The Phoenix - #56 Literary and Visual Art Journal of Eastern Mennonite University

P L A A J E A S T E R N M E N N O N I T E U N I V E R S I T Y º

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H I N L O

O E N T E R D º V º A R U R N

T I A I T A

V O L U M E º 5 6 2 0 1 4

H E X º R Y S U S º L º

Staff Advisor // Kevin Seidel Co-Editors-in-Chief // B. Lani PrunĂŠs and Hannah Patterson Literary Editors // Brendan Erb and Bethannie Park Visual Editors // Sarah Gingerich and Karla Hovde Copy Editors // Lauren Sauder and Kendra Litwiller General Staff // Kierra Stutzman, Krista Nyce, Amber Davis, Louisa Miller

The Phoenix would like to thank...

Erica Garber for designing our beautiful cover (we are eternally grateful) Our dedicated, hard-working, wonderful staff Our loyal readers EMU Print Shop SGA

From the Editors “I don’t buy it, says the scientist.

Replies the frail and faithful heart,

“If you hear a voice within you say ‘you cannot paint,’ then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.

-Vincent Van Gogh

it’s not for sale.”

-Wendy Videlock

Four years ago, neither of us could have guessed the way we would grow and change alongside The Phoenix. We started off strong, a visible mix of skill levels. Looking back, we can say with confidence that we had no idea what we were doing, gangly newborns just trying to stay afloat. In our time we have changed, not just in wisdom but also in confidence, as have the staff and even those who submit to us year after year. We come together each spring, combining our skills and our passions to produce a shared craft, small parts becoming whole, crafting together one uniform entity. Without a single one, what would we be but small, incomplete shards of a mosaic.

We would like to thank all of our readers, everyone who has submitted through the years, and all of our staff for trusting us with the charge of your carefully crafted work, for sticking with us, and believing in us through all of our years here.

Thank you for trusting us with your loves, pieces of yourselves. Trust that we poured over each submission and made hard decisions in order to represent EMU as a school, as a campus, as a community.

We know it’s got a long way to go, but it’s come this far because it became our magnum opus, our baby. We hope that our dedication and passion will be a cause that future generations believe in, that takes the Phoenix further than even we could have envisioned in our four years as editors.

We love all of you, and we love our Phoenix, take care.

With love,

B. Lani Prunés and Hannah Patterson Co-Editors-in-Chief The Phoenix ’14

INDEX 3 Becca Longenecker // Birds for Windows

15 Jonathan Drescher-Lehman // Untitled

4 Randi B. Hagi // Trellis

16 Michelle N. // The Paradox of Freedom’s Dream

5 W.S. Darcy // Unity 6 Jonathan Drescher-Lehman // Untitled 7 Caleb Martin // Questions 8 Caleb Martin // Oceans 9 Randi B. Hagi // Ping-Pong Trevor Handson // Moeketsi 10 Evelyn Snow // Untitled 11 Becca Longenecker // Without a Manual Printer // Go Away

Printer // Silver Lined 17 Peter French // Not a Doctor 18 Jordan Leaman // Sunrise 19 Printer // Gone 20 Evelyn Snow // The Resurrection Jordan Leaman // Blue Water 21 Glenn M. Kauffman // muronulatum equinox Erica Garber // Fjordland 22 Jonathan Drescher-Lehman // Untitled David Everett // Spider!

12 Jenn Orantes // Untitled

23 Hannah Chappell-Dick // Earth and Iron: Your Eyes

13 Jeni S. Heishman // Hinkypunks

24 Donavan Colt // Living in the Land of the Dead

14 Chris Yoder // Gunmetal

26 Karla Hovde // Chapel

Ellen Roth // Beautiful Angles 30 Degrees

Birds for Windows Becca Longenecker

The birds have the truth, carry it on their wings to their death brought on by the advanced technology of cleaning products, which make windows and glass doors completely transparent, a trait worth paying for, apparently, or no one would ever upgrade their Windex.

But they do, sealing the doom of the winged.

And after the impact of Bird and Windexed window, someone -- a boy in a flannel shirt with one pant leg rolled up, the right leg -- finds the body and endeavors to preserve it.

Borax and scalpel in a wooden box covered with national pride, a red and blue flag papered on the inside.

Ironic ownership for a Mennonite taxidermist.

He pinches, pries, with long and beautiful fingers, blue eyes. Peels back the skin, looking for truth, but it isn’t there.

