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CO N T EN TS
Prose
Poetry
Yvonne Conza “I Remember You”
Tim SuermonDT “All Seasons” 21 “Reading a Poet Again After Many, Many Years” “Friday Heating Up” 23 “The Years, Brother” 24 PeYcho KaneV “ANcient Writings” 25 “The Game” 26 “Art” 27 “Sunday Boring Sunday” 28
André le Roux “LIKE A GOD WATCHING”
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15
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Editor’s Note 5 About Us 4 Submission Guidlines 7 Bios and Credits 29
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UFM DeCEMBER 2014, Issue 20
UMBRELLA FACTORY WORKERS Editor-In-Chief
Anthony ILacqua Copy Editor
Janice Hampton Art Director
Jana Bloomquist
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Umbrella Factory isn’t just a magazine, it’s a community project that includes writers, readers, poets, essayists, filmmakers and anyone doing something especially cool. The scope is rather large but rather simple. We want to establish a community--virtual and actual--where great readers and writers and artists can come together and do their thing, whatever that thing may be. Maybe our Mission Statement says it best: We are a small press determined to connect well-developed readers to intelligent writers and poets through virtual means, printed journals, and books. We believe in making an honest living providing the best writers and poets a forum for their work. We love what we have here and we want you to love it equally as much. That’s why we need your writing, your participation, your involvement and your enthusiasm. We need your voice. Tell everyone you know. Tell everyone who’s interested, everyone who’s not interested, tell your parents and your kids, your students and your teachers. Tell them the Umbrella Factory is open for business. Subscribe. Comment. Submit. Tell everyone you know. Stay dry
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hello there UFM editor’s letter - September 2014 Welcome to issue 20 of Umbrella Factory Magazine. We started 5 years ago in Denver, Colorado on a particularly cold day at the end of November. At a restaurant called Marlowe’s on the corner of Glenarm Place and 16th Street, I was running at the mouth about a publishing system that I knew absolutely nothing about. Mark Dragotta and I worked at this restaurant where we were the very short tempered waiters you might expect in a restaurant which relies heavily on tourists, business travelers and conventioneers. In the fall of 2009, when this magazine started, I just finished teaching at the community college. The experience was less than savory at the time. The semester as a teacher made the job of waiting tables not so unappealing. Mark was still writing for the weekly paper which was before the weekly stopped paying writers preferring to enlist bloggers. We had this idea that we would start up a magazine for writers, poets, artist, graphic novel creators, musicians, filmmakers and anyone else doing something particularly cool. We thought we’d just connect well-developed readers to intelligent writers and poets. And somewhere in the back of our minds we were going to build our small magazine into a massive publishing house. Five years is a long time. When I think about the aggressive goals we had at the onset of this project and the reality of the interceding 20 issues, I feel very differently. Now, experience has led me to realize that just keeping a small magazine afloat is a miracle. Our staff is unpaid. Our writers are unpaid. And our readership is humble. However how humble it may be, we have done some cool things. This year is the third year we’ve participated in the Pushcart Prize. We proudly submitted Rosa Del Duca’s “One of the Guys” from the September issue. We submitted “Fixation,” The Great Unwashed,” and “Theatrics” from our poet Lauren Yates. Lauren’s poetry also ran in the September issue. Both Rosa and Lauren are doing somethings that are particularly cool. Aside from writing, both of these women are performers and musicians. When I think about it, Pushcart, yes, but our basic mission at Umbrella Factory Magazine, these two are the writers we love. And in the 2009 heart of UFM, these are the kind of intelligent writers who we want to connect to well-developed readers. And here, issue 20 December 2014 we continue. We proudly offer two pieces of prose in this issue. André le Roux’s “Like a God Watching” and Yvonne Conza’s “I Remember You.” As reader of fiction, I love developed stories. I like engaging stories. When I open up a submission and it’s two pages long, I cringe. Give us something with meat, right? Yvonne Conza’s “I Remember You” is what I’m always waiting for: meaty, engaging, developed. In our time of micro blogging and the counting of characters, it’s refreshing to read a long short story (this piece is nearly 5,000 words) that a writer has taken the time and energy to build. “Like a God Watching” by André le Roux is wonderful read too, but there is a little bit of a back story here. The relationship between a writer and an editor is not always equal. I’m afraid I know more about André le Roux, the writer than he knows about me. In the last two and a half years, I have read four of his stories and I have rejected the first three. I admire “Like a God Watching,” and I admire this writer. Rejection is part of this culture, and rejection is not easy. Persistence is also part of this culture. I have always believed that the writers who succeed are the most tenacious. Perhaps I secretly want some of André’s persistence in my work habits as a writer.
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hello there
We have a generous portion of our poets, Peycho Kanev and Tim Suermondt in this issue. I learned early on in this magazine’s existence that you cannot learn anything from a poet with just one poem. When we choose poets, we’re really choosing a group of poems, or in many situations, we’re choosing a feeling. These may sound capricious, and perhaps it is, but read these poems, pause, read them again, it won’t easy to choose only one poem. I have no problems saying that I particularly enjoyed “Art” by Peycho Kanev and “The Years, Brother” by Tim Suermondt. Read as a group of four poems, I think the two aforementioned poems are even stronger. The third and most striking element, of course, is the artwork. Fabio Sassi is a regular contributor, his art has graced the covers, contents page, and back leaves of this magazine for years. His piece “Constellation Umbrella” is on the back cover. Our cover for issue 20 is “State Line Power Plant” by Chad Copeland. Thank you for reading issue 20 of Umbrella Factory Magazine. If this is your first experience with us, I hope you’ll investigate back issues and stay with us into the future. Please find us on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Read. Submit. Tell everyone you know. Stay Dry.
Anthony ILacqua
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submissions
Submission Guidelines:
Yes, we respond to all submissions. The turn-around takes about three to six weeks. Be patient. We are hardworking people who will get back to you. On the first page please include: your name, address, phone number and email. Your work has to be previously unpublished. We encourage you to submit your piece everywhere, but please notify Umbrella Factory if your piece gets published elsewhere. We accept submissions online at www.umbrellafactorymagazine.com
ART / PHOTOGRAPHY
POETRY
Accepting submissions for the next cover or featured artwork/photography of Umbrella Factory Magazine. For our cover we would like to incorporate images with the theme of umbrellas, factories and/or workers. Feel free to use one or all of these concepts.
We accept submissions of three to five poems for shorter works. If submitting longer pieces, please limit your submission to 10 pages. Please submit only previously unpublished work.
