Tea Volume 13

Tea

Literary Magazine Volume 13

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Tea Literary Magazine is published annually by students of the University of Florida. It has been in print for more than 15 years.

Tea Literary Magazine. Volume 13. April 2011.

All rights are reserved to the poets, authors, and artists. This entire document may be reproduced or transmitted in any complete form, as long as it is reproduced in full for noncommercial purposes. No individual part of this document may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without prior written permission of the artists(s), unless used for education purposes.

Tea Literary Magazine Volume 13

University of Florida

Friends of Wild Iris Sister non-profit to Wild Iris Books (Florida’s only feminist bookstore)

Tea 13

Our Mission Statement: To create social, educational and cultural opportunities to empower a diverse feminist community. blog.friendsofwildiris.org 802 W University, 32601 - 352-375-7477 Event space is available This ad space was donated to Friends of Wild Iris courtesy of Tea. Tea ad hasspace not accepted payment, in anyofform, space.of This was donated to Friends Wild for Iristhis courtesy Tea Literary Magazine.

Tea has not accepted payment, in any form, for this space.

Tea is fully funded by the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Florida.

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Acknowledgements

As always, Tea Literary Magazine would not be here without the College of Liberal Arts and Science. Our organization would like to thank CLAS for continuing to be our backer. Its professors, student leaders, and staff have provided us with unyielding and enthusiastic support. Without the over 21 semesters of guidance and financial support from the College we simply could not do what we love. The English Society and Tea would like to dedicate Volume 13 to CLAS for providing a diverse experience to us, UF’s students, in continuing to patronize the arts in a time when budgets are shrinking.

We would also like to thank Wild Iris Books, which has again opened its doors and its heart to the English Society. As a local bookseller, it showcases the local authors, poets, and professors whom we respect and admire, and it continues to fight the good fight in the publishing world. The staff of Wild Iris have given the undergraduate literary community a home. The free ad space we have given them in return seems hardly worth all of the help they have given us, and we hope they know how grateful we are.

Finally, thank you to all of the artists who submitted this year and all of you that support and nurture artists on campus. Four hundred and three works graced our meetings this year.

About Our Selection Process

Each year, Tea Literary Magazine bases its contents on a series of impartial votes by the various committees that make up our editorial staff. The entire staff is made up of UF undergraduates, and any undergraduate student attending UF can participate in selectioncommittee meetings.

All submissions are emailed directly to the Editor-in-Chief of Tea at editoroftea@yahoo.com. The magazine staff meets each week, and each meeting is divided so that members can attend the review of visual art, poetry, and prose, depending on their interests. The Editor-in-Chief chooses a selection of submissions for each committee. During committee meetings, works are displayed with their creator’s names redacted. This is the first time anyone present at the meetings views each work. Only the Editor-in-Chief knows the identity of those who have submitted works for review, and he or she does not vote except in the instance of a tie. In this way, each work is reviewed anonymously.

Those present at the meeting discuss the integrity, mechanics, and technics of submissions, and vote on whether a work is worth “coming back to.” Majority rules: if the majority of people at the meeting agree that work is worth further review, it will be saved for the final round of selections.

The Managing Editor keeps a record of which works are in the final round, assuring that more than one person on the staff knows what has been selected for further consideration. After every work has been reviewed once, the group returns to the pieces that made it passed the initial review. In the final round of selections, no commentary is made. In a single meeting for each category, the entirety of the final selection is reviewed. Members of selection committees rate each work with a numerical value, which is then used to calculate a committee average for each piece. The highest averaging works of each year are those slated for publication. Only after the total selection is decided for each category by the average vote of committee members are the identities of their creators revealed by the Editor-in-Chief.

Because of the unique anonymity we afford our submitters, staff members are allowed to submit to the magazine. We do not, in any form, give preferential treatment to any poem, short story, or work of visual art submitted by staff members. We have spent more than a decade perfecting our process of review and take it very seriously. We feel that the result of our efforts is a magazine that represents the student body as a whole.

Those interested in being published in Tea in 2012 should submit their work to editoroftea@yahoo.com. We look forward to your submission!

Tea 2010-2011 Editorial Staff Steven Salpeter Editor-in-Chief Caitlin Henderson Managing Editor Chase Burke Operations Manager (Fall) Lee Thomas Penn Executive Editor of Prose and Director of Finances Jeannette Pepin Executive Editor of Poetry Sandy Lu Executive Designer Chistopher Nelson Art Director Emily DiPietro Senior Copy Editor

Tea 13 Executive Staff (Top, Left to Right) Lee Thomas Penn, Christopher Nelson, (Bottom, Left to Right) Emily DiPietro, Caitlin Henderson, Steven Salpeter, Sandy Lu, Jeannette Pepin, (Not Pictured) Chase Burke

Copy Editors of Prose Lee Thomas Penn Brian Garcia Ally Vitale Leonie Barkakati Cynthia Braasch Copy Editors of Poetry Jeannette Pepin Cynthia Braasch Katrina Gaffney Melika Hadziomerovic Victoria Illa Sarah Lashley Daniela Mejia Erika Romero Chip Skambis Layout Designers Sandy Lu Anna Mebel Jennifer Murray Christopher Nelson Brittany Weinke Contributing Editors Taylor Barahona Laura Brown Danny Ennis Natilee Festa Andrew Fleming Cindy Kolbasiuk Matt Kriete Brittany Phillips Hannah Winston

contents

poetry prose visual art

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1 Wallflower Cynthia Braasch 2 Hesitation Noah Camenker 3 Stance Larry Rosalez

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4 Sixth Grade Science Brooke Rosen 6 Octogon Brian Garcia 7 Ode to a Pencil Daniela Mejia 8 Solstice Carmen Dolling 10 Monkeyman Jordanna Brown 11 Devil’s Suit/African Sunrise Brittany Phillips 12 Endless Bummer Jeff Horn

17 Dirty Laundry Jeannette Pepin 19 Two Different Socks Cynthia Braasch 20 Lost Jordanna Brown 21 Lauren and the Skunk Ape Andrew Pierce Fleming 30 Grimm’s Harbinger Jordan Kady 31 Dear David Kalynn D. Sharum 32 Bread (origins) Jordanna Brown

33 33 Sylvia’s Laura M. Brown 34 It Only Took One Fucker...

M. Elaine Williams 36 Deist God Machine Jordan Kady

contents

poetry prose visual art

(2 of 2)

38 Binding of Bone Alexandra Gonzales 39 Walk on By Samantha Brooks 40 From the Napkin of...

Lee Thomas Penn

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41 Jimmy Stallings Amanda Adams 42 An Evening with Silberberg Chip Skambis 44 Iron & Lime Laura M. Brown 45 Dear Angela Lee Thomas Penn 49 Guinea Dancer Larry Rosalez 50 Owl Jordan Kady 51 If I Should Die Before I...

Carmen Dolling 52 How to Live Katherine Gaffney 54 Home Brooke Rosen

57 Fireflies Caitlin McGrath 58 Calm Before the Storm Jolie Shapiro 59 Synesthesia Jeannette Pepin 60 Blue Man Brittany Phillips 61 Under the Guys Chip Skambis 62 A Night at the Hipp...

David Aronson 63 Steamboat Corbin Schneider 64 Juxe’s Jazz Club...

Ana Cecilia Silva 66 Cryogenically Frozen...

David Stuzin 67 Paul and Theo Kellia Moore 70 Feel Larry Rosalez 76 Wayback Brian Garcia 81 Ophelia Jordan Kady 82 Winter Road Jordanna Brown

Back Cover:

Hey Boy, Hey Girl

Susan Bijan

Wallflower Cynthia Braasch Notice my pink cheeks Please discern my subtle hints Now ask me to dance

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Hesitation Noah Camenker The moment of hesitation comes and goes silently and quickly like the prick of a mosquito and all that’s left is the itch of what could have been

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Stance by Larry D. Rosalez, digital photograph

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Sixth Grade Science Brooke Rosen My friend Gina’s cat has an obsession with Gina’s pads—not the regular ones, though, just the extra-long. She pulls a fresh one out of the cabinet under the sink and just chews on it and leaves it in the middle of Gina’s room, with the bite marks and everything. When people come over, they wonder why there’s a pad in the middle of the room. The cat never stands up for the pad. She’s a bit skittish.

This cat’s seen a lot of things. Like this one time I was sleeping over and Gina decided we should sneak into her mother’s closet and try on her lingerie and high heels. We got lipstick on the couch and I wasn’t allowed to sleep over for a month. Or the time I brought my Barbies over after school. I went to the bathroom and when I came back Gina’d cut off all of their hair. Just cut it off, just like that. Two girl Barbies, sitting by the sink, bald. I’d brushed their hair every day since my mom brought them home, never let them get knotted or sticky or anything.

She’s one hell of a cat. My mom would never let us get a pet, says they’re too sex-obsessed. Says they go around humping everything they can get their paws on. Says that’s no way to raise a child. I wasn’t raised like a child. Kids were reading Green Eggs and Ham; I was reading The Times. That’s just how it worked. Gina came up to me one day in the second grade and asked to trade, said she wanted to read like her mommy. We’ve been friends since.

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In the eighth grade she decided she liked me. Told me in a note she’d slipped into my P.E. locker. I might have had a crush on her too, but I wasn’t about to call it that, so I crumpled up the note and threw it into the mulch under the benches, where everyone got picked up after school. Of course she saw it, and we didn’t speak for a year and a half after that. By then she had a boyfriend who she’d slept with. He told her she was beautiful.

