Phoenix - Spring 2016

phoenix LITERARY ARTS MAGAZINE

ISSUE 58 VOLUME 2 SPRING 2016

2016 PHOENIX STAFF EDITORIAL STAFF

SUPPORT STAFF

Stephen Johnson Editor-in-Chief Conner Bradshaw Art Editor

Grant Barbour Macie Hatmaker Michaela Roach Jesselyn Voysey Abe Youssif

Shelby Tansil Poetry Editor

FACULTY ADVISOR

Alexandria Green Fiction Editor

Rachel Wedding McClelland

Katrina Roberts Design Editor Tristiny Bell Assistant Design Editor

Lost in Transformation Mark Bender archival ink jet

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I

n my experience, the most exciting aspect of the creative process is that, no matter how much careful planning you put into a work of art, the final product is always a surprise. In my three semesters working at the Phoenix, I’ve learned that building a magazine is no different. Each semester we start with a dedicated team of students with a passion for publishing who gather submissions of art, fiction, and poetry from the student body. We then spend hours pouring over the hundreds of submissions that we receive, and from these we assemble the magazine piece by piece. The end result of this process is a collection of quality artwork that is more than the sum of its parts, a magazine that is representative not just of the artists who submitted, but of the University of Tennessee as a whole.

After all of the reading, editing, designing, and proofreading, by the end of the semester the staff, like our magazine’s namesake, is pretty burnt out. Next semester, a new Phoenix will rise, with a different staff and different submissions. It will take a different form, tackle different subjects, and inspire a different group of students to create art. At the same time, this new incarnation of the Phoenix will continue our longstanding tradition of collecting and presenting the richest and most creative visual and literary art that students from all across campus have to offer.

I can honestly say that nothing has made me more proud to be a student of the University of Tennessee than my time here, and it has been my pleasure to serve as Editor-in-Chief for my final semester at UT. Each and every issue of the Phoenix is something to be proud of. They are lenses through which we can view the culture of this university and the incredible abilities of its students. I’d like to thank our wonderful staff advisor Rachel McClelland for always being available to help with our endless supply of questions, the Phoenix staff for dedicating their time and energy to creating this issue, and every student who sent us submissions for making this magazine possible.

Stephen Johnson Editor-in-Chief

COVER

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Table of Contents Fiction We are God by Taylor Olson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Poetry Mirror People by Taylor Olson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Y’allComeBackNow by Katie Myers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Tohu by Peter Cates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Bone Burial by Spencer Trent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 His Favorite Old T-Shirt by Lauren Yount . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Costa Rica Crunch by Aaron Collier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Starshine by Aaron Collier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Late Bird by Morgan Tate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

Art

INSIDE COVER Gluttony Kari Cottrell digital/vector

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Càllate by Santiago Ortizi-Piazuelo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Cherished Blemishes by Katelyn Franklin . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Myrtle Beach ‘58 by Katelyn Franklin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Disappearing Ground by Jonathan Dudley . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Cover Me by Ashley Layendecker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Plant in a Foreign Land by Fern Carpenter . . . . . . . . . 10 Sap by Kayla Rumpp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Prehensile by Santiago Ortizi-Piazuelo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Lucidity 2 by Nick Brown . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Missing the Point by Alexander Rudd . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Chipotledamnburrito by Ally Ward . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16-17 Figure Study 3 by Jonathan Dudley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 The Twister by Casey Perfetto . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Self Portrait at Dixie Lee Junction by Laura Lambert . . . . 21 Peep Show by Ross Landenberger . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Holy Ideation by Kia Schaefer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Wrangling the Anima by Lindsey Orrin . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Lighthouse by Makenzy Moore . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Satori by Nick Brown . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Knoxville: Meet Your Neighbors! by Todd Amacker . . . 30 Lost in Transformation by Mark Bender . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

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CĂ llate

Cherished Blemishes Katlyn Franklin acid dye and hand embroidery on linen

Santiago Ortiz-Piozuelo screen print and letter press

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nklin and inen

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Mirror People

Mirror People

by Taylor Olson

There are people in my mirror, I say. The whoosh of words burns my throat on its journey up, but at least they’re out,

they’re out at least, I think.

