POUI XIX by Poui

POUI CAVE HILL JOURNAL OF CREATIVE WRITING

NUMBER XIX, 2018

POUI CAVE HILL JOURNAL OF CREATIVE WRITING

Number XIX, 2018 EDITORIAL BOARD: Rob Leyshon Nicola Hunte Debra Providence Claudette King

CONSULTANT EDITORS: Jane Bryce Hazel Simmons-McDonald Mark McWatt Kamau Brathwaite Philip Nanton Mark Jason Welch

COVER DESIGN: Mark Headley ‘.

Poui, the Cave Hill Journal of Creative Writing (CHJCW), is published by the Department of Language, Linguistics and Literature, University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus. Poui welcomes submissions of previously unpublished poetry and fiction (see last page for details). © 2018 by Poui, CHJCW, Department of Language, Linguistics and Literature. http://www.cavehill.uwi.edu/fhe/LLL/poui/home.aspx

FOREWORD On V.S. Naipaul There is a lot one can say about V. S. Naipaul, not all of it about his literary work. He was a man of stories – he could tell them as well as be at the centre of them. His work and his views generated passionate responses – from his readers, his critics and his contemporaries. Such passion was perhaps produced by the paradoxes he was able to sustain: he was easy to read, but some of his work was difficult to digest; he wrote with a Caribbean sensibility yet denied the region’s creative potential; he often used humour to write about the darkness of human existence, a darkness that played out in his personal life. Perhaps, it is human nature to be drawn to dark stories, to feel the magnetic pull of intrigue even as the threat of what can hurt and unsettle pushes us away. It is the mark of a good writer to explore that tension – it is the sign of a great writer to artfully re-create that balance. Naipaul has, if nothing else, a legacy of great writing. Acknowledged internationally with several honorary doctorates, a knighthood, The Booker Prize and the Nobel Prize, Naipaul pitched himself among the literary celestials. Naipaul was also important to the region and – in spite of his many criticisms – the region was important to him. In his Nobel speech, he observes that it is his birthplace that has ‘altered and developed’ in his writing. Through everything, it his writing that takes centre-stage. As an intuitive and life-long craft, he notes that it is writing that offers ‘everything of value’. In the spirit of Naipaul, we invite you to find what is magnetic, what is unsettling, what is valuable in what issue XIX has to offer. In short, we invite you to enjoy good (perhaps, great) writing. As always, we thank our patient contributors, our growing editorial team and extend a very special thank you to our longserving (and long-suffering) team member, Angela Trotman, who has moved onto other endeavours. Much love.

Table of Contents FOREWORD ................................................................................................................................................... 3

I LUMINARY Ian Smith ................................................................................................................................................... 9 As I Walk Out One Morning ............................................................................................................. 9 Helplessness ......................................................................................................................................... 9 Obediah Smith......................................................................................................................................... 10 In Awe of the Roar of Nature ........................................................................................................... 10 Gary Brocks ............................................................................................................................................ 11 Lorraine Hotel, U.S. National Civil Rights Museum ..................................................................... 11 Inspired By Frost .............................................................................................................................. 11 Dee Horne ............................................................................................................................................... 12 News ................................................................................................................................................... 12 Tracy Powers .......................................................................................................................................... 13 Woods ................................................................................................................................................. 13

II CYNIC Princess Chalya ...................................................................................................................................... 16 Nineteen Days of Darkness ............................................................................................................... 16 Joey Garcia ............................................................................................................................................. 24 Killing Jars ........................................................................................................................................ 24 Jeff Bakkensen......................................................................................................................................... 28 Strangers ............................................................................................................................................ 28

III PANDIT Obediah Smith......................................................................................................................................... 37 What to Wear .................................................................................................................................... 37 Ellen Taylor ............................................................................................................................................ 39 Lessons from a fledgling gull feather .............................................................................................. 39 Shazia Ali ................................................................................................................................................ 40 Broken Heels...................................................................................................................................... 40

Berkley Semple ........................................................................................................................................ 40 Night in Piarco................................................................................................................................... 40 Frederick K. Foote .................................................................................................................................. 41 High Yeller Stella .............................................................................................................................. 41 Princess Chalya ...................................................................................................................................... 47 Musings: What Are You All About Pray Tell ................................................................................ 47 RonteĂŠ Marshall ...................................................................................................................................... 48 An Inspiring Encounter: Rover ....................................................................................................... 48

IV MAVERICK Ellen Taylor ............................................................................................................................................ 52 The Little Real Mermaid .................................................................................................................. 52 Lelawattee Manoo-Rahming ................................................................................................................... 52 Curtal Sonnet for Derek Walcott .................................................................................................... 52 Ysodora Ulke........................................................................................................................................... 53 For Obediah after all ........................................................................................................................ 53 Heather Thompson .................................................................................................................................. 53 Umbrella Woman .............................................................................................................................. 53 Obediah Smith......................................................................................................................................... 54 Unfaithful to who is always Right there .......................................................................................... 54 Kevin Hosein ........................................................................................................................................... 55 The Leap ............................................................................................................................................ 55 J.S. Kierland............................................................................................................................................ 59 The Corporation................................................................................................................................ 59

V PARADOX Rob Harland............................................................................................................................................ 66 Dear God ............................................................................................................................................ 66 Ian Smith ................................................................................................................................................. 67 Another Cat Poem............................................................................................................................. 67 Obediah Smith......................................................................................................................................... 67 As if they were as Weightless as Kites ............................................................................................. 67 Berkley Semple ........................................................................................................................................ 69 Seven Deaths ...................................................................................................................................... 69

Allan Lake ............................................................................................................................................... 71 The Man Who Won a Lottery.......................................................................................................... 71 Tomas Sanchez Hidalgo .......................................................................................................................... 72 Capitรกn Willard ................................................................................................................................ 72 Horses in en Mรถenchengladbach ..................................................................................................... 73 Dayna Fleming........................................................................................................................................ 74 An Inspiring Encounter .................................................................................................................... 74

VI ENIGMA Kevin Hosein ........................................................................................................................................... 77 Hormones ........................................................................................................................................... 77 Love Letters to The Sea .................................................................................................................... 81

VII PROVOCATEUR Berkley Semple ........................................................................................................................................ 87 Casting for Silver .............................................................................................................................. 87 The Surf ............................................................................................................................................. 88 The Flood ........................................................................................................................................... 88 Ian Smith ................................................................................................................................................. 89 Tropical Garden ................................................................................................................................ 89 Obediah Smith......................................................................................................................................... 89 On Wings they do Battle................................................................................................................... 89 Lelawattee Manoo-Rahming ................................................................................................................... 91 Heartbeats of Red Flag Revolutions ................................................................................................ 91 In The Land of Pimlontas, The Winged Arawak God ................................................................... 91 Ana Portnoy ............................................................................................................................................ 92 Dipping poverty in our coffee .......................................................................................................... 92

VIII ICON Diane Martin........................................................................................................................................... 95 Gynecology in an Old Shoe Box ....................................................................................................... 95 Mark Blickley .......................................................................................................................................... 98 An Army of Frogs ............................................................................................................................. 98

Emilio Iasiello ....................................................................................................................................... 102 Bedspins ........................................................................................................................................... 102

IX MIGRANT Obediah Smith....................................................................................................................................... 111 Have you anything to Declare ........................................................................................................ 111 To get at where only Words can go ............................................................................................... 111 Johnny Cash no longer able to play his Guitar and Sing ............................................................ 113 Nadine Thomas-Brown ......................................................................................................................... 114 Sadness ............................................................................................................................................. 114 Miscarriage ...................................................................................................................................... 115 Dahlia James Williams ......................................................................................................................... 115 Regret ............................................................................................................................................... 115 McCollonough Ceili .............................................................................................................................. 116 Loss ................................................................................................................................................... 116 V. Ramsamooj Gosine ........................................................................................................................... 116 The Moving Finger ......................................................................................................................... 116 Lelawattee Manoo-Rahming ................................................................................................................. 117 For Fiona.......................................................................................................................................... 117

X PRODIGAL Joey Garcia ........................................................................................................................................... 119 Frank Sinatra Saved My Life ........................................................................................................ 119 CONTRIBUTORS .............................................................................................................................. 125

I LUMINARY

Ian Smith As I Walk Out One Morning On the canal path from town, a usual threshold of loss, adventures morphed into dreams, I see a terrier, distant, skittering my way where I sometimes sit, solitary, on a bench watching cyclists, joggers. I expect its owner carrying a leash but I’m alone with what I now see as a rabbit approaching fast, not a terrier, more terror-stricken, like me by the notion of appalling decline. This happens in seconds before I realise it’s a hare, fugitive over gravel, not on the verge, so I stop before it veers to the softer grass, slows down, adjacent, eyeballing me as though I’m the one lost, endangered, heading in the wrong direction recalling a Cambridgeshire field, wind in my jacket, flints and hares abundant, time’s triumph distant, thinking now of Auden’s years running like rabbits.

Helplessness I avoid questions, paths to thickets of speculation. Edgy at a book launch I talk to a couple I know, showing off a bit about my grown sons. The sons’ mother and her mate wrote the book. Ever the jolly jester I repeat myself telling tales including one about our third son’s success buying aviator sunnies for a song online then selling them for a clever profit at school. Driving home I think of our frailty here on Earth, wonder why I play-act boasting of shallow deeds. Later, the boys’ mother calls in with dilatory news, an accident involving our drunken sons. Our ex-sunglasses salesboy totalled his car, wrapping a tree, his brother in hospital. Police woke their mother hours before her launch. She recently endured surgery, her mate is dying.

I know she shields us, me from their excesses, them from her sense of my disapproval, but exclusion unmoors me, my vista uncertain. A relic of survival, I reprise the larrikin joker, recall days drunk, the carnival ride of youth, for her sake, to patch cracks become chasms. Obediah Smith In Awe of the Roar of Nature amazing what water is able to wash up what it is able to wash away what water is able to lift the blows water is able to deliver the blow water, aided by- driven by wind is able to unleash able to strike up, able to strike us able to shatter us and things we'd have constructed expecting them to last a century or centuries wind and water combined able to make what was made of concrete and steel seem like things made by children made of matchsticks made of papier-mĂ˘chĂŠ water spew water spout water opens it mouth and, at times, swallows us like a whale or like a whirlpool

Gary Brocks Lorraine Hotel, U.S. National Civil Rights Museum We marched to the words, "We Shall Overcome", knowing that history was on our side. We stood beneath the afternoon sun, brothers embracing, one by one, beneath the day star's unblinking eye, we marched to the words, "We Shall Overcome". We swore an oath to forego the gun, to carry only a silenced cry, we stood beneath the afternoon sun. Herded to jail cells, one by one, each absence summoning others to try. we marched to the words, "We Shall Overcome," And though what was gained was yet to be won, crosshairs trained a sniper’s eye to clasp the light of the afternoon sun, to bore a splattered path in bone to rend flesh with a rasping sigh. In the gentle caress of the afternoon sun, we march to the words “We Shall Overcome”.

Inspired By Frost The storm that blew through this early morning, left a film of frost, etched as by blades, to glow on a window’s waking surface. My daughter sits with a matroyska doll, opens and aligns, each mirroring partner, I sit, lit by the window’s translucence, reflecting on poetic achievement. Is it diction, image or metaphor? Or, adherence to structure, to rhyme, to form? Do we devolve to decoration? Or, trace the transmission of "will into commitments further and then further" still,

starting with an impressionable step, an expression of the flow of “intent" to be "weakly lost or strongly spent?" The window's etchings break, shift, glint, and skate on their emergent effluence. Patterns re-form in gusts of cognition. My daughter has set each doll in its space, I pause, then close, my covenant of lines, the promise of one revealed in another. —————————————— Attribution: The quoted italicized words in this poem paraphrase or quote Robert Frost’s essay "THE CONSTANT SYMBOL”. The source section of that essay reads: “Every single poem written regular is a symbol small or great of the way the will has to pitch into commitments deeper and deeper to a rounded conclusion and then be judged for whether any original intention it had has been strongly spent or weakly lost”

Dee Horne News Not all news is good news is, in fact, not always fact and quite often news is, by definition, not good news like when you phoned and shared what you would rather not the terror the darkness and even worse the not knowing the long wait, and it is

always long and the longing the desire the love: sunflowers scent of oranges salt spray morning mist her sons' faces so many people, places over the years blood red berries on mountain ash the beauty of a tropical green flash.

Tracy Powers Woods On a walk through hidden, urban woods Amber, red, and gold nestled inside Fallen leaves crunch under the stride of my boots' heels With a sound like brittle popcorn crushed. After a collection of quiet moments My feet and mind pause amid the tall maple trees I find a small stone bench in a clearing, and slowly my body sits to rest Reaching inside my bag, my fingertips locate a pair of earbuds I pull them toward me, entwined in my fingers like a prize. As I snuggle the left ear in, then the right Anticipating the feeling of home. The quiet continues for a few more minutes, as I fumble with my phone Searching for a playlist Birds chirp overhead on sturdy branches, a small “snap” as a tiny squirrel frolics on the ground below. Sun rays stream through the leaves above like a light show Forming a gentle, illuminated mask on my cheeks As I press “play”-Then your lovely voice hits my ears, like a taste of autumn sap Smooth, sweet, and lingering;

I close my eyes and listen to the music swimming in my soul Feel the crisp chill in the air, the hairs on my arm rise Tingling with every note on the breeze. After a moment, my eyes open, and I see golden leaves Falling like confetti in the air, caressing my face, The perfect encore. The sunset begins as I rise to my feet And leave this natural concert hall; I smile slightly, peaceful with the knowledge that the next show Is as close as the next sweet breath of fall.

II CYNIC

Princess Chalya Nineteen Days of Darkness She met with him at her cousin’s wedding reception as promised. They saw each other but didn’t speak a word to each other. She told him she would use the secret code “I found the Calamine lotion” to pass him the documents but he couldn’t imagine how she would achieve that in broad daylight but she did. And in a manner he never envisaged. They sat tables apart but just as wedding souvenir gift items were being shared, one of the wedding ushers pushed a souvenir in his hands and said “she said I should tell you she found the Calamine lotion.” He thanked the usher and held tightly to the souvenir bag only peeking in when he was sure no one was looking. All he saw was the wedding souvenir and then the calamine lotion. He smiled as he felt the first frizzles of excitement and the adrenaline rush. He felt like a spy in 007 movies. My names is James, James Bond only this time, his name was Ponfa, Ponfa Dashe. He couldn’t wait to get out the chip and watch. But he must wait and act like he was actually here for the wedding and nothing more. She had insisted. She said someone could be watching but it didn’t feel like anyone was watching but with these secret intelligent agents, paranoia was their defence. *********** “Tell mama not to worry. We will find Ponfa. Nothing has happened to him. We will find him.” Having assured her younger sister who was at home with her sick but worried mother, Julya clicked off her Infinix phone and turned to the police sergeant, “Oga, you must do something. Please try and call around to the other police stations and ask whether a man with the name Ponfa Dashe was brought in.” “Madam, you know say e go cost you o.” said the Sergeant with the unbuckled over washed looking uniform that had obviously experienced a transformation from black to ash as a result of harsh detergent. “I no get credit and to call people for all the different police station wey dey for Jos no be small something.” Quickly, Julya dipped into her posh red bag and brought out her purse. She peeled out three N500 notes and gave them to the Sergeant. He snatched it quickly from her hands, not wanting his other police colleagues to see the flashing mint of new money and shoved it into his pocket. It happened so fast no one noticed money had exchanged hands. “Madam, this money no go do anything. Add another N1000.” Julya fumed inwardly but complied. This was no time for negotiation or argument. Her younger brother had been missing since last Friday when he joined about a thousand protesters for a rally protesting the underhanded tactics of the government and the hardship in the country. Today was Monday. The sooner they found him, the better for everyone.

The passive looking sergeant who had initially put on an unconcerned look on his face became active. He tucked in his flying uniform shirt, and put on a serious alert face which had suddenly replaced the look of boredom that Julya had first met when she had begun her narrative about her missing brother. In short, the few police officers around had sauntered away when she came to complain and seek their help. This particular Sergeant Garba was asleep when he’d been awakened to attend to her so the others could go for their lunch break. Grudgingly he’d eyed her, annoyed to have been awoken from a sweet sleep he may not get again that day. Heart heavy and sinking, Julya had begun to tell him how her brother had not returned home from the rally since Friday. All he’d done was yawn throughout her narrative, totally unconcerned, merely allowing her to go through the motions of writing a statement which he shoved into a file filled with a pile of other statements. But now that money had exchanged hands, sergeant Garba swung into action and began making calls. “Jide, na Garba be dis. How una end…no na I no come go the house again. The man no serious. No mind am. I know say na the brother steal their neighbour chicken come take am do peppersoup for im babe. Forget am ojare.” Julya wondered what that discussion had to do with her missing brother. Garba noticed her impatient look and got down to the matter. “Ehen Jide, una get persin wey dem bring come una corner with the name…?” He turned and looked at Julya. “Ponfa Dashe” said Julya. “Ponfa Dashe” Garba repeated into the phone then turned to Julya “describe am.” As Julya described him, he repeated to Jide. “He’s tall.” “Dem say e tall.” “He is well-shaved and has a cleancut hair style.” “She say e no get biabia. Say na gorinmapa style e get for head.” “He is dark skinned.” “Say na black man and from im name, na one Langtang man be that. Abeg check make you call me back.” Jide said something and Garba laughed “No worry. You no dey ever get credit. Just flash me. I go call you back. Abeg make we help them. Im sister and mama dey worry. Ok nau. Thanks. Thanks.” They spoke some more. “If better enter, you know say I go sort you out. Yeyeman.” Conversation ended. Garba scrolled through his phone and called another police station.

“Sule mai man! Haba. So na so you marry second wife, you no tell enibodi. You no want make we eat tuwon shinkafa da miyan taushe ney? Hehehe. I dey wait you for here. No long thing. Ehen, una get one Ponfa Dashe for detention for that una side? No? Check check call me or flash me. Yes yes. Ok. Thanks.” He made several more calls and asked them to call him back with information, all of which he spent time chatting about many inconsequential matters. “Madam make we wait see wetin go happen. If e never die, God forbid, we go find am. Maybe na hospital e dey sef. You no go know.” He noticed the frantic scared look on Julya’s face and tried to reassure her. “No worry. By God’s grace we go find am.” But Julya didn’t want to wait. She suggested that he accompanied her to the various hospitals around the vicinity. They left in her car. *********** The cold water on his face jolted him out of his restless sleep. He was in so much pain as he lay folded and twisted on the very cold damp ground of his detention cell, his two hands were cuffed and tucked between thighs compressed together in defence against the cold. “Stand up” the tiny voice kicked him, again and again. “Get up you bagger!” More kicks on every part of his body as he curled tighter afraid for his testicles. Ponfa couldn’t see his assailant. They had put a smelly black scratchy sack cloth over his head. This was his fifth day in this hellhole. His outer vision may be temporary blinded but his inner eye had expanded. His senses of touch, smell and sounds had heightened. He couldn’t see but he’d learned to listen to every sound whether they belonged to humans or roaches. He was getting used to the different sounds around him. He listened to the sounds of the steps of the various people torturing him but could only identify them by their voices and body odour. He could tell that the one with the tiny grating voice had a small frame. He was a short man and the only power he had ever had was when he was torturing his prisoners. Ponfa knew that in a physical fight, he would finish him. Ponfa named him TTC, The Tiny Coward. The other one with the gruff deep voice was huge. He was the one who usually rough handled Ponfa, constantly grabbing his testicles which Ponfa dreaded. He would squeeze hard on them and then chortle joyfully whenever Ponfa screamed. Ponfa doubted if he could take him down in a physical fight but one thing he was sure of, he would gladly stab him, again and again and maybe hit his head with a mighty rock if chance ever gave him the opportunity to lay his hands on one. There were two main interrogators before whom they dragged him daily for questioning. One in the morning, the other at night. He hated the morning interrogator. He had a stentorian voice, brusque, severe and commanding. He sounded terrifying. Ponfa believed this one had a military background and named him Pitbull.

The other one sounded like the chief questioner – now this one was highly intelligent. His voice was calm, modulated and deceptively pleasant. Ponfa named him the Charmer. His office smelt nice. Ponfa’s barefeet stepped on heavily rugged carpet which he sank his feet into with welcome relief. The air conditioner was in full blast. The smell of coffee always welcomed him here and sometimes, Charmer would drop some whiskey in coffee and give Ponfa to drink which Ponfa greedily lapped up alongside some really sweet biscuits. Charmer wore a soft cologne that would stay with Ponfa for a very long time. He was again reading something from Ponfa’s techno phone, from some article Ponfa had written on Facebook against the Bukari government: “I have it on good authority that Blogger Okon Bassey, now deceased, was tortured and killed by the DIC State Secret Service. His death which was written off as a case of falling into the hands of kidnappers was a cover up by the DIC - Department of Intelligence Collation. It is appalling that Nigerian citizens who criticize Bukari’s policies are being abducted, tortured and killed as an intimidation strategy to silence her citizens and obstruct our freedom of speech which is the incontrovertible right of every Nigerian. This is a great injustice that all concerned Nigerian citizens must stand up and condemn.” He raised his head and asked so gently, waiting only after Ponfa had lustily drank some coffee mixed with whiskey. The warmth made Ponfa receptive to anything. He suspected it was a tactic to win over the prisoners but Ponfa didn’t care. He just knew that whenever he walked into Charmer’s office, he didn’t want to walk out. He wanted to stay here, anything but a return to his depressing dank lonely cell. “Mr Dashe” he addressed Ponfa ever so politely, a sharp contrast from PitBull. Are you a patriotic Nigerian?” “I believe so sir.” “Then be a patriot and answer me frankly. How did you get access to classified documents of the secret service? Before you answer, know that you and I are all patriots seeking to address the wrongs in our society. You with your pen, I with my intelligence duties.” Ponfa didn’t think that patriotism and intimidation of citizens were associate terms in a democracy. He kept his thoughts to himself though. You said and I quote, ‘I have it on good authority that Blogger Okon Bassey, now deceased, was tortured and killed by the DIC State Secret Service.’ Unquote. Would you care to tell me who informed you that Bukari’s government is abducting and killing Nigerian citizens? Who is your “Good authority?” He curved two fingers in the air to demonstrate the double quotation mark sign. There was silence. Only the noise of the fridge and AC could be heard. In his office, Charmer usually made them remove the loathsome smelly head covering and instead he was covered with another black but soft head cloth, only to his eyes. Here, he was treated like a human being. He was grateful for any kindness. “Care for some biscuits?” Charmer asked. To which Ponfa would

without hesitation say yes. If his situation wasn’t so dire and serious, Ponfa would laugh. Initially he had refused. Three days of pain, stark hunger and weakness had turned him from the radical uncooperative prisoner he was to a more subdued one. Sometimes he felt ashamed. And then angry at the injustice of it all. “Nobody told me anything sir.” “Mr Dashe, these things you've written about have very dire consequences. As a social media influencer, your many readers and followers read your write-ups and they tend to believe what you’ve written. However, we are only duty-bound as intelligent officers to investigate these wild allegations you have publicly made against the Bukari government. Or Nigerian citizens might begin to believe they are true, wouldn't you say?” “Then why hold me against my wishes? Is it proper in a democracy, to use Gestapo tactics of torture and intimidation to investigate allegations against government?” retorted Ponfa with a boldness he knew he wouldn’t have been able to muster against Pitbull without some serious bodily repercussions. He could feel Charmer smile. “Mr Dashe, your allegations have thrown open much speculation in both the local and international media and has embarrassed the government. We have reason to believe that CNN has taken an interest under their human right segment. So you see, we have you here because we believe you have a source in government who is giving you this false information that you have leaked out to the public.” “I do not understand you sir. How can false information be leaked out? If it is false, then there is nothing to it and no leak has taken place.” “No Mr Dashe. That’s where you are out rightly wrong. Public perception is important. Once the public perceive that a particular social media activist is a truth writer - whatever you say will be taken to be truth even when it is misinformation meant to mislead the public. Perhaps you are secretly working for the opposition to undermine the government?” Ponfa was startled as to how Charmer was trying to turn the table against him. He couldn’t name his source. It would get the woman into serious trouble. He would recant and apologize if it came to that but he couldn’t name her. She had told him in strict confidence and begged him not to use that bit of information, not until the file had gotten to the DG’s office where it could be claimed that anyone at headquarters had done the leak and by then she would have smuggled out another chip and document that he could use as evidence. But somehow, he’d allowed himself to be carried away by journalistic zeal. Impatiently, after waiting for weeks, he’d gone ahead and written that piece. In retrospect, he wished he’d waited. Charmer had control of their conversations. He acted like he truly didn’t enjoy what they were doing to Ponfa. Ponfa liked this one and looked forward to their talks, if he could call it that. Perhaps he was suffering from that syndrome that caused hostages to develop a kind of alliance feeling with their abductors – the Stockholm syndrome. If anyone had told Ponfa that he would

be a victim of torture by the very same Bukari government he had fought tooth and nail on social media to defend, he would have laughed with disdain and disbelief. But here he was, in a supposed democracy, frightened and scared shitless in only God knows where – a dungeon? A pit? A place up in the mountains? He couldn’t even guess where he was. All he remembered that Friday was the rain of teargas and then bullets flying and everyone dropped their placards and ran. He had not run ten steps when something struck his head and he blacked out only to wake up, handcuffed in pitch blackness with a blinding headache, thirsty, bloodied and afraid. The General whom Ponfa had named Charmer sat swivelling in his office chair deep in thought. As a top intelligence officer with over twenty five years of experience, he was skilled in detecting truths and lies from the physical reactions of his captives and suspects. Ponfa was lying, he could tell. He was desperately trying to protect his source despite the many rough interrogation techniques they’d put him through – himself and Major Halilu. He even admired his bravery even though he knew that sooner or later he would break. He was a bloody civilian. They always break eventually. It was just a matter of days. Major Halilu wanted permission to use meaner torture techniques on him but the General wouldn’t agree to it even though headquarters had granted them the authority to do so, cleared all the way from the presidency. They were told to use any means necessary even death to get it out of him. But the General wasn’t comfortable with the use of extreme measures on suspects. These were not the days of Sani Abacha and his junta. They were in democratic and not military times. The general had been among those who spearheaded reforms in the intelligence agencies. He had demanded and succeeded in passing down policies that required that all interrogations be recorded and videotaped. That way, the fear of tapes falling into wrongful hands would deter interrogators from employing brutal and extreme measures on suspects and also reduce abuse of power. Still overzealous military officers like Major Halilu tend to take these interrogation sessions too far. One such instance had led to the death of a blogger whom the public had thought to have been abducted by kidnappers but someone within the intelligence unit had leaked the information to Ponfa before it could be destroyed. They needed to know who. The decision was made to pick up Ponfa during the rally which gave the DIC the perfect cover. He played the good cop while major Halilu played the bad cop. The General applied what they called the ELA technique – the Emotional Love Approach. It was used to build rapport and create trust between the subject and his interrogator. So far he was yet to succeed with Ponfa. Major Halilu wanted to up the ante to extreme measures but the General wouldn’t allow it. Two days after, left alone in total isolation, without water and food, Ponfa was hauled before Major Halilu aka Pitbull again. The major yelled and riled at him for over three hours as he banged on the table and threw objects around. “Who is Msquare?,” he shouted. “My correspondent at ThisDay Newspaper.” “There’s nobody by that name at ThisDay,” he thundered.

