volume 48
clerestory volume 48 • spring 2013
journal of the arts
what is clerestory? Clerestory Journal of the Arts is a biannual literary and arts magazine that draws submissions from undergraduate students at Brown University and the Rhode Island School of Design. By offering students an opportunity for publication, Clerestory hopes to inspire young artists to continue their creative pursuits, help maintain a high bar of quality for the arts at both campuses, stimulate conversation about student work throughout each school and beyond, and foster engagement between student artists and the wider community.
publisher's note The pages of this issue are perforated along the inside seam, allowing for the removal and sharing of selected pieces as desired.
essay collection In our continuous pursuit to foster dialogue regarding the arts, Clerestory's first foray into publishing student journalistic writing coincides with the release of this issue. Visit clerestoryjournal.com to read our first volume of collected essays, which all look to answer the question, "What is the current state of contemporary art?"
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management
poetry
Kate Holguin • Managing Editor Chris Anderson • Junior Managing Editor Kamille Johnson • Event Coordinator Mae Cadao • Finance Officer Jeff Wu • Junior Finance Officer Tabitha Yong • RISD/Web Editor Cathy Lee • Junior RISD/Web Editor Carly West • Blog Editor
Kevin Casto • Editor Vera Carothers Kamille Johnson Greg Nissan Janey Tracey Carly West
design Pierie Korostoff • Editor Adriana Gallo Luna Ikuta Kathy Wu
staff
prose Kate Holguin • Editor Kimberly Takahata • Junior Editor Melanie Abeygunawardana Chris Anderson Jake Brodsky Beatrix Chu Chase Culler India Ennenga Ben Ferleger Piper French James Janison Yogi Kim Julie Kwon Penelope Kyritsis Kate MacMullin Mie Morikubo
Pam Munoz Jonah Newman Lili Rosenkranz Erin Schwartz Carly West
art Isabel Sicat • Editor Jake Brodsky Sebastian Clark Beatrix Chu Ben Ferleger Cecile Hirsch Will Jackson Maya Mason Maya Sorabjee
The editorial boards of Clerestory select pieces to be published through a blind democratic process over a period of several weeks each semester.
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music Michael Danziger • Editor Luke Dowling • Junior Editor Mohamed Atia Bridget Ferrill Cody Fitzgerald David Lee Henry MacConnel Tristan Rodman Daniel Stern Jeff Wu Dan Zhang
writing
music
Vera Carothers • Love song of my parents Kate MacMullin • Love Like That Eli Petzold • mt dear Sam Barber • The Cat Lauren Allegrezza • milking it Melanie Abeygunawardana • Chaos Follows Will Fesperman • Annunciation Sienna Zeilinger • To a Halt Ashlyn Mooney • Still Surprised Jesse Giguere • Primordial Man Pam Munoz • Cliff Chelsea Fernando • The Archipelago Lizzie Davis • Postscript Evan Sweren • The Color of My Brother Piper French • Foreigners
1. DAP • Last Class 2. Dougas • Bane (feat. Ayan Sanyal) 3. Art Strike Festival • Parking Lot 4. Railway • In the Light 5. Elexis Trinity • Tough Luck Rag (The Ex-Girlfriend Song) 6. Gentle Giants • Moves 7. Kevin González • Oscuro 8. Goodman • Night Person 9. Johnny Snelgrove • Hold That Perception! 10. Cody Fitzgerald • New Blue 11. Dan Zhang • Static Dreaming
Visit clerestoryjournal.com to listen to and download music from our Spring 2013 playlist
art Grant Heinlein • Untitled Milan Koerner-Safrata • Bust Portrait of John Keith, Seated Raghda Maaliki • Reckoner Sierra Barela • Man in Striped Chair Brandon Wang • Pillars I Elise Mortensen • Suburbia 1, Suburbia 2 Evan Grothjan • American Landscape – Bathroom Jia Sung • Self-Portrait With One Eye Katelyn Strutz • Merlin and Alba Victoria Leonard • Playhouse
contents
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love song of my parents  vera carothers My mom with her nightly TV vigil and my dad with his artisanal irregular bowls Met once in a railway car defied the fates and planted the seeds for me together, they went their separate ways doors slammed and the train went on they didn’t track back growing up, I knew only the crack between two cars every once in a while a door would open abruptly and I would hear the quiet of the corridor vibrating in my collarbone
love like that kate macmullin It is perhaps the most perplexing hairstyle I have ever seen. The braid containing his waist-length hair has been plaited with an incontestably artful hand. It is immaculate. Spectacular.There are no whisper filaments struggling to break free, not one of the three sections indelicately thicker than the rest, perfect. Perhaps the tie-dye slip of a thing that he is holding hands with is the one who has done it, using her hands again and again, hand-inhand, hand-over-hand, adoringly braiding his hair in the freezing stillness of the
