Enhance No 12 by Sopphey Vance

ENHANCE

Con t e n t s

Nonfiction

Editor in Chief Sopphey Vance Literary Editor Lily Fleur Poetry Editor Nathan Alan Schwartz

Letter From the editor

It’s not always obvious if we’ll select a piece for publication. I read submissions first, then sort them for the other editors to look through. Sometimes enough time goes by that my first impression is replaced. I think it’s because the other editors leave brilliant comments in our database. It’s our collective opinions that determine what is “Enhance material.” This issue really tests our undefinable definition of Enhance. There is no set checklist of literary techniques, themes, or genres that define the following poems, stories, and artwork. Tools that work in one story fail miserably in another story. Meanwhile, some pieces could feel out of place if scrutinized against the entire magazine. However, each piece has that mysterious Enhance quality that creates a tapestry of perception. Or as is stated in our about statement: the human’s perception of life. We’re really interested in life at Enhance. The joy, the pain, the benign, the malignant. There are unique blends of life in all of these pieces. Some glaring and some so subtle that you can only find in the negative space of an Edgar Allen Poe woodcut. All this is quite fitting for a sly third birthday issue. I hope you explore the tapestry these pieces weaved. And I hope you find treasures that you can make your own. Thank you for reading, Sopphey Vance All rights reserved. No part of this magazine may be reproduced or transmitted without permission of appropriate copyright owners. Enhance, On Impression, On Impression Books, and the On Impression Network are entities owned by Sopphey Vance. Visit www.onimpression.com for more information.

My Christian Patients by Dileep Jhaveri Poetry

Labyrinth by Jennifer Pokorne

On Being Pretty by Imani Sims

Chinese Wedding by Mitchell Krochmalnik Grabois

Angel at Night by Charles McGregor

Thirst by Tere Sievers

(Over the same spot these sleeves) by Simon Perchik

A Private Adoption by Caroline Misner

Nail Holes by Daniel Wilcox

July 4th by Sasha Kasoff

Bad Weather by Peycho Kanev

You Give Me Dreams by Kate LaDew

Fingerprint Smudged Sunglasses by Michelle Albertella Fiction

Cottage of Dreams by Diana Feltner

Edison Park by John Ridlehoover

Burn Her Away by Daniel Martynowicz

Imagination by Rebecca Barray

Edgar Allen Poe by Loren Kantor

Art

Cottage of Dreams by Diana Feltner Laini paused when she heard the music through the apartment door. She could tell by the way Chopin’s Nocturne was gently being coaxed from the piano; Michael was absorbed in the composition. She loved the way he played when he thought no one was listening. Resting her forehead on the thick mahogany door, she let the melody wash over her. She would have liked to have waited until he finished, savoring the magical way he brought the set to life, but the grocery bags were getting heavy and the sorbet she purchased for their evening’s dessert was quickly melting. Reluctantly, she slid her key into the lock and opened the door as quietly as possible. There he sat in front of his elegant black baby grand; his eyes closed, head half bowed, his body gently moving in total synchronicity with the composition. Tall and lean, with a strong jaw and brow, his dark blond hair just beginning to show the first signs of grey at the temples, he was beautiful! Her keys jingled as she pulled them from the lock and his eyes flew open with a start. Those radiant Caribbean blue eyes that mesmerized her so. Instantly, there it was…his smile… that magnificent smile that diffused every corner of the room with warmth and light. She wondered again, as she’d done a thousand times over the years, how she had been so lucky to win his affection? Wed to his career, he’d never married or even had a very serious relationship until her. What made her so different? Her answer was the same as it had been those thousand times before; she didn’t know but she was glad for it. “Welcome home, Love...I’m sorry I startled you…I was trying not to disturb you.” She put the grocery bags down on the kitchen counter and walked to his side. “When did you get in?” Michael reached for her hand and slid over so she could sit beside him on the piano bench. He wrapped his arm around her waist and gave her a long, affectionate kiss, causing that familiar heat to rise in her cheeks. “No, no, it’s fine,” he tucked an errant piece of her hair behind her ear, tenderly. “I was just relaxing a bit. Actually I was about to get a coffee.” Rising, he closed the piano lid and walked to the kitchen. “I got in about ten this morning.”

“Only you would consider Chopin, relaxation!” Laini smiled nodding her head in his direction. “You missed me by a half hour this morning. You should have called, we could have had lunch together.” “I spent the day chasing lyrics, I just got them pinned down about an hour ago.” He smiled sheepishly. Laini knew that meant he hadn’t bothered to eat, drink, or notice anything around him. When he was “chasing lyrics” he was oblivious to the world. Michael wasn’t your run of the mill music man. He was an artist, blessed with a voice that could melt the coldest of hearts and an ear for music that allowed him to pick up almost any instrument and more than hold his own. In the often fickle world of music, he had been quite successful. Supporting himself with his music since the age of eighteen, he had performed to packed houses all over the world. Now, after thirty-five plus years in the business, he chose to stay in his home city of Sydney, Australia and work locally. They met on a website for modern day pen-pals when Laini was still putting the pieces of her life back together from losing her husband to cancer. After a sixteen-year marriage, it took a bit of time to work out who she was without him. She knew she would probably never marry again, but she also knew there was a lot more of life left to live. When she received an invitation from Michael to correspond, she thought it would be fun to have a friend on the other side of the world. She was intrigued by how well he wrote and with such politeness; so many emails she’d received were so crude. Michael’s was different, it was obvious he was well educated and a gentlemen. He had been attracted to her writing as well. Her profile page was playful and direct and completely irreverent. She made him laugh and he absolutely had to get to know her. Within six months of his first email they agreed to take a chance with each other and meet in person. Their first meeting was a brief rendezvous during one of Michael’s business trips to the States, but their second meeting was a weeklong holiday on the estate of Michael’s best friend, Bo. Bo owned a sprawling mansion on a couple thousand acres a few miles outside of Newcastle, just north of Sydney. He offered Michael and Laini the use of one of his unused caretaker’s cottages at the edge of the property. It was quiet and secluded and gave them

