Small world, after all ...
Literacy, by its very nature, transcends cultural boundaries. It introduces us to new worlds,
societies and religions. Teaches us about beautiful places, poor places, hidden places, and
all the places in-between.
Never has that been more true than in the January 2014 issue of Vine Leaves Literary
Journal. In this issue, our talented contributors bring you a melting pot of imagery, poetry,
and prose from around the world. A true global masterpiece—and a beautiful tribute to a
great big world made smaller by art.
Grab your glass of wine and take a journey across the globe with us.
Wishing you and yours a safe and prosperous travel through the New Year.
CONTENTS
~Co-Publishing Editors
A.M. Thompson, TERMINAL DEPARTURE ~ p. 36
Alexandra Cannon, AT WORK ~ p. 16
Art Heifetz, IMPERFECT LOVE ~ p. 08
Ashlie
McDiarmid,
ONE OF THESE DAYS ~ p. 06
COVER PHOTOGRAPH
Bobbi Buchanan, ANNIVERSARY OF MOM’S DEATH ~ p. 09
The Hand of One of the Staff at Vine Leaves
Charity Tahmaseb, PLAYING SOLDIER ~ p. 19
Charlie Weber, SHINING SEASON ~ p. 21
FEATURED AUTHORS
Esther Skurtu, THE WOMAN WHO DOESN’T EAT ~ p. 42
Evelyn Deshane, COMING OUT ~ p. 29
C.J. Harrington
Gargi Mehra, SINGAPORE CITY ~ p. 38
THROW ~ p. 10
Heather Sinclair Shaw, THE CULLING ~ p. 11
BUMFUZZLED SKRONK ~ p. 12
Holly Day, MILK ~ p. 08
WE ARE OLIVE TREES ~ p. 12
Jade Kennedy, INDIA ~ p. 26
Jay Merill, GUINEVERE ~ p. 32
Clinton Van Inman
Joanna Kurowska, FACING THE WALL ~ p. 27
ESTATE SALE ~ p. 6
Johannah Siragusa, WHEN WE RULED THE WORLD ~ p. 35
LIGHTLESS ~ p. 13
Judy Brackett, MADAME RAHNA, DIVINER ~ p. 40
CAULDRONS ~ p. 14
Kathleen Basi, ALLIGATOR TALE ~ p. 33
Kurt Newton, WOODWORK ~ p. 15
Cybonn Ang
Lene Haugerud, UNDERNEATH ~ p. 09
RED SEA ~ p. 18
Lisa Beebe, THE MANSION ~ p. 25
VULCAN ~ p. 20
Luca Marchiori, TIME TRAVEL ~ p. 39
M.E. Mitchell, AN A.M. LAMENT ~ p. 40
Sean H. McDowell
M.V. Montgomery, THE QUICKSILVER VAMPIRES ~ p. 17
TOOTH ~ p. 3
Marlene Olin, WORDS WITH FRIENDS ~ p. 07
TAPPING ~ p. 05
Michael Campagnoli, THE CHOSEN ~ p. 22
Myron Michael, BLACK IVORY ~ p. 06
Phil Lane, NOTES FROM THE STORM ~ p. 37
ART/PHOTOGRAPHY
Rachel Bublitz, PEEPER, A ONE MINUTE PLAY ~ p. 41
Ron Morita, SPIRITS ~ p. 28
Cybonn Ang ~ pp. 12, 33, 35
Sarah
Read,
GRAVE MOTHER ~ p. 39
Chris Fradkin ~ pp. 9, 10, 14, 23, 34
Sarah Winn, APOLOGY ~ p. 04
Eleni Yiannoulidou ~ pp. 20, 21, 29, 30, 31
Supie Dunbar, ERLENE ~ p. 15
Erika Bach ~ pp. 3, 4, 5, 13, 16, 17, 18, 22, 27, 37, 42
Vanessa
Raney, SWIM ~ p. 27
Maraya Loza Koxahn ~ pp. 8, 23, 24, 26, 38
photograph by Erika Bach
Tooth
22 Oct.
by Sean H. McDowell
His front tooth, once apple solid,
now lifts like a tab on an Advent calendar.
I give him a wet washcloth to staunch the blood
and tell him to work it, not up and down,
but side to side in a gentle twist.
The pain of last connection comes due:
he shouts in mini-labour, twists again,
and effortlessly it breaks free, smaller now,
a flattened freshwater pearl chipped at one end,
while the hole in that grin, dripping blood,
all over his lower lip, looks huge,
one more of those befores and afters
reminding us we never can go back.
3
Apology
by Sarah Winn
Regrettably,
Today’s poem
has been rained out.
Please
pick up your children
early. The buses are not running.
Street-side
drains fill gully-like,
with sticks and debris.
Small bits
of rhythm swirl down, mingle
with gum wrappers and cigarette butts.
Cars drive
slowly through choked creeks,
and tangled metaphors force their way
into wheel wells.
Forgotten once past
the overflow, the remnant of a sonnet
drips
onto the garage floor
from the undercarriage, staining
the concrete
with duende. If it rains
again tomorrow, check your local
radio station
for closings and delays. The basements
will flood with words, which rhyme in low places with ruin.
4
photograph by Erika Bach
photograph by Erika Bach
Tapping
6 Nov.
by Sean H. McDowell
All three carry candy canes— coloured mobility, aides of the blind, and two are. Arm-in-arm, one couple follows their friend who sees dimly but enough to lead. Guiding them, he narrates features the rest of us take for granted: Here’s the walk. The bus lane is on the right. Farther back, across the lane, is the car park. All the while all three tap their canes, skittering, like rainwater blowing from branches, landing anywhere it deems fit. 5
Black Ivory
by Myron Michael
1.
A displaced artist dreamed of a smoothbore musket,
and then painted, on a sarong, stick-figure people
:red, green, yellow, and black. Some images are
as distinct, one to another, as there are others
that blend like watercolours on watermarked paper.
The sticks intertwine sticks—reach for rootstock,
or something supernatural. An arm-long machete,
slanted like a slash, thicker than its counterparts,
marks a diagonal plane shadowed by tsetse flies.
—A primitive aardvark with an extended tongue.
and shackled, forty-by-forty, or swallowed entirely
at a gulp of the Atlantic Ocean. —At the bottom
of the holding pit, heads heaped, rows of hundreds
rowing in lines, shifting incessantly on sit-bones,
going blindly nowhere safe; atrophic feet, putrid
at the ankles. Feces, urine, regurgitation and spit,
no place to breathe, better to suffocate, in the thick
smell of fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters,
millions lost in one’s dirge to the Ivory Coast
while separation pulled like the promise of land,
or like a restless and relentless riptide, on his spirit.
A swallowtail butterfly, or armyworm moth,
with enormous wings, beats back a boat; and too,
a few canoes, and a ship with cannons at its edge.
And those, on wavy lines of blood-brown, float.
Cater-corner from a missionary temple is a bullfrog.
3.
He drums on a tree stump, I offer to your harvest
a narrative about nightshades. A number of artists,
through choreography, prefer similar. And more
than once, we make meaning; from shore to shore,
back to where we came from. Exploited markets
Photons, like cobalt blue rosary beads at different
points above the temple, fall where there are
wild dogs, seabirds, and crossbones; broken spears,
weedy shoots, and a harsh star knotted at the upper
left quarter of canvas, as if an omniscient eye.
