Fourth River, Issue 4 by Jeremy N

Poetry

John Allen

Katherine AbbottÂ

Fernando Benavidez

Lisa Alexander Baron

Evan Bruno

Sam Bell

Kay Calkins

Louis Daniel Brodsky

Bryn Chancellor

Lindsay Coleman

Ann Claycomb

Dennis Doherty

Jenny Erpenbeck

Marc Douglass-Smith

Aaron Hellem

Joan Gelfand

Stephen Graham Jones

Lara Gularte

Ronald H. Lands

Diane Hueter

Christiana Langenberg

Janet R. Kirchmeier

Joshua Moehling

Sandra Kohler

Stephen Murabito

Tracy Koretsky

John William Nordhaus

Alex Lemon

Alan Rossi

Robin Merrill

Lucas Southworth

Romy Shinn Piccolella

Interview Dennis Covington

The Fourth River

Fiction

A publication of the Chatham University MFA in Creative Writing Program

Doug Ramspeck Jack Romig Russell Rowland

Nonfiction

Aaron Rudolph

Katie Fallon

Chuck Rybak

Gail Folkins

Marc Thompson

Holly Leigh

Diane Tucker

Jill Patterson

Lee Voss

William S. Sandlin Jillian Schedneck

$10.00

Autumn 2007

A publication of the Chatham University MFA in Creative Writing Program

Issue 4

Autumn 2007

Editor

Toni Jensen Creative Nonfiction Editor

Sheryl St. Germain Fiction Editor

Toni Jensen Poetry Editor

Heather McNaugher Managing Editors

Christy J. Diulus and Elizabeth DiGiulio Editorial Consultant

Rebecca Kulchak Assistant Creative Nonfiction Editors

Becky Clever, Mandi Leskovac Assistant Fiction Editors

Jolynn Baldwin, Courtney Connors, Nathaniel Fuller, Kate Hodder, Courtney Jenkins, Yvette Mingo, Rachel Payne, Sarah Petrie, Jen Rea, Michael Reitema, Melissa Slocum Assistant Poetry Editors

Sarah Adkins, Beth Fleeson, Anna Gullickson, Dana Hanzely, Re Miller, Mary Riley, Amy Sargent, Adam Sukhia Cover Art: Gary Gayda Cover Design: Krista Terpack Design: Leslie Karon-Oswalt

The Fourth River (ISSN 1559-310X) is a production of the MFA in Creative Writing at Chatham University. We welcome submissions of poetry, fiction, young adult fiction, and nonfiction that explore the relationship between humans and their environments—writings that are richly situated at the confluence of place, space, and identity, or that reflect upon landscape as culture, and culture as landscape. Subscriptions: The Fourth River is published annually in the autumn. Rates: $10 (single issue), $16 (2 years), $22 (3 years). Submissions: Please address all correspondence, business or editorial, to The Fourth River, Chatham University, Woodland Road, Pittsburgh, PA 15232. Further guidelines at http://fourthriver.chatham.edu Reading period August 1st –February 15th. We do not accept email submissions. Copyright© 2007 by The Fourth River. All rights reserved. Reproduction, whether in whole or part, without permission is strictly prohibited. Printed in the U.S.A. by Morris Publishing, Kearney, Nebraska.

Table of Contents Aaron Hellem Playing Through ........................................................................................................ 9

Alex Lemon While We Fought My Mother Drifted In and Out of What Was Next While Outside Some Boys Pissed On the Swings .................................................. 21 Hemophilia .............................................................................................................. 22 After Leaving Navajo New Mexico ....................................................................... 23

Doug Ramspeck Ballad for a Fifteen-Year-Old ................................................................................. 24 Room, with Bed ....................................................................................................... 25

Gail Folkins Five Minutes More................................................................................................... 26

Fernando Benavidez The Hanging at Palmito Hill, 1908 ........................................................................ 33

John William Nordhaus The Way Things Happen ......................................................................................... 41

Romy Shinn Piccolella Monuments .............................................................................................................. 43

Marc Thompson dacotah ..................................................................................................................... 45

Tracy Koretsky Before Others Knew ................................................................................................. 46

Joan Gelfand Music Dream 14: Day Dream................................................................................. 48

Diane Hueter Nocturne .................................................................................................................. 49

Bryn Chancellor The New Girl ............................................................................................................ 50

Holly Leigh Solitude..................................................................................................................... 59

Evan Bruno Iris ............................................................................................................................. 66

Ronald H. Lands The Rebellion of Katie Lane .................................................................................... 71

Louis Daniel Brodsky Crocuses ................................................................................................................... 78

Lisa Alexander Baron An Entire Day to Write ........................................................................................... 79

Lara Gularte Leaves ........................................................................................................................81

Dennis Doherty Day Lily .................................................................................................................... 82

Diane Tucker The Fourth Direction ............................................................................................... 83

Christiana Langenberg Lost Wax .................................................................................................................. 84

Jillian Schedneck Invisible Town.......................................................................................................... 86

Ann Claycomb Distance Driving ..................................................................................................... 95

Stephen Murabito The Man Without Any Sins .................................................................................. 104

Lee Voss Collars in the Closet ...............................................................................................113 Fleur de Lis ..............................................................................................................115 Meditation ..............................................................................................................117

Sam Bell Behind Us, the Full Neighborhood ........................................................................118 The Lake ..................................................................................................................119

Joshua Moehling Excerpt from Bigfoot Summer ............................................................................. 120

Gail Folkins Dennis Covington Interview ................................................................................ 132

Stephen Graham Jones The Mourners......................................................................................................... 137 Between ...................................................................................................................149

Chuck Rybak Tongue and Groove ................................................................................................151

Robin Merrill Happy Halloween .................................................................................................. 153

Lindsay Coleman Stir .......................................................................................................................... 154 When I Grow Up … (An Anthem) ....................................................................... 155

Janet R. Kirchmeier Taking Flight .......................................................................................................... 156

John Allen Layla’s Rhino...........................................................................................................157

Katie Fallon Lost ..........................................................................................................................170

Kay Calkins Sunday .................................................................................................................... 177

William S. Sandlin Evacuation ............................................................................................................. 185

Katherine Abbott Build Up ................................................................................................................. 192 For Sung ................................................................................................................. 193 March Equinox ...................................................................................................... 194

Russell Rowland Easter Weekend ..................................................................................................... 195 New Year’s Eve Fireworks ..................................................................................... 196

Jill Patterson Fear Is a Road It’s Not Safe to Travel ................................................................... 197

Lucas Southworth The Way it Is .......................................................................................................... 212

Alan Rossi Blacktail ..................................................................................................................215

Aaron Rudolph A New Mexican Cuento ........................................................................................ 232

Sandra Kohler Navigation.............................................................................................................. 234

Marc Douglass-Smith Fish Fall .................................................................................................................. 235

Jack Romig A Walk on the Morning of My Father’s Death .................................................... 236 Small Game Season ............................................................................................... 237

Jenny Erpenbeck Excerpt from The Book of Words ......................................................................... 238 Exzerpt aus Wöterbuch ........................................................................................ 240

Book Reviews ....................................................................................................... 242 About the Authors .............................................................................................. 246

Doug Ramspeck Room, with Bed

The fields, at dawn, were heavy as a bear’s back. The days were still as bedposts as he awoke, as he gazed out at the rolling humps of bare dark hills beyond the barn. Sometimes as he walked into the soybeans—the soybeans still as bedposts— he remembered the moment of awakening each day in darkness, of imagining the dim day before him— the day as heavy as a bear’s back—and as he stepped from bed, the bed as still as bedposts, the feeling in his legs was heavy as the breathing of his wife, as weighty as the silence of his children down the hall— and as he looked out the window at the dim fields, the day was heavy as a bear’s back.

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Gail Folkins Five Minutes More

Acqua I wipe steam drops from the bathroom mirror and see my face, flushed from hurrying. Racing to the next room in my Swiss studio apartment, I glance at the clock. I don’t want to miss the bus to Baden and the train ride to Zurich, journeys leading to the night train for Italy. I pick out summer things along with layers for cool nights. The pre-trip jitters angle for attention, even on a visit built for nothing but fun. I battle with my black bag. Its slim wheels aren’t much good on the fifty-six mintgreen stairs outside my apartment. One wheel veers like a shopping cart gone mad. My Italian neighbor, Coronado, hears my bag hitting the stairs part-way down and opens his door. He shakes his head, tanned face smiling, and grasps the handle of my travel bag. “Going to see your boyfriend?” I laugh. Coronado thinks I work too hard, travel too much. He wants me to nurture my personal life, not knowing it’s nice to escape it for a while. I could offer that my new friend in Zurich, Aaron, has asked me out, but decide not to share. “No boyfriend. I’m meeting friends in Florence. And you?” “I’m through with women,” Coronado frowns, banging my bag on a step. “You are all trouble.” He gives me an accusing look, and I become a metaphor. I don’t offer empathy, knowing men are no less difficult. Taking my bag by the handle, I thank him and get ready to sprint down the hill for the bus. “You don’t believe me, but I’m through,” he hollers after me. “I’d better catch my bus,” I answer in a jumble of German as I run down the hill to the bus stop. Once there, I watch Coronado turn back to the stairs, still shaking his head. With my bag silenced, the Limmat River is all I hear, roaring along the street. No other passengers wait for the bus at this hour of the night. I step out from the shelter so the driver will see me and not hurtle past in Swiss

efficiency. In the next moment, bus headlights beam around the corner. Hefting the bag into the open door, I step into a schedule honed to the second. Ten minutes later, I’m in Baden, and then, a twenty-minute train bound for Zurich. My route follows the river, slicing through the night beside it.

