Penn Review: Spring 2009 by Penn Review

spring 2009

university of pennsylvaniaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s literary and visual arts magazine the penn review

E-Mail: pennreview@gmail.com the penn review spring 2009

The Penn Review Literary and Visual Arts Magazine Spring 2009

Editor’s Note “splashing all over the pages in a million bits and pieces all of which were words, words, words, and each of which were alive forever in its own delight and glory and oddity and light.” — from Dylan Thomas’ “Notes on the Art of Poetry” There’s something to be said about the longevity of words. Lacking expiration dates, they exist perpetually on these uncoated pages, completed by their visual counterparts. They’ve been arranged just so, strewn gracefully across the page as they wait to be imbibed by thirsty readers. They are crowded grains of sand that contain more than just multitudes, however. Their creators craft and polish, massage and cajole, until the hieroglyphics drip legacy onto crisp white pages. Every poem, story, photograph and painting within this magazine is testament to a desire to gulp all we can — to satiate the hunger for content that’s driven us to pen and paper to make sure we aren’t forgotten. The following words and images are closer to reaching immortality than we will ever be. They bounce delightedly within the walls of our minds and hearts, eager to engage with an audience that can muster only a finite number of hours. Even in a digital age in which paper is becoming obsolete, the weightiness of these outpourings proves one thing: we have marked a trail that won’t be easily washed away. Grin as you smack noisily into these words and pictures — and plumb the depths of their oddity and light. Julie Steinberg Editor-in-Chief

Contents {literary} RIVKA FOGEl Stephen Krewson Valeria Tsygankova Sam Donsky

Editorial Board 2008–09 Julie Steinberg ..................... Editor-in-Chief Rachel Gogel ....................... Layout Editor Malka Fleischmann ............. Associate Editor Valeria Tsygankova .............. Associate Editor Nick Stergiopoulos.............. Treasurer Landon Reitz ....................... Associate Editor Jessica Riegel ....................... Associate Editor Natalie Vielkind ................... Literary Liaison Jessica Yu ............................. Literary Liaison Olivia Coffey......................... Design Editor

Gillian Kassner Valeria Tsygankova Jessica Penzias Malka Fleischmann Caitlin Drummond

Staff Members Anusha Alles Carolyn Blair Fonda Chen Kym Cole Caitlin Drummond John Evans Rivka Fogel Matt Greenblatt Gillian Kassner Meredith Lane Rebekah Larsen Alexa Levesque

Julie Charbonnier Jessica Rivo Julie Steinberg Derek Hwang Steven Waye Drew Feith Tye Rebekah Caton Matt Greenblatt Rachel Taube Julie Steinberg Lauren Yates Pia Aliperti Charlotte Borgen Alexa Levesque Pavi Jaisankar Stephen Krewson

Rebecca LeVine Lilun Li Garret McKay Sarah Mednick Chris Milione Michelle Perlin Jessica Rivo Davida Shiff Jessica Sutro Rachel Taube Emily Wengel Amelia Williams

Frances Wright Kelsey Dashiell Rebecca LeVine Rivka Fogel Sarah Stewart Jennifer Green Sam Donsky Alexander Nguyen Sanae Lemoine Rebekah Caton Frances Wright

[religion was declared to be opulent] “The Lives of the Poets” To the Man Reading Alone Address to Bono in Paris on Behalf of My Friend Claire Measurements Alligator (Mis)appropriate Oakland Docks An Attempt I’m reading about whiskey fishing sex Nine 14: To Poetry The Boarders Parallel Tracks Loch Lomond Introspection SWEET NOTHING Somewhere Red 2 Cats turkey “My Mind Wanders while Watching a Free Performance of the Metropolitan Opera in Prospect Park” Unrequited To the Woman with the Serene Face Because the Sun Turned Green Contented Life Musings Whisper diminuendo E Thunderbirds Nick at Night to Glacial Without Queen Of Nebraska The Golden State Seiza In Media Res on clarendon

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Contents {literary} RIVKA FOGEl Stephen Krewson Valeria Tsygankova Sam Donsky

Gillian Kassner Valeria Tsygankova Jessica Penzias Malka Fleischmann Caitlin Drummond

Staff Members Anusha Alles Carolyn Blair Fonda Chen Kym Cole Caitlin Drummond John Evans Rivka Fogel Matt Greenblatt Gillian Kassner Meredith Lane Rebekah Larsen Alexa Levesque

Rebecca LeVine Lilun Li Garret McKay Sarah Mednick Chris Milione Michelle Perlin Jessica Rivo Davida Shiff Jessica Sutro Rachel Taube Emily Wengel Amelia Williams

Frances Wright Kelsey Dashiell Rebecca LeVine Rivka Fogel Sarah Stewart Jennifer Green Sam Donsky Alexander Nguyen Sanae Lemoine Rebekah Caton Frances Wright

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Contents {visual arts} Alex Remnick Misha Chakrabarti Taehoon Kim Sarahjean Kerolle Andrew Jones Laura Rostad Daniel Schwartz Nitya Kanuri LUCY MCGUIGAN Alyssa Rosenzweig

Allison Zuckerman rachel gogel

sailor, 2008 The Freedom Tunnel, 2008 Untitled (16), 2008 Shades of Grey, 2008 Wading in the Water, 2008 Awe, 2008 violin shop, 2008 Granville Island, Vancouver, BC, 2008 Philadelphia Marathon, 2008 guiding light, 2009 Under the Bridge... of Central Park, 2009 Innocence trapped behind a fence of violence, 2008 Youth, 2008 The Rocky Mountain, 2007 Roarke S., 2007 Getting Khwezi, 2008 Crazy Clown, 2005 Hand, 2008 Mini-Me, 2007 Frozen Embryos, 2009 Palm Sunday Stroll, Le贸n, Spain, 2008 Garisenda Tower, Bologna, Italy, 2008 Tilden Park, Berkeley, California, 2008 Santa Cruz Heirloom Tomato, 2008 Perplexity, 2008 Bleed Terracotta, 2007 Drip, 2009 Propaganda Series #2, 2008

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Contents {visual arts} Alex Remnick Misha Chakrabarti Taehoon Kim Sarahjean Kerolle Andrew Jones Laura Rostad Daniel Schwartz Nitya Kanuri LUCY MCGUIGAN Alyssa Rosenzweig

Allison Zuckerman rachel gogel

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RIVKA FOGEl

[religion was declared to be opulent]

it is easier to be perfect dorothy calls, over her shoulder to the dog talking inexorably, immeasurably behind her you see the bricks are so very yellow down the road you see i think the truth (she refers here to the tin man. and the scarecrow) can be fixed with the emperor-magician whose name is george who lives in the city green as the sky when it snows where it is cut to flap open like so [ ] but you see. says the dog (whose name is Frankfurt like the food and the place there are shadows there) the trick is to exploit only the red holes (i am an animal, he says i must [chew] everything)

RIVKA FOGEl

[religion was declared to be opulent]

Stephen Krewson

“The Lives of the Poets”

I’ve always desired to enlarge the life I live, only occasionally through deed. — Stephen Dunn

I’ve never been in Paris or a ménage a trois, but from my description of the Eiffel Tower as “bigger than it looks on postcards” who can doubt that I really did stroll along the Seine and then up the seventeen marble steps to Chloe and Nicole and Oh!