We started talking again, though. And she still had that damn cat. That damn cat who watched us in the sixth grade when we hid under the covers with our science textbooks and flashlights. Huddled together, letting hands slip, girl hands, girl knees, girl thighs, girl in-betweens.

My mother thinks being gay is a sin. You know, like in the way that Catholics do, except my mom isn’t religious. She’d skip Sundays altogether if she didn’t have custody. I guess a lot of people think that way, about being gay.

Gina came over once, when we were in high school.

My mom asked her about her boyfriend and we went upstairs.

They’d been broken up for a while, but Gina told my mom he was fine, that they’d meet sometime. It was weird that day without the cat. There was this silence. All of the pads in the world couldn’t have saved us from feeling alone together. My mom made us keep the door open.

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Octogon by Brian Garcia, black and white film photograph

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Ode to a Pencil— Daniela Mejia Lightly, I grip you in my hand.

Your six sides sit on my fingertips.

Completely under my command, you’re used to make others understand thoughts that span a million pages. Without you, I’m nothing.

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Solstice Carmen Dolling this morning I wrote a haiku about seasons, about life, about the leaf mold is damp beneath the sleeping fox kit the forest is still about the sunshine is warm on the red white-dappled fawn the meadow is wide about the river is cold in the mouth of the bear cub the winter is long

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and I clicked save. then I thought about the keyboard and the screen and the electric plugs, the fluorescent lights and the air conditioning, the way my sole window was shut and my curtains were drawn and (the bright cave is stale around the human daughter the stone walls are thick) really I could not taste the wind or feel the pale yellow of the October sun.

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Monkeyman Jordanna Brown Since he did mushrooms the fifth time, he sees everyone as monkeys.

It makes him feel crazy, like nothing is solid, like he is bracing for someone to drag his knuckles across the ground in the middle of a speech, in the middle of some summit, and confirm his suspicions.

And maybe there is something garish in forcing our mouths around words, in distancing ourselves in mannerism, in law, in hygiene, in subterfuge-as if we are more than two steps away.

But then he said he saw his young professor smile, and he saw some glowing shard of humanity in a face in every way unattractive.

I said that the person who loves him probably thinks he is beautiful, and maybe there’s something in that.

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Devil’s Suit/African Sunrise by Brittany Phillips, acrylic on canvas

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Endless Bummer Jeff Horn When she was my girlfriend I went over to her house, which was really her dad’s house, and we watched movies, even though I am funny enough that I do not need to watch funny movies, and played cards and walked to the beach sometimes.

We also had sex a lot and she was very good looking, even though I am good looking enough for both of us. It was a really nice time.

Back when we started sleeping together, I would go over there and it was bright and the sun heated up everything around the pool and the deck and made light squiggle all around the bottom of the blue pool. The pool was always blue, not much like the ocean that is only sometimes blue. She liked to be in the ocean and I liked to be in the pool.

The first time we met was at the house at a party she had. I walked in and then we met and her face was sort of red and she had a big cup of red wine and then another one and then we both drank vodka. We discussed popular music and made allusions to sexual activity, and we conveyed using speech and body language that we preferred sexual activity with partners we found attractive in the manner that we found each other to be attractive, and then we undertook sexual activity and laughed after, and it was good.

When we slept together before we were dating I was over there a lot. We were dating for maybe two weeks and sleeping together for maybe two months before I met her dad. One time her dad asked me when I was going to move my shit over there. After a few weeks he told me rent was due on the 10th.

“Your dad’s all right,” I said.

“I like him even though he’s ugly,” she said.

Sometimes we were down in the living room enjoying ourselves and her dad would come and speak to us. He would ask us what was up and usually nothing was up, so that’s what we

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told him. Sometimes we were alone and other times there were acquaintances and when I was the only one there except her he would ask me how I was doing and how the disease was progressing and all that.

Sometimes I showed him a picture of what I was working on. “Oh,” he said. “Oh. Well,” he said, “this is good,” he said and he gave the photo back to me. After he saw what I was working on or whatever, and he wanted to know more about it and I explained it some, even though I don’t know that much about it, he said, “This is good. You’re onto something. You should keep up with this.” I think he was all right with me being there. My girlfriend would look at me and I would smile and she would smile.

Sometimes we were in the living room or sometimes on the hot patio by the pool and she would be all oiled up laying back in between my legs or we would be making out or something and her dad would come out and ask what’s up, and we would tell him nothing was up, and he would ask us if we wanted to take tequila shots and we liked tequila so we obliged him, mostly. So we would do shots and it was harsh and the limes were sour in the morning. And he would mix something for himself and mostly not bother us and be on his way somewhere afterwards, and we would be drunk from the shots and we would go to the beach or something. I thought, perhaps this is ideal. I don’t know where her dad would go but he was always nearby.

My girlfriend was going on with her poetry and she really liked it. We would sit on the floor in her room, and sometimes we would paint and she would write poetry and I think a lot of it was pretty nice and I felt so close to her. And one afternoon we were naked painting, and some paint splashed onto me. And she got her brush into it and spread it into lines, and worked the lines around my arm and onto my back, and she added more colors, and I could feel her release, and I was so happy and almost honored she did that to me. And then she gave me the brush and I hesitated to touch it to her stomach -13-

but I did, and it was easy after I got started and it came naturally and the motions were smooth and rhythmic, and she was smooth and rhythmic, and it was good and bright and shocking I guess, and I smiled.

“All of it,” she said. She smiled and I painted all of it. All of it was painted. After the climax I wondered how I brought myself to paint on a thing that was so beautiful, and she was my painting and I was her painting and we were making prints on each other and mixing paints on each other when her dad came in and we tried to cover up really fast and he asked us if we wanted long island iced tea. We took the iced tea.

After that we went into the pool, and the paint mixed with the blue of the pool. The colors spread slowly out, like her hair underwater, and the sunlight was moving all around the bottom of the pool and shining through the clouds of paint, and we knew we helped each other with something, and I completely cared about her, which was something, and in the pool I felt the disease subside.

But anyway her dad liked what I was working on. It was just some bullshit. It was like expressive minimalism but it looked like something new. I was still doing it over at the university when her dad offered to buy some of it. He bought a piece I finished for the spring show and he wanted me to do more on commission and painting is not really what I want to always be doing, and I was busy with course work because I’m in college.

I told him I appreciated the offer but I would have to decline.

So he got the three canvasses for the spaces in the house where he wanted them and put them on three easels with a table that had all my paint and brushes spread out in a room by the garage and I could walk in and work on them when I wanted to.

After that it was hot and we laid out in the sun a lot. Once, it was just starting to heat up and the pool was blue and we were still. I had a headache and it wasn’t getting better so I got in the pool after we smoked a joint and I think she wanted to watch a movie, but I didn’t want to leave the pool. She left the pool and she was soaked and the pool splashed on the ground -14-

behind her. She wanted to go to the beach. We went to the beach. It was windy and bright and hot. She had sand stuck on her legs when we walked back and I took a nap. It was Friday and she and her dad ate fish for dinner and then he crushed up an oxycodone and put it in a pipe and smoked it. After dinner she was happy to see me and then we went to a nightclub.

The club was small and loud and hot and the music was good enough so we danced. Megan and Joe got there after us and we all said hello and I danced with my girlfriend and we had fun. Her tan lines were glorious. Megan and Joe were uptight about me living at her place and it was irritating. We told them how I am painting paintings for the place even though I don’t want to. My girlfriend thought that was humorous.

We got home and I walked outside to smoke a joint and I felt really good and relaxed and then her dad came out and started talking to me. I was really unsure about what to do and he asked me to pass him the joint and I let him finish it because I wanted to go in. He asked me if I thought it possible to escape or transcend postmodernism and I said I don’t know if it is. He pulled out a bottle and he asked me if I wanted a hydrocodone.

I went into my girlfriend’s room and held her for a while and then we had sex and went to sleep and woke up and had sex again and went to sleep again.

In the morning I got up too fast because of the daylight and I went back to bed. Woke up in her arms and had to let her sleep. I thought, when I got here it was bright and still and it is still bright and it is still still. Running an idea through my mind over and over. And beginning again and over again and ending again. Should it come out? Idea becomes cozy and easy to remember and it will be easy to get it out later when I want to. Not so easy for me to get out when I want to.

We were awake and then it was quiet and I don’t think it was raining or anything and I don’t think I thought anything was bad. In the quiet we went swimming and she floated on the raft and had a drink and I had one too, but then I started drinking water and I had a lot of it so I wouldn’t be sick because the -15-

disease had progressed that far. I dove in and took a few strokes and swam up under the raft and came up between her legs.

She called Megan and I called Joe and they called people and asked everyone to come over because we were tired of being alone together and I didn’t really want them to come over because it was all too much and I was just sick of it. I could recognize the symptoms.

Outside it was gritty. The brightness was gritty and it was gritty when it got dark. The grit decreases during sunset and I noticed it less as I got drunk. It stays after you brush your teeth.

When they got there we were drunk and we all smoked and got high. I got so high and I think she did also. When they left I looked at her and her feet hanging and her legs going up all tan and she opened them and her legs were so warm from the sun and shiny from the oil and I put my face down on them and lay there. And I was really into her. The pool was blue and transparent but you could also see your reflection in it. So I was looking at her, really liking her a lot. That’s all.

