Upcountry by Upcountry

upcountry

fall/winter 2011

upcountry university of maine at presque isle fall/winter 2011

Editors Dr. Melissa Crowe Mika Ouellette Barat Qualey 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. © 2011. 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.

Lila Albert Back to Godhead (essay) Three Crows (poem)

28 71

Andrew Bellamy Going Downstate No. 1 (poem)

Cherie Black Lonely (poem)

Shawn Cote Like a Hurricane (story)

Andrew Dunn [experiment in sublimity] (poem)

Pierre Gagne Conciliations After a Late Frost (poem)

Skylah Gendreau Insult (poem)

Cassie Gildert Waiting to Die (poem)

Elaine Gould Morning Has Broken (poem)

Cassie Green

Stealing from a Beggar (poem)

Chelsie Hawkins Back to Spain (story)

Sandra McLaughlin Core (cover art, mixed media on canvas) Neal R. Miller Unnatural (poem)

Chris Morton The Dump (essay)

Lindsey Perry The Sadness of Weddings (poem)

Kimberly Pratt Sweet Jane (poem) Dunwitch (poem)

11 48

Candice Rivera Mariachi (poem) Operation Moonlight Sonata (poem) Organized (poem)

70 64 44

Anthony Scott The Great Buford Family Crisis of 2010 (story) Parasite’s Rationale (poem) In a Beer Hall near the Black Forest (poem)

67 27 63

Chris Morton The Dump I loved going to the town dump when I was a kid. It was like going to a garage sale where everything was free. Dad would pull his battered old truck up to the gate and wave at Billy, the pot-‐bellied attendant in a soiled polo shirt and soot-‐stained jeans. Billy would nod shortly and wave us through. First we’d pull up to a massive pile of old tires. When the State neglected to pick them up for a few months and the pile would get high enough to make Billy nervous, the tires would mysteriously catch fire on a night when the volunteer firefighters just happened to have a free evening. They’d watch it burn until all that was left was a swampy mess of tar. Then they’d stub out their cigarettes, hose down the ashes, pack up their lunches and head for home. I’m pretty sure Billy quietly made regular contributions to the department’s equipment fund. Even after the fire was out, the stench of burnt rubber at the dump was constant and so thick that it was almost tangible. I drank it in like kool-‐aid. After we passed the rubber pile, Dad’s brown Ford would rumble over to what I considered one of the seven wonders of the world. The dump was a giant funnel-‐shaped pit in the ground. It reminded me of a village nestled in a volcano, post-‐eruption: garbage littered the ground in deep smelly layers, smoldering in patches from random fires. To a five-‐ year-‐old, it was fascinating. Crows, high winds, and trash slides (like landslides, except… well, you get it) tore open the seas of black and white trash bags and covered the sides of the pit with refuse. Old clothes. Bright greeting-‐card envelopes. Tin cans of all colors and sizes. Empty laundry-‐ detergent bottles. Wrapping paper. Cardboard packaging from toys. Random bigger items like the odd minifridge or occasional volleyball net poked slyly through the sea of trash, as if waiting to be discovered by only the diligent and 5

worthy. My Dad was a diligent man. Casually he would stroll the circumference of the dump, eyes carefully scanning the debris field. Sometimes he would pause and squint at a particular object under an old purple raincoat or a tattered section of wallpaper. Then he might gingerly lower his foot into the pit, delicately picking his way closer to the mystery that lay behind door number three. Or door number four. Or maybe the door didn’t even have a number on it, or maybe it was a car hood instead of a door. It was a dump! You never knew what might be hiding the thing you’d always wanted but didn’t feel like buying. When he got within arm’s reach, Dad would hunt around for a long stick or curtain rod or bike chassis or car bumper or umbrella. Then he’d cautiously lean over and move aside a random piece of trash to expose a perfectly good step ladder that was only missing the second-‐to-‐bottom step, or a singed roof rake that would be fine if a man knew how to weld and didn’t mind what looked like a melted handprint on the handle. And Dad would clamber out of the pit clutching his slightly pre-‐owned sledgehammer or shovel or chair or fish tank or wok, a faint look of triumph visible in his eyes. And I was proud of my Dad. Some suckers would pay big money for a new frying pan. My Dad got his for FREE. My brothers and I wound up on the receiving end of a lot of cool stuff, compliments of the Town of Masardis Waste Management Services. We got bikes, trikes, Tonka trucks with three good wheels and only minimal rust, a blue plastic kiddie pool that held water nearly all afternoon, a defunct rotary phone, a radio, a bicycle pump, and enough scrap lumber to build a tree house, a raft, a fort in the woods, and a 6-‐foot-‐long wooden car you could sit in and pretend to 6

drive (thanks to a steering wheel also discovered at – good Lord, what a coincidence! – the dump.) But the coolest thing Dad ever brought home by far was the go-‐cart. I think he found it on the metal pile. Or maybe he bought the frame at a garage sale and found the motor on an old motorcycle lying in the pit. I forget the exact details. Either way, Dad suddenly presented us with a dune-‐buggy-‐style go-‐cart, complete with both a gas pedal AND a brake pedal AND a kill switch. It was made mostly out of metal pipes that were bent into a frame and welded with the precision of a man who viewed art as secondary to safety (for which I’m still grateful). It had been painted blue once, and then left out in the rain for ten years to get a special rust/dull-‐gray patina that people would probably pay good money for today. The ‘brake pedal’ was a thin piece of cable tied to a rubber flap that ground against the back tires. Sometimes it even worked. I’m the kind of dad who gets nervous handing his kids a plastic fork. Every now and then, I marvel at the kind of man who would build his kids a go-‐cart and then go mow a giant figure-‐eight race track in the field behind his house. Mostly the parent in me wonders if I‘m doing the best thing by sheltering my kids. It makes me grateful for a Dad who cared enough to trust that his sons were capable enough to handle the responsibilities of what amounted to a 250cc five-‐foot by three-‐foot low-‐flying ballistic missile. Soon after we got the go-‐cart, the bushes around our house began exhibiting definite signs of high-‐velocity pruning. Mom’s garden out back was savagely tromped on by a river-‐ dancing moose that only my brother and I saw. Trees mysteriously developed gouges and dents eight inches off the ground. The back yard suddenly became spotted with 7

patches of ravaged shrubbery. My cousin Ben developed a distinct limp in his left leg, and his flip-‐flop was later found in a tree twelve feet off the ground. I think it was the third time I accidentally took out the garage door that the go-‐cart spent a weekend on the bench and re-‐emerged with a lawn mower engine, capable of speeds up to twenty miles an hour downhill. Once I tried to run over my aunt just to see if the old beast could take it. (The go-‐cart, not the aunt.) She put her foot out and stopped the cart dead in its tracks, then politely told me to go soak my head. Thus ended my career as a speed demon. I had my first motor vehicle accident in that go-‐cart. Well, by strict definition, I probably had my first forty-‐seven or so accidents in the sucker (and that’s not counting all the stuff I aimed for). I flipped it, rolled it, stalled it, crashed it, burnt my hands on the muffler, ran over my own foot at least a dozen times, whacked my nose or my noggin on the bars easily four times a minute, and left skin, blood, and a tooth in our driveway. And IT. WAS. AWESOME. I loved every minute of it. I miss it, even now. It’s been a while since I’ve been to a dump. Star City Sanitation takes away our refuse now, in white trucks with sharp lettering driven by guys who wear actual uniforms and could probably spell “sanitation” two times out of three. But I hear there’s a dump in Ashland that’s still open. I’m tempted to wander down there on my next day off. Maybe I’ll stroll by the metal pile. Maybe I’ll find a rusted frame and an old Hondamatic motor. Maybe I’ll look for a slightly-‐used garage door while I’m at it. Just in case. I hear it’s good to recycle.

Lindsey Perry The Sadness of Weddings I never understood the whole legality issue in wearing white, sipping cheap champagne, and mingling with forgotten relatives. Dad says uncle Dexter will probably be there. Groom says the weatherman lies. Bride says everything is ruined. Confrontations are easily avoided by moving the flowers inside. She spends Saturday afternoon with her obnoxious mother at the salon on Baker’s Street. He spends all morning sleeping off Blue Ribbon beer and well drinks. Even the pastor can smell it. They kiss anyway— and hop into his father’s Pontiac Fiero. They drive that prize piece straight to the VFW. Bottles of Cook’s champagne flow down the gullets of thirsty friends as though they have just returned from a month in the Mohave. Uncle Dexter toasts the happy couple, then returns to gnawing on his wholesale prime rib. I watch his teeth smash into the bleeding flesh. Bits of beef smother his lips. There is no napkin, only the sleeve of his Harris tweed. I watch my father greet my Uncle. He wriggles in his skin as he lurches for 9

a half-hearted hug. “He’s a keeper, eh, Dex?” My father musters a smile for him. “I give ‘em a year,” my uncle remarks. Groom pushes a mound of Betty Crocker frosting into Bride’s face. A few hundred pictures are snapped. We watch an eight-year-old break dance. I take a picture of uncle Dexter with the “please-take-useless-pictures-of-nothing” camera that has been put out for us. While the pounds of prime rib are massacred and hillbilly helpers clean up paper plates Bride has her dance with Dad. I stare at my smiling sister and tell myself they can’t all be this bad.

Kimberly Pratt Sweet Jane Jane, you write of passionate, yet chaste, love. There are no love scenes with bare chested men, naked bodies twined together as one, hair undone, dripping down naked arms, lips swollen from hours long kisses. Did you think only of romantic love, no thoughts of sex entering your mind? Did you long for someone’s touch on your skin? Did you pray to god to send you a husband to hold you on cold winter nights? A ship’s Captain to sail away with, to walk down an aisle with, lie together with. Were you the plain one, the overlooked one? Only pretty with the blush from the wind on your cheeks. Did you write the story of your dream life? Are you the girl in your stories, the sister doomed for spinsterhood until you create a man in your imagination? The perfect man, the man who exists only on the page.

