Yeah I’m rans bu mos people can’ ell. Maybe hey can ell I’m nonbinary bu mos days hey jus misgender me “hey mam” ( hough I’m no ). I was born his way, I always knew I was a boy growing up bu back hen I was called “ omboy” which a leas had “boy” in he name. Puber y blockers weren’ a hing hen, bu sex-change surgery was and I ried every angle bu my paren s wouln’ buy i , so I s opped asking and grew up wi h he wrong hormones coursing hrough me. I looked like a sor of girl bu fel s ill so much like a guy bu hen over ime I admi I grew o apprecia e my female hink bu s ill, I never did adjus o my body so I wear loose clo hing I wear a rucker cap a lo (mos of he ime backwards) and have never been a fan of mirrors bu I don’ wan surgery anymore because i ’s surgery… and I have already been hrough oo much. I ’s a personal decision o live (as I do, a “ hey / hem) and I was glad when hose pronouns became ubiqui ous because hen I defini ely fel more seen. Bu of course “ hey/ hem” since he las elec ion isn’ qui e as accep ed jus like I’m no qui e as accep ed… Presiden rump said in his inaugura ion speech I don’ even exis ! I was in Canada during ha momen so didn’ hear him bu he said here are only wo genders and hey are dic a ed by your body a bir h. rump is mis aken on his, jus like he is abou so many hings. He go rid of our rans flag and he go rid of our le er “ ” in LGB bu he can’ ge rid of me no ma er wha he akes away or how he spells ha e.
National Bestselling author J Brooke’s (they/them) debut poetry book, I Can Tell You The Version That Will Make You Take My Side, received a starred Kirkus review, is a USA Today Bestseller, is included in Ms. Magazine’s Best Poetry Books of 2026, won Driftwood Press’s Editor Choice Award, and was Ashland Press’s 2025 Richard Snyder Prize Finalist. Brooke’s other honors include Pushcart & Best of the Net nominations, The Iowa Review’s 2025 Nonfiction Prize Finalist, Columbia Journal’s 2020 Nonfiction Prize Winner. Their work appears in Electric Lit, McSweeney’s, The Rumpus, Harvard Review, and elsewhere. They are Poetry Editor at Trans Poetics Archive and the Book Reviews Editor at The Rumpus. They can be found at JBrookewrites.com.
Photo Credit: Juan Camillo Garza
EMDASH a.k.a Emily Lu Gao (高璐璐) (she/they) is a poet-who-also-writes-fiction, educator, and daughter of Chinese immigrants. She writes to heal, grow, and decolonize. They’ve received support from LAMBDA, McCormack Writing Center, Sundress Publications, Bread Loaf Environmental Writers Conference, The Chinese American Museum of LA, Jersey City Arts Council and more. She has learned as much from community organizing and open mics as she did from her Rutgers-Newark MFA in Poetry. They’re published in Poetry Northwest, ANMLY, Alocasia, Underblong and elsewhere. She proudly hosted, produced, and curated The Word Bookstore Open Mic for two years.
So yeah, I know it feels late telling you this I mean sure me having had a trans kid— pretty grand omission right?
Hear me out on this particular elephant room-sauntering— it’s not like K appeared trans all his life just different to me
in a takes one to know one way. Really mostly we were flipping pancakes, carting K & his sibs to basketball, soccer, jujitsu, art
music lessons same as any other attempting non-dysfunction fam with queer parents navigating difficult weekend fathers and K
adamantly hetero before lesbian -leaning finally realizing he was he so we jumped right in helping transition along the way sourcing
gender affirming medical care ushering K through changing his legal name birth certificate driver’s license passport under-
wear hoodies socks watch razor shave cream deodorant hair gel nose piercing even warranting a shift. I admit having post-op
post top surgery squeamishness changing his drains, thankfully his brother A, trained as EMT, rescued us both, so I got away
only double knotting trash bags filled with blood-soaked gauze. K asked me to edit most family and childhood photos he looked
not masculine in, so I cut them up tiny before igniting in a fire pit fire burning K’s old bras too as we celebrated ashes tangoing
across our lawn while Sia sang Chandelier loud out of the blue- tooth speaker K knocked over reaching for his third Herradura.
