Fresh Ink 2019

Naugatuck VAlley Community College

Our

50thEdition

Fresh ink 2019 The Literary Journal of

Naugatuck Valley Community College Waterbury, Connecticut

Editorial Staff: Jeannie Evans-Boniecki, Ph.D. - Faculty Advisor / Editor-in-Chief Poetry: Greg Harding, Wade Tarzia, Kristen Marcano, Joseph Adomavicia, Alyssa Katz, Megan Barrios, Yelizaveta Tolstokoraya, Dante Rojas, and Sandra Newton Short Fiction: Greg Harding, Wade Tarzia, Sandra Newton, William Foster III, Kristen Marcano, Megan Barrios, Joseph Adomavicia, Alyssa Katz, and Yelizaveta Tolstokoraya Graphics: Ilene Reiner, Greg Harding, Wade Tarzia, Kristen Marcano, Megan Barrios, Joseph Adomavicia, Alyssa Katz, Dante Rojas, Yelizaveta Tolstokoraya, Christopher Boniecki, and Rebecca Liu cover art: Jarrett Hyde

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© 2019 Naugatuck Valley Community College - Waterbury, CT

All content and graphics in this publication are protected by U.S. copyright laws and may not be copied or republished without the express written permission of NVCC or the relevant author. Re-use of content, editorial or graphic, for any purpose, is strictly prohibited. Permission to use content is granted on a case-bycase basis provided content is not modified in any way.

Please submit your permission requests to freshink@nv.edu.

*DISCLAIMER of CONTENT* With the awareness that people walk different paths in life - or “wear different shoes” - the Editorial staff of NVCC’s Fresh Ink 2019 attempted to honor the different voices, styles, and perspectives throughout its evaluation of submitted works by withholding censorship of content and language. We feel it is important to note, however, that the views expressed within these pages are not those of NVCC or the Fresh Ink Editorial staff, but of the authors themselves.

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shoes Madeeha Sheikh*

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27 March 2019 Dear Readers, Maybe now that I have become an “old timer” myself and because I have been invested in researching the history of this institution for this 50th year edition of Fresh Ink, it has become increasingly clear that we all have had to make a choice to spend our lives’ time somewhere, doing something.

Many of the people I have watched retire have chosen to spend almost all of their working lives here, at some iteration, of Naugatuck Valley Community College. A handful of these people have spent their time contributing in some way to Fresh Ink. For this journal to have persisted since close to the advent of the community college itself, it had to have been supported by numerous administrators: Charles Ekstrom, Charles Kinney, Richard Sanders, Joseph Cistulli, Patricia Bouffard, Irene Rios-Knauf, Sandra Palmer, John Vaitkus, Sandra Newton, Diane Minardo, Betsy Sharp, myself, Pamela Tolbert-RiversBynum to name a few. Today, as we celebrate 50 years of continuous publication, additional support was given to make this more elaborate edition a reality. Appreciation is extended to President Daisy Cocco De Filippis, Academic Dean Lisa Dresdner, Student Activities Director Karen Blake, the Student Government Association, and to our newly appointed Associate Dean of LABSS Bradford Baker for recognizing the importance of this journal and for supporting my efforts to produce it.

Over the course of the last year, I have attempted to research the history of Fresh Ink in order to honor it in 2019. I have found back copies in the basement of the college, on the bookshelves of library staff, in the file cabinets of past advisors or stuffed away in boxes of mementos in someone’s back closet. Although I have attempted to follow this fifty year trail, at times it has grown faint. What you will find here as a timeline in the next few pages is my attempt to recreate, for posterity, its history. I have to acknowledge, up front, that this was a committed but imperfect effort – fraught with peril and intrigue – and, in an effort to swerve to avoid a squirrel, I could have killed a tree…. So in advance, I apologize for any mistakes in dates and names and hope that corrections will be provided so that I can update the data prior to putting this text live on the internet.

What I have found is that this literary journal’s ongoing intention has been to honor those in our community who, over the last 50 years, have created – using words in prose or poetry or using paint, pencil, camera or computer – and who have chosen to share their work via the pages of Dimensions or Fresh Ink. As this is the 50th edition of this institution’s literary journal, it also intends to honor those of us who – over the last 50 years have solicited, planned, evaluated, typeset, edited, spent countless invisible hours staring at a screen - so that the work of others could be seen and appreciated. It intends to honor those who have chosen to do their work, spend their lives’ time at NVCC. Back in 1969, Mattatuck Community College’s Paul Riccucci conceived of Dimensions, a small folio of student work that has grown to what we know IV

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as Fresh Ink today. Upon the merger of Mattatuck Community College and Waterbury Technical College in 1994, Dimensions became Fresh Ink, but the intention has remained. Prof. Riccucci began this text’s long history and, with the assistance of numerous students over the years and many Student governments, through multiple College administrations, various English and Art faculty members have carried this torch: Gloria Dibble Pond, for one, advised this journal from 1971 - 1994; Ilene Reiner reviewed art submissions for twenty years from 1986 - 2004; Wade Tarzia has assisted for almost twenty years from 1999 to the present; Patti Pallis served for more than eight; Greg Harding served as a primary advisor for more than ten years and is still assisting today. Others - William Foster III, Lisa Shuchter, Steve Parlato, Julia Petitfrere, Beth-Ann Scott, Juleyka Lantigua-Williams, Ray Leite and Kelly Goodrich – all contributed to this marathon literary venture.

In addition to faculty, many Student Activities Directors and Student Governments have provided economic, strategic, and practical assistance.

From 1986 – 2002, the Student Activities Department’s Rob Henderson and Pat Caron served as editorial board members and were responsible for type setting all the copy. Under Linda Stango, the journal also flourished and now, Karen Blake provides much appreciated assistance in keeping this process afloat. Without her high level of efficiency and generosity of spirit, I wouldn’t be able to make this work.

Finally to the Evaluation Team of 2019 that consisted of students and English and Art faculty, past and present, for their conscientious assessment of submissions, I say THANK YOU. This year’s round of evaluation was FLAWLESS! For those who helped me edit, particularly Ray Leite and Kristen Marcano, THANK YOU. To Rob Sheftel and Karen Blake - for helping us last year when the best laid plans fell apart and we had nothing to do and no place else to go for our publication event, I say THANK YOU. To Vismel Marquez and Lou Romao for resolving my random dilemmas in InDesign, I say THANK YOU. The cover artwork represents the 50 years of cover art gathered via my research but artistically rendered by NVCC alum, Jarrett Hyde. THANK YOU, Jarrett, for your assistance with this project.

Readers, in the following pages, you will find the select work of numerous poets, storytellers and artists of NVCC and its extended community. At the end of this edition, you will find a Special Section presenting works from past and present advisors and staff of Dimensions/Fresh Ink as well as two poems submitted graciously by President Daisy Cocco De Filippis.

At long last, it is here. I hope you enjoy this 50th edition of Fresh Ink - 2019.

Best Regards, Jeannie Evans-Boniecki, Ph.D. Fresh Ink 2019 Advisor V

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Dimensions/Fresh Ink Historical Timeline DIMENSIONS 1969 - 1994 Advisor: Paul Riccucci 1969 - 70 Staff: Sue Vanasse, Marion Hubbard, Sarah Corrigan, Connie Pikiell.

1971 - 1975

Advisors: Gloria Dibble Pond & Paul Riccucci

1976 Advisors: Elizabeth Michalowski, Gloria Dibble Pond & Paul Riccucci Staff: Ed Stefano, Sue Falsetti, Patricia Kinne, James Candee, Teresa Carroll, James Donohue Jr., Beth Gualtieri, Kate Shanley. Cover: Patrick Guarnieri.

1977 - 1985

Advisor: Gloria Dibble Pond

1986 - 1994

Advisors: Gloria Dibble Pond & Ilene Reiner

(1987 - Selected for inclusion in the Mattatuck Community College Time Capsule to be opened in 2061 when Halley’s Comet Returns.)

Staff from 1987 - 1993: 1987: Jacqueline Caprio, Rick Korn, Micki Cat L. Laing, Angela H. Setaro.

Cover: Tiffany Cameron.

1988: Kathleen Kulmann, Elaine Ober, Terry Pinkard, Sandra Strumpf. Cover: Angela Setaro.

1989: David Derouin, Terry Pinkard, Donna W. Waranowicz, Jim Lombardo.

Cover: Lorraine DeCrisanti.

1991: Pat Molnar, Nellie Rivera, Randy Rydzy, Rob Vadnais, Susan Scott.

1992: Pat Molnar, Randy Rydzy, Edith R. Schoenberg, Amy Valentino, Randy Rydzy. Cover: Peter Sagendorf.

1993: Sharon Beach, Suzanne Brown, Eman Galal, Bonnie Leffler, Pat Mohar, Rich Powell, Larry Riddich, Lisa Zembruski.

1994: Laurie Brunetti, James Goncalves, Vernon Mead, Bill Meehan, Pat Molnar, Richard Powell, Taffy Schremmer, Lisa Zembruski.

1994 Mattatuck Community College and Waterbury State Technical College merged to become Naugatuck Valley Community Technical College DIMENSIONS CHANGED TO FRESH INK. FRESH INK 1995- 2019 Advisors: William H. Foster III, Gloria Dibble Pond & Ilene 1995 - 1997 Reiner Staff from 1995 - 1997: 1995: Sharon Beach, Lyn Hernandez, Sandra Longo, Bill Meehan, Michelle VI

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Palermo, Cindy Periera, Larry Riddick, Alice Phelan-Torres, Lisa Zembruski.

Cover: Joanne Hurd.

1996: Maria Borgnine, Jennifer Centopanti, Meredith Golden, Chris Pimley, Brandon Rek. Cover: Michelle Dayton.

1997: Chris Baggett, Maria Borgnine, Eileen Clark, Stephen Crowe, Aaron Goodson, Christian Ouellette, David Petruzzi, Jason Stephens, Gina Zappulla, Sandra Byrne. Cover: Sheila Doyle-Walton.

1998 Advisors: Patti Pallis, Ilene Reiner, William Foster III &

Gloria Dibble Pond Staff: Sandra Byrne, Madelaine Boppenmaier, Emma DiBlasio, Michael Feeney, Ismenia Gardner, Jacqueline McGrath. Cover: Joelee Cedela.

1999 –2004 Advisors: Patti Pallis, Ilene Reiner, Lisa Shuchter & Wade Tarzia Staff from 1999- 2004 1999: Sandra Byrne, Emma DiBlasio, Joan Malerba-Foran, Edyta Lapinski, Jacqueline McGrath, Jessica Rinaldi, Tina Singleton, Aleksandr Shvets. Cover: Megan Meehan.

2000: Armando Acevedo II, Wendy Lecko, Maria Butera, Latanya Levett, Elnora J. Cochran, David Lucas, Jaimie Cura, Melisa A. Perron, Karen Dilger, Emma Poulin, Karen Lacombe, Brian Simons, Sheila Kowalski, Brian Gangloff.

Cover: Oli Vilahu.

2001: Maria Butera, Sean Havican, Ilfet Klenja, Jennifer Lopes, Marvin Rountree, Paula Cruz, Sarai Graterol, Tabish Hasan, Sheila Kowalski. Cover: Lori Terhaar.

2002: Tony Benedetti, Kym Higgins, Lara Bubeck, Stefan Kersten, Jaimie Cura, Elton Prillo, Lance Gaston, Vanessa Stevens, Sarai Graterol, Edmond Tasellari, Tabih Hasan, Oli Vilahu. Cover: Mary Watt.

2003: Kym Higgins, Vanessa Sterens, Tony Benedetti, Lara Bubeck, Karen Dilger, Lance Gaston, Carolina Lee Chan, Elton Prillo, Lenny Manz, Eric Hough, Tabish Hasan, Christian A. Ouellette, Stefanie Fuller, Arjana Vilahu.

Cover: Robert Balogh.

2004: Tony Benedetti, Karen Dilger, Stephanie Fuller, Christian A. Ouellette, Jacqueline Rowland, Lara Volpe, Arjana Vilahu. Cover: Elizabeth Bloom.

Advisor: Wade Tarzia 2005 Staff: Victor Buchelli, Karen Dilger. Cover: Wade Tarzia.

2006 Advisors: Wade Tarzia & Greg Harding Staff: Victor Buchelli, Timothy Lee, Eugenia Magill, Aimee Malasankas.

Cover: Wade Tarzia.

2007

Advisors: Greg Harding, Patricia Pallis & Beth-Ann Scott

2008- 2009 Advisors: Greg Harding, Patricia Pallis, Beth-Ann Scott & Wade Tarzia Cover: Emily Strait.

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2010 Advisors: Greg Harding, Wade Tarzia & Juleyka Lantigua Williams Staff: Christian Barton, Galina D’Amico.

2011 Advisors: Greg Harding, Wade Tarzia, Kelly Goodridge,

Juleyka Lantigua-Williams & Steve Parlato Staff: Eugenia Magill. Cover: Austin Graham.

2012 Advisors: Greg Harding, Steve Parlato & Julia Petitfrere Staff: Gabby Lara, Geno Villafano, Liz Barone, Christian Barton. Cover: Monica Franceska.

2013 Advisors: Greg Harding, Steve Parlato, Julia Petitfrere & Wade Tarzia Staff: Geno Villafano, Christian Barton. Cover: Julio Ramos Berroa.

2014 -2016 Advisor: Greg Harding 2014 : Steve Parlato, Julia Petitfrere, Wade Tarzia, Quincy Hughes, Liz Campbell. Cover: Eli Hernandez.

2015: Steve Parlato, Wade Tarzia, Joe Adomavicia, Humberto Perez, Brittney Romagna, Sevastian Volkov, James Woolfrey. Cover: Brittney Romagna.

2016: Wade Tarzia, Ray Leite, Joe Adomavicia, Anthony Del Buono, Tom Nolan, Humberto Perez, Sevastian Volkov, Forrest Fee, Andrew Gillotti, Rachel Lamb, Veronica Ramirez, Christopher Rangel, Simar Shipley, Ryan Sweet, Neil Thibeault. Cover: Casey Giannone.

Advisor: Jeannie Evans-Boniecki 2017 -2019 2017: Greg Harding, Wade Tarzia, Christopher Rempfer, Ray Leite, Julia Petitfrere, Vismel Marquez, Tom Nolan, Humberto Perez, Dante Rojas, Forrest Fee. Cover: Yuliya Polichshuk.

2018: Greg Harding, Wade Tarzia, Julia Petitfrere, Christopher Rempfer, Ray Leite, Jarrett W. Hyde, Alyssa Katz, Chris Gordon, Vismel Marquez. Cover: Svetlana Sjoblom.

2019: Greg Harding, Wade Tarzia, Ilene Reiner, Sandra Newton, Kristen Marcano, Megan Barrios, Alyssa Katz, Joseph Adomavicia, Yelizaveta Tolstokoraya, Christopher Boniecki, Dante Rojas, Rebecca Liu, Ray Leite, Vismel Marquez. Cover: Jarrett W. Hyde.

SPECIAL THANKS TO STUDENT ACTIVITIES DIRECTORS AND STAFF: Rob Henderson & Pat Caron (1986 - 2002), Linda Stango and Karen Blake.

