Liminal Volume 3

L

Volume I

iminal

Spring 2007

Number 3

Contamination by Zach Frank

L

iminal

Volume I Number 3

The Wake Student Magazine University of Minnesota

Spring 2007

Editor-in-chief Jacob Duellman Executive Editor Dan Olmschenk Art Director Ethan Stark Sales Executive Sean Cudeck

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Contents Jason Hertz 1-2 Song of the Bone

Birds Aaron Blum 3-4 I Met Charlie

Starkweather Once Hugo Lau 5 Seeing Light Peston Jones 6 (untitled) Eli Zimmerman 7-10 You Stole the Sun Evelyn Bround 11 Spathiphyllum Zach Frank 12 The Grid Keely Shaller 13-17 Senescence Brent Campbell 18 Early July Hugo Lau 19 Siamese Twins John O’Connor 20 Gluckenstein At Sea Nathan J. Ness 21 One Man Deniz Rudin 22-24 I Fucking Hate

Noodly Arms Caitlin Thompson 25 Notes in the Margin Erin Dwyer 26 Tea Time Clair Ebben 27-29 (untitled) Joseph Cleeland Baufield 30 This Dream Catcher

Works Both Ways Peter Leeman 31 01 Un’opera Aperta Travis Stowers 32-37 Confession Nicole Swisher 38-39 Daddy Bought a

Gun Marc Landeweer 40 Lee Rena Hugo Lau 41 Pictures of Stories Judy Budreau 42-43 April 27, 2003 Katie McMillen 44-45 Catharsis Macks Markin 46-47 Step O’er the

Mississippi Kristi Goldade 48 He’s Gone Stephanie Snell 49-53 Carnival

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Contents Davidson Ward Brittany D. Mammenga Brianna Simonds Sacha Orozco Justyn Rubenstein Ryan “Rodeo” Morgan Colleen Smith Samantha Degen Jessica McFarlane Zach Frank Patrick Nathan

54-55 Berlin 56 Trapping 57 Penniless Lovers 58 Bongo 59 The Jazz Ensemble 60-61 Ugly Beauty 62-66 A Brief Journey 67 At Wicks End 68-69 Maps 70 In Your Backyard 71-73 False Azure

Letter from the Editor Now in it’s third year of publication, Liminal continues the pursuit of representing the independent and creative artists of the University of Minnesota community. Our mission from the start has been to allocate recognition to the enthusiastic, though underrepresented community that cements the University of Minnesota and surrounding Twin Cities area as one of the foremost hubs for artists, writers and performers in the Midwest.

Without the support from The Wake Student Magazine, our fellow students, faculty, as well as the surrounding communities, this project would not be possible. We proudly present to you, Liminal.

Editor-in-Chief Jacob Duellman

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POETRY Song of the Bone Birds by Jason Hertz The master story teller, there she is, up there talking about bones white bone-birds perching manifest, the flesh of stories.

I, stand in the lobby of the theater eating chocolate, Hamming and hawing to a flock of chatting faces that art goes beyond ideology, that in fact it is the only science without prejudice.

Then the lights flit in the shadows beneath blue filters cracked cement, peeling paint walls and an armrest clopping down the aisles.

Then the show rises into fingers playing tap on stretched leather Beating and throbbing our ancestry in drums, drums Enter a grey skinned man crowned in turquoise,bejeweled in amethyst Telling us the world is against him, in his roundabout way: “Political figures are culpable Institutions, the big pharaohs are gorging themselves on olives on golden coffers in the spine of the stayed wrath of God red sea”, and we’re waiting for drums, drums This opulent peacock, this viridian feathered comb, drops tears Wailing beneath the blue lights, his lips smeared trembling in syrupy indictments.

Indictments to Rockefeller and Robber Barons, his finger in the air, And we’re waiting for drums, drums When the out there world from T.V. nation sits down on either side, malignant like some unbeatable racket our life depends upon, A single wail shreds these delusions in the affirmative yes, I am A united note the tapping of drums, drums The perfection of form Our guilt, our resentment, our love, and our hatred and sex From the disparate us, we emerge: pathetic, misshapen, hunched over a bottle, screaming

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POETRY into automaton flesh dancing to machines as they light up and explode, but we emerge in the sound that flies the prison yard, beyond time, beyond history, implacable And we rile on the drums, drums, drums

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POETRY I Met Charlie Starkweather Once by Aaron Blum I was asleep at midnight when I heard a sound come from outside.

I went to check what it was, out the screen door, through the yard on the edge of thirty acres of corn and under the country stars.

There was a foreign car by the barn and a man fussing with the lock. I said, “Hey man!” and I noticed a woman with hair like midnight sitting in the car with a face as young as a star.

She creaked open the car door and stepped outside.

She went and sat on the hood’s edge.

The man, from his coat, pulled a sawed-off .410 out.

There was nothing left to figure out, I’d heard on the radio about the man, come from Lincoln, Nebraska, near the edge of town, where the darkness is blacker than midnight, who killed three innocent people just outside the city with only the stars as a witness. All those stars above me yelled my name, and out into the cornfield I ran like a stranger outside my own house. I could hear the man rustling through the ears yelling, “Midnight is a good time to die old man, you’re on the edge of your life! The edge!”

I prayed for clouds to cover the stars but none came and the toll of midnight rushed up on me, I was out of time. In a manner of minutes the man stumbled upon me, as I am old and outside

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POETRY I am no match for youth. My soul was outside my skin as the man took the edge of his gun, stood over me, another human like him and it felt like the weight of the stars fell on me, pushed the life and blood out of my body, made me howl into night.

Just outside my farmhouse, under the Wyoming stars by the edge of the cornfield, my body lay bloodied and out of life as the man took off down the dirt road, in the shadow of midnight.

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PHOTOGRAPHY

Seeing Light by Hugo Lau

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PROSE Untitled by Preston Jones a dog crouched in shadows or a pile of dirty snow i couldn’t tell which and still can’t so i walk by and wish i wasn’t sick. tomorrow will surely be worse than today and progressively worse until i get better, or never, i still can’t tell. balloon in my head filled with heavy sand pushed to the corners no room for thoughts of class, but i dropped it anyways. sure to save hours of thoughts and breath, save hours of sleep and time wasted thinking of a school i hate. must have been snow and there’s more at my feet now, in piles of dirt and ashes, cups and candy wrappers, they’re lost in the capsule that was winter, gone now faster than in the past. winter pushes past like seasons always have, but still i look for them, look for spring in the garbage snow pile trudged through by drunken college kids looking for adventure or just looking for 10th and 7th i’m not sure which but sure as i am i’ve been there, another drunken college kid looking for something. beer and a girl to share it with, or not really looking but hoping. i’m not looking or hoping now, just walking. through a mist down from clouds and i can’t help but kick at snow and dirt and mud. its coming now it has been since the first snowfall but was just further off then. but not now and i can feel it in the air and in the dirt and in the mud that its the spring i hoped for smoking cigarettes on the corner of 10th and 7th or up the porch i can’t remember which, and it doesn’t matter now but might someday with someone else when some other drunken college kid trudges through confused about spring and looking for wellness. i don’t have either and sometimes i don‘t look.

