Black Fox Literary Magazine Issue #2 by Black Fox

Editors’ Note

We’re so grateful to be able to say that we’ve made it to our second issue. The best part of it all is that this issue is even better than the first. This particular issue has involved countless late nights, countless emails between the editors and enough sweat to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool. In this issue you’ll see more of a variety of both fiction and poetry. We couldn’t be prouder that Black Fox is fulfilling its mission in showcasing talented authors regardless of genre. During this submission period we had twice as many submissions than we had for issue number one. We are honored to have so many writers want to contribute. The selection process wasn’t an easy one, but you’ll hear no complaints from us. We want you to continue submitting and to continue reading. We couldn’t put this magazine together without the support of our contributors and our readers. We’d like to thank our contributors, including our

cover artist, Barbara Neu. Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d also like to thank Natalie Henry for putting the cover together for us. This journey is just beginning and weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re so happy to have you along. We sincerely hope that you all love this issue as much as we do.

The Editors Racquel, Pam and Marquita

Meet the Editors Racquel Henry is first and foremost a writer. In order to pay the bills, she is also a part time Administrative Assistant at a law firm in Tampa, FL., where she currently resides. Much to her own surprise, she actually enjoys the job that helps put food on the table. Racquel writes literary fiction in hopes of being published sometime in the near future. She also enjoys reading a variety of genres, and is currently obsessed with flash fiction. Some of her favorite authors include, Lorrie Moore, Joyce Carol Oates, John Updike, Sophie Kinsella, and Toni Morrison. She is currently an MFA student at Fairleigh Dickinson University, where she is preparing to graduate in the Fall of 2011. At the moment she is searching for a new school to call home, and to pursue a Ph.D. degree. Her story, The Truth About Lipstick, has appeared in The Scarlet Sound. You can follow her writing journey on her very own blog titled, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Racquel Writes.â&#x20AC;? She is looking forward to the growth of Black Fox Literary Magazine.

Pam Harris lives in Chesapeake, VA and works as a middle school counselor. When she isn't wiping tears and helping kids study for tests, she's writing contemporary YA fiction. Some of her favorite authors are Ellen Hopkins, Courtney Summers, Jodi Picoult, and Stephen King. You can also find her at the movie theaters every weekend or pretending to enjoy exercising. She will receive her MFA in creative writing in 2011, and plans to use this degree to help edit this magazine as well as possibly teach others the joys of make believe.

Marquita "Quita" Hockaday also lives in Chesapeake, Virginia. She is a high school history teacher 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). Some of her favorite authors are Laurie Halse Anderson, Blake Nelson, Cormac McCarthy and Joyce Carol Oates. She loves watching movies (one day she WILL watch every scary movie ever created) and TV. Like, seriously her cousin Pam and her schedule everything around their TV shows. Marquita is expected to graduate with an MFA in Creative Writing in 2011, and can't wait to use that knowledge to teach writing and co-edit this magazine.

Contents Fiction NOT: IN A CROWDED PLACE, BY ACCIDENT, OR SOMETHING THAT WILL BE EXCRUCIATINGLY BRIEF AND PAINFUL, LIKE FIRE, OR A MOUTHFUL OF GLASS. By Jennifer Yu…………………………….....7 Road Trip by Tess Dewhurst……………………….....8 The Weight of It by William Garland………………....21 Monk’s Pepper by Caryl Sills…………………………33 No Salt, No Wound by Misti Rainwater-Lites………...62 Yes I Would by Misti Rainwater-Lites…………….......70 Mr. Big Stuff by Adam Cogbill………………………..79 Buzz by Ash Krafton…………………………………..115

Poetry Selected Poems by Valentina Cano……………………13 Selected Poems by Patrick Gabbard…………………...24 Decoration Day by Pam Jessen………………………...31 Selected Poems by Marit Ericson………………………48 Selected Poems by Troubadour Kaul…..........................64

Selected Poems by Roberta Guthrie Kowald...…………73 Selected Poems by Michael Lee Johnson………………106

Contributor Corner An Interview with Roberta Guthrie…………………….124 An Interview with William Garland……………………138

Author Interview A Conversation with KM Walton, author of Cracked…………………………………………………145

NOT: IN A CROWDED PLACE, BY ACCIDENT, OR SOMETHING THAT WILL BE EXCRUCIATINGLY BRIEF AND PAINFUL, LIKE FIRE, OR A MOUTHFUL OF GLASS. By Jennifer Yu

She didn’t want to die in a crowded subway, by gunshot, or in a dark alley, with a man’s rough fingers grasping at her skin. She didn’t want to die in a place far from home where her story would be a buried thing. She didn’t want it to be a surprise—a bolt of lightning, or a car on her way home while she is thinking of something hard— when she feels it, it will not be a revelation; she will stand motionless—waiting for the desire to run. She wanted it to be inevitable—or delicious, like stealing off into the night to lie in soft grass by a lake under the moon—slipping into death so quietly—so beautifully, that everyone—everyone would notice.

Roadtrip by Tess Dewhurst

We talk, and the sun angles in from a burning sky, hot on my thighs and stomach. The car smells like spilt orange juice despite the open windows. Warm air gusts around us and we have to talk loudly, creating a false sense of camaraderie. I ask him personal questions. He keeps his eyes narrowed, focused on the scorched black tar. His teeth, when bared, make me think of the soft skin on the underside of my arm. I have him trapped. He cannot look at me without taking his eyes off the road. I spy on him. His neck, his fingers, strong around the wheel. The muscle between his thumb and wrist distracts me for minutes at a time. The sun shining on my lap makes me sweat. I surreptitiously tug at my boxers, uncomfortable. Whenever he moves his hand, to his hair, or to the gear stick, I want him to touch me. When we stop in a puddle of blue shade under a tree, we

drink water. He wanders off into the shimmering scrub. The silence pulses heavily against my eardrums, and I feel my blood cool as the sweat lifts off me in the breeze. The car clicks quietly, cooling too. I can’t see him anymore. I squint into the brush, white thorns, red earth. The clarity makes my eyes ache. Everything is so dry, but we are parked in the shade of a lush green tree. I imagine its tap root reaching down until it finds that still old water, cold and darkly waiting. When he returns he is holding something.

It is

white—the skull of some poor animal. He holds it out for me to see, and I identify it as a baboon, a male one. He smiles, holds it up to his face. He looks into the bony caverns of the eye sockets and says ‘Alas.’ (‘Poor Yorick,’ I add.) ‘I knew him well.’ he says and laughs. ‘You’re not taking that thing in the car.’ ‘Alright,’ he says, and balances it instead in a branch of the tree. Neither of us wants to get back into the car, it is just too hot.

But out here the

intimacy is lost, and we do not talk. I realize I also need to pee. As soon as I leave the shade, the sun hits me like a mallet. I move quickly, aware he may be watching me. As I step behind an acacia the feeling of solitude is unexpectedly welcome.

I listen to the scratch of the

insects, and aim my urine at a line of ants in the dust. When I get back to the car, he is sitting sideways in the driver’s seat, smoking and fiddling with the radio. He glances up and smiles, God, those perfect teeth. ‘Shall we hit the road, man?’ ‘Sure.’ We still have at least two hours to go until we get to the next town, our halfway house. I’m looking forward to a cold beer and a view of the red mountains from the shade of a verandah. Finally, we drive into a quaint historic town shaded by massive old trees. We ask for two rooms at a cheap looking motel, and head for the only bar in town. The sun is lower in the sky, and we lounge in wicker chairs in front of a neglected swimming pool.

I drink gin and tonic,

inspired by the colonial atmosphere of the place. The ice clinks against the glass. We try to stay out of the sun, but as it sets, its rays douse us in an orange glow. I relax into the heat, feeling the sweat slide from my armpits down my sides. I feel dirty, sticky, a day’s worth of dust and wind in my hair. But I don’t fight it. I rub my eyes with the heel of my hand, and stretch. He is looking at me, and I sit up straighter. I look back. He can see the desire in my eyes, I don’t hide it. Swallows dip over the pool, and I’m suddenly ravenous. We eat at an outdoor table. The mosquitoes descend in clouds, and we swat them away. He talks with his mouth full, his elbows on the table. He smiles with only one side of his face. The light from the little glass lantern is reflected in his eyes. The sky still blushes in the west and we watch it fade. We drink wine with the meal, and I am starting to feel its effects. We walk back towards our rooms along the main street. The town is already

asleep, and lit by a fat yellow moon just now rising above the mountains. ‘Your room,’ he says, ‘or mine?’ His voice is full and heavy with words not spoken. He lights a cigarette, his face flickers then disappears.

I take the

cigarette from him and smoke it. I quit more than a year ago.

Selected Poems by Valentina Cano A Hopeful Morning

Sandbags seem to block my view. I struggle to part the tan bundles, pushing the churn of grains, but nothing shifts. With a pull, I slice into them. My hand is covered in seeds that will never bloom, in pieces of stuffing that will never fill anything again. I let out a scream, like opening a gate, horses made of anger and fear pouring out to maim with hooves of sound.

I raise a handful of spilled sand. Let it twist to the sky once, then slam it down to the tiles with a crunch.

Charades -for Odin

With a fast swipe of her hand, she pushes everything off the counter. The messy bottle of ketchup that has never done anything but harm, a container of stained shirts; the napkins with their weak, onion-thin consolations; the plates that serve, like frozen hands, the bitterest food. She watches as it all crashes and mixes to the floor into a pattern of disaster she can identify. Skin and bone shards

swimming in blood. The moaning of shattered bodies. The floorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s silence.

Voyages

He lands like a mattress at my feet. I gaze at a face made from cloudless, translucent skies. His face reflects the deepest greens, slick grasses of thoughts. His eyes, pools of melted driftwood, hammered into place with concentric words. I stare at the land beneath me, at the expanse of his body, at the space, the lack of it, between us as we lay like floatation devices on the waves of a room we cannot escape, in an ocean with no shore.

Compulsions

I tried to ignore the presence paddling on the edge of my knife-like consciousness. I pushed it back with ink and paper, word filled coverings that attempted to suffocate the image. A claw ripped down the middle, throwing the thought open like a wound lips puckered with blood. My mind cowered and pushed anything to hide behind. To hide from the marching, swaying, though full like a tick. A scream turned the night into day, the thought into a concrete wall.

Canned Lies

If you’d known it would happen, if you’d realized the future undoing, like unwinding a watch, like skinning an apple, would you still have said it? Would your words have trickled out through straws of laughter to bloom like frozen flowers? Probably. You’d have allowed the sweat to spring free from your boiling flesh, to plunge to cooler terrains. You’d still have made a knot of your lies and thrown them up,

overhead, to flirt with a room that was a snip of sitcom. One covered in colored sugar, secrets tucked like napkins under sofa cushions.

THE WEIGHT OF IT by William Garland Addie was sitting in their lone ladder-back chair, and staring out their window when he walked out of the woods with the shovel. She'd long since forgotten about the ball of yarn in her lap. This had been the second time in a month he'd stayed out all night. When she'd heard how his boots clomped down onto the floor, she knew where he'd been. He fell onto their bed without ever turning to recognize that she'd been up waiting on him. Addie kept gazing into the wooded hillside behind their cabin long after he'd fallen asleep. The longleaf pines rose beyond the window, blocking the intrusion of a morning sun, and beyond the pines, the mountain terrain blurred into a single wooded shadow. They'd lived up on Clinch Mountain all of their lives. Her family had been there for the better part of two centuries. His had been in the area for the last half of this one. Addie knew the hillsides in this remote part of Tennessee

better than most anyone. She looked out on the dew-stained path and allowed her memories to wonder over the dirt that his steps had disturbed. She went past the dried-up creek bottom, through the choking brambles of mountain laurel, and on to those three loose mounds of dirt and soil that rose up over the disrupted pine needles. None of them were more than four feet long. She turned to watch him sleep. She knew he'd added another mound last night. She'd heard him trying to calm the little boy down in the dark of yesterday's afternoon. He'd told the kid that he'd walk back out into the woods with him to look for his folks. That was the last she'd heard from him until the morning. He didn't even come back for dinner. Part of her figured that he'd end up doing it when he agreed to marry her, despite the stories around the ridge about what had happened with her last family. He couldn't help it. She understood that. It was difficult living tucked away like they were. Addie stood there and watched his

chest rise and fall. She didn't blame him. She just wondered if the weight of it would catch up to him before he found her mounds of dirt and soil.