Elaine Gould Morning Has Broken After broken, fitful sleep morning slapped me in the ass, caught me by the hair, and dragged me out of bed. Toothbrush jammed my gums, cereal filled a hole, and the drive revved my heart. Later, at work, I’d wish for Tums. I lived on nerves, at beck-and-call when I just wanted fresh air, when I just wanted to be a Mum. Finally, one February, I jacked it all in. Now I wake in the morning and run with my dog. Drive the kids to games and dances and swimming and parties and trips. Gone is the pager attached to my hip. Gone also is my career, and here, in its place, a gaping hole I'm afraid to fall into. What now?

Pierre Gagne Conciliations After a Late Frost The cold breath of a four a.m. mist has frosted our cucumbers and tomatoes. It has spoken, touched, and left them to wither in the morning sun. A big brown toad peers from beneath a leaf And with a voice borrowed from T.V., How impractical, he croaks. A frost in July. It’s summer time. Must we wear mittens to eat breakfast in the morning sun? Do we all need warts for the toad to be a success? A bird flies in on a heavy breeze. I’m crying, he chirps. I’m crying! I wanted everything and received all things but one, a warm nest beneath the rising sun.

Neal R. Miller Unnatural Ten PM to six AM An unnatural time For a once patient farmer standing at he entrance to his meadow ---- his corridor The pulsating whirring of his machine Starting first with the scrub pad’s scratchy rasping Then the silent whirling rhythm When into the slimy finish Until the rasping sound returns ---- it’s cut. Suck the slime off the floor And wash Then clear plastic liquid spread evenly From a clean bucket ---- three coats The pungent smell of ammonia Shining chemical beauty Unnatural beauty.

Shawn Cote Like a Hurricane When I was twelve, a man I’ll call Raphael prophesied that the hardest things for me to keep in life would be steady jobs and women. “Depending on the job or the woman, this might not be a bad thing,” he said. Raphael was a disgraced art professor who had lost tenure for sleeping with co-‐eds-‐-‐ he called them his “muses”-‐-‐and for teaching one too many classes half in the bag. He was also my mother’s boyfriend. I call him Raphael because he modeled himself after the infamous Italian painter of the same name, who was said to have died from a coital binge. Mom’s Raphael considered her his Margherita Luti and paid her to pose for an adult ed class he was teaching-‐-‐the only honest work he could get, post-‐scandal. Because we were fatherless, Raphael took it upon himself to impart what he seemed to feel were fatherly insights to my brother Kieran and me. He knew better than to try this with our sister Briana, who was older and saw through him. Looking back, I can see for myself that Raphael was full of shit. Still, there are moments when I’m forced to consider that he might not have been entirely wrong about me. It’s been nearly fifteen years since Raphael laid out my future for me, and I’m sitting in my car outside an empty brick hardware store in Woodfill Township, Maine, not far from the Canadian border. I’ve got a front-‐row seat to a thunder-‐and-‐lightning show underway outside, while rain hammers my Plymouth Reliant, a twenty-‐year-‐old beater that, fittingly enough, has refused to start. Not for the first time in my so-‐called adult life, I find myself jobless, jilted, and stranded, thinking Raphael almost got it right. One thing he neglected to mention: That I’d spend the better part of a decade failing to keep the same woman.

Far away from here, Hurricane Katrina is drawing a bead on New Orleans. The last I heard, Katrina was a Category 3 storm and expected to get bigger, but it’s a different tempest I’m fearing tonight, as darkness descends and the reality of my situation sinks in. I understand that eventually I’m going to have to call someone for a ride and a tow, but I don’t own a cell phone, and, given a choice, I’d rather walk home in a monsoon than face the full-‐on fury of Claudia again tonight. Claudia isn’t a hurricane, but she is like one. Claudia is my girlfriend, or my ex, depending on what day or week you catch us. For the time being, she would appear to be my ex, but given ten years of breakups and appeasements (including one teenage marriage and an annulment), to say nothing of the volatile nature of a woman enduring nicotine withdrawal, I’m disinclined to believe in clean breaks. Candlelight still burns in the apartment window over the hardware store. There’s movement behind the flickering glow, but I can’t tell if the shadow belongs to Claudia or Jarret, her nine-‐year-‐old son. I catch myself shivering, but I’m not sure if it’s because of the unseasonably cool August night or the thought of what Claudia is liable to do if she looks out her window and sees my car still here. Even on her best day, she has a temper. As I watch, a flash of daytime-‐bright light illuminates Woodfill’s main drag, followed seconds later by a thunderclap so heavy and close that it seems to be inside the car with me. Through the streams of water running down my car’s back window, I can see the blurred neon glow of a Budweiser sign in the window of LeBlanc’s Variety, across the street. Though it can’t be seen from here, there’s a phone booth around the side of the building, where the color-‐ coded recycling bins are. I can feel two or three quarters in my hip pocket, enough for one phone call. I look at the nebulous beer sign again. Once the rain lets up, I’ll work my 16

way over there, but for now I’ll stay put, wet and numb, waiting for my head to clear enough for me to attempt a full damage assessment. Like a car-‐crash survivor reliving the seconds leading up to the moment of impact, I play and replay the buildup to Claudia’s meltdown. I can still smell the mustiness of the living room, feel the closeness and tension that filled her apartment as she banged cupboard doors and drawers in her futile search for a cigarette. I was on the couch with Jarret, the two of us trading uneasy glances while I tried to show him how to draw a cartoon dinosaur-‐-‐a brachiosaurus, because it ate plants and wasn’t as scary as the T. rex. I suppose it didn’t help that I’d been hanging out at their place ever since Slaven-‐Blagden Media Monitoring Services, Claudia’s and my mutual employer, had laid me off along with the rest of its transcription department three days before. Claudia, recently promoted to night-‐shift supervisor in video monitoring and feeling the stress of that responsibility, hadn’t objected to my being around when she needed someone to stay with Jarret, but having an idle boyfriend around on a Saturday night apparently proved less convenient. Of course there was the added minefield that she’d been trying to quit smoking and had made me promise not to let her anywhere near a cigarette for the next several says, no matter how bitchy she got. So when she threw a crumpled twenty-‐dollar bill at me and advised me to go across the street and get her a pack of Camel Lights as soon as possible, it didn’t occur to me that by saying no I was doing anything other than keeping my promise to her. I can be a little slow sometimes. Of course I realized before I heard Jarret suck in his breath that I’d done precisely the wrong thing. I looked up from my 17

sketchpad and saw in his big hazel eyes that if he’d been old enough to buy his mother cigarettes at that moment, he’d have braved Katrina herself to cross that street and go get them. But he couldn’t. And it was already too late for me to rethink my position. One look at Claudia told me so. It told me something else, too. It told me I’d given her exactly what she wanted. If you’ve never seen blood in the eyes of a woman whose bite you know intimately, you can’t comprehend the complex set of chemical and emotional responses it sets off in a man. Glaring at me from behind icy-‐green contact lenses, the creature advanced menacingly in her black Misfits tank top and skinny jeans, tattooed arms stiff at her sides, nostrils flared and pierced lip twisted in fury, as she spat out obscenities that would have unnerved an exorcist. If my reproductive organs hadn’t suddenly already retreated into my stomach, I might have found it sexy. Stopping within arm’s reach of me, she leaned in with her hands on her hips. Red-‐black strands of hair framed her face, which was pale as a vampire’s and unmade. I was, she said, to get in my car and get myself as far away from her as I could. I was not to call. I was not to e-‐mail her or leave any handwritten notes under her windshield wipers. I was, in short, never to show myself on her doorstep ever again, or else risk unspeakable consequences. We were done. Ended. For good. She would walk across that street herself in the rain and buy a whole carton of cigarettes and a twelve-‐pack of beer and smoke and drink herself blind this very night, if that was what she felt like doing, and there was not a thing that I or any other straight-‐ edge pussy-‐boy motherfucker on the face of the earth could do about it. And so here I sit, stranded in the aftermath of an 18

unreasonable woman’s rage, like a cowering mouse in a tin can. It occurs to me that my backseat is littered with tapes and CDs containing songs that might speak to my situation, from “Why Don’t You Love Me (Like You Used to Do?)” to “Train in Vain.” The stereo should work, as long as my battery’s not dead, but somehow I’m not ready to console myself with music just yet. That will come later. If I were religious, losing my job and my girlfriend the very same week might feel like divine intervention. The thing about a shit storm is, it’s hard to see the silver lining in a cloud that’s raining excrement on you. It’s one thing to walk off a crap job or end an unhealthy relationship on your own terms, but to be unceremoniously dumped by a boss or a lover for no good reason-‐-‐well, that’s bound to sting a little bit, isn’t it? You don’t walk away from a thing like that unscathed, no matter how unsustainable the status quo may have been. Still, I’m a little nonplused at how calm and resigned to this particular shit storm I am, though maybe I shouldn’t be so surprised. It’s not like I haven’t been here before. If I applied myself, I might even be able to see a mixed blessing in the sequence of events, however depressing the events themselves might be. Because the truth is, if Claudia had broken up with me before I lost my job, that I wouldn’t have been able to drag myself to work the next day. Or the day after that. Or the day after that. And instead of being laid off, I would have been fired. At least this way I can collect severance pay. As for the car, well, what will it matter tomorrow if the thing is dead? It’s not like I have a job to go to. Part of me can already anticipate the luxury of being able to spend a day just lying around my apartment listening to the entire Ramones discography. 19

