The Blue Pencil 2015

THE BLUE PENCIL 2015

THE MAGAZINE OF THE CREATIVE WRITING PROGRAM AT WALNUT HILL SCHOOL FOR THE ARTS

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

FICTION

PLAYWRITING/SCREENWRITING

NICHOLAS FULLER ’15

MAEVE BENZ ’17

20 In Daniel’s Eyes

4

SAMANTHA MACKERTICH ’16

GABRIEL BRAUNSTEIN ’16

24 Back to the Marabel Greene

14 A Porthole in the Plaster

KAREN MOREY ’18

SAMANTHA MACKERTICH ’16

26 The Proposal

22 The Locker

Boons

SIENA RUSH ’17 36 A Collection of Thieves

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

POETRY JORDAN BARRANT ’18

LARK TERRY ’17

2

The Fisherman

40 November

3

Her PAULINA UKRAINETS ’15

LUCIA MULLIGAN ’18

42 Sonnet I

28 Knitting Newspaper

43 Sonnet II

HANNAH ORTIZ ’18

44 polyphonic prairies

30 Overworlds

SHAWN VAZIN ’16

31 I beg you to leave me home

46 Final Return, Flat Circle

CHADAM PIRES ’15

47 Nature-Brand Trophies™

32 Only a Distant FIONA SULLIVAN ’16

48 Index

34 Northfield 35 The Holy

COVER/INTERIOR ARTWORK Images by Yan Diego Wilson ’16 Text by Siena Rush ’17

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2013-2014 CREATIVE WRITING PROGRAM

WRITERS AND EDITORS Jordan Barrant ’18

Hannah Ortiz ’18

Maeve Benz ’17

Chadam Pires ’15

Gabriel Braunstein ’16

Siena Rush ’17

Nicholas Fuller ’15

Fiona Sullivan ’16

Samantha Mackertich ’16

Lark Terry ’17

Karen Morey ’18

Paulina Ukrainets ’15

Lucia Mulligan ’18

Shawn Vazin ‘16

FACULTY Margaret Funkhouser Director of Creative Writing Poetry

Ronan Noone Playwriting Screenwriting

Allan Reeder Fiction Nonfiction

Betsy Blazar Design and Layout

Walnut Hill School for the Arts © The Blue Pencil 2015, Volume 80, No. 1 All rights reservesd. No work is to be reprinted without written consent from the author and of Walnut Hill School for the Arts

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THE BLUE PENCIL 2015

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THE FISHERMAN Somewhere in the vast blue acetone sea, the fisherman’s wife spends her days.

She rests beside a white glass shell she calls her husband. They sit by the sea burying their watches ten feet below the sand.

Red-billed gulls fly above his brittle bones, and her dark thread connects beyond the sea.

The fisherman’s delicate plastic skin squeaks under her gentle touch. A blanket of black smoke masks their boat. Old wood peeks above

JORDAN BARRANT

the water, and the words are smeared into one.

He fell under the spell of the sea. Purple-tinted lips creep upon hers and she cries. After the dust settles along the seashells, cotton white sand turns brown beneath her feet, as she spills the fisherman underneath the bleeding sun.

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HER She strangles herself in a mess of cashmere sheets In streets of tears her spirit sleeps alone You stand on the telephone pole above her I watch you watch her as you see a ripe strawberry I see the mold below crawling down her lungs When it’s your turn to save her I will catch you After the walls of spray-painted graffiti are cleaned The fumes consume the sky forming a barrier The black crows succumb to dirt beneath her nails You sweep the hair she shed off the floor Mop up your tears on the scratched hardwood I hold her gun and you hold her bullets She shoots but when the ship arrives at shore You take it off autopilot and I steer

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BOONS CHARACTERS Fraser, 24, Wearing a midnight blue kimono over flannel pajama pants. No shoes. Hair tied in a loose bun. A sloth-like walk. Serene. A pseudo-intellectual.

Cermit, 26, Wearing a T-shirt with jeans. Sneakers. Concave posture. A moderately anti-social genius.

Riley, 30, Languid. Bearded. A werewolf.

Baz, 80, The anarchist evicted from his retirement home en route to a new life.

Bing, 79, Baz’s wife – along for the ride – with a chance to be a mother once again.

SCENE A dilapidated Victorian house painted turquoise with large cardboard letters – Alpha, Kappa, and Lambda – tacked above a window. Clover and dandelion filled window boxes. Riley is sleeping in an

MAEVE BENZ

Adirondack chair on the front porch.

AT RISE Sound of a car door shutting. Baz and Bing come on stage, frown when they see the letters, and slowly make their way up the front steps. They stand over Riley.

Baz It’s a fraternity?

Bing (Whispering) Well I didn’t know that. The guy on the phone sounded nice…a little stoned, but nice.

Baz (Not whispering) Well we can’t live here. Did they think we were young?

Riley starts to shift around in the chair, yawns and stretches his arms upwards. He rubs his eyes and looks calmly at Baz and Bing.

Riley Sup. Bing So sorry to interrupt your sleep, dear, but we talked with someone, oh I think his name started with an “F,” about renting a room here. I thought we had the right address, but perhaps not.

