Laura Goins Waiting Room

The Sweatshirt for Brandy

Maggie Graber

When you plant your nose to the cotton, smell the smoke, the cornfields & back roads after 10PM, the night before I left. Put your nostrils to the neckline & dig deeper than detergent, until you hit how my skin smelled that summer, like cold sand & a sunrise. Don't be afraid to push your arms through my sleeves, to bring your head up & out through the hole, to fill the spaces where my heart & ribs & lungs once knew warmth. Do this. Cross your arms into an X & look up-past the moon & blackness of outer space, into another blackness, & smell therethe oxygen thinning, the void of planet & stars, inhale the sweetness of flowers & do not think of the distance between your body & that heaven. Look at your arms, the stained white, the green lettering spelling Lady Vikes across your heaving chest-smell this other body. When your eyeglasses break & it hurts too much to touch the kettle on the stove, when your tongue won't deliver the words needing to be said, put your face to the dirt & breathe. Smell. When our bodies come back, I'll want them to remember the stench.

Old Houses

Joshua Vasquez

She always said that the problem with old houses was in their leaning to the infinite, heavy with a life, and that you were prone to see things, to force a moment of sense,

a meaning glaring briefly out of the bits of furniture tossed aside, the papers webbed in helix, the clothes creased, tumbled, burst out of boxes piled in the hall like the stomachs of road kill.

Only it's our guts, she would say, our memories, our nature to be constantly surprised out of the corner of our eyes, to imagine form in chance arrangements, burrowing into that cluttered head,

whaling in the tangle to pull out the long dead, the suddenly gone, leaving us startled by the symmetry of surfaces, the imperfections of our tiny plots scattered in the leavings around us, so carelessly displayed.

And the nights, she murmured, the nights when, caught from behind by the lamp, your reflection cast on the window, you stare at that imprint in the void and think of how interred you are in all

that is left from the day before, anchored, preserved as was she, alone in the house, wondering at how time takes hold. Just look at the cracking floors, the bending ceiling, she would say, taking you on her tour of the wounds.

Monologue of Captain Hook

Maggie Graber

I will admit this was not the plan. I did not envision wooden ships or animals dressed like pirates, whiskey, pixies, magic

dust. I did not say goodbye to my father, did not know I would spend each night sitting on the end of this plank waiting for

the crocodile to come back for the rest. & if I said it was me-I was the one who gave away my hand to that lizard, that after 11,000 days

of running, all I want again is a woman's mouth sucking the shape of every one of my 10 fingers instead of her index tracing my hook like

a question mark-if I went there, then would this story be told? I am tired

of these stars, of every morning coming back to life under this make-believe sky where nobody listens to the ticking

& tocking, & I wake up from the one dream I keep having whether or not I remember-I am always back in that yard with my fingers

sifting through the tufts of black fur on Shadow, my Labrador, & there are fireflies, thousands of them with their golden wings, still

flashing. & my mother calls me to come inside, & the moon waits above me like it will do when the clouds have gone, & a firefly lands in my hands

& my fingers begin to burn -From here I can not tell you the difference between forever & ocean, can not say for certain what will happen

when these birds migrate away from Neverland, & the mermaids evolve & learn how to walk away. What you may not know

is that this is not about loss of limbs, or lovethis is about a boy who is afraid that the only thing left to do

is disappear.

Post-Industrial Love

Alexander Weinstein

Awoke that morning to a horren-dous noise, and believed a creature with a face of a thousand drills was devouring a steel beam. I got out of bed, walked to my bathroom window, and parted the curtains. In the parking lot I saw a group of men in plastic yellow suits destroying my car. One of them was driving a bulldozer with an enormous drill bit attached to it. He positioned the drill in the center of the sunroof. The other men yelled things like, "All right, you got it," and "Go ahead." Then the awful noise of the machine started up again and the drill chewed into my car, spitting metal and upholstery all over the gravel. "What kind of bullshit is this?" I thought and went to get my jacket and shoes on.

This was the reason I arrived fifteen minutes late to the restaurant and, in turn, why my friend Roger won't return my calls anymore. Roger's the type of guy who if you take him to the zoo can't help but yell inappropriate things at the animals like, "Come and try to get my wallet, you asshole!" In short, not always the easiest guy to get along with. He was annoyed that I was late and wouldn't accept my excuse. We shared a plate of General Tso's chicken in silence.

The main problem was that when I needed a wooden coat rack most, Roger wouldn't help. Roger has a number of high quality wooden coat racks that he's always lent me when I needed them, provided I return them to him after getting back from the airport. He had an assortment with him at the restaurant that day but said that, given my tardiness, he "couldn't bring himself to part with them." Which meant I was left up the creek without a coat rack when I needed it most. My fiance was arriving from Denver that afternoon. Having a coat rack to hang her jacket on as soon as she got off the airplane was of ultimate importance to my fiance. During intimate moments she'd related how her parents never brought coat racks to the airport and how deeply that had affected her. I was the only boyfriend that had ever cared enough. Ever since increased security she'd been forced to wait until she got to the baggage terminal to hang her coat. I always made a point to be there waiting with one. Admittedly, it would've been wise to have a coat rack of my own but Roger was always forthcoming with his. A hanger was out of the question. There's something frightening, almost criminal, about appearing in public with a hanger. A wooden coat rack, on the other hand, carries an air of respectability. My fiance was already at baggage claim, her coat in a pile by her feet, when I arrived.