the opportunity to get to know each other without distraction. Laini fell instantly in love with the cottage. With its wide verandas, timbered floors, and high, white washed walls, it was like walking into a time capsule of romantic Australian history. She also fell hopelessly in love with Michael. They vacationed together several times over the next two years, most often at the cottage. They knew they needed to be closer and Laini soon packed up her life in America and moved to Sydney, she never once regretted it. She kept her own apartment, not wanting to give up the independence she had worked so hard to achieve. Over the years they had developed a comfortable system of living between their two apartments, staying in which ever was more convenient to their ever-changing schedules. “How is everyone at the estate? Did you stay in the cottage or up at the big house with Bo and Margaret?” She asked over the buzz of the coffee grinder, as she put the groceries away. Michael had been working with Bo for the last two weeks, helping him lay tracks for a new CD, in Bo’s private recording studio. Laini had wanted to go along but she had meetings scheduled and couldn’t get away. “Everyone is well, and they send their love. Margaret said you must call so you two can catch up. She said it’s been too long.” Looking over his shoulder, “How did your meeting go with that publisher?” Laini had been earning a living as a writer for the last ten years. She was no Melville or Hemingway, and her hot little romance novels certainly weren’t going to win her any Pulitzer prizes, but she made a living. Michael loved her writing and encouraged her from the very beginning to shoot for her dreams. She would never have believed it possible to support herself with her own imagination, but she had done very well. However Susan, her long-standing publisher, was retiring and she needed to find a new one. “Before or after he tried to persuade me to give him a sample of my latest heroine’s expertise?” She asked rhetorically with a gleam in her eye, “I left him with a sample of my disinterest in his request.” Leaning against the counter with his arms crossed, Michael laughed at the mental image of a shady, executive type, doubled over in agony as Laini cheerfully strolled out his office

door with her back straight and her head held high. “Laini, you didn’t hurt him too badly did you?” He was still silently chuckling. “No, he’ll still be able to father children if he chooses.” She replied with deadpan seriousness. “So what are you going to do?” He asked as the coffee maker gurgled and hissed. “I’ve already done it. I had a long conversation with Susan the other night and she persuaded me to stay where I am and give her replacement a chance.” Her voice echoed from the interior of the refrigerator as she put the last of the groceries away. “It didn’t take much convincing, to tell you the truth.” Straightening up, she looked at him with an incredulous smirk, “You wouldn’t believe the number of people out there pretending to know what they are doing…and getting paid for it!” Michael just shook his head. She could be so unwitting at times; it was one of the many things he loved about her. She had an almost child like innocence that he found refreshing and utterly irresistible. She could burst into a fit of giggles watching the squirrels at the park or be struck speechless by the happy face of an anonymous child. Yet, when it came to her work she was articulate, poised, and relentless. He had never known another woman like her. “So, how did the tracks work out? Did Bo get the sound he wanted?” As the coffee maker trickled the last drops of coffee into the pot, Laini took two mugs down from the cupboard. “Yeah, we nailed it. It’s being pressed now.” He walked back to the piano bench and pulled out a file folder from the compartment under the seat. “There’s something I need to tell you. It’s about the cottage,” his voice suddenly became solemn. “What’s wrong…what’s happened?” The lines between her brows deepened as she slowly lowered herself on to one of the stools by the counter. “Bo sold it last week along with ten acres of the land around it.” He confessed as he laid the folder on the counter in front of her. “What? Oh, no! Michael, he can’t!” Laini’s heart dropped. She loved that old cottage and had dreamt on more than one occasion of retiring there with Michael. “How could he, Michael? He knows how much we love that old place. It holds so many memories for us. How

could he just sell it like that?” She slammed her hand down on the folder in frustration, balling it into a fist. “He sold it to a man who wanted it for a wedding gift to his bride.” He shrugged defensively. “Bo said he couldn’t think of any better way to say congratulations on their marriage.” He tapped the folder under her fist, “Look for yourself.” “I just don’t understand, Michael!” she continued to rant as she threw open the folder, “How could he do this….” her jaw dropped as she stared down at the open folder and the deed inside with her name on it. He gave her a few seconds to process what she was seeing and what it meant. She shook her head slowly and looked up at him, her eyes wide and her mouth was still open. “Michael?” was all she could say. “The cottage is yours, Laini, for ever and always. On one condition…” grinning like a Cheshire cat he pulled a small black velvet box from his pocket, “…marry me?” “Ma…ma-r-r-y you? Marry you, Michael? What….” She stammered, unable to believe her ears. “But… you…you said, you didn’t think you’d ever feel the need to make a commitment like that.” She looked from Michael, to the folder, to the box, and back to Michael, all the while shaking her head in disbelief. “You said you didn’t see the point in it all!” “I know what I said, but that was ten years ago, Laini…ten years of knowing you, ten years of loving you. I can’t imagine my life without you. I want to marry you and spend the rest of my life loving you and living with you in our cottage in the country.” He cupped her face tenderly in both hands and stared into her wide brown eyes, “So…Laini…will…you…marry me?” “Yes, Michael,” she whispered, her eyes beginning to blur with tears, “yes, I’ll marry you.”

Diana Feltner spent the majority of her life

living in West Virginia and Florida. Currently living in Shippensburg, Pennsylvania, she holds a Bachelor’s degree from the University of West Florida in Interdisciplinary Social Sciences. Having worked the chaotic world of retail and the nine to five world of support staff in academia Diana recently decided to turn a life long love of writing into a career. She authors a blog on gardening for those who are new to the art, has written several short stories and poems, and is in the early stages of writing a novel. Visit her blog: http://dianasopinion.wordpress.com

Labyrinth by Jennifer Pokorne To be human is Complicated. A delicate fusion of emotion & logic is used to navigate the labyrinth. Success is imperceptible as the maze constantly shifts. Reawaken your heart crucial numbness believed peaceful leads to a demise gradual. Imprisoned a mind shackled cold darkness relentless confused utterly aging rapidly loved ones become strangers in pictures. The innocent crumble memories turn to dust blown away with the wind.

Jennifer Pokorne exists and writes, we swear.

On Being Pretty by Imani Sims What does it take To fold ourselves Into swan napkins? Is it the tuck tuck Of pretty edges, Pretty yourself, do not Let the ragged edges show. Tuck tuck yourself into Pretty package, because Pretty girls never show Themselves uneven, it is lady Like to keep your fragments Clean like ladies keep them, Secret like NIMH, like amulet Wearing Brisby, let’s talk courage, The moment one decides To turn her edges into Ridges: long tunnel traps For the open empty Opinions of napkin folded Women: the silenced. Teach them to yell From those emotional cliffs Until they no longer Hold their frayed beauty In their hands, and discover The magic in tattered edge. Unfolded.

