Penn Review: Spring 2006 by Penn Review

The Penn Review Literary and Visual Arts Magazine

Editors

Editor's Note After a year of impassioned debates seeking to answer the elusive and yet always pressing question - what is art? - we cannot find a way to introduce a literary and visual arts magazine without sounding pretentious. We do not pretend to hold the great Truth of life in these pages or to revolutionize the creative process through our selections of poetry, prose, paintings, drawings, and photographs, arranged in a subtle thematic progression meant to intrigue your subconscious. The works in this magazine made us laugh and cry and think. We are excited about the addition of visual art this year and are grateful for the opportunity to award the 2006 The Penn Review Prizes in Poetry, Prose, and Visual Art. As we explore these changes to Pennâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s oldest literary magazine, we hope that The Penn Review will continue to be a haven for creativity on campus.

Editor-in-Chief Managing Editor Publicity and Fundraising Editors Visual Arts Editors Layout Editor Treasurer

Scott Fishman Elizabeth Slavitt Jonathan Richter and Jerome Y. W. Chen Catherine Lim and Ayaka Iwata Michael Stewart Andy Han

StaďŹ&#x20AC; Heather Levine Sherrie McGrann Alexander Perkins Jennifer Rozbruch Liz Shayne Julie Steinberg Andrew Tierney Richard Topaz

Devon Andersen Nellie Berkman Anand Bhagwat Sheira Feuerstein Adam Fisher Rachael Hutchinson Yumeko Kawano William Lee

Editors

Editor-in-Chief Managing Editor Publicity and Fundraising Editors Visual Arts Editors Layout Editor Treasurer

Scott Fishman Elizabeth Slavitt Jonathan Richter and Jerome Y. W. Chen Catherine Lim and Ayaka Iwata Michael Stewart Andy Han

StaďŹ&#x20AC; Heather Levine Sherrie McGrann Alexander Perkins Jennifer Rozbruch Liz Shayne Julie Steinberg Andrew Tierney Richard Topaz

Devon Andersen Nellie Berkman Anand Bhagwat Sheira Feuerstein Adam Fisher Rachael Hutchinson Yumeko Kawano William Lee

University of Pennsylvania Spring 2006

Sometimes itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s like you can almost touch it

Jonathan Richter

Sometimes itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s like you can almost touch it

Jonathan Richter

Table of Contents 11 13 17 18 20 24 26 27 29 31 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 52 53 60 61

Altiplano Dodo como era en el principio ahora y siempre por los siglos de los siglos A Reply Observations from F --The Commonplace Leaves Ode on a Potato Chip Bearing an Uncanny Resemblance to “George Washington Crossing the Delaware” by Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze The State of US The Lion and the Rat Fishy Fate* Daughter Nature Peaceful Grace Untitled (Blue Nude) Untitled (Yellow Nude) Untitled An Account of the Distant Moon Untitled Untitled Untitled Untitled Always Drugs is a Sexy Game Traces Shoes Alignment* You are Love Lost

62 66 67 68 70 72 74 76 78

Breaks The Meal Plan Man Done Got Me Down blues for Pablo The White of the Clouds or the White of the White* A Broken Piece of Porcelain Doesn’t Give You Much Information Opus for Ann Arbor Stranded in Omaha Burning Logic Tangerines

Table of Contents 11 13 17 18 20 24 26 27 29 31 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 52 53 60 61

62 66 67 68 70 72 74 76 78

Altiplano Jess Purcell They believe llama fetuses are good luck, crusted bodies hanging from the stalls, tiny dried faces suspended over us. We walk, two white women in western clothes, the afternoon air thick with coca leaves and sweat. Cochabambinos saunter by in bowler hats, bright wool scarves wrapped around their heavy bodies, the smell sharp with decay. I pay for a woven bag, the womanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s face browned and withered by time. Tomorrow on the bus to La Paz my friend will tell me she is afraid to go home. Her family waits in a house where death is suspended, impassive in the shadows, fifteen silent years winding to an end. In a year her father will be dead. Coca tea before dusk numbs the altitude sickness, the air thin and sparse in our lungs. The knife he will stab into his neck is already there, waiting, in a hushed drawer. They are a world away from our bare altiplano, a scrubby desert that leads nowhere high in the mountains where winter begins. 11

The bus descends into the capital at night, metropolis sprawled across valleys, gleaming hills draped with steel and electric light. I wake from sleeping, cold in the shadows as the bumpy road winds down. She is turned away, silent across the aisle, her face reflected in the glass a pale half moon.

Dodo Sam Donsky Everything we know about death is not enough to kill us. -Dionisio D. MartĂnez Everything the Dodo Bird knew about extinction was not enough to anticipate its own wing-clipped taper of mind. Everything I know about love letters is not enough to start calling myself one says X one afternoon. Everything he knew about Marilyn Monroe was not enough to keep DiMaggio

from crying at her funeral. Everything I know about my father is not enough to stop me from growing out of him like a third arm. Everything astronomers know about greed (and Pluto) is not enough to stop them from asking 10 Planets? Why not 11? Everything I know about the 19th of June

is not enough to remind me that it is 14

Carolineâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s birthday. Everything they knew about The Babe was not enough to stop Mantle or Maris from wondering Whoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s counting, really? Everything X & I know about cinema is not enough to act out a kiss in the rain. Everything Shakespeare knew about Los Angeles was not enough to write a play called The Slow, Pacific-Like Shrinking of Heart.

is not enough to remind me that it is 14

Everything my Father knows about small talk is not enough to keep him from small listening for hours. Everything I know about the Dodo is not enough to spare X from an extinction metaphor, from leaving. Everything I know about my Father is not enough.

como era en el principio ahora y siempre por los siglos de los siglos* Aichlee Bushnell on sunday summer evenings old ladies with sad eyes and generous smiles perch on front porches under umbrellas and streetlamps folding and refolding threadbare handkerchiefs, the relics of their grumbling husbands, who once fondled dominoes with arthritic fingers now, smells of chicken grease and honey and sweaty sex saunter through screened windows and giggling brown boys strut and scrawl their names on walls and kiss proud girls behind cars and in alleyways where oil-slicked cats hide hungry under barbeque grills and sleep atop rusted bicycles and inside garbage cans where squirrels dance with butterflies in treetops that whistle like broken radios where ghost houses weep in the dark where men pray on corners padre nuestro que esta en los cielos** and women hang out of windows watching babies stumble across patios whispering hallelujahs *“as it was in the beginning is now and forever shall be” – the glory be prayer ** “our father who art in heaven” – the lord’s prayer

A Reply Alexander Perkins That noble poet, skilled as he was Got it most wrong. In his words lie A sad mistake, clear to those who From sweet dreams of love awake. “‘Tis better to have loved and lost” Was the poet’s sweet refrain, Yet how can one proclaim the loss When that love was never gained? This, oh poet, this is an immortal pain. In plain words, better then, not To have loved…for now there is a Lesson learned, from the unkind power That in one’s answer burns. For then one would never yearn For a reply that cannot be heard, And Love, to them, would not become That cold and broken word. I say with my greatest respect For your wondrous winged words: With regret, to us, they do not apply So…let me make this reply (An addendum as it were, for I am Adding one much needed word.) ‘Tis better to have been loved… Than to never be loved at all. For while the loss of love can be So terribly cruel…love gone unrequited Makes the heart a fool. And in the soul 18

Creates a most terrible thunder, That tears a hopeful heart asunder. And while your wisdom and your loss I neither deny nor defame, Love’s fire can hurt no more, Then when “I love you not…” Is tossed upon the flame.