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PROSE You Stole the Sun by Eli Zimmerman

Two glass doll eyes, grey and brown. One bright yellow rain slicker. Two freshly mudded tennis shoes. A yellow day of sun and falling leaves after a day of sunless gray and rain. Three friends with matching bracelets that they made for one another. One girl, aged nine and three fourths. Two boys, one nine and a half, the other ten.

Doug cried as Jamie lay on the ground without breathing. *

The sunlight on the white ceiling was the first thing he saw when he woke up; silence was the first thing he heard when he opened his eyes. Linda would leave for work at six. Usually, it was still as dark outside as it was inside. She would open the shades for him every morning before she left so that the sun would wake him up. He didn’t like the sound of alarm clocks; it was disturbing, unnatural.

He went into the bathroom to shower and shave. There was a note Linda had left for him on the bathroom mirror; Doug, the reservation is for seven. Porgino’s was booked so the reservations are for the Whitehorse. Don’t be late again.

One cup of coffee. Two slices of toast. One orange. His breakfast had been the same since he was seventeen. He finished eating at 7:30. It would take him twenty five minutes to get to work, which left him fifteen to spare. He never needed the fifteen.

On his way out he noticed that there were two messages on the answering machine. He played them. The first was from Linda. She had called at 6:30. He must have slept through her call.

The message said the same thing that she had written in the note she had left him. She also wanted to say that she loved him. She had forgotten to write that on the note. They didn’t say it enough, she said. She just wanted to tell him that she loved him. The second was from Allen. He wanted to make sure that Doug didn’t forget about his dinner with Linda. When Doug had forgotten to meet Linda and her parents for Christmas dinner last year Linda had threatened to file for a divorce. She was tired of his emotional coldness. She was tired of being neglected, forgotten. Allen had calmed her down, but Linda said that if Doug didn’t come though for her on Valentine’s Day, that she would leave him.

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PROSE Doug moved to the door and put on his jacket. Inside the left pocket was another note: Buy Linda a dozen red roses for tomorrow.

He had forgotten that he had written it. He put the note back where he found it, just in case, and left for work. * One gigantic white smile that should have been on her face.

A thousand multicolored leaves were falling. Another thousand were already on the ground, some of which covered a girl aged nine and three fourths. One rolled up flower-print dress stained off-white and red. One uncompleted fort in the middle of a park. One park only three blocks away from their homes. Two friends who waited for a bracelet to come back with the finishing touches. * Outside it was drizzling. The sky was overcast and what little sun there had been at 7 that morning was thoroughly whisked away into the grey of clouds. There had been a heat wave earlier in the week. The meteorologists in the local weather update claimed it was due to El Nino. What little snow that was left on the ground melted and washed away. The temperature had been dropping again, slowly, but it was still above freezing. It had rained nearly every day that week.

Doug walked to his car, parked on the other side of the street, without an umbrella. He didn’t mind getting wet and it had only been drizzling. He planned to go to the florists before work; he had fifteen extra minutes anyways. This way he wouldn’t forget to buy the red roses for Linda. He could put them in water while he was at work and he wouldn’t have to worry about the roses for Linda.

He started his car and then hit the button to turn on the radio. It was tuned to National Public Radio. The station had been tuned to NPR since Doug’s sophomore year of college when he had purchased the car. It, as a whole, was a thoughtful and informative station. Unlike the newsmen at the local television channels, the hosts on NPR were intelligent, witty and when they got something wrong they admitted it. Mostly, he liked that there were constant traffic and weather updates filtered in with the news.

When Doug turned the radio on the traffic update was being reported. There had been a three car accident on one of the major streets; traffic would be backed up. Without giving the idea

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PROSE much of a thought, Doug decided not to stop for the roses for Linda on the way to work. With the accident, it might take longer and he didn’t want to be late. In the five years that Doug had worked as the head retail sales accountant for a major department store, he had never been late. Sometimes he would call in sick, but he had never been late. He went straight to work and forgot about the flowers for Linda. * One sunny fall day. Three children in a park finishing a fort that they had been working on for a week. One girl who ran home to get a white pillowcase to use as a flag, the finishing touch. Two boys that waited for their friend until after what felt like a time too long to be gone for. A thousand fallen leaves. Two boys that went to search for a friend that was taking too long. Two faces of children that don’t know how to react to what they see. Faces forever changed. One sunny day a memory burned into the minds of two boys.

Doug quietly told Allen to go get help. He didn’t know what else to do. Allen stood still. Doug screamed at Allen telling him to go get help. Allen ran to the nearest store that was open.

One girl aged nine and three fourths that laid under a blanket of leaves with a rolled up dress stained off-white and red with tears in her eyes that took in her last breath as she saw her friend for the last time. One crushed spirit of a boy aged ten that wished he was a dead son so that her parents wouldn’t have to grieve over a dead daughter; so that he wouldn’t have to cry. One boy aged ten that brushed away the few leaves that lay on his friends face and moved the blond hair back behind her ear where it was supposed to neatly lay. One boy aged ten that sat on his knees and did not cry but wept. One boy aged ten that would not speak for another three years. One girl aged nine and three fourths, her name was Jamie. * Doug arrived at work and walked through the two main glass doors at the side of the building. Carroll, the receptionist, greeted Doug as she did with everyone every morning. Every day she would ask him how he was, how Linda was. Doug never really answered anything, just smiled, waved and walked away. Doug never really talked about anything personal to any of his coworkers.

His office was not really an office, but a desk in the corner of the floor with a wall sectioning it off from where the rest of the

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PROSE desks were located, and a window that looked out on to the parking lot. On his desk sat one two-year-old computer, a picture of him and Linda, a paper organizer for the forms that he received from his coworkers, one stapler, a box of paperclips, a package of sticky notes, a pen holder, a telephone and a radio. Doug sat down at his desk and started his computer. He looked up; the floor was still fairly quite.

Most of the workers would not arrive for another half an hour or so.

For a while he didn’t do anything. Doug picked up the radio and turned it on. It was tuned to NPR, like the car. The weather man could be heard giving his update. It would rain strait for the rest of the day and tomorrow. He sat in his chair and looked outside.

It was still drizzling. He turned around and picked up the photo of Linda and himself.

They, Linda and he, had met in college. Allen had been friends with a group of guys in a fraternity. He had thought that Doug needed to get out more and had brought him to a party.

Linda had been there. She had thought that Doug was

attractive. It was she who had pursued him. It wasn’t that he didn’t love her; he just never knew how love was supposed to feel. He knew that others felt things had looked normal with Linda and him.

That had been their junior year of college. Two years later they had gotten married. It was Linda who had proposed. That was three and a half years ago.

He put the picture back down and looked over to the pile of paper work that had been left on his desk on Friday. It would be a busy day today. Doug reached for the phone. He thought he should call Linda and tell her that he would be too busy to make it to dinner, that he would have to stay late that night, but he didn’t. He decided that he would call her during his lunch break.

He looked back outside the window. It was raining now instead of just drizzling. One wife. One best friend. One rainy day.

Three friends, one, a girl aged nine and three fourths named Jamie.

