The Junction 2013

the JUNCTION

English Majors’ Annual Literary Magazine Volume 4: Spring 2013

supported in part with funds from the riverrun club

EDITORS EDITORS Kate Conte Conte Kate Joey Didonato Didonato Joey Sarah Gonsalves Gonsalves Sarah Thomas Salvanti Salvanti Thomas

FRONT COVER: Charly Himmel

BACK COVER: Jessie Siobahn

Keith Baldwin Baldwin Keith Josane Cumandala Cumandala Josane Shayne McGreggor McGreggor Shayne Luis Roca Roca Luis Sarah Meira Meira Rosenberg Rosenberg Sarah Ariella Shapiro Shapiro Ariella Joe Wade Wade Joe THOMAS SALVANTI

under the guidance of Roni Natov

INTERN CONTRIBUTORS CONTRIBUTORS INTERN

TABLE OF CONTENTS Cinemas in the Garden of Eden ———— dfstt 2 Leave Laveder Burning ——————— 3 I Wouldn’t Say Your’re Awful ————— 4 Wonder Wheel ——————————— 5 Knew We Made —————————— 6 Disco Lights ———————————— 7 The Going Barrel ————————— 8 How to Make a Kindling, pt. 1 ———— 11 Fucking Winter in New York City ——— 12 First of Snow ——————————— 13 Getting Through a Funeral ————— 14 Man’s Country —————————— 16 Better Sex and Gardens ——————— 17 All Roads Led To Everywhere ———— 18 No Sugar ———————————— 22 Marigolds ———————————— 23 Song For the Benefit of Seeing ———— 25 Psychic Connections - w4m ————— 26 Yes. ——————————————— 27 What I’d Hoped, pt 2 ———————— 28 Dreaming Vignettes —­——————— 29 Stolen Chrysler LeBaron Blues ———— 30 My Heart Can’t Compare —————— 39 Nice Guys Finish Last ——————— 42 New Pl. ————————————— 43 Russ —————————————— 44 Atlantic City ——————————— 45 Prolapse of the Heart ———————— 47 The Yichud Room ————————— 48 Window View ——————————— 49 Day of Rest ——————————— 50 Untitled Film Still 58 ———————— 51 From Thunderhead Peak —————— 52 Holy Day ———————————— 53 Unforseen Consequences —————— 54 In My Eyes ———————————— 56 Crushed Lines of a Sweepstakes Ticket — 58 “Poem” ————————————— 59 Autumn’s Embers ————————— 60 Winter Fragment ————————— 63 Stringent Control ————————— 64 The Truth About Your Recruiter ——— 65 Haikus ————————————— 66 Pax ——————————————— 67 ARIELLA SHAPIRO

CINEMAS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN George del Valle

The embolism always rises to the occasion in the hour of a fine disaster which is the aegis of being here.

Of being here underneath a sky so maudlin, and because I’ve listened, know the clouds better.

And by name I know my body less than these external projections of how I must be feeling: the green of green; the lazuli of the gem-dress she happens to be wearing; this framing sun in Turner’s The Slave Ship: things which are open to relation. But how can I relate to drowning slaves who, if they are, are external projections of sublime narrative? And I’ve been to the sea as a point, jousting waves with a fist, checking pulses with Jersey taffy kisses: how love gives us all these reasons to be stranded. How to the whole teleos of the self seems like a straight line into fiction for you to take scansion of my face and scroll it on a mountain place I don’t know. Sometimes, we gather tinder from the forest primeval, expecting fires on the other side (where the houses are all white) to burst like semaphores externally projecting paths to cleansing. That is, to a point the indexes converge into streams of babble down the atrium where, oxygenated, turn into blows of the holy spirit. Oh. Pallidula rigida nudula vaguely soulful but mostly animal and unknowable. Oh. What woe we can’t perform our own diagnosis save engaging the rigors of weather observation. That is, the sky is vaunted for a reason.

And being here in this room of soft light that is the cynosure of projectionist misrule, I snake fingers in your hair ‘cos this is how sex is probed in the cinemas of Eden. And god willing you’ll still be here in the strophe of morning, a little hairier than yesterday, much bolder and less prosaic. To what the lyric invoketh: open.

ADDY WITHERSPOON

2

LEAVE LAVENDER BURNING Kate Conte There is time in downtown February there is time, for empty beds & moss-gunked mugs radiator pants asthmatic winter shakes windows to their panes like distraught mothers’ arms shake babes too blue to coo winter cerulean is stitched devil dreams deep waters, indigo & robin’s egg latch to our brains in backseat heat— alternate side parking in tall grass & sometimes there is no reason but mostly done for the same one, always leave lavender burning in a soup bowl by the window for little girl ghost that says hello it might be her noise in walls or neighbors crisping fish & sweating Vidalia onions but maybe just a ghost we put dishes away, washed & dried but there is time.

EMMA ROCK

3

I WOULDN’T SAY YOU’RE AWFUL...

Joseph Wade I wouldn’t say you’re awful, but because you acted that way, I remembered you like this: It’s down to dime clinks, laughter fallen in the jar, cheap as her happy response to his failed effort, the jingles of almost nothing, something smaller than pennies.

THOMAS SALVANTI

4

WONDER WHEEL Judy Zhong Wonder Wheel Every year like every year We go to Coney Island Riding a Ferris Wheel That never stops turning.

There is not much

to

w n e

but down below,

o d r

past: the drunken mermaids the cops the children the cacophony we

free swing

air.

u

n

p

a

in the sky we breath in the

o

c

e

5

KNEW WE MADE Margie Sarsfield I It was weird my father says, it was weird. In Jackson Heights.

You’d be walking down the street and suddenly there’d be

chicken feet

arrayed neat

near burlap

sack of grain.

II In the south a witch doctor put him in the hospital with pneumonia.

An unlicensed witch doctor.

(this a better story than the story

my mother has to tell of it

she with one and one on the way

when it was just a nurse practitioner) And whatever anyway here come where I am baking bread let me tell you about the time my father almost never met me.

III Music won’t end apartheid won’t end apartheid, no Randy Newman ragtime theme.

The bread need yeast to rise, and second rise, and you saved all your hoodoo for me. ‘ppreciate it truly, in what we’d call truly timeless euphamitism, the dog in the manger where the dog is my need to gauge holes in hearts and the manger is when there are maggots in the sink again.

IV

That means no one has ever been here before.

I am weaving burlap. I am not this thing which can tell one soul from another. I do not wear a watch anymore. I am brazen in July.

I am all the murders in Norway. I am not going to watch any more of that court case. The stars are not just like us.

V The flour jar used to hold pickled pigs feet.

Someone must have been the first to find a fossil and know it was strange. What a stranger day, aren’t you comforted, doesn’t that feel good?

6

DISCO LIGHTS Charly Himmel

Everything I’m about to tell you is fucking true. It started on Kevin’s birthday at about four in the morning as he and I stumbled home from three different bars. He had just moved to Brooklyn with only his bicycle and a trunk full of awful VHS tapes and nobody besides me. We fumbled alongside the East River in the dark. We were wasted.

That week he moved into my house, I remember finding a wallet in the freezer. Pulling it out, I figured there could only be one explanation as to why there might be a wallet in my freezer.

“Kevin. Is this LSD?”

“Put that back.”

“Kevin, this is LSD isn’t it?”

“Put it back.”

“Kevin, what the fuck. If this is LSD, I want some.”

“It’s good for the leather.”

“This is my house.”

“Put it back.”

Now we were almost home.

“Wanna take some acid?”

“You mean in the freezer?”

He laughed. Kevin is the worst dude, probably the worst dude I ever knew. It wasn’t on a tab or a cube or in a gel, but on communion wafers. That was something I’d never seen before.

“The power of Christ compels you,” I ordained, dropping the wafer on Kevin’s tongue and making a magical voodoo gesture in the other hand. Then we started watching Clueless.

By the time we started to feel it, Ti and Cher weren’t friends anymore, and we knew we absolutely had to get to Rockaway Beach even if it killed us (which it might). Kevin had to move his car anyway, so we ventured out into the early morning suits and can collectors.

We lost the car. It disappeared on a street that probably got swept into the river or repossessed by the FBI, but we found new streets. At the corner of Pamplemousse and Schutzstaffel, there was a very old auto body shop full of pinball machines.

“We are on acid right now.” Kevin told one of the old men sitting outside.

We loved pinball, my father and I.

ADDY WITHERSPOON

7

THE GOING BARREL Casey Kearns “Oh, Hell.” He stopped working when a white, 1965 Plymouth Belvedere pulled up slowly in front of his house. A high school boy, skinny as a greyhound and six feet tall, quickly hopped out and slammed the door shut. He looked at his reflection in the side view mirror and licked his fingers to smooth down his sideburns, which reached almost to the middle of his ear. Apparently satisfied, he cleared his throat and tucked a small plastic container with a white flower in it under his arm. As he walked to the front door, oblivious of Sammy standing in the shade to the left of the house, the boy held his shoulders back and breathed in evenly through his nose and out cleanly through his mouth. The boy took the steps up the porch two at a time. Rangy son-ofa-gun, thought Sammy. Then, realizing he probably shouldn’t like the kid, Lanky little shit. The boy squared himself, smoothed down his shirtfront, breathed heavily into his cupped hand to sniff it and rang the doorbell.

Sammy walked quietly around him and sized him up. He had just about decided he didn’t like the boy when he bent at the waist, lifted his pant leg and scratched at his ankle. He was wearing sock garters. Sammy decided to give the kid an inch then, Rawboned.

He looked over the boy’s car once more and decided it belonged to a father or well-meaning uncle who kept up with the fluids and hoses but would run it into the ground soon enough. Probably didn’t even cover it.

Sammy had come around from the backyard where he had been drinking a beer and swinging a doubleedged grass whip. He leaned the tool against the doorjamb and followed the young man through the door quietly and slammed it shut just as Lori was welcoming him in. “…and here’s my husband.”

The boy turned with a start. “Oh! Good to meet you, Mister Breaux.”

“Yeahup.” Sammy drained his beer, walked past his wife and the boy, who stood hand outstretched, and went to the fridge and grabbed two more.

“Well you two just have a seat and I’ll go help Audrey finish getting ready. Oh Sam, see if there’s a soda in the back for Thomas, will you?”

“Yeahup.”

Lori was not tall, but she had long, thin, arms that ended with the strong hands and willowy fingers of a piano player, which she had been in High School. She had studied music for a year at North Texas State before she got knocked up and realized that operating an adding machine was a more realistic use of her hands, and had switched her major to accounting. Sammy had studied journalism at NTS - and managed to finish before Audrey was born – but ended up working with his cousin, Billie Sol Estes, in the oil fields - since newspaper work paid for shit, and his cousin held two producing oil leases. In the field, some of the older men found out he had worked for the local paper and took to calling him Wally Crank-Height, as in, Walter Cronkite, the CBS news anchor. This was a reference and malapropism he hated instantly. He had felt resentful of Lori and the baby for a grand total of three hours on that first day, working the derrick in Odessa. That feeling left him the moment he got home, walked in the door, and saw his girls sitting on the couch. Lori was cooing at Audrey, and Audrey was feeding. A hot chicken pot-pie was on the kitchen table and a glass of iced tea sat next to it.

He never once felt anything but lucky, again.

Here was Lori now, gesturing for the boy to sit on the couch. “Thomas, you just make yourself right at home. And Sam?” She crossed her long arms at him, arched her eyebrows and said under her breath. “Behave.”

“Yeahup.” Sammy grabbed a dishtowel from the fridge door handle, wiped his face and then his armpits as he walked back into the living room. “No soda. Wanna beer?”

“Oh. Uh, no sir.” Sammy watched him redden.

“Yeah, right. Have a seat.” Sammy opened one of the beers and tilted it back. As the boy sat and pulled at the starched collar at his neck, Sammy poured the entire can of Coors down his throat. He was covered in grass clippings, and wore a filthy Astro’s cap with the brim bent double, a white t-shirt, cut off jeans, and his brown work boots.

