Blackwater Review aims to encourage student writing, student art, and intellectual and creative life at Northwest Florida State College by providing a showcase for meritorious work. Blackwater Review is published annually at Northwest Florida State College and is funded by the college.
Editorial Advisory Board: Jon Brooks, Janet Faubel, Beverly Holmes, and Charles Myers
Editorial Assistants: Jacqueline Bazarte and Anita Johnson
Art Advisory Board:
J.B. Cobbs, Benjamin Gillham, Stephen Phillips, Lyn Rackley, Ann Waters, and K.C. Williams
Graphic Design and Photography: James Melvin
Web Design
Riotta Scott
All selections published in this issue are the work of students; they do not necessarily reflect the views of members of the administration, faculty, staff, District Board of Trustees, or Foundation Board of Northwest Florida State College.
Front cover artwork: Heaven’s Finest Dandelions, Sarah McNulty
Acknowledgments
The editors and staff extend their sincere appreciation to Dr. G. Thomas Delaino, Interim President, and Dr. Jill White, Senior Vice President, Northwest Florida State College, for their support of Blackwater Review.
We are also grateful to Frederic LaRoche, sponsor of the James and Christian LaRoche Distinguished Endowed Teaching Chair in Poetry and Literature, which funds the annual James and Christian LaRoche Memorial Poetry Contest, whose winner is included in this issue.
Time As a Linear Device
Colby Fox
Oh, yes. I could have been here on time. But consider how active the mind becomes when one has lost his keys, lost his car, lost his place in everything that makes him just like everybody else.
Think of the vast capabilities his mind assumes in those times of abstract thought. How he must rearrange his mental patterns from the routine to sort out the more complex agendas of the next five, ten, fifteen minutes in which he hopes to find that one solid article which will get him where he needs to be when he needs to be there.
Couldn’t a mind in such a state be put to better use? Were he to look upon a messy living room where his keys might be, He could find an infinite number of ways to reposition the sofa so that it creates a more harmonious living space for everyone in the house.
Could he not come up with just the right thing to say to that beautiful waitress who works the outside patio tables at the place a few blocks away? Yes, her. The one with the clogs and the Lisa Loeb horn-rimmed glasses who smiles at him each afternoon on his way home.
If he perused the library all morning, could he not find those particular books, which would contain just the right words on just the right pages, that would instill in him the knowledge, and the faculties for carrying out a new discipline that, after a time could bring about the end of war, and hunger
and disease, and would produce a means for the survival of the planet?
I realize that in terms of time as a linear device, I am late, and we could discuss the reasons for this all day. But it’s Friday, and I’m here now, and I brought sandwiches.
Anonymous
Christie Woodrow
I am anonymous. I am a mask, blank as a face void of emotion or scars. Hard to peg my identity to a wall like a Viceroy butterfly: a display of death for the masses. Pass.
I am anonymous, unable to be read. No need to force-feed tattered pages of my life. I am no open book. I speak volumes.
I am anonymous, not to be tagged, leave that to the cattle. Submissively branded and burned, I remain the black sheep, watching them file into slaughterhouse five.
I am anonymous, others say lost. Religion or fiction: it’s my cross to bear. I kneel to avoid heinous insults in pairs.
I am anonymous, not easily defined. For definition see ostracize. I am a verb. See me run away from all the proper nouns.
I am anonymous, won’t adhere to the rules. No time for your scruples and scrutiny scrawled on a document signed in good faith. We the people ... are scared as hell to be ourselves.
Leaflets
Eric Farmer
The double doors closed behind me. I was at the back of the line in a room with off-white walls. I could make out a long counter at the front, with several work stations at it. The men at the counter wore black uniforms with silver epaulets and bright white gloves. I watched one. He was reviewing a folder in front of him, picking up stamps and marking the papers.
I looked off to the side and saw benches. Rows and rows of benches. People were crowding together in the seats for warmth, breathing into their hands. I hadn’t noticed how cold it was, but I was shivering. I looked around, and all I saw were more benches and people in uniforms taking paperwork to other workers. Then I saw another pair of double doors with a bold red sign that read “Exit.”
“Next!” a voice called.
I stepped up to the counter and looked past it. There was a man in uniform. He sat at the other end, scanning through a filing cabinet.
“Name, please?” he asked.
“ Where is this place?” I asked.
He closed the cabinet and sighed. He turned to me and said, “You are at the location known as Station 1B of Quadrant E. Staff members are prohibited from disclosing the nature of the Station. May I have your name, please?”
At first, I was confused. But I guess it was just his job, so I told him, “Victor … my name is Victor Clark.” He turned back to his cabinet and looked for my file.
“Ah, Mr. Victor Clark . . . says here you are from northwest Florida. Is this information correct?”
“ Yes,” I replied.
“L et’s see: age 19 years, 360 days, 14 hours, 12 minutes, and 32 seconds . . . white male . . . eyes: blue . . . . This seems to be you,” he said, marking the papers in my with his stamps.
“All right. What I need you to do,” he said, “is to take one of these pamphlets and fill it out. Here is a pencil, and you may take a seat over there.” He pointed at the benches.
“Once you are finished, turn your pamphlet over to the attendant at those doors.” He pointed at the exit. “Have a good day.”
I took a pamphlet and the pencil and I walked past a few rows of people until I found an empty seat. The woman across from me stared at the pamphlet, crying. She sobbed and shivered. I leaned forward in my seat and was about to open the pamphlet when I noticed rope burns across her neck. I stared for a moment. I didn’t mean to, but then she caught me looking. She leaned back and covered them up.
I averted my eyes and opened the paperwork. Suddenly I was in my kitchen. It was the middle of the night, and the lights were off. I saw many empty pill bottles tipped over, rolling across the table. Then it hit me. I fell to the ground and opened my head on the tile floor. I rolled over on my side, trying to get up, but I couldn’t. I felt sick, and weak. Blood was rushing from my head, and I couldn’t see straight. I collapsed on the floor. I started vomiting violently. The last thing I saw was my blood mixing with vomit and dust on the tile floor.
Why did you kill yourself?
That was the first question written in the pamphlet. I put my hand on my head, and pain shot through me. I pulled my hand away. It was slick with blood.
I stared at my hand. I shivered. This time, it wasn’t because I was cold. I could feel the tears in my eyes. I took a few deep breaths and let the reality set in. I tried to stay calm.
I looked back at the question. Why did I kill myself? I don’t remember. It felt so long ago. I wrote my answer:
I don’t know.
Another flash hit me. This time I was seven or eight. I was throwing a Frisbee with another kid. We were at a park next to the bay where I lived. Then my older sister Elizabeth came out and called to us.
“ Vic! Mom says you have to let me play!”
We played a little more, laughed when none of us could catch or throw it. But then Lizzie whipped the disc as hard as she could just a few feet away from my friend. He fell down and started to cry. He had a bloody nose. Lizzie laughed. I was happy it wasn’t me.
Then another flash came. Now I was fourteen and in the lobby of Lizzie’s therapist. My mother walked out, and Lizzie was crying. I hid behind a magazine. On the way out of the lobby, Lizzie picked up a lamp and threw it at me. It shattered on my chest. I dropped to the ground, limp, like a plaything. I was so angry. I wanted to throw the shards back. But I didn’t get up. I didn’t do anything.
“This is all your fault!” she screamed. Mom turned her around and walked her out. Once they were both in the car, I told them I’d be fine walking home. I often wondered if it had been selfish to turn my sister into the police for domestic violence. I wanted to be able to sleep at night. I wanted not to be afraid of what would happen if I said the wrong thing. I didn’t want to be pinned to the ground with a knife against my neck and spat on. I just wanted to sleep.
I was back at the station. I looked at the first question and erased my answer and stared at the blank spot. I don’t remember, honestly I don’t. I just stared at it. Remembering my life was not something I enjoyed. When it came right down to it, I was tired of being harassed every moment. It was like they wanted me to do it. So I wrote:
I was unwanted.
It seemed right at the time, but another flash came. I was sixteen and in the bedroom of Johanna Gambles. We were on her bed, kissing because she was crying. Her father had left because her mother was drunk again and going to bed to wait out the hangover. Johanna’s hand slid up my leg, and I heard my zipper being undone. The door was locked, and no one could see us from the second story. Her curly dark hair formed a veil around my vision. All I could see was her sleek brown eyes and
her lips curling into a smile. She pressed her olive cheek to me and whispered in my ear.
“I love you, Vic.” She smiled. “Don’t you love me?”
At that moment, flashes barraged me in a volley of light. Every one of them marked her words. Every vision was another scene of her saying, “Love you.” At the park, in her car, at the mall, in my bed, in the woods, by the bay … it was just her. Her saying “love you.” And I could not say, “I love you, too.”
My head felt like it was going to crumble when the last flash hit me. It was almost a year later, in Johanna’s living room. Her father was in a screaming match with her mother. Once she started throwing things, we went outside. It was dark out. We held hands and looked up at the stars. Everything was calm.
Another loud scream came from inside the house. Johanna’s hand slipped away from mine. She started to cry a little, so she took a deep breath.
“ Vic, just get the hell away from me.”
I wasn’t surprised. She’d seemed distant. Day by day it got worse. Sometimes we’d drive and I’d ask her where she wanted to eat. I wouldn’t hear a word. I ended up picking somewhere, and the only time I’d hear her voice was when she’d order. I still don’t know what was wrong. But at the time, I was ready to leave.
“Get the fuck away from me!” she said.
So I left.
But now I was at the station, holding my head. It felt like the room was spinning, and my arms wouldn’t stop shivering. I didn’t need the flashes anymore. I knew why I was there.
After Johanna left, I was crushed. The only person who actually cared, really cared was gone. Once my mother heard, she laughed a little. She said that Johanna finally wouldn’t put up with me. Who knows? She might have been right.
Once I got into the local community college, I started to feel better. I was finally getting my life going. But just because Johanna left me didn’t mean she left the area. I saw her every
day. She’d wave and keep walking, just to be polite. But I wonder if she ever noticed how I winced every time I looked at her. It made it hard to try and get myself out to date others. But I did.
Most of the girls were just there for a free meal. And the others were probably worse off than I was. I almost gave up, but I met a girl named Evette.
Evette Kooper was a porcelain doll. Her skin almost glowed in the dark, and her hair was long and fine, like brown silk. We dated for a year, and then I moved in with her. Everything was perfect. I got all of my things out of my room and left. I never spoke with my family again. I had no reason to.
Things changed once I moved in. I knew she liked to drink, but I didn’t think she had a problem. She started drinking more, simply because we didn’t have to go anywhere. She’d finish off a beer and tell me to get another, and I would bring her more. I told her once that she’d had enough. A swift back hand to the jaw fixed that.
“I will let you know when I have had enough,” she said. “Now go get me another fucking beer before I have to get up.”