One sunny day. One park. One bouquet of flowers. Grabbing a pen from the pen holder and the pad of sticky notes, Doug wrote down, buy her flowers.

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POETRY Spathiphyllum by Evelyn Bround I It would feel criminal to Leave it thirsty and dying.

Its helplessness tempts, but taunts Me with need.

Selfish, maybe, but I want Its light. I nearly swallow Its water before pouring Every time.

Nightly, I beg sun to stay Away. In crude morning light, With trembling hands, I fill it Up with life.

II Crust subtly crept in on Sick, overcast days. I was Gone and it did not ration Its water.

It was natural. It was Not my fault.

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PHOTOGRAPHY

The Grid by Zach Frank

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PROSE Senescence by Keely Shaller

It cracks in her hands, plain as an eggshell. What bothers her more than the loss, the frustration with her own clumsiness, the sliver of bone china in her palm, is how fragile the cup must have been from the moment of its creation. “Why do they make them so delicate?” she thinks. “Why does it make me weak in the knees?” she thinks.

She hears him get up slowly, creaking the couch in his way, knows he is coming to check up on her. The hairs on the back of her neck sting as they tangle themselves in chain. She doesn’t want him to see the tears slipping into her worn cheeks; he will certainly mistake them for ones of sadness, and she will have to let him hold her. He does not know that now, she only cries from the depths of her rage.

The large kitchen is intensely bright when the late-morning sun passes along its northern wall. It has no color, no antique farm almanacs or quilts hanging there like so many women have fallen victim to in these parts. She likes the kitchen at this time, when she can hardly see, when she is blinded standing against the warmth of the north wall.

This room is hers, and the sitting room is his, and they stay put until bedtime. Her big oak table holds many dusty jars, many fading newspapers, many things that can’t be moved, no room left for two people to sit across from one another. Instead, she sits against the wall, still, even when the moon replaces the warm spot with eerie shadow, eating with a wooden spoon. He will eat his supper in his armchair, the television muted but flickering friendliness.

She licks her spoon clean, feeling how her teeth sink into the soft wood if she bites down, and puts it back in her apron pocket for tomorrow. Placing her cup and plate in the washtub, untying her apron and putting it on the back of a chair, she listens for his breathing. He has fallen asleep.

Once, a very long time ago, she had a dream that she was a cat. Not the small kind that can be held on laps of people in rocking chairs, but a strong and dangerous cat. A jungle cat. In her dream, she felt exactly the sensations of padded feet, abruptly arching spine; she could feel little shivers of bristling hair poking out of every pore.

In a sunlit forest clearing, her cat-self had walked in large circles,

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PROSE inhaling the scent of damp earth. She was not angry, was not scared or overwhelmed or anything close to the messy tangle of human emotion. When she was a cat she felt calm.

On nights like this she remembers that dream. It helps her stop shaking, helps her cross the boundary between the two sides of the house. She still must lie next to him in the bed upstairs.

“God damn you,” she had said, standing atop the stairs of the county courthouse, the day they were married. After the words tumbled out of her mouth, shock overwhelmed shame, awaiting his reaction. He looked back, a giant looming up at her even from a distance, and then walked towards the street. She clipped down the rows of stairs after him, willing a reaction. Following him through a neighborhood of thick-armed types who slouched among doorways, drinking soda, staring at her high heels, her white skin tinged. He would not slow, would not let her win, and all of the onlookers knew it. She wanted to slam her fist into their vacant faces. Anyone of them, ogling her misery, even one of those glazed-faced children.

Why weren’t they in school? The sparse leaves on her favorite elms weren’t even big enough to cast a shadow yet.

Studying his unhurried stride, she stumbled as her shoe caught a crack in the pavement, and held out her hands to break the fall. The crowd was silent; they did not laugh at her, and they did not help her stand. She sat for a moment on the cool hard expanse, looking at the spot of red blood gathering on her finger. The cool band was still foreign, but she marveled at its strength. Instead of shattering with the fall, the diamond had cut through her skin. She wiped away her tears and stood, watching him in the distance.

Ahead, he turned the corner leading onto the street of the Royal Hotel. The room he had spent a farmer’s savings on would be too small for them, would suffocate their feelings for each other.

They would share a bed for the first time in this room, with a sea of distance between their two awkward bodies. He would secretly despise the high-neck of the nightgown she had chosen. She would cringe when he took off his stained undershirt to sleep bare-chested.

They would lay in the orange glow of a streetlight, between the softest sheets either had ever touched, wishing they could start over even though it was the beginning.

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PROSE

She listens now to his deep breathing, and is sure he has found his own dreams, because when the floorboard creaks beneath her as she slowly climbs the stairs he does not startle. She thinks about covering him with the blanket that he left on his lap, but decides that it might be dangerous. He has awoken in the bed beside her before and, in his drowsy need, has reached out for her.

Upstairs, clouds obscuring the whiteness of the illuminated moon, there is only darkness on this night. The bed is cold when she gets in, and she tucks her feet into the hem of her nightgown where they remain frozen. She has her own side of the mattress, plain and white as the kitchen, and it has hardly worn over the many years her small body has lain upon it. She slides her hand from the small area of her own radiating warmth into the center, close to the space he has carved for himself. If he were here, she would almost be touching his wide back, clothed nowadays in an old flannel nightshirt. If he were here, she might be able to curl up beside him very slowly, and breathe a thousand apologies while finally sleeping in his arms. She drifts off without him.

“Did you set the table? With the nicest things? I wanted you to use my china with the roses.” She nodded at her mother, proud to have show her good taste, drying the last cup with a rag. “Good,” her mother said, patting a hand across her delicate forehead, careful not to expose her bruised temple. The two were getting ready for dinner, listening to the radio while mashing potatoes and making Jell-O salad and a big salted ham.

She wasn’t surprised when her father slammed the front door on his way in. She didn’t flinch when he came and stared at them, his red-rimmed eyes surveying the signs of domesticity. She stood against the wall as he grabbed her mother and shook her, as he smeared a handful of the potatoes across her mother’s face, and then told her to clean up for dinner.

He walked into the hallway, up the stairs, and soon water ran through the pipes. Her mother was not crying; did not make a single sound as she carefully wiped her face. She simply crossed the room and, picking up each carefully placed piece of china, she threw them gracefully to the floor.

Her father strode back into the room before the last plate smashed into little pieces, and forcing a large hand into the center

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PROSE of his daughter’s back, he shoved her out into the living room. She stood alone, apart from them, listening to the sounds of accusation and reddening flesh. She looked down at her own hands, and saw they had turned white as she gripped the cup she had been drying.

This was the last piece of her mother’s china, with the pink roses.

She quietly climbed to her bedroom, and tucked the cup into her suitcase, ready for whenever they would climb out the window and escape together.

They never did leave. Her mother didn’t call the police, and she never stayed after class to confide in her soft, pretty teacher. Life was not different in the way she had expected after her mother broke the china, at least not enough to notice, and things continued in their way until she met him.

