Serendipity Issue 1-Winter 2017

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Serendipity The Literary Journal of the Black Lesbian Literary Collective Issue 1 Winter 2017

Masthead Editors-in-Chief S. Andrea Allen Lauren Cherelle

Associate Editor Andie Hayes

www.blacklesbianliterarycollective.com | info@blacklesbianliterarycollective.com Š Respective Authors. All rights reserved. None of the material here may be used without the written permission of the author.

Cover Photo Credit: photo-nic.co.uk nic

Contents Poetry & Prose 1 He wants to read me Stewart Shaw

29 Mecca Robert Wright

2 Dame Jere Gayle Bell

31 Intermezzo For Phoebe Snow Valencia Robin Grice

3 ClichĂŠ This Valencia Robin Grice 4 Disco Duty Lorna Gray 7 Hawwa loves Padma.

Zoha Khan 11 In the Right Place at the Wrong Time Chad W. Lutz 13 In-Between Clariss Flournoy 14 The House of Men Stewart Shaw 15 Fanning My Dress Tail Gayle Bell 16 Intransigent James Stryker 27 Nana Loves Venus Hottentot, Kwaku Loves Kunta Stewart Shaw

33 One Look Silk Hindus 46 gritty re/booted by own.

Zoha Khan 48 My Gay Son Robert Wright 49 Before Clariss Flournoy 50 Someplace Beautiful Stephani Booker 52 The Ancient Theater at Delphi Sneha Subramanian Kanta 53 Motherhood Robert Wright 55 The Illuminated Man Andrea Mosier 59 Next Door Daniel Dowe

iv

60 Fateful Encountering Clariss Flournoy 61 The Letters Jon MacDonald 66 The Monkey Chronicles Gregory Canillas 68 The Picnic Rebecca Redshaw 70 Union Square Terry Sanville 76 Sundry Notes Sneha Subramanian Kanta 77 Untitled Stephani Booker 79 Wove Myself Scarlett Peterson Photography 10, 32, 54 Julia Forrest 80 Contributors

v

He wants to read me Stewart Shaw

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Daddy is calling from the other side Or wherever daddies call from When their echoes cease.

I am paper Thin and unread, He calls to set my edges Ablaze, to see how fast I burn.

He wants to read Me, calls me cocksucker. I smile An orphaned smile Think there is something Subversive and powerful in knowing oneself. He Never smiles in my visions.

My older brother got his name.

Space and questions and a need for closeness My birthright.

I still navigate ancestral Waters, still let him call me Names, let Him Call.

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Dame Jere Gayle Bell

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________ Still small voice saw him first There be angels Ma’am would you mind putting these things on your walker I don’t get around so good The attaché had faded green party stickers Mondale vs. some obscure nemesis He offered his half a turkey sandwich To a woman trying to sleep on the anti-vagrant benches near the AA center He gestured to the crowd gates set up on Olive St think they’re going to have the pride parade down here ma’am I laughed I doubted it You going to the parade tomorrow been there got the shirt I’m too old well he preened raising a tiny bit of his shorts with a practiced dainty hand to reveal a pair of pink panties frillier than the ones I was wearing I’ve been asked to be on a float as we slow walked to the rail, he regaled me he queen of the regalia satins pearls taffeta unforgiving in this lone star heat.

The train sound broke me from his enchanted tales and like my momma useta say just cause you’re an angel you don’t have to be a fool; since I was neither, I told him I had to dash.

He grabbed his belongings, thanked me for the assist.

I curtsied and wished him a gentle journey, he blew me a kiss in times past would have held a jeweled glove.

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Cliché This

Valencia Robin Grice

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

When you grow up with a view of the sun setting over, say, Lake Michigan, are you more susceptible to what our little star can do under the right circumstances, are you less dismissive of sunsets on postcards and calendars than the rest of us, do you grow moody and out of sorts without your daily hit of miraculous?

Because when I see a great sunset, the sky losing its mind, sticking a knife in my heart again and again, I think of that Kenyan oil executive who gave up his millions to adopt hundreds of street children, I think of his wife —his sons and daughters who said goodbye to their lives, too, I think of those kids sleeping in alley and doorways finishing college. Yes, with the right sunset —one of those freaky light shows worthy of its own religion— anything’s possible, if not the man of my dreams, a black lab with a red ball, his tail running for office.

And just think of the first people who sat where I’m sitting, this beach I had to beg, borrow and steal to get to, folks who must’ve thought the waves were somehow linked to their breathing, who still believed in clouds, silver linings.

And how to watch this woo-woo of weird light routinely denied to anyone without vacation time and not swing wide my arms as if I’m not the only black person out here, how to stand up and shake out my towel as if all that star shine isn’t still rearranging my soft machinery, crashing me, handing me back to myself like an invitation.

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Disco Duty Lorna Gray

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Old Lemon-Face was forcing me to chaperone the Grade 8 disco.

Friday night, the most sacred of nights in all the week, would be sacrificed to standing in a dimly-lit, sweaty school gym and making sure that hormonally-charged teenagers didn’t smoke, drink, or do anything more than dance and hold hands.

To make matters worse, I was up for a disciplinary review the following week after having been ‘insubordinate’ to Mother Superior. That’s her story anyway. My version was a little different, but that would be of no consequence now. Was I really going to lose my job?

On Friday evening, I returned to the school on foot, hoping to twist my ankle on the way and be exonerated from disco duty. No such luck. As I walked, I thought about the events of the past week that had led to this dismal state of affairs.

It had all begun with the meeting. I’d asked to see the old bag alone, but Mother Superior had called Tombstone-Teeth Muriel the minute she knew I wanted to talk to her.

Muriel was the head guide at Milan’s most famous tourist attraction, Da Vinci’s ‘The Last Supper’, housed in the refectory of Santa Maria delle Grazie. I’d tried to talk some sense into both of them, but they were having none of it. No one believed that the priceless artwork was in danger. No one believed that I’d discovered a plot to destroy it, speeding up its deterioration by mimicking environmental factors on all fronts: humidity, changes in temperature, pollution, even mould. Virtually undetectable, because of the existing deterioration (and the fact that it is over five-hundred years old), and highly beneficial to the fundamentalists who claimed it was an evil perversion of the Good Book— we’ve all seen The Da Vinci Code, right?

Instead, they’d laughed in my face and Mother Superior had called me ‘a crazy, young girl.’ I’d remained perfectly calm and had even managed not to cry on my way out.

The problem— and current threat to my job— was that after I’d walked out of the meeting I’d called Monsignor Vespucci in Rome. I can’t remember exactly what I said, but I do remember calling Mother Superior a ‘cogliona’ and a ‘stronza’ (both words being more on the career-limiting side of what to call one’s boss). The social hierarchy in Italy is like something out of the Middle Ages— lords, ladies, and lots of underlings, and it’s simply not advisable to call up the Vatican and shout obscenities.

The rational me knew all of this. The rest of me was in a total panic. I was afraid I’d end up losing my job and the Rampant Righteous would succeed in destroying my favourite fresco (even if it was already peeling off the wall because Da Vinci didn’t follow fresco rules).

It all made me think we had something in common, Da Vinci and I: a mistrust of rules and the people who make them.

The music was already blaring when I arrived. As my eyes adjusted to the dim light (the Grade 8s had put black cardboard over most of the windows), I managed to make out the figure of Mother Superior wagging her finger menacingly at someone next to the punch table.

I should go over and let her know I’d arrived. She was in full swing as I approached.

“How many times do I need to tell you people not to use the fine crockery for events such as these,” she said, one bony finger sweeping the room and indicating the mass of young bodies, jerking and bobbing to the music.

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It was poor Svetlana who was getting it this time. The kitchen staff worked directly under Ciocca the Cook, who managed to protect them most of the time from Mother Superior’s sharp tongue, but Svetlana was on her own now and she was far too pretty for Mother Superior’s liking.

As I stood waiting politely for the right moment to announce my presence, someone poked my shoulder. I looked round to find Old Lemon-Face, our headmaster.

“Reporting for duty, Old Lem… I mean, Principal Cripps! You know what I mean,” I said, trying to laugh lightly.

“Most of the time we don’t,” was all he said. He crooked his finger and beckoned me to follow. As we walked, he pointed out the darker areas of the school gym, the shadowy nooks and crannies where mischief could be made.

“Make sure no-one ends up here, Caroline. They’ll all be trying to run off and snog!”

This last comment was accompanied by a leer and a snort. When he’d finished laughing at his own joke, he looked at me sideways and said, “We don’t want any nonsense now, do we?”

I shook my head, trying very hard not to think about Old Lemon-face and snogging.

The first two hours were uneventful. I soon got used to the darkness and the generic thump of the music. I even got used to that teenage smell— sweaty sneakers, an undertone of newly-washed hair and mint-flavoured chewing gum for stolen kisses. I turned a blind eye to the swaying couples that weren’t keeping the required distance from each other, their thighs almost touching and hands flung in adolescent rapture around the backs of necks. I remembered all too well what it was like to be that young, breathless with excitement, undaunted, the future spread out before you the way the sun glitters its shining path on the sea at sunrise. I looked at my watch. Another hour or so and I’d be on the tram, heading home.

Suddenly, there was a huge commotion near the emergency exit. I ran over and pushed through a large circle of students, some laughing, and some looking at each other nervously.

As I got near the centre of the circle, I saw what they were all gaping at. It was Mother Superior.

“Wheeee!” she shrieked and spun around on one pointy, black boot. I saw her hair for the first time, a tired, dark brown, flecked with strands of grey, as her wimple gave up and slid onto the floor. She picked up the front of her heavy, black habit in both hands and shook it in time to the music like a can-can dancer at the Moulin Rouge. We were all treated to a view of her knee-length, black, woollen socks and above white, knobbly knees that held up her skinny thighs, the skin sagging on either side of the bone. By now the students were in various stages of hysteria. Those who weren’t laughing were filming her or taking photos on their cell phones.

A voice yelled in my ear, pulling me abruptly out of my reverie. It was Old Lemon-Face.

The music was turned off, the lights were turned on. It took a while for Mother Superior to stop gyrating though. I followed the instructions, which had been barked at me, getting the students into a line, two-by-two, and led them out into the courtyard. The other chaperone teachers did the same thing. We all looked at each other, shocked but silent.

Had her punch been spiked?

Who would do such a thing?

Disco Duty

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Who wouldn’t?

I smiled as a wicked thought began to form in my mind.

“Giovanni! I saw you taking photos. Give me your phone immediately.”

The boy grumbled something about ‘not being the only one’ and handed over his cell phone. As I pretended to delete the images, I sent them all to my email address, including the video. # Monday morning dawned bright and cold. The sun was shining over Santa Maria delle Grazie and inside I knew the ‘The Last Supper’ was safe, even if only for now. I’d deal with that problem as soon as I could (or actually, as soon as I succeeded in making the Rampant Righteous leader fall in love with me). Before though, I had something I needed to sort out.

I entered Mother Superior’s chambers, my head held high, and found her in her usual place behind the imposing mahogany desk.

“The review will begin at ten o’clock,” she said, without even greeting me.

“Let’s you and I have a little chat first,” I said, sitting on the edge of her desk.

Mother Superior’s eyes opened wide at my obvious confidence. She wasn’t used to people being unafraid of her.

“It’s about Friday night, you see.”

At my words, Mother Superior paled visibly. She was silent for a moment before answering.

“You wouldn’t!”

“Oh, but I would.”

We sat and stared at each other for a few minutes. Finally, she picked up the telephone.

“Please tell Headmaster Cripps that the review has been cancelled. Yes, the disciplinary review! Just tell him!”

I slid slowly off her desk and walked toward the door.

Incredible how sometimes life has a way of handing you just what you need, when you need it.

Disco Duty

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Hawwa loves Padma.

Zoha Khan

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________

i. This is a poem about how she is all the religion I need and I watch her twist and turn, agony one minute, joy the next.

Her magic-hands are calling me forward then sending me away, the same hands that undid my hair and my blouse, then in worship, now in blasphemy, now chasing each other like birds, a flock of mynahs fluttering about her dark, braided hair, now leaping like flames, now flowing down her frame like water.

ii. This is about how she’s the poem within this poem and I watch her dance like fire does, swaying her hips like the tongue of a flame, and I can already imagine it against my mouth; the pounding of her feet is the fever of a conflagration, lotus-pink with the ecstasy of dance.

For a heartbeat, the music manages to grab her by the waist doll with the cat-eyes and hips that tilt like a planet’s axis, and lures her in, so she loops around in its vinyl maze but there she goes again, spinning out of that black rotating cage to freedom, whirling to her own dervish tune.

Such force and then,

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a pirouette like a breath, now kiss-broken hitching then grace.

I watch her dance, finding herself once lost, leading the wretch that I am home.

iii. This is a poem about how Adam spits paan as I take her hand in mine and we dance the saat phairay; Adam strokes his beard when I circle her in worship, my grace, my laughing Makkah so much prettier than his stone-faced one, and though he objects, I know He’s glad I’m happy; Adam sneers and loads his shotgun, but I only pull her closer.

We are Maryam and we are complete without him.

iv. This is a poem about all the grief that we thought was past but has been shoved into our presents, skull-capped j(y)-a-c(q)-o(u)-b-in-the-boxes demanding we yield.

This is a poem about all the good to come, about all the pagan peace we herald, the gods we fight to reclaim.

This is a poem about me and her and how our p e(o) r(l) s(i) o(t) n(i) (c) a l

Hawwa loves Padma.

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are all the same to all of you, how our own and our own ask us to pick a side, like identities are cookie dough and we can just piece them into lgbtq+ rainbows or David stars, crescent moons, only.

This is a poem that says we are not our oppressors and we will not apologize for not being clean-cut political causes to rally behind.

This is a poem about how Padma’s mangal suttar matches my allah pendant and about how they tangle when we press together in sleep.

This is a poem for those who can love both their god and their partners, though everyone tells them they must pick one.

Hawwa loves Padma.

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In the Right Place at the Wrong Time Chad W. Lutz

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

It always bothers me when women come up to me in public and start making conversation as if they know me. In my mind’s eye I'm shouting, “Nothing, I want nothing,” and beat the sidewalk with my feet as if it owed me money. That's why I’ve started wearing headphones and play whatever I'm listening to loud enough you can hear it standing ten feet away. Sure, it’s destroying my hearing 120-decible notes at a time, but it keeps the undesirable Nothings at bay.

My ex was on my mind; she’s been on my mind. When isn't she on my mind? I used to think we'd always be together, then we broke up about seven months ago. I use the music as a way to cope, as navigation through the Nothings. It's not what I would want, but it's something. I just can’t seem to stop feeling angry about the whole situation, and I was the one who did the breaking. Weird, isn't it, to stop loving someone and then start right back up again when it's over? I think it’s terrible. I've never understood how the worst of people can worm their way under decent people’s skin. I’m not claiming to be a saint or anything, but… ah, forget it.

Nothing, I want nothing.

The walk to the restaurant from my building was like a trudge through a minefield.

Everywhere I turned there were memories of her blowing up in my face. The rain didn't help.

The rain never helps. It just reminds me of the time we made out on the pier, in the rain, during that fireworks show in D.C. In the weeks following the break, the people formerly known as my friends told me I was acting like a wounded animal. I mean, I am technically, but apparently that kind of answer doesn’t fly with people who are already married and budding faster than alien spores. They want me to "get out more," to "stop wallowing," guaranteeing me I'll "find someone eventually."

But when I tell them I want Nothing, they just laugh me off. They tell me it's stupid to think that Kirsten was the only person destined to be with me, that I'm ridiculous. They tell me Love isn't what we thought it was when we were kids. They tell me those notions have disappeared, that I have to grow up.

I’m going out with them tonight. Out of the building and into the rain…

Whose idea was this again? It certainly wasn’t my ex's. Hell, if she knew, she’d probably try to hit me with the car again. The worst of people, I tell ya.

That’s when I realized I was smiling. Why was I smiling?

“Excuse me. Do you have the time?”

I glanced shyly at my wristwatch.

“Uh, yeah it’s six o’clock.”

“Thank you," a warm, bed-pillow-toned voice said. I looked up from the tile to find its owner coyly glancing at the floor much like I was. She smelled sweet, like dandelions in the summer, probably her moisturizer.

“You look like you’re in a hurry,” she said. “Where ya headed?” She started fidgeting with her bag, a tan, hemp affair with a green peace sign stitched in the center. I tried to

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pretend I didn’t hear her; that I was too busy listening to The Beatles and couldn't spare the time, but we'd already made eye contact.

