Canyon Voices Issue 28 by asucanyonvoices

CANYON VOICES Literary & Art Magazine

Issue 28 Fall 2023

Front Cover image: Heat of the Moment by Jacy Arreola-Romero

CANYON VOICES is a student-driven online literary magazine, featuring the work of emerging and established writers and artists. The magazine is supported by the students and faculty of the School of Humanities, Arts, & Cultural Studies at Arizona State University’s New College of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences. Click here for submission guidelines.

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

When we were first starting work on this issue, we were struck by a question: What is Canyon Voices? What is our mission? We review and accept work from all over the world, from all different kinds of people from widely different lives and cultures. So where is the common thread? What are we hoping to do with our magazine? What dream justifies the hours of reading, writing, reviewing, designing, and talking and on and on and on? We pride ourselves in focusing on new artists, giving a platform to those who are just starting out, the ones who have not been published before but were brave enough to submit their work to us and bare their hearts to strangers. Which is inherently what literature is, a way to share a dream, a voice with others we may never meet but we still forge a connection with. We shout out stories across the canyon hoping they echo for any amount of time. Hoping they reach someone else who will carry it with them, echoing in the canyon of their mind. F. Scott Fitzgerald once said, “That is part of the beauty of all literature. You discover that your longings are universal longings, that you're not lonely and isolated from anyone. You belong.” A literary magazine, our literary magazine, is a reflection of that liminal space. The shared dream state of our connections. Within the pages of Canyon Voices, authors, artists, and poets are given a place to stand together and be shared across the metaphorical canyon. This issue was put together with love, dedication and passion from our team who understand and fight for this shared dream. And from all of us here on the Canyon Voices team we thank you from the bottom of our hearts for making it a reality.

y ver

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

a odw

Table of Contents Falling It's Not Lonely Here by Cathy Hollister | Poetry Fairytale by Erika Valdez | Art The Insomniac's To-Do List by Jody Mace | Creative Nonfiction Wanderer in Madness by Vincent A. Hernandez | Art Wedding Vows by Bailey Blundell | Poetry Morning Fog by Maggie Vandewalle | Art Iguana and the Glue Eater by Michael A.L. Broyles | Fiction Baking Memories by Ella Raschdorf | Art Brotherly Bonding by Alyx Germonchik | Art Forming Memories by Erika Valdez | Poetry Autumn Drizzle by Maggie Vandewalle | Art When Clouds Cover the Sun by Christa King | Poetry Crossroads by Kirsten Malinee | Play Mi by Rachel Hawthorne | Art Elegy For the Loneliest Whale in the World by Alexandria Tannenbaum | Poetry Elemental by Maggie Vandewalle | Art

Drean1ing There is no Patron Saint of Worms by Pamela Manasco | Poetry Beyond the Lake by Erika Valdez | Art The Princess and the Knight by Emily Houlihan | Creative Nonfiction I Wanted to Weep Today by Vincent A. Hernandez | Art The Saltbox House by James Piatt | Poetry Natural Disaster by Virgil Connor | Fiction I tell the doctor I'm two days late by Bailey Blundell | Poetry Strawberries and Cigarettes by Jacy Arreola-Romero | Art Subcommunities by Vincent A. Hernandez | Art Cemetery Kid by Mad Howard | Poetry Pneuma by Norman Bert | Play Horse Without a Name by Norma Sadler | Art Past the Field by Erika Valdez | Poetry Sonoran Desert Rain Song by Christa King | Poetry Desierto Espiritu by Norma Sadler | Art Planetary Engulfment by Daniel Brennan | Poetry Fair Fury by Alyx Germonchik | Art

Contributor Bios About Us Staff Bios

POETRY | CATHY HOLLISTER

It’s Not Lonely Here By Cathy Hollister when boot and trail meet and Woods welcomes me to her sanctuary shoulders slake, breath quakes, worry pours out my fingertips like an undammed, unmanned flood rush hour scowl planted on my face fades as shy waves lap at the shore beetles burrow and woodpeckers tattoo, each creature essential, content in its place bouquets of coppery wood ears nestle under loose bark, grace the ashy dead tree in a solemn ceremony of decomposition and hope as green ivy rises, reaching higher higher gentle Wilderness seems to sense that I am no threat walking the path, leaving no trace pace in harmony like treble and bass just a fellow creature leaving loneliness behind in Civilized World

n n n For more information on author Cathy Hollister, please visit our Contributors Page.

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

ARTWORK

Erika Valdez

Fairytale | Colored Pencil and Ink

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

CREATIVE NONFICTION | JODY MACE

The Insomniac’s To Do List By Jody Mace A guide to getting things done at 3 a.m. 1. Keep close track of exactly how much sleep you’ll get if you fall asleep right now. Repeat every half hour. 2. Ponder why you said the dumb-ass thing you said today. If you didn’t say a dumb-ass thing today, revisit one you said sixteen years ago, at a job you used to have, to people you don’t know anymore. Consider how badly those people must think of you. 3. Resolve to use this time wisely. Think about cleaning the bathroom but then remember that you hate cleaning the bathroom and, plus, the cleaner is in the other room and you wouldn’t want to wake anyone up. Instead, decide to do some serious writing, unlike the stupid writing you do for a living. 4. Berate yourself for doing stupid writing for a living. Imagine the disgust that the seventeen-yearold you would feel for you if she knew the kind of writing you’d end up doing. 5. Imagine the disappointment your high school English teacher would feel if she knew. 6. Wonder if your high school English teacher would remember you anyway, despite the brilliance you demonstrated in class when you wrote that farce about archetypes. Consider the notion that perhaps you were not as brilliant as you always thought you were and that maybe you were really just a smart-ass. 7. Remember the mean thing that one person in high school did to you that one time. Look that person up on Facebook and feel vindicated that he is recently divorced, not because, obviously, being divorced is evidence of a character flaw, but because clearly in this case his wife left him because he was an asshole who did mean things to people. Haha. 8. Wonder what the fuck that noise was. 9. Entertain an extremely disturbing thought: how many insects are in this house right at this very moment? 10. Become convinced that there is a microscopic bug crawling on your leg. Challenge yourself to not scratch. Dammit.

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

CREATIVE NONFICTION | JODY MACE

11. Remember about bedbugs. Google how to check for bedbugs. Feel sick. Seriously disgusted. 12. Read a book. 13. Realize that you’ve lost your attention span for reading. Or maybe it’s your rapidly worsening short vision that’s the problem. In either case, consider that it may be caused by a brain tumor. 14. Google brain tumors and learn that you definitely have one. 15. Think about making a video for your children with all the advice you’d like to leave them, like how to choose a mate, how to set goals and stick with them, how to do the right thing when their friends are doing the wrong thing, and just how to be a kind person. Then remember that they don’t listen to you anyway so fuck it. 16. Instead, plan the music you’d like at your funeral. Start a “Funeral Playlist” on Spotify. Include some Morrissey because every funeral should have some Morrissey songs. 17. Give some serious consideration to how much further you’d be in your career if you hadn’t majored in the wrong thing in college. 18. Compile a list of all the people you know who are younger than you who are more accomplished in a similar career. 19. Fantasize about doing something inappropriate with someone you shouldn’t think about. 20. Resolve to be more patient with your elderly father, even when he tells you about his dispute with the phone company for the hundredth time, or when he answers the door wearing just a carelessly tied bathrobe despite expressly promising on the phone that he would put on pants. 21. Reflect on what a shitty person you are because you know damn well you will not be more patient with your father. 22. Make a list of all the things you’ve been neglecting to do. Make sure to include the oil change that your car is 1,560 miles overdue for and your mammogram. 23. Panic. 24. Find a bottle of expired Ativan and wonder if expired Ativan will just not work or if it will harm you. 25. Do something productive. Plan menus and a shopping list for the week. Start with eggs.

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

CREATIVE NONFICTION | JODY MACE

26. Notice that you’re really hungry. 27. Deny yourself food because it’s 3:30 a.m. and people who eat at 3:30 a.m. are either teenagers or have a big problem. 28. Think about your own teenagers and compile a list of all the things that worry you about them. Start with your older one, who’s in college. Is she eating enough? Does your younger one spend too much time texting, playing video games and watching Dr. Who reruns? 29. Move onto things that they don’t do but might do someday, like binge drink, drive recklessly, and smoke crack. If people still smoke crack. Research what the popular drugs are with the kids these days. Feel nostalgic about smoking pot in college. 30. Check your spam folder in case a really good writing assignment ended up there. Read about how you can get a sexy body that sizzles, rock-hard abs, and lose fifteen pounds in four weeks with just one brand new product. Also read a nice message from a hot Ukrainian girl with beautiful eyes who is ready to “correspond to erotic themes.” 31. Consider what the chances are that, in your forties, you’ll actually lose weight and decide that all your exercising has been a waste of time. Think of other people in their forties who are skinny and hate them. I mean, seriously, seriously hate them because they eat whatever they want and don’t exercise and look at them. Assholes. 32. Read an article about how lack of sleep can make you gain weight and can also adversely affect your mental health. Freak out about how you will never sleep again and you’ll end up the size of a house and also deranged and when you die they’ll have to take the door off its hinges to carry you out, and they’ll put you in a double-sized coffin and that’s all anybody will think about at the funeral, not the playlist you put together for their enjoyment. 33. Have a sudden, searing realization that one day your dogs will die. Cry. Because dogs are the best thing ever, especially your dogs. The way they look at you with those big eyes and wag their tails so hard their butts slide back and forth on the floor. The way they sigh and lean their bodies against you when you take a nap. My god, why do they have to die? 34. Calculate the very latest you can wake up and still get your son to school on time. Set your alarm. 35. Don’t think. Don’t think. Don’t think.

n n n For more information on author Jody Mace, please visit our Contributors Page. This story first appeared in Full Grown People

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

POETRY | BAILEY BLUNDELL

Wedding Vows By Bailey Blundell tiny butterflies are fit studs for a child bride pinned in her sides, outstretched wings arrested mid-flight. call them something old. she scrawls her final declarations in invisible ink, all the lies she’ll never tell him, lights this oath in ultraviolet, hunts for words like scorpions in the brush. she calls it something new. a mouth held in with bit and bridle is nothing compared to a garter. little white bows for the rich man’s ankle monitor. he calls it something borrowed. rip a peach pit from its socket, get sticky fingers. if she spurns these eager seekers, what do we do? call her something blue, so when those blushing knuckles meet her flushed cupid’s bow, and she bleeds in scarlet letters, she will ease in the ache with which she’s been fitted.

n n n For more information on author Bailey Blundell, please visit our Contributors Page.

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

ARTWORK

Maggie Vandewalle

Morning Fog | Watercolor

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

FICTION | MICHAEL A.L. BROYLES

Iguana and the Glue Eater By Michael A.L. Broyles

nabella liked to eat glue. She especially liked to eat glue in the back of class, hidden from the teachers. For Anabella, the appeal of mischief was almost as intoxicating as the high from the glue. Then, on the last Monday of fourth grade, a terrible thing happened: Anabella’s teacher, Miss Brea, caught Anabella eating glue and the school principal, Brother Leo, suspended her for the remainder of the semester, which amounted to four days. Miss Brea, on the other hand, finished out the semester then retired from teaching after her rookie year, discovering that teaching fourth grade consisted of more disciplining, late-night grading, and vomit cleaning than she expected. Anabella’s fifth grade teacher, Sister Monica, was older and more experienced. Upon hearing from Brother Leo about Anabella’s glue-eating habit, she sanctioned glue for all her students as a request-only resource. Sister Monica did not, however, account for the fact that, knowing Miss Brea sprinted from the teaching profession without cleaning out her classroom, Anabella snuck into the classroom via a window with a broken lock one summer Sunday and stole all her glue. The theft happened by impulse while Anabella was supposed to be in the children’s Bible study at Saint Gemma of Lucca Catholic Cathedral, a sunset-red brick structure attached to her school of the same name. Without a plan

and disorganized, she promptly decided to bury the glue tubes by a bush behind the cathedral before returning to Bible study, her yellow dress now plastered in dirt and her orange-framed glasses now smothered beyond visibility. Anabella feared she was in trouble, but this fear did not come to fruition. Her paternal grandparents, who had taken her to church, were angrier with the Bible teacher for not noticing that Anabella escaped. Later that week, while her mom was napping, she rode her bicycle to the cathedral, dug up her buried treasure, transferred the glue tubes to her backpack, and hid them in the corner of her closet. At that moment, Anabella felt grateful that her mother was too sad over the death of her husband, Anabella’s father, and too stoned to notice the secret stash of glue in the closet. Anabella and her mother were living off the inheritance left by her wealthy father, whose parents had turned their liberal activist pedigree into a multimillion-dollar herbal remedy empire. Her parents met while following Phish’s summer tour after their junior year of college, and they bonded during the following year as they co-organized protests against the Iraq War. Yet even before Anabella’s father’s death, they had lost their luster. Her mother’s mari-

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

FICTION | MICHAEL A.L. BROYLES

juana use became less an act of rebellion and more an act of corporate reliance, and her father’s dream of becoming an employment lawyer, fighting on the side of the “working man,” evolved into reading job contracts and human resource documents to protect companies from lawsuits. Before her father’s death, Anabella never felt invisible. If anything, her father smothered her with love and affection, and her mother, although not as outwardly nurturing, had a strong, resilient, and reserved sort of love that to Anabella often felt overwhelming. She used to enjoy Saturdays, when her mother would play censored versions of ‘90s rap songs as they cleaned the house and, on occasion, would let Anabella dance on the kitchen table. Those days had passed. Her mother no longer said “I love you.” The exuberant music evolved into a constant stream of depressing singer-songwriters, and Anabella’s mother spent most of her time getting high and scrolling social media. Anabella’s newfound invisibility made her sad at first, but she soon became grateful that it allowed her to eat glue undetected. “When life gives you lemons…” she remembered her father saying on occasion.

Stephen could wear—dark pants or shorts and only blue, green, or black shirts. His clothes were always wrinklefree, and his straight black hair jettisoned from his side part. Stephen’s mother only disagreed with the strictness of his father’s codes in private, considering her husband as the ordained head of household. However, she never enforced such restrictions on Stephen without the qualification, “Your father would never approve.” Stephen’s experiences with his father and mother made it astounding to him when he met Anabella on the first day of fifth grade. She was unlike anyone he had ever met, let alone any girl he had ever met—and what a far cry she was from his timid mother! He just happened to have been assigned the seat next to her. “Hey, dude, what’s your name?” she said as he took his seat. Stephen was not used to a girl being so forward. Nervous and surprised, he giggled. She laughed at his discomfort. “Look, dude, tell me your name!” she demanded as she rubbed his hair into a freeform haboob. He looked away.

New to the school, and to Phoenix in general, Stephen had parents of vastly different dispositions to Anabella’s. Stephen’s father was strict and ominous, dictating what toys Stephen should play with—trucks and army figurines, but certainly no dolls!—and what clothes

“Jeez, man, c’mon,” she said, getting even more emphatic before she sang: “I’ll tell you myyyyyy name if you’ll tell me yooooours. I’ll tell you myyyyy name if you’ll tell me yooooours.” Stephen shuffled in his seat as he looked

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

FICTION | MICHAEL A.L. BROYLES

at Anabella, dumbfounded but amused. “I’ll go first,” she said. “My name is Anabella. And who are you?” Stephen still refusing to answer, Anabella spotted his name, all cap-italized and with pristine penmanship, written in marker across his backpack’s grey grab handle. “Stephen!” she exclaimed. “That name sounds like a boring grown-up! What do you go by? Steve? Stevie? Or STEF-en? Like Stephen Curry. That’d be cool.” “No,” he said. “Please call me Stephen. My father doesn’t like me to be informal. And he hates the Warriors.” She looked at him puzzled. “Who gives a shit what your dad thinks? I mean, if you don’t want to go by Steve or Stevie or STEF-en, that’s fine. But making people call you Stephen just because your daddy likes it is stupid. My mom and dad named me ‘Ana Plurabella’, after someone in a book, but when I started school, I wanted to be called ‘Anabella’, so even though my teachers and parents corrected me, I didn’t care. It was my decision.” There was one exception to Anabella’s decision: when she was frightened, frustrated, or angry, her father would rub her back and repeat in a soft voice, “Calm down my sweet, Ana Plurabella. Calm down.” Best not let Stephen know about this exception, she thought. She pulled Stephen closer and whispered in his ear, taking a tone that marked her

words as being of devastating importance. “Take it from someone whose daddy died—you don’t have to listen to him.” Stephen had never considered the fact that his father may die and had never met anyone whose father had in fact done so. He also never considered the idea that his father may be wrong about anything. “So, what do you go by?” asked Anabella. “I don’t know,” said Stephen, relaxing a bit. “I never really thought about it. I was always just Stephen.” “Well, let’s do this,” said Anabella with a mature decisiveness. “I’ll give you a name to call you until you know. Is that ok?” “I guess,” said Stephen. “But what if I just want to be called Stephen?” “Well, then I’ll call you Stephen! But only if that’s your choice. Otherwise I will call you…” She thought for a minute and remembered a photograph her father hung up above his home desk that showed a woman wearing four iguanas on her head in the shape of a compass rose. “Iguana. That’s what I’ll call you. Iguana.” “What’s an iguana?” he asked.

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

FICTION | MICHAEL A.L. BROYLES

“It’s a lizard! You’ve never heard of them? Where are you from, Iguana?”

said, “or I’ll run out. And maybe puke. But if you ever want some, let me know.”

“Illinois,” he said.

Who is this girl in orange-rimmed glasses who calls me Iguana, has a dead feather, and eats glue? thought Stephen. His mind raced as everything he learned about girls from his father and mother crumbled in light of Anabella. He had a million questions, although he knew that it was best not to ask his parents any of them.

“Well, there’s no iguanas there, Iguana. At least, I don’t think there are. But they are here in Arizona. And California and Mexico and New Mexico, too. My daddy taught me about them, before he died. Didn’t your daddy teach you about iguanas, Iguana?” Stephen chuckled at the idea of his father teaching him about anything as mundane as a lizard. He shook his head, no. “Doesn’t matter, Iguana. Google it when you go home,” she said, trailing off as Sister Monica started class.

It was not even two minutes into Sister Monica’s welcome speech when Anabella tapped Stephen on the arm. He looked at her and saw that she was holding a tube of glue. “Do you want some, Iguana?” she whispered.

Sister Monica called Anabella to her desk at the start of morning recess. The elderly teacher had garnered a reputation among students for being scary, and Anabella found her mixture of properness and traditional Loreto Sisters attire—white shirt with a darkblue jacket and long skirt, although she’d abandoned her headdress for some decades—foreboding. She thought of Sister Monica as an enemy in a way she didn’t think of the weak and ineffectual Miss Brea. “How has your first day of school been, Anabella?” asked Sister Monica. “Good.”

Stephen did question.

not

understand

the “Anything exciting happen so far? Have you made any new friends?”

Picking up on this, Anabella explained, “It makes you feel good when you eat it. Watch.” And, with that, she took a small swallow and returned the tube to her bag. “I can’t eat too much at one time,” she

“No, Sister Monica. Nothing exciting. I haven’t made any new friends.” “And how are things with your old friends?”

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

FICTION | MICHAEL A.L. BROYLES

What old friends? thought Anabella.

“Nothing, Sister Monica. It won’t happen again.”

“Good,” she responded. “Anabella, I just want you to know that you are cared about and loved in this class. Do you understand? God help us, Anabella, if that is the only thing you learn this year, be it this: that you are loved. Do you understand?” “Yes,” said Anabella, although she did not, and her mind was drifting to thoughts about whether Stephen was a new friend after all and, therefore, her only friend. “Listen to me, Anabella,” said Sister Monica, snapping Anabella’s mind back to attention, like a habited hypnotist. “You can tell me anything. Do you understand?” “Yes, Sister Monica,” said Anabella. “Good. You can go.” Anabella turned around to head to recess when Sister Monica stopped her. “One more thing, Anabella. I saw you talking with Stephen before, when you were supposed to be listening to me. What was the subject of your conversation?” “Who’s Igua…err, Monica?”

Stephen,

Sister

“I think you know who he is, young lady. The gentleman sitting next to you. What were you discussing?”

“Good,” said Sister Monica, straightfaced. “Just make sure that you and Stephen stay out of trouble now. He is new at school and could use a good influence. Be that. You may go now.” As Anabella exited the classroom, she realized that Sister Monica likely saw her eat glue, and was withholding her knowledge of this for some reason—a cruel one, for sure. She was going to be an even more complicated adversary than Anabella expected. Sister Monica be damned, Anabella decided that she would be as bad of an influence on Stephen as possible. Her new friend, Iguana, was in for quite a surprise.

Mrs. Di Valentino was the type of recess monitor who seemed like she volunteered at the school because she enjoyed being mean to children. The truth, however, was less that she enjoyed being mean to children and more that she thought of the world as an evil, lustful place—a “devil’s playground”—and that it was her responsibility to save the innocent children from its grasp. It so happened that Anabella’s freedom of spirit and rebellious outlook represented everything Mrs. Di Valentino hated about the world, and she considered it her religious duty to protect the other children from such troublemakers. Mrs. Di Valentino’s intent in this regard emerged every time she found Anabella doing something wrong—even

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

FICTION | MICHAEL A.L. BROYLES

something innocuous—and she took delight in punishing the young girl to the greatest extent possible without arousing the suspicions of the school employees or other volunteers. That is how, for the mere use of the word “shit” after she tripped and fell, Anabella was subjected to sitting on the cement mini wall that surrounded the basketball courts for the first recess on her first day of fifth grade. Anabella did not mind. Her detainment gave her the opportunity to watch Stephen try and fail to make friends. Accounting for his thin frame and his propensity to airball on the basketball court, within ten minutes of his first recess he became stuck with the nickname “pussy.” After one airball too many, Stephen exited the basketball court, head hung low, before he heard a whistle. He turned towards the sound and found Anabella discreetly motioning for him to walk by her. As he passed her on the mini-wall, Anabella did a quick check to ensure Mrs. Di Valentino was nowhere near, and she whispered to Stephen, “Iguana, you may suck at basketball, but at least you’re not an asshole like those other kids.” Saying this was the first kind thing Anabella did for him.

