Sheepshead Review Fall 2017

SHEEPS HEAD REVIEW journal of art & literature

SHEEPSHEAD

REVIEW

journal of art & literature

volume 40 no. 1

Sheepshead Review|Staff

Staff Editor-in-Chief.......................................Audrey Schultz Advisor....................................................Rebecca Meacham Layout Editor.........................................Heather Schroeder Managing Editor................................... Sara Ladwig Assistant Managing Editor................ Anita Benzshawel Blog Editor............................................. Emma Fay Publicity Director/............................... Kelsey Langlitz Social Media Editor Outreach Coordinator.......................... Tehya Miller Chief Copy Editor..................................Anita Benzshawel Fiction Editor........................................ Jordan Safranski Poetry Editor......................................... Vanessa Wegher Nonfiction Editor.................................. Sara Brown Visual Arts Editor.................................Autumn Bohn Promotional Designer.......................... Jonathan Nuncio-Macdonald

Staff|Fall 2017

Fiction Staff........................................Huston Brusletten Anita Benzshawel Emma Fay Keshena Hanson Alicia LeBoeuf Poetry Staff.........................................Courtney Bultman Gabrielle Luccas Sydney Starry Nonfiction Staff.................................. Jenelle Mackie Sara Ladwig Tehya Miller Julia Stremmel Visual Arts Staff....................................Austin Garsow Jonathan Nuncio-Macdonald Justin Miller Heather Schroeder Mariah Tonn

Sheepshead Review|Contents

Contents What is Sheepshead...................................................................1 A Letter From the Editor...........................................................2 Fiction.........................................................................................5 The Unexpteced Adventures of Beatrice Guernsey - Morgan Smith...........................7 Salesman - Tushar Jain................................................19 I Remember, Do You? - Danielle Tackett......................25 Partners - Sara Ladwig.................................................27 My Father, Ernest Born 1959 - Lori Noto...................29 Stove Top - Danielle Tackett.........................................31 Nonfiction.................................................................................35 Home - Jill Tesselaar....................................................37 I Am Alive - Emily Townsend.......................................40 The Viking - Guinevere Casper....................................43 Flavors of Life - Alicia LeBoeuf....................................45 Sitting in the Rubble - Emily Cave...............................47 The Human Excuse - Corey Reed.................................50 The Things I Should Tell You - Vanessa Wegher..........51 How to Pass An Interview - Jordan Safranski............53 Skylark Drive - A.L. Mundt..........................................60 Poetry........................................................................................67 The Autumn Bee - Amy E. Casey..................................69 Disease - Samantha Williams.........................................71

Contents|Fall 2017

Aftermath - Robert Okaji...............................................73 Fermentation - Lauro Palomba......................................74 Compass - Corey Reed....................................................75 Slow Smoke Pirouette - S.R. Aichinger..........................76 This Morning - C.R. Resetarits.......................................77 Opium Dream, Circa 1860 - Kelly Talbot.......................79 How it Feels to Be Tied to You - S.R. Aichinger.............81 The Girl in the Trees - Catherine Jone.........................83 Abstraction’s Postscript - Brandon Marlon.................85 Bourgeois Massacres - Jeffrey H. MacLachlan............87 You, Golden - Kelly Talbot..............................................88 Brew - David Lukas.........................................................89 The Forest Crawls - Jonathon Greenhause...................91 Fata Morgana - Jim Zola................................................93 Driving South - Lauro Palomba.....................................95 Fable - Vivian Wagner.....................................................97 This Nite - Christiana McClain......................................98 Delays - David Lukas......................................................99 Spaceland - Richard King Perkins II...........................101 Visual Arts..............................................................................103 Lavic - Anna Martin.....................................................105 Shut up Emotion - Echo Yan........................................106 Wet Poem - Federic Federici.........................................107 Booty Positive - Fierce Sonia.......................................108 Transcendence - Nicolette Wallman............................109 Error 404 - Tyler Harrison..........................................110

Sheepshead Review|Contents

Contents Sangfroid - Moira Poole..............................................111 Fury - Moira Poole......................................................112 Pomegranets - Boris Leifer........................................113 Comfort Food - Andrew Moser...................................114 Keep Searching - Heather Schroeder........................115 Fissionary- Tyler Harrison........................................116 Curious Mirror - Manuel Vivas...................................117 Tangent Life - Gerald Ernst III...................................118 Neurotic - Amanda Weisman......................................119 Octopus - Kimberly Schwartzenbart..........................120 From “Trump Series”.................................................121 Every Single One of Us - J. Ben Moss........................122 Three Lefts - Kenna Rentmeester.............................123 Old Fashioned - Norah Swenson................................124 Octopus - Moira Poole.................................................125 Portrait of Self- Raven Saldino..................................126 Daisy and Junior - A.L. Mundt...................................127 Tamil Woman - Erin Mader........................................128 Dash - Jenna Harper..................................................129 Audulteration - Gerald Ernst III................................130 Perfect Day - Meghan Kausel.....................................131 Egg Display - Kenna Rentmeester.............................132 Liberal Arts Scholarship Essay............................................133 First Annual Liberal Arts Scholarship......................135 On the Right Path for Change -Morgan Ellenbecker..136 Music and the Power of Liberal Arts - Lauren Paul..140

Contents|Fall 2017

Sheepshead Review|What is Sheepshead

What is Sheepshead? a brief history Sheepshead Review first went to print in 1975 under the name Sheepshead Revue, a reference to the popular Wisconsin card game (trivia note: the card game Sheepshead originated in Germany as Schafkopf). The journal featured creative writing and visual art from students at UW-Green Bay, and itstayed in print on and off for the next 24 years, pausing in 1999 for a four-year sabbatical.

In 2003, a small band of students and faculty came together and collaborated to revive the journal for a re-launch in Spring 2003. Ever since, our UW-Green Bay student-run journal has published an issue every spring and fall semester.

We are now an internationally distributed journal, having received submissions from all over the world. We went fullcolor in 2007 to give our visual arts contributors the image quality their work deserves (as well as to give our graphics team a bigger design playground). While each of our issues takes on a new form, each champions the same spirit of creativity that inspired its first publication.

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What is Sheepshead|SheepsheadReview

Of course, Sheepshead Review will always have a special place for UW-Green Bay student work in the journal. Every spring semester, Sheepshead Review runs the “Rising Phoenix” contest exclusively for UW-Green Bay students. Themed work from each of the four categories (fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and visual arts) are examined and judged, and the winning piece from each category is highlighted in the spring semester issue. Our judges are selected from outside of the university and can sometimes be considered “celebrity” judges. This is a great way for UW-Green Bay students to be recognized for their work!

Through the years, our journal continues to be a unique opportunity for students at UW-Green Bay to publish their work and gain experience in the world of publishing.

We hope that our journal inspires, touches, captures, and uplifts everyone who reads it.

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Sheepshead Review|A Letter From the Editor

A Letter From the Editor Audrey Schultz Ever since I was a little girl, I knew I was born to write.

I composed my first short story at age six and had my work published for the first time at age 15. In my free time, I write short stories and novels, and I have kept a handwritten diary since I was in third grade. I have always felt most free when I am writing. There’s nothing quite like being able to pour your heart out on a blank page.

Therefore, when I came to study at UW-Green Bay, I knew I wanted to be a Creative Writing major. It wasn’t long before I learned about Sheepshead Review, and after only one week of being on staff, I fell in love with the behind-the-scenes hustle and bustle that goes into publishing an incredible showcase of talented writers and artists.

That was two years ago, and I have been with the journal every semester since, though sadly, this semester will be my last, as I am graduating this December. It has been an amazing experience to be a part of the Sheepshead staff, and I am thankful to have gotten the chance to be Editor-in-Chief.

Through the many positions I’ve held on staff, I always look forward to holding the finished journal, knowing I had a part in bringing it into the world.

This semester, our layout editor Heather Schroeder did a wonderful job creating the calming, woodland-themed layout, and it is quite possibly my favorite layout design yet. Furthermore, each genre staff did a great job picking pieces for our journal out of a record number of submissions, originating from both on campus and around the world. It’s hard to pick favorites, as there are so many great pieces in

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A Letter From the Editor|Fall 2017

this semester’s journal, but the uniquely-crafted fiction piece “A Salesman” by Tushar Jain and the heartfelt nonfiction piece “Sitting in the Rubble” by Emily Cave are a couple that stood out to me.

As graduation draws closer and my time with Sheepshead Review comes to a close, I’d like to thank everyone who was a part of making this journal the masterpiece that it is—journal staff and submitters alike.

Every single one of you should be proud. It is my hope that within the pages of this journal, you find something that speaks to you.

Sincerely,

Audrey Schultz Editor-in-Chief Sheepshead Review

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Fiction

Sheepshead Review|Beatrice Guernsey

The Unexpected Adventures of Beatrice Guernsey Morgan Smith The Snarglack shall reign over Fairyland Until a hero from the world below departs The Snarglack shall fall only at the hand Of one who possesses extraordinary courage and heart.

Beatrice Daisy Guernsey was 82 years old when the faerie came for her.

Beatrice Guernsey was most certainly not the type of woman you would expect to visit Fairyland. She was a very sensible lady, who spent her time gardening, knitting, cutting coupons out of magazines, and reading the newspaper. It had been decades since she had left the county, and her idea of an adventure was having to go to the supermarket in the next town over because her local one was out of her favorite biscuits.

But despite Beatrice Guernsey’s general ordinary-ness, one warm evening the universe had rather extraordinary plans for her.

It was precisely the sort of night when one might be fairied away; a summer solstice during a vibrant summer.

Beatrice sat in the cozy parlor of her little stone cottage, working on a quilt for a baby in the neighborhood. She had left the windows open to allow the scent of night-blooming jasmine and honeysuckle from her garden to waft in, and was quite enjoying the company of her tabby cat, Reginald. Just as she had finished a particularly tricky line of stitch work, Beatrice was interrupted by the appearance of a short, bearded man in a tweed vest. His cap was perched jauntily atop his white hair, and he pulled out a small golden pocketwatch and spoke in a rushed tone.

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Beatrice Guernsey|Sheepshead Review

“Alright, alright, time to go. I assume you’ve packed?” he asked impatiently.

Beatrice was quite dumbfounded at this. It was nearly nine in the evening, much later than was proper for an unannounced visit. Nor was it proper etiquette to just climb in through a lady’s window!

Probably trampled my begonias while he was at it, she grumbled to herself.

“Well come on then, we don’t have all day,” said the tiny man in the tweed vest.

“Sir, I’m afraid that I have no clue what you are talking about.In addition, regardless of stature, it is considered customary to knock before entering home,” she said, quite outraged at the nerve of this small fellow.

“What do you mean, you have no clue what I’m talking about? Didn’t the agency get in touch with you?”

“Agency? What agency?”

“Oh, for the love of acorns!” The bearded man hopped off the windowsill and started pacing, mumbling something about the bureaucracy. He pulled a seashell out of his pocket and cupped it to his ear, pacing back and forth on the cobbled floor. “Barry? Barry, can you hear me?”

“Excuse me, I really must ask you—” “Shhh!” the little fellow hushed. “Can’t you see I’m on my shell phone?” He gave her a reproachful glare and went back to his conversation.

“Yeah, I’m here for a pickup and she says she has no idea who I am…Lost in the mail? The letter couldn’t have gotten lost in the mail Barry, we use carrier pigeons!” He pocketed the shell and turned back to Beatrice who was clutching her quilt and looking rather worried.

“Well, since the imbeciles back at headquarters apparently forgot your letter, I’ll have to give you the spiel.”

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Sheepshead Review|Beatrice Guernsey

He cleared his throat. “On behalf of the International Society of Changelings and Spiriting Away, I would like to congratulate you. We heard your wish and have come to grant it. You will be taken to Fairyland when the gateway opens, on the night of the Summer Solstice. While in Fairyland you may experience a variety of conditions, including enchanted snow, pixie dust, chocolate rivers, talking trees, dragon fire, and some rather cantankerous squirrels. Please pack accordingly.

We will see you on the night of the Summer Solstice.”

Throughout the speech, Beatrice’s eyes had grown wider and wider, and by now her eyebrows had disappeared under her lacy night bonnet.

“I don’t recall making any wishes. Except perhaps for that witch Brenda to stop cheating at bridge club,” she said, muttering the last part to herself.

“Perhaps I have the wrong address. So you don’t recall blowing on a dandelion and wishing to see magic?”

“I mean, maybe when I was a child. But certainly not in the last seventy years!”

“Ah, that would explain it. The Faerie Queen had us switch to a new filing system—something about ‘efficiency’ and ‘modernizing’—and ever since then we’ve been a bit behind. But don’t fear! Your wish has come true and I’m here now. If you could just pack some things, very quickly, then we’ll be off!”

All of this made little to no sense to Beatrice. All she knew was that she didn’t plan on gallivanting off into the night with a tiny stranger, no siree. She had to finish this quilt, and the ladies at bridge club were counting on her to bring her bread pudding surprise to their next meeting. Then again, she thought, I don’t suppose Brenda has ever been spirited away. She doesn’t have an adventurous bone in her body. This thought at in her mind, unfurling like a seedling at the first

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Beatrice Guernsey|Sheepshead Review

touch of spring. She had been an adventurous person once!

Back when she was young she had jumped in streams and believed in faeries and wished on dandelions. Well, maybe a bit of adventure is just what I need.

“Okay. I’ll start packing.”

Take that Brenda.

Half an hour later Beatrice reappeared in her parlor with a small patchwork suitcase, a handbag with yarn and knitting needles spilling out of it, a carefully packed tea set, and Reginald in his cat carrier.

“Finally!” the short man huffed, glancing at his pocket watch and then stuffing it back in his tweed vest. “We still have plenty of moonlight, but we must get you back before sunrise.”

He took her hand and helped her through the window. Right on her front stoop there sat an enormous dragonfly. Beatrice almost climbed right back through her window there and then, but instead, she took a deep breath, straightened her bonnet, and climbed on.

Dragonfly riding was both the most exhilarating and most uncomfortable means of transportation Beatrice had ever experienced. They flew over the English countryside at a truly alarming speed; cottages and lakes whizzing by underneath them in the blink of an eye.

Suddenly they started gaining speed, whirling higher and higher into the sky.

“Are you sure we aren’t going to crash into the moon?”

Beatrice yelled over the wind, clutching her bonnet.

“O’course we are! How else do you expect to get to Fairyland? It’s not right ‘round the corner is it?”

Beatrice muttered something about impudent faerie men and clutched the dragonfly tighter. Its hard shell twinkled in the moonlight, casting rainbow shadows into Beatrice’s

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Sheepshead Review|Beatrice Guernsey

gray hair. As they drew closer and closer to the vast moon the air grew frigid, and Beatrice pulled her lavender shawl tighter to ward off the night air.

“Is it snowing?” she asked, picking a white fleck from the air.

“Course not! Where do you expect to get water in space?

That’s moon dust that is. Now hold on, we’re heading to the dark side of the moon.”

They took a sharp turn, the dragonfly’s glittering wings easily navigating them with pinpoint precision. They alighted on a dark purple surface, dusted with sparkling facets.

“Well, here we are! The dark side of the moon, and the entrance to Fairyland. Hop off now, we don’t have all night.”

The tiny man leaped agilely from the back of the dragonfly and landed on the violet stones, his pointy boots crunching wickedly. Beatrice swung her leg over with as much agility as she could muster (which was not very much). As she dropped from the dragonfly, clutching her knitting needles and Reginald, her eyes went wide at the sight of the faerie kingdom. A great archway of stone stood on the surface of the moon, encrusted with fine gems of every hue. A tiny man in a red suit stood next to it holding a key bigger than himself.

