May 2017 Issue 1.1
1
Editor-in-Chief Yael Massen Managing Editor Juliann Nelson Logo Designer Rachel Levin Fiction Editors Madeline Klein Alexis Lucas Rachel Levin Juliann Nelson Kiersten Mann Poetry Editors Anthony Singer Genevieve Marvin Kamryn Gallardo Alexandria Stanfield Director of Marketing & Outreach Alexis Lucas Social Media Specialists Genevieve Marvin Kamryn Gallardo Rachel Levin Anthony Singer Alexandria Stanfield Special thanks to Ross Gay
2
Table of Contents Vagabond .......................................................................... 5 Lillian Wright Nate’s Past Life As a Blast ................................................ 6 Nate Logan Oct. 16, 2016: That’s Some Bambi Shit; or, The Sugar .. 7 Ross Gay Love Poem with PBR & AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck” ......... 8 Patrick Kindig Where Do You Go (When the Noise is Too Much)?......... 9 Celia Daniels A Duel Will Settle This .....................................................12 Nate Logan V........................................................................................ 14 Catherine Walker Carl Sagan Said We’re Made of Star Stuff .................... 16 Spencer Bowman Dichotomy ........................................................................ 17 Nina Stevens Love Told by an Astrophysicist ...................................... 18 Paul Dodd citrus .................................................................................21 Patrick Kindig Eastbound, They Swerved, Both Headlights Out ......... 22 Josh Hoffer 3
I see you, Damascus........................................................ 23 Katherine Menjivar A Memoir of All Things Lost and Stolen........................ 24 Dorothy Nguyen The Day I Became ........................................................... 27 Corinne Levy Tell Me a Lie .................................................................... 28 Nina Stevens Stella’s Snow Globe ......................................................... 29 Kerry Black Spooky Ooky .................................................................... 32 Emily Corwin When They Come Cawing .............................................. 34 Dorothy Nguyen Thumbelina Sleepwalk ................................................... 37 Emily Corwin Beating ............................................................................. 38 Deb Alix The Child .......................................................................... 40 Corinne Levy Burying the Sun .............................................................. 43 Paul Dodd Hauntology...................................................................... 45 Patrick Kindig Home by Midnight .......................................................... 46 Caleb Jordan 4
Vagabond Lillian Wright My brick body stays behind me when I go flying at night. Mechanical whirrs and hushed whispers tickle my ears as I float like a feather falling in reverse. My ceiling is plain white but I pass right through its holographic presence. The sky smiles as it consumes me, the only ball of light approaching the darkness. I try to look for you. Past the tattered roofs and cotton candy trees, I meet an elephant that offers me tea. I politely accept and drink a cup full of stars. I feel the fuzzy warmth of vastness and eternity sliding down my throat and jolting through my bones. I find you. A fluid green garden, I climb inside and explore. I find myself enclosed in the cage of trees you call your ribs. I am home in your universe.
5
Nate’s Past Life As a Blast Nate Logan A rowboat full of dachshunds washed up to shore. The local news gave the boat a clever name that was quickly rescinded for fear of a lawsuit. That’s always happening. One minute, sleep is falling out of an ear, and the next, funeral wishes to be shot out of a cannon are being honored on the town square. He was an old man, a get-off-my-lawn sort of man who had definite ideas about condiments. One mourner recounted a story where mustard was an antagonist, a real bastard. I did not know the man, but felt like I knew his face. It was a face I’d seen in the gleam of ornaments and single-bladed razors. I’ve got no earthly idea what any of this means. If this was the plan the whole time.
6
Oct. 16, 2016: That’s Some Bambi Shit; or, The Sugar Ross Gay Quoth my buddy Pat, when I told him about the guy who told me and Stephanie, as we were walking Tucker the dog around the cemetery, our little cat Daisy following behind (Disney shit, yes, but not yet the Bambi shit), pushing his lawnmower, a hefty belly hanging over his belt wrapped tight in a ¾ sleeve AC/DC t-shirt, camo-hat with the gas station razor-style shades perched atop the brim, when somehow the family of deer in the neighborhood came up, and he mentioned that not only had he seen them, he’d become friends with them, such that sometimes he’d be working in his shed, getting his mower tuned up, grabbing a tool, and the little faun would come right in and rub up against him like a big old dog, really, until I’d have to shove him out, get now, get, and one time I was working back there and started getting light headed, and I didn’t know I had sugar but I started feeling real bad, real dizzy, and started walking out of the shed and toward the house, and the next thing you know I woke up with both of those deer, the momma and her baby, licking my face, all over my cheeks and eyes, until I realized I’d passed out from the sugar and said ok ok that’s enough now, and got up and got me some pop.
7
Love Poem with PBR & AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck” Patrick Kindig You say drink, brah, & I do: bring the can to my lips, pour the beer into my throat. Feel the pull tab warm against my nose. Imagine its edge is your thumbnail’s edge. Imagine its heat is the heat of your hand.
