Kiosk 29

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ines of fire trace the landscape, Brown chaff ahead, Scorched earth behind.

Blackened ground melts into night sky.

Buckets of grain, and

The fire has smoldered for hours but

Fucking pool-hall regulars.

There is no sleep until the last Ember falls gray.

You think I should envy you And your ivy league.

We pass the night with stories.

You tell me about college while I recount a year of low crop yields And broken tractor gears.

I can tell by the way you describe Foggy Boston afternoons and lattes.

I drink coffee black.

We talk of the drought, our first prom and when You’ll leave for the coast.

Upwind, smoke still fills our pores and lungs.

A bead of sweat trails down your cheek,

You’ll leave for clubs, classes, and clitoral Orgasms from in-the-closet fraternity boys Who actually are terrified of you.

I’ll stay for six a.m. sunrises,

Revealing still pale skin.

I can remember you sun browned.

The sweat drips to splash a tiny crater

In the soot lining the bed of the truck.

It falls heavier than our history In the quiet feet between us.

By Travis Weller

4

By Sara Jordan

feeling option. While ly n o particularly e th s a w g Clearly, leavin peckish, I sat down to make myself a turkey sandwich, only to find my lone loaf of Wonder brea d to be stale.

This I took as a metaphor for my life an d decided to buy a new package.

Anyone who knows anything about anything at all knows that if people want to find themselves, they go to New York City. I guess that is not the exact truth. The plastic people go to Los Angeles to star in a toothpaste commercial; the true artists go to New York to do spoken word on the streets for spare change. I have always been an artist. While the other kids shoved Crayons up their noses, my monosyllabic chicken scratches divulged the complexities of a five-year-old. I formed cursive letters that spoke more than the actual words they wrote; they inspired with their loops and tails. My duty, or burden more truthfully, is to produce a definitive masterpiece to bring American art out of the gutters of entertainment and to help give the land of Faulkner, Hemingway and Fitzgerald back its literary legacy. Even Burroughs and Salinger upped the ante before Oprah’s Book Club and paperback serials cashed in all of our cultural chips.

My pen will be this country’s savior. Like a sign from above, the stale bread screamed at me to write bold words of truth.

Leaving town proved to be an easy task. My landlady, who never did like me, was happy to get me out of her oily hair. She found my constant requests for maintenance a bit offensive; similarly that is how I found the lack of working appliances. I cut her some slack when the stove would not heat properly – cooking was never a hobby of mine – but after perpetual pipe problems, things really went down the crapper between us. Hoping to inspire her to call the

plumber, I banged on her door when my bowels needed to be released. After the sixth bathroom break in her apartment, the plumber showed up. All that is just to say, I don’t think she will be distraught over my departure. Roman, on the other hand was a different story.

“You are merely having a quarter-life crisis,” Roman said to me while we were enjoying our last Tuesday lunch. “I have had about five of them. Listen to me, kiddo, this could go two ways. Either abandoning the only people who truly love you will result in absolute heartbreak and destruction forcing you to crawl back to us with your tail between your thin, little legs,” he chuckled, causing the egg salad that I was trying to ignore to not only dribble out the side of his mouth but fly directly into my face.

“God damn it, Roman. Will you control that gut of yours?”

I said, not too kindly. “Not that I am particularly curious, but great soothsayer, what’s the second option? I finally create my masterpiece?”

“Oh, the misguided idealism of youth. No, love, either you will fail now, or this could lead to even bigger failures later. We all fall back to earth at some point.”

“

”

“That chip on your shoulder must be heavy.”

“Come on. You know I love you. But sooner or later, you need to realize that this so-called masterpiece you are sweating over has been done countless times throughout the ages. There are no new stories to tell.”

“Then maybe I should realize the American dream and sit in a cubicle all day, pushing papers from one side of my desk to the other? That way the only thing that I have to contribute to is the bottom line. I would rather die then to join the zombie work force. You may be content with going through the motions of living, but some of us aspire to greatness.”

“Calm down, baby, calm down. One day you will realize what that word means.”

“I will pick up a dictionary on my way out of town. I will call when I get settled.”

I threw a ten-dollar bill on the table, hoping to escape Roman slobbering on my shoulder with his overzealous goodbyes.

Roman’s only motivation in life is to find someone younger than he is to act as her or his mentor. He made one too many compromises and lost all hope of ever capturing his dreams.

Consequently, he has spent the rest of his life criticizing those on the brink of realizing their own fantasies. Needless to say, I was lucky to get out from under his hairy thumb before any more of his bitterness corroded my outlook. By the time I exited the security of my mother’s womb, the real world lost most of its bite. My socialization centered on the fact that I could be whoever I wanted to be. Roman, full of due jealously, was jaded by the social constrictions that defined his life. He could never forgive the world for molding him, so he punished my unstoppable generation.

My mother’s best friend, a leasing agent in New York, found an apartment in my modest price range that offered a small amount of security. The activities occurring on the street rarely bothered me, as I did not intend to walk out the door until I had a manuscript in hand. Hookers could turn tricks right outside my door; my attention needed to be focused on my spiral notebook and black ballpoint pen. If fear locked me inside, then I had fewer opportunities to be distracted. After wiring the down payment on my new life, I packed up my old one. Visions of my first book jacket bounced around my head as I rented the U-Haul. During the drive north, I practiced my rapid-fire repartee with Larry King. My first autograph signed was the lease.

Instantly upon the entrance to my borough, I could feel the writer inside me fighting to be free of the lengthy selfimposed silence. My truths bubbled to the surface, waiting to be defined in the permanence of ink. Navigating my vehicle along the crowded streets was not without its difficulties; regardless a smile remained plastered to my face. Lady Luck loved me enough to leave a parking spot open directly in front of my building. Climbing the twenty-seven stairs to my third floor apartment, I felt my confidence level rise along with my elevation. As nervous as my anticipation was, giddy eagerness flooded my entire being. Granted, I was taking a big risk signing my lease before seeing my apartment, but quick decisions do not generally allow for extensive planning.

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After unlocking the door, I took my first glance at my new abode. Disbelief overtook me first with embarrassment soon following at my possible mistake. The door closed as quickly as it opened.

“3B,” I read aloud the description on the door.

“3B.” I read the address listed on the lease clutched in my left hand.

Deciding that I had audibly conversed with myself enough for one day, I switched to internal monologue to unravel the mystery of my apartment being full of furniture, while my furnishings were in the U-Haul parked on the street. Obviously due to my key’s ability to unlock this door, it must indeed belong to my apartment.

Further investigation was apparently in order.

“Hello,” I barked in my most aggressive voice in case a homicidal maniac occupied the place.

Murderers are generally frightened away by tough voices.

No answer.

After some debate, once again internally, I decided that I was too pretty to die by wounds inflicted with a wire hanger or other domestic object of destruction. I shut the door and ran away without bothering to lock the door. The maniac would have to do ensure his own safety.

Standing in the street staring into the sun, I tried to grab hold of myself. I could not back away from this slight bit of adversity. Lunatic aside, this was my apartment. 3B was my home, and permission to violate it was given to no one. I turned around and marched back up those twenty-seven steps, this time with a bit less gusto but equally excessive determination. Originally, I hoped that the snapping of the deadbolt would have triggered my buried strength, but my frantic self had left the door unlocked, leaving me to muster my own courage. Without waiting for my imagination to picture my own demise, I flung open the door.

Once again an overstuffed, off-white couch, a red easy chair, a pair of dark mahogany side tables, three Tiffany lamps and a somewhat sad rubber tree plant confronted me. The cold-blooded killer had good taste, although the couch fabric was probably not the most conducive to his line of work. I ventured further inside and noted the kitchen to the right. To be on the safe side, I checked the freezer for body parts and breathed a gigantic sigh of relief when it was completely empty. My death did not seem so eminent. Finally relaxed, I noticed the note taped to the refrigerator door:

Dear New Resident of 3B,

Big brother was killing me. I had to get out of this place before they sucked what soul I have left.

Take all of my stuff, seriously. I hereby grant the entire contents of 3B to you, although, you can

never really own another thing. Leaving these things with you lets me free myself the burden of

materialism. My deepest apologies if I have caused even the slightest inconvenience. Feel free

to sell everything, and keep the cash. Don’t let the man get you down.

-P. T. Quite frankly, the hand-me-downs from the previous tenant were of a much greater quality than those of the same second hand nature already in my possession. Aunt Shirley could make a mean chicken pot pie, complete with her own made-from-scratch gravy, but interior decorating was beyond her mental limits.

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An inconvenience it was not. I rather thought it to be a nice gesture from the past renter; although I was a bit concerned the author of the note would sober up and return to retrieve his or her things. To prevent a future scuffle with the flighty junkie, I packed the previous tenant’s personal relics in the boxes I emptied of my sentimental artifacts. My head hit the pillow hard that first night, marking tomorrow as the day I would start my novel.

Too many tomorrows later, I did not have a single word to prove that I had made any progress. Writer’s block cramped my hand, and loneliness was beginning to quell my energy. Watching the rubber tree plant became my daily activity; it at least showed signs of growth. Frustration exploded into anger. For Christ’s sake, I was an English major in college, graduated with honors no less.

