In the Northern Hemisphere, it is summer: the time when boundaries between indoors and out become fluid as doors are propped open, allowing newly bare limbs to drift between sun and shade. This issue’s cover evokes the relief of a dip in water on a hot day, but in fact our words pair well with all the elements of summer getaways—sun-baked sand, salty breezes, campfires. Best of all, our electronic issue will add no weight to your suitcase. Whatever your plans to escape the heat, we’re confident you’ll find this issue’s words and images as refreshing as an ice cube slowly melting on your tongue. And on the last page you’ll encounter Coraline Adams’ “Homesick,” which may have you longing to return. We wish you happiness and frequent visits from the muse as we wade into the second half of 2014.
Cover Photograph by Amy Haas Art and Photography Addison Addison ~ pp. 3, 18, 31, 33 Taly Oehler ~ pp. 5, 11, 16, 20 Christopher Woods ~ pp. 8, 14
Maraya Loza Koxahn ~ pp. 22, 29, 35, 38 Dave Petraglia ~ pp. 24, 44 Amy Haas ~ pp. 27, 42
Featured Authors Jacob Pruitt ~ pg. 4 Firewater
Mark Jones ~ pg. 29 Chicago Haiku
Joanne R. Fritz ~ pp. 9, 11 The Weight of Apples Brush
Lisa Favicchia ~ pp. 36, 41 Phoenix Damaged Goods
Imprint by Alex Lenkei ~ pg. 3 Lady Godiva by Michelle Covington ~ pg. 6 The Seventy: A Koan by Gaetan Sgro ~ pg. 6 Snake Sniffing by Huey Helene Alcaro ~ pg. 7 Bobbing Heads by Jon Sindell ~ pg. 9 Binary System by Jenny Williamson ~ pg. 10 It Used to be My Favourite Thing by Tammy Peacy ~ pg. 11 Michael by Kurt Newton ~ pg. 12 Headwaters by Mark Hummel ~ pg. 13 A Narrow View of Verse by Heather Truett ~ pg. 15 The Quiet Before by Shira Hereld ~ pg. 17 Synthesizing Particles by Kushal Poddar ~ pg. 17 A Mean Polished Glint by Jacob Harris ~ pg. 18 Loss by Dieter Moitzi ~ pg. 18 British Lit Semester Abroad by Giuliana Grossi ~ pg. 19 The Call by Michael Giorgio ~ pg. 21 The Lines Above Us by Jesse Anderson ~ pg. 22 Your Cloudy Language by Bekah Steimel ~ pg. 22 Christmas Eve 1962 by Adele C. Geraghty ~ pg. 22 Ode to Joy by Martha Petersen ~ pg. 23
Stepping Out by David Hammond ~ pg. 24 What Fortune by Jonathan Pigno ~ pg. 25 In Loving Memory by Alice Lowe ~ pg. 26 The Silver Moon and the Evening Tide by C.J. Booth ~ pg. 27 Blood Clots by Jhaki M.S. Landgrebe ~ pg. 28 Mother’s Day, May 11th, 2014 by Paul Kareem Tayyar ~ pg. 30 Oxnard by Matt McGee ~ pg. 32 Waiting for the Number Three by Maureen Vance ~ pg. 34 Last Showing at the Cinema on a Stormy Sunday Night by Barry Yeoman ~ pg. 35 Holy Hour by Kate Lister Campbell ~ pg. 37 Dream by LeAnn Cole ~ pg. 39 A Winter Wind by Wanda Morrow Clevenger ~ pg. 40 Acceptance by Carol Smallwood ~ pg. 40 If Only by Jade Kennedy ~ pg. 40 Time’s Tick by Claire Scott ~ pg. 41 Genetics by Lauren Smith ~ pg. 43 Homesick by Coraline Adams ~ pg. 44
Art by Addison Addison
IMPRINT by Alex Lenkei
The person you love will not come quietly into your life. She will rumble and quake and the ground beneath her will shake. She will come to you with an epic inked in Braille upon her skin and ask you to recite it to her. You’ll sigh into her mouth as your fingers sweep across the story, coming away with stained hands.
3
FIREWATER by Jacob Pruitt
4
His jaw rattled like a loose car exhaust. An energy welled up in his chest; the world tightened and revolved. Depression set in like a fever as vomit was wiped away. His body a twisted mire, barely breathing, toes wrenched in pain. Something was pressing down on his head, and red and blue lights reflected and scattered his vision. A white cinder of vehicle lay smashed and smouldering in the distance. He lay on a stretcher; his friend was laid down to rest. The sun had risen, a dim glimmer behind a veil of ash. An old burnt smell hung in his nose. The farmers’ fields were smouldering. A wildfire swept them a week since passed. For a day or two there was just smoke, smoke in clouds, in pillows, in wisps and gusts. Everything felt eerie, about to let loose. But you couldn’t see a damn thing. He liked the smoke. He didn’t wonder what was on the other side, and he certainly didn’t need to see it.
The crews fighting the flames stayed on for two or three shifts at a time, then slept in the cab of a truck or the back of some rescue vehicle. He’d never felt welcome to do the same. He slept standing up and falling down. Once he’d been standing watch over the road barricades, a boring job given only to those they wanted out of the way. Some news crews were idling in their vans, but no one seemed to be watching; he’d laid down in the middle of the road and slept until the fire chief shook him awake and demanded he go home.
He’d been fighting the fire for the better part of a week. Trucks had come in from all over the state to help with the situation. He was an other, a volunteer. He’d trained for months to receive the title. Now it didn’t seem to mean anything. No one trusted him.
At home he started the shower. He squatted down as water ran over him and massaged away the pain, the noise of the splashing and splattering drowning out his thoughts. There was peace now, but it was holding back a dreadful sick feeling.
Pack these bags, coil this hose, get the coffee and try not to fuck it up.
He got in his car and started driving. It was night and no one else was on the road. He finally snapped and screamed. His voice was primal like a roar; his vocal cords stretched and burned in the chaotic ripping. He snarled and snapped. He was having another of his meltdowns. He ran his hand through his hair, brought it down to his neck and scratched some blood to the surface.
He was held together with wood and glue, just asking to be set aflame. He got drunk again.
