Suisun Valley Review #32

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Suisun Valley Review

editors: Ryan Bahr, Abby Baker, Ed Enwright, Brook Evers, Joshua Gray, Laura Hagerty, Brandon Hood, Kelsey Hunkins, Rory Ibarra, Luningning de Jesus, Addie Mart, Anita Nygren, Richard Owen, Antonia Silveira, Sam Zaghlou, Karin Zehm advisor: Michael J. Wyly assistants to the advisor: Joshua Gray, Brook Evers, Dylan Youngers, and Renee Hamlin cover art: Natalie Francel-Stone, “Ascension� cover concept: Lisa Gurlin book design & layout: Lisa Gurlin with assistance from Luningning de Jesus printing: Graphics Department, Solano Community College binding: Inland Binding, Sacramento, CA guidelines: Rights revert to author on publication. Submissions are accepted from November to March of each year. Simultaneous submissions should be noted as such.

Successful submissions in fiction typically do not exceed 3,500 words. Two complimentary copies of the magazine are received upon publication. Authors are invited to the release reading held at Solano College in May of each year. Visual art must be submitted electronically and be of sufficient file size for printing at 300 ppi.

Established in 1981.

Suisun Valley Review (ISSN 1945-7340) is published annually every spring by Solano Community College, Fairfield, CA. SVR is edited by the students of English courses 058 and 059, in the contemporary literary magazine. Please visit www.solano.edu for details on how to register.

Suisun Valley Review, English Department, Solano Community College, 4000 Suisun Valley Road, Fairfield, CA 94534.

Email: suisunvalleyreview@gmail.com facebook.com/suisun.review suisunvalleyreview.blogspot.com twitter.com/SVR_Editors ISSN 1945-7340 print run: 300

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Table of Contents Poetry

Jeffrey C. Alfier A.J. Huffman Elizabeth Campbell Joshua Gray Ray Hadley Andrew McCutcheon Gordon Preston Hillary Patrick Michelle Hartman A.D. Winans Cody Eisen Andrew McCutcheon Ruben Rodriguez Jeffrey Warzecha

Andrew McCutcheon Jeffrey Warzecha Margaret Phillips Patrick Fontes Shaindel Beers Tom Holmes John Casquarelli Ruben Rodriguez Armando Quiros Brandon Hood Armando Quiros Thomas King Shawn Aveningo Andrew McCutcheon Christopher Mulrooney A.J. Huffman Ace Boggess Tom Holmes Tobi Cogswell Trina L. Drotar Anita Nygren Patrick Fontes

On Forsaking a Line Cast into Open Sea Corner of Sand and Sunk Hunting Season eros.exe The Shadow Puppets of Indonesia A Different Kind of Man Winter Egg Turtleneck Autopsy Poem for my First Love Felicity The Director Fill Her Up Charlie Photograph: Bagged Bedsheets on the Roadside, Bayside, ME, 2003 The Millionaire Photograph: Mother at a Bodega, Mexico City, 2002 Lunch at the O.K. Cafe Playing Pennies The Interview The Problem of Ethically Lowering King Kong Down the Empire State Building Blurbs Charlie, Entrepreneur Phonetically Drunk In Peaceful Air Sakura Blossoms Time to Eat Decisions, Decisions The Real Mailman Wonders Two Bulls Were Walking Down the Interstate For the Past Twenty-Four Hours The Vertical Moment Mapping the Boundaries, Sharing the Sky Mapping Gaslight July in Fresno

9 10 11 13 22 23 25 26 27 29 30 31 32 33

34 44 45 46 69 70 71 72 73 75 78 82 83 84 86 87 89 90 91 92 94 10

Poetry

Ruben Rodriguez Tobi Cogswell Ace Boggess Ciara Shuttleworth Taylor Graham

Charlie Rounds Them All Homeward The Arc Lamp Light Mother May I

102 103 104 106 107

Honor BOOK 1 Hygerun Emma’s Gift Resonate Kindling Sunflowers Gentle Sin A Constant Temple

14 36 64 76 80 95 108 110

Short Fiction

Marc Concepcion Abigail Lovelace Webb Johnson Rory Ibarra Ashley Mitchell Pam S. Dunn Natalie Francel-Stone Christopher Summers Features

Dennis Schmitz Featured Poetry

Biography Interview To Sophia on Her Naming The Theory of a Unified Field The Tao of Giving The Shaming of the Egg Thief The Red Shoes Perdition

Quinton Duval Award in Creative Writing Name Title Winner Name Title Honorable Mention

47 54 48 49 50 51 52 53 58 60 62

Visual Arts

Natalie Francel-Stone Cleber Jose Pacheco Natalie Francel-Stone Cody Eisen Satomi Richardson Trina L. Drotar Desiree Allyn Jared Boston Allen Wyly Cleber Jose Pacheco David J. Thompson

Perception Nymphes Awakening Gaseous A Cat Guanaluha Rising Landscape Hand in Hand Blown Away Flowers I 308-254-4064

12 24 26 35 68 74 79 85 88 93 105

editorial statement: Suisun Valley Review, a product of English courses 058 and 059, the Literary Magazine I and II, was established in 1981 for the students of Solano Community College to learn the art of editing a literary journal while working together to create their own annual magazine. Now in its

thirty-second issue, student-editors continue to collaborate carefully to select its contents from new and established writers/artists from Solano Community College, across the country, and around the world. In cooperation with its advisor, the editors work to establish a studentcentered environment to enhance the literary experience while empowering themselves in the creation of every aspect of the magazine, including selection of overall design aesthetic and narrative development

of each issue. SVR works closely with the SCC Writers Series by inviting key authors as features. Each spring, the students' hard work and creative energy is repaid with an anthology of prose, poetry, and art as a testament to sleepless nights. special note concerning editor submissions: The annual production of SVR is facilitated by the Solano Community College courses English 058 and 059. The course description states that any persons interested in submitting creative work to the magazine for consideration may submit, including student-editors.

To maintain fairness and impartiality, all submissions are considered anonymously.

—2015 Editorial Staff

Suisun Valley Review is dedicated to Quinton Duval, Professor Emeritus, Solano Community College

On Forsaking a Line Cast into Open Sea jeffrey c. alfier

Sea renews shore with dying horseshoe crabs.

Trawlers trundle cold on outbound journeys.

I could’ve turned stone waiting for my line to yield up prey. Drawn by stale rumors, I begin to think this water’s played out.

My compass is stuck on ambivalence.

Luckless fishermen scowl the sun away.

I finally gather my tackle, drive west, on past the Highlands and Navy docks to find some uncrowded inland water, my hope a grand catch of fluke or striper.

What I find is the dead-end of a pier, rotting planks supporting three or four old men, eyes fixed like snipers on the water, its surface rippling like a tambourine, lines thrown loose as chaff through emerald murk.

I join them, lean against the railing, tell one old man what I came to catch. He swears fish I want rarely come. Most of what’s reeled in is usually thrown back. But endure, he says, and you’ll crown your day in whitefish.

Let planks creak, broken hulls sink deep in mud.

He makes no sense but still I listen on: Better this dredged canal. Call its shallow depths home. Give your hands to this easy wind.

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Corner of Sand and Sunk a.j. huffman

The ship was beyond wrecked. Rotted and ruined eons ago by some renegade reef. Moss pitted, peppered with graffiti, this equator of ghosts, past and present, resonates in exquisite shades of empty.

Gutted, this scuttled skeleton holds photographic gold. Framed in lens, I could see the echo of waves.

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Hunting Season elizabeth campbell

A buck stands tall at the bank of the creek on the cows' side barbed wire just below his neck two points on his head—fresh alert, brave beyond his age a twig breaks under his foot catches my attention our eyes meet above the wire his legs frame the earth below front back, front back, lightly he steps softly, slips away a minnow in the shoal hides beside a slight gray pebble a scintillating sliver the green heron emerges from the reeds, swallows him whole.

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Perception

natalie francel-stone svr { 12 }

eros.exe joshua gray

Subject Input: Peak of fertility and hearts her i's. User blood pumps hasten within proximity. Termination of paternal figure – Class: Tragedy. i's undotted except by saline. Time imperative, minimized window for future propagation prospects. Course suggested: Comfort, console, and seduce.

Processing [ … ] Failure to advance relation

from platonic. Red 40 lips rebuffed, marked by bites, exchanged distant embrace. User arms' strength only at 10%. Shoulders wet, stained with black from eye enhancement soot.

Diagnostic Analysis: User Error [ … ]

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Honor book 1 marc concepcion

Kenichiro’s father was a millet farmer. Kenichiro’s father’s father was a millet farmer. Kenichiro’s father’s father’s father was a drunk and a womanizer, but during the day he was a millet farmer so he still counts, especially when Kenichiro proclaims that he comes from five generations of farmers. It isn’t much but that lineage is all he has and so he counts every little bit.

“Yosha!” Kenichiro stands upright, stretching his aching back, and takes just a few moments to look happily at his family.

The farmer's son crouches beside him holding a basket meant to catch the harvested millet, and his wife digs her hands into the growing pile, separating nourishing seeds from the golden brown clusters.

“Ken? Why did you stop? No slacking, you lazy man!” his wife chides.

Kenichiro grins a toothy, wolfish grin at his young wife. She is still so attractive and youthful despite their hard days over the scaldingly hot summer. He hated seeing her sweaty and exhausted, but the millet soaks up summer heat like humans soak up sorrows. If they didn’t work the fields, they would go hungry.

Or worse.

She never complained, not once. Her skin is rough, and her clothes are threadbare from the life of a farmer’s wife, but her brilliant smile still comes easily. He decides he will rub her feet tonight after supper, nods to himself at his clever decision, and stoops back down to begin the work again.

He sings the song his father taught him, and with the rhythmic melody his hands find a machine-like precision and efficiency. The fields fill with a trio of voices, almost chanting, and the long day of work passes the way it has for days, for months, for years, forever.

The sun creeps towards the horizon as though even it is ready for a hot meal and a good night’s rest. Kenichiro and his family drag themselves home carrying full baskets of tanned pearls. The weary threesome speculate that maybe the grain takes its color from basking in the sun, or maybe it soaks up the energy of the brown earth below.

“Hurry and wash up, Hoshi, then help your mother with dinner.”

“Yes Papa,” and with the energy of those who have not experienced svr { 14 } defeats or regrets, Kenichiro’s son runs towards their humble home.

*** After dinner, husband and wife sit quietly in front of their cooking fire.

Hoshi has begrudgingly gone to bed. The only light comes from a few candles and the modest fire pit in the center of the main room. Kenichiro is keeping the promise he made to himself earlier, and rubs his wife’s feet in front of the crackling fire.

“Please Kenichiro, we should …”

“Shhh, Hoshi has just fallen asleep. We can discuss this later.” The farmer’s hands stop moving but he doesn’t let go of his wife. His eyes quietly fill with dread.

“Ken, you know that we have an incredible opportunity.”

Silence fills the dimly lit room like anguished water, creeping and spilling over the man and wife. She tentatively reaches a hand across the void towards her gentle husband. The lines of her face aren’t bent by disagreement or argument. She looks passive and calm, and tries to pull his doubts and worries into herself, stealing them away from him.

“We could make a future for Hoshi. The price is good right now and with the money we make from rice we could do so much. I know you are used to millet but rice is almost the same as …”

Kenichiro stands up abruptly, letting his wife’s foot slip from his hands.

He turns and walks away from the fire and leans against the east wall. His head hangs low, and he begins to talk to his wife without turning to look at her. “What if something goes wrong? We’d be even worse off than before.

Can we gamble with Hoshi’s only hope of ever becoming something more than a farmer?”

His wife nods and considers his words before responding. “If we take no chance at all, then nothing will change. Perhaps … ever.”

Emotions and thoughts play across Kenichiro’s face: doubt, hope, fear, worry. He is used to worrying. Worrying about weather, worrying about bandits, worrying about taxes, worrying about samurai, worrying … another legacy left to him from his father, and his father’s father, and …

The gentle man’s chin drops to his chest, and his eyes fixate on a crack on the floor. The crack has been there it seems forever. When did the floorboard split? Was it before Hoshi was born? Was it always there? Why hadn’t Kenichiro fixed it?

Kenichiro turns to face his wife sitting in the light of the fire. “I ... Maybe ... Maybe you are right.” svr { 15 } ***

Early the next morning, while the farm is still blanketed in quiet and the sky remains shrouded in slumber, Kenichiro rolls out of bed and struggles into a slouch. His night has been a quagmire of doubt and questions. He shuffles out of the room and makes his way to the front of the house, stopping in front of Hoshi’s room. He raises a timid hand and touches his fingertips to the wall next to Hoshi’s doorway.

“Please do not let me be too weak, please do not let me fail him,” he whispers to the air.

His hand slips down to his side, and he continues to shuffle on. He makes his way out of the house and walks towards a small wooden shed.

Kenichiro stands in front of the small shed and stares at the doorway.

A calloused but feminine hand touches down lightly on his shoulder, causing him to whirl around in surprise. His wife stands before him with a gentle smile. She is waiting patiently, letting him complete his journey.

Kenichiro takes a deep breath, nods sharply once, and turns to enter the shed. With his wife following closely behind, he walks quietly, almost reverently, towards the rear of the structure. He feels blindly under a low shelf and slides a section of floorboard to the side. He reaches into the secret compartment and brings out a handful of dirty, folded rags.

His hands tremble slightly as he retrieves his treasure.

With all the precision of a religious ceremony, Kenichiro unwraps the package a bit at a time to unveil a worn and battered sliver of gold and a broken and jagged piece of jade.

With a voice lost in reverie Kenichiro speaks, “I thought it was a miracle when we found these. Remember how scared I was that somebody would come and claim them? Now I see. I’ve been foolish. I was afraid, and I nearly let that fear condemn our son to a lifetime of poverty.”

Kenichiro’s wife stands silently behind him, smiling at her husband’s back. She plants a gentle, chaste kiss on his shoulder. “I will pack a lunch. It is a long walk to the city.” *** Kenichiro walks down a wide road clutching at his pocket as though he is carrying a hidden piece of jade. His wife walks beside him, not clutching at her pocket as though she weren’t carrying a hidden sliver of gold. Hoshi walks beside her clutching at a bento box as though it were full of roasted potatoes.

The family walks at a brisk pace; it will be a few hours before they svr reach the city, and Kenichiro wants his family safely home before { 16 }

dark. They pass the time with a story handed down from generation to generation; Kenichiro retells the legend to Hoshi, hoping the tale of courage and strength inspires his young boy to be a good man. “... And Musashi, the ronin, was patient. He waited, and waited, and waited. His opponent was a proud young samurai, and wise Musashi knew the folly of pride and the sin of youth. Musashi waited and the young samurai grew impatient. Musashi waited and the young samurai grew frustrated. Musashi waited and the young samurai grew angry. Musashi waited and the young samurai grew foolish.”

“The young samurai rushed forward, swinging his katana mightily, but Musashi knew he was coming. Patient Musashi waited until the time was right and struck. And the foolish young samurai, impatient, angry, rushing, could not avoid the blow …”

Kenichiro pauses, thinking over his own words, and sees his wife smiling at him.

“You see Hoshi, Musashi was patient but he was also wise. He did not wait until it was too late, he struck when the time was right.”

Kenichiro kisses his wife’s forehead and smiles a little broader. *** The family approaches a fast moving river and Hoshi points at a large, impressive bridge. It is only his second time crossing the wooden crossing, and he remembers the sound his feet made on the planks as he ran across.

Hoshi jogs ahead of his parents to the bridge and stomps loudly on the planks. Clomp clomp clomp. Kenichiro and his wife reach the bridge together and begin to ascend the rounded archway, their footsteps resounding on the solid boards.

The couple freezes in their tracks when they reach the crest of the bridge.

“Keep walking.” A trio of brutish men with hard eyes and cruel smiles is blocking the passage. One of them has Hoshi by the scruff of his shirt and has a worn and aged but still razor sharp katana in the other hand.

Kenichiro places himself between the bandits and his wife and inches forward.

“Please sirs, if my son has caused you any trouble I will take the blame.

We are just …”

“Shut up! Keep coming forward.”

