Clever Fox Literary Magazine - Issue 004

CLEVER FOX L I T E R A RY M AG A Z I N E

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ISSUE 004

A note from your Guest Editor Dear Readers,

Table of contents Fiction

03 Gone | Benjamin Bishop

I am honored that Nikki and Elaina asked me to be a guest editor for Issue 004 of The Clever Fox Literary Magazine. As someone who cares deeply about the written word, it was a pleasure to read and help curate this issue from the many talented submissions we received.

04 Better Haunts and Gardens| Jude Deluca

As a writer, I have a soft spot for independent literary magazines as they are where fresh, new voices and undiscovered seasoned writers are often found. If you find a work that evokes a response, I urge you to search out how you can continue to see more work from that artist or writer. Art created for an audience is meant to be enjoyed and consumed. I hope you will do both with the works that follow.

10 11am in camden | Sarah Butkovic

With appreciation, Ariane Elizabeth Scholl

Flash & Micro

08 Jackalope Creek | Elizabeth Anne Schwartz

Non-fiction

12 But First, This | Andrea Cope

Poetry

15 the spring wind | Sarah Butkovic 17 f ragility and the nature of death | Cat Speranzini 17 Young Spirit | Kate McCabe

POEM ON PG 15

18 to howard, my uber driver | Jessi Kim 20 Table Manners | T.K. Lee 21 a f rayed past (use by date) | Paris Rosemont

Ariane Elizabeth Scholl

Ariane Elizabeth Scholl is a writer based in Batavia, IL. Her work has been published in Hypertext, Chicago Literati, The Wayfarer Magazine and Rust + Moth. She is the founder and co-owner of Hearth & Hammer, a general store and literary candle studio.

Her candles have been in over 150 bookstores and shops across the U.S. including Strand Books, Powell’s Bookstore and Shakespeare & Co. Bookstore in New York City, as well as featured in Buzzfeed, Bustle, Byrdie, Hello Sunshine and Huffpost. She studied novel writing at the University of Chicago’s Graham School where her work was nominated to be read at Printer’s Row Fest. You can read more from her on Substack.

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22 The Monarchy | Jenna Essenburg

Art & Photography

08 Passing Through | Michael Ward 16 Kitsune | Michael Putorti 19 The Right Brother | Sheldon Kleeman 19 Blue Boogie | Sheldon Kleeman 23 The I’s Have It | Sheldon Kleeman 24 Artist Biographies 25 Cover Credits

Fiction Gone Benjamin Bishop For what it was worth, at least he left a note.

Sarah Acosta sat at her kitchen table, staring at nothing and everything all at once. The big wooden clock, hanging by the backdoor, echoed in the stillness of the room. Each repetitive tick, matching her own hollow heartbeat, another reminder of each passing second he was no longer there.

But he was everywhere.

Sarah and Mike had lived in this home, their home, for the last two years, and everything in it now was a reminder of him.

At first, they didn’t think they would be able to afford a house, but they had made it work. Her, packing their lunches every morning so that they wouldn’t have to order take out, making sure they had enough money each month for their gas or electric bill. Him, picking up extra shifts here and there on the weekends, and sometimes even at night, so that they could buy a new couch from the yard sale two streets over. And because Mike had seen the way Sarah really wanted the chair that matched, he convinced the older couple running the yard sale to let them have it for an extra ten bucks.

“You don’t mind that it’s more faded than the couch?” Mike asked as he loaded the yellow chair into the back of their truck.

“No. It has charm.”

Money had been tight that first year, but they had been able to manage together. After a while, pinching pennies didn’t seem so bad anymore.

They had fallen into a comfortable routine, as most married couples do.

But she had allowed herself to get too comfortable.

The house felt somehow smaller, now that he was gone. Not that the house was big to begin with.

Their home, her home now, she would have to remind herself of that, was a small two bedroom, one bathroom, cottage style house. She was afraid it would be too small because it was only two bedrooms. Mike knew that Sarah wanted to have a lot of kids, that was the reason why she was concerned, and he told her not to worry. He said the house had character and all it needed was a woman’s touch. That had made Sarah smile because Mike never said things like that.

But he had been right.

“As long as I have you living with me,” she recalled him saying, as they both stood on the porch and turned the key to their new home, hands shaking a little, “Then I have the best house in the neighborhood.”

She had been proud of their home. They had made it theirs.

They began filling their house, little by little, with furniture. Eventually, they replaced the old carpet, and because Mike was able to install it himself, they were able to purchase two weather-beaten rocking chairs to put out on the front porch. She imagined rocking in them, sipping coffee as they grew old together. Pictures and artwork started going up on the walls. Mike had hung those up too. He even bought a few fake plants and put them up on some of the shelves.

“I thought the house needed some more color,” he had said.

She had missed something.

“And you know what I think?” Sarah asked, smiling up into her husband’s eyes. “I think we might need to add a little color to the nursery too.”

Now, when the sinks got clogged, like they always did, or a leg wobbled on one of the kitchen chairs, as they had a tendency to do, it would be up to her to take care of it. It would be her responsibility now.

“Nursery? Are you?” Mike looked at his wife, flabbergasted. Sarah smiled and nodded, before being picked up and spun around the room by her overjoyed husband.

She didn’t even know where he kept the screwdriver.

She loved the way his laughter filled their home.

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The house had begun to feel big. Looking around at everything now, she realized that it had felt that way because of him.

Better Haunts and Gardens Jude Deluca

Now, sitting at the kitchen table, staring down at the note he had left, the home felt like a reminder of their former life. A prison she could not escape from because everything had been theirs. She was embarrassed to have anyone come over now because she knew what they would be thinking.

When I was a kid, I wasn’t afraid of ghosts because I saw them all the time. Not in person. I knew they were out there and all around us. To me, seeing them was a fun little game.

She knew that they would feel sorry for her and she didn’t want them to. She wanted him back.

She wanted him to tell her that everything was going to be alright, like he always did. She wanted him to be with her now so that she would not have to face all the questions and all the stares from people who had known them together, as Mike and Sarah, and not her alone.

It started when I was little, about 4, on one of those days when Mom took me with her to do grocery shopping. She’d make me sit in that awful part in front of the shopping cart no matter how much I hated it or how uncomfortable I felt. It made me feel like a prisoner, which I guess is the way all little kids feel when they’re forced into that seat. I’d squirm and complain while trying to climb into the basket with the groceries, which I thought would be more fun to ride around in.

Sarah read the note again. Sentences she had read a hundred times, spilling over every word, still made no sense. Maybe she had missed something. It was like trying to decipher a foreign language she had never been made privy to. She held the note in both hands, trying to make sense of what he had written, hoping to find a hidden word or a phrase that she perhaps had missed before. But she already knew what the note said and knew there was nothing she had missed.

