The Grinnell Review Spring 2016 by The Grinnell Review

Copyright © 2016 by the Student Publications and Radio Committee (SPARC). The Grinnell Review, Grinnell College’s semi-annual undergraduate arts and literary magazine, is a student-produced journal devoted to the publication of student writing and artwork. Creative work is solicited from the entire student body and reviewed anonymously by the corresponding Writing and Arts Committees. Students are involved in all aspects of production, including selection of works, layout, publicity, and distribution. By providing a forum for the publication of creative work,The Grinnell Review aims to bolster and contribute to the art and creative writing community on campus. Acknowledgments: The work and ideas published in The Grinnell Review belong to the individuals to whom such works and ideas are attributed to and do not necessarily represent or express the opinions of SPARC or any other individuals associated with the publication of this journal. © 2016 Poetry, prose, artwork and design rights return to the artists upon publication. No part of this publication may be duplicated without the permission of SPARC, individual artists or the editors. The Grinnell Review is printed and bound by Colorfx in Waverly, IA. It was designed using Adobe InDesign® CS6. The typeface for the body text is Perpetua and the typeface for the titles is Didot. Cover art: Ape Ship | Jack Dunnington | oil and acrylic on canvas Inner cover art: Scatter | John Brady | digital photograph Inner title art: Cabin | Leina’ala Voss | digital photograph All editorial and business correspondence should be addressed to: Grinnell College c/o Grinnell Review Grinnell, IA 50112 www.grinnellreview.com

XLV | Spring 2016 ARTS SELECTION COMMITTEE Josh Anthony Ezra Edgerton Cal Froikin Serena Hocharoen Sam Mcdonnell Julia Shangguan Leinaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ala Voss Ella Williams

EDITORS Hannah Condon Matt Dole Jack Dunnington Alejandra Rodriguez Wheelock

WRITING SELECTION COMMITTEE Kristin Brantley Lou Engleman Elliott Maya Eliana Schechter Peter Sills Clara Trippe

Contents W riting Tristan Aschittino The Laborious Construction of a Nervous Existence

Jenkin Benson Things that make me hate dancing (Zuihitsu #8) Room Draw 30 Hannah Condon Black Holes River Valley Natives

Eliana Schechter Caught Between Eternity and Modernity 20 The Creations of Suburbia My Postmodern Love

72 55

Peter Sills The Window Washer

Josie Sloyan The Science of Restoration 17 76

Elliot Maya Automaton 24 Interview with a Man Called Wolf 6

34 79

Ethan Evans Lee Krasner 1966 Glenys Hunt Allegro

Yaseen Morshed Gilgo Beach, 1997

Mark Spero Another Date 44 Echoless Dry Lightning Monarch Clara Trippe Scarcity

22 28

A rt 46

Jack Dunnington Pueblo

John Brady It Was A Dark and Stormy Night 27 30 Paths

Cal Froikin Primaries

Josh Anthony Your Light

Ascent Blossom

48 84

Sam Burt The Same Cloud 50 Times

70 The Same Landscape 2 Times 71 Minnesota January 85

Hannah Condon Hand Picked

Hand Picked Portrait

Elle Azul Duncombe-Mills Treads

Plantation Ruins Shed 36 Road 51

21 25

Hominid

12 54

15 Open

Maddie Howland Afternoon

Sarah Hubbard In Rivis

Lydia James The Way the Light Hits

Elli Jung est non via (there is no way)

Ice Stills

Charlotte Kanzler Useless

32 7

Helen Lant Troll

Clare Roberts Tailend

Lauren Roush Miranda

16 Afghan Dress Sewing Suite

Leinaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ala Voss Gold Tears

Boxes of Words

Ella Williams Preservation

57 Lake Michigan 2

31 74 26

Letter from the Editors Just a few short weeks ago, Kobe played his last game. That’s right folks, you heard it here first— Kobe Bryant is retiring from professional cricket for good. He was reported to have said, “I’ve never really understood this game. What do I do with all these posts, and why is the bat shaped like a canoe paddle? Also, can someone explain canoeing to me? I might try that next.” (ESP, 4/13/16) We get it, Kobe. It’s the end of an era for the Review, too, as 3 of our 4 editors go on to pursue careers in asset management with large firms in Newark. Alejandra has yet to see the light that reflects off of bullion when it’s piled very high, but we have faith she’ll join us next year. Like Kobe, we never really understood the rules either. Or sometimes we just made them up as we went along. Suffice to say the game we’re playing has more in common with Calvinball than cricket, but we feel like we’ve scored a lot of points somehow. And we haven’t snaggled too many wickets along the way. We would never have made it to the big leagues without a bit of help along the way, so we’d like to thank Jim Sigmon from ColorFX (and Jim Miller, our longtime partner in crime/business, who retired this spring), as well as SPARC for signing our contracts and responding favorably to our repeated requests to “put me in, coach.” - Hannah Condon, Matt Dole, Jack Dunnington, Alejandra Rodriguez Wheelock

â&#x20AC;&#x153;There has been a tendency in this part of the country, it is true, to announce with pedagogic dogmatism the creed of the renaissance artist that beauty is truth and, hogs and corn being ugly, are non-existent. This creed is not ours.â&#x20AC;? - The Grinnell Review, November 1919

est non via (there is no way) | Elli Jung | found clothing, snow, acid dye, digital

Things that make me hate dancing (Zuihitsu #8) Jenkin Benson 1. I feel like a gross saffron stain on the right side of the toilet lid. 2. You’re in the middle of the dancefloor with at least 250 other people. And everyone else is invested in their particular moments, their friends. But you can’t shake off the feeling that everyone is for some reason watching you, but no one is actually watching you. 3. Sweaty pillars. 4. Tonight is the best night of your life. Tonight is the best night of your life. Drink that Tanqueray. Drink that Goose. It’s obviously way past your budget, but tonight is the best night of your life. 5. Why am I out here on the cement steps again?

Pueblo | Jack Dunnington | 3D print and PLA filament

Allegro Glenys Hunt

Robots play ping pong in my brain as the cold holds my hand Ash drifts, carcinogenic snowflakes, onto my boot and I let them lie That night, hips hitting the beat like a metronome, you wrapped me up and spat me out

Tailend | Clare Roberts | digital photograph

Primaries | Cal Froikin | digital

Miranda | Lauren Roush | embroidery on found fabric

The Science of Restoration Josie Sloyan

You’re sixteen. The weight of imagined expectations rests on your shoulders. You’re young and strong and able to climb things and run really fast if you put your mind to it. You can press your hands flat on the floor without bending your knees. Your heart is a stripped green spring branch. Each morning you are flayed by the pain and love of everyday drama and every evening you are reborn in a tougher skin. You stumble into relationships, real and imagined. How amazing and terrible, to be sixteen. You get involved with A. For a little while things are just great. One thing you like about A: after smoking a cigarette A extinguishes the cigarette very carefully, rolling the butt between A’s fingers, squeezing out leftover little burning pieces of ash and tobacco, and then takes the used butt inside to throw away in a trash can instead of leaving it on the ground to fade and yellow in the grass. A’s hands are veined but not too veined, reassuringly sturdy,

fingertips squared off in a dexterous and capable way. Like nearly everyone you have been sexually involved with, A has a close circle of friends who are both more attractive and morally repugnant than A by like lightyears. You can always recognize their approach by the synchronized squeak of their Nike™ sneakers, the soft expressive pad of hundred-dollar shoes familiar as birdsong. They like you because you’re fun to party with. They congratulate A on A’s excellent taste in sexual partners. They comment on various body parts of yours that they find visually pleasing. The thought that you have more in common with A’s lousy friends than with A does not escape you. You know perfectly well A is better than you in almost every respect. A’s only visible flaw is that A smokes cigarettes, which, you decide, considering A’s creativity and decisiveness and academic success and people skills, etc., isn’t so much a flaw so much as an accession to being human. You keep having this dream where A unwillingly

administers oral sex to you, crying the whole time. how your friend pulled over to the side of the deserted In the evening when A comes home from A’s highway and masturbated awkwardly in order to resist after-school job at the children’s library you walk the appeal of any kind of sexual tomfoolery her ex together through the gingerbread town both of you might initiate while wonky on pain meds. And that have grown up in, all cornice and red trim, talking she drove for another two hours through white cold and holding hands as your faces dip in and out of silence and pulled up to her ex’s darkened house, long evening shadows. You windows shuttered, pink snub walk past the hospital and of a cat’s nose briefly appearing round this time you the elementary school. You between blinds in an upstairs begin occasionally walk across the playground window, and that she had gone kicking mulch, sending black burning yourself by inside to the medicinal smell and secret insects scurrying. stained upholstery and into her pressing your hands On this particular evening ex-boyfriend’s Percocet-loose you tell a story about a arms and had sex with him, twice, to your kitchen stove cringingly embarrassing the second time without any kind immediately after it s sexual experience you had in of pleasure or real enjoyment eighth grade. A relates some at all, feeling sort of sick and been turned off which Bob Dylan trivia. You tell a sorry but unable to stop, even seems like an unrelated at one point almost crying for, story about your friend from Virginia who drove all the thing but also maybe it s you know, whatever reason. A is way up to her ex-boyfriend’s silent after you finish. It occurs not house in Maine during a to you that maybe A does not see perilous snowstorm in order to things like you do. You think that watch his cats while he recovered from wisdom-tooth nobody sees things the way you do and you think that surgery, an ex your friend was still wrenchingly in everybody should. You think if A doesn’t understand love with, and that it was close to four in the morning you, surely it means you’ve been molding yourself to when she crossed the Maine state line, and the roads the contours of A’s personality, instead of vice versa, were all spookily white and empty, and the sky was out of self-consciousness or spiritual weakness or fear fogged over with early-morning chill, and you recount of being too much like A’s buddies.