She looks up at me from the pink magazine in her lap, the one she pulls out from under the coffee table whenever my sister needs a new dress, one that will bring out

the green in her eyes and the red in her hair.

She looks at me, my brown eyes and brown hair

that others slide over, like butter in a pan.

She looks at me, my plain face and thick glasses—

I’ll be a very successful librarian, some day.

You’ve always had such an imagination, she says, but her eyes have already made their way back down to the glossed pages in her hands. Her laughter hurts. It falls on me, stifling.

The fear of my confession—choking me moments ago—leaves me hollow, now.

Hollowed out like the pumpkin in our front yard that I gutted, and

cried for gutting.

My room casts no light at the end of the hallway. I pass my sister’s room on the way, cross over the sweet pink light spilling from beneath the door.

It stains my toes.

I leave the lights off in my room—I won’t help the mirror people see any more than I have to. I can’t stop the light that seeps in during the day. My blankets hang over the windows

to dissuade it.

This is my favorite time of day—the night,

when no one can see me.

Not the mirror people, not even they

know what happens at night.

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Y’allComeBackNow

by Katie Myers I. when i wished you good-bye, i sank into myself i cried, yes, sorry, i cried. i knew then something should always make you sad like a little worm on your heart to make you hurt to give you some emptiness to fill.

Myrtle Beach ‘ 58 Katlyn Franklin digital photography

it is the filling of emptiness that builds you, but you are never really built, you are always a little empty. maybe that’s art.

heart. the beast sees, through many pairs of eyes all in the same moment

i haven’t been making any art.

III. i left the place without you my friends

II. WE MET, we smoked a lot

i am a soul without a body laughter without company. time, it passed like this time is time is time is three years passed like this

you two stooges and me, third stooge. less ourSELVES and more OURselves; a multi-legged multi-headed crying laughing loving beast miracles and whisky, open flames and vinegar, sound and fury sound and funk we cross worlds that lie between heart and

IV. in georgia we take a road trip, three years later

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Y’allComeBackNow continued and the trees are beginning to blossom, along the highway. the two valleys we live in are really the same valley, but the rivers are not the same river i say i think those who walk without sin are hungry i am: weed again, whisky again i am: a pair of eroded footprints in the sand. an empty seat at the table, they leave it for me time has not passed? time has passed for both of you, i see it. you sing, strumming your guitars over a rushing river; you are different and i am different and the days i’ve lived far away creep, creep begin to outnumber the days we’ve lived near. your music has a coherence it has never had, no, i don’t make art anymore, Ben. in the motel we could be forgotten. in the car we could be forgotten. stay left to reach birmingham.

I-40 goes west, all we have to do is follow. please don’t leave. look! mississippi - only a hundred miles. look! new orleans is right down the river. the whole country can open up to us road sign by road sign, just us three like old times. exit after exit.

Philip - keep driving. (night falls over the river

night falls in our motel room night falls and we go to sleep.)

V. till next year you will go to your cold place, soon the car sits, expectant

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Disappearing Ground Jonathan Dudley; acrylic, ink,

water color, house paint on canvas i will go to my rainy place, soon the car sits, waiting please remember we have made promises, you and you and i.

(i made two more seats at the table, here, for you; two more sets of footprints in the sand.)

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Cover Me

Ashley Layendecker gesso on denim with mesh on painted wall

Plant in a Foreign Land Fern Carpenter digital photography

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WE ARE GOD

by Taylor Olson

I The wind is aggressive tonight. It rushes up to me, whipping my hair about my face, lifting my sweatshirt and the ends of my thick scarf.

It tries to grip me with its cold fingers, but I bury my face deeper into the folds of cloth at my chin and close my eyes until it stops. I can hear my father trudging along in front of me.