All of my professors commented on my abounding potential. If PhD holders had faith in me, why had I given up hope? Crawling back to Roman was not an option worth taking if it meant stomaching his self-righteous smirk at my inability to capture my dream. I was going to write that novel, but first I had figure out how I was going to pay rent. While gathering the courage to call my parents for a loan, the phone rang.

“Hello?”

“Is Pat Thomas at home?” an unrecognized voice ventured.

“I believe you have the wrong number,” I answered, only to realize that I never switched the phone line into my name. “Did you try to dial 356-9142?”

“Yes. This is Theresa from Ms. Yasin’s office at Gruber and Inc. Pat has not been to work in a month. Do you know why?”

“No. I do not know Pat. Pat does not live here. I do. I just moved in.”

“Oh. Sorry to bother you. Tell Thomas not to worry about coming to work anymore.” Click.

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Theresa was slow to catch on if she thought I would be able to relay a message to a complete stranger. Furthermore, if this Pat character did not bother making excuses for failing to report to work for an entire month, then Pat obviously must not be too worried about Gruber and Company. Once again the gods smiled on me and provided me with another sign, although this one lacked the symbolic properties of the inspirational Wonder bread. Thomas’s vacancy meant a job opportunity for me and prevented begging my parents for money. My writer’s block was so pronounced that I could not even write a resume. The previous tenant did, after all, grant me permission of all of the contents of the apartment, resumes included. After changing a portion of the information found on Pat’s resume, I hand delivered it to Theresa of Ms. Yasin’s office. I was hired immediately and began work the next day.

Pushing papers all day at least earned me a paycheck. That was my most common justification of my current situation and had to be repeated four times before I would set foot in the 11-story concrete prison. The job was only going to be temporary, just something to do before I could live off my royalties. Vonnegut worked as a spin-doctor for General Electric, and he managed to write a couple of decent novels. After I built a safety net, I could buy my soul back from the corporation devil. Taking that job was a small compromise, not a total sell-out. Nights and weekends were still available for my true work.

Ms. Yasin began stopping by my desk after she snuck her mid-morning

cigarette. At first, she pretended her visits revolved around making sure that there were no complications with my joining the Gruber team. I assured her I was adjusting quite fine, and no, I would not hesitate to ask for help. Yasin graduated from the managerial school that stressed the importance of a friendly work environment, and she must have had a hearing problem that caused her to lean over my desk while talking to me. I was careful not to respond to invitations for after dinner drinks or long lunches, because I did not want either of us to be attached to my presence at Gruber.

“I am sorry if I seem too pushy. You bear a striking resemblance to the previous occupant of this desk,” she said to me after the seventeenth denial of out of the office comradely. “Pat and I spent a lot of time together before the disap pearance.”

“I normally write at night,” I lied, trying to soften the blow to both of our egos. “I do not have a lot of time for socializing.”

“Pat used to be a writer too,” she chuckled and walked off.

The rubber tree plant developed root disease, so I began working overtime to pay for its medicine, rationalizing that I was not utilizing that time to write anyhow. My novel was farther from being finished than when I began to start it seven months earlier. New York winters were much harsher than I was accustomed to, but luckily,

the previous tenant had an extensive collection of sweaters in my size. After it was apparent that the apartment would not be revisited by its former owner, I unloaded the boxes and helped myself to their contents. The previous tenant and I shared the same taste in books and music, and unfortunately, nightly company as well.

Too many late nights at the office produced a too friendly relationship with Yasin. Her visits to my desk where no longer restricted to mid-mornings, nor merely to my desk.

Out of the need for conversation with a non-chloroformproducing organism, I took her up on an offer for cocktails.

By my sixth gin and tonic, I unleashed my plan for revitalizing American culture. After the eighth, I told her my inability to write anything besides shopping lists.

“Fear,” I slurred. “Fear prevents me from making a single chicken scratch in my notepad. When I was my only intended audience, I could write page after page of flowing prose.

Now the entire world will have the opportunity to read the words of my soul, and I do not have a thing to say.”

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“Poor baby,” was all she said as she took me into her arms.

Thankfully, the rubber tree made a complete recovery, but I continued to work long hours to help pay off my staggering credit card debt. Plus, Yasin thought it would help my chances for a promotion to middle management. Maybe it was her sneering smile that broke me. Or maybe it was the way her stockings sagged under her left knee. Or maybe it was the way she told me that before the disappearance, Pat was a candidate for the same status boost. I took the next day off, without giving Theresa proper notice.

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Back in 3B, I threw away everything that belonged to the previous tenant. By moving to New York, I was supposed to find myself, but instead I borrowed someone else’s identity.

Who in the hell was Pat Thomas anyway? Who in the hell was I? Roman was wrong, there were plenty of new stories to tell, and I was going to find them instead of writing someone else’s story. My life, or rather the previous tenant’s life, was too comforting for me to push myself to the edge of my potential. The lines between need and want became blurred to the point that I was living my life for luxury instead of necessity.

I did not need the overstuffed couch, mahogany side tables, well-paying office job, female companionship or any of the other things I had borrowed from the previous tenant’s former existence. I threw it all away and only kept what was truly mine. 3B was barren, empty. All that laid in the middle of the living room floor was a dusty notebook and pen. I sat down next to my only possessions and felt the sudden craving for a turkey sandwich.

by Lesley Owens

My mother’s sense of direction was Impeccable In her own way impossible In another On her way to a doctor’s appointment Twenty-seventh of August she Took a left on South Hampton And roared down into the late summer brilliance Because We were late and Because She was scared

One left turn and we Were in a field of Yellow gathering flowers Lungs and air aflutter Great black bees orange Butterflies inky Tar-birds falling Like leaves she took

My youngest brother’s hand and they Walked alone And I walked Alone and I thought Of Persephone What it would feel like To be so loved By such darkness.

I go to the west now I go to the west and To the south tires burning Sun-glossed asphalt Whole world singing at the brightness Of the year

I go down To where the brightness of Her life played out Fifty-nine to eighty-eight Still in Kansas Still in summer Unexpectedly she has become As my Persephone

I go south Now in the summer Searching down the great black Highway I go searching For the fence posts spiking in the Earth like crooked wheel spokes Rising outside fences Flowers rich as morning bleeding Great plated daisies rising Gold with dirt brown heartbeats pulsing In the turnings of the wind

I let grow Grasses green above her But I do not find it Fitting for the yellow flowers’ roots To be weaving down So near her sheltered eyes

Shade and silence Cannot find it so Romantic Any more.

I try not to think too much About the dryness of the west lands Here in springtime when my daughter Bounds through fields of verdant clover Her hair is fair, pale gold, like mine was I see her weaving down the hills Holding bunches bright like sunlight Her one bounty from the fields They are her favorites and she wants To be like them this October-Brown felt beret on golden hair Bright green tights and matching sweater Some seeds to give, or toss in air

I try to tell her Like the sun they have a night Months on end when they’re not coming Cold December when The hope of fair Sunflowers Feels like death You cannot lose.

And yet She cries and does not listen Brings them to me Fresh from fields Blue glass vases, Violet tumblers, Burning on Our windowsills In a few years She may go gather them Walk like Persephone And wonder What it feels like to be By darkness So loved Forgetting a mother Waiting near

guilty innocent

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MY EXPERIENCE AT THE DOUGLAS COUNTY JAIL

by Jordan Tinsley

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From the outside, the Douglas County Jail looks more like an office building. Twelve-foot-high fences menacingly topped with coiled barbed wire do not surround it. I did not see any rifle-toting snipers perched in towers, alert for an inmate on the horizon making a final mad dash toward freedom; for that matter, I didn’t see any towers. Truly, the jail’s gray and red brick exterior and modern layout, including a circular driveway and domed foyer, makes it nearly indistinguishable from the average commercial headquarters. If it were not for the bronze sign hanging over the public entrance, one might mistake it for a consulting agency.

Of course, my experience at the Douglas County Jail was bound to defy expectations – I visited a poetry class facilitated by Lawrence poet and University of Kansas English professor Brian Daldorph. I witnessed the process of creating poetry – one of the freest activities I know of – within the confines of a modern jail – one of the most restricted spaces I know. I had an opportunity to reflect on the paradox of what it really means to be free in our society when I conversed with men to whom the concept of “freeing one’s mind” has an immediate and profound significance.

Two KU professors, Anna Neill and Kirk Branch, founded the so-called jail writing class three years ago, soon after the Douglas County Jail was completed in 1999. When circumstances intervened and they could no longer volunteer their time to teach the class, Daldorph became the obvious choice as their successor, and he jumped at the opportunity to continue his quest of extending the university. According to Jason Wesco, area poet and owner of 219 Press (a publishing company that puts out poetry, like Daldorph’s new book, Senegal Blues), “It makes perfect sense for him to teach the class. It allows him to bring two life passions together: poetry and progressive politics. He is a great advocate for poetry and does a lot of good work to give poets and audiences venues to share.”

