APIARY 3

issue 3, fall/winter 2011 APIARY publishes work by authors of all ages. However, some content may not be appropriate for children under 13. If you are interested in a kid-friendly PDF edition for use in schools or other community programs, please contact us at info@apiarymagazine.com.

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APIARY Issue 3.

Fall/Winter 2011.

Copyright Š APIARY Magazine 2011 ISSN: 2160-9608 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without the publisher’s written permission, except for brief quotations in reviews. All works rights return to the authors upon publication. www.apiarymagazine.com info@apiarymagazine.com

Dear readers, W

elcome to APIARY, a collection of stories, poems and art by people from Philly and its surroundings. You might know that Philadelphia is a great literary city, bright and buzzing with writers of many ages, cultures and styles. If so, this magazine is for you. If not, it’s for you too.

We’re celebrating this moment in local literature. You can show up at the party anytime.

We seek to reflect the excellence and vibrancy of local writing by gathering submissions from as many different creative communities as possible. APIARY 3 includes work from high school teachers and high school students; authors born in Israel, Cambodia, and Camden; and poets who’ve made a living by building furniture, testing electronics, and serving in Iraq.

We’re very excited that you’re reading our 3rd issue for free. In 2009, when we founded APIARY, we hoped to one day make it a free publication. With the support of donors and advertisers, here it is.

This is how you were meant to encounter the magazine: easily, maybe out of boredom or curiosity.

You pick it up, and after reading for a while, you might leave it somewhere else. You might forget all about it. Or you might depart with a favorite line, a landscape, an ache or relief in your chest.

This hazy pattern — stopping and gathering, moving on — is not limited to casual readers. When bees follow it, we call it pollination. They fly away from each flower dusted with the ingredients for honey. They leave pollen from one blossom on the stamen of another. The process is totally accidental, and completely necessary to the continuation of our life on earth.

Humans don’t like thinking their lives are accidental. It’s frightening. But what is city life, love, art, creation, and community, if not a series of chance meetings and transformations? We’ve gathered the voices of your fellow Philadelphians into these pages. Why not fly away with their words on your wings?

Love,

APIARY Image Listing Inside front cover: “Morirvivis” by Julia Lopez of Las Gallas Artist Collective Page 10: “All the Canaries” by Rebecca Brame Page 17: “City at Night” by Rebecca Brame Page 26 and 27 spread: “Canelita” by Rebecca Brame Page 31: “Wake Up” by Rebecca Brame Page 32 and 33 spread: from left to right “Llena de Luz y Lucha” by Michelle Ortiz, of Las Gallas Artist Collective “Madre de mi Corazón” by Michelle Ortiz, of Las Gallas Artist Collective “Niño Consentido” by Michelle Ortiz, of Las Gallas Artist Collective “La Oveja Negra” by Julia Lopez, of Las Gallas Artist Collective Page 36: “Mama” by Magda Martinez, of Las Gallas Artist Collective Page 39: “Lullaby” by Rebecca Brame Page 45: “Pitcher King,” detail, by Rebecca Brame Page 47: “Abuela” by Magda Martinez, of Las Gallas Artist Collective Page 55: “Carrying the Dogs” by Rebecca Brame page 58: “LaDonna” by Rebecca Brame

CONTENTS

Italics denote a youth author Rachel Betesh Dan Elman James Rahn Chantelle Bateman Patrick Lucy Bonnie MacAllister Philip Krieger Leila Wright

Anneke Murray-Rudegeair Grant Clauser Liz Chang Maria Ceferatti Alyesha Wise Carlos Trujillo Hanoch Guy Carlos Soto-Román Ebony Malaika Collier Safiya Washington Jane Cassady Helen Steadman Tepi Ennis Zipporah M. Stephanie Sutton Peter Baroth Ty Russell Smyte IX Amy Hostetter Shannon Connor Winward Kathryn Ann Smith Brandon Holmquest Amy Freeman Maxwell Gontarek

Paul Siegell Courtney K. Bambrick Artist and Author Biographies

Other Rooms Small Spaces Respect PTSD Honeycreeper A Gasp in Two Parts Here and There The Arrival A Bloody Something The Trouble with Intercourse Erasure/Collage Elegy Olga’s Visions To Mother Earth, Time, Dust Eine Kleine Nacht Music As a Tilted Whirlwind “At the Intersection…”

Women Are Gracious Song for the Job-Quitters This is My England Ode to a Comma Stank!!!!!

The Tree The Chimera Icarus Superman Lem Arrangement Nana Critical Natural Area Garbage 17B We’ve come for (...)

How We Got Our Heart

To learn more about the artists and artwork you see in this issue, please visit www.apiarymagazine.com.

6 7 8 9 11 12 12 13 14 16 18 20 24 28 29 30 30 35 36 37 38 38 38 40 42 43 44 46 46 48 51 53 54 57 58

OTHER ROOMS After she left, and after the injections, I read about ectopic pregnancies.

About the fallopian tubes, How they open into the body like soft trumpets, a palm to lift up the awoken egg.

And how they narrow into dim tunnels, A corridor with one uterine room at the end.

To every well-designed system there is a mirrored malfunction: In this one, ectopic, there are other rooms.

— Nighttime on the cancer unit, where wrongness Is what we’ve grown used to: we stop dark things With bright colors: liquid red, strong yellows, Acrid smells that linger in the urine and sweat.

Colors so loud in the body that what grows dimly Is, hopefully, swallowed whole.

We are accustomed to the solid dark of tumors, The fluid dark of leukemia, the insidious shades Of sick tissue spreading thickly.

— But for the ectopic pregnancy, the chemotherapy must be carried Six stairwells down to the emergency room, to a single cot surrounded by a curtain, and a woman is there.

Ectopic: a clean word for displacement, A dull truth of the lost. Unable to reach the uterus, An egg that settles on fallopian walls.

The pain the woman feels is the egg itself: Hunger-growth of expansion in a too-small room.

A deep ache, wrong and persistent.

— For a nurse, quietness can act as apology: Not righting, but persistent: a low voice to give the silence sound.

Then the calm unpacking of bright colors, the explaining softly.

6

Like a confession, the blush of instruction: quietly— Please pull down your underwear, and there, roll over.

Quickness of the horrible things: the soft skin pinched, The awful yellow sent in by needle, the pressure Of clean cotton; as if that swiftness makes light.

Everything is thrown away. She sits up.

Rachel Betesh

SMALL SPACES Instead of Chestnut I will say Small Place Instead of Bone I will say Structure instead Of Flesh I will say Wood instead of Could have I will say Shudder instead of Blight Small instead of

Dan Elman 7

RESPECT

maybe the balls) to do the things that really tough guys did: never back down, keep fighting till you can’t fight anymore, take on several guys at once.

But I got in many fights because I had a big mouth and couldn’t tolerate excessive shit. I won more than lost, but won my battles through duplicity, artifice. I knew how to dupe my opponent and set him up for the sucker-punch—smile him into thinking that I was his chump, then BAM right in the nose. His eyes would tear up and he couldn’t breathe and I wouldn’t stop waling until the guy was through. That’s how I won my fights.

But Ronnie could stand back and duke it out, or disable his opponent with his massive strength.

Prologue from the forthcoming novel Bloodnight

I

n fifth grade I got into a fight with Ronnie Shepherd. Ronnie was a big kid with a diving helmet for a head and huge flipper hands. I was a small skinny mouthy fellow. We fought on a garage roof that had a view of the salt marshes and bay that bordered Marvista. Ronnie put his hands up and I coiled my fists and waded in and threw a few punches until he grabbed me brutally around the neck and hurled me off the roof. I stared at him a second like, What are you, nuts? before I plummeted, head-first, ten feet to the ground. Instinctively I put my hands up to protect my face—which I did—but the impact bent them back to my forearms, snapping my wrists like twigs.

In his sophomore year in high school Ronnie kicked the hell out of two older guys around our way who were considered great tough guys and lady-killers too. He acquired a gang after this and during the winter when he turned eighteen, he and his crew drove up to the bars in the Inlet and punched out several huge muscle-bound bouncers. Down the beach that summer, he and his friends hooted and hollered at various girls and couples who strolled by. If one of the boyfriends turned around and said something, Ronnie’d say, “You better keep on walking or I’ll kick your ass AND your bitch’s ass.” But if I came sauntering by with my girl, Ronnie was always polite, respectful, almost deferential. He made me feel in some strange way that I had power over him.

I lay there in the dirt with my arms folded across my chest in a kind of mummified stupor.

Ronnie got scared and ran away. I lay there and felt a great nausea growing in my gut—the feeling you get when you know you’re really hurt. A cool breeze blew around me and I smelled the clammy stench of the bay at low-tide.

I slouched home, my arms draped like empty sleeves by my sides. My mother was on the porch and after I told her what’d happened, she said, “You dumb jackass of a child.”

One night I was at the Dairy Queen, one of the places we all hung out, getting a Buster Bar, and Ronnie was also there with his gang. A large white car pulled up to the traffic light and Ronnie and the driver started mad-dogging each other, glaring at each other, saying: “What’chu lookin at?” “What’CHU lookin at?” The guy wheeled his car around to the side of the building and got out. I knew him vaguely; he used to play on the high school baseball team. He wore trim black pants and a Hawaiian shirt. He smelled like the sea. He stepped quickly to Ronnie, and pulled something from behind his back, a nickel-plated gun that glistened in the neon wash of the DQ sign. It must have been a .45. He grabbed Ronnie by the hair and yanked his head savagely and screwed the muzzle of the gun into his temple,

Ronnie and I had an unacknowledged intimacy after the fight. We never spoke about it. He may have felt guilty about how bad he’d hurt me and how he’d run away, but he certainly didn’t lose anything in the rep department. I, on the other hand, had much respect and caution around a guy who could break both my wrists.

I mean what was he going to do next, break my legs?

Ronnie grew up to become a tough guy and I became a marginal tough guy—more blusterer than brawler. I never really had the size (and 8

yelling, “You lookin for trouble? You lookin for trouble?” Ronnie blinked, his eyes as big as half dollars. “Uh, uh, uh,” he stammered, “uh, uh.”

To which the guy replied, “Meet trouble, motherfucker. I’m Trouble!”

Those were the days when you thumped and didn’t bang. Most of us had never seen a handgun before. Ah, maybe someone’s father had one. But nobody around our age knew anything about guns. We were shocked. Ronnie, of course, more so—almost undone. None of us said anything until the guy pulled away. But everybody knew who the big dog was now.

The guy was a wiseguy who went on to be indicted for several mob hits. Then he turned state’s evidence against the higher-ups and got spirited away into the witness-protection program. Ronnie went on to become a cop and raise a slew of young boys, maniacs in their own right. I went on to write stories about guys I knew, and other stuff that happened in Marvista.

James Rahn

PTSD sadness is the color of my eyes, my heart, the same shade as distance and some kind of Miles Davis on repeat. it's the sound I don't want anyone to hear creeping out of my pillows in the morning before the coffee and cigarettes beginan avatar, when I'd rather just be myself. my anxiety smells like whatever it is that makes mean dogs bare their teeth. it sound like trees falling, like doors slamming, like a pin drop, and sometimes, like my mother checking on me again. it feels like nothing. anger is the color I paint the town with — blood shot, and sparkling with tiny salt crystals louder than the sirens they play when I hit the deck, bitter sweet and never offered cookies.

I'm just a pile of tears needing to punch you.

Chantelle Bateman 9

HONEYCREEPER Around my neck hangs a pool of honey which I am constantly applying to my face. Several species of birds and a dozen types of insects rely on me for survival. Hummingbirds and butterflies visit me before migrating across the Gulf of Mexico and when they come back again I have great difficulty remembering names.

“Who are you?” I ask, “I’m sorry but, who are you?” “And you?”

I’m fairly sure some of the younger butterflies are fucking with me, telling me made-up names like “Guntherapy” and “Lexluthera” but I can’t be sure. I’m not a butterfly after all. I’m saddest when it’s raining, when everything’s wet and I’m barely alive, wondering where all the damn butterflies went. My greatest secret about myself is that I eat the butterflies and hummingbirds when no one is looking.