He had not left any hidden messages for her to discover.

She hated that this would be her last memory of him.

Sarah placed the note on the table. She sat for a moment longer and then stood and walked to the back door, looking out at the long green grass that was growing there. A crow that was sitting on the fence, flew by the window, and then vanished out of sight.

Slowly, Sarah’s hands drifted down and rested slightly below her stomach.

It stopped being fun when I was 12.

Mom got me to be still by promising I could pick something to buy for myself when we got to the register. Waiting until we reached the checkoutline seemed even more agonizing, but Mom swore I’d get “one thing” if I was patient. I intended to hold her to it when we finally reached the magazine racks and candy display. Years later I learned those’re called “impulse buys.” When you’re a kid, everything’s done on impulse.

I know I could’ve grabbed a candy bar or one of those little comics about the ugly redhead boy dating the blonde girl and black-haired girl at the same time. If I did, that might’ve only delayed the inevitable. Mom thought it was cute, me wanting a copy of Heart & Home Magazine even though I could barely read.

When we got home Dad gave me the weirdest look before he asked Mom “Why does Lindy have an interior design magazine?”

Mom shrugged with the catch-all answer “Kids.”

One more memory.

Benjamin Bishop

Benjamin Bishop resides in Riverside County, CA. Benjamin has both a Bachelors and Masters in English Literature. Benjamin has poetry, fiction, and non-fiction published in several literary magazines and anthologies, such as Clever Fox Literary Magazine, The Expressionist Literary Magazine, The Humanist, Hey Hey Books, and Reverie Magazine.

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thought they were real diamonds and rubies and such).

I stomped my foot as I pointed at the old lady in the picture, insisting she was right there. How could Mom not see her? Didn’t she see where I was pointing? Mom shook her head, saying something about “The imaginary friend phase.”

As for me, I didn’t know anything about “interior design” whatever that was. I gazed at the pictures of fancy houses and recipes with pictures of tasty meals and sweets. The cakes especially had me drooling. I wish I knew how to bake. There were pages of smiling families standing outside beautiful houses and inside living rooms that didn’t look at all like mine. It made me jealous, wishing I lived in a home like the ones in those photos. Sometimes I even wondered what it would be like to be part of those families. Please don’t tell my parents.

The whole thing really started when I asked my parents about the smiling people in those pictures. This was the age when I believed my parents had the answer to everything.

“Who’s that?” I randomly pointed at a man with neatly combed blonde hair and perfect teeth.

“He probably owns the house,” Mom answered.

“Who’s that?” I pointed to the blonde woman standing next to him with equally blonde hair and equally perfect teeth.

“Maybe his wife,” Mom answered.

“And who’s that?” I pointed to an old lady standing next to the wife. She didn’t look like the husband or the wife.

“Who?” “That old lady.” I jabbed my finger at the picture, right near the border of the page. “Is that a grandma? She looks like Grandma.”

“Lindy.” Mom said patiently. “There’s no old lady in the photo.”

I didn’t understand what Mom was talking about.

I clearly saw an old woman where my finger rested. She reminded me of my own grandma, with gray cotton candy curls and glasses in a shiny, sparkly jacket covered in gemstones (I didn’t know what rhinestones were back then, so I

Angry at being talked down to, I ran to my room and curled up in my closet as I usually did whenever I sulked or was sad or didn’t want to be around people. From the way the closet lightbulb shone down on me, I could make out the old lady perfectly. I wasn’t imagining anything. I knew she was in the photo. She was hard to miss with how she clashed with the man and woman.

I wondered who she was. In the rest of the magazine, I found more pictures featuring people who didn’t fit in with the rest of the families like the old lady.

It took me a while to realize I was looking at ghosts.

What I was seeing wasn’t limited to pictures in a magazine. As I got older, I found people who were out of place in family photos and pictures on billboards and advertisements. Strangely I never saw any on TV. I still wonder why I only see them in still photos.

Clothes and hair were the telltale sign. The older the clothing, the more likely I was looking at a ghost. The most extreme example had to be the boy with the tri-corner hat and brass button jacket like they wore in George Washington’s time. I’m still expecting to stumble upon maybe a caveman or two, but it hasn’t happened just yet.

The thing is the ghosts I’ve found never seem angry or terrifying. Often, they were happy or sad. They don’t go out of their way to make sure I see them if they can. None of them ever move in the pictures, so I don’t think it’s the pictures themselves that are haunted. They’re always… there.

I wish I had someone explain the rules to me if there are any. Stumbling into things blindly is never fun for me, but I don’t know who I could ask.

It was scary at first. I wondered if ghosts were all around me, but I never felt anything. Rooms never get cold when I spot a dead person in a photo.

Nothing ever gets knocked over and doors don’t slam by themselves to indicate I’m not alone.

Once I tried talking to the ghosts to get a reaction, but nothing happened. Even though I could see them, that’s as far as it went.

One day I looked through old photo albums my great aunt kept in the upstairs apartment, searching for people who didn’t belong. It was

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weird. In black and white photos, I’d see fully colored people. Guess ghosts don’t see things in black and white. Go figure.

Mom and Dad called me “imaginative” for a little girl and thought it funny I collected Heart & Home. Reading the articles, I’d learn more if some family recently had a death, giving me an idea of who was haunting their photo shoots.

Over time, I’d gotten pretty good at recognizing subtle details to indicate if there was an uninvited guest in the shot. Mainly body language and facial expressions. I’d yet to encounter a figure with blood pouring from their mouths or gaping wounds in their heads.

Yet. I’ve kept my “ghost vision” to myself. Not even the kids at school know about it. Only my family knew of my “ghost game” from when I was little.

I’d make a sour face whenever Mom and Dad tell their friends about how I’d pretend to see ghosts in old photos, laughing about my morbid imagination. Parents can be so cruel.

They wouldn’t be laughing if they knew what I know now.

Last summer, sometime after my 12th birthday, I stayed with my Grandma and Grandpa on my mom’s side at their beach house in New Jersey.

While I was out food shopping with Grandma (thank goodness I didn’t have to sit in the cart anymore), I spotted a new issue of Heart & Home at the magazine rack. I was surprised to see Alice and Alex Klein, kids from school, on the cover with their parents. I wasn’t friends with them. In fact, most of the kids at school weren’t friends with the Kleins.

Alice and Alex Klein were a couple of spoiled brats who often bragged about all the cool stuff their family got to do because they’re rich.