13 post-alarm morning. I wonder if they live together. Is her ironic eighties attire slung over his incredibly long jackets in a conjugal corner, or is she just sleeping over regularly? Handholding is a-ok but hey we’re still young after all, no need for the confines of cohabitation just yet. But then again, looking at that braid once more, I think perhaps it’s him that’s done it after all. Maybe he did the braid himself while she watched. He learned how to do it from a sister or looked it up on a website when he noticed that his hair was growing
14 long long long like that. Maybe it was the deftness of his hands that attracted that counterculture kaleidoscope femme in the first place. Either way, I’ve never been in love like that, that’s for sure. Never in love like the couple at the Korean restaurant either; the woman was statuesque, wearing a tailored poppy-red wool coat, teetering on heels and her own gravitas, and the man came up to her shoulders, eye-ofthe-storm bald spot, pug-squished nose, distinctly gremlinesque. I thought they were colleagues at first because of the aesthetic asymmetry and the fact that it
was takeout - must be a mid-meeting necessity because everyone was getting oh-so-snippy and maybe if we all just had some Korean it would fix it. But no, they got the dumplings and scallion pancakes and she just couldn’t wait so she unpacked one and swirled her sumptuous lips around it and then turned it to him and he took a bite too, and then they were saying let’s just eat this in the car I cannot wait I absolutely cannot wait I’m famished. And they were old. Late thirtysomethings. Not like the braided man and tie-dye woman who were maybe
15 twenty-three. This might be it for them and what must she be thinking? Maybe he has a colossal paycheck that can buy those expensive red wool coats she likes. That’s awfully cynical though. Maybe some women just aren’t so shallow. Maybe there are those fairy-tale altruists that can look deep into the eyes of a gremlin-human chimera and see something “on the inside,” something wonderful and worthy, something that makes him the one she wants to share an eternity of savory scallion pancakes with. Or maybe she’s doing it so everyone can have this thought that I’m
having. Doing it so that everyone can double take and say oh isn’t she gorgeous what’s going on there? A permanent comparison in her favor. Maybe she wants an unshakeable upper hand, wants him to remember that no matter what kind of atrocity she commits she is a very attractive woman and he is so very lucky to have her and he ought not to forget it or she will absolutely get together with their handsome dentist because he is always asking her out and giving her extra floss. But what do I know after all? I know I’ve never been in love like that.
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mt. dear eli petzold one-goer in a library in the black desert; sits on a whale vertebra and finds a message in a bottle in dead language. he writes a response: dear –, frozen landscape ; my head accidentally hits your chimes your silverware wind chimes as i sit up to take off my shirt right before you fork me; right before we spoon. but the spoon isn't hanging right now because you took it down so we could eat ice cream ... dear –, to be honest i'm thinking about you two. to be honest i'm thinking about you, too.
to be honest i'm thinking about you to - to - to (try to) figure – i dreamt you and i need to tell you somehow i dreamt you in a ruined landscape ahead of me - your voice somewhere on the bridge over sewage in a forgotten forest – a journey, not quite a pilgrimage. and i woke up before we got there. "i was walking in the slush + thought, 'without.'" dreamt - secret favorite word; its magic is in the way you pronounce it: drempt drempty
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[it's such an ugly word in the past tense] (cloud)-watching ice chunks floating south in the providence river city buildings bloom to the west - geometrical lotus on forgetful banks. what am i trying to lose/let go of? i dreamt (-empt -empt) we floated south on the providence river in a tendership i dreamt the lotus bloomed to reveal the city within. dear –, i like the challenge of your secrets, the hidden books your words become.
19 "i was walking in the slush +suddenly thought, 'without.'" wiðutan, -uten, -uton. bosworth and toller won't help. i roll up a slushball aim for an icy island floating south listen for an answer in the splash – nothing. one-goer enters the shrine with the weird well in the roots of an ash.
