This selection, chosen by guest editor Layla Lenhardt, is from Until the End of Time by Mia Herman (Alien Buddha Press 2023).
Still Life
We were leaving the park—
the weathered benches
and big-kid swings and wide
expanses of green-turned-yellow-
turned-brown—and the kids
were asleep in the back seat
and their little lashes fluttered
like fallen leaves resting
against sun-stained cheeks
and our song came on
all melancholy and quiet
and you smiled at me
as we linked fingers
over the console and
we headed toward
the highway signs pointing
home, and I thought:
let’s paint this
bowl, our fruitful life.
Let’s hang it on the fridge.
Mia Herman is a Jewish writer and editor living in New York. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Hofstra University and her work has appeared in dozens of publications, including Barren Magazine, Bellevue Literary Review, F(r)iction, Stanchion, Third Coast, and Variant Lit, among others. UNTIL THE END OF TIME (Alien Buddha Press, 2023) is Mia’s debut poetry chapbook. 
Layla Lenhardt is the author of the full-length poetry collection Mother Tongue (Main Street Rag 2023). She is an alumna of the Firefly Farms Residency and a member of the Sundress Reader Board. She is currently working on her second full length poetry collection Little Spoon, and she is an MFA candidate at IU. 