—and tribesmen, ocher, earth, and human targets
saturate the paint’s tone—an Afro-Cuban barista,
bears her heart through a cold read of Lorde.
The cause of her pain, a friend of ours: puts me on
2.
Some were indentured, some stolen. All boarded
the Brookes, took one last look at Sierra Leone,
the Gold Coast, Angola; a hand beside a turncoat
shook another adieu. Numbered on those boats
then shipped into servitude, or manacled
a “Black Star Line”: and you and I put on the largest
makeweight two people could outfit. A darkish
adaptation, puts them at odds; until she tore
away from his Spanish with sore effort, and he
grieved her absence with porn and imported wine.
A thumb piano joins the band; I offer you my hand.
One of These Days
by Ashlie McDiarmid
You will have to sacrifice sheets and warm tremble
for distance and enemies trying to find you. Instead
of me at your side it will be your rifle who knows your fingertips
better, loves you more than I ever could. There will be nothing
of me besides a reminiscent face in every cloud hovering
over the emptiness you now call home.
One of these days you will come home
to a house you thought you knew. I welcome
the silence, corners constantly checked, doors locked once,
then one more time because other women won’t be so lucky.
6
Estate
Sale
by Clinton Van Inman
Sunday’s best looked untouched
As if saved for a day that
Never did come
Those fine China dishes
Piled under some obscure
Painting of a farmhouse
And piles of old photos
All unrecognizable
Next to miscellaneous items
That must have once been treasured
But today only marked down
An additional twenty percent.
Words with Friends
by Marlene Olin
She woke up on the couch with an opened book on her
stomach and the words Mr. Darcy on her lips. She peered into
the refrigerator. A half-empty bottle of white wine and a threeday-old carton of Chinese food sat in judgment. The answering
machine light blinked three times. Reluctantly she pushed the
button.
“Janet, it’s your mother. Again. Beep.”
“Are you dead? Beep.”
“You’re driving a stake through my heart. Beep.”
Her mother was a onesong opera. Janet’s thirty-fifth birthday
was the following week and both of them knew she had no
prospects. She laid her hand on her stomach and tenderly
pressed in. Her ovaries were shriveling into prunes. Little
grooves had carved their way into her upper lip. They made
her look irritated all the time. Irritated just like her mother.
Chugging the last of the wine right from the bottle, she
burped and let the buzz heat its way down. Then on her bed
she carefully assembled the evening’s outfit. Black lace bra,
leather skirt, the silk blouse that cost a month of lunches. She
flagged a taxi and headed to the swankiest bar she knew.
Finding her way through the crowd, Janet felt tossed and
turned like November’s leaves. Some people were dancing
and others just stood shoulder-to-shoulder. Talking, touching,
shouting. Pulsing techno music vibrated the fillings in her teeth.
Janet hadn’t eaten in hours and wobbled on her four-inch heels
toward the hightops. Her rear-end nearly missed the seat. An
arm in a black sport coat steadied her. Gradually the world
stopped spinning.
“You come here often?” she thought she heard the man say.
He was tall and good-looking with thick dark hair. He dressed
in Armani and smelled like Christmas.
“No, never,” she lied. The DJ played the next song even
louder. The room moved in and out.
“Wanna drink?” he asked. Or did he say this music stinks.
Janet wasn’t sure. She nodded her head while he held his hand
up for the waiter. The bowl of nuts looked like a feast but she
ate them deliberately, self-consciously, one at a time.
“There’s something on your lip.” He pointed with his finger.
“Should I leave a tip?” she wondered. He pointed again.
Janet brushed her face with the back of her hand.
“Did I get it? Is it gone?”
“Here. Let me help.” He took his hand and gently cupped
her chin. Then slowly he moved his thumb across her mouth.
She closed her eyes but kept her head tilted towards him. She
was afraid to move, afraid the moment would disappear. Poof.
Gone like the flame on a birthday candle. “I’m leaving my
wife,” she thought he whispered.
Jangling change jolted her awake. The air was hazy. The
stool empty. He was halfway out the door.
“You have a nice life too,” said the bartender. He slid the
money into a jar and wiped the counter clean.
7
Imperfect
Love
by Art Heifetz
I love you for the blue vein
which crosses your shoulder
like a river going nowhere,
the overripe sag of your breasts
that once let pencils fall,
your spindly legs
which barely hold your frame,
the frizzy strands of hair
that can’t decide
(despite the coiffeur’s best attempts)
which way to fall.
You tell me your dreams
in a scratchy voice
like old blues records.
You describe the womens
that you met today
and inform me that
they’re coming until nine.
Don’t change one mark,
one hair, one phrase.
Like the flaws
that Persian weavers left
to show that true perfection
belonged to God alone,
they increase the value
of the work.
Milk
by Holly Day
she has made drapes
out of the children’s skin. the fabric
is just too thick, too heavy,
to be anything else.
by now
the woman with the snakes in her hair
could have recovered her
entire living room ensemble by now,
considering all the children
that have disappeared
just this past year.
that’s the whole reason
for all the different types of milk out today—
vitamin a, whole milk, vitamin d, 2%, 1%, skim,
not to mention
all the designer brands
for the lactose intolerant
and the vegans.
there was no way they could display
all those missing children’s photographs
with just one or two types of milk
in the supermarket.
photograph by Maraya Loza Koxahn
8
Anniversary of
Mom’s Death
by Bobbi Buchanan
Travelling back from running errands,
I stopped by the little country cemetery
where they’re both buried.
Said my piece. Cried hard. Got back in the truck.
Wiped away tears and makeup.
Breeze cooled my neck, caused me to turn and see
on the cab’s back window
two lovely moths with eyespots on their wings
watching me.
Underneath
by Lene Haugerud
Underneath the jacket, I dared not look.
You took it off, I shut my eyes.
My heart.
Not knowing who I wanted you to be.
photograph by Chris Fradkin
9
Throw
by C.J. Harrington
1
They get balls for Christmas, the super high-bouncing kind. Hold them under the light and they glow for
hours says the packaging. Each dual-colored: yellow-green, blue-orange, red-orange. Some light sources
work better than others. Take note. Your results may vary.
2
Near the end of break, the ball play begins. After the video games, the action figures, the assemblyrequired environments (fire station, space station, train station, car wash). Balls are adaptive: shoot
through hoops, roll down race tracks. Throw.
3
One gets the great idea to toss them off the deck and see what happens. Testing terminal velocity although
they don’t know that. A rebound on the paved patio and definitive squash in the lawn, muddy still from
melted night-before-Christmas snow.
4
Boys, what are you thinking? Flinging those balls down the railing like that. Ski jump? Yeah, right. Like
you’d make the Olympics. Head in the cloud dreamers just like your waste of a father. Downstairs in the
basement. Now.
5
Downstairs in the basement, there are experiments:
how hard, how high, what angle. Which light
source creates the most prolonged glow.
A chart is required. Xs and checks.
A key.
6
They take notes.
7
The results vary.
10
photograph by Chris Fradkin
The Culling
by Heather Sinclair Shaw
On the other side of the world, you once saw a young man
holding a chicken under his arm, its head pulled back and
tucked under the wing. You thought the bird was sleeping, but
your companion pointed to the packed earth floor of the open
market where a dark stain gathered droplets of blood from
the chicken’s neck. You considered your anecdotal knowledge
of killing chickens: an axe, a butcher block, a headless body
racing around the barnyard spewing blood and feathers. You
looked back at the man in the market on the other side of the
world, who was slowly stroking the feathers on the chicken’s
back, and it struck you as a remarkably peaceful way to die.
