Black Fox Literary Magazine Issue #18 by Black Fox

Black Fox Literary Magazine is a print and online literary magazine published biannually.

Copyright ÂŠ 2018 by Black Fox Literary Magazine. All Rights Reserved. Written and artistic work included in Black Fox Literary Magazine may not be reprinted or reproduced in any electronic or print medium in whole or in part without the consent of either the writer/artist or founding editors. Issue 18 Cover Art: Breathe in Life by Angelique Bochnak ISBN: 978-0-359-06133-4

Editors’ Note

Counting the years for Black Fox will never get old for us. It is a truly remarkable thing to see something you dreamed up come to life. It is even more remarkable when that thing holds up well over the years. This summer marked seven years of publishing history for us. This magazine continues to surprise us and every submission period, it gets harder to narrow down the pieces that will live within our pages. We turn away so many talented writers.

That leads us to the message we want to share with writers everywhere. If at all you‘ve been feeling like you won‘t make it—don‘t give up. Show up and keep doing the work. You will eventually get to where you want to be, dear writers.

As always, we hope you enjoy this issue. Thank you to our readers, the writers who submit and our incredible staff.

-The Editors Racquel, Pam, and Marquita

Meet the BFLM Staff: Founding Editors: Racquel Henry is first and foremost a writer. She is also a part-time English Professor, freelance editor, and owns the writing center, Writer‘s Atelier, in Winter Park, FL. Racquel earned an MFA from Fairleigh Dickinson University and writes literary, women‘s, and YA fiction. Her fiction, poetry, and nonfiction have appeared or is forthcoming in Lotus-Eater Magazine, Ghost Parachute, Moko Caribbean Arts & Letters, Reaching Beyond the Saguaros: A Collaborative Prosimetric Travelogue (Serving House Books, 2017), and We Can’t Help it if We’re From Florida (Burrow Press, 2017), among others. You can follow her writing journey on her blog, ―Racquel Writes.‖ Pamela Harris lives in Greensboro, NC and spent seven years as a middle school counselor. Currently, she is an assistant professor in the Counselor Education Department at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro. When she's not molding the minds of future school counselors, she‘s writing contemporary YA fiction (and has recently started writing middle grade). Some of her favorite authors are Ellen Hopkins, Courtney Summers, Roxane Gay, and Stephen King. You can also find her at the movie theaters every weekend or pretending to enjoy exercising. She received her MFA in creative writing from Fairleigh Dickinson University in 2012, and her PhD in Counselor Education at the College of William and Mary. Marquita "Quita" Hockaday lives in Williamsburg, VA. She is an adjunct professor who has never been able to shake her love of writing and reading. There is always, always a book near her. Marquita is currently enjoying writing young adult (historical and contemporary)—and most recently wrote her first middle grade novel with co-editor, Pam. Some of her

favorite authors are Laurie Halse Anderson, Blake Nelson, Cormac McCarthy, and Joyce Carol Oates. Marquita graduated with an MFA in creative writing from Fairleigh Dickinson University in 2012, and has completed her PhD at the College of William and Mary. Copy Editor & Reader: Elizabeth Sheets is a writer and an Editorial Assistant for The Journal of Proteome Research. Elizabeth received a BA in English with a concentration in Creative Writing from Arizona State University. Some of her favorite writers are Stephen King, Anne Rice, Elizabeth Gilbert, Sarah Waters, Aimee Bender, Dan Chaon, Melissa Pritchard, Tara Ison, and Stacey Richter. Her creative work appears in Mulberry Fork Review, Apeiron Review, Kalliope â&#x20AC;&#x201C; A Consortium of New Voices, and in Black Fox Literary Magazine. Interviews Editor: Alicia Cole is a poet and fiction writer. She edits for Rampant Loon Press, and has interviewed for Bitch Magazine and motionpoems. Her creative writing is forthcoming in Vagrants Among Ruins, Torn Pages Anthology, Gadfly Online, The Dawntreader, and Lakeside Circus. She spends much of her time either freelancing or playing with a menagerie of animals. Reader: Donna Compton lives just outside of Washington, D.C. and graduated from the University of Maryland University College with a Bachelor's degree in Psychology. She began taking creative writing courses a few years ago, with a focus on short stories. Currently, she's reading and writing a lot of flash fiction. Her other favorite genres include literary fiction, mystery, thriller, science fiction, and fantasy.

Contents: Fiction The Red-Headed Boy by Kyle Heger (8) Certified by Marie Friedman (32) Healing Heels by William Ade (50) All This is Temporary by Hope Jordan (79) Corners, Stones, Shadows by A.K. Cotham (120) Blow Your House Down by William Cass (146) Seashells by Jesse Albatrosov (176) Poetry Selected Poems by Tobi Alfier (26) Pear d’Anjou by Jamie Elliott Keith (31) Selected Poems by Arjun Shaw Parikh (46) Using Medical Jargon To Cycle Through Stages of Mourning In No Particular Order by Dr. Jennifer Wolkin (48) Selected Poems by Debra Franco (74) Selected Poems by Don Hogle (77) Spirit by Anne Hunley Trisler (97) Selected Poems by Lexy Courneya (98) There is a Frost by Austin Paramore (99) Selected Poems by Jo Angela Edwins (114) Sunday Afternoon in October by Adrian Neibauer (116) Bat-Winged Dancer by Doris Xu (118) Selected Poems by Sarah Dickenson Snyder (138) Selected Poems by Carson Faust (140) Why I Don’t Drink Spanish Reds Anymore by Zack Martin (145) Selected Poems by Coty Poynter (169) Morning Fog by Marcella Benton (172) Actual Persons, Living or Dead by Michelle Brooks (173) Outer Banks by Emily Vanston (174) Meet Me in Paris by Carol Lynne Knight (175)

Nonfiction Archive by Kelly Tanner (100)

Cover Art Breathe in Life by Angelique Bochnak

The Red-Headed Boy By Kyle Heger

A bracelet of small silver bells slipped musically down Julie‘s wrist as she waved farewell to the BMW pulling away from the suburban Massachusetts train station. After a loudspeaker announced that the train heading back to the Midwest was going to be an hour late, she took Steven by the hand, ambling down the tracks to explore. More than once he looked at his watch and asked if she thought they were still within earshot of the public-address system. In an unspoken stalemate between her desire to keep moving and his to go back, they stopped near a small wooden trestle that crossed a stream choked by cattails and plants with wide, palm-shaped leaves. ―I can‘t say I‘m sorry to leave Swampscott,‖ he muttered. ―Don‘t get yourself upset all over again,‖ she replied, squinting down the tracks into the sunshine. ―Are you kidding? I didn‘t even dare pet their Samoyed for fear of getting my fingerprints on her.‖ ―Oh, come on. It wasn‘t that bad, was it?‖ ―All they can see is that I‘m a community-college drop out. I‘m not good enough to marry the daughter of a retired 8

naval officer with a Ph.D. in physics and a professorship at MIT and his wife with the beautiful roses and the pretty china collection. It doesn‘t matter that I pour my heart and soul into Greenpeace six days a week trying to make the world a better place, or that I love you with every atom of my being. I don‘t cut a particularly good figure out on the golf course or on the deck of a yacht. My best quite clearly isn‘t good enough, not for their valedictorian daughter, the future linguist and toast of the East Coast cocktail circuit.‖ ―This is their first time meeting you,‖ she reminded him. ―You don‘t have to rush matters. Let things work themselves out at their own pace.‖ ―All the signs are there,‖ he insisted. ―They actively disapprove of me, of us.‖ ―Well, I don‘t, and you don‘t. That‘s what really matters.‖ ―I guess.‖ ―I know.‖ Somehow, it still wasn‘t good enough for him. He felt the sting of rejection all over his skin, as if someone had doused him with gasoline or alcohol. He carried it with him. It permeated the air. ―You know,‖ she pointed out gingerly. ―You didn‘t have to butt heads with them on quite so many topics.‖ 9

―What was I supposed to do, just gloss over the fact that he works to create weaponry for the Navy? Turn a blind eye when I saw her using some of the most toxic chemicals on the market as insecticides when so many other, less harmful alternatives exist? Was I supposed to pretend that I eat meat?‖ ―Come on. Let‘s cross the trestle,‖ she said, tugging his hand. ―We‘re going to be cooped up in that train all the way to Chicago. Let‘s get a little fresh air while we can.‖ ―We‘ve gone far enough,‖ he replied. ―Over there is the proverbial ‗other side of the track.‘‖ He pointed at beat-up houses squatting in the shadows of warehouses and factories. Rain gutters and shingles listed from roofs. Cardboard served as an opaque window here, a dirty towel for a curtain there. Knee-high weeds swarmed over yards. ―Poverty isn‘t contagious,‖ she said. If it hadn‘t been her saying it, he would have been tempted to say the words were smug. ―If you‘ll remember correctly, I happen to have more of a personal familiarity with poverty than you do,‖ he answered, sniffing indignantly. ―Poverty might not be contagious in and of itself, but it can certainly be a breeding ground for a lot of ugly things, a lot of bad things, dangerous things. That‘s one reason it‘s something we need to fight. It‘s not something to romanticize from an ivory tower.‖ 10

―There you go with your ivory towers again.‖ She kicked gravel with a sandaled foot. ―I don‘t live in one. I‘ve never lived in one. And I don‘t plan to ever live in one.‖ ―Well, you act like someone who grew up in one when you refuse to acknowledge that some places are more dangerous than others.‖ ―If you knew me as well as you think you do, you‘d know that my approach to life isn‘t based just on naiveté. It happens to be based on a principle that comes from the Far East: One of the best ways to make the world become the place you want it to be is to act as if it already was that place. I take the advice of my Tai Chi teacher: I don‘t oppose the world. I work with it, going with the flow.‖ ―I hate to say it,‖ he replied. ―But that kind of thinking can lead straight to Auschwitz. If the average German hadn‘t turned a blind eye to the grim reality of Nazi Germany, the crematoriums couldn‘t have been built.‖ ―Well, I hate to say it, but your kind of thinking also can lead to Auschwitz. The Nazis wouldn‘t have sprung into existence in the first place if it hadn‘t been for their own unreasoning fear of their fellow creatures.‖ ―Listen, if you‘re trying to cast me in the role of …‖ he began, but then he stopped, held up a hand and asked, ―Do you smell that?‖ 11

―I smell lots of things,‖ she replied, inhaling deeply and smiling. ―Flowers. Grass. Tar from the railroad ties. The end of summer.‖ The pastel butterfly tattoo showing on one of her bare brown shoulders seemed truly in its element here. ―Smoke,‖ he said, harshly. ―Something‘s burning.‖ She shook her head, then said, ―It‘s probably just somebody‘s barbeque.‖ ―I don‘t think so. I think it‘s coming from closer.‖ He pointed down the slope. ―I think it‘s coming from there.‖ ―Let‘s check it out.‖ ―No,‖ he said, putting a hand on her shoulder. ―Who knows what might be down there?‖ ―Oh come on,‖ she said. ―It‘s probably just a couple of kids lighting up a joint or something. Maybe we can even get a hit off them.‖ ―Yeah. Or maybe it‘s a couple of hoboes cooking some Sterno and sharpening their knives.‖ ―Well, somebody should check it out. What if there‘s a grass fire?‖ ―OK. I‘ll take a look.‖ ―We both will,‖ she said. ―Since when do I need a knight in shining armor?‖ They scrambled down the slope a few yards and stopped, watching a curl of gray smoke rise from near one of 12

the trestle‘s concrete bases. Among the weeds, Steven discerned a flash of bright red. But it did not belong to a fire. It belonged to the hair on the head of a boy about nine years old who crouched over a small pile of burning branches. The fire on the ground was meager and tentative compared to the one that seemed to rage in the boy‘s hair. ―Hey, what are you doing down there?‖ called Steven. The boy stood up and looked over at the two young adults silently. ―I said, ‗What are you doing there?‘‖ repeated Steve, and then he cleared his throat. The tone of authority in his voice made him feel awkward, as if he were wearing clothes that were too large. He usually considered himself to be more of an anti-authority, taking the side of people he felt suffered from a power disadvantage, for instance, children. He sensed a danger here, real and immediate, that required action on his part. But he was instantly unsure how to proceed, what attitude to take. He noticed that the fire was quite small at this point and was for the most part surrounded by bare soil and pebbles, and, further, that the wind, which was blowing from behind him, was gently pushing the smoke in the direction of the concrete. Several indistinct shapes, pigeons he assumed, moved about uneasily in the shadow of some beams far under the trestle but they resisted the 13

temptation to fly off. Apparently, they weren‘t too worried by the smoke. So, Steven told himself, he had the luxury of time to gather information instead of blundering blindly ahead. The boy came slowly toward them. Weeds rustled, parted, and then he was standing within a few feet of them, a small, stringy boy with frayed blue jeans, bare feet, a scabbed hand, and faded tee-shirt. ―Lighting a little fire,‖ he finally replied to Steven‘s question in an indifferent voice, shaking a box of wooden matches in one hand. His eyes had a flat, dull look. His skin was pale. It seemed that all the color and energy had wicked up from the rest of his body, perhaps his spirit, into his hair. It was a conflagration of orange-red waves rising upward in matted spikes. Steven had the sudden impression that he was looking at an overgrown version of one of the matches that rattled in the box, a lit match, one that might set the overgrown hillside and the ramshackle buildings aflame at any moment. Steven looked over at the fire, which seemed to be burning itself out. Then he extended his hand, gave his name and said, ―Pleased to meet you.‖ The boy put out a dirty hand, spoke the syllable, ―George,‖ and stared up at the man without expression.

When Julie introduced herself, George turned his gaze to her and nodded. What must he make of us? wondered Steven. Julie with her long blonde hair, bracelet of bells, butterfly tattoo? Me with my long hair, beard, mustache, and glasses? To what section of the pop-culture bestiary does he assign us: Hippies? Rich Kids? College Students? Are we ridiculous to him or merely irrelevant? Aloud, he asked, ―Do you live around here?‖ George jerked a thumb downhill in the direction of the nearest house, a wooden structure which was in the hands of a gigantic dead vine with no flowers or leaves, only thick bare brown branches. It was hard to tell if the vine was holding the house together or tearing it apart. Several broken-down cars pressed to the building‘s side like infants nuzzling a milkless mother. A swing set unused for generations had fallen to its knees, lapsing into rust. ―You really shouldn‘t play with matches,‖ Julie said calmly. ―It isn‘t safe.‖ George shrugged his shoulders and continued to stare at her. ―Fires can get out of control pretty easily,‖ she continued, bending down on one knee to be closer, the way she‘d been taught to do when trying not to frighten a possibly 15

dangerous dog. ―This whole hillside could go up in flames. There are a lot of plants and animals around here. They never did anything to hurt you, I‘ll bet. They don‘t deserve to die.‖ ―I know,‖ replied George. A chill swept through Steven at the expressionless tone of the red-headed boy‘s voice, the steadiness of his body language as he stood his ground with the two young adults. He suddenly felt he was seeing briefly but intensely into George‘s depths. What he saw there was troubling, to say the least. Clearly, the boy was undisturbed by guilt or shame or fear of discipline at having been caught building this fire. At one level, Steven admired his strength of character. On another level, he felt he might be in the presence of true danger here, perhaps even a nascent evil. A slight and puzzled frown passing between her eyebrows, Julie continued, ―Well what about the houses, the people here? A fire could spread to your neighborhood pretty quickly. I think you‘d feel pretty bad if something like that happened and somebody got hurt.‖ ―I don‘t think so.‖ The searching power of Julie‘s bright green gaze bounced off the boy‘s impenetrable face, his sealed eyes, with no more effect than a high wind on a bronze statue.

The frown came back to settle between her eyebrows again, but she shook it off and arose. ―I don‘t believe you,‖ she said, smiling. Shrugging, the boy turned to Steven and asked, ―What are you two doing up here?‖ If the tone of voice hadn‘t been so flat, it might have been a challenge. ―Just passing the time,‖ replied Steven, feeling that something fundamental connected him now to George. With this feeling, a sense of responsibility tightened its grip on him. I can’t afford to be condescending with this kid, he thought. I can’t pretend to understand parts of his life I can’t possibly understand. Aloud, he continued, ―Our train is late. We‘re just taking a little walk down the tracks.‖ ―There‘s nothing over here,‖ George said. ―Look,‖ said Steven, thinking that perhaps he could appeal to the boy‘s self-interest. ―It worries me that you‘re lighting fires up here. It really isn‘t safe for you. I‘m not questioning your ability. But fire has a way of getting away from even the most skilled people. For one thing, the fire itself can hurt you, physically. I know you know that. But there‘s also the chance you could get caught by the police or the fire department.‖

―I‘ve made lots of fires, and nobody‘s ever caught me.‖ ―What if your parents found out?‖ ―They know I set fires. They can‘t stop me. They‘re afraid of me.‖ ―What if they brought in the police?‖ ―They wouldn‘t dare. They know if they reported me, I‘d set our house on fire while they were asleep.‖ ―You‘re taking the tough-guy act a little too far, you know,‖ Julie told the boy, smiling. ―And you, don‘t you know when you‘re being put on?‖ she asked Steven. ―Can I have a word with you?‖ he asked, tugging at her sleeve. Uphill, back near the tracks, he spoke in a hushed voice, saying, ―We have to take this seriously,‖ ―You know I love the Don Quixote in you,‖ she replied. ―But a little Don Quixote can go a long way. Not everything is a battle. Try working with life once in a while, instead of against it. Try letting it work for you. This seems like just the kind of situation where that proves the adage, ―You can‘t put out a fire with gasoline.‖ Sometimes one page of ―The Tao of Poo‖ is worth more than all of ―Being and Nothingness.‖ Look at this boy. He‘s not a monster. He‘s young, probably frightened, bored, suffering who knows what 18

deprivations, and he‘s making up stories to help himself seem big and strong and secure.‖ ―Look, I hope you‘re right, but I‘m not at all sure you are,‖ he said. ―The court and medical systems are full of frightened, deprived, insecure kids who also happen to be pathologically violent: children who have killed or maimed with knives and guns and fires.‖ ―Well I don‘t want to make that future any more likely for him by acting as if we believed he is capable of such things,‖ she responded. ―And I don‘t want to make him think we‘re calling his bluff. We could provoke him into acting on his threats to prove he‘s serious.‖ ―I can‘t accept that those are the only two options here,‖ she explained, patiently. ―Life has to have something more in store for that boy than that. Sometimes you just need to trust in the Tao.‖ Steven couldn‘t deny that Julie‘s positive world-view seemed to work for her. Whereas it sometimes seemed to him that his confrontational attitude had caused as many problems as it had solved, she appeared to float above such entanglements. But he suspected that her state of grace was more the effect of a life of privilege than the consequence of

her paradigm. In his case, he guessed, a leap of faith would likely end up as a free fall. ―I can‘t afford that kind of trust,‖ he said, tearing himself away from the warm green beams of her eyes before they melted his determination. Going back down the slope to where a small circle of flattened plants showed where they had been speaking earlier with George, Steven found the boy gone. Looking back under the trestle, he discovered him again crouching by the concrete wall, urging the small fire back to life, adding some larger sticks to it, a crumpled piece of newspaper. Something, perhaps a bit of tar from the preserved wood of the overhead beams, fell into the flames with a sizzle and popped. The pigeons on the beam moved about energetically, complaining in mournful voices. This time, Steven made his way over to the boy‘s side, Julie close behind. Again, all Steven could think of to fall back on was appealing to George‘s self-interest. ―If you do end up doing some serious damage, you might wind up in juvenile hall, and then maybe prison,‖ he said. ―It would be a really hard life.‖ For the first time in their encounter, George smiled. To Steven, it was a flattened, lopsided affair, like one of the

pennies some of the boys he had grown up with used to torture out of shape beneath moving trains. ―I‘m serious,‖ Steven insisted. ―These could be lifeand-death stakes. You could end up in some place, an institution, for the rest of your life, if a judge thought you were going to keep being a danger to other people.‖ ―The funny farm?‖ ―Yes. Listen. I know sometimes life gets rough. I know what it‘s like to have anger burning a hole inside of you. But you can‘t let it eat you up. You‘ve got to be its boss, not let it be your boss. Otherwise, you‘ll end up losing, big time. I‘m being straight with you.‖ ―I know you are. But I‘m not afraid of prison or anything else.‖ ―Well then, maybe somebody should stop you.‖ ―Who? You? I thought you had a train to catch.‖ Steven felt momentarily exposed, as if George was experiencing the same kind of fleeting insight into him that Steven had had into him a few moments before. ―I do,‖ continued Steven, steadying his voice. ―But if I really believe you‘re a threat to other people, I have a responsibility to do something about it. A responsibility not just to protect them, but to protect you and to protect myself.‖

―The best way you could protect yourself would be not to tell anybody. If I got in trouble and I found out you told on me, I‘d find out where you live, and someday I‘d burn it down.‖ Steven tried to tell himself that this was just empty posturing but he didn‘t believe it. In truth, he thought it very possible that the boy would eventually find a way to make good on this threat, even if it took him years. ―Come on, Steven,‖ said Julie. ―I think it‘s time to get back to the station now. Our train will be here soon.‖ He turned toward her, then back toward the boy, who stood measuring him with his eyes, the fire growing by his feet. The wind had now shifted slightly, and it was starting to tug the fire out away from the concrete in the direction of a clump of weeds. Steven supposed he could take the box of matches away from the boy by force and grind out the fire under his heel. But, as soon as he left, what would stop the boy from building a new one? No, if he were going to make a serious difference here, he would have to alert the authorities. That might mean hours, or days of explanations, repeating what he had seen and heard to officers of the police and fire departments, to lawyers and judges and social workers and psychiatrists and psychologists, 22

with no certainty they would be able to do anything to stop the boy. What if his Good Samaritan routine backfired and his own veracity and motives became suspect? Couldn‘t he himself be branded a liar, a delusional case, paranoid? He and Julie couldn‘t keep their prolonged stay or return to Massachusetts a secret from her parents. That would mean more time exposed to their withering scrutiny. Could his role in this affair be anything other than absurd in their eyes? Most persuasively of all, in the back of his mind but casting its shadow on all his thinking, remained the threat the boy had uttered. Perhaps it was time to try Julie‘s approach and let life roll out in front of him like a red carpet instead of fighting it every step of the way. He hadn‘t created this boy or his environment. He couldn‘t possibly take on responsibility for helping George, stopping him, determining his future. Once he did take on such a responsibility, he suspected, he would end up in a lifelong entanglement. On the other hand, how could he go on living with himself if he didn‘t take any steps to stop the boy and found out someday that George had actually caused real damage, maybe even killed someone, more than one person? What if somehow the authorities found out that he had ignored the boy‘s threats? What criminal or civil responsibility might 23

Steven bear? What public humiliation would he have to endure? Even if he never found out that the worst had happened, or even if he found out that the worst had positively not happened, what would it do to his self-image if he took this passive role in the face of danger? Somewhere far down the line, he heard a train‘s whistle. ―OK. It‘s time to let it go. Let‘s move on,‖ counseled Julie, slipping her cool hand around his. The wind rose a little more. A flame touched the tips of the weeds. Their heads nodded toward it as if hypnotized. He turned back to the boy, who smiled again. I can call the authorities from the train station, Steven told himself as Julie and he struggled up the slope. ―Well, goodbye, George,‖ Julie called, bells jingling as she waved at the motionless figure knee deep in weeds. ―Goodbye,‖ echoed Steven, wondering how much of a connection he and George still shared, how much of what was going on inside him the boy could read. Looking back after several seconds of walking, he found that an angle of the trestle had cut off his view of the boy as completely as a sharp blade can cut off a finger. The splash of red hair, the small, hungry fire, even the smoke: all were gone from sight. 24

But a cloud of pigeons rose flapping from the shadows. ―Trust in the Tao,‖ Julie repeated, brushing his cheek with her lips. When he climbed onboard the train half an hour later, Steven still hadn‘t made his call. Why haven’t I? he asked himself. When I left him, George knew I was planning to alert the authorities. If he does someday get caught, what’s to stop him from believing that I’m the one who informed on him and then making good on his threat? For that matter, what’s to prevent him from taking some preventive measure to keep me silent or to punish me in advance? While Julie sat in the observation car making friends with fellow passengers, Steven went down to the club car and ordered a beer. I guess I’ve taken the first step down Julie’s path, he thought. So why does it feel more as if I’ve failed some crucial test and less like I’m getting nearer to a state of grace? Alcohol mixed with acid in his stomach. He faced the bar so he couldn‘t look out the window. He didn‘t want to be able to see whether or not the trestle to which they were heading was going up in flames.

