Upcountry Winter 2014 by Upcountry

upcountry

winter 2014

upcountry university of maine at presque isle winter 2014

Editors Dr. Melissa Crowe Jessica Edney Kayla Ames Submissions The Upcountry staff reads submissions from University of Maine at Presque Isle students and alumni for the Fall/Winter and Spring/Summer issues each year. For specific submission information (including deadlines), see our website at www.upcountryjournal.wordpress.com. We can be contacted via email at upcountry@maine.edu. Upcountry is a publication of the University of Maine at Presque Isle's English Program. A literary journal dedicated to showcasing poems, short stories, personal essays, and visual art from the campus community, the journal is published twice yearly. The views expressed in Upcountry are not necessarily those of the University of Maine at Presque Isle or its English Program. © 2014. All rights reserved. In complying with the letter and spirit of applicable laws and in pursuing its own goals of diversity, the University of Maine System shall not discriminate on the grounds of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, including transgender status or gender expression, national origin or citizenship status, age, disability, or veteran status in employment, education, and all other areas of the University System. The University provides reasonable accommodations to qualified individuals with disabilities upon request. Questions and complaints about discrimination in any area of the University should be directed to Barbara DeVaney, Director of Affirmative Action and Equal Employment Opportunity, 205 South Hall, 181 Main Street, Presque Isle ME 04769-2888, phone 207-768-9750, TTY available upon request.

Â Carolyn Anderson Farm Fuel (photograph/cover) The Silent (photograph)

Cherie Black Pending (poem) Counterbalance (poem)

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Alice Bolstridge Feeding the Animals (story)

Kathleen Christoffel Chapman Evening (painting)

Jillelaine Condon Space Owl (drawing)

Ian Covey Water Street (poem) To the Lighthouse (poem)

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Deric Flaherty For My Great Grandfather (poem)

Kathi L. Jandreau Around Here (story)

Melissa Jenks Â

Blight (story)

Abby McLaughlin Take Cover (poem)

Chris Morton Destiny, Damp-Dry, and Learning to Try (essay)

Anthony Scott Floating on the Moment (poem) Before You Tune In (poem) Touching Again (poem)

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Lanette Virtanen Sunset (photograph)

Tracey White A Day With Dad (poem)

Richard Lee Zuras Students at a Poetry Reading (poem)

Melissa Jenks Blight “Blight. It's on the tomatoes,” Obadiah said as he came into the house. It was noon, and I stood at the kitchen window doing breakfast dishes. It was the time of day when the sun shone directly behind the house, on the thin edge between the kitchen and the scrim of pine just beyond, where burdock always went to seed. I'd been curious when we moved here to farm if his father would be right. He'd sat at the raw wooden table, nursing a cup of coffee, emanating waves of negativity so visceral I could smell them. We were kicking him out to move back into our house, and that last morning he'd sat there with his coffee for an age. Obadiah turned away from us, reaching his hands for the doorframe and curving them around it, so the lithe muscles in his back corded into ropes, the curves as sensuous as a woman's, the curves I couldn't see without wanting to touch. He was forever doing that, turning away to leave me alone to deal with his father, a crime for which his beautiful back did not atone. I told my father-in-law our plans to build a composting system from cedar slab cast off by the mill, and he spat. “When I grew up we threw our garbage out the front door. Now that was a compost heap.” His swamp-yankee accent drew out garbage into gah-bage. And that was his way with everything. Painting the halls, as I wanted to, was too expensive and would do no good, and the bugs collected in the light fixtures were too much trouble to clean, since the burdock would just come back anyway. I came in from my walk on our second week back with a gallon jug of wild raspberries, and he squinched his nose at me, the wiry gray hair of his eyebrows wrinkling. The day was perfect, the sun a smooth disc, the clouds like a painted screen. Inside, I was singing. 5

He peered through his broken glasses, held together by duck tape. “You'll get sick of taking walks, you know. After you've been here long enough. You'll get sick of the same scene, every day.” I didn't mention the partridge I'd heard, with heartbeat wings, thrumming into the balsam, the harrier I'd seen lazily dip his wings. My hands sticky and fragrant with raspberry sap. I smiled and held my tongue. So when he said they'd had blight every year, without fail, even the tomato plants of the Mennonites wiped out caustically, that the fungus was indestructible, making leaves and fruit shrivel with cancerous gray splotches, I didn't believe him. Now, two years later, I was angry. I turned from my dishes to Obadiah. “It's not possible. We've used copper after every rain. We bought the resistant seed this year. The cooperative extension said it's the best year in a long time.” He shifted his back towards me, broad, lines of sweat darkening his spine, and reached his blackened fingers for the jamb, to hang there. Silence stretched between us. I turned again to my dishes. Already the sun had moved forward and the mossy strip behind the house was in shade. “Even the ones in the row covers?” I asked, my voice strained. “Even them,” he said, and we heard our boy cry. “I'll get him,” my husband said, and I knew he meant it as a compassionate gesture, the only he’d offer. Because of course his father had been right about everything. The compost apparatus wasn't big enough for the garden scrap, which Obadiah heaped behind the shed. Painting the old farmhouse walls moved lower on the list by the year, the fixtures collected black flies as fast as I could clean them, and 6

we'd given up on burdock. I lost my walk during the pregnancy, when I was diagnosed with placenta previa, and the raspberry bushes my husband dug up and replanted didn't fruit. I hadn't made a raspberry pie since that day two years ago. We walked down to the tomato garden, the three of us, Olaf sleepy from his nap. Yesterday the plants had been green and lush, fragrance of their hairy stems hanging heavy in the air. Today a full half were already wilted, and I could see telltale gray splotches on the second half, the bottom branches drooping downward, heavy with green fruit. “Maybe if we pull the bad ones and spray again?” but Obadiah shook his head before I finished my sentence. Olaf whined and pulled from my arms, spinning in the tall patch we'd left for wildflowers. Obadiah said I babied him, that he needed to toughen up. I said: he's two. “Don't prance,” I said, and watched his twirling stop, his shoulders droop forward. I was trying to inculcate him with joy, not the heavy burden of despair he seemed born to, but just then I couldn't help myself. I'd caught the despair, too. “I'll start pulling them out,” my husband said, “and save the green ones I can,” and when he came back to the house, laden with the scent of tomato stem, the spark had gone from him too, and I saw what it had cost him. I didn't know how long we could last like this. But I dutifully cut off the bad spots and fried the green ones for dinner, so that Olaf threw them on the floor, sour and with just a hint of disease. We'd deceived ourselves. This life was nothing but heartbreak. That night I went out in the dewy grass, when both of them slept, and I touched the pile of broken plants, polluting my fingers with blight, burying my face in the scent. I was weeping, enthralled in the grief of these dead plants, plants that I'd nestled in little plastic cartons, that I'd watched sprout pinkish fur, that 7

