The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: The New Life by Wendy Wisner

This feature, chosen by Guest Editor Merrick Sloane, is from The New Life by Wendy Wisner (Cornerstone Press 2024).

Solstice

My mother was born
on the first day of summer, 1948.
Her mother labored alone.
Ivy flared against the window
shot through with lemon light.
That night, the moon was full
as it is tonight. In the waiting room,
her father sat in his gray clothes
holding his son, Raphael,
the angel. When the moon
dropped, the nurse let them in.
My mother’s eyes were root black,
still adjusting to the light.
Raphael named her Black-Eyed Susan.
This was the beginning. Later,
the steady unraveling of a family—
the way a girl’s hair unbraids in her sleep,
end of summer, her pillow damp.
Tonight I’m not interested
in that story. My hair is down.
Summer’s just begun. I want
only this: to see my mother born.

Wendy Wisner (she/her) is the author of three books of poems, most recently The New Life, published by Cornerstone Press (University of Wisconsin Stevens-Point) and named a finalist for the Foreword INDIES Book of the Year. Wendy’s poems and essays have appeared in Alaska Quarterly Review, Prairie Schooner, Spoon River Review, Passages North, Verse Daily, The Washington Post, Lilith Magazine, and elsewhere.

Merrick Sloane (they/them) is a neuro-Queer 90’s kid and nonbinary poet, editor, and researcher from Oklahoma. A Best of the Net and AWP Intro Journal Awards Winner, Merrick holds an MFA from UT, Knoxville. Merrick’s work has received support from The DreamYard Project’s Rad(ical) Poetry Consortium and Poet’s House. A 2025 Garden Party Collective Neurodivergence / Intersectionality contest winner, Merrick’s poetry also appears in citizen trans* {project}, ANMLY, Seattle Journal for Social Justice, Fruitslice, Puerto del Sol, and elsewhere. They are Associate Poetry Editor of Doubleback Review. Merrick writes so that others may feel radically loved and is deeply committed to helping create a world that liberates us all.