Kenichiro pleads as gently as he can, “Please, he is just a boy. What do you …” svr { 17 }

“Quiet! That’s close enough. Don’t you move or I’ll skewer this boy like a pig. Fujita, go see if he has anything good.”

The tallest of the three lumbers forward and reaches for Kenichiro with hands of stone. Kenichiro panics and clutches at the piece of jade in his pocket. “No!” The half-giant grabs hold of Kenichiro’s wrist and wrestles the strong farmer as though Kenichiro were a child. Kenichiro struggles and squirms against this monster, but takes a brutish fist to the breadbasket for his trouble.

Fujita searches Kenichiro’s pocket and pulls out the jade. “Ha! Look! The richest farmer in the world!” Fujita walks back to his comrades, and they chatter over the piece of jade excitedly while Kenichiro lays on the ground trying to breathe.

The farmer’s wife rushes forward to tend to her husband while the bandits are distracted. “Ken! Are you alright? Can you …”

Kenichiro fights to his feet. His face flushed and tears streaming from his eyes, he croaks, “You cannot take that!” He pushes away from his wife’s grasping hands and stumbles towards the bandits.

Fujita sends him crashing bonelessly to the ground with just one punch.

“Yamate! Stop it!” Kenichiro’s wife runs to him and cradles her husband in her lap. “Please no more!”

Kenichiro’s son tries one last time to free himself and shouts at the laughing men, “I will kill you all! I will find you and kill you!”

The shortest of the bandits unsheathes a knife. “Maybe you’re right kid.

Maybe we should just make sure you don’t come after us.”

The bandits’ laughter falls on Hoshi like a scalding rain. The young boy goes wild, thrashing and kicking, trying to free himself.

“Hey! What the hell? Damn it Masu, look what you did. Calm down boy!

Stop! Stop damn it!”

The leader of the bandits hits Hoshi over the head with the butt of his sword, knocking the boy senseless.

Kenichiro’s glassy eyes see his son on the ground. “Is he laying down?

Why am I laying down? I should be standing. I should be on my feet. I don’t want to lay down any more.”

Kenichiro’s wife tries her best to hold the farmer down. “Please Ken no, please.”

The wobbly farmer scratches his way to an upright position and the svr world swims under him. Kenichiro’s wife clings to him trying to { 18 }

keep him from doing something foolish.

“This bastard doesn’t know when to stop. Hold the boy Fujita.” The bandit leader drags Hoshi over to the mountainous, muscular man and shoves the farmer’s son to the ground. Fujita shakes his head at the plight of the sprawled and spindly child at his feet but then notices his boss squaring up with the stumbling farmer.

“What are you doing Daichi? They can’t stop us, we can leave,” Fujita’s deep voice rumbles in his chest.

Daichi raises his katana, preparing for a powerful heaven-to-earth slash.

“No, this one will never quit. Look at him, he wants to be a hero.”

Daichi lunges forward, slashing with his full might. Kenichiro manages to just barely fall back away from the blade, tripping into a tangled sprawl of his wife’s arms. Daichi wastes no time and stabs while the farmer is still offbalance.

Kenichiro goes limp in his wife’s arms. She tries to catch his full weight and feels him go completely slack. She sees Daichi retract a bloody katana and Kenichiro slumps to the ground. She rocks her husband roughly trying to make him open his eyes.

Still stunned, Hoshi cannot sit upright without feeling his breakfast surge.

The boy claws at the bridge planks trying to bring himself closer to his father. *** “Daichi, look at the boy,” Masu squeaks.

The bandit leader grumbles, “Damn it boy, I wasn’t going to kill any of you. This is on your head.”

“You’re a cold man Daichi,” Fujita mutters. “You don’t have to taunt them.”

“You think I enjoyed this? Just remember what will happen if we can’t deliver our tribute to Kazu,” Daichi shoots back.

Hoshi drags himself a bit further and vomits from the strain. He sees sparking lights behind his eyelids and passes out.

Fujita bends down and looks at Hoshi gravely. “You hit him too hard Daichi. There’s something wrong.”

Daichi turns towards the prostrated boy and pays closer attention. “Shit,” he spits out with feeling. “What do you think Fuji?”

The large man turns and begins walking towards the direction of the city.

“Kazu put you in charge Daichi. You figure it out.”

The farmer’s wife crawls on her hands and knees towards svr Hoshi. “No no no no no.” { 19 }

“Damn it!” Daichi grabs hold of her and restrains her. “Stop woman, stop! Your boy is dying badly. Just let us put an end to his suffering. I promise, it will be over quickly.”

Kenichiro’s wife claws and grabs and twists; she screams and cries and flails. Daichi grasps her securely with hands made cruel from a lifetime of hard acts and difficult decisions; his voice comes out empty, hollow, stripped clean of hurts and bruises, stripped clean of feelings.

“Masu, do it quickly.”

Daichi watches impassively as Masu scuttles forward, knife in hand.

Kenichiro’s wife jerks with all her might against Daichi’s grasp but barely even moves the man.

The shortest of the thugs pushes Kenichiro’s son prostrate on the ground. Masu kneels on the boy’s back to hold him down and unceremoniously plunges his knife into the boy’s body. Daichi feels the fight bleed out of Kenichiro’s wife, and he lets her collapse to the ground in a bundle of hiccuping sobs.

“Let’s go Masu, we’re done here.” *** “What about the woman?” Masu intones in a mocking sing-song voice.

“What about her?” Daichi sighs.

“Well … do you want her? She isn’t bad looking.”

“I’m not desperate enough to take a farmer’s woman. You take her if you want, I’m going to get a drink.”

Daichi walks off while Masu considers the shaking, sobbing wretch at his feet.

“Wait! Wait, Daichi! We’ll get some real women. We’ll get some real women, right?” Masu trots away to catch up to his leader.

She isn’t aware of the passing of time. She isn’t aware of the cuts or scrapes on her knees, rivulets of blood soaking her modest and threadbare kimono. She isn’t aware of the sounds of the rushing river nearby, the constant rippling of fresh, fast-moving water. She isn’t aware of the smell of blooming flowers, cloying and sweet, trying their best to attract greedy insects.

Michiko cries. And cries. And cries. And then she curses. And screams.

And cries. She vomits bile and begins to feel light-headed. And cries softly.

Softly. Softly.

“I’m sorry, Ken. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. No, Ken, don’t tell svr me it’s not my fault, no, no. Look what they did to Hoshi, look { 20 }

what they did to you, my husband. Please, Ken, don’t look at me like that.

This is my fault, this is my fault. I thought I was so damned smart. No, Ken, don’t say it’s okay. No … no, it’s not okay … no.”

Michiko reaches into her pocket and grasps the piece of gold she had hidden. An odd laugh bubbles up out of her throat and suddenly stops midbreath.

Michiko stares coldly at the piece of wealth, demons and devils dancing along her gaze, and then …

Michiko stands up, dusts herself off, and begins walking across the bridge. Towards town.

“No, Ken, I won’t show anyone the gold until I have decided I can trust them. No, Hoshi, I won’t forgive… I won’t rest until I have avenged you.

No, Ken, I won’t go home. No, Hoshi, I will see you and your father again; I won’t change my mind. You will both be avenged, and I will see you again. I swear it.”

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The Shadow Puppets of Indonesia ray hadley

It was like turning over an embroidery or a sampler, threads connecting the words of the message to the barn then running out to the trees, connecting the trees to the red mittens of the young girl skating alone across the frozen pond.

It was like going behind the stage of the shadow puppets to see actors manipulating the long paper arms so they would intersect the light, But you couldn't tell what was going on, follow the plot of the story. It was a foreign movie without subtitles and you just came in somewhere in the middle.

A strange and foreign culture, everyone laughing uproariously or hiding tears that well-up in their eyes for no apparent reason at all.

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A Different Kind of Man andrew mccutcheon

On my way home from work there is an exit, the sign for which is covered with plywood. Each day I drive by wondering what forbidden world lies beyond, till one

evening, I veer left and mow through a field of sudden orange cones that buckle under my car like stiff polymer poppies as the radio drifts into oblivion, Sinatra lost to a fog bank of white noise, and I with him until we both reemerge, clouds dispersing at the bottom of the ramp.

And there it is, a town where everything is boarded up, not just storefronts and offices but people, too—faceless mothers pushing strollers, their babies peering out from eyeless ovals of laminated pine. At the first intersection I stop into a boarded up dinette to get some directions and a quick cup of coffee. The waitress hands me a white porcelain mug with a perfect circle of mahogany floating just below its brim. She’s gorgeous, her blank expression aside, so we make small talk until her shift ends and she invites me back to her boarded up apartment to watch her boarded up TV, a show about stick people drawn with black magic marker. But pretty soon we get bored and things start moving fast. Careful of splinters, I work my tongue across the grain of her face and around a knot where her mouth should be, my hands roaming the supple topography of her body, eventually finding their way up under the peach polyblend of her uniform and into a shadowy copse where expectant fingers search for wet electric flesh only to tap unanswered at a door of aspen or ash.

Ready as I am, I know I’d have to be a different kind of man to reach her. And as we cling to one another, breathless and trembling, I resolve to schedule the procedure the very next day.

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Nymphes

cleber jose pacheco

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Winter Egg gordon preston

The artist considered the shadow of a winter sketch that birch branches might have against a darkening sky. There is nothing clumsy about cold, we dress for it blundering into these chilly days, and no matter how much love dances under layers and scarves, we do not fail to appreciate this outer covering like the shell of an egg, protecting the theft of one season from another.

Your hair will be penciled brunette, the wool cap you wear, brown of a sparrow, bleeding into the parchment as cold deepens into fingers. The tiny leaves left fallen in the garden finally disappear under an old icy moon, passing its watchful eye, walking on our rooftops.

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Turtleneck hillary patrick

Oh, you densely knitted shroud, hanging with your cowl tipped forward, posture depressed.

This is not the life you'd dreamed of. Fall evenings of hot chocolate and hearths. Twilight gatherings of semi-formal dress and impromptu caroling. A brief press against an Oxford beneath a clump of neatly bundled parasitic romance. Buried under down and cashmere once the days grow long and thermostats set low. No one prepared you for the over active sweat glands of June. Persistent stretching of threads, losing your shape. Soon enough, that looming sun, ignorant of its tyrannical oppression, will find itself overtaken by gray organza. Dermis of youth, darkened under ultraviolet, will wash away residue of push pops and cloak itself in sleeves of thermal. Suspicions will subside as you turn appropriate attire and envelop the internal carotid without the needles of perspiration on skin stained with indigo and goldenrod.

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Autopsy michelle hartman

I washed my hands before I started the y-incision had hesitation marks like a first year med-student under judgmental eyes slicing cartilage joining ribs to breastbone was cathartic using kitchen scissors from expensive knife set you gave me for our anniversary check every organ for defect weighted them in mixing bowls on bathroom scale wrapped them in sealable bags used your power saw to open the skull knowing you hate a messy kitchen went to backyard to eliminate spatter spent longer time examining this organ— no telling sign of defect no mysterious ridges, dead white zones, or bloody aneurisms no reason whatsoever for why I allow you to kill me a little more with each blow

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Awakening

natalie francel-stone

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Poem for my First Love a.d. winans

Seven months into my 70th Birthday I slip back in time I'm driving down highway one where California's fertile hills wink at me giant trees and seashore merge as one cloud banks ride the horizon like Red Cloud rode the plains in search of the last buffalo sweet mangos and watermelon wine sweet as cotton candy stuck to the roots of my tongue fed my youth nourished my spirit the poem the language in my soul your body indented against mine hot as an iron pressed to a garment youthful hunger that knew no bounds feasted like a condemned man devouring his last meal the way Eskimos used to swallow the tears of the dying to keep the one gone with them

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Felicity cody eisen

It doesn’t help that she takes up half the room, yet it fits her personality all the same.

Conversations bellow on, rolling over your opinions and decibels tenfold.

It may take two to tango, but apparently conversations take one. Doughy skin radiates presence through olfactory haze, filling the air with regret for having broken ice.

Media’s sexualization made clear to be sin, she’s too much woman to reduce herself to that scale. Gloating about her many friends and their scratching posts, her eyebrows cock as she asks if you're single.

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The Director andrew mccutcheon

He’s an avant-garde director, though he never uses any film.

He just walks through everyday life framing its strangeness with his hands.

Something as simple as breakfast can end with the police at the door, the children crying and confused, the neighbors just shaking their heads.

Wherever he goes, he’s on location, and whenever he gets that distant look in his eyes and whispers into Little Marco’s ear, it’s anybody’s guess.

Today it was Little Marco leaping onto a restaurant table and shrieking like a chimp, kicking plates of steaming fettuccine into the faces of strangers and then urinating all over the mess.

Of course the boy could be forgiven, bedeviled angel that he is, forever seeking his father’s approval.

But what are we to do with Big Marco, who just stands there, thumb to forefinger and forefinger to thumb, capturing the mayhem with his imaginary camera?

svr { 31 }

Fill Her Up Charlie ruben rodriguez

As a child, my uncle fell into the cherry business. All summer he left highstacked boxes of cherries at our door, so we ate them. I discarded the stems and spat seeds into a cup that I poured into an emptied 5-gallon water jug hid at the side of the house. Soon, a line of ants marched upon my collection.

Thousands—to nibble on two gallons of seeds. I grabbed the hose, stuck it inside the jug, and turned the spigot. No screams, only cherry seeds, dead ants, and bits of flesh.

svr { 32 }

Photograph: Bagged Bedsheets on the Roadside, Bayside, ME, 2003 jeffrey warzecha

Suitcase buckles rattle on the roof rack, barely clasped, bikes strapped, son asleep in the backseat, rain playing a lullaby of tap on the highway.

Dog drooling for a rolled-down window.

Mother fiddling with defroster, fog closing like a tired eye on the windshield’s perimeter.

Radio a concert of croon and yearn; dial cranked silent again.

Bags stacked to the brim, rearview useless.

Southerly route, to grandma’s, away from the foreclosed house, clothes, extra sheets she couldn’t launder his smell out of.

svr { 33 }

The Millionaire Andrew mccutcheon

Each morning he conceals the wound, a freshly minted tattoo of a green-haired siren slinking down his forearm, the fin of her serpentine tail curling just above his watch line as he briskly tugs each sleeve into place and fastens them with the “million dollar� cufflinks he received as an anniversary gift the year before the year of his divorce, a pair of burnished moons emblazoned with his last initial in a grand, old-style serif.

Before the bathroom mirror, its shelves full of darkness and tiny white tablets as quiet as stars, he slips a perfectly executed Windsor securely around his neck as if to lead himself obediently off to work, another cursory dog walk to the end of the block, where briefly he kneels before immaculate rows of white picket roses, the familiar feel of feces warm in his hand through the thin blue prophylactic he spools from his pocket.

Back inside the foyer, he captures what he believes to be another black widow, using the styrofoam cup he saves for such occasions, then taps its thick black body and tangle of delicate legs into the blameless Latinate weeds outside, crawling like soft auburn fire up the length of the house for as long as he can remember.

svr { 34 }

Gaseous

cody eisen

medium

svr { 35 }

Hygerun abigail lovelace

Sunny didn’t like the Rook’s Nest at all. It was dark inside, and old. Not in the way the building itself was old, though it was still impressive to an American; no, it was old in the way hills are old, or caves, or London itself. A single light fixture cast a nicotine glower over the middle rows of shelves, now and then glinting off a vase or recently-disturbed bottle but never making it into the corners of the space. The aisles were clogged with dust and fallen inventory and specks of plaster from where the ceiling was starting to crumble, and a century’s worth of spider webs drooped in sheets from the low rafters. The owner was nowhere in sight.

“Hello?” Sunny called softly. The store gave no answer. Carefully, she stepped over a milk crate, hoping her heels wouldn’t slip on the gritty floorboards. The passageways were really little more than tunnels, and as she wound her way past their labyrinth, Sunny couldn’t help but wonder at the choice of name. Rook’s Nest, my ass, she thought. Should have named it the Anthill instead.

Most of the stuff here looked like junk—old magazines, rusting keys, bottles so old their chipped glass had turned purple. Unfortunately, most of it also seemed to be directly underfoot. Sunny shook out her umbrella and peeked down one of the less-cluttered aisles, hoping to find whoever was in charge.