Photograph by Taly Oehler
5
LADY GODIVA by Michelle Covington Draped in marble she stands, still clothed but stripped of colour. Her future etched by the artist into her upturned face and the purpose of her hand. The bruised veins of the rock course through her, giving life to her contours and the folds of her dress. They breathe into the immortal moment that births Godiva into life and legend. She sets her jaw and tugs loose the first clasp. Does she see the ride ahead of her through moonlight muffled by rain? Her hair, her only covering, plasters to her numb, glistening body. Steam rises from her horse’s mouth, enveloping her in the same hazy glow the stone suggests under the gallery light. Hooves on cobblestone announce her coming. She has stripped off the symbols of her status, her protection from the night air, the restraints of her gender. She has stepped out of her pride and her privilege, and rides through the land as vulnerable as the people she intends to protect. The noblewoman with an ignoble husband returns alone to the garden. Her triumph hides behind a porcelain mask of shame, but covers her in rain and magnolia. The next day, the tyrannous tax will be rescinded, and the Lady will return to her Earl, appropriately contrite. But all of that has yet to come for the woman standing before me, frozen in her genesis.
THE SEVENTY: A KOAN by Gaetan Sgro
You have just finished staffing the day’s last admission and are making for the exits when you’re caught in a sudden storm. In a flash, the ward is flooded with visitors. Great-grandchildren toddle, trailing soggy flotsam. Chaperones in tired work clothes are shouting into iPhones, angling with associates while pausing periodically to untangle their kids. The elders glide along, unrushed above the current. You have been pushed aside by the throng; four wide now and streaming down the hall. Ahead, the leaders are making the final turn at the nurses’ station, with others still exiting the elevators. A wrinkled man asks, “Which way to Johnson’s room?” Another, wide-eyed, insists, “We are more than seventy, you know?” And now you do, as a clumsy man, struggling with his ballast, lists to one side and dislodges you. You’re carried along through the tributary ward that opens on a wide plain draining shouts and laughter, flags and flowers, popcorn tins and bright balloons. Cocktails and hors d’oeuvre are served by staff in clean white suits. Everybody has a story about George, about Good Old George, about weekends on the farm: rebuilding walls; dock-diving; storms. You begin to remember, yourself, and soon you’re regaling a dozen or more with the one about George and the case of tawny port he uncovered in his field, how your glasses rattled around a bonfire one frigid winter night. How you can still see the sparks leaping up to join the stars. 6
SNAKE SNIFFING by Huey Helene Alcaro
I haven’t spent my life sniffing snakes. I have people who will attest to that. Hell, I’ve never even held one. I certainly haven’t been crawling around trying to catch a sniff of one slithering past. Quite an image though. I keep getting flashes of odours that are not present. While writing the other day, all of a sudden, with still no obvious connection, I smelled trout sautéing in butter in a cast iron pan. I’m not certain about the pan, but I sure did smell trout and sizzling butter. Lilacs—I can catch a whiff of them out of season. A colleague in a writing workshop read an essay including the memory of getting a Toni permanent. (Young readers, Google it.) I smelled that Toni. I smelled it in my eyes. Smells can be as pungent in the eyes as the nose, the olfactory in through the optical—hair dyes, undiluted bleach, even gyms during basketball games with all that charged-up sweat. Perhaps the presence of absent odours brought a scent-memory of snakes. Garter snakes at least, all the little non-threatening garter snakes I inadvertently sliced and diced with a lawn mower while performing a childhood task. I’d go inside with minced snake covering the front of my legs. In my alleged youthful innocence I didn’t acknowledge how much carnage I was committing, bringing whirling death to creatures who couldn’t protect themselves. Perhaps I’m smelling death as much as snake—dusty, funky death. I finished off god some weeks ago. I had been trying to create one, having been inspired by Socrates with his personal daemon. After weeks of writing toward creation, I wrote myself right out of a desire for or a belief in a deity. How does one get from snake sniffing to the death of god? Snakes are a symbol of rebirth, rejuvenation, resurrection. Snakes shed skin and keep moving on. Like a snake I grew, wiggled around and slipped out of a tootight-skin. My killing of innocent snakes makes me sad. Doing away with god does not. I can smell absent snakes. I never smelled god. Maybe that is why he had to go. 7
Photograph by Christopher Woods 8
THE WEIGHT OF APPLES by Joanne R. Fritz
The automatic doors slide open, swish, hiss, letting in a pall of humid air. She rushes into the air conditioning, pushing a squeaky cart and nearly ramming into me. I sidestep, my running shoes scraping the ridged rubber mat. I’m on my way out, the handle of a single shopping bag looped through one thin fist, cutting into my skin. The weight of apples anchors me to reality. Even as I smile and say hello, I dread what is coming. “You,” she says. Her eyes bulge, unblinking. She’s standing in the supermarket lobby staring at me as if I am a ghost. Her mouth hangs open and I can see the silver cap winking on one molar, smell the stale cigarette smoke on her breath. She grips the cracked plastic handle of the cart, swaying. She’s forgotten to breathe. I am not a ghost. A ghost would not notice sounds and textures and scents. I shift the dead weight of the bag to my other hand, glance at the burning welts on my freed palm. A ghost would not feel such pain. She inhales in one long jagged gasp, points an accusing finger at my chest. “Maria said you died.” “I was in the hospital,” I say. “But I came home.” She shakes her head, unwilling to let go of her version. “No. They all said so. What you had— you couldn’t have survived that.”
BOBBING HEADS (First published in Boston Literary Magazine)
by Jon Sindell Let go of your thoughts, let go of your thoughts, your thoughts are a river passing you by. I’m next to a river watching my thoughts. Those are heads floating by! Ten or twelve floating heads, what the hell was that saying—if you sit by the river the heads of your enemies will come floating by? That’s bull, you should get ‘em before they get—hey, that horse head scene in The Godfather was cool, who the hell was that actor? Let it go, Bob. Oh, man, many heads! Floating heads, bobbing like apples—who the hell bobs for apples? That’s a Golden Book thing, Little Golden Book thing, who the hell reads that crap? And who the hell brings apples to the teacher, even brown nosers don’t. God I’m fat. Man I’m fat. My arms feel fat on the arms of the chair—my sweet, wonderful chair—soft and sweet like me, cost me six hundred bucks— man, it takes a real man to earn money like— Breathe, dammit! Deep breaths, moron, your blood pressure needs it. Breathe in, breathe out—man, the old man’d cough his lungs out from that, dumb fool, dead from smoking— I’m ungrateful to say stuff like that! Dad’d whack me for that. Candy cigarettes were good! All these dumb kids today, we’re so over-protective—like Sandi, dear god, just let the kids be! Man, it makes my blood—
But I did.