I remember lying awake on the couch, wondering how the girl who I loved so much could treat me so wrong. As the weeks went by, we no longer made love. She raped me. She would push me to my knees and press my face into her. She forced me to drink the sweat from her lips, straddling my face to muffle my shame and smother my life. After earning a black eye and a few cuts and bruises, I decided I needed to leave. But I couldn’t go back to my family. I had no family.
A few months went by. I stayed out of her way and kept up with the bills, working my dead-end job as a restaurant host, smiling at everyone. But one day while I was at school, I ran into Johanna. We sat on a bench in the hallway, waiting for our next classrooms to be empty.
“So how you been doing?” I asked her.
She was silent for a while. Then she took a long, quiet breath.
“Oh, you know. Little lonely. Kinda miss someone telling me how much they love me and all that.”
I smiled.
“So how about you?” she asked.
I told her a brief version of my life. How I was being beaten and needed to get out. She smiled for a moment and took my hand.
“ Vic,” she said, “go kill yourself. You are such a fucking little pansy.”
S he got up from the bench and started walking away. She waved without looking back.
“Thanks for cheering me up, Vicky.”
That night, Evette was angry at something and was drinking more than normal. I offered to listen to her vent about it, but she didn’t want that. She slapped me across the face and told me to get her another bottle of scotch. I brought her a beer and she hit me again.
“I said scotch, dumb-ass.”
I did as she asked, and through the night she kept sipping out of the bottle.
Eventually she said to me, “Why are you still here?”
At first I didn’t understand.
“B ecause I love you,” I said.
Eve smiled. “What kind of bullshit answer is that? I’ve been hoping you’d leave for weeks now, and you’re staying ‘cause you love me?’”
S he got up off the couch and walked over to me. She pushed me to the ground and fell down on top of me, pinning me in place.
“B ecause I love you,” she snorted.
She snickered and laughed and rolled over. I got up and walked into the kitchen. I sat at the table for the rest of the night. I heard her laughter in the other room. I just sat and cried. Eventually, she went to sleep on the couch. I looked at her half lying down, half kneeling off the floor. I stood there, admiring her curves and her milky skin. She was my everything. And I was her nothing.
I needed to leave. There was nowhere to go.
I swallowed all the pills I could find in the medicine cabinet. I didn’t want to feel anything, anymore. After all the bottles were empty, all I would have to do is cry, and wait.
Why did you kill yourself?
Now I’m in the station, staring at the question. I took my pencil and wrote
I killed myself because I was alone. There was no one that I felt close to, and I needed to get away. I wanted to be in control of my own destiny, and it seemed like a good idea at the time.
I looked past the question to avoid any more flashes. But there we no more questions, just the one. Why did I do it? I closed the pamphlet and looked around. People were cold and crying. I started to cry a little, knowing that it was over. As soon as I turned in my pamphlet, I’d walk through the exit. I didn’t know what was past the door. More than that, I didn’t want to know what was past it. So I sat in my seat, and waited as long as I could.
I don’t know how long it was. I just sat and watched other people filling out their own pamphlets, watching the looks of regret twisting each of their faces. I watched others dealing with their own past misfortunes, facing their Johanna’s and Evette’s. Everyone around me had their marks. The woman across from me had her rope burns, and the man next to me was missing the back portion of his head. I almost felt as if I knew them. Or at least I knew that we couldn’t be too different. We all ended up the same.
It seemed like a good hour or so before an attendant walking past my row stopped. She walked in front of me.
“Sir, once you have finished, please report to that attendant over there.” She pointed to a man standing next to the exit doors. He was taking the pamphlets from people as they walked toward the doors. My legs locked up. My joints stiffened and my muscles became tense.
I stood up, and she escorted me over to the man. He looked at me and smiled. It was the first smile I had seen since
I got there, and I couldn’t even smile back.
“ We got another straggler,” the woman said.
“Eh, it happens,” he said. “I mean, what do you expect?”
I handed him my pamphlet, and he opened the doors. I made eye contact with him.
“ What happens after this?” I asked.
He smiled gently at me.
“The only way to find out is to go. But I’d like to imagine that it’s nothing too bad.”
Listen to the Zephyr
Sara Bergschneider
A love forgotten to be expressed makes knots of love in my hair. Yes! Sweetheart of course I care every once and again when my cigarette smoke catches the west wing of a Zephyr I pray that he will be kind enough to relay this message to you; your eyes rule this Gemini, your words consume and burn my heart with fire, and when you feel miserable just blow me a kiss with a prayer, through the air. I’ll be right there. I’ll come running to wherever you may be. Because your home with me is eternity and we can try again in Mexico. If you want to go no one else has to know. There are no crickets singing tonight, no cars on the road. The bars are all closed and not a spirit stirs and it’s so still, so silent, so quiet, I whisper your name and I’m sure you can hear me.
My Wine
James Birdsong
To whom it may concern, Embodies, my love, Like clothes ... Like shoes ... Like like and alike I am hungry.
But for none other and one other, Let it and I be not, That we both drink, And drank, And drunken ... Flow unwittingly glassed, Separate, and free from our incantation Both shallow and transparent.
I drink tonight, To us, To sweets, To the blind eye, That of night looks away For fear of casting a shadow caught in the act.
To your number, To the nightlife, To a long life Together.
But no, that’s not it. Too sweet, Two tastes, Two states... Me? You?
It’ll be the same. I think I’ll have another.
The 7-Eleven
Christie Woodrow
Hannah sat in her glorified high chair and further punished her mashed potatoes. She had moved past irritation and had long since settled into contempt and quiet resentment. She hated the dingy, yellowed windows that surrounded her. She hated the chess-square tile that always seemed to have her in a stalemate. What she really hated, however, what she just could not tolerate, was the unspoken caste system of the cafeteria.
In this room, hell, in this school, Grace Keenly was God. Hannah was still continuing her sadistic mashing and muttering when Patrick flopped down next to her. Hannah appreciated Patrick more than she ever wanted to let him know. He had been her best friend for years, even when she tortured her stringy blondish hair with bleach and donned raccoon eyes in her Avril Lavigne phase. She pretended not to notice him evaluate her behavior, shrug and subsequently steal her now-cold slice of pizza. He was about to wolf it down when he glanced across the chessboard.
“Oh my God, Grace looks so fine today,” he said, attempting to gingerly sit in his chair while keeping his gaze fixed on Grace.
“Stop drooling,” Hannah snapped as she looked up.
“No, seriously,” Patrick said, “on a scale of one to ten, she’s like an eleven!”
Hannah had to admit she didn’t blame Patrick for shamelessly gawking at Grace. She had a figure that more closely resembled a Victoria Secret model than a seventeenyear-old, C-average student. Her chocolate brown hair (always down) seemed to flow as if in water. This, of course, only offset her green cat eyes and iridescent skin. She was always stylish, and today was no exception. The jeans she wore clung to her hips for dear life, and the doll-sized tee shirt that read “Virgo” fit snugly over her Miracle Grow breasts. She was a known
tease and was currently leaning over a table, allowing the entire hormone-driven population to play peek-a-boo with her thong. Patrick never had a chance.
“She’s not that hot, Pat.” Hannah began to recite the practiced speech that usually brought Patrick slowly back to reality. “Megan Foxfire over there is a total fake, a facade and, let’s not forget, unaware of the fact anyone outside of her Dolce and Gabbanna bubble is even breathing. You’re just a pawn to her, Pat. She’s manipulative. She’s a te--“
“I think she looked my way!” Patrick interrupted, eyes bulging so much that they reminded Hannah of her dog, Rook’s, squeeze toy.
“ Your way is our way. She looked our way and—wait-what?” Hannah put her tirade on hold as she watched God herself float toward them. Patrick stood; Hannah didn’t.
A s Grace stood in front of her, Hannah realized two things. One: She despised Grace’s defined hip divots the most. (Hannah didn’t possess divots of any shape or description. In fact, Hannah postulated, her own figure reminded herself of the cheap clay they were forced to use in art class that most of her peers quickly got bored with, leaving it halfway between a snake and a ball--lumpy and not entirely symmetrical but interesting to look at). Two: Hannah needed to buy new underwear.
“Hi,” Grace opened, looking at Patrick. “What’s for lunch?” Hannah watched Patrick blink in Morse code because his powers of speech had abandoned him. Grace grew impatient in the silence and turned her attention to Hannah. “You’re in my art class, right?”
“ Yeah,” Hannah replied. “You’re the snake girl,” she quipped as she folded her arms.
“Hmmm. I don’t get it,” Grace said as she cocked her head to the side with the practiced look of innocence and boredom. “Anyway, I was wondering if your friend would help me out with this teeny World Civ paper I have to do. I mean, he’s like a total Einstein, right? Valorvictorian and everything?”
“ Valedictorian,” Hannah said flatly, stressing the sec-
ond syllable. “Not--“
“Icanhelp!” blurted Patrick.
“Awesome!” chirped Grace. “I love when things fall into place. It’s like destiny or something. Anyway thanks sooooooooo much, um . . . ?”
“His name is Patrick,” Hannah seethed. “Pat-rick. And you’re a bitch for taking advantage of him like this.”
Patrick looked as if Hannah had said Grace had a machine gun or chlamydia. He sank into his chair and tried not to make direct contact with the shamrock eyes.
Grace said nothing to Hannah but leaned on the table to display what Hannah decided was a disgusting amount of cleavage. She was so close to Patrick, she was sure he would get a contact high from her intoxicating whisper. “ You don’t think I’m a bitch, do you, Patrick?” she cooed.
“I think you’re an eleven,” he panted.
“That’s soooo cute!” she said as she stood back up. “Just don’t tell my boyfriend. He’s so weird about stuff like that.” With that, Hannah watched Jessica Rabbit swivel her hips to the other perimeter of the board.
Years later (only Hannah would be able to say exactly how many) a clay-encrusted Volvo pulled up to a gas station and screeched to a halt. A girl with stringy blonde hair hopped out and walked with purpose into the store. She was wearing her favorite pair of cargo pants and an old Nine Inch Nails concert tee shirt that, much to her bemusement, she hadn’t outgrown. The only piece of jewelry she wore was a modest diamond on her painting hand. She dodged other costumers and zeroed in on the milk cooler in the back of the store. She grabbed the first available gallon and had every intention of walking directly to the cashier when the display of Krispy Kreme doughnuts caught her eye. She was contemplating purchasing a dozen when she heard the voice.
“O-m-f-g! Hannah, is that you?”
Hannah turned around and spoke before she even saw her. “Hi, Grace, um, how are you?”