We’re Baz and Bing, by the way.

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Riley (calling inside) Hey Fraser. They’re here.

Fraser comes ambling out through the screen door carrying a plate of sushi and a glass pitcher of some brownish looking liquid.

Fraser Hi! You must be Baz and Bing – so nice to meet you (brings his hands together and gives a small bow). Kangei. (Grinning) That means welcome in Japanese.

Bing Fraser! Lovely to put a face to a name. Your home looks so (struggling to find the words)…youthful, but we didn’t know this was a fraternity.

Baz (Looking suspiciously at Fraser) And we’ll be going now.

Fraser Oh, please stay. I was a bit vague, but I thought if you came and met some of us, living together wouldn’t seem so bad.

Bing Well, that’s very sweet of you, Fraser. I just don’t think it’s for us.

Fraser Hold on, wait. You have to meet Cermit. You’ll love him. Just wait one minute.

Fraser ambles quickly back through the screen door. Baz looks skeptically at the brown liquid.

Baz I’m sorry, but what is that?

Riley The Cure.

Baz For what?

Riley Everything, man.

Bing And what is The Cure made from?

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Riley Weeds mostly.

Baz That’s it. We’re leaving, Bing. Let’s go.

Riley What’ve you got against weeds?

Baz Wait, did you say “weedzz”?

Riley Yeah, dandelion root, clover. We let them grow in those flower boxes (pointing up). Au natural.

Screen door swings open. Cermit, looking down, follows behind Fraser.

Fraser It’s my honor to introduce you all to Cermit.

Cermit stands awkwardly in the middle of the porch. Nods his head to Bing and Baz. Cermit It’s with a “C.” Fraser takes some collapsible chairs leaning against the wall and opens them up for Baz, Bing, Cermit, and himself. They all sit down.

Fraser So, Bing, Baz. What a pleasure it is to have you here today. (Looking around smiling at mostly tired, anxious, or perplexed faces) I’d love to know what inspired this move for you.

Baz We were evicted.

Fraser That’s horrible. People are turned soulless by money. That would not be an issue here. All financial situations are accepted without judgment.

Baz Oh, it wasn’t anything to do with money.

Bing Baz–

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Baz I did something “dishonorable.”

Cermit (Leaning in, quiet) What?

Baz Well, you see, we lived in a retirement community, and I had asked on many occasions to have an exemption from flying the American flag on my lawn, but these head honcho dingbats wouldn’t listen to me. And I told them, “I have the right to call myself an anarchist and you can’t make me let a false representation of my pride wave on my lawn.” So after years of this battle, I said I had enough and I took that flag down, got on my lawnmower, and ran straight over it.

Riley Shit.

Fraser You mowed the American flag?

Baz Damn right I did.

Bing And after we were evicted, we’ve been staying in motels looking for places still within driving distance to Jessing.

Fraser What’s in Jessing?

Bing Our son.

Baz He’s in prison.

Bing Baz! Baz What does it matter? It’s not like we’re actually going to live with college kids.

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Fraser Ah, I thought we might come to this confusion. We’ve all graduated. There was just this really pure brotherhood that we didn’t want to abandon, so we recreated Alpha Kappa Lambda here.

Baz How do you support yourselves?

Fraser Oh, different ways. Cermit works at Wally’s Water Park. I sell biodynamic calendars online.

Bing Well anyhow, we’re probably the worst prospective roommates you’ve ever seen.

Fraser (Slowly) You guys are actually perfect.

Bing (Disbelieving) How? Fraser Well, we really believe we could influence the youth in a really positive, like “don’t worry about everything so much because brotherhood, sisterhood, you know, family is at the core” way. So we got in touch with these reality TV scouts and they’re coming to check us out next week, but we need “Fraternity Parents” so to speak. But interesting, you know? And you guys, are just, immaculate.

There’s so much life in your presence.

Baz You want us to be your parents?

Bing On TV? Cermit Tell them the rules first.

Fraser Right! Well, no one can reveal the true identity of Cermit. You see, Cermit’s a genius; a real Einstein actually. By the time he was sixteen, he had already proposed three nationally recognized unsolved problems and solved them within a year. (Pause) It’s like having a pet dragon. It would be too dangerous if the world knew about him.

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Bing So you work at a waterpark?

Cermit I get free slushies.

Riley And you’d have to help feed Marcy, Ming, Mona, and Mable.

Fraser We have a chipmunk sanctuary in the gutter.

Riley They’re self-organized.

Bing So you live with chipmunks?

Baz And do you give them baths; let them eat at the table with you? Read them bedtime stories?

Fraser Nah, we respect each other’s personal space.

Cermit registers Baz and Bing’s moderately freaked out expressions.

Cermit It’s cool. They kind of freak me out too.

Bing And how many of you live here?

Fraser Ten, plus the chipmunks, a couple rabbits, a tortoise, and some chickens.

Riley Well, a lot of chickens.

Fraser Right – we adopt retired chickens – you know, the ones who can’t lay eggs anymore.