Valeria Tsygankova

To the Man Reading Alone

I would like to know what could be so deeply covered in lines. Your thoughts lie down in a reflection of ink, a coaltree by their side. I could tell you the reason for the leaves or the six causes of streams: uncanniness — it’s how they surface in the light when you’re not walking, not quite standing still. When there is just too much for anyone to read between. What is there even to tell you in your bedsheets besides gather it, gather it like string. I would offer you a drought but I don’t want you to mistake yourself for someone who owns anything.

what nights we spent in the boudoir of my imagination, the city outside blazing with the light of a thousand chandeliers. And so I have always been renovating the squat house of my life, touching up weather-beaten reality with coats of glossy paint. Who will call this falsehood? Can life only be enlarged through truth, experience through travel and suffering? Better to indulge these fictions, sitting down to write what I want to be not what I am — the stooped man in the cardigan preparing to delete the daily email promising to ADD 3+ INCHES!!!! TO MY PEN1S, which, as you should know by now, is already the stuff of legend. 2 The Penn Review

{above} Alex Remnick Sailor, 2008 Black and White Print 3

Stephen Krewson

“The Lives of the Poets”

I’ve always desired to enlarge the life I live, only occasionally through deed. — Stephen Dunn

Valeria Tsygankova

To the Man Reading Alone

{above} Alex Remnick Sailor, 2008 Black and White Print 3

Sam Donsky

Address to Bono in Paris on Behalf of My Friend Claire

Bono, I am writing this on behalf of my friend Claire. I know you’re in Paris right now but I want you to know that she loves you & wants you to love her. It’s easy to see why: The ecstasy of Early You is pretty non-negotiable, but it’s also just pretty. A photo-essay of your album covers might better this notion, or at least capture it in a less languorous supply of synonyms, but that’s a truth more than it is a dare &, anyway, Bono — & not to be rude — “languorous + you” sort of means something now. Also, pretty is (pretty) flexible. It could mean “nice,” I s’pose. It’s nice that you see things in nationalist hues — with her hand on your flag / & your lips on her [slow signal to art]; who is that, Public Enemy? Brad Paisley? Lit? — but now when you croon on the patriot tip we’re thinking Not Your War, Bono, we’re thinking too much & things through, we’re thinking iPod singing in the dead of night, we’re thinking, we’re thinking, we’re thinking… That was a joke. We’re not thinking. When Claire & I were children, Bono, they brought us up on this cogitative little power ballad called “One,” by this band with this guy in these shades with these eyes — it was you — & how old were we really but the truth is we didn’t feel young, & it didn’t feel messaged at all; it felt like a Man’s Song. You’re laughing. Which is the spirit, in a way. “Did I disappoint you / or leave a bad taste in your mouth?” you would ask but a moment too late — our neurons already spitting past, leaping in contingent fire, to pleasure, To Peace! — your moves dripped thereto in mysterious ways. Here, have a Pepsi; often we have 80’s-based fantasies of taste. You’re an inclusionary principle, Bono, but you’re also way less than that, you’re sex qua sex, you’re the last enumeration of unmemorable friends, you’re implied, you’re anxious, you’re choral in the winter / cleavaged in the fall, you’re about kissing, you’re about kissing, you’re about kissing… That was a joke. You’re not about kissing. I know you’re in Paris right now Bono but I want you to know that Claire still loves you & still wants you to love her & her favorite song by you is “Bad.” It’s what she’d wanna say in a bar, anyhow. You at your least Rockist, least informatic, most covered in (gosh, what is that?) drool. Do you know how many people’ve ripped off this guitar-line? Enough to make you wonder whether your best is really that good or if it, you know, 4 The Penn Review

made the future happen. The other night I was out with Claire & she squinted & said “Is that a cigarette machine? A jukebox?” & “Whatever,” I replied, “here’s a buck, & a quarter in case” — & we smoked, & played “Bad” — & that’s fine; you’re fine. But at some point it’s late, Bono, & you’re still at the bar, & up to no good, & down to your kajillionth breath, & you’re all possibilities, you’re past the point of intervention — you’re an exponential little thing (sweetheart) — you’re a verse / a line / a couplet / a form, you’re post-form, you’re playing it again, you’re listening, you’re listening, you’re listening… That was a joke. You’re not listening. I know you’re in Paris right now Bono but I want you to know that Claire still loves you & still wants you to love her & her least favorite song by you is “Beautiful Day.” It’s what she’d wanna say in a bar, anyhow. You at your least portable, least cut-off-shirt, most glasses, most asshole, most approacheth-the-earth. But you know Claire, same ol’ C. Do you? I have this dream where I’m at a Starbucks in Paris & there is no music on. Everyone keeps approaching the counter & putting money in the tip jar; no one buys anything. & then everyone returns to the back of the line. Who wrote this? they want to know. The dream, they mean. It is perhaps to this point, Bono, that Claire loves you at all: chord-triggered words; word-triggered moments; moment-triggered senses on an imminent plane, waiting to collide, at the lip of a mouth on the face of some body into whose stomach (one) too many hearts have fallen. I was talking with Claire the other day & she asked me who my five favorite bands were & I want you to know, Bono, that I named four bands before yours. (The rules only said you had to think they were the fifth best band, not that you had to be the fifth cutest approximation of yourself when you did. When I found this out I was relieved! & picked you anyway.) Claire would want you to know that she picked you first. “I love you,” she’d say, like a crossed off to-do list, at the speed of the world, in a gear that could crane heartbeats to humid & make rock stars blush their marriageablest red. “Fifth-cutest, fifth-best,” I’d reply, & when we’d kiss she’d agree & when she’d agree I’d grin on the verge of belief. I know you’re in Paris right now Bono but I want you to know that Claire doesn’t love you anymore & doesn’t want you to love her & I know this because when “One” was on last time, & the guitar part came — well it didn’t, really. & when the bass came we said fine, but start singing. & when the singing came we talked 5

Sam Donsky

Address to Bono in Paris on Behalf of My Friend Claire

about the Dance Recession. & when the dancing came we said less talking, more listening. & when the listening came we knew our hips wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t lie again, our hearts to be true, each verse tucked inside our mouths, the same bridge swaying over every gorge.

Julie Charbonnier

Measurements

no lately recently no all of the sudden no promises no fancy dinner table no ums ohs skeins of loose silk mending walls no black birds no frost or pound: ounces but no nouns

{right} Misha Chakrabarti Shades of Grey, 2008 Digital Photography 6 The Penn Review

Julie Charbonnier

Measurements

no lately recently no all of the sudden no promises no fancy dinner table no ums ohs skeins of loose silk mending walls no black birds no frost or pound: ounces but no nouns

{right} Misha Chakrabarti Shades of Grey, 2008 Digital Photography 6 The Penn Review

Jessica Rivo

Alligator

“Jess!” My dad calls. Oh, what is he excited about now? Did he discover that other Jews visit the Everglades, too? I continue reading about the anhinga: “When its feathers become too wet to fly, it spreads its wings to dry.” Fly, dry. Not only a pretty image, but a rhyme, too. These placard writers are getting poetic. “Jeessss!” “It spears fish on its sharp bill as it swims, flipping the fish into the air and swallowing it headfirst.” “Jeeeesssssssssssss.” “Coming!” I scribble walk through murmurs, Boys, bending over the ledge, Mothers crying “Cuidado!” Girls rock back and forth, queens on papi’s shoulders, my dad scoots over, “You just made it!” Limbs hitting, rippling People rising, a ball game wave, then — hush… He is gliding out from under us.

as the tail flits by. The girl shrieks “look, daddy”, we point flashes, fingers. Only the anhinga sleeps, airs its wings, a Chinese fan near sun white teeth. What curled his nails? That eye on the side of its head doesn’t bat. Did Charlie take his rock? And its to-do list? Catch gar? Find a new rock, sunbathe? No. Nothing that simple. Let the water pool on its studded back. “So what did you think?” my dad asks. “Mmm.” A tail, disappearing into sawgrass.

leather feet spread but still, claws on cruise control, bluffing — a beer belly and smiley face but its tail zig-zaging, a razzle dazzle battler. Herons, egrets gulping fish down skinny throats look up, pause 8 The Penn Review

Jessica Rivo

Alligator

Julie Steinberg

(Mis)appropriate

I. You say you like June best. It straddles the potential energy of May the robust o’keefeness of July. I’ve swallowed your languid lemonade, gulped it down with the crisp nonpareils of March. You’ve mislaid the months again, haven’t you. I like when you wrap them in ribbons. II. The trees stopped dappling today. I thought how good raisin clusters taste when you chew alongside crab nebula. It stuttered more than usual when it saw you, wrapping yourself in tinfoil to approximate December when nothing was left over. Our grin doesn’t reach your eyes. III. Dune and 74th is naked without the dandelions. They wrap like rattlesnakes, shedding fluff and cotton and not much else. Except they’re early this year and ringing the post, tightening their hold on the thermidor, waiting for the retreat of the posies. I guess I’ll fall in line.

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Derek Hwang

Oakland Docks

The stars burnt kerosene and I sat on a gray block swigging red, the concrete shooting up my arms. The fish danced below, twisting into a thousand blue arms and legs rubbing against one another for warmth. I saw my face in the water with a toothless smile. Or maybe it was the rusted ship frames in their crescent slumber. Or maybe it was the moon laid flat across the waters, shining like aged linoleum. Beyond the loading cranes, steel giraffes lit to the sky by yellow Christmas lights. Beyond them stood San Francisco strange and proud and brilliant, humming its maiden song.