Sammy eyed his daughter’s date and did not return the nervous smile Thomas gave him. “Hot day for yard work, Mister Breaux.” The boy had cut himself under his right nostril while shaving and still had a piece of toilet paper stuck to the small wound.

Sammy flopped down onto the couch and popped open the second beer. He quickly grabbed the copy of

8

THE GOING BARREL Casey Kearns Better Homes and Gardens and stuffed it between the cushions of the couch before he put his feet up. He looked at the boy and grinned. “Go like this, kid.” Sammy wiped at his upper lip. The boy looked puzzled til he felt the paper and pulled it away and turned red.

“Oh. Thanks, Mister Breaux. I was kinda nervous getting ready to come over here. I actually had to turn around ‘cause I forgot Audrey’s corsage in the refrigerator and I wanted to…”

“Thomas, huh? Well, I’ll tell you, Tom-Ass,” Sammy squinted at him took a pull on his beer. “I don’t get it.” He looked him in the eye long enough for the boy to turn away first.

Thomas frowned at Sammy’s tone and raised his eyebrows. “Sir?” “That’s okay though. I mean, I don’t get her music either. S’what happens when you get old.” He leaned back and wiped the foam from his mouth with the front of his shirt. “Here’s the thing, Tom… I didn’t like hearing this speech from every father of every girl I dated when I was your age, but it was something I had to hear, it’s something you have to hear, and it’s something I have to say. Hell, one of the fathers even pointed a pistol at me. No shit. Joe Benavidez. Snub nosed .38 special. Took his daughter Ursula to homecoming.

Now, I’m not the type to pull that shit and point a pistol at you, Thomas.”

The boy grinned at Sammy and mimed wiping his forehead with his hand, “Phew. Thank you, sir.”

“Now don’t get cute, Tom, ‘cause I got a couple. I gotta .45 in my bed stand and a .357 in this downstairs closet. Shit, I’m a Cajun, Tom. I got two shotguns and a deer rifle around here somewhere too… I love that shit.”

“Yessir.” Thomas looked appropriately miserable, again.

“All right then. Let’s get this over with. Let’s us have a gentleman’s agreement, ‘kay?”

“Okay.”

“First:” he jerked his thumb towards the stairs leading to the second story where his wife and daughter were behind Audrey’s bedroom door doing whatever it was that women did while the men waited. “One of them’s gonna beg for midnight, the other’s gonna compromise at eleven-thirty, but the real time is eleven.

That’s the real time, Tom. If that means leaving the dance at half past ten to get her home, well, I’m sorry but that’s how it is. Eleven. The porch light will be on and I will be waiting. Got it?”

“Yessir.”

“Good. Next, she’s a lady when she leaves here… she’s a lady when she comes home. Y’understand me, boy?”

“Yessir. Absolu…”

Sammy pointed at the boy and cocked his head to the side. “You are a gentleman the whole night through. Don’t get pushy. Don’t get grabby and, who knows? Maybe there’ll be a second date… and a third… and maybe one of these days, when I fire up the grill, we’ll have you over and I’ll show you how to butcher a hog so that when you string it up and slit it’s throat, it won’t drown in its own blood and spoil the meat.”

The boy swallowed hard, and said nothing. He stared straight down and nodded his head, like an athlete listening to a coach.

“Finally, and I hope you hear me on this one, it is never a good idea to drink and drive. It is especially bad for your health if you drive my daughter around after drinking, or, in fact, allow her to hop in the car with someone who has been drinking. This means any amount of drinking, Tom. Even one beer will stay on your breath long enough to inspire any state trooper or city deputy with a hard-on to yank you out the car and search it.”

“Oh sir, I’d nev…”

“Shut up Tom, just listen. You have no idea how to drink yet. You barely know how to drive. Don’t let me suspect that you’ve done both.”

“Uh.” “We got a deal, Tom?” Lori came down the stairs beaming. “Well, we’re ready.” She turned at the bottom as Audrey started unsteadily down in her high heels from Marshall’s.

9

THE GOING BARREL Casey Kearns “Great! Good talk, Tom.” Sammy stood quickly and set his empty beer can on the end table next to the remote. “Oh look. Sweetheart, you look just beautiful. You really do. Don’t you think so Tommy boy?”

Sammy clamped his hand on the boy’s shoulder and squeezed a little too hard.

“Uh. Yes. Yes she does. Beautiful.”

“Just let me get a quick couple of Polaroid’s of you two together.”

“Mom!” “Oh honey… Just a couple.” The pair stood together and both turned beet-faced and tight lipped as they phony-smiled to the flash of Lori’s camera. Thomas was sweating.

“Well you kids have a good night.”

“I’ll see you around midnight, mom.”

“Honey. How about eleven-thirty?”

“Mom!” “Eleven-thirty, Audrey.” Lori crossed her arms again.

“Dad!” “Listen to your mother. Have a good time sweetheart.” Sammy was staring straight at the boy as he opened another beer with a flourish. “And Tom?” “Sir?” “Drive safe.”

CHARLY HIMMEL

10

HOW TO MAKE A KINDLING PT 1 Nora Curry In any event there was no way out and the phone was ringing. It was cold and the treetops were bare but so what so were the bottoms. What happens in the medicine garden doesn’t stay in the medicine garden. In any event no one in the airport really thought that woman was a terrorist, because probably she was just sad. The melted fire alarm is somebody’s fault. We wished good things for the ash tree and then hid the remains. For which no one is sorry. In any event an hour later he says thank you for the fortune but actually what he came in for was the time. Surely the dead deer is no one’s fault. The question was how many people out of bed constitutes an irregular night. In any event there was no way out or just no easy. The punch line is there’s a teaspoon , paprika, and maple syrup, and you don’t know what to do. If your fingers are always cold, there’s good reason to be concerned, or wear gloves. There was a harpist, a swing dance, more than one suspended knife. When she woke up she didn’t know anyone but he would willingly know her. It was raining outside and there were pumas about, or just the figment of an owl and a belly laugh.

In any event they were packing up the car boot sale and we had only just barely gotten there. She was trying to relieve herself in the grass but there were shooting stars and only so much focus.

There was cardamom in the coffee, the fire bucket back, the laundry hung. In any event these are indelible nights.

CAROLE VER EECKE

11

FUCKING WINTER IN NEW YORK CITY Tonianne Druckman It’s cigarettes and coffee between worries and words.

I could be talking to you instead of myself, but you’re allergic to smoke and I can’t step outside every 10 minutes.

It’s winter in New York City.

I won’t make any sacrifices.

I’ve come far enough in life to know when to give in and I won’t give in to you.

I don’t have to.

The thing inside of me that can radiate for miles will bestow its warmth only on the hands of those who know how to touch it.

And it shifts.

It twists and turns and sits angrily deep within me.

It rages against the lampshade I’ve been living under since I came back home.

It curses the shade’s weight and girth, and then it shakes.

And the only thing I can do to still it is find a worthy pair of hands, or bathe in the sun.

But it’s fucking winter in New York City.

So it’s cigarettes and coffee, then, and conversations with myself.

KATE CONTE

12

FIRST OF SNOW Will Machi the world whether you

enter either exit under doubtless fingernail only most human

in question: food

is what one chooses beside the sound of tumbling every particle settles good afternoon

gravity

does the rest

CHARLY HIMMEL

13

GETTING THROUGH A FUNERAL Andrew Lerman “The funeral’s at eleven. Greenpoint. Don’t be late.”

It’s about 10:15 and you’re still lying in bed. You know you’ll be late if you don’t leave now because the roads by Greenpoint might as well have been built by blind men. There’s no time to shower, so you splash some water under your pits and vigorously rub on some deodorant. Take a whiff of the only button down shirt that’s clean. You wore it to a birthday two weeks ago, which might as well have been two years ago. Rush out of your house and hit your car getting out of your driveway.

Pull up in front of the funeral home. Immediately receive a text saying that the wake is actually at 12 and now you have to burn an hour and seven minutes. Go check out the shady convenience store across the street. The cashier can tell you’re not from around here because everyone knows everybody around here. You have no appetite so you decide now would be a perfect time to have a cigarette nine months after quitting. The taste of the warm smoke is both welcoming and upsetting. The wind blows back the ash you just flicked off and it narrowly misses your eye. That’s what you get for smoking again.

Fast forward fifty-five minutes and a crowd clad in black now blocks your way to the entrance. The air smells like humidity, grief, and polacks…lots and lots of polacks. By the time you’re seated, you scan for familiar faces; family and friends attempting to hold back tears and those who came out of obligation. Notice his parents sitting up front and feel bad because your first thought is if his parents are related. They look eerily alike. Make a mental note to meditate on this later.

You zone out and the next thing you know everyone being back at his house. Pathetic attempts at small talk are being made and everyone is playing the game where you compare irrelevant memories of when he was “a good boy,” and how “it’s a shame he had to ruin his life.” You’d think no one there ever overdosed on pills before.

Try and see if you can sneak out of his house early. Everyone seems too caught up in their own misery that they won’t notice your departure. What’s that? A table full of booze? Well, you can probably stay for a few minutes longer. As you wander the house nursing your Jack Daniels, you pick up some of the things people say about him: “Yeah, I heard he just took anything he could find around the house: Ambien, Vicodin, Diovan, a few diuretics. Pretty amateurish shit.”

“My guess is that he was either a secret fag or didn’t know where he was going in life. Either way, he’s selfish.”

“He hated his mother. You don’t kill yourself if you love your mother. My kids would never try something like this. You want to know why? Because they’re good children. They love their mother.”

You can’t tell whether the burning sensation in your throat is from the whiskey or because you’re done with this scene. Place the unfinished whiskey on a coaster because that’s the least you can do for him. Say your half-assed farewells to your friends and then bump into his parents. Give your condolences for the third time and keep asking yourself if they’re related. Your attempts at ending the conversation fail over and over again before you make up some excuse you won’t remember later.

14

GETTING THROUGH A FUNERAL Andrew Lerman Give your condolences for the third time and keep asking yourself if they’re related. Your attempts at ending the conversation fail over and over again before you make up some excuse you won’t remember later.

You’re on your way home now after spending fifteen minutes getting out of your parking spot your car was boxed in. Don’t think about the events that transpired today. Don’t think about how he was surrounded by the worst human beings alive and how things might have worked out differently if you had spent more time with him. You have a major test coming up. You have your future to worry about. Be selfish because if you think otherwise even a little bit, you might not have a chance at recovering. Spot a McDonalds drive-through and pull into it. You realize you haven’t eaten since you got the news of his death four days ago.

THOMAS SALVANTI

15

MAN’S COUNTRY Joey Didonato

If we were real lesbians we’d be the prettiest lesbians here tomorrow i’m gonna try looking cute and sell myself to a very old man I am made to peck at your torso someone has to appreciate the rippling meat, two hardened sacs stretched tight and milky white ruffle feathers greasy blonde hair scruff your army haircut. Kiss each bicep because lord knows, she won’t do it

16

CAROLE VER EECKE

How dare you be fair before 11am with pit bull & stubble snow white among thugs with teardrop tattoos you passed, adjacent trains on the sidewalk look just long enough to wrap me in my winter coat readjust my girl jeans just for you, this morning I picked the pair you like, the flannel you find most flattering & I met you and then you went to work.

BETTER SEX AND GARDENS Margie Sarsfield

What do you know about our teeth rounded molars / no fluoride?

What do you know about

when the grocery stores are

when we will storm shelter.

Cilantro sliced thin for best humor.

All poems come from ground with pacific, atlantic, and dire sincerity.

No place paradise unless you can see it.

Broccoli raw for strength in movement.

I was in the way of many better-spirited shoppers.

I would not do yoga was my problem.

Peach crushed for endless compassion.

Everything temple, the sky a color, a big old town you grew up in and gluttony it’s such a such a gift.

Cashews creamed for fullness of touch

THOMAS SALVANTI

What do I want for you,

to go bubbling into the soil

feed the rabbits. No calves fatted

on corn but better sex and gardens,

more of which,

more of which,

more.