Wild joy like that night needs to be protected, so I tuck it tight. Bind it close to my heart—never risking it being diluted by a big gender stew.
National Bestselling author J Brooke’s (they/them) debut poetry book, I Can Tell You The Version That Will Make You Take My Side, received a starred Kirkus review, is a USA Today Bestseller, is included in Ms. Magazine’s Best Poetry Books of 2026, won Driftwood Press’s Editor Choice Award, and was Ashland Press’s 2025 Richard Snyder Prize Finalist. Brooke’s other honors include Pushcart & Best of the Net nominations, The Iowa Review’s 2025 Nonfiction Prize Finalist, Columbia Journal’s 2020 Nonfiction Prize Winner. Their work appears in Electric Lit, McSweeney’s, The Rumpus, Harvard Review, and elsewhere. They are Poetry Editor at Trans Poetics Archive and the Book Reviews Editor at The Rumpus. They can be found at JBrookewrites.com.
Photo Credit: Juan Camillo Garza
EMDASH a.k.a Emily Lu Gao (高璐璐) (she/they) is a poet-who-also-writes-fiction, educator, and daughter of Chinese immigrants. She writes to heal, grow, and decolonize. They’ve received support from LAMBDA, McCormack Writing Center, Sundress Publications, Bread Loaf Environmental Writers Conference, The Chinese American Museum of LA, Jersey City Arts Council and more. She has learned as much from community organizing and open mics as she did from her Rutgers-Newark MFA in Poetry. They’re published in Poetry Northwest, ANMLY, Alocasia, Underblong and elsewhere. She proudly hosted, produced, and curated The Word Bookstore Open Mic for two years.
I pull again and again yanking poor innocent fibers imploring they offer
impossible space for me to hide I’d toss them all begin a fresh downsize
to medium or small jettison my soupy slouchy swimmy threads dump donate
or burn the motherfuckers I desire that outcome if only I can just blink it onto
me, awake to hands exploring my torso my flat smooth chest no longer breasts
inhaling exhaling proudly satisfied and yet I don’t get it that surgery I do not
choose surgery I do not elect it fearing instead the scalpels needles anesthesia
I wonder was it the tonsillectomy I did not need, elective surgery I didn’t elect
at 4 when I didn’t get a vote or was it that rhinoplasty at 17 against my will
still no vote no voice my body bones and skin I had in the game no control
like my uncle Stanley punctured at 42 by drains tubes liquid in and liquid out
emaciated once handsome stud I loved visiting him that last hospital time that
could have done it But the lump under my arm in my armpit (even my lymph
nodes avoid my breasts) so scary one doctor calls another for a favor to see
me See them today it’s important please and I go and they poke
and avert their eyes frown prod order the MRI ASAP as I dress
recalling all those times I begged god please don’t give me cancer
don’t make it cancer anything but cancer but if I must cancer
god, please breast cancer then radical bilateral removal not
elective but medically mandated dissolution solution my problem
But I skirt death again the tests show the lump is just some something acting
up inside me, a minor revolt I need no surgery so I won’t get surgery and I live
on in the body I was mistakenly wrapped inside Unwanted gift to myself I remain
National Bestselling author J Brooke’s (they/them) debut poetry book, I Can Tell You The Version That Will Make You Take My Side, received a starred Kirkus review, is a USA Today Bestseller, is included in Ms. Magazine’s Best Poetry Books of 2026, won Driftwood Press’s Editor Choice Award, and was Ashland Press’s 2025 Richard Snyder Prize Finalist. Brooke’s other honors include Pushcart & Best of the Net nominations, The Iowa Review’s 2025 Nonfiction Prize Finalist, Columbia Journal’s 2020 Nonfiction Prize Winner. Their work appears in Electric Lit, McSweeney’s, The Rumpus, Harvard Review, and elsewhere. They are Poetry Editor at Trans Poetics Archive and the Book Reviews Editor at The Rumpus. They can be found at JBrookewrites.com.