I'd hoed and weeded and staked. Arms wrapped around and lifted me. “You weren't in bed,” he said, gruff with sleep, his voice muffled against my shoulder. “I was worried. I thought you'd gone.” “It is worth it?” I asked. “This life. Is it worth it?” “What do you mean?” he said. When he was angry he tinged toward sarcasm. “This is our life. We'll make green-tomato salsa. What else are we going to do?” Grief carried me forward to the dangerous questions. “Sometimes that's not good enough. Sometimes I need more.” He could hear tears in my voice, and often they hardened him against me. “This is all we get,” he said. “This is all there is.”

Deric Flaherty For My Great Grandfather When the wind tastes of ylang-ylang, I feel your hands within my veins, Though I cannot see your face. I knew you once, in that Southern patch, Where seeds ran slow atop the grass. Down where the pond’s black surface shined, You stood waiting on a hollow frame. Those brittle legs, they stood the season, But crumbled through at Summer’s End. Now to the East, before the morning, Between the darkness and the light, In this time I rise to meet you, Though I cannot see your face.

Carolyn Anderson The Silent

Cherie Black Pending In a mirrored world, I stopped and greeted you brightly. Instead of choosing the lone corner, I asked if I could fill the seat at your table. I ordered Thai wedges, and you requested apple quinoa. We exchanged bites on forks, and blended flavors kept us awake and eager to learn. Wanting to rain on the desert of touch you communicated with your brown eyes, I leaned in and kissed you when I stood to leave. But in this world, I smile timidly and sit two tables away from you with a vacant chair across from me.

Cherie Black Counterbalance Bathed in fierce water tea leaves unfurl. Neglected brew becomes bitter.

Anthony Scott Floating on the Moment There is a poetry of the moment, a music of here, now, where you can hear the minute catches of stylus on paper terrain syncopate the melody of the tannic trail, and you can let go the letters’ man-made notions of harmony, until you are rapt in the chorus of all you are wrapped in and matter matters, and you finally know that the muse is a siren, that her sea song only means annihilation if you insist on holding on to land on getting your oxygen from air.

Richard Lee Zuras Students at a Poetry Reading (for Kurt Brown) We brought them here at night Not under the cover of darkness But under the cover of grades Excused from quizzes and classes As if education could be substituted For education Look at that one there with her hair And that boy why don’t they listen That poet speaks of death And other things When he says sex their bodies perk As if all one needed to reach them Was a man humping a car The windshield no less The poet speaks of wow and flutter Wonders why they don’t laugh In the correct places The poet speaks of aging the students wander Mindful of the time They are looking at each other Through a mirror

Anthony Scott Before You Tune In I want song I want to sing along I want to ride up the jut of crescendos, coast decrescendo slopes to misty piano plains. I want my fingers tapping like hi-hats, my feet to beat like bass drums, my whole self a-thrum with a world of music Not that the world is synchronized or harmonized It is full of bangs that only bang, of knocks and plops that don’t pop, filling, failing, falling into white noise, numbing blue noise, burying red noise, like red, red ants in the ear But I’ve learned to plug my ears just leave just enough space, letting only delicate strains of strings seep through, determined pulses of bass push past

so…

This is what I want from life. Consider it before you open your mouth. Consider the pitch of your pitch, whether you bring rhythm, rhyme, or theme, if your words bear repeating. And if they make for a lackluster refrain, refrain.

Jillelaine Condon Space Owl

Chris Morton Destiny, Damp-Dry, and Learning to Try Writers are screwed up. We pick at the threads of the sweater of life. We can’t help it. We find a badger. We poke the badger. We lose a finger. We write about the eccentricities of the human condition that drive us to poke badgers, stark and haunting recollections of the lost finger, and wry witticisms about the inherent absurdity of it all. Then we go looking for another badger. I think this is probably why so many writers wind up as alcoholics. It takes the sting out of having a natural bent towards unraveling the universe when you must first address more pressing concerns such as, “Have I ate yet week?” and also, “Where are my pants, and why is everyone in my immediate vicinity speaking Manglanese?” *

It started with the abominable snowmen. I have spent most of my adult life at the mercy of second-hand major appliances: washing machines that lacked two of the four necessary feet and left my clothes smelling like chlorinated motor oil, dryers that ran continuously because the timer was faulty and replacements haven’t been manufactured since the Reagan administration, stoves with burners that didn’t heat up or smelled like the ghosts of pea soup past, and so on. Buying a brand-new, high-end dryer was a milestone of sorts. It marked that I had finally reached a point in my life where I could afford the luxury of not thinking about laundry. I put the clothes in the magic Maytag box, I press buttons, and, bam! My clothes would tumble out perfectly dry and wrinkle-free, with a minimum of fuss and wear and tear on the environment. 17

The environmental factor was what really sold me on my new high-efficiency dryer. Every other laundry-related machinery I had ever owned had been (shudder) low-efficiency, apparently, which meant that they – all of them, every single one – had been sneaking out at night and bludgeoning dolphins. Or using more electricity than is prudent, I guess, which is basically the same thing. I figured buying a high efficiency (otherwise known as *h-e* – isn’t that highly efficient?) dryer means that when Mother Nature gets fed up with our wanton pollution and waste and sends abominable snowmen to eat us all, I will be at the back of the line. Wearing perfectly-dry, never-shrunk jeans, no less, which no doubt gives me a leg up (ha!) on running away. These things are important to think about when you pick out a dryer. Remember: high-efficiency, dolphins, abominable snowmen. My new dryer had more buttons and knobs and gizmos than any space ship console I’d ever dreamed of sketching when I was a kid. At first, this made me happy. Buttons are fun. There’s something fascinating about a dryer that looks like it can also bake bread and maybe play a quick game of chess with you while you’re waiting for your pants to dry. Over time, though, the wealth of buttons started to bug me. They didn’t make sense. Some were pretty self-explanatory: heavy-duty. Quick dry. Touch-up. Bulky load. But some seemed superfluous, or possibly made-up. The Damp Dry Signal button apparently had one sole function: halfway through every single load of laundry I ever ran through the dryer, a piercing alarm would roll throughout the house. Sprinting to the laundry room and pressing the Damp Dry button made it stop. I don’t fully understand what my dryer was trying to convey by its beeping. Damp, I understand. Dry? Yes. I get it. But, damp/dry? Was this some sort of alert that indicated my clothes were about to disappear because they could not function knowing they were neither damp nor 18

