This feature, chosen by Guest Editor Ezra Fox, is from The Fault by Marcela Sulak (Black Lawrence Press 2024).
TO LISTEN ONE MUST LOVE SEEDS.
To listen one must love seeds. Or, to love, one must listen to seeds. I forget. This morning on the bridge across the ancient mills,
the cart driver collecting the garbage stopped to count the courting cattle egrets. He was crooning their vital statistics to his shadowed assistant.
The egrets were fluffing their feathers, and editing the stats. To listen to this morning is to love seeds. To pull the pole beans, pop
the casings, line the pockets. Every day I gaze upon the scales of the anona, fruited away in the canopy of my orchard, and every day
the anona grow plumper, taking their time, un-anxious to please me. The oranges in their nets don’t orange. They are enjoying their green phase.
The seed banks of the world change places—the one in Syria moves to Iraq. The one in Norway begins to lend out seeds and then to collect.
There are gun banks buried underground—one in Texas—these are called caches. When you dig guns up they grow and grow. To love bodies, one must scratch holes
and listen to seeds. These. This morning picking beans, my shoe slipped into a pocket of air. It was a cache of vole. To love voles one must hunger,
muster hunger, desire darker ways of seeing, seed the dark, and must love ceding.
Marcela Sulak (she/her) has authored five poetry collections, most recently, The Fault, and the National Jewish Book Awards Finalist, City of Skypapers (Black Lawrence Press, 2021). Her six translations of poetry collections from Czech, French, and Hebrew, have been recognized by PEN and the National Endowment for the Arts. She is managing editor of The Ilanot Review, and she directs the Shaindy Rudoff Graduate Program in Creative Writing.
Photo Credit: Sarah Deragon
Ezra Fox (they/he) is a Best of the Net nominee who lives and writes in San Francisco, CA and holds an MFA from Indiana University. A Breadloaf, Tin House, and Lambda Literary Fellow, and recipient of the Lili Elbe Memorial Scholarship, which recognizes transgender writers of exceptional promise, their work appears or is forthcoming in TriQuarterly, The Pinch, Fourteen Hills, Interim, and elsewhere. Additionally, they won the 2025 West Trade Review Poetry Prize, and currently serve as assistant judge of the Tom Howard/Margaret Reid Poetry Contest. Apart from writing, Ezra maintains a daily practice of reconnecting with their inner child: roller-skating, playing drums, and enjoying animated films and theme parks. In quieter moments, they can be found sharing cups of tea and sweet treats with their beloveds. Learn more about Ezra at ezrafox.net or on Instagram @ezraxfox.
This feature, chosen by Guest Editor Ezra Fox, is from The Fault by Marcela Sulak (Black Lawrence Press 2024).
THE SPIDER
Yesterday I cried until there was no yogurt left until all my mother’s cabbages rolled out of the hallway closet, until the river crouched into a green pool and blinked, I cried until the too much order signaled its disorder until a box filled with little bars of soap appeared until the spider finished rolling up its white package of meat in the garden until the neighbor’s barbecue pits were loaded up onto the back of the truck and the children popped up like mushrooms though clearly there had been no rain.
Marcela Sulak (she/her) has authored five poetry collections, most recently, The Fault, and the National Jewish Book Awards Finalist, City of Skypapers (Black Lawrence Press, 2021). Her six translations of poetry collections from Czech, French, and Hebrew, have been recognized by PEN and the National Endowment for the Arts. She is managing editor of The Ilanot Review, and she directs the Shaindy Rudoff Graduate Program in Creative Writing.