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Student Graphics

hoarding Heather Ruskowski*

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Fresh Ink 2019 poetry & short fiction To Go Quietly (1st Place - Student Prose) – Sarah Fildes* . ................................................2 Not Yet Spring– Yelizaveta Tolstokoraya*........................................................................ 4 Memories of Mom - Carmina Alves Palarino..................................................................... 5 Seasonal – Heather Ruskowski*........................................................................................ 6 How To Be A Good Friend – Samuel Pellicone*................................................................7 Masked Isolation – Mitchell Maknis*................................................................................ 8 Don’t Wish For What You Don’t Want – Arthur Pfister..................................................10 Wolves – Cole Depuy..........................................................................................................11 The Trouble With Poems – Benjamin Chase.................................................................... 12 The Honor Council (1st Place - Student Poetry) – Kristen Marcano*............................... 13 Yesterday’s Special - John Sheirer....................................................................................14 Dog Not Gone - JayAnne Sindt.........................................................................................16 Carpeting (For my mother) – Candace Hall.....................................................................18 Holding On (After teaching Elizabeth Bishop’s “One Art”) – Martha Hayes.................19 Black Girl Walking (2nd Place - Student Poetry) – Jahnesha Lewis*................................ 21 Breast Exam – Candace Hall............................................................................................. 21 Women’s Creation Story – Mary C Verdosi......................................................................22 Sea - Sevastian Volkov*.................................................................................................... 24 Robin’s Egg Blue – Sandra Daignault...............................................................................25 Day Job – Genevieve Jaser............................................................................................... 26 Siren Song – Maggie Whelan*..........................................................................................27 May – Lorraine Giarratana............................................................................................... 29 Memories - Melanie Kovic*.............................................................................................. 30 Unbeknownst – Simone Swart*....................................................................................... 31 Phoenix’s Flame – Joseph Watson*.................................................................................32 Favorite Parent – Roberta Hoff........................................................................................33 Wide Awake – Kimberly Dyer*........................................................................................ 34 Dance – Lorraine Giarratana.............................................................................................35 Connection – Yelizaveta Tolstokoraya*.......................................................................... 36 Winter Sun - Sarah Fildes*................................................................................................37 The Escape (2nd Place - Student Prose) - Yelizaveta Tolstokoraya*............................... 38 Luster - Sarah Page........................................................................................................... 40 Don’t Forget to Water the Flowers - Genevieve Jaser................................................... 42 Sara (3rd Place - Student Poetry) - Kristen Marcano*..................................................... 43 Currency of Grief - Cole Depuy........................................................................................ 44 Poison Dart Frog - Alyssa Katz......................................................................................... 45 Finally Something That Is All Yours - Natalie Shriefer..................................................... 46 Interviews I & II (3rd Place - Student Prose) - Heather Ruszkowski*.............................. 47 Blank Pages - Gary Rushworth.......................................................................................... 51 When I Lived on West Main - p.d. lyons...........................................................................52 Joy (On the occasion of my 30th year at NVCC) - Pasquale J. DeCicco............................53 Requiem for a Factory Series I - Kenneth DiMaggio....................................................... 54 Pretty Floral Dress – Skully Dege*................................................................................... 56 The One Billionth - S.E. Page............................................................................................57 Interpretation - Benjamin Chase...................................................................................... 58 Cup of Dreams - Gary Rushworth.................................................................................... 59

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Body Like Water Part II (Drink more water) - Anisa Joyce Caraballo............................ 60 My Heart Was Given; My Will Was Not - Joseph Adomavicia*........................................61 Red Belly - Sevastian Volkov*.......................................................................................... 62 Time Travel – Martha Hayes............................................................................................ 63 Sea Turtle - Roberta Hoff................................................................................................. 64 Ode to Recognition - Daniel Hotham.............................................................................. 64 Ancient Oak - Sandra Daignault....................................................................................... 65 The Pain of My Bearer – Joleen Johnson*...................................................................... 66 I’m Scared – Lynette Melendez*..................................................................................... 67 Who I Am – Lasaris Santos*............................................................................................ 68 LUHH – George Ramirez*................................................................................................ 69 To My Ancestors - Imani Stewart*................................................................................... 70 Lost - Ryan Garesio............................................................................................................ 71 Freedom (In response to “We Are Seven” by William Wordsworth) – Chris Gordon*.72 My Garden – Elizabeth Schneider*.................................................................................. 74 Zora Neale Hurston and Luke Turner Reunite - Kristen Marcano*................................ 76 Naugatuck Valley Community College – Frank Barbino..................................................77 * indicates NVCC student submission ****

Fresh Ink 1969 - 2019 special section This section is dedicated to the work of staff and faculty who have contributed to and supported the publication of Dimensions/Fresh Ink for the last 50 years.

Sadie Leaves the City – Ilene Reiner................................................................................ 79 Bilingualism - A thought or two - Daisy Cocco De Filippis.............................................. 80 Neighbors on Khourie Road - Ilene Reiner.......................................................................81 Just Like One of the Family - William H. Foster III........................................................... 82 Gone – Sandra Newton................................................................................................... 84 Stone Saints – Wade Tarzia.............................................................................................. 85 Beginnings – Daisy Cocco De Filippis............................................................................... 88 How Important Is a Coconut Boat? – Greg Harding....................................................... 88 Garlic Mustard Overtaking Woodland Poppy - Amanda Lebel...................................... 89 Privilege - For Charlottesville - Steve Parlato.................................................................. 90 A New England Foundation – Greg Harding....................................................................91 273D-E-A-D – Julia Petitfrere............................................................................................ 92 The Road Home - Chris Rempfer..................................................................................... 93 Finding Phuket – Jeannie Evans-Boniecki....................................................................... 94 Movement of Man – Greg Harding................................................................................. 96 No More Tears - Sandra Newton..................................................................................... 97 Those Berries- - Steve Parlato.......................................................................................... 97 How You Changed Your Face – Amanda Lebel............................................................... 98 ****

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Fresh Ink 2019 Graphics Shoes – Madeeha Sheikh* ............................................................................................... III Hoarding (2nd Place - Student Graphics) – Heather Ruskowski*..................................... IX On My Way Home (1st Place - Student Graphics) - Yuliya Polichshuk*.............................. 1 Yellow Throated Warbler – Sandra Daignaul.................................................................... 4 Black Hole – Imani Stewart*.............................................................................................. 6 Still Life 003 – Jordan Antrum*......................................................................................... 9 Avid Diva – Madeeha Sheikh*........................................................................................... 12 Pose – Madeeha Sheikh*.................................................................................................. 15 Drowning Thoughts (3rd Place - Student Graphics) – Jordan Antrum*.......................... 17 Winsted Green - Charlotte Silver*....................................................................................18 Spirit of the Wall – Sarah Kushwara*.............................................................................. 20 Behold, He Comes – Sandra Byrne*.................................................................................23 Jeff Goldblum *Laugh* - Forrest Fee*.............................................................................25 The Kiss (The love story of two worlds) – Yuliya Polichshuk*....................................... 30 Sharing the Gift – ShawnaLee W. Kwashnak.................................................................. 31 Sleep Can Wait – Sarah Kushwara*..................................................................................32 Stick Fig - Jordan Antrum*............................................................................................... 34 Jacket – Madeeha Sheikh*.............................................................................................. 36 Charcoals and Hot Coffee – ShawnaLee W. Kwashnak...................................................37 Encounter – Heather Ruszkowski*..................................................................................41 Springtime Tackroom – ShawnaLee W. Kwashnak........................................................ 43 Bizarre – Lasaris Santos*................................................................................................. 45 Longhorn in Tubac – Carmina Alves Palarino................................................................. 46 Dog Looking Over Water – ShawnaLee W. Kwashnak.................................................... 51 Winter Tmes – Brian Hernandez*.................................................................................... 58 Athena – Lasaris Santos*................................................................................................. 66 Fear of the Night – Sarah Kushwara*............................................................................. 70 Fear of the Dark – Lasaris Santos*................................................................................... 71 Middie Adam – Domenic Narducci III...............................................................................73 Reminiscing - Brian Hernandez*.......................................................................................75 Singing Catbird - Elizabeth Schneider*........................................................................... 76 * indicates NVCC student submission

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Student Graphics

on my way home Yuliya Polichshuk*

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to go quietly Sarah Fildes* There was an anger in her that threatened forth the tears that blur her vision; her jaw clenched to keep them Student Prose at bay as her fingers curled tightly in the sheets across her lap. What did they know? Their pitiful looks only furthered the anger that overwhelmed her, bleeding that rage through her veins, spilling out with the tears that finally fell. What did they know about her? A strangled sob erupted from her throat and as soon as it came, she covered her mouth with a hand to muffle the sound, biting down on the finger over the slit of her lips. They were the ones who had lied to her, telling her it was going to be okay when they knew it wasn’t, when they knew how sick she was, in an attempt to keep her happy. Was she happy now? Being told so late, when there was nothing she could do? It brought forth resentment, hatred, an everlasting anger that threatened to spill from her lips in screams and shouts; she wanted to breathe out the fire that was consuming her on the inside. The rage had built up so suddenly that the dam walls would fall before it. She was sure she’d be spitting and throwing up that fire the second she saw their faces.

Left to deal with it so suddenly, the future she had so carefully been planning and building up was going to slip through the cracks of her fingers like fine sand. How could they keep her own sickness from her for so long and how did she not see the signs of her own failing health sooner? Maybe because her concerns for her own body were brushed aside for meager excuses that kept her in the dark of her own condition until she stood in the bathroom with blood both on her lips and splashed across the white ceramic of the sink. It was only then that her concerns for her own well being were finally revealed. Instead of despairing at the prospect of standing in front of death’s door, however, she was only angry.

There was no water that could quell the fire that ignited in her when the doctors had sat her down carefully and told her the truth. Death had never crossed her mind; “cancer” had seemed like a surreal word when it had stumbled past the doctor’s mouth. For a moment she only stared at him, disbelief marring her expression. Why didn’t anyone tell her before?

Religion, moral beliefs, and the ignorance of her own family fell upon her own deaf ears. She was young, too young to take responsibility for herself and so her parents had made the decision for her.

“It’s how things are supposed to be.”

“Your chances were slim We wanted you to be happy and carefree while you could.”

They spat excuses after the doctor had given explanations. She had screamed, screamed until her throat hurt, her voice cracked, and she was hoarse. It was when she quieted down that they intended to comfort her, but she only seethed in their presence. They had decided her fate so easily 2

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for her and forced her on her back like some submissive dog when she had the chance to get better. She screamed at them to leave her be, yelling and crying until her parents had to be escorted out by the medical staff for their own safety and hers.

She would have been eighteen in a week, legally an adult, and would be able to make her own choices when it came to herself. They had forced and tried to get her to accept fate, but she would not go so easily. When the week was up she could demand her own proper care, and demand treatment, because she would not go quietly. She would not give up on the things she had set out to do in her life; they would not take that away from her, even if their religion or morals prevented it.

The pen had never felt heavier in her hands; she wondered briefly if it was because of her rapid decline in health or because her parents had pleaded for her not to do this, but the anger and fire were still there. The rage that forced the pen down onto the paper and signed her name, signed her freedom for treatment.

“We need to start immediately.... But even then, there may not be a chance. Are you sure you’re okay with this?”

“Yes.” She spoke without hesitation. She would not go quietly; she would not give up. She would fight and rage and beat the very things that threatened to keep her from this world.

“I will not go quietly.”

*

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not yet spring Yelizaveta Tolstokoraya* Winter has lingered too long In this city that’s gritty and bleak, And capricious March offers no relief To citizens slowed down by slush.

They embrace it into their collective memory, We are strong - we withstand, they boast And become suspicious of bird songs That promise thaw.

If perseverance is a virtue, Then I wish to speak heresy Like the children Who have not yet learned to be pious And wish for Spring’s approach.

But Winter clamps its jaws To shake us into submission, And solitary snowdrops bow their heads. *

yellow throated warbler Sandra Daignaul 4

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memories of mom Carmina Alves Palarino I watch her as she hovers over the food table. Now that the 50 or so people in the church dining hall are seated and feasting, she feels obliged to clear some of the extra bounty into take-home plates.

At this point, I usually stop her, but not this time. I observe as she selects the largest paper plate and slowly proceeds to fill it with potatoes, greens, meats, breads, strawberry Jell-O, carrots, and brownies. The smells are as enticing as the many colors. The large plate is too small to accommodate the abundance, but she squashes it together until it resembles an artist’s palette after an exhausting paint session. She covers the plate with foil and brings the treasure to her table. As she sits and watches everyone munching, I can read on her face that maybe, just maybe, she can muster another plateful without being noticed. She spots a lovely bowl of chocolate mints on the table, and like an experienced magician using sleight of hand, they drop into her pocket.

This is my mother. She’s 93 years old and has always had a healthy love of food. These days, her appetite has dwindled, but she seems compelled to still feed her bachelor son with whom she’s always shared meals and a home. I chuckle as I think of the honor bestowed upon him as he is presented with this delectable array.

We’re like a divorced couple, my brother and me. We have one child— our mother. Years ago, when it became apparent that she needed care, we had our many differences and our many battles. We tried a caregiver, but that didn’t work out, so we became the caregivers, obtaining joint custody.

This has worked fine thus far. We share time, information, concerns, and adjustments in her care as her memory is slowly pulled into another dimension.

We arrive at my home from the church dinner, and she places her masterpiece on the counter. I store it in the refrigerator to safely await its recipient’s arrival. My brother and my children visit together at my home every Sunday afternoon for dinner. Later in the evening, when he and mom leave, the masterpiece will depart with them.

As I hang up our coats, I notice her purse sitting on the table. Usually a skinny thing, it now resembles a happy Buddha grinning with delight after a seven-course meal. When she goes into the other room, I check out this fat cat. A chaos of loose cookies and Styrofoam cups greets me. One cup holds Jell-O, another holds cookies, still another fruit salad, some of which has seeped onto her wallet. I clean her purse and a dejected Buddha slips away, replaced by Twiggy. Sadly, my mom will never miss her stash; the realm will quickly steal that memory away. She returns to the kitchen about an hour later, glances nonchalantly at her purse, and walks away.

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seasonal Heather Ruszkowski* Look me in my lifeless eyes And run your hands upon my skin.

Cold.

Cold.

Cold.

Is all you feel, fingers growing frostbite, Ice lingering on the edges, Frigid, sharp, breath taking.

Beautiful.

You say you love me in the days of frost, Even when my touch burns and aches Bringing agony with every brush of hands.

That despite it all, the snow on my eyelashes Is no prettier a sight than when I am Alive like the new days of the blooming spring.

*

black hole Imani Stewart* 6

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how to be a good friend Samuel Pellicone* All of us have friends. Well, let me rephrase that - most of us have friends. For those who are in need of some, this is a guide for you.

Step 1: Approach Someone You can literally walk up to anyone you see on the street, train, restaurant, you name it. People will always be open and kind to a person who butts into their life unannounced. You shouldn’t just say hi. You should ask if they like jazz, or make another reference to a piece of media, such as Shrek or Minecraft. Before they have the option to respond to your funny references, talk about your life story.

People love to hear all about your twenty cats and the plot of the book you plan on writing. After you’re done rambling, stare at them with intense silence. Open your eyes widely, awaiting a response. The silence will most definitely not be awkward. If they look uncomfortable and start to walk away, proceed to step 2.

Step 2: The Chase So, the person you are making friends with has begun to walk away.

That’s no big deal, they are just playing hard to get. People do this to test your loyalty as a friend before they commit. All you have to do is show them that you won’t leave them. Follow them, try to engage in more and more conversation. The person may start to run and say something like, “Get the fuck away from me!” This is the next level of the test; you need to try harder. You have to not give up because you are not a quitter. In the off chance they do get away, don’t get discouraged. Just follow step 3.

Step 3: “Stalking” Now, some weirdos may call this stalking, but we both know it’s called being a good friend. Look at the direction in which they are retreating and follow, but from a distance. They believe you have failed the test and are no longer interested in your quitter ass. Oh, but they are mistaken because you have the element of surprise on your side. If you surprise them at work, at home, or even in their car, they are going to be so impressed with your loyalty as a friend, you will be immediately boosted to best friend status. Follow your soon to be best friend until you can figure out where they work or where they live. Once you have that figured out, it’s time to think up and execute a plan. If you are going to surprise them at work, maybe make an appointment to see them, or just walk into their office.

Wear a disguise so they don’t notice you and make the test harder for you. And once you are sitting down right across from them, BAM, take off your disguise and yell “It’s me, best friend!” They may scream in surprise, but that’s only because they are excited to see you passed the test. They will probably call someone over to their office to escort you out. This is only because they need to get work done and want to send you back on your way like a celebrity surrounded with a posse.

I hope this guide was helpful for you. And if after step 3 you get incarcerated, it’s just so it’s easier for your new best friends to hang with you in their busy schedule.

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Masked Isolation Mitchell Maknis* Drip….Drip….. the sound of water spurting out of a running shower, with each drop of water escaping the drain and hitting the floor I inhale. As the next drop falls I let out an exhausted sigh and repeat.

It may be repetitive but it is therapeutic and seems to be the only instance where I can find clarity. Everything that happens outside of these fleeting moments of solace fills me with unmitigated dread.

Derogative and stressful- that’s the only polite way I can explain my days as a contributing member to society. I have a job, it’s nothing special, but it’s enough to cover my living expenses; and there is that word again living.