17

ALL ROADS LED TO EVERYWHERE Adam Gallo Unforgiving She is beautiful. A metal rod pushed through the bridge of her nose, between her grey-green eyes caught his attention. He wonders why she would do that to her face. He now feels old, and regrets soiling his image of her. He vows to fall in love with it when he talks to her, and then finishes his coffee praying he would see her again, and walks out into the spring air.

Blood Letting He wrote, If I only connect with the most miserable characters in stories what chance do I have of escaping their fate? He puts down his pen and tried to stare vacantly at the poorly patched wall.

Insatiable He wakes up and goes to the faucet. It opens, rushing to fill the glass. The water soaks and awakens his dried out insides. As the sun crests the building across the street, flooding the room with light. The water, this moment, will be the only thing he remembers to savor today.

Contact He saw her again. He was at a bookstore buying The Sun Also Rises and she came up to him and said it was his only good book. He tried to protest, but fell in love with the bar between her eyes. He said something he would never be sure of, but it worked, they stepped out and went to a café down the street. As they walked, she tripped on the curb and used him to catch herself. That touch he would never forget. That touch meant everything to him, and he swore he would remember that feeling forever. It was then he realized how much he loved the summer.

The Shakes His hands tremor became the all important matter. He stopped responding to his side of the conversation.

He stared at its pathetic trembling and searched for the meaning behind it. Maybe he was hungry? Or maybe having not been able to sleep has taken its toll? Or maybe it’s a tumor pressing up against his brain causing this ridiculous twitch? His thoughts consumed him. They consumed the world. He looked back up and forgot it in her eyes.

The Gift He stole her a vase. He could have bought it, but he felt the gesture meant more. He walked to the nice side of the park, where grass grew and the flowers didn’t choke on dirt. There he found what he was looking for.

He looked around before he acted. He was more cautious here than with the vase because he was desecrating the park. When he felt safe he knelt down and plucked seven of the most beautiful bleeding hearts of the bunch. Even if she didn’t understand it he knew she would love it. She would love it and she would love him.

Blood Letting If chemical reactions and DNA can explain all I’ve done, how can I be held responsible for anything? Is this the scientific age of predestination?

Leaching The water ran pink as it rushed over his knee. He noticed an acute sting that was far from real pain. He watched as the plasma circled the drain and wondered where he would go today, without ever having to leave his apartment.

18

ALL ROADS LED TO EVERYWHERE Adam Gallo Blood Letting At what point does changing yourself become straying from authenticity?

Exposed He sat on the couch and watched his reflection in the window. He stared until he became a stranger and then introduced himself. He stared until he saw the world that lay behind the strangers’ eyes. Expanding out under the fall sky were the lives unwritten, waiting for him to pay attention. He thought he saw a friend he met in Utah walking into one of the brown stones. It was impossible, his friend moved to California, though he had kept him prisoner in Utah. It was where he belonged, until now.

Guilty She bent over. He stared. He stared the whole time from his bed, knowing that he would not have the chance for much longer. As she straightened, he looked for an acknowledgment; she gave him none, and walked out.

Can my head let go what my arms can’t hold?

Blood Letting

Holy Place He passed a church. It looked abandoned against the unforgiving winter backdrop. When he got to the corner, he felt it. He spun round and ran back. There was time to spare, but there was a need to run. When he got to the stairs, he looked up to the stained glass forming a rose in full bloom. He didn’t get the symbolism.

He walked into the sanctuary. It was empty. He sat towards the middle of the room; unsure of what to do next he grabbed his notebook from his bag. A hand fell on his shoulder before he could do anything else. He looked up and met the weary gaze of the priest who asked if he wanted confession. He shook his head, and the priest, and his tired eyes, left dejected. The feeling was gone, never having made itself fully clear what it was.

What did we gain when we killed god?

Blood Letting

Lamentation He discovered that a rat was living in the cupboard under his sink. He called the exterminator and was immediately disgusted. He sat on his bed and struggled to believe how cold he was.

Can I really be the evil that’s inside of me?

Blood Letting

Detritus He turned the key. He heard one click and felt for the second that never came. He pushed through the door and walked out onto the sea of glass and paper that extended out from the window. He flipped the light switch and was greeted by sprinkles of refracted light reaching up from the ground. It was warm a greeting that fought the wind rushing in through the window. He looked to the place where his computer once was and admired the cleanness of its vacancy. He walked to the cabinet to comfort Tommy, and thought, if you were only a dog, and laughed. The only other thing they stole was a bottle of whiskey he kept to remind him of his father.

Is it wrong to miss what hurt so many?

Blood Letting

Solitaire He stares at the room. Studios have no place to run from yourself. His stomach rumbles, and he sits at the table and lights a cigarette. He picks up a deck of cards, making sure the king of hearts is at the bottom, then, he deals a hand of solitaire. He misses playing casino with her. She was the best winner. Smiling, and laughing, as she stacked and paired the cards, but never abusive. She always won. By the time he is done with the cigarette, there is nowhere to move. He curses, and put out his cigarette.

19

ALL ROADS LED TO EVERYWHERE Adam Gallo Bed Bugs He lay in bed. He had been there for hours only sitting up to reach for his cigarettes. He was comfortable, but restless. He had listened to the records in the player once through, and when they stopped, he simply replayed them. There was an energy in his legs that was dying to be used. They tingled, becoming pins and needles, as he lay as still as he could, determined not to let them win. He felt the spot where she used to be and imagined it being warm. He had lost track of days and could only guess how long it had been by the changing of seasons.

Redemption The rat kept scratching. He had not filled his trashcan in days and the rat, Tommy, kept scratching to get out. He was afraid Tommy might starve to death, and with the exterminator coming tomorrow he felt he should feed him. Even convicts get last meals he thought.

Dead Weight He is under prepared. He doesn’t know for what, but he knows it. She organized everything. His whole life pushed into drawers and cabinets, and he had no way of knowing which ones held what. He lost his life. He kept a small pocketknife. He knew where it was. This helped him feel prepared. He never used it. He remembers the exterminator never came and is thankful.

Blood Letting If we shed our skin every seven years, what makes us different from the snake?

A New Home In the morning, when he went to feed Tommy, Tommy tried to push past him. He shut the cupboard before he escaped, but the fear grabbed hold of him. He could lose him. He went to a pet store and bought a glass cage, a bag of wood chips, a small dish for food, a water bottle that connected to the top of the cage, and a hamster wheel, though the name didn’t inspire confidence that Tommy would like it. When he got back home he put a big glob of peanut butter in the dish, it was Tommy’s favorite he thought, and used it to coax him into the cage. He put it back under the sink after vacuuming out the cupboard. He felt Tommy would be happier in there.

Connection The phone was ringing when he opened the door. He rushed through the room quickly but silently as if he didn’t want the person to know he was in a rush. When he said hello his voice sounded choked. He hadn’t spoken since last night. The response came slowly, the voice was unsure, but then, it was hers. He tried to reach a place to sit down but his range was inhibited by the coiled wire connecting him to her. She wanted to know how he was doing, and he assured her he was fine, that he would be fine they didn’t say much though they were on the phone for a long time. He was amazed by how inconsequential what they spoke of was. He didn’t tell her about Tommy. He didn’t tell her a lot of things. But she told him something before she hung up, and that was that she loved him. When he put down the receiver, he noticed a man’s name that came up on the caller ID. Winter was always like this.

Blood Letting Why say you love someone, only to sleep next to another?

Moloch He awoke. The sounds had stopped. The smell was damning, and he knew what had happened. He approached the sink as if he was trying not to wake him up this early. The smell grew thick, and as he opened the door, he felt shamed by the truth. He buried him in the courtyard, ignoring his neighbors. He went back upstairs and sat against the cabinet and cried.

20

ALL ROADS LED TO EVERYWHERE Adam Gallo Atlas He held onto everything. The weight bore down on him, causing him to slouch. He never needed to say it was too much, he wore it, it was in his eyes. When he tried to ignore it was when it was the worst. He would try to focus on anything, forgetting everything for remarkable seconds. But then the weight would double, refusing to be ignored, for in those few seconds he may have been able to solve it but choose to distract himself instead. He was ashamed. He dared to think of a time when there was no weight, but was soon focused back on the emptiness of the room around him.

Blood Letting If ignorance leaves room for knowledge, why doesn’t loneliness leave room for anything else? Further more, if loneliness gives way to misery, then why would misery love company?

Respite She came back. His eyes watered and he waited for her to leave. He waited. She stood. He held back tears.

She held back a smile. She came and sat next to him on the couch. It was all he ever wanted.

Blood Letting What’s the appropriate thank you after so much borrowed time?

Prospect He woke up. She was still there. He smiled and went for a walk in the park. Spring had broken and the men were back playing dominoes by the benches next to the dirt soccer fields. Their charcoal hands laying bones in increasingly complex formations. He never played them, though he always wanted to. He watched as the neighborhood played soccer, the younger kids playing magnet ball. He smiled and the weight was gone. He tried not to notice, fearing it’s return, but he couldn’t help it. An energy took over him, or maybe it returned to him, he could not be sure.

Are the words we write our last connection to divinity?

Blood Letting

Molotov He stepped up the stairs of the subway and inhaled a cloud of dense smoke. A man’s shoulder checked him as he sprinted down the street. He glared at the man then turned back down the street. A car, double parked in the middle of the street, had fire shooting out from under its hood. He turned back to the running man who had already disappeared into the labyrinth of apartments and bodegas. He stood with his neighbors and watched as the firemen barreled down the street. He stood and watched as they ripped the whole front end of the car apart with the bright red axes he had loved as a child, before dousing the flames with the hose he had always wanted to use. His heartbeat slow, he walked with his eyes fixed on his window, there she slept, there he was better.

21

NO SUGAR Kate Conte

Mother’s music is March rain street crosser, dish washer grocery grip strips fingers bloodless ankles ache from overweight bills, put-down Picasso’s & late they-trieds— she treads walnut hard wood with 5th cup tea no sugar, just milk her nest, empty.

It was snowing, when home quieted It was snowing, when daughter said soon.

KATE CONTE

22

MARIGOLDS Max Feist Old habits die hard, unless they kill you first. Then they never really die at all. Sneaking out the back door of his own home at 3 AM, still in his faded slippers and dishrag of a bathrobe, Dan hobbles down the lonely street to Dunkin’ Donuts and buys two loose cigarettes from an ancient homeless lady who resembles Margaret Thatcher the morning after a bachelorette party—she smells even worse. Little coffee-bean pupils aggressively peer out from beneath eyelids that stopped blinking at least a decade before. Now they just lazily sag in a state of purgatory, somewhere between tolerant observance and complete indifference. Every now and then her yellow cracked tongue emerges from where teeth used to be and attacks the corner of her mouth, trying to dislodge a non-existent strand of hair.

Sitting next to her in a shopping cart are what’s left of her worldly possessions: a bag full of the spoils of Montreal’s garbage cans, a piece of material that looks like the remnants of a leather coat, a teddybear missing both its arms, a box of crayons, a pile of French newspapers, twenty-something empty cigarette packs, and a very intricately detailed Dia de Los Muertos mask—eye-sockets surrounded by dark red rings and stitches where its mouth should be—sitting right on top. Dan stares into its vacant eyes and, for a second, wonders why a homeless lady would need to carry a mirror around.

Dan sits on a plastic bench and smokes one of the cigarettes with Margaret, listening to her complain about the rising price of tobacco, “Tabarnac, the goddamn Liberals keep adding taxes to pay for their summer homes. What are we supposed to do when a pack of DuMauriers costs thirteen dollars, smoke Bally Shag? Fuck off. Cartier sends his family on vacation to Bali and we get the life sucked out of us. C’est injuste, non?” Dan nods in agreement before violently hacking out a loogie the color of a fermented potato, it tastes like a rusty chain-link fence. He gives the lady an extra 75 cents to compensate for the goddamn Liberals and is on his way.