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i dreamt i dreamt i dreamt i'm drempty and can't figure out what it is that i lack. i dreamt about you two: nothing + another, without nothing - is that it?
the cat sam barber
I have a cat but I am not a cat person. The cat is prone to fits of hysteria where it believes it is a human being. I’m not sure how or when the notion entered its head. It has been so long I do not remember. Periodically, the cat will claw at my face until I allow it to suckle at my breast. I am male.The cat insists on never leaving my side, so I drive with it in my lap most of the time, though, when it is mad at me over some perceived slight, it rides in the passenger seat, puncturing and scraping the upholstery all the while.
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The cat was originally an outdoor cat, which explains why I never declawed it, though to be perfectly honest, I’m not sure if I would have been able to go through with the procedure, anyway. It seems very inhumane and primitive, to declaw a cat. That is not to say I love the cat, for I am not sure it is possible to love a creature that inflicts so much misery on its caretaker. I have been single for nine years now, and the cat is responsible for at least six of those years. They have not been a very good nine years.
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I have never bothered to name the cat. I do not know why. I have always found it interesting that we often name babies before they are born, assigning them a signifier that will follow them for their entire lives - define them even if it’s a particularly unique name - without knowing anything about the baby. We name babies Thomas, sometimes simply because it sounds like a good name, sometimes after the disciple in hopes that the baby will inherit the holy man’s benevolent characteristics. It gives him something to live up to, I guess. My name is Thomas. I was named after my greatgrandfather, who died at Pearl Harbor.
He was a mean drunk, or so they tell me. I call at the cat, “cat,” when I am leaving food in its dish or cleaning out its litter box, mostly because I feel that I deserve a little recognition for the sacrifices I make on its behalf, but often, it scowls until I call it “human” or “baby.” The cat is crazy, I’m pretty sure. We spend a lot of time together, though, and when it isn’t suckling at my milk-less breast, it sometimes crawls into my lap and falls asleep. Whether it does this because it is conceding that I am a good person and that it loves me, or just because it is cold and seeks the heat my body radiates, I like it very much.
I watch a lot of movies with it and sometimes it watches along with me. I don’t have a real job, but taking care of the cat and adhering to its every demand is pretty much a full-time job anyway, so I don’t have time to get bored or seek real employment. My parents died recently, leaving me all of their money and this is how I pay the rent. My landlord is a nice gal and even baked me cookies when it happened, though they were oatmeal raisin so I gave them all to the cat, who enjoyed them quite a bit. The cat has grown overweight, and though I’ve been complaining about its laziness for a while now, I am at least
partially to blame. I’ve actually been looking into getting a miniature treadmill, so it can shed some weight alongside me. I go on daily morning jogs in the basement and figure it would be a great bonding experience as I’ve never enjoyed the noisy solitude of the runs anyway, but ever since the time that we found a raccoon in the basement, the cat has been terrified of going down there. So this is all sort of a pipe dream of mine.
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milking it lauren allegrezza 24
I start a list of our houseplants plants still marked ‘green foliage, 5.99’ And the eccentric hairdos I met and liked list the number of bees on the hands of a white-bearded man in a national geographic magazine from 1983 drape of fabric a child’s fort above my head caked on off -whites that chip from walls in lethal lead flakes. listing the half quiets on the mattress leaving my skin speckled egg bruises nested in my hipbone dripping sunlight warms my runny nose catches eyelashes
chaos follows melanie abeygunawardana He couldn’t stop crying. Runny nose, red eyes, skin rubbed raw like a used kitchen sponge. Everyone in the elevator tried to look away from him, the man in the corner with the green jacket and the gray backpack and the phlegmatic musical rattle in his throat. Every labored breath recalled the humidity of a jungle, the richness of the words flora and fauna. Their skin crawled with premonitory, protracted awareness. The man was so unapologetic. He didn’t seem to care (this by a young mother next to the buttons,
clutching her two-year-old tightly) that he was endangering them all. No, he didn’t care – eyes that opened and shut glassily like a tipped-over doll, the selfindulgence of those highway map blues and reds in sclera like old paper. He rocked back and forth on his heels as the elevator stopped. Going down, a faceless metallic voice said, as the doors opened and the man left. The people felt the warm blooms at the backs of their throats and marveled at the ease of their breaths. The two-year-old pressed every button