When the wind settles into a softer caress, I continue on, trying to catch up with him. He seems completely unaffected by the cold. He seems to be above it. I can see no sign of discomfort or unease in his straight back, or his even shoulders.

The wind is disturbing everything around him, the branches of the trees and the leaves on the ground, even his daughter; but it doesn’t touch him. This is a man who is better than the wind.

Or maybe he just doesn’t feel it.

I shove my hands into the pockets of my sweatshirt and hurry to walk beside my father. He looks so different now, than he used to. His face is shrouded by more than just the hood of his black sweatshirt. His stride is longer, more purposeful. He doesn’t seem distracted, like he was. I remember when my mother would get annoyed when we were all out together, and he would lag behind the rest of us, some thing or person having caught his attention. I start

to smile at the memory, but then look around where I am right now, and remember what happened to change everything.

I look up at my father. He doesn’t look down at me, or even really acknowledge that I am here with him.

I have a feeling that he is acting no differently now than he would if I had not come with him. He occasionally mutters. Even this close to him, I can’t understand his words.

My gaze drops to the large lump in his jacket pocket, and I think I can guess what he is saying to himself.

I just don’t think that he can do it. My father, the man who used to love to tell me the story of how he fainted in the hospital room while I was being born, and how he cried like the baby I was when the nurse placed me in his arms. My father, the only dad who actually got excited about the father-daughter dance at my elementary school every year, and would buy me the nicest flowers he could find at the grocery store, presenting them to me as if they were diamonds when I came down the stairs. My father, who has not said one word to my mother or me for seven months, since my sister was murdered.

And my father, the man who is walking with this long purposeful stride through these woods to kill the man who murdered her: Jack.

The leaves crunch under our every step, and I feel like we are intruding on this otherwise peaceful forest. The branches swing low, blocking our path and forcing us to maneuver around them, as if they are urging us to turn back.

I begin to see a dim light in the distance ahead of us. That must be it… Jack’s house. I look up at

my father. The light is glowing in his eyes, growing brighter, and he looks as if he is heading towards the gates of heaven.

My fingers begin to itch and tingle, bile forms in the pit of my stomach. What if he goes through with this? Will I stop him? Will I help him? Or will I just stand by, watching, while he does it?

A loud crack rings through the forest. I jump, gripping my father’s arm. And then I realize that I just stepped on a tree branch. I choke out a wheezing laugh and glance at him.

He doesn’t look at me.

II The house is smaller than I thought it would be. It’s just a brick box, really.

My father and I are laying on our fronts, beneath some thick bushes and pine trees, watching Jack’s house. We have been here longer than it took us to walk through the forest—which I estimated to be about an hour. But this whole time, while I have been shifting and trying to arrange myself more comfortably, my father hasn’t moved a muscle. He is resting on his elbows, with his hands folded neatly together. His hood has fallen back some, so I can see his full profile.

His eyes have not moved from the house. If I were to reach out and wave my hand in front of his face, I don’t think his gaze would waver.

Not for a second.

I have had enough time here to memorize every detail of the place.

There is just enough light coming from the porch-lamp to see by. The place is in complete disarray. The

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TOHU

by

Pe t

er

“Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters” –Genesis 1:2

Ca

te

s

Sap

Kayla Rumpp acrylic and glue on wood

I once heard it said that people only jump in the ocean when it’s safer than the land I said something along those lines when I was explaining to my father the appeal of the distance between the bridge and the riverbed He told me that when I was a baby he would stand in a warm shower with me suckling his neck, and that’s what love is It’s something like how I’m drenched in your sex sweat with our legs tangled on the linoleum floor of your dorm room And now I only listen to that song you used to love when I take warm showers Last time I went sailing I found myself laughing over misty sea swells as the sticky salt water splashed against my face I think it was my skin reminding me that I was baptized in my little boy swim lessons to keep from drowning 12 Layout Design 2016 bleed.indd 12

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Sap

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Santiago Ortiz-Piozuelo stamps on dictionary page

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Prehensile

mpp wood

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Lucidity 2

Nicholas Brown acrylic

Missing the Point

Alexander Rudd acrylic on canvas

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WE ARE GOD continued brick is old and crumbling, the roof looks to have more than a few holes in it, there is one window that I can see and it has a thick layer of some sort of slime covering it. The trees surrounding it are all dying, and not because of the harsh winter.