Photo Credit: Sarah Deragon
Ezra Fox (they/he) is a Best of the Net nominee who lives and writes in San Francisco, CA and holds an MFA from Indiana University. A Breadloaf, Tin House, and Lambda Literary Fellow, and recipient of the Lili Elbe Memorial Scholarship, which recognizes transgender writers of exceptional promise, their work appears or is forthcoming in TriQuarterly, The Pinch, Fourteen Hills, Interim, and elsewhere. Additionally, they won the 2025 West Trade Review Poetry Prize, and currently serve as assistant judge of the Tom Howard/Margaret Reid Poetry Contest. Apart from writing, Ezra maintains a daily practice of reconnecting with their inner child: roller-skating, playing drums, and enjoying animated films and theme parks. In quieter moments, they can be found sharing cups of tea and sweet treats with their beloveds. Learn more about Ezra at ezrafox.net or on Instagram @ezraxfox.
This feature, chosen by Guest Editor Ezra Fox, is from The Fault by Marcela Sulak (Black Lawrence Press 2024).
NAMING THE ANIMALS
Shopping on Friday F tells his wife about the animals. There is a mouse that’s made a nest in the sea chest where he keeps the rum. And a rat that is chewing the feet of the furniture. He forgets its name. It is a rat or a mouse, he feels very certain, and there is a roach in the bathroom. Well, it isn’t in the bathroom, it is at the foot of his wardrobe, but his wardrobe is near the bathroom. If he sees it again, he will spray. There are gecko stars upon the screen but those are just their feet, not really stars, and guinea pigs in the garden, but we knew that before. On Sunday F enters the bathroom, poison bottle in hand. But the only thing in the bathroom is his wife, who looks up from the mirror. On her finger- tip is a long thin whisker, or possibly a hair.
Marcela Sulak (she/her) has authored five poetry collections, most recently, The Fault, and the National Jewish Book Awards Finalist, City of Skypapers (Black Lawrence Press, 2021). Her six translations of poetry collections from Czech, French, and Hebrew, have been recognized by PEN and the National Endowment for the Arts. She is managing editor of The Ilanot Review, and she directs the Shaindy Rudoff Graduate Program in Creative Writing.
Photo Credit: Sarah Deragon
Ezra Fox (they/he) is a Best of the Net nominee who lives and writes in San Francisco, CA and holds an MFA from Indiana University. A Breadloaf, Tin House, and Lambda Literary Fellow, and recipient of the Lili Elbe Memorial Scholarship, which recognizes transgender writers of exceptional promise, their work appears or is forthcoming in TriQuarterly, The Pinch, Fourteen Hills, Interim, and elsewhere. Additionally, they won the 2025 West Trade Review Poetry Prize, and currently serve as assistant judge of the Tom Howard/Margaret Reid Poetry Contest. Apart from writing, Ezra maintains a daily practice of reconnecting with their inner child: roller-skating, playing drums, and enjoying animated films and theme parks. In quieter moments, they can be found sharing cups of tea and sweet treats with their beloveds. Learn more about Ezra at ezrafox.net or on Instagram @ezraxfox.
Toothache in the Bone (boats against the current, 2025) by Colleen S. Harris is a raw exploration of death, grief, trauma, and resilience. This poetry collection examines the body and its limitations under strain: diagnoses of bone damage and infertility; the death of loved ones; a marriage; and constant hospital visits and struggles with body image. Harris’s poems reflect on the human condition and the complexities of life with chronic illness, revealing physical and emotional scars with vulnerability that leaves an ache in the soul.
Throughout the collection, medical imagery is a recurring motif. Harris uses these vivid depictions to convey the physical experience of illness and show how it affects everyday life and one’s sense of self. Each poem is infused with visual references to needle jabs, broken bones, and allusions to medical terminology, such as macrophages and CRP (C-reactive protein) test numbers. These depictions of physical suffering linger with the reader, showing the deep influence of chronic illness on the speaker’s perception of everyday life.
In “Primum Non Nocere (First, Do No Harm)”, Harris writes: “First you must be patient, a patient / patient, who understands three months / of waiting for the chance to supplicate / to the physician could be worse… // When the day / comes, remember not to use the upper numbers of the pain scale, no nurse / believes anything above an eight” (23). These lines illustrate the speaker’s frustration with a healthcare system that does not adequately serve its patients. The endless cycle of waiting for appointments, enduring blood tests, and interacting with doctors who dismiss her symptoms renders the speaker drained. Her lack of agency in her medical treatment and constant pain creates a sense of helplessness towards her body: “Pain is a marriage, / a commitment, ‘til death do us part” (33). The speaker ultimately accepts that this senseless suffering will always be part of her life. Through this candid depiction of the intense psychological toll of illness, Harris guides us to understand the feeling of being trapped in a body that constantly betrays you.