Hannah always assumed that if there was any justice
in the world, post-high school Grace would have work-worn hands, premature crow’s feet, and a general lack of hygiene. This, however, was not the case. Grace was still as stunning as ever. Her makeup was caked and her iridescent skin was now spray-tanned orange, but the natural flash in her hunter green eyes had not faded. She was tugging at an asymmetrical dress that was dangerously close to slipping off her gaunt collar bone and was dripping with jewelry.
“I’m good! I’m good! You know, just enjoyin’ life and, like, finding myself. That’s why I came back in town, you know, to find myself,” she said tossing her hair.
“Right, yeah, my mom told me you came back from Boston U a few months ago. Did you graduate early?”
“No.” Grace uttered a small sigh. “It just wasn’t for me. Everyone was so . . . ”
“Driven?” Hannah offered.
“ Yeah,” Grace said,” but in a bad way. I just needed to enjoy being young and, um, find myself.”
“Right,” Hannah said, slightly confused. “So you look dressed up. Going to a brunch or something?”
“No,” Grace blushed. “I went clubbing last night … kinda hung over. I just popped in to get some aspirin.” She attempted to change the subject. “Doughnuts, huh? I always admired you for that. You always just ate whatever you wanted. Who cares about being a size ten, right?”
“I’m a seven,” Hannah said, perturbed.
“Oh,” Grace said. “Your clothes are just baggy, I guess. So what are you doing now?”
“ Well,” Hannah began, “I got my B.A. and moved back about a year ago. I’ve been teaching a beginner’s art class downtown. That’s actually how I found Pat again.”
“Pat ... Pat ... oh, Einstein!” Grace said too loudly. “Yeah, I remember him! Cute kid. Kinda weird, though.”
“ Yeah, the weird kid runs his own business now. It’s looking like it’s gonna be really successful.”
“ Wow, yeah, that’s really cool that you can be so positive and optimistic,” Grace stated.
“ Yeah,” Hannah countered, “at least he’s just doing his own work now.”
Grace nodded, clearly oblivious to Hannah’s jab. She shifted back and forth and realized there was nothing left to say, so she said she had to go to the bathroom and left Hannah to the mercy of the Boston creams (which Hannah bought six of). She exited the store feeling as though she had earned her pastries. Hannah was just in time to see Grace pour herself into a red Jaguar.
“ Watch those carbs, hon!” Grace called out across the parking lot before giggling.
“Go find yourself, Grace!” Hannah yelled, and to be sure Grace understood, she held up her powdered middle finger.
A s she climbed back into the Volvo, she kissed Patrick with such passion he could only blink as they pulled away.
I Sing an Irish Lullaby to the Moon
Barbara Gasparian
Angel-hair clouds decorate an icicle blue sky. The full moon watches, as I await the dying of the sun. A deadly cold enters my body. I am transported back in time as the father I bid farewell sings to me that ancient Irish lullaby of my childhood. I rock to the rhythm of the sea. I set down the box containing the remains of the past.
After my mother’s death, my father was like a lost child of the past wandering like the silvery ghost of a moon hanging suspended in the daytime sky. I find solace in the sea. I remember another dying time-another day of deadly cold. Thirteen years young, I waited and sang a deathbed lullaby, because I believed that the dying still hear and that my grandfather would know he was not alone. By breaking the sacred silence grandfather might change his mind about dying and return to his favorite pastimes of cribbage and whittling and sing to me my favorite lullaby. I hummed in the dark while fragments of a child danced on moonbeams. I blocked the reality of the dying time and the numbing cold that imprisoned mind - invaded body. I was convinced I would never see another fall so alive with autumn color and not remember that it was a season of grief and leaves dried and crumbled on the ground. I hold my father’s ashes in my hands and wonder will anyone hold me when I am afraid and cold and my time to depart this earth has come to pass. Will my children stand at the edge of the ocean in the moonlight? Will my voice fill their hearts? Will they hear the Irish lullaby that I hummed as I rocked child and told the story of the lullaby handed down for generations. I come to the healing of the sea to place on the waters the remains of this father mine under a full moon’s watchful eye. I send this lost Irishman across the sea, bid farewell to the father, who said, “One day my ship will come in.” I respond, as in the past “Aye, and when the ship arrives you’ll be at the wrong pier.” The night grows colder.
Darkness wrapped me in the protection of denial as the cold enveloped me on the day I last sang the lullaby and stored the truth of living and dying in the mind of the past and watched his breath still. I feel the healing of the sea. Acceptance replaces fear as I say goodbye to father. I grieve at the edge of eternity under the stars - in moonlight.
The rhythm of the night carries his ashes into the cold womb of the sea. I release the ghosts of the past, and I hear the song of my father. I feel. I cry. I rage. I sing an Irish lullaby to the moon.
If You Seek, You Shall Find
April Jaramillo
I drive up to the end of the back alley street, put the 1998 Ford Mustang GT into park, pull the e-brake, and hop over the “Private Property” signs chained from oak tree to oak tree.
I stride up to the edge of the faded cream-colored dock which you had built with your own wrinkled hands and watch the murky brown water sway below my feet.
I want you to know that I regret that one time when you drove out to our house and I didn’t need a ride after all. And I watched you shuffle away.
More than anything I want you to know that I am grateful for the few years you lived with us. I remember that, during that time, you followed my every tiny foot step, before your back broke you every time you had to move.
But it’s all the same now, Grandpa, because you left in peace after suffering years of sulfur, the stench of wires gone rotten, and all that liquor.
So now I sit here at the edge of the bay all hands ready, your ashes in the murky sea, and I wait, wondering if that is your voice I hear in the wash of the water gently rolling over my toes.
Splitting Image
Travis DeSimone
In Kodak blue beneath the sky, you hold my mother ever so tightly, Jick, Mr. Pendergraft, grandfather of mine. In the contours of your face, shadows play like orphaned children. You flash your silver screen smile and prop a Sherlock pipe in my baby mother’s mouth.
The acrid smoke of that pipe long diffused. A faded little rectangle seeping with secrets. The family sees me as a reflection of a mirror cracked. When your infant daughter died, did it kill you? Or was it the beaches of Korea, the ring of mortars in those mountains? When you slipped from your mortal coil on that night in ‘93,
did you stop to think about what would remain?
If only you could see us now, your wife as frigid as an internment camp: profiting from our tragedy. She never phones anymore. If you could see that lovely daughter preserve herself, at half a century’s time: thumbing through debts long overdue. A splitting image, you and I.
In my sleep a beast murmurs, much like your failed heart, or noble ambitions.
The house made by your labor is now on the market. The American dream aborted, and here we are sitting in the waiting room.
Cemetery Angels
Jessica Davidson
Silence hangs like a heavy drape, broken only by the heavy toll of church bells. The flowers slowly fade as they rest by the long unvisited graves. The oak, once young, now stands, gnarled and twisted with age. The iron gates swing open heavily with a groan, as the angels slowly enter and kneel before the lost.
Silent City
Adam Guiles
The city had changed. The transition had been gradual... Slow... Imperceptible. It had undergone a subtle metamorphosis to which its citizens had paid little attention. Skyscrapers towered like radiant stalagmites as their lights feebly illuminated the rapidly darkening sky. Soon the monorails would be crowded with the teeming masses traversing the concrete and microchip labyrinth they called their city in quest of those electronic habitats they called their homes. Images of the city that had been resembled pictures of the Sphinx or the Coliseum-both to those who were old enough to remember and to those who were born afterwards.
These were the thoughts that drifted through Daryl Thorn’s tired mind as he walked the narrow hallway that led from the metropolitan hospital to the computerized jungle outside. A small black orb above the door flashed briefly as he glanced at it. “Good night, Doctor Thorn.” The voice came soothingly, almost like a human’s. Strange. One almost couldn’t tell the difference.
The monorail coach was filled to maximum capacity. Daryl glanced tiredly at his fellow passengers. None returned the glance, some concentrating on the portable screens in their hands that flashed continuously updated news headlines. Others closed their eyes and soaked in the haphazard assortment of songs being mainstreamed to the tiny earpieces that seemed permanently fixed in their ears.
Daryl felt a restrained sigh of relief escape his lungs as the coach slid to a halt and the air-locked doors opened with a faint hiss. The crowd ambled their way out and drifted towards their respective destinations along the tortuous avenues of the metropolis. Overhead, helicopters moved slowly through the air like enormous hummingbirds, each moving a brilliant pillar of light like a wand, ensuring that peace and tranquility would remain undisturbed.
Finally, Daryl reached his apartment complex, a cement and glass monolith rising out of the ground. Approaching the double front doors, he placed an open palm against a shiny black panel in the wall. There was an electronic chirping as scanners read his fingerprints, and then the doors slid aside. “Good evening, Doctor Thorn,” a disembodied voice quipped charmingly. “I should like to remind you that your rent must be paid by the tenth of February.” Thankfully, the elevator was unoccupied. “Fifty-three,” he muttered. The chamber hummed to life and began its ascent.
Inside his apartment, he spoke softly, “I’m home.” The interior was instantly filled with fluorescent light. Hidden speakers began a favorite concerto by Tchaikovsky. Daryl sank into a chair and allowed the music to seep into him, soothing his mind like a pain reliever. He sat for a long time, soon falling into an exhausted slumber. Outside, the city continued to function in its programmed, lifeless way.
“Where’s the magic in the attic when the creatures run away?” Wendy sighed.
The Lost Toys
Vincent Lavious
The chests were emptied of My Little Ponies and play tea sets. Comics and cards thrown away.
Barbie was burned in a compost heap, plastic skin smoldering.
He-Man lost his limbs, emasculated and late to work.
Bills to pay and bombs to build. Heigh-ho, heigh-ho.
“We can build a child and watch him dream,” Peter whispered.
Wendy stared at the stars shimmering.
Wal-Mart
Kyle Webb
Age ten: so young and vestal, bouncing across the threshold through an airlock between double automatic doors. Carpet, clothing, and cleaners fly into my open nose as bright blues and whites and reds and yellows light up my wide eyes. A jaunty tune puts rhythm in my step as my hands are spiders, spindly fingers scuttling over everything to find the perfect place to weave a web: cardboard and plastic and metal and fabric and plastic and cardboard. My mouth is in Disneyland, salivating over the scrumptious deli samples and oohing in awe, squeaks and voices, and bells and whistles, and loud uproarious laughter lumbering through my ears.
Age twenty: wiser for what it’s worth, stepping into the ENTER, rolling a shoulder to dodge an illiterate salmon swimming upstream. I’m aloof, playing ninja in a redneck’s backyard, tiptoeing around obese cyborgs with four wheels and ice cream. I keep my hands safely tucked in pockets, lint preferred over incubating bacteria and viral ilk. My lips curl tighter than a can of sardines at the stench of mildew and BO, stains of sticky slime screaming from dust bunny HQ among the cereal like an elephant stepping on my foot. The bitter tang of bile rises every time an ass crack walks by, my spine contorting as I shrink from the piercing shrill of a demon three aisles over.
