Category: Wardrobe Best Dressed

The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: Incidental Pollen by Ellen Austin-Li

This selection, chosen by guest editor Layla Lenhardt, is from Incidental Pollen by Ellen Austin-Li (Madville Publishing 2025).

When the World Was Holy

               after Mary O’Connell

What I have to tell you is true.
There was a day I came home
from the hospital and sat alone
by the front window, perched
on the arm of Dad’s chair and stared—

                              each blade of grass breathed

                                             on the lawn, new green pulses,

                              while the air was a violet lung

                                             expanding and contracting—

                                                            every ray of the sun sang.

I tell you these things,
although they seem un-
believable. I scarcely believed myself, but the pull
of metal staples holding together
the skin on my abdomen, the ache
of core muscles still split
by surgical wound, grounded my body.

                              Some Spirit lifted me.

Memory
of this moment is all I can conjure,
as the knowing             slipped away
like some rare animal relegated to legend.

I was revisited in the unlikeliest place:
my bedroom, twenty-five years later, where
I tried to outpace this wild

                              thirst, the first drink that would melt into my tongue

                                             like the answer to a desert prayer,

                                                            though I knew the well was poison

                                                                           and would just as soon kill me.

                              I’d take the chance. Desperate. On the edge

                                             of trading my son, my family, for oblivion—

                                                            instead, I opened        a book

to a story written by a man from the 1930s

and saw myself on the page. The words

caught fire like some flame fed by oxygen,

                              wings beating, pouring pure blue grace

                                             until                    I stilled.

                              The god in the grass had returned.

A disease of the soul—that’s what
had been wrong with me all along.

I tried to shout the news to everyone
who’d grown weary of my darkness,
but their eyes glazed over when I spoke,

like I was some mad woman on the subway

                              ranting about how she’s met God.

I’m not saying you have to believe me.
I just want you to hear: I’ve touched

when the world was holy.

Ellen Austin-Li‘s debut collection, Incidental Pollen—a 2023 Trio Award finalist, 2024 Wisconsin Poetry Series semi-finalist, and runner-up to the 2023 Arthur Smith Poetry Prize—is forthcoming (May 2025) from Madville Publishing. Finishing Line Press published her chapbooks Firefly and Lockdown: Scenes From Early in the Pandemic. Ellen is a Pushcart Prize & Best of the Net nominated poet whose work appears in many journals and anthologies, such as Salamander, One Art, The Maine Review, Lily Poetry Review, and Rust & Moth. SAFTA has supported her work. Ellen curates the monthly reading series Poetry Night at Sitwell’s in Cincinnati, where she shares an empty nest with her husband.


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. 

The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: MOTHERDEVIL by Kailey Tedesco

This selection, chosen by guest editor Layla Lenhardt, is from MOTHERDEVIL by Kailey Tedesco (White Stag Publishing 2024).

the fifth child

we all know the dark / how to sip it
mama had me clear / night wide
with smoke / mood rings raining / anger
rocks pouring on our rooftop / i cobble
them / leather my wares / make a profit
off freak floods flash storms / sitting pretty
proud sitting upset / i know mercury
before anyone / know astrological signs /
know a brother / coming down the line
sooner than we think / a curse-birth a blanket
an ending to all of us / something exists

Kailey Tedesco is the author of four full-length collections of poetry, including Lizzie, Speak (winner of White Stag Publishing’s 2018 Poetry Contest). Her most recent work, MOTHERDEVIL, is out now from White Stag Publishing. She teaches courses on Gothic literature and writing and she is a member of the Horror Writers Association. Recently, her poetry placed both first & second place in the Science Fiction Poetry Association’s 2024 Speculative Poetry Contest. You can find her work in Electric Literature, Fairy Tale Review, Black Warrior Review, Epiphany Lit, The Journal, Driftwood Press, Passages North, and more.  


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. 

The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: MOTHERDEVIL by Kailey Tedesco

This selection, chosen by guest editor Layla Lenhardt, is from MOTHERDEVIL by Kailey Tedesco (White Stag Publishing 2024).

antepartum

a witch is everything a mother is not                              i curdle
                                my screams                    make reverse-milk
i bathe in not-blood & advent my trimesters
                                the afterbirths               strung up on the wall
how can i build my house out of sweets                       un-shoe our roofing
                & live to tell the tale?                                 i am not
the one who winds up        figuring
                what kind of fairest-of-all / what kind of deep stare
into the mirror                    of the lake                        i’ll be
                                               once you’re born

Kailey Tedesco is the author of four full-length collections of poetry, including Lizzie, Speak (winner of White Stag Publishing’s 2018 Poetry Contest). Her most recent work, MOTHERDEVIL, is out now from White Stag Publishing. She teaches courses on Gothic literature and writing and she is a member of the Horror Writers Association. Recently, her poetry placed both first & second place in the Science Fiction Poetry Association’s 2024 Speculative Poetry Contest. You can find her work in Electric Literature, Fairy Tale Review, Black Warrior Review, Epiphany Lit, The Journal, Driftwood Press, Passages North, and more.  


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. 

