THE TORCH a literary arts magazine / 2015
I grabbed the strawberries with my left hand and ran them under the faucet, washing away the dirt I couldn’t see. I ate them one by one and looked out the window over the sink. The sky was darkening over the trees. When I had swallowed the last bite, I looked down and saw the faintest red stain on the palm of my hand, and I washed that off, too. Gracie Wise and John Austin Gray, 2014.
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THE KISSING TREE Alice Calvery - pg. 3
ROYALTY
Katie Williams - pg. 4
ROOT BEER
Renee Roberson - pg. 5
BUTTERYFLY KIN
Kathryn Buncik - pg. 7
LA GRANGE, KENTUCKY
Joshua James Wilkinson - pg. 8
(400) WHEN THE SAINTS Ellen Cline - pg. 9
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THE KISSING TREE Alice Calvery
Where are your eyes? If you had them, would they hold me in knotted burrows where squirrels live, snickering, hoarding their acorns? Your body and roots weave ’round mine and remind me that you’re not leaving. Even if I drink all the minerals in the ground and all the seas and rivers and streams, you will still lay your head on my green chest ’til your body is hollow and echoes with termites.
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Royalty
Katie Williams
Charcoal and Chalk
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ROOT BEER
Renee Roberson
“Don’t you want some breakfast?” Momma called out at me from the kitchen, “it’s a long drive into town.” “Nah, I’m not hungry,” I said. I was combing my hair and pulling on my boots at the same time so I could be faster. Daddy were going to town today to pick up Momma’s new oven from Howard’s Hardware. “Where’s Daddy?” “He’s in the living room,” Momma said, turning back to washing dirty dishes. She had gospel music playing like she always does, and she sang along about precious salvation and God loving the wretches. “I’m ready,” I hollered, breathless and running into the living room. Daddy was sitting in the easy chair, reading the paper. “Whatcha reading?” I asked, craning over his shoulder. “Wars, murders, Bush. Nothing you need to worry about,” Daddy said as he folded up the paper. “You ready?” “Yes, Sir,” I said and ran out to our old rust-red pickup truck. I was seat-belted before Daddy even left the porch. He got in the car and made his usual adjustments: the mirrors, the air conditioning, the seat. The truck stuttered to life, and we set out down the dirt road towards town. I waved goodbye to my older brothers
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that were already out working with the horses. Daddy put in a tape of a preacher man shouting about hellfire and revival. Turning to Daddy, I ventured: “Revival feels like jumping in the pond when the water’s extra cold and the sun’s really hot, right?” “No, Son,” he said, turning down the preacher man, “revival isn’t a feeling. You’ve got revival when you mind me and your Momma, and, most of all, the Lord Jesus.” But he just said that because last Sunday my church clothes were itching me, and the preacher man just kept talking; so, I got up to “go to the bathroom” and played outside ’til the service ended. Momma and Daddy came out with that great rush of people in their fine Sunday clothes, and they found me chasing lizards in the shady side of the church. They pulled down my pants and whupped me right then and there. I told them I left because I was uncomfortable. Momma said, “Eli, you need to pray to sweet baby Jesus and ask forgiveness for being so wicked and listening to the devil.” I bowed my head down and folded up my hands, but I didn’t pray, I thought about those lizards I was chasing. Remembering Sunday, I looked off out the truck window and smiled. I watched the bramble bushes and gumball trees blur by the truck.
Soon enough, candy wrappers and soda cans replaced the loose cotton plant leftovers strung along the roadside grass. That’s when we came to our town, Wimberly. I gawked at all those city-folk in Wimberly, and they gawked back or paid me no mind at all. At the hardware store, Mr. Howard already had an oven-sized box waiting for us on the front porch. “You just stay in the truck, this will take a minute,” Daddy ordered. He got out of the truck to talk to Mr. Howard and his men.
had root beer-colored skin. “I would like,” Daddy said drawing out his syllables, “a number 5”—he held out five fingers with one hand and pointed to the menu with the other— “and a number 3.” He held out three fingers. The Mexican nodded, scribbled on his notepad, said “Sí, Sí,” and left.
