This selection is included in NonBinary Review #11, available here.

I didn’t know what a gable was.
It sounded like gargle, garble,
gallop, gargoyle. It sounded like fable,
gamble, able, staple. It sounded
like something naughty. It sounded
like my name. And the gables were green—
were they gills? Scales? Flowers?
Grapes? Some sort of hill
or marsh or tree? I didn’t know
what a gable was, but once
I opened the book, I didn’t care.

Gayle Brandeis is the author of Fruitflesh: Seeds of Inspiration for Women Who Write, Dictionary Poems, and the novels The Book of Dead Birds, which won Barbara Kingsolver’s Bellwether Prize for Fiction of Social Engagement, Self Storage, Delta Girls, and My Life with the Lincolns, which received a Silver Nautilus Book Award and was chosen as a state-wide read in Wisconsin.