Black Fox Literary Magazine Issue #9 by Black Fox

Editors’ Note Ah, spring. The flowers are blooming, the birds are chirping—and Black Fox has some incredible poems and short stories to keep you company during those April showers. But before we brag about all of the incredible contributions we have in this issue, we want to remind everyone about our new publication schedule. This issue marks our first release of the year, with the second one debuting later this summer. Next year, we’ll begin our biannual tradition with winter and summer issues. Now, back to the awesomeness of Issue 9. Not only are we featuring an interview with renowned poet/author (as well as poetry professor at our alma mater, Fairleigh Dickinson University), Renee Ashley, but we also announce the winner of our “Home” themed contest. (Only fitting since this issue is our 2014 homecoming!) To honor the lovely Renee Ashley, we’re featuring a high volume of poetry in this issue. Additionally, the stories are all about being out of your element—which can be scary, but also exciting! So, curl up on the couch, listen to the raindrops drum against your windowpanes, and get lost in this issue. Don’t fear, though—we’ll return in the summer with even more high-quality contributions.

-The Editors, Racquel, Pam, and Marquita

Meet the BFLM Staff: Founding Editors: Racquel Henry is first and foremost a writer. She is also a part-time English Professor and owns the writing center, Writer’s Atelier, in Winter Park, FL. Racquel writes literary and women’s fiction in hopes of having a novel published sometime in the near future. She also enjoys reading a variety of genres, and is currently obsessed with flash fiction. Some of her favorite authors include Joyce Carol Oates, Lorrie Moore, John Updike, and Sophie Kinsella. She earned an MFA from Fairleigh Dickinson University. At the moment, she is searching for a new school to call home, and to pursue a PhD degree. Her stories have appeared in The Scarlet Sound, Blink-Ink, The Rusty Nail, and Freight Train Magazine. You can follow her writing journey on her very own blog titled, “Racquel Writes.” Pam Harris lives in Hampton, VA and spent seven years as a middle school counselor. When she isn't wiping tears and helping kids study for tests, she's writing contemporary YA fiction (and has also recently started writing middle grade). Some of her favorite authors are Ellen Hopkins, Courtney Summers, Jodi Picoult, and Stephen King. You can also find her at the movie theaters every weekend or pretending to enjoy exercising. She received her MFA in creative writing from Fairleigh Dickinson University in 2012, and will now receive her PhD in Counselor Education at the College of William and Mary. Marquita "Quita" Hockaday also lives in Hampton, Virginia. She is a history instructional specialist who has never been able to shake her love of writing and reading. There is always, always a book near her. Marquita is

currently enjoying writing young adult (historical and contemporary)â&#x20AC;&#x201D;and most recently wrote her first middle grade novel with co-editor, Pam. Some of her favorite authors are Laurie Halse Anderson, Blake Nelson, Cormac McCarthy and Joyce Carol Oates. Marquita also graduated with an MFA in creative writing from Fairleigh Dickinson University in 2012, and she can't wait to use that knowledge to teach writing and co-edit this magazine. Copy Editor: Elizabeth Sheets is an undergraduate student at Arizona State University, majoring in English, Creative Writing. When she is not writing, or loitering in coffee shops, she works full time as an administrative assistant for an electrical contractor in Gilbert, Arizona. Elizabeth currently interns as a Content Coordinator for Superstition Review, and looks forward to migrating fully into the literary field after graduation. Her work appears in Kalliope â&#x20AC;&#x201C; A Consortium of New Voices and in Black Fox Literary Magazine. BFLM Blog Contributor: Helen Dring is a fiction writer from Liverpool, England. She is studying for an MA in Creative Writing and is currently writing her first novel. She likes fairy tales, ghost stories, and modern history. Readers: Shaun Taylor Bevins is an aspiring writer, voracious reader, dedicated mother, wife, and teacher. She has eclectic reading tastes, but prefers writing that has something meaningful to say about the human experience. She also appreciates clever and original characters that

leave lasting impressions. You can learn more about Shaun from her website: www.broadneckwritersworkshop.com. Donna Compton lives just outside of Washington, D.C. and recently graduated from the University of Maryland University College with a Bachelor's degree in Psychology. She began taking Creative Writing courses a few years ago, with a focus on short stories. Currently, she's reading and writing a lot of flash fiction. Her other favorite genres include literary fiction, mystery, thriller, science fiction and fantasy. Jackie Schultz's extreme love for books started at a young age, when she would ask her parents to re-read the same book over and over again; so frequently would this request be made that she forced her parents to hide the book on top of the refrigerator. When she is not reading, she is watching the food channel, singing, and auditioning.

Contents: Travelling by Shawn Hoo (BFLM Contest Winner)........8 Fiction The Covering Up by Lisa Aldridge....................................12 Pixels by Margaret Karmazin............................................46 The Amazing Armored Philatelist by Julienne Grey..........77 The Circle Line by Milla van der Have.............................85 Balloons by Katherine Hart.............................................101 Twelve Variations of a Left Hook by Amber KellyAnderson..........................................................................134

Non-Fiction To Catch a Horse by Flannery James................................39 Poetry The Kiss by Cindy Glenn...................................................10 Requiem for a Common Individual by Stanley Noah.......38 Selected Poems by Jeffrey Graessley................................43 Selected Poems by Gene Goldfarb....................................68 Selected Poems by C. Michael Downes............................74

Freudian Quips by Laura Foley.........................................84 Union Station by Jon Boisvert.........................................100 Selected Poems by Anthony Langford............................124 Selected Poems by Diana Raab........................................131 Road Signs by Michael Salgado......................................140 Art/Photography Checkmate by Haley Mudrick.........................................73 Selected Artwork by Cover Artist, Brendan James.......129 Author Interview A Conversation with Renee Ashley, author of Because I Am the Shore I Want to Be the Sea................142

Winner of the 2013 Black Fox Contest: Traveling By Shawn Hoo Our flight arrives, unknowingly, at the terminal. Here, foreign tongues alloy local ones, while the voice above announces, beyond doubt, that this is not home. Stitched in grey, the scene unravels like a stray thread being snapped. That, travelling, we are made to carry our shells on our backs, thinking This is home. But nothing grounds these vessels and the folks they hold. How we only realise the nature of our rented lives when, like an exact landlady,

our lives charge us so promptly. That where we arrive, we depart.

Still parked, the planes stir from their sleep.

The Kiss By Cindy Glenn He greeted her with an embrace And then a kiss It was primeval, organic, indigenous He kissed her hard, he kissed her with relief He kissed her long, his biceps flexed There was heat.

Time and the fusion of flesh were visible Love was collected then stored in the cracks and folds Of wrinkled skin Togetherness was natural Like the sunrise and sunset And the unseen particles in the air that we breathe

He reached for her hand Crooked fingers entwined With their backs to me they slowly walked away He in squeaky white sneakers With orthopedic insoles And she in red Croc's

And they left me a better person For having witnessed such a kiss.

The Covering Up By Lisa Aldridge

I did not have time for a going away party. My flight to Australia was scheduled to leave early in the morning and I still had a lot to do. But some well-meaning fellow graduate student thought my summer of fieldwork among the Tiwi was a good excuse for a party, which meant a couple hours of food and beer. It also gave the archeology students a break from doing statistical analysis on the bison scapula they had brought back from their most recent dig. Thinking about it that way, I smiled and acted pleasantly surprised. But when I checked the refreshments, my stomach twisted; I realized everything on the snack table, including the soda, was kiwi flavored. Cute, kiwi for the Tiwi. I hated kiwi, especially anything with artificial kiwi flavoring in it.

Somehow I managed to get everything done despite the party. Packing my office was the last thing to do before I left for three months on Melville Island, north of Australia. Although the Tiwi people live in isolated villages, a few other anthropologists had managed to spend considerable time with them and write about their cultural traditions. I hoped my own research would be seen as relevant and enlightening. Room in my luggage was limited, so most of my books went into boxes for storage at Mum’s house. I decided to take an ethnography that focused on Tiwi rituals and another book about the Tiwi language. Thankfully, this was the last box because my car was already full. My old car was easy to spot; it had a bumper sticker on the back that read: “Anthropologists Date the Dead.” I tried to explain what that meant to my grandmother, but she

never got it. No matter, that was last week, she had surely forgotten it by now. I wished I had time to stop by the nursing home on my way to Mum’s to say good-bye to Grandma, but we had recently moved her to a new facility that was further away. At least she hadn’t complained about the new staff and she seemed more relaxed. I would definitely send her a postcard from Australia, she would like that because she could show it to everyone. Proof that she wasn’t forgotten. “Anastasia!” Most people just called me Stasia, but not Devon. He insisted on saying my entire name. We shared an office for the past year and although he’d asked me out a couple of times, I always put him off. He was one of those guys who liked to look too much, like an appraiser at an estate auction, checking for workmanship and authenticity. “Hi, Devon. What’s up?”

“I wanted to give you something before you left,” he said, walking up too close to me. I knew that his notion of personal space was different than mine, but I stood my ground because backing up made him feel like he had the upper hand somehow. I had seen that little smirk on his face before when his closeness intimidated other women. He held out a small box. Reluctantly, I took it. Inside the box was a keychain, a rectangular acrylic piece entombing small blue flowers. It was nice and not too personal. He was watching me, waiting for my reaction. “Thank you, that was very thoughtful.” “You’re welcome,” he smiled. “Those are forgetme-nots, by the way.” “Devon, I really, really have to go. See you in the fall,” I slid into my car away from his half-opened arms. I pulled my thick, red hair into a pony tail, then rolled down my window, “Thanks again! Bye!”

Saying good-bye to Mum the next morning was hard because she always cried, even though it was only for the summer. She wiped her tears away with a tissue, at least she was prepared. I had plenty of time to think on the plane. Thirtyone hours and ten minutes, to be exact. I thought about my responsibilities as an anthropologist: to participate while observing, to stay objective, to keep everything relative to the Tiwi society. I was relieved that I wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have to observe something like female circumcision which one of my professors had written about from her fieldwork in Indonesia. That was two decades ago. A lot can change in twenty years. It had been almost twenty years since a resort had been built on Melville Island and I wondered how that had impacted Tiwi society. Would they still be cooking over outdoor fires or would they have microwaves? Did the men still hunt or did they pick up dinner at a drive-thru?

The flight was so long that I had to use the bathroom on the plane, another first-time experience for me. It made me happy that for the next three months I would be using the woods. When the plane jolted me awake as we landed in Perth, the realization of what I was about to do hit me suddenly and ferociously. I had left my home hemispheres, both north and west. I was a young, single grad student who had never been further away from home than Canada to visit relatives. All the research, exams, and papers that Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d written were strictly theoretical and had little to do with reality. I took a deep breath and grabbed my carry-on. The air was humid and much cooler than I expected. The Tiwi translator I hired was supposed to meet me at the airport. It suddenly occurred to me that I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have a clue what she looked like. We had corresponded by email and I only knew her name was Annaburroo. I wondered if she shortened her name to Anna?

The excited voices of hundreds of people, the faceless speaker voice announcing departing flights, and the muffled sound of plane engines on the other side of thick glass, melted together into a tedious background noise. The baggage claim area was filled with a variety of faces, every shade from the deepest bronze to me: pale with freckles that popped out every time I even thought about the sun. My luggage eventually came around and I plucked both heavy cases from the carousel. I followed the exit signs toward the main entrance, hoping that Anna would find me before I had to dig out her office number at the university. As I approached the row of glass doors that would deposit me in Australia, I saw a broad-shouldered, darkskinned man holding a sign with my name on it. He was about my age, wearing jeans and a button-down the front shirt. His thick, nearly-black, wavy hair cascaded around

his face and when he saw me looking at him, a huge smile spread across it , as if he recognized me. He came toward me, one hand extended. “Anastasia? I’m Annaburroo….your translator,” he said with a stereotypical Aussie accent. I closed my mouth, just like Mum would have told me to do. Annaburroo watched me with an amused expression. He chivalrously took my big bags and carried them to his dusty, beat-up Honda. As we drove toward the private airport where we would take a hop to the island, he pointed out various sites of historical or cultural interest. He explained that he was born on Melville Island in the town of Milikapiti, which had a population of about five hundred; his grandmother spoke only Tiwi, his parents, now deceased, had spoken English when necessary, but he was fluent in both. He was a graduate student of Indigenous Studies and would be attending an American university in the fall to start his

doctorate. Burroo, the nickname he’d given himself when he went to school on the mainland, asked me a lot of questions about the US. I learned my first word in Tiwi when he told me that Annaburroo translated meant “buffalo.” “I looked like a little buffalo when I was born. My grandmother said I was big and I had a lot of dark, wavy hair,” he explained. I laughed and imagined he was a very cute baby. We boarded a chartered plane that made mail runs to the island. Conversation was easy with him and the flight to the island was over too quickly. Milikapiti was small, with clusters of traditional houses. The structures were round, the walls were made of stacked volcanic stones with domed roofs which appeared to be made of thatch. They reminded me of Navajo hogans I visited on the reservation in Arizona. The environment was completely different though. Instead of vast open

spaces, Milikapiti was near the beach on one side—I could almost taste the salt in the air—and the smell of water was flavored by the eucalyptus forest that nearly swallowed the modest houses in its thick brush. Burroo helped me settle into a modest hut next to a wooden building near the center of the village. He explained that while the huts were traditional, the wooden building was a community center used for activities and it was equipped with electricity. For the next several hours Burroo took me from hut-to-hut making formal introductions. My first day felt successful. The next morning Burroo woke me. “Someone wants to talk to you,” he said, from the doorway of my hut. I quickly gathered my recording gear and notebook. When I stepped into the open area of the village, several people whom I had met earlier came to greet me. Little, almost-naked children followed me, running up to touch my clothes and skin. The eucalyptus scent was a mixture of

mint, pine, and honey. It was heaviest in the morning, almost overwhelming, but fresh at the same time. It wasn’t going to be difficult to find people to interview. It also wasn’t hard to tell that there were some people who wouldn’t be so amenable to an interview, not everyone trusted outsiders. One elderly man turned his bare back to me whenever I came into view. I tried to not let it bother me. “This is Marrakai,” Burroo gestured toward a very elderly woman who was sitting on a woven mat outside a hut. “She is my grandmother.” I followed Burroo’s lead and sat near Marrakai who smiled into the sky with sightless, cloudy eyes. I couldn’t help but compare my grandmother to this tiny woman. Somehow this woman seemed older, but sturdier. My grandmother would not have been able to sit on the ground; it was a chore just to get her into the bed from her wheelchair. My grandmother wore thick glasses and had

cataract surgery at least twice that I could remember; she took pills of various sizes and colors throughout the day. I doubted that Marrakai had ever been to a doctor, even in childbirth she would have been accompanied only by a midwife. I was very anxious to learn all about this woman. I spent many days in a three-way conversation with Marrakai who only spoke Tiwi. I dutifully recorded her stories and reveled in her delight when I played back her words for her. Often, others would gather around to eavesdrop on the process, laughing when she told a funny story, then I would laugh belatedly when Burroo translated it. I learned to watch Burrooâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s face because it foreshadowed the English version. When his eyes grew moist, I knew that what he was about to tell me was something that had touched him personally, like the death of his parents and grandfather. Sometimes while Marrakai talked, I would make notes about what was going on as she spoke. Details that

would help me remember the sum of the experience, not just isolated stories. I found myself focusing on the way Burroo interacted with his grandmother, the way she would reach out to touch him at certain points in her story, as if by touching him he would understand her meaning better. Burroo, in turn, would reach over and pat her hand, comfort her, while he was retelling the experience to me in English, even though she didn’t understand English. The amount of data I was collecting was phenomenal and it kept me so busy that it took me by surprise when I realized an entire month had passed. When the weekly mail arrived, Burroo brought me my first correspondence from the outside world. Mum had written me a letter, everything was fine at home. Devon had also written me, mostly bragging about things that didn’t matter to me, but he also enclosed a picture of himself. “Boyfriend?” Burroo asked.