Breathe in! Breathe out! Watch your thoughts float—what’s that! Jesus, Sandi, I keep those kids!—
Didn’t I?
“Quiet out there! I’m effing meditating!” Breathe in, breathe out, breathe ...
9
BINARY SYSTEM by Jenny Williamson It was the distance he loved, and the way she wore it— a silk-shouldered dress she would slip off and on again just as easy as leaving. It was a look that suited her. For once in her life she was not too much; she was only enough. The first time she spun him into her bed, he folded in on her like a collapsing star. She could not help but fall. These days they circle each other, always receding, even when drawing near; speaking I love you in so many languages but never stay.  
10
IT USED TO BE MY FAVOURITE THING by Tammy Peacy
Running barefoot on the gravel of the alley behind my house. Running so fast the only way to stop me is to put up a brick wall. Or do what God did and give me breasts.
Photograph by Taly Oehler
BRUSH
by Joanne R. Fritz
I am seven and my big sister wants to brush my hair. She makes me sit on the stool and she stands behind me, humming. My hair is long and straight and the honey gold colour of slanting afternoon light. She takes the brush and firmly strokes down through each silken hank, over and over. Bristles tickling my scalp. Down and down and down. Humming. I close my eyes, warmed by the brushing. It’s like taking that first sweet sip of hot cocoa and letting it flood my insides with heat. Softness sinks into me like syrup soaking into pancakes, spreading out, filling me. I melt. Every vein and pore and follicle turns to drowsy liquid and I am the stroking and the humming. I am the silken hair. I am the brush.
11
MICHAEL by Kurt Newton She rushed into the spotlight, razor in hand, prepared to make the ultimate statement about the meaning of life and love. She called out, “Michael! If you love me you’ll stop me from doing this!” The crowd grew hushed, unsure if this was part of the play. Heads turned toward the entrances and exits in anticipation that someone—someone named Michael— would step forth to end this charade (if the drama were staged) or to stop the insanity (if indeed it were real). The look of despair on her face when Michael—her Michael—failed to appear as hoped was something the theater lights could not hide. She outstretched her arm in defiance of the moment, about to deliver the cruelest of cuts, when a young man in the seventh row—not her Michael, but someone willing to play the part—stood and shouted, “Stop!” Then another young man, several rows back, stood. “Please, don’t!” he said. Then another, and another, until there were half a dozen Michaels standing, all pleading for her to stop. And in that moment it was as if Michael—her Michael—no longer existed, with so many willing to take his place. And, even though her legs were shaking and the spotlight was just a flicker dancing at the fringe of the eclipse on her heart, she tossed the razor aside and stepped off the stage into the arms of strangers who loved her more than Michael ever could.
12
HEADWATERS
by Mark Hummel
Of course if we wish to begin at the It all starts here. All of it. We find that hard beginning, we start in the sky and we watch to imagine. What has been given and what the clouds. We wait for rain. has been lost. We straddle this trickle of water, aware of our feet in the spongy, If we wish to meet the beginning at the moist earth, and we picture this river we beginning, then we come here where the have travelled the length of, this river we temporary dying of the glacier gives birth have seen through to its destination. We to the river. When the rain nears, we feel close our eyes and see its broad back flowing the hair rise from our skin with the ap- beneath bridges that stretch distances so proaching storm. We sense how our minds great that one end is blind to the other. We empty, leaning with the wind, leaving space have travelled its length and yet we cannot only for the wonder that is in fear. Light- grasp its scope, its variety, cannot fathom ning, and we are foolish enough to stand in the relentless memory it harbours. To stare open tundra at twelve thousand feet where at a map means nothing. We must touch, before us granite monoliths the colour of step within, dip our hands, and sip as it tombstones rise into a sky that is alive. drains through our fingers. Entering this water, feeling it upon our skin and within Or perhaps we stand this same ground and our throats we know but that fleeting moit is morning and we are hoping against ment, each measure of water a fragment. rain and we can hear only the perpetual We cannot know the whole of the river, no presence of a scudding wind and the dart- more than we can narrate the whole of our ing industry of insects and the trickle of lives, for it is the river bed that shapes the melting snow at the glacier’s base. We are surface we see. We miss the commingling of surrounded by Monet strokes of flowers geology and geography, mesmerized as that hug the ground like they are ashamed we are by the water’s surface, that plane of their beauty. They defy their humility and interrupted by the stirring of insects cover the ground with colour. Where there and the rise of fish, by the leap of water are trees they are few, and they are bent like momentarily testing air. arthritic bones, twisted and knuckled and folded at the hips from years of holding Fragments. Tributaries. The riverbed of the ground against wind. unseen. We listen to these first persistent drips of water melting from a glacier’s edge Away and below falls all the earth in rum- and wonder if this water already knows its ples and wrinkles, so many we become way home like a bird migrating a route it lost within the count, overwhelmed in the has known before its birth. And sometimes enormity of the unfolding. Our eyes travel we wonder why it is so hard for us to find out into the open sky, a sky that feels as our way. We listen and we wonder. This inhabitable as this landscape at our feet, as drip like a heartbeat. This narrative beating. if we can walk into the air, ride the clouds, as if we can trace the river’s course like an eagle. This moving water at the glacier’s edge is but inches wide and so cold it arrests our breathing when we can no longer resist the desire to cup our hands and break its surface.
13
Photograph by Christopher Woods
14
A NARROW VIEW OF VERSE by Heather Truett A teacher told me once that vases symbolize womanhood, empty and needing to be filled... I choose instead to shatter the glass. Empty Vase he called me. Seventeen and oh so sure of who I was. I defied his need to define me. Come on now, Teacherman, tell me again that I am empty and I will spill out all over you, magma to lava to your own Pompeii. I fill my own vase, thank you Mr Teacherman. I fill my vase with roses and daisies and tiger lilies too. And who are you but your own kind of empty, angry when we refused to fill you. Mr Teacherman, you told me the moon in poetry always symbolizes sex, and I still think you have a narrow view of verse.