“Msquare is his nickname, short for Mark Mayowa.” Ponfa’s voice trembled. “Was he the one who leaked the DIC info to you?” “No sir. No one leaked any info to me.” Pitbull threw a stapler at him. He flinched. “You this boy, you think you’re stubborn. But you are nothing. Tougher men than you I have broken!” Pitbull raised a bottle of water and poured into a glass with deliberate slowness. The sound would drive the dehydrated and thirsty Ponfa crazy. He wet his lips. Pitbull took the glass of water to Ponfa and put it in his cuffed hands. As he hurried it to his lips and tasted just a drop, Pitbull knocked off the glass and it smashed on the ground. Ponfa fell to the ground and touched his parched tongue to the spilled water. He was so thirsty he thought he would die of thirst. Pitbull chortled sadistically. “If you cooperate with us, your sick mother and sisters would be safe. I understand you have a younger brother who read accounting serving in Kaduna. We can give him a job at CBN. Just give up the name of your source. A sobbing Ponfa muttered, “I don’t have any source. No one told me anything.” “But you are wrong young man. We know that someone leaked classified information to you. Give me their names.” “Sir, I was only guessing. I added two and two together that is all.” “Two and two together my foot! Corporal, since two and two together make four, take him out and give him four doses of water dousing. In short, add another two more.” Ponfa whimpered and begged as he was dragged out, stripped naked and doused with a full blast of freezing water. They brought him back to Pitbull shivering, left only in his now dirty and torn boxer shorts. “How is your sister Julya? That’s her name isn’t it?” Ponfa nodded. “We can get her job at Access bank terminated just like that!” he snapped his fingers. Major Halilu kept mentioning the names and work places of members of his family and threatened that if Ponfa didn’t cooperate his family would meet with grievous consequences. Most times, at the mention of family, many of the subjects broke down and gave up their sources and told everything. Some sobbed openly and begged. But Ponfa didn’t break down. He broke down only in tears but he gave up no name. One could see he was shaken and frightened but the boy was holding out. So Major Halilu promised him some reward if he cooperated, a sudden play at the carrot and stick technique. Ponfa didn’t know how much longer he could hold on. He may very well die in this place.

“Nobody knows you’re here. No one is looking for you. We will kill you and throw you away on the street like a dog and no one will ask questions. People will think kidnappers used you for ritual sacrifice. Your social media followers will mourn you for one day. Maybe the highest form of respect some of them may give you is to put black on their Dp for a day or a week and then you are forgotten. Is that how you want to end up? Another unsolved murder by kidnappers?” Ponfa began to tremble and then he fainted. The corporal felt for his pulse. “Oga e don faint o.” “Take him down to his cell.” Pitbull ended the session for the day. He needed a break himself. Today was his wife birthday. He had to be home early. Ponfa woke up alone in his cell. He had been sick for two days with delirious fever. Many times he thought of death and sometimes he thought of what Jack Bauer, his hero in the movie 24 would do. But this was not 24. He was not Bauer whose escape plan was usually formulated by a team of brilliant scriptwriters and high tech espionage equipment. Where had the brave Ponfa he thought he was gone to? He didn’t even know martial arts. He may die in this shithole and be recorded as part of the missing people found dead statistics. He started to pray. He thought of his mom and sisters and brother, of his whole family relations. His bravery left him. Psalm 23 came to mind. He recited it over and over harping on verse 4: “Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for Thou art with me. Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me.” He didn’t feel any comfort. All he felt right now was fear so deep and heavy, reaching into the abyss of his soul, paralysing his limbs and scrambling his brain. Gut wrenching sobs took hold of him. All alone, with nobody to hear, he wept unashamedly. He fell asleep clinging to the verse “…thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me…I will fear no evil…I will fear no evil…I will fear no evil…” He drifted off. It was now day fourteen of the search for Ponfa. Already other fellow social media activists on Twitter and fFacebook had already started trending a hashtag with the label #ReleasePonfaDashe everywhere. News had filtered out that he had been picked up by some secret police agents and taken to an unknown place for questioning. This time both PitBull and Charmer were shaken. They hadn’t expected that news to get out. They had gone to great pains to make his abduction look to his family like it was a case of being abducted by kidnappers. Unfortunately for the SSS, someone had leaked out highly confidential information that the state secret service had him. This got them all rattled. During his interrogation with a much rattled Charmer, Ponfa added two and two together and guessed it must be the female secret intelligence agent who’d done it. She knew he had not mentioned her name or she would have been long picked up. She must have reckoned that the longer he was detained the more he may be tortured into giving up her name. The smart move was to put pressure on the outside world to demand his release and if they didn’t know who had him, they wouldn’t know how or who to demand his release from. In leaking out who held him, other social media activists could pick up the scent and demand his release. Brilliant. A smart move indeed. One night, they injected him with some substance that knocked him out. Bundled him and left him at the early hours of the morning under a bridge. He woke up terrified but realised his hands were un-cuffed. He struggled out of the contraption he was in and realized he was free. The glare

of the breaking dawn was too bright and hurtful for eyes that had been covered in black cloth for nineteen days. It took him a while to recognize where he was. They had left him underneath the federal secretariat overhead bridge. *********** It had been six weeks since his release from captivity. There was breaking news all over the Nigerian internet and media space that week. President Bukari had fired and appointed new Service Chiefs. It was army week and the newly appointed Chief of Army staff was shown giving an address at a function organised by the Nigerian Army. Ponfa increased the volume of the TV. “To that effect, the public is called upon to join us in this fight to keep Nigerian citizens safe. Remember that you and I are all patriots seeking to address the wrongs in our society…” He would recognise that voice and that sentence anywhere. The remote fell out of his hands. Charmer!

Joey Garcia Killing Jars I tuck the slim black body of a Cabbage White butterfly into the groove of a spreading board, its wings resting flat on either side. Sister Mary Francis counts out five special black insect pins for me and pats my shoulder. Her hands velcro to my cotton blouse, and crackle away. “Work slowly and carefully,” Sister says. She walks to the chalkboard at the front of our summer school class, one hand smothering the crucifix that hangs from her neck. “We are using Cabbage Butterflies to practice on because to the farmers here in the Central Valley, they are agricultural pests. But value their lives and do your best work. Go slowly. One tiny slip and a wing tears or an antenna snaps off.” A spreading board taps against the next lab table. I tried to mount an Isabella moth yesterday using pins from my mother’s wicker sewing basket. The stubby silver pins ripped through the vanilla-colored wings, shredding them. I held the Isabella loosely in one hand and walked it into the kitchen, letting my fingers flutter open over the trashcan. The moth flew into coffee grounds, settling on bones from our Chicken Delite dinner. Sister’s black pins are proboscis-thin and flexible. Pinching one between my thumb and forefinger, I take a gulp of air and tilt toward the spreading board. I’m scared of accidentally inhaling microscopic wing scales. A boy in my class said that’s how people get asthma. I stab the pin through the butterfly’s thorax, listening as it crunches through heart, digestive tract, and balsa wood below. Floating up for air, I check my work. A+ for sure.

Veins radiating from the base of the Cabbage White’s wings thicken to piping around the edges. Holding my breath, I place a pin tip against the thickest vein in the right front wing and nudge it upward. The pin scrapes against the wing’s fragile membrane, but no one would notice unless they were looking through a microscope. I surface for air. The butterfly’s left forewing drags a few centimeters lower than the right. Leaning down again, I prod the wings with the pin until the lower edges of both upper wings align. Then I slip each hind wing under the curve of the forewing above it. Sister circles the classroom, checking our progress. “Now proceed to the paper strips,” she says. She starts to open the windows. The classroom stinks of rubbing alcohol from the killing jars we made before lunch. We soaked cotton balls with antiseptic and laid the poison clouds at the bottom of empty mayonnaise jars. Sister handed out thick sheets of cardboard and showed us how to measure and cut it into circles that fit tightly against the glass. Then we pushed the cardboard into the jar, creating a platform about two inches above the wet cotton. When you drop an insect in and quickly screw the lid back on, the insect lands on the cardboard platform without damaging itself. At first it flies against the glass frantically fighting for its life. After a while it sinks to the cardboard and dies. Sometimes when I see insects suddenly stop fighting, I wonder if I’m a bad person. A murderer, maybe, or worse. Taking care of my bunny helps me feel better. My Uncle Tony bought Flopsy at a pet store and tried to train her to perform in his magic act but she refused to stay under the false bottom in his Abracadabra top hat. One Saturday, in the middle of a party, she jumped out of his hands, hopped across the room, squeezed under a couch, and stayed there, thumping. She pooped and peed, too. After that, Uncle Tony retired her from the stage and gave her to me for my birthday. Every morning before breakfast, I free Flopsy from her hutch in the backyard. She leaps down to soft grass, and races around my mom’s vegetable garden, past the apricot, prune plum, and lemon trees, tossing her head and kicking up her heels. I roll up the soiled newspaper and straw in her hutch, then lay down clean paper and straw, fill a bowl with pellets and carrots, and another with fresh water. Once she’s eaten, Flopsy sits on my lap while I brush her fur and sing to her. I always lock her back in if I’m not staying in the yard. My mother says that in Belize, where she grew up, people don’t often keep rabbits as pets. Not many Belizeans eat rabbit but they do think of them as a garden nuisance. Sometimes she says she thinks I love Flopsy more than her. Sister opens the classroom door, pushing it against the wall until it clicks in place. I lay a slim white strip of paper vertically over each wing. Sticking a pin at the top and bottom of each strip, I trap the wings. “Very good, Cynthia,” Sister whispers. Bifocals magnify her watery blue eyes so she always looks surprised. “You and Jackie might only be in middle school, but you are fine additions to our high school program. One day you will both have lovely collections.” She says the last line loud enough for Jackie to hear. Jackie glances at me from the lab table across the aisle, her lips puckering into a smile. Her thin brown hair is in two short pigtails that stand out from her head like wires. I already have a collection, a cigar box of butterflies—Mourning Cloak, Cabbage Yellow, Skipper, Tiger Swallowtail, Fritillary, Painted Lady—and moths—Polyphemus, Isabella, Hawkmoths. I have a

beetle collection, too, in a cigarillo box that still smells of tobacco. Jackie’s parents bought her a real insect display case for her collection—a glass-topped, wood-frame case with a foam-lined bottom. We’re best friends and we’re going to be entomologists, even though my mother says it’s not an appropriate career for girls. Sister Mary Francis walks around the science lab, checking the cleanliness of each station. There’s a long black hair shedding from my ponytail and tickling the back of my arm. I pluck it off and drop it to the floor. The bell rings. The older kids scramble out of the classroom, and rush to the parking lot. I can’t wait to see Flopsy. Jackie and I pile our notebooks, class handouts, and killing jars into our tote bags, lingering a little because her mom is usually late. I look across at Jackie’s freckled face. In appearance, we’re nothing alike—my skin is the color of a Luna moth pupae and I’m nearly a foot taller-almost as tall as the high school kids. But we’re probably wearing the same expression. “Thank you, Sister,” we say one right after the other. Sister waves. “Tomorrow then, girls.” Jackie and I run to the parking lot, tote bags slung over our shoulders, glass jars inside banging against our hips. The wood-paneled station wagon’s tires are squashed against the curb. Jackie’s mother sits behind the wheel, a cigarette burning between her yellowed fingers. Her wispy hair seems ready to coast off her head. In the passenger seat, my mother’s brown skin glows as she flattens imaginary wrinkles from her flowered dress. Her black hair is lacquered into loops that tease the roof of the car. My mother is scared to drive on the freeway so she pays Mrs. Bailey for my rides to and from summer school. She doesn’t usually join us. Jackie and I climb into the back and buckle our seat belts. My mother holds her purse captive on her lap. “You can’t even say ‘Good afternoon’?” she asks, in the sing-song accent she brought with her when she emigrated to the U.S. “Good afternoon, Mom,” I say. “You can’t even give me a kiss?” she says, turning her cheek toward me. I press my spine into the seatback wishing I could hollow out the upholstery and hide. She twists in her seat to look at me. I make a loud smacking sound. “Cho!” my mother says. Jackie places her small hands on her mother’s shoulders. “Hi Mama,” she says. Mrs. Bailey keeps the cigarette hand on the steering wheel, but reaches back with the other to pat her daughter’s wrist. “Hi baby,” Mrs. Bailey says. “How’s class?” “We made killing jars today and learned the best way to pin a butterfly,” Jackie says. She nudges me, taps her cheekbone and nods toward her mother. “Lepidoptera Studies!” I chime in, trying not to gape at Mrs. Bailey’s latest black eye framed now by the rear-view mirror. She and Jackie’s daddy are getting a divorce. My mother turns toward me, a strange smile on her face. Near her mouth, on top of a brown mole, she penciled a black dot. I know it’s a beauty mark, but it reminds me of a butterfly egg just before the caterpillar worms out.

“We have permission slips you have to sign for our field trip next week,” Jackie says as her mom drives out of the parking lot. Our tote bags are on the floor mats near our feet. We rifle through handouts. “Where is it?” Jackie mutters. “Can’t find mine, either,” I whisper. “Did we leave it in the classroom?” Jackie asks, her voice winging near panic. “Did you girls forget something? Should I go back?” Mrs. Bailey asks, tapping the brakes. She sweeps her bangs off her forehead, but the hair tumbles back. Inside the station wagon, air eats itself. “Beta no mes op,” my mother warns me, slipping into Kriol. “How many fif graders goh di soma skool wid deh hai skool styoodents?” “Sixth,” I say. “We’re going into sixth grade.” My mother unwraps a stick of Black Jack chewing gum and pops it in her mouth. “Laik how yu tink yu di big adolt, Cynthia, me gat nyooz fi yoo.” She rolls the foil into a little ball, snaps the car ashtray open and drops it in. “Wan kyat kil di rabit dis maanin. I yher wan terabl skreem. Ah ron bak a yaad bot ah too layt. Flopsy is dead.” There’s a shriek. I don’t know if it came from my mouth or Jackie’s but she and I are staring at each other bugeyed, hands clamped over our own mouths, tears rushing down our faces. Jackie lets go and grabs my hand, squeezing hard. “You let Flopsy out,” I yell at the back of my mother’s head. Jackie nods vigorously. Fat tears roll down her neck. I can tell that she is trying not to make noise. We’re breathing hard, or hardly at all. The windows fog up. There’s not enough air. My mother spins around to smack me but I pin my body to the car door, arms splayed and out of her reach. “Are you calling me a liar?” “You did it,” I shout. “I locked Flopsy in her cage this morning before class, and I checked the lock twice.” My heart thumps double-time. I know I’m dead when the station wagon stops and my mother can get at me but I can’t shut up. My mother is quiet for a little too long. Mrs. Bailey mashes her long-dead cigarette in the ashtray, and wraps her fingers around the steering wheel. “That rabbit ate my radishes,” my mother says. Mrs. Bailey gasps. Her torn eyes stare at me from the mirror. “You killed my bunny,” I say, my voice crumpling. My mother eyes Mrs. Bailey. “Ai tel yu, da-mi kyat merda deh rabit. The cat.” “You did it!” I choke out each syllable. “Yu angraytful—!” She reaches back and tries to slap me, but the headrest blocks her arm. Mrs. Bailey is shaking. “No, no, no,” she says. Garbled sobs escape from Jackie. My mother spins around again to clobber me. I push back, out of her reach. She clutches at my blouse. The car slows to a stop. I open the door and fall out. Scrambling to my feet I run toward the field across the street, fresh air surging into my lungs, lifting me up, winging me away.

Jeff Bakkensen Strangers Nothing ever came to the motel without being seen a long way off. From the one side was all flat land with nothing growing more than thigh-high, from the other a few more miles of the same until it met the mountains with the canyon carrying the old interstate. By the time the shimmering emerald dot became a sedan that steamed and disgorged two full-grown men into the afternoon heat, Nephi and Sam were already waiting on the turnaround in front of the main office. “Looks like the radiator,” said Nephi. The men’s undershirts were soaked through. The taller man had a perfectly round bald head, the shorter, a crew cut. “This one’s been saying the same thing.” The taller pointed to the shorter. “We saw your place from the road. Figured at the very least we could maybe stop and cool off.” Nephi gave Sam a key and sent him to get antifreeze from one of the empty guestrooms that lay in an arcing row off one side of the main office. They all watched him disappear through the doorway. When he was gone, the shorter man turned back to the car and, wrapping the bottom of his shirt around his hand, popped the hood. He stepped back and waved steam out of his face. “See I told you we’d find some good people out here if we just kept looking,” said his partner. “I’m Ray. This is Donny. Something tells me you don’t get many guests.” “We don’t actually rent rooms,” said Nephi. No one said anything else until Sam came back with the antifreeze and some rags, and handed them to Nephi, who handed them to Ray, who passed them on to Donny. Donny flapped the rags over the engine and turned back to face the boys. “Gotta let it cool first,” he said. “Speaking of, don’t suppose y’all would have some water? Or maybe pop?” asked Ray. Sam went into the main office and came back with two glasses of water. “Now when the car gets overheated,” said Ray, “Donny here tells me that you gotta run the heater to try to move the hot air out of that engine. So we’ve been running that thing with the windows down for the last twenty miles or so. Nearly heated me to death.” He plucked at his shirt with two fingers and held it away from his chest. “Not much out here.” He sipped his water and made a show of looking around. The parking lot was empty and the pavement cracked. Some of the rooms had tape across the windows. On the roof above the office doorway stood an oversized fiberglass chieftain with his hand raised in the universal greeting of “How” and the words Smilin’ Injun splashed across his headdress. A camper was parked in the grass at the far edge of the parking lot. “Y’all don’t got real Injuns, do you?” Sam smiled. “We’ll be out of your hair soon as the engine cools down and Donny can see what needs to be done. He’s a real whiz with cars. Me, I don’t know a darn thing. By the way, where are your folks? Y’all aren’t out here alone, are you?”

Nephi said, “It’s just our dad, but he’s away on business. He should be back any day now.” Ray whistled sadly and looked to Donny, who shrugged as if to say, That’s life, partner. “We have a two-way radio if you need to call for help.” “No, no. Not necessary. We’ll just let Donny work his magic.” They couldn’t all stand around and watch the car cool when there were chores to do, so Nephi and Sam left the men and walked around to the vegetable garden out back. As they turned the corner of the motel, Nephi’s hand went down to the giant key ring that hung from his belt, and then he quickly turned back and locked the office doors. The men watched as they leaned against their car. “We always lock all the doors,” said Nephi. “Keep the animals out.” “Can’t be too careful,” said Ray. The garden was about a half-acre laid in uneven rows of beans, peas, lettuce, onions and squash. Along one side was a chainlink fence trellising tomatoes. Nephi got two plastic shopping bags from a shed at the back of the office and gave one to Sam. They started in on opposite sides of a row of snap peas. “I was thirsty and you gave me drink, right?” said Nephi. “You remember what we say about strangers?” Sam nodded. “Don’t let them inside or go anywhere alone with them. If something doesn’t feel right, call for me right away. Treat them nicely and they’ll be on their way.” They got to the end of the row and swung around to the next one, then started back the other way. “You don’t think Dad might have sent them? To keep an eye on us or something?” Nephi gave him a look over the bush. “They don’t know Dad and they don’t know us.” They were just starting on a third row when Ray came around the corner of the motel and went into the shed. He came out with a hoe, holding the blade at eye level. The boys stopped picking. “Can we help you with something?” asked Nephi. “Look at this here!” said Ray, sweeping the hoe back and forth to indicate the garden. “Going green and off the grid, am I right?” He winked. “Donny said he’s looking for some epoxy if you have any. Says there’s a hole in the radiator bottom.” Nephi stepped over a row of beans to avoid passing Ray too closely. “Just a minute.” He took Sam’s bag and led Sam and Ray around to the front, then left them standing in front of the office while he looked into one of the rooms. Sam looked to Ray leaning on the hoe and realized he was already breaking the rules. He went a few feet down the walkway to put some air between them. Ray watched him back away. “Regular Hole-in-the-Wall you got out here. But I bet you two get pretty bored sometimes, huh? You ever play twenty questions?” Sam shook his head. “I ask a question, and you give me an answer. Has to be truthful, though, that’s the rules. And I get twenty of them.” Sam said okay.

“Alright,” said Ray. “First question: What’s the point of a motel if y’all don’t rent rooms?” Sam shrugged. “We just live here. We used to live in the camper.” “That camper there?” He pointed to the van at the edge of the lot. “That’s another question.” Ray smiled. “Withdrawn. Dad’s away on business. And your mom, is she in a place where she can come visit from, or - ” Sam shook his head. “Hmm.” Ray stabbed at the pavement with the hoe handle. “That’s tough. My momma raised me. Dad skipped out when I was born. But yours is coming back any day now?” “Yessir.” “And he’s really coming back? Drive up at any minute?” “What do you mean?” asked Sam. “Silly question I guess.” They were silent for a moment. “You don’t have any more?” Ray looked around until his eyes settled on the Smilin’ Injun. “You ever talk to that old chief?” Sam shook his head and said no and blushed all at once. “Thought so.” Nephi came back down the walkway with a bolt-action hunting rifle slung over his shoulder. He set the can of sealant on the ground a few feet from the car. “Hey there pilgrim,” said Ray. “What’s the gun for?” “It’ll start getting dark soon. We have coyotes sometimes, snakes. Sometimes we’ll see a deer.” “Nephi shot one this spring,” said Sam. “Good eating.” Donny turned away from the car and picked up the can. “This’ll do,” he said. “Supposed to sit overnight though.” He looked up and saw Nephi. “What’s with the gun?” “He doesn’t want the snakes to get us.” said Ray, looking at Nephi. “Well boys you heard the news. Hope we won’t get you in trouble with your father if we ask to stay the night.” Sam and Nephi listened to chatter on the radio while they made succotash with ham and bread, which the four of them ate under the overhang in front of the office. They were short one folding chair; Nephi stood, the rifle still on his shoulder. Ray could hardly eat he spent so much time giving praise. “I never knew a boy could cook before.” “We grew it, too,” said Sam. “You don’t say?” “Just not the corn or the bread. And not the ham.” “Well I love it,” said Ray. “Regular Swiss Family Robinson.” Neither of the boys said anything.

“So you two have been very polite,” said Ray. “Not asking why the two of us are out here in the middle of nowhere. And I appreciate it. Guess y’all don’t have a television or anything like that?” Nephi shook his head. “iPhone? Computer?” “There’s a phone in the office but it’s not hooked up to anything,” said Sam. “That’s too bad,” said Ray. “Because the thing is, the two of us are baseball scouts. We’re supposed to be up tomorrow to see this kid pitch over at UNM.” He gave Donny a long look. “We like to watch all the games we can,” said Donny, watching himself move the peas around his plate. “Too bad about no television.” “But this kid,” said Ray. “Oh boy can he pitch. Your dad ever take you to the games over there?” “No,” said Nephi. “Well you wouldn’t know him then. Name’s Wagner. Got a killer fastball. Killer changeup too.” “He’s one of our top prospects,” said Donny. Nephi pointed to the car. “Your plates say Missouri. You drove all the way out here?” Ray snorted and reached for his water. “In fact we did. St. Louis Cardinals.” He turned to Sam. “You look like you’ve got an arm on you. Ever play?” Sam shook his head. “Ever seen a baseball?” asked Donny, looking up. “Ever been,” he pointed with his thumb behind him towards the gathering darkness, “out there at all?” “Out where?” asked Nephi. “Off the motel?” Donny nodded. “Of course we have. We’re not idiots. And you’re not baseball scouts.” He began to walk around the circle gathering plates. “Now hold on,” said Donny, and reached after him. Ray put a hand on Donny’s shoulder. Nephi took the plates inside. “The young man’s got a right to be skeptical. We’re strangers after all. Sam, do you believe us? Are we baseball scouts?” Sam shrugged. “Okay. And that’s fine. But I’ll tell you what, alright? Cards on the table.” His eyebrows inched up his forehead. “Honest Injun. We’re baseball scouts.” Sam and Nephi did the dishes in the main office. Under Nephi’s watchful eye, Sam took bedding from the one of the empty rooms and left it at the doorway to the camper. Then they went into their room. After they’d locked the door, said their prayers, and turned off the light, Nephi kneeled on Sam’s bed and watched the men through the window. From over his shoulder, Sam could just make them out as they climbed inside the camper. “You don’t think they’re baseball scouts?” asked Sam. “Not a chance.” “Then what are they?” Nephi stood. “Hey, where’s the radio?”

