Philadelphia Stories Spring 2016

Cultivating a community of writers,

artists, and readers across the Delaware Valley

SPRING / 2016 / FREE

POETRY ISSUE! / THE BAD OUTSIDE EMILY FAMULARO / IN THE BOX MARKED SUNDAY MARY JO MELONE

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NEW AND RECENT TITLES FROM PS BOOKS, THE BOOKS DIVISION OF PHILADELPHIA STORIES

WWW.PSBOOKSPUBLISHING.ORG

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CONTENTS

Publisher/Editorial Director Carla Spataro Publisher/Executive Director Christine Weiser Fiction Editor Mitchell Sommers Assistant Fiction Editor Amy Luginbuhl Nonfiction Editor Julia MacDonnell Chang

POETRY 5 TOWELS AT SUNSET.....................................................................................................................................ROBIN KOZAK 6

THE RULES............................................................................................................................................................COURTNEY KAMPA

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ASCENSION DAY PLANTING, NORTH PHILLY.........................................................................PATRICK HANSEL

10 BIG MAMA'S.........................................................................................................................................................PATRICK SWANEY 12 A POINT ON A MAP.......................................................................................................................................VALERIE FOX 13 THE WEIGHT AND DIMENSIONS OF MY PRAYERS............................................................IRÉNE MATHIEU

14 THE BAD OUTSIDE (fiction)..........................................................................................................................EMILY FAMULARO 20 IT'S NOT ABOUT THE STUFF (essay)....................................................................................................ESTELLE WYNN 22 IN THE BOX MARKED SUNDAY (fiction) ............................................................................................MARY JO MELONE 26 AS IF (column)..........................................................................................................................................................AIMEE LABRIE 27 BOOK REVIEWS

ART The Pool Series: Ophelia by Dae Rebeck Sanchez

COVER

Once Was by Dganit Zauberman

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#philly_mannequins (Chestnut Street) by Laura Storck

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Laura Storck is passionately pursuing her love of street photography and photojournalism while earning a Certificate in Digital Photography at the University of the Arts. She is devoted to documenting her timely discoveries of spot news, street art, mannequins, or the simply bizarre on social media. When she isn’t photographing, Laura can be found spending her free time in art galleries, basement punk shows, the library, or walking the streets of Philadelphia.

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Mary Kane’s BFA from Ohio State University was followed by teaching art in high school and as an elementary school art supervisor in Virginia. Mary’s work has been accepted by Art of the State three times and has received many awards.

She has served as curator for Main Line Unitarian Church for 25 years and is on the board of directors for Philadelphia/ Tri-State Artists Equity. She is a member of ARTsisters. Mary writes, “Painting large is a way for me to physically "enter" the process and be surrounded by color as I work.”

Bluebird Nesting by Mary Kane

Art Editor Pam McLean-Parker Editorial/Program Assistant Lena Van

Night-blooming Cereus by Betsy Wilson

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Assistant Production Manager Jon Busch Web Design Loic Duros Board of Directors Sharon Sood Mitchell Sommers Alison Hicks Alex Husted Polia Tzvetanova Fiction Board Jon Busch Tiara DeGuzman Ally Evans Kathleen Furin Elizabeth Green Clare Haggerty Owen Hamill Darrah Hewlett Robert Kerbeck Aimee LaBrie Nichole Liccio Nathan Long Walt Maguire Chelsea Covington Maass Conor Mintzer Addison Namnoum Elizabeth Ollero Alyssa Persons Abigail Reed Ilene Rush Shelley Schenk Lena Van NonFiction Board Sam Dodge Rachel Mamola Conor Mintzer Deborah Off Sarah Wecht

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Flutter by Nancy Kress

Nancy Kress resides and paints in her studio in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania and exhibits throughout the Philadelphia area. For many years, Kress studied landscape, working realistically, en plein air. This resulted in her deep love of nature. Today, her figurative work and landscapes, combine realism with abstraction. As a member of the MUSE Gallery in Philadelphia, Kress had two solo shows. She is currently a member of Artist Equity and InLiquid.

A native of Israel, Dganit Zauberman grew up in a Kibbutz.

She moved to the US in 1992. Dganit earned her BFA with honors from the University of The Arts in Philadelphia in 2008. In 2011 she graduated from the MFA program at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. She currently works in her studio at the Crane Old School in Philadelphia.

Free Falling by Mary Kane

The Verdict by Santiago Galeas

Santiago Galeas is an emerging artist working in the Philadelphia area. Specializing in figurative oil paintings, he has a diverse range of subjects that address varying concepts in portraiture. With strong influences from both traditional Alla Prima portrait painters and the Abstract Expressionist era, his distorted imagery often results in a covenant between representation and abstraction and serves as a link between subject and viewer.

Contest Coordinator & Assistant Poetry Editor Nicole Mancuso

Art Director Derek Carnegie

FEATURES

Dae Rebeck Sanchez is a fine artist who has shown in galleries, art centers and fine art festivals regionally and abroad. Dae works primarily with acrylic paints, photo based transfers and collage on wood. Her narrative, sometimes surreal layered paintings focus on women, the circus, and urban/suburban decay. She studied at The Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico and Moore College of Art in Philadelphia.

Poetry Editor Courtney Bambrick

Betsy Wilson is an avid amateur photographer who loves the challenge and artistry she experiences with every photographic capture. Betsy writes, “This amazing plant blooms only once or twice a year and only for one night.

The night-blooming cereus begins to open when the sun goes down, and slowly blossoms into a spectacular white flower around midnight. The next morning it is gone - only a drooping limp flower remains.”

Philadelphia Stories, founded in 2004, is a non-profit literary magazine that publishes the finest literary fiction, poetry, and art from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware and distributes free of charge to a wide demographic throughout the region. The mission of Philadelphia Stories is to cultivate a community of writers, artists, and readers in the Greater Philadelphia Area. Philadelphia Stories is a 501c3. To support Philadelphia Stories and the local arts, please visit www.philadelphiastories.org to become a member today!

SUPPORT PROVIDED IN PART BY THE PHILADELPHIA CULTURAL FUND.

Poetry Board Peter Baroth Deborah Burnham Blythe Davenport Liz Rose Dolan Margot Douahiy Pat Green Vernita Hall Maria James Thiaw David Kozinski Ed Krizek Shira Moolten Aimee Penna Thomas Jay Rush John Shea Notus Williams

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The 2016 Poetry Contest Last year, Philadelphia Stories celebrated 10 years in print.

Through readings, workshops, conferences, and such, Philadelphia Stories has become a beacon for writers and readers in the Delaware Valley. Eleventh years don’t usually get the same fanfare, but we certainly have a lot to celebrate this year at Philadelphia Stories as we mark the fifth year of the Sandy Crimmins National Prize for Poetry.

Since we started awarding the Crimmins prize in 2012, we have celebrated poets whose work has challenged or surprised our judges. We are a stronger publication due to the breadth and mastery of previous winning poems: Jeanann Verlee’s “Hereditary” selected

by Major Jackson, Deborah Fries’ “Marie in America” selected by Dorothea Laskey, Rae Pagliarulo’s “Hide and Seek” selected by Daisy Fried, and Emily Rose Cole’s “Self Portrait as Rapunzel” selected

by Jeffrey Ethan Lee. Now, we add to that list Robin Kozak’s “Towels at Sunset” selected by Yolanda Wisher. Robin Kozak receives $1000 and an invitation to join us at the LitLife Poetry Conference at Rosemont on April 30, 2016.

Of the winning poem, contest judge Yolanda Wisher writes: “Each line is an unfolding, a healing. A dance of power and vulnerability. A prayerful alchemy turning pain into beauty into truth. The poem testifies, reveals, claims and owns.” Kozak’s unflinching look at trauma is so embedded in the poem that a reader might be distracted by the litany of colors and textures. While the poem’s voice seeks to maintain composure, a sharp recognition saturates the poem with a sudden terror that is absorbed within the poem’s orderly calm. Themes of control and obedience are no longer only about folding towels, but responding to violence: the folding, sorting, and closeting of a self.

Runners Up were selected by Yolanda Wisher. They each win $100 and include "The Rules" by Courtney Kampa, "Ascension Day Planting, North Philly" by Patrick Hansel, and "Big Mama's" by Patrick Swaney.

Honorable Mentions selected by Yolanda Wisher include "A Point on a Map" by Valerie Fox and "the weight and dimension of my prayers" by Iréne Mathieu.

Wisher sought poems with "a strong sense of place and voice. Poems that embraced ambiguity and complexity and didn't try to resolve all the mess of being human." She continues, "I was drawn to the human struggle in these poems -- the struggle towards revelation, confession, and understanding."

Editor’s Choices appear online and were selected by our poetry board. Poems include "Semantics of the Dead and Living" by Patrick Swaney, "the Black American gets her travel fellowship and goes abroad" by Iréne Mathieu, and "Considering Need" by Shevaun Brannigan.

As ever, we thank Joseph Sullivan for his generosity and commitment to this prize. Through the Sandy Crimmins National Prize in Poetry, Joe and his family allow us to reach new poets far away and close to home. More poets reading and contributing work can only be good for us. My thanks also go to Carla Spataro and Christine Weiser who founded this journal and continue to work hard (really, really hard) to make it better each season. Nicole Mancuso must be recognized for her administrative acumen as well as her keen reading.