Photo Credit: Juan Camillo Garza
EMDASH a.k.a Emily Lu Gao (高璐璐) (she/they) is a poet-who-also-writes-fiction, educator, and daughter of Chinese immigrants. She writes to heal, grow, and decolonize. They’ve received support from LAMBDA, McCormack Writing Center, Sundress Publications, Bread Loaf Environmental Writers Conference, The Chinese American Museum of LA, Jersey City Arts Council and more. She has learned as much from community organizing and open mics as she did from her Rutgers-Newark MFA in Poetry. They’re published in Poetry Northwest, ANMLY, Alocasia, Underblong and elsewhere. She proudly hosted, produced, and curated The Word Bookstore Open Mic for two years.
When I bit Barbie’s head off, when I stole Jim’s racecar pajamas, wearing them underneath. My baseball cap seemingly surgically attached from kindergarten through college I waged war whenever asked about
wearing tops on bathing suits. When I swigged Sprite, imitating you drinking Heineken, emulating you wiping the drips with my sleeve instead of napkin. I wore a sweatshirt over two t-shirts both always stained
(one from mustard the other blood.) Hating you teasing me, saying I wanted to marry Joe Namath— yeah, no. I wanted to be Joe Namath and you knew it. When I said call me “Sport” instead of “sweetheart,”
shoving my hands deep in my pockets, practicing spitting, knuckle-cracking, peeing while standing. Toothpick in mouth, sticking out, like a thug or a gangster. All those times begging through a payphone for authentic cowboy boots, begging
for thick brown leather belts pleading for LL Bean Black Watch plaid flannel, desperate for a men’s navy blazer— my holy grail— the secret inside pockets where I’d conceal
a pocketknife, lighter, playing cards, marbles, string. I used to write you from my bunk in camp, with a flashlight write asking for a men’s 10-speed, GI Joes, sling shots, boxing gloves, Daisy Rifle,
boomerang, chemistry sets, erector sets, a set of real walkie talkies to communicate clearly, hoping I could be understood. I’d shave my face stealing shaving cream you left behind,
slapping on your old aftershave, imagining your big sandpaper hands bookending my face. I’d thank grandpa whenever he’d chuckle at me saying, “You could pass for a starting linebacker!” “You
definitely walk like Bucky Dent” said Uncle Stanley. My favorite however, remains, “You move like a bull in a china shop”— which mom said a lot, between her cigarette puffs describing me to myself, forever making zero sense. After you left her,
leaving me too, alone fishing around in the dark for loose quarters, dimes, nickels I’d save up, never spending. Your remnants, I saved in this empty cigar box I hid under my bed. Keeping it wrapped in tin foil, dropping it on your blanket in the end, coming out to you.
National Bestselling author J Brooke’s (they/them) debut poetry book, I Can Tell You The Version That Will Make You Take My Side, received a starred Kirkus review, is a USA Today Bestseller, is included in Ms. Magazine’s Best Poetry Books of 2026, won Driftwood Press’s Editor Choice Award, and was Ashland Press’s 2025 Richard Snyder Prize Finalist. Brooke’s other honors include Pushcart & Best of the Net nominations, The Iowa Review’s 2025 Nonfiction Prize Finalist, Columbia Journal’s 2020 Nonfiction Prize Winner. Their work appears in Electric Lit, McSweeney’s, The Rumpus, Harvard Review, and elsewhere. They are Poetry Editor at Trans Poetics Archive and the Book Reviews Editor at The Rumpus. They can be found at JBrookewrites.com.