He turned on the lights. The room was small enough that they didn’t have to do much searching. “You had it at dinner,” said Sam. Nephi looked out the window. “Wait here.” He took the rifle and went out to where they’d been sitting. Sam watched him go back and forth over the payment, go into the office and come back. “I think they took it.” “It wasn’t in the office?” Nephi shook his head. “I left the door unlocked.” He did another lap around the room, turned out the light and sat down on his bed. “Shit!” he said and sulked silently in the darkness. Sam’s bed was beneath the window, and lying down, he could see the Smilin’ Injun through the space between the blinds. The truth was that sometimes, just as Sam was falling asleep, the Injun did speak. The Injun told him all about what things were like before the white men came. He had crazy powers like night vision and everlasting life. He could also talk to animals and enter people’s dreams, and sometimes he gave messages to Sam’s dad, and to his mom, too. Tonight the Injun told him that he didn’t need to worry about the radio. The men hadn’t come to the motel by accident. They were messengers, like Michael or Moroni, and they had something very important to tell him. “But why can’t you just tell me what it is?” asked Sam. He didn’t actually say this out loud. To speak with the Injun you put words in your head and closed your eyes tight as you could and then kind of pushed the words out, and the Injun could hear them. “I can’t,” said the Injun. “That’s way above my pay grade.” The Injun didn’t make any noise when he spoke, either. You just emptied your head and breathed in, and the words would come to you. Sam asked the Injun once whether he ever spoke to Nephi, and the Injun said he’d tried, but Nephi never listened. Sam must have fallen asleep, because some time later he woke to hear someone fumbling with the door. He sat up in bed, leaned against the window. Through the blinds he made out the profile of someone hunched over in the entryway. He looked over to Nephi’s bed but couldn’t see anything in the darkness. “Nephi? Are you awake?” More fumbling. The lock clicked and the door inched open. “Hello?” said Sam. The lights flicked on. It was Nephi, holding a finger over his lips for quiet. Sam looked back to the empty bed at the other side of the room. “Still can’t find it,” said Nephi. He had his rifle in one hand and a pair of bolt cutters in the other. He leaned both against the wall, turned off the lights, and settled himself back into bed. “What are those for?” asked Sam. He didn’t get an answer. Sam closed his eyes, but whenever he was about to fall asleep he got a feeling like he was slipping down a hole beneath his bed. Down, down, with the dust and worms on either side, and

then he’d land back in his bed with his whole body tensed. Towards dawn, he pulled apart the blinds to see the men looking under the hood of their car. Then for the last time, he closed his eyes, and he slept until morning. The men were still there when Nephi woke him. They went outside together, Nephi carrying his rifle. Both men stepped up to meet them. “Boys, be honest with me please,” said Ray. “You haven’t been fooling around with the car, have you?” Nephi shrugged. “Donny says there’s a very important part gone missing. A couple inches of battery cable. Do you know what a battery cable is?” Nephi nodded. “Then you know that we can’t start the car without it. We can’t start the car means we can’t get out of your hair. What’s the game here?” Nephi smiled. “You could call someone on the two-way. Get a ride to a gas station.” “We don’t want a gas station,” said Donny. “We want to be out of here.” “I see,” said Ray, and took a step forward. “Maybe there’s been a little misunderstanding.” Nephi raised the rifle to belly button height. Ray spat. “Don’t threaten me, boy.” “So y’all a posse now?” asked Donny. “Citizen’s arrest and all that?” He held both wrists together like he was cuffed. Ray gave him a hard look. “Okay. So we didn’t realize we weren’t supposed to borrow it. Mea culpa. But this is a crime here. You see that? We don’t want to cause you trouble. Just bring back the cable and some duct tape and we’ll be on our way.” “Honest Injun?” said Nephi. Ray nodded. “Alright.” He took Sam by the hand and backed away into their room, locking the door behind them. “What did they say you did?” Nephi reached under his pillow and pulled out a length of rubber tubing with frayed wires at either end. “Put on the whole armour of God to stand against the wiles of the devil.” He led Sam into the bathroom and locked the door behind them, sat on the toilet with the rifle beside him and the Bible in his lap. Sam sat on the shower floor. “Just like a bad storm,” said Nephi. He began with John, “Little children, make sure no one deceives you. No one who is born of God practices sin, because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.” Someone knocked on the front door, kept knocking, kicked the door once, and then went away swearing. Nephi kept reading. A crash of glass came from the room next door. “Just a bad storm,” said Nephi again.

If the men were messengers, thought Sam, how was he supposed to hear their message from inside the bathroom? He closed his eyes and spoke to the Injun, but he didn’t get an answer back. Opened his eyes again to Nephi staring him down. Eventually the outside settled into silence, and in the silence, Sam heard himself tell Nephi that he needed to pee. “Emergency?”asked Nephi. He nodded. Nephi rolled his eyes, set the Bible on the sink, put his ear to the door and then unlocked it. When he turned to pick up the rifle, Sam brushed by him into the room and before Nephi could stop him was through the front door and out into the parking lot. The emerald car was where it had been earlier. The hood was still up and the front doors open. At the edge of the parking lot, the camper door was also open. Sam ran towards it. Nephi was calling his name, but Sam didn’t care. He closed his eyes and asked the Injun for help, and when he opened his eyes again, he was a few feet from the doorway. Inside, he could see a pair of sneakers attached to a set of legs. He stopped. Nephi arrived in a rush beside him, the rifle slung over his shoulder. He grabbed Sam’s arm and pulled him back, then climbed halfway through the doorway and looked inside. His hand came quickly up to his throat, and then he closed and locked the door. “You know he’s not your friend, right Sam? This isn’t pretend.” Sam nodded. Nephi looked around the parking lot. Using a front tire as a step, he boosted himself onto the roof of the camper, scanned the area in the direction of the road, then brought the rifle up to his eye and looked down the scope. From the ground, he looked just like Smilin’ Injun come to life. But of course the Smilin’ Injun wasn’t real, at least not in the same way. Sam inched closer to the camper, close enough that he could just barely see through the screen door if he stood on his tiptoes. The sneakers and legs hadn’t moved. He took another step towards the door, and now he could see the man’s undershirt speckled with red. It was Donny. He looked just like a regular person, only with the shimmer gone. Sam startled at the bang from above as Nephi let himself over the side of the camper roof. They set off towards the highway, Nephi going first with the rifle held out in front, Sam sometimes running to stay in his shadow. A few hundred yards from the camper was a little dip in the ground where some bushes grew, and that’s where they found Ray. He was sitting cross-legged looking at a cut just above his knee. His pants were rolled up to show thighs like mashed potato with hair in it. The hoe and the radio lay on the ground beside him. “It was Donny took it,” said Ray. “For what it's worth.” “Where are you from really?” asked Sam. Ray uncrossed his legs and reached out a hand. “Help me up, son.” Sam made to move forward, but Nephi stopped him. “Where did you come from?” The morning sun was already gathering heat, and across the dry brush in the direction of the mountains the boys could see the shimmer of something bright coming closer down the highway.

“Just let me get to the road,” said Ray. “I’ll hitchhike out. Forget I ever saw you.” He made to stand, and Nephi raised the rifle and shot him once in the chest. The boys walked over to the body. Sam touched it with his foot. “Why’d you do that?” Nephi shrugged. They both looked up at the car still far off but getting closer. “Who do you think that is?” asked Sam. “Could be anybody.”

III PANDIT

Obediah Smith What to Wear For April Scovia Katusiime look what you have done with the part of me that is you I could weep or I could commence weeping and weeping all over again hurt so deeply again by a choice that you have made who I thought was lovely is as ruthless as could be who I thought could love methought did love me, could kill wish that you were near enough for me to beat you up for blows like those that fell upon youthat rained down on you like hail upon a tin rooftop when we were playing rough in our house on the campus of NVI you thought that I was beinghad been too rough and cried and I, empathetically, suffered too not my intention to be too severe to be so severe intended just to be- to stay a little bit ahead in our little scuffle how strong you were, what a skillful,

determined fighter I feared being outdone, out-matched and drew upon karate skills to subdue you bring this up because- recall all this to say that what you’ve done deserves such blows and more not playfully delivered but delivered because deserved because what you’ve done is bad, is very bad, is bad bad bad and to add insult to injury, you are defiant about it, insolent on top of what you’ve done, you are unapologetic not someone it seems who is to be reasoned with like my mother used to say to justify a whipping, “If you can’t hear, you’ll feel!” you have hurt the tears out of me again unable to help it in love with you as I am still but how could you have turned your whole selfyour entire body bright yellow with bleaching cream how could you- how could you resort to telling continually such a lie as this how could you imagine that you were not

beautiful as originally made I am left to wonder what else, equally drastic, are you capable of is it the size of Africa that makes such choices possible how far east is from west north is from south, within East Africa or within Kenya, Uganda or Tanzania is it this that makes such shifts possible add to the geographic vastness, the sizes of the populations of these places easy to get lost, difficult to stand out easy to reach for bleaching cream go from black to brown, to yellow I do not even know who or how or what you were originally layers of color to peel off layers of colors youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve peeled off journeying to whereto what- to howto who

Ellen Taylor Lessons from a fledgling gull feather curling like a comma, pausing the air. The spine narrows towards the tip, downy wisps bend to a wave. These fledglings, soon yearlings, juveniles, adults â&#x20AC;&#x201C; waken us, laugh with us,

lullaby us – They dream not of our grounded bodies, though we may dream of their flight, when we bed down at night as lovers, wrap like feathers around each other’s spine, turn our backs to the noise of day the way a gull turns her back to the wind. And when our skin radiates warmth, we rest like a pair of gulls, nestling our heads into each other’s necks, closing our eyes to the surf’s sound, dreaming not, yet, just being where we are, both unmoored and tethered, liberated and bound.

Shazia Ali Broken Heels The sublimity of wearing stilettoes on that marble floor Click,clicking the tips of those heels on the cold surface. Looking at the world from a superior vantage point By adding a few inches to the precarious perspective Of a woman who steadies herself on a wobbly heel. Her unfaltering steps advance towards a purpose Unflinchingly enduring the slippery tiles that shine And lay a path menacingly affable in its radiance. Until a chilling crack jars the harmony of that click, Clicking Capella and builds a fusion of dissonance. Vacillating, hesitating, she lowers her gaze to affirm, Only to raise her eyes with tenacity and valor. Stepping out of the stilettoes, her warm, bare feet, Embrace the cold, hard, marble surface as she walks Steadfast, with fortitude, enveloped in her ipseity, Freed of manacles and chains, she smiles with every step.

Berkley Semple Night in Piarco She is there, reading Mycenae Lookout, aloud In the airport lounge, a night in Piarco, waiting the red eye

Delayed, home to Georgetown, Guyana, singing in her lilting Creole Lines where the sentry suffers to circumvent inevitability, Fate, and that strain of insistent fuckery No vicissitudes can curtail. She loved Seamus Heaney. The airport is cold as the high wall in which the wind whips Over Mycenae, poorly regulated central air, Fifty degrees or so, somewhere near there. She says what hurts is the wrong you see and can’t do shit About, the fear that takes your cojones with it, The stifled sentences in your gullet that hangs you All the things she knew and could not tell, all the true Things known she had to lie about, at the spirit level Truth or lie is not the only choice; as my mistress she did not know What love is lie nor discern in this, god from the devil Wrong love, right; it seems so far to fly to conduct an affair; What hurt me was the lines about seeing “it coming,” a dividing spear Javelined, predictable as Tiresias to a friend The raw knowledge of an inevitable end.

Frederick K. Foote High Yeller Stella We drowning in warm wet air breathing slow, labored sucking in steam Too hot to sleep Too humid to creep Too hot to fight Too humid to fuck I see her standing in the tavern doorway Street light shining through her thin dress High heels in her hand little purse under her arm

Too tall for a woman I bet six feet if not more long, well-muscled gleaming legs and arms hands and feet too long even for her long limbs Brown hair cut rough and short What did her hair do to get punished like that? Long face, full lips, broken nose broken more than once Why that? Dumbo big ears peeking out of the bushy hair cut Skin yellow, not jaundiced gold, tawny, a living glow nightlight skin to beam in the moonlight shine in the sunlight skin to brighten a day Yellow to instigate, sooth, beguile, and betray What a mismatch, odd ball awkward looking concoction The face, eyes, cheekbones unforgettable, odd angles lovely planes, cracked curves the lean, strong, muscled body The eyes, I need to see them up close I have a woman solid and fine generous and kind I don't need this in my life tonight or ever

My cunning, lazy hand waves her over to our table Her ghost of a smile cuts through the thick air, long strides bouncing boobs, swinging hips, glowing lips power in them long fluid pistons A cool breeze in a thin dress coming my way moves with authority, purpose, determination I gesture to table mates, get up, move on Tall Black sees her, rises up above her, blocks her, stops her I claim you yellow bitch, you my creamy country now I will wear you like a prize, fuck you like a whore break your nose again, brand you, command you My table mates feel the violent tremors slide away from my table glide to seats with a view Tall Black slides a thick ebony hand along her long yellow arm Tall Yellow, Long Bare Arms no flinch, easy speak voice rough as her haircut “He called me. You didn't.” She say that like that. Tall Black glances back at me I study the table top Tall Black turns back to Tall Yellow Bare Feet Tall Yellow Lips leans in whispers loud as thunder everyone hears, everyone listens sits up, pays attention “He gonna kill you, all the way dead

and then some.” Death slips in the door takes a seat, grins, waits I see Death. We wink. Tall Black don't see Death but he sense him, feel him “Too hot to die.” Tall Black speaks moves on, moves out the bar past Death into the night Relief and sighs everywhere Disappointed, Death shakes his head “Next time.” He say that like that. She looking down on me stands up straight no words, just looks The eyes, dark gray disturbing stormy, calming now eyebrows thick, wild, willful eyelashes, untamed, ragged hedge just looks, studies, absorbs, at ease “I'm here.” She say that. “Here I am.” She say that like that. Standing on them stilts looking down I touch the long, glowing, lithe left leg I touch, feel just above the knee soft downy hair, not stubble she don't shave her thighs down the calf, she don't shave there She raises her arms, hands behind her head she don't shave under her arms Her leg is all thoroughbred muscle up my hand goes up, up to cup that swell of her buttock

tight as a spring, power for the lovely long left piston The rest of me jealous of my right hand It should be me, cries my left hand No, me, me screams my hard as steel dick Everybody wants in on the act Luck, luck, lucky right-hand slips, slides, glides into the bush in the bush sublime delights promised two fingers slip into her, crave her, demand her mad for her cave's treasure Wet fingers back to my greedy mouth, fast the taste of her sweet nectar, exquisite, rare fare I stand close to her smell her, soak her in “I will fill you up overflow your cup drown you in me forever.” My words to her. “I will spit you out.” She say that. “Out in my spit you go.” She say that like that. “They call me Ironside. That is the key to me.” Leans close boisterous breast electrifies my chest Yellow Lips scorch my ear “I will melt you, reform you, reshape you, rust your Ironsides to ruby dust.” That she hissed in my ear “Reformer, foundry, re-shaper, dust maker, who are you?” Red tongue flicks my ear melting me already “Stella, Yeller Stella, High Yeller Stella, Your High Yeller Stella for tonight.” Softly said that to me she did My booming reply, “YES! Yes, yes

from the moment, I saw you yes.” Her body smiles, shines A yellow night light glow A signal for us to go We go with the flow I'm a step behind so I can see the behind it is an African butt, beguiling, enthralling twisting, turning, grinding If there are Gods or Demons or Spirits they did this, built this, made this, dreamed this this, perfect imperfection, this intoxicating fascination a prayer of thanks, for this gift, to yearn for, to die for, to live with Hallelujah for this improbable, temporary, indelible, incandescent, cursed blessing I catch up, mummer in her ear “Yeller Stella, quite contrarydoes your garden grow with passion flowers and fuckable hours and perfect days all in a row?” Laughs and shouts, dances, turns, laughs to the night sky, she does “Maybe more than one night.” She say that. “One night more.” She say that like that. Laughing we go deep into the night cooler now, perfect for fabled, fucking fantasies, and saffron delights

Princess Chalya Musings: What Are You All About Pray Tell What are you all about? Pray tell. You talk of Irish green like I've been to Ireland And Egyptian and Bahama and Mexican blue When if you had said the sweet richness of Ube blue, I would have understood. If you had said potato brown or ewedu green, The golden brown of roasted groundnut in a bottle Even the eye catching inner yellow of a freshly sliced mango fruit These are the colors that I know. The beautiful green of yalo fruit calls to me The red of tarugu pepper appeal to me The purple of overripe avocado warms my heart The orange of pumpkin and carrots are my favorite The green of zogole, ugwu and okra These are the colors I understand Not fuschia, lavender or beige; I'm many times confused over turquoise, burgundy or your shade of green. How can I understand the red of rubies or the brightness of sapphire when I've never seen or worn one Why do you choose to describe things I can only imagine during a somewhat difficult clime. What are you all about? Pray tell. I know the roughness of the pineapple outer skin and the sweetness of its inner juice I feel the smooth roundness of a big watermelon in my hands I understand that cucumbers can both be turgid and sturdy And the fiery heat from the spices of ginger and cinnamon does wonders for my soul I'll take Nono white and starchy yellow I'll take palm oil red and the crispness of crunchy kulikuli biscuits And the smell of garri and groundnut on a hot afternoon Or dambo and akara in a cold Jos evening Would remind me that all is not lost in this recession besieged clime Still I am dazed by the wonders of your world Where everything seems to be working just fine I am dazed that apples fall down from your sky while oranges sprout freely right out of your gardens into your bedroom window

You see I like to hear your stories, they are a wonder in this world of mine where wonders are still counted via uninterrupted lights and good roads and maybe, if you're lucky you can still eat a plate of rice with meat Yes I like exotic and exciting but sometimes I just want to see things through the mundanely ordinariness of my own life. For truth be told, I know not always what you're all about. For truth be told, sometimes I really do grow weary of what you're all about. What are you all about? Pray tell.

Ronteé Marshall An Inspiring Encounter: Rover

don’t want a baby sister!” screamed Cole. His voice came out muffled though the pyjama

shirt being pulled over his head. It was nine o’clock on a school night and John Baxter sighed wearily as he dressed the little boy for bed. He usually enjoyed night-time rituals with his only grandchild but tonight was proving to be a bit of a struggle. It was his second time trying before he finally succeeded at getting the blue Toy Story shirt over his daughter’s eight-year old son. He combed his fingers through Cole’s dark mop of hair before pulling back the matching Toy Story bed sheets and telling him to get in. “Have you ever thought that your sister will need you when she’s born?” John asked gently. Curled under the bed covers, Cole stared up at his grandfather with guarded curiosity in his light blue eyes. He sniffled and wiped his tear streaked face. “How would she need me?” John pulled up the brown rocking chair in Cole’s room and sat down. “Can I tell you a story?” Cole hugged his teddy bear close to him. “Okay,” he said. So, John began to tell his story. *** “I was ten years old when Rover was given to me. I remember distinctly because it was the year that my mother died. I was sitting alone in my room, uncomfortable in my black funeral suit, when a knock sounded on my door. It was my dad. He stood in the doorway with a sad lopsided smile on his face, hefting a brown cardboard box in his arms. “Hey bud,” he said quietly.

I didn’t answer him though. I just sat and stared blankly into space. Somehow, I knew he wanted to comfort me as he rested his head on the door frame and watched me, but he was never good at offering any sort of emotional consolation. That was what my mom was for. I felt cold and numb and nothing could ease the pain, not even when he started talking about what was in the box. I didn’t hear a single word he said until finally he sighed and set the box down at the foot of the bed and mentioned it was time to go to the burial. Like a robot, I got up and followed him out to the waiting hearse. I couldn’t believe it. She was gone. My mother was dead and though my father was there, I knew I was all alone. That night I slept in my mother’s bed. Night passed into day oblivious to me. The next morning while I was doing my chores I stubbed my toe harshly against a box sitting at the foot of my bed. I yelled in pain swearing to myself though I knew I shouldn’t as I hopped around on one foot, but my anguish was soon interrupted by a shrill loud bark. John chuckled to himself at the memory. “You could imagine how surprised I was,” he continued. “Since when did we get a dog?” I soon forgot about the pain in my toe as another healthy bark sounded. I witnessed the box at the foot of my bed moving along with the barks. In my excitement, I hurried over to it. I opened the box in a jiffy and out sprang a ball of fur. He licked me all over. I laughed and laughed as he showered me with doggy kisses. It was the first time I’d laughed in a very long time. I still remember how it felt; like a spring of fresh water pouring into my soul, easing the dryness of my heart. When my joy subsided, I checked his collar. I saw he already had a name. Hi Rover, I whispered to myself. Rover was an attractive golden retriever. His silky brown fur was soft and smooth, and when I lifted his floppy ears, I saw that they were bright pink underneath. Though my dog was pleasing to the eye, something about him was odd. It was only when I held him up that I realised he only had three legs. Instantly I felt a jolt in my chest. It wasn’t only because I felt sorry for him but because I realised that in some way, he was just like me. He was missing an important part of him. His fourth leg was gone and likewise a huge chunk of my heart was missing too. When I opened the locket on his collar, something caught me by surprise. In it lay a small rolled letter. Hugging Rover to my side I read it. Dear John, Though I may not be with you now, I will always be in your heart to stay. Rover is my last gift to you and I know you will need him. Just look at him! Isn’t he beautiful? I found him in the garage while I was painting, and I kept him hidden all along. There’s something special I realise about him. Though he is missing something, he doesn’t dare let it stop him from being happy and John my darling, that can be you too. Even though I’ll be gone, don’t be afraid of new adventures. Keep going no matter what because though you may hurt now, soon things will be brighter. I promise. Love Always – Mom. In many ways Rover brought me joy and comfort. And just as I needed him, that little dog also needed me to care for him just like your little sister will need you.” ------

Cole looked up at his grandad. As young as he was, he understood and gave his grandadâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hand a squeeze. Perhaps Rovers and baby sisters werenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t so bad after all.

IV MAVERICK

Ellen Taylor The Little Real Mermaid for Anne Sexton, Hans Christian Anderson, and all readers of fairy tales, transformed or traditional

Wasn’t so little, but large as a whale, her song as loud as an orchestra. But she was of the sea ~hence the mer ~ and she was XX ~ hence the maid~ shrunk into a well-marketed, highly distorted tale. You know that story. But not this story. The Large Mermaid made her instruments from sunken ships and islands of garbage floating at sea. Her song spread through the surf like the transatlantic cable below, getting play time, but no royalty. That story. When she fell in love, it was hard – no prince, but a deck hand standing on the lee side of a cargo ship surging through the sea and making a ferocious wide wake. Once upon This time, it was her body’s instrument to reach that boy gazing down at sea foam, as though it held instructions. He heard her thumping rhythm, like his heart. This story doesn’t end with mutilation, bloodshed, or loss of voice- it goes along with one large mermaid who won’t disappear, banging the hull of one ocean tanker with her song, sent out to anyone wishing to hear.

Lelawattee Manoo-Rahming Curtal Sonnet for Derek Walcott White egrets in pastures, like sentinels, scattered among cattle chewing their cud. Sacred cows settled, quiet, no low moos, as if in paradise with immortelles. In Felicity, he walked through field mud

and saw young men set fire to bamboo. Flames engulfed demon Rawan's sorcery, turned to ash his heads with their eyes of blood. This ancient tale he heard from old saddhus as he climbed Monkey Mountain to story new, new.

Ysodora Ulke For Obediah after all father, foyer, fora, for us it rains, it poetries. As ever so, Medellin forthere, forhere, for a, for us it rained, it poetried.

Heather Thompson Umbrella Woman Umbrella woman armed with tracts ramrod of truth bolstered by righteousness and slammed doors promising a new system Eden shunning those sinners who once knew the light but now cannot see her eternity

Umbrella high sun hot conscience free

Obediah Smith Unfaithful to who is always Right there are you loving you no matter what let loving you depend upon nothing at all with or without have or have not well or ill admired or not successful or not rejected or accepted without fail, without delay, without any conditions at all attached, love yourself are you loving you no matter what here in Africa, far from home, wondering if I have friends here how many how genuine have I even one

“Are you your friend?” voice within asks me “Are you on your side, are you applauding you, loving and admiring you, or are you as well requiring you to jump through hoops?” how wrong when we allow the disapproval of others to cause us to disapprove of ourselves without the approval or permission of anyone at all without any conditions at all attached, without ever failing to, I must love myself with all my heart and soul and might, I must love my life I must love what I am I must love that I am

Kevin Hosein The Leap The boy is shirtless on the bed. The woman gives him another beer, just to bide time. He tells her that the American beers don’t get him drunk—but he wouldn’t be here if he isn’t. He can’t remember why he took his shirt off. He still feels the woman’s clammy handprint against his chest. The woman excuses herself and locks herself in the bathroom. As she does, a cold draft hits him.

A cardboard scarlet ibis hangs, twirling beside the lone window. A single string looped around a hollow for its eye, which is knotted to a rusty nail. The boy, now curious, gets up from the bed and steadies the bird between his fingers. He traces his fingertips along the edges the lamina. There are tiny sinks along the wings, as if they’d been jabbed with a knife. He fixates on it, desperately searching for a distraction—to stifle any feeling of hungover regret. The cardboard ibis is edged so neatly that it looks like it has been done by a hot blade than with scissors, which the boy thinks would’ve given it a more jagged or undulated appearance. The ibis' talons lie outstretched but ultimately reach at nothing, as if to grip a branch or root buttress it believes is there. As if it is falling. Or as if swooping down on prey, as shown by its readied pose, wings flabelliform. Its plumes are painted with three different shades of red, with the wings' undersides tinged the darkest. It is night outside, later than the boy wishes it was. He’ll have to spend the night here in this strange apartment, it seems. It’s after hours, anyway. Too late, too dangerous to be out on his own. The woman is still in the bathroom. The woman and the boy met in a bar earlier in the night and he had more to drink than she did. It was she who had paid for the drinks. Halfway through his third glass of rum, the boy realized what was going down. Older, lonely woman—old enough to be his grandmother. Free drinks. Might as well play the game. He can’t remember how they began the conversation. He remembers they—mostly she— talked for a long time before coming back here, but he could only could recall fragments of the anecdotes. “You’re one of those real boys,” she said. “Real Trinidadian boys. I could smell the southland soil on you.” “Southland boy right here,” he said, chuckling. “You look like you have that duende blood in you.” She was caressing his wrist and had kept using that term: tener duende. Having duende; duende being one of those words that simply had no proper, singular English counterpart. He nodded, pretending to understand. She looked straight at him. "Do you know what I mean?" she asked. A vigour began to emerge in her previously timid tone. "It has been around since the beginning of man. It runs in the blood, but it begins from the soles of the feet. When that duende blood reaches our heads, when our feet are dancing, then we can create. But it has to climb up in us first. That duende blood." She was fiddling with an empty pack of peppermint Marlboros as she spoke. A small mound of crumpled cigarettes sat on the ashtray. When she put down the pack, she put her hand on his shoulder and let her fingers slip past his collarbone. They sat on the outside segment of the bar. The night was still early and the Avenue was only just starting to get flocked. This was the boy’s first time to the Avenue, and he could barely recall what made him take the leap; just a line uttered by a friend, “Is like a whole different country up north, boy.” He turned to look at a group of three men discussing relationships in between swigs of American beers. Hardly anybody bothered with the Trinidadian brands. He was astonished at how civilly they were conducting themselves. After four more rounds, he hoped, it would degrade into the usual misogynistic charades he was accustomed to.

