Sarah Lawrence Review

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Sarah Lawrence College Literary Review ISSN: 1075-1166 COPYRIGHT Š 2020, Sarah Lawrence College Student Senate. All rights reserved.

Cover art by Aidan Mitchell Title art; Therapy, by Sarah Morse The Sarah Lawrence Review is published annually by the students of Sarah Lawrence College. Any student, undergraduate or graduate, may interview to be on the staff. The emphasis is on current student work, although alumni and staff submissions are welcome. All work is considered anonymously, so manuscripts should be sent with the author’s name on a separate cover. Manuscripts are not accepted during the summer. All rights revert to the authors upon publication.

Alumnae/i subscription rates are $6.00 for one issue, $11.00 for two. The Sarah Lawrence Review is free to current students and faculty while supplies last. Correspondence should be mailed to: SARAH LAWRENCE REVIEW Sarah Lawrence College 1 Mead Way Bronxville, New York 10708

Volume XLIV 2020

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Editors' Notes Jean-Jacques Rousseau's final book begins with the line “Here I am then, alone on the earth, having neither brother, neighbor, friend or society but myself.” It is a line that has stuck in the sticky recesses of my brain for almost five years. I’ve tried using this line in papers and poems but it has never quite found its resting place. In this unprecedented time, where every day we are met with a chaotic moulting reality, I think Rousseau’s grief and loneliness resonate with our collective experience. We are all in a kind of exile right now, in our own little houses and apartments. Biding our time, alone in our own pockets of the world.

As isolated as Rousseau believed himself to be, he still wrote to the world. He wrote about his walks along the rivers in Paris, the flowers he saw, the meals he cooked, he reflected on memories good and bad. He wrote it all down. Rousseau called the book 'Reveries of a Solitary Walker,' which to me is a very funny title, as every person who reads his book walks along with him. All of this is a tangled and inefficient way to say incredible art gestates in the nucleus of madness and chaos. So create. Turn your pocket of the world inside out.

This volume of the Sarah Lawrence Review was in its final stages when the world fell out from beneath us. This year’s Review is full of unrestrained and electric creativity, unknowingly made on the very brink of pandemonium. I have enjoyed reading all the submissions and working with our editors to curate the collection that sits here now. I hope our readers enjoy the pieces as much as I do and find a moment in their day to celebrate the work of our incredible contributors.

within the nucleus of madness. This art will hopefully forge closeness out of the distance, inspire optimism among the desolate, and remind us of our shared humanity. This is not that art.

The contents of this volume do not reflect our current reality, although they offer something perhaps just as valuable. This volume of the Sarah Lawrence Review, the forty-fourth, is a historic document in its own right–cobbled together in the very last moments before everything changed, free from the irresistible foreshadowing or rose-colored glasses we will inevitably don in the future, when we attempt to recreate this moment, life before the pandemic.

I have greatly enjoyed reading and editing these submissions, working with our editors to curate this volume of the Review, and holding campus events this year. Abigail and I hope you enjoy the Review as much as we do, and we hope reading it gives you a moment of pause, a brief distraction from whatever measure of chaos you have now accepted into your life, an instant to celebrate all the incredible pieces that made it into this year's Review.

Stay golden. Don’t eat the crab dip.

Steven Orlofsky

keep on keepin on, Abigail Munson

First, I’d like to extend my warmest greetings and well wishes towards our readers across the country, and across the world. The staff of the Review hopes everyone reading this is safe, healthy, and suitably able to process the radically altered world we now inhabit.

Between the selection of which pieces would be included in this volume and its publication, the world changed. We’ve witnessed unprecedented upheavals in our daily lives, and together entered an era where confusion and tumult are paramount.

Above me, Abigail has wisely noted that the most incredible art often gestates

Questions? Concerns? Complaints? Accusations? Manifestos? Diatribes?

Please direct all queries to slcreview@gm.slc.edu.

You may or may not get a response.

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Table of Contents:

Blood Gloves | Madison Mertsch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Her Tuesday Night Call; A Precursor to My Friday Night Loneliness | Alex Feldman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Badminton | Mason Blake . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Saloon Brawl | Jake Swain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Interludes | Kat Carlsen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 This is not a healthy sentiment to champion, so I won’t peddle it to anyone else | Claire Bronchick . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Women | Alex Feldman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Things that are oddly comforting | Avery Warsaw . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Thanksgiving Forest | Kat Carlsen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Fragments, Heart Shaped Musings | Erika Fonseca . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Quentin’s Essays, Numbers One and Two | Frankie Iannuzzi . . . . . . . . . 6 Martha’s Vineyard | Miles Memory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 How I Sein-Fell For You: An Introspective Analysis on the Eroticism of the Human Spirit Emulated through Seinfeld Characters | Harry Saroff . . . . 8 Sentient | Cecilia Cuddy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 If Coyotes Hang Out When Tornadoes Hit | Rachele Salvini . . . . . . . . . 10 Maggie’s Flowers | Caiti Jane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

The Big Wad of Gum | Theo Koskoff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Accident | Sarah Morse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 The Tinder Date | Harry Saroff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14 Untitled | Kathleen Quaintance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Untitled | Kathleen Quaintance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 The Ground Has My Back and the Sky Has My Front | Annie Bingham . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 11:15 AM | Magdalena Deniz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 The Lovers, the Poets and Me | Cecilia Cuddy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 The Rainbow Connection | Ann Nelson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Dream of the East Coast (it was over in the morning) | AJ Baldwin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Fog in Wicklow | Josie Pierce . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Blue Crowd | Kathleen Quaintance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Rainy Day | Samuel Lefkowitz-Quiana . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 The Game | Josie Pierce . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 The Other Side | Ann Nelson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Beach Body | Kat Carlsen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

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Over the Horizon | Alex Feldman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

The Deer | Cecilia Cuddy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

Wicker House | Cecilia Cuddy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Biographic in Green | Kat Carlsen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

The Night She Was Born They Named Her | Greer McAllister . . . . . . . 32

The Boy | Alex Feldman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

The third howl of winter | Laura Philion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

a flower is not a fruit | Sofia Aguilar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .53

Portrait of Grandma’s House | Al Maryam Dawkins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Flower and Bee | Kathleen Quaintance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

My Scars Are Stupid | Ananda Corr . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

The Art of Living | Josie Pierce . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

Moving Lion | Kathleen Quaintance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

Sleeper 1 | Kristine Marx . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

Octopus | Claire Bronchick . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

A Natural Journey | Myra McPhee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

Lessons my father taught me | Myra McPhee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

Sparrow | Magdalena Deniz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

465 Miniature Suns | Harry Saroff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

Two Birds | Kathleen Quaintance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

My Nearsightedness | Alex Feldman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

Wherever I Am | AJ Baldwin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

Shattered | Cecilia Cuddy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

The Pursuit of Happiness in Seven Easy Steps | Lauren Mesley . . . . . . . 65

John Doe | Harry Saroff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Amber Underwater | Miles Memory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

The Overwhelming Consequences of Fast Fashion: a word soup poem | Ryan Arecco . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

Evil Queen’s Potion | Zab Tesler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

Self Portrait | Kat Carlsen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 Times I was Alive in Eight Parts | Miles Memory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 Folding Fabric | Kathleen Quaintance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

Recovery | Sarah Morse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 Mvmt III: Comforting Thoughts and Gentle Tones | Kat Carlsen . . . . 69 Nebbia | Cecilia Cuddy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 Meet the Editors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

1 Her Tuesday Night Call; A Precursor to My Friday Night Loneliness Alex Feldman Yeah?

I was reading

A woman named Lola No, Lolita is different I believe this one is of age Because Lolita wasn’t

Never mind Haven’t seen it

It might give me ulcers You know I’m not big on TV

You know I’m not big on phone calls Now I’m writing random words on my wall in black sharpie

They are very ugly Still, they make me happy I have to go I see a roach sitting atop nine hard-boiled eggs in a basket He seems entitled

He needs to know he’s not king around here

2 sound) I can’t eat that I kissed someone at a bar last night Then she touched my face and said “I love everyone in here but you” (silence) Why wouldn’t she hang up?

Gotcha son-of-a-bitch! (heard from a distance) Now he’s in the cold

On my windowsill in a glass (Crack!Crack!)

Im peeling an egg

So he can see whom they belong too Dume Dume Dume Dume Dume Dume

A Jazz bassline I sold my computer

No, just not big on devices Things will be on for the rest of humanity’s existence

No breaks (Flick) Holding my hand over a lighter for as long as I can

People should be more grateful to feel pain

You build up a tolerance like anything else These eggs seem funky (spitting

Badminton Mason Blake Saloon Brawl Jake Swain

A bit of magic happened this morning. It was a morning like any other of the last fifty years. My wife and I were sitting at the kitchen table with our coffees. I was reading an entertainment magazine, a review of some western film, a paragraph describing the first scene, a sentence that went: Unsurprisingly, a saloon brawl breaks out. Except that’s not what I read.

I read salon brawl.

It all happened in the moment before I corrected myself.

I saw a salon. Busy, abuzz with clientele whose hair was being done or else needed doing. Behind the counter: an employee on the phone. In front: a line of customers. Down the row of salon chairs, customers stared into mirrors while their wet hair was chopped, shaped, sprayed, dyed, curled, done. Some sat at more advanced stations, equipped with technology that involved whirring helmets and emitted peculiar smells. For reasons I cannot explain, they were, all of them, elderly women. Hair was styled, chit-chat exchanged. All was calm.

Maybe it was an insult. One grandmother turned to another.

“Goodness!” she might’ve said. “You paid for that?”

Maybe it was an accident. A slip on some unswept hair that collided two innocent

3 seniors and set the whole thing off.

Maybe it was the unfortunate meeting of two old bingo rivals or an impatient customer or one of the whirring helmets violently malfunctioned. Whatever it was, it fractured the calm like a hip and replaced it with geriatric rage.

There was one standing on a chair, swinging an electric razor lasso-like over her head of pink curlers. Then a woman with tinfoil in her hair took a glass comb-holder and splashed its blue insides on the razor-swinger’s face. It seemed to sting. She screaked and dropped the buzzing razorblade to the floor. Her assailant shattered the comb-holder like a bottle of beer and held it out threateningly. She was taken down from behind, her neck yanked back with the wire of a hair-dryer. Scissors bulleted through the air. Mirrors cracked from flung bodies. They drowned each other at the rinsing stations. One stumbled through the tumult in a daze with a pair of abandoned dentures clamped to her arm.

Saloon. Of course it was saloon.

I put the magazine down and looked across the table at my wife. She blew the steam from her coffee, then yawned, just as if nothing had happened.

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This is not a healthy sentiment to champion, so I won’t peddle it to anyone else.

Claire Bronchick

Hurt: touch that lingers. Scars are the ultimate extension of that definition. It was a natural jump from nail biting–Enduring sensation. The best things are unsanitary. Imagine cutting through the silk screen between us, and only a hand can reach through. Being held is too clean.

Preoccupation: do I touch so that I will be touched, and do I need that reward? Huh. I think so, and I’m mostly okay with that. The alternative is too frightening. It keeps me in check for now, but you’re heading out and I’m about to jump into the mud. If I’m lucky and you grab my arm hard enough, I’ll still feel it in April.

The bottom of the torso, after the final rib, is a good place to hook your fingers into.

Other places to fish: hip bones, behind the molars, ridges on your arms, finger flesh, neck muscles (front and back), shoulder knots, but leave the face be. I don’t want any acne.

Women Alex Feldman

Interludes Kat Carlsen

I love you because of that strip club I went to in Los Angeles. I called you after I had been kicked out because the tit bar in question didn’t serve booze, so when I was offered a lap dance I suggested a counter offer that I would pay for a dance if the Wednesday night stripper got some liquor out of the back and let me have a swig, or a gulp, or a chug (rate changes apply). She was so offended at my “no liquor, no lap dance” policy that she called over a bouncer who threw me out of the club on my ass. I called you from my ass and you laughed and laughed and I loved that because my past two girlfriends’ brains would have shut down at the words “Strip club” and an assault on my ears would have followed my fall on my ass and a man can only take so much. I love you because when we are in my home town we go out to restaurants and bars and you ask if I have ever been there with my exes. It would make you happy when I said yes because of your opportunity to replace a time in my life with your own beautiful mark. How did I ever get so lucky that you want to claim my memory as your own? I love you because I get sad and you get sad.

I love you because we first met in an office dominated by women. I fell in love with the way you type, so soft and delicate while the rest of the women fingerbanged their keyboards uncomfortably hard. I love you because you would call me a loser for that last joke. I love you because you know when to leave me when I need to be alone, even if it’s forever, and furthermore that when I need you back, you don’t come running.

The crowd cheers for you. The priests lust for you. The men work for you. And I die for you.

5 Things that are oddly comforting Avery Warsaw nfl theme music commercials for medicine and/or progressive taking the bus or train on a rainy day the 20th century fox searchlight music the sound of the el train in Chicago at night getting up to use the bathroom in the middle of an overnight flight and seeing everyone sleeping or watching movies late night comedy shows seeing the warm glow of individual rooms of an apartment building at night the smell of garlic and herbs cooking

® ® ® ® ® ® ® ® ® ®

6 3.

… Aphrodite’s out of honey I drink coffee in the dark …

4.

Just tell me where you Want to take me

And I’ll come…

5.

Hera bent down on one knee I saw you in her eyes

6.

Some say kiss of death, some say A new beginning, some say… … I love you…

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……….Take me like you used to…

8.

Stardust to stars

You to ours

Quentin’s Essays, Numbers One and Two Frankie Iannuzzi The Writer

Thanksgiving Forest Kat Carlsen

Fragments, Heart Shaped Musings Inspired by Fragments, on Love and Desire by Sappho Erika Fonseca 1.

… Day in and day out...I see you Not in my life, but in my dreams Where you belong …

2.

Honey do, honey don’t May this honey be so sweet

In seventh grade my English teacher, who listened to a few too many stories from the Moth, decided that our annual prompt: “what did you do last summer?” would be told orally to the class, as a way to practice our presentation skills. The truth was, I had spent much of the previous summer at the Old Woman’s house, where she ran a camp for the local kids. Every day she would make us sour tea and have us take part in problematic Native American rituals, but we enjoyed it all the same. We spent long hours of the day reading stories to each other, banging on drums, and sitting in her teepee for “smudging ceremonies” to cleanse our spirits. It was there that I met my best friend, Elliot, whom I haven’t spoken to in many years.

Something about my time with the Old Woman felt sacred, unshareable to my peers who had spent their summers vacationing across the globe. In the heat of a stressful moment, I began to tell a whimsical, slightly over-exaggerated story of my adventures the previous summer, omitting all mentions of the Old Woman or my yearly visit to my father’s apartment in the city. Instead I filled in the blanks with all of the trips my sister and I took as we climbed through the secret door behind the pantry, where we would meet and learn from famous artists, novelists, and thinkers of the past. We had tea with the queen of England, solved equations with Albert Einstein, and learned the skills of welding a paintbrush from Grandma Moses, earning special attention from each of them as their star protégés.

The story was fantastic, each detail more ludicrous and unrealistic than the last. When I finally finished I received a roar of laughter from my classmates, who, for the coming weeks teased me relentlessly. I was called a liar and a fraud for the first time, although certainly not the last. Eventually my teacher pulled me aside and told me the words that have stuck with me for many years: “Making up stories, Quentin,” she said, “can be just as important as telling the truth sometimes. People have been telling stories for years, and the art of being able to tell a good one is a skill sought after by many people.”

Since then I have written many stories in my leather bound notebooks which sit aligned by date on my

7 bookshelf, collecting dust but nevertheless living on between the pages, where my pen scraped messily over the paper.

The Shack

For many of my most formative years, I lived in The Shack on the edge of a run-down, poorly endowed college campus where my step-father worked. I still remember so clearly suffering through those frigid nights as a boy, my older sister and I huddling in our shared twin bed for warmth, winter jackets wrapped tightly around us. To this day even the slightest breeze sends a chill through my bones, as if I never quite recovered from those long winter months.

It may sound dismal (and it sometimes was), but my sister and I made plenty of fun for ourselves. We discovered fantastic worlds beyond our greatest wonders, traveled the globe and saw everything there was to see.

We trekked through the Sahara, binoculars in hand, shirts tied around our heads to protect us from the glaring rays of sun beating down our backs. We scuba dived deep in the ocean, discovering shipwrecks and treasure chests long abandoned by evil pirates.

My memories of my mother mostly consist of her hunched over the miniature kitchen table (which also served as our living room table) shaking her head and furrowing her eyebrows, so much so, that by age forty-five you could already see the worry lines stretched across her pointy face. She had worked as a professor at a school across the state border in Massachusetts for a while before eventually being fired due to consistently poor student evaluations. The New York Times even interviewed her for an article which she thought was going to be about her work in academia, but turned out to be a deep-dive into her personal affairs. It began by naming her a “distant, poorer cousin of the family that owns the L.L. Bean clothing business” and continued into her life as a divorced mom of two who had been fired from not one, but two liberal arts colleges due to her lack of organization or sympathy for her students. Our time in The Shack was measured by my mother’s time between jobs, where we would live solely off the income of my step-father.

