The 2015 Spire

THE SPIRE

2015 Literary Magazine

THE SPIRE 2015 Literary Magazine

The Spire is The Governor’s Academy student literary magazine. Students submit their poems and short stories to student editors who then decide which entries will be published. The Spire has been a voice for student literary creativity since 1966.

Winners of the Murphy/Mercer Short Story and Poetry Contest are also included in The Spire. The A. MacDonald Murphy Short Story and Thomas McClary Mercer Poetry Contest was created more than two decades ago to honor the work of the two English masters, whose combined service to the Academy totaled more than 65 years, and to encourage students’ pursuit of creative writing. Students submit entries which are read and voted upon by the English Department. First prize winners in each category receive a book prize and their works appear in the annual publications of The Spire each spring.

THE GOVERNOR’S ACADEMY

Student Editor: Garth Robinson ‘15 Editor in Training: Lily Bailey ‘16 Faculty Advisors: Maud Hamovit Karen Gold Peter Mason Cover Photo: Jimin Park ’15 Special thanks to faculty and staff in the departments of English, Fine Arts, and Communications.

2015 A. MACDONALD MURPHY SHORT STORY CONTEST FIRST PLACE

A Sit-uational Dilemma Wallace Douglas ’15 Oh god oh god oh dearsweetjesuschristlordabove am I late.

Cold February wind repeatedly slapped and smacked my still sleep-warm face as my worn, stained Uggs did their very best to scurry across the frozen campus.

Through the wind-induced tears in my eyes I saw the blurry outline of 7:58 a.m. on my battered green watch. My heart skipped several panicked beats.

I passed Hawthorn Hall in a frenzied rush, dancing around the other early Monday morning stragglers, trying to both avoid knocking into them and stepping in one of the many slush puddles that dotted the brick pathway like frigid booby traps. As I asked myself for the umpteenth time why I’d chosen to take a morning class on the worst day of the week for mornings, the stone mass of Easton Hall came into view in all of its formidable glory.

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“This class better be worth it…” I muttered under my breath as I hurried on, feeling my socks dampening and my stomach growling in hunger from the lack of breakfast. It was the first day of second semester classes and I’d only been awake ten minutes. *** At last the heavy oak doors closed behind my soaked feet and the squish squish of my Uggs found its way through the many winding halls to Room 104. A paper clutched in my hand hung limp and defeated, beginning to tear around the folded seams as I checked it once again, as I had every five minutes for the past 24 hours, for the life-or-death instructions under ‘Second Semester Courses 2016:’ PSYCH 135. Prof. J. Callahan.

Easton104. M 8:00 – 9:30; Th 4:30 – 6:00. I looked up from the slowly disintegrating paper, my fingers feeling it crumple beneath their grip as I stowed it in my coat

pocket. Using the reflection from the glass in the closest display cabinet (on Skinner’s and Pavlov’s experiments—how fitting) I brushed my stringy, wet hair from my forehead, threw back my shoulders, looking myself in the eye with a determined gaze of false confidence, and prepared myself to pull the handle on the waiting wooden door in front of me and enter the unknown.

Oh shit.

Occupied, fully filled and verymuch-so taken chairs greeted my tardiness. In a growing panic my eyes scanned and scanned again to find a suitable empty chair in the sea of seats of complete and semicomplete strangers, all whom, for the moment, had not noticed the dripping wet and very harried freshman shifting awkwardly from foot to foot in the corner. I clenched and unclenched my pocketed fists, my discomfort growing as I knew the longer I stood in one place the more people would notice I had not yet taken a seat, and by the transitive property of life would notice me. I saw a clear open spot right at the front of the room, my heart leaping a bit in hope, only to crash right back down as I realized the seat was right in front of the professor’s lecture podium. The chair was worn and tilted from

its many days of serving its better purpose as a footrest for those in the row above. The typical teacher’s pet location, this seat was the prime spot to be called for questions and picked on when you’re wrong. So of course, nobody sat there; there was no way in hell I was about to become the teacher’s guinea pig for my first time with “Psychology and The Law.” I took another sweeping look around the lecture hall. There was an open seat in the back of the high ceilinged room between Jessica Banister and Henry Davies, right in the prime location of center back, beneath the magnificent glass window. I took my first hesitant step towards the spot, nearly making it to the graduated stairs when, Jessica gave me a nearly imperceptible shake of the head, sending the rather palpable message “No.” Taken slightly aback, I paused and pretended to look for something in my small, worn, clearly-not-big-enough-toactually-be-holding-anything coat pockets, trying as hard as I could to not look as unnerved as I felt.

Jessica was Emily’s (my roommate) best friend since, like, forever. They’d been together since preschool, with the exception of that period of time their junior year in high school when Jessica got

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mono and didn’t come to school for four months. Emily developed such bad separation anxiety from it that she had to start taking medication.

I’m pretty sure she still does when Jessica goes home for the weekend.

But that wasn’t the reason Jessica had shaken her head, Emily was on campus and they hadn’t had a fight yet about who was going to whose house for March break so what was it?…oh no. As I continued my pocket-searching charade, pretending to at last ‘find’ my pencil and move toward the sharpener at the left wing of the hall, I remembered that over the weekend Jessica and that hipsterkid Jeremy Potts had hooked up at Phi Beta Delta’s annual changeof-semester party, an experience Emily later told me (as Jessica had obviously told her) had been “both enjoyable but equally terrible, like one of those super sour Skittles.”

In the aftermath of the one-nightfiasco, neither party was speaking to the other, nor had Jessica even been seen near Jeremy since that Saturday night. An impressive feat for a college this small, especially since Jeremy Potts was Henry Davies best-friend and roommate, not to mention an upperclassmen, and Henry was Jessica’s now exboyfriend. Why they were sitting only a seat apart beat me, but I

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decided not to think too hard about it and instead avoid getting caught in the crossfire of the next World War (as I was both friends with Jessica and Henry - we ran Cross-Country together). So I took Jessica’s headshake to heart and looked for my next potential seat.

As I sharpened my pencil for what was probably a solid minute and a half, I saw the vacant, plastic void of a free chair. Sadly, the baggy sweatpants, snapbacks, and lack of notebooks alerted my disappointed eyes to the LaxBro fraternity contingent of Beta Chi Theta.

We’d already had a class together last semester: “Intro to Cultural Anthropology” ANTH 101 Prof. C. Cunningham.

Hawthorn223. T 1:30 – 3:00; F 10:00 – 12:30. (a real gut—the class it seemed every freshman who wasn’t a science geek took).

They’d done the very same thing; leaving a chair conspicuously open in the center of their crew, hoping a girl would sit there and become the next star invitee to one of their utterly skeezy but still popular Thursday Night Parties. Lucky for me, I’d known the last girl who’d made the mistake of sitting in the center of the trap. She was on my floor, near Jessica’s room in fact, and her horror stories of what’d gone down made all the crap from

my high school experience look like child’s play. So, no sitting there, that was for sure.

A drop of water from my hair fell down my back and I fought to keep from flinching and making more of scene than I already was. By now some people had begun staring at me, their equally morning-bleary eyes slightly intrigued to why the girl who looked like she’d lost a battle to a wet racoon and needed five shots of espresso hadn’t yet sat down, or checked herself into the nearest mental institution. I nonchalantly (or so I thought) tried to wipe the drop away with my own damp hand, biting my lip as I ever more frantically looked for a seat. I shivered.