In addition we accept any artwork or photos for consideration in UFM. We archive accepted artwork and may use it with an appropriate story, mood or theme. Our cover is square so please keep that in mind when creating your images. Image size should be a minimum of 700 pixels at 300 dpi, (however, larger is better) jpeg or any common image file format is acceptable.zz Please include your bio to be published in the magazine. Also let us know if we can alter your work in any way.
We do not accept multiple submissions; please wait to hear back from us regarding your initial submission before sending another. Simultaneous submissions are accepted, but please withdraw your piece immediately if it is accepted elsewhere. All poetry submissions must be accompanied by a cover letter that includes a two to four sentence bio in the third person. This bio will be used if we accept your work for publication. Please include your name and contact information within the cover letter.
SUBMIT YOUR WORK ONLINE AT WWW.UMBRELLAFACTORYMAGAZINE.COM UFM
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submissions
NONFICTION Nonfiction can vary so dramatically it’s hard to make a blanket statement about expectations. The nuts-and-bolts of what we expect from memoire, for example, will vary from what we expect from narrative journalism. However, there are a few universal factors that must be present in all good nonfiction. 1. Between 1,000 and 5,000 words 2. Well researched and reported 3. A distinct and clearly developed voice 4. Command of the language, i.e. excellent prose. A compelling subject needs to be complimented with equally compelling language. 5. No major spelling/punctuation errors 6. A clear focus backed with information/instruction that is supported with insight/reflection 7. Like all good writing, nonfiction needs to connect us to something more universal than one person’s experience. 8. Appropriate frame and structure that compliments the subject and keeps the narrative flowing 9. Although interviews will be considered, they need to be timely, informative entertaining an offer a unique perspective on the subject. Please double space. We do not accept multiple submissions, please wait for a reply before submitting your next piece.
FICTION Sized between 1,000 and 5,000 words. Any writer wishing to submit fiction in an excess of 5,000 words, please query first. Please double space. We do not accept multiple submissions, please wait for a reply before submitting your next piece. On your cover page please include: a short bio―who you are, what you do, hope to be. Include any great life revelations, education and your favorite novel.
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I Remember You Yvonne Conza
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prose
The morning paper printed that she’s involved in a sizeable merger for her firm. The suitor’s name is withheld. She’s in her late forties and getting married next month. After dropping her fiancé off at Newark Airport she became disoriented. She’s being treated for low blood sugar. Two block paragraphs tell a slapdash story. A photo is included showing the words HOLLAND TUNNEL boldly etched into stone pinpointing the location of the incident. The lettering, evenly spaced in giant stencil-like formation, serves as the backdrop for a scene of snarled cars and the tipping point of chaos. Her face is barely visible as she’s being placed into an ambulance on a stretcher. I was there in the car right behind her so the story in black and white feels vague. It’s missing details. She was dressed in a soft ivory blouse and creased white linen pants that managed to stay unwrinkled, except at her seat. The fringed shawl draped loosely around her shoulders displayed a random pattern of washed out pomegranates and lemons. It reminded me of the tableware that Marge and I had looked at when we were on our honeymoon in Tuscany. I liked the homey, rustic fruit decal that spoke of the Italian countryside. “Too kitsch … put those back,” my new bride had insisted with a firmness that left me feeling admonished. I returned them to the thick wood display shelf. My fingertips trace over the woman in the photograph leaving newsprint on my skin. Her pearls are not visible. During the chaos I’d touched her, felt her breath. I panicked and started to count the number of pearls on her necklace. The shoulder-to-shoulder count is still in my head. My mother once said, “Pearls are the teardrops of the moon.” She wasn’t crying, not this woman. She was so afraid to surrender, not a single tear shed.
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I’m quoted: The car behind me swerved and crossed into the next lane. Thankfully I was going at a speed where I was able to react. Nobody was hurt. There’s nothing written about the Port Authority police officer that cuffed her. Or that she pounded on the hood of my car after coming to an abrupt stop a quarter mile from the entrance to the tunnel. It was a Friday afternoon, inching past four, when most of us were anxious to get back into the city to settle into watching the Subway series. Yankees and Mets fans would be sitting next to one another in sports bars, loving the tension while they rooted for their teams of choice. I was paying attention to her driving well before the tunnel came into view. Her braking had been erratic before she came to a grinding halt. It was a near poetic punctuating rhythm and muddle of short and long dashes of red lights responding to her foot alternating taps on the gas and brake pedals. The car behind me beeped. Did he think I was playing with my radio or something? I wasn’t. There had been time for me to switch lanes. I would have veered to my left and over if the guy hadn’t laid on his horn again, but something made me want to protect and decode her. I decided to stay put. Let him take his Friday road rage out on me. Signage on sky-high posts announced Exxon, BP and Shell, a motorist’s last chance to gas up before having to pay New York prices. Several hotels and a twenty-four hour Burger King filter into view but really there’s not a single attraction that makes you want to stop. I watched one of her hands come off the steering wheel. She was shooing something. A fly? Something. Then she curled her fist and shook it. Agitated, I get like that too if I’m upset. I stared at her hoping she’d catch me in her rearview mirror. “Calm down girl and take it easy.” Going through the tunnel always spikes anxiety in me. I start to hyperventilate and try to convince myself that the tunnel is not going to collapse around me. Counting the shiny white tiles distracts me. I can never count them all and that’s the point. My buddy Phil, a trivia buff, loves to tease me when we go on calls together in New Jersey. I never should have told him about
