Philadelphia Stories Summer 2012 by Philadelphia Stories

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free

FICTION/POETRY/ESSAYS/ART

O F T H E D E L AWA R E VA L L E Y

natalie zellat dyen

WHEN SHE COULD FLY mark lyons

RED EYE barbara bogaev

DOVE BAR

S U M M E R

2 0 1 2

I S S U E

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FICTION/POETRY/ESSAYS/ART

O F T H E D E L AWA R E VA L L E Y

Clarity by Suzanne Comer. Suzanne explores the use of digital photography as an art form, using elements of her photographs to create photomontages. http://comersuz.home.comcast.net.

CONTENTS FEATURES 3 11 13 16 18 20

When She Could Fly (fiction). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Natalie Zellat Dyen Red Eye (fiction) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mark Lyons Dove Bar (essay) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Barbara Bogaev Author Profile: Jeanann Verlee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sam Lasko Spring Fling and Poetry Celebration Genre Crossings (Column) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Aimee LaBrie

raised and educated. Her work concentrates on studies of form and line, often using nature as a catalyst, and incorporates painting, drawing, multimedia and steel wire sculpture. karen-hunter-mclaughlin.com

POETRY 4 the neighbors, from Russia with love . . . . . . . . .Julia Perch 5 excerpt from Report from the road to eudamonia . . . . . . . . . .Jacob A. Bennett 6 The Poet on the Bus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Steve Burke 7 Numbers: 1965 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Kathleen Shaw 8 Bread, Milk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Jeanne Obbard 10 Light Against the Dark of the Café Windows . .Steve Burke 13 Paper Wings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Kathryn A. Kopple 15 Honeymoon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Scott Thomas

PHILADELPHIASTORIES.ORG Publisher/ Fiction Editor Carla Spataro Publisher/ Managing Editor Christine Weiser Essay Editor Julia MacDonnell Chang Poetry Editor Courtney Bambrick Assistant Poetry Editor Mirabella Mitchell

Production Manager Derek Carnegie Web Design Loic Duros Social Media Editors Michelle Wittle Samuel L. Lasko Board of Directors Kerri Schuster, secretary Mitchell Sommers Alison Hicks Christine Furtek Michael Ritter Editorial Board

Assistant Editor Diana Restifo Art Editor Melissa Tevere 2

Director of Development Sharon Sood

Andrea Applebee, poetry Peter Baroth, poetry Deb Burnham, poetry Melinda Clemmer, fiction Sonja Craft, non-fiction Sam Dodge, non-fiction Liz Dolan, poetry Brian Ellis, fiction Sandy Farnan, non-fiction Teresa FitzPatrick, fiction

Antithetical by Karen HunterMcLaughlin.Karen is a Philadelphia artist: born,

Distant Shore by Annalie Hudson. Annalie is a painter influenced by O'Keefe, Kahlo, Basquiat and Pollock. Her work is inspired by her travels and nature. annaliehudson.com.

10 Scan by Marge Horner.

Marge is the Director of Education at the Abington Art Center in Jenkintown, PA. She is also a painter. Her most recent exhibitions have been at The William Penn Foundation and the Fairmount Park Welcome Center in Philadelphia Her mixed media images evoke both a sense of mystery and the natural world.

11 Watch My Back by Alexa Rae Liccio. Alexa is currently studying Graphic Design at the Art Institute of Philadelphia. "Watch My Back" is a complilation of three images. It illustrates the idea that we must constantly watch our own back because we are our own worst enemy.

Melissa Foster, fiction Kathleen Furin, fiction Erin Gautsche, poetry Pat Green, poetry 13 Discarded by Nina Sabatino. Nina is an Angel Hogan, poetry artist living in Media, PA. She received a BFA in printmaking from Tyler School of Art; currently, Tiffany Kelly, non-fiction photography is her medium of choice. This body of Aimee LaBrie, fiction work was shot through a lens that she made from a Sam Lasko, poetry vintage twin-lens reflex camera that fits over her Nathan Long, fiction digital Nikon camera lens.ninasabatino.com Walt Maguire, fiction Chelsea Covington Maass, fiction George McDermott, poetry 14 Wheel by Nina Sabatino. Cheryl Grady Mercier, non-fiction (see bio above) Julie Odell, fiction Deborah Off, non-fiction Aimee Penna, poetry Daniel Pontius, fiction John Shea, non-fiction Barbara Solem, non-fiction Mitchell Sommers, fiction Cover Art: Luke Stromberg, poetry Lady in Black by Richard Casamento. Rich has Amanda Knight-Surie, fiction been painting as a hobby for over 20 years while working full time as a construction manager and husband and father. He is Valeria Tsygankova, poetry currently a member of the Cape May Art League and of the Hilary Umbreit, fiction Ocean County Art Guild. He recently opened a retail space in Janice Wilson Stridick, fiction the Shops at Stainton's in Ocean City, New Jersey. Michelle Wittle, fiction

Philadelphia Stories 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. Our mission is to develop a community of writers, artists and readers through the magazine, and through education programs such as writer’s workshops, reading series and other affordable professional development programs for emerging writers and artists. Philadelphia Stories is a 501c3 and is managed completely by a staff of volunteers. To support Philadelphia Stories and the local arts, please visit www.philadelphiastories.org to become a member today!

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WHEN SHE COULD FLY few months before she died, my grandmother taped a new picture to the bedroom wall of our beach house. A curly-haired man in a black suit stood on a hilltop, holding hands with a woman who floated above him wearing a dress the color of grape juice.