AHA! The perfect seat! It beckoned from the left rear window, snug in the corner, next to the heater, too far from the board for the professor to notice if you’d shown up or not. How had I not seen it before? The small desk sat a bit distanced from those around it, nowhere near anybody I knew (perfect for making the class my waking up, de-stressing, totalaloneness time). The boy in the chair closest to the seat was Victor Easton, a descendent of the very man this building was dedicated to. He wasn’t as stuck up as I’d

thought he’d be back when we were in ENGL281 Prof. L. Tremblay.

Sammons306 M 5:00 – 7:00. He’d made a few comments about Othello that I appreciated, and he generally just stuck to writing random things in a notebook he religiously kept in his pocket. I’d snuck a few peeks throughout the past semester, but his handwriting was too messy for me to make out anything intelligible, though his drawings weren’t too shabby.

Directly in front of the seat sat Sharon Schroder. Though she was a bit bubbly for my taste and tended to take all the words she could from the air, making both concentrating and daydreaming difficult at times, she also generally ignored those immediately around her and served as great protection from being called on. Oh, how it was the Perfect Seat.

My soaked shoes began their first tentative steps toward the Perfect Seat, my head bending ever so slightly forward, my eyes lowered to avoid making any eye contact during my ascension to the back of the hall. I reached the top step and looked up to plan my path to the corner. Suddenly a body breezed by me and rejoined with a coat I hadn’t noticed had been resting on the back of the Perfect Seat. It was Dan Smith,

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a sophomore I’d only seen at the occasional party or coffee house, and knew by name only because he’d helped me out once in the library with unjamming the printer before the cranky librarian Mrs. Spinster found out. Looked like his time helping me out was now over. I stood there stranded in the middle of that hall, my face turning a delicate shade of pink as my peripheral vision told me that now almost all the eyes of the class were on me. Professor Callahan stood at the very front of the room, coughing quietly to get the class’s attention, staring directly at me, and then at the clock. The ancient analog circle read 8:06. Class had begun. My face flooded to a more uncomfortable shade of beet red.

I looked once more at my three remaining seat options. World War III? Fraternity Fornication?

Or Professor’s Guinea Pig…I had to choose between the worst of three evils. Shifting from wet Ugg to wet Ugg, my hands twisting in my pockets and my chapped lip threatening to split underneath my unbrushed teeth, I decided I’d rather live through the semester without losing friends or sleep to drama or contracting Gonorrhea, I shuffled my way, quietly and thoroughly embarrassed, to the worn and titled chair at the front

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of the room behind the projector podium. Sitting down like a prisoner before the firing squad, I pulled out my slightly damp notebooks like they were volatile explosives. Eyeing me as a hawk does its prey, Prof. Callahan took command of the U.S.S Psychology with “Well, Ms. Douglas, seeing as you have seemed to have finally chosen a seat and graced us with your academic attention, please tell me which social experiment…”

Dear sweetjesuschristlordabove, this is going to be a long semester.

2015 THOMAS McCLARY MERCER POETRY CONTEST FIRST PLACE

Dick’s Variety Jade Fiorilla ’17 The aroma of coffee mixes effortlessly with the sand and lotion as they sit on milk cartons full-body laughing while exchanging fishing stories more elaborate than ever before.

The newspaper crinkles, The styro foam cups lurch, shoes scuff and the world spins on.

It may seem that they are not taking advantage of every second they’ve been given, but who are we to judge as they congregate around the counter, peering at the scratch tickets, rooting for one another.

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2015 THOMAS McCLARY MERCER POETRY CONTEST SECOND PLACE

Prisoner of War Stephen Damianos ’15 A young man returns from Iraq after fourteen months at war. He arrives with seven caskets, four medals, two arms, two working eyes, and a boyfriend. Seven mothers hold folded flags and tired tissues, his mother holds her gaze at the floor, tries to hide her disappointment.

Memories flood back and stand impossible to hold down, the woman remembers becoming a mother.

Surrounded by blue men and buzzing machines, room 214 felt warmer than the December day. First feet, then legs, two arms and working eyes, a little prince that would one day disappoint her by finally being happy. She thinks back to his tenth birthday,

Twenty-four minutes from the airport to the house, twelve of them in silence. She thinks of the flag-bearing mothers and wonders if they’ll still call themselves mothers.

She opens the windows because it is too hot too stuffy, she feels like a burnt stick in one of the seven Fourth of July match boxes. Do those mothers feel broken or do they feel pride? Do those fourteen parents now raise or hate the flags they hold?

the yellow and green balloons, the ten candles on a frosted airplane, the way he held his breath before making a wish. There was no disappointment then, only happy, only happy, only a son and a mother and candles on a cake. But now there are too many worries, too many sins, twenty-four

I took him to church, she thinks, taught him seven sins deadlier than the gun that hangs by his side. She says quietly to herself that maybe there should have been eight, to prevent the shame and the disappointment that creeps from all sides when they hold hands the way she holds her Bible.

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minutes from the airport. For twelve of them her tears fly like shrapnel, her tears tear out of her eyes and towards the battleground, towards her hero, towards her enemy, towards the man in uniform she doesn’t quite recognize.

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90 Days of Slightly Burned Toast Lily Bailey ’16 The first day wasn’t bad The second wasn’t either The third was rather crunchy The fourth had a crust-burn fringe

Lily Bailey ‘16

The fifth and sixth were rather dry The eighth reminded me of Marge’s pie.

Crusty, but you loved it.

Not because it was good—

But because Marge made it.

I shook the thought off with the ninth.

The tenth was very sub par But good enough that I would eat it The eleventh was bad The twelfth was barely okay The thirteenth simply horrid I had wished Harry were here

Harry would’ve laughed at it

but Harry always was laughing.

and you always laughed along.

I ate the toast anyhow— The thought went down horribly with it.

Lily Bailey ‘16

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Fourteenth through Sixteenth were… rather odorous Smelled the burn— more than I could taste it.

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Perhaps it was the toaster.

The seventeenth was made in an old toaster But it was good

Like old Murray.

Old but lovable.

Tossed the oven toaster out on the nineteenth Should’ve learned it had a bad way of burning toast after the eighteenth turned cookie hard Old toaster seems to work quite fine Toasts nicely with a marshmallow tan As the twentieth had confirmed

The twenty-first was the best piece of toast so far Had some fleeting memories about Marge—

You would laugh and eat the pie

No matter how crusty

You would love it

Because Marge made it The twenty-second was something of a mistake I had more than sufficiently baked it to the point where it was burnt— in a bad way.

I ate it anyway.

Twenty-third through the sixty-seventh were great Slightly burnt but fine otherwise The sixty-eighth just ruined that streak It was disgustingly soggy in my milk Accidentally, of course.

And Harry would’ve laughed.

Harry was always laughing

But then Harry’d come up with a name

Like always.

Call me Milk-toast maybe

Or Caspar

or just chap.

Marge’s milk-toast was always good.

And you loved it

Because Marge made it

Just like you loved crusty pie

And Marge

And Harry

And Old Murray And me.

But I’m a hot mess, aren’t I?

How about some pie?

I can’t toast right.

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Your milk-toast might agree, chap, But twenty-one would beg to differ.

Well I flopped on every one since then.

Get some coffee kiddo.

You’re only on the eighty-third.

I broke the mirror and the toaster.

Not by mistake.

A friend came to fix the toaster.