The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: MOTHERDEVIL by Kailey Tedesco

This selection, chosen by guest editor Layla Lenhardt, is from MOTHERDEVIL by Kailey Tedesco (White Stag Publishing 2024).

pinelands

enter me
darkness felt-thick
trees bouquet their fascicles
cranberry bog-swaddled
kettle steam echoes the
wyvern-flit window
there is nowhere left to hide among
the pines & pines & pines
each of them a musical
praying horse head
a roadside corsage
my newest infant’s birthmarks bite
it is here they will legend me with broomsticks
between my legs & legs & legs
always just beneath
your strip-malls & sundry shops
their light is spooling too

Kailey Tedesco is the author of four full-length collections of poetry, including Lizzie, Speak (winner of White Stag Publishing’s 2018 Poetry Contest). Her most recent work, MOTHERDEVIL, is out now from White Stag Publishing. She teaches courses on Gothic literature and writing and she is a member of the Horror Writers Association. Recently, her poetry placed both first & second place in the Science Fiction Poetry Association’s 2024 Speculative Poetry Contest. You can find her work in Electric Literature, Fairy Tale Review, Black Warrior Review, Epiphany Lit, The Journal, Driftwood Press, Passages North, and more.  


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. 

The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: MOTHERDEVIL by Kailey Tedesco

This selection, chosen by guest editor Layla Lenhardt, is from MOTHERDEVIL by Kailey Tedesco (White Stag Publishing 2024).

the fourth child

in my sob-lodge / the straw mattress incants
enchantment / raises the dead from boulders
we used to cemetery our side yard/ mama
says she won’t die yet can’t / neither can i
i use my best eyes / the tears from their insides
pipe them in heart-bottles / to be worn mourned
at the neck gone noose-less or noiseless / the forest
quits while it’s beyond me / makes veils of my incisions
my sharpcuts / little mouths for ash of old
& decrepit / i accept i accept it / weeping
now in the desolate / no one has ever seen

Kailey Tedesco is the author of four full-length collections of poetry, including Lizzie, Speak (winner of White Stag Publishing’s 2018 Poetry Contest). Her most recent work, MOTHERDEVIL, is out now from White Stag Publishing. She teaches courses on Gothic literature and writing and she is a member of the Horror Writers Association. Recently, her poetry placed both first & second place in the Science Fiction Poetry Association’s 2024 Speculative Poetry Contest. You can find her work in Electric Literature, Fairy Tale Review, Black Warrior Review, Epiphany Lit, The Journal, Driftwood Press, Passages North, and more.  


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. 

The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: MOTHERDEVIL by Kailey Tedesco

This selection, chosen by guest editor Layla Lenhardt, is from MOTHERDEVIL by Kailey Tedesco (White Stag Publishing 2024).

husbandry

i felt you first                                                   glass shrapnel

sea-shelling my flesh                                  i was a goody once

in our home well-gated                                            no one could hear us

in aperture corners                                    i twisted apple stems until i married

a husband                                        from every letter of the alphabet it is here

in this churning             i learned how

to let the geese bite                          my feeding hand bleeding

how to produce bread                                              it is here i understand my porcelain

adornments                          the enamel of new lives growing

in my croning skin                                       soon i’ll scream myself a zodiac

bruise the birthing dirt                              so full of pain

                                there won’t be any left for you

Kailey Tedesco is the author of four full-length collections of poetry, including Lizzie, Speak (winner of White Stag Publishing’s 2018 Poetry Contest). Her most recent work, MOTHERDEVIL, is out now from White Stag Publishing. She teaches courses on Gothic literature and writing and she is a member of the Horror Writers Association. Recently, her poetry placed both first & second place in the Science Fiction Poetry Association’s 2024 Speculative Poetry Contest. You can find her work in Electric Literature, Fairy Tale Review, Black Warrior Review, Epiphany Lit, The Journal, Driftwood Press, Passages North, and more.  


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. 

The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: Until the End of Time by Mia Herman

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. 

The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: Until the End of Time by Mia Herman

This selection, chosen by guest editor Layla Lenhardt, is from Until the End of Time by Mia Herman (Alien Buddha Press 2023).

content warning for fertility issues

When the Pregnancy Test Is Negative (AGAIN)

I want to wake him with good news—

tell him he’ll never sleep again
because our baby’s wail
will still be ringing in our ears
long after she turns eighteen,

warn him that I must cut caffeine
and fish and booze from my diet
so life as we know it is totally over,

just once catch a fucking glimpse
of that mysterious glow
as I walk past
the bathroom mirror—

but the little blue line sends me back
to bed where I will implant myself
between the sheets and try like hell
to dream of good news.

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. 

The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: Until the End of Time by Mia Herman

This selection, chosen by guest editor Layla Lenhardt, is from Until the End of Time by Mia Herman (Alien Buddha Press 2023).

content warning for fertility issues

Fertility Issues

I cannot
conceive
of a world
in which
I starve
myself
to stay
thin
but here
I am
wasting
away
day
after day
because
I am
afraid
that others
will
mistake
this
god given
bulk
for baby
weight

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. 

The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: Until the End of Time by Mia Herman

This selection, chosen by guest editor Layla Lenhardt, is from Until the End of Time by Mia Herman (Alien Buddha Press 2023).

Adam

it’s me, texting
you on the eve
of our ex-
anniversary.
God it feels like
yesterday that
we were coming
apart at the seams
but it’s been years
and I’m still lying
here under the influence
of dead-end memories.
Tell me, do you
ever feel exposed
knowing that I know
what you look like naked
and sad? Do you ever
wish for fig leaves,
for a way to cover up
the past, a way to go
back, to get extra
time in the garden
when loving each other
was ripe with possibility?
Tell me, do you ever
feel me in your bones
removing one rib
at a time, worming
my way back in?
Or is our history
just that, a bruised
piece of fruit, too rotten
to salvage.

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.