There are two other KU affiliates who also teach writing classes in different pods of the jail. Angali Nerlikar, a doctorate student in KU’s English Department, has taught a writing class in the women’s pod for more than a year. Dan Hoyt, also a doctorate student, has taught a writing class in the Special Management pod for the same length of time. Inmates in this pod are not permitted any contact with inmates from the other pods, so Hoyt teaches his class within the Special Management pod itself – unlike Daldorph’s class, which is comprised of minimum- and medium-security inmates. Daldorph holds his classes down the hall from the jail’s library because its participants are less restricted.

Daldorph sees his role at the jail and his role in classes at KU differently. At KU, he follows a curriculum and evaluates the students’ work qualitatively. At the jail, Daldorph prefers to think of himself as more of a facilitator. He directs the discussion and keeps the class organized, but he does not evaluate the inmates’ work qualitatively because the class focuses on the process of reading and writing poetry. “I mean it’s not as if I’m here critiquing poetic form,” Daldorph says with a laugh when asked about his duties.

The class meets once a week for ninety minutes and is divided into three parts. In the first part of the class, the inmates receive a typed copy of the poems handed in to Daldorph at the end of the last week’s meeting, and these poems are then read aloud by their authors. The inmates are not required to hand in their poems, but many choose to because they want to see a hard copy of their handwritten manuscript. Most are not afraid to read their work aloud. The inmates are not required to read, though, and there are always volunteers willing to read a poem when its author is absent or embarrassed.

Next comes what Daldorph considers the most challenging part of his job at the jail: the free-writing session. After reading all the poems, Daldorph and the inmates write for fifteen to twenty minutes, although the professor is sometimes frustrated by less attentive inmates who can’t sustain their writing for that long. Some of the class’s participants – the most passionate, according to Daldorph – also compose poetry on their own time, during lock-down when they are isolated in a cell. They are encouraged to share these poems during the class’s reading sessions.

For the third part of the class, the inmates read what they have written aloud and receive brief comments from their peers, Daldorph and the coordinator of the Douglas County Jail’s volunteer programs, Mike Caron. This section is Daldorph’s favorite part of the class because the poetry often provokes the class into heated and interesting discussions or even rambunctious and contagious laughter. When asked if he ever gets apprehensive about the class’s behavior, Daldorph’s response is quick: “No. Well, when I first started, Mike gave me a red panic button and said, ‘If anything gets out of hand, push this,’ and I thought, ‘What have I gotten myself into?’ but I’ve never had any problems and I don’t expect to. These guys really seem to understand their situation and don’t want to do anything to make it worse.”

During this part of the class, the inmates often joke with each other, but one can see that they accord the poetry and poets much-deserved respect. Caron sometimes reads from prose that he composed outside the class, and Daldorph occasionally shares his own poetry. According to Wesco, who also visited

the class once: “It was the best audience I have ever read for. They were extremely attentive and tuned in. They asked good questions and drew parallels with their own experiences and showed the ability to draw comparisons with other poems they have read. They were very serious about the craft of it all and respectful of the work of visiting poets and their fellow classmates…The class reminded me that poetic form can be wonderfully accessible, and that poets shouldn’t work to remove it (and themselves) from the everyday, but glory in it. A good poem is clear, concise and simple. If the jail guys would like it, it’s a good poem. That’s my new standard.”

It’s not hard to be enrapt when these incarcerated poets are reading. Wesco deemed some of the poems read on his visit excellent, and Daldorph says he has had five such poets participating during his duration as facilitator. These poets were very honest and able to write candidly about their extreme situations.

For Thomas Zvi Wilson, a Kansas City-area poet who has visited the class, “The most important and startling thing about it was their [the inmates’] poetry… the poems had reality. The poets had the ability to give the listener a sense of where they’d been and to see how they felt.”

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The poems range widely in terms of subject matter. Many reflect on God and the soul or the evolution of consciousness. Others write about language itself or meditate on time and doing time. Other poems joke about street life, narrating debauched tales so funny and well-timed that one can’t contain laughter. A number of the poems express the inmate’s deepest remorse over the harm their actions have caused to others, like their victims or their families.

Separation from their families, especially their children, troubles many of the inmates deeply, and they use the class as an opportunity to explore the angst from having let their loved ones down. Other poems are less easily categorized. On my visit, one poem resonated with some comments critical of the penal system expressed by poets I had previously interviewed. The poem was a short narration of a nightmare in which the young inmate was forced by demons with eyes like cancer to enjoy the consumption of his own flesh. I found myself wondering if incarceration is like being forced to eat one’s whole life and still find some way to enjoy it.

Thomas Zvi Wilson also has several years’ experience volunteering as an ethics teacher with maximum-security inmates in Kansas prisons, so his take on the class illuminates a great deal. According to Wilson, our current method of dealing with criminals is backward. Instead of fixing the problems that produce crime (extreme poverty generated by economic inequalities, poor education systems, etc.), we spend overwhelming amounts of money attempting to shut people labeled criminals out of society. This final move proves self-defeating. “When we say, ‘You are a prisoner,’ it makes these people feel less than human,” Wilson says. That feeling then becomes internalized, so that society’s branding of criminals creates a process of self-definition whereby these people begin to see themselves as at war with the community. Wilson sees this as a major cause of recidivism and a general waste of life and hopes that programs like Daldorph’s can alleviate this concern.

One of Daldorph’s class participants, speaking anonymously, put it this way: “Jail is not about rehabilitation. Rehabilitation costs too much money and time. If you want to rehabilitate someone, you’ve got to make a personal connection with them, and that can’t happen in jail. Once you’re in here, you’re reduced to a commodity. The jail system is about moving commodities, and if they were to rehabilitate you, then where would the jail be? No, jail is about rehabilitating yourself, and that’s why these programs are good; they break the cycle.”

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For Mike Caron, the poetry writing program challenges these inmates to think more deeply about their relationship with society. Many inmates come into jail feeling like they’ve been banished from the community and that they will live life apart from the community. “Classes like Brian’s provide these inmates with tangible evidence that people on the outside still see them as a part of the community instead of apart from the community,” Caron said. “This is really an integral part of what we do at a direct supervision jail. The inmates are provided with good, educational programs in a secure environment so they can form constructive relationships with others and the guards can still keep a handle on everything that happens.”

Many others, including Daldorph, see the poetry class’s potential benefit in this way. While Daldorph speaks very humbly about his work with the class and says, “I don’t want to make the class into something it isn’t,” he also sees the difference it can make and even refers to the class as a lifeline for some of the inmates. “I think the class gives them a chance to express their humanity in an institution that can be very dehumanizing,” Daldorph says. “These men feel a need to say certain things…they ask themselves the same questions as all of us, you know, ‘Who am I,’ ‘What’s my relationship to the world?’ and so on, but their answers are so much more pressing and intense because of the extreme situation they find themselves in. So they feel the need to express certain things, like how lonely it can be sitting alone in a cell at night with loved ones on the outside or how it feels to think you’ve been victimized by society.

So I think the class can do some good in small ways.”

The praise of the class’s participants is more effusive. According to one inmate, “These classes are important because they teach me about changing the structure of my life outside.” Another, who arrived a couple minutes early on the day of my visit, immediately began expressing gratitude when he saw Daldorph. “You know, a lot of what I call my sickness on the outside consisted of me running away from my emotions, but this writing really forces me to confront my emotions and deal with them and get them behind me,” the inmate said.

When pressed about the program’s benefits, the inmate was quick to lavish more praise, saying his experiences with the volunteer programs at the Douglas County Jail have given him “an unbelievable respect for the Lawrence community.” His comments also lent insight to the vicious cycle the penal system must overcome: “Looking at myself from the community point-of-view, I guess I’d have to see myself as an enemy, but to come into this jail and find out there are people who don’t see me that way, who really care about what happens to me, that’s something. It’s just about devastating…you know, sometimes I wonder whether this class has lasting value, and then I think, ‘Yeah, it does.’ But you just can’t see it. No one can ever realize all the good this is doing, ‘cause you can’t really see it. You’ve got to be on God’s time to see it…but you never know what good the little things you do are going to seed down the road.”

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For another inmate, the poetry class’s impact must be limited to those who take advantage of it – those who use the opportunity to reflect on their position and realize that they are still free to take actions that can transform their lives, despite the jail’s limitations on their time, mobility or wardrobe choices. “The key to these programs is you got to take it back into the cell with you. You gotta be like, thirty minutes ago, I wrote this poem and I was thinking and feeling differently, so I can keep that and take it into the cell with me,” he said.

This comment forced me to question the understanding of freedom I inherited from our society. All our lives, as Americans, we have been told that we are free, that we live in a free society. Ostensibly, the system of American laws that protects us against infringements upon our rights bestows this freedom upon us. After my experience at the jail, I know this conception of freedom to be false.

In reality, none of us are free, whether we live in communist China or capitalist America—we are all thrown into incarceration when we are born into a body living in a cultural world we did not consciously choose. Some of us have more options in this reality than others. For example, I have more mobility than the inmates at the Douglas County Jail; I am free to stretch my legs in a leisurely stroll down Massachusetts Street, while they sit alone, locked in a cell ten minutes outside of town. I also have more social mobility than people born below the poverty line or into a body possessing a skin tone that causes society to place limits upon their relationships and/or actions. But doesn’t the fact that we are given options reveal the way in which the possibilities for our lives have always been somehow reduced – even planned in advance by forces beyond our control? We are all slaves to our own minds and the formidable forces that shape the ideas within them.