“The sign said open…”

No answer—only the low buzz of the light. She slipped back into silence.

There was something about the place that seemed to discourage anything above a whisper.

Sunny edged around a precarious-looking stack of textbooks and found herself in a relatively open space in the middle of the store. Even here, papers and bits of ceiling littered the floor. It was sort of sad, actually, how trashed the whole place looked. Maybe they’d been robbed. “Hello?” she called again.

A glimmer of green caught her eye on one of the shelves and she picked it up. It was a jewelry box, made of lacquered wood and patterned in worn gold gilt. On the lid was a painting of a woman in Edwardian dress smelling a rose.

Sunny tilted it, admiring the way it caught the light, and peeked at the chipped paint inside. It was quite a pretty box. Clearly antique. She wondered how much it was selling for. svr { 36 } “Twenty p,” a voice stated from somewhere to her right. Sunny start-

ed violently, nearly dropping the box, and for the first time noticed a woman slumped behind a sales desk, seemingly deeply engrossed in a crossword puzzle.

“Sorry, I didn’t see you,” Sunny said. “I just saw you were open, I—” “It’s really not even worth that,” the proprietor continued irritably, as though she hadn’t heard Sunny. “No value to anyone. Not even sentimental.

Just take it.” She flapped dismissively at the box, still not looking up from her puzzle.

Sunny didn’t know what to say. She turned the box over, brushing dust from its lid with her thumb. “Um. Thank you,” she said eventually.

“My pleasure.” Sunny didn’t think she’d heard a less pleased voice in quite a long time. There was something about the woman that was distinctly offputting—her skin had a sickly, doughy translucence to it, and she grasped her paper with small, fat hands that reminded Sunny of rat’s paws. Hair the nocolor of dirty dishwater drooped limply over her face. Sunny couldn’t help but be reminded of the neighbor she’d had as a child, who’d programmed little beige computers about as powerful as a pocket calculator: he didn’t look like he knew what the sun was, either.

There was an uncomfortable elevator-ride silence as Sunny scuffed a heel across the floor, listening to the monotonous patter of raindrops plashing against the street outside. These moments always seemed to sneak up on you: small spaces, complete stranger, nowhere to turn, nothing to talk about or pretend to be distracted with. She folded her arms across her chest and fixed her attention on a small pot in the nearest display case. Something skittered behind the wall.

“This is a nice place,” she lied.

The woman’s eyes flicked up at last, lip curling like she could smell the bullshit from a block over. It is a nice place, that look seemed to say. And I don’t appreciate the sarcasm.

“It’s very…um.” Sunny swallowed any threads of speech that may have followed and turned to glance at the shelves again, uncomfortably smoothing down a stray hair.

Sunny had never actually experienced the feeling of someone’s gaze burrowing into her before now, but judging by the burning spot on the back of her neck, she wasn’t sure she ever wanted to again. She hadn’t known it was physically possible to stare that hard. But the burning slipped away, the paper rustled, and the tiny sht of graphite said the woman had gone back to her puzzle. Sunny let out a small breath and tried not to think about the Dawson estate. svr { 37 } The woman sighed slightly, recrossed her thick legs and scratched

something out on the crossword. “You must have an interesting reason for coming in here,” she said. “Most people don’t bother this time of night.”

“I’m just waiting for the rain to let up.” Sunny smoothed out her jacket and leaned awkwardly against what had once been a signpost for Croydon. “Are you usually open at two in the morning?”

“Only when I can’t sleep. Are you usually prowling the streets at two in the morning? You seem awfully straight-laced for that sort of thing.” The woman looked up at last, taking off her reading glasses and wiping them on her sweater.

She had the strangest eyes: huge, almond-shaped things, brown to the point of black, with little room for the whites to show through. They glared dully from her pale face.

Sunny grimaced slightly and glanced out at the street’s submerged cobblestones. “If that’s the way you’re going to be, I’ll be leaving,” she said curtly. “I don’t have time for criticism.”

The proprietor replaced her glasses and returned to her puzzle. “Suit yourself.”

A terse silence stretched between them as Sunny continued to stare out the window, watching the subtle shifting black of the rain. She knew she really should be out there right now finding a taxi or something, but just the thought of pitting heels against dark, wet concrete had her pulling her jacket a little closer.

The store was eerily quiet—even the clock on the proprietor’s desk seemed muffled. Sunny could feel the proprietor’s eyes needling into her back again and shifted uncomfortably.

“Chary.” Sunny startled slightly at the word and turned to see the proprietor turning the full force of her stare upon her.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Abbreviated for Charybdis.” The woman blinked once, a gesture that almost seemed to take the place of offering a hand. “Acting proprietor. At your service.”

“Oh. Right.” Her name. That…well, the name itself didn’t make sense (who the hell calls themselves Charybdis?), but she supposed the action did. “I’m Sunny. Sunny Reynolds.” Sunny held out her hand, but the woman stared at it as if unsure what she’d do with it and Sunny slowly pulled it back. “Charybdis, that’s an…interesting name,” she said.

“Mm. So is Reynolds,” Chary said boredly. She dropped the paper on the desk and leaned forward. “So, what are you doing out in London in svr the wee hours? As I said, you must have an interesting reason for { 38 }

coming here.”

“I just landed,” Sunny said. “Business trip. I’m catching the early train to Glasgow.”

A thin smile crossed the proprietor’s face. “Are you.”

“Yeah, representing my tech firm. International conference. Very exciting,” Sunny added dryly.

The smile stayed fixed, but the proprietor’s head tilted slightly. “No need to lie to me, dear. What's got you in such a hurry?”

Sunny felt the smile slip from her face and she blinked at the proprietor in disbelief. “Excuse me?”

“Look at you.” The proprietor threw a hand out, encompassing Sunny in one gesture. “Fresh off a plane, certainly—but no suitcase, no traveler’s pack.

An umbrella with the tag still attached.”

Sunny realized she was staring openmouthed. She didn’t think she had met a ruder woman in her entire life. And God, she lived in Manhattan.

“Clothes all new, still creased from the shop rack. Nothing but your purse, and begging your pardon, but that couldn’t hold much more than some clean underwear—” “I lost my luggage,” Sunny managed to say.

“—and heading in the entirely wrong direction for Euston Station. You positively reek of nerves.” Her voice softened, and she leaned forward with an expression slightly too intense to be worry. “My dear, are you running away from something?”

Sunny felt a pain in her hand and looked down. Her nails had dug so hard into her palm they had bitten through the skin. “No,” she said, and hid her hand in her pocket.

The proprietor chewed the inside of her cheek, her brow creasing. “You know you can tell me if you are,” she said at last.

“I’m not running away from anything.” The words came out sharper than she had intended, and the proprietor raised a colorless eyebrow in some emotion Sunny could not identify.

It was time to go. Sunny ran a finger along her hair and picked up her umbrella. “I’d better be leaving,” she said. “I’ve got a train to catch. And yes,” she said pointedly. “I am taking a train, believe it or not. To Glasgow. For a conference.” She struggled with the snap on the umbrella strap; her hands were shaking a little more than she cared to admit. For Christ’s sake, the woman was crazy, but it’s not like she was accusing Sunny of— svr “Sunny, you really don’t need to lie to me,” the proprietor said, { 39 }

and Sunny won the fight against the strap by breaking it clean off.

“Why do you think I’m lying to you?” Sunny snapped. She sighed, and stared regretfully at the broken umbrella strap in her hand. She shoved it into her coat pocket. “Look…Chary,” she said, trying to inject as much condescension as she could into the name. “I don’t know what your deal is, but in my experience, the best way to keep clients coming to you is generally not accusing them of lying about themselves.”

The proprietor frowned and rested her chin on her fist. “I’m not accusing you of anything, dear,” she said, and God, wasn’t that one for the ages. “I only ask that you tell me what’s going on.”

The umbrella was shaking in Sunny’s hand. “Nothing is going on,” she said.

“Nothing. What are you trying to be, a psychic?”

Chary’s lip twitched up almost derisively. “No,” she said emphatically.

“God, I hope not.” Sunny picked up her purse. “I don’t even know why I came in here. I have places to be. I’m leaving.”

The woman raised her head from her fist. Her expression had become one of faint alarm. “You can’t leave yet,” she said quietly.

Sunny rolled her eyes and tucked the umbrella under her arm. “Watch me.”

“Sunny, I’m trying to help you,” the woman insisted.

“The only way you can help me right now is calling me a cab,” Sunny said.

She looked at the box still in her hand. “And keep this.” She set it carefully back on the counter. It took all her will not to slam it. “I wasn’t looking to buy anything anyway.”

The woman looked positively incensed, but Sunny was in no mood to care.

She turned and stalked back around the milk-crate, wending her way back to the entrance. “Good luck with your, uh…store,” she called back. God knows you need it, she added silently, and closed her fingers around the doorknob.

“Sonakshi Jahanara Reddy. Do not open that door.”

Sunny’s hand stilled on the doorknob. The store, once eerily quiet, had grown thick with rustling.

“You think I’m unpleasant? There are much worse things walking London tonight.” The woman’s voice had chilled considerably.

Sunny turned, hand still fixed on the knob. “How do you know my name?” she said slowly.

“Why are you here, Sunny?” The proprietor had stood up behind her desk, a spot of pale in the shop’s heavy darkness. “What are you running from?”

Sunny shook her head. “I’m not running from anything,” she said svr again, but not even she would have believed it. { 40 }

A faint smile quirked at the proprietor’s lips. Her eyes were invisible in the gloom. “No need in lying to me.”

Sunny’s hand slid from the doorknob. Chary tilted her head.

“You’re not going to a conference.” It was a statement, not a question.

Sunny’s voice had retreated somewhere back into her throat, but she shook her head mutely.

The smile stretched a little farther. “And you don’t work in technology.”

Sunny dropped her eyes.

“Where are you going, may I ask?”

Sunny shook her head a little harder. “I don’t know,” she whispered.

Black eyes narrowed, and something creaked in the ceiling, as if turning over in its sleep.

“You’re safe in here,” the proprietor said. “For now. Nothing gets through those doors. Now, I am trying to help you, Sunny. So I would appreciate some cooperation.” Suddenly, she was face-to-face with Sunny. “Have you told anyone?”

Sunny shook her head again and the proprietor nodded, slowly. “Will you tell me?”

Sunny stared at the little woman in front of her, at the stubby hands grasping and ungrasping at the air around them, the awful, sunless skin, at the dishwater hair hanging dingy over her face. An iron-cold despair settled at the base of her throat.

She didn’t want to tell her. She didn’t want to be in England, she didn’t want to be talking to this woman, she didn’t want to be here, in this tomb of a shop, while back in New York it was still out there. Sunny wanted to not be here so hard she thought she was going to choke.

“I can only help you if you let me,” Chary said softly.

Sunny thought back to the cellar, to her trashed apartment, to the voicemails that would probably be piling up on her answering machine. She took a deep breath and reached into her purse.

The three coins she pulled out flashed like sunlight, and behind the wince the proprietor gave at the glare, her face was blazing with recognition. One hand reached out as if to touch them, but paused, hovering.

“Oh, my dear, what have you gotten yourself into?” Chary whispered.

Sunny clinked the coins in her palm. Their metal was cold, too cold, and the sound was high, fragile, like old, sad music.

“I’ll tell you,” she said quietly. svr The proprietor turned over her palm, eyes still blazing, and with{ 41 }

out thinking Sunny dropped the coins into it. Thick yellow nails closed around them. Charybdis grinned, small grey teeth in a small white face, and somewhere within her Sunny felt a door closing.

The coins vanished, and Chary stooped down to rummage on top of her desk, carelessly pushing loose piles of yellowing paper to the floor until she exposed a massive leather journal.

“There…there was a cabin…” Sunny started weakly, but a small hand shot up to her face.

“Don’t. Don’t speak it.” The proprietor pushed the book open to an empty page and pulled a pen from the clutter around it.

“Why not?” Sunny found herself asking.

Chary gazed up at her, unspeaking, eyes wide and dark and…old. Old as the hills. She held out the pen. “Write.”

Sunny took the pen. It was an old thing—a fountain pen; heavy, black, slick metal. It sank into Sunny’s palm like lead. Sunny uncapped it and leaned over the book, pausing at the empty page. ‘“Acting’ proprietor?” she asked.

Charybdis tilted a shrug. “My father is away,” she said quietly.

Sunny hesitated, tapping the pen against her lip, trying to collect her thoughts. Finally, she began to write.

Robert Dawson’s estate isn’t worth much.

The words came haltingly at first, one by one, as though invited into a stranger’s house. Writing had always been a weak point of Sunny’s.

The man was terrible with money, and what little he didn’t lose in the business world quickly went to his collections. Well, he called them ‘collections’—I call it junk. It was hoarding, pure and simple.

Sunny found her mind drifting as the words flowed quicker from the pen.

The scratching in the walls was growing again.

I’d been sent to evaluate his property, see if there was anything of worth in it. But he collected everything. Books, seashells, stamps, china, model trains…He had two full sets of encyclopedias, the same edition and everything. Made my job hell. I hate hoarder estates.

Most of his assets reside in his house, a small cabin in the Catskills, and even that’s really more of a shack.

It is what I found under the house that truly makes the Dawson estate priceless…

Her hand moved on its own now, words spilling from the pen-nib without thought. The skittering was growing louder, a heavy, close sound that pressed in on her breath and heart and eardrums and seemed to scratch all svr thoughts from her mind. { 42 }

Keep writing, it whispered, a voice like grave winds and the clatter of small bones. Keep writing.

And Sunny kept writing, mind slipping and blanking, hand trailing of its own accord under black eyes old as the hills. *** She awoke again on the street outside the Rook’s Nest. The rain had vanished, and cold blue clouds were now circling a moon thinner and brighter than she would have expected. Absolutely nobody was out—not even the drunks or the late-night taxis. The wet city looked oddly lonely in the empty light.

Behind her, the Rook’s Nest had gone dark, and a mumble of “thank you, come again” was rushed through the rapidly shutting door. Sunny blinked dazedly. Her head was foggy, thoughts jumbled up like loose boxes in a moving truck, and her ankles felt about as stable as cracked china.

Her hand ached, the way it did when she’d been writing for too long. She rolled her wrist to loosen the pain and realized there was something in her hand. She was carrying a small, lacquered jewelry-box, bright-green and painted with gold gilt. Sunny tilted it, examined the Edwardian woman painted on top and finally opened it. Her eyebrows rose: inside, a tarnished silver ring, and a receipt in long, spidery handwriting.

Sunny removed the receipt and examined it better against the moonlight. Its ink still smeared slightly under her fingertips.

Reynolds, it read; Dawson. Box: complimentary.

She glanced back at the ring, her forehead crinkling. Dawson? She thought vaguely. The name sounded familiar. Dawson…

She could feel the name, murky, unformed in the back of her mind, but it refused to form a memory. Sunny tipped the box to see if there was anything else. Nothing; but a surprising amount of dirt fell out and she stepped back before it could get into her heels.

Sunny glanced back at the store, wondering if it would be too insane to go back and ask what had just happened, but a small, mute voice warned against it.

She looked from the receipt to the box, to the shuttered Rook’s Nest, to the receipt again, and finally reached into her purse and checked the time on her phone. 3:53. If she hurried, she just might be able to catch the early train.

Sunny carefully stuck ring, receipt and jewelry box in her purse, then quickly crossed the gleaming cobblestones into the London morning. She hoped the hotel had kept her reservation. She didn’t want to be late to the conference.

In the window, a small, fat hand reached up and flipped the sign svr to CLOSED. { 43 }

Photograph: Mother at a Bodega, Mexico City, 2002 jeffrey warzecha

She’s definitely drunk, mouth slack, eyes glazed, hand open having dropped her dollars and change, a feral dog, leg limp-raised, pauses to sniff a dirtied plastic bag pile in the background. She’s alone.

The bodega is pasted with flyers, tacked into its shell like memories of tequila fights on the floor, the broken lamp, ripped carpeting, the children down the hallway cowering under the covers from the shouts that dance over their beds in the darkness.