Exactly what do the intricacies of that word entail? Is it a form of spiritual slang for living the American dream? What exactly is supposed to be my dream? Is it even mine or is it a dream of some deluded prophet who just decided if an individual doesn’t conform then they should crawl in a hole and unburden society from their deleterious behavior. To put into simple words, ideology such as mine is taboo, especially if voiced in public. So in turn, being the well-mannered young woman I am, only in the maelstrom of my mind do I let my animosity run rabid. I bottle it up, one slanderous thought after another. If I ever let out what I really thought, I’d draw even more attention to myself than I already have. For some reason, I seem to be the person that everyone wants to share their narcissistic conversations with. I wonder if there was actually a time when I enjoyed the thought of living. I most likely will never recollect that moment because the earliest memory I developed was the defining moment of what I am now.

This is my first memory: I was around four years of age and to this day most of it remains vague. I was ensconced by nothing but shadows of hollow images, most notably two silhouettes engulfed in an altercation. It didn’t seem like it was hostile, but it wasn’t friendly. Even so, in this moment that isolated affair is formless and nothing more than a conundrum of the mind.

I never enjoyed the overpowering rumble of voices raised in a dispute, or any conversation. Then I heard a comforting sound resonating through my shapeless home. Drip, Drop. The simplicity of it was like an uplifting symphony to my unadulterated, infantile mind. I looked around attempting to pinpoint the sound and that’s when I saw the light illuminating through the misshapen hallway. I followed and as I came closer to my treasured goal the shadows became clearer, sharper. I walked to the half open door, the subtle sound turned into an invigorating roar.

Curiosity overpowered me as the sound alone wasn’t enough to satisfy my once inquisitive mind. I traversed through the shining entrance and for the first time, if memory serves, my entire vision was encased in light.

I could see and visualize the comforting sound of water running from the shower. Needless to say, entrancement followed. At that age I didn’t understand bathroom etiquette and I didn’t care who was in the shower, 8

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nor did I look up to find out. All that mattered in that moment was being able to see the water trickling down the outside of the imposing porcelain bathtub and then seeping into the cracks in the floor. My inanimate savior in the night. In that instant of bliss I became overwhelmed and reached out for the moist tub. Then everything disappeared. It was like the hollow halls and faceless silhouettes had come to take me. The memories I have after that moment are spent staring into a mirror. Society says it’s off-putting for someone of the female persuasion to have such a notable scar barely concealed by my thin eyebrow. The once faceless people I recognize as family still have a hard time looking me in the eye.

Whether it’s guilt from their ineptitude or their own social anxieties, I’ll never know because I don’t care to ask. Curiosity led to the defining moment of my life, one that attracts people to me like moths to a flame, in a way emulating how I was drawn from the light into the darkness.

I smirk. Ironically it’s become a beacon for people. It’s made me approachable and people use it as an opportunity to start a verbal exchange that I never wanted. For me, whenever I look at myself in a mirror it’s a reminder that when you try to find the light, darkness follows. With age, this truth only becomes more difficult to understand.

Pushing my palm into my misshapen face I exhale a very deep breath, continuously smothering my malicious thoughts, endlessly burying them in an empty room in an empty house. I close my eyes, blocking the light and focus again on the sound of the water rushing down into the drain. I should probably stop; the shower has been on for a while and the water’s getting cold. *

Still life 003 Jordan Antrum* 9

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don’t wish for what you don’t want Arthur Pfister Once upon a time on the night of St. John’s Eve a relatively underendowed married man found a green, glass, brass-plated kerosene lamp on a footbridge over Bayou St. John. Being the loving husband that he was and thinking that greater physical proportion would enhance the qualitative nature of his marital coupling, he took his Second-linin’ hainkachiff and rubbed the lamp. A genie emerged from a cloud of smoke and the man requested “a cock as big as a horse”. Just then a great commotion chanced to come about as a giant gamecock emerged from the waters and swallowed him whole.

Later that evening another fellow happened by, saw the lamp and picked it up. Understanding the mysterious, mystical, magical occurrences that often happen on the eve before the celebration of the Feast of St. John the Baptist, he too decided to implore the spirits in the lamp for its necromantic patronage. He stroked and beseeched the lamp to remake him in the image of Hugh Hefner and surround him with every PLAYBOY beauty imaginable. In a flash he found himself transformed into a morbidly obese female of mammoth extremities in a vermilion red dress. “What the -- ?!?!!??? I said ‘Hugh Hefner’ not ‘HUGE HEIFER’!” he protested as an 18-wheeler big rig carrying used magazines sprang from the waters and smashed him to less than recognizable smithereens.

Another fellow sauntered by the bridge, came upon the lamp, brushed it a bit with his snotrag and asked for “a room fulla sapphires”. Suddenly, severe winds arose over the waters, whisked him away and he found himself in an inescapable, enclosed space with an aggravating aggregation of disgustingly argumentative colored wimmins for all eternity.

Finally, a woman came across the lamp, and understanding the enchanting legends of the ancestors, caressed it in the folds of her skirt, remembered her mother’s and her grandmother’s and her greatgrandmother’s admonition: “Be careful what you wish for; you just might git it”, appealed to the powers of the heavens for peace in her heart, and continued on her way to a long life of achievement, joy and happiness. *

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wolves Cole Depuy Us good skinny boys became skinnier wolves, not meant for dinner at six or a wife picking out our ties.

Too busy climbing above the fast flooding pain.

A starving pack of wolves, we gnaw at the steel chains of family bonds, sneak inside our brother’s window to cover his sleeping mouth with a rubber-gloved hand because we’re not okay.

We’re trying to forget.

I howl at night, toss bricks into windows.

I want you to know the downpour I embody like jagged glass around shaking hands I squeeze the bag of cocaine tight and exit my dealer’s Civic.

There are no cops on this street, just a city of wolves.

I smell the sour bag and bite it open.

By dawn, I’m inside out while I tighten my work tie into a lethal Windsor knot.

My phone vibrates on the table—I flinch and am tempted by the cool blue width of my window.

We were pups before we became these wolves.

My coffee cup is full.

I continue to pour. *

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the trouble with poems Benjamin Chase Poems are like teenage daughters who come and go as they please.

They break the lines you set for them.

They suggest more or less than you mean.

They go silent.

Yes, poems are temperamental— if you don’t give them time and space to speak, you’ll never really hear them. *

avid diva Madeeha Sheikh* 12

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the honor council Kristen Marcano* Six young Saints, six tongues tart With venomous Bible verses — A panel of my purest peers, set apart For just this holy purpose.

Student Poetry

I walk in with my Sinner’s head held high, And search each of their faces – But, since demons can dash in through the eyes, The Saints avert their gazes.

A sheath of papers soils their spotless hands — The crisp account of my wicked deeds.

Do you know why you are here today? they ask.

I suppose I do, so the case proceeds.

We’re so proud that you both chose to confess.

Satan likes secrets – sin festers in the dark.

They know some, but need to know the rest.

When did you first feel lust in your heart?

A delicious memory, I resist a smile At its sour-sweet taste, scarlet and juicy.

It was a fall day when I decided to be defiled, That it would be a joy to let you use me...

Ladies’ dorm, a shut door, and sudden silence — An idea burst alight behind your hooded eyes, Caught in mine, began to blaze with violence, Burning its way between our ladies’ thighs.

The Saints look as though they’re sipping brine As our story streams round, beginning to end.

From my mouth, it pours on out…

Like sweet, warm wine— Like something quite fine I’d be honored to drink again. *

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yesterday’s special John Sheirer Bang, bang, bang! Nathan’s knuckles began to ache in the chill air as he rapped on the window for a fourth time.

Bang, bang, bang. Now a fifth time.

Nathan pressed close to the glass and blocked the morning light by cupping his hands on each side of his face. Finally, he saw Jessika move inside the darkened restaurant, emerging from the tiny apartment her uncle had set up for her so she could manage the restaurant while earning her degree. Nathan admired her dedication.

Concern lined Jessika’s features. She stepped cautiously into the early morning light streaming through the window. When she recognized Nathan as the source of the pounding, her face fell from concern to annoyance. For a moment, Nathan thought her whole face might slide down the front of her oversized flannel shirt all the way to the floor.

Jessika stopped about ten feet from the window and asked, “What the hell do you want?” Nathan couldn’t hear her words through the window, but, after nearly six months together, he knew her well enough to read her lips.

“Please let me in,” he called out, not as loud as he needed to be sure she heard him through the glass. He didn’t want to yell at 6 a.m. on a public street in the middle of town. Even this early, several people were out and about. Joggers jogged. Dog walkers walked their dogs. Fit and trim senior citizens power-strode along the sidewalk, always in pairs, their breaths escaping in puffs as white as their hair. These people would live to 100, Nathan reasoned, all of them, just from moving like this every morning. You can’t die if you won’t stop moving forward.

“Why?” Jessika’s mouth formed the question and her upturned hands implored. Nathan could tell she said it loudly but could only catch a hint of sound.

“Let me in! I can explain!” he shouted back, drawing a few white-haired stares. “Please,” he said, softer.

Jessika looked at him, considered, hesitated, and then stepped forward.

Nathan side-stepped toward the door, hoping for the lock and knob to turn, the bells to rattle, and the metal-framed glass to swing open. Everything would be all right again if he could just talk to her. He’d make coffee. They’d sit at one of the tables near the back. She wasn’t scheduled to open for lunch until eleven. He had time. He could make her understand just how sorry he was.

All she had to do was open the door.

Instead, Jessika climbed onto the inside window ledge and sat, yoga style. She pulled a razor blade from her shirt pocket. She didn’t even look up 14

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at Nathan as he leaned toward the door that wouldn’t be opening anytime soon. With the razor, Jessika set to work scraping the leftover color of the former message painted across the inside of the glass.

Nathan watched as the letters “S-P-E-C-I-A-L” disappeared one after another beneath her blade.

*

Pose Madeeha Sheikh*

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dog not gone JayAnne Sindt I sense your presence in your absence as you don’t come to greet me at the door as you are not lying there on your favorite rug on the floor I hear you yelp within my mind as you are not curled up on your spot on the couch as you are not beneath me, I imagine you’d say “ouch” I see you sit before me with your cutest face as you watch me eat waiting for something to drop as you are not here to vacuum and I don’t tell you to stop I smell you in the car while I take a drive as the odor wafts towards me from you still so wet as you are not in the back seat and your swims, I can never forget I taste you in the air during colder days as the joy you brought in winter you may never know as you’re not jumping and diving and neither of us are eating snow I feel you right beside me, a brush against my leg as you don’t nuzzle me yet again, I shed another tear as you remind me that you’re gone but also, forever near *

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Student Graphics

drowning thoughts Jordan Antrum*

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carpeting For my mother

Candace Hall There were purple rugs and oriental wallpaper When we moved into that house.

You told me later the sewer assessment Took money budgeted for redecorating.

The wallpaper was soon replaced, But the ugly rugs show up in home movies Until I am a teenager.

Three years after your death, I am moving to a new home.

I stand in the living room.

Burnt maroon, the realtor called the carpet.

But I am your daughter, I recognize purple when I see it. *

winsted green Charlotte Silver* 18

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holding on

After teaching Elizabeth Bishop’s “One Art”

Martha Hayes When you referred to yourself as an old lady, I felt the sting of lost things: of paper plane tickets, the keys to my first house, of misspelled words in letters to Santa, of my own words written and erased, written and rewritten, of books and plays and movies, of the forgotten author who wrote the line my sister loved to quote: “a hundred years from now no one will care,” of my sister. of protests, and period cramps, the awkward fumbling of zippers on narrow beds and back seats of cold cars.

Of first kisses and the last touches of cold cheeks.

Easier to toast to friendship, wine and restaurant food, soft beds against our bones, gardens that are still green.

Never mind how slippery our fingers, how fragile their hold has become.

*

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spirit of the wall Sarah Kushwara*

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black girl walking Jahnesha Lewis* it’s like you’re on the edge of a cliff and holding on by one hand, ready to fall with one more push, because everyone else’s opinions. it’s the wish to have orange freckles where Dark skin lay peeling off Beauty marks where dimples may be. it’s the need to have the kinkiest of Curls be tamed with heat and sweat for hours. it’s the roundness of Hips for childbearing that receive the cat calls for walking down the street in jeans. it’s the sweat under arms and on backs when a cop drives by and the relief when Mama says she Loves you. it’s being the one Dark speck in a sea of white, it’s the blood that claims maturity. it’s learning the difference of bringing home a boy with your skin and Bringing home a boy as white as bread. it’s loud voices and Big words according to those who mimic your voice. but finally it’s the feeling of Self worth when you’re chosen to Love him over the Pretty blonde in your class it’s the Acceptance of finally being Wanted for the Black Girl You Are. *

breast exam Candace Hall The surgeon looks away, Fingers circle, search, Probe for what the x-ray shows.

“It is no larger,” he says, “But it has not diminished.”

Neither of us comment, I will come back in six months.

At home, beneath my softest quilt, I feel my cat knead the covers, Her eyes closing, purr low.

Replete, curling into herself.

* 21

Student Poetry

Fresh ink 2019

Women’s Creation Story Mary C Verdosi Long ago in ancient times a circle of women of many colors gathered on a mountain top and looked down on a darkened wasteland made barren by man’s greed and struggle for power.

With eyes of compassion they saw… the poverty, the hunger, the fear and despair of the people.

With sorrowing hearts they saw… the struggles of women and children caught in a web of violence and abuse.

With burning eyes they saw… pollution causing so much illness, death and desolation of the land.

With fearful spirits they saw… the wars that caused the annihilation of nations and cultures.

All this they saw and they wept and wept and wept.

All of this weeping caused their many colors to bleed, run down the mountain, wash over the barren land into the rivers and seas even splashing the sky.

Soon an amazing process of transformation began for wherever a teardrop fell color appeared.

From green grass began to grow.

Red’s many shades gave birth to rose buds, pink peonies and purple pansies.

Blue filled the sky and the oceans, while white drew pictures in fluffy clouds.

From yellow came sunlight and daisies and daffodils as green and brown enriched the fallow earth.

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Then from out of the clear black night a silver moon emerged shining brightly reflecting stars as they reappeared one by one.

This transformation of life-giving colors brought forth sounds of birds singing, bees buzzing, crickets chirping and the thundering roar of animals as they roamed the earth once again.

And that is why since ancient times, women, filled with hope and joy grief and sorrow wonder and delight have been drawn to mountain tops to gather in circles to renew their spirits to transform and be transformed as they reclaim the many colors bled from the tears of an ancient circle of women.

*

behold, he comes

Sandra Byrne*- Staff 1997 - 1999 23

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Sea Sevastian Volkov* - Staff 2015 - 2016 I don’t write about the ocean much, if at all.

Here it is, plainspoken: the sea does not exist to make you calm.

I ate from it, and I worked there. I understood how to take what I needed.

When I was alone, I let it disturb me, let it break my silence on the wheel.

I learned the scent of ocean is the scent of death, of beached fish, dried bladders, and salt.

I’ve stood astride what made them mortal.

Some say the ocean fills them with longing.

Stay with that. You need it to survive.

If I could choose what to love, what would I choose?

Other people.

Maybe God. Yet I do love the driving waves, the changeable tide, and the slow roll of whales, with bodies too vast to move according to our time.

I am not passionless.

I wonder if I would write about a man or a woman if I ever fell in love.

My heart, or so they tell me is not an animal’s, but a man’s It hangs above my freedom like a sword.

I would rather move in wind and cold, into profound silence, and if I waited for that massive sea to love me I would be waiting a very long time.

Still, dark-haired am I, and young what a shame it is for you that my mouth tastes like salt when there’s nobody to kiss it.

*

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robin’s egg blue Sandra Daignault The window frames a world, designed by nature’s crayon; the blue of a robin’s egg, violet splashes at sunrise.

Close your eyes, what is blue?

Scent of a summer rain, soft cushioned clouds?

These eyes of seeing are no more than fantasy, pixels turned upside down, and too much thought.

Filtered, blurred, sometimes imagined, yet somewhere uncovered lies the blue of a robin’s egg.

*

Jeff Goldblum *Laugh* Forrest Fee* - Staff 2017 25

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day job Genevieve Jaser Is this why people get sad, sad?

Sad in your bones, sad?

Kneel in a pew and pray kind-of-sad?

A boy told me he spent 6 hours editing Footage of me Another boy told me I was a cunt It’s funny how little you know about The world People start Proving that bad exists Do I hold onto my laughter?

Would it be wrong to start conversation On the bus?

Should I harden my shell?

Am I too old to still be happy?

