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2 Quarto Volume 58

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Quarto

Eklitors

The Literary Magazine of the Undergraduate Creative Writing Program, Columbia University Current and recent undergraduate Creative Writing stu­ dents ^—including non-degree students and students enrolled in other divisions of Columbia University who are taking undergraduate creative writing courses—are encouraged to submit to Quarto. We welcome poetry, fiction, nonflction and drama, including excerpts from longer ivorks.

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Address all submissions and correspondence to: Quarto 612 Lewisohn fiali 2970 Broadway, Mail Code 4108 Columbia University New York, NY 10027 For information on becoming a patron of Quarto, please call the Undergraduate Creative Writing Program at (212) 854-3774.

Text set in Cochin.

Cover photograph by Sarah Hsu, 2006.

Copyright Quarto 2006 All rights are reserved and revert to authors and artists on publication.

ISSN 0735-6536

Executive Editore L a u r e n Gilchrist Melissa Ύαρ Managing Editor Sarah H s u Senior Editord Emily Belli Erich E r v i n g A n n a German Gautam Hans M a r i a Loginova Victoria Loustalot M o s h e Zeilingold Editorial AÒ\^i)or Christina R u m p f Director, Undergraduate Creative Writing Leslie W o o d a r d

Contents Sihiingé Yvonne Woon 9 Microcosm Javier Cabrera-Perez 21 Knobt) Julia Kite 23 On SeMoiu Elizabeth Berger 25 Five Deer Emilie Ana Rosenblatt 26 The Outpojt öunee 1(a) Mubayi 27 The Adfenmry Amy K. Bell 28 Help Chris Westcott 33 Poetry Sticker Book Vanessa Hope Schneider 34

The Fox Went Out on a Chilly Night Erich Erving

Blini) Gmntedd Gabriel Johnston 35

Photographs Maria Micheledes

The Science of Goodbyea Javier Cabrera-Perez 38 (Death) Sentence Kay P r i n s 40 Unborn Esther Martinez 42 The Camiceria Emilie A n a R o s e n b l a t t ΛΑ Straightjacket Chris W e s t e Ott 45 In Défende of Crystal M a t t h e w Orice 46 The Black Box Cora Dean 47 Nowadays Myth Making D o r l a C. M c i n t o s h 53

Off the Grid E z r a Koenig 54 Rfturning Home from Valleyfair, Late August, B.W. Rodysill 56

1988

Siblings Yvonne Woon

i came into this -world in parts, jumbled together with my brother, housed in a box, and imported from Asia. M y parents had to put it all together: arms times two plus ten and ten digits and head to the neck to the twenty-six minus seven vertebrae because some were missing. My father built us into the house, installing his Frigidaire in my chest because I kept on overheating, and a coffee drip in my brother to keep his circulation Avarm and steady.

Then he sat there and waited until the room got cold, while my mother stared numbly from the kitchen.

And this is my first memory: the fog of my father's breath as he whispered to her nervously, "don't worry, all beginnings are made of math. " My mother joked that if she knew it was going to be so complicated, she wouldn't have adopted us in the first place. My brother was half of me, or maybe I was half of him. But we were too young to know how words and num^bers worked.

It is the year of the serpent. We are four. \Vbat are three things you find on the bathroom floor, my mother asks. A wad of hair, a string of floss, and me, kneeling under the sink and staring at my reflection in the tiles.

They glisten -white and opal like the stretch marks on my mother's thighs. She is leaning over the sink flossing her teeth and telling us stories about how we were born. My brother is sitting on the edge of the bathtub, sucking on a popsicle, his lips turning blue. He turns and offers me a bite. His feet are dangling under the running water as it fills the tub.

She says she knew us only as creatures of the sea, ^vashed up from the Pacific after a tropical storm. She found us feeling around the beach in front of her hotel, damp and shriveled and blind. My father bundled us in

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to^wels and cleaned all the sand and film from our hair in a water basin. Our eyes were sealed shut with crust and salt and he massaged them until their seal broke and our blood turned warm. This is my first memory: my mother hovering over us clutching a wet \vashcloth and examining our bod­ ies as -we writhed about in the sink; my father on the edge of the bed, leafing through the bills in his wallet.

We stay in the bath till our skin prunes. My brother has fingers that are browned and spindly, that he sucks on in threes when he is tired. Tonight he is a giant shark w^ith teeth as long as fny entire body and a fin as sharp as his shoulder blades. I hide in the lather and stay especially still, so that I won't be ripped apart. He approaches slo-wly from the corner of the tub, eyeing the pink of my belly, and then pounces, pulling me underwater by a fistful of hair. Water rushes through my nose and I breathe it in until it feels like my face is being crushed. I feel his hand on the top of my head, pushing me deeper into the tub.

He knows it hurts but sometimes there isn't enough room for both of us. I can hear my mother shout, though it seems like she is miles a^vay. She says: Paul, let go. Don't do that to your sister.

Paul: I never call him that. I change his name in phas­ es, because he needs a name that Λνιΐΐ evolve w t h him.

Paul: I mutter it in my sleep sometimes, sounding out all the vowels. O r that's what he tells me.

He lets go and I surface. The soap stings my eyes when I open them. He is fetal underwater, pushed up against the porcelain, and he can hold his breath for much longer than I can. I -wonder hoΛv long he is going to stay down there. His face looks big and distorted through the water, and it seems as though we are of a different species.

I nudge him and speak to the top of his head: "I'm getting out ηοΛν."

He can hear me but he doesn't respond. I say: "Polfywog, I'm getting out now. I'm getting out no-w and you don't even care." He stays underwater because he

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knows he can. I -want him to know that there are things that I can do too.

I'm the small one, and my mother lifts me from the bath with a towel as if I am weightless, and carries me to bed. My limbs are soft and slippery and do not -want to stay in place, and she hooks a finger in my mouth to keep me still. My brother slinks under the sheets next to me; his body is eely and creeps all over the mattress, nibbling at my toes -while I try to sleep. I turn my back to him and curl into myself.

He says: I'm cold.

He says: I -was just joking.

He says: The w^ater was too shallo-w -without you.

I face him and w^e lie side by side in crescent moons. I ask him to tell me where he thinks -we came from and he speaks to me in code, -whispering in a tongue that is long and blue and amphibious, that only I can understand: we come from each other.

It's a game, he and I together as one. We get lunch at the school cafeteria. M y brother has grown his hair out long so that I can braid it like mine. It is black and fine, like the tas­ sels on living room couch that -we hide our -vitamins under before school. We sit together on the benches, sharing the same tray, the same braids. The boys sitting across from us make fun of his hair. They lean into the table and call him a girl; they tell him that he wants to be his sister. I laugh, and say: "Shylie, you really do look girlish." The boys laugh at the name Shylie, and he looks down and takes large, angry, bites of his sand-wich until it is gone. There is a dab of may­ onnaise on his cheek. I want to tell him, but I don't. That night he cut his hair off in front of the bathroom mirror, then crawled into bed next to me and pulled at my scalp until a big chunk came out. My pillowcase was -wet -with tears and snot and blood the next morning.

Paul told me to call him Jarktho that -week. I said it was too long and called him Jark. My parents though it was

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jerk and scolded me, so I shut myself in my rOom all day and wrote mean things about them on pieces of notebook paper. Paul snuck me cookies upstairs and said I looked better with less hair. He said maybe we could walk to the video store later and get some strawberry suckers.

Midnight: he creeps into my room and we go into the closet -with flashlights and the candy. I dare him, three times, to stick all of his share in his mouth at the same time.