I made fried toast in the pan with butter.

It was soaked in fat and oil Not exactly burned and somehow soggy So I had to eat it with a fork.

Maybe they were right The eighty-fifth was good.

Maybe all you have to do is break a toaster And a mirror

Said it was the problem solver for anything.

Murray was old fashioned that way.

Or just old.

We loved him anyway.

I ran out of regular bread Eighty-sixth was whole-wheat; Organic blandness that needed jam It made toast feel healthy.

I almost hated it But you loved it In all its organic splendor

Just like you loved everything So I loved it

Not because it was good—

But because you did.

I got good old regular toast on the eighty-ninth.

Was burnt to crisps on both sides, but wasn’t blandly all-natural.

I loved it.

In all burntness.

Or maybe I just had to use the other hand.

Eighty-five was nice.

Tried it with coffee, but remembered why I hated it so much.

Murray loved it though.

He always forgot I hated it.

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Chloe Lee ‘16

Will Johnson ‘17

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Cold of the Seasons Katy Maina ’15 Coming in from the winter’s cold, My hands are numb, And my face is frozen from the chill of the air, The ice bites my fingers raw as I remove my mittens and stand by the fire.

The contrast between the inside heat and cold outdoors is strange.

Each year fall freezes into winter and each time it’s strange Last year never felt this cold.

The dark, damp memories fade but the ones of Fire And warmth stay, Numb, Its how we plow through winter, Raw. There is the hint of snow in the air.

Each breath leaves an ephemeral inscription in the air Like the lovers’ heart on the sandy beach - it’s strange Like children to the winter, they came into this new stage raw and unaware of the cold, bitter times of adolescence how they would arrive numb On the other side, having experienced for the first time, the fire.

His food was too raw She wasn’t putting enough wood on the Fire The Cold Got to him. His Air Got to her and the blissful memories of summer sunsets seamed far away and strange.

All that was left now was the shell of the couple filled to the brim with numbness.

Like the soft hand reaching to cup her face in a kiss–numb.

Like the warm fingers drawing designs on his back–Raw Strange No more were the sensational moments gathered around the fire For the fire had burned out and the Air Between them gone cold.

The emotions turn to numb dust as the fire In their heats goes out and frostbite chews their edges raw.

Another two strange lovers lost to the wintery cold.

Everyone knew their fire The passion, the commitment, the romance—it was all there, but she needed air She needed space before this winter turned her numb So much emotion yet so strange How inevitable the winter is and when the Cold Sets in, true colors emerge, unarmed, unprepared and raw.

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Alexander Eliasen ‘17

Jimin Park ‘15

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In Morgan County Garth Robinson ’15 There is a poem hung on the wall, behind glass, in a gold frame, and I can say every line by heart because I look at it on nights when I finally answer and we talk and I am always sad as I stand by the gold frame.

I am lying on the bed this morning looking at the poem.

She hasn’t called in a week and I’m thinking about her. The bed is made and is clean and white. The shutters are open and orange light seeps through wooden cracks and splits the room into pieces that remind me of stanzas. The third is my favorite when it talks about the man’s heart and what the woman did to it.

My head is sinking into the pillows and I am falling asleep.

There are words in my head and I hope they are the poem reading itself to me. I take off my clothes and lie back on the bed. I’ve turned the mirror facing me around and ripped grey paper covers the back.

A diamond point knifes through

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the space between shutters and I squint through closed eyes. I stand and pull the heavy red drapes across the window. I pour myself a glass of water and drink it and I read the poem once. I lie back down.

The phone rings. It is Pat McKanley. In Morgan County there is a field with walls of stones and cows (some are black and some are white) that stand at the walls and eat grass and watch cars pass by. There is a tiger in the field and it has already killed two cows. There is a lot of blood but McKanley will not call the police because he wants himself a tiger pelt.

I’ve never shot a tiger before. I stand and dress and in the middle of the room I sink my toes into the worn carpet and I think about tigers and feel like I am forgetting something.

The phone rings twice. First it is McKanley’s wife, telling me she’s scared and McKanley’s about to get himself hurt and would I please

get over there soon. I tell her I’m leaving right at that very moment and her goodbye shifts to empty static that I listen to for a few seconds until the phone rings for the second time. This time it is her.

It is here, in teardrop-shaped moments like this, that she sinks her toes into the worn carpet before me and our eyes meet. The phone keeps ringing (it is loud), and I close my eyes but her form is a shadow that is brighter. It is here that I ask myself if the place where she is and I was is still the same. Here, when her voice is close, that with hunger and clean veins I let it ring.

I go outside and smoke a cigarette. I’ve been thinking more and more about her as July bleeds into August. It is in the sun and the way it slides past the slow crests of those hills, and in the grass that is long and dried and yellow, and it sits in the air around the flick of a straw tail in the fields that I can see for miles.

I have never seen a tiger before and I wonder how I will kill it. I am not scared because Pat McKanley is a man with broad shoulders and a gun that is bigger than mine. His wife is a pretty woman with blonde spaghetti curls. She is getting old but she is still pretty. She loves McKanley a great deal and worries about him even more so her call does not both me either. I stamp out my cigarette

in a crack in the pavement.

I think about the third call.

She will tell me she loves me and will say things that are beautiful like a melody of notes ancient and unspoken. I will be sad because she does not understand. There will be a feeling in my heart that is familiar now but I cannot name.

I get in the truck that the landlord lets me use if I wash the windows and sweep the floors and I drive to Morgan County. The McKanley farm is set back from the other square plots. There is a border of thick old trees on every side except for the one by the gravel road.

McKanley once told me he likes for anyone going by to be able to admire his cows that are all large and handsome. They are the largest and most handsome in Morgan County, and maybe in the state, and he will remind me when I see him.

I am on the gravel road and I look for the cows and the tiger but I do not see either. I look for blood but I realize I will not see it against the dead grass. It has not rained for weeks.

I turn onto another road. It is cool and refreshing under the shade of the trees that drift past the left window. McKanley lives in a low farmhouse with a brick chimney and a slanted red roof.

There is a silo that rises high above the chimney but McKanley does

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not use it except to store his rakes and shovels and bags of feed.

I park the truck and light another cigarette. McKanley’s wife is peering between lace curtains in their front window. Her brow is furrowed and her hair is in curlers.

She squats lower and titters out the screen, “Jeb. Jeb!,” although she knows I have already noticed her.

“Morning, Mrs. McKanley.”

“Morning Jeb, I’d offer you a cup of coffee but my dumbass husband is about to get eaten by a tiger back there. Never seen anything like this. I keep telling him to call the police but he just keeps telling me, ‘No, Nancy, Jeb can handle it, Jeb can handle it.”

She stops and throws her hands up beside her face and tries to smile.

“And I’m sure you can Jeb, but oh, what a morning! He’s out by the side of the field, you can go around the house there and I can still bring that cup of coffee out to you if you’d like.”

“No need, Mrs. McKanley.”

She tries again to smile and I walk to the back of the house.

McKanley owns a lot of land and it climbs in waves of golden fields towards the distant rising sun. When I had visited the farm before to fix his truck dozens of cows had been spread across this first hill. There are none and I take the gun off my belt

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and I feel the sweat on my palms against its soft grip. A slight breeze moves over the grass like the long morning shadows cast by the thick poplars. I stoop and pluck a stand of dry wheat and put it between my teeth that taste of tobacco.