Rain pings against chrome and glass. As it almost always does, this sound drags me back to my grandfather’s potato farm, where my brother Kieran and I sometimes found ourselves taking shelter with Gramp’s Maliseet pickers under the camper top of his truck, after a downpour had driven us from the fields. My mother’s father never met Raphael. It’s safe to assume that he would not have approved of such a man, but one thing he might have agreed about was my prospects as an employee and a mate. In Gramp’s eyes, I was an unmitigated jillpoke, a word I’ve never seen in any dictionary but one the old man applied to anyone he believed spent more time in their own head than they did in the world of work and common sense. In that world-‐-‐his world-‐-‐the very idea of a life of the mind was beneath contempt. He would have taken it for granted that no employer or woman with any sense would keep a jillpoke around long enough to warm a toilet seat-‐-‐a good thing, since, according to him, most jillpokes never know whether to shit or get off the pot. Case in point: me right now. Shivering, I force myself to take stock of my situation. If anything, it’s gotten colder. I look behind me but can’t really see beyond the sheets of water anymore. Even the Budweiser sign is barely a suggestion of light and color. My teeth begin to chatter. I sit up. In a way, it’s liberating to be so powerless, to have all but the simplest options taken away from me. If I were a little warmer and a little less cowardly, I could sit here all night. Seconds later, I’m nearly blinded by cold rain as I make a stumbling dash across the street. I feel strangely disconnected, as if my legs are working independent of my brain. I have just enough sense to ignore the scarcely audible humming siren song of the Budweiser sign as I duck 20

inside the phone booth and slam the door shut. I wipe water from my eyes and shiver again. A car going too fast down the street hits a puddle and nearly hydroplanes. I watch its taillights fade as I put the phone to my ear and fish in my pocket for the quarters. I bite down hard to keep my teeth from chattering. There isn’t much deliberating to do. I don’t want to call my sister, who was up all night with a fussy two-‐year-‐old and has, I know, spent most of this day on her feet, filling prescriptions. Besides, no good could come of Briana knowing the latest developments in the dubious ballad of Casey and Claudia tonight. Nor can I call Curtis, my brother-‐ in-‐law, without tipping off my sister. Normally, my friends Jamie and Loman would be the ones to tow my car, but they’re in Portland this weekend, taking in a Drive-‐By Truckers concert. They have girlfriends. Girlfriends and jobs. I can almost feel sorry for them. I push buttons in the semidarkness and listen. It doesn’t take long for someone to pick up. Dodie’s voice, throaty and resonant with an affected Boston accent, fills my ear. “Humphrey’s Used Cahs.” “Hey,” I say. “Hey, Shaggy. S’up?” I can hear a TV in the background. Because it’s Saturday night, I know Dodie and her grandmother will be watching the Red Sox game. Dodie believes that organized sports are the opium of the people-‐-‐except when it comes to baseball. Growing up, she spent most of every school year with her mother in Boston, where she developed an abiding affinity 21

for Beantown, hardcore punk, and the BoSox. “You wouldn’t do me a favor, would you?” “Maybe. Whatcha need?” “A ride.” “K-‐cah shit the bed again?” “Yep.” Dodie is my best friend. We met in college, where I impressed her by being the only other person in freshman composition who had ready Patti Smith’s poetry. It didn’t hurt that we were both heavily into Minor Threat at the time. “Where ah you?” “Woodfill.” She sighs. Dodie has never approved of Claudia’s and my on-‐ again, off-‐again connection, a twisted love story that makes no sense to anyone, least of all me. “Can I tell you about it later?” I ask her. Another sigh. She has every right to tell me “I told you so,” but she doesn’t. When she speaks again, the playful Boston accent is gone. “All right. Try to stay dry, dumbass. I’ll be right there.” I’m just getting back to my car when I glimpse a sopping-‐wet Claudia lugging a case of beer up the stairs to her apartment, a carton of cigarettes under her arm. The backs of her pant 22

legs are spattered with mud and her hair is plastered to the side of her face. Stepping behind a light post, I watch her set the beer down on the landing and let herself into the apartment. Without looking back, she kicks the door shut behind her and I hesitate a moment longer, until I’m sure she’s in for good and my clothes are soaked through. I start to get into my car and stop, then step around to the front bumper and look up from the broken beer-‐bottle glass on my hood to the fist-‐sized spider-‐web crack in the center of my windshield. All I can do is swear to myself and stare. Pinned between the windshield and a wiper blade that’s been wrenched upward is half-‐smoked cigarette.

before anyone else wakes into this hungover place, pot-holed pavement surrounded by smart cars & closed down bars

"

to drink with the day already broke... with coffee in cold hell and thick with idle worship .

stumble &

the railroad tracks we tightrope across, walk backwards upon, only to

we’ll stop to find “sublime” in a deer small across the railroad tracks we’ve known…

whatever it is that makes me feel so in the early .

pretend none of this has happened before, shake a path into morning fog and do

$

let’s take a walk "

Andrew Dunn [experiment in sublimity]

suddenly wonder: to what extent could we reinvent these static tracks .

stumble &

Skylah Gendreau Insult I'm sorry I’m not sorry for what I said tonight, but I feel better now that its bitter taste is exorcised from the back of my throat. And to break your high horse at the knees so effortlessly-‐-‐like shattering glass-‐-‐ is truly a delicacy I can savor.

Anthony Scott Parasite’s Rationale I am stronger. I am more. I am beyond. You are nothing, young man. I take your body, your skin, layer by layer. The red strands of your bicep are mine. I take them and you can’t stop me. I am omnipotent. I am supreme. I am god. You are clay, pale girl. I demand your love, your thighs, your pointy breasts. The heaving of your navel is mine. I take it and you can’t deny me. I am uninhibited. I am complete. I am above. You are weak, small world. I require your panic, your huddled whispering, the flash of cameras, the tears of mothers. I take it all and you won’t forget me.

Lila Albert Back to Godhead Some years ago, when I was visiting my parents in the most northern part of Maine, I was cleaning my mother’s desk for her, going through her old bills and knickknacks she'd collected over time but ultimately didn’t need, trying to form some semblance of organization. I went through the drawers one by one until I reached the narrowest, just along the bottom, and pulled it open. Inside was a length of cloth the color of saffron that was soft to the touch and smelled musty, like sandalwood. Curiously, I drew it out and reached in again, feeling something brittle rasp against my hand. Nestled in this little drawer were a dozen tightly furled rose heads, remarkably dry and fragile, strung together with a single piece of white thread to form a small flower garland. There were two garlands in the drawer, and I took them both out, feeling them crinkle and crumble in my hands from the slightest touch. A few petals broke free and fluttered to the ground. For a single moment, I had no idea what these old flower garlands were or what they were doing in my mother’s desk. And then suddenly, I remembered, and a great flood of memories and emotions overtook me—of my past and of my future, of my mother, my family, and myself. I had always known I was different from others. My family was, for lack of a better word, “weird.” The kids at school made sure I was absolutely aware of the fact. They would ask me questions I wouldn’t know how to answer and I would come home and ask my mother why—why didn’t I eat the same food everyone else did? Why didn’t I go to church like everyone else? Why did I wear things nobody else did, strange necklaces and brightly-‐colored charms? 28

Maybe the other kids would like me better if I were more like them. And she would smile at me and tell me that yes, we were different, but it’s okay to be different. Wouldn’t I rather be unique? No, I would think. I really wouldn’t. I was about four when I had my first experience with an alien substance that to everyone else was considered the norm. We were visiting relatives and I was wandering around outside with the other kids while our parents chatted and smoked and drank. There was a strange, unfamiliar scent in the air that made my eyes water and my head ache. A plate on a nearby picnic table caught my eye. I tottered over for a closer inspection and stared, confused yet captivated, at a piece of something that the odd smell was coming from. I went closer and reached out for it, but my elder sister, so much wiser than I, quickly came over and took my hand and pulled me away. “Don’t touch that,” she said. “That’s bad.” “What is it?” I asked. I honestly had no idea. It looked like food. “It’s meat,” she replied. Meat? What was meat? Why was it bad? Why shouldn’t I touch it? I wanted to ask her these things but instead she told me to go play. I later found out the meat on the table was chicken. It was a dead animal, and my family did not eat dead animals of any sort. We were strict vegetarians. Not only that, we did not go to church because we were not Christians, or Catholics, or even Protestants. I didn’t know what we were. When I asked, my mother said simply to me, “We are Hare Krishnas.” 29

I wasn’t sure what to say to that, so I just nodded my head and agreed with her. Now, whenever someone asked what I was, I had an answer. But I had no explanation, for others or for myself. I still didn’t understand why we didn’t eat meat, or why my mother sang strange songs in another language or had little statues she would kneel to on the floor. I would watch her do these things and wonder why she looked so happy when she chanted little hymns while her fingers flew over a string of wooden beads, or when she dipped her forefinger into a small tin of yellow paste and drew a mark on her forehead or made us all wear beaded necklaces of a special type of wood—Tulsi beads—so no harm could come to us. We are Hare Krishnas—this must be what they do. When I was old enough, maybe five, she started to teach us too—as the youngest, my twin and I were the last to learn. Little things at first, easy things. Every morning, when you first see the statues, you must offer your obeisance. Kneel, then put your forearms down and make sure your forehead touches the floor. Don’t do it fast, either, or it won’t count. Make sure you close your eyes and say the lengthy prayer she had taught us word for word in another language— Sanskrit, an ancient language in India. Say the prayer when you see the statues—deities were the proper name—and say it again when you are about to eat—nothing with meat by-‐products, fish, or eggs—and one last time right before you go to sleep—don’t take off your necklaces, they must be on at all times to protect you. It was difficult at first, but soon these actions became second nature. The prayer is emblazoned upon my mind in such a way I believe I will never forget it. I had always wondered why my siblings and I were given such strange names—my oldest sibling and only brother, 30