I'll give him all of mine if he can do it. That's easy, he says.

The wrappers are waxy and loud and one by one peel off to the smell of strawberry jam. One, three, six, seven, swollen like a blister. I laugh. Saliva is oozing out the sides of his mouth, dyeing his chin pink. He laughs, then coughs, and all of the candies spill out onto the floor like pomegranate seeds. 1 imagine that he is made of strawberry suckers, that his stomach is lined with them, and I bend over to inspect them, looking for something that tells me what he is, looking for something that looks like me. He keeps coughing, tells me he thinks he swallowed one and it hurts. I say: "Don't worry, it's just sugar." But he has a stomachache and starts crying. He curls up in the corner and closes his eyes. His face is pink and sticky in the morning. We hide the unwrapped candies under the couch.

It is one of our first trips to the museum. We are nine. I feel like I know this place. So does my brother, but he seems to remember more than I do, as if he is older. The cashier thinks so too, he won't sell my brother a children's ticket because he is taller. I announce: "but we are twins." And he thinks I am lying. My father leafs through a wad of bills, muttering: this is an outrage. He takes us to see the Native Americans, and we w^alk through the cavernous hallways looking for them until my feet swell up in my shoes.

We end up in Korea, in 1953, the armistice of the War. And we walk down the hallway, back in time to 1952, 1951, 1950; from South Korea to the North. And it is as if we are entering a jungle. There are nets and helmets hanging from the ceiling, and tall grass pasted to the walls.

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We pass a room with a video screen in it, projecting a line of soldiers trailing through a field with prisoners. I watch them in black and white as we pass.

My father stops in front of a photograph of naked children running down a street. They look like me, but thinner. The air is thick and black in the background, and scattered with soldiers. I can't make out their faces.

My father says: "This is where you came from."

I stare at the photograph. It takes up the entire wall.

My brother goes up close. The children are life-sized, they are about his height.

Before we can get a good look, my mother pulls us away. "Don't tell them that," she says. "Is that what you want them to think?"

I sit cross-legged on the floor and lean my head on one arm. My brother collapses next to me in a tired heap.

O u r parents are arguing, they leave us to the ground. It's better that way. Paul tells me he wants a new name. An Asian-sounding one. He asks me to help him think of one.

I think hard, but I don't know any Asian names. Neither does he. We give up.

He says: "Do you think we really came from that place?"

I think about it. "No." We are foundlings. People walk by and stare at us but I want to stay here and grow dusty and outdated with him, so we won't be alone, so we will be preserved as we are now, for everyone to see.

I say: "He said this is where we came from."

So we were born in the museum of history, from a vending machine in the basement. We had to wriggle out of our plastic packaging on the floor as my parents stood back and watched, their fingers fidgeting with the change in their pockets. "I was suffocating in there," my brother cried, gasping for breath. I -was tangled up in wrapping, cutting off my circulation. M y parents stared at us

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strangely, our hair black and matted with grease. I licked my lips; they were covered in salt and preservatives, and my father leaned forward to pick me up. And this is my first memory: the lipstick on my mother's mouth as she cautioned, "The signs say 'don't touch.'" And my brother squirmed around on the floor, shaking up the carbonation in his blood till I could hear it fizz.

The last time I saw my brother was in the car. My par­ ents were driving us back from a bird park that my brother didn't -want to go to. Most of the birds had migrated south already, but my mother pointed out all of the different kinds of feathers, nests and eggshells they left behind. On the ^vay home the backseat was swallowing my brother up as he sank into sleep against the window, his head vibrating in rhythm with the movement of the car. He was fifteen and his upper lip had just begun to sprout tiny black hairs.

Everyone said it was because he •was a late bloomer, but I knew it ^vas because he was too much like me.

And this is my last memory: the color red and the bot­ tom of my brother's feet. His chest is leaking out onto Route 20 and he has spilled out of the car in pieces, his limbs mixing with its mangled parts on the road. The door is jammed open and I step out, crunching plastic under my feet. He is splayed out next to the yello-w lines, his body scuffed up like a bumper. I kneel down next to him, picking up a shard of metal, and poke his arm with it. His eyes remain shut. I Λvant to say his name, but I don't kno'w what to call him, so I whisper in his ear: We are machines.

The air has turned off and everything is still. There is a pressure in my chest. I am hot and -water-logged, but 1 have no pores to sweat it from so it all leaks out through my eyes.

This is the first time we met: I brought him soft serve from the hospital cafeteria and left it on the side of his bed

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even though I knew it would just sit there and melt. It •was two weeks after he was -wheeled into the hospital, after the doctor asked me to give him a blood transfusion, after my blood was drawn and tested, after he informed my parents that I was w^ritten in a different genetic code, that we were not related. Were w^e aware of this?

He swallowed, waiting for an ans-wer, and held out a clipboard, saying he could show us the test results. I took the documentation from him and tried to read it, but as I studied them the words and numbers blurred and rearranged themselves, erasing and re-wnting my memory, my brother, me.

I excused myself w^hile my parents talked to the doctor and ^vent to the bathroom, where I found myself leaning over the sink trying to gag. 1 inspected my face to find any hint of my brother, but it was the same as always, only with no origin, no likeness to anything else. So I sat on the floor under the faucet and tried to think of something that I belonged to, but I couldn't remember anything.

Paul: I repeated his name over and over in my head until the letters and sounds jumbled together and made no sense, until that part of me was lost and I was by myself for the first time, sitting in silence, except for a drip. It •was like the one in my brother's chest, only closer and more real. I glanced up and saw that there -was •water dripping from the basin. I arched and twisted my back to touch it until I turned into pipes and porcelain.

I sit by his bed w^ith the melting ice cream and fiddle •with the IV feeding into his ^vrist. His face is made of tubes and plastic. He shivers in his sleep as I touch his •wrist. I pull off the blankets and open his robe to look at his chest. He is brand new, put together in parts. There are lines of stitches climbing up his torso like branches, sw^aying and expanding and contracting with every breath. I trace them with the tip of my finger, a living thing.

His eyes open and my arm curls back. He looks do^vn at

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his sutures. He thinks they look like streets oft a roadmap.

He jokes: "1 am Route 20." His voice cracks.

I am silent.

"What did they put in me?" He asks.

"You lost a lot of blood. You needed a transfusion.

They had to put you back together from scratch."

He jokes: "I came back into this world in parts." He mimics me. He thinks he is being clever, but it's real, and I don't know how to play this game. 1 avert my eyes selfconsciously.

He looks at my arm. "Were you the one that...?"

I try to explain, but the words are stuck in my throat like a wad of hair.

I say: "It's like you're starting over from the beginning, like we're starting over from the beginning, the very beginning."

He doesn't know what I mean.

I say: "I couldn't give you my blood."

I say: "You're not my brother and I'm not your sister."

And I've run out of things to say. The air is heavy and smells of infection, but I stay because I want to get an emotional reaction from him because I don't know how^ to react. He looks at me hard, then sits up in bed and closes his robe. He says he needs to sleep, he needs to think. H e asks me ho'w I found out, ho'w long I knew, ho-w long I kept it from him.

I say: The doctor, two ^veeks.

He lies back down, his back facing me, huddling under the blanket. I ask him if I can get into bed too, I can keep him warm.

I say: "We can just pretend, like before."

He is quiet. I don't know if heard me. I plead: "We can just pretend."

He doesn't respond. Maybe he can't understand me.

Maybe he feels alone too. I hear a drip, it's not his, it's coming from the IV. And it's like we never spoke.