The second kind thing Anabella did for him came later that week after Sister Monica requested that Stephen read out loud to the class. Stephen hated public reading, and it didn’t help that the boys

in front of him turned their heads and mouthed “pussy” to him after he was called. He started sweating and stuttering. Noticing her new friend’s nervousness, Anabella took a glue tube out of her backpack and ate a palmful right in front of Sister Monica, who reacted with a stern look and an even sterner directive: “Give me the glue, Anabella! And go outside and wait for me!” Outside, Sister Monica told Anabella that she was not going to punish her but that she had to report the glue incident to Brother Leo and her mom. Brother Leo trusted Sister Monica to handle the situation herself—she was, after all, the more experienced educator. Anabella hated Sister Monica for telling her mother, who ransacked Anabella’s closet to find all the tubes of glue and discard them. It did not matter, though. Anabella knew she could endure any tribulation because she helped get her nervous and scared friend out of reading. Anabella and Stephen became inseparable after that. She tutored him with his public reading, curing his anxiety within two weeks, and he made it so her recesses were not lonely, which was a first in her life. They were often scolded for talking in class, but Sister Monica never made them change seats.

There were two more incidents that sealed Anabella and Stephen’s best friends status. The first had to do with a man from the surrounding neighbor-hood who came onto Saint Gemma's campus

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

FICTION | MICHAEL A.L. BROYLES

one day. Anabella and Stephen were hitting the tether ball back and forth when the man glided towards them in a long coat, which Stephen found strange because the temperature had peaked at 109 Fahrenheit that day.

recall a particular incident. Perhaps, she thought, it is just that I feel the same way around Stephen that I did around Daddy. When they returned to class, she passed Stephen a note. “Iguana, my hero!” it said, with a heart next to it.

“Do you kids want to see something?” said the man.

The other incident had to do with a bully named Audrey, who was five inches taller than Anabella and had the strength of a high school shot-putter. Audrey had two older brothers—David and Nicky—who were in seventh and eighth grade, and all of them were star athletes.

“Sure!” said Anabella, but Stephen by intuition knew that whatever the man wanted to show Anabella was not positive. He did not know what it was exactly, but he detected potential harm. Stephen put his hand on Anabella’s shoulder and pulled her back as the man started to open his coat. “GO AWAY, GO AWAY, GO AWAY!” he shouted, and one of the recess monitors—Mrs. Dimas, who was the lab aide in the junior-high science classes—darted towards them. The man had a look of worry, shame, and confusion on his face before he turned and sprinted away. Anabella knew then that the man was ill-intentioned, although she, like Stephen, did not quite understand what he was going to show her, and for the first time it scared her to think that her curiosity could turn so dangerous. She also knew that her friend Stephen was brave in standing up to an adult. He had feared reading out loud in class, she observed, but he showed no fear when facing real danger. While detailing the incident to Brother Leo, Sister Monica, and a policewoman, Anabella thought about Stephen’s bravery and how it, in a way, reminded her of her dad, although she could not

One day, as Anabella and Stephen were seeing how many rotations they could jump rope before the ropes hit their shins, Audrey pushed Anabella mid-air and she went flying, crashing on her back. Hurt and angry, Anabella rose and pretended to limp away. Once she got behind Audrey, Anabella grabbed her long, straight hair. She pulled her towards the wall and threw her face against it. With her forehead and left cheek reddened and bruised, Audrey left quickly but soon returned with her brothers. Nicky snatched Anabella’s glasses and threw them on the ground, and the three of them with their chests puffed out stood in front of the scared girl, menacing scowls on their faces, with Stephen behind. Stephen crouched into a bench position and, seeing this, Anabella pushed them back. When they fell over Stephen, he punched them each in their groins before getting up and kicking them in their faces. Anabella noticed Audrey looking surprised at her brothers writhing in pain on the ground

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

FICTION | MICHAEL A.L. BROYLES

holding their privates and their visages, and her shocked immobility provided opportunity for Anabella, who jumped and punched Audrey in the right eye. Bullseye, thought Anabella.

who would attend would be those whose parents made them. But he knew he would not have fun without Anabella there, so he requested that she be invited.

Knowing that Mrs. Di Valentino hated Anabella, Audrey and her brothers decided to tell the cranky recess monitor about the incident, changing the story to make Anabella and Stephen the aggressors. Brother Leo, however, believed Anabella and Stephen’s version of the story and told that to their parents. Stephen’s dad was proud of his son for defending a girl, and Anabella’s mom remained disconcerted. Anabella and Stephen still received a five-day after-school detention for fighting, which was overseen by Sister Monica, who let them read during it.

“Absolutely not!” his father exclaimed. “A girl does not belong at a boy’s party— not at your age. Plus, how are you going to make friends with the boys when there’s a girl there? No question about it. She can’t come.”

The real trouble began in October as Stephen’s birthday approached. Stephen’s parents planned on hosting a mixed birthday and Halloween party, and she retrieved the list of boys in Stephen’s class from the school’s online directory. When Stephen, sitting at the dinner table with his parents, implored that he “was not friends with any of them,” his father replied, “Nonsense! You need to give them a chance. And this is your chance to become friends with them, Stephen. It’ll be good for you. You need some boys to play ball with…and crawl in the mud with…and wrestle with.” Stephen was fine with them inviting the boys, although he figured the only ones

“Oh, leave him alone,” said Stephen’s mom. “He has a little girlfriend. I think it’s cute.” Stephen’s dad had a touch of pride at the thought of his son attracting a girl at such a young age, but still found it inappropriate to invite a girl to a boy’s party. His objection grew when Stephen corrected his mother, saying, “She’s not my girlfriend, Mom. She’s my best friend.” “Don’t be silly,” said Stephen’s mom. “You can admit that you have a little crush. It’s ok. Boys and girls can’t be friends, but it’s ok for you to have a little girlfriend.” “She can’t come to the party!” yelled Stephen’s father, pounding his fist on the table. “And that’s final! You’ll have fun with the boys.” Stephen lowered his head, shrunk his shoulders, and cowered, scared by his father’s booming voice. Anabella’s words to him regarding his father chorused in his head like a psalm: you don’t have to

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

FICTION | MICHAEL A.L. BROYLES

listen to him, you don’t have to listen to him, you don’t have to listen to him. Now overflowing with courage, Stephen stood up, took his plate full of spaghetti, and chucked it at the wall, screaming louder than his father, “I WON’T HAVE A PARTY THEN!” He flipped his chair, went into the kitchen, opened the cabinet, and swooped their porcelain plates onto the floor, all of them crashing and breaking, making a noise that to Stephen sounded like the gates of hell opening. After being sent to his room without dinner, his dad came in and spanked him with a leather belt. Stephen was grounded for two months. This meant that, except for a small celebration with his parents, he could not have a birthday party, which for him was preferable to having one without Anabella. At her husband’s command, Stephen’s mother inquired about Anabella from the other parents and discovered that she was a glue eater. Clocking Anabella as a bad influence—“Don’t let that little devil near your son” was a common directive—Stephen’s parents demanded that Stephen and Anabella be separated in class and that they not be allowed to play with each other at recess. Despite her own misgivings, Sister Monica relented. When she told Anabella’s mother, she responded with “What dumbasses!” to which Sister Monica stifled a laugh while pretending not to hear. A few weeks after Sister Monica separated them in class, Stephen was in

a particularly lonely mood, and he by instinct took the seat next to Anabella, which was assigned to a tattletale named Mario. Realizing his gaffe, Stephen became defiant, deciding not to move. Mario, of course, complained to Sister Monica, and she with a hardboiled tone told Stephen to move. He refused. Sister Monica consulted Brother Leo, who called Stephen’s mother, who then called Stephen’s father. Half an hour later, Stephen’s parents came in, his father furious, but Stephen still refused to move. In his frustration, Stephen’s dad turned to Anabella and said, “Why do you have to be such a bad influence on my son?” “Why do you have to be such a little bitch?” she responded, and a microburst of laughter followed a synchronized gasp from her peers. Sister Monica ordered Anabella to go to the front of the room, and Brother Leo helped Stephen’s father pick up the chair Stephen was in and carry him outside. Right in front of Stephen, Brother Leo admonished Stephen’s father for yelling at another student but agreed to move Stephen into the other fifth grade class, run by the kindhearted Sister Claire, and to continue disallowing Stephen and Anabella from playing together. Sister Monica gave Anabella a day’s in-school suspension for using profanity, which she spent reading in the library. To ensure their separation, Stephen’s mother volunteered to be a recess monitor, and Stephen’s father started eating his lunch in the school parking lot. Anabella’s

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

FICTION | MICHAEL A.L. BROYLES

mother tried to explain the situation to Anabella but didn’t know what to say and simply reiterated that she was not to talk with Stephen anymore.

“How have you been coping since your friend Stephen moved classes?” asked Sister Monica. “Good.”

The week before winter break, it was unusually chilly and windy in Phoenix. Despite it being of no comparison to the Illinois winters he was used to, Stephen’s father caught a cold one day and stayed home. As much as he implored Stephen’s mother to watch Stephen during the lunch period, she said she needed that time to food shop for Christmas dinner. Instead, Stephen’s mother called the school to explain to Brother Leo that she and her husband would not be there to monitor Stephen at lunch and demand that he made sure Stephen and Anabella did not play together. Brother Leo relayed this request to Sister Monica and Sister Claire. At the beginning of the first recess, Sister Monica told Anabella to stay behind. “Why? Am I in trouble?” Anabella asked, worried. “No, Ana Plurabella, no,” said Sister Monica, and Anabella was surprised by how Sister Monica’s invocation of her real name reflected the same care and affection her father had when he would say it to calm her down. “I just want to ask you something. Here, sit down.” Sister Monica motioned to a chair in front of her desk, and Anabella sat.

“Really?” Anabella paused before her face became anguished. She began crying. Sister Monica grabbed a tissue and handed it to Anabella, who wiped her eyes. “I miss him,” she said as she slumped. “I miss him a lot. He was my only friend.” Sister Monica nodded sympathetically. “Let me tell you a story,” she said. “My great aunt was an immigrant from Italy. Do you know where Italy is, Anabella?” “Yes.” “Where is it?” “In Europe.” “Very good. As you may know, my mother’s parents were from Mexico, much like your great grandparents. I knew them when I taught your father. But my father’s parents immigrated here from Italy. And so did my Great Aunt Sophia, who was my grandmother’s aunt. She came on a big, big boat into New York City and then moved to Chicago when she was…well…about your age, I guess. Are you following me?” “Yes, Sister Monica, I am,” said Anabella, who was half interested and half wondering why in the world Sister Monica kept her behind to tell this story.

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

FICTION | MICHAEL A.L. BROYLES

“Well, I went to visit Aunt Sophia many years ago, during summer break, and she told me this story. She said she always wanted to travel to California. She had heard stories about California’s palm trees and beaches and wide-lane highways, and she saw photographs of the Pacific Ocean, beautiful and grand and blue, and she always wanted to travel there. Her husband, Uncle Giacobbe, and her were very hard workers, but they never had much money, so their vacations were more local. Do you understand me?” Anabella nodded in affirmation. “Her son, Carlo, though, went to college and got a good job and, after a while, saved enough money for all three of them to go to California. And many decades later, when I visited Aunt Sophia in Chicago, she told me all about the trip: the beaches, and the palm trees, and Santa Monica Bay, and the Golden Gate Bridge. Do you know what Santa Monica Bay and the Golden Gate Bridge are?

“That it was a gift from her son, and that he was able to go with them. Isn’t that wonderful?” “Yes, it is, Sister Monica,” said Anabella, continuing in her confusion and curiosity. “And I’ll never forget what Aunt Sophia told me. She said, ‘Going anywhere with my husband was always the best place to be, and going to California with him was a dream come true. And this would have been true regardless of when we went. But the fact that we were able to go with our grown son was a priceless gift. Sometimes timing gives you the opportunity for the perfect expression of love.’” Sister Monica paused while Anabella absorbed the story. “I kept you behind today to tell you that neither Stephen’s father nor mother will be able to watch him at lunch today, so it must be your responsibility to not play with him. Do you understand?”

“No, Sister Monica.”

“Yes, Sister Monica,” said Anabella.

“That’s ok. You will someday. But let me tell you, they are great! Anyway, Aunt Sophia said California was everything she expected and more, and that it was the time of her life. Uncle Giacobbe passed away a few years after the trip, and she always cherished that memory. And do you know what she said made it that much better?”

“No, I don’t think you do, Ana Plurabella. Listen to me very carefully.” Sister Monica stared into Anabella’s eyes. “Stephen’s parents will not be watching him today, so what you definitely do not want to do is use this as an opportunity to connect with him. And you definitely do not want to make sure you connect with him away from the watchful eyes of other teachers or your lunch recess monitors, such as in

“What, Sister Monica?”

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

FICTION | MICHAEL A.L. BROYLES

the back field. I’m leaving it up to you to not do that. Do you understand?” Sister Monica was referring to the pristine grass courtyard behind the classrooms and student bathrooms in which the school sometimes hosted festivals and fundraisers but was off limits to students during school hours. In the middle of the courtyard stood a tall ebony statue of the Lady of Guadalupe, which had been there since the school was started in the 1950s. To the east was a chain-link fence and gate that led to the garden at the nuns’ convent where Sister Monica often took her lunch. Anabella looked at Sister Monica and smiled.

so she could relay a message while making it look like their meeting at the garbage bin was incidental. “Your mommy and daddy are not here today, Iguana,” she said. “So, meet me in the back field, behind the bathrooms.” When Anabella arrived at their meeting place, Stephen was already there, wearing a hard-won smile. They hugged then walked to the Lady of Guadalupe statue, sitting behind it so it would shield them from the wind and hoping the base was large enough to hide them from the peering eyes of authority. “Oh no!” exclaimed a worried Stephen, head motioning to Sister Monica sitting in the convent garden, eating her lunch.

“Yes, I understand, Sister Monica.”

“Don’t worry about her,” said Anabella. “Trust me.”

“Good. And even though it’s a bit nippy and windy outside, I may take my lunch in the convent’s garden. Just to make sure there’s no danger in the field…the field you are not going to be in. Ok?”

“It’s good to see you, Anabella,” Stephen said mournfully. “I’m so sorry about my parents. And I miss you.”

“Ok,” said Anabella. “Ok. You may now go to recess.” Anabella walked towards the door. She felt like turning around and hugging Sister Monica but restrained herself. This was, after all, a woman she was supposed to despise.

Anabella planned the disposal of her lunch trash to coincide with Stephen’s

“It’s ok,” said Anabella. “It’s not your fault.” Anabella took Stephen’s hand as he rested his head on her shoulder. They both exhaled a heavy breath, the weight of infinite burdens plucked, light as a saguaro petal. They sat in this embrace for the remainder of recess, enamored by a loving silence. The ensuing years proved tortuous for both Stephen and Anabella. After Stephen’s parents transferred him to Desert Javelina School for Boys the

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

FICTION | MICHAEL A.L. BROYLES

following semester, the increasing brutality and frequency of his schoolyard fights fostered great fear in his classmates, especially after his growth spurt in the summer before sixth grade. In high school, he garnered the nickname “Concussor” after he repeatedly pounded a boy’s head against the school’s metal flagpole, hospitalizing the kid. After Stephen left St. Gemma’s, Anabella felt the flames of loneliness almost every waking moment throughout the remainder of her youth. These flames burned cigarette scars up and down her thighs, which is why she only wore pants until she was old enough to cover them with tattoos. Anabella and Stephen knew intuitively

that their brief time together on that cold, windy day was a moment sublime. This feeling only grew as they aged. They would each often revisit this memory in traumatic periods. For as special as they knew it was at the time, they came to realize much later what a rarity it was to have such a moment in which two people gave of themselves fully and unconditionally in uninhibited friendship. They would end their nostalgic daydreams with a mantra: For my friend, Anabella… For my friend, Iguana… Wishing love, freedom, and happiness Forever The school bell rang, and they returned to their classrooms.

 For more information on author Michael A.L. Broyles, please visit our Contributors Page.

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

ARTWORK

Ella Raschdorf

Baking Memories|Acrylic

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

ARTWORK

Alyx Germonchik

Brotherly Bonding | Digital

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

POETRY | ERIKA VALDEZ

Forming Memories By Erika Valdez Memory book purchased years before Opened plenty, empty, set firmly on dresser Between the pages Heather and gorse and wild things blow Over cobblestone streets and gray stretching skies Skies full of rain, great big drops of weather And grass so green, so all-encompassing It’s startling in its hue, almost frightening In the spine lives Crisp air that tastes of childhood Early morning penguin huddles Stuffed in winter coats on the playground packed With frozen yellow dirt Frantic careless chases over the sand, full Of spirit and honesty, reflected under distant periwinkle clouds Potential lingers between the pages Expanding into Endless miles of the dark grass sea Never-ending Finally peace, the rat race halted in the face Of wilderness, and history, and a memory That is mine but not Like something lost Decades Bridged in an instant, weariness forgotten As passiflora bloom amongst cross-leaved heath

n n n For more information on author Erika Valdez, please visit our Contributors Page.

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

ARTWORK

Maggie Vandewalle

Autumn Drizzle| Watercolor

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

POETRY |CHRISTA KING

When Clouds Cover the Sun By Christa King Usually, when clouds cover the sun the sun disappears. This evening, it peeks through, in a bursting circle of warmth. Birds flutter and wash in the fountain shivering in splashing ecstasy. She sits on the patio, book in her lap, gray clouds of pain and horror dissipate, and she realizes she could move forward with her life. Unsure what form this might take, she knows she is, at last, ready to look beyond the horrible time. Recently, she heard someone say “You can’t wait until life isn’t hard, to decide to be happy.” Until this evening, this sunset, she could not even comprehend the possibility of happiness. When he died, she thought she might just close her eyes and expire from grief. Now, she sees that it was— oh, this is so hard to say— the turning point. n n n For more information on author Christa King, please visit our Contributors Page.

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

SCRIPTS | KIRSTEN MALINEE

Crossroads By Kirsten Malinee An old woman, KATY: sits on the stage surrounded by suitcases, boxes, and bags. They almost form a mountain or a throne around her. She is on a train platform waiting. KAYLA: enters with a suitcase. KAYLA: is out of breath. She’s been running. KAYLA: Is this the train station? KATY: Train station? Yes. This is the train station. KAYLA: Oh, thank God! Oh, my God! It was so much further than I thought it was. I was running! For a long time. I got lost. Ow. (KAYLA: touches her head and her hand is bloody.) I must have fallen. (She looks around for something to clean her hand with and finally wipes the blood on the front of her shirt.) I didn't miss it, did I? KATY: Didn’t miss what? KAYLA: The train. KATY: Oh, right. (pause) You didn't miss it, but there's not much time left. KAYLA: Oh, good. I'm really tired. I just wanna get on the train and pass out. You know? (She looks around.) Didn't there used to be a building or something? Like a depot? KATY: Burned down. KAYLA: Oh. KATY: Long time ago. KAYLA: Okay. KATY: So, where're you headed?

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

SCRIPTS | KIRSTEN MALINEE

KAYLA: I don't know. Wherever the next train will take me. I guess. Maybe L.A. I always wanted to go to L.A. KATY: L.A. Los Angeles. City of Angels. It's right there in the name. I mean they don't call it Los Demoness. Bright lights. Glamour. Glitz. All that shit. (Almost to herself.) Angels. Feisty. Fierce little buggers. KAYLA: What? KATY: Hmmm? KAYLA: I thought you said - something about (Noticing all the bags surrounding Katy.) You have a lot of stuff. KATY: It accumulates. It’s heavy. KAYLA: I can help you. When the train gets here, I mean. I don't mind. I didn't bring much. KATY: Oh, you're very sweet. Thank you. KAYLA: You’re welcome. KATY: So polite. So nice. Who taught you to be such a nice girl? KAYLA: I don’t know. My mom, I guess. KATY: Mom. Of course. (pause) Because nice girls stay safe. Is that right? Is it nice girls stay safe or nice girls get murdered? I can't remember. I think it’s safe. But it could be murdered. KAYLA: Okay. KATY: Don’t want to end up in a dumpster with a hold in your head. KAYLA: I’m sorry? KATY: Just for being a nice girl. KAYLA: You’re scaring me. KATY: Oh, don’t fuss. I saw it in a movie, I think. Some guy says something to some girl. And she doesn’t want to be rude. She wants to be nice so she says something back. Then, he says something else. And then she... (waves her hands in the air to indicate 'blah blah blah')

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

SCRIPTS | KIRSTEN MALINEE

And then, bam! Hole in the head. Dumpster. KAYLA: That doesn’t sound like a very nice movie. KATY: Oh, it’s not. You shouldn't watch it. KAYLA: I won’t. (pause) What movie was it? KATY: Mmmm. Can’t remember. Something something dumpster killer something. I remember the subtitle though. Nice girls die first - or was it - nice girls end up in dumpsters - maybe? I don’t remember. The moral of the story is KAYLA: Don’t be the nice girl who ends up in the dumpster. KATY: Yes! (Directly to KAYLA:.) So you did see it. KAYLA: I don't think so. KATY: You lived it. KAYLA: What? Howling in the distance. KAYLA: That was creepy. Was that a wolf? KATY: Oh, no. (pause) It was more than one. KAYLA: What? KATY: But I think they’re dogs. Not wolves. Wolf Hounds, I think. Which are dogs. Even though the word wolf is in the name. It's confusing. (Howling again.) They’re further away than they sound. (pause) But, when you do see them coming, you don’t want to run. KAYLA: Don’t run? KATY: Or is it run? I can’t remember. (pause) They’re further away than they sound. But, just in case take this -

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

SCRIPTS | KIRSTEN MALINEE

KATY: looks around for something in her luggage and finds a toilet plunger. She holds it out to Kayla. Kayla just stares without taking it. KATY: Take it. You’re going to need it. KAYLA: A toilet plunger? KATY: (still holding it out to her) As soon as you think you don’t need a toilet plunger, the first thing you need will be a toilet plunger. KAYLA: reaches for the plunger and takes it slowly. She stands for a beat holding the plunger then… KAYLA: Thank you. KATY: So sweet. (pause) It can also be used as a weapon. KAYLA: I think you watch too many murder shows. KATY: Oh, I do. I definitely do. But not today! Not today. Maybe. (pause) You can call me KATY: for short. KAYLA: Sorry. I'm KAYLA:. (Looking around.) Have you seen any trains? KATY: You're in the place you're supposed to be. You running to? Or running from? KAYLA: From, I guess. KATY: From what? KAYLA: My current life and everyone in it, I guess. Except my mom. She's gonna be sad. But I can’t stay. I don't want - I don't want to hurt her, but - I can't stay. I mean, I just - I feel like if I don’t leave now, I’ll never - and I’ll end up marrying Ricky and popping out multiple kids and - and I’ll never leave. I tried to explain it to Ricky. But I guess I didn't say it right cuz he got real mad. And my mom - she wants me to marry him. She wants me to start having babies like now. Mom thinks Ricky’s the one. My future. She’s so excited to plan a wedding. I can’t - You don't want to hear this. KATY: Oh, but I do. KAYLA: He said he loves me. Ricky, I mean. And he wants to be with me and I’m the only one and he’d lose his mind without me - I mean we dated all through high school and it was fun, but - it

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

SCRIPTS | KIRSTEN MALINEE

didn’t feel like forever to me I guess - and he said he wanted it to be me and him forever and said, 'I love you'. And I - I said it back. KATY: So nice. KAYLA: But it didn’t feel real. KATY: So you lied? KAYLA: I don’t mean I lied. Just that it felt like pretend. Like we were both play acting. So I laughed when I said it. But, then he - he got so mad. I tried to explain it. But I couldn't say it right. I just want to go somewhere else. Even for just a little while. Then, we can see. I wasn’t breaking up with him. I mean I didn’t think I was. He got mad. He got really mad. And he - And I just wanted out. Out of the car, and out of my house, and out of that town. But Ricky was yelling, and he said he said it was me and him forever - and then he - he KATY: And that's how you ended up in the dumpster. KAYLA: (She reaches towards the wound on her head.) Am I dead? KATY: Not quite yet. You still have time to choose. (Picks up a suitcase from her pile.) She was wearing the wrong thing. (She puts that suitcase down and picks up another one. Each time she gives another reason. She picks up another suitcase or bag and sets the previous one down.) She didn't cook the meat the right temperature. Got home ten minutes late. Ten minutes! She changed the channel. She wouldn't stop laughing. And you – you just wanted to get out of town. I can’t carry anymore. Howling. Very close now. KATY: They’re getting closer. You have a choice. Do you want to get out of the dumpster, Kayla? (KAYLA: nods.) Or do you want me to add your story to the pile? KATY: (CONT’D) (KAYLA: shakes her head.) Then, you're going to have to fight. You have to make a lot of noise now. Make them hear you. You have to be the bigger more aggressive dog. Holler back at them. KAYLA: Really? KATY: Go on. Try it. KAYLA: Stay away dogs!