Jambavana, my elder sister, Gopinatha, my other sister, Asita, and my twin sister and I, Krsna-‐Bhava and Krsna-‐Lila. Why couldn’t I have a normal name, like Sam? Or Ashley? Did my mom want me to be teased in school? My mother had a normal name—so why not us? “Carla is my Karmi name,” my mother tried to explain. “But my spiritual name, my real name, is Carsani-‐devi-‐dasi.” So, then, my father wasn’t Joseph, either. He was Ekachakra-‐ dasa. I reeled. Had they been lying to me all these years? Who were these people? A Karmi name is the name you tell everyone else. It’s the name you tell your boss, your coworkers, your friends. But your other name, your spiritual name, is one you only tell to God, or to those who are very close to you. “Is Krsna-‐Lila my Karmi name?” I asked my mother once. “No. You don’t have a Karmi name,” she told me. “You weren’t born a Karmi.” Karmi is the name given to everyone else in the world who is not a Hare Krishna. My mother wasn’t born into this religion. She grew up eating meat and going to church. During this time, her name was Carla. But now she is Carsani, and my father is Ekachakra, and I am Krsna-‐Lila, which means “God’s pastimes.” I tried to explain these things to my classmates and they only laughed at me and teased me more. I would often come home sad or just confused. “Mom, some kids at school said I’m in a cult and I worship cows.” “It’s not a cult,” my mother said immediately. “It’s a way of 31

life.” “So they’re wrong? They’re wrong for not believing what we believe?” My mother always corrected me right away. “Nobody is wrong. As long as they believe, it’s alright. We aren’t better than them. We're the same.” But if I am the same as everyone else, why do I feel so distant from them? Why do I feel like I will never belong? There is a picture of a man on the sill of our picture window. It’s a man I’ve never met and never seen, and even though my mother has never met him either, she loves him very much. The man in the picture is neither overpowering nor frail in appearance. He is short, and skinny, swathed in voluminous saffron robes. He is sitting in the lotus position, a bamboo cane propped against his shoulder. He is bald, and blemished, yet resilient. He smiles broadly, and though he has gaps in his teeth and his skin is brown and wrinkled and his ears are hairy, I think that somehow this man is beautiful, and I can see why my mother's heart has been captured by him. The man in the picture is A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. He is the man who brought the Hare Krishna way of life to America. “I almost met him once,” my mother has told us many times. “I went to where the Hare Krishnas lived and joined them, but he’d gone on a trip to India. I missed him by two months. Only two months! I wish I could have met him.” The man in the picture died nine years before I was born. My mother was only twenty-‐seven years old. “I remember when it happened. All of the Hare Krishnas were sitting together and praying, because we knew he was sick, and then we got 32

the news he had passed away.” “Did you cry?” I asked her. She smiled at me. “I did. I cried a lot. I was really sad.” My mother cried for a man she had never met and only knew through a single picture. I didn’t understand but for some reason I felt like I wanted to cry too. When my mother cooks food, she’ll take the picture of Prabhupada and put it by the plate as she says her prayers. “Now he’s eating too,” she’ll tell me. When I try to reach out and have some, she always makes me wait. “Krishna has to eat first.” So I wait. A few minutes go by. “Now you can eat. Because I said the prayers, Krishna had it first, so it’s purified. It’s not Karmi food anymore. It’s maha-‐prasad.” Krishna is simply another name for God. It is what Hare Krishnas call Him. Food that is offered first to God is called maha-‐prasad. My mother always tells me that when you cook, you must always think you are making it for Krishna, and pour your love into the food. When the food is filled with love and devotion, you can offer it to Krishna. I don’t remember how old I was when my mother came home and told my siblings and I, “We’re going back to visit.” “Going back where?” one of us asked. “West Virginia. We’re going to visit the Hare Krishnas at the temple where they live. I want the twins to see the temple. I want them to see the devotees.” I looked over at my twin sister, who was as lost as I. We had only been one year old when my parents had moved from West Virginia to Maine. Even Asita, who had been four, 33

remembered what it was like there. “Hay,” she told me. “I climbed on hay bales with Gopi and Jamba.” And one day we went. Time—early, still dark. Date—the height of summer, exact month unknown. Age—six or seven. I climbed into our old blue van with my family, way at the tip top of Maine and we set off for the heart of West Virginia, sixteen hours and a thousand miles away. The drive was hellish. We had to stop every hour or so because at least one of us always had to pee, or my father got lost and had to turn around, or we wanted to change places so we could be near the windows and precious fresh air. The highway was a miserable blur. I slept. I read. I stared into the distance, or counted telephone pones. In 90-‐degree weather, my brother Jamba turned to Gopi and snarked, “I can see myself in your forehead,” and she shrieked at him in retaliation, resulting in a tumultuous argument. We must have gone by a dozen dead animals splattered across the road in the first hour, and the so called adults played a game of how many different words they could come with that meant “poop.” I covered my ears when they got to “fecal matter” and tried to sleep. We spent the night at my aunt’s house in Hartford, Connecticut. I was amazed by her pool—a luxury I had never been allowed to enjoy before—and swam in it for hours. I stank like chlorine all night. We slept in tents in the back yard and I looked up at the stars and noticed one was moving. “UFO,” I said. “They’ve come to take you home,” said Bhava. We got up so early the next day it felt like we were the only ones in the entire city who were awake. We drove in the dark and just as it got light the roads clogged and we crawled and honked inch after inch in the ensuing traffic jam. 34

The evening we arrived in West Virginia, we didn’t visit the temple right away. We spent the night at a motel that made me feel weird and alien, like I didn’t belong there at all, perhaps because it was the first time I had ever stayed in one. I couldn’t shake the feeling. I barely slept all night and yawned all morning. Once everyone was awake, we piled into the van and drove on a dirt road for miles. Suddenly, my mother announced, “We’re here.” I looked up. All I saw were a few buildings clustered together in a remote clearing. Where were the lights? Where were the people? Where was the big sign with glowing letters that read, “Hare Krishna’s live here!”? This didn’t look at all like I imagined. It looked like a poor farm. The word temple immediately brings to mind a grand palace or a mighty tower stabbing the sky. Maybe with a flag at the very peak, and thick walls running all the way around. Instead, I was disappointed at the sight of a large, plain building with massive wooden doors. Why weren’t there any jewels encrusting them? Where was all the gold? This was a temple, wasn’t it? I stepped out onto the tar and felt something trembling, like an earthquake. There was a barely audible thrum in the air, beating quickly. It seemed to be coming from the temple. My mother ushered us toward the building, but I hung back, afraid. The quiver under my feet was growing stronger. My entire body was shaking now. We reached the entrance doors—my father, a carpenter in his spare time, touched them and said, “I helped make these, you know,”—and then we all stepped inside. The thrumming was louder now, but still muffled. We entered an alcove that led to another set of wooden doors, even larger and thicker than the first. They were shut tightly. I could hear them vibrating. My teeth chattered. 35

“Take off your shoes,” my mother said. Everyone obeyed, toeing them off and placing them by a gigantic mountain of other shoes. There had to be a hundred pairs. The marble floor was cold against my bare soles, and now I could feel the thrum go all through me and pulse under my skin. We moved to the other door, and when my mother swung them open, I was nearly thrown back by the sight before me. There are many ways to worship God. Silent prayer, the folding of hands and a bowed head as lips move inaudibly, eyes closed in concentration. You can fall to your knees, you can raise your hands up, you can sing. I had been to a church only once in my life, during the funeral of my aunt, and while everybody held bibles and sang hymns I listened and watched and thought it sounded very beautiful. The mourners stood rigid and sang softly and sweetly, staring straight ahead as their words rang out inside the church. It was a solemn sort of praise. Hare Krishnas sing too. Their songs are in Sanskrit. That is how they pray—but they also dance. They dance their love and their faith, and that is what frightened me when the doors to the temple were thrown open and I stared out into a mass of leaping, flailing bodies shouting and singing and crying aloud. The men and women danced apart, like the room had been cut in half. The women bound their hair in long braids and wore strange dresses with small tops and a lengthy bottom wrapped around their waists and thrown over a shoulder— a sari, the traditional dress of India. When they danced, their full skirts twirled and blew out and mixed together to form all colors under the muted lighting of the temple room. The men’s heads were shaved except for a small tuft at the back, and they wore loose, saffron colored pants and shirts— called dhotis—and they jumped and stomped and flung out their arms and threw themselves in time with the music that 36

was pounding against my soul—a dozen or so men off to the side, some crashing cymbals called kartals together in a quick beat, another playing what looked like a very small piano, a harmonium, and others beating with all their might on horizontal drums resting across their laps, murdungas. The sound of the music combined with the sight of these Hare Krishnas, all of them gasping and singing and shouting and sweating until they glowed golden under the lights, struck me deep and at once I was both afraid and in awe of their love. My mother was smiling. Through the tumultuous sound, she shouted, “This is how the Hare Krishnas pray. This is kirtan.” She urged us to join them, and though I hung back at first, dizzy from the sound, I inched closer and closer to them, until, for the first time, I danced, and felt like, perhaps, I was a Hare Krishna too. I thought the kirtan would go on forever, but finally, with one last resounding crash and leap, the music stopped and everyone stood panting and flushed, sweaty feet sticking to the floor. They all gave a great cry and some filed out while others remained to clean up. My mother led my siblings and I around the vast room and pointed at strange statues and figures that lined the walls. Some of them I recognized from our own home. The Hare Krishna religion stems from India and Hinduism. It involves such gods as Vishnu and Shiva, but most predominantly, Lord Krishna. Krishna, being God, has many forms, some human-‐shaped and some animal-‐shaped. The statues in the temple are called deities, and it is these deities the people were singing and dancing to, letting them know of their devotion. The deities depicted Krishna in several of his incarnations—there was him as Lord Nrsimha, the half-‐ man, half-‐lion who killed an evil king to save an innocent boy; there was him as Lord Rama, a mighty prince whose 37

wife was stolen by a great demon; and there was him as Lord Jaganatha, a great slab of rock carved with his brother Balarama and sister Subhadra at his sides, with wide peering eyes and an enormous, almost goofy-‐looking smile painted on his jovial face. The Jaganatha deity at the temple was larger than I was, and probably my favorite. We knelt to all the deities and put our foreheads on the ground. When we were done, my mother brought us off to one side, and there, sitting before me was Srila Prabhupada, the founder of the Hare Krishna movement in America, cross-‐legged like in my mother’s picture, his head bowed as if in prayer. For a split second I thought it was real, that he really was sitting up there on the altar, concentrating hard or maybe even sleeping. But it was only a wax replica of him, impeccably done. Devotees gathered in a line and threw handfuls of flowers onto him, petals pooling in his lap and fluttering on the top of his bald held. I joined the line and threw a handful. They landed on his arms and legs and I looked up at his waxy smile and darted away. With kirtan over, we walked back outside, where the air was much cooler than in the temple. I was covered in sweat and incredibly tired—praying apparently takes a lot out of you. A distant noise caught my attention. It sounded like a woman was screaming. I tugged on my mother’s shirt. “Mom. Someone’s crying for help. Can’t you hear them?” My mother laughed. “It’s not a person. It’s the peacocks.” She pointed them out; by a large pond lingered a group of five or so, mostly female, but one or two dragging an enormous tail behind them and displaying it proudly. There were also about thirty Canadian geese fighting over breadcrumbs, and two cows fenced off in a separate area, lazily chewing and mooing. I petted one between the ears before my mother called me away. 38