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Four months later my brother started watching television, and we pretended that nothing happened, but it wasn't the same. He made friends at school that he drives around with every afternoon until it gets dark. At night he slinks downstairs into the cellar after our parents go to bed, to \vatch the late programs.

It is Monday. The television sits old and outdated in the basement near the laundry machines, because we never used to watch it. And here he has found his place, among the lint and dryer sheets and damp, dirty laundry.

The smell of rotting wood stings my nose as I creep down the stairs to visit him in the middle of the night.

He is sitting in a pile of old linens, close to the screen because there is no remote control and he must do everything manually. He makes room and I sit next to him and watch the screen. The sound is scratchy and the voice fills the air with history. I am not interested in the documentary, I am interested in the piece of metal sticking out of his eyebrow.

I say: "There is something on your face," and touch it.

"It's a piercing." He is nonchalant, he is fixed on the television.

"Where did you get it?"

"At that place near the warehouse. 1 think I'm going to get a bunch more."

"I like it." I wish he would look at me, pay attention to me. I say: "Where do you think we came from?" He doesn't respond. I say: "Come on, where do you think we came from?"

He is irritated, he says: I don't kno-w.

I stare at him, waiting, until he turns to me. He has been watching television for hours and sees everything in black and •white, in thirteen channels. He says: "My mother popped me out like a blackhead and then fell asleep and left me behind. It was 31 years after the Korean War and I w^as left m that village until the back of my skull became flat as a rice paddy and my eyes -were

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caked shut -with conjunctivitis... ' I sink deeper in the hnens. ...and I don't know where you came from.

My eyes •wander around the room. He has filled it with things that are his, and his alone. They are illuminated by the light from the screen. He likes to collect medieval weaponry and mouth insults while pretending to jab me with daggers, swords words: sharp and deep and ancient.

"You made that up," I say quietly.

"So, what's the difference?"

He turns to face the television and I sit and watch it with him until my eyes dull.

We are seventeen, and my mother has sent us out to pick up her dry cleaning. Paul drives because I like to look out the windo-w. It is two weeks after Christmas and the snovi^ is getting dirty and we are back on Route 20. I drive on this road almost every day without thinking about the past, but today 1 feel like remembering. My brother does not want to have a conversation; he turns the radio on, he likes to listen to talk. I am used to this by now. My eyes are lazy and drift to the windo\v. The ground outside is brown and frozen and patched with snow. We are near the site of the crash, and we pass a small house with a nativity scene in the front yard.

The figures are made of translucent plastic that has been stained and faded by the weather, and they look cheap. I imagine them as real people, and I find it funny that they are always stuck in the same pose, stuck In the same moment.

I tell Paul to look. I want him to see the same things that I see in it, so that we can reflect and laugh about it together. I watch him from the corner of my eye because I want to see his reaction. The metal rings in his ear tremble slightly as we drive over the gravel, weighing him down on the right. He glances in my direction to see it while we drive by, but his eyes travel to my low cut shirt, to the bra strap taught against my shoulder, to the pink

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flesh peeking out. And he is curious and disgusted and shameful all at once. I cross my arms across my chest, hoping he doesn't know that I saw, and he averts his eyes to look at the nativity scene. But we have already passed it, and in just three seconds this place has changed, and I will always remember Route 20 as the street where my brother looked down my shirt for the first time. I shift uncomfortably in my seat. Maybe this all that relationships are: the rewriting of memories and histories, so that we can evolve with each other and not dwell on the past.

It is April and everything is thawing. It is apparently our birthday. This is how he celebrates: eighteen piercings and a new television. At night I visit him and ^vatch the television, but I usually fall asleep before the program is over. Tonight I will stay up the whole night, so that the night becomes an extension of the day and tomorrow will still be my birthday. We are sitting in a pile of old linens that have been stacked here since we were young. The hair on his legs makes my thigh shiver, and we are not related.

When I think he's not looking I inch closer to him until our arms are barely touching. He makes me nervous. I keep my eyes fixed on the television until the picture is blurred and I see everything in pixels, and I turn to him long after he has leaned back and fallen asleep. It is dark except for the light from the screen, which casts shadows over his face in all the right places, dividing him into fragments. I study each of his parts, understanding him piece by piece. And 1 •want to he down next to him, but 1 don't, because I feel that some parts of us are still related.

I nudge him to see if he will wake, but he remains still and I huddle over his body so that I can go deeper. His face IS made of constellations; it is filled with metal and made of holes that are as deep as the fingers that I want to use to spread them open with, so that 1 can peer in and look inside his head. These holes are wounds from the

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war, when he escaped and swam across the ocean to be here ^vith me. They are bites from fish trying to gnaw^ at him underwater. They're places he puts things that he doesn't ^vant to forget. And the pieces of metal are screw^s to keep his bones in place, so that he doesn't fall apart every morning when he tries to stand up. He shudders and mumbles something in his sleep and I wait. When he is especially still, I close my eyes and pass my palm over the studs in his face, reading him in Braille, mapping him over and over until he becomes a familiar place. I feel my own face: my mouth, my nose, my ears. I have holes too.

Maybe this is -what we share.

I stay up until it is light out. When he wakes, I roU to my side and pretend to sleep, staring at the cracks in the cement floor. And it feels as though I am outside, lying on the pavement in the middle of the street. There are no cars and it's cold. My nose, my toes are numb, and I feel as if they aren't there. The gravel is poking holes through my skin, my lungs, and all I can hear is air deflating: miss miss.

Microcosm Javier Cabrera-Perez

1 IUI ojo^, tud ojoj, y o u said. your eyed, I said, are Ukeforejtd — the irued are dunflowerd and behind them tiny vdiagea dpreaà. what do the i>ilLagerd do? yon

asked.

In the villages, tired old men wait for their wives to come home.

The men in your villages compose poems about my amber planets, (seen as lightning bolts, across the sky) and research methods on how to travel space.

Their houses, trains and waiting rooms are layered on hills and spilled like heartbeats across the valley ^— sleeping, moving, waiting.

They discover things about the void between us — for example: "supernovas are a good source of elements heavier than oxygen."

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A renowned scientist among them postulates curious theories: "shooting stars are beautiful, and rare, much like molecules of water in western plains of our body.'

There are launch pads in every street — bottle rockets Λvith poems are sent up-wards. They say "I love you like the sun rising over the grapevines "I love you like a forgotten train, rumbling back into a station" but the rockets fall short, and the poems spiral do-wn through the atmosphere, burning.

They have found, in their studies, that from my side of the stars to yours Travel is limited by resources, much more than space: In my galaxies, in order to love you I must give up the oxygen that I consume (and leave, exhaling as a divagating supernova)

Knobs Julia Kite

f l o w do people like you have sex?"

On a bed with legs apart, you want to answer. You've aWays dreamed of having one up against the wall, but despite skinniness, despite easy transfer from the worn asshammock of your chair, it's impossible. The human rib cage, with enough pressure applied to it, can snap into splinters and all-too-easily puncture a lung, lacerate a liver.

So, yes, on a bed with legs apart, knees cushioned by foam rubber padding atop the mattress because you're always on top. It saves the poor boyfriend the trouble of having to pull out and dial 911 because the girlfriend broke again -when he tried to take a ride on the upper deck.