Today, so I hear, The Shack has been remodeled into a dorm house for seniors. It’s seen as a privilege to live in that little house, now more a quaint log cabin than the rundown three-room hut I remember it to be.

They call it “Shingle” which I find quite entertaining, and I recently heard they installed heating inside for those cold, long, New England winters.

8 How I Sein-Fell For You: An Introspective Analysis on the Eroticism of the Human Spirit Emulated through Seinfeld Characters Harry Saroff

Jerry sits alone in his apartment, thinking about his next routine. He grins, marveling at material he hopes will, in some way, validate him. But, Jerry feels... inept. Sorrowful, even. Like there isn’t any real point to it. His life has become repugnantly dull: Help George with some arbitrary, simple task, ignore his everpresent feelings for Elaine, entertain Kramer’s insatiable lust for the inane, write another comedy routine, pursue yet another relationship with a girl he couldn’t care less about. This was the formula for every day.

Every Week. Every month. The rest of his foreseeable future. Jerry had to face facts; his life had become excruciatingly boring.

“Where had all the excitement gone?”

Jerry thought, twirling a pencil wistfully between his fingers.

Suddenly, there was a knock at the door.

“That’s odd...” Jerry thought aloud. He wasn’t expecting company... and it couldn’t be George or Elaine, because they would’ve had to buzz in at the door.

“Must be Kramer...”

Yet, as Jerry twisted the doorknob, pencil still clutched between the fingers of his free hand, he glanced upon something far different than the chiseled face of Kramer that he expected.

A deep, smooth voice flowed into the chasm of Jerry’s ears and wrapped his mind in a warm, fluid embrace.

“Hello... Jerry...”

Jerry’s heartbeat inexplicably increased pace, sweat starting to gather at the base of his fluffy, buoyant hair.

“Hello... Newman...”

For whatever reason, Jerry felt frozen in place. Frozen in awe. Though he was simply in the presence of a rotund mailman, Jerry’s body felt as if it were in the presence of an equally hefty demigod.

“Wha... what are you doing here, Newman?”

Jerry meagerly squeaked, hand closing tighter around his pencil.

“I’m here to... deliver something, Jerry.”

Newman cooed, voice still soft in Jerry’s ears.

“I didn’t order a package, Newman...”

Jerry murmured, suspicion garnishing his mind. Newman was, after all, his nemesis. There could be nothing but ill intention behind his luscious, beady eyes.

Martha’s Vineyard Miles Memory

“Oh, I know Jerry...”

Newman whispered, wrapping his arms around Jerry, stout legs stretching so he could meet Jerry at eye level.

“This is a... special... delivery...”

9 Jerry could feel curvy rolls of fat pressing into his chest as he and Newman’s faces met, lips locked in a lush, electric embrace.

Jerry lost control of his body, legs trembling, spine tingling. The kiss went on for what seemed like hours.

Only the sound of Jerry’s pencil hitting the ground managed to pierce the deafening silence.

Newman pulled away, leaving his dear friend whimpering, longing for more.

“See you... Jerry...”

And just like that, the door creaked closed. The short, round, sweaty deity was gone. All Jerry could do was listen to his own shallow, excited breathing.

This could be the new, exciting change of events he had been dreaming of.

Sentient Cecilia Cuddy

10 If Coyotes Hang Out When Tornadoes Hit Rachele Salvini

As three tornadoes hit the ground in Oklahoma, a coyote trots to the glass door of my bedroom in New Mexico. I sit up in my bed and I watch him/her from the dark of the room. The coyote can probably see me through the glass door, but he/she doesn’t seem to notice me. The girl is sleeping next to me, her long, black hair scattered on the pillow like strings of licorice wrapped around cotton candy.

The coyote is skinny, his/her ribs protruding from his/her scruffy fur, and I can see the bones in his/her calves – do coyotes have calves? – pointing at the ground as if in search of food, like a snout. He/she sniffs around, then approaches a sage bush, his/her paws swishing the dust away. Earlier today I walked to the same bush, wearing a skirt and my flip-flops, before getting ready to hit a bar. I wanted to pick some sage, maybe burn it to give the apartment a pleasant smell in case I got lucky and I took a girl home. Red ants attacked my naked feet as soon as I got close to the sage, and they covered my skin with red stings.

I got lucky anyway.

I turn on the TV to see updates on the tornadoes in Oklahoma, making sure the volume is mute. The room is so quiet that I can hear the coyote’s muffled steps on the ground, the rustling of dry leaves and pebbles rolling away as he/she moves.

There were coyotes in Oklahoma.

Sometimes, late at night, when I tried to push away the thought of soft, doughy female bodies intertwining in my mind, and I put my head under the pillow and squished it around my ears as if to prevent my brain from exploding, I heard the coyotes howling, fighting for a female, or food. They were far away, though;

a reassuring, yet mysterious presence in the dark. In Oklahoma, I never saw anything as much as a coyote’s trace in the mud; maybe some shit, tops.

As the coyote sniffs around the sage bush and the girl sleeps next to me, her breath gentle, I sit and watch the silenced TV. In the green of the American map, Payne County is a red spot, its edges crawling and slithering across the screen like the tentacles of the tiniest jellyfish. Live videos of the tornadoes are being shown on the right side of the screen. I know my dad would be sitting on the porch, wrapping his hands around a Blue Ribbon while my mom washed the dinner’s dishes, her voice not worried in the slightest as she told him to come inside.

They liked tornado season; they didn’t like that I liked women.

The coyote comes back and sniffs the door, and for some reason I hope that he/she looks up at me, gives me a sign, a metaphor that I can see as a sort of approval; I pray that this animal welcomes me a little, makes me feel like I did the right thing for moving to a place where I can finally take home girls with long, black hair like strings of licorice wrapped around cotton candy.

Yet, the coyote doesn’t give two shits about me – he/she ignores me, and he/she trots away, maybe to go hang out with his/her buddies or hunt prairie dogs in the desert, in the silence of the New Mexican night. As his/her tail brushes the dirt behind him/her, I look back at the TV and see the red spot on the map getting bigger, and all I can wonder is if coyotes hang out like this when tornadoes hit the ground in Oklahoma.

11

Maggie’s Flowers Caiti Jane

Maggie had only lived in the town of Lakeview for a few short months when she started to notice that a boy was picking flowers out of her garden every day. At first, it was barely noticeable, and the boy only seemed to pick out a few flowers everyday, not enough to make a dent.

That was the beginning.

Suddenly, a couple of months in, and Maggie felt like a good chunk of her flowers had completely vanished. It must be the deer, she thought, or were there even deer in Lakeview? Perhaps it was squirrels, but did squirrels even eat flowers? As far as Maggie knew they only ate nuts.

She figured it would remain a mystery until one day she just happened to look out of her window at the exact moment that a guy who looked to be college age was holding a few flowers in one hand and carefully plucking a jonquil with the other. Maggie quickly ran down the creaky steps of her house and flung open the door–ready to ask the boy who he was and why he was taking her flowers–but when she got there, he was already past her yard and her neighbors’ yards, and walking down the sidewalk so quickly. For a brief moment Maggie considered running after him, but then she realized she had absolutely no clue what she would say if she caught up to him. Would she yell at him for taking her flowers? No, she decided. Yelling wasn’t her style after all and it wasn’t really a big deal at all.

Another week passed, and every day the boy came by and collected just a few of her flowers. Maggie watched out of the window every time, always wanting to go down and greet the boy but never knowing what she would say once she was in front of him. Exactly a week later, Maggie decided she did want to have an interaction with him, only it would be completely on her terms. In the early morning, long before the boy would come and collect his few flowers of the day, Maggie grabbed her gardening shears and gloves and began cutting flowers. It didn’t take very long for her to assemble what she thought was a lovely springtime bouquet with some jonquils, bluebells, and tulips. She wrapped a ribbon around them and wrote a note “These are some of my favorite flowers blooming in my garden right now. They will make whoever you are bringing them to smile. I promise.”

The next day Maggie saw the boy stopping at her yard, looking for a flower to pick, when he noticed the bouquet left on the porch. He walked over, picked up the note, read it and smiled.

Maggie smiled too, seeing how happy it made him.

The next day, Maggie woke up, ready to do the whole thing over again when she saw a small post-it left on her porch. “Thank you for the flowers,” it read. “I would love to meet you one day.” Maggie smiled. Though she hadn’t given him the flowers for any reason other than to be kind, she found that her heart was happy to know there was another kind soul in Lakeview. She hadn’t made many friends in Lakeview, and though this guy was probably fresh out of college, in his early twenties, maybe his mid twenties at most, and she was at least ten years older than him, she felt excited at the prospect of having a new friend. Maggie was also just excited to meet the guy she had watched every morning for a while. In some ways, she felt like she knew him, yet she knew almost nothing, except that he picked flowers in her garden every day. Oh she had theories alright, and she was excited to see which of her theories about the mysterious guy and his flowers would prove to be the closest to the truth.

About an hour later he came to the sidewalk, at first he didn’t see her, but then all of a sudden he did.

Maggie felt excited as he walked up her yard, right to her porch steps where she was sitting and extended a hand.

“Hi, I’m Connor.”

12 Blood Gloves (words and art) Madison Mertsch

Took my blood gloves off wall by pulling each finger down the Red handed, a Vandit My friend, a partner in confes sion A Sistine scene, finger painted With my genes is The creation from this n house Chaos from not being at my ow My friend said, “that’s creative, what you made and how you say you painted it”

ve, so “And I just want you to impro g me different It’s the violet tint that is showin s image You should definitely go for thi ow” kn But, blood should be red you Then, my friend washed their hands and dried We looked each other in the eye s And said “goodbye” ll Then, by my side is just the wa That I confided – in Seeking comfort for the critique of my friend try it And talking over ways I could

I thought about why it dried lik e this – When blood is closest to you, It is blue And, since the air is different It comes out in a red tint

My wall, my partner in crime, You took it all rple lines drawn I can see myself in you – the pu to be on a bathroom wall And, I guess I don’t really need it off.

I turn the faucet on and wash

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The Big Wad of Gum Theo Koskoff I was once a small part of a big wad of gum.

Being a part of some gum was such fun!

I played with my gumbuddies all day and night, and as we were one there was no need to fight.

He chewed me for hours and hours on end and after a bit, spit me right out again.

Then I was lonely and lost and afraid, I shivered and snivered and stood up and prayed,

The Tinder Date Harry Saroff

But one day, a person waltzed on along.

This person wanted to show he was strong.

He said, “I can’t speak without gum in my mouth!” and he pulled me apart from my friends and my house.

When God heard me speak, he first got quite mad, “I give you the gift of your life and you’re sad?”

But seeing me struggle, he soon changed his mind: as he reached out his hands, his smile was kind.

“I’m a baller, I got mad hops and real long legs. Silky smooth skin. Huge, gorgeous eyes they’re the windows to the soul, y’know baby?”

“This space I am in is no fun to be in!

This space I am in is quite spooky and grim!

I’d like to be somewhere that’s different,” I said.

“I’d like to be home, in my room, or my bed.”

“You were unable to make it alone, I should not have taken you far from your home.”

He told me that I never had to grow up and that’s when I learned I was never enough.

“Ohhh yeah. I am SO ready for this!”

Brad’s Tinder bio was, in his words, “pimpin.”

But the real kicker? A note at the bottom of his page.

“I only got a few years left to live. I need someone to help me enjoy em’.”

After reading that, you better believe he got a few Kathleen Quaintance right swipes. Granted, his profile picture was slightly edited, but Brad figured it wouldn’t make a difference. Everyone did that. It’s what’s on the inside that counts. One particular girl caught his interest. Stephanie. She was in college. A biology major. Long brown hair, freckles, and a clever pun in her bio. It was love at first swipe. He hopped onto the phone and opened the messenger, ready to make his first move. It was time to engage. “hey you cute xoxo ;)”

Brad realized that he, in fact, was not ready. He began to sweat. Did he come on too strong? Was he too forward? He swallowed nervously. It felt like his eyes were pressing into his mouth. Suddenly, a reply.

“Haha, you’re so funny. Not too bad looking yourself. :)”

How did Brad interpret this? A smiley face? Did that show interest? Or was it to counter his winky face?

He needed answers that were impossible to find. His heart skipped a beat. She had started typing again. Was she upset he didn’t respond right away? God, oh god, he was blowing this.

“Do you wanna meet up soon? There’s a really great place nearby, I think its a fly emoji-stro.”

Brad was perplexed. Fly emoji? What did this mean?

“Oops, sorry, that was supposed to be a bee.

Like, a bee-stro. A bistro. Haha.”

This girl was clever. He chuckled to himself.

“lol flies. definitely makes me hungry.”

“Haha, sorry about that. Do you wanna meet there tonight, maybe 7:30? The restaurant’s called The Anura, it’s on Climmond street.”

Accident Sarah Morse Kathleen Quaintance

“yeah, see you there”

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16 The Ground Has My Back and the Sky Has My Front Annie Bingham

“Okay, see you! :)”

Brad’s confidence soared. It was going to be an interesting night.

Stephanie sat alone at her table for two. 7:45. If Brad was trying to be “fashionably late,” he was severely out of style.

Glasses clinked and ice rattled as couples lifted their vintage wine bottles in preparation for a toast. Bustling busboys expertly dashed from table to table, refilling glasses and clearing dishes, the sound of their scraping almost overshadowing the incessant chatter of the other patrons. Despite the busy chaos, everything was pristine. The bistro was a graceful, beautiful madhouse. A portly, grease-stained chef with a thick, well-waxed moustache pushed through a small group of waiters and shoved open the door in a huff, shouting in angry French. Something about beKathleen Quaintance ing out of “cuisses de grenouille.” Stephanie’s French was evading her, but the meaning of that phrase was on the tip of her tongue...

As the chef finished his outburst and waddled back indoors, Stephanie noticed a small shape slip into the restaurant. An animal? Before she could distinguish it, it plopped itself at the other end of her table with a long hop. A frog. A frog got into the restaurant. She wasn’t so much bothered as she was entertained. She was studying biology, so obviously it didn’t creep her out, but a frog hopping around the bistro would enthrall the finer diners in a way that wouldn’t exactly land The Anura a beaming review on Yelp. Stephanie was about to flag down a waiter, when she heard a soft but mysteriously deep voice behind her.

“Sorry I’m late, baby.”

Brad had finally shown up. Even though he was inexcusably late, Stephanie was glad she finally had someone to talk to. A frog hopping into the restaurant would be a perfect icebreaker… but as she turned around, the chiseled man she expected was nowhere to be seen. Did she imagine the voice? Was it another guest? Suddenly, she heard the voice again.

“Thank god for that chef, if he hadn’t left, I wouldn’t have gotten in. That door was tall.”

Now she was even more confused. The voice was clearly coming from the other end of the table, but there was nobody–Stephanie froze. The frog was still at the edge of the table. Looking at her.

“Anyways, how you doin’ gorgeous?”

Stephanie’s mind was in a fog. Did its mouth just… move? Am I on crack? I don’t think I’m on crack, but I might be. Somehow. I don’t–

Brad derailed her train of thought.

“What’s wrong baby? Frog in your throat? Cause if not, I can make that happen later tonight.”

Brad winked. Stephanie’s stomach churned. A fly buzzed past the table, and Brad’s tongue reflexively shot out to grab it. He swallowed it in a single gulp.

“You like that tongue action?”

She wanted to vomit. This guy was gross; and not just because he was a frog. In a flash, she recalled a hint of French, and the chef ’s earlier ramblings were deciphered. Her voice boomed as she called for her savior, and pointed at Brad.

Cuisses de grenouille.

Frog’s Legs.

Kathleen Quaintance

When I drift, a ghost wondering “who?”

She extends a beam to my shoulder “Me and you forever.”

I can feel how the sky is above and all around.

And she holds us, we won’t float away Into numb, suctioned space We will not.

It takes a while to notice blue It takes longer to name it I will lie like a drowned body on the sky tonight, I’ll soak up her lullaby Every dry shell filled and jellied Ready to crack open and sprout.

And I did, And I melted too And when I looked up it was hard orange shouting through the trees And then the moon!

11:15 AM Magdalena Deniz After ‘38’ by Layli Long-Soldier This is not my story to tell.

It is not my story to tell because I have not truly lived it.

The person who truly lived it died decades ago.

And because the person that lived it died decades ago, and because that person was my great-greatgrandfather, I will tell it.

Before I do this, I must clarify some things:

1. I do not claim to be an expert on any of the subjects I will mention. I wrote this to make sense of what I already knew.

That being said, I did research some things to try to be as accurate as possible.

2. This poem will be a conversation between my Ba and me.

I say Ba because Ba is short for Baba, and Baba is what I call my father.