Photo Credit: Juan Camillo Garza
EMDASH a.k.a Emily Lu Gao (高璐璐) (she/they) is a poet-who-also-writes-fiction, educator, and daughter of Chinese immigrants. She writes to heal, grow, and decolonize. They’ve received support from LAMBDA, McCormack Writing Center, Sundress Publications, Bread Loaf Environmental Writers Conference, The Chinese American Museum of LA, Jersey City Arts Council and more. She has learned as much from community organizing and open mics as she did from her Rutgers-Newark MFA in Poetry. They’re published in Poetry Northwest, ANMLY, Alocasia, Underblong and elsewhere. She proudly hosted, produced, and curated The Word Bookstore Open Mic for two years.
The very first time I consider ending my life I am four. Me and my brother are permitted a walk
after dinner (us leaving only after folding our napkins and politely requesting, may I be
excused?) to explore resort terrain in places like Acapulco— places that put jealous faces on teachers
when we go back wearing tans, delivering show-and-tell trinkets like leftover pesos and piñatas. We skip,
hop on one leg run fast along pristine paths snaking around spa buildings, tennis courts, giant swimming pools. We
impersonate a tightrope act, balancing along floating docks yachts cling to by rope. I stick with my brother, older
by five years he is constantly checking his glow- in-the-dark Timex, deciding when to turn back. This one night is different: I’m not
excused to accompany my brother on a walk. I’m excused instead to head to theladies room (I only call it that to her—
to my mother or she won’t allow me my exit) I never use that word otherwise and never ever enter doors saying it. Instead,
I slip into mens rooms or when on vacations like this I’ll use those bathrooms marked restroom next to the pool. Coming
back, I hear my brother whistling to himself, so I go quietly find him. BOO! I yell so he jumps laughs chases me and I run then hide
behind a tree. He is better at pretty much everything, except not at hide-and-seek, or jax, or red-light- green-light 1 – 2 – 3 or
kickball or rope climbing. And if I hold my breath when I hide, he gives up, yelling, Come out! Come out! Wherever you are! without ever finding
me. This night after he yells come out I reappear, begging for one more time so he covers both eyes and counts. I take off, running on grass instead of cement
so my patent leather shoes go silent. I head to the Pro Shop— darkened and closed at night— the headless mannequins in tennis outfits attract but also spook me so
I try to look / not look and I squint a bit and zoom upstairs to the second level— open air, a canopy top and heavy chairs jumbled like cutlery thrown down a staircase
by folks dragging them into odd positions to watch tennis matches on the courts below. Ready or not here I come shouts my brother, peeling hands from his eyes, walking
looking behind trees, trying his hardest but not even coming close to finding me. From my perch I see him in a way I rarely can— tippy top of his head
where his part divides his hair. So neat looking— impossibly hard straight- line side part like he used a ruler. I see his Timex glowing (he wears it outside his shirt cinching tight
his sleeve like a belt around a slim waist) super unmanly my father says… Except my brother doesn’t care when anyone says stuff like that, simply preferring
not moving his sleeve out of the way to reveal time. My eyes drool seeing the tops of his loafers too— perfect shiny brown penny loafers I want to possess
so badly. Instead of pennies I’d put pesos inside those slots, but my mother says maybe to me getting a pair after I outgrow shoes I wear and hate. Pretty much wanting
everything my brother has and pretty much getting none of it. Except if his Timex breaks he’ll get another, and I’m promised his broken one. Why do you want a broken watch
not able to tell time? Leni asks. It won’t matter I tell Leni because I can’t tell time, I say. Really, I just want to feel the tight band squeeze my skin— feel
the burning metal heated by sun like what happens when I let my teaspoon soak in hot tea— I use it under the table to burn my hand, singeing me a little, leaving a mark behind
on my palm like a real tattoo like Popeye has. I don’t like Popeye, but I like sailor uniforms a lot— I like I’m Popeye the sailor manI’m Popeye the sailor man… that song