8
Where Do You Go (When the Noise is Too Much)? Celia Daniels It’s not the ticking of the clock on the lecture hall wall that gets to her first. It’s the sound of footsteps, not gentle like rain, but repetitive, stamping themselves onto her brain as her fellow students trudge towards their seats. Ella, even with her eyes closed, can keep a steady count of them, though the train of numbers in her head becomes disheveled as the clock grows louder, the stamping becomes a wave, and her teeth grind against one another. Somewhere across the room, someone unzips a bag. Someone clicks a pen, says something inane to a friend. The door creaks on unoiled hinges; the taste of blood fills Ella’s mouth as she grits her teeth, harder— She passes the professor as she runs out of the classroom, but neither one of them notices the other. The cool fall air bites at her face as the door to the math building swings shut behind her. Ella moves out of the walkway and leans back against the stone; it digs into her back, the pricking unevenness reminds her to breathe. Calculus isn’t that important, anyway. It won’t matter if she skips. Instead of painting the walls of her lecture hall pink with the mushroom matter of her brain, she’ll take a walk. A long, long walk. Ella pushes off the wall. She counts her steps as she moves away from the building. At three hundred, she’s passed most of the academic buildings; at seven hundred and four, she’s passed most of the residential ones. A friendly wind blows red and brown leaves out of their trees and down into her path; Ella makes a point not to step on them, but keeps a separate tally for them in her head. The bridge over the river that marks the end of campus is exactly one thousand, four hundred and thirty-six steps away from the campus mathematics building. Its stone is cracked and wet, and the river underneath is high with recent rain, but Ella walks to the middle and sits anyway. The condensation soaks through her jeans. Ella frowns but doesn’t move. She remembers a story from the year before: a young man, age twenty-one, had walked down to the bridge in the
9
middle of the night with a backpack full of stones. People still debate whether he jumped or if he was pushed. Ella thinks it was both – a jump like that always results from a push. She picks at the stone with inattentive fingers, idly counting the ripples that form around the bricks near the river’s edge. The grey clouds above her don’t threaten thunder. They hover, breathless and silent. Ella realizes that her brain’s gone quiet. On impulse, she toes off one of her shoes. The sound it makes when it hits the water is overwhelmed by the rush that carries it away. Ella bites her lip, tastes iron, then toes off the other. “Hey!” Her brow furrows as she loses the other shoe. “Hey! Hello?” Ella frowns. She curls her toes in an attempt to fight off the sudden cold. “Hey, you!” With a roll of her eyes, Ella turns. Her audience is a young man with a bright red scarf wrapped around his neck, brilliant against his brown skin. His hair is shaved close to his head, and his eyes are wide. Ella tilts her head as he waves in her direction. “Get off the bridge!” he hisses. “You’re gonna fall in or get picked up by the campus cops for loitering, and frankly, I don’t know which is worse.” He almost makes her laugh. It must show on her face, because some of the man’s worry cracks in favor of a small smile. “Come on,” he says, waving at her again. “I don’t know what’s going on for you, but I know it won’t be solved by just sitting there.” “And how do you know that?” The words crackle as they come out of her throat; Ella blinks, surprised to hear them at all. The man takes a slow step forward. “Because it’s cold,” he says, “and because wet jeans take a ton of time to dry. It’ll be a lot easier to think over whatever it is you’re thinking about while you’re throwing your jeans in the dryer and wearing sweatpants instead.” He pauses, then crosses his arms over his chest. He is, in the moment, the picture of severity. “And because I’m not going to stop talking until you put both feet back on the road.”
10
Ella feels a corner of her mouth twitch upward. She glances down towards the water again, but gets distracted by the sight of her bare feet. She flushes and looks back towards the man. “I lost my shoes.” The man hesitates, then takes another step. “That’s alright,” he says with a shrug. “I know a place where we can get you some of those boots that everyone loves, except for about half the price.” “Will you buy them?” “Hell no.” Ella laughs without closing her eyes and sees the tension in the man’s shoulders slacken. “But I will buy you a smoothie,” he says, once she’s finished. “Only after you come off that bridge, though.” “Why a smoothie?” Ella’s feet move without her realizing it. Only when they hit the cold, uneven road does she notice that she’s no longer facing the water. “It’s cold; do you want to feel colder?” “There are some sacrifices you make for good things, despite the cold,” the man says. He takes another step toward her, then another, until he can touch her hand. His skin, Ella notices, is just as cold as hers. “Smoothies are good things.” Stray bits of rock and asphalt dig into Ella’s feet as they move away from the bridge. When she can’t bring herself to ignore them, she counts in her head each time something crunches underfoot. “I wish it was warmer,” she says. The rush of the water is slow to disappear, but it sounds enough like each of her new breaths that the distance doesn’t really matter. Beside her, the man smiles. “You know,” he says, “I wish it was, too.”
11
A Duel Will Settle This Nate Logan 1 Blindfolded, I walked into the aseptic zone. It was like putting a moon rock in my mouth. It was like a roommate’s dachshund standing on my liver. My parents never called to wish me luck, removed from scholastic complications. I once spent three years writing prose poems; I refused to break anything. This fad philosophy cradled my heart, a plate of Eggs Benedict, into a new administration. The aseptic zone? It was okay, if you get my meaning. 2 The future governor wears a MTV shirt with the sleeves cut off. I’d like to say “Minnesota represent” here, but that’s the wrong idea, even in my postmodern tone of voice. In an interview, the other future governor says the jungle smells like burnt toast. He’s secretly fucking his maid in California. Explosions are timed just so. The soldier in glasses directs Iron Man 3 in 2013. 3 On a good day, you can pause in the middle of the zip-line and enjoy a Reuben. A fat bear, lost honeymooners, the river with a branch caught in its throat, etc. It’s all very beautiful. An off-course crop duster barely registers—remember, you’re eating a fantastic Reuben. Your best friend calls
12
your name. Then the $45-an-hour instructor. A line forms in the distance behind you. Sauerkraut forms an anthill below. 4 All Midwesterners who leave are pilgrims. If I seem comfortable in your house, I’m lying through my teeth. Lisa says, “Nate, you should really consider...” And I have considered, I have. Lisa also says, “Nate, Arizona is warm.” My hand water-skiing through a field of orange blossoms is the epitome of chillwave. On the ostrich festival gates is a note that reads, I’M SORRY.