Selected Poems by Tobi Alfier Ode to a Winter Night These hands. Tea-stained, arthritic, stubborn as the stars that bloom night after night. Neither rest easy or well. What is time in the face of all seasons? Fall turns to winter. Trees gleam auburn before turning bare. These hands beckon: come closer friend. Set with me by the fire. Letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s toast to a life full-lived. Our merlot flickers shadows over our faces. Whispered secrets trace the echoes of night. Calm hands, smooth skinâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; I kiss your closing eyes.

Poem for Dad A. 43 degrees and raining. Soon, first snow of the season. Boots out to the mailbox and the fireplace on. Aviation magazines and warm brandy. 26

New baby great-grandson, Spaghetti sauce on the stove. Midnight mass. Scrambled eggs. Dreamy dreams and telephone calls. Garden in hibernation like the trees, and most birds. It‘s winter, where there is winter. Find a $20 or two in the jacket pocket from last year, holiday music on the radio. Gloves, hats, thick, thick socks and the umbrella that never opens right— hasn‘t since 1962. But you will fix it. Gruff love, honest love, spaghetti sauce still on the stove.

Spares, Strikes, and Extra Olives Tammy-Lynn worked forty hours a week at Chandler‘s Bowl and Bar. Shitty job, smelly shoes, sideways looks of pity on the faces of women who were once cheerleaders at her high school, now moms in matching shirts, teams with silly names, leagues that should be named ―Martini‖ ‗cause that‘s what they did—drink themselves stupid once a week, then call their husbands to leave the kids for just a minute, 27

come pick this big kid up. All blonde with twelfth-grade curls and the same blue eyeshadow that nabbed their husbands twenty years ago, the only difference between then and now is ―Playtex‖ ain‘t a girdle no more, cussing don‘t send your ass to detention, and there‘s better cheap perfume to steal at multiple choices of drug-store. Drunk or driving through Dairy Queen sober, no one remembers just who the quarterback was, or what exactly happened under the bleachers the night the team won the championship… Only poor Mr. James, still sweeping up the detritus of birth control gone wrong, knows the answers to all those small-town questions.

Compton 8 Mile Judith sits outside the courthouse on the corner of ―Take the Bus and Run Street‖ and ―Scared Beyond Belief Blvd‖ in beautiful downtown Compton. Two miles from the home she hopes to keep, she waits for the man she was supposed to grow old with. Well that ain‘t gonna happen. Now her heart sues for peace and a piece of the checkbook before it all goes up in smoke, or cards at the Casino, where many a moonlighting mother knows her husband‘s name, and too much more. 28

The quiet bitterness of the moment has Judith reflect on the children. She‘ll be fine, no matter what. Better, in fact. She‘s sworn to herself she‘ll not say a disparaging word; her heart marked by the firing squad of sweet kisses and sweeter drinks. The kids‘ll find out soon enough. She tells herself she feels nothing. But she does. Haunted by rooms filled with his breathing, it‘s gonna take a while. There he is, trundling up the courthouse steps. Her eyes run slowly over what‘s now the wilderness of him, that she thought she knew so well. Time to pull the pin from the atlas, set out into a different light.

Guardian After Rolf Jacobsen

I am the knot that keeps the sail full and strong. The compass guiding safe passage as you turn toward home. The hand of the angel you turn to, who reads the braille of your face, holds you with grace and mercy. I am the leaves of the trees in winter, that float in the cool evening breeze. I kiss your hair, shelter your shoulders 29

as you walk gently in the shadows. I am a fleeting image, always fond, ever near. The way you loved your children the moment they were born, smooth stones, or the color blue.

Pear dâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Anjou By Jamie Elliott Keith She bruises easily, yearns to cry honeyed tears, her hoard of swelling nectar laid up since days she swayed to the harp of winds, gamboled in delicate white frills with a host of graceful sisters, open to the sunâ&#x20AC;&#x2DC;s laughing face. So fleet their time to dance, dizzy on dangling branches, they flew away, fell tumbling to the ground, and those left groaned into bulbous yellow things, heavy and awkward, pinched by grubby hands, shoved into rough pine crates, stacked on show for grasping eyes. And now, here she sits, alone on a granite precipice, ripening, waiting.

Certified By Marcie Friedman The parents didn‘t return. They were supposed to be home by eight p.m.; ―Just a little getaway,‖ the mother had said as she put on her coat. But now it was almost nine and the babysitters, two thirteen-year-old girls, children themselves practically—although one so tall people mistook her for older—were not sure what to do. Their charges, a four-yearold and six-year-old, both boys, were asleep upstairs. The babysitters had been instructed to check on them every twenty minutes, but neither girl wanted to go up again. The hallways of the old house were bathed in shadow, the corners deep dark holes. The kitchen, thanks to a recent remodel, shined with granite and stainless steel. It was in this room the girls waited. Annalise, the shorter one, who ate when she was nervous, nibbled from the bag of Cheetos she‘d brought from home. Lydia, the taller one, paced. Their certifications in babysitter training included: diapering, swaddling, what do in case of temper tantrums, feeding dos and don‘ts, how to clean up vomit, and infant CPR as practiced on the worn-down lips of plastic baby dolls. There‘d been no lessons about adults who don‘t return.

―We should call your mom,‖ Lydia said. Her own mother was likely two vodka tonics into the night and would be no help. ―Don‘t think I can reach her,‖ Annalise lied. Her mother, a pediatric nurse, was working a night shift in the NICU at St. Agnes. They‘d planned it out that morning; Annalise was supposed to sleep at Lydia‘s. She could probably call the main nurse‘s desk, but her mother had been so stressed lately, money tight with the recent rent increase, the holidays just past. She looked at her phone, checked the text message sent, the phone call placed; they were correctly directed to the mother of the children sleeping upstairs. Correct and unanswered. ―Maybe they were in an accident.‖ Lydia played with the lanyard around her neck. Annalise had made it for her at the Park District summer camp, an elongated friendship bracelet, red, yellow, and blue yarn intertwined. At the end hung the key to Lydia‘s apartment. She wished she was home now: petting her cat, Izzy, tiptoeing past her mother‘s sleeping figure. Arlo, her mother‘s boyfriend, was on the road this week trucking sporting goods down to Tennessee. ―Maybe they were abducted by aliens,‖ said Annalise. ―Or they‘re secret spies sent on a mission.‖ A reader, she tended to let her imagination run loose. 33

Lydia shook her head and helped herself to a Cheeto. She wiped her fingers on her leggings, leaving a bright orange streak. ―Should we call the police?‖ Annalise asked, although it seemed an overreaction: the children were safe, and the house in good order—other than the creaky oldness of it—plus they were still on the clock making a combined rate of ten dollars an hour. ―Let‘s give it a little longer,‖ Lydia said. ―Maybe we heard them wrong.‖ But Annalise had the voicemail on her phone. The mother specifically said five to eight. It was a school night after all. No explanation was given for why their services were required but really was that necessary? It seemed a reasonable amount of time for the parents to go to dinner, or to one of those lectures that were always taking place at the high school: How to Stop Worrying about College Admissions, Ten Steps to Raise an Empowered Child. (Had the girls been more observant they might have noticed, on the corkboard by the back door, the details for a lecture on Keeping Kids Safe in a Dangerous World.) Parents in this part of town seemed to worry about those kinds of things. Annalise and Lydia did not live in this part of town.

―Maybe their car broke down,‖ Lydia said. She peered out the window. The front yard was lit by small, evenly spaced orbs of light. The street contained the houses of doctors and lawyers and—rumor had it—an ex-Reality TV chef. On the street where the girls lived, people worked in food service and auto shops and big box stores. They drove tired American cars with rusted doors and dented bumpers and seats with unidentifiable stains, cars that sputtered down potholed streets, that smelled of cigarette smoke and fast food hamburgers, gas station coffee and sweat. Cars that sometimes got you to your destination and sometimes didn‘t. Earlier, the Father had picked the girls up from Lydia‘s apartment building in a silver BMW. They sat in the back on either side of the child car seat, staring at the father‘s head with its perfectly ruffled hair, as their fingers squeaked the leather. Under the faint baby smell was something exotic and rich, like melted chocolate. Cars like that did not break down. ―They would have called,‖ Annalise insisted, and both knew it to be true. The girls watched a few videos on YouTube, finished the Cheetos, and searched for something else to eat. They‘d been told to help themselves, but the fridge‘s contents were as appealing as a science quiz: leafy green vegetables, milk made from almonds, strange cheeses with curls of mold on their 35

edges, and a juice Annalise thought might be punch but tasted nothing like punch. (If she‘d bothered to read the label, she would have noted the first ingredient was raw beets.) The pantry was no better. They settled on dry handfuls of the boys‘ unsweetened cereal, testing each other to see how many times in a row they could toss a cereal piece overhead and catch it in their mouths. Lydia, who had an advantage due to height, won with sixteen. They heard a car slow down and returned to the window, hopeful, but the car turned into a driveway across the street. They dared each other to go up the back staircase, which was even more shadowy than the front one. And then, since there was nothing else to do, they started to poke around. On the kitchen desk they saw: pens, pencils—wellsharpened; the girls each took one, performed a brief sword battle, then returned them—a stack of mail, and an even larger one of private school brochures with multicultural children beaming from the covers. They flipped through a few. ―This place has a pool,‖ Annalise announced. She showed the photo: more smiling kids re-dressed in goggles and swim caps. Lydia, who didn‘t like be outdone, searched hers until she found a picture of an outdoor space with winding paths, a fishpond, and a rock circle for contemplation. ―Check it out.‖ 36

Next to that pile, they saw the flyer with their names, cell phone numbers and photos—a nice touch their instructor said, although Annalise thought Lydia‘s made her look crosseyed. There was a red check mark on the bottom with a note in the mother‘s handwriting: Spirited. Annalise and Lydia had taken the bus over two Saturdays ago with a stack of flyers still warm from the printer and rung bells until their fingers were numb with cold. ―We are Team Babysitter,‖ they sang in unison. ―Conscientious, Caring, and Certified.‖ They punctuated each adjective with a fist pump and seemed to have made an impression. They‘d already sat for two other families in the area, both in the afternoon, a chance for a mother to get to the gym, a stay-athome dad to ―find a moment of peace to get something done.‖ Two more called to say they were interested but wanted to wait until the girls had a longer list of references. The girls had been babysitting for over a year in their own neighborhood: single mothers who paid in baked goods, a teen who worked at the movie theater and snuck them in when she could. But the girls knew, in this neighborhood, those references didn‘t count. Having investigated the kitchen, they moved to the hall.

In the closet, they found four matching ski jackets in decreasing sizes, tags dangling like on a rack in a store. There was a box labeled children containing mittens and socks, and one labeled other, which included larger mittens, ski masks, hats, and gloves. The face on a ten-dollar bill peered from a clear-pocketed bag. ―Alexander Hamilton,‖ Annalise said. Lydia insisted it was Andrew Jackson. After they looked it up, Annalise tried not to gloat. Lydia flipped on the light in the living room. Annalise reminded her that the parents—where were they?—had said children weren‘t allowed in the living room. Lydia suggested that babysitters counted as adult stand-ins. Annalise, who did not agree but did not want to be left alone in the hall, decided not to argue. (In truth, the parents meant ALL children, but were, of course, not there to clarify). The babysitters strolled past the pictures—the parents‘ wedding photo, the kids as babies, various adults holding the kids as babies—and stared with wonder at the large screen TV, the stereo with tiny speakers. They passed the complicated remote back and forth although neither dared push a button. ―What would it be like to be this rich?‖ Annalise asked, settling into one of the straight-backed chairs. It felt like a plank of wood. She tried the couch. Not much better. 38

Lydia thought about the tiny apartment she shared with her mother and Arlo. The water stains on the ceiling. A TV half the size with cable that hardly ever worked. The walls so thin she heard every argument the two adults had, every squeak of the mattress, every odd breath. Arlo wasn‘t too bad, but she‘d liked Peter better. He was with them almost two years, and before him it was Turk, or maybe the guy with the snake. He‘d only been around a few weeks and she always forgot his name. The snake was called Dash. ―I‘d be happy with just the bedroom,‖ Annalise said. She gave up on the furniture and moved over to the bookcase to scan titles. The boys shared a room as large as Annalise‘s living room; it was filled with toys, mostly educational, organized into colored bins, which earlier the boys had ignored, choosing instead to batter each other with pillows until the younger one started to cry. ―If I had a lot of money I wouldn‘t buy some old scary house,‖ Annalise said. ―I‘d get one brand-new.‖ Her father probably lived in a place like this. All she knew was that he was a doctor her mother met at nursing school who was married and already had enough children. The floor creaked overhead. The girls had heard strange noises all night, as if the house was trying to communicate in a language they didn‘t understand. 39

Annalise passed through the archway into the dining room and slid into the chair at the head of the table. Lydia came around and sat at the other end. ―Pass me the butter please, Darling,‖ Annalise said in her most British-sounding accent. ―Of course, Darling, if you‘ll pass me the rolls.‖ Lydia‘s was less convincing, but she also wasn‘t trying as hard. They tossed a cloth napkin back and forth until it got caught on the chandelier. Lydia pulled it off, rolled it into place, and they fled to the den, as if the house might rat on them if they lingered too long at the scene. The den had another TV, another complicated remote, a computer, and still more organized bins of toys, books, and games. They were looking through the board games trying to pick one that might match the parents‘ continued absence— Candyland or Monopoly length?—when there was a thump above. ―Did you hear that?‖ Lydia asked. Annalise nodded, her mind already tearing down the hallway of worst possible scenarios, which included robbers, serial killers, and escaped tigers, along with more fanciful options: ghosts, werewolves, alien life forms, the giant stuffed

panda in the boys‘ room—the one that gave her the creeps— taken over by an alien life form. ―Maybe it was nothing,‖ Lydia said, although the idea that they‘d both imagined it seemed unlikely. Another thump. Louder. Because she had always looked older and had to deal with rotating strangers in her house, Lydia had learned to fake a certain level of bravery. ―I bet one of the kids fell out of bed. We‘d better check on them.‖ Annalise nodded again, convinced her voice would sound wavery and not at all brave if she were to let it out from where it was hiding somewhere below her jawline. She never liked to sound less brave than Lydia. As they crept up the stairs, two more thumps caused them to pause but then they heard a child cry out, the whimper from an unknown threat—a beast under the bed, a monster in the closet—and grabbing hands they ran up the remaining steps, blood coursing so fast it felt as if their hearts raced ahead of their bodies. In the boys‘ room they saw a figure, a man they assumed, dressed in dark clothes, wearing a ski mask and standing over the older boy‘s bed. The younger boy had pulled the covers over his head, and they could just make out his quaking figure. They felt a draft and saw that the door on the 41

other side of the room, the one that led to the back staircase, was ajar. Annalise had read plenty of mystery novels, and Lydia watched action movies when the cable worked. They pulled on these resources and acted. Lydia flipped on the light and yelled ―Ya!‖ throwing whatever objects were in reach: Nerf balls and Legos, flash cards and board books. Annalise lunged for the stuffed panda—both for its shielding capability and creepiness factor. They hoped their surprise entry would startle the perpetrator into fleeing down the other exit. Instead, he whirled around and they heard the unexpected, ―Great job!‖ The man lifted the ski mask to reveal the face of the father. The mother stepped out from behind the other door. ―You did it,‖ she said. ―You passed.‖ ―We knew you would,‖ the father said, running his hand through his hair. ―You were testing us?‖ Annalise demanded. Lydia stared, mouth open. There had definitely been nothing in the training about parents doing secret tests to terrify the babysitters. Must be yet another thing that only happened in this part of town. ―Sorry if we alarmed you,‖ the father said. He checked his reflection in the mirror over the dresser, gave his hair an extra ruffle. ―See, we went to this seminar, and they talked about how important it is to really know the nitty-gritty of 42

what a sitter would do if faced with an emergency. They had a questionnaire to give out, but we thought—‖ ―What‘s going on?‖ The older boy sat up, rubbed his eyes. ―A game,‖ the younger boy said, and they realized he must have been giggling under the covers, the mother shushing him from behind the door. ―Shoot, got to get the boys back to sleep,‖ the father said. He put his finger to his lips and hustled the babysitters into the hall. The girls whispered to each other as they walked down the stairs. ―Is this for real?‖ ―Totally crazy.‖ The father came down, followed a minute later by the mother. ―The boys fell asleep as soon as the light was off,‖ the mother said, as if the girls needed a gentle reminder to not turn on overhead lights when children were asleep. Lydia wished she could retort, So don‘t stick a crazy kidnapper in the room. Instead, she asked, ―Were you here the whole time?‖ ―Oh no,‖ the mother laughed. ―We had a lovely dinner next door with our friends the Petermans. We snuck in the 43

back when you were tucking the boys in. Great job on the nighttime story by the way. They really like when it‘s read with feeling.‖ ―We have to get home,‖ Annalise said. She was eager to be out of their presence but also worried there was fine print she‘d missed, like no payment for test day or no ride home. ―Of course. You girls have school tomorrow.‖ The father took out his wallet and rifled through it. ―Hey, honey, do you have cash?‖ The mother shook her head. ―I had to pay Sylvia yesterday.‖ The father disappeared into the kitchen, returned with a pen and a blue vinyl checkbook. He asked for the spelling of their last names, scribbled for a moment, and handed each girl a check for twenty-five dollars. ―Thank you,‖ the girls chorused, trading a look. Maybe in this part of town babysitters had checking accounts, but where they lived, people brought paychecks to the Speedy Cash on Dodge, a place that would never cash a check made out to a kid. Annalise thought of the ten-dollar bill in the closet, but knew better than to mention it. The air in the car on the ride back felt cold and smelled of nothing. The father let them off at Lydia‘s. ―Be in touch

soon,‖ he said, then sped off before Lydia had opened the inside door, which required a key and sometimes stuck. ―That was weird,‖ Annalise said as they walked up the stairs. The elevator had been broken for weeks. Lydia nodded. ―What do we say if they call again?‖ And because she wanted nothing more than to be in her own cozy room, she yelled, ―Race ya!‖ and ran up the final staircase. Annalise panted as she trailed behind. ―I think as certified babysitters we have very high standards. I think we tell them they didn‘t pass the test.‖

Selected Poems by Arjun Shaw Parikh Guests Who knows why the black widow builds her web in that dusty corner behind the lamp when she could choose moonlight. But she is here and so am I. At first all we share is fear and space but in time tension lifts like early morning fog under a rising sun and in its place falls tolerance. There are no walls here but we are more like neighbors than roommates; I know when she moves but not where she goes. When the lights go out I know she is there, motionless in her web. One night as I prepare to sleep I stumble across what must be her children. Widows in abundance are neither sanitary nor safe. She does not know there is only room for her. I pull a broom from the closet and sweep the rest away but when I come to her corner she is nowhere to be found.

February Here wind weeps. Trapped, careening from building to building like a pinball. Human skin was never meant to know concrete, either. It gets to me, 46

after a while. On city streets I am a shadow invincible but ignored, throwing haymakers like everyone else just to keep bodies at armâ&#x20AC;&#x2DC;s length. But today I find solace; the clouds are heavy and nearly obsidian so it will pour. And no, I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2DC;t own an umbrella because rain is the only one who touches me here.

Using Medical Jargon To Cycle Through Stages of Mourning In No Particular Order By Dr. Jennifer Wolkin Ancient Ayurvedic Seat of Wisdom holds a brain bringing our total brain count to one, two talking to one another in different dialects via the vagus nerve from the brain stem through the jugular foramen to the gutâ&#x20AC;&#x2DC;s viscera where dialogue is constant, just one executive to another like the C-Suite of our systemic selves sending messages to and fro (in stealth) until it hits us out of nowhereâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; until our bellies look the size of six months gestation slap in the face of the mind longing for a fetus having to settle for a phantom pregnancy called Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth now camped in my gut: pitching tents, starting fires & sleeping in the hollows of my alimentary organs like a parasite. What did my amygdala say to you, gut-brain? Did the news of my premature ovarian failure tickertape from neuron to neuron? * (I know this anger is code for grief) I cry for my swollen insidesâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;teeming with pain 48

but also ticking like a clock never set to the right time. A mother is already born a mother if thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2DC;s what she wants to beâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; she is.

Healing Heels By William Ade

I stood in front of the Covington Leather Goods store window, salivating over the purses and shoes on display. The window glass was so thick a crook would need a jackhammer to pull off a smash-and-grab. To access the inside of the store, I had to pass through a double set of doors, each one requiring the proprietor to activate a lock. Buzz, click, buzz, click and I entered the showroom. The lights were dimmed to create a comfortable atmosphere, one designed to lower a woman‘s resistance. My feet sank into the thick, plum-colored carpet as I walked to the display along the right wall. The carpeting muffled sound so efficiently I heard my heart beating. I‘m not exaggerating. As I caressed the three thousand dollar Valentino Garavain shoulder bag, my heart thundered in my chest. ―That‘s a beautiful bag, isn‘t it?‖ I reluctantly lifted my eyes away from the Garavain toward the man behind the counter. His name was Lester Covington. I knew he was forty-seven years old, twice divorced and behind on his child support. He was wellgroomed, in an oily sort of way, with a store-bought tan and too bright teeth. But I didn‘t care. He operated the most elite

high-end woman‘s store in the city. Bags and shoes were all he sold. It was my idea of paradise. ―Yes, it‘s exquisite,‖ I finally said. I then pointed to a silver and gray purse displayed on a side table. ―And that Cucinelli tote is to die for.‖ Lester smiled. ―You have good taste.‖ I laughed and snorted. ―You can‘t go wrong in your store.‖ Then as if drawn by an invisible force, I moved across the room to the other wall. My knees grew weak as my eyes jumped back and forth and up and down across the display. I‘d never seen so many fabulous shoes in one setting – Jimmy Choo, Manolo Blahnik, Givenchy, and Saint Laurent among a half-dozen other designer brands. My hand went to my mouth as I gushed like a teenybopper at a rock concert. ―Oh my God, look at this.‖ ―Are you looking for anything special?‖ Lester asked. ―By any chance, do you have a Christian Louboutin pump in size eight and a half?" I said. ―I‘ve searched the city for one in my size without luck.‖ Lester smirked. "We have the largest collection of instock shoes in the state. Please sit down, and I'll be back." I did as I was told, dropping into a plush Queen Anne style wing chair. I smiled at the security cameras stationed in the corner of the room recording me kicking off my shabby 51

no-name brand pumps. I took a deep breath, marveling at the intoxicating aroma of finely-crafted leather. Lester returned with the pair of heels I‘d requested. He slowly opened the box, then gently pushed aside the tissue paper that enveloped the product. He pulled one shoe from its dust bag and held it in front of my face, allowing my eyes to take in the fantastic stitching. I reverently put on the right shoe and then the left. Looking down at my feet, I realized it was a match made in footwear heaven. I strolled in front of the mirror, turning to admire the results. Who would have thought that a pair of seven hundred dollar Louboutin pumps would look so good on me? ―I have this shoe in blue as well, if you‘re interested.‖ I squished my face into a frown. ―I don‘t know.‖ I pointed at a shoe positioned on an antique Copley round side table. ―Could I try on those Manolo Blahnik satin pumps?‖ ―Of course,‖ he said. He slipped the Louboutin footwear off my feet. He was startled when I reached out and took one of the shoes from him. Lifting it to the light, I examined the sole and then flipped it over to study the inner lining. Lester made a face. He wasn‘t happy. "I can assure you, all my merchandise is authentic.‖ His voice was brittle with a hint of hostility. 52

―I can tell,‖ I said, giving him a smile as a peace offering. ―But most folks, even those in the business, can be fooled.‖ The man snorted, and I could tell my opinion was unwelcomed. I loved his outrage. For an indebted gambler and check kiting scoundrel, he had the nerve being insulted. Lester left the showroom and returned with the Manolo Blahnik, then a Jimmy Choo sandal, and finally I tried on a saucy Charlotte Olympia Kitty Flats. He stood over me, looking as if he knew I wasn‘t going to purchase anything. He was prescient. ―I have to think about it,‖ I said, slipping my feet into my old pumps. ―I can‘t decide on which one I want.‖ Lester mumbled. ―Of course.‖ ### Two days later, I was outside Covington Leather Goods punching the intercom button. Lester was working the counter. His thick eyebrows crunched together in disapproval when he spotted me at the door. I didn‘t care, I wasn‘t going away. I pushed the intercom button again. The exterior door buzzed and clicked and then the interior entrance. I pushed open the door and strolled right to the counter. ―Hello, Mister Covington, I‘m back.‖ ―So I see.‖ 53

I surprised him by offering my hand. ―I didn‘t introduce myself the other day. I‘m Melody Robinson.‖ Shaking his hand was like grasping a wet dishcloth. ―I wanted to apologize for insulting you,‖ I said. ―I didn‘t mean to imply you sold fakes.‖ Lester nodded and sniffed. I let a few seconds pass in case he wanted to speak, but he said nothing. I happily filled the quiet space. ―I‘m impressed not only with your amazing selection, but the high prices.‖ His right eyebrow inched up his forehead. If he was bothered by my comment, he didn‘t say a word. ―Not too many high-end retailers can keep their prices that high,‖ I said, ―especially during an economic slowdown.‖ The man's eyelids drooped, and his head slowly rotated back and forth. Once again, it was apparent I was irritating Lester Covington. "If you think I'm going to offer you a discount on anything, you‘re mistaken, Miss Robinson." I smiled and twisted my head around to scan the showroom. ―I imagine rent for this space, in this neighborhood, is pretty exorbitant.‖ He didn‘t react. But that didn‘t stop me. I still had a few more shots that might trigger a response.