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Dirty Laundry Jeannette Pepin I’ve stolen one sock from every man I’ve ever fucked.

At first it was an accident.

They’d come here once, and drop forever from my horizon.

The reasons vary.

Some men make it very difficult-they never take their socks off if they can help it.

Perhaps this has happened to them before.

I have to be swift and clever.

Sometimes I fake a foot fetish.

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I must keep a perfectly blank face the next morning as they hop one-legged,

looking, looking, and finally squinting at me.

I offer them soy milk and whole grain toast until they go away.

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Two Different Socks Cynthia Braasch I’m currently wearing two different socks­­— widowed, suffering a loss unfathomable to anyone who lacks this shared experience— brought together now out of necessity, or pity.

Later, they’ll bump against each other in the washing machine.

“Hey, I remember you.”

A subtle friendship forms.

Not exactly soul mates, but they’ll do.

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Lost Jordanna Brown Air suspends, petrified on spindly legs, in single digits.

The sunset is a boil on dry skin, bright and defiant.

Windmills stubbornly turn underneath like arthritic dancers.

When their great creaking colony ends there are sixty and seventy miles of nothing.

Then, three does on the roadside, delicate, moon-eyed, and searching as sirens, and a single steeple a mile behind them carving a thin cross out of wasting light.

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Lauren and

the Skunk Ape

by Andrew

Pierce Fleming

“What is this?” she asked. She focused on his eyebrows. She couldn’t face his eyes.

“One story, one timeline, two columns. And when Lauren is in her car you are only hearing her side of the conversation on the phone.”

“Why?” But it was too late. He was dead.

This story takes place simultaneously in two different columns. Please plan your reading accordingly.

The text to the right is just an example of the form, not a part of the story.

Thank God.

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Scene: Pinkerton’s Café

Scene: Lauren’s car

Dave and Patty walked into the café. Dave noticed him sitting there. The skunk ape. He was almost seven feet tall, bipedal, covered in black hair. His face looked like that of Satan’s pet monkey.

“Come on, Patty,” Dave said.

“Let’s go. I don’t want us to be here with him.”

“Don’t be rude,” she said.

She turned and walked over to the skunk ape’s table.

His eyes widened as he saw her approaching. He gripped his glass and looked at his plate, condensation dripping down his fingers.

“Hi, Skunk Ape,” Patty said.

“Hi, Patty.” His eyes were fixed on the breadbasket, still steaming.

“You know Dave, right?”

“Yeah, you told me about him. Kind of like you told him about me.”

Patty laughed. The Skunk Ape looked up at her, his glassy eyes reflecting her smile. She stopped laughing.

RINGRINGRING Hey, what’s up?

Not much, just driving to dinner.

Pinkerton’s Café. It’s out past the mall. Did I not tell you about this? I told Hannah, I thought if I hadn’t told you then she would have.

True, not that you should listen to her. Like the time she told us Randy wet himself at that party. Spilling your drink on yourself is totally not wetting yourself.

Yeah, I’m going with the Skunk Ape. He’s really sweet. Simple, but sweet.

Surprisingly civilized.

Well, he’s only been out of the woods for a few months. Are you kidding me?

Where have you been? Ugh, I guess that means I have to go back to the beginning and explain everything that has happened up until now.

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“Nice to see you again,” Dave said.

He extended his hand to the skunk ape. The skunk ape reached out and shook, his hand clammy from his glass.

“Likewise.”

Dave and the Skunk Ape looked at Patty. She started picking at her flowerprint skirt. She smiled at the Skunk Ape. “You look good,” she said. “Finally filling out.

I’ll bet you’ve got a better diet now, right? Not stuck finding bird eggs anymore, are you?”

His eyes went back to the bread.

He sighed. “I’m fine.”

“Do you want to eat with us?” she asked.

Dave looked down to his shoelaces. “I don’t know if you have ordered already, or—” “I’m actually waiting for someone,” he said. Dave looked back to the Skunk Ape.

Yes, it will give you some context for me going to dinner with him. Thank you for asking.

So, you know how Patty loves to go out into the ‘glades and hike and stuff ? She would be out there pretty much every weekend. Then she started talking about this guy she had met but would barely tell anyone any real details. Tall, dark, and handsome is all Karen, her roommate, got. So you’ll never guess who Mr. “T, D, and H” turned out to be. Oh, yeah, good guess. Apparently by tall she meant like 7 feet, by dark she meant covered in black hair, and by handsome she meant, well, not a traditional definition of handsome.

This happened back when they were in general psych together. There was this guy, Dave, who always sat near her. He was pretty cute but about equally creepy.

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“Oh, who?” Patty asked. while he was out there so, again, kind of creepily, he decided to follow her.

“You probably don’t know...” His voiced trailed as he finished the sentence.

Dave’s eyes widened. “Sorry, what did you say?”

“You probably don’t know her.” Patty gasped. “A girl?

That’s…”

Dave’s eyes had gone back to normal. They widened again.

“That’s what?”

“Great.” She looked from Dave to the Skunk Ape. “I said ‘great.’”

Dave kept watching Patty.

“Who is it?”

“Oh, you probably don’t know her.”

Patty watched the Skunk Ape. Dave continued to watch Patty. “But just in case. Who?” “Her name’s Lauren.”

Dave opened his mouth and shut it.

He focused on the Skunk Ape, who seemed to be examining his fingernails.

Apparently he had been going around in the woods trying to catch the Skunk Ape. What do you mean how do I know? How wouldn’t I know? What? Didn’t Michael tell you? I assumed he would, he can’t keep his mouth shut about anything. Well, I’m the omniscient narrator incarnate.

It’s pretty cool. I did get a scholarship to the literature department for it, so that’s nice. They wanted someone in classes who could speak from a different perspective.

So anyway, Dave and Patty. Patty told everyone, including Dave, that she was just out there to walk around and to go bird watching. She said she had a major thing for the Purple Gallinule.

It’s some little purple swamp hen that can almost walk on water.

Yeah, so Dave figured that that wasn’t he real reason because when he saw her she wasn’t in the saw grass, she was staying on the dry hammocks the whole time.

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“Lauren like omniscient narrator Lauren?

“Yes.” Patty smiled with the left side of her mouth. “That’s sweet, Skunk Ape.” He shrugged. “Yeah.

Yeah, it is.”

He took a sip of his water then looked back up at Patty. She bit the left side of her bottom lip.

“Well, we’re going to grab a table,” she said, taking Dave’s arm.

“Good luck with Lauren.”

“Thank you.”

Patty led Dave to a table for two with three tables between them and the Skunk Ape. She sat with her back to that table and ran her fingers over the white tiled pattern, skipping over the blues and yellows. A waiter came to their table and they asked for two waters. They pulled the menus from the container by the napkins even though they knew what they would order.

Patty spoke first.

He also noticed that she would disappear for a while once she was there.

I know, I said he was creepy.

So once when he saw her out there he followed her more closely than he normally did. She disappeared, as always, so he sat near where he last saw her and practiced his Purple Gallinule call.

Squeaky, like dolphins.

He practiced intermittently for an hour, stopping every few minutes to look around for Patty. And guess what?

Wow, you’re a good guesser. Yes, it did work.

Well, sort of. She did come up to him. And she smelled terrible. Like rotten eggs and gasoline. Naturally, Dave, being the intrepid Skunk Ape hunter he is, put the evidence together.

What? How could she be the Skunk Ape in disguise?

That doesn’t make any sense.

You are not a good guesser.

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“Wow, the Skunk Ape and Lauren. Weird, huh?

Like, I can’t really see him with someone so—I don’t know— sophisticated.”

“You think she’s sophisticated?”

“Well, she knows a lot.”

“That’s not the same as sophisticated.”

“Then how would you describe her?”

Dave started to smile but forced his face into a grimace.

“A know-it-all.”

“OK, that’s like what I said.”

“But in a less positive sense,” he said.

“Wow. Well, I’m totally convinced that you don’t have feelings for her.”

“Really?”

“No.” “Shit.”

“Yeah.”

Patty tapped the white tiles. Dave looked over Patty’s shoulder and saw that Lauren had come in and was walking toward the Skunk Ape’s table.

The rest? It’s pretty selfexplanatory.

Dave wooed Patty using his impressive bird calls, got her to tell him the exact location of the Skunk Ape’s hole, started dating Patty, snuck out and shot the Skunk Ape with a tranquilizer dart, called the local news stations, had his fifteen minutes of fame, and fell hard for me when I went and told him that I was considering omnisciently narrating the story.

The Skunk Ape had his fifteen minutes too and let researches at the university study him in exchange for free tuition. He tried to get free textbooks too, but he he’s not that valuable to science.

Why aren’t you laughing?

Well, I have to go, I’m at the restaurant.

I’ll talk to you later.

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“But I don’t have feelings for her. I told you, she just knows everything. I just like talking to her about our story. She makes it sound so dramatic.”

“Whatever.”

Dave could see that Lauren was facing him, but Patty’s head blocked his line of vision. He shifted in his seat to his right, but the Skunk Ape blocked her face. He sat still and continued speaking.

“You wouldn’t be able to hide anything. Who would want that?”

“The Skunk Ape.” “Oh, yeah. I mean, what kind of person would want that?”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m not saying anything, that’s just factual. He isn’t classified as a person, is he?”