13
V
Catherine Walker
The sky turns into waves as the sun falls beneath the horizon The vibrancy and fleetingness of the explosive moment of paint scattered across the clouds Salt of sea and salt of peacefulness escape my eye and onto her cheek pressed against my breast I beg for the colors to stay to preserve this moment with her to encapsulate our love unending and undaunted flow of dreamlike heartstrings I kiss her and take off to the sea I reach the end of the earth to plead with the sun To give me her color forever Passion propelling my stomach from falling out of my body A tide of forces who help me beg I want the mother sun to stay frozen in movement Like the brush strokes from the lily Sun asks me why I left her behind I said because I was stronger faster and hardened to everything but her Yet when I get back she has gone her tear still wet on my chest I sit the sand covering my legs and cold against bare skin I sit and I wait And wait
14
And wait And wait And wait until I have waited so long that I become the sand and the dust and the pearl that her better color makes into a necklace that now hangs around her neck In the place her tear once hung on me
15
Carl Sagan Said We’re Made of Star Stuff Spencer Bowman My mind goes back To Carl Sagan saying We’re made of star stuff. My mind goes back To the primordial soup Of the earth, To the soup my mom made, Vegetables bouncing around Like excited gas molecules. When I feel so powerless That if I were to trip, I might Fall back into the folds of the universe, My mind goes back And forward, and out. I wonder If the star stuff I will become Will resemble that which I once was, Where it will be, how it will smell, If it will have the same Pink scar on its knee. Responsibilities are pulled away By the waters of the cosmos. The stars outside my window Shine brighter than my laptop screen. Carl Sagan said we’re made of star stuff So it’s alright if this poem is shit.
16
Dichotomy Nina Stevens Love the moon that wanes Just as you love the sun that rises Feel the pull of the stars The same as the Earth feels space Cultivate grace in your soul As you would nurture a child in your arms Forgive the rains that wreak havoc Knowing they are the same ones that cleanse Embrace the boundless chaos With the acceptance of endless possibilities
17
Love Told by an Astrophysicist Paul Dodd We’re like a graph with four axes (Width of X, height of Y, depth of Z) All put into motion by the movement Of energy which we perceive as time; Can’t be created Can’t be destroyed, Though, according to Newton, We are susceptible to change. Which is why you see her In the opalescent clouds Where flakes of dust heap together With fading comet tails And hydrogen ions, Gathering like lint In the deepest parts of your pockets, Until one dent in Einstein’s Space-time continuum starts The three-dimensional free fall That stretches the fourth dimension Of time for what feels like centuries, The same amount of time you spent Staring in her direction, Attending all her study groups, Memorizing her favorite books And constellations— Feeling the inward pull That made it worth All the time it took for her To remember your name: A gravity that forms a dense mass That glows infrared, As collapsing gasses spin around you In a whirlpool of friction and heat, Consuming the space around you In a process called accretion Which looks like a record
18
Playing slow and cool And into the evening, As the night sways Around the room, Where picking her out of the crowd You decide to move closer, And things slowing down, And I mean way down, To less than a millisecond, When one insignificant proton Gains just the right amount Of momentum in its free fall To find that one it wants To be with for The rest of its existence, Asking for a first dance When your hand falls for the first time Into hers, and the innocent feeling You had as a child, Stomping through puddles And blowing bubbles in milk, Suddenly peaks as she smiles back, Then within that microphysical moment Something awesome occurs: Those atoms fuse Their nuclei to combine their masses With such a surge that A small piece of both of them Transcends the physical three-dimensional Boundaries of matter into the four-dimensional Motion of time that is the movement Of pure energy at the speed of light, Blasting the others around them With the force of their fusion, Beating out any force of separation By more than 9,980,000 tons of TNT, A difference relevant to that of Atomic fission and hydrogen fusion Bombs, until suddenly, Still within that single
19
Fractured second, they all Begin to fuse. And the core of a new star Slides into existence.
20
citrus
Patrick Kindig
do you remember those summer vending machines, those oranges from home we ate and were amazed my lips cold and sticky, your fingers in that rock garden, you and I humans learning
citrus
to be older
we noticed for the first time there was a city around us
21
Eastbound, They Swerved, Both Headlights Out Josh Hoffer Light is a swarm, a burn
prayer I cannot speak: your colors in morning sun
of blood and charcoal and nectarine etching collarbone as red along the sightline as scar’s still-healing seam. We rode summer’s green orbit as time— a word summoned like rain in the heat— washed over us, breath between the silence and song, the thin thread of cicadas clarifying a syntax of fuse of rocket, of sparkler, of long and open flame— I wake in darkness and know every star
by the brightness
nights spent haloing darkness with our laughter
soft as lullaby. Then airbag’s azide fist splinters rib into my memory; in the room you whispered to me of Rigel’s sole, Aquila’s feathers, Ursa, Major and Minor, a progression of void-black chords. Whether I rise or slip back under, you stay still in an exoskeleton crushed, a shatter of hail, a pavement slick with rain. Splay an ode out on the street
of sirens, and crack its spine like a glowstick, feel pain by the wait of its name.
