VIRGINIA
LITERARY
REVIEW
Fall 2015 / Volume 41 / Number 1
The Virginia Literary Review www.virginialiteraryreview.tumblr.com vlreditor@gmail.com Fall 2015 Staff Executive Editor Tanner Pruitt Fiction Editor Alyson Hancock Art Editor Rory Finnegan Treasurer Tamar Ziff Review Staff Will Brewbaker Emily Clark Katy Greiner Alex Scheinman Natalie Wall Adam Willis
The Virginia Literary Review is a contracted independent organization run by undergraduate students at the University of Virginia. Views expressed are not necessarily those of the University. The magazine is funded in part by a student activity fee allocation. VLR is published twice annually. The review staff considers literary submissions from individuals in the University community during the first three-quarters of each semester. Work selected during the current semester is published during the following semester. For more information about the magazine and submission guidelines, please visit our website: www.virginialiteraryreview.tumblr.com. Approximately 500 copies of each issue are distributed around grounds and to local establishments free of charge. This issue of VLR was produced by the editors using InDesign software and was printed by Bailey Printing, Inc, Charlottesville, VA. Copyright 2015. No material may be recorded or quoted, other than for review purposes, without the permission of the artists, to whom all rights revert after the first serial publication.
Contents / Spring 2014 Poetry 5 / Sabbath Keeping Rachel Gaffin 6 / Ever Onwards In Spite Of Myself Alex Scheinman 7 / Summer Elegy Claire Banowsky 8 / Self Portrait as Mark Rothko’s Self Portrait, 1936 Claire Banowsky 20 / I Would Have Taught You About Adjectives Carly Buckholz 21 / Eating Kelly Zanotti 22 / the white album Rebecca Beauchamp 28 / being blonde so everyone wants me: Rebecca Beauchamp
Prose 10 / Like Father 26 / The Metamorphosis
Leland Garrahan Claudia Heath
Visual Art Front Cover / Shadows 9 / Barong Dance 19 / Nucleus 24 & 25 / Untitled 30 / Paragon
Tamar Ziff Rachel Carle Natalie Wall Robin Sabot Natalie Wall
Sabbath Keeping and there the hyacinths, there the cirrus wisps, paned & pond-framed the waterbugs jesuswalk, light as ghosts on the surface glint. they spring away from the grass blades I pry them with as the cattails brush the elbows of the man in grey casting out again and again his floss-thin fish-hooked prayers. Rachel Gaffin
5 / VLR
Ever Onwards In Spite of Myself So here I am I assume. Maybe I should say I ironically, as I is simply a nifty sign I apply, a name so I can hide myself as I captain a sinking ship. So here I am standing atop a mast, and notice how I cunningly screwed an indefinite article into my imagined ship I’ve constructed solely so I can convince myself I’m somewhat inventive? However, I’m still nounaddicted, ideas expressed solely as stuff. Moreover, I’m still stealing my metaphors and I’m sincerely sorry Herman, I’ve made a mess and now I must escape an eddy I made a couple nights ago. Indefinite article again, see? So here I am, somewhat submerged. Horribly self-aware. Certainly self-indulgent. Am I still narrator as I narrate myself eyeing another coast? Call me clever? Call me childish? No, no. Call me Ahab. Alex Scheinman 6 / VLR
Summer Elegy The walls feel like they’re buckling under the weight of this storm, but the rain only hits the left side of the house Yesterday, I moved my things—books, pens, nickels & dimes, half-empty perfumes, & time-stained blankets—to the drumming left side. It’s been raining for days now. I think this is how the Grand Canyon was formed; some one died, and the world reshaped itself with tears. Last week, we caught fireflies in jars without holes. I woke to a still glass floor carpeted with their burned out bodies. Claire Banowsky
7 / VLR
Self-Portrait as Mark Rothko’s Self-Portrait, 1936 I am what I do. All of art is a portrait of an idea. —Mark Rothko The rust red-brown of dusk—the darkening that always comes— This you made before. Young man of thirty-three, baronial, unknown, silent stranger, stiff with need. Nearsighted eyes from behind turpentined lens look out as the brain does, efflorescing like synapses in pursuit of what’s not already known. What prizrak have you painted, there—pulling at your sleeve, your heart unhidden, the desire to be seen, the desire to be covered. This you did just once; stasis of the hands, rigor mortis. The body yearns away from us, but the head is slow to follow, and the eyes have yet to leave this momentary monolith. This reckoning of the original husk; Hello, Marcus Rothkowitz. Claire Banowsky