“That’s Marc Chagall and me.” Until then, we were sure Grandmom’s only husband had been Grandpop. Each year on her anniversary, Grandmom let down her hair and took her bridal veil and shoes out of a Wanamaker’s hatbox. “Is my veil on straight, P.J.?” she’d ask. “Hand me that mirror.” Then she’d slip her feet into white satin pumps. “Look, kinderlach, they still fit.” If Mom was anywhere nearby, she gave Grandmom a pinch-face look; I don’t know if it was the Yiddish or the wedding outfit that got to her. Sometimes Grandmom asked P.J. to help her with the shoes. “You too, Cookie,” she’d add if she remembered I was there. My name isn’t really Cookie—it’s Ella—but we were all called something else, as if our real names were just placeholders. Paula Jean was “P.J.,” and my oldest sister Susan was “Princess.” I think Mom gave us nicknames so we’d be more like the kids at the Baldwin School—Muffy, Bitsy, Chip—but our names didn’t sound anything like theirs; and I’m sure no one at school had a grandmother from Russia who lived with them. Grandmom’s skin looked laundered smooth, and with her face framed in lace, you’d almost think she was a bride. She’d stand and point to the old wedding photograph that used to be on the wall: a young man with licorice-slick hair, his arm draped around his bride. “He was such a sweet man. Always gave you kids

Clarity by Suzanne Comer © 2012 candy. Remember?” P.J. remembers because she’s two years older; but I was only four when he died in 1951, so I only had shriveled memories. Now there was a new wedding picture on the wall. I ran my finger over the jagged edge, and traced the smiling man waving his purple banner bride. Marc Chagall? Why was P.J. nodding like

she knew who he was? “He looks happy,” said P.J., “but there’s a funny expression on your face, Grandmom, like you were dizzy or maybe afraid he was going to let go of your hand. Were you scared?” “No, P.J. He’d never let me go.” Why were they pretending those were real people? “Grandmom,” I said,

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“that’s not you. Where are your white shoes?” When she didn’t answer, I turned. My lower lip did a shimmy shake. “Why are you making stuff up?”

mention the name Marc only once before, so I didn’t recognize Vitebsk as I stood in Grandmom’s bedroom at the intersection of real and make believe.

“Cookie, what are you talking? Don’t you recognize ?”

“That’s just a stupid drawing. Where’s the real picture? The real you?”

Grandmom barely had an accent, so it was easy to forget she came from somewhere else. She may have talked to P.J. about the famous artist who came from the same town, but I’d heard her

P.J. stood next to Grandmom’s rocking chair looking at me with shut up all over her face. “Tell her that people don’t fly, P.J.” My sister was so smart she never even

the neighbors, from Russia with love By Julia Perch

i. i wasn’t allowed to go in their house. but my mom let me play in the yard with their daughter. ii. Anastasya was my age and once, she snuck me in. her basement looked like mine but in reverse, like some alternate universe, fun-house mirror. it was dingier though, and smelled like mildew. iii. they had a cat named Stinky who once climbed up our magnolia tree. my dad cajoled him down. Stinky seemed unwilling to return to his owners: he squirmed in revolt as we handed him back to our stern Russian neighbor. i don’t remember what he looked like. the neighbor man, that is. the cat was a Calico. iv. the Russian neighbors had chickens, once. they plodded around in a small gated area of their backyard. and one day, the Russian man hung up dead fish on the clothing line, like soaking wet pillowcases. v. Ruth, the Jewish old woman next door, knocked on their door and said, “the chickens and the dead fish? we don’t do that here in America.” Julia Perch is an editorial assistant by day, writer by night, and a literary geek at all times. She earned her B.A. in English from Drexel University, and currently lives and works in West Philly.

believed in Santa Claus. That’s why she was going to be a lawyer like Daddy. “Tell her, P.J,” I yelled. Grandmom rocked slowly, mumbling as if she were praying. “Cookie, it’s time for the cake.” P.J.’s voice brought Grandmom and me back to now. “You can do the honors.” It was my turn to perform the closing ritual. I unwrapped a pack of Tastykakes, handing one chocolate cupcake to P.J., taking one for myself, and handing the wax paper with the third cupcake stuck icing side down to Grandmom. She peeled off the last cupcake, ate it, then licked the chocolate icing off the paper. “Wrapper icing is the best thing about Tastykakes,” she said, wiping her mouth with a Happy Anniversary napkin. The party was over. The Ventnor library smelled like old paper marinated in sea salt. I wandered around the children’s room waiting for the librarian to turn her back so I could sneak into the adult section. The librarian was a shriveled stump of a woman with a seagull beak and a voice made for shushing and shooing. You had to be thirteen to read the grown-up stuff, but I didn’t care. If I wanted to be a reporter like Brenda Starr in the comics, I’d have to start bending stupid rules. What kind of dirty stuff did they think I’d find in art books except maybe pictures of naked ladies, and I already knew how they looked. Like a good reporter I’d brought a notebook to record the facts about Marc Chagall, the mysterious painter from Russia who drew flying people and may or may not have been married to my grandmother. The oversized art books were lying flat on a bottom shelf. I pulled out the one on Chagall and crouched in a corner. The book was printed on glossy paper, even the text part. There was a short section about his life, but it was mostly pictures—people flying, men playing fiddles, weird-looking animals. I

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excerpt from Report from the road to eudamonia By Jacob A. Bennett But nothing so stable as form-designated hue (especially which is no hue at all) will account for the sudden ruddiness, china-blue and, a few months each year, light-wheat-toast. Not to mention constellated with the fat moles of my father’s side. And something of Albion in me, and Westphalia, and a French monarch, and a Russian princess. There is heritage to trace, per se, and leads from the fleshy part of the Michigan mitten back East to where my mother’s people maybe actually thought they’d discovered something New, and back again across the months of the Atlantic, beyond the Channel deep into the Continent, to where Caesar’s conquests once convinced bellicose and patriotic tribes to shake hands and not hatchets. But the brittle tree I stenciled in Ms. Rae’s fourthgrade class is diffuse, and describes not a uniform fondue but a stew of only partially assimilated ante-states and when I am still I stand in the middle of them all, no allegiance to speak of, no religion or tongue or flag to bind me, a picture brought to focus by chance alignment of many reckless stars and libidos.

