S A N TA CLARA REVIEW volume 106 / issue 02
cover art by PAGE KASTNER front cover / laundry day acrylic
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S A N TA C L A R A R E V I E W VO LU M E 10 6 / I S S U E 0 2
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF RILEY O’CONNELL
ASSOCIATE EDITOR MADISON SYKES
PRODUCTION EDITOR EMILY SHIROMA
POETRY EDITOR ERIKA RASMUSSEN
ART EDITOR BEVIN MCCULLOUGH
NONFICTION EDITOR DHANUSH SHETTY WEBMASTER JACK MILLER
FICTION EDITOR ALLY O’CONNOR OWL EDITOR ETHAN BEBERNESS
MARKETING DIRECTOR JULES XENAKIS ASSISTANT EDITORS YANNA GARCIA NORA FLUETSCH EMMA KULI ANOUSHKA GUPTA WESLEY DUFELMEIER.
ANTHONY ALEGRETE SARAH LACKEY ISABELLE JIA DANNA D’ESOPO TARA TEDJARATI
EDITORIAL BOARD ALEXA ALFANO KATRINA SAMONTE MELISSA BALLETE CHLOE SCHEUCH SUE THAO DO JIA SEOW ROSEY KENSHOL JOLYSSA SOUZA JUSTIN HYUNMOO KIM KATYA TRUSHCHANKOVA WILL KOLADA PAULINE UGALDE EMMA LIGTENBERG KELLAN WEINBERGER SARAH LOCKLIN MOLLY WORFORD RYLIE RICHARDSON KYLA YAMASHITA FACULTY ADVISOR KIRK GLASER
TABLE OF CONTENTS POETRY MIGHTY MIKE MCGEE / IN THE KITCHEN OF THE FOXY HOUSE, EAST VANCOUVER 02 MIGHTY MIKE MCGEE / ON THE EVE OF ALL THOSE SAINTS 03 MIGHTY MIKE MCGEE / GROWN 05 MIGHTY MIKE MCGEE / RECREATING DAWN 07 MIGHTY MIKE MCGEE / ARMISTICE 08 MICHAEL PANTANO / THE RABBIT DAUGHTER 09 ALEJANDRO PÉREZ / DEFINITION OF RAW 11 MARÍA FERNANDA MUÑOZ / ENCUENTRO 12 MARÍA FERNANDA MUÑOZ / MEETING 13 GALE ACUFF / BUDDY HOLLY 14 AMY BASKIN / WHAT I FIND AT THE PHARMACY 16 KYLA YAMASHITA / GERMAPHOBIA 17 ERIC POWELL / PALEO-HAITI 20 GEORGE PERREAULT / THE RANGE 30 FRANCES MAC / WE THE SPIRITUAL 31 ISABELLE JIA / GARDEN GIRL 33
ISABELLE JIA / SELF-PORTRAIT IN MY MOTHER’S MOUTH 34 JEFFREY H. MACLACHLAN / PRISON ICICLES 35 JUSTIN HYUNMOO KIM / ENDING COMMENTS ON GRANDFATHER 36 JUSTIN HYUNMOO KIM / MY MOTHER WILL NEVER GROW OLD 38 ROBIN TREMBLAY-MCGAW / GULPH’D 40 ROBIN TREMBLAY-MCGAW / MIDWINTER DAY 41 SARAH LOCKLIN / WOMEN CARRY WOUNDS LIKE BIRTHMARKS 42 SARAH LOCKLIN / GENTRIFICATION 43 SHELLEY VALDEZ / A WORKING LIST OF THINGS I WOULD ASK YOU AT THE END OF THE WORLD 44 SHELLEY VALDEZ / ENGKANTO 46 TATIANA M.R. JOHNSON / ANOTHER DEATH 59 TROY SCHOULTZ / FALSE DAYLIGHT 60 VAN G. GARRETT / KITES 61 ZOHRA ZAFAR / I LOST A TONGUE TO DOMESTIC WARFARE 70 MICHAEL JACK O’BRIEN / MY DEAR BILATERAL 75 ERIKA KUO / FATHER 76 ERIKA KUO / BLOOM 77
DAN GROTE / ENVY 78 DAN GROTE / DON’T TALK TO STRANGERS 79 KATIE LAUREL DAVIS / LETTER TO ANNE SEXTON 80 JULIE WEISS / SURFACING 82
FICTION ANNIE LOEWEN / TIFFANY BLUE 18 SARA GILBERT / BUBBE 71 JUSTIN ZACHARY WYCKOFF / BAO INSIDE 84
NONFICTION FRANK SCOZZARI / THE YOSEMITE BEAR BANDITS 51 D. GILSON / THE FERAL BOY 73
ART ERIN FITZPATRICK / NICOLE IN WHITE 22 ERIN FITZPATRICK / NICOLE 23 ERIN FITZPATRICK / JASMINE 24 ERIN FITZPATRICK / BRYNN AND KRISTEN 25 ERIN D. GARCIA / LARGE GRADIENT #1 26
ERIN D. GARCIA / LARGE GRADIENT #2 27 DARREN REID / NOCTURNE 28 DARREN REID / BLUE 29 RICHARD VYSE / MAN STROKES 3 62 RICHARD VYSE / MAN SHEER 63 RICHARD VYSE / LAD IN RED 64 BECKY BOBAN / HOME ARRIVING 65 JUSTIN HYUNMOO KIM / JINDO DOG DAYS 1 66 JUSTIN HYUNMOO KIM / JINDO DOG DAYS 2 67 RHIANNON JANESCHILD / INSIDE OUT 68 HANNAH MOVAHEDI / OUT OF TUNE 69 STINA ARSTOP / FARMERS MARKET ORANGES 89 PAGE KASTNER / A CRIME ALONG THE ITALIAN COUNTRYSIDE 90 PAGE KASTNER / LAUNDRY DAY 91 JACQUELINE QUIRKE / A MOMENT INFINITE 92 BETTE RIDGEWAY / HELLO SPRING 93 BETTE RIDGEWAY / DEEP SUMMER II 94 BETTE RIDGEWAY / A SYMPHONY FOR EMILY 95 STEPHEN HUA / OVERDUE 96
EDITOR’S NOTE RILEY O’CONNELL volume 106 / issue 02
DEAR READER,
Nearing the close of my year as Editor in Chief of the Santa Clara Review, it becomes difficult to imagine graduating and leaving behind this magazine which has, for four years now, been so instrumental to my personal and professional growth. Of the experiences and opportunities provided to me by the Santa Clara Review, introducing and presenting to you these last two issues has been by far the greatest honor, one which I hope to have done justice, as I recognize my words stand alongside those of many exceedingly talented writers and artists. This issue, you may have noticed, is larger than past issues, as we were so fortunate this year to receive a tremendous amount of notable work, particularly poetry and art, which reflects both generously and intensely on not only who we are but on what we owe one another. From the Santa Clara County Poet Laureate to Santa Clara University undergraduates, artists in residence to former art editors, and all levels of creative forces from Hawaii to Ecuador and South Korea to South Africa, the talent across these pages is simply overflowing, exploring pharmacies and farmers markets, love and addiction, the president and the precedents set for us as children. My coworkers and I worked tirelessly and enthusiastically to perfect this magazine, which, like our staff, is in a constant state of change, yet bound together by a deep history, diligent care and support, and plenty of puppy photos. For them, Kirk Glaser, our countless contributors, and all past staffs who have kept this magazine not just alive but thriving for one hundred and fifty years, thank you; I am so grateful to learn from and alongside you. In 96.1, Kelsey Maher asked, “What will be the story we choose to leave behind?� I am so glad it is this one. We hope you not only enjoy but truly savor this issue.
RILEY O’CONNELL editor in chief
MIGHTY MIKE MCGEE featured poet
Mighty Mike McGee is a well-traveled funny hobo-poet from San José, California. He is the first and only poet to win both the 2003 National Poetry Slam Grand Championship and the 2006 Individual World Poetry Slam Grand championship. McGee is a co-founder of the live spoken word groups Tons of Fun University (TOFU) with Shane Koyczan and C.R. Avery. He also co-founded The Whirlwind Company with Mindy Nettifee, Brian S. Ellis, and Jon Sands, and the Poetry Revivals with Dan Leamen, Derrick Brown, Buddy Wakefield, and Anis Mojgani. He was appointed Poet Laureate of Santa Clara County (Silicon Valley) for 2018 & 2019. McGee’s first collection of humor and poetry, In Search of Midnight, is available through Write Bloody Publishing. He can be found somewhere between Silicon Valley and Vancouver, B.C. as often as possible. Visit mightymikemcgee.com and follow him on Twitter: @mikemcgee.
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MIGHTY MIKE MCGEE poetry
IN THE KITCHEN OF THE FOXY HOUSE, EAST VANCOUVER In a home where the walls are enough to keep out the constant mists of rain, but cotton enough to welcome the cold, I am dying. In this old kitchen, I am dying. While my drunkenness gives birth to my sadness, my diabetes leads me to the dancefloor where my disorientation and my blue shadow are conspiring to slow murder me. In this kitchen where I have danced and slept. Like the edges of all the windows, doors, and counter drawers, all my layers of paint have been knick-ed and ding-ed and are now vividly unconcealed. Let us go to the moment in this room in which I have died. It looks like suicide, but since part of me is still alive, it must’ve been murder. Had I wanted this, I would have ensured it. Who were we in this kitchen where I have conjured potions and feasts? In this home where I have made armfuls of love. Where I have rerouted rivers of poison into my marina and tried to swim away with the circus. There was a rage tonight. Dishes thrown. Words pummeled. I watched it all happen as I lay dying. I birthed a forsaken son from my throat. It will say that I don’t want her to feed me anymore. I will feed myself. It will look like I am trying to be a hero by setting the house on fire. It will start in this kitchen. The room where all the fires I’ve started were to keep us warm. Tonight, my disease has established its hold. I will have to choke it out. But tonight, I have built a wall, only one, that moves with my vision, staying ahead of me. An unclimbable, destructive goal—one only sadness and meals can penetrate. She will try, though. Goodness knows she will.