15
Photograph by Taly Oehler
16
THE QUIET BEFORE by Shira Hereld The whole of the house has fallen into the pensive, deepest of quiets that only tree-lined suburbia can force upon a neighbourhood. Within a few short hours, the silence will be edged out inexorably by the wailing of alarms, the bleating of phones and clamour of voices, but for now only the wind sighs a sullen lullaby through the eaves. Upstairs, Dr. and Mrs. Jackson lie prone beneath a prison of blankets, backs not quite brushing. Down the hall, the baby moans a nervous preamble to the ensuing chaos, unconsciously missing the discontented snores that normally echo through the adjacent wall; Kevin and his buddy Daniel are still wide awake, clicking wide-eyed through dirty websites in Daniel’s attic. In the far corner of the baby’s room, a single glum goldfish bobs in a round tank that desperately needs cleaning. Even when the water begins to boil, and smoke turns the glass opaque, the goldfish will continue to bobble and stare, bobble and stare. And in the bowels of the house, Annie and her best friend Maxine sleep curled tightly together to guard against the chill of the basement floor, candy wrappers and lone kernels of popcorn strewn around them. By their blanketed feet, a space heater burns too hot and too close.
SYNTHESIZING PARTICLES by Kushal Poddar Ever photographed dust Aswirl in-between two Columns of shade? Ever Thought, I know this because I do not know the rest? On my hand tingles The feeling I should feel And yet I feel an unfilled Space enveloping my skin. 17
A MEAN POLISHED GLINT by Jacob Harris
It winked at him: the big brass knob on the coal-bunker door. That mean shiny bastard with the polished yellow glint. It winked at him as he shovelled more coal into his barrow. More coal, more coal, more coal. Always more coal when you’re a trimmer, a coal runner, keeping the firemen stocked so they keep the fire stoked and running hot. Bottom rung of a steam ship crew is the black gang. Bottom rung of a black gang is always the little trimmer. Back out of the bunker and down to the firebox, with its glower and its gaping maw— always so damn hungry. Burning like a gateway to the underworld. The gnarled fireman, all lit up and glowing red, his face twisted like some thirteenth century demon. “More coal, boy!” He emptied his barrow and doubled back for more. Looked ahead to the bunker and it was still there: his mute tormentor, his spherical bane. That mean shiny bastard with the polished yellow glint. It just sat there, inert, resplendent in its sheen; a sheen garnered from the tired, blackened hands of the little trimmer. Every time he opened the bunker door the fine coal dust that covered his hands and body would shine up that big brass knob. He’d leave the door ajar when he could, but the sway of the ship would always swing it shut. Always a fleeting stand off before the trimmer reached out and snapped its metal neck anew with a swift twist of the handle. Bastard.
LOSS
by Dieter Moitzi A purring fridge, a kitchen clock measures our heartbeats, and time flows away like sand on a foreign strand, with the soft hiss of loss…
18
Art by Addison Addison
BRITISH LIT SEMESTER ABROAD by Giuliana Grossi Underground: Struggling with my backpack, I fumble for my Oyster card, lost in crinkling pages of homework, to avoid getting trapped between the gates of the Camden Town station and the stampede coming up the escalator behind me. On The Street: Staring down at the soggy littered sidewalk, I have to push through the chattering tourists and their eclectic accents. Lucky for me I’ve always been skilled at dodging people, maneuvering swiftly through the tiny space between each body. Beneath the Bridge: Chipped spray paint and sizzling pork samples are enough for me to consider tossing my backpack into the river, watching hours of work and my return ticket sink into the soot. It’d be so easy to stay and save just enough pence to get by. Gower Street: I didn’t know I’d find home in the puddles and rattling potholes outside my bedroom window. I cursed every taxi that sped by but ever since the pavement’s been smoothed I haven’t slept through the night.
19
Photograph by Taly Oehler
20
THE CALL
When the phone rings, you tell yourself you can handle it. Even if this is The Call, the dreaded call already made today to plenty of people in the company, you can handle it. The Call’s been made to friends, enemies, strangers, all of them now reduced to statistics and write-offs to the bottom line. The bottom line which, you know, is straight and true and, most importantly, black, not red. You muster your confidence, pick up the phone, and shake out your habitual greeting. It’s not The Call; just a call. A coworker telling you who was just upended in that area and wanting to know what’s happening around yours. With sniffling coming over the cubicle walls and the sounds of lives being boxed up around you, you say it isn’t a good time to talk. Your friend makes guesses and, when the right name is chosen, you confirm it. Another nail in a newly-made career coffin. You end the conversation and try to focus. After all, you’re still a cog in the giant wheel, unless you get The Call. You turn your attention your desk. So many vital things to do and the responsibility falls squarely on you. Contemplating the mountain you’re paid to reduce to a molehill, you’re absolutely certain The Call won’t come for you. You aren’t just a cog in the wheel. You’re the axle without which the wheel couldn’t turn. The phone won’t ring for you. A smiling, sun-soaked vision of yourself catches your attention. A vacation picture, tropically framed and prominently positioned to brighten dark days. You smile at the memory until clouds blot it away. The wheel still turns when you’re on vacation or using a sick day. You are just an expendable cog. You turn the picture face down and try to focus on today’s stack of work. A coworker’s phone rings and you jump, sending remnants of morning caffeine across your desk. This is ridiculous. How can anyone be expected to produce under these conditions? You have to breathe, so you race to the break room, the need for paper towels a convenient excuse. When you get there, employees sit, tears in their eyes. In mourning, you know. Terms—terminated employees—are escorted from conference room to desk to front door. You have to get away from the misery circle, so you decide to get your paper towels from the
by Michael Giorgio
restroom. Luckily, it’s deserted and you take a moment to relish the blessed silence. In the mirror, a haggard stranger watches and you want to shatter the truth from that reflection. You turn away, grab the paper towels, and try to leave, but you can’t. You’ve found a phone-free sanctuary and you won’t go back until the turmoil passes. A stall beckons. You quickly latch the door behind you. It’s even safer here, walls within walls within walls. Home base. Safe haven. You breathe deep and laugh at the sheer lunacy of this. Sanctuary is a toilet? If The Call comes and you’re not there, they’ll still find you. You can’t hide forever. You flush, just in case anyone is out there, and head out. Out in the hall, you walk toward your desk, stopping dead in your tracks when a phone rings somewhere ahead of you. Is it The Call? Is it for you? For a friend? The phone keeps ringing and you’re certain it’s yours. If you just stay away from your desk, they can’t downsize you, right? Wrong, and you know it. You’re going to face your fate, whatever it is, as a professional. When you return, your coworker across the aisle is filling a box, years’ worth of career reduced to a box. Personal effects, like they collect in the morgue. You are torn. You’ll miss your aisle buddy, but at the same time, your department has taken another hit and it wasn’t you. Guilt and relief blend uncomfortably. You don’t want to be happy, but every call to someone else means it’s less likely your phone will ring. You want to say something consoling, but you can’t. You know there’s nothing you can say, especially since your phone remains blessedly silent. Besides, your supervisor and a security guard block the entrance to the soon-to-be-empty cubicle. Neither speak, but their presence is a clear message—personal property only, no sabotage. Having been in those shoes and packed your own career box of memories, you know how long that escorted walk will be. But you’re sure you won’t be taking that walk. You’ve kept track of the emails, the gossip, the tears. Your department has taken its fair share of hits. One or two more than its share, truth be told. You breathe deep, let it out slowly, revel in the deserved relief. Then the phone rings.