A central theme of Toothache in the Bone is coping with loss, grief, and the myriad complex emotions they evoke. Harris engages with loss in its many forms: the loss of health, the loss of reproductive possibility, and the loss of people. In “Rituals of Grief,” Harris grapples with reproductive loss through parallels with the mourning behaviors of elephants and crows. She writes, “Animals know the importance / of company, how a critical mass / of community can sustain grief // at a bearable level” (26). Later, she recounts the experience of losing a pregnancy, writing: “No animal, alone, I am buried / within these walls… // no crowd to wing with me, to step / in solidarity toward your body… // to prove that… I remain beyond your remains (27).
In contrast to the sense of community and shared grief found within elephant and crow groups, Harris highlights the alienation and loneliness that surround sudden loss among humans, particularly the experience of miscarriage. The societal stigma around miscarriage often forces women to grieve their miscarriage privately, internalizing their loss as a personal failure: What is wrong with my body? Why isn’t it working as it should? Without any community support to help her carry the weight of this pain, the speaker falls into a deep depression. Speaking openly about this issue is crucial to normalizing discussion around miscarriage and building community among women and individuals facing similar challenges.
The thing I find most compelling about this collection is its unapologetic discussion of death and the nuances of the grieving process. Harris artfully describes the range of emotions that arise when navigating loss. In “On Letting Go of the Dying,” the speaker mourns both the death of her dog and her dying marriage. On witnessing the last moments of a beloved pet, Harris writes: “My mother / made me see his ribs pushing their way rudely through / his skin / I was not brave / when I carried him for the last / time… // Five / years passed before I could reach into the too small box to spoon // his ashes into a pendant…” (23). Through the use of visceral imagery, Harris illustrates the speaker’s confrontation with death, its brutality on the body, and its permanence. Death is often perceived as a biological, inevitable reality of life. Harris voices the fear and heartbreak of witnessing a loved one’s final days. It is a type of sorrow that never truly leaves you.
The latter half of the poem shifts in tone as Harris redirects the reader’s attention to the unhappy marriage. Harris describes it as a “skeletal, / gasping thing,” writing, “I needed // no memento, did not want to drown in the ashes. I wore my / good red dancing shoes instead” (24). Like shedding layers of old skin, the speaker is relieved to cast off her dying marriage and start life anew. Harris uses this juxtaposition to emphasize that accepting loss is not always negative; at times, it is a necessary process for growth and survival.
I have never read a poetry collection as devastating as Toothache in the Bone. I found myself moved by its honest discussions of illness, death, and body image, particularly in “Primum Non Nocere,” “Nel Mezzo Del Cammin di Nostra Vita,” and “I Dreamt I Was Unblemished.” Harris’s unflinching account of coming to terms with illness and loss reverberated deep in my bones, staying with me long after I finished reading. Her ability to articulate difficult human emotions, such as self-hate and sorrow, allows the collection to resonate with readers both with and without chronic conditions. In this collection, Colleen S. Harris masterfully gives voice to the hidden pain that our bodies hold.
Tara Rahman (she/her) is a Sundress editorial intern with a BA in English Language and Literature from Smith College and an MSc in Global Development from SOAS, University of London. She is also a recent graduate of the Columbia Publishing Course in Oxford, UK. With a strong interest in culture, identity, and global history, her personal writing often focuses on intersectionality and the untold stories and experiences of marginalized communities.
This feature, chosen by Guest Editor Ezra Fox, is from The Fault by Marcela Sulak (Black Lawrence Press 2024).