At the same time, however, we are all wholly free — we are free to move beyond this mental incarceration by rebelling against it. Just as someone born into poverty might overcome this limitation by working long hours to pull him or herself up by the bootstraps, we can all begin working hard to think and feel differently about our respective minds and bodies. We can use our innate creativity to fashion new worlds in which we are lifted out of these monotonous, pre-ordained lives. This is what the poetry class does for the inmates of the Douglas County Jail. It allows them to experience the strange and mad liberty that overtakes one when he or she breaks the chains of mental incarceration and realizes our innate ability to resist foreclosures of our humanity and its accompanying creativity.

Read poetry excerpts from the inmates of the Douglas County Jail on page 81

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i want to say: this is not who i am. i am lost in shadow, drowning.

--- (the tribulations of being female) but i can admit these things, my imperfections. a boy: he radiates love that once was i fall down his spine i run towards these things but i know i will never be. and i say so what if i am these empty things – i try to fill myself, a grayer shadow, a darker cloud: it doesn’t work, it never will. beauty against all odds. i crave praise and a kiss, an angel to sleep with me at night.

wanna rock down a throat tongue slipping and curves that pulse. yeah. oh yes. you test the water. i am falling. i am alone, a girl who glitters and on this earth i cannot pretend to be more than i am. or less. i am not less vulnerable when i close my eyes. and i break so easily it hurts, a fluttering heartbeat burning. i could love him like that kissing me slow.

37

ìSo do you idea how have it might have started?î

any

38

“Did you have any old appliances or power strips plugged in?” the fire marshal asks me. “Anything with exposed or frayed wires?”

I shake my head.

Mom is in the opposite corner of Mrs. Johnson’s yard with her arms crossed high over her chest, tapping one foot and scowling at me.

“This is your fault,” she mouths, shaking her head.

Mrs. Johnson approaches her with a blanket and a cup of coffee, and Mom’s face contorts up into a thin smile.

“My husband is away on business,” I read her lips as she explains. “I don’t know what to do.”

Mrs. Johnson is hugging her now and stroking her hair, and I imagine Mom with mascara-stained cheeks hugging me and stroking my hair and gushing on about how glad she is that I haven’t died of smoke inhalation.

“Our preliminary assessment is pointing towards electrical as the culprit,” the fire marshal continues. “But corrupt wiring is rare in complexes this new.”

“Oh,” I reply.

Frank and Joey are dancing in the street as Mr. Bill writhes at their feet. The neighbors who have gathered to watch the excitement are leaving a wide berth around them on account of the six-foot long yellow and white snake.

Over the din of the crowd and the hiss of the subdued fire, I can hear them whooping about Arizona, a road trip and insurance money.

“So do you have any idea how it might have started?” the fire marshal asks.

I stare at the ground in front of me. He wants me to tell him that it was my fault, that I left my lava lamp on or incense burning and that it had been an accident, but I had started it, which I guess is true, but it didn’t start like that.

I watch the shadows cast from the lights on the fire truck flicker and dance across the sidewalk. Of course I know how it started. I know exactly how it started.

It started when I hauled Mom out of the bathtub.

It started when I forced open the bathroom door.

Of course I

know

how it started.Iknowexactlyhowitstarted.

HOW I STARTED THE FIRE THAT BURNED

THE PINK DUPLEX ON MULBERRY LANE DOWN

by Mary Huyck

It started when

I woke up sweating in the hallway at three fifteen a.m. to the smoke alarm blaring overhead.

40

It started when Mom insisted that she was safe where she was.

It started when I woke up sweating in the hallway at three fifteen a.m. to the smoke alarm blaring overhead.

It started at seven fifty-two p.m. when Mom burst into tears, ran to the bathroom, locked the door and refused to come out, not even after I tried bribing her with a gin and tonic.

It started when Mom asked “Where are my cigarettes?” as I stepped inside, before I had a chance to close the front door behind me. I lied and told her that Frank and Joey weren’t home so she’d have to go to the gas station herself.

It started when I knocked and waited for two minutes and twenty-three seconds before Frank answered the door and when he did the stench of motor oil and Mr. Bill’s cage started to make me feel sick as soon as the smell hit my nose and I could see Joey in the living room and it looked like they were settled in to watch a hockey game because of all the junk food strewn across the coffee table and I wondered how they could stand to eat when it smelled so bad but I guess they were used to it and didn’t notice anymore and Frank said “Hey, bro, what can I do ya for?” and I apologized for disturbing them and was in the middle of asking if maybe one of them could possibly go to the gas station with me when Joey interrupted, sputtering “Dude, there’s mouse turds in here” as bits of Cooler Ranch Doritos flew out of his mouth and he dropped the bag on the floor and most of the chips fell out and I knew crumbs would be ground deep into the carpet within the hour and Frank yelled “Dude, those were still good! You could have picked out the turds” and Joey yelled “I’m not eating anything mouse turds have touched, and neither are you” and Frank scooped a handful of chips off the floor and stuffed them in his mouth and yelled “Like hell I’m not” and Joey yelled “You think I’m going to want to kiss that mouth?” and Frank yelled “Fuck you” and I mumbled “Sorry, never mind” and backed out of the doorway and off the porch and Joey yelled “No, fuck you” as the door slammed.

It started when Mom insisted that a cigarette would make her feel ten times better and she looked like she was about to cry again, so I said I’d go ask Frank and Joey.

It started when Mom wandered into the kitchen and asked who I had been talking to on the phone and I lied and told her Jenny instead of telling the truth and saying Dr. Collins, which I thought about doing but was afraid to because it might have set her off again so I didn’t and Mom said “Oh” but that was all because I hadn’t told her that Jenny dumped

me twenty-four days ago and then Mom asked if I would go to buy her some cigarettes because she had smoked her last one and I had to remind her that I was only seventeen so I couldn’t because I wasn’t old enough and my birthday wasn’t for another three months and twelve days and besides I didn’t like her smoking anyway because in October it almost started when she fell asleep with a cigarette in her mouth on the couch and that’s why we have to be extra careful not to spill spaghetti sauce on that cushion because we wouldn’t be able to turn it over to hide the stain on account of that burn hole but I guess that doesn’t matter now, does it?

It started when I hit number three on the speed dial and held the phone with my shoulder as I opened a can of tuna and a groggy-sounding Dr. Collins answered on the ninth ring and said “This is Dr. Collins” and I said “My Mom hasn’t been taking her pills again” and told him that she had thought that Dad was alive and Dr. Collins was silent for six seconds and then said “Well, at least that’s better than when she thought he was Elvis” and laughed, but turned it into a cough when I didn’t laugh, too, and then he apologized and said that he was on Greenwich time and asked if Mom had calmed down and I said “Yeah” so he told me to call in the morning to schedule her an extra appointment this week and also said that it would be okay if she had a gin and tonic to help her sleep if she had trouble sleeping, but only one.

It started when I asked Mom if she was feeling better and she said that she thought she was hungry and I asked if she wanted me to make her a sandwich and she nodded and said she wanted tuna salad with extra mayonnaise and sweet pickle relish instead of olives on wheat bread cut diagonally, and not the cheap wheat bread that I like because a loaf of it costs seventy-seven cents at the SaveMore on Washburn Drive and that’s a great deal but Mom thinks she might as well be eating white bread if she ate that and I went to the kitchen before she finished talking about it because I know how Mom likes her tuna salad sandwiches.

It started when Mom collapsed onto my shoulder and I smoothed her hair, which smelled musty and sour and made me feel guilty because I realized that I had forgotten to remind her to shower, but I didn’t say anything then and instead stared at my watch as we sat in silence until six thirty-seven and forty seconds p.m. when Mom started getting restless.

It started when Mom was sitting in the living room with all the lights off and a cushion over her face and she

It started when

Mom asked ìWhere are my cigarettes?î

42

looked at me like she didn’t know who I was as I handed her a lavender-colored pill with a glass of water and said “Pill time, down it goes” in a singsong voice then “Good girl” after she swallowed it and I made sure it wasn’t under her tongue.

It started when I was ironing my jeans and Mom wandered into the laundry room and told me that Dad called and I rubbed my face and asked her why but she couldn’t hear me over the noise of the dryer because it was made in 1985 and makes this thumping sound so I yelled it and she said “You have no respect, you know that?” and I said that I hadn’t meant to offend her and she said “You’re the real reason he wanted a divorce” and stomped out of the laundry room with her chin in the air.

It started the night before that when I couldn’t sleep because I kept thinking about Jenny and listening to the scratching sounds in the wall next to my head.

It started twenty-four days ago at seven twenty-six p.m. when Jenny called to tell me that she wasn’t my girlfriend anymore, but that we could still go to the dance together on Friday if I wanted and I asked why she hadn’t waited until after the dance to break up with me if she still wanted to be my date and she said it was because she wanted to be able to slow dance with Brian Farrell, who sits next to me in Mr. Stapleton’s Chemistry Lab and is actually a pretty nice guy, but he was already taking Annie Joseph just as friends and besides she didn’t want to go alone and figured I wouldn’t either so we might as well go together like we had planned and I said that I guessed that made sense but I would have rather not gone at all even though I’d already ordered her corsage and she said “We’ll go Dutch now, of course” and I said “Of course” and she sighed and said “See, this is exactly what I mean.”