Postcard unto a sense of tribelessness Jacob A. Bennett lives and works in Philadelphia, where he teaches rhetoric, poetry, and literature. Links to CV, other poems, and various well-intentioned screeds published at: antigloss.wordpress.com

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stared at the picture of a guy in a white suit with a sad upside-down head. Behind the man in the picture were some houses like the ones in Grandmom’s picture, except they were black. The words “Ox Bowe” were printed at the bottom in funny letters, and there was a jagged gap in the binding where a page had been ripped out. The photograph of Chagall in the book showed a curly-haired man who didn’t look anything like slick-haired Grandpop in the old wedding photo. Chagall had moved to and married a woman named Bella who’d died many years ago. Grandmom was still alive and her name wasn’t Bella, so she couldn’t have been married to Chagall. “You knew she made it up,” I told P.J. later that afternoon. “She believed she was married to him.” “That’s impossible” “Anything’s possible if you believe it, Cookie.” “You’re not making any sense, P.J. I thought you wanted to be a lawyer.” “I do.” “Well you don’t sound like one to me.” If Mom had had her way, Grandmom wouldn’t have moved in with us. I know because I heard her arguing with Daddy late one night. “She can’t stay where she is, Sonia. They’ll rob her blind.” “We could set her up in an apartment.” “But you promised you’d never leave her alone. Signed on the dotted line.” “She wouldn’t be alone in an apartment.” “Alone is alone.” Dad was probably thinking of his own mother who’d been found dead in her apartment a day after suffering a stroke. “I know I signed, but is it legally binding?” “Technically, you’ll have to give up

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your chunk of the estate if you don’t abide by the agreement.” Mom sounded beaten. “It won’t be pretty, the two of us in the same house. Not that she was a bad mother. More like she was someone else’s mother. I told her I wanted to find a husband and live the American dream.” “I think she wanted that, too. She just had a different dream,” Dad said. “The way she looks at me sometimes—it feels like she’s still waiting for me to make something of myself.” Before Grandmom moved in with us, she lived in Overbrook Park, in Philly but close to the suburbs. Grandmom and Grandpop had converted the basement of their row house into a dress shop, and we visited as often as Mom would take us. The room was crammed with racks of dresses, blouses, skirts, and gowns. When there were no customers, Grandmom let P.J. and me pick dresses off the racks and try them on in the laundry-cum-fitting room. P.J. was chunky like Dad, with light skin and freckles. Her hair, once defiantly red, had betrayed her, turning weak coffee brown. I was dark like Mom and built like her. Susan, with her straight blond hair and

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porcelain skin, resembled no one in the family. Decked out in strapless gowns with beaded tops she had yet to grow into, tottering around in the high-heeled shoes Grandmom had scattered around for the ladies, Susan was molding herself into the nickname she’d been given. When P.J. and I got tired of dressing up, we’d duck under racks, pretending we were lost in the jungle. We’d undress the mannequins, laughing at their flattened lady parts. Mom always waited for us upstairs. I wondered if she’d ever played downstairs when she was growing up or whether then, like now, the clothing business had been beneath her. We behaved ourselves when customers came into the shop. P.J. and I watched Grandmom size up the ladies with her eyes, the way artists on the boardwalk draw someone’s picture in five brushstrokes; then she’d hand them the skirt or dress they were meant to have. Her regulars didn’t even bother scanning the racks. “How do you do it, Grandmom?” “One part art, P.J., to three parts practice.” “What about magic?” Grandmom shook her head, but her smile suggested that magic might indeed be part of the

The Poet on the Bus By Steve Burke

Cake-walking down the sidewalk, a zaftig young woman witnessing to whatever lyric is surging through her headphones, carrying her away beside Broad Street, its flow of sinfulness. Music is a manifestation of something that can be believed in. Revelation is something that’s hard to keep to yourself. She is filled. Maybe she is singing, but I’ve been deafened by glass and she blinded by early-morning ecstasy – her left hand raised and pulled back, raised again, the fingers of that hand opening then closing as if breathing, or as if stretched up to a closet shelf, grasping for something unseen, something lost, something that belongs to her. Steve Burke lives in the Mt Airy section of the city with wife Giselle & daughter Mariah; has worked as a labor & delivery nurse for many years; has been wiriting poetry much longer than that; and has been published in PBQ, Schuykill Valley Journal, Apiary, Mad Poets Review.

equation. When Grandmom first moved into our house on the Main Line, she wandered ghostlike from room to room. “It’s not like you don’t know this place,” Mom complained. “You’ve been here hundreds of times.” “So many rooms. It’s like a castle.” “Three thousand square feet. Not much compared to some of the other houses in the neighborhood.” “Well I prefer the summer house in Ventnor. This place feels like a dress that’s three sizes too big.” “Momma, would you stop with the dresses already. You’re out of the clothing business.” She made the word “clothing” sound like something slimy you’d find under a trash can. When Grandmom wandered our house, I think she was looking for the house she’d left behind and the shop where she’d worked magic. We asked her what she’d done with the clothing, but she wouldn’t say. I pictured her plucking the racks like chickens, feeding her regulars one last time, until there was nothing left but metal bones. The night after Grandmom moved in, P.J. and I sat at the foot of her bed as she rubbed Nivea into her arms and neck. “I remember things,” she said, eyes half closed. “Russia. The smell of the cows and the way it looked when the sun went down, like the church steeples were on fire. Papa blessing the bread. He was so smart, studying all day.” Her voice trailed off. When I asked Mom if she knew Grandmom had come from a different country, she shrugged. “That was a long time ago. I heard those stories plenty when I was younger.” A few nights later I heard voices in Grandmom’s room. Through the halfopen door, I saw P.J. and Grandmom in bed, laughing. “You started telling your stories without me!” I cried, sounding like the little kid who tagged along behind her big sisters squawking me too.