I begin to walk up the hill and I see her lying on the burnt grass.

She is in the pink dress she wore in the small kitchen the last time I saw her, and as I see her and the pink dress she sees me and the gun and she stands and keeps her arms at her sides and looks like she is going to cry, and I blink into the burning ring and keep walking and I want to turn and look at the breeze moving brown hairs of gossamer against her cheek but I remind myself it will hurt as I reach the top of the hill.

At the top of the hill many things happen at once. I look down and see cows crowded close together digging their hooves into a patch of loose dirt, and their eyes are dark and full of something deep and I follow their gaze and they watch the tiger bend its muscled neck to the open stomach of one of their kin whose eyes are scared and alone. And I see the tiger and I am surprised how clear the blood is against the dead grass (it coats the ground like spilled molasses), and I shake myself and raise my gun,

and I hear the voice of a man and I look towards the line of trees and McKanley is there with his long, sleek rifle.

He motions to me and I walk along the ridge of the hill towards him. I keep my eyes on the tiger but she is focused on the cow between her jaws.

“It’s a big son of a bitch,” McKanley blocks out the sun with his callused hands and spits. “Gotta be a big son of a bitch to get two of these cows. They’re bigger than any others around here, and that’s by a lot.”

He spits again and I watch a drop of saliva stick to his meaty chin. McKanley was once large and handsome like his cows but he has gotten fat from his wife’s cooking and too many days spent drinking in a wicker chair in the hot sun.

His movements are assured and powerful but slow and the cotton shirt under his arms is stained with sweat. He leans his gun against a tree and claps me on the back.

“But how are you doing, Jeb? I apologize for calling you up so early.”

“It’s not a problem, Mr. McKanley. She is a big one.”

We stand and look down at the tiger. Her fur is matted and coated with dirt just like the cows in the nearby circle, and she looks natural and wild in the dead field as she

pulls ribbons of damp flesh from her still prey. She is strong and intent but she moves with the finesse of a housecat running along the roof of a ruined house. As she bites, I see flashes of curved white fangs and rows of sharp incisors behind her black rubbery lips. She looks up and the hair around her mouth is caked with blood and she sets her ears back and looks at us. She is beautiful like nights on a frozen mountain, so far from the ground that the air is thin and clear. I cannot see her eyes from here but I imagine they are green and bright and alive. I feel my breathe catch in my lungs but I am not scared.

“Think you can take care of her?”

She sings to tell us she belongs. I watch her and think of moss between slivers of bark and birds that fly south alone with calls that are soft and whispered, for she is quiet and mighty. My phone rings again.

It is her and I think of how she follows me on mornings like this when the sun slips and drives up the curve of the sky (defying gravity) and the air is filled with grit and sand and it is hard to breathe. I want to talk to her. I look down at the white letters of her name, and they pull and surge and flow somewhere inside me where I need her. There is a pattern of dirt on the hem of her pink dress. She is

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staring at me.

“Everything all set?”

The phone makes a sound like a swarm of bees that surges and nooses my head with a crown of thorns.

“Why don’t you just shoot her yourself, Mr. McKanley?”

The phone stops ringing but I feel her staring at me.

“Well, first of all, I don’t want any lawyers coming up trying to tell me I’ve shot some kind of endangered species, I’d like another man to be here to do it. Don’t want to lie to any lawyers, but I would sure love some tiger fur. I’ll pay you in cash of course, or in tiger fur if you prefer. Second of all, I’ve only ever killed cows and I reckon this’ll die differently.”

I nod and don’t say anything and he smiles and claps me on the back and I start walking down the hill towards the tiger. She is calm and brave. On the night she wore that pink dress (that was the last time I saw her), I came downstairs to the kitchen to fix my blue and yellow striped tie in the mirror above the sink. She sat at the linoleum counter and ate cubes of ice from the plastic tray.

The heat of the solstice passed through the window with ease and a fiber of damp hair stuck to her forehead. She rattled the chunks

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from one side of her mouth to the other with a noise that was hollow and full of echoes. I thought of catacombs and the caves beneath them. I stood at the mirror and I listened and the echoes faded and I heard her push the tray away. Her chair squeaked on the tile floor.

Her hands are smaller than mine.

I see her feet between my own, and she wears no shoes and stands on her toes. She rests her head against my back. I hope she is listening for my heart, and I close my eyes and try to make my heart beat faster so she can listen and count the blood pumping one, two, three, and she can know it hurts and I will miss her, and I raise my hand and pull and with a thousand words it is simple business.

Brian Kang ‘15

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Hope Racquel Nassor ’15

Abigail Caron ‘16

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Hope was in the crevice of the countertop. She was scrubbing. She used bleach when the countertop cleaner wasn’t enough. With the rubber gloves every good housewife seems to own, she scrubbed. She had hope that the house would be clean enough. Once the counter was clean she moved to the floor.

This was less difficult, she was able to sit and use all her energy for scrubbing the pine. She scrubbed her soul. The bleach burned her nostrils, but she knew she had to continue. Continue the job she started when he started to speak.

There was hope that she could end what he began. When her blonde hair floated into her vision, she saw an unexpected shade of crimson.

The liquid clumped her curls into clumsy clusters. She would have to take a shower. Her arms were used to the joint pain and stiffness that comes with thorough cleaning. Her mother taught her how to bear it and revel in it like

her mother had before her. To please one’s husband, one’s home must be clean. He will be happy if you and your home are appealing.

You must help him in any way he demands. Help him. Help your family. Help your children. When you can’t have children, help him more so he doesn’t leave you. But now he wants a son. Now he found someone else. Now he wants a divorce. She scrubs harder, flaking off bits of dried maroon on the cabinet. She finds it odd the stain had time to dry. Looking at the clock, she sees one hundred-four minutes has passed. With bleach bleeding into the knees of her blue dress, she got up to take a shower.

There was not much time left. She threw the knife away seventy-five minutes ago. She replaced it with a spare from the pantry. She creates structure with her sanitation that can barricade the world. In the shower, the dried blood is harder to get off than she had imagined.

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She finds it strange how much was left under her manicure. She scrapes hope from the underside.

In their room, she preps her face with foundation and her hair with curls with the calmness she felt when she prepped the body in pieces. He was hopefully hidden in the foundation. He still sleeps in their happy home. She will have to make the call soon. When her hair is done, she finishes her makeup before checking the kitchen. She cleans a splotch of blood from the underside of the granite countertop. Such cleanliness. Such Freedom. She picks up the phone.

It rings. The machine answers.

“Mother, I think something has happened to Richard. He hasn’t come home. Call me when you hear this message. I am so worried.” She feels happiness. She walks back up to her bedroom and into her closet.

Admires her gentle curves under the mauve chiffon. Contemplates going out to eat. Denies herself that luxury. Such self-indulgent actions would make people talk. She has a reputation in her community.

A reputation she couldn’t let tarnish. She would not become another piece of forgotten silver.

She held the chopping knife when he told her. A piece of silver hope glittering in her hand. He should have been wiser. He shouldn’t

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have threatened divorce. Divorce.

Divorce. A divorce. A widow’s life was a hard one, but not as hard as the life of a divorcée. She breaths a sigh of relief as she makes a cup of green tea and when she inhales, she can smell the lingering sent of bleach in the background. As she sits down, she relishes in the fact that she finally has time to read again. She was always scrubbing, scrubbing, scrubbing so he would stay. She was satisfied to know he wouldn’t leave her now.

