The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: Mapping the Borderlands by Barbara Sabol

This selection, chosen by Guest Editor Romy Ewing, is from Mapping the Borderlands by Barbara Sabol (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions 2025).

The Wild Wood

Mid-winter darkness is already falling as I trek through a foot of new snow,
searching for my dog, Lumi. Venturing off-trail through the woods, I hold out
my lantern, the only source of light this moonless night. The park ranger says,
“Coyotes probably got her.” I’d rather imagine that she has entered an enchanted
kingdom where a rabbit, seeing that she is lost, snuggles her in its burrow
or that she has found shelter in the bole of a tree.

hobo spider
i too
spin my web

This morning, a call from a hiker who spotted a dog matching Lumi’s missing dog
picture. I drive to the edge of the park, miles from where I lost her three days ago. Atop a steep hill that arches down to the river, I call her, long and loud, the way
my mother would sing my name when the street lights came on. A form takes shape
at the bottom of the hill―a snow swirl or my small, white dog? Rib-thin, mud-slushed,
exhausted, she comes limping toward me. I scoop her up, cradle her under my jacket
and together we bow to the benevolent mysteries that move through the forest.

second bloom
frost flowers
glaze the field

Barbara Sabol (she/her) lives in Akron, Ohio, close to the Cuyahoga Valley National Park, whose trails she knows by heart. She was named Ohio co-Poet of the Year for her sixth book, WATERMARK: Poems of the Great Johnstown Flood of 1889 (Alternating Current Press, 2023). Her book, IMAGINE A TOWN, won the 2019 Sheila-Na-Gig Editions Poetry Prize. Other honors include an Individual Excellence Award from the Ohio Arts Council, and the Arts Alive Outstanding Literary Artist of 2024 award. Barbara’s haiku and haibun have been published widely, and her haibun have been recognized by the Haiku Society of America, short-listed for a Touchstone Award by the Haiku Foundation in 2024, and awarded a 2025 Rachel Sutcliffe Haiku-Arts Prize. Barbara conducts workshops through Literary Cleveland and the Cuyahoga Falls Library. She earned an MFA from Spalding University. When not at her desk, Barbara is working in her garden or walking in the woods. She lives with her bird carver husband and wonder dog.

Romy Rhoads Ewing (she/her) writes from Sacramento, CA, where she was born and raised. Her work has appeared in HAD, Oyez Review, Rejection Letters, Bullshit Lit, Major 7th Magazine, and more. Her poetry chapbook please stay was published in 2024 by Bottlecap Press. Her hybrid zine, someday [everybody but] us will laugh about all of this, was briefly physically distributed at the 3rd Annual Hallow-Zine Fest and is available digitally. She also edits poetry and nonfiction for JAKE and runs the archival site SACRAMENTO DIRTBAG ARCHIVES. She can be found at romyrhoadsewing.xyz