Molly Fisk takes up the challenge with, Walking Wheel, a narrative suite from the decorated California poet which functions as a novel-in-verse. Set in the frontier country of the California-Oregon border in 1875, the collection offers a tender and understated portrait of a marriage in its first bloom. Miles and Phoebe Imlay, newlyweds from Oregon who have known one another since childhood, set off on a weeks-long journey to the sparsely settled Californian hinterland, where Miles has built a house from which they aim to start their new life. The days are long, and the action is slow: isolated from their families, dependent upon each other for their sole comforts even as they struggle to communicate, Miles and Phoebe stutter and stumble their way into routines that help protect their sanity from the aching loneliness of the open country: townsfolk are polite enough but also suspicious, as Phoebe finds herself stalked and ogled by a repellant neighbor. Then Miles enlists a teen handyman, Tom, to help him build a barn at breakneck speed before winter sets in, and his constant exhaustion further chafes his already-strained communication with Phoebe. But these conflicts narrow when Phoebe becomes pregnant: the couples’ back-and-forths become more playful, more touching, more sincere. Phoebe’s sisters arrive to act as midwives just in time; the baby arrives healthy; hope for a future is cemented.