September 2026

a living will

the hour turnsupside downin the glass,ash insteadof sand,cremainsthey’re called,bonemeal squeezedthrough a narrow waist.

barefoot, i walkthe razor edgetoday & tomorrowwhere world recedes—i am a smearof womanhaunting lost highways,white nightgown castgothic againstthe night,i becomeperiphery.

i havewaded throughnettles & copperheads,sliced my soulon the shale,tossed myselffrom cliffto roiling sea,dipped a toein boiling broth.

i strippedmy meat & spiritbare between attic& basement, betweenceiling & floor, betweenrafter & cellar,i crawl throughthe spaceswhere a housebreathes.

i am the worstkind of ghost,alive & lookingfor her lungs.

About the Author

Sarah Elizabeth Schantz is a writer, witch, and widow living in a Victorian bungalow on the east side of Old Town Longmont in Colorado close to the tracks and the nostalgic rumble of freight trains passing through. Her novel Fig debuted from Simon & Schuster in 2015 and was selected by NPR as A Best Read of the Year before winning a 2016 Colorado Book Award. Schantz's short fiction, essays, and poems have appeared in publications such as Best New Stories from the Midwest, Los Angeles Review, Hunger Mountain, Third Coast, and more. She adjuncts for the MFA at Naropa; serves as faculty at Lighthouse Writers Workshop; and owns and operates (W)rites of Passage where she offers workshops and manuscript midwifery. She lives with her three cats—Tilly, the matriarch calico and familiar from Taos, New Mexico; Cinder, a gray rescue from Lubbock, Texas with a Tom Waits' rasp of a meow and an Eeyore disposition; and finally, Ponyboy, a once feral Siamese kitten from Casper, Wyoming turned total sweetheart.