Julie Steinberg

(Mis)appropriate

10 The Penn Review

Derek Hwang

Oakland Docks

Steven Waye

An Attempt

I have shouted at that Old Angel Midnight, and slept the whole day dark just to keep him there. Everyone’s an artist now; daytraders become nightbloggers and nightwatchmen become daydreamers in a haunted futile dereliction of our vagrant earth, and Jesus, isn’t that beautiful, the very attempt? If we were all perhaps a bit more in love with our own genius, with the hotquick breath and madpanting lolling eyes of our lovers and let the road roll over every Neil Cassady that refused to submit to anything and just fucking L I S T E N . . .

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Drew Feith Tye

I’m reading about whiskey fishing sex

and the justified nature of worthwhile things and in my head I can picture myself three years from now meeting a bearded man with two steel earrings in a smoky bar and he looks just like you and my heart flips like a lead-filled pancake in a hot diner somewhere in New Haven. I am stuck on “Maybe the narcissism” and have to write about it. The friendship thing is like soured coffee — I don’t drink it and I’m afraid of addiction — it’s never tasteful. Underneath the fragile skin you called royal I’m like a pulse in the corner of a slaughterhouse with pale folded legs. The pendulum waves of my hollowed chest are home to a fisherman on a wooden carved sailboat with a burlap sail that absorbs light but no wind. He has your tattoo, your hatred for ketchup, and holds a rod in his left hand. I think about how he yearns to sail but can’t because something holds him back and I feel like God with my finger on the point of his sail, watching him circle and cry, circle and cry, until finally I cannot bear to hear it and I just let him go.

Steven Waye

An Attempt

12 The Penn Review

Drew Feith Tye

I’m reading about whiskey fishing sex

Rebekah Caton

Nine 14: To Poetry

Make it it and answer, full blue and mostly snow. I saw today two eyes and almost, the opposite. Right now it is. 9:14, and other filling details like sky.

Matt Greenblatt

The Boarders

Down on their luck They decided to take rooms in that house And the house took rooms in them Decency eroded to decay As people became boarders Honest women were pregnant With the peeling wallpaperâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s daughters And good men suddenly found themselves To be smoke-clouded studios Choked with the scent of alcohol Where matches burned under spoons And blood stained the bare floors Each one a grain in the still-standing corner stone

{right} Allison Zuckerman Perplexity, 2008 Acrylic on canvas

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Rebekah Caton

Nine 14: To Poetry

Make it it and answer, full blue and mostly snow. I saw today two eyes and almost, the opposite. Right now it is. 9:14, and other filling details like sky.

Matt Greenblatt

The Boarders

{right} Allison Zuckerman Perplexity, 2008 Acrylic on canvas

14 The Penn Review

Rachel Taube

Parallel Tracks

Who walks on railroad tracks? I only ever saw the tracks because I left, because Venice was sinking under my feet. It was a slow, melodramatic drowning that made me shiver in bed, listening to the pulsing ripples of boats, and the ominous buzzing of flies. I envisioned the waters, so dense with garish sequins that tourists fell over each other to see, egged on by cat-eyed pushcart workers. So I exchanged canals for tracks, and imagined riding them forever, chugging steadily upward. I traced over and over again with my eyes the faded gray sign — From Venice. Toes were pointed, arms extended, glitter in my hair sparkling stardust-esque…ever the daredevil. (Bravery is the deft’s façade.) No crowds, only tightropes, all the elephants gone missing. Flies following at a respectful distance, intrigued, humming passively; lending consistency and breadth to the step. The tracks, stretching grandly forwards, slipped away beneath my bold stride, and the gray sign fell behind the horizon. It pulled in massive and red beside the gray sign, blowing smoke rings from a barbershop pole smokestack. Stepping up, I panted crazily, eagerly… I mirrored the desperate footsteps, twirling purposefully, tripping on the tracks only infrequently. The flies became melancholy, which made me more determined, since it was such a red day — not brick or maroon, but the glowing crimson of unpicked roses. Who sits on a red day? The kind of day, after all, that reminded me of My Venice, all rivieras and gypsy-eyed masks and striped gondoliers. The flies perked up imagining a crescent bridge, the strangling weeds under the track reincarnated as bold climbing ivy. The train jerked forward, and we disappeared From Venice. I continued, and, to amuse us, turned shimmering cartwheels, staying between the tracks (remember bravery). With a running start I managed a front flip, into a somersault and walk-over, spewing glitter like stardust. And the red rose clenched between my teeth was a nice touch, I thought. The sweating train jerked forward; we continued… But as I kept on, the stardust began to settle uncomfortably. The heavy air annoyed the flies and me, and we swatted at each other periodically. The glitter got into my eyes by mistake and itched redly, and the rose thorns cut my fingers and lips. Weary, we decided to rest right there on the train tracks (remember the façade). I slid down in my seat and put my head against the cool foggy window. Eyelids fluttered, engine buzzed. A whistle? A far-off madly approaching smokestack? A terrifying screech of wheels? No; only the flies. I detested how their weariness invaded me, settling like hunger around my bones. What kind of regretful, mocking day was it anyway? Red like dried blood, reminding me of a sneering, chipped-paint 16 The Penn Review

Venice, all lacquered toy boats in gaudy costume, manned by a wind-up fleet of mismatched oarsmen; a cheap Venice infested with a thousand shops, each with the same stock. I wallowed resentfully, head in my hands. Resentfully, the train shivered and lurched like a garish boat, and I clenched my eyes and teeth against sickness. Together the train and I shivered, and I heard it sputtering, choking on its own exhaled smoke. I inhaled… Surging rebellious, I decided to trudge on (remember the façade), though convincing those irritable flies was tiresome. They hardly even buzzed anymore. Trudge, trudge, buzz, trudge, trudge, trudge, not even a rhythm to perform to. I was out of stardust — but at least remember bravery! Forget Venice. Up ahead, a tired wooden police block stood rusty red across the tracks. I approached the other side, read the peeling tired gray words, stumbled — at least those scornful flies got a good laugh — Track Closed.

Rachel Taube

Parallel Tracks

Julie Steinberg

Loch Lomond

Twenty three miles wide, 630 feet deep. You’re still thick with mist but struggling to green as autumn insists on staying the night. You direct it toward Highland boundary, gesturing with queen’s graves. Wrap her in plaid, you say, swallow your deep-fried chocolates, washed down with Rob Roy’s vermouth. He’s still waiting, leaning out from the quair, fingering his locks. “Take another picture!” the Chinese delegation leans over September and whispers. They learn that Ich Mearn is known not for castles, but for Scotland’s oldest nudist colony, where Mel Gibson, no doubt, met William Wallace cowering in woolen flesh.

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Lauren Yates

Introspection

Just because I’m reclusive doesn’t mean I don’t love you. Above you stand only second-hand crossword puzzles chucked by gods, their errors in ink. The newsprint covers your head and you fill in some blank squares to make words shorter, how you want them to be. If you had your way, you’d be a philosophy major. You’d submerge yourself in knowledge like a child in a pit of plastic balls who spiraled from heaven via twirly slide. Your way would lead to fortune cookies filled with morbid maxims and hand-picked lucky numbers because computers are so impersonal. You’d call the absence of ignorance death; but until then, bathroom wall banter must do. Damn what goes on in bathroom stalls. I touch myself in a public restroom thinking of you, my eagerness a shaken bottle of ginger ale. Two hours later, they start peering in the stall, asking if I’m alright in there. I feel the way I did when Jessica Serber ripped out my braid in second grade when we were playing Marco Polo. I told Coach Fish and she asked, “What am I supposed to do? Glue it back on?” I hated her ever since. And yet it’s not just hatred, but also fear, like the fear of killing spiders in case their family chooses to avenge them. I can never get over it and I can never live it down. So forgive me for never telling you this. Forgive me for never telling you much of anything. Just because I’m reclusive doesn’t mean I don’t love you. But if one day you decide to leave me, I’ll hire a hustler who looks just like you.

