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.