The Uncertain Masterpiece
Sara Greene
I want to create a masterpiece, which feels like home, but this is where I get stuck . . . at the start, in the middle and at the end. I’ve learned to accept that sentences have to start with capital letters because every word deserves to be special.
It’s hard because I stumble with words like trying to walk on cracked pavement. The feelings get trapped in my ribs and run along my spine, trying to find a way to my fingers that stutter on the keyboard. I get lost in synonyms, verbs and nouns, never sure which words would express what I want yet roll off tongue and between my teeth easily. I get stuck with too many “ands” and not enough commas, trying to space them with each breath that rattles through my lungs. I try to let the rhythm flow from my mind to the screen, yet it always finds a way to slip and stagger before it fits perfectly.
My favorite word is “because.”
W hy? Because it leaves windows open for roaming thoughts and strangled questions, slipping words and hesitant actions. It gives me an answer to any non-existent question. Or maybe it’s just because I don’t know where to begin, so I just start in the middle.
I want to write a masterpiece, but a masterpiece isn’t me.
Space Cadet
Adam Duckworth
“What can I get you?” The waitress gave me her best smile, a jagged landscape of incisors; her eyes beg for a decent tip on a slow Tuesday afternoon.
I smile back and say I’ll have a cheeseburger, hold the pickle. She writes it down on her notepad and turns to Grandpa.
“And you?” she asks.
Grandpa is staring intently at something unseen at the back of the restaurant as if he were a sailor searching for land. He seems deep in thought, but his brain is scrambling 73 years of memories; the waitress asking him for his order might as well be Juan Ponce de León asking a native for the Fountain of Youth. After a pause in which I fight the urge to order for him, as if he were a toddler unable to decide for himself, Grandpa looks at her and says, “I’m sorry?”
Business is slow, so she’s patient. Her smile becomes even more hospitable, and she asks him again, “What would you like to eat?”
He looks lost again, as if the question were one he’d never heard before, like one he’d have to study on and get back to her.
I look at the still-chiseled left side of his face and remember the summers I spent walking behind him down the rows and rows of tomatoes, Grandpa plucking the ripe fruit intently while I got lost in the flight path of butterflies. When I’d get too far behind, he’d bellow, “Hey, Space Cadet, you still with me?”
I tell the waiting waitress to bring him a burger, too.
W hen she brings our drinks, I peel the paper from his straw and slip it into his iced tea, scooting the over-sized glass into easy reach. Hands that had ruffled my disorderly hair as we walked down rows of tomato plants sixteen years ago shudder toward the cool drink.
“ What did we get again?” he asks.
My Son, the Alarm Clock
Christie Woodrow
Up at dawn the alarm first sounds, The possessed pendulum rushes through my dreams. Bright, glowing eyes shaped like digital zeros are informing me It’s breakfast time! I consider hitting his snooze button ... only consider as I remind myself this is how I keep time.
I attach my cumbersome ball and chain to my waist the other end at the coffee and pull myself to life lacking my normal, graceful gait. The tiny, analog hands have already caused my pots and bowls to fall to the floor as if bowing to the king of Siam. In this surprise he delights and increases his volume so his subject may better hear him.
I force his flashing image to the blurry part of my eye in frustration, angry at myself for not programming him better.
Handle with Care
Eric Howell
Ever since you were dropped off, you’ve been sitting on my floor. You have remained unopened, despite being delivered years ago. I’ve never really known what to do with you, and I don’t have the right tools to get you open. Your packaging gives me clues to what’s inside your rigid frame, but it only tells me things you want me to know: “This side up,” “Fragile,” and stamps that show me where you’ve been. You remain in your wrapping, and so I can only guess at what’s inside. I can’t “Return to Sender” because she’s my sender too. Maybe when you’re older, I can pry off your aged tape. Until then, I’ll try to buy some scissors.
Fallen Arches
Travis DeSimone
Mr. Leviathan stands crooked in the lawn, a bottle of rotgut whiskey slipping from one hand and a grappling hook swaying loosely in the other; it is 4:37 on a Wednesday morning. The dark purple sheen of his costume, dull with neglect, scuffed and battered. His pot belly protrudes like a beach ball over his cracked orange utility belt. Mr. Leviathan’s bloodshot eyes scan the windows of the house he is stalking. Dutifully he lurches through the clockwork of the automated sprinkler system. Eyes peeled, anxious for a sign of life behind the Venetian blinds.
Dr. Dorian Gerard peers from his window, looking out on the clown on his manicured lawn. The doctor thinks about those apish knuckles drawing blood from his jaw, the purple hammer coming down: Those were the good old days. Nothing quite like seeing a city upside down, witnessing a fear so deep it topples the infrastructure. His costume was no longer waiting in the closet adjacent to his bed, the secret lab long boarded up. Ten years in the state penitentiary can do that to even the hardest super villain.
The thought of putting on his visor and becoming The Tesseract excites him. Warming up the Dimension Shifter and putting that thrift store super man in two dimensions really sets his heart racing.
I’m a new man. Dr. Gerard ignores the scream: “Tesseract!” booming from the garden. The doctor makes a phone call and drifts off to sleep, his smile illuminated by siren and lights pulling into the driveway.
Black-Eyed Peas
Debby Waymire
For Auld Lang Syne and those pots and pans we bang in the yard clanging loud enough for the entire neighborhood to hear. But that’s the point, isn’t it?
With Nanny yelling and throwing confetti in our hair while Dad pops corks and Mom gives kisses. Bopper stands silent, gray beard masking a grin, Red Sox cap pulled low over his eyes. Poppy sits on the porch, oxygen tank by his side, watching Grandma kiss Dad all the while she murmurs, “My baby.”
And us girls dance around them all, the four of us so different, but at the moment, so close. Jenny still stands arms slung about Katy, giggling about mean, vicious monkeys, while Beth and I laugh at them and their idiocy. Mom ushers us inside with promises of bubbly drinks and black-eyed peas that Dad says can kill you, as we all surround the table.
Grandma’s by Poppy her fingers entwined with his, then Katy and Jenny their arms still across one another’s shoulder, then comes Bopper next to Nanny, bits of red and purple sticking off her clothes, and Beth clinging to Nanny’s side, seeming younger.
Then there’s me, the youngest, standing at the head of the table, out of place, but next to Mom, holding her hand, suddenly shy. Dad passes us all cups, coming to stand on Mom’s other side cuing us all to sing, that song that I don’t know save that it means something to them all and it’s about “Old Ang Sign.”
The Princess and I
Christie Woodrow
The car was in park. My blue eyes were fixed on my rearview mirror, and her brown eyes were staring intensely back at mine from the back seat. We were tired (mostly me), cranky (mostly her), and once again late for ballet. I took a deep breath and decided to break the silence.
“ You can’t take Nutty Putty in my car. It’s not happening.”
“It’s a long drive and I’ll be bored.”
“ You can play with your D.S.”
“I lost it.”
“ You lo--what? Okay, well, no Nutty Putty in the car. I don’t want that all over my seats.”
“I’ll be careful.”
I paused for a second at the sincerity in her expression. Then my eyes glanced down to the floor where hundreds of purple dots (I think from a smoothie) decorated my new car like some obscure Dr. Seuss story.
“Nope, sorry, no more stains in the new car.”
I could almost hear the old Western showdown music over the vibration of the engine. I decided to play the only card I had left.
“L ose the Nutty Putty or we skip McDonald’s later, and I make you something--healthy.”
That did it. She reluctantly handed over the goo and proceeded to sulk in her tutu. Exhausted from battle, I silently drove her to the ballet and ushered her into class. As I sat in the lobby with the other parents, I wondered how my decisions in life had gotten me to this point.
I had always been good at babysitting. In fact, my resume boasts things like camp counselor, Sunday school teacher, and second grade teacher’s assistant. It had been something I’d done with little to no effort, and it was usually convenient though not an altogether practical job for a budding journalist. For these naïve reasons, I decided when I started college that
I should get a babysitting job. I ran across an ad for a nanny and thought, I’m qualified and it should pay well. Why not? I applied and easily acquired the job as I expected. Then I met the little girl who would change my life.
S he was stubborn, spoiled and six years old. (Some refer to it as the trifecta, but I call it the princess syndrome). In the beginning the problems were endless. I had very little authority and even less respect. Phrases like “please don’t do that” were countered with “you’re a meanie!” or were simply ignored. I quickly realized I had never actually spent long periods of time with a child and was now drowning in inexperience.
For a while I was concerned that I would be fired, but I was even more concerned when a friend of the girl’s family assured me that my position was secure.
“Oh, honey,” she drawled, “that little darlin’ averages a nanny a month. They just up and quit.”
Perfect. I was doomed.
I resolved that I could view this job as a challenge, and while I had never been an extreme optimist, I still had bills to pay and could not afford to be cynical. So I stayed. I reasoned. I fought. Sometimes I won. Sometimes I lost. Sometimes I was laughed at by whoever was currently watching the “nanny cam.” I went through the motions every day and hoped that something, anything, I did had an effect on her.
The turning point came one day about eight months later. She was having the worst tantrum I had ever witnessed, and I was about to break. Usually, in these situations I had asked her mother to step in and discipline her, but that rarely worked. In one final effort to keep her head from spinning in circles Exorcist style, I crouched down on my knees and summoned the calmest, most even voice I could.
“I understand that you are frustrated.” She sniffled. “Now-tell-me-why-you-are-frustrated.”
S he stared at me for a second before explaining that her math homework was “mean.” I was stunned.
“Homework? You need help with your homework?” Her blonde pony tail bobbed up and down.
“Okay, let’s take a look at it.”
For the next half hour we conquered the world of two digit division. The rest of the day went smoothly, and surprisingly, so did the rest of the week. The weeks that followed improved as well. Eventually, I stopped dreading going to work. Her behavior improved slowly, and we formed somewhat of a friendship. I recall the end of one particular day when I was about to go home and she hugged me as I was saying goodbye. It was a normal scene if looked at objectively, but for us it was a milestone, and Hallmark doesn’t make a card to describe it.
Life isn’t perfect, however. We still have disagreements, and occasionally I still lose, but we have a mutual respect for each other that gets us through most days.
I was jerked away from my nostalgic thoughts as pink tulle and small voices filled the room. My ballerina bounded down the grand staircase and towards the lobby, elated to be free from the lesson.
“How was class?” I ask her.
“Good,” she says as she immediately pulls the bun out of her hair (she prefers it down). “We got to play a game and I got a sticker ‘cause I’m so good.”
“ Yeah?”
“ Yep,” she beams.
We head out the heavy double doors and walk around the corner.
“Hey, Cristo?” My nickname. I don’t know why.
“ Yes?”
“Can we go to McDonald’s?”
“ Yeah, we can do that.”