It happens. Passion of the moment. When you're mak­ ing it happen, or he's helping you out, at the point where brain turns to blotto, he forgets the word you yelled into his ear at the bar: oàteoijene<iL· imperfecta. Long words make you sound smart. Shitty body, but the brain works perfectly fine. After all, there's one great thing about your condition: no one expects you to be smart. When guys see a girl in a ^vheelchalr they assume she's paralyzed, and some of them get off on the thought. All the fun of rape and none of the legal repercussions. But oh no, you have motion and you have feeling. You feel plenty of pain when a femur snaps. In normal folks it's the bone least likely to do so. For you, it's the third time, and it means another three months of shifting to smooth the skirt under your cripple ass because plaster casts make you too big for jeans.

You will never have children. This didn't bother you until you were slapped with the fact that it could never happen. The parasite bulging from behind your navel, in the rare chance that it lasted until term, would pry apart the half-moons of your pelvis—^and it's pelvis, never hip^i.

You kno-w better than to use layman's terms. The baby

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\vould, if you v^ere lucky, crack the bo\vl of bone straight down the center hke a spht clam. But half the time you're not lucky, you're screwed. Then it could be your spine.

You kno'w these knobs and •what they can do, and how to make them move at your every -whim. It's a pity ploy.

But for now you stare up, neck perpetually stretched, at the bulk of the abled asker, wondering ^vhat he could do atop you. How do peopL· like you have jex? You never had those nice-girl worries about masked strangers dragging you into an alley to have their •way; you worried about a simple lover's cuddle turning the night red •with ambu­ lance sirens and ho^w he •would never even send flowers to the hospital. So you smile and shout out a sneaky, cheeky reply: What, you wanna find out? You smile up from your seat but you wonder hoΛV it •would feel, the 100 pounds of you and 150 of the po^wer chair, against his bones, and the sound he -would make cracking to the floor if you \vould only reach out and push that knob.

O n seasons Elizabeth B e r g e r

Ά. man -with gray for eyes and lines in a dry clay face sleeps in the grass under an oak tree.

His fingers are curved around a copper peach, an offering of cherry pits is scattered at his feet, and his •white toes are dark •with mountain soil.

The green shado^ws fall on his back and leafy sister-branches bo^w to the breezes on the bro^wn-headed hill.

A •wind combs through the leaves and touches his silent •white ears.

When green gro^ws to dry gray on the oak's old limbs the clay man leaves the mountain.

His feet grate on the gray cement and the high stone steps of the locked tower where he lives.

But at his streetcorner a young oak grows.

And on a marble day he sees its shivering fingers bless his cracked doorstep.

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Î&#x201C;

Five Deer

the outpost

A Found Poem

Suneel(a) Muba3n Emilie A n a R o s e n b l a t t A few blocks of cement A tin roof (dripping) A small fire An old teapot One nargila Some plastic chairs a fe^w blankets This is all ^ve have standing up against against what against something

Î&#x201C; or reasons that mystify authorities, five deer made their way to the top of a five-story parking garage and leaped to their deaths Sunday.

The police lieutenant found the does' bodies on a service road beside a security van they'd narrowly missed.

"They took the plunge, " he said.

"It was just absolutely ^veird."

Wait, talk, sit for impending bulldozers and blows for bulldozers and blo^ws to tear down this little piece of nothing

A -woman called the police when she saw the deer falling.

It's unclear how the deer got into the garage, but the lieutenant said

In this land of olive trees older than our ancestors I would make love to you tell the zaytoon about us, to remember us take it with them to the next life when the bulldozers come

they may have become frightened after being trapped,

But the ghosts of olive trees and their memories, haunt us threatening to pierce the calm any moment.

cars moving through the garage may have spooked them,

they could have been fooled by the sassafras trees that can be seen past the top of the garage, thinking they were close to home.

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I

The Adversary Amy K. Bell 1 arrived late, walking from my dorm to the Career House in the rain, all the -while staring at the backside of a curvy girl in cowboy boots and a miniskirt, who stomped in front of me the whole way.

The curvy girl didn't hold the door for me, and I shuffled to catch up. We both stepped into a marble lobby room with plush, high chairs and men reading ne-wspapers. The walls of the Thorpe Room were a deep scarlet color, and on them hung several faded portraits of men in robes. A large weighted banner advertising the presentation hung hastily on the French doors.

1 felt a wave of pungent heat at the entrance, for all the bodies of hopeful applicants interested in the cute women from Resources talk about the exciting opportunities at William Lufton Johnson, Inc., the famous advertising firm. The presentation had already started, and the room •was nearly full. I virent and stood in the back by the pro­ jector, scanning the rows of people for an opening. The audience \vas mostly women Λν^Η large jew^elry, like me, and a few men in suits. The curvy girl stood next to me with her arms crossed. I had never seen her before on campus. She had a pretty face though she was sco-wling, her dark ironed hair curling up from the rain and her teal sweater soaked through. I had the same peacock feather earrings and I felt a twinge of envy ^vhen I examined her unique oversized opal ring.

The whir and heat of the digital projector was dis­ tracting, but I nodded along with all of the W L J woman's more emphatic phrases. I switched my purse-bookbag from one shoulder to the other.

A short girl in a sweatshirt got up from her seat in the last row and left. I positioned myself at the end of the roΛv and stepped gingerly over sheer knees and pointy shoes

QUARTO 28

and sat down carefully. As 1 settled I caught the eye of the W L J ^vornan and she smiled. Her earrings jingled at my arrival.

"Welcome, glad you could be here," she said and con­ tinued with the PowerPoint. Τ smiled back and nodded my head, flipping my hair quickly over my shoulders because I was going to get do-wn to business and take notes. I felt a tap on my shoul­ der. It was the curvy girl who had -walked -with me.

"Excuse me, I was about to get that seat. I think maybe you cut me off?" she -whispered. Her breath smelled like Ricola mints, my favorite brand of mints. I looked at my lap, and then into her eyes. They -were dark and expectant and thick-lashed from volumizing mascara.

I had to insist, despite the friendly smell of her breath.

"I'm sorry," I pulled back the corner of my mouth into an embarrassed and unsupportive smile. "But I was here first..."

She didn't like how I emphasized//n*/^.

"Look, it's my seat, you stepped on my foot when you brushed past me, look," and she pointed to her right boot, -which had my sneaker print on it. I hadn't realized.

"Oh, gosh, I did didn't I. Sorry about that, I certainly didn't mean to."

The girl stood up straight and put one hand on her hip expecting me to get up no-w. I could see the outline of her bra through her delicate knit s-weater because she was jut­ ting out her bigger chest, triumphant. Her eyeliner had smudged belo-w her left eye, and I -wanted to laugh.

I got up and excused myself politely to the other women I had to step over, again. She got ready to move down the ro-w but I caught her fleshy arm. She had a muscle under there, and it reminded me of my o-wn.

"Nobody had claimed that seat. I didn't take it from you," I whispered.

"No, but your fucking club foot stepped on mine and nearly broke it, and I want to sit do-wn," she hissed back.

QUARTO 29

She wrenched her arm out of my grasp. I dug my nails in as she pulled it a-way.

We stood there for a moment, paralyzed; I felt myself flushing from the heat in the room. We were beginning to attract attention. Finally the girl shook her head, heaved her chest emphatically and walked quickly and loudly out the doors.

The W L J woman looked up at me when she heard the doors close. I tucked a lock of hair behind my ear slowly, smiled at her, and slipped out without clacking my heels.

I let the door close softly and then turned around.

The girl stood in front of me with her arms crossed.

Fucking bitch, I thought with rage.

"What the fuck is your problem?" I said excitedly. I hadn't done this since middle school on the blacktop with the boys.