Riley We’re going to have dope karma.

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Fraser But we don’t do it for karma. We do it for the now.

Bing That’s generous of you.

Baz (Muttering) Breeding ground for disease.

Cermit nods.

Cermit I’ve tried to tell them.

Riley And it’d be more like living with nine plus the animals, cause I sleep all day.

Bing Oh? Riley I’m doing a four-year long experiment that requires me to have a nocturnal lifestyle.

Baz Do you get paid?

Riley A shit ton. (Pause) It also helps me adapt.

Bing For what?

Riley I don’t know how familiar your are with transmatio lycanthrope–the monthly metamorphosis from man to wolf– Baz Like a werewolf?

Riley nods his head solemnly.

Fraser It’s a very personal subject.

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Baz (Smirking) So The Cure doesn’t work for everything, aye.

Riley You were saying your son’s in prison, weren’t you?

Baz Mm. Bing But he’ll be out soon.

Cermit What’d he do?

Bing He lost people’s retirement funds in the stock market…

Baz Gambled. He gambled people’s retirement funds. Then lost them.

Fraser His warui ryōshin must be off the charts.

Cermit (Explaining) Bad conscious.

Baz Let’s hope.

Bing We moved to Texas so we could be closer for visiting him and making sure he knew there were people who still cared about him.

Riley That’s dope. If I was in prison I doubt my parents would send me a postcard, let alone move.

Fraser My dad would probably come, yell at me, then pretend I’d died or something. (Pause) He’s a real bastard. Shit, I mean, he’s gone through rough times. Not my place to judge. (Fraser closes his eyes – looks like he’s doing flash meditation)

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Cermit I’m not exciting enough to get arrested. (Pause) And I’m asthmatic so it’s not like I could do drugs.

Baz Why aren’t you out there, Cermit?

Cermit Out where?

Baz In the world! Making use of your brain—curing cancer!

Cermit I do math. That’s more biology-related.

Bing I think what Baz means to say is, why aren’t you pursuing your gift?

Cermit I did.

Bing Why not now?

Baz Yeah, working at a bloody waterpark seems like an insult to all that potential.

Cermit I guess because I stopped feeling like a person. Everybody kept saying I was “fascinating,” like an alien or something. And nobody but me understood anything I was doing. And I hate explaining things to people. Plus, I wouldn’t have ever met guys like Fraser or Riley, and sure, they’re kind of weird, but I like having brothers and watching Cartoon Network when I get home. (He shrugs) I like being anonymous.

Fraser Thanks for being honest, man. You’re as Zen as they get.

Riley Let’s toast this moment. I’m getting really toast-y vibes.

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Fraser Hey, Cermit, could you grab some glasses?

Cermit heads back through the screen door.

Riley Dude, he’s never opened up like that.

Fraser Like, never.

Riley I think he really likes you guys.

Fraser I always thought he didn’t want to go into math because he thought people would lock him up and do, like, scientific experiments on his brain.

Riley Yeah, for good reasons. Science is mad sketchy.

Cermit comes back through carrying a stack of cups. Fraser pours The Cure into cups for everyone. Fraser raises his cup.

Fraser Aisuru koto!

Cermit He just really loves Japanese words…

Fraser Their texture makes perfect sense to me.

Cermit You’ll get used to it.

Baz I guess we will.

End of scene

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A PORTHOLE IN THE PLASTER

This is the opening scene to a full-length play.

Scene 1 CHARACTERS

Sarah, 17, High school senior visiting Harvard as a prospective student.

Foster, 21, Sarah’s brother, and a student at Harvard studying economics.

Chrissy, 21, Foster’s loud classmate.

TIME Early afternoon.

SCENE The view of “The Pit” in Harvard Square as if approaching from Au Bon Pain. There is a subway

GABRIEL BRAUNSTEIN

hutch, a brick patio, and a curved granite bench.

AT RISE SARAH and FOSTER, walking at a leisurely pace. Sarah is dressed professionally and Foster is somewhat disheveled with a backpack in tow.

Foster Sorry, I just got out of class. How are you?

Sarah I’m fine, don’t worry about it. When do your classes end?

Foster It’s not too bad actually. On Tuesdays, noon. Some days it’s more like four, but that’s when I have my easy classes. How was the tour?

FOSTER and SARAH sit down on the granite bench facing the subway hutch.

Sarah

Campus is beautiful. Some pledge showed me around, he was sort of gross. But the Humanities Department is incredible, of course. I hope my interview went alright, I had it with the director of the department.

Foster Christ, Sarah, you’ll do fine. I got in, remember? Getting in is by far the hardest part about going here.

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Sarah Thanks. So what are we up to?

Foster Well you’ve seen campus, right? It’s early in the week, so any parties will start after 9. Why don’t we just tool around the Square a while? Do you remember it from when I was first looking here?

FOSTER pulls out a phone and checks his messages while SARAH considers things.

Sarah

Yeah, that sounds fine. I don’t remember a thing. What do you do here anyway?

Foster Drink? I guess not much. Come on though, there are a couple cool bookstores.

FOSTER gets up as an offstage voice coming from Au Bon Pain shouts.