“Evening Nigel,” Beatrice’s companion said to the fellow in the red suit, who had tufts of white hair coming from his ears and a beard that reached his feet.

“Evening Giles,” Nigel said in a wheezy voice. “Who’s your friend?”

“Beatrice. A human from down below. One of them wishing sorts.”

“Aye, we’ve seen a lot of those here tonight. I suppose you can go in.” He stepped aside and revealed a large keyhole.

Then, with much effort, he lifted the key, placed it in the keyhole, then climbed on top of it and started tugging, trying

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Beatrice Guernsey|Sheepshead Review

to turn it.

“Here, let me,” Giles said, and he reached down and turned the key.

“Much appreciated,” Nigel wheezed, and he stepped aside to let them through. Beatrice was rather befuddled by this whole exchange. It was, after all, just an archway. Why would you need to unlock it? And she could see from here that there was nothing on the other side, so why would they want to cross through it? But when Giles motioned for her to come along she still picked up her suitcase, cat carrier, and a bag of knitting supplies and followed. She was, after all, a very adventurous person. Mostly.

When Beatrice crossed through the archway she decided that she was quite sure it was all a dream. Nothing this fantastic could possibly exist in real life. They had entered a luscious field, filled to the brim with dancing partygoers in all sorts of revelry. Pixies danced a jig around a ring of mushrooms, their iridescent wings glittering in the light of hundreds of lanterns. Brownies dressed in little patchwork overalls scurried to and fro along the tables tidying the food.

Satyrs played their pipes while grapevines climbed up the arbors surrounding the field. Dryads frolicked by the edge of the forest, challenging partygoers to footraces.

Beatrice sank into a nearby chair and rubbed her eyes.

Well, this is it, Beatrice. You’ve finally cracked, she thought to herself.

“Alright, you have until sunrise, enjoy yourself, watch out for fire-breathing bears, etcetera,” yawned Giles. “If you don’t get yourself killed I’ll be here to bring you back in the morning.”

Beatrice was quite overwhelmed.

What are you, crazy? She admonished herself. This is most certainly not sensible. Being up all night, strange

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Sheepshead Review|Beatrice Guernsey

creatures, fairies, fire-breathing bears? This is almost definitely your worst decision yet, including that haircut from the eighties.

Beatrice pulled out her knitting needles and started knitting away furiously, figuring that even if she had made a completely impractical decision she could still be productive.

Maybe knit a pair of socks for nice Mr. Albert down the road.

She avoided making eye contact with the dryad in the tree next to her, instead keeping her focus solely on the gray pair of socks.

Just as she finished working out a knot in the yarn, a passing elf pressed a cup of sweet nectar into her hand and she was whisked away to the dance floor, still clutching her knitting needles. A group of satyrs stood by the dance floor playing a lively tune on their pipes, and the music seemed to get into Beatrice’s very bones.

Oh no, she told herself, you are not going to dance to that strange music. You have no idea what it could do. For all you know you could start off dancing and then wake up all the way in Somerset county under an enchantment. Then her foot started tapping. Then her fingers started snapping. Then, out of the blue, she was dancing like she hadn’t since she was young. She spun around the dance floor, flying from partner to partner, her eyes crinkling as she laughed.

Giles sat off to the side, a slight smile playing on his lips. A centaur appeared next to him.

“Who is that?”

“Well, who do you think it is?” Giles retorted, as though it should be completely obvious.

“It can’t be… That is most certainly not what I expected her to look like.”

“Well Erylas, we can’t all be young and beautiful,” the old faerie huffed. The centaur shook his long silky hair out of

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Beatrice Guernsey|Sheepshead Review

his eyes and leveled a withering look at Giles.

“That’s not what I meant. Well, anyways, I’m glad it went well. It would have been bad if she didn’t agree to come.”

“That wasn’t an option,” Giles responded.

“When do you suppose it will happen?”

“The prophecy simply said the night of the summer solstice.

But whenever it happens, remember that it must be her.”

After an hour of dancing, Beatrice wasn’t even tired. The nectar she was drinking made her feel light, and the satyr’s music seemed to tell her body what to do. The only reason that she stopped was that she heard Reginald mewing indignantly from his cat carrier, demanding to be let out (or at the very least given a snack). She twirled her way off the dance floor, and over to Reginald’s cat carrier. She unlatched it and Reginald came out rather cautiously, sniffing the sparkling food on the table.

“Oh you old worrywart,” laughed Beatrice. “I’m sure it’s just fine.” Reginald looked disbelievingly at his owner, who had never once told him “not to worry” or “take a chance”. The Beatrice he knew stayed thoroughly within the realm of caution and comfort zones. Just the same, he saw a gleam in her eye and a spring in her step that had never been there before. He cocked his head and sniffed a glittering candied pear, then took a tiny bite. Purring rumbled through his body and he quickly finished the rest of it.

“See, I told you Reg. Just delicious.” She popped a crisp grape in her mouth and turned back to the dance floor.

Suddenly, a great roar ripped through the party. The trees trembled and quaked as if some large creature were making its way through the forest.

“Oh my heavens,” whispered Beatrice. “What is that?”

Shouts filled the clearing as satyrs and faeries scrambled around, trying desperately to escape.

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Sheepshead Review|Beatrice Guernsey

“The Snarglack! It’s come for us!” screamed a dryad, disappearing into her tree. An elf sprinted past Beatrice and vanished. Beatrice started to run, but her joints weren’t as spry as they once were, even with the magic in the air. She had tottered halfway across the dancefloor when another roar burst through the air, and a great winged creature appeared at the edge of the forest.

It was the most horrible creature Beatrice had ever seen. Standing as tall as a house, green slime dripped from its fangs onto the singed grass at its feet. It leered at the scene in front of it through pale white eyes, then let loose another roar, singing the eyebrows off of a satyr in front of it. All of a sudden it spoke in a deep voice.

“Didn’t I say that there would be no festivities?” it growled, drooling green slime. “We—we—we’re sorry,” stuttered an elf. Then Giles hopped up on top of a stump and yelled at the great beast before him.

“We are faerie folk! And you expect us not to celebrate the Summer Solstice?”

“I expect you to be quiet and do as you’re told,” growled the Snarglack. “And what I told you to do was stay in your ugly little homes and not disturb the peace in my forest. No laughter, no dancing, no gaiety, and certainly no parties!”

On the last word, he spewed a great mouthful of poison gas, killing all the grass in front of him.

“You can’t just come in here and order us around!” squeaked a tiny hedgehog.

“Watch me,” the beast replied, and swallowed the hedgehog in one gulp. “Now, I’m still feeling a bit hungry,” he growled, looking around the party. His eyes found Reginald.

“You look like you would make a delicious dessert,” he said and slithered toward Reginald’s quivering form.

“No!” screamed Beatrice, but it was too late. The

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Beatrice Guernsey|Sheepshead Review

Snarglack picked Reginald up by his tail and held him above his mouth. He was just about to devour the tiny cat when a large rock hit his shoulder.

“Take that, you big bully!” called the little old lady. “Now put my cat down!”

The Snarglack squinted at her through his pale eyes.

“You don’t know how things work around here, do you?” he said his tone mocking. “Well, let me clear it up for you. I take what I want when I want it, and nobody does anything to stop me. Because I am bigger and scarier than anything else in this forest. Now, I’m going to return to my snack, and if you’re lucky I won’t kill you afterward.”

Beatrice felt the magic off the solstice moon seeping into her skin, making it sing with electricity. She knew what she had to do.

The Snarglack lifted Reginald to his mouth slowly, jaws wide open, ready to take a bite.

But he never did.

Just as he was about to drop Reginald in his gaping mouth, he breathed in sharply and looked down to see a pair of knitting needles protruding from his chest. He barely had time to moan before he collapsed sideways, dead.

“I told you. Don’t mess with my cat.”

Beatrice pulled the knitting needles from his chest and wiped them on her skirt. Reginald leaped up onto her shoulder, purring and nuzzling her. The clearing filled with cheers as dryads, naiads, faeries, and centaurs came streaming out of the forest. They lifted Beatrice up and paraded her around the clearing as the band struck up a victory song. An aged wizard wiggled his wand, and the Snarglack’s body turned into a great mound of daisies. A group of satyrs immediately set to composing a ballad in Beatrice’s honor, and Beatrice looked around the clearing, thinking that this was way better than

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Sheepshead Review|Beatrice Guernsey

any of her childhood dreams.

Unfortunately, the night was too short. A few hours later, the clearing began lightening, and Giles appeared at Beatrice’s side.

“Time to go,” he said gruffly. Beatrice looked around the clearing, a lump forming in her throat. She wasn’t ready to leave. Unfortunately, she had no choice.

Beatrice gathered up her knitting supplies, popped Reginald in his cat carrier, and walked to the archway. She took one last long look at Fairyland, at all the marvelous friends she had made that night. Then she picked up her bag and disappeared through the archway.

Beatrice joined Giles on the glittering surface of the moon and made her way up on top of the dragonfly. They rose quickly over the surface of the moon and began flying back towards Earth.

“I knew you could do it you know,” said Giles.

“Do what?” she asked, furrowing her brow in confusion.

“Kill the Snarglack. I knew it was you in the prophecy.”

“Prophecy? What prophecy?”

“Years ago, before the kingdom was destroyed, a seer made a prophecy. She said that the only one who could defeat the Snarglack would be a human of extraordinary courage and heart.”

“I don’t really think I’m extraordinary of anything…” said the old lady quietly, adjusting her handbag and cat carrier.

“Well, we both know that’s wrong now,” said Giles, just as the two touched down in Beatrice’s front yard. It looked so boring to Beatrice now, so safe and ordinary. She missed how she had felt in Fairyland, daring and bold and adventurous.

Then again, she thought, I suppose I am the same person I was in Fairyland.

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Beatrice Guernsey|Sheepshead Review

Beatrice took a deep breath and decided. She wouldn’t let herself forget what she had learned in Fairyland.

“Well Giles, I had better get packing. I’m leaving for Paris. I’ve always wanted to see it, and there is no time like the present, after all,” she said. Her heart thrummed, full of nerves and anticipation. It was a strange feeling, as if her heart was waking up from a long nap and throwing the covers off.

Giles gave a small smile as if he had been hoping she would say something like that, then coughed and fixed his vest.

“Then I suppose this is goodbye, Beatrice.”

“Please, call me Trixie,” she said, with a little grin.

“Well Trixie, it has been a pleasure to meet you.”

“And the same goes to you Giles.” He put his hand out for a handshake but she went ahead and hugged him. Giles blushed slightly into her crocheted shawl, straightened his hat, and began walking back to the dragonfly.

“Giles?” Beatrice called. He turned back around. “I’m not ready to say goodbye to Fairyland yet. I don’t want this to be it.”

He gave her a small smile. “Don’t worry, you’ll see Fairyland again. We all do, in the end.”

Beatrice smiled widely. “Then I suppose I’ll see you then.

But I still have a lot of adventures left in me.”

She picked up her bag and the cat carrier and headed back to the cottage. In the distance, the sun rose over the road out of town.

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Sheepshead Review|A Salesman

A Salesman Tushar Jain Bell rings. Door opens.

"Mrs. Kohli, good afternoon! What a sight your kohlrimmed eyes are! How is my favourite customer today?

What? Who told you that? Of course I don't say that to every customer, Mrs. Kohli. That would be nothing short of duplicitous. Chicanery, skulduggery, and that sort of thing.

And as a salesman, one thing you can always count on from me is honesty, sincerity, and courtesy. Well, those are three things but you get the pitcher! What? It's 'picture' and not 'pitcher'? Umm...are you sure? You are? Then, 'picture' it is!

Mrs. Kohli, every other day, you teach me something new.

“You'll be dazzled by what I have for you today. This is the best part of my day! Seeing the looks on the faces of my customers as I unload this bane of my backbone, this bulging bag of my bounty! Eyebrows shoot up, jaws lever down, and cheeks burn with excitement! Ha! Yes, yes, you're right.

Less talk, more action. It's afternoon after all and you must have work of your own to get on with. But I request that you rest whenever you can, Mrs. Kohli. Especially in this kind of weather. Take a—what is it they call it?—a power nap!

“It's such a bitterly sunny day outside, I tell you. Bad for my people, so bad. In a matter of hours, I will be filmed in sweat from head to toe-nail. It's unavoidable. My trade is a tale of travail, Mrs. Kohli! And the scorching sun worsens everything—the pain, the pathos, the plight, the p—Here it is!

This is what I was looking for. Took a while but I finally found it. This is the one you asked for na?

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A Salesman|Sheepshead Review

“‘Elated.’ What a word. Good choice, Mrs. Kohli, I must say. You can use the word with almost anything. 'Elated' cushions, 'Elated' dog, 'Elated' spattering of vomit on the parapet. And here, feel its silky texture! So smooth na? I love the smell of a new word. Best part of my day, Mrs. Kohli, the very best. Font type? Ha ha! Madam, woh din gaye . Those days are gone. Done with. Phoosh! Who asks for font type nowadays? These days, it's all about font size. Big is better.

And this one here is a solid thirty-six! And if you must know— though it hardly matters, I tell you—it's Times New Roman.

Ye old faithful!

“Arre, why close the door, Mrs. Kohli? Ten minutes more of your time, that's all I want. I want to show you some brand new maal. Fresh words straight from the factory!

They just came in this morning. Have a look, okay? If you think I'm wasting your time, I'll never darken your doorstep again. As I said before, you and your mesmeric brown eyes are my absolute favourite, Mrs. Kohli. All these people in the building? They say to me, 'Salesman, you give Mrs. Kohli special-special offers' or 'You keep the ekdum best words for Mrs. Kohli.' I tell them 'No-no, bhabhi ji ' or 'Never-never, bhabhi ji', but the honest truth? The plain truth and nothing but the truth? I do save the best ones for you. And here you are, closing the door in my face. For a salesman ji, better a slap in the face than a door in the face.

“No need for apologies, Mrs. Kohli. I don't believe in the evening of scores. It is an odd habit. But—but shall I come to the point? My words! My beautiful words! Here's the first one. “‘Bestiality.’ Oh. How sweet a word! Mellifluous! Melts in the mouth like butter, doesn't it? Mm. And just look at it! I also have it in camel brown but this brick-red colour is

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Sheepshead Review|A Salesman

simply divine. And what a coincidence! It goes so well with your kurta! You and 'Bestiality' are a match made in heaven, Mrs. Kohli. And it comes in—drum roll, please!—four font sizes! Twenty-four, twenty-six, twenty-eight, and thirty-six.

Mrs. Kohli, if any other salesman can get you this word in four font sizes, I will quit my job, leave the company, and go back to my village. Will raise chickens. And try very hard not to think of your cat-like eyes. Haha! I'm not flirting! Just being a 'silly goose', like you sometimes say.

“And here's another one! 'Melanoma.’ What a gorgeous fruity word! It has melons in it! Feel it! It's incredible, isn't it? So smooth! I love how – What? Really? Oh... I didn't know that's what it meant. Hm. This is not good. Meaning is always bad for business, Mrs. Kohli. 'Pusillanimous' used to sell like hot cakes before people found out what it meant. Discovered it had nothing to do with cats! Tch. I tell you, Mrs. Kohli. This ludicrous obsession with meaning will be the death of this poor man... Dammit! Like a fool I thought no one would be able to resist the temptation of some 'Melanoma.’

“Nevermind, nevermind. On we go. Life goes on, and so should we. Next word is... 'Tantamount.’ This one's a pukka limited edition. One font size and one colour only—forty-six and light salmon. But what a fabulous word, Mrs. Kohli. It's two words for the price of one! 'Tent' and 'Amount.’ I will be straightforward with you. Fixed price for this one. Haggling is useless. The word is simply too much in demand. If I sell it for even a penny less, I will be hurting my own pocket.