’

This paranoia leads you to begin sleeping with B without much compunction or feeling either way about it, really. You and B have always been acquaintances, but A is the one with whom B is actually good friends with, maybe even best friends, which in your opinion makes the situation complex but not impossible. Around this time you begin occasionally burning yourself by pressing your hands to your kitchen stove immediately after it’s been turned off, which seems like an unrelated thing, but also maybe it’s not. You begin to notice subtle changes in A’s psyche: moments of forgetfulness and vagueness, flashes of irritation. A becomes snappish, high-strung. You walk out of the shower one afternoon to find A sitting on your bed, talking to no one in a furious near-whisper, A’s foot jiggling frenziedly, A’s hands kneading introrsic creases into the duvet. The scene is not exactly one you would call the picture of mental stability. When you gently press A about what might be wrong and hey, are you doing all right—no, no particular reason—A collapses entirely. You can see A’s face literally collapse, falling loose from whatever muscular infrastructure holds it tight into a human shipwreck. All sag and seawater. A confesses A’s love for you, the kind of love that is not quite just handholding and lace-edged Valentines but something dark and obsessive that makes A violent and paranoid, jealous—irrationally, A knew, and in the manner of

those creepy hyperagressive partners A’s seen in the past and always found sad and repugnant—of your friendship with B, and it’s just tearing A apart and A doesn’t know what to do at this point except pray and hope that your love is reciprocal and equally deep and powerful. A’s voice here hitching all over the pentatonic scale. What you’re thinking as you compose your face into something close to concern is that this emotional outburst has spurred in you a strong desire to leave immediately and maybe just let A hash it out solo. You wonder what you ate for breakfast. You wonder why it’s so hard to remember events that occurred less than six hours ago. Is your life so fast-paced? It doesn’t seem like it, especially not right now. On the contrary. A’s telling you to please be honest please no disingenuousness. When upset, A retains that beautiful intelligent rhetoric that you first admired so much; there’s something incongruous and almost silly about it now. Who says “disingenuous” when their face looks like a used sponge? Things you first found attractive, sexy even, you now realize are expressions of self-consciousness. Most of all you are bored bored bored, impossibly, incredibly bored, the boredest you’ve ever been or thought you could ever be, even the little part of you astonished at your own heartlessness mercilessly quenched by how fucking bored you are, and when this slips out through your eyes or some little twitch in your lip there’s no hiding it, and A jerks back with a little gasp at this or maybe it’s just that finally at this moment A’s had the

Caught Between Eternity and Modernity Eliana Schechter

The trick: to rest in the crux Of the cemetery like the one in Berlin that we mistook for a park. Try to maintain that space: momentarily, no territories under debate. Balance your coffee on the arch of the stone with the shadowed remnants of teardrops. Consider all the stones never laid down here. Repeat that thought upon waking & upon sleeping.

Treads | Elle Azul Duncombe-Mills | digital photograph

Echoless Dry Lightning Mark Spero

I I look like Iowa: white and blue eyed skies woven in my overalls. I look like homogenous, Monsanto corn and soybeans, ready to round up the world. But buried in ropy muscles is feather red, pacific green, steel grey skyscraper ribs. I’ve got a face like rhubarb pie. I often feel like a spitted pig. There’s this feeling that I’m constantly driving alone down an unused two laner, in-between filling stations, in-between solitary trees, in-between breaks in the bountiful dream crops, and I’m whistling… Somewhere, Beyond the sea, Somewhere

waiting for me, my lover stands on golden sands, and watches the ships that go sailin’ II I volunteered to travel here, so maybe I volunteered to take on its traits, volunteered for my skin to turn to dry husk, rough soil, pores full of grit and must. This state has sent me down to its gutters to find lost seeds, blown by some seasoned mountain breath . . . I was drunk on 8th ave and a friend picked me up and when we sped through the dark end of a

million mile wide sunset, I stuck my head out the window, and heard this empty fucking state sing back to me… I don’t need no photograph, to keep by my bed, your picture is always in my head, I don’t need not portrait dear, to call you to mind, when sleeping or waking, dear I find… III I look like Iowa, with the very thought of you wrapped up in every toeful of soil, and every cicada hum. I can feel our old skin, gray harvest slag, strewn across the air and settled upon

a bench by a small tree surrounded by ant hills, a low rooftop with a view that is burned into my skull, and a bedroom, lost in some forgotten field and filled with pictures of you, and me, drunk on some warm evening, holding each other too closely. Now, listen: my head runs with explanatory melodies and poems, written far away, under bridges, but loud against the emptiness, here: And those were the days of roses, poetry and prose, And all I had was you, and all you had was me, There was no tomorrows, we’d pack away our sorrows And we saved them for a

Automaton Elliott Maya

The machine in the garden chugs along softly It’s manmade, has a man’s patience. The machine in the garden chews cud and coughs up meat petite Chunks of fingers, elbows, and knees. Tweezing together the obscene things It borders on art, such acts of playing God. The machine in the garden does not languish beneath Apple trees or marvel at the slug’s dainty cinderella foot. The machine in the garden put-puts along, constructing Here a man, here a woman, there an amalgam too splendid To behold. The machine in the garden has no concept of waste. There is only Now and Doing. A capitalist wet dream. All-American super star. Presidential candidate numero uno. 26

The machine knows nothing of war or foreign policy, But that’s okay — Machines need not know the passage of time, Let it feed on the childhoods destroyed in the Middle East. There is nothing more precious than metal, nothing as fleeting As innocence. The machine in the garden is just a child Combing bodies from a dirty sandbox and making them walk again, Half living, quite alive.

Plantation Ruins | Elle Azul Duncombe-Mills | digital photographs

Gold Tears | Leinaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ala Voss | twine, paper, and acrylic paint

It Was a Dark and Stormy Night | John Brady | digital photograph

Monarch Mark Spero

I Some sun sucked hanging morning, alone, greasy, cold, you left your dark blue wool peacoat hanging on my chair: it was the dark sea sky at night in this white morning light; so, naked, I wrapped myself in the wet fur, alone in your skin and reaching, into your pockets, I found them laden with butterflies that, passing between my crook fingers, spun me, carried me away from this November, full of oaken, coffin leaves, to surreal summer days, long lost air, memories that sweat: July. II The corn is high and I am high, and our bikes are so close to broken they look like skeletal marionettes, so we pluck strings with great care. We stare into each other, pored, breathing flesh, half laughter half breath, and out out, past each other into the sky, so blue, an inland ocean in Iowa. In the late summer, we bike in empty highway alleys on humming tar, between the whirlpool corn hedgerows, licking wind, pushing warm low air, where butterflies are endless: Brown and orange wings, beautiful flying soil. On hills, I race against your heartbeat, going faster and faster: I am faster than butterflies; they beat against my chest, tap at my rib cage like marimba, sing with me . . . I can hear you . . . they dance like you. 30

III If I said you had butterfly wings, you would howl at me. But, when we wander, you pass me a pair like yours and we fly into the sky, so empty, so far from home, dancing on the jet trails and discussing what it’ll be like to color in the grey world, watching the people like they are the loveliest ants, far below, and we sing to them, some old swing tune, needing nothing but this: “Sweet dreams till sunbeams find you Sweet dreams that leave all worries behind you But in your dreams whatever they be Dream a little dream of me”

Room Draw Jenkin Benson

Porn in the vents, shower sex perpendicular to me. I also hear the vein crunch of fall leaves once virile, violet now. I plug my ears with flannel sheets. I stretch my limbs to the corner dust defeated. Even with all that good luck, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m still coerced into this through the wall, through the poster, conversation, morse ghosts tapping faster and faster until the cold, wet climax.