dry? Were they about to vanish from this universe, choosing ceasing to exist rather than to exist in uncertainty? Is that where my socks kept going? There was also a button for something called the Wrinkleguard 150, which sounds like a beauty product for the elderly that involves a motorcycle. I have no idea what the Wrinkleguard 150 button did on my dryer. I’m sure it engaged the Wrinkleguard 150 setting. But what did that do exactly? I tried the Wrinkleguard 150 feature once. I came back to check the clothes about an hour later, half-expecting to find my shirts wrinkle-free and possibly hung up on blue Maytag hangers and smelling faintly of lilacs and a gentle spring breeze, the imaginary kind of spring breeze that has wafted over a field of flowers and definitely not the more realistic kind you get in these parts that have drifted over a field that has been covered in fresh manure. Instead a moist lump of clothing huddled pitifully in the bottom of the drum. (I know they were moist and not Damp Dry because the alarm wasn’t going off.) What did the Wrinkleguard accomplish? And what happened to the first 149 versions? Will next year’s model offer a Wrinkleguard 151 that promises to accomplish this same level of nothingness, only faster? As ‘smart’ as my dryer was touted to be, even turning it on required answering a bevy of multiple-choice and short-answer questions. First you selected the size of the load, adjusting for the composition of your clothing (cotton, hemp, yak wool, whatever). Then you gauged the level of ‘soil,’ which was difficult because this seems subjective. (My “heavy soil” is probably not quite as serious as a coal miner’s “heavy soil.” WHAT IS CONSIDERED “HEAVY SOIL”?) Then you were given the opportunity to select the Wrinkleguard 150 feature, add more time, subtract time, adjust the temperature and dryness level, and select the Dry Signal Volume Level. Each option carried with it the underlying notion that WHATEVER YOU SELECTED WILL BE WRONG because you are not 19

INTIMATELY FAMILIAR WITH THE ENTIRE SCALE OF “SOILED” CLOTHING or well-versed in the CORRECT DRYING TEMPERATURES FOR THE BLENDS OF COTTON AND WOOL IN YOUR FAVORITE “HONK IF YOU LIKE NOISE POLLUTION” T-SHIRT. But here’s the kicker: no matter which settings I used, despite the dryer costing me more than my first car and featuring more knobs and bells and whistles than the helm of the firstgeneration Enterprise, my clothes almost always still came out damp. This is not because I neglected to empty the lint screen. That’s one of the features I overpaid for: an ear-splitting beeping that commenced right after I turned the dryer on, which (according to the manual I had to read because I couldn’t figure out why my dryer sounded like a bomb) was a “gentle” (ha!) sonic reminder to empty the lint screen. So I did. Religiously. Meaning, I tended to use God’s name during the process. No matter which buttons I selected or adjusted, my experiences with that dryer were identical. I would put in a blanket, select “Bulky/Blankets,” select “Extra Dry,” select “Medium Soil,” shut off the “Lint Filter?!?!?” alarm, press start, and wait fifty minutes or so just to open the dryer and discover a damp blanket. I never once opened the portal and found a dry blanket. I think I would have been less surprised to find a live badger or a bludgeoned dolphin. Even a Damp-Dry one. Here’s where the badger poking comes in. Another man might simply have taken this dryer back to the store, having assumed merely that this particular model wasn’t for him, assuming, too, that some other, superior model existed that would not seem bent on ruining his life, another h.e. with more reliable, cognizable features that would wash and fluff and dry my clothes—and me—to blissful happiness.

But I’m a writer. See, my frustration is not entirely with the 20

dryer. No. I am uneasy with what the dryer and devices like them have done to us. Therefore no flexible return policy can save me. Poke. Poke. Ours has become a push-button world. My phone’s autocorrect writes and polishes my texts for me. My web browser kicks up ads for items linked to the objects I buy online. My web browser gives me phone numbers, maps, definitions, histories, and even pictures of people all within a few seconds. Our machines are so advanced that they do the bulk of our thinking for us (and not all of it good thinking if Wrinkleguard 150 is any indication). And that’s exactly what troubles me: there aren’t buttons for everything. One of the brutal, awesome, glaringly honest beauties of human nature is our tenacity. We survive intense loss and pain. We persevere even under a lack of hope. We climb out of a depression like we’re scaling a sheer rock ledge, hammering in pitons with dogged firmness and painstakingly hauling ourselves up one day at a time. We lose hope, but we fight. We lose pieces of ourselves, but we fight. Cancer, pollution, world hunger, our own self-destructive natures, whatever: we do walkathons, we stay away from fast food, we recycle, we hold out one more day, we fight. It is an effort. There is no button to do it for us. I worry sometimes that our devices rob us of our ambition. I worry that we are at a loss and fall to despair when faced with a problem our phone can’t solve. I worry that we have become so dependent on our dryers that we don’t remember how to iron our own clothes, let alone transform the world, become stronger, braver, bolder human beings.

I replaced the Maytag dryer a few months back with a new 21

model. It’s still energy-efficient (take note, abominable snowmen lackeys of Mother Nature), but there’s a distinct lack of Wrinkleguard and Damp-Dry signals and Lint Filter Reminder Alarms and pop quizzes regarding dirt saturation. Instead, it has a big white knob. When it comes to cleaning the filter or getting my clothes dry without shrinking them down a few sizes, I’m on my own. I like that. It’s a reminder that just as I am capable of doing my laundry all by myself, I am capable of making the world better: in small ways, but relentlessly. That is the beauty of our nature. We work. We strive. We fight. We clean up after each other, we cure polio, we start and support homeless shelters and food drives, we hammer in that next piton and pull ourselves a few feet closer to mounting the summit. May we never be so coddled by our technology that our ambition atrophies. May we never become so reliant on technology that we forget how to work to make the world better. May we never forget the impact we can have on the world around us, just by consistently and persistently trying to do good, to do something. Speaking of which: if you will excuse me, I have laundry to fold.