my fear. “Did’ja know the tunnel’s chief engineer Clifford Holland suffered a nervous breakdown five years into the project? Now why do you think that was?” He speaks with a gorilla grin planted on his face. “Think he was worried about his mathematical calculations? Nah. I’m sure he figured close enough.” He’s such an asshole but a good friend. WHOA … what the hell. When I hit the brakes hard, my chest slams into the steering wheel. The driver behind me leans on his horn and cuts quickly into the left lane. The vehicle trailing him brakes just in time. Screeching rubber catches other drivers off guard. A fracturing cacophony punctures the airwaves detouring everyone’s Friday let’s-get-home energy. Leaving her door open she bolts to my car and begins beating on my hood with her balled fists. I’m soon out of my car grabbing her the way a man shouldn’t grab a woman. Too much force applied. It’s happening so fast. She’s screaming: “I couldn’t stand watching the children play patty cake in the back of their parents’ rusty station wagon.” I must have shaken her up because she stops and looks me in the eye, realizing that she’d gone off the rail and that I was bringing her back. In a struggling librarian voice she adds, “I mouthed at them to stop. I did. I really did.” She’s pleading with me to understand. I do but I don’t say a word. I relate to what she means. I’m thinking of those bobblehead dolls people put on their dashes or rear windows —the hula girls with the grass skirts. Not every part of our lives needs décor. It’s a car not a living room. I must be embracing her too tightly. I can smell the clean scent of her shampoo. She pushes back and I let go. I’m looking her straight in the eye as sirens are going off around us. She’s calming down. A Port Authority officer grabs her from me and she struggles with him. His partner cuffs her. They didn’t need to do that. She had started to calm down. “LET GO OF ME.” “Sir, you were the car right behind her?” “Yes, yes I was. Uh, she came to a com-
plete stop.” I look over to see if she’s listening. She faints. I race to be by her side but I’m pushed away. The officer cradles her in his lap and I see a child-like innocence in her expression. I imagine her being five years old with her face resting on the muzzle of a jumbo-sized FAO Schwarz stuffed pony. She’d still be wearing different layers of whites. A pastel blue ribbon tied to the bottom of a long braid of her hair would sweep in front of her, replacing her grownup pearls. “Step back,” his voice of authority and his partner’s swinging baton get me to move. I head towards my car but then decide I have the right to stay there. I move a respectful couple of yards away, not able to just leave her. As an Eyewitness News van jockeys into position paramedics arrive on the scene and take over. The cameraman and a reporter wearing a tie and an earpiece, race toward us with the zealous maneuvering of a SWAT team. Cars, no longer at a standstill, are crossing over into the three available lanes to the right of us. Their funeral procession pace navigates around orange cones and flares already set in place. The tollbooth attendants off in the distance have returned to their posts. There’s still plenty of happy hour left before the game. She’s now revived and hollering, “Get away from me! Leave me alone! I have to get home.” Her shawl falls to the ground. I go to pick it up when I’m blocked by the hand of another officer. “Her shawl – it fell.” I point to it. No one is going to let me get close to her. I should leave and I want to. Instead I focus on something to count. Women like her never seem to notice me. She has that look of class about her, born knowing to keep her fork in her left hand during a meal, facing the tines down between morsels. She exudes uptown girl, East Side, schooled to do things the proper way. An uneasy anxiety creeps into my thoughts as she shrills and thrashes about. I should walk away and not get further involved. My inhaling and exhaling is accelerating as panic starts to set in. Count, count-count any damn thing. My eyes lock onto the pearls dangling
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prose around the front of her neck, weighing her down. I start to count them. By the time I get to sixty I’m thinking about how my ex-wife would never mix bridal tones of ivory and white. She should have. She would have looked nice in an outfit like this. There are a hundred and three visible pearls. The reporter pushes himself into the fray and gets a hard shove to the chest by the officer next to me. He continues to wiggle his way through, picking up the shawl and offering it to her as he shouts, “Why did you stop?” “Who the fuck are you?” She grabs her shawl and tries to get up. Overpowered by the officer still restraining her, she sits back down. Her slacks will need to be dry cleaned. Attendants approach with a stretcher as others in charge forcefully cordon her off more and more. The reporter is knocked into me. “Show’s over folks. Get back in your cars,” bellows the officer that first arrived on the scene and questioned me. “What did you see?” The jumpy reporter can’t get to the woman so now he starts in with me. The cameraman continues to pursue the prize. I keep my eye on him as his hand works the viewfinder and zooms in on her face. I’m hoping he can only catch a profile. “Turn your face – turn it or look down,” I want to yell. The Holland Tunnel entranceway is not a safe place to break down. Everyone needs to back off of her, even me. I recall all the times my mother became unhinged about her life and in a deranged, amped-up cheerleader fashion shouted, “D-AM-M-N, I-T, T-O-H-E-L-L-L.” Then, apparently no longer feeling the compulsion to spell the words letter-by-letter, she tacked on an earsplitting, “and back again.” I would just stand there. She’d stop when she was ready. Another reporter taking notes on a small pad makes her way to me. “Could you tell if she’d been drinking? Did she seem unstable?” “It was more about control. Losing control. She wanted the children in the car in front of her to stop horsing around. She told them to stop. They didn’t.”
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“Excuse me?” “It was about control.” “You need to move your vehicle.” The badge pinned to his uniform makes me fidget. I feel intimidated, but keep talking. “Let the one losing control have complete control. Let them navigate their way out, like maneuvering your way through traffic in the tunnel.” “Let’s go! You’ve had your five minutes of fame.” “Officer, do you need me to finish making my statement?” “I need you to get in your car. I told you already, the show is over. No damage to your vehicle. Let’s go.” “The car behind me swerved and crossed into the next lane. Thankfully I was going at a speed where I was able to react. Nobody was hurt.” Another reporter taps me on the shoulder. “Can you print your name? I might quote you. I’m with The Daily News. What do you do?” “I sell insurance, life insurance.” *
*
*
Before I can read the article a second time, the phone rings. “Saw you on the news last night.” Marge hasn’t called me in the three years since our divorce. I hate myself for being happy that now she has. I don’t want to tell her anything about the woman and then I do. “I was right behind her. You don’t expect someone to come to a sudden stop on the approach to the Holland Tunnel.” “You said that on TV. I couldn’t believe it was you. I was going to call last night.” There’s a long pause. She’s never been one without something to say so I let it be. Then I’m afraid she might say, “Take care.” I don’t really want to talk to her and yet I do. I want to know why our marriage wasn’t enough for her. “She’d gotten out of her car and ran over to mine. She slammed her fists hard into my hood. I jumped out and grabbed her. Police were quick to arrive on the scene.” “These days no one is taking chances.