Instead my mother tells me Quit your job When I’ve had a bad day My sister calls me crying Because a boy stole something from her That wasn’t his And my dad drinks until he can’t Stop laughing You don’t have to be a wallflower To Mimic one Suddenly You see The Packs Of people Hardening their shells, Sculpting the inhuman in humans.

*

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siren song Maggie Whelan* The bittersweet aroma of the chilled saltwater air. The soothing taste on her tongue. The heavenly sun setting over the never-ending horizon. She felt as if she were at the top of the world, the eroded rocks under her bare feet. The beautiful hymns of the crashing waves captured her and she let all her worries fly free into the hazy sea mist, a massive weight lifted off of her chest. She had no intentions of going back.

The music pulsed softly in the distance behind her, barely audible over the rush of the waves and the whistle of the breeze, and mindless chatter threatened to pull her back from her moment. She could hear toasts being made and glasses clinking together. The gaudy laughter of her parents’ country club friends. The fizzle of champagne. The shine of overpriced and oversized rings that hide underwhelming relationships.

She took a deep breath, the deepest her lungs could muster, and turned to witness the horrified gasps that followed the tragic shattering of a wine glass, lying in razor-edged shards on the cold, polished marble floor that used to shine.

She rolled her eyes and turned back around, once again focused on the moment in front of her. Before her eyes could re-adjust to the masterpiece laid out before her, the sky huffed and she lost her footing. Her elbow slammed into the smoothed rocks beneath her as her skull came crashing down with a dull, wet thud. Everything went black, but she could still hear the hiss of the waves, getting closer and closer. She was paralyzed. The waves retreated for a moment, and she thought she was going to be okay, ignoring the ominousness of the soft pause. But the waves came crashing back, this time full of force and grandiosity. They slammed over her head, like a pillowcase filled with bricks, instantly and all at once.

Her body lifted effortlessly as she was tossed like a rag doll by Poseidon’s commanding army. Her eyes opened slowly, softly, like waking up from a pleasant dream where she was in a vast field surrounded by sunflowers and honeysuckles. Everything was doused in a filter of cerulean, yet still so vibrant and alive. The water churned above her head as the sun’s rays shone through the surface. She reached out her hand, but it was too far away.

Everything began to fade.

She shifted her gaze to the twisted coral beneath her, focused on the tiny fishes darting in and out of the recesses of the deep. From the nadirs, a figure emerged, larger than anything she’d ever seen this close. This presence seemed so familiar, as familiar as a lost love. The aching in her lungs ceased, her hammering head no longer throbbed. Her eyes became accustomed to the salted depths engulfing her as the creature crept closer, becoming more focused in her bloodshot eyes. Her face contorted, overcome by shock and confusion, unable to comprehend what she was seeing or what was happening to her body.

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That last wave must’ve knocked me out and now I’m having some fucked up concussion dream, she attempted to rationalize to herself. This couldn’t possibly be happening. This wasn’t a creature at all, this was a person. A larger than life person, but a person. A beautiful woman, completely naked, outstretching her olive-skinned arm towards the woman she had just taken from her world. Her lips parted and she spoke, every word a beautiful melody that pulled the girl closer.

“Hello, Shenandoah,” she sang with a welcoming smile, her perfectly aligned teeth as iridescent as pearls.

Shenandoah blinked in surprise. Everything in her head and surrounding her pointed to her being incredibly uncomfortable, but her body seemed to be overtaken by a wave of serenity as this once-mythical being spoke to her in the most beautiful wavelengths. She was at a loss for words, her lack of articulation evident on her ghost-pale face.

“It is okay. You have no need to fear,” the spirit reassured, her silky words caressing Shenandoah’s ears. “I am Peisinoe. I am here to take you with us.”

As Shenandoah’s body relaxed into the palm of Peisinoe’s steady hand, her brain undoubtedly accepted her fate. No questions asked. No time to spare. Or all the time in the galaxy to understand.

Logically, Shenandoah knew that none of this made any sense, that she should be terrified for her life, that this monster was taking her to some underground lair to feast on her flesh, but in the very distant recesses of her mind, Shenandoah knew she was already gone, that her body was still probably up on the shore, waiting to be found by a pair of stone-cold parents, only shedding a tear that their beach house will never have the same atmosphere again.

Glancing up at the surface, now seemingly miles above her, Shenandoah tightened her grip on Peisinoe’s welcoming touch, let herself be pulled into the unknown depths of the sea. She closed her eyes and it felt as though she were flying, weightless, over the vastness of the Earth. As if she were in a spaceship rocketing towards the moon. No pressure, everything drifting away like a cloud. She had never breathed so easy in her life, surrounded by an expanse of empty rooms and empty hearts.

This must be the siren song. The ones that lured sailors to their deaths among the rocky shores of Greece. The one that lured her here, the promise of escape. The bewitchment of the oceanic depths, the pull of freedom. The enticement of a getaway. The sirens all sing in different tunes, hers the music of the mind, beguiling her subjects by their very desires.

*

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may Lorraine Giarratana I met her in spring, Her name was May. So fitting for a girl, Whose soul was the ethereal, Essence of springtime.

The light reflected off of her.

At the right angle I saw, Radiant rainbows soar out of her, Directly to the heavens.

Just like the sun beams rained down, on freshly thawed streams, She shot glistening beams of beauty, Over all the cold wintry surfaces.

They say April showers, Bring May flowers.

She proves this is true.

As with every step she takes, She leaves a thousand, Freshly budding blossoms, In her wake.

Her toes mingled with Dewy blades of grass, And conspired to shower the earth, In fields upon fields of, Lilies, tulips, and sunflowers.

Her delicate form, Like a new stem sprouting From the grassy ground.

Her soft sun kissed skin, Complimented her subtle curves.

Her hair, a thousand flower petals, Raining down upon her shoulders.

Her arms lie beside her, And gently caressed, The afternoon breeze.

I miss everything about her.

I wish May had lasted longer, Than a month.

* 29

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The kiss - The love story of two worlds Yuliya Polichshuk*

memories

Melanie Kovic*

They say that our moments fall around us like rain.

Maybe they do for the rest of the world, but for me the moments are storms.

A flash of lightning that pierces through your soul and makes your heart race at the same time.

It’s the thunder that vibrates your bones and makes them rattle.

It’s the rumble of the pieces scattered through your mind rising to the surface, breaking through the dark clouds.

For a moment there is the calm and then for more than a moment there is the storm. * 30

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unbeknownst Simone Swart* we match in the way that our irises are colored the equal same yours a caramel filigree mine an umber chaos we exchange glances of beautiful subtlety and of quiet unfamiliarity as subway slows down underfoot we part and separate and amidst a roiling crowd perhaps the slightest wave is given in the presence of a larger goodbye.

*

sharing the gift ShawnaLee W. Kwashnak 31

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phoenix’s flame Joseph Watson* Down the halls the music is rising.

Nothing but laughter fills the ballroom.

To their ears, the music is mesmerizing Unaware of their impending doom.

The Phoenix’s flame binds us all together, Its warming embrace so cold to the touch.

The sky filled with feathers.

The ashes cloud my vision. It’s too much.

Why have the voices gone silent?

The Phoenix roars to the sky above.

The noise, so violent, Leaves me sitting here, taking away those I love. *

sleep can wait

Sarah Kushwara*

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favorite parent Roberta Hoff Dad’s making love to his cigarette washing the bad taste down with a beer he was always the kind parent who said hello when I came in and said good-bye whenever I left if he wasn’t working overtime to pay the bills he was the parent who loved me I always knew that deep inside though when I was young it didn’t feel like enough one parent but never able to name that and knowing now it would have been worse if he left.

He stayed with mom all those years for better or worse when I was about 8 Dad and I watched cowboy shows together and I saw my Dad as the hero who did the right thing but he dragged himself to the shadows with his hand over a hidden wound

I fall into fear at the funhouse years ago the mirrors all look the same somehow in my panicked nausea I push through to the outside and there is Dad waiting with nothing but love on his face it’ll be too late the cancer hits at 77 it busts open like a grenade in his esophagus he says I’m sorry from behind that sorry I can hear rapids of tears and whys I say it’s OK I have found him Dad, it’s OK. I kiss the top of his head his soft white hair You take good care of yourself when I’m gone the words go through me as if I am the dying and all I can see is love on his face *

he quit smoking and drinking at about 60 the decades of memories compressed like a souvenir flat penny at night in a dream 33

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wide awake Kimberly Dyer* I crown myself in chivalry As the stars lean in to guide me Mother Nature blows acceptance into me I walk the path of the righteous I am wide awake Vines grow up my sides Roses blossom through my eyes Thorns form through my fingernails I am the flower of the night I am wide awake

*

stick fig.

Jordan Antrum* 34

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dance Lorraine Giarratana The sun’s oppressive rays fade behind the shadow of a tired midsummer earth.

Twilight begins to creep into every corner until The blistering heat of day has succumb to dusk.

The cosmos perform this show for us each day, Sun rising to its climax, blasting heat on cool ground, Then falling down again at day’s end, bidding us adieu, Leaving us with the encore of a starry night.

The crickets’ calls dance among the cool air, Twirling through the night like an auditory ballet, Each cry a playful pirouette tickling my eardrums.

I prance with them through the dewy grass, Blades brushing against my frolicking feet, Flower petals, like fairies, kissing my ankles goodnight.

Stars sparkle so bright over the earth’s tired body, They are twinkling spotlights under which I twirl.

Trees cast shadows over slumbering critters, Soft soil providing a bed for them, and a stage for me.

Moisture lingers in the air like stardust, Like glitter hanging in the atmosphere, Waiting for me to come along and collect it in my hair, As I whirl and waltz with the summer night.

Summer is more than moist air and sticky skin, More than short nights and never ending days, More than oppressive sun and sparse shade.

Summer is a performance of the universe, A balancing act between light and dark.

Each day ending with the deep colorful bow of sunset, As night wanders on stage and begins the second act. *

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connection Yelizaveta Tolstokoraya* Across the train car, I see first My favorite author in her lap.

The spine is creased and pages folded Signs of a book well-loved.

She reads enraptured, Her fingers coil her auburn strands That gleam like copper in the light.

As she turns the page, She curls her plum-stained lips Her eyes the brightest green Looking right at me.

The floor is the most interesting Shade of gray with white speckles Equidistant from each other.

The train comes to a stop.

She approaches with a wink And slips a note into my hand Ten digits on her bookmark.

I rush to make a connection. *

Jacket Madeeha Sheikh* 36

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Winter sun Sarah Fildes* I watch the winter sun As it fades over you A stone among many The time we spent together Is lost amongst the snow

*

charcoals and hot coffeE ShawnaLee W. Kwashnak 37

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the escape Yelizaveta Tolstokoraya* Tony made sure that the night nursing staff was busy before leaving his room to search for his friend. He shuffled to Student the closed door at the end of the hallway and punched in the Prose code that he saw one of the nurses use. He thought it was a break room until he heard screams coming from here last night. It opened to a stairway, and Tony grabbed onto the railing to steady himself as he went up.

On the second floor, he found himself in a dimly lit hallway and entered the first door on the left. It was the size of his own room at Placid Lakes Nursing Home, but it must have been a storage area. There were shelves covered with yellow dusty sheets. He pulled one down and almost lost his balance when he jumped back because there were dozens of jars filled with brains. Poor Arty, Tony knew that something bad must have happened to him when he didn’t return to their room yesterday afternoon to play cards. Arty was probably brought here, but Tony had to make sure. From his days in the army, he left no one behind.

He looked to see that there was nobody in the hallway and entered the next room. There was a body on a metal table. Tony inched closer and saw that it was Arty. His skin and muscles were cut down the middle and peeled to the sides. It looked like some of the organs were missing and others looked like they shouldn’t be there. He glanced back up at Arty’s face and saw that Arty’s eyes were now wide open, staring at him. He heard a low scratchy whisper from beyond the grave, “Run.” In his haste to get out of there, Tony ran into a table and spilled metal saws and scalpels all over the floor with a thunderous clanking sound. Disregarding the ache in his hip, Tony hurried out of the room and back down the stairs. He closed the door behind him as if to stop the listless spirits of the place from following him. He closed his eyes and tried to count and slow his breaths.

“What are you doing here?” the voice close to his right ear startled him.

It was the night nurse, a stern-looking young man with furrowed brows and folded arms.

“I just wanted some water, couldn’t sleep,” Tony’s voice was rough. The nurse looked at him like he didn’t believe him, then relaxed his arms and beckoned Tony to follow him.

“Come on then to the nurses’ station,” he said and walked back to the more populated area. A cup of water was waiting there for Tony when he caught up. “Here, some medication to help you sleep.” Tony nodded his thanks and put the offered small pill in his mouth as he finished the water. “I’ll walk you back to your room.”

They walked back in silence and the nurse turned off the lights and left after Tony got into bed. A little while after his steps faded, Tony swept his

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tongue in his mouth and spat out the tablet. He didn’t sleep that night. He was planning to get out of there before they get him, too. He lived at home with his wife until recently, but then she had to go away for a while. She must be waiting for him now.

After breakfast the next morning, Tony went to the recreation room to wait for the right moment. It was a large, bright area with a few tables for games, a pool table, and ferns decorating the windowsills. Tony sat down to join a group of ladies just starting another round of gin rummy.

“You’re just in time,” said the dealer and handed him seven cards. They talked about a tv program to try and distract each other.

“Now, Arty was a guy who could play,” the woman across from Tony said after having to remind her friend of the rules a few times.

“What do you know about Arty? Are you with them?” Tony stood up so quickly his chair fell back. They all looked at him with startled expressions.

“Calm down, Tony. What are you talking about? Who are they?” Tony realized they didn’t know what was going on here behind closed doors and turned from the room. He saw a nurse coming over to him.

“Let’s talk out in the hallway, Tony.” This was the day nurse, Lindsay, a pleasant blonde in her 30s. “You seem agitated. How can I help?” she asked him just outside of the doorway.

“You can start by telling me what you did to Arty,” he said with a clenched jaw.

Lindsay considered him for a moment, and Tony wondered if she knew that he’d seen everything.

“I didn’t do anything to him, Tony. His daughter took him home two days ago.” Her hand reached out as if to touch his shoulder but then fell back to her side.

“You’re lying. He wouldn’t leave just like that, without telling me.”

“He did tell you. During lunch, remember? I walked up to the two of you with his daughter, Rebecca, with the dark curly hair, and he introduced you.”

Tony vaguely remembered a sharply-dressed middle aged woman talking to him two days before. She must be right. His shoulders slumped and he leaned back against the wall.

“I must have forgotten.”

“I know you miss your friend, Tony. You got on really well.” Tony nodded and looked towards his room.

“I’m going to watch some tv.” Tony glanced at Lindsay and noticed her silent communication with another nurse who discretely held up a syringe and nodded.

He started walking towards his room then looked back and saw that the nurses had their backs to him. He turned the corner and walked a little past the chapel and pushed the front door. It was locked. He tried the same pass

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code as he used before, but the door didn’t open.

He walked to the chapel to think, and then he heard someone entering the building.

“Hey Tony!” The nurse’s aide breezed past him smelling of smoke. He caught the door seconds from it closing and walked through.

He went down the sidewalk, past the parking lot and to the bus stop. It was a beautiful summer day, same as any countless day he and his wife would get out to the park for a stroll. His beautiful Vera, he will see her again soon.

He sat down and waited for a bus to take him into the city. Cars passed by as people hurried about their daily routines, probably shopping, or coming back from school. He remembered like it was yesterday how he first met Vera in school and then they got married right after graduating.

Tree shadows became longer, but Tony didn’t feel the bite in the air yet. He was still relaxed and knew he was waiting for something.

Just then, he saw someone coming towards him. It was Lindsay. She was always so nice to him. She stopped a few steps away from him and smiled.

“Are you ready to go back inside?” She asked him, extending a hand in support. He shivered at the sudden cold breeze and realized it must be almost dinner time. He smiled at her in thanks, took her hand, and followed her back inside. *

luster Sarah Page Some say “soul” like one syllable Can outlast eternity, or carve A monument from meaning that No wind could grind down to grit— A single grit, perfect and worldly, Entire as heart of priceless pearl.

There is none such pearl in me—no hiding Space for soul where organ, blood and breath Beat a hot symphony in the now. Even now Ultimate cold inches deeper inside, my matter Graying to dust as sun cools and galaxies pull apart, Dear universe winking out lights in spent dark.