Finally, I want to recognize Conrad Weiser who was the poetry editor when Philadelphia Stories was founded. He set a high standard for poetry in the magazine that I seek to meet each issue. We miss him. Recently, we have become able to pay contributors to the regular submission cycle through the Conrad Weiser Fund. The pleasure I feel in extending an acceptance offer is compounded by my pleasure in also offering payment for the work.

"I was looking for poems that had a strong sense of place and voice. Poems that embraced ambiguity and complexity and didn't try to resolve all the mess of being human. I was drawn to the human struggle in these poems - the struggle towards revelation, confession, and understanding.”

— Yolanda Wisher, 2016 Judge

Courtney Bambrick Poetry Editor, Philadelphia Stories

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WINNER

Towels at Sunset Poem by Robin Kozak

They must bear no stain, they must come perfect from the dryer--cotton fresh from Turkey, bright olive stripes, or amber ones, or blue. They must bear no crease, must take the folds from my hands obediently, tags tucked underneath them like the legs of calves, as meek as sheep. They must limn the linen chest like poppies, coral and gold, or else the pale green I like in bowls of roses on the table, or the blue of hydrangeas, a bit mysterious, shadowing the wood when I open the doors. They must conform, conform now to my vision of perfection, because my father would wipe himself with one when he was done with me, and I remember. Love, when I see you again, will you forgive my trespasses?

I am hell to live with for a reason.

Robin Kozak was born in Chicago, Illinois and grew up in Wyomissing, a bedroom community outside Reading, Pennsylvania. She received degrees from Ohio University and the Creative Writing Program at the University of Houston, and her poems have appeared in Antioch Review, Black Warrior Review, Crazyhorse, Field, The Gettysburg Review, Hotel Amerika, Indiana Review, North American Review, Poetry Northwest, Witness, and other publications. An authority on antique and estate jewelry, she has also recently completed a novel, The Kingdom It Would Be.

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RUNNER UP

The Rules Poem by Courtney Kampa

I don’t believe in girlhood. I don’t believe we are ever small, or ever don’t know what it is we shouldn’t know. I don’t believe thick minutes in July crept any closer to the ground than on the tennis court at Hidden Creek Country Club, where sky-browned Tony with eyebrows bleached bright from the sun, strapped me at the end of our lesson into an elastic harness anchored by the chain link fence, net running across the court like a hard spine, my sisters on the other side, and Eyebrows on his knees, adult arms around me, taking as long as he wanted to snap the clasps in place. He’d back up, yell Serve! to Meggie or Neena and I ran to them, slapped backward by its quick yank at my waist and home later, Meggie, four years younger so I guess she was seven, says Courtney, Tony has a cwush on you—said it in that lisp of hers we laughed about two days ago watching home footage, our mother behind the camera laughing too, our mother like a shapely soda bottle with lipstick at the rim, our mother who played Patsy Cline so often that there Meggie was, singing Cway-thee, eyes nuclear and luminous, never breaking contact with the camera. We do nothing now but sing it like she did then. Play it in the morning on our way to summer jobs at the Club, where she flips burgers by the pool and I bring beer around to golfers wearing left-handed gloves that hide their wedding rings.

Every time I pass the cabana, Meggie’s bent over the counter texting her boyfriend in a boxy uniform she calls unsexy as hell, thank God, and every time I leave her it’s to bend into the cart to find a Modelo for Mr. Richards who likes my little shorts, he says, who likes sunflower seeds, spitting them diagonally between sentences, who calls me best in the business, says, we were all talkin ‘bout you today, ‘bout how you know the rules so well, meaning I’m quiet, unlike Barbara, who wears khaki pants and drives her cart like a demon banshee in heat, plowin’ right up there when we’re teein’ off, and between the 12th and 13th hole I drive the path along that tennis court where even at eleven I was barely there, my ribcage the circumference of a Folgers coffee tin and Tony was lifting my shirt to put his hand on the harness’ angry red marks, asking if it hurt, and no, I’d say, it feels like nothing, it felt like nothing at all.

Courtney Kampa is from Virginia and holds an MFA from Columbia University. Her poetry has received awards and distinctions from Best New Poets, Poets & Writers Magazine, Rattle, The Atlantic, North American Review, and elsewhere.

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ONCE WAS by DGANIT ZAUBERMAN

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RUNNER UP ASCENSION DAY PLANTING, NORTH PHILLY Poem by Patrick Hansel

"God does what she wants.

She has very large tractors."

– Robert Bly It is the first time Jesús has planted, and his haircut is on backwards. His eyes are little birds, hinged at the wings. His hands spend their days combating eagerness.

Give him a shovel. Give a boy with poking eyes an extra hand to carve his name in dirt.

Some boy's house fell into its own pit here and made hole-homes for rat-friends, for pawned treasures and secrets that never got redeemed. Jesús can make time with a shovel.

Make it march backward. Stand on its head.

Do tricks. Blink back nobodies. Earth is a bag to hold heaven, and Jesús is a hole's best friend.

Big sister Milly (one leg over the fence into babies, the other still in diapers), hands him a tomato with its web roots of tiny feathers. It is a small bird fallen out of heaven. It is a troubling miracle, that rests a moment in Jesús’ palm, cupped between the thumb and the dirty nails, until his knee bends, his hands swoop down, and his fingers release it to the freshly dug earth.

Patrick Cabello Hansel has published poems, stories and essays in over 30 anthologies and journals, including Hawai’i Pacific Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, subprimal, The Ilanot Review, Ash and Bones, Switchbackand Lunch Ticket. His poem “Quitting Time” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. His novella Searching was serialized in 33 issues of The Alley News.

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#PHILLY_MANNEQUINS (CHESTNUT STREET) by LAURA STORCK

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RUNNER UP

Big Mama's Poem by Patrick Swaney

The day is made up of language the way everything is made up of something else.

The way from the street the woman in the window of Big Mama's wearing a Spiritual Gangster t-shirt, waiting for her burrito, writing in a notebook is writing I love you all, I imagine, because, spiritually speaking, I love you all is gangster, even if it can only be true in a limited way. In a limited way, I can imagine believing in this slogan as metaphor, and if so, I imagine I might feel moved to stop and to say to the woman that on certain days I too feel like a scribbler waiting for my spiritual burrito to be ready, and we might commune, without irony, over the cosmic rightness of this comparison. It's hard to love everybody, we might say knowingly.

Yeah, but don't you also sometimes feel, she might ask, like a gangster waiting for your spiritual burrito to be ready and ready or not you're going to get up and fucking take what's yours, spiritually speaking?

You know, sometimes I do, I can imagine myself saying, while feeling concerned that our meaning-making has gone too far.

How do you make a slogan yours?

I would want to ask her. Is this language permanently you? How do you choose?

She would be clearly concerned at my flimsy commitment to our motto.

I imagine I shouldn't have stopped.

It is hard to love everybody, I might say again, before I left her to her burrito and notebook.

The stream of language that makes up the day hurries on, sweeping the woman and her t-shirt away, sweeping away me. I don't resist.

Patrick Swaney lives in Athens, OH, where he is completing a PhD in poetry. He is the editor of Quarter After Eight. His work has appeared in Conduit, Indiana Review, The Southeast Review, and elsewhere.

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FREE FALLING by MARY KANE

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HONORABLE MENTION

A Point on a Map Poem by Valerie Fox

Pull yourself together, sky. Listen up!

It's not like you’ve been buried alive.

Everything is new to a new baby.

Red mourning happens in Acts 1 and 2.

More and more tree curtains and grasses bar entry. The tundra smells of new cars.

Try to tell the truth, for once.

Keep your eyes glued to the road.

They say, you can’t watch the same movie twice.

Yesterday clouds spread across the ceilings of a series of movie sets.

The impulse is still there: Leave this country. Everything is not your fault.

That old shadow shows up like a new song cycle or the history of tango.

There are green, gem-like islands dotting our wide river.

No one gets a paycheck. A sixth sense: I’ll never see him again.

Valerie Fox’s books of poems include The Glass Book (Texture Press, 2011), The Rorschach Factory (Straw Gate Books, 2006) and Bundles of Letters Including A, V and Epsilon (a compilation with Arlene Ang, Texture Press, 2008). Recently she published Poems for the Writing: Prompts for Poets (Texture Press, 2013), co-written with Lynn Levin. Her poems have appeared in Juked, Hanging Loose, Painted Bride Quarterly, Apiary, Ping Pong, and other journals.

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the weight and dimensions of my prayers Poem by Iréne Mathieu

prayers of lead prayers of limestone and pages for

HONORABLE MENTION

women’s bodies piled on the side of the freeway, no one rubbernecking. women’s bodies filling art museums, blocking the paintings. women’s bodies packing school buses, a whole yellow swarm. women’s bodies lying in every pew of every cathedral in France no one singing hymns of their hair, psalms of their palms their multicolored skins painted in stained glass patches. every wreck of a shadowed sister thumbs me deeper into a pile of dust. what is a woman’s body? it cannot fit into any room: the thousand sparks in my feet. shipwrecks. kisses. whiskey. soldered melodies. soldiered acquiescences. brimming frivolities of vital importance. turns at every turn. paper and strings. stone. the first time I found salvation it was in a library, on my knees bent before the spines of books. before I knew the weight and dimensions of my prayers I imagined them as nebulous supernovae trembling toward gravities. this is without having seen the women’s bodies, feet to heads, lining dead cotton fields. women’s bodies filling the cellars of every New England home built before 1950. women’s bodies in the parking lots of fast food restaurants. women’s bodies in the basement warehouses of office buildings. women’s bodies carpeting the floor of the Atlantic, undulating softly forever.