More closely translated, it means ‘Papa’.

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18

Many Middle Eastern languages have adopted this term.

When you Google, “Baba means father in what language?” the first result is: Persian.

I am not Persian. I am Assyrian. Baba means ‘Papa’ in Aramaic.

When I say I’m Assyrian, most people don’t understand what I’m telling them.

Armenian, you mean. That’s what they say.

Or: Assyrian? You mean Syrian. Why add the ‘A’?

(Because these are not the same thing.)

3. The most traumatizing historical event that has happened to the Assyrians up to this point in history is the Assyrian Genocide.

“Hey Baba, I know I don’t leave messages often, but I

figured I might as well... I have a poetry assignment

and— and I want to talk about Gido. Not my Gido,

your Gido. Just— I want to talk about the well. Is that okay? Call me back, we can discuss.”

(I don’t usually use the word ‘discuss’. Ba usually

uses the word ‘discuss’. Ba likes it when I use words that he uses.)

While I wait for my Ba to call me back, let me finish that list:

4. it has been a long, long time since I have heard this story.

Ba doesn’t like to talk about it.

We call it, Sayfo.

I don’t like to hear about it.

It means ‘Sword’.

– (We were murdered with swords.)

It is possible that you’ve never heard of Sayfo before. That’s okay.

Because the Assyrian Genocide took place in almost the identical context as the Armenian Genocide, historians and scholars scarcely treat them as two separate events.

(They lump them together.)

The Assyrian Genocide, like all genocides, was a cultural purge. Like the Armenian Genocide, it occurred in the Ottoman Empire—modern-day Turkey.

Unlike the Armenian Genocide, the killing of Assyrians was not strategic nor standardized.

(The ways in which they were murdered varied across the region.)

The highest estimation of deaths is 300,000 individuals.

Surviving each of those 300,000 individuals was my great-great-grandfather.

Gido.

(Jid-doh) (Gido means ‘Grandfather’ in Aramaic.)

My Ba is the only one in our family who ever heard Gido tell this story.

So for me to tell it, I have to call my Ba. I call. It rings. He doesn’t answer, so I leave him a message:

Here’s how I remember it: He’s a young boy in a village I forget the name of. The Ottoman Empire is in the midst of a vast cultural purge. A Holy War, they called it. My Gido watches his mother and ten-year-old sister get raped right in front of him. They stab his sister, stab his mom. Gubo, she calls. Well. She means the water well. He runs. So many dead bodies. Last time it rained the ground squelched beneath his feet, held him in its grip. Now he runs and it shoves him away.

Everywhere, so many people. Dead people over dying people. Dying people mourning dead people. Everything bloody. Grass red, dirt rusting. How to move, with all this baggage? He finds the gubo, a hole gaping open. He hears screams. He hasn’t seen anything since he watched his mother’s body open beneath the lamenting blade. The air shifts when he throws himself down. Mossy rocks, slimy gray rough against his scrabbling hands. He waits for the water to hit his shoulder, then he hits ground; soft, plushy, wrong. Gets to his hands and knees and opens his eyes. The face of the baker, eyes gorging from his skull. Water red. The bucket, up-heaved. Shards of wood in dead, open mouths. Bloody gums, aching roots. He’s never seen so many people in such a small space before. They squish together, fold and bend like cotton. Soldiers shout— he freezes. They’re coming.

They’re coming. He lays down on top of the dead baker, feels his fat, bare belly, and closes his eyes. In that moment, he dies. Echoes above him; something hard and sudden landing on his back, on top of him.

Another thump, another weight. Stay still. Look at the baker.

Understand that he is nothing, now. Just a mass, just something blocking up the well. Everyone left will get sick after this, stuck with bloody, body-filled water. Nothing will be the same. Night passes.

The soldiers stop shouting. No one is there. He doesn’t open his eyes.

Crawls out blind from beneath the bodies. Climbs a corpse ladder to

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the surface. He still smells the moldy rot, the innards of the earth, gasping open, filled again with the dead. He opens his eyes. He lives.

– As I wait, I try to comprehend my memories of this.

It is 12:23 PM. – 12:30 PM and I think of the smell. Heavy. Hot? Perhaps.

It is 12:02 PM.

It would singe inside the nostrils, clog up every pore. To be that dead.

–

How do I explain what I feel when I think of that small boy, cowering in that well?

A girl once told me that she wrote about the hereditary trauma that comes with being the product of a family that is Jewish.

She sent me the piece, and I never read it.

I keep that feeling, though, of hearing her tell me that. The idea of holding something you never wanted. The knowledge that everyone before you holds it too. The guilt that comes with wanting to let go of it. This is your identity.

This is what you were born into. Ugly, wretched thing. This trauma is not yours, yet still,

The touch of them, though. The feeling of corpses pressing down. Packed on top of him like dirt you stomp on.

My Ba carried me until I was six. He’d lift me and hug me above the ground, all my weight suspended. Now, I approach him sitting on the couch, drape myself over his shoulders, and sink over him until my body slides down the empty space between his curled spine and the sagging cushions.

How much of this is inherited? How much have I carried because of him? Why am I only getting angry about it now? It’s 12:40 PM and I can’t stop thinking about it. About my weight, about him holding it up.

About how the only way I truly feel like I’ve told him that I love him is when I weigh myself down on him.

it lingers.

–

–

Gido probably cried. It would have been very human to cry.

3:51 PM. I skip my lecture. I feel jumbled and cramped. I’m sweating and shivering. Ba calls me back. I ask him if he got my message.

I’ve never seen my Ba cry. He’s the most human person I know, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen him cry.

It is 12:18 PM.

I didn’t, he says. I wanted to hear it from you instead.

I tell him that wasn’t why I left the message.

He still hasn’t called me back.

(I don’t know how to explain that it’s easier to ask for what I want when no one is actively listening.)

– Who am I to have him relive this?

Is it fair to want to share something so terrible? Am I allowed this? Some things just want to be buried.

I’ll record it, I think. I’ll record what he says so he only has to talk about it once.

Will that make it less painful?

He has a meeting in four minutes, he tells me. I want to ask why he said he would call me when he got out of a meeting if it just meant that he would go into another meeting four minutes later. I don’t. I tell him to call me when he’s done. He says okay. Asks me how I’m feeling.

Okay, I say. Fine.

We talk and I read him what I have so far. It’s beautiful, he tells me.

But it’s supposed to be terrible.

I believe time can be circular. Things that have happened are happening. Things that will happen are happening.

Things that are happening have happened before and will happen again.

–

Speaking this, saying it, does that invite it back into the circle?

5:03 PM.

I want to let this go, but is putting it down forcing it to exist forever?

I go to dinner. Eat three bites. Sit there for an hour. Come back to the room.

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It feels like we’re both running away from this, somehow.

22 0 missed calls.

Is that the nature of burdens like these? You gain, you tire, you pass on?

To let go of this, do I have to hand it over to someone else?

Do I even have a choice?

–

(Did Ba?)

6:34 PM I read a book. The words don’t stick on the page right. Every time I breathe they twist out of shape, turn into nothing more than a collection of squiggles, bent ink.

I feel like I’m watching my body through a tunnel. My eyes peer out through my chest, layers unpeeling.

Is it right to feel so detached from this?

Maybe I’ll have to. Tell someone, I mean. Maybe I will be too tired of carrying it.

Or maybe I will lift it up, let it light itself in my hands, and say, Here, look at this.

We can hold it together.

– 7:42 PM He calls.

We talk about it.

– When I hang up, it’s 8:08 PM. We talked for twenty minutes.

Hours of waiting for a conversation that wouldn’t carry over dinner.

My hands twist in the blanket, clam up in sickly heat. I’m coming down with something. It feels like it’s been days.

I go to check the recording.

Nothing.

I never even clicked the button.

I’ve been searching for the poem. Is this it?

I wanted to confront this thing, omit this object from inside me and hold it up to the light.

Look at It. Feel It pulse in my hand.

Until It became a separate part of me, something I could step away from and come back to when I was alone and better prepared to face it.

When Ba told me Gido’s story on the phone, I felt it leave me. And at the same moment it left me, I heard it weigh down on him. Ba. (In order to lose it, I had to listen to him give it to me all over again.)

The Lovers, the Poets and Me Cecilia Cuddy

23

The Rainbow Connection Ann Nelson

I

I think about Jim Henson’s funeral often. It concluded with all the voice actors of the Muppets singing Rainbow Connection, joining in verse by verse. This seemed to be the most beautiful thing that had happened in a long while, in the public eye, at least. I picture the singing and the stained glass church windows and get teared up in a way that makes me feel alive. I think this may be because I see Jim Henson’s funeral how I see the death of my own childhood. I buried my younger self while the Muppets sang Rainbow Connection. Her ghost is still around, though.

II My third grade art teacher’s name was either Mary, Jerri, or Terry; I can’t quite recall. We called her by her first name because that was the kind of school it was. Students called teachers by their first names and, in return, students were graded with stickers instead of letters. I find it remarkable how, although I cannot remember her name (save for “erry”), I remember a lot about my third grade art class. Mary, Jerri, or Terry showed us the Blue Man Group on VHS and proudly displayed big art books featuring Keith Haring’s dogs and abstract paintings that looked like ping pong tables. She taught us that black was a dangerous color to use, and to look at people in the eyebrow if we were afraid to look them in the eye. She taught me to embrace the unusual; if you don’t understand something, cling to it. The last day of third grade art class, a boy named Joe accidentally cut himself on the finger with an X-acto knife. I remember a lot of blood. I remember seeing an adult panic for the first time. I don’t think we were supposed to be using the X-acto knives at age eight, but ‘erry trusted us. Too bad we were only in third grade.

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Dream of the East Coast (it was over in the morning) AJ Baldwin

III

My search for love in elementary school was a fabricated one. I had never had a real crush on anyone before the seventh grade, when I saw a commercial for the new Thor movie (the lucky man was Thor), but in fourth grade I pretended to fall in love. I feel like this was somehow equivalent to social drinking, but for whatever brand of love a fourth grader can feel. My faked infatuation was with the boy who cut his finger, Joe. His finger had long since healed, but we hadn’t seen our art teacher since the year prior. All I can remember about Joe was that he played soccer at recess (an indiction of high social ranking) and that he had freckles, so I suppose one might call him fourth grade’s most eligible bachelor. It was a brief affair between Joe and I; I told my companions on the playground how I was supposed to feel about Joe, and Joe was none the wiser. My red solo cup of pretend truths emptied quickly and without consequence. The next week we were much more interested in building forts out of sticks than love. I never forgot about this brief introduction, though. It seems only fitting that years of pretending would follow.

IV

Funny how a Chris Isaak song can remind you of your mom. She gave me a lot, but still left me wanting more. My mother sent me to school where I pretended to fall in love until I did. She bought the television that raised me. She introduced me to the Muppets. There was something that Jim Henson gave me that she did not. But Jim Henson is dead; my mother is not. Nobody loves no one.

I saw You wearing his shirt and

I knew it framed your shoulders better than my mouth could—but God, You are under my fingernails now, the way that grassy field drew me in, hands first, and I want to be dirtied before the sun

went down, and I am afraid that if I am not careful I will let You swallow me,

whole, boney— I bet I’d taste no different from frostbite, at this point

I am green, and purple, anyway.

I think now I would not flinch, but I would whimper.

or growl. whichever pinches You harder. twice in the summer I thought I was dying. and that was even

before I saw You. and are You miserable? do You

ache? like the centers of things ache, or have You ever even seen what we

spin around, held up that mirror, the shirt passed across highways to remind me that I

am not permanent for this place. no— that it is not permanent for me. no— that is what the snow is for. but this is your world, and I will yield to it. no. this is your world, and I will walk home with blistered feet, and I

will scrape ice from my knuckles, and if You swallow me before daybreak at least

I will never see your shoulders.

We know too well how that would go,

don’t We? what a risky feeling to lay next to. and I would wake up, and

You would laugh.

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26

Fog in Wicklow Josie Pierce

Rainy Day Samuel Lefkowitz-Quiana

My father’s sister executed a three-point turn in the gravel rut, the old Volkswagen Golf skidding right by the golden side-face of a dead dog, wrapped in a green polka dot blanket,

submerged in the Wicklow fog, among the winter ferns, that day we drove down the mountain-

side, staggering along the peat scars, and there was some talk of a holiday in Croatia–

nothing seen or said of the dog, which I began to think I imagined, and what’s it matter?

It was one of those stupid, sacred moments you keep to yourself.

Blue Crowd Kathleen Quaintance

The rain pattered hard against the hollow fiberglass that the berth was nestled in. The small boat’s swaying dance with the waves had lulled him to sleep. It was the knocking at the stern of the craft that woke him from his smokey dreams.

“Hello?” the mate called to the knock. No response. He laid in bed listening to the rain, hoping that it would slow. Moments later the rain thunders down harder. He was not dissatisfied learning his hopes would not come to fruition.

It’s the charter fisher’s random seventh day of leisure when the rains pours. If the winds are blowing too hard to go fishing (and we tend not care too much about wind unless it’s a hurricane) there’s still work that can be done on the boat. If it’s a nice day, we’re working. But if it’s raining at two in the morning when the captain wakes up, the customers are going to cancel their fishing trips and work on the boat is impossible without the engines getting soaked or killing the curing process on paints and epoxies, and thank you to whoever designed them with that flaw. So everyone’s boss calls them and tells them to go back to bed. At that point we just have to pray it doesn’t turn into a nice day to work on the boat. And on cue the phone rang.

“Trip’s canceled for today. If I need you I’ll call you.”

The mate put the phone down and laid back into the warm embrace of blankets and pillows. He stared into the ceiling and imagined the rain falling on his face. He felt every drop as they rang their monotonous notes.

Each was still distinguishable from the rest.

The rain hit the shell of the boat like hundreds of sledge hammers at once as the espresso pot steamed and boiled over. The sound of water striking water drowned out the chugging of the single cylinder generator that powered the stove. Gusts blew in every direction, which caused the boat to spin on the mooring as the bow chased the wind. This was the first morning the mate had time to make coffee. He poured it into his favorite mug, “the metal prison cup” he called it. He had ceramic ones, but they all broke during that last storm and that was the only one that survived. So it’s understandable why he’d like it so much. He opened the door onto the deck and was greeted by rain drops the size of fists. He turned off the generator and listened to the symphony of rain. This was the perfect day.

The mate pulled a cigarette from the pack already open on the counter and lit it with the matches in his pocket. He admired the advertising on it for a moment, from the restaurant closest to the marina.

It automatically became everyone’s favorite despite the cockroaches. With the bill comes a box of matches with their logo, like we need to be reminded to eat there more than every single day, but they do come in handy. He lights the cigarette and peers as far as he can through the rain. The ember sits dangerously close to drowning.

He sees nothing. The fingers of tobacco smoke twist and dance around his face. He stared out without taking a drag.The smoke is trapped by the rain and decided to mingle with the steam coming off the coffee. A familiar combination. A smell that reminded him of his childhood home and his father, the good and the bad. He took his first sip of coffee. He didn’t want to fish through the cooler for milk in the pouring rain, so he took it black.

He laid back in his bed, lit a second cigarette, and finished the first coffee. He stared at the ceiling. The cigarette is slowly burnt down to nothing but the filter. He decided it was past time for breakfast. He threw on his rain gear and bravely fought through the storm to retrieve the hot dogs and beans from the cooler for his afternoon breakfast. His jacket and pants slowly dried out while he ate. He finished quickly and lit another cigarette, clouds of smoke already hung in the air. He piles the dishes in the sink, a problem for when he needs to eat again.

He paces up and down the ten foot cabin. Two strides in each direction. Back and forth. He lost count of how many laps he completed. He stops in the middle of the cabin. There are still things to be fixed as long as the cabin keeps the water out. The tool box is the most easily accessible item in the crowded cabinets. His fingers dug through the clutter or wrenches, screwdrivers, and loose parts. He deliberately stumbled on a tool he can use in the rain, a trusty pair of wire cutters. He had been meaning to replace some rusty connections. An easy job to put off and an easy job to complete.

The necessary tools are out on the counter, a final cigarette is smoked. He put the butt in the overflowing ashtray and began by removing the panels that hide the nest of wires running through the boat from the walls. He

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hummed to himself as he went about this, nothing specific, just whatever note felt right for twisting a screwdriver.

He made quick work of the panels.

Now, just where to start? What’s red, black, white, and running in every direction? A wiring disaster.

He lets out an unabashed chuckle. The mate thought he had a plan. He grabbed hold of a bundle of wires and followed it towards the bow. It came to an end at an unsurprisingly rusty terminal The perfect place to start. He flipped the switch attached to the rustiest end. A light went on over the deck of the boat. The light revealed each individual drop of rain as they bombard the deck. The mate switched the light back off. The rain is unbothered by the change. The mates tobacco-stained hands worked on removing screws rusted in place after years of attention to “bigger” problems. With much help and coaxing they all came out in one piece. He held the bare metal ends of wire between calloused fingertips. The wires bit the fingers that held them captive. The slight tingle of electricity was not unpleasant, but also not desirable. At the very least he was relieved to know he and the wires were still alive.