It is the part of them that no longer lives post-Windex impact, the part you heard from the corner of your ear outside a window at night -singing a song of a love that once belonged -singing truth as you fell asleep.

The birds know, but they’re dying for the sake of transparent windows and doors.

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Trellis // Randi B. Hagi

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Unity

W.S. Darcy We slipped out the back door, knowing the security camera wouldn’t catch us since Mikey Handson said he saw only the front door ones worked when he got sent to the vice-principal’s last Monday. We probably could have slipped out the front, since it was the last week of school when no one calls roll, but the buses still appear at the end of our drives, so we go. Once enough teachers can vouch for our attendance, we leave. Me and James push ourselves and our stuff through the side-yard gate, cut through the black-tar parking lot of the Holy River Freewill Baptist Church, and side step into the alleyways of houses on James’s block, each back gate one less between his bedroom and us and our almost almost not ready yet fumblings.

Usually, we would talk about what Preacher Pritchard spat out in morning assembly about carnal sin, or which poor song Mrs. Compel desecrated in order to teach conjugated Spanish verbs. James knew I was nervous about going to his house during or after school. No matter what, I was constantly paranoid that some-one my parents knew would spot me and drag me off by my ear, making my escapades the talk of the town. Knowing what awaited us then at his place, we walked in silence, until James turned and tried to break the heavy tension.

“There was a shooting at the pub last night,” he said. I stopped walking. He continued up the path. “My dad was supposed to show up at his shift, but a friend said he’d take it.

Needed the extra hours. Can you be-lieve that? He could have been killed!”

I began to walk again, slower. The consequences of that would have been harrowing. It would have meant he would live with his unstable drug-using mother and step-father in the city, with their three dogs and trail of step- and half-siblings. I caught up to James, and slipped my hand into his. Squeezing my boyfriend’s atheist fingers between mine, I thought that God must stand in those crevices between here and there, between the bullet-width slivers of being dead now or much later.

I thought I saw God myself later, in the beads of sweat on his chest above me, in the sweet smoke that filled the bathroom, in the open windows and brick backyard and in my ice cream-soothed throat. I thought I saw him on my eager hips and on his thin lips and in his hair between my fingers, and even on myself under his hands.

I thought I saw him in the fact that his dad was still there, his cigarette bits clues to his life, and thought God chose favorites. I thought I saw God in that we were never caught, not even when his dad came home and brought a man upstairs and James tried to hide his shameful tears. I thought I thought I thought that God excused sin for passions, though pardoned hell for lovers. The way he looked at me wasn’t sin, and laughter isn’t sin, or the knowledge that came with each bite, each kiss.

I went home alone with enough time as if I had left from school. On Sunday, and even now decades lat-er, after James was sent court-ordered to live with his mother, my family and I passed James’s house on the way to church, where my pastor father would preach about sacredness and right and wrong and I would sit back on the sticky leather-covered pews and smile about how right each drop of sweat and ice cream was, how perfect the green shoots popping up through bricks covered in weed ash, how right it felt to feel God in making two, one.

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Untitled // Jonathan Drescher-Lehman

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Questions Caleb Martin

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Oceans

Caleb Martin

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Ping-Pong Randi B.

Ricky’s dad, Sal, had a nose and fingertips and toes that

Moeketsi // Trevor Hanson

were all ping-pong balls. Varying in size and all a permanent sunbaked brown, Sal’s siblings had

Ricky hated that; the thought made him cringe a little.

When Ricky was born and Sal proudly presented the pink and scrunch-faced new-child to his high school buddies, one smartass was quick to apologize to Sal for him having passed on the Mezei family nose. After Ricky heard that story eight years later, he spent forty minutes or so staring into the mirror, stroking the end of his nose, which had just a hint of a tiny ping-pong ball at its tip.

“Don’t worry, hon,” his mom assured him, after giving him half an hour in the bathroom and then investigat-ing his obsession. “You have a cute nose.”

“Really?”

“Sure, babe, it takes years of hard drugs and alcohol use to round out a nose like your father’s,” she said, somewhat bitter. Ricky was especially happy to win second place in the D.A.R.E. essay competition in March when he saw Mom’s beaming face after school that day.

Every evening that Sal wasn’t drinking, he and Ricky were in the basement, their sock feet scrambling over cold concrete, chasing the thock thock thock of each others’ serves. They spent hours cussing their missed returns (Ricky did so quietly, when Mom was in a different part of the house) and perfecting the English spin on a hit. Sal had learned the game in Beckley pool houses in between rounds of whiskey shots and poker. He’d been a regular at Calvin’s from the age of 16 and was quietly absent on his 18th birthday for fear of a well-wisher who would reveal his former minority.