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within its reach with sticky tree-frog fingers. 1-13-4-6-5-10-8-19. No one noticed until the lights went off with a wheeze and the elevator rested on its placid haunches, in between the first and second floor. Going up. Now he was in the street, the man in the gray backpack and green coat, or was it the other way around? The people on the streets looked down at their feet without bumping into each other. He was the only one looking up. His face was like a thumbprint on Windexed glass. He walked into people without actually walking into them – veered past their
contours like a repelling magnet. But his eyes sought theirs. Those eyes. A woman in a car caught a glimpse of them like a passing blow or a key toss in a buddy movie. Swerving in her rearview mirror at the tail-end of a yellow. He was the only face in the crowd that remained a face, was her confused impression. He had eyes that shouldn’t be crying but that were.Was. Were. Plural. Eyes. Aluminum, reflective and unwrapped, discarded. His eyes were gray. She blinked and the light was red but her foot was still contemplating grammar. The man didn’t hear the crash. He walked into the nearest coffee shop and
placed himself at the end of a goodly line. The boy directly behind him was the first to notice the tears. It was fascinating the way every individual droplet followed the same preordained path, so that instead of crying in the multiple he seemed to just have one endless tear, the length of the Nile or the Styx. It was fascinating, the incongruity of it. The banal green jacket and the washed-up gray backpack and that long, glorious, ancient tear. The cashier accepted his money from his wet hands. She couldn’t remember what the fuck he ordered. She opened her mouth to ask. But she noticed the quiver
of his lips (the pucker of a bursting seam) and closed hers in solidarity. She poured him a coffee. Sir, she said, but her hands were suddenly shaking and she spilled coffee all over herself, the nice green apron, the lovely shining floor. The man didn’t notice but the boy behind him jumped backwards. Sir, she said again. I’m sorry. I’ll get you another. I’m fine, he said, clearly, the words not running together like wet newsprint the way everyone expected. And she couldn’t help it, maybe it was the burn on her
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28 side or the flowery tickle in her throat, maybe the sob leapt from his body to hers and from hers to the room’s, green-gray sad-eyed monster the color of ashes and violets, because suddenly everyone was crying. Children, grandmothers, moms, dads, hip young unmarrieds, students, the homeless guy next to the napkins. The people beat their breasts and upended their coffees and stamped their feet to the alien deep within them. A plume of smoke waved from the street like an old friend. And through the bliss of their tears
annunciation will fesperman
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after a 15th century tapestry in the Metropolitan Museum of Art The Spirit comes upon her as a dove into the ear, seed of Christ in osseous labyrinth, she shivering in the glory of an angel, Gabriel, dark and sudden before her. A book beside, she was reading, no more. In a bathroom down the hall
a man quivers at a urinal, beating off to men beside him. Fifty-something, bow-tie, tweed, behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it unto me according to thy word. I flap my tongue in your ear, wet feather, dark seed. Mind conceive. Be it unto you my word.
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to a halt sienna zeilinger In typical New England fashion, somebody was in somebody else’s way, and now I’m lying on my belly in the gravel of a used car lot (closed this September Sunday), bleeding and dizzy and face-toface with a squirrel. The sound of peeling tires, and then dust. Must’ve hit us both before he ran. Squirrel’s not doing so well. He keeps trying to get up, dragging his back legs. Keeps looking my way. I look around like who me but there’s no denying. He’s
coming closer. I roll over and examine my palms for show, watch him try to stand from between my fingers. Like he’s got something to say. Finally he cocks his head like what the hell’s going on here and I take off my helmet, which is cracked. He falls down and doesn’t move. “I don’t know,” I say, then say again.
still surprised ashlyn mooney Again: again: again: once more slow-melt grey months have trickled toward this morning—spring—when old refrains, still darkened, dipped-blue, winter-stained lift, groggy, from the muffled roots and bawl (ten shrill shine silver flutes): Unlock the paint peel creak hinge gate. You’re arching light, a ricochet. Romp clanging through the metal heap, swoop bright and wide. Crouch low. Now leap.
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primordial man jesse giguere I’ve found myself to be in love a total of three times. The first of these recipients now manages investment portfolios on Wall Street. During the hours in which the stock market is closed recipient No.1 has made a routine of exploring online databases for mail-order brides. These brides originate from Russian countryside. We met at age sixteen, prior to his habits coming into fruition and I question if I can somehow be made responsible.