“Oh, nowhere really,” I said, skirting around the answer. “Just home to eat and go to bed. Work in the morning. You know how that is.” Lies. I flashed a placating smile. She, meanwhile, was standing with her hands clasped together in front of her, gold, green, red, and blue beads shimmering down her brown calico jacket, hips swaying slightly, as if in rhythm with some beautifully fantastic invisible melody.

“Sounds exciting,” she said sarcastically, forcing a laugh. “Are you listening to The Beatles?”

My headphones were already off and dangling against my shirt. The sound of the elevator gears humming filled the car. I couldn't stop thinking about dinner, and about Kirsten, the girl who tried to paint the garage door with my insides. I suddenly wondered what she was doing for dinner.

The girl in calico coat cleared her throat and tapped her umbrella on the tile three times. We both stood and stared at Nothing, at silence; a part of me wondering about the silence of her rhythms.

The elevator mercifully slowed and chimed and we both left the car, her after me. It was even more obvious than before that I was lying. Before we get to the front door she turns to ask me something but my head phones are in and The Beatles are back at the helm.

My friends were already gathered at the restaurant. The instant I opened the door I was accosted with birthday hats and balloons, people shouting. Then comes the barrage of questions: How are you feeling? Are you doing okay? Are you seeing anyone? Do you need any help finding someone? This particular dating website does a really good job, and only half the guys are skeezy.

They laugh, but not really.

Sure, that makes me feel better. Much better.

I want my headphones, but I’m being polite.

We eat. They drink. I slip out when they don’t notice, even though it’s totally obvious. A couple of them text me just to make sure I’m, “OK.” But they have every right to. I’m not OK. I keep thinking about girls behind the wheels of Hondas and why it’s so important for me to date girls. No one ever asks me that question.

Realizing there’s no polite way to tell a sweet girl in an elevator you’re more interested in her moisturizer than her vagina, I put on my headphones and hope the rains wash away some of my brooding attitude.

But all I can think about is the girl in the elevator.

In the Right Place at the Wrong Time

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In-Between Clariss Flournoy

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

What happened to longevity

Going through each other’s Darknesses and knowing that you’ll still be with me.

I’ve seen couples that I thought were the lifetime breed,

Not that I know your business because, I mean, the grass is only as green as the shades of the strands under your feet.

I just hope that my lady has a forever mentality.

Isn’t afraid to grow and open up with me

Because the generation I see today,

Is more about fleeing, too afraid to get close because getting hurt is all they see.

When hurt is nothing more than a lesson leading to bravery.

We say no one is perfect but perfection seems to be the key.

But what about if I became perfect, you know, just for you-imperfectly.

Don’t get me wrong, I have seen partners who’ve been able to withstand the storm and break this faulty imagery

Show that even when life is conditional,

Love is unconditionally

I feel like anything is possible as long as your mind is free, you allow your emotions to breathe, you let hope and chances lead you to victory.

Love and relationships may not be easy

But the outcome you can get after enduring this treacherous journey, is worth all of the bleeding.

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The House of Men Stewart Shaw

________________________________________________________________________________________________________ There is no touching in the house of men just wrestling moves power take downs no Touching, no removing of veils to tenderness I am embattled, trained in the ways of slipping touch trained by a skilled general in the war against gentle stroke and caress and of binding the wound before the cut the tongue and the eye and the heart can lie deceive the senses into believing they are real, how many times has he said I love you just to disappear how many how many heartfelt gestures turned to dust after midnight ardor this house of men is bankrupt has no doors or windows we all sleep on barren floors face to back to back to enslaved to dreams of doing as signs of love doing as gift more powerful than the touch that seeps through bone to spirit to DNA healing lineage the house of men sits in moonlight full of praying hands coated with grief praying to become doctors fakirs psychic healers the house of men is filled with boys with babble the talking outside of the lines of hollow speech the house has age but no wisdom, age but no men inside always morning never afternoon or night just men begetting boy begetting boy begetting men.

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Fanning My Dress Tail Gayle Bell

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________ 1968 King, Kennedy, X and the girls Mysterious aggravating Gyrating to SHOTGUN Shot before they run She had on a white blouse white mini skirt white boots I was confused and smitten smitten and goofy Trying to find some rhythm flailing my thin body Holding at bay the wild weirdness I felt at liking her Smelling her perfume made me dizzy She was a teacher's daughter she was fine Doing the jerk the only dance I could do with any finesse As Junior Walker and the All-Stars chaperoned my pre-partum love While as best as I could I was fanning my dress tail.

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Intransigent James Stryker

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Maggie had conditioned herself to be calm–not quick to panic, or prone to anxiety. And while she used to be one for exuberant passion, the way things were now, she had to control herself. Unfortunately, despite every precaution the attacks continued.

She felt their approach. A gray cloud appeared on the horizon and moved toward her.

Once caught under its shadow, everything just. Slowed. Down. Like the energy in the mainspring of a clockwork motor relaxing until it stopped. And she was frozen.

She was usually locked in a few minutes and, though her body was paralyzed, she could hear. If her eyes were open, she could see. And her consciousness remained intact.

Three or four times a week, it’s not a suggestion; it’s a command: “You will stop and smell those fucking roses.”

A forced break until God, or whatever, tightened that spring and she could live again.

Her body always restarted. And this is what she thought as she heard the zipper at her feet.

Just a little longer this time.

Maggie felt plastic on her cheeks as the zipper closed above her head. The space reminded her of the inside of a latex glove or balloon. Her go-to calming image was empty rooms with white walls, devoid of emotion. But floating balloons were nice too.

Wheels squeaked as the coroner pushed the gurney. The man had pronounced her dead a few minutes prior.

Idiot. Maggie wished she could see his face. But this attack had happened while her eyes had been closed. The coroner had confirmed no heartbeat, felt the chilly temperature of her skin, and made his call.

“Autopsy, sir?”

Now that pushed adrenaline through her veins.

The sound of pills tumbling inside a bottle. “No point wasting the county’s money.

Another stupid kid who took too many hoppers.”

She wasn’t a stupid kid. She was an independent, thirty-year-old woman coping quite well with her cataplectic attacks, thank you very much.

Five years before though, it’d been like spilling a barrel of monkeys–a chain to which losses kept being added. The first had been losing her career. An entire concert couldn’t stop because a violinist froze in the middle of Rachmaninov’s symphony. She hadn’t touched the instrument in years.

Goodbye nice apartment. Goodbye car. Since she couldn’t allow herself to express anything, relationships with people? Negative. And she was lashed forever to medication that only helped sometimes, but made her feel abnormal all the time. She hadn’t felt like herself in five years. And that was a big motherfucking monkey.

But the monkeys had to return to their barrel. There was a new set of life rules, and the best way hang on was to start over somewhere new.

A tiny apartment and stress-free job delivering groceries on a bicycle. She tried to forget she’d been anything else.

A “stupid kid” would still be dangling plastic monkeys. Two car doors opened close to Maggie’s head.

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She was certain she’d survive an autopsy. The medical examiner would make his incision and immediately know. Cadavers had stagnant, contained blood, like cutting into an orange. There was pocketed juice, but nothing flowed. He’d know she was alive and wouldn’t proceed. It’d just hurt like hell.

In her head, she sighed. I should be bat-shit out of my mind.

But her current situation was testament to the necessity of eliminating emotional triggers.

You’re in this mess because Daniel got to you.

The engine started.

“Go to forty-second. I don’t have time to wait for a mortician to get his ass over here.”

Forty-second Street was on Maggie’s grocery delivery route. It was a quiet neighborhood with four customers: an elderly couple, a retired officer, nosy Ms. Perkins, and Daniel, who never left his house.

Another grandpa to gawk at my ass, Maggie had thought a year ago when she was handed the new customer’s order.

A dirty old Redenbacher hadn’t answered the door though. Daniel seemed more than normal. He was well dressed and handsome in a mysterious way. He’d thanked her and taken his groceries. He hadn’t asked her to help put them away or narrowed his eyes as if trying to telekinetically remove her clothes.

Daniel became her favorite, especially after teasing information from him.

“Ms. Perkins told me you never leave the house,” Maggie had said three months into his deliveries.

“I wish I had time to spy on my neighbors.” Daniel took the grocery bags.

“I’ve never met someone with agoraphobia.”

“That’ll continue to be an outstanding goal. I’m not afraid to leave my house. I just prefer not to. If I choose to go outside, I go outside.”

He’d stepped onto his porch and bowed in the direction of Ms. Perkins’s house, which almost made her laugh. Due to the gray cloud though, a grin was all she could give.

“I’m calculated in everything I do,” Daniel had said before smiling and reentering his house. “Thank you for stopping, Maggie. I hope you enjoy your afternoon.”

He didn’t like to talk for long.

Probably a reason behind that too. But it was best. If she hung around, he might succeed in making her laugh. The mainspring would loosen, she’d lock up, and the charming recluse would think she was the weirdo.

“Pull around back,” said the coroner.

In her mind, she rode her bicycle along Forty-second Street. There wasn’t even a barbershop out of someone’s home. Possibly, the coroner had misspoken. After all, the man wasn’t able to differentiate a live person from a dead one.

I’m going to sue him, Maggie thought as the engine cut.

It’d happened before that people in a cataplectic attack were deemed dead only to wake in morgues. And there’d absolutely been lawsuits for mental anguish.

She envisioned waking. She’d blink, and it was like pushing through a surface of water.

A gasp for a deep breath after being constrained to imperceptible ones. And though it would take a while for Maggie’s strength to return, she was free! Until next time.

Intransigent

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I’ll scare the shit out of the mortician and demand a lawyer. That guy with his face on park benches will take my case. It’s going to be huge.

The rear doors opened at her feet.

“Girl could’ve lived another fifty years,” said the coroner, his voice punctuated by whining gurney wheels.

And I will. On your dime, sir. With your career in my pocket, and balls hanging from my rearview mirror.

This would be an interesting story to tell the park bench lawyer. And Daniel.

“You know why your groceries are late? I spent last night in a mortuary. I could’ve been with you, but you closed your door in my face.” That’s what I’ll say.

Her strange customer was the closest thing she had to a friend. And Daniel had no idea how difficult it’d been to devise a scenario where she’d be safe around him.

A theater.

He could take her hand or wrap his arm around her. The gray cloud would be summoned, but in the theater’s darkness, Daniel wouldn’t know. And at first it seemed he’d accept her offer that afternoon.

“You said you weren’t scared to leave your house,” Maggie had pressed when he hesitated.

“I just don’t like to.”

“Fine, I’ll bring a DVD.” She’d make sure the lights were down.

“I don’t think so.”

“It’s me?”

“Yes.” Maggie chewed her lower lip, struggling to keep calm. Empty rooms with white walls.

Daniel wasn’t married. He wasn’t gay. He wasn’t busy – he only diddled around with his computers. Yet he wasn’t vaguely interested in spending more than a few minutes with her?

“It’s nothing personal. I can only enjoy companionship like this for short periods of time.”

“Well, I’m not going to watch a couple of fucking Looney Tunes with you.”

He smiled. “I’m flattered, Maggie. And I apologize that I must decline.”

She heard Daniel’s door lock. She managed, God knows how, to keep her mortification at bay until she got home. When she let it fly it was a lightning rod to the cloud.

Fuck it.

Maggie let the wind-down claim her. She went to sleep. But when she woke, she still couldn’t move.

And that’s what brings us to “The Adventures of Cataplectic Wonder Woman” – the girl who’s periodically trapped inside her body, and can’t get a date with a mental case. She heard a screen door shut.

“I’ll call after I’ve found her family. And yes, I know you can only hold on so long before you have to do something.”

There was no reason to believe the situation would advance to “something.”

They don’t bury people alive anymore. But I’ll tell him that. “Daniel, I was almost buried alive.” God, such – “Got it–only on the rocks. Bring her in, please.”

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Maggie knew exactly where she was.

The sound of the gurney folding. The screen door again. Footsteps. The stiff plastic movement as her bag was placed on a table.

“Christ, your house is a damn refrigerator.”

“I like the cold.”

And then two men walking away.

A door closing. Deadbolt sliding.

Footsteps returning.

Silence for several long seconds.

“I was hoping for someone to talk to. You see, I have a problem…” He trailed off. “But introductions. You’re Margaret. Thirty. Overdose on stimulants.”

A paper turned and a tapping pencil.

“You’re probably interested in what’s going to happen. But there’s no need to be afraid. I’m here. And even if you’re dead, Margaret, I still love you. You’re the only ones I can talk to.”

A flat object clicking on the table – a clipboard perhaps.

“And don’t worry how you look. It doesn’t matter. I’ll fix it anyway.”

The zipper ripped down. A few wisps of cool air swept into the bag. His house really was a fucking refrigerator – the air had a satin, frosty feel to it.

He paused. “My name is Daniel. I’m an embalmer. That’s all I do, because I prefer not dealing with funeral directing politics. All I care about is you.”

The bag’s sides unfolded from where they’d shrouded Maggie’s face.

“Well, this is unexpected. Convenient. But unexpected.”

She felt his smile.

***

Daniel had paced his living room after shutting the door to Maggie. She’d been bothering him for a while. Not with the litany of questions or reports on what neighbors said about him. She worried him because he liked her. And it wasn’t a good thing. Because she was alive.

He wanted to go out with her and see a movie. But they were out there. The only people who came through his doors had been drained of what made humans dangerous animals. But the dead loved everyone.

It doesn’t matter who I was, or who I am now. Daniel had paused when she made her proposal. You’d have a problem with both.

He liked that Maggie walked with her hands outside her pockets, took his porch steps two at a time, and always wore long-sleeved shirts, despite warm weather. She seemed vivacious, but not too vibrant. How else could she talk to Ms. Perkins about salt water taffy for thirty minutes?

Daniel had decided Maggie was somewhere between the dead.

But, if I told you, you’d be like everybody else. And he’d closed the door.

He felt bad about it. Even if she didn’t cry he knew rejection hurt, and he hated being party to it.

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So I did something I fundamentally oppose, but didn’t want to. Getting to know her is such a risk. I need someone to help sort this out.

Unfortunately, there was no one on the tables and his refrigeration unit was empty. A funeral home had picked up his last friend, a woman who’d died of a pulmonary embolism.

Daniel had spoken to her of Maggie, but he hadn’t known Maggie was going to ask him out.

“There’s a patch of tulips in my yard. Yesterday, her blouse matched their middles.

Chartreuse. Do you like that color, Cindy?”

Cindy had been sitting in a rocking chair. He’d placed two knitting needles in her hands after noticing that her pointer fingers were slightly crooked from looping yarn for years.

They’re real, not like dolls. Life has rubbed off, but they’ve left the unpleasantness behind.

“I was thinking I should give her a few. I bet chartreuse is her favorite color because she wears it more than any other.” He gave the rocking chair a nudge. “What do you think?”

Cindy was the doting “new grandmother” type that spit-cleaned her children’s cheeks.

She reminded him of how he’d have liked his mother to have been. He pictured Cindy saying what his mother would’ve said if she’d loved him.

“Daniel, you’re a nice young man. Give her the flowers.”

“She might think I like her.”

“You do.”

“It’d imply I might want to talk to her more or take her out.”

“You do though.”

“Even rats learn to get through a maze based on electric shocks. I know which turns lead to shocks.” Daniel pushed her rocking chair again. “If I told Maggie the truth she’d flip.”

He took a knitting needle from Cindy’s hand and tucked his fingers inside her palm.

“Think how this plays out in the ‘best’ scenario: I give her the flowers, we go on a date.

She likes me. I like her. And then she finds out.”

“About me?”

“No.” Daniel removed his hand and stood. “To you, I’m an ordinary guy, but Maggie wouldn’t see it that way.”

Cindy also liked to garden. She had a dark tan on the back of her neck, and there’d been dirt under and around her fingernails. He couldn’t take her outside, but he lowered the top of his window shades to let the sunlight on her face.

“Thank you, Daniel.”

He’d been disappointed when Cindy was taken. It was too bad they couldn’t stay. He could keep making repairs to impede the decay. No one wanted to stay with the embalmer long term.

But I need help deciding what to do about Maggie. Daniel walked back and forth. God, send me anyone, please.

He had a tendency to waver in his faith of God, but when his phone rang, the scales tipped toward belief. And when he read in the coroner’s report that she was around his age and the death was recent?

Then he’d found Maggie herself in the bag.

Maybe I should start going to church.

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But instead, since she was listening, he said: “Well, this is unexpected. Convenient. But unexpected.”