“Fire starter,” I said, tossing the picture into the cooking fire. Burroo tried not to smile. “My grandmother has a new story for you today.” Marrakai recounted the time when a tsunami hit the village and destroyed nearly every home on the island. She talked about how an epidemic came soon after that and several people died. She made stirring motions with her hands, explaining how she made medicine from roots and barks in order to heal the sick villagers. She told us that not all eucalyptus trees were the same. One has a distinct smell and bluish bark which is used in certain medicines. “It smells like lemons,” Burroo said. He stopped translating for a moment; I realized that I was staring at him and quickly began taking notes again. After one session, I watched with horror as Marrakai stumbled to her feet and toward the open cooking pit. Scrambling out from under my equipment, I pushed myself up and raced toward her wobbling body. Burroo

turned to see why I was running, and yelled as he also tried to catch her before she fell into the fire. Unfortunately neither of us was able to reach her before she got second and third-degree burns on her hands and arms. After that, Burroo tenderly cared for her inside the hut. She sent me messages almost daily through her grandson. I did what I could to help. Burroo took me deep into the forest in search of a certain eucalyptus tree. From time-to-time, he would stop and roll a waxy leaf between his thumb and index finger, then smell the oils the leaf released. “Smell this one,” he said. I leaned toward his hand and sniffed. It was pungent. “We make antiseptic from the oils in these leaves.” He collected a basketful of the aromatic leaves. Burroo carried the basket under one arm and gently guided me with his other, helping me over debris on the forest floor, or holding branches out of my way. Burroo

spent the rest of the day making the antiseptic and treating his grandmother. He was a dedicated grandson. My conscience pricked me relentlessly, so the next day I walked all the way to the tourist resort. I bought postcards for my grandmother. It wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have done any good to call her because she could barely hear on the phone. Postcards were much better and lasted longer. I thought about her wheeling herself down the hall of the nursing home or waiting for help when she was too weak to push herself. Her daily routine included checking for mail. She would be very happy to receive the postcards, maybe this would help ease my conscience. When I returned to the community center, most of the men in the village were inside discussing something in Tiwi. I recognized many of them as close relatives to Burroo. He was in the center of the group leading the discussion. I watched his dark, handsome face as his expression became more distressed. Immediately, I thought

of Marrakai and wondered if something had happened to her. I slipped out of the building and over to Marrakai’s hut. She smiled when she heard me approach, said something in Tiwi, and reached for my face. I wanted to tell her how much I appreciated her sharing her personal history with me, how much I loved hearing about her life, how close I felt to her at that moment when her blistered hand, with its gnarled fingers, ran over my face and through my hair. Burroo sighed as he entered his grandmother’s hut. She asked him a question. He was choked up but answered her in Tiwi. I raised my eyebrows in question. He jerked his head to one side and I followed him out of the stone hut and into the woods. “My grandmother has requested we perform an ancient ceremony for her,” he started to explain. “She is almost one hundred years old, and her ideas are not modern. It’s a difficult thing that she asks of me, but I am

her oldest grandson and it is my duty because her husband, brothers, and son are all dead.” “What kind of ceremony is it?” I was suddenly intrigued that I might get to witness an indigenous ceremony that was all but lost. This could be very good for my career; I imagined publishing my articles in academic journals. “Translated, I think it would be called covering up,” he said. “We will perform it tomorrow.” I wanted to help if possible, to be a participant observer, but trying to stay objective, I asked, “What’s involved in the covering up?” Burroo looked deeply into the eucalyptus forest, as if he could will himself away from the present. I waited. Finally, he answered, “We will carry Marrakai into the woods where a place has been prepared for her. She will stay there alone, we must leave her.” This did not make

sense to me. Leave an old woman in the woods alone? A blind, elderly, wounded woman? “What kind of place?” I asked. “It will be a quiet place, where no one will bother her, where she can rest.” “How long will she be there?” I wondered. “Until we go back for her….a few days,” he hedged, his dark eyes brooding. Burroo picked up a rock and angrily hurled it into the trees, then turned back toward the village. I was reeling. This sounded like an ancient ritual that I had read about but dismissed because it shouldn’t still happen. Ageism and sexism all rolled into one. I dug into the only two text books that I had with me. Although I couldn’t find anything right away, I did find references to the term covering up among the articles quoted in the reference section of the text. One of them was about aging and cross-cultural perspectives. Another referred to

covering up as a ritual that was last recorded in 1928 by an anthropologist visiting Melville Island. I wondered if Marrakai would remember him? She would have been a young girl then. The night wore on and I strained to read against the dim battery-operated lantern, trying to piece together more information. At some point I fell asleep in my book. When the sound of male voices startled me, I realized it was after dawn. The men came in from the eucalyptus forest, some of them carried shovels. Marrakai was gone, her bed empty, the woven mat by her hut was not there. I wondered if she took it with her. Other than that, everyone seemed to go back to their daily routines. The women cooked, tended the garden, fed the children, and yelled at the little boys who peed too close to the huts. The men fished, hunted, told stories, and made things out of wood. I watched the man who had turned his back to me the first day I was in Milikapiti. He was stooped

with age, squatting near his hut. He was making a basket out of bark, his thin dark skin stretched over fingers that moved nimbly as if they belonged to a much younger man. He no longer turned his back toward me. I listened for Marrakai’s name as I wandered the village, but it was not spoken, so I busied myself with recording the daily lives of the Milikapiti residents. Burroo avoided me, but I had a great deal of work to do without him, so I let it go. I assumed it had something to do with his grandmother’s departure. Something to do with how she left. When I couldn’t stand it any longer, I cornered Burroo. “Tell me where she is,” I said. “It is too late,” he replied, shaking his head. A few days later, as I was learning a stick game that some of the children played, a young man came running into the village. He had news about Marrakai—she was dead. He found her body in the woods, exactly where the

men had left her very much alive several days ago. As news spread of Marrakai’s demise, the atmosphere changed to one of mourning. I thought Burroo might finally release some of his pent-up emotions, but instead, he stoically led a group of men into the woods armed with shovels and a rope hammock, presumably with which to carry the body. They returned a few hours later with Marrakai’s dirt-covered body; her head, face, and wavy white hair were still clean. I was repulsed at the idea of covering up. Now I was the one avoiding Burroo. He finally found me sitting on a large piece of driftwood where the beach and the eucalyptus forest occasionally collided. “This is called a tutini,” Burroo said, holding a small post that had been carved and painted. It reminded me of Inuit totem poles. “It is part of the Pukumani ceremony. We bury our dead and then prepare for the ceremony; it takes time. We do things differently, the way our ancestors taught us.”

I was quiet, trying to remain objective. “I don’t expect you to understand; it was hard for me too,” he said quietly. “When you recorded her life stories—all those things that she was afraid would be forgotten—she felt done. She told me that she wanted to join the others in the spirit world. It was my responsibility. In the old days, it wouldn’t have been her choice.” I shook my head, not because I didn’t understand, but because I couldn’t get the image of Marrakai’s body out of my head. “Come back with me,” he said. He reached for my hand and we walked silently, holding hands back to the village. Burroo painted himself white for the Pukumani ceremony. He led a group of other mourners, also painted white, to the gravesite. Marrakai was completely buried this time. I watched as they placed some of her belongings on top of the mound. Burroo set her woven mat on the grave,

dishes and other household items were added. When nobody was looking, I gave my last postcard and the forget-me-not keychain to Marrakai. Proof she wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t forgotten. At least a dozen tutini were scattered around the grave, stuck into the ground like fence posts. Each was handsomely crafted, carved and painted, made especially for Marrakai. Someone placed bark baskets on the top of the tutini, gifts for the spirits. Dancers and singers joined the Pukumani ceremony, weaving through the tutini. I recorded all of it in my notes. A few days after the Pukumani ceremony for my surrogate grandmother, I made a resolution. When I got home, I was going to spend as much time as possible with Grandma. I was going to record her life history, just like I had Marrakaiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s. I was going to make an effort to visit her more often and take advantage of as much memory as she had left. It sounded very therapeutic. I thought of a million questions to ask her. Suddenly, I wanted to know

everything about her. Had she ever been in love with someone besides Grandpa? What was it like when her mother was able to vote for the first time? Did she ever go hungry during the Great Depression? I started compiling a list of questions for her. Two days before I left, the weekly mail arrived. Burroo brought a letter to me. It was from Mum. Grandma had fallen and broken her hip. I gasped. She had been transferred to the hospital and gotten pneumonia. Mum was worried because she said these things always happen in groups of three. Burroo was watching me, I handed the letter to him and went to my hut to write in my journal. We hide them in the forest Of trees or hospital beds It smells of eucalyptus or Pine-sol We cover them with warm earth or synthetic afghans Then we wait for death We act surprised when it finds them â&#x20AC;&#x153;Do you want to leave now?â&#x20AC;? Burroo asked solemnly from the hut doorway.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;I need to make a tutini first.â&#x20AC;?

Requiem for the Common Individual By Stanley Noah

A man was buried only yesterday in his birch wooden coffin from the same tree he seeded in the grounds of youth. A fresh white rose pinned on the cotton lapel sunday suit. Lip and lid tight like a locked door/inside the room of secrets.

To Catch a Horse By Flannery James

To catch a horse, grass is essential. Dew-fresh handfuls are best, gathered in smooth, clean arcs. The best stalks grow in the wood-chipped alley behind the barn, where the hill bends its back to let its wild ivy hair climb through broken panes and crooked stone; beyond the reach of the ponies staked out on long lines. Comb the soil for shards of glass, fragments of a misty autumn morning four years ago when a boarding stallion hammered his iron hooves through the window, twelve feet above the ground. Forget about that time. Take the grass and leave the razorsharp pieces to be lost behind the crumbling building as you make your way down the hill, stepping carefully between the rusted-out pipe ridges of its spine. The horse youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re going to catch has never done anything more violent than nudge the slope of his face into the valley of your collarbone, bruising you with giant, impatient love.

Duck under the lines of the electric fence, its startling whiteness a scar on the brown face of the earth. Once during a rainstorm, you dropped three wires in a puddle, and instantly you were frozen in place, impaled by a thousand brilliant thorns, pulsing through you like thunder. Your horse saved you in his panicked flight, knocking you clear with the hard muscle of his side. He is not your horse, of course, not really. But you belong to him. The mare he shares a turnout with will meander her way over to you, contentment showing in every lazy stride. Even her name is steady and reassuring, taken from a nursery rhyme. She knows that youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re not there for her but she greets you all the same. This is your ritual, the slow steps of your dance stretching across years of mud-heavy Sundays. Talk to her, and ignore your horse. Tell her sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s beautiful, because you have never felt anything as lovely as her breath whispering up and down your arms. Braid your

fingers through her forelock and pretend that you don’t see each casual movement that brings your horse one step closer to you. He waltzes through his careful choreography, and you know the melody but not the steps. If you can keep time with the bob of his head as he reaches for the grass held behind your back, you might succeed. Walk backwards, legs bending with each dip and rise of the unevenly packed dirt. The mare will follow you, trusting eyes melting into yours. Say, You’re the most gorgeous horse I’ve ever met. Say, Warn me if I’m about to walk into something, okay? Say, I hate when he acts like this. So childish. So unreasonable. She’ll swivel her ears in agreement, and, finally, you will feel a sharp tug on the grass and the warm rope of his halter rough against your hand. Sometimes nothing will work. Sometimes he’ll kick up his heels and flee, pirouetting at the fence line and whinnying at the sky. If you’re being honest with yourself, you’ll

admit that most of the time, heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll lift the grass out of your palm and still avoid your reaching hands, cantering instead to the far end and dropping to his knees to coat himself in rain-soaked earth. But another horse would never steal the baseball cap off your head with a flash of teeth as large as your thumbs, would never lean his weight against you, demanding love. And so you chase your horse, and on the days when the grass has shriveled under the icy mask of winter, you feed him your heart in glistening orange chunks instead. On the days when the carrots freeze faster outside the refrigerator than in, you will have to go to him empty-handed, with only your voice to offer, your words and stories, enticements and off-key humming. You will be waiting a very long time.

Selected Poems by Jeffrey Graessley Time iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m pressing my fingers against the windowpanes, in my living room, where empty bottles line the frame like forgotten street signs or lovers, too familiar to notice. the sun mar labels, bleaches free identity, makes strangers out of reflections the eyes that stare back through windowpanes.

Bleeding

for the sanity of the palm trees, that rhythmic sway, metronome of the winds. iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m bleeding into telephones, forgetting 43

any steel that once straightened my spine, iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m bleeding all her words out, to sighs in response, forced patience, like a fake smile i can see it, paint by numbers mural on her cheeks, iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m bleeding ether and sickness from skin, writhing under sheets, spear stuck love is the sharpened point, like tree roots finger into soil.

Barely

it snakes our system like tape-worms in stomachs-- grow. we demand more through glazed eyes barely opened, staring through the televisions mounted overhead, just talking heads framed in neon lights like streamers road flares, and nobodyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s around to take us home.

we continue, chasing empty hours holding throats down and eyes open, watching for last call.