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

SCRIPTS | KIRSTEN MALINEE

KATY: Pitiful. You look like desert to them. Louder. KAYLA: Stay away! KATY: I don’t think they speak pitiful little scared girl. Wave that plunger around like a weapon and make some noise! KAYLA: (Swings the plunger.) Ahhhhhh. Stay away. KATY: Louder. Swing it like you mean it. KAYLA: Like this? KATY: Mmmmm. Better. Now make some noise. KAYLA: Get back. KATY: You are awful at this. Scream. Like this: Ahhhhhhhhhhh. KAYLA: (Trying to copy Katy) Ahhhhhhhh. KATY: Those dogs are going to eat you up! KAYLA: Ahhhhhhhh. KATY: They’re all around you. Surrounding you. Make them listen. The sound of the dogs yippng and barking escalates. The actors can improvise lines. KAYLA is fighting and KATY is challenging her and encouraging her to get louder and fight harder. When KAYLA'S noise and actions please her, KATY holds up her hand commanding the dogs to cease. KAYLA is still screaming and swinging and doesn't see this happen. The snarling and barking ceases and we hear the dogs whining and retreating. KAYLA: (Looking around and catching her breath.) I did it. KATY: I think they heard you. KAYLA: My head hurts. KATY: I know your head hurts. It's not going to be easy. Do you know what you’re choosing? KAYLA: Go back and fight. KATY: You'll have to fight like that every day. All the time. Fight to get out of the dumpster. Fight to live. Fight to be heard. Fight to be remembered. (pause)

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

SCRIPTS | KIRSTEN MALINEE

KATY: (CONT’D) Or - I have a train ticket in my pocket and it'll take you anywhere you want to go. I'll give it to you. And you don't have to carry that anymore. I'll keep it for you. You get to choose. KAYLA: I get to choose? (KAYLA: looks back to where she came from. She looks at the luggage surrounding Katy.) Did they all choose to get on the train? KATY: Not everybody gets a choice. KAYLA: You have enough luggage. KATY: I have enough baggage. KAYLA: (Kayla starts to go and turns back.) Will I remember you? KATY: Where'd you get that plunger? KAYLA: Right. KAYLA: exits. Katy starts to pile the suitcases again. KATY: Nice girl fights back with toilet plunger to escape dumpster. I'd like to see that one. A dog whines in the distance. KATY: Hush now. Hush. No train today.

LIGHTS OUT. END SCENE.

n n n For more information on author Kirsten Malinee, please visit our Contributors Page.

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

ARTWORK | RACHEL HAWTHORNE

Rachel Hawthorne

Mi| Mixed Media, Acrylic, Marker, Collage

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

POETRY | ALEXANDRIA TANNENBAUM

Elegy for the Loneliest Whale in the World By Alexandria Tannenbaum Kiska, who was dubbed the “loneliest whale in the world,” has finally died. When she was three years old, she was captured off the coast of Iceland, taken from her mother and grandmother her pod the way the waves undulate under the moon and airlifted to a pool. For forty-four years, she spent her life alone in a reflective puddle that harbored no fish or seaweed no fins to reach out to to touch to guide or comfort, no one to bounce mournful echoes off of. There are videos of her repeatedly hitting her head against the wall others of her splashing water at no one for days. I can’t bring myself to see those images. During her life, she gave birth to five calves carried them for eighteen months with the primal belief that this would give her life purpose, and all five died. I wonder how a captive orca strains, what her calls sound like, how much further she can sink. In 2018, an orca buoyed her dead calf for seventeen days as the body sank to the bottom of the ocean, she would dive to retrieve it and balance this lifeless baby

n n n

on her forehead as she crashed into choppy waves and crossed through blue oceans. Still images of this mother cradling her baby on her face, her fin, struggling to continue to stay on the surface, spraying water into the sky, a love letter to the life she missed, were widely shared, and people wondered if animals could grieve. And Kiska swam in circles, looking up at the sun as the pool warmed as flies landed on her bloated belly on her lopsided fins her unblinking eye shadowed in lashes, as children moved closer to the iron fence fingers intertwined between the links to get a better photo of this real-life whale, until she lost the motivation to move at all and then would float lifelessly— a stalled metronome clicking away at the same beat without ever making any music. On the last day of her life, as she started to struggle to take in air or swim, as her useless fins that carried her nowhere all these years bent toward the bottom of the pool, she is still stuck in the life they built for her. I wonder how long her pod searched: if they spent their lives looking for her in floating debris in the pieces of broken wood from boats or docks or rafts that rotted with time and were carried carefully out to sea.

For more information on author Alexandria Tannenbaum, please visit our Contributors Page.

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

ARTWORK

Maggie Vandewalle

Elemental | Watercolor

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

POETRY | PAMELA MANASCO

there is no patron saint of worms By Pamela Manasco but if one existed I'd like her to really care for them not just the good ones like earthworms even I love them and their wet pink flesh when I dig telling me something here will grow what is the trick in loving something good not even nightcrawlers not even hearing their prayers at the end of sharp hooks she has to love the unlovable ones the real assholes the tomato hornworm and its fleshy legs like praying hands love each exact white dot down its short back like she could love the scars on mine like God she has to love the fruit it ruins she has to do more than wait she has to point out the shadiest corner to hide has to pass her hand between the worm and the crow like she might shelter me too

For more information on author Pamela Manasco, please visit our Contributors Page.

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

ARTWORK

Erika Valdez

Beyond the Lake| Watercolor

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

CREATIVE NONFICTION | EMILY HOULIHAN

The Princess and the Knight By Emily Houlihan

nce upon a time, a lonely girl met a boy. This boy became her friend. The girl felt she was plain, but the boy insisted she was special, so she became a princess. The girl had lived her life in fear, sad that she was unseen by those around her, but scared they would hurt her. But since meeting the boy, she would find herself smiling and happy, feeling so understood just by being with him. She whispered to him her secrets and he promised he would guard them. She told him of her fears and he promised her he would protect her. The boy then became her knight. The girl rejoiced at her newfound happiness, so thankful that the boy had come into her life and had chosen her as his friend. She would no longer be scared or lonely, because he would protect her. As time went on, friendship wasn’t enough for the boy. He thought that the more she blossomed the further she would go from him. She would be carried away by her confidence in herself. He wanted more, but she valued their friendship. He told her he was in love with her, but she did not feel the same, so the knight and the princess stayed friends. The princess continued to grow happier, going on new journeys and making new friends along the way. But the knight couldn’t stand to see anyone else make her smile, so he rid her of them, dragging her back into solitude. The girl was angry at what the boy had done, but he told her he cared for her. He told her that others would only cause her harm and he did it to protect her. That he couldn’t bear to see her in pain. Her anger then dissolved into gratitude for his protection, and the boy was once again her trusted knight. This continued, but as time went on, the boy began to grow restless. This girl. His girl would not stay by his side only. She dreamed of adventure and friendship with others. This made the boy angry, and what might have been love turned into lust and hatred. The brighter her light grew, the more he craved to snuff it out and keep the embers for himself. He had once been so loving and gentle with her, but he now could only scream and hit and blame her for his unhappiness. The girl only felt bad for making him feel this way. She vowed to be a better friend to the boy. To her protector. But, no matter what she did, how much she gave, it was never enough. In his anger, he spilled her secrets, pushed away her friends and stole her happiness, and before she knew it the new life she created had died, giving way to a prison. But still, the girl tried everything to bring back the boy she once knew, giving up all she loved and giving herself to him in hopes this would be enough. But it wasn’t. The girl despaired. She had lost her new companions, her adventures, her life. But most of all, she lost her friend, and eventually she realized there was no hope. So she left him, unsure she would ever be able to trust anyone again, knowing the one person who promised to protect her, the princess’ trusted knight, whom she had been foolish enough to get close to and confide in, had been the one to hurt her most. She never felt more alone.

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

CREATIVE NONFICTION | EMILY HOULIHAN

Years passed, the girl grew older and wiser. She began to forget about the boy, but she was still scarred by his memory. While she had begun to open up again, she was scared to give her trust to anyone like she had done all those years ago. She would sometimes still mourn the loss of the boy she knew, but one day, she couldn’t take the fear and sadness any longer. She decided that she would spend every day for the rest of her life rebuilding the happiness that she grew to know she deserved. After so many years, she laid her memories of the boy to rest, looking forward to her new life where she would make new friends, go on new adventures, and learn to trust and protect herself. She suddenly had hope and was able to smile once more, standing taller and more regal, her light flaring brighter than ever before. The girl became a princess once again.

For more information on author Emily Houlihan, please visit our Contributors Page.

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

ARTWORK

Vincent A. Hernandez

I Wanted To Weep Today | Photography CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

POETRY | JAMES G. PIATT

The Saltbox House By James G. Piatt It’s a stormy night in the country; coyotes are yelping in the distance, a horned owl is hooting its lonely song into the arid atmosphere and the sounds from a symphony conducted by fiddling crickets are trickling through the Saltbox house’s empty rooms. In the fading hours of the night, the old house cricks and moans as the wind batters its siding gushing over the roof’s eaves. A ghost’s memories are awakened, and the moon’s beams of light carrying longforgotten memories drift into empty rooms. An old broken grandfather clock peals out the hours of the late ebony night. And time, trapped in dust and silence, echoes into the empty rooms. Whispers like lost dreams are moving across a ghost’s mind while she is allegorically having a cup of coffee and cookies.

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

FICTION | VIRGIL CONNOR

Natural Disaster By Virgil Connor Natural Disaster

The desolation trailing behind a natural hazard. A reshaping of the world's face. The destruction of population, the demolition of economy. The gale of her voice, the heatwave of her gaze. Touch like a wildfire in a winter storm. She's a tsunami, sweeping over my vulnerabilities, an avalanche grinding me down a mountainside. When spring comes I'll blend with the meltwater and she'll make me a flood. A trembling earthquake, she'll giggle at my ruin, my nation spent and starving for her. History

I've jot down our record on a seismograph, each past eruption darkening days or years so the sun never truly rises or sets through her ash plume. My crops come back better after each blow, a rip tide carrying my memory to her fathomless depths. Her mother was an EF10 on the Fujita scale, scouring the emotion from her features after her meteor father left them in the well of his crater. Her little sister is a lahar, filled with muddy thoughts and scorching words she picked up from her sister's pyroclastic flow. I've watched her bury cities and little towns on the jungle gym when they've run up to manage how she plays. A God in Three Acts

A Blizzard in 2013 We met in a blizzard, huddled around the heat of an engine block on the side of the road. She dragged the cold into my cab, fingers brushing my hand like razor flakes of ice. We peppered each other with hailstone questions, waiting to see whose windows would break first. Together we shared snow fall, until we were buried in each other's stories, the outside world muted by the drifts built around us. A Limnic Eruption in 2015 Four drinks lead to confessions. She tells me, soft as a breeze, she wants her own disasters. Maybe a little drought or a doughy hurricane with cherubic feeder bands and a wholesome storm surge. When I tell her that scares me, she trembles the earth and chatters my teeth. She knows my emergency supplies and my weaknesses, exploiting them by gouting poisoned air between us. I'm smothered in her need, suffocating at her feet as I cave and beg for mercy. There's no way my insurance will cover this.

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

FICTION | VIRGIL CONNOR

A Holy Convergence in 2018 She falls in love with him at a friend's birthday party, his rugged landslide hugging her lush fault lines. I give her a kiss as together they move heaven and earth to create a little quake with his rich soil and her wind sheer force. After, pressed between their continental plates, they'll shake my world apart with soft lips and gentle hands. Aftermath

A little dust storm blasts past on the heels of a twister. They squall and shiver as they leap on and off of the couch, running from my lava monster fingers. She laughs from the sofa, head resting on his craggy shoulder, their eyes admiring on my giggling attempts at destruction. Later, after we've tucked our little supercells in to their cumulonimbus comforters. We'll find new limits to the Richter Scale. She'll stifle my tsunami siren, as he whorls me into a Nor'easter, and together we'll take turns shaking the foundation, testing the strength of what we've built.

For more information on author Virgil Connor, please visit our Contributors Page.

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

POETRY | BAILEY BLUNDELL

I tell the doctor I’m two days late By Bailey Blundell but I can’t meet his eye. there’s a roach in the corner on its back, dead but not quite: there’s a twitch, a wave for help. but then past the roach, past these walls, I see a path I know: there’s an air pocket, a blood clot, a pile of salt behind my shoulder, a reason to fight in the family planning section, a reason to call my mother and tell her I’m sorry. there is a reason loving something is not the same as keeping it alive, but right now there’s no difference between the bullet in my top pocket and a gunshot wound. the doctor hands me a cup. I crush the roach on the way out.

n n n For more information on author Bailey Blundell, please visit our Contributors Page.

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

ARTWORK

Jacy Arreola-Romero

Strawberries and Cigarettes | Photography

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

ARTWORK

Vincent A. Hernandez

Subcommunities | Photography

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

POETRY | MAD HOWARD

Cemetery Kid By Mad Howard

I watch my mother staple a mouth– the radio sings about identity theft. John digs holes to send people to Heaven as I step away from TellyTubbies. I have meandered the musty rooms of arrangement, picked the urn my ashes will rest in. I have placed my dog in a granite niche. Every instrument and overstuffed chair smells like vinegar and asbestos– there is an art to pickled fingers.

For more information on author Mad Howard, please visit our Contributors Page.

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

SCRIPTS | NORMAN A. BERT

PNEUMA By Norman A. Bert

The action of the play takes place in an American kitchen. CAST OF CHARACTERS: IDA: 60s, mother of CLOE: CLOE: 30s AT RISE: IDA: and CLOE: are sitting at their kitchen table. They have coffee cups, and there’s a plate of grocery store cinnamon rolls on the table. IDA: Breath, you say? CLOE: Yeah. IDA: Breath was the title of the play? CLOE: Not a play. An experience. IDA: I thought you went to see a play. CLOE: I’ll never forget it. It changed my life. IDA: So what happened in this “experience?” CLOE: You say it like it’s some kind o’ joke. IDA: Sorry! I forgot it changed your life. CLOE: Well, it did. IDA: So what happened in this play. Sorry. This experience. CLOE: Well . . .

To visualize the characters, Google Into the World There Came a Soul Called IDA: by the American painter Ivan Albright and Seated Woman with Bent Knee by the German Egon Schiele.

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

SCRIPTS | NORMAN A. BERT

IDA: Please note, I dropped the sarcasm. CLOE: Thank you. (Sips coffee.) Nothing. IDA: I— Wait a minute. Nothing?! Nothing happened? CLOE: Nothing. (IDA:’s eyebrows rise up then settle down. She reaches for a cinnamon roll.) A baby cried. Then someone was breathing. IDA: (Puts down her roll.) There was a baby on stage? A live one that cried? CLOE: It was over the loudspeaker. IDA: A baby cried over the loudspeaker. CLOE: Yeah. Then, after a while, someone sighed. IDA: Over the loudspeaker, I’m guessing. CLOE: Yeah. Like this. (Sighs.) IDA: Oh-kaaaay. Then what? CLOE: That was it. That’s all. IDA: That’s not a play. CLOE: An experience. It changed my life. IDA: And for that, you paid how much? CLOE: Worth every cent. IDA: So you went out afterwards or what? I didn’t hear you come in. CLOE: They repeated it. IDA: The “experience.”

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

SCRIPTS | NORMAN A. BERT

CLOE: Yeah. Quite a few times. Then there was the other play. IDA: What was it like? CLOE: I dunno. I was stunned. Tears ran down my face. I couldn’t move. I don’t know how I got home. IDA: Reminds me of when you were born. CLOE: What? IDA: Yeah, there you were, all wet, all red and wrinkly. And that midwife, she just held you up and whapped you right on your little red wrinkly butt. You sort of coughed then started to cry. I laughed my head off. I’d been working all night tryin’ to get rid of you—still haven’t I guess—but there you were, and the first thing you got was a belt across your butt. Served you right. Laughed my fuckin’ head off. (Pause.) You want more coffee? CLOE: Nah. I’m good. (The two actors drop character, come downstage, and address the audience.) CLOE ACTOR: So now we’re gonna take a little break . . . IDA ACTOR: So’s we can teach you how to take an ujjayi breath. CLOE ACTOR: That’s a breathing technique used in yoga. IDA ACTOR: But it’s useful even if you never do yoga. CLOE ACTOR: That’s right. So sit up straight, IDA ACTOR: In sort of an upright, relaxed position there, CLOE ACTOR: And take a deep breath, IDA ACTOR: From your diaphragm, CLOE ACTOR: That’s, like, in your belly, IDA ACTOR: Right. You show ‘em __________ (She calls the CLOE ACTOR by her name.)

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

SCRIPTS | NORMAN A. BERT

(CLOE: ACTOR demonstrates.) That’s right. CLOE ACTOR: Then put it out—that breath—like you’re fogging up a mirror. (IDA ACTOR holds her hand in front of her mouth and breaths out.) CLOE ACTOR: OK, we’re gonna do it again. This time be sure you make a noise when you put the breath out— IDA ACTOR: Yeah, like an ocean sound. So OK, let’s do it again. (They both model the breath.) CLOE ACTOR: A couple more times. (They repeat.) IDA ACTOR: Ok. Now doesn’t that feel great? CLOE ACTOR: So don’t say you didn’t learn anything at the theatre. (They return to the table where there are now two drinks—a beer bottle for IDA and a martini for CLOE) (They are now back in character.) IDA: Well I’m just shaken. CLOE: Shaken, not stirred? (She raises her martini.) IDA: Laugh if you want, but it was terrifying. CLOE: She fell? IDA: Well yeah, she fell. Right off that trapeze. Musta been fifty feet above the ring, almost up to the top of the tent. CLOE: And no net. IDA: No net. CLOE: Wow.

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

SCRIPTS | NORMAN A. BERT

IDA: But now I’m thinkin’ maybe it was planned. Her partner swooped in and caught her. My god. I’m still shaking. It didn’t look planned. CLOE: So no harm, no foul. IDA: I’m telling you, everybody caught their breath. CLOE: Caught their breath, you say? IDA: Well, yeah. CLOE: You too? IDA: Of course! I’m still shaking. CLOE: Which hand? IDA: What? CLOE: Which hand did you catch it with? IDA: Catch what? CLOE: Your breath! Try to keep up! IDA: I don’t . . . CLOE: Did you catch your breath with your right hand or your left? IDA: I don’t . . . CLOE: Or did you catch it with both hands? IDA: You’re . . .. CLOE: And what about the others there, the other circus goers. IDA: I see what you’re doing, but . . . CLOE: And did the ones with bad breath go wash their hands afterward? IDA: (Starting to giggle.) Well I . . . CLOE: And after you caught your breath, did you hold on to it? Or just let it go? IDA: Caught my breath and then held my breath?

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

SCRIPTS | NORMAN A. BERT

CLOE: Otherwise—I mean if you caught your breath but didn’t hold your breath, you might be breathless. IDA: Breathless . . . CLOE: ‘Cause it got away, ya know. IDA: I get it. CLOE: Don’t waste your breath! IDA: Hot breath— CLOE: Shallow breath— IDA: Dog breath— CLOE: Baby’s breath— IDA: Dragon breath— CLOE: Within a hare’s breath— IDA: Make that “Within a hair’s breadth”— CLOE: I can’t breathe! IDA: Breathing space— CLOE: Heavy breathing— IDA: Keep breathing— CLOE: Deep breathing— CLOE: Stop breathing! IDA: Mouth breathing— CLOE: Cut! IDA: Breath of life, breath of heaven, breath of fresh air— CLOE: I said, “Cut!” (The two actors break out of character and come downstage to address the audience.)