Kathleen Christoffel Chapman Evening

Alice Bolstridge Feeding the Animals I didn’t take much notice of Justin for years after he was born. Not after the time I stood by Mama’s bed and watched him nursing while she was sleeping with him in her arms, and I squeezed his wrist until I heard him whimper. I didn’t notice him like I did Thurston and Eliza because they were older. I didn’t notice him like I did Willard and Carl because I had to tend and play with them, keep them quiet. One time before they were even old enough to go to school, I spread out three cardboard boxes, old newspapers, and crayons on the kitchen floor and said, “Now we are each going to make a doll house and a family of paper dolls.” Eliza was peeling potatoes in the pantry, couldn’t even see what we were doing, but she yelled, “You stay away from the stove so you don’t get in my way.” She is my sister, the oldest of us six kids, and she still tries to order me around even into our old age. I said, quiet as I could, “Willard, you move the newspapers and the boxes over under the table, and Carl, you bring the crayons. I’ll bring the paste and scissors.” Then Eliza got to telling about something that happened that day at school. I didn’t pay much attention to her talk if she wasn’t being bossy. I just pretended to listen. I drew a mother on newspaper and colored her in with a red dress like Mama’s prettiest one. Willard tried to copy me, but he made a man. Carl was just scribbling with yellow crayon. He was too little then to do much of anything else. But that didn’t matter. They were both quiet for a little bit. And that was my biggest job with them, keeping them quiet so they didn’t bother Eliza or Daddy or Mama when she was having a nap with Justin, which she was supposed to be doing right then. 24

But mostly it was for Eliza I had to keep them quiet. Because Willard and Carl might get into it with each other, and then it would be real hard to pretend to listen to her. Things were fine for a little while—Eliza in the pantry peeling potatoes and talking her constant stream and us three playing under the table. It was real peaceful. I was beginning to get lost in what I was doing just like I do when I’m painting my pictures. And then Eliza came out to the kitchen to put the potatoes on to boil and put more wood in the fire, talking every second, not paying attention to us. After she closed up the cover on the fire box and turned back into the kitchen, she said, “What you doing making those paper dolls on newspaper? Don’t you know you got to make them stand up? That newspaper won’t stand. Go out in the shed and get a couple of them shoe boxes out there. Paste them on the cardboard. No sense in you making dolls that can’t stand.” I motioned for Willard and Carl to come with me. At the door leading from the back room out to the shed, we had to go across the cellar way at the head of the cellar stairs. It was dark there, and I forgot to take Carl’s hand. I closed the door behind me, which made it darker. Then, a thump, thump, thump, thump down the stairs, and Carl let out an awful squall. I thought he must be hurt bad enough to maybe kill him. Before I could figure out what to do, the door opened, the light flooding through so bright I wasn’t sure for a minute who stood there. Sure enough, it was bad. Eliza. She yelled, “Now what you done, what you gone and done? Can’t you take care of them kids and keep them quiet? That’s your job!” She got to the bottom of the stairs and picked up Carl out of the dark, scolding, scolding every minute. Then Mama appeared in the doorway, holding Justin to her breast. She said, “Eliza, be quiet a minute and bring him up here to me so we can see if he’s hurt or just scared.”

Eliza struggled up the stairs holding Carl around the waist, his legs dangling and bumping the stairs. Carl was the biggest boy in the family, grew to be six foot one, and already at three, he was hard for Eliza to carry. She was the shortest, even shorter than Justin, didn’t grow past four foot eleven. Carl screamed all the way, but when she set him down, he could stand on his own. Thank God, he could at least stand. He grabbed Mama around the waist, pushing Justin aside. Her nipple pulled free. Justin’s mouth groped around the pale skin of her breasts, over the web of blue veins. Mama handed him to Eliza and said, “Take him and go get his sugar tit.” He whimpered as Eliza took him away. Then she looked Carl all over. We couldn’t see any red bumps or blood. Thank God. He was still screaming, though. Mama said, “There now, you’re all right, just a little scared.” She picked him up in her arms, took his chin in her hand, pulled his mouth to her nipple. “There now,” she said. “Amelia, what you doing out here with him and Willard? This is no place for you to be playing with them.” I stuttered, and she said, “Oh, never mind. Just keep them in the house. You know how they will try to get ahead of each other.” It was the other breast that got the cancer in it. I had to keep Willard and Carl quiet and out of the way, so Mama and Daddy and Thurston and Eliza could do all the important work. Feed the big animals—cows, pigs, horses. Take care of the garden and raise the oats, beans, and potatoes—plow, harrow, cultivate, dig and pick and haul into the barn or cellar. And Mama and Eliza did all the important housework. Cleaning. Washing. Cooking to feed all of us. I didn’t notice Justin like I noticed the chickens because I fed them until Willard got big enough. Then I fed the pigs and noticed them, too, more than I did Justin. I noticed Thurston because he would play with me, and when he got too old for that, he would still take time for me to 26

breathe so I could talk without stuttering too bad. Sometimes he got scolded because he took so much time to hear me talk. One time after I got old enough to feed the pigs, Daddy called Thurston a lazy good-for-nothing, said he’d never amount to a thing, taking time out with the girls all the time. After that Thurston didn’t take so much time with me. I noticed that. I didn’t notice Justin like I noticed Eliza, sleeping with her in the same bed and all, no way not to. Not like I noticed Daddy. Eliza and Daddy, they yelled and laughed at you just about the same way. I noticed them. I noticed Mama, especially every time she took to her bed. Not that she did all that often, but every time she did, I remembered how sick she was after Justin was born. I loved to watch her make herself pretty—curl and comb her hair, put on makeup. I noticed her a lot. For a long time, I noticed everything and everybody but Justin. And then the year Daddy decided it was way past time Justin was weaned, I noticed him. Crying always seemed to be one of those things Justin didn’t have the energy for. But I came home from school one day and found him standing outside Mama’s closed bedroom door crying like I never saw him cry in my whole life—tears streaming down his face, watery snot running into his open mouth, wailing. Daddy was sitting in his chair by the window, jaw tight, arms crossed, glaring at Justin. “You quit that damned crying. No more of your mother’s tit for you. You’re too big for that.” I wanted to run to the attic, but I’d have to run by Daddy to get there, and I didn’t want him to notice me. It was too late though. “Amelia,” he ordered. “Your mother’s got a sick bellyache. Go fill the hot water bottle and bring it to her. Then you tend to Justin until Eliza gets home. Take him out doors, far enough away so we can’t hear that sissy blatting.” I ran, like I always did, like I never in all my life dared not to when Daddy ordered me to do something. I wasn’t sure where the hot water bottle was, and I wouldn’t try to ask him. It never 27