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n a t a l i e Sometimes I noticed Susan staring at P.J. and me. I’m not sure what I saw in her eyes, but I think I understood how she felt—same way I felt watching Grandmom and P.J. laughing in the bedroom. Grandmom’s stories began with her childhood in Vitebsk and ended when she got married, as if those were the starting and ending points of her life. She told us about the crossing, and how her father had died on the ship, but she never spoke of Marc Chagall. Some nights after we’d gone to bed, I’d hear footsteps in the hall and voices on the other side of the wall. I don’t think Grandmom intentionally left me out. It’s just that I floated like something in a Chagall painting, just outside her range of vision. She seemed to find a kindred spirit in P.J. I saw how she smoothed P.J.’s hair and told her how smart she was, something she did with me, but with less intensity. I resented Grandmom’s intrusion into our lives, and the way she made me feel like an outsider. I discovered that if I brushed my hair over half my face and looked to the left, I could make Grandmom disappear. Soon after Grandmom moved in, another intruder entered our house: a Christmas tree. It had bluish needles and smelled outdoorsy, like stuff the cleaning lady used in the bathroom. When P.J. and I came home from school, Mom was hanging the last of the blue and white balls that Susan handed her, as if she’d been decorating trees all her life. Grandmom sat on the sofa, watching; she didn’t notice P.J. settle in next to her. Mom stepped down off the ladder and walked around the

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Numbers: 1965 By Kathleen Shaw Castor Avenue was Jewish then delis, yarmulkes, old bearded men, two by two arguing in Yiddish bearing wrinkled gray suits and soiled white shirts to the cleaners where I worked in my Catholic school uniform. Wives in faded housedresses bore pin-striped pants and cigarscented vests. And sometimes forearms tattooed with black numbers would slide heavy woolen overcoats across the formica counter, but those numbers meant no more to me than the tiny black numbers on tags I pinned to their garments. Kathleen Shaw grew up in Northeast Philly during the 1960s. For twenty years, she has taught English at Montgomery County Community College in Pottstown.

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tree a couple of times before facing her mother, anticipating Grandmom’s objections. “It’s blue and white, like Hanukkah.” Silence. “For God sake, Mom, it’s just a tree. I didn’t want the kids to feel left out. Remember how you wanted a tree, P.J.?” “Yeah, when I was little and thought everyone had trees.” P.J. turned to the menorah on the mantel. “I don’t want a Christian tree,” said P.J., grabbing Grandmom’s hand and kneading her doughy skin. I sat down next to P.J. but I don’t think she noticed. “Well, I do,” said Susan, brushing

f l y against the tree as she moved closer to Mom. Lines were being drawn. The sound of a Christmas ball exploding against the hardwood floor shocked us into silence. “When Marc moved to Paris, he didn’t stop painting Russian villages.” Grandmom’s voice cut the silence. “Who the hell is Marc?” It was the first time I heard Grandmom mention Chagall and the only time I heard Mom swear. “Everything he painted stayed in the air.” That’s all she’d say about Marc Chagall.

Bread, Milk By Jeanne Obbard Picture beauty: it’s not what you think, but a day like this one: round, tarnished with the sadness that just is. Just is and no need to fix it. Hard to accept, how that isn’t cause for grief, or reason to ignore dandelions flourishing in a margin of sun or fail to linger over the existential plight of clothespins on an empty line. You may suspect at times that this is all a shirt with three sleeves, and contort yourself, thinking there’s some obstacle between you and you.

The trick is just to wait for life to spend you on the sly, like a foreign penny at the corner store on something necessary. Jeanne Obbard received a Leeway Award for Emerging Artists in 2001. Her work has appeared in The American Poetry Review, Atlanta Review, Anderbo, and the anthology Prompted.

Two weeks after the anniversary party in Ventnor, Grandmom went missing for the first time. P.J. and I knew something was wrong as soon as we walked up the porch steps with a Necco Skybar and two Archie comics and saw the empty rocking chair. Grandmom had given us money for chocolate, and we knew she’d never pass up a chocolate opportunity. If Grandmom wasn’t sitting in her chair on the screened-in porch, she was either in the bathroom or napping in her room. But she wasn’t in either of those places. The call came from the Ventnor police department just as Mom walked in with a bag of groceries. They said the librarian had reported an old lady wandering around the stacks wearing a bathing suit she’d put on backward. The policeman who answered the call recognized Grandmom. He’d covered her with a striped beach towel, but by the time he got her home, the towel had slipped off one shoulder and a wrinkled grandmom boobie bounced up and down like a Slinky. Mom scolded her, P.J. hugged her, and I wondered if I’d ever grow boobies. And if I did, would they look like that? Mom was afraid Grandmom had Alzheimer’s and told us we all needed to keep an eye on her. I looked up the ten signs of Alzheimer’s in the library, and except for the wandering, she didn’t have any of the symptoms described in the book, though there were other changes, like how she cut her wedding veil into strips and knit them into an afghan. I wondered if she just didn’t want to live in this world anymore. But she still loved the beach, sitting in her chair under the umbrella, looking up to watch the Goodyear blimp or planes towing advertising banners. We sat with her by the water’s edge in beach chairs so low the water splashed our butts through the webbing when the tide came in. “Look at that.” She pointed to a boy flying a dragon-shaped kite that spit a paper tongue of fire as it swooped.

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“Marc did a kite painting, but that man is sitting on a roof when he flies his kite.” She drew some letters in the sand: Ox Bowe. “What’s that?” I asked her? “Och Bosheh. It’s Russian.” “What’s it mean?” “Oh God,” she sighed. The second time Grandmom wandered off, we found her on the roof of the lifeguard house where they store rescue equipment. It was late, and the beach was deserted. Grandmom was leaning against the sloped roof, her feet resting on the gutter, which was all that kept her from sliding off. We begged her to stand still and stay calm as Dad ran back to the house to call the police. She stared past us. “Jesus H. Christ,” the cop said as he walked down the ramp to the beach. “How’d she do that? There’s no ladder or Distant Shore by Annalie Hudson © 2012

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M.A. in Writing Studies Join us for an Open House on June 19th, 5:00-7:00p.m. To learn more and register, visit www.sju.edu/writingstudies.