Imani Sims is a Seattle native who spun her

first performance poem at the age of fourteen. Since then, she has developed an infinitely rippling love for poetry in all of its forms. She believes in the healing power of words and the transformational nuance of the human story. Imani is the founder of Split Six Productions (www.splitsix.com) in Seattle, WA. Her book Twisted Oak is available on Requiem Press.

My Christian Patients by Dileep Jhaveri Many of my Christian patients are originally fishermen from Goa. The place has exotic associations with colourful traditions, fervent devotion to church, and flamboyant lifestyle of merriment and delight in drinking and eating. Old fashioned Hindus also associate licentiousness to them because boys and girls mix freely before marriage. Being Catholic, they have many children and several occasions to celebrate childbirths, baptisms, holy communions, marriages, and, of course, deaths. Death also is ardently honoured with festive drinking and eating. These are also the times to squabble and make up later with more drinking. The food they cook is divine if your tongue relishes spices. Pork followed by chicken remains a favourite. Sausages are fat and full of greased spices. Red pepper, black pepper, star cardamom, cloves, and many other combustibles are stuffed within. When fried, they invariably break up in red and shiny knots flaring with the tangy aroma revolving in the entire house. To douse the fire, they drink feni, which is distilled from fermented cashew fruit, or coconut or palm juice that tastes sweet. The meats are cooked with countless condiments that grow in the tropical climate with distinct flair given by port wine or rum in marinating, and the sour touch comes from grated, raw mangoes and homely vinegar. Coconut is almost a universal ingredient of every entry. What lords over all cooking is fish and seafood. Varieties of fish, prawns, crabs, and shellfish are boiled, roasted, fried, curried, dried, or pickled. Prawns are pickled in sesame oil and asafoetida with ritual congregation of scorching seasoning. When the tongue is tickled and the palate is tingling, naturally the feet feel itchy, and the Goans easily break into dance; their music is lilting, and the steps are wild as waves. But they are quite orthodox in many ways. Lent is as strictly observed as are the dictates of the Pope against contraception. A cross is always worn or even tattooed to various parts of the body. Absence from Mass is frowned upon, and a great deal is confessed regularly. Rosy was a regular visitor at my clinic for several decades. She had three daughters, one son, and a balding husband devoted to Bacchus. He was employed as a driver with a most forgiving employer. His absences

after drinking bouts were pardoned by the large hearted boss, but Rosy weighing 150 pounds in her less than five feet frame was vindictive. She would often complain to me against his concubine that was wine. The daughters were plain looking and poor in their studies. The son also was spending much time with waifs, wearing long hair, tight jeans, and fancy shoes. Saying her rosary was Rosyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s only comfort besides, of course, the chores in the kitchen. Her husband developed liver cirrhosis and jaundice. We brought him out of his immediate predicament, and he promised abstinence from ethanol. To keep him company, Rosy developed diabetes and hypertension. Her knees also joined the band, and she would come wheezing and sighing to the clinic. The husband would shy away from me, but she had the luxury of coming in the jeep that he was driving. The expenses were rising with brassieres, dresses, cosmetics, and tuition fees. The husband started drinking on the sly again. There was hardly any help, with only poor relatives abounding. They had some rented rooms in an old building, and the town had started growing like her daughters. The building was to be redeveloped, and a generous compensation was their due along with a new apartment. Due to the sudden arrival of money, the stage was set for the familyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s first wedding. Many of her cousins and nieces had visited my clinic, and at the reception plenty of greetings were waiting for me. I was in my late forties and presentable still, with early balding. Wine was served for the ladies and spirits for men. The music had started and the bride and groom had the first dance. The children were frolicking around, and someone drew me to the floor. After a few steps, I caught hold of Rosy and dragged her for a dance. Short and fat, Rosy appeared heavily made up and was wearing a glittering dress with artificial jewellery. Everyone started whistling, and she was blushing away. After a few turns with raised arms and swaying hips, she ran back to her seat. My job to make her feel happy and young was over, and I, too, was returning to refresh my drink when suddenly an older woman caught my hand and pushed me back to the floor. Instead of a frock or a skirt, she was wearing a traditional sari with a fold tugged at the waist behind. Soon I realised that she was an elder cousin of Rosy from a nearby town where I had treated patients. She

must have been in sixties, but was now living out her teens again. The evening was vibrant. The marriage failed. For Catholics, divorce is forbidden. When the second daughter was ready for marriage, who would accept a girl from a poor family where there was a dumped sister? The youngest sister had started growing fat like the mother but was also successful in her studies. Soon she started giving tutoring to neighbouring children and helped to supplement the family’s income. Besides the ailments of Rosy and her husband, now I had to treat obesity, acne, depression, and hyperacidity of the children. Somewhere some saint from some basilica of Goa, perhaps Born Jesus himself, must have taken pity on the family, and the second sister became employed. The elder sister managed a divorce. The third one started exercising, and the brother succeeded enough in his academics to get enrolled in a school for computer science. The father resumed drinking, and the faithful boss still kept him on payroll. As the years rolled on, Rosy’s joints stiffened, her arteries narrowed, and her lungs sagged and she resembled a picture of misery from Albert Durer. The only compensation was the remarriage of the elder daughter and engagement of the second. Better days returned, and the son got a well paying job. He, too, married and had two daughters. He was working with a television station and got me a CD of a rare film, The Man From La Mancha that I had seen in my college days. By now Rosy was already on crutches. Rocinante. She stopped coming because she couldn’t climb the few steps of my clinic. Even when she came, she couldn’t manage to lift herself onto the examination table, and I had to examine her on the waiting room sofa. All the alcohol that her husband drank turned to clots in her blood. One day her coronaries shrieked, and ICCU was followed by angioplasty, and poverty returned rushing like Sancho Panza to aid the fallen Dulcinea. I was the knight of mournful countenance. With Oedipal defiance, the son had become a teetotaller and deeply religious. The second had become a tricky problem for me. His wife was unforthcoming in contrast to Rosy who was voluble and slyly grumpy about the daughter in law. But one day the girl opened up and said that her husband observed Lent for all the