Pixels By Margaret Karmazin

News stations featured hysterical Japanese crying and gasping into the cameras. Translators appeared to the right of the screens. “Just vanished!” cried a young mother, crushing her children to her. “Everything gone from that building there, as far as I could see, then everything back a second later! It was horrifying!” For days, the news covered little else. The vanished area involved twenty-eight square kilometers and witnesses lined up, anxious to describe their experiences. “I was tending my garden when poof! Just like that, everything in front of me turned to nothing, absolutely nothing!” stated a neatly dressed man in his sixties. “The front half of the car I was in vanished!” said a woman in a business suit. “My left foot was gone - my leg ended in nothingness!” “My baby was gone!” cried a woman, “Half of the apartment disappeared!” said another.

The stories were unvarying. There followed weeks of commentary by scientists, academics, politicians and religious leaders, but no matter what conjectures they offered (mass hallucination, secret military weapon being tested by the US, Russia or China, aliens, God punishing the world for abortion and gay marriage), no one had an answer to the mystery. Naturally, those who had been in the vanished area were also interviewed. To a person, they said, “We didn’t go anywhere. But I can’t say everything was as usual.” “You did not cease to exist?” asked a reporter. “Your consciousness didn’t falter?” “Not at all,” said the victims, “but it felt different. Not sure I can describe it.” ‘Try,” urged the reporter. “I don’t know,” said a student. “For a second, everything blended.” “Did the perimeter of the dematerializing area vanish from your perspective?”

“I didn’t notice,” said a school teacher clutching her briefcase. “No time to observe things like that,” said a businessman. “I felt somewhat more intense than usual, maybe more alive,” said a student. “Perimeters weren’t important,” added a store keeper. “Apparently,” concluded one commentator, “no one inside the dematerialization ceased to exist, if that is any comfort.”

Three months earlier, David Spingler feared he might have some kind of brain disease. After a clean bill of health from the ophthalmologist, it was a month before a neurologist could fit him in. The doctor mentioned that David wasn’t the first patient the past few weeks with the same complaint. “They’re all afraid to describe the symptoms, but I pry it out of them, then see a clean MRI and nothing shows up in the other tests.” David shook his head, but what else could the man do? Married to a nurse, David had always been somewhat

of a hypochondriac, online looking up exotic diseases, but never had he come across anything like this. It began at the community college where he taught Psychology 101 and Abnormal Psych. This particular day, he finished his two o’clock class and was heading to his office for a short bout of Z’s before grading a pile of papers. Up half the night due to a neighbor’s barking terrier, he felt a bit fuzzy in the head. While inserting his key into the office door, the door knob disappeared. It was quick, partly gone, then back. The neurologist asked, “Was it instant or did it slowly melt away?” “Pixels,” David told him. “It fell apart into pixels. You know, like on TV when there’s a problem with the network. I was so shocked; I didn’t immediately let it register and tried to go about my business as if everything was normal. Then what I’d seen hit me like punch in the gut.” The doctor nodded as if he knew this story well.

“I had some scotch in my drawer so I tossed back a shot, then let myself think about what had happened. It was really creepy. Like this solid object that all your life you’ve seen a million of ‘em, all of a sudden it just falls apart into those little color blocks and then goes back together right in front of your eyes.” “Think carefully,” said the doctor. “Was it just the door knob that dissolved or what was behind it too?” “I-I’m not sure.” David racked his brain. “I think what was behind it too. Say you were looking at a photo of a door knob and you erased a part of it, you’d be erasing the stuff right behind it too. There’d be a white spot there with nothing in it.” “That’s how it was then? Where the knob had been, and what was behind it, was just white space?” David hesitated. “You know, I just don’t remember what was there, empty space? No color at all? I don’t know. The thing was quick.” “And it went back together,” said the doctor. “It was a door knob again?”

“Yes.” “Well, I’m ordering an MRI and some other tests. If the tests reveal anything, we’ll call.” They didn’t reveal anything. “Well, that’s a relief,” said David’s wife. A month later, it happened again. While brushing his teeth, half the bathroom mirror dissolved, remained that way for a split second, then reassembled. This time he noticed what was in the emptied space. Absolutely nothing, which can’t really be described. Yet....that nothing felt fully alive. He couldn’t explain it, just knew that it was. “Maybe you should see a shrink,” said Lorena. “I am a shrink,” David said. “Of a sort. I mean I could be if I chose.” “You don’t know everything,” she pointed out. David looked at sixteen year old Sean who was cramming spoonfuls of Cheerios into his mouth while wearing headphones and reading a tattered paperback. What if David was cracking up; what would happen to his family? Their daughter Samantha was at Penn State,

planning on applying to environmental protection agencies when she graduated the following year. His family depended on him. He made an appointment with a psychiatrist. “Have you been under a great deal of stress?” she asked him. “Not until I watched a door knob and a mirror half disappear, no,” David said. “Do you feel that you yourself would like to disappear?” she prompted. Total waste of time. “Absolutely not,” he snapped. He endured the rest of the therapeutic hour and did not schedule another appointment. There appeared to be no help from any quarter. After a week or so, he managed to slip the problem to the back of his mind, at least the emotion associated with it. He had always been good at compartmentalizing. David’s best friends were Marty Weiss who taught sociology and Kevin Bagota who taught physics. The three

of them enjoyed stimulating lunchtime debates on science, politics, and religion though Kevin would often say, “I don’t really have time for these other things, not when physics is the most fascinating.” “What you really mean is science fiction,” David teased him. “And please don’t start with that ‘tiny rolled up dimensions’ thing again and expect me to believe it. Ridiculous. In my opinion, each higher dimension would be larger than the last. And if beings lived in a higher dimension than this one, they would be able to see us but we wouldn’t be able to see them. I know I’m no physicist, but...” “Why would a higher dimension have to be bigger?” asked Kevin as he bit into a thick, Rueben sandwich. “Think about it,” said David. “We’d be able to look down on a 2-D world and see everything the inhabitants are doing in there, including their insides. Picture their world, a plane floating in space right in front of us. But they wouldn’t know we were there unless we stuck a finger or

something through their plane of existence. They can’t see up or down, get it.” “I see your point,” said Kevin. “To them, the finger would appear as a mysterious circle that enlarges and shrinks, then disappears.” “Yeah, like UFOs appear in our world,” said David. He thought a moment. “We could reach down and cut a hole in their world too. They wouldn’t be able to see anything in the hole, just that their world ended at its edge.” Marty shivered. “I wish you two would lay off physics once in a while. How about we discuss the state of society if libertarians take over? Like if they cut off my mother-in-law’s social security and she has to come live with us and then I have to murder her and end up in prison where I piss off the leader of the white supremacists and his buddies shove a homemade shiv in my gut?” Kevin shook his head. “Clearly, physics is much more restful than sociological or political speculation.”

David was quiet, thinking back to the hole in the 2D world. “Kevin,” he said, “What if some higher dimensional folk cut a hole in our world?” “This is a damn good Rueben,” Kevin said. “Well, I suppose the same thing would happen as it did to the 2Ders, no? But, seriously, you might need to come up with some math to support your dimensional view, David. And being that you’re a practitioner of a pseudo science, I doubt that’s going to happen.” “Fight nice, kids,” said Marty. They were interrupted when a young woman in line at the food counter screamed and dropped her tray. “It disappeared!” she cried, before she fainted, banging her head on the tray slide as she collapsed. David was up in a flash. He had not told his friends about his own experience and was not, in fact, sure if he wanted them to know, but this woman...he simply had to find out what had happened to her. She was moaning when he got close. He loosened her blouse at the neck so she could get some air. Someone

had already called 911 and since David was not family, it would be several hours before he was allowed near her again. He followed the ambulance to the hospital. Finally, when she was released and leaving with her husband, he managed to approach. “I heard what you said,” he told her, “and I’m wondering if what you experienced was the same thing that happened to me.” She looked terrified. “I don’t want her more upset,” said her husband as he tried to steer her away from David. “Please,” said David. “I teach at the college. I’m not a whack-job, I really need to discuss this with her.” “Maybe a couple of days from now,” said the husband. “She works in administration. Our name is Lattaly.” He finally found her a week later in Admissions, after asking all over the place. The name was Latterly, not “Lattaly.” She was in her late twenties, mildly pretty, skittery as a rabbit.

“I’m on Xanax now,” she told him. “I can’t sleep at night. I’ve lost 4 pounds since it happened.” He took her out to lunch after assuring her that he was not coming on to her. “Please,” he said. “Tell me what happened.” She started to cry. He found her exasperating, being accustomed to practical, in control Lorena. “I-I was sliding my tray along like usual and had just set a salad on it when...when...the salad did this weird thing, like it melted or something! I mean it dissolved. And then it went back together. I thought maybe there was something in my eye and I looked up and the lady in front of me, she dissolved too, from the middle of her back down to her knees, then went back together just like the salad. It was awful, just awful!” She wiped her eyes and whimpered. “Did you have medical tests after?” David asked. “Yeah, all kinds of stuff. A CT scan, some brain wave thing, blood tests. I’m a little anemic but they didn’t find anything else.”

David nodded ruefully. “Same thing here. I hate to tell you this, but it happened to me twice.” She looked up in horror. “You mean it might-” “Yeah. Be prepared. But nothing worse happened, it was exactly the same.” “Oh my God,” she said, “I don’t know if I can stand it again.” She was so young. “Life is full of things you think you can’t stand, but you do,” he said. He paid the bill, gave her his card and told her to call him if it reoccurred. She looked like she hoped she would never see him again and he couldn’t blame her. “It happened to someone at work,” he told Lorena that evening. “This takes it outside the realm of my own mind. It’s something external.” This made him feel better in a small way and worse in a much larger way. If he were simply cracking up, that would be better for everyone than if the phenomena were real or some kind of illness affecting others too.

At the next lunch with his colleagues, in a more subdued frame of mind, he asked Kevin, “Remember when we were talking about that 2D world and I said if we cut a hole in it, the 2D inhabitants wouldn’t be able to see anything beyond the edge of the hole, maybe just the other edge far off? What would happen if, say, someone in a 5D world, assuming time is 4D, cut a hole in our 3D world? What would we see where the hole is?” “I don’t know,” said Kevin. “This is your idea, not mine.” “Well, put your theoretical physics mind to it and think!” “I imagine we would see nothing. Since the 2D world beings cannot imagine anything outside of their 2D world, there is no edge to the hole you have cut out of it, right? No 3D edge. They wouldn’t be able to imagine the distance between their side of the cut out hole and the other side where their world begins again. Even though there might be 3D stuff all around, including inside the hole. Why?”

Should David explain? Not yet. “All right, so if 5Ders cut a hole in our world, we could see nothing in the hole? Even though 5D stuff might be in there.” “I suppose not,” said Kevin. “Did you ever think about that? Say, if someone in a higher dimension decided to mess with us?” “Not really,” said Kevin. “Have you read The Holographic Universe? “I did. The holograph thing is possible. Anything is possible.” David paused. “Suppose the whole system is starting to close down.” “Close down?” “Suppose our universe is indeed a hologram and whatever is keeping that hologram going has decided to call it a day. Or maybe for some reason it’s breaking down, coming apart.” “Why would you say that?” asked Kevin. David just wasn’t ready to tell him. The three of them had that thing going men so often did - a lot of

ribbing each other, not being too earnest. It seemed that a wall stood between what they had together and David getting real. “I don’t know,” he mumbled. He wondered why he never seemed to grow up emotionally. It occurred to him that possibly now he would never get to. If the thing had happened to him and Erin Latterly and the neurologist had said that other patients were describing the same experience, maybe there were people all over the world encountering it. And...all keeping quiet about it? “How come you’re watching the news again?” his wife asked that evening. “I thought you said you’d had enough of, as you put it, ‘that endless political crap’?” “Just keeping my ears open,” said David. Lorena gave him a long look. She’d been transferred to day shift and had been a lot more rested and in a good mood ever since. “You’re worrying about what happened again, aren’t you?” “Like you wouldn’t if it’d been you?”

“Weird things happen to people all the time,” she said. “As a nurse, I hear all kinds of stories. They hear voices, they see ghosts or little dark things running along the floor, they’re visited by aliens, their stuff disappears then reappears in the first place they looked. I’ll tell you, the world is bizarre, David. Nothing to worry about.” “Until now,” he said ominously. Finally, on CNN he caught two heads chuckling over something, the way they usually did when reporting UFO sightings. “What was that again, Justin?” asked a smirking blonde. “People are seeing things disappearing?” The anchorman, a beefy guy right out of The Sopranos, chortled, “Some farm boy in Jackson, a little village in Pennsylvania, says he was up milking the cows when everything from his waist down disappeared for a moment or two, then flickered back on. Methinks that farm boy might be growing some hemp on the side.” Blondie laughed, showing neon white teeth.

David flicked off the TV and slumped forward. For a while, he could barely catch his breath. After a moment, he realized he was hyperventilating. He kept seeing his son and daughter’s faces in his mind. The night before, he’d suffered a nightmare in which those faces had dissolved into pixels and did not reassemble. Two days later, the incident in Japan occurred. He did little else but watch TV, flicking back and forth between stations. “David?” called Lorena from the kitchen where she was preparing dinner. It was a Saturday and normally he would have been enjoying the time off. “Are you all right?” Lorena had taken the Japanese reports with her usual calm and little comment other than, “That must have been really scary for them.” “Why aren’t you more upset by this?” David demanded. “You add this Japanese thing to what happened to me and probably hundreds, maybe thousands, of other people just keeping quiet and what do you come up with, Lorena? You still equate this to someone seeing ghosts?”

She walked into the family room, still holding her chopping knife. “What do you want me to say? Should I run amok screaming? It’s a choice. Freak out or wait and see where it goes. I’m choosing the latter for my own sanity. David, if I don’t keep my sanity, what will happen to the kids?” Her voice caught. “I have no choice.” “Like keeping your sanity has any effect on what is happening,” he muttered. His growing terror seemed to be expressing itself in a low level, stomach churning rage and Lorena was an easy target. “I’m sorry,” he said. Her tranquil nature was what he had always most admired about her, but now it did little but aggravate him and he needed someone else to talk to. He called Kevin and Marty to see if they would meet him for a drink. “Let’s avoid the student crowd,” said Marty. They met at a pub across town. After their drinks were served, David said, “I have something to tell you.”

When he was finished, Kevin shook his head and looked relieved. “It happened to my wife too. And one of my students. I thought maybe it was something going around or some kind of migraine, you know, like with an aura. I wish I’d ordered a double.” He put his hand up for the waiter. “You’re the physicist, Kevin,” said Marty. “Any theories as to what this is?” Kevin was silent. The anchor people on the TV over the bar were obviously excited, though the sound was turned down. David jumped up to read the banner at the bottom of the screen. Similar incidents in South Africa and Italy, it exclaimed. He ordered a shot and a beer and returned to the table. “Maybe it’s the end of the world,” he said. His heart pounded. “Maybe they got tired of playing the game,” said Kevin. For once, he did not appear to be mocking.