Observations from F— Brooke Palmieri Earl Kinders is a man whose spiritual essence is summed up in his manner of dental hygiene. Yet, being as this an intimate act of connection between the soft recesses of the fingers, the teeth, and the brush, and being as this a story without the privilege of third person omniscient narration, the relevance of this oral ritual is little help to readers. Likewise, because Earl’s paste-of-choice is a store-brand, economic and anonymous, this information bears even less use to those readers who sell toothpaste. But Earl flosses daily. In fact, just yesterday while walking to work Earl himself was spotted at the local drug store buying more floss, and his total came to $1.75. When the clerk gave him his quarter back, he dropped it and the world watched Earl cause the first great heartbreak that was to take place on that day: the quarter rolled too far, much too far for its value it seemed, and Earl, being very economic and realizing the quarter was causing more trouble than it was worth, promptly abandoned it on the tiled floor of the store. The world went about its business shortly afterward. “Workin’ hard, or hardly workin’?” the janitors still joked. “Call me on my cellphone!” the pedestrians still spoked. Earl himself did neither, and went to work unhappily, ruining any rhyme scheme I might have just formed at the end of this sentence. The world is separated between those who love their work, and those who do no>From those two options, being as they are so few in number, it is hardly an uncommon thing that Earl should find himself languishing in the latter. So he 20

continued to languish without much concern, and continued making tuna sandwiches on Sunday nights that would last as his lunch for the workweek. Sometimes, for my job I would walk down the street playing a game, a game collecting the ending parts of conversations I could grasp from those walking by me , and using them to make new sentences. Earl’s contribution never was more than pessimistic: “No, no, no syntax is everything—can you believe she would say that? Pizza’s good, I’m good, Lord knows what it’ll do to the economy but I think I’m gonna really try to get an A in this one, pornography’s not a bad thing, but are you a vegetarian too? I’m thinking of buying a new T.V. in a week or so, excuse me do you have foot spray we had wrongly assumed I’d love to, this job is a waste of time.” Thanks, Earl. (Once Earl liked to write, and wrote a short story about a man named George who hated his job and realized he would have no impact on the world. He liked the story because a professor he admired liked it, too. He also liked anything with chocolate and peanut butter in it, and the last time I saw him, when I could not speak, I remember seeing a sign at the local fast food place: GET YOUR CHOCOLATE PEANUT BUTTER SHAKE HERE. And I couldn’t speak, but I wanted to, and wanted to tell him that I thought the chocolate peanut butter shake might be something worth looking into. But we just drove on, looking out opposite windows in his second hand Volvo, reducing ourselves to the tiny pieces you only find in Quantum Physics. Afterwards I always feared white Volvos— But I play this game of sentence-making often. Earl told me he liked me because of this, because I was childlike, once, when we were on a patch of grass and when he was still and idea to me and not a person. If I had thought to write this Prelapsian, before falling and before ideas had 21

time to prove unstable, Earl might have been a romantic at heart, who loved the opera, quoted Byron, sighed at sparrows, and allowed the world to watch him brush his teeth. My imagination is very, very unfair. And Bruce Purchase can do a mean one-man show called Johnson is Leaving, like Earl and I left an unpracticed jazz band one time, like I left Earl, and like Earl left his job, and like jobs leave us unfulfilled, if we find ourselves one day caught in that category of people who dislike their jobs. And when I left I wrote him a poem to explain, but he didn’t understand it or like it at all... “I write these verses, feeling cheated and spited, Because there are nights When my work keeps me awake, And my sleeplessness is unrequited...” But there are always little moments when dislikable things drop oﬀ and become likable, I think. “Good morning good Sir.” I said to Earl on the phone, on his lunch break. I used to call because I hoped that his day might be likeable if I did. And I remember Earl was so fastidious and economic, that he would remind me his cell phone plan only allotted our conversation to ten minutes. Any more than that would not make his bill likeable at all, and because I can talk I would always accidentally go over that 10 minute limit (as, time really only matters when you waste your life staring at a clock, and when you’re not, you forget about it, because humans are not meant to think of time, not really, the invention of the watch was a backwards step for us). I’m sorry, Earl, my intentions were not to make your bill inconceivable.

because the smell of the air made me do as much, and I was back then incredibly blind to my own inadequacies and vulnerabilities. I always ironed my jeans twice before seeing Earl, in my excitement I could not bear wrinkles. I always put on my best perfume before seeing Earl, and it was humiliating to know he didn’t like perfume. Earl was not sympathetic, Earl was not even there, he was the only one not there at the airport when I came like that traveler from an antique land. I was full of Swiss air and Italian gelato, fresh from cities where romance is everywhere. Earl said, there really isn’t a point to life. I said, life is full of points, ballpoints and pinpoints and three pointers, how could you think that? Earl said, I don’t find myself feeling emotion much, or caring about anything either. Earl, Earl how could you push ideas like that through your white teeth? It was at this point that, if I had imagined Earl brushing his teeth, I would have imagined him as harsh, attacking his gums with quick strokes, the bristles of the tooth brush not neat but misshapen, flattened a bit, from the force of his pressing them against his teeth, white teeth because he abused them so, so white from heated friction and bleeding just between the two front ones a little. Fighting plaque and gum disease is no easy business, sometimes one must be cruel, the television commercials tell us this much but do the words that these chattering teeth and pink tongues and gums issue have to be that way? Why can’t the two be unrelated and absurd, like an Ionesco play? Why can’t relativity prove only a theory and not a practice now and then? What are you trying to prove to me now about yourself? Why do you have to make life into chair from the de Stijl movement? Why do you brush your teeth like that, Earl? Earl? I don’t understand you. I don’t understand anything. Why is Earl Kinders a man whose spiritual essence is summed up in his manner of dental hygiene?