twelve months. When I tactfully talked to him, he was frank. He already had two daughters and wanted no more. Contraception was out of question and safe periods are never safe. So, monastic life was the only solution. And at that time he was also trying for a job abroad in Canada. He had spent a lot of money getting a visa and paying a commission to the job agency. It was too late before he realised that he was taken for a ride. Mounting frustration was submerging his libido, and the coronary attack of his mother erupted like a volcano. The family came together in the crisis. The sisters pledged their gold for the mother, and Rosy was back, bedridden and bickering. While I tended to ignore her complaining, the truth came out one day. Her husband was not only a drunkard but also a debaucher. And his mistress was a non-Christian! Now the contrast between the father and son was glaring. The father represented a culture that was hedonistic, but acceptable to a generation which was not urbanised and remained rustically carnal. It would have accepted aging, suffering, and even death as a part of existence. The son, on the other hand, was civilised and had become an ingredient of capitalist society with his life consumed by creating and accumulating wealth, which he hardly had a chance to enjoy since he expended it attempting to extend Rosy’s feeble life that now had hardly any mirth or worth. Both had failed in giving happiness to their wives. Again, the austerity of the son and the indulgences of the father had the same outcome— failure to find happiness. As a doctor, I am often confronted with this dilemma of preserving life at any cost. The life that is saved may be afflicted with destitution, disability, dependence, emptiness, and the person may be praying for death if conscious or may be in a vegetative state. But the happiness and future of several family members are routinely sacrificed in barter for the patient. I have seen people selling off not only their valuables but even their ramshackle shanties to pay for hospital bills; often the case would be terminal, and the treatment a futile drill. Several children may have to give up their education and seek employment. Many girls remained spinsters working as housemaids to support their families. Doctors and hospitals and pharmaceuticals get rich, while the poor suffer.

Death and suffering are the facts that have to be accepted, but people over centuries have wished for miracles. It is significant that Jesus had to supplement his teachings with miracles of healing to win the faith of both the rich and the poor. Buddha had accepted disease and death as inevitable, instead of being the punishment that Brahmanism had advocated. Beyond the fast or slack hold of the religion, modern medicine has achieved a lot, save the humility to renounce the ambition to replace God. To conquer death has become an overriding passion. Death is a meaningless inevitability that cannot erase the eternal marvel that is life. Let us be humble, and let the suffering and terminal cancer patients, the irreversible comatose, surviving with sophisticated but mechanical support and such, end their existence in grace and with their loved ones touching them, talking to them, and looking into their eyes in their own homes. Let the saved resources support the malnourished and those with curable maladies or preventable ailments, and let the young children of poor countries play games, sing songs, paint pictures, and dream of happiness. Only then will every Rosy of the world blossom like a rose garden.

Born in 1943, Dileep Jhaveri is one of the most dynamic and articulate poets writing in India today. Like the Czech poet Miroslav Holub, his poetry mixes the objectivity of a scientist with an indefatigable lyricism. For Jhaveri, poetry is a theatre of ideas, emotions, and theoretical propositions. Dileep Jhaveri is a practicing general physician based in Thane, near Mumbai, and a well-known Gujarati poet and playwright. He has published one collection of poetry in Gujarati entitled Pandukavyo ane Itar (1989) and a play Vyaasochchhvas (2003), which has subsequently been translated into English as A Breath of Vyas by Ms. Kamal Sanyal. In addition, many of his poems have been anthologized, and his poetry has been translated into English, Hindi, Marathi, Malayalam, Bengali, Korean, Chinese, and Japanese. He has received the Critic Award (1989), Jayant Pathak Award for Poetry (1989), and the Gujarati Sahitya Parishad Award (1990). Inside India, he has been invited to read his works by the Central and State Sahitya Akademis, Universities, and literary groups. Dileep Jhaveri serves on the editorial boards of Museindia.com and the Kobita Review.

Chinese Wedding by Mitchell Krochmalnik Grabois The bride and groom wear red and the Chinese wedding hall is decorated red as if drenched in blood like the last scene of the film Carrie adapted from the Steven King novel The guests smoke like dragons the wedding hall is as filled with smoke as if it were a South American nightclub on fire, all the doors locked or blocked The wine is like kerosene mixed with grain alcohol The guests swill it down like water and gossip loudly through the ceremony The officiant yells out the service as if he is an auctioneer and the bride and groom are 4-H cattle Thus my son is married to a porcelain doll She is polite and breakable

Mitchell Krochmalnik Grabois was born in the Bronx and now splits his time between Denver and a one-hundred-and-twenty-year-old, one room schoolhouse in Riverton Township, Michigan. His short fiction and poetry appears in close to two hundred literary magazines, most recently The T.J. Eckleberg Review, Memoir Journal, Out of Our and The Blue Hour. He has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, most recently for his story â&#x20AC;&#x153;Purple Heartâ&#x20AC;? published in The Examined Life in 2012. His novel, Two-Headed Dog, published by Xavier Vargas E-ditions, is available for all e-readers for 99 cents through Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Smashwords. A print edition is also available through Amazon.

Angel at Night by Charles McGregor —For the transgendered and her journey I. Bedroom: The Morning After Those clearance pair of cherry heels you said were pretty are one size too tiny. You couldn’t see the gaudy lipstick and stained panties in the waxing light. I create an illumination next to meteors crashing into our grateful laps. I can’t look away either— their audience is so beautiful. II. Dance Floor: Last Night The plush bass etherized Angel’s soul. Eager eyes driveled from the purple dance floor. My empty hips bounced to pitch perfect voices ‘till your calloused palms lead me off. III. Bedroom: After Bruno Left We left our rubbers on the dresser—masculinity still lingering. I look into my mirror

Charles McGregor is a twenty-five year old

Florida native. In 2010 he graduated from Florida Southern College with a bachelor’s degree in English. While at Florida Southern, he won the Ryals’ Award for the best poem and short story in the campuses literary journal, Cantilevers. During this time he also had a poem, titled “Red Herring,” published on the literary website Xenith.net. Shortly after graduating in August of 2010, Charles went overseas to teach English in the country of Turkmenistan for the U. S. Peace Corps. He is currently attending the University of Texas-Pan American’s MFA Creative Writing program.

and reflect the stars— doodled winks, penciled shadows. I can’t look away and neither could you. Next time we’ll both be voyeurs— soon without a reflection.