“What was that, Mrs. Kohli? What's the latest gossip, you ask? Mrs. Kohli, aap bhi na ...You know I stay out of this whole risky gossip business. But, well, I can tell you about Mr. Kripalani on the third floor? What a temper he has, baba!

I heard him yelling at his children. Arre, who screams like that at his own little ones? Frightened me so badly I dropped

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A Salesman|Sheepshead Review

'Sense' down the staircase. What a loss it was too. I loved that word. 'Sense'. Simple and everlasting. And down it fell like Mr. Jack and Miss Jill from that reprehensible hill. Shattered, the word is. Un-put-togetherable! Humpty-Dumpty-fied! I've tried for weeks now to mend it. But, tch, no use. Breaks my heart but what can I do? There's no point in trying to make 'Sense' anymore, Mrs. Kohli. It just won't stick!

“What was I talking about? Oh yes, that man, Mr. Kripalani! He gives me the heebie-jeebies. So much anger!

He's asked for 'Valour' and 'Fortitude.’ In sable brown and mustard yellow. I got them both. They're right here in my bag.

But by God, I'm too terrified to hand them over to him! Bad for business, this is. Customers with a temper.

“Mrs. Kohli, here's the last word I have for you today.

You know Mrs. Tendulkar from the ground floor? She's been after my life for this beauty, but as I said, I keep my favourite words for my favourite customers! I'm—ha! ha!—a man of my word, Mrs. Kohli! And here's the wonder...'Anaphora.’

Oh, what a luscious word! It reminds me of beaches, of being young. How does a word make you feel young, Mrs. Kohli? I never understood that. 'Anaphora.’ It reminds me of islands, of sand, of childhood...it reminds me of my mother...Actually, I think I'll just hold on to this one for a little longer...So right you are, Mrs. Kohli. Again, I am a silly goose!

“Now, of everything I've shown you, you can—Oh my God! A disaster, Mrs. Kohli! A catatonic catastrophe! A calamitous concatenation! A conundrumous confounding!

Mein Gott! Look, look what has happened! The words—they have jumbled up at the bottom of my bag! All mixed up and smashed together! The bus ride here was so jerky. That has to be it, the culprit of this farce! My poor, poor words! What the hell is 'Onomatopostulate'? What is 'Symphonanoptimum'?

And 'Verbatimorose'? God in heaven, what am I supposed to do with that?! What in the world is 'Hippoplexy'?

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Sheepshead Review|A Salesman

“Maybe there's still time, Mrs. Kohli. If I hurry back to the factory, perhaps I can salvage something. And you say I get to travel, you say it's a good life. Hardly, Mrs. Kohli. If only.

But I'll come again tomorrow. Hopefully, all this mess will be straightened out by then. Yes, yes, thank you, I'll definitely need luck for this. But do remember, please don't forget, I'll trouble you again tomorrow, Mrs. Kohli...Don't forget, okay?

It's—It's the best part of my day."

Door closes.

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Other People’s|Sheepshead Review

Other People's Parents J. Thomas Meador My mom descends the stairs wearing a dress that says grief. The way she wears it says, look-at-me. I’ve been waiting in the foyer for thirty minutes, sweating. My tie feels like a noose. In twenty minutes we’ll be at the funeral home.

In an hour and a half we’ll be back home, changing clothes, and the town will go back to way things were. Mom spent the morning getting ready for her final push. She’s the reason everyone can finally put the tragedy to rest.

“It’s time,” she says. I can tell she’s been practicing in the mirror.

Last week we finished our Junior year of high school.

Somebody said we should go to Lake Hiawasee and celebrate.

We should make a bonfire and bring a radio. Somebody brought a jug of wine. Somebody else brought beer. Sarah Mingle brought her boyfriend, Rodney Dole, who just graduated and had a fake ID. We sat around the bonfire and talked about the future.

Vacations. Part-time jobs. After three hours Rodney took Sarah by the hand, and they disappeared into the darkness to make out someplace quiet. Away from the bonfire, the giggles, the jealousy.

“Somebody’s getting lucky,” Fletcher Webb said with a half-drunk laugh.

“Nope,” Melissa McCray shook her head. “Sarah’s waiting ‘til she’s married.”

Fletcher stuck out his tongue. “Don’t think Rodney is.”

After a while we forgot about Sarah and Rodney.

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Sheepshead Review|Other People’s

Then the sky thundered and the clouds opened up.

Bonfire hissed. Girls screamed. Boys whooped, taking it in, masters of the here and now.

“You doing okay, sport?” Mom asks as we drive through town.

I nod, staring out the window. Little Pigs Bar-b-que is taking applications. The bottom of the sign says, “RIP SARAH” “You liked her a lot, didn’t you?” Mom turns onto Route Four. “How about meatloaf for dinner?” She knows it’s my favorite.

I open my mouth to respond, but Mom gasps as we pass the lake.

Someone made a memorial out of store-bought flower arrangements at the turn off to the shore where Sarah’s body was found.

All of us crammed into Fletcher’s SUV. Rain and hail pelted the windshield like bullets.

“Where’s Sarah and Rodney?” Tiffany Moss asked from the backseat.

“They’re okay,” I said.

Lightning flashed.

“Look! There!” Fletcher pointed at Rodney running from a thorny bush, just as the lightning faded. Mud covered his clothes, his hands, and face. Sarah wasn’t with him.

Bodies pushed close together in the SUV, making room.

“Where’s Sarah?” someone asked.

Water dripped from his head, like a candle melting.

“She slipped. Fell into the lake.”

A flash of lightning blinded us.

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Other People’s|Sheepshead Review

The morning after the big thunderstorm was one of Mom’s days to ramble around Lake Hiawasee. That’s when she found Sarah’s body floating just offshore. Mom’s silly pink jogging pants didn’t have pockets, so she didn’t have her phone. By the time she got to her car, dialed the police, and power-walked back to the shoreline, Eileen Lowell and her sister-in-law, Gretchen Curry, were using sticks to pull Sarah’s body to the water’s edge.

I got there a few minutes after the cops did. Then the news cameras showed up. Mom tied a sweatshirt around her waist and greeted the crew by saying, “I’m the one who found her.” Missus Lowell and Curry said the same thing in their interviews. Not to be outdone, Mom worked up a few tears and grabbed the crew’s attention. She suddenly remembered more details because Sarah was a friend of mine. Missus Lowell and Curry left as soon as they’d given their statements to the police.

The discovery of Sarah’s body was on the front page of the paper the next morning. Mom’s picture. Tears on the shoreline.

Mom spread the paper across the kitchen table. “Lord,” she said, “the camera does at ten pounds. Glad I put that sweatshirt ‘round my waist.”

I have to remind myself we’re not at Chesterfield Memorial Services to see Daddy. He’s been gone two years. I wonder where the bodies are kept when they’re waiting.

Fletcher leans against a pillar at the car port smoking a cigarette, the hearse behind him. He throws a wave at us. Mom gives me a nod, the okay, to break away and go to him. I wait for her to walk inside before I pull the cigarette from his hand.

“You been okay?”

I nod my head, pretending it’s the truth.

“Tiffany and Melissa are inside. They’re a mess.”

“What about Rodney?”

Fletcher shrugs.

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Sheepshead Review|Other People’s

“I heard the cops let him go.”

“I guess. I mean, it was an accident, right?” He takes the cigarette from me. Inhales. His chin is a field of proud stubble. “Shit, man. Sarah’s dead.”

He doesn’t need to say that. It doesn’t help. Doesn’t make time change. Everything is as it is. The pain hurts more now than it did— “Good morning, boys.” Mister Joy, our principal, says as he passes. “I’m sorry about your friend.”

I smile. Fletcher only nods. We’re thinking the same thing. Do you know her name, sir?

Mister Joy doesn’t read that. He walks inside.

Fletcher sucks the last of his cigarette. Stomps it with the heel of his boot. “Come on,” he says, throwing an arm over my shoulder.

The rain got worse after we left the SUV. Nine teenagers running in the woods, along the shore, heading to the footbridge, shouting Sarah’s name at the thunder. The lake was dark and the moon hid behind the clouds. Memories thrown sideways. The footbridge was over there. Over here?

Where was the path?

“This way!” Rodney shouted.

Tiffany grabbed my hand. Beneath the slippery cold rain her skin rubbed warm against mine.

On the footbridge Fletcher pointed his expensive cell phone at the water. The flashlight illuminated rain and hail, our shattered reflections on the choppy water. But no Sarah.

“Let me see that,” Rodney said, grabbing for the phone.

“I got it,” Fletcher protested. Turned the phone, just as Rodney reached up. The light twisted in circles, flashed skyward, and fell into the lake. “Son of a— ” Fletcher and Rodney grabbed at each other—pulling shirts, throwing blame, and clawing skin.

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Other People’s|Sheepshead Review

Melissa whipped her raspberry-blue hair across her face and tugged on my arm. “Do something! Make them stop!”

Thunder cracked, followed by lightning. Backwards, I thought. It’s all backwards.

I looked at the other guys. Michael, a year below us, barely able to grow hair on his lip. Clifton, who had the locker next to mine. The three of us wore the same expression. This is bad. Kids thrust into adulthood.

Mom stands in the lobby talking to two ladies from her church. Her story is solid. Details perfected. The same words stressed every time she tells it. One of the ladies holds a handkerchief to her cheek. The other lady uses a Chesterfield Memorial Services hand fan to keep herself cool. Mom points at me. “Here he is. This my son. You remember him, don’t you?”

The handkerchief lady wipes the crease of her eye. “Oh, my. You’ve all but grown up.”

The lady with the fan leans forward. “I’m so sorry to hear about what happened. You must be all torn up.”

I fill my lungs to answer, to say, thank you.

Mom grabs my arm, squeezing tight. “We’ll get though this. It’s never easy to say good-bye.”

My lungs deflate.

Clifton and I dragged Rodney back to the SUV. He fought against us the whole way. Fletcher was easier to restrain. The punch Rodney gave him threw his balance off, and he needed Michael to help him walk upright. The girls ran ahead to dump the leftover alcohol and call the police.

No one risked driving. Despite headlights, despite lightning, we were trapped in the mirky dark as the storm swelled overhead. Hail bounced, burning like fire. Rain streaked across the windshield, watching us. Nothing was right.

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Sheepshead Review|Other People’s

Inside, everyone sobbed quietly while we waited.

Sarah’s waxy face and overdone makeup reminds me of a play she was in. “You Can’t Take it With You.” Now she’s onstage again, lights focused on her dark cherry casket surrounded by flower arrangements. “Gone too soon.” “Sweet angel.” “Psalm 23.”

The baldheaded pastor from Sarah’s church talks to her parents at the lectern. Neither of them face the casket.

Mrs. Mingle’s slumped shoulders and shaky legs tells me everything. Time has run out.

Patty Levesque’s arthritic fingers glide over the keys of an electric organ on the other side of the room. She played at Daddy’s memorial. The same hymns, I think.

Mom and I went to the mall to find clothes for the funeral. She haggled with the college girl behind the counter at JC Penny, because nothing was on sale except for t-shirts and Wranglers.

“Don’t you have student discounts, or something?”

“I’m sorry, ma’am, we don’t offer discounts to high school students.”

“Well...” she searched for words, waving her hands as if it would stir them up. Then her eyes got bright. She pressed her palms on the counter, wrinkling the dress shirt she picked out for me. “What about your employee discount?”

The college girl looked at me. Is she serious?

I would have been embarrassed, except that Mom did the same thing at Sears half an hour ago.

Tiffany sits beside me, clutching my hand. Scratched red nail polish. She and Sarah were close. They live a few houses down from each other. Can see each other’s bedrooms

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Other People’s|Sheepshead Review

with binoculars. Shared clothes. That dress was Sarah’s. Now it’s Tiffany’s. Nobody remembers that, except for me. Sarah bought it for the one and only time we went on a date.

“Hey,” Melissa says with a broken whisper. She slides into the pew. Her makeup doesn’t hide the fact that she’s been crying. “How’re you two?”

Tiffany’s mouth spasms a smile. Her eyes flutter with tears. Without words, the girls lean across my chest and hug. Clutch tight. I smell cucumber. Mint. Distant flower arrangements.

Fletcher appears at the aisle. Clears his throat. “Can I …” The girls break apart. Melissa holds her shaking hand out to him. Smiles. Welcomes him to the spot on the other side of her. He smells like cigarettes.

The electric organ stops pumping music. Patty Levesque adjusts buttons on the organ and flips pages in her music book.

She exchanges a nod with the baldheaded pastor.

On the ceiling, a projector awakens and throws home movies, Sarah’s life, on the wall.

Mrs. Mingle wails. Covers her face.

My Mom sits a row behind them, next to the two ladies from church. When she sees Mrs. Mingle crying she reaches across her friends. Reaches til she almost loses balance.

Mom’s too far away to offer support.

“Look at that,” the woman in front of me says to the woman next to her. I know that nose. That mole on her cheek.

Gretchen Curry.

The other woman clucks her tongue. Shakes her head.

“Awful. Crying like a crocodile.” I know her, too. Eileen Lowell.

Last time anyone saw them they were poking Sarah’s body with a stick.

The storm continued as a caravan of blue and red lights

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Sheepshead Review|Other People’s

made its way to the shoreline. Pulsars—supernovas—in a rainsoaked galaxy.

Four policemen fought their way to the footbridge, flashlights burning bright.

Each of us kids were escorted to the cruisers one at a time. Rodney and Fletcher spent the longest times there. In the SUV the rest of us made phone calls to our parents. Signals cut in and out. The constant, rotating questions: Hello? Mom? Dad? Are you there? Can you hear me?

Eventually the four policemen emerged from the woods, shoulders slumped, empty handed. The army of cops congregated at the drowned fire pit. Fingers pointed to the water. Pointed at the SUV. Other fingers pointed at the squad cars where Fletcher and Rodney waited. The conversation lasted three bursts of lightning and five low rumbles of thunder. Finally, two cops walked to their cars. Fletcher was taken from the backseat of one and brought to the SUV. The other cruiser drifted away with Rodney inside.

“What’s going on?” Michael asked.

Fletcher sniffled. Wiped his face with a stack of fast food napkins. “They didn’t find Sarah.”

Nobody gasped. The SUV was silent. Our faces held the conversation.

Thunder boomed, miles away, following Rodney. The last crash of the storm.

After the eulogy, Sarah’s family are escorted out of the chapel, into an anteroom with a thick double door polished so bright it reflects the congregants’ faces. Two men wearing nametags approach the casket. Lower the lid. I see the tip of Sarah’s nose disappear forever.

Tiffany closes her eyes. Squeezes my hand. Melissa does the same with my other hand. I can’t help but compare them.

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Other People’s|Sheepshead Review

Tiffany has a thing for me, but she’s too clingy. And Melissa?

She’s a trainwreck. Always has been. She only dates guys who treat her like her daddy does.

Neither Melissa nor Tiffany ever winked at me when they hold someone else’s hand. They never let me touch their breasts when we started puberty, and they never asked me to unzip my pants so they could see. We never practiced kissing.

We never met each other in the middle of the night to ride bikes around the neighborhood. I never dreamed about either of them, or imagined what it would be like to call them mine.

Neither of them are Sarah.

I look away or else I’ll be found out.

Patty Levesque glides into a particularly moving song.

The undertaker guys twist the casket to face the aisle, ready to guide it out of the chapel. The pastor nods approval. He turns and slides the polished doors open. Sarah’s family comes in from the anteroom. Her dad started crying while they were gone, and now it’s her mother who holds them stiff. Leads the way. She touches the lid of the casket as they pass.