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

SCRIPTS | NORMAN A. BERT

IDA ACTOR: Let’s do a couple more ujjayi breaths, shall we? CLOE ACTOR: This time we’re gonna develop it. We’re gonna do it with our mouths closed. IDA ACTOR: Same thing, but with lips closed. CLOE ACTOR: Right. Lips. So sit up, relax, and take in a big breath through your nose. Like this— (IDA ACTOR demonstrates.) Ok. Now, with lips together, blow it out through your nose, making that same ocean sound in your throat. (IDA ACTOR demonstrates.) Ok, now breathe in through your nose, but make that ocean sound in your throat while you do it. Like Darth Vader, ya know? (IDA ACTOR demonstrates.) So throat noise in and out, but lips closed. Do it a couple times. (They both demonstrate.) IDA ACTOR: Ok, that’s enough. Don’t get carried away. Amaze your friends when you see them next time. Teach ‘em how to do the ujjayi breath. We’ll start a whole ujjayi movement. The whole world will be ujjayi-ing! (They return to the set and shift back into character. CLOE is now frying something at the stove while IDA watches.) IDA: Gotta say, them steak bits sure smell good while they cook. CLOE: Don’t they though! Wanna taste? IDA: Not too hot? CLOE: Naw. (She takes a fork, stabs a piece and hands it to IDA who blows on it and pops it into her mouth. Almost immediately, she chokes and is clearly in trouble. She drops the fork and grabs her throat with both hands.) Oh my god! Chew it first, dummy! (To audience and pointing to IDA)

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

SCRIPTS | NORMAN A. BERT

Now that is the classic sign that someone’s choking and can’t breathe—two hands to the throat. What do we do? First, we don’t panic. My first-aid teacher told us that the Heimlich maneuver has been replaced by the five-by-five maneuver. Let me demonstrate. (Meanwhile, IDA: is clearly in big trouble, writhing, pointing to her throat, etc.) Stand to one side of the person choking. (As she narrates she demonstrates.) Bend the person over at the waist. Then give them five sound blows on the upper part of the back like this. (Demonstrates: Whack! Whack! Whack! Whack! Whack!) If that doesn’t dislodge the bit, move on to the old Heimlich maneuver. Stand them up, move behind them, and place one foot forward to maintain your balance. Like this. (Demonstrates.) Put your hands around them right under their rib cage. Make a fist with one hand and grab hold of that fist with your other hand. Then give five sharp squeezes, like you’re trying to lift them off the floor. (Demonstrates while IDA: flails about.) If that doesn’t do it, return to the five blows to the back. (She demonstrates as she narrates.) Bend ‘em over again. Give ‘em five sharp blows! (This time, she really whacks IDA: who blows a chunk out of her mouth on the fifth whack and commences coughing.) And that, dear old Mom, is payback for laughing at me when the midwife swatted my butt at birth! Now come on. Let’s get you to your recliner. (She leads IDA: off stage.) END OF PLAY n n n For more information on author Norman A. Bert, please visit our Contributors Page.

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

ARTWORK

Norma Sadler

Horse Without A Name| matt acrylic CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

POETRY | ERIKA VALDEZ

Past the Field By Erika Valdez Next to the field lived an old brick house The yellow grass watched it sleep Knowing that reality is fleeting Fearing that fog follows fantasy And while the grass watched The familiar front-yard tree grew a face Dramatic swirls drew backyard snails Evening air was painted the kind of cobalt blue Absent from reality And in the field, the sheep were given cloud-like bodies Swiftly painted with loose strokes And sometimes goats formed out of graphite Only sometimes But especially in the summer, running from the fireworks Decorating the July night sky The neighbor-children sailed down the street on a boat Headed to the field Cruising over waves invisible to all Immortalized in certainty The lost thistles tried to play with time Spinning, singing to the swallows The children watched the tumbleweeds blow past the field And wished wistfully to follow

n n n For more information on author Erika Valdez, please visit our Contributors Page.

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

POETRY |CHRISTA KING

Sonoran Desert Rain Song By Christa King In the desert, rain falling is the sound and scent of paradise. Cholla, saguaro, hummingbird, finch, lizard, coyote, bobcat, human, javelina, every kind of predator and prey, breathe deeply and sigh in relief. They open themselves to the sounds, to the wet, sharp creosote scent, and dance their own unique rain dance of celebration. First, the surprising sparkle of rain on a sunny day. Then deluge. I thank the heavens, the gods, the clouds, for such a wonder. And here I stand face up, lost in amazement, drenched in joy. There is death, grief, calamity and unspeakable tragedy, but there is always a day when the air is clean, mourning doves cooing, and life bursts jubilantly again from scorched earth. n n n For more information on author Christa King, please visit our Contributors Page.

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

ARTWORK

Norma Sadler

Desierto Espiritu| Matt acrylic CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

POETRY | DANIEL BRENNAN

Planetary Engulfment* By Daniel Brennan

*the process by which an expanding sun absorbs planets nearby within its solar system Everything I know I learned from you The way peaches grind into pulp between teeth and also the way resentment becomes its own chronic sting in your bones What I’m trying to say is I’m getting older Can you hear me calling across the blue-smoked valley Can you tell by the shake of my throaty voice that nothing is what it seems these days the air trembling with mirage I used to think you were the devil and I used to give you too much credit You were only a body guiding another body Steering me away from oblivion as best a mother knows how What I’m trying to say is I understand that you can’t out-smart the future I understand why every city will be buried or sunk someday I understand how billions of years from now the world will be devoured by our sun as it swells like a pregnant belly and consumes every living thing around it and despite knowing all this all I can do is believe you did what you thought was right Everything I know I learned from you the safest place to plant cherry tomatoes in the yard and also how to sleep easy despite all the dreams I’ve let drift away along the river of yesterday What I’m trying to say is come closer I’m tired of pushing away the past n n n For more information on author Daniel Brennan, please visit our Contributors Page.

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

ARTWORK

Alyx Germonchik

Fair Fury | Digital

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

POETRY | MIKAELA ORR

The Kiss By Mikaela Orr The morning lifts in July, I blink awake to your clock. Your mermaid waves tangle my chest. Your dog, by chance, notices, and bounces to meet us in your comforter. The sun catches you standing; filling your blonde lashes and highlighting the space you made for my mug on your nightstand. All my Christian friends are married, and happy, and carrying beautifully crafted bellies, and watching their husbands coddle a life, birthed into love, into gentle beards and burly chest hearths. A portrait I’d painted, also, for myself. I wonder what they would think of you; the outline of us. When our gold kiss paint with the oil base of both of our last night’s mascara. Your underwear and mom’s old college jersey, Art Nouveau, capturing my eye shadow smudge on your waist. The golden leaf that lives here now but belongs in the Belvedere.

n n n For more information on author Mikaela Orr please visit our Contributors Page.

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

ARTWORK

Rachel Hawthorne

Distant Lovers| Marker, Acrylic, Paint Marker

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

CREATIVE NONFICTION | JODY MACE

Mysteries of My Father By Jody Mace

arzan. Tonto. Tuvafana. These were the passwords that my father used for all his accounts. I learned this during the stage of his dementia when I had to manage his accounts. Guessing his passwords wasn’t too hard. I just had to go through these three possibilities and maybe add a 1 or a 2. The bigger mystery was what the hell Tuvafana was. Tarzan and Tonto were self-explanatory since he was a fan of Tarzan and The Lone Ranger. But what was Tuvafana? I asked him right away, but it was already too late. He didn’t remember. I thought it might be Hebrew, since Tuva is close to the word for good, Tov. My dad had been interested in languages all his life and had many stories, which I didn’t necessarily believe, about his surprising proficiency at unlikely languages. There was the time as a boy that he was visiting a friend, whose family was Greek, and had impressed the boy’s mother by speaking Greek. Or the Chinese restaurant where he spoke fluently in Mandarin, and in Cantonese, just in case. But I had no clue about fana. During the years that I was managing my father’s accounts, I made many attempts to solve the mystery. Was it a character from a book? The name of one of his relatives? But the mystery remained. One thing about having a parent with dementia is how much of the past becomes a mystery, and

how abruptly it seems to happen. It made me realize how little I had tried to get to know him when he was mentally whole. My life with my father was dominated by his stories, but they were both endlessly repeated and apocryphal. I think that over time I was worn down by his narrative and didn’t really have the energy or desire to start up more conversations. But as his dementia progressed, he grew quieter and I started asking questions to fill the void. Sometimes he talked. I have a collection of voice memos on my phone of the conversations that did take off. But a lot of times he didn’t want to. I was losing my only remaining parent, little by little, and with him was going all the knowledge of a different, but related world, where people who looked like me spoke Yiddish and wore long dresses and ran a corner grocery store. Which relatives did he visit in New York as a child? What led to the failure of his family’s grocery store? Why did his father have different countries and years of birth on his passport and life insurance application? Nothing huge. Just little things that started out as facts and then became questions. And then, when there was no way to answer the questions, they became mysteries. ••• It’s a well-known phenomenon in my family that people tell me everything. I might ask one casual question, and complete strangers tell me about their first marriage, their cigar business, the novel they’re writing, the time they were homeless. I think it’s because I find people interesting, and they can tell.

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

CREATIVE NONFICTION | JODY MACE

But somehow that interest didn’t extend to my father, at least not in action. I guess I thought I’d have time for questions later, and then I didn’t.

the apartment a couple times a week. He told me every day how much he loved his apartment, especially the recliner I had bought him. It truly was the happiest I’d ever known him to be.

•••

When is the exact moment that it’s best to make someone measurably safer but at the cost of making them immeasurably sadder? He seemed okay for now, but I knew that the decision was bearing down on me. I envisioned the decision like two arcs on a single graph. When do they cross? It’s a wrenching calculus.

Solving mysteries has got to be one of our most fundamental drives. From Encyclopedia Brown to Nancy Drew to Sherlock Holmes to Jessica Fletcher, when they solve a mystery, they solve it. There’s no half-assery involved, no lingering doubts. That’s the kind of mystery solving I like. You find a hidden staircase. You catch the thief as he tries to execute his heist. You ask that one question that forces a confession. Everything clicks into place like a puzzle that can only be solved one way, or a meticulously maintained old clock. Clean. ••• As my father’s dementia progressed, not only could I not solve the mysteries I knew about, but there were more mysteries every day. He often told me about things that were clearly dreams, or tv shows, but he thought they had happened. I was learning to meet him where he was. This is the way you’re supposed to communicate with people with dementia. You don’t tell them that they’re wrong. You just let them talk and respond to what they say, as if it’s real. He was in a continuing care facility, but in the “independent living” part of it. I knew that he would need to move to a memory care unit, or something like that, with more security, but, when? He actually functioned just fine in his apartment, with lots of help and supervision. I was there a lot, and there was also someone who came in twice a day to make sure he took his pills, and someone else who helped around

One August morning I got a phone call from my dad. He said that he had returned my magazine to the library but had forgotten to put my note in it. There was a library in the facility where he lived, and he regularly borrowed magazines from it. I hadn’t borrowed a magazine and I hadn’t written a note, but I said, “Thanks for returning it. Don’t worry about the note. It wasn’t important.” I had met him where he was. He seemed relieved, and I felt good that I had responded to him kindly. Then, late in the afternoon, someone called me from the front desk of the care facility. Nobody had seen him that day. Was he with me? When an 86-year-old goes missing, it’s an emergency. He had never walked away from the facility before. Not once. Not a step. He couldn’t have been less interested. It took several hours under the blistering sun, and the help of a what seemed like a whole precinct of police officers, but it was ultimately the GPS signal from his Jitterbug phone that led us to his body. He was lying in a clearing in an overgrown wooded area near his apartment, with his hands crossed on his chest, his eyes open to the sky.

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

CREATIVE NONFICTION | JODY MACE

I don’t think anyone comes out clean when their parent dies. There’s always something to feel guilty about. But when you were the person who was supposed to keep them safe, and you didn’t, no matter what the reason, it hits hard.

years ago, when they would have been easier to solve. Maybe the biggest mystery isn’t even about him. Maybe it’s about me—why I didn’t try to know him better when I could. Why I assumed that we were just too different to really connect.

I think about the things he missed in the two years that he’s been gone. He missed his granddaughter’s Bat Mitzvah and his grandson’s college graduation. He missed the isolation of the pandemic, which he would have hated. He missed Trump losing the election, which he would have loved. Mostly, though, he missed the free fall of decline he was about to experience, and the loss of freedom. There was some medical event, maybe a mini-stroke, that had confused him and set him to walking. He missed going into a nursing home or hospital. Maybe he did this just the way he wanted to. Who knows.

I’ve been learning Yiddish for a few months. When I work on it I think of him. Although I doubted some of his stories of language acumen, he was definitely a fluent Yiddish speaker. His family spoke it when he was growing up. I keep wondering if I’ll come across Tuvafana but I haven’t. I’ve worked my way through “food,” “friends,” “complaining,” “leisure,” and “office,” but no Tuvafana. The other day I googled Tuvafana again, and this time I got a hit. It wasn’t a definitive explanation. It was no smoking gun, no invisible inked message with a code I cracked. I don’t know if this was actually something my dad, a lover of languages, once came across and then forgot where it was from. I don’t even know if the translation I found was correct. But for now, I’ll take it.

“Who knows?” seems to be both the question and the answer to everything, the only response to a mystery that will never be solved. Who knows what he was talking about when he called me about the magazine? Who knows where he was when he called me? Who knows where he thought he was going? Who knows why he lay down in that clearing, looking exactly as if he was going to take a nap? Who knows.

It was a word in someone’s Facebook status, in an unfamiliar language. I typed it into Google Translate, which identified the language as Shona, a Bantu language spoken in Zimbabwe.

I wish I had tried harder to solve his mysteries

The translation was “We are the same.”

For more information on author Jody Mace, please visit our Contributors Page. This story first appeared in Full Grown People

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

ARTWORK

Ella Raschdorf

Cozy|Acrylic

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

ARTWORK

Alyx Germonchik

Progress | Digital

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

POETRY | MIKAELA ORR

Scrub Brush By Mikaela Orr My Mother paints with a scrub brush. Every dirty pan canvas she cleaned with her heavy, cracking hands drew with meticulous care a story of lines from the core of her brave military wed patriotism to her rubber yellow dish gloves. Her artwork; Her joy. Her children. Her sparkling white kitchen grout. Harsh, cracking hands. “I love you” still smells like ammonia, never mixed with bleach to get the dirt out. A clean closet means “Let’s forget,” an empty kitchen sink. Long strokes, pursed lips, uninhibited on a world of canvas and hugs tight with control. Mommy paints with a scrub brush, and I am steel wool.

For more information on author Mikaela Orr please visit our Contributors Page.

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

ARTWORK

Maggie Vandewalle

Constellations | Watercolor

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

FICTION | SELINA CHEVALIER

Anywhere But Here By Selina Chevalier

here’s an open mic at Crazed Comedy every Tuesday. A half-torn poster advertises it in front, the words Prospective Talent clinging to its frayed edge. I haven’t been in months, seeing the trip and obligatory drink as a leech on my nearly exhausted savings. Bryan suggests I make my return the week before I’m due to start training, the last time I can enjoy it without being leashed to a desk by a headset the next morning. It’s oddly thoughtful of him. “Is it Cordy again this week?” the host asks. He’s known me by two other names, donned and doffed as failed experiments. “Yes,” I tell him. The stagelight throws the sparse audience in silhouette and smells like an electrical fire. I gesture at myself with a sweep of my hand. “As you can tell by my everything, I’m trans.” One man laughs. *** The call center is in Scottsdale, in a great Vshaped building lauded as high-end office space. There’s a waterfall fountain in the lobby, backed in a dark, marbled tile to match the walls of the elevator bay. The facility’s windows offer a second-story view of the parking lot, a few rows of white stucco condos beyond, though the blinds are kept shut on the call floor. This is company policy.

There are just over a dozen of us in the training classroom on the first day, maybe about nine on the second. By Friday, we have dwindled to four: a single mother, two sales veterans, and me. *** In the mornings, we take notes, our instructor rigid under the light from the projector as though enduring an x-ray. She reads from her slides without improvisation, and every so often gives us a new color-coded printout. Red, green, navy blue, magenta. A wad of fifteen sit in my folder by Tuesday. If they were to yell a color at random, I couldn’t say which sheet it corresponds to without shuffling through and checking. *** In the afternoons, we apply what we’ve learned in mock calls with our fellow trainees. Our acted-out scenarios, I would soon learn, are overly optimistic. I would read the script, throw in a couple rote bullet points about the product from the only printout I find useful, ask if they’re interested. “Gee, that sounds great,” my partner would say, or once or twice give a polite “no, but thank you for calling.” Then we’d switch.

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

***

FICTION | SELINA CHEVALIER

For the last ten minutes of training, they bring in the site director, a middle-aged man who gesticulates with both hands as he talks. He tells us we’re the finest crop of trainees yet.

“Good,” my nesting partner says after we hang up. “Just try to be more persistent next time. You only let him say no once.” ***

“Do you have any advice for them about the job?” our trainer asks. He considers for a moment. “I started with this company many years ago in a position not unlike yours,” he says. “I worked the job. I read what was in front of me but didn’t excel. My sales were not the highest. But then I learned if I just changed the tone of my voice, the customers would respond to me differently. My numbers went up. You can even try smiling. They can hear a smile through the phone.” His lips stretch as if to demonstrate. I doodle in my notebook. The single mother eyes the clock. The other two stare into the middle distance at the front of the classroom, like they can see through the cream-colored walls and dense carpeting to the reality of the job—thick skins, hardened eardrums, teeth grit, showroom voice, numb rhythm, steady paycheck. ***

“May I ask why you don’t want to take advantage of this popular product?” I ask my sixth. “Because I don’t want to,” he says. Then why answer? *** My ninth yells “stop fucking calling me” into the phone, repeats this until I disconnect. I stop counting them after that. *** At this point, I’m crashing with an acquaintance from high school, Bryan. His parents pay for his apartment while he’s going to college, though I never see him open a book. “How’d it go?” he asks after day one.

The next Monday, my manager calls me into her office before we’re paired off for nesting. “You’ll have to go by your legal name on the phones. I’ve had Cordy printed on your badge though. I’m afraid it’s the best I can do.” *** I am still reeling from this news when my first call ends in failure.

The living room is dark save for the white glow of the TV, his words nearly lost in the gunshots and wounded cries of a video game. There is nothing I would like more than to lie down, but he’s sitting on the couch where I sleep. “Kind of terrible,” I say, hoping sympathy will budge him. “I didn’t sell anything, and surprise, surprise, people are rather mean when they don’t want you calling them.”

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

FICTION | SELINA CHEVALIER

“That sucks,” Bryan says, eyes fixed to his game. A grenade explosion swallows the room.

Surely this can’t be real. ***

I give up and root around in one of the black trash bags I keep my clothes in, heading for the bathroom with a pair of rumpled sweatpants. *** My days become a relentless stream of artificial interactions, broken up into tiny segments. Hundreds of micro-conversations, failed conversations, fizzling attempts. More than half of my words are not my own. It is my voice, but no one really hears me. ***

A huddle with the trainer that afternoon: “Some numbers use prank voicemail recordings. They’ll just eat up ten minutes of your time if you let them. Hang up and move on.” *** One of the recordings takes me almost two minutes to identify as a prank. It’s pretty good, the audio just tinny enough to sound authentic. The speaker asks what you want and interrupts in short intervals—a cycle with enough variation to keep you tied up.

One man laughs before I’ve even said anything. I walk onstage, and the sound of it cuts through the dust particles drifting in the beam of lights.

“Excuse me, Sir, or is it ma’am?” she asks.

I couldn’t write a better joke if I tried.

After a beat, she cuts me off again even though I haven’t been speaking.

I deflate, fall silent, eyes watering.

*** My team lead says the word click to imitate the sound of someone hanging up on us. It is not a click, however. It’s more of a scratch that echoes into the void for the smallest instant before it’s abruptly choked off. ***

*** My first paycheck deposits without a single bonus on it. I google 10 Tips to Boost Your Sales on Bryan’s laptop, but it’s the last thing I want to read about. I close the window, search my trash bags for the only sexy outfit I own, and head for the open mic.

A man’s strident voice, macho and insincere. “Who is this?” “Good afternoon, Sir—” “Do you have any idea who I am? I’m the goddamn President of the United States. How did you get this number?”

*** One man laughs at every one of my jokes. Even on the ones that bomb, the sound echoes back to me, a soloist in the dark. When one portion of my material goes well, I can still pick him out among a few others.

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

FICTION | SELINA CHEVALIER

I always compromise myself, my dignity, for my needs.

Offstage, someone approaches me, and through some sixth sense, I instantly know that it’s him. He reeks of lager and greets me with a bloodshot leer.

*** Each team lead has a whiteboard at the end of their aisle where they write a question of the week, a dozen answers floating beneath in red or green or blue.

“Can I buy you a drink, honey?” *** Later, he asks how long I’ve been on estrogen while inside me.

What’s your ideal destination? one asks.

My hands wrinkle the pink flesh of his belly as I try to support myself.

getaway

Anywhere but here, I write before thinking better of it, wiping it from existence. Or at least I try. The eraser leaves paler smudges in its place, the words still legible. I walk past later, and two people have jotted +1 beside them.

“Shut up,” I say, and he moans. ***

summer

For more information on author Selina Chevalier, please visit our Contributors Page.