Selected Poems by Patrick Gabbard A Red Pebble For The Fist 1. Your face was never in the cliffs, And these white islands were empty And whatever light it was that found The ocean we’d made was never pale enough. You would tell me to draw a map of my own, To trace the fault lines with the tip of one finger And as far as place-names are concerned you Would tell me to steal them from the bible, Although if I did it this way you’d tell me to be careful, Something like Nazareth might come a little too easy.

2. In the sun’s open hand there are cliffs, Great roaring cliffs and in my own hand There is a red pebble, the viscous result Of some great rupture and the pebble

Was a cliff somewhere although whatever cliff It was wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t a sea-facing cliff because There is nothing gradual about it, nothing About it that says it was prodded and broken And made alone one grain at a time, no This red pebble in my fist is a little too soft For that and it is covered with tiny holes Like pinpricks, besides.

3. A dream is a type of cliff, A dim soft cliff covered with branches, The branches taste like water and the light Within them is purple and within the smoke Of the light weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve made a home and within The home there is a river for the sky and A year for your hip and a clay jar for your hands, And in the jar there are the leaves that we took In sodden handfuls from the ground.

I Have Been Broken Into Thirds, I Know You Are Behind Me

In another life you tell me to stand in front of the bedroom door. You want to see the light from the hallway breaking me into sections.

Each darkness breaking me into a momentâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;

One across my forearm, another Across my chest, A third across the upper half of my legs.

Dusk moves alone through the trees.

You are a slow arousal of flames in the next room, You are brushing your hair and there is nothing gentle about it, Mangling the wet curls with a silver brush.

I want to watch you from the snow, I want your footprints in a wet line across the bathroom floor.

I am a black shovel and you Are a spark from the stones,

You stand behind me at the river's edge, Arms folded beneath your breasts Asking me if this is all we have.

Transmission

When you asked me about the women I had known, I said you would need to understand violence. The effort involved in carrying the trauma of someone else, Losing yourself in the anger of another So it emerges long after the other person has gone, Finds you in the driver's seat, Or with your hands in the kitchen sink, A thin flame curling into the sky Breaking like a river against the sun. And your life a matter of deficits, barriers, Open windows seen from the trees. Parts of ourselves sit in empty rooms, The cobalt light of the afternoon climbing the walls. Never bother to go after them.

Istanbul, 2009

I haven’t heard my own voice in two days And when the prayer call goes out it is raining, Like always, the smaller mosques are a few minutes late And some are tone-deaf loudspeakers, Wet with static as the prayer devours itself.

On the TV in front of me there is a child’s bedroom, The bed is a girl’s bed with posters on the wall behind it.

The girl on the bed is smiling into the camera, She is propped up on her elbows so her Heavy breasts brush the comforter, Her pigtails are part of the illusion for sale.

At the bottom of the screen in yellow text There is the name Lolita and a phone number With a Macedonian dialing code.

Again my mind ticks off all the borders:

Iraq in flames, Syria a corpse, Georgia and Armenia Digging through the trash And here in front of me the Balkans Offering up their women by the handful.

In my mind I say the words again, Say these five words again As the girl on the TV Takes off her nightgown, That tomorrow I am going home.

Decoration Day by Pamela J. Jessen Dad drives, silent, while Mama and Grandma argue about who is buried where. I make myself small in the backseat, careful not to topple the jars of irises and peonies and wild violets, fresh cut this morning from Grandma's yard. We park along a narrow path. Graveyard flowers sigh in the breeze, colors bright with false gaiety among the old headstones. My parents carry their fragrant offerings to the resting places of aunts, uncles, a nephew lost in the war, grandpas unknown by me. Mama's voice carries on a muggy breezeâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; Now where is the baby? They always ask thatâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; where is the baby's grave? Each year for as long as I can remember (maybe five out of the ten years I've lived) they've searched out the baby's grave, placed a small bouquet, and stood like statues for a few moments gazing on a grassy place where no stone marks his passing. This year I listen as they murmur to each other, finally grasp this baby was my brother,

come into the world too soon and gone back to God after only a few sad hours. Punishment for your sin, says Grandma. Mama's eyes shine, mouth tightening. Dad brushes her hand with his and they move on to the next plot. I shiver in the heat of this late May day, recognition dawning that not only the old lie moldering beneath this green cemetery lawn. I bend down and pluck a bright yellow dandelion from the blades of grass, set it amidst the wild violets, irises and peonies on my unnamed brother's grave.

Monk’s Pepper By Caryl Sills Luke Samson flexed his left bicep in front of the hall mirror, then, with a groan, let his arm fall to his side. He’d been exercising with weights and binging on pasta for weeks now, but the boy who frowned at him from the mirror looked as scrawny as ever. It was already August and his straw-colored hair was as dull as it had been in February, the sun had left him freckled and red in place of the bronze tan he coveted, and his feet seemed to have grown more than his height. At twelve, some of Luke’s friends were enjoying a growth spurt that made him dread his return to middle school in the fall. He would be, for sure, the shortest, skinniest boy in the eighth grade. Luke turned away from the mirror in despair and headed back to his bedroom even though it was almost 10:00 AM. “Some Samson I turned

out to be,” he mumbled to himself and thought his life couldn’t get any more depressing. He was wrong. “Lu-u-uke,” his mother’s voice rang out from the bottom of the stairs. “I need your help. Company’s coming, remember? You promised to entertain Emma while I prepare.” The Samsons, George and Karen, with Luke and his five-year-old sister, Emma, had for the past several Julys rented a large, white-clapboard cottage with a wrap-around porch on Mirror Lake. George Samson arrived from the city on Friday and left early Monday morning for the threehour drive back. Luke would have preferred to spend the entire summer hanging with his mates at home, but a steady stream of guests, relatives as well as his parents’ friends and their families, supplied enough cousins and boys near his own age to keep him entertained—swimming, boating, playing badminton and tennis, or just lazing around with few adult interruptions.

Now, in response to his mother’s reminder, Luke called back, “Down in a sec.” Luke’s bedroom was tucked away in the attic. The cottage was air conditioned, but even with a ceiling fan, his room was usually very warm. Nevertheless, it was a tradeoff. Luke preferred privacy over comfort. However, it was always a mistake to annoy his mother by keeping her waiting, so Luke grabbed the first pair of shorts he found on the floor just inside his bedroom door and lifted a T-shirt from his desk chair. After sniffing both, he decided they would do, and, fully-dressed, jumped down two flights of stairs three at a time. “Emma’s on the porch with her butterfly net. Thanks for watching her,” his mother said as she ruffled his hair affectionately. Luke had concocted a net from cheese cloth and a bent wire hanger so Emma could indulge in her favorite

pastime, mimicking their fatherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s passion for butterflies. Along one wall in his den at home, George Samson displayed his collection of rare specimens heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d caught all over the world, their brilliant colors preserved within velvet-lined cases. Emma ran through the fields at the end of the cottage community farthest from the lake where the grass and weeds had grown as high as her waist. Luke had taken along a can of bug spray which he applied liberally to them both. Emma tired after half-an-hour of unsuccessful hunting. Her blonde curls had flattened against her sweaty brow and her pigeon-toed canter slowed to a shuffle. Luke sat her under a shade tree and told her a long, involved story about a little girl her age who saved her village in Timbuktu from a green monster with pink ears and a red nose. He made it up as he went along but was careful that at the end, the little girl was carried through the town with a gold tiara on her head as the newly crowned queen.

After a walk along the lake, he turned Emma back toward the cottage for lunch. It was Friday, and in the near distance, Luke spotted his father’s car parked by the gate in front of an unfamiliar red convertible. “C’mon up here,” his father called from the porch, “and meet the Wolfords.” Introductions were made all around. “Young Alex is at sleep-away camp, but this is Janet who we just found out goes to the same school you do, Luke.” Luke froze. Janet Wolford. The Janet Wolford, the hottest girl at Atkinson Middle School. Head cheerleader, choir soloist, shoo-in for Fall Festival Queen in October. Janet Wolford, who obviously hadn’t even known he was alive because she said very formally, “So nice to meet you.” At this point, Luke’s mother came out to the porch to welcome her guests who, except for Janet, she had met

many times before at various functions and parties. Al Wolford was a client of her husband’s advertising agency whose retail chain of hardware stores was flourishing. “I’ll have lunch ready in about twenty minutes while you all unpack and get settled,” Karen Wolford said. “George and Luke will help you with your suitcases. Emma, go wash up and kindly comb the burrs out of your hair, sweetheart.” Luke’s father handed him Janet’s suitcase, and without a word, Luke led her upstairs to Emma’s room. Janet would be sharing with Emma. “I hope you’ll be comfortable,” he mumbled, then backed out of the room and dashed up to his bedroom. Luke flung himself on the bed in a fit of anxiety. Janet might be polite in front of the adults, he told himself, but her real opinion of me will probably be something between boredom and disgust. I’ll say the wrong things or

trip over my own big feet. Worse, what if I’m tongue-tied and can’t think of anything at all to say? Luke groaned. He was certain that when school started in the fall, instead of waving hello, Janet would point at him and start laughing with her girlfriends. They’d already know she’d had to spend a weekend with the school’s biggest jerk. The girls would tell her Luke was always picked last for intramural sports teams, and although he was an honor student, he’d vomited up his breakfast in the seventh grade biology lab when he had to cut open a fetal pig. Luke despaired that he would be able to get through the

weekend

without

something

awful

happening;

something that he’d be ashamed of for the rest of his life. Maybe he could fake a sudden illness, something that would keep him bedridden for about 48 hours. A stomach flu, possibly, or unexplained but fierce headaches that only ebbed slightly then roared back worse than ever. As he

stretched his mind to think of something convincing, his mother sang out, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Lunch is ready. Come and get it.â&#x20AC;? Luke sat quietly and uncomfortably during lunch, speaking only when spoken to. He slouched in his chair to make himself as small as possible, and even when he wanted more cole slaw, he decided not to unnecessarily call attention to himself. It worked for a short time as the conversation skipped over him. His father sat at the head of the table inviting the Wolfords to help him plan the weekend so there would be something for everyone to look forward to. George Samson cut an impressive figure even with a smudge of chicken salad marring his strong chin. His hair was cut very short so that the sprinklings of white seemed more like highlights than a sign of aging. He was six feet tall and had deep blue eyes widely set against an enviable summer tan. Karen Samson promised her son time and time

again that he would grow to be as tall and handsome as his father. Not to worry. Luke wasn’t convinced. What if he took after his mother’s side of the family? She didn’t have any brothers, but her father was barely five foot eight and already had a large round bald spot on top of his head. Never mind that he was one of Luke’s favorite people. In Luke’s world, good looks mattered. Janet Wolford had long, straight blonde hair and an up-tilted nose. One of the older, more poetically-minded boys he knew described her thus: “When she smiles in the lower forty-eight, ice cream melts in Alaska. Hot is an understatement. She’s bakin’!” The Samsons and the Wolfords spent the afternoon at the lake. Luke was grateful his father and Mr. Wolford invited him to sail with them. “We’ll leave the others to their girl talk,” his father said with a wink and a grin.

