Rose Zinnia (she/they) is a poet, novelist, essayist, teacher, editor, and designer. Born in Akron, Ohio, she is the author of Togethering (Ledge Mule Press, 2024), a chapbook of poetry & lyric essay. A 2025 National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellow, Zinnia’s honors also include support from Vermont Studio Center, Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, and the Kinsey Institute. Her writing appears or is forthcoming in Poetry, CV2, Black Warrior Review, Poem-A-Day, The Journal, Gulf Coast, and West Branch, among others. Zinnia holds an MFA from Indiana University, works at the LGBTQ+ journal Foglifter, and lives in Cleveland, Ohio. Find Rose on Instagram @parareligiousmoss.

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MICRO

(Reassignment)

By ROSE ZINNIA

illness is an appropriate
body in the polity
state