Paths | John Brady | digital photograph

Afghan Dress | Lauren Roush | found afghans, glue, and armature wire

Useless | Charlotte Kanzler | digital

Troll | Helen Lant | charcoal

Black Holes Hannah Condon

It seemed like everyone we knew was born on the same day in August. Diana Gibson, Chris Payne, some girl named Brittney, your sister. But not you. I can hardly remember my own mother’s birthday, but I remember yours. I turned down every party invitation I received. My response was always the same: I’m exhausted, I haven’t slept in eons, I can’t stray too far from my bed in case sleep unexpectedly washes over me. It was easy to say that to Diana. Lately, it has become painless to be apart from her. If she drifts, that’s fine. I feel like you’re the only one who’s real anyway. But here she was saying I’m real, I was born, come back to me. She was throwing me a line and I didn’t want to grab it. I’m a shitty friend. It was more difficult to say no to you and Amber. I ran into you after I walked away from Diana, her dejected head hanging while she assured me, “I understand. I get it. Get some rest.” “It’s my birthday today,” Amber said. “We’re having a party for me. And Chris, too. I want you to come. Get plastered. Stay the night. Ryan will be there, of course.” She smiled and elbowed you,

prompting you to turn away from her. And me. Amber was beautiful and I wanted to say yes. Befriend your beautiful sister to demonstrate that I could become part of your family. But I should have given my yes to someone who I already knew loved me, not Amber who sometimes examined me like a moth pinned inside a glass case. I possess a unique kind of beauty, you told me that once, but apparently I lack allure. Amber felt hesitant about adding me to her collection. I could see it in her face. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I have to sleep.” You and Amber understood. You come from a family of insomniacs. “Good luck,” Amber chimed. You tried to smile an apology for my lack of sleep. The muscles in your cheeks attempted to hoist up the corners of your mouth, but your flesh would not cooperate. Your upper lip caught on your teeth like a dog dreaming of hunting, and that’s how you looked when you turned away. As soon as I lay in bed, all the exhaustion drained from me and I felt wired. Sleep is elusive and cruel like that, always slipping away when you need it most. My weary brain concocted a list of

conditions that must be met in order for me to catch embraced me and I could feel her sway. I didn’t want the sandman. I must attend the party. I must charm to hold her up, so I broke apart and mumbled that I Amber so that she would convince you to love me. had to find a drink. “Of course! You must,” she said. I must leave with an image of your face in a less “You need to prepare for later on.” depraved position. I tried calling to tell you that I had “What do you mean?” I asked. “Isn’t this the changed my mind. You failed to pick up after my sixth party?” try so I arrived unannounced. The light above your “Oh no. You’re precious. The real party is porch emitted a weak glow that was swallowed by the down by the river later tonight. There’ll be flames sunlight. That light is never extinguished. Your brother and cocaine.” Amber grabbed my hand to press her has moved out, but you and invitation into my skin. I expected Amber never stop coming and her to feel warm like light, but girl in a tiara going, never sleep through the she was cool as granite. “You sat at the dining night. I blinked the light out and should come,” she said. I couldn’t entered the house. room table glowing suppress my flinch. Amber, radiant and green I asked her for more details, in the light of eyed, lounged in a circle of her but she couldn’t hear. She was tattooed friends. A girl with candles on cake as feeling the pull back towards the a lotus on her neck raised a center of the room. She didn’t tell her family wheezed glass and spoke about Amber me to hurry back; her interest in as though she were her queen. me had waned. I am simply one appy irthday Beaming, Amber lifted her of your friends, just another girl dear rittney martini to toast herself. Glasses you occasionally cook dinner for. clinked and the room was cast As I left the room, I saw Amber pink. Amber became encircled by a rosy aureole. become reabsorbed by the circle. Her friends grabbed When I walked into the room, all the women for her, and it looked like she was being eaten. simultaneously turned their heads to me; Amber alone remained facing away. She caught on and turned As I made my way around the party, I found her auburn head a beat later, confusion and then that the entire house was occupied by birthday girls. delight painting her face. “You decided to come!” She A girl in a tiara sat at the dining room table, glowing

“H

.”

Shed | Elle Azul Duncombe-Mills | digital photograph

in the light of candles on cake as her family wheezed, “Happy Birthday dear Brittney.” In the kitchen, I found a redhead in a party hat leaning against the stove. Her freckled cheeks were cut with rivulets, perhaps because no one stood beside her. This was a girl I thought I recognized. “Samantha?” She didn’t lift her head. I left the girl alone. The entire house was occupied by birthday girls, but none of them was mine. I found birthday sex in all the bedrooms, vomit in the bathrooms, but Diana wasn’t anywhere. I called out “Hey!” to all the lovers and the sick girls, but when they lifted their heads, it was never her face I saw. She wasn’t in the pantry or the linen closet, the laundry room or the back yard shed. Finally, I descended to the basement and found her seated at the head of a long, immaculately set table. White linens, silver plates, crystal goblets, napkins embroidered with wildflowers, cutlery with handles made of bone. People clothed in party dresses and suits with ties occupied each place setting. Diana glowed, almost bright enough to illuminate the dark corners of the basement. She absorbed all the love from the people who surrounded her and it radiated through her skin. Her cheeks rose in doughy mounds beneath her glinting eyes, and she smiled with her teeth. Diana never smiles like that; she thinks it makes her look like a rodent. I squeezed between chairs, dusty bookshelves, and boxes of discarded shoes and clothes

hangers to make my way to Diana. “Happy birthday, happy birthday,” I intoned, bowing my head into her neck. “I’m so glad you’re here, Heather. I’m so glad you came back.” She gripped me to her then held me out and bathed me in her smile. “We’re about to have dinner. You should stay and join us.” She swept her hand toward last empty seat at the table, the place she had saved for me. A procession of waiters in starched white shirts and eggplant cummerbunds filed in carrying the first course on platters covered by silver domes. “Calamari, the kind that looks like fried spiders. I know how much you like it,” Diana grinned and took her seat. She knows me well. I love calamari, but Diana hates it. She exclusively eats Ramen noodles and macaroni. Her idea of cooking dinner is pouring herself a bowl of cereal. Dumbfounded by the strangeness of this reborn girl, I took my place at the table. A portion of squid was set before me, but as I attempted to eat it, the fried creatures crawled from my plate. I watched as they scurried from the table and disappeared into the shadows surrounding us. Blood pulsed through my neck. I could feel it surging through my ears, roaring like spring rivers swollen with melting ice. I pinched my eyes shut. Perhaps my idiotic desire for a broken mind had finally been granted. But I never wanted to be this bad. I opened my eyes, resolving to ignore the 39

animate food and focus on the guests at the table. Blue Kamikazes from gigantic hurricane glasses. I People were throwing heads and patting shoulders. tried to make eye contact with you, but your eyes were The talk was a roar. And there Diana sat at the center lost. You wrenched your head back to suck from the of it all, humbly bowing her head as her parents glass and lost your footing. The glass shattered on gushed praise for their girl, thanking a handsome the floor, spewing blue all over the linoleum. Chris waiter as he refilled her glass. She glanced over at dropped his own drink to catch you, but once you me every so often and gifted me with an encouraging were both firmly planted on the ground he shouted, smile. “Stay,” her eyes said. “Last one standing. I win!” ust as my face became “You belong here.” “Is Ryan okay?” I asked I felt brittle and level with hers she spat your sister in a low voice. inhospitable. The glow of “How much has he had to the grape between my love and exaltation that drink?” filled the room cast a “Enough,” she scoffed. eyes hen she looked shadow on me. Looking on “He’s just getting ready for at me for a moment her Diana’s beauty, I realized the party, the real party.” that I didn’t belong with face expressionless like a “That’s still happening?” her anymore. I belong with I asked, doubtful that any of cow s before collapsing the other broken people. us could carry on. I belong with you. When Amber narrowed her into the fruit bowl Diana’s attention turned eyes. “Of course. We’ve just from me, I pushed my chair started,” she hissed, and from the table and, ignoring the choking shame coiled began to walk away. within my throat, I turned my back to her and walked “Wait,” I grabbed her arm. “I’d like to come.” You away. had become someone I didn’t recognize. You wouldn’t even look at me, but I needed to stay with you. I owe I found you standing beside the refrigerator you that much. engaged in a drinking competition with Chris. Amber “Let’s go then. This party is spent.” Amber’s had migrated from the living room to watch. She saw rallying call dredged Chris up out of his drunken me walk in, but didn’t smile. You and Chris guzzled stupor, but your eyes remained glazed.