Julie Steinberg

Loch Lomond

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Lauren Yates

Introspection

Pia Aliperti

SWEET NOTHING

Possum can be a term of endearment when among your family are the petunia, the potpie, the pixie and the peanut. Posssum! my father croons when he brings home cheap Pinot Grigio, and gallon bags of Reese’s peanut butter cups, the dog overjoyed.

at night, in your room, eating fried cheese in bed. Sung now, in this concert of one, baby sounds temporary. It’s playing dead in the garage as if we’ve just shined a light on its plans, exposed the empty nest. There it goes slinking after we’ve gone, hiding out in the background augmenting some other lovers’ goodnight ritual.

I didn’t call you my garbage can king until we spotted one when ordering fried cheese at 1 AM. It hung on the low ledge from massive feet, grinned in the dark, the strong concave stomach, tousled hair and purple raisin nose a portrait in the porch light of the casual beholder. “Don’t let it in the house!” the delivery guy said and laughed when I hustled inside, the door open and wide. You paid, called me baby, and we went upstairs. Baby can be a term of endearment when said to someone else, when said by you, 20 The Penn Review

{above} Nitya Kanuri Crazy Clown, 2005 Acrylics on clay

Pia Aliperti

SWEET NOTHING

{above} Nitya Kanuri Crazy Clown, 2005 Acrylics on clay

Charlotte Borgen

Somewhere Red

Patrick sat alone this time, listening to his music too loud. We had fought for the seat just minutes before, not because either of us wanted it, but because neither of us did. The tour bus, painted like a trolley and packed with people whistling the Rice-a-Roni jingle, dragged us up and down the streets of San Francisco. I sat with my mom, and Emily with Slater, and we smiled for pictures of a trip I didn’t care to document. A family of four sat ahead of us in matching San Francisco sweatshirts, and I craved the simplicity of evenness. One Sunday morning, about two weeks before we found ourselves in San Francisco, I walked downstairs to breakfast to see that the picture frames in my house were no longer framing anything. I entered the kitchen, where my mother was seated at her desk. My siblings watched her, unmoving, as the grinding sound of an electric motor filled the room. “Oh look honey, I got a shredder!” my mom said, as she forced a photograph from my kindergarten father-daughter dance through the slot. “Oh, and we need new pictures. I was thinking this room could use a little bit more red. We should go somewhere red.” The four of us exchanged a “Mom’s really losing it” look and Emily suggested China. Slater, the youngest, thought hard about red tourist attractions, eager to be the first and the cleverest. “Maybe the Red Sea, or somewhere with a red carpet? Hollywood!” “The Golden Gate Bridge is kind of red,” Patrick added, staring at the spoon balanced on top of his index finger. “Not that I approve of this insanity.” “California! That’s so perfect,” exclaimed my mother as she left the room to start planning. Emily emptied the shredder and the four of us set to work piecing together photographs. “It’s sort of a mosaic effect,” said Emily. “Picasso-esque, even.” My dad was leaving us for a long time before it finally happened. Each morning he took a few of his belongings with him to work. His electric razor one day, because he didn’t have time to shave before he left. All of his sport coats the next, because he had several meetings and we all knew that he tended to spill things on his clothes. The television from the basement, because sometimes things got a little slow at the office. Months after it started, on the day of my sister’s graduation from New York University, it stopped. We looked around to find that everything was gone, including my father. I wondered what the excuse was for this one. As a family we coped with the loss by ignoring it. I was amazed by how quickly we stopped expecting his headlights in the driveway late at night, or the remains of his midnight peanut butter sandwich on the counter in the morning. Within weeks we were referring to him in the past tense. 22 The Penn Review

“My father was a surgeon, one of the best in the country. He used to take us with him to work sometimes, but he wasn’t around much.” My mother slipped into the role of a single mom like a figurehead. She traded in her doctor’s wife costume for a monogrammed sea green bathrobe. Long days locked in her room were speckled with times of almost manic cheerfulness. She tried her best to convince us that nothing had changed when my father left, often joking that the only thing missing was the ugly mounted fish from the wall in her room. We had gone on vacation together every summer before, and this one would be no different. “We’ll have fun,” she said repeatedly. “We don’t need your father with us to have a good time.” The tour guide had a thick Spanish accent and seemed to be making up facts to fill the dead air space. “San Francisco is at least eighty percent Chinese,” he said. “And at least seventy-five percent of them are gay. It’s the gay capital of the world, for God’s sake.” From what we could understand through his accent, San Francisco had little else to offer but sourdough bread and the house from Mrs. Doubtfire, but we didn’t mind so long as his rambling meant that we didn’t have to make conversation. When we reached the Golden Gate Bridge the fog was too thick to even see the redness of the steel beams, but my mother displayed no memory of that thought process. The guide took our picture in front of the hazy structure and we got back on the bus to cross it. “How can the driver even see where he’s going?” asked Slater, concerned. “I can’t even see an inch ahead of my face.” “He can’t, we’re going to fall off the edge and into the bay,” said Patrick. “This is the first time he’s ever done this too, so there’s added difficulty. If we crash, I love you buddy. It’s been a good run.” “Shut up Patrick,” said Emily. “We don’t say that word in this family,” said my mom. “I can think of some words we do say,” I said, hearing in my mind the screaming fights that had preceded my dad’s departure. Maybe we only said shut up if it was followed by the phrase “you fucking bastard”. Unsure of what had inspired me to pick a fight, I looked at my mother, hoping that she didn’t understand the comment. If it had registered, she said nothing. Emily shook her head at me, as the bus stopped for another break, this time in the Muir Woods. My siblings tried to save me by being extra talkative. “Did you know that you used to be allowed to drive a car through one of these trees?” asked Emily, reading a brochure “They stopped letting people do it because they were worried it was going to fall on someone. That was 23

Charlotte Borgen

Somewhere Red

probably a law suit waiting to happen.” While I feigned extreme interest, my mom walked ahead, scowling. Emily and the boys urged me with their faces to go talk to her. Hesitant to be blamed for ruining the day I agreed and walked faster to catch up. “I’m sorry about before Mom,” I said. “I didn’t mean anything by it.” “Like hell you didn’t,” she said. “You have no idea how hard this is for me.” “I know how hard it is, Mom. He left me too.” “Obviously I understand that,” she said, the loudness of her voice contradicting the silence of the forest. “Am I completely self-centered to you also? Some kind of crazy egomaniac?” “I don’t know Mom,” I said. “Are you?” Lacking the patience or the desire to have this fight again, I turned and walked back towards the tour bus. “I can’t do this right now,” I said over my shoulder. “You’re just like your father,” she yelled at the back of my head. “Always running away.”

“Have I ever been twenty-one?” I asked, trying to avoid making eye contact with Emily as she laughed into her napkin. “Dad said that going to college is almost the same as turning twentyone,” he said. “Dad’s grades in college reflected that thought,” said my mom. We laughed a little louder than the joke merited. When we drove back over the Golden Gate Bridge the fog had cleared enough that you could see Alcatraz in the distance, and the red beams around us. Having lucked out and claimed the back of the bus, we all sat together in a row. “Do you remember that terrible Prisoner of Alcatraz cap that Dad wore in public?” Emily asked. “When did he even go to San Francisco?” “I hated that hat,” I said. Everyone was silent again, looking out the window at Alcatraz and wondering why we hadn’t been with him for that trip. “It’s okay to just miss him,” my mom said to no one in particular.

In Sausalito, our last stop, we saw a street performer making statues out of rocks on the shore. Each addition to a sculpture seemed impossible; point to point, flat edge to rounded. It looked like the slightest breeze could blow them over. Had I not been watching him build the structures I never would have believed it. Being only twelve, Slater was more fascinated than the rest of us. “He’s not even gluing them!” he said. “Do you think he would give me his autograph?” We laughed, which Slater took as “No way, he’s too famous,” but we urged him forward. “Don’t trip and knock them over,” Patrick warned. “Say thank you,” added my mother. As Slater approached the rock sculptures, a seagull swooped down from above. We gasped in unison, and my mom grabbed hold of my hand. Just as Slater noticed its presence, the bird landed on the tip of the tallest sculpture. He froze in place, waiting to jump in and save the sculpture if it toppled over. Instead it stayed exactly as it was, and so did my mom’s hand. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. Although none of us really liked Mexican food, Emily had read that San Francisco was famous for its burritos and so we found ourselves at Pancho Villa Taqueria waiting for an order of nachos. “Have you ever tried tequila?” asked Slater, glancing around the restaurant at the Jose Cuervo décor. 24 The Penn Review

Alexa Levesque

2 Cats

2 cats in a tree 1 brown 1 gray Eyes of hazel Eyes of hay Said to the 1st to the other upon the setting of the sun “The light is fleeting, dark quickly comes, the night is looking grim” The other sighed and turned to him “My dear, the day looked grim”

Pavi Jaisankar

Turkey

The thing I love most is to stroke the great flap of skin on my grandmother’s throat.