Edison Park by John Ridlehoover It is so cold outside tonight. I can feel the skin on my lips begin to peel with every breeze of wind that hits my face. My pale white cheeks have become bright red. The ground is coated in a thick layer of white ice. Not snow, but ice. It makes a loud crunching sound with every step I take. I have bundled myself to the point where I can barely move my arms. It’s October 26th. Two days before my 20th birthday. My birthdays are usually very bleak. I don’t have any family, besides my grandmother, who is too weak to even pull her frail body out of her bed. All my friends disappeared some years ago. But it’s okay. I like being alone. It is about 9:00 p.m. I find myself climbing up an icy staircase. This staircase brings me to the entrance of Edison Park. This is the first time I’ve been here since my mother died. My mother and I used to play here when I was very young. I miss her a lot today. Edison Park has become an abandoned wasteland of rusted jungle gyms, and swing sets that you could easily contract tetanus from. I like the swings the best. I’ve had my tetanus shots, so I’m not very worried. I position myself on the cold seat. The chains have flakes of ice falling off of them. I grab them tightly as I push my feet off of the ground. The ice on the chains break as the swing and I move back and forth. The wind blows the red stocking cap off of my head. The cool breeze runs its’ hands through my hair. I feel peaceful for the first time in a very long time. Suddenly, I hear the sound of footsteps in the ice. The snow begins to fall harder as I try to peer into the distance. I can slightly make out a silhouette in the distance. I push my feet into the ground. The swing stops, and I can see her. A girl around my age, wearing a large jacket and huge black boots. Her hair is jet black and is cut right below her neck. Her eyes are the brightest teal green that I have ever seen. She doesn’t even glance at me as she takes a seat on the swing next to me. There is an awkward silence. The girl kicks her feet back, then forward. I stare at her for a minute, then I begin to do the same. After a few minutes, she stops her swing. She climbs out of the seat and walks away without saying a word. I stare at her, until she disappears into the snow. Her swing is still slightly swaying in the breeze.

I didn’t think much about my encounter with the girl, until I lie down in my bed. Now, I can’t get her out of my head. I wonder if I will ever see her again? I wonder what she thought about me? I wonder what her name is? I wonder what she looks like under that thick layer of clothing. Now, I really can’t fall asleep. I grab a box of tissues from my nightstand, and proceed into the bathroom. The next night, I venture back to Edison Park. Then again, the night after that. I waited until the sun started to come up on both nights. She never showed up. I should have expected as much though. I tried my best to forget about her. Today is my birthday. It is no different from any other day. Twenty has to be the most useless age ever. Nothing special happens on your 20th birthday. Oh, how I’d love to be able to buy alcohol. I really need it today, but my grandmother doesn’t drink, so there isn’t any around the house. I consider downing a bottle of Listerine, like a forty-year-old alcoholic mother, but I decide not to destroy my stomach lining. On the kitchen table, I find a round cake with pink frosting. “Happy Birthday Kevin,” was written in white frosting. I cut myself a piece, and take a bite. Delicious. I cut another piece for my grandmother. Knock, knock. “Grandma?” I enter her bedroom. “Grandma?” I drop the cake. I find her lying on the floor beside her bed. Her eyes are wide open, and there is a tiny trickle of blood coming from her mouth. A few hours later, I am at the hospital talking to the doctor. “She had an aneurysm,” says the doctor. “She died instantly.” I broke down. She was all the family I had left. Now, I have nothing, no one. I bring myself to leave the hospital without seeing her body. Home seems so much more empty than it used to. The cake is still sitting on the counter. I need to get out of the house before I go completely insane. I grab my coat and a pack of cigarettes, then leave for the park. My favorite swing is slightly swinging from the wind. I take a seat as I light my cigarette. Suddenly, I feel a breeze of wind blow across the back of my neck. The girl is behind me. She takes a seat next to me, not

saying a word. After twenty minutes of complete silence, I decide to speak. “My grandmother died today.” The girl completely ignores me. “She was all I had. I don’t have any friends or family now.” Suddenly, she stands up. She walks in front of me, and stops my swing by grabbing the chains. She leans in and kisses me. I pull away. She grabs my head and sticks her tongue in my mouth. I have never been kissed like this before. He tongue covered every inch of my mouth. After a few minutes, she pulls away. I wipe off my mouth before her saliva freezes on my lips. She grabs my hand, and pulls me out of the swing. Then, she starts dragging me across the park. Even though I’m completely confused, I go along with whatever she was doing. She brought me to a wooded area behind the park. “What are we doing here?” With a blank stare, she pushes me to the ground. We kiss again, as she starts to unbuckle my pants. She places her tiny hand inside of my pants. Her hands aren’t cold at all. I help her remove her pants. Her naked legs are porcelain white. They are so soft. She places her tiny body on top of me. I proceed to insert myself into her. We thrust back and forth. She moans a few times, while I lie completely silent. I try my best contain myself, until I can’t anymore. I tightly close my eyes as we both moan together. She detaches herself from me, and stands up. I can’t take my eyes off of her as she puts her pants back on. She pulls up her zipper, and walks away. Just like the first night we met, she walks into the distance until I cannot see her. I awkwardly stand up, and put my pants back on. I was warm while she was here, but now I’m freezing. I sit against a tree for a minute, until I decide to head home. I manage to navigate my way out of the woods and back to the park. There is no sign of the girl. Not even footprints in the snow. As I am on my way to the staircase, I notice the swings. One of them is still slightly moving, and there is something sitting on top of it. I walk over to see what it is. It is a small white piece of paper. There is writing

on it with what appears to be two different people’s handwriting. One line reads: “I love you Sammy.” Mom. Right under that, it reads: “I miss you mom.” -Samantha. I ponder the paper for a minute, then I flip it over. It is a photograph. A photograph of my mother pushing me on the very same swing that I am standing in front of. I’d say I was about five at the time the photograph was taken. I begin to tear up as I examine the picture. The swing set was full of kids. I look closer, and notice that I recognize the child sitting next to me. A small girl with dark hair and teal green eyes. She is also being pushed by someone I guess to be her mother. We both had the biggest smiles on our faces. I know instantly that it is her. I’d recognize her eyes anywhere. I smile as I lay the picture back down on the swing, and walk away. I never saw Samantha again. The memory of her became nothing more than a slight glimmer in a bleak thread of memories that occupy my head. An ever receding line that would eventually disappear over time. A dead end.