Some plans will grow into almost anything including most of my body if I never move including my brain. The key to the whole operation is the bees and they’ve indicated they’re highly interested in moving ahead with the deal. It’s all lined up. We’re evolving as we speak.

Patrick Lucy 11

A Gasp in Two Parts

HERE AND THERE Eight Quatrain Snapshots

Part I Last summer I learned that in Ethiopia A gasp is an affirmation, (It means yes) There was a puddle on the floorboards from the rainy season Across the street, the men collected water to wash the cars.

Washington Square. Six-twenty-three.

Stately compartment of noise.

Poised on the verge of Soft summer evening.

Eighty June degrees and 360 thick with Rings of concentric bustle.

Handsome in its frame of Still marble-silled facades.

We wouldn't see a street parade until midday, The water has dried, Leaving only its signature The children measured drops in buckets and old drinking glasses.

Bobble-neck pigeons wandering With the purposelessness of Loosed inmates.

Though with less wondering.

One little boy would always ask me my name And laugh....It sounded silly in Amharic.

He would ask me what happened when I pinched my skin, why it wouldn't turn brown.

The street women were always nursing a baby, They would switch sometimes, share the responsibility.

They wore the weight of the deluge, No house would open to them.

One man smacked her hand When she asked for a smile.

I would offer one freely, Paint it in the Simien hills, Carve a new bank on the Nile, Bridge Lake Tana, Offer her a getaway.

Barks broadcasting.

Leashes taut with brisk canine step.

Buses coughing as they Circle the square.

Georgian brick houses.

Tonight’s trick; friends; spouses.

Canes with tamed elders, Idling in the lanes.

Squirrels ring-running Ridgey, bark-clad trunks With clickety-split claws, Crackling.

Part II This summer I felt heat they call a "canicule"— The dog days of summer— One Frenchman laughed at me when I confused The word for poodle. It seemed a natural etymology.

I wished for rain in Old Lyon, Climbed Red Crosses to amphitheatres, arenas, A horrid drought, Damp only from my own consternation, A hideous discomfort.

Bonnie MacAllister

Cell phones speaking ricochet-talk, As invisible word-ribbons Jumble and sort.

Then, swiftly port.

And from here I call there, To speak with my honey And share some Philly hum, With an Ithaca country evening.

Philip Krieger 12

The Arrival Love arrived one day With excited genitalia and youthful promises I turned him away Said return when you mature Love came back Distant and bitter I turned him away Said return when you learn forgiveness Love came back Demanding and jealous I turned him away Said return when you learn patience Love came back Fleeting and fickle I turned him away Said return when you learn commitment Love came back Free and powerful A reflection of me

Leila Wright 13

A BLOODY SOMETHING I’m always trying to reinvent myself as selfeffacing, the kind of girl everybody loves more.

I grab my jaw in my hand and squeeze the crap out of it but it stops for no man. And what’s the use of trying when my face is worth a thousand words and everyone already knows me as second cousin to the devil?

One time Alex told me he had no feeling at all in his right leg.

Go ahead, smack it, pinch it. Whatever you do, won’t hurt.

Whatever I do?

Anything.

I smacked it.

You won’t hurt me.

Are you sure?

Yes. Really?

Yes.

If I had to think of the thing on my body that bleeds the most, it would definitely be my vagina. That’s not true for everyone, even the women. For example: people who have granulomas bleed a lot from them. A granuloma is a lesion of epithelioid microphages. Ryan had one on his finger once and some days it was a steady stream of blood. He kept a bandage on it but it could bleed right through. Sometimes it would burst open while we were making love, pressure from the need causing bursting anywhere it could.

I looked into his eyes, deep into his small brown eyes. Was this a lie? I knew it wouldn’t prove anything to fuck up his leg, feeling or no feeling, but I had to test it, I had to know. Was he so desperate to be touched? Was this how far a person with a face full of landmines had to go for contact?

I buy Batman band-aids, doing my best to make pain fun! I have dreams of celebrities and the skin divers—1,800 weak ideas: the big ones kicking the shit out of a fat kid, the little ones groaning, “Better him than me.” I’m chemistry drifting through sleep, suspended in aspic or twirling about or using a debit card. Sitting. Eating. Calling a friend. Passing the time.

Ready?

Yes. I have Reynaud’s disease. It’s a blood vessel disorder. My fingers turn white, they tingle and prune up and go dead. It’s like I’m turning to rubbery stone, from the tips in.

There was a boy in my high school named Alex. He had terrible acne. How tough must it be to walk around with a face that repulses people!

I would have hidden myself at all times, waiting it out, waiting until it cleared up to start my life, even if it never cleared up, but not Alex. He was pally with the tough guys and swung from the chandelier.

I used both hands to pinch the leg as hard as possible, forefinger on forefinger, thumb on thumb, and there was Alex: stoic as a cucumber while I viced the shit out of his inner thigh.

I was impressed.

If this was a lie, he was masterful at controlling his reactions to pain. Hot. If not, this poor guy was making it with a face full of landmines and a dead leg. Fearless! Hot.

You think this is it—all white lands and whiter thoughts—this is happiness. But beneath this is the past, crawling along at a snail’s pace, keeping time. And there are memories of it—home movies, real and imagined—in habits.

I have Mitral Valve Prolapse. It’s a heart condition. A bulging valve causes extra beats and panic attacks, fatigue and dizziness. It feels like something’s flopping around in there. It’s like having a fish for a heart. I’d like to be the spokesperson for it like Linda Carter is for Irritable 14

Bowel Syndrome. She’s one of the only women I can think of who’s sexy enough to pull that one off. Lucky for me, MVP is romantic: fluttering heart, swooning from lust, gentle and delicate flower.

When I exercise vigorously or get overwhelmingly embarrassed, my face turns a devastating red: the red of the tropical hibiscus flower or the red sea, the scarlet tanager, the heart of a pomegranate, the light district that goes by that name, redder than the carmine bee-eater, redder than the Native American red man.

One time Alex offered to tie my shoe. I was sitting in the library with my feet up on the table and I hadn’t noticed but there it was: untied, the tongue lolling lustily along my sock. I eyed his neck colonies, geysers held at bay by the thinnest of membranes. I was positive that Alex’s bloody something was his face.

Alex leaped from the table, making off with my lace and I gave chase, grateful for the chance to run. The library was connected to the auditorium and I followed him through the back door, which led backstage.

Sure, tie it.

Come on man, gimme it back!

You gotta catch me, bro.

It was dark in the backstage hallway.

It felt like a favor. anytime, taking a week to digest one meal. I must have evolved to survive a very boring environment. For a girl like me, this modern world can be too much of a good thing.

I followed its lead, bunching up by the door.

As I turned the corner he hooked me with an arm and used the momentum to spin me around, in one motion, into the costume room and into a kiss. I was on the exhale. He kissed like a strongman, specialty: tongue. There wasn’t room in my mouth for my own tongue anymore and it retreated, bunching up in the throat.

Alex made a big show of it just like he made a big show of everything, crawling up on the long library table to kneel before my foot. He glanced over at another table where the tough guys sat with single serving bags of Lays chips and cute girls from the ninth grade. He held up my leg for them as some kind of evidence or offering. The girls smiled at me with a certain approving sympathy. It stopped feeling like a favor.

In quiet moments, I’m confronted by my floating double—peering back through frosted glass, face screwed up like a yawning cat, begging questions and all in a frenzy.

In the 1920’s, popular silent screen comedian Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle was accused of raping and killing a young girl. This brought scandal to Hollywood and inspired the organization of the first ever movie ratings board. Fatty Arbuckle is one of Hollywood’s early bloody somethings, of which there have been thousands, including, most notoriously bloody-Hollywood-something of all, Fatty’s legacy, the MPAA.

A sequoia named General Sherman is the biggest living thing on earth. Sending off his nesting birds, he learns the news of California.

How cheated he must feel—to have parried root to root, and root to stone, and root to earth for two-thousand years, where the tip of every spindly sprig must be a thumb, master in the art of war—now that any hairless ape with some damp cash for a set of clothes can waltz into an elevator and scrape the sky.

Instead of tying my shoe, Alex pulled out the lace, the plastic end clicking against each metal eyelet. I didn’t protest. I was frozen in the gazes of the tough guys and the headlights of the cute girls with my foot in the lap of a pizza face who I now believed capable of anything. He held the lace above his head, cocky smile, head cocked.

Anni Murray Rudegeair 15

THE TROUBLE WITH INTERCOURSE

Intercourse is a town in the Amish district of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.

I wonder about that, and other things around here. The Amish kick their horses faster through Intercourse Pennsylvania. Corn rows shake with the clatter of crows following a farmer’s bobbing hat. We came by bus, shaking our heads and laughing.

It’s no mistake the down is dry, a drink would be disaster.

But home in Easton, the bridges slip slowly into Jersey, where crows suck forgotten organs from the sides of road kills, and I’ve eaten all the shad I can take from that river. Too Allentown falls short of its promises. Truck stops wither on the freeway like old dogs.

We knew about the corn and the one streetlight stuck forever in green.

But the pace takes getting used to— always a steady swing like a town clock and the way the courthouse oaks seem perpetually ready to fall.

The Amish know the trouble is no one ever plans to stay here, past the harvest or shake of lumber.

Pheasants bow their scarlet collars to the passers-by, then quickly home to nest. They know we are all strangers here.

Grant Clauser 16

Erasure/Collage Elegy

from “Speak, Memory:…” and emails received between April 24 and May 5, 2010 It may be a long way,

but on a good day

it’s where

the work gets done; analyzed— It’s a curious thing to discover everything and as we know His discharge date keeps changing.

Morgan is still in the hospital

amid all that

mild expressive doctors are not very clear

heels side-by-side and humming sometimes with their explanations of words that are similar in meaning (such as “cat” for “dog”) or similar in sounds (“foot” for “phone”)

But that was exactly

to us what we already knew As of now, it might be this Wednesday Everyone flocks together.

Once you get outside

the scenes popping up He’s still a bit disoriented, especially at night, And occasionally during the day

probably the only

errors made are sometimes

secret because he just hasn’t mentioned anything. hasn’t mentioned any more of the hallucinations Recently 18

you

realized

last night, driving—i late, and the

transformed.

whole city

We passed Constellations of what keeps you in I think we’ve been really lucky that we’re a city of misfits,

close-knit

we have such a strong connection We grew up but it’s still sometimes difficult

not trying to be invented. And

Yesterday, after a few days of declining mental insularity, becomes clear he will be heading directly to hospice care.

Hubble discovered that the universe was out there, with the cancer all over his lungs as well as in his lymph nodes playing

one month before Just that one month, when there was nothing else—only

Or a freeway and a garden, like us.

No one knows what this means in regards to the future.

Everyone always says to us concentrate quietly: God, you maybe we don’t need to come back together, and

to breathe

to figure out what kind of cells there are we happened to be

the memories, color, and that— maybe there are some things you ought to say out loud— together.

19

OLGA’S VISION

“C’mon, you guys. That poor woman is ninetyfour years old. Both of her sons hardly communicate with her, and her extended family is no better. I feel badly for her.”

“She should feel badly for you because she talks so much!” Oscar said.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’ll just be a few minutes.”

“Mom, wait a second. Look what I’m gonna do!”

Oscar located his empty plate on the table and then carefully held it as he walked to the counter. My husband and I had been practicing this process with him, so we watched silently, trying not to jump in to help. Oscar made it to the counter with the plate, but he slid it over too far towards the sink. Before we could stop it, the plate teetered on the edge and then fell into the sink with a loud crash. Oscar jumped. “Oh no!” he said.

“It’s OK, sweetie,” I said. “Even sighted people drop things, don’t worry.”

“I drop things all the time,” my husband said.

“You do?” Oscar was blinking back tears.

“Yeah, Daddy is a huge klutz!” I said.