As the peacocks wailed and the cows lowed, my mother and father made their rounds with us following behind. Every dozen feet or so, my mother would give a sudden shriek of delight and prostrate herself on the ground as a stranger did the same. Then they would rise and hug one another and laugh and wonder where the time had gone. These were her friends, she told us, the friends she had when she used to live here. My siblings and I waited awkwardly as she underwent this ritual over and over. My father just smiled and shook hands and clapped other men on the back. “Haribol,” my mother would say to each person. “Haribol.” Although there is no direct translation, “Haribol” is a Sanskrit term used by the Hare Krishnas for greetings and farewells. It can also be used as an exclamation, such as “Amen,” or a blessing, and is usually shouted during the dancing and singing of kirtan. It is a cry of victory or of great joy or love. Now, it was lunchtime. The food at the temple was the best I’d ever had. It was entirely vegetarian and of the Indian cuisine, with zinging spices and distinct flavors. Though they gave us paper plates, no one used forks or spoons. Everyone used their hands—but only their right hands. When I tried to eat with my left, my mother quickly corrected me, explaining that the left hand is considered dirty, and the right is clean. I wanted to ask more questions but instead shoveled the food into my mouth as fast as I could so I could run off with my sisters and play with the other Hare Krishna children. The only thing I remember for much of the next day is how hungry I was. We skipped dinner the night before for another kirtan, and by the time it was let out, my stomach was gurgling and growling so loud I thought it was trying to sing too. I tossed and turned in bed, again unused to the 39

strange sleeping accommodations—another motel, this one built right next to the temple for convenience. In the morning, I whined and complained, and at long last, my mother announced we could go eat. Instead of eating in the temple as we did before, she told us we’d be eating elsewhere. We all walked up a dirt road with other devotees for a good fifteen minutes. In the distance, a building came into sight, and my jaw dropped as it gleamed in the sun. Now this was a temple. It had a towering wall going all the way around, with enormous double doors encrusted with jewels and flowing designs. The building within had domes and skinny windows and a garden. There was even a spire with a flag at the very top. Everything I’d imagined was now right before me. “This is Prabhupada’s Palace of Gold,” my mother said. Built for Srila Prabhupada by his dedicated followers, the Palace of Gold is a marvel of architecture. The floors are veined marble, cool to the touch, pillars sprouting upwards to a looming ceiling. The walls are etched with words and pictures and everything is covered in jewels and ornaments. Srila Prabhupada stayed in this very palace before he died. I forgot my hunger long enough to explore the palace grounds, running along the corridors and peeking into side rooms. I frightened myself a few times at the sight of a skinny man hunched over a desk or reclined in a chair— more wax figures of Srila Prabhupada, incredibly lifelike. This time, I didn’t have any flowers to throw at him, so I quickly knelt and pressed my forehead to the floor, hoping I was doing it right so I could properly respect him. Then I bolted up, saw him giving me an almost-‐smile again, and ran back to my parents for breakfast. It was pancakes served with maple syrup. I wasn’t sure if I should be delighted or disappointed. 40

The night before we left, the devotees danced again. I don’t remember where we were or how we got there—another building that was not the temple, but a barn of some sort, with a raised section of floor in the back for the women and a lowered part in the front for the men. The deities were on the far end of the building, and even though they were small and I could barely see them, I knew they were just as beautiful as the ones in the temple. They were covered in silks and flowers and from across the room I could see their glow. The music picked up, and slowly, everyone dipped and swayed to the beat. As the drums and kartals grew louder, kirtan began and soon the entire barn was shaking with the devotees’ love. I thought the windows would explode any moment from the force of their cries. I lost sight of my mother, then my sisters and brother, as every person in the barn began to move. I stood alone amongst the devotees and didn’t dance this time. I could only watch. The men in front of me looked like they were having a competition to see who could jump the highest, all their arms reaching for the ceiling and for the sky, trying to touch God. Behind me, the women had choreographed a complicated number that involved dancing in a wide circle and kicking their feet out in a rhythm, their skirts swirling and blending together like a rainbow. Bare feet pounded against the wooden floor in tune to the music. A railing separated the barn in half. I leaned against it, feeling like I was suffocating, or about to throw up, overwhelmed by it all. Beside me was a woman holding a baby. She wore normal clothes and, at first glance, didn’t look like a Hare Krishna. I wondered if she had wandered in. Somehow the baby was sleeping through the tumult, a chubby cheek resting on the woman's shoulder. I looked up at her face and realized suddenly she was crying, fat tears rolling down her cheeks and chin as she gazed straight 41

ahead, unblinking, at the deities on the other end of the room. Why is she crying? I thought. Is she sad? Is she hurt? Is she afraid of these people, so enthusiastic, so devoted? I was a little afraid myself. I wondered if perhaps, she could see the glow like I could, and maybe she was crying because she was happy. At five o clock the next morning, it was time to leave, and we all rose and staggered out to the van, dreading a full day of travel on the road. I noticed my mother was holding something—a small bundle of flowers strung together into garlands, the same garlands that had adorned the necks of the glowing deities the night before. The devotees had given it to her as a gift. She clutched it to herself like a precious thing. “Next year,” she said after we’d been on the road a few hours. “Next year, we’ll come back and visit again.” More than fifteen years have gone by, and we have not returned. My mother misses the temple every day, always talking or reminiscing about the Hare Krishnas. She often dreams of them. In all this time, she has kept these flower garlands, tucked them away in the back of her smallest drawer, as the soft petals grew brittle and dry, the scent disappearing, until something strong and resilient has become weak and fragile. Even now they’re crumbling, and I hastily put them away before they fall apart completely. I replace the cloth that protects them from harm and close the drawer. I am glad my mother took me to the place where she learned and gained so much. I am happy to have shared that with her. She helped me figure out who I am, not just as a person, but as a spirit soul. I don’t shave my head or wear strange clothes or shout and sing and dance, yet somehow, through it all, I still manage to be a bit, well, “weird.” That’s okay—I 42

may be “weird,” but at the very least, I’m happy. Haribol!

Candice Rivera Organized Kicked out of Catechism at the age of seven, thought I knew more about the fate of Skippy’s soul. Should never argue with a nun; dogs do not go to Heaven. I didn’t know that. Learned about Voodoo, Snake God St. Patrick. Chicken claw left in front of the door; Mom did something with someone who was someone else’s man. We didn’t believe but she never did that again. Baptist preacher told me Mom had sinned. Races were not supposed to mix; if she is sorry, God will forgive. Mom, stick in hand, middle of the trailer park, putting fear of God in the man of God. What you don’t know has no power. Wish I didn’t know the things that require repentance. Never been dunked or drizzled, never been threatened with anything more than eternal damnation. I am not afraid. Mom used to say that she couldn’t go to Heaven cause she wouldn’t have any friends there. That cartoon devil on my right shoulder amuses me. I don’t believe in fiery pits unless they are volcanoes. Gotta get organized like Jesus; he made an effort but like today, not many believed. They go to church, pray, worship and repent, pay their taxes an their tithes; it’s not enough. I have a friend; he is a man of God. Nothing wrong with that. He told me about cherry-picking. Take what serves you best. The Bible can be such a convenience. Would rather live my life a heretic.

Andrew Bellamy Going Downstate No. 1 It’s always a cooler scene if you are in the wind in yr face and the hot cherry at the end of yr smoke and quick flickin, the fingers and not at all on the dead end road running tires tired thoughts of yr own wired inside and what you could be feeling. You’ve got to learn to hover above yr spinning wheels, automobile and racin wasted mind, the pulse in yr temples, that back-‐of-‐head Cro-‐Magnon lump resting on the soda pop leather of this borrowed car with its smell of pine & Sex. Been like that since birth, since coming wondrous into this world−that lump and everybody pining for something. Perhaps it’s the leather of hearts, like the dry, cracked skin of our feet. Perhaps, still-‐motioned like this backseat, our childhood hearts still drink those Sunday afternoons when the ride home was silent as God. Still being picked up by strangers. In any seat, still alone and soon left to yr own body and that stone of dead cigarette. The cherry is as gone as gone is forever, gone as forever as forever is our bodies’ now undressed awareness of vibrations, the feeling of not staying, each space you’re in sliced place for each space sliced of time. And it’s onward still, goneward, stopping only long enough to catch yr death, and when you do you still got that damned lump.

Cherie Black Lonely This meal of toasted chocolate bread, Gorgonzola cheese and red wine is supposed to ease my appetite. Yet I am starved. Letterman helps. His stupid voice fills this silent room… a surrogate husband telling dry jokes to our children, the laughing audience. During commercials, I replay messages – my brother vicariously talking to my sister through me; my friend informing me her illness is mental; my boss reminding me I agreed to work late Friday night. My empty plate clanks with the pile of mugs collected 46

since Thursday, three days ago. I remember home, where the dishes were washed morning noon and night; otherwise, dad complained I can’t cook with this mess and we’d go without supper. His apple pie was better than this expensive late-‐night treat, mostly because while we ate each sweet, juicy bite mom and he would talk about life – debt, movies, and God – and we’d learn something more meaningful than the top ten reasons for shaving your head.

Kimberly Pratt Dunwitch The gift came in the mail, assaults the olfactory sense before the package is even opened. Blackberry soap hurtles me back to sun dappled roadside twined with vines. Canopy overhead alternates sunshine and shade. Walking to the seaside with chalky cliffs, where wild roses, blackberry vines grow in tangled array. Town long ago swallowed by the ocean overnight leaving nothing except the leper colony and one lone grave. Even then, I understood the irony of an intact leper colony, while all else is swallowed whole. The locals say that on quiet nights you can still hear church bells ringing from watery depths. Ghost bells reminding the once thriving town turned village, what is to come.