On bronze sand, we watch waves stretch toward us and then retreat, lazy with summer. Maya and I sit on the towels we’ve brought, both of us lulled by crying gulls and sweet smelling suntan lotion. We want to feel the turquoise waters and soft sand, but don’t need the sun to brown us. “Like sausages,” Maya says in decisive Swiss-German. She’s not a sun worshipper, but has come to the beach for my sake. It’s a day trip, another way for her and her boyfriend to enjoy their time here. Swiss vacation time is measured in weeks rather than days. When Maya first invited me along on hers, I asked if I’d be intruding. Absolutely not, she said. Having you here for a few days will be fun. Romeo and I have the whole two weeks together. Romeo, still in cuffed jeans despite the warmth of the sun, sits near us with folded arms. He doesn’t want to get sand in his boots and sighs when it happens anyway. He decides to go to town, murmuring something to us before he takes the car. We settle on a promise of raspberry-orange gelato. Tasting icy swirls already, I hope he comes back soon. Stranded, we’re left with a few locals and a cliff of villas above us. I look around, relieved that the Italian Riviera is neither packed nor pretentious. Most visitors even keep their clothes on. “Thankfully,” Maya says. “It’s always the wrong people who take their clothes off.” She adjusts sunglasses around her short, dark hair and flips magazine pages. The water comes closer to our toes, beckoning with a line of thin foam left behind. I take off my plastic watch, the only one in sight on this beach, and predict Romeo’s return in half an hour. With the watch safe beneath my towel, I get up and walk toward the waves until I float in them under the sky.

Our table rests in an outdoor courtyard, the church clock above us incased in stone. Maya and I wear summertime dresses, not the flowery kind but the simple ones that hang A-line straight. Romeo scans the menu, unhurried, although the waiter stands nearby. We’re relying on his Italian for getting us around, although he grew up in Switzerland. I try to be patient and fall into the rhythms of this place. There’s time for him to translate, more time still for us to order.

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“We’ll have the bruschetta to start,” Romeo tells the waiter. All three of us crouch over menus and perspiring water glasses, feeling the warm wind that’s swept through Tuscany and found the hills of Chimigiana. Bianca, the white bull terrier, sleeps at Maya’s feet. Nearby, a German couple dines while their dog nestles underfoot. “How does this work?” I’m eager to have my mind made up before the waiter returns. In Switzerland, my home for a year, I would have known what to order, how to say it. I want to choose well here, too. “The meal comes in stages,” Maya says. “You pick pasta, then a meat dish, or a salad.” She points to a few menu items. I follow her finger in search of set plans, but instead find choices crowding the pages. Romeo shrugs, switches from Italian to German. “Everything is good.” I settle on a few lines from the menu, not sure what I’ve selected but wanting to be ready. Romeo looks at the menu without seeing it, humming a little, while Maya smiles at the dog under the neighboring table. Having been in Tuscany a week, they’ve already fallen into its rhythms. I’m still on Swiss time, keeping my travel clothes in neat piles and making lists on what to buy and where to go. The clock tower above us chimes 8 p.m., eight strokes that flutter on the Mediterranean breeze. Five minutes later, the clock repeats itself. Between sips of water, I notice but am distracted by the appetizers that arrive, toasted bread with cheese and tomatoes. Vino Worn from many trips south and back, the night train from Zurich to Florence groans from its spot on the tracks, a pale cousin to other shiny Swiss trains. Because it’s so empty, I snag a compartment for six to myself, spreading out my reading materials and making sure my purse and watch are close. Just as the train rumbles out of Zurich, the station announcer proclaiming its precise departure, a man with an embroidered hat and a guitar bursts into my compartment. “May I join you?” the musician asks in English accented with Swiss dialect. I nod yes, moving my belongings as stars peek inside the window. He throws his hat aside, spreading out his gangly legs to reveal worn boots. His dark eyes ask a question. “I’m reading something about the inner self and whether it is a true reflection of the outer self,” he says in English. He must have looked at the English title of my book, the same trick the flight attendants use. I prefer speaking in German so I’ll improve, but he might have the same reason for speaking English. “Where are you going?” I ask.

“Locarno—I have a show there.” He pats the guitar case. “Have you been?” “No, I’m meeting friends in Florence.” “You’d like Locarno. We play there a lot, for festivals.” I picture a town with plenty of sunshine, red wine, and music. I’d been invited there once before, but that was a relationship ago. Aaron waits in Zurich, postponed while I weigh the risk, still undecided if our friendship can survive the expectations of romance. The musician reaches in his pack for the book he’s reading, shows it to me. We talk about it for a while, though I’ve never read it, and when the night gets too late to think, he shows me how to fold out the train seats. The futon-like spread of cushions fills the car. “What if other people come in?” I say, liking my friend but not sure what the futon means. “They won’t,” he says, and turns to the cushions with confidence, using his pack as a pillow. He’s right. No one disturbs our train car, and nothing happens within it but sleep. I doze for several hours through Switzerland while my new roommate slumbers on his own side. As the train pulls into Locarno, the southern border of Switzerland, he unfolds himself from our futon, replaces his cap and throws his guitar over one shoulder. The black Swatch on my wrist propels me forward, counting the hours lost to sleep. I’m still in work mode, not ready to let things happen. “See you,” the musician says in close American dialect while he swaggers from the car. I watch him step into the night and imagine myself with an extra day to follow.

In a castle-turned-winery set on a hill, we choose another bottle to sample. Maya sets her glass down, nodding over its sweetness. The Castello Banfi representative watches us behind the row of bottles that we’ve sampled, waiting. We buy a few to make amends. It’s difficult choosing from so many good ones, committing to throaty reds or casual whites. I hesitate too long, making more of it than I should, and then select both. Maya notices and shakes her head. “Have you decided about that date with Aaron?” she asks. She adjusts the sunglasses on top of her head, looks at me over our last samples. “Not yet.” I see his blue eyes and honest smile. “I hate to mess up a good friendship.” “He sounds nice, though.” I finish my glass and walk outside to a stone terrace, into a view of farmlands that starts from Florence and doesn’t stop until it reaches the

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Mediterranean. We lean over a stone fence with our bottles of wine, watching the light turn gold. Romeo takes pictures of us in an alcove of vines, even though Maya doesn’t like cameras. “They can’t replace what’s in your mind,” she says, although she smoothes her dress and stands with me in the picture. “They’ll help us remember,” I say, but I know she’s right. No snapshot can grasp the wavering cypress or olive trees like freckles in the hills. Although I don’t realize it then, it doesn’t matter if the pictures aren’t perfect. Film can’t recall the hundreds of years this place knows or even recent hours spent with good friends and wine.

Twilight falls on our meal in the courtyard, the waiters adding votive candles to the tables. The bruschetta crumbs swept away, next comes pasta soaked in red sauces, joined with crumbly fresh bread. I start to fall into the hours-long meal and the conversation that grows more introspective with each glass of wine. “In the past, religion was an excuse for power,” Romeo says, refilling all of our glasses. He scans the new dishes and passes the bread around. “Even now, it can be self-serving,” I say. The issues my Swiss friends discuss challenge me. Our discussion lengthens the meal into an event, matching the slow pace of each new dish. I work at my German so it won’t fall into slurry English. Although I’m listening hard, my mind drifts toward the village clock, waiting. On the hour, it chimes nine strokes. I set down my fork and listen. At 9:05 p.m., the clock repeats the nine strokes. “Something is wrong with the clock,” I say, in between our comparison of world religions and lemon-cooked fish. Maya and Romeo stare at me, each other, and my wine glass. “It keeps repeating itself. Wait until 10 p.m. comes.”

Caffé The train arrives in Florence in the pre-dawn of 4 a.m., just in time to watch the station yawn and shake off its dust. After changing Swiss Francs for Lire and glasses for contact lenses, I creep through the early morning light to buy a cappuccino. City residents, work-clad and sipping, chatter around a busy coffee bar. I eavesdrop on their staccato conversations, understanding the tone but not the words. I wonder about the date with Aaron I’d put off to meet

my friends on this trip, the impossible safety I seek. I turn back to my cappuccino and its uncomplicated warmth. After coffee, I search for an old clock in the train station, an archway near an entrance that marks the meeting place. I take out my guidebook and turn again to a frayed page seventy-two. “Meet us here,” Maya had said at the office in Switzerland, pointing to the clock on the page. “We’ll find you.” With neither cell phone nor back-up plan, I hope that Florence hasn’t remodeled its train station and done away with our meeting place. But Maya knows this city well from her annual visits here. Comparing the guidebook page to several station walls, I find the archway just as the ornate clock reaches 6 a.m. I lean against a wall close by and watch people saunter in and out of the station. Minutes later, Romeo emerges beneath the clock with a version of my guidebook in one hand and a leash with Bianca on the other. In a gray summer dress and black sandals, Maya rushes toward me. “Sorry we’re late,” she says. “The train station sign was really small and we missed it the first time.” I hadn’t even looked at the clock for a while; the city kept me too busy to notice. With my black bag listing behind me, I stroll with them to the car.

Sixties-style beads click in the café doorway, sunlight angling through a narrow window. A group of old men play an endless domino game, not ordering anything to drink but welcome to stay. Outside, teenagers lounge at the nearby bus stop to talk, with no thought of going anywhere. The café hides on a sloping hill of Tuscany. It’s a good place to rest my disbelief at the paintings I’ve just seen at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, to be grateful once more for a farm villa shared with friends in the country. “It looks more Swiss than Italian,” Maya says, sighing an apology for the place they’ve rented. “It’s beautiful,” I say. I picture crawling grapevines outside our villa’s windows, the hills folding around whitewashed walls. No maps mark the place and no clocks steal its moments. My watch, set aside for now, is the sole timekeeper. Maya and I drink sweet wine while Romeo sips coffee. We talk about the ocean, vineyards, and the town of Siena with its black and gray cathedral. My friends, who come here each summer, understand both the prominent spaces and quiet corners. Rather than counting off countries in quick glances, they know this one by feel. “Look at the phone books in the window,” Romeo says. He points to a window in the cafe.