Daniel unfolded the plastic and pulled the bag from under her body. “You’ll feel better once I’ve freshened you up. It’s important to many people for you to look alive.”

Maggie must not have been dead long. Her skin wasn’t as cold as most bodies, or her joints as stiff. He pressed his fingertips under her wrist; however, he felt no pulse.

But you’re special. People are at their best when they’re dead though. You should tell her that, Daniel.

“You look beautiful.” He caressed her cheek.

He felt sure she’d say “thank you.”

Cindy would’ve advised him to just tell Maggie. But customarily he didn’t have someone he already cared for, so he felt he had to be softer about it.

“You’re probably surprised.” Daniel stepped away and returned with a pair of scissors.

Her blouse was torn from efforts to revive her and he guided the scissors up the garment.

“About what I really do.”

There was no sign and all drop-offs and pick-ups happened away from the prying eyes of Ms. Perkins. He preferred honesty, but didn’t like making people uncomfortable. Which had made the phrasing of Maggie’s question regarding what he “did”, favorable.

“What do you do with computers,” she’d asked.

“What everyone else does, I’m sure.”

“No, do you repair them, build them, or what?”

“Something makes you think that’s what I do?” Daniel glanced at Ms. Perkins’s house.

“What else could you be doing besides something with computers?”

“Building a time machine.”

“You’d need a computer for that, see?” Maggie gave that wiry smile he felt she used when she tried not to laugh.

“Well, I have a few computers that I do things with.” He took the grocery bag. “Thank you for stopping.”

“When you use your time machine, will you bring something back for me?”

He considered responding, but he’d been chatting with Maggie for several minutes and his internal timer buzzed. It was dangerous to have more than brief encounters with anything alive.

However, Maggie was sensitive to his predilection of keeping things short. She’d winked at him and returned to her bicycle. That day had been when he started thinking about her favorite color and if he should give her the tulips in his yard.

“You never talked about you.” Daniel said aloud to her body. “But you can tell me about yourself now.” He had a cloth damp with disinfectant that he smoothed down the side of Maggie’s neck.

Daniel hummed to himself as he swept his cloth across her skin and waited for her to say something. They always did. It was impossible to hide the important. Things and experiences left indelible marks.

Knitting. Gardening. Smoking. Baking– He’d turned her right arm and found the type of clue he was looking for. Too easy.

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It was a tattoo of a stringed instrument’s bow. And though it was only four inches long, the intricate details told him several things about Maggie.

“You’re a violinist.” Daniel checked other customary placement locations, but found no depictions of the instrument itself. The only tattoo was the meticulously drawn bow. “The clearest way to tell the difference between a violin and any other stringed instrument via picture is the straight angle of the frog.”

She had been the musician herself, since when he touched the skin under the fingernails of her left hand he felt calluses from the strings. But she hadn’t in a while, since on bringing that hand to his cheek, the sweet, sap rosin smell wasn’t there.

“And you’re sad about it. You wear long sleeves so you don’t have to see and remember what was important to you.”

These inferences could be incorrect, but still, he imagined her confirmation.

“Yes, Daniel. That’s right.”

“I’m sorry for whatever caused you to stop playing your violin. You should’ve told me about it. It helps to tell people things.”

“You tell me something in exchange for what I told you.”

He ran his hand through her long hair, curling the ends around his fingertips.

“I’ll tell you why I do what I do. Because you’ll still love me, even after you know.”

Daniel scooted the chair closer to her body and propped his left elbow on the table. He leaned his cheek on his arm and petted her hair. “I knew from when I was young. Not that I had this attraction to the dead. I knew about me. I knew I was an invisible boy.”

It hadn’t been entirely his family and friends’ fault; he was willing to forgive them.

Everyone saw a normal child. He was a girl. And even his best friend, Krystal saw Chelsea and wouldn’t see Daniel.

“We grew up together. And I loved her very much.” He sighed, and when he inhaled, the smell of Maggie’s shampoo made him close his eyes. “You remind me of her. That’s why I switched grocery services. When you wore the white blouse under blue coveralls? She wore something like that once.”

Krystal shared her secrets with him. Mostly gossiping whispers, but she told him deeper things too. She confided how she’d seen her stepfather hit her mother and how her uncle had molested her when she was six. And he’d been compelled to tell her more serious things as well. How he felt he wasn’t a girl, but a boy named Daniel. His arm falling over her wasn’t an accident and he thought about kissing her. How he wanted to take care of her.

“I thought she’d understand who I really was. She had to see it. It’d been a light bulb for me, so when I told her, she’d put it together.”

One of the many wonderful things about the dead – they comprehended everything.

“You don’t need to go on, Daniel.” he heard Maggie say.

“This is why I love you. Because you feel what I feel.” He cleared his throat before smoothing his hand over her brow. Her skin still seemed to retain some of its living warmth from his touch. “She didn’t. At all.”

Daniel had broached the topic carefully with Krystal. She’d be the first person he’d reveal his secret to, and he knew there was a possibility it wouldn’t be well received. So he left himself an out by presenting it as more idea than fact.

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“Have you ever thought you were different, Krystal,” he’d asked. “We’re not like everyone else. We climb trees and fix bikes instead of painting our nails and playing Dream Date.”

Even though it was more profound whatever he did, whatever he wore, whatever motions he was expected to carry out as a girl, weren’t truly him. Any time that name was said, or those pronouns were used, the boy inside would shrivel. An eraser was trying to wipe him out, inch by inch. Every day the boy’s flesh was being carved away and fed to the outer shell of the girl. The real Daniel was dying. He didn’t expect Krystal to understand that though.

“That’s being a tom-boy,” she’d said.

“What if we were actual boys though?”

“Like man-ladies? Gross.” Krystal laughed.

“What if I was?”

“I don’t think you can go lady-man. Only man-lady. But if it is a thing, even if I ignored how nasty that is, you’d always be the same person to me, Chels. A man-lady is always a man.

And you’d be a bearded lady.” Krystal had laughed. “But you’d get me tickets to the freak show, right?”

“Daniel,” he pictured Maggie interrupting him. “She was a child. It’s not an excuse to be cruel, but don’t you think immaturity and lack of knowledge should be considered?”

“Absolutely. I’m not upset about it. I wasn’t even upset about it for long then.” Daniel smiled at her still face. “Because shortly after is when I discovered what changed my life forever.”

When Daniel slept over stayed at Krystal’s house, they shared her bed. And a week after his attempt to disclose his secret, he woke up in the morning. But she didn’t.

“I touched her skin and it was cold.”

“Weren’t you upset? Afraid?”

“No. I was free. Because she was free.”

When Krystal was alive she could say unkind things. She could judge. But she became a different person after she was dead. He could tell her anything. With that hypercritical brain chip decommissioned, Krystal would listen and understand when he told her that he was Daniel, and he loved her. She was perfect. Kindhearted, empathetic, supportive.

“And because she was rid of that narrow-sighted part that would’ve hated me, I could do the things I dreamed of doing as Daniel that I never could’ve done before.”

He could touch her. Caress her hair. Hold her. Kiss her. Anything he wanted. Because she was dead, and it was impossible for her to reject him.

“And did you?”

“Yes, I did.”

At fourteen, when she’d died from an undiagnosed heart condition, Krystal had been his first. But he’d relearned the same lesson. How people as a whole, especially those closest to him, didn’t seem capable of accepting him as Daniel. His family fought the change. His remaining “friends.” Even after he started hormones, changed his name, had the surgeries.

Still, they refused.

Until they died, which brought them around. He’d heard death called “the great equalizer.” It was.

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And there wasn’t a single living person in the world who knew. Plenty of the dead, but no one who still breathed had any idea that he was a necrophile, or why.

“And are you going to do that to me? All those things?”

“Some people I just talk to.”

“But to me. Are you?”

Daniel stood and looked at Maggie’s body. She was lying naked on the table. Her right arm was still turned with her palm up, the frog of her violin bow tattoo at the seven o’clock position.

“Yes.” He gathered her body and carried her out of the room. There was nothing more to say. *** Maggie regained consciousness after the sun streamed into Daniel’s bedroom. She was still frozen, but she wasn’t surprised.

There’d been a few times where she’d felt the key tighten the spring, but then Daniel said or did something and all tension was lost again. The gray cloud would be recalled. When he’d first touched her skin and caressed her hair on his embalming table. When he found the hidden tattoo. When he’d spoken to her with honesty and tenderness. She lost it. Repeatedly.

She wasn’t sure what he was thinking she said, since there were pauses when he spoke, but what she would say when she snapped out of this thing: You need help, Daniel. I can see why you’d think this way, but it’s not normal.

But because Maggie could visualize his hurt expression, she’d add: I’ll help you. I wouldn’t have turned you away.

She’d also tell him about the cataplectic attacks. Because she should’ve trusted him as well. Additionally, she’d tell him that he was right about the violin.

I’ll even try to play for you, if you’ll understand that I might have to freeze.

If she were honest, though, she wasn’t sure things could work out.

How many other bodies have been in this bed? Would you be able to stop? Maggie wondered.

She felt the sun on her forehead and his arms around her. She judged that he was asleep by the steady breaths on her hair. And far above her, the gray cloud began to shift.

A phone rang.

Hang on! She tried to not let urgency leap into her thoughts when he woke and pulled her closer.

“Good morning, sweetheart.” Daniel kissed her temple.

The cloud nudged back, and she remained imprisoned in its shadow.

The phone rang again.

“I hope you rested well, but let me take this call, okay?”

His left arm remained curled underneath her, but it felt like he leaned his body away.

She heard an object move across a surface.

“Good morning. How can I help you?”

A muffled voice. She tried to concentrate on the empty rooms with white walls.

“No problem. I can have her ready this afternoon.”

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“Ready this afternoon?”

What now anchored Maggie in the cataplectic state wasn’t empathy. It was terror. If she didn’t snap out of the attack soon, as in hours soon, possibly minutes soon, Daniel could unintentionally kill her.

“Did you hear that,” Daniel asked, his right arm folding around her again. “Mr. Forest reached your mother. He’ll be by around three, so I’ll grab a shower and then we’ll get started.” She felt his hand caressing her cheek. “You’re not worried, are you?”

Oh, I’m more than worried, Daniel.

“It’s not bad. All we’re doing is exchanging your blood.” He kissed her hair and she felt him shift to leave the bed. “And we’re removing things that will cause your body to break down.”

I still need those things!

“It’ll just take a few hours.”

Maggie pictured him gathering his clothes as he talked.

“I’ll use your carotid for the injection and the jugular for the drain. We attach the machine to your artery and it pumps the solution in. It’ll actually be like you have a heart beat again.”

Daniel sounded so jovial, while Maggie felt she was going to black out.

“After that–” I’ll be dead seconds in. But she listened anyway.

“–I aspirate what’s inside your organs. And we’ll refill them before sealing you. After that we’ll set your face, and don’t be afraid of the needle injector. It’s one quick pull to set the wire into your jaw.”

There were no thoughts. Nothing.

“Not that you don’t look wonderful now. It’s for everyone else. If it were up to me, I’d keep you how you are.” His fingers were curling around her hair, his lips on her forehead.

“Give me fifteen minutes?”

Maggie heard a door close and running water. Her fifteen minutes began to count down.

Fifteen minutes! I have fifteen fucking minutes to live, unless I snap out now! Come on body! Survival instinct! Don’t you want to live?

The tractor beam held tighter.

You know you have to let go. Calm. Down. Maggie. Think: empty rooms with white walls. Empty rooms with white walls.

She chanted the mantra, focusing on the emotionless image instead of the ticking clock. Honing her thoughts to nothingness rather than thinking of being attached to an embalming machine in less time than it took to make a fucking TV dinner.

EMPTY ROOMS WITH THE PASTIEST FUCKING WHITE WALLS IN THE GOD DAMN UNIVERSE. And at last it budged.

The key turned.

The spring tightened.

Maggie opened her eyes to the ceiling.

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She took her first gasping breath in more than twenty-four hours as she heard a door open. All her muscles were weak, but still, she had movement! She was obviously alive! And she didn’t have enough strength to raise her head, but she felt Daniel watching her.

“Daniel!” Maggie coughed, her throat dry.

He didn’t answer, but she heard him approach.

“Daniel! I’m really alive! Can you say something, please? I’m –” “That is very unexpected,” Daniel said. “I’m sorry to say, though, it’s not convenient.”

Maggie was staring at the ceiling. But then her eyes were closed as the pillow was held over her face for several long minutes. And, as expected, the embalmer had her ready that afternoon.

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Nana Loves Venus Hottentot, Kwaku Loves Kunta Stewart Shaw

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

During the Middle Passage through horror and cries for home, through stench, and death, in cramped dark spaces, chains and stains on souls more corrosive than hate, passions were kindled, desires lived; hands were roamed across aching backs to ease kink and sorrow.

Women in rows - once fertile fields now gone barren- fingered out lice and dried vomit, unbraided knots of hurt from napped heads twisted with death, fondled breasts suckling life back into their hollows.

Became lost in their own journeys.

Men aligned belly to back chanted to sleeping gods, whispered hunting stories crooned love songs deep into the splintered ears of their neighbors. Did not worry about tribe or clan just succor. Cried droughts away, washed red burning backs with gentle kisses.

In dark, fetid and thick with lamentations, deep in the bowels of boats, someone blew kisses,

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tongued moans blew kisses tongued resurrection blew kisses like revolution tongued healing licking whip lines.

Blew kisses pushing ancestors into foul spaces filled with bereavement.

Tongued home In semi-circles down spines, blew kisses into ears crumbling under the weight of death’s rattle. Tongued the darkness bright.

Kwaku, spelling in darkness Kunta’s name along the raised mountain of a back, blew kisses tongued midnight air sung lullabyes.

Knew water flowed two ways Nana, arm across Saartjie’s belly, blew her a kiss hung gentle memories in a womb still full of prayers let go of sick, felt no roll or tumble of sea just knew firmament. just felt rounded hallowed ground.

Nana Loves Venus Hottentot, Kwaku Loves Kunta

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Mecca

Robert Wright

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________

I CRAWL slowly out of a closet forty-five years wide (i am not one for grand entrances) and shade my eyes from the light.

I FALL hard for Him.

I WANDER with no guide down a hallway two years long turning every doorknob flipping every switch to find the secret to make Him love me.

I FALL suddenly into a black hole five years deep.

I CLIMB bloody hand over bloody hand to the top.

I FLY on the ground down a highway twenty-two hours long to find the magic.

I DIVE head first into a river twelve months long only to see the magic disappear.

I TIPTOE from here to there to him to him to him

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never finding a spot that is safe (and soft) enough to rest.

My pilgrimage (an exercise in narcissism my therapist says) ends.

I STAND alone my broken dreams and disappointments burning lactic acid in the muscle of my aching heart.

I KNEEL.

I PRAY.

I WEEP.

Mecca

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Intermezzo For Phoebe Snow

Valencia Robin Grice

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Sometimes you hear a song like her song

that fits like a ripe plum in your hand,

the sweet flesh and tart skin of her voice

simply what it is.

Like tall grass gone to flower, the simplest of yellows.

Or the right man opening a jar and handing it back to you, smiling.

The jar holding something

you’d almost forgotten.

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One Look Silk Hindus

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________

My Juliana loved to tell people how we met. Sometimes we were at a bar, or a restaurant, a friend’s house or ours. Sometimes it was loud, muted, relaxed, cozy. Sometimes her auburn curls were pulled back and sometimes they were down and parted above her right eyebrow.

She always told it with a beer in her hand, glass bottle with a skeleton sitting on top of a barrel, its contents leaving her mouth tasting like spices and apples. I’m a liquor woman, but I loved kissing her after she’d had a few sips. Her right foot would rest on top of her left knee, her left arm across the back of my chair (unless we were on stools, then her hand rested on my spine, the tips of her ring finger and pinky at the top of my ass.) She would slouch; we were almost the same height. “One look,” she’d say before taking a swig and smirking at me around the neck of the bottle, but the truth is, I couldn’t really stand her the first time we met.

It was my older brother Richard’s thirtieth birthday so he, his fiancé Elena, and my friend Ginger dragged me out to a club. Despite my absolute hatred for that scene, I went because I was the only person capable of drinking and being DD. Around eleven, my drink eye level, a few inches away from me, the bass of the DJ’s playlist leading the rhythm of my heartbeat. I was drowning in humidity; the club so packed that I tilted my chin up to breath. It was like swimming to the reserved booth in the back.

“I still can’t believe you got VIP,” Ginger told Elena as she sipped her cranberry vodka; the ice in my whiskey was numbing my hand.

