Loomings 2014 by Benedictine College

Loomings Elements

2014

Arts Magazine

Loomings 2014

Elements

Arts Magazine

e face the elements every day: The feeling of gelid snow biting our cheeks or the unforgiving heat of the fireside; a firm gust of wind permeating our clothes or the sensation of sand between our toes. There is no escaping the solidity of earth, the strength of wind, the force of fire, or the serenity of water. In fact, Plato believed the entire physical world is composed of these four. However, with modern cultures, sciences, and trends forever changing our view of the visible universe, we often forget the fundamental truths, the elemental forces which drive our daily lives. We hope the stories, poems, and works of art in this edition of Loomings will awaken a new fire, carry you away, and wash over your senses as you turn every page.

i Mariah Cover Art: Supernova, 2013, Acrylic Painting, Jenny Murphy *Image has been rotated 180˚ Published by Benedictine College 1020 North 2nd Street Atchison, Kansas 66002 Materials appearing in Loomings may not be reproduced or reprinted without written consent of Benedictine College and the authors of each work. Writers, poets, and artists contributing to Loomings retain full rights to their work, and need not obtain permission for reproduction. Cost per copy is $6.00, copies free for students.

Editor-in-chief

i Mariah Barnes

Hannah Sattler Poetry Editor i Sydney Giefer Art Editor i Naomi Popp Layout Editor i Annemarie Keller Advisor i Dr. Michael Stigman Prose Editor i

Minimum Wage

Villanelle of the Seed by Vince Petruccelli

Before I was a seed, I was only an arrangement, a safety in a shell, Contained in my dryness, complete. Everything was geometry, these tidy measured insides, all, this compact being. Before I was a seed, I was only alone, trapped within the impression that I was not placed, not planted, that I was contained in my dryness, complete. But life has neither fruit nor bloom if not immersed into every reason of the soil. Before I was a seed, I was only ever the arrangement I could see; now violence of water releases what was contained in my dryness, complete and I become in my burst, steeped in the reasons of the soil, whereas before I was a seed, I was only contained in my dryness, complete. Untitled, 2013, Photograph, Mary Paluszak

by Hannah Sattler y

On the first day of training, I find that working at a chain restaurant is less exciting than I had imagined. The cap that-must-be-worn-at-all-times obscures half of my vision and leaves me tilting my head backwards to compensate, peering down my nose like a shortsighted granny. The customer is always right. The customer is always right. The customer is always right. Remember to smile! Despite what our pamphlets, advertisements, and the required video on work ethic says, the only community found between customer and cashier is when someone returns to the register complaining they got the wrong dish or they didn’t like the one they ordered. The fear of God is drilled into me with a graphic story about someone losing fingers in the nefarious bagel slicer, which, as a mere seventeen-year-old, I cannot touch. Your eighteenth birthday is like a fairy godmother who bops you with a wand and gives you magical immunity from sharp things. I’m also informed that it is not socially acceptable to shut anyone in the oven or the freezer. Who would have guessed? Over the slow hours that stretch and drag in the afternoons and evenings when the rush has died down and we’re left trooping forward like the last leg of a bike ride up a hill, we wander around wiping things down and sometimes talk. It’s funny the type of things

that come out around the familiar strangers you work alongside, a collage of big and little details, but somehow none of the important ones. Kristie is a volunteer firefighter. Hillary has an extra toe on each foot and no sense of smell. Michael has hands two sizes too large. Selene wants to get a job at a real restaurant where you can make tips and actual money, but can’t get hired because of the gauges in her ears. She would rather be a tattoo artist anyway. After the midday lunch rush, someone discovers a crate of tomatoes past the date of its expiration sticker and when it comes time to wheel the huge garbage bins around the back of the building and sling its contents into the dumpster, my manager Brandon comes with me and we take turns pitching the tomatoes as far as we can hurl them into the marsh out back. “I do this all the time with spoiled produce,” he explains as we return. “Why just put them in the trash when they’re free anger therapy?” I don’t know what he is angry about. I don’t ask. I’m bussing tables on a weekend evening, a slow night that creeps along reluctantly, and stop to ask two elderly men if I can clear away their dishes. They aren’t finished yet. They are taking

Minimum Wage

Villanelle of the Seed by Vince Petruccelli

by Hannah Sattler y

their time and enjoying their night and want to talk. The one man with shaking hands so wrinkled they already look mummiﬁed asks me all about myself. Where do I go to school? Am I headed to college next year? What do I want to do? Feeling like a stereotype, I shift my weight awkwardly and admit that I want to write. Not sure what or how, but I want to work with books someday. I also want a family. The man smiles and nods so rhythmically he could be on a rocking chair. “When you ﬁnd someone, hold onto every minute with him. You don’t know how long you’re going to get. My wife died twenty years ago.” His voice is slow, sad, but not bitter. “You think you’re going to spend the rest of your life with a person. But you just don’t know.” He looks at his friend and then out the window, his hand rattling unconsciously against the table. His eyes are clouded and distant, sad and full of what ifs. Teenage couples are the worst customers. The girl clings to the boy’s arm and won’t look at me, except to glower whenever she thinks my tone gets too friendly. The boy is either overly rude, to prove that he has eyes only for his girlfriend, or slightly apologetic and awkward. Every so often I get a couple who chooses to make out in front of me, while I lean against my register and stare at the coffee canisters across the room. This girl snaps her gum loudly and puts her boyfriend’s arm across her shoulders. “What are you getting?” she asks him, her face a few inches away from his. He peers at the menu and then at me.

“What’s the best thing to get?” I glance behind me. Terry, our general manager/leader of the Nazi clean-everythingall-the-time regime, is working and therefore we all must push our most expensive items regardless of the customer’s annoyance. “The steak and white cheddar Panini is pretty amazing,” I offer. He doesn’t seem quite certain so I paste on a grin and add, “I could eat two in one sitting.” Since it’s a hypothetical situation, it’s not technically a lie and glosses over the fact that I’ve actually never tasted the steak and white cheddar Panini. The girl gives me a disdainful expression and chomps her gum. “That’s gross. I’ll just take a diet Coke.” “I actually just give you a drink cup and you ﬁll it around the corner with whatever you like,” I explain. “And we only have Pepsi products.” “Well, a diet something,” she says emphatically. “That’s all you want?” the boy asks. “I’m not hungry.” The boy picks out a Panini – not the one I suggested. He has to prove that the only opinion that matters is that of his girlfriend. He pays for her diet soda. Britta, a high-school-aged cashier like me, suddenly ducks into the back of the store at the sight of a gaggle of teens pushing through the front doors. “I know them,” she squeaks at me in brief explanation and then disappears. Saturday morning bustles, full of elderly folks needing their coffee and young moth-

ers checking off items in their To Do lists and teens stopping in to order a quick smoothie. I bounce around behind the counter, stick pastries and napkins into separate-order bags, slice bagels, restock the orange juice, take orders, recommend breakfast sandwiches. A skinny, red-faced woman needs a full loaf of bread for a dinner she’s hosting later that evening, cut thick like Texas toast. I grab the bread from the shelf, slide it into the slicer, and reach into the top to pull out the divided pieces. I reach a little too far. With a yelp, I yank out my hand and gawk at the blood smearing and dripping down my finger, like jam oozing from a cherry pastry. Erin, a petite blond manager, hurries over to assess the situation. “Did you get any blood on the bread?” she asks hastily. I get tipped once in my entire career of shifts at this job. An older couple leaves a dollar bill on their table along with all of the dishes that I would have cleaned up anyhow. It is, after all, my job. Later I am informed that tipping is not allowed and if anyone should try to give us money, we are required to turn it in to the donation jars. The management staff is having trouble getting us employees to “go the extra mile” and clean under cabinets and shelves behind the counter or mop the freezer floors or wipe down the walls behind the dishwashers, so they set up a reward system. At first, we all pitch in enthusiastically, hoping for free food or gift cards or maybe first dibs on days off.