Jessica Timmer ‘15

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Heretic Afoma Maduegbuna ’17 Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on Earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us of our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, forever and ever. Amen.

After monotonically reciting that dreadful prayer I sit back in a wooden chair to listen to a bald white man tell me what it means to “serve God” as a female. He talks about chastity, the importance of staying “pure,” and the obvious consequences for those who choose not to “follow the path of righteousness”. I’m listening to all of this puzzled—wondering and thinking and rationalizing and frustrated. I look over at my mom to see her head bobbing with approval, my dad sits like the patriarchal head he is, while my

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sister playfully toys with the hem of her dress. The preacher closes the book he mistakes for a guiding love letter, walks down from the altar, and leads the church procession. +++ 2 kids. Mother. Father. Father is the bread winner, makes six figures and expects to come home to a warm prepared meal every night.

Mother takes my sister and me to all our classes and sports; she does the best she can not only to serve us and our father but her heavenly father as well. My little sister Cassandra is still at an age where boys have cooties and she has all the ideas in the world about what she can and will be. She comes into my room late at night: Mary?

Yeah, Adah?

I think I really wanna be a scientist when I grow up.

That sounds great!

But Mom said I should think of something that’s more for girls

because I have to think of the family I am going to make. +++ EVOLUTION. My science teacher writes the topic for the day in big black block letters. In those letters she writes controversy, she writes fact vs. fiction, she writes right vs. left, she writes the religiously zealous vs. the scientifically literate, she writes fear, she writes hope, she writes curiosity, she writes a lot of things.

I know some of your parents will have objections to this. She means mine. But, I think it’s really important for you as biology students to understand this awesome process.

Awesome.

The same word my parents use to describe the Lord Almighty is not what they would describe what I’m learning right now.

She finishes teaching and I get it. I don’t remember the last time I listened to someone teach me something and the words lined up perfectly in the nooks and crannies of my brain.

That felt awesome. +++ My best friend came out to me as gay. I thought about preaching to him about it being unnatural, how it was Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve, or the consequences for

his immoral behavior, but instead I said, Thank you. +++ Sit up straight. Close your legs.

Boys don’t like a messy girl. Have an opinion but not too much of an opinion. Show some skin but not too much. Think about the husband you will have. Pray every night. Stay pure no one wants to marry a slut. Read your bible.

Know your place. +++ Heyy, he texted Hi :), I replied What’s up?

Nothing just doing hw.

We should chill. ;) … Yeah … maybe +++ Sunday morning and this week the pastor has chosen to speak on kindness and compassion. He says, love the sinner, hate the sin. He doesn’t say what to do if the person is both the sinner and the sin as well. +++ Mommy?

Yes Adah?

How do I know that God is real?

You just do honey.

But howwww?

Faith.

Ok Mommy.

I could tell she was just as confused as I am.

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+++ Sex is a biologically natural act, my biology teacher says, it’s part of being human to want it and to have it. My eyes shoot across the room to the boy who had texted me a few nights ago. He stares back. +++ Are you sure?

Yeah.

Clothes are scattered here as if either Sodom and Gomorrah or God had wreaked havoc for the sin I just committed. He sleeps soundly undisturbed by the trespasses we’ve just committed. I wish I can do the same. I stare at the ceiling thinking of God, my mother, and my preacher.

For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; 1 Thessalonians 4:3 +++ I sit with the atheists at my school and listen to them agree that religion is harmful and causes war and does not allow for expression and why it’s necessary to legislate human nature and people’s lives and how religious people are idiots.

They’re saying all these things and the chatter suddenly comes to a halt. They look at me and say Sorry, no offense. I look back and say, No, I agree.

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Shawn Robertson ‘16

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Seacoast Squall Cassidy Poole ’16 The darkness gathered at the edges of the horizon and crept quickly toward the placid shores.

A sense of foreboding was unmistakable as the storm clouds rumbled closer.

The waves once warm and inviting now thrashed in icy bites along the shore.

Ugly plywood barriers marred the once bright cottages that now faced the ferocious teeth of the gale.

Beach creatures burrowed deep beneath the sand and signs of life all but disappeared.

Large droplets began to splat the landscape heralding the arrival of the front line of the squall.

Thunder cracked overhead and lightning illuminated the desolate beauty of the beach.

Jimin Park ‘15

Finn Caron ‘18

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Anywhere Jack Norton ’17 Nine-twelve p.m. Tuesday, July 22, 2014. I had been walking the golf course all day. My two clients had been unresponsive to my admittedly feeble attempts at humor, and instead had simply wanted me to lug their clubs without making conversation.

A cup of water at the ninth hole and a cup at the sixteenth were all I had allowed myself. I was exhausted. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have been headed to bed when that phone rang. Three short trills.

Three more. Three more. I walked across the warm hardwood of my bedroom floor, and picked up my phone, which lay face down, on my desk. Three trills. A friend. I answered as cheerfully as I could.

“You might want to sit down for this.” She replied.

Seven twenty-nine p.m.

Saturday, June 16, 2014. We sat in the front row of the theater, as nowhere else was available. It was packed—the first showing

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of A Million Ways to Die in the West. There were nine of us in all, eight kids and one adult. From an outsider’s eye, our collective must have looked strange. We were certainly not a family: one girl was Indian, one boy was black, the rest of us all different shapes and sizes.

The one adult in our group (my good friend) was turned, looking back over his shoulder, talking to someone he had recognized.

I squirmed down in my seat, trying to find the one comfortable angle that I knew had to be there somewhere. He looked over at me.

“Don’t bother. You’re not gonna find it.” I looked over at him. “What in the hell—” “I’ve sat in a lot of front rows,” he narrowed his eyes.

“They’re all the same.” “Whatever you say, dude.” I rolled my eyes. But the seat wouldn’t cooperate. He was right.

Eleven fifty-three a.m. Monday, May 17, 2014. “No way I can do this again.” I walked into his office and

threw my bag to the floor. “Which one was it? Math?” He knew. I had spent three hours sitting in my semester exam that morning, plotting—amidst acute angles, tangents, and circles—multiple ways in which to humiliate my math teacher the next time I saw him.

“Confidence takes time, especially around—” I interrupted him, nearly shouting, “This isn’t about confidence! This is frustration, losing my place, almost giving up!”

I sat down abruptly and flopped my arms over my face. He leaned back in his chair. “Listen, man…” I saw the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes and I knew he had heard it before. But he still cared enough to listen.

Six fifty-two p.m. Thursday, April 7, 2014. I needed to break up with her. Sitting in his office, I told him everything. She was clingy, I couldn’t deal with the commitment, she was too serious.

All the difficult reasons. He listened to every word, crossing his legs so that his ankle rested on his other knee, his hands clasped under his bearded chin. He sat like that until I had talked myself into silence. Then he said: “Why do you really want to end it?” I answered immediately.

“I just don’t care.” Then winced. I hadn’t wanted to say that. “I didn’t mean that” He looked up at me. “It

sucks, doesn’t it?” I furrowed my brow. “What? Breaking up?” “No. Not caring,” he responded.

Ten forty-six a.m. Friday, March 17, 2014. “Why you so late?” I asked my friend Sammy. Sammy was a senior, and everyone thought he was hilarious. He was the popular kid. “I couldn’t find your house!”