“Hey,” Samuel looked at me, “aren’t you supposed to be delivering some lasagna right about now?”

“Don’t be long!” Oscar said as I dashed out the door.

I stepped out into the chilly evening. Poor Oscar, I thought as I walked toward Olga’s house. Single two-bedroom ranch homes lined the street—built in the forty’s they served as either a ‘starter home’, or a ‘finisher home’. Mine was the former, Olga’s the latter. As I passed under a streetlight I cringed when I saw a familiar sign—a yellow diamond with black letters reading, “Blind Child Area.” Screw you, I wanted to say to the sign. It stood in the spotlight like a diva at the Metropolitan Opera. I squeezed the foil pan of lasagna tightly and walked on.

M

y eight-year-old son recited grace as we stared at the steam rising from the dish of lasagna on the kitchen table. “Bless-us-oh-lord-and-thesethy-gifts-which-we-are-about-to-receive-from-thybounty- through-Christ-our-lord-amen.”

“Oscar,” my husband Samuel said. “I think that was the fastest version of ‘grace’ I have ever heard.”

“Well, I’m hungry. Let’s get this show on the road!”

I looked at Samuel and shook my head. We never knew what was going to come out of that kid’s mouth at any given moment. I put a slice of lasagna on a plate in front of Oscar.

“Wow, it’s hot!” he said, touching the lasagna with his fingertips.

“Yeah, you should see the steam coming from it!”

Samuel said. “You’d better blow on it.”

I sprinkled grated cheese on Oscar’s lasagna, then placed a scoop of green beans next to it. “Your lasagna is on the right and the green beans are on the left,” I told him. “Water’s next to your plate on the right and fork and napkin on the left.”

Oscar gently moved his right hand until it made contact with the glass, and then, with the fingertips of his left hand, he tapped lightly on the table until he located the napkin and fork. Once he found the fork, he began to dig in. He managed to scoop a healthy, but sloppy, chunk of lasagna onto his fork.

When he brought the golden slab of carbs to his lips he quickly blew on it three times before shoving it in his mouth. We watched him for a response. With a mouth full of food he announced, “This is delicious!”

When we were finished, there were two pieces of lasagna left over and I felt like they were staring at me. I knew why. “I’m going to wrap this up and bring it to Olga,” I said.

“Oh jeez!” Oscar said, getting up from the table and pushing in his chair. “How long are you going to be?”

“Not long.”

“You have to read to me and put me to bed soon,” he said. “You’re gonna be over there and she’s gonna be talking and talking and talking!”

Samuel began clearing the table. “I got an idea,” he said. “Bring her the lasagna and then ask her to put you in her will! She’s gotta be loaded!”

I arrived at Olga’s house and knocked at the door.

She came to the door and held it open for me. I had been there a few weeks ago with some lentil soup, but her four-foot-ten frame seemed even smaller somehow.

“Look at my hands,” she started immediately and held her hands up for me to see.

“Hi Olga,” I said standing in her entryway. I looked down at her hands. They were twisted and thick, like gnarled tree trunks.

“This hand is pointing East, and this hand is pointing West,” she said. “I can’t hold anything 20

anymore. I try to eat and I drop my fork, my spoon, everything.” She shook her head. “Did I tell you how long it’s been since my son in California called me?”

Two years.

“How long?” I said.

“Two years,” she went on. “I always have to be the one to call him. Can you believe it?”

Could I believe it? Actually – Stop it, Loretta, behave yourself!

“That’s awful,” I said.

“Look at this.” She pointed to her left eye, noticeably smaller than the right. “This one they screwed up with that experimental laser.” She waved her hand in front of her eye. “Nothing. Maculate Degeneration.”

Macular. It was getting chilly. Take a deep breath.

Be patient.

Then she pointed to her right eye with her crooked index finger. It shone, clouded and coated, like an opal stone. “This one has the cataract. I can barely see your face. Your dark hair, I can see, and your jacket, is it blue? No black. I can see that.

Everything else is a blur.” She waved her stiff hand around and shook her head.

“I brought you some lasagna, Olga.”

“Oh, good.” She smiled, patted me on the shoulder and let me into the house.

She walked with a cane and I followed her as she slowly limped into the living room. Her house was spotless. Like a pictorial from Harper’s Bazaar on how to properly keep one’s home in nineteen fifty seven. A tall but narrow china closet stood dignified against one wall. Porcelain figurines created scenes on every shelf; elegant women in broad hats and walking canes, boys and girls frolicking and frozen on an unseen countryside, birds tilting up their chins, silently chirping. Olga is not alone while she watches figure skating on TV at night, she’s not alone while she listens to Perry Como cassettes on the tape player that her son gave her—these figurines are her company, her friends. She had told me that most of them were gifts from her father as she was growing up. He owned a barber shop in the Warwick Hotel and every now and then he’d go to a nice jewelry shop and buy something special for her.

Some of the figurines are probably worth a small fortune.

“I fell again.” Olga said, proudly.

“You did? What happened?”

She stopped hobbling and pointed toward her living room curtains. “I put up my winter curtains.”

Winter curtains? Who changes their curtains for the seasons? When I put up the blinds in my front window two years ago, I put ‘em up and I never looked back. “Why didn’t you call me, Olga?” I said.

“Samuel and I could have helped you with that.”

She shooed at me with the east-facing hand. “Oh, I just got the step ladder and did it myself. I’ve done it myself forever. It’s this foot. It’s giving me trouble again.” She pointed at her foot wrapped with a bandage. “You think my son would call me to see if I need anything?” Her eyes flashed with sudden ferocity. “You think my granddaughter would stop by to see if I’m OK? An hour away is not that far.

I used to have the whole family here. Around that table for Thanksgiving.” She pointed toward her dining room.

Her dining room could have been roped off like an exhibit in an art museum. A beautiful cut-glass bowl was the centerpiece of a mahogany table dressed with a delicate runner crocheted by Olga when her fingers were more nimble. A pair of crystal candelabras flanked the centerpiece. The china cabinet was full of dishes and settings from Olga’s collection as well as her mother’s collection. Once, when I brought her some meatloaf, Olga showed me all of her and her mother’s good silver. She opened the velvet-lined box and it was stunning to see the silverware in immaculate condition.

“My son—the one who lives an hour away—is on a waiting list now for his kidney,” she said, bringing me back to the moment.

“Yes, you mentioned that the last time I was here.

I’m sorry to hear that.” I started to shuffle a bit towards the kitchen just to keep things moving.

“You know how many pills he has to take?” Olga continued.

More than you, from what I recall.

She held out her palm before I could respond.

“He takes thirty pills during the day! And me?” She pointed to the center of her palm, directing me to lean it and look closely. “I take one baby aspirin.

That’s it. For all the pain I’m in with my hands and my foot, that’s all I can take on account of my heart.

I’m not allowed to take any pain killers.”

A pain killer sounds good right about now.

I had always wanted these visits to be more somehow. I envisioned coming here once a week and bonding with Olga—I would listen to her stories 21

while she taught me how to sew, or she would show me how to cook her prized recipes while I kept her company, again listening to her stories. I wanted a Tuesdays with Morrie, but I wasn’t getting it. Instead of a patient, sage mentor, my Morrie was a bitter, voluble, self-centered old woman. And on top of it all, she never asked me about my life. About my son.

She went on. “I died twice, you know.”

“I remember, you told me. Once at your house, and once in the elevator...”

“In the elevator at Lankenau Hospital. My heart stopped. They brought me back, though.”

“Well, Olga, I’m glad you’re here now!” I cleared my throat. At this rate, she would probably outlive all of us.

We made it to the threshold of the kitchen. I spotted the refrigerator beckoning me.

Olga stopped again. “You know my mother ignored my crippled sister. I was the one,” she pointed to her chest, “who taught her how to speak.”

That was one of the stories that always fascinated me. I couldn’t imagine practically ignoring my own child because of a disability.

“She couldn’t walk or talk good, but she had her mind.” Olga tapped on the side of her head with her deformed finger. “My mother had a business making dresses and she was very talented, but she shouldn’t have had children. She was cold. She didn’t nurture us. This is what I remember of my mother...”

Suddenly, she thrust her hand in front of my face like a Caucasian, arthritic member of The Supremes singing “Stop in the Name of Love.” “‘Not now, Olga!’ she’d say to me. ‘Not now. I’m busy.’ She was always making dresses. Working. That’s what I remember from my mother. ‘Not now.’ You know who raised me? Not my mother.”

“Who?” I leaned in toward the kitchen hoping that we would begin to saunter again.

“A colored woman. She lived with us.” Her eyes grew fierce again. “She kissed my scrapes, she fixed my dinner, not my mother.” She looked down shaking her head. It struck me that at ninety-four years old, she still carried such visceral resentment toward her mother.

“I’ll just put this in the fridge for you, Olga. I can’t stay long. I have to put Oscar to bed soon.” She was blocking my path.

“I didn’t want to marry my husband, you know.”

I knew. “Really?” I sidestepped her a bit, still looking at her while creeping toward the fridge.

“But when I watched him with my sister he was so good to her. He would carry her up the stairs, he took her out to eat. Nobody saw cripples at restaurants back then.”

“That’s true.”

“That’s why I married him.” She put her hand over her heart. “He was a good man.” She sighed. “But I never had an orgasm with him.’

I almost dropped the lasagna. This I had not heard before!

She went on, “He was so shy in bed, he’d just touch me and he was finished.”

I stood in silence, blinking.

She pointed to the fridge. “Oh, you can put that right on the top shelf there.” Olga walked towards me, leaning on her cane, wincing each time she took a small, slow step.

I opened the refrigerator door and my heart broke.

There was half a bottle of ketchup turned upside down, a bottle of milk, a small loaf of white bread, some plastic baggies each with a few slices of turkey, salami and cheese, and a container of Tropicana orange juice. I had never seen it so sparse before.

“Pierce is going shopping for me on Wednesday so you came just in time. I can probably make two or three meals from what you’ve brought.”

Pierce was Olga’s landscaper, who went grocery shopping for Olga once a week. That young man is earning his place in heaven. I placed the lasagna on the top shelf.

“How’s your little man doing? How old is he now?” Olga said holding on to my arm tightly. I was surprised at her question.

“He’s...he’s eight.”

“Eight!” She smiled. “My goodness! I remember him when he was so small.”

“You do?”

“Yes. He was with your husband in the snow outside a few years ago now. I was watching from the window.” Why hadn’t she ever told me this? She went on. “Your husband took off his tiny glove and put a little bit of snow in his hand. He wanted him to know what snow felt like. And I just stood at the window watching and I had tears in my eyes.”

“Olga, you don’t have to feel badly for him.”

“And when you used to push him on the swing in the yard. I would open up my window so I could hear your voices. You would sing to him and he would sing back to you. And I’d hear him laugh.”

She started to giggle herself. “What a sweetheart he 22

is! He must be too big for that swing now!”

“That was his toddler swing.”

“How are his eyes?” She squeezed my arm again.

“I’ve see you and him practicing outside with his little cane, tapping it back and forth. Is there any hope?”

“Um...well, not really. Not now, anyway.” I felt a lump in my throat, but I wouldn’t give in to it. “We have a very good doctor, and none of the surgeries worked.”

“You know I pray for little Oscar every night,” she said.

“You do?”

“I pray for my two sons first—I tell God to watch over the one in California who never calls me. And then Edward, that he’ll find a donor, and little Oscar is third. I tell God, please, bless him and his parents.

Give them patience. He’s gonna be OK, but his parents are gonna need patience.”

“Well, your prayers must be working, Olga!

Samuel and I are very patient with him.”

“And I know what it’s like not to see. It’s hard, but at least I could see at one time.”

My eyes started to well up. As much as I thought that I had my son’s blindness in perspective, as determined as I was that he would be an independent, successful blind adult, and as much as I’d convinced myself that I wasn’t desperately hoping that his blindness will be cured one day, a prayer from the heart of this old woman across our driveway with nothing in her refrigerator grabbed my throat, my stomach, my heart and didn’t let go.