Why fear the fate of all starlit creatures, imagine Some endless one, some sky with different stars than Those that forged me today? Keep hollow soul stuff Away from me—I must glory in this day, treasure those I am always losing, grow my heavens here because This meager luster of time . . . is only mine. * 40

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encounter

Heather Ruszkowski*

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don’t forget to water the flowers Genevieve Jaser i wish i smelt like orchids because if orchids could smile they’d let out the sweetest perfume a mixture of bubblegum and NYC sweat the hustle of people running late in mid-october piles and piles of scarves and scarves keeping heads from spinning into the right lane bad juju people don’t always check their mirrors and accidents happen sidewalks scream as people bruise their tar cheekbones planes still crash and boats still sink but at least we know that while we’re on land, death is impossibly inevitable and as inevitable as getting a stomachache after corner-store chinese food yet all i see are Circles Circles Circles under eyes in the sky in my coin purse i wish i could sleep but the sweet stench of cityscapes and insanity makes my eyes water, tonight i’ll dream of sulky sidewalks screaming “don’t forget where you came from, don’t let the flowers die” * 42

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sara Kristen Marcano* Sometimes, love is as silent as a lazy Summer morning, a hot and hazy Sky that whispered softly, “Stay in bed, Sip your cold coffee. Turn your head, And wonder at the rise and fall of her chest.

Why should you dash off and dress?”

Sometimes, love is raging fire and fury – Today, it is this honeyed hour, unhurried, Studying the silvery vein that crosses her nose, Copper freckles strewn across her cheekbones, And sunflowers searching her lilac eyelids.

Perhaps she is wandering through some twilit Forest glade – perhaps she is searching for me, Or lazing serenely on a swirling sea Beneath a copper sun and silver clouds, Far from passing cars and churning crowds.

I will be here watching, waiting for her to wake.

Sometimes, love is a sweet, slow ache. *

springtime tackroom ShawnaLee W. Kwashnak

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Student Poetry

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currency of grief Cole Depuy In person, I hold back a smile when someone tells me bad news. At first, something so sad can seem zany.

Defense mechanisms do not work via text.

Like reading a string of advertisements: Coca-Cola, Progressive Insurance, Zion died this morning, Dodge Ram, the text from my roommate withheld any buffer.

My face cooked.

I couldn’t absorb the pain, only craved to pass it on, to impart solemn shock on the unknowing.

But if I got the text already, who wouldn’t know by now?

And wouldn’t re-announcement appear shameful? Darkly indulgent?

He was only 21.

It’s no wonder people text.

When I found a mutual friend in the rain. He was under an umbrella. I stood below a red maple in soaked jeans. I read his body language as we spoke: Hey, how are you? … [ ] … Did you hear about Zion? … [ ] … He’s dead. *

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Poison dart frog Alyssa Katz - Alum and Staff 2018 Long slender legs, narrow piercing eyes, leaving a noxious trail in her wake, fatal to the touch, perhaps an alien from another planet.

And the poison spreads.

So detrimental yet so harmless looking, her screaming appearance doing nothing to deter them.

Fools, they are, drawn into the exotic spell, and the poison spreads.

A kaleidoscope of ever-changing moods as she smears her venom on arrows of deceit.

One brave soul will see past the polished mirage, grab that same toxic spear, and stab it through her blackened soul.

Then the poison will cease. *

bizaRre

Lasaris Santos* 45

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finally something that is all yours Natalie Schriefer You’ve never stayed alone before.

You come from a big family, from brothers and sisters, cousins, godparents and grandparents, crowded rooms and yelling to be heard— but the hotel is quiet. The fridge hums and it echoes in your ears. You are alone and there are no rules. You set your bag down on the ground. Then you explore your space.

Stacked in the empty yawn of the freezer are ice cube trays, upside-down on the grating, the plastic cold against your fingertips.

You don’t need ice but you fill the tray anyway because you can, because no one is here to stop you—not this weekend—your reflection a muddled, dark shadow in the basin, the water hissing through the tap. Yours. All yours. *

longhorn in tubac Carmina Alves Palarino 46

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interviews I & II Heather Ruszkowski* Interview I. “Ms. Lios?” the voice rang out into the simple waiting room, or it looked simple compared to her, Vivian Lios.

Student Prose

Bouncing up, she grabbed a folder busting with misc docs, which she would claim as her extensive resume, and walked over to the open door, a string of clinking following her almost like the sound was a person. Sitting down, her skirt poofed out, making it seem like her body was swimming in a sea of ruffles. Placing a bag down next to her, one could hear a small growl coming from within.

“How ya doin’ mistah?” she asked, extending a hand. A hand where, all of her fingers were painted different colors. The man sitting across from her raised an eyebrow, looking down at the technicolored hand and then at the freckled, beaming face looking back at him. Hesitantly, he grabbed the hand, only to have his whole arm shaken in a rather robust manner. “...okay.” He responded, yanking his hand away. “So, Ms. Lios why do you want to apply to Gregamorous’s Insurance Policies.”

“Welllll…being an insurance person sounded pretty cool.” “...cool?”

“Yeah!” She smiled, and her curls fell into her face.

The interviewer sighed, fixing his jacket sleeves. “Do you have a resume?”

“Yup yup!!” She handed him the heavy folder and folded her hands together. “You’ll see I’m beyond qualified for this job. I’ve had 589 jobs in my short short lifetime.”

He thumbed through the docs, while occasionally looking at her. “589.”

“Yessiree! Five hundred. Eighty. And nine!” With a pause, she began counting on her fingers. “I started at a McDonalds…for three days. Then I worked at Burger King, for one day. Then Walmart for a week, and then I worked at an aquarium feeding fishies for about 4 days..and th-” “That is enough, Ms. Lios... I can look through your file on my own time.... I do not need your theatrical representation of it all.”

“Awwww…but that’s the fun part!!”

Groaning, he looked over the file again. “So, why did you leave these jobs?

Were you fired?”

“Heavens no! They always just didn’t work... and they would say the meanest things like ‘Vivi, you have no work ethic’ and ‘Vivi you can’t eat the fish food’ and ‘Vivi, you’re not supposed to bite the patients’! Like it’s never my fault they don’t have good work environments.”

“Uh huh…so they fired you but you felt it was unjust.”

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“See, firing sounds... bad. I just like to say that they made the worst mistake in their lives.” She nodded a bit, her necklaces clattering and her curls becoming, somehow, even more of a mess. “Vivian Lios is a wonder! One of a kind! And letting her go is a travesty!”

“You’re one of a kind,” he muttered, before changing his posture. “So... what are your skills?”

“Everything, mistah! See my clothes? I sew ‘em all myself. And they’re so so pretty!” she nodded. “I can speak English, and pig latin. Like Ivivay Isway Awesomeway!! I’m a natural, betcha’ didn’t know what I just said! Oh uhm....

I’m a pretty good writer. My handwriting was once said to be ‘so uniquely bad it could be it’s own language.’”

“And how will this help you with selling insurance?”

“Weeelllll, if someone as cool as me offers you insurance, maybe they would buy it like. I wanna be like that girl, Vivi, so let me buy some insurance.

Ya know?”

“Mmmhhhm,” he then added under his breath, “Or they’ll think you’re a serial killer.”

Resting her elbows on his desk and placing her chin on her hands and while looking at him, she grinned. “You’re mighty cute.”

“Please keep this professional, Ms. Lios. Next question, what would you describe as your struggles?”

“I have none,” she replied, still gawking at him. “Well, I guess I can say I have a weakness for men in suits. And you... have set a trap and caught the best fish in this big lake.”

“That makes no sense.... Okay... so, no…, weaknesses.” He sighed, turning to type something on his computer. “Well, we’ll let you know if you got the position or not in about a week.”

“Oooohh..might need to be quicker, I have so many job offers that just.. they’re so needy for me.” Vivi looked up at him with puppy dog eyes. “..........” he fell silent, wishing this whole situation was over. “A few days, I guess.”

“That’s more like it! Give me a ring soon then!” She jumped up, the necklaces hitting her chest, and the bracelets bouncing. Grabbing the bag, an even louder yip could be heard. Raising his eyebrows the interviewer, looked at her.

“What’s in the bag, ma’am?”

“Oh! It’s my service dog, ya see,” Unzipping it, a tiny little chihuahua popped its head out. “Ain’t he the cutest?”

“I guess you could say that....” Already tired from the situation, he let her walk away.

As she skipped off, her cowboy boots clicked on the ground. Once the clicking was in the distance, and the door shut, the interviewer covered his tired face.

“I hate working in New York City.”*

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Interview II. The waiting room was silent. For a moment, at least before a very loud phone call took place with the aforementioned Vivian. As she walked out, blabbering away, the interviewer from before peeked out.

“Mr. Frontier?” The same voice called out into the waiting room.

“Mr. Frontier?” it called out again.

“Mr-” “I heard you, the first time,” a gruff man’s voice called out, though to the interviewer, it appeared to be coming from nowhere. “Let me take my sweet damn time, okay?” Almost like an apparition, the leather cladded man made his way to the door though, his steps were more like a drag. A small dog sat behind him, chomping on his leather pants.

Standing, with his elbow rested on the door, he waited for the interviewer to take a seat. Kicking his leg a bit, he shook the nuisance of a dog away.

“Why don’t you sit down, Mr. Frontier.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?” he questioned, pushing forward with his questioning. The leather wearing man stepped forward, and made an attempt to sit in the seat.

All that followed was the squeaking and sticking of leather and Mr. Frontier locked in a weird squat like position.

That’s why, Mr. Big Shot.”

“I have a name....”

“Do you? Well I won’t lower myself down to asking for it, Mr. Big Shot.”

With that, he stood back up, followed by more leather squeaking and leaned himself against the chair.

“Okay..., ignoring that comment,” he paused, looked at his computer, and then back at the potential job candidate. “Why are you applying for a position here?”

“Need the money, simple as that. I also read you don’t do background checks.”

Blinking a bit, the interviewer folded his hands together. “And..how exactly did you hear that we don’t take background checks? Because we do...we very much do...and from yours it seems like you have an extensive record. In 1998 you ‘punched a baby for crying too loud.’”

“Hey! That baby was really asking for it. He kept giving me these ‘do it, you won’t’ looks. So I fucken’ did. It hurt my hand...the bastard.”

“I see.... Ahh, here it states that you ‘Robbed a fishery in 2001 for....’” He paused, trying to keep his professional composure. Taking in a deep breath, he kept his voice as monotonous as possible. “You robbed it for ‘Fish hearts so you could try and sell them on the black market.’”

“It was good business,” Mr. Frontier said, stroking his goatee. “I didn’t

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really regret that one... but are we really going to go over my minor felonies, or are we going to get to my extensive skill set?”

Placing his hands on the table, the interviewer looked at the other man, internally groaning. “See, you have 96 recorded offenses….have gone to jail for 70 of those things.... Even if you went to Harvard, I wouldn’t be able to take you seriously, especially seeing that in 1997 you ‘kidnapped a horse and attempted to marry it.’”

“Don’t talk about Odor in the Court like that, she was a lovely horse...It was not kidnapping either, it was consensual.”

“How did you.... Never mind, I don’t want to know. Tell me one thing you can do that will make me maybe consider you for this job?”

“Well, Mr. Big Shot, I can do loads of things. Here’s my resume.” With that, he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a napkin. Holding it out, the interviewer slowly took it into his hands.

“Is... is this a napkin from a fast food restaurant?”

“Maybe? What does it matter?”

“I....” He stopped, and actually read what was on it. “Mr. Frontier, all that’s written on here is that your skills are ‘Besting One Eyed Jackman in a Fist Fight... but only if One Eye Jackman is severely hammered.’”

“Yeah.”

“An explanation? Any….thoughts on how that helps you in the workplace?”

“Well, I can punch. I’m strong. And can best One Eyed Jackman.” He nodded a bit, and attempted to flex but, couldn’t raise his arms up all the way due to the jacket.

“How will that help you sell insurance?”

“Wait.... This is a job for selling insurance? Like ‘actually’?”

“Yes.... Yes ‘actually’.”

“Well fucken’ I was lied to again. I thought that this was just a cover up for taking people out, you know.” Mr. Frontier stopped, and made a finger gun and pretended to shoot it. “Pew pew.”

“What?”

“Like, you sell,” He did air quotes around the next part ‘Insurance’.

Continuing he gave the interviewer a wink. “But really, you take them out and collect their money.”

“Absolutely not! We’re a shady business, but not that kind of shady.”

“A shame.” Fully standing up, he made his way to the door. “Then just... forget you ever saw me. I am one with the wind, the shadows. I am nothing.”

“Can do, Mr. Frontier.”

Behind him, the door slammed, and so did the Interviewer’s head on the desk.

* 50

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blank pages Gary Rushworth Blank Pages, to someare meaningless; they know not what they’re for.

But to those who color sunsets with words, or make their meanings clear, Blank Pagesmean opportunity to be heard, to be felt.

Blank Pages are a writer’s instruments, their pallet of dreams: to color that sunset; to follow that dream; to be whole!

Blank Pages, to some, are not blank at all. *

dog looking over water ShawnaLee W. Kwashnak 51

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when i lived on west main p.d. lyons When I lived on West Main Street Third floor Victorian Short walk for the liquor store past a little unnamed park Not too far from down town Landlords’ cousins on the first floor Stole my unemployment checks Put sugar in our gas tank And I don’t know why We had a Great Dane, brindle dog Got a cut on the end of his tail And no matter what we did He’d wag the bandage off.

Going up and down the stairs, hit the railings Drops of blood splatter As if his name was Jackson.

We bought a parrot Called him Caesar Filled the living room with plants And let him fly around.

Got oil lamps to save on electricity.

Tall hurricane lamps, Scented oil glowed in every room.

Tall well screened windows let the sky in.

Wood floors creaked waltzed all night by ghosts.

I got a job in a toy shop.

Happy about the baby.

Still painted, Still wrote every day.

Still thought I knew who we were.

In that rocking chair your grandmother used to own, I’d smoke cigarettes, as many as I wanted Into the middle of the night, Out over the roof tops, distant highways, streaming lights, Weight of an endless summers in the dark. *

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joy On the occasion of my 30th year at NVCC

Pasquale J. DeCicco Smile, just like the rising sun Who beams to see his day’s begun And never sadly sets whose work is never done.

Above the earth’s beshrouding clouds, no darkness know Besides his soul’s own unrelenting glow, Absence of which is woe as will all wisdom show.

Like Christ from depths of gloom ascend, His joy your own to death transcend, If you’ll become your own best friend.

Lest he appear a witless lout, A man will mask what mirth is all about And hide the joy that’s woe turned inside out.

He wears his mask of woe To hide that inner glow Lest men should laugh at what they dare not know.

No matter how the world may try It can’t this source of joy deny, No more than clouds can shut the sun’s constant eye. *

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Requiem for a factory series 1 Kenneth DiMaggio (#1) Just like your folks mangled on assembly lines or on themselves so didn’t everybody when it came to speaking And if factory became fact’ry and Catholic became cat’lick so didn’t bowling team union Democrat become slot-machine addict & anti-everybody But if the casino was our future the fact’ry was our youts I mean youth that wasn’t going to tool & angrily die like our fathers or waitress into premature arthritis like our mothers because we were going to do great tings And like a team where you could not pronounce your teammates’ last names or their countries we would be sisters & brothers for eternity *

(#2) Brass ball bearings we would later shoot from our slingshots Devil-hooved tire irons that could pry open car doors Some rod or iron middle finger somewhere in your Buick --yup our factr’ies made that too Crystal bowls with rose petals etched on the bottom: when our grandparents were young immigrants that’s what they made in these already boarding up factories No touch! No touch!

--Nonna or Bobchi warned us off before putting a bowl back in its cabinet where Mom or Dad mistakenly took it out instead of the plastic & paper cups & plates from which we drank our wine and ate our chips for the after church Sunday dinner *

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(#3) Where in our Buicks our Fords was the rod or piece that helped make our V-8 Monsters run?