“Yeah,” chimed in Julia, whom I did not know was in the passenger seat. “Where do you even live?” On the drive up to the small town of Huntington, Sammy sang off-key to “Last Friday Night” and “Lollipop,” while Julia just shook her head and clenched her lips together, frowning hard enough that the corners of her mouth began to turn up, despite her best efforts.

Eleven seventeen a.m. Friday, February 14, 2014. It was Valentines Day. The scariest day of the year for me that year. I was beginning to doubt the relationship I was in. She was older than I, and for a while, I really did like her, but this day was my debut on Broadway, and either going to end in a standing ovation or rotten tomatoes. Even I didn’t know which it would be. I caught him coming out of his office, just locking the door.

“Hey, dude,” I grinned. “Where you headed?” “Out to the store,” he said, and then he remembered.

“This is an interesting day for you,

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isn’t it?” “Yeah sure. Getting my ass handed to me on a platter. That’s interesting.” “Why would that happen?” “I live at school,” I replied rudely. “I couldn’t get anything for her.” “Oh,” he rolled his eyes. “Is that all? I’ll pick something up.”

“What? Nonono, that’s ridiculous,” I told him. “You don’t need to do that.” But he had made up his mind. “I’m doing it. What do you want me to get?” I knew that arguing wasn’t worth my time. He would win. “I don’t know,” I began to smile. “Surprise me. I’ll pay you back later, okay?” “No you won’t,” he replied. “Don’t be stupid. I’ve got this one.”

Twelve thirty-two p.m. Monday, January 22, 2014. “Happy Birthday, Man!” “Thanks, dude!” He grinned.

“How old are you,” I narrowed my eyes quizzically and smirked.

“Twenty-three?” “Oh, stop it.” He scooped the air in front of him and pursed his lips as if he were an exasperated teenage girl. I chuckled.

He looked up, all of a sudden seeming puzzled. “When’s your birthday?” “Oh.” I chuckled again, sarcastically this time. “No one cares,” I said, smiling. “Aw c’mon, you know that’s not tr—” “Yes it is,” I interrupted him. “It’s in July. July twenty-ninth. No one cares.” “I’m making you a promise right now,” he clasped his hands earnestly in

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front of him. “I’ll get a bunch of us together, and we’ll go out to dinner on your birthday.” I was caught off-guard. “Thanks. I mean…” I trailed off. “I won’t forget.” I would look forward to that dinner for six months to that day.

Seven fifteen p.m. Saturday, December 28, 2013. “To something, I don’t care!” He raised his iced coffee. Sammy and Julia both raised their glasses of iced tea and I mine of lemonade. Everyone else at the table followed suit. There were fifteen of us in total. When it was relatively quiet, after the toast, he said, “I’ve actually got something for you guys.” Sammy looked at him. “What is it?” “You’ll see.” From beneath the table he pulled a paper bag. Out of it, he took an ornament.

On the thin ribbon he grasped with his thumb and forefinger hung two golden retrievers lying side-by-side, asleep, the smaller nestled against the larger. When he handed it to me, I cupped my hands gently, and turned it around. On the bottom, I found, written in smudged pen: ‘Merry Christmas 2013’ Three o’ five p.m. Wednesday, November 19, 2013. “She is literally going to kill me,” I whined.

“A C+? I’m dead.” He grinned, amused. “You’ll always have other chances. You know there are more important things too, right?” “Not

to my mom there aren’t,” I snorted.

“That’s not what I asked,” he shook his head. “Do you.”

Five fifty-three p.m. Thursday, October 7, 2013. “What’s wrong?”

He asked, as soon as I walked into his office. I was astounded. I had done such a good job of hiding it, I thought. “It’s nothing. I’m fine.” “You sure? Have a seat.” He motioned to the seat across the office from him, next to a tall fern. I sat down. “So. What’s up?” He asked.

I must have stayed there for an hour and a half. I told him everything.

My friend had been diagnosed with depression after eighth grade and gone to a hospital for three weeks, and I had just learned that he was back in the hospital, after trying to commit suicide yet again. At the end of my story, I had to bite my lip to hold back the tear—some of them because of my friend, but more because I knew I could trust the man sitting across from me with my life.

One thirty-seven p.m.

September 9, 2013. I walked down an unfamiliar hallway toward the sounds of laughter issuing from the door of what looked like an office.

When I walked up to the door, a girl in a blue tank-top looked at me inquisitively. “And who are you?”

“I’m Sean Daniels,” I replied. “And you are?” “The Sean Daniels? I’ve

been hearing about you for the past two months.” She gestured at the bearded man behind the desk.

“He kept talking about this hotshot freshman.” When she said the words hotshot freshman she raised both hands and formed quotation marks in the air with her fingers. “I’m Julia Craig.” A boy sitting on the floor half waved at me. “Hey. I’m Sammy.”

The man behind the desk looked up and smiled. I had met him this past summer. When he recognized me, his eyes lit up. “Hey man!” He said.

“How’s it going?”

Nine thirteen p.m. Tuesday, July 22, 2014. “He’s… he what?”

It wasn’t true. “I’m so sorry.” My friend sniffed back tears on the other end of the line. It was then that I knew. It was, in fact, real. It was a week before my birthday, and as I sat there on the corner of my bed, staring straight ahead, I knew.

I wouldn’t be going out to dinner.

Whenever I think of my years at school, I convince myself that I made some great friends. But in reality, the equation never quite balanced out. I had lost the best one.

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The Closing Jack Norton ’17 Books strewn on the floor, open, Ink carefully lining their pages Which flutter, Though all the windows are closed.

Each book carrying a brave beginning, Turning over new leaves.

Ceiling falls away, a drifting leaf, Scarlet through the cerulean opening, Softly, soundlessly lands upon its own beginning.

Lines transcribe from pages Onto the scarlet leaf. Somewhere a book closes.

Somewhere, the leaf stretches to breathe, fluttering.

Chloe Lee‘16

In air, the books take on fluttering Looks, their flight breathless, weightless as a leaf Until the closed Windows open, Then whirling, page after page Their courageous journeys begin.

Somewhere, the singular leaf begins Its own story, following, fluttering.

While lines, etched and inked on each solitary page, (Scarlet frontispiece, dusty-red epilogue) leave Tracings for the shortest tale, opening The last page, and closing.

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Books swirling, like clouds of starlings, deepening and closing The wide sky, patterning the air. Early beginnings, First chapters unveiled, open To the first hands which clasp the fluttering Stories, leaving Behind the inked-outline, soaring with the opening page.

The room is empty. Paging, Lining, inking, the final book closes On a scarlet leaf.

To begin The ending, a breathless flutter, Somewhere, the windows are open.

There will always be pages to open But begin to open them with caution. Keep them close To your soul. For within their fluttering, you will find a leaf.

Brian Kang ‘15

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Winter Prince Cassidy Poole ’16 A scarlet streak across the cloud white canvas The winter scape, bleak and barren, yielding to the intrusion.

Gliding and drifting on an unseen river of air, now darting in and out among the evergreens.

Cardinal majesty, in crimson coat and crown of feathers.

He struts but there is no one there to see.

Solitary. But lonely or alone?

Lost and laboring? Frantically foraging for food?

Or alone atop the world, lordly and lithe, Surveying his snowbound sanctuary?

Unknown, but not to me.

I know this winter prince.

Luke Stachtiaris ‘16

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A Slave’s Villanelle Kate Anderson-Song ’15 Run, run as fast as you can.