She leaned in close to me and I could smell the scent of her soap and the little bit of perfume on her clothes. “I know he’s going to see one day.” She spoke softly. “Oh, it’s not going to be perfect vision, I can tell you, but I know it’s going to happen. I won’t be here to see it myself, but I’ll be a little angel on his shoulder when it does.” She tapped my shoulder gently.

A tear raced down my face and I sniffled.

“I pray for those doctors, too. I say, ‘God, let those doctors find a cure fast, so he can see his beautiful parents.’ I know it’s gonna happen.” She patted my cheek.

“Thank you, Olga.”

“Come here, I have something for you.” She led me into the dining room. There was a large box of jewelry on the table. “I’m going through all of my things that I’m leaving to my family. Most of them

have already requested certain items. My opera coat, my good fur, my mother’s china. Huh! They all know what they want. Do you believe the nerve?”

I wiped my nose with a tissue from my pocket.

“Here,” she said holding up a gold necklace.

“You take this.”

“Olga, you don’t have to give me anything.”

“My father bought this for me when I was a young woman.”

“Thank you.” I kissed her on the cheek and gave her a hug. My eye caught the time on my watch.

“Oh my gosh! I have to put Oscar to bed! I have to run now, Olga.”

“Go ahead, then.”

“Thank you. The necklace is beautiful.”

“Bring Oscar around to see me sometime. I’ll give him some cookies.”

“Okay, Olga!” I called from the front door.

When I returned home Oscar was already asleep. I showed my husband the necklace. Three green gems were arranged in a simple setting on a gold chain.

“Look to see if it’s good gold,” Samuel said.

“That doesn’t matter,” I told him.

“Just check. You never know.”

I brought the necklace under a lamp and carefully examined the setting, looking for an indication of the type of gold.

“There is something on it,” I said tilting the back of the setting in the light. A cluster of small raised letters glistened on the gold. I blinked as I brought the necklace closer and then saw the marking on it.

AVON “What does it say?” Samuel asked.

“Um. Fourteen karat gold,” I told him.

“That could be worth something.”

I smiled at him. It was.

Maria Ceferatti 23

To Mother So we laugh a lot We laugh a lot and amuse each other only with a stare We laugh about things that the average cat would not consider laugh-worthy So if you’re considering the fact that they say, If you can make each other laugh at least once a day, that’s healthy, scratch that misconception Because you should already know that comical relief often simmers down boiling pots overflowing with frustration Like bitch, get out of my kitchen I want to utter words like that but my conscience keeps on ego-tripping making me step back and think about things like this is your mother and you only get one But I’m like Don’t be quick to rush to judgments ‘cause she didn’t rush to my needs when I was getting antsy Red stains on panties don’t come from ketchup Come on mom, catch up!

Living in a day in age when H.I.V. is like a tat etched on the backs of the youth Maybe I should’ve tested positive to open up your eyes as wide as the outstretch of your legs You spit me out I was just like you a project pit-stop for penetration Nodding my head to Mary J’s “Real Love” only reminded me of every back blow and period of molestation that I have rarely confessed to you from my mouth but I’ve recited poems declaring my pain and you have yet to ask me what any of those rhymes were about That ain’t “Real Love” but that’s all good ‘cause my real mother already exists anyway He wears black Timberland boots and knows how to shoot a fadeaway One of your greatest errors was leaving a man who could teach you how to be a real woman Do you envy me because I am one?

24

Want to chip and chew on my self control if not my soul, then my income Riddle me this: How many fraudulent checks can you write on your daughter ‘til you lose your self-respect??

You make me want to nod my head to some Eminem hit Like I think the boy is hot with his hip hop tip, but Marshall never really mattered to me until it chimed in that I can relate to the questioning of how can I be related to someone so sorry And I’m sorry momma I never meant to hurt you I never meant to make you cry But did it strike you hard when I can up out the closet?

Like, that only made things worse!

Like somebody dropping the coffin at the funeral Call the coroner!

My death be due to her absence And I know it was an accident, so I still love you and I step over the cracks on the concrete to protect your back with perfect practice!

But if I die before you close your eyes you better jump in my casket because one-fourth of my spirit is missing And that’s all you have left Do the math Perfect dividends with no remainder Life reparations are in order Call the coroner!

She was armed when she did me over I gave birth to her conscience through these words That remained invisible for too long Because I still love you!

Mom Put the t.v. on Let’s laugh about something Think of what grandma would say if she were here today “I be Johhhhn Brown.”

That’s what old folks say Let’s laugh at this and tear each word I just uttered and burn it to ashes Let’s step over the cracks on the concrete to protect your back with perfect practice I’d rather see you walk with that crooked spine…

25

Ms. Wise

DE TIEMPO, TIERRA Y POLVO OF TIME, EARTH AND DUST Los años en derrumbe se me echaron encima Si miras bien Verás un amasijo de tiempo, tierra y polvo No sólo carne y huesos Siempre llevé todos mis años encima Nací anciano Porque desde el primer grito Me eché encima Toda la historia de mis antepasados.

The years of collapse fell upon me If you look closely You’ll see a bundle of time, earth and dust Not only flesh and bones I carried all of my years upon me, always, I was born old-aged Because from my first cry I took upon me All the history of my ancestors.

Mírenme bien, les pido Soy el rostro de la tierra Soy el rostro arrugado del planeta En mi rostro van las quebradas y los ríos El viento del sur y las piedras que ruedan Los mares abiertos y los cerros

Look at me closely, I urge you I am the face of the earth I am the wrinkled face of the planet On my face the chasms and the rivers The southern winds and rolling stones The open seas and low-lying hills

Mírenme bien, les pido Hasta mi pobre ropa es el rostro de la tierra Mi vestón empolvado de otros viejos ayeres Habita al mismo tiempo los días y las noches Con su pincel de artista Sombras y luces dibujando misteriosos relieves

Look at me closely, I urge you Even my poor clothing is the face of the earth My dusty garb of ancient yesterdays Inhabits the days and the nights at the same time With an artist’s brush Light and shadow etching mysterious reliefs

Las solapas inmensas que nunca han visto plancha Una pegada al pecho como tapa de libro La otra mirando de reojo como vela de lancha Un rayito de sol sobre el corazón Un mínimo rayito de sol Sobre el corazón Es todo lo que necesita la vida para vivir

Immense lapels that have never seen an iron One stuck to my chest like a book’s cover closed Sidelong like the sail of a skiff A little ray of sunlight over my heart A minimal ray of sunlight Over my heart Is all that life needs to live...

Mírenme el rostro, les pido Miren mis labios gruesos de escala planetaria Miren mi maciza nariz de dios de piedra oscura Miren mis ojos que lo han mirado todo Y todo lo volverían a mirar otra vez Miren mis pómulos levantados como cerros Por el orgullo de mi raza

Look at my face, I urge you Look at these thick planetary lips Look at my aged god’s nose of dark stone Look at these eyes that have seen it all And will see it all again Look at these cheekbones jutting up like round hilltops

Miren mi cabello enrarecido y las arrugas de mi frente

Full of pride for my people Look at my rarefied hair and the wrinkles of my forehead 28

Miren mi boina que ha vivido en mi cabeza Desde que tengo conciencia

Look at this beret that has lived on my head For as long as I can remember

Miren las gruesas tablas de la pared del fondo Mírenle los años, descúbranle sus cuentos Miren el árbol que se extiende contento De ser árbol sureño, bebedor de mil lluvias y de truenos Mírenle las blancas alas de ángel que le han comenzado a aparecer.

Look at the thick boards of the wall behind me Look at the years, discover their stories Look at the tree stretching out and content To be a tree of the south, drinker of a thousand rains and thunders See those white angel’s wings just beginning to sprout.

Mírenme el rostro Y verán el mundo entero.

Look at my face And you will see the whole world.

Carlos Trujillo

EINE KLEINE NACHT MUSIK Stars are sharp I step on a hissing meteor Clumsy I tear a morning cloud Commanded to sweep the earth with a feather.

Vipers in the Sahara desert befriend me I am compelled to comply Disinterested they refuse to sting me Seduce a long braided Red head teenager.

Neptune sticks a seaweed pitchfork In my eye Halves a mermaid I swim the covered planet to a no island Climb a non mountain Kicked back to the solid sky

Hanoch Guy 29

Whirlwind Como un torbellino

As a tilted

inclinado.

whirlwind.

Como

Like

las huellas

the footprints

de una serpiente

of a snake

en la sal.

in salt.

Como las ondas

As the waves

que marcan

that mark

el paso

the wind

del viento

passing

en el

in the

desierto.

desert.

Carlos Soto-Román

“At the Intersection…” feet like horse-hooves— he talks to someone.

I am not aware. if I just speak, are there beings I am not aware of who hear? do they wish to speak to me or through me?

Ebony Malaika Collier 30

Women are Gracious Growing up the women in my life were silent figurines I never knew their stories I had to discover myself what to look out for First, boys whose teeth remind me of moonlight whose breath smell of Africa whose skin resemble God are dangerous Second, men on the street will know me only as flesh, temporary entertainment Third, the older man who smiles at my Brooklyn accent is only confusion and desire he will ask me for my sweet scent when I oblige he will leave me smelling of regret and cheap malt liquor We are gracious we bury our traumas with pride then mother the future bearing daughters who will share our tragedies I am woman meaning, I am melancholy concealer considerate to captors, suffering in silence until recently When I broke my vow to keep quiet I felt heavy you came to me crawling out of your burial plot clutching strands of popped waist beads years of unspoken words collecting in your eyes You thanked me you told me “When I heard our story I cried my soul rose out if its hiding place I know what it’s like to not know how to cope alone” These words were offered as comfort and reassurance but left me resentful my mind flipped back to time spent trying to admit I was a victim Where were you when my introduction began?

35

I needed your stories three years ago never have I heard: “When you are 14 life will come for you the men will crawl out of their five o’ clock shadows at the smell of your fresh womanhood it happened to me don’t trust them” We have a tendency to grieve in silence We never tell our daughters why we give them pepper spray why we tell them to be home before the street lights go on I know it takes bravery to speak out when I did, I felt exposed naked and ripe for the picking But I needed you to tell me “When you’re 15 you’ll drown your self-esteem in a man’s semen when it happens call me I’ll tell you you radiate love and light we’ll have ice cream and read Jodi Picoult” Where were your stories?

You could have stopped me from having one I needed a warning that men with wandering eyes and hidden agendas are real that the hurt leaves scars and scars don’t heal they just sit there reminding you that healing is something you can’t always do alone This silence I was born in is a house of destruction silence is the protector of everything it houses I am bruised and burdened I can no longer be the silent savior of monsters Speak Safiya Washington

SONG FOR THE JOB-QUITTERS There is more love somewhere.

There is more love somewhere.

I’m gonna keep on ‘til I find it.

There is more love somewhere.

- Hymn

When you go to collect your belongings may you not leave a pencil case behind.

May a shaft of sun shine through the industrial windows in a show of solidarity.

May your boss be out of the office.

When someone asks if you don’t work there anymore may you be unable to wipe the smile off your face.

May you mourn the lost phone numbers, blanket stillborn projects and float them out on paper boats.

May you walk those blocks again when you’re ready see the azaleas in all their madness.

May you take cryptic advice from church signs, list “The Universe” as a source of income and mean it.

May the duvet whisper sweet nothings.

If you can’t get out of bed, may a cat sit on you.

May you lose the days of the week.

May you leave yourself a maze of flares across the bridges.

May you walk into kinder rooms to the dazzling realization: maybe it wasn’t just you.

Jane Cassady 36

THIS IS MY ENGLAND Part One: In the Country Ancient and mighty oaks roots thrown up like brown bones iced, delicately, with the caramel swirls of unbending dog-owners.

The giant fir tree stoops towards the river, pained eternally by its nail-gunned label: Private Licensed Anglers Only.

Flashes of kingfishers shyly hunting along the river – mainly of the lesser-spotted blue nylon rope genus.