S he pauses momentarily. “Can I get an ice cream?”
“Hmmm, yeah, I guess you can today.”
S he hugs me, delighted. “Can I play with my Nutty Putty on the way home?”
I just laugh and take her hand as we cross the street toward my Dr. Seuss car.
Graphite and White Charcoal
Michelle Angeloro
A
Macabre Reality of a Fantastic Actuality
Digital Image
Chad Davis
Blueberries—Up Close and Personal Oil
Sandra Clay Harrison
Bird Bird Love
Clay Maria Morekis
Caverns Oil/Acrylic
Terrence Dutra
Christina Faulkner
Central Bass
Photography
Nancy A. Gehrke
Mushroom Mania Watercolor
Heirloom Tomatoes Oil
Judie Wren
Nancy A. Gehrke
Sunrise Sunset Mixed Media
Self Portrait Oil
Kathryn “Tappy” Henson
I’d Like To Be, Under the Sea Mixed Media
Kathryn “Tappy” Henson
Dreaming in Color
Acrylic
Sharon James
Little Miss Sunshine Watercolor
Anna Koester
Trumpets Mixed Media
Sharon James
Sunlit Solitude
Watercolor
Anna Koester
Beau Paradis
Digital Image
Chad Davis
All About Light Oil
Joan M.
Langham
Tippy Toes Conte and Pastel
Hillary Kummerlin
Dragon Backpiece
Graphite
Terrence Dutra
Storm Clouds at Night
Watercolor
Penelope J. MacPherson
Kate’s Shiner
Clay
Sandra Clay Harrison
Roman Conte Crayon
Sarah McNulty
Sunflowers
Conte Crayon
Amanda L. Merritt
Rubie Visits the Stadium
Photograph
Jane Montgomery
Olivia’s Window Oil/Acrylic
Donna Munro
Tibetan Sands Oil/Acrylic
Donna Munro
Stops in Time
Photograph
Roxanne M. Soja
My Cup Pottery
Aaron Stringfellow
Make a Wish... Oil
Elisa Sung
Hatter’s
Pot Clay
Megan R. White
Mr. Wonderful Oil
Judie Wren
Behold, He Is Coming with the Clouds
Photograph
Christina Faulker
Frequent Banqueter
Laurie Sambenedetto
I saunter into my kitchen, the place I go to recharge my battered soul. The fridge emits a slurping sound as I pry it open.
A bite of cold pasta finds my mouth as I rummage for what I need: last week’s birthday cake. “Perfect,” my stomach bellows. I eye the chocolate icing, dumping a portion on my plate, large enough for four.
I beat the door shut and move to my next target: the pantry. “Salt ...” I murmur while rooting past the potatoes. Ripping into a pack of pretzels I return to my room, a white and blinding hole where I can eat away my woes.
*First place, James and Christian LaRoche Memorial Poetry Contest, 2010
Heat Wave Hits the Home of Food
Kyle Webb
The media fought like pit bulls to get a piece of Purina, ran agility trials to get the hot story to press, yipped and yapped like playful puppies begging for ice cubes that day–that will live forever in Food World history.
It was a normal day: the rattling of carts, rubber squeaks at each turned corner, ‘80s hits piping Muzak over the cool tile floor. I was in my element, the Snuggle soft embrace of Zen and the art of choosing fresh produce. Bruised bananas and aged apples look at me like wet bunnies. Other shoppers-in-arms poking and prodding and squeezing the tomatoes and mangos when the heat just snuck up on us. Like a sniper shot to the back of the head, dropped the Kenmore like a cement block. It was a hostile takeover. The ugly mug had everyone by the throat. We were hostages in this abrupt attempt at Spring’s assassination.
Every fat flowery shirt became black with sweat as our captor’s temper rose. All feet slowed to a slug’s pace, wheels on the carts barely going round and round. Ragged noise like the sound of a drowning air compressor was heard down every aisle.
The mercury climbed higher, assuring no chance of Stockholm Syndrome. Every Gary Stu and Mary Sue cried for the sharp relief that only a skinny dip in North Atlantic waters can give. Please, let us have the Titanic!
No man, woman, or child was spared. We baked alive, marinating in our salty sweat, the store itself succumbing to this Hell wave terror.
Loud erratic shots erupted, sending many to the ground in panic. What sounded like a firefight was merely Orville Redenbacher being gunned down, his fluffy butter innards spewing all over the speckled white tile.
A stench rose, recalling lunch and breakfast. Corpses indeed, those of boiling crustaceans and their freshly filleted friends lying on melting ice. Wilting lettuce heads and weeping celery stalks joined in on the spoils. Those huddled by refrigerators found they forgot their water wings at home, wading in creamsicle slush and pools
of all natural no sugars added strawberry and vanilla.
Just as we were about to stick an apple in our mouths it relented. Just as it came, it left, a cool hush descending over the sweltering store–Cheers erupted from every aisle as patrons rejoiced, the loud shuddering click of the A/C coming on. Bringing to mind the idea of a glass of lemonade in the Deep South.
Bumblebee
Travis DeSimone
I lifted the window for you, persistent little bumblebee, eager to see you pass the frame. You linger, buzzing from wall to sill, drunkenly bouncing off the glass like a balloon in a hailstorm. You could sting me, but you know your presence is more troubling.
Thought Process
Eric Howell
I see your hand tapping the desk, with clear instructions but a blank piece of paper. I want to peel back your eyelids and peer through your iris to glimpse the machinations inside. Though when I hear your gears, they sound similar to my own pardonable cogs.
Not So Fine
Jia Flynn
Annie looked out at him from across the park, instantly spotting the dark line of his jeans and suit coat against the flare of sunlight on the water. Her hands stuffed in the kangaroo pouch of her hoodie, she wandered towards him. He immediately stood out to her in her strange color-sight as different. Unsurprising. It always seemed that she attracted those sorts of men, with the exception of her husband. Her plain, normal, safe husband. Not technically even her husband, actually, but it was easier to explain to people that she had a husband rather than a live-in boyfriend who’d been with her for the last ten years but they’d never bothered to get married. Husband worked. It was a convenient term.
The man shouldn’t have been all that different, though, and that’s what bothered her, niggled at the corner of her consciousness. He was like a puzzle piece that didn’t belong to the same puzzle. She took stock of his appearance: hat, glasses, battered shoes, jeans. He had a kind face with sharp, intelligent eyes. Eyes that belonged to a predator, set in a kind face. Annie learned early on that men with kind faces were never to be trusted. With the quiet, background thrum of some pharmacybrand painkiller in her veins, she didn’t care, so she strolled across the park, hands in her hoodie pockets.
Society made her sick, and she told him so, her words slurring together.
So, when she asked what he was doing, and the man said , “Putting things into perspective,” she couldn’t help being deeply intrigued, and when the buildings across the bay flared into bright, scarlet blossoms and collapsed, she couldn’t help smiling. Because it did. He was right. She’d caught the motion of his thumb in his sleeve, noticed his stance change slightly. He’d done it. That was delicious.
Annie saw the darkness in him, found it matched in some ways to the dark in her, and named them both beautiful.
They watched the buildings burn across the water, a sort of bright eulogy to humanity’s capability to destroy. The buildings smoldered and their tops vanished into hazy, black smoke. People around them ran to the railing to look at the chaos across the water, and they moved away together, talking about little things, mostly insignificant things.
Annie might have been described as beautiful by some, but it was the sort of beauty that hid underneath a sort of boyish charm. She was thin, but not tall, and unfortunately flat-chested. Her style of dress did little to emphasize her femininity. He kept looking at her, and while she didn’t appreciate it, she didn’t so much care about that, either.
“ What’s your name?” asked Annie, looking over to the man. He smiled at her--few people ever did. He made eye contact, but he never said. She was determined to get that much out of him at some point. They parted ways, and Annie didn’t expect to see him again, and in a last minute sort of thought, got his phone number from him and plugged it into her battered old cell phone. Maybe she’d find him again, maybe she wouldn’t, but most of the people she came across from day to day were hideously boring.
“All right, have it your way,” she said. “I’m Annie.” And she wasn’t, but that was all right, too.
S he drove home, only half-listening to NPR and cursing the traffic that had built up by the small park. Everyone in the city had apparently heard about the destruction on the island across the bay and raced to view the smouldering buildings. Annie could not have cared less. Turning into her driveway, she slid the keys out of her Mazda’s ignition, slid back the seat and retrieved her backpack. Standing in her driveway, she turned her pale grey eyes to the dark plumes of smoke still rising from the south.
“Annabelle, oh my god!”
Annie looked over towards the body of her boyfriend catapulting towards her and braced herself for when he flung his arms around her and crushed her to his chest.
“Hey, Peter,” she said, muffled by his jacket in her face.
“Everything okay?”
“It was on the news! You could have been killed; don’t you clean at those condos and shit?”
“Only during the tourist season,” replied Annie, hugging Peter, managing her backpack with one arm. “Remember? I’m fine. You can let go of me. I’m not going to blow up or anything.”
Peter didn’t let go for a moment, but Annie wriggled loose, nudging the door of her Mazda shut with her hip. He followed after her, chattering in a frantic voice about how the news was saying they estimated a hundred or so people had been killed, and a few hundred more had been injured and that they were sending out search dogs for the bodies.
Annie dropped her backpack by the couch, ran her hand over the back of a cat dozing on an easychair, going for the fridge. Peter continued chattering. Annie poured herself a tumbler of Coke, adding some spiced rum and a few ice cubes. She sank into a chair in the sparse living room, propping her feet up on the pile of milk crates serving as a coffee table.
“ What do you think?” Peter turned his wide, dark eyes towards her.
Taking a sip of her rum and Coke, Annie lolled her head to one side and replied, “I don’t care. It’s a good thing it happened during the off season; otherwise, there’d be a whole whoop-to-do on the national news, and I’d be out of a job next summer because people would be afraid to come here.”
Peter stared at her for a moment.
“Are you all right?”
“ Yeah, I’m fine.”
Basilisk
Travis DeSimone
The seas of your eyes betray you, the guise of still waters slipping as the corners of your mouth reach for the sky, revealing the awkwardness in that gesture: a duck in clown shoes or a Nazi at the Bar Mitzvah.
That heart of yours limps, a theoretical veteran, paper cuts masquerading as bullet wounds. Think you’re a solider? More like a school boy. My words cling to the gales past your ear over the window sill and into the stagnance of the gutter.
Nicotine smoke signals calling for crutches or acetaminophen, but there is no quick fix or cure all. Slay the basilisk and approach the daylight. The walls of this labyrinth overtake you.
Red-Flag Warning
Catherine Joyce Modica
The riptide grabbed with greedy hands, pulling me from the soft swells, tearing at my clothes, scraping my skin. My flailing arms no match for Neptune’s tempestuous lust. Airless lungs stifling would-be screams, forced me to relent and let the sea have his way.