21
Photograph by Maraya Loza Koxahn
THE LINES ABOVE US
by Jesse Anderson I once stood for a month in a field, gazing out over the shouts of children,
and watched the crisp patterns of unnoticed planes
YOUR CLOUDY LANGUAGE
take shape and dissolve in the finite-ceilinged sky.
Your cloudy language always covers and conceals half of your message leaving me waiting quietly for a revealing wind to unveil all things hovering and obscured
by Adele C. Geraghty
by Bekah Steimel
22
CHRISTMAS EVE 1962
In freeze time the silence fell, deep and blue and surrounding, light as the capture of a collective breath, hung delicate as crystal, descending, heavy with the weight of centuries. The world stood still.
ODE TO JOY by Martha Petersen
Don’t think about coffins, or the weight of the earth being shoveled on you while they fit the restraint around your head and over your face, so close you can measure the diameter of your pupils in its reflection. When they slide you inside the tube, don’t think about it being a tube, but imagine instead you have all the space behind your closed eyes, which is an auditorium, blank darkness and waiting anonymous faces. And you’ve become a violinist, ready for the spotlight. Outside, they will trace the circuits of your brain with their fingers, trying to find the places your insulation has rubbed off, wires against wires. It’s their job.
At the airport, they’ll wand you while you try to explain, over and over, that you don’t know the first thing about explosives. You might get brave and whisper, “I’m a secret agent,” you just might. But you won’t set off the metal detector because the plate in your head will be the size of a half-dollar, they’ve said. When it comes to plates, it will be a tiny one after all, which Dr Sanan (whom you tried to make a joke with and he didn’t laugh, but said, “Well, there we are,”) will screw into your skull. Whatever you do, don’t think about how they’ll drill your head with the kind of machine that makes holes for doorknobs (you’ve watched the whole thing on YouTube) and wrap slick pieces of Teflon around your short-circuited nerves. You won’t know anything, you’ve been told, you’ll be beyond sleep and dreams, outside of awareness. You won’t feel their fingers inside your face, their tiny lighted microscopes, the absurdity of this intimacy, a roomful of strangers so close to Who You Are. The wheeling of the magnet makes you shrivel, reminds you of nerves separated from the order of the body, sending shock waves. But don’t think about that, because the thumping
of the magnet is something else—the pulse of your conductor’s baton. You follow his wrist to the downbeat (he’s that kind of conductor) and you play, simply, the “Ode to Joy.” You can always think about the waiting room outside, since you are so into comparisons these days. That man in the jersey, with his mat of red chest hairs, who has no business in the waiting room without a decent shirt, and the girl with him, who looks like a child but isn’t (and you know what’s going on there) in sweat pants and slippers. You’d never go out in public like that. But then there are the parents with an empty seat between them, who are reading, and the stroller, which is also empty (Why). The father, legs apart and hunched over, but the mother, her knees against her chest, curled up. And you want to know more but don’t, and you definitely don’t want to be caught staring at her book which is called Sibling Grief, and you wonder WhyWhyWhy. Why is it “Ode to Joy,” when Beethoven had no reason to be joyful, was rewarded for a lifetime of work with total deafness. Finishing the “Ninth,” his very best, in suffocating quiet. Watching his own hands pound away on his keys, silent. At the premiere, the violins bow up higher toward that last suspension where he holds them, holds them—and they, not knowing how long to follow, drop out one by one and the music ends. The quiet of the orchestra. But for him, his eyes shut against reality, there are still a thousand violins. He can’t hold his hands up there forever. He is stopped by the contralto and turns to face his audience. Which is roaring, and raising hands, hats, handkerchiefs in the air. He grabs at them, Beethoven, who hears his applause in his mind and through the bottoms of his feet. 23
Art by Dave Petraglia
STEPPING OUT by David Hammond
Stepping out through the door of his house, which was swollen by the moisture and did not shut properly, casting off his shoes to thrust his feet in the uneven grass, which, dead and alive, was a chorus of mute tones, browns and reds and greens, casting off his sleepiness with a shudder as he stepped beneath and then out from beneath the newly leafed deciduous trees into the sunshine, casting off his shirt, casting off his boredom, turning, arms outspread breathing in, out, casting off his ambitions, casting off his intelligence, casting off death, casting off his ideas like the clothing he cast off until he was nude, falling in faith and not knowing that he had ever fallen before like that on his back in the grass, casting off his language and his memory and his poetry, he was as mutely eloquent as a lion basking and blinking in the mid-day sun.
24
WHAT FORTUNE by Jonathan Pigno
It’s the privilege of half-men and lovelorn beggars to taste death every second of their lives—to swallow whole daggers of complacency festered in the marinades of hate. It’s the larvae of demons and burdens hooked to the walls of your insides, insects fed on nihilism and bacteria bred in her eyes—that last gaze she ever conjured in the brew of premeditated ends, soothing like sumptuous poison cooked to infest hearts and stomachs. You vomit her pride and callousness cause it managed to choke the remnant of yours— gagging on golden fortunes, phone calls ringing unanswered and doorbells imagined at night. And the ambulance arrives by morning. The authorities mock an idling corpse. Wracked with panic and Xanax, grief and living room meltdowns—of smashed glass and neighbourhood spectacles with the finality of her “no” on his wrist—prose in jagged murmurs as his heart skips to the unsolved poetry of closings and constructs in God— Christ talking freedom with Kerouac his light at the end of the tunnel—arguing at the studded gates, his muse a goddess of sex and ink, basking in thigh-highs and saintliness as she whispers to him the promise of love in the timely death of a dreamer. What fortune to be made of hospitals, madmen, and painted wood. What a dazzling circus of closure to be the ringmaster of a startling new life. A marionette poised out of necessity—strung out on loose ends and purpose. Responsibilities aspiring to nothing. So much expected of an object—imbued with the resemblance of a person but treated like the trash of a child. He’s just a doll that’s long been outgrown. Burn him like the rabbit in that story. The one where he faces trial by fire. The one where he becomes real in the end.