8 / VLR
9 / VLR
Like Father
“See, now you wrap the loop around and under, then pull both of them tight again. Come on, you should know this. You’re 8 years old.” “I do know it, I’m just not good at it,” said the boy with one shoe on. “Well, that goes for just about everything. You need to try it a couple of times or maybe a couple hundred before you get really good at it.” The man stood up and handed the other shoe to his son. “Think you can do this one yourself ?” The boy took the shoe and started the laborious process of putting it on. “Do you have your water bottle?” asked the mother, who was sitting at the top of the stairs watching the two of them. “Yeah it’s right here.” The boy held up his bottle in the beam of afternoon light filtering in through the window. It reflected shimmering light all over the otherwise dark basement. He placed it in his bag and returned his focus to the two long ends of the shoelace that stubbornly refused to become a knot. “Can you do this one too, Dad?” The father smiled and obliged, this time forgoing the commentary. All three pairs of eyes were fixated on the looping laces until they were satisfactorily tied, at which point the father jumped up and clapped his hands together to signal the job done. “Ready to go, Jake?” The mother laughed. “You sure seem ready there, Donald. Are you really going to wear that shirt?” Donald glanced at his ratty Red Sox t-shirt with the sleeves ripped off, exposing his farmer’s tan. “I thought I’d hit a few with Jake before tryouts,” he said, mimicking the swinging of a bat. “I brought my glove too.” He produced the glove for her to see and then looked at Jake contorting his wrist to fit it into his own glove. Donald’s knowing smile returned. “Jake, I noticed the one you used from last year seemed a little small, so I went upstairs and found this one.” He reached into a bag on the stairs to show Jake a well-worn glove. “ This was my glove back in the day.” Jake looked at it for a few seconds before responding. “But everyone else has their own glove.” “Just try it on, Jake.” Donald carefully handed the glove to his son then stepped back away from the window to let the light hit it. 10 / VLR
Jake ran his hands over the supple greased leather and tentatively slipped a hand inside. In a small voice he said, “It fits.” Donald remembered the first time he had tried on this glove. It had been much brighter and stiffer, and there had been the gold-lettered signature of a professional player on the side. Had it been Mickey Mantle or Stan Musial? He could not recall. The lettering was long gone now, and the glove was no longer young. “I knew it would fit. Now just because she’s old doesn’t means she ain’t got game. That’s a heck of a better glove than all the cheap ones Wilson churns out these days.” “Donald, don’t say that.” The mother was frowning at her husband. “Say what? Its true.” The mother turned to address her son, “Jake, when your father says ‘ain’t’ just ignore him.” Turning now back towards the guilty offender she said in a whisper, “You know better.” “Please, Monica.” Donald shook his head and turned away. Jake was still transfixed by the glove, running his hands up and down the soft leather. He held it in the shaft of sunlight from the window, and the dust blew all around it. No one talked, no one moved. There were only the listless convections of the dust and the undulating motion of Jake’s hand. Both boys were now eyeing the glove, one remembering and one dreaming. Finally Jake took his hand from the glove and in doing so violently disturbed the dust. “I’m ready to go.” Jake put the glove on the stairs and gathered the rest of his things to leave. Donald was still staring at the green grass and the crack of the bat. “Well good luck, Jake.” “Thanks, Mom.” Jake opened the door and stepped outside. Donald’s old glove remained on the staircase. Donald picked it up. “Honey, why don’t you leave that here, he likes the one I bought him.” “Right,” said Donald. He hesitated a moment before replacing the glove. The disappointment was visible on his face. “Donald,” called Monica. Her voice had changed tone. “Remember to let him have some breathing room this time. Last year he said you were talking to him while he was at the plate.” Donald turned towards his wife. “Oh, I was just helping him out. 11 / VLR
