April 2023 | Best of Net nominee, nonfiction
Governing the Western Field
Mowing the field west of the train car my grandfather bought in 1935, a retired Pullman, the “Constitution.” It perches above Rock Creek, overlooking a floodplain of thick woods where bluebells carpet the floor in spring.
I’ve waited too long. The grass, two or three feet tall, hides mounds of dirt and winter-downed branches dropped from oaks fringing the field’s perimeter. My right foot rides the Deere’s clutch continuously, my right hand on the mower’s lever to raise when hearing the blade hit wood or hillock. Duck out of the way as brambles and branches the vertical exhaust pipe catches then sweeps back at me. The first pass goes slowly, in first gear, gas levered high to speed the mower’s revolutions, my path a snail’s coil into the center, throwing what amounts to hay bubbling out like a wake behind the five-foot blade, the right front tire treading on previously mown grass. The fuzz of dust and seeds build on my naked back. Something briefly blinds an eye. The knuckles on the index finger of my left hand turning the steering wheel burns like it’s been macheted. The mower lowers to kill what poison ivy it can. I swing as close as possible to the trunks of outlying trees to cut the flora around visible and invisible roots.
There used to be beef cattle here. We’d climb the fence, the top wire barbed, and walk with our hardballs, mitts, and Louisville sluggers to the open area of the field from which we’d chase any cattle grazing there back into the woods and ravine beyond left field. We’d pitch and hit, run to first while the outfield ran down the ball, no one not stepping in cow pies, their crusted shells squished open to gooey yellow filling spreading onto the rubber bottoms and up the canvas sides of Keds. Rules were Main Man out, right field closed if not enough players, at-bat team pitches to itself, and any ball thrown to home plate for an out can’t be intentionally dropped.
Now the fence is down, the farmland’s sold, and the floodplain where my brothers and farmers on horseback herded cattle up to the barns for feeding has been given to the town for a public park. Our family owns only the five acres around the train car.
A third time around mulches, somewhat, the long, bunched, pale green clumps of stems, thistles, and occasional early wildflower. The field needs raking. I’ll wait for people to help me with that. It’s illegal, but we’ll burn the piled grass, the gray smoke giving us away. No one will bother to come. It is, after all, early spring, and nature needs to be governed.
Richard Holinger
Richard Holinger’s books include the essay collection, Kangaroo Rabbits and Galvanized Fences, and North of Crivitz, poetry of the Upper Midwest. His work has appeared in Southern Review, Witness, ACM, Ocotillo Review, and Boulevard, and has garnered four Pushcart Prize nominations. “Not Everybody’s Nice” won the 2012 Split Oak Press Flash Prose Contest, and his Thread essay was designated a Notable in Best American Essays, 2018. Degrees include a Ph.D. in Creative Writing from the University of Illinois at Chicago and a M.A. in English from Washington University. Holinger has taught English and creative writing on the university and secondary school levels and lives northwest of Chicago far enough to see deer, turkeys, and foxes cross his lawn. He’s working on two collections, creative nonfiction and short fiction, many pieces already appearing in journals such as Iowa Review, Western Humanities Review, Chicago Quarterly, Hobart.
April 2023 | poetry
I navigate this world,
kneading dough for company
as I swirl about memories
like tea
in a delicate chipped cup–
I move through the stars
spheres rotate between seconds
and I whisper to crystals when you are gone:
for the closets were just emptied of camping gear–
and when I sleep through the sleet and snow
the umbilical cord is released
before I rush into my own ravine.
Cosmic scissors unchain my feet:
I scribble secrets within the sacred box
and wait for cherubs to rush before me,
fluttering scents amongst the ripening seeds.
Caroline Reddy
Caroline Reddy’s work has been published in Active Muse, Calliope, Clinch, Clockwise Cat, Deep Overstock, Grey Sparrow, International Human Rights Arts Festival, Star*line and Tupelo Quarterly Review among others. In the fall of 2021, her poem “A Sacred Dance” was nominated for the Best of The Net prize by Active Muse. Caroline Reddy was born in Shiraz, Iran and participated in Mohammad Barrangi’s exhibition-Playing in Wonderland. Caroline Reddy also performed her poetry and presented an artist talk with VALA Gallery pertaining to the events in Iran womenlifefreedom-Zan-Zendegi-Azadi.
April 2023 | poetry
For Ellie
You say you caught yourself wondering if
the world would be
when you were gone.
Rumpled bed sheets rumpled bedsheets.
The sound of a small brass bell to ring for help
the sound of a small brass bell.
Hair comb in hand at the ready
to fix the damage from hands patting your head.
I wonder why
the vase of ranunculus and baby’s breath
sits on the kitchen counter.
You ask about images of a woman
floating behind me.
We spend the hour reciting small histories.
I ask about the light. What color.
Gold, you say,
pointing at the carpet of gingko leaves
falling throughout the day.
Grateful we don’t rake them up.
Joan M. White
Joan White lives in Vermont where she spends her time with plants and language. Her work has been published in American Journal of Poetry, Cider Press Review, Abstract Magazine, NPR’s On Being Blog, among others.
April 2023 | poetry
I thought this poem might be
about children, but I found
Maxine Cumin’s collection Nurture
as I sifted through piles of books,
the title which implies children
but isn’t about children at all
and anyway, I keep calling the book Nature
because I do that. I see a word
and read it as another,
change one letter in my mind,
superimpose what’s not there,
and let’s be honest, what’s not
in the title is here as I sit
on a deck that overlooks
the St. Vrain River, the sound
of water caught somewhere
between its potential of thunderous
rushing and the quick patter
of rain falling from the edge of the eaves,
the latter the only sound of water
this girl might really know,
and I do believe I must have changed
one letter somewhere, must have
superimposed this place over cracked
pavement, superimposed the dogleg
bend in the river, over water that flows
around curbs into storm sewers,
and while this all seems real enough,
a black plastic bag is caught
in a nearby tree. It hangs,
expanding and contracting
like a loose lung.
Cristina Trapani-Scott
Cristina Trapani-Scott is a writer and artist who lives in the foothills of the Colorado Rocky Mountains with her partner. Her work has been published in the Paterson Literary Review, Hip Mama Magazine, Cleaver Magazine, and Orca: A Literary Journal, among others. She also holds an MFA in writing from the Naslund-Mann Graduate School of Writing at Spalding University. In addition, she teaches creative writing online and serves on the leadership team of the Writing Heights Writers Association. She also is a contributing editor at the Good River Review.
April 2023 | poetry
I killed the boar above the low rise with strewn sagebrush.
The breath in his punctured lungs continuing to wheeze out
as his feet kicked into the earth looking for an escape.
A tidy murder. Clean, they said, not bad for a first time.
They tore into our bellies with a buck handle knife.
Fistfuls of tacky fat dumped on the dirty scrub. Bloody meat
produced from the cavity. Membrane and muscle cut away.
The knife occasionally glancing off my ribs as they cut away
the last parts of me.
Villaraigosa looks over to me, blood specks like fine pins
tattooing his face and he asks how I’m feeling…
How can I tell him that I have ascended a stairway,
making sure not to look back to the landing
below that is being consumed by the pillar of fire.
Paul Macomber
Paul Macomber earned his BA in Literature from Cal State San Bernardino and his MA in Management from the University of Redlands. He currently teaches at a public high school in Redlands, California. Outside of the classroom, he loves to travel with his wife anywhere that has buildings older than the ones in California. His poetry has previously been published in The Pacific Review.