25
IN LOVING MEMORY by Alice Lowe Yeah, thanks. I’m doing ok. It’s hard to believe. It was a staph infection, and I thought he’d recover. But he was still weak from the last surgery. He was eighty-two. Ha! He looked ninety-two the last couple of years. I don’t get his pension, so I’ve lost five thou a month. And I just bought us new beds. And my teeth, I have all these implants that I still have to pay for. And I’ve got loans, interestfree, so why pay them off, huh? But I’m going to have to sell my Corvette. I never liked this house, and it needs all kinds of work. I hate this town—I always have—when I get the house fixed up I’m going to sell it and move to L.A. I can go back to work there and make good money. They’ll just stop my pension until I retire again. I keep myself busy. I’ve got my son here, and he’s not working. He needs dental work too. He chews that tobacco stuff and I keep telling him he’s going to get mouth cancer. When I quit smoking I just used the patch and that was that. I told him if he doesn’t stop he’s going to be out on the street. My daughter’s boyfriend is worth a couple of million but he won’t give her anything. He’s so cheap. She’s always broke so I’m going to have to send her money to get her up here for Frankie’s funeral. I mean he wasn’t her father, but they got along pretty good, and she should come for my sake anyway, don’t you think? I help them all. What can I do? I help people. That’s how I am. Maybe it’s time to start helping myself. But I’m not selfish. Frank was selfish—with me, with everyone. And he was no picnic to live with, especially these last years. Just a crotchety old man. My dad was never like that. 26
They asked if I wanted to say “my loving husband” on his gravestone. I said no, because he wasn’t a loving husband. If it wasn’t true, I’m not going to say it, even if he’s dead. I won’t lie. I hate liars and cheaters. If I said “in loving memory,” that would be ok, you think? I have his family photos—what am I going to do with them? I want to give them to his nieces and nephews. He was going to give them his share of the house, but I put a stop to that. He didn’t leave me anything else, just a little life insurance. I want to get rid of everything. Except my grand piano. And my player piano. And this Chinese hutch. And my books. I’m a big reader. I read all kinds of stuff, like archaeology. The funeral’s costing me $10,600, and that doesn’t even include opening up the grave site. We already have the space. And then I’ll give a priest $50 to say a few words over it. That’s enough, don’t you think? Frankie didn’t go to church, but he had his private beliefs, and you have to do something or it looks bad. I’ve ordered some flowers, but not too many. I hope people bring or send flowers. I want it to look nice. You’re sending flowers, aren’t you? I’ll be seventy-one next year. Getting old is a bummer, huh? I don’t go to the gym but I stay busy, and I eat well. And I think positive, you know? They say you live longer that way. And I drink the red wine. Thanks for calling. You’ll send flowers, right?
THE SILVER MOON AND THE EVENING TIDE by C.J. Booth He lets the cool sand hourglass through his fingers. She traces his name, then hers, then a heart around both. Quickly wipes it smooth. His hand wanders, almost touching hers. Recovering, he picks up more sand. Uncertainty is his plague. A small wave crests and she raises her eyes to his. Encouraged, he leans in. Pleased, her eyes sparkle in the moonlight. A wave breaks. Lips part. Tonight, there are only two people in the whole world. There is only one touch. There is only magic one time, because first never happens again. Unless it is remembered over and over.
Photograph by Amy Haas 27
BLOOD CLOTS by Jhaki M.S. Landgrebe Twelve minutes to reach the place. She sat upon the dusty gravel to die. It was warm. She waited. And waited. A little more waiting, until there was no doubt her waiting was patient. She would wait until she died. She would die patiently.
gravel gems supporting her buttocks turned to carefully carved, less supportive, gravel shards. And so she awoke from this sleepless, ambling trance from the bottom up. And the corn was quiet.
She ran away. She’d gone for a jog. She ran out of town, into the countryside. In a town the size of hers, it took a destroyed, sagging body a mere twelve minutes before it was quarter mile deep into country, complete with gravel roads and cornfields. And complete with nothing more. There she sat.
A full day since.
And while her body was still, her thoughts were not.
When her skin heated as it had when she first sat, she stood up. Shook the clinging shards and lingering gems and jogged again. Tenderly. Deliberately.
All she wanted was someone to convince her that the blood clots didn’t exist in her. They didn’t. And yet, none of them could. That’s why she let them all go. That’s why she let it all go. There were periods of calm. They enjoyed it. So did she. Times filled with coziness and happiness. (Though, they were always a bit cozier and happier.) For she tended a tickle. A tickle in her blood. It sounds nice, but it was an evil little tickle, reminding her that the blood runs smoothly only for a time: measurable. Then it hardens. Then it clots. Then it stops. And while her body was still, the night was not. It came without warning. She wondered if there was a time when it did warn. And no matter how she wondered. How many days turned nights she sorted, she could not know. Now, of course she could know. But she didn’t know that. And so, there were two things she didn’t know. She sifted through these unknowns all night, never knowing; the corn whispering her failures. The mosquitoes caring less. Then, in a shared breath the individually crafted, 28
She lived. Sunrise, and already defeated. She waited.
She had no thoughts. A good defeat. For the first four minutes, her eyes fastened forward with only one slight glance to her right, at minute five, to a ditch like every other ditch (except this ditch was at minute five and on her right.) And in this particular ditch was a sparkle. Near a widely strewn box, in the company of smaller boxes, the sparkle shimmered. Close, but not too close. Family or friend, they all suffered the same fate. Soggy and faded, the box-tribe had not contents, their valuables plucked. The boxes chucked to die, but rotted together. She picked up the youngest box; it was a simple sheet of cardboard meant to mount the absent contraptions’ smaller items. Under the thinned plastic shield, lay a key. Rust shapes on either side, fossils of other tiny pieces less lucky or more fortunately snatched. Rust fossil; key; rust fossil. Darling thirds. It was lovely. And it was perfect. She did not cry. She did not die. She tossed the cardboard away, though she was completely in love with it.