―I‘ve been keeping an eye on your building. I don‘t think I saw more than two shoppers in here over the last few days.‖ My eyes drilled through his dismissive gaze. ―And not one of them left with a shopping bag.‖ Lester placed his hands on the glass countertop and leaned into me. ―I don‘t care to play your game. Please leave.‖ I stepped over to the wall of purses and lifted off the hook a delicious looking Panthere De Cartier clutch bag. As I massaged the black crocodile skin with my hand, I dug a little deeper into Lester‘s business and his head. ―I imagine you have a fifty-five percent markup on something like this fantastic piece of heaven. But if you don‘t sell it, that‘s fifty-five percent of nothing.‖ The man took in a deep breath and slowly blew out the air. ―Would you get to the point?‖ A big smile creased my face as I shifted into sales mode. ―I have an opportunity for you. With little to no effort on your part, I can get you an immediate infusion of cash while maintaining your extensive offerings.‖ ―Why do you think I need that?‖ I cocked my head to the side and planted my hands on my hips. ―Lester, would I come in here and proposition you without checking out your circumstances? Come on, that hurts my feelings." 55

He rolled his bottom lip but said nothing. ―You have a reputation around town as a high-roller card player with bad instincts. That‘s not a good combination. My sources tell me you‘re tens of thousands in debt to some pretty impatient people.‖ ―Who are you, Miss Robinson?‖ I grinned and batted my eyelashes. ―I‘m your new best friend who came all the way from Kansas City to help you out.‖ ―And how might you do that?‖ Oh, I loved that question. I was proud of the perfect phrasing I used to describe my talents. An amateur would have made it sound sleazy. ―My specialty is the maximization of a retailer's ROI on their high-end merchandise.‖ Lester‘s eyes shifted back and forth. I suspected his brain was finally figuring out I wasn‘t his typical customer. I knew he was smart enough to translate my message. Basically, I could help him out of his sales slump. Then he could pay off his gambling debts. ―It‘s a straightforward concept,‖ I said. The corner of Lester‘s lip turned up as his head rocked backward. Apparently, he didn‘t appreciate the opportunity I was giving him.

―I don‘t care who you are or what your specialty is, leave and don‘t come back.‖ That man‘s thickness was starting to exasperate me. I guessed he needed some insight on what he was missing. Reaching over the counter, I grabbed a notepad and a pen. I scribbled on the top sheet and ripped it from the book. ―Here‘s a number to call. Ask for Eddie. He‘ll explain what I can do for you.‖ Lester took the piece of paper, glanced at it, and threw it on the floor. ―I don‘t want you coming here again. Now get out.‖ ### The pizzeria was empty by the time Detective Marty Bonner sat down across from me. I‗d chewed through one slice waiting for him and was on a second. He was eager to talk. Unlike Mister Covington, Marty was loquacious. That was good and bad. ―Lester called this morning, just as you predicted,‖ he said. ―He was anxious to know if you were legit.‖ A sense of self-satisfaction percolated in my chest. I know my marks. ―I followed your script,‖ Marty said, switching into a vaguely sounding mobster accent. ―I says you‘d done a few deals with me in KC and left town when things got too hot. I 57

explain how it works. I guaranteed you had the best fakes in the bidness.‖ I rolled my eyes. Good Lord, I hoped his performance didn‘t leave a whiff of phoniness that would spook Lester. All I needed Detective Marty to do was convince the man I wasn‘t a cop and could be trusted. As I frequently told him this past week, trust was the lubricant that would make this work, that and secrecy. "It's been my experience with these stings that the best plan is one closely held by the participants, you understand me?" Marty seemed wounded by my comment. ―Yeah, I hear you. I haven‘t said a word.‖ I struck a schoolmarm‘s pose and continued my lecture. ―The Bureau has been investigating the trafficking of high-end fakes for eighteen months, and we think Covington is a key player. Doing your part will be critical to our success in shutting it down.‖ ―Don‘t worry. I‘m good to go.‖ Now I felt kind of sad, cranking up his stress levels. But I had to reinforce the importance of precisely doing what I needed. I reached over and patted his hand. ―If you‘re a good boy and follow my instructions, I‘ll make sure you get all the credit.‖ 58

Marty‘s face broke into a goofy grin. How this guy made detective-grade was beyond me. Nonetheless, he‘d be the perfect partner if he kept his mouth shut. His job was simple. I needed him to occasionally assume the role of Kansas City Eddie and show up with guns drawn and handcuffs ready when everything went down. ―I‘m going back tomorrow to pitch Lester. You sit tight until I call, okay?‖ Marty‘s head bobbled. ―Yeah, yeah I‘ll be ready. But tell me something.‖ ―What?‖ ―Why are women willing to pay nine hundred dollars for a pair of high heels that ruin their feet?‖ I laughed out loud. ―For some women, beautiful shoes heal whatever ails them.‖ I slid my half-eaten pizza slice across the table. ―Here, eat something. You‘re too skinny.‖ I stood up and left. No more chit-chat with Detective Marty. I had to prepare a little sample for Lester. ### I stood outside in the warm morning sun, a shoebox under my arm. I stared into the store window. Lester looked up with a scowl. Then I heard the door lock buzz. There was no waiting this time. He appeared to be ready to do business. 59

―Good morning, Lester, it‘s a beautiful summer day.‖ My cheerful greeting was unappreciated as he again gave me his stone face. I once had a boyfriend like Lester. Getting him to talk was like pulling out a car axel-deep in mud. Men can be such knuckleheads. That‘s why I liked messing with them. I laid the shoe box on the countertop. "I wanted to show you something.‖ Lester watched me lift off the lid and pull back the tissue paper. I raised the sandal out of the box and handed it to him. ―Go ahead, take a close look. I bet you‘ve never seen a Jimmy Choo fake as good as that one.‖ Lester turned the shoe around in his hands, looking at the stitching and the branding. He nodded and handed the sandal back to me. ―So, how does this work?‖ he asked. I put the sandal back into the box and gently closed it. I wanted to play this out, so Lester realized I wasn‘t some eager beaver amateur. If you were playing a confidence game, you had to slowly nurture it along. ―Here are the steps. I‘ll leave you a list of shoes that my clients desire. I‘m asking for one pair each in sizes seven, eight, eight and a half, nine and ten. For those five sizes, I 60

want one brand each. You‘ll see that I‘m talking Choo, Blahnik, Olympia, Givenchy, Saint Laurent, Gucci, Ferragamo, you know, the best. That‘s going to be 45 pairs. Can you handle it?‖ Lester sniffed. ―I told you I have the largest inventory in the state.‖ ―That‘s good.‖ ―No one comes close to what I have in stock.‖ I paused to allow him a minute of gloating. I‘d been condescending yesterday, so I wanted to be more careful and not tick him off. I could tell beneath his cold exterior was an insecure momma‘s boy. Okay, enough sympathy for Lester, it‘s time to talk business. ―Please listen carefully,‖ I said. ―It‘s important you understand each step and follow it precisely. If you do, we can complete the transaction in less than five minutes.‖ He nodded. I could only guess what was going on inside his head. ―Here‘s the plan. Tonight I‘ll pull my car into the alley behind the building at eleven-fifteen. You‘ll ensure the alarm and camera system is turned off. You‘ll open the back door when I knock. I‘ll wheel in three cases, each containing fifteen boxes of shoes. I‘ll wheel out the shoes you pulled for me

from your stock. Then I‘ll hand over your money and be gone.‖ The look of skepticism on Lester‘s face was welcoming. If he didn‘t have some doubts at this stage, then I was dealing with an idiot. And idiots were dangerous. ―No, I don‘t want to do it that way.‖ ―Lester, I‘ve done this many times before. It‘s fast and fool-proof.‖ The man scrunched his nose and shook his head back and forth. ―This is how I want to do it. Before you wheel my stuff out the door, I get the cash. I count it, and then you get your shoes.‖ ―Not a problem,‖ I lied. I actually wanted to be well on my way by the time Lester counted his cash. But I knew these operations never went as planned. I‘d have to rely on my instincts and wits if he became a problem. ―We‘ll do whatever makes you comfortable.‖ A big snake of a smile crossed Lester‘s face. If he was satisfied with the modus operandi, I knew what was coming next. He‘d ask me how much my scheme would net him. I obliged him before he could say a word. ―My clients will pay you fifty cents on the wholesale dollar. So for a pair that you paid the manufacturer a thousand,

you‘ll get five hundred. I figured tonight‘s operation would give you an immediate payday of well over twenty grand.‖ ―Yeah, that‘s sweet,‖ he said. ―That‘s a nice payout.‖ I loved hearing those words. There‘s nothing better than when greedy men behaved shamelessly. You knew then you had them hooked. ―Also,‖ I said. ―When you sell the fakes, you can take your full markup. That‘s a hundred and fifty percent on your initial investment.‖ Lester grinned at the thought of a more significant profit margin, but before I could move the conversation forward, his smile morphed into a frown. That man’s going to drive me crazy. ―Okay, what‘s the problem now?‖ ―With all the high-end stores in the neighborhood, the cops frequently cruise the streets at night. What if a patrolman drove by the alley and saw us moving the goods?‖ I smiled. It was my smile of confidence, my not-toworry grin. ―You‘re the store owner, and I'm a reseller of overruns. I got lost coming from Michigan. You desperately needed the merchandise, so you agreed to meet me this late. You say ‗no problem here, officer.‘‖

My solution seemed to satisfy Lester. Hoping the Q&A was over, I handed him my wish list. He showed no emotion as he read it. ―Do you see any other problems?‖ ―Nope.‖ He turned on his heels and left. I called out as he disappeared behind the storage room door. ―I‘ll see you at eleven-fifteen sharp.‖ ### I pulled into the alley at eleven-thirteen and parked my car in front of a black, reinforced steel door that had Covington Leather Goods stenciled on it. I exited the vehicle at eleven-fourteen, noticing that the fixture above the door was missing a bulb. Dollars to donuts Lester removed it to ensure no one had a clear view of our transaction. After popping the car trunk, I pulled out a dolly and stacked three cartons on it. When my watch showed eleven-fifteen, I rapped my knuckles on the backdoor. The intercom speaker embedded in the wall crackled. ―Yes.‖ ―Hello, Mister Covington,‖ I said in my sweetest honey tone of voice. ―I have your delivery.‖ I heard the lock snap, and the door swung open. I pushed the dolly into a small room with steel shelves hugging 64

the walls. A large brown table was in the middle. A single overhead light gave the space a shadowy illumination. Lester quickly closed the door behind me. "Here are your replacements," I said. The man didn't say a word. What‘s new? I sure wouldn‘t miss dealing with him and his mutism. Lester pointed to the floor. I saw five black plastic garbage bags lined up on the rotting yellow linoleum. ―What? The best you can do is to throw my stuff into garbage bags?" Lester shrugged. ―That‘s all I had.‖ Then things got ugly. As I moved to inspect my loot, Lester pulled a snub-nose .38 from behind his back, pointing the end of the nozzle in my face. ―Oh, come on, Lester. Don‘t do that.‖ He stepped behind me, but I could still sense the gun pointed at my head. ―I want to be sure you‘re not carrying a gun,‖ he said. ―Please empty your pockets.‖ I scoffed and mumbled a curse word. "I'm wearing skinny jeans and sneakers. I have a t-shirt underneath my hoodie. Where would I be packing a weapon?" ―What have you got in the sweatshirt pouch?‖ ―My car keys and my cellphone." 65

"Put them on the table." His voice was trembling. I prayed his gun hand was steadier than his vocal cords. With my left hand, I removed the keys and held them in the air. ―See, keys.‖ At the same time, my right hand slipped into the pouch, caressed the cellphone while my thumb pressed the button that terminated the open line. Good Lord, I sure hope Detective Marty heard some of that conversation and realized I was in a bit of trouble. ―Here‘s my phone,‖ I said, holding it above my head before dropping it on the table. ―Now will you please chill?‖ Lester moved in front of me; the gun still pointed at my face. His swept the keys off the table and stepped to the door. "Now we're going to go to the car and get the money. Then we'll return, and I'll count it and check the boxes you've delivered. If I‘m satisfied, you'll take your five bags of merchandise and leave. We'll never see each other again. Got it?" I rolled my head around in disgust. I‘d worked with a few slime balls in my career, but no one held a gun to my face throughout the transaction. "Your lack of trust is disheartening." ―Yeah, yeah,‖ he said, pulling the door open. The humid night air caressed my face as I stepped into the alley. Lester, and I assumed his gun, was a few steps 66

behind me. He activated the car key, and the trunk popped open. I pushed the trunk lid higher and pulled out a small satchel with Lester‘s money. There was one problem. Instead of U. S. currency, the bag held about a pound of shredded newspaper. Lordy, I sure hoped Detective Marty knew I was in trouble. "Okay, back inside," Lester said, still maintaining his distance. I guessed he thought I might do some kung fu kick on him, knocking the gun out of his hand. That was never going to happen. I was sixteen taking ballet lessons when I last raised my foot that high. My hand grasped the back door handle, and I partially pulled it open. Then all hell broke loose. Two blinding beams of light silhouetted both of us. A booming male voice echoed against the building‘s brick facade. ―Put your hands up. This is the police.‖ I immediately reached as high as I could. Lester froze. He looked at the half-opened door. I imagined the wheels in his head spinning, as he measured the distance to the opening and calculated the speed of a bullet. I wasn‘t in any mood to get shot over a pair of heels. I kicked the door shut and barked at him. ―Put your hands up, you idiot.‖ 67

It only took two minutes for Detective Marty and his sidekick to get Lester handcuffed and led off to lock up. I chuckled. It all happened so fast. My buddy Lester wouldn't realize I'd set him up until he was halfway downtown. I turned back to the store and that big pile of shoes. I was hoping to clean up the mess and call it a night. ―Agent Robinson.‖ I looked around. It was Detective Marty, a big grin plastered on his mug, ambling back down the alley. ―Hey, Marty, good job.‖ He waved off my compliment, even though I knew he was about to bust a button. ―I wanted to explain why I had a patrol officer with me. I know you wanted me to operate alone but department policy required backup when entering a potentially dangerous situation.‖ ―Not a problem. Lester was more paranoid than I anticipated. You did good, Marty.‖ The detective followed me back into the storeroom. I suggested he reward himself by letting me do the paperwork, but he resisted. "I'd be remiss if I didn't validate the inventory.‖ ―You‘re a good cop, Marty.‖ I was sincere. It‘s just that I didn‘t need a conscientious officer of the law right now.

All I wanted to do was collect my bogus shoes, the money satchel, and be on my way. ―You know this is a pretty clean crime scene,‖ I said. ―None of the legit stuff left the building." "Yeah, we prevented a serious theft," he said. ―Counting up the stuff won‘t take more than ten minutes.‖ The detective studied the cartons and bags stacked around the room. ―We should take our time, no need to rush it.‖ Regardless of how I put it, Detective Marty wasn't leaving until he had accounted for everything, so I backed off. We retrieved the forty-five boxes of shoes from the garbage bags and opened the three cartons I brought in. We stacked them on the table and did a count. Then he repeated the process, finally appearing satisfied. I pointed to a stack of shoe boxes. ―Start taking the authentic product into the storage room. I‘ll put the fakes in the shipping cartons.‖ He followed my instructions, and after a half-dozen trips back and forth, Detective Marty locked the storage room door. He then helped me load the cartons into my car. We looked at each, and I was the one to initiate the hug. ―You probably saved my neck back there. I owe you.‖ 69

He did his ah-shucks thing. ―I was just doing my job.‖ I knew he wanted to kiss me, so I stepped back before it got awkward. Opening my car door, I turned back to him. ―I‘ll submit a glowing report on your performance. You were critical to our success.‖ He blushed like a teenage boy on his first date. ―You‘re the best, Robinson.‖ ### As I walked into Burke‘s High Fashion of Chicago, my heart rate jacked as I touched the Marius Napa leather jacket dressed on a mannequin. I swore the leather was so soft it felt like it was melting in my hand. Next to it was a black Helmut Lang jacket with notched lapels and a waist tie belt. I almost fainted. Either one of them would go perfectly with the Christian Louboutin pumps back in my closet. Maybe the Jimmy Choo would work as well. With nine pairs of the most lusciously designed shoes a woman could ever own, my choices were almost overwhelming. But enough self-indulgent thinking, I had to get down to business. A tall blonde wearing black framed Versace glasses on her aquiline nose approached me. ―May I help you?‖ I caught her eyes doing a quick read of my feet. An approving smile sneaked its way onto her face. It would‘ve been tacky for her to compliment me on my thousand dollar 70

Manolo Blahnik. After all, I knew she was Rose Burke, and she had to maintain an aura of indifference. Her wealthy clientele expected it. ―I‘m going to Montreal next month and need something striking,‖ I said. ―Could you show me a coat that would knock those Canadians off their feet?‖ ―Of course, come this way.‖ I followed the woman to the back of the showroom. She unlocked a sliding glass door, revealing a rack of sheepskin leather jackets and coats. Turning with the grace of a former dancer, her posture ramrod straight, she pointed her tastefully manicured hand at the merchandise. ―I think you‘ll find something here that‘s perfect for Montreal.‖ Most folks would wonder how such a sophisticated looking woman, owner of an elite women‘s leather goods store, would be susceptible to a criminal endeavor. In her case, it was drugs. The last two months I‘d spent researching the hacked patient records of the local rehab center had borne fruit. I‘d learned enough about frequent patient Rose Burke that I could probably turn her. ―You have such amazing merchandise,‖ I said. ―Your business must be booming.‖ The woman‘s tight smile said everything I already knew. Business sucked. 71

―I‘m sorry I didn‘t introduce myself.‖ I reached out my hand to her. ‗I‘m Gloria Van Lutten.‖ ―Oh, are you related to the Park Lake Van Luttens?‖ I chuckled, wondering who in the hell were the Park Lake Van Luttens? ―I am, but we don‘t talk about that side of the family.‖ I started examining the coats, massaging the leather with my fingers and studying the linings. Good Lord, why did I select such an odd surname? I usually used a moniker that was unremarkable, like Melody Robinson. I missed being called Melody; it was such a simple, everyday name. I turned my attention to Rose, offering her my sly, girlfriend smile. ―I have stories about the Van Luttens that could curl your hair.‖ The woman laughed, knowingly shaking her head. ―I‘d love to hear them.‖ ―Let‘s do drinks sometime.‖ I could see my offer encouraged Rose to relax her guard. ―I‘d love to,‖ she said. ―By the way, I adore your shoes.‖ ―Me too. Nothing heals what ails me like a beautiful pair of shoes.‖

―Amen, sister,‖ she said. ―They‘re a tonic for a girl‘s wounded ego.‖ I laughed and grasped Rose's arm, showing off my natural friendliness. The big smile on her face broke apart her remaining professional aplomb. She was succumbing to my charm. That was good. This job might not be as tricky as the last one. I won‘t need to involve anyone else. Not to say Detective Marty wasn‘t useful. Poor guy, he probably caught a ration of shit when they discovered I‘d switched out all the legit size eight and a half shoe boxes with the trash. But if he understood women and shoes, he would have caught me, plain and simple. Now I had to try on that gorgeous Anasta leather jacket. Oh, Lordy, this one was going to be so much fun.

Selected Poems by Debra Franco I Will Not Die in Paris with thanks to César Vallejo

I‘ll wish it were in Paris, eating a sandwiche jambon with good butter at a small cafe, watching the flaneurs saunter by. An old lady myself now, as old as this October day, as this afternoon d‘un certain age, sipping my last café crème, feeling its heat relax the muscles in my thighs, my lower back, then enter and stop my heart. It would take them a while to see I was gone, not simply a very quiet woman entranced by a memory, reaching inward to find it still and shimmering, the girl I was in this place, then, reaching her hands to me now. They would count me une héroine de la nation, having died of a café crème and with my sang froid intact, and cover my face with a scarf from Printemps. But no. I will die in New York City, a few blocks from the hospital where I squealed into life one squally October afternoon last century, the building long since razed for a high-rise with units starting at three million. I won‘t be eating a bagel or a pastrami on rye or a hot dog with the works. I won‘t be at a matinee or hiking the High Line or kicking at leaf drifts in Central Park. I‘ll be looking out a window 74

at tall buildings and the sky between them, wishing, as I had most of my life, I were somewhere else. Wishing I were in Paris.

Facts about Copenhagen It is very clean. A city dreamed by a fish-limbed goddess, alight on the lip of the sea. The mayor there, Hans Christsian Andersen, wakes up sleeping Danish children with stories to keep the dark at bay. The houses face the sea, painted pink with skins of salmon, yellow from the butter of fat cows, red skimmed from sunsets glinting off the prows of fishing skiffs. The people, tidy, white and blonde, sing in English to the sea. They spend the days sweeping their pine floors free of dust and dirt and shards of ice. Unlike Swedes, they do not wish to kill themselves in hordes when the day-long winter darkness sucks the light like a child with an icicle; Or Norwegians, whose Viking fathers built their towns on blood and plunder, berserking, going mad at regular intervals, glutted with war; 75

the Danes are a sunny folk. They used to eat a lot of herring, but now they drink the fragrance of food alone. Just the essence of a cucumber, kissed by a froth of mushrooms gathered in the shade of trees whose branches reach toward the arctic sun.

Selected Poems by Don Hogle The Stand Sometimes I envy other people their children.

This man and his two have come to a standstill before me in the middle of the path. The boy adjusts the straps on the man‘s backpack, a knee-high girl wraps an arm around his leg. They confront the clearing like a sentinel banyan – the children sprung from him to sprout alongside, rooting and grounding him – a defensible stand. I‘m more the vine, the ivy inching, always inching, the impulse onward more natural to me than standing ground. I‘m after the next revealing, the yellow-green unfolding and, if on seeing this man planted with his brood, I feel a twinge of wistfulness or regret, it‘s only in passing.

Tideline One joint into a sticky spring-break night, we sat on the sand below the boardwalk, a streetlight glow above us on Ocean Boulevard. We watched the breaking waves toss sea froth up onto the tideline where it disintegrated in the wind. You looked over your shoulder, and said, Should we…? leaving what we should or should not do 77

open to surmise or dare. My skin tingled from the afternoon sun, from the weed, and the ocean called as it does at night â&#x20AC;&#x201C; asking for surrender, offering abandon. Should we what? I said. Nothing, you replied, and the nothing we never spoke of hung there, as present as salt on the tongue â&#x20AC;&#x201C; then was gone.

All This is Temporary By Hope Jordan I‘m married, but I went to meet Galen Daniels knowing that if she wanted me to, I‘d bang her anyway. All through my last year of college, each time we‘d run into each other playing shuffleboard at the grad school bar or during kill-a-keg night at Chuck‘s, we‘d end up drunk and deliriously happy in her bed. Now, after 20 years of no contact, there we were at a hotel bar in midtown Manhattan; me a real estate developer with a wife and son, she a divorced pediatrician from upstate. Like I said, we hadn‘t been in touch – that is, until one of our classmates passed away and I saw Galen pop up when I was scrolling through the condolences. It occurred to me then that she was the only girl I‘ve ever known who came on to me first. When we met back at school, she kissed me out of nowhere. I was playing pool, lining up a shot, lining up a sweet little sister from Tri-Delt for later. Girls liked how I looked, but I knew what I was up against. Short guys finish last. I‘d worked my ass off in high school – football, wrestling, bulking up. Good posture. Walked like I knew what I was doing.