There could have been a bomb in her car. You just don’t know. The paper doesn’t say much.” The idea that my ex and I are both talking about the same thing after all of these years makes me smile. She once said that we didn’t have anything in common. “Did you watch the game?” Was I testing her or prompting her to hang up? “I still hate baseball, honey.” She hated that I loved sports. “Yankees won.” “I have to go.” “She was beautiful.” I combine the truth and a challenge to Marge. Will she take the bait? Is there still “us” not divorced? Fisting my right hand I pause then lean into the kitchen counter and pull the phone further away from my face. I don’t want her to hear me breathing. “Very.” The mother of pearl button I found on the ground next to my car after the commotion settled down is still in my pocket. It must have popped off of her blouse when I grabbed her. A loose string is still attached. “I’d like to visit her in the hospital. You think that would be okay? I could help her fill in some of the blanks.” My ex gives me her approval adding, “Don’t make a habit of it. People get too used to things and then they have expectations. That’s probably what made her nuts in the first place.” Her laugh, more a snort, follows as I thank her for her advice. I make a mental note that it would be best if I never talked to her again, a decision I had made more than once before. The first time was after she filed for divorce and called me to suggest that I start dating. “I want us to be friends,” she added. “I’d like that.” Those words surprised me. I figured we’d work it out. I must have known we wouldn’t. Drunk one night after meeting with my lawyer, I took out my phone and scrolled through my contacts. I pulled up Marge’s name and then hit edit. I typed in Bitch. “What’s so funny?” Bitch. I can’t say I forgot that I did that but when the phone rang as my hand was tracing the outline of the other woman’s face in the
paper, it felt so right. I hadn’t felt right like this contacts. I needed to let go of the “us” that I had in a long time. once imagined. Someday she’d be completely “Nothing. Take care.” deleted. “What did she look like?” * * * “I guess … pretty. She was wearing a white gown with the hospital’s initials sewn on “Are you her fiancé?” the breast pocket. Flowers. Lots of flowers and “Gosh, no.” cards were in the room, but there were no visi “Family?” tors. I was the only one. I stayed until visiting “No.” hours were over.” “I’m going to have to ask you to leave.” “What did you talk about?” I start walking away when something in- “Nothing.” side of me prompts me to head straight for her “You didn’t talk to her?” room. The nurse tries to stop me, but I’m deter- “Not really.” I had no desire to explain mined. Before he says a word, I confront him anything to Marge. She was curious, maybe even with, “I’m the one who saved her. You could jealous about the woman. Why did she call me show me a little more respect.” I glance at his honey earlier? “Look, I have to go. I told Phil I’d name tag adding, “Look Patrick, I’m not just watch the game with him.” We exchanged a few someone who saves a life and then disappears. more words and then I closed the phone and held I’m committed. She needs love, and more than it in my hand for longer than I wanted to. that, she needs to know someone cares.” Without The woman had asked me to brush her missing a beat, I bolt into the room and close the hair. It seemed like a simple request until I startdoor behind me. ed thinking about my strokes. What’s too hard? For a brief second my eyes are blinded by What’s too soft? How do you touch her hair a whoosh of whiteness coming from the walls, without touching her in a way that may be too floor, ceiling and the bed linens. Then I see her intimate? I don’t think there’s a way. You touch resting with her head on a pillow. No makeup her and she indirectly touches you. But that’s just ivory skin that glistens not needing to be lay- what she needed, gentle caressing. ered. Her even white teeth framed by a sweet “I remember you,” she says with soft smile, her moss green eyes, her reddish blonde smile. hair, she was a desirable woman--not one you For the longest time I stand in front of lusted after, but rather lingered over and took her hoping words will spill out. She smiles and in. Her sculpted clavicle bones were noticeable sweeps loose strands of hair away from her eyes. through a tiny opening in the front of her gown. I gesture to the chair next to the hospital bed and With each breath she took there was a hint of she nods yes. But then I change my mind and anger beneath her skin that needed to be expelled walk over to the windowsill. Lined up in neat from her body. rows are tons of flowers in baskets and glass “I got lost on my way out of the airport. vases with spiked plastic stands in their centers Traffic kept coming at me and I couldn’t read to secure sealed undersized envelopes with tiny the signs very well. Twice I found myself in the messages. same place I was in before. It felt like a maze “Would you like me to read the cards to that I couldn’t find my way out of. Finally, just you?” as I spotted the sign to the New Jersey Turnpike, “That would be lovely.” a woman cut me off, forcing me to miss the turn and have to circle the airport again. I couldn’t believe it. I was back in an endless maze. That night Marge called again. I knew “When I finally made it out of there, I after this morning she’d call again. I didn’t want began to get the feeling that I was headed in the any anger so I changed Bitch to ex-wife in my opposite direction, away from New York City.
The idea of ending up in Washington or Virginia started to appeal to me. I had my credit cards. Why not spend an evening or two at a great hotel before going home to New York? Then a sign popped up for the Holland Tunnel. I wasn’t lost after all, just a little disappointed. I had already imagined myself in some wonderful hotel or maybe even at a quiet bed and breakfast in the country where I would wake up to the sounds of birds and rustling trees.” She said all this as I sat on the bed next to her brushing her hair. My thoughts turned to Marge and what a complete failure my marriage had been. I never wanted the divorce. Though our marriage was full of discontent, I always thought that those unhappy feelings were normal, the way marriages are. My wife always wanted more. That’s what she’d say over and over, “more,” like more was a thing in itself. Maybe this lady had someone in her life pushing for more, and more seemed impossible or never ending. “Did I do any damage to your car?” I start laughing and then she joins in. We are laughing the way people do when they share an understanding. “Leave me your address so I can mail you a check.” “There’s nothing to repair.” “Give it to me anyway. I’d like to have it.” She smiles and her hand reaches to grab a pen and pad on the nightstand that she gives to me. I notice her pearl necklace is there. “You shouldn’t leave that there.” “I’m not. I just took it off. I-” She reaches for the necklace and I find myself taking it from her. “Let me.” The clasp is tricky. Our exchange feels choreographed with a gentle arc of ballet. The intimacy is triggered when my hand extends over at just the right moment, binding us together, only without the complications of a relationship. This time my touch is not because I’m shaking her to awaken her from spinning out of control. She’s aware of me yet we’re still strangers that hardly know one another. I count the rest of the pearls I wasn’t able to see after her shawl fell on the roadside and I tried to reach for it. Thirteen. I guess you could