22
I see you, Damascus Katherine Menjivar I want to lay my palms on you like a plush throw over your heaving chest breathing heavy, barely. I want to shower you with rubber bands to make slingies & shoot them at reality—so cruel it makes me uneasy to muster words to describe it if not enough to make our plants cry. I want to sing you lullabies of clouds and children hop scotching & smiling into their mother’s arms down a playground slide until I remember the sky that has forgotten your children. What puzzles do we have lay before us & mountains do we need to stretch open, Damascus, to open our eyes?
23
A Memoir of All Things Lost and Stolen Dorothy Nguyen It will be forty-two long years before you find the ring again. By then, your memories will have begun to cloud, like the cataracts in your eyes, melding faces and voices together until everyone seems both familiar and strange. By then, your children—so lovely, so wild—will have settled into their own lives, with their children flocking around you whenever your daughter slips off to another country, or your son has to pick up another graveyard shift. You will struggle to remember where they got their restless energy from, but it’s something you can’t really fault them for, even when you hardly see both their faces at the same time. The years will strain toward you in a long procession of sights and sounds: a gramophone’s grainy wheedle, the click, clack, chime of a well-loved typewriter, the pop of oily kernels in the pan, the rattle of tea cups when you felt the earth shake for the very first time, the silver mist of a content sigh. By then, your father, who used to smell like midnight coffee and the kind of safety you could never buy, will smile at you in your dreams. You will think of the ache in your lungs and wonder when will it be my turn? By then, you will have all but forgotten me. I forgot to tape your show. It’s a silly thing to remember, but it occurs to me anyway as I shoved the rest of my things into a duffel, which had looked so much roomier in the display case. The bloated bag protested, despite my efforts to ignore that half the things I was packing were most definitely not mine. I tried not to clench my restless hands in your father’s sweater (it still smelled like him: coffee, mints, and summer barbeque), or acknowledge that the bag was unnaturally stiff because of the albums upon albums I had forcibly squeezed inside. I tried not to think of the broken ninja turtle watch I was wearing and how it had slipped from your fingers when the neighbor’s chihuahua got too frisky. Even though I knew it would always be stuck at twenty minutes to nine, I kept glancing down to check it, as if willing the hands to race to a better time. I hovered over my bag and tried not to think of all the things I had stolen.
24
Fiddling with the ring on my hand, I was all at once aware of a creak on the stairwell, and then you were there, peeking at me with eyes too much like my own. “Mama?” you said, your voice clouded by a yawn. I took you up in my arms and shushed you. “I’m sorry, sweetpea, did I wake you? Let’s go back to bed.” I marveled at how big you were already. Once you were a tiny pill bug of a human, wrapped snug in my arms, with eyes that looked at the world as if it were a fantasy. But then I remembered how I recoiled from you that first year, how when your father left on his overnight trips, I would hear your cries and just let my eyes drift shut. My dreams were threaded with your wails. I considered telling you something as I tucked you back into bed. A story. An old, old bedtime story. Once upon a time, a boy met the wrong girl. Once upon a time, the girl liked the world too much and herself too little. The words were there in my mouth, but you had already closed your eyes to me. The moon shone at my back, throwing my shadow across your face like a funeral veil, and that nameless, coiled feeling I used to have when you were barely a girl began to curl up into my stomach and mouth. I couldn’t stay; I couldn't stand to stay. I rushed out of the room and gathered my things, only stopping once at the door. I had almost forgotten. The ring slipped easily from my finger. It had always been too big for me. I turned it round in my hand, before laying it down where I knew the sun would glint off its silvery edge. I had already taken enough. When you grow up, not quite grown old, you will wear the ring on a chain around your neck like a ward against evil. It will feel safe against your skin, and it will keep the eyebrows from rising, like they did when you used to cram it on your finger. You will have long stopped asking questions, because you couldn’t bear to watch the shutters close in your father’s eyes. What you know will have been scoured from the few remaining albums I left behind, with pictures from the time I thought you and that house could have never existed. When you grow up and away, you will wonder at how old your father’s house will seem. Twenty-five years, you muse, is too long a time to remain tied to a place. You will ask him to move with you and your husband, to where the sun is gentler
25
and the skies are mild. You will say that there was no point in waiting, that there was no one to wait for. But he will just look you in the eyes and smile, and say how much you look like me. The air has a crispness to it that promises October rain and the musk of crushed leaves. My heart is a stuttering mess as I slip into the cab waiting outside, and I set off without a word. I fight the urge to look at my watch, and instead turn to catch the last glimpse of that house as it flees from view. I thought of your little arms draped around my neck, and your father’s rumbling snores. With my cheek against the cool glass, I let my eyes drift gently closed. My hand feels as bare as your neck will when you wake up one morning and find that the chain around it is gone.
26
The Day I Became Corinne Levy The day I became a feminist was Summer: beautiful, inviting; how girls, Nay, how women, are expected to be. A man drilled bullets into the heads of My Sisters. Because women owed him sex. The day I became a feminist was The day I learned my blood could boil hotter Than the stoves my Mothers slaved over; The day I learned my body is not mine. This is Finders-Keepers, Losers-Weepers: Doctors, the Congress, a man with a gun. I become a feminist every day I refuse to be defined or Limited by what is in my pants or Who is in my bed, instead of rejoiced For who I am, We are Women.