As he trundles back through the hushed streets, Dan lights the second smoke but makes sure to only inhale every second puff, although he knows it’s pointless. The wind picks up and easily whips through one of the many hash-burns in his cheap robe, sending a chill up his medically violated colon, through gridlocked intestines, past the cavity where his rotten lung used to reside, into viscous poisoned sludge flowing along brittle veins, and finally settling in a slightly concave area of his prefrontal cortex where it condenses into a dense milky vapor. It sits there like a grade-school science experiment, cooking his brain. The sensation reminds him of that celebrity chef who cold-fries chicken with liquid nitrogen. Could Dan charge $150 a plate too? It probably doesn’t taste as good.

It is while seriously contemplating the value of his brain that Dan sees them—some flowers lying next to the sidewalk in a pile of dirt. A group of neighborhood ruffians must have come along and ripped them out of their planter in a fit of adolescent angst. The overpriced DuMaurier still burning in his hand, Dan bends down to investigate. Marigolds. Two of them are a soothing yellow and the third a striking orange. Their layered petals remind him of the decorative ruffles on a flamenco dancer’s dress. Except there are no dancers, just three empty dresses on a concrete dance floor surrounded by dirt and neglect. As soon as he realizes this, Dan chucks what’s left of his half-inhaled cigarette and gingerly scoops up the marigolds, taking care to keep their roots intact.

The only habit Dan had ever loved more than smoking was gardening—the feel of wet grainy clumps of earth between his fingers while he cultivates life in an aesthetically pleasing way. Bringing order and peace to an otherwise arbitrary existence. This obsession had put a slight strain on his marriage, at least his wife thought so. But over the years he came to realize why sin couldn’t possibly have existed in the Garden of Eden, it was just too goddamn beautiful. The sweet aroma of the flowers flirt with Dan’s nose and make him excited, giddy. Like a prospector holding an armful of gold dust with no container to put it in, Dan nearly trips over his slippers as he briskly shuffles towards home, trying his hardest not to let the fragile roots dislodge from their dirt clumps.

Suddenly Dan begins to hear a faint cry. He turns to glance behind him but the street is deserted.

Barely audible at first, it begins to grow louder, escalating into a high-pitched squeal of anguish. Looking down, Dan realizes that it’s coming from the earthy mess in his arms. Trembling, the flowers gasp for carbon

23

MARIGOLDS Max Feist dioxide and desperately cling to whatever nutrients remain in the soil. His giddiness soon turns to panic and he quickens his pace, frantically stumbling along the sidewalk. The knot holding his bathrobe together comes loose and the material falls open, exposing a gnarly pink scar running from the middle of his sternum to just above his gut. It cuts a perfect line across the desert of his leathery aged flesh.

Dan doesn’t notice this sudden exposure. His only focus is the dying chaos cradled in his embrace.

He races past the liquor store, the depanneur, the corner where he smoked his first joint, and onto his street.

Dan had never realized how long the block actually is. It taunts him, growing infinitely longer with every frail step. Finally he reaches the blue porch of his home and crashes through the side gates to the backyard.

In the moonlight, Dan’s garden resembles a neglected temple; an ancient mausoleum overgrown with vines and nettles where bearded pagans gather on the equinox to worship. The air is heavy with ritual and smells of sacrifice. Almost instantly, Dan lunges for the nearest empty patch of dirt, between some wilted ferns and a broken footlight. He carefully places his wounded family on the ground and dashes to the toolshed to grab a spade. He returns to the fading flowers and attacks the soil. There is a loud clang as the metal blade hits the ground and grinds against the stubborn earth, but the shovel cannot break the soil. Dan swears and throws the useless tool aside, instead going at it with his hands. He desperately claws at the ground with his yellow fingernails, scratching and scraping until they start to bleed and chip away, but the surface remains intact. Sweat begins to trickle down his face and he curses the frozen Canadian winter, even though it’s the middle of August.

The cries of the suffocating flowers become unbearable. They resonate through the mausoleum, sending ripples along the pool of mist caressing Dan’s brain. The helpless agony becomes too much to bear and he echoes their screams. Breaking down in desperation, Dan weeps like he actually has something to lose. The hollowed-out shell of his body buckles to the frigid ground and shudders uncontrollably as salty tears sting his dry cracked cheeks. Dan lets out a raw and vicious howl as the wails of the marigolds burst his eardrums, puncture his diaphragm, and whittle away what’s left of his heart.

The next morning Robby wakes to find his father sleeping on the lower section of his bunk bed. He’s on top of the covers, naked, and filthy. His hands and legs are bloody and covered in dirt, and the fresh scar on his chest seems to emit a faint pinkish glow in the gentle light streaming through the curtains. Robby checks to make sure his dad is breathing and quietly heads downstairs to the kitchen. Lying on the table is a bathrobe carefully wrapped around something, like the Shroud of Turin. Robby opens it to find some tiredlooking flowers in a pile of loose soil. Not wanting his dad to get in trouble for bringing a package of dirt into the house, Robby takes the bundle and goes out the back door to throw it in the compost.

While returning to the house, he notices a giant mound of earth in the corner of the garden. He goes over to investigate and finds a hole twice the size of his own head. Robby sighs and grabs the shovel sitting a few feet away. Dropping to his knees, he shovels the dirt back in, carefully packs it down, and goes inside.

CAROLE VER EECKE

24

SONNET FOR THE BENEFIT OF SEEING George del Valle You somehow make an art out of what I never indicate. You lay it on the table To dry, & when chances like these are calcinated Who priests the departing vapors? I can’t see it I give my eyes the benefit of sight & I Can hold my visage underwater longer Than any other muddled urtext (or rabbit?). Note, The Italian word for fear is paura, & it sounds pretty, so I’ll use it: I paura a single glance on multiple loci, for focus.

I paura the sun at its chronic limit. I paura math.

I paura the little rooms that house the cinder condensers—oh

may you spot in my failures splendor of the furnished.

Let’s hope we catch the rabbits have a gambol in the mire. & night is a homunculus: It’s then that we grow/loosen paura in mirrors/are ourselves like nothing else.

CAROLE VER EECKE

25

PSYCHIC CONNECTIONS- w4m Keith Baldwin

Prices announced on a corner Sandwich board.

I eat Because the service I offer is More value than getting serviced. $5 for bad news. $10 For good—even the oldest Professional aches to be taken By the hand. Told what he is too Timid to tell himself.

But you walk in Perfect ease. And you Know who you are The smell of old money Wherever you go I Follow Your eyes—sideways glances meeting In the middle smoldering Incense burns low on the table You plop down in the plush Chair where suckers will Sit and listen as I say all The nothing that comes to my lips: “You know who you are” And I can read—what the tea Leaves on your breath Will say—what a palm Knows from the breeze Of a missed high-five. But You know who you are

26

KATE CONTE

YES Karina Chaikhoutdinov Here lies the problem: I sometimes stand on the street corner playing my guitar. It’s not the standing on the street corner or that I have my guitar, it’s everything that happens while I’m on the street corner playing my guitar. Actually, not even playing. It’s more like holding. Because I can’t actually play, you see. I just hold it like I can and mime the notes. No sound comes out because there aren’t any strings, but I pretend like there are by swaying to music that I hear in my head. No headphones, no radio, just me and my stringless guitar.

People think I’m crazy at first. But I’m not crazy, no. They pass by and look at me funny as I move my hips back and forth and wiggle my fingers against invisible strings. But I’m not discouraged, as I play on in my own world. Soon, a crowd does form and people seem to mimic my moves. Not my guitar playing - because unless there happens to be a passing-by musician, nobody’s holding a guitar on a regular day, which would be crazy - but by my oh-so-incredible dance skills, or, rather, swaying skills. They bob back and forth, to and fro, tap their feet, their toes, their fingers. I smile, they smile. I wink, they wink. It’s all good fun, I swear. So, you may ask, “What’s the problem?” Well, I’ll tell you. The problem is the money. People give me money. Can you believe that?! I don’t ask for it. There is no sign that states, “Spare a Dime,” or “Feed a Starving Artist.” It’s just my open guitar case. Maybe that’s the problem. Maybe I just need to close my guitar case. But I tried that. Once. A semi-circle formed and some blatant individual came up close enough to open that guitar case to put in some of his money. Or at least I hope it was his money. Because it would be crazy if it wasn’t. And people followed! The nerve! I didn’t invite them. Oh, no. So, here lies the problem, and I don’t know what to do. Maybe I should have a sign that states, “Let me be.” But, then, people will think I’m crazy, and I don’t want that. I’m not crazy. I just don’t know how to play the guitar. (Smiles.)

ADDY WITHERSPOON

27

WHAT I’D HOPED, PT II Margie Sarsfield There is a sort of mushroom that controls ants’ brains. After ingestion the ant does what the mushroom wants it to do, which is to die. Some ants park themselves in cold high places and so freeze to death. Then a mushroom grows out from inside the ant, a mushroom grows out of the ant’s head, this can also happen with butterflies, a mushroom grows out of the butterfly’s head, this can also happen to any insect that eats the first mushroom, another mushroom grows out of their heads, and scientists find them and report back.

I recently was crying in the Wal-Mart at the mall, and I cried all the way through freezer-burned microwave dinners and dented cans of pineapples and bins of five-dollar movies and rollback’d prices on digital picture frames. I cried harder out into the mall proper, past the screen-printing kiosk and the Hot Topic and the poster store 75% off MSRP and the faux-native leather goods emporium full of cowhide vests and little drums with wolves painted on them. I cried buying tampons at the Everything a Dollar and while contemplating little marble dragons. It was awful to wipe away tears and order from Aunt Annie’s. It was something to see me weeping openly at the koi pond.

Which is when I thought about the ants overwhelmed by mushroom, the fungi not plant nor animal, mushroom-made bandages healing human skin, thousand-year-old mushrooms, mushrooms sprouting under Perseus’ cap, mushroom beards on the beech trees, the mushrooms blooming in moonlight, fed by moonlight, fed by ants’ brains, glowing honey mushrooms in nova scotia, ants’ brains being something substantial enough to be controlled, butterfly brains coursing through the hyphae, mushrooms feeding ghost orchids, the root network of mushrooms extending miles under forests in California, mushrooms as immunomodulators, deer tripping on Amanita muscaria, Devil’s Cigar mushrooms whistling outward on mountains, new mushroom species sure to exist and be discovered in the future growing like gonads from mice and plant detritus, future mushrooms waiting in future worlds to have scientists find them and report back.

VICTORIYA LEVKOVSKAYA

28

DREAMING VIGNETTES Judy Zhong

After Poetry on Tuesdays, lay on a bed unmade with shoes still on, breathe in the wind from the sea.

Allow the white lace curtains Caress the curves of dreams.

Moving like white clouds On a cool spring day, Dream vignettes of pastels, the sound of a distant foghorn the smell of burning incense the touch of clean paper the stain of ink After Poetry on Tuesdays.

CHARLY HIMMEL

29

STOLEN CHRYSLER LEBARON BLUES Charly Himmel know both openings and digital dash entirely spacious

lot camera caught

a lot louder than lawyers.

a poor man’s chicken dinner, leather coins for candy and

angry when quiet. slowly loosened her belt, reached down deep stopped up inside covens— I could rebuild you now I’m sorry. found a mixtape lodged in her throat when I gave her the treatment. found a maggot-eaten dog biscuit in the folds beneath her seat.

where electric vestigial poison hemlock grew past second position. behind the cascade we ate brass knuckle breakfast, fart high-fived saved joint roaches drummed out tempers and

tempered glass

without special permission.

KATE CONTE

30

JESSIE SIOBAHN

JESSIE SIOBAHN

ETHAN BARNETT

CAROLE VER EECKE

VICTORIYA LEVKOVSKAYA

EMMA ROCK

KEITH BALDWIN

ADDY WITHERSPOON

REBECCA NAJJAR

ADDY WITHERSPOON

ADDY WITHERSPOON

KARINA CHAIKHOUTDINOV

JESSIE SIOBAHN

MY HEART CAN’T COMPARE Celia Vargas It was a red fist-sized turd of gristle surrounded in toenail-yellow veins. A heart in a jar is the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen. I dated a girl who kept a heart in a jar. It wasn’t her own. It was a heart though and she did own it. And so, it was her heart. It was right on top of her nightstand, and I swear at night I could hear it beat. She joked that it belonged to an ex who cheated. That was the joke. But one of her exes did give it to her. He worked in a lab or something.

