The Wardrobe's Best Dressed: Of the Forest by Linda Ferguson

This selection, chosen by guest editor Shlagha Borah, is from Of the Forest by Linda Ferguson, released by The Poetry Box in 2022.

No One Was Hurt in the Making of This Story

think small
insignificant
a twitch
a loose thread hanging from a hem

no rising action
no villains twirling their moustaches
or lounging by the pool in puce robes
that languidly slip open

just a house with kitchen, television and couch,
carpet of lawn rimmed with neat floral rows –
pansy, marigold, pansy, marigold –
bee stings and butterfly nets,
sprinklers, somersaults, sunburns,
wince of skinned knees soothed
by scabs

nothing to shock or wow
a simple suburban story that can be heard
in the whisper of birch leaves (or ginkgo,
baobab or fig) when
I’m listening

A five-time Pushcart nominee, Linda Ferguson is a writer of poetry, fiction and essays. Her chapbook Of the Forest was the 2nd place winner of The Poetry Box Chapbook Prize, 2021, and another collection, Not Me: Poems About Other Women, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2022.

Shlagha Borah (she/her) is a poet from Assam, India. Her work appears in Salamander, Nashville Review, Identity Theory, Longleaf Review, Variant Literature, Rogue Agent, and elsewhere. She is pursuing an MFA in Poetry at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and is an Associate Poetry Editor at Grist. She has received support for her work from Brooklyn Poets and Sundress Academy for the Arts. She is the co-founder of Pink Freud, a student-led collective working towards making mental health accessible in India.