“You paid for VIP?” I asked.

“It’s my baby’s thirtieth. It’s worth it,” she said before kissing Rich’s cheek. I nodded and sipped. “Do you see anything you like?” My drink burned my nose. “The reviews said it was a mixed crowd an—” “Rita and I have been here a few times. It’s super nice though, right?” Ginger asked.

“You brought me here for a hookup?” I asked.

“We want you to have a good time,” Rich said. “We’re getting kinda worried about you.”

“I should tell mom you’re trying to get me to have a one-night stand.”

“It was actually her idea,” Elena added.

“I can’t believe this,” I said and downed the rest of my drink. “I need another one.”

“We have bottle service. You don’t have—” The first time I saw Juliana, she was leaning against the bar. Even with poor posture, she was a head taller as I stood next to her waiting for the bartender to notice me. She was chewing on a short straw while nodding as her friend leaned into her ear.

“It was just shady,” her friend said. “I mean why wouldn’t he tell his friends about us?

It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Because you’re a booty call,” Juliana deadpanned. Her leather-clad arms were planted on the bar, her caramel hands loosely holding the sweating bottle sitting in a pool of condensation. The coolness from outside clung to her. She smelled like pepper and apples with a hint of coconut.

“Screw you.”

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“You’re an askhole.”

“A what?”

“Someone who asks for advice then doesn’t take it,” Juliana told her friend. “I told you this guy wasn’t legit and you still went for it. Now it’s three months in and you’re wondering why you’ve only seen his place at night. You’re a booty call, sweetheart.”

“Well you know what you are? You’re an asshole,” her friend said before storming off.

“Ouch.”

She tilted her head and raised an eyebrow at me.

“She needed to hear it from a friend.”

“I’d hate to see how you treat your enemies.”

“Killer smile like this, I don’t have any.” She flashed straight white teeth with a dimple in her left cheek. Her eyes traveled over my face, then my body, then back up to my glass.

“What you got there?” The bartender finally made her way over.

“Whiskey and tequila.” I answered her question and ordered my drink at the same time.

“Damn girl.”

“You?” “Rogue beer.”

“Are you done pouting about…who is this?” Ginger asked me.

“Just an asshole.”

When the bartender handed me a new glass, I nodded toward Rich and Ginger.

“Charge it to the table,” I said before walking off without giving Juliana a second glance. My second drink was my last. Being DD sucked when everyone else was wasted.

“She’s just needs a little love,” Rich said as he and Elena climbed into the backseat.

The three of them smelled like liquor and sweat so I rolled down the windows to carry it out of the car.

“I can understand why she needs time,” Ginger said. “Stacy was a doozy.”

“Um, right here guys.” The group went silent, the sounds of the strip floated into the car. The lines weren’t any shorter than they were when we’d first got there even though it was after midnight. “No more talking about my love life.” The sidewalks were over flooded, some of the crowd spilled into the street.

“I’m hungry,” Ginger said.

“Me too,” Rich added. “Let’s go to Tammy’s.”

“That place is greasy,” I said.

“Exactly,” Elena replied.

“Ok, fine,” I said. “Someone else better pay for my food for chauffeuring your drunk asses.”

I had to slow down to a crawl because the parking lot was so jacked. I mean really how hard it is to repave? I was literally going one mile an hour, but Rich’s stomach couldn’t take the movement and he held his hand over his mouth.

“Don’t you even think about wasting my money, mister,” Elena said. Ginger laughed.

“He’s about to puke and she’s worried about the money,” I said. “Relationship goals.” I parked the car and walked to the back door to help Elena get Rich out the backseat. “You okay?”

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He nodded. “I’m not gonna hurl,” he said. “I’m thirty.”

“Seriously?”

“What?” Ginger asked.

“Look at her.” I nodded toward the door. “How inconsiderate.”

“Here we go,” Rich said.

“Do you know how dangerous second hand smoke is?” I didn’t lower my voice, as we got closer to her.

“It’s worse than first hand smoke,” Ginger said.

“It can cause cancer,” Elena added. I rolled my eyes.

Low and behold, it was the asshole I’d met at the bar. Her shoulders were bowed, messy curls falling forward, breasts touching the top of her ribs, with legs for days. Black boots with a small heel, one against the side of the building, tight blue jeans and leather jacket with the collar popped, a cloud of smoke billowed around her. My skin was clammy from dried sweat. Ginger, Rich, and Elena walked inside, but I, for some reason, lingered. I considered apologizing for calling her an asshole, but instead the only thing that came to mind was, “It’s illegal to smoke this close to the entrance.”

“You gonna arrest me?”

“It’s just inconsiderate to smoke near other people.”

“Sweetheart, the only person I don’t smoke around is my mother,” she said exhaling a puff. It wasn’t exactly in my face, but damn close. She was sexy in a bad girl way, but bad girls weren’t my thing. I rolled my eyes and went inside to find my friends.

So how did she get me? What did she do that won me over? Food. After we became a couple, she told me she paid for all of our meals because she felt bad about blowing smoke in my face and her number was with our check. I waited the ceremonious forty-eight hours before calling and thanking her for the meal. She responded If you think Tammy’s has good food, wait until you’re in my kitchen. Cheesy and suggestive, but my stomach wouldn’t allow me to turn down a free meal, so I arrived on her doorstep five minutes before seven the next weekend.

The first time Juliana told me she loved me, she didn’t. We’d been dating for three months and were at the beach with Ginger and Rita. One of the perks of being in a relationship: double dates were actually fun. They were in the water while Juliana and I lay on her Star Wars towel, my head on her chest. I listened to the air moving through her lungs while the waves crashed into the shore. I was wearing a bubble gum pink bikini. She had on a white tank top and black board shorts that stopped at the middle of her thigh. I was dozing off until I smelled smoke. I looked up and, yep, she had a cigarette in her mouth.

“Really?” I said. “When I meet your mom she’ll help me convince you to quit.” The muscle under my head went from pillow to rock. “Unless I’m a booty call,” I said. “Well, I’ve met your friends and you take me out during the day so technically—” “My mom doesn’t know.”

“That you smoke?”

“That I’m gay.”

She sat up. Ashed her cigarette in the sand. Shockwaves rolled through her back, each muscle tensed, vibrated, relaxed. She inhaled deep, her usually slouched shoulders rising, rolling backward. She turned her head, chin hovering over her right shoulder. “I always told One Look

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myself I’d tell her if I fell in love.” She paused and the words danced above our heads as Ginger and Rita emerged from the water, holding hands. “I wasn’t sure it’d ever happen so I figured why say anything.” My heart expanded, shoved against the cage of ribs it sat in.

“Then, I met you.” Her hands shook like the legal addict she was. “I guess what I’m trying to say is—” “I love you too,” I bellowed, before tossing myself into her arms and kissing her.

Tobacco settled in my nose, the taste of paper on my tongue.

“Do you two need a little privacy?” Rita asked. Her mocha skin turned red under her eyes.

“She doesn’t know that I smoke either,” Juliana said.

We were good, awesome, amazing. After being together a year she moved into my place. It was bigger than hers, located between the hospital and the firm she worked at. She’s an architect and a morning person. I’m a nurse and a night owl.

I accidently told Elena first about the engagement. She sat across from me reading over the menu in the Japanese restaurant. The walls were painted red. There weren’t many people there, which worried me on a Saturday afternoon.

“What is calamari again?” she asked.

“I’m not sure,” I replied. “I don’t eat anything I can’t spell.”

“Must be a limiting diet.”

“That’s mean.” I smiled. “You see how she treats her sister-in-law?” I asked the waiter.

“We’re not supposed to like each other.” She stuck out her tongue.

“Mature,” I said. “What’s this sauce here called?” I pointed to the dish with my left hand.

“OH MY GOD!” Elena screamed, startling the waiter and I. “What?” I asked.

“Your hand!” she said. “Your finger!”

“I’ll come back,” the waiter said before disappearing.

My cheeks went warm and I tucked a hair behind my ear. Juliana and I hadn’t really thought about how we were going to tell everyone. I just liked putting it on in the morning and had forgotten I was still wearing it. “I’m engaged,” I said.

“You have to tell me everything,” she said. “Who proposed to who?”

“She proposed,” I answered. “It was so adorable.”

Since I work nights in the hospital, I’m pretty grumpy early mornings. After six months of living together, I was confused and slightly irritated when she woke me while it was still dark outside with breakfast in bed. The dogs yawned and whined, their heavy tails thumping against our hardwood floor. After growling and widening my eyes, we began to feed each other, her legs stretched out on either side of me, mine bent with my feet resting next to her hips. I put my forehead on her shoulder and begged her to let me go back to sleep. She refused, made me get dressed.

We piled the dogs in the car and drove toward the sunrise. The darkness was receding and their heads were hanging out the window, tongues on the side of their mouths, drool flying into the wind. Her hand was on my thigh; her palm wrinkled and stuck to me. When we parked, she didn’t bother putting Duke on a leash. He was the best-behaved dog I’d ever seen, but she had to help me calm down Rory enough to get on the harness. We walked until One Look

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the sun peeked over the horizon. She didn’t get on one knee, she didn’t have a speech prepared; she merely pulled the box out of her jacket pocket and opened it with a sly smile.

“That’s the sweetest thing I ever heard,” Elena said, her eyes glistening.

“Says the woman who got engaged under the Eiffel Tower.”

“It was totally what I wanted, but the way Juliana did it was so you guys,” she said.

“I’m so happy for you.”

I was kinda disappointed when we broke the news to my parents because they already knew. “She asked for our blessing,” my mother said as she took a bite of homemade mashed potatoes. “This is amazing, Juliana,” she added after taking a sip of red wine. “And this is just divine.”

“You asked?” I asked her.

“Of course,” she said and laughed from the kitchen. She and my father walked in with a mug of beer each. Her hair was curly and pinned back.

“What’s this called again?”

“Rogue Ale, the Shakespeare,” she told him. “It was founded in Oregon and there are brewpubs all over. There’s one actually down on Union Street.”

“I’d love to check it out.”

Juliana was already the chef of our abode, but she’d gone all out. She spent three days preparing the three-course meal, complete with stuffed mushrooms and apple cobbler. We spent an hour in Avedano’s just picking out the steaks. I mean we went there all the time to get our meat, but Juliana had to get just the right cut and thinness. It’s easier to digest she told me. It’ll taste better with the wine too. Granted, her experimental cooking was better than my regular cooking even on a great day, but spending hours in a grocery store wasn’t my idea of fun.

After dinner, my mother and I washed the dishes while Juliana showed my dad her plans for the renovated Cellspace on Bryant Street.

“We love her,” my mother said as I dried a mason jar.

“That’s all that matters.” I laughed as I put it in the cabinet. “Glad that’s out of the way.”

“Besides, if you don’t keep her, you’ll end up starving.”

“Hey!” I said. “I’m not that bad of a cook.”

“Before Jules, you were eating cereal for dinner.”

“It’s delicious and nutritious.”

“My baby’s cereal is gourmet,” Juliana replied as she wrapped her arms around my waist and kissed my cheek. My dad put his arm over my mom’s shoulder and kissed her hair.

“Honesty, respect, and love,” he said while my mother’s arm gripped his side. “That’s why we’ve been married so long. If you don’t have that, you don’t have shit.”

We decided on a September outdoor, vineyard wedding. I was stumbling through the kitchen when she came in with the dogs. I was my typical morning mess. Blonde hair in a knotted leftover ponytail. My eyes felt like sand. The kitchen was clean, my “world’s greatest nurse” mug sitting next to a freshly brewed pot. The sun was squirming its way through the closed blinds on the window above the sink. The front door opened; Duke and Rory came running in and jumped up on me to wish me a good morning. I grumbled.

“Down,” Juliana said. “You know that Mommy isn’t awake yet.”

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“Thank you,” I told her. She peeled the sweaty t-shirt off, mocha skin glistening where the intruding rays managed to get in. It made me forget I hated mornings. “Give me a kiss,” I said.

“No way,” she said. “I’m gross.”

“I don’t care,” I told her. “You kiss me when I have morning breath.”

“That’s different,” she said. I crossed my arms and pouted, so she rolled her eyes before leaning over to press a quick kiss to my lips. “So, I was thinking today.” I poured coffee into my mug. “What if I wore a dress?”

“When?” I asked while opening the fridge. “Dammit, I forgot to get creamer.”

“All the way in the back on the left.” I began moving Tupperware of leftovers and meal preps. “For the ceremony.”

She tapped my waist and moved me out of the way.

“But you hate dresses.”

She pulled out the container of creamer.

“I don’t hate them.”

She reached over and grabbed my mug. She poured a perfect wallop, making my drink the color of her skin. I always had to pour little by little until I could get it just right, but she had no problem perfectly measuring it out. She was always aware of what was going on around her. Perception was her greatest gift. She had the timing of a profession bull rider and the directional sense of a seaman. Tell her to close her eyes and open them in one hundred seconds and she could do it without counting. Give her directions to a place and she could always find her way home. “I just prefer pants,” she said. “They’re just more functional.”

“Except when…” I wiggled my eyebrows and she laughed.

“Seriously though,” she said. “Would you mind if I wore one?”

“Nope,” I said. “But it just has to be a different style than mine. I love you, but I refuse to be that lesbian couple.” She smiled and pecked me again. “By the way, the wedding planning timelines say that save the dates should be going out next week.”

“You’re asking when we’re telling my mom?”

“Not really, but kinda,” I said. “These need to go out to give people enough time to make travel plans.”

“I know.” She nodded. “How about next weekend?”

“You sure?”

She wrung her hands together and shook her head. “The only thing I’m sure about is you,” she said. “I said I’d tell her once I fell in love and this is it. You’re my it.”

When she moved in, the first thing I noticed was how many pictures she had of her family. She had adopted twin brothers. Julius I met twice and Jorge was over all the time.

Julius was an engineering major at Arizona State; Jorge was doing international business at Juliana’s alma mater, which was only thirty minutes away. I loved having him around because he was hilarious and he brought out Jules’ silly side. I often came home to them yelling at the screen while playing video games or having staring contests or arguing over the definition of third wave ska. I didn’t know what first and second wave ska was so I just sipped my whiskey as their conversations grew from calculated analysis to raised voices and crazy hand gestures.

The first time I saw this I got nervous. I thought they were really arguing, but the smirks they wore as they attempted to out think each other was adorable. Having my brother Rich and One Look

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her brother Jorge over at the same time was madness. I was totally outnumbered when it came to the underground music scene and science fiction references.

We decided to drive to her mother’s for dinner on Saturday because on Sundays she taught Sunday school, sat through two sermons, then visited everyone on the list of sick in the bulletin.

I stretched diagonally in the empty bed. Jules was already gone with the dogs. I actually cherished waking up alone. Nothing like those first quiet moments. When I covered my yawn, I noticed that my ring was not on my finger. It’s gotta be here somewhere, I told myself as I sat up and pulled back the sheet slowly. Nothing. I got out of bed, listening for a click or ding. Nothing. I checked all four pillowcases then placed the pillows on the floor.

Nothing. My heart sank into my stomach, the acid burning as I began to freak out.

I finally yanked back the sheet not caring about the fact that if my ring was in the sheets, it’d go flying into the wall. Silence. I tried to remember the last time I had it. I ran into the bathroom. The ring stand was naked. I went back into our room and checked the jewelry box on the dresser. Only earrings, necklaces, and decorative rings. By the time Jules got back, I was on the couch with my knees pressed to my chest. The entire house was in shambles.

“Babe, what’s wrong?” Her voice was shaky and high pitched.

“Promise me you won’t be mad.”

“Just tell me.”

“Promise!” She looked blurry.

“I promise.”

She extended her pinky. I twisted mine around hers, pressed our thumbs together, and kissed our hands.

“I-I-I can’t find my ring.”

She paused and blinked. Then she laughed. One of those hearty laughs that started in her stomach and rumbled up her chest and out of her mouth.

“I took it to get cleaned.”

“What?”

“It’s at the jeweler.”

“Why’d you do that?”

“You said it needed it after that MVA you had last week.”

“I already took it in,” I told her. “Remember?”

“Oh.” She paused. “Right, damn. I’m sorry you freaked out,” she added. “I’m gonna take a shower.” She kissed my cheek. “I’m gross.”

