The Wardrobe's Best Dressed: The Girl Who Talked to Paintings by Shannon K. Winston

This selection, chosen by guest editor Amber Alexander, is from The Girl Who Talked to Paintings by Shannon K. Winston, released by Glass Lyre Press in 2021.

The Stories We Tell: Fox in a Block of Ice

I shouldn’t,
but I find it beautiful—

the way its paws lift
slightly as if still

clawing the air.
Its yellow fur

somehow softer,
more vulnerable

pressed against ice
which amplifies

its body like
a magnifying glass:

the spots on its back,
the black fur

around its neck.
This is as close as

I will ever get
to surrender.

Except its face
is submerged

in cracks too thick
to see through.

As if the river that
froze it also wanted

to protect it from
those who would later

marvel at it,
forgetting,

as I do,
that it’s not just

a piece of art.
I lean in closer

as if looking for
a story I can learn from—

one about cold
temperatures,

difficult crossings,
eyes that never shut.

Shannon K. Winston’s book, The Girl Who Talked to Paintings (Glass Lyre Press), was published in 2021. Her individual poems have appeared in Bracken, Cider Press Review, On the Seawall, RHINO Poetry, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA from the Warren Wilson Program for Writers and lives in Bloomington, IN.

Amber Alexander, who publishes creative work as e. holloway, is a poet based in Ohio. They currently work in higher education and as an Assistant Editor for Best Of The Net within Sundress Publications. Alexander is a former Editorial Intern for Sundress Publications, former Editorial Board Member for Cornfield Review, and was a Sundress Academy for The Arts Writing Resident in 2023. Their work has been published by Cornfield Review and earned multiple awards during undergrad at The Ohio State University.