The men who made it just referred to it as a “middle finger” and one that could only be manufactured where counting the teeth outside of a weekend bar was a Sunday morning past time But when that factory closed and punks like me bought cars made overseas retired toothless machinists drinking in bars would raise middle fingers that inevitably got folded into salutes or pledges over a heart when the ball game on the television showed a flag or a commercial for a brand new car that few people would buy *

(#4) Three story tenement back porch gated as playpen while Mom pinned laundry on a long paper clip of rope “I’m sending these clothes out to your father who works by that big smokestack,” she said as she pulled out a sagging line towards a horizon of similar brick chimneys several onion church domes and one naughty neon lady’s leg kicking up from a nearby bar A couple of hours later: “Lemme see if I can bring daddy back,” --pulling in now dry towels and bedsheets an hour later when Dad did come home (perfumed with the smell of the brown water that only the big people drank) --another fight with Mom trying to pull Dad back and eventually succeeding to pull back years later the son who would come home after trying to drown himself in waters that once again failed to make him feel big *

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pretty floral dress Skully Dege* She wore a pretty floral dress His hands wrapped tightly around her wrists She prepared herself for what she knew He did what a real man wouldn’t do She only wanted to be pretty He could not control himself He left her bruised and bloodied She cried for many weeks He hurt her more than the acne on her cheeks She then went numb for many months He threatened her And told her not to run She was too scared to say anything He enjoyed the power more than everything She saw her reflection And saw her life He wanted a gun But, he brandished a knife She did not want to stay But, was not allowed to go He made her stay because He did not like the word no She refused to hold his hand He pushed her around So, she could not stand She sometimes prayed for an early grave He violated her And showed her his rage She tried to run But, he pulled her back His fists left her ribcage Stained blue and black

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She crawled on the floor With broken ribs He thought it was okay, He was sick of her “fibs” She struggled to rise to her feet He pushed her back down to the ground Where she could not move or make a sound *

the one billionth S.E. Page When the Big Bang sparked, Matter and anti-matter annihilated Each other in equal parts, Oblivion canceling all Presumptions of nascency.

But for every billion particles Instantly erased from existence, One survived— These one-billionth particles piled One on the other to form our universe Clump into multitudinous galaxies, Pump our hot mammalian hearts, And evolve consciousness in cold space.

We are gloriously improbable survivors Of an apocalypse that almost undid All being!

Almost is a wonder.

Almost is enough— If I fall back into the void At the end of this mortal construct, I will still praise the vacuum Teeming with virtual particles Making quantum leaps Denying emptiness, birthing us Calling me back into the dark, and yet Rolling out the light.

*

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interpretation Benjamin Chase When you were young, a word had one meaning.

You learned the meaning, and it fit the sentence, and the sentence was the sum of the words it contained.

But later, you discovered that a word was a history— waters, wars, lands, lost languages away from its roots.

A word, you found, was like a person, and a sentence like a city— one place for the many who can’t quite agree.

*

winter times Brian Hernandez*

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cup of dreams Gary Rushworth

Time can be a breath of fresh air on a spring day if we learn to open the window of our lives To breathe more than just the stale air of too much work without an end in sight or the wherewithal to know when to let the day end Another begins with the sunrise and glistening dew or snow or rain All possess something useful, for lack of a better term, that our souls need to touch, to see each other through crystal prisms where the fire burns Fingers touch and feel and want and desire A moment to breathe fresh air A moment to feel alive A moment in Time A dance on hardwood floors with the D R E A M S of you and me as we walk and talk together perhaps then you will know the fire that I see in your eyes; A flame of beauty, of intense warmth that can make a terrible day seem not that bad. *

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body like water part II (Drink more water)

Anisa Joyce Caraballo “I am poured out like water; all my bones are out of joint.

My heart is like wax, melting within me.”

Psalm 22:14 (International Standard Version) when water is placed inside a container, the molecules will shift, take all that they are and conform to a space that leaves room for more important matters. perhaps it takes this shape because we tend to only admire the jar that tames it. we are afraid from the moment we are baptized in it, born with it under our tongues and yet, some of us never learned how to swim. you’ve spent hazy summers running from the tide for fear that it would carry you out with the waves and a body like yours cannot withstand high pressure. but a water like mine, a body of water, is all buoyancy, all cascading refuge for the tired soul and panacea for sore throats. do not contain me, trust that i can hold the weight of you. i will never let you sink. learn how to ride the crest of my body after the storm, look for the lighthouse in my eyes and let me carry you home. let me cleanse you and bring the wreckage to shore.

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do not be afraid of deeper waters i can fill the empty basin of your chest, calm the flames when you’ve set yourself on fire. i know you can’t stay under long, but for a moment, replace the smoke in your lungs with water. let me distort the noise on the surface so the whole world sounds like it’s singing. keep swimming, maybe one day you’ll stop looking for shelter and learn to dance in the rain.

*

My heart was given; my will was not Joseph Adomavicia* - Staff 2015 - 2016 See me, hear me, and feel me.

My soul lay bare— my heart was given, my will was not.

From your vantage point you take advantage of friends, money, and thoughts.

I shall not forfeit my happiness for the sake of yours.

Can this love you claim true be true when you bathe in sin?

Do you see, hear, and feel me when your self induced euphoria numbs your perception?

See me, hear me, and feel me.

My soul lay bare— my heart was given, my will was not.

*

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red belly Sevastian Volkov*- Staff 2015 - 2016 Spring arrives suddenly, in fits and starts, like a woman who often asks for my bed.

Thunder last night. Fog hot and low.

Some of the grass is green today and skunk cabbage is coming out of the bog.

In the part of winter when even the winter is dead, the dark earth, eyes black with desire, rises with spring’s hair in his fist.

Like summer, she is beautiful and like winter, the earth breaks her body and scatters the pain of living over the world. ten thousand years the seeds slouch towards becoming I do not imagine this painless.

Like God, in the pain of it. Unlimited compassion. My lips at her wrist.

In the nighttime, faintly: a song of sorrow for God, who must feel this for all living things. The stain of her virginity. My heart beats open. Slowly, young spring lifts her hips.

(I love her most as summer, for her consummations but I can’t speak for long about summer, not summer, no.

Summer is too vast, like Odin hanging by the ankle until his head cracks open like an egg.

Her air is heavy. If not, storms. Light and heat.)

The clouds part their thighs, the sky breaks open, the streams run as warm as blood.

Happy is the man who receives an early marriage!

And I myself, at rest in the fields I give her nothing, since she wants for nothing, but I watch her body rise.

The spring is not a woman, and the earth is not a man I simply lived under it, without metaphor, when I still lived in my body, hunting along the shore.

I was too pure for poetry then.

To write lines like this, I must have spent too long indoors.

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I must have become very civilized.

In summer I will go no more among them, I will let slip into the world, which has no arms to hold me, though maybe blood to leave on my red belly.

The warm dirt, caressed by my feet, asks me no questions.

Somewhere in the world, an owl turns its head in the dark. *

Time travel Martha Hayes I am blowing out my birthday candles when I think of my mother, already standing in her driveway when I arrive to pick her up.

She loves to go places and she is old, so I drive her.

She is prepared for my arrival because she doesn’t want me to come into her house, wants to keep from me the time it takes her to dress, to get from her bedroom to the bathroom across the hall.

Her legs are old and often swollen.

They no longer run. Instead, they drag and pause, drag and pause, drag and pause.

She is impatient, my mother, and would like her stride back, her ability to whip through the day.

But I can’t stop thinking about her slow, cautious travel.

I can’t stop thinking about time.

If only it could move like that.

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sea turtle Roberta Hoff He was the tortoise engineer, methodical, I was the hare character, whatever we were doing I had it all done by the time he drew a plan, our plan went asunder when he died.

There are couples who fall madly in love now and then.

We wanted to grow old together, die together like Baucis and Philemon.

I am in the aquarium. I watch the sea turtle swim up and spiral and spin in a circle across the window and arc waving his arms over and over, round and round through the blue green water glistening like a turquoise sea; a dream, a thought, my husband might be reincarnated as a turtle. My mind makes leaps like that tortoise, sea turtle. I watch the large-eyed creature lift his head up as he reaches the top and adjusts his paddling feet, he swims back down to the bottom looking out at me, his big black eyes full of turtle thoughts.

After the aquarium, I meet our grown son for music and dinner, gator meatballs on the menu, I pass, I can’t eat that, I say; he says that turtle soup is a delicacy at the restaurant where he works, I say, I could never eat that. *

ode to recognition Daniel Hotham Poetry builds itself from the small reservoirs That have sprung up under my fingernails Covered in soft green moss that reminds me Of a reality where trees will one day rule the world.

For now, though, I’ll settle for someplace better, Away from all of the white noise, maybe I’ll Settle for a tiny building holding offices that Were once some millionaire mansions where ivy Grew like forests, trying to reclaim the world. * 64

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ancient oak Sandra Daignault A hundred years, never lonely, nourished by thousands scampering beneath my green canopy and above forgiving earth.

I imagine I’m fixed on life’s stage, my ancient bones hosting a crowd, acting for each other their sacred stories.

Like this night, owl, deathly silent, camouflaged behind my bark-covered curtain, opens moon eyes when most are closed.

Ambush strike! His victory this night.

The uncaught scurry back to beds.

Muffled calls for hearts to rest, some never knowing why.

I welcome all secrets, accept a destined last breath, sure that each sunrise provides all that is ever needed.

Harsh daylight seeps slowly, exposing my weary cracks.

A hundred years, I am content, a hundred more, never lonely.

*

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the pain of my bearer Joleen Johnson* Her feet were battered and swollen For on them she lived.

Her heart was full. She’s broken.

Why should she forgive?

Alienation became her friend; A lovely lesson for a lonely woman.

Weak but still strong, She danced through her sorrows like to a song.

Even when she was too frail to stand She never failed to lift her hands. *

athena Lasaris Santos* 66

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I’m scared Lynette Melendez* I’m scared I’m scared Of falling in love with a woman That holds my heart in her hands In her eyes she sees perfection But in the mirror, I only see flaws I’m scared Of falling for this angel in a world Full of demons in disguise trying to cause harm I’m at peace in her presence But at war with my essence I’m scared Of loving her with every ounce of me That she gets tired and finds someone else Who fulfills her wants and needs But I hope that she stays, it’s her that I adore I’m scared Of waking up from the dream I once lived Shaking me into the brutal reality No longer on paradise island But on the war zone and I’m on front line I’m scared Of being this vulnerable to anyone My heart was once intact Now it’s impaired and at times out of service If I’m breathing, you have me I’m scared Of the past hardening my warm heart Causing it to shiver with icicles It’s like a blizzard, my heart is trying to survive its harsh conditions I won’t surrender, but I’m numb to the pain *

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who i am Lasaris Santos* I’m an open secret to those who will listen And from experience, I’m full of foolish wisdom My past is as dark as the nights you spend wandering in your dreams But my success story is waiting to be written in a book Improvement is music to my ears But I’m drowning in your judgement I stare into the broken mirror and I quickly look away because I don’t like what I see Or am I comparing myself to what this world wants me to be?

My heart beats with a passion, I wish I could show But I’m forced to conform to be normal To be accepted Now tell me what ever happened to the pride of being unique?

I can admit I don’t know what self love is But I have a fire inside That is sometimes put out by rain And once in awhile, if I’m lucky I’ll encounter a dove through the storm On my spare time, I’m accompanied by the moon While I inhale music, shouting the lyrics in my head and feeling the melody through my veins Only then entering in the only world that accepts me as me.

And even though my life hasn’t been the easiest I have climbed mountains higher than heaven itself I have overcome obstacles that have challenged my strength and have left me breathless I have had people walk in and out of my life, sometimes leaving me with nothing but a knife pierced through my spine, creating a river of blood But here I am still standing Mirror still broken But each piece of glass tells the story of who I am And nothing will ever change that *

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LUHH George Ramirez* I can feel what I hear, and sometimes I cry because I can hear you, and what you know.

There are times, as I lay at night, as I turn to and fro I look up at the ceiling, and see a reflection of me.

Of what I used to be.

Of what the two of us used to be.

When you feel, you can’t hear what I can hear, sometimes.

So many things and events have happened before our miserable affair, began.

Confusion and self indulgence, lead to tears and two separate cases of self doubt.

I try to hear your tales, as I look up at the ceiling, watching where the two of us failed.

Of what I used to be.

Of what the two of us used to be.

I try to tell you how it is make you look beyond just the surface, look towards the depths of our world because, at your best for me, you were a encouraging powerful force that wanted me, wanted me to be so strong.

You made me feel so high, when we were so high.

But as I watch our past, the memories drip onto me from up above raining over me, and I’m being consumed by a “once love.”

It’s an endless stream of drops and thuds until I am no more.

And now I’m washed up consumed by our past, and our past souls.

Although you may not hear my shouts of fear, and dipping tones I have drowned in my own bedroom.

Of what I used to be.

Of what the two of us used to be.

*

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to my ancestors Imani Stewart* Why whenever I glance out on an empty field do I only think of my ancestors treating the land?

Said land that was stolen, land that held stolen people.

What they endured soaked through that land.

Yet it did not die.

Trees sprouted on that land, and all I can see is my people gasping for air.

Air, that is given.

Air that supports all life on earth.

Air that has no color, no culture, and no reason. *

Fear of the night Sarah Kushwara* 70

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lost Ryan Garesio I am a lost boy floating alone on an endless sea and yet somehow I am free far from the what-ifs and how-are-you-doing-todays and a long way away from the I-remember-whens and the memories-of I am a lost boy do not call for a search please do not come looking for me I am a lost boy floating alone alone on an endless sea and lost boys like me are free *

fear of the dark Lasaris Santos* 71

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freedom In response to “We Are Seven” by William Wordsworth

Christopher Gordon*- Staff 2018 Winter wind and snow was shed, now resting on a sloping hill, we children brought our little sled when school was at an end.

I watch as my sister, leader of the rest, assigned positions for our ride, the oldest goes first and claims “this is the best!”

On our wintry hill, next to take the slide, the little one is five, and youngest, and grips the plastic in her hand, I think my sister, trussed in her coat that looked like sand, was not half as free as the cold white snow will mean this drop to me. but “You must wait!” the oldest let me know.

My brother, last child present would get his chance instead, I guess I can wait, it shouldn’t be too long for the third to ride our sled.

Wait! I am ignored again!

My sister takes the sled and my hope falls down the drain.

To the younger girl she said, “You will get a second chance.”

Oh! With justice and a sigh, I snatch our plastic, and with a glance behind me I give a hearty cry “I get a turn this time!”

And thoughts of fate do not enter my mind of our mother, always full of hate, will loudly scream up to the moon “YOU MADE YOUR SISTER CRY!” she will ground me until June, but I will make my eyes stay dry, 72

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and in my heart and soul I know I will become an actor and never share a single dole of hurt, except to my father.

But the hurt stays hidden, almost forgotten, upon my dad’s return for I had flown when I had ridden!

And this is all he learns, the joy of sliding down the hill, because I am young and free, and forgetting injustice in the chill, my flight is all I need.

*

middie adam Domenic Narducci III 73

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my garden Elizabeth Schneider* Something’s growing in my garden I’ll wait and see Am I growing some kind of tree?

Some plants are tall and some are short Some have leaves Some are bare And some don’t even seem to care That I don’t want them To be growing there Please keep my garden free of weeds Please plant some seeds Of love Of wisdom Of hope that is sure So soon, it won’t be long Before fruit begins to grow And my plants begin to show Some response To all your loving care Please, my plants Need some fertilizer They may be weak But my heart’s desire Is to bear fruit for you My heavenly gardener This is hard But you are kind You don’t care if other plants Leave me behind I know my fruit will last And I will go into your garden And all my growing pains will pass Seeds of suffering have been planted— Patience grows Wisdom blossoms Into flowers Their beauty no one can fully comprehend

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Seeds of sadness— Plants of hope How can this be?

What will endure for eternity?

What grows in my garden?

I don’t know Only time will show And only you, Father Will water me Because you make me grow

*

reminiscing Brian Hernandez* 75

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zora neale hurston and luke turner reunite Kristen Marcano* In these last moonless and lonesome hours, I lie stroke-stiff and silent as a storm-slain tree.

Soon my flesh will host a feast for fungi and flowers – I wait wearily for Death and his square-toed feet…

But midnight marches in! Severs my hopes like a sword – The darkness swirls alive, hisses with unsaintly static.

My blood thickens as you sift in, slowly taking form – My heart like all those headless chickens: flailing, frantic.

My flesh is ice, but how I fight to scratch myself awake!

Your cold black eyes puncture mine as the bed begins to shake.

My last breaths bloom in clouds – no, I’ve never been colder – And I shudder as that old snakeskin slithers off your shoulders.

How I regret that other moonless night, so many lives ago!

I beg Ole-Maker like that black cat begged us to let her go.

She cried out three times – tonight, I cry out many more.