{right} Alyssa Rosenzweig Palm Sunday Stroll, León, Spain, 2008 Digital Photography

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Alexa Levesque

2 Cats

Pavi Jaisankar

Turkey

The thing I love most is to stroke the great flap of skin on my grandmother’s throat.

{right} Alyssa Rosenzweig Palm Sunday Stroll, León, Spain, 2008 Digital Photography

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{below} Taehoon Kim Violin Shop, 2008 Digital Photography

{above} Taehoon Kim Granville Island, Vancouver, BC, 2008 Digital Photography

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{below} Taehoon Kim Violin Shop, 2008 Digital Photography

{above} Taehoon Kim Granville Island, Vancouver, BC, 2008 Digital Photography

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{above} Alex Remnick The Freedom Tunnel, 2008 Digital Composite from film scans

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{above} Alex Remnick The Freedom Tunnel, 2008 Digital Composite from film scans

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{below} Andrew Jones Innocence trapped behind a fence of violence, 2008 Digital Photography

{above} Sarahjean Kerolle Guiding Light, 2009 Digital Photography

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{left} Andrew Jones Youth, 2008 Digital Photography

{below} Andrew Jones Innocence trapped behind a fence of violence, 2008 Digital Photography

{above} Sarahjean Kerolle Guiding Light, 2009 Digital Photography

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{left} Andrew Jones Youth, 2008 Digital Photography

{right} Laura Rostad The Rocky Mountain, 2007 Digital Photography and Photoshop

{left} Laura Rostad Roarke S., 2007 Digital Photography and Photoshop {above} Daniel Schwartz Getting Khwezi, 2008 Digital Photography

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{right} Laura Rostad The Rocky Mountain, 2007 Digital Photography and Photoshop

{left} Laura Rostad Roarke S., 2007 Digital Photography and Photoshop {above} Daniel Schwartz Getting Khwezi, 2008 Digital Photography

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{above} Nitya Kanuri Hand, 2008 Oil on canvas

{right} Nitya Kanuri Mini-Me, 2007 Oil on wood

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{above} Nitya Kanuri Hand, 2008 Oil on canvas

{right} Nitya Kanuri Mini-Me, 2007 Oil on wood

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{next page} Misha Chakrabarti Awe, 2008 Digital Photography {below} Misha Chakrabarti Wading in the Water, 2008 Digital Photography

{above} Lucy McGuigan Frozen Embryos, 2009 Word

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{next page} Misha Chakrabarti Awe, 2008 Digital Photography {below} Misha Chakrabarti Wading in the Water, 2008 Digital Photography

{above} Lucy McGuigan Frozen Embryos, 2009 Word

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{above} Alyssa Rosenzweig Santa Cruz Heirloom Tomato, 2008 Digital Photography

{left} Alyssa Rosenzweig Garisenda Tower, Bologna, Italy, 2008 Digital Photography {right} Alyssa Rosenzweig Tilden Park, Berkeley, California, 2008 Digital Photography

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{above} Alyssa Rosenzweig Santa Cruz Heirloom Tomato, 2008 Digital Photography

{left} Alyssa Rosenzweig Garisenda Tower, Bologna, Italy, 2008 Digital Photography {right} Alyssa Rosenzweig Tilden Park, Berkeley, California, 2008 Digital Photography

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{above} Allison Zuckerman Bleed Terracotta, 2007 Printmaking

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{above} Allison Zuckerman Bleed Terracotta, 2007 Printmaking

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{right} Rachel Gogel Propaganda Series #2, 2008 DĂŠcollage

{right} Allison Zuckerman Drip, 2009 Oil on canvas

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{right} Rachel Gogel Propaganda Series #2, 2008 DĂŠcollage

{right} Allison Zuckerman Drip, 2009 Oil on canvas

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Stephen Krewson “My Mind Wanders while Watching a Free Performance of the Metropolitan Opera in Prospect Park” This is becoming a bit much, I think as the tenor and soprano return to the stage for an eighth encore. I cross my legs into the style called Indian and twist another blade of grass around my finger. Melodrama swoops out over the crowd as if Angela and Roberto were Blue Angels soaring above an air show, unwilling or perhaps unable to land. I listen closely to the way Margaret and Beulah are praising the singers — since the best art of all is to inspire praise. I remember this as being the reason I’ve dabbled in poetry — a sort of blog among the arts — which can be written anywhere and requires no floodlights. Bats fly in the dusk above our heads: silent, ultrasonic. They are speaking a language more piercing, more functional than Italian which was child’s play for Mozart and made Verdi the man, but all sounds exactly the same to me. The same me who writes this poem and at the time of writing

Gillian Kassner

Unrequited

wrap your sweater a little tighter it’s almost autumn and the space beneath your eyes matches the city night gray and weary, worn and loose your feet trace abandoned curbs that outline houses filled three times over, crammed with shirts striped in sweat and smudged mascara, with hosts who fill the silences with the right words, ones that mingle with the wine, smile as they wave, then sleep, exhausted. you stride past discarded cigarettes still smoking in humid drains, circles of blackened gum flattened by strangers’ heels, movie theaters with block-lettered titles wrapped in an unknown, angry hand’s graffiti, blackened stoops and crumbling walls, remnants of mornings when streets fill with sirens and pedestrians, emptying at dusk as drunks and insomniacs replace the children, until a lone double yellow line, remains it’s useless, humming to yourself quietly, shyly, confessing the time you drank until you wept, stories he told you before the cancer took his words loosened the sparse silver threads from his scalp the city isn’t listening it breathes and sighs and shuts its eyes the yellow rectangles of light disappear softly one by one

can still tell Kelly Clarkson apart from the Simpson girl whose hair was first dark then light then dark again.

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Gillian Kassner

Unrequited

can still tell Kelly Clarkson apart from the Simpson girl whose hair was first dark then light then dark again.

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Valeria Tsygankova

To the Woman with the Serene Face

I bet you like the wind. How it touches your naked ankles in the dark streets. I bet you think the city looks like a granite forest when it rains. You could sleep through death and wake knowing what to say. You ignite when you remember him but burn it up fast till you donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t care.

Jessica Penzias

Because the Sun Turned Green

Because the sun turned green its reflection made the ocean look red. It did not make sense to the scientists but the people who didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t like thinking about refracting light seemed to comprehend it. Paul was one of those people. When the fish turned orange because the coral turned purple he did not question it. And he was not upset when his hands turned pink from eating fish at work. Though, people began questioning the fact that he called himself a vegetarian despite eating seafood. His wife, an animal rights attorney, called him a liar and divorced him. His son would not let Paul touch him because he was scared of his colored palms. Paul moved out of his house and into a formerly yellow condo. He woke at the same time despite the fact that the numbers on the clock now flashed turquoise. He ate the same tuna fish sandwich at work every day. And he still watched his favorite sitcoms from the fifties, now broadcast in silver and gold. He could not understand why everyone was affected by the colors until he went to the bathroom and found that his penis had turned blue.

{right} Taehoon Kim Philadelphia Marathon, 2008 Digital Photography 50 The Penn Review

Valeria Tsygankova

To the Woman with the Serene Face

Jessica Penzias

Because the Sun Turned Green

{right} Taehoon Kim Philadelphia Marathon, 2008 Digital Photography 50 The Penn Review

Malka Fleischmann

Contented Life Musings

Caitlin Drummond

Whisper

Never believed in “believing in signs.” But I theorize as I make my way.

I was asleep at midnight, tasting syntax

Shoes are important. Feet alone won’t take you places. Brown and white Topsiders for Cooper Winston Anderson the XII, walking the straight and narrow. Dirty Timberlands for maintenance men and clean ones for Wiggers.

I can’t be blamed for what escapes the dark.

I never had braces. Smiling with heart-shaped front teeth. My words won’t ever sting this world.

tried and I

in the pauses between dreams —

Diminuendo

The truth is that I’ve can’t write oceans.