The establishment was nothing like he had seen. It looked Caribbean, like a carefully reconstructed artifice of the grime of the grubby locale he knew back home. It tried to sound Caribbean. The music was friendly enough. Who doesn’t like Bob Marley and the Wailers, or the 80’s American remake of Hot Hot Hot? He heard the odd person trying to force the dialect out of them, almost hacking and spewing it out. He looked at the woman. Even among the strange ones, she didn’t seem like the type to spend her Friday here. She seemed above it. Maybe even above Trinidad as a whole—even some carefully decorated illusion of it. She seemed to be the type who would prefer places more suited for sushi dinners, coral-aged anniversaries and engagement announcements. He pictured her scanning through a restaurant menu, nonchalantly fingering through the thick laminated pages. He asked her how one would know when the duende blood has reached the head. "You just know," she said, clasping her fists. "It is a power that lies within us that only a lifestyle can bring out. This country here..." She looked at the other bar patrons and made a frown. For the first time, the boy noticed her crow's feet through the layers of smoky eyeshadow and rouge. "Trinidad is hardly a place where the duende blood can climb," she said. And she added, "That is why so many move away to become something great." She slumped back on her chair with a small scowl and picked at her nails. "Have you ever been to France?" she asked him with bright eyes. The boy replies, "N—" "Wonderful country!" she exclaimed before he could finish. Then she went on to say that the duende blood runs freely in Europe. But that in Trinidad, her arteries grew blockages and the duende stays at her feet. Forever jailed at the feet and thighs and gonads. She told the boy she studied French Literature. She half-expected him to ask her to say something in French. But he didn't. He instead yawned and turned to look at another woman at the bar. The woman went on, telling him about the chants of the people living in the Balkan Peninsula, and that the duende blood runs there. She talked about how Maria Callas sang in Puccini's Madama Butterfly. And when any of those dance troupes perform Waltz of the Snowflakes. And when Dostoevsky wrote Crime and Punishment. She said, "It keeps you alive, the travelling. All the different cultures to experience. Without it, everything is so tiny and meaningless." She paused, suddenly becoming self-conscious. The boy, after barely getting a word in, finally broke his silence. He asked, “You ain’t from Trinidad?” She smiled, pleased to look foreign. She had certainly spent a lot of time and effort to look like she didn’t come from Trinidad. A chemical hodgepodge of skin lighteners and hair dyes. Foreign women always won over the locals, she knew, and locals were all she had left. There was nothing worse than ordinary, and melanin was the most ordinary thing in the tropics. And as if it were a cue she had been awaiting, she leaned forward and told him her name. When he didn’t respond, she asked him if he recognized her name. The boy sat upright on his chair, suddenly and strangely interested in what this woman had to say. Her sole allure, however, had been her desperation to communicate. The boy shook his head.

Disappointment set into her face but she quickly reassured herself by taking a sip of her beer. She exhaled. “I was a Miss Universe candidate, darling. Well, thirty odd years ago.” She giggled at his dumbfounded expression. It always worked. Always. "I didn't crack into the top ten, though," she said with resigned umbrage. Her eyes quickly lit up once again as she added, "But that didn’t make me any less of a beauty queen." She leaned forward. Her eyes cut into his. Her bright blood-red lips now looked like an open wound. "Ever been with a beauty queen, darling?" She paused and gulped. She faced away this time, her eyes suddenly twitching at the poster of a French Creole Carib model kneeling on Manzanilla sand, her wet waist-length hair swathing an exposed hipbone. "An actual one, I mean." This is how she took the boy home. He presses his ear against the wood, careful not to rattle the doorknob. He cannot hear anything. He imagines her in a hasty, but meticulous, attempt to conceal the age of her body before the frosted bathroom mirror above the pedestal sink, now stained with the chemical aftermath of lotions and powders. She has been rearranging and re-painting her petals, straightening the petiole, currycombing off the dusty stray pollen. Every shade and shadow in its correct position. The boy is suddenly afraid he’ll see something that he’s never seen up close before. Lesions that are the colour of saffron; spider-legged wrinkles radiating from her nipples; twin C-section keloids above her clitoral hood. He sits down on the bed and waits. He imagines her kneeling above him with a fingernail to his chin, beckoning with a broken soul disguised as coy seductiveness. She’d say, "Will you love me, darling? Will you love me now?" And he’d look not into her eyes, but at the textures on the ceiling and say yes, he would. She’d stroke his chin and probably ask him to say specific words. Perhaps in French. Je t'aime, je t'adore, tu es l'amour de ma vie. She’d coach him on the accent in the middle of their lovemaking, to remind her of the Parisian men she was with during her studies. The cardboard ibis twirls again. The beers and chicken nuggets swirl in his acidic stomach. "Will you love me, darling?" He can almost hear it as a cold, electric draft eddying into the room. He imagines her going wideeyed as she says it, collapsing on him. And he’d have to rub and pat her back as if he’s burping a big baby before he rolls her off his chest. The boy puts his hand in his pants and fondles himself but he just can’t do it. He approaches the room door and twists the doorknob lightly, only for it to make a heavy metallic stammer. It has been locked from the inside. His fingers releases the knob at once and he jerks backwards. The cardboard ibis twirls towards him. He calls out her name, but there is no reply. He then knocks on the bathroom door and waits for a response. But there is none. He calls her name again. But again, there was no response. He grips the doorknob and rattles it. He pounds the door. "Do you like being here? In this country?" she suddenly responds from inside, a saturnine calmness to her tone. The boy lets out a heavy sigh. “Yeah. It’s a’ight.” "I’ve been all over. You know, nobody really cares about this place. The Caribbean, I mean. It is of little interest—outside of coming here to get some muck on your neck and sand in your slippers, it is of very little interest to anybody."

“How long you gonna be in there?” the boy asks. He goes through her drawers and dressers. He looks through her blouses, some so wrinkled that they looked like they haven’t been ironed in years. "You’re getting impatient out there, huh?” "I ain’t mind. Take your time," the boy says, rummaging through her jewelry box, scrambling through sapphire earrings and silver-gold bracelets. He doesn’t bother to put back anything in its proper place. The woman says, “I think we need to put ourselves more out there. We need to be a bigger threat in the arts. We need to show everyone that we’re not peasants.” “Peasants?” “Sweet boy, if the world doesn’t know or care about your country, you’re a caged peasant.” "I see." He’s now crawling under the bed, pulling out old shoe-boxes. “I can paint, you know. I can write poetry. I can also sing. Maybe you would you like to hear me sing, sweet boy?" “Go ahead.” He sits on the carpet, rummaged through the shoe-boxes. They’re filled with letters and postcards. Amongst them, he sees the Arc de Triomphe, the Coliseum and Buckingham Palace. He doesn’t open the letters. It’s only when he pushes the shoe-boxes back under the bed, the thought hits him that the woman has taken the key with her into the bathroom. And probably flushed it down the toilet. She tells the boy she’s going to sing a song called My Funny Valentine. She asks him if he knows it. He doesn’t. He stands upright, feet close together and looks at the bathroom door and then at cardboard ibis once again twirling beside the open window. He sticks his head out and notices the two-floor drop. His gaze shifts to a tall almond tree in the apartment complex yard that can be reached with a well-timed leap. His eyes trail along the slithering lianas entwining the balcony balusters on a nearby building. When the woman finishes her song, she emerges from the bathroom. She looks out the window and sees the boy looking up at her. He’s asleep; lulled to sleep. She leaves the light on, eventually falling asleep as well—even though the night is still young.

J.S. Kierland The Corporation She filled out her work report, completed the termination form, signed it, and shoved it into the envelope before heading downtown to drop it off and pick up her final check. She was leaving the Corporation “to spend more time with my kids,” she’d written in the huge space they’d provided under reason for leaving. Josh had turned thirteen and Mary was coming up on ten. It’d been nine years of juggling schedules and long hours of hard work. It was time to move on. The cell phone burred in her pocket. She took in a deep breath and punched the button. There was silence at the other end, and Murdoch finally said, “I can’t believe you’re leaving.”

“I’ll miss you too.” “What will you do for money?” “Take in sewing,” she said, but he didn’t laugh. “I could put you on special assignments.” “I’ve got to study for the Bar Exam. I can’t keep putting it off. Besides, I promised the kids I’d be home with them a lot more. They need me at their age.” There was an even longer silence. “I could give you an assignment right away...this evening,” he said. “What’s the pay like?” she asked. “Three times the monthly rate you get now per assignment. We certainly know you can do the job. It’s just a matter of being on call.” She seemed to be winning whatever game they were playing but wasn’t sure she wanted to win anything. “I can’t do all that traveling and be a mother at the same time,” she said, and quickly followed with, “About all I could manage would be a Boston-New York run once in awhile.” There was another silence. She had planned all this for months and had saved enough to get them through the year and take the bar exam along with it. “Why not include D.C.?” he asked, still in the game. She hesitated, and stared across 57th Street at a man and a woman dressed in evening clothes getting into a taxi. ‘How do you explain to a corporate executive what it is to be a mother?’ she thought, and then said, “D.C.’s too far and too dumb. I’d end up having to move down there and I’ve never quite got used to the place.” That long pause came again. “All right, no D.C. But could you at least cover upstate New York along with the city?” he asked. She hadn’t expected an offer like that, or even this phone call. “It might be tight around the hips, but I could try it on,” she quipped. He still didn’t laugh. “Fine,” he answered, slipping back into a professional tone again. “I’ll just shred this termination form.” “You’re selling me the dress before I’ve tried it on.” “This evening’s assignment is not far from the office and he’ll be carrying the usual manila envelope,” he said, ignoring her remark. “The instructions are in the envelope for the both of you.” “Like the Regency assignment?” she asked. “Exactly,” Murdoch said without missing a beat. He waited for her to say something else and when she didn’t he asked, “Do you know St. James Church?” “The one on Madison? Episcopal, isn’t it?” “Yes,” he said. “Seventy-first Street. He’s at a concert. You’ve worked with Tuzov before, haven’t you?” “Tuzov?” she asked. “Is he expecting me?” “He’s expecting someone within the hour,” he said. “Sounds important.” He didn’t answer. “That crucial, eh? I’ll take care of it at the new price we discussed, but don’t shred anything until you hear back from me,” she quipped again, hung up, and headed for Madison Avenue. She had worked before with Tuzov on several assignments. One was a complicated drop near London’s Heathrow airport. Tuzov knew the area and had done the driving while she did

the physical end of it. They had pulled off the assignment without any hitches, and performed a complicated maneuver in a minimum of time. No one upstairs had acknowledged her work, and she figured Tuzov must have experienced the same kind of thing. He’d once told her, “Corporations eat people and shit money,” and they’d both laughed the laugh. Of course he was right, but that kind of talk never won friends where it counted. She had played it the other way, holding her low numbered cards close to the vest, and casually mentioning she was going to leave whenever they were short of people. In those situations they’d thrown extra money at her and she’d taken it like a dog at a bone. She called the kids when she hit Madison. Mary answered. “MOMMY,” she squealed. “What’re you two doing?” “Nothing,” she said in that clever way little girls have that make you wonder what they’re really doing. “Is Josh there?” “Uh eh. Are you coming home?” she asked. “Yes,” she said. “But I’ll be a little late so tell Josh to heat up the leftover pizza from last night.” “Can we have soda too?” she asked. “Just one can.” “There’s only one left.” “Split it. I’ll be home in a few hours.” “You want to talk to Josh?” “I don’t have the time right now. I’ll call back later,” she said, as a taxi stopped to take her uptown. When the cab got to the Church she ran the steps just as the chorale was reaching a crescendo. The voices kept rising and a short balding man moved to help her but she waved him off and headed for the north side of the Church as if she knew where she was going even though she’d never been there before. The choir of men’s voices seemed to explode as she slid into one of the polished pews, and their sound fell away into a sudden silence that seemed to hang in the open space above her head. She hoped Tuzov had seen her come in because the cantata was over and people were starting to drift toward the doors. She stayed for the benediction and the final hymn, and a paunchy man carrying a large manila envelope slipped into the empty pew just in front of her. It was Tuzov. “Hello,” he said in his slight Swiss accent. “You barely made it. Long time no see.” “How have you been?” she asked. “It’s been a good afternoon,” he shrugged. “The cantata you missed was magnificent.” “Have you had a chance to peek at the assignment?” she asked, nodding at the manila envelope under his arm. He shook his head and she looked surprised. “I was just told to pick it up,” he said. “These days I follow instructions to the letter.” She took the envelope from him, ripped it open, and slipped out a folded legal sized piece of yellow paper. “Shouldn’t we be leaving with everyone else?” he asked. She nodded, quickly read the paper, and handed it back to him. “I have a few phone calls to make so I’ll meet you at the sailboat pond in the park,” she said. “We can go over the assignment there. We only have about an hour, or so.” He nodded and left. She edged through

the empty pew to the center aisle and watched him leave along the far aisle. He kept ahead of her and started for 72nd Street. The cell phone burred in her pocket. “What’s the matter, Josh?” she said impatiently. “You told me not to use the stove.” “You can heat up the pizza in the toaster oven. Remember? Turn the top knob to 400 and flip the middle one to on. Five minutes ought to do it. Use a piece of aluminum foil and be careful not to burn yourself.” Tuzov caught the light and crossed to the north side of the street so she crossed on the south side and stayed behind him on the opposite side of 72nd Street. “There’s only one soda and three pieces of pizza.” “I know. Cut one of the slices in half and-“ “Give my sister the biggest piece,” he said. “You’re learning, Josh. Do the same thing with the sodas and use the short glasses.” She crossed Madison and waited for a reply but there was none. “And don’t forget to turn the toaster oven off when you’re through,” she said, and hung up. On the other side of Fifth Avenue, Tuzov slipped into Central Park and she followed him. People were carrying their coats in the unexpected warm weather, but the early April twilight was beginning to cool things off and a few drifted toward the park exits. Tuzov came toward her from the other side and headed for an empty bench. There were no model sailboats on the pond and the water was low and muddied with wet leaves along its edges. The little boathouse, that served food and drinks, was still closed for the season and the evening’s cool breeze gusted over the park’s emptiness. “How are the kids?” he asked, as she approached. “They’re fine,” she said with a shrug. “Was that who you were talking to on the phone?” “Yes,” she smiled. “Josh is fixing dinner tonight.” “Has he gotten over his father’s death?” She was surprised he’d remembered their little talk. “No, not quite,” she said. “I’m not sure he ever will. Ty’s death was so sudden-” “These aren’t good times for children. The world has gotten even crazier since then,” he said, sitting heavily on the bench. “Our assignment seems clear enough,” she said, in an attempt to change the subject, and realized she sounded like Murdoch, but went on anyway. “We meet a man wearing a camel coat and a black fedora on the west side of the park in front of the Dakota, probably a diplomat,” she added. “He’ll arrive in a cab and hand me a locked leather pouch.” “That about sums it up,” Tuzov said. “We’ve done a lot more complicated things, haven’t we?” “They probably don’t know this diplomat and wanted a backup to make sure everything went smoothly for the new client. Are you on special assignment?” she asked. “Yes,” he said. “I cover the northeast corridor down to D.C. Have for about a year now. Live in hotels and wait. Not quite the kind of thing for a married man?” “I didn’t know you were married.” “I’m not. Did I give that impression?” She shook her head. “Do you need something to calm you down?” she asked, reaching for her bag.

“I’d rather stay on top of things,” he said. “The only problem is they assigned the drop at a busy intersection where people are going and coming.” “The subway and the bus stops are right there too. The diplomat probably lives in the Dakota, or close by.” “I still don’t see why they needed both of us.” “They’re just trying to keep us working even if it’s-” “We ought to get started,” he said, glancing at his watch. I like being early. We can set up before he arrives. The orders did say you were to take the drop.” “He’s expecting a woman,” she said. “I noticed there wasn’t any code in the-“ “We probably don’t need any.” “I see,” Tuzov said, and got up off the bench. She followed him along the path that went over the hill to the lake on the other side. Tuzov was good at the game and she wondered if it was just some off-handed remark he’d made. In the Regency someone had stolen procedural data and was going to sell it, but this didn’t seem like quite the same thing. She knew the Corporation didn’t care about kids, bar exams, or warmed up pizza. She’d known that even before she took the job. Her qualifications had been limited but they took a chance on her. The pay wasn’t bad, and she knew the pitfalls. Tuzov finally stopped to watch a couple drifting aimlessly in a rowboat on the lake. The still water reflected in the late twilight like a piece of glass, and from there you could see the top three floors of the Dakota just above the budding trees along Central Park West. “We better go over what we’re going to do,” he said. “It’s a simple procedure,” she said. “You go out first and find a spot on the north side of 72nd Street where you can take a picture of the drop in front of the Dakota. I’ll be at the corner when he arrives. He’ll be expecting me. You better come toward us to make sure it’s a clean drop.” He nodded his agreement, and asked, “Would you like to have dinner when it’s over?“ “I’d love to...we could catch up on things.” “I’d like that,” he said, staring out at the couple in the rowboat. They were out far enough on the water, but from here to the Dakota they’d be dealing with lots more people and traffic. The path they’d taken was empty and the park lights had come on to break the approaching darkness. Her purse touched his leg, and when he glanced down at it she drew the knife and spun at the same time, pulling him in close to her as it hit. He grunted and she eased him toward the bench they’d just passed and sat him down on it. There was a look of surprise on his face and she reached up and closed his eyelids, checked behind her, removed the knife and wiped it across his shirt. His body leaned forward and he started to bleed. She laid him across the bench in a sleeping position, and only then saw the gun in his hand. It was a Corporate issued silencer. She threw it into her purse, and started walking toward the Dakota. The woman out in the rowboat waved to her as she came into view but she pretended not to see her, and stayed on the path that would take her out to the west side of the park. She took out her cell phone and hit the speed dial. Josh answered, and she said, “Did you heat up the pizza?” “Yeah, it was good. Even better than last night.” “I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

“Did you really quit, Mom?” “Yes, I really did,” she answered, and he cheered. “I’ll pick up some chocolate ice cream on the way home. It’s Mary’s favorite,” she said, hung up, and looked for an empty cab in the rush hour traffic along Central Park West.

V PARADOX

Rob Harland Dear God How can I love you? I do not despise you Nor find you ugly, Though somehow I cannot see you As a body builder in a dress With Father Christmas beard. Should I receive you as a dove that settles in my heart Heaven sent Or pursue you like a hunter chases deer? — With my 12 gauge. I fear to receive you as I saw some faithful do Once Folding in on themselves until the floor met their head As the pastor laid his hands on them, And the congregation sang as one “Oh Lord Fall on Me”. You did not. They nearly did. I can seek you in some mystic verses Or in the sculptor’s chiselled likeness. The starkness of a bare hall could force me inward To find you in my darkest caverns, Though your flames of living love Have yet to penetrate my core. The closest that I come to touching you Is when pagan lines proclaim the new order of the ages, Surrounding your all-seeing eye As I hand over the greenbacks to buy myself some beer. A most favoured undertaking.

And as I nurse my pickled brain, Gutted and preserved from two nights fermentation, I shall call upon your name And then follow your example: The seventh day shall be for resting.

Ian Smith Another Cat Poem Overheard in the early stages of these beige days, my last challenge, trekking the desert far from a ruinous prime when oases always shimmered, two women walking laps refer to a dog named Smooth reminding me of our cat dubbed thus as a kitten for his velvet pelt that shone, catching the sun, later regarded by our gang as an operator who (yes, I know he’s an animal, but so like us) tried to open doors with paws, who emailed from adoptive carers, kind former neighbours tolerant of his overacting in videos sent when my time came to exit paradise for east of small, dismantled to a room where I hear my slow breathing. A theme plied in art, this sudden arrival shocks. Reassured by Smooth’s new quarters, I reply, Furry nice, if not downright purrfect: playing along with fond recall trusting his head won’t swell, prevent him squeezing through confined spaces to our old trails, their spoors to my heart.

Obediah Smith As if they were as Weightless as Kites need to haul in a hundred blue marlins need to hurry, urgent need

urgently how though to get them out of the sea out of deep blue waters need you to assist need heavenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s assistance and yours need to sell a painting or two need a gift or gifts from you I in Africa, far from home old man and the sea too far out, his skiff too small need to haul in a hundred blue marlins in a hurry need you to assist I cannot fail/we will not fail must haul them in before nightfall hooked, how high blue marlins leap they wiggle, they do their blue marlin dance as if fins were wings, they fly between blue sea and blue sky need to haul in a hundred blue marlins without fail, before nightfall

Berkley Semple Seven Deaths I. Day dawned with the cough that killed him, An early piss that pinged the porcelain, Vortex with the flush tracing the commodeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s rim To silence, a stubbled face in a vain Mirror,eyes with burst capillaries of a drinker. This was the last time he saw his face, Before suddenly grabbing his heart like an actor For seriousness, then bending at the waist In the style of a geisha, he bowed out Of the world. The difference between greeting And good-bye is a subtle one, doubt Assails definition, certainty is fleeting. II. I was told the trees were poplars Seen from the window in the solarium of Kaiser Hospital In Pill Hill; poplars, I learned, are Deciduous, of the family salicaceae, a stand all Naked colonnade over a road that wend under And came out onto a tarmac of reflected glass; I heard Strange Fruit later, where poplars figure Prominently as derricks in the gallant south with white lynching party. Cancer of any kind Epitomizes its name. Cois was in surgery; in the solarium I waited in that hopelessness you find In suicides or women without their ovaries. III. The slaughter returns to us from forty years Before, echoed on the leaves of pellucid texts, fading fiche of dusty archives, look here! Derrick of a bent bough, rope, a noosed neck Scorched cadaver, a silhouetted jubilant scene,

Perth Village, Mahaicony, circa 1962. Look here! A tawny savannah, fringed hues of green Samphire, a defenestrated human arm, blue, Black, wedding ring on the wedding ring finger hairs coarse as quills trap riled alluvia From dams, a grimly advertised harbinger Of the rest, the coolie/nigger riots, 1962, Guyana. IV. The road was like any road until it became The road of death, coming into Airy Hall The asphalt ox-bowed and shadows claimed The two-lanes where darkness falls In the sun; who saw who first who did not see Or saw but was too late to swerve or jump Or save a life does not matter, what is called destiny Designs a blindness and inaction, dumb Adherence to a Guyanese proverb that goes Wah cum suh duh wah tuh much guh run ova. Bicycle met car and car wheel met human head, fate knows How it would end for self, friend and lover. V. A sutra of Makonaima wends like a nerve Of lighting, in the interior, the Barima-wainimi, Say, Karuabaru north, bound east to serve The sea, Makonaima could not see His people when from a promontory over Kaiteur He looked out contemplating the end of things, Only saw trees, no one, the blue wall Of the convex sky, no one, birds on their wing, Great nimbus with the constipated aspect of strain Cool damp air, cataract thunders his ears No one, the forest smell of forest-coming rain. No one. His people had disappeared. VI. This is where in â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;82 Chip-Chip met his Waterloo Riding a truck that without reason rode him On the Mill Road to the mill, foreday morning. Dew

fell like mist on the grass; destiny, god's whim? Whatever! The assignment was Mr. Death's in the guise of what is called allegory Cowl and scythe with jaundiced cresset Clutched in a boney hand; to spare you the gory Details of brain tire-tracked on macadam, The rank of blood, the bowels letting go, The strange terrible and unnatural calm That arrest someone so animated a minute ago. VII. In 80s Arverne before gentrification got a hand In edgewise to make a thousand flowers bloom Building 42 faced west with a view of Broad Channel I'd watch the train worming over wide water From Luz Lorado's apartment, 822; the scene Swam into your eyes in an epic panorama That countered Luz gathering slaughtered Trojans from the floor With two fingers, mouthing words in Spanglish then Adjourn to el bano naked with her Dominican ass that had its ancestry in Africa. Leaving at night I ran the gauntlet of clockers and rude bwais on my way home to Cornaga where Mama, worried, waited up.

Allan Lake The Man Who Won a Lottery (without buying a ticket) After a lost walk in wilderness, followed by forty years at a desk â&#x20AC;&#x201C; which sounds oddly Biblical â&#x20AC;&#x201C; he arrived at the promised pension and freedom without cumbersome wealth, without illness, without debt, regret, attachment to a god, flag, tribe or even a sport. Into such an uncluttered space, south of almost everywhere and with no pet, came Queen Babette,

came homemade soup, came a warm bed during chilly winter. From his writing desk near the window, overlooking garden, during hours that are his own, he casts a line to hook passing poems that keep swimming in his direction and wonders at his luck. Tomas Sanchez Hidalgo Capitán Willard Saigon, shit: it’s Saigon, it’s jet lag, and I’m not a big Valium fan, or of counting sheep (or of reading Conrad), and I don’t feel like loving myself with just my hand in the middle of the Apocalypse, so I go down to buy at a lolitas store, to the five and dime on the corner, something new something old, something borrowed and something blue, so I chose Wo, without any more name or love or background or last name, just Wo, for, minutes later, stars under the Sheraton’s rain (electric delirious spongy strong soft): Vietnamese shower, previous lack of pumping and, after navigating the Leviathan together, Sitting Bull I have finally died: I go to the room for my wallet, I pay her and I pour myself some verses of Johnnie Walker over the cubic solidity of the water: God is all around.

Horses in en Möenchengladbach Among telephone listenings, and hidden cameras, on a terrace in Germany, and infiltrators: as waiters, at noon and at three, —and at nine o'clock and at six—, a delivery man, and customers of every creed: two lesbians, a Bateman and a mystical marriage. <<Wait for me to give you the order>>, in a racecourse, and infiltrators: white slave traffic in the next table. I pretend to be betting, among topics of conversation of poor quality: these are concerns that you do not take to a desert island. And they serve us a couple of Martinis —the man at noon—, and a couple of misfortunes —the television—, and mixed messages: Interpol´s background noise. <<Not yet!>>, —I ordered them—, and floods in Australia and droughts, and indebted states, and the resurgence of the Fascists, and <<Not yet!>>. And while At last !, It was time !, they play the cards —passports, lives: girls in exchange for euros— those of the next table, the Stock Market is red or green, earthquakes, typhoons, tsunamis, and black men losing a war, and I'm still working on this for the rest of the afternoon, although disasters queuing to eliminate us, all of these are coming to my <<Now!>>. And while the world falls apart, tell me what the hell I do (forced voyeur) on a day like this, speaking of horses in Moenchengladbach.