If I had only known, as we danced around her bones, Soon my last cries would be ignored. *

singing Catbird

Elizabeth Schneider*

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Naugatuck Valley Community College Submitted for humor and no compensation....

Frank Barbino - 98 year old WWII veteran NVCC Alum Naugatuck Valley Community College Is a great place to get your knowledge Because it is a wonderful thing For the knowledge that it will bring With money you can do a lot And that’s really what life is all about And there is nothing better that your health Which is controlled by your wealth Yet money does not mean everything For some health problems money does not mean anything Yet it can create the best in life Nothing more valuable than a wife She will swear and have love for you There is nothing better that she can do But for that you must be wise And be forced to compromise And that means whatever the weather You must work out things together And you should not be wild Especially if you have a child That child is going to carry your name Whether or not you have fame And that child should be under your care Whether or not you have any hair But it’s very important for its education To be a better part in this nation So be sure that it is educated Because with that it becomes dedicated The place for that is your community college The school for males and females to get that knowledge What is necessary for you and your honey To provide what’s very important: money So make sure to do the best you can to stay healthy Because education is the way to get wealthy So never neglect the care of your wife She is a very important part of your life. *

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Fresh Ink 1969-2019: Special Section The following section is dedicated to the work of those people who have contributed to and supported the publication of Dimensions/Fresh Ink for the last 50 years.

Within it you will find the poetry, prose and art work of some of the major contributors to this publication.

Please enjoy.

Sadie Leaves the City – Ilene Reiner................................................................................ 79 Bilingualism - A thought or two - Daisy Cocco De Filippis.............................................. 80 Neighbors on Khourie Road - Ilene Reiner.......................................................................81 Just Like One of the Family - William H. Foster III........................................................... 82 Gone – Sandra Newton................................................................................................... 84 Stone Saints – Wade Tarzia.............................................................................................. 85 Beginnings – Daisy Cocco De Filippis............................................................................... 88 How Important Is a Coconut Boat? – Greg Harding....................................................... 88 Garlic Mustard Overtaking Woodland Poppy - Amanda Lebel...................................... 89 Privilege - For Charlottesville - Steve Parlato.................................................................. 90 A New England Foundation – Greg Harding....................................................................91 273D-E-A-D – Julia Petitfrere............................................................................................ 92 The Road Home - Chris Rempfer..................................................................................... 93 Finding Phuket – Jeannie Evans-Boniecki....................................................................... 94 Movement of Man – Greg Harding................................................................................. 96 No More Tears - Sandra Newton..................................................................................... 97 Those Berries- - Steve Parlato.......................................................................................... 97 How You Changed Your Face – Amanda Lebel............................................................... 98 ****

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Fresh Ink 1969-2019: Special Section

sadie leaves the city Ilene Reiner Fresh Ink Advisor 1986 - 2004 Emeritus Art Faculty 79

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Bilingualism A thought or two

Daisy Cocco De Filippis President of Naugatuck Valley Community College 2008 - Present Iambic pentameter or tetrameter, Is it the language of love or a baby’s gurgle, a world of tweeters, its 140 characters bringing us back … to counting.

How does one count the many ways to be bilingual? bilingual in the language of the heart and the brain, in the language of the unspoken conversations of the soul.

Is it negotiating worlds that can’t be entered, carrying the power, the freedom, the burden to “translate”, to negotiate, to explain to resolve…

The phone rings and at the other end an anxious hand and ear await.

Numbers flashing but no sound reaching the eager…

The conversation will have to wait for the bilingual one to be available, to be imposed upon, to be expected to, to…

Bilingualism, do we see ourselves living in a world of negotiations, of compromise and of freedom to ignore, to just…

Bilingual, fluent in many worlds and yet silenced. We must take the crumbs from the table, we must, yes, we must wait, for the translator to be available. *

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Neighbors on Khourie Road Ilene Reiner 81

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just like one of the family William H. Foster III Advisor - 1995 - 1998 Emeritus English Faculty It was 1973. I was sitting in a beautiful suburban house just outside of Philadelphia. I had come to this place at my mother’s request. Seated by my side, she beamed happily at the chance to show off her well mannered, well educated son to her “other family.”

I was raised in West Philadelphia, one of nine kids. One of the strictest rules of our household was to always show appreciation. There were few sins worse than showing ingratitude.

Another important lesson was never being afraid of hard work. Simply stated, there is no job beneath you when you have a family to support. My mom and dad both worked at a number of different jobs with no complaint, and always took extra work when they could get it. When I completed high school, I won a scholarship to a prestigious state university. My acceptance to college was seen as my parents’ reward for years of struggle and sacrifice.

But my story really began when I was in junior high. My mom was hired as a maid by a Jewish family in a nearby suburb. She had worked as a domestic before, but this time it was different. As the time she worked for the Steins stretched from weeks into years, I became more and more resentful as I believed the family were all hypocrites.

The Steins always insisted that Mom was just like a member of their family. But no matter how many times it was said, it made me want to gag. You don’t hire a member of your family to cook and clean for you. I carried too many negative stereotypes about Black maids working for White families. Despite the level of financial comfort her extra income afforded our family, it still made my stomach churn.

And there was more. They called her “GLADYS.” They addressed my mother by her first name – a sign of unbelievable disrespect. As kids we were always taught to address elders with the title of “Mrs.,” “Miss.,” or “Mr.” – no exceptions. To ignore this rule was a serious infraction of manners and cause for an immediate physical reprimand. Yet these people apparently didn’t need to be respectful to my mother. It particularly stung when the Stein kids did it.

I remember distinctly a phone call I took for my mom. ‘“GLADYS” is such a wonderful worker,’ some strange young voice gushed on the other end of the line. ‘We just love “GLADYS!” Please let “GLADYS” know we need her to work this weekend.’ I was so angry from this exchange, I couldn’t see straight. That’s my mother you are referring to, white boy!

I didn’t hate the Stein family, and I didn’t hate Jews or White people. But I did hate the disrespect. I hid my feelings from my Mom. They were bitter, and ugly, and crossed the line into the land of ingratitude, the unforgiveable 82

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sin. Time passed, and Mom moved on to other jobs. But it was a chapter of my life that didn’t end soon enough.

Years later I was home on vacation break during my sophomore year in college when Mom shared some exciting news. The son from the Stein family had asked her to come back to work. He was attending medical school and his wife had just given birth. ‘Could “GLADYS” please come and help out?’ Mom insisted that I come out to his home and join them for dinner. It would be a perfect occasion for her two families to finally meet. She insisted.

The past washed over me in an ugly, disgusting wave. I was fresh from the college classroom and full of righteous indignation. It was time for an overdue showdown, and I was just the avenging angel to handle it.

But somehow, through my fog of indignity, I stopped and took a slow measured breath. In a rare moment of clarity for a young hothead, I thought about my mother’s request. She had asked me to spend a few hours and share a meal with her friends. She wanted to show off her son.

This occasion wasn’t about me -- it was about Mom, and the people with whom she had a long, close relationship. Angry as I was, I realized it was time for me to show I had truly learned from my family the important lesson of gratitude. Damn it, it was time to give up some anger and grow up.

It was raining heavily the day of the dinner and the house was in an unfamiliar neighborhood, but I refused to use either as an excuse to cancel.

The truth? I didn’t have a bad time. They weren’t demons. I met the family who simply wanted to continue enjoying my mother’s love and attention. They were the people who trusted and loved “GLADYS.” And I saw how she doted on them. There was good food, polite conversation and even laughter.

I met a friendly young couple and their beautiful newborn baby.

Mom had provided me with a lifetime of her love and attention -- invaluable gifts that I felt I could never repay. That day I made partial payment for all her love, and met others who apparently felt the same way.

That rainy evening my Mom could not have been happier as she beamed at us all. *

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gone Sandra Newton Staff - 2019 Emeritus English Faculty I do not want to believe you are gone Although the machines puff and clank onward The blood, like water, drips out of your head Into plastic bags Your body is there But I cannot find you As if you are hovering elsewhere Waiting While your still (oh so still) body sinks into The inertia of the ventilator.

I was there when you returned from surgery And woke up Panic in your eyes As you gasped The nurse turning your face to her Almost shouting “Look at me, it’s only a tube To help you breathe” And still you gulped at air Your arms locked Hands grasping at that tube.

They had to tie you down….

And today, you are yet the same Trapped in stillness Breaths heaving with ventilator Your closed eyes coated with oil So your tears will not dry and cake.

Are you there? I want to ask But all I can say is “I love you; come back.”

*

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stone saints Wade Tarzia Advisor and Staff - Fresh Ink 1999 - 2019 The church bells drove spikes into the old priest’s heart, while the tones drove frightened people to confess. They bled (they said), but the priest was as dry as Christ’s painted wounds.

The church was big-city-bound, but the priest could hardly hear the herding machines. Doctors had violated his ears with bright, phallic devices and pronounced them whole. Perhaps the patina of smog had altered sound inside the church. Certainly it was true that the stone saints commissioned by a bygone bishop had become uncharacteristically loud. And today they were today being unusually critical as the priest walked by them, the sheen of his crucifix reflecting a warped cross across their knees. There was a trickle down the cheeks of John the Baptist, who pronounced soundless prophecies at him; the statue would have roared with fate had the artisan provided lungs. And so, ‘Be thankful for small blessings,’ the likeness of St. Jerome mimed, while Moses turned his head and refused to regard the priest; his tablet was not detailed enough to cover specific situations. But blessed Mary could be heard to breathe a sigh. In fact, lately her marble cheeks had reddened, and the stone folds of her cloak had almost wool-like rustled last week when she’d bowed her head at the priest’s passing. He sighed himself, and pursed his lips to withhold his anxieties. The church had gotten strange.

As strange as the neighborhood. The whole place had become like a water-color painting on which rain had fallen. The drops ran down this painting to form jail-bar streaks, and the priest looked out from behind them.

Now the street signs were all smudged, the fruit-stand sign, the liquor store sign, neon swimming behind a goldfish bowl. The neighborhood seemed excised from the world and suspended at the intersection of two wires called Latitude and Longitude, who were secular fellows, unmoved by any devotion. No wonder he endured the judgmental halls of the ornate church; there was an encircling chasm somewhere out beyond 49th Street. Here be Monsters, says the highway sign suspended from deceptively anti-medieval, galvanized trusswork at the precipice. And at the bottom? Wrecked refrigerator trucks fresh from fishermen, impaled on foam-softened rocks.

With that image in mind, the priest made a younger man do the last mass and went to his study overlooking 43rd street (he knew only from memory; the sign, as I’ve hinted, said “3r te t.”). The passing of make-believe automobiles caused eddy-airs that conjured up paper waste into whirlpools of color. They were like the seven deadly sins all decked out in mail-order lingerie, although in this day and age, it was an endless regatta of the 777 deadly sins, multiplied vastly to suit the crowded world.

The priest searched for the usual old man leaning on two canes -- one being short and wooden, the other tall and capped by a streetlight.

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Usual, for he was often to be seen there on a Sunday at this time, staring back up at the priest, who thought he was a ghost-symbol of his vertigo between Heaven and Hell. For, inside, the statues were hard but moving, but outside the old man was soft and still: counterbalances and fulcrum.

Today he wasn’t there.

“The one who crosses the chasm,” whispered the priest. “And for what?

What pilgrim are you, sir? And now not here when I want most to see you.

Illusion, I guess. Delirium, I suppose. But why not today?”

The old man was quite real, even too real. He was a shoe repairman residing at a brownstone flat several blocks and a chasm away. Like the priest, he too was hypersensitive to the church’s bell tones. They had always pierced honk and hustle like a blacksmith’s tempered ring, forging deepseating fasteners. God, however, had long ago receded behind his metal -- undeserved sadness and a progressive daughter’s teachings had made sad sense to the cobbler.

But the bell cleaved city sounds, shot a harpoon’s cable across the blocks.

You’re thinking, I know, that this is a gentle metaphor of not a hurtful barb but rather a gentle, hooked handle that the man might grab to follow unspooled tones to the church’s care.

No, no. The bell called out, ‘Mystery, mystery,’ which is two rungs above a promise. Today, though, the bell was more of a command. Watch, see? There’s a stone saint, on the balcony, a puff of red rust dust falling from hinges on a door rarely opened. The strongest saint among the statues has walked out on a pigeon-painted balcony, shrugged back his robes, unbared an arm, hefts the Christ-wounding spear borrowed from a Roman in a stained-glass scene. Eyes now to the cobbler clutching a brown paper bag of things costing $37.47, limping down the sidewalk because he figures even lame cobblers ought to walk. Here it comes, because today he didn’t feel like following the bell call to the strange church -- named here a strange church because he’d sat one night before a rectangular TV glow in a soul-dark room and suddenly knew he’d never passed that church in taxi or bus, that he’d never find it but for that bell. The signs weren’t well posted thereabouts. Rust, flaking paint -- he ought to write a letter, he thought with vague ambition; those ‘public works’ fellows, always at coffee and donuts, you know….

The barb whistled at the end of an unwinding spirit-line and hit the cobbler in the navel. The wound wept one drop of blood, looking just like a winy dew condensed upon a morning-cold fishing line. Then the barbs latched and tugged.

The cobbler dropped his food and jerked along faster than he’d thought he’d ever move again. The line in his belly was taut across the roof-tops and corners around which the man was being pulled. Sometimes the sun glinted off it and it glowed like angel hair, which indeed it was. Soon he was pulled to the very lip of the church, to the streetlight where he so often stood to find a priest standing by his window, framed in shroud and shadow, the very picture of an island. There he was, now, looking pleased, then mystified as 86

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the medieval-looking church squatted like a warrior beast, all festooned in ammunition of ripping spear-spires. The stone saint was pulling the cobbler in hand over hand.

The man paused at the streetlight, holding on as the spirit wire tightened.

His and the priest’s eyes met, but there seemed no help there. The cobbler held on, shut his eyes, pressed his cheek against the cool metal of the post.

Why shouldn’t he let go? His progressive daughter had talked him out of belief and then left him nothing else but a once-per-month visit. The bell tower had been the only constant offer, muttering with narcotic promises calendrically. But he held on, feeling that same feeling he had that morning, that he shouldn’t answer the call.

The priest descended from his office and opened the church door. He didn’t go farther, but he spoke.

“The people come, obeying the tide. But you’ve stood like a lone lighthouse keeper, every Sunday. Here is the wayworn traveler who won’t enter the guesthouse. What more interesting comment could there be? You must endure.”

The cobbler heard, and since he couldn’t betray such enigma-making trust, he could hold on a while longer. He lasted until the bells sounded again and the church loosed its sundering flood between the two men. The distracted fisher saint and his compatriots swung about as if reacting to a zombie-master’s call. They let go the spirit-line. The cobbler gasped as the barb fell out of the little wound and rang against the broken whiskey bottle in the gutter. Furiously the marble saints counted the blessed and the wicked as they left the mass. After all, they were all accountants whose job ended at the repopulation of heaven. But while tallying on fingers, they spared the cobbler a hateful glance and then stared wide-eyed at the priest.

After a time the cobbler opened his eyes and saw the priest, who was turning to re-enter the church.

This priest, the cobbler thought, is the lighthouse keeper, and I love him as the sailor loves the place he mustn’t touch.

The man, thought the priest, is the mystery of moss latched into chinked bricks. He swung the armored door shut behind him.

Later the stone saints could be heard speaking of “the one that got away.” They were not happy. Oddly enough, they always stared bleary-eyed over the captured masses but saved the profoundest ecstasies and deepest frowns for those who stood alone. Eventually an exalted one in stained glass worked its jaws (which were hinged at frightful angles) and demoted the priest three notches from some measurable quantity. Thereafter the church, stranger than ever, became the obverse of lonely for the priest, noisy like a house full of strict old aunts. The only silent one was Christ himself, who never spoke or moved, and whose painted wounds were dry.

END * 87

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Beginnings Daisy Cocco De Filippis It takes the will and a few steps, just one or two or three steps, to begin Where does beginning begin?

Is it in a word or a gesture or just the exhaustion of years?

We begin not quite, not firmly, not without uncertainty to imagine something else, to consider and to feel time’s unerring passing, moving us to engage in beginnings.

*

how important is a coconut boat?