So I sank my shot, scratched, and walked through the door to get another beer. That was when Galen just planted one on my mouth. Like she didn‘t know she was going to do it. I‘d never really noticed her before, an average girl with glasses and freckles, one of that cluster of freshmen that started coming to our parties that fall. Why did I reach out to Galen after 20 years? Well for starters I‘ve never fucked a doctor. Also, maybe I wondered what she‘d seen in me then, to pick me out of the crowd. To see if what I remembered was real. I did a lot of drugs back then. Not as many as some guys, but still. These days I‘m down to only the alcohol I need to lubricate real estate deals. And social occasions. Not long after we connected online, I read her updates and knew she was going to be in the city. My office was just a few blocks from the hotel where her conference was being held. Days before, I had messaged her, Galen, want to have a drink with an old friend while you’re in town? Sure, Matt, she answered, just like that. When I say she always made it easy, I don‘t mean boring. With her, it‘s an earned type of easy, like how it feels after you just worked a long day doing something outside with your hands. No regrets when I saw her from across the hotel lobby. Galen‘s almost my age, but she still looks good. Somewhere 80

along the line, she figured out how to care about how she dressed. We did the old-friends-but-strangers hug, awkward. ―You look fantastic,‖ I said. ―Coach?‖ It took her a minute to realize I was talking about her bag. ―It‘s a knockoff. But I did buy it in Paris. On a street corner.‖ ―Nice.‖ She couldn‘t tell if I was making fun of her. ―You look great, too. No tie?‖ I was still dressed for work. I reached into my pocket, pulled out a strip of blue, shoved it back. ―I need to unwind. How about a cocktail?‖ ―On me. I‘ve already got a room tab going. Please, my treat.‖ The lights over the bar were pendants made out of Mason jars. I ordered a Glenlivet, held it up, ―To old friends, together again.‖ Galen seemed to wince. ―Never thought I‘d see the day.‖ She clinked her glass to mine, took a sip. I swallowed and set my drink down. It clunked on the copper-topped bar, but my voice was smooth. ―What do you mean?‖ Galen swirled the last olive in her dirty martini. She seemed to make up her mind about something. ―The way I

remember it. We hooked up a few times at school. We were kids. It was fun.‖ I nodded. So far so good. She kept looking at her drink instead of me. ―They say a girl never forgets her first. I, I wasn‘t sure I should meet you tonight, but I kind of couldn‘t help myself.‖ Was she saying she‘d been a virgin before me? Nothing in my memory backed that up. But I know enough to know you can‘t always tell. I kept my face neutral. She kept talking. ―At one point I thought we could try for something different. Like, getting to know each other, hanging out. We talked about dinner and I thought it was a thing. But that night you never showed up. And then you graduated and moved on, and all that.‖ ―What a shit! I didn‘t even call?‖ My right eyebrow lifted – a bad habit I‘ve been trying to break. It seems to throw people. Was she still pissed after 20 years? Galen said, ―I‘m not sure I even had a phone then. I was living with some friends on State because I was too broke to stay in university housing. I mean, I‘m over it, it‘s just the last thing I remember about you.‖ Christ. If she were over it, she wouldn‘t be here. I looked her in the eye. ―I‘m sorry,‖ I said. She made a small 82

sound and was quiet for so long I took out my cell, checked messages. ―That reminds me,‖ I said. I put it away then took it back out and showed her a photo. ―Actually, here‘s my son. Jack. He‘s three.‖ Galen‘s expression was pure. ―Adorable.‖ Which he is. I surprised myself next by saying one of the things that‘s been on my mind lately. ―They‘re testing him now. They think he might be on the spectrum, as they say.‖ Galen looked at me for a long moment. ―I‘m sorry, Matt. That‘s hard on a family.‖ And then, because it seemed to make the most sense, I showed her the next photo. ―My wife, Emily.‖ People always expect Emily to look more like a trophy wife–blonde and lanky. Those types are too high-maintenance. I wondered if seeing a photo of her would turn Galen off, or fire up her competitive spirit. It can go either way. ―How lovely. You are a lucky man.‖ ―Yes, I am.‖ I put my phone away. ―Well, if it makes you feel any better, I really am sorry.‖ ―Sorry for what? Standing me up 20 years ago? Do you even remember?‖ ―Now that you mention it, I kinda do. Luigi‘s, right?‖ A calculated guess, because Luigi‘s was the only place I had ever taken the girls I actually dated when we were at school. 83

―Right. I think they‘re still in business, even. But listen, you have nothing to apologize for.‖ She took a deep breath, spoke slowly, and made the hair on my arms stand up. ―I enjoyed every moment of our time together.‖ # Where I grew up the buildings were falling apart, and the skies were always gray. I wanted more, piles of more, I wanted to make it big. I think about that when I‘m lifting weights at the gym or driving home listening to the radio. Galen had wanted more too, but more of something else. With other girls, everything they wanted was eventually all the same; marriage, security, a dozen roses when they‘re having their period. Galen glanced around the bar; her nostrils flared. I could smell my cologne which was a sign I‘d used too much. At least it wasn‘t the same crap I wore 20 years ago. She fished the olive out of her martini glass and chewed. Maybe she was hungry. It was the least I could do. ―So I guess I owe you a dinner. Twenty years later.‖ I laughed, just a little. ―Where would you like to eat?‖ I finished my scotch. Hopefully, she wouldn‘t insist on buying me another drink. ―Seriously?‖

I nodded. It took her a minute, but finally she said, ―Why don‘t you pick something, Matt? I‘m only ever here for conferences and I never leave the hotel.‖ I double-checked our location on my phone. ―One of the best steakhouses in the city is only three blocks away,‖ I said. ―I‘m a regular, so we can probably get a table. Want to head over?‖ It took her a while to realize I was holding out my arm to help her down from the bar stool as she signed off on the tab. I could feel her warmth through my tropical wool suit. Underneath her dress was skin I last touched two decades ago. I read somewhere skin renews itself entirely every seven years. None of those skin cells under there would remember rubbing up against mine. # When we got to Keene‘s Carlos gave us my usual table in the back corner, near the kitchen door. ―Nice view of the room,‖ he said, handing me the wine list. ―And a backdoor in case we need to run for it,‖ I answered. It was our joke that a gunfighter like me always needs a second exit. I know how to get a woman into bed just like I know how to close a real estate deal, how I know how to pin a guy during a wrestling match. The fact that Galen and I had been lovers or whatever you want to call it so long ago made it 85

easier to feel natural about the whole thing. Like what was between us was a kind of pre-existing condition. Galen ate like she was starving. I poured her another glass of Zinfandel. We‘d gone through all the polite back-andforth; family, careers, travel tips. She talked about her volunteer work with refugees and Doctors Without Borders. I didn‘t really want to talk about my work, and she didn‘t ask for details. She didn‘t mention her ex, other than to say they were divorced two years ago, no kids. ―This is delicious.‖ She smiled, and her teeth were a little stained from the wine. I tried to imagine her with Jack, down the shore, finding starfish or what have you, and that was easy. ―Right? They always knock it out of the park.‖ ―You really can‘t get this upstate.‖ ―One of the great benefits of living in the city. But of course, everything has to be trucked in. It‘s a pretty fragile system if you think about it.‖ ―You live in the country, right?‖ ―Well, the suburbs, technically. Two hours, if there isn‘t any traffic. It‘s not like I can just walk out my backdoor with a rifle and pop off a deer. I stay here in the city during the week.‖ She seemed surprised. ―You must miss your family.‖ 86

―We‘re pretty used to it. This way I can keep them in the style to which they‘ve become accustomed.‖ I pictured the house I paid too much money for in that town where everyone is up everyone else‘s ass. The men size me up like they want to fight and the women are all amped with disgust or lust or both. I learned the hard way to keep my dick out of the neighborhood. Galen probably lives in a one-bedroom condo, or better yet, a cabin in the woods somewhere, with a bicycle rack and a collection of indigenous masks. I put down my fork, leaned back. I could tell her divorce had taken something out of her. Still, she had nice dark hair and brown eyes, her glasses gone—contacts now, probably. She kept herself in shape. Why hadn‘t she found another guy? Galen asked, ―So what is it?‖ ―What?‖ I wondered. ―Why did you ask me to dinner? I just can‘t figure out what‘s in it for you.‖ I crossed my arms. She went on. ―I mean, one thing I‘ve learned, people don‘t do things unless there‘s something in it for them. And I can‘t think of anything you might want. From me.‖ ―What do most people want?‖ I reached for the wine bottle. 87

―I don‘t know. It‘s been a long time since I‘ve been out with anyone. When I was dating after my divorce, with most men, I would say it comes down to money or sex. Or both. But I don‘t know you very well now. I mean, I never did.‖ I refilled our glasses. ―Cash and pussy.‖ Her face went red. She drank water. ―What I said. Yes.‖ I laughed. A few people looked our way. I leaned forward. ―Well, I must say I do have plenty of each. But you might give me a little credit.‖ ―It would help if you told me what we‘re doing here.‖ Galen was a strange mixture of reserve and raw. Being with her was just like I remembered. No filters. I said, ―You want it to make sense.‖ She said, ―I do. I want everything to make sense. It‘s my fatal flaw.‖ ―My fatal flaw is I‘m smarter than everyone else.‖ Right then Carlos came by with dessert. I patted my belly, which was nearly as flat as back in my college days. I needed to stay light on my feet, but Galen was welcome to have dessert if she wanted. She didn‘t. And she didn‘t change the subject. ―So you‘re having a midlife crisis?‖

―Midlife crisis. That‘s such a fucking cliché. I have a beautiful life,‖ I said, giving her a smile before opening the check. I put my American Express in the book, and Carlos scooped it up immediately. # Being a gentleman, I insisted on walking Galen back to her hotel. She seemed wobbly from the wine but more or less under control. I didn‘t wait for her to invite me to come up, I just did, quietly asking her room number and escorting her to the elevator as if the question had already been settled. Women like a man who takes control. Especially powerful women. In her room I took off my suit jacket and swiveled in the desk chair, looking for something to do with my hands. Even the best hotels have the worst pens. She sat on the bed and pulled her shoes off. ―Matt, this was very nice of you, but I have a big day tomorrow.‖ I turned to face her. Again, I wished I‘d worn a little less cologne. I needed to make up lost ground, keep her interest. Maybe I should just stop talking. ―Would you mind if I called room service?‖ ―What? I guess not. I mean, what for? The hospital is paying for me to be here…‖ ―I just need a scotch. I‘ll take care of it.‖ 89

―Okay.‖ A moment, then, ―One for me too.‖ It bought some time. We made more small talk until there was a knock on the door. I tipped the server, handed Galen her drink, sat next to her on the bed, but not too close. She leaned over, touched my sleeve. ―The only other man I‘ve ever known to wear cufflinks was the medical director at the hospital where I did my residency,‖ she said. I tugged, and the cufflink tumbled, but I caught it in the other hand. I don‘t always wear them, they tend to get lost, but I‘d wanted to look good. I took off the other one, and when my sleeve fell away, she could see the thin line of script on my left wrist. ―What‘s that say?‖ she asked. Three years I‘ve had it, but I keep forgetting. Maybe I‘m more interesting than she‘d thought. I pulled up my sleeve. ―The world …‖ she read. Her eyes moved to my face and back down to my wrist. I stood up, took off my shirt but not my undershirt. As I sat back down, I was glad I had gone to the gym that morning. Now she could see the entire tattoo. Next to the words, I‘d had them ink a perfectly detailed tiny skeleton, falling. ―‘The world is always ending.‘ You‘re not kidding.‖ ―That‘s to remind me,‖ I said, ―The world is always beginning, too.‖ ―What does your son think of it?‖ she asked. 90

I sat up straighter, edged away. Nobody had asked me that before. I‘m used to the guys at the gym ribbing me about it, a few curious enough to ask a real question, but not about Jack. ―When I told him how they make tattoos, he couldn‘t understand why I hurt myself on purpose. I didn‘t tell him what the words mean. He likes the skeleton, though. He doesn‘t think it‘s scary.‖ ―Why those words? Are they from a book, a movie?‖ I shifted on the bed, a few inches away, so I could see her better. ―People have been talking about the world ending since language began,‖ I said. ―You know. Most civilizations went down because they couldn‘t keep up the infrastructure.‖ I waved at the window, which opened onto other brick walls and windows. ―All this is temporary.‖ I continued, ―The night Jack was born there was a snowstorm. I left the hospital and met my buddies at the oldest bar in New York. I drank more than was good for me. I got the tattoo that night. Not of my son, not his name or date of birth, but this…to remind me of the mess he was born into, and my job to protect him. More like, prepare him. Find the opportunities even in the dark. Especially in the dark. If my work has taught me anything, it‘s that.‖

She traced the line up my arm. It felt like the right combination fell into place, a door swinging open. In the old days, sailors wore gold in their ears as a way to pay for their burials in case they died at sea. A kind of personal funeral insurance policy. Maybe that‘s what this tattoo is for me, in a way. ―I don‘t know how long this will last,‖ I told her, ―but as long as it does, I‘m plugged in. I‘m going to make all the money I can, shore up all the fortresses I can. I‘ll build a fucking moat if I have to.‖ I pictured a post-catastrophe, Galen moving calmly through a makeshift hospital, maybe a tent like in that old show M*A*S*H. I would bring her the wounded. I‘d have stubble on my chin, overgrown hair, a ripped shirt, even. I‘d be sweaty, wearing bandoliers of ammunition like Sylvester Stallone in First Blood. She didn‘t move for what felt like a long time, then leaned forward, kissed me hard. Her body clenched and unclenched its entire length. I took it for what it was, a brief pleasure like smoking a cigar or Jack falling asleep in my arms. If it never happened again, nothing would change. If it happened again, nothing would change. I have always understood why we pay for sex, it‘s such a break from being who we are. 92

Her eyes had crows‘ feet and dark shadows. Let‘s get there Galen I said, and she said yes, said yes. When we fucked, I had visions. Nothing mystical, just images that popped up. The bluest part of a wave at the ocean, how it feels to stand on a balcony in a European city. Years vanished, I vanished. No body, or the body just an instrument. No small talk no pinstripes no cufflinks no high-heeled shoes. Just surge and flow regardless of how many buildings loom in the distance or how many exes are texting or how many television shows we‘re addicted to. This was it. I told her I want you to get a strap-on and ride me until I forget my name. She punched my arm and laughed. # ―I was never one of those kids who jumped off the highway bridge into the river,‖ Galen said later. ―I never lit a firecracker. I was such a scaredy-cat. The first time I ever did anything crazy was the first time I had sex with you.‖ She got up to use the bathroom, and I could see her ass hadn‘t aged as well as the rest. God help me if she wanted more than this. She put on a tee shirt and sat at the edge of the bed with a glass of water. I rubbed my temples. Someone was watching an action movie next door, and even though it was a solid old hotel, I could hear every shout, every gunshot. What time was it? I wondered if I should call the front desk. I sat up, 93

tucking the sheet around my waist. I reached for the rest of my scotch and tried to think of something to say. I thought about her work saving lives, doling out healing in dribs and drabs. Women like that weren‘t cut out for marriage. They don‘t want the benefits enough to suck it up, to stick it out. There‘s no way she‘d want to live with me either, she‘d be bored stupid. Talking to doctors‘ wives. And I couldn‘t change to be with her, even on weekends. You see guys like that. Lawyers in Grateful Dead tee shirts, stockbrokers in tie-dye. Fuck those guys. I need the hustle. ―Galen, have you ever thought about what happens when it all falls apart? When the shit hits the fan?‖ ―You mean marriage?‖ ―I mean, society. What we‘ve built. It wouldn‘t take much for everything to go to hell.‖ She leaned forward. ―What do you mean? Terrorist attack? Disease? Natural disaster?‖ ―All of the above.‖ I nodded. The shadows around her eyes deepened. Quiet. She lay back on the bed, piling up pillows. ―I‘m too busy to think about that stuff.‖ ―I would do anything, anything to protect Jack. To keep him safe.‖

―Of course you would. And Emily.‖ My wife‘s name came out of Galen‘s mouth like it had a funny taste to it. Not where I wanted to go. ―Emily‘s…a great mom.‖ ―Oh,‖ she said. And then, ―Why are we here, again?‖ ―I don‘t know,‖ I finished my drink. ―You picked me. All that long time ago. Like jumping off a bridge. Remember?‖ She pulled up the blankets. ―Actually, it wasn‘t just me. My roommates pointed you out. It was kind of a dare. I needed to get it over with, the first time, you know. You seemed like you could get it done.‖ She looked at me steadily. ―I don‘t know. It was a long time ago.‖ I stood up; the sheet fell away. Again, I could smell my cologne. I pulled on my boxer shorts and picked my pants up from the floor, stepping into them. She picked my tie off the floor and handed it to me. I finished getting dressed. My phone vibrated; I ignored it. Emily was home alone in our king-sized bed. My stomach made a noise. Galen looked at me. ―You okay?‖ I don‘t understand how I‘m supposed to feel. Guilty? This is about me, not my family. I‘ll go pick up some pastry to leave in the kitchen while Emily‘s away at yoga class. She will be pissed because she‘s always watching her weight. She 95

doesn‘t even like going out to dinner anymore. Emily has her book club, her sisters. I don‘t know what she needs me for except to pay the bills. I don‘t know what I‘ll tell Jack when he‘s old enough. How to be a man in the world. There‘s so much you need to keep from view. Maybe it will be different for him. Galen‘s watching me not caring that I know she is watching me. I will get dressed, I will put on my cufflinks, I will wash my face, I will tell her something about getting together again she may or may not believe, and I will go back to my life. And I will think about this later when I‘m alone in my office after everyone has gone home. What makes a beautiful life? What have I ever done to make it so?

Spirit By Anne Hunley Trisler Daughter, I have waited, I have looked for you in trees where songbirds live. I saw you dying, bit by bit the golden notes fell from your lips and fluttered to the ground where dry leaves lay until a day, the faintest tunes came creaking out of silver dusk like old swung gates, and carried on the wind I heard you trying out your rusty voice again and hope sprung up in me like thirsty orchids rearing up toward rain. And from the stage tonight, you come back to me again, the child I knew, parting curtains, shredded shroud in two, your sweet high songs are glints of fire, you trill your resurrection. From the stage the pine box, riven, from the stage, my wraith girl, risen.

Selected Poems by Lexy Courneya cash or credit to him replying with i love you is like paying with credit when he only accepts cash. he demands tangible compensation. he desires golden dollars– shiny girls whom he can touch and feel and use. he wants to hold their faces in his greedy palms and say with covetous eyes you are mine.

favorite funeral ―boys will be boys‖ – an epigraph on the tombstone of our rape culture

There is a frost By Austin Paramore There is a frost on your skin that I feel every time I hold your attention. Dull to the touch, I‘ve heard stories of how it‘s wrenched cowardice from the pores of men. I imagine you learned such a spell from your father, who taught his little girl that frosted hands don’t melt on the chests of boys that hide fire in their throat. Still, boy after girl after burn after ash, you would learn the healing pageantry of skin dirtied with the fingerprints of those who long to touch you. Skin frosted, so cold as to shrink ego on contact. So thick, I can hardly reach the freckles that grain the peach of your forearms. Over time I‘ve felt it, this frost, thaw in the quiet lace of our hands. In special moments, I can feel the country sun-cooked concrete that braised the soles of your childhood. You weren‘t raised in this frost, no. Still, I can feel it pull at the skin of our every ending kiss. Longing for summer.

Archive By Kelly Tanner Loretta We are a family of forgetting. Each of us is especially skilled at not remembering. My day to day life is a collage of to-do lists, Post-it notes, and electronic alerts. I will have forgotten your name by the time our first handshake is over. I might recall the letter it starts with, as if I filed it away, diligently, under its proper letter, then forgot where the file room was located. My long-term memory is a little better. I can usually find my way back to the file room, eventually. The files, somewhat neglected, will be tattered, and I will wish the tissue-thin pages held together better. Some files will be missing, and new files will have been dropped off while I was away. I may not remember precisely which files were mine, or which pages have crumbled. I might weep at important things that were lost, without recalling exactly what they were. There is a story that we tell about the day my sister was born. I had just turned four, and it was a bright hot August day. My Grandma and I were in the mustard-yellow kitchen of my home in Connecticut. I sat at the round wooden kitchen table, swinging my legs underneath. I waited for my breakfast of canned Campbellâ&#x20AC;&#x2DC;s chicken noodle soup. Canned Campbellâ&#x20AC;&#x2DC;s chicken noodle soup had been my dinner the night 100

before, and my lunch yesterday, after Grandma had arrived at the house to take care of me. I remember my response to her asking what I would like for breakfast as a question, ―Chicken noodle soup?‖ and the bolt of surprise at getting what I wanted, again. I waited, spoon in hand, and reveled in my power over her. The soup was just right. Too much water added to the concentrate would ruin everything, creating a bowl of beige oily saline. No matter how much I begged my mother to reduce the amount of water when she made me soup, she insisted on following the instructions on the side of the can, plus a little extra to make a point. But Grandma‘s canned Campbell‘s chicken noodle soup shocked my tongue with its saltiness and fragrant oil. The concentrated broth allowed each bite to contain noodles. I chased the short matchstick-size strands around the bowl with my spoon until I had a chewy pile. The soup smelled more richly of chicken than seemed possible, given the few pea-sized chicken pieces that the soup contained. ―You would eat chicken noodle soup for every meal if you could,‖ Grandma said. I was startled out of my bliss by the realization that she was making a joke. Two ribbons lay on the table, one a soft pale pink and other a robin‘s egg blue. Each was twisted into a puffy bow. They were huge and had a hint of shine on the inside of the 101

ribbon. The phone on the wall rang, and Grandma answered. I watched her back as she turned into the wall and twisted the phone cord around her manicured fingers. Her tightly curled brown head, the same color as mine, made a dark spot against the yellow cord, yellow phone, yellow wall. She spoke quietly, but from her urgent tone, I knew that my mom‘s baby had been born. I reached out and picked up the ribbons. I had wanted a sister, but the blue ribbon was the more beautiful. Or maybe it was the pink. No, the blue. I concentrated hard on the bows since I knew there was not much time left to decide. Definitely the blue one. Grandma hung up the phone. ―It‘s a girl!‖ Grandma said. ―Let‘s go hang up the pink ribbon on the mailbox outside.‖ ―Oh,‖ I said. ―But…can we hang them both up? They‘re both so pretty.‖ It‘s those last two lines that were told over and over to make people laugh. Eventually, I told the story to people too, remembering only the punchline, telling it the way that Grandma did. Grandma is 102 now, and no longer remembers the story, or the ribbons. Or my sister. Or me. Over the years, dementia closed over her like fog rolling in. And I am no longer sure that I remember that story the way it was told. Did I really want to hang both ribbons? Did I think my choice would control which baby was born? Did Grandma really let 102

me eat soup three times in a row, or do I just remember it that way? A few years ago, one Sunday, my father and I called Grandma on the phone. Dad called Grandma every Sunday at 4 PM for over 40 years, dialing the number exactly on the hour. I knew that Grandma would be waiting, and she answered halfway through the first ring. ―How did you know where to reach me?‖ she asked. My father and I exchanged a glance at each other. ―Where are you, Mom?‖ ―Oh, I‘m just waiting here in the hallway. I‘m surprised you knew to call me here.‖ ―Waiting for what?‖ ―Waiting to go inside to meet with him.‖ ―To meet with who?‖ ―The President of the United States. I‘m waiting my turn to meet him. Would…would you come in with me?‖ This had started recently, the hallucinations. Last Sunday, Grandma had been on a cruise when Dad called her, with my Grandpa who had died fifteen years ago. ―Of course we will. Yes. While you wait, Mom, maybe lie down for a little bit, take a nap and be rested for when it‘s your turn?‖ ―That‘s a good idea. I am a little tired.‖ 103

After the call, we realized that we had forgotten to ask which president she thought she was meeting. I found myself wishing to know. I could see her in my mind‘s eye, Grandma rising from her chair, her purse under her arm. She would walk through the hallway, pause to pat her hair in place. Then she would push open the door to the Oval Office, and step inside, her hand reaching out to shake…which President‘s hand? But it was too late. After Grandma‘s nap, it would all be forgotten – the hallway, the phone call. Not long after that, Grandma would forget how to answer the phone. Dad still called for a while, each Sunday, as usual. The phone would ring its mechanical ring unanswered, calling out to the past, until Dad could admit that Sundays at 4 PM were just a memory. A few months later, at her 100th birthday party, we showed Grandma the letter of congratulations that had arrived with her mail. Signed, President of the United States Barack H. Obama. At her party, Grandma looked for her mother. All the family and local town officials had gathered in the beige-tidy rec room of her senior center. We stood chattering, each holding yellow paper plates of grocery store sheet cake. ―Is my mother still alive?‖ she asked my Aunt Pat, peering into the crowd. 104

―You‘re 100 years old, Mom. What do you think?‖ Grandma was silent for a long moment. ―Probably not,‖ she said, and stopped looking. Some things are better forgotten. My Aunt Kathy was also absent from the party. I remembered the last time I had seen her, in the hospital for a final time, crushed into the mattress with cancer. Her face and legs were so swollen that when my father and I arrived at the hospital, we walked right by her room without recognizing her, propped on the bed. We stood at her bedside, listening to Kathy‘s shallow breaths, coming too far apart. The things we could not manage to say filled our throats and spilled out onto the floor and piled up so high that we could no longer see each other. We could still hear Kathy‘s labored breathing, could do nothing but wait there, dumb, in the pauses that hung there until the next rattled breath came. A doctor entered the room, sweeping aside all the unsaid things. He looked at the screen next to Kathy‘s head and poked her swollen arm. He said nothing, useless as the rest of us, and did not meet her eye. Kathy slowly reached for a glass of Coca-Cola on a small tray next to her bed. She took a sip from the bendy straw. The doctor leaned over to get a closer look at her arm. Kathy spit the Coke in his face. The things not said filled the room and spilled out into the hall.