The second of these recipients can be classified as “rebound.” My parents bought me a golden retriever following the breakup with recipient No.1 to repress my suicidal tendencies (i.e. this really deserves no other explanation). They surmised that if I were made responsible for another’s life I would reconsider taking my own. Deborah, recipient No.2, (i.e. name of aforementioned golden retriever) lived twelve jovial years, some of which in the care of my parents as I attended NYU and other years with me in New York City.
33 The third recipient of my then tainted, wounded heart was Primordial Man. I employ such a pseudonym for the nonfictional nature of this recipient. Deborah and Primordial Man overlapped for many years. I remained monogamous to each partner. In October of my second year at NYU I often frequented Washington Square Park for an hour of reflection. This meditative endeavor was repeatedly disrupted by babies. It was never cars or women or insects or tour guides but
babies who vandalized my transient state. Mothers would meander alongside my outstretched towel, interwoven legs and erect posture with their strollers and spawns–beady eyes peering out from behind the sun-visor, vomit dribbling down their frilly one-piece. They were usually seen gnawing on carrots, celery or another type of pre-cut vegetable– organized in plastic bags and pink-tinted kitchenware. I was in my customary position on one particular Sunday in October when fate delivered Primordial
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Man to my towel. He was trudging across the sparse grassy reserves (i.e. about a 10 ft. by 12 ft. rectangle) of Washington Square Park with crampons (i.e. traction devices used to improve mobility on snow and ice). Both his abdomen and backside were outfitted with aquamarine backpacks. A blue tube ran from the front backpack to the crease between his parted lips. He was dirty and yet unspoiled–as if he had no home–as if he had come from nowhere and everywhere all at once. Watching him, observing him felt more like an act of espionage then simple curiosity. He was so contradictory, so dissimilar,
so antonymous to anything within our vicinity it became unimaginable to direct my focus onto anything but his disposition. He wore loneliness; a loneliness that had found no solace in the relational; not in this time, not in this place. I imagined he had been elsewhere–somewhere I could not envision; and it was in this place he found something exceptional–something that transcended his immediate solitude. So I waited for him to crampon onto my towel because I knew he would. I inhabited a part of the treasured grass and soon our shared need for a piece of the untouched would collide. And so I fell in love with Primordial
Man (i.e. to be told in another narrative when I have some candles or KY warming lotion to set the mood and a box of saltine crackers and peanut butter or maybe just another boyfriend to distract from my distress and eternal loneliness when the story is over). Primordial Man was rustic. For a period of time I found myself recording in my journal the days in which Primordial man chose to bathe. I will concede his routines were partially my doing. At some point during our romantic undertakings Primordial Man moved into my single dorm-room at NYU (i.e. highly illicit activity). We concluded it to be unsafe for
him to use the restroom or showers in fear that a dorm-room monitor would become aware of his presence. Thus Primordial Man became well acquainted with nearby public restrooms in order to execute daily bowel movements, these include: Quiznos, Regency Hotel, 7-Eleven, Mr. Gills Fish Supplies, X-Videos R US, and NYU Admissions Office. He used my sink for urination only. Showers on the other hand presented another setback. I came to maintain a large collection of baby wet-wipes from Pampers, which we exploited to towel-down his moistest regions. I unintentionally prepared myself for motherhood. We often took the train
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to National Parks outside of New York City to find public showers. Gateway National Recreation Area on Long Island became our preferred choice. They offered an array of bathing options and ensured a reasonable water-temperature. At one point, discouraged by the lack of restrooms available on Sundays, Primordial Man suggested the use of diapers. And so for one Sunday, while I completed Calculus exercises, Primordial Man lounged in some Sweet Cheeks diapers urinating as he pleased. I forbade any defecation in my presence. Nonetheless, Sweet Cheeks diapers engendered an unusual rash, which deterred him from further use and I from
sex altogether. It was difficult to find eroticism and sensuality in baby-rash. It has been suggested on various occasions that Deborah (i.e. aforementioned golden retriever) finds herself in the limelight of my conversations with strangers and acquaintances far too often. I am reminded of this regularly. “Isabelle, nobody cares.” [Primordial Man] “Unfair. I care about other peoples house pets.” [Me] “Nobody cares. Deborah could get hit by 17 cars. Deborah could fall out your window and kill 9 people with her plummeting body. Deborah could contract
SARS. For all we know, Deborah could really be Stevie Nicks in a dog suit. Baby, nobody wants to chat about Deb over coffee and even while eating really good pizza.” [Primordial Man] “…. Except I. I’ll always care.You know that. We can talk about Deborah forever– long past her death, my death, your death. The fun–it don’t stop with Deborah.” [Primordial Man] It is at this point that I will place blame upon myself for the incidence (i.e. death) that is to unfold. It is evident that throughout the course of Primordial Man and my partnership I made clear my affections for domestic animals. Primordial Man was a