Chrissy

Hey Fos, what’s up for tonight?

Foster Oh shit, hey Chrissy, come on over, meet my sister

Enter CHRISSY. Chrissy

Hey. Sarah Hey. Foster Chrissy, this is Sarah, she’s looking at Harvard for the day. Sarah, Chrissy. We have a class together.

Chrissy And have a bed together when I’m drunk enough. (to FOSTER) Tonight?

Foster Sure.

CHRISSY kisses FOSTER quickly and walks into the subway hutch.

Sarah

Oh my God, are you guys fucking?

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Foster Not for long.

Sarah Jesus, she was wearing your shirt! That’s the one with the stain on it from last Christmas!

Foster Really? I didn’t think so. I barely remember that night.

Sarah You passed out on the couch with Aunt Margaret. I remember it was bad, because mom was pissed at you and you weren’t doing a thing. Said you needed to help out more, so you brought a bowl of salsa to the kitchen but ended up spilling it all over yourself. We laugh about it now.

Foster How’s she doing?

Sarah Who, Aunt Margaret?

Foster No, stupid, you know who I’m talking about. Mom. Sarah She’s fine. She even gave me thirty bucks for the trip. She said she’ll celebrate when I finally go off because for her it’s just one step closer to divorce. Dad is on the couch most days, but I guess he’s used to it. Really, she loves you, you should just call more.

Foster You’re right. I just can’t ever picture home anymore, things seem out of place. But, Jesus, this won’t count for shit now, what are we doing?

Sarah I want hot chocolate.

Foster Why the hell do you want hot chocolate?

Sarah Who knows, I just do.

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Foster Alright, well Burdick’s is a five minute walk, let’s head over.

FOSTER stands up.

Sarah

There was a woman at the admissions desk who said the best hot chocolate in Boston was at The Four Seasons.

Foster The Four Seasons is all the way over by the garden; we’d have to take the train. Burdick’s is fine, let’s head over. They have white hot chocolate too.

Sarah I’ve never been on the Red Line, you know.

Foster We’re not taking the train. It’s not worth going all the way into the city for hot chocolate. Jesus!

On your feet.

SARAH gets on her feet, but takes FOSTER by the hand and begins to pull it towards the

subway.

Sarah Do we take inbound or outbound? How many stops?

Foster No stops, let’s go.

FOSTER pulls SARAH in the other direction.

Sarah

If that slut Chrissy wanted to go to the Four Seasons, you would take her.

Foster What’s that even supposed to mean?

Sarah It means you’re a pushover, and you know it. More importantly, I do. Please?

FOSTER and SARAH stand still.

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Foster I really don’t feel like it Sarah, I’m sorry. The hot chocolate will be just as good here and we can see more of the Square.

Sarah There’s plenty of time to see the Square. I’m going here, aren’t I? Foster So when you come, you’ll have plenty of time to go to The Four Seasons.

Sarah That’s not the point. Listen, let’s go. I’ll tell mom you were dressed real nice and that you have a girl who you would be proud to take home.

Foster And what happens when I don’t show up with anyone on Thanksgiving?

Sarah I couldn’t give a shit what happens, I just want hot chocolate. Now, inbound, or outbound?

Foster I don’t know.

Sarah Yes you do.

Foster Outbound. But if we’re hauling all the way out there, we’re going to spend some time in the garden.

Sarah If you insist.

FOSTER and SARAH smile, and walk towards the subway hutch.

End of scene.

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IN DANIEL’S EYES When my mother went back to work, I was only twelve, but I noticed how the wrinkles at the outer corners of her eyes deepened. How she turned the key in the ignition just a little bit slower. How her brow pinched when she carried heavy groceries into the house. How, when tax season came around, she would be at work by the time I had put on my socks, and she would come back long after I had turned off my lamp to go to bed. And then, when I actually did see her, how she had hardened, and how her motherly composure had changed to that of what the book on her nightstand described as a “working woman’s.” How, when I asked her why she went back to work, she hesitated for a bit too long. I remember how my brother, sister, and I sat in the basement and heard our mother and father fighting over a PG-13 movie he had let us watch. How I laughed at my siblings crying over the fight, because normally I was the crier in the family. How I began to count on my right hand the number of times she genuinely smiled

NICHOLAS FULLER

in a day.

I recalled my brother’s and sister’s surprise sixteenth birthday parties. The best she

could do now was to take a “birthday lunch-break.” I saw how she would dig the nail of her middle finger into her palm whenever I asked if I could pay for something with the credit card.

How, after my brother and sister left home, she talked with them on the phone less and less.

I saw her face in her hands once from the hallway, but just as I thought I saw her lip quiver, my father shut the bedroom door. I noticed how she left the table right after dinner instead of letting our dog come up on her lap. How she wouldn’t even try to answer Jeopardy questions anymore. How she rarely thanked my father for bringing her tea in her office. How long she spent in that room alone. How she aged, and how she didn’t seem so untouchable, as kids think their mothers are.