Most couldn’t stand their attitudes, not even the teachers. As for me personally, I didn’t care as much since the Kleins and I were in different grades. They did live down the block from me.

Alice and Alex lived in exactly the kind of house that would end up in Heart & Home. It seemed like their mom always spent every waking moment tending her garden in front of the house. No kid on our street would dare mess with one of Mrs. Klein’s blossoms or she’d have her husband sue their families into the ground. She also had one in the back I’d heard of but never saw because it was closed off. Alice and Alex loved to brag about their parents having a huge pool that no one else was invited to use, not even during the hottest days of summer.

Wondering what ghosts haunted the Kleins, my amusement turned to confusion when I found the Klein Family photos and recognized my English teacher Ms. Newburn. There she was standing

in their garden next to Mr. Klein, looking upset.

And there she was again in the back garden. My confusion over Ms. Newburn’s presence made me ignore how absolutely gorgeous the Kleins’ backyard garden was. Why was she there?

Ms. Newburn hated the Klein kids. They never behaved in her class. Well, a lot of kids didn’t behave in Ms. Newburn’s class, which I never understood. I always thought Ms. Newburn was cool because she doesn’t tell us what books are supposed to mean and lets us draw our own conclusions.

“Oh.” That was when it hit me.

Mom sounded funny when I called and asked about Ms. Newburn.

“I’m having some trouble with the summer reading assignments and wanted to ask her a couple of questions,” I lied. “I’m almost done reading The Turn of the Screw, but I forgot if I’m supposed to write an essay about the nanny or the kids.” I already finished the essay before I left for New Jersey, but Mom didn’t know that. “Could you ask her for me and call me back?” “…”

“Mom?” “Can you give the phone to Grandma for a moment?”

“But you’ll ask Ms. Newburn, right?”

“Just let me speak to Grandma.”

Reluctantly I handed the phone to Grandma, watching the expression on her face go from confused to neutral as Mom spoke to her on the other end. She quickly turned away from me and spoke in a low voice so I couldn’t hear what she was saying. If they didn’t want me to know something was wrong, they were doing a poor job.

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At that moment I felt like I did when I was 4 years old, after seeing that old woman in the magazine for the first time. I couldn’t stand being patronized yet again. As Grandma hung up the phone, I blurted out without thinking, “Ms. Newburn’s dead, isn’t she?”

“Dead?” Grandma turned to me looking absolutely appalled at the suggestion. “Heavens, no! Linda why would you ever say such a thing?”

“Because why else would you and Mom be acting this way unless something bad happened to her,” I reasoned. “I’m not a little kid, Grandma. I know about death.” Boy did I know about death.

“Your mother said she’s gone.”

“Gone?’” I mimicked. “Gone where?”

“They don’t know. She left town with, well,” Grandma grimaced. “This isn’t the sort of the thing a child should worry about, but your mother said Ms. Newburn left with the father of one of your classmates.” “…Who?” “Klein, I think. Their mother said the two ran off together.” Grandma kept on talking as I stood there. “Those poor children. Your mother said Mrs. Klein forced your friends to go through with some magazine interview even after their father ran off.”

“Hold on a sec Grandma.” I ran to my bedroom and retrieved the copy of Heart & Home I purchased at the supermarket. Pointing to a photo of the Kleins (and Ms. Newburn), I asked “You mean these kids? Those two kids and their mom in the photo?”

“I guess that must be them,” Grandma answered.

“Your mother did say it was a recent interview.”

I tried to keep my hands from shaking as I said, “And you’re absolutely certain mom said it was the Kleins?”

“Isn’t that their name on the cover?” Grandma tsk-tsked. “I can only imagine how miserable your friends must’ve been when they took this photo.”

I quietly said, “The Klein siblings aren’t my friends.”

“Either way, try to be considerate the next time you see them.” Grandma shook her head. “You can’t imagine what it must be like to have a parent disappear on you in such an abrupt manner. Those poor children.”

Nodding in agreement, I left the kitchen for my guest bedroom. Lying on the bed, I held the copy of Heart & Home up to study the expressions on

Alice and Alex Klein. How I missed their smiles were forced the first time I looked. How their mother’s happy expression was not. I realized Mr. Klein wasn’t standing next to his wife, but next to Ms. Newburn the whole time.

I’d be going home in less than two weeks. During those two weeks, I racked my brain trying to figure out the best way to tell Alice and Alex Klein where their dad, and Ms. Newburn, really were.

And then the police. But they probably wouldn’t believe me, would they? Maybe an anonymous tip from a pay phone, like on TV? As I mentally rehearsed what to tell the police, I also wondered what would happen to Alice and Alex afterwards. True I didn’t really like them, but, being brats didn’t mean they deserved to be in this situation. And if this is what their mother was capable of, I couldn’t just leave them in that house. If something happened to either of them, I’d have to live with the guilt for the rest of my life.

I kept staring at the photos of the Kleins’ backyard. I had to admit Mrs. Klein’s backyard garden really was a sight to behold.

I wondered where, exactly, she must’ve buried the bodies.

I remember, when my grandparents drove me home, their car passed by the Klein house. Mrs. Klein was watering some plants by the front door.

No, she didn’t stop and wave at me, but I thought about it as I snuck out later that night, around 1 AM. I walked for several blocks until I found a payphone as far from my house as I was willing to venture.

“911 what’s your emergency?”

I took a deep breath. It was now or never.

“Hello? Is anyone there? Hello?”

“I have information regarding the disappearances of Janet Newburn and Patrick Klein.”

Jude Deluca

Jude Deluca is a nonbinary aegosexual Capricorn.

Their areas of interest are YA horror, magical girls, slasher fiction, superhero dads, and big beautiful men. They got tired of waiting for people to write the stories they want to read, so have started doing it themself. They can be found on twitter as @judedeluca1990, and on instagram, tumblr, facebook, and bluesky as @judedeluca

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Passing Through

by Michael Ward | Bio on page 24

Flash & Micro

Medium: Acrylic on Canvas

Jackalope Creek

Elizabeth Anne Schwartz “Beautiful evening,” Maeve says.

She isn’t wrong. I can see the moon through the gaps in the treetops, like half a pearl, rising as we walk.

The trees cast shadows across the trail, and brown and yellow leaves twirl at our feet. The breeze is almost warm—rare for October—and the air smells musty, with a hint of spice.

And of course, there’s Maeve in her pale orange sweater, curls tumbling down her back, looking eternally calm. Five years older than her baby sister, and a million times more put together than me, inside and out.

We’re almost home—we hiked all the way to Jackalope Creek, then circled back toward town—

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and I still haven’t told her.