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prose count the fastener even though it’s a silver ball. A few days later an invitation arrives for the woman’s wedding. I toy with the idea of going. I’ve already seen her in bridal colors. The embossed typeset lettering mimics a road sign. It feels like “SLOW DOWN” should be written as part of the directions to the big event. I can’t be the one to steer her towards a different path. All those flowers sent and not a single visitor in the room with her. They were afraid to go near her. People slow down to watch an accident but they don’t like to be around for the aftermath, the part where the pieces get picked up off the ground, collected and reassembled. Not everything will fit together. Some of what gets broken remains broken. Instead of going to the bar to watch the game with Phil I decide to stay home. I head to the supermarket to pick up some vegetables and a bottle of wine. I find a nice Pinot Noir and toss some mushrooms and garlic into my basket. Reaching for a fennel stalk I spot Marge up ahead in the poultry section. I consider leaving, putting everything in my shopping cart back on the shelves and into their proper bins. This moment isn’t supposed to happen in the grocery aisle close to my home. I try to imagine Marge wearing a shawl inspired by a Tuscany orchard. I can’t. If I continue forward I’ll run into her. The part of me that wants to get it over with is pushing the cart. “What happened? Fresh Direct went on strike?” “Oh my god what a coincidence.” “You look good.” Both our smiles take their toll. “Nice seeing you Marge,” comes out of my mouth erasing our history together. I run into her again at the cashier’s counter and invite her to dinner. She declines. I’m thrilled. That night I make an incredible pasta dinner and wash it down with three glasses of Pinot Noir. I fall asleep after midnight but wake up around three in the morning. After realizing that counting sheep isn’t going to work, I give up and start to wash clothes and clean out closets. Next, I find myself making two piles, toss and
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take. There isn’t much to get rid of. Marge was always remarking, “To you everything is clutter.” Sparseness keeps me grounded. If there is too much surrounding me I come undone. I tried explaining that to her. Keeping things simple contrasted with her sentiment: “There’s more we can do to fix up the apartment.” “Can’t we do more travel?” And when she’d had it with me: “Less is not more, it’s just less.” Packing up bags and boxes of my life is satisfying. Two trips to the parking garage down the street and everything loaded into my car. Most of the city is still sleeping. I’m grateful this morning not to have a doorman building. I prefer the goodbye to be silent. I circle the apartment, secure the bedroom and kitchen windows, make sure the air conditioner is left on low and lock the front door. Then I leave a message on Phil’s office voice mail: “I’ll be gone for a while. Can you look into selling my place? I’ll give you a call as soon as I settle somewhere.” I just stand in the hallway, a passageway not unlike a tunnel. I need to stay in my lane, keep moving and not be diverted. Feeling around in my pocket, I pull out the mother of pearl button, squeeze it in my hand and make a wish. There’s a need to take one last look. Opening the door I step back inside and walk around my apartment. I realize how easily one’s life can be packed up into cardboard boxes and sealed with masking tape. The sun is already rising and walking into my kitchen. I hold the button up to the light and turn it over. The iridescent color glimmers with a faint rainbow. The string is still holding on. She had looked me in the eye when I grabbed her. My grip was firm, though not harsh. That’s when it had to have fallen off her blouse. Phil had seen me toying with the button while watching a game with him. I carried it with me all the time. “Nice button,” he said to me. “Must be a story to go with it.” “Not really.” “You got a girlfriend I don’t know about?” “Yeah I do.” “You do.”
“No. Just kidding.” “Let me see it.” I didn’t want to hand it over to him. No one but me had touched it. “Come on I’m not going to hurt it.” I felt stupid. A guy isn’t supposed to care about a button. I tossed it to him so he wouldn’t see what it meant to me. “Mollusks form a mother of pearl to protect themselves. Did-ja know that? Pretty amazing. Insulates them from parasites and grit drifting into their shells.” He returned to the game after he handed it back to me. “It’s a nice one. Shimmers.” They didn’t need to strap her down in the ambulance. I saw her through the double doors just before they slammed them shut. She was struggling hard, harder than a person should. The wedding invitation is on top of the box marked toss where I left it. Pulling out the RSVP envelope I put the button in. Then I take it out again and hold it before removing the loose string. I tuck the thread into my wallet behind my license. I don’t check the “will attend” or “will not attend” box as I place the response card along with the button back inside and seal it closed. I’ll drop it in the mail chute on my way out. Opening the door this time I feel free. I know Phil will take care of anything that comes up. It begins to rain and a single teardrop lands and slides down my cheek. Starting the car and pulling away from the curb I notice that a pool of water has accumulated in a slight indentation in my hood. It’s the area where she’d pounded. I hear her saying, “Did I do any damage to your car?” and then the sounds of us laughing. I’m going to run into that woman again. I can feel it in my bones. I imagine I’ll check into some bed and breakfast and catch a sight of her having herbal tea. I’ll walk over to her table and take a seat next to her. I will listen to her tell me how nice it is to hear the sounds of birds and rustling trees. I’ll brush her hair.
Like A GoD Watching AndrĂŠ le Roux
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prose
The
Odawa elder knew the stories of her people. She loved the stories and loved telling them. She often revised and sometimes embellished, but she never deceived. It was not the detail of the stories, she believed, that mattered. The detail was there only to convey a truth, and sometimes the truth outlived it. And she believed that all good stories held truth – some truths dark and terrible, others light and full of joy. But this did not mean that all stories were true. It was the stories with truth that also happened to be true that she loved most and never changed. And there were many that were considered myth or superstition that were, in fact, true. The Odawa elder lived on Manitoulin Island in Lake Huron. She was a librarian at the Little Current public library, and had an iPad and iPhone that were synched. She had a master’s degree in social anthropology and, when she was younger, played lawn bowls at the Commonwealth and won a bronze medal. Yet, in this fresh new world, she had always found her soul drawn to a world much older, and she longed for a glimpse of the Land of the Dawn where her people were born. To her, Canada was an abstraction – an idea of a country that could not possibly be. And as much as she walked the walk and talked the talk, she never felt part of it. Over weekends, she would go to the reserve and tell her stories or just be quiet in the quiet of that land. But the reserve, also, was a palliative, a false freedom. When she was a girl, she heard the story of the seven great miigis that had appeared to her people in the Land of the Dawn to teach them how to live. And she was captivated by the story of the seventh, Animikii, the thunderbird, who had such power that everyone in her presence died. Animikii left the people and returned to the depths of the ocean to protect them from her. Or so the story goes. The story teller saw Animikii as a symbol of power and death. To him, fear was the truth. The Odawa elder, then a girl, did not
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agree. The story teller had not told the truth of the story. The truth of how lonely the powerful Animikii must be. But the story, also, was not true. When the Odawa elder was a girl, she nearly drowned in Georgian Bay. She went fishing with her father, and he dropped a lobster trap in which she had become entangled and it dragged her overboard and deep into the water. And it was there, in her dark descend, drowning, that she saw her – a blinding pulsing radiance rising toward her from the deep; warm to the eye but cold at heart, alive and strong and watchful. And so the elder knew that Animikii had not gone to the ocean. The elder understood that she longed for her people. And from time to time the thunderbird flaps her wings and brings storms and destruction, and from those sinking beneath the waves of Lake Huron, for whom death is inevitable, she snatches seconds of proximity, before her greatness ends them. * You are a bird, a cormorant, sitting high on a branch of a cedar tree drying your wings in the sun. You are on the northern end of little Lucas Island, from where you can see Fitzwilliam ahead and Manitoulin beyond it, and the great Lake Huron to your left and Georgian Bay to your right. It is a stunning clear sunny summer’s day, the fish are fat, your stomach full. You know of men and boats and of their smoking things and noise and lights and stench. But you live in an open world where you can avoid them, and have done just that for many years. It is late morning and you slumber. When you wake, you spread your wings and lift yourself skyward. You are hungry again. You do not know the name of the place where you sleep at night, but you know how to get there and you know that it is safe and quiet. You turn northeast and start your long journey to this place, skimming the surface of the Bay, quiet and crystal in the clear warm sun, except when you drop through its
