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. 
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. 