Half an hour of cleaning later the screws are rust free and attached to clean portions of wire. The electrician flipped the switch. No light comes on.

“Fuck” he whispered. He figured the connection must not be complete. The wire cutter came out, new lengths of wire were stripped, the old portions were removed and the new attached in their place. He flips the switch, no light.

“Fuck!”

The only response is the pounding rain. The frustrated electrician lights a cigarette, takes a long drag, and put it, still smoking, into the ash tray and snips the wire one more time. He pulled the wire from its hidden origin. There was no more slack to pull. He pulled the wire as taut as it would allow him. It did not reach. The wire cutters rebounded off the wrenches and bounced out of the tool box it was supposed to land in. The cigarette is finished in one long drag. He stood staring at his failure and chewed on the filter.

The failed electrician ate spoonfuls of peanut butter, the chunky kind, in an attempt to forget. In an hour he was hungry again. There is no more food. Chain smoked cigarettes would suffice for dinner.

The captain held the course.

We never saw him again. A child fishing on the jetty said he saw the boat headed for the ocean. She said it was unmistakably the same boat, it was the only one that the harbor all day.

It was dark since dawn. Not even a single photon could penetrate the deep cloud cover all day. The clouds of tobacco smoke in the cabin were almost as dense. The smoker figures the sun should have set by now. He would check and be certain, but he couldn’t find his phone. He checked the clock over the stove. The clock asserted that it was four o’clock. He would have been returning from his second shift soon.

“Soon I can drink,” he said to the clock.

The mate noticed that rain was invading through a loose window frame. He told himself to remember that and fix it first chance he got. He opened the back door. The smoke clouds ran out to join the rain clouds.

He blew more smoke up to the heavens to follow what had already escaped. Rain pooled on the floor just inside of the door and began to spread throughout the cabin. He thought he could make out the lights of his favorite restaurant, blurry and faint, through the rain. He was not surprised that the other mates would start drinking early today. He’d join them when the time was right.

The smoker burnt his last match but still had a pack of cigarettes left. He would have to pass the ember along. And that he did. He sat, smoked, and stared out into the haze of rain unsure of what he was looking at.

There was nothing else to do.

The cigarettes dwindled in number. When the last one was smoking between his clenched teeth he walked back from the door to check the time. The hands of the clock had not moved. The mate shrugged his shoulders and looked back out the door.

No more smoke fluttered in front of his eyes. Now was the time to return to land. The mate leisurely donned his rain gear. The engines roared to life and joined the symphony of rain. The mate walked out into the rain and made his way to the bow. Despite his preparation, ge was soaked before he got there. He released himself from the mooring and the boat drifted backwards under the influence of the wind. He made more haste getting back to the controls. The captain put the boat in gear and pointed the bow towards the light of the restaurant.

He held the course; the lights did not get closer; the sea grew rougher; he was not scared. The waves rolled under him; the wind tried to push him away; they were no match for him. The lights were still off in the distance.

¥

¥

¥

“The boat is back!”

Word spread quickly and soon everyone knew that the little boat was back on its mooring. But as of yet no one had seen the captain. No questions had arisen concerning his safety, of course we couldn’t care less, nothing matters more than a good story, especially when the days are so similar they all blend into themselves. We searched frantically for the next piece of news. Many claimed to have the truth, to have seen the captain of the lost ship and this kept us entertained for quite awhile. It was not enough though and we all soon became weary of telling and listening to lies. The sun was close to being extinguished in the sea and we retired to the restaurant by the docks, everyone could be found at the bar after all. Many had waited there looking for lost loves or money owed and eventually had found who they were looking for.

And there he was, sitting out in front gazing off into the setting sun. He was better groomed than when he had left, slightly skinnier. No one could actually remember how long it had been or if they should be surprised by the changes. He did not turn towards us. He sat and stared off into the sun. He held a box of matches from the restaurant in one hand and a lit match in the other. He held it upside down and let it burn until the flames opened his fingers and the match dropped to the ground, going out before it hit the pavement. Then he lit another. That one too hit the pavement. There was already a pile of blackened and curled remains before his feet and it continued to grow as we watched.

“Where have you been?”

He turned and seemed to notice the crowd for the first time. He broke into a huge toothy smile that none of us had ever seen before.

“It is so good to see you all. I have been to where truth resides. I have seen it myself. It is out in the ocean, but you must let it find you. I sat and thought and floated. I became one with the earth and have come back to teach you all the way to happiness and enlightenment.”

He spoke without breaking the wide smile or refraining from burning himself. The laughter started at the back of the crowd and infected its way throughout.

“We know the way. We already made it to the bar!” someone called from the center of the crowd and started another strain of even more powerful laughter.

The crowd shuffled in and found seats at the bar. A few people offered to buy the prophet drinks but he refused and continuously reminded the bartender to keep us hydrated. Very soon everyone forgot about the mystery that had kept us entertained all day. The only reminder left was the flashes of light when he lit his matches and the faint scent of burning flesh but that didn’t take long to get accustomed to either.

He was still where we left him the night before. The last to stumble home didn’t seem to notice he still sat straight and tall in his stool at the bar, a pile of matchboxes in the ashtray in front of him. But when we showed up after work the next day there he was.

“Didn’t see you at work” someone mentioned as they took the stool next to him.

His position had been filled the day after he disappeared. There always people in need of work.

“Work takes away from valuable time to do the right thing.” The match threw his face into a spotlight compared to the rest of the dimly lit bar. Red lines ran through the whites of his eyes and the skin below carried heavy luggage.

“And what is the right thing?”

“I do not know.”

No one has seen him return home since he returned. It’s been weeks. People’s feelings of charity towards him have run out. The bar stopped feeding him even scraps. They were tired of him and his uninspired preaching.

He also began to attract flies. They pulled him out of his stool. He sat down out in front of the door. He was so pale even his once vibrant eyes seemed drained of color. He didn’t even hold out a cup for spare change.

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“Don’t need money,” he assured us.

Heavy rains sunk his little boat the other night. He didn’t know till we told him the next morning. The batteries had died long before this rain the lifeless pumps could do nothing but watch. The few people that were still loyal tried to bail it out. But in the end they could not do enough. He went to look at it. It was shallow where it sunk so at low tide most of the boat still stuck out of the water. He swam out to it. We watched from the shore.

He sat at the helm with the water around his ankles. The matches did not survive the swim. He stared into the sun. We watched as long as we dared. He did not move or look back at us. He just sat and stared to the east like a scare crow that attracted birds.

suppose this kind of parenting was an effort to allow my sister and I to “learn from our mistakes”— an admittedly good sentiment at heart, yet one that led to a lonely childhood. Well, not exactly lonely, but adult-less. I maintained a business-like relationship with my parents; we’d gather in our shared home from time to time, grab dinner, discuss the latest episode of the Bachelor— nothing particularly meaningful. Our relationship existed on the surface level for the most part, and I was left to navigate adolescence without a map.

While I was living a Lord of the Flies childhood, my friends seemed to have flourishing social lives with their parents. I felt out of place in this way. While my parents did not divulge in anything deeper than how they were annoyed that all the bachelorettes looked the same for the tenth season in a row, other parents seemed to tell their children everything, and vice versa. What they had for breakfast, who they have a crush on, the exact moment (down to the second) they lost their virginity. My parents would sooner saw their own limbs off than discuss my sex life Then again, it’s not as if I don’t feel the same. And perhaps this is for the best.

The Game Josie Pierce

(It was kind of a drizzly June day, but we went anyway, cramped stiff in our own nostalgia, our stink pit of crinkled fries, blue back seats, cracker jack bags floating off the tops of trash cans, we stuck it out, because we’d stuck out the nor’easter of ‘98, or ‘07 - when the basement flooded and my father ripped out the carpet.)

I might go for a Sprite, or wait for something to happen, vaguely yell the player’s name at the plate - yee eeeah Johnny! - if I could do anything for the rest of my life I’d be a bat boy. Attend to the broken sticks, run up from the ramshackle lower league dugout, pick up the unswung, the overswung, the nearly swung, I think I’d be really good at it. I have the attention.

On a fly ball, some guy hits a car, breaks the windshield.

The Other Side Ann Nelson

I remember watching my neighbor throw a turtle crossing the road into a lake on the other side. He was hailed a hero— the turtle was now safe from oncoming traffic. Cars could continue on their journey without the all-encompassing guilt of reptile murder. I remember sitting next to his daughter and son in a tan car, looking at the turtle’s short neck stop it from turning to snap at my neighbor’s fingers around its shell. It wouldn’t try to bite if it knew that he was saving it, I thought. We celebrated.

Throughout my childhood, I would often find myself feeling like a turtle crossing the road in need of someone to chuck it into a lake. Help was rare in my household. The French government opts to use laissez-faire policies, and my parents followed suit. I don’t know why they chose to do this; perhaps the combination of my mother’s Southern upbringing and my father’s childhood in a divorced household created a cocktail of ignorance towards offspring. I

Beach Body Kat Carlsen

Several years after watching my neighbor throw a turtle crossing the road into a lake on the other side, I found myself in the reptile house at the zoo. As I browsed the selection of cold-blooded animals, I came across the blackeyed doppelgänger of an old friend. It was the type of turtle my neighbor had saved. But, upon reading the informative plaque about my familiar friend, I learned something new. My neighbor had not thrown a turtle crossing the road into a lake on the other side, but a tortoise. Tortoises, I learned, do not have webbed feet. Tortoises, I realized, cannot swim.

In his attempt to prevent a hit and run, my neighbor drowned his victim in cold blood, returning triumphantly to a car full of cheering children, hailing him a hero for throwing a tortoise into liquid hell.

As I stood face to face with these tortoises, I no longer envied my friends whose parents helped them in navigating their teenage-hood. I think I would prefer to take my chances crossing the road rather than drown. I wonder if my friends feel the same.

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32 The Night She Was Born They Named Her Greer McAllister

Over the Horizon Alex Feldman She sat in a sulk, crying her eyes tired, Long passed running out of tears; The clouds block the light, living is unoriginal The eggs from the grocery were filled with only air…

And meditating on the thought of death throughout the night, cried herself blind at dawn walked down the pier whispering “I know this place all too well”; unable to see with no fear of falling

into the water she stole a cigarette boat from the marina Drove it full speed towards the horizon

She sits staring at herself in the window, an underrated mirror, looking either plain or beautiful, someone else can choose for once, asking to the window, “Woman?”

The window shrugs.

She thinks for a moment.

“Home?” she asks.

“Perhaps,” the window replies.

She changes clothes openly in her bedroom, without much thought.

“It’s only a body,” she thinks, not caring much who can see in, who can see out.

The love of man draws her in, she primps and searches, but it eventually trickles out, the backwards step of worn-out feet, until she reaches the window, Perhaps.

Creaking floors are music, especially when she tiptoes back and forth to make the melody, singing the words, but not too high because her voice will crack, spilling the blue wine bottle in which she kept water.

Cutting through the ocean’s chop wind blowing her hair every which way

Mess and love live where she does, bleeding like red chrysanthemums.

“I’ll put them in the bottle!

I don’t have a vase,” she says to no one in particular.

She has a ring of her mother’s, set with a pink glass stone, that she has kept for years, but forgets to wear.

Until she dropped off the cliff of This. Flat. Earth.

Wicker House Cecilia Cuddy

She was born in a dark and heavy June, birthed from woman, by the hands of woman, her father kneeling by the bedside, whispering.

The third howl of winter Laura Philion At first the sky was blinding With all the usual January fierceness, But now there sits a rosy and subtle pink smear across my blue. And it turns Me sweet— Don Henley noodles humbly on the stereo, the promise of a blizzard on the way, the signs through Delaware are flashing SPEED KILLS and the last gray snow is melting sluggish in the fields, ice on the ponds— Slumped in shotgun, sweaty and caffeine jittery, I glare at the moon as it sucks the pink from the sky.

Its pocks and pits are nothing to Mine— I think of the snow-smell, wild geese, kissing revolutions, scuffed Adidas and the taillights stretching in front of us—what’s here? What’s gone by? Will I sink as low as the sun by the time we are done?

33 Portrait of Grandma’s House Al Maryam Dawkins

Every summer the house would rot. It was perched at the center of a verdant acre of sprouts, grass and weeds. It had withstood the turbulence of tornadoes, white flight, termites, birthdays and several fallen trees. Yes, from all this the house had grown old, and by the time Duaa was spending her childhood summers there, it had nearly begun to putrefy.

The wooden floorboards swelled with water damage, the roof leaked from molasses-colored splotches in the ceiling, and despite all attempts to make it otherwise; the basement permanently smelled of mold. There was a perpetual feeling of dampness. Duaa would return from a day of play, only to find the house sweating with her in the blistering heat.

The heat was particularly merciless one day. It was unclear if what had just raced down Duaa’s back was a drop of sweat or one of the thousands of German cockroaches that skittered around in her periphery and in the dark. Like the crickets and spiders in the basement, or the house flies upstairs, or the rollie pollies, honeybees, lightning bugs, fire ants, and cicadas in the yard–the roaches came with the house. Too quick to be caught, they used to stay out of the house, but now that it’s getting old, “They eat the wood,” Grandma says. Regardless, Duaa leapt from her seat in disgust and because it was unclear what the object of that disgust should be, Duaa became at once, universally repulsed. She swiped at her back for answers and came back empty handed. The culprit would have been gone by now and her back was already drenched in sweat.

It was in the middle of washing her face that Duaa decided wudu was not a thorough enough method of ablution. When she finished washing her face and moved onto her hands she considered again and again her neck, her chest, and her back, which remained especially dirty. She turned off the sink faucet and stepped into the shower.

Feet on prayer rug, Duaa closed her eyes to be delivered somewhere dry and pious. If Godliness was cleanliness, Duaa would be the imam, the first lady, the deacon and a prayer answered.

34 All of my scars are stupid.

Like the one on my knee Which came from a fall Off of my bicycle in the driveway Of the duplex my dad lived in after my parents got divorced.

I sat on the concrete, Picking rocks from my knee As salty drops mixed with hemic ones.

My dad shared his half of the duplex, With another single dad Whose son was the same age as me.

Even though we spent countless hours Casting spells in the backyard and huddled around the computer screen Deciding the fate of our Jedi knight He never remembers my name.

My Scars Are Stupid Ananda Corr All of my scars are stupid.

Like the one on my back from the time I fell off a swing set.

I hadn’t been moving at the time, just sitting And before I knew it, I was lying in the gravel staring up at the sky.

The counselors at the after school program Did their best to patch me up.

The gauze and medical tape felt stiff Against my skin.

They seemed so old then, and in charge But they must’ve been only twenty or so, An age I’ve already surpassed.

I couldn’t see the scratch, but I could feel the blood Dripping down my back and I was embarrassed.

Later, when my mother came to pick me up No one could explain what happened.

All of my scars are stupid.

Especially the one on my right ring finger That came from tripping over an ex Boyfriend’s bong that he left By the couch.

I wasn’t high, I’ve never been high, But I didn’t see it and when it fell I tried to catch it And the bowl, violet and made of geometric glass, broke in half and I bled.

He didn’t own any band aids so he taped Toilet paper around my finger and I didn’t speak because I knew he was angry.

Angry like the time he dropped a whole bottle Of rosé on the kitchen floor And I used up an entire roll of paper towels While he watched and lamented The waste of money and pink wine.

All of my scars are stupid Like the two on my upper left arm Left there by a hot tray just out of the restaurant oven.

The skin peeled away and the bandaid Gave me an allergic reaction, Tiny bubbles in a tight formation.

Chef told me These are the marks, the badges of honor we now wear with pride.

Long, dimpled burns that look Like the delicate scoring on freshly baked bread.

I’m part of the club now, “Yes ma’am” and “Thank you, come again” Running ragged in trade for The money I spend on the gas to Make it to work in the morning.

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36 Lessons my father taught me a play Myra McPhee Characters New Providence

black woman

Don black man Scene 1 The stage is completely empty and hopefully the walls are painted black.

The ground of the stage is covered in white sand. Black curtains function as doors on stage left and right.

Red and blue police lights flash quickly across the dark stage.

After a few beats, warm lights wash over the stage but the red and blue lights are still visible and filling the stage.

From off stage left, we hear the sounds of someone trying to get through the “door” and there is clearly a struggle and sounds of frustration from off stage. Eventually, a woman – NEW PROVIDENCE – emerges through the curtains, but still in the doorway. She is sitting in a wheelchair. She is partially obstructed by the curtain, but can be seen by the audience. She is wearing all black - blouse, pants, socks and shoes. A large, heavy blanket is in her lap, covering her legs. She struggles to maneuver her wheelchair through the sand and on to the stage. She looks helplessly at the audience. After a long while, a man - DON - gets up from the audience and pushes NEW PROVIDENCE, to center stage. He does not say a word. DON is wearing non-descript dark colored pants and shirt, his tie is bright red. He appears to be a nice, well put together man. He looks like he is on a date and is seeing a play in the Wright Theatre in the Performing Arts Center at Sarah Lawrence College.