Uninhabitable living rooms: Methinks dysfunction. Just nestle in those 8000 thread count Egyptians. Softening your bum and the marriage. Favor curly haired women. Untamed locks make for zany ladies. Girls who inhale wild winds. Umbrella-toting people love the rain. Those who take refuge under a crumpled newspaper can’t possibly. Be wary of perfume collections. Just a couple on the confidant person’s bureau. Quite a few in the room of a jumbled soul. And P.S. Fact: G-d is with me when a breeze blows my sweat dry.

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Malka Fleischmann

Contented Life Musings

Caitlin Drummond

Whisper

Never believed in “believing in signs.” But I theorize as I make my way.

I was asleep at midnight, tasting syntax

I can’t be blamed for what escapes the dark.

I never had braces. Smiling with heart-shaped front teeth. My words won’t ever sting this world.

tried and I

in the pauses between dreams —

Diminuendo

The truth is that I’ve can’t write oceans.

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Frances Wright

“a shame they don’t make light brown m&ms anymore” she said through careless brickstack teeth, “I thought of them like chestnut horses” she means the ones she rode as a girl, those haysweet thrones that kick the earth all day she was never any season but Fall, bending hard against the wind

Kelsey Dashiell

Thunderbirds

Let clouds hugging mountain peaks flow down to me as fog, let me trace the lightning that lingers in their pores. Chalk drawings diffuse to milky green on rainstorm walks. I explode puddles refitting drops like jigsaw pieces. I drink rocket fuel in my tea to attract sparks. Your hair is the last lit fuse I smelled, why would I ever exhale? You circle back with a lion’s roar I open umbrellas in my sleep.

said the tornadoes would never reach her house not up there on the scrunched-up brow of the Tennessee Valley where she taught me contour and gesture and put honey in my chamomile a house like a wooden face on round shoulders: the world drops on all sides of the deck — and now does it fall like a careless brickstack when they mine her bones for her brother, does it feel like anything at all

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Frances Wright

Kelsey Dashiell

Thunderbirds

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Rebecca LeVine

Nick at Night

We’re ambling up the Place de Cartier, because ambling is the only way to see this adorable Montreal square, adorable because boxes of amethyst tulips dot the windows of cafes, and fountains offer cool, whispering geysers into the twilight and bananas, mangos, and sweet pink smoothies blushingly seduce from un kiosque des fruits, But if she is innocent, Paris’s naïve little Canadian cousin, she is an innocent coquette, determined to show her desire for a good time, to convince the condescending world that she’s not content to sit in the window of a sweet sidewalk café where lovers sip cappuccinos and American families comment on the preciousness of the city, no, she’ll have none of that, little miss Montreal, she’ll show you that her streets are alive at night and so when the sun goes down slipping behind the imposing Lord Nelson, that unwelcome bronze Brit lording over the square that’s named after a French explorer and francophone glory, the crown jewel of French independence and ingenuity, Cartier, hard and shiny as diamonds, a far cry from the British vainqueur, a cry of tears, leur larmes, l’eau salée that fills locks and canals and the entire St. Lawrence, sending wooden boats filled with wood off to New York and to Paris besides. But every night the dark conceals the Lord’s stiff countenance and the bitter, brittle, conqueror sleeps while the jeune fille Montreal unbraids her hair, puts the tulips to bed, throws on something lacy and struts into the night where Street Theater in all its sinister, capitalized glory reigns supreme, no reining it in, because sweet young Montreal can be queen of the night, reine de la nuit, and out they come, the armies of puppeteers who pull their troops on strings, accompanied 56 The Penn Review

by gypsy violinists, or at the very least a sixteen-year-old in beads and gauzy shawls, a turban, robin’s egg blue, wrapped around her hair, playing Brahms and hoping no one will know it’s Brahms, bending and weaving with the music so that no one will ever know she was raised on Suzuki, and not the motorcycle, either. Down the plaza a little, a Peruvian folk band plays something that for a few startling seconds is definitely “Stairway to Heaven,” which actually makes a good deal of sense, considering, for how else could one describe the stone skyward ascension of Machu Picchu? And when the sky is darkest, when a few stars peer nervously out of the velvety blue abyss but most keep out of sight, offering some anxious excuse about light pollution, Nick takes the stage, takes it in that he creates it, the Place de Cartier becoming a Greek amphitheatre tourists’ comfy Reeboks the only seats necessary. His French is gruff, throaty, like each word is tearing his larynx but he’s smoked so many Gauloises that it doesn’t matter anymore, a dialect and a timbre that make Paris scoff and shudder but Miss Montreal likes it and sticks up for him, shyly but with more conviction than la femme la France expected. Nick is pulling volunteers from the audience, volunteers who never thought they’d whisper pick me, choissisez-moi to a man on the street wearing all black, his skin and clothing wrinkled, his voice and visage cracked, his hair in a ponytail that reaches his waist at least. The volunteers are elephant-walking before the riveted, roaring like lions to a crowd that roars back, all of them singing A wimoweh a wimoweh a wimowheh a wimoweh while Nick’s voice ascends over the chorus, In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight, the thes turned into zuhs, Nick turned into an artist, a general, God until the show’s over, kids, time to go home, Montreal looks at the watch Maman and Papa 57

Rebecca LeVine

Nick at Night

lovingly bequeathed last Christmas and sees she should be in bed, and the American families buy smoothies from the sweet fruit vendor, and the lovers go back to the cafes, which are still open even if their flowers are asleep in their flower beds, and Nick twists his ponytail around his hand so he can dip his face toward a fountain, keeping the night young by sipping from a fountain of youth. The puppeteer gives his gypsy girl a break and she looks down a cobbled street toward a noisy pub, but she changes her mind and heads toward a gelato stand instead, and the Peruvian folk band is playing something else that stole its chords from rock ‘n’ roll unless rock ‘n’ roll stole its chords from them, and for a moment they’re “Like a Rolling Stone,” reminding pretty little Montreal that she never turned around to see the frowns on the jugglers and the clowns and Nick wipes his forehead with the back of his hand and the remaining stars blush like the mangos on the kiosque des fruits and Montreal rebraids her hair and tiptoes past Lord Nelson, half asleep by the time she’s home.

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Rivka Fogel

you came today in the early afternoon you said. let’s go tomorrow where. i said let’s just go. where. i said yes. you said. you see. your eyes are very large

{below} Alex Remnick Untitled (16), 2008 Black and White Print

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Rivka Fogel

you came today in the early afternoon you said. let’s go tomorrow where. i said let’s just go. where. i said yes. you said. you see. your eyes are very large

{below} Alex Remnick Untitled (16), 2008 Black and White Print

Sarah Stewart

Glacial

Back then we were made more of clay than cotton, those summers in the Dells, we were the lake-muck that itched our legs like teak colored pantyhose. We were told that glaciers had layered the pale pinks into the gorges and I think even then you were being formed by mountains of ice by people with snowy bones and winter so deep inside them that cold colored and spilled onto everything they touched and still worse, everything they didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t touch. They took turns hovering their mouths over yours and pushing thick frost through your lungs. You were smart to keep my bobby pins in your pockets, my hair has finally frozen into my eyes but I guess you knew that would happen.

Jennifer Green

Without

without friction without cloves without resin do without bones without cartilage without sharks are without vitamins without glide without dissentions about war about speed without touch without rhyme without reason without chalk without let without bras without dew without you or something I can call you without something I can call consciousness. without morning without floss without touching the difference without between without our skin without poking wholes with in the holy throughout itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hole-y, to count the whole e with out width out with out ascensions, which are to crash: a hundred per-cent surety. a penny royal man sent a jury to conduct research on the physics of loneliness. they are still conducting

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Sarah Stewart

Glacial

Jennifer Green

Without

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Sam Donsky

Queen Of Nebraska

They’re writing romance novels in Nebraska. Formalist poetry in Pennsylvania. Figure August, 2001. In Nebraska it begins “it began with a beginning,” replacing a beginning with “X dancing disco in my demi-dreams,” or ambulating to the twilit sibilance of time spent out of love, in the so & so of story, in the drear, the sloop, the catatonic yes & no. It’s no different in Pennsylvania, inaugural site of my augural stand, home to the high-water mark of “what first struck me in verse,” what last struck me at all: X in a tree / K-I-S-S-I-N-G / The arc of our age & the straight of her hair / our up-jump-all, the all-fall-down. But they’re writing short stories in Omaha. Mayoral speeches in Scranton. Figure August, 2001. In Nebraka it ended “it ended with an ending,” replacing an ending with “X accelerating out of frame,” or sprinting from grotesquerie, until suddenly it’s the future & she works for Change, or The Greater Moral Aesthetic Incorporated, or somewhere sonic where she invents syllables, pageants for the momentary clarity of heart, writing nutrition labels in Lincoln, and — when they fire her (for The Millenial Crisis) — silent films in Philadelphia. The One City We Never Kissed In. To make up for it I buy her flowers; & though I do it on the five-week anniversary of her birthday, & though if anything she points to the almost, to the sundrenched mathematics of, to the equations in which X=x, or x=why, or y=z: they’re writing romance novels in Nebraska & they’re wretched, they’re romantic, they all start the same way.