That evening they had BBQ at the food pavilion at the Hill Family Amusement Park. Over dessert, Luke was still in his self-imposed shell when his mother suggested he show Janet around. “What a nice idea,” Mrs. Wolford said, nodding to her daughter to suggest Janet agree. “Sure,” Janet said unenthusiastically, but she stood up and asked Luke, “Where do you want to go?” Luke pointed to the roller coaster, but Janet said that might not be the best idea immediately after eating so much. “Well, we could play skee ball,” Luke said. “It’s kinda retro but lots of the high school crowd around here tell me it’s fun.” Luke wasn’t bothered much by small fibs, especially if he crossed his fingers while he told them. To his amazement, Janet actually did have fun. They got nine wood balls for two dollars and Janet scored three 40’s, the highest. Luke’s balls wound up mainly in the

10 circle, the closest, widest, and easiest to score in. But Janet said, “That was tight. Can we go again?” Luke dutifully slipped another two singles into the pay slot and happily performed somewhat better on the second game. Their next stop was the Fun House. The mirror chamber made them seem fat, then thin, then bell shaped. Janet giggled at their images. As they passed through a room-sized spider’s web, she clasped Luke’s hand and held on until at last they exited into the soft summer night. Luke was sure everyone would be able to hear his heart pounding. As they walked along, he initiated conversation that Janet seemed to eagerly pick up on. At one point, she bent and snapped off a stalk of pale blue flowers. She sniffed it gingerly and said, “Something so pretty should smell good.

But this smells musty.” She lifted the flower towards Luke and asked, “What do you think?” “It smells sorta like a handkerchief someone poured too much perfume on and then left out in the rain,” he said. Janet laughed, a musical note that Luke felt along the entire length of his spine. Then she said, “Some of the prettiest roses don’t smell at all. Dandelions don’t smell either, but they’re weeds. Is this a weed?” “Well, if you really want to know,” Luke said, “it’s not exactly a weed. Some can get as tall as twenty-five feet. In the fall, they produce little red berries. They’re not poisonous or anything, but they don’t taste very good either.” “What’s it called?” she asked. “It has different names, depending on where it grows and who’s doing the naming. I call it monk’s pepper, but it’s also known as chaste tree.”

“What funny names for something so delicate and pretty,” Janet said. “But I suspect you know how it got them.” She said this with a single arched eyebrow as a smile slipped across her lips. “As a matter of fact, my lady,” Luke said, “I do. You have to go back to Rome in the old days when young girls carried twigs of this same blossom that they called chaste tree to symbolize their innocence. When the Christians took over, the monks chewed the seeds so they’d forget about those young girls, and the plant got the name monk’s pepper.” By the time they arrived at the cottage, Luke had had an epiphany: he had only to be himself in order to feel as comfortable and talkative with the girl of his dreams as he did with the boys he’d been friends with since kindergarten.

At the foot of the stairs, Janet said, “Goodnight, Luke. Thanks.” He said, “See ya.” The rest of the weekend passed in a blur of euphoria for Luke. Janet paid more attention to Emma than he wished, but she was friendly to him and chatty during meals as if they’d known each other for years. During a late swim on Saturday afternoon, she swam out to the raft where he was lazing in the sun and challenged him to a cannonball contest—the one who leapt the farthest from the raft and made the biggest splash would win. It ended in a mutually agreed upon tie, and they lay in the sun for a while talking about upcoming movies and video game releases until their mothers called them to shore. August was hot and humid, as usual. For two weeks, Luke went to a weekday tennis camp at a park near his home and hung out at the community pool with his friends. Of course, he told them about his weekend with Janet Wolford and they were suitably impressed. “You

gonna call her before school starts?” Davey asked. Zach said, “Tell me again how she wiggled her hips when she threw the skee ball.” Aidan laughed. “I’d have tried to kiss her when no one was looking,” he said, but no one believed him. Luke and Janet passed each other in the hall the second day of school in September. He said, “Hi,” but she looked right through him. Then she linked arms with a girlfriend and kept walking.

Selected Poems by Marit Ericson Incidentals

Washing machine clinks, rush of suds and

buttons. You and me and our gentle plays. Tug-

of-War. Bendable Spoons. CowTimer Kitch.

Squares A-Dancinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;. Do we exclude views of

alleys, the stench of dead rants, detergent

in blue-tongued pools? Is it boring being

this content? you wonder, looking sideways

to northern lights. I am useless at deciding,

I say, with a bit of put-on drama. You laugh.

I laugh at your somehow Dutchsounding

(elegant? churlish?) laughter. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s funny.

We are so special it must be disgusting.

It could seem kind of fake. In one scene,

I fall into your arms like both a rag

and a doll, in

pieces. Strange. You appear to fit me together.

Venus Got My Back I could fawn all I wanted over Redon’s opalescent shell, over Aphrodite’s vulvic conveyance to a kind of shore, a shore with a few minor conches & not much room for pick-up games, much less jokes. I mean, the view’s incandescent & all, & she’s got some

figure, but she’s like a glass-candy souvenir from the Eden, her face a pretty eternal smudge. She’s probably stood in that conch

all century, waiting around for some crêpes suzettes or, you know, clothes. How can you love someone who isn’t real? A kind of gal

at either end of a cartoon-art room spectrum, either gratingly cute or a boring, beautiful fantasy—a being so pure? It’s funny. Venus is

a brand of razor these days, & a stunning tennis player with biceps & curves. & yet: Redon’s is still around, a pinupcum-wink on the wall of

my girlfriendâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s den. Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re so cynical sometimes. Really, I just want to make her laugh. Oh dummy, she says. I like your shape, too, on earth.

Views of Dresden

1. Ghost children in suspenders walk with rubble in-pocket. Mannequin shins limn a quarry. Shriveled figs and sawdust sleep.

2. High-rises catch pneumonia, cough out clouds. Sirens sound like brightly colored condoms. Owlless barns. Owlless eaves.

3. A tour map gives way to spaceson-the-right, an overgrown lawn that tapers into darkness. An abandoned cabinlight flickers

like ticker tape in endless fog.

4. A winter the color of closed eyes has happened. Weltschmerz is exported, out. Chains, links, break ins. Meaning doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t argue.

5. By the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s dusk window: no curtain, no blinds, and the forgetting gleam of a lamp. A basic domino on the ground, another.

6. Magma rolls beneath the waves and the swirl of galaxies. One lost mitten, soiled by the road, stays.

A sadness hangs over the world.

Mt. Kisco

Youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re in this caldera Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m making up as I walk through the predictable woods of New York. You exist only briefly, a quark in a winded mind, not in the moss that cushions my cold feet. Old states fringe me like the trip to South America, when I mock-sainted an emu with a map and felt your shoulders were two Perus. Now I let off steam kicking up chestnuts and thank God one can be young even over thirty, I think, still a bit lost. So much green in this dampened juncture, sings my car radio to human sleep. Missing clearly is the hold, a crater in the empty sky.

Flower Lines

How to make a poem that burns

at the edge? One that stirs up

longing for the presentâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; a place

or person that may, all told, not

exist? Maybe stop talking about

it. Maybe move a mountain or so,

or risk everything in a world-old

game of hearts. Take someone

's hand like it's your own, then

lead the both of you to a brinkâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;

volcanic, emotional, pre-to-post

Edenic â&#x20AC;&#x201D; veering past the source

of all error. It really could be a

geyser in the middle of your mind.

But, in all truth, it's usually

just

gone. Go ahead: take a mental

picture of the two of you, alone

by a south winter shore. Cook up

something nice; spaghetti bolognese

works in a pinch. Jesus, learn how

to relax. If you canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t, you can always

jump into the sun together, desirous

as liquid chameleons. And look:

if you haven't died yet, you have

become, however briefly, the word away

No Salt, No Wound By Misti Rainwater-Lites We were alone in his room and he wasn't paying attention to me he was showing off for his brother and sister-in-law making glue sculptures on the coffee table rattling on about tiger balloons and fine ass bitches I was not one of those I could sense it on a harrowing not so narrow level in fact the level was fatter than my all American burger ass so I looked off into the distance all moody and reflective a regular goddamn star of the soaps and said, â&#x20AC;&#x153;This is it. It's over for us, isn't it?" and he bounced around then shot me a laser beam stare and replied, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Yes. You aren't enough woman for me." and that flummoxed the fuck out of me as most men complained I was altogether too much, too much girl too much baby too much woman too much whore too much potty mouth too much ghost of broken nails past too bloody much for

Christmas brunch and then in the backyard a goddess appeared with her curves on display in an old school hubba hubba honey pot dress long flowing ginger hair flawless fuck doll face hazel eyes personality bigger than Dallas at night all lit up and promising on horizon so she treated my ex to her charms then looked at me with a careful face and said, “I’m so sorry! This is tacky of me. He just dumped you." and I said, “No no no. No salt, no wound, I assure you. He said I'm not enough for him. You seem more than enough. Carry on, Tessa. Your bright destiny awaits." He corrected me as men often do, fucking men and their red fucking correction pens "I didn't say you weren't woman enough for me. I said I couldn't get a sense of you. And you were missing that sliver so crucial that marked you most woman." I still don't miss my uterus.

Selected Poems by Troubadour Kaul Unlearning Sink your teeth in layered skin. Make my flaccid juices flow. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m red as an apple, bite me slow and you will know if only you tried that Love is a fruit of labour.

Breathe me in fume by fume. Let me burn your skin like ice. Smell my urn of ash and smoke and you will know if only you tried that Love is a soot to savour.

Throw your lips in the grinder. Let my tongue explore, some more. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m the wide-eyed wandering child

and I promise you will never know that Life is in unlearning Loveâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s wonder.

Disgruntlement

My grouse with Truth is â&#x20AC;&#x201C;

There are these times when logic commands a mutiny of the senses by reminding me of wrong and right.

Imagination never aches until reality leans to bite.

My grouse with Perception is â&#x20AC;&#x201C;

There are these times when we kissed and eternity was

always unable to outrace or outlive the only moments in which I lived life.

Whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s wrong with being in the gutter if you can still look at the stars?

Purge

Do we call this Love because I blanked out when your scent trespassed into my sensesâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;unyielding until we validated the existence of a full moon in a night reserved for lovers floating with the vesper gnawing like termites at each otherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s body and soul Sometimes to get lost Sometimes for belonging

Or do we call this love because we hunger for words to be the cast

to set bones fractured by leaps and falls of perception, the strangest of monsters, in a hope that we can tame it with our little leash of lies concealed in the garland of promises around uncertainties that choke (mostly to black out) our doubts of tomorrow?

Yes I Would By Misti Rainwater-Lites I would drink all your beer unless it was a beer I didn't like. I would ignore your cats and dogs and fish and leprechauns. I would talk to your plants. I would play your guitar. I would sing "Mack The Knife" and "Return To Sender" until you threw things at me. I would rip pictures out of your magazines for collages. I would sniff your Kiwi shoe polish and Pine-Sol and take all your Benadryl. I would wash my hands after flushing your toilet. I would bake you a special cake but not lasagna. I would play with your toys and take pictures of your toys and ask you if I could take your toys home. I would Windex your windows and bleach your sinks and tub. I would blast "Music From the Edge of Heaven" and "Purple Rain" and "Odelay" and "Fever to Tell" and "Live Through This" and "The Beauty Process" and "Abbey Road" and "Some Girls" from your stereo. I would read you my books and poems until you

threw things at me. I would ask for directions to the nearest donut shop. I would ask for directions to the nearest dollar store. I would get drunk and ask you to drive me to WalMart. I would ask you to buy me the newest US Weekly and the purple package of maxi pads because those are the biggest ones. I would make you take me to Mexico and buy me a taco and a margarita and a Mexican bandito marionette and a black velvet Elvis painting. I would kick your ass at Skee-Ball and Scrabble. I would get a gun and shoot watermelons in your backyard. I would "borrow" your first edition of The Death Notebooks. I would "borrow" your painting of Big Foot pissing on the Alamo. I would run into the room screaming, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Your potty just told me to shit or get off the pot in Ozzy Osbourne's voice!" I would knock on your head and say, "McFly! Anybody home?" I would ask you to teach me how to play chess. I would ask you to teach me how to play the piano. I would tap dance on your last nerve and you would be glad as hell

to see me go.

Selected Poems by Roberta Guthrie Kowald Mermaid

I grew legs for love of you, cut out my tongue, hacked off my scales.

My watery sisters wept salt tears; I left them behind to dive and heave with the fishes; I gladly scrambled onto land.

You stroked my long hair, laid with me, I dreamed of my mortality while you

dreamed the soft white limbs of human girls;

though it was I who rescued you that day from drowning and again.

Her human voice poured in your ear, and you believed. Her poison did good work.