before was my job to take care of things like that. That always was Eliza’s job. But she was going to high school down to Big Bear that year, didn’t get home until later than the rest of us. I ran to the pantry, pulled out a bottom drawer, then the next one up, but not quite so far out as the bottom one, so I made me a step ladder to climb up on to the sideboard where I knew I could see the top shelf of the cupboards. I pushed aside Aspirin, Justin’s vitamins, bottles and bottles and bottles of McCormick’s artificial flavorings—orange, lemon, vanilla, cherry, almond. No hot water bottle. I walked along the side board, pulling open all the cupboard doors, pushing aside Cheerios and Corn Flakes, canned peaches and corn and mackerel. No hot water bottle. I climbed down and pulled out all the drawers one by one, looking under trays of silverware, spatulas, big spoons, lids and rubbers for Ball canning jars. I pawed through old tubes of mascara and lipstick, pancake makeup, aluminum hair curlers. In a bottom drawer, I shoved aside mittens and caps and potato-picking gloves. No hot water bottle. Daddy shouted above Justin’s wailing, “What the hell’s taking you so long. Get that hot water bottle to your mother, and come take care of this baby.” Justin howled. Nobody in our house, not even Justin, liked to be called a baby. He was about four by then. I couldn’t think where else that hot water bottle could be, and I knew there was no help for it. I’d have to go try to ask Mama where it was. I’d have to go right by Daddy to do it. I ran, trying hard to believe I might run so fast I’d become invisible, but I was getting too old by then for that kind of pretending. Daddy’s arm shot out. I nearly fell over backward from the force of it, but he held me like the vise I saw him use to clamp boards for gluing or sawing. “Where the hell is the hot water bottle?” I was trapped. I knew it, knew I couldn’t tell him, but still I tried. “Uh . . . uh . . . uh, uh, uh.” Spit flew. I tried not to look at him, but my eyes kept going back and back to his eyes. I 28

thought sure his look would kill me. Mama’s door opened, and she stood there, hair flying all around her head, eyes puffy, red blotches covering her cheeks and nose. “Let her go,” she said. “You know she can’t talk when you’re like that. Stop tormenting her. Amelia, the hot water bottle’s on the shelf under the sink.” Justin hugged her leg, buried his face in her faded flannel nightgown. She put her hand on his head. I turned to run back to the pantry. Filling the hot water bottle from the tea kettle on the stove, I kept seeing Mama standing there in the door. It was worse than she looked when she was so sick after Justin was born. Daddy got mad then too because she insisted on nursing Justin when Dr. Henry said she didn’t have the strength. Mama was beautiful every time she walked down to the Little Bear Store, hair curled and combed all pretty, bright red lipstick and mascara making her mouth and eyes big. I wanted her to look like that always. I got the hot water bottle filled and ran back by Daddy; he was staring out the window, hand clutching the arm of the chair. His knuckles shone white. Mama was back down in her bed with her nightgown unbuttoned, Justin at her side sucking and still sobbing but softly now, more like his whimper. The red blotches on Mama’s face were already starting to fade. She said, “I don’t need that thing now.” I laid it on her belly anyway and sat on the edge of her bed for a while. Justin’s breath slowed and Mama closed her eyes. Soon they were both breathing easy, Mama starting to look beautiful again. By then Eliza was home. That wasn’t the end of it. Daddy ordered Mama more than once over the next few months, “You get that baby weaned right now.” Every time she’d say, “I’m doing it in my own time. I don’t care what you say.” Mama could be awful stubborn, but she had him weaned by the Fourth of July, a couple of months before he was supposed to start school. At least weaned enough that he never 29

tried to nurse around where anyone could see them. I noticed Justin some more when Daddy tried to make him go to school. Before I got out of bed the first day of school that year, I heard Daddy say, “No, you’re not either going to school with that kid. You never went to school with any of the others, and you ain’t going with him either. You got to stop treating him like he’s special. You’ll keep him a baby all his life.” I couldn’t hear what Mama said. I stayed up in Eliza’s room where I had to sleep, taking as long as I could to get myself dressed. I didn’t come down for breakfast, and Mama didn’t even notice. I waited until I saw the bus coming over the hill about a half mile away, then I ran down the stairs and out through the living room, trying not to see anybody, but everybody was already in the driveway waiting for the bus, Daddy and Mama too, Justin whimpering and hanging on to Mama’s hand. I ran up to the road, hoping things might be different this time so I could get on the bus first and pretend not to see what would happen with Mama and Daddy and Justin. I even tried to sneak in front of Eliza, but of course she gave me a shove and yelled, “Get back in your own place.” Then Willard and Carl both tried to push me back behind them. Thurston was the only one wasn’t trying to be first on the bus that day. He let me and Willard and Carl all go ahead of him. Then he sat in the same seat with me, and he made Willard and Carl sit in front of us. Eliza sat by herself like she always did in the front seat. She liked to talk to the driver. By the time I got in my seat, Mama was at the bus door with Justin, Daddy right behind her saying, “Now, don’t you stay on that bus with him. You put him in that seat there with Eliza and let her tend to him.” Justin held back. “No, I don’t want to go. Don’t make me go.” Mama lifted him up on to the step, and he started wailing again, 30

“No, no, no.” She lifted him up in her arms and stepped up into the bus with him. Daddy said, “Don’t you go with him. Don’t you do it.” Mama tried to put him in the seat with Eliza, but he hung on to her and wouldn’t let go. Eliza looked out the window, embarrassed, trying to pretend the whole thing wasn’t happening. Then Mama sat down with Justin on her lap. Daddy yelled, “You get off that bus. Hear? Right this minute.” Mama said, “I’m not going to make him go alone. I don’t care what you say. I’ll walk back soon as I get him settled.” She rode down to school and stayed all day with Justin. She did that all week. And Justin wasn’t any nearer letting go of her at the end of the week than he was at the beginning. I don’t know what happened that decided Justin wasn’t going to school that year he was five, but the next week it was just the five of us again getting on the bus. All that week, I spent all the time I could in the attic, whenever I didn’t have to wash dishes, or feed the pigs, or tend to Willard and Carl, make sure they did their chores. Then for a long time after, I spent a lot of time in the orchard watching the apples ripen, helping to pick them and put them in the cellar. I almost forgot about Justin again. I wanted to forget him. Now, after all these years, I can admit it. That winter I would put on my coat and potato picking gloves and go up to the attic to draw apple trees. I drew them loaded with ripe apples. I drew them with apples spread all over the ground under them. After Daddy shot a deer from the kitchen window one night, I drew them with deer coming up at night to eat apples under them. I drew them with snow piled up in drifts, all bare and black against a sky so blue Eliza said I couldn’t see right.