simple man (i.e. a revelation one could conclude (if endowed with any degree of intellect) from my utilization of the pseudonym). He was a simple man so far as I knew or anyone. And with this simplicity he carried no past, nor future–as if he was alive now and maybe dead before. And with this simplicity he condemned stagnancy–as if he had only this moment and the next was passing. And so we went hunting. He had an unusual obsession with the next apocalypse (i.e. for Primordial Man it was the current apocalypse–it was never not the apocalypse). Because of the current state of world affairs Primordial Man endlessly needed to replenish and
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preserve our stock of provisions. These were deemed necessary for our survival (i.e. a survival that was critical in order for us to repopulate the world with a stronger, greater being once the rest had been disposed of). Primordial Man often said, while eating each morning at 7 a.m., “Evolution has failed.” He often said it at 9 p.m. too. On my refrigerator hung a list of our provisions. Some of these included: Hummus, Deborah, Buffalo skins, Radio, Handcuffs, Taser, Bike, Guns, Grenade, Isabelle, Unidentified Doctor, Oil Refineries, power bars and animal meat. And so we went hunting. Often. Primordial Man demanded that I learn
to hunt and develop a set of survival skills. The fact that I did not already know how to hunt was a subject of great contention. Once I had been courted successfully and found myself hopelessly in love, he then requested my presence on the hunt (i.e. as if he knew that now I would yes–as opposed to before).There comes this point in relationships, if they continue onward for long enough, when it’s acceptable to demand entirely unacceptable things. It’s a comfort thing I imagine. I was outfitted for the hunt with rawhides and mink. After four months of courtship I was endowed with a handcrafted archery set. My bow-and-arrow was magnificent.
Sometimes, I sat it at the kitchen table, like a houseguest or a parent. You might suppose that archery– hunting to be more precise–is an inherent quality requiring minimal practice considering our ancestral lineage. This is a false assumption. Another false assumption is that hunting is permissible in Central Park. We tried to practice my hunting on multiple occasions in the Park’s shrubbery, aiming my bow at unassuming squirrels, homeless bystanders and pigeons. Unfortunately, the police typically intervened. In retrospect this was most likely due to our furs and buckskin. Thus, we relocated our practice drills to
Gateway National Recreation Area on Long Island (i.e. aforementioned bathing location). We found a degree of privacy amongst the evergreen trees and lush knolls. It was a grey Wednesday–a dewy, overcast, shadowy Wednesday. My possum overcoat collected beads of warm moisture, each individual fur partnered with a droplet of salty vapor. It clung to us, stuck to our skin. Primordial Man seemed at ease in the humidity–like it calmed him–cloaked him in patience. We waited–hunched behind thick, lush lilac bushes. His finger pressed against my lips in an attempt to silence my chitchat–my
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intake of air. Our provisions were low. I was reminded before pulling into the park, “This isn’t a game Isabelle-baby. This is real life.” After such a comment, I usually asked myself, “Is this real life?” To which I found no answer. Within seconds Primordial Man outstretched the bow across his chest. A rustling had grabbed his attention. He heard things I never knew existed. Before I could scream or protest or focus my eyes on the animal in pursuit the arrow had been launched. I had no time to sacrifice myself. The weight of the deceased collapsed to the dirt. It was a quiet, distant thud. Primordial Man sprang from behind our outpost as if
another primordial creature was waiting in a nearby bush to steal his conquest. As we neared the kill and the body revealed itself, I realized this was not a squirrel or pigeon or homeless bystander. The tag read: Felicity: (646) 986-6953. Felicity, the hairless Siamese feline, lay crumpled on a patch of bloody soil–the arrow extending from her small, innocent skull. Felicity’s collar was pink. Her body was adorned with a mini, pink coat. Felicity was dead– very dead. At this point Primordial Man and I had a falling-out. I sent him back to wherever he came from–which I have concluded was nowhere and refused to
communicate. I had envisioned that once his acts of disgrace were forgiven I would find him at a park, jail or homeless shelter. But he found me before I could find him. I had not seen Primordial Man in two weeks. I have a doormat, it reads, “Got Cake.” Upon this doormat she sat. Felicity–so white, so hairless, so real. Her pink accessories had been revived. Her whiskers had been made thick. Her tongue had been restored. She patiently awaited my embrace–tale outstretched into the air. And as I bent down with ephemeral joy to nuzzle her body into my caring embrace I was astonished by her hard exterior. Her body had no budge. She was dead and
yet so alive. As I cradled her figure in my arms she remained frozen–a Popsicle to my touch. And there I stood in a moment that seemed like it would last until the next apocalypse–snuggling Felicity, the taxidermy-popsicle cat. And everything was made right again.