Now you are tying another chicken’s legs to the laundry
line in your backyard, and you experience the fleeting clarity
of senses that surrounds an important event. The sky is an
impossible blue. The breeze hits your skin like a static shock.
The bird’s feathers gleam white against the blue­green grass
as your thumb strokes the curved blade of the boning knife in
your hand and you think, this is my life.
Your daughter comes and stands next to you. She says,
”What are you doing, Mommy?”
You suddenly have no idea what you’re doing, and cannot
find an explanation suitable for a five­year­old. ”We’re going
to have chicken for dinner,” you say in a matter­of­fact tone that
reeks of guilt and insecurity.
“Mommy, what are you doing with this?” she says.
“One?” you say. You stare at its feet, translucent and gold
as wet hay. The claws branch out over the bailing twine you
used to tie its legs, and you watch the movement of its toes
like a tiny miracle. ”This is the one we’re having for dinner.”
You look down at your daughter, a fake smile plastered on
your face, and you think you will become a vegan, release the
chicken and all the others, close the coop and let them roost
in the trees. This makes you think of the hawk’s nest hidden in
the eastern tree line, and the raccoons that also climb trees—
coyotes, weasels, possums, hail, frost. Conflicted now, you
wait for your daughter to process your words, wait for the
look of horror to cross her face. You consider your becoming­
a­vegan response.
“Mommy!” she says, and disappears around the side of the
house, confident in your benevolence, not needing an explanation of the grey area between live and roast chicken.
You grip the chicken’s neck just under the head and stretch
it towards you. You try to look at her, to really see her, to see
some recognition or fear or intelligence in the silvery black
fish­eggs of her eyes, but you find nothing. Her body lurches
forward as you make the single slice above the breastbone,
then you tuck her head behind her wing and cradle her body
under one arm, stroking the feathers of her back as the hot
blood seeps into the blue­green grass.
11
C. J. Harrington
Bumfuzzled Skronk
We Are Olive Trees
39 The writing, robotic and stilted, postulates
authority over a reader, presumed to be less intelligent, easily influenced, and information-saturated.
3
We give you fruits to crush to oil. We have given
you everything. We are waiving always-green
leaves while others yellow and die. We offer you
abundance. We offer you peace. Won’t you light
your sacred flames? Won’t you dine with us?
(aka, BS)
35 Prodigious thesaurus exploitation is a sophomoric tactic and—since this five paragraph essay
will not be graded—denigrates otherwise thoughtful analysis.
26 Sadly, observers miss the innate mastery of
personal-as-archetypal and draw wildly inappropriate comparisons to dated, irrelevant creations
just to have something to say. That itself is a cheap
trick.
20 Blah, blah, blah. Boring, boring, boring.
17 Oddly parallel, certain emotion and genre
descriptors reflect the writers’ own internal discordance in reaction to the creator’s wholeness.
13 Simple language is appropriate when endeavoring to elevate meaning of profound subject
matter to reach the widest possible audience.
2
We can split our self into selves, into multiples, into
mirrors. We can become at once stationary witnesses,
a man and a woman always in each other’s arms, a
spark of blue.
1
And still, and here, they despise us. We tell the truth
sometimes clouded in symbols, but sometimes pure.
We can throw flames at those who speak against
us. We can make the oceans blood. But we are
olive trees. Olive trees! Remember the dove? Why
must we die and rise to redeem? Why isn’t anyone
listening?
9 Surprisingly, humans still lack understanding
of the complexity of the love relationship and
awareness that lovers can feel longing in the midst
of intense togetherness.
1 By employing affected stylizing coupled with
overt truth, the author is deliberately reintroducing
the problem in the presumed solution, therefore
infinitely confining the problem within itself.
12
photograph by Cybonn Ang
photograph by Erika Bach
LIGHTLESS
by Clinton Van Inman
Each year the light is less.
We can barely see it now,
The faint necklace of
The Milky Way.
The old ones were wrong,
You know with their waxed fingers
Pointing up like abandoned adobe.
Yet you know better in your cubical gardens
And half moth-eaten moons,
You have arrived in
Handcuffs.
13
Cauldrons
by Clinton Van Inman
Just a simple recipe nothing special
Start with some ho-hum hydrogen
Stir some methane into the mix
Sprinkle a dash of complex carbon
Add a little lightning for kicks
Bake and cool for a billion years
Soon the goo will be oozing with ears
With binary bits and layers of helix
Soon will be squirming for sex,
From alphas to omegas
From amoebas to zebras
From goons to gorillas
Save the leftovers if you can
Given time enough will turn to man.
14
photograph by Chris Fradkin
Erlene
by Supie Dunbar
I check the recipe again. FIVE RIPE PEACHES, UNPEELED. Jimmy will be
home soon and I’m still unpeeling this first peach. Jimmy likes to have a
hot meal on the table when he walks in. Meat, potatoes, and dessert.
Everything home made. Nothing frozen or from a box. I’m not eating
any factory-fixed food, Jimmy says.
I’m trying to be careful, using my little knife to separate the skin without
hurting the tender flesh, but this peel is not cooperating. Maybe it is so
in love with the peach it simply cannot let go. I will die without you, it
thinks. We are one. Nothing can tear me away.
I pull the skin off in small scab-sized pieces and tighten my grip on the
slippery half-naked peach. Bruises appear sudden as cries. A person
doesn’t bruise quick like a peach. On a person, a bruise moves in
overnight like a dark storm. And doesn’t appear till morning when he’s
smiling that little-boy-smile and begging me not to provoke him again. (I
had to ask Mama what provoke meant. She said it means you’re askin’
for it, Erlene.) And now this peach is provoking me. My thumb gives it a
jab of anger. The peach weeps sticky tears of juice that trickle through
my fingers. I look at the clock, its face blurry through my tears. Jimmy
will be home soon.
Woodwork
by Kurt Newton
She doesn’t know.
As I lie beside her, another night of passion fading like the ghost
pressure of her body against my skin, I try not to tremble.
The remodelling had gone smoothly: new carpeting for the floor;
new panelling to cover the walls. And still...
My thoughts race. My leg rocks nervously beneath the covers,
waking her.
She rolls over. I can see her in the moonlight. “What’s wrong?” she
says.
I stare at the walls. Should I confess? I decide not to. That would be
a mistake. “I don’t like the pattern,” I finally tell her.
“Again?” She’s tiring of my eccentricities; I can hear it in her voice.
“I’ll call the contractor in the morning,” I say, still hypnotized by the
ever¬shifting wood grain. For a moment I glimpse a face, two eyes,
watching me, judging me, before the pattern regains its familiarity.
She sighs, plants a kiss on my forehead, and returns to sleep.
I lie back, knowing that one day her patience will run out, and she’ll
disappear like all the rest. Until then, I have more remodelling to do.