Dayna Fleming An Inspiring Encounter I could hear the hesitation as people manoeuvred around me. The shuffled feet, the intake of breath that preceded an insult that never came. Usually an awkward Oh came out instead. I imagined what they might have said had they not noticed in time. You is a idiot or wha? Yuh cyan see yuh in people way? Excuse me miss, yuh blockin’ up de whole road. But none of that came. It seemed Bajan to look someone in the eye and then lambaste them. But by the time they had done the former, they quickly exchanged piece of their mind with a Sorry or Oh. But I would have preferred the insults. That day I preferred to be treated like any other person. That day I would have given anything for my sight. I was going to meet my father for the first time. “Yuh ain gine, Bria,” my mother made clear from the moment I mentioned the idea. “But Mummy you say if I ever find my father I should leh he know how my life was without he.” “Bria, I say no! How hard da is tuh un’stand, chile?” “It hard for you to understand. I never see the man before!” “Ain’ like yuh could see him even if yuh find him anyhow.” I know she didn’t mean it. But her words of frustration enveloped me, strangled me, made me stumble backwards. I don’t know if I intentionally knocked down the ornaments on the way to my room or not. I knew my way around the house perfectly but I was blinded by tears and hurt. The call of Bria, Bria, Bria baby, I so sorry couldn’t keep me there. I was going to see him, or encounter him, if that word was more accurate for her. And that is how I became glued to the middle of the road the next morning. I had my head tilted up in the direction I expected the store to be. The taxi man had let me out as close as he could. “Look it dere... I mean jus’ step out an’ tek a right den when you pass de bank... erm... well when you feel yuhself gine down a lil’ slope jus’ take de alley on de right.” As if satisfied with his directions, he followed with a Mhm, yeah. I thanked the lady who guided me to the store. She didn’t know the luck she wished me was what I needed. What if he denied that he was my father? What if he, upon seeing my glazed stare and white cane, said he wanted nothing to do with me? I must have been in that spot for half an hour mulling over those thoughts. Ok Bria. Get it together girl. I brandished my cane and stepped forward, ready to face whatever was ahead of me. “Never hear of he yet,” the cashier said, not bothering to offer anything besides that. “You sure? You sure? De lady tell me that this is de place.” “Well lil’ girl I never hear a nobody name Owen working here so i’ mus’ be de wrong place,” she said. “Buh he was workin’ here for a long time now. He would’n a leff here.” “Well I en know what else to tell you.” She paused and when she realised I wasn’t moving added, “Leh me see if I could get de owner to help you.”

It wasn’t long before she returned and said, “He say come to de back.” I got excited again. I had to find him. Even if he didn’t work here anymore maybe the owner could tell me where he worked now or even where he lived. “Sit down my chile,” said a voice shaken by old age and, by the smell of it, alcohol. A hand textured with loose skin and calloused fingertips grabbed mine and guided me to the bench. “I’s Richard. Dat my granddaughter out to de front.” He ended his statements with a Mhm, yeah like the taxi man. “What bring you to Symphony?” “I lookin’ for my father, a man name Owen who use to work here.” Mr. Richard let out a “Mmm,” then said, “Your father leff from here long time now. Went England or Canada or one a dem places wid he son.” I had left the conversation long before he stopped talking. I didn’t care for the bits that I heard. Scholarship. Track and field. Mother dead. What did that have to do with me? This other child had taken my father away from me. The happiness that had built up after overhearing my mother and Aunt Elaine dwindled to nothingness. I was so sure when I heard I should walk right in da music store. Wha’ i’ call? Symphony? An’ tell he come pay one bill for he chile that I could finally meet my father. Mr. Richard must have heard the disappointment because he stopped mid-sentence and stayed quiet for a while. But then he started a new thought with conviction. “Your father couldn’ make your life any better, chile. He en know where you and your mother living this whole time? How ‘bout you go home instead a running after somebody dat don’t want to be found.” When I left the house that morning I was hoping to find a man who would tell of his exhaustive search for me. Instead I stepped out of the taxi and walked to the front door defeated. I let myself in as quietly as I could but she heard. Silence. I expected the worse but then a soft palm caressed my cheek. Hug. As we stood in embrace, something refreshing overwhelmed me. It wasn’t the tears that dampened my shoulder or the fresh scent of my mother’s hair. Mr. Richard’s words had finally sunk in. This is where I was wanted. This is where I belonged. I was home.

VI ENIGMA

Kevin Hosein Hormones On their wedding night, the new husband and wife return to their neighbourhood to find it in darkness. A power outage that night, of all nights. But that hasn’t stopped a hot-blooded Trinidadian like him. He produces an old oil lamp, already filled to the brim. He strikes a match, ignites it and sets it on the dusty dresser. She undresses slowly, not so much as to extend the moment but to delay it. He’s already naked and it’s the first time she has seen him this way. This is also the first time she’s seen the keloid along the fold of his inner thigh, the lamp’s glow reflecting off the smooth scar tissue. She catches her own reflection in the dresser mirror, along with her husband’s. His reflection is positioned in such a way that a feathery strand of smoke from the lamp superimposes over his crotch. She notices her own frightened face. One eye tinted and dessicated, as if coated with dry skin. Wisps of stray hairs flutter free each time she blinks. Her downtrodden image pleads with her, as if the image is its own entity. As if the woman in the mirror is her victim. The silence is the worse than the heat. No sound but breathing, in tandem with her own. Not even crickets. She looks at her husband again, reminded about what he is: a stranger. A stranger who happened along her path at a family gathering at Rio Claro that she didn’t even want to attend. He posed with a wink, proceeded with a kiss on the wrist and then a proposal five weeks after. Signed, sealed and delivered. A friend of a cousin was who he was. Now he is her husband. She had been impressed how he was able to fully garb himself in white without letting the countryside dirt mottle his outfit. The wind could pitch handfuls of dust towards him, but he always stayed clean. He, the provider, and she, the supporter. He, the worker, and she, the lover. Even her ancestors made this kind of thing work, hadn’t they? These are dealings that have no time for the past—that do not favour memories. With no comparison to fall back on, time always has to march forward. Any strained, improvised moments of wedding night sexuality have to be distended and stretched to caress the future version of things. If they could do it, she could. She climbs into bed with him and closes her eyes and kisses him. Her lips are dry. As his legs rub against hers, she reaches down and thumbs the scrim of scar tissue. She listens to his breaths, each one adding weight to the other. It doesn’t hurt so much. In fact, it doesn’t feel bad at all. Only when he begins to thrust faster, she becomes nervous again. His breathing is suddenly arrhythmic, as is the motion of his hips. He’s becoming limp inside her, yet he continues, fighting hard against it. She gives him gentle taps on his chest, trying to signal for him to calm down. But he doesn’t. He lifts his entire weight and drops it on her torso. Spit dribbles down his mouth onto hers. She opens her eyes to see bubbles of froth outlining his lips. The lips themselves are as pale and porous as dead coral. Only the whites of his eyes are visible in the dark. She remembers

the demon in the woodland ravine from her childhood and screams and twists her body out from beneath him. With her palms clamped over her face, she called her father’s name repeatedly. Her husband stops and lets out a shrieking wheeze. She kneels beside the bed and prods him with the base of her palm. He lies there, motionless. Paralysed, but still breathing. His eyes twitch. A watery lustre appear over them, ghosted by the radiance of the lamp. She clutches the edge of the bedsheet. “You need water?” He doesn’t reply—not verbally. Slowly, he shakes his head and tilts it toward her. She gets back into bed. Her arms shudder as she hugs him. It takes him a full minute to say something. “Just a hormones thing.” She puts her hand on his neck. “You want some water?” He shakes his head. “Just nerves. It don’t happen so much.” “You nervous bout tonight?” “No shame in that.” His reply is a retort. “Anybody would be, right?. I’m sure this heat ain’t helping matters neither.” She rests her chin against the crease of her inner elbow and gives him a look of sober determination. “What’d help?” He turns to lie on his side, facing away from her. “Think I just have to ease into it. After the first few times, is a normal thing.” “That’s it?” “Just let me do what I have to do, and I promise it would be normal.” She tightens her jaw. “Want to try again?” He shakes his head. “Should sleep. Flight leaves early.” She gets up to grab her nightie and his hand reaches out for her hip. “You ain’t hot? You ain’t have to worry bout nobody walking in.” She has never actually slept naked before. Not even topless. The thought entices her. He puts out the flame from the lamp. As the light goes out, she catches a final glimpse of the dresser mirror. Her naked reflection dissipating into another dimension. She pulls the blanket over her and closes her eyes. * Two hours later, she wakes up, a winding tickle of hair on her collarbone. Her skin still sweat-soused with the heat. Her hair matted with it. She feels the pain. She doesn’t panic at first—it’s just membranes and blood, she tells herself. The weight on her chest stifles her, squashing her to the point of an alarming feeling of being disemboweled. Her eyes fly open. She screams and flails. As she tries to shift away, she realizes that she cannot move. The weight presses harder on her. She screams again, and a hand slaps down on her mouth. “Quiet, quiet—almost there,” her husband’s laboured voice whispers in the darkness. She bites his finger and kicks him off her. As she rolls from under him, she tumbles off the bed and hits her head on the floor. She tastes a tincture of his blood from the bite—the jumble of hormones on her tongue. She looks up. But she can’t see him. She can’t see anything. She yells out to ask if he’s mad, but it comes out sounding like nothing in particular.

He pauses. She steps back, her foot landing in his ashtray, scattering cigarette stubs everywhere. “You say I coulda do anything I want! Do whatever I have to do!” His booming voice in the darkness. She gropes the walls as she moves along the room to distance herself from him. Her stomach gurgles with gas. She can still see nothing. Something zips past her head. The ashtray. She can smell it. It shatters. She imagines the charred crumbs of tobacco scattering upwards like volcanic tephra. He wheezes loudly. “My whole life—first day of school, first day of work, first time I leave Trinidad! But is always normal after!” “I need to get my clothes,” she says, trying to sound calm. His voice cracks. “Clothes? For what?” She’s crying now. “I need my clothes.” Another object flies across the room. It hits the dresser mirror and smashes it. She shrieks, recoils and falls on her bare bottom. While on the floor, she gently traces the carpet with her bare toes, feeling for glass shards. She gets up, cautious not to cut her hands. He shouts, “We ain’t come all this way for nothing!” She already knows that she is better off being quiet. She feels her way towards the door. She twists the knob slowly. As the door unhinges, she darts into the living room. Her hands scramble over every layer of upholstery for something big enough to cover herself with. Perhaps a shirt he has left hanging on a chair? No luck. Nothing but doilies, antimacassars and tablecloths. She throws her arms up as he comes hurtling after her. He calls out her name, flipping over the furniture and slamming into the walls. She rips two drapes from one of the windows and folds them over her bare skin as a cloak. A sari. She grips onto the cusp of the cloak and bolts towards the front door. She rattles the knob nervously with one hand while the other supports the cloak. The door finally opens and she stumbles outside. Her initial thought is to seek refuge with one of the neighbours. However, she’s quickly turned off by that idea as two mongrels growl and snap at her from behind their chain-link fence. The power has gone out in the whole neighbourhood. The only light is from the moon. A stinging night breeze threatens to blow the fabric right off of her. She walks briskly, in directions unfamiliar to her. She pulls the drapes tighter against her skin. The streets are empty. The houses are just a row of giant concrete blocks. No shape. No detail. Just outlines of blue, shrouded by black branches and whorls of leaves dancing in the cold exchanges of wind. She looks up at the sky. A smog blocks out half the stars. Back at home in the country, the stars could destroy her with their presence. Here, the stars had no authority. She keeps looking out for headlights—her husband’s car. As she wanders past a quiet intersection, a spout of wind rips the drapes right off of her.

They whip with the wind, flying into someone’s yard and finally hooking onto one of their gutter pipes. A wave of goose pimples surface from her exposed flesh. She curses beneath her breath and peers around, her eyes flitting from one street to the other. Still quiet. Still empty. She keeps walking, keeping one arm horizontal against the breadth of her chest, and the other over her crotch. She comes by a payphone along the way. A spare shilling sits at the bottom of the casing. But she quickly discovers that the payphone is broken. She screeches curses at it, banging the receiver against the frame. She keeps walking and eventually comes to a savannah, sandwiched by two pavilions. The gates have been left open even though the walls are five meters high and lined with loops of barbwire. She hurries across the field, and suddenly she is blinded. She trips but doesn’t fall. An electrical torrent of light swells above her. Floodlights. Four of them. At all cardinal points. She—at the focal point of this quartet. Her eyes zip around her as she picks up the pace. In the distance, she spots another payphone. She doesn’t run. The payphone lies opposite to the main road. This time of night, she doesn’t count for many cars to pass her way. She picks up the receiver. A dial tone. She slaps the side of the casing in glee. She inserts the shilling and dials. She drums her fingers against the frame as she observes the field, looking out for a sign. A name. Any landmark. The other side picks up. “Daddy,” she exclaims, finally breaking down, even though there was no one else to call. She can barely say anything else through her stammering breaths. There is no time for the whole story now. He says nothing, but she knows the phone is still working as can hear her dogs in the background. During the phone call, a car approaches. She hides behind the booth, stretching the receiver cord with her. She tells him the name of the field. Through all her sobbing and clamouring, he responds, “All right, girl. I have to find my shoes,” before hanging up. Her hands quiver so much that she can’t place the receiver back in its place. She drops it and lets it dangle free. She heads back to the savannah and sees that the restrooms are adjacent to the pavilion. A small, block-shaped building that would be her sanctuary until her father arrives. Her legs wobble as she walks in. Her reflection in the mirrors above the pedestal sinks startle her at first. She opens one of the cubicle doors and puts the toilet seat down to hide the sight of old, unflushed faeces. She locks the cubicle door. She dares not sit. If she has to crouch and wait for an hour, then she would. Beneath her—a dried stain of overflowed urine and above them, a flickering circle of fluorescent light. But she’s managed to stay clean. In big, black marker near the corroded toilet plumbing is a solitary scribble: DON’T FORCE IT! A half hour passes. A pair of tattered shoes shuffles in—that familiar, lurching gait. She crouches to peek under the cubicle door, but doesn’t see much. She waits for him to call her name, but he doesn’t. A minute of silence passes between the two bodies. As she finally moves to unlatch the door, a swell of shame binds her feet to the floor and wilts her arms. She draws in a deep breath and mutters to him, asking if he brought something to cover her up. She warns him again but the man opens the cubicle door before she can. She’s still

crouched, frozen. The man as well, but just for a few seconds. He taps his fingers against his hip and his grin remains pasted onto his mouth. “Come outta there, girl,” the man urges. She shakes her head, immediately filled with regret.

Love Letters to The Sea Rue lifted the cutlass over the sleeping couple. Their naked bodies were lying belly-up, splayed out before him—like frogs ready to be pinned, dissected and disemboweled. The only light that trickled into the room was through the rusting pleats of the corrugated iron roof. Even in the darkness, the blotches of abir glistened on their skin. They looked like elopers, escaped from a painting, their hair like newly applied brushstrokes, their skin like fluorescent phosphors. Even as a sleeping jumble of limbs, their figures retained grace. Shale and Radha were their names. A coughing came from behind the wall. Rue’s grip loosened on the cutlass as he slowly lowered his arm. He hadn’t expected to find them like this. Not only was it the night of Holi, Shale’s grandmother was still in the house, having been bed-ridden for weeks. Who would have expected this from Shale, being such a respectful person, after all? That year’s Holi was better-planned and better-attended than any other year Rue could remember. After all, the folks of the little fishing village were resolute in showing the rest of Trinidad how much their few acres meant to them. They decided that this year’s Holi would be half pageant and half protest. The cloth banners that drooped over the roads spelt the village’s name in red dye: CAMPO MAR. The banners were clamped with giant pinwheels that swivelled blue with oil-black. The ones near the coast were propped up on large wooden poles, whipping with the salted wind. These had some of their letters carefully blotted with black paint, with the remaining ones spelling: C

This was in reference to Mitra Kangal, a child from the village who had fallen into one a year prior. Salmon, catfish and pompano laced with aluminium, they claimed was the cause, with the culprit being the smelter plant that had recently commenced operations just a few miles down the coast. Since Campo Mar was rooted in a marginal constituency, both the Government of Trinidad and Tobago, with the Opposition in tow, took quick note of the issue. When a fancy research crew—of what looked like postgrads in training—had finally found their way down the bumpy dirt roads to the village, a fisherman named Oz agreed to take them into the Gulf of Paria. Other than that exchange, they spoke to no one and no one spoke to them. The fishermen folded their arms and stood in communion near piles of rotting driftwood on the shore, waiting in sentinel-like silence for resolution. The report came one week later in the newspapers: “Although levels of aluminium were high in the waters near Campo Mar, researchers claimed that bioaccumulation of aluminium in marine life is insubstantial and toxicity is unlikely to result in a coma.” Rue bowed his head low, enduring pangs of shame each time grown men had to have the words ‘insubstantial’ and ‘toxicity’ repeated to them like children. Coldly stated terminologies like those were always seen as insults. The issue promptly fell out of public scrutiny when the reports surfaced. Their endorsement by the Prime Minister quickly sank any interest left within the few environmental activists scattered on the island.

The fishermen of Campo Mar crossed over to the Columbus Channel instead to bring in their hauls. Everyone boiled their water. No one dared go for a swim in the gulf. There were protests, but a lack of numbers and incorrectly spelt picket signs failed to secure any headlines. Then came Shale Krishna. Shale Krishna, the only boy in the village primed to go to medical school the next semester. Shale, there on the bed, stinking of dye and mica and sperm. Him and the jamette. The pastoral poster boy, the rural wunderkind—the type the Government would grant a scholarship to appear considerate— anything to ejaculate compassion into the destitution of the Deep South. This symbolic protest—this politicisation and mutation of the Holi festival—was Shale’s brainchild. He, along with a rag-tag clan of fishermen, had been planning this for weeks. The village folks began calling them the Hermit Crab Society, after a public exclamation by Shale himself, “They feel we could just get up and take we homes with we to safer waters. They feel we’s a hermit crab society!” Shale hobbled up and down the sand-speckled slope of the village grounds with wheelbarrows overflowing with balloons—each one a giant raindrop of abir. Some of the balloons were also filled with black food colouring. Children flung them at each other. No matter what bright spectrum of colour had been splotched on their clothes, the black always smothered it. When the media crews arrived, they photographed the spectacle from a safe radius. The fusillade of tassa hand-drums beat on with rapid-fire tempo as fistfuls of dye and powder flew back and forth in the village. The dholak drummers puffed their cheeks, striking the goatskin, circling their feet with each muffled thump. Children ran with sparklers—leftovers from last Divali—in the broad daylight and pitched them over houses. Rue fixed his eyes on Radha as he stood on his porch. Her cheeks were coated with yellow, a stream of red dripping from the end of her braided ponytail. She laughed as she smeared a handful of dye on Shale’s chest. Rue rushed to the wheelbarrow, elbowing children out of the way. He folded the lower part of his shirt into a sack and gathered a half dozen balloons into it. With brazen abandon, he pelted the balloons at Radha and Shale, each one flying with reckless force. Through each splatter, he saw their faces squint in blue confusion, red alarm and bright yellow dread. He laughed as they glared at him. It was the first time Radha looked Rue in the eye since he admitted his love to her. He couldn’t help it. He fell in love with anyone Shale was with. He found them irresistable. It was a magnetic force— one that constantly dogged him in public. It disgusted him. He couldn’t explain it. It was some kind of curse, a blight. Before Radha, he had never publicised these bizarre affections for any of Shale’s previous girlfriends. He preferred ogling them from afar, following them to Shale’s private love spots. Rue never took two girls to the same place. For Rita, it was behind an arched rock saddled next to the shallow cove. For Nandini, it was where the coconut trees formed a portico, fronds brushing as if gently liplocked. For Radha, it was inside a dirty, forsaken dinghy at the base of the craggy precipice. Shale and Radha never walked there together. She always went first, and he’d arrive ten minutes after on bicycle. It was like clockwork—callously routine. He often wondered what were her thoughts during that waiting period. She mostly spent it in quiet meditation, hardly a predictable prelude to Shale’s penchant for rough, fleeting sex. Rue never dared get too close during these encounters. He was left to imagine them in great cinematic detail. Filling in their wobbling, disjointed shadows with tint and texture. During these sessions, the shots would be unwelcomingly interspersed with jump-cuts of his own self, lying behind a log, one hand propping his neck up to glimpse the silhouette of the dinghy and the other bringing him to shameless orgasm. Shutterflashes of intense shame. Despite acting as voyeur for so many encounters, Rue had never actually seen them naked until now. They had been more endowed in his mind’s eye. He took note of every fold, every discolouration,

83 and grinned as a line of spit dribbled from the side of Shale’s mouth, the same mouth that spewed all those big words to the media that night. The story ran on all the local channels. The whole country heard him speak. He prattled on about aluminium sulphates, dioxins, cyanides, smelter pot linings. Rue strummed his fingers against his hip, the cold cutlass blade resting on his thigh. People who never met Shale loved him, he thought. They listened to him. The boy was Government-approved scholarship material, after all. He realized that killing the scholar would be useless. He would be doing him a great favour by doing that. It wouldn’t even be hailed as murder—it would be an assassination. He opened the window in the room and climbed out. In the backyard, he spotted Shale’s bicycle. He grabbed one of the wheel’s spokes and snapped it off before making his way home. At home, everyone was asleep, but it would make no difference if they were awake. He laid the cutlass where he had found it, on the pile of coconuts gathered near the garage. When he went back inside, he took a nail file from his sister’s sewing table and set it on his bed. He hid the bicycle spoke under his pillow before going to the cupboard to get his journal. In this old dog-eared copybook were all the love letters to Radha. Rue had kept a separate journal for each girl, and each time Shale ended a relationship with a girl, Rue tore the pages out and let them wash into the Gulf of Paria, where they would be lost forever. Poems, sonnets, haikus, all for girls that would never read them, all for girls he did not want to love. The Odes to Radha would meet a similar fate, he knew. He locked his door and sat on his bed, scraping the nail file against the edge of the bicycle spoke as he reread the letters. This would take him into the morning hours, he knew, but it was worth it. * Rue was more anxious than Shale was for the next escapade. Shale had been preoccupied with his Hermit Crab Society meetings. Full-coloured photographs of the Holi spectacle were all over the newspapers. Letters to the Editor all commended the Hermit Crab Society, with special mention to the beacon of the youth’s future, Shale Krishna. He was everyone’s hero, of course. A hero of the common people. Maybe one day he would even be a member of Cabinet—a representative for their constituency. My God, Rue thought. He must be stopped! He could always foretell the escapades. On those nights, Shale always moved his bicycle from the backyard and leaned it against the frangipani tree at the front. Two water tanks flanked the sides of his house, so he always had to wheel it through the living room and kitchen to get it there. He knew it would awaken his grandmother at night, so he always did it right before sundown. Rue hid behind a pairing of coconut trees as he kept an eye on the lonely dinghy. He had been there long before Radha. He sat with his back against the tree, concealed entirely by thick stripes of shadow. He traced his sandals in slow ellipses along the slivers of old coconut bark. The night sea churned behind him. For a few moments, he felt at peace. The wind washed away any heat of disquiet around him. Radha appeared in the distance, as quiet as a jumbie. She clasped her arm against her brow, shielding herself from a wind-blown curtain of sand. At first, she didn’t climb into the dinghy. Rue tracked her movements closely. He gritted his teeth and concentrated, as if he could telepathically will her towards the dinghy. She ambled towards the froth of the coast, letting the water wash over her toes, gazing into the distance. It was so dark that no separation between sky and sea was clear. After a minute, she climbed into the dinghy and waited for Shale. That minute felt like ten. Rue began to breathe fast—no tension, just anticipation. He took his sandals off and crept towards the dinghy, clutching the bicycle spoke hard against his chest. He had to hurry. As he approached the dinghy, he grabbed a handful of sand. Before Radha could spot him, he pitched it into her face. She cried out.

Rue climbed into the dinghy and held her down. She was wearing the starfish earrings he had given to her as a birthday present, right before professing his love. She laughed it off as a joke. And, having no choice, so did he. A dirty coil of rope was wound along the oarlock. He yanked it off and wrapped it around her neck into a double spiral. He curled his wrists and lobbed her body backwards until he heard her neck snap. He sprung to his feet, looking down at her. Her dying, gasping body twitched and flopped. He dropped the spoke in the dinghy, watching it roll along the bottom boards. He flew the scene, kicking up a tornado of sand as he did. He grabbed his sandals from his hiding spot and ran barefoot all the way back to the village. As he came to the clearing near Campo Mar, he stopped to put on his sandals. Taking it easy from there would be wise, he figured. He made it back to his house and left his room door open. He sat cross-legged on the bed, like a yogi during meditation, and patiently awaited the village prodigy to raise hell. He played out the scenario in his mind. Shale would stagger from street to street, crying, Murder! Murder! The folks would all jump out of their beds and hold their heads. Some would sit in their living rooms and bawl in Hindi. The fishermen—that uneducated band of thugs—would all scurry to the dinghy, flashlights and cutlasses in hand. Foul play! they would cry. A cold-blooded murder such as this had to be political. No rape. No banditry. Even the girl’s starfish earrings were left intact, they would notice. Strangulation was a personal way to kill someone. Police inquiries would take place. Two officials—not postgrads in training this time. Mr. Krishna, did you have any enemies? Did you receive any threats? And then the more personal questions: Mr. Krishna, what were you doing at the dinghy? How often did this take place? Was your girlfriend seeing anyone else? Everyone would know about their filth. Everyone would judge them. Nobody who mattered would feel sorry. The police would find the bicycle spoke near the body. The sunlight would reflect on it, making it spark like one of Zeus’ bolts fallen from the heavens. A spoke tapered at one end, fashioned to impale. Then they would examine the villagers’ bicycles. Shale’s would be the first—and the last, but they wouldn’t say anything about it at first. Another interrogation would take place. Son, is your bicycle missing something? Well, does this look familiar? Not hard evidence, but enough to plant a seed of doubt in the nation’s collective mind. It wouldn’t matter if the boy is found guilty or not, not in this era where the poor is blamed for being poor, survivors are blamed for being victims, and the innocent are always suspected of the worst. Sometimes, on this island, the only thing more entertaining than building someone up is breaking someone down. The doubt would always linger, and his reputation would be ruined. The Hermit Crab Society would be no more. Anything they ever tried to build would wash away with the tides. The curse would be broken, finally lifted. Rue would head down to the foot of the precipice with his journal. There, he imagined finding two old men fishing. They would be arguing: “Tellin you—I ain’t eating a blasted ting you catch from this water here.” “Brudda, that was a setta stupid talk.” “Look, you g’head and believe what you want believe.”

85 “Tell you what I believe, brudda—the scientist and dem over a blasted murderer.” Rue would tear the pages out of his journal and chuck them into the ocean. One of the men would ask, “Youth, what you had in there, you quick to throw way so?” And Rue would reply, “Old love letters.” The man would nod and ask, “Suppose she take you back?” “She better jump in and find them.” The crumpled pieces of paper—the poems, the sonnets, the haikus—would float away. Floating towards that incorporeal blackness. They would probably wash up somewhere one day, he imagined, somewhere along that partition where sky and sea could never be distinguished.