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cliff pam munoz The wind whispered here, but perhaps it was only the echo of a scream somewhere else. It was slow, the way she seemed to crumble. You had thought that when someone collapsed, it would be from the knees or maybe the ankles, but it was almost as if her chest became a dead weight, a sanded slab of stone, and her limbs were rendered feather-light and blew away from within her.
43 Knees blending into terracotta stone, elbows backwards into the air and clenched fingers meeting the earth with unmitigated power. The wind danced, the wind sung, the sun was completely gone. “I'm so tired,� she murmured, and the whisper of wind sounded like a howl as it stretched around two isolated bodies and her eyes became thinner than the white of distance.
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the archipelago chelsea fernando The archipelago has only two seasons: dry and wet. Calm and monstrous. From December to May ocean breezes saunter between sand dunes and through holes in rattan fences in small Spanish filigrees, and from June to November rain comes down in sheets that fill metropolitan streets with acidic soup and transform the entire nation into an obsidian canal. During the dry season Estella and I lived near the reefs. Near the reefs you can always tell which part of town you’re in by the way that the land changes under your toes when you close your eyes. It is the kind of place
where people sell noodles that they soak and stretch themselves, that they hang-dry on bamboo frames constructed so close to the wave-break that the men and women and cotton-clad Estellas who buy those noodles have to spend ten minutes after dinner picking grains of sand from the dimples in their wisdom teeth. ••
45 During the rains Estella and I were shipped north to the city for schooling. In the city, the land is flat and rough and hard; it never changes. Only the people change. Cologne-marinated gentlemen with big chins and fine hair slicked back with Manila tar become powdered ladies with high cheekbones and invisible waists become faceless phantoms draped in assorted goblin textiles—nylon, rayon, polyester. In the city Estella made me wear rubber Mary-Janes, the closed shoes with thick straps that clench your insteps so that when you’ve finished running after
the train underground all morning Stella won’t have to spend the entire afternoon scrubbing tuberculosis and premarital sex from the bottoms of your feet. And then sometimes in the evenings you can take off your slippers in the living room and when the jalousie shutters are feeling generous and not so arthritic, a whimpering draft is allowed to amble in and Estella rolls her head back with closed eyes and listens to the savage surf buffeting the rocks of the wind-worn shoreline.
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postscript  lizzie davis he watched from window on 3rd street the straight lines of rose beds stood, danced a little polka the mansard roof on the governor’s house tipped its cap the street signs and shop windows sang in almost-harmonies and shattered and saw some kind of liberation in the way the salt water lashed telephone poles and brought down structures the whole town had thought indelible tall and pompous
47 there would have been a cinematic allure in the frames, had they been captured billowing skirts that swallowed the screen and terror on freckled faces bricks and concrete tossed back and forth in a game by a wind that laughed, not ominous but childlike his fingers itched for the restoration in destruction he knelt, picked up a book floating face-down in flood waters and touched the mint-smooth surface of an inkless page
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the color of my brother evan sweren Jon died yellow. He got caught in balloons and almost flew away. Mom said she didn’t want them there. He said please can I have them and she couldn’t help but listen. Mom was sorry. On his fifth birthday there was cake. Pink hung from a tree. It looked immunosuppressed. When he swung and it shattered on the first swing the kids rushed at nothing and she said it’s time for cake.The kids rushed the table. She broke the paper and hinged the plastic. They all sang. The cake dripped. She took a picture. He made a wish.