I crawl to the water's edge, creep back to my liquid womb. My legs are weapons now.

My dumb mouth opens I suck in air. I hit the surface, my hot skin turns the world to steam.

You sleep soft in her naked arms and dream of air; You hear strange music, or a scream. You turn, nuzzle her breast in the dark, sleep on.

Tsunami

The news explains it's a wall not a wave; Yet when the evacuation comes, it's unexpected, that something so solid should expose us. Holding breaths, we brace for impact. We inhale uncertain air, wondering what will betray us next.

Ophelia

Perhaps it was a slipping down, a false step plunged her in and under;

Perhaps it was her long long hair the curls he ran his fingers through, caught; Her mouth open in a cry at the grasping twigs that caused that rushing in of water.

Perhaps it was her heavy

heart carried her out to sea; Or Mermaids dragged her willingly smiling down to the depths to drown; the memory of his hands too heavy; too heavy her long long hair

Mr. Big Stuff By Adam Cogbill

Stanhope is belly-down in the mud, in the rain. His chin is in a puddle that laps at his lower lips. The dog is ten feet from him, sitting at the edge of a patch of ivy that extends back into the Roberts Brook Conservation Area. Its ears are perked and aimed forward. Its eyes are so wide that Stanhope can see for the first time that the blue one is only two-thirds blue; the top third is the same pudding color as the other eye. Its tail is tucked beneath its haunches. Its nostrils flare and contract as steadily as the rotation of a ceiling fanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s blades. It has small tan patches at the base of its muzzle that look like eyebrows that have slid down the insides of its face. It pants gently. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s looking off to the left where cars going by on Route 9 kick up sprays of water from the accumulating pool at the top of Alpine Lane. If Stanhope so much as curls a finger, the dog whips its head toward him like a surface to air missile launcher acquiring a

target. Neither of them has moved significantly in more than twenty minutes. Every so often, Stanhope is struck in the eyelashes by a rain drop, and he has been trying not to wince for fear of spooking the dog. He has read that Australian shepherds playing keep away can sometimes be convinced to approach when their owners lie down and feign injury. It doesn’t seem to be working with his daughter’s new dog, possibly because the dog is half husky, or possibly because the dog may not be half Australian Shepherd—the shelter volunteer had said, “Border Collie or Aussie Shepherd or something, we’re not really sure”—or possibly because the dog isn’t all that crazy about Stanhope. It has only spent eight hours inside his house. His daughter, Eva, came home from school and took too long closing the kitchen door, and it squirted past her and bounded down the stepping-stone walkway and out into the middle of Alpine Lane. It froze for a moment in the packed dirt and gravel road with its nose in the air, took

two steps toward Route 9, then turned and headed toward the trailhead at the end of the lane that led into the Roberts Brook Conversation Area. Stanhope pursued in his socks. It’d been twenty-six years since he’d run at a full sprint. It wasn’t raining, but it had rained the day before, and the mud sucked at his heels. He knew immediately that he wasn’t going to catch the dog—which trotted ten to fifteen feet in front of him at all times, looking back occasionally, accelerating to a lope when necessary—but he also knew Eva was behind him, and he pictured her having stuffed the end of her ponytail into her mouth the way she did when she was watching a movie that scared her. Ahead of him, the dog turned and disappeared into the shrubbery near the trailhead. It stayed missing until the next morning, when it appeared in the ivy on the Conservation Area-side of the road across from Stanhope’s house. It has been there or near there since. When nobody is actively trying to catch it,

it howls. When it is being coaxed, commanded, or bribed, it sits quietly and stares, moving only to keep anyone who approaches ten feet away. Stanhope has chased it all the way back to the trailhead three times, and three times it has re-emerged from the woods and returned to its spot outside the house. It has ignored kind, high-pitched requests to â&#x20AC;&#x153;comeâ&#x20AC;? from Stanhope, from his eight-year-old daughter, his neighbor, several dog-walkers on their way down Alpine toward the trailhead, and the Lancaster Township Animal Control Officer. It has been offered hotdogs, steak, chicken, smoked salmon, cheese, dog biscuits and a variety of meat and cheese flavored dog treats, none of which it will touch unless the food is thrown directly to it or can be reached without coming within ten feet of a person. It has twice taken the bait without springing the trapdoor of the coyote-sized

Have-A-Heart

trap

that

Stanhope

has

borrowed from a local animal shelter. He has tried and failed to capture the dog with a foot noose with a thirty-foot

lead, a baited dog crate with a rope tied to the door so that he could hide behind his car and yank it shut when the dog got inside, a fishing net, and a rabbit trap he’d learned how to make as a child involving a large cardboard box propped up by a forked stick. The dog licks the tip of its nose. Its tongue, startlingly long, unfurls from its mouth like a sleeping bag being unrolled. Stanhope moves his right arm half an inch forward, and the dog crouches. It’s so emaciated that the contraction and expansion of its muscles beneath its skin are visible. Stanhope’s sweater, a gift from his late wife, is soaked through. At the top of the dog’s skull are several flares of fur more than four times as long as the rest of its coat. They curl over like dehydrated plants. The insides of its ears are gray. After a moment of peering suspiciously at Stanhope, it sits back down. Stanhope drags his right arm back toward his body. He works his fingers into his pocket and withdraws a spinach-colored dog biscuit. The biscuit is

bone-shaped and bears the manufacturer’s name in indented letters across its surface. The dog is able to operate its ears, which are capable of rotating in one hundred eighty degree arcs, independently, and even while it stares at Stanhope, it assigns one to investigate the blast of a car horn on Route 9. Stanhope wishes he had at some point taken a meditation or yoga class; it’s killing him to move so patiently. He holds the biscuit—which his daughter Eva insists on calling a “cookie”—vertically between his thumb and forefinger, as though presenting an engagement ring. He pushes it carefully out past his head until his arm is fully extended. “Come on, pup,” Stanhope murmurs. He gives the biscuit a shake. The dog flinches and steps back. Stanhope, afraid to say, “No!” or to hold his hand out in reassurance, or to reach out and grab at the dog—but also afraid that each time he causes the dog to retreat it trusts him a little less—tosses the biscuit at the spot the dog has just vacated.

Its eyes flit between Stanhope and the biscuit, and then, watching Stanhope the entire time, it edges forward and claims the treat with its front teeth. Eva wants to name the dog “Mr. Big Stuff” after the Jean Knight song she knows from 93.9 FM, Golden Oldies. She has several times called in during her favorite afterdinner radio show—hosted by a DJ named Big Rob, who she says sounds like what a refrigerator would sound like if refrigerators could speak—to request it. She is unconcerned with what the singers have to say about Mr. Big Stuff. To Stanhope, the song’s lyrics are the stuff of nightmares. It is not that he’s afraid his daughter will meet the kind of man who “[breaks] girls hearts one after another.” Stanhope believes it is a given that she will experience heartbreak, sometimes by someone bearing no responsibility for her pain. Though he admits to being an overprotective father, a side effect of his wife’s death is that he has had to confront and acknowledge his own limitations as a protector. What

he is afraid of is that Eva is drawn to the song because it is about mistrust and cynicism. The attitudes of the backup singers when they sneer, “Who do you think you are?” and those swaggering horns. Stanhope wants his daughter to cry over boys in high school. He wants her to have vicious spats over perceived betrayals of trust with her girlfriends. He calls both of Eva’s sets of grandparents at least once a week so that he can, after a quarter of an hour of small talk, hand her the phone and tell her that one of her grandparents wants to speak with her. Eva is convinced the dog recognizes “Mr. Big Stuff” as its name and has pointed out to her father that every time she says it—which she does in the same lilting melody parents use to tell their children, “I have a surprise for you!”—that the dog looks directly at her. Stanhope has chosen not to tell her that the dog looks directly at anyone who addresses it in any way, or, for that matter, anyone nearby who speaks aloud at all. Eva approaches it with her

legs bent and knees turned outward—so that each time she took a step she had to swing half her body forward—and with her arms jutting out, her wrists bent at ninety degree angles, fingers poised to grasp. It is the same posture Stanhope’s mother strikes when she is preparing to hug Eva. The dog’s interpretation had been much less positive. It barks at her, and, when her advances continue, it turns and runs for the woods. The dog only chews the biscuit twice before swallowing and looking expectantly back at Stanhope. “Pretty good, huh?” he suggests. “Want another?” He reaches into his pocket for another biscuit. His jeans are soaked, and the biscuits are spongy. The one he withdraws is the color of sunburned skin, which, according to the package, means meat-flavored. “Steak,” he tells the dog. “This is just like steak. Or burger.” The dog sports a small mane of black and tan fur beneath its ears and along its neck. The Lancaster

Township ACO suggested that it looked like a dog mullet. In the rain, the mane is beginning to clump together so that it resembles the fringe on a Jewish prayer shawl. The dog’s nose is black except for a small pinkish patch on the top that Stanhope has only noticed because he has been staring at the dog’s face for almost half an hour. “You’re going to have to come closer,” he says. The dog stretches its head forward, and for a moment Stanhope thinks it can understand him, but then it slides its front legs to the ground and put its head between its paws. Its eyes never leave him. Stanhope breaks the biscuit in half and tosses a piece inches from the dog’s nose. The dog pushes its nose into the biscuit’s airspace. Then it pulls itself forward with its front paws, not unlike a soldier belly-crawling, until it can reach the tip of the treat. It is almost impossible to distinguish between its chewing and swallowing stages. Stanhope throws the next biscuit nearly a foot in front of

the dog. It gets to its feet, takes a tentative step forward, and then freezes. Stanhope freezes too. He wonders if his hope is somehow palpable—if it is accompanied by the release of a chemical that the dog might smell—and if, if it is, the dog finds it threatening. He tries to concentrate on his breathing. The dog’s brow furrows, and it shuts its mouth so that only a slip of its tongue is visible beneath its nose. It has a tremor in its rear right leg that Stanhope gets the feeling is neurological rather than muscular. For several long seconds, neither moves. Then the dog steps back, sits, and resumes staring at Stanhope. Sometimes, when they were reading in bed, Jeanine would, without warning or asking permission, remove her husband’s reading glasses, fog the lenses with her breath, wipe them clean with the corner of her shirt, and replace them evenly on the bridge of Stanhope’s nose. She couldn’t fall asleep if either the sheet or the blanket came un-tucked, and more than once she woke Stanhope and asked him to

get up so that she could pull the corner of the fitted sheet back down over the mattress. She had had similar neuroses about dust—especially on bookshelves, objects to which she attributed the importance of the Arc of the Covenant—and hair in the shower. Other pet peeves included not tamping all the way down all four sides of the tops of Tupperware containers, dishes that remained in the sink for more than six hours, seeing the empty cardboard cylinder of a finished roll of toilet paper or paper towels still on its holder, crooked rugs and wall decorations, glasses sitting coaster-less on the coffee table, wrinkled shirts, chapped lips, and the small patches of hair Stanhope sometimes missed when he shaved. She was never rude about the enforcement of these obsessions; she had accepted that certain aesthetic and domestic concerns—some of which, she had once informed Stanhope, were bound to seem pretty trivial to the casual observer—were crucial to her comfort. Stanhope had never

seen her hang-ups as trivial. He, after all, could not stand when the foods on his plate touched—a quirk that had ruined many restaurant experiences—and assumed that if there was something wrong with her, it was no more than an extension of what was wrong with him. Now that she’s gone, Stanhope finds himself noticing not only the sorts of things she’d complained about, but other tiny imperfections he thinks she would’ve needed to tweak, like a turned-up corner on a tinfoil-covered dish, dust in the slats of the heating vent, or a tear in one of the cells of one of the stereo’s speaker’s covers. Occasionally, he notices enough of these in near simultaneity that he feels an overwhelming anxiety for the state of the house, of his and his daughter’s lives, and he must swallow and blink back tears so as not to alarm Eva. He is sometimes kept up at night with the thought that if Jeanine could see them—it’s not that he believes she can so much as the idea that if it were possible —she wouldn’t approve.