Fletcher’s parents came to the lake to drive us all home.

His mom drove half of the kids in her car. His dad drove me and the others in the SUV. He was a forest ranger, so the saturated ground, the weather, was no match for him. He drove onehanded, casually, like a trip home from school.

One by one we were let out, words were brief. We said goodbyes. Parents stood outside on porches, gathering their children with wide embraces. Perfect reunions. Relief. ThankGod-You’re-Safe’s. Pieces of a puzzle picked up from the floor.

At Melissa’s house, her dad’s banged up truck sat cockeyed in the driveway. She wouldn’t get much sympathy inside. She never did. If wishes were horses she’d trade places with Sarah and ride off into the sunset, never to be seen again.

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Sheepshead Review|Other People’s

Fletcher’s dad waited two minutes before he pulled away.

When we got to Tiffany’s house, her mom came to the SUV with an umbrella. Spoke to Fletcher’s dad in hushed tones.

Words swallowed by the thick, wet air. Tiffany hugged my neck before she got out, pressing her breasts against my chest. I didn’t get hard until the SUV drove past Sarah’s house, a few doors down. Two cop cars in the driveway. Sarah’s bedroom glowed orange behind the curtains. I wondered how long would it be before her parents turned off the light.

Mom was asleep when I got home.

I woke her up and told her what had happened. She gave me a little kiss before sending me to bed. “Everything’s gonna be okay,” she said. “Tomorrow will be better.”

If Daddy was alive we would have gone back to the lake with his boat and looked for Sarah.

Fletcher and I offered to help carry Sarah’s casket, but her family has it planned. Her father—tears streaming—as well as uncles and a few cousins lift the casket and walk down the aisle. Her friends can only watch as she leaves. A piece of our foundation chipped away. Carried off.

Just as she’s taken through the chapel doors I see Rodney sitting alone in the very last row. He doesn’t look at her. He doesn’t look at us. He doesn’t have to. He knows.

Tiffany’s grip tightens; she sees him too. Everyone does.

But not my Mom. She’s looking at the ceiling, her face red with choked back tears. Her mouth trembles, fluttering, as if saying a prayer. I know that in the back of her mind she’s making a shopping list for meatloaf.

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Sheepshead Review|I Remember

I Remember. Do You? Danielle Tackett I remember how we first met. It was in a coffee shop.

I was 23. You were 25. You were dragged there by your sister and hated everything about that place—the smell, the atmosphere, the people with their big glasses, skinny jeans, and coffee loving hearts. Then you saw me. Me with my glasses, skinny jeans, and coffee loving heart. I was sipping a cappuccino the size of my head, according to you. That was a bit of an exaggeration, but you always went on about how it was so big you were surprised I could lift it.

“I mean, who could drink that much coffee!”

Me, apparently.

You grabbed the chair across from me without saying a word, your sister forgotten. You said you were there for half an hour before I looked up and jumped a foot in my chair, causing your husky laugh to emerge that made my knees weak. You then decided to insult my coffee drinking and lecture me on how coffee was unhealthy and disgusting and should not exist in a civilized world—you were a “soda man” yourself. You do like your exaggerations.

And that started a whole argument. You then asked me for my number. I told you no, but you still left with a smile on your face.

Three days later, I went back to that coffee shop and there you were, nursing your soda. I wanted to wipe that smirk off your face, so I sat and continued our debate. Your smirk only grew even though you were losing, but you would not be convinced. That day, I made it my mission to get you to like at least one form of coffee.

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I Remember|Sheepshead Review

I remember this.

I remember that’s how this all began, our meetings.

It took months, years, but you began to convert to the dark side, the dark roast side. By our wedding night, you had been off soda for a year. By our second child, you were the one introducing me to knew coffee products. I even walked in on you giving our nine-year-old her first sip of coffee—black coffee—telling her it was the best thing in the world. She spat it out on your white dress shirt. I attempted to chastise you for that—nine-year-olds should not drink coffee—but couldn’t stop laughing long enough.

I remember. Do you?

I told myself a long time ago that they were close enough—soda and coffee. I should have known better. Now, after fourteen years of marriage, the oak table is hard under my arms. The lawyer sets the papers in front of me along with a pen and tells me to sign. She does the same to you. She then offers both of us cups of coffee. I say yes. You say no. Your new girlfriend pulls out a soda from her bag and hands it to you.

I remember. I think you do, too.

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Sheepshead Review|Partners

Partners Sara Ladwig It was, and was not, a game to them. To them, it was physical, an excuse to scramble back to the farthest reaches of the library, away from the circulation desk and cameras and wandering eyes that could watch them as they teased and explored. Exploring the parts of each other they hadn’t known yet—or that they had and were relearning after their time apart—was always the best part. Partners who were not each other: the ones with glasses, the ones who took their time, the ones who whispered sweet things in their ears that they didn’t mean, the ones who wouldn’t look at them until it was over. Over her head, her arms were pinned. Pinned like a butterfly on display. Playing around wasn’t a good idea for her and she knew it—he flirted with everybody, get out before it’s too late—warnings she hadn’t listened to. Too often they traveled somewhere like the back of the library, there were easier places to have a moment like this, but that was part of the fun.

Fun: not like going to a carnival; for them it was pushing the limits of what was right and what was wrong, like fooling around in a library where privacy was nonexistent because she got drunk off the attention. Attention outside of this was a commodity that for her was nonexistent, just like their feelings for each other were supposed to be. Beyond what they could give each other. Other people shook their heads, said they were in denial or they were insane, but they had heard it all before and it hadn’t changed their routine. Routines: study time he was skipping and choir practice she had missed for this. This one moment struck. Struck like lightning.

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Partners|Sheepshead Review

Lightning is rare to strike the same place twice, and individually they’re the same way, but they make an exception and seek each other out when they need to. To keep each other guessing they pretend that they aren’t developing anything for each other; that it’s just physical; that they aren’t marking each other up so nobody else will touch them. Them: two teenagers pressed together in the back of the library, not bothering to wonder about whether or not this was all worth it.

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Sheepshead Review|My Father

My Father, Ernest; Born 1959 Lori Noto The caffeinated aroma filled my house like the cologne of the working man. My father’s morning routine had been the same for years: alarm clock at 5:30 AM, coffee at 5:50 AM, work at 7:00 AM. Unable to sleep from the sound of his slippers rhythmically slapping against the kitchen tile, I headed downstairs to join him.

“Mornin’,” he said, once he took note of me lingering in the doorway. He clutched his mug of coffee like a cross and pulled it toward his chest. He stood silently, as if in prayer, and looked out the window. No more words were exchanged between us, but I observed the lines framing his face and the graying strands of hair on his head, and they began to tell a story I have heard a thousand times before. I listened intently as his motions spoke: “When I was six, my father said he couldn’t take me to see a movie because he would be gone all weekend on a business trip. He didn’t reveal where he was headed, so I figured it had to be somewhere sacred. For two days, I camped out in the kitchen in a sleeping bag, picturing the gift he’d bring home from that unspeakably remarkable place. Monday morning, he came back, staggered through the kitchen like a blind man, and tripped over my body. ‘What’d ya get me?’ I asked him, unfazed by the bruise quickly forming on my leg. He stumbled out of the room without answering, so I searched through his coat pockets, briefcase, and eventually our beat-up family car.

I remember eagerly bolting outside and standing on my tiptoes, feet frozen from the cold, to look through his backseat window. I remember how my eyes hurt from the sunlight that

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My Father|Sheepshead Review

reflected off of the bottles of liquor buckled in the backseat like favored foster children. Now every time I drive, I look in my rear-view mirror and pray to see my own seats are empty.”

I continued translating our foreign language of silence as the steam from his coffee rose over his glasses like a ghost and left him temporarily sightless. He uncomfortably shifted over to the counter to put down his warm cup, somehow keeping his balance as he stepped over the bunched-up rug.

He put on his coat, touched my shoulder, and hurried out the door to go to work. As I heard the engine of his car rumble, I imagined him stretching his neck to fearfully glance at his reflection as he pulled out of the driveway.

Once he was gone, I placed his mug under the faucet and stared at the russet-colored film that had discolored its once-white interior. I reached down inside the cupboards below the sink, thinking of my father’s father as I pushed aside containers of carpet cleaner and wood polish in search of soap to finally rinse away the unrelenting stains. Hidden within the cobwebbed depths of the cabinet—like a buried family curse— was an uncorked and dust-coated bottle of cheap Zinfandel, dated 1977. It was decorated with a pale yellow ribbon and a card that read, “Happy birthday, Ernest! Three cheers for the rest of your years.”

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Sheepshead Review|Stove Top

Stove Top Danielle Tackett Stove top Stove top: n. a closed box or vessel of metal in which heat is produced either by combustion of fuel or electrically, for use in warming rooms, cooking, etc.; an apparatus for heating.

I stand in front of the stove, making his favorite for dinner, waiting for him to come home. The dish took hours to make, to perfect, just for him. Just like I do every day. It has to be perfect. I have to be perfect, or else.

I eye the stove as I put the last finishing touches on dinner. It should be able to warm me, shouldn’t it? I am frozen in this house, frozen in time. I am cold inside and out, and nothing ever warms me, not anymore.

But . . . if the stove doesn’t warm me, maybe it can cook me.

Maybe it can take my raw and oozing self and cauterize it. I am an open wound, an exposed nerve. Something should be able to stop the pulsing. Something should be able to blacken and burn away everything so I can’t feel anymore. Can the stove?

I sigh as I take his dinner off the heat. I turn off the burner.

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Stove Top|Sheepshead Review

Hands Hands: n. the terminal part of the human arm beyond the wrist, consisting of the palm, four fingers, and thumb, and used for grasping, holding, and manipulating things, and for gesturing.

Hands are magic. Just look at them. Take a second and actually think about them, experience them. Wiggle your fingers. Imagine the bones, muscles, tendons, veins that make your hand what it is, that allow it to move and create magic.

Hands are the foundation of all things. People have created the world we live in with these instruments of change. Many hands’ synchronized motions can play a beautiful symphony with thousands of rapt witnesses, and a single hand, taught through years of strenuous discipline, can save the life of a child on an operating table.

My hands would hold his and feel the warmth they used to create.

That is magic.

However, hands are not always used for good. They are often used for evil. Just like his hands. Hands can form fists that cause immeasurable pain, pain on the body and pain on the mind. They can form hidden bruises and scars that never heal.

His hands can punch a hole through my stomach and reach my soul. They can wrap around my heart and squeeze until I am nothing.

Unfortunately, that too is magic.

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Sheepshead Review|Stove Top

Life Life: n. the condition or attribute of living or being alive; animate existence. Opposed to death or inanimate existence.

I put his dinner on the table and adjust the forks so they are three millimeters away from our plates. Perfect, just the way he likes.

He should be home any minute now. As I stand at the door and wait to take his coat, I notice a family of deer in the back yard. The doe nibbles my rosebuds while the fawn gallops from mother to father. Beautiful. That is life.

I miss having a job and workmates. I wish I could have a heartto-heart conversation with my mother again, where I can tell her all my problems. I would even love to spend time with nosy Cara who can’t seem to keep her two cents to herself. I miss life.

I look down at the dress I am wearing, the one he loves so much because it hugs my middle and makes my breasts stand out. I hate this dress. I would never have worn something so not me before I met him.

I can’t go on like this. I can’t pretend to be something I’m not anymore. This isn’t life. It’s a living death.

I can’t let him kill me anymore. It ends tonight.

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Stove Top|Sheepshead Review

Resolve Resolve: n. the fact of having decided upon a course of action stance, etc.; firmness or steadfastness of purpose; determination; an instance of this.

A girl stands alone in a kitchen, a kitchen prepared for the one she used to love, the one who still loves her...in his own way. But his own way is a terrible way, a painful way, a way that only leads to destruction and death.

A girl stands alone in life, secluded from those she once knew.

She is pain, the embodiment of everything horrid and dreadful.

But she has finally come to a crossroads. Shall she continue in her shell of terrible normalcy, or shall she end it? She comes to a decision, her first in years.

A girl stands, resolute. Her decision has been made, and there is no going back. It’s euphoric, this feeling, this taking charge of life again. But now a second decision must be made: how should it end? How will this hateful merry-go-round end?

A girl stands, contemplating. Should she end it with herself or him?

She’s leaning more towards him.

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Nonfiction

Sheepshead Review|Home

Home Jill Tesselaar Writer’s Note: It is the beginning of the semester, and I am still very much adjusting to living in the United States as an international student.

All the new experiences and the new people I meet evoke a few emotions in me that I have not felt before. I’ve never written in English before, and I’m probably not very good, but I tried.

It’s August 31st, 2017, and I am feeling overwhelmed by what I am seeing. Green. Packer green. Literally everywhere I look. In the Netherlands, we have a similar craze with the color orange, but that is nothing like what I am seeing right now. I’m used to orange, green is new. It overwhelms me. I’m talking about the colors in the Lambeau Field Stadium, yellow and mostly green. The thousands of people in the stadium are all wearing green and yellow. There is a sense of unity and everybody seems so happy and proud. It is noticeable, even for an outsider like myself. I see so many different kinds of people around me. I’m sitting right there on the bleachers as a foreign girl, with my foreign friends, and I am trying to picture who all the people around me are. I see a husband and wife who probably have been married for over 30 years, who love each other so dearly and still enjoy watching a Packers game together as much as they did when they first started dating. A father and his teenage son, who probably do not have so many similar interests but find each other again when it comes to American football. I see a group of middle-aged men, the upper middle-class type, who probably have been friends since college but now all have very stressful and demanding jobs; yet they find a moment to relax and cheer for their favorite

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Home|Sheepshead Review

team at Lambeau. All of a sudden, the whole crowd stands up, every person in the stadium. Men take off their hats; we all wait for what is to come. It’s the national anthem of the United States. The stadium sings along, and you can hear the pride in their collective voice. I can tell this is an important, almost serious moment. I look at my new friends beside me. Neither of us know the words, so we stare at the screen and try to sing along by following the lyrics. I’m thinking about how impressive this all is. Fireworks go off near the end, balloons in red, white, and blue are released, and the singer sings her final note. Applause and cheering. I feel so much joy, unity, and pride coming from all the people around me. The feeling rubs off on me, and I can see that my friends feel the same.

In this moment, it does not matter that I’m on the other side of the world. It does not matter that this is not my real home, that English is not my first language, that my culture is so different from the American one. In this moment, I belong and I am included.

Home is where you decide it to be, where you decide to make friends, sleep and decorate to make it feel ‘homey’.

Home is where you feel at ease, which can be anywhere, if you trust yourself and your instincts.

Home is a place that shifts and changes, if you are willing to grow and have faith.

Home is where the heart is, and if you love it enough, it will follow you.

I didn’t understand much of the game. Before seeing it in the stadium, I’ve never seen a football game before in my life (it is not big in the Netherlands, but we love soccer). Even though I didn’t really understand what was going on, I enjoyed

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Sheepshead Review|Home

it very much. We ate a big hot dog, and I had my first illegal sip of alcohol, as I’m 19. At home, you’re allowed to drink when you turn 18. It used to be 16, so that is also considered normal in my culture. I think that you really notice how much of a culture a country has and how much it affects you when you decide to leave it for four months. I mean really leave it, not for a long backpacking trip or some other excuse to not have to face the harsh reality that you do not know where you are going in life. I can say this because I do not know where I’m going in life, but I’m trying to figure it out.