I thought of my daughter, how she would weep and wonder that I, who had so often warned, had swum indifferently into the wave that prowls behind the sandy facades.
Done with his fun, he tossed my ravished flesh aside, and searched the shore for another, as I staggered in shame to the showers
1039 Decatur Street
Stephanie Crow
On a hot, humid August day a few years ago, my husband and I drove from Panama City to New Orleans. Although we had lived in Biloxi for three years, our only trips to New Orleans had been to pick up or drop off visiting relatives at the airport. We were excited to have the chance to experience more of the city and visit some of the shops and restaurants we had heard about.
Once we had arrived and checked in at our hotel, we took advantage of their free shuttle, an adorable little bus that looked like a street car, and went to the French Quarter. It was a short drive through busy traffic to Decatur Street, where we were dropped off. The traffic there was just as busy, and mixed in with the cars were horse drawn carriages, driven by tour guides who told colorful stories about the old buildings and historic sites throughout the French Quarter. Although we were not far from home, this was a completely different environment. We walked along crowded sidewalks, pausing occasionally to watch street performers or to take a picture. We passed by the Jax Brewery building, The Hard Rock Café, and several hot dog vendors with their Lucky Dog carts. Banana trees in Jackson Square were full of fruit beginning to ripen, and a man painted silver from head to toe posed motionless, a human sculpture, on the grass. It was as if we had stepped onto a movie set.
We knew when we left the hotel that we wanted to go to Café du Monde for their legendary coffee and beignets, and we soon spotted the historic white stucco building with its red tile roof and green and white striped awnings across the street. “Café du Monde” was painted in white block letters over and over again on a green border. We crossed the street, walked under the awning and through one of the large, open arches. The white stucco walls continued on the inside up to high ceilings with big fans that slowly stirred the thick summer
air. The terra cotta tile floor was sprinkled with powdered sugar. Occasionally, sparrows fluttered in and pecked at crumbs. Groups of small white Formica-topped tables surrounded by green vinyl and chrome chairs were scattered about. Every table had napkin and sugar dispensers, and most were still damp after being wiped down by one of the many servers bustling around the restaurant. The air smelled of hot oil, fresh beignets, and strong coffee. The main seating area was covered by the high ceiling but was open on three sides, and there were more tables and chairs grouped in a small enclosed area near the kitchen as well as outside on a patio under the huge, old oak trees. We chose a table inside but near the sidewalk and sat down.
The waiters and waitresses were of all ages and nationalities. Our waiter was an older Asian gentleman with graying hair. He wore the standard uniform of white button down shirt and black slacks, white apron tied in front and white paper hat. We placed our order for beignets and café au lait from the menu on the side of the napkin dispenser. We didn’t have to wait long for our waiter to return with our fresh, steaming cups of coffee and chicory mixed with steamed milk and hot, crispy donut squares covered in a drift of powdered sugar. We learned quickly not to blow on the beignets to cool them off, which would have caused a blizzard of powdered sugar, and we were careful not to inhale just before taking a bite, which would have resulted in breathing the sugary dust into our lungs.
As we enjoyed our food, we also enjoyed listening to the sounds of other conversations, some in foreign languages, saxophone music from the musician out on the sidewalk, cups and saucers and spoons clinking and the horses’ hooves clopping along through traffic. We people watched for a little while longer and then went back out to do more sight seeing. That evening, though, after a long day of walking around the French Quarter, and before returning to our hotel for the night, we made another stop at Café du Monde for two more café au laits. The mix of faces had changed, but the mix of voices, traffic noise, and busy staff was just as fascinating as it had been earlier that day.
The next morning we went down to the food court that linked our hotel to a shopping center. We were surprised that although it was so near a hotel, most of the restaurants didn’t serve breakfast and stood dark and empty, but we were very excited to find that one restaurant was open. The bright fluorescent lights glared over the small, yet familiar, green and white vinyl awning of a Café du Monde stand, where a bored looking teenaged girl leaned behind the counter. We walked up to the “order here” sign and gave her our order. She went to the fryer and dropped in three squares of dough. We moved to the other end of the counter and waited expectantly under the “pick up here” sign as she dispensed hot coffee and steamed milk into Styrofoam cups. She dropped the hot beignets into a paper bag and scooped powdered sugar in after. She handed it to us, said, “Have a good day” apathetically, and walked back to her original position, leaning behind the counter.
We took a seat among the many stark, white booths by a wall of windows and watched as business people hurried silently by outside. The café au lait was hot and rich, and the beignets were sweet and delicious, just as they had been in the French Quarter store the day before, but missing was the music from the street performer and the interesting mix of languages and people. Without the charm and character of the old building, without the powdered sugar on the floor, the enchantment just wasn’t there. “Lagnaipe” is a word used in Louisiana that means “a little something extra.” That French Quarter atmosphere must be the little something extra in that original coffee shop, and it just can’t be duplicated anywhere else. For the rest of our trip and on every visit to New Orleans since then, we have been regulars at that old, white stucco building at 1039 Decatur Street.
Band-Aids
Samantha Sementilli
While sitting engulfed by the blue chair, waiting for Grandmom to come home from work, I watch cartoons.
Bugs Bunny hops about. Porky the Pig “Bu Bu That’s all Folks.” I love cartoons. Laughing at the television, I suddenly hear noises piercing my world, A woman yelling, then a man. Something is familiar. Then the voices stop, A woman screams in distress “NOOO.”
As the glass begins rattling in the front door, a woman starts sobbing. I have an urge to follow the sound. to fix it with a band-aid and a kiss like my mommy does for me. My curiosity and concern begin to carry me away through my living room, out the front door. In my hand I have a box, the corners definite and sharp. Outside it is hot, the warmth coming from the setting sun. I hear the birds singing their babies a lullaby, but there is the heart- wrenching sobbing
ringing through the lovely music. Looking around I see nature: Blue Jays, green oak trees, a garden, rocks, and children riding their bikes. I hear the awful sobbing blurring things together. Now I see the sobbing pile moving up and down and up and down. This pile is my mother. I look down as a raindrop hits my hand. However, this is not rain. It is teardrops. I am crying. In this moment, a change occurs: the birds, the trees, the garden, the rocks, and even the children now have a different meaning. Now I know what I have in my hand will not fix the heart break of my mom. Nothing is the same as it was before, not even Band-Aids in my hand. Sitting here staring at the Band-Aid box on 23 May 1997, in Cinnaminson, New Jersey.
The Wedding
Nicole Yeakos
That beautiful white dress hides the purple truth. Her bones, like glass, shattered behind this foolish smile.
He stands hulky and proud with his brand new trophy wife. His grip, like stone, is almost as strong as the alcohol on his breath.
Bright lights and rosaries surround the two everyone believed were meant to be. Cameras, like lightning, capture her final smile.
All Eyes To The Sky But Even Walls Have Ears
April Jaramillo
Painted lips touch blistered tongues and laughter rings throughout the house as lamps come crashing to the ground, all eyes on the sky outside.
And vodka-stained tears stream like pools of slick oil, gold in stories of old, and all we can say is “Yes” as we hear their cries from above us, and do nothing to stop it.
History speaks of golden eyes filled with fiery passions played out in small cramped closets with only hanging dresses and mink covered coats to guard the bruises from when their backs went slamming, slamming, slamming into white washed walls, and lust-colored love leaves rose-colored hips black and blue, impressions of other impressions made at dinner parties.
“Yes,” they speak again, centuries later, into the arms of unloving lovers, all these diner parties gone so wrong and the single and desperate many cry out into the night sky, bloodied finger tips mixed with chocolate stains on our, her, mine, their pretty pink dresses saved from prom, refitted for cocktail parties, torn in the night by beasts of prey.
And red-painted lips touch salt covered wrists, lemon-kissed lips, while porcelain flowers lay in shatters on the white blemish-free carpet all the while muffled screams stream with vodka tears from cramped closets upstairs ...
All eyes to the sky outside, because we cannot stop it here.
The Salutatorian
Christie Woodrow
Everything was beige, faux Italian, and reeked of hazelnut. She was trying too hard to seem casual, but instead resembled the cartoonish siren on her cup. Inhale. She considered the two books she purchased from Barnes and Noble earlier specifically for this occasion. The first depicted a carefree girl finding love at a beach house. The second was an autobiography of a South African woman who had been circumcised as a child. Exhale. She decided the latter made her appear more cultured. She joyously reapplied the lip gloss her mother deemed “an inappropriate shade of red” and opened the book.
It was not until then that he decided to arrive. His gait suggested he was uncomfortable, and when the gangly frame took the chair across from her and interlaced his fingers (just like their father), he confirmed it. Inhale.
“Are you okay?” he asked with as much empathy as someone with electric blue hair could muster.
“I’m fine,” she stated flatly as she attempted to flip her hair. She succeeded, but it stuck on her lip gloss.
“Hey listen,” he began, “what Dad said, it was . . . wrong.”
S he didn’t want to listen to him justify it by saying how they had all been drinking. That just because it was said that he was the smart one didn’t make it true. That she had her strengths, too. It didn’t matter. She couldn’t hear him. She was in South Africa. She reread the line describing how the girl had been damaged irreversibly. Exhale.
If I Died and Went to Heaven
Stephanie Logan
Suppose you were to die today and God said, “Why should I let you into my heaven?” What would your response be? Mine would be:
“God, all throughout my life I listened to a number of people who made certain claims about You.
They claimed You cursed the human race because their first ancestors ate a piece of fruit.
They claimed You drowned all the people on the earth, except for one family whom You packed in a relatively small boat with all the animal species.
They claimed all the different languages of the world came about because You wanted to stop some pre-industrial people from building a tower.
They claimed You sent bears to devour children for making fun of a man’s baldness.
They claimed You ordered Your chosen people on genocidal campaigns of slaughter, plunder, and slave-taking against those You deemed their enemies (usually because they worshipped You under a different name).
They claimed You ordered all the Amalekites (including women and children) massacred for a 400-year-old offense.
They claimed You exterminated 70,000 Isrealites for the unspeakable crime of being counted in a census.
They claimed that for a time You lived within a little box, and that when one of Your followers tried to steady the box to keep it from falling off the back of the oxen that were carrying it, You showed your gratitude by striking him dead.
They claimed You condemn all human souls after their deaths to eternal torment unless they gratify Your vanity by professing belief in You.
They claimed those wishing to show such fidelity to You could do so by accepting the sacrifice of Your only begotten son, an innocent who was killed to satisfy Your own requirement that there can be no redemption of sin without bloodshed.
God, whenever I heard these outrageous lies and slanders against Your name, I am proud to say,
I always denied them.”
Zeal for Zen
Kalee Jenkins
Becoming lost in thought –Eyes in a blur-
From Heaven’s Bright Skies, Striking Lies, In Lover’s Eyes.