Up in the attic I didn’t have to notice Justin. I drew pictures and colored them and thought of the Holy Family in the stained glass window at St. Luke’s church down to Big Bear. I imagined that window in the attic peak, the Holy Family watching me draw. Then I drew pictures of the Holy Family, just like I remembered it in St. Luke’s. I drew a big one, colored it pink and gold and purple, and taped it over the window in the attic every time I went up there to draw. When I left to go back downstairs, I’d take it down and fold it and put it in a trunk under some magazines. Finally, in May and June it didn’t seem so bad to be down stairs with Mama and Daddy any more, so I sat in the kitchen and drew apple trees as I saw them out the window all in blossom. Mama liked those ones in blossom and taped them up on the wall over the kitchen table. Then, Daddy said to Mama one night at supper, “You got to make him go sleep with Carl and cure him from hanging on to you all the time. He’s going to school this year. He’s got to. The law will be on us if he doesn’t.” Mama was in the pantry. She never ate with us, always waited on us while we ate, Justin following her around, and then she and Justin would eat together after the rest of us were done, while I washed the dishes, and Eliza and Daddy and the boys went to the barn or field to do chores. She didn’t say anything. Daddy said, “Did you hear me, woman?” Mama came back to the table, put some more biscuits on the blue willow platter, said, “’Course I heard you.” Daddy said, “Well?” “I’ll do it in my own time,” she said. “Justin’s frail. You know he’s frail. He needs more tending than the rest of us.” 32

“I don’t know no such thing. You’ve made him into a sissy and a Mama’s boy. That’s what I know about him.” Justin was standing at Mama’s side like he always was. He pulled her apron up and buried his face under it. Daddy said, “Get out from under your mother’s skirts. Right this minute. It’s time you give up being a baby. Sit yourself up at the table with the rest of us. Be a young man.” He whimpered softly, hugged Mama’s leg, wrinkling her apron and pulling it over his face. Mama pulled him up into her arms and sat down at the table with him in her lap. “There now,” she said. “Let’s eat.” She fixed him a plate of potatoes with canned carrots and deer meat, put it next to her and said, “You sit right down next to me here, and we’ll both eat. See, now I’m fixing me a plate too.” She pulled a chair close to her and set him in it. He leaned against her and wouldn’t eat until we’d all left the table. Mama hardly ate either, and she was still sitting there eating with him when I finished the dishes. That went on for a long time it seemed. Mama made Eliza or me get up to get the food that was needed while we ate. One night at supper, Daddy said, “Amelia, I want you to take Justin with you in the morning out to feed the chickens and pigs. Willard and Carl are getting old enough to feed the cows and horses and help Thurston clean out the barn and it’s up to you and Justin now to feed the pigs and chickens. You got to teach him how. He’s got to start earning his keep around here. He’s got to get away from your mother.” Mama glared at him, but she didn’t say anything. Instead, she just went with me and Justin to feed the pigs and chickens, and she talked to him about how to feed them. Being around him that much, I couldn’t help noticing him. He counted the pigs, chickens, and eggs, and I realized he’d been helping Mama 33

gather the eggs for a long time, and that’s how he learned to count. She carried a small notebook around in her apron pocket and wrote egg, and Justin, and Mama, and he would write them after and read them. That was the first I knew she was teaching him to read and write. I got to spend time with Mama, and that made me notice Justin, made something squirm around inside my belly like a fat worm on a fish hook when I remembered how I squeezed his wrist until he cried when he was just a tiny baby sleeping on her breast while she was sleeping, too. Justin was still sleeping in Mama’s bed with her. Daddy slept on a cot in the living room right outside Mama’s bedroom door where he’d always slept ever since I could remember because Mama always had a baby in bed with her. One night I woke up in the middle of the night. Justin was crying almost as loud as when he was outside Mama’s door that time, louder than when Mama tried to put him on the bus. “No. No. No.” Daddy was clunking up the stairs, his crutch coming down hard on a stair, then his short leg, then his long leg, Justin bumping on the stairs as he was pulled along. Before I was fully awake, I could see them in my mind, and I knew Daddy was bringing Justin up to sleep with Carl. After Daddy left him there, Justin cried for a long time. When he finally got quiet and I thought I could sleep again, I heard him get out of Carl’s bed and go down the stairs, trying to be real quiet, hoping Daddy wouldn’t hear. He got all the way and opened Mama’s door. I imagined him climbing into bed with her. Only then did Daddy yell, “You get back up those stairs right this minute.” It started all over again. Daddy clunking up the stairs, dragging Justin along. But by this time Justin wasn’t so loud, and instead of “No, no, no,” he was whimpering, “Mama. Mama. Mama.” That happened once more that night. 34

I never quite got to sleep, not even in the gray dawn when Justin hushed enough that I thought he must be finally sleeping. Only then, waiting for the dark to be fully gone, did I realize Daddy was in Mama’s bed, that he came out through her door each time to haul Justin back up the stairs. Mama was sick again the next day with a bellyache and a headache. I brought the hot water bottle to her. Justin hung around her bed, but he didn’t get back into it. That went on for a couple of days, and then Daddy said he had to go out again with me and help me feed the pigs and chickens, earn his keep. Mama got up then. She kept on helping me teach Justin how to feed the pigs and chickens. But he never did much of the feeding. Mama and I did it, and he followed her around counting the chickens and eggs and pigs, carrying her notebook, learning to write pig, hay, sun, tree. He went to school that fall without a whimper, but he never did like it and never would do anything for the teacher. Mama kept on teaching him. By the end of that year, he could read and write better than either Willard or Carl. Neither of them were ever much for learning. By and by, he got better than any of us with arithmetic. But he never earned his keep by feeding the animals like all the rest of us had to do. He was so slow at any kind of work, me and Mama did all his chores. For a long time after he got weaned for good, after I was in high school, after Eliza was gone even and I had her bed to myself, I would hear Mama and Daddy talking sometimes in the night, their voices murmuring too low for me to hear what they said, and I would wonder if Justin, in Carl’s bed, was listening, too. I wonder if all that was what made him so odd he never could leave Mama’s side, just like Daddy predicted, made him so he couldn’t cry after he grew up, not when Daddy died, not even when Mama died, not through all the years since, me tending him just like Mama did. Or was it like Mama said? Was Justin really so frail from the beginning he needed somebody to tend 35