Moving Lion Kathleen Quaintance

Octopus Claire Bronchick You stupid little octopus; I wanna grill you.

Nothing so excellent could last so long, I should hope. It would be reckless to find so much joy in someone else for so long.

I will bite you if offered the chance. I can’t say no. Can’t resist a good itch.

Hours in silence, falling asleep in class infecting my ears feeding you, because, If you stop feeding a cat, it will find a new hand to eat out of. I am extraordinarily lucky you are human, or at least identified as such.

NEW PROVIDENCE Thank you.

DON does not respond. He returns to his seat and picks up his program.

He begins to read it to himself. He reads the titles, the cast lists, the thank yous, etc.

The red and blue lights slow down and fade out and the general wash on stage gets warmer and brighter. NEW PROVIDENCE squints as her eyes adjust to the lights. She fixes her blouse and composes herself. She looks at the audience. She makes and maintains eye contact. She waits a beat. She summons up some courage. She speaks again.

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NEW PROVIDENCE Life comes at you fast and then everything seems to slow down. I have learned a lot about what trauma can do to the body. This last year has been all about life lessons. I figured out some harsh realities about myself, my family and my friends. At one point, I started writing down all the things I had learned. I wrote them down one by one in a journal my therapist gave me. I wrote for most of that day. When I finally felt my fingers aching, I stopped and realized I had written down 126 life lessons.

Before the incident, there was no way I would have had time to make a list that long. But, now, all I have is time.

I can’t work anymore. I don’t like going to church. No one comes to visit me. My mom has to work three jobs to help take care of me and pay my medical bills. (exhale) The number one lesson on my list was ‘feeling shame is more painful than death.’ That might sound extreme, but I mean it. This feeling is bottomless. This feeling is empty. The sting of death does not last forever. Death comes, and then you’re free. (breathe in) Lesson number 5: After the incident, my mother felt helpless and she became desperate for remedies for my pain. She convinced herself, that after 39 years of being absent from my life, my father might be able to bring me some solace. He is a pastor. He must know the right things to say to help heal his bastard child. He was never there for me, but she saw this as his opportunity to step up…for once; to right the wrongs and atone for his sins.

NEW PROVIDENCE breathes deeply and loudly to hold back the tears and control her emotions.

Lesson number 32: I didn’t know what I was doing.

Lesson number 45: I am black.

Lesson number 99: But, I loved you.

DON, overwhelmed, pulls away and exits stage left. NEW PROVIDENCE is left holding his red tie.

NEW PROVIDENCE (towards stage left) I am willing to wait forever, but today, I want to stop feeling like.

NEW PROVIDENCE wraps the tie around her fist, brings it to her nose, closes her eyes and breathes in deeply. His cologne is intoxicating. It is almost enough to sustain her. Almost. As she starts to speak, she drops her hands and lets the tie unfurl into the sand. (to the audience) My father never came to see me in the hospital. He has not found the time to visit me in the months that I have been in my mother’s home. I know my mother has called and begged him more times than she would care to admit.

One time, I heard her call the church and ask to speak to him. The conversation was short and when she hung up she started crying. I was angry and full of shame. Lesson number 23: I rolled off of my bed and crawled to the kitchen. I slit my wrists and laid in a pool of my blood listening to my mother cry and my heart beat. I made sure to be quiet; to not disturb her pain with mine. She found me and rescued me… again….

NEW PROVIDENCE Lesson number 36: I need love to make me whole again.

Lesson number 84: I don’t feel worthy. I don’t believe I will find love.

Lesson number 6: I try to breathe and instead it is a gasp for air that feels hot as it enters my lungs. There is brimstone in my heart and my spirit is on fire.

And that brings me back to lesson number one, shame is more painful than death. Despite everything I have done, shame is the shadow that covers me. Nothing has crippled me more than the shame I carry every day.

Red and blue lights start flashing again – very slowly at first. The warm lights dim and fade out. NEW PROVIDENCE looks around, scared, knowing that danger is on its way. She tries to push her wheel chair through the sand towards stage right. With a panicked look in her eyes, she pleads silently with the audience to help her. Finally, she pulls out a journal from under the blanket / the side of her wheelchair. She opens it and flips through until she finds what she is looking for. She looks up at the audience. Her voice is filled with uncertainty.

Lesson number 52: It’s okay, I can admit it now. I am lonely.

End of scene.

Scene 2 NEW PROVIDENCE tries to wheel herself off stage right and is not successful. She is stuck in the sand. The same man – DON – returns to the stage to help her. He stands behind the wheelchair trying to maneuver it. She grabs his hand and pulls him in front of her. She starts speaking as she holds his hand, then she grabs at his sleeve. She brings him down to her eye level. She pulls at his shirt and rips it open. She eventually gets hold of his tie. She grabs at him as she speaks, as if for dear life. He eventually reluctantly sits in front of her at some point. His appearance is no longer neat. Her need for intimacy has ruined him.

Despite it all, he listens.

NEW PROVIDENCE Lesson number 14: I… I… I messed up. I… I... I’m sorry. I am sorry and I do repent.

Lesson number 126: I. Will. Survive. This.

NEW PROVIDENCE NEW PROVIDENCE holds the journal in her left hand and removes the blanket and throws it on the ground with her right. The audience can see large, white embroidered/stitched/iron on patch letters on the blanket that spell SHAME. She seems unsure at first, but she stands. She gently places the journal on the seat of the wheelchair and walks toward stage right. Her head is held high; she even makes eye contact with the audience and takes in the entire performance space. Before exiting, she stops, bends down and with her left hand grabs a handful of sand. She

39

40

stands and feels the sand in her closed fist. Some grains of sand fall from fist. She hangs her head and looks at the ground. She exits stage right.

The red and blue lights continue to flash quickly for a few more beats and then BLACK OUT. End of scene.

End of play.

465 Miniature Suns utilizes quotes from 'Romeo and Juliet' Harry Saroff But soft, what aroma through yonder doorway leaks?

It is the can of Baked Beans, hotter than the splendid sun.

Arise, I do, to kill my envious hunger. Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, This beautiful sight of Baked Beans sitting precariously on the counter…

Alas, they stumble that run fast towards cans of beans, And my humble figure collides with the counter.

Star-crossed lovers landing in a suicidal embrace; Romeo my foot, Juliet my beans. A love to never be.

It burns.

The great Shakespearean tragedy of my life: There’s beans all over the goddamn carpet.

Shit.

But Hark! With a sigh, I cry: “Hey Siri, how many beans are there in a can of baked beans?”

Quoth Siri: “465.”

Civil ground makes civil beans unclean, but under love’s heavy burden do I sink.

I pick up a bean, slippery in my fingertips, and lift it to the welcoming chasm of my maw.

Full of wrath, it scathes my tongue with bitter fire and crimson woe.

I swallow. 464 to go.

My Nearsightedness Alex Feldman Many times I’ve looked across the Room, bar, party, street, etc. and been hurt by what I’ve seen So Like any Prosperous biological Creature I’ve adapted

Shattered Cecilia Cuddy

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42

John Doe Harry Saroff

The Overwhelming Consequences of Fast Fashion: a word soup poem Ryan Arecco

John Doe sits alone in his home, treasures lining his shelf, gained by his drive, his lifelong pursuit of wealth.

overwhelming consequence. synthetic, fast fashion, cyclic acrylic. plastic resin pellets— new fibers for your food.

I consume threads, whales take the scraps.

John Doe wanders the streets.

All his life he’s been poor.

He has not the ambition to ever be more.

John Doe is content, he has lived a good life.

He has no need of honor, all he needs is his wife.

John Doe is a scholar, always eager to learn.

He has achieved so much; for more achievement he yearns.

Then the reaper named Death approaches his prey.

Life must go on.

There is no other way.

With feigned pity he speaks, his empathy gone, “The gift you call life must now be passed on.”

“Oh no, Death, not me -” Shouts John Doe adamantly, “–I have so much to live for!”

“Afraid not, evidently…”

For then rose a tombstone, inscribed with John Doe’s fate; No wealth, no achievements, just a name and a date.

A scream and then silence, Death collects a soul.

Our dear friend the reaper has accomplished our goal.

A whisper in his ear, Death hears of a birth.

He sighs. Yet another John Doe to remove from this Earth.

And so the reaper departs, his spool of life unwound, leaving an eternal reminder carved into the ground: “You are alive, and that is your curse; every second you breathe you must reimburse”

Self Portrait Kat Carlsen

refuse, redesign, reduce, redefine, reuse, recycle— what if these were new commandments.

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Times I was Alive in Eight Parts Miles Memory

In some churches, art is hidden in the farthest corners The deepest crevices, for only God to see He lies in silence

I. I miss how the house smelled on Sunday mornings When Dad would work Door to the office, cracked open just enough When the coffee was ready, he could saunter down the hall My room, where the light poured in through the blinds Tinted rosy, from my pink curtains A sign of a new day, a new start

III. I’d frequent the football field late at night in the summer It wasn’t far to go. It was always there.

I would walk down the sidewalk, through the drop-off circle And over towards the back In the summer, the sky was magenta.

A deep shade, but an all-encompassing one I could look up at the sky, marvel at it Become it, let it swallow me whole

I miss when Dad would tiptoe to the living room And whisper loud enough to get my attention (But not my sleeping Mama’s) So he could show me a bird or a deer in the yard

The grass was dewy as it brushed my ankles.

My clearance sneakers squeaked on the way home

Coffee in hand, we’d creep to the back door “Look,” he’d say. “She’s been sitting there all morning.”

Deer are angels in my mind Only those will pure souls may take the form of a doe II. In August, last year After a long night, I took a walk over to the high school.

As I turned the corner to the property, that’s when she spotted me.

On the field, life was quiet Everything so large, but so still With the sky above, and the long red clay tracks circling me, I would sit right on the M in the middle of the field.

Sometimes, if I wanted to fill the silence I’d talk to God. I’d tell him my doubts or my fears, Ask questions or chat It felt right to open myself up As a martyr on the target Front and center

A doe, a curious figure but a cautious one– We looked at each other, right at each other, for a long time.

Her eyes were deep. It was like she understood me.

Other times I would dance.

All over the field Everyone’s eyes on me As I strutted and twirled and ran

And we danced Not to rhythm, but to the feel of the connection we had As I moved, she did And as she moved, I did too

These nights were times when I let passion take over Where I gave up myself, any reservations I had All cards on the table

I saw her glide in and out of the shadows Her face obscured but her eyes wide I wonder what she saw when she looked at me I wonder who she was in a past life As I entered the field, I watched her until I was past the viewpoint But she still looked–

Life is lived when you feel the deepest Have a space to keep your thoughts To share that space with others

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46 I took a picture of their dance.

These are moments I will always know.

IV. When it snows, the world becomes quiet.

The snow can muffle sound It soaks up the waves in the airYou can hear it in footsteps

Some parts of you never change, Like clockwork they appear Over and over, as if a routine

I am fascinated by quiet places.

Like the train tracks down the street from my house Or the creek behind my grandmother’s

V. I miss snow days in middle school Mid-January cold and we’d watch it come down.

There is always solace to be found In a place without sonic distraction.

Drinking tea with too much sugar, Irish breakfast.

Mama made beans and toast so we felt like Brits.

A friend of mine and I would adventure to every quiet place in town together I’d take photos as we walked and climbed and conversed.

Every evening I’d sit, DVD of Doctor Who playing I’d look out the video until the ads were done, My nose cold and red after a day in the snow Lips cracked from smiling on a snowboard.

Found baseballs on mounds of sand behind the train tracks A brochure on the teachings of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ We laughed as he dropped it off the edge of the bridge, It fell softly onto the dirt below

Then the sun would go down, and the lamp would shine With a warmth and a light Only this hot and this bright In winter’s blue film, in frigid air,

Our time together, whirlwind of love and chaos Too much to hold onto A teenage vortex.

We tried to patch things up one day, Drank cups of Scotch in the basement until he broke down.

I’d leave a spoon under my pillow so it would snow again.

Months later springtime would come: School took the coach bus to Philly

He grabbed me around the hips and heaved.

“I didn’t want it to be like this,” he told me through sobs.

I ran my fingers through his coils of thick brown hair.

“I’ll do better.”

Down the steps to floral air, The gardens in the historical district The sun gives me freckles and makes me squint my eyes Summer brings warm weather When the sun doesn’t go down There is more time to feel alive

The good and the bad don’t go away with time, they just fade Seasons pass and we still hurt Time can only heal so much of our wounds if the perpetrator leaves them untouched So we took the dog out for a walk, the town in a white-out Walked to Krauser’s in the blizzard to get a lighter and a lemonade.

We talked like normal again, for the first time in a while Maybe for the last time ever.

My legs were too short to keep up with him.

So I enjoyed the sights with his figure in front.

“Come here pretty girl!” He shouted to the dog.

We laughed as she ran towards us, trying to catch the snowflakes in her mouth.

VI. The wind blows on our faces Mine and hers, in May and in June.

Her car, 2000s Toyota Corolla with Virginia plates Each time it bumped and made a sound we’d scream and laugh.

Watching from the side mirror, ocean air in cooling summer twilight We’d speed down highways and side streets Music blaring, smoke swirling

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In May I heard the Stone Roses Our friends making out in the backseat, I looked towards the road It was like we were flying.

Weed smoke and booze clung to the roof of the car But I saw the future in the car lights on the opposite side of the street-

Each corner in that building a new adventure New memory, new lesson.

“I think we’re soulmates” She said.

My hometown felt like a whole new world.

We would spend whole nights, up till 5 Surging through streets in the rain She parked in the parking lot A summer monsoon raging

Central Park in the summer Central Park in the winter Green and blue, whenever the carousel spins round and round Freshman year we climbed the rocks on the Upper West Side Freshly dyed hair in October daylight I was such a child then, and I still am.

Sometimes, on trips by myself, I’ll go to the American Girl store At night, when it’s empty Alone, with dolls and dolls and fluorescent lights It will be so hard to grow up.

Take off your shoes and dance Soaking wet, we jumped and yelled and danced Some kind of John Hughes fantasy as the rain poured It rolled off my skin and back onto the gravel She made me laugh until my ribs were sore, Our feet bare and kicking in the moonlight.

But after some time, Everyone grow up Not all parts of us, but enough VIII.

I sat next to her on the roof one night Two glasses of bubbling rosé with yellow glow from the room inside We liked to have the house to ourselves.

Enough room to play as we pleased

This day has been long.

Living on your own is a never-ending list of to-dos.

But I like my to-dos.

I feel useful.

When we would come home from a drive, Voices only croaks after karaoke in the car

Today there was class and dishes and dinner with my friends And time to do laundry, time for my research, If I had the time.

And when she turned the ignition on, My heart lit up.

While all places hold value Home-towns or cities, God lives in New York City VII. To Holden Caulfield: my deepest thanks How I wish we could stroll through the city together, At the Natural History Museum We’ll be different But everything behind the glass will stay the same.

The Squid and The Whale, a Vacuum in the Hall of Oceanic life.

My toddler eyes marveled at the sight.

Nothing is ever quite finished Sometimes I type while I gaze out the window, Cars honking like Sonatas When the wind whistles, I hear the blues.

It’s getting cold in New York Autumn is grey and winter is grey But it is my home, and gladly so.

Maybe God lives in the East Village, or midtown, for his sake.

It’s quiet enough on Sunday mornings.

We take the subway to 5th Ave, And my friend is crying as we walk down the street.

“I love this city so much,” she says.

“I’m just so happy it’s my home.”

49 These are the tears that make you smile The tears you wait your life to shed Day after day, hoping and wishing there is something more to life.

And there is. It’s here.

And so that night, I return to my bed: The smell of weed soaked in my sheets, The future in my mind I slept well that night.

Folding Fabric Kathleen Quaintance

50 The Deer (After Elizabeth Bishop’s The Fish) Cecilia Cuddy I snared it in my trap And watched it As it began to struggle Ropes wrapped around Its weak and feeble legs Dripping with blood She looked at me Nothing more No fight, no struggle She let out a sigh Her skin was Smooth and delicate Like sandpaper White dots scattered across Her body like tiny snowflakes Her legs had tangled themselves Like loses electrical wires Her head, lying on the ground Contemplating the next moments In which her life could change

Biographic in Green Kat Carlsen

For better or for worse Her breathing had risen Gasping, inhaling, in and out Her eyes looked at mine Her eyes, Onyx with a speck of white No resistance, just tension She kept waiting for me But for what?