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I Am Alive|Sheepshead Review

I Am Alive and No One Knows This God-Awful Fact Emily Townsend Do you know what it feels like to be alive? It’s laying on your black acrylic stained couch that you won’t get penalized for at the end of your lease because you were smart enough upon inspection and marked it “stained,” it’s the one window out of three that are opened to let the weirdly clean and rusty evening air rush in along your cheap Target fan, it’s watching the waning moon rise above Nacogdoches throughout the evening, it’s the clearance lemongrass green tea ginger candle named “Brilliant” flickering beneath the glow of Portlandia playing on the television, it’s refreshing your social media and emails every seven minutes for something new to happen in your fucking boring life, it’s the boxed Chardonnay wine that your roommate said you could finish and it’s soaking into your veins not quickly enough, you’re way too sober right now, on a lonely Saturday night, it’s knowing that you need to wash your hair but you just don’t want to get off the little too uncomfortable couch where the lumbar stick presses into your back, it’s shutting off the television and playing Sigur Rós’ “Ég anda” at the highest volume on your phone that almost never receives messages sent to you first, you constantly remind people that you are alive and need to be talked to, it’s drinking a root beer with an extra shot of Bacardi 151, it’s waiting for the damn poison to kick in, please relieve me of this misery that’s choking me, it’s texting a boy you think you’re attracted to, but really you’re using him for some type of experience that you’ve never had, it’s posting on your Snapchat story that you want someone to come over and maybe do something dirty, or to just hold you, it’s trying to force yourself to be in the mood 50

Sheepshead Review|I Am Alive

to masturbate so you can feel some relief but you know that touching yourself means no one else is touching you, your fingers know every follicle of your body and you’re tired of it, you want to try something that every other fucking person in the world has done but you are claustrophobic and awkward and even if someone did like you enough to do that sappy romcom shit with you, you wouldn’t even notice, you’re fucking oblivious and naïve and you don’t believe anyone would ever want to be physically or emotionally involved with you, it’s questioning why you label yourself asexual when every time you have a drop of alcohol you’re sexually frustrated, like some type of alternative for an abstract peace of mind takes you away from all your conundrums and paradoxes, like maybe if you have sex while drunk you would unusually enjoy having your barriers breached, but what if in the morning you wake up, whether he’s wrapped around you like the stupid rom-coms or if he’s quietly left your apartment like the stupid rom-coms, what if you regret it and you decide that you are definitely asexual, you will never get drunk again, not even to take the edge off, it’s having a torturously slow existential crisis just by looking through your halfway opened door of your fawn-tinted bedroom lit from the sidewalk lamps outside because one day you will not see this color, you will only see black or maybe no color at all, where do we go after this life, do we return in another body, it’s simultaneously wanting to be in a room with every single person you’ve ever loved even though you’ve never told them you loved them but also wanting to be in a place where absolutely no one knows your name, it’s the fucking constant reminder that I am alone and no one fucking sees me, it’s the yearning for another shot of whatever you can find, but all the alcohol in your weekend empty apartment has been drained in your throat, it’s the intense desideratum to have someone to return to, you are so

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I Am Alive|Sheepshead Review

fucking tired of being independent, it’s been 22 fucking years for fuck’s sake, when is it your turn, when will you be happy like everyone else, when will you have the slow clap applause that you’ve found the love of your life, it’s the ache in your left shoulder blade from sideways laying on your black acrylic stained couch that you won’t get penalized for at the end of your lease because you were smart enough upon inspection and marked it “stained.”

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Sheepshead Review|The Viking

The Viking Guinevere Casper My family calls me “The Viking.” The nickname originated when I was two or three, when I stabbed my brother at the dinner table. It was totally and completely justified: he tried to take my meat. This was not his first offense, nor would it be his last. That year on my birthday, he blew out my birthday candles while I was still making my wish. His attempt to steal my dinner was the last affront to my honor that I could stand, and honor means everything to a viking. I put my fork in his hand and he cried and I was punished with the confiscation of metal utensils. My weapon gone, I became ever more determined to avenge myself. Weapons are important, yes, but I could make do. So my plastic Mickey Mouse fork became my new sword. But his army was bigger than mine. Once again, I was foiled by our parents, who were seemingly his greatest allies. They erected a mountain—our older sister—between us.

I had lost the battle. The High Queen had spoken and called for peace. She’d ruled with foolish mercy and not outlawed me, and so I continued to prepare for war in secret. I attained new battle armor—a purple Minnesota jersey—that I covered in battle gore. Or a whole bottle of white out. I looked like such a badass. All would tremble when they saw me.

I taunted my enemy. I called him Yah-Yah instead of Brother or Max. And it goaded him on perfectly. Soon, he dubbed me Cookie. I wore my new title with pride as it became clear that only those who feared me called me Cookie. And Yah-Yah feared me most of all. I found joy in my ability to annoy him.

I built my army to challenge his, assembling all my stuffed animals and telling them the great sagas of battle and victory:

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The Viking|Sheepshead Review

Little Red Riding Hood, Beauty and the Beast, Goldilocks. I was preparing them for the great, inevitable bloodshed in which, surely, some of them would die, but they would die honorably, fighting for she to whom they had pledged their loyalty.

And the Queen had no idea. She brought us our snacks, tucked us into bed, kissed our foreheads, never knowing that we two were in preparation for war. We both waited for the other to make the first attack. As a viking, I was honorable and brave, yes, but I was also wise. It would be foolish to take the responsibility for this conflict for a second time. No, this was his fault and I would wait for him to draw first blood and take the fall. My teddy bear was more than willing to give himself up for the cause.

And so we stayed for months, throwing glares at each other across the mountain at dinner and marking distinct territories in the backyard. We were stagnant, waiting for the pin to drop, until, suddenly, it became apparent that we must join forces. Though it turned my stomach to ally with my greatest enemy, a new battle was rising that I knew I would not survive alone. My wisdom pushed me toward a partnership so that we, together, could prepare for the greatest enemy we would ever face: our baby sister was learning to walk.

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Sheepshead Review|Flavors of Life

Flavors of Life Alicia LeBoeuf Sweet: Holding a waffle cone towering with melting scoops of blue moon ice cream while in the stands of a minor league baseball game, the Pillsbury sugar cookies stamped with seasonal images that vanish within hours of emerging from the oven, sipping steaming coffee enriched with a helping of creamer so generous that it disguises the fact that it’s actually coffee, a ceramic bowl overflowing with miniature candies kept for the promise of a nighttime snack.

Sour: Greedily eating plump grapes in the summertime heat as they roll lazily around in a plastic bowl, lemon drops consistently doled out in the car by grandma and consistently gobbled up by grandkids, directing immense dissatisfaction at the lone surviving pickle on my hamburger that somehow escaped my clutches, nibbling half-heartedly on an offered blue Sour Patch Kid and trying to like it but eventually failing to.

Salty: Golden McDonald’s french fries dunked into a pool of ketchup after a noon-dismissal day at school, splitting a warm soft pretzel in the mall in the midst of a productive day of shopping, observing the rather depressing sodium content of a Lean Cuisine, sprinkling plain salt on the skin of buttered corn on the cob and then ignoring all the bits that get stuck in my braces with the first bite, biting into a eggroll fresh from one of the bustling tents at the farmer’s market as the summer sun beats down.

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Flavors of Life|Sheepshead Review

Bitter: A lifelong feud with cucumbers and whoever willingly drinks cucumber-infused water, a high schooler not ordering a Frappuccino for the first time while at Starbucks, the overwhelming yuck factor of raw kale while trying to entice a health kick, wolfing down steamed broccoli and cauliflower to maintain the facade of being relatively health conscious, tentatively eating cooked mushrooms for the first time in years and being shocked that they are not absolutely revolting.

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Sheepshead Review|Sitting in the Rubble

Sitting in the Rubble Emily Cave I’ve been told that the beginning is a very good place to start. But where that beginning is depends on what story I want to tell. I guess you could say the beginning was July 13, 2012, the day my mother was diagnosed with stage four colon cancer.

I was there. I was the first one told, though my mother could tell something was wrong. While I can’t remember the words the doctor said to me, I can remember, as if I were still there, watching my mother cry through the glass doors of her examination room.

That was when my whole world crashed down around me, and my life had to be built back up from the rubble.

Because of that day, I thought I knew how to rebuild my life after tragedy. Because I built that new life on the foundation of my mother’s mortality, I thought I’d be prepared for the loss.

Because I had come to grips with each step over the last five years, from hoping for a cure, to just trying to stabilize, then to keeping her comfortable, I thought I could handle the next step.

All of this is just the preface, though. I don’t want to tell the story of my mother or of her fight against cancer. As unique and amazing as she was, that story has already been told. My story, my new life, began when my old life died along with my mother on September 24, 2017.

It hasn’t even been a month yet. I’m still sitting in the rubble. I try to build something, anything, out of what’s left around me, but each day it falls apart. I fall apart. I have no foundation, nothing steady except the pain and sadness I feel.

It may just be too soon. My life feels like it’s stopped, or maybe I just want it to. I don’t want it to end, I just want it to stop for awhile. The world is rushing around me and I can’t seem to catch

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Sitting in the Rubble|Sheepshead Review

my breath. Bills and obligations don’t stop, so without rest, without a break, without air, I go back out into the mad, frantic world that doesn’t change for me, yet is completely different.

It hasn’t even been a month yet. I’m still sitting in the rubble. While I can’t build up my life, my walls, I can build a facade, a mask to wear when out in the world. I can laugh and smile with customers and coworkers; I can participate and joke in my classes. People see me and think I am moving on, that I am getting over my grief. They think I am coping.

But every smile, every laugh fills me with guilt and sadness.

I don’t do this for myself. I don’t wear my mask to help me get through this pain, I wear it because my pain makes other people uncomfortable. I wear it because I can’t stand that look of pity in their eyes and the platitudes on their lips. “She’s in a better place.” What was wrong with her place with me?

A better place would be here, with her family. A better place would be holding her grandchildren that I haven’t given her yet. You speak of an afterlife that she never believed in, and I only wish I could.

It hasn’t even been a month yet. I’m still sitting in the rubble. I’m alone and I don’t know if I want to be. “I can’t imagine how you feel.” I don’t think that’s true. You can’t understand, but I bet you can imagine, and that’s the problem. We are empathetic creatures; our brains are designed to feel the pain of others. You don’t like seeing yourself in my pain, so you cut it off. In what you think is an act of consoling, you disconnect from me, when I so desperately need to feel connected. I want the world to stop because I don’t want it to go on without me.

I have already lost the person I loved the most, I can’t lose the rest of my loved ones too. “I’m here if you need me.” Of course I need you! I can’t ask for help, though, because I don’t want to be a burden. As much as I need someone connected to me and my pain, I don’t actually want anyone else to have to

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Sheepshead Review|Sitting in the Rubble

feel this. I don’t want to cause suffering, even if it means I am suffering myself. I’m afraid to accept the help from my family, though I know they are in pain, too. I don’t lean on them for support because of the guilt and shame I’d feel if I am unable to support them back.

It hasn’t even been a month yet. I’m still sitting in the rubble. This story doesn’t have a happy ending. I’m not there yet. If I’m honest, I don’t know if I ever will be. Grief is not something you get over. It’s not stages you go through and then you’re done. Grief is now a part of my new life; it is a part of who I am from now on. I know this because I know what grief is. I can feel what grief is. Grief is love. You can’t have one without the other. I will build my new life out of this rubble on a foundation of grief, and love, and memories, and family, and hope. I will smile for real again. I will do all of the things I talked about and planned with my mother. I will carry her inside me forever. I know all of this. I know all of this in my mind, but it is not my mind that is hurting. I am not there yet, but that is okay. I will wrap myself up in my grief and pain, and I will cry and mourn and hurt whenever I am alone, whenever I can take my mask off, not because I want to, but because I still need to. It hasn’t even been a month yet. I’m still sitting in the rubble.

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Human Excuse|Sheepshead Review

The Human Excuse Corey Reed Secretly, so deeply buried—deeper than any secret has the right to be—we all wished it would just be over. You were halfway gone already, we justified, you were tired of fighting.

Please know it had nothing to do with us not loving you. It didn’t mean that at all; we’re just human, and humans can be so cruel.

I’m sorry for being such a terrible person, but the human condition justifies that we don’t have to acknowledge our faults until it’s too late. Now, I need to tell you I’d rather have the half of you that was here. I’d keep your halfway-self with me forever—longer than any person has the right to keep someone. But instead, I don’t get any of you at all.

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Sheepshead Review|Things I Should Tell

The Things I Should Tell You Vanessa Wegher I’ve never been good at taking all my thoughts and forming coherent sentences that poetically string together on a page. My brain has always been a bit frazzled, no matter how hard I try to tame it. I can never choose the right words, the right feelings.

Some people are afraid of spiders, I’m afraid of making the wrong decisions. I’m the most indecisive person I know. The best choices I make are the ones that are easily reversible. Somehow, in all the mess inside my head, I managed to choose you. Now you weren’t the type of crush that came in a crash of undeniable emotions.

No, you were the type that grew and grew like a vine scaling a building. You weren’t very noticeable…until it was too late.

They say everything happens in strings of threes. If that’s true, that makes you the third. The third boy with the sad eyes and even sadder words. The artsy type who is so sensitive, so artificially deep and poetic that you can’t help but roll your eyes.

I couldn’t get a read on you and it intrigued me.

You were the third disappointment.

Somehow, you checked many of the little boxes on my list of things I assumed I was looking for in a man. Tick, tick, tick. After sitting with you day after day, I eventually felt the familiar pang in my chest; a symbolic flashing neon sign that screamed, “THIS BOY IS GONNA LEAVE A MARK!” I tried so hard to outrun the feelings that were slowly developing with every dopey smile and almost-touch. Before I knew it, I was in too deep. I asked everyone that would listen for any type of advice. I couldn’t allow myself to be placed in a position so vulnerable, so permanent. They all said that I had to allow myself to feel these emotions and dive in without hesitation.

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Things I Should Tell|Sheepshead Review

It took weeks. The back and forth of “he loves me, he loves me not” stopped me dead in my tracks every time I had worked up enough courage to take the leap. Finally, after a rather large shot of cheap vodka, I took the plunge right off the cliff. You politely declined. Instead of falling into your arms or into some sharp rocks at the bottom, I landed in a weird calm that followed me for months. Between mixed drinks and mixed signals, all I could do was try to convince myself that I was perfectly okay with everything.

This isn’t a love story. We never fell into that spellbinding emotion that I had hunted for so many years. I tried to hold onto something that didn’t exist; a projection in my mind of what could be. I didn’t want to let myself believe in the possibility that I chose wrong.

But I’m here now to provide myself some kind of release.

The closure I never received from you, I’m giving to myself.

There was nothing I could have done to change it and I’m finally okay with that. I can’t keep letting myself believe that if I just give it time, you’ll change your mind. I was so afraid that if I made a definitive line in the sand, I was ensuring that I would miss out on the chance that one day you’d come back.

This is where our chapter finally comes to a close and while it’s stinging and terrifying, I know that this is what has to be done. I’m not very good at endings or goodbyes but I seem to be very good at attracting almosts and maybes.

This might be our ending, but it sure as fuck isn’t mine.

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Sheepshead Review|How to Pass

How to Pass an Interview Jordan Safranski Nice to finally meet you!

Is it? Do you like my outfit? Is the red lipstick too much? Should I have buttoned the top button—what do you think? I’m thinking it might be too much—what if I lean over and you see too much?

Oh yes, very nice to meet you as well.

How are you doing today?