105

Days later, we stood at Kathy‘s gravesite. Grandma stumbled backward, away from the sleek brown coffin. ―This is awfully hard for me,‖ she whispered. I stepped forward, reaching towards it, and placed my hand on the coffin‘s lid. I whispered to Kathy, too late, all the things I had failed to say before. It is not Kathy‘s face that Grandma looked for in the crowd, at her birthday party. She did not remember having children at all. Only a few of us from the family gathered in the rec room for birthday number 102. Grandma sat slumped in her wheelchair, in the center of the room, staring at her hands folded in her lap. I watched her from my own chair, my plate of cake balanced on my lap. I could feel the unsaid things in my throat, pressing against my lips and tongue. I did not want them in the room, piling up on the beige carpeted floor, leaving thumbprints in the cake. Yet I had forgotten how to speak, how to bridge the few feet between my seat and Grandma‘s, across the room and a thousand miles away. Grandma‘s caretaker, Judy, breezed into the room. She was a thin blonde woman, in a blue pantsuit. She walked right to Grandma, and with gentle hands tilted Grandma‘s chin up to look at her. ―How are you doing in there, Loretta? How are you, gorgeous girl? I‘m so happy to see you today!‖ Judy held 106

Grandma‘s head between her hands, as Grandma‘s eyes widened, and she smiled. Oh, I thought. So that‘s how you do it. They were both so pretty.

Jack When I was young, my Uncle Jack loved taking all the kids hiking through the New England woods. I loved fluffy, frilly dresses and patent leather shoes. I lived for pretty. I never wanted to change out of them into ―play clothes.‖ Jack and I were fundamentally incompatible. The year I turned ten, Jack got his way. In drab, everyday clothes, I was sent off with Jack, to the woods. We piled out of the minivan at the side of a hill. I soon realized that our climb was primarily vertical. Jack bounced up the hill, fluttering here and there to marvel at a leaf or a pebble. My cousins hiked ahead as I hung back, glaring at rocks and maple trees that looked precisely the same as the ones surrounding our home. My sneakers, unacquainted with my person outside of mandatory gym class, slipped a little in the leaves. As I reached the top of one incline, only to discover another, steeper section of trail, Jack noticed my face. ―Ok, let‘s take a break.‖ I sat down with a huff on a log, and Jack sat next to me. ―Look,‖ he said, and held out his hand. In 107

his palm were more pebbles, small and black. I must have looked unimpressed, because he took one in his fingers, and held it up into the light. It glowed with an inner fire of deep red. I gasped. ―It‘s an uncut garnet. They are all over the mountain here,‖ Jack said. I looked at Jack, floored. Gemstones. Just lying around, unappreciated, in the woods. I forgot about the heat, and the steepness of the climb. I wanted garnets. I spent the next three hours picking up small dark pebbles every few steps, then asking Jack, ―Is this one? How about this one?‖ When I found one, when Jack finally answered yes, I was enchanted all over again. By the end of the hike, I had three or four tiny stones clutched tight in my hands, little red-hearted treasures. I imagined how much they must be worth, how they might look in a ring, or a necklace. Garnets were my birthstone, and I felt possessive of the entire hillside. As we arrived back at the trailhead and the minivan, Jack stopped, turned, and flung his garnets back into the woods. He brushed his hands off and got into the car. I fought an urge to run back into the woods, to scramble after the garnets. Jack looked at me, puzzled that I was still outside the car. I shook my head, at the casualness with which he could find beauty, then throw it away.

108

When Jack began to forget, it first showed in his stories. He had always been long-winded, full of stories that went nowhere. The family would glance at each other, amused, as my father would ask questions just to egg him on. But now something else had crept into his stories. Jack had tried to return postage stamps at the post office. ―They were Forever stamps! They are supposed to last forever! I should be able to return them! And this woman behind the counter, she says to me, you can‘t return stamps, that I just have to keep them and use them. That‘s ridiculous! So I just know she‘s lying to me, so I tell her so, and I ask to see the manager. And the manager won‘t take the stamps back. I explained to him that these were Forever stamps!‖ We smiled and nodded politely. Eventually, conversation moved on, and we began to debate the amount of snowfall between northern and southern Connecticut that year. Just as they got to the good part, congratulating ourselves on our purchases of pellet stoves and backup generators for use during storm power outages, Jack cut in. ―They were Forever stamps! They are supposed to last forever! And this woman, she wouldn‘t take them!‖ We all fell silent, as he told the entire story, again. My aunt‘s mouth pressed into a straight line, and she looked at no one. We did not quite know yet, but we knew what forgetting was. 109

It took over a year to find a doctor who could confirm it, who could tell us why Jack was spending days at a time on the phone, trying to get on radio quiz games. He had contracted Lyme disease, probably decades earlier, and it had never been discovered. Perhaps on some outdoor adventure. The Lyme disease had triggered early-onset dementia. Jack had just taken early retirement from his job, teaching middle school algebra. He had planned to spend more time outdoors. A short time later, Jack tried to remember eggs. He sat with his menu, all of us around our usual table at the restaurant of an inn, for another holiday. The waitress hovered over his shoulder, waiting. ―I want Eggs Benedict.‖ ―Jack, you don‘t like eggs,‖ my Aunt Pat said. ―Yes, I want Eggs Benedict. That‘s what I want.‖ ―Dad, you won‘t like it,‖ said my cousin Carolynne, his daughter. ―Don‘t tell me what I like and don‘t like. I‘m ordering Eggs Benedict, and that‘s it.‖ When the plates arrived, Jack looked at his food. His color rose, creeping up from his neck until his face glowed red, like a garnet. Without a word, he threw his napkin on top of his plate, and stalked away. We ate in silence.

110

The forgetting that came for Jack stole language, plucking it from him while leaving him otherwise whole. His eyes were as bright as ever, when they would meet mine. But all the words, within a few years, were gone. Just as Jackâ&#x20AC;&#x2DC;s inner fire began to fade, mine began to flame. I discovered, to my surprise, that I was like Jack, after all. In my twenties, I started hiking. I sat across from Jack at our table at holidays. I wished I could tell him that I had just gotten back from hiking the Inca Trail to Macchu Picchu. I stretched my arms out, toward him, trying to draw in the air something of the wonder of it. I waved my hands, to show the way that the mountain clouds parted in Peru. Jack reached his arms out, towards me. Then his arms fell to his sides, and so did mine. We sat, looking. Jack pulled the butter plate to him, unwrapped a rectangle of yellow butter from its gold foil wrapper, and popped it, whole, into his mouth. On one of my hiking trips, among the orange-red rocks of Sedona, Arizona, I started writing. I wanted to share something of the beauty and weirdness of the place, this town full of young expat New Yorkers and old hippies and vortex enthusiasts. A psychic, who read tarot cards for a living and had a shop filled with crystals, told me that writing was something I was meant to do, and drew me a picture of 111

overlapping scribbles that she said represented my newfound energy. When I returned home, I went back to school. I had always loved books, but now the need to understand language and stories burned within me. While enrolled in a program for Creative Writing and Literature, I grew fascinated by the way that narrative defines our very sense of ourselves, and serves as the lens through which we understand the world around us. We are the stories we tell about ourselves. Our politics, our family units, and our kindnesses to others are often defined by the story we want to tell, and to be a part of. My love of language and stories made me feel more connected to the world. But if I was more connected, then what did that make Jack? Carolynne was getting married. Pat and Carolynne had worked with Jack in the days leading up to the wedding, to try to make him understand. At the reception, in a restored Connecticut barn, Carolynne danced with her new husband. Jack sat at his table, eating his way through the butter. When the song was over, Carolynne walked over to her father and took the plate out of his hand. She pulled him to the dance floor. Jack looked at his feet. The music started. Carolynne and Jack stood, hands clasped together in the center of the room, like a prayer. Carolynne swayed a little to the music, and Jack looked up at her, in her white gown. They both 112

smiled. The crowd grew bored and began to shuffle their feet. A few turned away, so they missed the next moment, when Jack stood up straight, twirled the bride like Fred Astaire, and began to dance. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. As the song ended, Jack pulled Carolynne in and kissed her cheek. He walked back over to his chair and sat back down. My father clapped him on the back. ―Well, Jack, it looks like you‘ve still got it.‖ But the words were already gone. Jack stared at my father and did not understand. Sometimes these days, I don‘t believe that it could have really happened that way. I saw it happen, but I don‘t quite believe. I remember it that way, and that will have to be enough, in a family of forgetting.

113

Selected Poems by Jo Angela Edwins Abandoned Motel Buried head-first in pool water so dense with algae that â&#x20AC;&#x2022;buriedâ&#x20AC;&#x2013; is the only word, this kewpie doll, her hair blooming thick as a sea sponge, juniper green, her face cracked like the bust of some dead, despised dictator, her modest skirts stiff with dirt and age. There is no innocence here. She has walked the rough crust of heaven so long the soles of her feet smolder, and nowhere in sight are the arms and small hands meant to bend and embrace the child, now grown and aware that living devours us, cell by cell, limb by limb, heart by quivering heart.

114

The Cleaving There lies beneath the 13th Street bridge a gathering of lost things, dirty chrome fenders, empty purses, a stray tennis shoe. Sometimes on a clear Augusta night, trains moaning from eight blocks away, a smell wafts from the river, rotten eggs and roses, cut grass and dark tar. Listen as the water laps the bank, an old man whispering mother, mother, mother. Your breath imagines danger where concrete weds to mud, but now you are entirely alone. Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2DC;t wonder what languishes along slick borders. Ask yourself what brought you to it, this mad beginning, this sweet end.

115

Sunday Afternoon in October By Adrian Neibauer The red tablecloth is in the dryer and the late-afternoon October light falls silently in horizontal bars across our tattered sofa. The ice cream truck plinked down the street: one last call before pulling into Winter's garage. No one came. This Fall silence—unseasonable— is good for writing and being alone; unless you are 10: boredom lurks, masking its movements underneath the refrigerator's hum. A formattable Grendel to be slain this Sunday afternoon: kids drawn to cul-de-sacs loitering with levity organizing NERF platoons calling out call-signs holding onto this last day. Who among them is the Great Leader? A good time for a drink— whiskey or wine— I can hear my sobriety leave my body. Dustlight dances throughout; the last load of laundry clinks in the dryer 116

and crepuscular rays stream through the gaps in the blinds. Restful boredom awaits meâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; a wide barrow overgrown with wild grasses and dandelions. My solace over the end to this October Sunday afternoon.

117

Bat-Winged Dancer By Doris Xu

Tendu, tendu, dégagé. Tendu, tendu, plié. Sleek black leotards take their perch at the barre, a flock of feathered dancers curving arms into swan‘s wings, whilst necks bend like willow branches, coming to preen.

Frappé, plié, sissone. Tendu, fouette, sus-sous. Dainty feet flutter pink in the mirrors‘ baleful stare, a pair of mussed Suffolk pointe shoes striking half a count late. She, barre‘s end, spreads wings of leather and silk, sharp-toothed with thorns and naked of plumage.

Rond de jambe, plié, relevé. Rond de jambe, plié, passé. The swans swarm around her, peel beaks, expose teeth, seize flesh in their mouths and peck her skin red, but her feet never stop, however offbeat.

Bourrée, plié, sus-sous. Arabesque, faille, soutenu. She lunges into leaps and stumbles through turns, breaks her toes like eggshells on the marley floor, yet the swans still hiss and bat her out of the flock, her wings too sharp, her body too featherless.

118

Arabesque, faille, soutenu. Arabesque, faille, soutenu. So every new day adds a scar to her backâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; yet when she walks out the door, she flashes a grin and makes it a promise: it wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2DC;t be her last.

But someday her shell is sure to crack.

119

Corners, Stones, Shadows By A.K. Cotham Sharon stood at the lake‘s edge, the toes of her tennis shoes nudging at the thin lapping of the so-called waves. Some ways out in the water—yards, meters, she‘d never been able to gauge distance by sight—a spire poked up. From the school? Church? Library? She looked at the map that Burt and Erika had gotten for their trip, but she was no map reader either. Such a girl, she heard a twelve-year-old Burt jeer in her memory. She hadn‘t heard that tenor since they both hit puberty about a half-century ago, but every so often it came buzzing back to her ears like a mosquito, or rang out from underneath his gruff, late 60‘s, pack-a-day voice. Sharon turned the map with tightening fingers, trying to orient it to the mountain range in the distance. It still didn‘t make sense. She couldn‘t get it right. It was frustrating. And it wasn‘t what she expected from their trip. She‘d known the town in childhood, before it had been drowned to make way for the dam and the lake. Though she had stopped missing it a long time ago, she still dreamed about it, and she thought those dreams—decades of dreams—had kept the town accurate, intact in mind. But with this map, it was clear now that, like memory, her dreams had warped with the passing of time. Now that much of the land was back, the California 120

drought so severe that layers of water were simply peeling away like liquid film, she had to admit she just didn‘t remember very much after all. She pushed back her sunhat to dab at beading sweat on her forehead. Burt came up behind her and peered at the map. With his head bowed, she could see up close the sunspots dotting his scalp through thinned hair. His refusal to wear a hat was paying off. ―Figure it out yet, Sheba?‖ Sharon grinned at the childhood nickname and pointed out toward the spire. ―Well, if that‘s the church,‖ she said, ―then that—‖ she moved her arm toward the left—―would be the school?‖ Burt guided her arm back toward the right. ―That’s the school. And the playground. That‘s where me and my friends played baseball, and I hit all those record-breaking homers.‖ ―That‘s right, Burtums,‖ she said. ―It‘s all coming back to us now.‖ ―Hardy har har,‖ Burt said. That was the double-edged joke since they‘d started planning the trip. Burt had first been reluctant to come, but she badgered him; who else but her big brother could she share this with? He had been twelve when they‘d moved; she‘d been ten. He remembered just as much, if not more. (Burt always claimed he could remember fully back to age one, but then 121

he‘d always been an enthusiastic fibber. ―Story-teller!‖ he‘d correct to everyone‘s laughter.) Erika, Burt‘s daughter, had been more willing. ―What‘ll be left? There can‘t be much left,‖ she had said. But as the family historian, she was still eager to see whatever nothing could be seen, so she cheerfully took over the trip planning. It was one long weekend road trip with stops in many places, but this was the one stop Sharon had nervously anticipated. Erika wasn‘t wrong, and it wasn‘t like Sharon didn‘t understand. What could possibly be there after all these waterlogged decades? Deteriorated signs and detritus left behind? The bridge that Burt and his friends had fought for, and on, in their so-called turf wars? The benches where Sharon and her girlfriends sat and made up secrets and stories, the only currency they dealt in? Water erodes rock and land, given enough time, but drought erodes water. ### For almost five decades now, corners, silhouettes, shadows had been burned into her eyelids, so that they felt more like images sewn in instead of memory. Sharon wondered now if she had added those elements, stitching them together from all the towns she‘d lived in, from childhood to 122

college years to married life to unmarried life, to recreate one dreamlike tapestry of her childhood scenery. Like the gravel path to the old market: bushes flourishing on one side, spindly and singed from fire on the other. The road always appeared as early summer. Obviously, it had lived through rain, frost, flowers, all the seasons, just as she had. But she could only see it as early summer, when the days stretched vast and long, everything yellowing and hot like an old photo. And the old market, looking like all old markets used to, not like today‘s big supermarkets, which were clean and hard and full of much too much. This old market had some food, some hardware, some household items, and the candy counter, which was all Sharon and Burt and their friends cared about. You walked up to the squalling door, stepping out of yellow sun and into dust. Everything in that store was dust, even the ghostly couple who stood day in and day out behind the counter. That couple… ―The Greens.‖ She heard herself remember. ―That was their name.‖ ―I remember them!‖ Burt said. ―The Mean Greens. They always thought we were stealing from them.‖ He grinned slyly. ―I guess maybe once I walked off with a piece of gum I forgot to pay for.‖ 123

Sharon laughed and turned to Erika. ―Did you know your father was such a hooligan?‖ Erika grinned, squinting into the sun. ―So he would‘ve had us believe.‖ The Greens couldn‘t have been much older then than she and Burt were now. Was she as crusty, as cranky, as they had been? She felt decades younger…most of the time. Her body would beg to differ, especially on colder mornings. Generations aged differently and her perspective, of course, had aged along with her. It was possible the Greens hadn‘t actually been mean, but were just trying to make a living. An older couple, probably relocated after the war, worried about keeping the store afloat in the presence of all the preteen hooligans stealing gum or shattering the front window with their home run baseballs. All the years and time and sweat invested. Where had they gone when the water came? How time flies. How water dries up. ### Sharon had come back once before. On her honeymoon, thirty-some years ago, on a long leisurely drive down the Pacific Coast, they had stopped and gone boating on this very lake. She‘d gotten dizzy and clutched the side of the boat. Her husband teased her and 124

asked what was wrong. She said she was just a little green, being on the water on a windy day. She didn‘t know how to say, because she didn‘t quite understand what it was, that it felt as though she were boating over her own grave. Then she had peered into the murky, stirred-up water, and thought she‘d seen...something. Something spherical, stitched, dingy white. It had to have been her imagination; the bottom of the lake was impossible to see. Still, she told her husband, this was where her brother and his friends played baseball—so the school would‘ve been here. There might be a baseball. Tons of them. ―I bet we could find that ball,‖ Burt mused. ―Look how low the water is. Walk right out and reach down and plonk. There is it.‖ ―Don‘t you dare,‖ Sharon told him. She turned to Erika, to enlist her niece into keeping Burt from something so foolhardy, but Erika was gazing off in another direction. Some young scruffy man in a brown plaid shirt was in her line of sight, not far away. Always such a flirt, Sharon thought, got it from her dad. All along the beach, curving in a crescent around the shrinking lake, people were setting out beach blankets, eating, reading, napping, playing, ambling into the ankle-deep sludge. Two young boys shrieked and darted past Sharon. The brown 125

plaid shirt man was skipping flat stones across the surface— one, two, three, Sharon counted. Not as good as her. It had always been her special talent. She was even better than Burt, which had caused Burt no small amount of aggravation in front of their friends. Way out, a handful of boats tottered along. They belonged to experts studying the water, according to Erika; regular boats were no longer allowed out. The lake was being feverishly protected, even though people murmured it was a lost cause. As more of the town had emerged, it drew larger and larger crowds. Collaborative predictions now from historians and meteorologists represented different degrees of excitement: If by next winter there were still not enough rain, then by next summer, the church doors might open. People might be able to walk under the bridge. Burt suddenly slapped his leg. ―The cash register!‖ he crowed. Sharon looked at him. ―What cash register?‖ ―Cash register?‖ Erika echoed. Burt was laughing, belly paunch rippling under his faded blue Grand Canyon T-shirt. That was the last family trip they‘d taken together. ―From the store,‖ he said. ―After the Greens left, but before it happened, there was a rumor they left the cash register behind with bundles of cash still in it. We 126

speculated that they left a fortune behind. For years we talked about coming back and diving down to find it.‖ It was always about treasure, buried or otherwise, with Burt and his friends. Pirates, vagabonds, hobos, robbers, cowboys, and Indians—anything to suddenly rule the world in triumph. Their parents would emphasize the importance of education, of working hard, and Burt would remind them that pirates of the open seas worked plenty hard for their riches. ―And some of them have to do it with hooks for hands or peg legs!‖ he‘d add. He once spent two days trying to prove how difficult it would be to live with a peg leg until living with his fake peg leg got in the way of baseball. Sharon had a sudden ridiculous image of Burt diving for buried treasure and coming up muddy, with stacks of dollars impaled upon hooks for hands, and she bent over laughing with him. ―So dumb,‖ she said. ―Paper money would never last.‖ ―But coins do.‖ Burt surveyed the landscape, shading his eyes, then pointed. ―Out that way, I think it was.‖ He wandered away, nimbly evading the shrieking young boys, circling past the brown plaid man who was now looking back at Erika. ―Wasn‘t the market next to the library?‖ Sharon called after him, but Burt kept walking. He was going deaf. 127

―The library, where Dad did those puppet shows?‖ Erika said. ―Yes,‖ Sharon said. ―But you know he did it because he needed to, as community service, right?‖ Erika paused. A smile, the ghost of her father‘s sly grin and chin dimple, tickled at her mouth. ―Figures. What did he do?‖ ―Ah, I don‘t remember. Something innocuous by today‘s standards. Hit a baseball through a window, probably. Believe me, he had little use for the library. I was the reader.‖ ―You and me both.‖ Erika took the map, turned it around, and pointed at the spire. ―That must be the church. It‘s interesting, you know, which buildings they chose to not demolish…like that part of the church. And the bridge.‖ ―I don‘t remember how that was decided.‖ ―Maybe they thought the bridge might come in handy someday, or they wanted to leave a memento,‖ Erika said. ―They couldn‘t have seen this coming,‖ Sharon said. ―Drought happens,‖ Erika said. ―No one could have predicted it like this.‖ And then it happened. Across the water, the sun glazing it like a kiln, Sharon saw—like a mirage—the whole town breaking through the top, lifting to teeter precariously on the glassy surface. Suddenly it was all laid out like a model: 128

the market, the church, the school, everything there but not quite where her memory would have her believe. The library, a converted Victorian with its peaked roof and close, musty rooms. The bridge, the benches, the park, the baseball diamond, the market…their house, Mama out front in her flower garden, Daddy sitting on the porch with a newspaper. Her best friend Lorraine and her family next door. The neighbor‘s giant Irish setter that faithfully guarded every kid running wild along the small street. There, on the front porch with the swing that Burt kept breaking, was where they heard they would lose their little town. Her schoolmates had been trading vague whispers for a while. But Sharon thought the ―new place‖ would be like her own little town, only in a new location. Lifted up and set down—all the buildings, all the people—the way she carefully lifted school projects and transported them from home to school without damage. But when their parents explained what all those whispers meant, that everyone wasn‘t going together and her town would simply be gone, she cried and cried. ―It‘ll be OK, Sheba,‖ Burt said later, after their parents had gone back inside. Sharon sat hunched on the porch steps. ―But what if it‘s not?‖ 129

On the lawn, Burt tossed a baseball into the air, catching it as it came loyally back to his hand. ―It will,‖ he said. ―It‘ll just be a new house. Maybe a bigger house. Lots of the same people from school. Lorraine will be there. So you‘ll still have her.‖ He pivoted suddenly and pretended to pitch the baseball at her. She shrieked and cowered, and he laughed, but kindly, then rolled the ball on the ground to her. ―And you‘ll still have meeeee!‖ She stopped the ball with her foot and rolled it back. They kicked it back and forth until it grew dark, Burt making up crazy stories about their new town: how their new teachers were actually retired pirates living in secret, how the new school had been built over an old graveyard, how werewolves had been spotted in nearby farms. The more Burt tried to scare her, the more she giggled. She loved her town. Everything in it was hers. It wasn‘t the idea of ―starting over,‖ because Sharon didn‘t really grasp what that meant. New stuff didn‘t scare her; it was losing the old. She wanted to keep collecting it, keep building it, keep it hers. She liked collecting things. It was later, when she was older, when she accepted that was what memory was for.