Part Two: And in the Town Guts spill out when well-fed, one old homing pigeon bursts just like an old tyre sprawled hotly in the mall a popped carton of corn.

Money doesn’t grow on trees round here, but they do bear exotic fruits from distant shores: Heineken Fosters, Stella Artois.

A hedgehog, dead, blown up like a big bowling ball a silent bomb, waiting to spike and spatter crowds of bare-legged schoolgirls.

Carrier bags blossom strange bunting blooms among the looping beauty of strangling six-pack holders stretched, twisted and opaque.

Three magic plastic fish, frozen stiff in mid-leap, checker board football fields purple, hungover men kicking bladders, bursting.

A stolen cycle drowns in shaded glades – but check there’s not a child still there ghostly feet pushing round underwater pedals.

We cross white pontoons, high in the frost air above the canal - pray the tube of sewage won’t burst as we steppy-stone along.

Upside down skeleton pushchairs tangle, breed with orphaned umbrellas and something sinister in this sibling lust propels an ex-toaster to swing, suicidal, dangling from its tight noose of flex target practice somehow for showers of thrown stones.

Helen Steadman 37

Stank!!!!!

Zipporah, Isaac, Roshon, and Pilar, We went to the zoo in a noisy car, We came to hear the animals roar, But all we can hear is the animals snore, We drove into the rain of Oklahoma, SHH BANG SHH put the cows in a coma, All we can smell is the zoo’s aroma, You can smell it from Los Angeles to Oklahoma.

Zipporah M.

Ode to a Comma Sight Of minute ink flourishes First stroked by austere authors’ fingers Only the imprint of meticulous love Remains upon pale leaves of skin And the fingerprints of those before me Who did not try, as I do now For you I worship You who could topple the mightiest of men So seemingly insignificant is Your ink-black body, cradled between bones of ancient trees Not of creation, will or whim Sprung from necessity’s womb Worth every touch Of the pen from which you fall Sugar in afternoon tea, drips assembled When books are shelved Left among pages, you are momentarily forgotten But In the intermittent silence Rests recognition Of your presence, a comfort In the fog of language that rolls over my aching ears Loyally standing vigil Despite masters’ neglect And I fear I have Left you unwritten far too many times before

The Tree Windows and doors suggest you come into The mushrooming streams of leaves Settled in the way of being.

The emerald tendrils beckon to tickle your cheek.

The stems of this house are lonely, The lazy invitation is alluring, distressing.

I imagine a twilight-filled dance party, A twisting and turning tirade Of romances underneath the branches, Of welcoming.

Stephanie Sutton

Tepi Ennis 38

THE CHIMERA

may have been predictable. He made it as far as St. Louis but there became lost, and lost for many years.

However, somewhere along the ride, or more properly the journey, he did manage to pick up that peculiar St. Louis roll and drop of the tongue in Blueberry Hill, the Midwestern bar he, as a lingering night junkie, hung out in after classes. From that point onward, whenever and wherever he might order his neat scotch, whether it was at the Tavern on the Green in Central Park or Murphy’s in West Philly, that Delmar-Avenuewest-of-the-park elocution would return and rise to the tip of his tongue.

Lost, lost in a world of attempted pretense and actual anomie, he did a hitch in the army and then was finally accepted into the Art History Department of NYU for graduate studies. Hadn’t he finally arrived?

However, one of the first things that a professor said to him once he knew him well was: “Whatever happened to your Oklahoma accent?” Evan knew that the best reply to this question was to shut up. Just not say a word. Who could explain those days by the high school lockers, trying to sound like Kate Hepburn?

On his way to Ph.D.-hood Evan opened up a small lithograph shop in the first-floor entryway of his two floor Greenwich Village apartment. He obtained his artwork mostly through contacts made in grad school as well as some he’d made while serving his largely nondescript and nearly disreputable two-year hitch in the army. There he had done some service as an interpreter. First English and now German. He could be airy and frothy as a dollop of whipped cream in a cup of espresso in two languages now. The gnawing question, however, was this: “Would Evan Glasowicz, now widely known in certain of the most desirable circles, ever truly meet with his destiny – realize his true colors ever again?”

She came in the form of a mirage and, after resting for a while in Evan’s corner of the Earth, she left like she had been some sort of delicate afternoon daydream. Though she was probably more tough than delicate in her worldly way. By Evan’s reckoning she was probably the most cultivated woman in the world. She traveled some sort of subterranean circuit, touching bases in Los Angeles, San Francisco, London, Budapest, Istanbul, and probably even Tangier. She had been a stewardess for Malev, and had worked as a waitress, model, and as a cat and dog sitter. Her hair was virtually black and her skin was virtually white and porcelain-like – the color of certain Ming vases that Evan had observed. She spoke with a princess-like whispering elocution which sculpted itself around a

Well, I’ve never been to England, But I kinda like the Beatles.

“Never Been to Spain” – Hoyt Axton Evan Glasowicz grew up in Oklahoma, but almost from the time he got there, he knew that what he wanted to do was to transcend his flat, flatly drawling environment and, one day, make his way for one coast or the other, or maybe Europe. As soon as he learned about them, he envisioned himself hanging out at the Dome in Paris, or the Café Reggio in Greenwich Village and talking to beautiful, educated women. By the time he was thirteen, he began planning on attending a college that would take him far away from the core of the windblown surroundings that was once labeled by some canny cartographer as “The Great American Desert.”

Soon after that, he resolved that he would attempt to leave behind the natural accent that he’d developed during his years in the Sooner State and indeed this would be his ticket to assimilation in the wider, beautiful world.

A night person from his mid-teens on, for night was the escape from the diurnal and everyday as it so certainly was in New York and Vegas and London and Paris, Evan would stay up in the late Seventies and watch the Tomorrow show with Tom Snyder. Actually, what he did was study it. He strategized that emulating Snyder’s vaguely Germanically-tinged Milwaukee accent would serve to improve his tinny Norman inflections. At the same time something grounded and Midwestern would be preserved.

Every day at school he would practice – practice sounding like he hadn’t been living in Norman, Oklahoma for twelve years. He would try to sound like he’d just dropped in from Chicago or maybe Philadelphia, like Katherine Hepburn in The Philadelphia Story; or, at points, maybe Yale, or perhaps Oxford.

Mainly, he would attempt to talk philosophy with his cohorts, or at least his eighteen-year-old conception of it. Because philosophy must be what people discussed at the Café Reggio in the Village or the Dome.

He played tennis because that’s what he figured kids in the English “public” schools like Eaton played even though the truth was that it was more often rugby. And when match day was cold he would always wear what he thought was an elegant, wine colored turtleneck underneath his school shirt.

What happened to Evan Glasowicz in college 40

Evan necessarily released himself from in his pre-and early adolescence when he became known as a walking noisemaker, the token, half-Jew comedian and wiseacre in a frosty Southern Baptist locality. For Evan, as for others in different times and places, becoming a comedian in his early teens was a matter of survival – a mode of being for the ugly duckling still shy of being a tennis-playing swan.

Gender too appeared to be a factor in Lauren’s life.

Her province was a woman’s province, or so it seemed.

Men, with their undisguisable and unmistakable mastiff-like behavior could never ultimately keep the necessary secrets or swallow the necessary documents – an activity that seemed second-nature to Lauren.

With men, too much of everyday life involved camaraderie, whether it be the sort found in a cricket club, a gentlemen’s club, or a corner bar. All of these sorts of establishments seemed to call for the disgorgement and dissemination of every last inner secret.

That the road to discovery ranges through the realm of sex is something that many men, and then women, have proclaimed. And sex was like that for Lauren, who ruthlessly and unabashedly expended the effort necessary to seek fulfillment. And it was the way through which Evan came to understand her. So he didn’t directly know when, or where, or why about her. That didn’t stop him, months after her disappearance back into the global miasma with nothing but an erotic Brassai postcard for a goodbye (and a vague reference to street theatre in Sarajevo), from stopping, thinking, learning, and trying to assemble her and reassemble himself.

It happened one night, in the dark, after the most brutally beautiful sex that Evan could ever remember having. He turned to Lauren to tell her about an experience that he’d had while playing tennis as a child. In fact his head was feeling like it did after playing a match on the Oklahoma plains on a summer’s day – like a haze spun of the softest candy spider webs imaginable. He looked at her as she held his hand, her face streaked as it was with the most sleek and streamlined black eyebrows that he’d ever seen, and began to speak to the most cultivated woman in the world in the thickest, most uncontrollable Cleveland County drawl imaginable: “Ah thought that wuz good!”

darkly comic sensibility. She walked with an enthusiastic bounce that recalled the days when call girls could actually enjoy their work.

“We’re Methodists,” was about all Evan learned about her family. How much shock and wonder a family of Methodists would have to deal with in a case such as hers, Evan could only guess at. Her first name was Lauren, emphasis on the last syllable. Evan envisioned a tumultuous adolescence, perhaps led on several continents wherein her name might have evolved from Laurie, to Lauren, to Lauren. Her last name was alternately Bernstein, Hymowicz, or Sullivan. The names didn’t change out of any manipulative game playing or sadism, but they rather embodied the sorts of veils that a woman who rode the metaphysical subways of the world might require or need to employ at a moment’s notice.

Lauren and Evan had met on the street on Times Square as she was on her way to have some photos enlarged and Evan was strolling over to an I. Goldberg to buy a couple of sweatshirts to use when exercising with his ab rocker.

In retrospect Evan always suspected that her “photos” were probably images of some sort of artwork – Expressionist paintings? Or possibly dolls, or children, or maybe upstate, or even Provencal, landscapes. “Yes, Provencal,” thought Evan in his inspired, bamboozled mind. But he was only able to know, or guess, about such things by making his way through the dreamlike stream of communication that developed between them. He never got a chance to enter her apartment – it was eternally being sprayed, or retiled, or degrouted. It became Terra Incognita to Evan except for the view from the front door which revealed that the elegant, refined, filigreed uptown interior that he had expected was touched by a somehow unearthly, spectrally warm, glow. But it also seemed to be a forbidding and private world that her abode provided entrée into – a world at the farthest edge of his own experience, and, it seemed to Evan, that it was a domain not to be shared with anyone that didn’t lead some phantasmagorical sort of life.

As had been the case in the army, Evan found himself to be an interpreter; an ambassador between Lauren’s world, a world as unusual and exotic to Evan as some far-out galaxy, and the bleary and at times darkly fanatical commercial world that verged on him as he dealt with his daily life. But her discreet byways were, by all rights beyond Evan’s suzerainty – would always be. “This life,” he thought, “must take the discretion of an aristocrat.” A walk and a talk that 41

So Evan Glasowicz finally realized what he’d always feared: That he was the purest of Oklahoma dirt and nothing more, and that fact relieved him more than anything else ever did.

Peter Baroth

ICARUS

stepped out of the darkness and stood before him.

Gently, the angel’s hair swirled about his head as though he were underwater. His eyes blazed white.

“I want to go back,” Jeremiah managed, sitting up on his elbows.

Jeremiah… the angel said, holding his hands out like a model of Christ. Kennedy’s dead voice was on the radio and he was saying we choose to go to the moon. Lifting his head, the angel took Jeremiah by the hand and beat his powerful wings, sending the television and the lamp crashing to the floor, drawing a scream from Jeremiah, who closed his eyes only for a moment, but when he opened them they were out of the hotel and they were flying, the sky grew darker around them as they rose up and the city disappeared below, up toward god and his moon and Jeremiah sang for joy, but his hand was slipping and though he tried to call to the angel no sound would come from his throat. Miserable, he let himself fall through miles and miles of space and sky, wheeling about with his stomach in his mouth as the earth rose up fast to meet him.

O

n the moon Jeremiah thought he saw angels. Perhaps they were aliens. Queer looking things angels were, like men only twice as tall, with blue wings folded up against their muscular backs.

Rejoice, they sang, for behold this day the sons of man have conquered space.