surface to catch fish and burst back into the bright open sky. You spot a boat and turn away from it to the east. After a while, you fall back into your rhythm of dives and pulls back toward the sky, feasting, slowly turning north. If you could think of things like happiness, you would be happy. You dive again near an underwater ridge rising close to the surface, snap at a silver sliver of life that caught your eye. It is here that you see the body of the man. You see without interest. You see that the man’s feet are bound to a cinder block and his hands behind his back; you see his tongue poking out of his mouth, white and swollen like a mollusc, his upper chest and neck showing red and brown against his pasty bloated body. It is of no significance to you. It is like the shipwrecks you sometimes come across. You turn and swim toward the surface, reaching through the high noon sun that slants bright and pure through the cool blue water. Then you surge into the sky, water flashing golden off your wings, turn south, then west. * Age sixty, but feeling older, Alfred Feathermore retired from the US Postal Service in Warren, Bradley County, Arkansas. He had worked there forty-four years, having run away from home when he was sixteen. It was a dismal little town, but it was his town and he loved it. Then he went on a trip to see the one thing he had promised himself he would see before he dies. Eleven days after his retirement, on a Wednesday, Alfred Feathermore got into his ancient Honda and drove to Clinton Airport from where he took the cheapest flight he could get to Ottawa. He had never flown before, and was terrified. Twelve days after his retirement, he flew to Killarney on Georgian Bay, and from there took a boat to Little Current. The boat ride was choppy, misty most of the way. He spent the night in a flea-infested lodge, and
got very little sleep. On the morning of the thirteenth day after his retirement, Alfred Feathermore rose early, rented a hatchback and drove to Wikwemikong, where he rented a clinker dinghy with an outboard motor and extra fuel stored in a barrel astern. He had with him a camera, binoculars and flashlight, a raincoat, sleeping bag, compass and map, four litres of water, a small lunch, and two large pizzas. At about nine in the morning, he got into the dinghy and pointed it east. It was a pleasant day and the water was calm. He had never piloted a boat before, but hoped for the best, and thought he had the whole day to figure it out. He found his first stop all right. He called it Island with No Name because he saw it on the map, but no one seemed to have bothered to name it. The island had a nice white beach that he explored but quickly grew bored of. Then he went south toward the Lonely Island. A brisk fresh breeze and small whitecapped waves made him anxious, but the day retained its sunny demeanour. He watched cormorants feeding in the water. They watched him. He had his lunch, the outboard motor droning in his skull. It was mid-afternoon when he disembarked from the dingy in a cove on the western side of the Lonely Island. Here, Alfred Feathermore felt excited for the first time during his trip. Everything went as planned. He chose this island to be alone, and because he wanted pitch-black darkness when night fell. The thing that Alfred Feathermore had promised himself he would see before he dies was the northern lights. For many years, he had carefully followed the solar cycle. He was somewhat of an expert. His timing was faultless, the solar maximum strong and steady. He could have seen the lights the night before in Little Current, but wanted everything to be perfect, dark and quiet. He heaved the dinghy onshore. It was hard going. He was fat, and felt weak
and jaded. He leaned on the gunwale for a while, catching his breath, watching flat white-crested waves limping lazily into the cove. Behind him, a cacophony of contentious bird chatter exploded, and he turned nervously. He stared at the greenery rising off the beach and felt as though he was being watched. Three large birds burst into the sky and flapped away wildly. He thought of a movie he had seen in which a man was stranded on an island and ended up befriending a basketball he had drawn a face on. When it was quiet again, he unloaded the dinghy and spread his sleeping bag open on cool white sand in the shade of a tree. He sat and had two slices of pizza. He watched the sun make its way toward the horizon, and fell asleep. * Alice Feathermore was born to a family of cabinetmakers in 1937 in Burpee, Manitoulin. Her father, Alexandre Feathermore, was a member of the Church of the Brethren and, since no one else on the island was, the family religion had a distinctly cultic leaning. What Father said was what the Church said, and what the Church said was what God said. Alice’s mother died when Alice was eight. She woke one morning at daybreak, made coffee, and collapsed while chopping wood in the backyard. No one knew what she died of, but Father inferred the most grievous sin and that God had struck her down. The nature of the sin was never discovered, but the explanation stood. Alice was the youngest child of five and the only girl. The beauty that she no doubt had was concealed by long faded unadorned dresses and dry strenuously tied back hair. No one imposed this sullen discipline on her. She learned from her mother, and was determined not to be struck down herself. Alice died in 1971, nearly a year after her son had run away. She was scrubbing floors when, like her mother, she keeled over and passed. This time, though, the explanation was sounder than surreptitious sin and was given as high blood pressure in conjunc-
tion with a previously undiagnosed brain aneurysm. Alice regretted only two things in her thirty-four years of life; that she had seen the northern lights, and that her son had run away, leaving a note that said, Enough. On the first thing: For a sixteen year old, he was tall and strong and positively beautiful. She had never liked a boy that way before and never would again. His name was Kyle, and his hair shone gold in the sun and he had a lovely lively twinkle in his eyes and crow’s feet when he laughed. She was raised with the notion of happiness as a precursor to vice and, since he made her very happy, was haunted by the prospect of divine punishment. She hid their relationship from Father, and one night they sneaked away to look at the northern lights from Mindemoya Island. He had a boat and they rowed across the lake, and she was transfixed by the way his shirt pulled across his torso when he plunged the oars into the water and heaved backward. On the island, he started kissing her. He was gentle. It felt good. They got carried away, and she did not stop him. After he had stopped calling on her, once she realised she was pregnant, and after Father had sent her to live with an aunt in Ottawa, she understood that the northern lights had bewitched them, that their love was young and pure and noble, but that the lights were a tool of the devil, a malicious sentient darkness disguised in a lovely radiance, a deceit that opened souls to wickedness. This darkness never left her. On the second thing: When Alfred was born, she promised herself she would keep him from the darkness so that he may always be pure and noble and never be corrupted. She looked for work on Mindemoya Island because, in spite of how things worked out, the place reminded her of beauty and joy. She found work washing linen and cleaning cottages at the local holiday resort. It was hard work, but she believed that work is no-