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MIGHTY MIKE MCGEE poetry
ON THE EVE OF ALL THOSE SAINTS Maybe I am a foolish old man Might seem younger because I bike around town? death can’t catch me if I keep moving Maybe there was a moment this evening when I was pedaling faster than I ever have and yet my eyelids got too heavy and so I gave them permission to close Maybe my machine and I came off the curb my body lifted up into the nothing above the street Arms hugging a ghost too tall A soaring slow-mo waltz I am certainly not waiting to land I do not wish for it in any way So I sleep into it Let’s say you are me in this moment The breeze you force yourself through cools the tears and sweat that are cutting through your eyebrows insistent glaciers passing over your eyes You are unintentionally serenaded by the voices of kids leading their parents to the next house where candy awaits voices that seem to have forgotten the last house and will eventually forget this next one and likely this night You’ve had forty-one of these nights You are lucky to remember seven or eight But you remember the night your aunt and uncle took you and your brother to Los Gatos for rich people’s candy You never forget full-sized chocolate bars for kids and beers for the grown-ups for doing god’s work dragging these little shits out for candy
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MIGHTY MIKE MCGEE But they were cool, young adults who hadn’t yet gone to prison or hell You once had a sweet tooth, but it shattered on a $6 pearl from a 25¢ oyster at a $12 buffet in Vancouver sitting across from the sweetest thing you’d ever abandon The fragment of tooth that will never leave your jaw is an accomplice to diabetes You were a great zombie Before all this zombie shit You were a kind clown A sweet cowboy You deserved all that candy, every year because you went door-to-door and you asked for it so sweetly Right Now is all in for whatever down means Once zenith is reached, it makes sense to fall to come crashing down Like just before bed on November 2, 1987 with such little candy left outside of your body Where the hell’d it all go!? Your mother will ask Just lie to her, tell her you simply have no clue Be a good kid because now we focus on Christmas As for tonight we fall and we see the ground coming up to meet us, but instead of seizing every muscle in your body you expand outward every one of your molecules moves away from each other just enough to make you bigger, looser you may not be controlling this part this may be simple universal coincidence and gravity just happens to be at the end of its handshake with you, losing grip And you realize, so slowly That you are not falling because everything is always falling No, you are simply racing the world to see who gets older first
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MIGHTY MIKE MCGEE poetry
GROWN The day my bike was stolen from my front yard twelve years old felt fully grown I had no more room to expand the weather was exactly perfect I only wore a shirt out of respect for my neighbors It was the same day I finally understood what it meant to be Californian why people out of state would hate us kids running through the sprinklers kids on skateboards kids laughing and making noises as familiar and as natural as birds chirping in the trees I had yet to feel betrayed—betrayal was not possible in such a perfect kingdom no summer before had ever wilted into disenfranchised autumn Whenever we came back from the store, we simply dropped our bikes on the law we did it thousands of times, yet there never seemed to be time for a kickstand my bike would be fine on the grass because that was the only place for it there was no other option My mother sent me back we’d forgotten an item on the grocery list the time from the lawn to the living room and back was negligible unremarkable The first thing I felt when I realized my bike was gone was that my brother had just played the best and fastest practical joke on me the look on his face when he understood the situation a few seconds before I did the purest sense of empathy from a ten year old who’s loved you for ten years
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the cursory search around the house and our block that walk back to the store, four eyes in four directions looking for the wrong person on the right bike I’ll have to finish growing up so this doesn’t hurt so much this must be what becoming an adult is fight back the anger, rage, tears, sadness get a newer, better bike my loyal steed has failed me
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MIGHTY MIKE MCGEE poetry
RECREATING DAWN
for JDH
Were I better with my hands and clay You are the breathing reason I would wake up To pull a moment of you out of a mountain I would melt every metal I could find and pour you out of it Countless roosters and hens have awoken and fed me I have gone 12 rounds with alarm clocks and chased time around a race track So that could I show and tell any and all open eyes that I once saw you And here Here is what those seconds looked like Let them hear what you taught me, what you took How long my breath went missing along with the sun Orchestra is a strange way to spell heart But mine beats and pulls and winds it timpanies and trumpets conducting itself because these vocal cords are not enough There is a limit to how long my voice can sing I long for it to match your tireless willing love
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MIGHTY MIKE MCGEE poetry
ARMISTICE Be the first to drop all weapons The last of your blood to draw blood Your sole defense is your own will to let live those who gnash their teeth or use them to smile in the shadow of their own awakening Let us break bread every night with someone learning to be someone who is always learning Even when it means sometimes breaking bread alone
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MICHAEL PANTANO poetry
THE RABBIT DAUGHTER One spring day long ago my husband took a 12 gauge behind our rented house and blew his head off, we’d been married a month and I’m not ashamed to admit I didn’t shed one tear when they closed his casket. I felt worse years before when I was ten and dad let me mow a few flat strips of lawn (they tried for years to have a boy), when the mower found a nest of baby rabbits in a deep patch cutting three in half, clumps of fur and blood shooting from the blades. I cried because death was so sudden and final and at that age I hadn’t learned anything beyond how a girl acts in front of grownups, and I imagined the mother coming back from foraging the day’s haul of sprouts finding her babies slaughtered, body parts everywhere, her little rabbit brain maybe connecting the dots of the absolute finality
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MICHAEL PANTANO of the moment, dad telling me to go inside while he found a shovel to scoop the bits and pieces into a plastic trash bag, mother giving me an aspirin tucking me under covers kissing my clammy forehead, telling me to stop crying.
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ALEJANDRO PÉREZ poetry
DEFINITION OF RAW
after Brynne Rebele-Henry
As in rough as in rough-draft as in unfinished as in needs to be fixed like Will in Good Will Hunting. As in dope as in cool as in fly as in out of this world as in “That beat is raw. Can I sing over it?” As in “That whip is raw. Can I take it for a spin?” As in dangerous as in uncooked as in raw fish as in sushi as in raw eggs as in could cause Salmonella as in “My Abuela ate two raw eggs for breakfast every day, most likely cause she wasn’t aware of the dangers, but even if she had been, she probably wouldn’t have given a fuck, cause she wasn’t afraid of shit.” SANTA CLARA REVIEW |
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MARíA FERNANDA MUÑOZ poetry
ENCUENTRO En nuestros encuentros poco comunes me contó que ya no lloraba que se había arrancado el dolor pero que le habían quedado fuertes marcas Su mirada era distinta, estaba vacía sus largos viajes, fuera de estos tiempos le habían hecho más sabio. Me contó, que ya no tenía hogar planeaba practicar su propia libertad y vivir aventuras a su manera. Recordó que había bailado mucho tiempo con la sombra de un recuerdo pero aun así había aprendido a volar. En sus sueños, la muerte le había llamado naturalmente el, le había hecho una visita ese día le robaron el alma... Se hacia tarde, le cansaban los pies le pesaba la conciencia y le dolía su nombre Orgulloso de haber rechazado al amor se detuvo en una esquina me regalo su sonrisa y desapareció entre la gente Comenzó a llover y era hora de despertar…
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MARíA FERNANDA MUÑOZ poetry
MEETING In those, our uncommon encounters He told me he was no longer crying that the pain had been ripped away although powerful scars still accompanied him The look in his eyes now different, empty His long trips, far from these times had brought him wisdom. He told me now that he had no home he planned to practice his own freedom and live in adventure, his way. He remembered he’d danced for awhile with the shadow of a memory but even so, he had learned to fly. In his dreams, death had called him naturally, had paid him a visit that day they stole his soul... It was getting late, his feet grew tired his conscience heavy, and his own name pained him Proud of having rejected love he paused at a street corner gifted me his smile and disappeared into the crowd It began to rain and was time to wake...
Translated by Erika Rasmussen
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GALE ACUFF poetry
BUDDY HOLLY
Marietta Georgia, 1966
When Jesus died the Bible says the sky went dark or groaned or one of those or both— I disremember rightly what it says but it says something of sig-nif-i-cance, ask Miss Hooker, my Sunday School teacher, she knows it all as if she was there in person in the flesh on the spot just when it went down though of course she wasn’t, she’s only 25, old to my 10 but hardly a split-second to God’s number, whatever that is, maybe it’s so high that it’s uncountable, or infinite like we learn in regular-school science hour but I forget what for, outer space maybe or the age of everything, I’m ignorant is what my teacher says there but she’s just being nice, I’m flunking fourth grade but mine is honest stupidity and I’m damn proud of it, I’m a genius if you look at it another way and Jesus would, as long as I don’t get too damn proud because that’s the sin of pride and I’d be claiming to know all what God knows, whatever that is, everything, I guess, so much so that He makes the world His own and at the same time He made the whole shebang and I figure if I die emptyheaded that’s pretty much the same as knowing all and I’ve got a pretty damn good start, I may never move on to fifth grade or ever graduate from high school but this morning after Sunday School Jesus wept, I mean I did, I wept, and not be-
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GALE ACUFF cause somebody was bawling for some kin who kicked and they couldn’t get over his dead-ness but because at regular school last Friday all the caterpillars in the cracked aquarium crawled away and I was the last one messing with them and they climbed the walls and took to the ceiling and fell one after another on us and the girls screamed and the boys yelled Goddamn when the butterflies-to-be splashed into their cartons of un-drunk-up milk and waterglasses and I got a couple down my shirt and some of the girls did, too, save that they wear blouses, it’s in the Bible somewhere, I mean that plague of creepy-crawlies and Moses or was that frogs and crickets or locusts but anyway if I had a pet cricket he’d be Buddy Holly but anyway I cried and Miss Hooker cried with me— Letting those little critters out like that, Gale, you have to confess that that was pretty stupid and not pretty stupid but thoroughly stupid and I said Yes ma’am, but when we get back to school tomorrow we’ll have a zillion butterflies and then Miss Hooker cried even harder but my tears went dry, that would be Jesus if He really exists and now we know how many worms make one infinity.
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AMY BASKIN poetry
WHAT I FIND AT THE PHARMACY gal in line at the CVS so proud of her pedicure prances about posing on her toes pleased they’re themed to match her ankle tattoos of triquetras and Hecate’s Circle each toe awash in red with black dots scattered and shellacked ladybugs are magick she claims and spells it out for us the number of spots on the back the number of months that will pass before the world changes again she laughs a wiccan’s satisfied laugh makes a stranger bend down to look closely six inches away I think that’s weird obliging a stranger in line to admire her toes her stinky stubby toes as if they’re the best thing the world has to offer right now toes that reflect the colors and shapes of her favorite beetle one glance at the magazine racks another at my phone for distraction and I think maybe those chipped painted toenails are the best thing the world has to offer right now so I bend down to see them too and find myself in awe counting the spots hoping 16 |
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KYLA YAMASHITA poetry
GERMAPHOBIA an amoeba-shaped splash on the gouged yellowing throne and two mere sheets didn’t shield my tidy tush tiny beasts flee about pristine pale skin like cold dark hair sprawled across the shower wall these creatures won’t kill me so why not pull up my pants stroll out the stall return to friends and pretend it’s not a splotch of disease multiplying and thriving and multiplying down my thigh and multiplying feet flee back to stall where invisible bugs broke my control over reality i squeeze and spread the antidote droplet on my thigh that washes this hairy web of horror down the drain my brain free now from nothing “is kyla still washing her ass?”
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ANNIE LOEWEN fiction
TIFFANY BLUE We didn’t know what to do while we waited for our train to take us home, so we stopped at a boba shop. It was a tiny storefront, too small to fit twelve people, let alone the line that wrapped around the block. My friends and I waited outside. We sipped on our purple plastic straws, posted filtered photos of our drinks on Snapchat, and complained about the cold. They didn’t see you. But I did. Your pants caught my eye. They were high-waisted, Tiffany blue jeans and you had a black crop top shirt on. You looked about my age and I couldn’t help but admire your outfit. Short brown hair, dark eye makeup, and a waist so thin it would make models jealous. I thought that maybe you had excitedly slipped on that outfit this morning. A girl out on the town, exploring San Francisco by herself – taking in the salty bay air, peeking at the ocean over the wharf, and maybe stopping at Boudin or Ghirardelli. I didn’t realize that that wasn’t the case. You stumbled, heading for a barren maple tree. You didn’t hit it – you caught yourself – but you zig-zagged on the sidewalk, your feet clumsily readjusting your path. When you staggered toward a coffee shop, a condescending barista didn’t let you in. She yammered at you from a step, waving her hands around, while you looked up at her. With her upturned nose and black apron, she shook her head vigorously. My attention was now fully captured. As I watched your dejected expression, I thought about the college “girl-code.” Girls didn’t leave other girls stranded. Girls made sure other girls were okay. Girls didn’t let stumbling girls walk home alone after a party. Girls didn’t ignore other girls crying alone. Girls helped other girls. I was transfixed by you, wanting to know your story and see if you were alright. You plopped down on a metal chair outside the coffee shop, hugging yourself and cradling your black iPhone. You didn’t look at the phone, and your brown eyes seemed as if they were somewhere I couldn’t go. “What’re you looking at?” my friend Abigail interrupted my focus. “That girl,” I replied, looking in your direction. “I think something’s wrong.” “She looks fine to me.” “She almost fell a little bit ago, you didn’t see it? Something’s off.” “Just let it go Evelyn, she’s probably a druggie,” she dismissed as she grabbed her phone.
