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A Journal of The Literary Arts

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Poetry

Our Lady of the Fallow

Megan Neville

Use the phrase let down like I know what
it is to cry milk through the front of my shirt.

Latch as a closing off or holding in—
depends on which side you’re on. At 40 I switched

to past tense: from I don’t have children to
I didn’t. It’s none of your business, really, but

my ovaries carry such inheritance
they each need a therapist of their own.

In a parking lot I think a seagull is a baby & 
go searching for it. Later at home I hear the baby

& think it’s nothing, just a seagull & scatter 
bread scraps on the ground.

Artwork by Seth Scheving

Seth Scheving is a watercolorist in Anderson, South Carolina. His art style is a combination of unorganized notes and thoughts blended with rigorous, tedious details. All of the work has a vulnerability, dark undertones, or subtle humor. Seth's work has some immediate technical characteristics: white or black backgrounds with large amounts of negative space, animals or portraits, symbolism, heavy use of colors, and handwritten text. Over the past decade, Seth has won multiple art awards, been published in magazines, and has been included in several art shows across the region.
Megan Neville (she/her) is a writer and educator based in Cleveland, Ohio. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Academy of American Poets (Poets.org), Cherry Tree, West Branch, Pleiades, Wildness, McSweeney's, and elsewhere. Her full-length poetry collection The Fallow will be published by Trio House Press in 2022. She is an editorial assistant for Split Lip Magazine, and you can find her on Twitter @MegNev.