At the end of the week, Kristie, Hillary, and I stand in a glum circle, each holding a Jolly Rancher candy for our efforts. “This was not worth it,” Hillary says and tosses the candy into the trash. “We’re not children,” Kristie mutters, but pockets her Jolly Rancher as she stalks off to the back. She isn’t a child. She has to be in her early to mid-thirties and I wonder why she is still working at a chain food restaurant with no tips, little opportunity of advancement, and fellow employees in high school and college. There’s a Caucasian man in a business suit, athletic and balding, who I have to ask several times to repeat his name for his order. It’s the end of my shift and I’m tired, but am quite conﬁdent upon the third time of hearing his name that, despite strange, it’s what he’s said. I’ve heard unique names, prominent among them Coffee, Trouble, and Batman (I’m a little doubtful that the last one was true). A man named Cho seems perfectly reasonable in comparison. The customer is, after all, always right. With a shrug, I type it into the machine and send the order through. Five minutes later, after hearing “his” name called out several times at the end of the line for his order, the man comes back to me laughing. “Joe,” he says, “my name is Joe.” He adds good-naturedly, “Do I look like a Cho?” There’s a man who we think is homeless. He has a lumberjack beard and a ripped plaid jacket, looking for all the world like Paul

little unsteady, gripping the counter as she squints up at the menu and finally snorts, shaking her head. “I can’t read annnnnny of it,” she laughs. “What should I get?” A little uncertainly, I suggest the usual: a combination of a sandwich and soup. Delicious with our freshly baked baguette slice on the side. So filling and only $6.95 plus tax! “I’ll take it,” she says. Her eyes latch onto the pastry cabinet. “And... a muffin. Why not?” After the woman pays, picks up her food, and stumbles out, Britta tells me she could smell the alcohol on the woman’s breath. The woman was the friendliest customer I’d had all day.

Cross Roads, 2013, Acrylic and Ink on Canvas, 8 x 10,” Elizabeth Barrett

Bunyan fallen on hard times. He comes in on Sunday mornings, maybe every other week, grabs a used mug from one of the bins of dirty dishes waiting to be taken to the washer in the back, ﬁlls it with coffee and walks out. Just like that. Taking the ceramic mug with him. Most of the time, we don’t mention him to Terry. Long after the dinner rush we’re starting to close things down, prepare for the frenzied cleaning that follows the doors getting locked and the registers cashed out. A young woman in a trench coat totters through the front door. She’s giddy and a

The mothers who come in are mostly the same. Stylish, young, and slightly harried from an already exhausting morning of errands. One child struggles to free himself from the confines of the stroller seatbelt, while the other one dances about like a gust of wind, touching everything and asking for all of the sweets behind the window. “No cookies today,” the mother says sternly. “You got a muffin for breakfast, remember?” The little girl whines. “You can only have a cookie if you finish your peanut butter sandwich.” She turns her attention to me again and hastily adds a peanut butter sandwich to the order. The little girl whines. “You have to eat the yogurt and four bites of your sandwich,” the mother informs her daughter. “Four big bites. Okay?” The little girl whines. The mother adds a chocolate chip cookie to the order as well. Allison is from California – the hot part, as

she says. When it snows for the first time in mid November, delicate flakes like crumbled pastry drifting onto the sidewalk outside, she is ecstatic. It doesn’t matter that Terry is on a shift or that there are a dozen preorders of bagels that need to be sliced and stocked with cream cheese and plastic knives. She darts outside, spins around once, and bounces back in, her face flushed. There are snowflakes in her hair. Just after Christmas, Brandon comes into work hung over and without the work schedule he was supposed to post last week. It’s Tuesday. The schedule starts on Wednesday and I have no idea whether or not I work tomorrow. It’s the last domino in a long line of complaints falling and knocking each other over. I’ve been assigned shifts on days I specified weeks in advance as unavailable. I’ve been paid 25 cents fewer per hour than they promised me to begin with. I’m required to purchase and taste the expensive new items on the menu so that I can better recommend them to customers. And the discount on food I’m sick of recommending, cleaning off the floor, and wearing as perfume is less than exciting. On the way home after a long shift of cream cheese mashed into the carpet, overflowing trashcans, and teenagers who refuse to understand that the soup is premade and no, we can’t pick the onions out of the French onion soup, I complain to my mom, “I could do so much better than this.” “Then why don’t you?” she suggests. The next day, I post my two-week notice. On my last shift, I hurry through the closing actions: mopping/sweeping/cleaning/washing/restocking/recording/vacuuming. As I wait at the window for my mom to pick me up for the last time, I make some joke to

Brandon, who is waiting with me, about our nine-passenger Suburban. “Why do you need so much room?” he asks. “There are nine people in my family. My parents plus seven kids.” “I never knew that,” he says, after a moment of surprise. A fact like that would stick with you. I don’t know how it is that I’ve known this young man for six months now, through casual chats, jokes, stressful rushes, and frenzied cleaning and yet he doesn’t know one of the most basic facts of my life. But then, I don’t know why he should. We’re just familiar strangers, I guess. The same as the other regular customers checking in and out of our lives. 1

Cross Roads, 2013, Acrylic and Ink on Canvas, 8 x 10,” Elizabeth Barrett

Pignon, Haiti by Liv Martin Vapor-heavy air circles mountains Tin roofs Swirls through lungs of hungry Dogs and barefoot children kicking a powdered Battered soccer ball that looks like crushed glass in sand Smell baked plantains from the kitchen Where the women crouch on ashy knees To slide them from the stone oven Bonjou! Good morning Bonswa! Good afternoon A mother glides past with a village of Pots suspended on her head One hand steadies the load The other holds her baby A small boy wearing one worn sandal Tottles in the dirt street dragging a rope—an Oil can on wheels, a perfect cart I watch from a rooftop Look down and see How strange the world is The life I claim to know With neon land People living differently Moments indescribable Airplanes to drag me away Away to see hear smell impossibly understand Experiences that change everything Change me the second I lean over the edge of the roof and Drop my heart— Where it beats

We Could Watch It from the Clouds, 2014, Photograph, Alexander Vu

At the bottom Of the boy’s Oil can cart.

We Could Watch It from the Clouds, 2014, Photograph, Alexander Vu

At the bottom Of the boy’s Oil can cart.

Several Attempts at a Haiku

Working in Pop’s Garden by B.S. Hook Look at those fat watermelons basking, jade tortoises beneath prehistoric honeybees and squat bluebellies watching me work. Euphoria! a forty-niner, unearthing golden riches the size of my ﬁst from a harvest months ago— that’s the beautiful thing about Irish gold: if you look, you can always ﬁnd it.

“A weed is any plant in a place it doesn’t belong.” I mull this over again as the seeding asparagus tickles my face; feather-down silvertip pines. Looking up, through the mottled light nibbling at the apples in the tree, my mind falls back off the crab grass onto the Waterville lass from last night—

Peeling back layers of earth debris clings to me, to my sweat.

So fresh and ripe I can still taste her on my lips, Smell her through the snap pea vine.

Time to pause. Take a breath. Weed while I sit.

Yeah, Van. It would be great, Great if it were like this All the time.

by Evan Bradﬁeld 1

Fluttering, A dead leaf ascends: Butterﬂy. 4

Leaves clutter gutters, Crowding, overﬂowing streets: Snowdrifts of Autumn. 5

Hesitant snowﬂakes— Like stars on a ﬁeld of blue— Float under streetlamps.

Listen to This, 2013,

Charcoal on Black Paper, Marie Louise Orsinger

Grow from the Roots, 2013, Cardboard, 36’’ x 22 1/4,’’ Annemarie Keller y

Several Attempts at a Haiku

Peeling back layers of earth debris clings to me, to my sweat.

So fresh and ripe I can still taste her on my lips, Smell her through the snap pea vine.