27
Tell Me a Lie Nina Stevens Tell me a lie But make it good Give it meat to its bones Breadth to its being A smile on its face Make it brash and bold A tiger ready to pounce Chasing its own tail Tell me a lie And make me believe it Let me dine with it Lift a glass and Cheers with it Dance awhile with it Admire it like a beautiful lady Make it a grand and bawdy thing Spinning its own tale
28
Stella’s Snow Globe Kerry Black Stella mopped sweat from her brow and beneath her ponytail. “I’m melting,” she said to her empty bedroom before flopping onto her bed. She glared at the mound of homework piled on her desk: algebra, geometry, an English essay, and a Spanish translation. She groaned and rolled onto her back. Familiar possessions looked different upside down. She grabbed a snow globe from the shelf, a present from her long-absent favorite aunt Telly, and gave it a shake. Glitter and snowflakes swirled around a lady skating a graceful figure eight on a frozen pond, her delicate, mittened hands reaching out like a bird in flight. Her braids flowed from beneath her tasseled knit cap. As the snow settled on the icecoated plants surrounding the scene, Stella moaned. She hadn’t seen snow for three years, not since they moved. Pressing the glass to her cheek, she imagined the winter seeping through to cool her. A tiny tap made her jump. She inspected her snow globe. Was it cracking? Nothing seemed out of order—but wait. Where was the lady? Stella put her eyes to the glass, searching for the figure. “Where are you?” She spotted the skater, fallen from her etched-in track, arms outstretched toward the back of the microcosm. Stella tapped and repositioned, but the skater did not fall back into place. Sparkling snow eddied around her now prone figure. Stella punched her bed cover with frustration, set the snow globe back into its place on the dusty shelf, and snuck into the kitchen for an ice cube. Back in her room, she allowed the ice to melt over her skin, but something in the globe caught her attention. A string of twinkling lights now decorated the shrub, and a snow angel marked where the lady had fallen. The force from Stella’s grab excited the snow within. “What the—?” She eyed the snow globe with care, but she couldn’t find the lady. Although the globe remained water-tight, she checked the shelf to be certain the lady hadn’t fallen out. The figure eight track remained atop the iced-over pond, but the lady occupied herself with decorating, her once immobile
29
hands now fluttering with movement. A cardinal sang a silent serenade from atop the shrub. Stella rubbed the heels of her hands into her eyes. Looking back into the globe, the scene had changed again. A snowman now stood beside the newly-decorated shrub. Its cheeky grin dared Stella to deny its existence. She studied the newest scene with a furrowed and sweat-slicked brow. “How are you doing that?” The lady in the snow globe cocked her head and placed her hands on her hips. Stella jumped, nearly dropping the globe, and scrambled to steady it in her hands. She yelled into the snowy glass. “You moved! I saw you.” Straight and unmoving, the statue admired her handiwork. Her skates hung from her shoulder, and she held a mug of hot chocolate. Stella watched its fragrant steam rise toward the lady’s smiling face. As she admired the spectacle unfolding in her hands, Stella remembered her family’s last ski trip, with drifts of snow as deep as her waist and ice hanging from the chalet’s eaves like troll’s teeth. She ached to be inside the globe with the figure, cool in the snow. Instead, she wiped sweat before it dripped into her eyes. Stella leaned her forehead against the snow globe. “You’re so lucky. It’s so hot here I feel like I’m melting.” She sighed. “I’d love to be cool for a while.” The lady swiveled and beckoned with a mittened hand. A smile puckered her crimson cheeks. Stella placed a hand on the glass. She melted through its surface and fell with sparkling snow to the ice-hardened ground. She wore the lady’s clothing, and her breath puffed in glorious clouds. Her once sweat-soaked bangs froze into jagged points. Cold bit her nose and wind buffeted her until she huddled deeper into the outerwear. Around her, snow swirled, an unending ballet of white and silver, palest blue and gray. The cardinal cocked a curious head at her and blinked before retreating into the decorated shrub. Her feet left dimples in the freshly fallen snow, and she shivered. Only her chattering teeth interrupted the eerie silence. Stella touched the glass of the snow globe. Its frozen wall burned through her mitten. Her feet slipped as she searched for an exit, but only arcs of unending snow greeted her. Her pulse pounded behind her earmuffs.
30
She licked chapping lips and waved to the lady who now stood her bedroom. “Hey, thanks. I’m ready to come out now.” The lady fashioned a fan from Stella’s homework and fluttered it with dainty movements. She pulled her hair into a ponytail and secured it with Stella’s favorite hair tie. Her hand blocked out the light blazing into the room, plunging the snowy scene into darkness. A torrent of snow and sharp glitter bit into her cheeks. Stella squeezed her eyes shut and struggled to keep upright, clutching the ceramic tree for support, while the encapsulated world experienced a great upheaval. A loud thump resonated through the glass, and the lady returned the globe to Stella’s shelf. Snow and panic settled on Stella as she watched the lady walk away without a backward glance.