“No, but I don’t think that’s what you are saying.”

Scene: Pinkerton’s Café Lauren walked into Pinkerton’s Café, noting the restaurant’s wooden interior.

The white, blue, and yellow tiles on the tables stood out against the wooden brown of the rest of the interior.

She walked over to the Skunk Ape. “Hey there,” she said.

“Oh, hi.” Lauren sat across from the Skunk Ape, facing Patty’s back. “How are Patty and Dave doing?”

“They’re doing—” “I’m just kidding, I know how they’re doing. Excellently.”

“Really?”

“Can’t you tell?”

“I don’t know, I guess they seemed fine.”

“They’re more than fine.

Patty just loves that Dave is so brave and sophisticated.”

“What’s so good about that stuff ?”

“Nothing, I’m not saying that’s what I’m looking for.

You don’t have to worry, I’m nothing like her. I wouldn’t do what she did.”

-27-

“It wasn’t her fault Dave—” “You can’t blame it all on him. Look, I’m sorry I brought this up. Let’s order.”

Lauren waved to their waitress.

They ordered their food.

The Skunk Ape looked down at his hands, then up at Lauren. “I don’t mean to sound strange, but why did you invite me out? Since you’re omniscient and all, you know I still have feelings for Patty and—” “You still have feelings for Patty?” she whispered, quiet but forceful.

“I’m sorry, I thought you would have—” “I’m just kidding, of course I know. But I think you’re really interesting, and I’d hate to see you go to waste on someone who doesn’t feel the same way. Right now she’s sitting over there, talking to Dave about their plans for the future.”

“What do you think I’m saying? That just because he lives in a hole in the woods and eats baby birds that he’s not as good as us?”

“Yes.” “Okay, I guess I was kind of saying that.” The waiter came and they ordered their food. He left.

“You’re a dick,” Patty said.

“What?”

“You are a dick.”

“Seriously?”

“Yes.” “Well.”

“Sorry.”

“Does that mean you don’t think I’m a dick?”

“No, it means I’m sorry you aren’t agreeing.”

“That doesn’t make sense. Why would I think I’m a dick?”

“The same reason I do.”

“What’s that reason?”

-28-

“Because you are. The only reason you went after me was so you could get closer to the Skunk Ape, and now you’re using that to get closer to Lauren, and you would probably just use her because she’s omniscient.”

“I’m sorry, okay?”

“Okay. Why do you keep looking over at them?” Patty asked. She turned around and saw the Skunk Ape walk out.

She turned back to Dave. “I’m going now, bye.”

She walked out.

“Bye,” Dave said.

“They really didn’t seem that happy.”

“Who’s the omniscient one here?”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

“So there’s no chance that Patty will want to get back together with me?”

“Absolutely not.”

The Skunk Ape stood.

“I’ll see you later,” he said, and turned and walked out of the restaurant.

“Damn,” Lauren said.

Scene: Outside of Pinkerton’s Café

Scene: Still inside of Pinkerton’s Café

Patty followed the Skunk Ape outside. She grabbed his arm.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

“I’m going to find some bird eggs.”

He walked toward the woods, lit by the melodramatic moon.

Dave walked over to Lauren’s table and sat with her.

“Hey,” he said.

“Fuck off.”

He went back to his table.

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Grimm’s Harbinger by Jordan Kady, altered book/mixed media

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Dear David Kalynn D. Sharum We are a string of awkward high-fives and inappropriate comments. We are the clenching of thighs and the refusal to turn off the bedroom lights— the trespassers sneaking into your neighbor’s Jacuzzi late at night.

We are seasonal lovers, near strangers imparting our semi-secrets to each other. We are the farting sound two bare chests make when thrust together, our nervous laughter an attempt to seem like just another form of confidence. We are the background noise of silence: the cracking of toes, the constant sound of the clock’s ticking second hand, and murmured sips of peppermint tea.

We are casual. We are free. We are the few cars on the road at three in the morning that you pass during your commute to work, to-and-fro, wondering between your sips of piping coffee where did my spontaneity go?

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Bread (origins) Jordanna Brown In an Oklahoma field, wheat germs peep out like pistachio nuts or penis heads emerging.

They are marsupial young, squinting in half-gestation.

With fingers of quilled silk they fondle or lance each other, or glide as if on fretboards, purring.

Later, blond husks are as fine and flaking as burnt skin.

They cockle and undress, leaving naked bellies to bleach.

The grains expire, ruffled by tepid breezes, lulled in and out of a bee’s whir of constant sound, as seamless as blood pumping.

Then they are plucked, rescued or wrenched from slumber.

The rustle gathers to a rattling, a trembling of thin limbs.

Mechanical gnashing chucks torn clothes sideways.

They are ground into families of millions, into deserts, to a squeaking softness, like a chick’s rump or salt air.

-32-

Sylvia’s by Laura M. Brown, digital photograph

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It Only Took One Fucker to Break My Heart Before All Men Turned into Simple Objects Vying for My Affections— Routine Maintenance Always Required M. Elaine Williams He boxes one punch two quick jabs uppercut His mood swings left right left right back forward forward back

He plays up down square triangle left left circle He smokes deep inhale hold it hold it hold Slow seeping exhale And oh how he kisses ass They should have a day just for you Anything would look amazing on you Have I told you that you make me a better person

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He talks I don’t listen He is that utensil I need to scratch that special itch Such talent He is lucky he fits perfectly at my side for lesser females to see to envy My inferior more-broken-than-fixed Accessory

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Deist God Machine Jordan Kady

The Deist God project consisted of a large box mounted on legs that enabled the viewer to step into an empathetic understanding of God as Deists believed him to be, a creator that sets the world on a clock and lets it turn. By turning the wheels, the viewer is able to move the shadows of violent figures inside the box and make them come to life only to enact horrible things on one another. The piece is intended as a commentary on contemporary society delighting in playing god only when it is fun or convenient.

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Binding of Bone Alexandra Gonzales Your body is my favorite book. I read it best when you’re asleep, the book exposed on jersey sheets. Pages made of skin cells that I have memorized like the rhythm of your breathing, as familiar to me as the tendons of which you are composed, as the scar behind your elbow that spells out fragile: handle with care. I know some— no, all—of this language on your skin. Scenes of freckles dancing on your back are disclosed to my eyes as sinews and muscles tell tales of movement, your story never done.

When morning stretches next to us in bed, I close the book and wait to read again.

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Walk on By by Samantha Brooks, black and white film photograph

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From the Napkin of a Madman Lee Thomas Penn, son of Thomas Lee Penn A golden tower of pent-up sandwich power set free from the fridge— cold, dead— to inseminate sweet bread and be buried in flaps of turkey and Monterey Jack.

Oh, how the tower bends to take tomato abuse and drink deli juice!

Yes, how you love the knife’s pain!

Spread, my little yellow stain, for I hold the scepter!

I control the pumpernickel!

I slice the sultry pickle!

I twist your nipple with bleached knuckle— Good Lord, I’m a condiment cuckold!

Whence this brown residue?

A herpes sore? You whore! My word!

I left it exposed to fester in the fridge, uncured.

And now I shall forgo the filthy mustard.

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Jimmy Stallings by Amanda Adams, digital photograph

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An Evening with Silberberg Chip Skambis Come on, read me—I’d like to see you try.

Go ahead, open me, run your fingers along my pages, flipping by chemical equations, one after another.

The smell of printed verbiage and the crinkling of my creases are intoxicating. I’m not as bad as they say. It’s not my fault I’ve had stained relationships in the past. I’m your perfect study partner. Will we be more? Doubtful.

Your dossier doesn’t indicate you’re up to the task.

I would know. I’ve seen it before.

You’ll keep me in your room on your desk, paper and pencils nearby as you take notes, attempting to plumb my depths.

We’ll sit there nervously eyeing each other— wary of your likely failure, and yet denying it.

Our first intimate encounters will be so satisfying; you’ll annotate me as no man has before.

But the weeks go on, things change, and you’ll say you’ve done enough to stay on top of things.

You’ll fail a quiz, a frantic wake up call not a moment too soon.

Then you’ll take me with you everywhere, and yet the solitary intimacy will be gone.

The friends you bring along will call me “Silbia,” and insist that we make our love facebook official, and my spine will shiver with anticipation.

Then you’ll take a practice test— an 84, that’s enough to put me down— and then you’ll take the real test and score half that.

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I can’t say I’ll feel sorry for you.

That’s just the way it works.

You’ll break my heart, and I’ll break yours, and any chemistry we may have had will become solely a subject. It won’t be the same.

But I won’t leave you alone. I will still be here.

We won’t be able to escape each other, no matter how hard we may try.

And then I’ll wait till next semester and repeat this all once more.

So go ahead, start the homework.

But I’m watching you.

-43-

Iron & Lime by Laura M. Brown, digital photograph

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Dear Angela Lee Thomas Penn, son of Thomas Lee Penn Based loosely upon true events.

Dear Angela,

I need to inform you of a matter of the utmost importance. I know sensitive information, and yet you will not believe me unless I relate some details about my situation.

I’ve kept a close eye on you for some time, yet I couldn’t say for how long. I live in your apartment with you; I’m a spirit.

Oh, please don’t think of me as a “ghost” or a “phantom.”