Time to pause. Take a breath. Weed while I sit.

Yeah, Van. It would be great, Great if it were like this All the time.

by Evan Bradﬁeld 1

Fluttering, A dead leaf ascends: Butterﬂy. 4

Leaves clutter gutters, Crowding, overﬂowing streets: Snowdrifts of Autumn. 5

Hesitant snowﬂakes— Like stars on a ﬁeld of blue— Float under streetlamps.

Listen to This, 2013,

Charcoal on Black Paper, Marie Louise Orsinger

Grow from the Roots, 2013, Cardboard, 36’’ x 22 1/4,’’ Annemarie Keller y

A Story about a Man Who Is Going to Die Harvey received his prognosis about three months ago. He sat now in front of his desk, hand on the computer mouse, eyes on the screen, as someone’s tinny playlist drifted in softly from a nearby cubicle. There were so many songs about dying—from rock ballads to sappy country, but everybody got it wrong. Each motivational melody, telling you to go skydiving or assuring you this knowledge will make you feel more alive was simply denying the reality that what follows the premonitory awareness is not verve but emptiness. Day to day, you simply know. The knowledge becomes your best and only friend. It is who you see when you roll over in the morning. It is the pedestrian you recognize vaguely on your commute. It is who you fall asleep pondering. Each day is tinged with the reality of your time clock running down. And your way to go is as speciﬁc and personal as Harvey’s grandma had believed guardian angels to be. Each person’s death was absolutely and fundamentally their own. Undeniably and unreturnably and inescapably. If you went from eating red dye 40 or ingesting lead paint or asphyxiating from carbon monoxide, that was yours. You owned it like it owned you. Those moments were distinctly yours, more so than your birth, your wedding, your ﬁrst job. Harvey had never wed, much to his mother’s dismay. For a while after he had started into his collegiate years, she would mention it casually over the phone or when he would visit, but always referred to it as something already accomplished, as if to quiet her internal fretting. “Well, since you have so many options of women to involve yourself with...” she would

by Taryn Dennis y

throw into conversation, or, “I’m sure you’re too busy to visit because of that charming young lady you’re always with.” He had corrected her for a while, adamantly insisting there was no such young lady occupying his time, but rather his studies. Sure, there had been girls here and there, fleeting moments with English literature majors and future fourth grade teachers, but nobody had been able to hold his attention more than his goals of Wall Street heroism and Fortune 500 companies. The only girl who had ever truly tempted him was named Norah, a theater major from Milwaukee whose big city hopes had seemed almost perfectly in tune with his own. He couldn’t remember why it hadn’t worked. She might have been crazy. But truth be told, Harvey didn’t know where all those hours had been spent in college. All he knew was that one day he woke up and it had been over ten years since he first moved into a dorm, and he was being paid to work 60 hours a week at an insurance agency. And that’s what he did now. Harvey spent the majority of every day’s hours filing claims. His specialty was boating and recreational vehicles, but he had dabbled in other forms, and his mom had long stopped assuming things about his supposedly tumultuous romantic life. Hours were frightening things. It seemed like time moved just slow enough to make you crazy, to plague you with the sick mundaneness of graduality, and just fast enough to incite panic, when you realized you’d never again be in your early twenties and everyone making the news now was at least a decade your junior. And how could you feel so young, so new and inca-

pable, when you were about to expire? Harvey thought of himself like a damaged can of Green Giant green beans. He was intended to have a long and luxurious shelflife, but had been dropped, had a hole punctured through his protective steel shell. Where do you go from there, and what did it really mean to be adept at insuring another man’s speedboat? Harvey tapped his thumb on the spacebar and swore he could feel his guardian angelhis demise—his way out—hovering around him like a blanketing fog. Each breath seemed to shake in his chest, rattling through the rafters like wind through an empty barn. How long did he have before he could go home for the day? And how could he still want so badly for time to go faster when he should be willing it to drag out slowly? “Hey, Harv,” a voice behind him made him jump in his ergonomically engineered swivel chair. He turned to see his boss, four years younger and several boxes of bleach blonder—Rich. At least he wanted the office to call him that. He thought it made him more relatable, a buddy of sorts, a confidant. Most of the employees just thought it made him even more irritating. They all called him Suthers. “Big plans for the weekend?” Harvey genuinely thought about his upcoming weekend before answering. He couldn’t remember the last time he had had “big plans.” Probably before his diagnosis. Because what could be the point of parties, mixers, bbq’s, pals, if you were already on your way out? Why cultivate good friends when your best friend was already oblivion? But something stirred inside him. He wanted, no—he needed to make this overlyfraternal, frost-tipped boy think he had even

some semblance of a life. And he didn’t want to seem available to get called in for extra hours. “I’m having some friends and family over to watch... the game,” Harvey lied, hoping that “Rich” wouldn’t ask which one. Was it baseball season? Football? Did anyone televise hockey? Luckily, Suthers cared little about whether Harvey’s weekend plans were, in fact, big. “Well great, Harv. Now I had some questions about some of your recent claim reports...” Harvey tried to listen and answer appropriately, but couldn’t really get past how much he hated to be called “Harv.” A “Harv” had always sounded to him like a breed of tick or a vegetable. In fact, it was one of his only peeves. Maybe that would be his epitaph: Harvey Michael Donaldson 1977-Soon “Not Harv. Never Harv.” *** Exactly five hours and 49 minutes later, Harvey “Not Harv” Donaldson was in his little fuel-efficient sedan, pulling out of the office parking lot and sinking into the luxury interior. Maybe he should get gas on the way home. Not that he really needed it, but it had struck him as possible that maybe the only real thing a man leaves behind is his carbon footprint. He ended up topping off and buying a frozen pizza from the 7-11 nearest his neighborhood. Eating healthy, insuring your jet-ski, fuel-efficiency, were all long-term planning kinds of actions anyway. He had left his front porch light on, maybe for days. But short-term planning assured him now that that was okay. It was inconvenient to be turning it on and off all the time anyway. Harvey pulled his sedan into the garage,

by Taryn Dennis y

Fallen, 2013, Photograph, Mary Wallace

grabbed his leather, monogrammed briefcase, and entered his spacious home, ﬂipping on lights as he went and genuinely considering just leaving them on for the remainder of his existence. He set the oven to preheat and got a beer from his fridge. He knew what the doctor had said, but couldn’t ﬁnd it in himself to care. This was his own damn Way Out, and it would not be taken from him. Guardian angels are nonrefundable. Harvey wondered absently if it was Shark Week, or if that was next week. Or next month. Was it annual? Quarterly? It seemed to happen just out of the blue. It’d be all news programs and reruns of The X-Files and then bam! Sharks! Shark anatomy, shark diets, shark breeds, shark attacks. What a way to go.