I broke a thumb and a pinky finger once. they were splinted and fretted over, so that I never guessed my body could be broken and tossed onto a pile of women’s bodies that no one recognized. so when I recognized kneecaps and collarbones I began to pray, asking the center of the Earth to put our pieces back together. women’s bodies choking up the space under bridges. women’s bodies packed vertically in vacant lots. women’s bodies folded efficiently into plywood crates. women’s bodies curled around cacti, all dried sockets and clothing of dust. women’s bodies sleeping their un-sleep in the beds of eighteen-wheelers. women’s bodies clogging construction sites, bones lined along naked beams. women’s bodies tangled in mountains of dirt and abandoned machetes. when you rise from peaceful storied oblivion and realize your spine can be hunted and broken and no one really needs the under-floorboard or trash bag or ditch that will contain your woman’s body, you become unspeakably sad. you might start preemptively disintegrating. you had better have a story sewn into the lining of your jacket when they come for your body. and if that doesn’t save you, you had better have another body, preferably not a woman’s.

Iréne Mathieu is a pediatrician, writer, and author of the poetry chapbook the galaxy of origins (dancing girl press). Her poetry, prose, and photography can be found in The Caribbean Writer, The Lindenwood Review, Muzzle Magazine, qarrtsiluni, Extract(s), Diverse Voices Quarterly, Los Angeles Review, Callaloo Journal, HEArt Journal, and elsewhere. She has been a Pushcart Prize nominee, a Callaloo fellow, a Fulbright scholar, and currently is an editor of the humanities section of the Journal of General Internal Medicine.

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The Bad Outside Emily Famularo

On the day the others left, we’d all been watching from inside the gates. They didn’t open anymore, and even back then, they had been rusted shut at the seams of their locks. They made our hands smell like blood. The others, maybe ten of them, climbed under the gates where swampy trees had uprooted the concrete, where the soil was soft and new. They didn’t look back at us from the outside, holding hands, and their Nostalgia Town t-shirts were stained with sweat and dirt. They disappeared into the parking lot, and we hadn’t seen them since.

Once Petey disappeared, though, everyone started to act funny. They talked about going outside the gates to look for him, because that’s the only place Petey could’ve gone. A lot of them would talk about what would be on the outside, about leaving the inside. I couldn’t let that happen because we were safe here.

Our Moms and Dads left us here because we would be safe.

We’ve been safe.

We could’ve been worse off. We could’ve lived somewhere cold, or too hot, but we’re lucky. A swamp can never fool you: It’s just a swamp. Nostalgia Town, where we’ve been living, is surrounded by a thick marsh. We’d taken shelter in-between mossy roller coasters and rusting whirly rides. The park used to be lit up and loud, always screaming – happy. Now the rides ache and howl against cool, marsh breezes at night – moaning, and we all cry with them. We used to cry for something, for someone.

Maybe for all the Moms and Dads, but I don’t think we know why we’re crying anymore. Maybe it’s just nice to cry sometimes.

We didn’t go on the Outside. That’s where The Bad lived.

In the Before Time, we all used to live on the outside. We used to go to school, and we had friends. We used to go on vacation to fun places like Nostalgia Town, or we went to the mall, bought new clothes and shoes. We had video games and dolls and plastic dinosaur action figures. On the inside there were only memories and us.

Only a few of us lived in Nostalgia Town. We’d all been in the same class together at school, so we were sort of friends before The Bad Time. We were grateful for that.

There are were several of us left. There had been more, but after a while in the sun, our faces sweaty and oily, the others decided to go on the outside. They went looking for their parents by themselves, because the seven of us didn’t want to go out there. It was still early on, when The Bad was new, and Nostalgia Town was less rust colored.

But we didn’t bring that up anymore.

Our timekeeper, Peg, used to put up one mark on the back of a popcorn shed at the beginning of each day. The wood on the shed was full of slashes and checks, for each day, each month, each year. We’d almost run out of space, but Peg was the only one who seemed worried about it. I don’t think anyone thought about it anymore. No more Christmas or Halloween. No more tooth fairy, or Easter bunny, or summer break. We made things fair by having one birthday for all of us at the end of Peg’s calendar. The swamp was bad at telling time, and we all had just turned thirteen, so we weren’t interested, either.

Darla, Peg, Francis, June, Petey, Bug and I, we were family.

We’d watch each other’s backs. That’s what a family does. We gave each other jobs to so we woudn’t be bored, hungry, or dumb. We’d sleep inside of the old First Aid building on bunks with worn, wool blankets. Despite everything, the park keeps us safe from the wind and rain. The spider web moss clinged to the water-warped boards and gives us shade. Some of the rides still moved if we tinkered long enough. We could be safe here, and we all knew that we should’ve been – no, that we were definitely grateful for Nostalgia Town. We just wanted to make this work.

Francis and June were twins, real smart, and they did all of the scavenging because they were good at finding things. The swamp had tiny flowers and berries for us to eat. Petey was our cook, mostly because he was the only one who knew how. His Mom had to work all the time, he said, so Petey and his brother would make themselves dinner. He’d take the scavenged things from Francis and June, canned food and un-popped popcorn kernels, cotton candy sugar, uncooked pretzels, and the like, to make us two meals a day. If we wanted a snack we decided it was best to forage on our own. Sometimes Francis and June would talk about growing plants, but we could never figure it out. We would eat wild flowers and stale M&M’s, but everything always changes—stuff ran out.

Bug made us fires, and had already built some of the other stuff that we needed or wanted. He made us a table once, and chairs, too, and he always had a magnifying glass. Bug really liked to catch ants on fire, and we’d do that too, when the sun was hot. Lately, he was teaching everyone how to sew so that we could mend blankets and clothes, all of which were starting to become worn.

Then there was Darla. She had said once that we were lucky to all be friends. Darla liked to remind us that we could always be alone, or worse off, and then she liked to give us hugs and

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THE VERDICT by SANTIAGO GALEAS

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shush our crying.

If we didn’t get along together, or someone said something not nice, she’d say out loud, “No Mommies. No Daddies. No friends,” and that scared everyone just enough.

After a while, everyone decided it was just easier to help out, to stay friends, to be here rather than leaving. The outside was where The Bad lived, and we knew that nothing could be worse than that. We’d been managing, though. Like I said before, we’re a family, and family is important. That’s what they didn’t understand. They said that finding our real families, going home, that would be most important. They never asked what was most important to me. We never talked about it out loud, but I knew that the Bad would swallow them whole.

It was a real hot, sweltering day when we realized that we hadn’t eaten yet. Petey hadn’t made us anything, hadn’t rung the bell for us to meet up for lunch. Darla and Francis were teaching us to wash clothes. I walked up on Peg, Bug and June setting ants on fire near the mossy water slides. Petey’s normal spot was around the bend in the first bunch of food stands. That was where he was able to use the burners and stuff as long as he made the fire first. It was empty though, the smell of grease and potatoes hung around. I kicked rocks around the overhang in the shade, wiped sweat from my forehead, but I didn’t say anything about Petey being gone. It was normal for some of us to go out and wander. It was good to wander because sometimes you found stuff, or sometimes you thought about stuff. Maybe Petey just had a lot to think about. When the others found out he was gone, though, they weren’t happy.

June tied her hair back in a messy ponytail, her forehead crinkled and beading, mud outlining the creases; confused.

“Where’s Petey?” As I looked around, I realized that all of our hair was pretty long, and maybe we should’ve learned to cut hair.

After a while everyone got the same look on their faces, shielding their eyes from the sun, looking towards where I was standing in the shade.

“Elliot…” Darla’s voice carried well into the humidity.

“Yeah, Elliot, where is Petey? Is he over there with you?” Peg rubbed his stomach, kicking a piece of gravel away.

“If he was over there, h-he would’ve heard us,” Bug glared at Peg underneath a ratty dinosaur hat, one from the before time, “Elliot, he isn’t there, right?”

“No. Maybe Petey took a walk, to think about stuff.”

That seemed to rile them up. They shuffled amongst one another, and I found my place in their group circle. June began braiding her hair, a nervous habit, I thought. Bug and Peg were kicking dirt onto one another, while Francis and Darla exchanged a look.

“You haven’t seen him.” Darla reminded me of what my Mom might’ve been like for no particular reason, “June? Francis?” Her head swung to meet me, but I was quiet, my thumbs running over the dry cracks in my hands. They decided to look for Petey for the rest of the day, only coming back when they were worn out and tired. They then decided that maybe Petey went on the outside. Maybe Petey found a way out. I said that maybe The Bad was starting to come on the inside, but June told us that Petey would come back; he wouldn’t have left without telling us, and that helped everyone go to sleep that night.

After a while, everyone decided it was just easier to help out, to stay friends, to be here rather than leaving. The outside was where The Bad lived, and we knew that nothing could be worse than that.

The day before Petey disappeared, we were all standing underneath a mushroom cap. The mushroom cap had moss on the top, and vines growing up its metal trunk. I remember it felt cool, listening to everyone breathing out hot air, picking at the ground like you would a scab. That’s when they brought it up again.

“But, maybe The Bad is gone now.” Bug said idly, his lips were chapped.

“They said that they’d come back, Bug. My Mom and Dad said so,” Petey had a knife in his hand, and had it stuck inside of a lizard, but nobody said anything when we all saw it move, “I just don’t think our Moms and Dads are even out there.”

Darla shot Petey a look. “That’s not nice to say,” she scolded him. Petey didn’t say anything, finally killing the lizard and wiping the blade on his shorts – red guts outlined his pocket.