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A two-foot pile of phonebooks sits tired and heavy on the inner windowsill, hiding the open window behind them. The top pages turn in gentle spurts from the wind. The phone perched next to the books keeps ringing, but no one answers. We listen for a while, and turn back to our drinks. A man passing on the street outside reaches inside the window and picks up the phone, waving his hands as he speaks in rapid Italian. Maya glances back to the phone and then turns to us with a whisper. “He probably doesn’t know who he’s talking to.” I laugh, thinking I had done the same thing on the train ride to Florence. I hadn’t even learned my friend’s name. “What do you think they’re talking about?” I say. “Inner or outer self?” Romeo smiles. “Here, they’re the same.” I nod at Romeo, Maya, and the man in the phonebook window as my mind starts to amble, the exactness of work life left behind.

The wax from the candles drips onto our outdoor table, making little chunks that I ball up in my fingers. It’s cooler now, the stars vying for space overhead. Between tiramisu and coffee, the clock chimes at 10 p.m. All three of us stop to listen. The clock strikes ten times again, at 10:05 p.m. Although our thoughts of religion are well explored on this night, no one can explain this new sense of time. “Ask the waiter,” Maya says, nudging Romeo. The clock could be malfunctioning, but its steadiness belies that. This wouldn’t happen in Switzerland, timepieces chiming twice. There, they strike once, singular and certain. After a conversation with the waiter, Romeo turns to both of us with the glow of a new secret just before sharing. “The clock is supposed to be like that,” he says. “They do it on purpose. It reminds them, in case they miss the first time.” We start laughing and forget to stop. The clock of Chimigiana gives second chances, time to linger as I do between the certain and unknown. Time for a weekend escape or a potential romance put on hold, time for indecision. Five minutes more, time to step in ocean waves or watch the day’s light fade from a castle hill, time for a meal that lasts all evening. One more cappuccino, a glass of wine, a conversation with a stranger in the window of a thousand phonebooks.

Fernando Benavidez The Hanging at Palmito Hill, 1908

The González boys were hanged on the thick branches of the old mesquite trees by the river, the ones where kids hang rope and swing into the water below. The two brothers were burned alive, too, by the Jackson posse for the murder they say the boys committed. For the two González brothers, gags were not necessary, but burlap sacks were used out of kindness to their mother, who shut her eyes anyway. Their heads were covered and the short wooden stools were removed from beneath their feet to make sure the ropes were taut before the fires were lit. They swung back and forth, fast at first. Their feet had nowhere to stand and their toes pointed downward at each movement. The flames climbed up their legs as quickly as flesh could burn, peeling away the clothing, and then the skin, then muscle and nerves until all that had burned was burning some more. The boys kicked, contorted, and moved in ways that only a body that’s burning could move, snakelike because their hands were tied behind their backs by the wrists, and their feet were tied too, dangling an inch above ground. The fat ropes were wet around their necks, and the weight of their tired bodies bent the thick branches of the aged mesquite more than the wind ever could. The leaves shook at the tips of the limbs that were leaning downward, reaching for the hot earth that burned everyone else’s bare feet. If the hanging didn’t kill the González boys quickly, the Rangers knew the fire would. One way or another, justice was served and that’s how they did it in Cameron County. This was the Frontier, after all. The hanging, by law, was what the judge ordered. The burning was Tall Jake’s idea. The women cried even after the boys stopped moving, and the men bowed their heads, chins to their chests, as if in prayer. Ms. González wailed. She competed against the loudness of the blaze at times, and the ensuing thunder that was typical in August sounded strange against her screams. The brown sacks collapsed into the mouths of the boys who were gasping for smoky air rising from their own burning flesh, a reflex, something the body does without thinking. The river behind them swirled hard in places—dark brown undertows elevated the danger along the lower edges where most of the children tended to gravitate, where most of them stood to see the hanging. The others in the crowd saw the dirty water behind

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the boys as a bad omen. Some prepared for another rainy night and for what looked like an inevitable flood approaching. Others who already lived near the banks knew, and they built walls of rocks and dirt together—some gathered clothes and food in piles, oranges wrapped in blankets, mangos wrapped in women’s clothing, palm leaves for cover. Others, with their children, took higher ground, even before the González boys stopped breathing, before they finished burning, even before they were done swinging on the ropes. Casimiro González met his death with fractured ribs and a right leg broken below the knee, on the shin, so that it dangled, useless when he was taken to Palmito Hill, dragging. His pants were torn in all the right places and his shirt hung open. Aurelio González came to Palmito Hill with only a broken nose, a bruised face, torn eyelids, and a bleeding scalp from the kicks and punches—somewhat better. The González boys had had a speedy trial according to the law and were both found guilty at the Cameron County Courthouse where Judge Simmons ordered them to hang until dead for the murder of young Billy Jackson, the son of a respected Texas rancher, so the story went. It started when the González boys stole two horses from Old Bud Jackson’s fifty-five good ones three nights before they were hanged. On that night, Billy, fifteen, and his cousin, Tall Jake, nineteen, went to get back those horses, crossed the barbed wire with a skill they’d picked up over the years. “Stealing your own horse back ain’t a crime,” their lawyer said. The judge agreed. Also, Judge Simmons said trespassing to recover stolen property wasn’t a crime, either, so the brothers had no right to shoot at Tall Jake or to kill Billy, not even if Billy and Jake broke two fences to get in to the González ranch. Not even if Billy and Jake shot first. “Chances are, those horses belonged to Bud Jackson anyway,” the judge said. He told the lawyer, “If those two were in my court for horse stealing, I would have ordered them to pay the Jacksons back with two more horses for all the trouble they’ve caused.” A single bullet at close range to the back of young Billy’s head, Texas Ranger McNeely reported to headquarters, was what did the job, flopped poor, young Billy over on his horse for good. That night, Tall Jake shot back at Aurelio and Casimiro in a panic, but Billy lay dead from the fury of bullets. Later, the Rangers found other bullet holes in Billy’s leg and rib cage, holes they said the González boys put there after Billy was already dead. Tall Jake testified that he did his best to save his cousin, but said that it all

happened so fast, that he swore to God he saw Casimiro do it, shoot Billy at close range. “Those sons a’ bitches got him, Uncle Bud,” he said in court to Billy’s dad. “They got him in the back of the head and then they rode off like cowards.” The González brothers hid until morning then went into town to pick up some food and clothing from their mother for another cold night in the woods. Like their father had done and his father before him, they followed the loud whisper of the river that flowed south along the border, to Mexico, down a trail that they knew rinches could not follow. Not even Ms. González knew where they’d been the night before or where they were going. Only the cicadas and their songs were with them on their full-moon journey. Aurelio bled from a bullet lodged in his left arm near the elbow, so Casimiro carried the supplies. Sometimes they moved quickly across the harsh Viznaga and the Allthorn brush and sometimes, Aurelio’s bleeding would slow them down. That Ranger McNeely’s jurisdiction extended its reach to the González ranch and to most of the South Texas border and that he was working for the Jacksons was not a question, but that the González brothers would make it to Matamoros alive, was. “Something has to be done to make this right,” Tall Jake said, “to make it so that justice is served.” The Ranger had taken care of matters like these for the Jacksons before, and Old Bud Sr. had thanked the Ranger handsomely. Billy had been killed and Ranger McNeely had to fix it, keep up the good family friendship that was built by Grandpa Jackson and Grandpa McNeely long before them. It was a tradition, their friendship. The McNeely family used to be in business with the Jacksons, too, ever since Bud senior was a boy and hunted jackrabbits on McNeely land. The Jacksons had a history of ranching, and the land from Falfurrias to San Antonio hadn’t changed hands in over fifty years. The McNeelys were lawmen and that hadn’t changed either. “The only way to survive in Texas,” said Ranger McNeely, “is to take the law into your own hands.” “Those goddamn Meskins should have never stolen our horses. But I guess we should have never gone over there to take them back without you, Ranger,” Tall Jake said. And he was right about that. Ranger McNeely saddled up in the middle of the night and went into the woods with Jake, five dogs, and three other Rangers to find Casimiro and Aurelio and to get back Billy’s body still rotting near the González’s barbwire fence. The darkness of the thick mesquite hid the boys well in the night, but “with the dogs,” the Ranger said, “my men can find a Meskin even

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in the muddy waters of the Rio Grande,” and he was right. On the third day, they came upon the boys hiding near the edges of the river, apprehended them both at gunpoint, and brought them back to the rusty jail to await the judge the next morning, but not before the brothers faced Bud Sr. and Tall Jake that night. Aurelio was sixteen and Casimiro, only fourteen. Each boy was bound to the stone floor with a cold chain around his neck, the kind they used in chain gangs. Their hands and feet were shackled too. Tall Jake and his uncle, Bud Sr., paid the guards to look the other way for a few hours, to forget they ever came by to see the González boys. Jake controlled Aurelio’s neck by holding the chains with both hands and Bud Sr. proceeded to kick the boy’s head until the boy went unconscious on the concrete floor. Old Bud felt much better after that, as good as a man could feel who had just buried his only son. Casimiro’s turn was worse. Jake’s toolbox was necessary for his method of punishment, and he came prepared. He worked on Casimiro until the morning, taking pleasure in the sound of breaking bones, the hammering. The verdict was read and executed the next day, and the González boys, who didn’t know any English, were put to death. They didn’t understand what had just happened to them in the courtroom, but it was not different from what had happened to their father who stole horses from the Jacksons years before. When the judge announced the verdict, those in the back of the courtroom were silent. “No us,” one of the González boys said. “No is us.” Only minutes after the boys were hanged, they were covered completely in flames. Their bodies moved sluggish on the ropes after a while. Then they were still. Old Bud Sr. moved closer to the two González boys. He impaled Casimiro’s soft stomach with his Winchester, and then jabbed around near the heart and the breast bone, which were still burning. The barrel of Old Bud’s rifle was hot and bloody when he put it back on the horse. He wiped the ash off the stock with a sweaty handkerchief, the one he kept in his back pocket, and then he wiped the blood off his boots with it too. Tall Jake stayed back but picked up a long branch to check the bodies himself, afterward. He poked at Aurelio’s ribs first, causing the corpse to swing some more, but like a pendulum. When Tall Jake had had enough, he threw the burnt mesquite branch into the river below, into the muddy part where the water changed direction every few seconds. The children who stuck around the hanging threw rocks at the bodies. Ranger McNeely supervised from his horse just to make sure the people knew who was in charge of this. The vision of smoke from the smoldering