Tired! So tired. Of course, I tried to go to bed early last night—I swear! Only it’s very difficult to go to bed early when you’re forcing yourself, you know? And then I realized I actually hate the shirt I picked out for today, so I had to pick something else out, and then my cats—the assholes, they kept running around the apartment all night! So when I finally did fall asleep, it felt like a very short nap from which I’ve only just woken from…oh, I don’t know—thirty minutes ago?

That’s why I’m right on time instead of fifteen minutes early like everyone tells you to be, because I woke up too late and left my house too late and took too long driving and then of course got lost on the way here, it’s a very confusing location isn’t it? But I’m here and I suppose that’s all that matters, and I think I did a fine job at covering up the dark circles, don’t you think?

I’m well! So excited to be here. And you?

Oh, I’m great. Happy to have you here. Now, I’ll just jump right in okay? Are you ready?

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How to Pass|Sheepshead Review

I mean…I suppose I am. Do I have another choice? Could we wait a second for my palms to stop sweating? I guess it doesn’t really matter now, I’ve already shaken your hand.

Of course! Let’s begin.

Perfect! Well let’s start off with you. Tell me about yourself.

Well, there’s a lot to tell. And there isn’t. Nothing that really matters that much, to tell you the truth- nothing very unique. I’m from the Midwest, born and raised here like everyone else (because, other than unfortunate job relocations, who really decides to move here?), and just as weatherobsessed as everyone else. I don’t like the heat and humidity but I also don’t like the snow. I’m a fan of local tragedies because sometimes we end up on national television, and it makes me feel like maybe someone outside of Wisconsin might actually realize that we’re not all cheese-obsessed, farming deer hunters; even though I am cheese obsessed, farming is in my family and everyone I know is a hunter.

I dream of leaving, of moving away and starting a different life. But it’s funny—I always picture it, my life that is, on a big plot of land with a big house and a big horse farm, with trees that have leaves that change color in the Fall; a yard big enough for snowmen in the winter; a porch big enough for cookouts with friends (alright, the porch won’t have to be very big); maybe a kid or two, maybe not. Sounds like good ol’ Wisconsin, I know. Ironic, isn’t it?

Well, first of all, I’m crazy about this company! I’ve been following you for quite some time, and I just think your values are amazing—and don’t get me started on the culture.

I’m an English and Communications major and I feel like I’m the perfect candidate for this role.

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Sheepshead Review|How to Pass

That’s fantastic! I love to hear that. What do you like about this position?

That it’s not my current position, mostly. It’s not that I hate my job—I don’t. I don’t really love it either. It’s very gossipy and, well, I join in too because what more is there to do really? Paperwork, sales pitches, more paperwork, gossip.

But it’s hard to be around that all day, you know? Usually it doesn’t get to me—everyone talks, it’s inevitable, but it’s hard not to imagine what people must be saying about you. Plus, you pay more.

Well, I feel that my past experience has really given me the skills I need to succeed here, and this position gives me the chance to grow within your company.

It certainly will! Helping our employees is something we truly value here. That’s why we also focus on continuing improvement. That’s why I always want to know—what is your greatest weakness?

Where to start? Well, first off, I’m a horrendous procrastinator. I don’t just mean that I wait until the last minute to finish things—I wait until the last minute to start things. I have my morning routine clocked to the minute- did I mention I’m not a morning person- just so I can stay in bed that extra three and a half minutes past hitting the snooze button on my phone. If I even eat breakfast at all, which I usually don’t, it’s coming along in the car with me, and will end up at some point or another, caked into the deep crevices of my car seats. I will arrive to work, as with my interview today, exactly on time, or five minutes late because of an unforeseen interference. There is no early. I will begin projects the day they are due, and every time I turn them in, you’ll never be able to guess that I looked most of the information up on 65

How to Pass|Sheepshead Review

Google, and the rest seemingly materialized out of thin air. I’m good at that. But back to weaknesses!

I’m terrified of confrontation. But wait, that isn’t true.

I’m not afraid of confrontation—I’m very good at skipping passive aggressive post-it notes and moving on to extremely forward emails; I’m just very terrified of confrontation when it comes to me. That is to say, I am terrified of failure. I am the weird kid out of the group that constantly feels on the verge of tripping and falling flat on my face, or saying something stupid or looking around a room and realizing I’m the only one who didn’t get the joke because the joke is me and I’m the only one not laughing. That is to say, when you point out my flaws—even a simple mistake you’d like me to fix, the world will be falling down around me. But you’ll never know.

I’ll answer your next question for you. My greatest strength: Internalizing.

I would say one of my greatest weaknesses is that I take on too much. I get extremely excited about projects and really enjoy taking the lead, so sometimes I have a difficult time saying no to things. But I have been working on utilizing my team members more and prioritizing my time, and I think you will find that my enthusiasm for taking on new projects will be a great asset to me here in this role.

Well that leads me into my next question. What do you think your greatest strength is?

Other that internalizing? Probably my ability to somehow make it feel like I’m working all day until I leave the office realizing that I have literally not done a thing. Or maybe the extreme sport of ‘how fast can you put your phone down when you see your boss walking by?’ which I am simply exceptional at, if you don’t mind me bragging. Seriously though? Well I’ve started to realize that I know quite a lot 66

Sheepshead Review|How to Pass

about social media marketing. I’m actually pretty damn good at it. Like, drop school, quit my job and work as a full-time freelancer, running social media campaigns for people, good at it. But, as it turns out, I hate social media marketing. Truly, deep down to my core where I feel like Twitter is sucking the life out of me, hate it.

I would have to say my creativity. I’m always coming up with new ways to engage people on social media, new content to produce, new sales tactics to use—I’m an innovator and I already have so many ideas for different things I could do here.

And did you get a chance to look at our social media, by chance?

Oh, I did. And it’s really quite awful. Like no person younger than 40 even has the passwords—I mean, really, really bad. And this is where you lose me. It’s all just more lies and generic answers from here right?

I did, and I really love it! I think there’s a lot that I could bring to the table to make it even better.

You will say something or other about what my ideas are.

I will give you a basic answer spattered with keywords.

SEO standards, hashtag research, market knowledge, demographics, post schedule, post schedule, post schedule.

ABSOLUTELY NO MEMES. No memes. I will say it again because I know you will ask, shocked.

You will have me tell you about a time I saw an ethical dilemma and what I did.

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The dilemma? Someone turning away a customer because they wanted to go home early. What I did? Well, in truth, I pretended not to hear them and continued with my paperwork and my sales pitches and my gossip. But for you?

I approached the customer myself and got it all taken care of.

We most certainly did not leave early.

You will ask me if I’m more creative or more detail oriented.

I will not realize at first that this is a trick question, and I will answer with creative. This is the truth. But later on, at the end of the interview, you will mention how extremely important it is to have someone who is both creative and detail oriented. I will attempt to clear this up with you in a quickly written, whiny and desperate sounding thank-you letter that will forever embarrass me.

You will ask if I have any questions.

I will try to come up with a few unique ones, but I’ve really only got the standards. What will my typical day look like? What can I learn from this position? Are there growth opportunities? What qualities are you looking for in a successful employee?

You will tell me that you’ll call by the end of the week.

You call me by the end of the next day. You offer me the job.

You tell me I will have to pass a drug test and this will make me nervous—but only because I don’t know how the hell anyone can aim into that tiny plastic cup. But, of course, I will say yes.

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Sheepshead Review|Skylark Drive

Skylark Drive A.L. Mundt It was not a street sign I had taken notice in before.

Despite it thrusting its greetings into the air just yards from the edges of my front lawn, I had never been one for letting the obvious punch into me. In fact, I skirted the obvious deliberately, tunneling headfirst into details instead of skimming something’s surface.

Which was why it came as no great surprise to peer around my street corner and discover Skylark Drive beaming back at me for only the first time at my gangly age of fourteen.

I had legs cramped from restless resting and a mind ready to wander alongside my footsteps. Taking a break to walk the neighborhood in my five-dollar flip-flops was a more than common occurrence, though it never was here that I walked.

Never this road. I’d lived here for a lifetime, but never marked this path.

Yet the angle of the curb seemed to draw my eyes along it and down to where oaks shook rainwater from their leaves in a misty sort of shimmy, copycat birches following suit.

The road all laid out with sun-shimmer was an imitation of a puddle’s surface, gleaming with a taunt, a lyrical suggestion to walk forth and splash.

I let my feet have at it. My ears buzzed with the songs of April I had going on the screen in my jean-shorts pocket, and when the music swelled to crescendo, so did the sun. It kissed the clouds just right, pecking their edges with silver and gold.

Skylark, I thought, and the long curve of my hair blew in lazy shades behind me. The street swallowed me whole,

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right into its shine, illuminating my silhouette in a fresh, new breath of something I could not quite lift words to.

Skylark, wouldn’t that make a name?

Sunny was squinting at the sheet of dollar-store notebook paper as though it were being presented to her by an official court, not her best friend of a decade and then some. The curling nest of her hair could not hide the expression poking through in abstract disappointment.

“Letty Skylark,” she repeated. “Messenger of Water.” An eyebrow arched. “Look, isn’t it cheap to name a character after yourself?

Self-insertion is the first sign of a Mary Sue character.”

I snatched the paper away with a furtive scowl. “I didn’t name her after me,” I protested, and propped my feet up on the cool, scaly leather of her dad’s best couch. “I named her after this angel doll I saw at the hair salon: ‘Aletta.’ It means ‘little winged one’. She’s nothing like me. I don’t even like her.”

Sunny snorted, but the Neptune-blue pierce of her eyes did not try to pin me down. “Well, if you can pull it off, it might make a decent book, but we’re going to need to do a lot more—y’know.

Plot. More characters. Themes. All that English-class shit.”

“A real book?” Those were the only words I had bothered to comprehend. “You really think so? I’m not even a freshman yet.”

“The dude who wrote Eragon was, like, fifteen, right?”

Sunny shrugged, and tossed a few more character sheets my way.

They littered in discord at my feet. “It can’t hurt to try. You’re good already. Damn good.”

“That’s what my mom says,” I replied in embarrassment, but I tugged on the pages all the same, let them sink into my arms. Their gratitude was weightless, yet infinite. Their stories were between my fingers now—Letty and Maji and Raizy and Jay and the rest, waiting for me to tap a key, open a document, part my mouth, and let harmonies of sentences flow.

And I did, that fall, under the canopy of golden-crisped

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Sheepshead Review|Skylark Drive

maples. It was nine straight months of my eyes dragged to my screen with a force magnetism would have envied. Nine months of watching seasons pass in slow-motion cinematography over the edges of black laptop plastic—sticky sun, milky moon, bone-bright snow, and the rise and fall of backyard blossoms.

All along, my fingers clap-clap-clapped to the beat of the story brewing and bubbling inside me, prying it word for word from my veins.

I wrote in my early-morning unmade bed. I wrote behind the cedar-wood door of my basement closet. I wrote in the front room’s white chair that made my back ache for days.

Characters spilled from me in grandiose tidal waves, and the splash and foam that roared up with them formed their style, their sky-high dreams, what made them breathe to life.

Clap-clap-clap, I heard. Only a thousand more words for today, only an hour, come on, let Maji finish his scene and then you can be done.

The road fell off behind me. I turned off Skylark Drive and onto more familiar ground, to the place where the conifers hung their arms out to dry over the sidewalk. This turn of my feet implied a sort of commitment to the adventure, to the bends and breaks of the concrete and what came after it.

This was me grasping the curves of the neighborhood full force and heading into them without regard for the time it would take to conquer them. This was me startling at the strident yaps of the Yorkie testing his leash, letting bare toes glide into fresh puddles littered with suburban grit. This was me moving perhaps not forward, but somewhere.

Spring smells were everywhere, awakened from their naps by the afternoon drizzle. It was the time of year I always sang along to out loud, especially when I could see new corners up ahead, see the sun teasing the cracks of the pavement and tickling them with warmth.

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Skylark Drive|Sheepshead Review

The nagging blue jays in the trees ordered me to keep moving.

By the time the unpolished drafts of three fledging novels were complete at their tip-top word count, my hair was cut, shorn flat across my shoulders with knife-like precision. It was the kind of chopped and clean my chapters and sentences needed to become, I knew. I mirrored my writing methods with vigor, never once straying from them in my own glass reflection.

It was time to pick apart every scene with the frenzy of a scavenger’s beak, pull the strings and sinews of characters viciously out of place and then stuff them back, rearranged.

It was all about stitching together, the editing process.

Learning to knit conflict and metaphor between the seams without pricking yourself repeatedly on the needle.

Years twirled on, with a thousand pizzas, with Sunny, with the brainstorming of a way to reword the ambiguity in book two, with my rehearsed pen-on-paper scratch of chapter outlines.

I kept telling myself the end would meet me when it was ready.

Draft after draft, I said it.

“I’m not ready; I’m not ready.”

“I’m on my way.”

“I’m almost there.”

It was the final stretch before the private property signs, before the nature-spattered retention ponds and lake’s edge where Sunny and I had once come to throw our newborn characters against the fallen leaves. Back then, we had renamed the landscape of the neighborhood until it emerged as the setting for ten thousand fantastical tales.

Messengers, our fifth-grade selves had proclaimed.

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Sheepshead Review|Skylark Drive

We’re Messengers; we’ve got the keys to the elements and the meadow and Crystal Lake and they can’t keep us out no matter how many construction posts they try and put up to do it.

The sudden heat hit me in a blaze as I followed the sidewalk to its abrupt but graceful demise at the end of the street. Back when I had first learned to set sail in these parts, there were no houses crushing the brittle prairie grass or patios jabbing at the shoreline. It was just the wild, the crickets and ribbon-thin garden snakes.

In the sun, my hair was a flame-burned autumnal envoy, and following the light, I could finally view in full the eggy sunset headed west over the distant woods. The outlines of the clouds were in baby-blue, the grass pointing its arrows all in one direction: forward.

Everything strained to come together the further I stepped, every color and shadow at odds, puddle-wet and evening-bright.

If I squinted, I could see it all up ahead, a lighthouse beacon letting me know, “you’re almost there, but don’t crash, alright?”

“One last time,” I kept spewing, with every draft that came out of me. I knew I sounded like an addict, like someone frayed and shaken and begging for a final dose of what could kill her. “Trust me. This is the last one.”

The last draft, burning through the hottest summer.

Sweat bubbled over my chin, but my editing notebook promised refreshment and reprieve.

“Raizy’s scenes are fixed,” I promised aloud. “Sparta’s arc comes full-circle now.” It was all colored in, and shaded this time, three-dimensional spheres of subplots bumping up against each other.

“It’s done, alright?” My mother would say. “Kira said you have to learn when to let it go and just put it out there.

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That was years ago.”

“Years ago I didn’t know what a query letter was, or how to properly carry all my weather motifs,” I protested.

“But you do now.”

“I know, I know. Next month I’m sending the letters out. As soon as the third book’s polished. I’ve got ten agents right here who represent fantasy, and I’ll send my synopsis to them. I’m not going to let six years of dribbling words out of my heart go to waste.”

Dear author, Thanks so much for sending along the sample pages of Water and Earth. I’m sorry to say, though, that I just wasn’t as completely drawn in by the material as much as I had hoped.

What with my reservations, I’d better bow out. Thanks so much for contacting me, though! I really appreciate it, and wish you the best of luck.

- Andrea I arrived at Crystal Lake just in time for the darkness to erupt over the trees, push them out into their gloomy new role as silhouettes. It was too late to see reds and yellows dancing on the water, or find cotton-candy pinks blushing against cloud cover.

Though I swiveled my head, I caught no leggy herons taking off in well-earned flight, nothing soaring or blooming even after a hard winter’s work. It was as if spring was stalled on the side of the road, waiting for someone to come along and give it a nudge.