The first time I saw it was after we fucked for the first time. She was softly biting my collarbone and I was looking around her room. I like to do that when I’m in a girl’s room, just look around. Really, I need to make sure I have the exits checked and set. I was establishing all the usual dull porcelain dolls, posters of disproportional dots, and then right next to me is the jar. I stand up, and feel her hands pushing my chest back down.

“Where are you going?” She was making her voice soft, but I could hear the fear.

“Nowhere. I—what is that?” I grabbed her waist and pointed with my chin toward the jar. She smiled, and it was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

“It’s sort of well I wait until, no. It’s weird.” She loosened away from me and pulled her knees to her chest. I felt my morbid curiosity conquering my panicky nerves.

“If you’re worried I’m going to leave then don’t. I’m naked. Also, not to brag, but I’m not like other guys.” That’s not true; I’m just like every other guy that likes to brag.

“Yeah? Okay, then it’s my very own heart in a jar.” I was waiting for her to continue, but what I really wanted was to see that smile again.

“For serious?”

“For serious. It was a gift.” She looked expectant playful; I could almost see the joke playing with the corners of her mouth. I had no clue what to say or do. I started to panic some. I started to shift, and she didn’t hold me back this time. She was tearing up. I could see her cheeks getting all twitchy and tight. This is the kind of shit I really hate.

“My ex’s heart is in that jar. He was my heart, first love and all the works. We split cause we distracted each other. I wanted him to be better.” She said this quiet, quiet and dazed. But, that smile. It was gnawing at me. Before I could stop, my hand started stroking her hair. I don’t know where that came from. It’s not a thing I do.

“Are you comforting me?”

“Well, who else would be?” I got irritated with her question, and got up from the bed. I huffed real loud so she would hear too. I caught a glimpse of her clutching her sheet; the design on it was thorns. I could play this game a little longer, the good relationship game. I will play my game, get regular sex and she’ll get some comfort. Girls love comfort. ***

It was going great. Seriously, three months and it was going great. I don’t know why I was counting. I never had a relationship with a girl that lasted more than three screws and one phone call. Not counting the 9th grade summer romance with Ola Rich, but I was fourteen. Fourteen doesn’t count. Actually it does, Ola Rich wore snug pink dresses and had beautiful paper white teeth; I brought her wood lilies and Swedish fish.

It was easy and free. After that though nothing else counted except for this, this new girl with the clear smile that had a heart in a jar. I was out of my mind.

I was out of my mind and taking the rush hour train with bundled arms of forget-me-nots. In order to get to her place I had to take the train, and I severely disliked the train. It got too personal. People’s knees touching and silent glances are the fastest way to put me on edge. But I would put up with it. I needed to see her smile.

Most afternoons she would be freshly out of the shower, and scribbling perfect knotted letters on documents. She worked as a temp secretary in a dentist’s office, she said she hated teeth, but loved to hear how people made them rotten. Her penmanship was immaculate, and her hands were slim and perfectly manicured. I probably wouldn’t keep them in a jar though. They would probably shrivel and become too thin, they would lose their grace. The jar has to preserve the grace.

39

MY HEART CAN’T COMPARE Celia Vargas

It was winter and we made love on her couch because her room was too cold. Her wet hair would damp the wool cushions, but I wouldn’t mind that. Her hands would roam my body and that made it all right. It was. It really was all right, until I saw the heart on top of the coffee table.

“Why’d you take it out of your room?”

“It?” Her cheeks were strawberry colored and tired.

“The heart. Why did you take it out?” I moved up and woke her up. She pouted and then stood up, walking away into the bathroom. All the time it was there. When we moved into the living room, I thought the silent stalking would stop. She kept dragging it out though it was her fault. I should have left.

I stayed because she made great macaroni and cheese. Also the sex was great. She was great, except that heart. I would wash my hair twice when I was staying the night. I didn’t want her to see the dandruffs.

She has soft bouncy clean hair. Sometimes while she slept I would smell it, just take a silent long drag of the faint apple-berry scent. I know it’s creepy, but she has a fucking human heart in a jar. I don’t love her fully because of that heart. I curse the bastard that gave it to her: he wins. You win.

“Listen, I really need to move from temp to perm. Let’s take a couple of days.” She came out wrapped in a brown towel.

“A permanent secretary?” I thought of her luscious hair permanently tied back into what would look like a whole-wheat bagel. Round and stiff.

“Yes, a permanent. I’m thinking of moving out getting a bigger place. A place with a radiator in my room.”

“You still didn’t answer me.”

“Oh, well it’s cold in the room.”

“That doesn’t make sense, it’s just a thing, it can’t feel it.” My voiced sounded hoarse. I didn’t want to get mad; she would cry again, and I really hate that crying shit.

“Whatever, I can move things. It’s my apartment. Done.” She was getting touchy again. I sucked my teeth and I knew she heard. It was pushing it.

“Yeah. Just give me a call later or something, like I said, I need to do work.” This was her way of kicking me out. Fine, I wouldn’t stay then. The saddest part was that I washed my hair, and came on the train just to see her smile. She didn’t even smile that time. ***

I had not heard from her in three days. It made me nervous, and when I got nervous I thought of the heart. Who can compete against a thing like that?

I went to her place after I got my nerves to settle.

“I realized that everyone on the train hated me. Oh, and that you love that heart more than me.” As I said this I took a drink from her cup of juice. Her small lips were opened like a bad slit and her face looked sick.

“What did you just say?” She asked calmly and with doubtful eyes.

“You heard right. I know you have perfect ears so you heard me.”

“You are pretty much crazy. I hope you know that, sometimes you are crazy.” She said this with eyebrows raised, and her forehead a map road of wrinkles.

“I’m not though, really. It was the way they stared at me. And you take that thing everywhere, and when you look at it. You stare at it like you should be staring at me. Really, you know.”

“I don’t—”

“No, you do know!” I put my hands above my head and proclaimed it so.

“Babe, please…”

“Yeah you would try to shut me up. I just really need to know why you don’t treat me the same as…”

“I want you to stop.” She stood up and took the glass of juice with her.

“Just tell me why then!” She dropped the glass in the sink. It didn’t break. Then she looked at me, and it was the mom look.

40

MY HEART CAN’T COMPARE Celia Vargas

“Why are you mom-looking at me? I didn’t want the rest of that juice anyways.” That’s not true; I did want the rest of that juice. I always ate all my food. That was important to me. She walked away from me and into the living room. I clutched my bag tight, and realized that I had just barged into her apartment. I was uncomfortable. I followed after her. She was sitting on the couch looking out the window.

“You don’t care.” I said this and she looked surprised for a second. Then she turned her head back to the window. She could lose me any second, and her eyes are staring out the window at her planted daisies. She made believed she cared, with her body turned to me, but her eyes elsewhere.

The truth is I loved those eyes. If I had them in a jar I would probably stare at them until I stopped breathing. Until I stopped beating. They would still be looking elsewhere I bet.

“Well, all right. Leave!” She stood up and yelled at me, her eyes burning coals. I made up my mind at that moment that I would take her heart with me. In three quick steps I was in her room.

“What the!” I heard her from the living room, and I kept working towards the heart. I held the jar in my hands and it felt warm. I could hear and feel the thumping it made against the glass while it sloshed around in the red water. I held the jar in my hands and from my perspective the floor and the jar were at the same level. It would be easy to drop it. To break it. She stood in the doorway and tears streaked down her tight-jawed face. It was tight, real tight.

“You’re a fucking fever, you know. Seriously.” She put her hands on her head, despair written on her sleeves. That’s when I won big time. You’ve won if you hit the part that makes them cry. That’s all I wanted though, from the very first fuck, I wanted to win. To win and have her feel for me, want for me.

I dropped the jar on top of her bedspread full of thorns. I started to walk out.

“I’m sorry.”

“Good.” She whispered.

THOMAS SALVANTI

41

NICE GUYS FINISH LAST Kevin Anglade I understand what those boys have really done to you Make no mistake, I’m a man Which means I’d care for you I pick you up, rebuild you Embrace you in a hug I contemplate on how I feel You say you want a thug So should I smack you up?

And jack you up?

Now do I seem badder?

So this what our women want It makes me even sadder You say he’s inconsiderate Therefore, he’s left you bitter You’re still not over him Yes I know, you follow him on twitter But in a world that orbits quick Males are there and vast Men like me?

We’ll never win Cause nice guys finish last

KEITH BALDWIN

42

NEW PL. Joey Didonato

confessions on the crusty bronx half-foyer. your friend has a friend, the whole time you’re pointing sending digital hearts at me always first to accompany outside. you are alone aloof, you are not a smoker.

I ask does anyone—

you just have to get your coat

bum a camel light from someone in the kitchen

ask amy for one of those Hunter

S. Thompson filters. sounds like they’re laughing at you, thru the thin plaster wall, thru the boroughs, the bronx—stopping at Fordham, Botanical Gardens, William’s Bridge, Woodlawn, Wakefield—they’re still laughing.

I can’t feel anything, Rob, I can’t feel anything, Uncle Jesse. I can’t feel my feelings, it feels like ice cubes behind my eye balls tears at the back of my nose, a hypnic spasm I could wipe away. I would not, cannot say.

I want to get angry about nothing, make you carry

me across the park at 72nd tell me

I’m pretty, I’m dirty, I’m nothing

a rosy hole, pony for hire And you left because I was being crude again

was it because I said sucked his dick

you always leave it at

embarrassing. Embarrassing myself

for you.

KATE CONTE

43

RUSS Kate Conte Puddle bath for 20 black birds outside rakes & hocks Auto he’s got roadmap arms, says where he’s been born to run, Bruce understood meat & potatoes, Bud heavy, ass lash stools blue collar, no caller nights she’s a bar fly uses her gin & grin to suck up ghosts fails every 3am like most holed up in a 2 room box car 2,3 miles from where whistle pig means ground hog, skies set tangerine & boys spit pits behind wheat totems he rags his grease hands, slip tongue through jean loop her grass eyes, green days wonder where the hell he’s been his arms aren’t enough I stopped to think and thought of you, he said don’t talk about things that die, she said.

KATE CONTE

44

ATLANTIC CITY Edward Kearns

Some sick sonofabitch decapitated the guy next to him on a Greyhound to Winnipeg. Couldn’t help himself. It’s in the paper beside my bloody mary this morning. I try and ignore the news, but everyone gets distracted. Guess he wore sunglasses, upped the ante and ate the eyes. Bet he plays poker. Me, I stay away from cards. It’s too hard to keep a straight face.

Most the day I sit at the bar playing twenty-five cent touch-screen slot machines and smoking. I remember Dad’s asscrack like a plumber’s on the stool, so I mind mine. When I’m ready, I move to the wheel.

I grew up in the Catskills. My old man couldn’t farm, so when Pappy died he sold the land to buy a truck. After each month’s haul, we drove to Atlantic City. Took us five hours, then I ruled the arcades as the king of air hockey, proud to kick the ass of every older kid and drunk who came my way. No matter what time we pulled in, Mom handed me a cup of quarters as she headed to the slots, ash on her blouse, lipstick thick.

Dad went straight to the bar.

I’ve seen every city on the east coast and worked in close to half. I can’t stand tight places, so whenever I finish a job I get the hell out of town and drive – always through Caeser’s to try and win enough to take me as far away as possible – then, strungout and broke, I head back to find work in some place I’ve left behind.

Since Rodney’s in Newark for the holiday, he set me up with this guy – said his shit’s just as good. By eight, I should be on the floor. I’m trying to be patient, so when he’s ten minutes late, I switch to Jack and Coke.

Three pros hustle across the bar, spread out like a buffet with their tits glittered. I watch one rub up on the guy opposite me. Another follows. They’ve got him on both sides, as the big black girl in the tight white dress smiles my way.

I hear my name and turn around.

“Wonderful!” Rubbing his hand across my back, a greasy fag in a small suit hides his teeth and sits beside me.