While we waited, I told Daddy all about the baseball team this year, about riding my horse around our land, and about Billy and Jonah’s fight yesterday. When our waiter came back, he had four quesadillas and two burritos balanced along his sarsaparillacolored arm, like feathers on a wing. He placed two plates in front of us and hurried away to other tables. “I’ll say the blessing,” I offered, and Daddy smiled at me. We bowed our heads and rested our folded hands on the orange plastic tabletop. “Lord Jesus, thank you. Amen,” I prayed. We sat silent for a minute; then Daddy added his own “amen” After they had the oven all strapped down, Daddy to my prayer. climbed back into the truck, all hot and sweating. “Hungry?” Daddy asked. We ate our beans, rice, and tacos then got up to leave. Daddy rifled through his wallet, past fives, tens, and “Yes, Sir,” I nodded gravely. twenties, to one of those tracts they gave out at “You like Mexican food? How about El Nepal?” Daddy church last Sunday. We’re supposed to leave them at smiled at me and started the truck. We drove a minute gas stations, public restrooms, and restaurants so we to a pink adobe building with a red tile roof at the edge can spread salvation wherever we go. Daddy tipped of town. with a gospel tract that was shaped and colored like a twenty-dollar bill. He said while we walked to the Inside Mexican music played, and it was sweltering hot. truck, “We should’ve left him one in es-pan-yoll.” A lot of white folk were there sitting at the bar smoking. The only Mexicans in the restaurant were running I didn’t take any of those tracts with me when I left around with baskets of chips and bowls of salsa. church last Sunday, and I didn’t laugh with my Daddy. We were seated in a corner booth, and a Mexican waiter I just wished that we hadn’t left that man a fake twentyasked about our drinks. I asked for root beer, because he dollar bill for salvation. After arrangings and rearrangings, two strong men and Daddy picked up the oven and pushed it onto the truck bed. The sweat on their muscles reminded me of the sweat on the horses at the track. I only went to the track one time when Uncle Joey took us kids because he was watching us for the weekend. When Momma and Daddy found out he took us to a den of vipers, they sat us all down at the kitchen table with the family Bible and read us verse after verse about casting lots, redemption, and that wily Satan.
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Butterfly Kin Kathryn Buncik
Illustration and Collage
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LA GRANGE, KENTUCKY
Joshua James Wilkinson
A house soaks in its memory—summer’s sun clinging to the wide and open fields and the crumpled woods in between them. Sweat stuck to my hand-me-down dress, nostrils full of horses and tobacco. I climbed trees and fought with my sisters over the tastiest chores. But not today. Today I came home from school, an awkward seventeen years old, in hysteria, which sprouted from an unexpected phone call and early dismissal. I came home to see the porch blanketed by men, clad in overalls, smoking cigarettes in silence, and I swallowed my tongue. Their eyes shot me downtrodden looks and they backed off as I approached, forming a plaid and denim tunnel to the screen door that clapped in the wind. Mom, at four feet and ten inches tall, was supposed to be a stallion, iron-sided and strong. I found her on the edge of the bed, sobs erupting in intervals. Uncle Suter paced in front of her, cradling a cigarette in his palm. He saw me and turned away. Mom saw me and patted her hand on the bedspread beside her. I sat and my throat shrank; I didn’t dare speak. Dad, Jim, was dead. His shirt sleeve caught in the teeth of a thresher, death’s harvest, unexpected. He had once conquered a world war and malaria, though he was presumably dead. After a lengthy recovery, he pursued his love and married her, and began the life of farming. Now his girls were all alone. Jim was buried, the Stars and Stripes adorning his coffin. With my sisters long since gone and graduated, Mom was now in my care. I taught her to drive, hiding every time I saw somebody I knew. Jim was dead, so I got a job at the grocery. I became a sharecropper of rent and responsibility— though tobacco still surrounded the house.
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400 (When the Saints) Ellen Cline
Stone, Ash, Clay
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ALICE CALVERY agrees with you. KATIE WILLIAMS is still trying to find a way to be a designerillustrator-photographer-sculptor-filmmaker.
RENEE ROBERSON loves slight sunburns and crossword puzzles. KATHRYN BUNCIK feeds Hansel honey everyday. JOSHUA JAMES WILKINSON rides a horse called Hubris. ELLEN CLINE’S hands are little; her features small; her shoulders slope down; she’s a lil’ guy.
Excellence-Driven | Christ-Centered | People-Focused | Future-Directed