It almost started twenty-four days ago at four fifteen p.m. when I arrived home from school to find Mom on the porch reading US Weekly and clipping out the pictures that she liked and she looked up and smiled as I crossed the lawn and told me “Seven more minutes until brownie time” but when I opened the door it smelled like burning chocolate and the kitchen was filled with smoke.

It started on the thirteenth of September when I was taking out the trash and saw a Popsicle stick cross with “Sgt. McCheesers, R.I.P.” inked on it pushed into a corner of Frank and Joey’s side of the yard and Joey yelled from their half of the back deck “Bro, do you know what happened to Lt. Squeaky?” and I heard Frank yell from inside “Dude, you’re going

twenty-four days ago at seven twenty-six p.m.

It started

It almost started twenty-four at four fifteen p.m.

days ago

Of course I

know how it

started.Iknowexactlyhowitstarted.

44

to be late for work” which is at the Jiffy Lube across from K-Mart on Route 190 and I shook my head and Joey swore and muttered something about having to go to the pet store before they could feed Mr. Bill.

It started on the twelfth of September when I watched a dazed Lt. Squeaky look around at a cinder block and the Hide-a-Key, then dart towards Frank and Joey’s dryer exhaust pipe as I said “stupid mouse” but it couldn’t hear me and if it could have, it wouldn’t have understood anyway.

It started when the parachute billowed and Lt. Squeaky floated to the ground.

It started when I shimmied on my stomach to the edge of the roof, stretched my arm down as far as I could reach, and dropped the mouse.

It started when Frank and Joey were out of their chairs and tripping over their feet in a scramble to reach the ladder first while I looked down at the shoe box were Lt. Squeaky was running in circles with a parachute like the ones that my G.I. Joe’s used to come with that always ripped within a week because they’re manufactured by six-year-olds in Taiwan who have to walk barefoot because they don’t own shoes tied to his torso and I said “I know exactly how you feel” and picked up the mouse, trying not to think too much about what infectious diseases it might be carrying and squeezing it hard enough to discover that it was a she because I could feel the babies squirming inside.

It started when the parachute didn’t open and Sgt. McCheesers landed with a hollow thud in front of Mrs. Johnson’s house across the street and Frank said “No way” and Joey said “No way” and Frank said “That was awesome” and Joey said “That was awesome” as they stared at the furry lump on the sidewalk.

It started when Frank released the slingshot and Sgt. McCheesers soared through the air, arcing over the basketball hoop and past the hedge.

It started when I checked my watch and figured Mom would be asleep for another two hours so I climbed the ladder even though I don’t like beer and didn’t drink any.

It started when Frank yelled “Hey, bro, nice tie!” down at me as I crossed the lawn and Joey echoed with “Yeah, nice tie! Goes real nice with those pit stains!” and Frank called him a douche-bag and punched him, but he caught his balance before he toppled off the roof and Frank told him not to piss me off because they needed a third and I guess they

thought I would do and Joey said “Oh, right,” rubbing his arm and yelled down at me “Bro, we got some brews here with your name on ‘em—nice and cold!” as he pulled a six-pack out of the cooler and dangled it like a cat toy, pointing at a vacant lawn chair with his other hand.

It started when it stormed that morning and the wind took down the rotting oak on Carson Avenue which blocked traffic, made me forty-seven minutes late for homeroom, and earned me my first detention ever, and that’s including junior high, when Frank and Joey had been up on the roof with beer and a three-man slingshot and two white mice that otherwise would have been snake food for Mr. Bill as I arrived home from school at six seventeen p.m. because I’d missed the bus on account of the detention and had to walk.

It started on the third of August when Mom and I moved into the left side of this charred heap of beams and our belongings that two hours and eleven minutes ago was a pink duplex on Mulberry Lane in the Berry Point subdivision off of Jefferson Boulevard in Franklin County School District, which doesn’t even have a dress code.

It started when I filled the prescription from Dr. Collins for Mom’s first bottle of lavender-colored pills at the Walgreens on the corner of Taft and 150th.

It started three days after my birthday.

It started when I was nine years old.

“No,” I tell the fire marshal. “I have no idea how it might have started.”

“Mmm hmm,” the fire marshal purses his lips and nods.

ìNo,î I tell the fire marshal.

no

ìI have idea how it might have started.î

“CHANGE” (why weeds grow through concrete)

by Ryan McBee

that I’d simply rather sleep through your inventory of old ideas passed on and on and fading beautifully their inspiration is so slight that this history feels like bad fiction my eyelids are barely open to the horizons now rising above microscopes that had once measured our predictability but we’ve unbuttoned and outgrown that need for jealousy or resistance to the pain that’s been approaching peak up high above, now coasting there is calm windless bleed from flesh that withstood the wreckage of who we are and were and could certainly never be the cells are restructuring constantly the cells are restructuring

MY EYELIDS ARE BARELY OPEN

a falling apart of me and these keys that are counted in twenty six particularly framed directions starving to express alphabets of the way it feels to tread on top of those old hopes we had in an estranged destiny so far from that organic root Morning thick residue on the window and the relentless sun waking us up to what was left undone yesterday An untied face is freed from expecting the laws to gravitate these heavy hands and arms and feet Leftover conversation patterns are slowly killing in repeat, without questions as to why when the moon is bright, we sleep that crease from the fold felt right at a time but now I am wrinkling medicine in throat choke on plastic coating making regulated me more evenly distributed to the world looking on, critically perhaps its no emergency

47

words Travis Weller CONTROLLED BURN 03 Sara Jordan PREVIOUS TENANT 05 Lesley Owens HELIANTHUS 15 visuals Richard Charlton Make Your Idol Series Bradford Kessler untitled Ryan Nelson Don’t Panic Bradford Kessler A June Bug Transmutating from its Murdered body Amber Heggested untitled Jeff Brandsted Young Man Amber Heggested untitled Courtney Sweeney Paranoia-Symbol Todd Blubaugh Prosthetic Courtney Sweeney Trick-or-Treater (candy)

01 02 04 05 06 08 09 12 15 16

36 38 46

30 31 33 34,35 37 39 43 46 47 48

words Ashley Puderbaugh A RIVER Mary Huyck HOW I STARTED THE FIRE THAT BURNED DOWN THE PINK DUPLEX ON MULBERRY LANE Ryan McBee “CHANGE” (WHY WEEDS GROW THROUGH CONCRETE) visuals Ty Stude untitled Morgan Scott untitled Tad Carpenter Oh dear god!

Tad Carpenter details from sketchbook Tad Carpenter Boy Jeff Brandsted Highrise apartments Justin Riley untitled Bradford Kessler Jesus Andrew Foat untitled Megan Thomas untitled

spring

66 70 76 78

67 68 69 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 80

words Emily Edna Hall THE SECRET Matthew Overstreet THINGS I’VE NEVER DONE Logan Fleming AFFAIR OF THE MONKEY Adrienne Banks THE HOUSE ON CHE-LA-THA visuals Ashley Black untitled Amber Heggestad Coffee Lady Bradford Kessler Carp Boy Defends His Land From The Large Supreme Being, Carp Boy Defends His Land From The Medium Supreme Being Jennifer Cardinal Sparkle Toes Elizabeth Baddeley Tea Andrew Foat Contact Tad Carpenter Progression Elizabeth Baddeley Monkey Amber Heggested Cats Corby Chapin untitled Andrew Foat untitled

words Jeremy Kanarek RECONSTRUCTIVE SURGERY Mary Huyck TWO LESSONS IN ETIQUETTE FOR THE PROPER YOUNG LADY Emily Edna Hall MITCH AND FISH Michelle Malashock UNTITLED Jason Flay CAFÉ OF THE MOON visuals Tad Carpenter Innocent Elizabeth Baddeley Nude Amber Heggested Bird Amber Heggested untitled Justin Riley Circle of People Tad Carpenter Detail Bradford Kessler Life is Good on Rue de Abesses Bradford Kessler Her Name is Dead, Her Mother’s Name is Dead

99 101 103 109 111

98,99 100 103 105 106 109 110 111

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E ISOURC N U & et NG PRINTI www.vsginc.n g E WALTER N I L in AIN & print S AT M K n L o i t O F a c OD upli THE GO ., CD d C N I G at VS ORUDA R K E O H K G Y SA ALLA er LIND r MIKE G u s a e r &t ENATE S T N E D r KU STU THEW perviso u s CY MAT N m A o N Ro & eading AZARD R H m E s i N l A J rna KU Jou , L L A H GOTTSC MARK , KU RACKER

editor-in-chief managing editor copy editor ad/pr director special projects coordinator

Jessica Chapman Ashley Puderbaugh Laura Snyder Jennifer North Carlos Centeno

fiction editor

Lauren Reidy

poetry editor

David Grogan

asst. poetry editor

Jordan Tinsley

reader

Dan Watson

reader

Ron Knox

designers

Bryan Lisbona Meghan McClain Jill Nickleski Lindsey Riechers

fall 2003 staff

THINGS GO ROUND, Dylan Hilpman UNTITLED, Cassandre Connolly & Ian Brown CHECK MY DIALECT, Josh Powers feat. Johnny Quest The 29th issue of Kiosk marks the first compilation CD of student musicians and beat poets – a project we will continue and expand for future issues. The Kiosk staff accepted submissions for this compact disk similar to the literature and art submissions for the magazine, and we required each band have one current KU student. Our aspiration was to receive a variety of songs covering many genres of music so we could more fully encapsulate the Lawrence, KS music scene.