“Well, if our parents said that they’d come back when The Bad is gone, then they’re gonna come back. They never lied to us.” Darla always said stuff like this, always rung her index finger around a curl in her hair, like she was sure.

“They lied about Santa, and The Tooth Fairy, too,” Francis looked up finally, and June met his gaze, looking at Darla. Bug, Petey, and Peg were all looking too, for an answer, or for Darla to get upset, or say that he was wrong. Darla smiled at all of us, a knowing smile, “They wouldn’t lie about the big stuff,” and with that it was decided we would stay.

June was the next to go. It had been a few weeks since Petey had gone, enough time for us to feel comfortable again, even if we were sad. We checked the insides of cabanas near the green tide pool, the ride houses, the offices near the front gates. All the windows were boarded up or broken because we liked throwing rocks or playing stickball, but otherwise the park was empty and abandoned and creaking as usual. Nostalgia Town never kept secrets from us.

Francis had been real upset about it, tugging on his fingers until his knuckles were red and raw. He and June had never been apart before, and Francis was half of a whole now. Darla was upset, too; the only other girl was gone, her best friend. Bug had lost his magnifying glass and we couldn’t figure out fires. Peg lost track of the days after he ran out of space on the back of the

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BLUEBIRD NESTING by MARY KANE

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shed a few days ago.

“She wouldn’t have just left,” Francis’ eye twitched, “She would’ve said something to me. Darla, she would’ve said something, and if she wanted to run away she would’ve taken me too. We would’ve gone and looked for our parents together.”

Francis kept running his hands through his thick hair, kept licking the corners of his lips. Bug and Peg stood silently. Darla looked to me again; her brow was stern, like a mother who wanted to scold you.

“Elliot.”

“What?”

“You’ve been real quiet.”

“I don’t have anything to say.”

“Why not? Aren’t you sad that June and Petey are missing?”

“Well, yeah of cour –“ Darla grabbed Bug’s hand, who grabbed Francis’ hand, who grabbed Peg’s hand, and I grabbed my own hand.

“You’re the one always talking about family. How we gotta be a family, and I don’t see you sad. Francis lost his sister, Elliot!”

“I am sad!”

“Oh, yeah? Sure seems like it. You’ve been real quiet.”

“I just am sad and I don’t have anything to say. I don’t gotta say something all the time.”

“You always got something to say,” Darla tugged on the connected hand chain, and Bug spat on the ground in front of me while Francis and Peg began to cry. She looked back at me with something similar to disappointment, “If you were really sad, Elliot, you’d say something.”

t-shirt threads hanging from his fingernails.

“El-Elliot we gotta find them,” Francis stuttered.

“I know that.”

“Well, you know how Darla said yesterday you’ve been real quiet. You have, ok! You have!” Francis picked himself up out of a crouching position in front of me; his nose and my nose were real close. Bug looked up from a hole in his shirt.

“You’ve been real quiet, Elliot.”

“And all you’ve been doin’ is crying,” I shoved him.

“Hey!” “No, you hey!

“Seems real funny that you’ve been quiet. You don’t care, do you?” He shoved me back.

“Francis! Sto-stop!” Bug pulled on him; pulled him so hard he almost made him fall. Francis’ face was real red, and Bug’s knuckles were white. My fists felt like bricks against my sides and I said, “You wanna say what Darla said, fine! I hope you disappear just like her,” He shoved me back again, I was spitting, “You can disappear just like Darla and June, Petey and Peg. Ok! I don’t even care.”

Bug had pulled Francis towards him and the two of them stood shoulder to shoulder in front of me. We were all sweating, mad and hungry and sad.

“You care, Elliot.”

“Oh yeah, funny. Cause it was just you saying I didn’t.”

“Shut up. You aren’t funny or cool,” Francis kicked dirt at me.

“You better take that back.”

“No, Francis is right. You’re being mean.” Bug doesn’t have anything left to spit at me now.

“I’m not trying to be cool or funny or anything at all. You all won’t stop.” I couldn’t stop tugging on my fingers. The others hadn’t moved. They were united against me. All I could do was whisper, loud enough for them to almost hear, “I hope the Bad gets you!”

That night the wind was bad. The carousel horses spinned and groaned, and the fallen Nostalgia Town mascot in the middle of the park whistled as the breeze caught in his neck. A piece of Sky Tower, the biggest roller coaster in the park, fell off and made a loud thud into the muddy waters of the swamp. The huge bang gave Bug, Francis, Peg and me a reason to climb into a nest of blankets. Our blanket nest was warm and comforting while the windows rattled and shivered, plush toys littering the inside. We briefly mentioned that Darla had gone. In between strands of Bug’s hair, my eyes caught onto her empty bunk.

June’s empty bunk. Petey’s empty bunk.

It became more of a problem when we woke up in the morning and Darla wasn’t back, and Peg had gone, too. Francis hadn’t stopped crying, his lips were chapped and his face was redstained, caked with snot and dirt. Bug started to rip off pieces of his shirts and I could feel my stomach get hungry and nauseous.

We walked outside, leaving the safety of the blanket nest of the night before, and out into a cool humidity. The willow trees had shed much of their dead growth; branches had made homes out of the upturned gravel and muddy swamp silt. Planks of wood had fallen from the windows in the surrounding village buildings.

Bug and Francis stood opposite of me, holding hands and shaking, and not just for lack of food.

“Elliot.”

“What, Bug?” “Where is Darla,” We were all standing around kind of stupid-like, “Darla wouldn’t have left us.”

“Peg, too,” Bug chimed again.

It was true, and a good question, but it was too hot. Francis was crying so hard his body shook and no tears were coming out.

I shrugged them off. Bug spat at the ground in front of me again,

The blanket nest was lonely with all of the empty bunks and stuffed animals hanging around. A storm had picked up early yesterday afternoon, and it hadn’t stopped raining. The thunder shook the entire building; the lightening was the only source of light. Bug and Francis hadn’t come back last night, and instead the shadows kept me company, while somewhere outside I felt like The Bad lurked. I was too afraid to go out in the rain by myself, but I had to look for them now that they were all gone.I kept thinking about Darla, how she said they’d never lie to us about something this big, and it was true. Our parents always said they’d be back, “Once the bad is gone, Elliot. Mommy and Daddy will be back. Before you know it!”

I think I made that part up. I don’t know. It’s so hard to remember. It was pouring rain and sticky, but it felt good, like a really hot shower. It soaked through my clothes as I made my way past the calendar shed, the mud getting under my toenails.

I knew where I had to go because there was one place in the whole park that would give me the answer.

When I made it to the gates, the rain seemed especially hard, almost like hail. It was coming down on me so hard that I had to keep my eyes closed for a little while. I just stood in front of the gates with my eyes closed for a long while. I knew that when I opened them the answer would be there, I would just have to

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see it, but it made my head hurt. The rain slowed down, though.

I was soaked through my clothes, but my eyes were open.

Everything looked the same. The same empty parking lot.

The same empty park. The same rusty lock that kept the gates together, that sealed out The Bad outside, and the answer. My fingertips were orange, everything smelled like blood. Rust just smelled like that when it was wet, someone told me that once.

Maybe it was Petey. I was looking for their footsteps, truthfully.

Looking for a sign that they had left willingly, or at all. The mud around the gates was too sloppy now to tell.

Maybe they were just playing a prank on me, hiding somewhere deep in the park where the grass is waist high. That’s what it had to have been, one big, fat joke. They wanted to make a point. I didn’t talk enough. I didn’t stick up for them. I was mean.

I didn’t look for Petey, or cry about Darla or June and now they had to play a prank on me because of it.

Maybe they had all gone on the outside. They thought Petey had gone there, and maybe that was where everyone went. My foot squeezed between the iron gates, but I stopped. My hands were shaking, but if they were out there, I needed to be, too.

For a brief moment I thought about how they would’ve told me, or should’ve told me. Maybe they didn’t want me with them. I began to slide through the opening in the gate; I remembered a time when I couldn’t do this. I stopped.

“Guys?” It was still raining, but my voice echoed pretty far, “Hey, guys. Are you out there?” It was just a prank, they knew The Outside was bad, “This isn’t a funny joke, ok.” I’m saddled between two iron bars, not even sucking in, “I’m sorry, ok?” Nothing. Not even swamp noises, just rain and the smell of

blood, “Darla…June…Francis…” I listened to the quiet, sucking on my bottom lip until I tasted blood too. I felt like crying.

“Petey? Bug?” There was mud in between my toes, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I didn’t cry. I’m sorry I didn’t try harder….”

The Bad was close. I could feel it on my right side, the side out of the gate. “You can come back now. I’m sorry…” A thick fog had come up from the ground, swallowing up the rain and the parking lot with empty cars and vacant ticket booths, “I’m sorry, please, please, I’m sorry.”

I slid myself through the rest of the way, on the outside of Nostalgia Town. It felt like static on the outside. The pavement had started to crack from dandelions and new grass, “Hey, you guys…” No answer still, just the rain and the fog and the whistling from the wind against the rides. Maybe I’d go back inside.

Maybe I’d wait for them and they’d turn up.

My bare feet felt raw on the pavement, hot. My stomach ached, and my wet t-shirt was covered in orange rust. I started to cry as I leaned my back up against the gates and shouted for them. They were my family. The fog settled, and the sky continued to spit rain. I slid down the bars, sat in the mud. “I’m sorry,” was all I could say I waited for The Bad to tell me what to do.