I hum to myself whenever I’m eating Alpha Bits or Apple Jacks. I think it’s crazy I’m not allowed anything basically every other kid gets to do, and yet I can make myself breakfast
from cereals no other kid ever gets to eat. Sugar I appreciate but it can’t stop me thinking about suicide. Not this very first time on this vacation in Acapulco— while I’m
playing hide-and-seek with my brother I hear screaming, Jimmy! It’s my mother calling him Jimmy! She just keeps screaming until he pops up like toast popping
out from the toaster— then he jumps to attention like my GI Joe saluting Yes? My mother, still screaming, Have you seenthat sister of yours? My brother’s head
darts side to side like a pinball desperate trying to discern from where her voice is screaming. From my perch I see her smoke first, clouding above tall hedges quickly
moving in our direction. Peering over the railing to the tennis court below I know if I jump, I won’t bounce
like a tennis ball,
or even like a racquet hurled hard at the rubber surface by older kids getting mad during lessons. I know I will die quickly— upon impact, leaving my body
lying in a jumble like on CSI before the sheet covers the corpse I imagine my blood spreading outwards, a fat puddle all around me like red wine infecting a cocktail napkin when
the glass gets over-filled. I imagine my mother, still smoking, looking down at me. Would she touch me? I wonder, see if I have any life left in me? I decide she wouldn’t—
instead, she’ll have my father lift me up and carry me— my corpse— away to where? Where will my body be kept until vacation ends and we all go home for my funeral? Why
I don’t jump this night doesn’t matter. What matters is I think something I can never unthink. That matters a great deal to me. Even if I didn’t think about dying more
than other kids growing up in unhappy families, I now knew something— I now held the power to control one perfect thing in my life— even if it ended up becoming the last thing ever in my life.
Now armed, I was a fire fighter commanding infinite water extinguishing violent flames. Later, while catching hell from my mother I pretend- fall asleep amidst screaming and my heart
pounding like it does when I’m in trouble. Except now, cushioning my heart beats as a piano damper pedal muffles sound, floated this new, light, soft impossible freedom—
freedom to get away, for good. That carried me off to sleep this night, an angel cocooning me safely upwards.
National Bestselling author J Brooke’s (they/them) debut poetry book, I Can Tell You The Version That Will Make You Take My Side, received a starred Kirkus review, is a USA Today Bestseller, is included in Ms. Magazine’s Best Poetry Books of 2026, won Driftwood Press’s Editor Choice Award, and was Ashland Press’s 2025 Richard Snyder Prize Finalist. Brooke’s other honors include Pushcart & Best of the Net nominations, The Iowa Review’s 2025 Nonfiction Prize Finalist, Columbia Journal’s 2020 Nonfiction Prize Winner. Their work appears in Electric Lit, McSweeney’s, The Rumpus, Harvard Review, and elsewhere. They are Poetry Editor at Trans Poetics Archive and the Book Reviews Editor at The Rumpus. They can be found at JBrookewrites.com.
Photo Credit: Juan Camillo Garza
EMDASH a.k.a Emily Lu Gao (高璐璐) (she/they) is a poet-who-also-writes-fiction, educator, and daughter of Chinese immigrants. She writes to heal, grow, and decolonize. They’ve received support from LAMBDA, McCormack Writing Center, Sundress Publications, Bread Loaf Environmental Writers Conference, The Chinese American Museum of LA, Jersey City Arts Council and more. She has learned as much from community organizing and open mics as she did from her Rutgers-Newark MFA in Poetry. They’re published in Poetry Northwest, ANMLY, Alocasia, Underblong and elsewhere. She proudly hosted, produced, and curated The Word Bookstore Open Mic for two years.
This week, Managing Editor Merrick Sloane shares a new selection from each of their 5 favorite books featured on The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed so far this year.
Merrick’s final selection for the mid-year best of 2026 is from Affidavit by Starr Davis (Hanging Loose Press 2026).