15
photograph by Erika Bach
at work
by Alexandra Cannon
16
he tells her in the buzzing neon
light, skeletal, cigarette-break fingers sliding
across the felt, i feel like i’ve been waiting for you all my life. his voice is gravelly and nearly desperate,
the voice of a man long barred from wanting something so costly or so real.
she lines up the shot and reminds him we only met two drinks ago, two drinks ago i didn’t exist. the
cue stick jabs at the seven forwardback like a rattler bite and the ball vanishes somewhere too dark
to follow.
he doesn’t realize the rest of the shots are lined up, too, have been lined up all his life, when his hurt
voice declares it had no idea i was born right here at this soft green table three drinks ago then,
somehow
in a dusty southern wasteland, the landlocked corner where salvation may
very well be cut with halogen light, by virtue
of nothing good ever happening here.
she knows all that, but just the same some thing about him, the cold fingers maybe, makes her lift her
eyes to level a smile.
it is impossible for him to tell in the dim redbluegreen blinking what her real hair color is, what
color her eyes are, he knows only when she leaves, something vital will falter and tip after her, neonate
heart mislaid anew.
photograph by Erika Bach
the
quicksilver
vampires
by M.V. Montgomery
In Tucson, a kind of opium den
has been set up for addicts of
mercury. The drug is being
filtered out of the blood of human
mules into small vials, then
directly ingested for maximum
effect. But harder-core addicts
find the doses have to be perpetually doubled in order to
produce the same high. Increasingly impatient, they close in on
the unfortunate human carriers
and attempt to suck them dry.
17
red sea
by Cybonn Ang
i placed my foot on the shore, but the sea did not part for me.
the grey blue mass that was the sky, and the grey blue mass that was the sea, pressed
against each other and the flesh of my skin was the dead arm of an oak, damp and soft
and without sons.
i was never told that the sky was not above, and that the sea was not far, and that the
wind was blue and was corpus and soul of them both.
and my head covered in black hair was so small and striking and i could not make a
single rope out of my thoughts.
the fish are blue. and i don’t have gills. the herons are blue. and i don’t have wings. the
mollusks are blue, swirled with Saturn. and i am the color of birch.
ravens, out of the circle of the sun’s eye, hovered with their curses again and again.
i lifted my arms to wade. my arms, against the corpulent wind. but the sea struck
my legs. and i was forbidden to see the color of the ocean sand. but the sea turtles
summoned their days.
the mountain is of the earth, but its head is in the sky. and its breath is blue. and its eye
is white. and its eye is on the fringes of the sea. and the fringes of the sea look at my
feet. and they disdain to part for me.
18
photograph by Erika Bach
Playing Soldier
The beret the ROTC supply sergeant issued me is
one size too large. It slips forward while I walk
across campus, the sweat on my forehead making
it inch toward my eyebrows.
My black polyester socks pool near my ankles.
The olive drab green slacks are a poly/wool
blend. They itch. They’re too big in the waist and
slightly too short. The pant legs flare in a way
that’s never been fashionable, but now, in the era
of ankle jeans, is simply hideous.
I wonder how it is I can feel so trapped in
something that’s in danger of falling off.
My black shoes are half a size too small, but
they shine. I’ve spent hours polishing them, new
from the box, until the leather reflects like mirrors.
But now, on campus, they’re a beacon. UW-Madison is the Berkeley of the Midwest, and there’s
a lot of sidewalk between my dorm and the field
house. So when someone calls out, I ignore it.
Only when the man slows to a jog, then falls in
beside me, do I glance his way.
“Hey,” he says, out of breath. “Are you in the
Army?”
“ROTC?” It comes out that way too, as a
question, like I’m not sure I belong there.
“Why did you decide to do that?”
He’s an older guy, although he’s probably
only a grad student. I’m used to round-faced
high school boys. This guy is lean, like he lives
on ramen noodles. For him, Kraft macaroni and
cheese is splurging.
I brace for the lecture on the evils of the CIA, of
Reagan, of everything. Would he listen if I told him
that I picked up War and Peace, and The Gulag
Archipelago, and The Cherry Orchard because
I didn’t believe in pure evil, not in people, not in
empires?
I shrug. “Lots of reasons.”
He wheels in front of me, forcing me to stop.
“This is going to sound crazy.” He exhales. His
breath smells like the start of school, still summer
warm, with a hint of beer from the student union.
“You know how some women love a guy in
uniform?”
I nod, tentatively.
by Charity Tahmaseb
“Well.” And here, his chest swells. “I love a
woman in uniform.” I’m speechless. Scruffy grad
student guy isn’t going to lecture me on the evils
of the military-industrial complex. Scruffy grad
student guy wants to ask me out.
“Can I walk with you?” he says, probably
because I’m still mute. I nod again, because—
maybe— this is better than walking alone.
The parade field is green, but only from the
olive drab uniforms that cover it. What grass is
left crunches beneath my shoes. The battalion
is forming up. I’m in the last squad of the last
platoon, but I still need to hurry.
“Can I call you sometime?” he asks.
My mouth goes numb. I force out words I really
don’t want to say. “I have a boyfriend.”
He blinks a couple of times, but I can tell he
knows it’s not a lie. It isn’t, but for a fleeting
moment, I wonder if scruffy grad student guy
might make a better boyfriend than a constantlyjealous Navy ROTC midshipman. I wonder what
it might be like to cuddle on a shabby couch and
share a hotpot full of mac and cheese.
In three years, I’ll be that girl—that woman—
who’d take a chance with scruffy grad student
guy. In three years, on this very parade field, I’ll
instruct other female cadets on how to project
their voice. My commands will be so loud, the
platoon drilling several yards away will execute
them by mistake. I won’t feel trapped or like I
don’t belong. In three years, the Army will put half
a continent, and then an ocean, between me and
that midshipman. By then, I’ll have the courage to
walk away from things that hold me down.
Once in formation, I risk the wrath of my squad
leader, platoon sergeant—really my entire chain
of command—by glancing over my shoulder.
Scruffy grad student guy stands on the edge of
the parade ground, leaning against an oak.
Even though I don’t look his way again, I feel
him there. But when the ceremony is over and the
crowd clears, the spot beneath the oak is empty.
And I am the only dot of olive drab green left
on the parade field.
19
Vulcan
by Cybonn Ang
I slept with him.
His name was Vulcan.
He ate air and water.
He blew a fire through
the Sierra Corazon.
I awoke with my hair in his mouth.
His breath in my lungs.
His fingers full in my furnace.
Everywhere, the smell of fire.
For days, the lightning lived in my eyes—
my eyes blazed heavy and red.
My breasts beaconed
like twin Venuses.
I gazed on him
with all the melancholy of Moses.
But one day, he left.
Like all fires do.
{Quietly.}
A pinprick of cold white blue
fading in the changed, charcoaled wind.
Leaving the chair where he sat,
black-boned. The kettle, holed
and still on heat. The trees, the fence,
the yard, all charred.
The sheets on the line,
stained and crayoned with night.
Now all that I own is
red-orange memory.
I am black as deadwood.
I am all ember and ash.
No one can set me on fire.
20
photograph by Eleni Yiannoulidou
photograph by Eleni Yiannoulidou
Shining Season
by Charlie Weber
I watched Timothy Bottoms in “A Shining
Season” on television when I was 15. I
watched him run on the open mesa.
nimble, lean, tranquil
between jack rabbits and sage
and blue, clear backdrop
I decided to run track to be like Timothy
Bottoms in “A Shining Season.” I trained,
and won a blue ribbon in the 800 meters
in a district track meet that year. My mother
came to watch. I looked to find her after the
race. She grew bored waiting for the race
to start, and went home to make dinner.
