Wendy lives in Kentucky and has an MA in Integrative Studies from Northern Kentucky University. Her work has been published in Sugared Water and Journal of Kentucky Studies.
Kristin Koester spends her time battling forest fires in her brain and making art out of life. She is proud to be Kentucky-born and finds refuge in a nook where the Ohio and Licking Rivers meet, opposite of Cincinnati. Her poetry appears in Licking River Review.
Nicci Mechler splits her time between exploring, telling tales, and painting girls with inky tattoos. Her most recent work appears in Lines+Stars, Arroyo Literary Review, Booth, Rose Red Review and Yew. Deep in Flesh, her chapbook of poetry, is forthcoming (dancing girl press). She lives in Cincinnati, Ohio with a pack of roomies & rescue animals specializing in troublemaking and joy. Nicci runs Porkbelly Press and blogs at damnredshoes.wordpress.com.
Hilda Weaver graduated from Miami University (Ohio with a BA in English), and later got a Master’s Degree in Clinical and Applied Psychology from Virginia Commonwealth University. She worked over 30 years as a psychotherapist and Marriage and Family Therapist as well as an addictions counselor. Retired now for several years, she writes poetry and finds herself otherwise spectacularly lazy. Her work appears in Sugared Water, Offcourse, 94 Creations, Uppagus, and her first micro chapbook is titled The Autobiography of a Love Not Mine (Porkbelly Press, 2014).
TO KNEEL AT ROCK WALLS
and hollowed trunks,
this is what I dream—
but what becomes my knees swollen, swallowed
with art of trees. Here
to find what lies
behind the branches of our hearts.
It is cold outside—
so chilly in this house that the tea towels
have holes gnawed up for a mouse nest.
The pine floor creaks with knowing.
I hear the ting-ting of snow
on the thin tin roof. My thoughts wander
to the Labyrinth inside me,
and it’s not concentric yet.