Thank you to The Heartland Review for publishing two of my poems in their latest 2026 publication. It’s sometimes months before you hear back from a journal, and this time they all got back to me about the same time. So it’s been fun to get the journals in the mail. This journal is well done, and it includes poetry, art, short stories and nonfiction articles, so there’s a lot of variety. Nice communication with the editor too!

Kindness, 1986

It is 3 a.m. in an emptied Iowa airport.
Our plane has ricocheted across the Midwest
in attempts to find safe passage
around lightning strikes, hail and never-
                    ending tempests.

The balding farmer picks up my bag
“You’re coming home with us,” he says.
His wife, who reaches to lift my daughter
from my arms, adds,
                    “Of course you are.”

I have already called nearby hotels—
every room is taken for a baseball tournament.
But these two, who sat next to us on the plane,
know I have come home to surprise my dad
                    for his sixtieth birthday.

So, despite my protests, despite gut fears
spinning inside me, despite distance
that took root in city life on the East Coast,
I follow the couple like a cow with her calf.
                    It is another hour to their farm.

I awake in late morning in bed with my daughter
to find coffee, pancakes and bacon in the kitchen.
From the porch, I see the woman picking tomatoes
in her garden. The man, now in overalls,
                    carries a basket of sweet corn.

This is when the dry knot in my throat lets go.
I know this life—both making do and doing for others.
I call out the door to say I will call my dad.
The man says, “No, we’ll drive you home.”
                    “You want to surprise him,” she says.

Today, I am older than my father who met us
outside a farmhouse that fell in on itself years ago.
My daughter is a mother. Kindness still keeps me whole.
And the couple is buried in a country cemetery,
                where the wind blows and blows. 

Geography Lesson

In the dead of winter, our teacher assigned
my fifth-grade class to memorize
the fifty state capitals in alphabetical order.

Every Friday we lined up next to our desks 
as each of us recited faraway cities,
from Montgomery, Alabama,

to Cheyenne, Wyoming,
labeled on the map in our geography books.
Mrs. Wright marked our mistakes

on a chart with big red checks
as we rooted for our friends
and feared our fallible memories.

By late February the brightest
chanted all fifty and sat down.
In early March four rows of students

had stars after their names,
while a handful still struggled
to get past Providence, Rhode Island.

By late April only shy Eloise Borden
stood alone as she confused Columbus, Ohio,
and Columbia, South Carolina.

We watched Mrs. Wright slash another X
after Eloise’s name and learned to remain silent,
to look away when Eloise stood up.

I don’t remember if the girl ever recited
all fifty state capitals, but I do recall
waitressing with Eloise at the town cafe

my senior year, and how I never saw her
except at work, where we played cards
and fed the jukebox on quiet afternoons.

How Mrs. Wright came in and sat alone
at the counter after her husband died.
And how Eloise memorized her order:

coffee with two sugars, a well-done hamburger
on a toasted bun with sour pickle chips,
and cherry pie with vanilla ice cream.

How Mrs. Wright looked away
whenever Eloise warmed her coffee,
while I pretended to be busy in the kitchen.

And how Eloise took off
when she turned eighteen, headed to a far-off city
marked with a gold star on the map in her car.


Thank you for visiting. I hope you’ll share your poetry with me!

Best,

Julia