Standing there, watching angels singing in the barren fields of the moon, Jeremiah thought to himself that it was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

The earth was a blueberry. Unexceptional and small.

Victorious, the rocket men emerged to pump guns of confetti and a marching band.

When Johnny comes marching home again.

Hurrah. Hurrah.

Xeroxed newspaper articles and status reports were taped to the refrigerator when Jeremiah returned home, hugged his children, made love to his wife in the dark. Yet what they don’t tell you in training is how heavy the world can feel when you come back, how the earth becomes nothing more than a rock floating in space, how you can feel its rotation. Zero gravity has a way of changing a man.

After a lifetime spent anticipating a single moment, and that moment passed, Jeremiah succumbed to a restless depression compounded by the astronaut’s unexpected status as minor celebrities. But the only thing that depressed him more than the wave of sudden fame was the silence when it ended, and he turned to drink.

Concerned, Jeremiah’s wife made him an appointment with a psychiatrist who told him he was in an adjustment period and that he should spend some time with his family. Drinking would only make his problems worse, the doctor said, but he did it anyway.

Eventually Jeremiah began to hit his wife and she took the kids to her mother’s and told him to move out.

Four weeks later, Jeremiah was lying drunk in the hotel bed with the radio on as one of the angels

Nowadays, he thought, you can look into the sky and feel like nothing.

Ty Russell

42

Superman

U

p in the sky, it’s a bird, it’s a plane! It’s a bald Superman dressed in black slacks, black shirt, and gold tie, big hands, abstract eyebrows and ginormous feet. He’s flying over the Independence Blue Cross Building dropping barrettes from his pocket, waving goodbye to a little girl that called for his help that day. This was a drawing handed to me on a school day once forgotten, yet till this day I can still remember her words…

“I like what you did to my hair Daddy. I didn’t know boys, I mean, men, styled hair. Mommy said men don’t know nothing but I think she don’t know you.”

She doesn’t.

“Huh?” The correct term is, she doesn’t know me.

“Right, I think she doesn’t know you.”

Grab your bag, grab your lunch, and stop messin’ in your hair.

“Daddy, don’t forget your wallet and please don’t eat my Honey-Bun!” Out the door, we’re rushing to beat the school bell. 8 a.m., a kiss and two prayers later, we part ways. Three hours pass and I get the phone call full of crying and sobbing and hiccupping tears.

“DADDY THIS BOY, MY HAIR, HE MESSED UP MY HAIR!” Baby-Girl, boys don’t know nothing.

“B-b-boys d-don’t know ‘anything,’ Daddy.”

Cutie, calm down. Everything will be all right.

Laughed all the way to her school only to see such a sight: a puffy-haired Treasure-Troll fighting back tears with all her might. Walked her to the corner, wiped her tears with my gold tie; whipped out the black rat-tailed comb and a bottle of Frizz-Ease, extra ballies held in a rubber band. Here’s bald Superman with big hands and a sobbing Smurf sitting Indian style on my ginormous feet, and I asked, “What happened?”

And she says; “be-, b-becau, because he, HE!” …breathe. Try again, and don’t start with ‘because.’

“Because this stupid little boy kept messing with my hair, and if I wouldn’t lose my behavior star on the teacher’s board, I’D CHOKE HIM TILL HE’S NOT STUPID NO MORE!” Anymore.

“Right, Anymore. Kept saying my name all wrong and pulling on plaits, then poof! Then you came and…how was your day?”

Didn’t let her know I had just finished fighting with her mother and a monster lawyer in the sequel of “Superman and the Court-House of Doom,” so I kissed her on the head and said, this is the best part of my day so far, as I rushed her back to her classroom. She tries to hand me barrettes that fall from my pocket. I say to hold them for Daddy, and as I turn the corner, I hear the bell ring for art class.

At the end of the school day, she asked if we would ever part. I knelt at the bus stop to lotion her face and answered with a promise of two things to start.

I will never leave you, and I will never lie to you.

She asked if I would ever let anything harm her. I said, baby girl, you are my heart and I will forever be your armor.

She asks “Did you eat the Honey-Bun I hid in the basement?” And as I rise to my feet to rush to the store for a replacement, she hands me a picture. It’s a bald man dressed in all black wearing a gold tie that I had no business wearing that day, yet I let her pick out for me anyway. Over the top of the drawing in red crayon is the word… “Superman.”

Smyte IX 43

LEM sits on his black bedspread, under red curtains, hunched over his electric guitar, thin legs barely fill slim black jeans, pale bare ankles in old black loafers keeping time on an old black rug.

Parts of Stairway to Heaven he knows, then loud cursing says, I forget the rest.

His gravelly voice heart-catching, drags you along.

Hands shaking, switching to strum acoustic—Black Sabbath, Pink Floyd, a band called White, Neil Young, Queen.

No can drive, he says, he’s 40 and old. (a damn long time to be Lem, right?)

Lem wants to know. What’s the point?

Ticking off his list of—I can’t—on one hand. No girlfriend, What would I do with one? he demands. Happiness?

Not for me.

Here?

A group home, supervised store outings, all-hours staff.

You draw, I offer delicately.

Before the guitar solos, he had shown me these—an eagle soaring, diving for prey. Horses rearing, race on a beach. Teeth bared, a bear comes straight at you. A crucifix, radiating rays and gems, and a wolf alone and alert—drawn with yellow school pencils.

He shrugs; I don’t always want to do that.

Always, the next meal. Opening cabinets, Lem gestures at canned vegetables and says, Shit, and always does not know what he wants for dinner. Maybe pizza.

Shaking his head, that was last night.

He prefers chain-style cigarettes and caffeine.

On the subzero front porch, or in a heat wave out back by the deck rail, coffee cans at each location filling up with unfiltered stubs.

His meds. Lem needs them PRN. As needed, as determined—by staff.

For Lem, in the cabinet downstairs is chemical calm in a double lock box.

He hovers and jabs with his five reasons for taking them now, not later.

PRN means when I need it, he likes to remind staff.

Lem doesn’t sleep well; he likes being awake and high.

Sleeping reminds him of being dead.

44

Now, he repeats, I need them now.

Lem talks to talk and knows it and smiles, wants you to listen for just five more minutes.

He wants to play another song, talk more.

Have to go, Lem. Time’s up.

Not yet, I’m not done yet. C’mon.

See you soon, Lem, I said to him.

(That was five years ago, I was just subbing.)

Lem cajoles, postures, performs, entreats, like a reeling fighter about to go down.

Night house staff arrives, sullen, dutiful, with an extra large to-go coffee, and to whom Lem turns to say, Wanna hear my new guitar? over his shoulder, heading for the stair.

Amy Hostetter

ARRANGEMENT Across the table she’s plucking petals from the nasturtiums.

They taste like cinnamon and stick to her tongue.

They burn like kisses she’ll never tell you of.

Outside it’s raining.

October comes in that waycold and gray, but across the table she’s swallowing fire dripping wax through her teeth a jack-o-lantern smile, yes, and yes, and oh, the weather.

NANA She sat, right leg tightly crossed over left Right elbow anchored on her knee Dangling foot circling, circling I kissed her soft, powdery cheek

She covers her wrists with the heels of her sweater. Pulled tighter you can’t see the scars or the super novas, whorls of Van Gogh suns spiraling kamikaze under her breast as she watches her decaf coffee steam.

Right elbow anchored on her knee Serving as a hinge I kissed her soft, powdery cheek She drew her cigarette close Serving as a hinge That opened and closed I kissed her soft, powdery cheek This was her pose

She concurs, head and shoulders and backbone bent pleasantries leaning inward sunflowers left too-long untended top-heavy and old.

Her heart murmurs a pagan beat her spirit smolders, but your kitchen is cool and quiet and she sighs, perched like still-life across the table.

That opened and closed Right elbow anchored on her knee She drew her cigarette close I copied her Right elbow anchored on her knee Dangling foot circling, circling I copied her She sat, right leg tightly crossed over left.

Shannon Connor Winward

Kathryn Ann Smith 46

47

CRITICAL NATURAL AREA 1. A noble earthquake! A noble earthquake!

That’s what we’re for.

There is no such thing as nature.

It is all learned behavior, the world resting on the backs of turtles.

And we shout that it be opened, Back door.

Turtles all the way down.

We shout: Bring me marble sunlight, let me drown in it, another tragic cramp victim.

Heads in shells the gravity is crushing.

I think you’re really something, you know that?

We pray: Size, sleep, rabies America bite me, bite me, grind me up.

And I can still hear you over the crash and humming of the engine, its many pistons.

We stand against the great Moloch, eater of babies,

Yes, today is a lepro sarium.

and our opposition is futile.

We take the bus.

We leaf through an old Baedeker, looking for a place to embark. Then we disembark, walk our razor feet around and sever the city.

He laughs at us through a mouthful of babies.

Insults us between the swallow and the next handful.

2. Once it’s on the ground, child, it belongs to birds.

Bird in the cage. Cage hung way high.

We dis(re)member things.

48

There.

That’s what you get, bird.

Fly.

It’s not amazing, it’s a thing that happens.

Like the behavior around the watering hole, amazing only because it’s ordinary.

From perch to bar to bar to perch.

Blah, blah.

Drying up in the sun all day, gray currency grime all over my hands. Nodding out,

Like everybody else.

Like everything, avocado-colored and on the wane.

falling face down over the pen, the paper.

The way I feel, like a weird poster of a schooner beside a recycling bin.

We publish guidebooks for intense mannerisms, ways to watch the sea life roll back and forth under the awning.

We’re all screaming, fawning over our favorite beetle.

Put your literal moose on me.

Stop me, stall me.

Let’s snuggle up to warm pipelines in the cold winter of the helicopter.

Drizzle rising up a faint steam over Hot City in the preafternoon.

Are you mild, opprobrium?

Cause I am, and it’s really wonderful when you approve of things,

It’s amazing how desolate the light is in the preafternoon.

when you affix the gold star.

It’s amazing how many things are amazing.

3. So here’s this eagle, who has killed a horse.

Everything is amazing.

Really there are seven everythings, and I spin through them.

I barely notice it.

There.

That’s what you get, bird.

49

Fly.

Like the behavior around the watering hole, amazing only because it’s ordinary.

From perch to bar to bar to perch.

Blah, blah.

Drying up in the sun all day, gray currency grime all over my hands. Nodding out,

Like everybody else.

Like everything, avocado-colored and on the wane.

falling face down over the pen, the paper.

The way I feel, like a weird poster of a schooner beside a recycling bin.

Put your literal moose on me.

We publish guidebooks for intense mannerisms, ways to watch the sea life roll back and forth under the awning.

We’re all screaming, fawning over our favorite beetle.

Stop me, stall me.

Let’s snuggle up to warm pipelines in the cold winter of the helicopter.

Drizzle rising up a faint steam over Hot City in the preafternoon.

Are you mild, opprobrium?

Cause I am, and it’s really wonderful when you approve of things,

It’s amazing how desolate the light is in the preafternoon.

when you affix the gold star.

It’s amazing how many things are amazing.

3. So here’s this eagle, who has killed a horse.

Really there are seven everythings, and I spin through them.

I barely notice it.

Everything is amazing.

It’s not amazing, it’s a thing that happens.

Brandon Holmquest 50

GARBAGE

thing). Then finally, about ten years in, she never came back. If she was alive or not, I didn’t know.

My father never said. He never mentioned her when she wasn’t around.

The times she was, though. It was like I had a real family. At least as real a family I could have given the circumstances.

When I say my father was a garbage man, I don’t mean he had a company that made him ridiculously wealthy over time. You know the type. They have the biggest houses, like five of them, all over the place. Houses everyone gapes at because they are so grand and that person must have done something, bought the right stock, been a great lawyer, or just come from money.

But no, they just ran a garbage company and got rich slowly till one day, BAM! They had the best houses everywhere.

No, that wasn’t my father. He wasn’t even the type of garbage man who rides on the back of the truck, swooping down to chuck trash into the back of the compactor. A city employee. No, my father was the kind of garbage man who dug and scraped and stole. If you can steal crap someone left on the street corner. Metal things, aluminum cans. Discarded furniture, barely worn clothing.