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

ARTWORK

Erika Valdez

Rydal Mount| Acrylic and Collage

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

SCRIPTS | JOHN PEROVICH

The Date Play By John Perovich Characters: SAM: 30s; reserved/hesitant HOLLY: 20s; charismatic/fearless TV: 50s/60s; infomercial Setting: A local bar. Nothing too fancy. Time: Mid-evening. Weeknight. [Sam and Holly sit mid-conversation at the bar on their first date. They each ordered the same drink -- there's a cherry at the bottom. They sit and face the audience -- the fourth wall of the bar. There's a TV hanging on the fourth wall that they sometimes watch.] HOLLY: I don't have to swipe. SAM: Isn't that the best part? HOLLY: Guys swipe first and then I get to see who they are. If I'm interested, I respond. SAM: You like it because you don't have to do any work. HOLLY: Shut up. SAM: That's what it sounds like. HOLLY: I have to go through the guys. It's still work. SAM: Eh. HOLLY: What? SAM: That's not work. Not really... [Sam is distracted by the TV.] SAM: Why are we watching this? HOLLY: Ask them to change it.

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

SCRIPTS | JOHN PEROVICH

SAM: Isn't there like...sports? Or something? HOLLY: You watch sports? [Beat.] SAM: You were telling me about -- I'm sorry...how the dating app is a lot of work? HOLLY: Yes. Totally. I have to go through, read guy's profiles, check for typos -- make sure they sound like decent human beings and not robot sex addicts. That kind of thing. Takes skill. Takes work. SAM: Us coming out tonight? That's work. HOLLY: I sound like work to you? SAM: No, like -- you know. I wasn't sure if it was a good idea or not. At first. I didn't want to...I wanted to get to know you a bit. HOLLY: And you feel like you know me now? SAM: I know enough. (Beat) I didn't mean to sound like -- I mean, I knew enough to know that I wanted to see you. I knew when we met in your store. Like it was something I thought you might be interested in, but I wasn't sure, and then -- yeah. Like...all that. HOLLY: I was wondering when you were going to ask me out. It's been like, what? A month? SAM: What if I popped up on your app. Would we still be here? HOLLY: Maybe. I don't know. It's a lot of work. (Beat) Are you on any apps? SAM: Dating apps? (laughing) Me? I tried, but I prefer to meet women the old school way. Like the way we met. Just kind of bumped into each other and got to talking. HOLLY: (laughing) Old school? Okay. SAM: Like...just meeting people, talking...that sort of thing. Kind of how my Mom raised me. HOLLY: How's that working out? SAM: You tell me. (Beat) It's a little...traditional...I guess, but it's always been what feels right. I did a few dates online a while ago. I won't tell you how long ago because it's embarrassing. But...I tried. (Beat) What's it look like on your end? HOLLY: Of the app? SAM: Yeah.

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

SCRIPTS | JOHN PEROVICH

HOLLY: Simple. List of guys. Pictures. SAM: Ah. Like a shopping list? HOLLY: It's not a shopping list! SAM: Kind of sounds like a shopping list. HOLLY: Whatever. It's more like...options. But still, I never know what I'm going to run into. There's some creepers. SAM: Yeah? HOLLY: Yeah. So many. Seriously. You wouldn't believe how many. SAM: Sounds like a burden. A bunch of guys who want to date you? Just sitting there -- alone -on your shopping list. HOLLY: Are you making fun of me? [The sounds of the TV are heard either as a voice over or a "plant" in the audience.] TV: Have you or a loved one ever taken Scamtrax? HOLLY: Wow, why are we watching this? (to "bartender") Excuse me? Can you change the channel? TV: You or a loved one may have been exposed to significant levels of carcinogens. We want to represent you. HOLLY: Hello? The channel? SAM: All joking aside...have you found anyone? HOLLY: I’ve found lots. SAM: Yeah, but like...interesting? HOLLY: What do you mean? They're all interesting. SAM: You know what I mean. HOLLY: You want to hear about disasters? SAM: Sure. HOLLY: The first time we've gone out together and you want to hear about other guys?

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

SCRIPTS | JOHN PEROVICH

SAM: You just strike me as someone who...I don't know. HOLLY: Who knows lots of guys? SAM: No, no...I mean, you're very...social. You're really good at talking with people. I knew the second I met you at your store. I thought, dang, she's really good at talking with people. So relaxed. So...honest. So... HOLLY: Personable? SAM: Personable. Yes, you are so personable. HOLLY: Thank you. SAM: And you strike me as someone who's probably met some...interesting...guys. (Beat) In a personable way. HOLLY: Fine. (Beat) This one guy, we met at The Central. SAM: Place with the mac and cheese? HOLLY: Oh-my-god-yes-shut-up-it's-delicious. SAM: It's good. My Mom makes the best -TV: Our clients have contracted cancer of the liver, stomach, prostate, mouth, throat, lung -HOLLY: You ever try the short rib mac? TV: Lymphoma. HOLLY: NO! The crab!? TV: Brain cancer. HOLLY: Tell me you've tried the crab. SAM: They do crab? TV: Uterine cancer. SAM: My Mom has uterine cancer. HOLLY: Oh. I'm sorry. (Beat) Did you try the crab? SAM: No.

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

SCRIPTS | JOHN PEROVICH

HOLLY: Promise me you'll try it. SAM: Maybe that can be our next date? HOLLY: So, this guy, this -TV: What was intended for simple heartburn has developed into cancer for many and you may be entitled to compensation -HOLLY: This train wreck of a person -- are you listening? SAM: What? Yes. Oh, yes -- a hundred percent. HOLLY: He was horrible at talking. Guys are just horrible. They're not...you know -SAM: Personable. HOLLY: Exactly! SAM: Am I personable? HOLLY: And he randomly gets up during the conversation and goes to the bathroom. Like, I don't know. It was weird. You know? Just got up in the middle of a conversation to run to the bathroom -- who does that? SAM: Maybe he had to pee. HOLLY: Turns out, he took a phone call. TV: Scamtrax has been pulled from retailers by the FDA. SAM: (re: TV) What the hell with this? HOLLY: I know, right? Then he comes back, and is like, get this -- you listening? SAM: Guy, bathroom, phone, comes back -HOLLY: Yeah, and he says he just got a call to go to a sex party. A sex party!? In LA! SAM: How...exciting...for him. HOLLY: And he asks me if I want to go! And I'm like -- hey creep, I'm not crossing state lines with you! TV: The levels of NDMA in Scamtrax has 26,000 times the daily allowance of the deadly ingredient. HOLLY: I mean, isn't that crazy!?

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

SCRIPTS | JOHN PEROVICH

SAM: Yeah. (Beat) My Mom has cancer. HOLLY: I told him I had a work thing and just got out of there. Flags were going up. I didn't know what he was up to, exactly, but -- whatever it was -- it was no good. SAM: My Mom has cancer. TV: Your Mom may be entitled to compensation. Act now. HOLLY: This other guy? Oh, my god. SAM: (re: TV) I don't know what to do. TV: Act now. Call our Scamtrax helpline. HOLLY: We work together, which is -- I know -- you don't have to tell me. But he showed up on the app and I'm kind of digging him. Cutie. We just started sleeping together. TV: 1-800-777-S-C-A-M. HOLLY: Of course, he's married. TV: Call today. HOLLY: They're staying together for the kids. I think. (Beat) How's your drink? SAM: It's great that you date. That you put yourself out there like that. HOLLY: There's a cherry at the bottom. You'll love it. TV: Contact our qualified legal team today. Fight for the compensation you deserve. HOLLY: Did you get to the cherry? SAM: The...? HOLLY: The cherry. It's delicious. [Sam downs his drink. Eats the cherry.] HOLLY: What do you think? Good? SAM: (honest) That's a really good cherry. HOLLY: I know, right? [Pause.]

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

SCRIPTS | JOHN PEROVICH

SAM: Thanks for coming out tonight. TV: Don't wait. Call today. HOLLY: How are you? How's life? SAM: My Mom has uterine cancer...recently had a hysterectomy. Doctor said it was localized, so the cancer was contained. She apparently had a strong uterus. HOLLY: Oh. Wow. That's great. SAM: Yeah. Next step, radiation. Still waiting for more details. [Pause.] HOLLY: What's dating been like for you? I want to hear all about the old school approach. SAM: Actually...I don't really date. HOLLY: Really? SAM: Really. HOLLY: Why not? [End of play.]

For more information on author John Perovich, please visit our Contributors Page.

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

ARTWORK

Alyx Germonchik

Sunshine | Digital

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

POETRY | SHAWNTE ORION

Anti-viral Memecore By Shawnte Orion One does not simply turn weekly frappacinos and avocado toast into a twenty percent down payment I am nothing if not easily persuaded change my mind inside you are two wolves one is on twitter one forgot your passwords for the other 34 social media accounts is self-care in the room with us right now? I just passed more legislation that regulates your body sorry I don’t make the rules Flat Earthers are spreading truth all around the globe where is the lie? There is a picture of someone who is not funny there is a picture of someone who had a great childhood they are the same picture I don’t always order unsweetened matcha but when I do it’s a cry for help

For more information on author Shawnte Orion please visit our Contributors Page.

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

ARTWORK

Ella Raschdorf

Peacock | Pointillism, white acrylic on black paperboard CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

FICTION | CHRIS HUFF

The White Line By Chris Huff

iding up the path toward the trail, I pedaled with force and stood up. I'd heard of people using special bikes at similar suicide rides – they were lighter with more traction. I looked down at my mountain bike with its big clumsy wheels and winced at the image of myself barreling over the side, limbs flailing, and envisioned my poor mother getting the news that her one remaining son had gone to join the first. The White Line, I can see it, calm and present and menacing. A white stripe of fine-grained sandstone painted high across a red rock cliff — it looked like one large flatline above all the beauty in Sedona, Arizona. My brother always talked about this place. He had said, "You can die at the White Line. It's the scariest bike trail in the world…one small mistake and you'll tumble all the way down." My eyes darted to the floor…I had that same image of clawing and shrieking through the air. All at once I shuddered and the image turned off. Simon smirked and nudged me backward. "You're afraid of everything, Jo-Jo." I pushed him with both arms, but he didn't budge. "My name's Jonah! Take me with you, Si … I can do it, I'll show you." He ruffled my hair and patted my head. "You're only twelve, Jo-Jo…hey I'll get you something cool while I'm out in Sedona. Something from the trail."

"I'm gonna ride it someday, by the time I'm eighteen, just like you are," I said. I made the vow to him back then, and I remember him looking at me, and me looking back at him, and both of us trying to figure out if I meant it, if I would actually do it. "You're always trying to prove yourself, lil bro. You don't have anything to prove, Jonah, you've already made it, just by being who you are. You're the musician, I'm the dumb jock and daredevil," he said with a laugh. Si had a deep, hearty laugh that made it seem like everything in the world would be okay, as if it were up to him. I admired him so much and even wanted the sound of my laughter to be like his. He was my father figure for as long as I can remember because my real dad left us when I was only a baby. Simon set out toward the White Line, but he never made it home. He died in a wreck when a trucker fell asleep and crossed over the center line. That morning, Si, his girlfriend Alyssa, and his best friend Dane got in his old black truck, and they all headed north to Sedona on the I-17. Skipping class and they were gonna make a day of it. The White Line was intended to be the first stop, and afterward they wanted to spend time in town, doing whatever they pleased, but it wasn't to be. When I turned eighteen, I knew I had to ride

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

FICTION | CHRIS HUFF

the White Line. Not just for me, but Si also. But I'd had a severe fear of heights for as long as I can remember. That meant no roller coasters, and I'd sit in the middle or front rows on the bleachers when we'd watch Si’s games. Just looking at pictures of the White Line made my legs go weak. As the day closed in, I was close to backing out, even though I'd planned it for months with my best friends Travis and Greg. They eventually agreed to go because they knew what it meant to me, but I went into a full-on panic attack the night before and didn't sleep much. I snapped-to just in time to pull on my handlebar brakes, sending the back wheel up and slamming one leg down for balance. I nearly steered into a large prickly pear cactus, drifting off in thought as I'm known to do. I shook my head, then looked up at the dirt cloud created from my hard braking, and it made me think of Simon stealing bases. He gave pitchers fits. They’d hurl the ball across the plate, to the catcher – who would also be on edge – knowing they had to contend with one of the leading base-stealers in the state.

In grade school, I'd hear from my teachers, "Hey, are you Simon Adler's brother?" when they'd read my name during roll call on those perennial first days of school – their eyes glowing as if I knew someone famous. He still holds high school records for the most passing yards and touchdowns – even though his senior season was cut short by his death. But baseball was his love, and you could feel the shift whenever spring rolled around. During the season I played baseball as a child, the coaches would toss me into right field, and I'd tremble under the lights, praying urgently

to God, asking that he wouldn't let the ball be sent my way. That signal must've been received by the batter, and I imagine he got a whiff of my fear before sending a high pop fly out in my direction. I'd usually succumb to the pressure, my glove raised high and slack, trying to figure out the trajectory of the baseball's descent, and where it might end up. I'd hear the "Sssssssssssssss" sound as it whirred above me, then running toward the fence, while I scrambled through my shame to avoid an even worse one. And worse would happen. Sometimes I'd scurry to the ball and would go to pick the damn thing up and I'd kick it, or I'd try to scoop it with my glove, but it'd slide back to the ground. Some of the lucky ones earned in-the-park home runs by hitting it out my way. Simon tried his best to help me – we'd spent hours at the park – him popping the balls way up, and me catching them while under the glow of his confidence – but during the actual game something else took over, and anything that could go wrong usually did. This was a new day though. I wasn't going to buckle beneath the pressure or the fear. Still a distance out, I pedaled. The ground was smooth and the pathway free from the many loose stones and rock ladders we’d hurdled through on the lower trails. The incline continued to get steeper, so eventually I jumped off the bike and pushed it. I felt a presence calling from up there, and I wondered out loud if it was Simon. Until that point, I fended off the idea of what I was doing, but it was so close now. I gripped the handlebars – my hands sweating, and I looked straight ahead. Squinting, I tried to steel myself against the fright that seized me anytime I looked to the line. I worked to gain control of myself by remembering what I was there for.

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

FICTION | CHRIS HUFF

"Hey fucker…are you trying to leave us behind?" I looked back and saw Travis grinning up at me, walking beside the expensive bike his dad just purchased for him. Greg came into view a few seconds later, his head tilted downward, and his lips tightly wound. Travis was the only one who had his life all planned out. From the time I'd known him, which was grade school, he knew he wanted to go into the Marine Corps like his dad. Greg didn't know what he wanted to do with his life, but seemed okay with that, and was going up to Flagstaff to attend NAU because he was tired of the hot, endless summer of Phoenix. Early in the year, Travis and his dad went in on me about how I should join the Corps also. I relented, and soon after, I was in front of a recruiter whom I verbally committed to join with but had yet to sign the paperwork. I thought about what Si would say about me joining the Marines. I knew he'd think I was just trying to prove myself again. I'd never shot a gun in my life and didn't want to know how to. My dream was to play my guitar and mix it up with songwriters and producers in Nashville. Crazy as it is, I was trying to lose them – Travis and Greg. I felt the need to be alone the closer we got to the line. I wanted some silence to talk with Simon – to tap into his voice if I could. My fears of him slipping away were strangely sedated in the times I was afraid, like I was when riding toward the White Line, because those were the moments when he was always there for me. A collage of his advice and encouragement welled up within. You don't have to be anyone else…be Jonah. It's

not that serious, Jo-Jo. It's just sports. Sports don't make you a man. I'd give you my throwing arm for your music talent. Use the fear to help you focus. "I would've caught up sooner if I didn't have to drag that one along," Travis nodded over to Greg. "Greg says he's not gonna make the ride. I'll bet he wishes his mommy was here to take him home." Greg looked up. "This is insane. All it would take is running over a loose rock, having a malfunction or a tire slippage, and we’re goners. It's a crazy, death-defying thing to play around with. Stupid really. I'm just not feeling it." I thought of my own mother. She had to work that day – the day we went to Sedona – at a local Italian food spot, Dominic's, where she picked up a waitressing job part-time. I couldn't tell her about the White Line, or she'd have tried to stop me. I did let her know I was going to Sedona to honor Si. She said she wished she could take the trip too, and that we would celebrate my birthday together as soon as possible. She held onto both sides of my face right there in the living room, the morning I headed out. Her hands were always cold, but they were delicate. She said, "I know what this means to you…what he means to you, Jonah." A few tears slipped down my face as she spoke, and I held onto my mother. As we embraced, I thought of our quiet house the months after Si left, a silence that never left us. Her doors were shut some days and so much time would pass that I'd go check on her, kneeling by the bed while she sobbed. It doesn't seem like we ate anything at all in those months. When we did, it was pizza delivery.

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

FICTION | CHRIS HUFF

I wanted to tell her I needed to go to Sedona because I felt like he was disappearing, that after six years it seemed like Simon was almost forgotten. Every day at school, at least once, I'd peer into the trophy cases, to the plaques, and try to bring him back, even if for a moment. Sometimes I would have to concentrate hard to remember what his voice sounded like. I'd look for interviews and news articles of him online, and we had some videos of his games. He was fading away, and I needed to let him know, somehow tell him I wouldn't let that happen – or I needed his permission to move forward and to ask his advice on how. Travis pushed his bike up to where I was, and we stood in silence. I wasn't feeling it today either. I was close to resignation, like Greg, already preparing myself for Travis's teasing all the way home, and for him and his dad to have a good laugh about it over dinner. How a mama's boy like me couldn't face my fears, like they knew I wouldn't be able to all along. How I'd never make it in the Marine Corps. We pushed our bikes in silence, and I fumbled around in my pocket to bring out my headphones, then plugged them in. Turning up the volume on my phone, I focused on the music to distract me from the near future. Maybe I'm wrong, or maybe I'm right Maybe it's just too late but this is keeping me awake all night The sound stopped in my right ear as the earbud went falling. Travis was in my close periphery…he let go of the wire and it fell back to me. "I said what are you listening to?" he asked.

"Kodaline." "Greg's in a panic – I don't think he's gonna make it," he said. His voice was an urgent whisper, and he looked at me like I might have the answer, which struck me as odd because that's usually how Greg and I looked at Travis when we were undecided. I wondered if Travis was having second thoughts too. "Make it, like make it to the top?" I asked. "He's not gonna ride the White Line," Travis said. I shrugged. "He’ll sort it out.” "When ain't he scared, that little bitch," Travis said with a smirk. But for the first time, I felt like his smirk was hiding something. Like we were all experiencing the same fear together. I looked up at Travis, who had a glint in his eyes – the same glint as when he looked at his father three weeks earlier – and I worried for him. I wanted to ask about that day and see how he was holding up. All three of us were there, playing basketball in Travis's backyard as we'd done for years. Dribbling, jumping, shooting, shoving. Same as we'd always done. Mr. Magnuson was doing work in his garage and at one point we asked if he'd join us, to help even up the teams for some two-on-two. It was overcast, a seesaw of cold-warm contrast throughout the afternoon. Mr. Mag walked out to the backyard. He was a towering presence, even though he was my same height. He lifted weights religiously and hit the heavy bag. Ran every morning. "If you ever hear me talking about yesterday's news and how in-shape I was way back

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

FICTION | CHRIS HUFF

when…I'll give you my rifle and you can put me down," Mr. Mag once said to me. "I'm forty-seven, but people tell me I look like I'm twenty-seven, and I'm in better shape now than I've ever been." He didn't look like he was twenty-seven, but none of us had the guts to mention it. I never wanted to guard him. Mr. Mag was still a force to be reckoned with, whether it was basketball, tennis, darts, football – if I ever did get stuck guarding him, or playing against him in anything, I tended to take my foot off the gas a little, secretly wanting the game to stop as soon as possible. He had this competitive streak in him where he seemed like he was still out to prove something to someone, somewhere. I felt like there was something wrong with me because I didn't have much of that spirit at all when it came to playing sports. I just didn't want to mess up, make a fool of myself. I didn't need to hit the winning shot…I just didn't want to miss the one that lost us the game. Travis never held back, and on that day, he matched Mr. Magnuson's fervor. They had a cement half-court with a painted free throw line and three-point arc. Travis was hitting threes without mercy. Right in Mr. Mag's face. His dad wouldn't let him drive in to take a close shot, forcing Travis outside by holding his ground and shoving Travis back. Mr. Magnuson stuck to him and threw his hands up in front of his eyes, but Travis just couldn't be stopped. I don't remember him missing a single shot. Travis had the look of someone fighting. Fighting hard to prove something to his father that I couldn't quite understand. I never had to prove anything to Simon.

I put my earphones back in and looked toward the red sandstone formations. We were close. I put the song on speakerphone, and let it play out loud to break up the tension. No one was talking. I looked over at Travis, whose face was emotionless, unreadable. The music blared. We go out on our own…it's a big, bad world outside…carrying our dreams and all that they mean…try to make it all worthwhile "That's a good song man…who'd you say that is, Codine?" Greg asked. His head was bowed toward the ground, and he didn't look over. "No, it's Kodaline. Just discovered 'em a few days back…this is the only one of theirs I know. It’s a new song," I said. "It's good," he said, his voice robotic and distant as if he was considering for the first time the danger that waited up ahead. I knew because I had to remind myself to breathe. I drifted back to that day, on the basketball court. All three of us watched Mr. Magnuson get increasingly agitated as the game went on. There was a palpable tension climbing between Travis and his dad. Greg and I looked on like we were watching someone who was out of our reach and starting to fall. Travis was the only one who didn't get the memo. I'd watched his dad get competitive, and fight hard, but had never seen him play so rough. The fouls became blatant. I stood paralyzed when he elbowed Travis hard while dribbling with the other arm. Travis made a noise and held his stomach, catching his wind.