No drawn out, waiting-room feelings there. He plopped down in the plush loveseat and ﬂipped through the disappointingly shark-free channels. His house creaked and moaned around him like the stomach of an empty old man. His mother chided him every so often about the overwhelming size of his house and its atrocious lack of grandchildren and framed ﬁnger-paintings and that fresh cookies and soiled diapers aroma she seemed to be fond of. In truth it was a stupidly big house for one man, but the pontoon-insuring business had treated him well, and he had viewed the purchase as an investment, not a splurge. Long-term planning. Short-term planning probably would have landed him in a scuzzy New York apartment,

crazy Norah lying in his bed and investment portfolios strewn all around the tiny, dim kitchen, ends barely meeting and dreams always just out of reach. For such a constant companion, Death didn’t ever have much to say to Harvey. He felt a pang for conversation—real conversation—as the oven beeped and a news anchor droned out the box ofﬁce earnings. In fact the last real conversation Harvey had might very well have been the one with his doctor, three months ago. Both an eternity ago and yesterday. The physician, Dr. Pullman, had walked into the room quietly, white coat pulled over a sage green dress shirt and grey tie. He sat in the wheelie chair, manila folder in hand, much lower than Harvey’s perch atop on the observation table with its sterile, rolled out paper liner which seemed to make impossibly loud crinkling noises whenever he even thought about shifting. “Harvey, how are we doing today?” Dr. Pullman had asked, with what Harvey interpreted as an edge of panic to his voice. It was a fallback question. Harvey “Never Harv” had nodded, muttered “Fine” as if he wasn’t wracked with nervousness. In that folder were his test results. Tantalizingly near. Already almost a presence. “Well then, let’s get right to it, Harvey.” The folder had ﬂipped open. “It appears your recent symptoms have all been caused by an aortic aneurysm.” Harvey’s breath had caught. He wasn’t a life insurance guy, but he knew any time “aneurysm” was on the table, it wasn’t good. “Quite simply,” Pullman had continued, “it’s swelling of the aorta, a stretching, if you will, and it’s often a completely natural, nonthreatening process, sometimes even resulting from simply high blood pressure. Luckily, we caught it early enough...” Harvey had tried to maintain his concentration on the words, the diagnosis. He even

stared at Dr. Pullman’s mouth, but had found his attention slipping. “...routine diagnostic scans...” The doctor had droned on, seemingly even proud of himself, as if there was something about which to be celebratory, “...should be just ﬁne.” There had been an expectant pause then, and unmarried, talented ATV-insurer Harvey in that moment met his personal Death, the presence, empty and real and unchanging. Harvey was going to die. As he was delving heavily into this existential crisis of terminality, the oven beeped and the phone rang. He walked into the kitchen, torn between which sound to attend to. He checked the pizza. It could be cooked a while longer. He picked up the phone. “Hello?” “Hello? Hi, is this Harvey?” Was this Harvey? Almost. “Yes, who’s calling?” “Harv? Harvey? This is Norah Callaway.” Harvey choked a little on his own spit, tried to turn it into a grunt, and sputtered out, “Norah? From Penn State?” *** Before he knew it an hour had passed and Harvey “Sometimes Harv” Donaldson hung up the phone and retrieved his charred pizza from the oven. He looked at it, hesitant, smiled a tenuous smile, and threw it into the garbage can. Pizza isn’t good for long-term health, anyway. 1

Fallen, 2013, Photograph, Mary Wallace

Ice Eyes by Evan Bradfield Bristly brown branches, like her tangly brown hair, Encapsulated in icy smooth sheaths And green underbrush statued in moments of hope, Never find the satisfaction of blooming. Sickly silence incarnate in illusory snow, Save for boughs plumping down the disowned snowmelt Dumping their loads and flinging flicks Back up as they swing and sing like a catapult. Drops of once-solid water have begun to slide down from their lofty perches Occasionally pulling themselves airborne And feeling for a moment the freedom of falling rain. We hesitate, eyes looking down and away A sheet of glass reveals us, her, Underneath a crisp layer of ice, treading Among the cracked and crushed trees. Drops sliding quietly down trees Look curious, intimate, They are microcosms of matter. I gaze at her standing rooted in the cold It is dim and we begin to thaw out, melt down, Awaken to an awareness blurred by the still silence. Her eyes will never be quiet; frozen, screaming and hoping in me; Drops of once-ignored emotion have begun to slide down from their lofty perches Occasionally pulling themselves airborne And feeling for a moment the freedom of falling tears.

(Top) Snow Day, 2014, Photograph, Jordan Cannella

(Bottom) Winter Evergreen, 2014, Photograph, Mary Paluszak

(Top) Snow Day, 2014, Photograph, Jordan Cannella

(Bottom) Winter Evergreen, 2014, Photograph, Mary Paluszak

Outstretched Hand by Lydia Nicoli I’m lying in the dirt, on the side of a crooked road. The sun is beating down on my face, and sweat soaks the thin clothing that barely covers my body. I feel it drip down my face, stinging my eyes. I taste the salt in my mouth, willing myself to swallow the acrid taste. I do not know what is wrong with me. I only know that there has been something terribly wrong with me since I was very young. Other people move to the opposite side of the street to pass me by. They are afraid of me. They are afraid that they will catch my sickness. I manage the strength to prop myself up on my elbow, slowly dusting the grime from my face. Someone is coming. Someone important, it seems, for there is a large crowd following. People in front and behind. The sun is so bright, I must lift my hand to my eyes to shade them so that I can see. A cloud of dirt precedes the people. As it clears, I can barely see a man in their midst, clothed in black. He is apparently someone of significance. Immediately, in my chest, I feel a wrenching, like the sinews of my being are threatening to stretch me to infinity. Is the man in black causing this? No, it must be the blackness inside me, the awful disease that slowly sucks my life away. Yet, there is still a horrible tugging inside me. Why am I so drawn to this figure? My body seems to think he is a cure, it urges me on so. He walks over to me, and as his sandals come within reach, I stretch my arm out to touch him. But he passes by, slowly. I try to grab his cloak, forcing my voice to hoarsely call out for mercy. My mouth is so dry that only crackling moans escape. Still, he walks

on. I feel his cloak between my fingers, and I hold on tighter. Still, he walks on. I drag myself along, painfully trying to keep up with him amongst the crowd. Sweat runs into my mouth, moistening it, and my voice escapes clearly this time. Still, he moves on. He does not turn. He does not look. He walks away. I need this figure, desperately. At least, I think I do. My body craves him. Whatever this man has, I want it. I feel as though I might die without it. Finally, I muster the strength, and call out loudly, “Stop! Why will you not look at me?!” The crowd hushes. The dust clouds settle. And the man turns. My tongue catches in my throat. My face is frozen, wide eyed and horrified. The man has now fully turned around, and his lips are formed into a sneer. My own face looks down at me. The man I tried so desperately to gain the attention of, whose essence I craved, is the evil that I have produced. It is my sin that looks at me, I realize. All the horrible, dark things I have committed throughout my life laugh in my face. Still, my body stretches itself thin; it wants it still. My flesh craves it. My double looks down on me and continues to laugh, as if to say, You could never survive without me. I alone am what keeps you together. Without me, you would be nothing. Worthless. Already, your sickness destroys you. With me, you gain pleasure. Happiness. With me, your body feels alive. I stare down at my hands. They are stained with blood; the blood of my appalling sinful life. Could these hands ever be cleaned? Is there anything that could possibly wash the

muck away? Silently, at a whisper, I barely hear his voice above the laughter of the crowd. Somehow, the word reaches my ear. Yes. That simple word. My head swirls. Still, the crowd laughs, and my sin laughs with them. But I heard it. It was there. I painfully turn my head to look behind me. I do not see him at ﬁrst. He is not surrounded by a large crowd, but stands by himself. Yet there is something about him that commands respect. Something that causes the crowd to be hushed, without him saying a word. He lifts his head and tears stain his smiling face. I hear it again. Yes. And this time, I know it comes from this stranger. Slowly, he lifts his hand, reaching it out towards me. I look at the distance between us, and know there is no possible way I can cover it. I’m right here, you know, I hear from behind. I won’t make you drag yourself to me. I won’t make you suffer. Look, I am so much closer to you. It would be far easier to take my hand and come with me, than the hand of a man who would make you suffer to reach him. I look up at his outstretched palm. So very close to mine. Simply a ﬁngertip away. The easiness of it appeals to me. I lift my hand, and as I do so, I hear a sigh. Again, I turn my head around, and see the stranger with his shoulders sagged, as if he is sorrowful at the choice I am about to make. But still, his hand reaches out. Even though my body begs me to take the hand in front of me, there is something deeper calling me to drag myself to the stranger. I

begin to use my skintight arms to pull myself along the sand to the opposite side of the road. Behind me, I hear gasps. And someone tugs at my feet. I turn around, and see the cloaked man, my past, holding my feet and trying to prevent me from crossing. I kick out viciously, freeing myself. Persistently, and painfully, I drag myself to the other side of the road. Dirt and grime cake underneath my fingernails and in the grooves of my skin. The stranger, clothed in purest white, still holds out his hand. He smiles down at me. Again, I wonder if even this man could take away the blackness from my body. And again, I hear, Yes. With one final gasp, I reach up to his hand and grasp it with mine. Immediately, my entire body is shaken, and something burns underneath my skin. The stranger is shining in a light so bright, it blinds me. As my hands become weak, unable to hold on, his grasp stays strong, lifting me to my feet. At first, I stumble, but then I feel a strength in my bones, and I see my sickly flesh become new. When the light stops burning, I look at the stranger. His face glows and radiates joy. He points to my hands. Where once there was blackness and blood, there is now soft, golden skin. I look behind me, scared that my double is close behind, but I see nothing. Nothing except green grass and a radiantly blue sky. I face the stranger, knowing now that my Savior stands before me. 1

Ranidae by Laura Romaine My eyes hath seen the beauty of the stars upon your face, And gentle gleams of moonlight casting shadows on your skin. We gaze into each other’s eyes in secret lover’s placeThis black night beauteous! Away from cities’ awful din.