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ANNIE LOEWEN
“It’s time to go, the train leaves soon,” one of my other friends said. “Call the Ubers!” The others started to stare while we walked closer. I could tell that your dark makeup was smudged and running, and now made out the large yellow-green stain on your upper right thigh. Your phone didn’t light up either, probably long dead. I realized you didn’t have a place to go. You probably didn’t put this outfit on this morning, but rather a long time ago. I didn’t know what to do. “I think she’s homeless,” I whispered to Abigail. “What?” she replied, looking up from her Instagram feed. “She has an iPhone though.” “It hasn’t turned on.” You shuddered intensely. I opened my purse and fumbled for my wallet. “Why is she twitching?” “I don’t know,” I replied. Abigail noticed me reaching for my wallet. “I told you, she’s probably on drugs – crazy – she could hurt you. Look, it’s nice of you to want to help, but you’ve got to worry about your own safety.” “But she’s our age, I just feel bad-” “What if she tries to steal your whole purse? You just said earlier you’re broke.” Abigail moved her Tiffany necklace back and forth on its chain, her nervous habit. She was right, I didn’t have much money – especially after the Uber charge went through. “Why don’t I just ask if she needs anything?” I asked. “Don’t worry about it,” she replied. “Someone else will help her.” She didn’t look up from her phone. You didn’t notice any of us, but instead continued to stare blankly at the dirty sidewalk in front of you. The Uber pulled up and I looked back. Girls didn’t leave other girls stranded. “Yes, to the train station please,” I told the driver. Girls didn’t ignore other girls crying alone. I didn’t stop the car. I didn’t get out to see if you were okay. Girls helped other girls. I didn’t help you. And I don’t know why.
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ERIC POWELL poetry
PALEO-HAITI Haitian air is a recipe: Sea salt Ke’nep fruit Human blood And the backdrop fills with music as doctors beat demons out of drums It keeps you up like waiting on pain to subside and you can’t help but let your heart travel there and picture the worst Earlier that day we went into the desert an orange breeze, sand stained sky The wooden crafted church made statements and the pastor spoke words that the people didn’t understand and they asked him questions that he didn’t have time to answer That night, I heard screams and sank over the edge to see her lying in the gravel It marked her black skin grey and the baby slid out with ease headfirst into Haitian earth Perhaps by this time dead
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ERIN FITZPATRICK featured artist
Erin Fitzpatrick is constantly inspired by patterns and prints, travels, summertime, Instagram, interior spaces, her immediate surroundings, fashion magazines, textile design and meeting new people. She has an iPhone full of screenshots, and sketchbooks, notebooks and a studio wall covered in notes and clippings — collections of visual stimulants. A seed from these images, a West African textile, a languid Miu Miu model, a Slim Aarons photo of poolside decadence, inspires the vibe for each painting. Erin plans each piece around this initial idea by creating a storyboard depicting wardrobe, model type/look, textiles, and setting. She sources models from her peers and social media, imports textiles, shops for wardrobe, and builds a set. She styles her models and chats with them as she takes hundreds of reference photos. The model becomes the focal point in her world of clashing patterns, textiles and plants.
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NICOLE IN WHITE ERIN FITZPATRICK oil on canvas
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NICOLE ERIN FITZPATRICK oil on canvas
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JASMINE ERIN FITZPATRICK oil on canvas
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BRYNN AND KRISTEN ERIN FITZPATRICK oil on canvas
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LARGE GRADIENT #1 ERIN D. GARCIA arcylic on canvas
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LARGE GRADIENT #2 ERIN D. GARCIA acrylic on canvas
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NOCTURNE DARREN REID acrylic
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BLUE DARREN REID acrylic
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GEORGE PERREAULT poetry
THE RANGE
for Mark Fitzgerald
this guy I know his dad just died his kid’s seven and mine at that age she traced the outline of a running horse the inside streaked with pencil now faded red and black everyone’s a pony she said made of just the wind so maybe we’re back to plainsong again each night sad with each other’s sadness each day redeemable as the next echoes like an old cathedral, hoofbeats on the range
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FRANCES MAC poetry
WE THE SPIRITUAL
An adaption of Donald Trump’s remarks National Prayer Breakfast, February 2, 2017
Hear our prayer O God of Somebody for we the people have lost our way From the Pilgrims whose sweat became a nation churched To the pioneers their campaign of genocide and plains brutalized To the soldier and his ceremony of wars sworn to his faith in arms To the patriots who know not their countrymen some sad conviction that freedom is freedom is freedom though freedom is a gift for some and a battle for most Bless us father for we have since admitted no acts of horror but it’s true God it’s true all seven all here The want for flesh we cannot own for generosity we do not earn for money that is religion a pretty little bone to pick for the eyes that can only see for the slaughter we chase like dog dreams for the rights we hold sacred and they are fundamental and they are human and they are the beachhead of our violence and how we the people will not say that we fail and we are sorry Tell us God America your son hath fallen And where have you been O Creator We call we worship we listen to your creed We carried a cross SANTA CLARA REVIEW |
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FRANCES MAC And nobody ever came Who will comfort our devastated souls What bible what words will give solace Does it matter Listen America remember this hell this land of fear we have allowed to flourish Take that fire the wanton tears the blood we let and embrace it all a testament to our strength Form steel bonds from cages Place a star in vicious night Trouble the black something that remains our heart Honor the disaster May our country be the angel We bow our heads We ask this In your name America Forever and ever A men
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ISABELLE JIA poetry
GARDEN GIRL i was born woven in a hue of yellow obscured in cloudy blue skies. the ones that fill white wind poppies with distaste and beauty. i do not have delicate petals or the stem of a sought after girl i am not the sun— filled with every color there is to love. only yellow on the outside inside through come close, look at me stranded and alone trivial, in a sandstorm. in between these barren plains are my ashes. i may be marigold but i am still scattered
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ISABELLE JIA
poetry
SELF-PORTRAIT IN MY MOTHER’S MOUTH when mama took me from the sky she said she looked above the eucalyptus and the melody of the moon to see the star that birthed me. i am girl and i am nestled between breasts and warmth. mama’s lips against mine humming a sleep song for my mind. i still have it here— it goes: uh na, pat, uh na, pat, uh na sweet girl you will grow a cherry tree in your stomach if you do not learn to live on your own. there are cracks between your thighs because sometimes we need to let beauty breathe. i exhale myself into gravity, let the reflection of my skin admire itself in lamplight. and i see how easy it is to dim myself in the shadows, even if i belong in the glow.
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JEFFREY H. MACLACHLAN poetry
PRISON ICICLES They silently assemble near eaves, ignoring the rec room sitcoms. They pray floor heat yearns to rise despite common sense and warnings. As dusk purples pavement slush, icicles descend into infrequent windows. Snow sleeps on the pitched roof and drools out thoughtless water. Laugh tracks crescendo while icicles feast and thicken into vampire teeth. They flick their molars, well aware that seasons will repeat forever.
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JUSTIN HYUNMOO KIM poetry
ENDING COMMENTS ON GRANDFATHER He lies upon his hospice bed, Still, Save his breath, The last thing that Yet clings to life. Ringed by three Iterations of his blood, Yet deaf and alone on his sad height. Desperately Mumbling and whispering What he has left to say While his children hush his mutterings, Hold his hands, pray for his soul and his pain. But I wonder, did he ever pray For the cries of his fourth son, my father, Cast into snow And beaten black blue On that winter morn. Does he remember The crack of the stick as it struck his bare Pink skin, pinched with frost, That even I can hear when I close my eyes? How the boy was sent To live with strangers To sate his hunger With nothing but cold Water, working To pay the schooling For three younger brothers, While his father took from Borrowed and Never repaid His cousins, hunchbacked in their fields His aunt, scraping by on alms, His boys, each with new mouths to feed. As he lay, bloated, unmoving even in those days I’ve heard stories In whispers,
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JUSTIN HYUNMOO KIM
Fragments, each worse Than the last, Each out of Father’s Earshot. But what do I know? For despite Every thrashing of his boys, Every beating on his girls, They are still all here, Eyes glistening, With salt Or with gold, his lips and tears now overflow. But what Does that matter? For us, his blood, The blows, the bruises, To take from our parents, To give to our children, To pass on iteration On iteration, That’s our Inheritance.
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JUSTIN HYUNMOO KIM poetry
MY MOTHER WILL NEVER GROW OLD Dawn cracked Upon Grandma’s teeth. Eomma seized her mother’s jaws To make her breathe. Grandma’s muscles seized back and Enamel shards sank into Eomma’s fingers As she pried and propped her mother’s lockjaw, Tight and clamping, Even while asleep. Even with a silver spoon Smashing its way into her mouth, Grandma didn’t stir Or snore. She wheezed And gurgled, choked on Thick phlegm, pinkening with her daughter’s blood, As Eomma cried out And sirens wailed And I stared, wordless and still I think about The look Grandma had when she awoke Toothless and rust red In a hospital bed Up the aisle from A man with his forehead curving in And a girl bleeding into a bucket And someone with no nose, no ears, no lips, Only a pale waxy membrane Freshly melded on.
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JUSTIN HYUNMOO KIM How Eomma looked on With a face that seemed to ask How likely is one To lose all her teeth in one go? To drown in her sleep? To follow her parents’ footsteps? And how could one avoid that toothless decay of a future, Except to never reach that age? I know why Eomma thinks the way she does. In a sense, I know she’s right. But should she decide to, Should I— Can I sit still and watch My mother not grow old?
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ROBIN TREMBLAY-MCGAW poetry
GULPH’D our feet were soft in flowers---once and hyphens made the break less decisive as if nothing in the world there is was it wilding or on the sly? how did it translate “on the run”? by whom? there’s a scandal here--Peona’s busy hand against his lips when the line is cut these latter days the poem “can sense the conditions of its own de-wigging” count the ways the body is porous
(includes lines from Keats’ “Endymion” and Rob Halpern’s “Narcofosa”) 40 |
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ROBIN TREMBLAY-MCGAW poetry
MIDWINTER DAY ...I don’t know like the earth if I’m floating or sinking. --Bernadette Mayer Midwinter Day
o shade o early volta lace an ancient dash misfortunes look alike and words go collisions shiver double yay come out brew me a moment an end to___________ listen today was a swallow green brutal broke
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SARAH LOCKLIN poetry
WOMEN CARRY WOUNDS LIKE BIRTHMARKS I add cotton and face masks and chocolate and masa to the bullet holes passed down from my mother like pearls. Once, I traced the dull echo of their throbbing down my back, where they flamed up like mosquito bites found in the insomnia of a sweat-soaked summer night. I patch, paste, pour Bachata and lipstick and whiskey and guarded chats with my telephone therapist over the gashes— mine and my mother’s and her mother’s before her— but each morning I wake to crimson blossoms. Someone, pull the gauze back over my eyes.