’ ,

“Nah,” Chris said. “I’m too tired to go anywhere else tonight.” He wrapped his arm around your shoulders and gave you a squeeze. “Bye, man,” he said, and then he moved on to Amber, giving her a brief hug. “Happy birthday,” his voice was muffled by her hair. “You all have a crazy night. Drink some for me!” “Drink for yourself,” Amber commanded. “It’s your birthday, too.” Chris didn’t hear. The kitchen door swung shut, his retreating form framed by the screen. “This isn’t only for me,” Amber yelled. He didn’t turn. “Fuck.” Amber turned to us. “Let’s go,” she said. I could tell that she was starting to itch. The room felt too small. Your family can never stay in one place for long. “There’s someone I want to say goodbye to first.” “Are you gonna wait for her?” She glared at you, and you nodded slightly, and the sound of the door smacking shut behind Amber brought an end to the conversation. We stood alone in the kitchen. “Thanks for waiting.” I smiled, hoping the shift of your head meant that you had woken up. But you were still again. I hesitated for a moment, afraid to leave you. But I needed to try once more to atone. When I reached the bottom of the stairs, the basement was dark. Dirty dishes littered the table, red wine stained the linens, and all the guests were gone. Only Diana remained, seated alone at the end of that vast empty table. Even though her lips were still curled in a smile, her face had dulled to chalk.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. Diana didn’t acknowledge me. Instead, she plucked a red grape from a bowl in front of her and popped it into her mouth. “I’m sorry,” I said louder. “I shouldn’t have left you.” Diana looked up at me, so I walked towards her. I wanted to kneel at her feet and beg forgiveness. “Diana, I’m so, so sorry for walking away from you.” I began to kneel at her feet. Just as my face became level with hers, she spat the grape between my eyes. Then she looked at me for a moment, her face expressionless like a cow’s, before collapsing into the fruit bowl. “Diana?” I shook her, but she wouldn’t move. I screamed and rattled her until finally she lifted her head. “Fuck you,” she droned. “Fuck you fuck you fuck you.” And I recoiled. I dropped her warm body. I retreated again. Because she was right. I deserved it. I found you still propped against the refrigerator. “Thank god you’re still here,” I fell onto you, and you smiled. I thought I saw a glimpse of life stirring in your eyes. “Of course,” you said. “I won’t ever leave.” I gripped tight onto your shoulders, then stood back and looked into your face to make sure you were really there. “I just went down into the basement to say goodbye to Diana, and she was acting so weird,” I confided. “Is she conscious?” you asked. I nodded. “Then 41

don’t worry. She’s fine.” My lip shook, and so you pulled my head into your clavicle. “It’ll all be better tomorrow,” you said, running your hands through my hair. I always want to believe you when you touch me like that. I tried to fill my lungs with clean air and ignore the tremor in my gut. You pulled away and grinned at me again. Your eyelids drooped as if your face was sculpted from wax and it was melting. “Now come on, let’s get going,” you said, and placed your hand onto the small of my back to guide me from house. You opened the driver’s door of the last car remaining in the street. “What are you doing?” I asked. You’re the one who takes away people’s keys when they try to drive themselves home from parties. “We’re driving to Amber’s party,” you said. “Come on, get in.” The door slammed and sealed you inside the car. I opened the passenger door and leaned my head in. “Are you sure you can drive? Let’s just walk.” “Heather, it’s five miles up the Frying Pan. We’re not walking. And I’m fine. I haven’t had a drink in over an hour.” Had it really been that long since you littered the kitchen floor with broken glass and sugar? You waved your hand impatiently to usher me in. “Come on, let’s go.” I have a bad habit of getting into cars with drunk drivers. It’s a behavior I developed when I started hanging out with Chloe last year. After drinking a six42

pack, she would inform me that it was time to go pick up her mother at the bowling alley. And I’d always follow her out to the car, despite the images of jagged metal and severed arteries that flashed through my brain. “At least put on your seatbelt,” I said, and got in. You almost drove us into the river as you turned onto Frying Pan Road. I gripped the handle above the door so tight the skin on my palm burned. You straightened out from your wide turn inches away from the guardrail. “See, Heather, we’re fine,” you gloated. “I’m a very capable drunk driver.” “No, you’re not. And that isn’t something you should be proud of.” I shot you a disapproving glance. “Don’t act so high and mighty.” Your voice sounded light. “You know Avery’s usually stoned when he drives you home from art class, right?” “How do you guys do it? Driving terrifies me even when I’m sober. I always convince myself that I randomly blacked out and ran over a kid or a dog or a little old lady.” You laughed. “People don’t randomly black out, Heather.” “Epileptics do,” I said. “Or people with narcolepsy.” “I guess, but I think they know it happened. You can’t just pass out without knowing it. You’d feel the

bump from hitting your head on the steering wheel.” “I know it’s ridiculous,” I folded my arms across my chest, “but I still have to check the front of the car for blood when I get out.” “You worry too much.” The mocking tone had left your voice. I sank down into my seat. “I hate driving, too,” you offered. “Why?” I asked. “I spent my childhood trapped in cars. My parents were always driving Amber to dance competitions in Grand Junction or Denver. Then there were Brennan’s cross-country meets in Delta and Greeley, fucking Rifle. That drive was desolate.” “You’ve clearly never driven through Nebraska.” You didn’t laugh. Your mouth didn’t even twitch into a ghost of a smile. You just stared out the windshield at the winding road ahead of us. “They’ve hardly been to any of my meets, but they never missed a chance to see him run,” you muttered. The car nudged the centerline and I realized you weren’t really looking at the road. “Brennan’s the better runner. Amber has always been good at everything she does. I’m just fucking mediocre.” “That’s not true, Ryan. You’re the best on the team. You just got fourth at regionals.” “Brennan would have won.” “Maybe if you stopped smoking…” You clenched your jaw and sort of nodded your head. “Jesus, Ryan,

that was a joke!” I turned my face so that you would see me looking at you. “Brennan can’t paint like you can. Neither of your siblings can do that. You’re the artist.” “I’ve never finished a single fucking painting.” I reached for your hand so that I could stroke your veins and tell you that you still have time to follow through but your skin wasn’t there. The space where you had just been was now empty. The car began listing towards the guardrail and I felt frozen. How do you disappear with such ease? “You don’t really see me, Heather. You never have.” Your voice came from behind. I craned my neck and saw you reclined in the back seat with your arm draped over your eyes like a therapy cartoon. “I’m mediocre,” you groaned. “No you’re not, Ryan, you’re one of the best people I know.” The car jolted as it hit the ragged asphalt meant to waken sleeping drivers. “You need to get back up here and drive the car,” I tried to keep my voice steady. “You’re really good at driving drunk, remember?” “A fucking failure.” I grabbed the wheel to stop us from careening into the river. “Ryan, get back up here!” “Do you have your phone?” you asked. “I need you to make a call.” “Not now, Ryan, I need to pull over the fucking car.” “Give me the phone.” I wrenched my phone out

Hand Picked | Hannah Condon | installation

Another Date Mark Spero I Gridlock dream California

III

Cars fucking cars to reach the farthest reaches of this copy paste city;

I wonder how long ago that egg was flash fried. I wonder if the chicken had a dental plan. I wonder if youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll hold my hand or will I only hold this cheap spoon, like a cancerous bone.

CafĂŠ chains stretch across the globe: Perfectly positioned and planned sets for romance. I breath biweekly II We meet in California like the eye of a storm. We meet in another cafĂŠ pressing brunch into the missing years. 46

I wonder at what temperature this establishment burns its toast. I wonder if the waiter who brings it has a dental plan. I wonder if you picked this place because it is forgettable and you are just trying me out like an LA health fad.

V I am going to drive away now. I am going to take the 405 to I-15 into the Mojave Desert, where cowardly tourists find their drivable end of the world. I am going because I can only be satiated by nameless asphalt against smoking rubber, and truck stop diners I’ve never seen, and will never see again. But, even in the shrink-wrapped now, you looked like a dream lost between here and Iowa, so I was wondering if you’d like to meet again,

Boxes of Words | Leina’ala Voss | photo collage

Your Light | Josh Anthony | wood and light

Ascent | John Brady | digital photograph

The Laborious Construction of a Nervous Existence Tristan Aschittino

A male, Mexican illegal immigrant working for cash as a member of a small Minnesotan construction crew. A white, female imprisoned pot dealer. An incomplete sentence. Roberto met Suzy in the town of Excalibur after she was released from a nearby corrections facility. The method of correction was extracting two years of her life and the behavior they sought to correct was being poor, resourceful, and around people who would pay for drugs. She sold heroin for a month long before she got caught, but decided she didn’t want to get killed during a supply transaction and rural heroin consumption was down that year anyway. She sold to a guy in a rusty blue pick-up in the middle of a dirt parking lot once who startled her with his death-talk. Apparently his wife had a nasty addiction to heroin euphoria. Suzy handed the man a small plastic bag.

He shook the powder into his hand, reached down with his other and picked up some sandy gravel. Then dramatically, he sprinkled the dust onto the powder, contaminating it. Forcefully, with gusto, he blew the mixture into the wind and screamed “We’re all gonna die!” His eyes went wide and crazed, then they rolled back into his head and he fell to the ground convulsing and frothing from the mouth. About thirty seconds later, he was standing, a little covered in gravel, but otherwise terrifyingly normal. He reached into his wallet, pulled out the precise asking price of the product he had just defiled, paid, then returned to his pick-up, driving off as one does during a departure. She decided, on her walk home, to stick to pot. She stopped at a local burger joint and picked up one of the products they sell. The poppy seeds in the bun got stuck in her teeth.