That would just kill me! I’m not sinister, Angela, like that bloody poltergeist three buildings east. I promise. I sleep under the leftmost couch cushion, when facing the television.

I haven’t the slightest idea how I came to live in your cozy apartment or when. I can only remember events, like when your boyfriend broke up with you and you wept on your bathroom floor for 235 minutes. I have forgotten what it feels like to love.

You wouldn’t let any of your friends see you in such a morbid state, but I watched it all, touched every tear. Your eyes were bloated, and your cheeks turned blue. Dare I say it was beautiful? You had one arm clutched around the toilet as if it were a headstone, crying. Always crying. The other arm clutched a tub of Rocky Road ice cream. You dripped it everywhere, poor thing; you were so frightened of the future. Such a cold, shivering, breathing body. I remember it all. I played in the tracks of your melted ice cream that night while Richard from the apartment above came and checked on you. Richard… Richard…

Wait, no it’s gone.

I also remember when the homeless man solicited you for money through the front door — doors are such a humorous concept for me. You sounded very brave as you turned him away, but I could tell that you were frightened. And understand-

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ably so! I’ve learned to read the rhythms of your heart, Angela, and it was beating dangerously. He died two hours later, so you probably don’t have to worry about him anymore. Something about a bus: I don’t quite recall.

I’m supposed to tell you something important, and yet I can’t quite remember what it is. Honestly, I can’t even remember my own name. Oh, but it feels so good to finally talk to you!

I’ve explored every square inch of your apartment while you have been away at work during the day. I quite like our home! Have you ever followed the pipes to see where they go?

I flit through the silky clothes in your closet and rebound off of the picture frames lining your walls. Tell me, what was Rome like? I’ve always wanted to explore the crypts under the Vatican; I hear that it’s a regular party down there.

I especially like it when you take a shower. I dance around in the steam — it tickles me all over, if you were curious. When you’re like me, you can hop from bubble to floating bubble with ease. I have to control myself from laughing. Oh, and so that you are aware, you tend to miss a spot on your left elbow, and one between your shoulder blades, and another on the back of your right thigh. You’re a beautiful girl.

Sometimes I talk to Suzette when you go to work. She’s rather smart for a bird and would like to let you know that she appreciates the new seed. Your plants, on the other hand, bore me to death. They’re always whispering about dew points and changes in the weather, the droll fibers. Do consider adopting a Venus Fly Trap or a Pitcher Plant, Angela.

On other occasions, I pay a visit to the specters in the neighborhood, although they offer poor company. My acquaintance down the block shrieks all the livelong day, and I can’t get a word in edgewise. She clutches her wrists and screams something about her children. Horribly impolite. Another chap wears a belt about his neck and makes a sport out of scaring old women.

“I’ll teach them to build high-rises and duplexes near my castle!” he hollers, waving a condensed fist and spewing ecto-46-

plasm. He tells me that I should take over your body and cause mischief: that it’s quite fun. But, I’d never possess your body, Angela.

I apologize. I seem to have forgotten the focus of my letter.

I do have something to say, Angela, but I just can’t remember it. I’ve wanted to speak to you for so long that I get caught up at times.

I do need to eat. Every night I stand outside of your bedroom and stare at the door, waiting for you to fall asleep. Your breathing regulates, I slip through the keyhole, and I position myself right in front of your face. I’m so close that I could kiss you if I still had lips. So, I sit there and count the hairs on your chestnut head or stare at the mole hidden under your eyebrow and wait for you to dream. When you breathe out, you exhale the sweetest morsels of dream vittles and somatic hors d’oeuvres. I devour these greedily. You woke up once while I was enjoying a light brunch of nightmare goulash, and I think you saw me. You shouted some gent’s name, and I darted up to the ceiling before you could finish a blink. As I stared down at you, I felt absolutely terrible. Your chest heaved up and down fitfully for 22 minutes. Poor dear: I didn’t mean to frighten you.

You slept terribly after that, and I had to settle for sparse snacks.

Here, I’ll stop taking up your time. I’ll read over my letter from the beginning, and the purpose of its creation will come to me again.

Ah, I remember now! How could I have forgotten this?

You left your apartment on a trip two weekends ago, and you asked Richard from the unit over yours to take care of Suzette and water your plants. Now, I’m only telling you this because I’m a resident, and I have the right to move about our apartment without being harassed. Otherwise, I wouldn’t intrude upon another’s business. Well, Richard fed Suzette and made sure that your plants would live, but he also brought tools and cables and the like. Please don’t think me a gossip, Angela! He used the weekend to install cameras into your apartment: one in the kitchen, one in the living room, one in your bedroom, -47-

and two in your bathroom. They’re hidden in such a way that you can’t see them unless you look very carefully. He spends all day watching our apartment on his computer monitor.

Angela, you must take these cameras down because they make it intolerably difficult to move about our apartment unseen. Sometimes I bump into things. I value my privacy, and I don’t feel comfortable with that horrid man watching me. I’m particularly exposed when you bathe because my movements disrupt the rising steam. He also loosened the ceiling of your closet and dropped down into your apartment shortly after you left for work this morning. I was having a lovely conversation with Suzette, and he almost caught me unawares. He dug through your underwear drawer and paraded about the place in only your knickers, posing and bending, much to my visual disgust. I should not be subject to such abominable sights, Angela.

I insist that you either speak with this exhibitionist and come to some sort of understanding or we move away immediately. Please, for my sake. I have my rights. I’m ready to leave whenever you are, Angela.

Fondly,

The Spirit from Apartment 274

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Guinea Dancer by Larry D. Rosalez, digital photograph

Owl by Jordan Kady, acrylic on recycled cardboard

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If I Should Die Before I Wake Carmen Dolling My husband’s corpse is hogging half the bed.

I’ve woken like I always do, near three, to get a drink, or maybe take a pee, and now I’ve got to deal with this instead.

I can’t say that I’m pleased to find him dead.

He’s left the mortgage bill unpaid; the tree out front diseased; the dog unspayed; the key to our old Dodge lost in the garden shed.

It’s selfish of him, really, to have gone and died—that lazy bastard, counting sheep forever now, expecting me to weep.

Does he presume I’ll sit and sob ‘til dawn?

My every would-be wail becomes a yawn.

He’ll rest in peace. I’m going back to sleep.

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How to Live Katherine Gaffney Lizards are okay as colleagues, just not when they talk and advertise low rates for car insurance. Steer away from the Hustle--the Twist and Shout is much preferred.

Crème brûlée is a friend, as are fried Oreos.

Don’t be scared off by the word “fried”-its connotations have been misrepresented by the bland and unjust.

Cacti spines don’t photosynthesize, just as your arms shouldn’t masticate. If they do, it is highly advisable to see a doctor.

Doctors tend to be wealthy and medicine is the future.

The future is for dreamers like Jim, and his fantasies for the next generation of radio and television. Television is a friend, a dear friend. Radio is a car ride companion: perfect for sing-along favorites, or screaming back at bow-tied NPR guests.

Bow ties should not be clip-ons.

Clipping notes to the fridge is a nice way to keep track.

A book should be cracked once a day, much like vegetables.

Planting a garden for once in your life-perhaps an herb garden--allows comprehension.

Use it as a sort of metaphor before having kids.

Spilled coffee on a blouse should be more like a testy flick than a sucker punch.

Kick-boxing is not only for self-defense.

Romance is much like escargot: not everyone samples it. The French enjoy stacking bones. The patella is quite useful when praying.

Prayer is not necessarily a one-way street.

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Boundaries should never hold back dreams, and dreams should not be analyzed Freudian-style. A psychology session does not always involve a couch.

Treasure-hunting in sofas is not only for remotes and pennies.

The ever-changing images on coins may transfer to bills, in which case we can no longer say, “How about a Franklin, to ease your pain?”

Pain is not only gashes and PTSD is real.

Reality will always be debated.

Debate is a dying art when raw emotions can’t traverse the Internet. Fishing can only lead to hooks and lines. Did you know people spend half their lives waiting?

Hours use long hands. Hands hold wedding rings on the fourth finger.

It is nice to think of twigs as digits.

Math is not necessary, except in statistics.

Deception is an art of marketing.

Outdoor markets are more quaint for groceries.

Dirty water hot dogs aren’t so dirty, but fish and chips are just like the rest of London’s food. The London eye has no pupil. Irises are in eyes and gardens.

Seeds don’t always come in paper, and paper isn’t always made of trees.

You’ll never use tree diagrams in life.

Life isn’t as short as people claim it is.

Being is tricky, but not being is even harder.

Solidity is immeasurable--like honesty, it is often found in wads

-53-

Home Brooke Rosen I. Kaia’s guilting me again. Meanwhile, The Post Man is calling because he wants to come up to my room and deliver some flowers but I’m busy. I can hear the girl in the room over touching herself and the people in the hall won’t stop wining about their exams. There’s dust everywhere.

II. There’s dust everywhere. In balls and clumps; with hairs and pieces of paper and sticky crumbs. It lines my bedroom; it’s all over the carpet, my shoes, the bed. It lies in little colonies on the tile. This one time, I came back from a shower and found the biggest clump of all-- in my hair.

Dust’s no picnic. I even try to clean it up, grab the colonies by their hair and the ends of my fingers and drop them in the trash. Or I scoot them under the carpet. But it’s no use.

They just keep on growing, growing and gathering.