How, when she and my father sat us all down to tell us that she was sick, tears welled

up, but still she didn’t cry. How she never let any of us see our mother cry. How I wasn’t laughing at my siblings’ tears anymore when we visited her in the hospital. How she looked out the window from her bed and the sun shining through cast a shadow on her sunken cheek. How she looked tense when she was sleeping, but how relaxed all the muscles in her face were when the nurse pulled the blanket over her head. How, when my eighteenth birthday came around, all it meant was my first year without my mother.

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THE LOCKER A Non-Verbal Screenplay INT. ROOM LINED WITH LOCKERS — DAY MARTIN (17) lanky and casually dressed, enters the room carrying a bulging shopping bag and wearing a heavy backpack.

He approaches a locker and twists the lock. It clicks open.

Martin looks around the room before the door opens.

SAMANTHA MACKERTICH

EXT./INT. MARTIN’S LOCKER — SAME The locker is lined with wood shavings.

There is a plastic red BOWL and a plate scattered with CRUMBS. A PORCELAIN DOLL sits in the center.

Martin retrieves a carton of chocolate milk from his bag. He pours it into the bowl.

He pulls out a P.B and J. SANDWICH, cut on the diagonal, with the crust removed. He grabs a clean plate from his bag and arranges the sandwich on it.

Martin removes the used dish from the locker and replaces it with the fresh one.

He does not break eye contact with the doll and maintains a serious expression.

He leans forward and turns his head, his ear directly in front of the doll’s painted LIPS. He listens for a moment and reaches out to tentatively stroke its cheek.

Approaching footsteps are heard. SARAH (16), petite and preppy.

Martin promptly clicks the locker door shut. She approaches Martin.

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Sarah stares at Martin for a moment before spinning the dial on the locker next to his. She watches Martin intently while opening her locker.

EXT./INT. SARAH’S LOCKER — SAME Inside sits a porcelain doll.

Sarah pulls a tin of Mac ‘n Cheese from her PURSE along with a juice box and sets them in front the doll. Martin carefully studies her movements.

Sarah closes the locker and smiles at Martin. He smiles back.

She offers her hand in greeting. Martin takes it and they walk out of the room together.

INT. MARTIN’S LOCKER — SAME Sarah’s doll sits alone next to a small dim LIGHT. Light flickers out and back on.

Martin and Sarah’s dolls are sitting together, hand-in-hand, as the light fades.

END.

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BACK TO THE MARABEL GREENE When I arrive, barefoot, in the driveway, there is already a gathering. Several women are wiping their cheeks, too distraught even to tell their children to look away. My feet are bloody from the sprint down the gravel street, but nobody notices. Everyone’s eyes are fixed on your twisted form on the stretcher, except for the kids’. They stare at their shoes and pick at their fingernails, and I join them, unable to watch the paramedics toying with your limbs like a broken doll.

A woman with a raspy voice asks no one in particular, “Did he fall? Or…?” A man in a green cardigan responds, “He fell.” And points. “Third-story window. Poor kid.” Something glitters among the crushed ferns and a toddler picks it up. It’s a shard of clear glass, jagged, unworn by the elements. She admires how it sparkles in the light before dropping it again. A thin gray cat flicks through the forest of legs, hissing at the unfamiliar feet. A woman in red heels positions

SAMANTHA MACKERTICH

herself to give it a kick, but it bends out of the way in a well-rehearsed dance.

The neighborhood feels suddenly bigger as dog walkers and women in brightly col-

ored tracksuits arrive, attracted like ants to a lollipop. They sidestep in front of me until I am forced onto my tiptoes. The dogs — well-brushed and overfed — lift their noses. Maybe it’s the antiseptic, or the blood, or the bony gray cat.

I worm through the narrow spaces between bodies, elbowing and toe-stomping as

necessary. The woman to my left is wiping her thumbs under her eyes and loudly sucking in breath.

I’m not worried, though.

Next Tuesday night at nine-thirty, as usual, we will go back to the Marabel Greene

Theater, where the plaster gargoyles have littered ears and teeth onto the stage, covered the floor with a pale powder. We’ll trace patterns in the dust with our heels, and you’ll spell out all the words I’d get sent to the principal for parroting. The projector room is a mess of toppled film stacks that you want desperately to organize, but I won’t let you. You’d ruin the personality, paint over a masterpiece because the color has faded a bit. Every film is PG-13. As always, you’ll cover my eyes during the scary bits or unplug the speakers and make new voices for the characters. And then we’ll compete, throwing our yellow and purple Skittles at the screen aiming for the quarter-size holes. The winner will get to pick next week’s movie.

When I get to the front of the crowd, the paramedics are loading the stretcher into

the back of the ambulance. There is a police officer with a tire for a waist telling everyone to

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“Give ’em some space.” The siren then wails as they back out of the long driveway, and I have to press my palms to my ears.

You turned twelve four weeks ago. We celebrated — that was the last time we went to

the Marabel Greene together. You climbed in through the window and, as usual, lowered the fire escape for me. Under the glitter of the glass chandeliers, you told me you’d had a dream about swinging from them, dangling your feet over the velveteen seats. You lifted me up to touch the rough features of the gargoyles. You pointed out a stout one with enormous ears and a chipped tongue. “Hey look — your guardian demon!” Only well-behaved children get angels, you told me.