I thought she would yell back and we'd fight that way, but instead she reached out for a chunk of my hair, closed her fingers around it and yanked. I made a throaty sound and pulled her hand away. Some strands had wrapped themselves around that ring.

From the tension and w^idth of her arm I assessed that I was much stronger than she was. I held her wrist still, then decided to twist her arm. She howled loudly and 1 held it there. The men put down their newspapers and peered around the high backs of their chairs.

1 let go and stepped back, a feeling of shame and propriety reigning in my wildly beating heart. 1 was fighting someone in the foyer of the Career House! Before 1 could extract myself she caught my foot with hers and I went down, hitting the cold marble floor with my butt. 1 looked up through hair that had fallen into my face, and she laughed at me. It was a slow fight, not how I expected fighting to be at all. I wasn't sure if we were flirting or if she was going to kick me in the face with her thick boot.

1 didn't wait. I got up on my knees and bear-hugged her legs together, bringing her down to the floor. She caught

QUARTO 30

herself with her hands, but still hit her head on the marble floor and lay there for a moment. Then, without turning to look at me she reached out and grabbed another chunk of hair and hugged my head with clasped hands against her body, occasionally beating furious ineffective blows against my back and grunting like a tennis player. I could see a smear of blood on the marble tile. I held my position, wondering -what to do next. Her right breast -was just above my head, so I turned my face into her stomach flesh and bit into her. Her sweater threads tasted like perfume, which made my nose crinkle and I released my jaws.

She cried out, "Stop it, I'm bleeding," and I pulled away from her. She touched her hairy ringed hand to her forehead and smeared the blood against her thumb, as though checking if it were real. It had dripped on both of us. She lifted up her sweater and examined where I bit her. I stared into her tummy roll and giggled. She ignored it.

1 stood up and fixed my hair back into its ponj/tail, smiled quickly at the men behind their newspapers, and noticed with slight panic, the glaring young man at the desk on the phone.

1 tapped the girl's shoulder and pointed at him.

"Let's get out of here now," I told her. She understood and I helped her up.

We ran back through campus, back to the cluster of dormitories, pausing behind a statue of Alexander Hamilton to catch breath. I was smiling and picking angora hair off my tongue. The girl was examining her wounds with her back turned. I offered her my red goldthreaded scarf to hold against the wound at her forehead.

She fingered it and looked at me, doubting.

"You sure?" she asked. "It'll ruin it."

"Nah, it's red, you won't even see the stain," I replied.

I spread it out, folded it once over and pressed it carefully over her forehead, tying it at the nape of her neck. She

QUARTO 31

adjusted it a little a n d sighed, shuffling hef feet.

"You're s t r o n g for a girl," she said after a n awk^vard beat.

"So are y o u , " 1 replied. 1 t h o u g h t m a y b e I'd seen h e r in t h e F e m i n i s t Lit lecture I t o o k t w o y e a r s ago. I felt t h a t b y b e a t i n g h e r I h a d m a d e her, h a d crafted h e r a n d n o w she w a s a p e r m a n e n t fixture, m y s t a t u e s q u e creation. It â&#x20AC;˘was a b s o l u t e l y a b s u r d to h o l d a c o n v e r s a t i o n .

"You t h i n k we'll get i n t e r v i e w s ? " she a s k e d g r i n n i n g , h e r eyes looking over m y shoulder. " W e ' r e -women who'll fight for w h a t w e w a n t , " I said w i t h a s h r u g . S h e t u r n e d t o leave, giving m e half of a n o d before s t o m p i n g off. I v^anted to s h a k e h e r h a n d , b u t she w a s d o n e vi^ith m e .

OUARTO 32

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QUARTO 33

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QUARTO 35

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Maria Micheledes QUARTO 36

M a r i a Micheledes Q U A R T O 37

The Science of Goodbyes

'

Javier Cabrera-Perez

Oometimes I feel my skin is a city in Spain, ^vhere you live as a gypsy and I hate ho-w you stand in Madrid, in El Museo del Prado, naked, hunching over your body with a dolphin at your feet.

Symmetry, Spirituality: the crude-and-cruel architecture of your breasts, as a statue, much like you, but refusing to be photographed alive.

I'm learning how to use Cable Theory and squid nerves, electricity of the brain, models to explain how I woke up in Barcelona, dreaming about your molecules.

I wanted to wrap you in myelinated sheets to conserve your signals or maybe open up my chest and shelter you like a butterfly in a bullet-proof vest.

when we swim together.

A scientific theory can always be proven wrong, so we believe in astrology, the throw of the dice, our heart as an oracle. Vividly I remember: awake, thinking you were pressed against me, and I see the marina instead, with the boats and the sea, clumsily imitating your irises, not as grey or iridescent.

These are the strange things I dream about: two bodies with one head, our souls collapsed like childish lungs.

When dreaming, I am confused like the wall is confused when I drive a nail through its flesh, the same wall upon which I kissed your necklace, leaving an antiquated aura of glory.

Afterwards, I rearranged my furniture and lungs to be closer to the lights, to see you reflected in the windows as a maybe-comeback-goodbye, expanding, smiling, unraveling the arteries.

I sit in the cross-town bus listening to others in love, or searching for love, making up explanations for the concreteness of angels or theories of how space-time folds over our backs

QUARTO 38

QUARTO 39

(Death) Sentence Kay Prins

I n the absolute stillness of the night — a n d , in e m p l o y ing the w o r d , "absolute," I g r a n t e x c e p t i o n s for crickets, owls, w h o r e s , a n d other denizens of the night — a n unwilling p r o t a g o n i s t , d r e n c h e d in the sweat of a n a u t h o r ' s n i g h t m a r e , stirred from b e t w e e n the covers of a n u n w r i t ten b o o k , s h e d d i n g the softly-uttered syllables of sleeptalk, disentangling himself from t h e plot of a m u r d e r o u s b u t utterly compelling — and, to t h e a u t h o r at least, w o r t h y of s e a r c h i n g blindly in the d a r k for a l e a t h e r - b o u n d d i a r y a n d a p e n — half-dream, r u b b i n g t h e n i g h t t i m e images of a future déjà vu from his eyes, a n d , looking a r o u n d at this n e w l y formed w o r l d (with t h e ink still d r y ing on its t w i n k l i n g stars, a few of w h i c h h a d b e e n s m u d g e d in t h e author's h a s t e to c a p t u r e t h e stillness before it slipped a w a y in t h e half-darkness before the d a y light) h e s o u g h t t o sip the s-weet n e c t a r of t h e w i n t e r night's air w i t h his searching t o n g u e ; to feel the r o u g h e d g e d p a g e s melt a w a y into w i n t e r w i n d ; to w a n d e r the w i n d i n g p a t h s of p e n strokes (illuminated b y the a u t h o r ' s eyes w h i c h g l o w e d softly in t h e early m o r n i n g d a r k ) t h r o u g h a m a z e of half-thoughts a n d unfinished plotlines, b o r d e r e d b y t h e s n o w y e m b a n k m e n t s of m e m o r y ; to s t u m b l e u p o n a silvery ink-lake, t u r n e d to ice b y t h e chilly night air a n d t o see the silhouette of a s h a d o w - w o m a n , leaning, t h i n k i n g , d r e a m i n g u p o n a b a r r e n t r e e b y t h e s h o r e ; to c o m e u p o n h e r figure w i t h t h e s w i s h i n g , w h o o s h i n g , c r u n c h i n g s o u n d of the w i n d t r y i n g to erase footsteps in t h e snow; to t a k e his h a n d —a h a n d I o n c e h a d seen floating in t h e whirlpool of the a u t h o r ' s m e m o r y — a n d place it u p o n h e r ivory shoulder, laid b a r e b y h e r flimsy red dress a n d a betrayal of the a u t h o r ' s p e n ; t o feel t h e m o m e n t a r y goose pimples o n h e r a r m , w h i c h w a s e x p o s e d to t h e bitter w i n t e r air, a n d to see h e r eyes as t h e y c a p t u r e

