issue #1: musical golden shovels

over dinner

29 April 2026

can we? let’s try it now: show your work if you’re able, let me

look on quietly and learn the ammonitic turns you took, the ways

things splintered briefly, came back to themselves, back again to get

nourished by their closeness, back to long touches, laminating, back to

concentrate until they were dark as earth, describe the way things came to rest and from that rest came a garden.

Notes

After “Yes, Anastasia” by Tori Amos.

about the author

Flossie Hedges is a writer, visual artist, and teacher living in the mountains of southeastern Kentucky. She works at a small college that serves the Appalachian region. Her recent writing can be read in EcoTheo Review, Fruitslice, Superpresent, The Fourth River, GARLAND, and the engine(idling, among others.