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nothing. She musta swung herself over the boardwalk railing onto the roof.” “Or she flew,” P.J. suggested. That’s the last time I saw Grandmom smile. She was too high up to reach, and the lifeguard house was locked, so Dad ran back to the house to get a ladder. As he set the ladder against the side of the building, Grandmom sidestepped along the gutter to the front of the building, spread her arms, and flew. The sand was soft and deep, so she hardly made a sound as she landed on her side. “Hip fractures can be deadly,” the doctor told my mother a couple days later. “She might never make it out of the hospital. We’ll try to keep her as comfortable as possible and move her to a private room when one becomes available.” Mom and Dad filled her room with flowers, and we brought chocolate bars whenever we visited. P.J. spent as much time as she could at her bedside. That was P.J.’s gift to Grandmom. But there was something I could give her, too. Something I owed her since I’d tried to make her disappear, if only in my imagination. They’d already transferred Grandmom’s belongings to the single

Scan by Marge Horner © 2012 room she’d be moving to the following day. Grandmom had lots of visitors that night, so no one noticed when I slipped out of the room carrying a canvas tote. Walking into Grandmom’s new room I unrolled the pictures I’d ripped out of the Chagall book I’d “borrowed” from

Light Against the Dark of the Café Windows

the library and covered the walls with them—flying cows, and couples, and fiddlers, and horses—until the room danced. Then I climbed onto the nightstand and taped the wedding picture to the ceiling over her bed, so she could look at herself floating high above the village with Marc Chagall, who held her firmly by the hand.

By Steve Burke

In the opposite corner – across the empty tables – is, I think, Max, the young neighbor-man who when he was about two, at our first block party after moving in, toddled away, and was found at street’s end, where yellow tape kept traffic from turning, by then-teenage Sherwood, dead six weeks after arriving in Iraq, some five years past. Max is sitting on a bench leaning over his laptop, maybe writing of why he ran away, or of hearing adults recount it. Or maybe explaining why Sherwood died. Explaining then deleting it. Behind the counter barista Layney washes the evening cups and saucers in the steel sink; night snug as the water on her forearms about this old brick station, and no explanation, no explanation for anything at all. Steve Burke lives in the Mt Airy section of the city with wife Giselle & daughter Mariah; has worked as a labor & delivery nurse for many years; has been wiriting poetry much longer than that; and has been published in PBQ, Schuykill Valley Journal, Apiary, Mad Poets Review.

Natalie Zellat Dyen is a freelance writer and photographer. Her recent fiction and poetry have been published in Willow Review and The Jewish Writing Project. Her essays and non-fiction articles have appeared in Global Woman Magazine, Intercom Magazine, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and other newspapers. She has traveled widely and has recently returned from her second trip to India.

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RED EYE he sits in seat 16G, the window, and pulls out a Jodi Picoult novel she picked up in the airport. Passengers file by and she gets her hopes up that the seat next to her might be empty, give her room to stretch out. But then a decent looking man, forty-fiveish, nods at her, puts his carryon in the overhead and sits in 16F. She discreetly eyes his spread, as she calls it; she hates passengers who ooze onto her side of the arm rest. He is thinnish and self-contained. She is relieved. Three hours into the red-eye, most of the cabin lights are out, passengers asleep. 16F reaches up to turn off his light, pulls the blanket up to his neck, leans his head back, closes his eyes. She has trouble sleeping on night flights and

has developed a routine. She asks the flight attendant for some herbal tea, sips the tea to empty, quietly crushes the cup and slips it into the magazine sleeve. 16F is breathing deeply, slowly—how do people fall asleep so quickly? Now she places her two right fingers over the crease in her left wrist— the Spirit Gate of acupuncture, the path to sleep, according to one of her Chinese friends— and applies pressure. About an hour later—it could have been longer, or shorter—she wakes up, feeling a weight on her left shoulder. It’s the head of 16F, sound asleep. She feels invaded, almost repulsed. Excuse me, she starts to say, and her shoulder tenses as if preparing to toss him off. At thirty-six she has never had a man

fall asleep with his head on her shoulder. She has never been touched before. Not like that. Not by a man. Or a woman. It’s not that she’s untouchable, no one specific thing has taken her out of contention. A bit stocky, with a friendly smile that would benefit from braces. Unpocked skin discretely made up. She dresses decently, not the epitome of style, but thoughtfully and professionally. Plain, is what her mother had called her. Has a good job that takes her traveling. Is a voracious reader. Has friends, mostly women, all of whom she knows have slept with someone, will sleep with someone. Friends who never talk about their sex lives when she is around. She accepts her life without sex, you can’t always get what you want. People learn

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to live with the cards that are dealt them—limited intelligence, or a suicide in the family, or dreams after a war. Not that she feels like a survivor of something; she just knows that no one will want to sleep with her. Work, friends, books, travel: it could be worse. And it’s hard to miss what you have never had, so unknown. His head seems so light. It reminds her of her one-year-old niece, who she baby-sits and rocks to sleep, head tucked in the nape of her neck. She prepares to reach over and tap him on his arm, excuse me, but you fell asleep. This man’s head on her shoulder, so light, breathing quietly in the dark cabin. Her breath falls in step with his. So. This is what it’s like. Not yet, no need to wake him, no hurry to do that. She closes her eyes and lets her head lay back on the seat, feels the lightness of his head. She has an urge to touch his face, just brush it with the back

of her hand; but no. She closes her eyes, tries to sleep, but is unable to. Slowly, her head fills with images: of her hand going under his blanket, finding the V in his legs, un-zipping in the dark, his hand finding her. She holds her breath, trying to feel that, and realizes that this is beyond her imagination. But this head sinking into her shoulder now, this is real. She inhales, seeking an odor, something more of him. Yes, some kind of aftershave, maybe a little musk gathered since his shower this morning. She feels a slight dampness seeping through the upper sleeve of her blouse. So: sleeping men sometimes drool, like babies. She closes her eyes and sleeps. Every few minutes she awakes, the head still on her shoulder, the wonder of it; then falls back to sleep; then awakes. So light. The wonder of it. Six a.m., the lights come on in the cabin, the captain announces they will

be landing in forty-five minutes. 16F stirs, rubs his eyes, realizes he has been sleeping on her shoulder. I’m terribly sorry, he says, I hope I didn’t bother you, have I been on your shoulder a long time? Not to worry, she says, not too long. Did I snore? No, no snoring. Whew, he says, it could have been worse. It was, she says. How so? You drooled. Drooled? Oh no! Just like a baby. Like a baby? he says. He glances at her shoulder, takes a napkin and reaches over as if he is going to dry her sleeve. The flight attendant comes down the aisle, passing out hot towels and coffee. 16F holds the towel to his face, turns to her, I’m really sorry. She likes that his teeth are slightly crooked. No, really, she says, it’s fine. On the other side of the whirring carousel regurgitating luggage she sees him, waiting for his bags. He has collected one piece, there must be more. He picks up a small second bag, puts the strap over his shoulder. She wants him to look across the carousel, just nod. He looks at his watch, then turns and heads toward the ground transportation sign. She turns away and reaches for the dampness on her sleeve.