Telling him how to read the pitcher, you know.” He grabbed the car keys and put his hand on the doorknob. “No I don’t know, that’s why this is your job. All I’m saying is, remember whose tryout this is.” The door had closed before she finished speaking. Monica stood up with help from the handrail and walked down the stairs. She picked up the glove and stared at its cracked and sunbleached leather. If it didn’t mean so much to Donald she would have thrown it out. “Do I have to sit in the booster seat?” Jake stood with his hand on the car door. “Yes you do. You’re still a little small to go without it.” Donald slid into the driver’s side and turned the ignition before Jake had found his seat in the back. The car had been baking in the sun all day and the interior leather was hot to the touch, even though the air outside was pleasant. Jake rolled down his window as the car started moving. The fresh air funneled into the confines of the vehicle, bringing with it the scent of new daffodil blossoms in the driveway. The car stereo was playing some old country rock but Donald turned it off before the lyrics started. “Roll that window back up, I’m gonna put on the AC.” Jake’s eyes fluttered quickly as the wind buffeted them and he made no move to comply. Donald hazarded a glance in the rear-view mirror and found his son’s eyes staring back at him. “I said put it up, Jake. The AC is on now. You’re just wasting energy with that window open. “ “The AC doesn’t work fast enough. It’s blowing hot air out.” “It will work just fine if you had the patience to wait two minutes.” Donald looked back into the mirror. Jake looked away as soon as their eyes met. He pressed the mechanical button in brief intervals, so that the window jerked upwards inch-by-inch. When the last high-pitched whisper of air sneaking into the car through the crack in the window ceased, the car became quiet. Donald stopped the car at a red light and put the sunshade down. Jake was looking out the window. Outside on the brick sidewalk, dog-walkers, shoppers, and young teenagers were passing by. Two men were seated at a public table. One was wearing a tweed suit and had shiny shoes and fragile-looking tangle of white wispy hair. The other man was much younger, and had a full head of hair and smooth cheeks. They were 12 / VLR
setting up a chessboard together. The older man chose black. He was laughing now, making a jest, and his opponent laughed along with him. The pieces were arranged and white was thinking. The light turned green. “Do you remember what I told you about fielding grounders?” Donald ventured. Jake’s head was resting against the car door. “And batting? Square in, chicken arms, lean back, all that stuff ?” This time Jake answered. “Yeah, I remember everything you said.” He was still looking out the window. “If you can remember what I told you you’ll definitely make it. Just do what we’ve been doing these past few weeks and you’re a shoe-in.” They pulled into the parking lot with fifteen minutes to spare, but nearly all the places were taken. After finding a spot, Donald took a deep breath, grabbed his mitt, and stepped out of the car. The sound of baseballs striking leather filled his ears, and the scent of chewing gum wafted back to him. That much had not changed in forty years. He sat there in the car, remembering countless summer days spend on the grass and dirt field. He remembered one at bat, on an evening that felt like this one. The bat was tight in his grip and his feet were dug into the ruts around home plate. The pitcher nodded, wound up and released. The ball was in the air and Donald swung. “We’ll get ‘em this time, Jake.” He turned to look at his son but found the rear seat vacant and the parking lot empty of people. He looked around. There he was, over by someone else’s car. He was talking to a friend who was getting out of a green SUV. “Jake,” he called. “Jake, buddy, I’m over here.” Jake saw his dad and made no move to return to him. Donald jogged over. “Let’s get some toss in before they call us over.” He glanced at the green car and saw that there was no booster seat in the back. “I want to play catch with Henry,” he said, pointing to the boy exiting the SUV. Donald stared at the scrawny boy with the backwards cap and bright blue glove on. Henry stared back. The sinking sun was in Donald’s eyes. He felt like he was going to sneeze but the sensation receded after a few seconds. “How are you, Henry?” Donald said. “I’m fine.” Henry was turning a baseball in his fingers. The shadow of his cap’s brim veiled his eyes. He waited some time for Donald to respond before continuing. “My dad’s talking to the coach right now,” he said. Now his fingers fixed on a hold. “Can Jake play catch with me?” 13 / VLR