Cassie Gildert Waiting To Die I used insomnia to plan my funeral. I want purple flowers. Drug mom with something strong. Bury me with my diet journal. I wonder who’ll be there— mourning family members. Neighbors come to be polite. Maybe the kid I sat beside in junior high who reminded me daily I was the fat girl. He could stare at my corpse, laugh at my ugly dress. No need for a casket. Toss my body in the ground next to grandma. Only a horrible person could cause so much pain I told myself. You belong in Hell. My mother would miss me. She still loves me. My parents known forever as the mom and dad who watched their daughter starve to death. Every day they begged her—Stop. Doctor warned me, this heart could quit. Too weak to run. It crawls towards death. Mom asked if I wanted machines to breathe for me. I said no. I wasn’t scared. In the morning I get groceries for the week. 7 apples. Tiny. Red. Frees they sell at Paul’s Market where my neighbors trade in food stamps they try to sell to me. I say I have no need. Passing by a window, I look away. The reflection hurts my eyes. When I get home, I run on the treadmill until I pass out. 49

Burning off diet coke and stomach acid. This body rotting, so hungry I almost wish to die, but I don’t give in. Stomach burning, I purge up the sins. Two fingers. All it takes to make me pure again. In bed I bargained with God. Just let me wake up. I’ll do better tomorrow. I woke up every morning. Every night I lied.

Chelsie Hawkins Back to Spain Bang. I cringed at the sound of the door banging closed. “¿Mercedes? ¡Estoy aquí!” I heard her soft voice reply from the kitchen. “¡Hola, Gabriela!” It was my fourth month living in Seville, Spain. My host mother was Mercedes Garcia Romero. She was a single woman, made a widow seven years ago by a horrible bombing at the Madrid Atocha Railway Station. She had very little in the way of relationships: her parents had forsaken her the day she agreed to marry her now-‐deceased husband, angry that she had defied their wishes and believing he was a cursed individual who would bring her family to ruin. She had no siblings and no children and few friends. She hadn’t felt the need for anyone else before her husband’s untimely death. She was a very shy individual and believed that most relationships caused more headaches than they cured so she wrote them off and gave her time to the friends she could count on. Most people would find this a lonely and uncomfortable existence—living alone with only a few people to break up the monotony—but she seemed to enjoy it. Most days. But now she had me and, admit it or not, I think she was a happier woman. Last summer I came to Spain with my best friend, Luisa. Being small-‐town girls and innocent in the workings of big-‐ city-‐life, it was an intimidating, though wonderful, experience. When we first stepped onto the train platform we searched the crowd for a sign with our names on it. The 51

woman we were staying with was supposed to meet us here and accompany us back to her apartment. Nothing. So we decided to wait… and wait… and wait. About an hour later we noticed a woman, perhaps in her early-‐thirties, run through the doors to the station. She was short and thin with curly red hair, wearing ragged jeans and a too-‐big t-‐ shirt, slippers, and carrying the largest purse I thought I had ever seen. Breathless, disheveled, and sweating from the intense heat of Spain, she reached into that giant purse and pulled out a big, white sign with our names written on it in large, bold, black letters. Luisa and I looked at each other in disbelief. Having waited an hour, we had been expecting… more. As bad as that sounds. Perhaps someone all dolled-‐up and flashy. Maybe just something more than slippers. Because if she wasn’t spending that time getting ready, what was she doing with it? How did someone forget the day two strangers were moving into her home? Shrugging our shoulders we hoisted our luggage and approached her. That turned out to be a great summer, despite that first day in the train station. Mercedes did apologize profusely for her appearance and her tardiness. Her excuse: Rosa, her best friend, was in labor and she felt that she needed to be there for her. Now, we did see the baby and the friend did confirm this, but it seemed so much like something seen in the movies that we didn’t buy it. “¿Me gustarías ayudar, Mercedes?” I knew she wouldn’t want help, but it was only polite to offer. I didn’t know what she was cooking, but it smelled heavenly and filled the apartment with mouthwatering goodness. It was a small apartment, but cozy. There were two bedrooms, one bathroom, a kitchen, and a living room. We took our meals in the living room because that is where the air conditioning was most effective. Usually, we sat on the sofa and shared a 52

small table with the television on low so we could still hear each other speak. They were always wonderful meals— Mercedes was an excellent cook—and almost every day I learned something new about my hostess. New, but not necessarily good. I remembered asking about Mercedes’ husband a month and a half into my first trip. I found it curious that there were no pictures of him anywhere in her apartment. She said nothing for a while, and after waiting in silence for what seemed like hours, Luisa and I thought she wasn’t going to answer my question. Luisa had her mouth open to change the subject when Mercedes finally said, “Era un hombre muy… muy simpático y lo quería mucho. Y me adoraba.” We smiled at her affectionate tone and could tell her love for him, even after all those years, from her tone as much as from her words. While on her way to pick him up at the Atocha Station, a red glow had suddenly lit up the sky and grey smoke billowed into the air. Five minutes later, she arrived only to find the train station engulfed in flames, occasionally spewing debris, and she knew he was dead. She wasn’t like most people—she didn’t fall to her knees and scream and sob, she didn’t curse God for letting it occur, she didn’t even question what happened—she was too practical. Her eyes misted over and tears streamed silently down her red cheeks, she told us, but she purposefully turned her car around and went home. After her story, she slowly pulled something silver from her blouse, opened it, and showed us a small star-‐shaped picture of her and her husband wrapped in each other’s arms. “Lo me dio para nuestros aniversario. Él no le gustó estar en las imágenes. ¡Está sonriendo!” It was the most beautiful anniversary present I had ever seen. I finally understood the lack of pictures; he didn’t like being in them 53

and so didn’t smile. In this one he couldn’t seem to stop. When I returned to Spain almost four months ago, Luisa accompanied me. We had decided to stay with Mercedes again this trip and she was as overjoyed to see us as were we to see her. We had planned to stay a month with Mercedes before we returned home and back to reality. After our first week back with her in Spain, we decided to stay an extra month. By the middle of the second month, I had decided to stay longer. Luisa wished to stay with me and did everything possible to make that happen, but it wasn’t meant to be; she had too many prior commitments at home. She was her own boss, which is why she was able to stay as long as she had, but another few weeks without work would be eating away at money she couldn’t spare. My job was less of a problem. I wrote columns for different magazines and, honestly, that was as easy to do in Spain as it was in my apartment back home. Almost easier actually because Spain was such an inspiring place. As for my personal life, my parents split when I was eleven and left me to grow up in an orphanage so I certainly didn’t need to go back for them, and my boyfriend and I were traveling down a rocky road, so to speak, and I wasn’t ready to face that either. So I saw Luisa off after her two months were up and returned to the little apartment alone. Long distance calls were surprisingly cheap. Before Luisa had left, I had promised to call her once a week and give her updates about my stay. Since she could not be there she would live vicariously through me. They were usually short calls, but they helped me feel less alone. She was the only one who understood what I had to do and she was the one I cried to when things seemed unbearable. 54

Mercedes entered the living room with two steaming plates of paella, a Spanish dish of rice and chicken. After she sat down, I shoveled a forkful into my mouth, famished from my walk through the city. “¡Mercedes, es deliciosa!” It was perhaps the best paella I had ever tasted and I’d had my fair share. She had never made paella since I had been here. When I asked her why, she told me she made it for her husband before he was killed—it was his favorite—and had never felt the desire to make it again. She said she wanted to make it for me as a way of thanks before I left and she couldn’t make it anymore. I was touched. “¿Mercedes? ¿Nunca tenías un hombre después del esposo, no? ¿Por qué no?” I had been wondering why she was still single for quite some time now, but it never seemed like the appropriate time to ask. I knew I was running out of time though, so I dared to broach the subject. She smiled at me like a mother smiles at her daughter. “Querido mía, mi esposo era mi corazón. ¿Cómo es posible escoger una otra corazón? No es.” I thought of her analogy; how would you find another heart if you lost your last one? She made a good point. “¿Hablarás con Luisa esta noche?” Mercedes knew I called Luisa every Thursday after dinner. I was surprised by the question. “Sí, por supuesto,” I responded. She seemed surprised by my response. “Pues… dígale ‘hola’.” I told her of course I would say hello for her. When the meal was over, I cleaned off the table and washed dishes, as I always did, before I slipped on my shoes and left the apartment to find a phone. 55

“Luisa? It’s Gabriela.” “Oh, Gabs! I’m glad you called. How are things?” “They’re okay, considering. I mean, they’re bad, but they’re okay. Mercedes says hello.” “Oh, I wish I were there. I really do. Has it gotten a lot worse?” I hesitated, “Yeah, it has. It’s not good Luisa. It’s really not good, I’m sad to say. I keep hoping that there will be some miracle and everything will be alright, but that just hasn’t happened yet. It’s so terrible to see, Luisa. It’s just so terrible. I’m almost glad you aren’t here so you don’t have to see it.” I felt a tear slide down my cheek and I failed to stifle a sob. I could tell Luisa heard, but she had the grace not to comment. “I’m so sorry, Gabriela. I really am. You shouldn’t have to do this alone.” I sobbed again. This time, a man passing by looked my way. He actually looked annoyed by my emotional display. It angered me. It’s not like I asked him to watch me cry. I returned my attention to Luisa. “….thing I can do?” “No, it’s okay. As long as you answer the phone when I call, you’ll be doing enough. Thank you though. I appreciate it. I should go now. Mercedes will start worrying. ¡Adiós!” As I returned to the apartment, I failed to see the beautiful architecture all around me. I didn’t notice the cathedral with its glorious spires or the towering giralda with its ringing bells. I didn’t care about the cute little balconies by every apartment. The narrow, rough, cobblestone streets only vaguely entered my consciousness when I tripped on one 56

that slightly protruded. I did notice an unusual amount of stares, though. I cursed my puffy, red eyes, and I cursed the people who failed to mind their own business. Did they not have anything better to do than criticize a distraught woman with their eyes? By the time I returned, I hurried to the bathroom to be sure it didn’t look as if I had been crying. Luckily, the evidence was finally gone. I moved into the living room, expecting to find Mercedes watching television. Sure enough, she was lying on the couch, the television playing some Spanish movie. I couldn’t tell what it was. I opened my mouth to greet her, but before I had the chance, she started a fit of coughing. I realized then that before the coughing had ignited she had been sound asleep. I went to get her a glass of water. She took it thankfully and greedily drank the whole thing. “Hola, Mercedes,” I said almost inaudibly. “Buenas noches, Gabriela.” And it was a good evening— beautiful actually—but not anymore. Not for me. She was breathing heavily, as though she had just run a mile. “Por favor, dime sobre tus padres. ¿Por qué salieron?” I believed she didn’t really want to talk about my parents and why they left; it was her way of politely telling me to stop staring. Chastising myself for staring in the first place, I complied. “Mi madre… mi madre era como tú mucho…” I began with my mother. My mother had always been wonderful to me, which is why I was so shocked when she left those many years ago. My father was always a little reserved, but he had never been cruel. Before that fateful day when I was eleven, I’d idealized my parents. My friends had commented that they wanted parents like mine and as a child I had always stood straight, proud that they were mine. Then one day they took me to this big house and said they wanted me to 57