“What game?” asked Marty. “Maybe we’ve been a giant, complicated video game all this time. And whoever was playing it is done.” All David could think about was Sean and Samantha. Were their lives about to be cut off as if someone had flicked off a TV show, ending the characters in their tracks? “I never thought the world could finish this way,” he said. “No fire and brimstone. No comet or floods or plagues.” “Rather a come down if it is ending,” said Kevin, who appeared quite calm. But Kevin had always been imperturbable, even when, a couple of years back, his wife had been diagnosed with stage three breast cancer. “Maybe,” said Marty, “this giant mind is thinking this stuff up, see? Like we’re thoughts in the giant mind you know, figures in a dream. And when the dreamer finishes his dream and wakes up, all the figures just melt back into his regular thoughts. They don’t really die, per se,

but just rejoin the whole. Didn’t that Japanese guy on TV say that everything kind of blended?” “Or maybe it’s just some kind of glitch and it’ll straighten out,” said Kevin hopefully. David’s gut told him otherwise. He downed his shot and experienced a sudden wild urge to get out of there. He needed to get home. How much time was left? “I’ve gotta go,” he managed to squeak. As he glanced toward the bar, he caught one of the patrons, an attractive brunette twirling on a stool, dissolve into pixels. Next to her, a guy with a ponytail followed suit. Down the bar like falling dominos, they vanished. David ran as fast as he could.

Selected Poems by Gene Goldfarb Love and the Lakota She’s nothin’ to me now. Believe me. Wine-soaked sheets that can’t be cleaned to a prim white. Crimson lips swallowing the reddest cherry in creation that disappeared into the hot volcano of her mouth, that merciless wonder. The warmth of her skin that folded me into her relentlessly like insatiable quick sand, a weekend that left me with a scratch on my ear and the memory of a hot breath and a wet stinging tongue whispering something about bad behavior that wouldn’t happen again. What’s left for a fantasy? A ghost of an early spring smile? A bending of two souls in the late autumn park to form an arch of hope against the rains that would surely come to drive us into a cold, gray isolation? Do I have to repeat? She’s nothin’ to me now. …And yet…and yet…

My mind somehow meanders back to a whiff of her of unconnected things in an empty house, of a Lakota war chant where they faced the hateful rifles out on the plains that destroyed them and their dreams: Yes. It is a good day to die.

Getting Real with Fortune Cookies Beauty justifies itself while Truth watches patiently. â&#x20AC;&#x201D;Anonymous

Batch 1: With good friends time passes quickly. A book is more than a paper journey through the mind. Fortune sits like a stork on the homes of the happy.

Batch 2: Your sister needs money help her with some green. Your father steps out of the house on a one-way journey. Your mother cries because

no one is at home anymore.

Batch 3: A lost job brings opportunity to lose yourself too. The law will not help you when you need it most. Black eternity awaits you so laugh like in silent movies.

A History of Kisses

On the steps he kissed her almost missing her lips in his haste surprising her. She drew back after, for a second sized him up and sighed sorrowfully, “You are some jerk.” Then she kissed him completely and with sweet deliberation till he felt a silent sob go out of her that he drank in as eagerly and obediently as baby’s first taste of mother’s milk. History began here and there was no turning back. On a sunny lawn many years later their progeny would frolic 70

and chase each other like young baboons, heedlessly yelling and laughing; the girls would sing, “Grandpa kissed grandma, a long time ago and she kissed him back just to let him know.” The boys would answer in protest, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, he chased her here, she caught him there.” but deep down sensed it was true, and it mattered, and it all started with those kisses.

On the Virtues of Zoning Seeing that bastard’s house (again!) would make me puke. I avoid that street. A behemoth he planted in my quiet neighborhood twice as large and fancy as any, like a flashy doll moving in with big knockers and lots of paint, setting all the guys on edge— where they’re practically rubbing up against the walls, and their good wives betrayed now murmuring with savage intent of a real estate conspiracy 71

a variance granted too, too easily. Peace is disrupted, the jungle drums rise in tempo, pitch and volume. Riot will soon break out in conspicuous, outlandish edification and adornment. Upright houses that stand with modesty against their urbane cousins will slide into corruption and these homes of country couples will join the breathless gaiety of sophisticated threesomes, and toss away that humble leaf of domesticity.

Checkmate by Haley Mudrick

Selected Poems by C. Michael Downes Amsterdam Dance

When a world was a walking distance, we wrote a letter together through the night and remnants of winter woods– never sealed, never sent. Perhaps that’s how I have a sense of you here– though the distance. I feel your absence–quiet, like new city Sundays, fists, taut overcoat against the brisk December kiss of sleet in black branches. Recalling your lamb voice in the unrequited confessionary of the car’s stale heater stench, we shared slow cinema smoke, lingering the quiet compressed interior, across the blushing bridge of your nose. You asked in a whisper of our Amsterdam dance, you–thin sweater, striped–a French film vixen, within the arms of Grace, our friends watching–long into the silence. We at waist hold shoulder and elbow in the rich cool darkness, the calm, quiet longing for just a little more. When a world was a walking distance, we wrote a letter together

through the night and remnants of winter woods– never sealed, never sent. Perhaps that’s how I have a sense of you here, though the distance; perfect lovers–never a possession of the other.

Unspoken

A pollen adorns the morning– a phantom waltz of afterglow– made warm and luminous. The frail breeze gently seeking, embracing the day– in as many ways my thoughts move to you– hums in our evening’s fold, the scent of early morning laced at your chest and neck; eyes dive and hide in the warmth of gazing rising in praise of all we are saying– within a single breath.

As From Blossoms in the hours’ gray trembling, our syllables rain in ringlet splashes– in the humid space between us, your languid soft lean,

lips open slightly to breathe and speak with each season a gift thoughtâ&#x20AC;&#x201C; infatuation upon every thorn, a trace of innocent blood.

The Amazing Armored Philatelist By Julienne Grey Placing the keys into Arnold’s mail-sorting fingers, I concealed a fistful of stamps in my left hand; it was the closest I’d gotten to a magic trick in years—that, and what I concealed beneath my housedress. I counted each of his steps—there were ten from my front door to his—as if we were part of an act where with the right cue I could summon my new tenant back so that he might reveal my corset underneath. That old corset was all I’d kept from my magic days. I’d been one of the only female magicians in San Francisco, with my own boudoir style. I had a show every Friday at a bar just steps from my apartment. My tricks were simple enough that people saw my corset as a schtick, but they were wrong; the corset was my armor. I refused to be one of those soft-bellied performers who only wore a

sheet of fabric. Audiences were too sharp to be without a shield—but it still couldn’t safeguard my job. For my last performance, I ate a man’s letter. I usually requested some kind of note—something not too thick—and I usually returned it undamaged. But that night some oaf shook what he said was a love letter from a woman named Eleanor, raving, “She thinks we’re dating, wants to have my kids—I’d rather piss on her!” So I grabbed the letter, covered it in a handkerchief, and ripped it up as everyone stared. I could have stopped, but I didn’t: I put the pieces into my mouth, stamp-first. And that stamp—dusty, grimy, wrinkled—stuck to my tongue, imprinting on me a new kind of lust. I chewed that thing until the murmurs grew too loud; they could tell it wasn’t a trick. The man got in my face, heaving his yeasty breath to say that it was really from his mother so I’d “better give it back or he’d saw me in half.” I swallowed the stamp and

spit out the rest. He yanked my hair. One heel to the groin later, I’d lost a job but gained a calling in postage. That love brought me to the convention where I met Bill, my first supplier and live-in boyfriend. He collected patriotic prints, though the patterns were irrelevant to me as long as I could chew them. I went through them slowly so he’d never notice. But my hunger grew, and soon I needed a bigger reserve. So I became a postal worker. I was selective in my stealing. I’d push my cart up the San Francisco hills, lingering to meet the residents—to learn who was the most deserving, who was the most despicable, and who was the most negligent. At times my corset—always worn beneath my uniform—would pinch my breath, but I couldn’t give it up. Wearing that corset was like being hugged all day, needing no arms but my own. Bill didn’t like that. He said it creeped him out to sweep his arms around my loose tops and find a flagpole inside. He worried I’d become infertile. I told him: the

corset may have reshaped my ribs and sunk my organs, but that just meant that in a way, I was already pregnant, with myself. He didn’t like that either. By the end he’d stayed mostly upstairs, not too differently from the subletters who came after him—until Arnold. Arnold would visit. Arnold, who worked at the dead letter office. The worst-addressed letters went straight to him. He didn’t mind that I padded my income with his rent, though he never understood how I could quit postal work. Arnold was that dedicated to letters, and he had to be. After hours, he’d swing by my door and bringing some tomatoes from our front porch or his famous plum pepper pie. Soon enough I was leaving my place unlocked. I learned more about him: He was a widower with kids who were already parents. He’d worked in Atlanta before he moved here for the sun. He liked card tricks. When he heard I’d been a magician, he bought me a deck so I could perform for him. We were friendly—meaning friends—and the one night

we’d planned to do something more—meaning dinner—he caught me and ruined it all. I’d quit the post office because it had gotten out of control. I had an ample supply of stamps, but I was getting too greedy. In a glue-craving daze I filched a birthday card meant for Phoebe, one of the good ones on my route. Phoebe had already had a rough year: she’d had a health scare, her son dropped out of school, and her cat ran away. And here was this birthday card for her sent from some friend across the country, covered in stamps. All I saw were the stamps. It wasn’t until I got it home and ripped it open—spraying glitter everywhere—that I found this elaborately handmade collage of construction paper and old photos, wishing her all the best luck for her new year. That’s when I knew I’d gone too far. I brought Phoebe the letter the next day, slipping in a hundred dollar bill, pretending that was how I found it. Phoebe looked so thrilled to get it that she didn’t question me. She didn’t

have to for me to know that was it. From then on, I’d have to rely on my own stash. And I did. Down to just my corset, I’d lock myself in with the strings of papercuts, with the sticky acrid bliss. My first choice had been the old glue backs. Once those dwindled, I’d collected sheets of new ones, making them cling and clack with my nails; they were an expensive treat. After meeting Arnold, I’d had less time for my stamps and I’d forgotten about locking my door. The day Arnold caught me I was going for the dregs of my most complicated acquisitions: the last of the used ones I’d stolen, pickled by grit and ink. When Arnold arrived, I was wearing the new ones like finger flags, with an old envelope stuffed deep in my mouth. He stuttered and I shrieked, banishing him before he could speak. The next morning he left a new plum pepper pie by my door, but I waited till dark to take it. He stopped coming after that. I’d

just hear him return from work a little after seven, stomping up his ten steps—then nothing, not even pacing. I missed him so I made a plan. I laced my corset another quarter inch and wrote him a letter. Thanking him for the pie, I apologized for my behavior, and even promised to toss my beloved stamp collection—though I admitted that I’d licked the stamp on the envelope—as long as he would let me make him a home-cooked dinner. I marked the envelope only “A, Desk, SF” and packed my freezer with microwave meals so I could be ready any time. I calculated that the longest it would take to get to his desk would be three weeks, marking off my calendar each day. Today’s the last one. As seven o’clock hits, I count each step home from the facility—past the bar where I’d performed that’s now a laundromat, past Phoebe, past the start of our block—to our steps and our row of tomatoes. At the start of his stairs, I hear his footsteps stop.

Freudian Quips By Laura Foley On our first Psych. 101 conference call of the semester, we hear from James, standing in a corn field in Ohio or Iowa, where phone reception’s not so hot, but doable if he doesn’t use video. Meghan from Texas appears onscreen looking slightly depressed, or maybe it’s the darkness, her room in shadows behind her. White-haired Professor Janus looks intent, a little tired, tinkers with the video. I scan her crammed bookshelves till Marlene joins us, but her camera’s gone wonky, a small gray rectangle, with her name on it—when Peggy logs on, geometrically red as a Rothko, the audio starts echoing and Professor Janus jokes the shivering gray panel looks like a map of the unconscious, the unconscious, the unconscious, and I chime in—or outer space, outer space, outer space, making the sleeping dogs lying beneath my desk in Vermont stir restively, as James from Iowa or Ohio says it’s beginning to rain, ending our first conference call.

The Circle Line By Milla van der Have

The last thing Radek remembered were the headlights of the Circle Line train coming at him with what turned out to be a deadly speed. He had no time to wonder about its sudden appearance. Clearly, one of them was here at the wrong time. Later, papers would call it a freak accident. As the train, the prime mover, sped by, the edges of posters fluttered in the wind, but in the end they kept well in place. Radek would have been consoled to know that crowds passing through Embankment Station would still be advised on next season's must-see musical.

*** They sat and smoked, the work done. While the men talked in the old language, like far-off birds chattering, Radek's eyes kept returning to the beauty on the billboard,

arched onto the subway tunnel. To her unearthly pale face, her slender cheek bones. Mostly to the air bubbles defiling it. “Bogdan! Idiotule! That poster isn't stuck!” His mate, a careless cigarette in the corner of his mouth, gave him a glassy look. “So?” “It could come off! On a train!” Bogdan shrugged. “I don't care. It's for a faggy musical anyway.” “It should be glued well, whatever it is.” “If you care so much, prinţesă, why don't you do it?” The others laughed, leaving Radek no choice but to grab his gear, cross the tracks and get to work again, cursing Bogdan under his breath. His knuckles were still sore, but one of these days, he would teach that lowlife pizdă a lesson to remember.

Their jeering died down as he smoothed out the poster, then rolled it fast on the wall. Even with a chill wind coming from the tunnel, he sweated profusely. After a while, he became aware of sound forming in the dark, something like a slow screech, almost human. For a minute, he thought of his mother, then he shrugged it off like an unwelcome hand on his shoulder.

*** He carefully packed his equipment into his bag. Even if it was a crappy job, he tried to be neat about it. Show up on time, work hard, make money. If he would be more than a hamster treading its cage, only always yearning after the next scrap of food, he would have to make an effort, even if he had to work in the middle of the night. It was the only way to break free of that treadmill their lives had become.

His sleeping mother groaned, the TV still on. He remembered how she had slept on that long train ride that took them here, her face calm and trusting like a baby's. He turned off the TV and, with some hesitation, dug the pendant out of his jacket and placed it on the couch, next to her head. She'd love a surprise in the morning. Carefully avoiding the ice cream wrappers she had littered all over, he opened the door and breathed in the cool night air like a sedative.