I can’t say it back at the house, with our mom listening around every corner. And we shouldn’t linger, not in the thick of the woods. Nightfall is when the wolves start circling, our dad has said since we were small. Adding, with a wink, And other unnatural things.

I think of Kaylie, the new girl at Brookside Junior High, with hair as red as the leaves under my boots, and freckles across her nose like the stars appearing in the sky. When I picture her, my insides tie themselves in knots—clove hitch and bowline and all the others I learned on camping trips in scouts.

How can I tell Maeve that when I close my eyes, I’m almost always imagining holding Kaylie’s hand at our town’s annual bonfire? Sitting shoulder-toshoulder as the flames flicker and curl against the black sky.

Do I just say it? I think…I’m a girl who likes girls. Do I share that when Kaylie smiles at me, it’s like flint against steel, and hope Maeve understands?

I open my mouth, unsure what will come out.

But my sister speaks first: “What’s that?”

Her brow is furrowed, arm raised to shield me. We freeze, peering farther down the trail, where something crouches in our path—a blur of horn, fur, and shadow.

At first I think it’s some kind of stray dog, its coarse brown hair matted with dirt, back hunched as if in pain. It’s hard to see clearly, and we don’t dare move closer. The creature rocks forward, an awkward hopstep, and I worry it’s injured…until I realize it’s a rabbit, with long hind feet and a wispy tail.

The thing lifts its head, and Maeve grips my wrist hard enough to leave a bruise. She doesn’t realize she’s hurting me, and I’m just glad for the reminder that I’m not alone, trying to make sense of what I’m seeing, bone and velvet rising from the rabbit’s skull.

I meet its round, dark eye—deep as a cave, with magic glinting in the stone—and it darts into the brush, toward the untrodden parts of the forest.

Maeve and I gape at the empty trail, watching shadows sway and leaves rustle, then look at each other.

“It’s getting dark,” I say. My sister puts her arm around my shoulders, and we quicken our pace, huddled together as twilight falls heavy around us.

We’re close to the bend in the path and the glimmer of town, and I still haven’t said Kaylie’s name.

Sharing what’s in my heart feels more impossible than moonlit folklore, rabbits crowned in antlers. So I lean against Maeve, let her hold me tight, and I don’t say anything. Not yet.

Elizabeth Anne Schwartz

Elizabeth Anne Schwartz (she/her) writes sapphic fiction and poetry, and loves all things dark, lyrical, and confessional. She earned her BA in Creative Writing at Purchase College. Her chapbook, Nine Stages of Coming Out, was recently released by tiny wren lit. Visit her website at elizabethanneschwartz.carrd.co/

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Companion piece on page 15

11am in camden Sarah Butkovic 11 a.m. in Camden, Maine was bouncing in the back of my cousin’s best friend’s pickup that was far too abrasive for him to be driving. Expletives were unapologetically roaring from the radio and dissolving in the tepid air, the windows fully down to make sure everyone around us knew we weren’t afraid to say fuck. As the rap songs wore on, the juxtaposition of someone as callow-looking as Judah singing about banging hookers and smoking pot became more and more amusing. It reminded me of the way kids would echo curse words like new school vocabulary — and I had to fight the urge to giggle all the way there.

When we arrived at the creek, we were dried out and dirt-speckled from the droplets of gravel that hit us during our drive. Judah climbed out of his car like a walking stick as I took in the stretch of land around me. As advertised, a small creek snaked through a garden of birches before emptying out into a tiny lake. Two wizened oaks guarded the mouth of the water, stout and solid like the Royal guardsmen. A couple toddlers splashed around in rain boots and threw clumps of confetti into the air.

“So this is really it?” I asked dubiously. “This is where you guys hang out?”

“More or less,” My cousin Owen said. “It’s where we kill time before the real fun starts.”

There was an eclipse of madness behind his face as he spoke, mouth pulled into a crooked smirk.

From that description alone I imagined the creek to transform into some harlequin horrorland the moment the sun went down — bare branches would turn into spears, spiders would hang from their leaves like acrobats, and the boys would take their brambled thrones on innocent tree stumps.

With a couple war wounds and mud masks, they could be the protagonists of Where The Wild Things Are. “What should we do first?”

“You wanna climb Old Haggard?”

Owen threw his hands in the air at the mention of that.

“Beam me up, Scotty!” He cried.

The three of us scaled a menacing pitchfork at the bend of the creek and settled in the highest crooks that could hold our weight. Owen, being the competitive spirit that he was, felt it obligatory to climb one extra rung, just to rule the world. As the boys bickered over who could climb the fastest, I closed my eyes and became one with nature.

Without anything visual to focus on, I found myself thinking about how good the wind felt sluicing through the leaves and the way my feet could sway so freely. It had been a good ten years since I’d climbed a tree, at the very least, and three years since I became too old to have the perfect summer. And when I say “perfect,” I’m not talking about the tropical getaways everyone muses over in their office break room for three hundred and sixty days a year. I’m not talking about drowsy seaside afternoons melting into copper evenings or ivory beaches adorned with shells and seaweed. I’m not talking about sipping pina coladas on someone’s rented yacht with nothing around you but the cobalt expanse of the Pacific. Sure, all those things sound lovely, but that’s never the type of summer I envisioned.

I’m talking about a Stephen King summer, a Hardy Boys summer — a summer spent on rusted bikes and dirt-caked riding boots. Late night escapades sprinting through crabgrass, midnight trips to 7-Eleven, skulking around with a flashlight and your father’s pocket knife that you swiped from his pickup. A summer sprinkled with mystery, wisps of the macabre drifting through the sky like dandelion tufts in the hazy, tepid air. Four ripened months spent with friends you would die for — despite the unspoken knowledge that none of you would face adulthood together — because everyone’s looking for the same thing when they’re seventeen. But then

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people move, get good jobs, get bad jobs, fall in love, fall into drugs, or move across the country, and nothing is ever the same.

Judah and Owen were now the reason that someone like me — someone who’s too old to egg houses and get scared by Howard Browne novels — can have a summer like that. Someone who no longer talks to ghosts because they’re too busy drowning in work and responsibilities. Someone who’s almost out of college. Someone who, God forbid, is considered an adult with a briefcase and a subway card and a favorite power suit.

And I think we all knew this too, because we stayed in that tree for almost an hour, taking turns swinging our legs and catapulting berries with Judah’s slingshot. They exploded on the dirt in plumes of unripe red and purple and disturbed the glass of the water below.

“Did I tell you Skylar’s on birth control now?”

“No, damn. I guess you guys are getting serious.”

“Yeah, but we can only have sex in my car because they won’t let guys into the girl’s dorms.”