Q U A R T O 40

his o w n , p o u r i n g h e r soul into his b o d y ; to h e a r t h e •whoosh-crunch of a n o t h e r set of footsteps a n d t o t e a r himself a w a y from his d r e a m - c o n n e c t i o n to h e r h e a r t ; to see t h e silhouette of a s h a d o w - m a n d r a p e d a c r o s s t h e sky, c o v e r i n g t h e s m u d g e d stars a n d h i d i n g t h e i r imperfection; to h e a r t h e s o u n d of a h a r s h voice slice its w a y across t h e air, t e m p o r a r i l y d r o \ v n i n g out the c h i r p i n g of t h e crickets a n d t h e catcalls of the w h o r e s , w h i c h h a d o n c e p r o v i d e d t h e b a c k g r o u n d music of t h e night ( b u t h a d t h e a u t h o r d r e a m e d this voice or h a d she let h i m c o m e t o life?); to feel rustle of t h e s h a d o w - w o m a n ' s silk t e a r into his soul a n d to h e a r his skin a n d t h e soft caress of a silk d r e s s b r u s h i n g h u r r i e d l y by; to see the s h a d o w - m a n ' s a d v a n c e u p o n t h e lake, t h e tree, t h e d r e a m e r ; to feel t h e a u t h o r ' s horror, shock, revulsion in t h e b e t r a y a l of h e r pen, a n d to w a t c h t h e p e n s t r o k e p a t h s w e n d their w a y t o w a r d an inkstained hell; t o h e a r t h e s h a d o w - w o m a n ' s \ v h i m p e r s o u n d w e a k l y in t h e n e a r - d i s t a n c e (is t h a t a flash of red he sees t h r o u g h t h e b r a n c h e s of t h e b a r r e n t r e e ? ) ; to listen as his h e a r t b e g i n s to imitate the s o u n d of t h e w h o o s h - c r u n c h footsteps as h e p r e s s e s himself against t h e r o u g h - b a r k e d tree; t o w a t c h t h e stars blink dizzyingly as the night b e g i n s to b r e a k ; to see his h a n d , to see t h e knife, to feel the i r o n - g i r d l e d glitter, t o h e a r t h e flash a n d see the slit, to b e c o m e t h e s c r e a m of t h e s h a d o w - a u t h o r as the ink spatt e r s o n frenzied c r o s s e d - o u t w o r d s a l o n g the page; to see t h e r e d d r e s s a n d t h e ivory s h o u l d e r a n d the soul a n d h e r eyes b e c o m e a single blot in a s t o r y s u n g b y cricketw h o r e s a n d d r e a m m o n s t e r s ; to look o u t at the w i n t r y lake a n d feel himself gliding airily over it o n a w i s p of w i n t e r \vind; a n d t h e n to fall, finally, c o v e r e d in his o w n inkblood, t o t h e recesses of the a u t h o r ' s mind, the v a n i s h e d w i s p s of a d r e a m dissolving in the sunrise.

OUARTO 41

Unb orn

Esther Martinez

Γ or years I never thought of it, the painful emptiness in my mourning ΛνοπιΒ that cried and bled in black for sixteen days.

I myself, still a child, when I turned a-way from the monitor, un-willing to witness the black and -white impression of a face the -world -would never kno-w.

by the many seasons since and ready for the winter, 1 think of it no-w so often— the deed done — the ineffable.

My mind evades memory but the image encroaches, as the cold approaches with promises of future Christmas Eves, my -worst fear: to never again see the sno-w.

But it was part of me then — the clots and bones pulled from my being, my milky breasts that oozed with motherhood, with unpreparedness; a winter threatening to come too soon, to find me shivering naked in line at the slaughterhouse.

We lay in ro\vs of beds divided only by white curtains thin as tripe: a choir sobbing for the unborn.

And it -was Christmas Eve Λvhen I handed over every cent I o-wned, when I hocked a golden chain in exchange for peace of mind And now, a -woman, ^veathered

QUARTO 42

QUARTO 43

Straightjacket

The Camiceria

Chris Westcott

Emilie A n a R o s e n b l a t t

Th e camiceria on 3rd Ave will slaughter anything.

On the worn painted sign out front, severed heads of lambs, goats, rabbits float around a fat butcher knife, shiny, apt to slice a hair clean in two, a twisted child's coloring book.

An elderly guinea fowl escaped the carniceroj.

Lost creature, smuggled Ethiopian, she ran six w^hole blocks, freckled feathers in the air for a last time.

She ran to a public park where she died in the bathroom, a long red string down her scraggy throat, long noose of twine, noosed from the inside.

QUARTO AA

IViy shirt's buttonholes are on the left and your shirt's buttonholes are on the right. if we w^ished, Λνβ could button up the left side of my shirt with the left side of your shirt and button up the right side of your shirt with the right side of my shirt and have one shirt with four sleeves and just one collar.

QUARTO 45

In Defense of Crystal

The Black Box ΜαΐίΚε·νν Grice

Y our skin IS so milky It tastes like my best friend from middle school And you look like him too Especially when I see the shape of your left shoulder Over mine

Cora Dean

O h a p t e r I: the rain They waited thirteen days for the rain to stop.

Chapter 2: hard as nails When I was thirteen I used tube socks Tube socks don't work any more And it's nice how it doesn't matter If my eyes are open or closed Since the lights are dim And it's hard to tell if it's you or you O r you And everybody has the same haircut Sweat and nectar are dripping Between my legs Sweat and nectar are pooling In the backs of my knees Every hair on my forearm is a penis

OUARTO 46

Instead, the troughs filled up -with water, the gutters overflowed, and the rain beat in through cracks in the barn roof, and the chafed wheat was soaked. The rain was so hard that it stripped the red paint from the walls, and the barn stood naked. All the cows drowned standing up.

Chapter 3: in a hole The wet weather was followed by an unprecedented streak of heat, and the meat spoiled quickly. So the fami­ ly didn't eat very well for a few weeks. Papa went to look for ^vork most days, and took to coming home late and •walking funny. J o h n took to digging holes in the back yard. A couple days into the exercise, he hit something hard and flat a couple feet down. Brushing the dirt off its hard surface, his fingertips grazed a strange material, smooth like linoleum. Fingers scrambling sideways through the earth, he found the edges of a black box, the topside as long as his arm. He scratched an outline along the sides with his fingernails, not caring as the mud wedged itself into the cracks between his skin and nails.

QUARTO 47

Chapter 4: a great weight

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It •was too heavy to lift. He called his sister over, and Addie came skipping guiltily out of the kitchen, where she had been looking for spare change. Reluctantly, she moved to stand by the filthy boy. But imagining J o h n holding all the glory of the find for his own selfish self convinced her to forget the dusty earth. Together they tried to dig the con­ tainer out. Even after enough space had been cleared for them to stand in the hole beside it, the damn thing would­ n't budge. J o h n got his hand under the box for a minute and lifted it half an inch before it smashed back down on his pmky. They sat on the grass, staring.

"What about Bigger J o h n ? " the girl looked do-wn the road to their neighbor's house. J o h n thought it was a great idea, and in no time they -were back in the hole with Bigger John, -who was three feet taller than their father.