Her ears picked up Tiny, pointed, and delicate With a flesh filling inside And ivory strokes around the edge I admired its gentle face And walked over to it Taken aback, she shuttered Quivering, shaking, then stopped Frozen on ice in a winter dream Drawing my hand closer, I grabbed the rope Untangled it from her body, and let her run free

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The Boy Alex Feldman

When I reached the block I lived on I got an urge-I flailed Body and voice both— There was a bar named Flower Shop in China Town My hair flopping all around

The hair-over-eyes type Flamboyant He was 8 or Maybe 9 As I walked past, his voice flailed with his arms

I Don’t

I

Like That

Wanna Fuck

Flower

The

Shop!

Lovely

The

Bartender

Tulips

At

Were

Flower

All

Shop!

Brown!

Then I headed to downtown Grateful for the Boys wisdom

I smiled at the mother And I hope the mother understood it One that said Your son will never be as free and uninhibited as he is right now With each experience on earth he will curtail his shit a little more Till he is cemented drab— A Boring Gargoyle

Walking there I hoped I would carry it with me for more than just one night But I wouldn’t

He was beautiful for now

And whether or not she was into me Wasn’t the point

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a flower is not a fruit Sofia Aguilar

The Art of Living Josie Pierce

I don’t belong to you to no one at all, but here take my name—its greekness and its sainthood, its wisdom, don’t forget —say it over and over again like wishes on dandelion heads, but

Blue hydrangeas on the breakfast table, you brought fresh weeks ago, now brown.

The horizon smells of ash, mold, construction.

I’m saying it’s unethical to have a child in this world.

In the days of the heatwave, you catch a lightning bug on the doorstep, let it go. My eye through your iris

look!

See? there! it’s the way you look at me, the words you swear, God says it’s no good but you make it sound like spring like all these flowers blooming right under my feet and it’s all I can do not to grow a garden here when I run after you— mi amor, such a thief, you’ve stolen my breath. but don’t steal my roses dry her petals, hide them in books, between cracking spines my knee is the highest place she grows but even her sainthood can prick with her thorns, so cuidado con tus manos smoother than roads, the sides where my daylilies cower in the moonlit hours, sprout not in soil but in the sun’s warmth they yearn for, yellow as her children taller than you their brown middles in betweens straight-backed stalks, green not old enough to climb like the trunks of the trees, their branches heavy with flowers less sweet than their fruits— those blooming burdens, their thorns, their cowardice and vanity beauty only to the bees, a buzz their quiet hum and hover over pomegranates but only their seeds sweet mangoes, tough skin and inside a bone pit, papaya candy flesh and honey juice only sour the moment after touching your tongue, blushes

sees a baby blue heron, scruffy by water’s edge, its mother out of sight. I can no longer live alone.

I want to tell you all of my secrets tonight.

We clean our mouths in the same apartment building, July in New York, everything is oppressive and forgiven.

Awoke to a luminous path, slight in the thick air that grew in the night for you, my witness to the truth of this matter: both the table and the chairs.

You keep telling me over and over that you love me.

Dirt kicks up my calves in the humid rain, and I believe you, though I don’t know exactly how, or why the sky continues to flash.

Flower and Bee Kathleen Quaintance hard when spoken to, laughs at death like the Mexicans, lasts longer than a day in a wooden bowl by the window, so por favor ¥

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¥

mi amor, don’t send me my flowers steal or swallow their fruits, don’t call them by a different name forget their roots, where they began deep buried in the ground, don’t cage me in a pot, a vase, my dying place.

Sleeper 1 Kristine Marx

55 A Natural Journey Myra McPhee

Of the many photos I have taken, I curated these because of the emotional journey I am on with my hair. These photos show the phases and texture changes that occur as my chemically treated hair grows, how it changes as the chemicals are not reapplied every six to eight weeks, the battle that ensues as new and old textures collide, and the “big chop” that must take place to get rid of chemically treated hair. All that is left is new hair and what feels like a new person.

After more than thirty years of chemically processing my hair, I decided to start a natural hair journey and transition away from processed, straight hair. For black women, this is a very hard decision to make. It means letting go of European standards of beauty, which is hard to conceptualize until you start this journey. So much of my identity is attached to straight, long hair. I am so programmed that most of the time I have to actively and intentionally say to myself, “kinky hair is natural, kinky hair is beautiful”. At the same time, I am reminding myself that I am beautiful, that I am worthy. Coming face to face with my own biases against myself and other black people continues to be painful, but necessary work for me to do.

The complexities of changing my physical appearance and values are often lost on people who are white. Hair transitioning is an extremely vulnerable and often shameful process. While natural hair journeys seem trendy, black communities continue to navigate the internal struggle with self-acceptance and the external struggle of losing jobs and other opportunities because we resist traditional western beauty standards. This personal journey felt too overwhelming to manage on my own at times. I knew I was not the only black person at Sarah Lawrence going through these changes and decided to pour this journey into my art.

I created and produced SLC Hair Show: Happy to be nappy, kinky, coiled, wavy, or straight, which aimed to improve representation in art and teach others about the cultural significance of hair in communities of color. This April 2017 production was inspired by George C. Wolfe’s The Colored Museum and Madam C. J. Walker. It examined the political history of hair and stories of how hair aided in the identity development of community members of color. The SLC Hair Show was visual art meets theater meets history meets cultural exchange meets celebration. This project was an excellent exercise in taking social justice theory and making it a lived practice. With a team of 27 students of color, we collaborated and created something full of joy and community despite the pain and misunderstanding that comes with self-acceptance.

56 Sparrow Magdalena Deniz

The wake was in a small country home forty-five minutes away from our house in St. Louis and set right beside an empty field that used to be a sunflower farm. But no flowers grew there anymore, and so the house was next to nothing but dry, brittle dirt and a long stretch of empty country road that passed it. When we finally got there, I hesitated in the long gravel driveway, my body half in and half out of the car.The sky was darkening above us, clouds leftover from last night’s storm still clumped together in the distance. I had spent the entire car ride staring out the window at the horizon, a flat disc the color of dying moss touching the cornflower blue of the sky, while my guts twisted and pulled themselves apart.

We had to bury Mom far away because the St. Louis cemetery was all filled up. When everyone complained, the city bought the old sunflower farm. The whole thing was on TV, every city hall meeting, every press conference the mayor had. I watched it all unfold with Mom in the living room two weeks before she died, sitting up with her in the hospital bed and listening to all the angry men speak to each other on the screen. I remembered how she shushed me, something she rarely did, when I tried asking her a question about it.

“I need to listen to this, Arthur,” she told me, her arm tightening around my shoulders. The thin tube that brought oxygen to her nose brushed across my bare arms and gave me goosebumps, and I didn’t speak until the commercials came back on. I just sat there silently trying to understand what was so important.

“Don’t be afraid, Arthur,” Dad said, coming around to my side and walking past me. I didn’t move. It felt as if one step would bring my bacon egg and cheese sandwich up onto the dusty gravel. “Arthur,” Dad said again, a little impatiently, turning around. He reached back and grabbed my hand, dragging me behind him. I was shocked to see my left fist disappear into his big hand, his fingers thick like breakfast sausages, his square palms surprisingly soft despite their calluses. I felt the painful hard press of his wedding ring against my knuckle.

“I’m not afraid,” I said, because I wasn’t. I stared at the ground, at the small pebbles of gravel we kicked away with our feet jumping away like little frogs in a lily pond. I stopped when we got to the welcome mat, and Dad hesitated beside me. I looked up at the large bay windows of the house, weathered paint withering away from the white panes in thick strips like the flesh of an orange after someone has ripped off the peel. I closed my eyes and imagined that I was here for another reason, like a play or a museum tour, but then Dad squeezed my hand and I was forced to remember the truth.

“I’m not,” I said again. But I still hesitated on the porch, and I didn’t move forward until Dad pulled me in after him.

The inside of the funeral parlor was stuffy and smelled like mildew and old lady. Like our attic back in July, the trapped, musty air swollen with the Missouri summer heat, all that wet in the air clinging to Mom’s Simon & Garfunkel CDs and all the boxed Christmas decorations. Moving felt more like swimming, and my legs felt heavier with every step.

The only light in the foyer came from the mustard-yellow glow of a tall lamp that stood beside a nice looking lady with long, dark hair. She smiled at me, and Dad let go of my hand to shake hers. I looked past her at the hallway that stretched all the way down to another screen door, this one leading right to the barren field that surrounded the house. I could only see two rooms from where I stood. One was clearly a kitchen, the white and yellow checkered tile visible from underneath the crack at the bottom of the door. The other room didn’t even have a door, just an empty archway. Beyond the empty doorway was a row of fold-out chairs. I edged forward, neck craning to see what they were facing, but Dad grabbed me back suddenly, his hand like iron wrapped around my wrist. I felt his sweaty thumb worm its way into the center of my palm and press hard.

“Not yet, Arthur,” Dad said to me. “You stay with Ms. Leland now. I’ll be right back.” I watched as he walked down the long hallway into the room with all the chairs. That must be where Mom is, I thought. I turned back to Ms. Leland, with her friendly face and pretty smile. I asked her a bunch of questions. Why she worked here (“Because I applied for a job.”), if she knew why the city cemetery was too full (“Because there are too many dead people and not enough space.”), if she ever saw the dead people before they died (“Rarely. I mostly meet them postmortem.”), what postmortem meant (“It means after a person dies.”).

“Do you touch them?” I asked her.

“Do I touch what?”

“The dead people. Are they cold?”

“Ah,” Ms. Leland sighed. I looked up when she didn’t say anything else for a few seconds and saw that

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she had pressed her lips together tight the way adults always did when I asked a question I wasn’t supposed to.

“Well, Arthur, they certainly don’t feel like you and me.”

“So, how do they feel?”

Ms. Leland told me that dead people felt like people, but unlike living people, dead people are stiff. They are rigid. Like clay, she said, once you put it into the kiln. I asked what a kiln was. She said to think of it as an oven. The oven heated the clay and made it hard. You could never reshape clay once it was heated up. I imagined a world full of clay people, hiding from the sun, not wanting to lose their mushy bodies. I thought of Mom, then; her thin arms, the way her knuckles seemed to bulge from her fingers, swollen like bee stings. When I asked her why she got so skinny when she was sick, she told me that cancer stole all her softness away.

“Will it come back?” I asked her.

“When I get better,” she told me, moving aside the tube in her nose to kiss my cheek. But she hadn’t gotten better. I wondered if cancer still worked postmortem, or if something else happened.

“What about after?” I asked Ms. Leland.

“I’m afraid I don’t understand what you’re asking, Arthur.”

“After you die,” I said, “what happens?”

“Hm,” Ms. Leland hummed softly. “I think that’s… Arthur, that’s a question you need to ask your father.”

“I already did on the way here,” I said, a little annoyed. “He said he doesn’t know.”

Ms. Leland nodded slowly. “No one really knows, Arthur,” she told me. “It’s one of life’s greatest mysteries.”

It seemed strange to me that despite all the people who have died in the world, no one knew what happened. I wanted to ask Ms. Leland more questions, but she had to leave when people showed up. It was her job, she told me, to greet people, to make them comfortable. I watched her open the door, take black coats and umbrellas and put them in a big closet. I saw my Aunt Jodi come in, my cousin Priscilla following her. Priscilla waved at me, and I hesitantly waved back, but then I saw Dad walking back toward me. “Arthur,” he said, “we can go inside, now.”

Just like that, every part of my body suddenly felt like it was balanced on something very high. One look down and I was sure I would topple over. When I got nervous, Mom always did something to make me feel better. She’d touch my shoulder or my head and smile. Dad told me that thinking of Mom might make me feel better, make me feel like she was still here, but thinking of her didn’t do that at all. It made me feel sick all over, like every piece of me was trying to fly away.

The room with the fold-out chairs was stuffed to the brim with flowers, every sort of daisy and rose and tulip twisted into a colorful wreath or squished into a vase to create an overflowing bouquet. Around the open casket, pretty yellow flowers with dark seedy middles spilled over the rim of their black planters. There were some ivy vines there, too. One vine had fallen into the casket. I stared as Ms. Leland carefully lifted it out. I thought of the clay people, watching each other turn stiff in the sun. No longer clay people. Dead.

I hadn’t yet looked into the casket. Instead, I sat in the very back row of chairs, watching the line of black shoes shuffle forward, and when I got bored of that, I watched my own shoes as I swung my legs back and forth.

The carpet brushed lightly against the toe of my velcro-strap sneakers every time I kicked them forward. At one point, Priscilla and Aunt Jodi tried to get me to get in line with them, but that ended with Priscilla pulling her mom away when she started trying to offer me a crumpled tissue from her purse. Dad was up front, and when he wasn’t talking to everyone, he was looking at me. I mostly kept my eyes on the floor and the blurry sight of my legs swinging underneath me, but every so often I’d look up and watch him shake hands with everyone, lean down to accept kisses on the cheek from the old church ladies and other sobbing women. I kept my eyes on him the entire time, and when he started to walk toward me, I stopped kicking my feet.

“Hey, buddy,” Dad said to me as he sat on the chair beside me. I drew my knees up to my chest, my whole body curled up on the seat of the chair. My arms wound themselves over my shins until I was all tight and small, and I felt like if I tried really hard, I could squeeze myself so small I’d be invisible. Dad sighed and leaned back, tucking his hands into his front pockets. The color of his slacks matched the gray metal fold-out chair he sat on. Together, we watched as the church ladies knelt on the bench in front of where Mom lay. I saw one wrinkly hand curl over the wooden edge of the casket and clench tight.

“You know,” Dad said to me after a long minute of silence, “you don’t have to be scared, Arthur. Mommy looks just like she’s sleeping.”

I was embarrassed with how he still called Mom “mommy” when he spoke to me. I wanted to tell him I

was too old to call her that, that that’s what babies called their moms and I was nearly eight, so I wasn’t a baby.

But my throat wouldn’t let any air out, so I just shrugged instead.

“It might be nice to see her, Arthur, before the funeral.”

I shrugged again.

“I’ll come up with you, if you want,” Dad offered. He leaned forward, swung an arm awkwardly over the back of my chair. I felt so small, all my parts folded neatly together, teetering on the edge of the chair. “Would that be okay, buddy? Just us and Mommy. How about that?”

This was his last attempt. I didn’t know how I knew it, but I did. I knew that if I shrugged again, or told him no, he would get up and go back to the front of the line, shaking hands and accepting kisses, squeezing shoulders and giving tight, shallow smiles. He would let me stay back here, away from him, and he wouldn’t ever say anything to me about it at all. He would let me swing my feet until the whole place was empty, until there was no one else here but me, him, Ms. Leland, and Mom. He wouldn’t like it, but he would let it happen.

When Mom told me she was sick again, I asked her why. I was crying because her getting sick meant her losing her honey-colored hair, meant weekend hospital visits and waking up in the morning to the sound of her vomiting in the bathroom down the hall. It meant our neighbor Mrs. Miller driving me to school and to the park because Mom was too tired to drive, too tired to take me to play-dates, too tired to do anything. I got mad at her. I yelled at her. I asked her why it kept happening, why she couldn’t just stay better.

She told me, “Sometimes things just happen, and I can’t do anything about them.”

“Well then you’re not trying hard enough,” I wailed.

“Arthur,” Dad said, pulling me out of my thoughts. He sighed and got up when I didn’t respond, but paused when I started to get up, too. I unraveled like a loose shoelace, legs and arms unfolding until I was big again and not sitting small and invisible on the uncomfortable chair. Dad grabbed my hand the entire time. He only let go when I stood on my tiptoes to try to see into the casket.

“Upsy-daisy.” I felt familiar hands grab around my waist. My stomach swooped at the sudden feeling of the ground leaving my feet, and I closed my eyes by reflex. For a second everything was dark and sudden and light. I could feel my heartbeat in my mouth; it pulsed heavy at the bottom of my tongue. I felt like a baby bird, tumbling from the nest. And just as suddenly as I was lifted from the ground, I was placed onto something. I opened my eyes and looked down and saw my two feet wobbling on top of the little wooden bar that the old church ladies had been kneeling on before. I also saw Mom.

When Mom was still alive, I would go to her bed every night before I went to my room. I’d lay beside her while Dad brushed his teeth in the bathroom, both of our backs flat on the bed, our heads sharing the same pillow, eyes looking at the ceiling and each other. Sometimes, when I was really tired, I’d roll over and press my face into Mom’s belly, the tip of my nose smushed against her skin. She’d breathe in and I’d feel the hollowness of her stomach, the hard lines of her ribs. I would hold my breath to hear her heart through her belly. Sometimes, I’d hear her stomach grumble, and we’d laugh together. Sometimes, I’d hear nothing but the sound of blood thrumming through her.

Right then, looking down at Mom’s body, I heard nothing at all. Not one word, not even a breath. Mom didn’t move, and neither did I. I listened for my own heart but heard nothing. People passed me without a word, so many that I thought that, during my time watching Mom, I had died, too. I imagined it, my silent corpse standing up, the ugly fluorescent light too bright on me like spotlights illuminating a statue. My lungs ached in my chest; I wasn’t breathing.