Beneath Spouting Rock, 2013,

Photograph, Annemarie Keller

In the Deep by Laura Romaine

The blackest river water shapes your fate, Green tendrils of the stream-bank reaching out, For in the deep the platypi await.

Anuran touch sends wondrous shivers sliding down my spine, The kind wind draws us closer to warm water’s riverside. I watch you slide into the stream and wonder that you’re mine... You seem too blessed a thing to be; you ﬁll my heart with pride. The silver beams make ranine features glow like angel’s wings. Reﬂections of virescence utter subtle harmonies. My noble salientia! With you my full heart sings! Though love between us goads the world to utter calumniesWhat could I care for wings of birds or feline’s fur so clean, When you have webbed feet, glassy eyes, and skin of vibrant green?

Though we may think their ﬂattened bills are great And laugh at their appearance, have no doubt-The blackest river water shapes your fate. Sweet children snorkeling are tender bait. Do mind the burrows: go a different route, For in the deep the platypi await. God’s sense of humor did not hesitate To form such creatures, so look out! The blackened river water shapes your fate. A gleam of eyes when daylight does abate, A shadow in the twilight, duck-billed snouts; For in the deep the platypi await.

Consuming pain can incapacitate When venom spurs begin a poison bout. The blackest river water shapes your fate, For in the deep the platypi await.

Kissing the Surface 2013, Waterbased Clay and Shoe Polish, 10 x 3.5 x 6,” 3 lbs, Naomi Popp

Beneath Spouting Rock, 2013,

Photograph, Annemarie Keller

In the Deep by Laura Romaine

The blackest river water shapes your fate, Green tendrils of the stream-bank reaching out, For in the deep the platypi await.

Consuming pain can incapacitate When venom spurs begin a poison bout. The blackest river water shapes your fate, For in the deep the platypi await.

Kissing the Surface 2013, Waterbased Clay and Shoe Polish, 10 x 3.5 x 6,” 3 lbs, Naomi Popp

Rain Storm by Vince Petruccelli “Mine, O thou lord of life, send my roots rain” - Gerard Manley Hopkins These are not the showers that we sleep to, the rains we await. These are the violent drops, the harrowing drops, these drops with the weight of assault. Peeling paint scabbed wood explodes from their fall and impatiens hung now bob and weave, while violets retreat

Now the calms, the staccato, rounding, slows. Now the robin, muttering, resumes his old post. Now see the oak that stood, with ancient faces turned patiently on this pizzicato world, downturned as if bowed as if deep down, listening to the roots.

to the ropes and the day-birds ﬂee, the brown ones and black ones and one yellow, whose beauty has been but an elusive blink like hummingbird wings. What we sit for is not this bout, what we wait to hear has a regular ease, the waltzing in rhythm of summertime drizzling. Evening comes low in shame, broke from the bookies who bet on the rain.

Metanoia by Marie K. Brinkman Black sheet of anger dissolved, burned up on altar high -like incense it rises, and Golden light, breathing, at last comes sinking, seeping into the cracks in my crooked heart until I see: the unwelcome dawn, that it was I;

Lightning, 2013, Photograph, Laurence Rossi y

It was I who was wrong.

Lightning, 2013, Photograph, Laurence Rossi y

It was I who was wrong.

Sacerdotal Smile by Dr. Edward Mulholland For Fr. Denis Meade, OSB

Hidden Treasures, 2013, Mixed Media, 30 x 17.5,â&#x20AC;? Mary Louise Orsinger

His smile does not start in his smile. It rides a wave of eyebrows arched In joyful, habitual surprise. It pools serenity in wisdom eyes Keen in kindness, in purity piercing. Taking the stage beneath a button nose, A grin of recognizing welcome sounds the overture, Widens in crescendo to embrace all that you are: The good its fanfare celebrates; The not-so-good its melody mercies With promised, prayerful sacriďŹ ce. (Its strains are sometimes grimaces of pain.) As it fades to pianissimo, releasing you, You and the silence are richer, For his smile does not end in his smile.

Sacerdotal Smile by Dr. Edward Mulholland For Fr. Denis Meade, OSB

Hidden Treasures, 2013, Mixed Media, 30 x 17.5,â&#x20AC;? Mary Louise Orsinger

Opposites (Don’t) Attract by Marie K. Brinkman If I was a love letter inkish in intimacy with vulnerable syllables fermented into the familiarity of thighs, hearts, words well-worn and well-read -the faithful bride, wreathed in wrinkles, aged like wine; Then you were a pleated prayer nightgown knees nonsense the perfect indifference, recited in chorus with starched sheets white -muscle memory mumbling a half-hearted hope that reeks of despair. Yes, if I am a sunﬂower stretching golden ﬁngertips up up up around the neck of my lover, thrusting golden locks along the Kansas current, licking up light eternal; Then you are a grave stenching gray grimace down down down beneath your soiled reverie -unmoving gray body sinking to corpsehood, shadowing down centuries forgotten. Sailor, 2013, Acrylic on Woodblock, 4 x 3.75” Miniature Painting, Annemarie Keller y

like steam curling sweet above the boiling bubbles rumble gurgle pop pop; like lightbulbs twinkling across the icy rooftops -shy winking; men weeping, like calves blazing, until the hill surrenders and the victory sigh resounds. Yes, I am walking, I’m gliding, I’m ﬂoating away.

Know this: While you sleep -- dry void of vision, content to swell in your sorry nothingness, Know that I will dream

Cicadas by Sydney Giefer The pungent night leans Back Upon its haunches Air so thick The rain won’t drop Properly. Instead It mists the surface with kisses Quite unlike the usual Marble-fall pounding Of a thousand berating blows Plopped In sheets and sheets. No, This Night sits heavily Consuming sounds In woolen clouds Squelching the sweltering twilight That breathed its last Hours ago. I walk Light steps Through puddle-wonderland Night presses her face To mine And laughing, Dances around me

Sound by Liv Martin I wont to soundlessness As sound-waves Cease to pound and break This ripple-wanting eve. The cusp takes pause Pithy potency gives way To quiet sibilance All midnight movement mufﬂed Murmurs: Merely shadows of living noise. All seems to cease The seamless night – Suspended in time We enter into the interim When Suddenly Even she cannot Keep the trees From ringing In my ears.

Swish free cash vivid jingles ring where wallow soft lilies in the spring. Night’s neat, smooth, lovely, falling from shells in trash heaps. Elias leans, the mantle marshmallow mellow jaunts far and wide. His façade swimming, sniffing marigold sprinkley twilight. He stretches far, the rail snaps. Boy leaves on a stretcher in a covered hearse. Big black cars crumbly dauntless streets edifices drown logical conflagration between chaotic symphonies of grinding grief downtown specific Albuquerque. Unblinking archaic tigers consume brackish water digging deep in the ground, thinking thunder thoughts, guessing blank cards; End the conceptual lottery! Ponder drab dredges, watchful wenches, dead demigods until Sound sinks; until Silence blasts the brain, the final Sound.