Owen explained. “I don’t know what we’re gonna do this summer, though. She lives an hour away.

Hooking up isn’t worth the gas money.”

“You could always go see her on the weekends?”

“Can’t. I gotta get a job soon. Brown isn’t gonna pay for itself.”

“Well at least you have a girlfriend.” Judah kicked a loose scale of bark that tumbled down like a dead body. “I haven’t even kissed anyone since last summer. I’m like a fucking mormon.”

“It’s okay if you don’t have a girlfriend.” I interjected suddenly. “I didn’t even have my first kiss until I was your age. It’s really not as big a deal as people make it out to be, especially because no one gives a shit in college. I haven’t kissed anyone in over a year and nobody cares.”

“Sounds like a sad life you’re living.” Owen threw his head back in laughter, clearly poking fun. I tried to respond as flippantly as possible but it felt like someone just shot a tree berry into my gut.

I even looked down to make sure there wasn’t a scarlet stain billowing out from under my shirt.

“Bars tonight?” Judah suggested in an attempt to change topics. The color had completely drained from his ruddy cheeks and I pretended not to notice. “We could go to Twisty’s? I’m pretty sure it’s half-price night.”

“Holy shit, yes.” Owen gasped and turned to me like a preschooler pleading for a playdate. “Will you come with us, Edie? You can get in legally and order us drinks. I’ll bet every penny in my savings

you haven’t been to a bar since turning twentyone.”

I rolled my eyes derivatively, not in the mood for my cousin’s inevitable heckling. “Really, Owen?

I have to work early in the morning and I don’t wanna hungover on a fucking Monday.”

“Oh come on, I just vouched for you! I said you were fun, not a stick in the mud!” My cousin turned to Judah and stabbed him in the side with his elbow. He nearly toppled from his wooden perch and fell head-first onto the grass. “Tell Edie to come, will you?”

In response, Judah simply offered a crescent moon smile, crooked and a tad flirtatious. I didn’t want to go to Twisty’s, but the sad truth was that nothing was quite right since college separated the three of us. Being around Owen and Judah again (for the first time since starting my senior year) was so magnetic that being alone felt horribly empty, but perhaps that was just the curse of nostalgia. Even so, all I wanted to do was skip rocks and rock bars and bar authority all summer long.

Sarah Butkovic

My name is Sarah Butkovic and I’m actively looking to put my name out into the creative writing world. I recently received my MA in English from Loyola University Chicago and have published creative and journalistic work within and outside an academic setting, including a news piece in a local Chicago paper. Ray Bradbury is my most frequent literary muse as well as my favorite author.

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Non-Fiction But First, This Andrea Cope Eventually, this will be a story about a tap. A single, gentle tap on the top of my left wrist. But before I can tell you that story, I have to tell you this one. ***** In the spring of 2010, we learned that the company my husband worked for was being sold, yet again. As part of the deal, most of the higher level employees would be replaced by new hires, a move that would save the company millions of dollars and cost those employees their income. And their identities. Thom was too young to retire, but too old to get an interview, betrayed by the length of his resume.

It was a difficult time. I was teaching high school theater - a department of one - and worked long hours to barely complete half of what needed to be done. Meanwhile, Thom sat alone at the kitchen table 8 hours a day, entering job search data into an excel sheet, drinking far too much coffee, losing more confidence with every sunrise.

Out of the blue, I began to find dimes in unexpected places. Places they had no right to be. On the floor of the rarely used guest room immediately after I vacuumed. Tucked into a book. At the bottom of my sock drawer. Underneath the coffee canister.

Every time I found a dime, I looked up and sent a silent thank you to my mom, who had died 20 years earlier. Beyond all reason or context, I believed with all my heart that she was sending dimes to let me know everything was going to be okay.

For a long time, I kept my discoveries to myself. My rational self reminded me that dimes fall from pockets and hands all the time. My logical mind was aware that, due to my preternatural clumsiness, I look intently at the ground when I walk, always expecting a rock or dip to send me cattywampus. And yet, I persisted in my belief that my clever mother had found a hole in the continuum through which she was dropping dimes for me - and only me - to find. ***** A year later, these three things had happened: 1. Thom reframed his job loss as early retirement, which helped to ease his

depression. By that spring he was working part-time, selling canoes and skis and

training to be a bicycle mechanic. He loved what he was doing. And it gave him something to talk about when his peers talked about their jobs, seemingly a requirement when men gather..

2. My father died, at the age of 88. That’s a remarkable accomplishment for a man who

considered ketchup both a vegetable and the only suitable sauce for spaghetti.

And who insisted that snapping his fingers to get the waiter’s attention was more than enough exercise for one day.

3. I had filled an enormous glass jar with so many dimes, I needed help lifting it. ***** My dad remarried 9 months after my mother died. He had to. Her death left him alone for the first time in his life, having never made coffee or paid a bill or packed a suitcase. The first time he introduced Phyllis to us, she was wearing tight leather pants and more makeup than a drag queen leading a pride parade.

And that may be the nicest thing I’ll ever say about her.

Hours after his funeral, well before the first tray of deli sandwiches had been slathered with mustard, Phyllis announced that we had 24 hours to take anything we wanted from his office, the only room in the house where he was allowed to have things. It was also the only room that

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wasn’t painted bubblegum pink. We had 24 hours before a team came barreling into his small haven, erasing all traces of him with a pallet of trash bags and two gallons of paint. Sherwin Williams 6582.

Semi-gloss for extra sheen.

The office was a warren of piles, every surface overwhelmed by teetering stacks of bank statements, uncashed checks and unopened mail. After Thom bought my dad a scanner and encouraged him to digitize the relentless piles, he’d scanned things in, then printed them out, often more than once.

Everything in the room was in triplicate, scattered randomly and sorted without rhyme or reason. Our son-in-law, Will, pulled out his laptop and began logging every paper into an excel spreadsheet.

Every family needs a CPA for times like this.

Ethan, our oldest, pulled open the bi-fold closet doors on the left-hand wall, revealing a precarious pile nearly as tall as me. Draped over the top was a rust-colored swing coat, a popular style for ingenues in the 1940’s, the exact same coat my mother was wearing in the photograph hanging over my dad’s chaotic desk. A photo from their honeymoon, November 1947.

Beneath the coat, perched indelicately on top of the pile, was a single, uncreased copy of her death certificate. August 18, 1990. Cause of death, metastatic cancer. Origin: breast.