Donald recognized Henry’s fingering on the baseball as a fourseam fastball. “Jake has some final preparations before tryouts.” “Can I just throw with him for a little while?” asked Jake, who was mimicking the four-seam hold on his own baseball. This time Donald did sneeze. “What about the stance? We have to go over the stance one more time.” Donald cocked his hands back in anticipation of an invisible pitch. Jake glanced quickly at Henry and then followed his father behind the backstop. Donald’s shoulders glistened with a thin film of sweat. Jake was rubbing gooseflesh on his forearms. “Show me what you know,” Donald said, as he always did, reaching out to tweak imperceptible errors in the elbows, fingers, and chin. He worked like a potter sculpting clay: giving a little here, taking some back there, and every once in a while stepping back and putting his index finger on his chin before returning to his model. Jake allowed himself to be adjusted but was otherwise unresponsive to his father’s constant chatter. “Yeah, that’s perfect. Now here take the bat and I’ll pitch a couple to you and you hit them into the fence.” Once again Jake had to be moved physically to face the fence. Donald grabbed a ball and bent over, preparing to toss it from the side into the bat’s swing radius. “Okay, here I come.” “That’s not how you hold a bat,” someone called just as Donald released the ball. Jake turned to find the voice and did not swing at the first ball pitched to him. It fell onto the grass and rolled into a muddy rut. A tall man with a large belly was leaning on the fence nearby. He was wearing a green baseball cap. “Look at the him, he can barely swing that thing, he needs to choke up to make it easier.” Donald stepped in between Jake and the man. “No, he doesn’t, Rick, he can swing just fine. Look, show ‘em how you hit this ball.” Donald pitched the ball underhand and Jake swung. The ball hit the ground before the Jake completed his swing.” “What’d I tell you? Jake can’t hit diddly with that.” Rick pushed off the fence and called to his son playing catch nearby. “Henry, let your friend take some swings with your bat.” Henry walked over to Jake with a smaller bat outstretched but Donald grabbed the bat before Jake had a chance to react and dropped it on the ground. “Jake doesn’t need anything but that bat he has. I used it when I was his age and I never choked up once.” “And how well did that work out for you, Donny?” Rick smiled and the sheen of a gold tooth was visible. Donald was reminded of a game 14 / VLR
a long time ago. He remembered the pitcher’s face, with eyes concealed behind the brim of his cap. He was missing a lower tooth. It gave him a predatory look. Was the batter the prey or the hunter? It was all up in the air right now. He heard the heavy breath of the catcher behind him, felt the dead eyes of the umpire staring unblinking. The pitcher begins to move, the first basemen crouches low, the people in the stands hold their breath. The ball is released and Donald swings. He hits air. Donald grabbed a ball and turned to Jake, leaving his back to Henry and Rick. “Don’t worry about them, Jake. Just watch the ball. Here we go.” He was about to toss another ball to Jake, but he stopped short. “Hey, fix that stance.” Jake was standing straight with both feet close together. His elbows were down and his wrists were limp. He carried the bat like a sac of flour on his back. Jake looked at his dad for the first time since the car ride. “The bat’s too big for me,” he said. Jake waited for a response but Donald just stared back. Jake waited some more and finally dropped the bat. It made almost no sound, just two muted thuds as each end hit the soft ground. All eyes were fixed on the muddy aluminum shaft. The dipping sun cast a shadow of the bat that looked fat and clumsy. It was too big. Donald remembered holding that bat—the last time had been facing Rick so many years ago. It had fit him then, why not Jake? He turned to look at his son. There was a piece of grass plastered on his chin. His shoulders were slumped and his tiny hands were raw and blistered. His shadow stretched all the way to home plate and was so skinny, impossibly skinny. “The bat doesn’t fit,” Donald said to no one. “It’s too big.” Donald looked down at his son. His head hung low but Donald could still see the film of water welling in his eyes. Donald made no move to console, to apologize, to love; now was not the time. Jake turned away and picked up Henry’s bat off the ground. He and his friend walked over to Rick, who was now looking at Donald. “Next time, Donny.” He flashed a golden smile and turned to follow the two boys, leaving Donald alone behind the backstop. He did not move for quite some time. He was thinking about the last at-bat again. The air had felt exactly like it did right now. He remembered the daggers of shadow cutting across the infield, just as they did now. He remembered the calm in the air. The calm air that pushed down on you, broke you down, just as the air felt now. Forty years ago, Rick had said the same thing to him. Donald remembered standing in a high-fiving line on the infield dirt. 15 / VLR