Seamus, an American who liked to describe himself as Irish, owns a small tile operation which services the small northern Minnesota town of Excalibur. Ten thousand humans, a busy, bar-heavy main street, and the new construction of a big name gas station and syrupy ice cream stop kept him in business. Starting off by putting the colorful little ceramic squares on top of muddy grout himself, and then delegating the same work to his son and five other tile setters, Seamus thinks he could have himself a retireable income by 55. Seamus was a masterful labor organizer. Through his first familial customers, and later referred demanders of his handymanship, the community created for itself a division of tile layers. Before Sunny Sally’s patented ice cream concoctions ever exchanged American dollars for his labor, local houses had high-functioning, durable and artful kitchens, bathrooms, and basements floors. White Eagle soars through floors with quality you adore. His son came up with the slogan. “White Eagle” was his creation. His respect for American values certainly influenced bird-choosing. And “white” can clean up a business name. There is no stray grout caked to a tile laid by White Eagle. Seamus drank a lot of whiskey. Not angrily, but to the point of whole-world-spinning. He was more angry when sober, but in voice alone. He liked to shout at people when mildly irked. When he was really mad, 52

he planted his feet and watched the world spin. His handiness extended to cars, carpentry, and crafts. He knew how things worked and could finger-feel dead machines to sputtery orgasmic life. He drove around town a lot in a rusty blue pickup, usually for an hour, before planting himself in a bar. He liked to watch the community out the truck window, breathing in the pine of the Northwoods and sawdust from the lumberyard that had founded the town. He liked to see children playing in the woods or eating syrupy treats, or a realtor behind Main street glass selling a cabin on a lake. The local newspaper building that supplied the surrounding small towns with big news always had a light on. Next door was the community grocery store. A cemetery flanked the right side of the store from the street. His dad was buried there. His wife was, too. They had a wonderful deli that made salami sandwiches. Real provolone from a community dairy on the Wisconsin border. Delicious! Sometimes when he visited his dad, he’d pick one up. Nourishment! Alcohol made them taste better. Labor was a productive distraction. That’s how the machine worked. Labor allows you to distractedly sustain yourself so you can distract yourself later while pulling a different lever. Rest, because it is fatiguing. Exhaustion from relentless evasion. I suppose you have to relent. Walking, only internally stumbling, wide-eyed

Road| Elle Azul Duncombe-Mills | digital photograph

after a bar run, brought Seamus to a clearing amid the tree stump that protruded itself annoyingly into pines beyond the cemetery. The faded stumps in the Seamus’ right butt cheek. But that sense was numb; middle of the space had been axed many years ago he was too numb to feel anything beyond angel-hair by a modern grave dweller. Sitting on one, Seamus pressure. laughed about the absurdity of impermanence. And With his intoxicated mind and death-trance sobbed, and then stood up hangover, Seamus stumbled and danced with his dead wife. back through the cemetery, y the time he punched That death was bad enough, paying respect to an unknown his card thoughts of but it still wasn’t as bad as the human by bowing his head, death of his friend Donnie. dropping to his knees, and a salami sandwich for Odorous death, quiet death, bellowing “Freedom” in a voice lunch had overcome his erasable death, spiritual death, that came from his deepest frightening death. The pit of philosophical inquiry or alveoli, but it was drowned the chest cavity was the central out by a dusty gust of wind maybe it merely allowed fear emitter. The lightwaves that snatched his word and of love and the radiance of a him to become one with it swallowed it like provolone. few other feelings kept the ~~~~~~ notion of eternity close by, Roberto had never had sex but unreachable, just enough to hang hope by a rope without a condom before. But, today he and his nonlethally. Erasure leaves an absurd gap in your girlfriend of three years were mutually interested in memory. Humans are more than memory, hopefully. procreation. It felt so strange. Putting the condom Maybe even more than posterity. The silence of the on had become part of the ritual, the act itself. Suzy woods was deathly. Only his shoes in the dirt made an was getting covered in kisses, first her neck, then her audible scuffle. Animation ceases when the rigorous lips. A slow, slightly sloppy French kiss was prolonged twitches of natural movement lock up, deenergized. as Roberto fingered her bra clasp. Moving down her Then the environment gets quieter than your own body, the respectful loverman caressed breasts with thoughts. It’s ok, many have gone before you, the path his tongue, rapidly inseminating his consciousness has been cleared. It’s safe. But it smells like earth and with a baby boy suckling. This absurd image drained funeral flowers, eraser dust, and the fungus growth on a little passion from his eyes, but then fired up an

unstoppable instinct carrying him to slide off her thong which was worn and removed for the occasion. Devoid of a barrier, he felt naked, but meaningful. Sliding himself inside his now naked woman, consummating a type of momentary ownership, which also was perhaps mutual. The feeling was slightly less synthetic. He had always thought himself an honest man with Suzy, but this added a new dimension of realism. Skin to skin, insemination, wide-eyes, soaring to life, angelic. Her hair a halo of gold, radiating the love of the moment, an intensity of posterity and eternity. Suzy felt loved, Roberto felt loved, even Seamus’ son in the apartment below them felt a little loved cozily alone in his bed. The alarm clock jarred Roberto awake. Looking over at a somewhat groggy Suzy, he smiled as the memory of his perception danced its images in the back of his brain. Responsibility provided him with the vector, an espresso shot the CNS motivation, cultural assimilation the regulations, and, of course, sex the after-luminescence. He’d play with that imaginative sexual bundle of neuron fiber firing with more than his girlfriend. He could summon movie stars so sexy they’d shoot obnoxious loads of dopamine inside him. Even while performing his labor distraction, Roberto could fully distract himself mentally. Beautiful! Grid cells gave Roberto the navigation skills to find his car keys, walk down the building stairs,

enter his car across the street, and drive to the small warehouse district in Excalibur. He contemplated whether or not he had free will whenever he would subconsciously evacuate his horny high. His conclusion was it didn’t matter. Probably not, but maybe the causation God of Spinoza was just timid around the goddess of volition and movement. By the time he punched his time card, thoughts of a salami sandwich for lunch had overcome his philosophical inquiry, or maybe it merely allowed him to become one with it. With a yellow hard hat as skull protection from hailing concrete, Roberto entered the construction site. The nearby Chelsea Elementary was too small to contain both Excalibur’s children and the children of its own town. Roberto and his construction teammates were tasked with building a new school just across the street from the grocery store. Seamus’ son slipped his feet over the edge of his single bed and sat up. Without the brown quilt engulfing his body, he felt rather chilly in the preautumn air. He had left the windows open last night and a nine-hour lack of sun certainly didn’t make the environment any warmer. Shuffling to the kitchen, he poured himself a plastic glass of filtered water. A crashing-clank-slide outside made him jump and flutter his heart to impractical heights. By the time he regained his sleepy stupor, his eyes registered a windblown aluminum lid lying askew near an overflowing trash receptacle in the middle of the

Hominid | Jack Dunnington | charcoal and ink on paper

My Postmodern Love Eliana Schechter

Cars on the turnpike slowly jam between one another, despite gloomy mists of water. There is a sullenness to this today. On NJTransit, I am learning a new Jersey. One of paint peeling churches, of wheat-like grasses on the sides of the highway, of words like â&#x20AC;&#x153;ovenâ&#x20AC;? spray painted on concrete walls, of everyone heading somewhere in time.

Scarcity Clara Trippe

When the droughts come, we will migrate to blue parts out of necessity. Large gray factories will be built by oceans, separating salt until beaches are stark white. We will buy bottled water until the plastic waste coats the surface of our earth like ice in December. Our dams will be broken, our gardens will fade and transition to spinier, more resilient versions of themselves. We will watch as the ground becomes sand, or crack apart, making a web of fractures. When the droughts come, there will be no leaky faucets; there will also be no rain. All around us, we will see evidence of water, large bowls of dried up lakes, lines of sand where 58

rivers were. Our grandparents will tell stories of hotel pools while a sandstorm howls outside. The concept of forests will be foreign, and magical. We will play in empty water parks, climbing up slides. When the droughts come, we will forget how land has learned to feed us. The only smells we will know will be sulfur and salt, our concept of colors will fade into shades of brown. Our bodies will feel heavy, our lips will crack and bleed. When the droughts come, we will always miss freshwater, its smell, its feeling on our skin.

Preservation | Ella Williams | mixed media

Interview with the Man Called Wolf Elliott Maya

the world is held by a longness a certain uncouthness about the gums and elbows, lungs hyperbolic skeins flush with old world gravitas.

used to be winter meant the seeping of the inwards, outwards the bad weather an excuse to perform augeries at the dinner table & chew red meat with our red mouths wide open. iowa is as empty as last night’s wine bottle winter meant divination, but not in the modern way; no moor, but flat enough to pin. what my grandmama calls old school holy, a country of cultivated empty the new world -the stuff of gristle & marrow & primer of an agricultural wasteland -sacrificial smoke. bonfires christening absolution & razed by a razor age history i am too tired to remember. your body the kindling -- you gave, you were given, we ate your red red meat. listen, i think there’s a body hidden in the cornfields buried in a thrifted tweed suit & his great grandfather’s now winter is -- hollow. busted watch. i dreamed him stumbling among no pines, no smoke, no pregnant moon, the corn stalks, gaping at empty skies & praying for just long, dark grasses & sullen boughs one last holy rain & something to keep the hunger at bay.wilting under the weight of something, i awoke to a disobedient stomach & the smell of don’t quite know what. burning wormwood. i, too, am held by something 60

a brevity a gasping between the ribs an open wound partially stitched. i cut my teeth on silver coins & mealy bones, i wretch without sound, i smell my brothers & taste only wind. iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m seeing shadows everywhere i go pieces of myself caught & flagged on ghost needles, i am nettled by the press of a sky with its eyes closed & its mouth barred, my skin the skin of scars & kind betrayals, my back the arch of Atlas, my bare spine the last road home. frail hands kick & bite & bring back no scent. i am bristled and homeless, obstinate & alone in the mesa dark.