My eyes shoot from my drink to the holes in his face. “You know Rodney?”

“Course I do,” he closes his legs. “How much you want?”

I tell him a hundred. He says a buck twenty.

“What can I get you?” Interrupting, the bartender eyes us.

“Gimme a Red Bull, handsome.”

I order another Jack and Coke and push, “A buck twenty? Rodney—” “Rodney’s in Newark,” he winks, “but you don’t have to pay in cash.”

I pull out six twenties and put them on the bar between us.

He takes the money, fusses in his pockets until our drinks arrive, then sets his hand on my thigh.

“Thanks for the cock juice, baby.”

“Look,” shooting up, a baggie falls from my lap as he walks away, blowing a kiss. He’s lucky it’s early.

Dad took me out in the tractor on his lap one day when I was six. It just rained, so the air was thick.

Mom was away at a friend’s. She stayed there while Pappy died.

When we hit the treeline, Dad turned us around and killed the engine. Facing our sheep at pasture, he lifted me off his lap and sat me beside him. We could still hear Pappy screaming in the distance.

“I grew up in that house, Squirt.” He lit a cigarette, sat back and smoked.

From where I sat I could see my bedroom window over the patch of dirt worn down by years of playing catch.

“So did I.”

I remember him laughing, taking a drag and telling me how when he was my age his old man took him out like this and taught him how to drive a tractor.

“But I’m not gonna do that.” Staring at a lamb chewing in the dusk, he said, “Don’t tell your mother, but I’m no farmer. And neither are you.”

45

ATLANTIC CITY Edward Kearns

I’m at home at the wheel. The sound of the ball, straight up double zeros, splits, trios, streets and corners­—everything sings. Two bumps in the bathroom and I find my way to an open table, settle in and stack-up nice on five spins. Good bets. Came straight in. Sometimes I ease my way, but not tonight. I’m throwing chips left and right and hitting ‘em all. It’s unbelievable.

We made our first trip two months after Pappy died. Since Dad was hardly home, he and Mom got along better out here. We all did. I’ll never forget picking up her cigarette butts around the house, crusted with more lipstick than she ever kissed off on me. Twelve years later, Dad and I drove out the day after we put her in the ground. Stayed in the room mostly, drinking over lessons of craps and roulette. His games, he called ‘em.

“So the trick is, you wanna ease your way in – watch where things are fallin – then bet off that. You understand?”

He was drawing on a napkin and I could hardly make it out.

“How do you know where it’s gonna land next?”

He never taught me on the wheel. A heart attack dropped him six months later. Dug a helluva hole in his last stretch and the bank took more.

I hit the road after that, looking for work. No matter what, someone always needs a hand with something.

I spot the big girl from earlier when the waitress brings my scotch and water. Catching me staring, she squeezes between me and the guy to my left.

“Hey lucky,” she leans in. “Want some company?”

I’d love some.

As she speaks I watch her tits spill a double-chin up her throat I wanna drown in. The dealer asks my bet. I have to focus. $500. Straight up 27.

She presses against me, it hits, and with her tongue in my ear, she puts my hand up her dress. I cash out, upgrade to a penthouse suite and order two bottles of Cristal.

Upstairs she’s rabid after three bumps off my cock. Nonstop, I fuck her folds with the lights on for an hour and a half before Mommy tucks me in.

“Hey baby.” Stroking my dick, she whispers, “Want me t’stick around?”

“No.” I pay her twelve hundred dollars and watch her fat ass bend over for her dress on the floor.

Still up six grand, I finally feel relaxed. But I can’t sleep, so instead of risking my drunk luck at a table, I feed a twenty into a coin machine and fill my quarter cup.

Through the window of the restaurant across the hall I watch a family of five wash their hands with small towels the server gives them in tongs. They’re overdressed, laughing at the little boy hiding behind his.

Truth is, I have a problem. It’s not the drink or the drugs or the wheel – it’s them.

First thing I do is pick up a gun and start hunting. Donkey Kong, Pac-Man, Pong – place never changes. Fifty cents in I make the top ten, enter my initials SOS, then hear the puck smack plastic and round the corner.

“What the fuck, bitch? You hustlin’ me?” Some pimple-faced punk with his hat on sideways drills a skinny kid across the room.

“That’s three in a row,” Skinny’s voice cracks. “Pay up.”

“Fuck you,” Pimples shoves him into the Coke machine. His buddies laugh.

I’m thirsty, so I walk over and they scatter, all but Skinny by his table. Opening a root beer, I pick up my mallet. “Five bucks says I got you, kid. Two out of three.”

46

PROLAPSE OF THE HEART Megan Hanson the heart’s not real I think sometimes. a figment of sonnets and odes falsetto lyrics and electric jazz a pulsar of good good good vibrations knocking the cage that protects this chest. there must only exist a shallow pool drowning while laureling the ribs (whose handsome claws refer me back to the heart) like dirty dish water sluicing and cresting in temperament. the chest is but a closed current – or even shallower - suffering particle impurity, carrying all those suggestions of grace in the drops of abuse and use and the cyclical craving for more use, bone-rattling (a claim made by the ribs). it’s gruesome and I’m tired of whatever goes on within the body, which is not my realm, this thick skin of the soul (on which don’t get me started) and so the heart is a figment a figurine, a forget-me-not, a filament, a phrase, a phase a feckless attempt to be moving by which I mean in love.

ARIELLA SHAPIRO

47

THE YICHUD ROOM Ariella Shapiro

We do not touch the way other people touch on their wedding night, and so we are led to the yichud room, and we must step over a silver spoon on the carpet, before the door is shut behind us, and we are alone. We know the witnesses will be waiting, and they will be watching the minutes so we will not linger too long in the room, and we can hear them laughing softly beyond the door.

Witness One has several children and was married a few years ago in the hall beneath the yeshiva, where we both danced when we were still children, before either of us knew of the other. Witness Two was married earlier this year and the shadchan who acquainted him with his wife also made our shiduch, and our parents still have not told us how much they paid him for our names.

Witness Two has red hair and almost no beard, and he has warned us we will have seven minutes in the yichud room. There is no bed but there is a table with water, fruit, and tea biscuits for us to break our fast, and there is a long sofa of pale yellow leather, and we sit on it together and drink.

It is the first time we have sat on the same piece of furniture, and our bodies are close enough for our elbows to touch. Our shoulders meet, and white beads rub against silk in the silent room. Later, we will talk and try to remember how the kiss began, but we will only remember how it ended with a hug and our faces pressed side by side and how we smelled each other for the first time. Perhaps it was you, or perhaps it was not. And perhaps it does not matter, and we will have hugged so many times, at the beginning and end of a day, that hugs will not be something we think about anymore. And we will be like everyone else who has touched and been touched, the ones we see in the streets and on trains, holding hands, only we will never hold hands in places others can see.

Sounds return. Witness One and Witness Two are fisting the door, and they shout that the minutes have ended and we must come out and join the party.

We do not unlock the door and we do not leave the room. We remain, still touching the tips of fingers, until the witnesses send for our mothers and it is over.

KATE CONTE

48

WINDOW VIEW Shayne McGregor All neighborhoods are kingdoms, owners of the street corners Old men light cigars on stoops, masters of the street corners Four or five lined up against a church wall, silver bracelets binding A young woman screams. Police say there is no minister of the street corner Sirens, alarms, and howns wiz by. Sound waves vibrating moored buildings Sound that won’t leave your ear. Tourists call them the composers of the street corner One speaks among many. The usual type. The drunk who speaks openly The chicken as well. From day to night. Wise men call them the jesters of the street corner And I, Shayne, have seen many places. Places that embody all from the innocent to the ignorant.

From my window I see. Young kids. The retainers of the street corner.

KEITH BALDWIN

49

DAY OF REST Sarah Kann

Bastards in the dark and my mother is disappointed I haven’t brought back the challah She never asked me to buy.

What will we eat now, Other than each other?

I bought instead 10 pounds of carrots That can crunch loudly and stick up my nose.

I wont make the potatoes I wont make the chicken The heat is never on in this house I lie in cocoon of blanket and leg In the morning I wake up Pretzled on myself Ache the next day For lack of warmth.

My father says do jumping jacks, He’s happy enough with the carrots.

Wimper me my nerves And tell me that the cleaning lady Is a waste.

There is always dust where Disinterest accumulates.

Bug me my mind And yell invasion.

My eyes are tattooed in your image The world comes to me In filter of your form.

Give the me that is not you A chance.

“Why don’t you come home more often?”

Because I can’t.

THOMAS SALVANTI

50

UNTITLED FILM STILL 58 Josane Cumandala

As if she were the type There is a fatigue in knowing To stare at the sun without squinting, or That we are going to end up right where we are now, Crash and burn off some horrible drug Which coincidentally is where we have already been.

Without breaking too much sweat, her eyes resist you.

––All this suggested in the slope of her shoulders.

Disgust or resistance in non-engagement.

Also, according to Bergson, Her face is locked onto what we cannot reach.

“If matter does not remember the past, Her scarf trails loosely in the breeze being blocked It is because it repeats the past unceasingly.” by barred windows. Every window is also a mirror.

What of this photograph, a literal rendition of something Note the implications–self as other. Other as self. past?

Disguised as herself, she becomes everyone, Philosophical pipe-dreams make me laugh.

Which might have been her intention.

And so memory and time are devised To extract identity, we must create a fiction.

Only to validate the spirit’s doomed will to action I devise a tale in which this image is a deliberate study (More Bergson, I’m paraphrasing poorly) Of a displaced saint. Her profile overpowers the I say doomed because physical machines have physical limits, Brick walls by contrast, lending to the subject The center does not, cannot, hold, An exaggerated sense of grandeur. And the omissions must The snake sheds its skin, as soul changes clothes. not be accidents Returning to our subject, (I have read Marilyn Moore) What was the time of day, Note how she will not begrudge even a trace of a smile.

Who were her ancestors, and what bitter pill Examine, quantify, annotate.

Did she swallow this morning to make such a face?

The nautilus of an ear riveted by the camera, None of this matters. All we have to work with is her and Her mouth mute–– I will fill it: that wall.

“Fear nothing of the future or the past” Note the curvature of the eyebrow, the angle of the jawline. Writes H.D. in her illumined language I’ll come back to that. Maybe.

Half-whispered, half-echoed in her stance, that All due consideration fails to negate She is not afraid of us, does not love or loathe or scream or dream.

That the moment frozen before us was staged That is for us.

But still a testimony to a piece of the past.

We the animate write through the amalgamating present, Bergson speculates that spirit incarnates to affect matter Every follicle of hair, ever column of bone So does is matter’s function to bind soul to flesh?

Is well within the means of memory to preserve, Each moment propelled through infinity Amounting to a dynamic immortality of sorts.

Through what ambiguous means if not desire?

A photograph might allow her arresting countenance to The result being that we gravitate towards action, entropy. Dwell half in light forever...

Something happens because something must happen.

Let her timelessness persist.

We, the infinitely bored, become the movers and the shakers, Better for us that time dig its trenches in our skin, But what about her? Compressed into one dimension, Let every moment leave its mark.

Can she reveal to us any more Someday, far on the horizon, Than the movement of wind through brief tufts of hair?

When our spines wilt with osteoporosis, Whatever she knows she isn’t telling And our lungs are well-charred black But if she perceives as I do, And our eyes turn misty with cataracts The past-present interlace But are still able to make out certain pictures– Forming our collective legacy through a sequence –Perhaps frayed and disintegrating– as we are Of interconnected rings, then (in theory) Under the onslaught of time’s arrow, We are also elsewhere occurring, and equally ignorant.

We will laugh in the luxury of our years Then maybe it is ennui her eyes are hiding.

And we will be long beyond insisting her paltry recognition.

51

FROM THUNDERHEAD PEAK Joseph Wade Valleys dip and darken, mountains curl, gnarl and rise, dive down. Wind blows puffs of dandelion to Eastern peaking Sun between parted emerald slopes—the magic-hour erupts in brass

beaks of Wood Thrushes.

The rock and root-strewn path [otches down to black, but life waits for you here, wants to see your lips part, watch the sun-touched name

move between them.