He came by selling tractor parts, and after her father had purchased a new brake drum from him, they had sat on the front porch eating sun-warmed tomatoes with salt. He was from these parts, he said, and had seen her around town once or twice. His blue eyes twinkled, and their not-too-bright color made him look kind in a quiet way. She let him do the talking, but she was happy to feel like something was happening the way it was supposed to.

“Did you need to sell me something more,” her father said, stepping out on the porch between them. “Because I think it’s about time you get going.” He stood slowly to look her father directly in the eye, but said nothing. She picked up the saltshaker, and poured some into her hand, the crystals melting into the sweaty creases of her palm. She could hear two male voices above her, but could not make out any words. The air buzzed July around them, but she felt cold. A hand startled her from her concentration, pulling her off the stairs, and down. “Come with me,” he said. “I’ll save you.”

It is she that startles now, awaking from thick memories.

She feels like she still has a little salt stuck in her hand. Her mouth is dry; she needs a drink of water. As she turns the covers over, she realizes she is no longer alone. He has come upstairs, has put on his flannel shirt, and is beside her. She waits now, so nervous she feels a shaky hiccup in her throat.

He turns to her, awake, clear that he has been for sometime.

“You were dreaming again,” he says. She does not move. “I am sorry I didn’t let you get away on your own.” Her hands shake. Her

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PROSE cold feet are tingling, like they might have fallen asleep. “I’m sorry I didn’t have the strength to hold you early on. You made it hard, but I should have tried harder.”

She lays back down, careful to stay on her own side, but she places her hand in the middle with his.

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POETRY Early July by Brent Campbell we could crouch here with the crickets in the thickness of the field undetectable until the breeze comes. tiny winding snakes of fire chase bombs - red and gold and green and white while sparks camouflage the stars. they figure they have strength in numbers; as do the crickets. as do we.

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PHOTOGRAPHY

Siamese Twins by Hugo Lau

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POETRY Gluckenstein At Sea by John O’Connor With a curragh like a bagel for my boat, I sailed out past the loughs along the coast.

I hope my dingy vessel stays afloat.

If I capsize or flounder I am toast.

Our persecution would have been much worse Had they known we were Jews. We tried to pass But we could not evade the ancient curse.

We were reduced to memories and grass.

My hopes are in America and work.

I’ll seek my liberty, my health, my wealth In Boston, San Francisco, and New York Or rurally with cows and plows and tilth.

Gaelic or Hebrew now, when I arrive I’ll speak the busy language of the place And trust the past will push me on to thrive.

I’ll keep the peace or else I’ll set the pace.

I mix two cultures recklessly, like drinks, And maybe my strange future will make real Those Jewish bartenders, those Irish shrinks Who’ll tell you not to smoke and not to feel.

At sea today, my spirits stirred with ale, I reel just like a Jonah, but less stout – Too green to know that I’m beyond the pale.

(Discriminating beasts will cough me out.)

Sober or not, I sail on at full throttle – A tuneful traveler on Brendan’s trace, A Celt canoeing to a promising place, A Yiddish message in a whiskey bottle.

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POETRY One Man by Nathan J. Ness Beneath shoed feet

packed snow

groans in creaks

& moon shines

the stop signs

while clouds

form lines

for a world’s

worth of words

if the world

could produce them & while one man’s cold breath snakes

slither into fog,

solitude ignores the

ugliness of self-focus

& allows the gods

to squeeze oranges

until beads of droplets

plop into his mouth

as he walks south

in sober-less struts

admiring the golden,

glowing skyscraper

while he opens a new

combination lock

from his character

allowing it to progress

back from its regression

toward the mean. & he quoted Wordsworth aloud:

“The world is too much with us.”

& thought,

“…too much with me.”

There are so many ways

to be alone

& how un-alone

aloneness is.

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PROSE I Fucking Hate Noodly Arms by Deniz Rudin

She brushes her long, blue, flowery skirt out from behind her legs and moves to sit down. I think my hand might be in her way, and I move it to my leg and scoot a little to the side in a manner that is, I hope, inviting instead of aloof. I’ve passed her on the floor a few times, and though she’s not very pretty, she’s certainly not ugly. Her hair is pulled back a little too sharply to suit her plain, ovoid face and severe features, and she has an odd, misshapen bruise on the inside of her right arm, right above her elbow. She sits down and says, “So what’s your story?” I respond, “My story is either ridiculously long or really, really short,” and she requests the short version. “I’m 17 years old, I lived in a small town in Nebraska until this school year, but I got out of high school in three years and now I go to the University of Minnesota.” Then she asks for the long version. This is where my fantasy breaks down, as it always does when I have to explain complex things. My mind is filled with a jumble of jittering half-formed sentences saying a bunch of different things all at once.

I spend a fairly long time trying to form a coherent, linear dialogue, but eventually I give up. It isn’t worth the effort; in reality she hasn’t spoken to me at all. She is turned towards the guy sitting on the other side of her. He has blond, straight, shoulder-length hair that is tucked behind his ears, and is wearing glasses and a Monty Python shirt.

Apparently they know each other. He mentions something being “corporate” as opposed to “service oriented,” and talks about iPods, but I only catch a little of their conversation. She is talking away from me and her voice is entirely lost in the music.

I’ve sat out the last two dances, and my mom keeps telling me to go ask someone to dance, but I don’t mind sitting out. Contras are almost as fun to watch as they are to dance. Everything is very regular, eight figures of eight beats, and it’s neat to watch the lines and lines of people doing the same moves, but doing them differently.

People swing at different speeds, and throw in little flairs, or just plain fuck up the timing, and it’s chaotic in a very controlled way, like really good hardcore. Sometimes I just close my eyes (or more often just let them go out of focus) and listen to the stomp of a hundred pairs of feet moving in rhythm, better than the best subwoofer you could ever buy.

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PROSE

I also enjoy watching dances because of the women. Contras are usually filled with middle-aged people, but this time many of them are younger. There are two women in particular that I have my eye on. One of them seems to be about my age, give or take a couple years. She is in one of the groups of kids who look to be high school or undergraduate students, who I take particular note of because they’re not usually seen at these dances. I’m used to being the only person under 30. Between dances she stands in a big circle of friends, but doesn’t talk very much. She has nice arms. They’re long and thin without being overly bony. Her hair is dark brown and held behind her head, but not in a ponytail, and it streams behind her as she spins.

But what I like best is her face. Very mousy. Mousy faces drive me fucking crazy, don’t ask me why. I usually like it when girls have their hair down, but I like being able to see her pointy nose clearly at all times.

The other woman is older, I would say in her mid-to-late twenties or maybe early thirties. The age when pretty women become beautiful. She is very tall, and lanky. The same long arms. Her face is mousy as well, but smaller and rounder, and a little more mature.

What I like best about her, however, is her hair. It’s very long, almost waist length, and she lets it hang down with no constraints. It has a slight, wavy curl to it, and is almost black. She is wearing a black dress, and dances with vigor, intensity, and humor, always moving her feet during dead time. Whenever I see a woman like her, I feel like walking up to her and saying, “You are very, very, very pretty,” and leaving without saying anything else. There are many other women here, some quite pretty in their own ways, and one has a nice ass, but there’s no comparison.