The other team had blue or maybe green uniforms, it was hard to tell. The tears had made both colors and everything else a blur. There was one thing Donald saw quite clearly though. The last boy in line, the pitcher, was missing a tooth. He had had the decency to conceal his pleasure at being on the winning side, but instead of saying the obligatory “good game” he had whispered into Donald’s ear. “Next time, Donny.” Donald could only stand there in his cut-off shirt and watch the tryouts begin. Bit by bit, the great lights of the baseball field began to shine. The blinding white attacked the shadows from all sides. The sun was no longer needed. The field was magnificent, and the boys on it did not look like boys. Donald saw Jake at shortstop, crouching expertly, confidently. “Lower your glove,” he would have said, but not now. Besides, Jake would not hear him from here, behind the gray chain-links of the backstop fence. He stared at Jake for several minutes, knowing that his son would not return the gaze but hoping anyway. The lights were at full power now, but standing where he was near the extent of their range, Donald was half invisible. It had become quite cold, but he opened all the windows anyway. The air was too stale otherwise. He drove in circles, without purpose. Here a left turn, there a right. After some time, he came to a traffic light and stopped. The air stopped flowing through the windows. Donald glanced outside and saw, under the streetlights, two men crouched over a table, with a group of onlookers surrounding them. An old, nearly bald man and a younger one were in the midst of chess match. The board was scattered with a few pieces and both men were in deep concentration. The light turned green but Donald waited. A car honked at him several times before driving around him. At last the younger man made the checkmate. People clapped. The two men shook hands, embraced, and then began to clean the pieces together. Donald drove onwards. The roads still held some cars but they felt empty nonetheless. He thought of Jake. He thought of teaching him baseball and the satisfaction he received from watching his son swing a bat or make a throw. There were few things that he and Jake liked more than playing baseball together. Or so he had thought before tryouts. Donald thought of the countless times they had played catch together in the backyard or gone to the field early Sunday morning to field grounders. Had Jake ever actually smiled when he made the bat crack or when he scooped up a hot ball and fired it to first? 16 / VLR
Donald refused to answer those questions. Donald pulled into the dark driveway and jumped out of the car. His shadow swiveled around his feet as Donald moved silently underneath the street lamps. It grew longer and fainter as he neared the basement door, until finally it became indistinguishable from the darkness all around. The key got stuck in the door, as it sometimes did, and in finally yanking it out Donald smashed his elbow into the open screen door behind him. A jolt of pins and needles fired up his forearm all the way to his pinkie. He grimaced but did not make a sound. When the door finally yielded Donald stepped inside. Nearly two hours ago he and Jake had been standing right here. He had tied Jake’s shoes, his wife had been sitting on the stairs, and the dusty sunlight had been filtering in, illuminating that old brown glove— his glove. But now the room was black. Donald stepped forward and put his hand on the light switch. He let it sit there, and felt his breathing slow down, waiting for the tingling in his arm to subside. Donald looked at the spot on the stairs where Jake had left the old glove. He did so for several minutes. The tingling in his arm did not go away. It reminded him of the painful tingling in his hands when the ball struck the wrong part of the bat. He had tried to tell Jake that the sensation was a helpful reminder to hit the ball better next time and that batting gloves only numbed players from realizing their mistakes. Jake had said he knew where to hit the ball anyway and besides, everyone else