The twenty-minute drive to her mother’s house was void of conversation. The radio a melody in the background to accompany the hum of the tire ridges on the pavement. Her jaw was tighter than the grip her right hand had on the steering wheel. That day was the first time I saw her wear a dress. It was a gray fit and flair; tight from her shoulders to waist, then the bottom flared out. She looked strange to me. We made a right at the Cine Arts theatre and she leaned to her left, switching her steering hand. Kids were running around, yelling and squealing as they played tag. The speed bumps slowed the car to an idle roll. We pulled up to a baby blue house with a statue of a little boy holding a fishing rod in the front yard. The grass was low and the driveway looked like it was shining.

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A woman with white hair was sitting on the porch in a rocking chair and I could see her eyes smile as Juliana got out of the car. I pulled down the visor to check my lipstick. She was a tiny thing. When they hugged, she rested her head on Juliana’s forearm. She was wearing yellow capris, a blue button down, and wedge slippers. The woman said something and Juliana laughed her deep, rich laugh which tugged at the corners of my mouth. Her straight hair flung back as she grabbed her stomach. She shook her head and waggled her index finger at the woman. The woman grabbed Juliana’s arm and waddled side to side with a smile. Juliana smiled and grabbed her mother in another hug. She was content. I imagined little Juliana being comforted by her mother, her strength taken from the woman who had given her life. Juliana shrugged and waved me over. I opened the door, stuck out my heels and got out of the car. It was the longest fifteen feet I ever had to walk. I could see the woman drinking me in, swirling my image in her mind before the corners of her mouth lifted into a smile.

“Mommy,” Jules said. I smiled at that. “This is Charlotte.”

“Adriana,” the woman said and extended her hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.

Juliana has told me so much about you.”

“I hope good things,” I said.

“For the most part,” Adriana said.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you too.”

“So how did you two meet?” Adriana asked as we followed her inside.

“Mutual friends,” Juliana answered. “Mommy, I love the cut.”

Adriana smiled and smoothed the hair at the nape of her neck. She had gray eyes behind thin silver glasses. Her hair was cropped close to her head; at her temple it lay flat unlike her daughter’s. Her skin was pale as mine; she looked like a ghost next to her caramel child.

“Really?” she asked. “It was just getting to be too much.” She sounded like she was singing more than talking. Each syllable drawn out as if she had no reason to rush words.

“Mira tu pelo,” she said touching straight ends. “Aye, I don’t know why you don’t keep it like this.”

Juliana’s hair cascaded down her back with shorter layers in the front. Throughout the day, it’d been falling into her face. It took two hours and over fifty dollars for Angelo to get it that way. The man with strong arms and tender hands was the only one in the entire salon who could handle her curls. She was self conscious about the amount of heat it took to make her hair submissive. Other customers had complained about all the steam caused by drying her hair so she began taking his last slot. She always saw him before presentations, events, and trips out of town.

I liked her hair better curly. Mostly because I wished mine wasn’t dead straight, but I fell in love a little more whenever she woke up in the morning with stray tendrils sticking up, yawned, threw the mass to the side with a half grin and a garbled “morning”. When it was curly, she didn’t care about the getting it wet or sweating it out. Whether pulled back or parted to the side, she was free.

The windows were open and multiple fans were on. There was a large A/C outside, but Adriana wasn’t using it. The living room was covered by crème-colored carpet with vacuum lines that looked like a fresh-cut yard. The impressions continued under the furniture, One Look

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making me wonder how the small woman lifted the cream leather couch, love seat, and glass coffee table.

Juliana sat on the love seat and when I sat next to her. She rocked back and stretched her arms behind me before putting her hands in her lap. There were framed pictures on the wall of each family member: Adriana, her father, Jorge and Julius. But on the table next to the couch, facing the front door were individual pictures of Juliana. I got on my knees to get a better look. I almost felt bad for disturbing the perfect vacuum lines.

The carpet was stiff against my legs and bare feet. A white tablecloth was under the collection. Juliana suspected she was the favorite, because she was the only biological child of her father, and the shrine confirmed it.

There was a nametag with the emblem of the cinema on the corner where we made the right off the Main Street. There was a small plastic container of baby teeth and a pair of infant shoes with a quarter in the left one.

When I asked about the coin, Adriana replied that it was good luck.

“This is so adorable,” I said, picking up a baby picture in a gold frame. The baby looked like a fatter toothless Juliana. She was wearing only a diaper and her eyebrows were furrowed into the top of her nose exactly how she did when she chewed on the end of her pen at her draft table. “My baby pictures are horrible,” I said. “Puberty did me well.” All three of us laughed.

Adriana held her hands out to Juliana. “Let me see.”

“Mommy.”

The older woman waved her fingers. With a huff, Juliana put her fingertips on Adriana’s palms. “Oh, Juliana,” she said, the first syllable of her name sounding like an owl.

“Work?”

Her nails were chewed down. It took her two months to grow them past her fingertips before she started the new project. Juliana nodded and looked past me. “That picture was her first set of shots,” Adriana said as she stood up and disappeared down the hall. “She was such a happy baby.” A hinge creaked, a cabinet door closed. “But ooo she was grumpy that day.” She emerged with a nail file and clear polish.

“Mah.” “Hush.” She waved her hand and looked back at me. “It was her first set of shots.” She began filing Juliana’s nails. “She couldn’t stand them, more attitude than the day she was born.”

“She doesn’t want to hear about my birthday.”

“If she minded, she’d tell me.”

“I don’t mind,” I said.

“Traitor,” Juliana grumbled as her mother began to apply the clear polish.

“Not a sound this one,” Adriana continued. “She wasn’t crying or nothing. And when the doctor flicked her foot.” Juliana mouthed the last sentence as her mother said it. “She made just enough noise to say ‘happy?’ to the doctor.”

“Not much has changed,” I said. “Sometimes I forget we live together.”

“The mission is so expensive. When I was your age, I had three roommates.” There was a chime in the kitchen. “Dinner’s ready. Charlotte… do you go by Charlotte?”

“Everyone calls me Charlie.”

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“Charlie, do you mind helping me while her nails dry?”

“No, of course not.” My stomach growled and she smiled.

“I just hope my cooking lives up to your expectation,” she said. “Lena really knows her way around a kitchen. I’d love to take credit for it, but it was her father who was the chef.”

“I’m sorry,” I told her. “Juliana told me he passed.”

“Thank you.” She patted my arm.

“I’m sure your food is amazing.”

“I see you’re eating well,” she said and I guessed I looked shocked because her eyes immediately went wide and she covered her mouth. “Mija, it’s a compliment,” she said. “It means you’re doing well for yourself.” She opened the oven and pulled out the large pot.

“Does your fiancé cook?” She nodded toward my left hand were my ring finger had a lighter line right above the knuckle. She pulled back the foil covering her dish. My stomach turned and I could feel my heartbeat in my throat and in my skull. Adriana wanted to hear about my fiancé, to gush over the proposal, but my tongue was heavy and my teeth locked. Juliana walked into the kitchen, her fingers spread apart.

“Don’t go too girly on me,” I said, causing Adriana to chuckle. “First the dress, now the nails. I just don’t know who you are anymore.” Juliana usually laughed at butch jokes but instead she looked irritated.

“She’s just kidding,” Adriana said. “Can you do me a favor and get out the nice place mats.”

“The gold ones?”

“Yep those.” Juliana disappeared into the back of the house. “So tell me,” she asked, leaning to the side to look down the hall. “How bad has the smoking been?” There was sand in my throat. “Oh please,” she said. “A mother knows. She’s been smoking since she was nineteen. That architecture program wore on her, especially after Julian.”

“Mah, I don’t see them!”

“Check my craft room!”

“Okay!”

“She’s probably looking right at them.” She laughed. “Sometimes she refuses to see what’s in front of her face,” she said. “I know you aren’t my daughter’s friend,” Adriana said.

“You’re her fiancé.” I didn’t deny it. I didn’t laugh it off.

Juliana came out the room with the place mats. “Here they— Charlie? You okay?” she asked me. “My mom said something crazy, huh?” She kissed Adriana’s hair.

“Uh, yea,” I replied.

“Smells great, Mommy,” Juliana said as she set the table. “You didn’t have to.”

“Nonsense,” she said. “I barely get to see you, so course I made your favorite.” Baked chicken, green beans, macaroni and cheese. She put a bit of everything on a plate and handed it to Juliana. “Eats like a man this one.” Juliana shrugged but I died inside when Adriana smirked at me, looking like an older version of her daughter. Adriana sat at the head of the table; Juliana and I sat across from one another on each side. She extended her hands to us and we took them. I closed my eyes, waiting for her mother to begin the prayer, but it was Juliana’s voice, which filled my ears. I wasn’t hearing the words as she gave thanks. It was a silky but deep prayer. Thanksgiving for more than the meal and it made goose bumps rise on

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my skin. In the two years we’d been dating, I’d never heard her say grace or pray. Adriana and I chimed amen after and I tried not to stare at my blushing bride to be.

“Charlie, Juliana said you’re a nurse,” Adriana said.

“Cardiac unit at San Francisco General.”

“How do you like it?”

“Love it,” I told her. “Juliana thinks I should get my master’s, but I’m not sure if I have the time. I’d probably have to take off for clinicals and I don’t want to put too much on her.”

“Things are going great at the firm,” Juliana chimed. “We can afford it.” Adriana smiled at me. Her eyes asked How could I not know?

The table was covered in a red, cotton cloth with crème-colored placemats with gold trim. A crystal centerpiece with reflective fruit sat in the middle. The plates and glasses were cobalt blue and matched the décor of the kitchen. It seemed safe to assume it was her favorite color. The meal finished with small talk about work, family, and hobbies. As I cleared the table, Adriana asked, “Tu quiere café?”

“Si,” Juliana and I replied. Adriana smiled and nodded.

“I grew up in Cali. Learning the basics makes me a better nurse.”

“Very smart of you,” Adriana said. “Keep this one around.” The coffee pot began to rumble its approach to completion. “You should visit more.”

“I know,” Juliana said as she poured the two mugs of coffee. She splashed the same amount of creamer in each before handing us the mugs. She made her cup and the three of us made our way to the porch. The back yard was shimmering in the bright moonlight while the crickets serenaded us. The air was dry and cool like the night we met. I rubbed my ring finger.

“Not that I’m complaining, but what brings you out here?”

Juliana looked at me when she answered, “Just wanted to visit.”

“There’s nothing you want to tell me?” Juliana looked at me again. “Ok, I won’t pry, but just know that I love and accept you.”

We headed to the car soon after. “Don’t be a stranger.” Juliana started the engine and rolled down the window. “Drive safe, call me when you get in.”

“I will.”

She kissed her mother’s cheek then pulled out the driveway. Her left hand rested on her forehead, her thumb sitting on her left eyebrow, her forefinger against her right one and the other three fingers shielded her eyes from me.

When we got home, we got ready for bed in silence. I brushed my teeth while she showered and when she was done, we didn’t look at each other as she got out and wrapped the towel around herself. I closed the door, hard, behind her and undressed. Reaching my left hand over my shoulder and twisting my right one behind my back, I managed to unzip my dress. Juliana had zipped me up before we left, but you can’t ask your girlfriend for help when you’re mad at her. I tossed the green dress to the floor. Juliana had picked it out, suggesting that I wear something to bring out my eyes. I turned on the hot water, slid out of my underwear and stepped into the blazing stream. The bathroom quickly refilled with steam.

My skin burned, it was red like I’d been lying in the sun. I tipped my head back and let the water run down, plastering my short blonde hair to my scalp. I quickly washed my hair and body. I climbed into bed where Juliana was laying on her side, straight hair where her bra One Look

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strap would be, her back to me so I turned my back to her. I closed my eyes but sleep didn’t take me. It didn’t take long for Juliana’s snores to fill the room. The blinds were closed and the only light in the room was the blue numbers of our alarm clock.

I sat up and looked at her. She was lying on her stomach, her head facing me, the comforter sitting on her lower back. I reached out to touch the tiger tattoo on her shoulder.

Her skin was warm, rippled where the ink was and soft where it wasn’t. I watched her get it, held her hand as she cursed the artist who put it there, then praised him after it was done. I cleaned it and applied Neosporin on a daily basis. I monitored its healing and relayed the progress to her. Her snoring rumbled like a muscle car, so I tilted her chin up to unblock her airway. The snores lessened. “Love you,” she grumbled as she flipped over.

The next morning she was still in bed, the dogs at the foot like they knew we needed a day to sleep in.

“I can’t believe you told my mom about us,” she said.

“She already knew,” I replied, turning onto my side to look at her. “She flat out said she knew I wasn’t just a friend.”

“I did mention being able to support us.”

“And she said I’m a keeper.” Juliana chuckled. “We wear rings all the time, she noticed our hands,” I added. “Why didn’t you wear yours?” I sat up, wrapping the covers around my chest.

“I don’t know.” She sighed and ran her hands down her face with a loud exhale.

“You weren’t going to tell her were you?” I asked. “That’s why you got my ring cleaned.”

“I was ready,” she said. “But when I woke up that morning to go for a run and I saw your ring it reminded me about all the things she said when I was a teenager. That being gay wasn’t a choice but the result of psychological issues.” She pressed her knuckles into her eyes. “I had the break up with my first love because I wasn’t ready to come out. I always saw it as this beautiful moment between us. That I would sit her down and finally come clean. I’ve only come out to my brothers, everyone else in my family just made assumptions. I didn’t get to come out on my terms.”

“I didn’t tell her, Jules.”

“But you didn’t deny it either.”

“What was I supposed to do?”

“Lie.” “What?”

“It wasn’t your place.”

“I didn’t do anything wrong. I don’t get it. She’s okay with you and us and is probably picking out dresses.”

“You don’t get it,” she said, shoving the covers back as she got out of bed. “It wasn’t your confession to make.”

She walked into the bathroom and closed the door behind her. After her shower, she dressed and went on her usual run, or at least that’s what I thought. Instead of returning in an hour, she was gone for the rest of the day and the one after that. Two days later after my shift, one of her drawers was empty and Duke was gone. There was a note letting me know that she needed some space. I picked up my ring from the jeweler but left it in the box on the One Look

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top of the dresser. I went back to eating cereal for dinner and waking up in the afternoon to Rory’s whining. A week later, she called me and asked that we meet at Tammy’s to talk. When I walked up she was leaning against the side of the building, cigarette hanging from her lips.

She looked at me. There was no smile in her eyes, but I couldn’t believe how right she’d been about getting me with one look. I just wasn’t sure if she’d keep me.

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gritty re/booted by my own.

Zoha Khan

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________ I stand in the field beyond that Rumi talked about, and choke on my tears; it’s over-run by the haram police, razed to the ground by their rhetoric.

Today, Shams and Rumi would be thrown into jail. They tell me to pick one.

To be queer or to be Muslim: that is my verdict. They stone me with their rosary beads; I am a breasted stone-faced Iblis and this is holy, this is worship, this is Hajj.

I stand alone; her hand is my safe space but it is bound in mehndi now; they think marriage will cure her, pill of red and gold shoved down her throat.

As though love is a disease. Of course, it’s the man who’s a savior.

The horror of two girls together; Snow White might as well have swine flu. Only the injection the Prince carries Serendipity | 46

in his pants will heal her of this impurity.

My potty-mouthed princess has been beaten into heterosexuality.

Jasmine is carried away in a dholi and Esmeralda can only watch.

I sit in Rumi’s field with God next to me and we both wait for you to run back home to us.

gritty re/booted by my own.

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My Gay Son Robert Wright

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________

My son is not gay.

Neither is his brother.

When I opened the door, he cried.

“I already knew, Dad.” “I love you, Dad.”

My son is not gay.

Neither is his brother.

Before I turned the knob, he cried.

“Don't say it out loud, Dad.” “I love you, Dad.”

I am my gay son.

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Before

Clariss Flournoy

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

It has been said that a soulmate can be a friend, a lover, even someone you won’t end up with As I stare into your face, I hope the latter isn’t our placement.

I’m free You’re bound But I can’t help the connection that I’ve found You have such a sweet name But when we touch, those pricks warn me to stay away.

I don’t meddle or break into happy homes But heartache has been known to cut straight to the bone.

I have no intention on bothering you or to toy with your ideations But there’s a piece of my depth that I have to show, Had time been my friend, It would have been my name you would’ve known.

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Someplace Beautiful Stephani Booker

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The glare of fluorescent bulbs The bland of white walls And the blah of tiled floors Are not the last things I want to see.

The beep of a monitor The drone of a TV set And the buzz of white noise Are not the last things I want to hear.

The chill of conditioned air The scratch of starchy sheets And the grasp of paid caretakers Are not the last things I want to feel.

The tang of antiseptic soap The sting of alcohol wipes And the burn of my own piss Damn sure ain’t the last things I want to smell.