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

FICTION | CHRIS HUFF

"That was…a foul," Travis said. His breaths were rapid, and he tightened his face against the pain. "You want to call a foul, little sissy, call a foul then!" Mr. Magnuson threw the ball, but Travis ducked it. My eyes fixed on Travis, captivated by his resilience in the face of his father. He was stoic – even more than he normally portrayed – and it occurred to me that this was something Travis must have seen before. "All right, I'm a sissy calling a foul then. You can use your elbows in Muay Thai, dad, not basketball," Travis laughed. The rest seems like it is slowed down, timeless. Mr. Magnuson wound his right arm back and smacked Travis with a good amount of force. Then Mr. Mag pushed him with both arms, but he didn't need to – Travis was already falling. Travis didn't try to avoid the hit and absorbed it flush, but it didn't seem to have enough velocity to knock him to the ground. Now I realize he fell to avoid getting hit again. Travis held a hand over his face and winced a little in a pathetic attempt to shield himself, but there were no further attacks. I didn't look up until I heard Mr. Magnuson's footsteps moving away and the back door to their house slam. Greg and I went over to Travis, but he refused our attempts to help. Travis pushed the ground and stood up straight. His left cheek was bright red, with eyes that radiated a mixture of shame and cold hate, but there were no tears. He never showed fear, just like today. We made it there, to a large red rock; we were going to need to climb it to get to the White Line. I turned and started to ask Travis to hold my bike and pass it up, but I caught eyes with

him. I didn't see a future Marine – I saw a boy who was held down by the love and hate he had for his own father. I wanted to tell him right there that I didn't want to join the military, that I was just trying to escape from my own painful life. And that even though I didn't understand what it was like to be the son of his father, I understood pain. I understood how pain could drive you to do crazy things and convince you to rise to occasions that didn't even have to exist. "Hey, I know this is our last trail, our last ride." I put my hand on Travis's shoulder and one on Greg's. "But I've got to do this last part on my own," I said. Travis pretended to object, but I could see the relief in his eyes and feel the pressure released from his voice. "Oh, thank God," Greg said. "I was getting ready to puke my guts out." I climbed the rock to get up to the White Line trail. "I'll pass your bike up," Greg said, reaching. I paused for a moment. "No, I don't need it," I said, and my smile opened, like a slow parachute. It felt like the end of something just to make it there, and I relaxed for a moment. "We'll meet you back at Chicken Point," Travis said. "Don't take all fucking day." I remained, again looking through Travis's tough exterior. "Aye, aye, cap'n." Before I turned to face the White Line, the fear caught up to me again.

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

FICTION | CHRIS HUFF

Buying myself time, I thought of what we would do afterward.

I pressed my hand back into the sedimentary rock behind me, leaned over and vomited.

"My mom's working tonight. We can pick up some beers at Travis's. Crack 'em over at my place." They nodded, their faces ghostly and taut.

I brought out the stone Simon gave me so long ago. "Yours, lil' bro," he said. "It's called an Apache Tear. I found it on a trail near the mines out in Superior."

I gave them time to make it back down, then I started on the line. I felt unsteady right away – it was difficult to walk straight. The path was off-camber and extremely sketchy. Not man-made. On the bike, I wouldn't have made it a quarter of the way through the slanted slickrock path before quitting. My heart kicked and thumped as I hiked, and I forced my eyes to focus on the line to distract myself from the steep drop-off. My breaths were short and rapid, I tried to soak in each moment, the way people do when they want to memorize something. Amidst all the brilliant shades of rock, The White Line told my story somehow. It was telling me something, leading me somewhere.

I lifted my head slowly, captivated by the black, bright stone. It had the color and shine of Simon's old black truck.

I made it to the end of the high trail and looked down toward the lower shelf, then into the ravine below. This was the hardest part for bikers. Si called it the moment of truth – he said people who rode it would slide down the twenty-foot hill, going slow, using only their front brakes, then had to make a 180-degree turn to get on the lower trail. "This is the part where nothing can go wrong. If a rider overcooks it, he'll die," Si told me. Standing there, I looked out at the majestic rock formations in the distance and the canopy of trees below and became newly aware of how high up I was. My body seized, and my heartbeat throbbed so hard that I could see it beating through my shirt. It was a mistake to stop. Everything around me swirled and spun.

There was a crowd of spectators in the distance, at Chicken Point, where Travis and Greg were waiting. A guide driving a pink jeep led a group of tourists, probably telling them historical facts about the spectacular red rock formations. It was a rarity for them to see someone riding or even walking the White Line. A group of them hooted and whistled. I pulled in a deep breath, then cocked my arm back and threw the stone up as high as I could. The crowd yelled some more, and as their voices bounced from one end of the sky to the other, I felt his presence grow stronger. A great weight lifted off as the tears poured out. Years of sadness fell to the dirt. My sight seemed to amplify, and I had never experienced such a moment of clarity. I thought of Si and knew he could see and feel all the beauty that I had. He was here, out there, and everywhere. The lower shelf was even closer to the dropoff, but it was mostly flat. The adrenaline still kicked, and a primal instinct took over. That part of the hike seemed automatic, inevitable. It felt like I was controlling myself from another location. The end of the lower shelf came into view, and that's when dizziness set in again. My legs were rubbery, but I kept moving. Only steps

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

FICTION | CHRIS HUFF

away, a feeling of euphoric elation washed through me, and I was overwhelmed by the realization I was going to make it. I stood there for a long time, trying to catch my breath and take it all in.

"We made it," I said. Back home, sluggin' beers by my swimming pool, I felt the electric surge still flowing. It wasn't the alcohol. It's as if I had become someone else. Standing up I felt a swagger as I

I made it back to my friends. Travis yelled "HEY" and just as I looked up, I reacted and caught the can of beer flying toward me. Greg and Travis had already started on their cans. I felt otherworldly, still in shock at what I'd done, and was still catching up to the moment.

walked to the pool and jumped in. "Pass me my beer," I said to Travis. "Say pleeease." "Hand it over," I said grinning, motioning with my fingers. Travis held the can behind him,

"Where'd you get these?" I asked.

pretended he was going to take a sip, and then

"I brought one for each, to celebrate after the ride. Didn't want to see 'em go to waste," he said.

gave me the beer. We grilled up some food and ate together – silently knowing there wouldn't be many more

"I'll wait until we get back," I said. "I've got to drive home."

nights like this, and we drank through the rest of the cans while playing darts in the garage. I turned the music up, and we didn't even keep

"It's only one, you pussy," Travis said.

score during the dart game.

"I know, I know. I'll have some when we get back."

Maybe live long Or maybe die young

I could've drunk the beer. We were a good distance from my truck, and it would take a while for us to make it to the parking lot. But I was soaking in the good feeling I had. Something close to invincibility. We laughed and shot the shit all the way back. Loose and full of life. Lifting our bikes on the truck I looked at Travis, then over at Greg.

Or maybe live every day like it's your last day under the sun It was that same song from earlier. The chorus came on and we were arm-in-arm, drunkenly yelling out the lyrics. The words echoed and shook as we held on in a world that was big and loud and bright.

For more information on author Chris Huff, please visit our Contributors Page.

---

This story first appeared in Oyster River Pages

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

Ella Raschdorf

Zugspitze | Acrylic on wood

POETRY | AIDAN HENDERSON

To Walt, By Aidan Henderson I sound my yawp, yet none do hear The barbarisms of a pitiful man Who struggles to please Those I hold dear. Yours truly, He who shoulders undue fear.

n n n For more information on author Aidan Henderson, please visit our Contributors Page.

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

ARTWORK

Vincent A. Hernandez

Immediate Unraveling | Photography

CANYON VOICES | SPRING 2024

ARTWORK

Rachel Hawthorne

Baboon Mask| Acrylic Paint Marker

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

POETRY | ALEXANDRIA TANNENBAUM

[polite] By Alexandria Tannenbaum [state of being still]: a. the way in which women learn to pull at the corners of their lips like a stray thread, bend the way they keep talking when talked down to sinking gut feeling they ignore and the learn to stay when they should be leaving Example: she smiled even as he slurred moved slightly slipping, hand cemented to her back, how she couldn’t take back the walk away b. ignoring the way that women know when they fight or flight and still have wings clipped into their pushed up arms against the bolted door the time a man blocked feet firmly to the floor behind your car so that you couldn’t back up. you buckled in your child hands shaking and dialed 911 on your cell phone but didn’t push call. he. barricades the space between parked cars. your. unsteady hands as you snap and you still can’t calm down the way you didn’t run

n n n For more information on author Alexandria Tannenbaum, please visit our Contributors Page.

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

ARTWORK

Rachel Hawthorne

Sunset| Acrylic

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

FICTION | JEFF DINGLER

Translations from the Wasteland By Jeff Dingler

NOTE: The following was given to us on a 100-foot scroll of toilet paper testimony written by a fifteen-year-old boy who spent six months in a migrant prison camp in west Texas called Tornillo. We’ve done our best to translate a very scarred document. This place is like a camp on Mars. Isolated except for the stars. By day though, it is a military base lifted out of Iraq or Afghanistan or Syria, or anywhere Uncle Sam has his big boots and sand-colored tents. Except we are not in any of those places. I almost don’t believe the others when they tell me that this is the US. This desert cage is what we dreamed about for so long?

When I told people my name here, they said it sounded stupid. They gave me that look that I’ve been getting since I got arrested at the border. That look that says –That’s your name? No sea caballo. My father forced it on me. Mamá didn’t want it because it’s not in the Bible. But I stopped telling the other boys, the guards, the minders who are our shadows, everyone, stopped telling them my real name and said call me Yermo.

Mamá, you missed my call again today. They give us only two calls a week, ten minutes each time, and I keep missing you! I know you would be so disappointed to hear that I’ve been lying again. Stepping out of the bathroom after lunch, I told my minder Harry that the stall was out of toilet paper, that there’d been only enough for me. But that was a lie. When I’d entered the stall, that roll was half full. I told another lie when Harry asked why I was walking like that. I told him it was from playing fútbol, but it was the paper unspooled, bundled in my pants. Words are una puta pobre, but they are all I have. So I robbed a pen from a minder’s breast pocket tonight while he was dozing in our tent. They steal our time, our lives. I steal their pens and pencils. Tales from a toilet paper life.

One of the first things they did when they arrested me at the border was to take my cell phone and put me in handcuffs. I had been warned of this and memorized the most important numbers in my cell, but I must’ve messed up, Mamá, because when I call a woman picks up who isn’t you. I asked a couple of minders about when I’d get my cellphone back and they laughed. I told them it was an emergency, that your number was on there and that I had not spoken to you since I arrived at the border, that I didn’t know if you were dead or alive. The minders exchanged a narrow look. One of them reached into his pocket and handed me a heart-shaped candy wrapped in gold foil. –There you go, buddy, he said. –But my mother? –I’m sorry, I don’t have any more, our secret, ok? But it was too sweet to eat,

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

FICTION | JEFF DINGLER

and when they weren’t looking I spat it in the sand. Of the few numbers in my head, I’m trying to remember who would know yours, Mama. Who? Truly, Marco is un puto genio. Although he’s catracho, I didn’t meet him until near the end of the journey. I’m still thinking about what he said today. While playing fútbol, he stopped me mid-game and said –I just remembered that Tornillo means “screw” in English. –So? –So it means they’re fucking us, alero. They’re fucking us good. And he smacked me so hard in the stomach it knocked the wind out of me. After that, I couldn’t focus on the game. The image of us screwed or bolted to posts in the camp wouldn’t leave me. Mamá, why did you choose such a wasteland to raise your children? Higuerito. Sounds sweet like a pequeñito higo. Nothing could be farther from the truth. It reeks of shoveled shit and cheap feed. What was the price, Mamá? Peace for poverty? H.I.G.U.E.R.I.T.O. Unlike here, at least there I could hug. At least there I could run away. Not even the pandillas were interested in us. There was nothing. And we were considered one of the “lucky” spots. What the minders and guards here don’t understand is that I couldn’t leave and get a job in the city because that’s where the pandillas rule, and they would’ve forced me to fight. That’s what happened to my cousins. They never found Alejo’s body, and we had to use an empty casket with a faded school portrait hovering over his grave. He was smiling at his own funeral.

This is the luck we have in Higuerito, lucky to have nothing. There’s so much spare time here, un monton de nada, a skinny Nicaraguan told me. We stare out the chain link fence at the foreign barrenness of this world, at this hard flat earth the color of burnt bread. How long did it take me to get here, to this nada behind the fence where time doesn’t flow, it dries up, and you find yourself suffocating, gasping for it. Days, birthdays, holidays, I’m forgetting all. They take your name too. They call you Yermo or Cabrón or Hey boy or YOU. Some of the other lost boys who’ve forgotten their names say that this is part of the process, part of how you become American. They have to take your name and all your time and once they’ve watched your every step and counted every exhalation then they’ll be satisfied to let you go. Shit, if it means freedom, then call me Yermo. Call me Junk-Faced Goat Shit of the Wasteland. Mamá, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for what I had to do. I still see you at the stove with that pot of watered-down soup and that ancient stony look on your face. When someone’s hungry enough they will take anything as a sign. So one day on our television propped up by the books that you used to read to us, I heard the name of our town on the news. A young, hot reporter was standing in front of several hundred people milling about in what looked like a bus station in San Pedro Sula. She said that a caravan was heading toward the Guatemalan border en route to the US, straight through communities in La Entrada, Casa Quemada and Higuerito.

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

FICTION | JEFF DINGLER

What were the odds? Never in the history of broadcast had anyone uttered the name of our poor little pueblo, and that’s all I needed. I knew I was going to leave then, go to the US and roll in a mountain of money. And I also knew that I couldn’t tell you, Mamá, until my moment had already arrived. Two days later, hundreds of people were walking through town. Other caravans and groups had passed in recent years, but none like this. Some were singings a hymn that reminded me of you, Mamá, I swear it, of you dragging us to those hot, sleepy Masses, sweating in the pews with the mildew Bibles. I ran home immediately. My brothers and sisters were standing under the mango tree in the front yard like people made of wood. You were bringing yesterday’s olla to a boil in the kitchen, and you took one wild look at me and knew. –You won’t make it. –No, I’m an adult. –Mijo, you’re only fifteen! –I’ll work. I’ll send money. –They’ll send you back. – They won’t! –They will! In chains or in a bag! And hearing that stopped me like a stone because it meant that you did not believe in me. You were betting on me to fail. So I slipped out of your gnarled grip. In the yard, my siblings parted when they saw that I wasn’t slowing down for them. Mamá, don’t hate me. I know it must be hard to watch us fly north, one by one, and always be the one left standing in the doorway. But you’ll never know how hard it was to run away and not respond to you screaming my name—the last time it sounded familiar to me. Papá, you could be the patron saint of

shadow fathers. Saint of Bastards, like my namesake, the name you demanded, lost at sea for years, never seeing his children. It’s become a joke: a whole generation of children whose fathers fled north. Which direction is north? Toward los narcos? Toward las hieleras and the camps? When you’re catracho, all roads point north. Papá, martyr de una vida nueva. I don’t know where Texas is, but I never imagined that the Land of the Free would be so ugly. There’s no life here. There’s no forests or fields or sweet water in the soil. Our water comes from a big pipe outside the camp. We can see it from one corner, vomiting up giant gulps of what we drink and bathe in. Marco told me that a storm of birds would be coming soon, that he read it in one of the old warped books in la bibliotequita. He said that he saw pictures of the migrations, that there’d be so many I wouldn’t be able to see the sky. I told him then we should tear our sheets and pillowcases into a hundred little lassos and ride those birds out of the camp and into the sun. Marco said maybe we could do it. Every time now our minders march us outside to play or eat, I look north for the flocks of birds. Still no life. Other than the 2,000 lost boys and girls and their minders and guards, no life here. Gazing at the night sky, I sometimes wonder if I’m looking up or looking down. Stare long enough and it seems a little of both and I begin to feel dizzy, a feeling of plummeting without ever hitting the bottom. If the minders knew that I snuck out of my tent at

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

FICTION | JEFF DINGLER

night they would threaten me with more time here, say they would deport me and whatever family I have living in the US. They’ve intimidated others like this, but I don’t go anywhere. I sit by the tent writing. The camp lights make it difficult to see the heavens, but they’re there, like fireflies far away in the forest. –Do you think there’s going to be room for all of us, I hear Marco ask from millions of hours ago, gazing up at the Milky Way with his hands tucked under his head. –Yeah, why wouldn’t there be? said a Guatemalan with a few tattoos and a lot of attitude. – We’re only one caravan. I hear there are dozens, said Marco. –Have you seen the United States on a map, stupid? –No. –It’s bigger than Honduras and Guatemala and México and the rest of these malparidos países combinados. –Yeah, I suppose. –Oye maje, why you so quiet? the tattooed-one asked me. So I told him about Tío Ramón in Florida and his construction business and how I planned on working for him and sending money back home and, I don’t know, maybe go to college one day. The tattooed Guatemalan then asked my name. I told him and I’ll never forget how he squished up his face like an octopus and how ugly he looked when he asked, –En serio? He laughed so hard that I watched his sixheaded serpent tattoo wriggle around his neck. –What kind of name is that, the jueputa howled, isn’t that from a book about some dumbass who can’t find his way home? I didn’t respond. I wrapped my filthy wet towel around myself and felt even colder. That’s when I started joking that my

name was Yermo. Y Yermo soy yo. Yermo de los yermos. Life here in the camp is an hourglass that they keep turning on its head. But instead of sand on the inside it’s filled with teenagers like me. After so long the last kids fall out, and they turn it over and we start falling again. I drew on my chest in circles so hard that it drew blood, Tío. My own tattoo. Blood and ink on this paper of skin. Yesterday I waited in line two hours to use the phone, and of course, you and Beatriz had already left for work. My minder told me better luck next time. I wanted to punch him in the face. But you told me today why it’s taking so long to get me out of here. –Nephew, you said and took a long pause, there’s this requirement we didn’t know about. They want a list of the people living here. They want the fingerprints too. –The fingerprints? –Yes, of everybody, everybody here. –Por díos, when did that happen? –I don’t know. Every time we call about sponsoring you there’s a new rule. –But, but what’s the problem, Tío? I don’t understand. Ramón, that sigh you gave then. I had been building sand castles out of my delusions of living with you, working for you, and you blew them away with that one sigh. And that sand is the dust here that gets in everything, that I have to clean out of my eyes and nose each morning, that gets in my pillowcase and in this unraveling roll of revelations. –Look, there’s no problem with me, you said, but your Tía Beatriz, she crossed over with a coyote, and she doesn’t have any papers,

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

FICTION | JEFF DINGLER

and that means… Your voice trailed off then, but I knew what it meant. It meant that if you turned in those fingerprints, ICE would find out and they would arrest Beatriz. They could arrest you too for knowing. And your two beautiful boys, both born in the US, would grow up without their parents. And because there’s always a minder sitting in front of us at the phone table, always listening, it meant that I couldn’t talk with you about it, not openly. And then, Tío, you told me the single thing that hurt the most. –I’m sorry, but you’re going to have to wait a little bit longer. You tried to say my name then, but I interrupted and told you to call me Yermo. –Yermo? But why? I didn't answer. –A ver, this is temporary, but I want you to know, primo, that we’re working on— and the line went dead because ten minutes were up. If the minder wasn’t there, I would’ve smashed the phone against the receiver. Instead, I bit down on my lip so hard that I tasted blood and walked away. Tío Ramón, it’s very late. I can hear the coyotes wailing in the distance. They sound like a ghost chorus. The others tell me that they are far away, lonely scavengers that will only eat you long after you’re dead. I’m scared, Tío Ramón. I didn't get to the most important part this morning. I was so distracted by what you said that I forgot to ask you, the whole reason I’d been trying and trying to get ahold of you. Tío Ramón, will you please find Mamá’s number and give it to me. I have to talk to her. Have to hear her voice. Have to know I'm real. I’m sorry Tío, but she’s the only one who can tell me I’m real.

The minders are most distracted during fútbol. I don’t think they noticed the little white clumps of pillow stuffing dribbling from my pant legs. So much writing now it has to be hidden under my head while I dream. I stomped the stuffing into the sand to cover my tracks, but I froze when I saw that Marco was staring at me. He put one finger over his lips like Shhh, and we both smiled. They can prevent us from hugging and touch-ing, but they can’t prevent us from sharing a secret. Or from laughing about it. I swear the art teacher is the only simpatico one here. Today she told us to make art that reminds us of home, of the green hell jungles and the celeste rivers, of the quetzals in the canopies with their plumage of forest and sky entwined. I started on a drawing of the ugly tapirs that run through the secret tunnels of trees in the jungles. The teacher, when she passed by, said it looked “cool.” I smiled. She won’t notice an occasional missing pencil or marker. I know because she hasn’t yet. Each day is the same, the same, the same. Up at 5 am, make our beds like we’re soldiers, breakfast is ten minutes, no leftovers allowed, Harry is very yuca about this, then “activities,” nothing, nothing, nothing until lunch, pizza, French fries, corn dogs, sometimes ice cream, grease and sugar, this is what America tastes like, some like it, but it’s too rich for me and hurts my stomach, another two hours of nothing or “classes,” they talk about the US President a lot and some other very old guy named

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

FICTION | JEFF DINGLER

Reagan, often in English or Spanish so broken it pains us to listen to it, sometimes I bring a little paper and write in the back, then fútbol, followed by “activities,” nothing, nothing, nothing, shower time, five minutes to brush, clean and scrub, and after that another ten minutes to chew more mushed grease and sugar. Then it is “lights out” at the same time every night, seven hours through darkness, nightmares or dreams. Get up. Repeat. Nada nada nada. Yermo Yermo Yermo. Cada día lo mismo, lo mismo, lo mismo.

on! If I had known then, I would’ve run out of line and given you the biggest hug, my arms wrapped around you, el flaco, el palillo. But it would’ve been in vain. They never would’ve let us touch. I’ve seen it, boys with their arms pulled behind their backs because they tried to hug. Boys hugging themselves in their bunks and rocking back and forth saying nada, nada, nada. I’ve seen that boy. I’ve been that boy. God please give me the blessing of the blind My eyes are already drowning from weeping

None of us know until the last moment. I know at least that much because Marco and I had fútbol together, and when I didn’t see him this afternoon I asked our maje Hacha if he was sick. And he told me no, that Marco was gone. –What do you mean gone? I asked. –I mean gone, and he whistled like a rocket going to the moon, they didn’t tell us nothing. –Did his aunt come? Hacha shrugged his huge shoulders. Nada. Tomorrow will I be deported? Or finally will I be set free to meet Ramón in Florida? Nadie lo sabe. Alero, I saw you yesterday morning. I was walking with my group to the cafeteria tent for breakfast, the sun was an eye of dusty silver light, and you passed us with a guard on each side of you. –Marco? I stopped. I wasn’t certain it was you because I got only a glimpse: a tilted sharp head avoiding eye contact. My minder nudged me and told me –Yermo keep up. I repeated your name, but you didn’t hear me. You didn’t dare up look up from the packed earth. –Yermo, come

And I have seen there’s far too much to see God please forgive me the blessing of the blind With the cold this morning came the first flock of birds! So many of them. I have no idea what to call them but they are beautiful, pure black including their eyes and beaks except a helmet of gold around their heads. I watch them as they take off, disappear and reappear in shiny black ripples. It’s an optical illusion they’ve mastered, a mirage like this prison camp in the middle of the desert. God tells me that walls do not exist, not for humans or for birds. But another voice, I think Marco’s, says that cages still do. Tío Ramón said that he’s going to get Mamá’s number. Next week, I keep telling myself, next week, next week. They make it so difficult to do the simplest things here. The rules are twisted up, like the silver

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

FICTION | JEFF DINGLER

barbwire at the top of the fence. No beginning. No end. But you don’t dare cross it. It is a thorny crown over all our heads. Mamá, it’s been so long. Mamá, why have you not yet found a way to call me? Surely there must be a way. Mamá, is it because you don’t want to talk to me? I swear that it’s not my fault. They said that they would return my cell phone after I was arrested at the border, but then they took my fingerprints with ink and locked me in la hielera, cold as a giant cooler with eight of us, including Marco, sleeping next to each other and pacing to stay warm. They gave us nothing, nada, nada, nada, except some aluminum blankets and a couple of hard bologna sandwiches once a day, except there was no day or night, only the pale white bulbs overhead, pulsating like they zapped mosquitoes or flies. Soon the guards brought in more people. A lot more. So many that we had to sleep shivering on our feet, which meant I couldn’t tell when I was awake or with my dreams. Only Marco kept me sane, whispering me stories of Spanishspeaking black jaguars sleeping in mountains that were Mayan temples, and one of a clever macaw that had tricked a couple of brothers into the jungle to kill them, but the brothers found out and escaped at the last moment by turning into parrots and flying off. The price for their transformation, Marco told me, was that they had to stay as birds the rest of their lives and could never return to their families who would hunt them for their feathers. On what I think was the fifth day, Marco and one other and I were let out and sent here

after a long overnight bus ride. I have no idea where they sent the others. When I asked the minders my first day in Tornillo why I’d been put in la hielera for five freezing days, they said it was for germs, for health reasons. Health reasons! When so many got sick in there. When I asked where my cell phone was, they said nothing. I persisted, and one spat at me. I avoided that minder after that.

