In lieu of an editor's note, I offer you a cento, a patchwork of words from this issue's contributors: Carol Barrett, Nicole Brooks, Marion Brown, Li Chen, Melissa Eleftherion, Suzanne Langlois, Natalie Marino, Heather Qin, Purbasha Roy, Jen Stein, Jen Grace Stewart, Kate Sweeney, Kwan Ann Tan, E.N. Walztoni, and Maggie Yang.
Think of this cento as the sweet person in a hairnet and gloves standing behind a makeshift table in the supermarket and passing out miniscule paper cups filled with morsels of something warm. How to resist such deliciousness? Particularly when paired with these gorgeous watercolors by Aiyana Masla (whose poem "Glimmerers" was published in the July / August 2022 issue of WTR).
Check out the slideshow of Masla's art, learn more about the artist, including what she's currently reading and how Ocean Vuong continues to inspire her creativity.
Once again, I cannot thank WTR's contributors and editors enough. This is a community effort! Please do send our West Trestlers some love in the socials if that's your thing. Patricia Caspers Founding Editor-in-Chief West Trestle Review
My hair folds across my back like fronds across a cloud. We tuck paper cranes between your toes, a family bloodline jagged of stitches. Do you know hunger and the smell of hot fat? fish braised in soy sauce, my grandma's specialty dish
the sidewalk is alligators the spoon shoved in my mouth the taste of salt as dark as the colour of my lips, the bleak gray-scale of winter replaced with forsythia Red clouds threatened me with arrhythmias as I pointed at the stars and mistook them for airplanes like a found beat in an almost silent pulse.
They pulse in my neck, nest behind my ear. A trail of crows flew over the gulch.
I am afraid of trapdoors, the dark, mutton, the chasm of language.
WTR is a volunteer-run endeavor. If you'd like to donate to help us keep the lights on (pay our Submittable fee) and offer occasional free submissions to all, we will love you forever. Check out our 2021 finance report.