GRANTED
You, said the wife to the husband, are taking me for granted. What, answered the husband, would you prefer to be taken for? In the husband’s pocket were a wine opener, a business card, and a piece of lint. I should like very much to be taken, replied the wife, after combing through the lemons, for an impertinence. The husband looked at the wife. The husband took off his sunglasses to better see her pupils. No, no, said the wife. Now you are taking me for an aperture, and that is what got us into this dark place to begin with. To illustrate, she listed all the times that she, as an aperture, had had to illustrate. I did not realize, answered the husband, that an aperture was so dutiful. The husband walked twenty paces and sat down. He began carefully to persuade some waves into a harbor. Then he directed them to lap. Here, said the husband hopefully, is an incipient setting for an impertinence.
Marcela Sulak (she/her) has authored five poetry collections, most recently, The Fault, and the National Jewish Book Awards Finalist, City of Skypapers (Black Lawrence Press, 2021). Her six translations of poetry collections from Czech, French, and Hebrew, have been recognized by PEN and the National Endowment for the Arts. She is managing editor of The Ilanot Review, and she directs the Shaindy Rudoff Graduate Program in Creative Writing.
Photo Credit: Sarah Deragon
Ezra Fox (they/he) is a Best of the Net nominee who lives and writes in San Francisco, CA and holds an MFA from Indiana University. A Breadloaf, Tin House, and Lambda Literary Fellow, and recipient of the Lili Elbe Memorial Scholarship, which recognizes transgender writers of exceptional promise, their work appears or is forthcoming in TriQuarterly, The Pinch, Fourteen Hills, Interim, and elsewhere. Additionally, they won the 2025 West Trade Review Poetry Prize, and currently serve as assistant judge of the Tom Howard/Margaret Reid Poetry Contest. Apart from writing, Ezra maintains a daily practice of reconnecting with their inner child: roller-skating, playing drums, and enjoying animated films and theme parks. In quieter moments, they can be found sharing cups of tea and sweet treats with their beloveds. Learn more about Ezra at ezrafox.net or on Instagram @ezraxfox.
This feature, chosen by Guest Editor Ezra Fox, is from The Fault by Marcela Sulak (Black Lawrence Press 2024).
SEED BANK
My parents could hardly get through breakfast without mentioning sex. As in, I told you I had a cold last night, but you insisted,
in lieu of bless you after my father sneezed. We never invited any school friends over. To love is to learn new habits, with holes in them,
for a vole or a mole, they too hunger, for a seed or surprise— for example, an aboriginal grass with exceptional nutritional value sold in hip
restaurants in capital cities at night, which is how I discover decades later the weeds in my garden were chicory. Meanwhile,
my father and brother discuss planting organic —you can make a killing if you pitch it right and if the insects, weeds, drought, and rain
don’t mess up a crop. Life isn’t a hobby, after all. To love is to discern which fields will become habitual, which words will turn over,
which pauses will yield sturdy seed banks, which silences will reduce the water content by 1% and which will reduce the temperature
in the room 10°F, for, taken together, this will double the seed lifespan. Which trees, for example, can be grafted
in such a way as to yield oranges, grapefruit, lemons, and pomelos, all from a single trunk. And which pecan trees can survive a watering
by the progeny with a gasoline can—he said he was only trying to help, though, knowing him, he was also trying for sparks, and for sparking
the pollinating flies, for love, it is so flighty a thing.
Marcela Sulak (she/her) has authored five poetry collections, most recently, The Fault, and the National Jewish Book Awards Finalist, City of Skypapers (Black Lawrence Press, 2021). Her six translations of poetry collections from Czech, French, and Hebrew, have been recognized by PEN and the National Endowment for the Arts. She is managing editor of The Ilanot Review, and she directs the Shaindy Rudoff Graduate Program in Creative Writing.