A current student at The University of the Arts, Emily is also a writer for Halfbeat Magazine, an online music publication, as well as an editor for Underground Pool.

She is available for contact atemily@halfbeatmagazine.com.

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It's Not About the Stuff Estelle Wynn

“Mommy, wanna play Kings and Queens?” It’s my older son asking in his five-year-old speak if I want to play his version of chess. Which I don’t. I will anyway, however, because in the end it’s not folding the laundry that’s important. It’s my little guy. And the chess set is my reminder.

The wood inlay set came from an estate auction a few years ago, found when I was rifling through a blue storage tub full of board games looking for bargains. The tub and I were on the front lawn of a house in a wealthy Philadelphia suburb—a house I’d never been to before, belonging to a family whose story I didn’t know, beyond their curious decision to dissolve their assets through an on-site auction, opening their home to strangers like me so we could search through their belongings for hidden treasures at rock bottom prices. Like the aforementioned chess set that cost me three bucks.

The newspaper ad promised “Cars, Tools, Furniture, Clothing, etc.,” and along with it, “Real Estate,” which consisted of a three-story house with a backyard that included a swing set for the kids and an oversized shed for Mr. Mysterious and his lawn tractor.

Arriving early to survey the scene, I spied three cars in the driveway along with several boxes on the lawn filled with random utensils, mismatched plates, and bric-a-brac. Slipping around back, I saw garages and sheds full of tools and outdoor paraphernalia. Stepping into the rear of the house through the kitchen door, I found furniture on every floor, with each of the “4+ bedrooms” housing a full- or queen-size bed, a night table or two, dressers, bureaus, and armoires. Throughout the house were end tables and coffee tables, kitchen chairs and desk chairs, floor lamps and table lamps, and all of it—everything you could see—was for sale.

As I looked around, however, it seemed increasingly odd that all of it was for sale, that everything was up for bid, especially since it appeared the family didn’t take anything with them. For example: the kitchen cabinets were stocked with bags of rice, boxes of baking soda and cans of beef broth. And those dressers, bureaus and armoires were full of socks and underwear, suits and dresses. Even the jewelry collection appeared complete.

Back outside, the auction began on the front yard. The bidcaller was auctioning those randomly-filled boxes when, in my periphery, a brightly colored bouquet of silk flowers caught my eye. Like something a magician would pull out of his hat, they protruded from a shrub by the front of the house—gauche

for a neighborhood like this, but I was too engrossed in the auctioneer’s chatter to give it much thought.

The vehicles were next—a Honda accord, a Toyota Camry, a Ford van—items for which I had no budget. I took this time to scope out the basement. In my experience, it’s those tucked away corners of a property where the real deals are. That’s where you find those hidden treasures you can get for a steal, like the Shop-Vac I bid on later and took home for a cool five dollars.

Near the Shop-Vac was a cardboard box with gold trophy heads poking out, and next to that, more of those blue storage tubs. I peeked inside hoping to rescue some long-forgotten stamp collection or maybe rare coins. Instead I found family photos. In a photo that appeared to be from the 1980s was the man I presumed to be Mr. Mysterious, about 45 years old. And there he was again, this time with Mrs. Mysterious, posing with smiles. Another taken in the backyard (I recognized the shed).

The tub was full of images of every day moments; glimpses into this family’s private life, all captured for posterity, and all, it seemed, left behind.

The laundry area was under the basement stairs where bottles of detergent and cleaning supplies sat on a shelf. That’s right: bottles. Plural. Like someone stocked up at a buy-one-get-one sale and expected to be around for a while to use up all of that Tide and Mr. Clean. Nearby, the spare fridge was still running, keeping tilapia filets frozen for some future meal.

Now the auctioneer was inside, too. I tracked him to a third floor bedroom where, on one of the double beds, was a crossstitch marking the birth of the Mysterious’ son. Like the family photos, it seemed odd this keepsake had been abandoned, with its embroidered pink and blue clown happily presenting the boy’s name and his birthday in 1987. Again I lamented for the family at having deserted such a memento.

Then I found a second cross-stitch, nearly identical to the first, differing in name but not date! The Mysterious Family had been blessed with twin boys.

I traveled with him as the auctioneer worked his way through the house. I added a coffee table and a pineapple-shaped lamp to my growing list of deals. Eventually it was time to pony up.

While waiting to pay I noticed the door jamb in the kitchen was covered with dozens of marks and dates indicating the heights of the two boys and of “mom” and “dad.” I was eager to take home my new-to-me possessions to escape the vicarious feelings of loss I was having for the family.

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didn’t believe he was capable of what he was doing, even while he was doing it.

I spoke with a friend about my unwitting participation in the aftermath of this triple murder. I wondered what I was going to do with my adulterated possessions. She was pragmatic. “Shit happens,” she said. “Not to be heartless, but it’s the story of some other family. It’s not your story and it’s not your family. And the stuff you picked up is just stuff. It’s not them, and it’s not suddenly going to become you.”

She was right, of course. The sordid past of some coffee table was not the cause of the horrible decisions made that day. Stuff is “just stuff.” It gets left behind, lost, broken. It does nothing more than exist. Conflicts arise not from stuff but from people.

Because, unlike stuff, there is mystery around people. They have emotions. They do more than just exist.

Now that I’ve been to that house, I have an idea about who used to live there. I know their story—or at least part of it. I know the parents loved their sons from the minute they were born and they celebrated their accomplishments throughout their lives. I know they filled their lives with opportunity and indulgence when and where they could. And I know that in a fleeting moment one of those sons made a tragic decision that ended it all.

I also know their stuff had nothing to do with it.

So now I’m going to focus on my sons—love and celebrate them and give them as many opportunities as I can. And at this moment I’m going to play Kings and Queens with my older boy over this nice wood inlay chess set I picked up at auction.

Editor’s Note: In August 2014, Joseph McAndrew Jr. of Upper Merion, was found guilty of three counts of first degree murder, but mentally ill, in the deaths of his mother, Susan, his father Joseph, and his twin brother, James. He attacked them with an 18-inch sword. All three were found in the kitchen with multiple wounds. The murders occurred March 5, 2011 in the family’s Gulph Mills home.

She was right, of course.

The sordid past of some coffee table was not the cause of the horrible decisions made that day.

Stuff is “just stuff.” It gets left behind, lost, broken. It does nothing more than exist.

Crossing the front lawn, with an igloo cooler in one hand and a barstool in the other, I glanced at an unsold bin of household goods in the grass, my eye catching a commemorative plate that read, “My First Communion,” engraved with the name of one of the sons. I slowed as disparate images and details of the day came together in my mind. Like a Magic Eye puzzle, perceived chaos transformed into a clear image, telling the sad story, not of things that were carelessly left behind, but of a family that had built a life filled with love, a life tragically cut short.

“My god,” I thought, standing by the driveway. “This is the house where the boy killed his twin brother and their parents.”

I was certain of it. It had happened only months before and had been all over the news. The way it was reported, on a Saturday in March, 2011, a young man of 23 years, who lived at the property I was now departing, used a sword to kill his twin brother and their parents. In their home. Surrounded by their stuff. Some of which was now mine. And that young man was now serving three mandatory life sentences behind bars.

This explained the framed diplomas, the unexpired coupons, and, sadly, the half-used bottle of hand soap. The magician’s flowers confirmed it, lovingly left to honor the deceased, like a makeshift roadside memorial.

Suddenly I wasn’t so thrilled with my bargains. I felt nauseated. Had mother read to son under the pineapple lamp?

Had father and son (which son?) played board games on my “new” coffee table? And at what point in the recent past—and for what purpose—had that Shop-Vac been used?

The idea of furnishing my home with these possessions now felt dangerous, like they might be contagious with madness and mayhem. Maybe those fears rose in me because, like Mr. and Mrs. Mysterious, I, too, live in a Philadelphia suburb with manicured lawns sporting purple and white petunias in the front yard and swings in the back. I, too, have an oversized shed where my husband keeps his lawn tractor. I, too, have two boys, preschool age, like those boys were years ago. Maybe when they were little the Mysterious Brothers liked to run around the yard, giggling, with milk moustaches and banana stuck to their eyebrow, just like my sons.

It was all a little too relatable. And yet no mother wants to blame the child. I can understand why that boy’s mother probably

When a person is found guilty but mentally ill, they are sentenced to prison, but evaluated to determine if they should be sent instead to a mental health facility for treatment. When and if that person’s mental illness is deemed to be under control, he must serve the balance of any sentence in prison.

Estelle Wynn is a creative non-fiction writer whose work has been published in Main Line Ticket, Island View, and Vashon-Maury Island Beachcomber. Previously an urban dweller, she now resides in a 100-year-old farmhouse in a suburb of Philadelphia with her husband and two young sons.

Want to read more stories and poems?

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In the Box Marked Sunday Mary Jo Melone

Danny wouldn’t drop that fantasy of his. He jabbered at Maggie over breakfast, at the laundromat, when they were buying tires for the car that now needed a jolt of whatever made the air conditioner work. It was heartily blowing warm air that only fanned her annoyance.

“Would you want to get married on a beach in Jamaica?” he said.

“Why, when there are beaches here?”

“That mean you want to get married?”

“Please,” she said.

“Why not the mountains of North Carolina?” he said.

“Ticks, Danny, that’s why not.”

“San Francisco, then.”

“I’m not getting married in a raincoat.”

He was wearing sunglasses with mirrored lenses, so when his attention shifted from the road and he turned to face her, she saw only herself, slightly distorted.

“Do I make you the least bit happy?”

