For my Baltimore babes. Thanks for being creative forces in my life.
Curated & Edited by Arianna Valle
 2016
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Volume Five *** Katrina Zimmerman (cover photo) Danielle Damico Ana Hart Samantha Obman Troi Justice Balaji Srinivasan Fitz Fitzgerald James Prenatt Frank Caputo
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I Have No Qualms About Pulling Your Hair “I took a thousand sedatives before I came here”, he said. “David, if you took a thousand sedatives, you would be dead.” A clarinetist yells “who’s your daddy?” when my fingers touch her temples. My father’s name is Frank. A man who never talks, one day asks, “Do you ever feel tense?” I asked if he felt tense. He said, “all the time.”
I promise not to tell. The alternative boy’s cartilage earring gets ripped out and falls down the drain. “I’m sorry about your cartilage earring.” I am not sorry. This isn’t supposed to hurt.
You are not allowed to rub men’s ears because it arouses them. A drug dealer tells me I give good head. Mink Stole lays her neck in the basin and I just want to whisper, “I’ve seen you naked.” Instead, I say nothing. Vern begs me to drown her. She promises she will be dead before her next appointment. “No cream rinse but a cool rinse.” A psychiatrist asks what I would do if he told me he was going to go home and slit his wrists.
- Danielle Damico
It is a woodsy, suburban train ride of the utmost nondescript variety until the tinny vibrating squeal of the breaks and the con-
ductor’s muffled voice over the intercom announce: “West Baltimore. This is the Penn line train to Baltimore’s Pennsylvania Station.” I never see anybody getting on the train at West Baltimore. The tracks hover over a sprawling parking lot with broad boulevards on either side. Sun reflects off of all the shiny parts on cars which lay peacefully huddled, sleeping. On either side of the wide streets I can see shells of brick houses with lush, almost neon green tree limbs reaching outside from the holes that once used to house windows. The ruins are decorated with layered graffiti, and I think how some future race might look at these in the same way we look at cave paintings today: with revered awe at the depths of human ingenuity and accomplishment in the face of harsh living conditions and daily struggle for survival. The train jerks forward and continues its slow acceleration. West Baltimore station is a place marker, a border town; it is an announcement that we are about to plunge into the depths of the city. Through random shrubbery littered with plastic bottles and bags, and colorful scraps of clothing, the train enters a tunnel. What ensues is pitch black, a darkness in which eyesight is of no use. All of a sudden, I become finely attuned to the feeling of my skin, all the invisible arm hairs standing up to salute the blasting air conditioning inside the train. The strike of metal on metal, the wheels rubbing against the rails, make the most magnificent shrieking sounds amplified by the tunnel’s acoustics. Finally, we emerge on the other side, “Baltimore’s Penn Station. This is the last station for this train.” Exiting the train onto the crumbling platform is akin to waking up. Humidity wraps me at once in its stifling embrace. The greenish rusty beams loom overhead, tired and uninterested after decades of welcoming and seeing off passengers. A spontaneous slow-moving funnel forms towards the direction of the stairs; nobody looks hurried coming to Baltimore. - Ana Hart; One Degree of Baltimore (Excerpt)
- Samantha Obman; Travel Companion
Yes, Poetry. She woke me up, again, and all I could do was say, "Yes, Poetry." At 2:25am, I submit. She takes me and I don't shy away. She does things to me and has me do things to her that I've never seen done before. Then, she fixes me a hot cup of cranberry-apple tea. I sip. Much better than a cigarette and no threat of cancer. Poetry, she’s such a lady. She doesn’t play by the rules. She is no respecter of time, except her own. For this, she woke me in the middle of the night. On the streets of brotherly love, I’ve found no brother I want to love. I enjoy the love of a sister. I enjoy dark meat. I am what I eat. I like black coffee and Southern Sweet tea. True to the rules of the game. I am what I drink, too. AC don’t work. Came in late so no lunch break. White girl watching me. Watching me stack titles on the shelves. Says, “It’s hot.” Says I look hot, says I look hungry. In her brown bag: lemon water, water crest, water crackers, and watermelon. I’m polite. I say, “No, thank you.” She steps in front of the fan. Fan blowing hot air. Fan loving her blonde hair. I avoid it. White cotton blouse on the white girl. Low buttoned, barely buttoned. Teases me in the hot breeze. Exposing her creamy, freckled white skin. Exposing her erect nipples. She knows I see. She’s watching me. She’s watching me watch. I can’t avoid it. I was born and raised in the North. She lives in the upper Northwest. The walk. I am hot. I am hungry. I order a cherry water-ice and a pretzel. No salt. No mustard. I think that’s best. I ask if she wants something and offer to pay. She says, “No thanks. I got it. My treat.” White girl cute. She plays with her keys. Anticipation. She’s intentional. We’re in. AC working in the Northwest. I am hot. I am hungry. The walk, though. My legs. I fall. Face first. Into her melon. Her water. Like summer rain. The coolness. Aaaahhhh. - Troi Justice
- Balaji Srinivasan
WHAT IS & WHAT CAN BE depends on the arabber’s cart light awning, skinned red fox a victim of the street but look the buddha of north ave floats serene above a looted korean beauty supply save it for later, don’t let me down raised on radio’s invisible light I love your musical way of talking burning from sunrise in sherwood to midnight’s dip in a supermoon every day is pride; I’m proud of you phantom wing capable of flight the arabber has fresh cantaloupe, melons something as simple as being close to you - Fitz Fitzgerald
- Katrina Zimmerman
Nazareth Once you didn’t have a body. Once you knew a heartbeat silence not unlike the touch of my hand on your head. My mortem figure glowed as I felt you grow. It stung, my feet burned, but my life had purpose. I think you’ll understand, eventually the anguish it takes to raise a man as my ghost holds you while you die, fade away as your panicked breathing slows. I am trapped and freed, simultaneous, precious. You’re the rope that holds me to the cross I’ve bared all these months, fallen the third time since your conception soaked amniotic, the bloodiest exception. You are a living scar. You are the loveliest infection. - James Prenatt
Lazy Riffing I will sing unfettered winds in sleep’s orchestration. Drowsy menageries and the unshuttering of windows. No soul travels far tonight but is cycled back in breaths. The heathens knew these songs as their will tiding the earth, embracing the earth, rutting tiger-like in sleek darkness the earth. The stars are my silken ball gown, tonight, and knowing is the wind rustling my feathers, the leaf-tips’ desperate touch. A comet unseen waltzes matilda to this tune. - Frank Caputo
- Arianna Valle
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