Magic might exist –as doesA Face on the Moon… ~Silent Serenity~ It brings… A Ring upon the fourth finger of her hand.
Fidelity; Loyalty; Tranquility; Stability
The Heart…
As an Angel’s Instrument, Strumming hums, The Harmonious Harper Man.
This LoveWhere the Talk of the Town is about Last Night when the Sun went down
There’s more hope brought in for tomorrow…
Join Together Imagine Together
Life is… Such a Blessing
Feelings of Infatuation
Adoration and Veneration
…Sun falling into horizontal rest as it exhales an Ocean Breeze of Solace~
Lust and Passion
Two ingredients, Two people, Two feelings One Heart.
Star blazed Silhouettes soaking in the Salty Sea After the sun awakes,
Wait and see, -The Possibilities: of who WE might be…
Elsie
Laurie Sambenedetto
The rain beat down on her bright blue umbrella as Elsie traipsed across the blackened pavement. Her galoshes squelched through a puddle when she turned to look over her left shoulder. A red Mercedes was speeding towards her. She stepped to the side, just as she had when that other woman came into the picture. Frank had promised he would never leave her, that he would love her forever. But then Elsie had walked in on them. She’d said to Frank, “I’ll be back for my things,” and walked back out, leaving them to finish their sin on the blanket her grandmother had made. The rain came down harder.
Then she had lost her job. Another employee had taken over when she came down with the flu. He’d done it with “more joy and efficiency,” making her an “unnecessary financial drain.” She tried to get other work, but the only place that would hire her was Big Lots.
And now she needed to pick up her dented white Volkswagen from the shop. If she didn’t get it today, Billie’s Auto would be closed for the next three days, and she had to be at Big Lots by 8:30 the next morning.
The wind blew big drops of rain from the oaks overhead. The spray fell heavily on her umbrella, and she suddenly stopped. It dawned on her in that one moment, things couldn’t possibly get worse. That unpleasant thought was strangely comforting. Elsie continued down the road, and as the sun came out, Billie’s Auto shone in the distance.
The Lady Moon
James Birdsong
I can’t leave, I wish I could. Bold as to run a sword that stood and trapped me here, yet free to go for I so loved her, head to toe.
We’ve always had our silent dance, to take a peek, to woo and prance. A sacred act, we step, in tune. I loved her still, oh Lady Moon.
I rose the sun, she drove away, the endless cycle of a day. We danced and danced, our bows and spades poked holes of light into the haze.
I woke. A dream. A stir. A sigh.
The taste of scarlet lips denied. I taste the sky, she sees me through. If I could taste thee, Lady Moon.
Ingredients:
~ 1 baked soft wind
Peaceful Pie
Heather Scruggs
~ 1 medium starlit night
~ 5 medium sheets of musical harmony
~ 2 cups of moon’s reflection
~ 1 ½ cups of calm rivers
~ ½ cup of flowing waterfalls
~ ½ cup of delicate singing voices
~ ½ cup of sprinkles of dew
~ 2 tablespoons of Night-Blooming Jasmines
~ 1 tablespoon of velvety petals
~ ½ teaspoon of sweet lyrics
~ Pinch of mist
Directions:
In a tranquil mind, blend the flowing waterfalls and calm rivers with mist; then gradually stir in the moon’s reflection.
Take in the scene, breathing in and out. Let your mind drift farther.
Gently stir this landscape into the starlit night.
Add the Night-Blooming Jasmines and velvety petals, covering them with sprinkles of dew.
Allow the soft wind to hold this setting, giving movement to this still picture.
Breathe in deeper, letting your mind float even further into serenity.
Fold the sweet lyrics into the sheets of musical harmony until they mesh as one.
Gradually add the delicate singing voices to form the delightful sounds to your setting.
Swirl everything, creating your final masterpiece.
Deeper breaths now; grant your mind the entrance of peaceful sleep.
Serve with blessed dreams.
Blankets of Moonlight
Julia Smith
Dance with me under the blanket of moonlight. Sing to me your sweet lullaby. Drift into a silky nightmare,
Forget the word goodbye.
Act with me within the spotlight. Play this silent masquerade. Recall our avid, sensuous memory, And never let it fade.
Paint with me a canvas of wicked passion, Dabble my paint within your art. Let this rose bud bloom to petals,
Remain a prisoner of my heart.
Ms. Braun and Her Cats
David Olin
After a cynical week of laughter and secret planning, Peter Cyan finally replied to the e-mail from Evalynn Braun. This was not the traditional girl that Mr. Cyan was familiar with, much less ever spoke to. She was an introverted quack, and most importantly did not sound, by e-mail, the least bit attractive. She sounded like a sacrilegious nun with an obsession for the feline species.
Peter considered these probable facts about Ms Braun. He laughed with his friends when asked if he would respond to her message. “Of course not,” he agreed. Why should he risk even being seen with this character in public? He needs an excheerleader with a maximum IQ of 90 who drinks flavored rum and cranberry vodka. Ms. Braun probably drinks hard cider on President’s Day.
But his response is already in the virtual world of Ms. Braun’s fingertips. She reads it while she is in the downtown public library checking out books on rare male cat breeding. She agrees to the date and time in a sentence that reads, “Do not wear cologne or excessive amounts of deodorant because Rosenberg is allergic to strong smells.” Rosenberg is her cat.
“There are around three billion women in the world, and this girl is just one,” he mumbled to himself on the way up fourteen floors on the elevator. Great. I didn’t even ask how old she is. She could be fifty.
W hen the elevator dings, he takes his breath of regret, walks off and directly ahead stands her door.
T he door opens awkwardly fast and “Hello, I’m Evalynn.” She puts out her hand before Mr. Cyan can even register there is a woman standing in front of him. She appears to be Ms. Braun.
“Oh, hey,” he says slowly, catching up. “I’m Peter.” He notices there is a cat in her hand. “And is that Rosenberg?”
“No, this is Darwin. Rosenberg is in timeout. If you
want to come in, you need to take off your shoes.” Her index finger held a stiff order as it aimed at her shoe rack that was built into the wall.
“Okay,” he said with a fake grin on his face. He wanted out. He did not care if she—
“Um, unless your . . . let’s just leave our shoes on. If your feet smell, Rosenberg could get an itchy nose, and we know he doesn’t like itchy noses.” She smirked like a virgin sixth grade English teacher, Peter noticed with a strange pleasure.
“Evalynn, may I call you Eva? I’ve always loved the name Eva.”
“Sure,” she looked in his eyes from across the entryway, “You know, your eyes are such a dark, luring brown. I’ve never seen brown like that before.” She paused and in a new, almost hypnotized voice said, “They are beautiful.” Her cheeks turned red, and she put her head down. There was a silence and Peter took this moment to visually dissect Ms. Braun.
The hottest nun I’ve ever seen, he thought. Her white nurse shoes ended what were Monroe style pale white legs. Her body fit perfectly into a business-like black dress. She was nothing he had imagined. Physically, that is. Her short dark hair lined her innocent face. There was no makeup. And she had a look that didn’t need it. He was ready.
“So, should I come in?” He went ahead and started to step through the door.
“ Wait, I think it would be better if you did take off your shoes. There could be dirt on them, and it could come off on the floor and Rosenberg could get into it.” She caught her breath and continued to the cat in her arm, “And we know Rosenberg likes to get into everything. Don’t we, Darwin?”
“ We could just go somewhere if you want. What were you thinking about doing?”
“ Well, Rosenberg does need a playmate. You see he’s been lonely. That’s why he has been getting into everything.” Peter stopped and looked to see if his date was serious. Her eyes were looking at his mouth with rapid blinks as if insisting an answer.
“ You want to go cat shopping?”
“No, you can’t GO cat shopping. You look in the newspaper for a litter of kittens, then call them to get all the information, then—“
“Is it all right if we go in and talk?” He was getting slightly impatient about Ms. Braun’s odd fetish with cats. “ Well, you know, I’m not sure what to do about the shoe thing.”
“I’ll just take them off; I promise my feet don’t stink.”
“I know. But I’d rather not take the risk. We have seen Rosenberg get very sick from even light odors.”
“I know,” Peter said in a very calm and disappointed voice. ”I think I’m going to go, Eva. I’m sorry. I don’t think it’s going to work out today.” He was looking at her with the eyes that she liked so much. He turned around and pushed the button for the elevator.
Ms. Braun gave a sad whisper of agreement. She thought about his radiant brown eyes and looked down at Darwin’s eyes. They were not brown. They were not even beautiful. They were just normal cat eyes.
“Peter, wait. I don’t care if you take your shoes off or leave them on. Will you please come in? I bought us some drinks. I didn’t know what to get and I thought that everybody likes hard cider. Do you like hard cider? Please come in.” He turned around and looked at her pitiful face. She had put the cat down. The elevator dinged behind him.
“Okay, Eva, I’ll come in.”
Sentiment Profonds
Debby Waymire
It was those long, late summer nights sitting in that sticky, humid heat that we lost ourselves. And that insanely silly porch swing that was holding us both in check while we wasted our time on each other, taking for granted what was left. And no one told us we were wrong.
It was those talks of Hawaii with its black sand and palm trees that kept us on that swing while the raindrops splashed us, and I froze. And you with your raven hair and dangerous eyes forcing me to stay with your laughter and kisses when the sun rose along the horizon.
And it was you like piano keys allowing my fingers to dance across your ivory skin while I read from some old book that you didn’t care about. But you listened anyway, promising you knew what I was saying, though you were only listening to the sound of my voice and I acted like I didn’t know. And it was you calling me a pianist, though I couldn’t play a chord.
It was the half moon on the puddles reflecting in your eyes, watching it slowly swell each night, never saying a word. And me turning away, leaning into your caresses, ignoring the silver beams playing on the deck beneath our feet. It was the sway of that swing on those creaky, old chains, our toes scraping the wood as we passed. And it was us being in love, but too afraid to admit it.
Marionette
Courtney Prettyman
My grandmother sits on the couch slightly slouched, strings lax. Today, there is no performance.
Her face, carved from aged wood, is handcrafted by sun and paint. A permanent smile painted in pink.
Her manipulator pulls her strings, helps her sit. Eyes, Alzheimeric, stare. I see myself in their dull, glassy surface.
Her limbs are brittle, her joints sticking and stiff, and we are cautious as if moving a priceless antique.
The background is a vibrant still-life painting with white and pink azaleas, framed by thick cream drapes that hide the puppeteer.
The ornamental clock decoration long ago stopped ticking. Old family portraits are faded, grimy with dust and decay.
Her puppeteer pulls her strings, makes her stand; one foot in front of another. Each movement balances the next.
Her head bobs, her mouth opens and closes. The puppet master throws his voice as if to explain what her jaw snapping means.