Steps, 2013, Photograph, Laurence Rossi

The Lonely Cry by Evan Bradfield Do not run into town yelling and waving your arms. Even if day after day, year after year, (you’ve been shepherding since last May) you are bored and lonely, do not run into town with arms held high and adrenaline in your veins from everyone’s frightened looks. It just isn’t worth it. Yes, you’ve made wishes on every dandelion in your whole meadow and counted your sheep at least 3 times—113. You’ve even laid under the trees and let the breeze rustle their leaves like your mother rustled your hair, back before you had to work. Do not shriek, cry, or call out that a wolf is coming. You aren’t even sure what a wolf looks like. It’s probably black and at least 4 foot at the shoulder. But say you do call out. You’ll run into town, screaming your head off that a ferocious wolf is attacking your flock. Please, someone, anyone with a gun, you’ll plead. Sure, the whole village—the cobbler, the smith, even the mayor—will run into your field, following you, ready to follow your command—your own militia of townspersons—but they’ll turn on you when no wolf is to be found. Especially, don’t play your trick again. Why would you? For that moment, you held the power. For that moment, you were not alone, but joined by loyal subjects. But your

Silent Winds,

uncle roughly cuffs your ears and tells you you’re a stupid boyish troublemaker, and the army leaves its sad commander to fall into a sea of braying and gaze-less eyes.

2014, Ink Painting, 11 x 15,” Kristen Adlhoch

I’ll even get down on my knees, like I am now, to beg you. Don’t cry wolf. The field will feel so empty without that flock (it’s up to 114—lambs were born). But now you can say goodbye to any chance for responsibility, to having people ask However did you handle such a scary situation? say goodbye to earning your uncle’s respect. Do not run into town screaming help for a wolf that isn’t attacking your flock. If you do, then also Do not run into town having an anxiety attack over the cunning grey wolf that has been systematically killing the weak of your flock as you napped and scattering the remaining sheep as you daydreamed in the shade of the rustling leaves. If you do, just lie down with that blanket of anxiety in the cold, empty field, and cry. Do not cry wolf; rather, join the wolf in its own lonely cry.

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Silent Winds,

uncle roughly cuffs your ears and tells you you’re a stupid boyish troublemaker, and the army leaves its sad commander to fall into a sea of braying and gaze-less eyes.

2014, Ink Painting, 11 x 15,” Kristen Adlhoch

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Fireworks: A Sestina by Laura Romaine Scattering fluorescence mars the skylight’s fractured face, Rending great cacophonies through deep unmuted space. Not bent but cruelly broken is this luminescent shine, Stains from fallen angels flow from righteous spears divine. This reliquary renders mortal ground a fallow place-Neither holy blessing nor apocalyptic sign. Ancient peoples saw the lightning showers as a sign Foreboding the forthcoming of an unfamiliar face. Seers could read the skies to tell the day and time and place; Constantly they erred against the fickle whims of space. Artificial artifice supplants what was divine. Neurons can’t decide which is the imitation shine. Time defying blunders mar the standard cosmic shine, Whizzing sparks ignited as a celebration sign. Though boiling the clouds display audacity divine, None will heed electrocuted elephant’s sad face. All attention’s focused on explosion ridden space-Eyes are swiftly scanning for the next enkindled place. Tentacles are breathing smoke-filled plumes into this place, Overtaking changelings that were taught by stars to shine Brandishing their fires in the endless war for space. Heeding not old history’s overt cessation sign, Glaring sparking irises still battle face to face. Victory’s no option when both victors are divine. Silvered showers crackling like daisy chains divine Thundering across the sky to claim the empty place. Crowning darkness, reigning down to brighten every face While men try speaking metaphors to reconvey the shine. Personal unveiling is one exclusive sign. Voices will not echo sounds that boom through ruptured space.

Fireworks, 2013, Photograph, Jordan Cannella

Children turn their heads to gaze on endless star-struck space Lifting fattened ﬁngers high to poke at the divine But when they touch the colored bands the pain projects a sign-Earth born babes are not designed to touch the higher place. Writhing in the chaos and the incandescent shine Trying to pick off the paint that shades a truer face.

Astral wonders still hold worth as lofty signs from space But to face divine percussion is beyond the modern pace We fabricate the place to have our existential shine.

Fireworks, 2013, Photograph, Jordan Cannella

Astral wonders still hold worth as lofty signs from space But to face divine percussion is beyond the modern pace We fabricate the place to have our existential shine.

Ma Sœur by Taryn Dennis If I am imagination, clouded worlds of unknowable realities and formidable foes and reckless heroics, it is only because you are reality, heroically and quietly defeating all our foes. And it is only because your heart has always been my audience, your laughter the best review (Even back to the days of stuffed raccoons and the bunk bed you never let me sleep on the top of and my voice spinning us stories for hours on end). You may have made some crazier choices, but I am crazy. And all that time when I thought I had my own roots and brains and a self, I was scattered and chipping, warping, bending pieces to a puzzle that you always saw could be a full picture. If I am ever completed, ﬁnished, and made whole,

it will only be because you were the box, the constant opportunity for me to be collected, the reference to make the image someday look right. Am I making any sense? We speak two different dialects of the same language, you and I. If I forget to try, to ask, to support, to reciprocate, it is because you are ﬁxed to me. You are constant as my breathing, familiar as my name. It is hard to see you sometimes —because we are proximate. (I read once that you always see your nose, but your brain erases it from the image. But even this metaphor falls short, because you are much prettier than my nose.) We are two sides to the same ﬂattened keepsake penny I just had to waste 51 cents to buy (and lose) on roadtrips

when we were small. I have had all my life to solve you, riddle, and still make no real progress. I have read you too often, and my eyes are too near to the page. If I am tall, (not in stature, because I never did catch up to you), if I am secure, if I am real, if I am myself, it is only because I am held by the hand of one who is tall, real, herself —mine, all my life. If I ever bloom, it is because I have stemmed from the sturdiest and bravest and truest and loveliest of roots, you who are creativity, life-bringer, everything just and good and giving

and mighty and gentle, who takes all things within herself and gives back only light, only grace. And I’m sorry it’s taken me so long.

Discovery, 2012, Watercolor and Ink on Canvas, 12 x 18,” Elizabeth Barrett

and mighty and gentle, who takes all things within herself and gives back only light, only grace. And I’m sorry it’s taken me so long.

Discovery, 2012, Watercolor and Ink on Canvas, 12 x 18,” Elizabeth Barrett

Rejected by Caitlyn Benedict No. She said no. What the hell? I actually liked this one. Now I’m sitting here on this dumbass bench with some cheap flowers, looking like a loser, all dressed up for nothing. I’ve been trying for two months now. Figured I’d take my time with this one. She seemed pretty cool. I mean what kind of girl actually watches basketball? Ha. That’s how we met. Me and a couple buddies, Jack and Nate, I think, were playing a pickup game with some guys outside on the courts west of campus. I remember the play. I faked left, drove right, pullin’ up for a sick fadeaway for three, and as soon as the ball left my fingers, I knew it wasn’t gonna make it. Real quick, I fell hard, looking for the foul that wasn’t there—and then I saw her. Well, heard her. “What a flop. You could give LeBron a run for his money.” I was so pissed off that someone actually called me out. Well, pissed off for a good three