The last thing I want to smell is the sweet of sagebrush or the savory of the Great Lake or the salt of the eastern sea

The last thing I want to feel is the warmth of a western sun or the soft of island sand or the plush of woodland moss

The last thing I want to hear is the chatter of songbirds or the rush of white rapids or the crackle of fallen leaves

The last thing I want to see is the majesty of ancient timber or the mystery of desert stone or the magic of tropical blooms

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The last place I want to be is anyplace that is someplace beautiful.

Someplace Beautiful

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The Ancient Theater at Delphi Sneha Subramanian Kanta

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________

I sat on a step, as step by step everything loomed a cry, while surrounded by silence, like the muffled tears that lay untouched.

The south-west Parnassus bolsters shadows of wood and stone, how the theater was built. The choruses still interlude over summers. The

forepassed beliefs lay pressed in tongs of stone, a resting place for abandoned worshipers. Aristotle left psalms of correlations in poetics

of performances and the feelings of mortals; in the core are pulses of how plots compose: verse after verse, as here I sit, step, after step, after step.

Even these wide mountains seem as they move, though it is the sky.

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Motherhood Robert Wright

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________

“Mom, are we rich?” he asked as he climbed into the minivan after a day of coloring and counting and climbing on the monkey bars reserved for the childhood gardeners, just as he did the very first day when he grumpily announced “They didn’t even teach us to read today!”

Her breath stopped.

“Did someone make fun of his clothes?

His Lion King backpack?

His Buzz Lightyear lunchbox?”

“Did he hear us arguing through the walls last night about the blossoming bush of bills on the kitchen table?”

“Should I just keep him home and protect him from the parrots who mimic the hard words they hear at home?”

“Mom, are we rich?”

“Well, we have enough to buy what we need.”

She hesitated.

“Why . . . do you ask?”

“Well, Sarah’s mom”—oh the lovely Sarah, whose golden curls caught his eye the first day on the playground— ”Sarah’s mom told her to find a boyfriend who is smart, good-looking, and rich.

I know I’m smart.

I know I’m good-looking.

But I don’t know if I’m rich.”

She drank a tall, sweet breath.

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The Illuminated Man Andrea Mosier

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________

When he was translucent like an opaque canvas, his shimmering skin came alive with his unbidden thoughts. At those times, he did his best to stay away from people, but the city where he did his work teemed with them, and besides, they were drawn to his luminosity.

Most of the time, his skin was the color of coal dust painted over with images done in white, like a work done in paper cut-outs on black canvas.

He had a working knowledge of all flying objects, and so he landed a job repairing private aircraft at a place known as Osiris Aviation, a sandy scar in the green earth off I-25 with the logo of the all-seeing eye atop a sign now faded. The man they called Jasper, who ran the place, had been in business some thirty-five years.

Qwuan moved and dressed carefully as he worked among them, wearing jeans, longsleeved shirts, and aviator scarves through the hottest months of the year. In all that time, he had allowed himself to get close to only one human on the planet, a middle-aged woman with skin the color of an unripe peach they called Sarah, who sold her dead husband’s private plane to pay for cancer treatments for herself. Qwuan had never known a person near death, and it fascinated him the way others would be fascinated to watch his skin turn to moving pictures underneath his denim shirt, revealing dreams and imaginings that surprised even him.

On a warm Albuquerque evening, she came up from Tularosa to pick up the check from the vintage airplane sale, and Qwuan spoke to her, turned his watery gray eyes on her, aware of the motor oil blackening the blue of his shirt, the sweat on his brow despite his protests that he was not suffocating inside his denim sarcophagus. He removed his scarf, and her image played just at the collar of his shirt, moving up to fill in his neck all the way to the black curls at his hairline until she saw herself reflected, if idealized, in his face.

Instead of turning away in horror, she took his hand.

After the consummation of their relationship, her skin became luminescent, not with images but with color, and she never returned to the hospital in Albuquerque. They spent nights in a tiny trailer in a field of dust behind the aviation shop. She spent her money on frivolous things that brought her joy, things of beauty made of turquoise, clay, and blown glass. Qwuan spent his extra time with her, and all that summer, the color of her skin gained vitality and intensity, at times sparkling until she could no longer go out in public without a cloak covering her full body. It was at this time that Qwuan suggested with a smirk that she looked like one of the holy men on his home planet, and she looked up at him, saying, “Holy men in the ancient scriptures and our own stories wore such robes.”

At that point, Qwuan began to think about his own image-decked body as something that needed covering, perhaps with more than mere clothing.

Sarah lived five years beyond the doctor’s death sentence. She died on an autumn day in her house in Tularosa, in the shadow of the mountains with the sky an unrelenting gray.

The skin of her wane body lost color until it turned to white like gypsum. He buried her behind her house under a cottonwood tree. She left him the house, but he dared not move into it. He had learned not to create questions in the minds of the men of the town. Or any town.

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His move south had to do with an inexplicable desire to see the desert. His own home was mountain basalt giving way to lush vegetation in the lowlands, a rocky landscape born of volcanoes. He could not imagine a vista such as the one Sarah had described, a place he had visited only in his dreams. The White Sands basin. He took his touring bike there, traveling only at night, coming into town on Highway 70 and parking the bike at a restaurant where 70 became White Sands Boulevard.

Southeastern New Mexico was a strange hybrid landscape of palm trees, yucca plants, spider cactus, bright green grass in the shade of cottonwood trees, and the endless gypsum sand stretching to the Rockies.

White Sands was a national monument and a missile range and Qwuan only went there to camp when he was in his opaque stage, parking at the diner, walking unobserved on the edge of the Air Force base, and slipping past the guards to gain access.

The missile range and national monument sat at the edge of a small town at the foot of the Sacramento Mountains, and one day, one of the town’s residents wandered onto base in a kind of trance. He was found sitting on a patch of sand, his eyes fixed to the sky. An MP collected him, put him in the Jeep, and took him to the base clinic for observation. Somehow Qwuan knew this even though he hadn’t seen the man let alone the MP or the clinic doctor who called the man’s wife and used the word Alzheimer’s. The scene played out in Qwuan’s nightly dreams as if he had dreamed the town and its people.

He had almost convinced himself that he had.

After that, a few more of the town’s residents contracted Alzheimer’s and made the trek out to the base using the gate on the north side, slipping by the now unmanned guard posts unseen.

That is how it began. Women watched their husbands walking out on their front porches, unresponsive, unheeding, with a look of transfixed awe as they stared at the sky. At first, doctors explained away this phenomenon as stress, food poisoning, prescription drug abuse, and environmental toxins, everything from genetically modified food to radon gas in their homes to artificial sweeteners. But each night, more of the town’s men, airline pilots, soldiers, lawyers, gang leaders, store clerks, custodians, hospital patients, and inmates walked out of their abodes, trailers, mansions, barracks, cells, hotel rooms, to gaze in wonderment at the sky.

And the physicians began to seek out each other in secret rooms, paying large amounts of money for discretion, discovering the habitual night wanderings bordered on mass hysteria because more than a thousand people had developed the habit.

Just when the strange behavior peaked, it halted.

The physicians interviewed their patients and found the men had no memory of wandering around and staring at the night sky. For a long while, wives had their husbands back, mothers ceased worrying about their middle-aged sons, siblings no longer burned up cell phone frequencies gossiping about their aging brothers. Like beetles after a rainstorm, they went back to the routine madness of their lives.

Not long after the town’s aging men started star-gazing, Qwuan suspected he might have something to do with their erratic behavior. The skin of his body began to fill with papery whiteness like the sand in the basin. He had no doubt there was a link to the men’s sudden preoccupation with the night sky, their keen sense that something was awakening The Illuminated Man

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over the gypsum sea. He had never before picked up the color of his environment, and the logical region of his brain told him all these changes had to be connected.

On a Friday in late October, he awoke, once again in his opaque state, his skin watery and devoid of images. He walked unseen into the gypsum desert. Afar off, he saw them.

A black line of bodies like a long snake uncoiling itself onto the white canvas.

Back in town, receptionists overwhelmed with calls stopped answering the phones of town physicians and walked out front doors to observe the town’s fathers walking away from their vehicles, stopping traffic both directions on White Sands Boulevard. Men walked west, so many leaving their posts on Holloman Air Force base that all entrances stood unmanned, allowing scores of the touched to enter the protected area. The air traffic control tower emptied. The cafeterias shed line cooks, dining room managers, cashiers, and bookkeepers.

Car washes, movie theatres, diners, banks, prisons, grocery stores, and even doctors’ offices emptied of their men.

They all walked west into the white blanket, staring into some other dimension, skyward.

Qwuan dared not move, afraid of creating a wrinkle in the fabric, a detectable fly in the ointment of atmosphere. How he longed to see what those men saw, the spectacle that transfixed their gaze and left them untouchable by this realm. He would have loved to join them but he had to watch even his breathing as they began to move closer to him as if drawn, although he was certain they could not see him.

All night the gathering grew, eyes to heaven, and Qwuan, unable to shake off the inevitability of sleep, succumbed.

In dreams, Qwuan watched the men as they observed a sky filled with tattooed, luminous pictures, not unlike those of his long body. At times, they spoke to the images, communicating with creatures moving in and out of the various illustrations. For the first time in decades, the men played. They moved inside these picture-stories, creating the storylines, and Qwuan watched their dreams in lighted splendor on the night sky, which had turned into a gigantic movie screen.

When he awoke, they were gone, the dreamers.

And Qwuan himself was once again the decorated man, his skin once again a canvas, a moveable feast for the eyes.

He envied those men and he felt sorry for them at the same time.

For they had seen something no one, not even himself, Qwuan the Illuminated, had seen. They had shared something that made them brother and kin to every other man who saw what they saw. But they could never tell another soul as long as they lived, for no human would ever open his mind to such a shared vision for the same reason many short-sighted people called spirituality “mass hysteria” or coined the philosophical aphorism that religion is the opiate of the masses.

For the same reason that a beetle cannot comprehend the orbits of planets, the rising of the sun, or the birth of a star.

And Qwuan knew instinctively that the men had seen too much of truth in the Universal Picture-Show, and so he determined to walk west again, always west, in pursuit of a private place that could hold his dreams.

The Illuminated Man

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His last night in camp at White Sands, sleep found him early. In his dreams, he saw the bodies of very old men lying on their backs, their gaze permanently transfixed. Their souls had traveled far, and their bodies were aligned perfectly east to west with their heads pointing east and their feet pointing west.

Doctors, psychiatrists, journalists, bloggers, preachers, and mediums responded to the news, offering various explanations. There was some talk of a suicide pact, although that faded when the medical examiner announced the cause of death in each case as “natural.�

Qwuan himself resisted the urge to turn back east and examine the bodies himself, both in his dream-state and later, when he awakened before dawn, when the fingernail moon gave little light as he packed his gear.

It was that night, and other nights as well, that he missed Sarah, but mostly what he missed was giving voice to his dreams, and he wondered if life existed solely in the re-telling, just as the men had taken great joy in acting out stories they wielded with their thoughts, projected on the sky for all to see.

As he packed his bag, the sun rising in the east gave the gypsum sea a pink and purple light.

As he turned his back to the Earth-star, the sky washed turquoise blue, as if it had never held any pictures at all.

The Illuminated Man

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Next Door Daniel Dowe

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Kids selling magazines, both from towns faraway, on my front facing porch, hanging back near the baskets that I forgot to water.

They ask for my sponsorship, so they can avoid profanity, misdirection, a life of crime, to instead do God’s appointed work: selling magazines and enthusiasm, with handshakes, large smiles and laughter, to the cautious white dude, who at least stepped out of his door to meet us, probably sleepy from the loud tv, wearing slippers and politeness.

He smiles but refuses our offer, And we have to do this again, in this weird, unknown town, to another stranger, who may not even answer the door, but just looks briefly at us, slightly bending the white mini-blind.

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Fateful Encountering Clariss Flournoy

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

M-

I was wild and you were a lost spirit wandering through

I’m a paradox, while you try to remain true

Love is sporadic, but I can’t help

What I see

What I feel

What I want with you

You show me things on the ground

While I point out that the sky is palpable too.

When worlds collide feelings can be deadly, but I like explosions

Especially coming from you

Most people dream about finding The One that will change everything

But I like how you want me to be me and you to be you, an intertwining mesh creating an Us that has a different view

You may not always see the light at the end of the tunnel, but I’ll hold your hand Boo.

I like how you try and share some of your world with me, that you aren’t too ashamed to include me with what you do.

Plenty talk about how they wish chance would work in favor for them

But are too scared to play witness to fate blindly being led with open hands

I can only hope that you aren’t afraid and see what it is that I am projecting from you

Because according to what I found, my love,

Serendipity, is you.

Yours, -R Serendipity | 60

The Letters Jon MacDonald

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Hollis took another turn around the faded maroon, 1950 bullet-nose, Studebaker commander. It was too much of a cliché to kick the tires so he just passed his hand along the passenger side of the car. Yes, the car would need work, but that was his joy—fixing up classic cars.

Hollis was the owner of a modest Atlanta body shop. At fifty-three the only passion he had left was cars. His marriage to Charlene was now just a numbing routine. Their only child, Charlie, was estranged from them and lived in California. Charlene had her quilting, her church, and her ladies clubs, and was off in her own world most of the time—which was fine with Hollis. Over time they’d both drifted into different tributaries along life’s river.

Hollis shook his head with a frown. “I can’t see paying more than a thousand,” he said to the elderly owner, as he turned away from the car and squinted across the backyard.

Hollis, thin and nearly bald, wore a perpetually pained expression even when he said he was modestly happy. He ran his hands down his plaid polyester pants and turned back to the car which was parked, surrounded by weeds, by the seller’s tool shed. “It doesn’t even run. I’d have to get a tow truck back here to get this out.”

The seller responded, “But it’s a classic. Come on, it’s worth at least five thousand, even in this condition. And the engine’s really good—just needs some tinkering. And you’re looking at a value of fifteen to twenty when it’s all fixed up.”

“Yeah, but it’s not all fixed up, is it? I’d have to put in a bundle to get this into acceptable shape. And do you know what parts for these babies cost these days?”

“Okay, four then,” the seller offered.

Hollis took another turn around the car, stopped and stared at it, thoughtfully. “Twofive. Best I can do.”

The seller pursed his lips. “Three.”

Hollis thought for a moment, shook his head, and started to walk away. “Got another car to see this afternoon. I’ll get back to you.”

The seller caught up with Hollis, put his hand on his shoulder to stop him and said, “Okay. You’re killing me. I’ll take two-seven.”

Hollis smiled, turned around and shook the man’s hand. “I’ll pick it up Saturday.” ~ ~ ~ Since he owned the body shop he’d used his own tow truck to fetch the car. He parked the Studebaker behind the shop until he could make space to permanently park it

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inside to start the restoration. He studied the car. He liked the maroon color and decided to stay with that.

As the weather looked threatening, Hollis walked into the shop, took down a tarp, and went outside to cover the car. But before he did that he decided to check the car out and clean it up a bit first. He opened the trunk. Good, the lock works. But there was no spare. He pulled out some dried leaves and a few old newspapers. He looked at their dates—1957.

Might be fun to take a look at those later. There was a box of magazines and books and he took those out. They looked interesting, and he thought he’d rummage through those as well.

Hollis went to the driver’s side and got in. He adjusted the seat and put his hands on the steering wheel. Yes, this is going to be a nice little car when it’s all fixed up.

He reached over and opened the glove compartment. He pulled out a bunch of papers. “Well, look at that,” he said, as he found the original owner’s manual. There was an old registration, an insurance card, and some drive-thru receipts. Hum, the owner was a woman.

At the bottom of the pile was an envelope. It was addressed to a Cynthia McFadden— same name as on the registration. It had been opened and he couldn’t resist taking a look at the letter inside.

Hey Mom, I got your letter, and let me tell you it sure came as some big surprise, let me tell you.

I’m not quite sure what to say here. Julie Cranston… really? I knew you guys were friends and all, but I never expected in a million, billion years that you two would become… Sorry, I just can’t write it. You know it’s a sin, don’t you? I mean you… my mom…

I knew you would be lonely after I left for the seminary—with me being your only child—and with dad having run off and all. And I would expect you to want to have some close friends around you… but living together? What are folks going to say?

Sorry, I’m just not very good at answering this. I went to talk to Brother Timothy about it, and he said that you are surely going to burn in the fires of Hell for an eternity, and he told me that I must break all ties with you. Have you thought about that? And how am I going to face my friends when I come back home to visit? Surely everybody’s going to know about this.

