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

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May/June 2018 |

We’re Building Trees Again

I’ve never been much of a salesman.
Though I skid on the dark turns, I don’t crash.
Woods surround the field where the men were gathered.
There’s a dead maple stripped of bark.
First termites, then woodpeckers come.
I was left behind by the glacier.
A boulder in the field too big to move.
The stream runs in thick blue ballpoint.
A hunter told us the raccoon was full of ink.
Bees collect ink from the clover and make weird honey.
My hand is shaped like a map of Michigan.
My mind is in Detroit.
We’re building trees again.

Philip Brooks
Philip Brooks lives in the wilds of Ohio with his wife, son, schnoodle, and four tortoises. His work has appeared in the Quarterly, Willow Springs, The Beloit Poetry Journal, and Mudlark.