It’s all in her eyes, her posture, the way her cheeks look recently healed and her knuckles fractured, hair a nest for sadness. Her eyes say one day I’ll fix this into the lens of the photographer who can only see static poverty and not the woman concentrating on a way to raise the bills back into her hand.

svr { 44 }

Lunch at the O.K. Cafe margaret phillips

Four women round a café table linger; Their heads are white or gray.

Fixed smiles and shifting eyes betray An itchy trigger finger.

Each the others’ faces watches.

No one blinks, and no one twitches Each good right hand is tucked inside a purse And each a weapon clutches.

Who will be the first to draw?

Who will write the others’ epitaph?

When tension reaches fever pitch They simultaneously attack.

Each slams upon the table Her grandchild’s latest photograph.

svr { 45 }

Playing Pennies patrick fontes

A copper treasure trove sits tight-lid Stored atop the closet behind old jeans One home-canned jar sealed with vain hope Hidden beneath a frayed patchwork quilt Stitched scenes from life’s benign neglect Two blank patches for opportunities missed Mama said all her life she’s played pennies Living one gamble ahead of misfortune Casting wish-plated coins never returned

Pocket change thrown against passing years Stored up in some netherworld hoard Waiting for Mama’s big cash pay out Now she sits in a smoky Indian Casino Sipping watered cocktails from a plastic cup Varicose veins sticking to a vinyl stool “BINGO!” in the background amid the clack Of poker chips and nerves. Mama inserts another penny Pulls the lever with arthritis hands. Hoping.

svr { 46 }

DENNIS SCHMITZ

suisun valley review 2015 featured writer

Dennis Schmitz is the author of eight books of poetry, most recently Animism (Field Editions/Oberlin College Press, 2014). Earlier collections include We Weep for Our Strangeness (Big Table/Follett, 1969. Reissued by Carnegie-Mellon University Press, 2008); Double Exposures (Triskelion Press, 1971), Goodwill, Inc. (Ecco Press, 1976); String (Ecco, 1980); Eden (U. of Illinois Press, 1989); About Night: New and Selected Poems (Field Editions, Oberlin College Press, 1993); The Truth Squad (Copper Canyon Press, 2002). Born and raised in Dubuque, Iowa, he attended Loras College and the University of Chicago. He has taught at the Illinois Institute of Technology, University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, and California State University, Sacramento. His work has been published in Alaska Quarterly Review, American Poetry Review, The Nation, Paris Review, The Chicago Review, and Zyzzyva, to name just a few. Schmitz is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, among them the Discovery Award (Poetry Center, New York), the di Castagnola Award (Poetry Society of America) for best book-in-progress, the Shelley Memorial Award (Poetry Society of America) for distinguished achievement, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships in 1976, 1985, and 1992. He and his wife Loretta live in svr Oakland, CA.

{ 47 }

To Sophia on her Naming dennis schmitz

Because God counts every drop, after rain even a nameless trickle blesses as it disappears, shrugging its way lower into the grass.

Even though God counts every drop, when a baby’s cry joins the flow of human voices, it demands to be named the way rivers are.

svr { 48 }

The Theory of a Unified Field dennis schmitz

I explain to my five year-old grandson the sources of power in the universe, that the junk plug & end of electric cord he’s accidently dug up powers the tree near where he’s dug it & that matter is the expression of spirit, that humans lose their cords through evolution & evolution is next Saturday’s

topic. The boy’s parents or friends are literal & economic variables, but who can add up love & how many decimal places does love have?

I am simple math, I explain to him.

svr { 49 }

The Tao of Giving dennis schmitz

I deliberately went out in shirt-sleeves with the hot dish but not love for my neighbor, snow turning to petals of water on the dish-lid I handed past his lack of welcome, his distrust, his need. Because he wore cloth slippers in his porch’s snow, I took off my shoes.

Because at first he wouldn’t eat, I removed the protecting lid & spooned

stew for him. When he knocked away every extended spoon, I sat on the wet steps with him & together we ate, spoonful by spoonful the difficult offering, blown snow diluting but not halting our talk.

svr { 50 }

The Shaming of the Egg Thief dennis schmitz

as the Pusateri’s clerk caught him, shaking open the man’s coat to deliberately break the eggs against him— it was the summer of fourth grade, which, I dimly knew, only flowed one-way to the harder summers of adulthood.

I knew baseball rules; I thought then that I got the moral outcomes of movies to the degree that now, in the present, I could play myself in the movie version of the Pusateri’s drama, my feelings magnified by the make-up that will make me a boy—anything to heal the wrong. Who in the drama really committed the crime, an anomaly, so that, in a movie’s kind of time-warp, the trees in the park have devolved to sticks & garden chips, that our little river is trickling away with entitlements & the many flushes of rental housing & Pusateri’s itself in the present

is ironically reduced to a 7-11? svr { 51 }

The Red Shoes dennis schmitz

The ballerina in the Red Shoes movie, but any obsession that dances you to death—

sickly Chopin playing until his blood spots the piano-keys. Or, our friend Bill Good, a Korean War Marine, at 18 on his ten-mile boot-camp run, behind him all those would-be Marines, who before the end, are sprawled breathless or in the bushes

nauseous—Bill, the last, wisely dropped out just before the exhausted drill instructor.

Bill, a kid track star, not quite a ringer who never needed red shoes.

svr { 52 }

Perdition

dennis schmitz

At 77, I have computer problems, & I have prostate problems—some days I confuse the two & type urgently.

Does life end as a grocery list of wants, & perdition is having to go on shopping?

svr { 53 }

D e n n i s S c h m i t z r e a d s a t S o l a n o C om m u n i t y C o l l e g e.

DENNIS SCHMITZ

i n t e r v i e w w i t h s u i s u snuvi salu lne yv arlel ev yi e rwe v2i0e1w5 e d i t o r s On March 24, 2015, Dennis Schmitz visited Solano Community College in Fairfield California as a part of the school’s Featured Writer series. As student editors, we had the opportunity to ask our featured writer for our Spring 2015 issue of Suisun Valley Review some questions about the art of literary craft and process. svr: Your recently published book of poems, Animism, is divided into three clearly delineated sections. Could you delve into the decisions you made behind the structure of the book as well as the meaning behind the title? ds: The term “animism” suggests that every thing is alive, has a soul, or a motivating principle—I’m using the word in a general, not in a religious or anthropological sense. A first poem in a book usually sets a destination, and involves the reader in the terms of the book’s “argument” and its principal themes. I wanted a forceful, out-loud and engaging poem to set the tone of the book.

Many of the figures and concerns in the title poem are repeated in the book. svr { 54 }

Many of the poems in the book are loosely narrative, many first-person. I wanted a reader to identify with the poem’s speaker. When I sorted the poems (the collection took several years to write), I wanted a continuity in the “argument” and a blend of imagery. The poems in Animism which begin or end sections serve as markers in the book’s structure; they seem to be the largest poems in concept and complexity. svr: Could you comment on your writing process, including where you prefer to write? Do you have any writing rituals or habits? How do you know when a poem is done? ds: My writing methods have changed with my places to live. For almost forty years, when we lived in Sacramento, I wrote in a room I had built in back of our garage, overlooking the backyard, away from the house. I usually wrote at night. During most of the years in Sacramento, I composed poems on an old (circa 1930s) office-model typewriter. It was a beloved yard-sale machine with heavy touch—I could pound it. I had

wastebaskets full of discards and searchings. I’d re-examine my findings with a pen. Sometime writing is assemblage, pushing parts together, doing musical hook-ups, sensing undercurrents—however you want to talk about coaxing.

T.S. Eliot suggested that poetry is felt thought. Writing poetry is a way of paying attention, a habit of mind.

Writing is re-writing. Metaphor, correspondences—the method of poetry is to talk about one thing in terms of another. I always begin a poem with some musical sense of the word combinations and proceed in the same fashion, hoping that the poem will take me up.

Poetry is generally word by word— poetry’s about words, not ideas. Don’t decide too soon that you know what a poem is talking about. Maybe it was Jack Spicer who said that he just took down what the Martians were saying?

Since we moved to Oakland a year ago, I have composed poems in my head as I go on long walks or jog or cycle.

Later, I write out long-hand what I have captured, and then I finish on a computer. I like to see the poem on the page, talking back as I shape the delivery. svr: How have your family and close friends influenced your writing over the years? ds: A writer needs someone on the other end of the delivery, even an implied listener. The poem itself is always responding, revealing itself as it happens.

You listen to the poem in the mental dark. But you can’t be too pleased with yourself in a relationship this tenuous.

Though many of my friends are writers, we usually don’t talk shop. I like to talk about poems I’ve read, books that I like and why I like them, but I professed for so many years on a college campus that I have to get a grip when my voice starts to wander in that direction. Friends forgive me.

I used to give more readings and workshops, and I used to go to more

readings. But I’ve never found where the literary life is being lived. My friends are my friends for many reasons. Many of my friends are better writers than I am, so I read their books more carefully.

Though I’m off by myself when I write, I’m with my family. Whom could I love more?

There is a spiritual context, there is a mild kind of turmoil (Loretta and I have five children, and, with the birth of twins a few years ago, ten grandchildren—we moved to East Bay to be near them).

I had started writing poetry about the time Loretta and I met in Chicago, where we worked for a student social action group. Then we were in grad school about the same time—she was in French lit, and I was in English lit. My interest in writing probably started with Rimbaud and the French poets of his era. Loretta suggested some French poets who were more contemporary. As some beginning poets do, I read contemporary American poets for the idiom, but I loved Rilke, Transtromer, Neruda, Vallejo—many of the poets Robert Bly and his fellow translators were introducing to eager readers. There were many currents and cross-currents in American literature in the early sixties when I was learning the trade. svr: If there was one piece of advice you would give to an aspiring poet, what would it be, and why? Can you share with us some of your most memorable moments as a teacher of writing? ds: Advice to an aspiring poet— write because you have to, and be patient with the process, both the actual sit -down of writing and the discouragement about getting better. Sit down with poems, reading every sort of poet, and sit down at regular times, maybe daily, with your own poems. When you lose the poem, find a way to get back inside it, and write from there. When you’re stuck, write faster, and later svr spit out the bad parts.

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I taught literature and writing for many years, so I saw many good writers making themselves better. I saw the effects of concentrated reading, so I emphasized a wide range of books in regular classes and in workshops. Buy poetry books, support other writers.

never caught anything. Gary left Sacramento after a few years to study with Dick Hugo in the University of Montana MFA program. We would intersect however we could. And when Gary taught at Chico State, we had mutual friends like George Keithley, also on the faculty.

svr: Gary Thompson is the current guest judge of this year's Quinton Duval Award as well as last year's feature. As they were both students of yours, can you share or reflect on any experiences you had with these two poets?

svr: Could you elaborate on what you wrote in your foreword to Duval's Like Hay, about how his poems “preserve the small minutes of things, the poetic perishables, and love itself is the chief item with its shine of frequent use illuminating so many of his poems”?

ds: I had taught elsewhere before I came to Sacramento State in 1966, but Gary Thompson was in the first poetry writing class there, so we grew up together.

Quinton came a year or two later. Tom Crawford, who preceded Quinton as a faculty member at Solano, was at Sacramento State about the same time as Gary and Quinton.

Ray Carver sat in on the workshops.

There were several other good writers in the classes. It was a glorious time for poetry on the campus—there was a budget for it, and there was talent to make it happen.

Gary found his poetry early—even then his poems had a pure lyrical directness. At the same time, he found the West Coast/California that would always be his poetry home.

Quinton had a different way to sing—it was a sort of singing, at ease and from the heart (he was ironic about “heart” as a term—he once wrote a poem that featured “heart” several times—when he delivered the poem at readings, he would use a clicker to make a replacement noise every time the word “heart” appeared in the poem). You could see why they were such good friends, and why I delighted in both of them.

For a long time, Quinton and I shot pool and some snooker regularly. We wandered the Delta he loved. When we fished, he complained that he

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ds: Quinton was such a graceful person.

Most of what I could say about his writing I have said in the introduction to Like Hay, his posthumous poetry collection. The poetry is exceptional— intimate without ever sacrificing poetic distancing, that sense of the oracular that poetry always has.

Quinton had so many splendid gestures. He also had an often-exercised sense of irony. For example, he liked to be in cars. Early on, he had an old Nash/American Motors—I think the model was called the Metropolitan— anyway, it was the smallest of the line and he was a large person squeezed in.

On the driver’s door was a large decal of a fish over which his arm, out the window, would wave—as I still see him drive away.

Quinton’s wife Nancy expanded his sense of poetry, coincidentally gave herself as a kind of muse. They were good as a couple for Loretta and me. svr: You were instrumental in the publication of Raymond Carver’s book, Near Klamath. What was that process like? ds: Ray’s first book, maybe call it a chapbook, Near Klamath, was a happy accident. Sacramento State’s English Club (Sarah Phelan, later an instructor at Solano, might have been the Club president then—anyway, she helped arrange

funding) fronted as the publisher. Gerry Helland, who printed and published an alternative on-campus newspaper, The Levee, printed Ray’s book on his off-set press. Gary Thompson and I, and I forget who else, did editorial and grunt work (the books were collated and stapled on our dining room table). I forget how many copies were printed—it sold poorly. The copies are very valuable now.

The poems in Near Klamath are fullblown Ray Carver. Ray was writing and starting to publish the early stories, which eventually were collected in Will You Please Be Quiet Please. At the time, Ray was having a very hard personal but productive writing life. Loretta and I were seeing Ray and Maryann, his first wife; Gary was a good friend to Ray at the same time. Ray wrote however he could—we were of an age when writing was important. Ray and Maryann moved a year or so later so that exchange visits, phone-calls and letters were the only ways we could be together. svr: Since you were the first poet laureate of Sacramento, could you speak to the area, its communities, and how they affect or inform your work? ds: Viola Weinberg and I served as first Sacramento poet(s) laureate. Some of our projects: Third-Mondays-at-theLibrary, The Sacramento Anthology: One Hundred Poems (published by the Sacramento Metropolitan Arts Com-mission), Poetry at the Workplace. We were scheduled to read our own poems for audiences as diverse as the Sacramento City Council and Sacramento County Board of Supervisors, and for students in the usual high school and college classroom situations.

I directed Third-Mondays-at-theLibrary, a lunchtime series of programs featuring readings by the audience on a monthly theme (e.g., love poems in February) I’d assign. The meeting place was Sacramento’s Main (downtown)

Library. I would introduce the monthly program—we had guest speakers addressing the theme, and readings by members of the audience, who would choose favorite poems, not their own, appropriate to the theme.

Viola arranged and directed the Poetry at the Workplace lunch-hour readings and discussions. We visited company workplaces, and places as varied as the Sacramento County offices and the Franchise Tax Board. Viola and I would choose favorite poems to read.

Workers also would read favorite poems—imagine poetry at the Franchise Tax Board.

The collection, The Sacramento Anthology: One Hundred Poems, which Viola and I edited, featured poems about many aspects of Sacramento life. Viola and I selected from a very large stock of submissions. It was a good book, a representative collection—it sold well.

Count the numbers—the anthology shows that Sacramento had at least one hundred poets.

Sacramento Poetry Center is over forty years old, a vital meeting place for generations of poets. There are weekly, maybe daily, readings at venues all over Sacramento. The first decades of our life in Sacramento, I was more involved in the poetry scene because many of the poets about town were or had been students in my classes.

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THE QUINTON DUVAL AWARD IN CREATIVE WRITING p r e s e n t e d b yy s u i s u n v a l l e y r e v i e w

Quinton Duval

Established in 2009 to honor Quinton Duval, Professor Emeritus of English and Creative Writing and long-time faculty advisor to Suisun Valley Review, the Quinton Duval Award in Creative Writing recognizes excellence in the creative work of current students at Solano Community College. Submissions are first juried by the creative writing faculty, and finalists are forwarded to a guest judge who determines the winner and any honorable mention(s).

The winning author has his/her name added to a memorial plaque located in the Solano College Library. In addition, the winner is awarded a monetary sum and will see his/her winning piece published in that year’s issue of Suisun Valley Review. Any honorable mentions may also be published. Submissions are also considered independently for publication in the forthcoming issue of Suisun Valley Review by the current editorial staff.