Photo Credit: Sarah Deragon
Ezra Fox (they/he) is a Best of the Net nominee who lives and writes in San Francisco, CA and holds an MFA from Indiana University. A Breadloaf, Tin House, and Lambda Literary Fellow, and recipient of the Lili Elbe Memorial Scholarship, which recognizes transgender writers of exceptional promise, their work appears or is forthcoming in TriQuarterly, The Pinch, Fourteen Hills, Interim, and elsewhere. Additionally, they won the 2025 West Trade Review Poetry Prize, and currently serve as assistant judge of the Tom Howard/Margaret Reid Poetry Contest. Apart from writing, Ezra maintains a daily practice of reconnecting with their inner child: roller-skating, playing drums, and enjoying animated films and theme parks. In quieter moments, they can be found sharing cups of tea and sweet treats with their beloveds. Learn more about Ezra at ezrafox.net or on Instagram @ezraxfox.
This feature, chosen by Guest Editor Ezra Fox, is from transfinity by Joey Gould (Lambhouse Books 2026).
compactifications of infinite series
sometimes forever turns up inside us small as a heartbeat steady forever
has a bunch of forevers in between its ordinals kinda like stone lions
guard a driveway + each big forever like art has small forevers
paintings of fruit or ponds with a wee island + reeds compactifications everywhere
little tiny cute modular infinities e.g. the smell of a new tennis ball
+ daddy issues like my ghosting daddy who piously davens to each letter
of the seventy-two letters in The Name the six hundred and twelve laws
numbers scholars say are immutable until they mute them + they should
for god’s sake when a life’s at risk but what is my child to the infinite
asks daddy god doesn’t respond god has already responded
god has made flowers that are capable of jackhammering rock slow + soft
a productivity nightmare this forever of a flower like learning to love a child
Joey Gould (they/them), who served as Sundress Academy for the Arts Spring 2024 Writer in Residence, wrote transfinity (2026, Lambhouse), The Acute Avian Heart (2019, Lily Poetry Review) & Penitent > Arbiter (2022, Lily Poetry Review). Their recent work appears in Meow Meow Pow Pow, Memezine, and Defunkt Magazine’s Surreal Confessional Anthology.
Photo Credit: Sarah Deragon
Ezra Fox (they/he) is a Best of the Net nominee who lives and writes in San Francisco, CA and holds an MFA from Indiana University. A Breadloaf, Tin House, and Lambda Literary Fellow, and recipient of the Lili Elbe Memorial Scholarship, which recognizes transgender writers of exceptional promise, their work appears or is forthcoming in TriQuarterly, The Pinch, Fourteen Hills, Interim, and elsewhere. Additionally, they won the 2025 West Trade Review Poetry Prize, and currently serve as assistant judge of the Tom Howard/Margaret Reid Poetry Contest. Apart from writing, Ezra maintains a daily practice of reconnecting with their inner child: roller-skating, playing drums, and enjoying animated films and theme parks. In quieter moments, they can be found sharing cups of tea and sweet treats with their beloveds. Learn more about Ezra at ezrafox.net or on Instagram @ezraxfox.
In Flood (Sunlight Press 2025), Christine Kalafus writes with power. The myriad themes and stories she interweaves are beautiful, but more importantly, they serve a greater purpose: a woman writing with intention.
Dealing with her lived experience as source material, Kalafus layers snippets of her life in a vast collage of motherhood, chemotherapy, mental health, and what it means to be a woman.
Wielding fluid, gentle prose and a calm, matter-of-fact tone that occasionally dips into self-deprecating, Kalafus draws the reader into a conversation which, to me, felt like reconnecting with an older sister years after losing touch. She recollects her past with authority and insight, but lays bare the doubt, the pain and the ultimate growth that brought her through the ‘flood’, a metaphor used throughout the book to illustrate drowning, both in a literal and emotional sense. It is a highly reflective, carefully arranged memoir, unfolding the cost of pushing your body and mind to their limits.
I am reluctant to reveal too much of the content, but Kalafus’ situation is a tragedy that hardly bears imagining––lurking cancer, three children: one only four years old, two yet unborn.
As Kalafus so plainly puts it: “You can’t outrun a flood” (110).
