mrs. Zir barely heard a note before silencing me: "You can't sing!" I was crushed. I could have been relegated to the chorus even if I wasn't a great singer, but instead, she gave me a prominent role and undermined it by keeping me mute onstage. Still, the cruelest thing she did was destroy my writing. I was an advanced reader and proud of my poems and little stories. I expected to take them all home when fifth grade was over to start a personal library, but Mrs. Zir wouldn't let me have mine. She said that she was keeping everyone's portfolios, and I was too scared to ask why or report her refusal to my parents. But when I finally steeled myself to venture one floor down to her classroom the next year when I was in sixth grade, she dismissed me with a casual "Oh, I threw all of that out." Decades after fifth grade, I am courageously taking voice lessons with a young graduate student in Michigan State University's College of Music and he couldn't be more different from the severe Mrs. Zir. Fair-haired Felix is relaxed, encouraging, witty, clear-headed, loves to laugh and can sometimes read my mind, as when he notes I might be overthinking a line in a song rather than feeling it. I had almost completely forgotten Mrs. Zir until the day Felix is talking about mental blocks interfering with the free production of sound and I find myself sharing Mrs. Zir's damning verdict that kept me silent. He shakes his head. "But you have a beautiful voice! There's so much music in you!" And I suddenly feel as liberated as if I've been under hypnosis and the magician has just snapped his fingers to bring me out of it. Sometimes opposites can inspire an essay or short story that I write, and that's the genesis of "Hard Times." I take voice lessons at a community music school connected to our local university, and it's staffed by faculty and graduate students from the College of Music. My most recent teacher has been ideal: inspiring, thorough, focused, friendly, and blessed with a great sense of humor. Those qualities have helped me improve my resonance, my legato, and my understanding of the poetry in each song that we work on, whether Schumann or Sondheim. One day during vocal warm-ups, his polar opposite, the worst teacher I ever had, just popped into my head. I hadn't thought about her in, well, what seemed like forever, but realized out of the blue that I was the one with power now because I could use the writer's magic to turn her into words. Previous LEV RAPHAEL is an editor, mentor, writing coach, and the author of 27 books in genres from memoir to mystery. writewithoutborders.com and levraphael.substack.com Next

< Back to Breakthroughs Issue COLD MARBLE, HOT MEMORIES Lev Raphael I was in love with museums before I even visited one. My parents had a small, battered, brown suitcase filled with art postcards from London, Paris, and all across Belgium, where they lived for five years after WWII. They never spoke much about surviving the Holocaust, and the hundreds of postcards seemed to fill that silence for me. Europe was art back then, not death and destruction, and I communed with those images as intently as someone deep in prayer. Sitting on the linoleum-covered floor in front of them, I could have been one of those guys in a science fiction movie opening a mysterious box whose unseen contents give off an unearthly and mesmerizing glow. My Washington Heights bedroom had an unobstructed view of the George Washington Bridge and watching its lights come on at dusk was one of my quiet joys, as soothing as poring over these photos of statues and paintings. But nothing prepared me for the revelations on my first visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. A fan of Ancient Greek history and Greek myths in elementary school, I was immediately drawn to the galleries of Greek and Roman statues. I already sensed I was different from my classmates and I was electrified by the bold nudity on one pedestal after another, bathed in tender natural light from above, or so it seemed, and lit up even more by their own perfection. With my parents off in some other gallery, I wandered and stared and studied—and who could accuse me of anything unwholesome or dangerous? I felt safe there, sheltered, wordlessly embraced. It was a much later piece, though, that changed my life: Canova's Perseus . At the time, this statue loomed on a landing at the top of a mammoth staircase, its placement making the space around it feel like an altar. Shy then, bookish, easily bullied, and living in the shadow of an older brother who seemed to get all the attention I craved, I relished the Perseus, would have gulped it down if it were a drink. Easily three times my size, Perseus was all graceful, cool triumph as he held Medusa's grotesque head away from himself. His strength, his beauty, and yes, his perfect nude body, filled me with longing not just to be him, but to create something, anything. I returned to him on each visit, engrossed, inspired, and many years later wrote a story in which he figures as an icon of gay desire. Every statue from the ancient world that I've encountered since that day, whether in the Santa Barbara Museum or Berlin's Pergamon Museum, reminds me of the discovery of such unparalleled beauty and the nascent discoveries of self that waited for me in my teens. I've even felt Perseus's power at London's Tate Modern Museum, wandering through an exhibition of Brancusi statues which couldn't have been more unlike Canova's work, but their beauty triggered vivid memories of his. And made me cry, which alarmed the nearest guard. I muttered something about being overwhelmed and wandered off, dazed but replete. Published in the Gay & Lesbian Review . I grew up in an immigrant family where money was tight but the love of art and music was the air I breathed. My parents took me to concerts and musicals from a very early age and we visited the major museums in Manhattan so often that I grew to have favorite pieces like Van Gogh's "Starry Night" at the Museum of Modern Art and "Rembrandt Contemplating a Bust of Homer" at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. These were works that mesmerized me with their beauty, especially since I had no talent whatsoever myself as a visual artist. But I did have words and the words for the sculpture described here apparently lay dormant until early in the pandemic when in my relative isolation from friends, family and even neighbors, I found myself writing essay after essay as memories filled my days. I was never truly alone. And art was where it all began. Previous LEV RAPHAEL is an editor, mentor, writing coach and the author of 27 books in genres from memoir to mystery. writewithoutborders.com and levraphael.substack.com Next