“Of course you do,” she said, “and please get your eyes back where they belong so we don’t die before we reach my mom’s house.”

“Your mom could use some cheering up, being a new widow and all,” he said.

“That’s a reason to get married, to cheer my mother up?”

“At least the timing would be good.”

Maggie wasn’t mean enough to tell him to shut up, so she answered in a way that bought both time and relief and left room for clarification later.

“Let’s just say I’m leaning in the direction of yes.”

Danny slapped the steering wheel as though he was highfiving it. “We can at least tell her that,” he said.

“We go every Sunday now, Danny. Maybe next time, we’ll tell her.”

so, she would see a bit of the water. Maggie would never be caught dead living in a mobile home park, but she envied her mother this slice of a view. Her own view, from the apartment she shared with Danny, was the flat tarred roof of a tiny strip of stores, an eye doctor, a tanning salon, and a lawyer who specialized in DUIs. Catherine Murray came to the door waving a black-handled hammer that she swung triumphantly in the direction of the wall above the TV. Maggie stopped. The Sunday before, the wall was a wall. Not now. In the center was her parents’ wedding picture.

Circling it were a dozen more, all of her father, all by himself, in what seemed like an infinite number of celebratory poses: holding a freshly-caught fish, a bowling ball, a winning poker hand. In another, the skeleton of a roller coaster was behind him as he bent down, in the direction of what Maggie knew to be her legs, as she ran away from him. He was smiling, trying to coax her, meaning well, to ride it with him. She was eleven. She hadn’t been on a roller coaster since.

“What happened?” Maggie said.

“Nothing happened. I just did a little rearranging.”

Danny had settled himself in her father’s corduroy lounger. “I like it. Why don’t you like it?”

“So when you rearranged things, where did everything else go?”

The photographs of her that had been on the wall—in middle school, in high school, on a cruise she and Danny had taken— were piled on an end table.

“I’ll put them in the hutch.”

The hutch was stacked with never used China and a collection of souvenir spoons from every place they had ever visited. The hutch was standing room only.

Danny ran his palms along the worn arms of the recliner. “I remember that one,” he said, pointing to the wall.” The one where he’s holding the fish. Bigger than what I brought in. Your dad was something, a good something. It must run in the family.

I’ve got a good something, too.”

Danny was gooey about families. His had been miserable, so he thought every other one was enviable. When Maggie said she believed she didn’t particularly matter to her parents, Danny insisted that couldn’t be true, not at all.

Her parents did love her. That, she knew, but they never

The road was rising slowly, and when they reached the top, Maggie saw again what never bored her—the still-surfaced blue Intracoastal that curved narrowly between the Florida mainland and the beach. Enormous houses on stilts rose from behind the mangroves that lined the water, and now and then between, rows of mobile homes appeared, white as piano keys lined up on narrow black-topped streets. In a few minutes, after they pulled into Sunrise Isles, if Maggie stuck her head out the kitchen window of her mother’s mobile home and cocked her head just

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FLUTTER by NANCY KRESS

looked at her the way they did at each other. Even as an adult, when she stood between them, and that didn’t happen often, she swore she felt an electric crackle pass over her head.

“So,” Danny said to Catherine. “Maggie and me want to ask you a question. I mean we want to tell you something.”

Maggie had taken a place standing next to him in the lounger.

“What kind of fish was that, Danny? I don’t remember,” she said.

“Of course you do. Grouper. You’re the one who grilled it.”

“Good eating, it was,” Catherine said, “although your dad thought you made it a bit dry.”

“I thought it was just fine,” Danny said.

Maggie flicked her fingers across his shoulder, as though she was getting a bug off his shirt. She didn’t need any defending.

She was used to this habit of her mother’s, to run interference so Maggie could get only so close to her dad, to suspect she wasn’t good enough. It was one of the ways her mother made sure that nobody came before her relationship with him. Her mother was possessive as hell.

friends. Maggie didn’t know anyone whose marriage lasted more than ten years. Her own, soon after high school to a man who rented her a car when she smashed up her parents,’ barely got past one. Puppy love, they called it, and they refused to accompany Maggie and the car rental guy to the courthouse.

“Here’s how you get it, Danny,” Catherine said. “You believe in your vows. People your age don’t even say the words we said.

You make up your own.”

“They’re just trying to be special,” Maggie said.” What’s wrong with that?”

Danny patted the arms of the lounger as though he owned it. “I’m sure my parents said them, but they were just words. Me, me and whoever I married, they wouldn’t be words to us.”

Catherine placed the hammer on the dining room table.

“Somebody here thinking about getting married?”

“Not this week,” Maggie said in her best imitation of her mother’s upbeat voice and then leaned into Danny’s ear.

“Get up. I’ve got to talk to you.” He was peering into his shirt pocket. “What are you looking at?” she said.

“Nothing.”

She pushed open the front door. He followed her into the carport. Her parents had once hung a ceiling fan overhead, but its motor had long ago burned out. Whatever air they might have moved was wet and close. “It’s miserable out here,” he said.

“It’s worse in there.”

“Married love. It’s a beautiful thing, Catherine, isn’t it?”

Danny said. Now he was patting his pocket. You and Dick were regular experts. I’d sure like something like that.”

If he ever got it, he’d be the oddest man out among his

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NIGHT–BLOOMING CEREUS by BETSY WILSON

eyes ache. Maggie reflexively turned away. An unruly pile of clothes was heaped on the bed.

The pile constituted the only answer to the question she’d had for two months, about where her father went after he had been rendered into a bony, gray powder and hurled from the sea wall that protected the park. Her mother told her to put the pants in one spot, shirts in another, socks, belts and shoes in another. Everything was going to Goodwill.

“You’re throwing him out,” she said.

Her mother worked quickly, as though she was sorting laundry she had sorted a thousand times before. “Somebody will find his things just right for them,” she said. “One day, I’ll see a man who reminds me of your father coming down the street.”

“And that won’t freak you out? It would freak me out.”

“Not in the least. He’ll still be in the world. Not gone like that damn dust.”

Grief quieted her mother, as it did then, but tears missed their cue. She had turned on a light and was matching the socks and tying them into pairs, one after the other. Maggie picked up her father’s walking shoes. The heels were uneven, a lace was missing, and the toes were scuffed from his daily walk up and down the streets of the park.

“Forty-five years. You were with him forty-five years and you never got bored with each other.”

The pair of socks her mother had just tied made a soft thump when it dropped into the pile. “Of course, we got bored.

Sometimes we even enjoyed not having anything to say. The silence was a comfort. We didn’t expect to be thrilled by each other all the time. You do.”

Maggie felt vaguely accused, like she’d been caught lingering, which she sometimes did, in front of one of those bridal magazines racked in the grocery check-out line. She had believed that those magazines, in which the future came in shades of pink and ivory with a fair amount of crystal thrown in, were overdone to cheer up the women who bought them and who pretty much already knew the future would likely end up a deep olive drab. They were wisely pessimistic. So was she.

Her mother had stopped pairing the socks. “You’re all children, people your age.” she said.

She was 35 years old and two inches from indignation. Danny was the childish one. He believed in horoscopes and every stock

“Let's tell her. She could use a boost.”

“Tell her what? That we don’t have the money to buy a house? Isn’t that what you do when you get married? We don’t even have the money for a house.”

“So we’ll keep renting.”

“We haven’t even talked about kids. I don’t know if I want kids. I’m too old. What if I don’t get pregnant? What if I do get pregnant?”

“Kids are nice. But they aren’t a deal-breaker for me,” he said. His voice had risen. For a moment, it was just a little too high for a man.

“You think it’s simple. It’s not simple.”

He stepped forward and put his arms around her. She felt his heart thumping, serious and slow. “It’s okay, baby. We don’t have to tell her today.” She opened the screen door to go inside and looked back at him. He was patting his pocket again. She rubbed her eyes. Enough sweat had gathered at her hairline to run down her forehead and make them burn.

Catherine was calling Maggie from the bedroom, asking for help, not panicking, just asking. Her mother was usually the master builder of cheerful fronts; when Maggie entered the bedroom, the front her mother maintained in the living room was gone. The curtains were nearly drawn, and the bit of sunlight that they did not conceal was a harsh interruption that made her

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tip he heard at the bar where he tended Of late, he had trouble making his half of the rent. She tossed the shoes in her mother’s direction and walked out.

“Get up, will you? You look ridiculous down there.”

“He does not.”

Danny began to slide the ring on her finger. What if it got stuck on her knuckle? What if it was like a dress in a store you were sure would fit until you couldn’t get it over your hips?

The ring fit nice and snug, as though it had been custommade. Custom cost money, maybe half the rent, wonderful him, sweet him, forever him, damn him for playing on her wishes.

Catherine launched into chatter about who at Sunrise Isles she would tell first. Dick would be so happy, she said, and scurried to the kitchen. She returned with a plastic tray that contained beers and pretzels, ice tea and cookies. “You’ve got me so excited, I couldn’t decide.”

Danny sucked down a beer. Her mother’s chattering resumed.

They had to pick a date, but it couldn’t be too soon, and the park clubhouse was available because weddings were expensive, they had to be practical.

Maggie promised her mother they’d figure out the details later and told Danny that he’d have to wait for home if he wanted another cold one. She didn’t make a regular habit out of kissing her mother, but she kissed her then, on the cheek. Catherine kissed her back. Her breath held the sourness of age. As they left, she stood in the doorway, waving furiously her goodbye.