Check out the current issue of Kiosk along with previous issues of the magazine on the web. You can also stay up-to-date with upcoming Kiosk events and next issues art + literature deadlines.

www.ku.edu/~kiosk

SPACE AND TIME, Joe McGuire, a.k.a. “The Pleasure Maker” GIRLS ON THE WALL, Sweet Sassy Molassy INDIGNANT KEY, Loculus LIVING RAIN, Mickey Cesar-Argumedo with Vaughn Cowden STRAWBERRY, Anefera SWEET LITTLE CHILL, Gryphyn THE NUN OF SILOS, Adrienne Banks KI, Mind’s I SING + CELEBRATE, Key SUMMER 2NOTE, Free All Beats IDEAS AND ACTIONS, In Glass

62:46

cret e s e a th ly Edn by

Emi

Hall

every morning i wake up and press the sleep button four times before i finally lift my head and i can’t believe that i find myself alone 66

in a room with a window and the sun coming up as usual and my laundry stale on the floor next to magazines next to crusty dishes used as makeshift ashtrays they all say it takes a good year to get over someone and you only have to look within yourself to find the strength to go on

people who don’t know you tell you that you should take up a hobby deep breathing yoga macrobiotics water polo doctors wag their fingers and tell you should stop drinking so much bartenders squeeze your shoulder and give you one more on the house women friends tell you one man’s as good as another and lighting up another cigarette just takes the taste of the last one right out of your mouth but let me tell you yoga isn’t as easy as it looks and each new cigarette i light just reminds me

of the one before

68

but now i know the secret and what keeps me going is the mundane wonder of each day forcing me to appreciate the irony of till death do us part

of him slowly dissolving his image replaced by my own in the spotted mirror while i brush my teeth and the coffee maker we got for a wedding present still under warranty gurgling pleasantly predictably spitting out something i recognize

something i can use

Things Ive Never Done

by Matthew

Overstreet

“Is that it?” Mac asks. I don’t respond. I stare straight ahead. Beyond the blue curve of the windshield 70

a hundred acres of asphalt shimmer in hundred degree heat. Everything is half-melted or yellowing.

“Are you coming or what?” A Rod Stewart song is on the radio. It’s turned down way low, and I can only make out the chorus. “Fine, fuck you.” She turns off the car. The door slams. I’m alone. Without AC the heat begins to build. It drones in the background like a lawnmower or a swarm of bees.

There’s a stack of old kiddy magazines on the floor. I pick one up and flip through the pages. Between cartoon Bible stories there’s a grammar exercise – write down five things you’ve never done. I look for a pen and find a blue grease pencil.

I have never... I write in the box provided. The words

smear because the pencil is meant for your face, not paper.

don’t know. I throw the purse back on the floor. Molecules

I tap the tip against a cartoon picture of Jesus. My feet and

get excited, start to bounce. The sun can bounce molecules

forearms start to sweat. …seen the Pacific Ocean. That’s

hard enough to turn a hot dog black. In sixth grade me and

a good one. I write it down in small, square print, like my

my buddy Tom made a solar oven that did just that. At the

father’s. He was a doctor and died of cancer. In the sixties

science fair we won first prize. Later that day Tom punched

he toured with Jefferson Airplane.

a girl in the face and got suspended from school. That’s

something. I pick up the magazine and carefully print, I have

“I’d rather have one big problem than lots of little ones,”

never punched anyone in the face. I think for a moment. I

he once told me.

have never snorted cocaine or painted a self-portrait. Or a landscape or a still life. Tom goes to grad school in California.

“I’d rather have a beer,” I responded. At the time I thought

He wanted me to go out there with him, but I didn’t. Now he

that was real witty.

is married and we don’t talk much.

Five minutes melt. Mac’s in the lobby, walking in circles,

Ten minutes melt. The car feels like the inside of a balloon

waiting. She’ll realize I’m not coming, turn around, turn on

being blown-up by an overheated marine. One time I saw

the car, apologize. The girl is like a golden retriever.

Paul Newman at the mall. Another time I got third place on a

call-in sports trivia show. I always wear my seatbelt and used

I dig through her purse – lipstick, gum, pictures of people I

to be afraid of spiders. Now I’m afraid of snakes. Mac got me

71

a book about phobias. It says to breath deeply and count backwards from ten. She’s a sweet girl, dull as hell though. I have never fucked a girl who was left-handed or a drug addict, or a woman with red hair like Rita Hayworth. The words run together. I try to write more clearly. I have never read Ulysses or The Sound and the Fury. I have never ridden a horse or killed a mammal.

Ten more minutes melted. The temperature is about 300 degrees. My tee-shirt sticks to my chest and my tongue tastes like salt pork. Mac will be back soon.

She probably stopped to smoke a cigarette, brush her 72

hair. When she sees me all sweaty and red she’ll cry.

I keep writing. Strings of letters smear together on top of Jesus and John the Baptist. I have never seen a live alligator, eaten a Kiwi fruit, made friends with a black person. A drop of sweat slides off my nose and onto the paper. I have never been to Las Vegas, Spain, Canada, etc., etc. My lips burn. I’m still wearing my seat belt.

Another ten minutes melt. I admit it; I’m lying. Not about the seat belt but about Paul Newman and the sports trivia show. My friends in high school believed it. So did my cousins. And the people at my work and an old Texan I once sat next to on a train. These are the same sort of people who believe my father when

he tells them he toured with Jefferson Airplane.

“No you didn’t!” I scream from the balcony of our summer house in Boulder. “Every fuckin’ baby boomer claims that. You’re an unoriginal asshole!”

Dad isn’t dead. He lives in Florida with a woman name Babs. They play golf and eat at seafood buffets.

I visited once, but Babs didn’t like me. Her skin was the color of a carrot. I think she was addicted to prescription pain pills.

Time drips down my neck. The parking lot starts to ripple. It’s earthquake footage – palm trees and playground equipment sway as the ground rolls like

a beaten area rug. I have never been skydiving, water skiing or in love or on acid. It’s hard to breath. Babies and dogs left in pick-up trucks outside bowling alleys.

The crew of the space shuttle. I have never danced the (blank) or believed in something so strongly it hurt.

The grease pencil starts to melt. I have never driven a semi, met the governor, climbed a mountain, swam 74

naked. The magazine falls apart. I keep writing, smear Mary Magdalene, ruin my pants. I could never lift a thousand pounds, make a million dollars, play pro ball, die over a girl, a cause, a notion, blah, blah, blah.

The magazine’s gone. I tore it up and threw it away.

I’m not sure where. My head’s filled with steam and my eyelids are starting to fog up. I’ve stopped sweating. A crowd gathers. They drink out of straws and shield their eyes from the sun. There’s a cop. He taps on the window with his nightstick. Ask him about Mac. As if it matters.

i knew it was meant to be the first time we spoke and i told you i thought i would 76

be much more popular if someone dressed in a monkey suit would beat the life out of me in public places at random intervals and you said you had worn a monkey suit in the mall just the week before

The House on Che-La-Thah I. I believe in my father’s idea of himself as John Wayne.

II. My mother says, “I feel loved.”

My brother says, “You confuse love with a stomach full of fried chicken”

78

III Sister you for whom I would sacrifice myself opalescent secret illusive as March icicles if it is your own cold grace that cripples you I will bring fire but before you grow sacked loose saturnine your six-year-old-figure cuts water clean as a ship’s hull the naked chest the bare groove sister remain young

by

Adrienne Banks

80

9’ 6’

I love to watch you slowly go insane. I love to I walk in the room And everyone stares I Thinking the world ain’t that cold, but I’m The guards think they come to work Just maybe, it will be, OK. – Misty Remember, it’s not the size of your

see all the physical damage I’m causing you. I feel hundreds of eyes On me like cancer thinking that’s what I been told, because but they work for us. They pop my Mourning Melancholy Musing muscles of your mouth -- here, the

can’t help but sneer and chuckle when you shiver They grab me from the Neck and drag me I turned my back, because I’m in a 6 by 9 door when asked. I get breakfast

heart is all that matters. The mind can’t

and shake, when you freeze and sweat at the by the Hair, cracking my skull. – Chaos feet cell, wrote over 20 letters, only reason around 7.00 or 7.10. It’s guaranteed to

accept being in the six-by-nine cell for

same time, when you wake up with your sheets

I keep writing is not the cold people who be there. We go back to our penthouse

years, but the heart understands it has

and blankets soaking wet. – Addiction

don’t return their letters, is I love to write at 9.00 then our guards pop our door

to be done. The mind says, There’s no

and if someday a person responds I know 11.30 because they brought the lunch

way I can live in prison for years, but

my work is done. – Anybody Out There to us.