Eva had been a surprise. Although they’d agreed that kids would be nice someday, both were still paying off significant student loans, they had moved three times in as many years, and Stanhope’s freelance work often required him to travel. When Eva had come along anyway, Jeanine had been much more practical than Stanhope. Having a child then had seemed to him as hopeful as having one in a rowboat in the middle of the Pacific with only a few days’ food and water. Jeanine had been much more pragmatic about it than he. “You’re going to have to learn to cook something other than spaghetti,” she’d said, “because we won’t be eating out as much.” They moved to Lancaster to cut their rent in half. They shopped less frequently and more carefully; they canceled their cable television package. They went to the library instead of the bookstore, rented movies instead of going to the theater. He tried to write an extra article or two each week. By the time Jeanine was offered a position as an

Event Coordinator and Menu Designer for a major catering company, Stanhope’s fear about whether they’d make it or not had already been erased. Jeanine had been nearly five foot ten, and selfconscious about her height. She’d never worn heels. She’d had a triangular face with prominent cheekbones and cheeks that became bulbous when she was exhausted. Her nose had been thin and slightly upturned, which Stanhope found immensely attractive. She had had a long torso and low hips. Something Stanhope had never told his wife was that he was first attracted to her when he saw her doing the limbo at a party. The joints in her fingers had been slightly larger than the fingers themselves. She’d run track and played volleyball in high school, and years later her movements were still the patient, seemingly lazilyperformed gestures of an athlete. She’d had a habit of sitting with her arms crossed tightly beneath her ribcage, as if she were hugging herself, which a therapist had once

suggested meant she felt “closed off” towards others, but which Jeanine thought had more to do with her being cold all the time. Her fingers were constantly freezing. She’d often snuck up behind Stanhope when he was working or reading and wrapped them around his neck so that every muscle in his body tensed. She’d occasionally caused him to spill drinks and snap pencils in half. This was often to get him back for what were for her similarly irritating and distracting pranks, like flicking her earlobe, pulling her ponytail from its band, or, when he really felt like aggravating her, hooking his finger beneath her shoelaces at the point closest to the shoe’s toe and yanking up, so that to even it out she had to unlace the shoe all the way to the last eyelets and then re-lace it. They had never considered getting a dog. They’d always rented houses that didn’t allow pets, and by the time Jeanine’s new job allowed them to put a down payment on their own, Eva had been born, and they hadn’t wanted to

bring a dog into a house with a new baby. But despite the shedding and drooling; the rolling in malefic substances and the carrying into the house of same; the chewed up books, furniture, and anything else that could fit in a mouth and

was

within

reach;

and

the

inevitable

early

housebreaking mishaps, Stanhope thought, in retrospect, Jeanine would’ve liked having a dog around. The joy they greeted their owners with whether the owner had come from overseas or from the mailbox was the sort of thing she would’ve found endlessly reassuring. She would’ve appreciated the goofy, tongue-lolling stares. She would’ve enjoyed having a dog asleep on her feet. She might even have learned to like having the dog in bed with them, although such an allowance would also have required fifteen minutes with a lint roller each morning. He wonders, too, how she would’ve reacted to this dog, who refused to acknowledge their house as its house, and who felt no desire to be touched by someone it didn’t

know, but who was too scared to venture off alone into the woods. Possibly she could’ve identified in some way. Stanhope tosses the second half of the biscuit halfway between the dog and the piece the dog has determined to be too close to Stanhope to pursue. The rain is falling less heavily now, although there’s no sign of it letting up. The sky is the color of Eva’s gray rubber boots. She says she loves gray, a claim that makes Stanhope proud, as it’s a distinctive color to love, but it makes him anxious, too. Gray is the color of storms; of overcooked, low quality meat; of withered stuffed animals. What could she see in it? The dog has only to inch forward to retrieve the newly tossed biscuit half, and does so. It snaps rather than chews, and when it finishes, it swipes its nose with its tongue. Stanhope is shivering. His hands are raw and numb, and it hurts to shove one back into his jeans pockets for another dog treat. This time, he only breaks off one of the nubs. He flips it just past the still uneaten half biscuit, and this time

the dog does not hesitate before taking a step forward and claiming the treat. Its paws and lower legs are white— although they’ve turned brown from spending the last two days out in the rain—and Eva had observed that it was “wearing socks.” The dog completes what Stanhope now considers its eating ritual—two chomps, swallow, two swipes at the nose with the tongue, resume panting—and, instead of backing away, meets Stanhope’s gaze, and then strains forward and tugs at the uneaten half biscuit in exactly the way Stanhope has pictured a dog stealing a steak off a grill when its owners aren’t looking. It—Mr. Big Stuff, he reminds himself—seems not to care that the rain has turned the biscuit to mush. When it finishes, it focuses on Stanhope’s left hand, in which is clutched the remainder of a yellow, peanut-butter flavored dog treat. Stanhope snaps off another corner. Before he has drawn back his wrist to toss the piece, the dog, without being coaxed, takes a voluntary,

almost eager half step toward Stanhope, who is trying to hold still. Several inches of the toe of his right shoe are underwater. It’s not windy, but the rain frees loose leaves from the poplar in his yard, and they drift down around his legs. After the dog had been outside for thirty-six hours, Stanhope had called Geraldine Porter—the woman who ran the shelter he’d gotten it from—for advice. She told him she wasn’t sure what to tell him. Most of the dogs had come from the South, and she wasn’t familiar with their histories or psychological issues. But, she said she would pray for him. He’d thanked her, but before he could hang up, she began to pray. Stanhope listened with the phone squeezed between his ear and shoulder, pen making concentric circles in the corner of the notepad on which he’d intended to record any suggestions Ms. Porter could give him. He’d grown up Jewish and had stopped attending synagogue immediately after his Bar Mitzvah.

“Lord Jesus,” Geraldine said, “please protect and shelter Buddy”—this had been the name given to the dog at the shelter—“from the rain, and keep him from starving or dying of thirst. Please don’t let him wander into the road, and when he’s in the woods please protect him from anything that might want to harm him. Please protect and shelter Michael and Eva Stanhope in their time of need, and give them strength and hope—” It was then that Stanhope recognized, with no small amount of horror, that he was going to cry, and that he had as much power to stop it as a man holding up his hands to ward off a hurricane. He had only mentioned his daughter’s name to Geraldine Porter once. “—and please help Buddy to understand that they won’t harm him, that there is a place for him in their family, and please give Michael the words to explain to his daughter that this is not her fault. Or, if in your wisdom you intend

this as a trial Michael and Eva must overcome, then allow them to use their full strengths—” The paper beneath the pen was so heavy with ink that it gave way, and Stanhope continued making circles on the second page. His eyes were closed, and a string of snot hung from his left nostril to the bottom of his philtrum and pooled on the tiny shelf above his upper lip. He couldn’t tell if Geraldine could hear him, although he suspected that if she could, she wouldn’t embarrass him by commenting on it. Once, when he was six years old, he’d begun to cry uncontrollably at the dinner table. His mother had made macaroni and cheese with hotdog coins—one of the few meals he was always willing to eat—and served it in a ceramic bowl that was blue with green cloud-like shapes. She’d sunk a serving spoon in the middle of the macaroni so that only the handle with its tiny olive branch engraving was visible. And Stanhope had begun to wail. The feeling had come at him—he had felt it bearing down on him—like

a well-aimed dodge ball, and once he’d begun he couldn’t find a way to describe to his mother or father why he was crying or what they could do to get him to stop. His father began to yell, but Stanhope was unaffected. His parents kept a phone book on his chair so that he could reach the table, and he slid his rear past it onto the front of the seat so that his head leaned back against the chair’s topmost crossbar and his hands gripped the underside of the cushion. Mucous bubbles clumped like grapes in his nostrils. He remembered that it became an exercise in screaming, in seeing how loudly and for how long he could scream, and that eventually the word “scream” fell away and it became about the expulsion of air. His mother kept opening and closing her hands in front of his eyes as if performing some kind of exorcism. She’d put a heap of macaroni and cheese and hotdog coins on his plate in the middle of the tantrum, which he remembered she patted twice to catch his attention, and the resulting shape on the

plate resembled a hippo’s head. His face turned deeper and deeper shades of red until it was purple. At some point he went to a higher pitch because he could not find a way to expel more air. His father removed the spoon from the macaroni and cheese—his mother had replaced it after she’d served him either out of habit or a sense of propriety —and began to smash it against the table. Bits of cheese and pasta struck Stanhope, some sticking to the snotty parts of his face. He remembered not caring about anything but the volume of air and sound he could push into the space in front his face. He is thinking almost exclusively in Motown lyrics. I know you wanna leave me but I refuse to let you go. This old heart of mine been broke a thousand times each time you break away I think you’re gone to stay. Come back baby let’s talk it over one more time. If you walk away from me my whole world will crumble down. Call me Mr. Pitiful, baby that’s my name. You’ve really got a hold on

me. It is one of those New England days when the rain is merciless and the sky nothing more than a flat sheet from which all the color has been sucked out. It wasn’t long ago that Stanhope told his daughter there was zero chance of them getting a dog. If he were forced to give a reason for his flip-flop, it would be her class visits to the school library each Wednesday. For months she has brought home nothing but books about dogs—dog photography, dog training, young adult novels about dogs that she gets from the older kids’ section and asks her dad to read. Several times she has brought home a book with a dog on the cover and refused to read it or have it read to her upon discovering that the cover picture misrepresents, to her, the dog’s importance in the story. But there’s more to it than the library visits. All I need is to hear you say you forgive me please. I started to write this song about you then I decided that I would write it all about love. For once I can touch what my heart used to dream of. I know to you it

might sound strange but I just wish it would rain. Stanhope is dreading the day his daughter figures out that she just has to keep asking. That it has little to do with what she wants and lots to do with what she wants. All of those Motown singers, he thinks, were singing the same song. Or not singing so much as channeling an entire culture through their lungs and throat. I got sunshine on a cloudy day. But I know a change is gonna come. Wait a minute Mr. Postman. Sometimes Stanhope is afraid he’s Mr. Big Stuff. That he doesn’t know or can’t appreciate the chances he’s been given. He can see a tiny reflection of himself in the dog’s eyes. His hair is sealed to his scalp. He has never noticed how much his cheeks have sunk in the years since Jeanine’s death; there are dark crevices running from the outside of each nostril down to his neck. His cheeks are like plastic bags that have been filled with water. There’s a moment coming when Eva will think of him not just as dad but as Michael Stanhope. It’ll shake up her world. It’s coming as

inevitably as the cold brush of the dogâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s nose when it finally gets close enough to take a biscuit from his fingers.

Selected Poems by Michael Lee Johnson Around My World

Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m a thin, tall, black lady living in a small pink cottage my body barely fits inside the frame, and Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m sitting on my buttocks with my knees bent and my head scraps the inside wall at the crease where the roof starts leaning in on one side against my brain. A red flower pot balances on my kneecap and gracious black stems and black flower leafs sprout skyward through the chimney top ascending into blue

winter sky like Jack the Bean Stalk. Small words are written in black all over my pink walls, inside and out, and I canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t remember any of them or how they join together right to left.

Around my world of pink and black are blue skies with snow frames around all four edges.

My pink palm of my hand holds my chin up. I reflect on why Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m cramped up inside

of myself and the black framed window near my eyes keeps most of the blues and sunshine out.

Jesse’s Homeless Face

I see the world, all its hidden concepts in Jesse’s face— a whispered by wonder, wrinkled forehead, deep as river beds dried with age, weather-beaten, flowing right to left, just above hair bushed eyebrows gray and twisted much like life drawing lines across and empty face. Jesse has a long oblique Jewish nose with eyes that pierce even the pain of crucifixion.

Life tears though a whole new ghoulish apparition, a vision of homelessness, life east of Dearborn Bridge, near Lower Wacker Drive, downtown Chicago where affluent citizens seldom go unless drunk or in a taxi.

Jesseâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hair sprouts ungroomed like a mourning dove nest wild in Chicago wind. Puffed bags of weariness sag like sandbags one on each side of his eyes,

weeks of bread growth contour his chin. Over one shoulder drapes an unused blanket found in Lilly Maeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s garbage can, the other shoulder, naked bears itself to the elements.