Most things are, whether you plan it or not, inconceivable anyway. I was back then inconceivable myself; writing, reciting poems, singing aloud, making jokes during movies, I was back then confident and reeling all over the place just 22

The Commonplace Adam Fisher Allen P Nice is gay

- Sidewalk inscription between 38th and 39th Sansom Street Well, Allen. Is it true what they say? That you were looking for a legacy. I stare at the sidewalk too. I see the words, the names and long for the feel of wet cement in my mitts. That is how you did it, right? You knelt down with the beating sun on your neck and inserted your index finger into the sidewalk. And there was only one thing to write, wasn’t there. That name your parents agonized over, “Allen,” and “P,” because it is nice. And after lifting your dripping digit, what then? Satisfaction, fulfillment shared with every other arid inscription? But you hadn’t counted on an errant force. Who, Allen, who tacked on the epithet? What slinking soul forfeited an opportunity for immortality only to vandalize a name drying in the air?

going to apologize the next time the smiley face in the bathroom stall grows a long nose and eye balls. I bet you could tell me why, Mr. Nice. Why do I deface without bias? Why waste my living ink on barren lines and curves? Maybe because I have never scratched catchphrases into tile. I have never scrawled a heart with two-letter vessels. And no, Allen, I have never bent down on the sidewalk and carved my name into rock.

I did it. You hear me, Allen? I did it. I write the “is gay”s and the “sux”s after some girlfriend’s initials. I strike through hearts and x-out “loves”s and “forever”s. I spray paint over every inflated letter in “VYRU$” or “ERBAN PLAYAZ.” I interrupt scribble with carrots, because he is NOT cool, she is NOT hot. I’m NOT 24

The Commonplace Adam Fisher Allen P Nice is gay

Leaves Julie Steinberg The leaves are falling. One by one they trail oﬀ Like the ellipses at the end of summer’s sentence. I wait for them to change in that archetypical transition. In some cases, I get lucky. I see purple. Now descend the gusts Like the city’s specters. I believe in the ghosts of memory Swirling down in the changing Of the guard. One is a conversation in front of some stately building At 4 a.m., another the kiss exchanged in parting On the pedestrian avenue. These ghosts return Falling quietly on what once was. On ground where betrayal lies. And I want to see their vibrancy again In some sublime forgotten state. So I crunch among them Down this empty street. 26

Ode on a Potato Chip Bearing an Uncanny Resemblance to “George Washington Crossing the Delaware” by Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze (Imitation of Keats’s Ode on a Grecian Urn) Adam Fisher Thou uneaten soldier of saltiness, Thou commander of silent victory, O, Great President! how I must confess Snack and art to be contradictory. What piquant prowess captures such a scene (With biting passion truer than meter) Of vessels braving the choppy water? What seamen toiling? What boat doth teeter? What wind-torn faces? What courage unseen? What heavy hearts? What approaching slaughter? How sweet the taste of victory, but delicious Is the unchewed triumph; therefore, row on Ye crew of intrepid souls! Ambitious Be thy will, and churn the waves that flow on: Those that rock thy rigid craft shan’t be feared; Ice and wind may threaten your bold crossing, But never shall they capsize your dear craft. Man the oars with strength! Don’t mind the tossing Current; your great passage shall be revered And celebrated with delight and draught! O American indulgence! Taut treat! What uncanny lard lottery gave birth To Leutze’s masterpiece? None more elite Than Washington poised above sea and earth 27

Dost stir a soul, but O! what trickery! Despite the labors and wars of mankind, Through unforeseen hardships thou shall remain: Immortal art of the crunchiest kind. “Flavor is taste, taste flavor,” sweet hickory Chip thou say’st that is all one need retain.

The State of US Kara Daddario When you were still a libertarian I would have declared my constitution as an addiction to your intelligence and told you amendment is not made with sex. In New York, you twirl your spaghetti and we realize it’s me. Two breaths and your fork vanishes in vodka sauce as it slips out of your hand. You will tell me it is fine to still believe in independence during cohabitation and Oreos for breakfast because you never did know how to cook. Tell me you never actually could dig things like women’s civil rights and my uncivil insanity. Let it linger there – INSANITY. We’ve moved to tea. I fill my cup with a dollop of Irrationality, the

gentle china cracks; sugary water seeps out running hot on the table. Tell me again that life gets better eventually. I don’t hear the words seething from your mouth. My mind is on your cold noodles and my index finger that is soaked in tea. Leave now. Slide down past Washington Mews where, if you listen carefully, you can still hear Dylan play. Go past the all-night Chinese food joint that serves sangria with light pink lychees that dance on liquid tension. Keep going until you vanish slowly into your doorway cast in mundane yellow light, before I realize the fundamentals, of US, have ceased to exist. 30

The Lion and the Rat Elaine Simeon “I am a liar,” cried the rat mournfully. “I have tried so hard to be good, but I am always tempted by the weak and stupid creatures around me. How can one be expected to tell the truth when the animals of the world are so happy to believe lies?” The good and honorable Lion looked condescendingly down on the rat and declared, “You cannot truly have tried, brother rat, for we each have control over our actions. I myself have often been tempted to use my speed and strength to take down such young and tender animals as happen to pass me, but I listen to my conscience and only hunt such prey as have a fair chance of escaping by using what cunning and wit they possess.” The rat sighed deeply and continued in pitiable tones, “I simply must not be as strong as you. Truly I say that no matter what I do, I can not seem to help but use my shrewdness to con and trick those around me. What shall become of me?” The great lion settled himself upon the ground, and bent his head that it might be on a level with the little rat, “Do not give up, my small friend, there is yet hope for you. Listen now, to my story about the Whartonite and the College student, and you shall see that I am right.”

The Whartonite and the College Student There were once two great friends, a Whartonite and a College student. One day they were walking together along Locust Walk when the College student, generous and idealistic, said, “You know what I’d love to do? I’d love to start a mentoring program for the children of West Philadelphia! We could meet with the younger students and help them to better themselves by tutoring them and exposing them to all sorts of new things! What do you think my friend?” Now the Whartonite was shrewd and ambitious, so he thought carefully before replying, “You know, I think that is a good idea. I’m sure that if we put together a convincing proposal the University will even fund us for it!” The College student 31

was thrilled at the prospect of realizing her dream, and she hurried oﬀ to put together a list of all the subjects that should be taught and the trips and activities that they should plan for the younger students. Meanwhile, the materialistic mind of the Whartonite was very diﬀerently engaged. “I’ll arrange with the principals of the local schools for them to first pay a flat overhead rate in order to be involved in our program!” he thought greedily. “I bet I could even convince them to pay a small fee for each child involved, and since our expenses will be covered by the university, the profit will be all ours!” Before long, the mentoring program had been approved by the University and the two friends were in charge of a large number of eager Penn students, all anxious to serve the community. Unbeknownst to the College student, profits were also rolling in. The Whartonite rejoiced in his cleverness, and celebrated by using his money to redecorate his entire high rise apartment with furniture and decorations from Urban Outfitters. One day, when his friend the College student was over for a visit, she asked him curiously, “My friend, where did all these beautiful new things come from?” The Whartonite, basking in the praise of his apartment, answered “I bought them all with the money I made from our mentoring service! Just wait till you see the other rooms!” He at once jumped up to give his friend a tour but was interrupted abruptly by his friend. “YOU DID WHAT?!” she screamed indignantly, “This was meant to be a service to the community! A way of giving something back! It wasn’t an opportunity for you to milk the local schools for all that you could!” The Whartonite just glared back at her, and folding his arms stubbornly said, “You’re just jealous that you weren’t clever enough to have thought of it first!” The College student looked at him sadly and said, “I’m very disappointed in you. You’ve used your talents to exploit others. My friend, I expected much better of you.” With one last sad and disillusioned look, the College student walked from the room. Left alone, the Whartonite began to think on what his friend had said. “Perhaps I was wrong to have used our program in such a way,” he mused. “I will have to make it up to her somehow.” He sat and sat, until he thought of how to 32