IN OHIO
My mother is asleep by six o’clock every evening although on her taxes she still checks single never married. Most of her relationships have been ten years or more She falls asleep with dark cognac warm on her lips. No man to worry about; no children to listen out for She has always worked on assembly. The same thing every day is a safe life Love never guarantees such a luxury. She opts out; she works to stay safe out the way Her work clothes are draped across a chair. A fresh coffee filter sits readily near the pot She takes her coffee black. Calls me fancy for adding almond milk and sugar to mine— All her daughters are grown with homes of their own, she says. As a proud accomplishment None of us were teenage mothers. We went to school Sometimes to church. Motherhood is a war she won We knew how to lock the doors and windows. We knew how to tell men at the gas station to fuck off We knew how to earn a living by eighteen. We knew why we had to leave by eighteen— At some point, they called us lucky. And maybe I felt lucky for a while I made it without a father, I say this to strangers. As a proud accomplishment When my daughter is born, and I am grown enough To be a mother I fall asleep when the city is useless. When all the bars and clubs close down nearing the witching hours— Times I used to sneak back into the house. Back when I wasn’t grown, and my mother had children Wild, loose girls to listen out for.
Daughters she would curse for coming in late Daughters she raised to know better. Daughters she raised to be grown enough
To tell men at the gas station to fuck off. Daughters she raised like sons— And when I close my eyes, I see the man. Dark and toxic like the one my mother drinks alone. A man who bought me a drink one night. In exchange for a baby by morning I can see him standing in a courtroom of shadows. Telling a judge I am no mother to his child I am a wild, loose girl from Ohio on the run. With a baby that is his I am unwed, alone. My last year’s taxes I check, single never married Emotionally unstable—or does he call me dangerous? Is there a difference? I leave Texas fleetingly like I had been gone On a bad date all night
My mother is asleep when my plane lands. At the only airport in town—my baby is tied to my chest like a pacemaker. The day before I laid my clothes out like the first day of school. I sit an empty coffee mug by the machine. My important documents: the ones that say I am human woman. Naming the generation that has come from my body and is legally mine I worry about the man sleeping next to me. The child who binds us for the next 18 years to life is asleep across the room in her bassinet. She is soon to become fatherless in hours soon to be the daughter my mother taught me to be. The one I vow to teach to know better To tell men at the gas station to fuck off. Maybe not verbally—but just with her eyes That morning, I drink my coffee black. I am no longer fancy with a baby I put on leggings and a t-shirt. A jacket because I am always in winter Someone tells me the best way to leave an abuser— Is like a burglar, jumping inside a getaway cloud The sun is out the day I take off. Nearing the hour
My mother probably takes her lunch break. I run into the hot sun bright like death I wake up on the other side of myself. The girl from Ohio I left behind some time ago I call my mother at the airport. Knowing better than to knock at her door at this hour when Only women who aren’t real women are outside. She does not answer the phone when I call— No man to worry about; no child to listen out for.
Starr Davis (she/her) is a poet and essayist whose work has appeared in The Kenyon Review, Academy of American Poet’s Poem-a-Day, and The Rumpus. She was the 2024 Writing Freedom Fellow with Haymarket Books and the Mellon Foundation.
Merrick Sloane (they/them) is a neuro-Queer 90’s kid and nonbinary poet, editor, and researcher from Oklahoma. They hold an MFA in creative writing from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and are Associate Poetry Editor of Doubleback Review. A 2026 Best of the Net and 2025 AWP Intro Journal Awards winner, Merrick’s poetry appears in citizen trans* {project}, Seattle Journal for Social Justice, Fruitslice, Puerto del Sol, and elsewhere. When they are not writing or editing, Merrick loves to serve as a pillow for their cat, Kitten, while getting lost in new worlds written by other dreamers. Merrick is deeply committed to helping create a world that liberates us all.
This week, Managing Editor Merrick Sloane shares a new selection from each of their 5 favorite books featured on The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed so far this year.