I stuck out my tongue at you. I am certain that I will receive coal in my stocking this

year. My mother thinks the theater is filthy and dangerous; she’s glad it was condemned. She doesn’t know about our visits, and I have no intention of changing that. I do wish, though, that we had named that gargoyle to protect you.

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THE PROPOSAL The night Mike proposed to me, I noticed that he chose to wear his favorite green shamrock tie, the same one he wore to our senior prom, with hopes of “getting lucky.” And how he parted his hair not to the left, as he had in high school, but to the right, which made his face look rounder, kinder. How his hair had this shine to it, but was matted and stiff, as if it was unwashed. How he kept checking his phone during the meal, under the table, trying to keep me from noticing. How he didn’t look at me while he was eating the duck, but how, when I talked about my boss, Jill, and the crazy pink tuxedo she decided to wear to work, he looked straight into my eyes. How, after reaching for my hand on the table, he rubbed the center of my palm in tiny circles, as if he needed to trace his words before they could come out of his mouth.

When he talked about his idea of kids, he kept looking up at the ceiling as if he could see them running and playing there. I looked too.

Instead, what I saw was prom. The theme that year was Starry Night, and when I first

KAREN MOREY

entered the gym with my date, not-boyfriend Chris, and we looked up at glittering cardboard stars and strung white lights hung by the Student Council from the high ceiling, I could have felt myself in love. Chris took my hand and we walked under the basketball hoop to the illuminated path around the makeshift dance floor, a large rubber mat that covered the ferocious, dribbling bumblebee in the circle at center court. At the edges of the gym different clubs had set up stands selling popcorn and candy, but the drama club had a kissing booth. Already the line extended out the far exit door. We soon found a different place. So did Mike, I later learned. He and I both lost our virginity that night.

During the meal, I noticed that sometimes he chewed with his mouth open, and

then suddenly became aware of it and closed his lips. It made me remember when he moved in down the block the summer before freshman year, a family of four from Atlanta, with sweet manners and blond hair. Now I noticed the specks of gray in his hair, which he blamed on his two years at the bank, the late nights, the stress – which he blamed when he yelled at me once for not completely turning off the kitchen faucet in his apartment. As the waitstaff cleared our plates, I noticed in the candlelight that his pupils looked smaller, and his lips looked chapped, cracked and old. When he called the waitress over to order dessert, I saw that he was blinking

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more than usual and rubbing his eyes. And I saw the teeth in his smile as they brought out the surprise cake. He pulled out his phone as I lifted the knife to cut it. When he handed the phone to the waitress, his fingers were shaking. When he asked me, he said Please.

How silent the restaurant was when I left, the only sound the clink of knives on plates,

empty glasses chiming.

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KNITTING NEWSPAPER when air is scarce

things that breathe

through gritted teeth

leave trails of dust

forget the backbone cracks things that squeak and creek

with time the ash will grow

the help of distance the silence scrambles words

lights that shift

to keep things small we pop our ears and forget to blink

holes in pants matching holes in skin

take cold showers shock the brain

don’t forget to watch the fire

ignore the sting of pain

LUCIA MULLIGAN

push salt into your palm

and stick your feet in flame

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OVERWORLDS worth the folds and muses

there was the night when

the tombstone visit

I’m supposed to punch in numbers

I am supposed to go but

traffic streets with fever dreams

couldn’t make the midnight rain

I used to trade bottles

I am brought bouquets

I crane forward to listen

this song isn’t a request

the engine hums out my decision

icebergs grey instead of white

at the bottom of a brown shelled bag

until days round the bend

without topics and bullets on paper

fingers push away my hair

I am a white-paged escapade

semi-colon of black indecision

I pay my dues like tearshed

I live nights through the days

HANNAH ORTIZ

crinkled yellow addressbook page

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I BEG YOU TO LEAVE ME HOME the boy who dumped salt into my fries now hollows the bench with permanent warmth in a city other than the one I left my bed in soles of starched sneakers screech across the floor our backs to eyes in between the slicing blinds you listen to albums churned by boys who buy dreams who peel away their pasts like sweat-plastered palms off bare backs bulbs dusted golden are thumbprints on a darkened street you want me painted the steel gutter’s color

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ONLY A DISTANT There was but one Within the pieces

left to break apart

presented to the remainder

I sit arched in my chair Lurking, waiting Nothing remains, but

searching for the final battle the questions still pondered

What were the signs Why were all things Above and alone

revealed to us? never to be heard?

hover over everyone’s dread at the ruin I once called home

CHADAM PIRES

To have another chance

arranged in the order

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NORTHFIELD we bleed blue and green across my pages of that author who taught you how to drink ten thousand deaths a day still somewhere in Ohio my mother’s mother had forgotten the gutter dove died I sang your prose to the backyard mayflies buried verses under the hydrangea to make them