redeem himself. “I’ll use the profits from the mentoring program to create copies of the new math tutorial computer program that I’ve designed!” he thought excitedly. “Then, I’ll distribute them in all the local schools for free!” The Whartonite set to work at once, feeling deep inside himself the growing feeling of joy and pride that comes from putting others before yourself. When at last his work was finished, he went to his friend and apologized humbly, “You were right all along my friend. I’m sorry to have disappointed you so, and I’ve changed my ways so that you might be proud of me once again.” The College student hugged him at once, saying “I am proud of you! You’ve overcome your greed and ambition and have become a good and generous person! Nothing could make me happier.” And so the Whartonite and the College student were reunited and stayed close friends all their days. They continued to run the mentoring program, free of charge, and it prospered under their leadership. *** “Wow!” exclaimed the rat. “If the Whartonite could learn to put aside his greed, then certainly I can overcome my demons!” The lion laughed with pleasure. “I knew that you would see it my way, brother rat. All you have to do is try hard enough and you can achieve anything!” “I cannot thank you enough my friend,” said the rat. “You must come to my house for dinner so we can celebrate my new outlook on life.” The lion happily accepted, and the two friends set oﬀ side by side. They shortly arrived at a pleasant house. “After you,” said the rat, with a respectful bow to the lion. “We shall eat just through there.” However, as the lion made his way across the room the floor collapsed beneath him and he found himself trapped inside a deep pit. “Help me friend!” cried the lion, “I have fallen and can’t escape on my own!” The rat leaned over the edge of the pit and laughed scornfully at the lion, “You fool! Did I not tell you that I am a liar! You played right into my paws, just as I said stupid animals always did!” At that moment, three jackals entered the room. “Have you done as we 33

bid you?” they asked the rat. “Of course! See, here sits the noble beast!” gloated the rat. “Now, all that he rules over is his little hole!” The jackals laughed cruelly, “Here kitty-kitty! You’re just a big pussy cat now! You’ll never thwart our hunts again, for now we have all the power!” Through all of this the lion had remained silent, but as the rat turned to leave he cried out, “Brother rat! Why have you done this to me? I thought that you had learned from my stories!” “You are far too gullible,” scoﬀed the rat, “I was just tricking you to pay oﬀ my debts to the jackals. Besides, you got it all wrong. That’s not really the way the story of the Whartonite and the College student ended! The Whartonite was far more clever than you gave him credit for. He wasn’t really helping the schools! He just used it as an opportunity to enter and dominate the high school market so that it would be ready and waiting for him when he finished university. He started a company that sold tutorial programs for other subjects as well as math, and created updated versions every other year. He made millions for himself!” Still laughing to himself over the folly of the lion and marveling at his own cleverness, the rat skipped from the room, leaving the wicked jackals to do with the lion as they pleased. The moral of the story: A person can’t change his true nature, the honest and idealistic are often easily fooled by the sly, and Whartonites will always show their true colors eventually.

*Disclaimer: The author actually quite likes Whartonites, and is sure that, deep down, they are all wonderful, generous people with hearts of gold. 34

Fishy Fate Brittany Siegal January 2005 ebony pencil on paper 19” x 24” Recipient of the 2006 Penn Review Arts Prize 36

Daughter Nature Brittany Siegal April 2005 watercolor 24” x 36” 38

Peaceful Grace Brittany Siegal August 2003 Acrylic 24” x 36” 39

Daughter Nature Brittany Siegal April 2005 watercolor 24” x 36” 38

Peaceful Grace Brittany Siegal August 2003 Acrylic 24” x 36” 39

Untitled (Blue Nude) Jennifer Rozbruch 2005 Watercolor on paper 14” x 10” 40

Untitled (Yellow Nude) Jennifer Rozbruch 2005 Watercolor on paper 10” x 14” 41

Untitled (Blue Nude) Jennifer Rozbruch 2005 Watercolor on paper 14” x 10” 40

Untitled (Yellow Nude) Jennifer Rozbruch 2005 Watercolor on paper 10” x 14” 41

Unititled Raphael Coh June 2005 Oil on paper 11” x 15”

An Account of the Distant Moon Tadashi Moriyama January 2006 acrylic and oil on canvas 70” x 56”

Unititled Raphael Coh June 2005 Oil on paper 11” x 15”

An Account of the Distant Moon Tadashi Moriyama January 2006 acrylic and oil on canvas 70” x 56”

Untitled Catherine Lim October 2005 digital medium

Untitled Rachel Meyer September 2005 digital photograph

Untitled Catherine Lim October 2005 digital medium

Untitled Rachel Meyer September 2005 digital photograph

Untitled Rachel Meyer Spring 2005 digital photograph

Unititled Rachel Meyer October 2005 digital photograph

Untitled Rachel Meyer Spring 2005 digital photograph

Unititled Rachel Meyer October 2005 digital photograph

Always Wun Ting Wendy Tai December 2005 photograph 8” x 10”

Drugs is a Sexy Game Wun Ting Wendy Tai December 2005 photograph 8” x 10”

Always Wun Ting Wendy Tai December 2005 photograph 8” x 10”

Drugs is a Sexy Game Wun Ting Wendy Tai December 2005 photograph 8” x 10”

Traces Sam Donsky This is the way our story goes under. Either worry or lack of it. Both precision & pace. The Earth expands daily & if that doesn’t refute Amy’s fall out of love or Brian’s cat killing it’s first mouse or scientists’ discovery of bittersweet in the ’90’s, (well.) This is my half of the city. Either this arm or disarm. Both the trapdoor & the door. A film ends with snowfall like a song ends with it’s alright, because every time we are comforted we were disturbed, because every two hours it snows, because 50

every kiss is a breath when it misses. This is the swollen arc of our passion. Either too much forgiveness or too much at stake. Both the occasion & the bruise. A painter has a stroke & his art reaches new heights, the sky no longer faceless, the woman undissolved from her luminous ether, her dress finally red, her heart finally found in his traces of a world at large.

Shoes

Alignment*

Aichlee Bushnell

Yona Silverman

I couldn’t find my church shoes this morning They just plain brown shoes but the insides feel like peaches. And Mama plucked me on my ear cuz I guess peaches is expensive. She plucked me like she ain’t want me to hear no more. But I couldn’t feel it.

