Issue 5.2
Spring 2026

Nicole Callihan
What if nothing is a miracle?
The question occurs to me as I stand with you on the edge of the meadow. I repeat the question in my head until the nothing becomes the thing that is a miracle. I grow giddy. If nothing is a miracle, then what you’ve promised me is miraculous. In the photo you are positioned in front of a wall on which wings are painted. The animal fur of you. But on the edge of the meadow, you’re wearing a red sweater. This will not be the day you tell me you love me, though you’ve said it before, so I imagine it’s implied. Did I ever tell you about the boy in college who wrote sound poems and held a huge leaf in front of his face? We called them language poems back then. There were also narrative poems which this is. I wrote one about the time my mother ripped off her nightgown and threw a grandfather clock down the stairs. The college lit mag published it. The font—maybe 9 point—embarrasses me now, as I was the editor. Clearly a lit mag for the young. Why had I wanted the words to be so small? I feel small today, not even a word in the margin, just a symbol, the way we who make marginalia have our own shorthand, how no one will ever know what was meant by this particular swirl, the one that looks like the clouds which have gathered above the meadow where soon, it seems, it will snow.
Winner of the 2023 Tenth Gate Prize and a 2023 Alma Award, Nicole Callihan has two recent poetry collections: chigger ridge (The Word Works 2024) and SLIP (Saturnalia 2025). Other books include This Strange Garment (Terrapin 2023) and the 2019 novella, The Couples. Her work has appeared in The Kenyon Review, Tin House, Conduit, The American Poetry Review, and as a Poem-a-Day selection from the Academy of American Poets. Find out more at www.nicolecallihan.com.
Nicole's Book Recommendations
Alice Notley, Being Reflected Upon
Allison Blevins, Where Will We Live If the House Burns Down?
Jennifer Martelli, Psychic Party Under the Bottle Tree
Dawn Lundy Martin, Instructions for the Lovers
Zoë Ryder White, The Visible Field