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ga r y t h o m p s o n guest judge, 2015 Gary Thompson's latest book of poems, One Thing After Another, published by Turning Point, is a collection of six widely different lyrical sequences. It joins four previous collections: To the Archaeologist Who Finds Us, On John Muir's Trail, As for Living, and Hold Fast. For more than twenty-five years, he taught in the Creative Writing Program at CSU, Chico, all the while playing second-base for The Pests, Chico's storied softball team. In 2010, he edited Quinton Duval's posthumous collection of poems, Like Hay, for Bear Star Press. He and his wife, Linda, have lived in the Northwest for fifteen years; six years ago they moved to San Juan Island, bringing their old trawler, Keats, home to the waters they love.

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Elizabeth Campbell

2015 quinton duval award recipient

Elizabeth Campbell is an English major at Solano Community College. A professed late bloomer, E, as she likes to be called, writes poetry from a naturalist’s perspective. She has a strong spiritual faith which informs her lyrical choices. E is married with three almost-grown children. She works full time as a real estate agent and enjoys hiking on her 100 acre ranch.

judge’s comments At first glance, “Winters’ Coming” simply seems a charming fable involving a bluebird and the changing of seasons, but further readings should convince you that there is much more going on here. For starters, it is a richly sensual poem, in both imagery and music. Read the first five lines aloud and you’ll surely hear and feel what I mean by this. The relative lack of punctuation (and reliance on line break to control the pace) helps the poem flow down the page, warm and breathy. Then, the one comma seems to indicate some kind of change, and sure enough, along comes winter’s “cool…cold…drifts of rain” that chill the mood, while increasing the tension about what will happen next to the bluebird and the speaker. And as the poem ends, aren’t we forced back to that enigmatic title, with its plural winters and “coming” as a noun, not the expected verb form? So, “Winters’ Coming” gives us much to enjoy on first reading, while leaving much to ponder as we engage the poem again and again.

Gary Thompson [Guest Judge, 2015] Quinton Duval Award in Creative Writing svr { 60 }

Winters’ Coming

elizabeth campbell winner, 2015 quinton duval award

blue bird knocks on the window sings "let me in" flies into the sheen feathers & feet beak & breath he moves with the season's changing rhythm, warm then cool cool then cold cold then drifts of rain he measures the air its tendrils reaching his lungs opening wide he grips the last taste of autumn before flying away while I stay & sleep through winter's rest his song repeats inside my head "let me in"

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between drinking and drowning is a fine, fine line

dylan youngers honorable mention, 2015 quinton duval award i. this is the water; lower into it your body, your wayward legs after they carry your weight across campus only to falter under the first tree. lying against arbor's skin, gray & brown & gray again, the weight of the world's air on your chest ii.

calf muscles coated in skin young not too strong, air caught under surface & hair all the atmosphere and still you can't breathe. this is the water you will drown in black then blue iii. this, he said, this is the water. take it twice daily.

I was at a party when I forgot my water. a friend, a friend

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handed me a drink, said no, no this is the water, and so I drank it several times Prost

then black again.

Dylan Youngers

2015 quinton duval award honorable mention

Dylan Youngers is a Mathematics major at Solano Community College. His work has been published in the Suisun Valley Review, Poetry Quarterly, theBelleville Park Pages, and other publications. He has been an editor for the Suisin Valley Review in 2012, 2013, and 2014.

judge’s comments

“between drinking and drowning is a fine, fine line” is a drinking song of sorts, albeit one with an overwhelming sense of foreboding. Certainly, the last word, Prost (Cheers! as usually translated from the German), ought to imply a convivial toast to fellow imbibers, but by the time we reach that final line, we have been so subtly immersed in Old Testament feeling, that it’s impossible to join the celebration. The repetition of “this is the water” (Numbers 20:13), and especially the way the phrase evolves in the course of the poem, effectively traces the mood and attitude of the speaker until we reach this decisive moment: “…no, no/ this [emphasis mine] is the water…” and the speaker drinks, an act that seems, in context, a kind of drowning.

Prost, indeed! This is a memorable poem..

Gary Thompson [guest judge, 2015] Quinton Duval Award in Creative Writing

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Emma’s Gift webb johnson

With a sense of duty to our community, and no ready excuse for saying no, I agreed to teach a summer school class for thirteen year olds. My announcement came out in the City Civic Arts Commission Spring and Summer Newsletter:

’SCAPES: LAND AND SEA. LEARN TO DRAW THE WORLD AROUND US. For young artists interested in taking their drawing to a higher level.

Explore a variety of subjects, developing an understanding of form, composition, line, light/shadow, perspective and color.

Tuition: $20 + $15 supply fee due at first class.

INSTRUCTOR: TED WILSON By the middle of June, the required number had signed up: twelve students. *** July 5th, I parked my jeep in the library parking lot and walked up the stairs to the second floor, lugging a dozen canvass totes that my students at Claremont College had designed for me. It had the Civic Arts logo on one side and a silkscreen of Leonardo DaVinci holding a palette and brush staring at a blank canvas saying “Mmmmmm?” on the other side.

I had made sure that chalk, charcoal, sketch paper, colored pencils and the other drawing materials were in the locked classroom, ready to be passed out. It was ten-fortyfive; fifteen minutes early, but four boys and four girls were already waiting near the door to the classroom when I walked up. The boys wore cargo shorts and tees. Three of the girls wore shorts that would have been too short when I was their age, about 20 years ago. The fourth girl, who was standing apart from the group as if she didn’t belong, wore a long print skirt and scratchy looking sweater.

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I said, “Hi. Are you here for Mr. Wilson’s drawing class?” They answered yes, practically in unison, and I said, “Wait here. I’ll see if I can find him.” I

looked around, with all eyes on me, and then said, “Oh. Here I am.”

They responded with the groans my silly greeting deserved, while I unlocked the door, and let everyone in. There were twenty-five desks for just twelve students so I told them to take whatever desk they wanted, first-come-first-served. They all grouped together in the middle of the classroom, except for the thin, red-haired girl in the skirt and sweater who took a desk in the back row.

While they got situated, I put the totes on my desk, unpacked the roll call sheet, and wrote my name on the white board behind my desk.

An email informed that me that all the fees had been sent in, and I did not have to collect any money. I learned that an anonymous donor who called himself or herself Patron of the Arts had paid for Emma Garibaldi. The note went on to say she was staying at Child Protective Services awaiting assignment to a foster family. “Transportation is a problem, so there may be tardiness or missed classes.”

The remaining four students, three girls and a boy, drifted in, greeting their friends as though it had been years, rather than just a couple of weeks, since they had seen them.

I looked over what would be my workspace for two days a week for the next six weeks. There were large second story windows with plenty of north light, and a view of the city park that surrounds the library. I spotted several kinds of trees that would serve well as models for scenery backdrop, or even subjects themselves. An expanse of sky was visible and, with any luck, we would have a variety of summer clouds to talk about and replicate.

At slightly past eleven o’clock, I got attention by tapping the desktop and announcing that it was time for roll call. I told the class my name was Ted Wilson, and that I taught classes at Claremont College of Art and Design. I mentioned that only twelve years earlier I had graduated from the high school they would soon be attending. Blank stares told me the class did not see this as the fascinating connection I had hoped for.

So with that nice try out of the way, I said, “OK, now for roll call. Please say ‘Here’ when I call your name.” I paused, and then said, “Would anyone like me to go over that one more time?”

I smiled and they laughed. The kid who laughed the loudest had a visored cap on his shaggy head and Rawlings baseball mitt on his left hand. I looked at him and said, “So, what’s your name?”

He said, “I’m Eddie Gallagher, and nice goin’ on makin’ it through high school. I sure hope I do.”

I had to chuckle at the way he said it, and the others all roared. I guessed they had been laughing at Eddie’s clowning around for most of their lives. His good humor told me I actually had made a connection and broken down some barriers.

The rest of the kids all answered here when they heard their name, and

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then we passed out the supplies and the tote bags. I saw Emma Garibaldi’s shoulders relax, and at least the beginning of a smile when she realized that there was one for her.

So began that first day. All my students except Emma were from families that took education seriously—even a summer school class that had no academic credits, and no real relevance to career planning. Young students are told that an art class may be useful in developing an appreciation for the finer things. Additionally, that drawing represents an intellectual challenge, and an outlet for creative energy; just what every kid needs, or so they say.

There are no bad reasons for learning, but I always hope for some student who possesses not just a desire for status or a talent for illustration, but that mysterious capability to convey feeling, insight and passion through their art.

Years ago, on a high school field trip to the DeYoung Museum, I got all emotional and weepy-eyed in front of a painting titled Starry Night. Our teacher, Mrs. Havens, seeing my embarrassment said, “It’s OK, Ted. It’s not unusual to see tears in the presence of Van Gogh.” This only ensured that I had the tag Teary Ted hanging on me the rest of the semester and beyond.

Nevertheless, I can still choke up seeing some beautiful leap of imagination or some exquisite surprise. It does not happen often, but it did happen that summer session, and from a wonderfully unexpected source.

I still don’t know how Emma got to our classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but she was always waiting when I arrived, no matter how early. I asked Gayle Snow, one of the popular girls, and she said she had not seen Emma arrive either, but she had heard that her mom was in jail, and nobody knew where her dad was. She said, “I try to be friendly, but she acts like she’s in another world.”

Gayle’s friend, Julia French added, “She’s weird and lives at Juvie, that’s all anyone knows.” I called Julie aside later and said, “Let’s try to make this part of Emma’s life the good part, OK?” Julie did not answer in words but as she walked away, she nodded, telling me that she may not have always been on the bright side of popularity herself, and knew what I meant.

Emma kept her seat in the back row as though being ignored was something to hope for. When I asked to see her work, she leaned forward covering it with her forearms and elbows with her long, rusty-red hair falling across her shoulders. Treating her in any special way only seemed to emphasize her painful dissimilarity, so I limited my communication with her to a good morning smile. I never knew what she was thinking … not until that last day.

The summer went by quickly, and everyone got much better with pencils, chalk and sketchpad. We had a lot of fun in the process, but the last day came at the svr right time. With just a couple of weeks of summer vacation left, my students

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were concentrating on the upcoming challenges of high school and the intrigues of budding puberty; not so much on improving their ability to sketch landscapes.

The final exam was no exam at all. I wanted the last day to be fun. The kids filed in and watched me write the assignment on the white board: Draw a picture of a place you love.

Following a suitable period of wisecracks and joking around, the kids got serious and began thinking and drawing in earnest. We had the room until two o’clock, so I told them to take all the time they wanted.

I walked around, watching the drawings develop, seeing the fruits of my labor. The kids doing seashores employed a method for realistic looking breakers and waves that I had taught early on. The rolling, grassy hills all had some version of the bending dirt road and lonely tree I had used for demonstration. Billy Simmons drew a fine spreading oak tree employing techniques for bark and leaves that we had discussed in session four.

The students had learned well, but they were drawing places they loved to draw, rather than places they loved to be. I had hoped to see what came from the heart, as well as from the head and the hand.

Then, I saw Eddie Gallagher’s pencil sketch baseball yard, complete with a backstop and dugouts. Excellent! Gayle did a postcard view of Mt. Diablo using a photo from her iPhone for reference. Not too bad, at all.

Emma was absorbed in her work, using every item in her art supplies tote. What I knew of her life seemed so hard, with no rewards, no joys, no family or friends to counterbalance the hurts. I was dying to see what had come to mind that she was working on so diligently.

Time was up and I walked around the room commenting. The drawing quality ranged from not bad to good, to damn good: all except for Emma’s…hers was sublime.

She stood up, hesitated for just a second, and then walked to the front of the class holding her 14X16-sketch paper masterpiece. With everyone quiet and watching, she held it up like a gift.

It was neither a landscape nor a seascape. It was the interior of a room employing perfect lines and vanishing points. North light streamed in from large windows creating soft shadows and depth. Trees and clouds were visible through the windows. A bouquet of pastels showed stylized figures of her classmates hunched over their work. At the front of the room, she had drawn a whiteboard with the assignment I had written two hours earlier. It was just a scrawl, with “love” the only word clear and legible.

I had intended to say something to the class that would sum up our pleasurable time together, but my teary eyes told my students all they needed to know about Art.

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A Cat

satomi richardson

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medium

The Interview shaindel beers

In the wealthy, suburban Starbucks with the stone fireplace and parquet floors, the woman recognizes me from my picture, pats the chair next to her. We small talk, size each other up. Out of nowhere, she says, I think of young women like you as a present for my husband. I picture myself as a gift– being gifted. I am an object to be unwrapped, opened, slipped into for a fortieth birthday.

She is stunning. Her hair, the pale yellow of butter. Eyes, sky blue. I picture Disney villains—the ones whose only crime is being replaced, growing old. The wicked queen’s sharp cheekbones. Almond eyes. How she is more beautiful than Snow White will ever be.

Maleficent, magnificent, with both dragon and fire inside. The scene where Cinderella’s stepmother’s eyes glow green in the dark.

Wolf Woman, something beyond human that Cinderella someday might be. She tells me about ice climbing. Kicking the crampons just right into the frozen waterfall. In other lives, I’ve loved the creaks and groans of ice breaking, the heart-stopping whoosh of snowslide. She presses a slip of paper into my palm. She says it can be for anything. I want to be snow princess aging to ice queen. She is crystalline, blue-veined at the temples. Fine lines just starting at the eyes.

Is this better than the poisoned apple? Following the huntsman into the woods? Just different?

We murmur our awkward goodbyes. In the parking lot, my warming car, I tear her number into flakes, so I will not call it. Let it dissolve on my tongue.

Imagine her entering my each and every cell.

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The Problem of Ethically Lowering King Kong Down the Empire State Building tom holmes

Planes with guns, of course, are not in our plans, but someone mentioned a ladder.

A ladder to reach the antenna would have to be taller than the Empire State Building, which becomes a storage problem, too, even one of those fold-up ladders with the draw string running down the middle, which would have to be twice as long as the ladder it unleashes, and who would be strong enough to draw it out to full extension except for King Kong, who’s out of reach and who we are trying to save in the most ethical manner.

If only he had Rapunzel’s hair to let down so someone could tie it to the upper rung and Kong himself could pull the ladder to its fullest potential, then he could save himself one step at a time, and if he missed a rung on his way down, then the fault is in his paws and we are ethically absolved.

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Blurbs

john casquarelli

recede recirculate ravage recover remember shards of what’s been broken lopsided like a grin on the edge of a grimace on a tightrope despite the verbal giddiness from love to cellphones in their brilliant erotic nervosity the lineaments careen across the obliterated line of some grand narrative noting the impermanence of every passing sequence beyond the seen in this belonging that floats on an Eros of sweat secretion salt street notice and be noticed between celestial and everyday auras of holy graffiti and pyrotechnics the background hum of a perpetual present in the interior music of vowels in the changing tempo of form in the supple control of freedom a kind of Joycean undersong

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Charlie, Entrepreneur ruben rodriguez

I sold salmon eggs to other boys who hoped to impress their fathers and mothers with sea monkeys the size of real monkeys. Like a dirty joke, the boys took the eggs home, rummaged through kitchen cabinets for glass cups. Once filled with water, they let the speckled pink spheres sink to the bottom. I told them that all they needed to do was jerk-off in the water and watch their dreams come true.

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Phonetically Drunk armando quiros

Each key whispers the deft stroke of a subconscious note; tender like Taffeta spread, words that befall From my mind’s tongue to your Pout lips–a delightful libation of Synthetic absinthe ; emerald gold To a gem encrusted chalice. I sip, I chug, I tumble, in the sweet aroma of your stiff ethanol. You elicit new Vocabulary, phoneme.

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trina l. drotar

Guanaluha Rising

In Peaceful Air brandon hood

the fuchsian flow becomes her robe’s train, ascending skyward toward sandy locks as olive skin glimmers coral streaks. around her feet, a dance of flame recedes, bled to edges of an endless canvas yet, smiling, she blows indigo kisses. the vast blue expanse arises, swallowing light, through shade and shadow sinks, disappearing into the deep. the sister-twin emerges from mountains, no longer hidden – consoling pale snow skin gives off an emberglow – her nightgown flickers remnants of the inferno, doused nigh to ash. in solitude she slowly turns for one last view before, obscured by the morn, retreats silently into the hills. parting darkness, vermilion streams flood into rose-petals misting up from crystal depths and parallel worlds below, bringing the fiery lady once again face-to-face, a twinkle in her eye – oh to dream of where she’s been – oh to chase the azure sky.