FIONA SULLIVAN

grow blue eyed botanical earth clawed fingernails holding paper cups under the honeysuckle lingering thumbs to the winged backs of cicadas transients of the summer the tectonic locomotives come to sing off the cherubs in gingham skirts as their grandfathers drink gin from tin mugs to carve our own we pull bark from their burials

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THE HOLY I sit evening solitude pressing thumb to finger and wait patterned across the wall nail to vesper the silence eats shadows like a hand at my throat pushes up my lungs and plays against my fingertips wishing I had stayed under oxygen ignites metal bulb against my lips holding at his hip the bones inside my breast corrupt the words of miscellaneous parts seething sparks as a child’s forgotten lights like stars in so many galaxies ice water under my lungs a poppied promise I whisper burns my tongue and I remember the hardwood I danced salt against cheek the yellow house burning down to a peaceful slump I bit I watched the backyard rabbit from which I could not return

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A COLLECTION OF THIEVES I. Lily She stole her mother’s things. Little girls are supposed to play dress up, but this was different.

She wasn’t a little girl. Her mother’s closet was full of bright colors, the clothes smelling of her expensive perfume. She rarely took much. Today she was in here just for a ring, the one her mom had been wearing last week when they went out for dinner downtown. Silver, with some kind of blue stone in the center. It wasn’t in the jewelry box. Strange. Everything was always in place here, all the dresses on padded hangers, color-coded, facing the same direction.

Where was it? The box was an awfully shimmery thing. Her fingers moved over the

different earrings, bracelets, and pins all nestled in slots. Maybe her mom had decided she should wear the ring today. As she moved the top layer of the box aside, in place of more shimmering was a picture. The edges were a little bent. The man beside her mother in the photograph was her ex-husband. She’d divorced him a year before meeting Lily’s father. Lily had met

SIENA RUSH

Walt only once, but she remembered that scar along his chin.

II. Christine She tapped her foot on the linoleum floor. Her father was in the checkout line, giving the girl behind the counter, a pretty one, blonde, nice and slim, about a thousand coupons. She looked like the girls in the magazines displayed just above the candy bars.

It wouldn’t take long for the blonde to scan everything, and maybe ask if her father

had any cashback receipts that would apply to the toothpaste, but she wandered over to the cosmetics section. Her older sister always ran her mouth whenever she walked into this part of the store, about how more of the women in the photos advertising the products should look like them, dark-skinned, full-lipped. “So long as culture puts a premium on beauty, and the definition of beauty is the bird-boned white girls with flat asses, we won’t be accepted.” But even the girls who looked like that didn’t seem all that happy with themselves. She reached out and plucked a red lipstick from the display. Her father was almost done at the counter. She could go ask him to pay, but he would inevitably say the color belonged on some streetwalker.

Her own wallet was empty. Up until last night, she had thought she had ten bucks in there, but outside Dylan’s Dinner, when she looked, there were only a few pennies. She slipped the

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lipstick into her pocket and walked toward the door to meet her father, remembering how she’d smiled as her friends ordered and had told them that she wasn’t hungry at all.

III. Eve For years her mother had been reminding Eve that she shouldn’t try so hard to be like her best friend. Every time Eve came home with a borrowed top, she would hear her mother’s lectures about pre-owned opinions and second-hand habits. There was some truth to that, but it was hard to care all that much about any such truth when Mia’s dress looked so good.

She’s going to take the blue dress from her best friend’s closet. Mrs. Lansen is downstairs

making dinner, and her daughter will be back from volleyball practice in ten minutes. In a moment Eve will stuff the dress under her chemistry book in her bag. Then she will go downstairs and eat with the family. She won’t touch the dress again until she’s on the bus the next day, but for now she just fingers the sleeve, and thinks about when she saw Mia wear the dress for the first time. They’d gone up to Maine for a week, and somehow Mia had managed to dig up a date by the third day. She’d left smiling, heels clicking on the stone floors. Eve was asleep by the time she came back in tears.

IV. Ella How long had he been with Kacie? They had to have gotten together just after Christmas – so, four months? That wasn’t that long, she thought, as she lifted her hand from her lap, laughing at his joke about a ballerina walking into a barre. He’d told it to her before, a couple months back, and Kacie mentioned that he’d used it on her, too, just before he’d kissed her for the first time.

Maybe he wasn’t the most original guy, but she liked the way he watched as she ran her fingers through her hair. Maybe he’d like to replace her hand with his own.

The whole room smelled of chalk. The idea of doing this in a classroom didn’t really

appeal, but that’s what was available. She should have felt bad already. She hadn’t done anything wrong yet, but she was going to. She lowered her hand and reached, smiling at him. She could deal with being a bad person.

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V. Kit The seat was tilted all the way back, and her feet were propped up on the dash. She didn’t know what was playing on the radio. The boy beside her had put it on, and he was nodding his head to the beat. For a while she’d watched him, but he’d caught looking three times and that was too much. She settled for watching the rain streak down the passenger window. Every time they passed under a street lamp, the glass and water lit up, twinkling, and tinted with the warm yellow glow of the lights.

“How long before your Dad notices?” he said.

