Dear Readers,

When we launched Waterwheel Review, we were keen to explain why we were so moved and motivated by the image of the waterwheel. Water stands for language, an ever flowing, renewable source; the waterwheel, an engine of labor, circles through, lifting words and then dropping them back into the running stream. Our magazine is a mill, we said, where the waterwheel powers writing and publishing. “We want—and need—to make things.”

For a couple of years, now, we have known that we can’t make enough of our own things while we give so much energy to the work of others. We have had to cut substantially the time and attention devoted to our own writing, and mostly we have been glad to do it, determined to find a way to repay our own work in the end. We never did find that way.

If we could quit our jobs and earn that income publishing this magazine, we would take that deal in an instant. But that’s not the world we live in. For many, many months we have known this, but we couldn’t accept it until now. And thank goodness for that.

Every single issue of this magazine has been a wonder that transported and enchanted us. We can’t say we gloried in every moment. We read or edited or built the site at times while sick, exhausted, grieving—that’s the nature of any publication. But we damn well gloried in every word, every paired image and sound.

Four years and thirty-six issues: What an honor to publish our contributors. What a privilege to offer stunning work to our readers. We must use the word pleasure, too, always rolled out to accompany “honor and privilege,” but pleasure isn’t strong enough, nor is gratitude nor joy nor blessing. For once we find ourselves at a loss for words to express precisely what it has meant to keep this waterwheel turning.

Maybe this will do it: How many times does anyone ever fully achieve the glittering, half-glimpsed vision floating above; that winking, flirting piece of art we ache to manifest? For the three of us, precisely this once.

We will keep making things and so will you. We started this magazine with the image of the waterwheel and a Jean Rhys quote, and we will end in the same way, as we thank you for reading and submitting, and wish you and yours all the very best:

Listen to me. All of writing is a huge lake. There are great rivers that feed the lake, like Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky. And there are mere trickles, like Jean Rhys. All that matters is feeding the lake. I don’t matter. The lake matters. You must keep feeding the lake.

—Claire, Suzanne, Cheryl

September 1, 2024: Waterwheel Review will stay online for the foreseeable future. It remains as it looked for the final June 2024 issue.

Brian C. Billings

The Crayfish Ferris Wheel

by Brian C. Billings

April 2024

Berkshire spring saw my sister and me
frantic and wild to escape the flat,
to rinse out our weary, moleish eyes
and frisk like the chittery river rat

along the doughy banks of the Ock
far from fusty flannels and the cracked lav
that reeked of toasted figs in syrup.
We swore we two would have

no regrets on the water, just a load
of messing about with leaking boats
under a bowl of watercolor sky
while we ploughed waves laced with notes

of sweet eel oil. Sometimes, we dropped
lines for dace or far-too-tiny trout
and cooked the catch with a bonfire’s heat,
and once, just once, my sister brought out

our passed-on Nan’s red spinning wheel—
bait-bound to an oar and thickly meshed—
then tipped it down like a tested witch
to drown, remain, and then arise refreshed,

rotating in the sun and underslung
with crayfish clinging on the spokes
to make a Ferris wheel with gondolas
redone as gray-green artichokes

that twinkled with reflecting drops
while streaming whiskers gently waved
at the baffling curiosity of open air.
I thought, They could be saved . . .

and then my sister shook the lot
into a sack . . . then a pot . . . then a plate.
We chewed the meat, coppery and light,
and only when I lay in bed late

that night did I think to feel ashamed
I had enjoyed the meal.
I looked into the accusing dark and saw
the turning of the wheel.

Brian C. Billings is a professor of drama and English at Texas A&M University-Texarkana. His poems have appeared in such journals as Antietam Review, Ancient Paths, Argestes, Confrontation, and Poems and Plays.