Alexander Nguyen

The Golden State

The last time we listened to the buzz of twins, Who are the most efficient of all human beings, You flew in to answer when I forgot to smile. The truth is, that all bees are made of honey, and Every hummingbird dies of a tiny heart attack. Now again the appropriate compassion even though the weather drops into sunset; We forget what words mean sometimes. Heavens, this is the last time surgeons understand by osmosis that fog matters when it rains, hiding the fact that they are drenched. Without lingering on, understand when I say, I don’t make up I make out.

{left} Sarahjean Kerolle Under the Bridge... of Central Park, 2009 Digital Photography 62 The Penn Review

Sam Donsky

Queen Of Nebraska

Alexander Nguyen

The Golden State

{left} Sarahjean Kerolle Under the Bridge... of Central Park, 2009 Digital Photography 62 The Penn Review

Sanae Lemoine

Seiza

Ayako inspects the two bags of kombu and smells them; she opens one of the bags and takes a piece. In her mouth the hard seaweed tastes of iodine. This is the good kind, she thinks. Eri is in the kitchen when Ayako knocks on the front door. You’re here, Eri says, her eyes brushing over Ayako. I brought you some kombu, my sister mailed it from home, you know, it’s so hard to find in Melbourne. Eri takes the bags of black seaweed and breaks a sheet in half. She starts chewing on the thick fibre. This one is sweet, she says. Yes, but I also brought a salty one for soups. I thought Yuko might like the sweet one. Eri opens the door wider for Ayako and as she steps through the narrow frame she slightly bends her head. The kitchen is small and off-white, on one side is a gas stove and the sink, on the other a counter with a large rice cooker. Eri opens a cupboard and bags of food fall to the floor as she pushes the kombu into a corner of the cabinet. Yuko is sitting at a round table and she smiles at Ayako. This is my daughter Yuko, Eri says, gesturing to the table. I’m sorry Ayako, but I still need to make dinner, do you mind staying while I cook? Ayako watches Eri cut the bok choi and then cook it in oil. She adds boiling water and udon noodles. With a spoon-shaped strainer she dilutes thick miso paste in the soup and adds dried tuna flakes. Ayako notices Yuko’s broad shoulders despite her thin frame, unusual for a Japanese girl, she thinks. She guesses Yuko must be in high school. When Eri asks Ayako to stay for dinner Ayako is embarrassed. She knows Eri can barely eat. But I made a shortcake, Eri says, when Ayako protests, so she sits at the small round table next to Yuko. When Ayako invites Yuko to her home for dinner she notices how Yuko’s eyebrows are thinning and her hairline receding. Throughout dinner, Yuko scratches her forehead and eyebrows, brushing away hairs from her skin. Ayako cooks omurice, fried rice covered with a thin omelette. Yuko scrapes every last grain with her chopsticks. This is delicious, Ayako. It’s so little, do you want some more? Ayako asks. You’ve eaten quickly. No, I’m full. In our family we never leave any rice in our bowl, in Tokyo that’s what we were told to do. Yuko takes a pickled plum and sucks on the salt and pulp. After they drink tea, Ayako shows Yuko her son Tomio’s bedroom and leaves her alone there. You can choose any CD you like of his, he no longer listens to them, now that he’s studying in America, she tells her. 64 The Penn Review

There are at least fifty CDs on the shelf next to a stereo. Yuko wipes the dust on the plastic covers and reads the artist names. She listens to Cat’s in the Cradle and sits on the floor. When the song ends she listens to it again. Because she’s sitting on the floor she can see the books on the bottom shelf, most of them are by Stephen King. She reads the first page of Carrie but then sets it back on the shelf. She figures out how to put the song on loop so that she doesn’t have to press the rewind button every time it ends. There are a few books by James Aldridge, she’s never read them and they look unread. She likes the orange eucalyptus and the boy with short hair on the cover of Spit MacPhee. Ayako knocks on the door, can I come in, she asks. Yuko quickly stops the music and slides the book into her shoulder bag. Yes, she says, and stays sitting on the floor. You can come back whenever you like, Ayako says. Tomorrow? Yuko asks. She looks down, I don’t have class tomorrow. Really? Even in Year Twelve? Well, it’s Easter week-end. Yuko says. Ah right. Could you lend me this CD? She takes the CD out of the stereo and puts it back in its case. Of course. I’ll take you to the tram stop. How’s your stomach? Ayako asks Eri. Eri runs her hands over her flat stomach. It hurts most of the time. Right now I can’t feel it too much. She leans closer to the table and sits with her feet under her thighs in seiza position. Have you tried acupuncture? It might help with some of the pain. I’ve got a good address in Toorak. I don’t know, yes, maybe it will. I’m just afraid of not being well. I can hardly eat, but I cook for Yuko everyday. It’s not good to have a mother so thin. Eri opens a small bag and takes out a needle and light blue thread. On the table is a satin dress, the seams unfinished. Her fingers are long, thin as well, and she starts sewing the sleeves of the dress. Eri, Ayako says, touching her arm. Eri looks up startled. The doctors told me I have a few months still at home. I’ve looked at a hospice not too far away. But I don’t know what to do with Yuko. She’s losing hair. In early December the temperature increases and with summer the parents at school forget about Eri. Until then they have fought for her, argued over who is the kindest and who will look after Yuko. Eri is still at home, she tells Ayako that not eating makes the day fluid; there are no pauses for her body. Her body, she says, is empty. A shell for my children, she laughs. She’s able to drink tea and certain days she can digest brown rice with miso soup. 65

Sanae Lemoine

Seiza

Ayako cuts spring onions and parsley; she grates ginger for the soup. The ginger will warm you, she tells Eri. Yuko does not leave Ayako’s house. She comes by after school and goes into Tomio’s room. Ayako thinks of her son studying in Boston, so far away so that he only visits in June. He studies chemistry and economics, and his father also lives in Boston. Tomio’s father didn’t like working in Australia. They’re savages at work, he told her one day, before leaving for America. He said, I’m sorry, I can’t stay, you know I’m not good with children. He’d eyed Tomio who was sleeping, and then whispered to Ayako, I’ll take him skiing every winter, and he’ll like me better that way. By Christmas, Ayako knows the lyrics to Cat’s in the Cradle. Yuko sits in the bedroom listening to the song and reading books. Ayako gives her a key so she can come in by the back door on weekends. Can I bring a friend? Yuko asks Ayako one Friday afternoon. Yes, well who’s your friend? Ayako looks up from her Tibetan language book. He’s outside, his name is Sam. Sam smiles and thanks Ayako for letting him in, and he agrees to stay for dinner. Yuko closes Tomio’s door behind Sam, as Ayako turns on a tape of Thich Nhat Hanh. Yuko reaches for the CD player but then she decides Sam might find it strange that she knows every word to the song. It is the only song she listens to, and in the past few weeks her teachers at school have asked her what she mumbles in class. She says she’s only practicing lip-reading and as a result must move her own lips, as if she were to recognize words. You have to practice right? She asks her teachers, when they don’t look quite satisfied. Sometimes words from the song slip into her essays but she has learned to catch them, to quickly correct her mistake before focusing with renewed vigour. Only a lapse of attention, she tells herself, as she forces concentration. She does not know Sam so well. They have a class together, modern philosophy, and he wants to ask her questions about Buddhism. Because she’s Japanese, he thinks she will know. Why don’t you want to talk about Descartes? Yuko asks him, as she sits down on the floor. He stands still, looks for a chair but then sits down beside her. Well, I thought it might be more interesting to talk about Eastern stuff. Like meditation. Who’s the Japanese guy Ayako is listening to on tape? I don’t know. Besides, he’s not Japanese, he’s Vietnamese. Well you must know something about Buddhism, about the philosophy? My family is Shinto, Yuko tells him. He touches her hairline and Yuko winces. You have soft skin, he tells 66 The Penn Review