Indeed, water pervades every aspect of the book. Humidity in the house, ruining the piano; the fresh spring at neighbours’; the leaking cracks in the basement; every literal breakage offers a mirror to Kalafus’ internal landscape.
Prevalent throughout the story as a stronghold against storms, the house earns its place at the centre of LJ Mucci’s cover design. When introduced, it feels alive, offering sanctuary, becoming a manifestation of feeling outcast or odd. It brings joy to Kalafus, “as if the house’s blueprint had been daylight” (21).
But this creation solidified my fears as Kalafus steadily accelerates the looming threat of a flood. Not just of emotion, but a physical, biblical flood that may leave behind nothing but wreckage. And all emphasised by the unearthing feeling of being told something you thought was certain is not: my husband loves me, my house cannot flood, I do not have cancer. Flood is what happens when solid ground becomes malleable, and stability falls away.
Over the course of the memoir, Kalafus delves into her life before diagnosis. She recalls growing up in Connecticut and northern Virginia, discusses the internalized threats women face and observes society persistently teaching women how to dress to avoid danger, and so the real threats go unnoticed––invasion “from the inside” (3). Amid powerful childhood memories, Kalafus recalls being objectified, sexualised, and fearful, shared with the casual understanding that this is what ‘normal’ looks like for most women. As I read, I found myself struck by an outsider’s perspective: the tragedy of growing up as a woman and never learning how proud you should be.
Kalafus’ musings on womanhood permeate the whole text: “In my family, a woman’s denial of herself equalled survival” (23), “I apologise for the mother they won in the lottery” (114), “I ignore him because that’s how I’ve been socially trained to manage a raging asshole” (121). To my surprise, I felt known by this book, and I felt rage on behalf of Kalafus, and every woman whose opinion was superseded by a man who thought he knew best.
With razor-sharp precision, Flood elaborates on female guilt, the pernicious companion to feminine rage: harder to eradicate and all too easy to indulge. Even after all she has survived, Kalafus struggles not to blame herself (163).
This was a topic made all the more raw by the realities of medical treatment. A combination of the occasional colossal ineptitude of medical professionals and the consistent devaluation of women’s opinions, Flood suggests that negligence can become a form of cruelty without intent. Kalafus makes a devastating case against the apathy of doctors and the American healthcare system at large.
I took away from this book a lesson in setting limits––a hard-won battle for Kalafus––an example of expressed agency, a deeper understanding of its worth, and a steadfast belief that your opinions about your body have value.
Kalafus delicately puts something that should be taught to every woman from childhood: you do not have to keep the whole world in balance, as much as you are told to. It is an impossible task; Atlas holding up the sky; Sisyphus’s boulder: “As a modern woman, I’m supposed to do everything at one time. Glass ceiling smacker, mother martyr, sex goddess, selfless sisterdaughterfriend” (156). All roles that led to such acute stress that they were considered the only suggested cause of her diagnosis.
Merging the poetic intent of Mary Oliver with the clarity of Margaret Atwood, Kalafus’s writing is ruthless with details and surgically precise. From the smooth and elegant inclusion of a second-person perspective to the balanced and intriguing variations in page layout, including lists and quotes, Kalafus offers an arrangement finely tuned for brutal contextual impact.
Flood layers its tragic elements so delicately that I felt the water rising around me––despite the stress of two newborns, rising water tables, and chemotherapy, I had been mercifully spared worrying about the details of medical bills and insurance repayments until Kalafus chose to open that floodgate as well.
Just as Kalafus quotes her mother’s wisdom, I will repeat it here: “It is possible to be completely terrified of something and do it anyway” (198) to show that you can survive the flood and smile again on the other side.
Rachel Bulman (she/her) holds a BA in English and Creative Writing as well as an MA in Publishing from the University of Exeter, specialising in interactive and children’s fiction. Her written work has appeared in The Book of Choices, Velvet Fields, and Exeposé, among others. Find her on Instagram @worm.can.read, through her online portfolio, or ask the bridge troll who taught him his riddles three.