*** He tried to put the ice creams in the freezer without a sound, but his mother was keen. “Radek! Why late? You have the ice cream? Give me!” “No ma. All this ice cream is bad for you.” A smirk. “Bad? What do you know about bad, Mister Stay-in-the-Pub- All-Day?'”

She reached for the freezer, but he blocked her. “At least have some dinner first.” “Who are you? Boss of me? Don't tell me what to do!” “Fine!” He stepped away and quickly his mother pounced. “What is this?” she cried, as she tore off the wrapper. “Soft! What happened to my ice cream?” “The train. It was late.” “Train? What train?” “The Circle line,” he lied. “Always the same. Always trouble. At least in Romania, trains ran on time.” “No ma, they didn't. They hardly ran.” “This dream country of yours is not what you cracked it up to be, Radek. No rivers of gold...” “...in Romania neither!” “...or jobs. Or decent houses! Look at this shit hole!”

He gave the apartment a curt glance. The living room was just big enough to hold a couch and a television set. Which happened to be almost everything his mother needed in life. That and a fridge. Meanwhile, she tried to make it to the freezer again. “This country brought you talent shows,” he said, pushing down her arm. “And gossip magazines. And those ghost stories you love. So don't start with me.” “Ghost stories! Back home they were scarier.” He gave her a sad look and left. As soon as he reached his room, he heard the door of the freezer. “Why don't you eat them all and have a heart attack and be done with it!” he yelled.

*** He never knew what to say to a girl between the paying and the fucking. He preferred to undress in silence and then direct them to the bed, but this one was a talker.

“What's your name, sweetie?” She seemed familiar, but he couldn't tell if it was because of her accent or her broad, earth-like build, which reminded him of summers on the farm. “Răzvan.” She veered up and he realized his mistake. “Romanian?” “Mostly Polish.” Only 50%, but she didn't need to know that. “I could tell there was something about you,” she went on. “This look. A Romanian look.” Of course she felt familiar. She was the kind of strong-armed, too-tanned wife he had run to escape. For now though, she would have to do. There wasn't much time. He shoved her on the bed. “Look, just lie back and shut up about Romania!” He laboured in silence, spurred on by the limp look on her face. She had decided to be of as little assistance as 91

humanly possible, which worked just fine for him. He started panting and instantly she turned her head, focusing instead on the paint that came peeling off the wall in great angry flakes. For the next moments he caught glances only of her bleached hair, the blush on her coarse peasant face, of the bag of groceries he had put by the bed, with his mother's ice creams (which he hoped would last just a little longer, just a little while), of his dad's watch on the night stand and, half-hidden in its shadow, some sort of pendant with interlocking rings, quite a piece of jewelery, maybe hers, maybe anyone's, and then he was done.

He dressed fast, like someone on the run. He grabbed his watch and the pendant came too, landing on the carpet with a nice little arch. He glanced back, but the woman still lay with her face turned away. He picked up the pendant, examined it and, without exactly knowing why, put it in his jacket and made for the door.

*** When he came home, his mother was on the couch, watching another talent show. Often she'd laugh at the contestants, at how they were trying to get something beyond their reach. “Westerners,” she'd say. “Always outrunning fate.” “Life,” she'd say, folding her face to spew out yet another pearl of wisdom, “is tossing and turning and then you die.” But sometimes she took pity on one of them. Mostly a fat, ugly one, like her. “Look at her. Give her the lucky break. She's been fucked over enough.” “Radek,” she said without looking up, “be a sweet boy and get your mămică some ice cream from the store. But first, my prince, make us tea.” The kitchen was still a mess and he had to look for tea between his mothers empty bottles of coughing syrup and the leftovers from his own grubby breakfast. All he

could find was the old apple tea only his mother liked, so he poured in a good measure of ţuică, hoping alcohol would make the stuff bearable.

The talent show was at its high point, close to the final judgement, but still his mother noticed his shirt when he put down the tea. “What's that? Blood?” “Nothing. Just a bird.” “Girl? What girl?” “Bird, ma, BIRD. It flew against the window. I tried to save it but it died.” She raised the cup to her lips and gave him a stare. “My Răzvan, always a sensitive boy. Remember on Grandma's farm? Every day again you tried to save some animal. They always died.” “That was a long time ago.”

She smiled, suddenly. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Not so much.â&#x20AC;? When she held out her hand, he sat down next to her, allowing her to pull him close. On TV, someone was crying. For winning or for losing, he couldn't tell.

*** How he had managed to get into yet another fight was beyond him. Nowadays it happened almost every time he set foot in a pub, a daily thing that went as naturally with a pint as a cigarette or salted nuts. Someone would give him the evil eye. Someone would spill beer on him. Or someone would chat up a girl he had been ogling. Anything could set him off. Sometimes he even threw a punch before he could find fault, like now, dealing out punishment where there hadn't even been a crime. He opened the door, saw a face and swung. If there was any reason in this, any reason at all, it had to be for the counter punch, that came with

awkward precision. Square on the nose, he tasted his own blood and for a minute, some dark craving inside him was satisfied. Then, of course, the pub owner came and banned him from the bar, a troublemaker. He searched his pockets for something to clean up the blood and, for want of anything better, ended up smearing his nose on his grandma's letter. Then, with heavy mind and heart, he made for the another pub where he still had some credit.

*** There wasn't anything for breakfast. His mother was out but there was only a small chance she was getting groceries, so he settled for scraping out yesterday's remaining tikka massala with some toast. It was hardly a kingly meal, but as it happened, he couldn't stomach much more than this in his current state.

Next, he went for a smoke on the balcony. The dense mist was still there. Out of it, at great speed, flew a bird and smashed against the window with a thud, only a few paces from where he stood. â&#x20AC;&#x153;What the...â&#x20AC;? It was a blackbird. Melodious, graceful, doomed to die. The blood seeping from its beak left no question. He stubbed out his cigarette and hunched over it. The body gave a few twitches, then the tail dropped. For a second, he thought he was going to cry, but then he realized he was stuck with a dead bird on his balcony and his mother could come home any moment and start a scene. He prodded it with his foot, as if he could still persuade it to leave on its own. When it didn't, he pushed harder and finally, without much more ado, shoved it off the balcony. The bird still on his mind, he decided to go have a pint. When he stepped out, he caught a glimpse of the mailman. It was a good thing he got to the letter first. His

grandma's letters always upset his mother. “Have you forgotten?” she'd say. “It was a good life. Good enough for your father, bless his soul. Our only worry was the crops.” To her the farm was endless days of sunshine and bliss. In reality it was where his father labored against the seasons and never became any the wiser of it. He put the letter in his pocket so he could toss it later.

*** He woke up to his own snoring and with that sour feeling that told him that he had drunk too much. On the floor, additional evidence: wrinkled clothes, empty packs of cigarettes, burger wrappers. Also, the stench of vomit. But though everything spoke so clearly of what had happened, Radek couldn't for the life of him remember what had gone down. As far as he knew, yesterday was a blur, something he guessed had been there because days just didn't go

missing. The only thing he knew for sure, he must have worked. He always worked.

He got up, not without effort. As soon as he was upright, the room started spinning. He staggered towards the window for air. Outside, the world was drenched in fog. Through the white density only sounds came, of cars, buses, people on the go. Behind all that, some far-off dream, a bird's melodic call. It soothed him and he lingered for a while at the window, elbows on the still, knowing there would be time to remember, to remember all of it.

Union Station By Jon Boisvert in the train station I see them gathered around a statue a huge steel eye with a sundial for a pupil rebar lashes curving up & out like mascara-d human lashes inviting the stranger to bed this is how people leave the city, & how the city leaves them silently agreeing to screw later without learning names I board my train for Seattle, then the towers & bridges lie down pull heavy green hills over their bodies & wait for night the other people on board read their phones like alibis covering up that shameful power of the human eye their lips, tight & red, refuse verbatim to burst open

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Balloons By Katherine Hart

They spent the entire day at the family fun center, and all Charlotte and her twin sister Devon wanted when they turned in their arcade tickets were balloons. Jack had whacked endless moles, knocked out ducks, and played infinite racecar games. “More, more!” Devon jumped up and down each time ribbons of red tickets snaked from the game machine slots. “More.” The girls were three years old and couldn’t do much besides ride the gentle merry-go-round with its docile sheep and inoffensive cows. It was up to him. Daddy, their hero. They covered his cheeks with kisses each time he set a new high score. Jennifer, their nanny, chomped on the straw of her Diet Coke, no help at all. At day’s end, when the girls pressed their moist noses and sticky fingertips to the glass display case holding every plastic toy imaginable,

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all they wanted were the balloons tied to the shelf holding an overflow of Hershey bars and Skittles. Jennifer shook her head. Jack ignored her. “Balloons!” Charlotte noticed them first and waved her pudgy arms. Her sister joined her, both girls a monomaniacal chorus. “We want! Daddy! Balloons.” If his daughters wanted balloons, Jack would give them balloons. He handed the wad of tickets to the piercednose attendant. Four balloons each. Eight balloons total. These balloons--these pink, green, purple, and yellow balloons--were no different from the ones they could have picked up for free at the Publix checkout line. No moles to whack, no ducks to shoot. No Jennifer, refusing to help him load the girls and the balloons into his car. Instead, she sat in her mini-van and waited for him to back out of his parking space. The girls loved them; it was worth it to see their smiles and hear their laughter. The balloons bounced in the crowded back seat on the half hour drive home. He

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prayed that none would pop. Loud noises terrified Charlotte. At least, they used to. Angela waited for them on the front porch. He pulled into the driveway, leaving space for Jennifer to guide the van into the garage next to Angela’s Mercedes. The balloons still whacked the car ceiling—pum, pum, pum. Angela and Jennifer opened the doors before he even took the keys out of the ignition. He hesitated, unsure of whether to exit the Civic or wait. He got out. At the fun center he drank five Cokes to keep up with the girls. He hoped Angela would let him inside the house for a few minutes. Jennifer held the eight balloons—anything to help Angela. A slight breeze played with their strings, and they bounced off each other. She stared up at them, her mouth twisting in annoyance. Jack imagined the words circling her pudgy head, her hateful mind: He’s screwed up again! Eight balloons? They’re for my girls—my babies, he

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wanted to tell her. He traced the sandy grout of the driveway’s brick pavers with the toe of his sandal. Angela hugged and kissed the girls. “I missed you! How was your day?” “Fun!” “We got balloons!” They jabbered together in nearly identical tiny voices. Devon’s stutter and slower speech was evident only when she spoke alone, without her sister to mold her abrupt thoughts into sentences. When they had talked on the phone to arrange this visit, Angela mentioned the speech therapist’s optimism with Devon’s progress. “I can see that,” Angela now said. “Go inside with Jennifer. Go potty, wash your hands.” They trotted after Jennifer, following the large bouquet of balloons. Jack shifted from foot to foot, and Angela swatted at a honeybee buzzing around the bougainvillea at the driveway’s edge. “Really? All those balloons?” she asked.

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“That’s what they wanted.” He bounced, and the soda sloshed in his stomach. “They’ll pop tonight. The girls will throw a fit. You didn’t give them sugar, did you?” He had screwed up again. “They split a candy bar. But they had pizza first.” The bee approached her ear, and she flicked it away, shaking her hair. It had grown since he had last seen her, now breaking at her shoulders and tickling her clavicle. “Oh, Jack,” she said. He shifted side to side, a version of Charlotte’s potty dance. “Before I hit the road, do you mind…?” He tilted his head in the direction of the front door. “Of course.” Her tiny smile didn’t deepen into the dimple of her left cheek. “It’s getting late. Do you want to stay for dinner?” ***

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Jennifer cooked a stir-fry. She chopped zucchini, red peppers, onion, and garlic, while Angela prepared a salad and opened a bag of shrimp. Jack sat on a barstool on the other side of the kitchen island sink. The house looked good. Angela had bought a new kitchen table, replacing the old one with the burn mark from a too-hot skillet and the infinite crayon scribbles the girls had made under his watch. Or neglect, Jennifer would say. The new table was a soft oak color, slightly darker than its predecessor, which had been Angela’s from her law school days. Angela and Jennifer sipped blush wine, and he drank ice water. Jennifer dumped the chopping board in the sink. When he lifted his glass to take a sip, she wiped the condensation drips off the granite with a sponge. She set a paper towel where his glass had been. She returned to the stove and stirred the sizzling vegetables. Angela rinsed the shrimp. “How’s work going?” he asked her.

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“Busy. I have some travel lined up.” “Do you need any help? I can come back any time. Help with the girls. Watch the house,” he said. “Jennifer can handle it.” “Yes, I know.” He rested his glass on top of the paper towel. “I want to help.” Angela glanced over her shoulder as she brought the colander full of shrimp to the stove. Jennifer stirred the shrimp into the vegetables and added teriyaki sauce. The kitchen was warm and a little hazy with oil smoke and shrimp steam. Devon and Charlotte left their television show in the front room and stood near Jennifer. “Is Daddy….” Devon stopped, the question lost somewhere between her thoughts and tongue. “Staying for dinner?” Charlotte finished her sister’s sentence, and Jack felt another warmth, a hug around his tired heart. Charlotte, four minutes older, had assumed the protective big sister role. If speech therapy didn’t work, at

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least Devon would have her to navigate a safe path through school bullies and impatient strangers. The warmth disappeared as abruptly as it had embraced him. It was his fault, her blurry speech. “Yes, Daddy’s staying,” he said. The girls’ cheers warmed him again, and he ignored Jennifer’s glare and set the table, happy to find the plastic children’s plates and sippy cups in their usual location. Angela had bought new dinnerware, replacing the old Corelle that they had purchased from the outlet store three days after getting married. Her new plates were square-shaped and bone white, solid in his hands. The girls’ booster seats faced the sliding glass doors. Had Jennifer taken over his spot at the table? He set the three adult places, and stepped aside. Jennifer and Angela brought serving bowls filled with stirfry and salad to the table. They squeezed by each other in the narrow space between the refrigerator and the island and handed each other serving spoons and bottles of ranch

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and Italian salad dressing. They dodged the little girls, who mimicked their mother and nanny helping in the kitchen. Jack backed away from the table and watched the sun set through the sliding doors. From the front room, the television blared some nonsensical song about not biting one’s friends. He tapped his toe in time to the beat, listening to Devon and Charlotte complain about the vegetables. “I’ll cut them up extra small for you,” Jennifer said. “Did you leave the TV on? Please turn it off. Your father can help you if you need it.” They scurried past him; Devon still ran on her tiptoes. Jennifer dissected the girls’ vegetables and minced the shrimp. At the fun center, he had pushed over a paper plate with a large triangle of cheese pizza. Charlotte had wrinkled her nose. “Daddy, Jennifer cuts it small.” Wordlessly, the nanny had hacked the pizza to bits.