130

Much later still when she understood that memory, like water, could betray you. ### Sharon‘s cheeks were patchy with sweat. She dabbed again at her face and waved over at Erika, who had moved closer to that scruffy man. Flirtatious and nomadic, like her dad, always needing to explore even if it was just the simple circle of earth around her feet. Erika waved back. Somewhere between them, Sharon saw something white and spherical glimmering through the mud. She couldn‘t believe it—there it was! Sharon walked into the water and bent to scoop it up. Nothing but mud dribbled through her fingers. The water at her ankles was a tiny whirlpool now, swirling with mud, obliterating what she‘d spotted. She bent again but again, came up empty. Just a trick of the light, then. ―…get us some lunch, and you should take your meds.‖ Erika‘s voice came up behind her. ―We can go up the road to that little cafe we saw. We should put on some more sunscreen, too. I think we‘re both a little sunburned. Do you want to change into some long sleeves to cover your arms?‖ ―I‘m fine. I‘m not ready to leave.‖ Sharon suddenly felt cross, distracted. Erika was such a busybody sometimes; it came with being a nurse. And maybe, once they left, Erika

131

might not want to come back. What did she care about this place anyway? And maybe Burt wanted to stay too. Oh—there he was, standing with the guy in the brown plaid shirt; they were both skipping stones now. Burt always made friends, wherever he went. Behind them was a family on a giant picnic blanket: a dad, a mom, the two young boys playing tag, another woman with a baby, another man. The older boy wandered just close enough so that Sharon heard him hotly yell back, ―But I‘m just gonna get dirty again!‖ Sharon smiled. Exactly what Burt would have said as a kid. Burt was laughing too, the late sun falling across his jowly face—lopsided after too many baseballs to the nose, the chipped front tooth he‘d never gotten fixed; like his voice, his younger image floated just beneath. She could even see a bit of their parents, Daddy‘s smile, Mama‘s eyes. She heard again the boyish tone harmonizing with the grown-up voice: ―Tell Mom we‘re off to find buried treasure!‖ ―I‘m not ready to leave,‖ Sharon said again. ―I want to see the town some more.‖ ―It‘s not going anywhere,‖ Erika said. ―We‘ll come back.‖ ―You promise?‖

132

―Of course I do.‖ Erika waved her hands and called out a ―Hey!‖ Burt and his new friend, the brown plaid man, started ambling over. Sharon felt suddenly uneasy, like she was supposed to have done something. ―Why is…Who‘s that guy?‖ ―That‘s Lucas,‖ Erika said. ―That‘s my husband, remember?‖ Sharon squinted. As the man drew closer, his scruffy features became clearer. ―Oh. I didn‘t recognize him from so far away.‖ ―That‘s OK,‖ Erika said amiably. ―He‘s trying to grow his beard out, so he looks pretty different. I keep almost not recognizing him myself.‖ ―Yes, of course.‖ Sharon took off her glasses and wiped at her damp eyes. When she put them back on, blinked and cleared her vision, Burt was lingering again at the water‘s edge to skip more stones. He waved a stone tauntingly. Sharon found a few perfect flat stones and joined him. He threw; it skipped only three times. ―Lame, Burtums,‖ she said, and skipped hers, knowing it would go six, seven, eight times. ―That was always the one thing you did better than me, Sheba,‖ Burt said. ―The only thing.‖

133

―It‘s because of your meathooks.‖ Sharon held up her hand against his. ―Look at the size of those things! This requires delicacy, precision.‖ Behind Burt, she saw the boy, the one who had firmly stated his case about being dirty, watching them. She held out a stone. ―You want to try?‖ He looked uncertainly at her, then back at the blanket. One of the women waved—probably his mother—and Sharon waved back. People were so cautious these days. Sharon had never been a mother, part of the reason she thought her marriage had eventually ended, but she was an experienced auntie; she understood. The boy took the stone and threw. It plunked. ―Try again,‖ Sharon said encouragingly, demonstrating with her own stone. ―It‘s all in the wrist.‖ The boy picked up the stone, watched her closely, then mimicked her motion: flicked it out, and once, twice, three. They all applauded and the boy beamed. They all took turns. The boy got up to four skips on his best try. Only once did Lucas do better than Sharon. Eventually the boy‘s mother called him back. He politely thanked Sharon for the ―stoning lesson‖ and ran back to his family, his pocket full of flat stones for next time.

134

Sharon watched until he was back with them, then turned, at the same time feeling Erika take her elbow. ―Come on, I think it‘s time,‖ Erika said. ―You‘re overdue for your meds, and Lucas‘s stomach sounds like Vesuvius.‖ Lucas grinned, putting his hands over his belly. ―I‘m sorry you had to bear witness to that.‖ ―I‘ve borne witness to worse,‖ Erika said. ―Well…OK.‖ Their banter softened her, and Sharon was hungry too. ―But where…‖ Burt had wandered off again, down the shoreline to where they‘d started…maybe. The sun was in a different place now, as was the parking lot, and she wasn‘t quite sure what side of the lake she was on. The rippling was different, darker. How far had they walked? Sharon felt someone touch her other elbow—the man in his brown plaid shirt—Lucas and his new beard—helping her sodden feet over the beach, sending pebbles skittering in all directions. ―Wait, where are we going?‖ Sharon felt breathless. ―We can‘t leave yet.‖ ―Don‘t worry, I know where we parked,‖ Lucas said. ―It‘s not that,‖ Erika said, her voice lowering. ―It‘s my dad again.‖ ―Ah, I see,‖ he said. 135

―Well, he keeps wandering off!‖ Everything inside Sharon felt distracted, cross, rippling. ―He won‘t find the car if you move it.‖ ―It‘s all right, Sharon,‖ Erika said. ―He‘ll catch up with us. He always does.‖ ―But it‘s his vacation too. What does he want to do? We should all decide.‖ ―He‘ll come with us, wherever.‖ Erika gently reached out and straightened Sharon‘s hat. Sharon couldn‘t help but smile. Erika really was a kind soul, busybody or not. ―Here, honey, you‘re all sweaty too,‖ she said, and gave Erika her handkerchief. Erika dabbed it underneath her reddened eyes. ―Thank you, Auntie Sheba.‖ As they reached the top of the parking lot, the brown plaid man disappeared and she and Erika waited. Families streamed out, families streamed in. Families continued. Sharon squinted down at the beach, and Burt waved at her from the water‘s edge, his belly rippling under his blue Tshirt, something or someone down there making him laugh. He was such a great laugher, the best joker in the family. Even as a pesky big brother, even when they fought, he‘d always been a good brother. When they had left this partly underwater

136

town, and moved into the new one, he had watched out for her, just like he said he would. Beyond his rotund silhouette she could see the mountains and that mysterious spire, intermittently hidden behind an illusion of slanting sunlight and skyline, and beyond that would be the bridge. She saw the town again briefly, a flickering mirage, and for the first time it made sense, it was the way she remembered. It felt like home would always be in her dreams. With the sweetly shifting afternoon light and her brother waiting down on the shore, she had her bearings now.

137

Selected Poems by Sarah Dickenson Snyder Cambodia One country houses different rooms, some darkened with shadows, some light-filled. Monks dot an expanse in flowing orange, one tying a red thread around my wrist. Another sacred place packed in stone and soil—skulls stacked and saved—the stupa surrounded by the fields furrowed with the killed, the killers. There is no escaping the sway against the skin of everything.

In the Wind I was a sail, the way the wind would push me, my pumping legs, the bicycle—along a path bordering a rice paddy. A boat in the sea of green, a wind to lose myself in some horizon, 138

the sound of it, the invisible power waving everything fertile—the current a clutching.

Sitting Around the Fire Pit Pulled me to Camp Songadeewin, the two summers there—eight weeks away. Name tags ironed on sheets, shorts, shirts, and socks. The campfires when awards were given, small patches we‘d sew on the tan, suede swatch— that fabric, a streak from the past. Its smoothness, the fire, the waiting for my name, warm leaning of bodies, and the darkness beyond.

139

Selected Poems by Carson Faust Love Letter to Two Boys and a Knife Dreamed of glass in the water. Of roads becoming rivers. Boys and shreds of fucking. Torn to ribbons. This is the image that ends the story: A horse, broken— staring into the eye of a gun. Hollow point and the smell of gunpowder. As for the beginning, you don‘t know why you are doing this or why the way a boy‘s knee touching your knee makes you want to cut yourself open. Perhaps you would make more sense to him if you were open. Your belly a red flower pinned down. The faucet is running downstairs and everyone who loves you could march into the room and see the way you learn how to kiss first. Your first kiss. Not a kiss at all but your head falling into a lap. Not needing a hand to guide it. A new dream now. A new film. The images moving because that‘s all they are—images. It‘s just light and the sound around it. He is the first boy that touches you back. That touches you first. We always touch until one of our bodies hurt. At first, he holds you like you‘re a person. Until you become a dog. He tells you that your body belongs to him and you believe him. However briefly. Not briefly at all. 140

We break in to each other‘s bodies like abandoned houses walk through flooded roads—water; thick with blood water; and the way it bends light. A dog floating in its own rot. A horse thrashing. A flower cut too soon. The kind of flower you water until it drowns. But these images are not your body, only the stories inside it. All you have are your wrists and the things they‘ve lost since he last held them.

Not Leaving His blue eyes bruise me and the milk is curdling. The night sky paints my skin violet through the window in the cellar. A plum sliced. I will not sleep tonight I cannot sleep my eyes are open endless. I do not sleep I am hiding I am hiding and I can hear his footsteps from the cellar. They sound like a beating like a heart like a fist. I am a fawn and he is two yellow eyes and if I look to long I will spill. Loving me is biting into bruised fruit. Like bloodletting— let the nectar fall from your lips. Draw a path through me with your teeth. Eat me like meat like roadkill salvaged. Eat me like an apple—half red and half white not knowing which half is poison. 141

I would rather be haunted by the dead than the living. He guts me and swims in me and when I turn him inside out he sings. I have swum in the water as I have swum in the milk and I hide and hope that he will never touch me again. He will touch me again. Violet light hits my violent skin and I am waiting to be found. Red light will not stop him but it makes the milk sing a song of blood. The rain will wash the parts and pieces of my body from the road and this is the only way I will be able to move. Pushed by the sky. This momentâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;both dark and flooded with color. All of this rot and this spoiled milk and these open eyes drowning. The fragrant decay the way curdled milk clings to itself. I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2DC;t want the meat of his hands on my body and yet I hold him like a mouthful of blood.

Chapters In this story he is the lover: And I am the drops of blood on the sheets and the taste of salt on his lips. I am the broken saint and 142

the loss of roses. I am the petals drying in the jar on the windowsill. The shattered light of the room and the whispering in the walls. A stairway dark and closed like a throat. Asleep on the floor held by arms that wandered over me. Morning and dark. In this story he is the boyfriend: And I am the drops of cum on his lips and the dark body covered by white sheets and white hands. Abandoned. My mother calls me cancer and my father doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2DC;t call. But the boy holds me and holds me down and there is no time to cry because I am being ruined. Gashes on gashes and gagging on skin and choking on bone. One year and rotting. In this story he is the husband: And I am the drop of blood on the virginâ&#x20AC;&#x2DC;s gown. Pearl and dried roses. Broken glass and broken teeth. Not breathing because Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2DC;m forced to and not breaking by choice. Rings around the eyes and fingers. Around the ankles and the wrists. Bent over the 143

mirror saying my name until I forget. Spit on the feet and a body turned to ash. Four years and dusk.

144

Why I Don’t Drink Spanish Reds Anymore By Zack Martin Has nothing to do with the wines. Shit, I‘ve shared their sun Their soil even. Picture this: There‘s me moving furniture Five euro an hour every fucking day up spiraling staircases down too small elevators bumming smokes off Basque punks in rumbling cabs ho-huming up the coast the inevitable back down sick from the Spanish heat sweating them out all over. Then one day I put down a box and never picked it back up again, went home, poured a Rioja and watched an orange summer sunset over a melting cityscape Slept it off And walked on into the morning.

145

Blow Your House Down By William Cass Lynn knelt in front of her daughter at the open door of the idling bus. The late afternoon sun was still hot. The driver nodded to her from his seat at the top of the steps. ―All right,‖ Lynn said. She held Michelle by the wrists and stared hard at her. ―It‘s only a couple of hours, and your dad will meet you at the station. Just stay put until you see him. And sit next to a window on this side so I can watch you go.‖ The little girl nodded, her eyes wide. She clutched her old stuffed elephant by its bare neck with one hand. Lynn wrapped her arms around her daughter and the big backpack strapped over her shoulders. She closed her eyes, squeezing, and felt Michelle‘s breath against the side of her neck. The driver cleared his throat and said, ―Ma‘am.‖ Lynn broke their embrace, turned her daughter towards the steps, and told her, ―Go on, now.‖ She watched Michelle climb the steps, disappear behind the row of seats, and emerge again perched on the edge of the fourth one down. Lynn could see the backpack on the seat next to her along the aisle. They looked at each other through the window. The door to the bus folded closed with a clap and began to back away. Lynn raised her hand and tried 146

to smile as Michelle passed, and her daughter did the same. Then the bus turned out of the lot and was gone. She swallowed over the tightness in her throat. Lynn walked through the station and out its front doors. Her cousin, Deb, was waiting in her car at the curb. Lynn got into the passenger seat and blew out a breath. ―It‘ll be okay,‖ Deb told her. ―Boston to Hartford is a hundred miles. Just the one stop in between.‖ ―She‘s only six.‖ ―Almost seven. She‘ll be fine.‖ Lynn glanced over at her cousin. They‘d been staying with her since moving up to Massachusetts after the divorce had become final a little over a month earlier. It was the first time Michelle had traveled for a visit with her father, Josh. The July 4th holiday was stipulated as his with her in the divorce agreement. Three nights: Saturday, Sunday, Monday. Not long. Lynn nodded. Deb had gotten her a job at the store she managed and suggested the move as a fresh start. She was the same age, twenty-four, and they‘d always been close. ―Come on,‖ Deb said. She started the engine and put the car in gear. ―Let‘s go to that pool party. Some guys are coming I want you to meet. Nice ones, too, decent, dependable.‖ 147

### Twenty minutes later, Michelle woke up startled, her cheek pressed to the window of the bus. She began to whimper and then remembered where she was and where she was going. She leaned back in the seat and hugged her stuffed elephant to her chest. She looked out the window at the dipping telephone lines fronting a long stretch of woods. ―Well, hello there,‖ a voice said. Michelle turned and saw a big woman smiling at her in the aisle seat across from her. She held a large purse in her lap. The woman asked, ―Did you have a nice nap?‖ Michelle shrugged, blinking. ―Where you headed, sweetie?‖ ―To see my dad.‖ ―Where?‖ ―Connecticut.‖ The woman nodded. Her smile hadn‘t changed. ―Well, you‘re a big girl, aren‘t you? Traveling all alone.‖ ―He‘ll meet me there,‖ Michelle said. She held the stuffed elephant closer. ―He‘s waiting for me.‖ The woman nodded. ―I‘ll bet he‘s excited to see you. I‘ll bet you‘ll have lots of fun.‖ ###

148

At that moment, Josh was sitting at a table in a bar just up the street from the Hartford bus station. He was with teammates from his softball rec league drinking beer after a tournament game nearby. He‘d grown up with most of them in the old converted military housing area of Glastonbury, and they were all still in their game uniforms. They‘d chosen that bar instead of their customary one near home so Josh would be close to the station. Like always, they passed around pitchers of beer, refilling glasses often and chiding one another about their play. Every now and then, an explosion of laughter erupted from them. Josh didn‘t say much. His attention was on a young woman who sat across the room with a couple of female friends at the bar. He‘d been exchanging glances and small smiles with her since they‘d come in. She was brown-haired, slender, and pretty; she reminded him of Lynn. ―Hey, Josh,‖ one of his teammates said. ―What time does your daughter get in?‖ Josh glanced at his watch. ―Not for a while.‖ ―Bet you‘re looking forward to seeing her.‖ He nodded. ―How long has it been?‖ Josh shrugged, considering. The table had grown quiet. ―I don‘t know,‖ he said. ―Five weeks. Maybe six.‖ 149

Another teammate shook his head and said, ―Man, I‘d have a hard time being away from my kid that long. That was cold of your ex to move her up there.‖ Josh shrugged again. ―Mediator said it was close enough. Said that for just about anything she asked for.‖ ―Guess that‘s what you get for messing up.‖ A few of his teammates chuckled, but not many. The one who had spoken last began refilling glasses from what was left in the remaining pitcher. As he did, some beer sloshed onto the table, and another made a joke about it. The chuckles increased. Josh looked over at the woman at the bar. She was turned away, but smiling. He rubbed his empty ring finger where the wedding band had been; that finger on her hand was bare, too. He didn‘t know if she could hear their conversation from where she sat. ### The pool party was on the outskirts of the suburb where Deb lived at a big house that sat beside corn fields. It reminded Lynn of the one back in Glastonbury along the Connecticut River where she‘d grown up. The pool was inside a chain link fence on one side of the house. Twenty or so people milled about sitting at umbrella tables, lounging in the water, or playing cornhole on the lawn nearby. A heavyset man wearing an apron was working a bar-b-que under a tree 150

with a table of food and condiments next to him in the shade. Music played from a boombox on the table. Lynn and Deb sat at one of the umbrella tables sipping wine coolers with several other women who‘d all gone to high school with Deb. When the other women got up for food, Deb leaned into Lynn and whispered, ―See those two guys who just started playing cornhole?‖ She tilted her head. ―At the far end.‖ Lynn looked where she‘d gestured. Two men, both tall and sandy-haired, stood laughing and weighing bean bags in their hands. ―Sure,‖ she said. ―I see them.‖ ―Well?‖ ―They‘re buffed and good-looking.‖ She gave a little snort. ―So was Josh, and look what that got me.‖ ―But these guys are different. They‘d never cheat on you. Neither of them, believe me. I‘ve known them since I was a little girl.‖ Lynn thought about Josh. She knew that his insistence on Michelle taking the bus instead of coming to get her or meeting halfway was an attempt to get back at her for moving. She thought of Michelle‘s birth and handing her to Josh that first time; they‘d both been crying with happiness. She shook her head and said, ―I don‘t think I‘m ready.‖ 151

―What‘s it been…a year?‖ ―Something like that.‖ ―That‘s not long enough?‖ Lynn shrugged again. She set her bottle on the table and walked across the grass to the house to use the bathroom. She didn‘t glance at the men when she passed them. ### Michelle had finished two pictures in her coloring book, one for her each of her parents, when the bus pulled to an idling stop in a station. The door slid open, and the driver clambered down the steps. Some of the afternoon‘s heat seeped into the air-conditioning of the bus. The big woman across from her stood up, smiled again, and said, ―Well, this is me: Worcester. You have a good rest of your trip. Enjoy the visit with your dad.‖ Michelle nodded and watched her follow a few other passengers off the bus. The driver got luggage out of the compartment underneath for a couple of them, then stood talking with another man dressed in an identical uniform. The two of them loaded luggage from several new passengers into the compartment before those people came aboard. After a few moments, the other man closed the compartment, climbed the steps, took the driver‘s seat, and adjusted it. Michelle watched the first driver yank the tails of his shirt out of his 152

trousers and walk into the station. The bus door clapped shut, and coolness gradually enveloped the interior again. No one had taken the seat where the big woman had been. Michelle put her coloring book back inside her backpack and looked outside at the streets and neighborhoods that slid past. She thought of where theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2DC;d lived before her dad had left in their apartment above the garage. It was near the center of town across from a church. Their landlord lived in the house in front and had a dog that Michelle liked to play with in the backyard. The three of them had built a snowman there during the winter. It was one of the last things Michelle could recall doing with both her parents. She remembered that her dad had started a snowball fight with them that had turned into playful wrestling, and her dad had pulled her mom down on top of him in the snow. Theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2DC;d both been laughing when Michelle piled on top of them. The dog had yipped and pranced happily around them. ### Forty-five minutes later, Josh sat alone at the table nursing the dregs of his beer. His teammates had all left. The early evening light had fallen and cast long shadows across the wooden floorboards. The glances and smiles between him and the woman at the bar had grown bolder and more frequent. From the corner of his eye, he watched her and her friends 153

climb down from their stools, pass him, and walk outside. They stood talking on the sidewalk in front of the big picture window. He saw the woman‘s cell phone on the bar where she‘d been sitting and thought they‘d probably gone outside to smoke, but then her two friends walked away in one direction and she left in the other. Josh sat thinking for a moment, then moved quickly to the bar. He picked up the cell phone and turned to chase after the woman, but when he did, she was standing very still in front of him. She smiled and said, ―I left that here.‖ ―Yeah,‖ Josh said. ―I saw. I was going to try to get it back to you.‖ ―Well, that‘s very nice of you. A jock who‘s a gentleman.‖ He laughed and felt his color rising. Her smile had widened. She pulled a stray strand of hair behind her ear and said, ―Can I repay you by buying you a beer?‖ ―Sure,‖ Josh said. His smile had grown, too. He handed her the cell phone. She set it on the bar without looking at it and settled onto her same stool. Josh sat down next to her and asked, ―Did you really forget that phone?‖ ―No,‖ she said. She held his gaze. ―Not really.‖ 154

### Lynn and Deb had eaten their burgers and gotten fresh wine coolers. The other women who‘d been at the table were in the pool. As the afternoon wore on and people finished meals, the crowd thinned a bit. The taller of the two sandy-haired men came up to their table and said, ―Hey, Deb.‖ They looked up at him. Deb grinned and said, ―How are you, Tom? This is my cousin, Lynn.‖ He extended his hand, smiling. ―Nice to meet you, Lynn.‖ She shook it, but didn‘t return the smile. She said, ―You, too.‖ Lynn reached for her sunglasses on the table and put them on. Deb asked, ―So, what‘ve you been up to, Tom?‖ As the two of them caught up, Lynn sat looking out past the pool at the long country road that disappeared in the distance into the fields of corn. It reminded her of the roads she and Josh had taken drives on when they first got together. That had been during the summer after she‘d graduated from high school. He‘d come into her father‘s drug store and bought a soda from the cooler. She‘d rung him up at the cash register. It was late afternoon, and he was still sweaty and dirty, just off 155

from his construction job. They talked a little while he stood there taking sips from the bottle. He‘d been a few years ahead of her in school, and she‘d admired him from afar, but they‘d never spoken before that day. A little over a month later, she infuriated her parents by declining her spot at the university, enrolling at the local community college, and keeping her weekly shifts at the drug store. Her drives with Josh continued into the fall, with longer stops along the way. ### When the bus pulled into the Hartford station, Michelle searched the platform outside the window. More people got off and on than the last stop, but soon the platform emptied and she didn‘t see her dad anywhere. Nothing outside reminded her of their old home: no church with its tall spire, no maple trees along the side of the road, no donut shop or supermarket or her grandfather‘s drug store in the center of town. Just the long, empty platform with a train station adjacent to it, and above that, smoke-stained apartment buildings crowded together on a hill. A dog barked somewhere, and another answered. A siren wound off across the city. Perhaps five more minutes passed before the same driver who‘d taken over in Worcester got back on the bus, closed the door, and crawled away from the platform. He 156

maneuvered the bus down several narrow downtown streets and through a jungle of tall buildings back onto the freeway. The bus gained speed, and Michelle pulled her stuffed elephant up to her chin. She bit down on its right ear that had grown shredded over time, and began chewing. The freeway crossed a river, wide and brown and somehow familiar, and then paralleled it for a while on the left. Eventually, it wound away in the distance and then disappeared, replaced by towns and fields as the bus continued south into the gloaming. ### Josh and the woman were leaned into one another at the bar. He took another sip of beer, then set in on the bar, and bolted upright. He looked at his watch, and said, ―Oh, shit!‖ Without another word, he jumped off the stool, hurried across the floor and out the door, and began running up the sidewalk to the station. There were no buses at the loading area when he got there a minute or two later, so he went inside and trotted up to the empty ticket counter. A bald, tired looking man glanced up at him through the window. ―The last bus from Boston,‖ Josh said. He was panting. ―Where is it?‖ The man fixed him with a weary stare. ―Came and went.‖ 157