skin caused some of the children to cringe, to cover their eyes, and run off. Had the Ranger known that children would be present, he wouldn’t have let Tall Jake burn Aurelio and Casimiro, or at least, he wouldn’t have done it in public. Had these men who hung them up and then lit the fire anticipated the loudness of the screams coming from Ms. González and other women in the crowd, they would have considered a more private affair. They would have considered shooting the González boys in the head for trying to escape from jail, which they would have claimed, to avoid this spectacle altogether, to avoid the scent of burnt hair and boiling blood sticking to their clothes—to avoid the mother. But it was too late. Ranger McNeely’s shirt was full of the stench. It took Jake and Old Bud Sr. a long time to get the smoke out of their own skin and hair, especially since they got so close to the flames. The people who missed work that day were there too—ranchers, Indians, elders, some whites, but mostly Mexicans like Casimiro and Aurelio—gathered around. Some said they learned about the law, about frontier justice and who’s on what side by where they stood near the mesquite trees that day. Those who didn’t make it to the hanging smelled the scent of roasting flesh floating down the river for miles. Tall Jake said, “They’ll hear about this tomorrow.” He said it with a grin. “They’ll know not to steal from a Jackson.” Ranger McNeely, however, was bothered more deeply than he thought he would be when he lit that fire beneath the bare feet of Aurelio and Casimiro. He was bothered by Ms. González’s yells and by the children’s contorted faces. In a way, he dreaded the idea of telling Mrs. McNeely what happened in detail when he got home, of trying to sleep that night when he finished the story. “Tell me more,” she always demanded. He assured her that she didn’t want to know more, but she insisted on getting the details. Mrs. McNeely was always interested in the Ranger’s stories of justice, of catching the banditos, the ones that were the seeds of an eventual myth—the good versus the evil. Ranger McNeely gave in again. He gave his wife, Sarah McNeely, the satisfaction, the gist, and a few vague details because she appreciated it; she committed it to memory forever, for the story reminded her of how thankful to God she was to be a Ranger’s wife and a Christian. Because Ranger McNeely wouldn’t tell her more, though, Sarah pieced together her own story of the hanging from the reports that she gathered, the ones the neighbors told and the ones her friends told. It satisfied her curiosity, filled her head with the kind of stories that made her feel safe, the myths. Ranger McNeely remembered it more vividly, but for different reasons.

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The rain began to fall as soon as the boys stopped swinging. The thunder startled the crowd at first—the ones that were left behind dispersed at a clumsy pace. They looked back and talked amongst themselves about what they would never forget. The bodies continued to hang there in the rain. A quick shower sprayed them gently, quelling the flames, the hot bones, and anything that was left of the charred bodies, clumped skin and hair, and the carcasses that were barely human anymore. Then it poured. Jake stood there. He told his uncle, Bud Sr., that he was curious as to what happened when the fire finally burned out. He was wet and still listening to the soothing crackles of the dying flames. The bodies were covered in a cloud of smoke that looked like the spirits of the boys were still lingering, still not sure if they should leave this world yet. It looked strange to Jake, too, but he stared. In time, the rain overflowed the river enough for the water to reach the tips of Jake’s feet just before he got up on his horse, just before the spell of the hanging bodies was broken by the big lightning in the darker sky. The winds carried the González boys and animated their bodies from the ropes, pulled them off the trees so that they landed on the soft ground. From his horse, Jake stared, still curious. The water swelled just enough to swallow the fallen corpses, drag them into the torrent. Jake stood there a little longer just to make sure they sank. Old Bud Jackson got on his horse that was tethered to the locust tree nearby and rode off before Jake even noticed. He headed back to his wife, Mrs. Helen Jackson, who didn’t ask him any questions about what happened. She didn’t care to know her husband’s business matters. Although she could smell the boys’ bodies through the rain, miles away, Mrs. Jackson avoided thinking about the hanging, avoided wondering what she already knew had happened. She learned her lesson a long time ago, too, about asking. The last time she asked Bud about why the farm was going broke, he broke her jaw, for good measure. Bud Sr. found Helen Jackson crying when he arrived. She mourned the recent loss of her Billy, the only thing that mattered to her, she said. She told Bud Sr., “Mothers shouldn’t bury their children.” But she couldn’t dwell on it either. Old Bud expected his lunch to be hot and ready. She prepared a thick steak, rare like he liked them. She made him some beans and homemade slaw to fill up his barrel of a body before he headed out to tend to the horses. The rain had never stopped Old Bud Sr. from working before, and neither would the death of his only son. Helen, inside the farmhouse, hoped that

the horses would keep Old Bud outside long enough for her to mourn Billy, in private, in prayer. She knew how hard the world would be from then on. Tall Jake returned to his ranch five miles north of Palmito Hill in Palo Verde. He entered a sturdy brick house that was hand-built and dry— hugged his mother Irene, a beautifully thin woman who was too young to be a widow, and who had been left working the land with Tall Jake. Jake told her that the dirty bastards were dead, that they got what they deserved, but that he still didn’t feel good about Billy’s death, about the justice. They cried together on the porch. Jake described everything, how great his idea about the burning was, and that nothing noticeable was left of their bodies, just black mush, char and ash. That their heads were detached in the rain, he didn’t tell his mother. Tall Jake hoped his dead father was listening from Heaven and that he’d be proud. Irene rubbed Jake’s back, reaffirming that he was a good boy, a good son, and a good Texan. “You’re just like your father,” she said. Jake shined. Irene invited Ranger McNeely and his wife, Sarah, over for dinner to thank the Ranger for protecting her boy, Jake, and for bringing swift justice to Palmito Hill where Indians and Mexicans run lawless. Ranger McNeely respectfully declined the invitation at first, but his wife, Sarah, insisted they attend. At the table, Ranger McNeely stared down at his food, the corn and the chicken, the peas, and Mrs. McNeely talked about the hanging as she ate the beans and drank sweet tea that Irene had made. “These are dangerous times on the border,” Sarah McNeely said. She was still excited that her husband kept them safe for all of the twenty years he had been a Ranger. Irene Jackson nodded with a mouth full of beans and replied, “Sure are.” Outside, near the stables in Palo Verde, the ranch hands predicted in whispers among themselves that Elizabeth Jackson, Jake’s older sister, was going to have a dead child, a curse on the Jackson family for the capture and hanging of Aurelio and Casimiro. But in fact, Elizabeth had healthy twins, Luke and Noah, two days after the hanging. Elizabeth’s husband Jeremiah brought her fresh flowers, lilies for the new mother, after the babies’ births. Tall Jake thanked God that his sister was blessed with a growing family, was fine now, and it made him think about his own future as a husband to that Jones girl down in Palmito Hill. He worried about the life his baby nephews would have to endure on the frontier, a howling wilderness inhabited by savages near the border where the danger feathered, and the law was swift.

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He stepped outside to smoke a cigarette on his front porch and looked south toward the horses in the afternoon. The rain was over, but the smell of burning flesh still lingered, inescapable, two days later. He released the cigarette onto the wet grass. The ranch hands stared at him from the fence and Jake knew what that meant, the whispers. He knew the gaze of a curse but ignored their silly superstitions. Tall Jake had had nineteen years to realize that their santeria was meaningless, that it didn’t do any harm, that it didn’t really work. Before dawn on the day babies Luke and Noah Hester were born, Ms. González found her sons’ bodies, bloated, hardened by nature’s process and washed up against some Indian grass, and the heads were surrounded by the buzzards that came down from the trees to feed on flesh and offal. Some of the fat birds had had their fill by the time she could do anything about it. They’d picked at the deeper, more edible parts of Aurelio, and some of Casimiro’s eyes were missing. The burlap sacks were gone, too. The black birds dispersed slowly when she approached the bodies, and they flapped their charcoal wings as if they had been disturbed by her arrival. They retreated to the top of the closest branch and looked down on their prey. Other birds waited nearby in hopes of returning to the feast but didn’t. Ranger McNeely, who would have collected the bodies and buried them in unmarked graves deep in the woods to make sure no other Mexicans would get ideas, to make sure others would never find the González boys, never found the bodies. Instead, Ms. González dug graves for her sons, holes well hidden like secret tombs far from Palmito Hill, graves only other Mexicans would know of, to visit, and to be inspired by for years to come. She hoped her sons would be remembered for their heroism, for how they took back what was rightly theirs, their dead father’s horses, for how they defied the fear everyone had for Old Bud Sr. and the Jackson clan, who dominated the border and had a habit of claiming horses that weren’t theirs. She hoped her sons would be remembered for killing a gringo who trespassed onto their property, too, for taking justice into their own hands, justice their father could never get. She knew that those who were there would remember, but she didn’t know that even those that weren’t would talk about her sons for years to come. That Ms. González saved her sons from McNeely and his gang, that in her sadness, she remained strong on the border between her faith and justice, and that she still believed in the power of the ringing bells above the church that filled the air every Sunday thereafter, brought a different kind of justice to Palmito Hill. It brought her peace and justice. It was the kind of justice on the frontier that only a hanging would ever bring.