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One of the girls screeched, and he ran to the front room. Both girls cried, Charlotte caterwauling over Devon’s sniffles. Devon pointed up. Twenty feet above them floated the balloon bouquet, twisting and bouncing off the ceiling, the strings waving each time the ceiling fan blades whipped around. The girls wailed. The ceiling fan’s drag pulled the balloons closer. “Oh, for God’s sake. I knew these would be trouble.” Jennifer stomped past him, her bare feet slapping the hardwood. She pointed the remote skyward, and the fan ceased oscillating. Unreachable, beautiful--the balloons taunted him from above. Angela hugged the girls; Jennifer grabbed a box of tissues from the hall bathroom. He couldn’t move, fascinated by the colors bouncing gently against the textured, shadowed ceiling. Pum, pum, pum. Devon stopped crying first and trotted to the kitchen. Charlotte’s sobs quieted to gentle gulps, and Jennifer promised her an after-dinner treat if she would come eat her

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nice vegetables and yummy shrimp. She held Charlotte’s hand and guided her away from the balloons dangling above. Jack felt her glare—cold, hateful—even though he gazed at the balloons. Angela remained in the room with him. She clicked off the television and pushed aside some scattered building blocks and a doll’s stroller. He dropped his gaze and shuffled in her direction, his hands reaching for the loose toys that she had already cleaned up. The room was nearly dark. Angela reached for the light switch. “No,” he said. “The overheads are too hot. The balloons will pop.” She snapped on the halogen next to the bookshelf and looked up. He watched her stare at the balloons. She had lightened her hair. The blonde streaks were brighter, and the darker pieces were silky honey. She tucked a strand behind her ear. New diamond stud earrings glittered in the bright halogen light.

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“Well,” she said. “Yes?” She stepped back into a shadow, and the earring no longer sparkled. “I still keep the ladder in the garage. Do you think…?” “Of course,” he said. *** Later, after dinner, balloons rescued and firmly tied to Devon’s bedpost, he and Angela sat in the screened-in porch. Jennifer had put the girls to bed and disappeared into her room. He had wiped down the counter and broke one of the new plates while putting it away. After kissing the girls good night, Angela had asked, “It’s a nice night. Can you stay?” Beetles and moths bounced off the metal doorframe, and an anole lizard scaled the side screen. The patio furniture was still the same. She took the loveseat, and he sat in the armchair. He pulled out a pack of cigarettes, and

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she took one before he offered. Only a little light from the kitchen reached them. They faced west, and aside from the insect-noise and the cars passing in front of the house, it was quiet. A small breeze swished the cat palm hedge. A crescent moon hung low. “Those balloons. Those ridiculous balloons.” She laughed and coughed. “You looked terrified on that ladder. Jen and I should’ve held a blanket underneath you.” “I’m afraid of heights.” “I know. I remember.” She tapped her half-smoked cigarette into the ashtray and left it there. She touched her chin and twisted her earring. “Thanks for doing that. No way was I climbing up.” “And Jennifer?” It amused him to picture the nanny mounting the shaky metal ladder, stomping on the rungs. Pressing a hand against the wall then reaching upwards, touching the end of just one string. “Jennifer is good. But not that good,” Angela said.

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He laughed, too, and pulled out another cigarette. Angela pressed the remaining stub of her cigarette into the ashtray and waved away his offer of a second. She twisted the earring a little more. He wondered if she had bought the diamonds for herself, or if they had been a gift. “It’s been a long year,” she said. “A long, shitty year. I want things to be better, Jack. I do.” “Me, too,” he said. “The house looks good. The girls seem happy.” She worked her earring harder. “I have a fabulous nanny. And a good housekeeper. It’s hard doing it alone, even with the help.” The lizard jumped from the side screen to one of the doorframes with a soft thud. It did half push-ups in the faint light. “It’s been a long year. How are your parents?” she asked.

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“Good.” His mother talked about Angela—hoping they would reconcile. His dad remained silent and stoic. When Jack retreated to their home, three days after Angela kicked him out, his father didn’t ask a single question. Jack’s mother questioned, fussed, and pleaded. She cried for the first week. She suggested he attend meetings, “There’s a group at our church, Jack, maybe it will help?” Five years ago, he and Angela had signed the mortgage paperwork and stood inside this home—empty of possessions but full of promises. She had just made partner, and they could afford this big house with vaulted ceilings and a wide back porch. The patio furniture was their first new purchase. They had cuddled on the loveseat nightly, even after the girls were born. He had intertwined his legs with hers and hooked his long toes over Angela’s tiny ones. Tonight, Angela was a cool, blonde stranger with new diamond earrings.

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She inhaled deeply. Her voice was cool and clipped. “Jack, the paperwork is almost ready. In a couple weeks, you need to come back to sign it. Then, it’s just a matter of getting assigned a court date. They’re backed up. It may be a while.” He nodded. They had discussed their arrangements many times. “I’m keeping the girls. Full-time. I want you to have supervised visits with Jennifer.” He bolted forward in his seat. His eyes burned hotter than the tip of the cigarette. “What do you mean? That’s bullshit.” “No, it’s not.” She smacked her knee with her hand. “This is what we talked about, this is best for the girls. This is safest for the girls.” She growled the last sentence. “It’s in the agreement.” “Jesus.” He opened his arms wide, and a smoke trail suspended in the evening air. The Cheshire cat moon had

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dropped even lower in the sky; the wide grin mocked him. “You and Jennifer are really keeping me from my own kids?” She sat up. Tall, stern. He rammed his clenched fist against the aluminum chair arm. He hit it again and again. Angela watched him quietly. Unable to sit, he paced the length of the porch, his blood buzzing. He crushed the cigarette on the brick pavers and pressed his face against the porch screen. He couldn’t look at her. Some bulky animal wandered through the far end of the backyard, where the swing set used to be. “I want alimony.” He tried keeping his voice as tight and clipped as hers, but he wavered on the final syllable. “I’ve only been substituting. Gas is expensive to drive down here. I want to help out my parents. If you get the kids….”

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“I figured you do something like this.” She sighed, then made no other sound. The headlights from a car passing in front of the house briefly illuminated the backyard, creating mysterious shadows. Once, they were going to build a pool back here. The girls could swing then jump in the crystal blue waters, splash around to their hearts’ content. The foam cushion crinkled as Angela pushed herself off the loveseat. She stood next to him at the screen and faced him. He said, “Last year was different. I’m better now, a better father. Please, let me see my girls.” “I can’t risk their lives,” she said. “Not again.” He could not remember the exact moment when the single mid-day beer turned into three or four, when he sometimes swapped the beer for Maker’s Mark. Only that he had been alone in the big house with two small, screaming girls. He rocked one to sleep and the other needed a diaper change. And another bottle. Soon both

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were screaming. But…God, how he loved their perfect rosebud mouths, their tiny, stubby toes—they had Angela’s feet and eyes. He loved strapping them into the double stroller and walking them to the neighborhood park. He sat on the metal bench shaded by a tall pine tree and chatted with the mothers also pushing strollers. He couldn’t explain why he drank those days. But he never neglected the girls. They were precious, beautiful. Angela didn’t like it. She didn’t like coming home from a long day at the firm, seeing the empty bottles in the blue recycle bin in the garage. She nagged him for the unwashed dishes and the dirty bathrooms. She shook him hard if he dozed in front of the television, the girls secure in their playpen. She said, “Jack, don’t you think all this beer is a problem?” Day after day, hour after hour. He was okay, he told her. If a man wanted a beer in his own house, he would have a beer. She said he should go to meetings. She could pay for rehab. She could pay for whatever he needed.

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Then that day, that awful day. Kelly from down the street had brought a six-pack of Corona Light for the other moms and him to share at the community pool. Later, when the girls napped, he poured bourbon over ice and refilled it after folding the second basket of laundry. The sun was high and hot in the sky. When the girls woke up, they played in the backyard. Another bottle of beer to sip and swipe against his sweaty forehead. The heat was brutal that day. Devon played tag with him, and he chased her around the yard. She tugged at him until he joined her on the trampoline, and they bounced together. She jumped off the trampoline and rolled in the grass, squealing with delight. Charlotte waited for them on a swing, and he alternated pushing them. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Higher, Daddy!â&#x20AC;? Devon, the daredevil. Two years old, and she raised her arms fearlessly. He pushed harder, higher. Up, up, up went the swing, the red plastic seat wonderful against the fiercely

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blue sky. As it started its descent, Devon fell off. Her tiny body tumbled in mid-air. She didn’t cry when she hit the grass. “Devon!” he yelled. “Devon!” The following weeks blurred together. Long hours in the hospital. Angela’s parents and his taking over their guest room, caring for Charlotte while he and Angela watched over Devon. Brain scans and the best pediatric neurologist their insurance plan covered. When the worst was over, when Devon returned to her crib, he and Angela fought. She smashed his bottles, full and empty, on the kitchen tile. “How could you have forgotten to strap her in?” she screamed. Jack left when she said go. He spent two nights in a hotel at the highway’s entrance, and on the third day, he had driven to his parents’ house in Georgia. A long year. A soft night breeze picked up, and cooler air swirled through the porch. He lifted his shirt and fanned his damp skin. In the faint light, Angela’s eyes looked closer to

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green than blue. He touched her shoulder, and she jumped back. “I’m not going to hurt you,” he said. “I know what we agreed to. I know what’s in the paperwork. But today…today was so good. Despite the balloons.” She smiled, but her eyes watered. “What’s one day, Jack? What’s one visit?” She returned to the loveseat, and he remained by the screen, facing her. She was nearly hidden in the shadows, and she tapped the table with her fingernails. In a few minutes, he would drive back to the grimy hotel room with its gray bedspread and musty carpet. He would stay in the same hotel when he returned to sign the divorce paperwork. He would return to it after each visit with the girls, Jennifer always with them, arms crossed and stare cold. It was a lonely room. Sharing the hotel’s parking lot was the Applebee’s with its all-day happy hour specials. Across the street, Uncle Mick’s Stand Up Bar.

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He squeezed Angela’s arm and entered the house. The air conditioner hummed, and the house was chilly and dry after the sticky outdoor air. He tiptoed upstairs, past Jennifer’s door, and stood in the threshold of the girls’ room. Their twin beds were close. In her sleep, Charlotte’s hand touched Devon’s blanket. Devon snored. The bouquet of balloons swayed under the light breeze of the ceiling fan. The next morning, when he was gone and Angela brought the girls to the park, Jennifer would pop them one by one and discard their limp bodies and skinny strings, making up some hateful story that the balloons had to go home with Daddy. He lingered for a moment in the doorway. One day, he silently promised his daughters. All their days together would be like this. He blew a kiss, imagining it tickling each of their plump cheeks, floating around the room like a gentle honeybee, and alighting on the swaying balloon bouquet to rest.

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Selected Poems by Anthony Langford Apprenticeship in Gloom

Gotta work quickly The curtain is lowering The sky is crying And the dirt is moist Whichever way you look at it The surface is slippery Panic optional Yet pointless Built in use by date With print not visible. Lying isn’t optional It’s a prerequisite Check the guidebook Slickest rewards To those in the (self) hoax business Perhaps they’re the fortunate ones. The key light is fading While you continue The performance You’re a mere apprentice Of the dark The audience is there But you can’t see their faces Or reactions.

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As to which version Of your story Is true Is up to them.

Extinct Still Here

Collapse Long into the soil Said the brickwork To the tourist Discover peasant bone misery Cobblestones once of blood and horse shit Passed over For postcard pleasantries And polished sinks Without soul. Table top mountains Wind free oceans And pride less objectives Swallow the reflection whole And let the lies explode Overhead For time believes There is honor to ghosts In empty footsteps And figures

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In forgotten graves With or without verification As solution has always arrived Pockmarked And empty handed.

When Late Night TV Was Cool

Things stay in our heads Like a steel wedge in concrete And others fall away Like a wall of dirt Barely hours after its inception. I was fourteen And had a friend to stay the night A rare event Given that I lived thirty kilometers From my school So it only happened a few times But this once We were allowed to set up the family TV In my room So we could watch movies Well into the early hours When there were overnight movies Before the poison of infomercials.

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His dad was an alcoholic So he managed to steal two bottles of beer Which seemed like an open access To the treasury. I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t remember the films Or the conversation Only the TV flicker on the floor And the beer froth in the glasses The dream through the bubbles And the feeling that somehow We had achieved something A flight An insight An escape From our mundane world To something brighter. The beer was warm And I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t like the taste But it was the best beer I ever had.

Fizzle Faith

Let loose young soldier While I paint Church ceiling crimson ocher

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On emotional filled promises Of better vistas With blue cliff edge views And slow rotting shutters Housing yellow bricks And two thousand year old arguments No separate to today With modern concerns And yesterday An affray With ancient pillars Standing stronger Than you and I. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve always believed in a sturdy framework And stadiums Of glorious days Even if the rest crumbled Though distrusted myself Arm in arm With ghosts and disintegrating temples False idols, deceiving smiles Hard realities And cold solutions.

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Home Address by Brendan James

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Home Sweet Home by Brendan James

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Selected Poems by Diana Raab

Buddha Energy People whisper in my ears to remind me of my Buddha energyâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; enlightened wisdom to share with friends and strangers, through green eye glances or words strung across blank pages, but somehow I remain unable to tap into the distance which separates you and me. Are you able touch the chaotic chasm which divides us from melted fusion or anything which might possibly bring us together in what many might call the most mysterious of unions?

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Not to be Blue The day starts anew its murmurs are all true the early sunrise towers above our chaotic worlds bringing the newest of flowers then the sun quickly sets and we fall asleep free of regrets, then the cycle goes on as we pray never to be gone.

The End How is it that a dark premonition slips under the layers of my dermis and waves a signal that tomorrow

is the end of something of which I do not know, 132

while I try to whisper

and grasp onto my desires as temptations want to wisp me from this light.

I cannot leave because one more slippage of disaster will send me five feet under

into the darkness without tasting the sweet juice of euphoria whispering good-bye.

I am sorry about my intuition.

