megan huwa

Megan Huwa is a poet and writer in southern California.  A classically trained pianist, she melds in her writing aurality, rural life, and empathy through the varied voices and lives of those dear and those she observes. A rare health condition keeps her and her husband from living near her family’s five-generation farm in Colorado, so her writing reaches for home—both temporal and eternal. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Vita Poetica, Calla Press, Foreshadow, Ekstasis, Solid Food Press, San Antonio Review, The Midwest Quarterly, LETTERS Journal, and elsewhere and featured on The Habit Podcast. Her website is meganhuwa.com.

an excerpt from “pearlescent”

“Hello?” Wrong number. She used to let the phone ring through until it rang for nearly an hour. Some old man trying to reach Garrison Keillor, but she listens to him every evening as she rocks back and forth every day—a pendulum. She’s grown to live for the disjointed, often repeated stories he tells her of The Plains. 

Passersby wouldn’t know life lives here except for the kitchen window roller blind that rolls up and down throughout the day like a lazy eye. At her age, she doesn’t buy unripe bananas or pick closed flower buds. She looks upon her front yard weeds for time’s passing, for the milkweed to bring butterflies, which show more anticipation as they grow waist height. And when the red needle on the yellowed clock reads 7:55 pm every evening, the phone rings. 

“I got another story,” he says and laughs. It reminds her of Henry, her husband—a high-pitched squeal that ended with a wet cough. Her breathing slows as she rests her eyes on a picture of Henry in his Navy uniform. 

     “Summer of ‘32, a fire took Old Man Escher’s place,” the man explains. “Escher lost all his wheat and his hogs ‘cause it came at night. I saw it from my window and heard Dad ‘cross the hall cursing. I tell you, Netta, it was headed for us. But the winds shifted.”

     Netta isn’t her name, but he says it as though it should be. A radio producer named Netta, she supposes and wonders what her days would be like.

***

She crosses off 23 days on the calendar before she tells him anything personal. Tuesday, she shares, “I met my husband, Henry, on Daddy’s farm. Henry shepherded one flock south and helped Daddy with harvest. But Henry died two months ago.” 

“And kids?” he asks. Her mouth falls open, and she grows quiet. The silence wavers long enough for him to hum the pitch of the telephone waves. 

“No kids,” she says. He exhales like Henry. But she doesn’t want to tell this man she is broken.

Read more of “Pearlescent” in Solum Journal Volume V (forthcoming).