I moved to Albuquerque when I was 35,
and got married. I discovered on the internet
Timothy Bottoms ran in ‘A Shining Season’
in an open field behind a high school in
Albuquerque. He looked heavier.
I ran in the field. It was surrounded by a high
fence. I was heavier, and not as nimble. My
wife was bored, and left soon after.
When I hear tranquil
I see Timothy Bottoms
running in a field
behind a high school in Albuquerque.
21
The Chosen
by Michael Campagnoli
(first appeared in New Madrid, Winter, 2010)
That night buses shifted gears and
someone somewhere played a trumpet. Sounded
like a kid like me, just practicing. Muffled by
unbaffled walls, peeling paint, and sagging plaster,
the groan and crank
of water in the pipes. He started and stopped,
hesitated, then started over again,
always playing the same offkey exercise.
The notes reached out laconically,
then fell to the ground. After a while,
someone yelled and banged on a wall.
The moon rose bright in the window.
A cold, clear night chased the rain away.
I thought about my father, alone in the house,
and my mother, asleep on the sofabed in the next room.
The white brittle moon, the secretive
moon, shined down
on our shapeless lives.
The chaos.
The angry with want.
22
Over the rooftops, out beyond the driving
complexity of the city, the lives of the chosen
went neatly along. Calm, orderly lives. No one
ever screamed, argued, got drunk,
put fists through sheetrock walls or kitchen cabinets.
Never beat you black and blue, threw you out
to sleep in the rain. How pleasant to be one of them:
their clean, comfortable homes,
their wide green lawns and tree-lined streets,
tennis lessons at the club, piano,
penny loafers,
Brooks
Brothers suits.
Possibilities.
Safe, loved,
protected.
The chosen.
photograph by Erika Bach
photograph by Chris Fradkin
photograph by Maraya Loza Koxahn
23
photographs by Maraya Loza Koxahn
24
The Mansion
by Lisa Beebe
“I don’t believe in anything,” she said. “Not God or aliens or any of it. Guess I’m just a
skeptic.”
She took a drag of her cigarette, then leaned back, way back, and exhaled the smoke
toward the sky.
“I wish I did. If I believed in stuff, it might be easier that Tommy’s gone. I doubt it,
though.” She paused for a moment.
“You know, I had this coworker once, I wish I could remember her name. She had the
prettiest reddish-brown hair. I don’t think it was natural, but it was gorgeous. One day when
I was all worked up about something, my paycheck hadn’t been processed or something—
it was something like that, something big, this girl says to me, ‘I’ll pray for you.’”
“I said, ‘Me?’ And she said she prayed for all of us, for everyone in the office, that
we’d make it up to heaven okay. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t want to be rude, so I
said, ‘Heaven. I wonder what that’d be like.’ And she told me, ‘In heaven, we’ll all have
mansions, and the streets are paved with gold.’ To her, heaven wasn’t just a concept. It was
a physical place, and she wanted me to end up there with her.”
“I think about that a lot, that girl praying for me. She sees this place in the clouds, that’s
like mansion after mansion, where everybody gets to live when they’re dead. But what
happens to the people who don’t believe? Do their mansions evaporate? If I don’t believe,
where do I go? I don’t wanna live in a mansion, not alone. Would Tommy be there? Doubt
it. He never believed in anything churchy. But I tell you what, if I have to live in a subdivision mansion in the sky, some oversized white house with fake columns on a gold street that
probably shines too bright in the sun? If I have to spend eternity up there? I want Tommy
with me. I don’t pray, I never have, but when I think about that girl and her heaven, I pray
that if I end up there, Tommy’ll be there too.”
She took a final drag. “What if he’s up there right now? Watching football on a big
screen TV, and waiting for me? Oh, I wish I believed. I wish I believed.”
25
India
by Jade Kennedy
It was her sense of love that called to them—the lifeblood in every gracious stride and the defiance in every
strand of nut-brown hair that curled down her back. Men gravitated towards her and tried in desperation to hold
her, trying to claim that aura of hers that glowed with perfection. The quote she lived by was;
“The dark is more than a lack of light, clarity. It breathes as deeply as any ray of sunlight.”
Everyone had their different opinion about its meaning. She told them they were all wrong but never explained
why. She said they had to work it out themselves and that that was the meaning of the quote and maybe the key
to life. She told everyone who would listen that this quote was given to her by a traveller from India, translated
from the Hindi. He had seen a sign that day to gift this quote to the first person he thought worthy.
So on that day, sat next to a fountain, she was given the words to live her life by, from a traveller clothed in white.
26
photograph by Maraya Loza Koxahn
Facing The Wall
by Joanna Kurowska
Swim
the little girl has no doll
no doll with a warm, round body
in vain she arranges the limbs-sticks
head-egg, belly-balloon, the eyes-glass balls
A life I might be living, or have lived. I
watch, a weather of waves and wind.
Then, relaxing with the motion of the
sea, I drift, tranquil and alone. Suddenly
I feel uncertain. Dimly aware of the large
rocks angling down and back, I wonder
if this is death, a part of everything and
not. A small fish appears. I remember
the mask on my face and swim.
the little girl is facing the wall
in punishment for breaking dolly Agatha;
for probing its insides with restless fingers
in search for a life pulse in the sawdust
by Vanessa Raney
the little girl trusts dolls no more
sitting, she examines the wall’s roughness
her eyes closed, she learns the omnipotence
of the veiled horizon—Height and Length
photograph by Erika Bach
27
Spirits
by Ron Morita
The two-foot fruit of Angelina’s Calbaceira tree hung like daggers
from shadowy branches. The ocean, whose surf could be heard at
times from her hillside retreat, lay silent. It seemed to her, listening
to birds squawking in the distance, that she was the only person
in the world. She remembered the morning when she went to her
rocking chair on the terrace and found tan dust covering everything. A friend on another island told her it came from the Sahara,
two hundred miles away.
On the street fog coalesced into the shape of a man and was
gone. It reminded Angelina of her ex, a beautiful creature, tall
and barrel-chested. She might not have minded had he been discreet. The man had to leave hints—evidence of the crime—as if
boasting of his conquests. Maybe the apparition was the handyman: short, stout and strong as an ox, with a laugh that could
shake the heavens. Noticing the way he looked at her, she knew
she could have him at the blink of an eye.
Her thoughts drifted to the little man with a rumpled shirt always
coming out of his pants who sat beside her on dreary afternoons
in the Teradyne slave pens, telling her to move this or that coloured line on her monitor. He was stiff and proud, as engineers
are. Talking of the house he planned to build on a remote, foggy
stretch of California coast, he seemed a soul mate who understood
her need to escape the faceless demands of the city. The warmth
of the hour-long talks about their dreams stayed with her over the
two years it took to remodel her Cape Verde house, which had a
restaurant downstairs and two rental units. Perhaps he was sitting
beside the picture window of his new place, watching the evening
clouds roll in over the dark, boundless ocean.
Something stirred, like one of Angelina’s sons when he lived in
her body, pulling her down the steps to the stone wall she had restored. Ghostly wisps flew up the hill, dancing like angels. Following grey cobblestones past houses with red-tile roofs, she spotted
what appeared to be a man in a white shirt. He retreated, drawing her down the road. Perhaps the mysterious figure was tall
and handsome, with a lock of black hair falling over a bronzed
forehead. After a long walk she spotted the handyman’s cottage,
its curtains closed. No doubt he was in bed with his wife, snoring
to wake the dead. All fogs are one, he had told her, so that if you
stand in it and let your spirit soar, you can feel the thoughts of
someone in that same mist anywhere in the world.