Whenever there is music playing, I tap my feet without even being aware of it. We’re sitting on a wooden bench with a curved seat and I have my legs crossed, man-style, with my left over my right.

My right foot is tapping on the hardwood floor and my left foot is tapping in the air above my right knee. I become aware of this about halfway through the song when, out of the corner of my eye, I see Blue Skirt Girl watching my left foot. I keep on tapping my feet, now conscious of the action, to provoke her comment: “Nice shoes.”

I’m wearing bowling shoes, which are great to dance in because they have no tread so you can just slide. I bend my ankle up as far as I can without moving my leg so that she can see the sole, and I say,

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PROSE “They’re great to dance in, they have no tread so you can just slide.”

She brings her foot up so I can see the sole of her shoe, and she says, “I’m wearing dancing shoes. Same reason.” I retort, “Yeah, but mine are much more stylish.” She says, “Yes.”

There are only really two things you need to be able to do to contra dance acceptably. You need to be able to keep time and give weight. Both seem to either come naturally to people or be entirely foreign. Keeping time is very simple. Each figure takes eight beats, and you should take one step on each beat. If you finish a figure early, you wait out the remaining beats before entering the next figure. This is not complicated, but it requires some rudimentary sense of rhythm, which some people simply don’t have, like the squat, obese, pug-faced black woman who I danced with today because I never turn down anyone who asks me. Giving weight is slightly more complicated, especially to explain. The central principle is that you should pull on your partner at all times. When holding a woman in a swing, for instance, you should both lean back against each other and let the centrifugal force pull you around smoothly. If you do this right, the entire dance just flows. If you don’t, it’s painful. And some people just don’t understand. There are two very small girls at this dance, no older than five or six, and usually that’s a nightmare, but both of them give weight. One of them is doing contras for the first time, and in the opening learning session I taught her the figures as we did them, and smiled as we did an alamand and her arm was firmly pulling back against mine. Squat Obese Pug-Faced Black Woman, of course, gave no weight, reducing our swings to running in circles.

I continue tapping my feet, and even swaying a little, and in my peripheral vision I can see Blue Skirt Girl swaying as well. Then her friend says something to her, and she stops, and they resume their conversation. After a while, the band stops playing, and I think about saying, “Want to take this one?” to which she replies, “Yeah, that’d be nice,” but she and the Monty Python kid stand up and hug each other very tightly for a long time, close enough that she can put her chin over his shoulder, and they walk out with their arms around each other. I sit out another dance, close my eyes, and listen to a hundred pairs of shoes shuffling in rhythm.

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POETRY Notes in the Margin by Caitlin Thompson you are a fetish i cannot buy locally. undoubtedly the same compulsion, and plainly so. cognizance lay shed elsewhere, and i, the casual narcissist, find solace in most mirrors. i am fixated, newborn appetite for the essential a clever substitute. sigmund, find my retina alteredan unwelcome swelling suffered. find me endowed and blistered, the buttonhole of repression my only exodus. i am id, ventured.

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PROSE Tea Time by Erin Dwyer Fog snakes up the kitchen window as the dishwasher door is flung open, spewing steam. Humming along, slightly off-key, to Pachebel’s Canon on Public Radio, she gingerly picks out a teacup saucer with her thumb and forefinger. Pinching the dark blue rimmed plate like a dirty sock, she plucks it from the washer and drops it onto the crumpled dishtowel sitting on the counter. Shaking out her fingers and blowing on them a couple times, her lanky finger prods the dish, shaking her fingers again her eyes stare at the blurry window.

The faded purple Henley sleeve is rolled midway up her forearm as she reaches out and cranks open the window, twisting the knob until it is completely open, screen-less and gaping. The fog races away as the splintering cold hurries in. Picking up the dish again, it rests lightly on her palm. Still humming along, her arm arcs back. The sleeve slides down to her elbow and then forward again as she launches the saucer through the window and across the yard, where it smashes to shards against a condemned oak marked with a big, orange X. Her lips curl up just slightly as she reaches into the dishwasher’s top rack and pulls out a matching teacup, hurling it out the open window to hit the rotting tree’s neighboring oak. Bursting out of the radio is a song about cowboys riding the range, and she matches the tempo by picking up a china serving platter followed by its delicate, matching bread plate and flinging them with confidence through the open window. Like lemmings scurrying off to their death, one after another the set goes flying through the window to shatter against a tree or break quietly into larger pieces on the lawn.

Unrolling her sleeves, her hips press into the sink as she reaches to crank shut the window. Using her foot to flip up the dishwasher door, she glibly turns up the radio and hums along as she dunks her hands into the sudsy sink filled with dirty dishes.

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PhOTOGRAPHY

Untitled by Clair Ebben

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photography

Untitled by Clair Ebben

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Photography

Untitled by Clair Ebben

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POETRY This Dream Catcher Works Both Ways

by Joseph Cleeland Baufield I moved the dishwasher to the empty field across the street.

I’m thinking about inviting the neighborhood to come and use it for free (on me), so they can wash their stinking feet.

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POETRY 01 Un’opera Aperta by Peter Leeman It takes the theme that point in space where all thoughts suspend their oscillating temper.

Forward it runs no need of cause, just biting sunlight through pulsating destruction.

Like that pressure when red meets black, turns to the dawn then perishes in the poor.

Finding only the truth today, ascending upwards to the heavier height.

Because it was in fact a trace of repitition and that sentient feeling.

As if they were found out after the realization finally ruptured the crease.

Now it follows under the bridge with spires like crowns and that Texan aggresion.

Deeply stained it has called and run through the cause of this fucking crusade.

Throwing aback defined freedom, in static shadow which churns adolesence.

Changed, it was taken and lost in variables of space and the treaded time.

Do I exist for it?

Or does it exist for me?

They spoke of: “Follow the forgotten leaves, Forget about downtrodden trees.”

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PROSE Confession by Travis Stowers Forgive me father for I have sinned. It has been four years since my last confession.

Two weeks ago I was driving home from work, speeding down Townline road, when I saw something in the middle of the road. Usually, I take Riverside road home from the grocery store where I work, but for some reason I decided to go through the country roads home. Country roads are fun to drive down at night, especially during the winter when the night is cold and the air is crisp. I like to roll down the windows and let the air spill into the car and into my lungs. I drove to Liberty- ya know that road over there by the new restaurant- and then got onto Townline from there.

There was a sprinkle of snowflakes dripping down from the sky. The moon hung over the corn fields and lit the road up so well I could have driven without my headlights. A few hundred yards after I passed Paddock Road, I saw a girl standing in the middle of the road. I managed to stop the car before hitting her. She had her arms dangling to her sides and she looked into my car. I knew she couldn’t see me; the headlights would have been blinding her. Her face was covered in blood and her lips and eyes were swollen and bruised. She limped towards the passenger side and I unlocked the door.

“What happened?” I asked her as she opened the door and slumped into the seat. She sat with her head lowered and her hands cupped in her lap pinching them together with her knees. Her hair was long and dropped down to cover her face. I was happy for that.