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SARAH LOCKLIN poetry
GENTRIFICATION I am a glass of horchata (Pronounce the “h”) Served in a mason jar Garnished with a stick of “organic Mexican cinnamon” Sitting on a dark oak bartop, Cut at one end by a wall of white-painted brick Where a chalkboard labeled me “Gluten-free, sugar-free, vegan”
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SHELLEY VALDEZ poetry
A WORKING LIST OF THINGS I WOULD ASK YOU AT THE END OF THE WORLD do you think, when the dawn starts shaking swift, that we will all be ash and bone? do you think the stars will ache our names and leak our longings do you think they’ll keep guarding our secrets even when we stop staring at the sky and
how do you think it will happen? quickly, we’ll hope, but i wouldn’t mind years of melting when that’s all we’ve ever done and
do you think the seas will catch fire do you think our skin will stretch strong do you think we’ll turn to mountains and lace and lilysongs do you think it will be colorful? do you think there will be more yellow than blue do you think we’ll hold on to our ears for once and
do you think, the last time we look at each other the last time we teach our fingers to tangle, do you think it will be sweet?
and if it is, will it be like honey or will it be like strawberries do you think it’ll be like the frosting my cousin used on her cupcakes or do you think it will be like the figs Achilles used to juggle for Patroclus before he first drew blood
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SHELLEY VALDEZ
and if we too draw blood, do you think we will look at each other and say cling to me do you think we’ll remember how to reach for things and do you think we’ll have the time? and if
we don’t, if at that moment, the calendars begin to crumble if your Lord does send His lightning if our limbs do turn to trees, i think i
will look at say will look at say will look at
you, and “drown with me” you, and “dance with me” you,
i i
and say “we have always been made for this”
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SHELLEY VALDEZ poetry
ENGKANTO “An Engkanto, according to [Filipino] folklore, is an environmental spirit that has a human form” - Jade Martin, “Engkantos Dwelling in the Philippines” [EXPLANATIONS] in her house, they kept a smiling fat Buddha at the front door for prosperity, they kept hand-fans on their high walls to keep ceilings from falling, they kept Last Supper paintings to feel Dining Room Holy and with so much to believe in (with so much to shoulder) it is no wonder she went looking for ghosts [LISTEN, BEDTIME STORIES ARE NOT A PROPER EDUCATION] she knew that the world beyond her own was filled with red eyes and sharp teeth (and tree people and forest dancing) she knew that there were soul eaters and bone beaters (and wind chimes and waiting things) she knew but still, ever since she was small, when her mother would bid her Goodnight with kisses and fairytales and cautionary rhymes
she’d think perhaps were meant to be
the dragons held instead of slain
[TREE PEOPLE] in his house, there were no such thing as weeds and there were never enough butterflies and even Consolation could be kept in a cup in his house, the walls were always warming and the kettle always humming and not even willows would weep if you sang to them
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SHELLEY VALDEZ
[FOREST DANCING] in the company of the canopies and the language of the leaves, there were many whose mouths looked like his. some wore candles for crowns or made pocketwives out of passerbys some wore bones for their buttons or made carnivals out of carcasses
but he was a Tender of Gardens and even if he could cause a fever
he’d still choose to light
he was a Tamer of Ghosts if he could burn you blue your way home
[RECIPROCITY, PART A] the first time he saw her, he thought, silly swooning summer girl, didn’t anyone ever tell you that if you stare at shadows long enough, the shadows might stare back? [RECIPROCITY, PART B] the first time she saw him, she thought, holy shit ?
hOLY SHIT ? ?
[A PANICKED INTERLUDE] the first time he saw her, he thought, she is going to pass out and i severely
fucked up
[RECIPROCITY, PART B, FOR REAL THIS TIME] the first time she saw him, her veins nearly burst out of her skin but then, she thought, how encounters could be panic and revelation could be wonder and hesitance and delight welcome and uncertain and miraculous
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SHELLEY VALDEZ
[SOMETHING QUIET] contrary to it was it was it was
popular belief are not always hiding mumbling funny
things like loud or
this crashing or
sharp
in the hollow of your shoulder a name in your sleep and how something so quiet could take up so much
space
[FORTUNE’S FOOL] until now, he would have been eternal – to be seen but not touched to be heard but not held (this was the price of forever) for eons he’d thought himself fortunate until he fell for something fleeting [DESTINATIONS] exit wounds this was never in his barren fascination
and fairytales his intention. places now
turned to and when
else entirely
and murder maps but she was growing and if you’d asked
aside flowers him when
admiration admiration turned to something he wouldn’t have known
what to say
[AN EXCHANGE] but really, is intimacy
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what is eternity but a lonesomeness and what but flesh and bone and blood?
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SHELLEY VALDEZ
[RECIPROCITY, RECIPROCITY] they said, oh, you delightful-thing oh, you awaking-thing
you
love
song
and and
oh,
armada
i will be open and deliberate i will be constant and unafraid i will see the truth and in
in your triumph your vulnerability
i will be tender
with every part
[HAPPILY, AFTER] in their house even at the end of their Long Days when everything was too screaming and too seeking and too often
Welcome Home was still fitting right in the crook of their necks, still mangos at midnight, still trying to memorize the other person’s heartbeat and finding they had known the tune all along [PROCEDURES] the funny worthy and
thing about all that is hurting and beautiful is that
they cannot stay for long
not even tree people
not even forest dancing not even flesh and bone
and blood
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SHELLEY VALDEZ
[TRADITIONS] when someone leaves the house while we’re eating, we turn all the plates counter-clockwise as a way to say be careful
be daring and come home safe
but a morning, after, in their Ever After, when his flesh began to fade he thought,
what can i turn when there’s no going back?
[MEMENTO] in some versions,
they say that
before he was nothing before he was invisible he sawed off his own hand
but murmurs and mischief love for her
(so she would never have nothing to hold) [MORI] that’s all fine and that’s all well but i think that nobody knows how to bleed like that without being more of a romantic, and i was told that he’d reached out his
into his heart
chest and torn
i was told he’d placed it beating in her arms, saying, take this, take this it has always, always been
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yours
FRANK SCOZZARI nonfiction
THE YOSEMITE BEAR BANDITS The silence of the midnight valley was broken by the patter of running feet. Then came the cry—“Bear!” And again, a different voice, “Bear! Bear!” And then a chorus of “Bears!” Lantern lights came on, flashlight beams cut through the darkness, and my two buddies came shuffling past me, grinning. “Tea time,” Rob said. He was on one end of an ice-chest and George was on the other, each holding a handle, moving awkwardly. I watched them disappear into the dark forest behind me. The door of a nearby camper swung open. A man dressed in long johns poked his head out and glared into the darkness, but he was looking in the wrong direction. Two children emerged from a large tent in the adjacent campsite hoping for a chance to see a bear. Before they took two steps their parents grabbed them and held them back. One little boy had a Brownie camera with a flash on top and held it up and ready. The other boy held a toy tomahawk. The man from the camper walked in my direction, carrying a lantern in one hand and a hammer in the other. He looked like he wanted to tangle, but stopped at the edge of the forest. “They took my chest!” he yelled. “Goddamned bears took my ice chest!” Neighboring campers came from all different directions, gathering at his campsite. “It was sitting right there,” he explained to the others, pointing. “It was sitting right there on the table. They just carried it off! Goddamned bears carried it off!” “I’ll be damned,” one camper said, shaking his head. Flashlight beams searched the dark forest beyond the lantern light while I ducked low behind a large Douglas fir, snickering. None of the campers were brave enough to venture beyond the light, but if they did, I would just pop my head out and claim to have come from the next campground upriver. They just stood there, all bewildered, like a herd of wildebeest. Dumbasses, I thought. I watched for several entertaining minutes before following the path of my companions, back along the dark trail to Happy Isles. It was the summer of ‘73 and the Hippies were in Yosemite in full
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force. They were there to celebrate living and nature and the human spirit and the hope for world peace. That high tide mark that Hunter Thompson talked about hadn’t crested yet and beautiful spirits roamed freely, sometimes nakedly, through the meadows and along the Merced. It was commonplace to hear strumming guitars and serenading voices coming from the forest. The Hippies held nightly love-ins at Happy Isles and you could hear the music echoing all the way down the Valley. And if you looked up at Glacier Point you could see the shadows of celestial dancers stretching high on the granite walls. Everywhere you went in the Valley you could find peace and love and anti-war slogans and melodic music. Bead-laden sun worshippers lay out on the granite boulders along the river; Hippie goddesses bathed beneath the waterfalls; guitar strumming and flute playing troubadours strolled the Park’s roadways; and there was a Jimi Hendrix lookalike in a dusty black suit carrying a beat-up suitcase in one hand and a beat-up guitar case in the other. I think I even saw Joni Mitchell’s child of God walking along the road with a bong pipe strapped to his back. Everywhere you went in the Valley was blissful, except for the ranger stations. The rangers were crew-cut, red-necked Korean War vets looking to smash some free-spirited heads. There had been an incident in a meadow where baton-welding rangers had stormed a love-in on horseback. Many of the Hippies were hospitalized, but it only made them more resolute, more anti-government and anarchical. That was the Yosemite we stumbled into, four trail-worn kids looking for food, essentially anything that was edible. Marmots had raided our food stash at the half-way point, Florence Lake, so we had been improvising ever since. And improvise we did, very well. We became mountain marauders, wild misfits who could even compete with the raccoons and bears for food. When we first arrived in Yosemite Valley, we relied on the Hippies. They welcomed everyone in communal fashion. Into a huge pot everyone added something—a can of Campbell’s tomato soup, a can of Dennison’s chili beans, Spaghetti-Os, chicken broth—and anyone with a sierra cup or an empty can or a somewhat-clean hand could dip into the pot and pull out dinner. We had made our camp only a short distance upriver from Happy Isles—a cave-like hideaway along the Merced beneath a large granite overhang—which made this arrangement with the Hippies very convenient. We partook several times, contributing nothing, yet dipping our Sierra cups into the Hippie-stew, often multiple times. And they were liberal with their alcoholic spirits as well. Pull an empty gallon jug from a
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trash can and go from one hippy campsite to the next, finding half a beer here, some wine there, the last drops from a whiskey bottle, a little rum, or whatever, and four teenagers had enough brew to get an army drunk. Each evening of our first several days in the Valley, we’d return to our cave, full-bellied, and we’d sip and lay flat, and fat, in the pine needles. But as usual, when thing are going good, we became discontented. We got bored. The Hippie soup concoction got old. We craved something better, and as boys do, we planned and devised and schemed. So it became our daily routine to scour campsites for unattended ice chests, and our nightly routine to commandeer these ice chests. The way we saw it, we were providing a service to the weekend adventurers, all those L.A. urban dwellers who ventured into the wilderness only one week per year. We bestowed upon them a once-in-a-lifetime-into-the-wild experience, the telling of which could be passed down through the generations. We weren’t bad kids, we convinced ourselves. We were just hungry. The rangers, of course, knew bears didn’t carry-off ice chests— bears simply demolished them on the spot. So they sought out us human bears as the evidence of our labor piled higher beneath the overhanging rock we called home in the form of a pyramid of ice-chests stacked six high. On top was our prize—a red, white & blue stars-and-stripes, lacqueredfinished, custom Coleman. We examined the bounty of our nightly catch and found the pickings to be slim: half a package of Oscar Myer hot dogs, mustard, a quarter loaf of bread, three cans of coke, and a ton of ice. “Looks like they were ready to leave.” “Why all the ice?” “Who knows.” “Maybe they were planning to go to the store, but hadn’t gone yet?” “Maybe we need to be more picky?” Willie, the youngest among us, who had stayed back at the camp, had a fire going when we arrived. He had made it correctly this time, keeping the flames low beneath the encircling boulders so they could not be seen from the trail above or the road down at Happy Isles. Rob proportioned the catch evenly. One-and-a-quarter hotdogs each, one-and-a-half slices of bread each, and a few ounces of coke poured evenly into our Sierra cups. We stuck our dogs on sticks and cooked them, stuck them in between a slice of bread, added tons of mustard, and washed them down with the divvied-up coke. After we were through, George carried the empty chest to the back of the den and stacked it with the others. Silence prevailed as the campfire burned down. The glowing
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embers lit our hungry faces. Somebody’s stomach growled. “It’s hit or miss,” George finally said. “We need to be more particular,” said Rob. “We need to stick with the best tents or the Winnebago’s,” I said. “If they have a luxury tent and good equipment, then they’ll have good food.” “That’s what I mean,” Rob said. He stuck his stick in the fire and moved the coals around. “I don’t want to eat that Hippy shit anymore.” “Me neither,” said George. Rob looked around at our glowing faces. “I want more steak.” We had gotten steak in one of the stolen ice chests, and it was our best feast yet. “Hamburgers will do,” George said. “I saw a campsite with a Cadillac and an Airstream yesterday,” Willie said. “Where?” I asked. “Upper Pines—I think.” “Was it Upper Pines or not?” “I think so. We passed it on the bus.” “Okay, we’ll ride the bus again tomorrow. We’ll take a doubledecker and stakeout the best campsites.” “Yeah,” Willie said, “and maybe I’ll find that Cadillac again?” “We’ll look for campsites with multiple tents, good tents.” “And a lot of children,” said George. “Children need food.” “And parents usually have beer or wine,” I said. I looked over at Rob, who was shaking his head as he stirred the coals with his stick. “What’ya thinking?” “We’ve hunted and scavenged and begged,” he said. “We’ve gotten lucky sometimes, and sometimes we don’t.” “Yeah.” “We’ve eaten Hippy shit.” “Yeah, what’s your point?” “Why scavenge when we have a shit-load of food right here at our feet?” George and Willie exchanged glances. I just looked at Rob, bewildered. “The snack-bar, dummies!” He was referring to the concession stand at Happy Isles, which was open during the day and boarded up at night. It was loaded with all the kinds of junk food teenagers love.