At length she heard the whisper of surf and arrived at the road’s
ugly scar across a black sand beach. A cloud—or perhaps the
sail of an unseen fishing boat—floated above the waves. Mist
thickened as she neared the water until it was hard to tell sea
from shore, up from down. Before she knew it water lapped at her
thighs. The image of Jesus flashed before her. Quickly she crossed
herself.
Our Father, I am only sixty-one and in excellent health. Why
have you come for me?
A man’s voice, sounding far away, called her name.
28
photograph by
Eleni Yiannoulidou
Coming Out
by Evelyn Deshane
“I stayed up all night just to find out that the man I love doesn’t love me
back.”
“Oh,” Daniel utters. He stops in the middle of the doorway to Gavin’s
room. He looks over his shoulder and down the empty hallway. No one in
the house but them. Everyone else must have gone to the bar. Daniel looks
back at Gavin and tries to smile.
“I’m sorry,” Daniel offers. “I didn’t even know you were gay.”
“I’m not,” Gavin snaps. He takes a sip of his drink. “Just lonely.”
29
photographs by Eleni Yiannoulidou
30
photographs by Eleni Yiannoulidou
31
Guinevere
by Jay Merill
When I was Gwen I sat outside the back door of the salon and tried not to
notice the smell of hair dye, tried not to see the customers coming out with
orange highlights, white streaks, trendy cuts one side longer than the other,
with regimented curls. My own red hair grew and grew and I wouldn’t have
it touched. Because I was always in love with natural. My mother, the hairdresser, watched in desperation. I knew how she longed to shape it, and
thin it, and style it. But no. In time it thinned of its own accord. Now it’s practically vanished. Sometimes my head itches and I scrape my nails across my
scalp and loose wiry hairs come out on my fingers. Not red now but silver. I
crouch outside the front door of Westminster Cathedral and smell the night.
Gwen did not suit me. It made me feel cut short. I had the hair and I
wanted a name to go with it. I wanted long and flowing. And another
thing I wanted was the past. The present felt too practical, too bound up
with making a living. There was my mother the hairdresser ordering hair
products from the wholesaler, tidying up stray hair pins at night after the
salon had closed. Doing the books. I didn’t like the idea of business and
my mother didn’t like the idea of anything else. Well we are what we are.
There’s a straight path from what I started off as to where I’ve got to now.
Of course, the past I dreamed of was more a romantic story than reality. It
was my own invention. I didn’t wallow in poverty or pain or people keeping
their accounts, paying bills, living from day to day.
I left home at the same time as I left school, in other words as soon
as I was old enough, and made my way to Glastonbury which I’d heard
was one cool place. It was. I was still Gwen then but only just, because
I’d started reading about Arthurian legends and it wasn’t too long before
Gwen blended and resolved itself into Guinevere. At last I had the name I
was meant to have; at last I was in harmony with my own true nature.
Runcy and Lou, my mates, are with me on the Cathedral step. It’s a good
place to look for fag ends. We’ve collected quite a few and are off to our
spot by the side wall of the McDonald’s to have a smoke. It’s a shaded, cosy
little patch we’ve got over there. Of course you see what you want to see.
But I’m all for that. It’s too destructive otherwise.
Anita the hairdresser’s assistant, used to sing a tune when she was doing
hair. She’d be holding a few pins in her mouth, so the words fell out all
muffled. The song was about being a rambler and a gambler and a long
way from home and feeling totally comfortable with that. I understood completely where it was coming from and wanted the same kind of spirit guiding
my own life. And I made it happen, didn’t I.
I’m getting on for sixty now. Do I ever regret doing things the way I have
done? That I’ve ended up as a rough sleeper without a place to call my
own, with nothing to my name. There’s always a part of me that thinks I must
be crazy. But I have tried living the regular way; was even married once.
That didn’t work, I felt constrained. I’ve kept on being my own person and
never given in. Trouble is my arthritis is getting bad and this nomadic life
isn’t good for that. I know a day is coming when I’ll have to settle down.
Still, I’m going to carry on enjoying my freedom while I can.
Now my mates and I are lying on our sleeping-bags and sharing a drink.
We pass the bottle and have a laugh and a joke. It’s a warmish night and
we’re glad of that. Tomorrow, who knows? I’ve got a kind of idea I’ll be
heading west, but even that could change.
32
photograph by Cybonn Ang
Alligator Tale
by Kathleen Basi
This afternoon an alligator came down my street
driving a pink scooter.
I was cleaning my gutters,
elbow-deep in half-rotted muck,
and I could swear
she winked at me as she passed.
Time, she seemed to say,
is a-wastin’.
So I left the ladder hanging
and found my scaly skin
and took off
into the cool
wild blue.
33
photographs by Chris Fradkin
34
photograph by Cybonn Ang
When We Ruled the World
by Johannah Siragusa
When I was toddler I donned my grandfather’s oil and sweat-stained cowboy hat as a crown. I mimicked his
swagger, wiping my forehead with the back of my chubby hand, spitting over my shoulder before wiping my
mouth on the cap-sleeve of my cotton dress. I squinted with intent, skin damp with heat, as we travelled in
the cotton field taking water to the hands, or rode in the rough pasture to check cattle. I remember the scent
of Camel cigarettes in the truck cab, the way my legs stuck to the bench seat, the cow prod bouncing on the
floorboard, and the gun mounts on the rear window. The farm truck our chariot, my Pap-paw king, this place
our domain, and me warrior princess, Doodlebug.
35
Terminal Departure
by A.M. Thompson
We are seated at a table for two in the faux courtyard of a faux
French café on the main terminal. Your flight takes off in an
hour. Our identical spinach-salads-with-dressing-on-the-side are
in similar states of disarray. The conversation has unspooled
toward its inevitable end. We’ve gone from laughing to confessions to silences. I finally break the pause.
“Well, I can’t explain it. It just is. I could try to deny it, but I’d
only be lying to myself.”
You nod slightly. Not in agreement, but in something that
looks remarkably similar to the clueless state I have been in for
the past six months. You inhale slowly, as if steeling yourself.
“You do know,” you say at last. “Don’t you?” You look
directly into me with those iridescent eyes. “I am not in love
with you.” It is unclear which of us you are trying to convince.
“I know,” I say. As if it could salvage my dignity I add, “it’s
okay.” It is unclear which of us I am trying to convince.
After a while you speak again. Your voice is stronger. “I know
what you experienced was profound. But it was something
else—the place perhaps, or that moment in your life. It wasn’t
me.”
We study each other without guard or explanation. Eventually, I shrug. “Maybe. I don’t know. As I said, I can’t explain
it.”
The waiter comes by. He picks up the small black tray with
two twenties tucked neatly under a plastic tab. We stand,
scraping our chairs back on the tiles. Walk back out into the
terminal. Travellers jostle past us, dragging suitcases.
We head toward security. I stretch my arm across your
shoulder. You weave your arm behind me, lightly cradling my
waist. We go on, arm in arm like that, not speaking for a
while. I lean in closer for a moment. This might be the last time
I see you.
“I do love you,” I stage whisper.
As if I just trumped your ace, you laugh. You squeeze me
close. “I know,” you say. We unwind our arms and step apart.