52

KEITH BALDWIN

HOLY DAY Charly Himmel Now there are Caribbean men outside my window again only this time they are not singing Boyz II Men, they are up in the big oak tree sweating.

And they do have power tools but this time they are not singing I’ll Make Love to You threateningly.

They are sweating through their shirts outside a different window.

And I know how much you like to sweat.

I’m not really sure if they’re going to chop down the whole tree from the top or if they even know what they’re doing but I know how much you like to sweat.

Sometimes when you wake up in the morning after you’ve been sweating a lot, you get this crap all over the wrinkles on your neck like smegma or bellybutton lint or something.

I never told you that before.

EMMA ROCK

53

UNFORESEEN CONSEQUENCES Keith Baldwin As she’s talking, I glance over her shoulder and see a restaurant full of people staring down at their phones.

I reach a hand up and run a finger along the short row of stitches at the back of my skull, toy with the little patch of fresh growth where they shaved away my hair. Three days in and already I can’t imagine going back.

They all look so pathetic. Ashamed. Turning away from their conversations to peer down at their laps.

Tethered to their little machines. I don’t even need to break eye contact. A year from now, when the implants have hit the market, and saturated all the trendy and affluent demographics, all of this will seem terribly mundane. But I’m one of the lucky ones. I get to test drive it while it’s still new. Before anyone even suspects what’s going on. I’ve never been so happy to work for a tech company. For the next month I get to be a god.

She can keep chattering away all she wants, and I will nod along. Smile at all the right times. Gaze into her eyes. I’ll seem so engaged that she won’t dare to consult her phone even to check that text she just got. Meanwhile, I’m inside my head reading reviews of the restaurant to help me pick a dessert, doing a price check on the pair of loafers I’ve been admiring on the guy at the next table, combing through a friend’s photo albums for pictures of his girlfriend in a swimsuit.

And, of course, let’s not forget that I set up this date while sitting through one of my boss’ tedious lectures.

“… implicit dangers of emerging technology… unforeseen consequences…”

Yawn. The only problem I’ve had so far is this headache that kicked in after the appetizers. And that’s probably not even related. I mean, what are the chances that–whoops! She’s done talking. Waiting for a response. I know she mentioned that new French movie. Haven’t seen it. Read a quick synopsis, spit out a plausible opinion. Perfect. I am officially catnip to the female population of New York. She’s off on another tangent, and I can go back to “being a good listener.”

Huh. What’s this link? I don’t usually go for tabloid crime drama. Wonder how it wound up in my feed. Awful stuff. Some woman who murdered her husband and went on the run. Suspected in three other killings. Wow.

No time for morbid fascination just now, though. My date is smiling at me in a very welcome manner.

Either my theory about the implant’s effect has just been confirmed, or she’s a very desperate woman indeed.

Her pupils are 30% more dilated than the lighting calls for. A few loose strands of hair fall in front of her face as she leans toward me. They’re dyed a shade of Clairol called “Medium Auburn.” Twelve bucks a bottle.

I say,

“Do you want to get out of here?”

She nods and follows me to my car. The implant pays our bill automatically. It even calculates the tip for me–which is especially helpful with the headache getting worse.

She wants to keep talking as I pull into traffic, but I always listen to music while I drive. I set my implant to random and crank it up to tune her out. Pure neural music. No vibrations necessary—so the pain that’s taking over my skull can continue throbbing to its own beat. Thankfully, the implant’s GPS software does half the driving for me. That tabloid article pops up again while I’m merging onto the expressway. The music switches to a track I haven’t heard before—a lone, ominous violin—as I continue reading.

It’s a really gruesome story. She shot her husband’s jaw off before she killed him, and now she’s got a taste for it, or else she’s just really desperate for some pocket money. Either way, she keeps getting these unsuspecting guys alone, and then pulling out her little designer pistol. Changing identities too fast for the cops to keep up.

For some reason my heart is pounding. Probably just the music, but it’s making my headache even worse. I’m squinting through the pain. Can’t focus in order to keep reading. I skip to the end of the article and see the picture of the murderess. I clutch tighter to the wheel. It’s her. My date. I think it’s even the picture from her dating profile. Something about this doesn’t seem to make sense, but the pressure inside my skull is almost bursting; pushing out all thought.

I’m peering at her sidelong, clenching my jaw, but I can’t let on that I know. I think there’s a police station I can get to as long as she doesn’t… She’s reaching into her purse.

54

UNFORESEEN CONSEQUENCES Keith Baldwin I do the only thing I can think of. I jerk the wheel to the right and send us crashing through a metal barrier.

Now we’re hanging in the air thirty feet above opposing traffic Volkswagen, BMW, GMC. Models and prices flash before my eyes. She’s gone white and wide-eyed. Dropped the phone she retrieved from her purse so she can brace herself against the dashboard. But we don’t stand a chance.

Our course is already traced through the air in a dotted line that only I can see. We’re done for. And my head has finally stopped aching.

ARIELLA SHAPIRO

55

IN MY EYES Sarah-Meira Rosenberg You got here first. I tagged along a few years later. I was always the baby girl. Mom pampered me. Dad loved you more. We were so happy.

We ran in the yard. I was an airplane. You were a rocket ship. I broke your robot. You fixed my lamp. I threw temper tantrums. You slammed doors. You walked me to school. I bragged about you. You brought me dandelion puffs and told me to wish. I believed in magic. You believed in me. I worshiped you.

You met him. You held hands. You taped his picture to your wall. You brought him home. Mom pursed her lips and Dad did all the talking. I saw you get your first kiss on our front porch in the starlight. I gave you a thumbs-up and pretended to gag.

You always forgot your lunch. I’d take it and have doubles. Once I brought it to you at school. You were surprised. You told me to leave. I was confused. Some boys pointed at you. They called you a fag. They spat at you. I cried. You took me home. I hugged you. You taught me to use my middle finger if it happened again.

You spent more time with him. He got a black eye. He stopped holding your hand. He stopped kissing you goodnight. He said you weren’t worth it. We used his picture for a dartboard.

You joined the basketball team. You bought new shirts. I started shaving my legs. You stopped singing in the shower. My razors were never where I left them. You were too quiet. You started staying out late. You made new friends. You kissed a girl. Mom smiled more.

I brought home a boy. You stopped speaking to me. You stopped speaking to everyone. Your showers got longer. I worried about you. Dad told me I was overreacting. I did homework.

You didn’t come out of the shower. I had to brush my teeth. I banged on the door. You made a noise. I picked the lock the way you’d taught me.

Your skin was so pale. Your blood was so red. I threw out all my razors.

No one talked about it. You switched schools. I had nightmares. You had a therapist. I got straight A’s. You graduated high school. I gave you a dandelion puff and told you to wish. You cried in front of me for the first time.

You left for college. I missed you like hell. You were still hated. You were still loved. My boyfriend dumped me and I didn’t tell you. You met Anton and you didn’t tell me. We learned to laugh at our oversensitivity.

You discovered that you liked machines more than people. I wasn’t surprised. Anton liked numbers. You spent the summers with him. I visited. You fixed cars. He handled the money. I told him that if he hurt you I’d break his face. He laughed and said that if he was stupid enough to hurt his hot mechanic boyfriend, I should break his face.

You asked Anton to marry you. I was your Best Maid of Honor. Mom left the wedding early. Dad apologized for her. Anton’s parents didn’t show at all.

You and your husband moved away. We fell in and out of touch. I decided to become a doctor. You said I’d be the best. I started dating again. I couldn’t trust anyone not to break my heart as much as I trusted Anton not to break yours. I got to thinking you were the lucky ones. You both had to fight so hard. I had it easy.

Easy come, easy go. I wasn’t ready to fight for anyone, and no one was ready to fight for me.

56

IN MY EYES Sarah-Meira Rosenberg Dad got sick. I had midterm exams. You came home. Mom let you hold her. Anton helped with the funeral arrangements. Mom shook his hand and said he was a keeper. I almost forgave her.

I started my internship. I hated the paperwork. I wanted to make miracles. I lived off vending machine snacks. I saw people die. I rejected advances. I was too busy to be lonely. I saved a life. You weren’t surprised.

[Structure inspired by “Beginning, End” by Jessica Soffer and “Here We Aren’t, So Quickly” by Jonathan Safran Foer.]

KEITH BALDWIN

57

CRUSHED LINES...

Joseph Wade The red-lit Q of the train rattles in the dark with you, gold-haired Autumn, smiling when silver doors part.

A sigh drops through the empty line I cross into your car to sit on your bench, a serrated edge on my finger, the sweepstake ticket you pressed into my many-lined palm: cash and a cruise, black-dotted lines through the Caribbean, sand and a palm tree, a dream we shared—Everything signed our names on the departed ticket’s line.

You travelled the arc-line of your bike, rush of wind in your pursed-lip face, millions of blood cells, universes and galaxies in you and above you, burned Venus watching, empty of words behind a black veil as your line snapped in the concrete street.

We rise, now, Q line on the Brooklyn Bridge, daring our smallest fingers across each other’s with our palms pressed against the blue plastic bench formed from oily remains of crude death that supports us, black as the Hudson’s escaping water that fills us all, holds the shimmers of another version of high rises and old stones, car lights and window lights, glimmers of boatmen, lines of slow wakes that settle against sea-walls of Manhattan.

Down, down and down again, the screeching siren-song of Manhattan’s black hole where metal grinds, sparks flash and find nothing.

58

At Canal stop, discourse songs of Asians and Tourists mix with fish guts and splashes of water running lines to iron grates where flesh is broken from its power.

In a tower of twisted steel, I see your shadow against the yellow beam of the highest window where you watch red, white and blue, the unstoppable tower rise, a speck of fire in the sea, and others scattered far in the East, only in your line of sight.

The serrated edge of our pocket-crushed dreams are at my fingertip, more in the scattered crumples I chase with my thumb, but follow a confusion of cobbled lines under black—splattered and gut-stained—leather shoes like so many in far-marching Manhattan.

“POEM” Macauley Davis behind granite:bricks see vacant rooms with lights on other buildings used to be where buildings are before that hawthorns or other things:unmade things their sheets pulled back still as certain places can be but aren’t

THOMAS SALVANTI

59

AUTUMN’S EMBERS Kate Conte The dirt path leading up to Uncle Beck’s is barely the width of the Paddy-wagon. It’s about as straight and narrow as a side winder; the gravel hisses and loosens with each tire turn. After twenty minutes of an up and up, the wrap around porch juts out from underneath the second story roof like an ugly hip bone. Dust kicks up in tumbleweed fashion under the car, making it look dirtier than it already is. The dust cloud seethes to Beck’s ankles on the wooden steps, but rolls off him harmlessly as he stands with his eye-teeth grin.

Where Dad is paunchy in the middle, kind of like a wine barrel with limbs, Beck is fit and lean. He’s got street top black hair just like Kirsten’s, just long enough to brush his shoulders. His light beard is red brown, like his solid colored long sleeve. As we get out, I can see the pressed crease in his pants; Dad’s face tells me everything he’s thinking and I smile. His voice in my mind asks, what kind of man irons his jeans?

The boys stand behind me as mom and Beck hug and greet.

“Good to see you Molly. Hey Kirsten,” Beck pauses as he studies her. She looks more like him than Dad. From the oval shape of her face and high cheek bones, it’s like Dad’s jaw jumped over her and went straight for me. The twins have it too. But not Kirsten. “You get taller and prettier every time I see you.”

Beck stands in front of her, his grin slanting his eyes. Kirsten has his eyes too, minus the greeting.

She forces a smile but hasn’t hugged anybody since puberty.

“Danielle! You look pretty yourself, sweetheart. Boys? What are you doing back there? Come say hey to Uncle Beck!”

Their hands grip my jeans’ belt loops.

“You guys are still shy, huh? Jess is in the back, Molly,” Beck tells Mom, watching her go inside.

Then he’s eye to eye with Dad. “You’re wearing the shirt. Looks good.”

“A little snug.”

“You’re a little heavier—“

“Yeah.”