had batting gloves. Just like everyone else had bats that fit them, and sat in the car without a booster seat, and rolled down the windows, and had fathers who they wanted to play with. Just like all the kids who had their own baseball gloves instead of hand-me-downs. Donald did not need any light to see the glove lying there now, old and useless. He could have seen it with his eyes closed. A voice floated down from the top of the stairs. “Donald? Why don’t you turn the lights on?” Donald could not see his wife, but he imagined her seated on the top step, as she had been before. Monica flicked a switch upstairs, casting some light into the basement. She was not sitting, and she was more anxious then she had been before. “Is Jake with you?” Donald stared at the concerned look on her face and wished he didn’t have to answer. How long could he go without responding? At few years would be nice. His wife looked very worried now, her brow was creased and her mouth hung slightly open. Donald gave in. “He’s with 17 / VLR
Rick.” The words were barely out of his mouth when Monica’s expression vanished and was replaced by boredom. Donald felt like he had been hit by a pitch. “Oh, okay,” said Monica. “I hope he does well.” The outline of the glove on the stairs was now visible. The dim light shone on the oiled leather, framing the shape with light. It seemed like an illusion. “There’s some leftover pasta in the fridge in case you want it.” Monica turned slowly away from the staircase, and a moment later Donald was plunged back into the pitch black. Donald could no longer see the glove. In fact, he could no longer see anything nor hear anything. The only sensation he felt was the tingle in his arm, which seemed to hurt more with every passing second.
Leland Garrahan
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19 / VLR
I Would Have Taught You About Adjectives Sad,
like when I drew the labyrinthine hospital halls for a newcomer needing to get back out again,
like knowing that person would throw away the hand-drawn map at the end of their day,
or like the air in the family lobby, with its dimly lit vending machine, and its lack of sour skittles
when I wanted to buy a bag so you would have had something to wake up to.
Carly Buckholz
20 / VLR
Eating Nothing disordered about my eating. 4 cherries, 22 on the GI, engorged with the thought of no return home to a body of bones. Then tea for dinner, making me think of Karen Carpenter’s quick stopped heart. Deadly Irish breakfast, but at least I put milk in it. A square of cheesecake (90 calories, 18% DV saturated fat, 1g protein, to justify it, and 10 minutes on a treadmill, odious noise like a pounding fuck, to rid it from my middle. Weight loss is tricky when you are already thin. A hidden effort; the fat touching fat when you bend is not the problem you know it is. The problem is math you cannot see, black and white printing on the sides of boxes swearing you swallow values, percentages of you, nothing ever zero enough.
Kelly Zanotti
21 / VLR
the white album On Melrose two maltese puppies yank a woman with a living sunburn by the leash Her nails brilliant in shellac, in chroma At the artist’s talk I learn the female body in space is just the record of her becoming, caulked at the edges I have moved here to stall the record of my becoming On the plane ride I googled Skid Row, a list of salad joints, crime rates, lesbian bars I free bleed in Whole Foods I smell myself everywhere In this nylon one-piece I am small enough to be brilliant, small enough to survive If a girl in a nylon one piece takes her body her hair and her big mouth to the river If If If If
a girl takes her poems and sour grapes to the desert the desert is the unremitting joystick of need the joystick is a compass the joystick is a dildo
If she is fucking her trajectory If she is limp like a doll with the West Coast inside her On the plane I google walkability, a list of gyms for the shy, drought statistics Where are the angels 22 / VLR
I lie to James at the noodle place I say the food’s not bad I say I’m a vegetarian I say you wouldn’t believe the person I was Living on the farm with my father and my milk and my two braids Being real with the crows, feeding them Where are the angels At The Standard the epiphanies glut me I am so fat with them but I don’t tell anyone I am a poet When I cannot pay my tab they know, they know I ask where are the coyotes Have they camped out behind the Hollywood sign Stalking the mansions tearing at their meat Beverly Hills Coyote I say, everyone laughing Me making a good first impression Hiding a gem in a bomb without burning the trees A coyote steals a baby from his mother and takes him to the mountains If a baby takes his body to the mountains If he takes it to the hills If his body’s like plush in the animal’s mouth No I haven’t yet seen a coyote Haven’t seen a dog like that, a dog with a heart so cruel, so full of sand and heat, a heart like a rattle Everywhere I go I carry a knife for I am in fear Rebecca Beauchamp 23 / VLR