As bad as it sounds, I was damn happy for that. I stared at her blonde hair mopped over her face and waited for an answer, but she said nothing. My voice failed me and the only thing that spilled out was “Hospital?” She nodded her head and I put the car into drive and peeled out. Ya know how far away the hospital is from Townline, right? Probably twenty minutes or so. It’s all the way on the other side of town.

“Who did this to you?” I asked, about halfway to the hospital. She didn’t answer.

Hunched over and with her hair still covering her face I heard her begin to cry. It didn’t sound like a cry though, more like snoring or growling. Her nose must have been broken. Every time she took a deep breath her nose let out a gagging noise, and

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PROSE that made her cry more. Water vapor had begun to build up on the windshield and it became harder for me to see the road. My old car’s defrost had gone out a long time ago.

“Do you know who did this to you?” I asked again. I became more and more upset as I drove. I couldn’t imagine my daughter sitting in a stranger’s car bloody and weeping, to the point she cannot even speak. My Daughter, Molly, is twenty years old. This girl could have been a few years older. “Talk to me,” I said. “Let me know what happened.”

With that she lifted her head and her swollen eyes looked at me. She raised a finger to the windshield. She wrote Gary into the frost on the window. When she looked back at me I saw tears falling down her cheeks, washing away lines of blood from her face. She coughed and blood sprayed out of her mouth, across the car and into my face. I got that iron taste in my mouth as the blood landed on my lips. She opened her mouth for me like a kid would for a doctor.

When I wiped the blood from my eyes and looked back at her I felt vomit climb into my throat but I choked it back. She didn’t have teeth, only little, jagged stalagmites hanging from her upper jaw, and nothing on her lower jaw. I looked closer and could see her tongue had been cut out and blood continuously spilled into her mouth. I thought it was Molly. I swear it was. For a second her face became Molly’s face, her eyes became Molly’s eyes and I saw my daughter had her tongue cut out of her mouth and her blood covered my face.

The girl closed her mouth and lowered her head, just as it had been before.

I stuttered and struggled for words, but eventually I got around to asking her if Gary was her boyfriend and she nodded.

Then I asked if he did this to her and she nodded. I asked where he lived, and she lifted her hand to the window again and wrote 1666 Johnson. Nothing else was said on the way to the hospital, maybe because it didn’t take much longer after I decided to run every red light and stop sign I could, or maybe it was that we had nothing else to say to each other.

When we finally got to the hospital, I pulled the car right up to the front doors- I didn’t know where else to go, ya know they have special doors for ambulances to go to, but I settled for the front door.

I put the car in park, opened my door, and ran around the front of the car to open the passenger door. The door opened before I reached

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PROSE it and the girl stepped out of the car, putting all her weight onto her right leg. She began to lose her balance and it looked like she would fall, but I caught her in time, her arm draping over my shoulder.

I walked her into the hospital the way a trainer walks an injured football player off the field.

The hospital had an automatic revolving door. I don’t know if you have seen one of these, but they can be tricky with one person going through let alone two at the same time with one hopping up and down on one leg. The receptionist at the front desk jumped out of her seat when she saw us stumble into the lobby. She was an older lady- sixty or so. Her eyes lit up and she reached blindly for her phone while her eyes stayed on us. She lifted the phone to her ear and said something.

She said, “You two just come ova here. What happened?”

I told her what had happened. I found her standing in the road and now I’m here.

“Well, what happened to you mister?” She asked

“Me?” I said. “I’m fine. Nothing happened to me.”

“Well, ya look pretty bloody yourself,” She said.

I put my hand to my face and felt the cold blood that I had all but forgotten about. I pulled my hands away and looked at them.

They were filthy and I had the urge to run to the bathroom and scrub them until they were clean. I told the old lady it was the girl’s blood.

She gave me a peculiar glance. Over the old woman’s shoulder I saw a doctor rushing toward us.

The doctor held out his arms to take the girl from me. He asked me what happened, and I told him I found the girl. He asked what happened to me, and I said nothing- it was the girl’s blood. He gave me the same confused look the receptionist had. He asked me if I knew who did all of this to her and as I opened my mouth to tell him- Gary, 1666 Johnson, her boyfriend- the girl’s head shook from left to right and her eyes begged me not to say a word. I told him I didn’t know. I told him her tongue had been cut out of her mouth like she were an animal and she couldn’t talk. I told him some guy had probably beat the shit out of her for no good reason and left her to die on the side of a country road, but, luckily, I had found her and brought her here. I told him that’s all I knew and he nodded and walked the girl from the lobby down a hallway. I watched them leave the lobby, unwilling to follow them.

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PROSE

“You’re gonna have to wait for the police to arrive before I can let ya leave,” the receptionist said.

“I can’t,” I said. “I’m leaving.”

“Ya just gonna go leave?” the receptionist moving toward me. “It would be awfully nice if that girl had someone to sit by her side tonight. Ya just gonna go home, huh?”

I told her I had no business staying there.

She said. “Do ya have a daughter mister? Would you want ya daughter to be dropped off at the hospital, and just forgotten about?”

“I do have a daughter ma’am,” I told her. “That’s why I have to leave.”

She said something as I turned away and walked outside through the revolving door. The cold winter air hit my lungs as I took a deep breathe. Gary- 1666 Johnson I thought as I jumped in my car.

To be honest with ya, father, at that point I had no clue as to what I would do when I got to the house, I really didn’t. I didn’t even know exactly where Johnson Street was, but somehow I knew I would find it. It was like I was watching myself jump into my car, turn the key, and put the car into drive. I wasn’t doing it- someone or something else was.

I found the house without a problem. I didn’t take a wrong turn or miss a street or anything like that. It was like my car was put on a track and all I had to do was keep my foot on the gas. I don’t remember much of anything after leaving the hospital. It comes to me frame by frame but never in an entire scene.

I have no clue how long I sat parked outside of the house, ten minutes maybe an hour. It must have been close to midnight as I sat in the car. There was a large window in the front of the house and I could see the silhouette of a man sitting in a recliner. The lights in the house were off, but light from a television flashed in the darkness and the man would get up from his seat and leave the room from time to time. My guess would be he was getting another beer from the fridge, or making a trip to the bathroom.

At some point I decided I would go knock on the door, but didn’t know what I would do after that. Something told me to get the tire iron out of the trunk. I wasn’t even sure if I had one in the trunk, but for some reason I thought I might have. I knew for a fact I didn’t have a spare tire or a jack, but when I popped the trunk and peered

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PROSE inside I saw the tire iron. I don’t know how it got there, but at that point I was just happy I had it.

After walking down the sidewalk toward the house, and ascending the steps of the porch, I pounded my fist against the door.

I waited for a moment and then pounded again. During the time I sat waiting for the door to open, I thought about what my daughter was doing. She was already off to college and I pictured her asleep in her bed. I saw her sleeping with her eyes closed a smile on her face and her blanket up around her neck. I could see her as I stood in front of the stranger’s house as if she were right in front of my face. She slept so peacefully. She yawned and as her mouth opened, I could see the blood spill out onto the pillow and I saw those jagged little teeth. Her eyes flew open and she coughed shooting blood across the room. She jumped from the bed and ran to the mirror that hung over he sink. She dipped her right index finger into her mouth and rubbed it on the mirror. I couldn’t see what it said; her head blocked my view. She moved out of the way and I saw her reflection in the mirror, her eyes were swollen and her nose made that gruesome growl. She had written something on the mirror- SAVE ME DADDY. She looked back at me, her eyes pleading, begging and producing tears that fell down her cheeks making white streaks in the blood.