Fuzz Ball-y Holly seconds until I looked up and saw her. She was lookin’ pretty damn good all decked out in some running gear. I’m not one to try too hard when looking for a girl. Usually, I let ‘em come to me, play Mr. Charming for awhile, then pretend to fall hard until I’ve got what I want. This one was different though. I had to try. Craziest thing ever: I didn’t mind trying. Hell, I enjoyed listening to the things she said. Her eyes got all bright when she told a story, and I swear her glare could burn a hole right through your sorry ass when she didn’t approve of something. I only got the look once. Oh, yes, I learned real quick to keep my hands to myself. You know what? She’s somethin’ special, and even I could see it. I guess that’s why it hurts so much. For once, I meant it; for once, I didn’t ﬂop. 1

by Gemma Rajewski

I don’t understand why it’s so difficult to talk to you. I always think up things to say ahead of time, and practice in front of a mirror, but when I see your face, my throat closes up like it does when I am near cat hair, and I feel like my head is about to explode like a Coke all shook up. And you don’t even seem to notice. You look at me and smile that nonchalant, naturally flirty smirk, the one that makes me tingle to the tip of my toes with warmth radiating like that mini heater I use when the power goes out. But you don’t even notice. Last week too, when I ran into you in the library, I almost couldn’t find the words. “H-hhey, Charlie,” I squeezed out. “How was your spring break?” “Oh hey, Holly!” you said with a slight chuckle. “I had a blast! Me and Tyler took a road trip to see Austin in Colorado and went skiing on the slopes. You went home, right?” “Yeah, I did. I ran into your Grandma Patti in Parson Mart. She looks really good for just having her hip replaced in November.” “Well you know Grandma Patti.” You smirked that special smile. “Nothing can keep her down for long. By the way how is your mom? I haven’t seen her since Christmas Eve service at church.” “Oh she’s good. She was pissed she had to shovel last week. ” “Yeah! I can’t believe that it snowed! The weather’s been crazy!” The weather. Our conversations have been reduced to your grandma and the weather. I don’t understand how we have known each other our whole lives but we can’t converse any further than that. We used to spend hours talking, about anything and everything, listing our dreams. You wanted to be an astronaut; I wanted to be the president. We were both reaching for the stars, aiming high and

leaning on the other to help us get there. We were always close. Do you remember when we used to play cops and robbers? Running around the yard like we were hyped up on sugar and caffeine, even though our moms never gave us any. I always got captured and you would always find a way to kill the bad guys and save me. I don’t think that you remember. I don’t know when things changed. One day you were my partner-in-crime, my amigo, my best friend. The next it was more. I noticed your laugh and smile more. You looked at me and my heart beat a little faster. You don’t see how my hands shake when I am close enough to smell that clean and wild scent that comes off of your favorite cotton shirt that has been washed a few too many times. I remember the first week of school; you came to me when you had turned all your underwear orange after you washed it with your jersey. My face was redder than your favorite spaghetti sauce from Demetrio’s. After that though, you got caught up in practice and your new friends. I faded away. You always looked out for me. Saying it was your responsibility as my “big brother.” That was just depressing. You always told me I was pretty, even when the other boys were making fun of my frizzy hair and oversized glasses. Calling me “Fuzz Ball-y Holly.” You pointed out that my hair was the color of your favorite caramel candy. I worry about what would happen if you found out. My stomach turns like the tilt-awhirl at the county fair. My favorite ride. The colors blend together like vomit, swirling in a mix of lights, sounds and colors. You might hate me. I’m nothing new, just a tattered, read book that should be collecting dust on some high shelf. I wish I could be the prized first edition that gets read with reverence and is

The Craze,

2014, Photograph, Alexander Vu

by Gemma Rajewski

The Craze,

2014, Photograph, Alexander Vu

treasured. But instead, you’re looking for a new adventure to explore, a never cracked cover. You don’t see how my palms get clammy. How they slide against my jeans, trying to get dry, but just get hotter. My legs quiver and I feel like I’m gonna collapse, but you don’t even see it. But I’ll just smile and pretend that we are okay. I don’t want you to know anything is different or weird. I love those summer nights, that we spent catching fireflies. Snatching up those flashing lights in our empty Coke bottles, the leftovers sloshing in the bumpy bottom. Competing to see who can catch more, and having a tackle fight in the cool grass. This summer, we’ll hang out more. Small town life. With nothing better to do, we’ll return to those deep, dreaming conversations. We’ll go down to the stream and dip our toes in when it gets too hot to just to sit your truck. We’ll talk in different accents and try to remember the lyrics to the songs that were popular last summer. Maybe that’ll be

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If Only by Lydia Nicoli I stop For only just One moment. Never taking Longer than my Yearning for you allows. You, whom I Only trust Under certain Circumstances. Only when Unrealistic expectations Lord over me the Dreams of Knights in shining armor. Nightmares of monsters Of dragons and Witches Warlocks Hags, All curse me To live In this Waiting for you. All stare while Sinister thoughts Raid my Ever-dwindling hope. All make the Longing Linger. You don’t see The pain. How it crushes Inward and will Never let me stand. Kneeling, I grasp and I struggle for Nothing. And my Grave is dug deeper.

Daughter by Marie K. Brinkman

I dream a girl, with giddy hands, with eyelashes lilting languid, with ears that wiggle and wander. I dream a girl: She is the leaf-cruncher, the penny-tosser, the toad-kisser. I dream a girl, who snuggles sound, who dons my pearls, who backyard whirls, who laughs like a man I’ve yet to meet, who asks of me always “Why?” I wake. I press my sleep-chilled hands to my empty abdomen, ﬂat and I wait.

Relève, 2013, Photograph, Gemma Rajewski y

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Daughter by Marie K. Brinkman

Relève, 2013, Photograph, Gemma Rajewski y

The Encounter by Liv Martin It was boring, dark, deep— to me. It was boring, slightly stealing the slivers of my soul— to haunt and caress the untouched. Religious Sense, found Everywhere in earth; Nowhere is it found to not settle; it knows the rain—backward the sun—inward the moment—forward never ceasing moving. The Ultimate Fact was pleased to enter time—a physical being—willing to be deeply known, not philosophized nor conceptualized about, but to be Experienced.

Don Giussani, 2013, Sharpie, 11 x 14,”

Colt Severson

Supernova, 2013, Acrylic Paint, Jenny Murphy Cover Art, Correct Orientation

Artist Statement for Don Guissani by Colt Severson Thousands of dots with a sharpie create this picture of the friend who taught me to see the stars, Monsignor Luigi Guisanni. He showed me that every single thing in my life points me towards He who made me, just like how every single one of these dots are formed and belong to something greater. 1

Don Giussani, 2013, Sharpie, 11 x 14,”

Colt Severson

Supernova, 2013, Acrylic Paint, Jenny Murphy Cover Art, Correct Orientation

An Empty Moment by David Witherow

“How do you feel?” I asked. “Sad,” he replied with a smile. My stomach curdled and I blinked. The curtains didn’t move; the window was not open. The air we breathed was all we had. A flower withered on the sill and the room smelled like iron. His eyes were looking beyond sterile white sheets, tucked around his waist. I leaned heavily on the cold metal of the door frame. The door was dense, swung wide open like a coffin at a wake. The white tile floor matched the empty white walls that mirrored the indifferent white ceiling. That was all. The emptiness filled the room, a suffocating noose of unfilled space. I had arrived at the nursing home earlier that day to visit my mother, who I found out, was sleeping. I replaced the flowers in her vase and left. However as I had been rambling through the halls to leave, I had stuttered past the doorway, and I caught his eye by chance. I had never met the man sitting limply in the room before me. To be unkindly blunt I had no intention of ever meeting this man or had any desire to be at all acquainted with him. Yet inexplicably he had frozen my steps and arrested my intentions. Suddenly all I had wanted was to say a word to this withering monument, this tribute to a past I could never know. Now as I was pressed against the door, I reflected on his response. It sunk like a rock into my head. I knew that this man carried a great history, though it must have been a tragedy because the truth rang so unfairly in that word; though it might also have been a comedy, because his smile was sincere. But as I thought about it, it was not a happy smile and his word, though quietly spoken, was more like a scream that had not come out quite right. No, there was more to his smile than happiness and more to his word than sadness. As the rock sunk deep into my understanding, I was stung profoundly because I knew that I could never know what he truly