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No one said anything. We were all aware of the snack stand. We passed it everyday on our way into the Village and had watched, covetously, as tourists ate hot dogs and ice cream bars and drank Dr. Pepper and Crush. We had never considered busting into it. Breaking the law. Stealing ice chests was one thing; breaking into the snack stand was felony larceny. Rob slowly glanced around the campfire, stopping on my face. “Well?” “There is food there,” I said, matter-of-factly. “They’ve got hamburgers,” said George. “And ice cream,” said Willie. “And cigarettes,” said Rob. We all thought of the Snickers bars, boxes of them. “I could cut the cable with my axe,” Rob said. The stand was secured each night with plywood boards secured by a cable-wrap, which could be cut with a sharp axe. We exchanged interested glances. “When?” I asked. “Now,” said Rob. “Now?” “Yeah, now,” George nodded. “All the rangers have gone to bed and there are no Hippies tonight.” He paused. “And I’m still hungry.” “So am I,” said Rob. It was past midnight. Happy Isles was the ghost town it should be. And there were no Hippy music festivals going on. “You think you can cut that?” Rob stared at me. Then he got up, went to his pack, took out his axe, and came back to the campfire. He took his seat and ran his finger over the blade. He put on one of those shit-eating grins, the kind that only he and Jack Nicholson could make. “Yep. I think I can cut it.” He hacked the air twice for dramatic effect. Willie grinned widely too. “Yeah, that should do it.” “Okay, then,” I said, “George and Rob will take the snack-bar. Willie will stand guard out back , and I’ll watch the road. Once you’ve got the cable cut, you come get us.” Rob chopped the air with another practice swing of axe, and grinned again. “Certainly.” We immediately assembled into a unit, heading down the dark trail together along the white-flashing Merced. There was starlight, but where the forest was thick it was nearly black. Only out in the river could
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FRANK SCOZZARI we see white. We could hear various echoes down-Valley—a garbage truck slamming dumpsters and some shouting voices—but they were distance sounds, none of which were of any concern to us. We all took our positions, and Rob and George got started at the snack stand. From where I stood watching the road, I could hear the action but couldn’t see it. The first chop of the axed had a muted sound and the second a little louder. The third echoed off the granite base of Glacier Point. The chopping became a flurry. It reached a crescendo, paused, and then one last loud Bang! Then nothing. I tried to look in between the trees back toward the snack stand, but I could see nothing. I was getting nervous. I was expecting someone to come get me. Negative thoughts flashed through my head. Still, there were no lights on the road. The only light I could see was up high at Glacier Point. Finally I left the road and walked back to the snack stand to see what was going on. As I came though the forest the snack bar emerged in the starlight. The building itself, four-sides about fifteen-foot square with a back door and an open counter facing the river, was in an open area cleared of trees. What I saw, or thought I saw, was the bar open for business, as I had seen it so many times in daylight. Behind the counter, where the plywood had been removed, stood an attendant wearing one of those center-creased white café caps with two-pointed-ends. It was Rob. “How can I help you?” he said, sporting the Jack Nicholson grin. George was already inside rummaging through boxes. I could see his backside bobbing up and down as he went through the inventory. Willie suddenly appeared in the back door, which was now open. “Yeah!” was all he said. “Take those,” George told him, and Willie grabbed some boxes George had set aside and carried them out. Rob grabbed the point of his café hat and tossed it out the opening. “C’mon, get in here and help!” I went in through the back door. Willie was walking away with what I now saw to be a case of ice cream sandwiches. We didn’t handle this very systematically. Like pirates pillaging or rats in a cheese factory, we took whatever and as much as we could. By the time we left, it looked like bears had been there, for real. Boxes tipped over,
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some ripped open, shelves disheveled and emptied, refrigerator items unwrapped, bitten into, and carelessly discarded. We even left the damn freezer door open. And I’m sure our fingerprints were all over the place. We really didn’t think or care about that kind of thing. Exiting the back door with arms filled, I saw Willie sitting there at the base of a pine tree in full-lotus position gorging on those ice cream sandwiches. He had white ice-cream all around his lips. “Come on,” I yelled at him. He wiped his mouth, got up, picked up the boxes, and followed me. I let him go ahead. As we walked back up the dark trail, Rob carried a stack three boxes high. The box on top was a case of Salem cigarettes. He had jerky strips and pepperoni sticks stuffed-in and hanging out of his back pockets. George was equally loaded. Being the biggest of us, he managed four boxes, the top one pressed up against the side of his face. He had to eyeball the trail through a slither between boxes. Willie had two big boxes. He was still munching on ice-cream sandwiches. I know this because I could hear him and every once in a while an empty wrapper would drop to the trail in front of me and I’d picked it up. “Hey! Don’t leave a trail!” He’d look back at me and shrug, and then do it again. We reached our cave-like hideout exhausted. We set all the boxes down and took inventory. We had boxes of hot dogs, hamburger patties, buns, Almond Joy and Mounds, cookies, cases and cases of Snickers, and even a boxful of ketchup in those small little packets. Rob’s prize was the case of Salem cigarettes. He took to smoking one right away. Everyone had already eaten something, either back at the snackbar or on the way returning to the camp. But we ate more now. We ate as many ice cream sandwiches as we could before they melted. We sent what was left downriver in a box. We ate some raw dogs, some pepperoni sticks, and lots of Snickers. Afterward, our bellies were feeling it. Willie was moaning all night and eventually threw up, which caused a chain reaction. I remember, at one point, three of us were lined up along the river bank. The next day, ranger trucks were all over the place. They stretched police tape around the concession stand. Tourist and hikers stopped and gawked. We spied on them from a distance, but stayed at our camp for the next two days, keeping out of sight, sunbathing on the large boulders along the riverbank, barebacked with big bellies. We had no need to go anywhere. We had more food than we could eat. We utilized the ice chests to preserve
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FRANK SCOZZARI the food and also rigged a line in the icy river, at the end of which was a huge plastic bag full of perishables, weighed down with some stones. But truly, we had taken too much, and much of it was spoiled in the heat of the summer valley. On the third day, we all headed into the Village. We slipped by the Ranger’s crime line, acting shocked to see the concession stand still closed and taped up. We spent the day lounging around the Village. At one point, I saw Rob sitting at the entrance to the Village Store selling half-priced cigarettes. Yes, he did that, and somehow didn’t get caught. We heard some word about the snack-bar break-in at Happy Isles. Rumor had it, among the day-hikers anyhow, that bears had done it. Yeah, right, we thought, bears with axes. We were all snickering at the news of this. The rangers, of course, knew better. We spent our last day in the Valley riding around on top of one those double-decker buses, sliding jerky strips to one another, trading Almond Joys for Mounds bars, enjoying the sunshine and the breeze. I remember looking at Willie’s face, which had been gaunt after the long trail, and noticing it looking fuller. We went back to Happy Isles for our packs, and left with some misgivings. This granite overhang, nevertheless, had been our home for several weeks. We set the red white & blue custom Coleman ice chest afloat downriver, hoping its return to its true owner. All the other ice chests we left stacked beneath the overhang, figuring someday someone would find them. Sadly, the Hippies were blamed for the snack-bar break-in. The baton-wielding Rangers banned them from Happy Isles. They could no longer hold music festivals there, or for that matter, anywhere in the Valley—the crackdown became Park-wide. That last night we stayed at our camp there was no song or music echoing down the valley. We didn’t see the shadows of celestial dancers high on the granite walls or the tie-dyed t-shirts and long dresses celebrating out in the meadows. We had crashed that long beautiful wave Hunter Thompson had wrote about—maybe not for the rest of the country, but certainly for Yosemite Valley. I can still see Rob lounging in the last seat on top of the doubledecker, bare-backed as usual, smoking one of those stolen Salem cigarettes. He’s grinning that crazy Jack Nicholson grin, like he’s in on some joke the rest of the world didn’t know about. I can’t see his eyes because he’s wearing dark sunglasses, but when he notices me looking at him his grin widens, his lips move slowly, and he says one word, loudly: “BEAR!”
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TATIANA M.R. JOHNSON poetry
ANOTHER DEATH The microwave whirrs the hospital beef stew to simmer the air glides through the tube of my uncle’s breathing machine these breaths monitored his black hands pull the mask away chapped lips sip stew his breathing stops, for a second between each bite how much we are held in suspense of his lungs. He is the first son. The only of his mother’s children to die. We do not know just how this has happened, yet here we are caring for a grandmother’s dream. In the beginning before civic dreams dressed in a suit of looking like
a black boy born in the 50’s a segregated image is a two year-old on a beach in North Carolina by a black woman who knew the importance you came from somewhere good.
He did, from two parents who loved like sand crumbling against patent leather shoes from their friction, erupts a black family who will buy a home, car, a slow anger, a joy, a religion, the belief that their children will be fine Like most Americans, even when the years prove otherwise even when protecting your children is another form of fa ith, a hope, even, that is really just a home on this same beach disappearing with each rush of the wave until the only thing left is a photo, showing that he really did live, once. His family was just Southern ancestor return.
like any other blooming dogwood just like any other brought to the North to live to never
This is the story of another way black men die how time chips away life as a brutal country how cancer makes a home in all of us, taking the years, the stories as slaves, one by one.
just as much
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TROY SCHOULTZ poetry
FALSE DAYLIGHT
Lake Petenwell, Mid-1970’s
A few campsites over, a local motorcycle club fueled on cheap booze, drugs, and fireworks circled the bonfire. Roman candles arched, plumed above the tents, exploding with lightning hue, jarring the campground into false daylight. My uncle was a number of years away from the jungles of Vietnam. Still, drunken explosions and the outraged screech of tires and gears tore him back to war relics long retired in the attic. When a candle blast came too close to my one cousin’s head, we took cover in campers and tents. My uncle grabbed a bat and walked into the inferno, silhouetted by man and machines. One swing separated rider from his ride. My uncle would’ve dragged him to the lake, held him underwater, would’ve drowned him if the county hadn’t arrived.