“Just please—don’t tell me too often.”
I try to smile. “I promise.”
We are at the cordoned entrance to a sinuous line of passengers waiting to remove their shoes and load their laptops
into grey plastic bins. You stop. Turn toward me. We study one
another. We both hesitate, then hug each other, hard. You pull
back and hike your carry-on up onto one shoulder.
“Have a safe trip,” I say.
You nod, frowning slightly. Wave your small, precise hand.
An almost royal wave. You turn away. I kiss my fingers and
blow softly, but you don’t see. I revolve and locate the exit.
Then walk away.
I don’t look back.
36
photograph by Erika Bach
Notes from the Storm
She aimed the telescope at the full moon which glowed
like an ominous lamp above the white world. The fluorescent landscape stretched out with strange solitude. It
would only be a matter of time before dogs yellowed the
clean snow and their owners left erratic footprints here
and there. It was hard to capture something unadulterated. Life had a way of staining everything.
At some point—she couldn’t recall when—the world
had grown too big for her: a wuthering, treacherous
highway spinning out of control. She’d spent a lifetime
watching it from a green vista, circling it like a magpie
but she could never trick herself into penetrating its enormous, pulsing urgency. She’d grown afraid of her own
mind, terrified to be alone with it. You’re your own worst
enemy, he had told her once as they shivered in the bed,
naked. He’d cupped her small breasts in his hands and
told her not to worry, that she would be better next time.
She tried to forget it, but her mammalian brain remembered everything, had been trained to fret the way a
lion can be trained to jump through a hoop or a seal to
balance a ball on its nose.
She catastrophized the day and somaticized her existence at night. Sometimes there were moments of great
clarity. Other times, confusion reigned. Any slight and
every task could be turned into an affliction, a disease,
a near-tragedy. There’d been the phantom lump under
her breast and the yearlong obsession with the cancer
that was never diagnosed. Nonetheless, she’d worked
out every contingency: who would take care of the cat,
who’d be entrusted with her poems, which library would
inherit her enormous collection of books. She’d tried to
convince him to love her so she wouldn’t die alone.
He’d feigned interest for awhile but eventually his visits
stopped and she was left alone with time and all the niggling thoughts that filled it.
The last time she saw him, he had appeared at the
by Phil Lane
door in the middle of the night with his shirt torn and
frost hanging from his nostrils in tiny stalactites. She’d
tried everything to warm him up but his teeth chattered
and his body twitched and shook in little convulsions.
Occasionally, he muttered something she could only sort
of understand. She’d watched him sleep; he seemed suspended in a permanent alternation between dream and
nightmare. Finally, his eyes fired and he sat bolt upright,
murmured sorry, and gasped.
When the hearse came, she hid in the attic where
she wouldn’t be able to see it. She imagined it slithering through the sleet like a black eel. All day long, the
highways hummed with trucks and at night, the rumble
of their engines downshifting had become as familiar
as an old song. But while the trucks supplied innocuous
things like chocolate and sealing wax, the hearse had
only one job: to take things away. And it did so with
earnest, frightening industry.
By dawn, the lake was frozen over and snowflakes
powdered the iron sky. She gathered the clothes he had
left behind, mopped up the footprints, and arranged the
items from his pockets on the shelf by size. I am the
lighthouse-keeper she said aloud. A lighthouse has to
be kept in monastic order. You don’t want a ship to run
aground because you were too busy fiddling with some
trinket. Saving things was only a distraction anyway— a
human flaw. You never saw a bird’s nest cluttered with
pictures of its dead relatives.
She made a list of all the things she’d lived through:
the wars, the natural disasters, the miscarriages, the diseases, the deaths of all colors and styles. Some of them
had had to happen; others had happened anyway.
She’d stopped trying to figure it out. Outside, the wind
ravaged the trees and sleet pelted the windows like little
insults to injury. But every so often, the snow stopped
and the woods gently sighed.
37
photograph by Maraya Loza Koxahn
Singapore City
by Gargi Mehra
The human equivalent of the city of Singapore is a handsome, smooth-skinned man who slips into a
slim-fit, single-breasted blazer for work. He squabbles with his wife at home, but on the bus ride to the
office he tells his friend that all is well and they have booked tickets to Bali for a family vacation. He
hunches over his computer for ten hours every day, then knocks back a few drinks at the local watering
hole with friends. He melds into a gathering of cultures, but squints with suspicion at the olive-skinned
woman seated across him on the metro. He tackles Teppanyaki with his chopsticks at lunch and feasts
on murtabak for dinner. The forty-two inch television mounted on the wall in his living room never seems
big enough, and he often drifts into pleasant daydreams where he hauls home the newer, better version.
His ambitions scale insurmountable heights, but the lack of innovation in his genes implies he falls just
short of perfection.
38
Time Travel
Grave Mother
They were in the antiques shop because eleven
fifteen was too early for Saturday lunch. Rather
than submit to the scent of warm buttery pasties
that mocked him from almost every doorway of
the ancient checkerboard streets of Salisbury, he’d
decided they should spend an hour, immersed in
the musty smell of the accumulated past, a sure-fire
appetite killer.
He made himself take interest in a set of nineteenth century pennies, shrink wrapped by time
in their transparent plastic folder. Five minutes—
that was good. Next he feigned excitement over
a brazen miner’s lamp. From Cornwall, like those
pasties. Mmm—not so good. Moving swiftly on,
his attention was caught by a white enamel box,
perhaps the butler’s box he wanted for his shoe
polish. Very good.
On inspection, the box was pristine, except
for a fault in the enamel on the rim, in exactly the
same place as the fault on his grandmother’s white
enamel bread bin, which had lived in her pantry,
almost forty years before.
Suddenly, he could see the bread bin which stood
next to an old wooden board, on which, under the
crumbs of the day’s breakfast, the marks of decades
of slicing were notched up like a tally. In his mind’s
ear, he heard the knife snuffling through the bread,
as his grandmother, trained by wartime austerity,
eked out rice paper-like slices. He saw her, sandwiching flakes of canary cheddar, enrobed with
scarlet ketchup, between the sheets. He tasted the
tidal wave of umami flooding all the corners of his
mouth as he bit into it.
He resurfaced and saw his wife staring at
him with an I-wonder-where-you’ve-been smile.
Shuffling his wristwatch from under his shirt cuff he
said, ‘‘Eleven thirty. That’s not too early for lunch?”
The grass grows thick and green on both sides of
this rail fence, each field fed with the early dead.
On the right, stone lambs sleep beneath sentinel
angels that weep over piles of wilted roses. On
the left, granite sheets coated in lichen sink into
the dirt, names worn shallow in the stone. And my
face, here on the rail, an eroded marker—marble
made grey with age. Here lies Margaret—Meg, to
those who knew her—which was no one, not even
me.
Outside the fence, the stone-toothed hill slopes
down into the woods. Trees push back up onto the
hill, roots lifting the desecrated stones, wreaking
unseen havoc on the small, unconsecrated heads
resting below. Roots thread through soft fontanelles.
The fence presses into my tailbone where I
straddle the rail. Rose stems prick my right foot,
thistle weeds jab my left. Margaret stabs my left,
buried deep in her fallopian tomb. I bathe the rail
in blood.
I saw her heart beat for a moment—three quick
flashes of a fluttering valve on a black screen. But
altogether in the wrong place, to the left. I signed
the papers on a Thursday, to end her and save me.