CHICAGO HAIKU by Mark Jones
red light camera blinks its cyclopean eye devouring joy
perched high atop the cemetery fence, a stuffed bear
Photograph by Maraya Loza Koxahn 29
MOTHER’S DAY, MAY 11TH, 2014 by Paul Kareem Tayyar
In her small white bathing suit you can see the narrative of her former life: The tattoo of two skulls on one shoulder, The tattoo of a large snake wrapping itself around the thick trunk of a tree Whose branches are burning fanning itself across her back, The Chinese script running up the rungs of her spine like a ladder That she could never stop climbing, The blurred colours along her right knuckles Likely the name of a man she no longer loves, The image of a crucified Christ at the back of her neck, His arms replaced by wings that seem to prefigure the beginning of this second act: Her young boy in the pool Splashing in the water as she holds him, Both of them laughing, Both of them tanned by several days in the sun, His head on her shoulder while she whispers something into his ear That makes him laugh even more joyously.
30
Art by Addison Addison
31
OXNARD by Matt McGee The old man raises grape vines in the side yard on rainwater and VFW memories While the grandson has assembled a band in his room Twenty-eight and still drumming, dreaming. Rainy days dampen the sound but not the spirit, Fill the old barrels that nourish family traditions.
32
Art by Addison Addison
33
WAITING FOR THE NUMBER THREE by Maureen Vance
The clock face of the Martinstor is a white disc lit like the moon over half-timbered shopfronts. A net shrouds the front of the old Zeitung, where men in stone tunics pantomime conversation across a window. Cycling isn’t allowed at this web of crossroads but at night the bikers flit past, empty gears buzzing under the gatehouse and into the dark. The others are probably in the club on Löwenstraße by now packed in a Keller like bottles in a crate. If I were with them I wouldn’t be waiting. But I know the tightness in my forehead and the itch in my eyes; I hear the bass thumping from the bar down the street and I know what I can’t stand even more than standing still. A lost dog trots past the Bächle, the gurgling water like a chuckle as his nails clack on the stones. He paces the edge anxiously, circles endlessly, like if he just keeps moving he’ll get where he needs to go. When we think of passing time we imagine tally marks on a straight line, but really it’s tram tracks on cobblestones and scaffolding on a Münster. It’s an antique bookstore with postcards in front, or someone singing “Scarborough Fair” by a department store. In the middle I’m standing in my beat-up jacket, counting the bikes and the pilasters on the pharmacy, rolling my eyes at lip-locked lovers, and wondering if that dog will ever come home.
34
Keep me here where my heart beats, and my lungs take in air, and each breath is long and deep as I wait for the Number Three.
Photograph by Maraya Loza Koxhan
LAST SHOWING AT THE CINEMA ON A STORMY SUNDAY NIGHT by Barry Yeoman
Caught somewhere between impoverished cities and oddly-finished scenes, the mind opens to images of wind. The tall heaving grasses fluid as waves, live wires whipping this way and that faint rumbles over the soundtrack. What is this insistence on confrontation with darkness? Is it a sickness that strikes in the name of an endless sky? We are consumed ultimately in the loneliness of the dark. Endless tunnels of imagination, where will they lead? This constant dual with restraint. The credits roll in the dark theater. Into the wet night the parking lot is empty. Artificial lights refract the wet surfaces, glimmer in the distance. A hollowness reverberates as the car door shuts, the ignition carries the black shell along deserted streets. Clocks stop in the night. Somewhere a cold murder, after too much bourbon. Angst cuts like black glass. The city is a bleak cage. It squeezes the humid air, wraps tight around the throats of trees. How will we ever live again? Even the stars have been exiled. The stillness and silence so strange at times, you’d swear the tower clock moves backwards. 35  
PHOENIX by Lisa Favicchia Small floods of briny water fill Once lifeless puddles Which begin to rise, quenching The large pocks which freckle The red-faced tiers of rock Jutting from the spiny stone bridge. Waves squelch against the rocks, Pouring cool, clear water into the calm, sunny pools, Enticing small fish into their bellies. They are left to swim Languidly, gliding over the rocks, Fins spread like wings. But the tide slowly begins To pull back, withdrawing its water From the glittering gullies, And before they realize what is happening, The fish are left stranded in small Puddles on the fishermen’s perch, Free for children to pick at their gills And poke them with sticks. By the end of the day, their white bellies Flash in the setting sun. Soon the gulls come from their palace, Leaving only small bits of silver torso and Fleshy ribbons of white To swirl around in the puddle, The radiant water reflecting The red of the rocks. 36
HOLY HOUR by Kate Lister Campbell
At Gethsemane, I watched you among the olive trees. My Son, your face the colour of olives. Turned skyward, half-silver in the dull starlight. But I was not above you, not then at least. When you were alone, I was never above you. Forgive me for putting your disciples to sleep. One last time, I wanted your flesh, whole. I, who am formless, took the form of spring air. Slipped myself in the cracks of your lips and between the folds of your tunic, your mantle. Your pleas passed over me—Father, let this cup pass—and sunk inside me, your breath in the night air. I held you, remembering the day of your birth. How your flesh roiled out from the girl’s loins, no different from any child of man. And yet, I understood what I had not before: the jealous love of a body sprung from me. Those first days, I could not bear your beauty. The Virgin’s hands were too rough for you, her breasts too small. Forgive me, I turned my gaze away. At Gethsemane, I would not look away. I fled to the olive tree, became its oily branch. Your pores, filled with sweat, opened and emptied. The boulder you knelt by, spattered with sweat. I confess, my Son, I felt your fear. The itch and swell of your pink throat. I felt it, but did not understand. Forgive me, I did not know death. You were the way for me to learn. You asked a third time—Father, take this cup from me. The wind struck my branches, roused me. I summoned an angel called Leifta to comfort you. I could not let you know I was near. You clutched at Leifta’s waist as he ascended back to the mountain. He dragged you over rocks, cast you in the hard dirt. Your will be done, you screamed, like a curse. On your back, in the dirt, wild-eyed with sobbing. Your voice shook me, the live olive wood. Your will be done, you said, once more. Limp and sprawled, small-looking now. I covered you then, a blanket of air. Beneath me, your body steamed. Your chest rose into me, your breath smelled of wine, but also almonds. Sweet. I nearly faltered, smothered you there. In the distance, a rattle of hooves and metal. I listened, you listened. When finally the voices came near, you stood. I lay on the ground, where your body had been, feeling the indent of your back in the earth. A long time after you were taken away, I lay there and answered no one’s prayers. 37
Photograph by Maraya Loza Koxahn
38