Jesse panhandles, then behind a McDonalds, near a creek, he feeds live rats sugar candy on Sunday morningsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; considers it an act of religious charity.

Someday Jesse wants to go home.

Dancer of the Shoe Poem

Dancer of the shoe poem, I trip over your shoe string dress or gown and keep walking with a beat but, are you missing a step, let me take you there, or did the ghost of the night take your slippers awaymove right, slightly left, back one half step. Dancer of the shoe poem, It is my duty to take you away in a love feast. Thank you for this dance.

Moon Sleep

I stick my hand out toward the sea roll out my palm I offer a plank, a trail for you. Follow out into the water and the salty stars. When you stretch out and give your heart to the final moment to the glass night sky, draw me in sketch my face on the edge

of the moonsad and lonely over ages of moon sleep and dust.

Buzz By Ash Krafton Sal always hated the mornings after. It wasn't so much the hangovers. She was used to those. Usually, they were just a chainsaw hum of blood rushing in her head and a mouth that tasted like ashtray. Even the worst ones were never so bad that she'd swear off the Jamison forever. Hell, a hangover was cured with two aspirin and a bottle of warm beer for breakfast. How bad was that? Not bad, really. Especially when held up and compared with the hollowing feeling of remorse that resulted from going a little too far. Sometimes the "little too far" woke up next to you. A toilet flushed at the far end of the hall. It was just another thing she hated about the rented apartment. The can was right next to the door, just like a cheap hotel room. No

privacy. This morning, she was a little glad for the arrangement, however. Had the living room been closer to the outside hall, someone might have heard the uproar last night. That would have been a hell of a lot worse than her neighbors listening to her fart. Sal rummaged in the pocket of the hoodie she had thrown on, feeling for her lighter. This would be her third smoke since she sneaked out of bed. Damn buzz just wouldn't last. She'd balled herself up in the armchair, bare legs kneed up to her chest, barely enough room to light her cigarette without getting burned. "Hey, sunshine." Mickey's voice graveled into the dimness of the living room. Sal frowned behind her hand and dragged deeply on the cigarette. She hated when he called her sunshine. She didn't deserve it, especially not after doing the things Mickey loved to watch her do.

"Cold out here." He shuffled out, wearing only jeans. "Why didn't you stay in bed?" "I wanted a smoke." She dragged again, watching the ember flare and creep toward her fingers. He tugged a cigarette out of the wrinkled pack before dropping it back onto the coffee table. "You could have smoked in there." She said nothing, just focused on the puff and the glow, the wavering ribbon of blue smoke trembling up from the tip. The air was too close in here. She wanted nothing more than to open a window, let in the wind. But that would just let the light in too. Sal shuddered. She didn't want to see anything in this room right now. "Why so quiet?" Mickey leaned down toward her face, cigarette clamped between his lips. She locked her muscles and fought to keep from jerking away. He pressed

the tip of the Newport onto her cigarette, lighting it. The glow spread like a contagion. "I justâ&#x20AC;Ś" Sal flicked the ashes onto a plate holding a half-eaten sandwich. "We went too far last night." Straightening, he chuffed out an aggravated breath. "You do this every time." She turned her head, squinting against the sting of smoke in her eyes. "Last night was different." "Different, how? Hell. Seven years. We've done this for seven years, Sal. Nothing changes." He waded through the litter of empty bottles and strewn clothing, stumbling toward the couch. "You know what would be different? If you actually trusted me." "I trust you." "No, you don't." He flopped onto the cushion with a grunt. "That's why I don't even have a toothbrush here. Seven years is a long time to still be a one-night stand."

He made it sound cheap. Then again, it was. "Don't say that." Mickey thumped his feet onto the coffee table, upsetting the ashtray. "Why shouldn't I?" "It's ugly. I'm not ugly." "What? Why would youâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;" He scratched his head. "Sal, you're acting like you did something wrong." She glared through the darkness at him. She could make out the craggy lines of his forehead, his nose. "And you act like we didn't. You're just no good for me." "I'm what?" He choked on his laugh. "You're no good, Mick. You're a bad influence on me. How many times did I try to quit smoking?" He shrugged and leaned to flick his ashes at the ashtray. "Why bother? You just start up again." "Right. Because of you." "No." He had the nerve to sound amused. "Because you drink and you can't drink without lighting up."

"Don't make a joke out of it." She pulled another cigarette out of the pack. Last one. Shit. She just bought it last night on the way home from the bar. How long ago was that? Six, maybe seven hours ago? How could they have come this far in seven hours? "You push me too far, on everything." "You sure have a good time while we're doing it, though." She couldn't look at him. To deny it would be a lie. "But then I hate myself in the morning." He was quiet for several long moments. The glow of his cigarette flared, illuminating his eyes with fiery heat. "Like right now?" "Yeah." "Aw, baby." His voice was tender, catching in his throat and shredding like a cotton ball on a rough beard. "Don't say that. You don't hate yourself."

She did hate herself. She couldn't go this far and not hate herself. She wouldn't be human. Her silence said it for her. Mickey heard it, loud and clear. "So you hate me, too." She wanted to say yes. God, it would be so easy. The harsh June morning glare, leaking in through the gaps in the blackout blinds, didn't exactly show his best side. Scraggy chin, rough growth of uneven beard, marked by a dime-sized scar of pale smoothness. Hair clipped too short for a grown man who wasn't military or disciplined enough to groom it. She used to love the buzz-cut. She used to tell him it made him look tough. Now he just looked mean. It should have been easy to say yes, she did hate him. Seven years was long enough to say you knew someone. What she could overlook in a stranger or a real

one-night stand, she knew was honest and true in him. The lie slid out. "No. Course I don't." "Took you a real long time to answer," he said. "Like you said." She panked the butt of the cigarette on the paper plate. The ember sizzled out in a damp spot, the scent of seared mustard mixing with the last of the smoke like a burnt offering. "Seven years." "But last nightâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;" "Was a mistake." She hugged her knees and hid her face behind them. She couldn't hide from the truth or the mess they'd made of their lives. Clean up would be a bitch. "I can't deal." "My God, Sal." Mickey slapped his thighs and stood, nearly knocking over the table. "You act like we killed someone." "We did, Mickey!" She pushed out her chair and lunged toward the window, snapping up the blind and letting the awful light in.

In the corner, next to the television, sat the cold truth. Mickey and Sal didn't come home alone last night. Their house guest never left. The stranger's head sagged onto his chest, eyes open, and a black vinyl cable still around his neck. The flies had already found him. Their buzzing droned like an air-raid siren. Mickey sat down heavily and cleared his throat, staring at the corpse tied to the kitchen chair. "Do you thinkâ&#x20AC;Ś" He rubbed his face, his eyes bleary. "Yeah. Maybe we need a break."

Contributor Corner An Interview with Roberta Guthrie Kowald

BF: Your poems are thought provoking and beautiful. Do you get your material from everyday life and the world around you? If not, where do you get your inspiration from?

RG:

Thank

you

very

much,

you're

very

kind.

Yes, I'm a writer who pulls a great deal of my inspiration from real life and what goes on around me. Answering these questions also makes me realize that in a way, all three poems deal with themes of betrayal and loss. If itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s okay,

I'll

Even

when

comment

I'm

writing

each

about

one

separately.

fantastic

creatures,

("Mermaid") or a fictional character, ("Ophelia") I still tend

to pull images and emotions from my life. For instance, I wrote both of those during an incredibly ugly break-up, so betrayal

and

loss

was

mind.

I wrote "Tsunami" after the devastation in Japan earlier this year, which was also very real for me since I live in an area of the Pacific Northwest where tsunamis are a real threat. We have Tsunami evacuation route signs on local highways, and every so often they test the Tsunami warning

sirens.

BF: If you had to pick, who would you consider your writing/poetry hero/heroin?

RG: I have twoâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;American poet and author, Alice Walker and

Australian

writer,

Helen

Garner.

Walker's essay, "One Child of One's Own" was one of

those life-changing literary events for me. It was so incredibly honest, and politically incorrect in some ways. I have always thought it was an incredibly brave essay for a woman to write about the struggle to reconcile career, family and art. Walker often says things out loud that I think many of us are thinking deep down inside, we just don't have the guts to speak out, and I admire her ability to do that.

I also admire her willingness as a poet to get involved with political action. Walker was on the flotilla boat to Gaza recently with a very dear musician friend of mine, Richard Lopez. I thought both of these artists were incredibly brave (people had been killed on the last flotilla attempt when the IDF attacked) but here they were, these two individuals, armed only with poems and Richard's flute to stand against injustice in Palestine. I was so impressed with their courage

and bravery. My other literary heroine is Helen Garner, who isn't terribly well-known in the US, which is a real shame. Like Walker, I find myself drawn to Garner because she is always unflinchingly honest. She writes fiction and non-fiction and every piece of hers is true and honest. But the most interesting thing is that she is just as tough on herself. She is always willing to show her own ambivalence or shortcomings in any situation and I admire a writer who can do that. She's never afraid to admit to her own frailties in her writing. (It's always easier to tell a story and make yourself look good in it, but Garner never does that).

BF: Do you remember how your interest in writing began?

RG: Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m blessed to have parents who were voracious

readers and academics, so I grew up surrounded by books. My mother was a fascinating woman, an educated Southern Renaissance woman who could trace her roots back to the American Revolution. She studied poetry and fiction writing with John Crowe Ransom and Robert Penn Warren. She painted, she drew, she wrote, she restored antiques before they were fashionable and would take me to the Art gallery and walk around and tell me about every single painting. My dad began his career as a Pennsylvania steel mill worker and wound up as a Methodist minister with a Ph.D. in Sociology. Most of my life was surrounded by academics,

poets,

writers

and

artists.

I wrote my first short story when I was 6 or 7 about a balloon that gets left outside by a careless child. It travels all around the world and ends up right back where it began. When I was 12 I had a letter to the editor printed in the Washington Post about the Watergate trials (I was annoyed

that people had been complaining about the televised trials cutting

into

their

Soap

Opera

schedule).

I got my first real break in Australia when I was 17. Melbourne poet Barbara Giles had started a literary magazine called Luna and my mother published an essay in the inaugural issue. I sent a poem off to Barbara called "Dressmaker's Form," about one of those old wire dressmaker's dummies. My Mother secretly thought I didn't have a chance in hell at getting into an exclusive magazine like Luna, but she never told me that at the time. Barbara not only took the poem, but she wrote me a wonderfully warm letter telling me it was "fresh and different" and "not the usual cris de couerâ&#x20AC;? they usually got. I had to ask my Mother what that phrase meant (it means "cry of the heart"). I always think of Barbara as my literary mentor in many ways. She was always very supportive of my work over the years.

BF: What do you think is the hardest part of writing?

RG: Actually doing it! I'm not a prolific writer by any stretch of the imagination and I tend to work in great bursts of energy when I do work. I'll crank things out quickly, then nothing for weeks or months sometimes, though I am always thinking about new ideas and poems. I tend to "write" a lot in my head before I ever put pen to paper.

My biggest flaw is over-thinking things to death.

BF: Have you written or have you considered writing a novel?

RG: I've been tinkering with a novel now for the past two or three years. It's rather dark and was inspired by a notorious "Crime of the Century" murder case in New

Zealand that happened in the 1950s. I read a story years later by a journalist who "found" the two women involved, decades after their release. I saw a photograph of one of the women and she looked haunted, and startled as her past was literally coming back to haunt her. I got fascinated with the idea of two women who committed a terrible crime in their youth (now in middle age) and the idea of whether we really change or not. Is redemption possible? I've been tinkering with it for a while now and just the other day I wondered whether I am just fixing things that aren't broken. I pitched it to an agent two years ago who was interested, but it wasn't nearly ready then. I'm glad I took

the

time

get

where

want

it.

BF: Do you have a writing process? If so, can you share what your process is like? If not, how do you make sure you have time for creating new pieces?

RG: I like to write when everyone else in the house is asleep. There's something about that slumbering energy around me that I really enjoy, so I tend to write very early in the morning, in the half-light or darkness right around sunrise or very late at night after everyone else has gone to bed. It started as a necessity because as a single parent, it was literally the only time I got to myself and now I like it.