– The Penthouse at Douglas

the heart says, Deal with it and shut

County Jail

the fuck up! – Untitled

96

R

econstructive surgery

by Jeremy Kanarek

i want to walk out into the sun fall to my knees dig my fingernails into my sternum and open up my chest like a briefcase let everything fall out warm and slippery to sink into the dusty ground and rise again as good as new arrows passing through my empty cavity as i go on about my days

99

The proper young lady of gracious breeding and impeccable moral fiber unfailingly ensures that, when seated, her legs are crossed at the ankle, touching at the knee.

The proper young lady of refined taste and outstanding accomplishment unfailingly ensures that, while necking, she politely but firmly refuses any further advances.

But I was too drunk to remember that I hadn’t worn panties under my little black dress that night.

But I was too drunk to care when his roommate wandered into the kitchen and made a ham sandwich.

Notable when considering the fact I was sitting in the kitchen with my legs decidedly uncrossed.

Notable when considering the fact I was straddling his lap and biting his neck so hard it left a mark.

101

MITCH AND

102

FISH

by Emily Edna Hall

Mitch cast his line out into the slow brown water. His reel whirred. The pierced goldfish on his hook slapped the water and sank, struggling against the pull of the lead sinker. Mitch fished alone, perched on a cooler ringed with mud.

It was nearly dusk, and the little sunlight left filtered down, dappling the surface of the murky water. Mitch waited and watched the point where his line disappeared. Mosquitoes hovered in an opaque cloud around him. The river had a climate of its own, apart from the drought all around it. Its humid miles cruised below the horizon, hidden by the trees that arched over it and blocked out the sun. Their roots clung to the sides of the cut bank, arching out like exposed ribs.

Cicadas sang so loudly that their noise reverberated in his eyes and teeth, rising to a deafening crescendo. When it stopped, the silence was as loud as the cicadas had been.

It was Tuesday. He should have been at work, but there was no work to go to. His former employer, Wilson’s Sod & Landscape, was closed indefinitely, the sod dried to little blonde patches by the drought. Farms all over Western Kansas blew apart in the wind while farmers watched from beneath the bills of their caps. Out of work, farmhands collected at the local diner or the empty Co-op. They leaned in close together, hungrily watching the Weather Channel.

Mitch had been there with them, watching the unfaltering blankness of the radar map. No spots of rain, no gathering

storms. Not even a cloud in the sky outside the diner, where mirages boiled from the hoods of their parked trucks.

Jamie, Mitch’s wife, had taken a second job to keep the family afloat. On top of her night shift at the nursing home, she cashiered at the local 7-11. She hummed about with exasperated efficiency, cooking the kids’ dinner in one uniform before putting on another, coming and going, while Mitch stood by, fidgeting and useless. She was haggard and often complained of her sore feet, eyes lowered but on Mitch, just to see if he knew he was responsible. So he went fishing, out of sight and out of mind, close to the only water left in Racine, hoping to catch something, anything.

Suddenly, the pole lurched forward, dislodging itself from the mud as Mitch reached for it. The bite was fierce, so he flipped the drag on, and the line sang out from the reel. The fish swam fast and hard against him, diving toward the bottom, then frantically splashing to the surface.

Jesus fucking Christ! Mitch thought. He held onto the pole with all his strength, but still it threatened to wrench free of his hands. His flip-flops sawed at his feet as he strained against the bank for leverage. Please God, let me have this

fish, please God, just this one. He prayed, biting his lip till he tasted blood.

Then it stopped. The line hung slack, and the only sound Mitch could hear was the drumming of his own heart. He thought the line had been snapped. Cursing, he reeled in what seemed like a mile of line. When he couldn’t reel anymore, when he felt the dead weight on the end, he thought he must be stuck on a snag. Then his fishing pole gave a barely perceptible tug, and he knew it was still there. It seemed to be waiting, but for what, he did not know.

The line went slack again. Confused, Mitch reeled in. There was a splash near his feet. The fish (by God!) was swimming toward him. It churned the water close to the bank. Just a little bit closer, and I can grab it! he thought. He eased down the bank, holding the fishing pole. His feet sank deep into the silt. The fish splashed violently in the shallows, covering him with water. In the close semi-darkness of the river channel, all Mitch could see of the fish was that it was as long as a man. He reached for it, nearly losing his balance.

Then he let go of the pole and threw himself at it, catching it in a wet, full-bodied embrace.

Still, the fish didn’t fight, but its dead weight was a struggle enough as he heaved it onto the bank. Its skin was coated in a patina of heavy slime, and everywhere he grabbed, there seemed to be a sharp protuberance of fin or spine to keep him from getting a proper grip. He settled on wrapping his hand in his t-shirt and grabbing it by its massive lower jaw. Blindly he toiled up the bank, dragging the fish behind him. The pole, the cooler and his cap were left on the bank, forgotten.

Bumping along the corrugated driveway to the trailer park, Mitch saw a familiar truck parked behind Jamie’s Chevette. It was a wide brown Ford, belonging to Jamie’s brother Adam. The way Jamie looked to him for support since Mitch had lost his job usually filled him with impotent contempt. But tonight, the scales were tipped in Mitch’s favor. He pulled around to the back of the trailer. The small backyard was littered with the children’s plastic toys and tricycles. He kept an aluminum horse trough with an aerator

As he reached for it, it released a low, guttural sound, like the last dishwater being sucked down a drain. there to store fish. Most of the time, the kids filled it with the hose and swam in it. A Barbie floated face down in the water. He grabbed her by the hair and absently tossed it over his shoulder.

The fish lay still, illuminated by the phosphorescent light above the trailer. Its back glistened, and its whiskers splayed out on either side of its blunt head. Its tail was shredded in places, and it was covered in muck and nettles from being dragged up the bank. As he reached for it, it released a low, guttural sound, like the last dishwater being sucked down a drain. Its gills rasped against the air, searching for oxygen.

Catfish were known for their croaking, but this was different; it was almost a growl.

Mitch was repelled for a moment, but he heaved the fish over his shoulder and flopped it clumsily into the holding tank. As he walked back to the trailer, he saw Adam through the living room window. He sat on the couch, napping, with the light of the television illuminating his face.

A new air conditioner hummed in the window, a gift he must have brought. An insult to Mitch, who could not afford to

replace the old one himself. The trailer was a disgrace. Its worn siding, the color of baby shit, was rusted in places, and its porch was propped up with cinderblocks. Jamie hated it.

When they had first married, the trailer had been a temporary arrangement before they bought a real house. Temporary had become years, had become the rest of their lives, it seemed.

When Sheldon was born, she had stopped mentioning the possibility of moving.

Mitch walked past Adam into the kitchen where Jamie was washing dishes. She wore the maroon nursing home scrubs, and her dark curls were piled up in a hair net.

She did not turn around when he came in, only said, “There’s macaroni in the fridge if you want it.” He slipped his arm around her waist and kissed her cheek.

“Mitch, for Christ’s sake, you smell like fish! Stop it!” She peeled his hand away and threw it at him.

“Jay-mee,” He coaxed her with his most endearing voice.

“What?”

“I have something to show you.” He put his grimy hand on her forearm and pulled her from the sink. Jamie was

still a pretty woman, though her brown eyes had lost some of their luster and her round face was pulled into a disdainful scowl.

“What? Did you bring home a fish?” She couldn’t resist adding, “While I was at work, and while your brotherin-law installed our air conditioner?”

He ignored the slight and led her through the living room. Adam was nodding off on the couch, his work boots erect next to his feet.

“Adam!” Mitch said, loud enough to make him jump. “Hey man, I have something you’ll want to see.” He turned to Jamie. “”Where are the kids?”

“Mitch, they’ve been in bed for an hour. It’s late.”

Outside, the three of them stood over the holding tank, peering down at the black shape within. There wasn’t enough light to see it well, but it spanned the entire tank.

“That’s a mighty flathead you got there, Mitch.

Musta got stuck in that hole of yours ‘cause of the drought.

All kinds of fish are getting’ holed up in the shallows for the taking these days.” Adam said, noticeably unimpressed. He stepped away from the tank and lit a cigarette. “Yep, the last time I saw one that big was when me and the old man used to hang limb lines.”

Mitch was incredulous. “Brother, wait till you see this moby in the light of day. It’s the biggest fish ever caught out here, and I know it. It’s at least a hundred and thirty pounds.”

Jamie stood by with her arms folded over her chest. She stared at the fish with wonder, but not reverence, as Mitch had hoped she would. Jamie thought it was sitting too still in the tank. It had a kind of poise, a weird animal

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intelligence. It looked like the very reason she had never liked swimming in the river when she was little. There was never any telling what lurked in the muddy water, and her imagination had always filled in the unknown with something monstrous. Something like that.

When Adam finished his smoke and stalked off to his truck, Jamie remained next to the tank, still and silent.

“Jamie, what’s wrong?”

“What’s wrong?” Mitch, what’s wrong is that I’m tired. I’m so fucking tired, it’s not even funny.You think just because you bring home this big ugly fish that everything’s going to be just great, but it’s not. We have three kids, Mitch.

The girls are starting school and Sheldon needs daycare. I’ve got bills stacked to the ceiling, and this is what you bring me?”