DREAM by LeAnn Cole Cucumber and anise ... that was the smell. Light, fresh and teasing like the smile that tickled the corner of my mouth. The night had been peopled, not with ghosts; these were more potent and more familiar with their swirl of memories and intentions. The convocation pulsed with sapient, textured communiques. I moved my tongue across my teeth feeling their delicate pearlescence like music stroked from a harp. As consciousness returned I discerned One remaining— the morning light dancing rainbows onto his lashes. He grew translucent like a bubble before it bursts... “Stay” I yearned. With a palette of eyeshadows I traced symbols and wishes onto his flesh with sable brushes. It was not diamonds, but dust of the fruit of the Tree of Life and not rust, but powdered blood. The rich iron smell of it clave to the roof of my mouth
39
A WINTER WIND by Wanda Morrow Clevenger
During those months he said “I love you” every day––twice a day––as though enunciation of the fragile syllables could indefinitely buoy time. I knew then we were neck-deep in the in sickness and in health part of things, one motion short of till death do we part part of things. And there is plenty of blame to go around. From private insurance douchery to the fifteen-second-double-booked primary diagnosis––the copious poisonous child-resistant pharmaceuticals––the emergency rooms tap dance. The absence of one simple blood test at the onset. In extreme situations, the brain gallantly tries to save its host the inconvenience, pulls off that slow-mo car accident trick or post apocalypse amnesia. In my case, it elected for temporary blackout. And it is humane to not know and to not remember because when the clouds clear and sight is restored and the view is from the roller coaster ridge, a winter wind come from out of nowhere, the screaming you hear next is, of course, all inside your head. We lost the end of summer and all of autumn in 2013. Twenty-eight days of harvest fell away. He saw to the household chores. Sorted my meds and needles. He held me when I cried. He said “I love you” every day––twice a day––
ACCEPTANCE (First published in Boston Poetry)
by Carol Smallwood A song from the 60’s brought it back: the years on the merry-go-round grasping for the illusive ring— or what was the use of anything? It was a privilege to watch ice in water frost transparent plastic, see drops form over lunch I was now able to linger while acknowledging with less protest that many mysteries would remain out of reach. But I wish I could still hang clothes out to dry, gather them scented with sun. 40
IF ONLY
by Jade Kennedy If she could only be one of those, those who gild their wording in gold who speak in rustic, autumnal hues and bring forth the world, one thought at a time. Her voice emerges slowly carved in inky blacks and ashen whites fracturing the laden air, dissipating. She is the unread, mispronounced and unrefined. She wishes to reach out and touch with fingers tinted in poetry, painted in midnight blues by circumstance, to talk of the stars, to believe she could reach them.
TIME’S TICK by Claire Scott
this is time this is end time edging past seventy turning a sudden corner to cancer, Parkinson’s, dementia, no way to pretend this isn’t personal that death is for others and we drew a bye what happened to sixty’s ease
DAMAGED GOODS by Lisa Favicchia
trips to Chile, skiing in Switzerland sweet sex each Sunday there’s a new currency now
The long black pole Bobs in the wind, bent by the Submerged weight. The sea-worn fisherman
measured in coins don’t spend it too fast my friend
Swings his lance Over the tawny stone wall
can I unbend my body to stand chilled at an open grave of someone I love feel the colourless world pressing, summoning, the rustle of unseen dead shifting uneasily then turn to life, buy aspirin, toilet paper, Scotch tape cope with leaky faucets, mice scrabbling in the basement drink Ensure with crackers as the sun sets spend days in doctors’ offices on cheerless plastic chairs reading People magazine waiting to be called am I willing to do this hoard my pennies and watch others slipping into Lethe’s waters with one last coin for the ferryman you bet
And deposits his catch Upon the sun-kissed ground. It Flounders desperately, Flaking off its scales as It fights on the rocks. Fellow fishermen and baited customers Applaud the captor with Words of praise and awe As he lifts the spiny silver fish Into the air by its string and Rips the rusted hook From its mouth. Keen onlookers watch, Mouths agape, As blood pours from the gills, Dripping to the ground in Glittering ruby beads which slowly Slip from the tip of its fin. It sputters one last time, Choking on its life, Before it is stuffed Into a white plastic bag, Streaked brown with the Crust of his brothers.
41
Photograph by Amy Haas
42
GENETICS by Lauren Smith
You expertly boil tomatoes. It is a skill you have perfected since the age of eleven, when your mother first handed you the spoon. That glorious bubble of temperature and the steam floating in your gnarly curls. The slim man across the street curving his head to look through the window at the figures which evaporate so neatly now. Daddy somewhere, his head tight as his knuckles, watching sweet tomato sauce plunge down his open shirt.
And prizing that window open, each time the bolt so stiff it hurts your fingers, aware of your mother washing the tomatoes so carefully by the sink. Watching as the tomatoes boil, punch out of themselves in a way you cannot avert your eyes. Your efforts spent trying to catch them lightly, fingers ready to burn. And the ease with which your mother takes them out, one by one, hoofing hot breath. You standing by the window watching the slim man plug his headphones in, get some courage. And your mother cooling her thumb in the acid cold, a sticky plaster tagged in her mouth. Looking at you so red and proud, knowing you will practice until you have the right scars and expressions. A matching pan of ripeness which you will bleed and beat until your sauce is thick to drop. You will treat it simply, like an old lover, and taste the sweetness bent on the back of a spoon. But there’s a knock on the door. Your mother walks out of the kitchen,
closing the door firmly behind her. You close the apron around yourself, feel the way it drags upon the floor when you walk. You hear the slow creak of the front door. Daddy somewhere, promising to oil the thing one weekend in his corduroys. Quiet voices that you cannot hear, even though your ear is pressed sharply against the door. You walk to the worktop, look at those tomatoes, now nothing more than a solid, naked fuck. You slowly place them in the pan for pulverizing, one by one, not stopping, not thinking about the front door and your mother. The utensil lies there ready, but you start to use your hands. You do not add your mother’s usual things, just work on mushing and weaving through the body of red until it begins to look whole and smooth as it should. You will sieve it through later and take out the seeds so they do not make you hiccup. Outside you can see wafts of pink rising from the window box, something planted to cheer the place up. Probably on a Saturday afternoon with burnt coffee breath and short, sharp strides, cloying at the soil to make something stick. Little piles of wooden letters spelling out “happy” sprawled across the living room. The door closes and you hear the quiet clatter of the gate. The sauce begins to cool, beautiful minutes gone watching the slim man edge out of sight, face alight. 43
Art by Dave Petraglia
HOMESICK by Coraline Adams the path from me to you: miles of wet-sand shoreline littered with saw-toothed shards of seashell i calculate the distance i could travel on gashed and bleeding soles
44
and ache like the tides must when the moon drags them from the shore.