I stalled, too; I skidded to a halt where the sidewalk gave its last huff of effort and looked out at the bell-curves of the hills. My chest dragged down to my feet in disappointment.

It wasn’t as if it were my last chance to watch something beautiful, hold it in the horizons of my sight, but it still hurt.

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Sheepshead Review|Skylark Drive

I just didn’t know why it couldn’t have been this time, right here, while I stretched my arms open wide and waited for it.

But then the stream called my name, the stream I had forgotten about, though it had run beside me since I turned the corner onto this street. It was barely enough to be called a creek; it was a mere dribble of lake-water spilling into larger bodies where it was needed, and yet I could hear it from where I stood.

I watched it, then, saw its tiny body flowing, and I began to flow with it, feeling my legs move and cycle until I was down where the stream met the lake’s lapping shore.

And I was the stream, perhaps, the one under the rising moon. I could not stop flowing when it got dark, did not rest when bright hope was gone.

Either way, light or dark, success or defeat, this was where the stream ended up. Here, under my feet. Where I stood. Where I was and who I was. We were the same, the stream and I, and we had come so far, even small, even slow, even pushed aside by unseen weather.

Its beauty was not in the strength of its current, but in its will to keep bustling along.

I would bustle, I decided. I could handle that.

Hello, Thank you for the opportunity to review your manuscript Water and Earth. My team and I enjoyed the story and would love to work with you to publish it! I would like to set up a phone meeting for next week. What date and time work best for you? I look forward to working with you and bringing your book series to life!

Best regards, Shannon Ishizaki, Owner of Orange Hat Publishing

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Nonfiction|Sheepshead Review

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Poetry

Sheepshead Review|Autumn Bee

The Autumn Bee Amy E. Casey The autumn bee grows conscious of entering his last season when a sudden gust makes one glassy, honey-smudged wing smear fast to the left side of his abdomen.

The other wing strains and quivers, quickly spent.

His treacherous body warms with September sunlight, strange and orange. small, padded claws grasp tight on the full blossom, white clover— the strength of his hold feels like mockery.

The bee respires, sides swelling.

East is the way to the hive—he turns to the wind, cursing this grounding and his trembling thorax that will not lift the wet-paper wing.

Unceasing, obdurate, he moves to the soil and sketches the movements of the memorized circling dance, the back-and-forth marches, the turns for young workers to teach them how to return.

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Autumn Bee|Sheepshead Review

On the ninth dance, the heavy wing does pull free.

Mad with fatigue, he lifts to the air, piloting the late afternoon through the blur: a weaving flight home.

There, he will gather in the mass of humming, familiar bodies. He will make his offerings, fortifying the winter stores, wing-tired but worthy.

Then he will rest and go out again.

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Sheepshead Review|Disease

Disease Samantha Williams I think I have an illness-they told me I do It’s okay, I know it’s true too, But my family-they know it best.

Don’t forget my dad, Say Hi from the grave dad, life taken by his own hand-they say it runs in the family my brothers feel it too.

They told me “take these medications”, Of course, they know best, My mother pleaded with me, “Your father didn’t get help soon enough” “I don’t know what I would do without you” Seeing this disease take over her baby, Her sweet, sweet baby.

I tried the medications, I stopped.

“Doctor, I can’t feel anything but numb” Then I noticed myself beginning the cycle, the triggers, the euphoric days not fullblown mania but mostly I noticed the pain, the darkness days and days-months I started taking the medication again.

Then I stopped.

It began again.

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Disease|Sheepshead Review

Time clicks forward, Tick, tock, tickety tock I find an old diary of mine, I read it-so curious of what I had to say.

I could see the cycle in my words-in me It’s still here.

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Sheepshead Review|Aftermath

Aftermath Robert Okaji rust. Being one phase of corruption, a matter of resolve. When I surrender, the implication is of giving over, moving above, allowance. Delivering despite the steady flaking away at what colors me intact.

The quiet evening had lulled me to this inevitability: when oxides subsume the original metal, the expansion may result in catastrophe. Yesterday’s arc, tomorrow’s trial. Failure’s bloom.

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Fermentation|Sheepshead Review

Fermentation Lauro Palomba Lasting twenty hours to three days the bacteria of acetic acid gnaws knowingly oxidizes ethanol beyond recall Brewing three days to twenty years the germ of burning frustration sobers irreversibly the tipsy run of hope As wine sours to vinegar promise embitters to cynicism and like vinegar has its uses

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Sheepshead Review|Compass

Compass Corey Reed He blames crossed stars She never wanted to grow roots here Malnourished, her native soil could not appease her hunger Her eyes much too desperate to douse themselves under swirling skies of distant lands Breathing cloudbursts below unfamiliar clusters of cosmic dust Slumbering on a vast sea of powdery sand pillows Soaking herself in the essence of humanity, finding solace in insignificance He knows one day her travels will end where they began But coming back is not the same as never leaving He wonders if she thinks of him whenever she glances down Secretly wishes the watercolor artwork bleeding from her wrist conjures memories of him That the sharp lines overlaying a rainbow splatter of brush strokes whispers soft reminders Pointing her back towards the place she never expected to miss

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Slow Smoke Pirouette|Sheepshead Review

Slow Smoke Pirouette S.R. Aichinger I lie supine on his bed, alone in a gold-leaf pool of late afternoon August sun.

He returns with more weed, beer, cigarettes, sits Turkish style on the pillow by my head, hands me the pipe, lights his Parliament. Criss-cross applesauce, I say. He looks down at me just long enough to say nothing, looks away. The sun sulks, sneaks off between the row of houses crammed across the street.

The fridge whinnies alone in the kitchen, distant cold clicks & hums. A pack of wild kids play their war of screams & laughs up the block. Our two twining pillars of slow smoke pirouette, shiver in the sun’s odd new angle for a breath, reach the ceiling, explode above our familiar nothing.

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Sheepshead Review|This Morning

This Morning C.R. Resetarits This morning at the MarchĂŠ des Enfants Rouges we have our errands but you are preoccupied, rushed -- your white linen flying.

For breakfast we choose pastry rings stacked upon what might be jousting sticks.

Next door a shoe stall with slippers of bright silk, toes curled (in anticipation no doubt).

These hang by their laces from spear tips as ribbons round a maypole.

And there is at market this morning an underflow like the mumblings of that poor pale hare tied to time, hurrying to court his Queen even as I search for a hedge, a rabbit hole, a fleeting glance in which to cut my King. Is your conceit, or mine, plum enough to plumb the ill will of my slow, well-played descent past the roulette of our loverdom-loverdoom, loverdumdum, lovernumbdumb-past the curved cupboards of your keep.

Overhead in the mix of vapor trails leading to De Gaulle, in the puffy, white clouds, I see a duck and a dodo,

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a lory and an eaglet. They make me smile, unlike you.

And then suddenly, easy as turning a page, I see you not as the earnest, overwrought hare but a frumious Jabberwocky and I am happy, sad, other side of mirror, tumbling clear of this morning and the next and all our morning errands, ever after.

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Sheepshead Review|Opium Dream

Opium Dream, circa 1860 Kelly Talbot …swords moving in slow motion… …Chinese fans held in the hands of courtesans… …distant man-made thunder… …the notes of a flute slithering in and out of incense smoke… …the water dragon is sleeping… …the boats, untethered, slip out into the ripples and begin to drift… …white clouds billowing across the sky… …on the floor, letters from Lin Tse-hsu, Confucius, and Mencius, obscured by candle wax… …in the temple the hourglass is turned on its side as are the hookah pipes

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Opium Dream|Sheepshead Review

as are the men who use them as is the sun, setting beyond the black horizon in the West, only to rise again tomorrow in the East, Red and angry.

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Sheepshead Review|How it Feels

How it Feels to Be Tied to You S.R. Aichinger I’ve seen how swift sleep comes to you, easy as bruises, flesh inlaid with violet blossoms.

I know only these bruises I leave on my thighs, where I touch fingertips to bone as I pilfer sleep from you at night.

You heard once grief is my daughter & I never slept again.

In a dream, you say you love how little I speak.

What do I hope to learn down here in the dirt at the foot of your bed?

Spiral phone cords loom over us, all recoil, no ringing.

So what do you want? You’re dead.

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How it Feels|Sheepshead Review

A passerby might want to disrupt the violence of my fantasies, but passersby never do intervene, do they?

Of course you think them senseless, my lovely bruises, these botched souvenirs. Still, I wear them very proudly, like medals that will soon tarnish & fade.

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Sheepshead Review|Girl in the Trees

The Girl in the Trees Catherine Jones The Girl in the Trees.

That’s what they called her.

Purple lips, sharp teeth, bare feet.

The branches she climbed were high, almost too high.

She was afraid of heights.

The rope was expertly tied – a sailor’s knot.

She lived far from the sea and knew nothing of the mysteries held in a well-tied knot.

She’d had help then.

Hands not her own that slipped the rope over her head.

Someone to watch as she let go.

A shadow of a person.

One who made no footprints in the snow, No whisper, no clues.

It made people murmur things they didn’t understand

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Girl in the Trees|Sheepshead Review

Death cult, pagan worship, drug-fueled mania She would have laughed at these things.

But the Girl in the Trees did not sit or think or listen.

She hung, far above the ground Turning this way and that with the wind.

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Sheepshead Review|Abstraction’s Postscript

Abstraction's Postscript Brandon Marlon In the boneyard of isms seamy maggots infest middens while roaches underrun rubbish, nibbling yet unnourished.

Brittle because drivel, femurs of theory jut out from plots like afterthoughts as the corpses of vacuous concepts and overwrought pseudo-systems arrive, splayed on tumbrels, with punctuality.

Weightless, carcasses are tossed unceremoniously in unmarked mass graves, befitting their inutile nature, before being overlaid with dirt to stifle the stench and obscure the rigor mortis contorting flimflam’s limbs.

Remunerated mourners intone monodies halfheartedly, for they never understood the dead.

Hesitantly encroaching from the outskirts

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Abstraction’s Postscript|Sheepshead Review

are the deposed charlatans themselves, erstwhile purveyors of pearls, now denizens of oblivion bereft of pretense for the first time in living memory.

With outstretched fingers they reach across the railing, grasping at gossamer, damning the inconstancy of sycophants and ephemeral prestige.

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Sheepshead Review|Do’s and Don’ts

The Do’s and Don’ts of Bourgeois Massacres Jeffrey H. MacLachlan Do: Collect stray teeth for earrings and aiguillettes.

Do: Punish poltroonery with gallows and holiday lights so dead faces appear festive in the parks.

Don’t: Let sidewalks remain flooded in blood for too long.

Allow blood to snake its way into sewers for arresting tabloid photographs, but winters are strong and you don’t want to slip and damage your spine on frozen plasma after so much preparation.

Do: Begin with weddings. Open bars are not inexpensive, and guests are encouraged to imbibe on many rounds and will be slow to respond to your slashes. Since sound systems feature oppressive bass, the first dozen or so screams won’t rise above clinking glasses. Leave the music braying so restroom attendants are none the wiser.

Don’t: Get into arguments with the eliminated. This is not a Hollywood production where lengthy dialogue occurs prior to violence. When faced with danger, they’ll attempt to placate you with bribes and appeals for their families’ sake, but remind yourself that their money will not work in our future order. They always meant to starve us, so don’t get fat on their last words.

Don’t: Keep a tally. Pretty soon they will just be forgettable dates.

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You, Golden|Sheepshead Review

You, Golden Kelly Talbot Your words are spherical, signifying nothing, soundlessly floating upward, communicating no concepts and full of oxygen. This is how you speak, you scream, you futilely curse me one sunny afternoon, alone where no one can see this abomination, this final resolution of our timeless rivalry. Your words are bubbles, bouncing meaninglessly as once again you try to tell me what I should do, what I shouldn’t do, how I should do it as you would, until your face contorts one last time and then relaxes peacefully. There are no words as I let go and my hands drift toward the surface.

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Sheepshead Review|Brew

Brew David Lukas Coffee used to be the gross, black stuff that only grown ups drank at Yiayia and Papou’s house on Sundays after church.

Sitting on my mother’s lap eating koulourakia and watching stormy milk clouds billow in the blackness, I swore I’d never drink it

but I’ve had four cups today so far and the pot isn’t even empty.

I guess that makes me a grown up.

Now coffee is a promise I break

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Brew|Sheepshead Review

every morning and church only means a wedding or a funeral

not that it ever meant much more to me before

but sometimes I wish I could make it through mass without leaving

and sometimes I wish I could make it through morning without lying.

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Sheepshead Review|The Forest Crawls

The Forest Crawls Beneath Your Skin Jonathan Greenhause populates your interior with trees, leaves a scattering of famished woodland creatures gnawing at your organs.

You’re an atrium of angiosperms, your left & right sides a battleground between this prickly invasion of conifers, a whirlwind of deciduous leaves.

Your hair twists into a natural canopy steeped in the photosynthetic delight of a billion stars offering light; but all you crave is to be transformed into yourself again, to soothe your porous skin with your hands’ smooth stroke, to possess a general sense that this melancholy lyric might turn inexplicably specific & address your individual suffering.

Your present state trespasses from boreal to temperate to a meltdown of subtropical,

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& you wish to punctually shed your seasoned anonymity, to extend your set of bare limbs to where some other tree could wrap itself around your trunk with the tenacity of a strangling fig, of a cancer stripping you clean.

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Sheepshead Review|Fata Morgana

Fata Morgana Jim Zola Believing to be cursed, she commands a crew of 22 carpenters and craftsmen to work on her house every hour of every day and night.

And so her house grows, stories upon stories, rooms upon rooms, for 36 years, with no purpose and no end.

Stairways lead nowhere; doors open to walls or air; chimneys stop in attics, inches from breaking through the roof. When she dies, some of the workmen lay down their tools and go home, leaving nails half hammered, boards half sawn. Others ornament the lawn, flicking cigarettes or leaning back with eyes shut. One sings a song in a voice that sounds like the dance of a lame horse.

Someone shouts from inside the house.

The workers don’t move.

Then I am in the house, going from room to room

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Fata Morgana|Sheepshead Review

switching lights off and on.

I look out the window and see a man staring back in at me.

He raises a hand to wave.

And though I’m certain he can’t see me, I raise my hand to answer.

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Sheepshead Review|Driving South

Driving South Lauro Palomba she fled immediately after having put out Christmas like a desiccated pine denied water and decoration cheating winter of its siege pistoned wheels shucking her free of the season’s snow, unusually lax this year, through forests still sulking barren brown while she imagines unslanted morning blinds sunlight there always again looking in, a peeping Tom, her soul rising yeast-like to its kiln warmth and being green enfolded palm trees, cacti, holly shrubbery of shiny foliage signs warning of alligators

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Driving South|Sheepshead Review

this fancy will comfort her once she blots out the autumn leaves marooned and twitching all round withered by winds clinging dead to their branches the grace of drifting downward to companionably decompose having been withheld

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Sheepshead Review|Fable

Fable Vivian Wagner —After T.S. Eliot’s “A Fable for Feasters” (1905) Because his father owned a brick factory in St. Louis, he understood something of clay and rivers, of how culture meandered alongside wilderness, of the way America shaped itself not from nothing, but from the sprawling earth, the trees and sky, the lifelines of fresh water and bodies and atoms and sparks and gears, turning.

When he moved to England he gave up on the physical, turned toward dark rooms and cigars and theories and, finally, books, but even then he found himself, sometimes, after brandy, sniffing pages, thinking of pulp.

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This Nite|Sheepshead Review

This Nite Christiana McClain Through the broken part of my blinds, from the edge of my bed, That same stupid billboard illuminating the words GUN SHOW. Tacky/blue letters emphasized by that god awful shade of yellow.