Tziona stops going to school when she decides that the earth is about to fall out of orbit. In August, she begins refusing to sleep alone, so I lay with her every night for hours until her eyes close and I can hear her breathing deeply. In the mornings when I go into the girls’ room to wake them she is already up, always, lying in bed and facing the wall, shivering a little. By November she is wetting the bed at night. “You’re back,” she says most days, sitting up and unclenching her fists when I walk in. “Of course I’m back,” I say. “It’s the monsters,” Tziona tells me, when I ask. “If I make a noise at night when you’re not there, they kill me.” I put up invisible monster signs, made of the ink that mommies and monsters can see, and she watches as I paint them directly onto the wall with a new paintbrush we chose out together for the purpose. At first I think they’re helping, but in less than a week she is having accidents again. I say maybe she should just sleep with us all night, or maybe I should stay in her bed, but Ezra thinks this is a bad idea. We are already dealing with all of this when the orbit stuﬀ starts. Still, Tziona is seven. She can aﬀord to miss one day of classes, or two, I think, and though I spend a few minutes trying to get her out of bed, I end up just letting her say she has a stomachache. After three days I get nervous, and I have things to do that I can’t do with her home, so on the fourth morning I try and put my foot down. “You have to get up, Tziona,” I say. “You don’t have a choice.” But she doesn’t even move, just looks at me and looks away. “I don’t think it’s safe,” she says. “Of course it’s safe,” I say. “Would I want you to do anything not safe?” Liat, who is a sound sleeper and is always congested from allergies and asthma, is wheezing softly in her bed. “You may not understand,” Tziona says. She turns back over and looks

Couldn’t feel it kinda like when I come in late after jumping in puddles in the schoolyard and my toes be all numb and Mama just be yellin. But I can’t hear it. Feel like I got mud in my ears when her voice be hollerin heavy like the gait of an angry piano or sometimes even when she just be smiling. When she smell like pancakes and musk and her hair look like licorice. When it’s the morning time and I got my Sunday school shoes on so my feet feel like peaches while we walk to the church soft and proud like elephants.

Shoes

Alignment*

Aichlee Bushnell

Yona Silverman

at me, and the areas under her eyes are dark in a way that’s not appropriate for a girl. Her hair is knotty. “I’m your mother. I think I know as much about the gravitational orbit of things as you do.” “You don’t.” She is small and scared, wrapped up in her comforter, and I have to get Liat up and dressed and ready so that she doesn’t miss the bus. When I try and pull Tziona out of bed and she starts kicking, I grab Liat’s outfit from the dresser and take her into the dining room to put on her clothes. Ezra always brings the girls down to the bus, and when he sees that Tziona still is not up he gives me a look, and is going to start really yelling, but then I point to Liat and he just shakes his head. “This is not okay,” he whispers. “So you get her out,” I say. “She doesn’t listen to me,” he says, and picks up his briefcase and Liat’s little knapsack, and slams the door when they leave. Once she realizes she isn’t going to be made to go, Tziona gets out of bed, and comes into the living room. “I’m feeling a little better,” she says. “Not good, but better. What are we doing today?” “We’re not doing anything,” I say. “Well, can I sit here with you?” I nod, and I continue reading my book, and she picks up one of hers. When the cleaning woman arrives I tell Tziona that I’m going to the gym for a while, and then for coﬀee with a friend, and I’ll be back soon. “You can’t go,” she says. “Please.” “I have to,” I say. “Seriously, kiddo.” “But we’re just hanging in space, mommy,” she says. She is gulping for air, getting ready to have a tantrum. I feel panicky. “Whether I’m here or not, we’re hanging in space.” I tell the housekeeper that I’m going out, that I’ll be back in two or three hours. “Please call if there are any problems,” I say. 54

“Yes, yes,” Faye says. “Of course.” When I am at the door Tziona runs and grabs my legs, wrapping her arms around me and screaming. “You can’t leave me. It’s not fair.” I pull her oﬀ, and close the door as firmly as I can, holding the knob tight as I lock the top lock with my key. Even in the elevator down, I can hear her wailing. Outside it is bright and cold, and the doorman warns me to button up when he lets me out. The subway station is less than two blocks from the apartment, but before I get there, my cell phone rings. It’s our own number. “Mrs. Grossman, come home,” Faye says over the phone. I can hear the shrieking in the background. She is not a nanny, just someone to clean the house in the mornings, because I am bad at it. “What?” I ask. “She’s sick. Very sick.” I turn around, and walk towards the building. When Jorge opens the door again, he smiles. “Back so soon?” he asks. “I forgot something upstairs,” I say, not smiling back. Tziona is on the dining room carpet, writhing. “Very sick,” Faye says, standing nervously in the hallway, the vacuum turned oﬀ at her side. Tziona has cried so hard she has thrown up. Ezra thinks Tziona is being spoiled, so even though he isn’t usually around when the girls are awake in the evening, he gets home early from work that fourth day, and Tziona has moved from her bedroom into ours, and is watching TV under the covers. He goes in, without stopping to say hello to Liat and I who are finishing dinner, and I can hear the voices on the television shut up. Fifteen minutes later he is back, his forehead scrunched and veiny. “I sent her to bed,” he says. He gestures that Liat should go. “Are you done, Li?” I ask. She shakes her head and picks up a macaroni with her hand and tosses it into her mouth. 55

“I’m still really hungry,” she says, puﬃng out her round cheeks so they are swollen with air. “Can you please pass the trees?” I scoop some overcooked broccoli onto her plate. “So we’ll go into the other room,” Ezra says. “Andy.” I get up, and if it was Tziona she would have a fuss, but Liat just continues humming, and mushing her broccoli into her noodles. “What happened?” I ask when we get to the entry foyer. He is still wearing his shoes, and he bends down and unties them, pushing them under the breakfront. “She said she won’t go tomorrow, either,” he says. “I take her to therapy Friday afternoons, anyway,” I say. “And it’s a short school day.” “I don’t think this therapy is working.” “So what do you want to do?” “I’ll wake her up tomorrow.” “Fine.” “Fine.” Liat comes in, and tells Ezra that she has a song to teach him. I leave the room, and I hear her asking him why he’s home. “I wanted to see my girls,” he says, and then they both laugh at something, him deeply amused, Liat high and giddy. Tziona is in a ball under her covers. I get in bed with her, and she shifts into me, her face wet and slimy. Ezra comes in about an hour later, and Liat is bathed and naked. “Maybe you will lie with me tonight?” Liat says in a squeaky voice, tapping my shoulder. “Not tonight,” I say. “I’ll lie with you tonight, pumpkin,” Ezra says. He turns oﬀ the light, and gets in bed with her, so that all four of us are in the same room, but after Liat starts wheezing I hear the creak of the floorboards as he leaves. I don’t get up until morning, and Ezra doesn’t bother trying to wake Tziona up, just silently takes Liat by the hand when she is done eating her cereal, and ignores me as he closes the front door. 56