John Ridlehoover is student at Lander University, pursuing a career in writing/composition. He has written most of his life, and couldn’t imagine a greater way to spend his time. He has been published in a few local magazines, including The Lander Review.

Imagination by Rebecca Barray

Rebecca Barray is a mommy, writer, reader,

photographer, and perpetual student. She spends most of her time chasing toddlers, but her precious free time is spent writing, photographing, and learning as much as she can about anything. She has three energetic children, a fun-loving husband, a messy cat, a lazy dog, and some very resilient fish.

Nature: Reflections of Our Lives is collection of nature photographs taken by Rebecca Barray that depict the milestones of our lives. This work contains photographs of nature, symbolizing events from our lives, such as birth, love, betrayal, passion, and old age. It opens with a seed sprouting from the soil and a landscape of a sunrise. It closes with the night sky and fall forest scene. The middle consists of images of the world around us that represent common life events. Order a deluxe copy at http://www.blurb.com/ b/4247439-nature-reflections-of-our-lives Goodnight, from Nature: Reflections of Our Lives

Follow Rebecca on her blog: rebeccabarray.com as she tweets: www.twitter.com/RebeccaBarray on Facebook: www.facebook.com/writer.rebecca.barray

Thirst by Tere Sievers Santa Ana wind that hot air, catches my skirt, blows between my legs through the middle of me. It sucks my inside dry as dirt like antique fabric exposed to the air. It kills desire, except for water. Each night I sleep with my canteen, pour cold water between my legs. No steam rises.

Born and raised on the Jersey Shore, Tere lives and writes in Long Beach, California. She finds inspiration in her East coast past and West coast present. Her poems have appeared in Pearl, Staple, Your Daily Poem and the Silver Birch Press Anthologies, “Green” and “Summer.” Most recently, she gets a kick out of writing 100 Word Stories.

(Over the same spot these sleeves) by Simon Perchik Over the same spot these sleeves clinging to grass as if a jacket would scare off whatever flies could reach around and your shoulders that no longer take leather for granted fall back though the zipper is used to rain, rain then no rain runs through fields not yet planted or attacked or along some tree-lined lane its harvest changing into those stones mourners startle the dead with step by step –from every direction a safe place disguised as water hiding inside your mouth, your arms and nothing else to lay your head on.

Simon Perchik is an attorney whose poems have appeared in Partisan Review, The Nation, The New Yorker, and elsewhere. For more information, including free e-books, his essay titled “Magic, Illusion and Other Realities” and a complete bibliography, please visit his website at www.simonperchik.com.

A Private Adoption by Caroline Misner for Kim Your moon burst open only once, even though we should have known better than to play stranger with strange men. We were so young. I escaped unscathed, save for the scars across my wrist and the malignant fear that gurgled beneath the surface of my skin. I carried a knife in my purse for twenty years in case my tormentor returned. I got off rather easy, my friend; your fate was worse. Who was that boy who seduced you then, who wore black leather and sang in a band, and had a serpent on his skin? Now, after all these years, do you still think of him? He was blond and rough with a heart as dark as a locked shack; he pasted his abrasions on you. Your type exactly, I recall. For six months after you cached your secret beneath loose shirts, unbuttoned your jeans at the top, so no one would see. No one believed you but me. Monday you denied anything grew inside your belly, the next day you boasted and bragged and basked in the gossip the schoolgirls hurled at you. Tuesday you cried. We walked that winter beneath brittle skies crinkled and dark like lumpy coal. I put my hand against your bulge and waited for the kick of the little drummer

inside the drum. But we couldn’t tell if the baby moved, we were so naïve, we were so young. You stopped attending school by your seventh month; no one noticed you were gone. You stayed at home, buried beneath your quilts, too ashamed to even tell your mom who left you when you were ten, and your little brother who never knew. Only me and your father were there for you. The church lady came, her righteousness tucked inside her purse with her lozenges and keys and persuaded you to do the right thing— whatever that may be. But you had no time for her dogma and god-talk: “Jesus loves us, every one, even those of us conceived in sin.” What a farce, I thought, coming from this lily-woven shrew, this hypocrite. It took weeks to find a doctor who would attend to you. You fell, alone, into a quick routine, gorging on sauerkraut straight from the jar and cold pasta straight from the tin. And who could blame you? Considering the state you were in. Then, that spring, came the day when you could reclaim yourself again. You played the song and now the piper had to pay. The doctors and nurses with their silver-plated petals

like tongues, urged you to breathe and push through the worst of it. It wasn’t the labour you were expecting, but then nothing else is. You huffed and puffed and blew your house in, and your first miracle was exposed. The woman who would be mother was there to hold your hand. She cradled the squawking infant before you had a chance, smeared her hospital issue smock with fluid and rust while the tail of the umbilicus still tethered you to the child, your feet still in the stirrups, gutted like a mackerel from the bottom up. She held you both, daughter and mother, and wept, and thanked you for all the promises you had promised, and kept. Mother to a perishable flowering, she christened the baby Alison. You never saw that child again. Two months later, you were still a woman awaiting her bloom. Your aunt gave you money and took you to the parlour to have your hair done. But the perm wouldn’t take because of the hormones still in your blood. Someday soon, a woman will approach you and embrace you and call you mother once again.

Caroline Misner is a graduate of Sheridan

College of Applied Arts & Technology with a diploma in Media Arts Writing. Her poetry, fiction and nonfiction have appeared in several journals throughout the USA, Canada and the UK, too numerous to mention. She has also had work published in several anthologies and webzines.

In 2009 she was nominated for the prestigious Writers’ Trust/McClelland & Stewart Journey Anthology Prize as well a Pushcart Prize in 2010 and 2011. In 2004 her novella received Honorable Mention in the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Contest. A short story was also a finalist in the same contest. A novel, The Glass Cocoon was a semi-finalist for the William Faulkner-William Wisdom Award the following year. Her novella The Watchmaker was published in November 2011 by Vagabondage Press and is selling well in e-book format. Her YA fantasy novel The Daughters of Eldox: Book I: The Alicorn has recently been accepted for publication by Whiskey Creek Press and will be released this September.