John William Nordhaus The Way Things Happen

She’d been adamant about never being put on life support, about not wanting to become anyone’s weeping stone. So, instead, my mother’s lying comatose in this hospital bed. And I sit at the bedside teasing out different scenarios for her approaching death. Call it preparation. I’ve got this one scenario where I’m conked out in the guest chair, deep into one of those restorative sleeps, when this heinous croak wakes me. It sounds like Velcro being torn apart. But it’s my mother. She’s breathing her last. Her heart monitor is a lightning storm. The pulse is all over the place. I reach for her hand. A medical team rushes in and begins to administer preventative measures. CPR. Defibrillators. But I look at them and shake my head. I say, Please, let her go. She was never one to turn back. Or there’s this other scenario where I’m lost examining the lines on her face that weren’t there five, ten, fifteen years ago. Trying to discover which of my mistakes are responsible for which line. The medical equipment suddenly bleats. Her toes grasp and crumple the bed sheets. I close my eyes, brush a hand over my face. It’s then that I feel another hand touch my face. But this hand isn’t mine. I open my eyes. I see my mother’s arm outstretched with her hand against my face. And then her eyes open. And they’re so serene, so peaceable. We both look into each other’s eyes. For a moment, I’m floored. She squints, but with her eyes still on me she speaks the words, My boy, in her dying breath. Her hand falls limp from my face. I watch it dangle over the bed’s edge as a doctor explodes through the door. In point of fact, however, it happens like this: I go down to street level for a smoke. I see a brunette nurse sitting on a bench. She’s struggling with her lighter. I offer mine and we strike up a conversation that burns out after two cigarettes. I stamp out the last butt and leave for my mother’s twelfth-floor room. I opt for the stairs rather than the elevator. I want to avoid feeling as trapped and helpless as I feel at my mother’s side. The stairs are hard work, but I’m back in my mother’s room some time later.

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The thing is, my mother’s gone. I find two orderlies changing the bed sheets and smoothing out the indentation my mother’s body left behind, but I don’t find my mother. I clear my throat and they look my direction. They each try out a sympathetic smile and head for the doorway I’m standing in. As they squeeze past me, each rests a hand on my shoulder and shakes his head. As if to say, Tough luck, man. And maybe that should help. That thin attempt at commiseration. But I just stand here in the doorway. Mute. Staring at the place my mother once occupied. Watching the imprint of her body vanish. Wishing I could’ve written a different end.

Romy Shinn Piccolella Monuments

I Blue herons wade in the Delaware gathering chubs and plastic spoons. Gravel drains mud and bits of leaves on the bank where a flat mouse lays with frozen drops on its whiskers. It reminds me of that truck stop in the middle of nowhere when the lights went out and they served us anyway, or the cigarette carton skyscraper my husband built as a boy in Trenton that he set on fire with matches and used oil. His grandfather was a Hungarian florist. II I climb a battle tower, a monument to war, stone with a long spiral staircase and slits for windows. The English were afraid the French would travel up the river to attack, I think. They didn’t, and since nothing happened here, is it still a war monument? III Rusted bicycles and bricks line a fire escape near Pat’s Diner, open twenty-four hours like the streets filled with 1981 Dodges, paint peeling like strands of ham fat. I eat fried egg plant, spaghetti, and watch a twoyear-old child ride a dirty pink plastic tricycle near the street, her older brother flying, arms stretched to each side. Her mother walked to the back of the house with full plastic bags. I worry about the girl and wonder if the mother would give a damn if that red Olds ran her over. IV The rolls are fresh but nothing like Peoples Bakery’s. Now that’s real bread, made by the same family for generations on Washington Ave., far enough from the river so the water wasn’t as bad. It used to be called Colonials. They supplied the diner with bread, except when Gus vacationed in Greece, then his brother would buy the cheap stuff. My in-laws remember those rumors and still don’t know why the diner’s name was Pat’s when it was owned by Gus.

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V The last time I went to Trenton, Gus had retired, and Pat’s no longer sold the coffee that I had come to love. My husband’s grandfather’s flower shop still exists, though it has a different name, like his daughter who is also a florist. She wants to open a restaurant in Northern Pennsylvania like Pat’s. “No one cooks stuffed cabbage or stuffed peppers. People want that. I’ll give it to them.” Just like her mother used to make, though she never knew the recipe. They say the Delaware is getting cleaner. I would ask the heron if he could speak.

Marc Thompson dacotah

on the plains men lashed to their plows crumble into dust as they try to conjure the promised rain on the plains women vanish into the foul-mouthed wind that scorches the hollows of barren men there the quicksand of promises there the rust of love

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Tracy Koretsky Before Others Knew

Ann, do you remember why I came to Pittsburgh? If it comes to you write it down. Use your skyblue paper. Use Sierra Club stamps. I want to read it on the tiredbus home, beneath the alwaysgray sky; unfold it when cloyed with Lebanese; hold a piece beneath my tongue when marching in Harrisburg â&#x20AC;&#x201C;again in Harrisburg; let it remind me: that day, the two of us, our books piled between us like steps into each otherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s minds, me saying what a writer should know, confessing ignorance. You saying that all a writer must know is that she is a writer. Unconverted, I genuflected reflexive in the Cathedral of Learning; divided my views like gothic tracery, ever finer; had to piece meanings from lofty colored shards. Until

yesterday–one man’s story of a truckdriver took me to open, unchosen roads, and this morning, a woman’s, about an ice skater, all the right names for jumps and fastspins, the way pond water looks beneath inches of ice–when, as if on a signpost glimpsed in the lightening of her story, I saw it: a writer needs others who know what she is. It’s always like a watercolor here. First washed gray and then the little colors laid on. Sure, perhaps it is this goblet, filled. Emptied. Filled again. Perhaps hormones, or twenties, or more rain tomorrow. But tonight you must call me clouds, Ann, for I gather in excess. As I roll, fatbottomed, gray over Pittsburgh, I am perforated with pinnacles.

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Joan Gelfand Music Dream 14: Day Dream

Two bars into the accordion’s sad song and I’m back On that sunny September afternoon on the Loire– I can see that same quality of light– Viscous, dense. The dark stripes of tree shade. The wine had the scent of peaches and a touch of smoke. We were between places, driving toward something. The air was warm, everything was a brilliant green, But we knew that winter was coming. At Chenenceaux, I waved to you, down on the bank of the river, From the window in the great hall where Allied forces Nursed wounded soldiers during the war. Sadness and happiness roiled like oil and water. Fairy-tale chateaux along the lazy Loire, Endless wars and the shadow of death, And still, love and wine, warm afternoons And memory, stirred by music.

Diane Hueter Nocturne

The back gate bangs each time the wind changes, unhinging me from sleep. Then I hear his breath unfettered and dreamy beside me. Someday he will be gone or you will. Then everything will be gone, no matter what. No, even in darkness I remember counting meteors the fire-ripped sky opening before us like some holy dream— it will last forever. Forever, really? if you had known then— if you had seen— you would have stopped you wouldn’t have had the strength to take one step. No, ours was a simple journey, the burdens, the obligations slid so smoothly around our borders like breezes across closed eyes— Then let yourselves fly like a pair of migrating birds. Let yourselves fly beneath a cloudless turquoise sky— and, because the years are heavy, take turns being the wind—

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Aaron Rudolph A New Mexican Cuento

I’m visiting my grandmother at her home in Río Lucío and my mother’s there, too. Minutes before the drive home I’m on the ground like a swimmer. Laying in the dirt, my head buried under my car, I’m trying to see what’s been dragging, sounding like a knife grating against rocks. I’m no mechanic—fire might be enveloping the car for all I know and Grandma asks, Te caillites? and I don’t know what that means but know just enough to shake my head no and Mom says that Grandma asked if I’ve fallen. No, Grandma. Estoy bien. We stay still, bobcats waiting for something else to stir. A few days earlier, my college buddy told me when he was nine and played all summer around his grandmother’s house with his best friend and one day from inside her house she told my friend something in Navajo and he waved and smiled. His friend said, No, she’s telling you off. She says to stop playing in the yard and for all my friend knew, she might have said that the moon is purple.

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On my trips with my mother, her mother and she converse in Spanish, their words like mountain winds circling through the house, stopping in the kitchen where weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re all sipping coffee. The language of our grandmothers sooths us like the stories we heard before bedtime. Their voices are snug and warm, blankets holding us in place. Their smiles are sweet like bizcochito cookies browning in the stove.

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Sandra Kohler Navigation

We wake to an opaque gray-blue soup, the breathless house, airless, socked in. Setting out for separate destinations, we joke we’ll be lost. “We are lost,” my husband says, “Marooned.” No–we’re in a sea of fog, becalmed. Cut off from our son, adrift, battered by waves, losing weigh. He sails on a bowline, distancing fast. The porch railing defines the solid world: beyond it, all is dissolving, permeable. Equivocal, like the self in the child’s game: “Where’s mommy?” “Where’s baby?” Here the question is who is which. Dreaming, I am the student in the small town with the diner, the purple hills, the make-it-up-as-you-go life. I am looking for the train station, the schedule of departures. Who is leaving whom? We change places as we move. I have dreamt myself into my son’s new life, all the while knowing I’m bound to leave it, like the geese of this island, called south, perversely flying north each morning, circling necessity, resisting a pull stronger than gravity, darker.

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Marc Douglass-Smith Fish Fall

Fish fall, cold October, hardwoods shedding leaves over copper marsh water and my fatherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s eyes dropping a fathom and more, following a slender thread to where jut-jawed bullheads wait, a few lonely perch. One day (my father tells me) an old bomber buzzed the lake, bay doors opened and the fish fell in silver shimmers downward. My father watched a thousand fingerlings bristle in the water, their spring gills bellowing as they woke from wind and sky. Quietly we lower again our weighted, tenuous lines as if to inquire of darkness, deep water, the soulâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s silty bottom. With oars drawn up, we drift aimlessly. We remember years of silent trawlings, the dead water, the lifted rare and glittering fish.

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Jack Romig A Walk on the Morning of My Fatherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Death

The comic gravity of the dog is all directed toward the earth. His rooting and his searching protect him from distraction by motion in the element of air. So, when a molting tree drops three nuts on a shingle roof like knocks upon a sĂŠance table (what? what? and where?), he never looks up as we pass. Nor does he lift his busy head to see the long-winged owl sweep forward in a shallow arc, to flare and stop and light again, then burst once more away into the unseen deeper woods.