Afternoon | Maddie Howland | ink pen and colored pencil

ice dying (i, ii, iii) | Elli Jung | cotton, ice, acid dye, performer

The Window Washer

Peter Sills

In the way that light shimmers over the thin, glossy globe of a soap bubble, Mark hugged the surface of life because he was terrified of poking through it vertically, peeking into it, lest it be hollow, or worse, brimming with grief. Last October, when Mom went to Salt Lake City for work, I stayed at Mark’s one-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn for a few weeks. I primarily live with my Mom in her house in Park Ridge, New Jersey. Mom kicked Mark, my father, out of the house six years ago. Even though his sister and brother, the centerpiece of his social life, live in Maine, he moved to Brooklyn to keep his job, where he’s been for almost twentytwo years. He talks about maybe moving to Maine to retire. He sometimes fishes with Joseph Morris, who lives in upstate New York. I usually see Mark a few times a year. During our weekend visits, there’d be an unspoken agreement to work ourselves into the lighthearted mood that playing pool and watching a movie is supposed to generate. But by Sunday, the arrival of my cab to Mom’s house secretly relieved us both. I moved in on October 4th. Mark had found such insulated comfort in the

hypnotic silence of his morning routine that he had trouble talking to me the first week. I would watch him in the mornings as I hunched over my fried eggs, my hips squeezed into a hard chair. I watched his vacuous eyes, his thin, grim lips. The silver band of sweat gleaming on his right temple and the dark patches under the armpits of his baggy shirt. His room had just enough space for pushups and crunches. He’d snap cupboards open and shut, or stick his head out of the window, and if the weather was nice, he’d conclude that the fate of the day would match it. He ignored the window when the weather was poor. One morning, Mark seemed happy. He broke routine. He chopped fruit for our breakfasts. As he made me a ham sandwich for lunch, he turned to me, arms open, a coffee mug in his left hand and a jar of mustard in the right, and said, “Hey, how about visiting me at work today?” “Yeah, sure” I responded. “Do you remem—you remember visiting me at work when you were little, right?” he asked, undulating the lines on his forehead. “I think I did. The building with the Chinese food buffet on the ground floor?”

“Aha, yes, of course you remember that,” he know how to receive it. “See you after school.” I said, teased. He conjured a stiff, shy smile. “Well, it’s been standing in the doorframe. awhile, you know, so I’d like to show you around again. “See ya, kiddo.” We can get Chinese for dinner.” “Sounds good.” 2 “So, you take the C or A to Fulton, and make sure you get on and off at the back of the train, and After school, I listened to Kid Cudi’s “Falling Star” take the closest staircase from the platform to the ft. Florence and the Machine on repeat. I got off the upper-level tunnel, and then another staircase that train and was immediately enmeshed in a march of opens up on Williams street. fall coats, half-opened umbrellas, My building is 167 Williams, and jeans. I was whisked up a ove and gravity between Nevins and Gates. set of steps and along a whitemust have become one Here, I wrote it down. Do tiled passageway dotted with you remember what it looks grey puddles. I heard the low sensation in ark as he like from the subway exit?” thrum of a light drizzle ahead. washed windows at I pictured it in patches: a As we herded up the last blustery blue sky, blinding sun, staircase, a broom-sweep of a illiams treet to put tan sandstone blocks, a tall gust flung particles of wet brown food on my table doorway embellished in gold, newspaper and the smacking two rows of steaming Chinese wail of a car alarm against us dishes. Mark handed me my with a refreshing whoosh, then ham sandwich in a ziplock bag. continued along the white-tiled tunnel that eventually “Yeah, I got it. Thanks for lunch, Dad.” He’d became its grave. People raised their umbrellas high asked me to work on calling him Dad. “Do you have a above their heads to fan them out. I didn’t have an paper bag I can put this in?” umbrella; Dad had said it would be nice out. And I “Right, right.” He rummaged around the kitchen. shouldn’t need one, I thought, my destination would “How’s this plastic one?” be right across the street. “That’s good.” It wasn’t. This wasn’t Williams Street. But it He smiled with an odd tenderness. I didn’t couldn’t be too far. The entrance must be just over…

167

In Rivis | Sarah Hubbard | reductive lino-cut

around this corner? Are those the stern sandstone blocks? I rounded one corner, then another, 222, 224… 513? I backtracked to the Fulton train stop and poked around, a block one way, then back, then another way. See, if you get lost around Broadway while trying to find Times Square, you just head towards the nebula of blue and pink glow that emanates high in the air and peeks out between buildings. But navigating the Financial District isn’t for outsiders because the streets are named rather than numbered. But no matter. Williams street is stationary but my legs are young and throbbing with bloody veins and muscle. I found Nevins Avenue, which would run into Williams. Dad texted me. His professional style strained to find fatherly voice. Son, Where is you? Dad. I texted him that I was on Nevins, and would be there shortly. I would! Perfect, he said. Well, now I had to hustle. I donned a native New Yorker’s pace and applied my mother’s driving philosophy: dodge and weave. I swerved around tall foreign couples peering into department store display windows; wormed through clumps of high schoolers shouting at each other across the street for sport; brushed shoulders with a squat pizza chef taking a smoke-and-phone break in an ally way, his

apron stained with delicious doughy dust; and curved around tables stuffed with souvenir hats, sweatshirts and racks of keychains. Behind the tables, shadowed by their merchandise, merchants sporting their ugly wares to keep warm sat on crates or foldable chairs, squinted into the wind, licked their chapped lips, and, snug within the margins of oblivion, sometimes wept silently to themselves. As fast as passing people made me feel, the avenues stretched on and on, so by the time I knew I’d gone too far, it was close to five o’clock. I stepped under a deli awning. A breeze chilled the water droplets on my skin. I flipped open my cell-phone. My eyes fixed on a puddle that flashed yellow when Taxis passed. Dad picked up after the first ring. “Hey Jordan!” he said. “Hey.” “So, if you can try and make it by 6:30, there’s a coworker of mine you I hope you can meet. Her name’s Amelia. Amelia Greenburg.” Zoned-out by the puddle, I replied with an empty, “Absolutely.” “She’s happy to stick around for a bit, and she’d love to meet you.” “Yeah. I’m having trouble finding your building though.” “Huh. Let’s think this through systematically. Did you get off at Fulton?” “Maybe not. But I found Nevins.” 67

“Ok. Great. Easy. Just—” told me about her sooner, right? Or maybe they‘re “What? Hello? Dad?” just beginning to like each other, and this is a first God-damn! Of course this happens on the impression kind of thing. Alright, don’t worry, I got one day I don’t charge my phone! And who was you Mark. this Amelia Greenburg? Who arranged this? Was I I turned back the way I came to walk down an offering or a request? A black plastic bag and its Nevins. Vesey…John…Pine…Greene Street. Then smaller companion, an empty bag of Lay’s chips, the Nevins dissolved into Harrison Ave. I stopped a inside of which glinted in metallic fractions, drifted man in a yellow poncho and borrowed his phone down the back of a rivulet but Dad didn’t pick up. The ou know what and rumpled my puddle. My man pointed to the general tongue transformed the ripples with the way direction of Williams, so, iuliani s into the glazed crumpled skin forfeiting direction for treating workers unions of a pile of sesame chicken. I intention and method for sighed, gripped the straps of wouldn t be surprised if faith, I followed the zigging, my soggy backpack, and looked zagging logic of my instincts. he was trying to clock in around. On both sides of the My solid thighs throbbed, road, office buildings stretched some overtime my hips tightened, my eyes into the horizon like corridors. locked on dark, distant, green The rumbling plum-purple street signs until the letters on clouds depressed over everything like the fat flesh of a them were readable. How I’d forgotten the peculiar potbelly barely buoyed up by a belt. pleasure of surgically prying open my field of vision Amelia Greenburg wouldn’t mind a little with the forceps of focus! Of cataloging the lovely, potbelly, no—she’d be in her forties, single, have a lively little cells and smatters of bacteria. A useless few small folds of skin where the top of her breasts chipped door-stopper; constellations of artfully made met her armpits; breath mints; butterfly blue eyeliner. stickers; a splash of rust dripping down a green door; She grazes the backs of her fingers against your arm a rat scampering up a pipe. Under a stone archway I when you’ve made her laugh. So, they’ve been dating, revived few faded sensations. Mark scratching my back thinking about marriage, and this is the beginning of in bed. Silhouetted pointer fingers jousting through her slow immersion into the family. But Dad would’ve the yellow crack of my bedroom door. Singing in the