There is a faint but distinct stench wafting through the wind to my nose, and I know comes from the house.

I wonder why Jack is living like this. From what I know of him, he comes from a good home. His family is wealthy, and paid for his top-notch education, both in high school and college.

I remember meeting Jack the first time, a few years ago. I didn’t think anything was wrong, then.

My parents loved him, and would constantly invite him to our house for dinner. I never really had an opinion. He was just someone who existed, and happened to start showing up at my house more and more.

My sister would always come home from her dates with him sporting some new gift—diamond earrings, designer shoes, a famous artist’s painting. And then the ring.

The ring that seemed like it should have weighed her arm down, or made metal detectors beep in airport security. The ring that put such a smile on her face that even I couldn’t help but share in her happiness.

A loud rumble dissolves my sis-

ter’s smile from my mind. It sounds like a truck—a very loud truck— and it is coming up the gravel road, toward the house.

I look up in fear at my father. He has raised himself up on his hands in anticipation. He is not afraid, or even concerned. He is excited.

I watch the headlights make their way on the gravel road, toward us.

The lights blind me, and I am sure that whoever is driving can see us through the dried twigs of this brush.

The headlights shed light on the dead bushes and gravel driveway leading up to the house. Jack’s truck pulls up, quickly, and for a moment I think he is going to crash right into us. But he swerves sharply to the left, and his tires throw some gravel our way. When I raise my face back up, brushing some dirt from my eyes, I see him stumble out of his truck. That shiny black Chevy that I used to see my sister get into all the time. The last time I saw her alive, she was climbing into that truck. I remember testifying to that fact. Little good did it do.

My stomach churns, as if I have eaten something rotten. Bile rises to my throat, and I turn my face aside and throw up beside me. It’s yellow, and mixes with the dried leaves on the ground. I consider how unnatural it looks—it’s almost neon—compared to all the browns and greens of the forest. It makes me feel like we are trespassing on more than just this property. We are violating the forest itself…

But then it soaks into the ground, and I brush some leaves over it to cover up both the stain and the smell. As my stomach settles, I peek at my father. He is still on

his hands, watching Jack lock the truck.

It feels wrong, being here. Somehow, this is wrong. The sweet smell of my sickness beside me reinforces that we should not be here, now.

The dry twigs and leaves of the bushes crowd me. They stick my cheeks and tangle into my hair, while just a few seconds ago, I had a comfortable space in the middle of them all. I think they know why I am here, me and my father, and they are telling us to leave.

I turn to my father, a large breath held in my breast, prepared to ask him if we can go home. But he is no longer beside me. Frantic, my eyes scan the surrounding forest behind me—perhaps he went back, and just forgot I was here? Maybe he realized at the same time that I did that what he was planning on doing goes against the very laws of nature.

But then I hear the screen door slam at the house, and nearly break my neck whipping back around.

My father crouches behind the truck, just outside the pool of light in front of the house. And then he begins to creep forward, toward the door.

III The inside of the house looks much like the outside dictated that it would.

There are old fast food bags and drink cups, which have either molded over or spilled. Pools of liquor seep into the carpet, dripping from the table. The smell clogs my nostrils. I stand by the front door, convinced I can’t make it across the room without stepping in something.

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Chipotledamnburrito

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Ally Ward

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oil on canvas

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Figure Study III Jonathan Dudley

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WE ARE GOD continued

My father stands with me. I had caught up with him right before he stepped inside. He didn’t even look to see if Jack was still in the room

true.

The house is small enough that it only takes a few seconds to take every thing in. I can’t tell what he is thinking, but I think my father’s lip curls in disgust. And I think again how Jack has come to this.