The car was hot. Stinking hot. Worse than the ride over, that Sunday afternoon. Danny turned on the radio. He liked oldies, doo-wop so old he wasn’t even alive when doo-wop was the thing, and some song about convertibles and starry skies was playing. He said some people thought words were just words.

He said he knew. She figured that it might take a few days, but eventually he’d understand that she would have said anything to escape her mother’s house. Anything.

The TV in the living room was playing some show about dumpy places to eat when you have to stop on the highway.

Danny was always promising that they’d just get in the car one weekend and go someplace, nowhere planned, and eat in one of the dumps on the show. The volume was up. He didn’t stir when she walked past the recliner, and she didn’t hear her mother follow her, after a few minutes’ delay, into the room.

“Can’t you turn that down?” Maggie said.

Danny leaned down to pick up the remote that was kept in a side pocket of the lounger. He did as he had been told. The TV went silent.

“My,” her mother said. “Would you look at that?”

“I couldn’t help it,” Danny said. “It fell out of my shirt pocket.

I swear.”

A tiny silver circle was on the carpet. A pull-top of a can of beer, maybe. Not a ring. It better not be a ring. It was a ring.

A small stone. A flicker of bright light. He didn’t get it for her.

He did. But not now. Not yet. She would tell him when she was ready. She would know when she was ready because that buzz of failure she carried within her, in every circumstance, would finally stop.

“You promised me,” she said.

“I like the sound of that,” Catherine said. “Just like in sickness and in health. Those are promises. They sure are.”

Maggie spoke to Danny, and Danny only. “Out there. On the carport. You promised.”

“So things went wrong, if you think they’re wrong. I don’t.”

He reached down and picked up the ring. When he rose, she saw that his face had reddened. That was so like him. He was lousy at hiding his feelings.

He held the ring between his fingers and extended his hand.

The diamond was bigger than she had imagined. And she had imagined it. Yes, she had. She imagined a dress and maybe Hawaii for a week. She had never seen Hawaii. After that, though, the screen went blank.

If the ring falling out of his pocket was an accident, it had to also be true that if the fool in a suit she was waiting for one night at a bar had not stood her up, Danny would have picked somebody else, and he would have been just a bartender working to run up her tab. And that middle of his, in ten years, that middle would be so big he wouldn’t be able to see his feet. They’d be one of those couples who eat in restaurants without speaking.

“Maggie,” her mother said.

She’d already bought some time and relief once that afternoon.

“Well, I did say I was leaning in the direction of yes.”

Danny went down on one knee before her.

Mary Jo Melone is a writer in Tampa. Her work has appeared in Iron Horse Literary Review, 2 Bridges Review and Crack the Spine. She is a Philadelphia native and a former journalist. Early in her career she was an anchor and reporter at KYW Newsradio.

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As If Aimee LaBrie

Are there any topics we cannot write poems about? Can we write about love or death or the soul or suicide or any other abstraction when Shakespeare and Dickinson and Frost and Plath have covered that territory so well already? Can we write about the funeral of our grandmother with her cold hands folded as if in prayer? About losing one’s virginity under a barnacle infested pier with Randy Tempoco? Can we write about walking down a sandy beach at sunset with seagulls squawking after having broken up with a partner who is a total shit heel? Can we use the term “shit heel” in a poem and still be well-regarded by our peers?

I say yes to all. I say yes, but under one condition: we do not write to impress. Often, much of my writing time is taken up not by writing, but rather by daydreaming about how blown away so-and-so might be with the breathtaking, new way I’ve described a man’s nose, sagging as if it were an eggplant on a vine. Or the reaction of the reader to a poem about the death of beloved pet, how his eyes will cloud until a single tear rolls saltily down his cheek. That’s when I know I am stalling, because instead of focusing on the blank page, I am thinking about how amazing it will be, once it’s actually written. At the same time, I have to remind myself that much of what I write will get whittled away in revision. The important part of writing is the act itself, at least in the beginning. For this reason, at the start of a project, I can write whatever clichéd nonsense gushes forth, using tired

language and imprecise imagery and leaving out the details that matter. Write, write, write.

Then, I leave it for a few days, or move on to another piece that needs work. In revisiting the writing, I’ll often find that it’s better than I remembered, and also worse. I will have described someone’s face as withered and prune-like, or relied heavily on abstract words instead of concrete descriptions. That’s when the hard work begins, first with the act of cutting away the flourishes or trickery, and then getting back to the subject’s precise essence.

The fish’s scales are not like rainbows, of course they are not, they are “like ancient wallpaper,/and its pattern of darker brown/ was like wallpaper:/shapes like full-blown roses/stained and lost through age” (from Elizabeth Bishop’s “The Fish”).

It is as if I cannot get to the good stuff without first writing the bad. I cannot write about the death of my grandmother without telling of wilted flowers and the head-ache-making smell of magnolias and the flickering candles and the clicking of rosary beads. So, I start there. Instead of trying to force it to be great for my invisible reader, I strive to remember the details of moment, such as the cranky toddler in front of us who sprawled across the pew, showing us her flowered underwear during the Hail Mary’s.

This description might not make it into the final piece, but it will be the start of getting to the heart of the moment, so that I can remember it exactly as it was, and not how I think it’s supposed to be.

PHILADELPHIA STORIES ANNOUNCES

2016 Eighth Annual

Marguerite McGlinn

Prize for Fiction This annual national short fiction contest features a first place $2,000 cash award and invitation to an awards dinner on Friday, October 9, on the campus of Rosemont College; a second place cash prize of $500; and third place cash prize of $250. Requirements: unpublished works of fiction up to 8,000 words; $12 reading fee. The Marguerite McGlinn Prize for Fiction is made possible by the generous support of the McGlinn and Hansma families.

About the 2016 Judge

Robin Black's story collection, If I loved you, I would tell you this, was a Finalist for the Frank O’Connor Story Prize and the winner of the 2010 Philadelphia Athenaeum Fiction Award. Her novel Life Drawing, was long listed for the Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize, the Folio Prize, and The IMPACT Dublin Literary Award. Her newest collection, Crash Course: Essays From Where Writing and Life Collide, has been called "an oasis for writers at any stage" by Karen Russell. ​Black’s work​has been published in such publications at The New York Times Book Review, One Story, O. Magazine, Conde Nast Traveler, and The Chicago Tribune. She was the Distinguished Visiting Writer at Bryn Mawr College and will begin teaching in the Rutgers Camden MFA Program in 2016.

Deadline: June 15, 2016 Building a community of writers,

artists, and readers across the Delaware Valley

www.philadelphiastories.org

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BOOK REVIEWS Said the Manic to the Muse Jeanann Verlee (Write Bloody, 2015)

sis for a collection that uses dark humor and formal elements to dig into difficult material--the dangers inherent in womanhood, threats to physical and mental health, the security and instability of parental and other relationships, and the loss or impossibility of pregnancy.

The poem “The Session” is the first poem in Said the Manic to the Muse. I read it through and read it again before I realized that my breathing had changed, stopped. The authority of the speaker is immediately undermined: “Say it clear, stop the poetry. I say, The children in our -- / no, my -- future are hard marbles sunk to the bottom // of a fish tank. No. There is no fish tank.” I had similarly physical reactions to many of the poems: I felt exhausted, weaker for having read these poems, but not so alone as I was before I read them. Again and again, poems evoke relationships and intimacies -- not only through their content, but the dedications. So many of the poems here are “for” or “after” other poets that the collection starts to feel a bit like an improvised party -- not something planned and joyful such as a birthday party, but the kind of party that swells out of grief or desperation: the rowdy hangers on after a wake.

Jeanann Verlee is a career badass.

Her poem “Hereditary” won the first Sandy Crimmins Prize in Poetry in 2012, but her position as a mentor, poet, and activist had already been well established by then. In her 2010 collection, Racing Hummingbirds (also Write Bloody), she puts on the page the rage, hurt, and humor that characterize her performances. Now with her 2015 collection, Said the Manic to the Muse, Jeanann Verlee addresses new frustrations, dangers, and heartaches, but does so with upright, emphatic raw-heartedness. In the poem “Careful the Blood (after Gwendolyn Brooks)” she writes: “Survive is the thing learned first. No woman / jukebox without reason. Misery gotta dance, too.” These lines provide a sort of the-

in som eth ing .

Weekend: June 17 – 19

e E veryon

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Randall Brown, Flash Fiction Anne Kaier, Memoir Sheree Bykofsky, Agent J.C. Todd, Poetry Joe Kulka, Picture Books

Week-long: June 19 – 24

Gregory Frost, Novel Jennifer Steil, Short Story Grant Clauser, Poetry Beth Kephart, Creative Nonfiction Tawni Waters, Writer in Residence

For complete information or to register please visit:

rosemont.edu/writersretreat

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Mothers, Tell Your Daughter Bonnie Jo Campbell

While some of the longer poems overwhelm the reader with walls of words, the shorter poems in the collection jab like daggers -- quick, sharp, deadly. Poems like “The Thorn,” “Souvenir,” and others explode in their final lines: “I imagine inside him, a thorn. / Wedged in his left lung. An unforgiving itch. / He gives it my name” (“The Thorn”) or “You toss your dimples along Second Avenue / like a trail of breadcrumbs. A row of dainty landmines” (“Souvenir”). One of the strengths of this collection is its variety: length, shape and form continually reshuffle to suit the material; settings change from New York City to the Midwest and further; poems refer to Kali, Jezebel, and Medea.

“I need an interesting character in a difficult situation in order to write.”