You can’t catch me.

I am more than just one man.

I follow the path and I follow a plan.

I am in each slave who has found their way free.

So run, run, as fast as you can.

I follow Moses where my people began.

I am one with the stars that guide through trees.

I follow more than just one man.

I am in each slain body of each soul who ran.

I whisper their wishes, as they would be: “Run, run as fast as you can.”

Abigail Caron ‘16

You stalk me like prey but you don’t understand I am the rustling bushes that warn me to flee.

I am more than just one man.

Barking and footsteps of a hostile clan.

I am tired feet, each step agony.

Run, run as fast as I can.

I am only a one man.

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Spilled Coffee and Spent Cigarette Butts Jordan Towler ’16

Sydney MacDonald ‘16

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“The Diner 11:00 a.m.,” the note read. She glanced at her watch. 11:00. Not a minute late.

She checked her lipstick one last time in the car mirror; she was wearing his favorite shade, “First Kiss.” She adjusted her hair so it fell just perfectly beside her face. She adjusted her shirt so the neckline sat directly in the middle of her chest and she ran her hands across her pants, trying to remove any wrinkles or lint. One last time she looked at her make-up in the mirror. Her cheeks had to be the perfect shade of pale pink, her lips without any smudges of excess lipstick around the edges, and her eyes brushed with a subtle shimmer of eye shadow.

Sitting in her car, waiting for his car to pull up next to hers, she thought about why she was here.

It had been so long since they last talked; he hadn’t reached out to her for almost seven years now.

She refused to see anyone else

because she hoped that one day he would come back home. Even when she had heard that he was seeing someone else for a couple of months, she kept hope. When she found the note sitting on her car at work, she thought, he must have finally had a change of heart, realized he still loved her and had made a mistake; this was the day she had been awaiting for seven years.

She grabbed the note in her trembling hand and stepped out of her car. Her head quickly moved from left to right, scanning the parking lot, and she walked toward the entrance. She wondered if he was already in there. It was unlikely; he had a habit of being a few minutes late. She walked through the front door and was kindly greeted by the owner. “Well, hello there Suz. Nice to see you finally decided to stop by. It only took three years. We’ve missed you around here.”

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Suz said with a soft smile, “It’s nice to be back.”

As she approached their old booth, she scanned the room. Just as she expected, he was late. The waitress brought over the iced coffee that she had always ordered and placed it in front of her. She always counted the ice cubes in her coffee; she liked no less than ten but no more than fifteen; just enough so her coffee would remain cold and to leave space for a full glass of coffee. It looked like the cook remembered; there were twelve. Twelve large ice cubes stacked high in a clear plastic cup, but there was only a small pool of black coffee at the bottom, maybe a couple inches tall. She shook her head and pushed it to the middle of the table. “Is there a problem with the coffee, ma’am?”

Keeping her head down, she chuckled to herself and muttered, “Well, I definitely do not need to worry about the ice melting.”

“I’m so sorry, I can add more coffee.”

“No it’s fine. I won’t be long anyways; my husband will be here soon.”

“Okay, you just let me know if you need anything ma’am.”

As soon as the waitress left, she looked up and scanned the room, no sight of him. She began to pick

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at her perfectly painted manicure.

Chips of polish dropped in her lap. She glanced at the window and didn’t see his car. It was now 11:15. She looked around the room and caught a couple looking at her.

They’re staring, she thought. They probably think I’ve been stood up.

Her face turned a deep red. She looked back down at her nails.

The polish was almost completely picked off. There were pink chips scattered all over her pants. The front door opened and she sat up with her back straight and her legs tightly crossed in front of her. It wasn’t him. She slouched back down, shrugged, and told herself she would see him within the next few minutes. He’ll definitely come.

He must be stuck in traffic.

She looked back at her coffee in the middle of the table. The tower of ice still remained tall. “Would you like to order something?”

“No. He’ll be here.” She snapped and looked back at her fingers.

There was no longer any polish to pick so she was now picking at the skin. She ripped chunks of tough skin off the edges of her nails.

She kept her eyes locked on the front door, watching numerous people walk in and out. She thought back to their first date—or what would have been their first date. She spent hours preparing for

the dinner; got her hair done, got a manicure, bought a new dress, and spent over an hour perfecting her makeup. Then she sat in her kitchen, the most dressed up she’d ever been for hours. He never showed. She didn’t hear from him until a week later. He completely forgot about the date. He was often forgetful, but she knew he wouldn’t forget this.

She remained sitting in the booth. She looked at her watch, then at her fingers. They were red and swollen. Her cuticles were replaced with scabs and there was dried blood on her nails. She grabbed her purse, and rapidly shuffled through it. “Where are my cigarettes?” She threw her loose change and various lipsticks out of the bag. “Where are my god damn cigarettes?” Her entire bag was dumped out onto the table. She threw her head into her hands and looked down at her lap. “Where the hell is he? He said he’d be here.”

“Ma’am, the kitchen is closing soon. Can I get you anything else?”

She collected her things and stood up, somewhat embarrassed at her disorganization. Once again, she looked at the coffee in front of her. The tall tower of ice was gone; it was now melted into a large pool of murky water. As she stepped out of the booth and swung her

bag over her shoulder, she hit the coffee cup and the liquid spread across the table. She looked at the grayish-brown liquid drip onto the floor in front of her. She turned away and walked toward the door.

“Well, don’t I just know how to make a mess out of everything?!”

She licked at a tear as it slithered by the corner of her mouth.

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Let Them Be the Last Duncan Binnie ’18 A white man was killed and now lives in a frame on my coffee-table . He went to war because he had to, he died in war because he happened to. Remember his sacrifice, Dad says, bring down your flag, this poor man was killed, now this is a hero.

A black man is killed and it is just another Friday night, my grandfather changes the channel because Jeopardy is on at 7:30.

Luke Stachtiaris ‘16

One, two, three, twelve shots (he was asking for it) to take him down, his mother must have forgotten to say now keep your eyes low, don’t wear hoodies, say please and thank you sir. You remember Trayvon, Victor, and Michael, no actually you remember cheap news, cheap lives, that one time you protested in college (he was a thug) to impress your girlfriend.

Hands held in the air soon grow tired, but let me introduce you to him.

He weighs 8 pounds 3 ounces, his father is a preacher, he will live to be sixteen, or seven teen or eleven, and he never had a chance.

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Insurgent Kerin Grewal ’15

Cody Thurston ‘15

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The hot classroom smelled like summer, and the students were all itching to get out. The desks were arranged in a straight line across the back of the classroom. Mrs Wright stood at the front, taking attendance. She was notably the most illiberal teacher in the school, and everyone was waiting for her to take her last breath. She was old as dirt and her skin closely resembled that of an elephant. She scanned the room, checking where Marquis Williams was sitting then prompted, “Let’s go down the line, right to left, starting with Ryan”.

“Mrs. Wright, why aren’t you starting with Marquis?” Ryan inquired. There was a simultaneous sigh from the other students, wishing he would do as he was told to avoid any delays. “He’s sitting against the wall. If you don’t start with him, he won’t read”.

“Ryan please do not challenge me”, Mrs. Wright scolded, and Ryan began to read aloud mumbling

each word and dragging out his part of the reading. “Next!” She exclaimed when Ryan reached the end of the sentence, and Jessie began to read. The class went down the line, reading aloud, until they got to Claudia.