Mark Lyons has lived in Philadelphia for the last forty years. His fiction has been published in numerous journals and was a part of the “Reading Aloud” series at Interact Theater. He also authored Espejos y Ventanas/Mirrors and Windows, Oral Histories Of Mexican Farmworkers and Their Familes .He was nominated for the Pushcart Prize, and awarded Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Fellowships in literature in 2003 and 2009. Currently, Mark is co-director of the Philadelphia Storytelling Project, which works in the immigrant community and with high school students to teach them to create digital stories about their lives.

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DOVE BAR see death’s door opening!”

“

That was my father’s greeting as I arrived at his room in Bryn Mawr Hospital after a frantic crosscountry flight. My mother had tried to prepare me on the phone. She said, “The doctor says it’s kidney failure, and that it goes quickly. First, he’ll become euphoric, then disoriented, and then he’ll just … fall asleep.”

So this must be euphoria, I thought. “What does it look like, Dad?” I asked. But he just stared at me with an unnaturally bright, unfocused gaze, as if to say, “It’s a good opening line – and it’s all I got.”

chief surgeon and I’m assisting, and we’re both thinking the same thing. See, this guy is old, he’s 76, and he’s not going to make it. It’s not worth taking extreme measures; he’s too weak. But just as we’re about to take off our gloves, the intern, Patek, a really nervous type, pushes us aside, grabs a retractor, uses it like a mallet to crack open the sternum, and reaches in with his hands to manually massage the heart back into rhythm. That’s how we

Paper Wings By Kathryn A. Kopple Icarus, sometimes I think we got it all wrong. You weren’t the son of Titans, but the kid in the back of the class, orphan to a bright burning star,sticking your paper wings together with glue and chewing gum. Kathryn A. Kopple is a translator of Latin American poetry and prose. Her translations have appeared in numerous reviews and anthologies. She has also published original work in Danse Macabre, The Hummingbird Review, and 322 Review. She has a poem titled “Sloth” forthcoming in The Threepenny Review. She lives and writes with her family in Philadelphia.

That wasn’t unusual. Everyone knew that Jules Bogaev was a festival of oneliners. His explanation for why he, his brother and his father all became urologists: “Piss runs in the family.” His explanation for his infamously irascible bedside manner: “You know what? I hate people. But most of all, I hate sick people.” When patients called him at home he practically put them through a standup routine. “How’s your stream?” he’d yell down the line. “Did you void? Jesus Christ, I told you to void!” Somehow, he made it through the office hours, the endless rounds, the seasonal spawn of new medical students at Jefferson Hospital, by telling stories. We referred to his stories as the Ten Greatest Hits, including “The Nurse Washing the Dead Man’s Socks” and “The Thumb Through the Heart.” “There we are, four hours into an operation to repair a ruptured kidney, and the patient goes into cardiac arrest. Russell and I look at each other, he’s the

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b a r did it back then. But you see, the tissue was so old and decrepit; it was rotted through… like wet paper. So before you know it, his thumb goes right through the guy’s heart. Russell and I just stand there, dumbstruck, looking at each other and then down at our patient, now deceased. And then I point at Patek and yell, “Murderer! You killed him!” My father would punctuate the last line by emphatically pointing his finger and stabbing the air, as if he were jabbing the invisible nervous intern in the chest.

“Thumb Through the Heart” was a real crowd pleaser at cocktail parties. He said it slayed his audience every time.

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In the hospital, weakened by diabetes, kidney and heart failure, my father didn’t have the energy for reprisals of the Greatest Hits, but his wit never left him. For hours he would lie in bed, asleep, or appearing to sleep, and then suddenly his eyes would pop open, he’d raise his head and look around the room, as if he were checking to see which side of death’s door he had landed on. Once, when his gaze arrived at me, sitting by the bed, I said with my usual genius for stating the obvious, “Hi. I’m still here.” After a beat, he came back with, “The problem is, so am I.” One afternoon the podiatrist came in to check out my father’s gangrenous toes. He was a young guy, nervous, like the intern of “Thumb Through the Heart”. He prescribed dialysis, explaining that my father might be able to avoid amputation if he arrested the kidney failure. But my father had no intention of arresting anything. The podiatrist looked shaken as he argued that he had patients much older, much worse off, much less alert, who did fine with dialysis. He had tears in his eyes as he pleaded his case. He asked, “What do you want, anyway? It’s only going to get worse. You could stop it here. For God’s sake, where do you see

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n a t a l i e yourself in two weeks?” My father replied, “Where do I see myself in two weeks? I’ll tell you where I see myself. I see myself in the crematorium.” Damn, that was a good line. On the fourth day of our bedside vigil, a nurse suggested that we offer our father something he really loved to eat, since it was likely he’d soon stop eating altogether. When my sister asked him what he’d like, he thought for a few moments, and then said, “I want a Dove Bar.” The diabetic wanted a Dove Bar. And my therapist sister, the former macrobiotic who lived for years on a diet of

rice cakes and almond butter, grabbed her coat, dashed into a 7-Eleven for probably the first time in her life, and brought back the classic version, vanilla ice cream covered in rich, dark chocolate. When I returned from lunch I found my father delicately wielding the heaviest known ice cream novelty bar; his thumb and forefinger grasping the wooden stick and his pinkie finger aloft. Earlier that day he hadn’t had the strength to hold his plastic cup of ice; we’d been shaking the chips into his mouth. Now, not only did he eat nearly the whole thing, he ate it without getting