And beneath that, standing on a pile of stock certificates and appliance warranties, was a thick canvas bag, well over three feet tall, with a heavy lock, clamped tight. There was a small metal key in the lock, waiting patiently for us to find it, as if it knew we were coming. The weight of the bag led to some macabre, uncomfortable jokes that perhaps my mother was inside, but she barely weighed 100 pounds, and the bag was so heavy that it took three of us to drag it outside and hoist it into the back of the car. Nora, our youngest, was tasked with distracting Phyllis, which merely required a few insincere compliments about the pinkness of her decor.

The bag was filled with dimes.

The value of the silver in the dimes came to just over $10,000. A crazy investment scheme? The loot from a pay phone heist?

I looked up and thanked my mom. ***** This is the story I came to tell. It’s about the weird, hard-to-deny lingering of some souls after they’ve moved on to whatever is next.

When we first learned Thom was sick, I desperately searched for unexpected dimes. A sign from my mother that everything would be okay. That I would be okay. I found very few. The one I think about most often was at MD Anderson, where he was receiving treatments we both knew held only the tiniest sliver of hope. I’d gone for a walk around the bleak and melancholy parking lot just past the drop off entrance.

There was a pandemic raging, and we who were healthy were confined to the parking lot while our loved ones were inside hoping to find miracles. When I returned from my walk, there was a dime on the running board of my car.

During the pandemic, businesses stopped accepting cash and coins. I hadn’t touched a dime in months.

Dimes rained around me in the weeks after Thom died.

I haven’t found one in almost a year now. Perhaps my mother doesn’t think I need them anymore.

Thom and I talked about the dimes when we knew he’d be leaving us. I wanted a promise that he’d stay connected, as my mother had. Surely, I reasoned, if she could figure it out, so could he. He nodded his head silently. Solemnly. His vision of the after was more conventional than mine. He expected to be met by loved ones, both human and canine, in a place that couldn’t be described or explained. He never talked of watching over us or any of those sappy, unconvincing things people often promise. Even in his last weeks, he was looking forward, not back.

After he died, I found myself feeling physically vulnerable in a way that was new and unexpected. I developed a sudden fear of falling. A dear neighbor, Martha, had a massive stroke and fell to the floor, hitting her head. She was found hours later, after it was too late, her brain too damaged to sustain her through the night. I spent hours on the phone, keeping her daughter

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company as she drove tearfully to her mother’s side.

I began to imagine choking on a bite of food and practiced bumping my abdomen on the kitchen counter, as a Youtube video suggested.

Ivana Trump tumbled down a staircase and died, even though the coffee she was carrying remained in the cup by her side. A whimsical, posthumous magic trick. Like Martha, she was alone. Like Martha, it was hours before she was discovered. I found it particularly alarming that she was buried on a golf course.That’s the very last place I’d want to spend eternity. My fear of falling grew stronger.

Summer was ending, propelling me to faraway places with a change of clothes and a pair of hiking boots. This new fear of falling had me spooked. I’ve always preferred ascent to descent, but I’ve yet to find a reliable way to accomplish one without the other. On my way out of town, I stopped at an Apple Store and walked out with a smart watch on my left wrist and the reassurance that if I fell, the tiny fairy inside the watch would call for help. That’s what I knew about the watch. That’s why I needed the watch.

But there was so much I didn’t know.

I didn’t know that there is a screen mode on the watch that allows the wearer to enter a series of 24 photographs which appear on the face in a repeating sequence, each resting on the screen for 15 seconds, scrolling, I imagine, as if on an old-fashioned movie reel, being cranked forward by the fairy.

I didn’t know that the fairy would tap me gently on the top of my left wrist to get my attention, alerting me to bank charges and text messages and phone calls and calendar reminders.

What I wouldn’t know until later was that the watch would become Thom’s link from his world to mine.

Three days ago, Annie Claire, the youngest of our grandchildren, turned three. The whole family came together to celebrate her existence. Our bellies ached from laughing at the broom lodged firmly at the top of a tall tree above the playhouse, thrown there to dislodge the yellow ball and the single shoe that still remained over our heads, laughing back down at us.

Nora set the chocolate cake in front of Annie and hurried us into the birthday song, worried that the top of the cake would soon slide off in the heat of the day. In the tiny fraction of time in which we all, as a single organism, inhaled as one before exhaling the joyful words of the song, in the very instant that first filled with melody and pitch, there was a single, gentle tap on the top of my left wrist. A whisper telling me to look at the screen. To see the picture of Thom holding Annie, both of them looking intently at the camera. Looking at me. Annie, whose birth he feared he wouldn’t see. Annie, who talks about him as if she remembers. Annie, who was barely one when he died. It’s the photograph I see most often, even though logically, that’s a tough sell. It’s the photo most likely to flash on my wrist when I’m tackling a task I don’t believe I can complete. Or as I hoist my backpack into the car. Or sit in my favorite room in the house, surrounded by friends, listening to music I know he would have loved. It’s almost always the face I see each time there’s a tap on my left wrist. Silent. Gentle.

We cheered when the wind gusted just as Annie aimed her precious breath at the cake, blowing out all the candles, knowing Annie would believe she had done it herself, with her single puff of air.

I looked past the broom and the ball and the shoe, past the clouds and the glare of the sun. I turned my eyes to the place I cannot see, where I imagine Thom flashing a grin and a wink to my mom.

I bought the watch because I was afraid of falling. But I fall deeper in love every day.

Andrea COpe

Andrea Cope is a musician, artist, writer, and teacher. Following the death of her husband from a rare, aggressive cancer, she has focused her writing on an essay series about what it’s like to go on living after the person you love the most is told they’re going to die. Essays from the collection have been accepted for publication by Stray Words UK, The Cure and In Vivo. She was recently invited to read two of the essays at an event jointly sponsored by Baylor College of Medicine, Rice University and Inprint Houston.

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Poetry Post / partum Ariane Elizabeth Scholl

GUEST EDITOR

Tonight, I cried because you cried I cried because you only wanted to sleep if my cheek was against your forehead I cried because my back grew weary because my humming wasn’t what you needed because now your legs hang past my waist and I could once hold you on my chest I stood in the dark, noting the way the evening summer sky pooled around the shades as your body grew heavy in my arms I know you will never be this little again, that one day we will hold conversations where you will ask me what you were like as a baby and I will say you were mostly easy, so happy, loved people, but even despite all of that sometimes I wondered if the days would end, if the crying would stop, if you would sleep through the night

Ariane Elizabeth Scholl Bio on page 2

If my life would be mine to live again

the spring wind Sarah Butkovic it hasn’t been this warm since my hair was long and it feels like the sun planned it out perfectly — to bake our skin gently while the wind swept us up like kite tails in the sky and there must’ve been a lot of wind during my year-long leave because you’ve been smoothed out and leveled, furnished by the elements into a fully-formed man. you have entire ecosystems in your clearwater eyes, teeming with the blue innocence of adolescence and spilling stories without speaking a word. we look less alike now, you and i. in fact, i look like the younger cousin but I don’t really mind. four hours have never fallen through my hands more quickly than they did that easter sunday. placing half empty beer cans behind parked cars and poisoning our ears with trashy tunes while the sun said its irish goodbye and dipped behind the mountaintops of midwestern houses — those moments are transient dandelion seeds that drift without notice in the bustle of life. but i think i’ll find those tiny seeds — i’ll pick them up off the overgrown grass and take them to my grave if poetry really counts for something. because i want to remember the sun on my face and how disheveled we got with the car windows down. i want to remember before we grow old and can only look back with a wrinkled smile more fleeting than that lovely april afternoon.