The rest of Beck’s sentence dies in his throat. He scratches the back of his neck, his left foot stepping back as he looks down. Maybe he’s looking for another conversation in the ground.

“Danielle, let’s go see if Aunt Jess needs help.”

Kirsten measures me quickly and heads through the screen door. I don’t dare look up at the two brothers as I pass; I can feel their heat as I push RJ and Jerry inside the house.

The day drags long and mild, with northern flickers and blue jays hopping in and out of the thinning branches just above. Sitting on the swinging wooden seat, Kirsten and I can see the adults a few feet away.

Gathered around the blue cooler are Beck and Uncle Ross, Aunt Terry’s husband, discussing the best way to stack firewood. Mom and Dad are sitting next to each other, talking happily to Aunt Terry and Dad’s cousin George Middleton, my second cousin. His brother, Draft Middleton and his family, usually show up just for ‘cake and appearances’, Mom says. Chasing after Coolridge and Duff (my uncle’s dogs) are the pack of my younger cousins, led by RJ and Jerry and Charlie and Greg. They weave in and out, around the covered pool, the barbeque, around the house and down by the little brook. Smudged dirt looks like war paint under their flushed cheeks as they holler and laugh.

With us are Hunter and Bailey, parked on turned over pickle barrels. Hunter, Bailey’s older brother, is a year younger than Kirsten. Just like Uncle Ross, he’s tall with wide shoulders and has short, dirty blonde hair and blue eyes. Bailey, a few years younger than me, is the shoe shine image of Aunt Terry, with soft honey eyes and oak blonde wavy hair. Charlie and Greg were always the mix.

“Dad doesn’t want me to go,” Hunter says as a squirrel pockets some feed in his cheeks nearby. Then a blue jay takes off, spooking the squirrel back into the brush.

“People are dying every day over there Hunter. It’s scary stuff.”

Kirsten already lost two friends overseas. The whole town packed into St. Christopher’s church for the funerals last spring.

Hunter continues to plead his case.

“Dad served. And Grandpa Gabriel.”

60

AUTUMN’S EMBERS Kate Conte

“Grandpa Gabriel was a chaplain. He didn’t fight.”

Bailey had been quietly listening until now. Hunter brushes her off.

“He was still there. He saved lives.”

Kirsten shakes her head.

“Like you’re gonna save lives. You’re gonna go to fire and shoot your foot off. You’re gonna go over there and come back in a box. “

Hunter’s cheeks flush.

“I can shoot.”

Kirsten smirks.

“Tell that to your dad’s garage window.”

Hunter’s ears turn plum red. Bailey laughs.

“That’s not funny!”

Hunter shoves Bailey off balance. Panic pales her face as her barrel tips. She falls. I jump up, pushing Hunter square in his chest, knocking him on his ass.

“What the hell’s your problem?!”

“What was that for?!”

“For being an asshole.”

I immediately become aware how much taller Hunter is than me as he stands, his knuckles white.

“What’d you say to me, Dan the man?”

“Hunter. Cool off,” Kirsten says, standing too, about chin level with Hunter.

Bailey is softly crying below us, muffled by the heat pouring out of my ears. I barely hear the words that escape my mouth.

“What a big war hero you’ll be, Hunter Calhoun. Needing a girl to save you from a girl.”

“Danielle!”

Hunter raises his arm. Kirsten gets between us, right in his face.

“Hunter, if you don’t stop right now I’m going to tell the entire varsity football team that you hit me and Danielle. And I guarantee that you’ll forget all about shooting your daddy’s gun after the beating you’ll get. The army won’t even take you, get me?”

Hunter swallows his anger and stalks off. I help Bailey up, picking the leaves out of her hair. Kirsten turns to me, stretches of anger still curled in her fists.

“One of these days I’m not gonna be here to pull your foot out of your mouth, Danielle. Why couldn’t you leave it alone?”

“I hate bullies. That’s all Hunter is.”

“He’s six foot and two hundred pounds of bully. You’re five four and a hundred pounds, soak and wet with a rock in your pocket.”

She’s right. But it doesn’t cool me off any.

“Mom says he’ll grow out of it.”

Bailey offers this quietly as she wipes her nose with her sleeve. The wind starts to turn as the mellow sun settles low along the horizon. Kirsten stares into the heart of the adults, not saying anything. I search the circle, not seeing our parents. Or Beck. The pack of kids have all changed into their heavier sweatshirts as the sun goes down and the paper lanterns light, trying to chase the shadows off our family’s faces. Kirsten starts for the house.

“Where are you going?”

“For a drink.”

She isn’t interested in anything in the cooler.

61

AUTUMN’S EMBERS Kate Conte

Night touches down with smoky tendrils, the fog so thick it dulls the bonfire blaze. Eyes cloudy, cheeks flushed from the warmth, I sit round the fire with RJ and Jerry asleep on my shoulders. Kirsten vanished with her friends, somewhere down the road. My parents’ voices carry on the wind; they are mourning, the owl’s howl and sometimes the banshee’s cry. They drum over the fire’s snap and my family’s cackle, trying to climb louder the louder my parents get.

Burnt fumes mingle with alcohol breath. The fire rises against black woods, aiding the shadows it was designed to dispel. They grow. They darken. My uncle burps. My cousins laugh. My aunts scold. My parents shoot out from the house’s wings behind the growing fire, shouting, shouting. Dad’s face is red hot ember; Mom’s is as cool as a cinder.

“Happy? Happy! I’m as happy as a dog in shit.”

“It’s pig, Howard. Pig in shit.”

“Christsakes! What else, Molly? Did I button my shirt wrong? Maybe you should dress me now!

You damn well did with this fucking shirt a’ his.”

“Howard.”

“We’re god damn leavin’ Molly. Get tha kids an get in the god damn car.”

Dad grabs her wrist, yanking close, almost out of her boots. Almost the same way he would pull her for a kiss. Mom hisses at him with all her teeth.

“Let go.”

Beck creeps out from the side of the house. Dad’s face and neck color like a volcano’s burst; he grabs Beck by the throat. The adult flurry closes in; the chaos’ air is out. Beck hits the ground, head and throat bulging and blood rushed. Dad bounces out from the circle of bodies and stalks off down the road, not looking back, letting go of his fists, unable to let go of any more.

Beck sits in the dirt, massaging his neck as he hoarsely calls for water. Mom’s crying into Aunt Terry, who catches Kirsten’s eye and looks away. RJ and Jerry yawn sleepily, rubbing their eyes. Jerry looks around.

“Is it time to go?”

62

WINTER FRAGMENT Joshua Wright

Upon a night of deep and stilled snow, the almost imperceptible hum of an airplane sliding across the sky like a drop of molten wax melts slowly into the ceiling and the glowing, frosty floor.

EMMA ROCK

63

STRINGENT CONTROL Josane Cumandala Ostracized as we are with god, we await a grass hand,

the sound of an idea

blessed below the cypress trees where I see

the care with which the rain is... wrong,

the green is... wrong

& Trained in a circus of swans,

light passes, ridge to ridge.

I have nothing to say, and I am saying it, and that is poetry.

I know you are reading this poem late, before leaving your office, deep in your soft element––

[why does silence require that I go on talking?] & then I see you drinking at a fountain with tiny blue hands– no–your hands aren’t tiny & there I find that not being, is to be without your being,

& then there is the care with which there is a chair

and lots of breathing,

& a glowing rose’s origin spelled in a starry nocturnal pattern & what else?

That the story of man makes me sick inside.

I have seen it all and write it–– only to find that I have seen nothing, nothing at all...

THOMAS SALVANTI

64

THE TRUTH ABOUT YOUR RECRUITER Joseph Wade The office was grey and plastered with posters—the uniforms, flawless. But I was uninformed. So, the uniforms were flawless.

It’s hard to split the reality between what I remember and what I know. Like the recruiter knew about the depression I’d been hospitalized for that I never, ever talk about. “It’s fine,” he said. Leaned back in his leather chair. Hands behind his head. A big smile on his face. “They’ll never check.”

This was the Navy recruiter—I was transferring from the Army. This was right after 9/11. My unit wasn’t going, but I’d be damned if I was going to spend the war sitting on my hands while all my friends collected all that glory. I’d dreamed of charging machine-gun nests with grenades in hand and knife in mouth since I could toddle.

Now the bastards had earned it, I thought. But I knew I didn’t want to kill anyone. But I wanted special forces. I decided to join with an aircrew designation only. At least I’d be flying, and I could think about the SEALS. That changed when I got to MEPS—it’s the military processing center for you civilians—think of it like beef processing, “Through the chutes boys. Through the chutes boys.” And you come out as ground beef when you used to be something gentle and sad with big brown eyes. Now you’ve got it.

Anyway, this poster, it had a guy dangling from a helicopter over a round spray of water that matted the ocean down like it would grass on a field if grass could foam. Fuck yeah. That’s me. I go it alone, I thought. So, I marched into that Navy office and said I’m going to do what that guy does. Work with SEALS, if I’m lucky, get beat down to the core, be turned harder, challenge the sea herself—and I say I’m not suicidal like my mother.

Maybe I’m not because I don’t want to, but maybe she wasn’t either, but she did. I thought the recruiter was the biggest liar.

KEITH BALDWIN

65

HAIKUS Carole Ver Ecke

1.

Blue Spruce creaks, hunchesHeavy snow crunches branches.

Some break, most survive.

3.

Six-o-clock sunshine.

Winter slowly secedes to emerging spring rays.

7 Bend over slightly.

A tall red rose meets your nose.

Smell, be pleased, don’t sneeze.

KEITH BALDWIN

66

PAX Megan Hanson This morning a man’s profile on the train was sloped by coat hangers and a crooked finger, beckoning some commuting renaissance of cogent love and alchemy for the self-esteem.

An image of the appetite for hunger: lusting, sating, lounging, coruscating the Hudson blue self-image of his reflection in rusty metal and touching hands.

He was not my heathen wrapped in seraphim robe, not a yawning boy with acres to learn about hands, either.

He wasn’t even young, but not fearless enough to be old.

If I remember him at all, matching steps to window mannequins and stirring powders into coffee, I think I’ll see him as this: an age unto himself: pax hominem, golden like a train ticket one stop over from wherever it is I’ve never wanted to go.

KEITH BALDWIN

67

FEATURING FEATURING ORIGINAL ORIGINAL WORK WORK BY BY JUDY ZHONG ZHONG JUDY

ADDY WITHERSPOON WITHERSPOON ADDY

JOSEPH WADE WADE JOSEPH

CAROLE VER VER EECKE EECKE CAROLE

CELIA VARGAS VARGAS CELIA

JESSIE SIOBAHN SIOBAHN JESSIE

ARIELLA SHAPIRO SHAPIRO ARIELLA

MARGIE SARSFIELD SARSFIELD MARGIE

TOM SALVANTI SALVANTI TOM

SARAH MEIRA MEIRA ROSENBERG ROSENBERG SARAH

EMMA ROCK ROCK EMMA

REBECCA NAJJAR NAJJAR REBECCA

SHAYNE MCGREGGOR MCGREGGOR SHAYNE

WILL MACHI MACHI WILL

VICTORIYA LEVKOVSKAYA LEVKOVSKAYA VICTORIYA

ANDREW LERMAN LERMAN ANDREW

ED KEARNS KEARNS ED

SARAH KANN KANN SARAH

CHARLY HIMMEL HIMMEL CHARLY

ADAM GALLO GALLO ADAM

MAX FEIST FEIST MAX TORI-ANNE DRUCKMAN DRUCKMAN TORI-ANNE JOEY DIDONATO DIDONATO JOEY GEORGE DEL DEL VALLE VALLE GEORGE MACAULEY DAVIS DAVIS MACAULEY NORA CURRY NORAH CURRY JOSANE CUMANDALA CUMANDALA JOSANE

KATE CONTE CONTE KATE

KARINA CHAIKHOUTDINOV CHAIKHOUTDINOV KARINA KEITH BALDWIN BALDWIN KEITH

CASEY KEARNS KEARNS CASEY

MEGAN HANSON HANSON MEGAN