HONEYMOON By Scott Thomas Memory is a cat. It rarely does what it is told to do. We can say, “Be a good Memory And fetch past days In unblemished detail So I can feel the wind as it felt then, See the morning light as it shone then,” But Memory is not a dog. It will not listen. The Past is a bird With see-through skin, Entrails of sky and sun. Memory pounces. Feathers fly. The Past Escapes being mashed, But there is some damage. Nervous and disoriented, Its song is fractured And so a joyful time, The Thruway south of Albany, Your wife of 24 hours asleep In the passenger seat, Appears without low fuel Or squinting in the sun. Scott Thomas has a B.A. in Literature from Bard College, a M.S. in Library Science from Columbia University, and a M.A. in English from the University of Scranton and is currently employed as a librarian; specifically, Head of Information Technologies & Technical Services at the Scranton Public Library in Scranton, PA. He lives in Dunmore, PA with his wife Christina and his son Ethan. His poems have appeared in Mankato Poetry Review, The Kentucky Poetry Review, Sulphur River Literary Review, and other journals.

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a spot on him. He ate that bar with surgical precision, with complete control, even with a touch of dramatic flair. Perhaps it crossed his mind that “The Dove Bar” might end up on another Top Ten list of family stories. After all, he hadn’t come out with any deathbed confessions, or any long-withheld revelations of any kind. Instead, the stories of “The Dove Bar” and “The Nervous Podiatrist” could be his legacy to us. He died two days later, in the middle of the night, alone. After the hospital called, I thought about animals, how they go off and hide when they’re dying. But my father didn’t hide. I imagine for him it was more a matter of the rightness of things, of allowing himself to exit the stage only after the audience had left the theater, the lights had dimmed, and the cleaning crew had made its late night rounds. The day of the Dove Bar incident, after my father had finished his last earthly meal, hand-delivered by his oldest daughter, and had then sunk back on the pillows to sleep off the glucose payload, I had the urge to leap up, point at my sister, and yell, “Murderer! You killed him!” She wouldn’t have thought it was funny, so I didn’t do it. But I wish I had. I’m sure our father would have appreciated it. I’m sure, even in his deep, nearly final sleep, it would have cracked him up. I would have slayed with that one.

Barbara Bogaev is the host of “Soundprint,” public radio’s national weekly documentary program. In more than twenty years in broadcasting, Bogaev has interviewed rock stars and war correspondents for NPR’s “Fresh Air with Terry Gross,” talked with poet laureates and conscientious objectors for American Public Media’s “Weekend America,” and hosted and produced science, news and arts programming for NPR member-stations WHYY and WXPN. A Philadelphia native, she began her radio career as the producer of the award-winning talk show, “Radio Times with Marty Moss-Coane.” She blogs at alwaysmorequestions.com.

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JEANANN VERLEE Jeanann Verlee was the winner of the first annual Sandy Crimmins National Poetry Contest. Philadelphia Stories spoke with Jeanann about her work. How will you be celebrating National Poetry Month this year? I am taking part in National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo) 30 poems in 30 days challenge. This is my fifth year participating and I find it to be an excellent motivator. It pushes me to take evergreater risks as the month progresses; I find myself trying new things, testing alternative entries into poems, discovering startling new voices. Additionally, on April 22nd at the Nuyorican Poets Café in New York City, photographer Jonathan Weiskopf and I (as editor) will be releasing the portrait and poem anthology, “For Some Time Now: Performance Poets of New York City.” Please join us! Your poem “ Hereditary” just won the Sandy Crimmins National Prize for Poetry. Please explain the creative process you went through in writing it, why you chose to submit it, and what inspired you to write it? Yes, I’m thrilled about the prize. In writing the piece, I wanted to show variable manifestations of manic rage, and to blur the lines between the I, we, and she, so that landing on the mother-daughter relationship would be amplified. Titling came last, though its concept clearly drove the poem. Formatting this piece on the page took substantially more work than is typical for me. Most of my poems settle in to their form during initial drafts, but “Hereditary” underwent many shapes prior to landing at Philadelphia Stories.

By Sam Lasko

women. Women are not allotted much forgiveness in violence; often expected to show quieter emotions. As such, shame is a pervasive function of the illness. I wanted to try to explore feminine rage without apology. In an interview for HTML Giant by Roxanne Gay, you wrote that you enjoy the fact that your writing is never finished. What are the creative steps to feeling like one of your poems is ready to be shared with other people? I try to come at each piece with the same careful attention. From conception to first draft, I work and rework: omissions and rewrites, rearranging lines and words, pushing toward risk, finetuning. I talk myself through each line, focus on how the reader’s eye is guided. Once I’ve worked a piece to the point I can no longer see the poem clearly/objectively, I ask for feedback from close friends and editors. Then I might dip the poem’s toes at an open mic, then more editors, then submissions, etc. I come back to the poem at each interval, working and tightening, looking for every loose cog, missed opportunity. Even still, after publication, I invariably find things I’d like to change or rework. Thus the concept, “never finished.” What ranges of political engagement and modes of resistance does writing/reading poetry offer you? As both a liberal and a feminist, there is often a social/political undercurrent in my own work – regardless of each poem’s content. However, much of my newer work addresses a limited set of social issues, and as such, speaks to a rather finite audience (e.g., women facing the close of childbearing years, or individuals with manic depression). In that, I don’t know if my work can be perceived as “politically relevant” as it may have previously been.

Friend and colleague, Syreeta McFadden, notified me about the contest but my newer work (I had just finished compiling my second full-length manuscript) was locked up in submissions. 16 While I make it a rule to never simultaneously submit poems, Syreeta convinced me to do so expressly for this competition. When “Hereditary” won, I had to scramble to pull the piece from another publication. I’m incredibly excited, and still in a fair amount of shock.