―How long ago?‖ The man glanced up at a clock on the wall. ―Fifteen minutes or so.‖ ―Little girl get off? About as high as this counter, brown hair, carrying a pink backpack?‖ ―I wouldn‘t know,‖ the man told him. ―Haven‘t moved from this window since I came on shift.‖ Josh grimaced and slammed the counter with his palm. He turned around and quickly scanned the big waiting area with its long wooden benches and linoleum floor. A number of people were scattered among the benches. ―Michelle!‖ Paul called. His voice echoed in the cavernous space, and a few heads turned his way. He waited a moment, then shouted her name again. There was no response. He ran over to the restrooms, pushed open the women‘s door, and called her name again. Silence answered. He rushed back outside to the empty loading area, called again, and received no reply. A cloud began to crawl up through him: a combination of fear and panic. The streetlights blinked on, sending down long cones of yellow light. The man from the ticket counter emerged a few feet away in the opening to a loading dock. He looked down at Josh and said, ―No luck?‖ Josh shook his head. ―Where‘s that bus go next?‖ 158

―Stops in New Haven, then New York City.‖ Josh nodded once, then hurried around the corner to the lot where he‘d parked his car. His cell phone pinged, and he took it out of the pocket of his uniform pants as he closed the door. He tapped the screen and found a text from Lynn that read: ―You said you‘d let me know right away when u picked up Michelle. Is she okay?‖ He sat blinking at her words, his breath quickening. He typed: ―All good.‖ Her reply was immediate: ―Can I talk to her?‖ Josh swore and shook his head hard. He paused, his fingers hovering over the screen, then typed: ―Busy. We‘ll call you later.‖ He turned the phone off with fumbling hands, started the car, and sprayed gravel as he left the lot. ### Lynn frowned at her phone after reading Josh‘s last reply. She set it down slowly on the table in front of her. Deb guffawed in the chair next to hers and slapped down a card. The two men from the pool party sat across from them fiddling with their own hands of cards. Lynn had allowed herself to be talked into going with them to Tom‘s house afterward to play poker. They sat around his dining room table under a bright ceiling light, and they all had at least two empty 159

beer bottles in front of them except Lynn who was still nursing her first. That was partly because she wanted to be able to drive herself and Deb home, but mostly so she could stay clearheaded enough to talk with Michelle and be sure she was all right. Tom pushed chips forward to the center of the table to make a raise, glanced over at Lynn, and smiled. She made an attempt to return it, then stood up and took her phone off into the little hallway leading to the bedroom and bathroom. She‘d sat out the hand they were playing in order to text Josh. There was no new message from him when she opened her phone, so she scrolled through her roll of photos. She paused over a set from Michelle‘s birthday party the year before, enlarging each one before slowly moving on to the next: Michelle blowing out her candles, opening gifts, swinging one of Josh‘s bats at a piñata. There was one someone had taken of the three of them in pointy party hats blowing streamers; Michelle was in the middle, and the two of them were kneeling on either side with an arm around her and each other. It had been taken a month before Lynn found out about Josh‘s affair and he moved out. ### Michelle stared out the bus window as the darkness deepened. A few overhead lights dotted the interior, and she watched swashes of light flash by outside: lit window of two 160

and three family houses, headlights and taillights of vehicles, short beams on road signs displaying names of towns and offramps they passed; most she couldn‘t read, but some she could: Rocky Hill, Route 9, Berlin. Old smoke-stained buildings were replaced by parks and woods and tangles of intersections. The further they went, the darker it got. She swallowed over a growing hardness in her throat and hugged her elephant tighter. She tried to think of happy things like how her father used to take her to feed the ducks at the pond near where they lived very early in the mornings before her mother was awake. They‘d tiptoe out of the apartment, then walk hand in hand to the park through silent streets with the sky just beginning to lighten and birds were tittering on telephone wires and in the trees. On the way home afterward, they‘d stop at the diner next to her grandfather‘s pharmacy and buy donuts to bring home, along with hot chocolate for her and coffee for her parents. She‘d delighted at waking her mother with the surprise when they got back, then lying between the two of them in their bed while they all shared breakfast. ### Josh drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. He kept his speed just above the limit to avoid being pulled over; he‘d already had one DUI several years before. He felt his 161

heart thudding away in his temples, and he was sweating in spite of the air conditioning. Although he hadnâ&#x20AC;&#x2DC;t been to church in year, he prayed steadily as he drove. The prayers involved pleas, negotiations, promises, self-admonishments. They became like a tape he played over and over again. He tried to chase away the memory of the night Lynn discovered his infidelity, but it kept invading his thoughts, and the pang of regret and guilt he felt was deeper than it had ever been. About forty minutes after heâ&#x20AC;&#x2DC;d left, just before the exit for Meridan, he finally saw the taillights of a bus. He caught up to it as it passed a semi, then accelerated along its side in the slow lane. He kept his speed the same as the bus and searched its windows for Michelle. She saw him before he did her and jumped in front of her seat waving frantically at him, crying and laughing at the same time. When his eyes finally found hers, they quickly filled with tears, too. He sniffed those back, forced a smile, and raised a thumb to her. He pointed up ahead and nodded in what he hoped showed reassurance rather than relief. She returned his nods. The bus moved a little past him and signaled to move back into the right-hand lane. He slowed and fell in behind it. He saw Michelleâ&#x20AC;&#x2DC;s shadowed head pop up in her seat facing him; when he signaled with a thumbs-up, she did the same. ### 162

Lynn was sitting with her head slumped against the hallway wall when Tom passed her heading to the kitchen. He stopped and said, ―You all right?‖ Her head jerked up at the sound of his voice. She nodded. ―You sure? You don‘t look so good.‖ Lynn blew out a breath. ―Just worried about my kid. She‘s gone to visit her dad in Connecticut. First trip alone.‖ The tall man nodded slowly and tipped his head. ―I think I understand. I can remember my first time doing that when my folks split up. You said she‘s almost seven, right? I was around the same age. Not easy.‖ Lynn studied his face for the first time. His eyes were kind, gentle. She shrugged. ―I was going to get more beers,‖ he said. ―Want one?‖ ―No, I‘m good.‖ He nodded, but didn‘t move. A slap of cards and cry of triumph came from the dining room. ―Hang in there,‖ Tom told her. ―I‘ll bet she‘s fine.‖ Something small and warm and hopeful opened in her like a bubble. She said, ―Thanks.‖ He pursed his lips, nodded again, and then she watched him disappear down the hall. ### 163

After another forty minutes, the bus pulled into the New Haven station. Its doors opened, and Michelle was the first one through them, her backpack strapped over her shoulders, her stuffed elephant clutched in one hand. Josh kneeled a few feet away, waiting. She clambered down the steps into his arms. ―There‘s my girl,‖ he whispered, his eyes closed. He squeezed her tiny body to him. ―There she is.‖ After a moment, she pulled back suddenly and fixed him with wide, happy eyes. ―I colored you a picture,‖ she said. ―One for Mom, too.‖ ―I can‘t wait to see it,‖ he told her. ―But, let‘s get you some dinner, and you can show me then. It‘s almost eight, you must be starved.‖ ―It took longer than Mom said. A lot longer.‖ ―Don‘t worry about that.‖ He gave her shoulders a last squeeze and stood up. He took her hand. ―There‘s a diner right over there in front of where I parked. How about hamburgers, fries, and a shake?‖ ―Yes!‖ she shouted. ―Yes, yes, yes!‖ Josh settled them in a booth at the back of the diner. The place was nearly empty, just one other customer hunched over the counter in front. They sat across from each other and ordered. She clapped once when he told her that he had a gift 164

for her. She took out the pictures she‘d colored for them, and he made a fuss over them. He waited until they were served their meal and Michelle was stirring her malt to call Lynn. He put the phone on speaker between them on the table between them. As it rang, he told Michelle, ―Let‘s not worry Mom about your trip. Tell her about our meal and your present that‘s waiting. Tell her about the pictures.‖ Lynn picked up on the second ring and said, ―Hello, Mike…Michelle are you there?‖ ―I‘m here, Mommy.‖ She slurped from her straw. ―We‘re in a diner, and I‘m having a chocolate malt. With whipped cream and a cherry on top.‖ ―That great, sweetie.‖ It came out unburdened, almost a gasp. ―I already ate the cherry,‖ Michelle told her. ―And it came in this big metal cup. It‘s so big, there‘s still some left in the cup.‖ Josh heard Lynn laugh. She said, ―Don‘t get yourself sick.‖ ―I won‘t.‖ Michelle slurped with her straw again and watched Josh‘s face as he mouthed the word, ―Present.‖ She nodded and said, ―Oh, and Daddy got me a present. I haven‘t opened it yet.‖ ―That‘s nice, too,‖ Michelle said more quietly. 165

The waitress sat down their plates. ―Hey,‖ Josh said. ―Our meals just came, but I want to tell you something. I want to get her started…can you wait a second?‖ There was a pause, then Lynn‘s voice said, ―Sure.‖ While Josh squirted ketchup on Michelle‘s hamburger and fries, she said, ―And I colored you pictures, you and Daddy.‖ Lynn said, ―Thank you. I can‘t wait to see mine.‖ ―Eat,‖ he whispered to Michelle. ―I‘ll be right back.‖ He stood up and carried the phone a few feet away into an alcove that held an empty coat rack. He watched Michelle take her first awkward bite from the hamburger. He gave her another thumbs-up, and she nodded, chewing. ―You there?‖ Josh said into the phone. He kept his voice low. ―I‘m here.‖ ―So, listen.‖ He blew out a breath. ―I just wanted to say that I screwed up. With you, I mean. Really badly. I‘m sorry. I wish I could take everything back.‖ Michelle closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. She was still sitting in the hallways at Tom‘s place. She was vaguely aware of voices and laughter from the dining room, the clatter of chips, the slap of cards. A long moment passed before she said, ―It‘s a little late for that.‖ 166

―I know,‖ Josh made a fist and banged it against his thigh. ―But I wanted you to know. And, well, Michelle is sitting over there with ketchup and whipped cream on her face. Our daughter.‖ He paused. ―I wish we could try again.‖ Another long moment passed. Finally, she said, ―Josh…‖ Silence followed on the line. From the corner of his eye, he saw Michelle take the second, unused straw and blow the paper cover off it. He watched her grin as it fluttered onto the top of the table. ―Listen,‖ he said into the phone. ―I‘m going to drive Michelle back to your place on Monday. No bus. Maybe we can talk then.‖ Tom passed her in the hallway again. He stopped, showed her the empty beer bottles he carried, and raised an eyebrow. She shook her head. When he‘d left, she said, ―Good night, Josh. Give her a kiss for me.‖ ### Michelle finished most of her dinner, but Josh only picked at his. After he‘d left money under his plate for the check, he looked at her and said, ―Let‘s get you home to bed.‖ ―To your apartment, you mean.‖ Her big eyes were his, her nose and chin and hair were her mother‘s. He nodded. ―What‘s my present?‖ 167

―You‘ll see.‖ They slid out of the booth, and he put his hand on her shoulder as they headed toward the door. He didn‘t tell her that it was his mother who‘d bought her the present: a huge box that held a collection of crafts projects. Something he and Michelle could do together during her visit. It was too big to wrap, but it sat with a bow on top of the coffee table in his little apartment. The cot she‘d lent him for Michelle was all made up against the far wall. They pushed outside into the night. The air was still thick with humidity, but it had cooled down some. Josh carried Michelle‘s backpack, while she held her stuffed elephant. He opened his car‘s passenger seat door, set the backpack on the floor, and got the seatbelt fastened around her. Before he closed the door, he kissed her cheek and said, ―From your mom. From us both.‖

168

Selected Poems by Coty Poynter When the Clock Stops Movement is minimal outside. Leaves do not fall, do not tumble in the wind. A streetlight flickers, losing life. My two dogs wrestle with their dreams, twitching and growling at a car, or a rat, or a bird. Perhaps it‘s something I can‘t know of. The clock has stopped at 1:48. With the blinds closed, I cannot tell if it‘s daytime or night; lamplight distorts what little light enters the room. I breathe out only to breathe in. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. The air is stale and humid in this room. My eyes ache for sleep, but I‘m fearful of my own dreams. My heart pounds and pounds each time the nightbirds sing.

169

I reach for the glass of whisky on the end-table next to me. Dilute myself. Scribble another poem, write another chance, repeat, repeat, repeat. Whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Left Behind Winter has seeped into my bones, added weight to my frame. I try to keep moving. Try to keep warm. But I slow. Succumb to the cold. Wind strikes against the side of the house I hide in. At my desk, I look out the window. The streetlight goes out. Then my light goes out. All is dark inside my room, and I cannot see. The drumming of my heart plays within my head. I was never comfortable without light. Without power, time becomes displaced. I sat still, shivering at my desk, waiting 170

for the sun to come, unable to move out of fear of what I may forget.

The Bell Jar Snow coats the ground, brightens the sun despite the gray clouds looming overhead. My head, it aches. The light burns through the blinds, causes it to pound with the intensity of an Indian drum. The drumming, it‘s a reminder of the absence beyond my sternum. I put on a pot of coffee. Pour whisky into a mug. When the coffeemaker beeps, I combine the two—whisky and coffee—to try and ease the pain. It doesn‘t help. Not the way I‘d like it to. I look out the window. Wait for my eyes to adjust to the light. Let the pain settle in. Look and see, scribbled in frost, a white rose. What little sunlight there is reflects off the snow onto the white rose and melts it away.

171

Morning Fog By Marcella Benton birds finger spell headlines across the sky knobby kneed ghost trees circle the lake and someone or something is pulling the water from above playing light as a feather stiff as a board until the lakeâ&#x20AC;&#x2DC;s dreams are walking on the water they breathe out and take everything in sight emitting an eruption of cranes wings matching heartbeats climbing skyscrapers into the air escaping to write out their story

172

Actual Persons, Living or Dead By Michelle Brooks First, turn on the lights. Ghosts drift toward shadows. Use the sin of omission as if it was a life raft, and you canâ&#x20AC;&#x2DC;t swim. I can swim, of course. As a child I swam in tanks, throwing rocks before getting into the water to scatter the snakes while my mother doled out advice like, If you fall out of a boat, float. You can float forever. I never learned how to float, always defaulting to treading water. You can do that for a long time.

173

Outer Banks By Emily Vanston Star-drunk, the heavens howl in revelry. The scythe of the moon cleaves the sky, Empties it into the sea, Carries it through the furrowed earth, Illuminating fissures where rivers should be. Splintered light scores the water, Shimmering and jagged, Joining in the reverie. Wind and sand whirl, frenzied, trees curl Their toes in the frozen ground in ecstasy. The planet spins on the axis of infinity. Magic soaks the sky. The universe, A bowl upturned above me, Spills across darkness The rapturous technicolor swirl of the galaxy. Somewhere in this toothsome night, The world is unfurling without me.

174

Meet Me in Paris By Carol Lynne Knight Step out on the concourse from a transatlantic flight and take my arm, for this old city is a destination I have only tread in books and films—their worn perfs threading thru the clacking sprockets, images that flash and jitter on the screen, breathless and subtitled with a confusion of desire and ennui. Meet me on the Boulevard Montmartre below the window where Pissaro stood for hours as the rain fell and umbrellas began to populate his canvas. Find a cafe away from the traffic of horse-drawn carriages and teeming crowds of Parisians, where cats doze under the tables and my accent is perfect. Meet me in Paris, where I have never been, where my dreams take us to Blanche Station, up winding stairs to our flat on a cluttered alley — lines of laundry flaunting wind, lullaby from an open window, our closing door—its latch.

175

Seashells By Jesse Albatrosov I. Mister

It had been so long since his exhausted heels dug into the cold and pungent sand. He looked down at his feet—pale and exposed—covered with tan lines from where his shoes hid them throughout the winter months. He could smell the salt in the air, heavy and dank. A gull swooped down to pluck a fish from the blistery ocean waves. Cold creases lined his worrisome face. He spent the last few months in an exhausting depression, and coming here wasn‘t helping, not that he thought it really would. A few of her shells rested safely in his pocket. The wind was so cold that it cut through his clothes, no matter how many layers shielded him. The breeze created choppy waves, the kind that make it impossible to swim or even enjoy the ocean without getting pummeled in the face and looking like a fool. No surfers were out donning wetsuits and braving the frigid waters for a few moments of sport between seasons. He found himself alone if not for the feelings of guilt panging throughout his empty stomach. He eyed the bare sand beneath him once again, wondering if he should sit, as if covering himself with moist 176

sand would be worth the moment of solitude. He hoped he would tire of this mental exhaustion soon, and the drive home in damp, sandy clothes would prove that moment of hesitation to be significant. The impromptu trip left him with no towel to protect his clothes nor blanket to keep the wind from cutting into him. He dropped his right hand to meet the sand, his knees clumsily bending as he lowered his body into the unforgiving shoreline. He tried to muscle through the anguish, and he did, reminding himself why he wandered back to the beach in the middle of winter. Maybe he could make the memories go away. Months had passed since he last saw her tiny body slip beneath the waves. He watched from a blanket a few yards from the break that pattered and crashed with gravityâ&#x20AC;&#x2DC;s pull. A jogger pushed against the wind, barely moving forward, limbs swaying and struggling against the breeze. The sun was beginning to set, and most of the tourists had retired to their hotels. At first, he glanced around, waiting for her to resurfaceâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;hoping someone else had noticedâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;but he quickly realized that he was alone. Sometimes the waves pull a swimmer in a bit while his head bobs to meet oxygen after a short deprival, and usually throws him to the left before their final release. A few seconds passed, and his breath felt stuck in his throat. 177

If I count to ten and she still doesn’t come up, I’ll have to go in to save her. One. Two. Three. Four. Maybe she’s diving for a shell and can’t grab it. Five. Six. Seven. This is stupid. I’m sure she’s fine. Eight. Nine. Ten. Fuck. Ten. Has it really been ten seconds? He looked around blankly, unsure of how to react. His mind was racing, logic unable to catch the irrational thoughts sprinting miles ahead of him. Wave after wave moved toward the shore, losing momentum and size, flowing freely until it reversed and slipped back into the eloquent mass of ocean that swallowed her. He panned left and right ferociously, but all he saw was setting sunlight and sea foam for miles. He moved cautiously towards the water as if touching it would taint him and make him guilty in some way. The water pushed toward him with confidence and subtlety, inching up his ankles and swallowing his calves in warm, salty water. Beneath the waves were tiny fish and grains of white sand, all unknowingly and carelessly resting below the busy work of the tide. Each desperate breath that he drew into his lungs with no sign of her resurfacing pulled him closer and closer to screaming. The jogger continued to inch forward, so far now that only an outline could be seen along the shore, too far away to feel his panic. 178

Should I try to stop her or scream for help? No. More gulls flew in overhead, slowly descending near the water where her head last surfaced. He could feel himself minimizing the situation, hiding from the anticipation of guilt. A gull flapped and squawked before resting on the water. He stepped back and continued to look for her, but there was no sign of her anywhere. The first time he saw her she was sitting near the swings by herself, no more than six years old, holding a handful of seashells she had collected and writing her name in the sand. The beach had only one entrance from the park, a long, wooden pier with steep stairs leading down to the water. The tide was higher than usual, and seaweed was strewn throughout the usually clean sand. He found it odd that a girl so young would be unoccupied in an area constantly greeted with unfamiliar people, and near the water no less. ―Hey, is your mom with you, sweetie?‖ She looked up from her oversized signature in the sand, decorated with hearts. Her eyes were a translucent icy blue, with fair hair hanging loose and messy from the salty humidity. ―Nope.‖ She glanced back down and smiled as if proudly showing off her elementary art. ―Is she on the beach? You‘re not here by yourself, are you?‖ 179

―Yep!‖ Her voice was chipper and unafraid. ―Ma‘s at home. She‘s sleepin‘. She‘s very tired a lot.‖ She said it without fear or frustration, so naïve to the realities of her situation. ―Hey, mister? Are you going swimming? I can swim real good! You should see!‖ She stood up and started flailing her tiny, underweight body around, showcasing her best doggy-paddle coupled with a few excited twirls and amateur ballerina moves. He‘d never been around children much, having none himself and being an only child. ―No, I don‘t know how to swim.‖ The situation didn‘t feel right. He was nervous because he knew she‘d likely wander down to the water near him. Even though no one was there capable of making sure she was safe, one unsupervised afternoon couldn‘t hurt. ―Yay! I tell ya mister, I swim real good! Why can‘t you swim?‖ She walked briskly down the pier, her dirty bare feet skipped every few steps. She carried only her shells and wore a faded yellow one-piece bathing suit. He wondered if she had eaten at all today. ―I just never learned how to. I lived in a city without a beach when I was your age. We didn‘t have a pool or anything.‖ He tried to explain, but it seemed embarrassing to admit, even to a six-year-old who was filthy from head to toe. 180

―Why are you at the beach then, mister?‖ ―Well, sometimes adults think it‘s relaxing to watch the birds, and waves, and stuff.‖ The more he talked to her, the more he felt the need to dumb down the way he spoke. He sat on the shore for nearly two hours watching her jump and spin through the waves. She cheered each time she dove above the water as it curled and broke into the shore. The lifeguard had packed up and gone home after letting out a long blow on his whistle signaling to swimmers that they were on their own. When she finally disappeared under the tide, he waited another hour for her lifeless body to wash onto the shore. It never did. He nervously picked up his blanket, pulled on his shoes, and grabbed the sandy shells she had piled next to him before rushing into the water. What the hell am I going to do? No one is going to believe me. I’ll be a rapist, a murderer, what the fuck am I going to do? He walked towards the pier, squinting through the dark and glancing over his shoulder every few seconds, hoping to see her jump out of the water as if the funny joke on mister who can‘t swim was finally over. He tried to compose himself as he walked down the pier and into the streetlights of the park. Next to the swing, by a few forgotten seashells, he saw 181

Emily written in big letters in the sand. He bent down and erased it, then walked quickly to his car.