Merrick’s fourth selection for the mid-year best of 2026 is from local remedies by Chiagoziem Jideofor (Host Publications 2026).
in today’s terms
the war ended when we had just folded
the impact was leaden we picked up panic
it then grew to become war hence the need to tell it in parts
in today’s terms are dazed and struggling
while the generals patrol the streets coordinate door-to-door
at home, we stay worrying why we aren’t yet dazzling,
when a greater force met our bodies like businesses stockpiling only rebel notes
with the flies circling and buzzing picked up bulk in adjourning rooms
that happened differently, and attach local colors
war means people are in no hurry with replacements
with an air in the name of civil obedience
the boys asking so unlike the sun in our flag
Chiagoziem Jideofor (she/her) is Queer and Igbo. Her work has appeared in Poetry, Michigan Quarterly Review, South Carolina Review, berlin lit, The Lincoln Review, Passages North, Commonwealth’s adda, the minnesota review, Shō Poetry Journal, MAYDAY, and elsewhere. She earned an MFA from the University of Alabama and is currently a PhD student at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
Merrick Sloane (they/them) is a neuro-Queer 90’s kid and nonbinary poet, editor, and researcher from Oklahoma. They hold an MFA in creative writing from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and are Associate Poetry Editor of Doubleback Review. A 2026 Best of the Net and 2025 AWP Intro Journal Awards winner, Merrick’s poetry appears in citizen trans* {project}, Seattle Journal for Social Justice, Fruitslice, Puerto del Sol, and elsewhere. When they are not writing or editing, Merrick loves to serve as a pillow for their cat, Kitten, while getting lost in new worlds written by other dreamers. Merrick is deeply committed to helping create a world that liberates us all.
This week, Managing Editor Merrick Sloane shares a new selection from each of their 5 favorite books featured on The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed so far this year.
Merrick’s next selection for the mid-year best of 2026 is from The Fault by Marcela Sulak (Black Lawrence Press 2024).
WEDDING GIFT
The print that began the ending of my marriage was so gorgeous, I’d forgotten how gorgeous it was in real life, laid out on the examination table, as the framer and I took measure of what lay before us—the paper itself and the textures, alive and breathing. The whale inside it shook a bit and swished, but it might have been the waves brushing against a stone, or it might not have been water at all, just strange birds in the Negev against a blue and white sky about to blink off without the fanfare of sunset. Tears burst when my fingertips brushed it. The framer, also, cleared his throat upon sliding it from its canister and unfolding it across the table. He touched the ragged edges and caressed the signature—print 1 of 12, he whispered. Every time he touched it he asked permission, as if we were lovers—may I remove it from its box? May I spread it out? The framer is going to Monte Negro for a week, so he’ll have it ready on Friday, Sept. 20. Once home, I undress and wait in bed, the sheets and covers indeterminate colors of green, for the dream to return to the point it left off, the last time I touched it. Then I was swimming all night through the air/sand/water that was the page of the print, and while nothing in particular happened, it was the nothing particular that happens when you walk on a strange and beautiful landscape for the first time. Or the nothing particular that ends a marriage. Then every leaf and every water drop and every strange flower is a happening.
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.
Merrick Sloane (they/them) is a neuro-Queer 90’s kid and nonbinary poet, editor, and researcher from Oklahoma. They hold an MFA in creative writing from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and are Associate Poetry Editor of Doubleback Review. A 2026 Best of the Net and 2025 AWP Intro Journal Awards winner, Merrick’s poetry appears in citizen trans* {project}, Seattle Journal for Social Justice, Fruitslice, Puerto del Sol, and elsewhere. When they are not writing or editing, Merrick loves to serve as a pillow for their cat, Kitten, while getting lost in new worlds written by other dreamers. Merrick is deeply committed to helping create a world that liberates us all.
This week, Managing Editor Merrick Sloane shares a new selection from each of their 5 favorite books featured on The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed so far this year.