Everyone has to go through la hielera, doesn’t matter how old or young or sick you are, said one Guatemalan during lunch today. –I saw a woman go into la hielera with a baby. –A baby? I asked. This boy nodded his head and slurped a spoonful of slimy, nasty corn. –That’s horrible. –That’s nothing, get this, they sent her out the same time as us. I saw her waiting in line in that big room, but she didn’t have her baby no more, and she was wild—they had to restrain her. The others shook their heads in silence. I asked him why they would take a baby away from its mother. –Why do you think, he said, they believe we’re cockroaches! And he slurped another spoonful of gelatin corn and giggled stupidly. Cucarachas con casamiento. Today I walked to the corner of the camp not far past where the field ends, closed my eyes and screamed with my mouth closed so no one would hear me. Screamed until I tasted blood. And when I opened my eyes, I saw a gringo on the other side of the fence, a tall gringo with a gray beard and glasses looking down and smiling at me. It scared

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

FICTION | JEFF DINGLER

me at first because there was never anyone outside the camp except guards and minders doing work. And this guy wasn’t dressed like them. He said hola and I said hola back, slowly wiping my face with my sleeve. He asked how I was, and I stared up squinting, saying nothing. –Soy Jeremiah, he said with his funny nasally accent, cómo te llamas? What’s my name? I thought as the coral dust of the camp swirled around me. I didn’t know how to explain to him that I’m named after this famous king lost at sea. But I’d stopped telling people my real name, even stopped telling myself.

the steaming snake of highway. Then I heard gunshots, and two teargas canisters landed in our section, and soon all was acid smoke and bloody-eyed chaos, parents stepping on grandparents stepping on children trampling abandoned bags of clothes, rolled-over baby carriages, shattered rainbows of phones and stompedon children’s toys and faces rolling, rolling, rolling through the smoke that tidal waved over us. I ran and shoved and averted my gaze when others fell under the smoking heels of the stampede. I ran until I tasted blood.

They brought in different guards with armor and weaponry. They look like soldiers, almost like Ninja Turtles. I wonder how they walk with that gear covering them. There are rumors of the older boys planning a rebellion. But there are always rumors of this. Reminds me of the Mexican soldiers standing on the highway. I’ve already forgotten the name of the city, but it had a friendly reputation toward migrants. One father of four who’d been carrying his sick daughter for miles told me that his cousin had passed through this city years ago and said that there were many shelters and churches where we could rest, charge our phones, get a free hot meal for the night. But what greeted us on the highway was not a welcome party with bagged waters or anything like that but dozens of police in riot gear demanding that we not enter the city because the churches and migrant houses and streets and markets and parks were already overwhelmed with migrants who had arrived days before. The caravan,

It’s strange how once I notice something I realize it’s been there the whole time. I look in the periphery of my memory and there it is, suddenly in focus. It’s like when Mamá used to teach us new words when we were little, and those words would start popping up everywhere. On TV, in books, in the Bible. One day looking through the chains in the fence I see him again. The old gringo on the outside. He’s parked by the road out there, standing or sitting in front of his camper holding a white and black sign that says in English, “FREE THEM.” Sometimes he strums a guitar and sings. I’ve been seeing him for a while, but this is the first moment when I realize that he’s there to stay. It’s no accident, him finding us out here. The few of us who’ve talked to him wonder what he wants though. –His brain must be cooked by the sun, said a tall one with a thick Cuban accent, –fried like a plantain. –But I thought all gringos are rich and have air conditioning, said another dopey catracho. –No no, he doesn’t live

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

FICTION | JEFF DINGLER

here. –He doesn’t? –Yeah, he told me he’s from Nueva York. –Nueva York? –Well then, what the fuck? I said. –I think he’s a protestor, said one. –Protesting what? –Us being here, maje. Sergio may have been blind in one eye but he seemed to already know the back roads and when to look out for police or ask the bus driver about a checkpoint ahead. –I want to help y’all out, he said. A milky cloud covered one of his eyes. –This country, it’s not a friend to migrants, not anymore. – Don’t we need a coyote to get north, I asked him. He laughed then looked at me with his dead eye. –Don’t trust anyone who says they’re a coyote. They’ll promise you everything and then send you straight into the wolf’s mouth. –Did you use a coyote your first time? But Sergio didn’t say. –Is that how you got that? I pointed at his eye, but he spat at the ground and walked ahead of me. We were faster than the caravan, more agile too, capable of snatching a couple of mangoes or cherimoyas or Jarritos from the market stalls without the vendors noticing. And if someone ever did see us grabbing a fruit or soda then we would disperse like dust shadows, filter through the squirming streets, eating dumpster leftovers in back alleys, sleeping in shelters or warm stale churches or in the tall grass so we wouldn’t be seen by the gangs or, worse, the police. After days of this, we reached the peak of a tall hill at night and saw in the distance what at first I thought was an immense rising moon. Sergio told us that it was Matamoros. I asked what was in Matamoros. –The border, he whispered.

And I could see the green glow of the city reflected in his dead eye. He said that we would camp on the hill for the night, and then tomorrow he’d lead us over the border. But when Marco woke me the next morning, I could feel the panic in him before my eyes were completely open. Sergio was gone, and so was all our money, two thousand pesos. Marco said that we were lucky. – Lucky…how do you figure? –He took our things, maje, he could’ve sold us to the cartels and then we’d really be up to our noses in shit. Or blood. I thought we were almost to freedom. I never would’ve guessed what hell waited for us on the other side. Today I saw two guards slowly going around the camp’s fence, stepping from post to post, corner to corner, with a big orange tape measurer. When they passed by I asked what they were doing. –You’ll see, chico, one said, smacking his gum. –Some extra precautions, and he blew a big pink bubble and gave a mean smile. I have so little paper left, but I need to write this. Finally, Ramón got me Mamá’s number. He said that he and Beatriz were figuring out a plan to get me out of here, but I could only think about hearing your voice again, Mamá. The fear of calling you after so much silence was almost as great as when Marco had to hold my hand down into that wide dirty water at the border. I was so afraid that you would be mad at me, that you wouldn’t want to talk to me, that you had forgotten me. But I knew not to wait. In my head, your number became your new name, and when my day came and I sat

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

FICTION | JEFF DINGLER

down at the phone table, I punched in your number and could barely sit still. The minder was so close that I could smell his peppery cologne. I thought I’d have a chance to compose myself, but you picked up immediately. –Bueno, you said, I didn’t know how to respond. –Hello? Are you there, you said and I tried to speak but my voice failed me. It was dust. It was drought. It was nothing. I was terrified that you weren’t going to love me because I had been a ghost so long. And then you said it, knew it—my name, my life. –Is it really you, my son, and a name never sounded so sweet. – Sí Mamá, soy yo, I said. –It’s me, your oldest. That’s when the tears started and they haven’t stopped since. I don’t remember what we talked about, only that I told you that I was so sorry for leaving, which was true, and that I was happy and well taken care of, which certainly was not true. –Te quiero, mijo, you told me over and over, te quiero, te quiero. And then you told me Ramón was going to get me out, that he and Beatriz had a good plan. That it involved me having to—CLICK! Then you were nothing but dial tone, Mamá. Ten minutes were up. I hadn’t spoken to you in months, and they gave us only ten minutes to sort it all out. –No! I told the minder sitting there, his ugly ruddy face. –I need to call her back. Now. –Next week, he said without looking at me. –No, I need to talk to her, it’s an emergency! His sharp gray eyes locked onto mine and he told me that I would have to wait until next week. I slammed one of my fists onto the white plastic table. He looked shocked. –You can lock me in and lock everyone else out, but

you can’t keep out the eyes of God. A smile slithered its way onto the minder’s face. – I’m going to write you up for that, he said in his horrible Spanish. What’s your name? – Yermo, I told him. –Your name, what is it? –Nadie del Yermo, I said. –Who?! –Nadie. Nadie. Nadie. There’s an intense ringing in my ears. Just now, outside the tent, it started. I’m hearing something new, over and over again, in the dark of my mind, a little rolling prayer against the evils that have lingered on me since I left home. It is my name. I know it is my name. I still don’t want to write it down because it’s like a wish that you say to yourself late at night under the constellations. To write it would be to dispel it. Already the days are growing colder faster, more birds arriving in huge screeching clouds, taking over the fútbol field and fences, blocking the sun. I can hear your ghost laughing when I tell you that the birds shit on everything, causing the minders to run through the dust waving their hands wildly to frighten them away. They know their songs by heart, names as songs soaring, the flutter and singular whoosh of so many feathers. The birds are songs with wings, Marco, songs with wings. We can no longer see the old gringo. A group of guards spent the last two days hanging up this black stuff on the fence so we can’t see the outside. But we know that Jeremiah is still there. Sometimes we can hear him strumming his guitar and singing. Sometimes he comes close to the fence and

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

FICTION | JEFF DINGLER

we can hear him talking to others that are with him. Each day more voices arrive. We don’t know who they are, but I’m going to find out. I’m going to get out of here, and when I do I’m going to bring this with me. I’m going to make sure that everyone knows that I was real, I was here, and my name was ULISES. It happened today in the middle of a fútbol game. I had a clear shot at the goal. The boys were saying –Take the shot, take it! Instead, I looked at the fence, the world they

were trying to block. I have no idea where I found the courage, but I took out a marker I’d robbed from art class and rapidly scribbled across the ball “Hola a todo el mundo.” And I kicked it directly over the fence. When the others saw that, the game was over, and everyone was covering our extra fútbol with their names. There must’ve been two-dozen names written on this one ball. I added “Marco y Ulises para siempre.” Before the minders could stop us, the other boys backed up to let me kick it. And that ball went straight over the clouds and never returned.

n n n For more information on author Jeff Dingler, please visit our Contributors Page.

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

ARTWORK

Rachel Hawthorne

Death| Marker, Acrylic, Paint Marker CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

POETRY | BAILEY BLUNDELL

Psalm for Alfredo By Bailey Blundell

Alfredo Ormando (1958 - 1998) i. Oh Lord, my God, your angels are burning their halos, and their specters haunt me in every changing room. If the sin of Sodom be so great, I pray thee, when will they stop burning? ii. When they bleach the ash from the sidewalk, they say “no unclean thing”, as if we the salted lost our savor through desire alone. Do I remember Lot’s wife, or do I cover these scarlets in whites? iii. They say we are Icarus, flying too close to places that cannot have us. Call it cleansing, call it hell, all I see is fire, flying off my wings, flying closer. I ask thee, where is the Son for whom we die? n n n For more information on author Bailey Blundell, please visit our Contributors Page.

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

CONTRIBUTOR BIOGRAPHIES

Jacy Arreola-Romero is a 20-year-old, third-year student majoring in Business Communication at Arizona State University. Although she initially delved into photography in junior high, it wasn’t until high school that she consistently pursued it. There, she honed her skills in photoshop, studio work, and the technical aspects of photography. During summers, she work for a photographer as an editor and second photographer, elevating her photography experience.

Jacy Arreola-Romero | Art Norman Bert, Professor Emeritus, Texas Tech University’s School of Theatre and Dance, taught and practiced theatre in colleges and universities for 45 years. At Texas Tech he focused primarily on teaching playwriting dramatic structure, and script analysis. Among his numerous, produced playscripts, his Riders of the Golden Sphinx was published by Bakers Plays/Samuel French. He holds a Ph.D. from Indiana University, an M.A. from Kansas State University, and a theology degree from the Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminaries in northern Indiana.

Norman Bert | Scripts Bailey Blundell is a queer poet based in Phoenix, Arizona. She has other poems in Chemical Inevitable, Spray Paint Magazine, Kindergarten Mag, and others. She is also a former editor of Canyon Voices. In her free time, she fawns over her two cats, Lucky and Waldo.

Bailey Blundell | Poetry Daniel Brennan (he/him) is a queer writer and coffee devotee from New York. His work has appeared in numerous publications, including Passengers Journal, The Banyan Review, Birdcoat Quarterly, Sky Island Journal, and Hive Avenue. He can be found on Twitter and Instagram: @dannyjbrennan

Daniel Brennan | Poetry Michael A.L. Broyles is an educator, writer, and musician in northeastern Arizona, where he lives in the Sitgreaves National Forest. He is faculty and curriculum coordinator at Northland Pioneer College and is a triple alumnus of Arizona State University, where he previously taught religious studies classes. His previous publications include pieces in James Baldwin Review, The Daily Vault, Theology of Prince Gallery, U.K. Short Fiction, Journal of American Studies, and Journal of American Film. Along with teaching and writing, Michael has a passion for playing piano, collecting records, and watching boxing.

Michael A. L. Broyles | Fiction CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

CONTRIBUTOR BIOGRAPHIES

Virgil Connor is a writer, editor, artist, veteran, and academic in the fields of Creative Writing and Printmaking at Arizona State University. They have an A.S. in physical therapy from the community college of the Air Force, and an A.A. in creative writing from Austin Community College. Under the name Hannah Connor, Virgil was the assistant managing editor and co-fiction editor of the Rio Review (Fall 2020). Their work has been published in Write On, Downtown (Spring 2022) and they’re currently an assistant managing editor for Issued: Stories of Service, a veteran journal that seeks to highlight the life of everyday military personnel, before, during, and after service. Virgil enjoys exploring all genres, but their heart is buried in the verdant fields of sci-fi and fantasy romance. They’ve been all over the planet, finding peace in the quiet and the roar.

Fiction | Virgil Connor Selina Chevalier is a trans writer of fiction and essays. Her debut story appeared in Lux Undergraduate Creative Review during her final semester at ASU. Since graduating, Selina made a New Year’s resolution to only write fiction with unambiguously trans main characters for an entire year—the only New Year’s resolution she has made and kept. It’s been longer than a year now. To any writers doubtful that their experiences are worth committing to the page, she highly recommends setting such a challenge for yourself. Selina has performed live in the Phoenix, AZ area as a guest of Deadbeat Poets Society, and at Artists of the Floating World, a modern salon for creatives within Phoenix’s Queer and Leather communities. A former fiction editor of Canyon Voices herself, she is happy and grateful to be among this issue’s featured artists.

Fiction | Selina Chevalier

Jeff Dingler is an Atlanta-based writer and journalist. A graduate of Skidmore College with an MFA in Creative Writing from Hollins University, he’s written for literary journals and newspapers including New York Magazine, Washington Post, Newsweek, Salmagundi, The Hollins Critic, Huffington Post, and Insider. "Translations from the Wasteland" is a chapter from his novel-in-progress entitled Mother of Exiles. More information at jeffdingler.org.

Fiction | Jeff Dingler Alyx, or Fid hivemindscape as known online, is a molecular biology major, 23- year-old, asexual, working in a lab as part of a cancer research and treatment center, testing patients for STDs. Free time of hers is spent on participating in and contributing to fandom culture, which Alyx isn't ever ashamed to gush excitedly about. Since childhood she has had two lives: the "real" one, and the online one, neither less tangible or important than the other. She long has decided the meaning of existence is in touching other lives, leaving marks on souls. In her case - via making art, inspiring people, and being a caring friend. Yet in spite of moving houses, government upheaval, civil war, sudden death of her soulmate and partner and future, despite medication and nightmares and underlying certainty that she is witnessing humanity's end – that desire to create and to inspire persists. It fades and reignites, constant cycle, yet art remains as part of her very being.

Art | Alyx Germonchik Rachel Hawthorne was born in Stockton, California, and raised in the Bay Area before moving to Phoenix in 2010. She earned a bachelor’s degree in art studies, where she developed a well-rounded view of everything that consume the arts. She currently is employed at Phoenix Art Museum, in her role as an event specialist and curator of the upcoming exhibition Guarding the Art: A Frontline Perspective. In her free time, she likes to create mixed-media works and enjoys spending time with loved ones. She hopes to curate and create more works that drive conversations of representation and art awareness in the museum space and community.

Art | Rachel Hawthorne CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

CONTRIBUTOR BIOGRAPHIES

Aiden is an English teacher, graduate student, and avid reader of all things fantasy. Although he seeks out the supernatural to escape day-to-day life, his poetry is inspired by the mundane qualities of ordinary people.

Aiden Henderson | Poetry Vincent is a student at the design school in Tempe and he takes carefully composed photographs exhibiting texture in tandem with complex ideas. He switches between B/W photography and Color photography fluidly as he chooses whichever best suits the ideas at play and the textures available in the image. He grew up here in the desert, so texture and visuals like these have always been a big part of his life, even before he ever captured one in his lens.

Vincent Hernandez | Art Cathy Hollister is the author of Seasoned Women, A Collection of Poems published by Poet’s Choice. When not writing you might find her on the dance floor enjoying the company of friends or deep in the woods basking in the peace of solitude. Her work has been in Smokey Blue Literary and Arts Magazine, Open Door Magazine, Beyond Words Magazine, The Ekphrastic Review, and others. Find her online at www.cathyhollister.com

Cathy Hollister | Poetry Emily Houlihan is a sophomore in Barrett, The Honors College at Arizona State University, pursuing a bachelor&#39;s degree in Art Studies with a minor in Art History. Emily is an Arizona-based visual artist who uses her skills in painting, drawing, and 3D mediums to express her feelings and ideas. In addition to visual art, Emily enjoys playing music, reading and writing. Finding inspiration in books and songs, Emily has enjoyed creative writing from a young age, and has continued to write stories of her own ranging from fantasy to creative nonfiction.

Emily Hollister | Creative Nonfiction

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

CONTRIBUTOR BIOGRAPHIES

Mad Howard is a High School Creative Writing teacher in Phoenix, Arizona. She graduated from Northern Arizona University with a BA in English and graduated from Albertus Magnus College with an MFA in Creative Writing. When not writing, she is probably teaching her rabbit a new trick. She has been previously published in the Dunes Review.

Poetry | Mad Howard Chris Huff was born and raised in South Bend, Indiana. He’s currently pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing at Northern Arizona University, where he also teaches English. He lives in Flagstaff, Arizona.

Fiction | Chris Huff Christa King has always lived in the West. The landscapes, experiences and people of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Idaho inspire and inform her writing. She received a BA in Creative Writing at the age of 51, and a Master’s Degree in Library Sciences in 2012, both from the University of Arizona. Her poems have appeared in Canyon Voices, Blue Mesa Review, El Portal, 805 and other literary journals.

Poetry | Christa King Jody Mace is a writer and a hyper-local website publisher in Charlotte, North Carolina. Her writing has appeared in O Magazine, Washington Post, Full Grown People, Brain,Child Magazine, Glide Magazine, and many other publications. Although these days she spends most of her time editing and publishing her websites, you can find many of her essays, interviews and articles on jodymace.com.

Creative Nonfiction | Jody Mace

Art CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

CONTRIBUTOR BIOGRAPHIES

Kirsten Malinee resides in Columbia Missouri where she works at the University of Missouri. She is a graduate of Pennsylvania State University's MFA acting program and previously earned her BFA in acting from Stephens College. She studied Meisner Technique at the Bill Esper Studio in NYC. She has performed and directed with Talking Horse Productions, Columbia Entertainment Company, Theatre NXS and the MU Interactive Theatre Troupe for the Komen Foundation Breast Cancer Dialogues and NSF Grant for Women in the Sciences.

Kirsten Malinee | Scripts Pamela Manasco is a poet and prose author. She holds a BA in English from the University of Alabama, and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of North Carolina Wilmington. She has poetry forthcoming in The Midwest Quarterly, Two Hawks Quarterly, and others, and previous publications in New South Journal, Rust + Moth, Palooka, descant, and others. Her nonfiction has appeared in McSweeney's Internet Tendency, The Toast, and elsewhere. Much of her poetry explores various issues involved in living with depression, and also weird animal facts. She lives in Madison, Alabama, with her husband and two children, and she works as an English instructor at Alabama A&M University.