So said novelist and short story writer, Bonnie Jo Campbell, during her master class at Rosemont last October, the day before the Push to Publish conference. She practices what she preaches, as proved by her new story collection. Here’s an excerpt of my review, published first at authorexposure.com: Mothers, Tell Your Daughters, Bonnie Jo Campbell’s new collection of short stories, her third, is anything but a page-turner. Readers who gobbled her 2012 novel, Once Upon a River, should, when opening Mothers, be warned to adjust their expectations. For that novel’s main character, the orphaned sharp shooter Margo Crane, 16, kept readers in her grip from the moment she, after a sexual misadventure with an uncle, and the murder of her father, flees her home place in a canoe with a stolen rifle.

The varied and marvelous stories in Mothers, Tell Your Daughters are a different breed of narrative. They demand slow contemplative reading and rereading, and they reward this effort with their wisdom, wit, and grace. For example, Buckeye, who sells cotton candy, in “The Greatest Show On Earth, 1982: What There Was,” feels more than she can think, “her hip in short shorts touching his hip, her body filled with desire, filled with more than desire, her body and heart and mind all full up with Mike from loving him on his bunk last night, ready to love him again despite the heat, despite Red showing up.”

Campbell made her reputation as a writer of “rural noir” with her first novel, Q Road, and her acclaimed second short story collection, American Salvage. By no means does she abandon the hard-working, lovelorn women that are her forte, or the troubled men who insist upon residing on the edges of their lives, but Mothers, Tell Your Daughters also stakes out new territory in such stories as “My Dog Roscoe, Natural Disasters,” “Daughters of the Animal Kingdom,” and “The Fruit of the Paw Paw Tree,” with their smart, well-educated sassy women, their narrative loops and switchbacks--you can’t ever tell exactly where they’re going or how they’ll get there. Like the best stories of Alice Munro, these leave in the mind’s eye fascinating contrails that demand a second or third look--with a deeper understanding gleaned each time.

These stories made me laugh and cry, and several of them wrung me out. They offer rare and provocative insights into how some women have to live, and what we, who don’t have to live like that, share with them anyway. Maybe, for Campbell, this is a transitional work, one foot in the past, the other stretching forward. If so, I can’t wait to read what’s coming next. – Julia Chang

Jeanann Verlee in Said the Manic to the Muse delivers her reader a glimpse into the dangers and pleasures of sex, family, love, and community. Poems sweep and swallow the reader with their heft and agility. As I read, I kept thinking of people in my life with whom I wanted to share this collection, or specific poems within it. The poems here reach well beyond the pages of the book and lodge themselves into the reader’s throat and heart.

These are poems to read with a tissue in hand or the hand in a fist. – Courtney Bambrick

______________________________________________ Latchkey Kids Brian Heston (Finishing Line Press, 2014) Brian Patrick Heston’s Philadelphia-themed poetry in his 2014 book Latchkey Kids (Finishing Line Press) is reminiscent and evocative of a definite working class coming-ofage strain of local and--more broadly--American literature. Heston's poems are part of the tradition of reflections on coming-of-age in the city such as David Livewell's Shackamaxon, Shaun Haurin's "Me Tarzan," or James T. Farrell's Studs Lonigan.

Nevertheless, Heston’s poems are singular in this genre of work and memoir for their especially blade-edged evocation of white working-class violence, desperate marriages, young men returning home damaged from war, high hopes for escape stunted, blunts smoked etc. Heston’s particular strength in this field of literature is his unflinching look at these phenomena--the rickety rowhomes, the ragged brownfields, and the grievous images of conquered women being so vivid. Along with clarity, there is the heart-rending realism with which he looks at his subjects, any of which could be sensationalized as an eyewitness news report--murder, rape, disease, drug use, imprisonment – all with a jaded, yet intensely palpable Spaghetti-Western style of treatment.

It was said by Norman Mailer that Provincetown, Massachusetts was the Wild West of the East. After Latchkey Kids, one might say that it may even be more aptly true, in a more dressed down fashion, of urban Philadelphia. – Peter Baroth

PHILADELPHIASTORIES.ORG 28

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RESOURCES Philadelphia

Great Books

Dreaming of becoming a writer?

Already published and want to polish your skills?

Come join us at the

Interested in joining a Great Books discussion group?

There are over 50 groups meeting regularly in PA/NJ/DE using the Shared Inquiry Method for discussing significant works of literature or non-fiction.

PHILADELPHIA WRITERS’ CONFERENCE

JUNE 10-12, 2016 Wyndham Hotel, 400 Arch St., Phila., PA 19106 Attend writing workshops! Meet agents and editors! Network with writers!

Give your writing career a jolt of creative energy!

Contact us to find a Great Books discussion group in your area: phila1@greatbooksdiscussionprograms.org For further information about Great Books events on the East Coast, see

OPENING SPEAKER: Novelist Kelly Simmons, Author of One More Day

www.greatbooksdiscussionprograms.org

KEYNOTE SPEAKER: New York Times Best Selling author Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz

FOR MORE INFORMATION, CHECK HTTP://PWCWRITERS.ORG/

Great Books Weekend at the Inn at Pocono Manor

All readers welcome!

Class, Economics and Life: * The Theory of the Leisure Class, Thorstein Veblen * The House of Mirth, Edith Wharton * My Brilliant Friend, Elena Ferrante * The Red and the Black, Stendhal

Cost: $370 per person double occupancy, $450 for single occupancy: meals, accommodations, books included.

November 4-6, 2016

Build Your Own Retreat

For more info, contact John Dalton at (610) 608-7711 or JD5258875@aol.com

Imagine your own private retreat in a tranquil Pocono mountain setting? Currently just $99/day!

Peace, quiet and time to write.Includes private lodging, all meals, unlimited snacks and wireless internet.

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PHILADELPHIA STORIES MEMBERS AS OF FEBRUARY 28, 2016

Michener Level ($25 - $40)

The Agostini Group LLC Joyce Barbagallo Aaron Bauman Elizabeth Bodien Priscilla Bohlen Elise Brand Susan Breen Jim Brennan Jim Breslin Megan Burt Peter Campbell Leslie Caruso Rich Casamento Christine Chiosi Joseph Cilluffo Kat Clark Mark Cofta Suzanne Comer Angela & Kevin Cook Lillian Dodderidge Lynn Doerr Liz Dolan Teresa Donnelly Bernadette Donohue Natalie Dyen Barbara East Karen Elliott Mary Erpel Kathye Fetsko Petrie Irene Fick Rita Fierro Juli Fowler Sheila Fox Lise Funderburg Jam Gallery Mo Ganey Constance Garcia Barrio Kenneth Garson Emily Gavin Mary Gilman Jamisa Gittings Joanne Green Elizabeth Green William Grey Carolyn Guss Stac Hartung Jessica Herring Katie King Jeffrey Klemens Roma Kohut

Ed Kratz Diana Krantz Nancy Kress Fred Lachat Kris Laubscher Lora Lavin Ruth Littner Shoshana Loeb Christopher Markopulos Kristin & Henry Joy McKeown Pam Mclean-Parker Megan McPhillips Frances Metzman Tom Minder Helen Mirkil Tom Molinaro Virginia Moore Elizabeth Mosier Joy Nash Christine Obst Deborah Off Cynthia Orr Elizabeth Ray Lisa Reed Harriet Rola James Saunders Shelley Schenk Christina Sexton Robyn Smart Carlo Spataro Sharon Steinhofer Catherine & Dennis Tafoya Frank Tamru Sandra Thomas Jeanne Thomson Colette Tomeo Joseph Wechselberger Mark Weiser Linda & Charles Wisniewski

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W.C. Williams Level ($1000+)

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Sustainer Members Julia Arnold (Whitman) Lyndon Back (Whitman) Courtney Bambrick (Buck) Thomas Baroth (Whitman) Virginia Dillon (Buck) Erin Entrada Kelly (Buck) Alex Husted (Potok) Nancy Jackson (Whitman) Edwin Krizek (Whitman) Stephen Kolter (Buck) Robert Vincent Mallouk (Whitman) Charles McGray (Buck) Julie Odell (Whitman) Kimberly Ruff (Buck) Dana & Chris Scott (Whitman) Bryan Skelly (Buck) Tara & Andrew Smith (Buck) Adam Toscani (Buck)

Conrad Weiser Author Fund Joanne Green Barbara Holmberg Gabriel Jay Rochelle & Susan Steinhaus Marc & KerriSchuster

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Want to become a member of Philadelphia Stories? Please visit www.philadelphiastories.org/member

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Cultivating a community of writers,

artists, and readers across the Delaware Valley

A MAGAZINE THAT CREATES COMMUNITY THANKS TO MEMBER SUPPORT, PHILADELPHIA STORIES HAS BEEN SERVING THE WRITING COMMUNITY OF THE GREATER DELAWARE VALLEY SINCE 2004 IN THE FOLLOWING WAYS:

• Connecting local writers to readers through 5,000 print copies of a free quarterly literary magazine, distributed at more than 200 locations, including all branches of the Free Library of Philadelphia.

• Supporting a community of young Philadelphia-area writers through Philadelphia Stories, Jr., a print and online magazine by young writers.

• Offering affordable conferences and workshops for writers.

• Hosting readings and other social events for writers.

• Publishing books through our boutique imprint, PS Books.

• Hosting two national contests, one for fiction and one for poetry.

YOU can help keep Philadelphia Stories—a non-profit 501c3—in print and free by making a donation today!

For as little as $25 a year, you can get home delivery and know that your gift directly supports the local arts community.

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