The music was quiet enough that he didn’t have to speak up. She curled her toes, then

flexed her feet, stretching them out. She didn’t regret taking the car; it felt gratifying to have her legs up, the leather of the dash under her bare feet.

“He won’t get home for a couple hours.”

The song changed, something a little faster. He leaned forward and clicked through the

stations. She watched the station numbers flash in green.

“Late shift.”

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NOVEMBER Telephone wires rope your ill-behaved neck as you, with the last book of matches, demonstrate your counterdemonstrations.

You can’t talk about all the afternoons I spent, watching you inhale paper poison. Half-filled bottles of your mother’s wine cannot echo repentance for the nights you licked them dry behind the garage.

You know this while you mix crimson

LARK TERRY

toxin into your father’s ashes, plead innocence. You will stand defeated soon, beg the ferry to throw your feeble body overboard, drown you in Long Island.

You pass through me, ghostly, cower in attempt to forget the way I drip tears onto firewood, just to see if I can really turn your grief to cinders. The ones who love you do not believe you’re human.

I watch you flicker and dim.

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SONNET I Hello, home. I tried leaving a voicemail, but my hands were shaking. I have found you inside my head. Are you well? You look pale.

Are you real? Who’s to say – not me. My blue not as blue as your skin, this is a frail condition we found ourselves in. What a view we have here. Is ‘we’ okay? I exhale smoke into mountain corridors, tell you – I want to be lost with you on a life

PAULINA UKRAINETS

boat for days on end. You, get in your car and don’t stop until dark roads disappear in Wisconsin. Look up. I’m that one star you can see from your porch, caught on the knife blade. I’m not happy, but I could be here.

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SONNET II Hello, home. I tried, but my hands were inside my head. Well, are you real? Who’s to say not as blue as your condition we found we have here. Are ‘we’ smoke in mountain corridors?

I want to be a lost boat for days on end and not to stop until Wisconsin. Look up – you can see from your blade: I’m not happy.

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POLYPHONIC PRAIRIES i want you to learn how to love me correctly. instead you and i are falling, collapsing inwardly like origami cranes. i’m sorry you feel me. i easily become not real, disintegrate to dust, hide out under ashtrays in kitchen cupboards. i have to tell you i love you, just these days,

PAULINA UKRAINETS

just as an outline, a shape filled out with bones, crevassing at the tips of birthmarks in the shapes of cities you won’t visit. i’m lucky unknown – i fold in two, slip into jacket pockets on the tube. fall asleep, wake up in a desert dream, a lonely you.

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FINAL RETURN, FLAT CIRCLE My eyes are tired of glaring and done getting tossed around by baggage handlers. Roll me off the sheeted ledge to wilt.

It happens with you, I curl up into a stepping stool to your next nameless cut.

But I’m not that air dancer’s open arms. Expect a deflated

SHAWN VAZIN

balloon, spinning on the ceiling fan.

I’m ruptured records, sitting on a stool, waiting to be played again, never dizzy long from the monotony.

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NATURE-BRAND TROPHIES™ A bobbing head on cold water, track the mess you nailed into me that I weave between trees.

Now, this sewing needle leaves me as a deflating ruby red ball. So let’s listen to the beat in your steps. Look at what you’ve knitted.

You’re already counting the worth in my facets as your bright orange fades from the corner of my open irises.

Pull the final thread.

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INDEX Backyard, rabbiting, 35 Balloon, deflated, 46; spinning on ceiling fan, 46 Battle, searched for, 32 Birthmarks, in shapes of cities, 44 Blue, eyed botanical, 34; not as blue as skin, 42 Bookstores, cool, 15 Bottles, licked dry, 40 Cherubs, in gingham skirts, 34 Cicadas, as transients of summer, 34 Dust, settled on seashells, 2; leaving trails, 28 Eyes, doing flash meditation, 11; fixed on stretcher, 24; covered for the scary bits, 24; in between blinds, 31; tired of glaring, 46; done getting tossed, 46 Feet, unfamiliar, 24; dangled over velveteen seats, 25; stuck in flame, 28; propped up on dash, 38 Ferns, crushed, 24 Graffiti, spray-painted on walls, 3 Grief, turned to cinders, 40 Gulls, red-billed, 2 Ice water, burning tongue, 35 Legs, as forest, 24 Lifestyle, nocturnal, 10 Lips, purple-tinted, 2; almost quivering, 20 Locker, lined with wood shavings, 22 Locomotive, tectonic, 34 Origami cranes, collapsing inwardly, 44 Paramedics, toying with limbs, 24 Pins, nestled in slots, 36 Records, ruptured, 46 Salt, pushed into palm 28; dumped, 31 Sandwich, cut on the diagonal, 22 Scar, remembered, 36 Sea, blue acetone, 2 Silence, eating shadows, 35 Smoke, exhaled into mountain corridors, 42 Stars, glittering on cardboard, 26; caught on knife blade, 42 Telephone wires, roping neck, 40 Tie, green shamrock, 26 Verses, buried under hydrangea, 34 Vibes, toast-y, 12 Warmth, permanent, 31 Werewolf, languid, 4 Wrinkles, deepening, 20

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