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prose ble and keeps one pure. They lived in a small wooden cottage next to a pond. The cottage comprised a single large room with some cooking items against one wall, two single beds against the other, a lot of odds and ends in between, and a single large window. It was rudimentary, but she believed that simplicity is noble and keeps one pure. Young Alfred was a quiet baby. He cried only when he was ill. He grew into a short rotund boy with curly black hair and a watchful, secretive manner. He spoke little and laughed little and had no friends she knew of. He hated wearing shorts and buttoned his shirts all the way to his Adam’s apple. She sensed that he hated her, but did not know why. He answered her questions with grunts and shrugs. Alice had one absolute rule. Alfred had to be home by sunset. Then she locked the door and shuttered the window and made dinner, and they stayed inside until dawn. Alfred would never see the northern lights. If she could succeed in this one thing, he would be safe from the darkness. She did not see and could not understand that another darkness took him. When he was fourteen, he wrote a note and left it on the kitchen table. It read: In a prison next to a pond on an island in a lake on an island in a lake with a crazy woman. When she asked him about it, he shrugged and smiled in a sly way that made her want to slap him, and he took the note and tore it up and said it was a line from a poem he had read somewhere. When he was fifteen, he took a job on the island doing maintenance work and some heavy lifting. He worked hard and saved his money and told her he wanted to buy a car. She found the note that read Enough on the cottage door when she came back from work on the afternoon of his sixteenth birthday. She knew it was his handwriting, but could not make sense of it. She baked a birthday cake with white icing and sixteen blue candles, and wrapped the book called Birds of Canada that she had bought him. He did not come home and she never
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saw him again. She had just about decided to take time off from work and go look for him, when she died. * It was the thunder that woke him. He opened his eyes to dusk and heavy gray clouds that looked like fat animals crawling on the surface of the lake. He panicked, thinking that he had no shelter from the rain that would certainly come. Not according to plan at all! thought Alfred Feathermore. He cried out with frustration and beat his torso like he had done a long time ago as a child, and shouted profanities at the sky and cursed the clouds. If he had not done that, the One and the Other would not have known that he was there and things would have been different. The One and the Other had been crossing Lake Huron in a small fishing boat with two duffel bags stuffed with OxyContin and Ecstasy tablets in transparent plastic bags. It was the type of crossing frowned upon by customs officials. They had decided on an afternoon trip, having thought it would be less suspicious. Earlier, they had seen a light aircraft flying fast and low over the lake. It passed and circled and flew back and away. “Border patrol,” said the One. “Have to get rid of this stuff,” said the Other. They hurried to the Lonely Island, a contingency plan, dug a hole, stuffed the bags inside and covered it as inconspicuously as they could. They were on their way back to the boat, planning to get as far away from the island as quickly as they could, when they heard the shouting, and the One, no longer a young man, clutched his chest anxiously. “What the fuck?” said the Other. “Jesus,” wheezed the One. After his tantrum, Alfred Feathermore was out of breath and stood with his arms akimbo when he heard what he could have sworn were voices coming from a dune to his left. “Hello?” he called timidly, getting nothing but a dead and dubious silence in return. He walked slowly toward the dune, his hands
clutched in fat little fists, expecting to find some birds in a tussle and to scold himself for his paranoia. And this is how Alfred and the One and the Other met, staring inertly at each other, blinking owlishly, all of them at a loss for words. “This won’t do,” said the One after a while, turning to the Other. “He’s seen our faces,” said the Other. “If they find the bags and this yokel here points us out–“ mused the One. “–Hey!’ said Alfred, taking offence. “My name is Alfred. Pleased to meet you. I’m here to see the northern lights, but it seems I’m out of luck.” The One nodded ponderously, as though in agreement about Alfred’s luck, the Other sighed despondently and shrugged his shoulders. “We can use the rope and cinder block you put in the bow after you messed up the transom,” said the Other to the One. “It will throw us off balance,” replied the One. “Should be OK, we don’t have that much fuel left,” said the Other. Vaguely, Alfred sensed danger. He stepped forward and offered a handshake as a good faith gesture. The One pulled a pistol from an ankle holster and pointed it shakily at Alfred’s head. “Shit,” said Alfred. He stood meekly while they tied him up, hoping they would take pity on a helpless, obviously feeble old man. “Guys,” he said, while they tied his hands behind his back and pulled him toward their boat, “I haven’t seen a thing and got nothing to say to no one.” “Please,” he pleaded, standing astern while they fastened his feet, “I’m here for the lights. I’ve no business with you.” “Shit,” he mumbled, when the Other stuffed an oily rag into his mouth, taped it vigorously and tightly around his head, and forced him down until he was lying on his back below the gunwale and out of sight. It was dark now and the thunderbird,
that had brooded so ominously, finally raised her prodigious wings and rose. Lightning flashed white high inside the heavy clouds and bright across his face. Fat raindrops, like a thousand little slaps, hit his forehead and cheeks. Then the outboard motor churned alive, and the boat slipped away and turned east into Georgian Bay. The One was steering. The Other, in a cheap disposable plastic raincoat, leaned against the transom with his heavy black boots next to Alfred’s head. Alfred’s heart raced. His breath was shallow through his nose, and he gagged on the foul-tasting rag in his mouth. After a while, the Other left. He returned with a cinder block, his gait wide, heaving with the effort. He took hold of Alfred by the shoulders and coaxed him into a sitting position. Then he tied a length of rope to Alfred’s ankles and the cinder block. “Sorry, buddy,” said the Other, kneeling and looking Alfred in the eyes. “This is not my kind of thing. It’s just bad luck.” Fear turned thickly in Alfred’s stomach. He tried to speak, but his tongue flailed helplessly against the rag. Then he screamed. He screamed for a long time until his throat felt raw and tasted of blood. For a second he thought that the Other was weeping, but he could not tell for sure because of the rain. “Sorry, buddy,” said the Other and got up and left. After a minute, the outboard motor turned quiet and the boat decelerated into a peaceful sway. Then both the One and Other were there. They stood facing him, exchanging awkward looks. All
around them the water susurrated, and it seemed black and heavy like spilled crude oil in the moonless night. He started his muffled screaming again, his eyes and soul pleading. “I’m sorry, buddy,” said the Other. * The water struck him cold and hard and utterly black and lightless. It took his mind and his soul in a blind writhing panic. It embraced him, claimed him, clawed and dragged him down. So cold, so cold, so black and cold like death… He gasped pointlessly through the rag in his mouth. He opened his eyes to an unimaginable darkness, to a world that ended right before his eyes. By grace we live and by grace we die, she said from somewhere far away. He sensed her next to him and within him; radiant, beautiful, cold and hard. It was OK now. She was with him. She had found him. He was not alone. By grace we live and by grace we die, she whispered in his mind. It meant nothing to him. He gasped again and the water found its way. He looked inward and he looked outward and it was all the same never ending nothingness. And then he saw the northern lights, swirling purple, blue and red right before his eyes in the depths of that dark lake. It was glorious and he felt happy and was content.