I told my mom about it, about the dust, and she lectured me on cleaning my room. I do clean my room, I tell her, I clean it too much. Not that kind of cleaning, she says, you’ve gotta wipe it down.

III. The wind sounds like the ocean when it rushes between buildings and I close my eyes. There’s the ocean, and it feels like home. Home isn’t where you feel most comfortable, it’s where you’re alive.

Not this place. This place isn’t home. The carpet in the hallway is soaked in sour taco or dog juice or tampon smell, and the people stay in their rooms all day long. That’s not home. I don’t care what kind of mattress you have, or how comfy your pajamas are.

People stay in their room because it’s easy, it’s comfortable, -54-

wrapping the breakables, if there are any. It’s time to wipe this place down.

I’m done with the fall. Something about it gets me in this mood, this empty mood. That’s not how life actually is, not when you’re an optimist.

Waking up here makes me sick. I rub my lips on my shirt sleeve and then rub my dirty lips on the inside of my collar where it’s clean. You don’t do things like that when you’re an optimist.

I told Kaia I was leaving and she told me to “fuck off then.” I would comfort her if I could, but she’s like all of the people in the elevators who try not to touch because the guy over by the door might have Swine and they have exams coming up. She’s like the people who rot away in their dog juice rooms because it’s easy and it takes thirteen muscles to smile.

I would comfort her, but I’m afraid I’ll get sick. I’ve been sick like that for years and I’m not about to keep it up if it means trading in my ocean, my home, my thirteen muscles.

It’s sunny in Florida. My plane leaves on Friday.

Sipping on an eight dollar glass of red, seat 23B has decided to chat with me about her home life. I usually have to swallow and blow my nose and chew gum and stuff because of the pressure, but this has been a smooth ride, and the sky is starting to turn blue. Elliott Smith is singing around my neck and she’s chattering about her parents’ beach house.

“It’s only a week, right?” She pleads, tapping a pen on her copy of The Economist.

Now that’s the attitude.

Miami International is warm. My aunt has been waiting for me in the Flamingo Garage, so I hop in and we’re off. She doesn’t try to talk too much, so I get to stick my head out the window and let the humidity make me human again. We’re nearing Calle Ocho, then The Grove and the park where she’s -55-

dropping me off.

shoes off and walking in the dirt. Getting my feet dirty. I want them to be brown, like the earth, my knees and hands too, so I kneel down and breathe. There’s a path deep in here somewhere and it leads to the ocean.

IV.

Kaia hasn’t called. I’m actually glad. She’d want to know if I was sleeping with anyone, and I hate lying to her.

The Post Man keeps asking me for my new address, but I brush off the question until I fake static and hang up. I think he got the message. And Florida, there’s dust here too. Sure there’s dust; it doesn’t go away, not even when you wipe it down. But there’s dirt too, and salt, and water, and when I close my eyes it sounds like the ocean and I know that this is real and that I am home.

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Fireflies Caitlin McGrath The nights were long on my great-aunt’s back porch where the family would gather while the smell of deep-fried okra still lingered.

The wide, beaded circles of condensation decorated the wooden table like our very own universe of wet, clumsy planets and iced tea.

Their words would form as low and lazy letters, drifting over my head while the sky turned amethyst, and the air felt thick on my lips.

My brother would chase the pulsing embers of early fireflies with his little glass coffin in hand, to keep as he fell asleep.

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Calm Before the Storm by Jolie Shapiro, digital photograph

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Synesthesia Jeannette Pepin so i used my fingers instead you said it took too long with the wine in my mouth but on your inner thigh i wanted to write a sestina to recite under water shivering with palindromes like waterlilies kissing the sky just to see them wait for the drops tremble forever on my fingertips these words slow glazed honey thick you said my poems sound better backwards

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Blue Man by Brittany Phillips, acrylic on canvas

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Under the Guys Chip Skambis It’s really hard to resemble a woman when you look like Harry Truman, but I’ve learned Victoria’s secret, and I am not about to keep it.

I empty my drag bag onto my bed, and wonder if I dare wear red.

Tonight I decide to try blond hair while I’m smashing pads into underwear.

Cramming into clingy clothes, I almost tear my pantyhose.

Now I look into the mirror and see that I could not look queerer, but with plucks and jabs of Maybelline, I have the makings of a pageant queen.

I don my wig, my blouse and skirt, and practice how I’m going to flirt.

I am Juanita, and I look good— I’ll make all the boys get wood.

But I stare and wonder if, with this guise, I’ll attract some awfully gorgeous guys.

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A Night by the Hippodrome by David Aronson, oil on canvas

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Steamboat Corbin Schneider My young wife— in my dream, you were blue-eyed and earnest, like the day we met.

But now I sit here in middle age, on my bed, with nothing but your ghost, shelves of books, and a writing desk.

In search of matches for my father’s seventieth birthday cake, I wrench open a drawer and find you staring up at me (your expired license from 1978); or perhaps with the autumn’s first cold: I reach to the back of the hallway closet, and find you limp on a hanger, clad in a slim blue dress.

Our wedding night, when the steamboat ran up onto the shoals in the harbor, do you recall how the smokestack had cracked, how it had fallen over aflame, as if burning Icarus had crashed in the night?

Drunk on champagne, we waited like children for the cleanup crews to finish, rubbernecking on the balcony, remarking how the boats were crowding together, bumping hulls, as if they were the ones making love instead of us.

I couldn’t stand it: I was half in my tux, and you were still in white.

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Juxe’s Jazz Club Near Ft. Rucker Military Base, Alabama Ana Cecilia Silva While the man on stage takes five after a throaty chorus of his blues tune, and that last lingering piano hum quiets, you stay suspended in a haze of smoke and booze, and you FL I C K a cherry off your Pall Mall into the ash tray that’s sitting lazy by your whiskey double.

You peel your thirsty eyes back to the vocalist who’s taking hold of that old ‘phone again.

And just as he

p

o

u

r

s his brassy voice over the mike, some sweet, sassy thing walks in, with skin like spiced rum.

Her metronome hips break through the fog in an elegant march

to the martini with extra olives that’s already waiting for her at the bar.

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The sax squeezes out another note as this fat cat tells her another joke and her laughter explodes like hand grenades tossed over her shoulder.

And you know by the way she swirls her drink —easy, cool— that she could shoot you down with her machine gun tongue, always locked and loaded.

Despite your conscientious objections,

the trumpet blare

pulls you from your seat,

and the singer’s scatting

shuffles your knotted feet and the cat-call of the wailing jazz

—now in full swing—

leads you

brings you

in a hypnotized

man’s dance

towards her,

that curvaceous tank.

You’re alone in this, armed only with a surprise advance and this liquor-granted charge to win her purple heart.

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Cryogenically Frozen Thomas Malthus by David Stuzin, digital photograph

Paul and Theo Kellia Moore Back when Paul was getting ready to leave, I didn’t think he was going to forget us. That was when everything seemed to be the way it always was, when Dad was still able to take what Paul was doing in stride and pretend like it was all part of the plan. It was really a bit of a stretch to think that Paul’s dropping out of art school and moving to Paris was really part of Dad’s plan. But even Paul didn’t point that out. He agreed with everything those days, probably because he was leaving. When he was extra nice to me, though, I just figured it was because he was going to miss me. That’s how I thought about things back then. When it happened, though, it was quicker than I could’ve imagined. A few weeks rolled by, and then Paul was gone.

From that point on, he started to forget us. At first his letters were frequent and detailed, with special sections for Mum and me at the end, but they became shorter as it became more and more apparent that he wasn’t going to get into the Parisian art school he had planned to study at. At first Dad was indignant and wrote a letter to the school, but the return letter seemed to indicate that it was more a matter of Paul not completing the application than a matter of him not being accepted. Then Dad was really mad, and he said that Paul was ungrateful and wasting his potential. But while Dad’s letters got longer and angrier, Paul’s got shorter and cheerier. He said that he loved Paris, that his art had never been better. In his writing he used French phrases that we didn’t understand—he was sorry he couldn’t say it in English, but French was really the only way to put it. The other thing his letters had in abundance were unrealized promises to visit us.

So when they told me Paul was coming to visit, I didn’t really believe them. It was exam time anyway, and I was studying extra hard. I wanted to do as well in math as I usually did in science because Dad sometimes talked about how I should

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work for Uncle John’s bank some day, and I figured I ought to prove that I could. Probably my worst subject was going to be English because I didn’t understand Shakespeare at all. But I cared a lot less about that.

So I was thinking about these sorts of things, and not about Paul at all, all the way until we were going to meet him at the train station. I also thought that maybe he had lied or messed up and was going to be on a different train, but then the right one came at the right time and he stepped off with his suitcase and his bag of art supplies and a crooked hat. He really came.

“Mum!” he said first, and hugged her so hard he picked her up. His hair was the same—I had always been jealous of it because it fell in the right places, whereas I had a horrible cowlick—but now he also had a mustache and a goatee, which made him look older and strange. When he was done with Mum, he leaned down to be eye-level with me.

“And you, Theo, look at how tall you are!”

“I’m eleven,” was all I could think of to say, even though he could probably have figured that out for himself.

“And you look every inch of it! Look at you!” He cuffed me on the shoulder and I smiled in spite of myself. Finally he turned to Dad. “Glad to have you back, son,” was all Dad said as they shook hands.

“He’s not back, he’s just visiting,” I informed no one in particular. Paul chuckled and put his hat on my head.