him always? Was he always really special? Nearly sixty years have passed since Justin was taken out of Mama’s bed, and more than twenty now he’s been sleeping in her bed since she died. I been dreaming lately that I hear Daddy dragging him up the stairs. But when they get to the top of the stairs where I can see them—I don’t know where the light is coming from, some kind of unholy glow on them, and the darkness all around—when they get to the top of the stairs, it is Justin dragging Daddy, the oddest sight, Daddy even bigger than in life, Justin even smaller, hands in his pockets like he always walks, his sweet smile on his face and his eyes looking off into the distance, way beyond where any of the rest of us can see, talking to someone invisible to me. I can’t understand his language. Daddy is behind Justin, hanging on to him around the waist, arms slid between Justin’s arms and body, hands gripped together in front, mouth twisted as though in pain. His eyes, open and perfectly still, say he is dead. Justin loosens Daddy’s hands like he is unfastening a belt buckle, turns, lifts him up like he is weightless, holds him out like an offering. I call, “Mama. Mama?” But no sound comes.

Tracey White A Day with Dad In a metal bowl, the strawberries are cut Sprinkled with sugar, and left to cool To form that blanket of sweet syrup. The chugging of steam. The revving of diesel Brightly glowing light, puff of hazy smoke Soft pounding of a hammer against the tiny nails. Smell of solder fills the room, for their power to consume. Bread and butter and smooth peanut butter too Tea kettle whistling, erupting its steam Two cups of creamy hot cocoa, for dipping the bread The lunch we both shared, our favorite. Trains running, two or three at a time Mountains and tunnels made of plaster and screen Trees, grass, rocks, and coal Houses and buildings, cars and trucks, and little people too. Sugar and gold on a cob, with salt and butter Potato or macaroni salad on the side Little yellow sponge cakes, filled with strawberries Now with their sugary glaze, topped with smooth cream. One day like so many of our days working on the railroad.

Ian Covey Water Street I walked down the pier on Water Street to breathe the sea, and felt the salt of the midnight seaweed on my tongue. The algae green dock and its boats bob up and down every day to the rhythm of the moon’s invention; perpetual motion is man’s envy, its power untapped. Fog floods the streets like the levies have broken in the sky and I swim through on foot as I make my retreat to the bar where we are the only creatures awake in the town. The beasts and bearded old hippies and pirates seek refuge from the water through drink, and drown from the brain down in the darkness of the ghost town’s empty corner that borders above and beneath the water street.

Ian Covey To the Lighthouse The fallen monument now stands three stories, for tourists, who can get the three-inch replica. It’s January now, the patio is closed for the season. White boards on red shutters – someone’s black initials make it official. The scout with no army stands beside the cold river waiting not for sailors but traffic. No longer spinning but flickering – a distress beacon drowning in streetlights.

Lanette Virtanen Sunset

Kathi L. Jandreau Around Here The sun begins to rise in Greenwich Village. A peach color under blue, with yellow undertones, swept across the sky behind the cathedral. The church bells ring and suddenly the city wakes up. It is a gorgeous morning. Somewhere in the distance, on a boat, a person can see the New York City skyline and take a photo. They begin to smell the sidewalk food as the lights in every window fade. On the corner of Fifth and Avenue of the Americas, the French Roast Café door opens and closes. Opens and closes. The man with the dark suit orders a latte to go. The woman with the red hair sits down and looks the menu over, taking her sweet time, while the waitress near the bar watches and waits for the signal to walk over and take her order. A young man with dreadlocks stands and waits. Three others line up behind him. Two more come in and stand behind them. Five minutes later the tables are full and the woman with the red hair orders a vegetarian omelet and a chai tea. The songbirds bring stunning melodies to Washington Square Park, their thanks for the glorious morning, just before the kids dressed in classy clothes set up their band stand in the corner and start playing alternative tunes. The pigeons flock the walkways in search of leftovers from the hot dog stand, the gelato stand, the sausage stand, the water stand, the ice cream stand, and the stand that caught fire, five minutes before the park fountain sprayed the older lady in the maroon t-shirt. The girl in the yellow dress and white hat walks out of the Larchmont Hotel, holding the hand of the fellow in the blue polo and tan shorts. She smiles and leans in to kiss his cheek. The sun shines on them like fireworks on the perfect summer night. She looks up and imagines that it will be the perfect summer night. He looks up and pulls his sunglasses down over his eyes. 41

The man on the bench hasn’t woken up yet and the walkers have yet to look over at him. He stirs a bit, as a pigeon lands on his leg. The man on the bench dreams of summertime twenty five years ago. He dreams of a white picket fence and his bride wearing a lavender gown, the heat of the sun shaded by a porch umbrella, quenched by a slice of watermelon, and the smells of cherry blossom and perfume. He will wake to the smell of trash, wake shaded by a flock of pigeons and quenched by a drop at the bottom of his old beer can. Central Park buzzes like a peaceful war-zone. There are kids playing soccer, people riding bikes and scooters and skateboards, and a couple of teenagers shooting each other with water guns. A woman dressed in Armani with an alligator purse and silky tresses stands still, staring down at her phone. Suddenly, in a moment, her world is shaken. Her heart rate rises and she screams for dear life, as a boy wearing plaid shorts and no shirt accidently sprays her with his water gun. For a minute all of Central Park stands still. And then it doesn’t. In West Village Joe’s Pizza is a hot spot. A woman wearing a tie-dye bandana orders a slice with tomatoes, artichokes, and pineapple. The mother with her three children orders a small pepperoni pizza and then can’t find her wallet. The older man behind them starts to shake his head and mumble, and then boldly steps in front of her, informing the man behind the counter that all he wants is a goddamn coca cola and that the hussy behind him probably has no money. The woman behind this older man, wearing a floral dress and conservative looking knee-boots, holding a Vanity Fair magazine, offers to pay for the woman’s small pizza, as she puts in a large order, for five pizzas, for later that week, for the company party. The man behind the counter just wants a cigarette. An older couple holds hands as they walk along the shoreline. A perfect summer breeze hits them as a convertible drives by playing a song by Sinatra, the one they danced to at their wedding, fifty five years, three months, and six days ago today. 42

The old man squeezes his wife’s hand harder, as they look at each other and smile. She busts out laughing as he swings out in front of her and swoops her down for a kiss. They both start laughing and take a seat on a bench, looking on at the Statue of Liberty, both thinking over the memories they had made throughout their many years of faithful marriage. The little girl with a pink ribbon in her hair runs with a red balloon in the grass at Hudson River Park. A dog barks, which makes another dog bark, which makes another dog bark, which makes the woman reading Shakespeare for her literature class make an angry face. The little girl with the pink ribbon in her hair wants a Popsicle but she doesn’t want to give up the red balloon, so she sits on it to hold it in place and it pops. The little girl begins to cry as the woman reading Shakespeare slams her book shut and storms away. The sun begins to set in Greenwich Village. A green color under navy, with coral undertones, swept across the sky behind the cathedral. The church bells ring and suddenly the city dies down. It is a beautiful night. Somewhere in the distance, in a field, a person can see the New York City skyline and take a photo and paint a picture.