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Jack Romig Small Game Season

Never think these fields are wild; tally them in acres and begin to understand them, shot over, as they are. The mangled hanks of feather and the stiff red fur donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t matter in our reckoning of places owned. The sound of the insisting guns is not like thunder, nor steep-dropped water, nor branches broken under ice, and not like any sound heard on the land before we came. Instead the gunshots mimic voices of the things we made, a steel door slammed, a stove thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s fallen from a truck, and every shot compounds a manufactured noise that leaves a rabbit like a remnant of stained rug.

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Jenny Erpenbeck Excerpt from The Book of Words

Father and mother. Ball. Car. These might be the only words that were still intact when I learned them. Then even they got turned around, ripped out of me and stuck back in upside-down, making the opposite of ball ball, the opposite of father and mother father and mother. What is a car? All the other words had silent halves dragging them down from the start like lead weights around ankles, just as the moon lugs its dark half around with it even when it’s full. But it keeps circling in its orbit all the same. For me, words used to be stable, fixed in place, but now I’m letting them all go, if need be I’ll cut off a foot if that’s the only way to get rid of them. Ball. Ball. Lullaby and goodnight. My mother is putting me to bed. She strokes my head as she sings. White, dry hand stroking the head of a child. With roses bedight. Eyes the color of water gazing at me; already my eyelids are falling shut. With lilies o’erspread, she sings. But lilies are for funerals. Not these lilies, she’d say if she saw the words were making me cry again, they aren’t real lilies at all, they’re just lilies-of-the-valley for faeries to sleep under. But tonight it’s already too late for crying, I’ve traveled too far into the land of sleep to turn around, and they aren’t lilies-of-the valley, they’re real lilies that someone I don’t know is going to lay on my coffin and nail it shut as I sleep. Lay thee down now and rest, she sings. She pulls the blanket up to my chin and turns out the light. The coffin nails scrape my skin, lots of little bloody wounds. May thy slumbers be blessed. And what if they aren’t blessed? Then I’ll remain lying here in my coffin-bed forever. May thy slumbers be blessed. And the drops of blood will turn to stone. Mother. A ball is a thing that rolls and sometimes bounces. A father is a man who stays taller than you for a long time. Before my father goes to confession, he shaves and puts on a clean shirt. If a person wanted to play ball with someone’s head, only the nose would get in the way. Before my father goes to confession, he takes me on his lap and lets me ride his knees. Many many children have already ridden into this landscape and become fodder for ravens, countless white-skinned screeching riders who never seem to manage a full gallop before they’ve tumbled down into the bog between

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their father’s knees. My father’s shirt smells fresh and is rough when I bury my head in it after I’ve pulled myself up out of the bog with a motion that makes me dizzy every time. Father.

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Jenny Erpenbeck Exzerpt aus Wörterbuch

Vater und Mutter. Ball. Auto. Das vielleicht die einzigen Wörter, die heil waren, als ich sie lernte. Und auch die dann verkehrt, aus mir gerissen und andersherum wieder eingesetzt, das Gegenteil von Ball wieder Ball, von Vater und Mutter Vater und Mutter. Was ist em Auto? Alle anderen Worte von vornherein mit der Hälfte Schweigen als Bleigewicht an den Füßen, so wie der Mond seine dunkle Seite mit sich herumschleppt, sogar wenn er voll ist. Aber der kreist immerhin. Für mich standen die Worte fest, aber jetzt laß ich sie los, und wenn es nicht anders geht, schneide ich den eiden oder anderen Fuß lieber mit ab. Ball. Ball. Guten Abend, gut Nacht. Meine Mutter bringt mich zu Bett. Während sie singt, streicht sie mir mit einer Hand über den Kopf. Weiße, trockene Hand, die einem Kind über den Kopf streicht. Mit Rosen bedacht. Wasserfarbene Augen, deren Blick sich auf mich richtet, während mir die Augen schon zufallen. Mit Näglein besteckt. Nelken sind das, würde sie sagen, wenn sie sehen würde, daß ich bei dieser Zeile wieder anfange zu weinen. Nelken, nicht weinen. Aber zum Weinen ist es heute zu spät, unumkehrbar bin ich unterwegs in den Schlaf, Nelken sind es nicht, sondern spitze Näglein, mit denen mich jemand, den ich nicht kenne, am Bett festnageln wird, während ich schlafe. Schlupf unter die Deck, singt sie. Sie zieht mir die Decke bis zum Kinn hinauf und löscht das Licht. Lauter kleine blutige Einstiche von den Nägeln. Morgen früh, wenn Gott will, wirst du wieder geweckt. Und wenn nicht, bleibe ich für immer ans Bett geheftet. Morgen früh, wenn Gott will, wirst du wieder geweckt. Und die Blutstropfen versteinern. Mutter. Ein Ball ist em Ding, das rollt, manchmal springt. Ein Vater ist ein Mann, der lange Zeit größer ist als man selbst. Bevor meinVater zur Beichte geht, rasiert er sich und zieht ein frisches Hemd an. Wer mit einem Kopf Ball spielen wollte, den würde nur die Nase stören. Bevor mein Vater zur Beichte geht, nimmt er mich zu sich auf die Knie und läßt mich reiten. In diese Landschaft sind schon viele Kinder hineingeritten, viel Rabenfutter, viele weitßhäutige kreischende Reiter, die, eh sie in Galopp verfallen, immer schon abstürzen in den Sumpf. Das Hemd meines Vaters riecht frisch

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und ist rauh, wenn ich meinen Kopf darin vergrabe, nachdem ich mich mit einem Schwung, der mich jedesmal schwindeln macht, emporgerafft habe aus dern Sumpf. Vater.

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Book Reviews lucky wreck: poems by Ada Limon Autumn House Press, $14.95 Reviewed by Amy L. Sargent

Ada Limon’s lucky wreck is a humorous, edgy, fresh series of poems that work to unravel much of the pretense that surrounds a new poet’s elusive First Book. The winner of the 2005 Autumn House Poetry Prize, lucky wreck offers a sampling of how gracefully Limon can move between different styles of verse. The one constant in the individual poems making up this collection is Limon’s eye for detail. Her ability to offer her reader a view of the everyday with a twist, or a slant—like the longer, mean green beans of “The Lessing Table” or the pinker, floor-sleeping distance in “The Different Distance”—is certain to become a known signature of Limon’s work. In the opening lines of “The Great Erector of Invisible Pets,” she writes, “Let me start again,/it didn’t take place in a meadow,/and I wasn’t pretty.” It is with this sort of sarcastic insight, this assumption of shared foreknowledge, that Limon wins over her readers and lets them know they’re being invited to share in something altogether new. Waking: A Memoir of Trauma and Transcendence by Matthew W. Sanford Rodale Books, $23.95 Reviewed by Anna K. Gullickson

Matthew Sanford’s memoir Waking is honest and accurate and agonizingly graphic in its detailed account of the Thanksgiving weekend traffic accident (including, in great detail, Sanford’s broken back and resulting paralysis) which put a quick end to both childhood and family life as Sanford knew it. Even considering certain weaknesses of craft, Waking is well worth reading for the rare opportunity to learn the answers to some of those questions that most of us are too ‘polite’ to ask, such as, “what is sex like for a paraplegic?” and, “how does a paraplegic go to the bathroom?” The memoir’s ultimate achievement, illustrated through Sanford’s discovery of self through yoga, is an overwhelming sense of awareness of self and of the unseverable connection between the human mind and body. No matter what the reader’s physical or mental state, they cannot help but become more aware of feet, legs, hips, belly, arms, shoulders, and mind while reading Sanford’s Waking; and waking, indeed, becomes a shared experience for reader and writer alike.

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The Open Curtain by Brian Evenson Coffee House Press, $14.95 Reviewed by Nathaniel Fuller

It is hard to define exactly what genre The Open Curtain is. It is one part literary, one part horror, one part mystery, and one part coming-ofage novel. Yet, Evenson does an excellent job of weaving the best elements of each of these genres into a gripping and, at times, morbidly fascinating novel. He creates a triad of characters—Rudd, Lael, and Lyndi—that, through their dark confusion, draw you into their world and let you empathize with their plights. Evenson’s questioning of the Mormon religion comes across as honest through Rudd’s questioning, and his description of the wedding ritual, for those not ingrained in the culture, is vivid without being overbearing or overdrawn. His use of other forms throughout the book—newspaper articles, high school reports, and bible verses—introduces us to the historical contexts of the novel’s premise through Rudd’s eyes, and turns possibly dry exposition into plot furthering, entertaining prose. Finally, in the last section of the book, “Hooper, Amuck,” Evenson, through repetition and subtle changes in point of view, creates for the reader the feeling of being totally and utterly lost within oneself that Rudd/Hooper is experiencing. In the end, Evenson leaves the reader with a sense of “what really happened?” and “why?,” that makes the reader come back again for a second, third, and fourth read. Newsworld by Todd James Pierce University of Pittsburg Press, $24.95 Reviewed by Yvette Mingo

Todd James Pierce’s book Newsworld is phenomenal and deserving of its honor as winner of the 2006 Drue Heinz Literature Prize. Readers will enjoy ten cleverly written short stories about characters who question their self-worth and affect change. Pierce’s stories are vivacious and humorous while still being poignant. Pierce parallels the perplexities of revered celebrities with those of mundane characters, showing that celebrities are fallible and vulnerable. Pierce’s premise remains cohesive throughout his stories; characters want love, impeccable health, and happiness. Hence, characters challenge life and conquer adversities to achieve rewarding lives. Pierce’s language is entertaining and latticed with a profusion of riveting imagery that flows cohesively with the unified premise of his stories. His short story collection is provocative and compelling with stories like Wrestling Al Gore, Studio Sense, The Real World, and The Yoshi Compound: A Story of Post-Waco Texas. These stories will appeal to readers regardless of their knowledge of celebrities since his stories aptly depict the tangibility