Companion piece on page 10

Sarah Butkovic Bio on page 11

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Kitsune

by Michael Putorti | Bio on page 24 Medium: Watercolor on Paper

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fragility and the nature of death

Cat Speranzini

She was soft and slipping, pollen painted and wings flitting, all fluff and spindly legs tumbling over herself until she was tangled in the weeds and— there is nothing, not a thing, holding her back. Just stalks of grass brushing and falling fast in the wind that spins her wild until stomach is exposed and wings collapse and I’m watching her death.

It’s an emergency room, it’s a panic attack, it’s being cleared then expiring later that night in the privacy of her bed.

And my son is crying because a bee is dead.

And I am crying because it’s so easy to be alive one minute and gone the next.

Cat Speranzini

Cat Speranzini is an Emerson College alumna from New England. She is the Editor-in-Chief of Grey Coven Publishing. Her poetry has been published by Glass Gates Publishing, The Eunoia Review, and Querencia Press. She lives with her partner and their two children.

YOung Spirit Kate McCabe When the color was draining from the sycamore tree and filling up the tips of the leaves with molten gold, and the restless autumn winds tried to pry the tenacious leaves from the powerful dappled branches I saw her, again, in the empty meadow, trotting above the surface of the grass as though a cloud lay between her and the ground, nostrils blowing, tail out straight, copper coat silvered by the sharp, precipitate sun, the mare, young again, in her full glory once more, strong and steady, holding that long cadence of a trot position, motionless.......in mid-air.

She stopped.......poised, the arched neck, the clean, chiseled head, eyes clear, alert, looking past the pond, past the burnished tree line, past the invisible edge of the Earth; Ears pointed, velvet tips listening, listening to that silent drumming of the hooves of her ancestors running free at last in the white fields of heaven.

Kate Mccabe

Kate McCabe is a graduate of the Academy of the Sisters of Mercy and the Pennsylvania School of Horticulture for Women. A published poet, Ms. McCabe’s work has appeared in Chapel Hill Press’s IMMIGRATION, EMIGRATION, DIVERSITY anthology, Kill Devil’s North Carolina INTERNATIONAL ICARUS LITERARY JOURNAL anthology, and The Sunday Suitor Press’s FELINE FANCY, and Long Island’s NASSAU COUNTY VOICES IN VERSE. She has been studying and writing poetry for over five decades.

Archibald MacLeish wrote of her work, “…your poems…I like the feel, which is of firm hands, and the intent, which is of that rarest sort, humility… and the glimpses of real skill and the life of the words.”

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to howard, my uber driver Jessi Kim it’s funny how all it takes is the I-90, the Lansdowne station, 20 minutes, 2 strangers 54 years young, 23 years old swapping dreams made of air and choking back our haunts. i know that howard has seen the rise and the rust of boston since 1972; howard has swayed to the beats of the most epic club in boston glowing psychedelically over the Charles and has witnessed the collapse of the most epic club in boston now replaced by a standalone Gucci store that no one enters because bostonians respectfully, have no fashion taste; but i know the most epic club in boston plays inside howard during his twilight drives for a ghost town still sings silent tunes. i know that howard knows boston weather like the back of his bronzed hands; for 31 years, howard has kept a running tally of the number of Indian summers; i know howard trusts the Atlantic winds more than scientists fishing for funding for their climate change research paper or so he says. i know that howard signed a lease for an office space to face his one fear: jump starting his own business idea a brainchild that tosses and turns during countless drives across Back Bay. howard will not tell me his business idea;

i know that howard is superstitious, beliefs bequeathed by his puerto rican ancestors, and he can’t jinx his dream no, not today not even for the 23-year-old stranger sitting in the backseat. i know that howard doesn’t just say good when i hop inside and ask how are you? at the stoplight, howard stacks his index finger and middle finger on top of his wrist, pauses for a pulse yup, i’m good. i’m alive. that’s all that matters. his raspy chuckle not unlike a doberman’s bark billows into the backseat y’know what i’m sayin’? i know that i will steal howard’s line so that i can cleave right through the mold of American autopilot politeness to not just break the ice, but blowtorch it; giddy at my own mastery of a plot-twist in conversations that might have otherwise turned terrifyingly lukewarm because howard is right i’m alive, and that’s all that matters. y’know what i’m sayin’?

Jessi Kim

Jessi Kim is a recently college graduated poet and designer based in Boston and enjoys writing poems, grocery lists, love letters, and prose. While she drinks chamomile tea, she often writes about the Moon, pure love, the horrors of capitalism, and the theater that is called life.

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The right Brother

by Sheldon Kleeman Bio on page 24 Medium: Mixed Media

Blue Boogie

by Sheldon Kleeman Bio on page 24 Medium: Mixed Media

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Table Manners

T.K. Lee

We go on one date after months of doing everything else. One date in which you rush to prove your tongue’s the exact shape of every shot glass.

You come late, prefer the bar to a table, then tell me that for a gay man I blink too much.

You’ve always thought it off-putting, you say to the bartender. He laughs, you laugh. A co-worker we didn’t see walk in, laughs…comes over.

It’s awkward how many times he’s just a friend comes up, but, I’ve only held you naked, not your hand.

I pretend I don’t mind, that you said what you said. I do though. I do mind.

(Suffer the fool his etceteras). Except: I’ve never said I was your friend.

After the coworker, after you sent the filet back, after Bulleit neat number three, you look everywhere else but at me and you hate to say it but not enough to not say it: I was nothing but something to do.

(What a stupid thing to say. You talk too loud for a man with such a small bedroom).

You don’t reach for the check.

