December 2024 will be our last issue, but previous publications will continue to be available for reading. Visit our archive to browse great art and writing

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The image depicts a farming town with a dirt road leading to white housing and barns like depicted in Cherl Dunesnil's poem Barn Dance that mentions an earthquake
Original artwork by Harrison West

From the Archives: Barn Dance

Cheryl Dumesnil
Featured • Poetry
February 6, 2024
NiftyLit #3
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From the archives: as we head into 2024, we are featuring some of our magazine’s earliest publications. This piece was originally published in issue number three.

Today’s caller takes the shape
of a child who emerged

from the fault line
after the earthquake

everyone knew would
come. Her cobweb

teeth, her leaded eyes—
she carries a lambskin

scroll we need to read
but we’re busy tallying

our damages, waiting
for the underwriter

while the hold music drones,
while the hold music drones.

Cheryl Dumesnil’s books include the poetry collections Showtime at the Ministry of Lost Causes and In Praise of Falling (University of Pittsburgh Press); a memoir, Love Song for Baby X (Ig Publishing); and the anthologies We Got This: Solo Mom Stories of Grit, Heart, and Humor (SheWrites Press, co-edited with Marika Lindholm, Domenica Ruta, and Katherine Shonk) and Dorothy Parker’s Elbow: Tattoos on Writers, Writers on Tattoos (Warner Books, co-edited with Kim Addonizio). A freelance writer, editor, and writing coach, she lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her two children and her wife, Sarah. Her new collection of poems, What Is Left to Say, is forthcoming in Fall 2023. Learn more about her work at www.cheryldumesnil.com.

Harrison West (b. 1999, Savannah, Georgia) is a painter based in Massachusetts. Through his work, he explores his interest in the built and natural landscape, and particularly the landscapes that have shaped him (the Georgia coast, New England).

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Suggested Reading

December 2024 will be our last issue, but previous publications will continue to be available for reading. Visit our archives to browse great art and writing.