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VAN G. GARRETT poetry
KITES
Pastime Off Highway 5
kindergarten: we made kites from bread bags—ran and jumped until proud hearts lifted in spring when we talked up the sun in patchwork moments stretched like starfish without strings attached
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MAN STROKES 3 RICHARD VYSE acrylic
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MAN SHEER RICHARD VYSE watercolor
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LAD IN RED RICHARD VYSE ink and watercolor
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HOME ARRIVING BECKY BOBAN photography
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JINDO DOG DAYS 1 JUSTIN HYUNMOO KIM photography
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JINDO DOG DAYS 2 JUSTIN HYUNMOO KIM photography
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INSIDE OUT RHIANNON JANESCHILD mixed media collage
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OUT OF TUNE HANNAH MOVAHEDI photography
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ZOHRA ZAFAR poetry
I LOST A TONGUE TO DOMESTIC WARFARE On the eastern front, somewhere next to a stove when a bullet in the form of a plastic bottle went flying past me. Maybe it’s still lying there where I left it, unspoken words lingering like a trail of blood, seeping into the lint or maybe it was lost like many parts are, only cogs in a great machine- call it collateral damage, no great loss. If you skip two steps at a time, you’ll escape your father running down three flights of stairs and maybe you’ll block that air raid with one arm raised to defend your face. I’ve lived in pockets of reality like a refrigerator box cut open and pillows placed inside to form a little safe house- call it trench warfare, no great loss. She becomes Renoir’s hidden girl in the bottom left corner of a painting, hiding in the bathroom with the laptop or the door locked, there’s a Mussolini threatening to tear it down or crush it like a revolution without much teeth. If and only if you’d tip toe on the balls of your feet, maybe you’d escape unnoticed, undo the lock and run. Don’t you ask about my day when I’ve already lost my tongue. There are things I wish to say, only to be overpowered by the thunderous sounds of diplomatic men. She slips away again, out through a window onto a ledge with flower pots full of objects in the peripheral vision, only barely existing.
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SARA GILBERT fiction
BUBBE When I was little, my grandmother spent hours in our kitchen, not in hers. She’d come through the door, grocery bags in hand, mumbling words I didn’t understand under her breath—I’d catch a snippet of my grandfather’s name and “Steelers,” before she pressed on a smile and asked me to unpack the groceries. I’d sit on one of our hard wooden chairs, my feet tucked under me, the way my mom hated—she swore it would ruin my knees when I grew up—and watch my grandmother mix things with her hands. “There’s no need for those fancy machines,” Bubbe would say. “Why waste money on that when you have two good mixers right here?” She’d hold up her hands covered in flour and eggs, ground beef, or olive oil and herbs. Her dark curls bounced off her forehead in protest of the oven, which simply added to the Florida heat. “You know, Sussie,” she said once, in the middle of making my favorite dinner, “your mom makes the best mandel bread I’ve ever had— perfectly double baked, like the best biscotti with those mini chocolate chips. It’s amazing since she’s a shiksa.” I listened to the word slip out of her mouth, sounding nothing like the English I was raised to speak. Bubbe’s words were always peppered with Yiddish phrases, passed on from her parents who immigrated to the United States from eastern Europe. I didn’t know much about my great-grandparents, just that they moved from Lithuania to Pittsburgh before the Holocaust, never learned English, and taught Bubbe to cook. “Shiksa?” I asked, barely able to see over the counter top, much less help my grandmother with any of the preparation. “That just means she’s not Jewish,” she added. I knew that. My mom took us to church every Sunday morning—my brother and I had to get dressed up and sit through mass while my dad stayed home and slept in late. He always had breakfast ready by the time we got home. All the kids at church said it was weird that my brother and I weren’t baptized and had to go to church anyway. I told my mom that once, and all she said was that we would be baptized soon. I watched as my grandmother prepared my favorite dish, aptly referred to as “little meatballs” due to the size of the main soup ingredient. She rolled small balls out of ground beef and plopped them into a large pot with cut up carrots and celery. “Why don’t you bring a chair over here and help me?” Her dark eyes watched as I pulled one of the table chairs over
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SARA GILBERT
to the counter and crawled on top. “Look, Grandma,” I laughed, “I’m taller than you, now.” “Don’t worry about that, kitzile, you’ll be taller than me soon.” Kitzile was another one of her Yiddish words—a pet name that I never quite understood. “Now make yourself useful and roll some meatballs. We have a lot of people to feed tonight and this is only the main course. We still have to make deviled eggs and some dips for appetizers and baklava for dessert.” I stood there rolling meatballs about the size a golf ball to go in the soup. The kitchen already smelled like garlic and sweet onions, and we’d barely started cooking. I watched as my grandmother gathered ingredients for the baklava, pulling the fresh handmade filo dough from the fridge, and pistachios, walnuts, and honey from the pantry. “Don’t you need a recipe?” I asked. “My mom always has a recipe.” “Kitzile, recipes aren’t the important part of cooking. Flavor is. Fun is. Not the directions. We get enough people telling us what to do in our lives; we don’t need it in the kitchen, too.” “Like teachers?” “I was thinking more along the lines of our history and our people,” my grandmother shared, pouring honey and pistachios onto the pastry. “Remember, Jewish people have had our share of hard times, and sometimes it feels like they just get harder,” her voice was low, almost a whisper. Even as a child, I knew I was missing something, but couldn’t figure out what. She paused to give me a quick smile, “But, sure, we’ll go with teachers.”
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D. GILSON nonfiction
THE FERAL BOY We open on Eden laid to waste. The last two decades of the twentieth century and the nation turned against free love. Clothes cover flesh. AIDS in a hospice gown and Nancy Reagan in a sensible wool skirt set suit, walking the halls of Capitol Hill, her patent leather purse filled to the brim with cellophane-wrapped tax cuts. And yet, nudity was never an issue in our family, in our naked house that calls to me as Eden, even now. That low-slung, nondescript, all-brick ranch in Aurora, Missouri, where “the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.” My father at the breakfast table with his New York Times and bulging Fruit of the Loom briefs. My mother, often topless, rushing from the bedroom to the laundry room to her sewing room, gathering the pieces of all our lives into the sweep of her arms. My brothers Randy and Mike, sweaty, wrestling on the living room floor, and my sister Jennifer, wrapped in a thick white towel, clearing steam from the bathroom mirror and plugging in her Vidal Sassoon curling iron as I sat atop the toilet next to the sink and stared up at her in awe. On Saturday mornings, we all piled into the expanse of our parents’ bed to watch cartoons, our bodies close and exuding heat, cereal bowls balanced precariously on our laps. I remember my brothers’ bodies in particular. They were athletes, sculpted and so sure of themselves, of their place in this world. Our Eden was a mixed blessing of a mixed family. Beverly begot Marty and Carla and Randy and Mike and Jennifer in a first marriage to a man who beat her and molested a redacted number of the children. But everyone escaped. Duane begot Diala and Starla in a first marriage buried deep in a closet on an archipelago found on no map. But everyone escaped. Together, Beverly and Duane begot me, a feral boy who surprised them and took to the naked house of shared bathrooms and teenage children always late to football or cheerleading or marching band practice. I slept under the coffee table naked, save for a pair of my mother’s stolen high heels, and woke up to everyone gone: my siblings to their own marriages or to high school, my father at work, and my mother in the sewing room off the kitchen, bent before yards and yards of silk charmeuse, a local football star turned drag queen’s dress in the making, with a Sony cordless telephone perched in the crook of her neck, one of her many friend’s on the other end of the line holding court.
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D. GILSON
Now I, the feral boy, was the only one naked, and aware, ashamed of this, wanting to know the bodies of my desire. Maybe I can’t.
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MICHAEL JACK O’BRIEN poetry
MY DEAR BILATERAL think now of the rhythm of our two-beat song the push-pull of lungs the heart’s ta-dum ta-dum our lives’ rhythm out and in and think of how your hands cup my ears to muffle them from the requiems as your two eyes watch clouds hide then reveal the moon your nostrils breathing in giving clues to origin as do two arms, two breasts, all hug and brush against shirt and blouse, a bottom cleft above thighs to calves arching below two knees and down to your lovely feet beneath legs that remember the old dances. so let us, for science’s sake uncover to discover why we are constructed bilaterally.
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ERIKA KUO poetry
FATHER When I feel your gaze graze across my skin like burlap I fold into a creature unrecognizable to myself. I chew on your words while the guilt pools in my cheeks. I pucker from the salt and hold my breath to let the brine erode my edges. Sometimes I’m afraid I will end up cast too far from you, marooned like earthworms on sidewalk after the rain but then the red crescent fingernails blooming on my thigh remind me that you are my blood.
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ERIKA KUO poetry
BLOOM Stumbling through confrontations with myself is like my fingers tripping over your ribcage so honestly you could believe it was a sparrow perching on soft willow mistaking it for home so warm like my mother’s promises to the four-faced Buddha in my pocket last night and alright I’ll admit you have made me so greedy I crave so much an ache in my chest blooms patterns my skin blue
your sincerity
like a bruise as if my body remembers something I don’t.
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DAN GROTE poetry
ENVY Having decided to now dedicate one day to each of seven deadly sins Tuesday seems appropriate for envy Envy for those who read their words out loud Those poets who practice Spoken Word While my stanzas stay condemned to silence I’d no sooner speak my heart aloud Than make love to my mistress in public Though my words would last longer My verse akin to broken promises Best consumed cold, alone and in the dark Regret illuminated in the dawn So yes, I envy you that use your voice You that speak words not so confessional I’ll stay beaten, broken, anti-social Scribbling in silent solitude, my choice.
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DAN GROTE poetry
DON’T TALK TO STRANGERS When my sons were little I told them not to Talk to strangers Which is probably why They will not talk To me today All they will remember is All that we never Did, all they will ever Know of me being There is that I never was
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KATIE LAUREL DAVIS poetry
LETTER TO ANNE SEXTON Anne Sexton, it is 1974, the year of my mother’s birth. I stand in our garage, the cave bloated with mistimed leaving. Our lives never overrode but I accuse myself. I never celebrated myself, my skin never redeemed itself. I am only interested in myself. Anne Sexton, I roam my mother’s blushing bathroom, painted with butter-colored tulips and rancid roses, adorned with lace and doilies and powdered noses; the only place my mother and I ever encountered one another save for in mirrors and poor poems and fiery disputes. I search myself, Anne Sexton, or maybe I search for myself in return for some self-accord. I imagine your blazon: My teeth, like the tulips, plaqued and always chatterless. My gums, the unclean mouth, the door agape for anyone. My nose, upended, like my mother’s. I hate my nose. My neck, age stitched across it like a wiry necklace, like Russian cursive, like something that doesn’t belong. I hated my mother. I hated her for my withdrawal from her. When she lifts her arms, her lolling breasts, sole grapefruits in wilting grocery totes, bleached and stretched, fall sideways, over her wayside rib. Womb-ridden, I recoiled, splintered her rib out. It peers from under now, blade threatening the fraught stretch of skin, staring scornfully. When I see her naked I wonder how much guilt I should have. Should it fill a ruddy teacup, or the oblong bathtub she clambers from, fleshy amid a soapy pink steam and hazy wisps of a new fragrance, always a new fragrance, so that I could never recognize her with my eyes closed? Anne Sexton, could I count myself into your anaphoras? Could I be the mother or daughter in Russia, Egypt, Wyoming? I tug at my breasts, I bind my feet, I carefully place my fig leaves. But I still scratch at my father’s haired face for an opinion. I still deny my magic, beat at my bones, don’t ever bother
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KATIE LAUREL DAVIS the broomstick in the cupboard. I carry pistols, never poison. I write. I enjoy bloodbaths. I want to be God. Anne Sexton, is there hope for us who have never forgiven ourselves? Is there hope for the odysseys undone by men with their smoking guns, women with their vials of venom, and all the grief in between? Could I ever look at my mother again and not feel sorry for her sorry for myself, for all that fetal hurt? Let me be born again with skin redeemed; Anne Sexton, will honesty matter at the end?