VII PROVOCATEUR

Berkley Semple Casting for Silver Sandpipes are beaking the shoal of hoori fry In the marsh at Abary the other side of the river fecund with odor of spawn under the mangrove shadow. I am casting from this dam that shoulders down to the water Net spinning on its lasso, a perfect circle before the lead Weighs it down and the noose catch on my wrist. Before it sinks I feel the fish, frenzied, caught In the weft; I haul in hand over hand, the silver and shine. So little has changed, just more bush where the bush Was trampled down, more plastic bottles in the river dragged in with the catch; bearing a grudge or for spite the landscape stays amaranth, stubborn in its sameness refusing to realize your expectation, feeling it should change as you feel; but people see you after twenty years and say, “but boy you aint change at al at al,” still you feel The shade trees and the silence so near. Your father cast here and you in his wake struggled With the basket of silver to size his footsteps in the doughty Throwing away from him with a careless fling The lead and twine over the water to splash And jerk the lasso upon his wrist; the change is but a subtle one, imperceptible, like that crane coasting the distance seemed Tacked to the sky, still, hung on its zenith, apeing acts aped before. But my father is gone and assuredly, I will go also leaving off all the casting I have done For an eternity to season out of the sun. It’s a thing he feared most, leaving things that were always undone, Pile of dried coconuts still left to peel upon the bar, Fry to grow into the flesh of the next season of casting, or woman He like to see walking along a dam and say, as if to him self “da is de one, de one,” or joke he did not crack, Bottle of rum still sealed. All this I have jettisoned But this one, casting with more than catch in mind Shying out my net into waves the high sun has diamond, Hauling in, hand over hand, my patrimony of silver.

The Surf The simmered cauldron of history has cant its dregs into this poem, whose lines metaphor our archipelago of islands; stones in the ocean, want and waste surf up in the moraines every hour. Find it here, history in the spiked mine since the Great War, bones of jettisoned slaves from the Zhong, when the fever. . . Ask the grinning skull of five fathoms depth, the tar shored ships’ cargo, pain and suffering. It is never history that knows, merely interprets with crossed fingers, lie, like a single syllable, the quill of fiction paused in the fingers of Walter Raleigh and the fortunate traveler Froude; how we are defined, the iced heart thaws, blood blots the folio; every sentence is a blow crueler Than the Kracken’s—beast of the mythos, Calibans With nothing more than curses, no power, Prospero Dictating for posterity, how the islanders are, sans humanity, sans language, sans love, our mothers Sycorax of low Regards. Between blows we suffer to breathe Erasing history for all our germinating seed. The Flood House stilts watermarked the height of the flood One of those hard rains from the mouth of God Made us skim the horizon for Noah's ark Tossed on rolling crests Riding the light and the dark. We saw only corials drawn by dark men Bloated pigs and cattle drowned in their pen Through rain’s silver strings like cheer confetti Dead birds battered from their rooks, river detritus for the sea. Cows on the highland huddled against hunger Rolling clouds, the sky asunder Nail holes in our roof sieving the beads The rice crop matted and weft, among tares and weeds. We hunkered home and told stories Culled from our history, Br'er Rabbit and Brother Anansi Who survived their crucifixions crossing the Middle Passage, Outlived the roughest stuff of any age.

Ian Smith Tropical Garden Fourteen, bored by uniform toil, lacklustre living, fled from family ruins to an unheated room, my aged landladyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s grousing voice trembly, baked beans on toast my plat du jour, no veggies, more masturbation than mastication, lusting for life, I rode the tram to work or saved a fare, walked, straining city streets freighted with atmosphere. Cleaning machines over a drive shaft perched bum on tin next to a spinning pulley belt. An operator, wage inflated by piece-work, cajoled me into leaving his machines running. As I plucked oil-soaked thread from a gear its cycle changed, a cog crushed my thumb tip. A shriek, tin almost toppling against that wicked belt. A doctor swabbed oil from the mutilated nail. Morphine uncompassed me, a boy in bloodied overalls, trauma dressed, but still soporific, refusing to budge, waving away the nurse waiting to go home while I wafted in Shangri-La, cascade glittering, butterflies flitting, tranquillity, an opiate state like a corny movie, but believed. Thumb tip smaller now, hard days done, narcotics rife among the sad, the downtrodden, hearkening so far to a boy dumped by fickle new love. Thumb throbbing on the tram, irritation flared due to my lost fling, that too brief ecstasy, then my sick leave, pacing past the corner pub, barrels unloaded, beery whiff, day stretching awake.

Obediah Smith On Wings they do Battle a small mosquito has a lot of nerve to attack who is

a hundred million times its size, a hundred million times its weight its aim, to draw blood, how aggressive it is and those seeking your blood, I understand, are female, are woman-mosquitoes unrelenting, they attack and attack until slapped or until their backsides are swollen, close to bursting with the blood of a victim so many times their size small but they do not back down difference between David and Goliath is nothing when compared with the difference in sizes of a mosquito and a man when they come in droves though dozens of them, hundreds of them when they are thousands, the odds are indeed different in Blantyre Lodge, in October, last year, at the height of what must have been mosquito season, I recall using the hotel-provided, big, white towel to slaughter thousands, night after night marks of blood left all over my room floor after the carnage, after each nightâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s battle floor of my room next morning, as bloody as a battlefield

for whoever came from housekeeping to see who had fallen to pick up the pieces put things right, make things straight to make the bed and to mop the floor

Lelawattee Manoo-Rahming Heartbeats of Red Flag Revolutions Canefield plantation was his patrimony but he saw only the peasants' backs bent by the dictator's vise grips. He would fight for them for sixty years. He would speak for them speeching for hours clad in olive-green garb and at the end, his grey-white beard. He became the beating heart of the oppressed and pressed down on uprising bubbles. Ashes interred in the rock the revolutionary and his hero-poet, Jose Marti, have united at last, in Santa Ifigenia. They smoke cigars and gaze through the haze, to the Maestra Mountains home of guerillas in the red-flag revolutions.

In The Land of Pimlontas, The Winged Arawak God No ancestral aloo puri, and bright red, like roucou, gri-gri palm berries gracing a Thanksgiving Feast, along with sweet cerise.

Except in this land, this New World where all peoples have massed and burled into a knot indistinguishable a carnival so fraught with baccanal and calypso. The dead is scavenged by corbeau, maxi-taxis fly like soucouyant bright fire and jumbies lie. But cocoa tea will always warm one's evening after a rainstorm as will tales of a princess, a pitch lake, a winged god who prevails.

Ana Portnoy Dipping poverty in our coffee We sipped our coffee from our mugs creamy intellectually steamy from the wicker rocking chairs and settees careful of the strawberry granola cookie crumbs lingering at the corner of our mouths as they conjured up words perfectly political consciously correct awfully academic didactically distant from reality We were theorizing poverty charts and statistics diagrams and definitions arm chairs cradling big thoughts big shots big egos we dipped it in our coffee chewing

savoring giving it a taste picking it from between our teeth as if it were ours to do so as if our mouths our lips were wet enough with the juices of experience to speak its truth as if the man outside our rain streaked window bald and black tattered red dress barely able to hold on to his body slipping off like the raindrops from his hungry shoulders fixing the cans inside the broken basket on his half-a-bike didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t exist

VIII ICON

Diane Martin Gynecology in an Old Shoe Box “This, like much else in this society will certainly change before long.” I wonder how many of my forty-seven years I have idled away in clinics, and hospitals, and doctors’ waiting rooms. Here I sit again, in a public clinic on Vasilievsky Island, St. Petersburg, Russia, awaiting a diminutive, kind gynecologist with a short but brilliantly hennaed cap of hair. This is my fourth visit; she has so far shown concern, expertise, and generosity, refusing to accept payment. As a foreigner, I am not, nor can I be, enrolled in the state insurance system, so I usually pay cash. But, accustomed to receiving only their meager wages and the occasional gift of chocolates or champagne for extra services, doctors here are perhaps the most democratic of public servants, often feeling guilty about accepting money. This, like much else in this society will certainly change before long. I am uncomfortable, out of my depth proffering the usual symbolic gifts, but am confident that I shall resort to accepted practice sooner or later if Tatyana Konstantinovna continues steadfastly to refuse to have her beacon-red head bothered with the 100 rubles (approximately $3.50), plus 10 rubles for each test the lab performs, which I pay directly to the technicians. Only a dim, florescent overhead lamp near the far window sheds a modicum of light on this institutional green and once white corridor sparsely bordered by shabby, metal framed, vinyl covered benches, and connected, snap up wooden chairs that, most likely, have been salvaged from a theater of some sort. All but two seats support globally pregnant young women. This has been one of those summers when rain is the norm, so there is too little light for reading. Having perused all of the posters on family planning, as well as the hand-painted diagrams of sexual bodily functions on previous visits, I daydream about strolling pregnant, hand in hand with a composite lover down the tree and flower lined boulevard, Bolshoy Prospect, that stretches from this building almost to the metro station. My fantasy will never bloom at this late date, but I indulge it anyway, to compensate for my previous lonely pregnancy and childbearing experience, which were neither blissful, nor supported by family or the father’s presence. Although this corridor is clearly marked Women’s Consultation, every second person who knocks, purely as a startling warning, and without waiting for an answer, immediately thereafter pushing open the doors to the consulting rooms, is a man. I flinch on behalf of the vulnerable stranger inside, in full view of the interloper, in addition to certain well-positioned waiting patients, her legs splayed and draped over medieval designed supports at the knee. Even so, much to my covert amusement, every knocker starts back, hand over heart, apologizing profusely for intruding on the embarrassing spectacle, as though it had been utterly unexpected. All part of the ritual. As a leading-lady friend of mine often wryly remarks, “Everyone’s in theater these days.” Cut to the doctor’s unsurprised response: “Yes, Yuri Vladimirovich [or Lyudmila Pavlovna, or, in my case, just Maria], have a seat and I’ll be with you when I’ve finished.” Thus, the need for a receptionist is eliminated, or rather, never even contemplated. Moreover, at this

clinic, there are no bothersome or futile appointments, only windows of opportunity. I too have learned to pop my head in peremptorily instead of waiting patiently, hoping eventually to be noticed and summoned, instead of wondering if the doctor is behind the dingy curtain at all. Today my string bag, what the Soviets used to call an avoska, a “just in case” bag, is light, lacking the requisite clean sheet and condom which must be brought for examination. I have come only for results. Most clients would rather do their bit for sterility than pay extra for laundered linen and dubiously sterilized ultra-sound equipment, even assuming they are on offer. The onus is on the patient to buy and bring any necessary medicine or syringes, as well. Foreigners, by long accepted tradition, are usually given preferential treatment in Russia, owing to the national inferiority complex, the first description of which is generally attributed to Griboyedov’s Woe From Wit. I am no exception on this occasion. I have never been at ease jumping the line, or being magically seated in crowded restaurants where locals are turned away. Apart from their inequity, these practices call attention to one’s foreignness. In Soviet times, the drawbacks were obvious and political. Now, after the advent of so-called-Capitalism, it is inadvisable, as it makes us day-glow targets, not to mention objects of resentful and bitter envy. Nevertheless, I am a VIP for the day. Tatyana Konstantinovna summons me ahead of several other patient patients, and I wouldn’t dream of crossing her. In spite of nasty sidelong glances and gravelly grumbling, I rise. It seems I don’t have cancer yet, though there is a pre-cancerous condition that, supposedly, can be treated chemically. Dr. TK produces slick, Swiss-processed color pictures displaying cervixes in varying degrees of robust health and pale demise. She points out the one mine most resembles, while explaining the condition in question, and recommended treatment. Then, as though patronizing a willing but dull-witted child, she tells me which medicine to buy, at which pharmacy it is likely to be found, and shows me examples of ampoules, writing the names in both Cyrillic and Latin. Far from taking umbrage at this unusual solicitude, as I might do in another context, I express genuine gratitude for her concern and forbearance. It is brusquely brushed aside; her job entails caring for her patients to the best of her ability. Thank yous are unnecessary, tantamount to breaches of etiquette. Still, the “magic word” habit dies hard. It begins to drizzle again as I exit the dark, foul smelling building onto the 13th Line. Vasilievsky Island’s former canals were reputedly filled in to make the grid of streets known as lines. The story goes that Peter I laid out Petersburg using only a ruler. I, for one, am grateful for the natural curve of its rivers and canals. Not to mention the fanciful speculation of its mythology. I duck into the nearest pharmacy, assuming, correctly, that it would be more likely than others to carry Sologin, the prescribed medicine, because of its proximity to the local cluster of clinics. It proves quite expensive by Russian standards: 390 rubles for two treatments. However, my purse is fortunately flush, thanks to Dr. TK’s disdain for cash. I seize the moment, even though my first treatment is not for a week. Now I simply have to remember to bring it with me, along with the sheet, towel, and thermos of tea. Far from letting up, the rain is lashing torrents when I emerge. Unequipped for life’s exigencies today, I am without an umbrella. Recently I replaced my spiky, bent collapsible with a chic, long, wooden, purportedly English apparatus. “Made in England” actually had been spelled correctly, albeit by the Chinese. Its sturdiness and longevity were never tested, though, as

it was swiftly whisked away from the banister in front of my apartment door as I was carrying groceries inside. Belonging to a class of society that spurns cash, i.e., the lower class, I’ve been chronically short of enough of the wherewithal to replace it. So, off I drip, prudently having blown the wad on medicine. When I was an enraptured, 20 year old student, Leningrad in summer was nearly always sunny. Or memory is. Although I remain enthralled with the city, there has been a noticeable climatic shift. August 2, 2000 “This could be the simple truth, a reckless surmise, or diabolical disinformation.” Today’s window of opportunity was designated as Monday or Tuesday between 3 and 7pm. I arrive at 6:15 on Tuesday. Not a creature is stirring on the fifth floor where I had been ordered to report. Descending the stairs to the fourth floor, where Tatyana Konstantinovna’s office door is momentarily diligently guarded from unauthorized entry by someone’s husband, or lover, or father, or baby brother, who is disinclined to give way, or information, I hover, clutching my avoska. Exercising more fatigue than patience, I waylay an interminably mopping cleaning woman, followed by another incoming doctor in my search for enlightenment. Abjectly leaning against the moldy wall, I am graced with a Slavic shrug from the former, and a disheartening “She’s on vacation,” from the latter. This could be the simple truth, a reckless surmise, or diabolical disinformation. No harm in, and possibly a reward for hanging around a trifle longer. Rebuffed, dejected, now intent on the menopause brochure posted beside the office my doctor shares with another on alternate days and, sometimes hours, I, now seated, apparently, cease to pose a threat. The hedgehog headed youth pulls a packet of Chinese Chesterfields out of the front pocket of his black leather jacket, nervously retreating to the stairwell, but ready to spring should I incline myself toward the door handle. As I am, in any case, next in line, I decide to wait rather than altercate. At 7:05 pm, the patient and doctor emerge. With her characteristic equilibrium, Dr. TK scolds me for being late. In the next quick breath, she offers me the hitherto unavailable following day slot at 4:30. “That’s afternoon, not morning,” she adds, displaying no outward show of irony. August 3, 2000 “…What a’ we gonna tell our friends When they say, “Ooh, la la?” In the absence of my forgotten sheet, Tatyana Konstantinovna locates two paper hand towels for me to use to position strategic body parts on the edge of the examining table. The very edge, if you please, without dislodging the precious hand towels. Her feathery, russet hair flapping, she bobs and cranks, flinging my legs over the crutch-like rests. “Comfortable? Relax please.” I’m in her hands, gloved or not—wielding ancient looking instruments, sterilized or not. Worry is

pointless. In lieu of speculation, I lend an ear to the ubiquitous pop radio station, whining like a mosquito. No respite, even in this sanctum. It proves a successful diversion. I haven’t heard “Wake up Little Susie” since I was a renegade child of the bowling alley, where I spent long, wasted hours. Nonetheless, I anticipate the instantly remembered words, relieved that Tatyana Konstantinovna will not understand them: The movie wasn’t so hot. It didn’t have much of a plot. We fell asleep, our goose is cooked, Our reputation is shot. Wake up little Susie! Wake up little Susie! Well, what a’ we gonna tell your mama What a’ we gonna tell your pa? What a’ we gonna tell our friends When they say, “Ooh, la la?” I imagine some poor, nervous, teenage girl in my place. On her back, the sheets of paper ignominiously stuck to her bottom as she hangs off the edge of the table, not knowing what to do with her hands or where to look, desperately praying she isn’t pregnant, that the door won’t suddenly swing open. She loses herself in the bouncy, retro song. And I hope and trust her English isn’t a match for the lyrics.

Mark Blickley

An Army of Frogs I’m a dead frog and I don’t say this with any pity or understanding or shame it’s just an observation that people seem to like us, like us a bit too much because they like to push hooks through our jaws and cast us out to sea as well as amputate us for the sake of culinary culture and draw us as cartoon shuffling cigar smoking smart asses and they like to blame us when they choke on the phlegm in their throats and they swear that some of us give them hideous skin infections while the evil ones enjoy tossing us into their steamy potions as the younger ones imitate us with a game of leaps and crashes perhaps because we abandon our young and we larger ones like to eat the smaller ones and some of us are poisonous and have arrows dipped in our blood for killing others and snakes like to slide along with our swallowed bulges straining inside their bellies and we are stunned and frozen and sliced alive by school children with sharp tools yet we still swim and splash and smile because the sun warms our cold blood and reflects our moist green that gives summer its most vibrant color and the Chinese believe there is a toad in the moon not a man and the Japanese consider us good luck and that luck includes the

growing of long legs to hop away from dinosaurs which is why we are the best leapers on earth and millions of years ago became the first animal with any backbone to live on land and Shakespeare wrote that we wear a precious jewel in our head and best of all beneath the summer stars the sky is filled with our clucks and clicks and croaks of romance and camaraderie sprinkled within a flying feast of buzzing wings and microscopic swimmers and so this is what dead frogs will do just given the chance, a chance that will always destroy you. * * * “I don’t want to go to school today, Ma. I don’t feel well.” “You felt well enough to stay over Lamont’s house two hours past your curfew, playing video games. Now get up and get ready for school. And I mean now, Gregory John Burton!” The boy jumped out of bed. He knew that when his mother called him by his full name instead of the familiar Greg, she could not be argued with and was primed for the yelling that would most certainly alert his father and bring him into the conflict. As he scuffed his way towards the bathroom he thought about explaining to his mother why he had distracted himself to the point of disobedience at Lamont’s last night. They were both trying to erase the fear and anxiety of what was sure to be the most horrible day of their seven-year education the next morning. His father flung open the bathroom door, his waist wrapped in a purple towel as he delicately dragged a large comb through his thinning brown hair. “It’s all yours. How’s it going, Sport?” “Terrible,” answered Greg. “This morning we’re going to cut up a frog. Yuck.” His father paused his grooming to put a hand on his son’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, Greg. I remember not being too thrilled by the dissection my science teacher forced us to do, but he reminded us that we don’t kill the frogs, that they were already dead. And if we didn’t learn from their sacrifice, then their deaths were wasted. He also told us to pretend that we were surgeons cutting into a patient. It turned out to be quite interesting.” “Yeah, well the only cutting I’d like to do is to cut class today. Dissection’s disgusting. I mean, there’s already enough violence in schools.” “I suppose you have a point, Greg. I remember reading an article about that serial killer who cut up his victims and ate them. What was his name?” “Jeffrey Dahmer?” Yeah, that’s him. Right before the prison inmates killed him Dahmer gave an interview where he said that he became fascinated with blood and guts when his school gave him a knife and a dead animal to cut apart in biology class.” “Gee thanks, Dad.” His father made a silly face, scooped him off the ground and tossed him into the air. The squeals of delight coming from the boy temporarily made Greg forget about the brutal day he was about to endure until his sister Carol, hearing her brother’s screams of pleasure, trotted into the living room and demanded that her father also give her the chance to go airborne. Greg’s four and a half block walk to school took on the pace and enthusiasm of a killer being led down death row for a private sitting with an electrician. As he turned the corner he saw Kostas, Selim, and Pascal climbing the steep steps leading to the school’s entrance. When

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he shouted at them to wait up he thought that they, too, had a sickly look about them. The four of them silently scuffed their way to the classroom. Everyone except Regina Boloff was inside and in their seat. Greg didn’t think Regina would show up. Every time Mrs. Worton would give a math or spelling test, Regina would wet her pants and cry. When this happened, Mrs. Worton would send for the school nurse and Regina’s mother would come to pick her up and take her home. The day afterwards Regina was always absent. As Greg settled himself behind his desk, he noticed Regina walking in. This worried him. Because of the terrible importance of the day, even Regina’s embarrassment couldn’t allow her to stay home, and she certainly had made a huge mess the day before during the math quiz. But what really bothered Greg was that none of his classmates (or himself, for that matter) bothered to tease her. The class looked as if their thoughts were a million miles away. Mrs. Worton strolled in and put on a big smile, even bigger than the smile she gave when the class presented her with a large, multi-colored paperweight, shaped like an egg, for Christmas. Trumella Austin’s father took the seven dollars and sixty-four cents the kids had raised and picked it out for the class from the stationery store he owned. Greg thought it was a beauty. Behind his teacher’s smile Greg knew she was nervous too because she took roll call before the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag. Nothing was mentioned about what they had to do in a matter of hours. For the first time all year the classroom hours sped by. The clock read 10:30 when Mrs. Worton ordered them to lay down their pencils. She then distributed 11x15 sheets of construction paper to each student and told them they were to use it to create a frog map that they would fill in as they dissected their frogs. Greg raised his hand. “What do you mean by a frog map? I don’t understand.” Mrs. Worton looked sternly at Greg. “Had you been turning in your homework regularly the past two weeks, Mr. Burton, you would have known that the handouts I gave out in class were to prep you for this project.” “Why do we have to cut open a frog?” whined Regina. “What’s the point?” “The point,” said Mrs. Worton curtly, “is to satisfy national standards for sixth grade introduction to organs and organ systems.” “I get all the info I need about organs and organ systems by sneaking on to my father’s Spice Channel website,” Hector whispered to Greg. Both giggled. “Hector, is there something you’d like to share with the rest of the class?” asked Mrs. Worton. Hector shook his head. “Very well, then. As you cut away the layers of the frog’s anatomy, you will record your findings on your frog map. Everyone draw an outline of a frog using the markers I placed on your desks before you arrived this morning.” What followed was the greatest shock in a day already filled with much tension and apprehension. The frogs that Mrs. Worton handed out to each student weren’t dead and pickled, but alive. “Oh my God,” said Habib. “Gross,” said Sophia.

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“This is gonna be cool,” said Badra. “Your frogs have all been anesthetized so they won’t feel any pain,” Mrs. Worton smiled. “I bet,” muttered Greg. Mrs. Worton heard Greg’s remark but chose to ignore it. “The school paid extra so that we could observe the organ systems of a living frog,” she said rather proudly. “Before we begin the actual cutting, please weigh your frog and measure its length from snout to vent and record this data in the lower right hand corner of your frog map.” Greg waved his arm. “What’s a vent?” “Had you been studying like the rest of the class, you’d know that the vent is the cloaca.” “The what?” shrugged Greg. “It’s the ass, you ass,” whispered Badra. The moment Greg’s hand squeezed around his frog and felt it inhaling and exhaling, he wanted to run outside and set it free instead of lining up in the back of the classroom, waiting his turn to use the scale. But he figured what would the point of freeing it be? There aren’t any ponds around here. It would just get squashed by a car or some punk would shove a firecracker down its throat. After all the students measured and weighed their frogs and returned to their desks, Mrs. Worton pulled her desk to the center of the room to talk them through the surgery while slicing up her very own frog. “Our first step will be to decapitate the frog with your special dissection scissors and then pith its spinal cord with the pithing needle on your tray. The frog will twitch. Pithing greatly reduces the incidence and intensity of muscle contractions, thus simplifying the dissection.” Most of the class scrunched their faces with revulsion as they followed Mrs. Worton’s commands. “As you hold the frog’s head, “continued Mrs. Worton, “squeeze it with your thumb and index finger to open its mouth for easier insertion of the scissors into the mouth. Hold your frog against the tray with your palm as it may twitch while you are decapitating it.” Greg did as he was told and placed the lower scissor blade inside his frog’s mouth while the outer blade rested on the back of the frog’s head. Without applying much force, he was surprised how quickly the head was severed from the body. His frog twitched and contorted so violently that it jerked out of his hand and fell to the floor, where it flopped about like an awkward break-dancer trying to spin into a finale. Mrs. Worton hurried over, responding to the many shrieks of disgust surrounding Greg’s desk. “Didn’t I tell you to pith your frog?” she asked. Greg just stared at her as she picked up his headless frog and dropped it onto his tray. It continued to twitch. She handed him a pair of forceps and ordered him to lift the skin of the abdomen with them before cutting into the skin, from left to right. Greg made an incision with his dissecting scissors into the lower abdomen and then cut along the sides of the frog to make a flap of the skin and abdominal musculature. He then lifted the flap back and cut it off, exposing the internal organs that his teacher called the viscera. The exposed innards of the frog were such an appalling sight that it made Greg want to heave his breakfast. “Now cut off the intestine and urine duct from the hip to free the viscera from the body,” said Mrs. Worton. “Be careful not to touch the nerve when cutting.”

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Many nerves were touched in the classroom, and most of them belonged to the students. As he snipped through muscle fascia, hemostats, and the sciatic nerve of his frog, Greg felt terrible. He thought about the trauma he underwent weeks earlier, the day he had to get a stupid TB test. And that was simply a prick of his skin while his frog, who was alive and breathing when he first held him, was now dead and Greg was ordered to remove its skin because Mrs. Worton said the skin represented one of the ten body systems a frog needs in order to survive. One of the ten body systems they needed to expose and explore. She called the skin the Integumentary System, but flaying the frog proved too much for Greg. He lay down his scalpel and put a paper towel over his torn, mutilated amphibian. “Hey, Mrs. Worton,” said Victor. “What are gonna do we do with all of these frogs after we’re done?” “Victor, do you know what you call a group of frogs?” Victor shrugged.” What do you mean?” Mrs. Worton smiled. “Well, a group of fish is called a school. A group of geese are called a gaggle. A group of birds are called a flock. A group of horses are called a herd. But what do you call a group of frogs?” “Butchered,” muttered Greg. Mrs. Worton once again ignored Greg’s comment. “A group of frogs are called an army. An army of frogs.”