There is another door across the room. I can hear the water running on the other side. He must be taking a shower.

Bone Burial

by Spencer Trent

The nurses outside coo and peck the earth like plague doctors, Spilling mint leaves and cloves from gnashing beaks.

Swaddled again, you milk my palm for marrow, Pluck ivory kernels from the tips of my nails, Whisper tales of cattle or water buffalo Swallowed whole out of your mouth Before anyone knew where to look for them.

If you don’t remember your stories, I’ll tell them to us both. Give me the beginning, I’ll trace the hoof prints back to our herd.

I strain to see your face by the monitor’s blinking light, But I don’t feel the beating of my chest Until I understand we’re waiting for it to stop.

before he swung the front door wide open. And as soon as he walks in, my father just stands in the doorway, his eyes flicking across the space. It is as if he is seeing something he’d only ever dreamed about, as if that dream is coming

My father begins moving across the room. He wades through the mess as if it’s not there. He brushes his fingers against the table, the chair. He picks up a mug full of what looks like dirty water, then places it back exactly where it was.

He even pauses by the window to examine the muck that has gathered around the rims. I feel like I am walking in slow motion as I follow him. The walls blur, and the only clear thing that I can see is my black-clad father, touching everything that belongs to the man he is about to kill.

I am going to faint. I lean my hand on the table I am standing next to, but it slips against some slime on the surface. Before I can catch myself, I push an empty glass liquor bottle over the side of the table. A loud shattering fills the room as the glass falls and breaks on the linoleum tile, and quickly everything snaps back into focus.

My father whirls around at me, turning from the broken snow globe in his hands. This is the first time he has looked at me tonight.

I see fury in his eyes, the kind of blind animosity I’ve only ever seen in the eyes of animals. Stumbling back, burnt, as if his eyes produce actual heat, I trip and fall over yet another liquor bottle—this one only half-empty—creating more noise. I wince as I quickly haul myself up, and see that my father is facing the bathroom door, his whole body tight with tension.

I freeze, and realize what I’ve done. But maybe Jack didn’t hear the glass shattering. There is a long pause, pregnant with anticipation. I begin to relax, after a few seconds.

Maybe Jack— “Hello?”

I feel my stomach sink. I feel it slide down into each of my toes.

Jack heard, he knows we’re here, he heard.

I realize my father and I have to make our decision now. We have to

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WE ARE GOD

The Twister

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Casey Perfetto, digital photography

either run away, or kill this man. I don’t think I fully grasped what we were doing until this moment. Run or kill. I see my father is grappling with the same realization.

He stands in front of the bathroom door, his hand outstretched, ready to open it. His fingers twitch a few inches from the handle. He begins breathing heavily, through his nose. I step closer to him, carefully avoiding anything on the floor, and see beads of sweat across his forehead and his upper lip. But it is

nearly as cold in this room as it is outside, and his breath creates a thin cloud in front of his face.

His eyes are closed—tightly—and his breaths are shallow.

“Hello?” Jack’s voice comes from behind the door again, but this time is followed by the sound of the water turning off. It is suddenly very, very quiet. My father’s erratic breathing halts. He lowers his arm, steps back from the door. My heart leaps, and I think, he is done, we are done, he is not going to do it. We are going to leave, now, and never come back. We are going to walk back through those woods for hours, and this time he will look at me.

We are going to go home, hug my mother, and sit down in

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the livi about t I beg father d the bat “Hel than ju rustlin and see I wan want to to Jack I don’t.

reath

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again, urnratic the done, and h me. own in

digital scan, Laura Lambert

the living room like a normal family. Like we weren’t just about to kill the man who murdered my sister.

I begin to move back toward the front door. But my father doesn’t move with me. He just stands there, facing the bathroom door.

“Hello?” Jack’s voice sounds strange, muffled by more than just the door. I think he is drunk. I can hear him rustling around the bathroom, getting ready to come out, and see us.