In the psychiatrist’s office in the afternoon, Liat and I build a tower out of blocks while Tziona talks with the door left a crack open, so that she can see me. “We’re building to the sky,” Liat says, and then knocks her structure down a few seconds later. The blocks crash around her, and she laughs and laughs. Ezra insists that she clings to him and not me because when she was born, she saw that I was already taken, so she just sort of accepted the leftovers, but the reality is that she doesn’t cling to anyone. When Tziona was a baby she would cry for hours, no matter what we did, and if we weren’t paying attention to her sometimes she would just go limp, to scare us. Liat really almost never cried. “She’s the good baby,” Ezra used to say. Tziona was still tiny at that point, but not too tiny to maybe understand. “Tziona is passionate,” I would explain to whoever was listening. “She was a personality from the moment I had her.” When the door opens Tziona runs out, escaping. “We should talk about things,” Dr. Marshall says, her hands fidgeting in front of her. She wears a pearl necklace and fancy earrings, and skirts so expensive that I am always surprised to see her playing dollhouse on the floor with Tziona. She is supposedly one of the best specialists in children’s anxiety in the city, but she has no kids herself, though she is older than I am, and married. “In here?” “They’ll play out here,” the doctor says. “We can talk in my office. You guys are the last of the day.” Now we leave the door shut in the opposite direction, so that we can keep a small eye on the two of them. “What’s going to happen?” I ask, when I have sat down, in the lowest voice possible. “The orbit stuff is nothing to be worried about, specifically. It’s just more of the same. She’s an anxious kid.” This is not news. “And of course, extremely intelligent. Still, it’s just anxiety that if she’s not with you, things will fall apart. We can work on it. But, in terms of school, we have immediate problems and immediate options.” She starts going on about medication and behavioral techniques, and I nod, and nod. “If I were you, I would take her to school on Monday. Don’t 57

wait for the bus. Just bring her yourself. My guess is, she won’t act out as much in front of her friends.” “Maybe.” I’m doubtful. Dr. Marshall can tell. In the other room it sounds like the girls are about to argue, but then I hear Tziona laugh, and then Liat, and I relax. “If it doesn’t work on Monday morning, then call me,” the doctor says. “This happens. Tziona’s not the only kid with these kinds of separation issues.” “I know. It’s normal.” She stands up and I do too, and she puts her arm on my shoulder. “It’s not normal, Andrea.” I feel myself blushing. “It’s fine, and treatable, and she’ll be okay, but it’s something we need to keep working on.” “Of course, of course.” She writes out a prescription form, and runs through the safety concerns of giving this drug to kids. “I highly recommend it. It works.” When we leave the oﬃce, Tziona comes over and takes my hand. Liat, who is not yet five and has never had a therapy appointment, kisses Dr. Marshall’s arm before we go outside. In front of the building, there is a squashed bird by a bus station. “Icky,” Liat says, pointing. I put my hand out to hail a cab. “It’s not just gross,” Tziona says. “It’s dead.” “Like mommy’s daddy,” Liat says. My father died when I was 18, well before the girls were born, years and years ago. “Yeah,” I say. “Like your grandpa.” Both of Ezra’s parents are alive, as is my mother. “Do you still miss grandpa?” Tziona asks a few seconds later, after the taxi comes and I have gotten both girls inside and buckled. I tell the driver our address, and think for a few seconds. “I don’t miss him exactly,” I say, and this is really true, especially since he has been dead for more of my life than he was alive. Though I don’t believe in God, really, not in the concrete way Ezra does, I wish I could, and I want them to be able to, if they want. It is something I’m hoping Ezra can give them, if he tries hard enough. “There is a part of him, I think, that is still alive, even if he’s dead.” 58

“Which part?” Liat asks. Tziona is playing with her ear, folding the soft top down and up again. “His head?” I start laughing, and cannot stop. “No, idiot,” Tziona says. “Not his head. His soul in heaven.” “Something like that,” I say. “Not a real piece of him. Just a piece of him that’s not imaginary, but invisible.” “Mommy,” Tziona says. “If you get to heaven before me, will you wait at the door for me to get there, before you go in?” I see, for a moment, heaven as my daughter does. One big entry foyer in front of a vast world of cloud and candy. “Of course,” I say. “There’s no question I’ll wait at the door.” In my mind, I recognize the problems with this; the entry foyer crowded with generations of mothers waiting for their children. I want to explain it all to her. Explain that I do not have it within me to separate her from me. I direct the driver to take us to Broadway and not West End. Sometimes, next to Liat, Tziona seems so big. I need to remind myself that she is a small girl. Even when she is not having a fit, she is still young. “We need to pick up some medicine at the drugstore,” I say. “And then we’ll go home.” “Can we have ice cream?” Tziona asks. “We’re going to have Shabbat dinner later,” I say. “With dessert.” “Please, mommy?” Liat asks, and I am going to say no, because the whole point is I have to set limits, and be firm, but when we get out of the cab Tziona doesn’t cling to me. Instead, she and Liat start running towards the drugstore, shoelaces dragging against the pavement. Of course I will let them get ice cream. Ice cream after ice cream until ice cream is no longer mine to give or take away.

*Recipient of the 2006 Penn Review Prose Prize

You are Love

Lost

Adam Fisher

Nellie Berkman

You are love plucked from a distant plant. I grind you down and breathe in your aroma of green earth and thyme. When I sprinkle you into a crease of paper and pinch you between my fingers, I am caressing the wings of a moth.

A figure in the mirror staring back, his eyes the blue and cream of foam on waves, clings to my lashes, turns, then runs away, his cryptic orbs now memories I lack. It must have been my boy with humble tact, returning from the shadows of his grave. It must have been his rapt gaze that I craved between the broken time of hour-glass cracks.

I smooth your curves, squeeze your waist. Like a sapling, you are slender and ready. Firmly, I grasp your body and roll you over in my hands.

And was it fear that made me see the face, the eyes bewildered throwing me a glance? And should I look beside me to embrace the one I never really gave a chance? And even though his crisp eyes left no trace, did I find here the rapture of romance.

I lick your length and fold, then hold my flame against you. Ignited, your body burns away Like the bark of a tree. I put you between my lips and inhale the pale summer sun and crushed moon of autumn. I hold, And feel your pressure in my lungsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; Tribal drums beating from my chest. When you leave my body in a wisp of smoke, I feel your lingering love Like the last orange leaf on a bare branch.

You are Love

Lost

Adam Fisher

Nellie Berkman

I smooth your curves, squeeze your waist. Like a sapling, you are slender and ready. Firmly, I grasp your body and roll you over in my hands.