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Open | Cal Froikin | digital

rain on vacation. Rush hour came and went. Streets swelled with men and women in long cloaks. Their cloaks rustled at the hips; their knuckles bore white against brown umbrella hilts. I knew you’d keep waiting for me in your building, but how could I be sure? So I strained to make out your chin or the creases your bumpy knees make in your pants when you walk. People loped over the curb puddles with exact little leaps. They shuffled onto busses in neat, civilized lines. When a bus set off, the huddle of people inside swayed as one. A young man gingerly holding a broken umbrella above his black hair jogged to a creamy cab, (why hadn’t I gotten one earlier? I had no money!) slid into the backseat, reached out his cuff-linked sleeve, and slammed the door. The rippling ribs of the subsequent soundwave shook and then shattered a sentence that had been clinging to the belly of my brain since I’d talked to Dad on the phone. He’d said, “She’d love to meet you.” Now “love” reverberated in my gut. It lurched as I comprehended the trembling, tender gravity concealed in the shallow, velvety murmur between the negligible “l” and the silent “e.” Love and gravity must have become one sensation in Mark as he washed windows at 167 Williams Street to put food on my table. Dad would hook the two ropes of his harness to something inside the window, double-check that he was buckled up, climb out of 70

the window, plant his feet on the window ledge, and lean backwards to scrub the glass. These days I spend whole therapy sessions doing trust falls. Eventually, I gave up on 167 Williams and explored the city. Gusts of dark wind set my ears and nose on fire. Rain drilled a virile tempo against my forehead. Cafés and restaurants blazed rosy complexions. Buttery squares dappled marble facades. An army of red taillights marched through traffic inch by inch. A collection of thin black bare trees strung with white Christmas lights surprised me around a concrete corner. Through the wet lens of my glasses, lights assumed a stretchy, starry sparkle. Sometime after ten o’clock I entered a pizza parlor. A teenage boy swept behind the counter. Taped to the wall behind him was a weave of two-dollar bills, paper pesos, and photos of a smug Italian teen posing with various celebrities in pizza places like this one. On top of the oven, stacks of empty delivery boxes reached the ceiling. Brown crumbs peppered the red tables. “One slice please—warm, not too hot” I said to the lanky young man at the counter. He wordlessly, deliberately, set his broom aside, picked up the wooden peel, slid it under a fresh pie in the oven, twirled it out, and plopped it onto the counter with a powdery puff. His right elbow up, he pressed his roller into the flesh-colored crust, working it back and forth because it wasn’t yet cool and brittle. Once he ripped the crust, he had to push through the pie, which made

the golden cheese bunch up in greasy folds. He spun the pie and repeated the process seven more times. He eased the biggest slice out. Several strands of cheese elongated elegantly, sagged, and gently swayed under the slice until the teen flicked them up onto the slice’s surface. Contemporaneously, my sensory attachment to the present, stretched thin over the course of my walk, (for I’d refused to untangle a thick knot of childish wonderment from the glittering grove of trees and I’d also threaded that pipe with the rat scuttling along it through a fold in my brain somewhere above my right ear), went slack by the sides of my consciousness. The first hot bite folded me into a day five years ago. 3 I was back in an unassuming rural town in upstate New York sitting next to Dad in the front seat of the Prius he sometimes borrowed from Joseph. We were parked on Main Street but nobody was in sight. We’d been camping somewhere, the Catskills I’d like to say, about two months after Mom had tossed Dad’s TV out of their bedroom window, demanded he leave that instant, and brushed his forearm with a stiff kick on his way out. This was the first time we’d spent time together since then. We’d decided to lunch at Paul’s Pizza. It was housed in an old, dry wooden house with chipped white paint. The porch boards squeaked

underfoot. The door jingled. The window curtains were drawn, casting the room in grey shade. There were no seats or tables. A mini television sat atop a soda cooler vomiting a grainy gameshow’s garish colors. On the wall behind the counter, crooked black letters spelled out a few basic dishes. “Good afternoon, good afternoon” nodded the elderly woman behind the counter. Her hair was dyed red and cropped like the springy top of a strawberry. Behind her, a man of her age sat on a stool and washed his hands in an industrial sink. “Howdy!” said Dad. He half wished he lived in a small town. “And how are you today, sir?” she asked. “I’m well, I’m well, thank you.” “And you young man?” “I’m good, thank you.” Nodding to the man on the stool, Dad inquired, “So, sir, are you Paul?” As the man opened his mouth, the woman hastily interjected, “No! I’m Paul!” Her countenance cracked open. The folds around her eyes seemed to draw back like stage curtains. “Elinor!” the man exclaimed, embarrassed. She turned to him. “I am Paul!” she insisted. “The way I run this place…” The man shook his head. She asked us, “I oughta get to be Paul, don’t I?” Dad was thrilled. “Well, who makes the pizzas?” he probed. “I do!” Elinor returned, gaining momentum. Dad raised his eyebrows at the man, who

The Same Cloud 50 Times | Sam Burt | MS Paint

The Same Landscape 2 Times | Sam Burt | MS Paint

The Creations of Suburbia Eliana Schechter

You read sleeping faces on the train when you forget a book. That tender expression as that man fell asleep on the row across from you, smooth ginger lids tucked in, iPad loosely nestled in hands. Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a certain trust in sleeping next to others. Earlier you remembered waking up, seeing their face -- rough snores pushing their way out amidst staid sleep and cracked lips (the color Wikipedia called NY Pink). Sometimes you wonder what you look like asleep. Mostly, youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d rather not know.

Lake Michigan 2 | Ella Williams | film photo-

Gilgo Beach, 1997 Yaseen Morshed

between fades and bass heavy sniggers, discussing her big doe eyes and immaculate figure.

Many were prostitutes and likely never reported missing at all, like the woman Nassau detectives call “Peaches,” whose mutilated torso, with a peach tattoo on her left breast, was stuffed in a green Rubber Maid container found by a They missed her, father and son hiking in Hempstead Lake State Park in the in the tenderly lit alleys summer of 1997 - New York Post, January 3, 2015 squeezed between late night hysteria and cobblestoned drunkenness, On cool cement, she partook in a special kind of but drowned their trepidations recklessness: exchanging scabbed knees for a couple of pearl with cheap tequila and lubrication. necklaces. Sometimes they vomited her name Dirty into the darkness, hoping for something. blonde hair, that she maintained in a pony tail, would be pulled hard by old tools But she rested, purple heart that considered her mouth their holy grail. pinned to Rubbermaid floral prints, soaking in a fresh saltwater chloral rinse. She circumcised their demons; They used to tell her she tasted played etch a sketch with wives like peaches and cream. who gained thirty pounds over the last ten years of their lives. Now, it was just “Peaches.” In the barbershops they talked about her, 75

Sewing Suite | Lauren Roush | monotype prints

Lee Krasner 1966 Ethan Evans

Frank O’Hara wrote a poem about wanting to be a painter, so this is me writing a poem about Frank O’Hara writing a poem about wanting to be a painter.

Oil soaks canvas like a child dropped in a vat of wax. Pigments make circles and weave in and out of each other. Everything is color. Everything is pulsating. In strokes of black intersecting mauve and egg there are her murals the WPA rejected. The works she destroyed. Pollock’s car wrapped around a tree.

I wanted to paint because it was purer than writing. Tenebrous passages through time replaced by iridescent flowers and fornicating lines. But, scenes from an adolescence crept into the hues. The plate I

smashed. Swaths of makeup across my face. Light from the headlights as it fell on each blade of grass. The razor blade on top of my dresser. Rocks pushing up against the shore. Flecks of salt coating spruce trunks as For the first time,

fog rolls in. knowing I could be nothing.

The Way the Light Hits | Lydia James | silver gelatin print

River Valley Natives Hannah Condon

Two rivers flow together in the middle of the town where I grew up. The placid water of the Frying Pan, the river the boys taught me to float down on my back, flows into the choppy, often murky currents of the Roaring Fork. We were too afraid to get into the Roaring Fork, even though all the people who drown in the valley die in the Frying Pan. Most of them die in the spring when snowmelt from the surrounding mountains deepens the river. People don’t know to be afraid of that quiet water. They think they’re invincible. But the suction the water creates beneath the boulders near the shore pulls under even the strongest swimmers. The bridges that span the Frying Pan are also much higher than those crossing the Roaring Fork. People jump into the Frying Pan if they decide to jump. The confluence ties together the two halves of the valley. To the south is an opulent tourist town. We thought of this town as a different world, a rich person’s fantasyland. I sometimes went there for concerts and the art museum. Sometimes the boys went with me, but more often they went by

themselves. They went at night, after their shifts ended caddying at the golf course or bussing at restaurants they couldn’t afford, and they smuggled fifths of booze up to the second floor of the McDonald’s that tourists regarded as novelty anomaly. Gucci, Louis Voitton, McDonald’s, Prada. Like spotting the golden arches in Peru. Some people like that sort of thing. I never have. The boys said their patronage was ironic. The further we drove from Aspen, the more people started to look like us. Nobody walks down our Main Street in furs. Designer names do not dominate the storefronts. A person can purchase a hamburger for less than twenty dollars. The people who live in my town are the people who keep Aspen running, most of them hidden from the eyes of the wealthy. Maids, wait staff, construction workers, sales clerks. They wear athletic clothes they actually sweat in, they drive shitty cars that have been passed down through all four of their siblings, they don’t strut around as if they are diamonds on display.