I want to whisper to my father that we need to leave. I want to grab his arm and drag him out. I want to scream to Jack to stay inside the bathroom, and not come out. But I don’t. I am immobile, and mute. My chest has closed,

Self Portrait at Dixie Lee Junction

and my throat with it. I can’t even swallow.

The handle of the door begins to turn, slowly, as if Jack, on the other side, knows what awaits him.

My eyes follow my father’s hand as he reaches into his sweatshirt pocket. Everything has gone blurry again, and I can feel my blood swimming all through my veins.

It seems like an eternity for him to pull out the gun. A whimper escapes my mouth, too quiet to be heard.

The door is opening now, so slowly. And then Jack comes out, a towel wrapped around his waist. It’s dirty, with black splotches all over it—like a girl wiped off gobs of her mascara on it over and over again. The splotches look like one of those ink blob psychology tests. There 21

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continued

WE ARE GOD

I see a broken butterfly, there a tree that’s been split down the middle, and there a flower with no petals.

I raise my eyes from the towel to Jack’s face. His eyes are on my father, and he looks confused. And then he looks terribly afraid. He holds up his hands, and the towel falls to the dirty ground.

“Please—” he says.

And then I can’t hear anything except the ringing in my ears. I fall down on my knees, holding my head

between my hands. My ears feel like they are vibrating.

My father is still standing, but Jack is on the ground.

I can only see his feet. The rest of him is in the bathroom.

My father steps over him, into the bathroom, where I can no longer see him. I begin to pull myself to my feet. My hands are trembling so much, I feel like the ground is moving beneath me.

Another shot reverberates throughout the room. I am so shocked that I almost fall back to the ground.

I step into the bathroom. As I pass through the doorway, I feel like I am passing into another universe—a different reality, where my father is not the man I grew up with, who laughed with me at the cartoons I used to watch, and gravely told me when I was in trouble, but then winked when my mom’s back was

Peep Show

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ink on paper

Kia Schaefer

Holy Ideation

Hi Ol

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Most days, I rest limp, exhausted. The gray of my room nauseates me. The light that comes in through the window is not the rejuvenating kind. It is harsh and only makes me sleepier. On a good day, I’m on top of the pile. I can watch fruit flies buzz around the trash can. I can see only the shadows of birds against the wall as they fly past

by Lauren Yount the window. On a bad day, my soft body is buried beneath crusty fabric and stench.

On the best days, he’s here, wearing me around the room as he does dishes. On the worst days, I’m wrapped around his dick – a wet cum rag.

His Favorite Old T-Shirt

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Wrangling the Anima Lindsey Orrin etching Above

Strange Place Spencer Grady monotype print see page 23

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a c

nch u r C

C o st a

Ri

I took lunch at Atenas central park; as the Catholic church’s bells struck noon I picked at my bench’s cyan chipping paint, looking across to a crinkled old man who sat clasping a cane and chihuahua and listened in on the parakeet’s kissing in the coconut trees that stretched above I thought that his wrinkled skin had the same chicharonne de concha crunch as my crispy pork skins, rich but cheaply purchased from the corner shop butcher for a thousand colones, two bucks, crusted with gritty fat that clung to the skin like the volcanic playa-de-coco sand which had squeeked beneath my cheeky guide’s feet as we toked a spliff and walked across the slow curve of the pacific coastline, him requesting to take my camera to peek with the lens towards the copper skinned Ticas

by Aaron Collier who lay reclining in their bikinis.

continued

WE ARE GOD

thing holy. He lowers his hands until they come to rest on the chest, and he breathes deeply. His whole demeanor has changed—his face is relaxed, almost happy, and his shoulders curve inward, relieved. He begins to move his hands around on the chest and stomach of the body, where the wounds are, and blood pours out onto his fingers.

I watch him, feeling nothing. I watch his hands turn red, and think he looks like a child with finger-paint.

He is lathering in it.

My father looks up at me, but his eyes don’t rest on me. They focus on something far, far beyond me.