He grasped the box in his \vrench-like arms, and, sweat­ ing a trail through the yard, dropped it in the kitchen, where it broke one of the white and blue German floor tiles. The children ignored that for now, focusing instead on how they might open the box. There ^vas no lock on the outside, in fact there was nothing on the outside at all — no crack to show where the top was supposed to open. J u s t smooth black sides that Addie liked to stroke.

like she wanted just yet — Bigger J o h n •was still there—but she certainly got him off as fast as decency allo^wed.

That night when their father got home, they all three kept at him until he went out and got the axe. He brought It crashing down with all his might and the axe head came bouncing back up faster than it had gone down. The recoil almost broke his arm. He swore and told them they could leave the goddamn junk where it •was for all he cared.

Storming off to go sit by the radio, he left the three detec­ tives alone together.

They all looked at the box, and Mama said "What am I gonna do with a hulkln' thing like that In the middle of the kitchen?"

Chapter 6: ^vhat was in the box?

Obviously, the more important question had to be dis­ cussed.

"Probably somebody's old dead pet.'

"Treasure."

"Maybe dirty magazines. O^w!"

"I think treasure would be better."

Chapter 7: open sesame Chapter 5: pink, cherry, scarlet, crimson... true red When Mama came in from her failed shopping expedi­ tion—the grocer wouldn't take any more credit, she said as she •walked through the door—she froze mid-step in the doorway. Her face turned five shades of red. Her eyes ^veΓe trying to tear themselves Ecway from the box. With a burst of effort, she looked around the room, and seeing the mud tracked on the floor and the cracked tUe, the red flush retracted until she was white -with fury. She couldn't holler

OUARTO 4 8

Addie •was leaning on It one day, thinking maybe it •was like one of those Chinese je^wel-boxes, •where you have to find the secret lever. J o h n came In and started horsing around, thro^vlng his baseball at her, at the box. "Stupid thing, it's useless anyway. 1 bet there's nothing inside."

They started scuffling, and in the tussle Addie accidental­ ly scratched her hand on the box. She gro^wled at her brother, sho^wing him the blood as it dripped down the dark side. Immediately, they heard a heavy groaning

OUARTO 4 9

sound. They sat up excitedly and started examining the sides. A thin red line had appeared smack dab in the middle of the box. Mama was out feeding the chickens... she got crabby if you Interrupted her. Plus, they were both supposed to be doing chores. They each put a hand on the box, and a hand in one another's, and heard the horrible screeching noise again. The red line thickened and spread, the two halves of the box separating. They fell apart like two rectangles, and a sudden wind tore across the kitchen.

Chapter 8: J a c k was in the box A man stepped out of the box, and Addie thought that he must have been folded over many, many times. He w^as bent in the oddest places, with kinks in his back and crooks in his neck no one ever got in a natural way. He ^vore an old, patchy grey suit that had seen better days.

Once it might have been velvet, but no-w it looked like the skin on an old glue horse, threadbare and patchy. He smiled down at the children and ya'wned. It -was obvious to both children that he had not brushed his teeth anytime recently. He scratched at his raggle-taggle w^hiskers, and asked for a glass of something to drink. Addie ran quick to get some tap water, but when he realized that was all they had to offer he -wasn't so thirsty.

J o h n was just staring at him, stupid, so Addie decided it -was up to her to get things straight. She cleared her throat.

Chapter 9: what happened "I suspect," he smiled conspiratorially, "that you don't want to tell anyone that I came out of that box." He grinned down at them. "If you can keep this our little secret, there's a box full of gold in it for you." The children

QUARTO 50

nodded, dumbfounded. Addie wasn't so sure someone in a suit like that had a box full of gold to share, but she kept her mouth shut for now. He leaned do^wn and whispered in John's ear, "And a couple of naughty magazines for you, son." Addie moved forward and peered into the box.

It was indeed full to the brim with shining gold dollars.

She dug her fingers in, submerging her hands in the yellow metal, her eyes as round as saucers. Her brother ran up and found a stack of magazines â&#x20AC;&#x201D; more naked women than he could ogle in a million years! One for every minute of every day, for the rest of his life ! He whooped as loud as he could. This brought Momma running into the room to see what on earth ^vas the matter. Before she could say anything to the strange man, he had s^vept her up in his arms and planted the most disgusting kiss the children had ever seen on her. She didn't seem to mind it so much, though. He sat her down in a chair, bowed, winked at the children, and ran out the door. She said nothing for a few minutes. When she finally spoke, her voice was very faint. "Who Avas that?"

Addie and J o h n looked at each other and spoke at the same time. "A traveling salesman." "A bum looking for work."

Chapter 10: no one understands what happened When their father came home that night, no one told him anything about what had happened. Addie piled the gold up in bags under her bed, and J o h n did the same with his magazines. After finding Momma sitting alone in the kitchen, just staring out the window, a few times, they stopped being so loud around the house. They never talked about it amongst themselves, and they all got a little more quiet. Addie shopped for groceries and they ate fine for a while. Papa's policy was to eat real good food and not ask how it got in front of him.

OUARTO 51

chapter 11 : the second coming

'

One day it started to rain hard again. Papa got his fishing gear together and went to go fishing with Bigger J o h n â&#x20AC;&#x201D; now that the rain was back, the creek would be fijU of water, and fiill offish. When he came back, he found that the house had been washed scw&y in a flash flood. The barn, the garden, the foundations of the house all gone. The only thing left was a deep hole, out back -where the yard used to be. They saw an old, funny looking man in a beat up jacket walking a^way do^wn the road. Bigger J o h n put a hand on Papa's shoulder, and tried to ignore that feeling inside him.

Something had turned w^rong.

NoAvadays M y t h M a k i n g D o r l a C. M c i n t o s h

M a n does fall clear clear out of the blue New York city skyline day a giving -way of mortar and steel jet fueled sun into propeller no crafted feather and tar wings to ease do^wn the final leg of the tower only a sudden sudden flailing of cloth shearing from limbs and cold bone Icarus on his return journey slicing naked into a glass sea.

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Off the Grid Ezra Koenig

Wrestling with three other boys on a patch of rough, spotty grass near Co-Op City, my father had an out-ofbody experience. His head was tightly sand\viched between the ground and some lean, bony torso. His arms •were knotted so complexly with the limbs oi the other boys that he was unsure whether the fingers tensing and squirming inches aw^ay from his eyes were his or someone else's. In the fading light, my father began to ieel further detached from his body. His field of vision broke away from his eyes and suddenly he w^as •watching the mass of brawling boys from ten feet above the ground. Even from this privileged vantage point, ho^wever, he was unsure which body parts -were his own.

enlightenment. She spent the majority of the next few months in her dorm room agonizing over which major to choose. Out to dinner at an expensive restaurant with a friend's parents, she even took twenty minutes trying to decide on an entrée. The friend's exasperated father finally ordered her the Chicken Cordon Bleu.

They married three years after meeting at some protest or counter-protest in Trenton, N J . There is a picture from their -wedding hanging in our living room. It's shot in ultra-sharp late-70's color. You can see the most strikingly bright-pink plate of smoked salmon on a table behind them. Their arms are wrapped around each other and they are both looking directly at the camera as if some mutually adored film were playing on a tiny screen in the center of the lens.

The sun set and the moment passed. My father -was back on the ground, staring at the sky through his o^wn eyes, breathing hea^vily and sweating. The •wrestling had stopped. The three other boys were also lying on their backs recuperating, but they soon got up and ran back to their apartments to listen to that night's Yankees game. My father remained, contemplating what had just happened.