Some of it he’d sell at flea markets. The rest of it he used to construct a fortress at the Lakes.

Now, when I say the Lakes, I actually mean the ponds. I actually mean FDR park, down, way down, off Pattison Avenue. It’s more or less as far as you can go before things get all weird and Delaware-y.

We lived in the Lakes, in this garbage heap fortress, for most of my childhood and teen years. It was out of the way, barely noticeable to picnickers and park rangers. Well, I lived parttime at the fortress. Frank, he was a friend of my mother’s, he worked at the Museum in the Park.

The Swedish museum. No, he wasn’t Swedish. No one there really was, except a few old ladies. The other people, the staff, the members, they just wanted to be Swedish. They tried to learn basic sentences in the language but it always sounded like even the teacher could barely wrap his tongue around the language. They spent a lot of time at Ikea, because there is no better way to show your heritage than by purchasing low-priced, mass-

I

t began with garbage. Or rather, I began with garbage. My father was a garbage man. And my mother. Well, I shouldn’t say anything bad about my mother. But I don’t have much good to say about her. They grew up together, South Philly lifers, as they call it. Hard working, working class families. Except my mother didn’t want that. She grew sick of the trash-strewn streets, the desolate desperate look in people’s eyes, the idea that life down here was more about survival than living. So she up and found herself some rich man living in Rittenhouse and took up with him.

That was the life for her. Fancy boutiques, over-priced restaurants with professional waiters.

The type that act like they don’t need the tips.

The type that make you wonder how they can look so nice and afford such designer digs on a waiter’s salary.

Problem was, she had me. Between fancy Rittenhouse men. My father begged her to keep me. My mother agreed, who knows why. Abortions were hard to come by in those days, unless you were willing to risk one in the dark basement of some disgraced doctor’s house. They were Catholic too, which is probably why she ended up pregnant in the first place. So she dealt with me, growing and kicking and making her pukey and fat for nine months. Then I popped out; she tossed me to my father and ran.

I don’t know how she found another Rittenhouse man. I don’t know how she convinced these guys she was worth their time and money (lots and lots of money). I do know that she came back, sometime when I was a toddler. There’s a Polaroid picture of the three of us, taken by who, I don’t know. It’s at my dad’s place. He looks happy, too happy, she resigned, and me, well, my face is scrunched up in a cry.

She came and went like that throughout my childhood. Always some new rich beau who’d eventually get rid of her, who, I’d guess, would tire of her demands and requests and mostly her refusal to put out (because of the birth control 51

produced furniture. They ate Swedish food—pastry and coffee and little gummy fish, but no, they weren’t really Swedish.

Neither was I. But Frank, he let me sleep in – live in – the museum, at least in the winter. As a favor to my lost mother, he said.

So I slept in the basement of the museum, on a ratty couch (from Ikea). I stayed there most of the time. And you could say my time in the museum is what saved me from a future like my parents. From scrounging for garbage in the wee hours of the night like my father. From scrounging for rich lovers who would use and discard me like my mother.

It was really cooking that saved me. They all thought I was Frank’s kid and that that was why I hung around the museum. When they had their events, their pea soup dinner, their crayfish party, the weird St. Lucia festival, and Frank would be there to set up and clean up , I’d hang around the kitchen. First, when I was younger, they wouldn’t let me help as much. They kind of looked at me like I was a nuisance, this little kid hanging around the sharp knives and boiling pots. But when I got older and older and just kept being there, they started giving me stuff to do. “Stir the soup.” “Chop these vegetables.” “Pipe the pastry cream.” Then one day, they had a famous Swedish-American chef come visit the museum.

He had a few restaurants, one on Passyunk, one up North and even one in New York.

He was giving a cooking demo and I was, as usual, hanging around the kitchen. He looked at me askance, like what is this raggy kid doing here (my clothes came from garbage too, you know.

Or at least from the Goodwill).

I asked him if he wanted help. One of the old, actually Swedish ladies piped in that I was a good kitchen helper. He shrugged, said his prep cook had called out anyway and told me to chop some onions. By some, he meant ten pounds. I was weeping, my hands were cramping, but I just kept going.

He asked where I went to school. I said nowhere. I’d stopped going in sixth grade, when the kids started making fun of me and the teachers started asking too many questions. I didn’t tell

him that, though.

Where’d you learn how to handle a knife like that? he asked.

I shrugged. I hadn’t. I just picked it up and chopped. He seemed impressed. Look, though, he said, I can’t have you go out there dressed like that and help me give this demo.

I understood. I mean, really, I looked pretty gross. My dad usually trimmed my hair but he had been out late scavenging a lot lately and hadn’t been around in the day time, so I hadn’t seen much of him. My thrifted and trash-picked clothes fit poorly. I did use the museum’s bathroom, which had a shower, so at least I was clean.

But clean is only part of the picture when others look at you.

He thanked me for helping out and gave me his card. He said to call if I ever wanted to work in a real kitchen.

I told Frank, who was excited for me. You’ll get to get out of here, he said. Get a real house, a real job. Stop living off the kindness and discards of others.

I headed over to my father’s fortress. He wasn’t there. But a woman was. She sat on one of those expensive suitcases, wearing a dress far too fancy and well cut for a garbage house. I looked at her. She stared at me. Mom? The word got stuck on my tongue. This woman wasn’t really my mother. This woman left and left and really did not want me in the first place. And now here she was, after what, ten years, sitting in my father’s house, looking lost and sad and expectant.

She got up and gave me a hug. She asked where dad was. I shrugged. He’d been gone in midday a lot lately, but not usually to collect garbage. No one would have set theirs out yet.

She’d come back because this last one, the one that seemed like he was the ONE, hadn’t worked out. They never married. He’d been older, he’d died, but the family wouldn’t let her have anything. He never adjusted his will. So she was left with nothing. So she came back here.

Of course, when my father came home, he said she could stay. I always resented that about my father. That he loved this fickle, vain, stupid woman so much. That he cared for her even though she constantly trampled on him, even 52

17B

though she made it clear he was only a bridge for her, a cheap motel room, somewhere to crash and wait for repairs. Mostly I resented that my father would so quickly shove me aside for my mother.

I returned to the museum. Frank was still there, helping the chef pack up. She’s back, I told Frank. To the chef, I said, were you serious about that offer?

He looked me up and down. Yes, he said. I have an opening for a prep cook in one of my kitchens now.

He gave me the name and address. It was up, way up in what they had started calling NoLibs.

I’d never been there. I’d never gone above South.

Come by around 3 p.m. Monday, he said.

I thanked him and wandered off to the back of the museum’s basement. If she was going to stick around, I had to get out.

the priest whispers R E L I G I O N through my airconditioningvent brothers quarrel in the ro(next/door)om they are lost w/out philadelphia the cat plays flatsandsharps

tomyright a snowwhite,skinny pianist the RCcar buzzes down the stairs CLASHCRASH a young boy weeps for his loss: a good driver is gone… perhaps the best he ever knew…

Where she went when she left, and where she is now, I dunno. I stopped going by my father’s fortress after that day. I stayed in the museum. I got the prep cook job. It was rough, but nothing so rough as camping out in a fortress made of refuse in the middle of a municipal park.

I did eventually get my own place, in a nicer part of town. Still in South Philly, though. I didn’t mind working up North, but I could never live there.

In my new house, nothing comes from garbage. The trash goes out weekly and that’s where it stays.

My father did come to visit me once. He didn’t mention my mother. Probably because he couldn’t say anything bad about her and so said nothing. I told him he could come stay with me, alone. He nodded but we both knew that wouldn’t happen. Just as I need to get out from under the trash, he needed to stay buried in it. It was all he knew and all he wanted to know.

the clouds are talkative,it is raining now the lamp speaks of a heavenly

brightlight i pull the string and shadesanddrapes heavy/eyelids dreamnow

Amy Freeman

Maxwell Gontarek 53

*WE’VE COME FOR YOUR POETRY READING* Of all the numerous rumors within Philadelphia’s bricks, sticker on our STOP sign says, “I shape shift to a spliff.”

What I don’t know reaches immeasurability, but what I am aware of is that sometimes I’m not invited to the new because I never attended the old. It can be discouraging, to be ignored. Abracadabra scavenger hunt. But to leave yourself out, that’s just irresponsibility. O, of all the bulldogs being blogged about, heard someone say, “Kiss her psyche; do so every day.” Prescription: pendulum clocks.

*WE’VE COME FOR YOUR FIRE ENGINE RED* As I flip in and out of lost and found, my human search for the balance of a mind at peace ponders what the level of existence is within its self. So to jettison the emptiness, up I ambulanced across the bridge to speak with the lighthouse keeper: SORRY WE’RE CLOSED. For Rent. NO PARKING. It’s one of those “Who the fuck knows?” you know? Blatherskite scavenger hunt.

A mind-boggling blogger. Nonsense and a long time since, the idiot within strikes again! Ah well. After red I lift my leg, shift it to the right, so my body will resume moving forward faster—

*WE’VE COME FOR YOUR TWO-WEEKS NOTICE* A tour guide recently told me that “You’ve gotta take your foot off first to steal second.” A breath. Those focused notes and their tremendous insight reinforced the handful of pathadvancing risks I’ve taken in the past few years, & likewise, how those major gambles brought me here: the finest office environment from which I have benefitted to date. Thing is, I believe in the old “gain, maintain, and then gain again.”— It’s time. It comes with much sadness, yet lively enthusiasm, that I lay out this letter of intention to tender my resignation.

On the right track scavenger hunt. Thus, I throw myself back at the whims of the HR Director of the Ancients, and bear in mind that Emerson said, “The things that are really meant for thee gravitate to thee.” Respectfully, And the runner goes>

Paul Siegell 54

HOW WE GOT OUR HEART The birds flew deep inside us and made nests in our lungs — eggs hatched. Molted feathers made a soft carpet and we coughed. Chirps rang in our hollow tree body. Bones went ceramic.

Shell chards crushed into grit. In the cage of our ribs, flight was limited, not impossible, the way that nothing is impossible, but still the birds realized what they sacrificed for warmth. The birds lost the power to fly. Waste-winged, they huddled together and started to pump, and pump, going nowhere.

Courtney K. Bambrick 57

Artist and Author Biographies COURTNEY K. BAMBRICK is the poetry editor at Philadelphia Stories. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in such journals as Certain Circuits, Dirty Napkin, Philadelphia Poets, Mad Poets Review, and the Schuylkill Valley Journal. Courtney currently teaches writing and literature at Holy Family University, Philadelphia University, and Gwynedd-Mercy College. She lives with poet Peter Baroth in East Falls.

PETER BAROTH is a writer, artist, and musician based in Philadelphia. He was born in Chicago, raised in Norman, Oklahoma and is a graduate of Washington University in St. Louis and Temple Law School. He has published a novel, Long Green, with iUniverse and his most recent chapbook is Ski Oklahoma, published with Wordrunner Chapbooks.

His poetry has appeared in Mad Poets Review, Schuylkill Valley Journal, Philadelphia Poets, Legal Studies Forum, Certain Circuits, and elsewhere. He was the 2009 recipient of the Amy Tritsch Needle Award in poetry. He is also on the editorial board of Philadelphia Stories magazine.

Chantelle Bateman is a former Marine and long-time writer who has found Warrior Writers to be an important part of her healing process. She served in Al Asad, Iraq with MAG16 Forward from August 2004 to March 2005.

She is currently an organizer with Iraq Veterans Against the War working to help other veterans unpack their military experiences and build healing communities working for change.