Ricky had tried a sip of PBR one night when Gramma was making beer biscuits and wasn’t paying atten-tion to the two-thirds-empty can as she wrestled with dough. He quick ran to the bathroom and spit into the sink, gagging at the watered-down-cat-pee-taste clinging to his tongue.

The incident further confused Ricky over why his father, a cynically hilarious and caring Superhuman, would reduce himself to bestial growls and grunts after every night’s case of Bud Light Platinum. Lacking the courage to ask, what instead came out of his mouth was: “Best out of three games for champion of the universe?”

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And if Sal was sober (up to his third beer), he would accept the challenge, and the basement of the off-white house on Fair Street resembled some sweet American Dream normalcy.

Untitled

Evelyn Snow I

didn’t

know

what to

think

bit into ripe love and passion with reluctance. It tasted like melting sugar cane, buttered with moaning delight. It leave the sourness of expired pickle bile. That was my own. Or maybe it was put there by the empty spaces, the ink shadows of what I could not because it was never explained to me that I would one day crave a rocking body inside mine, my breasts bouncing to the speeding rhythm of some call love and others sin.

I wasn’t told what do with this starvation, this panging from my second mouth that hungered not for the mold of lust but something I thought was pure. These lips wanted love, the kind that wants to even share one body though it means tearing apart soft coral walls, and releasing a henna stream. The blood is the covenant, the wax seal but I also it’s the freedom. I was never told that I could use my body 10 to love.

Go Away // Printer

Without a Manual Becca Longenecker Chains, washers, and spokes You are a great mechanic, But girls are not bikes.

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Untitled // Jenn Orantes

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Hinkypunks

Jeni S. Heishman inoculate a will o’ the wisp. incubate two days Whisper over loving words to make it grow watch it grow, sucking.

Count colonies of hinkypunks – blue in darkness. Ocean-colored on a pale agar glistening, insectile.

Foolish fire drying out under the light nudge it back into moist shadow and follow without maps into the undressed murk of the moors. Dye it under a microscope – the rods – absurdly shaped like floss chopped up with scissors.

Midnight Glow // Caleb Schlabach

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Gunmetal Chris Yoder

The gunmetal gray taints your face.

And the desire of vomit, the desire of the stomach, the desire of the machine inside threatens to eject a noxious substance billowing from the fumes swirling around the crusty caverns of the stomach walls. It rumbles, then grumbles, and water lines the cracks in your mouth.

It seeps from pores, the saliva traversing your throat, then your mouth, and your tongue, which is when you realize,

“Oh, shit, I need to run to the bathroom.”

And it’s the middle of the night.

Gunmetal, like your face, reflects on hallway linoleum and bathroom tiles. And gunmetal, like your face, swells in the stomach and ejects onto gunmetal linoleum and gunmetal tiles.

“Hold me,” you say, because now she’s standing over you asking if you’re alright.

“Hold me,” you say, because gunmetal paints your body, and she isn’t gunmetal.

Beautiful Angles 30 Degrees // Ellen Roth

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Untitled // Jonathan Drescher-Lehman

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The Paradox of Freedom’s Dream Michelle N.

The authorities had announced that the rooftops were now public property, no longer the playground of the government, no longer state-maintained to hold the emblems of the crown and the banners of the state. It was part of their “peoples’ campaign,” which stated stiffly that all were now equal.

In the nighttime some street children would scurry from rooftop to rooftop, straining to see through the inky black and giggling at their mischief. But giggles stopped short as they gingerly descended the restricted stairs, keeping a sharp eye out for the shadows of soldiers and the slapping palms of landlords.

In the daylight, those little brown-eyed boys would stare up at the rooftops, past the bright laundry strung from window to window, flapping in the breeze like flags marking territory. This window is owned, those flags said. They weren’t markers of war; sometimes they were an offer of community and a proposal for sharing with the ivied window across the alley.

But very few markers of ownership decorated the liberated rooftops, adorned with crumbling plaster railings. The boys wondered how far you could see in the daytime up there, not having to wait for a strike of light-ning to illuminate the world laid before you. They imagined the depth of detail that would crystallize in the colors of the day. Standing upon a rooftop in the light of day would be like owning one of those windows—but a powerful window through which you could see the intricacies of peoples’ lives; humanity quivering across the land and the streets. The boys decided this must be why the statesmen had forgotten to free the stairs as well—this meant all but a few were restricted from the grand new freedom. A rooftop view in the light of day would bring too much power as it brought the prospect of a million lives carrying a million stories.