meant. He had told me something I would never understand, a lesson lost on an uneducated pupil. As I pondered by the doorway I noticed his eyes gazing through the window; outside, a great oak stood proudly in the yard rotting. Its roots were crooked and its gnarled branches sprawled. It cast no shadow; the sun was covered in sickly clouds. I began to speak again, a desire to communicate forcing my words. “Why are you here?” It was an empty question. The words were expelled like a cough that had been mufﬂed in my throat, but as my expulsion reached his ears, his eyes returned to mine. I saw something in them, an unanswerable question, an inﬁnity of expression. “Dying.” His word hung in the air, carrying all the agony of the moment before a fall. I’d hoped he wouldn’t reply, that I would be allowed to excuse myself quietly and forget the man. Now his word hung over me like a knife and his eyes would not leave mine. I had words. I had a swath, a plethora, an overabundance of words. But in them I found no expression to parry his. I became very aware of myself. The space around me became vividly real and every detail clamored into my consciousness. Why had I been drawn to speak to this man? His skin hung loosely on his face and I wondered how he had managed to bring his lips up into a grin. “I’m sorry,” was all I stammered. I winced as the words came out. They felt contrived, a worthless expression that had lost its value through a repetitive insincerity. I tried to explain what I meant through a despairing glance, but upon hearing an apology for his condition, his eyes drifted back to the middle distant abyss somewhere outside the window; he would not look at me. I tried to penetrate him with my eyes but there was nothing to pierce. For all of my intentions, I lacked the

capability. My brow was drawn down into a grimace. I felt an indiscernible emotion. Elements of anger, frustration, sadness, and love all stewed in the furnace of my stomach. I felt. And it burned uncomfortably. After a moment of silence, I came to truly understand my predicament. We could not communicate. I writhed in my skin because I knew he had much to say and I had

much I wished to understand and to ask. But he was captive in his past and I was chained to my ignorance, unable to meet in understanding. I straightened up and made to leave him. As I did, our eyes met. I remember his eyes clearly. They were brown. I nodded my goodbye and left. It had been no more than two minutes. I walked away thinking of clowns. 1

Time to Go, 2013, Mixed Media, 18 x 24,” Marie Louise Orsinger y

An Empty Moment by David Witherow

Time to Go, 2013, Mixed Media, 18 x 24,” Marie Louise Orsinger y

On Despairing of the Possibility of My Publication in Poetry Magazine by Vincent Petruccelli I am worried that I am not Richard Wilbur now that I am twenty-one. That no such rhythms come clanking from my keys, no sure slips of sound. I am worried that I never became a Beat. I used to ﬁnd it primal to howl at a girl and America, vague bricks of rebellion and heartsick suicide. I was astonished that a story could highway stretch and span so many states, corners of Denver and the ocean coasts. I worried that I was not concrete, that is to say not free but I didn’t want to need this madness that they called real, the AIDS on the bathroom ﬂoor, the reefer on the ceiling. I emerged dry, not dripping in the Ginsburg cabin, not prostrate at Big Sur.

I am anxious not to be Auden not to be Keats or Hopkins, an architect on the scaffold whose dome does not rise, the baker of some crumpled . feast. You were right, father, that self-yeast sours and turns us dust. Now I am neither wise nor clean, I am ﬂat neither Larkin nor Blake nor myself.

To an Old Poet by B. S. Hook The hours groan and plod across the day, Horizons slyly swindling the sun Across the globe until Apollo pay A ransom set to steep the sky in dun. And from your nadir to the stars you sigh. No mountainside could raise you from this state; While longingly, like cranes, you long to ﬂy To lands that might your restless heart abate. To live in drudgery seems a true curse— Mundane and toilsome years pile on your back-But worse! your passion’s gone from prose and verse; Hunching, now defeated by your lack. Yet in your wake see tremors that you cause— In reading what you wrote, the world gives pause.

Bücher, 2013, Photograph, Mary Paluszak

Kickoff

by Evan Bradﬁeld

Rattling and clanking Starting after the November thermostat click. I love the smell of the house When my dad would ﬁrst turn on the furnace For the winter. It is a fungus-growing-on-rotting-tree smell, Something slightly burning. Soon to follow: the counters covered In Chex and pretzel sticks and mixed nuts On greasy paper towels, I love the smell of the kitchen When my mom practices grandma’s old recipes For the holidays. It is a hot-water-hitting-cocoa-mix smell, Something to come inside to from the Spearmint cold. Then: relatives visit from down the street And down in Texas, all smelling The same scents of my home And happily intruding with their cigarette-and-leather Or Coors Light-and-cologne smell in my life, Rattling and clanking.

Burbank Flare, 2014, Photograph, Alexander Vu

1 Support for Loomings is made possible by ﬁnancial donors and readers like you. Consequently, we, the staff of Loomings, would like to express our gratitude to those who have generously supported the production of this magazine, whether ﬁnancially or by submitting their artistic works. In particular, we would like to thank the Benedictine College Foundation: Chairperson Howard Westerman, Jr., Kitty Belden, Mike Easterday, Jim O’Brien, Bob Reintjes, Carol Shomin, and Tom Wessels. Your enthusiasm for the arts is invaluable to us! A special thank you to all of our judges as well: Poetry Judges: Dr. John Bunch, Dr. Eddie Mulholland, and Dr. Chuck Osborn Prose Judges: Dr. Daphne McConnell, Prof. Matthew Ramsey, and Sr. Judith Sutera Art Judges: Patti Boldridge, Prof. Scott Cox, Hayleigh Diebolt, Kristy Kreitner, Prof. Emeritus Michael O’Hare, and Kady Weddle

Kickoff

by Evan Bradﬁeld

Burbank Flare, 2014, Photograph, Alexander Vu

The Patricia Hattendorf Nerney Poetry Award y Vincent Petruccelli, p. 2, 22, 44

The Sister Scholastica Schuster Fiction Writing Award

y Taryn Dennis, The Story about a Man Who Is Going to Die, p. 12

The Thomas Ross Award for a Promising Young Writer y Hannah Sattler, Minimun Wage, p. 3

Studio Art Awards

y First: Grow From the Roots, Cardboard Sculpture by Annemarie Keller, p. 11 y Second: Time to Go, Mixed Media by Marie Louise Orsinger, p. 43 y Third: Sailor, Miniature Acrylic Painting by Annemarie Keller, p. 26

Photography Awards

y First: Snow Day, by Jordan Cannella, p. 17 y Second: Lightning, by Laurence Rossi, p. 23 y Third: RelĂ¨ve, by Gemma Rajewski, p. 39

Index of Prose and Poetry

Index of Studio Art and Photography

Benedict, Caitlyn: 36 BradďŹ eld, Evan: 11, 16, 30, 47 Brinkman, Mary K.: 22, 27, 39 Dennis, Taryn: 12, 34 Giefer, Sydney: 28 Hook, B.S.: 10, 45 Martin, Liv: 8, 29, 40 Mulholland, Dr. Edward: 25 Nicoli, Lydia: 18, 38 Petruccelli, Vincent: 2, 22, 44 Rajewski, Gemma: 37 Romaine, Laura: 20, 21, 32 Sattler, Hannah: 3 Severson, Colt: 40 Witherow, David: 42

Adlhoch, Kristen: 31 Barrett, Elizabeth: 35 Cannella, Jordan: 17, 33 Keller, Annemarie: 11, 20, 26 Murphy, Jenny: 41 Orsinger, Marie Louise: 10, 24, 43 Paluszak, Mary: 2, 17, 45 Popp, Naomi: 21 Rajewski, Gemma: 39 Rossi, Laurence: 23, 29 Severson, Colt: 40 Vu, Alexander: 9, 36, 46 Wallace, Mary: 14

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Loomings Elements

2014

Arts Magazine