meet a friend of theirs. Unquestioningly, I followed them across the threshold, having no idea about what I was getting into. They told an old lady who I was and then they told me they forgot something in the car and would be right back. My mother left a suitcase that I didn’t even know she had been carrying before she left. I never saw them again. This is what I told Mercedes before her eyelids started drooping as she slowly began to make the journey from the waking world to the dreaming world. I covered her with a blanket and kissed her cheek before retiring to my own room for the night. I awoke fairly early and made breakfast. Mercedes usually did the cooking, but I thought she deserved a break. I made a tortilla de patata which is just potato, egg, and onion normally, but I added a little bit of ham too. It is like a really delicious giant omelet. The last time I made it, Mercedes absolutely loved it, so I thought it would be a nice surprise for her. I carried the plateful out to the table only to discover that Mercedes was still fast asleep. That was unusual—usually she was up long before me—but I decided I would wait for her. Two hours later she awoke. I had already eaten, but I offered to warm some up for her. She looked at me with the saddest expression and told me she wasn’t hungry. I made her eat anyway. The offer had been more of a courtesy than a choice. She had barely eaten for the last few days and it was starting to show. After I watched the last forkful go down her throat, she said, “Gracias, Gabriela. Gracias. No necesitas estar aquí pero estás. ¡Gracias!” She was weeping after she thanked me that last time. She didn’t seem to realize that she was wrong. I did need to be here. 58

I left Mercedes sleeping on the couch. She seemed content there and I had to submit an article in a few days so I thought I should probably start writing it. I settled myself and my laptop at a little café about a ten minute walk from the apartment and tried to focus on what I was supposed to be writing. It was to no avail. I had a lot going on in my mind, but nothing I could transfer to paper that could be used for my article. After staring at my screen for twenty minutes and with my coffee long ago emptied, I finally gave in and returned my computer to its bag. I sat for another few minutes and tried to enjoy the environment. Spain was a beautiful place. There was a small fountain to my left and a church straight ahead and a fruit market to my right where they sold different sorts of peaches and melons. There were people everywhere in the little plaza oblivious to the fact that only ten minutes away a woman was slowly dying. I sighed as I got to my feet and made the trek home through winding roads that were more like sidewalks. Back in the apartment, Mercedes was awake. “Estás aquí.” “Por supuesto.” I hugged her, trying to ignore the thought that she was too thin. “Vamos a visitar a Rosa y su niña.” By the time we arrived at Rosa’s house, Mercedes looked exhausted and was out of breath. Spying a bench nearby, she bee-‐lined towards it and took a seat. I sat beside her, saying nothing. “Necesito un momento.” I knew she wanted to look more composed before her friend saw her in order to forestall any looks of alarm. Since I would do the same thing in her place, I simply waited until she was ready. Not long later, I helped her to her feet and together we approached the door rang the bell. Rosa looked red-‐faced and tired, but when she saw Mercedes her delicate lips parted to form a beautiful smile. She pulled Mercedes into a hug and they exchanged kisses on each other’s cheeks. I 59

smiled at Rosa’s enthusiasm as she ushered us in out of the searing heat. I saw Rosa’s daughter playing with building blocks in the corner of the living room. Maria was adorable with her head full of curly blond hair and her large blue eyes. Rosa was truly blessed to have her. I wondered how it was possible for one person to have so much good happen to her and for another to have the complete opposite. It wasn’t that I wished ill fortune upon Rosa, but I did wish Mercedes would get something wonderful once in awhile. The visit was short, but it was quality time. On our way back home, Mercedes had another coughing fit. She covered her mouth with a tissue, but she failed to completely hide the red that slowly seeped into it. That night, I found myself in the hospital. How I got there is a blur. All I remember is that one minute we were eating supper in the living room and the next Mercedes was collapsed on the floor. I felt as if I were in a fog and any minute now I would crash into something hidden in that fog and everything as I knew it would be over. After what seemed like an eternity, the doctor finally let me see her. She looked tiny in that big hospital bed. All I could think was how she deserved something so much better. “How long?” I whispered to the doctor. He shook his head and responded in his stilted English, “A day, quizas two, or three. We cannot be… ¿cómo se dice?… certain? She has anyone else who should, uh, know? Now is bueno time to call. Lo siento.” “Do you have a phone I could use? I need to make a long-‐ distance call.” He looked confused. “¿Un teléfono?” He 60

nodded and led me to a phone down the hall. I thanked him and started dialing Luisa’s number. “Luisa? I need you. Is there any way you can get here tomorrow?” I could hear a sad sigh from the other end. “Oh, no. I will look Gabriela. I will get there as soon as I can.” I called Rosa next and she promised she’d be right over. I went back in to sit with Mercedes. Despite everything, she looked so beautiful I had to fight back the tears. I stayed by her side until Rosa showed up. Then I gave them some alone time. Luisa did not show up the next day. Rosa had go home and as I sat with Mercedes, I could tell she didn’t have much more time. When she was awake, which wasn’t often, I told her stories—anything to make her smile. I was suddenly eleven again, watching my mother walk out of the orphanage door. I fell asleep with my head on the side of Mercedes’ bed. I awoke to the touch of a hand on my shoulder. Bleary eyed, I looked up to see Luisa. The hospital room clock read 10:00. “Sorry I took so long. There were no flights until 8:00 last night. Then there was a slight delay and I got in the slowest taxi on the face of the planet.” She glanced toward Mercedes. “Please tell me she is sleeping.” I smiled and nodded as she pulled a chair up beside me. I felt less alone. When Mercedes awoke, her eyes immediately teared at beholding Luisa. “Tu viniste…” “Por supuesto,” Luisa replied, as she took a firm grip on Mercedes’ hand. Mercedes motioned for us to come close and she gathered us in her arms. We simply held each other, never wanting it to 61

end. By the end of our silent goodbye, we were all crying despite our best efforts not to. That night, Mercedes passed away. Luisa and I stayed to help Rosa set up the funeral and to take care of Mercedes belongings. The old apartment seemed lifeless without her. As I was going through Mercedes’ bedroom closet, I came upon a box of old pictures. There were hundreds of Mercedes and her husband on their wedding day and honeymoon and pictures that just seemed to have been taken at random. I chuckled because her husband was indeed frowning in almost every picture, aside from when he was standing at the altar. I took the box out to Rosa, knowing she would want to keep them, and to ask her a favor. Luisa and I flew home two days after Mercedes’ death. I felt the small, silver, star-‐shaped locket lying against my chest and instinctively opened it in order to gaze upon the people within. This was the favor I asked of Rosa—I wanted the locket. I wanted to remember Mercedes at her happiest moment. I wanted to remember her radiant smile. This picture captured her essence perfectly. My boyfriend picked me up at the airport. It was like all of our fighting and disagreements didn’t matter anymore, and I collapsed into his arms, soaking his shirt with my tears. I clasped Mercedes’ locket and prayed that God would take good care of the pair of smiling lovers now pressed against my chest.

Anthony Scott In a Beer Hall near the Black Forest What kind of a woman glares at a little boy when he finishes a tiny bowl of lentils or soup with more broth than meat or potatoes and he asks for “just a little more”? What kind of a woman shrieks at his twin sister to “Shut the hell up!” when the girl cries in her bed missing her mother, missing the way she used to kiss her forehead goodnight? What kind of a woman demands that children be left alone in the woods? A stepmother, you say. But that’s evil even for a stepmother. She didn’t let on before. She stroked their heads and brought them candy and had I known what she would become, I never would have married the bitch.

Candice Rivera Operation Moonlight Sonata (For Mrs. Ashford) Watching from the garden wall, the city lit up around us. Our homes and churches, our home town set ablaze. The bombs kept falling, one right after the other. Changing the city forever, one full moon night. The Blitz. Magnetos, dynamos, electro-magnetic components, that’s what the older ones said. Mum cursed the Germans and pleaded with God and Father. Mum called us in; we hid. Under the stairs, we waited. The whole world was vibrating; it was exciting. We were just children. We knew we hated the Germans, that our fathers fought to end their reign. The next day under the light of the winter sun we saw the wreckage of Coventry. Some went to work; others began the clean-up sweeping away ashes, debris and our heritage. Transformation, a blank canvas, a blank slate on which to create a new, better Coventry. Modernization is what it was called; cor blimey, it was not lovely. Mum said it’s the future, it would be fine. First Germans now architects. Paste and steel replaced stone and earth. I wondered if Leofric’s Lady still naked atop her horse could see through all the glass, her home? Hard-wood Peeping Tom, did he watch all of this as he stood there or did he finally close his eyes? One night in November destroyed Middlemarch. Incoherent, unplanned mess, no one wants to be sent to Coventry.

Cassie Green Stealing from a Beggar Honks, pollution. Coffee, business suit, cell-phone, newspaper in hand are all that matters to this man. The numbers, the dollars that parked that Lexus in the drive of his large empty shell of a house. A rustle of wind, a whisper across the neck gentle enough to ignore but strong enough to pull his ten-dollar greenback from the tangled sheets of the Grey Lady, toward the damp concrete path beneath him. Old liquor and must, a man in a heap of donated scraps of synthetic jackets, the stink of year-old trash under soaking leaves, begging for everything life has refused to give. A man underneath irritating body odor, unshaven mess and as soggy as the rhombus of cardboard in his hands. In haste and black marker, a bargaining plea an outstretched dirtied hand, reaching, asking two dollar signs for beer and weed, such honesty hard to resist, even for a businessman bending to pick up his now damp bill. A young, paranoid student approaches, briskly making her way toward higher learning, dreaming, wishing, calculating how she’ll make next month’s rent. The student spies the exchange, draws a breath. Elementary values rush through a mind in need. Morals wrestle, pinning thoughts to the ground, three-second count, what a man like him could be thinking giving that money 65

to him. Pushing struggle aside, she lunges. Pulling Alexander Hamilton’s printed face from a moist hand usually face-up, his surprisingly bright eyes asking why, a face of dirt and dried tears that had met the frost head-on that morning. She slides the bill from his grimy hands into her empty pocket, contemplating the supper ten dollars could buy.