When it rains, old roses wash under the fence
and down the hill where they tangle and make a
dry bramble arching over the leaning stones. Their
seeds dry to husks before they ever take root.
On the right, dates stretch the stones wide, from
weeks to years. On the left, a single day, maybe
three. On my face, the lines carve a lifetime,
counting backward from the day that should have
been Margaret’s day. They soaked her in poison
on a Friday. They said if they didn’t, I’d die.
I saw her tangle of bones, a compressed nest
all in the wrong place. They said some would pass
through me and some would become me, but some
stayed, and turned to stone. And I mark her, everywhere.
The babes deep inside the high hill rest till
rapture, while Margaret and I—we waited for
rupture, and now it’s come.
I swing my right leg over the fence, sink my feet
into the weeds to the left, turn my back on the rows
of angels. The warm coat of blood running down
my legs soothes the nettle sting and thistle prick of
the bramble by the woods.
I find us a place in the tangle of roots, like the
tangle of her stone bones, and I lay us down. Here
lie Mother and Margaret, and as I fade into the
earth, she’ll remain, watching over me, my own
stone angel, my sleeping lamb. And I, the ground
for Margaret, all in the wrong place.
39
by Luca Marchiori
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by Sarah Read
Madame Rahna, An A.M. Lament
by M.E. Mitchell
Diviner
by Judy Brackett
My daughter and I walked past Madame Rahna’s
table at the Polk Street Art Fair on our way to get
some Peet’s coffee to take the edge off the morning
fog and chilly breeze. As we sipped and strolled,
stopping under random canopies to peruse
stacks of colorful bowls and coffee mugs, kitschy
painted rocks, twiggy sunbursts, photographs and
paintings (orange bridge, orange sunsets; gnarled
cypresses clinging to wave-lashed cliffs; barefoot,
big-eyed children), Madame Rahna smiled at us
again and again, pointed to her cards, tapped
her sign—Madame Rahna, Diviner. $15.00, 15
minutes—her little table dwarfed by towering
carved bears and racks of vintage clothing.
“Come sit, come sit,” she said. Finally, we
stopped. She pushed the fat tabby off the folding
chair, and I sat. As the cat hopped onto my lap,
Madame Rahna smiled. Nearly purring herself,
she said, “A lucky sign for you, she has twenty-four
toes.”
Across the table, covered with faded, raggedy
silks, tarot cards, crystals, sprinkles of sand, a
browning rose in a chipped jelly jar, a few fortune
cookies in a saucer, she studied my face; I studied
hers. She had the requisite few chin whiskers, her
blue eyes at once bright with secrets and hooded
with ennui. My daughter looked down on us,
amused.
Madame Rahna said, “You have green eyes.
Write your name in the sand,” and I did. She said,
“Your hands, please,” and rubbed my palms with
her own soft hands. “Hmmm,” she murmured. As
she turned cards, I half-listened thinking of Old
Maid and Go Fish, thinking of a late summer middle-of-the-night solitaire marathon at my kitchen
table, waiting for my third child three days past his
due date, the previous day’s heat still oppressive,
drinking water, perspiring, game after game after
game.
Madame Rahna said, “You will travel east
and south...there’s a clown in your life, get rid
of the clown...you will get married...you will find
money...threes are important...some sadness with
children,” then smiled at my daughter, patted her
hand, nodded at the chair. My daughter gave the
tabby a scratch between her ears and declined to
take a seat.
Later, through the fog that broke its promise to
burn off by mid-day, we walked up the steep hill
to the fancy neighborhood where we’d parked our
old truck. Its back window was broken, bags—
gone; cup of parking-meter quarters—gone;
newish Birkenstocks—gone; even my ragged,
faded sarong crusty with Stinson Beach sand—
gone.
40
Every morning, before daylight intrudes on solemn
thoughts, I set the racing equipment outside each
horse’s stall and recall a time when my body could
withstand winter’s subzero temperatures or the
blistering heat of a July afternoon. Self-medication
dulls the physical pain a bit, but I just haven’t hit
upon the right concoction that will ease the disquiet
in my head.
I find myself peering down a dimly lit shedrow,
hoping to see familiar faces emerge from the
shadows to greet me with an ebullient hello or
doff of the cap. Dawn arrives with its companion
reality and reminds me the pleasant images I seek
are long gone, absentees because of forced retirement or death. The once tender waltz fades to a
Danse Macabre. I toast the event with rum-laced
coffee while a verse from my ancient youth comes
to mind: I’ve taken you by the hand, for you must
come to my dance. How does the rest of it go? Too
bad I got stinking drunk that day and tossed all my
textbooks in the dumpster or I’d be able to look it
up.
As I post the training schedule on the chalkboard,
the help begins stumbling in. They are a dispassionate lot, interested only in collecting a paycheck
so they can hand it over to the clerk behind the
betting window. They curse the work, curse the
long hours, curse their four-legged charges, and
curse me. My boss has this stupid idea that any
groom in the stall is better than none, so my hands
are tied when it comes to firing anybody. Horsemanship has taken a back seat to appeasement
these days.
I chastise one of the help for screaming at a
filly that is reluctant to get up from its lush straw
bedding, then instruct him to tack up another horse
instead. Walking away, I hear the words “old
bitch” sandwiched between other choice expletives.
I say nothing and return to hollow duties until the
time comes to comply.
--- For you must come to my dance ---
vine
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Peeper
a one-minute play
by Rachel Bublitz
Characters:
Tom, m, any race
Setting:
A window in Tom’s apartment
It is very quiet. TOM is on stage. HE has a
pair of binoculars and looks out with them
on one specific spot.
TOM
I like to imagine what her name is.
I have narrowed it down to 84 possibilities, and I am certain that it is one of them.
Some nights I call them out to her.
Amy?...
I do not yell. I would never yell at her.
Sarah?...
When you watch someone as long as I have watched her, you learn things about
them. For example, I know that her name cannot be Jackie. I know this.
Deborah?...
No, not Deborah. That makes for 83.
83 possibilities.
Hmmm...
TOM moves closer to the spot he is watching. His breathing becomes audible and
quick. He speaks quickly.
TOM (CONTINUED)
There goes her blouse.
Tonight the bra she wears is black.
She did not shave under her arms this morning.
Pause. TOM’s speech and breath return to
normal.
Now her light is off.
TOM (CONTINUED)
TOM lowers his binoculars.
Sweet dreams. April?...
End
TOM (CONTINUED)
41
The Woman Who Doesn’t Eat
by Esther Skurtu
She pulls up to the school drinking a can of Budweiser, her car door swings
open, engine still running. She’s got one leg on the ground and the other inside,
juxtaposing the devoted mother picking up her kids and the nervous wife who
hides in her car to drink.
“Hi there,” she smiles. Gesturing me to come over and chat.
“I don’t get paid until tomorrow and I need to buy a loaf of bread.
Can you loan me a five?
I’ll pay you right back.”
I hand her a twenty ‘cause it’s all I have.
She turns her engine off, simultaneously swinging her other foot on the ground.
I know she won’t buy bread because her husband’s a real jerk.
The bell rings so she slams her beer, then her door.
“Thanks,” she says.
Her tight sweat pants have a hole in the seam and I notice her legs as we walk
up the stairs. They’re fit and thin so I ask her how she does it.
“I don’t eat,” she laughs.
42
photograph by Erika Bach