RACHEL BETESH BSN, RN is a nurse on the oncology unit at Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia, caring for cancer patients and their loved ones. She studied poetry and environmental studies at Brown University, learning with such greats as the late Robert Creeley of the Black Mountain poets. Her poetry has been published in The American Journal of Nursing. She lives in a sawdust-covered house in West Philadelphia with her partner Eian and their dog, Cookie Monster. Contact author at rachel.betesh@gmail.com Rebecca Brame’s awareness of art as a means of communication began while she was growing up in Mexico City. Influenced by the city’s rich cultural environment, she began translating everyday events and experiences into her own visual language. The figures in her work are portraits of loss, regret, frustration and conversely of support, trust and discovery. Woodcuts are the preferred vehicle for her expression. Brame received her BFA in printmaking from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia.

MARIA CEFERATTI is a music teacher in Philadelphia as well as the music director of Acting Without Boundaries, a theater group for children and young adults with physical disabilities. When she is not teaching she enjoys creative writing. Her essay “Inheritance” will be published in the winter edition of Philadelphia Stories.

JANE CASSADY writes pop-culture horoscopes for The Legendary, Sibling Rivalry Press, and Critical Mass. Her first full-length poetry collection, For the Comfort of Automated Phrases, will be released in 2012 by Sibling Rivalry Press.

She writes a blog about happiness, love and pop-culture called The Serotonin Factory. Her poems have appeared in decomP, The Ballard Street Poetry Journal and other journals. She’s performed at such venues as LouderArts in New York City, Valley Contemporary Poets in Los Angeles, and The Encyclopedia Show in Chicago.

LIZ CHANG published her first book of poetry, Provenance, with Book-Arts Press. Her work has been included in several anthologies and most recently appeared in the Mad Poets Review. She received her MFA from the Vermont College of Fine Arts and teaches at several colleges. She translates French and Spanish and lives with her boyfriend and their two cats en les environs of Philadelphia.

GRANT CLAUSER lives in Hatfield, PA and works as an editor for Electronic House, where he writes about expensive home electronics and gets to try out a lot of them. In 2010 he was selected as the Montgomery County Poet Laureate by Robert Bly. Poems appear in The Literary Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, The Heartland Review, Cortland Review, The Seattle Review, Schuylkill Valley Journal, Philadelphia Stories and others. He writes, irregularly, the blog poetcore.com. His book, The Trouble with Rivers, is forthcoming from Foothills Publishing.

EBONY MALIKA COLLIER is a poet and has recently become a visual artist. Her poetry has been published in the Mad Poets Review 2010. She has had various featured performances in Philadelphia and is a veteran of the Black Women’s Arts Festival. She is now a member of the women’s poetry collective Wings of Worth, which performs a poetry-play called “Hanging on to Threads of Sanity.” She has a BA in English from Temple University.

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DAN ELMAN ‘s poetry and photography has appeared or is forthcoming in Referential Magazine, The Serotonin Factory, and Painted Bride Quarterly. He enjoys spending half his time in Philadelphia and half in his hometown in rural New Jersey. He left film school to pursue freelance work as a furniture artist and antiques conservator in the family tradition of artistic hodgepodge.

Tepi Ennis is 16 years old and from Phnom Penh, Cambodia. She speaks Spanish, English, Spanglish, and Japanese and can be caught reading such books as “Jane Eyre” and “A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” for fun in Bronxville, NY. AMY FREEMAN is a writer, dramaturg and fabric artist living in Philadelphia. She holds an MFA in dramaturgy and theater criticism from Brooklyn College. She blogs about theater, sewing and life in general at dramaturgslovegoldfish.blogspot.com.

Maxwell Gontarek is a creative writing major in his junior year at the Philadelphia Performing Arts High School. He is a copy editor and writer for his school’s literary magazine, United Writers and Artists. He was a semifinalist in the Philadelphia Young Playwrights competition. He plays guitar, bass and piano for the bands Handsome Virgil, Vegan Soul Food and Drummer Hoff.

HANOCH GUY spent his childhood among cacti and citrus groves in Israel. He is a bilingual poet in Hebrew and English. Hanoch teaches Hebrew and Jewish literature at Temple university. He has published poetry in the International Journal of Genocide studies, Poetry Motel, Visions International and several times in Poetica. He has won awards from Poetica and the Mad Poets Society.

BRANDON HOLMQUEST is the poetry/criticism editor of Asymptote and former co-editor of Calque. He has published a full-length collection, The Sorrows of Young Worthless (Truck Press), and a chapbook, Stereo Daguerreotype (Splitleaves), as well as a translation of Manuel Maples Arce’s CITY (Ugly Duckling). He has several unpublished manuscripts. Just saying.

AMY HOSTETTER work as an LSW-level counselor with teens and their families in West Philly. Born in Lancaster, PA, she lived in Massachusetts for 30 years and is from there, in spirit. She is published often and anonymously in the love/hate section of the Philly City Paper and had a piece in The Sun Magazine a few years ago. She has just moved for the 23rd time since college, has lived in MA, VA, and PA, and traveled to India, Paris, Wales, and…Tucson. She is currently experiencing a ‘very big year’!

PHILIP KRIEGER - though well middle-aged - was born recently to a Philadelphia man and onetime boy from Cleveland. He is an illustrator by profession and a committed craftsman. Philip has been tooling the written word since high school, and believes that substance and style are as appropriate in a well-written e-mail as in a sonnet. Philip loves reading aloud and participates in poetry events in the Philadelphia area. His work has appeared in The Fuze Anthology (2010), E-Verse Radio website (February 2011), and Certain Circuits (December 2011).

Julia López is a mother, an artist and a seasoned arts and education professional who advocates strongly for the power of the arts and social change. Julia has written over 20 plays and performance art pieces that she has performed and read in venues throughout the United States, Mexico, and Madrid, Spain. She has been the Visual Arts Program Director for Taller Puertorriqueño, worked with the Asian Arts Initiative, served as Board President of the Leeway Foundation, and and is presently the Director of Education at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts.

PATRICK LUCY lives and works in Philadelphia. He is the author of two chapbooks, LIVE FIELDS: GROWTHS 1-5 (self released) and WILLIAM (con/crescent press, forthcoming). Recent work has appeared (or will shortly) in Gulf Coast, elimae, Revista Laboratorio and elsewhere. He’s a member of the New Philadelphia Poets. Learn more about Patrick at catchconfetti.com.

BONNIE MACALLISTER renders moments through a variety of media. Often pieces are multi-genre, fusing painting, photography, slide installations, spoken word, video, and performance. Her films have been featured on ClassWarKaraoke.com (UK), and writing has been published by Paper Tiger Media (Brisbane), nth Position (UK), and Grasp (Czech Republic). Recent stagings of her plays occurred at the Philadelphia Fringe Festival, the Shubin Theatre, and the Adrienne Theatre. She has performed at NYFA and Cat Cat Club in Paris.

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Zipporah M. is in third grade at E.M. Stanton Elementary. She’s been a Mighty Writer since the summer of 2011 and has participated in their afterschool programs Funny Bones, Comic Madness, and Poetry Club. She lives with her parents and older brother and sister in South Philadelphia.

Magda Martinez is a Neuyorecuarican Philadelphia-based writer and educator. She came to understand at an early age the power of telling one’s own story in one’s own words. She is a native of New York City’s Loisaida (Lower East Side). Magda most recently was one of 12 women from a pool of over 200 to receive the Leeway Foundation’s Transformation Award recognizing her work using writing as a tool for community engagement and transformation.

Presently she is Director of Programs at the Fleisher Art Memorial.

ANNI MURRAY-RUDEGEAIR is a writer, biology student, science artist, nerdcore rapper and heliocentrist. She enjoys fake news, cartoon classics and mushroom hunting with her husband, Ryan. She is currently working on Prism, a speculative science fiction story cycle.

Michelle Angela Ortiz is a visual artist who seeks to capture lost legacies, personal stories and silenced voices in her work. As a highly skilled muralist, Ortiz has designed and created over 30 large-scale public works nationally and internationally. She has trained artists in public art techniques and uses the arts as a tool for communication to bridge communities. She is a fellow of the National Association of Latino Arts & Culture Fund for the Arts and a recipient of the Leeway Foundation Art & Change Grant (2006) and Transformation Award (2008).

Vilasio Pagan-Afanador is a dedicated Christian, Philadelphia native, father, poet, & author, also known as Smyte~IX. His many features include the Philadelphia Art Expo, Bus-Boys N Poets, and an opening feature performance for Celia of “Les Nubians.” He has appeared on Conscious Poetry TV and Jus-words Television. He will soon publish a book of 140 autobiographical poems & short stories entitled Heart-Thoughts & Words.

JAMES RAHN leads the Rittenhouse Writers’ Group in Philadelphia. Many great stories and novels have been published by its members. RWG may be the longest-running independent fiction workshop in America. “Respect” is the prologue to his forthcoming novel, Bloodnight.

TY RUSSELL is a recent graduate of the University of Pennsylvania. His work has been published in The Pennsylvania Gazette, Peregrine, at RelevantMagazine.com, and earned an honorable mention in Glimmer Train’s 2009 Short Story Contest and Stony Brook’s 2010 Short Fiction Contest. He lives in north central PA with his wife and their children.

PAUL SIEGELL is the author of three books of poetry: wild life rifle fire (Otoliths Books, 2010), jambandbootleg (AHead Publishing, 2009) and Poemergency Room (Otoliths Books, 2008). Born on Long Island, educated in Pittsburgh, employed in Orlando, Atlanta and now Philadelphia, Paul is a senior editor at Painted Bride Quarterly, and has contributed to American Poetry Review, Black Warrior Review, Rattle and many other fine journals. Kindly find more of Paul’s work at ReVeLeR @ eYeLeVeL (http://paulsiegell.blogspot.com/).

KATHY SMITH is a graduate of UPenn and Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. After working on Wall Street she cofounded Upper Valley Yoga in Hanover, New Hampshire, which flourishes today. Kathy lives in Bryn Mawr with her three children and her good dog Bupkis.

CARLOS SOTO-ROMÁN was born in Valparaíso, Chile. He is the author of La Marcha de los Quiltros (1999), Haiku Minero (2007), Cambio y Fuera (2009) and Philadelphia’s Notebooks (2011). He curates the cooperative anthology of contemporary US poetry Elective Affinities. He lives in Philadelphia, PA. HELEN STEADMAN lives in the north-east of England. She writes poetry and fiction. Her work has also been published by Poetry Quarterly, Tiger’s Eye Journal, and listenupnorth.com.

Stephanie Sutton is twelve years old, though when she tells people that, they can’t believe it. She lives with one dog, one cat, two sisters, and her mom and dad. They are incomparable. She doesn’t know if you’ll like her poem or not because she is not a mind reader all the time, but she hopes you will.

CARLOS TRUJILLO is a renowned Chilean poet who has published more than ten poetry books. He teaches a Villanova University, where his research interests lie within Spanish-American prose narrative and poetry. Among his chief 60

concerns is the interplay of literature, politics and society; in particular, he focuses on the effects of oppressive political regimes (military dictatorships) on both literature and writers.

Safiya Washington, 17, is a college freshman at Delaware Valley College, originally from Brooklyn, NY. She has been involved with the Philadelphia Youth Poetry Movement (phillyyouthpoetry.org) for two years.

SHANNON CONNOR WINWARD is a Delaware poet and author and a devotee of the open mic. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in various venues including: Pedestal Magazine, Strange Horizons, Flash Fiction Online, This Modern Writer [Pank Magazine], Vestal Review, The Magazine of Speculative Poetry, and Dreamstreets, and the anthologies Jack-O’-Spec (Raven Electrik Ink) and Twisted Fairy Tales (Wicked East Press). To read her accounts of writing, mommyhood, and general sassiness, visit ladytairngire.livejournal.com.

Alyesha Wise was raised in Camden, N.J. The founder of the performance series “Love, US,” she is on a mission to spark a LOVE REVOLUTION. Her stage highlights include becoming the 2008 and 2009 winner of the Philadelphia Grand Slam and being told by poet & co-founder of Essence Magazine, Russell Goings, “In all, you are awesome.” Her life is dedicated to the progression of the youth, urban communities and all people. She regularly visits high schools and youth centers on the east coast and has performed at over 20 colleges and universities across the nation.

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