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Resonate rory ibarra

Tarek’s apartment was, as always, cloaked in the heavy stench of incense, though its source was a mystery to me. When Tarek spoke, he did so without any trace of accent of his homeland.

“Mr. Kurtis, a pleasure to see you again.”

I grasped his hand. “Tarek.”

I took my usual place on his worn-out couch and set a 5,000 dollar note on the coffee table before me. Tarek replaced it with a small wooden box carved with intricate patterns of a long dead language. His “forgotten medicine” as he liked to call it.

He took a seat on a stool opposite me and undid the clasps of the box. He withdrew a small, metallic instrument akin to a tuning fork and set it aside. This was followed by a hammer that fit comfortably between thumb and forefinger. I watched, muscles taut, as he did this with smooth, precise motions.

“You are tense. Shall I brew something to help you relax?”

“No thanks,” I forced out. “I’m fine.”

The last item to come out of the box was a statue carved in the likeness of a robed man wearing a mask. The eyeholes went so deep; the light couldn’t penetrate their depths. Tarek called this an effigy of “those who see all.” He closed the lid of the box and set it on top, facing me. The height of the box combined with how far I sunk into the cushion put its eyes on a level with mine.

“Relax,” he said, picking up the instrument and hammer.

My heart thudded in anticipation.

“And focus.” He struck the instrument. A high-pitched clang filled the apartment.

When I thought it couldn’t get any louder, Tarek stuck it again and again, beating out a steady rhythm. It was as if sound itself had been absent from the world and came flooding back now.

It assaulted my senses, entered my head not just through my ears but through every pore it could find. My brain exploded in pain. I wanted nothing more than to squeeze my eyes shut, but I kept them open wide, focused on the representation of “those who see all.”

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I stared into its eyes. Gone was the impenetrable blackness. In its place were scenes playing out, all with one thing in common. Me.

Me, talking to a friend when he first told me of Tarek. Me, walking alone through the city. Me, at the funeral of the only person who was family to me. Me, getting used to a world both foreign and familiar. Me, waking up in the hospital after they found me in a gutter left for dead. And me, standing before– I lurched forward, gasping. Droplets of blood fell to the carpet. I placed two fingers to my nose; they came away red. Tarek handed me a kerchief.

“I am so sorry, Mr. Kurtis.” He had already packed away the statue. The instrument and hammer followed.

“What are you doing?” I managed. My voice shook with anger. “I was close that time. If I had even one more second–” “Such musings are poison to the mind. You know how it works. I want my patients to succeed where they have failed, but not when the cost is too great. I hope to see you again soon, Mr. Kurtis.”

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Sakura Blossoms armando quiros

Sakura blossoms an ephemeral delight; the trees toasting foam

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Landscape

desiree allyn

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Kindling ashley mitchell

Perhaps he'd always been an arsonist. Not of anyone's home: Nothing anyone had built love into the walls of. But he'd always found himself starting small fires around their small bundle of rotten sticks and fetid grudges – just to see if she'd put them out.

Samuel just never thought of himself as the kind of man to chase that fire.

What he'd thought was an island of moss gave away under his footstep—and as he caught his breath in a jolt, something putrid and smelling strongly of sulfur stung his throat.

“Please watch your step, Mister,” said a high pitched croak.

Samuel set his soaked foot behind him, back where the marsh was slightly more solid. Peeking up at him from under the murky, green water were two large, amphibious eyes, spaced widely apart above an equally broad mouth. They blinked, then were slowly wiped with filmy, cataracts of lids before ducking back under the water.

Samuel had never been too fond of Drakes. They never seemed to have the best of timing in all the few encounters he'd shared.

With a soft splash, the Drake resurfaced, pulling himself with his webbed hands and toddler arms onto a sunken log, wringing his red hat of dark swamp water. “Oh,” he said, his hoarse voice seeped in disappointment. “A human? You must be looking for a fae.”

Samuel's ears burned as hot as the thick ball of spit he forced himself to swallow.

“Yeah. Have you seen her?”

The Drake adjusted his cap onto his fat head, his large, bulging eyes latched onto a floating piece of wood rather than his company. “Ignoring that 'her' could refer to just about anyone here—I'm not allowed to say. You know faeries well enough to know that. You're here, after all. You must know how we work, then.” The Drake stopped suddenly—his tongue quickly darted out, and he gobbled up the half-rotten timber that had finally come into his reach. He rubbed any remaining bits of bark from his wide lips and asked, “How long have you been here, sir? Have you eaten anything? I surely hope not...”

Samuel's lips parted, and he adjusted his step only to have his foot suddenly sink enough to startle him out of thinking. His recollection of time was one of svr smoke, of hot air meeting and rejecting the cool touch of boggy waters. It { 80 }

couldn't have been that long. She'd only run into the woods that evening, hadn't she?

But then, she'd always had a talent of interfering with Samuel's time and space. Her presence was one of crackling fireworks, drawing blood to his cheeks and fighting words to his tongue. Yet all the same, when she'd gone, his eyes always watched and waited on the lines of the horizon for the glow of her return. She was his sunset – and all the same, his sunrise.

The Drake waxed his face with a long stroke of his back foot, his skin loose, but tacky. “Well if you don't know, I fear I have no time to help you. My housemaster, you see, he needs me to dry this wood as soon as possible for the house's foundation.”

Samuel's teeth gritted, then began to grind. For something in a supposed hurry, the Drake sure spoke a lot.

“I promised his wife, you see. Those bean sith keep eating at their foundation.

They're a jealous, jealous fae, you know, and I'm sure you know what happens to a marriage when jealous—” “I don't care about your problems. I need to find her.”

The Drake puffed an offended billow of dark smoke out his nose. He hopped back into the black, brackish water of the bog, his eyes staring unblinking just above the water line.

“Then you know how I feel about your problems, sir.”

With a bright snap of light, the air smelt the strongest of ash and old eggs since the Drake's first appearance.

And Samuel was, again, alone in the grayness.

“That's fine!” Samuel shouted. “I can find her on my own, you know!”

But there was no one to answer but an echo. Nothing but the faint glow of yellow lights in the distance—and Samuel's legs happily splashed into the water to follow what he hoped was a sunrise.

svr { 81 }

Time to Eat thomas king

Malevolent pixies sprinkled poison glitter on the unicorns of disobedience.

The supposed mythical beasts succumbed to the pretty flakes of neurotoxin.

Rows of pairs of opaque eyes— a buffet—for a murder of dark chocolate crows and a building of sharp-billed rooks .

svr { 82 }

Decisions, Decisions shawn aveningo

The red stilettos screamed from the closet – PICK ME, we haven’t been dancing in ages.

It was springtime, late April, and she was feeling flirty and light, as she reached for the pink pumps with white satin bows on the toes.

She could hear her black suede loafers scoffing at her choice – It’s a work day for Pete’s sake, and you have that big presentation before the board of trustees.

She recalls how her mother taught her – Always wear clean underwear, just in case you’re in a car accident.

So she changes her mind. Slips into red stilettos.

The black shoes are left to binge on pizza all day, while the pink pumps write a new poem.

After all, it’s the red shoes she’d prefer to be buried in.

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The Real Mailman andrew mccutcheon

The apocalypse arrived earlier this week with little fanfare.

It was actually just a couple of squirrels chattering on a branch overhead.

You probably missed it. I took notes for everyone. It’s strange, living in a post-apocalyptic world. There are little things you have to look for. The tea kettle whistles differently, and I still miss the microwave’s original ding.

Also, the mailman is no longer the mailman. I haven’t opened a letter from him all week. The possibilities are just too exhausting. Soon the mail slot will be full and I’ll have lost my claim on this world. My house: a bad black camera nursing its spiders.

Eventually, I’ll have no choice but to reemerge, dressed as the real mailman, tasked with the great burden of delivering those lucky souls marked with the zip codes of another world.

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Hand in Hand

jared boston

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Wonders

christopher mulrooney

giraffe walking slowly down the avenue camel eyes down from the horns and merry punim or equanimous

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Two Bulls Were Walking Down the Interstate a.j. huffman

and, no, it wasn’t the beginning of some inappropriate joke.

It was a Tuesday, and I was in the middle of a snow-kissed nowhere, freezing my tailpipe off while me and a couple dozen other unfortunates waited for the powers-that-be to play cowboy, attempt to wrangle these random horned beasts that had decided snow-plowed pavement was imminently preferable to the flatbeds of their currently incapacitated transports.

I yawned, watched the condensation gather on the inside of my windshield, imagined I was someplace warmer. In the distance, a half-hearted moo signaled the containment of one migrant roamer and the beginning of a glacial paced movement as we all inched our vehicles forward. As the strange scene faded into my rear view mirror, I pondered on the lack of honking and screeching profanities. Could it have been a respect for the powerful creatures that held us with nothing more than their silhouette and lack of desire to accelerate? Or was it fear of drawing the empty black stare of something that could choose to wear us as hood ornament?

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{ 88 }

svr

allen wyly

Blown Away

For the Past Twenty-Four Hours ace boggess

the cicada has lain white-belly up on my patio inches from the verdant summer lawn between imprisoned wildflowers & the planter where I snuff my cigarettes it resembles a dead minnow or child’s rubber whale abandoned on the playground I move to kick the corpse aside & its dead wings buzz like a bill-counting machine as if to tell me death too is an illusion startled I step back & watch as invisible sprites drag the body in a semi-circle I don’t know cicada biology well enough to understand this (or at all) certain only that ten thousand cousins lay siege each night with their ten thousand voices loud as an air-raid siren & here I am about to murder their god again without first kneeling for a better look

svr { 89 }

The Vertical Moment tom holmes

When he could not measure, he would weave with a slide rule, dashing as a shuttle.

With three-hundred-sixty woolen hemispheres, he was wrapped up in looming new worlds.

We unmade our beds and slept on their corners.

We dreamed longitudes and woke to latitudes.

In the morning, he turned us to where the sun first rose then where the moon last set.

He showed us the curve to east-west and the gentle bending away of stars.

svr { 90 }

Mapping the Boundaries, Sharing the Sky tobi cogswell

Cleggan has a Texas sky today, a wary countenance, her horizon dissolved in a wash of squinting distance.

In Texas the mountains stand so far beyond, they seem like islands wearing a frayed sleeve of sun.

In Cleggan they are islands, far and full of story.

There’s a common blue heaven swollen with dirty cloud.

It waits for the cross-hatch of rain to resound over fields, rutted and boundaried with local rock, the work of summer sons and back-bent fathers.

Texas storms vanish telephone wires, pump-jacks, lines marking the two-way, the daring resolve of a trucker leaning toward home, toward his woman, or somebody else’s woman, who keeps a frayed seat waiting at the bar, quarters ready for the jukebox and a soft hand to wipe the warm sweat from his cold glass.

Rumor has it that pirate Grace O’Malley carried knives.

Wild woman with hair of lust and heartbreak, she carved many a tattoo on soldier and slave. Texas women nod to her memory when tucking daggers— a quick slice marks faster than a Peregrine catches prey, and they will do it.

Cleggan is a Texas sister today. Lie in the scent of ozone and sea. Watch shorebirds volley through dusky light.

Greet silent hawks as they climb over cutbank and willow. Green is green anywhere, but a Texas sky is scarcely shared. And daggers rarely seen.

svr { 91 }

Mapping

trina l. drotar

Next to the tracks where the westbound freight train rumbled and the engineer pulled the whistle once, twice, three times, and where the eastbound passenger train cruised towards its next station was a once bright red/yellow/blue striped chair.

Next to the chair situated behind two dumpsters from which squeaks and mewls could be heard and which bore words in a language familiar and ancient was a child’s bright orange bucket and three leggy, perfectly formed white carnations.

Next to the bucket just around the corner from a market with signs offering cigarettes, beer, bread, deli sandwiches, bait and directions to the nearest church, library, boat ramp and large city was a woman dressed not for church, not for fishing, not for selling.

The woman, her gray hair frizzing from the weight of the morning mist, was shrouded by dense fog. Her long skirt patched and patched again like Japanese boro textiles. Patches within patches, all stitched to protect the base, form a new and stronger fabric.

She offered carnations to passersby, if any ventured to that spot by the tracks, near the market, behind the dumpsters. The carnations she grows and harvests from a garden she keeps where cats and chickens and peacocks and dogs frolic are available only in white.

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Flowers I

cleber jose pacheco

medium

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Gaslight

anita nygren

On the corner of Fifth Street adjacent to Croce's restaurant gaslights come on at dusk.

Lascivious Orchids, Tulips, Sunflowers, Peonies, and Periwinkles begin to grow to sway and stir.

In their purple leather mini's, pink fuzzy jackets, dark fish-net stockings, periwinkle thigh-high boots.

Intertwine with tourists to seduce the stranger the business man alone.

Family strolls by baby asleep in father's embrace mother trails behind each step a burden towards a destination no heed taken.

Their appearance intrigues only the interested kind into the abyss. Flowers need the sun, fresh air night people crave the dark only to sell their wares.

svr { 94 }

Sunflowers pam s. dunn

Driving through the California wine

At the local inn, Vincent composes a letter

country’s terraced hillsides reminded Hope

to his brother asking for money to continue

of France and Tuscany, the late morning

his work. In exchange, he intends to send

sunlight painting the fading grape leaves

several recently dried canvases. “Put them

yellow and crimson. After the summer’s

on stretchers,” he writes, even though

heat, Hope found it peaceful and

nothing has sold. Vincent wipes his

welcoming. The surrounding hillsides

forehead with a handkerchief, there is much

gleamed like burnished gold, everything

to say. A trek he has made with Paul

hazy in the ocean fog, the grass turning

Gauguin into the countryside seems part of

green in the fall rains, oak knolls rising here

a dream.

and there.

“But if only you had been with us on

On the left, she spotted a wooden shop at

Sunday, when we saw a red vineyard, all

the side of the road promising everything

red like red wine. In the distance it turned

organic. Just as she pulled into the parking

to yellow, and then a green sky with the sun,

lot, the cell phone inside her purse jingled.

the earth after the rain violet, sparkling

The number belonged to her ex-husband.

yellow here and there where it caught the

Hope turned the phone off.

reflection of the setting sun.”

Near the front, small round tables and

Drinking from a half-empty wine bottle,

wrought iron chairs conveyed a French

the painter contemplates A Still life with Fruit

atmosphere, as did the smell of lavender and

which he has propped on the wooden table.

homemade soaps. Sunflowers covered the

Earlier, attempting clair sur claire (light on

walls. Display racks held lotions, books on

light), he added the white grapes that

the area, imported chocolates, gourmet

clustered above the other fruit like

cheeses, and wine from the local vineyards.

glistening pearls. Pears, apples, lemons

Looking for cottage art, Hope browsed the

dappled yellow, with traces of red, orange,

stack of framed posters in the rear, finding

and green. So much raw ochre. Now away

reproductions of French wine ads and

from the paint fumes, he thinks, unlike the

coastal landscapes. “All out of

sunflowers that bear his signature, the

sunflowers?” she called to the man

canvas is too muddy. Everything after the

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emerging from the shop’s work area.

sunflowers appears to have been painted in a dimmer light, whereas the sunflowers

“For now,” he said, wiping his hand on a towel. “They go as fast as we get them in.”

She retrieved a Van Gogh still life. Pears,

burst forth from darkness with a shattering brilliance.

Vincent adds in his letter to his brother,

apples, and lemons immersed in yellow, with

“To get up enough heat to melt those golds,

traces of red, orange, and green. White

and the tones of those flowers—it’s not

grapes hung above the other fruit like

everyone that can do it, it takes the energy

glistening pearls. She found the painting

and concentration of a person’s whole

absorbing, but it could not compare with

being.”

Vincent’s sunflowers.