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of relationships, love, and pain in the lives of vulnerable humans. The characters are genuine and full of depth. Newsworld adds 201 eminent pages of fiction to literature that avid readers will applaud. Now Showing by Jim Daniels Ahadada Books, available soon from Small Press Distribution for $8.75 Reviewed by Sarah E. Adkins

“Abandoned August,” the final poem in Daniels’ chapbook Now Showing, shows what can happen when a poet of Daniels’ caliber is freed to experiment. Now Showing is published by Ahadada Books, a publishing house out of Tokyo and Toronto that is known for its contemporary and experimental edge. Daniels was intentionally compiling this chapbook for Ahadada and took some risks that pay off. One way he does this is by playing with structure. This is especially evident in the first and last poems in the collection, “Now Showing” and “Abandoned August.” These poems consist of capitalized words carefully chosen and arranged in a pattern that visually resembles a brick wall, or the “plastic letters” on an announcement board, as those outside movie theaters and mom and pop gas stations. The words that Daniels chooses in these two poems drip with meaning and texture. Jim Daniels can throw out sentences, phrases, clauses, and it will still work. Another aspect of the collection in which experimentation is evident is with poems such as “No Relation,” which are more stream-of-consciousness in their constructs. This title in particular serves not only to point out that no, Jim Daniels is not related to the guy from Jack Daniel’s whiskey, but also calls attention to the seemingly unrelated way these particular sentences come together. Don’t let that fool you, however. Even this poem achieves a conscious effect upon the reader, and by the last line everything comes together. This chapbook contributes to Daniels’ already strong body of work. Now Showing is more than a thin volume to satisfy the reader’s appetite in between larger collections. It is a body of work where every poem counts. Now Showing conveys a sense of urgency and relevancy inherent in the more traditional and the more experimental poems, and each one on the spectrum between. Revolt of the Crash-Test Dummies by Jim Daniels Eastern Washington University, $15.95 Reviewed by Sarah E. Adkins

Revolt of the Crash-Test Dummies grabs the reader by the windpipe and doesn’t let go. In a good way. This is especially arresting when the poems

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deal with family relationships, as in “Waiting Room, Children’s Hospital, Pittsburgh,” when the son asks what an esophagus is and the following reflection and response: “They’ll stick/ a tiny camera on a tube up his nose,/ down his throat. Ask the doctor.” Much of Daniels’ latest collection of poetry is depressing—there is no way to sugarcoat it. Just as Daniels doesn’t sugarcoat reality for the reader. However, the depression invoked by this collection is not one that lies down and gives up. It is one that, by its very acknowledgement of truth, stands up, confronts, incites. Daniels is also able to inject a note of his brand of ironic humor throughout, as with his play with language and poetry itself in “Poetry.” At times in your face, other times heart-breaking in its subtlety, Revolt of the Crash-Test Dummies shows Daniels’ poetic genius. The reader is along for the whole ride, with the poet past the point of crashing. Daniels consistently leaves the reader with an image, an action, a scene that contains all the feeling that would be sappy to say. The three lines before the last of “¿” then, “… So, that day on the bridge,/ you should have suspected//the way she stood still, braced herself,” carry more weight than a telling. I cannot discount anything that is left with me after reading Revolt of the Crash Test Dummies. The poem “Hung Out to Dry” asks “While we take our snapshots,/ who will notice the lone swimmer/ stroking perfectly over the falls?” Daniels sees what those who are merely voyeuristic miss. This is a necessary book, and Jim Daniels remains a strong preference for the chronicler of our lives. Jagged With Love by Susanna Childress University of Wisconsin Press, $26.95 Reviewed By: Adam Sukhia

Jagged With Love was selected by Billy Collins for the Brittingham Prize in Poetry and it is easy to see why. Childress’ language is fresh and beautiful, inviting the reader on an intimate journey of love, family, and the complexities of emotion and life. She weaves the spiritual with the tangible bringing us along as we discover the pain, the sensuality, and the splendor of a moment. This is a book of love. A book that resonates within us, that is in love with the darkness as well as the light. A book of poems that at one moment brings us home for a family game of Trivial Pursuit and in the next to the fields of Peru tasting limes. Childress is attentive to all aspects of her craft, creating poems that move and sparkle as she writes of the body, of prayer, of fear. Her unique connections and portrayals complemented with a vivacity of language and range of topics make Jagged With Love smart, exquisite and exciting. Childress stares deeply into the edge of something wonderful and allows us to do the leaping.

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About the Authors Katherine Abbott is in the MFA program in fiction at the University of New Hampshire. She’s had fiction, poetry, and nonfiction published in The Comstock Review, Entelechy International, The Berkshire Review, and qarrtsiluni, among others. She has been accepted for an upcoming anthology called The Farmer’s Daughter. Before coming to New Hampshire, she was Associate Editor of the Berkshire Advocate, an independent weekly paper. Sarah E. Adkins is an Assistant Poetry Editor for The Fourth River. She is an MFA student at Chatham University.

John Allen has a BA in English from the University of Central Oklahoma and an AAS in Electronics Engineering Technology from Oklahoma State University-OKC. He has an eleven-year-old daughter, an eight-year-old son, and he has been married to his wife, Rochelle, for fifteen years. He changes his own oil and coaches a Little League baseball team. He enjoys growing and eating his own fruits and vegetables. He roots for the St. Louis Cardinals. He has never been published before.

Lisa Alexander Baron’s poetry has appeared in Paterson Literary Review, The Comstock Review, Potomac Review, Diner, Green Hills Literary Lantern, Pennsylvania English, Mad Poets Review, and others. Her chapbook is entitled Unbegun. She teaches English to middle school students at The Swain School in Allentown and has two young children of her own. She writes to maintain her sanity, which is an ongoing project.

Sam Bell lives in Lawrence, KS, with her husband, Dan, and is a PhD candidate in Creative Writing at the University of Kansas. She is originally from upstate New York. Previous publications include poems in The Coe Review and Roux Magazine, and she loves autumn. Fernando Benavidez is a doctoral student studying American and Chicana/o literature at the University of Maryland. He grew up in Brownville, TX, on the U.S.–Mexico border where many of his stories come from. Fernando’s work has appeared in Fictional Musings, Flashing in the Gutters, Meat Journal, Six Sentences, and most recently in Pindeldyboz. He was inspired to write this fictional story after reading an article about a lynching on the border where he lived, which was once known as Palmito Hill in 1865.

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Louis Daniel Brodsky, born in 1941, has written fifty-five volumes of poetry, including the five-volume Shadow War: A Poetic Chronicle of September 11 and Beyond. His book You Can’t Go Back, Exactly won the Center for Great Lakes Culture’s (Michigan State University) 2004 best book of poetry award. He has also authored thirteen volumes of fiction and coauthored eight books on William Faulkner. Evan Bruno currently pursues his doctorate in English literature with creative writing specialization at the University of North Texas. He also serves as a regular fiction reader for the American Literary Review. His short fiction has appeared in The Idiot Magazine.

Kay Calkins is an academic librarian in Tulsa, OK. She spent much of her adult life in the Far East, living in both Taiwan and Japan. Her work has been published in Rosebud Magazine, and she was a semi-finalist for the Nimrod/Hardman award in 2005.

Bryn Chancellor’s short fiction has appeared in Gulf Coast, Blackbird, CutBank, Phoebe, Colorado Review, The Cream City Review, and Crazyhorse. Her awards include a fellowship and a project grant from the Arizona Commission on the Arts and scholarships to the Sewanee and Bread Loaf writers’ conferences. She currently lives in Nashville, TN.

Ann Claycomb is a writer living in Morgantown, WV, with her family. She has never driven a big rig, but she has a deep and lasting fondness for the summer beach towns on the Eastern seaboard where this story is set. Lindsay Coleman is a Teaching-Writing fellow at the Iowa Writer’s Workshop and a graduate of Harvard University where her thesis in poetry entitled Vespertine won a Hoopes prize. Her work has appeared in The Gamut and Seneca Review. She is graduating with an MFA in spring 2007 and needs a job.

Dennis Doherty teaches at SUNY New Paltz where he also directs the creative writing program and chairs the poetry board. His collection The Bad Man (Ye Olde Font Shoppe Press) appeared in 2004. His household includes three daughters and a beautiful wife, who, along with the gardens, conspire to keep his hands busy and his heart dizzy.

Marc Douglass-Smith lives in Peterborough, NH, and teaches in the English department of Keene State College in Keene, N.H. He did his graduate work at State University of New York at Buffalo. After concentrating on scriptwriting, he recently returned to the writing of poetry after a fairly frightening bout with cancer. Though he’s finding some success in the scriptwriting field, he’s learned that there is great healing power in poetry.

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Jenny Erpenbeck works as a freelance writer and director in Berlin. Her publications in English include The Old Child (New Directions, 2005) and The Book of Words (New Directions, forthcoming). She is Chatham University’s all-campus author for 2007, The Year of Germany.

Katie Fallon’s creative nonfiction has recently appeared in Fourth Genre, River Teeth, Ecotone, and elsewhere. She teaches creative writing at Virginia Tech. Gail Folkins, originally from the Seattle area, writes and teaches in Austin, TX. She also worked for a year in Switzerland. Her recent publications include essays in SLAB, R-KV-RY, and Lifewriting Annual. Her nonfiction book Texas Dance Halls is forthcoming from Texas Tech University Press in Fall 2007. Nathaniel Fuller is an Assistant Fiction Editor for The Fourth River. He is an MFA student at Chatham University. Joan Gelfand was the winner of the 2005 Chaffin Fiction Award. Her letters, essays, poetry and stories have appeared in numerous national literary journals and anthologies including The New York Times Magazine, Poets & Writers, If Women Ruled the World, and The Streets of New York. Her story “The Art Critic” was nominated for a 2006 Carver Short Story Award. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Mills College in Oakland, CA. She is currently serving as Vice-President of the Women’s National Book Association.