Breaks Nina Godiwalla Summer breaks during junior high were always a bore for both me and my grandmother, my father’s mother, who had lived with us ever since her husband died ten years earlier. She joined my parents when they immigrated to Houston, Texas, from India. During the summers, both my parents worked everyday and my grandmother and I had no car and nowhere to go in the suburbs of Houston. Each week we made sure that my mom had stocked up the kitchen with our favorites snacks. We both had a weakness for cheese so most of our snacks had a cheese theme—Cheetos, string cheese, nachos and Cheese Nips. Sometimes, when we would fight, I would find that she punished me by hiding the Cheetos, my favorite, in her room. This Thursday morning my grandmother sat hunched over on our gaudy pink and green flowered recliner. She firmly dug her elbows into her knees and used her palms to prop up her head. From the profile, where I was sitting, she looked like a bicycle U-lock. I was used to this bored look from her during the 11:00 a.m.-12.30 p.m. break in her television shows. Today she was particularly impatient between her Price is Right, which finished at 11:00 a.m. and her 12:30 p.m. showing of the Bold and the Beautiful. After the Bold and the Beautiful, she would remain entertained by As the World Turns, and then Guiding Light. These back-to-back shows would consume her until 3pm--her shower time.

Surprised that I had never heard this before I skeptically retorted, “Dad never mentioned that.” My father knew little about her since he had spent most of his life in boarding schools. Whenever I asked a question about my grandmother he would say, “Ask her. How the hell would I know?” “I was,” she said throwing an irritated vertical karate chop in the air that made me feel like she sliced me into two thin pieces. “I could bend my whole body in half --backwards and forwards,” she said and giddily flipped her right hand back and forth as if cooking it on both sides. “Completely flat,” she went on. She clapped her hands and let out a startling shriek of thrilled laughter and an, “Ohhh.” Then she grinned and clasped her hands together as if captivated with her capabilities. Not satisfied with the idea that her body could bend backwards, completely flat. I interrupted her glee. “Grandma,” I moaned at the ridiculousness, “that’s not possible—you had your entire back touching the back of your le---?” “Will you listen!” she said maddened by the interruption. “Like this,” she raised her hands straight up into the air and then desperately tried to arch her back, but her movement was so slight that her hands only moved a half inch and she could not even get her hunchback to straighten out, let alone bend backwards. “I could do it. You just don’t understand.” After a short break, she yelled, “Come here. Come here!” Her hand pointed to the ground in front of her.

In silence, I looked just above her head at the tarnished figurine displayed on the piano, and she eyed a picture, displayed on the side table next to me, of my sister and me dressed up in Ghostbuster costumes for a jazz dance recital. The one and a half hour break was painful for her. She rarely broke these sealed silences, but when she did it was usually because of a childhood memory.

Begrudgingly, I walked up to her. “Like this,” she said and sternly pushed my body forward so my hands reached my toes and said, “forwards.” Then, to no avail, she made me lay down flat on my stomach and tried to raise my upper body to bed backwards and touch my legs and said, “And then backwards.”

“I used to be a gymnast,” she said abruptly.

“Ouch, Grandma! Stop it,” I screeched. 63

“I used to be a gymnast,” she said abruptly.

“Ouch, Grandma! Stop it,” I screeched. 63

She let go of me and went on explaining, “Like a chapati (an Indian tortilla). Now do you understand? It is hard to show you because you can’t do it. Even though you have been in gymnastics and ballet for years. It is very diﬃcult.” Her eyes widened and she opened her hand back and forth like Pac Man, “Backwards and forwards,” she repeated to herself with a daydreamy smile as if she could clearly see her youthful, flexible body bent flat together like a bobby pin. “Backwards and forwards,” she repeated and paused indefinitely, all the while still asmile. Still in disbelief but not wanting to be the physical model of yet another floor demonstration, I pretended that it all now made sense. “Yeah,” I said nodding and thinking about what fruit roll-up flavors were left. We always ran short of Wildberry. I looked at the clock --12:13. Seventeen more minutes until her show. For several minutes we both sat looking around the living room, in our own thoughts. And I hoped she would stay silent.

“Nina,” she moaned at my lack of common sense. “Now you know we don’t have basketball goals outside houses like that in India. Use your head,” she said slightly rolling her eyes upward and raising her right hand to touch the top of her forehead, a gesture to bless those who need extra help from God. “No! I played fully,” she said. “And I never missed a basket.” I couldn’t help from being cynical even though I knew her defense might lengthen her tale. I tried to resist, but I could not let her get away with such an extreme, unbelievable statement, “Never, Grandma?” “Never! Did you hear me!” she practically screamed. “Everyone else did, but I didn’t.” “Hard to believe,” I said softly with a small laugh to myself. “You don’t believe me?” she said raising and shaking her right hand in their air, each finger spread far away from each other in her frustration. “Ask your father,” she said helplessly.

“I was a basketball player, too,” she blurted after several minutes. “They had basketball in India?” I said, trying to sound more inquisitive than skeptical, only out of fear that it would make her story longer. I stared at her fleshy stomach and realized that she never exercised in the decade she had lived with us.

“No, I believe you,” I said and sat up so I would look more interested. “I’m just saying that it is hard to believe, as in amazing,” I said in a squeaky defensive tone. More silence.

“Of course they did,” she asserted with a sharp nod so definite that it formed a temporary upside-down isosceles triangle indention in her throat.

I looked at the clock eager for this session to be over. It was 12:28. Two minutes until her show began. I tried not to make eye contact with her out of fear that it may have sparked another story. In those two minutes, I wondered what it was like for her—to have no one who could share any of her memories.

“But were you a serious one. Like on a team?” I stopped because I realized my question would further irritate her, “or do you mean you just shot baskets outside your house?”

“No, I believe you,” I said and sat up so I would look more interested. “I’m just saying that it is hard to believe, as in amazing,” I said in a squeaky defensive tone. More silence.

“Of course they did,” she asserted with a sharp nod so definite that it formed a temporary upside-down isosceles triangle indention in her throat.

“But were you a serious one. Like on a team?” I stopped because I realized my question would further irritate her, “or do you mean you just shot baskets outside your house?”

The Meal Plan Man Done Got Me Down

blues for Pablo

Adam Fisher

Aichlee Bushnell

The meal plan Man done got me down; His fake food flounders like fish on dry ground. With oﬀers and deals, He proﬀers an ideal Of fun, friends, and palatable options, But beware! Take caution! My bank account’s as empty as His calories, And my stomach’s a maelstrom of quease. Common comestibles circa 1920 Are reminiscent of leftovers from the twentieth century. The King’s uncertain edibles and mystery meat Improve little upon awful English eats. And Hill, ah Hill—if there were a pill To calm my G.I. ills, I’d still rather die or be killed Than consume a meal from the bowels of Hill.

inhale fires under bread baking and wilted flowers moonshine sugar pussycats telling me my coochie smell like pecan pie warm and honey-like got fifty-three cents next to a cup of coﬀee on the nightstand the baby next door is crying young mother whimpers shiny apples roll oﬀ red tongues teeth like diamonds rough hands rub ripe thighs his blues breath like mangoes and sunflowers and whiskey exhale calypso and sweet banana sighs a trumpet cries lemon skinned feelings that burn elbows in between silent breaths