II. Beth Beth slid her key into the door and turned it until she heard the deadbolt slide to the right. She hated calling this home. The lock always clicked with a confident thud as warm air laced with the scent of pumpkin and cinnamon assaulted her through the poorly sealed crack. She waited a second before grabbing the handle and entering. Evelyn always dropped everything and lit a candle as soon she walked into the apartment. ―Where have you been?‖ ―Please, Evelyn. I‘m not in the mood.‖ ―I‘m just wondering. You‘ve been gone for hours. I thought your shift ended at four.‖ ―I was running on the beach. I needed to clear my head for a bit.‖ She pulled the laces loose in her shoes before tossing them next to the door and looking up at Evelyn. She‘d been living with her sister since her marriage was over— nearly three months ago now. She was the oldest of the two, and she found Evelyn to be clingy and annoying. Her sister stared back at her with concern and pity. Evelyn had never been married, never settled long enough to consider her 182

relationships anything more than a casual fling. She‘d always been the more outgoing of the two and seemed bubbly and perfect despite her inability to do something meaningful or passionate and productive. ―Beth, I‘m just trying to help.‖ ―I don‘t need help.‖ ―I forgot.‖ She threw her hands up. ―You‘re a strong woman.‖ Her tone was rude. Beth shot her a disapproving eyeroll before pushing passed and walking to her room. They lived in a two-bedroom apartment in a middle-class part of town—nothing fancy but perfect for Evelyn‘s casual and nomadic nature. It had one of those tiny kitchens with linoleum floors, wary and peeling in the corners under the cabinets where someone probably overflowed the dishwasher once—a teen who ran out of the proper detergent and didn‘t know that there were no substitutes before mopping up suds and laughing about it at 3 A.M. Life lessons like this were always funnier when you first move out on your own. The breakfast bar was just big enough for two and overlooked a small living room with one window, and a standard issue light fixture hung from the popcorn ceiling over a 4x4 table atop cream carpet. This dining layout never made any sense to people living in these apartments—it was merely a trap to theft your hard-earned security deposit in 183

the name of drunken spaghetti stains. Smart, older, experienced renters threw a rug down here. Beth swung the door behind her with a confident thud. Finally. Silence. She was a musty mix of ocean air, Italian food, and sweat. After waiting tables all day at the little beachside restaurant that she‘d been working at for the last four years, she changed in the bathroom and tucked her uniform into her messenger bag. Waitressing wasn‘t her long-term plan, but it was comfortable. Running on the beach helped to clear her head of a day full of small talk and meaningless chatter that she encountered with both regulars and tourists alike. Some customers were complacent—regular and predictable—a welcomed break from going through the motions. She desperately needed a shower, but unlocking her door meant talking to Evelyn, and talking to Evelyn meant more meaningless chatter. Evelyn leaned gently on Beth‘s closed door and pushed out her breath before knocking. Just one knuckle quietly tapped. She screwed up and she knew it. ―Beth. I‘m sorry for prying.‖ ―No, you‘re not.‖ ―Can we talk? I‘m worried about you.‖ ―No. You‘re not.‖ 184

Beth and John called it quits after five years of marriage and a few years of mutually exclusive dating before that. Their relationship was never dramatic or confrontational, but he was tired of living in parallel timelines with an occasional dinner together here and there. John slept on the couch after sitting on his phone for an hour after work each day, and Beth went to bed alone after throwing a blanket over him each night. She didn‘t want to share the bed with him and her racing thoughts, and she knew he didn‘t care about sleeping on the couch in his clothes. It was comfortable, but it wasn‘t fun anymore as Beth had grown increasingly distant. John felt her slipping away the last few months, but neither were motivated to change that. With no kids, Beth felt too young to already be going through the motions, though her mother was grief-stricken that she wouldn‘t consider staying and having children to mix things up as she had done in her own marriage. John had moved on as fast as Beth had moved out, and now instead of being roommates with John, she was roommates with Evelyn. John‘s new roommate Sarah was fun, adventurous, witty, and probably let him sleep in the bed. Hell, she probably slept next to him on the floor when he fell asleep on the couch. Beth hadn‘t filed for divorce, and neither were concerned with dividing their assets and moving on. 185

―Beth, please.‖ ―I‘m coming out, just give me a minute. I‘ve been on my feet all day.‖ How could one person be so dependent on a conversation? She grabbed a comfortable tank top and worn, slightly oversized yoga pants before opening the door. Evelyn was sitting eagerly on the couch flipping through channels, pretending that she wasn‘t carefully waiting to smooth things over. ―I‘m going to hop in the shower first, is that cool? Then we can talk if you want.‖ ―Yeah, sure! New towels are in the hall.‖ She kept flipping, but she wasn‘t really looking. The water nearly scalded her olive skin, and though she usually took quick showers, she stood in the water with her arms crossed below her breasts and let the water fall from her shoulders over the outline of her medium frame. Every muscle ached and seemed to creak as she shifted her weight from one heel to the other. She wondered if Evelyn would give in and go to bed if she stood there long enough, but she was never one for quitting. John never pried like this. She pushed the faucet down and lingered even longer. 186

―How was your day?‖ Evelyn pulled her lip in and was careful to avoid eye contact. For siblings so close in age, they were as far apart emotionally as siblings can be. It wasn‘t always this way—so cold and detached. ―Oh, it was fine.‖ She let out a quiet sigh and tucked her feet beneath her. ―I just…I‘m not feeling myself lately.‖ ―Is it John? Maybe you guys should talk. Work it out.‖ ―It‘s not John.‖ ―Maybe a counselor could help? I know I can‘t help. I try to help, but you won‘t let me.‖ Evelyn had settled on the local news to drone on in the background. The anchor wore heavy concealer and bright pink lipstick that complemented her platinum blonde hair and boxy, conservative pantsuit. She sat stiff and attentive behind a glassy desk, positioned perfectly beside a tall, dark, and stereotypically handsome man to balance her forced femininity. ―A counselor can‘t help.‖

III. Mister The warm ocean air was so thick and moist that it made his skin feel warm and sticky. She was laying on her back, the sky reflecting in her eyes emitted a cool and calm blue while gentle waves pulled her body side to side—calmly bobbing in a lifeless motion as though she were an abandoned 187

vessel on a lake. The water was cool, traveling up his clothed legs, soaking his dress pants and pulling them between his legs and out with the tide. She was barely moving, messy blonde curls circled her face, dancing like snakes in a taunting and flirty fashion. Her eyes were empty, but they followed him as he inched closer to her lifeless body. “Mister.” He pushed her body below the water, holding his arm firmly as her curls swam upward to attack his forearms. She bobbed back to the surface. “Mister. You can’t swim.” He pushed again, but this time her body disappeared, and he was standing alone in the water. His shoes overflowed—each heavy and full as they smashed the surface. His body turned to run to the shore. ―Can I get you a refill?‖ ―No, I‘m fine, thanks.‖ His glass sweat as beads dripped and slid into a circle at the bottom of the cup— haphazardly resting on the table. He firmly closed and opened his fists, stretching his fingers as if to brush away the bits of sand. He forced a second of eye contact and a polite smile before pulling in a cleansing breath and moving the cup to a napkin. The visions of drowning Emily rarely subsided when he was alone. 188

―Your pizza will be ready soon.‖ ―Thanks.‖ He had another half an hour before he needed to return to the office from his lunch break. He was a regular here, the kind of customer who tips well enough to be every server‘s favorite, but he preferred the brunette girl. She was distant and kept to herself but perfectly attentive when it came to doing her job. She had a quiet way about her that the elderly customers preferred. The same people came for lunch each day—a couple in their eighties ordered a carafe of white zin and never wanted their pizza a second before they‘d finished their salad. Single white men in suits sat at the bar and talked to the chatty blonde server. She was a college student—the type who wanted to know your story—as if every human was fulfilling some meaningful destiny and wanted to pour out their hopes and dreams over a pizza that was hand tossed by a middle-aged man dusted with flour. The brunette zoomed around the room in a light and cautious way, studiously wiping tables and making sure shakers of parmesan cheese were filled, and the seats weren‘t greasy. There was never more than a quickly fading mention of a missing girl from a broken home on the news for a few weeks before the chatter finally subsided about the poor little girl‘s whereabouts. It was well known that she hung out near 189

the beach alone, and most people assumed that a distant relative or one of the many revolving men her mother brought around scooped her up and were off living in trailer park suburbia with her and a few of her half-siblings. Her body never washed ashore nor did her faded yellow swimsuit, a few sizes too small but likely carried for miles through the limitless tide. Desperate interviews with her mother aired for the first few weeks, she was always sobbing and regretful for her negligent ways, but her transient appearance garnered little remorse from the prying eyes of the public. The lifeguard remembered her swimming, but she was often swimming alone. Most people assumed she was better off. ―Here we are. Small pepperoni and banana pepper. Can I get you anything else?‖ The warped metal pan holding the steaming pizza slid quickly onto the circular stand. The brunette slid a spatula beneath the biggest slice and placed an ivory plate on the outer edge of the table. ―No. Thanks.‖ He failed to make eye contact this time, but gave her a weak smile as she left to greet another elderly couple waiting to be seated. The door closed behind them and let a puff of ocean air inside. It smelled like wet sand and seaweed. He felt the ocean water slipping between his fingers again. The brunette led the couple to a table along the window and listed the soup and specials of the day before heading off 190

for lemon waters with no ice. His head was pounding as he reached a clammy hand up just high enough to grab her attention. ―You know…um, I think I‘ll just take a box when you‘re able.‖ ―Yeah, sure. Definitely. Is everything ok?‖ She reached into her black apron and shuffled around for his ticket in a sea of paper straws and bills. ―Yeah. I, just, I…‖ ―No problem, I‘ll be back in a few.‖ She was off to the kitchen as quickly as she came, but this time she returned with a neatly folded cardboard box tucked under her arm. She dropped off two waters to the elderly couple and was off again without writing their order down. She probably never meant to be so good at this, but she seemed to thrive on the regularity of it. Seating, wiping, serving, smiling. He sighed deeply, grateful that she didn‘t pry, but disappointed in himself for not being able to hold it together long enough to exit gracefully. She slid his bill upside down at the edge of the table before scooping up his pizza, two and three slices at a time, to place it inside the box. ―You can pay at the front whenever you‘re ready, or I can take it from you here if you‘d like.‖ She worked quickly as to relieve him of whatever was on his mind. 191

―Keep the change. Thanks.‖ He slid a twenty dollar bill her way and tapped it with his index finger. She smiled a heavy smile and turned to walk into the kitchen.

IV. Beth ―What‘s his deal?‖ ―I don‘t know. I think he works next door. Maybe they called him in or something.‖ She pulled his ticket from her apron and punched his total into the register. ―A nine dollar tip? What kind of lunch are you serving up, Beth?‖ She leaned on the bar and let out a cackle, winking to her regulars to follow suit. Beth slid the change into her apron and shrugged. She kept busy during her shifts to avoid the catty conversations and flirting from the girls who stood around more than they worked. Beth out-earned them all, but her commission was well deserved. ―There‘s just something off about that dude. Maybe he‘s got a thing for you.‖ ―Eh, leave him alone.‖ Beth wiped the bar around single white man‘s beer and eyed the door for an escape route in the form of another elderly couple to seat. She spent the rest of the day in the same endless cycle. Door opens, blistery ocean air flows in, seat the couple, bring the water, wipe, smile, box the leftovers, cash them out. When four o‘clock 192

finally came, she packed her worn and musty uniform neatly into her messenger bag and stood naked in the single stall bathroom before pulling on her jogging clothes. Her face looked weathered—her straight brown hair that was neatly pulled into a bun fell limp—her dark and worrisome eyes unable to hide behind her imprisoned locks. ―See you, tomorrow.‖ The blonde turned to smile as Beth moved quickly out the door and ducked between tightly parked cars in the employee parking lot. She slid her key into the ignition and let the engine idle for a minute before putting the car in reverse. It was just a short drive to the park where she jogged each day, and though it was a comfortable park with plenty of tourists, the cold evening air left the beach completely empty of everything but a few forgotten toys. She pulled the laces of her running shoes tighter and tucked her bag beneath her seat. Though it bothered everyone who knew she did it, she left her cell phone in the car and zipped her hoodie up tight enough to keep the hood from falling in the breeze. The sun was barely setting—a beautiful and empty sky sat unforgivingly above the glassy reflection of ocean. She stepped down the long boardwalk steps, careful to not slip on the stairs before reaching the soft, white sand at the bottom. The tide was low, but she preferred to run on the

193

packed sand near the water. A shadow of a person sat folded in on itself near the edge of the shore. Beth moved closer, squinting harder to distinguish the lumpy mass resting regretfully on their dampened clothes where the soft sand meets the smooth and moist—freshly paved by crashing winter waves that pushed forcefully towards the shore—the sand that looks comfortable and neat to sit on but pulls you in a little and leaves you wet and messy. She recognized the outline and pulled in a fleeting breath. ―I know. About the girl.‖ He turned to face her, his auburn eyes filled with fear and regret. His head turned to watch the waves crash in again, searching for a sign of her. They always danced in empty. ―I saw her swimming. I saw you with her.‖ Beth drew another breath into her lungs and waited, but his tired eyes silently scanned the waves. ―I could have helped you, I just…I don‘t know. I just didn‘t.‖ ―I didn‘t mean this. I didn‘t know her.‖ ―I know.‖ The wind was unforgiving as she inched away, soft sand folding into neat and guilty footprints that followed her retreating steps. She wanted to bend down and erase them, backtrack up to the pier and take off running before she had a chance to see him waiting on the shore again. He sat here 194

often, begging the water to wash away his memories of her and leave him with just a few moments of solitude between the visions. She saw them, too. Her feet peddling heavily through the sand, Emily jumping above the waves while he sat uncomfortably, afraid to stay but afraid to walk away. She noticed her disappear and saw him frantically pacing, waiting, watching the waves for a glimpse of her silvery hair peeking above the surface like white seashells that lined the dunes. Maybe they were playing and he was familiar with her tendency to play tricks on him. Maybe she was overreacting about what she saw. He rested his head in his hands and let out a defeated sigh. Heâ&#x20AC;&#x2DC;d been coming to the restaurant at least three times a week during Bethâ&#x20AC;&#x2DC;s shifts in hopes that she would give him relief from the insurmountable guilt he felt, but she was steadfast about remaining disconnected to himâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;two strangers on a beach. Beth knew they had to let it go. The tide pushed in and out, collapsing around the posts of the pier and enveloping the legs of tiny birds pecking at the shore. She turned her back to him and jogged steadily down the beach, pushing against the wind so that when her muscles were tired and defeated upon return, the breeze could carry her back to her car and home to her bed.

195

Contributors: Cover Artist: Angelique Bochnak is a dreamer, artist and author. With her head in the clouds or her eyes turned to the stars, she spends countless hours imagining new adventures and far off worlds for which to travel. When she isn‘t dreaming, she uses her artwork to inspire her writing. She writes science fiction and fantasy with her focus on epic fantasies, apocalyptic and dystopian fiction. Her preferred art media is watercolor paints. The natural, uninhibited flow of color results in magical creations that are on occasion unpredictable and always inspirational. She publishes her fiction writing under the pen name A.M. Bochnak. Fortitude Rising, a sci-fi dystopian fantasy, is her first published novel. More information on her published and future work can be found on her website: www.ambochnak.com. She is an American author and artist, born and raised in southern Ohio and now lives in Gainesville, Florida. Inspiration for “Breathe in Life” Nature is an endless supply of inspiration and rejuvenation for the soul. All you have to do is open your eyes to its beauty. Growing up in the hills of southern Ohio, my favorite activity was climbing to the tops of the trees at sunset. I could see for miles and every day was a new experience. Watching the sun slowly fade from view as it dropped out of the sky gave me life—it made me feel more alive than anything else. If ever I find myself in a slump, all I have to do is remember the sun will be back tomorrow and it will breathe life back into me. William Ade lives in Burke, Virginia with his wife and the customary writer‘s pet, Rudy the Cat. He‘s a newly emerging writer working the craft since 2014. His evolving voice is self196

described as ―Midwestern Old Man‖ which is appropriate since he grew up in Indiana during the fifties and sixties. Prior to launching his writing vocation, William worked in the field of education before completing a twenty-five year career as a telecommunication sales executive. Jesse Albatrosov is a poet living and writing in the Central Florida area with her husband and five children. She is currently obtaining a Bachelor of Arts in Creative Writing and English with a focus on Poetry and spends her free time reading and studying the French language. Her work is published or forthcoming in The American Journal of Poetry, Streetlight Magazine, Apeiron Review, Feminine Collective, Sky Island Journal, Mothers Always Write, Press 53‘s Prime Number Magazine and others. You can find her online at www.jessealbatrosov.com or on Instagram @jalbatrosov. Tobi Alfier is a multiple Pushcart nominee and multiple Best of the Net nominee. Her chapbook, Down Anstruther Way (Scotland poems) was published by FutureCycle Press. Her full-length collection, Somewhere, Anywhere, Doesn’t Matter Where is recently out from Kelsay Books. She is co-editor of San Pedro River Review (www.bluehorsepress.com). Marcella Benton lives in Lakeland, Florida with her husband and pets. She and her husband run a screen printing and embroidery business, Whatever Tees. Marcella's previous work can be seen in Deep South Magazine. Find her on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marciemuffin/. Michelle Brooks has published a collection of poetry, Make Yourself Small, (Backwaters Press), and a novella, Dead Girl, Live Boy, (Storylandia Press). Her poetry collection, Flamethrower, will be published by Latte Press in 2019. A native Texan, she has spent much of her adult life in Detroit.

197

William Cass has had over 150 short stories accepted for publication in a variety of literary magazines and anthologies such as december, Briar Cliff Review, and The Boiler. Recently, he was a finalist in short fiction and novella competitions at Glimmer Train and Black Hill Press, received a Pushcart nomination, and won writing contests at Terrain.org and The Examined Life Journal. He lives in San Diego, California. A.K. Cotham’s fiction and nonfiction has appeared in publications such as Sacramento News & Review, Slink Chunk Press, ByLine, Iconoclast, Poor Mojo's Almanac, Solano Magazine, and the Two Cranes Press anthology, Scattered, Covered, Smothered. Two short stories were also selected for performance by Sacramento Stories on Stage. She lives in Northern California. Lexy Courneya is a feminist poetess and essayist who‘s matriculating to Washington University in St. Louis. In addition to receiving numerous awards, Lexy‘s work has appeared in 8 issues of the national literary arts magazine, Teen Ink and been featured in Glass Mountain‘s online literary arts magazine, Shards. Lexy‘s debut poetry collection entitled Bloom has garnered an impressive online following since its publication in January, receiving over fifteen thousand reads on the self-publishing website, Wattpad and praise from celebrities such as actress Eden Duncan Smith and Wild Embers author, Nikita Gill. During the course of her life, Lexy has developed an intimate relationship with mental disorders, abuse, and sexual violence. Through sharing her experiences with trauma, Lexy hopes to bring comfort, validation, and attention to fellow survivors who have long been silenced by rape culture and the stigmatization of mental illness.

198

Jo Angela Edwins has published in various venues including Calyx, New South, Adanna, Number One, and Zone 3. Her chapbook Play was published in 2016 by Finishing Line Press. She has received awards from the South Carolina Academy of Authors and Poetry Super Highway and is a Pushcart Prize and Bettering American Poetry nominee. She teaches literature and writing at Francis Marion University in Florence, SC. Abandoned Motel was inspired by a photograph by Chana Bird. Carson Faust is an MFA candidate at Minnesota State University, Mankato, where he serves as a fiction editor for Blue Earth Review. He is an enrolled member of the Edisto Natchez-Kusso Tribe of South Carolina, and currently resides in Minneapolis, MN. Debra Franco’s most recent work appears online at Serving House Journal and The Stickman Review and in print in Stoneboat, Naugatuck River Review and forthcoming in CALYX Journal. Her poem, ―Vacuuming Barefoot,‖ was nominated for a Pushcart Poetry Prize in 2016. She lives near the sea in Los Angeles with her husband, David Shepard, a psychologist and author. Marcie Friedman lives in the Chicago area where she escapes reality through writing, playing with her kids, and working in theater and film production. Her stories have appeared in The Gravity of the Thing and Blotterature. She holds an MFA in Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Kyle Heger, former managing editor of Communication World Magazine, lives in Albany, CA. His writing has won a number of awards and has been accepted by 57 publications, including London Journal of Fiction, Nerve Cowboy and U.S. 1 Worksheets. 199

Don Hogle's poetry has appeared recently or is forthcoming in Apalachee Review, Atlanta Review, Carolina Quarterly, Chautauqua, Pilgrimage, South Florida Poetry Journal, and A3 Review and Shooter in the U.K. Among other awards, he won First Prize in the 2016 Hayden's Ferry Review poetry contest. He lives in Manhattan. www.donhoglepoet.com Find him on Instagram: @dhogle212. Hope Jordan’s poetry and fiction have recently appeared in such journals as Naugatuck River Review, Comstock Review and Angels Flight Literary West. Her poetry chapbook, The Day She Decided to Feed Crows, was published in 2018 by Cervena Barva Press. She is an MFA candidate in fiction at UMass Boston‘s creative writing program, and was the first official poetry slam master in New Hampshire. Jamie Elliott Keith lives in Knoxville, Tennessee, and is a community volunteer. She has had work appear in Rust + Moth, The James Dickey Review, The Cape Rock, and San Pedro River Review. Her first chapbook, Past the Edge of Blue, was released in October 2017 by Iris Press. Carol Lynne Knight is the co-director of Anhinga Press, where she edits and designs books. She graduated from the University of Miami and Florida State University. Her book of poems, Quantum Entanglement (Apalachee Press) was released in 2010. Her poetry has appeared in Louisiana Literature, Tar River Review, Earth’s Daughters, The Ledge, Slipstream, Comstock Review, Redactions, So to Speak, and other literary publications. She has exhibited her drawings, pottery, sculpture and digital images throughout the eastern United States. In other lives, she has worked as an art teacher, potter, videographer, copywriter, and graphic designer. She lives in Tallahassee, Florida.

200

Zack Martin lives in Silicon Valley where he works as an analyst for a startup. He writes poems inspired by his daily life in the tech bubble, prior travels, and thoughts gathered on his lunch break. His poems have appeared in several publications and will be included in forthcoming issues of Haunted Waters Press, Likely Red, Rise Up Review, Silver Needle Press, and Funicular Magazine. He was also a finalist in the 2017 Los Gatos Irish Writersâ&#x20AC;&#x2DC; Festival Poetry Competition. Adrian Neibauer received his Masterâ&#x20AC;&#x2DC;s degree in instructional learning technologies and Ph.D. in educational equity and leadership from the University of Colorado, Denver and currently works as a district-wide teaching coach in Aurora, Colorado, where he resides with his family. With over a decade of teaching experience, Adrian strives to transform classrooms and create innovative, student centered educational programs that stretch beyond traditional approaches. He regularly updates his poetry blog: undiscoveredpoems.blogspot.com and his professional website: adrian-neibauer.com. His poetry has been published online for Beautiful Losers Magazine: http://belomag.com and in print for Convivium: Feast (Volume 3). Find him on Twitter: @UndiscoverPoem. Austin Paramore is a poet, copywriter, and author from the Southside of Chicago. A graduate of Vanderbilt University, he began to explore poetry while a member of the Vandy Spoken Word poetry group. You can find more of his work forthcoming in Silver Needle Press, or by reading his debut chapbook, The Big Boom Bap Theory. Arjun Shaw Parikh recently graduated from New York University with a concentration in African-American Studies and Literature. He lives in Palo Alto, California, where he teaches English and coaches soccer.

201

Coty Poynter is Baltimore-based writer and editor. He was the lead fiction editor for the 2016–2017 edition of Grub Street, Towson University‘s literary and arts magazine, and is an editorial assistant at Charles Street Research. Currently, he focuses his creative endeavors to the exploration of memory, past and present, and the resilience of the human spirit through poetry and, more recently, short fiction. He‘s also the author of one earlier collection of poetry, The Singing Heart (2016). Sarah Dickenson Snyder has two poetry collections, The Human Contract and Notes from a Nomad. She was selected for the Bread Loaf Writers‘ Conference both times she applied. One poem was nominated for best of Net in 2017. Recent work appears in Chautauqua Literary Magazine, RHINO, and The Sewanee Review. Find her via her website: https://sarahdickensonsnyder.com/ or on Instagram: @sarahdickensonsnyder. Kelly Tanner is currently an MFA candidate in Fiction and Nonfiction at Bennington College. She holds a bachelor‘s degree in Creative Writing and Literature from NYU, and works in Human Resources. Her short stories and memoir have been published in the journals, Dovetail and Pigeon Pages. Tanner lives in the Hudson Valley in New York. Find her on Twitter: @thatkellytanner. Anne Hunley Trisler is a poet, musician, and songwriter whose work has appeared in Mothering, Struggle, Barbaric Yawp, The Sow's Ear Poetry Review, Wild Goose Poetry Review, Phoenix Literary Arts Magazine, The Iris Review, Glass Mountain, Dash Literary Journal and is forthcoming in Screamin Mamas and Bad Pony Magazine. A winner of the Margaret Artley Woodruff Award for Creative Writing for her poetry, and an Eleanora Burke award for her creative nonfiction, she lives in Knoxville, Tennessee, where she is

202

pursuing an MFA in Poetry at the University of Tennessee. She can be reached at apknoxville@aol.com. Emily Vanston is a writer and dancer. Her poems and short stories have appeared or are forthcoming in Chronogram, Third Wednesday, Hudson Valley Transmitter, Dual Coast Magazine, Page & Spine Literary Magazine, and in numerous contests. Following a career in publishing and dance in New York City, she now resides in New York‘s Hudson River Valley with her husband, two parrots, and a snake named Anterrabae. Find her on Facebook/Twitter/Instagram: @emilyvanston. Jennifer Wolkin is a health and neuro psychologist, speaker, mental health advocate, and mindfulness-meditation practitioner. She is currently pursuing an MFA in creative writing and literary translation at Queens College. She has recently been published/forthcoming in Third Point Press, Streetlight Press, Sooth Swarm Journal, A Beautiful Space, British Journal of Medical Practitioners, Black Fox Literary Magazine, Ink & Voices, Rhythm&Bones Lit, Dreamers Creative Writing, Flypaper, Ars Medica, theSame, Boston Accent Lit, Tilde, Noble Gas Quarterly and Unbroken. Her nonfiction work translating and sharing the science of brain research and mindfulness has been published in Thrive Global, The Huffington Post, Mindful.org, and PsychCentral among others. They are compiled and can be found on her blog, BrainCurves.com. Doris Xu is currently a student at the Awty International School. She is a beginning writer and an editor of her school‘s literary magazine, Awty Ramifications. Doris lives in Houston, Texas, with her parents and her big dog, Blackberry. When she isn‘t staring at a blank page and battling writer‘s block, she also enjoys dancing, playing the piano, and marathoning Disney movies with her family. 203

Thank you for reading! Stay in touch: www.blackfoxlitmag.com Website www.facebook.com/blackfoxlit Facebook @blackfoxlit Twitter & Instagram

204