Burn Her Away by Daniel Martynowicz “People say, ‘Oh I love being gay, being gay is great,’ and it’s fucking not. It sucks.” Kate took a drag from her cigarette after she said that. She’d never said that, never let it enter the realm of reality and fact, never solidified that collage of emotion and ideas and memories into words. Speaking the words made it real, tangible and terrifying. She must have seen the warning signs on the road. Colorful signs with bold words like Danger, Caution, Wrong Way and Abort must have flashed in her mind as she punched the accelerator toward the cliff. Too late — she’d plunged into the abyss of unknown truth. She was a friend, so I held my breath and jumped after her. Kate was staring in the direction of a barn on the opposite side of the property — a friend’s farm house where we’d been celebrating my birthday. Maybe it was the weed that made her brave enough to say it. Maybe it was the beer or good food or loving atmosphere of true friends — friends that know you better than your parents, the ones you don’t have to posture around. Whatever the cause, she wasn’t looking at the barn anymore. She was looking through it. “It hurts every day,” she said flatly. “I can’t come out to my parents. No one in my family has any idea, and I will never be able to confide in them. They’ll disown me.” She was right, of course. Churchgoing, god-fearing Texans have little sympathy for faggots. Even so, it had never been so real. She’d never said those things out loud, she’d never given that truth a pulse of its own. The cigarettes were long gone and Montana’s midwinter sun had set. We were freezing. We’d gone outside was for a quick cigarette after dinner and, afraid she’d go back inside before we could finish, I lit two more. “I don’t know what to do, I don’t know how to be or who to be.” Her words carried a sense of urgency now. She’d been brave enough to drive off the cliff, so fuck it. There was nothing to save her from the noose between us. She let go. “Do you remember Kristi’s son Chad?” I nodded, afraid that if I spoke it would throw her

off. We weren’t having a conversation anymore, she was confessing. Kristi was a friend. We’d taken care of her as best we could, but with no money and no health insurance, chemotherapy was out of the question. The doctor gave her six months to live and enough concentrated valium syringes to kill her in three. She died in six weeks, hanging on just long enough to see Chad one more time. Chad and Kristi had two days together before she died. In a way, we were happy it was only two days. Chad seemed blissfully unaware of how far she’d fallen, how hard it was to watch her die that way. No amount of concentrated valium syringes will erase my memory of Kristi’s pain. I’ll never forget her hollow, sunken, pained eyes. I wish I could remember their color. I think they were blue. Christ. What a fucking horrible way to go. Kristi talked about her son often. He was a college graduate; an upstanding, moral young man who’d given up a salaried position at a bank to teach poor Indonesian kids how to add and divide and spell. “I must have done something right,” she’d say. “It’s either that, or he was perfect from day one.” I met him for the first time the same day Kristi died. He seemed, for all the world, exactly as she’d described him. Handsome, intelligent, firm handshake. The kind of man every mother might hope to raise. “Chad was gay,” Kate said with a smile. “Gay as the day is long, and Kristi knew it, and she never brought it up.” I was surprised, but I tried not to show it. “Did you ever hear her talk about him like that? When she was bragging about him, did you ever hear her say, ‘I’m so proud of my son. He’s so gay.’ Can you imagine her saying that?” No, I couldn’t. And with that realization came another; Kristi had never brought it up because, to her, it simply didn’t matter. Chad was her son, and she loved him more than anything in the world, and nothing, including his sexuality, would ever change that. I tried to imagine my parents bragging about me. I was fairly certain they’d never said, “Have you met our son? He was perfect from day one, and he’s incredibly straight.”

Kristi was right. It didn’t matter. The bonfire was Kate’s idea. We didn’t have enough money to throw Kristi a wake, and we certainly couldn’t afford to bury her. Instead, we called the local ambulance and they put our friend in a human-sized ziplock baggie and carried her away. It felt wrong, all of it. She was our friend, we were all she had, and we should be carrying her away. We should be scattering her ashes on the top of a mountain. We should be seeing her off, wishing her good fortune and sunny skies on the next adventure. We should be doing these things. Not you. When the ambulance lights had faded into the distance, Kate wiped away her tears and silently built a fire. Half an hour later and we were all stripped down to our t-shirts for fear the heat would melt our jackets. Flames leapt 40 feet into the air, reaching well beyond Kristi’s one story roof and sending hundred-foot shadows across the silent prairie. I remember how right it felt. I remember watching sparks spiral into the night sky, competing with the stars for my attention. I remember wondering if the blaze was bright enough to show her the way. Have a good journey, Kristi. The moment of happiness was short. Kristi had another son named Steve, and Steve was a piece of shit. He lived two houses down (about a quarter mile in Montana) and didn’t visit his mother when she got sick. He didn’t help with her bills, cook her food, talk her through the late-night depression, bathe her, or wash her pajamas when she could no longer control her bladder. Truth be told, I didn’t know steve existed until the night his mother died. Steve and his friend pulled up to the house a little after midnight in a large pickup truck. They spent the next hour going through Chad’s mother’s belongings, keeping what could be sold and burning what had no monetary value. Chad was too drunk to do anything about it and passed out on a log near the fire. The rest of us were her friends and wanted to stop Steve. His mother had been dead less than a day and here was her son, stripping her house like it was a junk yard.

We didn’t say a word. Maybe we were afraid to put Steve in his place. Maybe we hoped Steve was hurt by the loss of his mother and simply couldn’t show it. Maybe it was because Steve was her son and, being sons and daughters ourselves, we understood the impossibly complex relationships between parents and children. Maybe we understood that we would never understand. But, in reality, I think we stayed silent for Kristi. And for Chad. Once they’d stripped the house, Steve’s friend came to the fire and tossed the last armful of Kristi’s clothes into the fire while lighting a joint. “Burn her all away, ehh?” he said, gesturing toward the fire. He was smiling and clearly talking to me. I ignored him and stared into the embers, letting the blind rage multiply in my gut and creep up the back of my neck. “Ah, she had too much shit to burn her all away. No sir, never get rid of all of her.” I looked him in the eyes as I stood, injecting as much cold hatred as I could muster into his dead, ignorant, uncaring eyes. “No. You won’t.” If he’d said another word, I’d have broken his jaw. He knew I was angry, but couldn’t understand why. For Steve and Steve’s friend, this was simply how things went. Parents were just people and people just die. The only real difference is that when parents die, you get all their stuff. Flicking the joint into the fire, he turned and got into Steve’s truck. And they were gone. It was more than a month later now as Kate and I shared a final cigarette. She’d be heading home to Texas to see her family soon, and she was terrified. They didn’t know she was gay, and would never know. Soon, her grandparents would ask why she wasn’t married yet. Her dad and brother would joke that the first Montana-boy she brought home would be subject to his .45 pistol and, if he broke her heart, a black eye. Her mother would quote scriptures and offer advice. And Kate would be chained in lies for her entire stay. If she told the truth, if she dared open up as she had tonight, her family would disown her. As our eyes locked in the cold Montana night, a silent understanding passed between us. She would never tell her family she was gay. The

pain of living a lie was terrible, yes, but it was nothing compared to the pain of losing your entire family. Steve and Steve’s friend were ghosts now, rummaging through our dead friend’s home like evil spirits in the night. Their cries fresh and ringing in our ears, we hugged, smiled and started walking toward the party. Ten steps from the door, I hung back and stole a final glance at the stars. “Hey, Kate?” “Yeah?” I kept looking at the sky. “Never mind.” I heard the door shut, looked down, knelt in the grass and started to build a fire.