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JULIE WEISS poetry
SURFACING
After Adrienne Rich
If I took your hand and told you my greatest desire is to break the surface of your soul, would you look at me anew? I don’t mean break like a rock hurled forth by hand, impulsive, too much has been shattered already, but tender as a deep-sea diver climbing down the ladder, dropping into the space that has rippled open, paddling downwards through the shifting light, the blues and greens swirling into black as I near the floor, as I approach the wreck which you have tried to camouflage with a splashy voice and dimpled grins, but I know better, I know the rotting wood under which your heart is crushed, I know the sorrow, growing like algae along the planks, all tangled up in your words when you tell me he wasn’t the one, either. Whether for deception or dissolution or downright violence, you’ve always waded your way back to me, the best friend, through reefs of past relationships, starved for oxygen, staring toward a distant sun as if you could make out, emerging from within the light, a silhouette of the perfect man. They’re not worth your serenity, I say, guiding you along the flank, into the hold. I want you to see the instruments they destroyed;
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JULIE WEISS I want you to behold the tentative haunters, all your drowned faces scalded by illusory rays. I’ll find him, you say, turning your compass dial in any direction but mine. I am she, I start to confess but I’m short of breath, and besides, the sea has silenced me. If I told you I came here for your life, not the story of your life; if I cast off my mask, if I stripped down to my scales and circled about your body; if I wedged my knife-blade under the lids of barrels containing the treasures of my heart, which I’ve been silently storing for years, would you come crashing out of the wreck, would you let me drown in your mermaid hair, would you sigh as we streamed to the surface?
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JUSTIN ZACHARY WYCKOFF fiction
BAO INSIDE It’s the dead of a Bay Area winter, which some might say is barely winter at all. Call it the undead of winter then. Still, somehow the leaves remember to drop, and the children remember to kick them on the way to school. All the trees are bare around Crestview Elementary except the juniper and holly hedges lining the school’s façade, and the redwoods circling the play yard. Charlotte Leung is among the second-graders arriving outside portable C-2. Through its windows, she can see a red glow. Ms. Abercrombie has brought several Chinese lanterns with battery-powered lights and hung them about the classroom. This week is the start of the Year of the Goat. After the flurry of peeled jackets, the children are instructed to begin gluing segments of a paper dragon on sticks. Today, everybody will learn special words in both Mandarin and Cantonese, but no one will attempt to explain which word is which. Nor will anyone explain the difference, even though Charlotte very well could. Behind their desks, the two other Asian kids glow almost as brightly as the lanterns from all the sidelong glances. One girl, Tien, is actually from Vietnam, which, the class is reminded after being directed to the spinning globe that never got completely unsticky from the chocolate milk disaster the month before, is not China at all, but is just below, very nearby. Tien doesn’t say a word, but the teacher’s aide, a white raisin of a woman who has joined Ms. Abercrombie to help, says, “Tet is the Vietnamese new year right?” She then turns to Ms. Abercrombie, adding sotto voce, “like the Tet Offensive.” Ms. Abercrombie smiles dimly with a swallow. Charlotte watches from far behind her eyes, which are far behind her face, and likewise, far behind her desk, wondering what is “offensive” about it. But she doesn’t ask. Her mother is white like Ms. Abercrombie and the teacher’s aide, but is only offended when her father, who was originally from Hong Kong, doesn’t listen to her. Her mother gets madder and madder while Daddy gets quieter and quieter. Now, Charlotte devotes herself to cutting a dragon claw with purple snub-nosed scissors. A bowed erhu keens from one of the class computers. Lunchtime comes earlier than usual. Ms. Abercrombie is on the classroom phone twice, while the foursquare boys begin making spit balls out of the lime and carmine construction paper. Brandon and Tony have straws, and two other boys try to tussle for them. Brandon is the one who,
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JUSTIN ZACHARY WYCKOFF when a dog ran beside the playground during recess last week after Ms. Abercrombie announced the upcoming Chinese New Year, said the Chinese like to eat dogs. Of course, he made sure to say it loud enough for Charlotte to hear. Now he writes “woof” on a piece of paper and flashes it her way. Then, he crumples it up to make more spitballs. The class has been told not to bring lunches today because there will be a traditional Chinese lunch, but some kids have their own anyway. Some kids are allergic to everything, and some kids pretend to be. Charlotte doesn’t look at Brandon when they thread arms through jackets and walk single-file up the hill to the cafeteria. Her knees feel weak. She tried to get out of coming today, but her father got that look he’d get sometimes. He didn’t need to say a word. The other second-grade class is already inside, and the commotion allows Charlotte to grab ahold of Amy, who Ms. Abercrombie has started keeping on the other side of the classroom, and at the other end of the single-file lines. But you can’t separate the inseparable for long. Amy has big dark eyes, tan skin, black hair and laughs easily. Amy is full Chinese, but Amy’s parents let her be in the sun as much as she wants. Although Charlotte has been too embarrassed to invite Amy to their apartment above her parents’ restaurant, she has been to Amy’s house several times. Amy’s family eats lots of Chinese food, but it tastes different. Amy’s parents burn incense in their meditation room and wear sandals even when it is cold. Amy told Charlotte once, very matter-of-factly, that she is something called adopted. Charlotte and Amy stay with locked arms while the teachers set up a line for food. Amy is talking; she talks a lot. The boys are elbowing each other at a safe distance. Behind them there are stacks of bamboo steamers near the corner of the cafeteria. Ms. Abercrombie is rushing around with plates and utensils and napkins, her many bracelets jangling, while the teacher’s aide stands there looking tired with a couple of other adults by the food. One of them is— “Oh my god, my dad is here,” Charlotte says in disbelief, cutting Amy off. “Wait, what?” Amy spins. Charlotte feels herself turn bright red, red as the construction paper, as the lettering on their take-away boxes stacked at home beside where she does her homework. Just then, Ms. Abercrombie points her face at a slight upward angle and claps her hands, jangling her bracelets once again. “Today everybody,” she gathers eyes around the room, “we are so excited to have what’s called dim sum! So let’s all give a big thank you to Mr. Leung for being so generous!”
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JUSTIN ZACHARY WYCKOFF Every face turns to Charlotte during their chorus. She catches her father’s eye briefly, then leans her head onto Amy’s shoulder and pulls Amy’s hair over her face. But Charlotte can’t shut her ears. She hears clapping, giggling, and then one of the boys makes a fake puking sound. “Brandon Mack. That is not respectful,” Ms. Abercrombie says, walking his direction. “Brandon,” she announces, “will be the first to go to dreaded table number seven. Go now, please.” The cavernous space gets quiet as he thrusts out his lower lip and walks to the small table by the double doors at the back. “Now,” Ms. Abercrombie continues, “for those with peanut allergies, there are post-its in front of the dishes with peanuts. Otherwise, don’t be shy about trying something new.” A number of kids race ahead and take a look while still carrying their lunch pails. They are deciding whether or not they are allergic today. Ms. Abercrombie notices and encourages them to try. Some do. Some don’t. Charlotte glances over to see her father standing with his plucky chef’s forearms crossed. He looks proud, nodding in a conversation with the teacher’s aide. It doesn’t look like she has told him about anything being “offensive,” and he doesn’t seem to care about the group not partaking. How could he not care? The non-participants cluster at one of the six tables, but they dominate the room with their bright pales and loud plastic packaging. The foursquare boys, minus Brandon, are all there with their identical Lunchables and Capri Suns. Charlotte ends up with a couple of char siu bao, two siu mai, two har gow, and some mustard. She feels the eyes of several of the girls who have never tried dim sum. “Which ones are sweet?” she hears. Ms. Abercrombie leans over, “Most of them are kind of savory except this one and this one.” She knows Charlotte is too shy. Or in shock. Or overwhelmed. Or proud, like Daddy? She takes a bite, but she can’t taste a thing. Her whole body is weak and numb among so many faces twisted with strange nectars of the new. Daddy nods at her like, go on, Charlie. Show them who you are, my little bao—a nickname he uses less frequently these days, and will soon cease saying altogether, distancing himself, as she gets leggier, more feminine, less bun-like. For now, she takes a breath and again does with chopsticks what others do with grubby fingers: raise dumpling, dip mustard, bite down. Beside her, Amy gives a much-needed demonstration on how to use chopsticks, and several begin to try. A minute goes by with the sound of falling sticks and excited chatter. Charlotte looks up again with one grin 86 |
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JUSTIN ZACHARY WYCKOFF for Amy, and one for her father, but he is already heading for the double doors. Then, to her horror, he stops and crouches down at dreaded table number seven. All Charlotte can see is Brandon’s lubberly mouth hanging open “for flies to enter” is what Daddy might say. Daddy generally keeps his mouth closed, especially over his flaming stove—except when he gives instructions to his staff. Now she sees a bamboo steamer full of items in front of Brandon. Other kids have started to watch. Ms. Abercrombie and the “offensive” lady are watching too. Brandon takes a dubious bite, as Daddy stands up tall. He crosses his arms like before, not saying a word, while Brandon begins to chew. He chews with a clotted face. Ponderously, clumsily, there seems to be no end to the chewing. Years later, in Charlotte’s head, he is chewing still. Chewing long after they graduate from Ms. Abercrombie’s class and move to portable C-3 with Mr. Frunkle; after fourth and fifth grades both joined at the hip with Amy; after the two of them have a falling out over Charlotte’s first crush and Amy’s zillionth; after Charlotte finishes high school and goes off to college, never having acted on her second crush on one of the bussers from her parents’ restaurant; after Charlotte gets a call one day at school from her mother who announces that she’s leaving both her father and the restaurant; after the restaurant quickly goes belly up with no one to place orders or do the books; after a difficult first year in the dorms trying to forget about all the drama back home, maybe even trying to pass as less “Asian,” but then joining an ASU, wanting to honor her father who’d gone downhill fast, fighting bouts of pancreatitis with a gravid little pot belly, until he died suddenly at a stove in a one-room apartment, cooking for no one. For years, Charlotte has felt guilty, in part, for not having done anything to help out at the restaurant after her mother left, and, in part, for her mother staying in a bad relationship for so long—until she, Charlotte, was safely installed in college—though her mother keeps saying it was her duty to protect her from a fate like hers, a woman behind the scenes. Now a decade has passed not behind the scenes at all, but in scenes, in relationships, in a career. Charlotte has even fallen in love and gotten married. Yet there he is sometimes, that Brandon, chewing still. She can picture him so clearly, as she sits at her kitchen table full of take-out dim sum and feeds herself a steamer of siu mai, while keeping a hand on her nineteen-weeks-pregnant tummy, wishing her father could see her now. He’d turn around from his old stove at the old restaurant with his slow, gracious nod and his faraway smile—for his little bao, and the bao inside. Somehow, she never thanked him for that day so long ago; what he said to Brandon without words, in the language he spoke with his mouth closed. SANTA CLARA REVIEW |
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JUSTIN ZACHARY WYCKOFF Feeling the kicks of what should emerge, come April, as her child, she swallows and thanks him now.