A man finally answered the door. He asked me who I was and what I wanted, not quite that polite. I asked him if he were Gary.

He asked me who wanted to know. I told him to cut the bullshit and I asked him again.

“Yeah, I’m Gary, who are you?” he asked, his legs weak and eyes distant. He was drunk. The tire iron was cold and comforting in my hand as I caressed it with my thumb. I told him not to worry about who I was. The next thing I remember I was standing in his kitchen. He was lying at my feet dead, and I was smiling.

When I sleep now, I see his face. Those dead eyes stare at me. When I dream I see the girls mouth open and feel her blood on my face. I wake up sweating and my throat hurts as if I’d been screaming. Please father, I want to understand. I want to know what happened that night. Am I wrong to think this way- to think God will understand what I’ve done? Please tell me He will. Please. Those eyes, father, I hate those dead eyes.-My Lord, I am heartily sorry for all my sins,

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PROSE Help me to live like Jesus and not sin again.

Amen.

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POETRY Daddy Bought A Gun by Nicole Swisher Daddy bought a gun one day But Daddy doesn’t hunt It’s black as mid December And hard as ocean waves At half past six Daddy leaves for work He’s dressed in his white, button up shirt So white he matches the walls at work Mommy spends her days As though she’s playing house The windows shine Like a pearly dime And the floors are always As smooth as ice When Mommy yells at Daddy He always yells right back A shattered vase lies on the floor I’ll tip-toe through the house Mommy likes to wear her shades The blackness hides the rainbow A mottled bruise here and there A badge won in a fight When Daddy came home from work that day He lashed out like bitter rain I hid my eyes while Mommy cried Tears as violent As swollen flame That night Daddy did not stay To read me any stories As he kissed my forehead He forgot to say good-night

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POETRY I waited for Mommy To whisper in my ear Sleep tight, Princess But Mommy never came The shot screamed through the night The other closely followed A chocking silence all around Only ringing left in my ears Grandma kisses me goodnight She says she loves me so Daddy doesn’t walk no more And Mommy’s silent forever more

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POETRY Lee Rena by Marc Landeweer Dedicated to the orphans of Jacob’s Home in Pyongtaek, South Korea Dear sweet child, where is your family?

Who is beside you to love you endlessly?

A stranger born in a foreign land Forgotten, abandoned with nothing in hand.

Dear sweet orphan, have you a place to call home?

Have you any loved ones or do you suffer all alone?

Does anyone console you, wipe away your tears Do you have anyone to comfort your fears?

Or on stormy nights, when you awaken to thunder Must you cry yourself back to restless slumber?

Dear sweet Irena, who will pray for your release?

Curse the ones that made you their bargaining piece A blameless victim of the cruelest tradition Amidst the loneliest depths of parentless perdition.

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PHOTOGRAPHY

Pictures of Stories by Hugo Lau

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Poetry April 27, 2003: Day 46, 5 days to Mission Accomplished by Judy Budreau Dinnertime, twilight at the end of the first balmy weekend.

John is nowhere to be found.

She finds his scooter in the road at the bottom of the hill broken, blood on the pavement.

John is on his bed white-faced, scratched and bloody, an extra elbow in his left arm.

At Children’s there are other families whose kids have been injured by these first summery days.

John is given morphine. Everyone relaxes.

She thinks, why this?

He was outside all weekend riding his bike, playing ball, climbing trees, helping with yard work.

Speed, velocity, blunt force, sharp objects, all the dangerous things.

He’ll do those things again of course, in a matter of weeks.

But no scooter.

No longer the scooter.

Sometime during surgery, around two a.m. she remembers Iraq.

A mother and father sitting with their boy white-faced and shocky their options few for reasons which must seem wholly inadequate.

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POETRY They seem so to her.

How is it, she wonders, that they are sitting there while we are sitting here in the parents’ lounge at Children’s drinking coffee from paper cups?

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Poetry Catharsis by Katie McMillen The doctors said they could heal you, even if they didn’t know what it was that made you drool blood against the window you stare out of every morning.

You always press against cold glass that blurs your view of what it means to be alive, what it means to own transience, and your secrets unfold like paper cranes when you sweat out sickness in your bed.

Your fingers curl in the only sanctuary you own.

Look—you’ve stained the sheets again, but I can’t touch you; no one could let me touch something so sick.

I can only watch the paper cranes rise from your skin, flutter against the glass until they tire of trying to free you.

Spotted with this morning’s blood, they fall, every secret clinging tightly to its crafted shape, its crafted meaning.

At night the doctors unravel those delicate birds with plastic gloves and burn away what they call sickness.

I cry for your incinerated secrets.

What if you die before you can make any new secrets, what if the birds die cradled in your heart’s nest, what if you’ll never be beautiful again because the last breath is already pushing past your ribs and the last blood has trickled out your mouth, and the doctors are pushing your chest trying to get out the air, but their panic makes them blind, blind, blind to what the beauty is...

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Poetry They’ll never see your last cranes rising, swarming all together—bursting through glass, but I do, and I’m glad your glass is broken.

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POETRY Step O’er the Mississippi by Macks Markin I could write of the great divides.

In America.

Or the Americas.

But, rather.

I’d like to be with my selfish right now.

I would like to alter my state, Of being, legally, Become officially obliterated.

One night only.

Thanks folks, I’ll be here all week.

Herbert Hoover said: Blessed be the young, For they will inherit our national debt.

I say, Blessed be the embryos, For we value their lives more than our own, Than our poor.

Than our tired.

Than our weary.

Here I am speaking again, Naively, foolishly, of the divide.

And on which side am I. I still must get up, And carry out my duties.

And carry out the trash.

I must face the faces, I still must deface, to save face, Public places. With a spray can, I will rise, to alpha male status, And forget the void behind me, a hindrance, behind me.

I will be ecstatic, plastic sunshine, A sublime meld, intertwined, pop culture, Prophecy, and pharmaceuticals…

I will be on the cover of your magazines, I will enter living rooms and shit in T.V. Dinners Replace them with prime rib and sweet corn,

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POETRY Place medals of Honor, across the bloated hearts of the obese.

I will tear compassion a new ass hole.

And eat social workers for breakfast.

Not to be brash Not at all condescending, Simply overwhelming.

Trying to play- A childs game Hop scotch, cross the great divide.

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PROSE POETRY He’s Gone by Kristi Goldade When I was in London, he was only a phone call away and I knew I would be home again soon, but it’s for real this time.

Lastnight I dreamt I was in a giant warehouse made of concrete. The ceilings stretched forever above and the floor, long long slabs of hard.

And just like in hollywood warehouses, scaffolding covered every wall.

Perched on the scaffolding were big scary men, men like the ones at his house. The [cage] fighter guys with bulging tattooed muscles who brought out their mirrors and positioned their razors, eyes glistening giddy with intent. Who cut the powder fine. Who inhaled deep so as to not waste any of the [$200] high.

