Note from the Editors



The year creaks on its hinge, and the draft it lets through is icy. Nothing to smell in this cold but a bite of snow, nothing to feel but an aching loneliness, a gazing out over barren fields and the forest beyond, the stars above. The wind is a friend, for all it howls, murmurs, weeps; it is a voice, and for that, we are grateful.

But inside — inside is a hearth, and a flame, and warmth enough to sleep by. It is difficult to know, at this moment, whether we are heading out to or coming in from the cold.

In this issue you will find seeds, and longing, and resilience. You will find girls and women to stare the world down. You will see spark after spark against the dark and hear voices on the wind.

This issue is dedicated to everyone who's ever felt alone, or hopeless, or afraid on a New Year's eve. Know that you aren't alone, not entirely — so long as you read this, we are thinking of you, and stretching these poems out to you like hands.

Enormous, inarticulable thanks are due to Rose Lemberg and Bogi Takács for the art that launched the issue, which has, as promised, melted with the morning light and puddled into something very different: the art that surrounds these words now is by Grant Jeffery, he of our equally and oppositely resplendent Summer is Dead issue. Great thanks to him as well.

Let us blaze a light into the season's dark, and see what we may see by it.

Happy New Year, one and all.