ALT “I followed the other people in hiking boots through the door. Inside, sun streamed through the tall, narrow windows, the way it did in church before I stopped going three months prior.” -- Elodie Reed From “Salamander Brigade” Ecotone 35, Labor

ALT “[to empty] and [to ripple] . . . reflected sky and canopy” --Caleb A.P. Parker from “Interlinear Translation of a Morning” Ecotone 35, Labor

ALT “at the peak of the strike only about 800 Attached hereto are six copies attempted intimidation has not deterred strikers” --Éireann Lorsung from “Being a fragmentary history of the United Farmworkers Movement…” Ecotone 35, Labor

ALT “It is a moment of poised anticipation—an excited patience—as its whole body tenses in preparation for the strike. When the strike does come, it comes with lightning speed, the bird’s neck and head shooting down in a blur.” --David Gessner From “A Hard Patience” Ecotone 35, Labor

ALT “we must have touched thousands / of small round peaches, tearing them / and throwing them down to the ground, the point / being, the boss said, to lighten the load / before the branch broke” --Lillian Emerick Valentine from “Pastoral with Agribusiness II” Ecotone 35, Labor

ALT “I wondered what it meant that we’d chosen a gardening program in the desert.” --Morgan Day From “Manual for Talking to Plants” Ecotone 35, Labor

ALT “The woods behind me echo their stutter; / like men, lightning strikes the birch and aspen. / All summer the sparks of wildfire shudder” --Annie Wenstrup from “A In Summer My Neighbors Practice Target Shooting While Wildfires Surround Us” Ecotone 35, Labor

ALT Sex Romp Gone Wrong by Julia Ridley Smith lying on sand

ALT “Why start with freedom? / You must consider the possibilities: // thousands of students filed within / a cabinet contributing to economy” --Rebecca Morgan Frank from “A Wall If a Window” Ecotone 35, Labor

ALT “Sweep the streets carefully, every morning. / Teach your children to talk like the birds. / Teach them to speak and to use the coyotes’ language.” -- Martín Tonalmeyotl trans. Whitney DeVos from “Get Up the Nerve” Ecotone 35, Labor

ALT “May we not destroy their heads of green hair / since it’s there the owls sleep / and the woodpeckers mate,” -- Martín Tonalmeyotl trans. Whitney DeVos from “Our Mountains” Ecotone 35, Labor

ALT “Your name is sacred and your scent of white-flower is strewn about like spring mist.” -- Martín Tonalmeyotl trans. Whitney DeVos from “Rootwoman One” Ecotone 35, Labor

ALT “It struck him as strange, how despite the enormous technology and too-big government, it still came down to a semi-disorganized mess of regular people guided by a volunteer posse, which mainly consisted of his neighbor on her phone at her kitchen table, and whomever she could pester.” --Laura Pritchett From “Deer in the Poppies” Ecotone 35, Labor

ALT “Rejoice. You are livable after all. Imagine your brain as you might imagine starlings in / murmuration—a nucleus uplifting.” --Kristin Emanuel From “Six Maxims for the Sixth Mass Extinction” Ecotone 35, Labor

ALT “While you look, you’re surrounded by the ocean and all its breathtaking wonder. And once you’ve succeeded in your search, you’re rewarded with a wondrous, ferocious gift from the ocean. What could be better?” --Michelle Donahue From “Ferocious Gifts Ecotone 35, Labor

ALT “Cantonese became the language of food; Vietnamese became the language of arguments. We discarded all other uses for them. We shed our mother tongues like a snake leaving its molt. We hardly looked back.” --Brian Truong from “The The The The” Ecotone 35, Labor

ALT Issue 35, the Labor Issue against a background of hosta leaves

ALT “Each night I take the old dog for a walk. I put his harness on, attach the leash, and when we step outside into the dark” --Geoffrey Brock From “Walking the Cat” Ecotone 35, Labor

ALT “i put on chunky sunglasses just to watch them unfold” --Renee Christopher from “Bathroom Therapy Club #29” Ecotone 35, Labor

ALT “Obligingly, Sadie moved the beef around in her mouth, unable to distinguish the mush from her tongue and the surrounding damp tissue. 'You’re lucky,' her mother said. 'You don’t need to worry about listeria anymore. When I was pregnant with you, I had to order my steaks well-done.’” -- Colleen Rothman from “Aversions” Ecotone 35, Labor

ALT "Ask us while we're alive-- their coveralls and their raincoats and hats-- aren't there enough men?" --Michael McLane from “Within my memory the textbook has been rewritten three times” Ecotone 35, Labor