Daniel Martynowicz is a freelance photojournalist and fiction writer hailing from the great City of Chicago (Go Bears.) He now lives in Western Montana in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains with several stray dogs he couldn’t help but bring home. If he’s not writing, he is probably climbing mountains, white water rafting, hiking through grizzly bear country or saving lost tourists from similar circumstances.

Nail Holes by Daniel Wilcox Mauling Down, powerful strikes Vulgar facts and incessant sins Pound in harsh and demanding As driven nails, Driven Into our living hardwood, Spiked down Sledgehammer deep Our failing socials mallet us Slamming Down And the cruel happenstances Of natural selection club us, Steel spikes piercing deep. Even When we turn in renewal Wrenching the driven nails Up warping Out of our deadened lives, What’s Left But seeping scarred, Gaping holes, wounds of void, Deep punctured over and over, Black-nothing’d poked Hollow lacking, Pointed vacantness Where timber life used to ‘would’ Yet In those many gouged Holes of ever not, Opens our hardwood Knots to Infinite Love, Pierced and filled For others

Daniel Wilcox’s wandering lines have appeared in many magazines including Word Riot, Counterexample Poetics, Write Room, Mouse Tales Press, Mindful Word, vox poetica, and Unlikely Stories IV. Three large collections of his published poetry are in print: Dark Energy, Psalms, Yawps, and Howls, and selah river. Before that, he hiked through Nebraska, Cal State University Long Beach (Creative Writing), Montana, Pennsylvania, Europe, Palestine/Israel, Arizona... Now he resides with his wife on the central coast of California.

Holy Whole

July 4th by Sasha Kasoff Standing on the silver rooftop The wind like cold paintbrushes softly streaking over me Tracing my cheekbones till they are frozen islands I look out over the twinkling city As thunder rolls towards me from every direction Tiny blooms of color and light Sky flowers that only live a second and then fade to smoke If only they could know how beautiful they are Making the city sparkle and the cloudy sky light up Alone on a silver rooftop I witness their bright brief lives and miss the moon

Sasha Kasoff has been writing poetry for over ten

years and has wanted to be a teacher her whole life. She is currently attending the University of the Pacific as a Poetry Major. Overcoming the struggles life throws doesn’t faze her, Sasha means ‘protector and defender of mankind’ and she lives up to it every way she can.

Bad Weather by Peycho Kanev You go out for a walk. The winter is outside with its white brush painting the rooftops. Squirrels here and theretrembling in suspense. And there is a scream from an indefinable source. No dogs about, just leashes carelessly discarded in backyards. Windows – two eyes – closed, with lowered blinds. And you are searching for the map in your head, thinking: “Where am I?” Listening to the repulsive sound of the winter sucking at the bones of the trees.

Peycho Kanev is the author of 4 poetry collections and two chapbooks. He has won several European awards for his poetry and he’s nominated for the Pushcart Award and Best of the Net. Translations of his books will be published soon in Italy, Poland and Russia. His poems have appeared in more than 900 literary magazines, such as: Poetry Quarterly, Evergreen Review, Columbia College Literary Review, Hawaii Review, Cordite Poetry Review, Sheepshead Review, Off the Coast, The Coachella Review, Two Thirds North, Sierra Nevada Review, The Cleveland Review and many others.

You Give Me Dreams by Kate LaDew maybe Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve never known you except in that dark somewhere where people find each other the shadows highlight your face and it is beautiful and black and bottomless and only once in a lifetime does God surrender perfection you are mine and I am crumbled before you bleeding into slivers of stars that deepen and meld with the dark of your hands sorrow divine as you is not given up willingly and I sleep in tumbles of shadows black and bottomless

Kate LaDew is a graduate from the University

of North Carolina at Greensboro with a BA in Studio Art.

Fingerprint Smudged Sunglasses by Michelle Albertella Seeing through foggy windows And fingerprint smudged sunglasses, She listens through confusing static The noiseless clamor deafening. Words overtake meaning as messages Come distorted. The path ahead strewn With overturned trees, dead carcasses. The path behind littered with regrets Of senseless lovers, thoughtless thoughts. A moment of unclarity had turned Into moments which turned into periods That turned into a quarter of her life. She knew not where she had been Nor where she was going. Connections of space and time, Good and evil, truth and lies Come together in a cataclysmic Cathartic awakening. Her mind breaks Under the weight of discarded memories And unseen scars, as her soul opens. Secrets without truth revealed To flood her consciousness. Demons come rushing in With feuding angels at the ready. Not realizing the better life Has already arrived, she looks Not behind but into the future Building for a life of genuine Smiles, meaningful purpose. Sights and sounds become Clear as the clap of thunder. Words and messages Take on new meaning. Now she faces the storm But does not wince. She stares down the wind Until it retreats in a whimper.

Michelle Albertella is currently living in

Southern California. Although she has enjoyed writing for most of her life, she is new to the publishing world. Aside from poetry, Michelle spends her spare time bead weaving, jewelry making and knitting. Visit http://michellealbertella.blogspot.com to view her handmade creations.

Edgar Allen Poe by Loren Kantor

Loren Kantor is a Los Angeles-based Woodcut

Artist and writer. He worked in the film industry for 20 years as a screenwriter and assistant director. He enjoys carving images of Classic American writers and vintage filmmakers. Heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s been carving woodcut images for the past five years. Find more of his woodcuts at: http://woodcuttingfool.blogspot.com