The Meal Plan Man Done Got Me Down

blues for Pablo

Adam Fisher

Aichlee Bushnell

The White of the Clouds or the White of the White* Sam Donsky Stumbling syllabically through vous êtes folle, or cursing at you in French, or English, the language you invented or dreamt in Dallas, or Paris, or Rome; myself sipping something on the adequate bench, nothing staining my good white shirt, a breeze shooting through our toes or searching for some leaves, or a head of hair; the stars, riven & struck, your instincts: “that’s life,” as if to say “that’s the cicadas’ esprit,”or the light’s coruscation; the moment before anything when everything seems possible, the phone & its ring, its dimensions, its force; your voice, carried, miscarried: the moment, buoyant & strange, unrecapturable (but understood), in limp location, autumn frames: my voice fumbling, the silence spilled (but a slick, slick, slick accident); 68

floating or singing in the aptitude of night, in my microphone or ice cream cone as I wrap my mouth around the world like I am trying to kiss a big nose; the clarity of it, this uncertain wherewithal (it’s not the where as much as it is the when, it’s not the who as much as it ought to have been); the notion that one listens when they least expect to, that everything before everything breaks down holds absolutely; a smile, a pulse rising, your hand & its graze: the wind’s cognition, a speed, a warmth, & such memories, or so few; the white of the clouds or the white of the white, everything, everything begins with a truth: Vous êtes belle & I put down the phone, your voice clinging to mine like clothes, the sky invented & charged with static –

*Recipient of the 2006 Penn Review Poetry Prize

A Broken Piece of Porcelain Doesn’t Give You Much Information Sam Donsky When my father funnels me from Canada I tell Michelle that meters could not keep me from her & this is true. When Jordan wins the race by a galaxy & breaks his nose at the finish I tell him glory is often unsustained. When Emily decides we should go to China I dig a hole & we get close. When my uncle gets married in Cincinnati & vows “there is no other world” I believe him. When Adam gets lice I pretend it is gold dust. When my babysitter takes me to the museum I briefly become interested in physical coherence. When Sarah supposes the world to be flat I (regrettably) inform her that so is she. When she breaks up with me I wonder how something acquires value.

When Peter & I see a whale for the first time he says “look!” & two girls are kissing. When my grandfather gets cancer I eat vegetables relentlessly for a month. When an oﬃcer pulls me over for speeding I wonder aloud if everything is connected. When I spill rum on my prom clothes it gets in my mouth. When I cut my hair short Zach tells me widow’s peaks are things of beauty. When I land in Philadelphia the phrase “harrowing end of things” comes to mind & then leaves. When I finger-smudge my way through Chemistry it is a sign. When I go home for Hannukah my sister is taller. When I ask Mrs. Z what her book is about she says “a broken piece of porcelain doesn’t give you much information.” When I meet X I compliment her & six months later I do it again. When she decides we should go to China I have already started digging.

Opus for Ann Arbor Hao Wang In the Michigan air hangs a warm sea, swarm of hands muﬄing sound, stirring the stifling city like a cauldron. With the evening comes calm, a surprising lack of mosquitoes. I sit on a dilapidated porch with my friend the guitarist and his brother, who is drunk and intent on boisterous song. The overhang slouches low above my head, recounts to me a story about stargazing, a teaching exchange to a Japanese fishing village, a strange encounter with angry disabled children. The smell of locusts whispers through the openings and corridors of the house. For an hour, the brightness of cheap beer fills my empty stomach and welds corners and blocks of incoherent conversation into an illuminated winged insect aimed toward the rooftops— I draw a breath, hold, and levitate, flip the switch and the expanse becomes bearable—or at least smaller— I grasp the space behind the elms 72

on either side of the house, the white sedan earnestly blocking the driveway, the row of squat bungalows spanning the street: one tends to forget that, in the friction of the everyday, what breathes dull and ordinary, what hums with the mundane, will shift and dissect, zoom and reverberate, catapult and fracture, into eventual holiness: a deserted road lined with streetlight, a screen door laden with rust and midnight, a few dusty lawn chairs flowing with the voices of friends.

Stranded in Omaha Ann Danberg Tonight, there is only A five-mile visibility. Passengers shift In airport seat clusters Readjusting schedules And stiﬀ limbs. You won’t let us leave, Omaha, you have left us Stranded On your land-locked island. This corn-fed oasis Just isn’t enough For Sarah, she prefers The palm trees Of southern California To your surplus of evergreens And the occasional Weeping willow. Stephan knows a girl In Chicago Who drinks beer Out of a roller skate, Something he says Would never happen Among your tame citizens. They left this morning, Omaha, their other lives Lifted from yours. 74

As for the rest of us, Well, the red letters On the flight board Flash CANCELLED And we trudge Back past the flickering Lights of the closed café, Into rain-soaked night. It’s not as though We’ve outgrown you, Omaha, or even that We’ve deserted Your country highways or cobblestone streets. You are always there, In the middle Of everything, just absent from the everyday. To return to you Is to collect the strands, The loose ends Of our lives. We are unfinished With and without you – Most of us couldn’t say why -But perhaps this is the reason We keep coming back And why we are delayed Again and again In our departures from you.

Burning Logic Adam Fisher I see your tight lips and feel the heat Of your breath in waves of burning logic. When we embrace in this metal drum, in this tiny cabin of doors without locks, and your hair sweeps my bare thighs, I am twitching, shaking in the corner. My eyes, my nose, my mouth is a corner. Don’t look up at me; don’t release the heat or expose my quivering thighs. There is nothing in my face for logic, unless you can pick a diﬀerent lock, unless you can beat a drum.

on your body. But my lips are locked to yours. The curve of your thigh is the curve of mine. Our heat is shed skin stretched over a drum, and the pounding echoes in each corner— I am the harbinger of logic. You are the prolocutor of logic: “We are keys. We are locks. There are no corners in a tangle of thighs, in a dark metal drum, in this room of stolen heat.

I can feel your heartbeat drumming the flesh in my legs’ deep corner. I reach my hand into your brown locks and search for your white-hot heat. I am whole and you are logic. You stop to climb my thighs until I can breathe inside your thighs, until I can sing to a drum. If you had my animal logic, I’d back you into a corner, devour each degree of heated breath and open every lock

Tangerines Adam Fisher My heart, the overblown hot air balloon, Careens in vibrant skies over ravines And ancient seas that sparkle like citrines. When swept by tempest, torrent, or typhoon My craft gains vim and vigor as I swoon. Should the harpoon of Cupid, swift and lean, Explode my buoyant orb to smithereens, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d rather fall twelve fathoms than be marooned. Such island life of sand and tangerines Is not for me. In truth, I love monsoons That rattle trees like wooden tambourines. I wish for winds and smoldering simooms To light the air of my capricious sphere And steer me toward the cloudsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; cosmic frontier.

The Penn Review would like to thank the following organizations for their generous contributions. Blank Rome Law Firm The Sylk Foundation Cherry Hill Classic Cars