When the mistral wind forced him The man was tall and good looking. He

indoors, in a maniac frenzy Vincent finished

wore his graying hair in a ponytail. “A Still-

four sunflower paintings. The last was the

life with Fruit.” He gave it an appreciative

boldest of all, depicting yellow flowers in a

look. “Great choice.”

yellow jug against a yellow wall. It was then that Gauguin arrived and painted a

Hope straightened. “It’s not like his

portrait of Vincent, The Painter of

sunflowers, the way those golds catch the

Sunflowers. After a violent disagreement

eye. Still, I love the colors—it takes a

over art, Vincent lost part of his ear and

person’s whole being to paint like that.”

Paul deserted him.

“Are you a painter?” he asked.

At the Paris art exhibit, a Scottish art dealer posed for him, his small soft face that

“Yes, I paint still lifes.” Doing what she

of a rodent, soft around the edges, with a

loved seemed a distant concept since she

squirrel’s sad eyes. While not a

had not picked up a brush since college.

disagreeable companion, the Scot had no

She reminded herself, during his short life,

love of Impressionists. Still he ordered a

Van Gogh sold one painting. While other

bottle of expensive wine, and set it before

Impressionists achieved fame, Van Gogh

Vincent. Later, drunk and in bad temper,

had wanted only the Oeuvre, the

Vincent told this man, who did not paint but

culmination of his personal vision.

could command the lives of those who did, he should be more concerned about the

The man set the towel aside near the cash register. “Most of the artists here paint en

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painter and less about the paintings.

plein air. With so many incredible views, nobody bothers with sunflowers.”

“Merde!” A fellow painter fumed at the exhibit. “Everything is yellow! I don’t know what painting is anymore!”

“But you like them,” she said.

Saliva thickens Vincent’s tongue, the wine “I like sunflowers,” he admitted, studying

makes him thirsty. Most of his paintings

her slender, attractive figure. “You make

are on his brother’s walls or in the care of

me think of sunflowers.”

his friend Tanguy who does not store them properly.

Hope smiled, a pale arousal. “I think Vincent preferred working outdoors.

There is only bad wine to drink, and it is

Although his vineyards look sadly

so hot, he fears he might combust. His taste

neglected.”

buds stir at the memory of good vintages.

The drink makes him sentimental about his

The man agreed. “Van Gogh’s orchards

friend. It is idiotic for two painters to live

are far more expressive. There was a wine

alone— He must send for Paul, yes, it is a

blight in France during that time. An aphid

long journey, he will need funds.

from America found its way overseas and the grapes in France had no immunity.”

“When my friend arrives, you must serve us better wine.” He waves the bottle of bad

He told her he was the owner of the orchard and then recounted his journey into

wine he’s certain is poisoning him at the tavern owner.

the vineyard every day, watching the vines emerge from the soil, his concern with the

The man clears his throat and twists his

grapes’ knotting branches and leafy bowing

hands in front of his apron. A bandage

clusters. His hands became animated, as he

covers the side of his patron’s head. The

described weeding and unearthing worms

painter’s worn white hat and accusing eyes

and insects, and then lifting and tying limbs

stare out, his features appear fractured.

onto poles.

“Ah, monsieur, we all long for good wine Caught in his vision, Hope smelled the

pressed from French grapes. What is good

loamy soil, saw the first shoots that formed

if the vines can no longer be grown from the

the grape stock’s leaves and stems.

root? They must be graphed, yes, with American stock. So small an insect—what

“We produce our own wine.” He selected the bottle and held it out. The label

terrible things it can do.” He shrugs, raises his arms in a helpless gesture.

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featured a goat in front of a bucolic French

The painter pours another drink, returns

chateau. The chateau’s garden was

the bottle to the tabletop. He stretches his

bordered with sunflowers. He used the term

legs, the rush seat beneath him groans and

“we” which, disappointingly, suggested a

settles, as he contemplates the productive

wife or perhaps a live-in companion.

years. Portraits, landscapes of Arles, still lifes with apples and lemons. Both he and

“Would you like to try a glass?” he asked.

Hope liked the Chardonnay and ordered a

Paul were working steadily.

Vincent blames himself for his temper, a

quiche for brunch. While spreading

madness which predisposes him to hate

flavored goat cheese on French bread, she

even his friends. “If we put aside all

stretched her legs and took in the view.

ambition, we can live together for years without ruining ourselves one way or

“So, are you visiting?” the man asked,

another.”

as he refilled her glass.

He pours himself another drink. The “At the moment,” she said.

wine’s muddy color is not the rich carmine he describes to his brother. He has not

“Family?”

“Daughter grown. My ex-husband and I

eaten this day, nor does he care to.

Where Gauguin has succeeded, he has

are working through the financial details.”

failed, condemned to enact the role of a

Having left Hope for a younger woman, her

madman. He will soon return to St. Remy,

husband expected her to settle for nothing.

to the asylum. And yet he dreads this.

With no career prospects, she might as well have a terminal disease. “It’s too bad I

The wine separates into the grapes that

majored in art instead of mobile app

have formed it—diluted colors that swirl

design.”

before his eyes.

“It’s difficult to be a Van Gogh these days,” the owner says.

In the asylum the other men drove him to distraction. He could not shut out their wrecked faces or their screams. The small

“It was difficult being Van Gogh when Van Gogh was alive,” she laughed.

cubicles were separated by hangings, nuns going to and fro like ghosts, a single stove for heating. It was not the place for a

He said he was divorced and had a teenage

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painter, even one as sick as he. He must

son. “You might call what I’m doing here a

create his Oeuvre. He must not waste time

new beginning.”

staring at ceiling rafters.

She’d discovered a fellow seeker, who’d

There is a brothel nearby and a woman.

found the unmarked turnoff that was seldom

Vincent rubs his temple, recalling a dark

traveled. For Hope, it was the light that

wine cellar with the doors standing open,

would take its color from the sea, but quiet

the awful momentary vision his mind’s eye

was also necessary. Except for the seagull’s

captured. Men with lights running back and

cry and the tide breaking on the shore, there

forth in the dark vault. An extraordinary

would be no sound. The phone would not

vision that possesses him.

ring. There would be no knock at the door, no intruders or well-meaning friends.

“Every day I take the remedy that the incomparable Dickens prescribes against

“I’m taking a beach rental for now,” she

suicide. It consists of a glass of wine, a

said. “While I decide what to do with my

piece of bread with cheese, and a pipe of

life.”

tobacco.”

The man emerged from behind the green

Vincent wonders if this night will form

marble counter bearing her order, with a

yet another dark cavern he must paint

smile. “Maybe you’ll visit us again.”

himself out of.

“I’d like that.” She lifted her glass to the

“There is unintended tragedy in still

light and imagined herself in her special

lifes,” he tells the innkeeper. “As I paint

place. The wind would rise in a sudden

them, the flowers die.”

gust, rattle the floor boards, and then settle into nothing. The low sun would turn

orange, catch fire, and sink into the dark waters. The Van Gogh would hang on the wall, she would sit in a rocking chair, sip a glass of wine, and watch the light play against its surface.

In the perfect silence, a scream would be impossible.

svr { 99 }

July in Fresno patrick fontes

Summers in Fresno where sunbeams pierce like stray bullets shot between window blinds targeting sticky victims burning naked flesh inside bedrooms

at 8am. Down an East Side street a frail old Methodist lady with sun-spotted hands double bolts doors against the enemy her home a fortress against the sun and the other. She lines up ice tea containers in her kitchen arsenal preparing for the coming battle.

Fans rotate in every room buzzing whizzing whirling a metallic cacophony. Beaded sweaty brow by 10am she

rocks away the day by looking out her window at the bare-breasted tattooed cholos who overtook her neighborhood two-decades past. One hand on her phone the other lazily gumming prunes with wet shaking fingers she rocks back and forth waiting to call the cops.

Summers in Fresno where every year all forget previous

Julys declaim shaking fists to heaven this is the hottest year ever. Sipping ice-cold beer on porches cursing their lives and this ‘dirty ass hot town.’ Brain cells shrivel like slugs on hot concrete turning men into violent beasts. Blood boils down Blackstone Avenue where thirsty dying trees line curbs like Satan’s driveway. Heat wave tricksters dance across scorched tarred stages tease of ocean tides. Lies.

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Summers in Fresno where beer flows, cocaine snows and heroine shows the tracks of her tears at the methadone clinic. Undead toothless phantoms reek of rancid meat

swarming with the flies of life’s regrets. Opium-laced oozing body odor dances with smog as homeless waifs shuffle down Belmont Avenue begging shirtless glazed by a thick sweaty sheen with three shopping carts in tow and a skinny Chihuahua who does tricks for drug money.

Where life-wearied hookers along Motel Drive wear plaster masks hiding meth’s soul murder. Tiny skirts release

reeking caverns plastered by the north side councilman’s dried sperm from district two. Fleshy doorways into AIDS oblivion while singing it’s a small world after all.

Summers in Fresno when sunset rays filter farmers’ airborne dust clouds into apocalyptic skies. Eerie stage curtains to gun fights in the East Side. Blood runs thick down

the theater aisles. Audiences briefly gasp then forget until the next night’s talking head report.

Wild West ghosts possess Southside actors. Cowboy cops with cocksure smirks and bellies bulging over tight-waisted leather belts hunt posse-like for Indian Chicanos. Sirens blare through microwaved nights twisted lullabies for babies, roaches, and homies in County closing their eyes imagining the thrill of the chase.

svr { 101 }

Charlie Rounds Them All ruben rodriguez

As a child, my parents charged me with the raking of leaves. I often wondered why the lot of them never dropped at once, or why on television, piles of leaves always came in perfect round mounds, golden-orange, and airy. I never achieved a perfect dome. My leaves were always wet and smeared with mud, infested by spiders and other crawlers, never an autumn hue, only a brown disappointment.

svr { 102 }

Homeward tobi cogswell

At the end of a millennium-weary multi-textured pier stacked water to walking-quay with buckets and creels stands the pub.

You enter from a walkway of polished river stones to the scent of local chowder and dark wood, a pool table and posters for ales extinct before your birth.

You barely notice the bus at the corner, cars rushing by on its other side. A fair likeness of the Interstate waiting to carry you south to the next town you hope welcomes you.

Bread and soup later, a pint of Harp for balance, you head toward the bus, climb into its weathered splendor, focus out the window—your task to remember those things for which there is no time to take a photograph.

Such green. So much decrepit beauty. A living Gothic romance.

Wildly hanging moss climbs on shells of buildings barely visible at lake-edge, hawks grace the sky. The bus threads its straight, modern path. You are poised one foot in the past, one in the future, afraid to blink, unwilling to leave even one memory behind.

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The Arc Lamp ace boggess

amber on a darkly misted street penumbral like a second moon starry-eyed satellite under which young lovers walk their tiny dogs they stop beneath you for a kiss wearing bleak hats to mock the rain so far to go on a blank road with memory to guide them & scents of sizzled pork & cheese from the pizza wagon parked by the curb its driver lost & smoking out a window regretting his choices on these avenues of dim

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308-254-4064

david j. thompson

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Light ciara shuttleworth

and what is left of summer moves easily from east to west, east to west, as I stand still at the window, bathed in the prisms’ rainbows, then neon, and again. Days and all that comes: laundry that is never really clean in this rusty water, produce tarted and reshelved, envelopes that come unglued in the heat, our thousand mile view of each other, backyards and freeways and backyards and airstrips and more backyards. My phone rings, a siren, the end-of-workday buzzer at the factory of routine.

If I answer, I have to know.

From here, my back to the noise, sun yellowing all that surrounds me, you could burn and I could stand forever washed in the light of oblivion.

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Mother May I taylor graham

Rosy stands at the barnyard fence; her just-born speckled lamb totters to his feet. Against all rules, the ewe moves farther away.

In morning dim before dawn I find him by following his bleats.

Mother may I? Again she moves away.

Has her lamb ever gotten close enough to nurse?

Rosy on her imaginary shifting safe-line; her newborn wobbly in pursuit.

End of this lamb-child’s game.

I measure out sweet colostrum on his tongue, offer milk from a rubber nipple. He tugs like his life depends on it.

He presses into my morning.

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Gentle Sin natalie francel-stone

It was easy to lie back on the grassy lawn under the sprawling wisteria vine that always reminded him of Ethan. It was almost bullshit, how cliché the damned thing was, sitting here bold as balls, choking the life outta some poor tree while everyone oohed and aahed over how fuckin’ pretty it was. You know how those wisteria are; getting into everyone’s shit, impossible to kill. Breathtakingly beautiful. Ethan’s favorite shade of ridiculous purple. James didn’t glance over, staring stubbornly at the clouds in the sky.

“Nice day,” James said softly. His voice was rough, but it had been rough since… well, since. Just didn’t have much to say to anyone. Ever. He didn’t get an answer, but he expected that.

“Look… I know I fucked up, I shouldn’ta left you alone there, you got every right to rip my ass,” James began, and it sounded stupid and awkward, like he’d practiced it in front of a mirror. Which he had, hadn’t he? No use in denyin’ it. And Ethan would know, because Ethan knew James. Knew every tense line of muscle, every strangled nightmare, every gasping breath of ecstasy… every roar of anger… James huffed in frustration and threw his arm over his eyes, his banged-up watch Ethan gave him on their first anniversary glinting in the sun.

“Goddammit Eth, you know I’m no good at this apology shit, okay? I didn’t want us to end, all right? And I know I got no right to think you’d ever want me back in any universe, but I can’t fuckin’ stand it! I can’t fuckin’ stand that you might think I didn’t love you more than my own goddamned soul, okay, because I did. I do. Damn lot of good it does me now, since I never fucking said it when it mattered,” he blurted out into the stony silence.

James heaved a heavy sigh and sat up, not even knowing why he came here today, not knowing why he kept coming here, week after week. All he was doing was torturing himself. Nothing would change, and he fucking knew it. He tugged at a vine of wisteria, wrapping it around his finger and glaring at it, offended that it had the audacity to bloom on so cheerfully with its careless perfume and frilly petals, acting like the world was a good place and not a fucking pit filled with shit and hate. He broke off a blossom and stared at it a minute, still not looking over, and his chest felt like someone was sitting on it. It did every time he came to this place.

“Ethan…” Dammit, now his throat was getting tight again, and James swallowed hard three times, tired of how this went, every damn time. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I fucked up, I’m sorry I fucked you over, I’m sorry I ruined the best thing that ever happened to either of us, and I’m sorry I didn’t get there in time.”

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James sighed, and scrubbed at his eyes with the back of his hand, finally looking over at Ethan, where he sat in his wheelchair, as always. James draped the wisteria blossom over the armrest of the wheelchair so Ethan could smell it, and snorted a humorless laugh, because Ethan would have called him a sentimental idiot, and told him to get a fucking grip on himself, and hey, grab him a cup of coffee while you’re up, and for fuck’s sake, don’t put whiskey in it this time, asshole.

James got up clumsily and kissed the top of Ethan’s shaved head briefly, just a feather-light touch of his lips. There was no response as Ethan stared at nothing with dead eyes, his bony body with its atrophied muscles bundled warmly in a thick cardigan, a quilt tucked over his lap. There would never be a response again, no matter how many scars them damned surgeons put on Ethan’s skull, trying to piece him back together after what those fucking freaks did to him in the attack.

Faggot and pervert, they’d called Ethan. They called him a monster, as they bashed him against the pavement. A fucking monster. Not Ethan. Maybe James, but not Ethan. He was good and pure and James didn’t fucking deserve him, but if Ethan heard him say that, he’d just tell James to shut the fuck up, smiling that half-cocked smirk of his as he kissed the frown from James’ lips.

“Anyway… I just wanted to see you,” James said softly, grazing his rough fingers over Ethan’s forearm, then his hand. “I always did love you, you know. Never meant for any of this shit to happen.” He finally slung his jacket over his shoulder, poking at a few stray twigs with his toe, letting the silence carry on.

“See you around, man,” he murmured, walking away, the same way he did every time he visited. Ethan stayed unmoving in his chair where the nurses had parked him to get a little sun, and showed no signs of recognition in any way. And he would be the exact same way in a week, when James would inevitably find his way back to Ethan’s side for another one-sided conversation. It was just a matter of time before Ethan’s body caught up with the fact that his brain was already dead.