He parades her around the stage this puppet on strings; a bygone objet d’art, starring in her own play.
The Necklace
Nicole Yeakos
S he stands in front of the mirror, holding the mangled string of gold to her neck, lets it fall upon the concave of her collar bone, broken links resting on her still fair skin. It glistens slightly, but not the way it had when her mother gave it to her, not the way it had when compared to the cold, delicate hand that once latched it around her neck from the confines of a hospital bed. It had looked so beautiful on her mother; it had given her so much life in her lowest times, bringing back the image of her silky blonde hair rushing down her shoulders, against the reality of her pale, bald skull. She shakes that image of her mother from her head, shutting her eyelids as if they were being forbidden the daylight.
B ehind closed eyes, though, she sees her careless actions just moments before, the impatient yanking at her uniform collar in a rush to get to the same dead end waitress position she’s held at Waffle House for nearly a year. The snap echoes in her mind, tiny fragments of gold soaring in slow motion. After a moment or two, she returns her focus to the necklace, the last piece of her mother she possesses. It is cold. She drops it in the sink, grips the counter-top, and bites her lip hard enough to make it bleed. Gravity makes the necklace slither into an awkward shape lining the drain so cautiously, so carefully, and yet it is broken, like her heart, without her mother.
I Was Seven
Laurie Sambenedetto
With crooked bangs and a four-tooth smile when my dad’s motorcycle landed him in the ER. After weeks of bed rest for his black and blue back, he told my sister and I he had leukemia. And I returned my child’s heart.
Years of being hard passed like a chilling fog, and then I smiled at the sun because it was warm. I ran my hands through the grass to feel the blades cut my knuckles. I learned what it was to be hurt by a brown-haired boy and forgive.
My Family Portrait
Christie Woodrow
We never were picture people. The house’s landscape serves us best. Its tell-tale face gushes stories. The fence and walkway mock and jeer. They all wish you to know who they’re framing.
My mother is the first you’d see. She is the thriving kudzu vine, a transplant no doubt that clings to the home, growing but choking all other plants. No brown thumb She’s just green.
Far below her on the ground lie the rest of us.
My stepfather ensures all eyes draw close to him. He is the line of unkempt shrubs threatening to ensnare those who are so bold as to embrace his briers and chicken wire branches. A great filler for the lawn, however.
My sister next, but do not blink. She is a mushroom here or there. She appears only when conditions are best. Bemusing onlookers ... and their boyfriends. A nice addition to the yard with very few roots.
For my brother you must further venture. He is the curious plant in the back yard. His maple-like leaves grow in secret rebellion.
He is helpful if given a chance with his five outstretched fingers and surprisingly peaceful smile.
It’s a shame he’ll never be allowed any closer to the garden.
The ill-placed piles of dung are our pets.
Just as useful, the copious coils laze here and there warning passersby of their misfortune upon approaching.
The oblong, fat lumps seem in the way but the scene seems more real this way. More complete perhaps.
I was once in the front yard.
I posed as a flower, but they saw through my veiny leaves. Aesthetic appeal, they said. No room for your kind. So I was plucked out, a weed an unwanted My stem twisted and extracted. It was a huge mess. Stupid family tree.
A Phoenix in the Garden of Babylon
Travis DeSimone
A phoenix egg, or thunderbird’s down I would whisk away to catch that sparkle in your eye.
Quicksilver and frankincense or a philosopher’s stone. Trap this feeling, dancing in the Hanging Garden.
Verses. The phoenix flew too fast; the mercury slipped through my fingers. Ancient artifacts and magic talismans, beyond my grasp.
I close my eyes. In the amber of the moment, we’re walking the silk road during a solar eclipse. Even if I’m dreaming I’ll wake up smiling.
Contributors
Michelle Angeloro enjoys art as a hobby. She is planning on furthering her studies at Florida State University.
Sara Bergschneider is a photographer, poet, painter and writer. Her name is written in water.
James Birdsong is a Collegiate High School student studying meteorology but also considering computer science.
Stephanie Crow is a fine arts major at Northwest Florida State College.
Jessica Davidson is studying to become a veterinarian. She hopes to one day open her own practice.
Chad Davis is a photography student who has little art training but is focused on commercial and abstract photography.
Travis DeSimone is an aspiring poet and writer who plans to major in journalism.
Adam Duckworth used to pretend he traveled through time with Doc Brown and busted ghosts with Bill Murray. He hasn’t grown up much since he was a kid, but his wife and parents try to keep him in check.
Terrence Dutra is a fine art major and has been a student of art all his life.
Eric Farmer is a NWFSC student interested in the human psyche, history, fiction writing, drawing, and furthering his education for as long as he can.
Christina Faulkner has a passion for landscape photography but wouldn’t have any complaints about working as a commercial photographer.
Jia Flynn hears nothing but the rain. Time to grab her gun and bring in the cat. Wilco, sir!
Colby Fox is a server at the Crab Trap in Destin. He wants nothing more from life than to live quietly, love God, and serve Him.
Barbara Gasparian is studying the craft of writing. She loves poetry, knitting, weaving and dancing. She is second generation Irish.
Nancy A. Gehrke is a retired actress turned painter. She is married, a mother of four, grandmother of nine.
Sara Greene is in her second year at NWFSC and plans to transfer to the University of Central Florida to study hospitality and event management.
Adam Guiles is a graduate of Crown College, a private college in Powell, Tennessee, with a bachelor’s in secondary education. He is currently seeking a teaching position.
Sandra Clay Harrison has received most of her formal art instruction at NWFSC and feels fortunate to have incredible professors.
Kathryn “Tappy” Henson works in mixed media, including art glass mosaics.
Eric Howell is a continuing student at NWFSC since graduating from the Collegiate High School. He plans to attend the University of South Florida to pursue a degree in creative writing.
Sharon James became interested in art after retirement. She is working toward a degree in visual arts.
April Jaramillo is seeking a degree in the fine arts, taking a variety of writing and art classes that she might better take over the world, one figurative or literal statement at a time.
Contributors / 113
Kalee Jenkins is a high school student enrolled part-time at NWFSC. She plans on becoming a nurse and traveling to different countries.
Kaili A. Johnson is a dual-enrolled student interested in the arts and studying medicine at the University of Florida.
Anna Koester is a wife, mother and grandmother who enjoys the challenge of watercolor after a career in pottery.
Hillary Kummerlin was born in Fort Walton Beach and is persuing a degree in digital arts, focusing in animation.
Vincent Lavious was raised by wolves who taught him how to write poetry.
Stephanie Logan is a full time junior, in college studying for a bachelor’s degree in English and creative writing. She hopes to someday be a published author.
Sarah McNulty is a fine arts major pursuing a specialty in animation. She has a love for nature and animals.
Penelope J. McPherson is a returning student of the arts with a deep appreciation and love for the craft.
Jane Montgomery is a retired software professional whose photographic interests are varied and include work in digital imaging.
Donna Munro hasn’t been painting long but hopes to continue. Her work comes straight from her imagination.
David Olin is a student convicted of multiple felonies. He plans to watch The Royal Tenenbaums tonight and go fishing tomorrow. Joan M. Langham paints in pastel and oil. Her favorite subjects are figures.
Amanda L. Merrit never thought art could be a career before she took her first drawing class. Now she is honing her artisitic skills in hopes of making art her profession.
Catherine Joyce Modica earned her B.S. degree from Florida State University and obtained her teaching credentials from Chapman College, California. She enjoys taking writing classes at NWFSC for personal enrichment.
Maria Morekis follows the motto “Fear No Art” and thinks that life is a wonderful experience.
Courtney Prettyman is a part-time student and a full-time office manager. She plans on getting a doctorate in psychology.
Laurie Sambenedetto is a high school senior planning to major in English. Her life goals involve getting married and procreating.
Heather Scruggs is studying engineering. She plans to continue studying engineering at a four-year university.
Samantha Sementilli is a Collegiate High School student studying international relations. She plans to study at New College of Florida and abroad.
Julia Smith plans to dual major in English and psychology. She believes that anyone can achieve her dreams so long as she works hard to pursue them.
Roxanne M. Soja is a military retiree enjoying the challenge inherent with exploring new fields of study as well as active aging.
Aaron Stringfellow is an 18-year-old high school student who plans to attend Florida State University to pursue a degree in art history.
Elisa Sung was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina and began her art journey at a young age.
Debby Waymire intends to pursue a career in photojournalism. She has been writing since she was twelve and has published in the Canadian journal, The Claremont Review.
Kyle Webb, Keelay to friends, has decided to throw his life down the drain and become an English professor rather than chase fame and fortune.
Christie Woodrow enjoys writing and running (in that order). She hopes to finish her journalism degree on a cross-country scholarship at a university.
Judie Wren works in various mediums, including watercolor, oil, and stained glass.
Nicole Yeakos is a dual enrollment student and frequent writer. She is transferring to the University of West Florida in the fall to major in journalism.
/ Blackwater Review
GERALDINE BROOKS BEST-SELLING AUTHOR OF MARCH
Northwest Florida State College is honored to present Pulitzer-prize winning writer Geraldine Brooks as the 2010 visiting author.
Each spring, in conjunction with the unveiling of Blackwater Review and the presentation of the Northwest Florida State College Reads program, the college invites an accomplished author to meet with students, faculty, and the community. This year, Ms. Brooks read from her work on the evening of April 26 in the Sprint Theater at the Mattie Kelly Fine Arts Center. On April 27, she conducted a workshop for students, faculty, and the community on the craft of writing.
Photo: Randi Baird
Pr ior to Ms. Brooks’ visit, the Northwest Florida State College Reads program hosted a week of readings and symposiums for students and faculty to discuss the work of Geraldine Brooks, whose books include March, for which she won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize, Year of Wonders, her first novel and an international best-seller, and People of the Book, a New York Times bestseller that has been translated into twenty languages. Also discussed were her works of nonfiction: Nine Parts of Desire, an exploration of the often-contradictory political, religious, and cultural forces shaping the lives of contemporary Muslim women, and Foreign Correspondent, Brooks’ human treasure hunt throughout the Middle East, Europe, and America in search of former pen pals who influenced her adolescence.
Australian-born Geraldine Brooks grew up in the Western suburbs of Sydney and attended Bethlehem College Ashfield and the University of Sydney. She worked as a reporter for The Sydney Morning Herald for three years as a feature writer with a special interest in environmental issues.
In 1982 she won the Greg Shackleton Australian News Correspondents scholarship to the journalism master’s program at Columbia University in New York City. Later she worked for The Wall Street Journal, where she covered crises in the Middle East, Africa, and the Balkans.
In 1984, Brooks married the author Tony Horwitz. They have two sons—Nathaniel and Bizuayehu—and three dogs. They divide their time between homes in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, and Sydney, Australia.
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