Abby McLaughlin Take Cover This is where the weary girls go, to the whole of you. Palm and rib, slippery and seamless. Pouring skin over your cloth covered body. The home where bones clatter, where arms grow and tangle at your waist. Meet me at the backs of my knees, and press against the spots where I tremble. Out of habit, the hours leave us, alone unarmed and we settle.

Anthony Scott Touching Again My hand strokes your bare thigh toward your knee. The stroke turns into a gentle patting. My hand rests. In the soft red glow of the clock your face is close, resting on your pillow. Your eyes remain closed, but you press closer against me. I know we can only lay like this so long. Our aging joints will ache in a little while over the unnatural angles of our bones, over the pressure of interlocked legs and arms, and we’ll untangle, roll over, and spine to spine we will drift into sleep. Tomorrow you’ll still crowd into me with a thousand details, voiced for god only knows what reason. You’ll still rail over the injustice of a mis-mixed coffee order or a misplaced stocking. Tomorrow I’ll still be mystified over why these things occupy so much of your time and thought and passion (and therefore, me). But it will be okay. None of that is an injustice after all, seen in this light, this amber light, where we’re touching again.

Contributors Carolyn Anderson graduated from UMPI with a BA in Art Education as well as a BFA. She recently published her first book, As Time Goes By, an exploration of life and aging through the imagery of an abandoned home. Carolyn's focus is the old, the abandoned, and the broken. Her photographs and paintings have been displayed in exhibitions throughout Maine. She resides in Littleton with her three children. Cherie Black is an alumnus of both Northern Maine Community College and UMPI. She is currently an online graduate student in the Adult and Higher Education program through USM. Cherie has shared her poetry at UMPI's University Day and the National Undergraduate Literature Conference at Weber State University. She also enjoys sharing her work at local coffee houses. Cherie lives and works in Caribou. Alice Bolstridge is an UMPI alum, retired English teacher, mother of three, and grandmother of three. She was born and raised in Portage and has published more than one hundred poems, stories, and essays in magazines and anthologies including Cimarron Review, Intricate Weave, Nimrod, Maine in Print, The Café Review, and many others. Kathleen Christoffel is in her fifth year at UMPI, finishing her Fine Art degree after having graduated from the Athletic Training program last May. A lot of Kathleen’s artistic inspiration comes from her connection to the natural world; she always hikes with a sketchbook, camera, and watercolor pencils to record what she sees in the wilderness. Keep an eye out for her Senior Show in the spring!

Jillelaine Condon grew up more or less wild in the northern embrace of the deeply forested Presque Isle. After many adventures, she's learned to channel forest magic onto paper, wood, cloth, and any other medium that screams, "Art me!" Her

forms are free-flowing and packed with pure liquid whimsy (caution: flammable). The pervading themes of her work are happiness and harmony. Ian Covey is a post-baccalaureate Education student at UMPI. He's lived in several Canadian provinces but always calls New Brunswick home. When he's not writing or learning to teach, Ian spends his money trying to see each of the fifty states or studying all things craft beer. Deric Flaherty was born and raised in Aroostook County. In 2013, he graduated from UMPI with a BA in Psychology. This is his first published poem (and we predict it will not be his last).

Kathi L. Jandreau was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts but currently lives in Caribou. She loves to read and write and will be graduating in the spring with a Bachelor’s degree in Communication. Kathi is newly engaged to Rob Kilcollins and has two little boys, Jude and Logan. Melissa Jenks writes and farms in Bridgewater, where she settled after thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail and large portions of the Pacific Coast Trail. Her work has been published in both Echoes and Vera. She is currently spending six months traveling around Thailand, the country where she spent fifteen years as a child. You can follow Melissa's adventures on her website: casting-off.blogspot.com. Abby McLaughlin, originally from Presque Isle, attended UMPI and graduated from NMCC with a degree in nursing in 2008. She spent the fall 2012 semester as an OpenU student and continues to fall in love with writing. Abby is currently an RN working and living in Portland. She loves Sylvia Plath, Star Wars, running half-marathons, and is newly addicted to skydiving. Chris Morton is an UMPI alum who received his BA in

English Literature in 2004. He recently opened a music store in downtown Presque Isle, proving that it is indeed possible to find work outside of the fast food industry with an English degree. His book, You Kids Quit Pooping on the Lawn!, is available at Amazon. Anthony Scott graduated from UMPI with a BA in English in May 2010. In January of 2013, he earned his MA in English/Creative Writing from Wilkes University, and he’s nearing the completion of his MFA. Anthony teaches composition at UMPI and is revising an inter-textual novel (fiction/poetry) examining the social tensions in a small-town fundamentalist church in the South in the early ’80s. Lanette Virtanen graduated in May of 2013 with her BFA and a minor in Communications. While at UMPI, she was the editor of the University Times four years running. She now works for UMPI as the new Transfer Counselor/Transcript Evaluator. With this job, Lanette hopes to share her story and inspire other non-traditional students to step out of their comfort zone and gain a whole new experience. Tracey White was born and raised in Rumford. Growing up, she enjoyed playing clarinet, taking dance classes, drawing, and writing poems. After school, she worked at a shoe factory to help support her two children and eventually went on to land a rewarding and creative job as a pastry chef. Tracey is currently attending UMA to receive her BA in English Literature and this summer plans to work on her poetry as well as a book she’s writing. Richard Lee Zuras is Professor of Creative Writing and Film Studies Advisor at UMPI. His novel The Bastard Year was published in 2012, and his latest novel, The Honeymoon Corruption, will be published in the summer of 2014. Richard has held fiction scholarships at Bread Loaf and Wesleyan University, and presently he is writing a collection of poems.