Silver Lined // Printer

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Not a Doctor Spoken Word

Peter French My arm is a runway and my hands are the sky, reaching out to grab the earth and hold it close to my heart where it belongs.

My eyes are the moon waning as I blink, and you watch each night until our blinking is in sync and my moon is new.

My smile is a sailboat in the ocean of my mouth.

My tongue is a wave in the storm. My body is a universe and you’re part of it, because my arm may be a runway but your dimples are the sun, and when my love takes off it needs to see where it’s going.

And my eyes may be the moon, but without your freckled stars what’s the point?

And some day, when my sailboat sinks in the tempest of my words, I’ll need you to come save me from drowning. And we can sail off to the safety of your universe together.

A universe where the moon may be green and the runway may be scattered with speed bumps from failed attempts to take off with a dull knife.

A universe where the sky may be calloused from trying to mold the earth.

I’ll sail in your ocean.

I’ll ride the vowels like waves and watch the consonants crash on the shore, where I’ll sit and listen to what your universe has to say.

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Because your story isn’t meant to stay on paper. It’s mean to resonate in your chest, to cut your lips and batter your ears because it’s something we both need to hear.

So spit the sound from your shore and watch where it lands on a sidewalk where your seeds grow a garden and shoot your adjectives like Cupid’s arrows at your enemies so they might know love.

And sing to me the purple sadness of your past, deeper than the blues, because a saxophone on a street corner can begin to express your pain.

It is a fact that when a rape victim tells her story the brain damage from the trauma heals.

And I’m not a doctor, but if I were, my number one prescription would be story time.

Sunrise // Jordan Leaman

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Gone // Printer

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Blue Water // Jordan Leaman

The Resurrection Evelyn Snow

The smoke dragon choked me.

Claws bit my throat and the air was enflamed.

The dragon lifted me onto the sacrificial pyre and kissed me.

Its tongue throbbed in my mouth and dripped black slime into my stomach.

Then, I felt a droplet on my head.

Cool dew on my blistered scalp.

And when the rain fell, the dragon shrunk back, hissing.

It cowered at the dove of light.

The dove was crying and its tears became a fountain of rain that washed me.

When the dove landed, there was a man.

He cried blood from brown eyes, down brown cheeks, that made russet streaks.

He whispered and the dragon shook, coughing clouds of dark laughter.

The man lifted me from the funeral pyre and laid me on soft grass. He kissed me.

I smelled his pomegranate breath.

And when he pulled away, I coughed up black slime and could breathe.

He replaced me on the pyre.

He was eaten by flames that peeled his skin away. His eyes stopped leaking, rolled back in his head, and I screamed and the dragon squealed in swine joy, sinking back into its trough and mud.

And I laid and cried, not deserving the tears of rain, kiss of wind, or pillow of grass. I didn’t deserve the brown cheek that laid against mine and murmured that I was alright.

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mucronulatum* equinox Glenn M. Kauffman

Precocious buds defy the elements. A few warm days in March, and pale-pink, tissued petals test their metal ‘gainst equinoctial winds.

That battle lost, blasted blossoms, stem clinging, huddle against the cold.

But the evanescent wisps of pink amid drab winter portend a better day.

And they laugh last as sibling buds survive the April freeze to flower a proper end to winter, and dance pink preludes to the spring. *R. mucronulatum, one of the earliest rhododendrons to bloom in the spring

Fjordland // Erica Garber

Untitled // Jonathan Drescher Lehman

Spider! // David Everett

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Earth and Iron: Your Eyes Hannah Chappell-Dick

dripping, melting as the warm spring breeze announces victory in the final battle (though not forever) between deep chills & the pulsing, radiant glow of this planet always latent, taking care of Her Earth-dwellers (those transient, beautiful creatures) & their fighting endlessly swirls wrapping its iron fingers of destruction around everything that rusts (but not your skin as it melts away my fear) So Mother Earth laughs at the simplicity of our desires She spins slowly and surely. while we spin out of control hoping to find each other colliding softly our bodies rolling like the tides & the bombs fall around us and we dance to elude oblivion as your eyes reflect the stars that show up in the blue summer sky.