“We Are God,” he says, showing me his hands.

I can hear the wind outside the house, howling a lament through the trees.

turned. In this universe, my father is hard, unforgiving, and won’t look at his daughter.

And he has killed.

The body lays on the floor at an awkward angle, with one of his arms pinned behind him, and the other above his head. He looks broken.

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Satori

Nicholas Brown acrylic

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Lighthouse

by Makenzy Moore digital photography

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I remember how afterwards the cooler sparkled and smelled like bleach.

I remember the way my father described what happened; How my godmother went looking for a soda.

She was disappointed that the cooler was empty, then a little horrified that it wasn’t.

In seventh grade while my class read Lord of the Flies I sat fascinated by a painting my teacher displayed on her desk, Dali’s “The Persistence of Memory.”

Its twisted objects and barren landscape made me uncomfortable.

I felt there was some strange formless monster just out of sight.

When the children in the book stabbed their monster to death at the beach leaving a little crumpled body to bleed in the water that’s when I remembered the cooler.

I must have been about the same age as them when it happened.

I remembered it again years later in a psychology class, as the professor told us how memories could be shaped and created; that people could be convinced of horrors in their childhood that never occurred or could think about something again and again until it became real and unreal.

My father said that the lid must have been left open; that she must have jumped in and it must have fallen shut, and no one heard her suckling at the inside spout for air so desperately that blood leaked from her nose.

We had found her on the corner near the fire hydrant.

I don’t remember why we gave her such a silly name.

Maybe it was the way her calico fur shone in the sunshine?

I don’t remember if she was calico.

I remember how the cooler sparkled and smelled like bleach.

It’s like when you glance past the sun on a clear day and it leaves a dark streak over your vision.

You can’t quite look directly at it, even as it fades and warps.

Starshine

by Aaron Collier

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Late Bird

by Morgan Tate Shiftwitch my Tippy-talon into Some gutter-butter, searching.

Peep a piece of Pink String, Begging me think it’s something Better than berries— Above another spider supper.

This is a Worm.

Shake awake my Arms in awe of The Naked Snake, existing.

Beak, bear and scare.

Prepare the Red Ribbon.

Worm, surrender To your superi-

You’re stuck Gul— Get out Gul— Help me g-Gul— Someone gul— Help Or else I’ll

g— Wait you’re Sour?

This is not a Worm.

g—

Knoxville: Meet Your Neighbors!

Todd Amacker digital photography

“There are so many small creatures livi both literally and figuratively, that dese They can take the form of a majestic lu lady’s slipper orchid, but as a biologist favorite organisms tend to be slimy; no can you find more species of salamand Smoky Mountains National Park. But attack from several viruses and fungu now beginning to understand. And th (Tennessee has more than any other s try). Most of them are small and colo never notice unless you stick your he a mask and snorkel. The Little River i only 20 minutes from the University

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ll creatures living in your backyard, tively, that deserve our respect. of a majestic luna moth or a pink ut as a biologist and naturalist my d to be slimy; nowhere else on Earth ies of salamanders than in Great ional Park. But they are under uses and funguses that we are only erstand. And then there are fish han any other state in the counsmall and colorful, but you would u stick your head under water with The Little River is full of fish and it’s the University of Tennessee.” — Todd Amacker 31 Layout Design 2016 bleed.indd 31

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2016 PHOENIX STAFF EDITORIAL STAFF

SUPPORT STAFF

Stephen Johnson Editor-in-Chief Conner Bradshaw Art Editor

Grant Barbour Macie Hatmaker Michaela Roach Jesselyn Voysey Abe Youssif

Shelby Tansil Poetry Editor

FACULTY ADVISOR

Alexandria Green Fiction Editor

Rachel Wedding McClelland

Katrina Roberts Design Editor Tristiny Bell Assistant Design Editor

Lost in Transformation Mark Bender archival ink jet

phoenix LITERARY ARTS MAGAZINE

ISSUE 58 VOLUME 2 SPRING 2016