I tend to just sit down and write poems and stories in one sitting, when the muse strikes. From that you might think that I write quickly, but in many cases I have had an idea kicking around in my head for weeks, months, or in some cases, years.

I live in a very small 800 square foot house with two of my three sons and we keep the computer in the kitchen, so I have also had to learn to work with a lot of distractions, though they are both really good about letting me work on

a story or longer piece. My son Patrick is an invaluable help

with

editing.

BF: Do you have any advice for other writers?

RG: Just do it! Seriously, I spent a great deal of my life letting people talk me out of writing. I wasted a lot of years thinking I had to do something more "Useful" or "Constructive." I wasted time thinking that I had to have a "real" job, but I would have been a lot happier if I had just done what I really wanted to in the first place.

I also think suffering is kind of over-rated. I often hear from younger writers that they feel they don't have anything to write about, they think they haven't "suffered" enough to be a writer. Sure, suffering and negative experiences make great fodder for poems and movies and books, but I don't think they're necessary. You can always

find things to write about like your family, your siblings, your cat, or the way the sun slants through the trees. The point is to make it real, make it your own and from there you can do wonderful things.

BF: If you create your own master class on writing poetry, what would be something you would teach in week one?

RG: I think poets tend to think that if one metaphor is good, then fifty metaphors are fifty times as good. My advice is to find one central theme for an image to "hang" your poem on and then work from that. Say you want to use a standard metaphor of wings. You can expand on that, and then use related images in the theme of birds. Feathers, claws, beaks, nests, even the way a birdâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s heart beats so fast. All those are "related" to the central image of wings. It's all in the same "family," if you like.

New poets tend to want to throw everything into a poem but the kitchen sink. So you get a poem that starts with a nice metaphor about birds and then suddenly there are frogs and fish and buildings and streetlights and then it's just a mess. My advice is always to find that one image that really speaks

you

and

work

from

that

one.

One "trick" I use for myself is that I tend to throw out the very first metaphor that comes to mind. For me, that first metaphor is usually the one that's been done to death. Often, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll throw out the second and third one too for the same reason. I usually find after I've pushed myself a little further I've found something more interesting.

BF: What types of literature are you reading right now?

RG: I like to read a surprising amount of non-fiction. I just finished the biography of JD Salinger by Kenneth

Slawenski - it was fascinating and made me go back and reread Salinger's short fiction (For Esmeâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;with Love and Squalor

favorite

mine).

I confess that I am waiting excitedly for my copy of Joe McGinniss's book on Sarah Palin to arrive from Amazon.

BF: What are you working on right now? Would you mind sharing a piece of that work?

RG: Believe it or not, I have been writing Horror fiction! It started off as a kind of challenge to myself to write fiction and try my hand at some genre fiction. I have been really having fun with it. Being me, I tend to go off the "path" and my stories are often funny and twist the genre a bit. I think of them as Garrison Keillor crossed with Stephen King.

I just published a short story called "I Am A Candle" about

a cranky teenage zombie in Dark Moon Digest's Zombies anthology

http://www.amazon.com/Dark-Moon-presents-

JasonShayer/dp/0983433534/ref=sr_1_1? ie=UTF8&qid=1319655624&sr=8-1

My latest story is called "Opener." It was inspired by my very weird little cat, Olivia. I'd be happy to share the opening line with you.

"Annabelle Smits left all her money to her cats and they knew it."

An Interview with William Garland

BF: Your short story, “The Weight of It,” is very emotional and well, heavy. Do you often write stories like this?

WG: I have always been fascinated with the tradition of Southern Gothic, and a lot of my stories incorporate certain elements of gothic, but unlike several writers within the tradition, I typically hold back from explicitly revealing the grotesque that is buried in the sub-text and let the reader’s imagination create those details for themselves.

BF: Where does most of your inspiration to write come from?

WG: Reading is the starting point for any writing project. Whether it is a few pages from a novel, a short story, or a poem, I find that reading pulls me into a creative space. But most of my inspiration stems from the world around me. The landscape. The

people. The culture. I draw from pieces of all of these elements of place to create a world that is recognizable and at the same time unique to the story.

BF: Do you have a writing routine that you stick to? If not, how do you make sure that you actually get writing done?

WG: I wish I had the discipline to have a daily, regulated writing routine. I try to devote a few hours to writing every Friday morning, but aside from that, I just write whenever I can find a big enough break in my day to lock myself away for a few hours.

BF: Do you have any writing mentors or any books that you consider to be the ultimate of literature?

WG: I couldn’t begin to limit a mentor or a book down to one or two examples that encapsulate an ultimate within literature. There are several books and authors that have both inspired me and made me ask, “Why am I even trying?” But the real mentors that I’ve been fortunate to have are several of the talented writers and friends that I interact with on a regular basis, especially those within the MFA program at the University of South Carolina. Writing can be a lonely profession. That’s why I am grateful to be a part of community of writers that both encourage and challenge me as an author.

BF: Do you write full-length novels as well? If so, what genre/topics do you usually write about? If not, do you have any aspirations to write novels?

WG: I am currently writing a nonfiction book. I have plans to work on a novel after I finish this project, and I also have a few

interconnected short stories buried on my desk that I envision developing into a much larger collection sometime in the future.

BF: What are the most important elements of good writing? According to you what tools are must-haves for writers?

WG: Precision. For a story to be effective, it must move beyond the anticipated sensory details and narrative progressions. It should create movement and imagery that is instantly recognizable, but at the same time, unexpected.

BF: You also write nonfiction, as you are a student in the MFA Creative Nonfiction Program at the University of South Carolina. What are the major differences between your fiction and nonfiction stories?

WG: My life isn’t nearly as exciting as my fiction. As I stated earlier, my fiction often brings in elements of the Southern Gothic, whereas in my nonfiction work, I usually focus more directly on people’s relationship to their own sense of place. Whether I’m telling my story, my family’s story, or the story of a relative stranger, I will try to use the surrounding landscape and culture to help illuminate some deeper understanding.

BF: Working as a nonfiction editor on a journal yourself, the Yemassee Journal, how do you feel about the representation of nonfiction literature in current literary magazines?

WG: Nonfiction is a growing market that still hasn’t reached its full potential. Of course I think there is room for more nonfiction in literary journals and magazines, but given the number of fiction and poetry students in comparison with the number of nonfiction students in MFA programs, the representative sample is understandable. Plus, I think that a lot of nonfiction writers

(particularly those outside of the university) try to find homes for their writing in other venues.

BF: Do you have a nonfiction piece that you are working on now? Can you share what it is about?

WG: The book Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m currently working on is about my mother and her family, growing up in Milledgeville, Georgia, during the fifties and sixties. It will tell the story of her and her siblings living in this period of cultural change, while simultaneously dealing with their own broken home.

BF: Do you have any advice for writers who are trying to work on both fiction and nonfiction?

WG: Embrace the elements of both genres. Good nonfiction tells the story in a compelling way that reads as if it could be fiction,

and good fiction builds from those real life details that make the story resonate. Build on that.

A Conversation with KM Walton: Author of Cracked

K.M. Walton is not only a talented writer, but she’s also an inspiration—and we’re not just saying that because she shares a literary agent with one of our coeditors. Despite years of rejections, she finally had her breakthrough last year when she nabbed an agent and a book deal within a two-month window. Her debut novel, Cracked, will be released by Simon Pulse on January 3, 2010. She also coauthored

the

nonfiction

book,

TEACHING

NUMERACY: 9 Critical Habits to Ignite Mathematical Thinking, which was released earlier this year. For more information on K.M., please visit her website, http://kmwalton.com/, or blog, http://skateorbate.blogspot.com/.

BF: About two months after nabbing an agent, you landed a book deal for Cracked. Some may assume that you were

an overnight success. Can you please share your journey to publication?

KMW: I have the tissue pile to prove I was anything but an overnight success. Not really, that would be gross, but I do have the memories of querying etched (more like gouged) into my brain. I queried for nearly two-and-a-half years, racked up 148 rejections on three different novels and officially gave up one day. Then a funny thing happened the next day—Ms. Sarah LaPolla requested the rest of Cracked. And the rest, as they say, is history.

But let me back up just a little bit here, to the querying for 2.4 years part. I wanted to share what that “looked” like for me, because I think there are some things every querying writer must do. First and foremost, keep writing. During my query period I wrote four more novels. Cracked was the third one, and I knew it was the one that would land me my

agent. How did I know that, well, I got better as a writer with each novel. As with anything that matters, practice helps. A lot. So keep writing, a lot. Second thing, take classes and/or go to writing conferences while querying. I did both and again, it helped to improve my craft. Third, put your query and/or your first chapter “out there” either online (if you visit kmwalton.com and click on the trashcan, I link to a ton of places where you can do just that) or in contests such as the Miss Snark’s First Victim blog where Authoress organizes Secret Agent contests. I got into many of those contests, took my punches and learned heaps.

Last, to any writer reading this, and who is doing everything in their power to land their agent: DO NOT GIVE UP! Never give up. Only you can make it happen. The power is in your hands to research and query and write

and revise and query some more. Believe it will happen. Envision it happening. Make it happen.

Also, anyone reading this who thinks, "It will never be me! Why can't it be me?" Know this: I've been there and felt your pain, desperation and self-doubt. I say again, never give up. Only you can make it happen.

Tell your inner voice to shove it and get back to work. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s always about the work and the writing. Get out there, get your work out there, get feedback, become a better writer, learn about the craft of writing, try new things on in your own stories, read everything you can in the genre in which you write, build your own buzz, join groups, visit every site you can and make comments. You can do it.

BF: There has been some debate between seeking an agent and self-publishing. What made you decide to query agents for your projects?

KMW: I always wanted an agent –it was my goal, something I literally daydreamed about. Who would it be? How would “the call” sound when I got it? I wanted the whole shebang, and as I said above, I never stopped wanting it. I like to think I did everything humanly possible to bring that outcome to me, and it wasn’t easy.

Being traditionally published was also part of my dream, and I knew I’d never get there without a brilliant agent leading the way. Sarah LaPolla is everything I dreamed of, and more.

Towards the end of my query hell frustration I came close to submitting directly to editors, but after hearing an agent

give a presentation at the SCBWI Winter Conference in NYC, I immediately changed my mind. He explained that when an un-agented writer submits their work directly to editors, many times, the deals are not as lucrative or “proauthor” as when an agent negotiates on the writer’s behalf. Also—and this was the big deterrent for me—when an unagented writer submits directly to an editor or publisher, and they land an agent farther down the road, the agent then can’t submit that same book on behalf of the writer. It has already been submitted, by the writer.

All I know is that I’m glad I stayed on my path, especially when it got dark and depressing, because when I look back, I appreciated “the now” even more.

BF: Cracked explores the world of bullying—something which, as a former teacher, I’m sure you’ve witnessed

firsthand. How has teaching influenced your own writing for young adults?

KMW: I dedicated the core principals of my teaching career to anti-bullying and social action. I never shied away from facing or addressing bullying. I believed it was my job, as the adult, to discuss and address bullying every single time it reared its hideous head. I crafted language arts units with focuses on human rights and social action, wrote and directed The Peace Play, held countless lunch meetings with the bully and the victim, started dialogue journals with both victims and bullies (in which we would write back and forth to each other every week), conducted whole class and small group meetings where we had what I called “Explicit Conversations” on many social issues— whatever it took. My entire purpose was that I wanted kids to see each other for the human beings that they were, not the labels or assumptions they attached to each other.

Adults that turn the other way or expect children to “work it out on their own,” baffle me. They’re kids, they need to be taught and many times, re-taught, how to either be kind and tolerant or how to handle situations when they are the victim. With many children, empathy and tolerance don’t just magically happen on their own. It takes the adults (parents, teachers, coaches) to lead the way.

Cracked was a natural write for me because I have always been so passionate about the subject. However, books that preach or intentionally try and “teach a lesson” make me want to, oh I don’t know, barf. Cracked definitely isn’t that kind of book. It lets you inside the bully’s head and the victim’s and allows the reader to experience both sides of bullying. I wanted my characters’ voices to speak to the reader, not mine.