This feature, chosen by Guest Editor Ezra Fox, is from transfinity by Joey Gould (Lambhouse Books 2026).
gematria
What lovely theory: math as a madman, dancing nancy. Pythagoras had a cult about it but like modern math, ascetic.
So many people hate math or simply aren’t very precise so their sums would be spooky, their maths full of moons
over a harvest threshing. o it’s a superstish, babe, we’d say nowadays. But go back to dark, when our fore-fore-fores made
the first number, a spell to count the days until rain. People mapped the fucking stars. You’re so new + spoiled. They mapped the stars!
Whoever figured that out deserved the attention. There was a line out the door, people waiting for someone
to reassure their safe harvest. If the star-person kissed them it was the talk of the town. Did the kabbalist see numbers
in your eyes, + which?
Joey Gould (they/them), who served as Sundress Academy for the Arts Spring 2024 Writer in Residence, wrote transfinity (2026, Lambhouse), The Acute Avian Heart (2019, Lily Poetry Review) & Penitent > Arbiter (2022, Lily Poetry Review). Their recent work appears in Meow Meow Pow Pow, Memezine, and Defunkt Magazine’s Surreal Confessional Anthology.
Photo Credit: Sarah Deragon
Ezra Fox (they/he) is a Best of the Net nominee who lives and writes in San Francisco, CA and holds an MFA from Indiana University. A Breadloaf, Tin House, and Lambda Literary Fellow, and recipient of the Lili Elbe Memorial Scholarship, which recognizes transgender writers of exceptional promise, their work appears or is forthcoming in TriQuarterly, The Pinch, Fourteen Hills, Interim, and elsewhere. Additionally, they won the 2025 West Trade Review Poetry Prize, and currently serve as assistant judge of the Tom Howard/Margaret Reid Poetry Contest. Apart from writing, Ezra maintains a daily practice of reconnecting with their inner child: roller-skating, playing drums, and enjoying animated films and theme parks. In quieter moments, they can be found sharing cups of tea and sweet treats with their beloveds. Learn more about Ezra at ezrafox.net or on Instagram @ezraxfox.
This feature, chosen by Guest Editor Ezra Fox, is from transfinity by Joey Gould (Lambhouse Books 2026).
the unknot
Not merely a torus, but rather the least
knotted of all knots. I go to a party
+ when some man asks what is it that I do
I say I am a knot theorist which is kind of true
because poems, also I like to weave
my elastic hair tie through my fingers.
I have trouble embracing simplicity
but someone has studied a circle + named it
the unknot. They published a paper
that ∆ (t) = 1
+ everyone agreed
that it doesn’t have to be so difficult.
People who say they hate math are neglecting
the joy of counting one two lovers’ boobs.
Joey Gould (they/them), who served as Sundress Academy for the Arts Spring 2024 Writer in Residence, wrote transfinity (2026, Lambhouse), The Acute Avian Heart (2019, Lily Poetry Review) & Penitent > Arbiter (2022, Lily Poetry Review). Their recent work appears in Meow Meow Pow Pow, Memezine, and Defunkt Magazine’s Surreal Confessional Anthology.
Photo Credit: Sarah Deragon
Ezra Fox (they/he) is a Best of the Net nominee who lives and writes in San Francisco, CA and holds an MFA from Indiana University. A Breadloaf, Tin House, and Lambda Literary Fellow, and recipient of the Lili Elbe Memorial Scholarship, which recognizes transgender writers of exceptional promise, their work appears or is forthcoming in TriQuarterly, The Pinch, Fourteen Hills, Interim, and elsewhere. Additionally, they won the 2025 West Trade Review Poetry Prize, and currently serve as assistant judge of the Tom Howard/Margaret Reid Poetry Contest. Apart from writing, Ezra maintains a daily practice of reconnecting with their inner child: roller-skating, playing drums, and enjoying animated films and theme parks. In quieter moments, they can be found sharing cups of tea and sweet treats with their beloveds. Learn more about Ezra at ezrafox.net or on Instagram @ezraxfox.