Emilio Iasiello Bedspins My girlfriend Susan calls me from jail. It’s late, around two or three in the morning. I haven’t gone to bed yet. I watch t.v. with the sound turned down. It’s something I’ve grown accustomed to over these past few weeks. So when the phone rings, I’m not even going to pick the damn thing up. I fully intend on letting the answering machine do its job. But I have guilt. I mean, this actually might be important and not some loser trying to get me to switch long distance carriers. So after the fourth ring, and despite my better judgement, I pick it up. “Hello?” She tells me she’s been arrested. She also slurs her words. I have to ask her two or three times before I understand what she’s trying to say. But to be fair, I’m not in my right mind either. I’ve had more than a couple of beers since she stormed out of my place at nine o’clock. Then she tells me -- orders me -- to come pick her up. She also says something else, an insult or a joke maybe, something I can’t quite make out. Then she laughs. She laughs so hard that someone takes the phone away from her. “Leonard Meadows,” says the voice. It tries to sound deep and authoritative, but it comes across young, maybe nineteen or twenty, a step or two removed from high school. Probably a rookie cop paying his dues with the graveyard shift. I listen to the voice say my name again and I imagine a wiry kid with an orange flat-top and acne still on his cheeks.

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“Yeah, I’m Meadows,” I reply. I close my eyes. Then I pick up my glass and hold it against my cheek. “Mr. Meadows, this is Officer Sullivan. Third Precinct. We stopped your girlfriend tonight -- this morning -- on the Post Road. She was weaving all over the place.” I close my eyes again. I feel the approach of a serious headache at the backs of my temples. “That’s too bad. I mean, that’s a shame.” A pause. I lift the glass to my lips. The ice has long since melted and I drink the diluted bourbon straight down. “Mr. Meadows, you still there?” “Yeah, I’m still here. Sorry, I was drinking something. Is she okay? No one hurt I hope?” “No, no one was hurt. But we’re going to keep her overnight. Until she sobers up. You can pick her up anytime tomorrow after nine a.m.” I hear Susan in the background. The cop stops and says something to her I can’t make out. “It’s standard policy, Mr. Meadows. You know where we are? The impound lot opens at ten.” “Yeah. Sure. Thanks.” Another pause. The kid stops again and I hear Susan arguing with him. She’s got attitude in her voice. I almost feel sorry for the poor kid. After a couple of minutes, he gets back on the line. “She’s lucky. I could have charged her, you know. She could be facing a serious charge. You tell her that.” “Sure. I will. I appreciate the call, officer –“ “Sullivan.” “Right, Sullivan. Officer Sullivan, I’ll pick her up tomorrow, thank you.” Before I hang up the phone, I hear Susan scream “Bastard!” Susan is the oldest of three sisters. They all look alike, that is, they could have been cut from the same cutter. They all have the same dark brown hair and stand within an inch or two of each other. Kathy is twenty-five, and the youngest Carol is twenty-three. If you didn’t know them and lined them up side by side, it would be difficult to tell who was who. Susan is no slouch in the looks department, but Carol is definitely the prettiest of the three. Kathy is nice looking too, but has an abrasive personality. She also has a two-year-old which explains a lot. That and the fact that the father took off soon after she was pregnant can do something to a person’s disposition. Sometimes the four of us go out, and I’ll get these looks from guys who must be thinking “what’s that mope have that I don’t have?” Sometimes some guys will take a chance, come over, make their move. I’ll say this for the sisters -- they don’t mess around with losers. They’re attractive enough to play the game on their own terms. I’ve watched several guys give it their best shot and walk away with their tail between their legs. We all get along okay. Sometimes, I’ll dance with each one of them, other times we’ll all dance in one big group. It’s a pretty sweet gig. I spend my time with three beautiful women, I drink all I want, and at the end of the night, I get to go home with one of them. That was before.

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Once when we first started dating, Susan asked me a question. We were over her sister’s house. It was summer. We had just come back from the complex pool and everyone was still in their bathing suits. Kathy’s kid was taking a nap upstairs. We were drinking gin and tonics on the deck, watching the neighborhood children play on the swings across the street. For a while, no one said anything. Then Susan got up and walked over to where Kathy and Carol were sitting. She put her arms around her two sisters and gave me a look. “Len’,” she said. “I want to ask you something. But you have to answer seriously.” Maybe it was the way she had said it. I should have realized something was up. But I didn’t, at least I didn’t think I did. “Shoot,” I said. She looked at one sister, then the other. “If I wasn’t in the picture, which one of my sisters would you date?” There was a split-second when I didn’t think I heard her right. Then I laughed. I couldn’t stop laughing. Was she kidding me? How was I supposed to answer something like that? “I can’t answer that,” I said, shaking my head. “I can’t even begin to answer that without getting into trouble.” But she insisted. They all did. The three of them pressed me to answer. Kathy rubbed baby oil onto her legs. Then she handed it to Carol who applied some to her already bronzed arms and shoulders. But they looked at me the whole time. They all seemed really interested in my choice. “No trouble. Honest. It’s a serious question. What’s the big deal? We’re all adults here. I don’t mind, I want to know. We want to know.” “Yeah,” Carol chimed in. “Who would it be? Me or Kathy?” I sipped my drink. I might have been buzzing, but I hadn’t lost my mind completely. The girls just kept on smiling. They were generally enjoying this. The sun glistened off their oiled-up skins. They looked pretty good. I smiled and shook my head again. “No way. There’s just no way.” “But there is one, right? You can tell us that at least. You have a preference, right?” I thought about it a moment. I carefully picked my words. “Yes,” I told them after a couple of minutes. “I have a preference.” “I knew it.” Susan turned to Kathy. “See, what did I tell you?” Susan and I met at school. We were both taking night classes. I was trying to finish up something I had started ten years before. But you never can finish what you start. That’s just a fact. I don’t remember what day it was -- Tuesday or Wednesday -- but it was warm out. I was leaning against a wall, smoking, watching the coeds lay out on the grass. I smoked a lot back then. I leaned a lot too. I spotted Susan and her sister Carol sitting on the steps near the student center. They were also smoking. The next night, I saw them again. This time they saw me looking. Carol said something to Susan. She said something back. I lit another cigarette. Then Carol nudged Susan hard on the shoulder. There was this look on her face but she got up anyway. She removed a cigarette from her pack and walked over to me. “Got a light?” she said.

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I told her I did. I lit her. She inhaled and blew the smoke out her nose. We did some talking. Carol watched from a distance, her eyes beaming. Susan and I exchanged numbers. The she started to walk away. “Hey!” I called after her. “What were you two talking about? Before.” She stopped, turned to me. “My sister. She said you had nice hair.” I had the hots for Carol. Sure, it was a physical thing, what isn’t? But I liked her for other reasons besides the obvious ones. I mean, there was substance behind the flash. She had goals. She wanted to be a doctor. In fact, she wanted to be one so bad, she refused to let anyone or anything stand in her way. She used to see a guy for a long time that wanted to settle down, move to a house with a lot of land around it, raise a family. The whole nine yards. They would argue about it for hours. I’m talking real shouting matches. I witnessed more than a handful myself. But in the end she dropped him like a hot potato, without so much as a second thought. Didn’t return any of his phone calls or anything. When she was fixed, everything else was secondary. She could be cold that way. Two weeks ago, Susan went away on business. Her company was sending her to Chicago for its annual sales seminar. She’d be gone all weekend and most of the following week. I drove her to the airport early that Friday morning. It was raining I remember. She told me to call up her sisters if I got too bored. They liked me, she said. They thought I was funny. I told her I wouldn’t be bored. I had things to do and I did. That was the God’s honest truth. I had a small hill of laundry piled in my room. My car needed its oil changed. And if that didn’t keep me occupied, there was always books and movies. I dropped her off in front of the terminal and gave her a small peck on the cheek. There were plenty of things for me to do I told her, not to worry. That night, I got a phone call from Carol. Someone was having a party, one of the other waitresses at work or something like that. Kathy couldn’t find a sitter and she didn’t have anyone to go with. Would I go with her? Besides, she added, there was this guy she wanted to see but didn’t want him to think she was desperate enough to come to a party alone. So I went. I mean, the only thing I had planned was getting drunk and watching a marathon of bad Spring Break movies on cable. She picked me up and we drove a half-hour to the house. It was an okay party -- there was a keg out on the back porch and mixed drinks in the kitchen. The best part of it was there were mostly women there. Every once in a while, the hostess, a girl with large sloppy breasts and a wide ass, pranced around from room to room carrying a tray of jello shots. Her lipstick had smudged so she looked drunker than she was. When a song she liked was played, she’d dance with this equally fat guy in the living room while still holding onto the tray. The fat guy would grind her then she’d grind him right back. A couple of cups had already fallen onto the rug and mashed into the thick shag. A few times, everyone had gathered in a circle and cheered these two on. It was some sight I tell you. Anyway, things happen. That’s the point of all this. Turned out the guy Carol wanted to see was hooking up with another waitress named Josie in one of the upstairs bedrooms. I don’t know if Carol actually caught them in the act, or if someone let the cat out of the bag, but she was furious. She started throwing them back. I’ve never seen a woman drink so fast.

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I made the rounds, talked with a few of the girls. I was buzzing pretty good by then. Later, Carol caught up with me in the kitchen. She handed me her empty glass. “What do you want?” “It doesn’t matter. Give me whatever you’re drinking.” So I fixed her a bourbon and soda. She took a sip and made a face. But she didn’t give up like some women would. She took another one. “How do you like that? I mean, can you believe that slut? She’s got a lot of nerve. And him? Jesus, don’t even get me started. That son of a bitch can fry ice for all I care.” She was pissed. She took another drink. I watched her throat rise and fall. “I ought to do something at work. Sabotage her tables or something.” She lifted her glass again. Some spilled out the corner of her mouth and dribbled down her chin. She didn’t seem to notice. “Is this a private conversation, or can anyone join in?” She stopped and looked at me a moment. Her mouth was open part way, as if she was about to say something. Then she closed it. She kept looking at me. I’m not sure if she saw the humor in my joke or not. There was something about the way she held her lips. She was always doing that -- asserting herself in the smallest gestures and making them seem significant. “What? Was I rambling? I was rambling, wasn’t I? I’m sorry. It just gets me so worked up, you know? You think you know someone and then they go and do something you’d never expect. Well, fuck ‘em.” She tipped back her glass and killed what was left. Then she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. She glanced at my glass then went to the kitchen sink to fix herself another. The music was going good out there. It was loud and had a heavy beat. Carol was swaying her hips as she poured the bourbon. I don’t know what I was thinking, if I was thinking. My hands reached out for her. They went to her waist. She kept on dancing. I pulled her in. She turned to me. I kissed her. She kissed back. We kept that way, kissing each other while everyone else danced their fool heads off in the other room. In the beginning when I was still trying to make a good impression, I’d do some light maintenance work for the sisters. Just little things around the house. If something had broken, or something needed to be tightened, I’d see what I could do before they called someone who’d charge an arm and a leg. Don’t get me wrong, I couldn’t build a deck from scratch, but I knew my way around a toolbox. I liked to tinker with things. A few days after the party, Carol started calling me once a week to do some odd jobs. Then whenever a free moment presented itself, Carol and I would do our thing. This past Saturday it was a leaky faucet in the downstairs bathroom. I was messing around under the sink when Carol came in. I could see her from the waist down. She was wearing a dark blue mini-skirt. She lifted it up. She wasn’t wearing panties. She came over to me and undid my belt. I stood up. She worked my pants down. We got it on right there. It was fine. From the window, I could hear Kathy and her son playing catch outside. Once in a while I saw their denimed legs running past. Then the world came crashing down. It was just one of those things. Who knows how Susan found out? Maybe the kid saw. Maybe Kathy. We weren’t careful, but we weren’t that

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obvious either. But like I said before, things happen. Without rhyme or reason, they just do. It’s a fact. Susan stayed at the sisters’ house. She wouldn’t return any of my calls. The few times I got Kathy on the line, she just swore at me and hung up the phone. I even tried writing a couple of letters to explain everything but either she didn’t get them or she tore them up like Kathy said she did. What was worse, Carol stopped talking to me too. She told me she had done a horrible thing and although Susan had forgiven her, she needed to repair the rift. What about me, I asked her. She said I had to live with my own conscience. Well, my own conscience was telling me I was getting the shit end of the stick. At one point I had two sisters, and now I had none. There was nothing left for me to do. I was at a loss. So I tried making up with Susan. I figured that was the right thing to do. I kept sending her things -- cards, flowers, whatever I thought she might like. I drew her funny cartoons and mailed them to her. I begged her to remember the good things between us. I put my heart on my sleeve. If I could just talk to her alone, see her eyes, then I had a shot. A week went by. Ten days. Then two weeks. Still nothing. I had just about given up hope. Then yesterday when I least expected it, she came over. I was sitting in the living room with my feet on the coffee table. Some college football game was on. I was drinking a beer but was considering switching to one of the darker liquors. She stood in the doorway, her hands jammed into the pockets of her leather jacket. “We have to talk,” she said. She looked horrible. She hadn’t put on any make-up, and there were dark circles under her eyes. She looked a bit bloated as well. She walked over to the sofa but decided on taking the chair instead. She didn’t even take off her coat. I got up. “Can I fix you something? Egg sandwich? Beer?” “I’ll take a beer.” I went into the kitchen and grabbed two beers. I opened hers and handed it to her. “You really screwed things up this time,” she said taking a sip from the bottle. “You took something perfectly good and honest and spoiled it.” “I know,” I told her. “You hurt me. You hurt my family. All right, my sister – she’s half to blame, but Christ, Len’, what were you thinking?” I wanted to tell her that there hadn’t been any emotional attachment involved. That I just wanted to have sex with her sister. Simple pure lust. I think it could have been okay if I could say that. In some strange way, I even think Susan would have understood. But the fact was, that wasn’t the truth at all. The real truth -- the sick thing -- was that all the while I was looking at her, I was picturing Carol’s face. God knows it wasn’t right, but there it was anyway. She caught me looking. She held it for a moment, then realizing, she turned her head. “Susan,” I said. “Don’t Susan, me you bastard! This isn’t some woman, it’s my sister. Don’t you realize what you’ve done? You’ve crippled something bigger than you, bigger than both of us.” She stood there a minute examining my reaction. I sipped my beer and stared out the window. A pick-up truck passed by with the words Atlantic Landscaping on the side. “You cheated on me, fucker,” she said and sat back down in her chair.

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Sometime later, we broke out the hard stuff. I don’t think either one of us moved after that. Every once in a while, she either cried or swore at me, one or the other. I took my medicine without much fight. It’s not like I could defend myself anyway. What was to defend? Besides, I learned a long time ago that if you’ve done someone wrong, it’s best to just let them vent. Even if it means they vent on you. Susan started over again, bringing up the facts, rehashing the whole situation. How did we get to here from there? “Len,” she said. “Huh?” “Do you understand now? Do you see what I’m saying? I don’t think I can trust you. I think I still love you. At least part of me does. But I don’t think the other part will ever love again.” “You’re talking foolish,” I said. But my heart wasn’t in the words. “We can still make it good.” “I don’t know. I can’t be certain of anything anymore. It’s like when you get stressed, you know? Everything attacks you at once. You can’t breathe, you can’t think straight. And there’s this pounding in your heart you can’t stop.” She paused to finish what was in her glass. “I need some distance between us, Len’. I want this distance. I need to slow down and breathe.” It was dark outside. The t.v. was still on, a pretty thing was anchoring the local news. She had long blonde hair, slim face. Not drop-dead gorgeous, but someone you’d take a second look at. I had read somewhere that she was voted Local Celebrity Viewers Most Wanted to See in a Thong. There was even a picture of her accepting the honor, an embarrassed smile fixed to her mouth. Susan droned on, but I had tuned her out. There were other things on my mind, like Carol. I wondered what she was doing. I wondered how she was handling all this. If she was at home walking through the house, reliving it moment by moment, as I had so many times. I could picture her smoking a cigarette, standing in deep thought as she toured the various rooms. I wondered if she looked at places like the bathroom and thought the same things I did. Isn’t it always like that? One moment you think you have the greatest girl in the world, and the next, you wind up wanting something else. Susan finished her drink and poured some more. Her face was flushed, the cheeks rosy pink. Her eyes had glossed over and reflected the lamplight. ‘Yoo-hoo, Lenny, are you there? Are you listening to me?” When she left, things were still unsettled. The thing was, I didn’t know what to think. The booze made my head heavy, made it difficult to move from one idea to another. So it wasn’t like I could figure anything out. I couldn’t determine what pieces went where. Hell, I could barely scratch my neck no less make sense of anything. The alcohol made everything slow. I was in some shape. I hadn’t been this bad off since my college days. I remembered when my father finally accepted that he was going to die, he had stopped trying to fight it. He had put up a good front for a little bit, but then one day he gave up the charade. It was like that morning he woke up and just knew. He laid in that hospital bed and didn’t move another muscle. I think he must have realized that struggling wasn’t going to help him one way or the other.

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I sat that way on the couch barely moving. It was a struggle to lift the glass to my lips so after a while I just didn’t bother. It wasn’t like I needed any more. I just sat there blinking straight ahead like some gelatinous mass. But then that phone call came and got me thinking again. That damn call. What was I supposed to do now? I get up from the sofa. The t.v.’s still on. Re-runs from The Honeymooners. That fat guy I like so much is going nuts. His eyes are bulging and his face looks like it’s going to pop any second. Although the sound is off, I can tell by his erratic movements the exact words coming out his mouth: “To the moon, Alice!” he pantomimes to the woman in front of him. “To the moon!” I put a hand on the arm of the sofa. I concentrate, lean all my weight against it, then push up. It’s not easy. It takes three times and a lot of effort, but finally I’m on my two feet. The blood rushes from my head. My knees buckle. I steady myself against the sofa as the living room reels around me. I weave my way to the door. Everything moves in a wonderful slow-motion. When I was in college, I used to love to get bed-spins. I used to lie on my back with my arms spread and close my eyes and feel the room revolve around me. It was like some crazy merry-go-round I couldn’t get off or control. Outside it’s pitch-black. The moon is big and white in the night sky like a communion host. The houses on the block are still. Even their porch lights are off. It’s mid-November and even though I’m dressed in only a t-shirt and jeans, I can’t feel a thing. We’ll talk tomorrow, that’s what she said. There were issues to talk about. About Carol. About us. I told her fine. The more talk the better. That’s the way these things were done. You talk and talk until there’s nothing left to talk about. And only then when everything is talked through and analyzed to death is something decided. I’m dizzy. I almost fell down the steps. I just barely caught myself on the railing, more luck than anything else. Carefully, I sit down. I need to catch my breath. I can feel my pulse in my temples. I bury my head in my hands and breathe purposely like Susan says she has to do. I close my eyes and gather my thoughts. Carol. Susan. Susan. Carol. The whole world is spinning.

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IX MIGRANT

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Obediah Smith Have you anything to Declare locked into being me into being how I am, who I am, what I am or what I assume I am what is going on where the no body that I assume I am meets the somebody whom I assume I am what about where these interlock what if there is where Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m stuck what if here is where I am disabling the system what if right there is where there is breakdown, malfunction what if it is necessary to let go of both these ends to cease being stuck- to become fluid for the flow of being to continue to be dynamic what am I missing out on that is automatic being fixed in being me, in being how I am and who I am am I myself preventing me from attaining greater heights though with all my heart I desire to though I try to even with all my might

To get at where only Words can go about the friends that I have lost

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who upon parting and since seem to regard me with contempt I apologize for whatever harm or hurt I might have caused I assure you, it was inadvertently, whatever it was that offended, never deliberate, never intentional these separations, these severed ties always do- always have left me with eyes wide, lower jaw, lowered until nearly resting upon my chest mouth left open wide, mystified, wondering, whatever could I have done how drastically could I have been misunderstood left hating who loves them still who loves them dearly write poetry to keep my heart as clean as my hands that I wash with soap, compulsively why, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d wonder, would they have abandoned such a ship not on fire, not sinking what, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d wonder, could they have been so mad about displeased about might they have been chased awayincompatible with the truth that I insist upon telling incompatible with

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my attempt always, probably naively, to be entirely real

Johnny Cash no longer able to play his Guitar and Sing an old celebrity, a curious entity look and marvel, look, amazed, that age affects those on screen on TV, in movies just as it does ordinary us just as it does those of us who are not in movies, on TV those of us who are not celebrities not rich, not famous what happens to whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s on earth, to whoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s on earth as it orbits the sun, as it spins, is an impact so similar the difference money makes, fame makes, it seems is miniscule indeed dying, aging, illness, disease little money, it seems, can do about these see a billionaire, James H. Simons, old and tired, ordinary looking unaware that he was a billionaire until it was, in passing, mentioned look at Queen Elizabeth even an old woman now nothing she can do about it what a difference we imagine

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it would make to have money, status, fortune, fame feel left out without having attained these see those who did though unable to do anything about their loved ones dying or about themselves succumbing to the things that the rest of us do we who consider ourselves lowly but who isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t and subject to the laws that govern all things and us all and no one exempt, and no one escapes

Nadine Thomas-Brown Sadness Shadows loom. Their dark sooty hands stretching thin seep through the cracks in her faĂ§ade painting rainbow years black. Plastic smiles begin to crack, worn out like window blinds And nerves fray as threads unravel from the worn tapestry, vibrant once but now faded tattered with the years soot of shadows ever looming clings like stale cigarette smoke. And long ago laughter echoes through the corridors Of her memory Where gray cobwebs now mock

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Once pristine remembrances And the darkness unchecked By sunlight slithers menacingly Its hostile takeover complete.

Miscarriage VIEWING HER AS HOSTILE TERRITORY THE BABY FLED IN A SEA OF RED AND ALL SHE HAS TO REMIND HER THAT HE EXISTED IS A SMALL RECTANGULAR BOX WITH TWO HORIZONTAL LINES.

Dahlia James Williams Regret Regret like a mongrel dog Keeps nipping at my heels Reminding me of errors made in hasty callous zeal. The opportunities I let slip by The chance I didn’t take If only I’d done that My life would have been great. And of the things that I did do Of which I am ashamed Regret keeps reminding me My sins it seemed to frame. Regret like a mongrel dog Keeps nipping at my heel Reminding me of mistakes made My wounds it won’t let heal.

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McCollonough Ceili Loss The smell of loss is the aroma of burning wood. It stays with you long after the fire is gone. It tastes like sour fruit That has spent too much time in the sun. A sea of salt water fills your heart And overflows into your eyes. Loss has a sound so loud it can make you shake, Yet, at the same moment, can be so quiet that those around you don't even hear it. It makes you feel like you are in a whirlwind of emotions, With no calming eye. V. Ramsamooj Gosine The Moving Finger Sitting squat on a branch With birth-freedom at its side The jewelled parrot on thin legs Beak filled with orange The treeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s orange. A wind stronger than a Maracas wave Swept through, orange and parrot stood Accepting the challenge Amidst celebration A crack of gun, a flash of lightening Orange and parrot doomed. Over the hill a joyful laughter Like a la diablesse Parrot head up, feathers ruffled Confused, eyes barely alert Searching, so it seems, the dead leaves Looking for its fledglings Its drooping beak inching down A sniff, a head held high A plunge And parrotâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s gone to iron wish

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Lelawattee Manoo-Rahming For Fiona We will not reconnect not in this sphere. She has gone to ground like one of her mother's botanical bulbs, or like Persephone, or Sita. Perhaps there she embraced her father who showed her the portal he built in the underworld. Maybe she passed through that doorway in a cloud of sandalwood smoke and connected with my siblings in a meadow of rain lilies.

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X PRODIGAL

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Joey Garcia Frank Sinatra Saved My Life My mother plops a brown paper grocery bag in the trunk of her Cougar, slams it closed, and slides into the driver’s seat. The rosary she brought from Belize, hangs from the neck and shoulders of the rear view mirror. Squeezing her eyes closed, she mumbles prayers, gravelly and low like a bush doctor, her fingers twisting each bead clockwise until the crucified Christ lies under her thumb. The wood beads are black from her touch. When she came home from Century 21 today and invited me to go for a ride, I knew something was wrong. My mother hates my glasses, my overbite and my habit of chewing my fingernails while I read. She spends as little time with me as possible. “Buckle up,” she says to me, eyes flying open. I already have. She backs out of the super-low driveway too fast and the front end of the car bounces hard against the concrete. “Sheee-it!” Her accent sugars the curse but I pretend fascination with the elm tree next door, just in case. The Caribbean Ava Gardner—that’s how my mother thinks of herself. Every morning she draws a mole near her mouth with a Maybelline eye pencil, after marking a black line above the top lashes of each eye. In the screen version of her life, I would never be cast as her daughter, and not just because of my glasses. I’m also taller than everyone else in fourth grade, including the teacher. At the stop sign, she turns to me with a Chiclet smile. “Are you excited about fifth grade?” Summer vacation just started. Why would I be thinking about September? “Maybe you’ll get a boyfriend.” My right hand lifts, index finger ready to mime gagging, but I don’t want to risk vexing her. I go back to gripping the door handle. Last year I had nightmares about being locked in the car with her. I feel safer with one hand ready for escape. “Did you hear? Maybe you’ll get a boyfriend.” Stephen Donegan said he would be my boyfriend. All I had to do was show him where I found the salamanders I keep in the aquarium in my garage, and maybe, help him catch one or two. Boyfriends are super-easy to get at Catholic school. Lots of girls at my school find boyfriends behind the portable art building by the basketball courts. But I don’t want my mother to know much about me so I just say: “Hmmm.” My mother slams a hand against the blue steering wheel. “Why are you so ungrateful? Yoo nevah waahn taak. Hoo yoo tink yoo deh, Mis Laydi?” In my head I karate chop her words into smithereens like Agent 99 smacking bad guys on Get Smart. Outside the car window, the houses look tired. “Mom, the freeway is faster.” “Slowly, slowly, taiga ketch mongki,” she says, slipping into Kriol again. It’s the way everyone talks back home in Belize. “May I turn on the radio?” I ask, after I’ve already done it. President Nixon’s voice arches toward us promising to withdraw 25,000 soldiers from Vietnam by September. My mother isn’t listening.