her. What are you saying? He asks. She feels her lips move so quietly, she thought it was imperceptible and is quick to check herself. On the carpet of the room he pulls layers of clothes from her body. She’s not too convinced, naked she feels like a peeled sweet potatoes old men sell on the street in Japan. It’s not warm in the bedroom, but when he touches her for the second time she locks the door. Yuko can hear Thich Nhat Hanh’s voice from the living room. Her body feels inadequate, and she bleeds a little although she’s not a virgin. Sam thinks she is and he accuses her for not telling him. I’ve hurt you, haven’t I, he says. No, I feel fine. I asked you earlier on, Yuko, you could’ve told me. You girls think we don’t want to know. But I’m not a virgin, Yuko says. And what’s this? He asks, showing her pink on the tissues he’s holding. Ayako cooks miso soup for Eri every morning. By January the weather is at forty-three degrees Celsius. Ayako sweats very little, she is mostly used to humidity, and in this dry weather her skin begins to peel. She rubs coconut oil into her palms and the soles of her feet, she exfoliates her legs every second day. Eri hardly speaks anymore, she spends most of the morning sewing the dress; she’s added white lace to the neckline. It’s for when I die, she tells Ayako. I’m already going to be an ugly corpse as it is, she says peering down at her body, but at least the dress will look good! Ayako cries quietly and Eri touches her with her left hand, as her right hand flattens small creases in her dress. Are you studying? Eri asks Yuko. Eri sits up on the sofa and folds her thin legs under her body. No, Yuko answers. I thought you might be learning something, it looks like you’re reciting words, I noticed your lips were moving. You must’ve been sleeping. Your exams are soon, Yuko. Maybe, but they don’t matter now, do they? She holds Eri’s body to hers and lets her lips form words on her mother’s forehead. Yuko sits on the carpet next to the shelf of books and CDs. Sam is spread on the bed reading a Stephen King book but she can’t see the title. His hair is long and he hasn’t washed it in days, I don’t have any shampoo left, he tells her, and she offers to lend him some. She forgets to buy him a bottle on 67

the way back from school. He says, washing it with just water is fine. I don’t know why she’s always cooking, my mum. She wakes up at five am to make me breakfast. Yuko says, and then scowls. Do you even know what she makes? Not just a typical breakfast, but the whole Japanese deal. Rice, pickles, omelette, broccoli and oven-baked salmon. She makes all of that for you? Sam now sits next to Yuko. And she makes me lunch, she wants me to take it in a thermos. It’s embarrassing at school, you know, the kids all have packed sandwiches. But when I think my mum can barely eat. So I take the food, Yuko says patting her stomach. Yuko knocks on the door furiously and Sam opens it. God, Yuko, it’s almost one am, are you ok? Sam leans in to take Yuko’s arms because she won’t move. She’s shaking so hard he has to halfcarry half-drag her to his bedroom and she can’t even get past the doorway so he holds her there against the frame. She can’t cook, she’s not cooking she couldn’t make dinner. Yuko, you’ve got to stop shaking. Sam doesn’t know what to do with her body because he can’t control its movements. Her shaking comes as waves and he thinks she will cry but her eyes are dry. It was seven pm and she hadn’t said “Gojan!” yet as she normally yells at us when dinner is ready. I walked into the kitchen and she was sitting on the wooden stool next to the table. On the table was the chopping board, the ceramic knife and carrots. She heard me walk in and she told me, Yuko, I can’t cook tonight I’m sorry. When I came closer I saw the carrots were hardly sliced. She said to order pizza and to choose my favourite flavour. She said, I think you’ll be cooking tomorrow night. Have you eaten? Sam asks, moving Yuko closer to the bed. No. I’ll just make you a sandwich, it’ll take a sec. And maybe you should stay here tonight. In March Eri can no longer stand, she can’t afford a nurse so Ayako drives her to the hospice. The small suitcase has an old tag from JAL, Japan Airlines. Yuko comes the first day with Sam; he won’t let her go alone. It is also his responsibility, he says. He drives a grey Subaru and from time to time reaches out to touch her hand. He still believes she lost his virginity to him, and this fact makes him proud, he thinks she must be in pain now, and that he should look after her. Ayako sits by Eri when she’s finished with work, and when Eri is asleep, she rests her palms above Eri’s stomach in motion of Reiki. Ayako knows little of Reiki but a few years back she got her first certificate. Sometimes if she’s not 68 The Penn Review

too tired, and her mind is focused, she feels a thin yet warm current of energy seep from her palms to Eri’s abdomen. Now Ayako must drink the miso soup, because Eri’s stomach is too weak. I’ll take you home, Ayako tells Eri after two weeks in the hospice. But I’ve already sold my apartment! I meant my house. You can live with me and I’ll pay for the nurse. Tomio’s father pays for his education, I have some money from an apartment I rent in the city. I can’t. I’ve already informed the hospice of my decision. Ayako smiles and packs the small suitcase. You can’t take Yuko after I am gone, Eri tells Ayako. What do you mean, who will look after them? Why, she’ll be adopted. Eri answers calmly as she looks through the car window. You’d hand Yuko over to strangers? Eri, I’m not her mother, but you’re like my child. Well, that’s why, Ayako. You’re too involved. Ayako and Yuko sit beside Eri. They look at Eri as she sleeps on the single bed. Her hair is long because they haven’t cut it since her illness, and her face is simple, oval, with a few creases on her forehead and light eyebrows. Her hair is the darkest part of her figure, seaweed against grey skin. Yuko smooths it down. You have her hair, Ayako says to Yuko. Don’t pull at it. The two sit quietly and listen to Eri’s sporadic breathing. Yuko begins to articulate small words with her lips and Ayako hums the tune. Ayako washes Eri’s body. Her body is cold and she is a strange corpse. Like a child’s body, small with her bones jutting out in angles. Her breasts are almost non-existent and her abdomen is a depression. Ayako passes a sponge over her body, she makes sure the water is warm, and dampens Eri’s armpits, neck and feet. She rinses the sponge and cleans between her thighs. A Japanese monk is at the house, and he tells Ayako that Eri’s body must now be washed with alcohol. There’s only a half bottle of ninety percent alcohol left in the bathroom, and because it’s still early and the pharmacies are closed, Ayako must finish with vodka. On her skin she also rubs a lavender lotion and then proceeds to dress her. The light blue dress has been finished for weeks; Eri started sewing it two years beforehand. Ayako is careful to pad the bosom of the dress where Eri has left space for cotton balls. I have to look like a woman, not a young girl! She tells Ayako. Make me smell like a woman, as well. Ayako has been sitting next to Eri for more than an hour and she can’t feel her legs because they are folded and tucked under her upper-body. She leans in and smells Eri’s black hair. 69

Rebekah Caton

In Media Res

and the cases are still laughing at me — What a way to hurl books, I who would have been, and was their lover, now hunched in the one safe corner, where I would have been

Frances Wright

on clarendon

your house is still white and tucked in its corner at the foot of the creek. the winter magnolias can’t hold up their arms anymore. only yesterday I was lining the walls with all the black suits and school ties and your family was

and was their lover, back-bound, brooking none of it —

a bunch of stones shaking hands — hands shaking? — I don’t remember anything but

STOP — this — rectangular — bleeding —

their faces, your father — a pair of pale eyes, and now no others to anchor them

skin, spewed, splaying punctured by the violent, the volume of language, I am You leaking thesis, you library floor, You way of saying and not saying: you knew it: I am — still breathing and slowly —

70 The Penn Review

Rebekah Caton

In Media Res

and the cases are still laughing at me — What a way to hurl books, I who would have been, and was their lover, now hunched in the one safe corner, where I would have been

Frances Wright

on clarendon

and was their lover, back-bound, brooking none of it —

a bunch of stones shaking hands — hands shaking? — I don’t remember anything but

STOP — this — rectangular — bleeding —

their faces, your father — a pair of pale eyes, and now no others to anchor them

70 The Penn Review

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spring 2009

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