“Arthur,” Dad said, but I was already leaving, awkwardly shuffling past the old church ladies, who were still sobbing into a single cruddy handkerchief they passed around to one another, past Priscilla, who had stuck her gum to the rim of a Styrofoam cup and was nibbling on a shortbread cookie, past the flowers and Ms. Leland, past the empty archway without a door. I couldn’t breathe. By the time I reached the back door, I was gasping for air. I couldn’t have held my breath if it was a physical thing in front of me; there was nothing in my lungs, nothing at all, and I thought, Is this what it feels like to never breathe again? Is this how Mom feels?

And that’s when I found the bird. ¥

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¥

It was like someone had plucked it out of the sky and gently set it down to lie on its back in the middle of the moonlit farm, its brown and white feathered body laid bare against the soggy wet earth. It looked as soft

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60 didn’t want to cry. Only babies cried.

“I’m not mad at you, Arthur,” Dad told me again.

This time, his voice was soft and gentle. “I was just very worried about you. You can’t just run off like that.”

I nodded. “I’m sorry,” I said. My voice was soggy and wet, too slow-sounding to my ears.

“It’s okay, buddy,” Dad said softly. He had been tucking my shirt back into my trousers, and stopped, so half of the white fabric hung loose and wrinkled.

I shook my head and wringed my hands in the loose part of the shirt until I was clenching the fabric so tight, my hands burned. “I’m really sorry.”

Dad grabbed my hands and held them for a moment before going back to tucking in my shirt. “I know Arthur. Just don’t run off, next time.”

I nodded my head.

“Okay,” I said. He didn’t ask about where I ran off to, or why. He just patted me dry with cheap paper towels and kissed my forehead. Nothing else was said at all. Before we left, Dad gave me his suit jacket to wear over my mud-stained white shirt. It hung down to the bend of my knees like a dress. In the mirror I saw how ruffled my

as a dream, and for an instant, I believed I was imagining it. Maybe I really had stopped breathing, and this was some sort of dream I was having while, in reality, I was passed out inside the funeral parlor. The bird’s beak was parted open so that I could see the soft whitish-pink roof of its mouth, the same color of my upturned palm. It was a sparrow, I realized. I saw them all the time outside in the yard.

The dirt, still soaked and soggy from the rain that had passed over us last night, seeped into the knees of my trousers as I dropped down to the ground in front of it. I wanted a closer look, wanted to see how close I could get to the bird’s still body. Slowly, carefully, I lay on my side next to it. My elbow made a squelching noise in the mud. Laying this close, I could see the brown feathers that lined its wings, a shock of dark color against the ivory white of its breast. This close, I could see the unnatural bend in one of its wings, the fact that some feathers stuck awkwardly out from it, matted together with something thicker than water.

I don’t know how long I lay there. Without me noticing, my breath had come back to me. I heard the screen door open, its creak vibrating in the dirt underneath me. “He’s outside!” Someone shouted—it was Ms. Leland, her mellow shout frightening and familiar all at once. Without even thinking, I grabbed the bird. It was so warm, so still. In my hands, it suddenly writhed, and I almost dropped it. The bird wasn’t dead, I realized.

People were coming. I could hear them coming up behind me. I knew I couldn’t let them see the bird.

It’s heartbeat was fast but frail, a fragile, frequent pulse against the flesh of my hand. I had felt that pulse before Mom died, my face tucked into her neck, felt my tears dry against her hot skin, felt the way her heart beat hesitantly until it slowed to nothing.

Mom died, but she hadn’t been alone. She had Dad on one side and me on the other. The bird had no one except for me. ¥

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Aunt Jodi was the one to drag me inside. She was crying again, pulling me by the arm and demanding to know why I ran away, if I enjoyed scaring everyone, if I realized how dirty I was now. Her voice was thick and soggy. In her panic she kept touching me, rubbing my arms and squeezing my shoulders. I felt all hot and nervous inside, and all I could think was Don’t check my pockets, don’t check my pockets. I kept thinking it until there were no other words in my head, until all of what Aunt Jodi was saying were just a low hum in my ears. Finally, she leaned back, cupped my face in both of her hands, and asked, “Oh, Arthur, what would your mother say?”

“Jesus, Mom,” Priscilla hissed. She was chewing her gum again, and it made all of her vowels long and slow. “You can’t say that. Come here, Arthur.” She touched my head and I twisted away. Dad was right behind me, and I bumped into him, my head knocking into his hip. He gently moved me to the side and stepped in front of me.

“For Christ’s sake, Jodi, let him breathe for a minute,” he said. I looked around and realized everyone was staring at us, at me. My face was warm and wet from crying, but my body was cold. I was trembling all over, and my teeth knocked together without me meaning to. I looked up at Dad and he looked down at me, and then he slowly reached out his hand. “Come on, Arthur, it’s alright. Let’s get you cleaned up.”

Dad took me to the tiny bathroom and helped clean my face with the pink soap from the silver dispenser on the wall to clean my face and hands and arms. I squirmed around the entire time, nervous and jittery. I had the bird in my pocket, and no one knew about it except for me.

“C’mon Arthur,” he said, the third time after I jerked away without meaning to. He was getting frustrated. I could see it in how the skin of his jaw was tense as he clenched his teeth, could see it every time he yanked a paper towel from the dispenser, sudden and fast, a loud ripping noise filling the air every time, followed by the slow whirr of the dispenser unraveling another sheet. I thought of Dad holding my hand, how gentle he always was when he tugged me along. He wasn’t being gentle now, hands rough as they scrubbed my face and raised my shirt to dry my stomach and ribs. The entire room smelled like cotton candy and bubblegum from the soap.

Mom never acted like this when she was upset with me. Mom always asked why I did things in a nice way, sitting me down beside her and letting my head rest on her bony shoulder.

“You’re mad,” I told Dad. My voice sounded thick and wet like it did when I was sick. My chin trembled and my eyes burned. I felt all hot inside, just like before I ran outside, only now I couldn’t run because I was stuck in the bathroom with Dad and a dying bird in my pocket.

Dad sighed. “I’m not mad, Arthur,” he said. His voice was tight and clenched, as if it had to squeeze through the spaces between his straight teeth before coming out his mouth.

Then why are you being so rough? I wanted to ask, but I knew that if I opened my mouth, I would cry. I

Two Birds Kathleen Quaintance

hair was, how my eyes were still wide and wild. I still felt sorry, like a giant weight was sitting on my chest, but I couldn’t say why. I didn’t even know why. Maybe this is how the people outside all felt, saying sorry over and over again even though they did nothing wrong. Or maybe I missed Mom so terribly that I didn’t know what else to do except apologize for it. ¥

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I stood up front with Dad as they lowered the casket. They were burying Mom deep in the earth, and the hole in the ground was like a void, so dark I thought that if I fell into it, I might pop out on the other side of the Earth. I asked Dad why they were burying Mom so deep, and he told me it was because when it was his turn to die, he was going to be buried in the same place.

I looked around us. There were only a few graves in the corner of the old sunflower farm, most of them fresh, the dirt still a dark earthy mound, small sprouts of clover and grass blooming on the edges. I didn’t understand why Dad wouldn’t want to be buried next to Mom, instead of on top of her. More than that, though, I

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couldn’t understand why he was thinking of being buried at all.

“Won’t you be too heavy?” I asked him. There was a pile of dirt beside the open hole, taller than even me.

That much dirt could crush anything.

“No, Arthur,” Dad answered. “And even if I was, I don’t think Mommy would mind that much.”

As they put the dirt back into the hole and on top of Mom, I grabbed Dad’s hand. Despite how cold it was, my hands were wet and palmy, and I was sure he could feel it. But he never let go, even though it must’ve felt gross and weird. I put my other hand into my pocket and wrapped it around the little bird. I felt its body, small and warm, tremble in my grip. My two fingers rested right above its heart. It drummed heavy against the pads of my fingers, like the little muscle was fighting to get out, like the pressure from my fingers was the only thing keeping it inside. ¥

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When we got home, I ran up to my room. Dad shouted up after me, telling me I needed to clean up before I went to bed, but I raced up the stairs as if I didn’t hear him. I reached into my pocket and took out the bird. I could see it more clearly, now, could see every ruffled feathers and speck of dirt and pocket lint that had stuck to its tiny body. Its eyes were closed, and its heart was still, no longer beating.

In my closet, I found a shoebox for sneakers that didn’t fit me yet. I placed the sneakers in the corner and put the bird inside the box. It was so tiny, so little in my hands, and the shoebox was even bigger; far too big for the small sparrow. Inches of cardboard surrounded its still, small body. I thought of the hole in the ground before Mom was buried in it, an entire void of empty space, so much dirt on top of her to make room for Dad, who for some reason was already thinking of dying even though he wasn’t sick. I thought of the satin lining of the casket, the white expanse between the edge of the wooden box and Mom’s arms folded and resting on her belly. And then I closed the shoebox and shoved it underneath my bed and didn’t think at all. ¥

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For that first week after the funeral, every day was normal except for the fact that I didn’t go to school. I would wake up to either the sun shining through my window and hitting my face or to Dad gently shaking me out of my dreams. We ate breakfast and then we did everything around the house that we had neglected to do the past few months— all the mopping and dusting, the window-washing and organizing.

There was still a hospital bed in the living room, but we cleaned around it. It would be gone by the end of the week, Dad said. There might be scratches on the floor, he said, but once it was gone, it would be like it was never there at all. I think that fact was supposed to make me feel better about it, but as I dragged the white duster across the metal sidebars and remembered what I was thinking of last night, I felt worse than ever.

The only thing that made me feel okay was the bird. Every morning after I woke up to the sound of Dad in the kitchen, or to the sleepy sight of him slipping around the corner after waking me, I would reach under my bed for the shoebox and open it up to look at the sparrow. The first day, I pressed my finger into its white-feathered belly to feel it. I wanted to see if it had gotten hard like Ms. Leland said it would. The feathers were soft, feeling almost sticky underneath the pad of my finger, but when I pressed down, the sparrow’s small body resisted. If I were to press harder, I was sure the bird would snap in half, rather than just squish under the force of my finger. I pulled my hand away at the thought of that, my chest strangely aching at the thought of the suddenness of the collapse, how terrible it would be to be cracked open.

The second day, the sparrow’s eyes clouded over, white like milk, as round and full as the moon had been when I found it. I wondered if human eyes did that, too. I hoped they didn’t, because that meant Mom’s eyes were cloudy and white, too, and I loved Mom’s eyes, big and brownish-green. I never wanted them to change.

After three days, my room began to smell. The air was thicker, mustier, just like the funeral parlor, all wormy and damp. I noticed that there were flies in my room, though I had no idea how they even got there.

They buzzed loud, their plump black bodies bouncing off of the ceiling and the walls. I went to sleep with the covers over my head; the stench was so thick that I tasted it in the back of my throat, and I didn’t want the flies crawling on my face. I woke up in the middle of the night, feeling nauseous and dizzy from the smell, and lowered myself to the ground to see the bird. I noticed that the closer to the box I was, the stronger the smell.

The bird looked darker, and it didn’t seem as soft. I no longer felt any urge to touch it. I looked at it for

a long time, until the smell was so bad that I had to put it away again. Then I sat on the ground, waiting for the empty feeling in my throat to go away. I couldn’t get on top of my bed. I thought of my body sinking into the mattress, bending the wooden frame of the bed. I would crush the bird, I thought, even though I knew that wasn’t true because I had slept above it before. But I felt like I would, because the sparrow wasn’t freshly dead, anymore. It would no longer bend, it would only break. I remembered the dirt beside Mom’s open grave, how big it seemed, how heavy, how all of it now rested on top of her. ¥

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Every night for the rest of that week, I would wake up in the middle of the night from terrible dreams that I could never remember in full, just flashes of details that were gone by morning; beaks pecking me apart, flies crawling into the holes of my ears and out of my nostrils, the ground sucking me down and burying me deep within itself. Each time I woke up, I would get up and check on the bird to make sure it was still there.

Sometimes I stroked its small head like Mom used to stroke mine when I got nightmares. I would feel the feathers fall free from its skull and stick to my sweaty, trembling finger.

The sparrow was an ugly, dead thing. It was hard, mummified, its whole body oily and gross. I had seen this before. I had watched this cycle happen over and over again, my entire life. I had seen Mom get sick and get better only to get sick again, had seen her body melt away until she was nothing more than a living skeleton sat upright in a bendable bed in front of the television. Just a barely moving body with a shallow heartbeat that I only heard when I lay close and listened.

The morning of the seventh day, as I pet the sparrow, my fingers trembled as they ran over its belly. A bunch of feathers easily pulled away from the bird’s flesh at the simple brush of my finger against its chest. I stared at the spot of uncovered skin, at the way it seemed to be shrinking in on itself, skin sinking into the spaces between its ribs. Its feathers were shedding heavily; they stuck to the edges of the shoebox, revealing bruised and darkened skin underneath, freckled with gray pores. I noticed the sparrow had lost its eye; an empty, dry socket stared at me. That night, I couldn’t sleep. I was tired from constantly waking up in the middle of the night, but I was too scared to get any sleep. I didn’t want to keep having those terrible dreams. I didn’t want to keep having to deal with them alone.

The last time I had nightmares this bad had been when Mom was still alive. She had just been brought home from the hospital, and she had brought her bed with her. I woke up alone in my room, panting. I was so scared that I dry-heaved in the bathroom before going to Mom and Dad’s room, only to find the bed unmade with no one laying on top of it. I had been so scared, so frightened that I was alone, that I didn’t realize I had walked downstairs to the living room until I could hear the loud beeps from Mom’s hospital machines by her bed loud in my ear.

Mom was lying in the bed like she usually was, but Dad was lying beside her, his hand stroking her pale head, rubbing the bare skin above her ear. She usually didn’t let him touch her head when she was awake; only I could do it, because I loved the feeling of her head, no hair to cover the softness of her skin, all of it free to stroke and pet. Dad saw me but didn’t say anything, just raised his finger to his lips and bent his knees so I could crawl up into the bed, too.

I squeezed myself between them. Whenever we did this, Mom laughed and called it an Arthur sandwich.

My head rested in the narrow space between Mom’s shoulder and Dad’s chest, my toes curled into the bend of Mom’s knee. Everything was warm and time turned slow. I remember wishing I could lay there forever, never moving, just Mom and Dad and I, our eyes closed and our breaths quiet. ¥

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“You’re going to school tomorrow,” Dad told me Sunday evening. We were doing laundry together, and Dad had just taken a shower. He smelled like lilac, and I knew immediately he had used Mom’s shampoo. I felt my stomach tighten. If I could smell his shampoo, then surely he would be able to smell the dead bird from off of me. What if sleeping in the same room as the sparrow made its stench cling to my skin? What if I just couldn’t smell it because I was so used to it?

“Arthur, did you hear me?” Dad asked. “The school called. You’re going to go back tomorrow, okay? I’ll drive you in the morning for the first few days, but once I start work again, Mrs. Miller will drive you.” He was

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watching me carefully, something he only did when he expected me to get upset. My hands wrung themselves in the fabric of my shirt. I felt squeamish. This is what the bird must feel, I thought suddenly, every time I look at it.

“But I like staying home,” I mumbled. I didn’t like the smell of the dead sparrow, or the buzzing flies, or the scary dreams that woke me up in the middle of the night, but I liked staying home. School was long, boring, and terrible. “Who’s gonna drive me home?” I asked Dad.

“I will,” Dad answered. “I’ll pick you up from after-care once I’m done with work.”

I shook my head. I didn’t want to go to after-care. After-care was tired teachers putting on Disney movies and not liking it when I asked them questions. After-care was other kids complaining about their moms being late to pick them up, but I no longer had a mom to complain about. My hands started to shake. After-care meant that I wouldn’t be home to be with the bird; I was still waiting for something to happen, something to change. If I was at school, then I’d never see it. I crumpled up the hoodie in my lap and threw it away from me with an angry whine.

“Arthur,” Dad said, his tone sharp. But it was just a stupid sweatshirt, and I was too angry about school and after-care and not being able to watch the bird, so his anger didn’t scare me. I got up and ran up to my room, only slowing down to stomp up the stairs. I locked my door, something I knew I was never supposed to do but did anyway. I grabbed the shoebox from underneath my bed and, sitting with my back to the door, took out the sparrow, feeling the weight of its dead body with my hands. It didn’t feel like a real thing—it felt hollow.

Mom always lost weight when she was sick, the plumpness of her arms and thighs carving away week after week until she had legs as knobbly as mine, wrists so small I could enclose my whole hand around them. It’s the chemo, she always said, when she came back to the kitchen table after throwing up, when she brushed her hair too hard and a fat clump of it fell from her head to the bathroom floor.

There was a soft knock on the door, and I started from where I sat. The bird fell, hitting the wooden floor with a quiet thunk, and I quickly scooped it up and shoved it into the shoebox.