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Twelve Variations of a Left Hook By Amber Kelly-Anderson

She broke his nose, Sara told her mother, Because she lost her temper in the heat of the moment and, no, she hadn’t been drinking, but yes, maybe she had been working too hard. Of course she had been raised not to behave like an animal. No, she hadn’t forgotten how to deal with her emotions like a lady. Yes, a slap would have certainly been better if she really couldn’t contain her physical impulse toward violence. Absolutely she would think about forgiving him and asking his forgiveness in return. Yes, it would be the Christian thing to do. She broke his nose, Sara told her brother, Because he was a no good, cheating, goddamn son of a bitch. When she saw it with her own eyes, the disgust swallowed her like Pinocchio in the whale

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and she couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t help herself. Lucky for him, her pencil skirt was too tight for her to knee him in the balls. She would have done that, too, and she would have enjoyed it. She broke his nose, Sara told her father, Because she wanted to make him to hurt as much as she did for treating her so badly. She hadnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t thought, in her wildest imagination, she was strong enough to do any damage, but perhaps all those self-defense lessons he gave her in high school had paid off. It was best, she agreed, not to share that last part with her mother. She broke his nose, Sara told her sister, Because he broke her heart in a way she never realized possible. She felt like she was the one who had been beaten. There might be bruises on his face, but her entire self was a map of bruises, each dark impression a mark of something that should have

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warned her to cut and run. He shattered her trust and self-worth—mugged her of all that felt good in her heart. Sara still wasn’t sure she could ever again let someone in like she had him. She wasn’t sure she could survive it. She broke his nose, Sara told her ex-best friend, Because the two of them were worthless, betraying shits who deserved each other and whatever vengeance Sara and God might reign down on them. And no, she couldn’t actually pass for twentyfive anymore. She broke his nose, Sara told the police officer, Because she was tired and angry and did not mean to hit him so hard, but her heels were really high and her feet really tired so perhaps she lost control, but honestly it was more accident than assault. She might have even stumbled a little. His nose probably broke her fall.

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She broke his nose, Sara told her new best friend, Because he had it coming and everyone knew it. She broke his nose, Sara told her next boyfriend, Because during a heated argument he moved toward her while she was gesturing with too much force and caught him just wrong. He understood and forgave her. They agreed to remain friends. She broke his nose, Sara told him, Because fuck him, thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s why. She broke his nose, Saraâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s lawyer told the judge, Because after working thirteen hours straight for the fifth day in a row as the assistant to a man with documented mental health issues who made unreasonable demands in addition to using verbal abuse, Sara came home tired and vulnerable to find two people she trusted betraying that trust. Due to her fatigue and low blood sugar, having not had lunch or dinner, she was not in full control of her

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physical person and, while gesturing in anger, exerted more force than necessary to her thenboyfriend when he moved toward her, causing accidental contact with his face and the subsequent breaking of his nose. As Sara was a woman with no history of violence, no criminal record (not even a speeding ticket), it was indisputably an accident. She broke his nose, Sara told her court-mandated anger management group, Because she too often found herself in unhealthy relationships which exacerbated her habit of internalizing her frustrations. By not owning those feelings, and verbalizing them, she placed herself and others at risk that eventually her internal dam would burst, causing her to act out in an inappropriate way. She broke his nose, Sara knew,

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Because she wanted to feel the crunch of his skin and bone and cartilage on the other side of her fist. To watch the blood gush down his front and into his open fly, staining his expensive white boxer briefs that accentuated him to the point of vulgarity, ruining his rumpled polo shirt in its annoying shade of orange that someone called Creamsicle in a fit of misplaced whimsy. To show his spread-legged cobetrayer on the couch a man torn down, broken. Sara wanted her to forever carry the image of him clutching his face, wailing and crying, doused in his own snot and blood. She wanted to mark him with her wrath. Leave him limp. And know that she had smashed something beautiful in a way that might never be recovered.

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Road Signs By Michael Salgado Cigarette butt rolls in the wind stream of passing Cars, burning and smoking McDonaldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s bag stuffed with food packaging is ripped open Strewing its guts across the shoulder Liter coke bottle lies in the run-off ditch Half full, holding piss water Dead skunk, dead squirrel, dead possum, dead raccoon, dead fox Dead cat, dead dog, dead deer Shredded, treaded tire, resting on the median Sinewy, rubber snake Stranded car on shoulder with white T-shirt hanging in window Lost between points A and B Road sign, spray painted, paintballed, bullet holed Message, location, direction, lost Heavy foot, heavy afternoon, heavy head and eyes, heavy heart, Heavy engine, heavy roar and rumble Radiation, blurs up from the concrete

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Vultures soar above on thermals Yesterdayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s newspaper distributed by the wind Flapping, leaping along the road Traffic jam backs up miles of highway Dead stop Rush hour accident, rushing ambulance, fire engine, wreckage, A saving effort, a death, clean-up

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A Conversation with Renee Ashley, Author of Because I Am the Shore I Want to Be the Sea BF: When did you discover your love for writing poetry? Can you tell us about the first poem you’ve ever written? RA: It’s not a pretty tale to tell, alas. I had, evidently, as a kid, a good ear for hammer-heavy rhythm and rhyme and I exercised that on poems for extra credit in grade school, fifth grade mostly, and high school. I didn’t need the extra credit. I was a good student, so what was it about? Probably just to be liked by the teacher. No, to be praised. Yes, probably for praise. But back then it had nothing to do with loving poems. It had nothing to do with literature at all, really, but had everything to do with my backbreaking insecurities. I was a nervous wreck as a kid. A mess. I don’t think I knew how to laugh and I don’t think I began to really love poetry until I was in my late thirties or early forties. I’d already published a book (Salt, Brittingham Prize, University of Wisconsin Press). I began to love it when I found that I had to work really hard to make it good, that whatever smidgen of talent I might have had was going to, sooner or later, let me down. And evidently it was sooner. You know, a classic case of working up to my level of incompetence. I knew nothing! I was winging it! But, when I found that in order to get better I had to read critically—like a writer rather than a reader— and really study and think, then it became love. When I had to really work hard for it. I still love how difficult it is to make a good poem. I love how intricate and subtle craft can 142

be—and I love finding out what I really think, which I do, inevitably, when I take a viable poem through to completion. The first poem I wrote? No clue. The first one I remember, I don’t remember the title of. I know it began, “The baby is a number one./It grows to number two.” Could you die? Oh well. Perhaps all that bad poetry was necessary to get me to the point of wanting the work to be good. I really have to forgive myself. I’m working on it. It’s slow like so much else.

BF: What inspires your ideas for poems? RA: Your question is an interesting one because it posits two givens: that I have inspiration and that I have ideas for poems. I would never call what gets me going on a piece inspiration. I don’t know. It sounds both sort of lofty and precious to me. I don’t think there’s anything lofty about making poems. But what usually gets me started is an image or a phrase with a viable musicality. I would call that a quickening. It’s that music and the image’s attendant associations that become the engine that furthers the poem, drives the poetic bus, so to speak. I need that. No musical momentum? No poem. Ideas, on the other hand, at least for me, are death to a poem. An idea is invariably the starting place for an essay, some connection I suspect and want to verify and explore. Ideas seem to demand exposition. A poem doesn’t.

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BF: You not only write poetry, but also fiction and nonfiction. How does your writing process differ for each outlet? What are the similarities? RA: I do. I write poems, essays, and I’ve written two novels—and if I decide to write another one of those you can just put me out of my misery when you see me typing a title page. I have absolutely no talent for plot. All my conflicts are internal. The mere suggestion of face-to-face confrontation gives me the vapors. So, that’s a problem, isn’t it! I’m like Virginia Woolf, in that respect: I write situations rather than plots. In every other way, though, I’m no Virginia Woolf, though wouldn’t that be lovely? Except for the stones-in-the-pockets thing. Still, I learned a great deal from writing those books; I learned what I can and can’t do, for starters. I began the first novel because I’d published short stories and an agent told me if I had a novel he’d consider taking me on. Four years later, when I’d finished it, he did not take me on. But another saint of an agent did, and darned if she didn’t get the book published. She still has the second novel and can’t give it away. It’s weird because it’s a much better book than the first, but, eh. The market is not generous these days, and I’m hardly a young, hip, marketable personality. And I’m actually fine with that which sort of surprises me. I do suffer from a serious case of reality. Writing it was, nevertheless, valuable experience. The essays, as I said, are generated by ideas. I get the equivalent of an earworm, let’s call it a brainworm, and I obsess. Almost everything I see after that seems to somehow connect, to be somehow related to it. The brainworm primes me for associations. Most of my essays are hybrids: essay/reviews, critical/personal, or simply personal essays that involve some sort of research or exploration. Some, I think, are very funny; some not so much. I love writing essays. I’m dying to write some lyric 144

essays right now. Essays give me, I think, what I wish I could find with novels: an extended, deep involvement with some one thread of grounded thought. The idea of getting up in the morning and actually having something to go to work on, something that is already established and needs me to keep attending to it is so comforting. Of course, that idea is an abstraction and wishful thinking. The reality is you’d think I was being beaten while it’s going on. For me it’s hard, hard work and I’m glacial at writing prose. So-oo-o slow. Probably, it’s more that I’m a slow thinker, but it works out the same. Sometimes hundreds of drafts over a long period: months, and, in some cases, years. And I can only work on one thing at a time, so … I won’t live long enough to write all the things I’d like to write! The essay is such an elastic form, though. It’s really a sort of writer’s one-size-fits-all. The similarities would be that, when the writing’s going well, whatever it is, I get into what Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls flow. I think runners call it the zone. The world goes away, my body goes away, my whines and snipes disappear, I’m not worried about my thinning hair or my expanding derrière, and I’m entirely enveloped by the subject and the making. That’s worth waiting for. Also, of course, precision of focus and language; that’s always an ideal. And, every single time, at some point, at least in novels and essays, I reach a point of true despair and think all the snippets I’ve gathered will never come together as a cohesive, meaningful whole, I was wrong-headed to think it would work, I can’t write a decent sentence, I’m an idiot and the world’s going to find out. I’ve been going through that so long that years back I realized it was part of my process, that the total, nauseating, shame-facing panic means it’s going to come together sometime soon; it won’t be easy, but it’ll get there. But it’s got to be real despair, not pretend; pretend doesn’t work. I have to really believe

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I’ve blown it before I can drag the bits of fragmented body out of the morass. I have to just keep pushing thought and articulation forward. That doesn’t happen with a poem— but then a poem is a much lesser piece of real estate. There’s not so much room in a poem to go wrong. Poems, on the other hand, are a sort of anthropology of the psyche. Or maybe archeology. I have to go deep and be able to snag some little scrap of the chaos that’s rampant in there and draw it out, define it, make it stand alone. Then there’s precision to be dealt with, and alignment, and, I hope, seamlessness. Perhaps the process of a poem is first, excavation; second, articulation; and third, re-evaluation, alignment, and refinement. At least that’s today’s explanation. BF: In addition to being a published writer, you also teach aspiring writers. What have you learned about yourself as a writer after you’ve started teaching? RA: I’ve learned more about writing from teaching than I have from studying—because in teaching I’ve had to explain why something should be either the way it is or changed. I’ve learned to articulate those little dollops of craft that can add up to a working whole—and I honestly believe that articulation is the key to all of this. Because, in the end, most of us don’t write with a group of peers or with some “authority figure” standing over us, poking us with a “do this/try that” stick. We’re alone in a room, if we’re lucky, or a library carrel, or with others around us on a bus or a train, or standing at someone’s kitchen counter tapping it out on a borrowed laptop. When something we’ve written doesn’t work, we need to be able to locate that little sub-lot of real estate on which the thing begins to falter and follow the weakness through to where the piece seems to begin to work again (assuming it does). Finding

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the exact locus of the problem. If you’ve had a similar issue come up before in your own or someone else’s work, and you’ve articulated the problem, you’re going to recognize it more quickly. If you can explain the mechanical or cognitive failure you see there, then you can call that solution up more quickly the next time. Calling up of a vague feeling of “something’s wrong” doesn’t help at all. It’s too fuzzy. But a good articulation has clean edges and can be lifted out of the crazy litter of brain stuff with far more ease. That’s a huge gift, to learn to articulate an element of craft, however small. It’s because, and I’ve said this before, so forgive me, but talent will take most of us only so far. When we reach the limit of our talent, what do we do? We either plod along writing work with the same and, in all likelihood, new weaknesses so that the old ones begin to look like tics and the new suspected to be nascent tics, or we get bored with ourselves and just stop writing altogether. I think every piece we write should be, in some way, more challenging than the piece before it. Stasis is no fun. No fun at all. Who wants to be the hamster in that wheel? But learned about myself? I’ve learned, over time, to be more patient and to trust my intuitions and pay attention to my own process so that I don’t get in my own way. I’m probably only semi-successful at that, but I’m better than I was. And, once I learned that good writing includes discovery, I learned to acknowledge what it is I really think and, sometimes, how to say it. And then, if I’m lucky, how to live with what I’ve said. BF: How do you juggle both writing and teaching? RA: Not well. I’m the poster child for sloth except when it comes to teaching, editing, and revising, all of which I love and can, almost always, muster enthusiasm for. But

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apparently I love watching tv more than I like tackling my own work. I love staring into space. And reading. I can sit with the dogs in my lap for hours and do nothing. And then watch more crappy tv. Netflix is my nemesis. So, no. I don’t juggle it well at all. BF: What is your favorite part of the writing process? What about least favorite? RA: Rewriting and editing! I love making something tight, cutting out the blah-blah, and seeing it work more efficiently, become tensile and more resonant. My least favorite in poetry? Probably the time between poems! And I hate ordering a manuscript. I’m not wild about sending work out to magazines either. The business end is rough. My least favorite part in the essay is finding my in, finding my angle of approach, the just-right slant or narrowing of the topic to make it true, to make it pitch just so, getting the words just right so those words generate the next right words and so on. Watching meaning accrete and letting the language surprise me, I love that. It’s a big and little thing at the same time. It’s about alignment and nuance and tone—does this articulation make everything that follows fall into place? That’s the in I have to wait for. Most of the time I generate a lot of real losers before I discover what works. Of course everything that follows it, then, is still post-it notes on my walls and in my head, scraps of paper scattered in my car everywhere else, but, nevertheless, that’s what it is. That’s how it works. It’s not a process for someone in a hurry. My least favorite in writing a novel is the writing-the-novel part.