You sit there in full conceit as if you’ve decided to let me take the check instead like it’s my lesson of the week, It’s how unbothered you are by the fact

that I haven’t said

one word

yet.

t.k. Lee

T.K. Lee is the author of two acclaimed collections of poetry (To Square a Circle; Scapegoat) and awardwinning dramas (Paper Thin; Sindication; On How To Accommodate Marlo’s Frying Pan) as well as prizewinning short fiction. Lee is tenured faculty in two top-ranked graduate MFA programs, both at the famed historic Mississippi University for Women.

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AParis frayed past (use by Date) Rosemont the day arrived upon my doorstep finally ready to let you go untangling the mess of jangled nerves the photographs i took down from my wall tore off bits of wallpaper i think of you anyway when i see the empty space your invisible face overexposed i have quite forgotten how to entertain my tongue twists and contorts a distorted reminder of how it used to feel to have company in my mouth

Paris Rosemont

Paris Rosemont is an Asian-Australian poet and author of Banana Girl (WestWords, 2023), shortlisted for the Association for the Study of Australian Literature’s 2024 Mary Gilmore Award for a first volume of poetry. Paris’s poetry has won a swathe of awards both locally and internationally, including first place in the Hammond House Publishing Origins Poetry Prize 2023 (UK) and shortlisted for the International Proverse Poetry Prize 2023 (Hong Kong). She takes delight in bringing her poetry to life through multi-disciplinary modes of expression, including theatrical performance. Paris may be found on Instagram @msparisrose or at www.parisrosemont.com.

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The Monarchy

Jenna Essenburg My roots were sown in arid ground— a mere collection of stalks deprived, bare but for leaves— used to growing carefully mistaking warmth for sun.

I dressed up with petals found discarded and used, ill-fitting, yet lovely still a weed underneath.

I kept company with flowers, attracted the bees, and re-costumed myself for the garden of sameness where bare stems don’t suffice.

I basked in reflections never the sun’s true rays, still ignorant of heat, now afraid I would burn.

Yet a gnawing desire for exposure thrumming underneath.

The first time I was seen while rearranging my mask the bee didn’t flee, he stared and he smiled.

So I wound around him and lived a life I thought fit.

And it did for a time.

I grew petals at last.

They’ve been lovely and fine at times beautiful, true, But as I flourished I learned grew curious grew brave of what fever could feel like what it felt like in full sun.

I traveled to a field full of wildflowers and weeds thriving out of control— pure chaos and greed, lusting to be scorched and released.

Here I found myself haunted by one costumed like me, He shredded my petals demanded edges, wrenched truth— a Monarch resplendent who outlawed our masks.

Made me a queen.

He built us a kingdom with equal parts sunshine and shade where in the darkness we could hide, in the sunshine be drunk, together come undone and remade endlessly exposed, deliciously loved.

We grew words in our gardens and lay together in every room tending a life ruled by passion not only of bodies but of minds.

JEnna Essenburg

Jenna Essenburg is a lover of the morally gray, the dark places of the room, and the corners of everyone’s personality. She lives in Marietta, Georgia with her two kids, two cats, and husband.

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The I’s Have It

by Sheldon Kleeman Bio on page 24 Medium: Mixed Media

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Artist biographies Sheldon Kleeman

Sheldon Kleeman is a multi-medium artist mixing collage and assemblage with written words and music.

Self-taught and drawn to surrealism, abstract cubism, social and political commentaries, influences include Dali, Picasso, and Matisse. Originally from Philadelphia, Kleeman is now living in Trenton NJ. Kleeman’s objective as an artist is to “find the abstract in realism to let the abstract’s colors and shapes define my artwork.” Instagram: @kleemansheldon

Michael Putorti

Michael Putorti graduated from Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania with a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree. He also holds a Master’s degree in Art History and Visual Culture from Lindenwood University in Saint Charles, Missouri. During his undergraduate career, Michael concentrated on printmaking, specifically linocuts. A lot of his work takes on a socio-cultural aspect. His subject matter consists of topics that he feels are not discussed enough and wants his art to not only bring those issues to people’s attention but also educate them on the issues that we face today. As of late, he has rediscovered his love for drawing and taken up watercolor painting.

Cover & Photo credits The cover of Issue 004 is by the talented Michael Ward. More about Michael and the piece below.

COVER: Passing through Medium: Acrylic on Canvas

Description: While traveling back on a dirt road from a hike in Kalkaska county in northern Michigan, I came across this house, sitting in a small clearing surrounded by thick forest. What caused this mid-20th century suburban house to end up in the middle of nowhere is a mystery. There was no sign of current occupation, though the curtains and clothes line indicate someone lived there sometime in the past. I added the fox, having seen similar ones in the area. The title refers to the fox, but also to us humans, who passing through life leave fleeting and incongruous evidence of our existence. Then, like the fox, we are gone.

Michael Ward

When I was a teenager, my father gave me his 35mm camera, and I began wandering around taking pictures of stuff I found interesting at the time. Professional photographer friends thought the images had artistic merit, and the then-emerging Photorealist movement inspired me to try to make paintings from the photos.

My subject matter is derived (mostly) from photographs I have taken over the past 40 years. Locations include Southern California, where I have lived since age 12, and places I have visited in my travels.

My paintings documents things looked at but not seen, the ordinary environment we live in but seldom examine closely. Through the close observation necessary to translate source photographs to canvas, I uncover the grace that is hidden in the things around us. It’s my way of bearing witness, of making people stop what they’re doing and pay attention, to something they may have never seen before, but that makes them feel “I know this.” A viewer once remarked, “You make ordinary things look beautiful.” Yes, that is what I am after, the beauty in ordinary things that reveals itself if we only see.

I am a self-taught artist. I live and work in Costa Mesa, CA.

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Clever Fox Literary Magazine utilizes free stock photography courtesy of Unsplash and Pexels to add a visual element to our publication. We thank and would like to recognize those works below, and of course, encourage you to enjoy and support the artists behind these works. As our publication grows, we look forward to including more artwork and photography submissions from talented artists all over the world!

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Page 2: Photo by Birger Strahl

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Page 15: Photo by Zach Lucero

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Page 3: Photo by Álvaro Serrano

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Page 17 (left): Photo by suagr w

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Page 4: Photo by Esra Afşar

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Page 17 (right): Photo by Annie Spratt

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Page 5: Photo by Thirsty Turf Irrigation

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Page 18: Photo by Burak The Weekender

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Page 6: Photo by Izzy Park

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Page 20: Photo by KoolShooters

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Page 9: Photo by Sasha Matic

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Page 21: Photo by Jazmin Quaynor

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Page 10& 11: Photo by Maël Balland

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Page 22: Photo by Larm Rmah

Looking for more?

Click the image to read issue 003 and follow us at @cleverfoxlitmag on Instagram.

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