Sally died grey. She was old and couldn’t breathe and the cake in her throat would follow her to the grave. They sang happy birthday when she just turned one and for the seventy-seventh time while little Johnnie did the cha cha cha. In the fifties she dosey doed with the captain of the football squad. Her chest was tight then and smiled beneath grinning wires and cotton. When the band played her favorite song and she leaned on his shoulder and breathed she smelled his father. He made the
49 boys sweat. Sally was cheerleading captain and stayed late to do splits and those other things radio and billboards said was ruining today’s youth. When the song ended she kissed his cheek. They walked to his car. The chrome winked at the moon. He drove to his dad’s barn and in the shadows dragged her in. He slid beneath her skin and got lost in the hay. She said take off your ring. He lost it in the dark. Jimmy died red. He died scared and shitless and covered in paint. He was 185. He
stood five foot ten on the naked soles of his feet and wore a mustache where he could. Jimmy had a shaved head. A Star of David charmed his neck. His clothes hung prehistoric. He prayed each night. When he turned eight days a man with a hat cut his piece and a blessed him and gave him wine to drink. His dad gave him a name. They called him James. When he turned thirteen they gave him a silver hand and people clapped for him as his father kissed his head. When he turned eighteen they gave him a gun as Nixon listened in and
50 he cursed god. They painted eggs while he ran with fire and scorn as little boys and little girls with their boy bits exposed and lady bits all sooty gooked as the forest burned and families and fighters charcoaled over and lovers’ skin turned to stars and blistered opened against the blackening world. His friends looked for water. They couldn’t find water. He screamed. They found gasoline. They found paint they used to hide their faces.
foreigners piper french These have been my evenings. Languorous balconies, slow spiraling cigarette smoke. Trieste was beautiful in July, too hot in the day but perfect at night. We stayed in—shades down, alarm off. Rosé at 3, covers pushed down among our sticky feet, skin humid. You had never seemed so beautiful in the dark with your messy damp hair and your chapped lips and the strip of light just under the shade illuminating right where your eyes were, making them glow gold. We stayed in. You sat spread on the sofa in the other room reading your book.
51 Short stories, love poems. I lay on the cool floor with my face pressed into the vague pattern of it. Occasional venturing onto the clay balcony to smoke or eat a croissant and wave at the elderly neighbor across the way. Ancient creased face like wax paper, confused to not see the owner of the flat but instead two foreigners: not quite tan, bleary eyed, mute. When it started to get dark, the kind of retreat that paints the buildings gold and turns the corners of everything a dusty purple color, we would go out. Raise the shades, lock the door, walk into
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town for gelato. No fidelity to flavors. We wanted everything but did not get it. Later dinner—we loved things out of order, wine that was too warm really, salads with anything thrown into them. Then hours spent with friends, watching the harbor from a great height, air balmy, just warm enough for the pressing darkness. Bottles of rosé, prim china cups of espresso stacked clatteringly onto each other. We smoked and talked about nothing, and not long before the sun threatened to rise again, left. Back to the apartment, remember to put the shades down again.You tasted like ash, like the sea.
Later after three kids and a few nowhere jobs and life coming crushingly back to confront us, to remind us that we have not escaped it, I hold onto these memories like an antidote to time. Our weeks spent on the balcony still so vivid, the colors remembered brighter than they must have been, your hair impossibly long and your eyes impossibly bright. It stays with me. You quit, I still smoke but there’s nothing romantic about it now, it’s frowns at bus stops and raw knuckles and that stale smell that starts to attach itself to all of my clothes and not youth and red wine and radios played on passing boats amidst the raw dark.
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Grant Heinlein • Untitled Digital Photography 2011
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Milan Koerner-Safrata • Bust Portrait of John Keith, Seated Digital Collage 2012
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Raghda Maaliki • Reckoner Mixed Media 2013
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Sierra Barela • Man in Striped Chair Acrylic and Oil on Canvas 2013
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Brandon Wang • Pillars I Photography 2012
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Elise Mortensen • Suburbia 1 & Suburbia 2 Water-Based Woodblock Print 2013
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Evan Grothjan • American Landscape - Bathroom Digital 2013
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Jia Sung • Self-Portrait With One Eye Oil on Canvas 2012
Katelyn Strutz • Merlin and Alba Plasticine 2013
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Victoria Leonard • Playhouse 35mm Film 2012
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