“Arthur?” Dad asked. The door handle jiggled and then stopped. “Arthur, open the door, please.”

I knew I was going to open the door, and I knew that when I did, Dad was going to find the bird. I don’t know how I knew it, but I did. I couldn’t pretend anymore.

I set the open shoebox on the ground, and then I opened the door.

Dad looked worried, his hands shoved deep in his pockets, his eyebrows pinched together above the bridge of his nose. I could see it in his face the second the smell hit him, his head pulling back and nose wrinkling before he looked down and saw the dead sparrow. Then he saw me, in my pajamas, standing above it, and his mouth parted open but no words came out, and something in his eyes changed, and I knew he was trying to understand.

“Arthur,” he said slowly, his face back to looking worried again, and I was tired of adults looking at me that way. Ms. Leland had looked at me that way, when I asked her about what happened after you died. Every neighbor had looked at me like that as they gave Dad fruitcakes and casseroles and plates full of tuna sandwiches.

My teachers would probably look at me like that too at school tomorrow. I just wanted to be looked at normally.

Mom would have looked at me normally. I couldn’t help it anymore; I started to cry.

“Oh, Arthur,” Dad sighed. He stepped over the open shoebox with the dead sparrow and grabbed me suddenly, pulling me towards him.

“I didn’t know,” I sobbed. My words sounded strange and muffled against his stomach. “I didn’t know what would happen.”

“It’s okay.”

I shook my head so fast and closed my eyes so tight that I saw little swirls and spirals of color. “It smells,” I said, “and there are flies everywhere, and it’s eye is gone, and it’s- it’s-”

“It’s dead, Arthur,” Dad said, as if I didn’t know that already. When really, I knew that all too well.

“I know,” I croaked, but I didn’t know that this was a part of death. All I knew was what Ms. Leland had told me about the clay people in the oven. Once you were dead, you were hard and still, and to me that meant you never moved, you never changed. I didn’t know about how gross a dead thing could be. I didn’t know that it smelled so bad that it felt like a burn all over your skin, like a spider-web in your throat. I didn’t know that flies liked dead things, that they ate your eyes. I didn’t know any of that.

“This is what happens, Arthur,” Dad said slowly, pulling away. “Things that die start to decompose.”

Decompose. I had never heard that word before, but somehow I knew it made perfect sense. I thought of the bird, the feathers falling from its body, its bare skin turning bruised and gray. I thought of Mom, her hair falling out in clumps, her skin growing small on her like a shirt shrinking in the wash. I watched her decompose

before my very eyes every time she got sick.

Ms. Leland had said that what happened after death was one of life’s greatest mysteries. When I slipped the dying bird into my pocket, I thought I could figure it out, like a detective following muddy footprints with his magnifying glass. The only other dead thing I knew was Mom, and I realized that what I saw in the bird was what I would see in her, if I ever dug her up.

I suddenly felt sad, so incredibly sad that it felt as if my body couldn’t hold all of it. Something was overflowing inside of me. Everything was wrong, even though nothing had even happened. “I’m sorry,” I said, and yet it wasn’t enough. I felt more than guilty; I felt sick, like all my insides had come to life and were trying to leave my body. I closed my eyes tight and tried to calm down and just breathe, but I couldn’t. The last time I felt like this, I had run out of the funeral home outside, but now there was nothing to run to. There was just nothing. I felt hollowed out and empty, just like the bird.

I realized that this was what happened after you died. You turn stiff and a few days later you turn smelly.

And then you turn shallow, all of your parts pushing in in in until your ribs rise above your skin, until every part of you is open and just the vague shape of you remains. Death leaves nothing soft behind—the things that stay are the hard edges, the things that cut. You become a hollowed out shell, a thing, missing everything vital, made up of parts that don’t even matter. ¥

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We buried the sparrow outside in the corner of the yard that very night. Dad let me hold the flashlight while he got on his knees and dug. I watched the shiny fabric of his winter coat stretch over his wide shoulders as he forced the tiny shovel into the nearly frozen earth, working it in by wiggling the handle back and forth until the chunk of dirt and rock came loose. Over and over again, until there was a small, deep hole, illuminated by the flashlight’s white glow.

The hole wasn’t big enough to fit the shoebox, so Dad removed the lid and let the sparrow fall into the hole before he started to pack the dirt on top of it. I watched as its small body, once thrumming with life in my cupped hands, disappeared under the heavy lumps of dirt and stone. It was cold outside, but I felt numb for an entirely different reason. Even though Dad was right beside me, standing on his feet and dusting the dirt off of his jeans, I felt so alone. I stood there, staring at the freshly covered hole with its hazy white flashlight halo, and I thought of Mom being lowered into the deep, dark grave, an open mouth in the earth. I thought, She’s stuck there, in the ground, all by herself. Everything in my body felt like it had rotted. ¥

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Late that night, when Dad was asleep and I was once again woken up by a nightmare, I ran outside barefoot. The moon was only half full, and the sky was completely clear. The stone path twinkled underneath my feet, colder than anything I’d ever felt. I felt carsick. Can you still feel carsick from the car ride you had the week before? My throat felt achy and empty like it always did before I threw up. I hunched over and opened my mouth but nothing came out, so I kept walking until I reached the place where we buried the bird.

The earth crunched beneath my knees as I lowered myself onto them. I dug everywhere. I felt for feathers, bones, anything, but all I grabbed was dirt. I sat back on my heels. Layers and layers of mud were trapped underneath my fingernails. A pebble had jammed its way past my nail bed, and a dark purple bruise started to stain the skin underneath it. I didn’t care. I didn’t care about any of it.

I walked back inside. My bare feet left muddy footprints on the kitchen tile, on the stairs, on the creaky floor of the hallway as I walked slowly to Mom and Dad’s room. I saw Dad sleeping on his side, back facing me, head tilted towards the empty side, one arm outstretched across it. I crawled up onto the bed and lifted his arm out of the way. I felt the exact moment he woke up, the way his stomach lurched and his head snapped up, staring straight at me before he slowly laid back down. I was still holding his arm, and I carefully draped it over me so his wrist hung limp over the jut of my shoulder. When I closed my eyes, I felt him move his arm so his hand could cradle the back of my head, and he slowly pulled me closer until there was no space between us. I didn’t say anything. He didn’t say anything, either.

65 Wherever I Am AJ Baldwin the world sings silent on your favorite morning and

I never learned how to open my heart

first thing, but

I think the next time you put your mouth in front of mine I

will close my eyes and I will smile

and I will say

isn’t it nice out?

And

doesn’t it feel like blooming?

and you will say

I am falling into hands that are not my own, only I will pretend

not to hear you.

The Pursuit of Happiness in Seven Easy Steps Lauren Mesley

I’m going to tell you how to taste happiness.

In order to taste happiness, you must first know what it looks like.

Happiness is a golden piece of clay. It’s about the size of the palm of your hand, and you can mold it into any single shape you want. It smells like warmth, and it’s softer than the clouds. Happiness tastes like cookie dough, and it melts in your mouth when you take a bite. It fills your stomach with a tingling sensation and the side effects include smiling or laughing.

Everyone wants to taste happiness. Many argue the reason all of us humans are here, living on this Earth is for the pursuit of happiness. Which is why you’re reading this today, I suppose. You want to know how to make it yours.

I should warn you that telling you how to get it and actually doing it are very, very different things.

But, you knew that.

Step One:

Wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, whoever you’re with, drop everything and lay down on the ground. Place your ear against the wooden floors, or carpets, or grass, or cement, and listen very carefully.

If you hear a cello, you are not welcome in the caverns of happiness, and therefore should not pursue them.

If you hear a harp, count to 31, and stand straight up. The harp music will stay attached to your ears so you can hear it wherever you go.

Step Two:

Report to the closest post office near you and ask the clerk for “exactly 4,159 stamps for the Queen of England, and make sure the stamps are doubly-serrated.” The clerk will know exactly what you mean and show you to the basement of the post office.

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Step Three:

Once in the basement, there will be a medieval-looking door to your right that doesn’t seem to belong anywhere, let alone where it has been placed. Approach this door, and the clerk will leave you alone.

Take both your hands, cup them under your ears, and catch the harp music while it pours out of your ears like milk. Splash the harp milk at the door, and the door will open. (If you throw cello water at the door, it will not open. So, do not try.)

Step Four:

Through the door, there will be a stone tunnel. The walls will be dripping with fool’s gold. You will have an intense desire to take the fool’s gold and leave the happiness behind. You must fight this desire.

When you get to the end of the tunnel, there will be a ladder made of purple neon lights. Climb down and plant your feet on the ground.

Step Five:

At the bottom of the ladder, there will be a golden retriever puppy in the middle of a large cavern.

Do not be fooled by the puppy’s twinkling eyes and sparkly nose–she is the cleverest creature in all of existence. The puppy will introduce herself and explain that you have to throw the ball for her 26 times in order to pass. When you do, and she retrieves it for the 26th time, she will tell you that she had been counting, and that you actually threw it 27 times. She will try to convince you that you counted wrong, but you mustn’t believe her. You are correct. To distract her, throw the ball one last time, and make a run for the doorway on the opposite side of the cavern.

Step Six:

In the threshold of the doorway, the floor will fall out from under you and you will be dropped into a twisty slide that is lit up with fake candles. Grab your favorite candle on your way down.

Step Seven:

The mouth of the slide will open up into a giant underground atrium. You will see openings across the cavern walls from other post offices all around the country. Other people may be down there with you, but I recommend keeping to yourself.

There will be a donation box a few feet in front of you. Please donate the candle you chose on the way down. We send them to people who may never be invited to the caverns of happiness. They’ll need it more than you do.

The cavern ceiling will be covered in a thick layer of happiness. The little clay balls grow off each other, and when they are ripe, they fall onto the stone floor. I’m sure you’ll have noticed the pile of thousands and thousands of balls of happiness in the middle of the cavern by now. You may take your pick of whichever ball you’d like. I’ve had the best success will balls of happiness that glow brighter than the rest of them.

Here are the rules: you may not take home more than one ball of happiness, and no one else may take a bite of your happiness. Not your friends, not your family, not your lovers. When the world is ready for them, they will also hear the harp. But for now, they will hear the deep, enchanting bellow of the cello. If you share your happiness with anyone, every party involved will be forbidden from ever pursuing happiness again. This can be found in section 17B of The World Happiness Rulebook and is non-negotiable.

Please enjoy your pursuit of happiness! Every person’s journey is different, and involves different emotions, thoughts, and ideas. These steps may sound bizarre, but I swear to you, if you follow the instructions, you will get there. You will taste happiness.

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68 bubbling skin sulfur, gin

thin papyrus waterskin

pious fairies’ ancient hymn

pickled pincers, long and slim periwinkle pallypat unassuming bowler hat handsome broker’s dandruff flakes laughing spiders fizzy cakes felted pet on felted table fog unspooled behind the stable platinum brine sable wine fettered time fettered lime pine green angel shrine sudden shipwreck left unseen lily-livered kidney bean

and a whole lotta morphine

Amber Underwater Miles Memory Evil Queen’s Potion Zab Tesler tongue-tied snake’s eyes

sizable lullaby

bifocaled horse fly flying horses (pegasi) pestering pembleweed pebbles lodged in jogger’s knees boar’s throat Tweedledum struck dumb frog’s thumb log lumps spine bumps umbrella stumps (fresh & clean) sweet salted walnut soup sap thrown in chicken coup high steed with silver mane cellophane opossum brain

Recovery Sarah Morse

69 Mvmt III: Comforting Thoughts and Gentle Tones a textual score for a meditation on sound Kat Carlsen Position yourself comfortably.

Close your eyes or lower your gaze.

Take a deep breath and focus your attention on the sounds that fill the space around you.

What sounds can you discern that are nearby?

Take a deep breath.

What sounds can you discern that are distant?

Can you attend to multiple sounds at once?

Consider the qualities of the sounds you hear.

Consider how these sounds are making you feel.

Are any sounds familiar?

Are any sounds unfamiliar?

Listen to the sounds in front of you, and behind you.

Listen for sounds above you, and below you.

70 Let your mind be inspired by warmth and comfort, and imagine a tone in your mind that feels good to you.

Take the time to imagine a tone that makes you feel good.

Imagine the tone emanating from deep inside.

Take a deep breath and let the tone hum in your mind.

Take a deep inhale and, when you’re ready, gently release your warm tone.

You don’t have to sound loudly or clearly.

Just release the warmth of the sound into the space around you.

How does this feel in your body?

Take a deep breath and exhale your sound again.

Listen to the harmony you are creating with your environment.

Link your sound-making to your breath, and gently release your tone a few more times. ¥

When you’re ready, open your eyes and bring your attention back into the room.

Is there any sound that feels warm?

Listen for a moment and seek warmth in a sound.

(It’s okay if you couldn’t find warmth) Take a deep breath and prepare to turn your attention inward and draw upon memory.

Call to mind a sound that makes you feel warm, and comforted.

Maybe sounds alone don’t have comforting identities.

Think of any comforting memory, something that makes you feel good.

Maybe the memory involves a loved one, or a personal success, or a joyful day.

Try to envision the moments of the memory with clarity, and ask yourself what sounds you can remember.

Maybe the comforting voice of a loved one, or the weather on the day of the event.

Find warm sound within the memory and fill your mind with the warm sound.

Now imagine yourself humming a gentle pitch in response to your warm memory.

¥

Release your sound one final time.

Extend your ears in all directions.

Take a deep breath.

¥

Nebbia Cecilia Cuddy

71

72

Meet the Editors!

Any last words?

Mattias Apse, a sophomore, is the Review’s poetry editor and concentrates in queer literature. They are quarantined somewhere. When they meet their inevitable demise, their last words will be, “Love, you ever want me, don’t...”

Steven Orlofsky, a sophomore, is the other editor-in-chief of the Sarah Lawrence Review. His last words would probably be spent expressing some measure of regret at the little moments he allowed to pass him by, now irretreivably lost, to be discovered in the backseat of a Turkish cab, nestled within the 'B' section of the Argentine National Library, or sinking slowly to the bottom of the Hudson. Maybe something like, "I don't want to live like this... but I don't want to die."

Jamie Chen is a sophomore at Sarah Lawrence College and one of the copy editors for the Review. Her goals in life include: 1) meeting a giant panda and 2) being the first result when you Google her name (she bets you can’t find her now). Ideally, her last words will be something cool and memorable, but in reality, it will most likely be something boring like “I...want...water...please.”

Zoe Patterson is a senior and one of the prose editors for the Sarah Lawrence Review. She is passionate about hundred-year-old books, footnotes, and the cowboy emoji.

Nora Della Fera is a copy editor at the Sarah Lawrence Review. A transfer student and second-semester senior, she studies primarily writing and art history. In her free time (there is a lot of it these days!), she likes to read memoirs, hang out with her dogs, and think longingly about Ira Glass. On her current reading list is “The Seven Good Years” by Etgar Keret and “South and West” by Joan Didion, as well as a backlog of copies of The New Yorker.

"C’est La Vie." Those are Marie Rapert’s last words before she was crushed by a large pile of books in the labyrinth that is her home library. When she was not playing guitar or working on a painting, she could always be found curled up amid the vast shelves and sipping a large cup of tea with honey. She was a dedicated member of the Sarah Lawrence College community as well as a Publicity Editor for the SLC Review. Here lies Zegita Marie Rapert. RIP.

Magdalena Deniz is a first year at SLC, and spends her time as poetry editor for the Sarah Lawrence Review as well as fiction editor for the Croaker. She’d rather death sneak up on her, but if she did have to choose her last words, they’d probably be a simple goodbye.

Hailey Sprinkles is a senior at Sarah Lawrence College and one of the prose editors for the Sarah Lawrence Review. Her last words shall remain as mysterious as she is.

Ash Freeman’s last words would be “Nibble again, fish nerves” which is a line from Roethke’s “The Lost Son.” They have an affinity for all things snail and sapphic. In addition, they are a current first year and one of the poetry editors for the Sarah Lawrence Review.

I am Rachel Han, a visual arts editor. Sorry for sending this late. Here is my bio. I am glad that I joined the review this year to see these creative works in the first hand. My last words would be “To say goodbye is to die a little.”

Abigail Munson is a junior and one of the editors-in-chief of the Sarah Lawrence Review. She is deeply interested in the torrid history of the butter knife, and her last words would be: I loved my foolish life.

Love, a fool.

Jenna Tyrrell is a sophomore and one the Sarah Lawrence Review’s social media editor. I feel like last words are most memorable when the speaker knows they are dying, so hopefully mine won’t be too memorable. I’d like to say “good night” or “see you tomorrow,” or something like that.

Sam Wojcik is a first year and the visual arts editor of the Sarah Lawrence Review. Her areas of interest include games, film, and literature. As an artist she primarily works traditionally, using pencils, oil paints, and acrylics.

Her last words would probably be “uh oh”, which were coincidentally her first words as well.