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FARMERS MARKET ORANGES STINA ARSTOP acrylic on canvas
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A CRIME ALONG THE ITALIAN COUNTRYSIDE PAGE KASTNER acrylic
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LAUNDRY DAY PAGE KASTNER acrylic
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A MOMENT INFINITE JACQUELINE QUIRKE charcoal
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HELLO SPRING BETTE RIDGEWAY acrylic
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DEEP SUMMER II BETTE RIDGEWAY acrylic
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SANTA CLARA REVIEW
A SYMPHONY FOR EMILY BETTE RIDGEWAY acrylic
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OVERDUE STEPHEN HUA oil paint
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SANTA CLARA REVIEW
CONTRIBUTORS’ NOTES SANTA CLARA REVIEW volume 106 // issue 02
Gale Acuff has had hundreds of poems published in literary magazines and has authored three books of poetry. He has taught university English in the US, China, and Palestine, where he teaches at Arab American University. Stina Arstop, originally from a small town in Connecticut, is now a sophomore at Santa Clara University and an Environmental Studies & Studio Art major. Influenced by the vibrant colors of her Northern California surroundings, her work is primarily focused on color and light that she finds in moments of her daily life. Amy Baskin’s recent work has appeared in VoiceCatcher, Cirque, and Friends Journal. She is a 2019 Oregon Literary Arts Fellowship recipient. When not writing, she matches international students at Lewis & Clark College with local volunteers to help make them feel welcome and at home during their stay. Becky Boban is from Madison, OH. She writes poetry and fiction and is a senior Art and Writing major at Bluffton University. She has been published in Bluffton’s Bridge magazine, The Merrimack Review, Periphery, and Asterism. Katie Laurel Davis is a poet and an undergraduate creative writing student at Florida State University. She has been previously published in Peeking Cat Magazine and The Kudzu Review. Her work explores feminism, gender, sexuality, and family. She currently lives in Tallahassee, Florida. Erin Fitzpatrick is a Baltimore native and graduate of the Maryland Institute College of Art. She started painting portraits in 2008 and this body of work now contains hundreds of paintings and drawings of artists, musicians, business people, peers, and commissioned subjects. She has collectors all across the US and around the world. Los Angeles based artist Erin D. Garcia is best known for his large scale colorful installations of floating and overlapping shapes. These deceptively simple forms have been distilled down to a short master list of fixed elements arranged by sets of rules that constantly shift and permutate. It’s developing and altering these systems that drive each piece to creation. Van G. Garrett is the winner of the 2017 Best Book of African American Poetry for his book, 49: Wings and Prayers, as announced by the Texas Association of Authors. Garrett is the author of Songs in Blue Negritude (poetry), The Iron Legs in the Trees (fiction), 49: Wings & Prayers (poetry), LENNOX IN TWELVE (poetry), HOG (poetry), ZURI: Love Songs (poetry), and Water Bodies (fall 2019). His updates and appearances can be found at www.vanggarrettpoet.com. Sara Gilbert is a first year Ph.D. student in Creative Writing at Oklahoma State University. She was born on the East Coast, moved around for most of
her early years, but considers herself from San Antonio, Texas. She is from a mixed-religion family, with a nun on one side and a rabbi on the other. D. Gilson’s next essay collection, Incarnate: Notes from an Evangelical Boyhood, is forthcoming from the University of Georgia Press. He is the author of Jesus Freak, with Will Stockton (Bloomsbury, 2018); I Will Say This Exactly One Time: Essays (Sibling Rivalry, 2015); and Brit Lit (Sibling Rivalry, 2013). An Assistant Professor of English at Texas Tech University, his work has appeared in Threepenny Review, POETRY, and The Rumpus. Dan Grote has turned 30-plus years of addiction and an 84 month federal prison sentence into 30-plus published poems. His work has appeared most recently in the Hiram Poetry Review and Santa Clara Review. He recently finished repaying his debt to society and is probably on the streets of Chicago exchanging poems for spare change and good karma. He can be reached at danmgrote@gmail.com. Stephen Hua is a creative advertising professional at the New York Times and a craftsman of impactful and culturally relevant brand campaigns. His artistic work ranges from conceptual photography to surrealist oil paintings. He is an alumni of Santa Clara University and graduated class of 2018. Rhiannon Janeschild is a junior at Santa Clara University, where she studies Studio Art and Art History. Within her art she explores the figurative interaction mixed media and painting can display. She is inspired by how the face of a medium can be used to interpret and elicit emotional responses. Isabelle Jia is a student from San Francisco, CA. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Alexandria Quarterly, The Blueshift Journal, Rising Phoenix Review, and many more. Jia has been recognized as a California Arts Scholar, by the Walt Whitman National Poetry Foundation, and the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers. For more on her work, go to http://isabellejia.weebly.com/ Tatiana M.R. Johnson is a black woman writer, artist and MFA candidate at Emerson College. She is currently an assistant poetry editor for Redivider. Her work has been published in Inside the Bell Jar, Maps for Teeth, and others. Her writing explores the nuances in girlhood, blackness, inherited trauma, mental health and healing. Page Kastner’s paintings explore the influence of social media on the delicate human psyche. Her process begins with a natural landscape, disrupted by hard, graphic shapes. Her goal is to balance digital perfection with the intimacy of the natural world. Often, she adds surrealist portraiture to plant a median between the painterly and graphic. Page is compelled by the conceptual nature of painting, and the reward when a stranger connects with her art. The sense of personal accomplishment from the process is incomparable.
Justin Hyun Moo Kim is a junior Computer Science major from San Jose. Born in South Korea, he’s spent most of his life in the US with the rest of his nuclear family. He indulges in playing with shape and mixing aspects of different disciplines, like computer science and poetry. This is Justin’s first official publication as an adult. Erika Kuo is a junior Accounting major from Honolulu, Hawaii. Sarah Locklin is a senior at Santa Clara University studying Spanish and Political Science with her eyes toward law school. A Bay Area native blessed with a diverse upbringing, she uses poetry and prose to process her experience as a mixed-race Latina woman in White America. She’s still learning to sit in her anger and pull no punches. Annie Loewen was born in Stockton, California, and is currently a junior at Santa Clara University majoring in Communication Studies with minors in Creative Writing and Italian. She is also involved with Residence Life, The Owl, and the a cappella group Audiosync. In her spare time, she enjoys reading, writing, singing, and watching sports. This is her first publication. Frances Mac hails from the Texas Hill Country and currently lives in Washington, DC. Her work has previously been published in Epigraph Magazine, Burnt Pine Magazine and The MacGuffin. She is currently at work on her debut collection, which is comprised of poems using only language from Donald Trump’s speeches and statements. Jeffrey H. MacLachlan also has recent work in New Ohio Review, the minnesota review, Columbia Journal, among others. He teaches literature at Georgia College & State University. Mighty Mike McGee is a well-traveled stand-up poet from San José, California, but he’s hobo’d his way around the United States, Canada, and throughout Europe since 2002. McGee has performed comedy and poetry in thousands of cities and towns for millions of ears. He was appointed Poet Laureate of Santa Clara County (Silicon Valley) for 2018 & 2019. He is one of the best known and liked people in the world of chatty writers. In highschool, Hannah Movahedi took a photography and 2D design class and captured this photo in one of the rooms of an abandoned hotel about a quarter mile away from her home in Carmel Valley, California. She was able to apply the rule of thirds using the wall indentations and angle of the photograph. She then used Adobe Photoshop to make the photo black and white and sharpen some areas of it. María Fernanda Muñoz is a 23-year-old psychology student from Quito, Ecuador, entering her last year of study. Her childhood presented certain
obstacles, and while unable to grow up with her parents, family and friends encouraged her forward. Solitude has been a great friend to her in the hour of poetry writing. María Fernanda’s goal is to motivate those without opportunities to never give up, because creativity should be cultivated and never forgotten. Michael Jack O’Brien has placed poems in many publications, including these anthologies: Phoenix: Out of Silence…and Then; Gridlock: Poetry of Southern California; Proposal on Brooklyn Bridge; and California: Dreams and Realities. He babysits his grandchildren, reads to them, and sings them lullabies (hoping he doesn’t ruin their love of verse and music). Mike Pantano has work in Third Wednesday, San Pedro River Review, The Museum of Americana, Gravel, Flint Hills Review, and elsewhere. He lives and works in Cincinnati, Ohio. Alejandro Pérez is a Latinx student at Columbia University in New York. He is a 2019 Pushcart Prize nominee whose poems and flash fiction have appeared or are forthcoming in Typehouse Magazine, HEArt Online, Jellyfish Review, Literary Orphans, Pidgeonholes, Star 82 Review, Gravel, Acentos Review, and several Spanish-language magazines. George Perreault has worked as a visiting writer in Montana, New Mexico, and Utah. His most recent book is Bodark County, a collection of poems in the voices of characters living on the Llano Estacado in West Texas. Perreault’s poetry has appeared in journals and anthologies in the US, Canada, Ireland, England, and India. Eric Powell is a writer, Christian, and lay theologian. He resides in Louisville, KY with his wife and dreams of going back to Hawaii, where his wife is from. He enjoys overseas travel, hiking, and all things sweet. Jacqueline Quirke graduated from Santa Clara University with a BS in Psychology. Jacqueline has over 8 years of experience teaching art classes to children and adults with other local artists. Through the years she has kept her passion alive by taking classes and selling her art in the Bay Area. Her art can be found on Instagram by searching @jq_bay_area_art. Darren Reid is a self-taught British realist painter, who depicts photorealistic landscapes using acrylic paint. His work contains familiar British landscapes, nostalgic seascapes, and recently has expanded to Californian scenery. Reid’s artistic career began seven years ago, when he taught himself to paint: a distraction while he nursed his dog to health. Incidentally, the same dog is depicted in “Blue”. His work is acrylics on canvas or panel. In her four-decade career, Bette Ridgeway has exhibited art globally in over
80 museums, universities and galleries. Multiple prestigious awards include Top 60 Contemporary Masters, Leonardo DaVinci Prize, and Oxford University Alumni Prize at Chianciano Art Museum, Tuscany, Italy. Mayo Clinic and Federal Reserve Bank are amongst Ridgeway’s permanent public placements, in addition to countless important private collections. Many publications have featured her work, among them: International Contemporary Masters and 100 Famous Contemporary Artists. Ridgeway has also penned several books about her art and process. Troy Schoultz resides in Oshkosh, WI. His most recent collection is 2016’s Biographies of Runaway Dogs (Vegetarian Alcoholic Press). His next collection tentatively titled No More Quiet Entrances, should be released sometime in 2020. He teaches at the University of Wisconsin-Fox Valley. Frank Scozzari is an American novelist and short story writer. A five-time Pushcart Prize nominee, his short stories have been widely anthologized and featured in literary theater. Robin Tremblay-McGaw’s Dear Reader (Ithuriel’s Spear 2015) is available from Small Press Distribution. With Rob Halpern, she co-edited From Our Hearts to Yours: New Narrative as Contemporary Practice (ON Contemporary Practice 2017). Her work has appeared in MELUS, Dear Kathleen (Nightboat Books 2017), albeit, Feminist Spaces 2.2, Aufgabe, elsewhere. Shelley Valdez is a Filipino-American writer, artist, editor, and performer from California’s Bay Area. She is a recent graduate of Santa Clara University and worked as the poetry editor of the Santa Clara Review for several years. Her work has won multiple prizes, and has been published by poets.org, The Best Emerging Poets of California, Quiet Lightning, and elsewhere. Mostly, she wants to tell good stories, give good love, and make good art. Internationally-collected artist Richard Vyse has shown in galleries in Manhattan and Honolulu. He has studied at the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan and taught at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. His art has been featured in many international art and literary magazines. His art is in the Leslie Lohman museum in Manhattan. For bio and published art, visit http:// manartbyvyse.blogspot.com. “Celebrating man in line and spontaneous brush strokes to capture a moment and a mood.” Julie Weiss received her BA in English Literature and Creative Writing from SJSU. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Lavender Review, Sinister Wisdom, The American Journal of Poetry, and Sky Island Journal, among others. She lives in Spain with her wife and two young children. You can find her on Twitter @colourofpoetry or on her website at https://julieweiss2001.
wordpress.com/. Hailing from Oakland, California, Justin Zachary Wyckoff is finishing his MFA in Creative Writing at San Francisco State University and is an art conservator by day. This story is an adapted excerpt from his current novel-inprogress located at the intersection of the tech industry, homelessness, and a city coming apart at the seams. Kyla Yamashita is a senior Biology and Public Health Science double major with a minor in Creative Writing. She is from Honolulu, Hawaii, and loves to sing and tap. With her minor, she appreciates being able to take a break from the sciences and express herself creatively. Zohra Zafar is an aspiring poet from South Asia whose favorite pastimes include reading Tolstoy and drawing inspiration from her lived experiences in Pakistan. She is currently doing her A levels in Literature, and when she’s not writing poetry on the notes app of an iPhone, she can be found voicing her leftist politics on social media platforms.
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