Still, I’ve often asserted that to some extent all poems are both love poems and political poems. Poetry allows more (artistically) political freedom than, say, journalism. Meaning, poets can address a given politician without the rigmarole of trying to schedule a dialogue, or arguing fact-checkers, or navigating backlash counter-reports from the “other” guys (though response poems are fairly popular). Further, poets are not bound to journalistic rules of truth. If I want to stir Rush Limbaugh into a pot of vegetable stew, I can. I can relieve tortured baby Afreen Farooq’s suffering by turning her into a field of daffodils. I can imagine my way through anything and still keep my job. This (to me) means a wider scope of engagement and more fierce modes of resistance. Even if they are untrue in real-world terms, consumers of poetry recognize the intent.

A longstanding theme in my work is the shame behind manic rage within manic depression – particularly its manifestation in

Read more about Jeanann and the 2013 Sandy Crimmins National Poetry Contest at philadelphiastories.org

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Spring Fling and Poetry Celebration Philadelphia Stories' annual Spring Fling at the American Swedish Historical Museum in South Philadelphia added an exciting event to the program this year: we honored the winner of the first Sandy Crimmins National Prize for Poetry contest, made possible by the generous support of Joseph Sullivan. The Spring Fling celebration included readings by the contest winner and other Philadelphia Stories' poets.

Thank you to all who came out to celebrate! Photos by Peter Arthur Photography (www.peterarthurphoto.com)

PS_Summer_2012_PS Summer 5/30/12 10:43 PM Page 19

Opposite page: 1. Joe Sullivan and son Brendan Sullivan 2. Checking out the live auction. 3. Joe and Brendan Sullivan and with Margaret Crimmins 4. Joe Sullivan with winner Jeanann Verlee and poetry editor Courtney Bambrick 5. Poet Brian Heston reads 6. Guests listen to readings This page: 7. Alison Hicks 8. Peter Schoepnik 9. Gabe MacDonnell-Chang 10. Liz Chang 11. Jeanann Verlee

Visit philadelphiastories.org for details on the 2013 Sandy Crimmins National Prize for Poetry.

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GENRE CROSSING by Aimee LaBrie

This past spring, I signed up for a poetry class, and I did so with serious trepidation. As a fiction writer, I haven’t spent much time in the realm of poetry, though I did hang out with a few poets in grad school. As a lot, they were puzzling, prone to short outbursts of sudden conversational insight, as well as to leaving their thoughts half-finished—giving the listener the sense that what they said contained ellipses at the end...Overall, I found them to be, well, flakey. I figured that they perhaps had less stamina than fiction writers—that the best they could do was scribble one page of writing before being exhausted and intellectually spent—they were the sprinters, whereas fiction writers could go the distance, run the marathon. After taking the poetry class and seeing the work required to create a successful poem, I had a new sense of respect and awe for poets.

to scan a line, what to do about rhyming (pro or con?). My brush with poetry was limited to high school English class and Walk Whitman’s “I Sing the Body Electric,” which made me squirm with embarrassment, or Emily Dickinson’s one about the cracked cup, which seemed sad and totally like something a spinster would write. Aw, poor Emily! I thought. It wasn’t until I read e.e. cummings and Auden that I started to wonder if maybe I had been too dismissive of poetry. The only poem I’d ever written was in first grade for Mother’s Day: Mom’s are neat Mom’s are sweat (actual spelling error and/or sophisticated slant rhyme?) Mom’s are nice Mom’s are afraid of little white mice. When I started this poetry class, I was terrified. Mostly, I feared appearing stupid during critiques. What if I accidentally faulted a poem for having sixteen lines or missed a pristine example of enjambment (I still don’t know what this word means)?

Also, let’s be honest, I didn’t “get” poetry; didn’t understand the mechanics of it, how a person came up with an idea, how

As in any good class, we began first by reading collections of poetry. To my relief, I discovered that some poets write in quick snapshot scenes, not unlike a highly condensed short story. They showed me it was okay to write a prose poem, focusing in on one particular thing and telling that story in a shorter form. I also rediscovered overlooking James River Valley in the Virginia Blue Ridge the importance of open all year to artists | www.porcheswritingretreat.com finding the right

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word. Since poetry is a concise, there’s less room to mess around. Every word, every image, every metaphor carries ten times more weight than it does in fiction. Nothing can be wasted. I also found a sense of play in poetry that I’d lost in fiction and learned that the sound of words mattered too; they should go trippingly off the tongue. And then my favorite thing about writing a poem was the sense of satisfaction I received in being able to have a whole draft of something in one sitting. Even though I knew I would have to go back over it again and again, I also discovered that there is poetry in everyday life. Contrary to my beliefs, I didn’t need to find something profound to say about life or death. Instead, I was encouraged to focus on the particular, what it feels like to sit in the chair at the dentist’s office, how I can best describe the splash of light coloring the morning sidewalk, the most apt simile to capture how the cat looks watching a daddy long legs crawl up the bedroom wall. Poetry reminded me that all of it matters. Realizing anew the importance of being exact has helped me improve my fiction writing on both a sentence level and overall. So, whether you are a poet, an essayist, or a short story writer, consider venturing out of your genre and experimenting with a different form. You might find more than just a renewed appreciation of your fellow artist; you might also uncover a new way to enter into your own work.

Aimee LaBrie is an award-winning author and teaches a fiction workshop for Philadelphia Stories.

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“AMERICAN STORIES” Paul MacWilliams ' June 14 - August 17, 2012

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PS_Summer_2012_PS Summer 5/30/12 10:43 PM Page 24

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“Whatever “Whatever Yo

hardly know w u will

I ho

or what I mean” am

the soul truth.” is truth.”

“A writer can do nothing for men more necessary, satisfying, than

Simplicity is the glory of expression.

just simply to reveal to them the infinite possibility of their own souls.”

“What is that you express in your eyes? It seems to me more than all the print I have read in my life.”

located in suburban Philade Philadelphia lphia