Greg Harding Advisor and Staff - Fresh Ink 2006 - 2019 How important is a coconut boat, Its hull discovered on a dune, And hewn by small impatient hands That hollowed out its threaded husk And scoured the shore for a sawgrass mast That would hold a banana leaf sail; Before imagination plotted a course, It was launched, capsized, and crashed, And left to lay in a melt-away footprint, A half-buried shipwreck abandoned— While its maker set a new mark, To sculpt a tower of powder sand— Till the wreck was salvaged by huskier hands That cast the ship back on the surf And saw it sail into new dreams, Callused and unaware of being watched, Deaf to a timid claim being Buffered by an off-shore breeze From a little girl with empty hands Submitting, “Hey, that’s mine....”? * 88

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Garlic mustard overtaking woodland poppy Amanda Lebel - Staff 2017 - present 89

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privilege for Charlottesville

Steve Parlato Advisor and Staff - Fresh Ink - 2011 - 2015 Thrusting torches high, white Hitler fists split the night, rage flooding campus streets, a white fire crackling with slick white hate. A night-bloomed vine, this privilege flag unfurls—bluefield-less, red and white.

Twisting against the stark white circle, the mutant black spider, faceless, four-legged, pulses blind hate like the faces of the marchers, so proudly white.

Snapping fabric bleeds scarlet as the men chant, Blood

and Soil, eager to see someone bleed— Black or Jew—for the sake of sick white pride. Standing against this bloodfed herd, willing to bleed for peace, for good, they step into the rage— its force is like a twister—hearts bleeding for young Black men who bleed to death on streets beneath a tattered flag.

Politicians wrap themselves in that tired flag, refuse to see how its stripes bleed into a red mask caking Black faces.

A brave woman stands to face

this daylight hate parade. Her face— open, smiling-white in pictures—her blood spilled on asphalt after coming face to face with hatred, faceless in the grey Dodge Challenger. Her killer’s white face, is dead-eyed. Did that blank face break wide, smile, as he sped through a sea of faces, his cortex enflamed with rage?

And where does it spring from, this rage?

Wasn’t he once just another sweet-faced American, a clean-cut white boy? Will his mother’s love flag?

In the interview, she explains away his hate-flag ideology, maybe imagines him carrying a Black Lives flag.

After all, He had an African-American friend, so… Faced with a son’s killer hate, could any mother wave a flag, 90

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surrender up her mother love? Wrapped in a grief flag, the dead woman’s mother refuses to bleed for cameras. At the memorial, strength unflagging, she calls for us to unite beneath her daughter’s flag of inclusivity. Her hair flows righteous white like some Old Testament prophet, as the hot white spot glints against her wire-rims. Instead of a flag, pink gladioli—sword lilies—frame her courage as she quietly states, If you’re not outraged,

you’re not paying attention. Still they kindle fake outrage over players’ supposed disrespect for soldiers and a flag.

Funny how peaceful protest sparks manufactured rage, how pseudo-leaders fan the hate-flames into some mirage I barely recognize. We all should recognize the pocked face of this one country, perpetually divisible. The rage of the privileged on repeat, that core-deep hate. Where’s the outrage for countless Black men left by officers to bleed out on city streets? Black boys on playgrounds? Wasted blood staining the seats of cars, the laps and breasts of women? Outrageous isn’t it, this claim that racism is dead, this dismissal of white privilege as myth? Why, just yesterday, on crisp, white stationery, these words in my Kinney mail slot: We wish to keep the white race pure as God intended. We profess only truth and peace. I rage against these whispers—cloaked in reason, beneath a pair of flags— refuse to look away. As raw hatred stares me in the face, I must not blink, but find my strength, my readiness to bleed. *

A new england foundation Greg Harding When the cement truck got stuck in the mud Too far from the peeling barn— Stilted where its crumbled footings fell— My neighbor and I Hauled the mortar In pails of impossible mass, Like a fire brigade of Tipping scales, Until the wire handles Grooved our fingers numb And the form was filled to Support its historic bones. * 91

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273D-E-A-D Julia Petitfrere Advisor and Staff - Fresh Ink 2011 - 2014 & 2017 - 2018 When you are reading the news report of a police shooting and there is information about the last time the officer shot and killed a suspect, and the story notes that in the old case the officer had responded to a domestic dispute call (which is a sensitive topic for you because this was your childhood in two words: “domestic disputes”). Domestic dispute: a man and a woman who are the parents of one child together. The man has already left the scene.

This is made clear in the call).

Responding Officer—for it sounds like just one—comes upon the suspect riding his bicycle (and again there is something in your DNA reacting because one, you love bicycles which have always felt like freedom; and two, your younger brother’s main mode of transportation is bicycles. He is not like a lot of other brothers and is categorized as “special”—which he is, but when you say it it’s not like what other people mean. Your brother is “special” because this six foot tall, medium brown-skinned, middle-aged boy-man is always the “only” and the middle son in a river of sisters who wind your way around his shortcomings, his can’t understand and can’t do. You make yourselves readily utilized appendages he softly calls “Hey Sis?”). A black man pedaling away from “baby mama drama,” from family conflict is your brother fleeing the sisters who always have it so easy (he thinks).

Responding Officer stops the fleeing man on the bicycle, but then he runs off on foot. Like a gazelle or The Flash. The suspect runs, runs, runs like something other worldly. This is true because Responding Officer says so.

Responding Officer is suspicious this man is other than human, has mutant abilities. But Responding Officer (on his own two feet) manages to catch up to superman (who is not a mystery man because the caller identified him as her ex-boyfriend whose first, middle, and last names she knows; she knows who his mother is and where the mother lives which is to say the one place the running man will always return to). This leads to a struggle because what if the fleeing man no longer on the bicycle gets away? The running man uses his superhuman strength to wrestle the metal flashlight away from Responding Officer who is still oddly alone. (No, no, there is a partner who is…? Paralyzed with fear? In a trance brought on by the superhuman abilities of the suspect?). No real back up which means Responding Officer is in even greater danger or at least fear, and his Taser has had no effect on the superman who is no longer walking or riding or running away but daring to face off against an armed police officer shouting commands (“Drop it!”) and warnings (“Don’t make me hurt you!”).

Maybe? Maybe Responding Officer really doesn’t want to hurt him? But in the end there are several bullets in the dead man’s back and the back of his 92

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head because the dead man with mutant abilities struck the officer on his head with the flashlight and turned to run away, and Responding Officer, in fear for his life... in fear for HIS life.

When you are reading the news report of a police shooting and there is information about the last time the responding officer shot and killed a (black) suspect.

*

the road home Chris Rempfer Staff - Fresh Ink 2017 - 2019 It was on the fledgling legs of early Spring I first trod this rise of hill and at its crest gazed in young wonder at the gentle plain of wild grass and rolled hay that lay before me, hugging and holding the soft new shoulders of this, the road home.

*

And I strode upon the steady gate of Summer, too, wildflowers dancing at the forest’s fringe while snake, pheasant, mouse, and man travailed, longed, loved, and lazed their many days away, compassed true and ever on along the firm sun-baked shoulders of this, the road home.

*

And later, as Autumn took leave of me one by one those I had at one time or another loved and cherished, borne and been borne of, but of whom I had, in passing days upon days, survived, I returned to walk again the slow rise of the hill, weeping at its crest, finding small but nonetheless some comfort along the weary, graveled shoulders of this, the road home.

*

And when the lasting chill of Winter’s embrace holds, hugs, and reclaims the memory of me, as I cannot bear the load myself, will you carry me a final time past the slumbering grass, past the sleeping pheasant and mouse, past the years and years that rest atop these weary shoulders of snow and ice?, that I may upon the crest of the hill await the coming of the new season and the warming sun and the wildflowers and all the limitless lovely life that Springs along this, the road home.

*

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Finding phuket ภูเก็ต Jeannie Evans-Boniecki Advisor - Fresh Ink 2017- 2019 The relatively recent name “Phuket” (of which the digraph ph represents an aspirated p) is apparently derived from the word bukit in Malay which means “hill”, as this is what the island appears like from a distance. An alternative suggestion is that the name originates from two Thai words, “phu” (mountain) of “ket” (jewel). Phuket is among the world’s finest beach destinations, with fine white sands, nodding palm trees, glittering seas and lively towns. - - from Phuket.com

We were not looking forward to the ride home. The kids were tired and cranky; the car was crowded. I had decided to initiate a game.

“It’s my turn next,” Sam screeches straining against his seat belt in the back seat.

“No....” my son counters. “Your dad went, then me,... Oh, OK. I guess it is your turn.”

“Ask me an easy one,” Sam demands.

I make an obvious quick scan of the five of us in the car. “OK. Everyone quiet,” I call out, clearly the referee. I glance over at my friend, the driver, to reassure her I had the chaos in the back seat under control. She smirks.

“If I get this, I win,” Sam, the older of the two boys, cackles.

“There is no winning in this game,” I note seriously – knowing I can’t emotionally handle either of them winning. I painfully crane my neck to search the rear view mirror for unnecessary shenanigans.

My nine year old aims a punch at his friend. “I have nine right and you have eight!”

“As I said,…There is no winning!” I raise my voice and attempt to grab my son’s arm. “I will ask the next question when everyone is quiet.” I look down at the deck of Geography Trivia Cards I had picked up at the Barnes and Nobles in hopes of entertaining the troops on our hour ride home. I hear whispered snottiness aggravated by competitiveness from the back. Phil, Sam’s father, sharing the back seat with the kids, leans into the door of the car seemingly trying to escape.

“Let’s start again. Quiet for five seconds. One. Two. Three....”

They can’t do it. The bickering begins again. Phil snorts his “I could have told you that....” snort.

I raise my hand for silence and state with confidence – “The question is….”

“Let me ask the next one, Mom,” Christopher, my son, begs, I’m assuming to free himself from losing the competition with his older rival.

I sigh and pass the deck back – “Just one and don’t drop them all over the floor.”

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I watch him in the mirror as his face scrunches, intent to try to hold his own with whatever vocabulary appears on the card. I had assured them that this game was recommended for 13+.

Slowly he reads, “To which Thailand Province do vacationers go to visit Patong City?” He works his way through with a “thighland” and such, but we can follow.

A deep quiet hits the car. We are stunned.

“How would I know?!” Sam exclaims. “What kind of question is that?

That’s not fair!!” His father – an expert on world geography - leans back and shakes his head, stumped. Carol, his wife and our driver, simply shrugs.

“Ask me another one. That one was stupid.” Sam demands clearly miffed by this turn of fate: his mother had recently answered correctly, “What is the current capital of the United States?”, so he had a real reason to feel slighted.

“OK. OK.” I start to repeat to calm down his escalating frustration. I turn to tell Chris to read the next card when I see him turn the card over to look at the answer. As he stares at the small print, an exaggerated smile crinkles his young face. His eyes, deep hazel gold, often intensely pissy, are sparkling. “Fuck it,” he whispers.

A deeper quiet hits the car. Carol holds back a twitch.

“Fuck it….” he says again, more confidently. ‘The answer is “Fuck it!”’ he bellows and collapses forward into the seat belt and then flings himself back and forth howling with laughter. Sam’s father looks at me via the rear view mirror, startled and confused, but thankfully with a smile in his eyes. Sam’s mother still stares silently straight ahead, seemingly in shock. I am speechless.

In an attempt to clarify the matter, Sam snatches the trivia card from his younger friend and gives it his best eyeballing. A smile breaks all of his anxiety. “Fuck it!” he squeals with more mirth than I’ve ever seen in this jaded 21st century 5th grader since his parents were even more strict than I was when it came to outbursts of vulgarity.

“OK! OK!” I call out amidst the confident outbursts of “fuck it fuck it fuck it” from the backseat through which my friends are mercifully silent. “Yes, we get the idea. So funny. Let me see that card.” I grab it from Sam and there it is: The Answer: Phuket.

“Phoo ket,” I say to everyone in the car. “P-H-U-K-E-T. I think it’s pronounced Phoo ket.”

Carol pulls up outside our house, and I let her peek at the card.

“Phil”, she says softly and slowly.... “Can you bring the boys inside and start a movie. We’re going to get the pizza.”

All righty then.... The boys tumble out “fuck it fuckitting gleefully and we drive away, our misshapen facial expressions saying all that needs to 95

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be said until we pull up in front of the pizzeria and a sudden lightness comes over us and we just start to giggle.

By the time we return with the extra-large half cheese half garlic, the swearing tirade has subsided, Phil is scavenging through my bathroom for Tylenol, and the boys are off shooting each other with Styrofoam Nerf bullets.

We can’t get the DVD player to work because the dog has buried the remote, on the way into the living room my friends have had to step over three laundry baskets left in the family room since my recent bilateral mastectomy prevents me from lifting anything over eight pounds, and we discuss the wonders of having Ben and Jerry’s for dinner and pizza as an afterthought, and I simply toss the remaining piece of cheese pizza on the floor for the dog knowing full well she is going to get it anyway.

Later, as I shut the door behind this group of happy people, I survey the chaos of the house – the broken pellet stove supplemented by electric space heaters, the pillow fort half deconstructed on the couch, the piles of Magic cards littering the coffee table allowed because they entertain my little guy while I try to sleep myself into a healthier tomorrow. I sigh. Lately, our lives, even in a first world country with health benefits and modern medicine, has been soooooo hard. But I smile because I realize we have just spent a brief, but long overdue, vacation on a white sandy beach in Thailand on the beautiful island of Phuket.

movement of man

*

Greg Harding I step out the back door of civilization, Cross the stream to an island of anti-foundation, No perfect leaf dangling or dropping or dead, No premise by which I could judge in my head Whether I have discovered a fairy tale forest Or just gotten lost in the woods.

I walk the path of righteousness owed Between fallen walls lining an old farm road, Down a hillside from the rising sun In the shadow of horse carts long since gone, A secret history known to ancient oaks alone, Or a forgotten sense of the good.

I scuffle to the hilltop clearing, Rose brier scratches, red and searing, Wild grapes waft on summer winds, And Jacks-in-the-pulpits witness sins, A meadow covering a land (fill) Ceded to iron, and knowledge, and will, And I stand still.

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no more tears Sandra Newton It is easier now To stop crying Or even to not cry at all As long as I focus Take a deep breath Swallow hard And tighten my lips.

It is, however, Not so easy to look at you Inert, unresponsive Fed by machines That hiss quietly at me.

Not so easy to remember You will never be the same again I will never have my only child back And in the same cruel way That I am no longer a wife I will soon no longer be a mother.

This is you moving on.

*

those berriesSteve Parlato sweet inkglobes—my aim, I trail past a sunbeat plastic horse, past three men fastened to tractors, past stumble-tilt split rail. Cresting the hill, I gulp the jade glow of this plaid valley. Was its deep cut symmetry gouged by deity’s soup spoon, or some glacier crawlcrushing stone? Filled green, it spills bushes and birds. Children call like praying, Abba, look at me, in harmony with the sharp bzeeee of feathered ones I cannot see. My mind paints them jays, beyond-berry blue. Then, tracking the tawny actual—a masked waxwing—to fruit-stooped boughs, I genuflect in high grass, glad for hills of fruit and song. *

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how you changed your face Amanda Lebel 98

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Submit to:

Fresh Ink: The Literary Journal of Naugatuck Valley Community College

Who: Anyone may submit. (Only NVCC students are eligible for awards.)

What: Previously unpublished work in three categories - poetry, prose, and graphic image - will be considered. (We will consider submissions that are in any subgenre of these categories: flash fiction, memoir, nonfiction, comics, photos, etc.) Pieces may consider any theme or topic. Simultaneous submissions are allowed, but notification of acceptance elsewhere is required.

• You may submit no more than five total pieces.

• You may submit no more than three pieces in any single category.

• Prose submissions are limited to a TOTAL word count of 2000.

When: Rolling submissions (anytime) but annual deadline of March 1, 2019.

Where: Email to freshink@nv.edu How: All submissions must be emailed as separately attached files. In the email, include your name, address, email address, and phone number, as well as titles of submitted work(s). NVCC students must also include student ID numbers to be eligible for prizes. Files should be formatted as such: • Text files should be Microsoft Word or Rich Text Format files preferably in Candara 10 pt font.

• Only title and text should appear in document itself - no names or contact information should appear on entries.

• Graphics should be high resolution .jpg or .png format at 300 dpi.

• File names should match titles.

Improperly formatted submissions may not be considered.

Fresh Ink reserves the right to reformat/edit submissions as needed.

Student Prizes: Any current NVCC student who provides student ID is eligible for awards in each of three categories.

For more information contact Jeannie Evans-Boniecki at 203-596-2110 or JEvans-Boniecki@nvcc.commnet.edu 99