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POETRY
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Tim Suermondt
ALL SEASONS I shoot baskets in the backyard, getting younger and wiser with every shot hoisted from every angle—I remember everything about me with a precise clarity, facts and dreams pared to the bone. I keep shooting until my wife calls me to supper, like my mother did—the past opening wide as the future. “Coming, honey” and I rattle the last shot of the day in and out, nearly home.
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Tim Suermondt
READING A POET AGAIN AFTER MANY, MANY YEARS I had forgotten how beautiful his writing was, how much I admired his strangeness and bravado and loved all the women he wrote about. His great sequence has lost none of its enchantment and power: the woman in the green sweater, the cows with various colored wings and the train track extending up to the moon. The time we let come between us seems so miniscule, despite the truth that I’m older and he’s dead. Look at those cows flying by now, look at how assured they are that this will continue forever.
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FRIDAY HEATING UP At street level in the late morning basketball and hip-hop legislate together to rule the day, all day. Pure white in pockets is the sky, as if some angels with enormous wings are lingering a little while after their Convention has closed. I lace up my black sneakers and squeak down the hallway.
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Tim Suermondt
THE YEARS, BROTHER It’s Harlem, where streets keep walking. --James A. Emanuel So true, and I could never keep up—so I left. I must have passed by the Apollo a thousand times yet never went in. I thought Lenox was the most beautiful avenue in the world, because it was beaten, tough and hip. What will it think of me when I come back, when I come back.
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Peycho Kanev
Ancient Writings The cats are sleeping and the babies suck milk The dictators get even crazier and the world seems unreal War veterans prey for the claws of the darkness made of bony tears The dark rain is falling down like a Christmas carol Mama Mama a voice is rising and I use the butcher’s knife to slice the bread and the gas to burn my toasted love
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Peycho Kanev
The Game The shadows on the wall rush furiously against each other and torn their ghostly clothes, while their owners sit quietly against each other and carefully count the cards. The circle of light coming from the lamp outlines their ring where the final round is almost over. This place is their own empire. The man dreams of being Caligula, the woman – Messalina. They play with cards with the faces of ancient emperors, but the calendar on the wall shows that the game was over long ago.
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Art The dog is waiting for you when you come. Pet the dog. Although he will not respond with the same.
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Peycho Kanev
Sunday Boring Sunday At the window I watch a man with his lawn mower and it’s quiet in my room The shades are drawn as always and I watch the movements of that man in this quiet Sunday morning The walls just stand there and even death is trivial like love is trivial and suddenly I understand the meaning of it all the silent roses the black sun the pink jails the smiling hospitals the mega-churches the happy suicides the big heavy silence and the question now is Bob Marley or Bob Dylan
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bios
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Yvonne Conza is a writer of short stories, plays, fiction and nonfiction. She received her BA at The New School and is the co-author of Training for Both Ends of the Leash. The Examiner plugged her book: Every Dog Owner Should have This Tool On Their Bookshelf. The Off Center Theatre and Lee Strasberg Lab, both in New York City, produced two of her plays. She lives in Miami Beach and has a serious addiction to yoga. Great life revelations: As a child I’d do a series of cartwheels in a row, soaring for seconds at a time in kaleidoscopicmotion where life transformed into 360-degrees of fantastic possibilities.
Chad Copeland was raised in Northwest Indiana where some of the most beautiful landscapes abruptly end at the fences of giant industrial complexes. Urban landscapes that once thrived are now in a tailspin of economic and environmental disaster. These scenes have embedded themselves in his subconscious and this has led him down a unique path of artistic exploration. Chad attended the American Academy of Art in Chicago where he studied traditional Oil painting. His Undergraduate degree is from Ball State University in Indiana where he focused on Steel Fabrication and Sculpture. Chad now resides in Denver, Colorado. He has assembled a shop and studio to create personal work as well as offer fabrication services to the public via commissioned work, open studio space and classes to those interested in learning to fabricate and build sculpture. Look him up at www.C-SquaredStudios.com
Peycho Kanev is the author of 4 poetry collections and two chapbooks. He has won several European
awards for his poetry and he’s nominated for the Pushcart Award and Best of the Net. Translations of his books will be published soon in Italy, Poland and Russia. His poems have appeared in more than 1000 literary magazines, such as: Poetry Quarterly, Evergreen Review, Hawaii Review, Cordite Poetry Review, Sheepshead Review, Off the Coast, The Adirondack Review, The Coachella Review, Two Thirds North, Sierra Nevada Review, The Cleveland Review and many others.
André le Roux is a legal adviser at the provincial legislature in Cape Town, South Africa. He debuted in Prick of the Spindle in 2013, which piece was nominated for the Pushcart Prize. His work appeared most recently in Pif Magazine and Liquid Imagination.
Fabio Sassi makes photos and acrylics using tiny objects and what is considered to have no worth by
the mainstream. Fabio lives and works in Bologna, Italy. His work can be viewed at www.fabiosassi.foliohd.com. Fabio is a regular contributor to Umbrella Factory Magazine. His piece “Constellation Umbrella” is featured on our back page.
Tim Suermondt is the author of Trying To Help The Elephant Man Dance (The Backwaters Press, 2007) and Just Beautiful (NYQ Books, 2010). He lives in Cambridge, MA. with his wife, the poet Pui Ying Wong.
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