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She veers left on Monarch Bay Drive, and I turn to look at Marina Park. Two kids my age swing from the jungle gym, laughing. “We’re almost there!” my mother calls out merrily, as if I am dying to reach our destination. Four blocks later she slams on the brakes. Our bodies lurch forward and bounce back against the seats. “Good thing we’re wearing seat belts,” she says and turns off the car. I bend forward to squint past her at the small house. A beefy man is ripping yellow “Police Line Do Not Cross” tape off the wrought iron porch railing. Sinewy strips of reddish-brown paint peel away from window trim and roofline, exposing blanched wood. My mother makes a little “Heh!” sound and taps the horn lightly. The man straightens up. Holding one thick hand above his eyebrows, he stares at the car. My mother pops out, waving like a parade queen. I stay put. Outside the car, my mother sinks down until her face is framed by the driver’s side window. She taps the glass with two red-lacquered fingernails the way she sometimes bothers my salamanders. “Get out,” she mouths. Her eyes are the color of ripe coconuts. I crack open the car door. She straightens up, smoothes her skirt, and cradles her purse in the crook of an elbow. “Wait here,” she says over her shoulder. Her high-heeled sandals click-clack toward the man. She hands him her business card, and they disappear into the house. I feel silly standing in the street so I run to the porch. Pulling the ratty aluminum door toward me, a few inches at a time, I edge inside. A few seconds later, my eyes adjust and I can see beyond the shadows. Fairy dust glides down a shaft of light streaming from a slit between the avocado-colored curtains in the living room. Something ripe and rotten hovers. It smells like our neighbor’s puppy after it ran into a car. Three giant steps toward the sofa, and I can see through the kitchen, past the busted sliding glass door, to a weedy backyard. A faded Big Wheel tricycle is tipped sideways in the dirt. My mother and the man are at the end of the hallway, talking. Stepping forward again, one hand clamped over nose and mouth to block the stink, I fix my eyes on that dusky tunnel. I want to see her before she sees me. Just then, I don’t know why, I glance down. The toe of my sandal touches a murky stain on the carpet, its edges ragged like the map of a state I don’t quite recognize. A startled cloud of flies surges, clogging the air with the stink of blood, poop, peroxide and rancid meat. I leap back, trip on my fear, and scream. My mother pokes her head out of a room at the end of the hallway. “What are you doing?” she shrieks. I freeze. “No harm done,” says the man, gently. “Is this your daughter?” My mother stands at the end of the hallway, one hand on her hip, head ticking in a series of sharp No-Nos meant only for me. “Hello, I’m Cynthia,” I say, walking toward the man. Still trembling, I extend my hand the way I’ve been taught to do. He beams, and pumps my hand a few times. My mother frowns. Thinking better of it, she rubs the spot between her brows with two fingers.

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Behind her, in a bedroom closet, I see a few dresses and one white blouse dangling from hangers, freckled with Nestle’s chocolate, a real mess. Wire hangers elbow out of an overstuffed suitcase on the naked bed. A handprint as perfect as the plaster one I made in kindergarten, marks a wall, but this one is rust-colored. A bottle of bleach waits in the corner. “Keep whatever you want,” the man says. “Call St. Vincent de Paul to pick up the rest. Get rid of it all, okay?” He lets out a low whistle. “Wouldja look at that?” Clapping his hands twice, he beelines to a room across the hall. “Come here, young lady,” he says, rubbing his hands together. Keys and coins jingle in his pants pocket as I trail him to the den. The closet doors are missing and the closet itself has been fitted with a table. On the tabletop two cardboard boxes sit, each labeled “Records” in large, squarish capital letters. The man flips through a box, fingers transiting the albums. The edges of the albums are ripped and furry, like a cocoon after the moth has freed herself, and flown away. “Do you like music?” I don’t know if I like music or not. But I catch a glimpse of my mother’s face from the corner of my eye. I know what my answer better be. I give him my school portrait smile. “My brother-in-law had excellent taste. This will be a music education,” he says. “Won’t he mind if you give it to me?” “Cynthia!” my mother says in her machete-voice. I study my toes. “It’s okay,” he says to her. He places his big hands on his knees, crouching until he and I are face to face. “My sister, brother-in-law, niece and nephew are all dead.” He exhales heavily. A minty smell lingers. “I’m sorry,” I whisper. His face is sad but kind. He doesn’t look like he might cry. My mother hates seeing men cry. “Thank you. It’s all over now, except for the selling of this house. But your momma’s gonna take care of that, right?” My mother and I both nod as if we agree on something. He rises again. “Well, let me carry these boxes out to the car for you. This is heavy. Don’t leave it in the car in this heat. The records will warp, and you won’t be able to enjoy any of it.” We drive away, waving at the man. When we cross Mission Boulevard into Hayward, my mother clears her throat. “Don’t say anything to your father.” “About what?” She sucks her teeth. “Cho!” “What happened to that man’s family?” “They’re dead.” “Please tell me. Please?” “Curiosity killed the cat.” “I’m not a cat.”

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Outside the passenger-side window, four girls my age play on a front lawn. They take turns sliding down a long piece of plastic, slick with water pouring full force from a garden hose. A girl with a high ponytail makes a running start, surfs, loses her balance, falls on her bottom, slips and slides to the finish, squealing all the way. The other girls lean on one another, holding their ribs, laughing. Water flows off the lawn, rushing across the sidewalk, hurrying down the gutter toward the storm drain. I chew the inside of my cheek remembering. “I saw a big stain on the living room carpet.” “That was from the blood,” my mother says. “The husband shot his wife and the two kids. Then he shot himself.” “Why?” “Because ‘why’ is a crooked letter and you can’t straighten it.” “Mom! Please tell me.” “Who knows? I guess he got tired of them.” In one of these backyards, someone pours lighter fluid over charcoals, strikes a match and tosses a couple of steaks on, at least that’s what it smells like. The grill feels close. “You know your father hates second-hand things,” my mother says, pulling into our driveway. “Come wash your hands and set the table for dinner. You can carry those records into the house after he’s asleep.” She opens the car door and swings her legs out in one fluid motion. I leap out of the passenger side. “But the man said not to leave the records in the car.” “They will be fine,” my mother says with a little smile. “No. I’ll carry it all in first, then I’ll help you with dinner.” “Don’t let your father catch you. He’ll throw it all out.” She gives me a once over, shakes her head and click-clacks away. I lift an armload of albums, hugging them like schoolbooks. It takes six trips to hide the records in my closet. Thin red welts rise across my skinny arms from squeezing the stacks too hard. “What are you doing?” my father says to me as I head toward the kitchen. “Setting the table.” He is sitting in the burnt orange Barcalounger, wearing a white short-sleeve undershirt and faded jeans. The Daily Review newspaper is open on his lap. On the elevated footrest, his bare feet loll, blocking the five o’clock news. “I noh know wai yu noh kuk dinna. All yu du dah reed. Gal, I noh deh play. Yu noh have notn gohn aan fi yu, fi troo. Wai yu noh laan du sohnting yoozful?” His face is as hard as a cohune. He starts to raise his hand. “I don’t know,” I say. “Weh mek she seh dat?” he says, putting the weight of his legs against the footrest, lowering it to the ground. The newspaper shudders. “I’ll go help Mom,” I say, stepping out of reach. That night, the dark shakes me from sleep. A dead man’s records are buried in my closet. What if he haunts me? What if he possesses my Dad, and kills me, like in the Twilight Zone’s “Dead Man’s Shoes”? Crawling from bed to kneel on the floor, I squish my elbows into the mattress and lace my fingers. “God, please, help me. Please make it safe for me to be alive.”

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Stupid, I know. God has never answered my prayers. I wake to yelling. My body scrambles to the floor, belly to hardwood. With one ear posted to the bottom edge of my door, I quiet my breath. Glass shatters. My mother screams: “Neville!” My father’s voice is low, muffled. My mother sobs. Then the shower grinds on in their bathroom. Minutes later an electric mixer whirrs. I open my bedroom door and wedge through, holding my breath, listening. It’s safe. Hopping to the opposite side of the hallway, I inhale clouds of cinnamon, bananas and yeast floating from the kitchen. In the dining room, crouched behind the table, I watch my mother at the stove making pancakes. She holds a baggie of ice to her jaw. I scurry back to my bedroom to finish reading “Up A Road Slowly” until she calls me to eat. After breakfast, my mother drives to work at Century 21. In the garage, Vida Blue pitches while my dad tinkers. The radio’s volume climbs over the jigsaw’s hiss. I slide my closet door open, and pull out a stack of records. My Uncle Harry gave me a record player two years ago with a short stack of 45s, some yellow, others black, each stuffed with stories about Paul Bunyan, Johnny Appleseed and other American heroes. “Now you know what the American kids know,” he said, after I ripped away the wrapping paper. One record in my new stack is missing its cardboard sleeve. The disc says “Joe Williams” on the paper glued to its center. Placing the needle on a groove between songs, I flick the volume to medium. I want to hear when my father enters the house. The record crackles and spits. An orchestra bursts in: “Every day! Every day I have the blues. Every day! Every day I have the blues….” Sinking onto the bed, I lay back to listen. The sun slivers through still-closed curtains, dusting me with light. “Whoa, nobody loves me, nobody seems to care. Worries and trouble, darling, well you know I’ve had my share.” Perspiration prickles my face and neck. I jump off the bed, agitated and jiggly. A fever flames through my body, knotting into my belly. No one I know has ever said anything like that. It’s the kind of stuff I think about, a lot. I sit on the floor, next to the record player, and close my eyes. The music explodes, holiday fireworks punching the air and interrupting the singer’s lonesome wailing about his sad life. “Don’t cry,” I whisper and smash the heels of my hands into my eyes. A fat tear plops down anyway, right on a record in the stack. On the cover, a smiling man wears a big hat on his small head while couples swing dance gaily in the distance. “Hello, Frank Sinatra,” I say, dropping the needle on his record. It skips across the vinyl. Frank’s voice takes flight: “I’ve got plenty of nothing and nothing’s plenty for me.” Flipping through the albums, I pluck out the Sinatras, saving them into a separate pile like really good trick-or-treat candy. “You’d be so nice to come home to,” Frank sings.

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Lying back on my bed, I try to imagine what it might feel like if someone, somewhere, was happy when I walked in the door. In a room, streaming with sunshine and encircled by shelves and shelves of books, two people my parents’ height, open their arms to embrace me as I— “Hey,” my father says. Instantly, my body tilts upright, and I’m screaming before I can stop myself. I didn’t hear him walk into the room. My father laughs, his gold-framed front tooth flashing. He makes a show of looking around. “What are you doing?” I flinch from habit. “Nothing,” I promise, leaping up to turn the music off. “It’s lunchtime,” he says. “You must be doing something.” His eyes are the color of slate dragged from the bottom of the Belize River. “Uh, Mom, left you a sandwich. Let me get it ready for you.” My hands tremble, but my voice is steady and light. Ducking out of reach, I run to the kitchen, pour a big glass of 7Up with plenty of ice, peel the Saranwrap off his sandwich and place it on the table. Slowly, I make myself a salami sandwich, so I don’t have to sit and eat with him. My father is tall, thin, brown as a palm tree. At the table, he sways forward to take a bite, back to chew, breezing through his lunch. “Your mom should teach you to make sandwiches. Look at you. You can’t make food. You spend the whole day in your room. No one will marry you unless you can cook.” He shoots a crumpled white napkin into the center of his plate, and pushes away from the table, slamming the door to the garage on the way out. I rinse his dish and glass, push his chair in, Saranwrap my sandwich and place it in the fridge. At the record player again, I hold the rim of a Sinatra record crosswise against the heartline of each palm, and lower the disc to the turntable. “Call me irresponsible, call me unreliable, throw in undependable, too. Frank’s voice is smooth and sure of itself, convincing. Resting on the bed again, I wonder if there really are people in this world who will love you even if you aren’t perfect, if you’re not exactly what they expected. People who won’t get tired of you, who won’t hurt you. Someone who would hold you deep in their heart just because they like having you that close. It could happen. Frank says so.

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CONTRIBUTORS Shazia Ali is a Professor of English at Eastfield College in Dallas, Texas. She was born in Karachi, Pakistan and spent her childhood in Dubai. As a teenager she returned to Karachi and worked there as a journalist for 3 years. She has been living in Dallas, TX for almost 17 years. She received her PhD in Humanities and Literature from the University of Texas at Dallas and has been writing poetry and fiction for the past decade. She has been published in Red River Literary Journal, thirtyseventhirtyseven, Scarlet Leaf Review and several other literary journals. Her recent poem was published in the anthology Cattlemen and Cadillacs. Jeff Bakkensen lives in Boston. Recent work has appeared in A-Minor Magazine, Oblong Magazine, Smokelong Quarterly, and The Antigonish Review. Mark Blickley is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild and PEN American Center as well as the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation Scholarship Award for Drama. He is the author of Sacred Misfits (Red Hen Press), Weathered Reports: Trump Surrogate Quotes from the Underground (Moira Books) and the forthcoming text based art book, Dream Streams (Clare Songbirds Publishing). His video, Widow's Peek: The Kiss of Death, was selected to the 2018 International Experimental Film Festival in Bilbao, Spain. He is a 2018 Audie Award Finalist for his contribution to the original audio book, Nevertheless We Persisted. Gary Brocks is a professional musician, lyricist/songwriter, and educator. His lyrics for jazz compositions have been published by Second Floor Music. His performance history includes Jazz, R&B, Rock, Latin and Haitian music. Gary is currently working on a manuscript of poetry and short stories, and has recorded the first half of an album to be released under his name. Gary has taught at the elementary, secondary and university level. McCollonough Ceili is an Irish/American author. Ms. Ceili got the writing bug after being asked to write about her life on the island known to the locals as Noria. Noria was published in 2009, and since then she has shown no signs of slowing down when it comes to writing, and publishing books for all ages. Ms. Ceili is also the creator and author for a children's corner in her local paper. If you would like to see a children's corner in your paper, contact Ms. Ceili with the name of your paper, and she will see what can be done. Anguilla-born Dayna Fleming studied Literatures in English at the UWI Cave Hill Campus. She graduated in 2018 with First Class Honours. In 2017 she entered the Dorien Pile national literary competition and was awarded third prize in the senior category for the piece published here. Frederick K. Foote, Jr. was born in Sacramento, California and educated in Vienna, Virginia, and northern California. He started writing short stories and poetry in 2013. Since 2014 Frederick has published over two-hundred stories and poems including literary, science fiction, fables, and horror genres. Frederick has published two short story collections, For the Sake of Soul, (2015) and Crossroads Encounters, (2016).

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Joey Garcia was born in Belize and raised in the U.S., Joey Garcia is the founder of the Belize Writers' Conference, April 6 - 11, 2019 (www.joeygarcia.com/events). She has received a Pushcart nomination, poetry fellowships in Italy and Paris, and an award from Randall Jarrell International Poetry Competition, among others. Her poems and short stories have been published in Calyx, Tule Review, Farallon Review, The Caribbean Writer, and several anthologies. She is also the author of the award-winning nonfiction book, When Your Heart Breaks, It's Opening to Love: Healing and Finding Love after an Affair, Heartbreak or Divorce. For twenty one years Joey has written the “Ask Joey” advice column for the Sacramento News & Review . See her in the new documentary, The Cure, along with other international healers and philosophers including Deepak Chopra and Marianne Williamson. V. Ramsamooj Gosine, a former teacher, was educated at Corinth Teachers’ College and UWI. . His work has been published in The Caribbean Writer and BIM and broadcast on the BBC. He has received awards from the National Cultural Council, The Hindu Women Organization and the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association. He is the author of six books and has been one of the major contributors to two books on Chaguanas, one of the major towns in Trinidad, W.I. Robert Harland teaches Spanish and occasionally French at Missisippi State University in the United States. He is originally from Birmingham, England and has lived in Wales, Scotland, France, Spain and Mexico. Occasionally he writes poetry or songs, but spends much of his time reading or watching Spanish and Mexican books and movies, or doing martial arts very badly. Tomas Sanchez Hidalgo holds a BBA (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid), a MBA (IE Business School), a MA in Creative Writing (Hotel Kafka) and a Certificate in Management and the Arts (New York University). His works have been published in magazines in the USA, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, Chile, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Barbados, Germany, UK, France, Spain, Turkey, Ireland, Portugal, Romania, Nigeria, South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, India, Singapore and Australia. He has currently developed his career in finance and stockmarket. Dee Horne is a Professor of English at the University of Northern British Columbia. She has family and friends in Barbados. The beauty of the island and the respectfulness and generosity of Barbadians inform her poetry. Kevin Jared Hosein was born and raised in Trinidad and Tobago. He has published three books: The Beast of Kukuyo (2017 Burt Award for Caribbean Literature), The Repenters (Fiction shortlist, 2017 OCM Bocas Prize) and Littletown Secrets. His accolades include twice winning the Commonwealth Short Story Prize, in 2018 and for the Caribbean in 2015. He was also twice shortlisted for the Small Axe Literary Prize for Prose. His writings are published in numerous anthologies and outlets including Lightspeed, Adda and Moko Arts & Letters. He is currently working on a horror novel entitled The Nest. Emilio Iasiello is the author of the middle grade fiction book The Web Paige Chronicles, a short story collection Why People Do What They Do, and a nonfiction book, Chasing the Green. He

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has published poetry in several university and literary journals and written the screenplays for several independent feature films and short films. His stage plays have been produced in the United States and United Kingdom. He lives in Virginia with his amazing wife and two children. Dahlia James-Williams is a Jamaican teacher, artist and poet. She grew up in the parish of St. Mary and later moved to Kingston to pursue tertiary education at Shortwood Teachers’ College. After graduating, Dahlia taught for several years before pursuing a B.A. in Visual Arts at the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine Campus and subsequently a M. Phil in Cultural Studies at the same institution. Her love for poetry started in her formative years but she began writing in her adolescence. During that period, Dahlia started writing and reciting her poems at church functions. Her first published poems were “Joe Grind” and “A Gun a mi Head” in the Caribbean Review of Gender Studies. Allan Lake has lived in Vancouver, Cape Breton Island, Ibiza/Spain, Tasmania, Western Australia, now calls Melbourne home and retreats to sunny Sicily often. He has published two collections: Tasmanian Tiger Breaks Silence (1988), Sand in the Sole (2014) plus a chapbook, Grandparents: Portraits of Strain (1994). Lake won Elwood(Aus) Poetry Prize in 2015/16, Lost Tower Publications(UK) Poetry Competition 2017 and Melbourne Spoken Word Poetry Festival/The Dan Competition 2018. Lelawattee Manoo-Rahming is a Trinidadian Bahamian Mechanical/Building Services Engineer, poet, fiction writer and artist. Lelawattee has won the David Hough Literary Prize (2001) and the Canute A. Brodhurst Prize (2009) from The Caribbean Writer. She has also won the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association 2001 Short Story Competition. Her first book of poetry, Curry Flavour, was published in 2000 by Peepal Tree Press. Her second collection of poetry, Immortelle and Bhandaaraa Poems, which was shortlisted for the inaugural Proverse Literary Prize (2009) and which contains some of her artwork, was published in 2011 by Proverse Hong Kong. In 2013 Lelawattee was shortlisted for the Hollick Arvon Caribbean Writer’s Prize for Fiction. Ronteé Marshall is currently studying Literatures in English at the University of the West Indies Cave Hill Campus in Barbados. She believes she has the best lecturers that a young author can hope for. Her creative writing class with Robert Leyshon encouraged her to develop her writing. It’s also how she learnt of the prestigious Dorien Pile national literary competition: she won second prize in the 2017 competition for the piece published in this issue of POUi. Diane G. Martin is a Russian literature specialist, Willamette University graduate, winner of the Diana Woods Memorial Award for Creative Nonfiction, has published poetry, prose, and photography in numerous literary journals including New London Writers, Vine Leaves Literary Review, Poetry Circle, Open: Journal of Arts and Letters, Breath and Shadow, the Willamette Review of the Liberal Arts, Portland Review of Art, Pentimento, Twisted Vine Leaves, The Examined Life, Wordgathering, Dodging the Rain, Antiphon, Dark Ink, Gyroscope, Poor Yorick, Rhino, Conclave, Slipstream, Stonecoast Review— including cover photo— Steam Ticket, Third

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Wednesday, Pigeonholes, Shantih, Zingara, Shooter, The Grief Diaries, Lunch Ticket, Lady Liberty, Lowestoft Chronicle, The Ekphrastic Review, and forthcoming in Tulane Review, Soliloquies, The Bangor Literary Journal, The Helix Magazine, Poui, and again in Stonecoast Review and Third Wednesday. Long-time resident of Nevada, Oregon, San Francisco, CA, Maine, USA, St. Petersburg, Russia, and Sansepolcro, Italy, Diane has traveled throughout much of the world, often reluctantly. The themes of exile, disability, and displacement pervade her work. She has completed several books of poetry, as well as a recently completed a collection of creative nonfiction pieces. Chalya Princess Miri-Gazhi is a Nigerian whose story "Anfara" was published in Grain Magazine. Another of her short stories, "Kokosikoko" has appeared in Kalahari Online Review. An MBA graduate from the University of Hull, UK, she runs her own small business in corporate event facilitation while pursuing her passion for writing. She grapples often with the question of diversity, often exploring the strength and conflicts arising from the diverse influences of her multi-ethnic country, Nigeria. Ana Portnoy Brimmer is a Puerto Rican poet/performer, writer and ARTivist. She holds a BA and an MA in English from the University of Puerto Rico, and is an MFA candidate in Creative Writing at Rutgers University-Newark. Ana is the inaugural recipient of the Sandra Cisneros Fellowship, a finalist for the 2018 Scotti Merrill Memorial Award, a Pushcart Prize nominee, and a co-organizer of the #PoetsForPuertoRico movement. She is a Voices of Our Nations Arts Foundation Fellow, an Under The Volcano Fellow, a Las Dos Brujas Writing Workshop Alumna, and an inaugural Moko Writers' Workshop Alumna. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Sx Salon; Aftershocks of Disaster: Puerto Rico Before and After the Storm; Huizache: The Magazine of Latino Literature; Kweli Journal; Visual Verse: An Anthology of Arts and Words; Anomaly: Caribbean Folio; Voces desde Puerto Rico/Voices from Puerto Rico; Puerto Rico en mi Corazón; Poets Reading The News; Project Censored; La Respuesta; The Acentos Review; Moko Magazine; Centro Journal; Under The Volcano/Bajo el Volcán: The Best of Our First Fifteen Years; among others. Tracy Powers lives in Oak Ridge, TN with her husband, and is frequently inspired by the surroundings of her East TN home. As a former reporter and columnist for The Hazard Herald in Hazard, KY, she has long had a passion for writing and the art of bringing stories to life through words and imagery. Her poem "Vision" was recently featured on the e-journal LiteraryYard.com, and “Firestarter” also appeared in the January 2018 edition of Ariel Chart, http://arielchart.blogspot.com.au/ . “The Field” was showcased on Kingdoms in the Wild (https://kingdomsinthewild.com/w-powers/). Berkley Wendell Semple was born in Guyana. He has published three collections of poetry, Lamplight Teller, awarded a 2004 Guyana Prize for Poetry, The Solo Flyer and The Central Station and has edited a book of student poems. His poetry and fiction have appeared in Callaloo, The Hampden-Sydney Review, and The Caribbean Writer for which he was awarded a Daily News Prize for poetry, and in many other publications. Since 2010 he has written

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audiobook reviews for Sound Commentary Journal. Berkley Wendell Semple is a school administrator and Young Adult librarian. He lives in New York City. Ian C. Smith’s work has appeared in, Amsterdam Quarterly, Australian Poetry Journal, Critical Survey, Live Encounters, Poetry New Zealand, Southerly, & Two-Thirds North. His seventh book is wonder sadness madness joy, Ginninderra (Port Adelaide). He writes in the Gippsland Lakes area of Victoria, and on Flinders Island, Tasmania. Obediah Smith was born on New Providence, in the Bahamas, in 1954. He has published 17 books in English. El amplio Mar de los Sargazos y otros poemas, was published in Costa Rica. This and a bilingual collection, Wide Sargasso Sea & 62 Other Poems, were published in 2011. In 2015, Gato en el tejado, published by UNEAC, was launched at the book fair in Havana, Cuba. He has a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Dramatics and Speech, from Fisk University. He has lived and has studied French in Paris, France. At Universidad de Costa Rica, in 2011, he studied Spanish. His poems in English are included in literary journals and anthologies in the Caribbean, USA, England, Kenya, and his poems, translated into Spanish, are included in anthologies in Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Venezuela and Spain. In 2011 and 2012, he lived in Mexico City. He attended Kistrech Poetry Festival in Kisii, Kenya in 2014. Since the festival, he has remained in East Africa and has lived in Kenya, in Uganda and is at present, for a time, staying in Tanzania. Ellen M. Taylor lives in Appleton, Maine, and teaches literature and writing at the University of Maine at Augusta and the Maine State Prison. She is the author of the chapbook, Humming to Snails, and two collections, Floating and Compass Rose. When not teaching, she is hiking, gardening, and riding her talented mare, Primavera. She tries to get the Caribbean every few years to soak up the music of the language and the warmth of the sun. Nadine Thomas-Brown is a teacher/journalist. She attended Mico Teacher's College and The University of the West Indies. She has always had an affinity for words and began reading at a very young age. Raised in the inner city of Kingston Jamaica, reading and writing provided an escape from her volatile surroundings. She currently resides in the Bahamas and is an activist for the arts in her community. Heather L. Thompson is a poet who has now ventured into short stories and short plays. She has attended workshops at the Palm Beach Poetry Festival, the Bahamas Writer’s Summer Institute and Callaloo which have been very helpful in stimulating her to write and to develop a more critical approach to craft. In addition to POUi her work has been published on Tongues of the Ocean and in Anthurium. In October of this year she had a short play produced as a part of the Short Tales segment of “Shakespeare In Paradise “and a short story “The Permanent Secretary” has been accepted by Bahamas Screen And Stage Association for adaptation as a film, production is scheduled for 2019.

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Y. Y. Ulke is a writer and visual artist and passes her time between Nassau, The Bahamas and Montréal, Canada. Her works include the assemblages James Wells Hiroshi Cage and Eloge du “Savon” and the disquisition Dialogue Concerning “A Month of Sundays”. Ysodora co-founded (w. Bryan Boddy) the Institut Zekian / Zekian Institute; her current work is The Book of Circumstantial Wilderness Situations. She can be reached at institutzekian@gmail.com.

POUI is now accepting submissions for December 2020. Please send your submissions to: The Editors POUI: Cave Hill Journal of Creative Writing Department of Language, Linguistics and Literature University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Barbados, W.I. Or by email to: claudette.king@cavehill.uwi.edu

Name: ————————--------------------------------------------------——————————————Address: ———————————--------------------------------------------------——————————Email: —————————————--------------------------------------------------—————————-Title of Submission (s): ——————------------------------------------------------—————————— ———————————————————-------------------------------------------------——————— NOTE: Names and address should not be printed on the manuscripts. Please use a separate cover page for this purpose. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

For the purchasing of back issues of POUI, please send International money order/bank draft to the address above, and issue it to: The University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus, Bridgetown, BB11000, Barbados, W.I. Name: —————————————————————------------------------------------------------—— Address: ————————————————-------------------------------------------------—————— ———————————————————-------------------------------------------------——————— For back issues copies from issue II: USA & Canada: US$ 20.00; UK: £15; the Caribbean: US$15.00. N.B. POUI has appeared exclusively online since Vol. XII, 2013.