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The Metamorphosis Do you remember, after it rained, the Pale Morning Spinners at dusk? Their transparent, flat wings catching the last light on the water’s surface. And the trout—you spotted them first—noiselessly nosing up to drink the drowned female bodies, spent after laying their eggs. It was a matter of minutes that we fished, I think, before I could only hear you, some thirty yards away, reeling in your line. “Just one more cast,” I said, aiming for a dark run bulging around the bulk of a boulder. And again, when it was beyond dark, “one more cast,” and again, when you pointed out the stars, “this is the last cast, I promise.” I fished by futile feel, not knowing what my fly looked like on the water, but knowing that it didn’t feel the way it should—like a Spinner falling, weightless, full of grace, having done what it was made to do. You sat on the bank for some time, clearing grit from your reel, then rigging it for the morning. Then lying on your back, listening to me curse and splash my way to shore. In any one of the mayfly eggs that settled in the sediment that evening, there existed the potential of a subsurface maturation period, taking up to two years. In the fall, when you went abroad, one had, theoretically, molted twice. And in the spring, when we ran into each other at a mutual friend’s wedding, it had molted four times, and survived sub-zero days and nights. And by summer, it had fended off any number of encounters with reckless debris, threatening to dislodge it from its holding place during peak runoff season. A year after that summer evening, by which time I had finally read the book you gave me and thrown away your t-shirts, the nymph had molted six times, at least. And in October, when the rain never came, the nymph (no bigger than a parenthesis) scooted itself to safety on the sandy bed as the waterline gave chase. Then by your birthday in December, when I presume you received my somewhat groveling voicemail, it had finished molting but it hadn’t yet begun the most crucial stage of its maturation. Regardless, this is all to say that within two years’ time, any mayfly egg laid on that night would 26 / VLR
have theoretically been ready to emerge, in that final, most vulnerable stage of maturation. The stage when one builds up a remarkable pocket of air; a buoyant pocket of air, like a parachute. Like hope itself. And it lets go of the rocks it knows, a risky move, to emerge an adult—a Pale Morning Dun, drying its wings for the day. I wanted you to know I fished there tonight, more or less two years since we’d gone together, and I wanted you to know it wasn’t the same. Claudia Heath
27 / VLR
being blonde so everyone wants me: Where were we O in the bathroom of the revolving sushi bar. For the first time smelled him Let the poster on the ceiling distract me. My hair an instrument The kind of larping usually reserved for sisters’ weddings Said there’s a video of me eating a lemon whole-- wanna see? It’s out there somew e should get dinner sometime! With your skin so soft I can cup your face in my hands like a watch. Nature don’t stutter. Girl you’re so b-e-a tific the way you say no! When I pulled back /this/ chiffon I thought I was entering a different kind of confessional. Your eyes being pretty & us having so much fun The source of inspiration and the medium being two completely different things I thought your body could be the bridge I crossed with my TEETH & MY BARE BARE HANDS! This kinda crawling deserves a spotlight (or a synonym. When the word no’s drowned inside his locked red fist
EXPLAIN to me the difference
between the (de) rig(ueu)or morti of dead bodies & the way he rammed into me headfirst in that glass-paneled what, sanctum? Ha…
28 / VLR
Parse the guts from the body & without context they’re useless. You could look at a poem about rape the same way. Like a surgeon bowed over the operating table with his breath & his speculum contemplating the appropriate emoji to send to his mistress fingering a liver smooth as kitchen tile. Rebecca Beauchamp
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