The unifying quality of the valley is that the entire landscape is breathtaking. Downvalley, the rock A couple years after I left the valley, spring produced contains iron that has oxidized and turned the a bumper crop of suicides. Newspaper reporters mountainsides red. In a basin high in those rocks sits uncovered a variety of explanations. The Western a lake so pure and blue it shines like an aquamarine. pick yourself up by your bootstraps and don’t ask for Upvalley, glaciers have scattered chunks of granite help mentality. The stigmatization of mental illness. across the land. The ground The prevalence of drug and yan grabbed my glitters. The peaks are alcohol abuse in the area. And unstable. Hikers, both those the beauty. The snowcapped hand placed a inexperienced and those too peaks, the roaring rivers, the confident in their abilities, fall wildflowers in spring. Maybe salsify seed like a to their deaths. Avery once they were to blame for the crossed paths with a man who tiny parachute on my suicides. Maybe people came to stumbled off the knife’s edge the valley looking for meaning palm and said ay and peace in the beauty, and later that day. when they couldn’t find it, attention to this f And the rivers. There is a third their grief became too much to river in the watershed, the bear. you spend your time Crystal, which flows into the Roaring Fork at the north end worrying about what What about those of us who of the valley. The Crystal is the grew up there? Does beauty tamest river. It is the river our it means you ll miss and bliss course through our parents let us drag stones into blood, or are we doomed? all the beauty to construct dams when we What would our mothers who were kids. Hundreds of streams gave birth to us in the valley’s branch from the rivers. Calf, Sopris, Hayes, No Name, hospitals say if we asked them? In high school, some Castle, Maroon. Once, our natural science teacher of our mothers were afraid to leave us alone. Some asked us to memorize the names of all the bodies of of our mothers bought beer for us and cracked one water in our valley. Most of us already knew them. open with our friends. Some of our mothers drank

, “P .I

’

.”

Hand Picked Portrait| Hannah Condon | digital photo-

too much wine each night and we had to remove the tipping glass from her hand once she fell asleep on the couch. Some of our mothers eyed us suspiciously when we tugged our sleeves down to cover our wrists. Some of our mothers never noticed a thing. Can you really blame them for any of it? I had a feeling when I was sixteen that made me rush from the doors of the school as soon as the bell rang each day to walk to a bridge. I walked to the bridge so that I could stand on the edge, grip the rails, and stare at the water churning 50 feet below. Sometimes I went there twice a day – once during my free period and once after school let out before the bus came. Sometimes I took a camera along, slipped off my shoes and waded into the water to take pictures of the underbelly of the bridge. The water there wasn’t deep; a shallow, foaming eddy containing empty beer cans lapped at the iron beams. I told myself that I was there for the scaffolding, but really I was there for the water. I was relieved that stepping into the river ankle deep was enough for me. I blamed it on Ryan. I never stepped into the water before I met him. Before I met Ryan I worried a lot, and sometimes it felt suffocating, but it never drove me to a bridge. I worried that I had contracted a fatal disease or that my parents would get killed on their way home from work. I worried that even if nothing 84

out of the ordinary happened, everyone I loved would die anyway. Sometimes I could not stop crying because I feared that the logical conclusion of those facts is that nothing matters. But Ryan made it better. Ryan grabbed my hand, placed a salsify seed like a tiny parachute on my palm, and said, “Pay attention to this. If you spend your time worrying about what it means, you’ll miss all the beauty.” He exhaled and sent the seed flying. Ryan made it better until I realized he didn’t love me. Ryan claimed he didn’t have the kind of feeling I had, but I know he did. For him the cause was self-loathing and an inferiority complex. The cause for that may have been living with parents who slept and ate on separate floors, who only crossed paths when they left the house or yelled at each other from the landings, and who refused to get a divorce until Ryan graduated from high school. Ryan developed an irresistibly charismatic personality to make up for the lack of love at home. He ensured that everyone at school fell in love with him. He wanted to feel needed, but he didn’t feel up to the task if you actually started to depend on him. That made him hate himself even more. Avery blamed it on too much weed. I still see Avery when I come home during breaks from school. After Avery stopped smoking and the feeling didn’t go away, he blamed it on the East Coast. When he dropped

out of college and moved back to the valley and it still clung to him, he blamed it on humanity. “All of our lives have a negative impact on reality,” he said. “Not just the planet, but existence itself.” In that light, now he thinks New Yorkers aren’t so bad. “I like that they’re so mean.” Diana blamed it on living in the wrong place. She wanted to live where her mother was born. She said that every time she came back from visiting her cousins in Ecuador. She wished her mother had stayed there. “But then you wouldn’t exist,” I said to her once. “My dad got her pregnant when they met during his business trip. She shouldn’t have told him. She should have let him take his alcoholic bullshit somewhere else.” I wonder if Diana has gotten better since she went away to college. I stopped talking to her even though she was my best friend because I want her to stay away. Chloe blamed it on her dead father. So did Gracie and Samantha. One father died when he fell from a ladder while working construction. It was an accident, though he was probably high. Chloe started snorting cocaine her senior year. She said she thought it would make her daddy proud. Ryan said he saved her life once at a party when she passed out on her back. He rolled her on her side so that she wouldn’t drown.

The other two fathers were buried in avalanches when their daughters were very young, but old enough to grieve. It seems like the valley loses at least one father beneath the snow every winter. I’ve tried to reason with Avery. “You’ve had a positive impact on my life,” I say. “Your carbon footprint doesn’t matter.” He always shakes it off. “I’ve done the calculations,” he says. “Each of us is like a virus.” “It gets better,” I insist. “I thought that once, too. I felt like everything around me was one giant organism, and I was a diseased cell.” My father doesn’t get it. He thinks there has to be a reason. I tell him sometimes there is no reason, that’s what makes it so insidious. There isn’t always even the satisfaction of finding something to blame. My dad says, “But Avery was going to an Ivy League school, he comes from a good family, he grew up here, for Christ’s sake. He has every reason to be happy.” I say, “Exactly,” and my father frowns. “I just don’t get it,” he says, and I remember that this is why I never told my parents about walking to the bridge. I try to find catharsis or recognition from them now by talking about it hypothetically, or by talking about Avery. “I don’t think I’m a diseased cell anymore,” I say. “It gets better, I swear.”

Blossom | John Brady | digital photograph

Minnesota January | Sam Burt | watercolor, acrylic, ballpoint pen, Sharpie, Photoshop

Contributors

Cal Froikin ‘16 Art’s pretty chill.

Josh Anthony ‘17 is a lonely laundry boy.

Maddie Howland ‘16 set the Microbiology lab on fire.

Tristan Aschittino ‘18 is a Marxist who doesn’t want to use only “Marxist” to describe himself, but most descriptors are too dubious; A human, skin and brain both.’

Sarah Hubbard ‘17 is a sad lesbian classics major and hoarder of smashed pennies.

Jenkin Benson ‘17 is pro-brunch on the condition kerrygold butter is used.

Lydia James ‘19 has broads in Atlanta.

John Brady ‘16 is a Computer Science/Math major moving to San Francisco after graduation. Keep up with his work at http://bradyj.com Sam Burt ‘17 is a Russian major who sometimes paints but more often experiments with potatoes. Ask him about it. Hannah Condon ‘16 is surly and waifish. Elle Azul Duncombe-Mills ‘16 is currently in outer space chasing aliens. Jack Dunnington ‘16 brings his ‘nocs. Ethan Evans ‘19 sucks. 88

Glenys Hunt ‘16

Elli Jung ‘16 believes in love at first bite :3 Charlotte Kanzler ‘17 is a Biology major who spends too much time drawing fantasy cats. She swears it’s not just a phase. Helen Lant ‘18 Underwater water park: water park or regular park? How much of a bear is fur? I will not rest until I know. Elliot Maya ‘18 is a strange fruit with a penchant for bullshit. They hope you like their bullshit. Or not. It’s up to you, really. Yaseen Morshed ‘16: Slam poet. Reigning freestyle king of Iowa. Masochistic lover of spicy foods.

Clare Roberts ‘16 is into examining notions of the absurd via artistic expression. This is the reason why her Facebook language is set to 1337 5p34k and there is glitter in her belly button. Lauren Roush ‘16 is a fourth year Studio Art major from Newton, Iowa. Eliana Schechter ‘17 thinks videos like “Don’t Ever Boil an iPhone 6S in Crayons” are poetry to the modern individual’s soul. Peter Sills ‘18 is from Brooklyn, NY. He loves his two cats, pizza, water, and the old Teen Titans series. Josie Sloyan ‘18 is an English major. Mark Spero ‘16 Clara Trippe ‘18 likes large bodies of water and reading about the color blue. Leina’ala Voss ‘18 likes to eat curry and play scrabble in her free time. Ella Williams ‘18 is a second year from boston, ma, follow me on twitter @lilwayne205. 89