COHABITATION

Marie-Andree Auclair

“Don’t worry, spiders, I keep house casually”

Kobayashi Issa, translated by Robert Haas

You hold the silence of the place better than I do: I sing, clang dishes inhabit a space where noises shout and at times whisper the boundaries.

I like you, holding the ceiling with a delicate weave, as if walls and ceiling needed strands of conversation and you, an eye on me.

I like you, keeping secrets I spilled all winter long. Come spring, I hesitate to let you live, because of the shame of your life, or the guilt of your death. Guests will pass judgement on my housekeeping so I yield to the customs of my peers.

I climb on a stool, wobble, stretch to catch you in a glass and free you in the garden, near the azaleas. Will this move hurt you? I watch you tiptoe away on dancer’s legs without a glance back.

Together In Time

Percy Neavez

I asked you once why we never seem to stay angry with each other when we argue. Our teeth bared, our blood boiling. Bickering wolves, snarling. You repliedTime.

We learned how the other fought a long time ago and now we know our cues, like rehearsing for a play. I move.....You move. Then, we move. Together. I sighed because I expected your answer - Time. But there never seems to be enough of it anymore. Not for me at least. My hourglass is half empty- more and more these days. Sand filling the bottom to its brim before I can take one more breath. Creating a: wall, barrier, dividebetween where I want to be and where I find myself now, beneath the surface, sinkingwith my arms outstretched. You surprised me then and said that- Time, was only part of it. Exhaled and whispered, Trust. It’s something that we’ve built together with Time. But, let’s not rest any laurels on Its head quite yet. Our shoulders brushing and our feet grounded against the asphalt, you continuedEven more hushed now, cradling the words as they made their way out.

I Trust that when I get upset and voice my opinion, you won’t stop being my friend because of it. When we first met all those years ago we would have described that as a prayer, but somewhere along the way we learned better. We now recognize it for what it really is. A promise that we keep to each other. Over and over again. So we take our cues, I move....You move. Then, we move. Together.

My love–––

I don’t prefer you straightjacketed felinity facsimiled put so prosaically together

You asked me once, “What is a bird?”

Then coughed up a yellow feather

Nothing is absurd!

Not even the weather–––

Or the way in which a dream absconds with memory Swim, swam, swum

I am a verb

(My life has not gone swimmingly)

What a pity to be pitted Of the petty & pearlescent

Salamandrian quintessence Of the salinizing soul

Stripped of my credentials & become so pestilential

I plead I plead I plead For all the world’s fool’s gold

The tidy final Full stop (.)

Or ex nihilo Exclamation (!)

But if you can Please do withhold

The bet-hedging Semicolon (;)

I cannot wait I have to go

Bereft of second chances I won’t be pugilized by glances

Here in The whirl and throw

A saint eaten by lions

Uttering the famous last words

“Live, blossom, dwell”

Before ceasing to be

Hazel Eyes

Robert Qualls

They begin in the purest of ivory, those concentric worlds, unflecked with angioma or shots of blood. And inside a ring of the purest cerulean, blue bestowed only by the skies.

Inside, it gathers into a green that would be the rival of Amazonia as seen from the moon, the pulse almost pounding “los tambores del corazón.”

Inside, an iris around her soul, a total eclipse of the sun. And in that blackest disc, you believe you see your future.

The aurora around it, the corona of solar mass ejections in purest amber, hints of vermillion, spice of cinnamon.

In that amber, one ancient organism is trapped to live in suspended animation. And if you should peer inside, it looks very much like your heart.

THINGS I AM

OF: Nichole Zachary

Afraid

Birds. Toxic Shock Syndrome. Bodily Fluids. Horses. Back acne. My old Bedroom’s crawl space. Driving. Men With “dark humor.” Debt. Men. Moldy White bread. Loud noises. Goodbye without a planned hello again. Failure. That silent moment after you Say I love you. Not loving you. Death. Cole slaw. Loving you. The raw edges of an opened can. The raw edges of everything else.

Michael Ansara

September 2005

1. On the Dock

The dock splits the surface of two worlds, the illusion of calm; ambient energy imprisoned in the amber, swirls below; above, a black lab stretches long into the risen sun; first rays refract around my wife, her every fluid motion forming a lapping golden nimbus, rapidly undone; under the surface, her naked blur a slow, white wavering flag.