“It’ll be a good visit, though, I promise,” he said, and Mum beamed.

Paul had some kind of genius. That was the first and last of it. When he was really little, three I think, he started drawing on everything—paper bags, receipts, walls. As Dad tells it, at first he and Mum thought that Paul was just imitating what his dad did, since back then Dad was still mainly painting instead of woodworking. But when he gave Paul some real paper to -68-

draw on and some watercolors to muck around with, he was surprised by how long Paul spent at it and how fiercely engaged in it he was. Pretty soon Dad started giving him mini-lessons on technique, and by the time I was born he was already working on things like shading and perspective. So growing up, I never knew anything different than walls crammed with his latest drawings, than fruit bowls you weren’t allowed to eat from because they were actually still life models, than hearing Dad give Paul his daily art lesson in the studio while I sat in the kitchen and ate an after-school snack. I liked looking at Dad’s art, but I liked looking at Paul’s even better. Even when his technique wasn’t perfect, he just had a way of getting across the little peculiarities of what he was drawing—the sideways tilt of a lampshade, the bumpy knuckles of a hand. Plus sometimes he drew quick sketches of people we knew from school—pretty girls, usually, but sometimes caricatures of teachers that were really funny. Sometimes I would ask him to draw certain things; I liked to see them the way he saw them.

At some point, his figures grew really precise. One time for an anatomy project I asked him to draw a detailed body for me to label, and I think his drawing was better than the one in the textbook. The best thing he ever did, though, was a painting, one he did of Mum. His portrait of Dad was much more exact, but the one of Mum had some sort of extra quality. She looked like she was really breathing, suspended in a quiet moment. Strictly speaking, he had made her hair too curly and perfect, but he also put in the little lines around her mouth, and sometimes I thought the painting looked more like her than she did, even though that didn’t make any sense. I didn’t see the painting a lot because Mum kept it by her bed. This one time, though, when I did really well on a science test, I went into Mum and Dad’s bedroom when no one else was home, and instead of putting the test on their nightstand I taped it right over the painting. I don’t know why. Right before they were supposed to come home, though, I lost my nerve and took the test off—really carefully I thought—but there was this little -69-

Feel by Larry D. Rosalez, digital photograph

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mark that the tape left on top. It was pretty faint, but for a while when I looked at the painting it was all I saw.

Dinner on the night Paul came home was unusually loud and boisterous—mostly due to him, of course. For a while he mainly just talked about all the times he had almost said Bonjour on the train. But then he talked to Mum about all the beautiful flowers and parks in Paris, and he told me about an archeological museum he had seen, which was actually pretty interesting. He even got Dad to thaw out a bit by promising him he would really like the paintings he had brought home to show him. It also helped things that Paul ignored the grumpy snort Dad made every time Paul mentioned “studying” or “working.” Paul kept on saying, “I knew you would love this,” or, “I just couldn’t help but think of you” every time he introduced some new and interesting tidbit about Paris, as if he had been thinking of us the whole time instead of once a month for a two-paragraph letter.

Dinner ended with Paul lamenting that Mum hadn’t made one of her delicious desserts—only Paul could simultaneously complain and make her happy. While she promised a pie for tomorrow, I went back to my room to study.

Things made more sense there. I probably didn’t really have to write out all the names of the phyla I had to memorize, but I liked the way my pen scratched on the paper, and I liked making neat rows of jutting cursive, instead of the more legible print I used in class. I was in one of those concentrated moods where all I could see was the paper, so when Paul came in and leaned on the doorframe, it was actually a few moments before I noticed.

“Still a bookworm, huh?” he said. I nodded, even though it was unnecessary, since it was a rhetorical question. He stepped in and picked up a large, brown book from a stack next to my bed. “Wow, you’ve really built up a library here.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Mostly I just get them from teachers, if -71-

there’s an old textbook or something. Or sometimes the library sells old books for cheap.”

“Man, you’ve got enough of these to build a little house,” he said, turning to the bookshelf.

“Actually,” I smiled a bit, “for awhile I had them all built up there, to make a wall between my desk and the door. It was great. But then Mum made me take it down. That’s when Dad built me the bookshelf.”

Paul chuckled a bit and leaned against the wall. I realized that he didn’t really have his own spot in my room like I used to have at the foot of his bed. I was always in his room, and not vice versa. Now he looked a picture of catlike ease, leaning with his knee crooked and his arms crossed, but it still seemed strange, especially since I had the only seat.

“So how’s school?” he asked. “And Jane Brently—she still have that gorgeous body?” He moved his eyebrows up and down to signal the extent of her body’s gorgeousness, and I smiled. Jane Brently was something of a school celebrity, an eleventh year that underclassmen only dreamed of talking to.

Paul, of course, had talked to her whenever he wanted. It was strange to think that it had only been a year or so since he’d gone to school with me every day.

“Yeah, yeah, still the same. She’s going with John now.”

“What, John Cole? The one who tried to eat glitter in primary school?”

I laughed; I had forgotten that. It was a real mental stretch to think of the large and popular John Cole as a glitter eater. I wondered if this was the way Paul saw things all the time. “Yup, that’s the one. He’s all tall and built now. George says he looks like a hippopotamus, but I think he’s just jealous.”

Paul found this funny. Laughing like that with his goatee and his arms crossed, he looked like some sort of pirate king.

“Oh man, George. You still best mates with him? What about Harry and Leo? Oh, and that Tom fellow?”

I drew a little doodle on the corner of my paper. “Um, I’m still mates with George.”

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“Just George? Why not the other guys?”

I got a little more daring with my doodle. “I’m just not mates with them.”

“Why not? They were fun, weren’t they? What happened?”

“Nothing, just—I dunno. It’s not like, um, I’m some sort of social wizard. You were the popular one, remember?” I finished the doodle and instantly regretted it. It was messy and made the whole paper look bad.

“Was I?” he said lamely. He smoothed out his goatee even though he didn’t need to. “Well, hey,” he said firmly, back to being cheerful. “I’ll have to straighten them out, won’t I?” “Yeah,” I said skeptically. But he had already moved on.

“Man, I have to tell you, it’s just so strange to be back.” He leaned his head back against the wall. “It’s like going back in time or something. Things in Paris are very different for me.” He looked me full in the face for the last bit, as if to impress upon me just how different things were.

“Oh,” I said. Most of this information I could’ve figured out from the conversation at dinner.

“It’s not even the English, although I really almost said about eight things in French at the dinner table tonight—can you believe it?” I could, in fact, believe it, but I wasn’t sure if I should tell him that. “It’s just automatic now, I guess.” He looked up for a moment as if contemplating its automatic-ness. “But it’s more than that. If you knew—there’s so many things I could tell you now.”

He chuckled a bit to himself. “When I left I was just so green. I thought life was like this, like living inside this box, this tiny little house. But there’s just so much.”

I absorbed the knowledge that I was living in a tiny little box.

Partly I felt embarrassed for being so backward. Partly I also felt mad that he would forget me and then tell me I was in a box.

“I should figure out the most important things to tell you, or write you a list or something.” He paused.

“You mean like a letter?” I said, but he was already wrapped up in what he was going to say next.

“It’s like, all this stuff they tell you, all this stuff about the -73-

way you have to live, it isn’t true.” He grew more fervent. “Like, like—” he snatched up a book. “Why do you study? Why do you study all the time?”

He paused, but I think his expectations for my response were probably a little high because mainly I just blinked.

Regardless, he plunged on. “It’s because they told you to, Theo. It’s because they said that you have to do well in school to succeed anywhere.” I didn’t know exactly who he meant by “they,” and it was frustrating me. Or maybe Paul was frustrating me.

“Not really,” I said.

“Not really what?”

“I mean, I don’t study because of ‘they’—or whatever. I just like to read. And I have to read because I have exams this week.

And, look Paul. I have to write out all these phyla tonight,” I finished abruptly.

“Well, anyway,” he said, a little put out, “I’ll have to think out what I’m going to tell you.” He played a bit with a mustache end. “Who are you doing this for anyway? For Zimmerman? You know you don’t actually have to do his homework.”

“It’s not for Zimmerman. I just have to do it.”

“Ok, ok. That argument’s never worked on you before, I guess.” He came over and messed up my hair like he always used to do. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He left me to my papers. It took a little while before I could really focus on studying again, though.

I had to admit that I really did understand Paul’s sensation of being back in time because when I came home from school the next day, Dad and Paul were in the studio talking about Paul’s latest art. Dad actually sounded happier than I’d heard him in a while, so I really wanted to see the paintings Paul was showing him. But I had never been allowed in the studio during one of Paul’s lessons before, and even though it had been forever and I wasn’t a little kid anymore, I just couldn’t bring myself to try. So I -74-

moseyed back into the kitchen with my sandwich, figuring I’d ask Paul later. Mum was in there, making dinner already.

“Theo, would you chop these apples for the pie?” she asked.

“I have my hands full with this roast.” For some reason she was dancing a bit as she worked, humming even. I wanted to tell her that Paul was only here for a week, so she didn’t have to be so darned happy about it, but instead I just complained that I was about to start doing my homework.

“Just chop them, Theo,” was her only reply, so I resigned myself to my fate and tried to think about the apples as fractions.

“Theooooo,” Paul said when he and Dad came out from the studio. He came up behind me and pushed all the front of my hair back, which made my cowlick way worse.