She looked up defiantly at Mrs. Wright and said, “Marquis can read my part”.

“No he may not Claudia. Read your part please,” Mrs. Wright told her.

“I will not read this last part of the text, Mrs. Wright. Marquis has not read yet and it is his turn,” Claudia said, matter-of-factly.

“Claudia, I will meet you outside of the classroom as soon as the text is finished, please wait for me there,” Mrs. Wright instructed, turning back to the class and taking a look around. “Marquis, would you ever so kindly read off the remainder of the text for me,” Mrs. Wright said in a defeated manner.

“The emancipation procla-

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mation was issued in 1863, by President Abraham Lincoln. The proclamation freed all men, but it did not quell the tension between the northerners and southerners,” Marquis read.

“Now you guys can discuss what you just read. I’ll be right with you,” Mrs. Wright told the class.

The students shifted as the door slammed behind her. Ryan turned to face Marquis with a sympathetic look. Marquis shrugged and looked out the window beside him.

“This is bullshit,” Ryan announced after a moment, “this lady needs to get up to date with the times. It’s not the eighteenhundreds anymore”. He stood up and started packing his books in his bag. “Class is over anyways, let’s get out of here.”

Marquis stood up and began to pack his bag as well. The two opened the door to the classroom to find Claudia pressed up a locker with Mrs. Wright standing in front of her. “I do not need you in there challenging my teaching young lady. You need to learn—” Mrs. Wright stopped mid-sentence.

“What are you two doing? Marquis Williams, you get right back into that classroom. You are not dismissed until I say you are. You too Ryan”.

“Class is over Mrs. Wright,”

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Marquis said quietly. “I’m worried about getting in trouble with my next teacher.” Marquis then turned and walked back into the classroom with his head down. Ryan was left standing outside of the classroom, staring at Mrs. Wright and Claudia.

Marquis walked into Mrs. Wright’s classroom and headed for a seat near the window. As he went to sit down, Jessie walked in. “Mr. Williams, you are late,” Mrs. Wright bellowed from the chalkboard.

Ryan looked over at Marquis and rolled his eyes. “Today we will be discussing Doctor Martin Luther King Junior,” Mrs. Wright continued.

“Really?”

Ryan inquired.

“You’re not gonna say anything to Jessie, Mrs. Wright?”

“Ryan, if you continue to challenge my motives we are going to have to consult with Principal Jensen,” Mrs. Wright snapped back.

“Racist bitch,” Ryan whispered.

“Pretty ironic topic, wouldn’t ya say?” he asked Marquis. Marquis did not answer him. His mind was clearly somewhere else; he faced the window, studying something.

“Marquis,” Ryan said. “Marquis Williams,” he repeated a little louder.

“Dude, what?”

Marquis snapped back.

“You good?” Ryan inquired.

“Yea I’m tight,” Marquis answered “just not tryna listen to this bitch”.

“I know, dude, she’s out for you.

I can’t wait to hear what she has to say about MLK,” Ryan said. Then he turned to the front, centering his attention back to Mrs. Wright.

“Marquis, correct me if I’m wrong about anything here, I’m sure you know better than I do,” Mrs. Wright told him with a snicker. “Martin Luther King Junior was a major activist for equality in the nineteen fifties and sixties,” she began. “He led the nineteen sixty-three March on Washington, where he delivered his ‘I Have a Dream’ speech”. Mrs. Wright stopped, “Marquis, can you recite this speech for us?”

“No, ma’am,” Marquis said.

“No?” Mrs. Wright questioned with a critical tone. “Haven’t you memorized this speech Mr. Williams?”

“No, ma’am,” he said with a fed up sigh, “I have not”.

“Wow,” Claudia stated.

“Claudia, do not make me call you back outside of this room,” Mrs. Wright addressed, before looking back to the other students. “Well, kids, in that case, I’d like all of you to memorize the speech tonight.

Starting at ‘I say to you today,’ and ending at ‘I have a dream today’,

it is all in the text,” Mrs. Wright instructed.

The class groaned in unison, and there were murmurs of “damn it Marquis” and “man are you kidding me?”

“Ight this is bullshit, man. I’m bout to go show this lady I ain’t here to be messed with,” Marquis raged to Claudia and Ryan after school.

“Tell her man!” Ryan supported.

“She deserves it”.

“We’ll help, if you want,” Claudia offered.

“Yeah I’m down for whatever,” Ryan said.

“Let’s blow up her car!” Marquis exclaimed.

“No,” Claudia warned. “Maybe Ryan is, but I’m definitely not down for whatever”.

“Yeah I’m not going to mess with explosives,” Ryan said.

“Okay, how bout spray paint?” asked Marquis.

“We can do spray paint,” Claudia answered. Then the three decided to meet at eight PM back at school.

Marquis went to the hardware store and bought three cans of spray paint in three different colors. He packed his bag at seven thirty and hopped on his bike, getting to the school ten minutes early. He scoped out the scene and decided what to paint and where to do so, and then he sat against the wall and waited.

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Eight o’clock came and went with no sign of Ryan and Claudia.

Marquis finally decided to get it over with on his own and get home. He figured the others had forgotten or were not able to get out of their houses. He began to paint a thought out, artistic “Fuck Mrs. Wright” across the brick siding of the building. He was just finishing the letter “g” when the blue lights started flashing. He dropped the paint and turned around. Three men came running at him with their guns drawn. He put his hands up and stood frozen against the wall.

Cody Thurston ‘15

“Holey Water” Katy Maina ’15

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The Heavy Years Kate Anderson-Song ’15 Stuck in between a line of knowing and innocence. Reaching highs and lows—blind to the future, to any life ahead. Wishing that you could jump to the gray and wrinkled times where you will know the world and have better days to look back to—till

Natalie Lopez ‘16

you’re gone. The grandchildren will gather as you lay in the bed—in a bed where you’ve lived each night. You’d share the wisdom of your fathers before—whisper your secrets to thrive.

But now we are stuck in the heavy years and the future still holds your deepest fears.

Chloe Lee ‘16

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Boys.

Jade Fiorilla ’17 It’s different there with more roses and daffodils A steady stream of water trickling by under branches and over rocks There’s a touch, and then a reciprocation and then the wind blows and they huddle closer Skin on skin until the tan colors are reversed, traded, and warm Like the sun on their bare chests drying the dew they’d collected from the moss Birds harmonize within the canopy weaving a net that sinks through the air Guarding their simple pleasantries leaving the water to move undisturbed and the flowers to grow wild

Lia Swiniarski ‘17

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Seventeen Years Old, Alone On a Playground Swing Jack Norton ’17 Suspended, Flying, High above care— High above that C- in Chemistry Soaring over the 5 minutes late To the college counseling meeting, Over the shadow of the girl who Walked—ran—away last month,

I am in the air, wind brushing My ears. Like the black lab I saw in the car— One paw out the window, Tongue lolling, One eye open Carefree. I wish.

Gazing out at my beige argyle Socks with the holes in them, My watchless left wrist, Dreaming above my worthless LG flip phone, Waving down at that Dollar fifty needed for a Coke—

But I, Must drift back To the ground, Back to reality, Back to me.

Back and forth, I pause Then swing back Into rhythm on The smoothed wood Held only by two thin ropes. Carving The arc of a smile.

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The Spire THE GOVERNOR’S ACADEMY 1 Elm Street Byfield, MA 01922

Caroline Baker ‘15

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