In the serene, caressed in the smoothing sheen of that morning, our privileged pores quiver, alive, oblivious to the coming shattered end of this summer: lives left; lives lost.

2. There it is, then: Stay ignorant enough and you can be anything. When what’s slow doesn’t slow, but rises; when for four days and four nights, there is no ark, and when those always behind are left, the cost becomes visible and stark, at all times, paid by others in the arithmetic of the heart. And every word will be written down, and what exactly is wrong.

3. The rain after the flood Butterflies gather again, 60 million in the mountains of Mexico, riding thermals three thousand miles to find each other, pulsing to the beat of the sun.

The bent birches, white and winter-bowed, warmed by the first days of spring, will shed their snow loads, sometimes rising fresh and impolite.

The surprising strength of your back, dappled to my touch, capable of inciting a moment within me of the infinite.

I cling to these few facts, still: rains follow the flood; fires race after waves; denial after the deaths

Harvest

Holly Day

we found the tomatoes grew best in the cemetery sending their thick roots deep into the soil, wrapping thickly-furred cilia between sinew and bone, found new life in places left for the dead.

we threw our seeds random between the overgrown plots, hoping the tiny plants would escape the eyes of the caretaker, the blades of his mower the heavy footsteps of other people visiting other graves.

late summer, when the vines rose high climbed around the rough trunks of ancient willows of firs we crept into the graveyard, baskets under our arms collected enough ripe fruit to last through the long, cold winter ahead.

About Trees

Jane Costain

It’s never been about clouds, those ever-shifting shapes, small tufts fleeting across the sky or large ones creeping by in their soundless escape. They impart little.

Trees remain where they are, casting down their brilliant offerings of blood-crimson and gold. Naked now, bare arms exposed to sky, they stand silent beside the voiceless river. But a time will come when they are clothed in their green swirls, where the wind pauses to whisper, and the river will sing again.

“Gates of the Great Beyond”

Jason Mennel

I Come From A Different Land

Jaqueline Martinez

Not me. Not physically. But who I am.

Who I am, Is the strong burn of ground chiles in a blender, tough to breathe coughing and hacking, water blurring my eyes.

This was home to me.

I am not only the smells but the touch of thick stacked blankets with the animals of all kinds.

Who I am, is a woman who speaks two tongues repressed in one but connects to the homeland in the other.

My hands are partly utensils tortillas, tostadas, and pan and being laughed at for eating the way I do at home.

Impatiently waiting for the clock to strike midnight to sing in a discordant collection of voices

To walk the streets with white candles Sagrado y seguro.

This is home to me.

Who I am, Is watching my father walk down the stairs legs barren and slow from his labor, carrying the weight of academic success to recognize his sacrifice.

I am the collection the never ending one for many generations to come.

The Brushfire is the oldest literature and arts journal at the University of Nevada, Reno. Established in 1950, the nationally recognized, biannual publication provides an opportunity for emerging artists and writers to publish and share their work. Each iteration of the Brushfire strives to represent diversity, originality, and creativity.

As an entirely student-run, UNR organization, the publication is also a creative outlet for University’s student body. It seeks to connect with and promote various art communities throughout Reno while highlighting student pieces. While, each edition primarily contains student and Reno-based work, we continually receive and publish art from across the country. Brushfire welcomes submissions from anyone anywhere.

Brushfire received the 2016 ACP Best-0f-Show Award for Literary Magazine, received an honorable mention for the 2017 Pinnacle Awards, and was a finalist for the 2018 ACP Magazine Pacemaker.

Thank you for reading the first volume of Brushfire’s 75th edition. Our team hopes the poetry, prose, and artwork collected within these pages made you laugh, cry, and—most of all—think. It’s a big hectic world out there, but great art can bring us all a little closer together.

To all of our submitters: we greatly appreciate your creativity, dedication, love for the arts and freedom of expression. You are what makes Brushfire unique.

Again, thank you for your enjoyment of UNR’s literature and arts. We’ve brought the Brushfire to you for 72 years and the fire continues blazing thanks to passionate readers like you.

With your support, 75 more editions of Brushfire await. We couldn’t be more excited.