31
Spooky Ooky Emily Corwin don’t curse the girlish bones spilling under the blanket the bowl of your hips pink like strawberry milk like your baby crib. don’t name this place ‘the nightmare bed’ don’t sleep with lions in your closet— their black rubber gums coiling bloody on your Christmas shoes. you find a plucked fang shining under your pillow. * choking back bold egg of a scream you must hide all the knives mommy breaking tea pots on the porch outside. * nightmare mother she scraping behind you slinging maple syrup popsicle, paint acrylic in your pigtails. birthmark on your neck opens fresh with blood sap out the front door you go molasses legs so
32
gummy in the crabgrass and there’s mommy watching from her rocking chair squeaky her eyes shivering electric.
33
When They Come Cawing Dorothy Nguyen In the place where everything can kill you, it’s not the snakes, sharks, or even those fuzzy brown trapdoor spiders you need to worry about. Come September and October, if your eyeballs are still worth something and haven’t already been blinded by the sight of your old Uncle Terry slow dancing in his lady’s lace underthings, you’ll need to make the proper preparations. Once summer is backing out the door, it’ll be swooping season for the magpies. If you’re unsure of what they look like, they come in a devilish shade of black and white. Mostly they’re the color of shadows, especially when you’re about to walk under a tree and see those black not-leaves rustling above you. They have a call that sounds about as comfortable as Maisie’s acrylic nails digging into my skin when she thinks there’s someone outside the house, and the bloodthirsty, blood-red eyes of a creature spawned from the innermost circles of hell. Their chicks are everything to them, and your eyes happen to be softer than the melted popsicle in your hand at high noon. Anything deemed even somewhat offensive, like say, the sound of someone slamming on my baby sister’s car door and screaming her name in a dead parking lot, will send a murder of magpies dive-bombing on your head. During the spring swooping season, victims will update the online maps where those winged devils were thought to be nesting, biding their time for the next assault on our juicy whites. It goes unsaid that every autumn our town braces itself for a one-sided war. People have been stranded in cars. Principals have put their bodies on the line for students. Talk show hosts are giddy with equal parts disbelief and fear when they replay the latest video of a sucker who was too stupid and naive to know what was coming for him. There are even professors who devote all their time to identifying the exact moment when magpie and human relations became so filled with strife and blood. When heading into a danger zone, the kids have learned to wear empty ice cream buckets over their heads with crooked eyes drawn on in permanent marker. It got to the
34
point where, near the end of August, school teachers would bring colorful plastic buckets and a handful of markers for the kids to decorate and then take home for later use. Up until Thanksgiving, really, their little school cubbies will hold both pencil bags and dented buckets. The best are the ones that come with the Superman ice cream; they’re big, sturdy, and cover the entire head without compromising visibility. Growing up, our mom always took Maisie and me to pick out neon sandcastle buckets, because ours from the year before were dented beyond saving, even more so than other kids’. I always blamed it on Maisie, who was fascinated by the bloody devils and would try to draw them in her book. Her bucket would always have the Superman symbol drawn on, while I stuck to the classic smiley face with a gap tooth. Professor Peregrine Lee, back in the late 90s, held himself poised on our crackly antenna TV as he theorized that the magpies wouldn’t attack if they thought someone was watching them. Which never made any sense because all the people who were swooped had watched them close in with big, round eyes that probably had the softness of freshly pounded dough. Maisie had those kind of eyes sometimes, when she heard tires crunch up our pebbled driveway. It soon became apparent that the bucket helmets weren’t enough and that humans can only run so far and so fast. Parents began to coach their kids on how to most effectively brandish a stick, an umbrella, or any other elongated item that they could possibly get their hands on. Self-defense trainers offered free lessons on how to duck and protect your hands and eyes. Nurses showed students how to disinfect and bandage freshly gouged skin. Safety whistles adorned every chest, and school girls cut through parking garages to avoid the woodsy paths. If anyone was out cycling, it was common to see thorny brambles of zip ties strapped to the top of riding helmets. The only time we ever had a proper conversation, he had professed himself a fan of the zip tie technique, said that they were always useful to have around. Zip ties were cheap and easy to use. Multipurpose. But even when the zip ties kept the bastards from getting too close, it didn’t do much for keeping the unwitting biker from becoming scared shitless, to the point of flying over handlebars, snapping wrists or fracturing clavicles. Often enough, men and women came into work wobbling on boots or
35
clutching casts with a sort of sheepish, “I-should-have-seen-itcoming� kind of look. When it was swooping season, no one ever batted an eyelash at her bruises. No one thought it strange when Maisie constantly twitched at the slightest sound. In recent news, Professor Eurus Lee, with the same calm look and receding hairline his father once had, informed our little backwater town that magpies had the uncanny ability to remember faces and recognize when some clueless Joe would waltz onto their turf. I only ever talked to him once, and when I asked her what he had looked like, she only shook her head. She had never seen him, not up close. If you happened to wander too near a nest and managed to hightail it out of there the first time, the magpies would know you for the intruder you were if you ever stepped foot in their territory again. If anyone went where they had no business of going, they were sure to regret it up to the moment those wingbeats pummeled the air and those myriad shadows pitched over them, dark as the room will be when the only time I hear from Maisie again is a ten second voicemail cut off in the middle of a sob.
36
Thumbelina Sleepwalk Emily Corwin out there, there is the big, big world there is full of sparrows and tadpoles and mole holes. she watches, girl no bigger than a bumble bee girl long ago with wings she plucked them off now blisters, now restless in her walnut shell at the window ledge—a moonstuck place her face—a pretty penny against the glass eyes beady, all kindle and shine.