Ten years later, before she had ever met my father, my mother had a brief moment of cosmic consciousness -while •walking down a dirt road in Annandale-on-Hudson, Ne^w York. She noticed a slender branch, •which, as she passed, seemed to resemble a human finger. In a flash she •was mutually a^ware of the branch, the tree, the forest, her own finger, the fingers of all women, the houses beyond the forest, and the vast, •vibrating ocean surrounding her from all sides.

Her consciousness and body remained connected the entire time, but in the process of tapping into the universal psyche her sense and understanding of self was greatly diminished. In fact, because of its mysterious brevity, the experience proved to be more of a nuisance than an

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Returning Home From Valleyfair, Late August, 1988 B.W. RodysiU

Yesterday, in a Davis Cone painting, I saw myself, sitting in the car with the sunset Returning home from Valleyfair, 1988.

Past video stores and police cars, through parallel light.

Silo mountains in the shadows.

Through the marshes of the Minnesota River, Past the old ferry bridge.

Sky pink and blue and tired.

Outside, slurping ice cream at Dairy Queen on Old Highway 13.

Lights from the signs as bright as the sky.

'88, Shine, '88, Shine.

Contributors Amy K. Bell graduated from Columbia College in 2006.

She is an aggressive pacifist who enjoys television rated M for mature.

Elizabeth Berger (CC '09) started playing the oboe at the age often, in the hope that such a painful experience would give her writing a foundation of suffering. It worked, and after many trying years she is about to see the publication of her first book, A Tale of Two ReeAi. For her next project, she is considering taking up the bassoon.

Javier Cabrera-Perez was born and raised in Cuba, and has immigrated twice in his life. He is majoring in Biomedical Engineering, meaning he can't "write or read good," but he likes to read and write, so he keeps doing so anyway.

He is the recipient of the National Foundation for the Advancement of the Arts' Platinum Award for poetry within the mid-western states (Regional ARTS), as well as an Honorable Mention for the NFAA National ARTS. His poetry has been previously pubhshed in the anthology. Lit KtĂ&#x20AC;i: Constant Random Art in the Form of Beauty (Porchlight Press, 2003).

Cora Dean has very open plans for the future. She is escaping to Montreal next year, where she ^vill work on her writing, living in the real world, and never paying tor health care. She is currently Î&#x203A;vorking on an illustrated retelling of several Taoist myths, ^vhich she will hopefully expand into a larger project next year. For this story, she dre^v on her Southern roots, and long bedtime stories.

Please read it for the moral, if you can find one. More thanks than I can say to ail my passionate teachers in the Writing Program, and all the talented students who have helped me so much over the last four years.

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Matthew Grice graduated from Columbia Collège in 2005. He works in finance, unhappily.

Gabriel Johnston was born in Toronto, Canada. He is currently studying English and Creative Writing at Columbia University, while competing for the track & field team in the metric mile.

Julia Kite, CC '07, is majoring in urban studies with an emphasis on sociology. Since J u l y 2004 she has been a commissioned ΛvriteI' for the BBC. Her work has also been seen in the Birch and the Collection, and other cred­ its include the Bennington College Young PlajAvrights Award. Coming soon: A senior thesis on Scottish sectari­ an hooliganism.

Ezra Koenig is a senior English and Creative Writing major. He enjoys writing short prose pieces and pop songs, especially about post-hippie domesticity and the tenuous connection between preppiness and colonialism.

Esther Martinez was born in Miami, Florida, a first gener­ ation American of Cuban descent. Her poetry, prose, and short-fiction pieces deal •with the complicated relationships in broken families, and specifically the tensions between mothers and daughters. Esther is currently working on her first novel, a portion of which -was recently published in the Columbia Observer. She is a senior majoring in Literature/Writing at the School of General Studies.

Suneel(a) Mubayi is a transgender grrrl living in the bor­ derlands of culture, race, gender and sexuality. She pur­ sues writing, spoken word performance and political activism -while learning to trash the system from the belly of the Ivy League Beast.

She dedicates her poem to the people of Bil'in vil­ lage, West Bank, Occupied Palestine and their ongoing struggle to keep their land.

Kay Prins is an English major and in the Creative Writing Program at Columbia University. She has just written a one-act play for the Spring 2006 LateNite Playwrights Anthology, and has received awards for playwriting from the Florida Senior Thespian Society. This is her first published work of fiction.

B.W. Rodysill loves the movie "Big Bird in Japan."

Emilie Ana Rosenblatt is a city child, C C oh eight.

Vanessa Hope Schneider is a tiny robot that is actually normal-sized.

Chris Westcott, CC '08. file.php?id=1007704

http://www.facebook.com/pro-

Yvonne Woon, C C '06, English Major. A lot of my fiction is inspired by my family and my younger brother. Other sources of inspiration: furniture, robots, biology, house­ hold appliances, my cat.

Dorla C. Mcintosh Do you kno-w who I am? You all know who I am. I make fun of poets. God don't like ugly (Erich) cause my first poem gets published.

Maria Micheledes takes lovely photographs.

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Editors Emily Belli — Senior Editor GS '07 Originally from S-witzerland, she is major­ ing in Literature/Writing. She is passionate about poetry and chddren's literature, and considers the best things in life to be cats and chocolate.

Erich Erving—Senio|- Exlitor, Art Contributor GS '06 Has had his poetry in Flash!point, The Rambunctious Review, and the anthology Earth Beneath,Sky Beyond: Nature and our Planet. His lyrics have been performed as part of the JuUiard production of Berthold Brecht's The Tutor, and he is the lyricist for the General Studies Alma Mater "Columbia Columbia."

In addition to sitting on the editorial board for Quarto He was also the Poetry Editor of The Observer, the literary Arts and Features magazine of the School of General Studies for the '04-'06 school years. He is very happy to have his print "The Fox Went Out on a Chilly Night" Appear in Quarto and he hopes one day to become a Poet for today he is a poet. Hoopla!

Anna German — Senior Editor Born in Belarus and raised in New York City, Anna German has been writing fiction since grade school.

She has been published twice, for poetry. At Columbia, she studies psychology and writing, specializing in literary nonfiction. Her tastes are this varied in almost all things except in chocolate, which she likes very dark and imported.

Lauren Gilchrist—^ Executive Editor Lauren is a senior English major. She fell in love with the creative writing program her freshman year and hopes to make big money some day correcting other peo­ ple's grammar, while she writes the great American novel

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in her free time. She is currently wondering why people keep telling her she's a great candidate but then hire peo­ ple with two years of experience for entry-level positions.

Gautam Hans — Senior Exlitor, Layout & Design Gautam Hans graduated with a major in English and Comparative Literature, a concentration in creative writing, and a dream of visiting the seven largest archi­ pelagos in the Λvorld. He's still -working on the last part, but would love it if you sent him some chocolate as encouragement.

Sarah Hsu—Managing Editor, Art Contributor Sarah Hsu graduated from Columbia College in 2006.

Maria Loginova—Senior Exlitor Maria Loginova is a student in the School of Continuing Education.

Victoria Loustalot — Senior Editor Victoria Loustalot is loose a lot.

Christina Rumpf— E<litorial Advisor Christina lives for Quarto, her cat Dakota, and her old busted J e e p . She thanks the editors for all their hard work.

Melissa Yap — Executive Editor Melissa Yap dreams of owning her o-wn intern someday.

Moshe Zeilingold^—^ Senior Editor

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