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BF: What other writers inspire you? RA: There are so many writers writing admirable work in so many forms and styles! They all have something to offer. To choose just a few would be criminal. I can say that it was the poet John Logan who led me to writing poetry as an adult. I heard him read almost by accident and a giant light went on. The first book of poetry, though, that absolutely bowled me over, that made me think poetry was something I wanted to enter (the way you might enter a dense, gorgeous, light-dappled redwood forest) was Pattiann Rogers’ first book, The Expectations of Light. She was the poet-in-residence at the Frost Place soon after I read it. I didn’t know poetry could be like that! It was gorgeous! I could understand it! I found new things to love when I reread it! It sang and was smart. It changed what I saw as possibility. But I read voraciously and there are so many writers doing work that speaks to me. Really, if I name just a handful I’ll leave way too many out who were really important and then I’ll die of shame. I read different writers for different things. I will tell you, though, that I have my MFA poetry students read Bob Hicok’s Words for Empty and Words for Full, Catherine Doty’s Momentum, and Kathleen Graber’s The Eternal City. All wonderful books. I want my students to understand that narrative isn’t just storytelling, that it can be handled in very different ways and still be pressed beyond the anecdotal. The poem has to get bigger than the poet. Each of these poets manages that in a very different way within the narrative arena. It’s an eye-opener for a lot of students. I can tell you, too, I’ve just finished David Grand’s new novel, Mount Terminus, and it’s incredible. It’s like a 149

super-long, super-tight poem. His prose is elegant, never decorative, and has real profluence. It’s impossible to put down. The story is magical (not as in Harry Potter, but as in wonderfully interesting and intricate and singular). And I’ve learned to love Louise Gluck’s poems. I didn’t like their spareness when I was a new poet. I liked Amy Clampitt who wrote wonderful lush poems, poems like cabbage roses. Gluck writes poems like broken bones. She’s certainly not warm and fuzzy; she’s got a bitter edge that I am constantly cut by as well as fascinated by. And I have my creative nonfiction class annotate David Foster Wallace’s Harper’s article, “A Ticket to the Fair.” That piece slays me. His essays give so much away about him; they’re brilliant and funny and sad. “A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again” can break your heart. Oh, also I. J. Kay’s novel, Mountains of the Moon. Those things I’ve read very recently. And Mary Rose O’Reilley’s The Barn at the End of the World and The Love of Impermanent Things! Those are books of personal essays that everyone should read. She’s such good company! A seamless and brilliant writer. And so generous and smart. I used to tell folks that I thought Brigit Pegeen Kelly’s poem, “Song,” would be the poem from my approximate generation that would last. Now I would add Alice Oswald’s—a generation younger, I’m assuming—booklength poem, Dart. Both amazing, riveting, really remarkable poems. I’ve probably listened to the CD of Oswald reciting Dart a hundred times and, still, every single time it makes my jaw drop and my head wobble. I have the audio on the hard drive in my car and on my iPhone, a copy of the book by my bed, and I travel with another copy of the book just in case I need a dose of flabbergast. Her images… Her images are perfection. That’s crazy! But it’s true.

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BF: Are there new voices (poetry or fiction) that you believe our readers should give a chance? RA: My advice is read everything. Read writers who are new to you. If you hate a book after you give it a fair chance, put it down and start something else. The book may not be for you or you just might not be ready to read it appreciatively. There are so many books out there! I won’t tell you what I spend on books every year because it’s insane, but let it suffice to say when I read a poem in a journal or magazine or online that really grabs me I buy that poet’s book. Oftentimes, that first poem I fell in love with turns out to be the best poem of the book, but that’s ok. I enjoy reading them, deciding what to lead my students to, deciding who to follow up on with more books or even criticism. I know it’s become a cliché now, but, really, if you’re not an insatiable reader, the likelihood of your being a fabulous writer is slim. Don’t ask me for statistics. But we learn from out predecessors and those writing around us. I try to read out of my comfort zone, too. I want to know what’s possible and, perhaps, absorb or consciously learn from it. I don’t want to keep writing the same poems, for instance, over and over again. I want to learn new techniques, new dynamics; I want to hear how others think in and about the world. Read it all. Really.

BF: Describe your typical day (writing, planning for classes, etc). RA: I don’t really have one! Some days I’m out in the car doing a million things, mixing freelance jobs, meetings, appointments, or meeting friends. I often mix those with domestic stops (cleaners, market, jeweler for a watch

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battery, etc.). Some days I’m home all day. Some weeks I never leave the house! Especially in winter. My body clock, if left to its own devices, is sort of wonky. When no outside obligation has made me get up early, my usual bedtime is about 4 a.m. If I’ve had to get up for a morning meeting or appointment, or the dogs have lost their minds because the Great Cosmic Squirrel is out in the yard or the trespassing man has come to read the meter, then that gets bolloxed up. I get up at the last possible moment to do what I need to do. But that’s how I’m at my best: to bed at 4 am, sleep until 10 or 11 am. That’s the baseline; everything other than that is problematic though often necessary. I’m a rotten role model for student writers. (Shhhh! Don’t tell!) I don’t write until I need to write. I can go months without writing a thing (though I never stop thinking about writing). I don’t call that writer’s block. I call that watching tv. I waste a tremendous amount of time. But when I write I write intensely. So, mostly, my hours are flexible. And I like to go away to write. To isolate myself. In a week I’m going down the shore for three nights with two other writers. We’ll lock ourselves up and get some writing done. I’m going to work on a long poem I’ve been working on since December. It’s mid-April now. Please send me good wishes. BF: Can you tell us anything about your latest project? RA: I had a new book come out last October, a book of prose poems called, Because I Am the Shore I Want to Be the Sea, and I’ve been working, for the last two years, on another book of prose poems. I’m about half-way on that; it’ll be made up mostly of three long sequences: one I just call the Crazy Dog Lady poems—they may or may not make it in—and the others have titles, from Her Book of 152

Difficulties and Ruined Traveler. And I have a book of essays that I keep trying to put together but failing to complete. I need to finish the last essay which was going to be an intro and then do a read through for statements I may have repeated, but some life events turned that around and now it’s the last essay in the strange, hybrid collection. Prose takes such focus; I can’t just dash in and out of that, so I’m waiting for some away-time and hope to concentrate on that then. I can tell something new is brewing, but I don’t know what it is yet. I’m getting that in-between feeling, which means I’ll have to finish the books I’m working on so that I can start the new project. That’s it. Writing and teaching and living a surprisingly quiet life. I have this hanging over my computer: One of the frustrations of writing is that growth is slow, our work made up entirely of trajectory. That’s my project: trajectory.

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Contributors: Cover Artist: Brendan James received a 2014 Scholastic National Gold Medal in Photography and 2012-13 Gold Keys in Photography and Film. His photography is on exhibit at the “Art.Write.Now Exhibit” originating in June 2014 in New York City and traveling throughout the country. His images have been published in magazines such as Aerie International, The Apprentice Writer (cover photo), BRICKrhetoic, The Postscript Journal, Teen Ink (cover photo), Ranger Rick and Tech & Learning. He was a finalist in Photography Forum Magazine’s 33rd Annual Photography Contest and has been exhibited at the Morris Art Museum in Morristown, NJ and the Montclair Art Museum in Montclair, NJ. He is a senior at Newark Academy High School in Livingston, NJ. www.brendanpauljames.com. Background of “Storm Battered”: This photo was taken at Fort Hancock, a former U.S. Army fort in Sandy Hook, New Jersey, in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. James was attracted to the way the linear construct of the buildings contrasted with the fluidity of the sky. Lisa Aldridge wrote her first book in third grade and taped it together with masking tape. Since then she studied Anthropology, American History, Folk Lore, and eventually earned her MFA in Creative Writing from Lindenwood University. She lives in Missouri with her family where she holds the record for eating the most chocolate while writing a novel. Her poetry and fiction have been published or are forthcoming from Northern Liberties Review, Running Out of Ink, Turtle Island Quarterly, the University of Arkansas Press, and Lunch at Giverny. She is a Samuel C. Dellinger Award recipient.

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Jon Boisvert was born in Wisconsin and educated in Wisconsin and Oregon. He currently lives in Portland, Oregon, with his partner, the poet Wendy Noonan, and many, many animals. His works, especially his prose poems, have been rejected by many fine print publications, and occasionally make appearances in great places such as this. More of his prose poems, and printable chapbooks of his work, can be read at www.jonboisvert.com. C. Michael Downes taught English in The People’s Republic of China and studied Spanish language and culture at Universidad Mayor, Santiago de Chile. He is a contributing writer and editor for SalaamGarage and The Bicycle Paper in Seattle. Downes is also an MFA candidate for Poetry from Seattle Pacific University. Laura Foley is the author of three poetry collections. The Glass Tree won the Foreword Book of the Year Award, Silver, and was a Finalist for the New Hampshire Writer’s Project, Outstanding Book of Poetry. Her poems have appeared in journals and magazines including Valparaiso Poetry Review, Inquiring Mind, Pulse Magazine, Poetry Nook, and Lavender Review. She won Harpur Palate’s Milton Kessler Memorial Poetry Award and the Grand Prize for the Atlanta Review’s International Poetry Contest. She lives on a woody hill in South Pomfret, Vermont, with her partner Clara Gimenez and their three dogs. Please visit her website for book information or more poems: laurafoley.net. Or follow her on Twitter: Laura Foley @laurafoleypoet. Cindy Glenn’s first novel, Flight of a Hummingbird, will be published in 2014 by All Things That Matter Press. Her work can be found in Nature Writing, http://naturewriting.com, The Santa Cruz Sentinel, I Can’t

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Be Dead by Author Maryann Opal and Miracle Ezine issue 7. Cindy enjoys writing fiction, poetry, and running through the forests that surround her home. She grew up in the Northern California beach town of Santa Cruz, California where she continues to live and write, with her husband and five children. Gene Goldfarb, a Long Islander, resumed writing after working as a judge for over 30 years. His poems recently appeared in Cliterature, Empty Sink, River & South Review, Annapurna, Livid Squid, A Narrow Fellow, Stoneboat and Thin Air. They are soon to appear in Lalitamba and SLANT. Jeffrey Graessley lives in La Puente, California. His work can be found in several magazines including New Myths, The Idiom, and Tears in the Fence. He is also the author of the forthcoming chapbooks Her Blue Dress from Silver Birch Press (2014), The Old Masters from Electric Windmill Press (2014), and Cabaret of Remembrance from Sweatshoppe Publications (2013). His recent discovery of the BEAT generation has prompted loving and longing thoughts for that simple, drunken, far-gone time in American history. Julienne Grey was recently selected to attend the 2014 Tin House Writerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Workshop after receiving the 2013 Slice Literary Writersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Conference Scholarship. Her work has appeared in Joyland, Slice Magazine, SmokeLong Quarterly, Squawk Back, theNewerYork, Pindeldyboz, The Ink and Code, Quail Bell Magazine, and Blue Fifth Review. She has stories forthcoming in Eunoia Review and Slice issue 16. Katherine Hart holds a MA in Creative Writing from Antioch Midwest University. Her flash fiction has appeared in Every Day Fiction, and she is currently finishing up a 156

novel. Additionally, she teaches middle school language arts and history, and she loves introducing creative writing into the curriculum whenever she can. She lives just north of West Palm Beach, Florida, with her husband, two daughters, and two cats. She blogs occasionally at katherinemhart.wordpress.com. Milla van der Have (1975) wrote her first poem at 16, during a physics class. She has been writing ever since. Her work has been published in several literary magazines and in 2013 one of her short stories won a New Millennium Prize for fiction. Milla lives and works in Utrecht, The Netherlands. Shawn Hoo lives in Singapore and has recently graduated from Victoria Junior College. He enjoys choral music and writing poetry, and has been first published in the inaugural issue of [Slippage] Literary Magazine. Flannery James was a 2013 National Young Arts Winner in Creative Writing. Her work has been published in The Blue Pencil, Claremont Review, and The SUN Magazine. She has recited her work at the Dodge Poetry Festival at NJPAC. She enjoys climbing trees and reading (sometimes at the same time). She will be attending Columbia University in the fall. Her website is www.flannerygracejames.com. Margaret Karmazinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s stories are published in literary and speculative fiction magazines including Rosebud, Chrysalis Reader, North Atlantic Review, Mobius, Confrontation, Pennsylvania Review, Speculative Edge and Another Realm. Her stories in The MacGuffin, Eureka Literary Magazine and Licking River Review were nominated for Pushcart awards, and her story, "The Manly Thing," was nominated for the 2010 Million Writers Award. She has 157

stories included in Still Going Strong, Ten Twisted Tales, Pieces of Eight (Autism Acceptance), Zero Gravity, Cover of Darkness, Daughters of Icarus, M-Brane Sci-Fi Quarterlies. Margaret’s YA novel, Replacing Fiona and children’s book, Flick-Flick & Dreamer, was published by etreasurespublishing.com. Amber Kelly-Anderson is a Texas based writer and literature/history professor. Her recent publications include The Best Women’s Travel Writing, Toasted Cheese, Kansas City Voices, East Coast Literary Review, Copperfield Review, Necessary Fiction, The Review Review, and Brain, Child. She enjoys the writings of Margaret Atwood, roasted corn salsa, and punk band t-shirts. She is working on her first novel. Follow her @AKellyAnderson. Anthony J. Langford lives in Sydney Australia. He is a father and step-father. He writes novels, stories, poetry, and makes video poems. Some of his recent publications include Vayavya, The Literary Yard and The Blue Magazine. He works in television and has made short films, some of which have screened internationally. A novella, Bottomless River (2012) and a poetry collection, Caged without Walls (2013) are out through Ginninderra Press. A wide selection of his work can be found at www.anthonyjlangford.com. Haley Mudrick received a 2014 Merit Award in Creative Writing from the New Jersey Council of Teachers of English, an Honorable Mention from the 2014 Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, and has poetry and photography published online on Teen Ink. Stanley Noah has a BGS degree from the University of Texas at Dallas. He has been published in the following: Verse Wisconsin, B.O.D.Y., Main Street Rag, South 158

Carolina Review and many publications overseas. Stanley spends his free time watching old black and white movies and drinking gallons of coffee late into the night. Diana Raab, is an award-winning memoirist, poet, blogger, and author of eight books, including four poetry collections. Her most recent poetry collection is called Lust (CW Books, Imprint of WordTech Communications). She teaches writing workshops around the country and her passion is writing for healing. She is currently completing her doctorate in psychology. Her weekly Monday blog can be found at www.dianaraab.com/blog. She also writes monthly blogs for the Huffington Post (Huff 50 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/diana-m-raab); BrainSpeak http://brainspeak.com/author/diana_raab/, and Psychology Today, http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/theempowerment-diary Website: http://www.dianaraab.com. Michael Salgado grew up in Allentown, PA and the Lehigh Valley region. A graduate of Moravian College, he is now employed as a Biologist with Merck & Co. Pharmaceuticals. He is a serious student and devotee of poetry and has been since his first creative writing class in 2009. Michael has had work published in The Northern Cardinal Review, The Wilderness House Literary Review, and has a piece forthcoming in The Stray Branch. Michael currently resides in Lansdale, PA.

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