Read the winning piece of our 2025 Nonfiction Contest “Through the Mirror” by Jessie Cato selected by Lucy Ives.

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Spring 2011 |

The Animals are Undisturbed

Snow distributes script if music
                                            Pastes its name to speech, all necking
          With its own inflections in the orchard. Winter
Meanwhile strings its trinket to your joke before you

      Even shake the punchline
Loose, regardless of your fleetest finger. Call it anti-
                                                                          Pollination or

          A fucked refrain, apple trees continue
                                                                Giving even now that
Anything-they-think-they-are performance, mirrors
                        For the weather, secret agents for a painting,

          Plagiarizing ice your heart pied-
Pipers from October’s homes. You still insist on remaining the only
                                              Elvis in the field?