Pamela Manasco | Poetry

No Photo Available

Shawnte Orion is the author of Gravity & Spectacle (a collaboration with photographer Jia Oak Baker from Tolsun Books) and The Existentialist Cookbook (NYQBooks). He is an editor for rinky dink press and his poems have appeared in Threepenny Review, Barrelhouse, Sugar House Review, New York Quarterly, and elsewhere. He has recorded several poems for one side of a split 7inch vinyl record with SF band Sweat Lodge. https://batteredhive.blogspot.com/

Shawnte Orion | Poetry Mikaela Orr is a poet and essayist based in New York City. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in English with a concentration in Secondary Education from Colorado State University. She is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Professional Creative Writing with a concentration in Poetry at the University of Denver. Her background in somatic healing practices, including somatic writing, informs her career in literacy education and the content of her published work.

Mikaela Orr | Poetry

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

CONTRIBUTOR BIOGRAPHIES

John Perovich is a playwright, dramaturg, and theatre maker in Phoenix, AZ. His plays have been performed at Brelby Theatre Company, Arizona State University, B3 Theater, Laughing Pig Theatre, Space 55, Cumberland County Community College, Safe Mode Productions, Little Fish Theatre Collaborative, and New York University. Additionally, Perovich’s work has been selected and presented at Valdez Theatre Conference, Festival of New American Theatre at The Phoenix Theatre Company, Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival, and Mid-America Theatre Conference. Perovich’s latest play—Bards & Beasts—will be produced by Brelby Productions in early 2023.

John Perovich | Scripts James, an octogenarian and retired professor, is a Best of Web nominee and three time Pushcart nominee. He earned his doctorate from BYU, and his BS, and MA from California State Polytechnic University, SLO. He has had four collections of poetry; “Solace Between the Lines,” “Light,” “Ancient Rhythms,” and “The Silent Pond,” over 1,555 poems. 35 short stories and five novels published worldwide in over 225 different publications such as El Portal, Voices de La Luna, The Minetta Review, Seventh Quarry, Steam Ticket, Dagda, The Offbeat, London Grip, Page and Spine, Badlands Magazine, American Aesthetic, Front Porch, Ottawa Arts Review, and California Quarterly.

James Piatt | Poetry Ella Raschdorf is a senior at Smithtown High School East in St. James, NY. She has been creating art for as long as she can remember. She’ll usually reach for acrylic paint or digital art, but recently she’s been experimenting with gouache paint. Though challenging, Ella’s favorite subjects to paint are horses. Ella is an avid equestrian, devoting much of her time to her barn. She’s the captain of her IEA horse show team and the President of the Junior Long Island Professional Horsemen’s Association.

Ella Raschdorf | Art Norma Sadler works in acrylic, watercolor and mixed media. The two paintings included here use bright colors for the landscape and white tissue paper collage to bring the shapes forward in space for a closer connection to the viewer. With her background from courses and workshops at the UW-Madison and Boise State University, she developed a style that combines realism and abstraction. Two of her novels and a book of poetry on Amazon Kindle feature her paintings as covers. Currently, she lives in Orange County, California where she shows her work.

Norma Sadler | Art CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

CONTRIBUTOR BIOGRAPHIES

Alexandria Tannenbaum is a poet and twice National Board Certified educator working outside of Chicago, Illinois. She is pursuing a poetry MFA from Lindenwood University. Her poems are published in the journals Bluepepper and Across The Margin. Her poem “The Strip Mall” will be appearing in an upcoming publication of As It Ought To Be Magazine, and her poem “ars poetica” will be published in the fall issue of The Literary Journal of the Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library.

Alexandria Tannenbaum | Poetry Erika Valdez is a senior Art (Painting and Drawing) student at ASU. She has loved spending her past four years at Herberger learning from the most encouraging professors and peers. In addition to her art classes, she has continued to take English electives throughout her time at ASU and also works part-time at a library. A lifelong lover of books, drawing, and painting, she aims to combine these three interests as often as possible, leading to her interest in illustration. Additionally, her art and writing are heavily inspired by nature, both the desert scenery she grew up in, as well as the greener places she’s visited. She aims to capture the colors and feelings produced by long periods spent in nature, especially with her smaller illustrations, which are packed with vibrant shades of colors and fluid ink strokes. Erika hopes that her work acts as a form of wonder, escape, and serenity for those who view or read it. After graduating in the Spring of 2024, Erika is planning on working in the field of children’s book illustration.

Erika Valdez| Poetry & Art Maggie Vandewalle was born and raised in Iowa City, Iowa. In 1981, she received an art scholarship to the University of Iowa where she worked toward a BFA in printmaking. After college, she gravitated to watercolor – a medium she uses almost exclusively today. She recalls a childhood divided between two passions – an insatiable love of reading and a profound fascination for the natural world. These early interests are the foundation for her paintings of whimsical creatures; their antics often bring a smile or a feeling that one has walked into the middle of a remarkable journey. Visit her at her Etsy shop: https://hijinxedetc.etsy.com

Maggie Vandewalle | Art

CANYON VOICES | FALL 2023

ABOUT US CANYON VOICES LITERARY & ART MAGAZINE is dedicated to shedding light on the works of emerging and established writers and artists. Founded in the spring of 2010 at Arizona State University’s West campus by one professor, Julie Amparano Garcia, and six students, this journal strives to bring the creativity of writers and artists to light within the community and beyond. Supported by the students and faculty of the School of Humanities, Arts and Cultural Studies at ASU’s New College of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences, CANYON VOICES accepts writing and artwork from writers and artists from all corners of our planet and from all walks of life. The work of maintaining and producing this magazine is entirely student driven. Since its formation, CANYON VOICES has expanded into a full credit, hands-on class. Students build a full literary journal each semester, heading every aspect of production, including soliciting submissions, editing, marketing, design and layout, and publication. We strive to bring you an eclectic range of voices each semester.

OUR MISSION At CANYON VOICES our mission is to provide an online environment to highlight emerging and established voices in the artistic community. By publishing works that engender thought, Canyon Voices seeks to enrich the scope of language, style, culture, and gender.

CONTACT US Questions, comments, feedback? We would love to hear from you. Contact us via email at: CanyonVoicesLitMag@gmail.com You can also visit us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/asucanyonvoices Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/canyonvoiceslitmag CANYONVOICES | FALL 2023

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

SUBMITTING WORK To submit your work, please send it to CanyonVoicesLitMag@gmail.com. Be sure to attach all the work you wish to submit to the email. You may include an author biography and a photo, which will be included in the magazine should your work be chosen for publication. We are affiliated with Arizona State University, and we uphold academic standards. If your work is accepted, we reserve the right to make changes. You will be contacted should your work require more extensive edits. We accept simultaneous submissions. All documents submitted should be double spaced with a 12 point font, in either Times New Roman or Arial. Poetry may be single spaced. All written documents must be submitted in (.doc) or (.rtf) format. Artwork may be in JPEG format. All work submitted must have a title.

FICTION Up to two stories may be submitted per issue. Each story may be 20 pages or fewer.

CNF

POETRY

Up to six poems Up to four stories per may be submitted issue. Two pieces may (no longer than be 20 pages. two pages each) per issue.

SCRIPTS

ART

Up to two scripts may be submitted per issue. Script maximum 15 pages.

Up to ten pieces, with at least 300 dpi or JPEG format (<1 MB). Include detail on medium.

EXPLICIT MATERIALS

READING PERIOD

Because this is a university magazine, submissions containing sexually explicit material and explicit language will be reviewed and determined eligible for publishing depending on the context of the material in the work. Material deemed inappropriate or gratuitous will be rejected.

Our editors read submissions in August, September, and through October 1st for the fall issue. The reading period re-opens in January, February, and through March 1st for the spring.

CANYONVOICES | FALL 2023

Staff Pages JULIE AMPARANO GARCÍA IS THE FOUNDER AND PUBLISHER OF CANYON VOICES LITERARY AND ART MAGAZINE. SERVING IN THE SCHOOL OF HUMANITY ARTS AND CULTURAL STUDIES AT ASU’S NEW COLLEGE OF INTERDISCIPLINARY ARTS AND SCIENCES, AMPARANO GARCÍA OVERSEES THE SCHOOL'S WRITING CERTIFICATE PROGRAM AND TEACHES A VARIETY OF WRITING COURSES THAT INCLUDE SCRIPTWRITING, CROSS-CULTURAL WRITING, FICTION, PERSUASIVE WRITING, AND THE CANYON VOICES COURSE. SHE RECEIVED HER M.F.A. IN CREATIVE WRITING FROM ANTIOCH UNIVERSITY IN LOS ANGELES IN 2006 AND IS WORKING ON A COLLECTION OF SHORT STORIES AND A PLAY ABOUT CHILDREN AND WAR.

AVERY WOODWARD IS A SENIOR CURRENTLY ENROLLED AT ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY AS AN ENGLISH MAJOR ASPIRING TO JOIN THE CREATIVE WRITING CONCENTRATION. THIS SEMESTER, SHE WAS SO EXCITED AND HONORED TO BE THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF OF THIS CANYON VOICES ISSUE. HER WORK FOR CANYON VOICES IS A GREAT SOURCE OF PRIDE TO HER AS SHE WORKS TOWARDS HER GOAL OF WRITING PROFESSIONALLY. SHE SEEKS TO INSPIRE OTHERS WITH HER WRITING THE SAME WAY ALL HER FAVORITE AUTHORS INSPIRED HER. AVERY BELIEVES IN THE POWER OF ART AND ITS ABILITY TO INFLUENCE THE WORLD. SHE CAN USUALLY BE FOUND WRITING, READING BOOKS, WATCHING ANIME, OR PLAYING DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS. PLEASE ENJOY THIS FALL 2023 ISSUE OF CANYON VOICES!

KODY MISINCO IS A GRADUATE STUDENT AT ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY, WORKING TOWARDS A MASTER OF ARTS DEGREE IN ENGLISH RHETORIC WHILE MANAGING A FULL-TIME JOB. KODY IS THE FIRST IN HIS IMMEDIATE FAMILY TO GO TO COMPLETE HIGH SCHOOL AND GO TO UNIVERSITY. KODY HAS A PASSION FOR LITERATURE AND HAS BEEN INSPIRED BY AUTHORS SUCH AS BILL KONIGSBERG, AUGUSTINE BURROWS, STEPHEN KING, AND RALPH EMERSON.

BRIELLE LEE IS AN ENGLISH AND HISTORY MAJOR AND AN ART HISTORY MINOR. SHE LOVES THE ARTS AND EDUCATING PEOPLE ON THE IMPORTANCE OF THE HUMANITIES AND CULTURES. SOME OF HER OTHER PASSIONS INCLUDE CROCHETING, WRITING, AND READING. BRIELLE PLANS TO ENTER THE MUSEUM EDUCATION FIELD OR BECOME A HIGH SCHOOL ENGLISH LITERATURE TEACHER. SHE ALSO LOVES BEING A PART OF THE INCREDIBLE TEAM AT CANYON VOICES BECAUSE SHE ALWAYS LOOKS FORWARD TO READING LITERARY WORKS AND DISCOVERING NEW ARTISTS! EXPOSING PEOPLE TO DIFFERENT WRITERS AND ARTISTS MEANS A LOT TO ME, SO I AM GLAD I GET TO BE A PART OF THE EDITORIAL TEAM AND PROCESS.

Canyon Voices 2023

Staff Pages RUBY LAZCANO CORTEZ IS A THIRD-YEAR ASU PSYCHOLOGY MAJOR, PURSUING A CERTIFICATE IN CREATIVE WRITING. AS A MEMBER OF CANYON VOICES, SHE HAS PROVIDED HELP AS A CO-LEADER OF THE FICTION TEAM AND A MEMBER OF THE SCRIPTS TEAM. HER TIME IN CANYON VOICES HAS BEEN A HELPFUL LEARNING EXPERIENCE, ALLOWING HER TO LEARN MORE THAN SHE HOPED AND MAKE NEW ACQUAINTANCES ALONG THE WAY. SHE LOVES WORKING WITH HER TEAM AND WISHES THEM THE BEST AS THE SEMESTER COMES TO A CLOSE. WHEN SHE ISN’T WORKING WITH CANYON VOICES, RUBY ENJOYS HER TIME PLAYING VIDEO GAMES (MAINLY THE LAST OF US), READING, WORKING ON HER BOOK, WATCHING ANIME, AND TAKING CARE OF HER FARM ANIMALS. SHE HOPES THAT WHEN SHE GRADUATES, SHE’LL BE ABLE TO MOVE BACK TO MEXICO, WHERE SHE’LL CONTINUE TO PURSUE HER CAREER IN PSYCHOLOGY AND COMPLETE HER BOOK AND HOPEFULLY PUBLISH IT.

KAREN DYER-MCGOWAN IS A THIRD-YEAR HONORS PSYCHOLOGY MAJOR AND ENGLISH MINOR AT THE ASU WEST CAMPUS, AS WELL AS A CANYON VOICES EDITOR, CO-LEADER OF BOTH THE FICTION AND ART GROUPS, AND A MAGAZINE DESIGNER AND COVER EDITOR. AS SOMEONE WHO LOVES TO READ AND WRITE, WORKING ON CANYON VOICES HAS BEEN A VALUABLE AND INFORMATIVE EXPERIENCE FOR HER. SHE HAS LOVED READING AND DISCUSSING ALL OF THE SUBMISSIONS WITH HER EDITING GROUPS. IN FACT, A CURRENT GOAL THAT KAREN HAS IS TO PUBLISH ONE OF HER OWN SHORT STORIES IN A LITERARY MAGAZINE. AFTER SHE GRADUATES IN THE SPRING OF 2024, SHE HOPES TO GO ON TRAVELING ADVENTURES (THAT SHE CAN MAYBE WRITE ABOUT) AND EVENTUALLY GO TO GRADUATE SCHOOL FOR NEUROSCIENCE.

ZOE FOLTE-NEUL IS A SENIOR AT ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY STUDYING COMMUNICATIONS WITH A WRITING CERTIFICATE. AT CANYON VOICES, SHE LEADS THE SCRIPTWRITING TEAM. SHE ALSO CONTRIBUTED TO THE FICTION TEAM, FOSTERING A LOVE FOR STORYTELLING THAT TRANSCENDS CONVENTIONAL BOUNDARIES. BEYOND THE UNIVERSITY, ZOE DEDICATES HERSELF TO CRAFTING NARRATIVES BEYOND WORDS, CREATING IMMERSIVE EXPERIENCES. ZOE ENVISIONS A FUTURE WHERE HER STORYTELLING PASSION SEAMLESSLY CONVERGES WITH PUBLISHING, A LOVE THAT CAYNON VOICES HAS MAGNIFIED.

SAM CALLEJA IS A JUNIOR STUDYING FORENSIC PSYCHOLOGY AND PURSUING A CERTIFICATE IN CREATIVE WRITING. HE WORKED AS A MEMBER OF THE FICTION TEAM AS WELL AS A CO-LEADER OF THE CREATIVE NONFICTION TEAM FOR THIS ISSUE. BEING A PART OF THE CANYON VOICES STAFF HAS OFFERED HIM AN INCREDIBLE HANDS-ON OPPORTUNITY TO LEARN THE INNER WORKINGS OF A LITERARY MAGAZINE, COLLABORATE WITH HIS PEERS, AND GAIN A CLEARER UNDERSTANDING OF THE PUBLISHING PROCESS. IN HIS FREE TIME, SAM CAN USUALLY BE FOUND READING, WRITING, ROCK CLIMBING, OR SPENDING TIME WITH HIS RETIRED SERVICE DOG, LANCE. HE HOPES TO ONE DAY BE A PUBLISHED NOVELIST, BUT IN THE MEANTIME, HE SIMPLY DOES HIS BEST TO STAY ON TOP OF THE EVER-GROWING PILE OF WORKS-IN-PROGRESS LURKING IN HIS GOOGLE DRIVE.

Canyon Voices 2023

Staff Pages SASHA BRECHUN IS A SOPHOMORE ENROLLED AT ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY WITH A MAJOR IN ENGLISH AND A MINOR IN FILM & MEDIA STUDIES. SHE IS AN EDITOR FOR CANYON VOICES, WORKING ON THE POETRY AND CREATIVE NONFICTION TEAMS. HER PARTICIPATION IN CANYON VOICES HAS BROUGHT HER MUCH JOY AND TAUGHT HER MANY THINGS ABOUT THE PROCESS OF CREATING A LITERARY MAGAZINE AS WELL AS INTRODUCED HER TO A GROUP OF AMAZING PEOPLE. SHE LOVES TO READ, WRITE, AND LISTEN TO MUSIC. SHE HOPES TO HAVE FINISHED WRITING A NOVEL BY THE TIME SHE GRADUATES. SHE DREAMS OF BEING A FULL-TIME WRITER AND LIVING A QUIET, PEACEFUL LIFE FILLED WITH MANY ANIMALS AND MANY BOOKS.

STEVIE DILTS (THEY/THEM) IS AN ENGLISH MAJOR NEARING THEIR FINAL SEMESTER AT ASU WEST. AFTER JOINING THE CANYON VOICES TEAM, STEVIE BECAME BOTH AN EDITOR OF THE MAGAZINE AND A CO-LEAD OF THE POETRY TEAM. CANYON VOICES HAS BEEN AN IMPORTANT PART OF STEVIE’S GROWTH, AND THEY BELIEVE THAT LITERARY MAGAZINES AND OTHER COMPILATIONS ARE NECESSARY TO FURTHER THE SPREAD OF LITERATURE AND UPLIFT NEW AND MARGINALIZED VOICES. STEVIE PLANS TO USE THEIR EXPERIENCE WITH CANYON VOICES AND ASU TO BOLSTER THEIR LIBRARY CAREER. THEY ARE PROUD TO CONTRIBUTE TO SUCH A WONDERFUL PROJECT WITH SUCH WONDERFUL PEOPLE.

AMANI KHALIFA IS A FOURTH-YEAR ENGLISH MAJOR AT ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY, A POETRY CO-LEADER, AND A PART OF THE SOCIAL MEDIA TEAM FOR CANYON VOICES. CANYON VOICES HAS BEEN A WONDERFUL AND EYE-OPENING EXPERIENCE FOR AMANI. SHE JOINED THE TEAM IN AN EFFORT TO GAIN EDITING EXPERIENCE AND FELL IN LOVE WITH THE PROCESS OF PUTTING TOGETHER A LITERARY MAGAZINE. AMANI IS VERY PASSIONATE ABOUT LITERATURE AND THE WRITTEN WORD AND PLANS TO WORK AT A PUBLISHING COMPANY AS AN EDITOR AFTER SHE COMPLETES GRADUATE SCHOOL. AMONG READING, AMANI ENJOYS WRITING, PLAYING GUITAR, LISTENING TO MUSIC, AND WATCHING HORROR MOVIES.

EMILLY VARGAS IS CURRENTLY IN HER THIRD ACADEMIC YEAR PURSUING A MAJOR IN ENGLISH AT ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY AND SERVES IN THE CAPACITY OF MAGAZINE DESIGNER AND COVER EDITOR FOR CANYON VOICES. IN ADDITION TO HER EDITORIAL RESPONSIBILITIES, SHE ADEPTLY OVERSEES THE MANAGEMENT OF THE ORGANIZATION'S SOCIAL MEDIA PAGES. EMILLY VIEWS HER TENURE WITH CANYON VOICES AS AN INDELIBLE AND TRANSFORMATIVE EXPERIENCE. THE OPPORTUNITY TO CONTRIBUTE HER DESIGN EXPERTISE TO THE PUBLICATION ALIGNS SEAMLESSLY WITH HER DEEPSEATED

PASSION

FOR

DESIGN,

MAKING

HER

PROFOUNDLY

GRATEFUL

FOR

OPPORTUNITY THAT CANYON VOICES HAS PROVIDED HER.

Canyon Voices 2023

THE

ENRICHING

Staff Pages RHEA SHENKENBERG IS A SECOND-YEAR ASU FORENSIC PSYCHOLOGY MAJOR AND PURSUING A MINOR IN CRIMINOLOGY AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE. FOR ISSUE 28 OF CANYON VOICES, RHEA WORKED AS A MEMBER OF BOTH THE FICTION AND CREATIVE NONFICTION TEAMS. BEING AN EDITOR FOR A LITERARY MAGAZINE IS SOMETHING THAT RHEA HAS EVER EXPERIENCED BEFORE, BUT SHE HAS FOUND OUT HOW MUCH SHE ENJOYED THE PROCESS OF HELPING TO DEVELOP ISSUE 28. SHE WORKED ALONGSIDE HER TEAMMATES BY DISCUSSING EXPERIENCES AND INTERPRETATIONS OF DIFFERENT SUBMITTED LITERARY WORKS TO DETERMINE WHICH PIECES SHOULD BE CHOSEN FOR PUBLICATION. OUTSIDE OF BEING AN EDITOR FOR CANYON VOICES, RHEA ENJOYS SPENDING TIME WITH HER FAMILY, FRIENDS, AND DOGS, AS WELL AS ROCK CLIMBING AND HIKING. RHEA IS VERY PASSIONATE ABOUT LIVING IN THE MOMENT AND TRYING NOT TO WORRY ABOUT THE FUTURE, ALL WHILE DOING THINGS IN THE PRESENT THAT WILL PREPARE HER FOR FUTURE OPPORTUNITIES.

SHANE DOUGLAS IS A THIRD YEAR ENGLISH CREATIVE WRITING MAJOR AT ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY. CANYON VOICES IS THE SECOND MAGAZINE SHE HAS HAD THE PLEASURE OF WORKING ON AS AN EDITOR, WITH THE FIRST BEING HER HIGH SCHOOL’S OWN LITERARY MAGAZINE, SHADOWS. SHE HAS GREATLY ENJOYED HER TIME WORKING ON CANYON VOICES IN THE FICTION AND SCRIPT EDITING TEAMS, GETTING BACK INTO THIS TYPE OF PROJECT, AND SEEING HOW A LITERARY MAGAZINE IS PUT TOGETHER ON A MORE PROFESSIONAL LEVEL. OUTSIDE OF SCHOOL, SHE ENJOYS READING, WRITING, AND LISTENING TO MUSIC. SHE HOPES TO ONE DAY BE A PUBLISHED NOVELIST.

Canyon Voices 2023

We are Arizona State University Canyon Voices.