Lara Gularte, editor of the online journal Convergence, has been published by the Santa Clara Review and others. Gularte’s poems have been translated into Portuguese by the University of the Acores. Her work was presented at an international conference on storytelling and cultural identity in June of 2005.

Anna Karine Gullickson is an Assistant Poetry Editor for The Fourth River and will be graduating from Chatham University this August with an MFA in poetry. She has a chapbook out from Whale Red Productions entitled Wingspan. Aaron Hellem lives with his wife in Leverett, MA, and attends the MFA Program for Poets and Writers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. His short stories have recently appeared in Menda City Review, Noö Journal, Denver Syntax, Amoskeag, Quay Journal, and Xavier Review. Also, works of his are forthcoming in Anemone Sidecar, Lake Effect, Reed Magazine, Oklahoma Review, Ellipsis, Parting Gifts, and Beloit Fiction Journal.

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Diane Hueter is originally from Seattle and has lived in Lubbock, TX, for over ten years. She holds a PhD in Creative Writing from Texas Tech University and works in the special collections library. Her poems have appeared in Clackamas Literary Review, Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, PMS, and Comstock Review, among others. She is a member of the poetry editorial board for Iron Horse Literary Review.

Stephen Graham Jones has five published books. The most recent is the horror novel Demon Theory. More at demontheory.net.

Janet R. Kirchmeier’s work has appeared or will appear in Potomac Review, Kalliope, Lilith, Main Street Rag, Confrontation, Natural Bridge, Gihon River Review, and Alimentum. She is the recipient of a Drisha Institute for Jewish Education Arts Award for 2006-2007.

Sandra Kohler’s second collection of poems, The Ceremonies of Longing, (Pitt Poetry Series, 2003) was winner of the 2002 AWP Award Series in Poetry. Her first collection, The Country of Women, was published by Calyx Books in 1995. Her poems have appeared recently in Diner, The Colorado Review, The New Republic, and Prairie Schooner. After living for many years in a town along the Susquehanna River in Central Pennsylvania, she has recently moved to the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston. Tracy Koretsky is the author of Ropeless, a fifteen-time award-winning novel that offers surprising perspectives on disability (www.readropeless. com). She has earned more than fifty awards for her widely published short fiction, poetry, and essays, including three Pushcart nominations. She is on the editorial staff of Triplopia (www.triplopia.org). You can find more of her poetry as well as critical essays in its archives.

Ronald H. Lands is a practicing physician in a small East Tennessee town and a graduate of Queen’s University of Charlotte MFA program. He has short stories published or pending publication in New Millennium Writings, Branchwood Journal, Breathing the Same Air: An Anthology of East Tennessee Writers, Wind, Descant, and The Distillery. Christiana Langenberg was born in the Netherlands and immigrated to the U.S with her Dutch father and Italian mother. She was naturalized when she was seventeen. She is the winner of the Drunken Boat Panliterary Award for Fiction, Chelsea Award for Short Fiction, and her stories can be found in Glimmer Train, Dogwood, Pindeldyboz, Drunken Boat, Storyglossia, Chelsea, Green Mountains Review, Carve, American Literary Review, and others. She teaches in the English and Women’s Studies departments at Iowa State University.

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Holly Leigh has published poems and essays in The Alembic, Bardsong, Bellevue Literary Review, Christian Science Monitor, Colorado Review, Fugue, The Healing Muse, Pilgrimage, Practical Horseman, Redwood Coast Review, the strange fruit, and Tiny Lights.

Alex Lemon’s first collection of poems, Mosquito, was published by Tin House Books in 2006. His poems have appeared in Tin House, AGNI, Indiana Review, Pleiades, and Post Road, among other journals. He is a frequent reviewer for The Bloomsbury Review and is the Assistant Editor for LUNA: A Journal of Poetry and Translation. He was awarded a Literature Fellowship in Poetry from the National Endowment for the Arts in 2005 and was also the recipient of a 2006 Minnesota State Arts Board Grant. Currently he lives in Minneapolis and teaches at Macalester College.

Robin Merrill has her MFA from Stonecoast and her BS from Maine Maritime Academy. A former Merchant Mariner, she traded seafaring for a teaching career. Now her life is more adventurous. Her poems have recently appeared in The Cafe Review, Margie, and Pearl. You can visit her at www.robinmerrill.com.

Yvette Mingo has a BA from Mount Holyoke College. She is an Assistant Fiction Editor for The Fourth River and will obtain an MFA in fiction from Chatham University in 2008. While at Mount Holyoke, she was Editor of the Francis Perkins Scholar Newsletter. She has had fiction reviews published in the Black Issues Book Review Magazine.

Joshua Moehling is a writer living in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Stephen Murabito is an associate professor of English at the University of Pittsburgh’s Greensburg campus. His short stories have appeared in such places as North American Review, Antietam Review, Sou’wester, Brooklyn Review, and Paper Street. He has been an NEA Fellow in Poetry, and his poems have appeared in such places as Minnesota Review, Mississippi Review, and 5AM. His chapbook, A Little Dinner Music, was published by Parallel Press in 2004; his book-length poem, The Oswego Fugues, came out from Star Cloud Press in 2005; and his newest book of poems, Communion of Asiago, came out from Star Cloud Press in 2006. His poetry is also anthologized in Encore: More of Parallel Press Poets (Parallel Press, 2006), and Joyful Noise: An Anthology of American Spiritual Poetry (Autumn House Press, 2006). John William Nordhaus teaches English as a second language abroad in Korea and France.

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Jill Patterson’s work has most recently appeared in Image, Carolina Quarterly, Thema, and other journals. She teaches in the Creative Writing Program at Texas Tech, and serves as Editor for Iron Horse Literary Review, Director for the San Juan Writers Workshops, and Production Manager for Creative Nonfiction. Romy Shinn Piccolella received a BA in English Writing and Anthropology from the University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg and an MFA in Poetry Writing from Goddard College. She has published poetry in Pennsylvania English, UCLA’s American Indian Culture and Research Journal, Earth’s Daughters, and Miller’s Pond, among others. She currently resides in north central Pennsylvania with her husband and three-year-old son.

Doug Ramspeck directs the Writing Center and teaches creative writing and composition at The Ohio State University at Lima. More than 175 of his poems have been published or are forthcoming in journals that include West Branch, Confrontation Magazine, Connecticut Review, Rosebud, Roanoke Review, Seneca Review, Rattle, Hunger Mountain, Rhino, and Louisiana Literature.

Jack Romig is an advertising executive in Allentown, PA. For more than twenty years he has also been an editor for Book-of-the-Month Club in New York City. He and Carolyn Bennett co-authored the popular children’s book, The Kids’ Book of Kaleidoscopes. He lives with his wife and three sons in rural Berks County, PA. Alan Rossi is a doctoral student in his second year at the University of Southern Miss’s Center for Writers. He has work in (or forthcoming in) Ninth Letter, Juked, and The Journal.

Russell Rowland is a local church pastor and single dad who lives in New Hampshire’s Lakes Region. A three-time Pushcart Prize nominee, he has work in over a hundred small journals, including Poem, Rattle, Poet Lore, Connecticut River Review, and The Comstock Review.

Aaron Rudolph is the author of the poetry collection, Sacred Things (Bridge Burners Publishing, 2002). His writing has appeared in Flyway, Concho River Review, the South Dakota Review, and other magazines.

Chuck Rybak lives in Wisconsin and is currently an Assistant Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin—Washington County. His chapbook manuscript Nickel and Diming My Way Through won Wind Press’ 2004 Quentin R. Howard Prize and was released in 2005. His poems have

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appeared in Quarterly West, Pebble Lake Review, Nidus, Southern Poetry Review, and the Schuylkill Valley Journal. Currently, he is an assistant editor for Oneiros Press, which specializes in the publication of letterpress poetry broadsides.

William S. Sandlin is working on his PhD in Creative Writing at Texas Tech University. He won honorable mention in the AWP Intro Awards in creative nonfiction for his essay “Evacuation.”

Amy L. Sargent lives just outside Pittsburgh, PA, in a lopsided house with her husband and four cats. She teaches English at Jefferson Community College, and her poetry is forthcoming or has recently appeared in several journals including The Pinch, The Dalhousie Review, juked and The Rockhurst Review.

Jillian Schedneck moved to the United Arab Emirates after receiving her MFA from West Virginia University. She now teaches English in Dubai and plans to write a book about her experiences.

Lucas Southworth grew up in Oak Park, IL, a suburb of Chicago. He is an MFA student at the University of Alabama where he works as the Fiction Editor of the Black Warrior Review. Recently, one of his stories was featured as a Discovered Voice by Iron Horse Literary Review. He is completing a collection of short stories.

Adam Sukhia is an Assistant Poetry Editor for The Fourth River. He is an MFA student at Chatham University.

Marc Thompson received his MFA from Hamline University in 2006. His poetry has appeared in journals on three continents, including RaW NerVZ, still, and Modern Haiku. When he is not writing poetry, he works for Redleaf Press in St. Paul, MN.

Diane Tucker was born and raised in Vancouver, BC, where she got a BFA from the University of B.C. in 1987. Nightwood Editions published her first book of poems, God on His Haunches, in 1996. Her second book of poems, The Bright Scarves of Hours, is scheduled to appear from Ontario’s Palimpsest Press in September of 2007. Her work appears regularly in journals in Canada and elsewhere; recent appearances include Event, The Absinthe Literary Review and Prism International. Diane lives in Burnaby, BC, with her understanding husband, their two magnificent teenagers and a spotty dog named Doxa.

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Lee Voss holds an MA degree in Creative Writing from Texas Tech University. He abandoned high school teaching in favor of a corporate sponsorship and currently works for John Deere Risk Protection adjusting losses for commercial nurseries in the continental U.S. He has published poems in Iodine, Concho River Review, The Comstock Review, and Southwestern American Literature.

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