Merrick’s second selection for the mid-year best of 2026 is from Wolves in Shells by Kimberly Ann Priest (The University of Nebraska Press 2025).
Protections
Against the whir of my treadmill a shot rings out
and a wolf is gunned down—O-Six, they named her,
numinous alpha female of Yellowstone National Park
because she survived solo.
Even the commentator says this was unusual
and dangerous; yet she was beloved for acuity
and beauty, face like an owl mask against snow white.
I listen as the hunter celebrates his kill, the documentary
rolling. My treadmill rolling.
They had lifted the ban on hunting wolves that year—
endangered status just long enough for a female
to become her own pack, survive, surpass the males of her kind.
Kimberly Ann Priest (she/her) is a writer and visual artist whose book Wolves in Shells won the 2024 Backwaters Prize in Poetry from the University of Nebraska Press. She is the author of four full-length books of poetry and an assistant professor in the Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and Cultures at Michigan State University. Her poetry has appeared in Copper Nickel, Poetry Wales, Prairie Schooner, and Birmingham Poetry Review.
Merrick Sloane (they/them) is a neuro-Queer 90’s kid and nonbinary poet, editor, and researcher from Oklahoma. They hold an MFA in creative writing from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and are Associate Poetry Editor of Doubleback Review. A 2026 Best of the Net and 2025 AWP Intro Journal Awards winner, Merrick’s poetry appears in citizen trans* {project}, Seattle Journal for Social Justice, Fruitslice, Puerto del Sol, and elsewhere. When they are not writing or editing, Merrick loves to serve as a pillow for their cat, Kitten, while getting lost in new worlds written by other dreamers. Merrick is deeply committed to helping create a world that liberates us all.
This week, Managing Editor Merrick Sloane shares a new selection from each of their 5 favorite books featured on The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed so far this year.
Merrick’s first selection for the mid-year best of 2026 is from These Aren’t My Woods Anymore by Soon Jones (Poetose Press 2025).
You Could Be Pretty
When my breasts betrayed me the first time by arriving before I was ten, my stepmother forced me to wear lacey bras and satin underwear, telling me not to be a whore as she threw me at any boy or grown man who looked, hoping for a shotgun marriage.
So I stopped wearing dresses outside of church and at weddings. I stopped wanting to be pretty. Wore thrifted Timberland boots and large shirts, carried knives.
I treated makeup like an exotic curiosity and yes, it makes me pretty. Creates someone new
and vulnerable, someone who looks safe. Instead I learned to throw a punch without breaking my wrists. Learned to throw grown men over my hip like fussy children. Developed an early eye for tight groupings, center mass.
Learned to hold a rifle as close as a lover to my shoulder, and open my bones to each bullet’s shockwave, to the unrelenting hunger of the world.
Soon Jones (they/them) is a Korean-American lesbian poet and writer raised in the rural countryside of the American South. They are a Lambda Literary Fellow with an MFA from Oklahoma State University. Their work has appeared in Sinister Wisdom, Denver Quarterly, Lunch Ticket, Moon City Review, and others, and their debut collection, These Aren’t My Woods Anymore, is out now from Poetose Press. When not writing poems or working on cars, you can find Soon going on long walks through nature or stargazing.
Merrick Sloane (they/them) is a neuro-Queer 90’s kid and nonbinary poet, editor, and researcher from Oklahoma. They hold an MFA in creative writing from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and are Associate Poetry Editor of Doubleback Review. A 2026 Best of the Net and 2025 AWP Intro Journal Awards winner, Merrick’s poetry appears in citizen trans* {project}, Seattle Journal for Social Justice, Fruitslice, Puerto del Sol, and elsewhere. When they are not writing or editing, Merrick loves to serve as a pillow for their cat, Kitten, while getting lost in new worlds written by other dreamers. Merrick is deeply committed to helping create a world that liberates us all.