You know what the folks in Dunkirk are like…

I’ve tried to think what I can say to help you. It’s only my first year here at Sacred Heart and I don’t know a lot about this kind of thing, and surely it hasn’t come up in any of my studies so far. But maybe if we could sit together we could pray together and come up with some kind of a solution. Have you thought to talk to Father Carmine about this? Just a thought. I’m sorry I really don’t know what else to say here.

I’d like to come home, but I just couldn’t if Mrs. Cranston… Julie… was living there.

Being a sin, and all, it wouldn’t be proper for me, as a seminarian, to be staying in a house of sin. Surely you understand that don’t you?

The Letters

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I don’t want to never see you again, but after what Brother Timothy said about breaking ties with you…well, I have my soul to think about too. Would I become contaminated?

I think I’m going to have to put my foot down here and insist that unless you and Julie split up I won’t ever be able to see you again. I know that seems harsh but I believe it’s the best thing for the both of us.

Let me know your answer. If I don’t hear from you again I will know that your decision was for sin and we shall never meet again. But I pray I will get a letter from you saying you have broken your ties with that lady, and I will be free to come home and take you in my arms.

Your son, waiting in anticipation for your reply, Daniel Hollis folded up the letter and put it carefully back into the envelope. He took a deep breath. Now that was some letter. It affected him more deeply than he was, as yet, willing to admit. He couldn’t help but wonder what Cynthia’s reply would have been. But he would never know. That letter was from almost sixty years ago. Cynthia had probably passed on by now, and the boy would now be close to eighty-years-old. He thought about doing an internet search on Daniel McFadden, but decided there must be a slew of them out there. Some mysteries must remain mysteries.

Hollis got out of the car and started pulling the tarp up over the top. The driver’s door was not completely closed so he opened it again to slam it shut, but before he did, he glanced down and saw a book wedged in between the driver’s seat and the car’s frame. He pulled it out to throw it into the box with the other books from the trunk, but he noticed an envelope sticking out as a bookmark. He opened the book and took out the envelope. It was addressed to Daniel McFadden and had a three cent stamp. The stamp had not been postmarked, so it was clear it had not been mailed. Could this be Cynthia’s reply to Daniel? The letter was still sealed but Hollis had no compunction about opening it up. He found his hand shaking slightly as he took out the letter and unfolded it.

My Dearest Darling Boy, I was afraid you might react the way you did, and I cannot tell you how deeply it hurts my heart that it is so. I thought I taught you to be more loving and understanding of the wide range of people there are in this world. I suppose it’s the influence of your studies that you think this way now, but that is not how I raised you.

I must abide by your decision not to come home if I am still with Julie and, therefore, I must state that you and I will not be seeing each other again any time soon, for I will not relinquish the love I have for Julie. After your father left us, I soldiered on alone with only you by my side. However, Julie stepped forward to help me and my boy. Over time our friendship blossomed into love—for both of us. And after you left for the seminary it became inevitable The Letters

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that we should grow even closer. We knew it would be difficult to live together as a couple in a small town, but we also knew it was the right thing to do—for us.

Perhaps one day you will see that love—any kind of love—is not a threat to you or your beliefs. And I hope and pray that you may be able to expand your understanding and accept me for who I am. Maybe my stance will trigger a melting of your heart, and I pray that it may be so. But no matter your rejection of me, know that I do, and always will, love you.

Your mother Hollis was astonished at her reply and immediately wondered why the letter had not been sent. Had something happened to Cynthia that she was unable to mail the letter, or did she ponder her response and decide not to send it? The consequence would have been the same in either case—Daniel would not have come home. And unless Hollis found something else, he would never know the outcome of that story—would they ever meet again?

Hollis finished covering the car. He carried the letters and the box of books to his office and sat down at his desk. He reread the letters and sat staring out at the roiling storm clouds for a long time. Evening was coming on and the grey skies hastened the darkness.

Finally, Hollis turned on his computer and began a letter.

My Dearest Charlie, I know it has been far too long since you heard from me. Your mother and I miss you so very, very much. I know we parted, each one of us, full of anger. And I can’t begin to tell you how much I regret that.

I have never understood your lifestyle—that which you tell me is not a choice. But that does not forgive me and your mother from not trying to understand.

I know the world has changed a lot since you left us, and there is more acceptance now for your kind of people. I have decided to make an effort and get to know more about your issues.

I am writing this letter without your mother’s knowledge, but I intend to show it to her before I send it on to you, and I hope she will join me in wishing you well and perhaps opening a new dialogue between us.

If you can find it in your heart to forgive us I hope you will one day come home so we may embrace once again.

I hope this finds you well and I long to hear from you soon.

Your loving Father P.S.: If you should now have a friend, he would be welcome to visit us as well.

Oh, Honey, please accept my love and know I join with your father in this letter.

The Letters

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Your loving Mother ~ ~ ~ Hollis picked up the mail that the postman had just delivered through the slot in the front door. There was a letter addressed to him from Charlie. He wondered if he should wait until Charlene came home from the grocery before opening it, so they could read it together.

But he was so nervous he, instead, got into his car and drove over to the body shop. He retreated to his office where he could be safe and alone, as it was a Saturday and the shop was closed. He put the letter down on the desk in front of him and just stared at it for several minutes. But finally he summed the courage to open it.

Dad, Mom, Sorry it’s taken me this long to respond to your letter, but I was just OVERWHELMED when I received it. At first I couldn’t believe that I was actually reading what you wrote—and then I just cried and cried.

Thank you. I am so grateful that you have reached out to me and I can clearly sense your change of heart.

I would LOVE to come and visit. I do have a partner, Jason, and while I would love for him to meet you both—and he tells me he wants to meet you too—I think it’s best if I come alone. I don’t want to pile too much on you guys when we first meet again. And maybe it would be a good idea to have a phone conversation before I come—maybe break the ice a little. And have you heard of Skype?

Well, I don’t want to ramble. Just wanted to let you know I am THRILLED to hear from you guys.

MUCH love, Charlie Hollis smiled, and for the first time in a long while, he no longer had a pained expression on his face. He carefully refolded the letter and put it back in the envelope. He slipped the letter into his shirt pocket and put his hands on the desk to rise up from the chair.

He glanced at his desk for a moment and saw the title for the Studebaker that the seller had signed over to him when he picked up the car.

Need to make a file for that, he thought. He picked it up and, for the first time, noticed the name of the seller—Daniel McFadden. Hollis was stunned, but took a deep breath and began to laugh. He was definitely going to give Mr. McFadden a call—or was it Father McFadden? In any case, he was looking forward to having a really great story to tell.

The Letters

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The Monkey Chronicles Gregory Canillas

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________

you strolled into my life statuesque, black at midnight

your eyes said it all as did mine we were attracted

while there were no bells or whistles there were fireworks exploding, multicolored and loud

attraction

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poem for my man thick, full, brown lips, i like the way they curl at the end when you’re eating fried chicken, dripping with hot sauce or greens or snapper or whatever i have cooked for you. i like the way you dance moving slowly, methodically, snapping your fingers, hips swinging from side to side like a smooth, confident, old man, swaying to Aretha or Patti or Jill doesn’t matter who is playing, you sure can move, to be so tall. i like the way you hold me, whether standing or sitting or laying in bed. it always makes me feel secure, let’s me know that you love me, as much as i love you. i love the way you kiss me, softly sometimes, passionately at other times whether on my neck or back or ear or places to that shouldn’t be mentioned in this poem. i love the way you kiss me…’cause kisses don’t lie. i love being with you, whether we stay in or go out waking to you in the morning time or sitting on the sofa, planning our life together. you make my heart dance, every time i think about you, whether in your presence or away. and my friends say, now, i sing when i talk. loving you is wonderful.

The Monkey Chronicles

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The Picnic Rebecca Redshaw

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Joe couldn't sleep. The still night air was interrupted only by the soft clicking of the blinds as the ancient floor fan whirred slowly. It wasn't the steamy heat that was causing his restlessness or the constant rhythm of Marth's nasal breathing as she lay by his side, but the memory that wouldn't fade from early this morning–the memory of the two women.

The morning wasn't that unusual really. He'd opened up the souvenir counter as he had every day for the last four years, since retiring from the mill. Outside the intense heat, even before the sunrise, was just cranking up, and he knew he'd repeat the temperature for most everyone that came into his air-conditioned shop. Sure they browsed, but he knew they needed to cool off and stretch their legs after the long drive up the mountain. That was fine by him. People were generally friendly and some had traveled from pretty far away so, for the most part, it was interesting conversation.

This particular morning there were several customers near the postcards when he noticed out the window over his left shoulder two women walking. They strolled toward the shaded end of the backyard. The women carried a paper bag and a big white blanket not unlike the one Marth had in the spare room. They stopped on the edge of the clearing and Joe made a mental note to keep an eye on them in case they littered the area.

Joe got busy with the noon trade; giving directions, selling a few postcards, and visiting with Charlie. He was also retired and managed to spend his spare time talking to Joe and watching Joe work. As Charlie kept talking away, Joe glanced out back to watch the women. He watched them quietly share some fried chicken and oranges, putting the notion of them littering out of his mind when he saw them carefully place peelings and napkins in the paper sack. Joe really had no reason to be preoccupied with activities in the backyard. But he was that day and now with the moon casting a shadow on his empty bed, those were the only moments on his mind.�

Joe closed his eyes and remembered the tall, leggy woman gently brushed an invisible insect from around the younger woman's head as she lay on the blanket. He still remembered his registered surprise when the woman, lying, gently held the hand close to her cheek if only for a moment.

Throughout the hour Charlie kept talking and it seemed like customers endlessly purchased postcards, yet all the while Joe kept stealing glances. As time passed, the women stretched out on the blanket for a rest, bodies slightly touching, but still, very still.

Marth called. She always called at noon to remind him to take his pills. He never forgot but she felt he needed reminding in case the store got busy. As he hung up and waved good-bye to Charlie, Joe turned toward the women only to see the blanket askew and the brown bag crumpled to trash. For a moment his heart raced. At once he felt like an intruder and a protector, yet he felt deprived of the moments, the first in a long time, when he had witnessed tenderness and unspoken passion. As his eyes darted over the blanket he saw as one, his two women embracing in what they believed to be safe shadows of the trees.

Feelings long forgotten were instantly rekindled.

Embarrassed, he quickly turned away but his desire to share the moment forced him to look again. But the moment was gone. The women, blanket and bag in hand, strolled Serendipity | 68

toward the parking lot. As he turned away from the window he breathed a sigh of relief and understanding. He remembered the passion of loving and being loved in return.

No. Sleep was not what Joe wanted this night. If he slept, he might erase the moments of tenderness. If he slept, he might lose the special warmth of his own memory of youthful passion. If he slept, he might forget the look of understanding the women shared with him when they walked in his store and realized he had shared their moment.

The Picnic

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Union Square Terry Sanville

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Veronica stares into the mirror and frowns. Using a pinky finger, she applies moisturizer to the creases around her eyes. Why do they call them crows’ feet? Couldn’t they at least call them ravens’ feet? Sounds more mysterious. She sighs and smears cold cream across her forehead then works it into her cheeks, feels the facial topography shift. It has been her nightly ritual since freshman year at Boston College, when a milky-white complexion, startling red lips, and a pushed-out sweater made all the difference. For Veronica, they still do.

She had graduated from BC just before the uncouth 1960s took over, felt lucky when Walter pinned her at the beginning of senior year. He’d swept her away to New York where they married and bought a split-level in White Plains. They lived close enough for him to commute to his father’s Manhattan law firm, but far enough from the City to avoid its denigrating influence. They joined the neighborhood association, the tennis club, and tried to have children.

While other couples populated the parkway, they remained luckless. Over time, their desire to try faded, like paint on the sides of sunlit buildings. Veronica volunteered at the library and raised funds for UNICEF. Walter worked late and returned home with his valise stuffed with tedious documents for her to proofread. They had dutifully attended the firm’s party on New Year’s Eve, 1973, and returned home in a surprisingly amorous state.

Two months later Veronica announced at the breakfast table, “Walter, honey, I’m late.”

He stared at her blankly. “What do you mean? Late for what?”

Her mouth twitched upward. “I’m going to have a baby.”

“How did that happen? I thought we couldn’t…”

“Evidently we can.”

On an Indian summer afternoon, Megan was born. Labor and delivery had been long and painful. Veronica rested at home, cared for by a day nurse. Outside, cicadas hummed in the alder trees. Lying in bed with Megan at her breast, she thought about the years ahead and giggled. She felt that they had finally been welcomed into the club, the stigma of childlessness left behind.

When Meg reached her early teens, she and Veronica took the train into the City.

They spent Saturday afternoons wandering the aisles of Bloomingdale’s or Saks, modeling jewelry, spraying themselves with perfume from gold-plated samplers, and trying on clothes.

Veronica worked hard on the tennis courts to keep her figure while Megan hadn’t developed one. Most of the girl’s facial features resembled Walter’s. Veronica worried that her daughter might look like her husband’s mannish sister.

“Mother, there’s more to life than having big boobs,” Megan complained after Veronica suggested that she include some well-placed padding in her junior prom gown.

“Yes, yes, you’re right. But you also know how important it is to impress boys. They can be so blind to how pretty you are.”

All of that changed when Megan started taking birth control pills at the beginning of her senior year, a secret prescription from the public health clinic. Veronica noticed how her daughter’s arms and legs filled out, became more estrogenic, and her chest more apparent.

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They even looked a little alike, although Megan had straight black hair with dark eyes, while Veronica colored her curls strawberry blonde to complement her snapping baby blues. Also, road maps had formed across Veronica’s face that makeup couldn’t hide.

Megan’s boyfriends came and went— not so many, but enough to convince Veronica that her daughter was normal. To her relief, Meg’s teen years passed without trauma. Walter told her how the other lawyers recounted horror stories over late-afternoon brandies in the library. One had frowned and said: “These kids all try drugs. And sex…well, that’s a given.”

As a full partner, the office staff now proofread all of Walter’s paperwork. Robbed of this diversion, Veronica studied property law and marketing at the community college. She took a real estate course, passed her licensing test on the first try, and began showing homes.

She’d spend an hour each morning dressing for success— quality pastel business suits with just the right cleavage and perfect jewelry. She wore her hair short and curled. It bounced when she dashed through two-story townhouses. The money in her bank account, which Walter let her keep, grew to the high five figures.

“I’m glad you’re doing this,” Megan told her. “At least you’re not spending all your time fawning over me.”

“I’m not that bad, am I?” “Yes…sometimes. But instead of buying me stuff, the money you make hustling houses can help cover my college expenses.” A simpering smile played across Meg’s face.

Veronica felt proud that her daughter had a clue about how things got paid. So mature for her age.

In February of Meg’s senior year, with her enrollment at Syracuse University secured, Walter died. A brain aneurysm struck without warning. He just never came home from the office. Dozens of men dressed in expensive suits with wives hanging on their arms attended the funeral. For Veronica, the ceremony felt as gray as the lawyers’ suits. She gazed at the wives and wondered whether she too looked so weathered.

Walter’s investments left Veronica in a stable financial position, if she managed them wisely. At home after the funeral, she reviewed the portfolio.

“You know, Meg, it looks tight. I can still swing your college education…but only an undergraduate degree. If you want to go further, you’ll have to find the money.”

“Don’t worry, Mom. Most architects only have a four- or five-year degree. I’ll learn the rest on the job.”

Megan seemed to relax after that and became more attentive to Veronica, who threw herself into real estate. She interviewed for a job with a large firm and was chosen out of more than ninety applicants.

“It’s your sense of quality that gave you an edge,” Gregory Hamilton, her new boss, told her.

“I suppose, I just grew up that way.”

“You know, we get all sorts of housewives trying to do this work and they just can’t cut it. But you— you have an eye for what people with class need. And from what we hear, you’re good with the wives.”

“The right house can give a woman strength and peace. It’s a personal relationship, don’t you think?”

Union Square

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Hamilton stared at her. “Yeah, I know you gals are all about relationships.” He flashed her a condescending smile and returned to his paperwork.

###

During Megan’s time at Syracuse, her mother phoned every two weeks. They talked about course work, professors, boys, roommates, and real estate. Meg felt glad that her mother stayed out of the house, worked with people, and seemed to elude loneliness and despair. But Megan struggled to compete with boys in her architecture classes. They had more experience with construction and had pegged her as an ice queen. She felt overwhelmed, feared isolation, and desperately needed an ally.