BF: Cracked is told in two points-of-view (one from the bully, and the other from his victim). Was it difficult to tell the story this way? Do you have any tips for other writers considering writing with multiple POVs?

KMW: Remember when I advised that querying writers attend writing conferences? Well, here’s a prime example of why it’s so important. While at the Eastern SCBWI Pocono Writer’s Retreat I sat in on a character development session given by an editor. She had us do a whole bunch of exercises on how to develop fully realized characters. The main characters of Cracked—Victor and Bull—were deepened through those exercises. I had already come up with the book’s premise back at my second SCBWI Winter Conference (another editor gave a talk on writing books from multiple perspectives and I went back to my hotel room and toyed around with—via T-chart—a book with a bully-victim focus). Cracked was born from attending one

conference and then my MCs were fully fleshed out from attending another. Yay conferences!

Wildly enough, I never struggled with either boyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s voice while writing. Those boys were and are extremely real to me. Perhaps I was a teenage boy in a past life.

BF: Cracked will be your first published novel, but not your first published book. You also co-wrote Teaching Numeracy:

9 Critical Habits to Ignite Mathematical

Thinking, which was published this past March. First of all, congratulations! Second, how is the process of writing nonfiction different from writing fiction? Do you have a preference?

KMW: Thank you for highlighting the book on Numeracy. That book came about from the brilliant educational and research-driven mind of my former teaching colleague

Margie Pearse. I taught sixth grade language arts alongside Margie for ten years (she taught math). We shared the same passion for our subject areas and most times abandoned our text books and created the curriculum ourselves. We had been told for years, “You have to write a book on your teaching methods!” So we did.

Our process? We met nearly every Sunday at Panera Bread for months and months. We brainstormed chapter ideas together, and then Margie would gather and organize quotes from educational books and email them to me. Then, I would craft the first draft of the chapter and email it back to her. She’d revise (anything she revised, she would turn it red) and email it back to me. Anything I revised would be in blue and emailed back to her. Then our final pass would have Margie either adding new research, or new thoughts or revising and she’d turn it purple.

We coined our process “Red-Blue-Purple” and we’d say, “Okay, let’s red-blue-purple it.”

Despite how much fun we had writing together, it was the most difficult writing I’ve ever done—like brain squishing hard. I’m a language arts gal through and through and this book is about how to teach mathematics. It confirmed that I am a fiction writer!

BF: What books have most influenced your life?

KMW: The Bridge to Terebithia by Katherine Patterson. This book was the first of many to evoke a deep emotional response from me. I remember crying my eyes out for the main character and having the story stick with me for months. To this day I love a good cry while reading. It cleanses the soul.

Forever by Judy Blume. This book was racy, talked about sex and *gulp* had sex in it. In her best parenting mode, my mother explicitly said I was not allowed to read it. Yeah. So I enlisted the help of our housekeeper. She smuggled it into my house in a plain, brown paper bag and I got to reading. That book made a tremendous impact on me in ways not evident for years to come. It taught me that it’s okay to ask questions and be your own advocate. It taught me that girls are sexual beings too—and that’s okay. No, that’s normal.

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. This book is magical, and I don't say that lightly or flippantly. I'm completely serious. It's a fable about a shepherd boy named Santiago who ends up on a whirl wind journey. It is a simple story that continues to haunt my thoughts in moments of quiet.

Now, for all you Naysayers and “Whatever'ers” and “Ohplease'ers” I say, read it and then go about your naysaying lives. But read it.

One of the people Santiago encounters is an old man who calls himself The King of Salem. He tells Santiago of his Personal Legend:

"It prepares your spirit and your will, because there is one great truth on this planet: whoever you are, or whatever it is that you do, when you really want something, it's because that desire originated in the soul of the universe. It's your mission on earth."

I actually put a box around this line in my book and then highlighted it and then put stars around it. It spoke to me, deeply.

For all you fellow writers reaching for the elusive agentpublishing stars, this book will uplift you, make you realize your dreams will come true. But only if you work your tail off and NEVER, EVER, NEVER-EVER give up the dream.

BF: Do you have any new favorite authors? Please share!

KMW: I just finished two very different books and absolutely loved both of them. Everybody Sees The Ants by A. S. King is a brilliant contemporary YA with fully developed characters, a heartbreaking and raw plotline and costumed, dancing ants—in other words, it’s pure A. S. King—and that means it’s one hell of a read.

The other book is The Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor. Before I gush, I must admit that I’m not a huge fan of fantasy books. I love me my Harry Potter but

that’s about it. This book is pure fantasy and sweet mother of mercy is it incredible. I had writer-envy about 50 times as I read because I was blown away by the depth of the story, the creative genius of it all, and the gorgeousness of her writing. It’s a wowzer of a book.

BF: What do you feel is the most challenging part of the writing process? Conversely, what is your favorite part?

KMW: Most challenging part: The moments (alright days) just before I start a new project because I do everything I can to avoid diving in.

Favorite part: When I’m lost in writing a first draft, like, the story is forming and flowing and my fingers can’t keep up. Oh, how I love that part.

BF: How would you describe your writing routine?

KMW: I definitely listen and watch the world for ideas. Sometimes itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll be a snippet of overheard conversation, or something I see, and BAM, a new idea for a novel clocks me in the jaw. I am never without post-its and Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m forever jotting new ideas down.

Some ideas fall asleep in the file folder while others continue to pester and poke me for weeks or months, forming themselves, deepening. I know I have something real when I go to write out my stream-of-consciousbrainstormed and bullet-pointed list. The list is where I dump it all outâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;characters, setting ideas, plot points, endings. Everything. Then that sometimes sits for a while and coagulates or sometimes I bang out a first chapter right then and there.

I’m a Pantser all the way and nothing blows my mind more than when something comes to me while I’m writing that wasn’t there in the brainstormed list. It’s so exciting to see the story unfold AS I WRITE IT. It gives me chills. And yes, I’m aware of how completely dorky that sounds.

BF: Finally, can you share any details on projects you have on the horizon?

KMW: I’m actually diving back into an old project and revising it to go out on submission. The main character’s best friend needs a bigger presence and the dad needs less. Our agent shared this nugget of wisdom with me yesterday: “Write what you think is important to the MC’s story.” I am revising with that perched in the back of my mind.

Finally, and most importantly, thank you very much, Pam, for asking for this interview. I am honored. I wish you the best of luck with this new publication!

Contributors Cover Artist: Barbara Neu is an American painter and writer who has spent most of the past twenty years living overseas. Her ink and watercolor painting "Trinidad #3" was painted while living in Trinidad and Tobago, where she was inspired by the colorful birds, flowers, and butterflies. Her paintings, prints, and drawings have been exhibited in numerous galleries, museums, and international collections. Barbara currently lives in Hokkaido, Japan with her husband, son, and cat. Valentina Cano is a student of classical singing who spends whatever free time either writing or reading. Her works have appeared in Exercise Bowler, Blinking Cursor, Theory Train, Magnolia's Press, Cartier Street Press, Berg Gasse 19, Precious Metals and will appear in the upcoming editions of A Handful of Dust, The Scarlet Sound, The Adroit Journal, Perceptions Literary Magazine, Welcome to Wherever, The Corner Club Press, Death Rattle, Danse Macabre, Subliminal Interiors, Generations Literary Journal, Super Poetry Highway, Stream Press, Stone Telling, Popshot and Perhaps I'm Wrong About the World. You can find her here: http://coldbloodedlives.blogspot.com.

Adam Cogbillâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s writing has appeared or is forthcoming in The Kenyan Review, The Ampersand, Word Riot, The Common, and other publications, and he has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He lives in Northampton, Massachusetts.

Tess Dewhurst grew up in Zimbabwe, a country that will always be home. She is now growing new roots in the zuurveld of the Eastern Cape. She lives with her husband and her cat in a wooden house on a farm, and avoids working on her Ph.D. degree by writing fiction instead.

Marit Ericson is a poet whose recent work appears or is forthcoming in Emprise Review, Forge Journal, and Handsome Journal. When we dislike her, she is basically protein. When we like her, she is still basically protein, but maybe we like that she expresses in that way. She doffs her cap to the cornet player and lives and writes in New Jersey.

Patrick Gabbard was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest. In 2005 he received a BA in History from the University of Utah. In 2011 he received an MFA from Arizona State University. His poetry has been published or is forthcoming in Neon Literary Magazine and OVS. He currently lives in New York City. William Garland Born and raised in a small town in Georgia, William Garland is a writer who strives to join in the tradition of so many other great Southern authors. He is currently working on a book that tells the story of an individual familyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s struggle amidst the changing landscape in Milledgeville, Georgia. He is enrolled in the MFA program at the University of South Carolina, where he works as a graduate instructor and the Nonfiction Editor of the Yemassee Journal.

Roberta Guthrie Kowald first published at the age of 12 when the Washington Post printed her letter to the editor about Watergate. At 13, her family emigrated to Australia where majored in Law and RMIT University and Sociology at Deakin University. Her poetry has appeared in the Australian Newspaper Anthology, Up From Below anthology, Luna and Poetry Bay magazines and has been read on ABC international radio. Her horror story I Am A Candle has been published by Dark Moon Books. Roberta lives with her sons and her cats on a lake on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State and she currently is an adjunct faculty member in the Department of Sociology at a local community college. Pamela Jessen lives in Colorado and has been writing poetry and short fiction for quite a few years. Poetry has appeared most recently in Black Fox Literary Magazine, The Absent Willow Review and Snakeskin Poetry Webzine. Short fiction has appeared in the anthologies, Women Who Run with the Werewolves, The Definitive Best of The Horror Show, as well as in Writer's Journal, Cemetery Dance, The Horror Show and Twilight Zone Magazine. Troubadour Kaul is a collaboration project between two artists who indulge in poetry, travelogues, prose, photography and music. They came together in 2010 in a last ditch effort to merge their influences since theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve been told it is 21st century chic to do so. Despite being recently nominated for the 2011 Best of the Net and 2011 Best Short Writing in the World, their ranking remains dismal in the Indian arranged-marriage-market. While Vineet Kaul rents out his vocabulary and cynicism to his partner-in-rhyme, the Troubadour brings his imagination to

the table. Neither of them, however, is bringing any bread to the table. Maybe that is what happens when you collaborate with your alter-ego. Always looking for (more) collaborations and feedback, you can e-mail him at vineetkaul85@gmail.com Ash Krafton is a speculative fiction writer who resides in the heart of the Pennsylvania coal region, where she keeps the dust jacket for "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" in a frame over her desk. Sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s had work in Absent Willow Review, Silver Blade, Red Penny Papers, and an issue or two of Bete Noire magazine. Visit the Spec Fic Website at www.ashkrafton.com for updates on the upcoming release of her first novel Bleeding Hearts: Book One of the Demimonde, forthcoming through Pink Narcissus Press in early 2012. Michael Lee Johnson is a poet, and editor, from Itasca, Illinois who lived 10 years in Canada during the Vietnam era, published in 24 countries. He runs five poetry sites, his website: http://poetryman.mysite.com. His published poetry books are available: through his website above, Amazon.Com, Borders Books, iUniverse and Lulu.com: http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/promomanusa. Misti Rainwater-Lites is the author of several collections of poetry. The latest, Expired Nickel Valentine, is available exclusively from Goldfish Press. Misti also enjoys digital photography and collage. Caryl Sills is a retired English professor who has turned her hand to fiction after many years of writing essays and

literary criticism. She lives on the Jersey Shore with her husband and fox terrier, Dylan. Her short stories have been published in print and online, including First Edition, Mobius, and Blue Lake Review. She is currently working on a novel that explores the post-war politics, prejudices, fears, and optimism of American society in 1948. Jennifer Yu is a teacher and writer person. She is currently completing her graduate degree in creative writing at Fairleigh Dickinson University. She likes to compose stories in her head while running and in quiet, clear moments of the day. You may visit her blog at: http://isagreynbel.wordpress.com/.