This nite

though there were shades of

purple and gray and black blending in with each other. Perfectly.

Pressed onto the side of my cheek, your brown face laid into mine like dead weight.

Each breath you pulled in, you loudly puffed out, sounding off like a muffled lawn mower.

You’d place your arm in the curve between my waist and hip, & I’d think about how no one’s ever rested there before.

Your hand reaching for mine, intertwining our fingers so tightly, praying for them to melt together as one.

And I tried to harmonize with you.

To breathe when you breathed. And let go when you did.

But all your breaths were short. And heavy. As if you were carrying something & it was taking all your strength away.

Or maybe it was just your asthma. Either way.

I spent the next five hours. Intoxicated. Breathing you in.

Against your chest

In your arms.

Underneath your weight,

I started catching stars between my legs letting butterflies kiss me from head to toe.

Yes. This nite. I discovered a taste for intimacy.

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Sheepshead Review|Delays

Delays David Lukas Someone stepped in front of the six train during rush hour this morning an earlier incident at Bleecker Street everyone in the car had their headphones on nobody knew why the train stopped they were busy getting pissed about being late to jobs they didn’t even want to go to when their alarms went off.

The ones paying attention couldn’t do anything except look at each other and wonder what his name was or her name women try more often but men are better at it don’t ask me why.

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Delays|Sheepshead Review

It’s better to just drink your coffee and not say excuse me when the doors open and during lunch complain with your co-workers about how long the commute took this morning.

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Sheepshead Review|Spaceland

Spaceland Richard King Perkins II You’ve walked on every basic element and witnessed your younger identity running down streets from something unknown running down streets with absolutely nowhere to go saved her from the trust in fake mermaid tattoos and then still seduced her into becoming you.

Across flatland and spaceland the best part of you makes clocks run non-linearly which is to say there are no clocks at all or that you’ve broken the concept of time’s persistence.

You refuse to tell me of the future you’ve traveled from or if there’s a future we’re travelling to; your ghost id becomes the listener in a twisted-green, twilit world of etheric substance and gloom.

My bed is a siege perilous within the fold of a stigmatic maze and still you live as a skeptical cloud atop a coral pinnacle leaving only a white lance dripping first blood stoppered with the merest of spiritual valves.

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Poetry|Sheepshead Review

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s t r A l a u s i V

Sheepshead Review|Lavic

Lavic | Anna Martin Photo manipulation 115

Shut Up Emotion|Sheepshead Review

Shut up Emotion | Echo Yan Colored pencil 116

Sheepshead Review|Wet Poem

Wet Poem | Federico Federici Olivetti Studio 46 and ink on paper 117

Booty Positive|Sheepshead Review

Madonna of the Booty Positive | Fierce Sonia Mixed Media 118

Sheepshead Review|Transcendence

Transcendence | Nicolette Wallman Nupastel 119

Error 404|Sheepshead Review

Error 404 | Tyler Harrison Screen Print 120

Sheepshead Review|Sangfroid

Sangfroid | Moira Poole Acrylic on Paper 121

Fury|Sheepshead Review

Fury | Moira Poole Acrylic on Paper 122

Sheepshead Review|Pomegranates

Pomegranates | Boris Leifer Oil on canvas 123

Comfort Food|Sheepshead Review

Comfort Food | Andrew Moser Hand dyed felted wool and crocheted wool yarn 124

Sheepshead Review|Keep Searching

Keep Searching | Heather Schroeder Watercolor and Pen 125

Fissionary|Sheepshead Review

Fissionary | Tyler Harrison Screen Print 126

Sheepshead Review|Curious Mirror

Curious Mirror | Manuel Vivas Digital Photography 127

Tangent LIfe|Sheepshead Review

Tangent Life | Gerald Ernst III Serigraph with phosphorescent and metallic ink.

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Sheepshead Review|Neurotic

Neurotic | Amanda Wiesman Acrylic on Canvas 129

Octopus|Sheepshead Review

Art Walk Series: Octopus | Kimberly Schwarzenbart Chalk 130

Sheepshead Review|Dump Trump

Dump Trump | Jamie Domnick Ink pen on paper 131

Every Single One|Sheepshead Review

Every Single One of Us | J. Ben Moss Mixed media on canvas 132

Sheepshead Review|Three Lefts

Three Lefts | Kenna Rentmeester Encaustic on wood 133

Old Fashioned|Sheepshead Review

Old Fashioned | Norah Swenson Colored pencil 134

Sheepshead Review|Octopus

Octopus | Moira Poole Gesso and ink on paper 135

Portrait of Self|Sheepshead Review

Portrait of Self | Raven Saladino Ceramic Stoneware, Plastic, Love 136

Sheepshead Review|Daisy and Junior

Daisy and Junior | A.L. Mundt Oil painting on canvas 137

Tamil Woman|Sheepshead Review

Tamil Woman | Erin Mader Pastels 138

Sheepshead Review|Dash

Dash | Jenna Harper Thickened acyrlic paint on canvas 139

Adulteration|Sheepshead Review

Adulteration | Gerald Ernst III Digital media 140

Sheepshead Review|Perfect Day

Perfect Day | Meghan Kausel Mixed media on paper 141

Egg Dispay|Sheepshead Review

Egg Display | Kenna Rentmeester Encaustic on wood 142

Winners of the Liberal Arts Essay Scholarship Sponsored by the Office of the Provost UW-Green Bay

Sheepshead Review|Liberal Arts Scholarship

First Annual Liberal Arts Essay Scholarship Competition When it comes to a Liberal Arts degree, there are many components that are often met. They are interdisciplinary, covering subjects over a wide range of practical uses such as the humanities, business, as well as social, natural, and formal sciences. They are practical, requiring each student to learn to think critically and creatively, training them to think of creative, new solutions to old problems that haven’t been solved. It has been adopted by programs as prestigious as Yale, but it is also available much closer to home, in schools like UW-Green Bay. Last year’s contestants were instructed to keep two statements in mind, by two incredibly influential people. One was Mahatma Ghandi, stating that “you must be the change you wish to see in the world”. The other was Nelson Mandela, who said “education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world. With those statements in mind, students were challenged to discuss how their Liberal Arts education was preparing them to follow Ghandi’s advice. This year’s winners have done just that.

We at Sheepshead Review would like to offer our congratulations to Megan Ellenbecker and Lauren Paul, and wish them luck as they pursue their futures, the way only a person with a Liberal Arts degree can.

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Path for Change|Sheepshead Review

On the Right Path for Change Megan Ellenbecker All my life, I have been surrounded by teachers: my parents, aunts, uncles, and even grandparents. Having these role models to constantly look up to inspired me at a very young age to pursue a degree in Elementary Education. I can remember sitting in my kindergarten classroom and thinking to myself, this is what I want to do when I grow up. I knew there and then that I had discovered my passion. When I applied to UW-Green Bay, I was already looking ahead to finish my degree and get out into a classroom of my own. What I didn’t realize was how much I was going to gain from attending this university. Although I am only a second-year student, the opportunities and experiences that my Liberal Arts education has given me thus far are truly invaluable. I am confident that UW-Green Bay and its innumerable resources are setting me on the right path to become an agent for change in education for young students.

I learned very quickly that UW-Green Bay’s Professional Program in Education is dedicated to more than just lecturing to its students. Before I could even apply to the Education program, I was required to take the Phuture Phoenix course and complete 40 hours of field experience in an impoverished middle school. I was immediately exposed to a classroom environment and was able to start forming relationships with teachers and students in the community. This is one of the things I truly love about UW-Green Bay: there is an emphasis on applying what is learned in the classroom to real-world experiences. I am currently enrolled in a block of literacy 146

Sheepshead Review|Path for Change

courses for my Elementary Education major, which includes my third classroom experience within two years. I can take what we discuss in class about reading and writing strategies and practice them with my second-grade students. This aspect of a Liberal Arts education allows me to put my skills to the test and enhance my critical-thinking and problem-solving skills outside of a university lecture. I am benefitting so much from this hands-on experience, and know that it will make me a more effective teacher when I have my own classroom in the near future.

UW-Green Bay also encourages me to learn more about various cultures and ethnicities in Wisconsin. In my Spanish major courses, I learn not only about Latino/Hispano culture in the United States, but how to view life in this country from a different perspective. I am from a small community with an overwhelming white majority. Attending college in Green Bay has opened my eyes to more diversity than I have ever experienced before. My Spanish courses encourage me to go out into the community and work directly with the Spanishspeaking population of Green Bay. For instance, I am currently a volunteer at a local bilingual school. I made a strong connection there with a class of fifth-grade students during a field placement for an education course. After that semester had drawn to a close, the teacher encouraged me to earn more volunteer hours by working with her class and to continue to impact her students’ education. I have found that everything I have been learning about in my various majors is applicable to this experience—I can practice my literacy and reading strategy skills with the students, speak with them about cultural sensitivity, and even practice the Spanish language.

I believe that this is what a Liberal Arts education is intended

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to do: tie together everything a student is studying and use it to better the learner and the community. UW-Green Bay has allowed me to give back to the community that has given me so much already. For this, I am incredibly grateful.

Through my Education and Spanish majors, I am also encouraged to take my education one step further and study abroad. I am currently planning to spend a summer in Spain and a winter in Mexico to work within local elementary schools.

My ultimate career goal is to become the type of teacher who holds all her students to high standards and who celebrates all races, ethnicities, and backgrounds. I am so excited to study outside of the country next year and become immersed in new, diverse cultures. Exploring different countries, learning the people’s customs, and appreciating their values will make me a stronger educator for my future bilingual students. I want my classroom to be a safe environment where all differences are welcomed and encouraged. I know that my classroom is going to be an inclusive environment and that my students will be pushed to meet my high expectations, because I will refuse to see any of them as incapable based upon their personal background or family status. My future students are the next generation of inventors, teachers, CEOs, and ambassadors. I hope to motivate them to use their unique cultures and ethnicities to lead our world to success.

Outside of academic classes, UW-Green Bay provides leadership opportunities through its unique First-Year Seminar and GPS student program. At the end of my freshman year, I was nominated by my first-year seminar professor to become a peer mentor. Through this mentorship, I learned more about my Liberal Arts education and my university than I could have ever imagined. It was an amazing experience to be able to connect with my peers and lead first-year students toward educational accomplishment. This truly goes to show

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Sheepshead Review|Path for Change

that my Liberal Arts education has provided me with endless opportunities to grow as a student leader, future educator, and individual. Thanks to the First-Year Seminar program, I have been inspired to continue to make a difference in my campus community. No matter where I end up teaching, I know that the leadership skills and connections I have built throughout my peer mentorship will positively impact my life forever.

One day, I know that I am going to change the world for my students. I want to be able to encourage students of all races, ethnicities, religions, and backgrounds to pursue their dreams and achieve amazing things. My future students are going to be the next generation of world leaders and I am already determined to lead them to success. I know that my Liberal Arts education is an incredibly powerful tool, and I am already using what I have learned and experienced to better the Green Bay community. All of my hands-on opportunities are strengthening me as an educator and preparing me to achieve what I believe I am meant to do with my future. I may not know where life will take me after my graduation, but I do know that because of my education at UW-Green Bay, I am ready to take on anything. I am ready to change the world.

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Power of Liberal Arts|Sheepshead Review

Music and the Power of Liberal Arts Lauren Paul During the formal launch of the Mindset Network in 2003, former South African President Nelson Mandela offered the opinion that “Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world.” These words are both profound and encouraging, clearly suggesting that anyone has the power to harness their education and use it to implement the change that they wish to see. I personally take these words to heart.

For me, a well-rounded Liberal Arts education will supply me with the weapon I need to show the world the beauty and the value of the fine arts – especially the art of music.

A Liberal Arts education has been part of my life since before I was born. My mother earned her degree at a small Liberal Arts university in the 1980s. Before graduation, she asked her advisor what she could do with a degree in philosophy. He looked her in the eye and said, “Anything you want to do.” My mother believes he was right. She has done a lot of different things in her lifetime, and each of those professions have required different skill sets that she learned from different areas of study during her college years. She has always stressed that a Liberal Arts degree would serve me well.

Three years into my studies at UW-Green Bay, I know that the Liberal Arts degree I am working on will be of tremendous value in my future. I am seeking a Bachelor of Arts in Music-Vocal Performance, with the goal of becoming a musicologist and a performer. As I research pieces of music before performing them, I gain an insight and deeper level of understanding of each piece. This allows me to share that

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Sheepshead Review|Power of Liberal Arts

understanding with an audience and others seeking to relate to the performance piece. My eventual aim is to teach music history.

To be a well-rounded educator in music, however, I must know more than just music. My core music studies have taught me a great deal about the way music works and its power. However, it is the Humanities that provide me with the cultural context in which music gains its power. As an example, a course in German culture teaches about Dr. Faustus, who was associated with magic and was rumored to have sold his soul to the devil in Krakow, Poland sometime before his death in 1540. Stories of Dr. Faustus spread through eastern Europe, and were the basis of the play Faust by German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. This work of literature has been immortalized musically in many ways, from Schubert’s lied “Gretchen am Spinnrade,” which takes from Goethe’s play for its text, to Gounod’s French opera Faust. Similarly, Giuseppi Verdi utilized portions of the national anthems of several European nations in his Inno delle nazioni . In 1943, Arturo Toscanini added portions of “The Star Spangled Banner”, the Soviet’s “The Internationale”, and pieces representing the Italian resistance partisans to create a Hymn of Nations that represented the factions fighting against Hitler. Without a Liberal Arts education, the way in which the music provides an understanding of historical events might not be understood.

For the past six years, the state of Wisconsin has been governed by a group of individuals who seem to believe that there is no place for an education in Liberal Arts. They stress that colleges should be institutions that train students for the jobs that employers within the state need to have done. Period.

If employers need people to turn widgets on a lathe, colleges should teach widget turning. If employers need employees to tighten nuts on bolts with speed, universities should teach air-

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Power of Liberal Arts|Sheepshead Review

powered ratcheting skills. In effect, this approach to education would turn our institutions of higher education into glorified technical schools. Sadly, similar viewpoints are cropping up all over our country.

The leaders who share this vision of what higher education should be are the same people who look down their noses at Liberal Arts education. They question what a person holding this type of degree would be able to do with his or her life. The fact of the matter is that a Liberal Arts degree holds a great deal of power. The beauty of a liberal arts education is that it does not teach specialization. It teaches the student to think critically, to analyze carefully, to problem solve, to expand their vision to view the world as a whole—and it illustrates to those students how different areas of study all fit together. By incorporating Social and Natural Sciences, Fine Arts, Humanities, and Mathematics into an educational package, it allows the individual to grow in more than just one mental capacity. A person who has been educated in a Liberal Arts environment can take on many challenges, as well as consider problems and situations from many different perspectives. That is a powerful skill.

So how will I use my education to effect change? I will embrace that powerful skill and channel it into teaching others. I will promote the importance of music in the world.

I will show others that music has been, and will continue to be, the greatest emotional outlet available to humanity. I will work to dispel the stigma that classical music is the purview of the wealthy, created by stodgy, boring old dudes who understood nothing about real people. Through performance, research, teaching, and writing, I will educate people of all ages about the composers who lived and breathed their craft, who conveyed feelings and emotions and events through the music they heard in their heads and in their hearts. I will make it my

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goal to ensure that an interesting and well-rounded education in Music History is available to anyone with even the slightest passion for music. I will advocate for music education at all levels, beginning with the youngest among us. Above all, I will dedicate myself to any endeavor that helps to ensure that those who want to see the Fine Arts eliminated from public education do not prevail.

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Liberal Arts Scholarship|Sheepshead Review

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See you in the Spring!

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