In mid-April of Megan’s third year, the phone calls stopped. She thought her mother must have gotten busy with showing spring houses. After a month of hearing nothing, she phoned home and got the answering machine. What she got back two days later was a message, to meet at the Union Square Restaurant the following Saturday. They would do lunch then shop afterwards.

The message said nothing about why the phone calls had stopped. Megan conjured up reasons: a bad medical condition, money problems, getting fired, sexual harassment, or even a love interest. She left Syracuse early. Reaching the City, she parked her car off the Square and approached the posh restaurant. Her mother sat at their favorite window booth, chatting with the waitress. She looked vivacious. The dread that Megan had carried with her from Syracuse began to lift.

“So how was your drive down?” Veronica asked.

Megan slid into the booth and unbuttoned her blazer. She stared at her mother, openmouthed. While the crows’ feet still bordered Veronica’s eyes, the deep creases in her forehead and cheeks had disappeared. She looked years younger, sporting an apricot scarf over a beige business suit. A string of pearls adorned her tanned chest.

“Mother, what have you done?”

A bit of color came to Veronica’s face. “Well, I had the money, so I thought I would take care of those wrinkles.” She traced the route of the removed imperfections with a burgundy fingernail. “Dr. Rosenthal will do my eyes next.”

“You didn’t look that bad,” Megan protested.

“I know, I know. But the business world adores youth, darling. You’ll find that out soon enough. I took a couple weeks off for the procedure in January— had plenty to do at home with the contractor, anyway. What do you think of the results?”

“You got your money’s worth. But the rest of you looks…different.”

“I’ve been swimming, twenty-five laps a day. It took the fat off in just the right places.

Not bad for an old broad, don’t you think?”

“As always, you look better than me.”

Veronica opened her menu and studied the selections, hiding an impish smirk. The two sat quietly. The waitress arrived and took their orders.

“You should check back in a little while,” Veronica said. “We’ll have another person joining us.”

Megan stared at her with raised eyebrows.

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“Don’t look at me like that. It’s a colleague who wants to meet you. They’re only stopping by for a few minutes and we’ll have the rest of the afternoon to shop.”

The silence grew along with the list of questions that Megan wanted to ask. Mom tells me nothing about why she stopped phoning, and now a mystery guest? Meg hoped that it wasn’t some sex-starved agent dressed in a bad leisure suit, who never went to college and was one step up from a used car salesman. The image made Megan shiver.

“You’re not catching a cold, are you dear?”

Megan shook her head and dug into the arugula salad that the waitress delivered. She eyed her mother as Veronica carefully cut the leaves with a knife and slowly wrapped her brilliant red lips around each bite. Meg looked away, stared at the restaurant’s entrance, at the flow of patrons coming and going.

They ate in silence, then talked about the café over digestifs, how the owner had opened two similar restaurants in the City. Veronica had helped close those deals, working with a senior agent.

“You know, I’ve wanted to branch out and get involved with commercial properties and that was the perfect chance. Jo— I mean Josephine and I really worked well together and we’ve teamed up on other projects.” Veronica spewed out the details between sips of Cointreau that made her mouth twist into a grimace. “That’s who I invited to stop by. You should know who your Mom will be partnering with.”

Megan sighed, realizing that she’d been breathing shallowly ever since her mother had mentioned the mystery guest. The idea of her mom being in a sexual relationship disturbed Megan, although she considered herself a liberated Generation Xer. “Are you sure about this business thing, Mom? I know you’re a real estate whiz. But you could get in over your head.”

“Don’t worry, dear. I won’t spend your tuition; and that’s why I’ve asked Jo to be my mentor. She’s been selling retail and office properties for years and knows all the major players. And besides, with her contacts, she can get us the best theater tickets in town. Ah, here she is now.”

Megan controlled an urge to immediately turn and stare. Instead, she managed a stiff pirouette in her seat and a quiet smile. A middle-aged woman moved toward them. Jo wore a low-cut burgundy business suit, with a gold necklace and dangling earrings. As she crossed the dinning room, Megan noticed how the woman’s velvet-black skin contrasted with the white tablecloths and the crystal-with-silver settings. Jo had huge teeth with a smile so broad that Meg wondered if she could wrap it around the top of a water glass.

It’s not a race thing, she told herself. I know plenty of black people from school. But it was something in Josephine’s movements that raised Megan’s guard— a sense of controlled sensuality and confidence that made the girl clutch her purse, as if something was about to be stolen.

“And you must be Megan,” Josephine said. She stood over the table and extended a hand. Her grasp felt strong. “Your mother told me you’re studying architecture at Syracuse— a good school, but such a man’s business. But you look strong enough for it.”

Meg smiled coolly and withdrew her hand. Josephine slid into the booth next to Veronica. She studied the cocktail menu and looked up just as the waitress arrived to take her order: a double Dewar’s on the rocks, no water.

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“I’ve spent all morning working out the escrow instructions for the Maynard Building.

The buyers are still nervous about the bootlegged remodels. We had to come down a bit to get them to sign.”

Jo rattled off her story in a contralto voice. She and Veronica debated the details.

Megan stared out the window at the passing crowds and applied Chap Stick to her pale-as-ice lips.

“I’m sorry, dear. We didn’t mean to ignore you,” Veronica said. “It’s just that this sale is big for both of us.” Megan’s eyebrows arched upward, caught in the act of tossing off the remains of her port.

“Your mother is right. If it weren’t for Ronnie’s work, we’d still be pedaling that building up and down the boulevard.” Josephine grinned and lifted her glass in salute to Veronica.

“I’m really happy for you both.” Checking her wristwatch, Megan wondered whether she’d beat the afternoon rush out of the City. They sat without speaking, staring at street vendors hawking their wares. A hansom cab clopped past.

“Did I tell you that the contractor finally finished the remodeling?” Veronica asked.

Megan shook her head.

“My home office is complete and the bathroom redone, just in time for Jo to move in.

With you away at the University I didn’t think you’d mind, what with the house being so empty. You don’t do you, dear?”

Josephine slowly reached over with an immaculate hand and cupped it around Veronica’s. Megan saw how neatly they fit together, like the Ying and Yang symbol painted on the yoga shop’s window down the street.

“No… no of course not, Mother. My old stuff won’t get in your way, will it?” She looked at Josephine and throttled back a shudder.

Veronica leaned toward her daughter. “I know this is a big change. But…but Jo and I have been together for several months, and it just feels right. Not something I expected in a million years.”

Megan let out a deep breath and laughed. “Mother, you were the one who worried about me in high school, remember? To tell the truth, I was afraid you’d fallen for some fat agent with male-pattern baldness.”

Veronica and Josephine exploded into laughter, causing restaurant patrons to glare as the guffaws floated over the clatter of plates and silverware.

“At first it wasn’t what you think,” Veronica continued, “but as we got comfortable with each other we fell in love…not the same as with your father, but kind and considerate with no pressure. And then the sex started and that was, well—” “Mother, you don’t need to be graphic. I’m happy for you both, really.”

“I’m glad of that,” Jo said, her face serious. “My son still can’t accept it. I haven’t been asked over to their place since I came out four years ago, not even for Thanksgiving. That’s when your mother and I first got together, last November. I think Ronnie told me you had decided to stay in Syracuse to study with your roommate. We both had no one to be with.”

The two realtors chattered about the final touches to remodeling the house. Megan watched the shadows lengthen on the sidewalk under the ginkgo trees. Finally, Jo excused herself after paying for their lunches with great bravado. Mother and daughter wandered Union Square

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through the shopping district, trying on clothes. Megan kept an eye out for something for her roommate, Ruth, a perfect size 6. She would be hurt if Meg returned without a present.

On the long drive back to Syracuse, Meg thought about her day in the City. Why does this freak me out so much? It just doesn’t seem right that Mom is a lesbian. She should stay like I remember her…with Dad… when I was growing up. The whole thing with that pushy bitch is just too weird.

The hours passed and the sun dipped behind a ridgeline. On the city’s outskirts, Megan pulled her car under the trees next to an old wood-frame house. In the darkness, crickets chirped their evening serenade. A golden glow shone from their ground-floor apartment. The porch light blinked on and Ruth appeared behind the screen, wearing only a slip. She pushed outside and ran toward Megan, giggling. “What did you bring me, sweet cheeks?”

“Just a little something from Nordstrom.”

“I’ve got a little something for you.” Ruth planted a kiss full on her mouth.

Megan relaxed into the arms of her most passionate ally.

Veronica finished her facial and slipped into a nightgown. Josephine snored on her side of the bed. Multicolored light from a muted TV flickered across Jo’s face. Veronica thought about her afternoon with Megan. She hoped that someday when her daughter announced her intentions for selecting a mate, it would go as smoothly. She could hardly wait to meet the future groom and his parents.

Union Square

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Sundry Notes

Sneha Subramanian Kanta

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________ Since epochs, a secondhand book bought from a book-fair lays in my purse of an ivory blue cover and faded hardbound, titled, “An Introduction to Gaelic”.

These books of wild-forest smell I hold close, for the endangered languages they preserve and for the plethora words cannot explain.

One morning with the sunlit world still asleep, on a blank paper I wrote “mo chridhe,” addressed to him through the illumination.

This note still sleeps somewhere, deep in its valleys of silence. In articulate ladders of time, even two points would be unable to travel the distance and explain the meaning of how life is a chain awoken by love.

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Untitled

Stephani Booker

________________________________________________________________________________________________________ She seized me.

She dragged me into her cavern and partook of my flesh.

A lusty lion she was: mauling me tearing me open gnawing my insides licking my bones.

She awed me.

She brought me to her temple, and I bowed under her divine power.

An ancient Venus she was: her fertile crescents burned me with their earthen warmth, left me lying in tears shouts and tremors.

She enchanted me.

She lured me into her unseen lair and wove a spell over my psyche.

A specter in the dark she was: moving me with an invisible touch to create a dream disguised as a memory.

You fierce queen I am no feisty prey, no opponent for your great chase.

Yet you stalked me pounced and rent me to shreds.

I welcomed the hunger in your grasp Yet I fought to shield my throat from your bite.

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O adored spirit You called me to lay myself upon the altar stone, but I shook and shrunk away fearing sacrifice.

Forgive me, but I could not offer tribute by emptying my veins My beguiling siren Since you appeared took your pleasure then disappeared like a succubus to a sleeper I must satisfy myself with the image, with what remains.

As I open my eyes, I try to recall the cool stone upon my back and the breath upon my throat.

Untitled

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I Wove Myself Scarlett Peterson

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________ Stitched a new set of lungs to sing for you.

Pulled taught at the center, I molded a small waistline

Carved a spine curved to the left to be your right side.

Crocheted a pricked ear, to listen to your every whisper.

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Contributors Poetry Gayle Bell's work has been featured in numerous anthologies, print and online publications.

Stephani Maari Booker of Minneapolis, Minnesota, writes prose and poetry for the page and for performance in which she wrestles with her multiple marginalized identities: African American, lesbian, lower-class, nerdy and sexy. She holds an MFA from Hamline University of St. Paul, MN and is a contributing editor for the African American newspaper Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder.

Gregory Canillas is a native of Los Angeles. He teaches in a clinical psychology doctoral program, and lectures at national and international conferences on family and relationship issues. His writing has appeared in Ebony Magazine and in Lambda Literary’s Poetry Spotlight.

Dan Dowe lives in Windsor, Connecticut.

Clariss Fournoy is just your [extra]ordinary Queer trekking through the Universe wanderously. An avid writer and book junkie, she has a passion for Social Justice and the realm of Forensics.

Valencia Robin Grice is a poet, curator, arts professional and one of the founders of GalleryDAAS in the Department of Afroamerican and African Studies at the University of Michigan. She is currently completing her MFA at the University of Virginia in poetry. In 2014, she won first place in the Hocking Hills Poetry Festival. Her creative work has been supported by a number of grants and fellowships including the King-Chavez-Parks Future Faculty Fellowship, the Center for the Education of Women Margaret Towsley Fellowship, Bennington College and the Vermont College of Fine Arts.

Sneha Subramanian Kanta will begin her postgraduate studies in the United Kingdom this autumn after having received the prestigious GREAT scholarship. She believes in the sounds of silence and scents of forgotten vocabularies. Postcolonial literature and literary theory and criticism are her areas of research interest. Her work has appeared or will appear in Anti-Heroin Chic, Epigraph Magazine, NEW QUEST,

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Kitaab, Silhouette Magazine, Chitralipi journal and in poetry anthologies such as Dance of the Peacock, Suvarnarekha and elsewhere.

Zoha is busy being all the things Pakistan reckons are impossible or illegal to be. Poetry, jewelry, ice cream and lists help keep her anxiety under control and make her happy. Currently studying for her ALevels, she's trying to make sure no kid is as shaped by abuse as she is. She is a contributor at Feminism In India; her work has been published by Thought Catalog and Rising Phoenix Press, and is forthcoming in the Shade Journal.

Scarlett Peterson is a Georgia native who received her B.A. in English and creative writing from Kennesaw State University. As an undergraduate student she joined the editorial staff of Pamoja, a student-lead news source. She’s currently working on an M.F.A. in poetry at Georgia College and State University. She writes best when ignoring lectures from Baptist preachers.

S. Shaw is a Librarian for an urban West Coast public library. He has traveled internationally attending writing conferences in various African nations. His poems have been published in Black Arts Quarterly, Temenos Literary Journal, The Missing Slate, upcoming in the African American Review as well as a short story in Mighty Real: An Anthology of African American Same Gender Loving Writing. He is a Cave Canem Poetry Fellow.

Robert Wright is a health care attorney in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Photography Julia Forrest is a Brooklyn based artist. She works strictly in film and prints in a darkroom she built within her apartment. Julia is currently working as a teaching artist at the Brooklyn Museum, Medgar Evers College, the Newark Museum, and Lehigh University.

Fiction Lorna Gray was born in Johannesburg, South Africa. Lorna is a teacher in an Italian school, teaching English and Art History to Middle School students. She enjoys her multicultural life and manages to keep her mouth closed when she should - most of the time. She tries to teach her students to value kindness and to question everything.

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Silk Hindus was born in NY and completed a BS in Miami and an MFA in Tampa.

Chad W. Lutz was born in Akron, Ohio, in 1986 and raised in the neighboring suburb of Stow. A 2008 graduate of Kent State University's English program, Chad is attending Mills College in pursuit of an MFA in Creative Writing with a concentration in telling lies (Fiction). His writing has been featured in Diverse Voices Quarterly, Kind of a Hurricane Press, Haunted Waters Press, and Sheepshead Review.

Jon McDonald lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He has seven published novels, a memoir, and three children’s books. His short stories have appeared in a number of prestigious publications.

Andrea Mosier is mom, writer, nutrition-geek, maker of legendary potato salad. I am the author of Fire Eater, which short-listed for the Dundee International Book Prize in 2015 and "Mass," a finalist for the Eric Hoffer Award for Prose. She is a fellow with the Middle Tennessee Writing Project and a judge for the Eric Hoffer Award for Books in 2016.

Rebecca Redshaw is a published author and playwright who lives in the Pacific Northwest. In addition to extensive articles and short stories published in national newspapers and magazines. Her play, A Conversation with Hattie McDaniel was commissioned by the Clallam County League of Women Voters and has been produced successfully at numerous venues. Rebecca was awarded First Prize in the 2009 Lakeview Literary Review for her short story, “Somebody Special.”

Currently, she is at work on her fourth novel, The Girls Go Fishing and eighth play, Into the Wind.

Terry Sanville lives in San Luis Obispo, California with his artist-poet wife (his in-house editor) and one skittery cat (his in-house critic). He writes full time, producing short stories, essays, poems, and novels.

Since 2005, his short stories have been accepted by more than 220 literary and commercial journals, magazines, and anthologies including The Potomac Review, The Bitter Oleander, Shenandoah, and Conclave: A Journal of Character. He was nominated twice for a Pushcart Prize for his stories “The Sweeper,” and “The Garage.” Terry is a retired urban planner and an accomplished jazz and blues guitarist – who once played with a symphony orchestra backing up jazz legend George Shearing.

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James Stryker is a central-Pennsylvania author who enjoys writing speculative and literary fiction. Themes in his work focus toward diversity in the LGBTQ spectrum and the voice of underrepresented or misunderstood viewpoints. His debut novel, Assimilation, was released

by Momentum/Pan Macmillan in 2016 and has been praised as “an amazing piece of speculative fiction skillfully blending contemporary issues faced by transgendered individuals with a Frankenstein-ish, god-playing sci fi.” Two additional novels that showcase transgender characters and challenges are expected to be released by the beginning of 2017.

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