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Living in the Land of the Dead // Donavan Colt Duttweiler

eiler

Biographies W.S. Darcy mispronounces her own last name,

Hannah Chappell-Dick, a biology major who

editing team. According to her Facebook, she is an avid fan of fitting in small spaces and graduating from high school. She has an affinity for koalas and like this wily beast, she appears sweet but secretly harbors a darker side.

Jonathan Drescher-Lehman currently has the kind of beard that makes people go “hmmm...”

Karla Hovde, a junior Art and Digital Media double major, is thrilled to bits to have her painting included in this lofty publication. Her goals in life include traveling this world and always seeking a little bit of art in everyday situations.

Donavan Colt Duttweiler, an art major, prefers

Glenn M. Kauffman: gardener, née chemistry

thinks bartering is nervewracking yet glorious, and owns a bunny softer than a cloud, mostly because clouds could hardly be considered soft in nature. longingly stares at the open road outside during lab, originally included the line “running in circles” in her poem, but decided her real life was too cliché for poetry.

photography and ceramics and has a warm place in my heart for the graffiti tag-name FELL.

When at Taco Bell, David Everett can be found discussing the philosophical nuances of the Wheel of Time book series. He thinks photography is pretty neat, too. His future aspirations include, but are not limited to, obtaining his Masters in Occidental Horticulture and becoming a hibachi chef.

Peter French is a secret linguist and has defeated

Kenny G. in a saxaphone throwdown. He also studies Peacebuilding and Development and Spanish and is from the county of Lancaster.

Erica Garber could eat stuffing and mushrooms all

day every day, which is good since, due to her impending graduation, it may be all she can afford.

Randi B. Hagi once wrestled a greased pig to the

ground.

Trevor Hanson once logged 24 hours on a video game in 48 hours, and he is passionate about food, despite his finicky nature. He has denied at least five marriage proposals, and it is suspected that he has a deep appreciation of the opera.

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Jeni Heishman writes poetry that impresses the

professor, with occasional attempts at verse.

Jordan Leaman is a freshman math major and the

proud owner of his own coffee maker (courtesy of fellow freshman Jonathan Nisly).

Becca Longenecker is: a third-year English major an always asleep before midnight student an eating-the-last-cookie-and-blaming-the-one-who’snot-there kind of roommate a laundry room vocalist a daughter a dog lover a sister (twice over) and a sometimes writing always writer Caleb Martin is a student ninja finishing his shurik-

en-level training at EMU. He hopes to complete his katana-level training in the near future. His hobbies include snorkeling in the university fountain, stargazing during the day, and watching laughably bad kung fu movies. He also has a soft spot for donuts and puppies.

Michelle N. appreciates any writing that captures the

complexity of human character. She is a connoisseur of wood varnishes and can often be found frequenting antique stores, critiquing their wares.

Jenn Orantes occasionally curls up on her bed and obliterates entire seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer in one sitting.

Printer takes something from everywhere she goes,

Chris Yoder is famous for playing folksy cello music on the porches of Parkwoods and at any other venue he wants. He expresses himself eloquently and is a suspected accordion player.

even if it is only a memory.

Ellen Roth: excellent dancer, awesome hair, and a

pretty fine disposition to match.

Caleb Schlabach is a sophomore Digital Media major, maybe? He didnt give us a bio. We suspect he, as a blond, dabbles in many things sinister and yet... classy.

Evelyn Snow would prefer it if you never asked her

what her favorite song or genre of music is. Questions about music are actually her least favorite questions.

She likes what she likes and would prefer to listen to her music in private. If you ask her about dogs though, she’d be delighted.

Chapel // Karla Hovde 26

Colophon

The Phoenix, Volume 56, was produced by the staff at Eastern Mennonite University (EMU), VA and was printed by EMU’s Print Shop in Harrisonburg, VA. The cover was designed by Erica Garber.

The books contain 27 pages and all body copy was set in 11pt Helvetica Neue Medium. Titles were set in 28pt Helvetica Neue Condensed, Bold. Author names were set in 18pt Helvetica Neue Ultralight. The Phoenix was produced using Adobe InDesign.

Want Your Work in the Next Phoenix?

Please send all submissions to phoenix@emu.edu. Include your preferred print name and attach all works with respective clearly specified titles. Although we accept untitled submissions, we strongly suggest titling your work for clarity. Submissions are limited to eight per person and may consist of writing and art. If you are inter-ested in becoming a staff member, simply attend a meeting or email us for more information.

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