37
Beating Deb Alix Flitting about at my perfect columbine, Her periwinkle petals smile. Her face reaches toward the inviting sky And succulent drops of pineapple essence drip from her lips As she tells me eavesdropped stories from the pines. The sun is still ever so radiant on her skin, Yet every effort I make to fly to her, This nagging murmur in the wind carries me backward. And with each dawn, I let it push me further As though I bound my own wings in twine And framed the cardinal. Unbeknown to the flower I call home, I scouted foreign flora that following forenoon. Daylilies, lupines, foxgloves, A motely array of smoky sriracha spirits and silky hypnotic complexions. In a whirlwind of ecstasy, Dizzied by flattery, This ruby fringed chest Liquored by ravenous kisses. That forenoon spun to eventide. That day of absence to a full season, seasons. Fatigued by endless medleys of fluff, Returned I to my precious columbine. Frail her core Sinking to earth Vacant of color Pines whisper her story, our story, In the clammy mug of air, Benumbed, heavy. From their blather I discern that I thieved her ambrosia. Her drink dried dead. Never to be revived.
38
I ram an arcane barrier.
39
The Child Corinne Levy The evening that Michael proposed to Anna was the day she graduated college. After celebrating with friends and family, she traced hearts on his skin while they planned their future together alone in their bed. “We can get a house with a big backyard for plenty of kids,” Michael mused, kissing her fingers that laced through his. Anna grinned down at him. “How many is plenty?” Michael made the thoughtful face Anna loved so much. “Four.” She laughed. “Okay, four kids it is. You just have to promise me something.” He tangled his fingers in her hair, and awaited her next words. “You have to promise you’ll always love me the most.” Her smile quivered a bit, and he could see the edges of her insecurities. He pulled her close to him. “Of course, Anna. No matter how many children we have, you’re my one and only.” He kissed her. Michael and Anna had one child. Laura greeted the world with a howl on a quiet Sunday morning in April. Anna collapsed back against the pillow, suddenly aware of the sweat pooled around her. At once Michael’s hand slipped out of hers as he rushed to watch the nurse clean and swaddle the baby. “Do you want to hold her?” the nurse asked softly. Michael was lost for words as he reached out to hold the baby’s tiny hand between his fingers. He nodded slowly, as if in a dream, and exhaled quietly as the nurse slipped the baby into his arms. Michael gazed down at Laura as if his entire world was wrapped in the little pink blanket with her. The two stood only a few feet away from Anna’s bedside, but it might as well have been miles. She saw a gleam in Michael’s eyes she didn’t recognize. After what felt like ages, Michael reluctantly shuffled the baby into his wife’s arms, his eyes not leaving Laura even for a second. As Anna supported the baby, it emitted a piercing howl. Anna didn’t feel anything. ……….
40
There was a screeching from the baby monitor, and Michael stirred. “Don’t worry love, I’ve got her,” Anna lulled him back to sleep. She rose like a ghost in her flowing white nightgown and padded down the hall. She peered over the side of the crib and saw the child, so foreign to her, wailing. Its face was bright red and scrunched, its fists balled. She picked it up and absentmindedly juggled it, maybe too hard because the cries grew louder. She set it back in the crib. She got a glass of water and returned. She stared down at the baby, recalling how Michael looked at it. Michael didn’t look at her like that. She took a pillow and covered the baby’s face. ………. The dreams were becoming more and more frequent. Each one left Anna smiling. She rolled over to welcome what new dreams sleep might bring. ………. Sleeting hail pelted Anna’s skin, chilling her to the bone. Her day had been an endless succession of stifling hugs and hushed condolences. Michael sagged in front of the tombstone on the freshly packed dirt. “Our baby, Anna,” he sobbed, “how did this happen to our baby?” She helped him to his feet and guided him to the car. Their families greeted them somberly at the house where they heated up casserole that went uneaten and tossed their muddy clothes in the wash for them. That night in their bed, alone at last, silent tears escaped Michael’s clenched eyes. “It’s just us, Anna. She’s gone; it’s just us.” Anna rolled over so he couldn’t see her mouth curl at the edges, but grabbed his hand. “Yes,” she sighed, giving it a squeeze. “Just us.” ………. This dream, like the others, made Anna smile. She smiled when Michael woke the next morning to check on the baby. She smiled when he started to yell. She smiled at the feeling of the handcuffs tightening around her wrists. She smiled as Michael
41
looked helplessly on as she was escorted into a cop car, his face a perfect painting of despair. It didn’t matter how he looked at her, just that he was looking only at her.
42
Burying the Sun Paul Dodd The first drops To tap my head And slip cold down my scalp Remind me that I’m not One of your pallbearers, But am alone Bearing my own. Guilt is an arid tomb In my chest where I had Once guarded the Son of God Till he left me. All that remains are letters He smeared across the placid walls With his bleeding palms, Forming the words Of the note you left us. I’ve locked myself in this tomb With all those words, As though they were guarding me From feeling the sun’s warmth On my arms And in my hands. I fumble over their syllables like a child Still learning to read. Beneath the grey shroud of sky I feel baptized As I watch the drops Glaze the rising wood of your casket Into a coppery sheen, Slip back in time When you and I crowded Into a wet seat on the bus We took from Central Park Zoo To the Southeast side of Manhattan.