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A Constant Temple christopher j. summers

The waters that once ran through the dell would burrow a sweet fragrance, like old grass-stained jeans, into the swelling wood. These waters gave life to the green tendrils which twisted high up, forming the steeple of our holy getaway, and they weaved a canvas between us the concrete world. Each thorn pricked and stone smoothed, the temple thrived under shadow and trees. All this was built only for my marbled stone and me, her big teddy bear. I alone was allowed her right side on our lumbered throne, watching over our microscopic worshipers beneath the canopy. Yet I always wondered, what was a teddy bear to marbled stone? We’d climb the gaunt branches and swing over the sacred creek. We’d make blessings for bugs and floating sticks, and lay curses on foul invading canines and red shifted horns. That world between trees was ours away from the world we didn’t see, and even it slowly faded as my stone fled away. I tried to grasp harder into her grooves to ensure the creek would fester for not so long. I tried to be comforting, to be the good teddy bear, so the throne would never sit so cold. If only I sacrificed all my stuffing the goddess would be here, sitting, remembering the swift waters that rolled by. If only I let her be a stone, I might have enjoyed her shade. If only I didn't care.

But, now I lie a torn teddy bear, tending to my sacred temple in the black of night: painting the leaves bright green, cleaning the brackish water, and dangling strings of lights among dead branches. To see my temple illuminated in night as it was in day might be worth the travel back. “So please,” I write on soggy paper, “can you make the waters flow once more, bring back the fragrant airs I adore? Come be incased for all to compare, and I’ll be enthralled, throwing myself into marbled stone.”

As my note floats down the black I’ll wait, toiling in my earthly temple, sweetly stifling the thought, 'What was a stone to a teddy bear?'

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contributors’ notes Jeffrey Alfier won the 2014 Kithara Book Prize for his poetry collection, Idyll for a Vanishing River (Glass Lyre Press, 2013). His most recent work is The Color of Forgiveness, a collaboration with wife and fellow poet Tobi Alfier. He is also author of The Storm Petrel – Ireland Poems (Grayson Books, 2014). His work has appeared recently in Hiram Poetry Review, Poetry Ireland Review, and The MacGuffin.

Desiree Allyn is a retired AF captain and primary care provider with a degree in ecology from UC Berkeley.

She is taking undergraduate art instruction at SCC towards developing the necessary artistic tool set to increase public awareness on global environmental issues by way of her art.

Shawn Aveningo is a globally published poet whose work has appeared in over 80 literary journals and anthologies, including LA’s poeticdiversity, who recently nominated her poetry for a Pushcart. She is cofounder of The Poetry Box® and web-designer for VoiceCatcher: a journal of women’s voices & visions.

Shawn’s a proud mother of three who believes poetry is the perfect literary art form for today’s fastpaced world, due to its power to stir emotion in less than two minutes. www.RedShoePoet.com Shaindel Beers is the author of two full-length collections of poetry, A Brief History of Time (2009) and The Children's War and Other Poems (2013), both from Salt Publishing. She lives, teaches, and writes in Pendleton, Oregon, and serves as the Poetry Editor for Contrary Magazine. Learn more at http:// shaindelbeers.com.

Ace Boggess is the author of two books of poetry: The Prisoners (Brick Road Poetry Press, 2014) and The Beautiful Girl Whose Wish Was Not Fulfilled (Highwire Press, 2003). He is an ex-con, ex-husband, exreporter and completely exhausted by all the things he isn't anymore. His writing has appeared in Harvard Review, Mid-American Review, Atlanta Review, RATTLE, River Styx, Southern Humanities Review and many other journals. He lives in Charleston, West Virginia.

Jared Boston is a lover of art who currently attends Solano Community College. He is the graphic design TA for SCC as well as an intern at Luminous Marketing & Media. Illustration and drawing are his main passions. You can follow his art on instagram @jbosart.

Elizabeth Campbell is an English student at Solano Community College and a former editor for the Suisun Valley Review.

John Casquarelli is the author of two full-length collections, On Equilibrium of Song (Overpass Books 2011) and Lavender (Authorspress 2014). He is an English Instructor at CUNY Kingsborough. His work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. In 2015, the International Higher Education Teaching and Learning Association (HETL) will include one of his poems in their anthology, Teaching as a Human Experience (Cambridge Scholars Publishing).

Tobi Cogswell is a four-time Pushcart nominee and a Best of the Net nominee. Credits include or are forthcoming in various journals in the US, UK, Sweden and Australia. Her sixth and latest chapbook is Lapses & Absences, (Blue Horse Press). Her seventh chapbook, The Coincidence of Castles, is forthcoming from Glass Lyre Press. She is the co-editor of the San Pedro River Review (www.sprreview.com).

Marc Concepcion hopes to be a novelist, eventually quitting his day job in favor of the craft of stories. But until then, let’s just say he isn’t holding his breath. If you like his stories please let him know, his ego won’t grow too large, he promises.

Trina L. Drotar is a literary and visual artist working in poetry, prose, watercolor, egg tempera, ink and fiber.

Her work has been widely published and is held in several collections, notably the Museum of Women in the Arts and Sacramento City College. She teaches workshops at the Crocker Art Museum and other venues.

Pam S. Dunn is a novelist and short story writer currently living in Mountain Ranch, California. Her first novel Price Hill is under consideration at several publishing houses. Her debut prize-winning short story “Who Reads Anymore” was published November, 2014. She has a B.A. in Literature and Creative Writing and is an active member of Amador Fiction Writers and co-director of the annual Gold Rush Writers Conference.

Cody Eisen is both a former Solano Student as well as a former editor for the Suisun Valley Review. He is currently attending Sacramento State University, which he hopes to be done with sooner than later.

Though he enjoys both painting and writing, he considers himself no more than a hobbyist and does so for his own enjoyment.

Patrick Fontes grew up in working class Chicano, Fresno, California. Influences include 1980s hardcore punk rock, Mexican folk Catholicism, and photography. Currently Patrick is a PhD candidate in history at Stanford University. His research involves Mexico-USA transnational history, Latin American religion, and the Criminalization of Chicano culture. Patrick’s poetry has appeared in The Más Tequila Review, the Acentos Review, The James Franco Review, Silver Birch Press, as well the online poetry site La Bloga.

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Natalie Francel-Stone lives and works in Wichita, KS as a symphony musician, freelance bassoonist, and artist. She was thrilled to have been published in SVR with her watercolor papercutting Invictus in 2014.

Natalie regularly performs, teaches, and shows her art locally, enjoys road trips and comics, and spends time getting into trouble with her husband Ray and their two rogue kitties.

Taylor Graham is a volunteer search-and-rescue dog handler in El Dorado County. She’s included in the anthologies Villanelles (Everyman’s Library) and California Poetry: From the Gold Rush to the Present (Santa Clara University). Her latest book is What the Wind Says (Lummox Press, 2013), poems about living and working with her canine search partners.

Joshua Gray is a Solano Community College student who loves, in a sticky savannah wildfire kind of way, to write. He was born in smoggy Bakersfield, California before moving to the soft Bay Area. With his love of classical mythologies of the world, he hopes to reinvigorate these tales in a complex and enthralling world through his endeavor in writing a novel, with hopes of it growing into a larger series. Recently discovering a passion for editing, inspired in part from his time as an editor of SVR, he hopes to one day become a literary editor and assist others in having their own works published.

Ray Hadley has published with SVR before and also in Sierra Nevada Review, California Review, Ledge, Wisconsin Review, and many others. He is poetry editor of the Edge up here in Lake Tahoe and owns Keynote Books and Records.

Michelle Hartman’s work was recently featured in the Langdon Review of the Arts, and also appears in Slipstream, Plainsongs, Carve, Crannog, Poetry Quarterly, The Pedestal Magazine, Raleigh Review, San Pedro River Review, Concho River Review and RiverSedge as well as over fifty other journals and thirty anthologies. Her work appears in multiple countries overseas. Her first book of poetry, Disenchanted and Disgruntled, from Lamar University Press, is available from Amazon. Her newest book, Irony and Irreverence, was released 3/2015 from Lamar University Press. She is the editor for the online journal, Red River Review and holds a BS in Political Science-Pre Law from Texas Wesleyan University.

Tom Holmes is the founding editor of Redactions: Poetry, Poetics, & Prose, and in July 2014, he also cofounded RomComPom: A Journal of Romantic Comedy Poetry. He is also author of seven collections of poetry, most recently The Cave, which won The Bitter Oleander Press Library of Poetry Book Award for 2013 and will be released in 2014. His writings about wine, poetry book reviews, and poetry can be found at his blog, The Line Break: http://thelinebreak.wordpress.com/.

Brandon Hood - At a mere age 25, he is considered by many to be the Stone Cold Steve Austin of bass guitar, the George Foreman of Call of Duty, the Joey Tribbiani of Youtube stars, the Kevin Spacey of undiscovered musical talent and all in all the next “big thing.” Loving son, caring brother, and supporting husband, he humbly enjoys writing poetry, watercolor psychedelic pictures, creating music and long walks on the beach.

A.J. Huffman has published eleven solo chapbooks and one joint chapbook through various small presses.

Her new poetry collection, Another Blood Jet, is now available from Eldritch Press. She has three more poetry collections forthcoming: A Few Bullets Short of Home from mgv2>publishing, Degeneration from Pink Girl Ink, and A Bizarre Burning of Bees from Transcendent Zero Press. She is a Multiple Pushcart Prize nominee, and has published over 2100 poems in various national and international journals, including Labletter, The James Dickey Review, Bone Orchard, EgoPHobia, and Kritya. She is also the founding editor of Kind of a Hurricane Press. www.kindofahurricanepress.com Rory Ibarra is a student at Solano Community College majoring in accounting. He is an avid reader and gamer who would probably try to take over the world if it didn't require so much time and effort. Since it does, his plans for life are to finish college, get a job he'll probably hate but pays great, write a novel that becomes a New York Times bestseller, and then quit his job and live as close to happily ever after is as realistically possible.

Webb Johnson is retired and he and his wife moved to Solano County from Walnut Creek in August. Writing short stories is his hobby and passion. He wrote a story titled Emma’s Gift because it is about art and learning; principles at the heart of Solano Community College.

Thomas King is forty-four years old, in his senior year at Humboldt State University. His major is English: Writing Practices. Supernatural horror and magical realism are his preferred genres to write within.

Stephen King and H.P. Lovecraft are major influences for his writing. Years ago, he had special permission to take care of a wounded great horned owl, and owl themes are prevalent in much of his poetry and fiction. His favorite color is grey; his girlfriend’s is purple.

Abigail Lovelace is a creative writing student at College of the Redwoods. She has been writing short stories and poems since age eleven, and is currently an editor for the school's literary publication.

Andrew McCutcheon is a musician and poet whose music has been featured in television and film, including Showtime’s Californication. He is the author of From The Managerial Escape Diaries, The Temescal Canyon Hair Cult, and the recipient of the Malcolm C. Braly Poetry Award and the Newcomb College Spring Arts Festival Poetry Award. He holds an M.A. in English from Tulane University and teaches svr literature and creative writing at College of the Canyons in Santa Clarita, CA.

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Ashley Mitchell is a Solano Community College alumna currently attending CSU Sacramento for her English BA, and then hoping to get her teaching credentials. When not writing, she can be found face down in her (very dim) cat's belly or trapped in Target's home goods section. She was an editor for years 2012 and 2013, and was previously published in SVR editions 2012, 2013, and 2014.

Christopher Mulrooney is the author of toy balloons (Another New Calligraphy) and Rimbaud (Finishing Line Press). His work has recently appeared in Poetry Ireland Review, Communion, Tipsy Lit, streetcake magazine, and Cut-Thru Review.

Anita Nygren is an English major at Solano Community College. As a returning student she has been active as an editor for the college's literary magazine Suisun Valley Review and has become interested in submitting her own work. She has lived in Fairfield, California since 1971 and is a cosmetologist who has enjoyed writing poetry most of her life. Enjoying a good glass of wine and a good book is a favorite past time.

Cleber Jose Pacheco is an artist and writer with a Master’s Degree in Brazilian Literature and is an expert in philosophy. He has 18 books published in Brazil, two in U.K. and one in U.S. and Canada. His book of poetry Mysteries received an award in the U.S. Hillary Patrick is a writer, multi media artist and mother of two living in Fairfield, CA. Margaret Phillips is a new contributor to the Suisun Valley Review.

Gordon Preston - When Gordon Preston retired from teaching he became a founding member of MoSt, (Modesto-Stanislaus Poety Center), had a chapbook published by Finishing Line Press, and had poems appear in Homestead Review, Merced River Literary Review, and Miramar.

Armando Quiros is currently an SCC student pursuing a career in Communications with emphasis on oral interpretation. His new book, Deftly Speaking, is due to come out July 1st, 2015. Armando is also club president of Floetry, a poetry club whose mission is to free its members from the norms and rules of a stereotypical society, by allowing them the freedom of expression and openness of imagery. No one is judged, no is criticized, everyone is treated as family; important.

Satomi Richardson was born and grew up in Japan. Satomi came to California almost 4 years ago and is currently a Solano Community College student pursuing improvement in English knowledge and art skill.

Satomi loves learning any language and many art styles.

Ruben Rodriguez writes, paints, and wastes his time at the foot of the San Bernardino Mountains. He is the fiction editor of The Great American Lit Mag and the author of the chapbook We Do What We Want (Orange Monkey Publishing, 2015). Some of his poems have been deemed fit for consumption by the likes of Welter, Steam Ticket, The Stillwater Review, Dewpoint, Perceptions and 94 Creations. You can find him at www.rubenstuff.com.

Ciara Shuttleworth's poetry has been published in journals and anthologies, including Alaska Quarterly Review, Confrontation, The New Yorker, The Norton Introduction to Literature, 11e, and The Southern Review. She was a 2014 Jerome Foundation Fellow at the Anderson Center at Tower View, and is currently The Jack Kerouac Project of Orlando's 51st resident at Jack Kerouac House.

Christopher Summers took Creative Writing classes at Solano Community College.

David J. Thompson is a former prep school teacher and coach who has been traveling since October 2013.

His interests include film, jazz, and minor league baseball. His poetry and photography have appeared in a number of journals both in print and on-line.

Jeffrey Warzecha earned an MFA from Lesley University and is the recipient of the Leslie Leeds Poetry Prize.

His work has recently appeared in The Connecticut Review, Edison Literary Review, Rio Grande Review, and Red River Review.

A.D. Winans was born in San Francisco and is the former Editor and Publisher of Second Coming Press.

Recipient of a 2014 Kathy Acker award in poetry and a 2006 Pen Josephine Miles Award for literary excellence. In 2009 PEN Oakland presented him with a lifetime achievement award.

Allen Wyly was born, July 8, 1941, in Kansas City, Missouri, into an artistic family. His great uncle Jack Duncan of St. Joseph studied under Luis Mora of New York’s Art Students League and muralist for the Missouri State Building at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair. His mother, “Angelique”, was widely known for her fanciful watercolors and ink drawings. Both she and his father were regular exhibitors at Kansas City’s “Plaza Art Fair” as well as contributors to the William Rockhill Nelson Museum’s Sales and Rental gallery. His eldest brother, James, is a successful painter/musician currently residing in Oaxaca, Mexico.

His major at Virginia’s Washington and Lee University was Fine Arts (BA), studied painting and drawing under Prof. Marion Junkin, after which he proceeded to New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts for their Museum Training program until Vietnam and the Marines interrupted his plans. He was honorably discharged rank of Captain in 1968, came to San Francisco, worked in the insurance industry, left for a MDiv at Church Divinity School of the Pacific after which he involved himself with ex-offender, homeless, and developmentally disabled populations until retirement in 2007. Retirement allowed svr him to return to painting with recent works exhibited. He currently resides in Pollock Pines. { 113 }

Special thanks to Philip Andreini, Bruce Clark, Dyana Fuller, Jowel C. Laguerre, Marge Trolinder and the creative writing faculty of Solano Community College for their continued support and efforts for the Suisun Valley Review

Suisun Valley Review English Department Solano Community College 4000 Suisun Valley Road Fairfield, CA 94535

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suisunvalleyreview@gmail.com

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