Anthony Scott The Great Buford Family Crisis of 2010 Most of the trouble around our place is the product of different velocities. For example, I’m real slow to respond or act. My wife, Marge, on the other hand, is quick to demand and cuss. Similarly, Earl, our son, is very slow to move and just real slow in general; his mother is quick to yell and, as already mentioned, quick to cuss. All these disparities were at the heart of what my wife insists was a horrible family tragedy just this past Wednesday night. We’d decided to head to Delmer’s Drive-In for burgers and snow-cones, but as usual she and I were sitting in the Buick waiting on Earl. He’s an awkward pre-teen with hands the size of his head, but he’s already reached that primpy, teeth-brushing stage. He was probably hoping to see the little Bailey girl or Verna, the new waitress. The Buick was running, and the wife had already ordered me to honk seven times. I had complied with three of those demands when Earl stepped out the front door. Our front door opens onto our porch, which is three steps higher than the ground. These steps were about to become to site of the Great Buford Family Crisis of 2010, not to be confused with the Great Buford Family Crisis of 2009. In that particular catastrophe, Earl never made it to the steps, but he did learn the valuable life-skill of how to close a door and safely walk away. We’d been on him all that year. “Earl, darlin’, you have to let go of the doorknob first. THEN you can go about your business.” But you know kids. Their parents don’t know anything. They have to kiss the vinyl siding before they listen to the grown-ups. Anyway, back to last Wednesday. So we’re sitting there watching Earl as he starts for the steps, but just as he got there, he dropped his Taylor Swift sun-glasses (I’ve tried to tell the boy that just because you think a girl’s cute don’t mean you have to wear her stuff.). Dropping those shades 67

would’ve been dangerous on flat ground. “Bill, he’s tripping,” my wife said. “You got that right,” I replied. “And I told him that the day he bought ‘em at the Quick-Mart. What kind of a boy buys pink, rhine-stone-studded sun-shades?” “No, jack-ass. He’s really tripping. He’s gonna fall down the steps!” “Naw, you think?” I looked at him, and he did seem a little offcenter, but that was how Earl looked all the time. “Bill, his right foot is coming down on the edge of the top step. Get out and run over there and catch him. Son of a bitch, there goes his ankle!” By now it was clear: Earl was definitely tripping on the top step, but I still didn’t think he was in real danger. “Babe, he’s got plenty of time to catch himself. See? He’s reaching for the hand-rail.” “No he ain’t. He’s reaching for them damned glasses. William Jefferson Buford, your only son is in grave peril and you won’t get off your lazy ass to save him—oh, help him, Jesus! He’s slipped to his knee on the next step.” “Now, Marge,” I told her, “he’s still got another step and the ground to go. He’ll realize what’s happening and right himself way before then. All he’s got to do is throw that left leg out front and he’ll be fine.” And about that time, Earl turned his attention from his Taylor specs to his own developing situation. “See. Here he goes.” To his credit, the boy did try to sling his left leg around, but now the hand-rail got in the way. With his right knee on the second step and his left shin caught against one of the handrail’s braces, his body lurched forward. “Damn it, Bill,” my 68

wife hissed. “Well, maybe it won’t be too bad. Look. He’s using his hands to catch himself on that last step.” “That ain’t gonna stop him, dumb-ass. His hands are like his feet. They’ll barely fit on a step. You good-for-nothing, goatmilking, shit-for-brains…if you had just run over there when I told you…” “You were right. Is that what you wanna hear, woman? No sense carrying on about it. Nothing I can do now. I’d never get there in time.” In a way she was right. He did wind up all the way to the bottom. But I don’t think it was the disaster she makes it out to be. By wedging his palms into that last step, Earl managed to pitch forward and catch himself with his head, right there on the sidewalk. No harm, no foul, I always say.

Candice Rivera Mariachi In a small town in the Southwest near Laredo, the little gringo tapped his feet while the cockroach danced a furious zapateado, hammering three heels into the floor. With the gusto of a chicken who stabs his beak at his feed, the little gringo danced around the hat. Later Captain Valens cheered him on and up, up, up. Everyone dances to La Bamba. The worm in the bean and the one in the bottle dance with the cockroach who is stoned out of his mind. And the little gringo who has now become a married man dances with his wife at the wedding.

Lila Albert Three Crows Three crows perch side by side on a blank sign Looking out across an empty field As the wind ruffles their feathers And the clouds above them writhe Brothers, they are Identical in size and shape But not color, because one of them is white His brothers hate him for it Hate him for being different And he does not belong Every day, they fight Darkness and light Clawing and cawing as white feathers spray Because they are afraid Afraid of his beauty But then One of the black birds wandered too close To a laundry line and was splashed The bleach sucked the darkness from him And he returned to his brothers A white-‐speckled black bird And they didn't know what to do Now they don't know which one to hate Which one to hurt Which one to fear One black, one white, and one who is neither Of heaven and hell and all that is between So they perch together on a blank sign Staring out across an empty field Feathers ruffled 71

And clouds writhing above Brothers, identical in size and shape But not color, because all of them are different And now none of them belongs

Contributors Lila Albert is a twin (to Bhava, a talented artist) originally from Fort Kent, Maine. She graduated UMPI in 2009, with a Bachelors Degree in English with a concentration in Creative Writing and a minor in Art. At the moment, she’s writing and working in Bangor, Maine. She tells us she’s “still a vegetarian and always plans to be.” Andrew Bellamy is senior at USM/UMPI. He lives in Portland and hopes to complete a chapbook of poems this winter. Cherie Black graduated from UMPI Summa Cum Laude, with a degree in Secondary Education-English, in 2007. She currently acts as the coordinator for Caribou High School's Transitions Center and is a graduate student in USM's Adult and Higher Education program. Some of her poetry and short stories have been published in two local collections, titled Breathe: Volume 1 and Breathe: Volume 2. Shawn Cote is a writer whose work has appeared in Echoes: The Northern Maine Journal of Rural Culture and Le Forum, a bilingual socio-cultural journal published by the FrancoAmerican Center. He has contributed to the Maine Review and to both the University of Maine's Daily Maine Campus and the University of Maine at Presque Isle’s University Times. Jillpoke, from which the short story “Like a Hurricane” is excerpted, is his first novel-in-progress. Andrew Dunn has attended UMPI and the University of Maine at Orono. He currently works for the Maine People’s Alliance to, as he puts it, “fund his writing habit.”

Pierre Gagne is a fifty-eight-year-old nontraditional student majoring in Applied Science. He lives in Portage Lake, Maine and is a recent graduate of NMCC with an Associates Degree in Computer Electronics. He enjoys reading poetry and tells us he’s particularly fond of Pablo Neruda and E.E. Cummings.

Skylah Gendreau is a freshman, studying Criminal Justice and Psychology as a double major. Cassandra Gildert graduated in May of 2011. She majored in English and minored in Communication, and she has enjoyed writing poetry since she was in elementary school. Elaine Gould earned a bachelors degree from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. After working in computing for several years, she has decided on a career change and is now working towards becoming a teacher. She lives in Freeport with her three children, her husband, and their dog. She takes UMPI courses online. Cassie Green is a senior Secondary Education major with a concentration in English and a minor in History. She’s from Truro, Nova Scotia and plans to teach English and History at the high school level upon graduation. Chelsie Hawkins is a second-year UMPI student majoring in Elementary Education with a concentration in English. She was born and raised in a tiny Downeast town, but she loves to gain new perspectives through travel. She looks forward to helping her future students achieve their goals in the way friends, family, and teachers have helped her achieve some of her own. Sandra McLaughlin is a Native of Presque Isle and studied Art at UMPI. Inspired by the Maine landscape, she uses acrylics and various mixed media in her abstract paintings, which she tells us, are “based on the concept of place and how memories give place meaning.” She has shown work in Gardiner, Maine’s Artwalk, as well as at The MonkeeTree Gallery in Gardiner and the Harlow Gallery in Hallowell, Maine.

Neal R. Miller was born and raised in a small village in the Catskill Mountains of New York. He first attended college at SUC Geneseo before spending nine years in California. In 1985 he moved to Bar Harbor, Maine, he tells us, with “a van, a

trailer, a wife, two kids, and sixty three dollars in my pocket.” He spent twenty-five years as a custodian. He’s now a grandfather and a junior Education major at UMA, taking online classes at UMPI, and planning to graduate in the spring of 2013. Chris Morton graduated from UMPI in 2004 with a BA in English and intentions of pursuing a career in journalism or creative writing. Instead he stumbled into his dream job, managing Aroostook Music Company. He’s married to another UMPI alum (Suzanne Libby, '04) and they have four children. He has written pieces for The Sharpened Axe (http://www.sharpenedaxe.com/), a blog devoted to enjoying the great outdoors. Lindsey Perry is a southern Maine native. She attended York County Community College before transferring to the University of Maine at Presque Isle, where she majored in English with a minor in Communications. She graduated in May of 2011. This fall, she moved to Salem, Oregon, and she plans to attend the University of Oregon in Eugene to obtain her Master's in Education Policy Methodology and Leadership. She tells us she likes to “read, run, love, and write.” Kimberly Pratt lives in Houlton with her husband, four children, and various pets (Chocolate Lab, Chihuahua, a oneeyed cat, and a rabbit). She marched at graduation last May but is finishing up her requirements with a Computer Art class this semester. She won both the English Book and Film Scholar awards in Spring, 2011. She loves reading, writing, British television, and watching horror films. Candice Rivera is a senior English major, with a Writing concentration. Raised in rural, southern Alabama and New Orleans, Louisiana, she spent time in New York before moving to Bridgewater, Maine, where she lives with her six-year-old son, Odin.

Anthony Scott graduated from UMPI with a BA in English in May 2010. This spring he’ll earn his MA in English/Creative Writing from Wilkes University. He teaches ENG 201 at UMPI and is revising the first draft of an inter-textual novel (fiction/poetry) examining the social tensions in a small-town fundamentalist church in the South in the early ‘80s.