“Paul!” I whined and tried to push it back down, knocking ¼ of an apple on the floor in the process. He picked it up and took a bite before Mum noticed.

“And how was school today?” he asked.

“Fine,” I said. I didn’t mention that I had spent a lot of time avoiding everyone who tried to ask me if Paul was really back.

“My biology exam is tomorrow, though, so I have to do some more to get ready.”

“Oh, please, Theo, you could’ve got an A on that if you took it months ago.”

“No, I couldn’t’ve because he’s gone over mitosis since then,” I explained. Dad was busy telling Mum that Paul’s new paintings were quite good, which made her look so happy that I felt like we were all in some sort of magazine advertisement for happy families or kitchens or something. “You want to chop some apples?” I asked Paul. “It’s your pie.”

“No, brother, I cannot,” he said, faking regret with dramatic eyebrows. “Unfortunately, I’m about to go meet Lee and Gilbert for some catching up time. Also,” he leaned in close and lowered his voice, “I need a smoke.”

“What’s that?” Mum asked, interrupting Dad. “Nothing, just looking forward to the roast,” he said. I had always been a bit awed by Paul’s ability to lie. “I’m going to go -75-

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Wayback by Brian Garcia, black and white film photograph

meet some of the guys,” he added, grabbing his jacket.

“Which guys?” Mum asked while I struggled with ¾ of an apple.

“Lee and Gilbert—you remember them.”

Of course she remembered them; the three of them had always used to get in trouble together. But she just nodded her assent anyway.

“I’ve got to go.” He came and kissed her on the cheek.

“See you soon!” With a few steps and a bang in the hallway, he was out the door.

I realized I hadn’t gotten to ask him about his paintings at all.

Unfortunately, the whole happy-family-selling-a-kitchen thing didn’t last. In fact, it only lasted about an hour into Paul not showing up for dinner. When we finally started eating, nothing tasted very good—the mashed potatoes were lumpy and cold, and even the pie wasn’t great. Mum wanted to save it for later, but Dad said gruffly that there was no reason at all that we shouldn’t eat it. The worst part was when Mum said something vague about how maybe something had happened and Paul had a good reason to not be back yet, which just made me want to shout “I told you so” at the salt shakers because nothing had happened and she knew it. I wasn’t sure if Dad even heard her; he just kept talking about the cabinet he was making like he was a spy and this was Operation Nothing is Wrong.

I left the table as soon as I could, but I couldn’t really focus on homework. Plus, Paul was right that I didn’t really have to study for my Biology exam. For some reason, it kept bugging me that Paul had left before I could even ask him if I could see his portfolio. Then another thought hit me—I’d never had to ask him before. It didn’t matter that he was out drinking alcohol or jumping over train tracks or doing whatever it was he did with Lee and Gilbert, I could still look at his portfolio, couldn’t I? I put my book aside and went to Paul’s room.

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When I sat down on the bed, legs crossed, for a moment I felt like nothing had ever changed, like I was just a kid again and believed everything everyone said. This feeling reinforced the idea that I was perfectly able to look through Paul’s portfolio. Paul kept saying that Paris had changed everything for him, but he said at least as many times that everything at home had remained the same. I imagined our house frozen in ice like an ancient mammoth, and Paul, the intrepid explorer, taking off his hood in wonder at the sight. I opened the portfolio.

The first few drawings were normal—a cup of coffee, a small bedroom. But then there was a man slumped over a bar.

Two women dancing in tight yellow dresses, a haggard man holding a cigarette and staring at them. Another woman with a knowing smile and curly bunches of dark hair. The lines of the drawings were so harsh, so angular; no one had the round soft limbs I remembered from his old drawings. Instead they were twisted, assertive. The woman’s eyelashes were a thousand tiny lines, her dark jaw only one. She was there again, leaning toward a shadowy man in a top hat. Then she had no clothes on. Her legs were spreading and full of hair. I flipped the page over quickly and realized the charcoal had left a dark smear on my hand. These were just some flowers, that was nice. Those people were in an unmade bed. A single breast. I flipped on, knowing I should stop. Here was a man in a torn shirt with crazy eyes, staring right at me. And then a cat stepping around a bottle-strewn floor. A blonde woman with bags under her eyes smearing dark rouge onto her cheeks. The same woman pulling tights onto her naked legs. And the dark-haired woman, shirt off, looking straight at me again.

Suddenly a door closed with a loud slam. I jumped, scattering a few pages, and realized it was only someone coming in the front door. The dark-haired woman was halfway across the bed, her boob presented to the ceiling. Heart racing, I grabbed her, getting more charcoal on my hand, and stuffed her back in the portfolio. I should’ve tried to remember what order the pictures were in, should’ve fixed them, but instead I pushed the portfolio back up to the top of the bed and left Paul’s room as -78-

fast as my jolting heart would let me.

I thought it might be Paul coming home at last, but I realized that it was just Dad when the steps went into the master bedroom instead of down the hall towards me. That’s when I should’ve gone back into my room, should’ve shut my door and studied myself into a stupor, studied until Paul had gone back to Paris for good and everything was normal again. Instead, I walked past my open door and toward my parents’ bedroom.

Mum wasn’t in there, but Dad was, sitting on the bed taking off a shoe.

“Theo? What is it?” he asked when he noticed something was wrong.

“In Paul’s portfolio—there’s girls in there.” That’s all I said. Then I ran back to my room, and by the time I heard Dad’s footsteps going past my room toward Paul’s, I had given up even pretending to study.

When I had gotten my brain to calm down, I realized that Paul was in for it. But even then I hadn’t realized just how in for it he was. I knew that Dad was in the kitchen waiting with Paul’s portfolio because when Paul finally got home I heard the papers slap to the floor and the aggressive question, “What is this?” I could hear the entire fight from my bedroom because they yelled so loud even people on Mars could hear them. There were the things they typically fought about. Dad said that Paul was wasting his gift, throwing away his training, and Paul said that Dad had no right to tell him what to do and that it was his art and not Dad’s. Dad said that he had given up painting when Paul was little, just so he could teach him, and Paul said that he didn’t have to teach him anymore and that he wished he would just start painting again instead of pushing all his ideas on him. For a while I was able to not quite listen by imagining all the aliens who were building those canals on Mars pausing and putting down their shovels to listen. But then I heard my name—Dad was telling Paul that he had scared his little brother, that he was corrupting me with these slipshod drawings of -79-

prostitutes and pimps and Parisian trash. I felt something rumble through me; I thought of all the worst curse words I knew and ran them over and over through my head because now I was screwed, now Paul knew it was me, and I didn’t know what was going to happen next. I sat on my bed pushing my back into the wall, all the way through the end of the argument, wishing that if I pushed hard enough I could go back in time and change things or maybe go back in time and be born to a completely different family, be born an only child named William who was good at everything and had three girlfriends.

When the argument was over and I heard Paul walking back to his room, every step was like a thud in my head. I thought he was going to come into my room and maybe kill me, but instead he went straight to his own.

It started raining outside. I put on my pajamas and went to the bathroom to wash the charcoal marks off my arm. They streaked the sink some with black, and I had to rub that out too.

Part of me wanted to remember the drawings it had come from, and part of me really didn’t.

My original plan was to just go to bed and then do so well on the Biology exam tomorrow that everyone somehow forgot about what was making them angry. After about an hour of staring at the dark, though, I realized that there was no way I was going to be able to sleep on this.

So I went to Paul’s room for the second time that day.

The first time, I had thought I knew what I would find in there; this time I was certain that I had no idea.

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Ophelia by Jordan Kady, acrylic on canvas

Winter Road Jordanna Brown I’m asleep for the frozen daggers of Atlanta’s dew and all the pinched peach bottoms of Georgia’s billboards.

He wakes me in Alabama, perpendicular to Scufflegrit Road, to the mouth of a small town displaying its worn molars: some tired roadside tangelos, a cold-chafed Pig-Out Palace.

All the people must be warm in the belly of this fortress, squatting in regal, barbeque-lacquered booths or watching me through the skeletal clapboard of their parapets.

In Mississippi, we pass a field of empty school buses— fifty at least, like mammoth worms— rusting shells of them cocooned by tall trees, just sinking there.

When we pass into Arkansas, I can’t see the River, only oily reflections of city lights.

At the Little Rock Super 8, quick-squabbled, boot-clomping, Spanish expletivebitten hotel groans last until three.

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We slouch over our Continental muffins.

A T.V. Dutchman relates, with smirking lassitude, his headlock of the Nigerian ‘Christmas Day bomber.’

We keep munching.

Under the superior English of our savior we dust crumbs off our gloves.

Oklahoma is mired in the steaming methane of cow dung.

America’s agricultural womb looks wasted, gnawed by steel mills, missing great frostbitten clods.

A truck full of chickens hurtles past.

Their bodies are clumped tight, breasts pressed through metal bars, exposed to freezing air.

The mass of feathers reflects clean light, overtakes us, makes the snow look dirtier.

Here, the animals on the roadside all turn away from me, faceless and crumpled as Goodwill sweaters.

Two-headed trucks like giant metal love-bugs escort us to Kansas.

Mud-snow is chucked onto the car from all sides.

We skulk into gas stations like a filthy, great, Florida-plated dog.

I pump at a chain called “Kum and Go,” but it’s no joke to these people.

And I can only imagine their sex as something that happens always in the dark, as brief, embarrassed collisions.

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