steven wingate
Steven Wingate is the author of the novels The Leave-Takers (2021) and Of Fathers and Fire (2019), both part of the Flyover Fiction Series from the University of Nebraska Press. His short story collection Wifeshopping (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2008), won the Bakeless Prize in Fiction from Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. His experimental work includes the prose poem collection Thirty-One Octets (CW Books, 2014) and the digital interactive memoir daddylabyrinth, which premiered at the Art/Science Museum of Singapore in 2014. He has taught at the University of Colorado, the College of the Holy Cross, and South Dakota State University, where he is currently associate professor of English and coordinator or creative writing.
joseph and the swans
Have Joseph show him the swans
God commanded the angels
and they pestered Joseph
the ever patient
the always busy fixing something
the always just in time with rent
to take Jesus, still in diapers
barely learning to crawl
out to see the swans.
“Only in town for a week,”
Joseph said during lunch break
while Mary napped at her sister’s.
“Can’t miss ‘em.” The relieved angels
broken-spined from so much message-ferrying
collapsed on the couch
and shared the last beer. Joseph
left a note for Mary on the fridge
and slung Jesus over his shoulder
bouncing him with each step
the way they loved
and saying “ba-DUM, ba-DUM, ba-DUM”
the way they loved
until they got to the artificial lake
in the center of town. Jesus
remembered his hungers on the way
then forgot them
when he saw white swans on the water.
“Let’s switch shoulders,” Joseph said.
“Lots of hammering today.”
While Joseph switched him
tickling the boy’s belly
with his sweaty, stubbled head
the way they loved
Jesus turned the swans from white
to black to green to white again
exploring his sense of miracle
but no one noticed
for they were all alone at the lake
and fully engaged in the tugs
and wrestles of human love.
Read more of Steven’s work in Solum Journal Volume II.