“Jamie, what the hell else am I supposed to, huh?

When there was work, I worked. Now there is no work. No rain, no sod to lay, and there’s nothing I can do. At least I brought home some meat!”

“Meat? Are we the Clan of the Cave Bear? There’s plenty of work, only it’s the kind you think is beneath you, but it’s not beneath you to hang around and fish all day while your wife takes care of you like you’re one of the kids!” She walked away, and the slam of the trailer door was like the sound of a gavel.

Mitch knelt down by the holding tank and gazed in at the fish. He knew that Jamie was right, but only partially so. She could not know that it was just as bad to be the failure as it was to be the one who was failed. He was never able to move the family from the sorry piece of crap trailer on the outskirts of Racine. He was never able to pass up an invitation to drink. He was not a good father. And Jamie, brown eyed Jamie, always looking at him to do something different. As if he could.

Adam was right. The fish was there in that shallow hole because there had been no rain, not enough water for

it to move. Mitch stuck his hand in the tank and caressed its silken skin.

“Buddy, neither of us would be in this mess if there was enough water. All we’d need is a little rain, and we’d be fine.” The fish moved, and Mitch quickly withdrew his hand, recalling the sound of its growl.

Mitch went to bed still smelling of mud and fish, and no sooner had he closed his eyes when he heard the sound of the sky ripping open. Lightning struck nearby, sending a shudder through the trailer, rocking it on its cinder blocks. Rain began to hammer the tin roof. He disentangled himself from the sheets and went to the window. Maisie, the eldest, came to the bedroom door, dragging her pillow behind her.

“Daddy?” She was a fat, square girl with bangs cut straight across her face. “Can I sleep with you and Mom?”

“Sure hon.” As he turned around, he caught a

Most of them were skeptics who wanted to see whether or not Mitch was full of shit about this man-sized flathead.

glimpse of the holding tank, illuminated by another flash of lightning. He smiled, for it seemed to him that his prayers had been answered.

In the morning, Mitch emerged from the bedroom to find Jamie giving breakfast to the kids. Maisie and Jessica sat at the kitchen table shoveling cereal into their mouths.

Sheldon sat in a high chair wedged against the refrigerator, the only place it would fit. Jamie looked up from the orange juice she was pouring and gave Mitch a tired smile.

“Looks like you got your rain, Mitch.” She indicated the television, where the radar map looked painted with red.

“We’re getting showers every day this week.”

Mitch scratched his chest hair and stretched. “I’ll bet that’ll be enough for Wilson to be back in business again.”

“I hope so.” She handed him some juice. “I really, really hope so.”

That morning, after Jamie and the kids left, Mitch

lingered next to the tank in his raincoat and boxer shorts.

Raindrops dimpled the surface of the water, but even through the disturbance, he could see that the fish was every bit as impressive as it had been in the semi-darkness of the night before. Surely it would bring months of catfish dinners when he slaughtered it. But remembering the feel of its skin, and the sudden rain, he thought he might not kill it at all.

Clean-shaven for the first time in weeks, he went into town. He found Wilson and the other usuals at the diner, sitting at the counter.Wilson was a stern old man. He nodded at Mitch and took a long drink from his coffee.

“Well, Mitch, looks like we might be back in business pretty soon,” He glanced up with his bushy eyebrows raised, “If you’re still inclined.” Of course he had heard the local gossip and had seen Jamie at the 7-11.

To soften the insult, Mitch spread the news of his catch. The single reporter for The Racine Chronicle was eating eggs a few seats down. He overheard the news and agreed that he had better come over and take a picture for the paper. He and a handful of followers, including Wilson, followed Mitch back to the trailer in a motley collection of flatbed trucks. Most of them were skeptics who wanted to see whether or not Mitch was full of shit about this man-sized flathead. Mitch sped all the way home.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” said Wilson as they gathered in a circle around the tank. “That’s the biggest ever to come outta the Bourbon, that’s for sure. That old boy looks like he came from the Mississippi.”

Another man said, “ I seen on the news one time a man getting killed by a fish like that.”

Mitch glowed beneath the hood of his raincoat.

They all helped him get the fish out for a picture. Mitch put on the gloves and stood on the porch, holding the fish up by its jaw. He strained an easy smile, though the weight of it threatened to pull his shoulders out of their sockets. The fish began to growl again, slow leprous sounds. Mitch wanted to cast it away, but he was in the company of others, so he held fast.

“Jesus, that thing sounds like it’s talking, doesn’t it?” The reporter said, stepping back in alarm. The other men looked askance at him, as if to call him a pussy, but they too, heard the menace in that weird hollow sound.

The rains came, day after day. Mitch had nothing to do yet, only the possibility. Sometimes he went to the diner, but mostly he stayed at home, with the fish. He worried about it. He thought it might not hold up much longer cooped up in the tank, but he didn’t kill it. And he wasn’t about to just let it go. He sat at the kitchen table, sharpening his buck knife to a fine, fine point.

Jamie noticed him brooding. There had been a change in Mitch since he’d caught the fish. She wasn’t entirely sure she liked it, though his behavior had certainly improved.

So much better now that he didn’t steal away like a teenager to drink beer by the stinking waters of the Bourbon River.

So much better to know that soon, very soon, he would be working again. Mitch had a new straightness in his posture, an uncharacteristic kind of confidence – not the loud showy kind he always had, but a much quieter, more powerful kind.

His eyes now met hers with startling directness when he looked at her. But mostly he just sat with the knife at the kitchen table. At night, she often woke to find his side of the bed vacant. Through the window, she could see him standing next to the tank, in the dark, in the rain.

of cul-de-sacs, two-car garages and pristine, sloping driveways.

The houses were all pretty much the same, placed evenly, and painted in varying pastels that did not offend the eyes. Mitch thought despairingly of the trailer. This was the kind of place Jamie would have wanted. All quiet and neat.

The subdivision was so new that none of the houses had lawns yet, just bare dirt, and many still had stickers in their windows. A few tatty young saplings were tied to stakes along the street. Mitch parked and wandered over to the end of the street, where a bulldozer had pushed all the razed trees and dirt. From on top of it, he could barely see the Bourbon on the horizon. He remembered the cicadas, and the noise the fish made, but all around him was silence.

A few weeks passed, and the rain stopped, and Mitch went to work. Wilson had been contracted to lay sod for the new subdivision on the other side of town. He drove the green company truck past its gates, into its sparkling world

Later, Mitch went home to find the trailer empty, though the Chevette was there. He found Jamie standing before the holding tank with her hands on her hips. The tank was blooming with streamers of algae, but the fish looked the same. Jamie reached out and squeezed his hand.

Mitch pulled the truck into the backyard. They had to stand in the tank to get ahold of it. Jamie grabbed the tail end, grunting under its slippery weight. They did not speak as they heaved it into the bed of the truck and drove down the worn dirt road to the tree line. It was nearly dusk when they stood unsteadily on the riverbank, holding the fish’s limp body between them. The water was up, and the current moved swiftly below them. It was Jamie who finally spoke.

“Honey, I can’t hold onto it much longer.”

“I know,” he replied, and they swung the fish out into the river. It stayed near the surface, stunned for a moment, and then it was gone in a graceful whorl of tail and water.

The cicada’s song filled the air to bursting, then fell

silent.

He says “just who

do you think you are?”

And I say I am the appealing cover of a book written in a foreign tongue. I am the pause in rain when you drive under a bridge. I am the lonely star separated lovers look to for comfort. I am thunder proclaiming the onset of a rain that nurtures. I am the vibrant echo of a rock falling into a canyon.

He says “I am leaving.” I am the gentle tide that extinguished last night’s bonfire.

by Michelle Malashock

109

Cafè of the

by Jason Flay

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B

ohemian minds occupy the square Objects of the mind coexist; Paper, Iron, Wood, Steel, Glass, Kodachrome, Pigment, Linen Bohemian mind creations The world outside chaotic, unkempt The square, a safe haven– last bastion of thought Influence upon its shores attempts to seep, but identity rules We fight back peaceably, to forge holy ground– Sanctity reigns

Cafè

Here is the temple where Darwin is the creator; Whitman is the muse.

Jack and Allen are in the booth, engaged in lively conversation With Emily and Albert, on the ability to be.

Tracee and Bob share themselves next to the age-ed mike.

John (who is up next) is standing in a corner With Ché and Karl dreaming of utopia.

Ansel (though not a stranger here) is on a stool talking to no one, waiting for his eye.

Bobby and his brother John (both poly sci majors), talk about societies’ injustices.

by Jason Flay

Moon

of the

As closing time draws near, Mahatma and Theresa (a saintly pair), leave arms linked, pouring over the less fortunate Ed and Leo, plan the uncreated, While Thom and Ben hurry to catch up (they lag behind because they stopped to listen to Bobby and John) Sopho and Renee, try to out do each other– each playing the fool Will sits lovesick alone, lost in thought writing Ernest is brooding in the leather chair While Lenny and bright John try to cheer him up Celestial bodies reside here, this temple of thought.

Where no thought is dogmatic.

The alter is the bookshelf, the sacrament is coffee and incense of burning tobacco.

We are the elysian plain, where thought infinite resides.

We all exist here, here within the square.