43
You said something like Look daddy! It’s raining light. And I said something like Light? What light? Then you shoved your fingers Into the glass like a fist Of squirming caterpillars, And outlined the winding Streams of water Which held the translucent glare Of every fluorescent screen We had passed on Times Square. See, daddy. See? I had never seen you so excited, Even after riding Your first elephant, The simplest illusion Was enough to flush Your cheeks with joy. And I can’t stop that smile— The years of birthdays, of laughter, The pictures you drew of animals Still hanging in my office, Nor can I separate the rain from tears In your mother’s eyes— The frustrated panic in my limbs As you yelled back— And for that I refuse To let the sun Disturb the soft silhouette Of your silence.
44
Hauntology Patrick Kindig It’s strange, that moment you realize a boy existed before you met, that moment you reach into his chest and feel a familiar kind of hole. Strange when you realize his life was once not yours, once shared with a stranger who wasn’t a stranger until he was. Strange the moment you take a sip of coffee and realize this has all happened before: a body in this kitchen, in the bed you just left. This same mug pressed to another man’s lips. Strange those lips once opening toward your boyfriend’s mouth. Strange the way each morning those lips touched his
until they didn’t.
45
Home by Midnight Caleb Jordan We two boys together clinging, Together singing, together breathing. We two boys hide in the shadows Of the rock on the coast. We two Boys see the sea coming and going And wonder at it. We connect. There Are tendrils. We hide in shadows. We Two boys together, together. Good night.
46
Author Bios Deb Alix is an undergraduate student at Indiana University studying Theatre and Creative Writing. She plans to combine the tools of each craft to develop stories that move others to action. She hopes to one day be employed by an entertainment giant and workshop storyboards. “Beating” is her publication debut. Kerry E.B. Black writes from a cream-colored cottage nestled in an encroaching swamp. Spencer Bowman is a freshman at Indiana University studying Film Production and intends on pursuing a career in screenwriting and producing. He enjoys making movies with his friends and would probably live in a hammock if that was a viable life decision. Emily Corwin is an MFA candidate in poetry at Indiana University, Bloomington and Poetry Editor of Indiana Review. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Gigantic Sequins, Hobart, Day One, smoking glue gun, and Word Riot. Her two chapbooks, My Tall Handsome (Brain Mill Press) and darkling (Platypus Press) were published in 2016. Celia Daniels is a graduating senior at Indiana University who spends too much time writing and too little time sleeping. She has been published in Road Maps and Life Rafts and the upcoming 11.9 Anthology. Paul Dodd is an English Honors student studying Creative Writing at Indiana University, Bloomington. Originally from Fairland, Indiana, Paul began studying music at IUPUI before transferring to IU. He made the Dean’s List in 2015 and holds one other publication in the 2014 edition of Labyrinth literary magazine. After 47
graduating, Paul wants to pursue a Master's degree in New York. Ross Gay is the author of three collections of poetry, most recently Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2015), winner of the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award in Poetry, the 2016 Kingsley Tufts Award, and finalist for the 2015 National Book Award in Poetry. He is an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at Indiana University, Bloomington. Josh Hoffer is a sophomore at IU studying Human Biology and Creative Writing. After graduation, he plans to attend medical school to become a physician specializing in emergency medicine. He volunteers with Crimson Corps and is the editor in chief of Labyrinth magazine, a publication open to IU undergraduates. Caleb Jordan is a poet known mostly for spouting random facts and minutiae regarding literature. His family has had a history of poetry and literature running through their blood. He lives and works in Del City, Oklahoma. Patrick Kindig is a dual MFA/PhD candidate at Indiana University. He is the author of the microchapbook Dry Spell (Porkbelly Press 2016). His poems have recently appeared in Willow Springs, Whiskey Island, CutBank, Hobart, and other journals. Corinne Levy is a freshman at IU majoring in Human Resource Management, though her real passion is her Gender Studies minor. She loves to write poetry and flash fiction stories, but will try her hand at anything. Nate Logan was born and raised in Indianapolis, Indiana. He is the author of Post-Reel (Locofo Chaps, 48
2017). He's editor and publisher of Spooky Girlfriend Press. Katherine Menjivar lives in New York City. Her work has appeared in Arcadia and The Boiler. Dorothy Nguyen is currently an undergraduate English and Media major at Indiana University, Bloomington. She is fighting for her long-time dream of writing stories from home in a puddle of noodle-y cats. She hails from a long line of sad humans who sneeze at the very sight of a feline. When she's not crying her heart out over the deaths of fictional people, she is editing children's stories with her fellow members in the student-led, cross-cultural organization called Books & Beyond. Nina Stevens was born and raised (mostly) in the South and considers herself a good Southern woman, complete with quirks and a heated temperament. She currently resides on the Mississippi Gulf Coast with her husband and two dogs. Catherine Walker is a sophomore Arts Management major from Indianapolis, IN. She has been involved with a wide range of arts her entire life, but has focused on writing and film. Lillian Wright is a sophomore at Indiana University majoring in English with a concentration in poetry. When she isn't studying, she loves spending time with her two pet rats, Zoso and Coda. She also has a penchant for vintage books, classic rock, and Indian food.
49
Deb Alix
Patrick Kindig
Kerry E.B. Black
Corinne Levy
Spencer Bowman
Nate Logan
Emily Corwin
Katherine Menjivar
Celia Daniels
Dorothy Nguyen
Paul Dodd
Nina Stevens
Ross Gay
Catherine Walker
Josh Hoffer
Lillian Wright
Caleb Jordan
Cover artist: Kamryn Gallardo
50