I was paralyzed standing, looking up from below.

Then they jumped. Justlikethat they jumped. And fell hard. Onto the cement heads crashed split bled. Bones snapped bodies flat. And I’m still paralyzed watching, watching. Blood seeps close, black puddle growing.

And then, justlikethat, I awoke.

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PROSE Carnival by Stephanie Snell “He’s dead, man.”

“What about the girl?”

“Dana?”

“Shut the hell up, Whistler, do you want someone to hear you?”

Those were the only whispers I could decipher, caught on a stray breeze some night in the middle of winter. I shivered and stuffed my hands in my coat pockets and kept walking alone in the shelter of the covered bridge. I could feel the two dealers’ eyes dart to me and back to each other in the shadows, occasionally looking me over. Those looks were maggots wriggling down my spine. I nodded at the dealers, Jo-Jo and Whistler, but acknowledged them no further. Jo-Jo was the stocky Irishman with the goatee and Whistler was the one that looked like a dirty janitor with dark, greasy hair and a tall, thick frame. I was aware of them, but absorbed in the effect of the snow outside erasing all visibility, creating a white curtain around the bridge. For the moment, we were on a bridge in the city, isolated in a soap bubble over the Mississippi; me and the dealers. They knew me and they left me alone. They knew me because I knew Timmy.

I was there the night Timmy died. There was a party in this girl’s house and my friends and I were in the old, asbestoscontaminated basement. Paint flaked on the cinder block walls, bathed in a violet wash of black light and the flickering dark shadows of so many moving bodies. They were a writhing mass of sweat, cigarette smoke and beer, dancing on the concrete floor. I couldn’t count how many of them there were in that tiny basement: guys and girls, some in their late teens, some their twenties. Of course, Whistler and Jo-Jo were there too. I stood against the wall near the bar, where a wiry, black-clad guy with red lipstick smears on his neck guarded the kegs, filling red plastic cups when he felt like it.

I could feel the music pulsating in my teeth, a techno rhythm that went on for hours or maybe minutes; I couldn’t tell anymore. I lost track of time when I was swept away into the swirling mass of a drug-induced carnival, even though I was completely sober the entire night. No one noticed we were there; they drowned in the music, awareness slipping down their necks, winding around their jerking hips, trailing past their bent knees, dwindling at their toes until it was

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PROSE free, uninhibited as the purple wisps of smoke that curled around the black lights. Together, smoke and awareness wound together to form ghostly figures, mingling amongst the living, stroking hair and cheeks while the dancers moaned with pleasure and leaned into the vapors, seeking more only to find emptiness.

Timmy stumbled down the unfinished wooden stairs wearing dirty white socks, baggy jeans that sunk around his bony waist, and a red paisley necktie, no shirt. He might have been drunk earlier in the night, but he was tripping on something else by the time he made it to the basement. His blue eyes were round and glassy and he looked around like everything he saw was a new piece of life he had never seen before: the railing, the wooden support beams that crossed the basement ceiling, the roughly-cut dirt-colored carpet square at the foot of the stairs. He reached out in wonder, touching anything he could reach with the delight of a curious toddler. He licked his lips until they glistened with saliva, giggling as he stroked the railing.

Whistler and Jo-Jo noticed when Timmy came down the stairs and bent their heads close together, murmuring to each other through the music.

“Timmy?” I shouted over the music to him, approaching him cautiously. He looked up, his eyes meeting mine, unfocused and shining. His face lit up and he smiled at me.

“Dana!”

Timmy slid under the railing headfirst and I flinched, waiting for him to land on his head. He caught himself, palms flat on the concrete floor, pulling the rest of his torso and his legs onto the floor in an awkward heap before he sprang to his feet, staggering a few steps toward me. He took one more step, defiantly, as though he was tricking gravity into looking the other way instead of causing him to fall, and stopped right in front of me. He reached out and pulled me into his arms in a tight hug. His damp necktie smelled like vodka vomit. I gagged a little as the smell assaulted my nostrils, stomach protesting indignantly.

“You doin okay, Timmy? You look a little trashed,” I squirmed out of his arms and he wiped the excess spit from his lips onto his bare arm, grinning at me.

“Yeah, dude, I just threw up everywhere and now I’m totally fine. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you, Dana, how you been?”

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PROSE “Good, good, I’m doin better since I moved outta the crack house.”

“You’re funny, Dana.”

“I try.”

“That was no crack house.”

“I know.”

“Me and Whistler and Jo-Jo, we have a good time without you.”

“I’m better off. You would be, too.”

He laughed, holding my gaze with those round blue eyes. For a second they looked troubled and lost, filling with shadows of fear and maybe pain; I could never tell with Timmy. They quickly flickered back to laughter and I slowly shook my head, my heart aching for him. There was nothing I could say or do; Timmy was the way he was. He was a good friend in high school that had waited to screw up until after he moved out of his parents’ house. He owed Whistler and Jo-Jo a lot of money and he was behind at least two months on his rent. The dealers were not happy with Timmy. Jo-Jo walked up to us, ignoring me, and touched Timmy on the shoulder, said something in his ear while handing him a plastic cup, and then drifted back into the crowd to find Whistler.

I snatched the cup from Timmy and the music swelled suddenly, swallowing him as he gleefully tugged a sparkling, glowing pink boa from a girl’s neck and happily rubbed it on his face. I faded into a cloud of marijuana and tobacco smoke that rose from a group of girls dressed in top hats, bowties and little swirling skirts. When I came up for air, somebody screamed. The dancers started pressing back toward me, leaving an open circle in the center of the basement floor where a loan figure sprawled on the floor. I looked between shoulders and around sweaty backs to see who was in the circle. It was Timmy.

I pushed my way through a sea of sequins and glitter, greasepaint and ties, and stood over him, shouting “Timmy!” His eyes met mine for half a second before they rolled back in his head and his whole body violently spasmed.

People started to run. They ran away from Timmy on the floor because they didn’t want to get caught with their drugs and their alcohol. They ran because they were scared as shit that one of their friends was convulsing on the floor and they didn’t know what to do.

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PROSE

“Somebody help him!”

There was so much noise; no one turned off the music and the techno rhythm still pulsed throughout the dark basement. A female voice screamed his name over and over, telling someone to do something while people ran up the creaky stairway. Some fumbled with cell phones, and some stood there helplessly, not sure where to go or what to do. I sat on the floor next to Timmy and turned him on his side, pulling his head into my lap so it wouldn’t hit the concrete floor as his body shook. My mouth was dry from shouting-- it was like someone had stuffed it with cotton-- and I took a long swallow from the cup I had taken from Timmy, vaguely dismissing a bitter, chemical taste.

I raised my eyes to Whistler and Jo-Jo, who were standing over us. Jo-Jo turned toward the stairs, shouting at Whistler to hurry up. Whistler reached toward me with his grubby hand and grabbed the cup I had taken from Timmy, now only partially filled with bluish-tinted liquid. He looked from me to the cup through his shaggy, dark bangs, and froze when I whimpered in pain, coughing suddenly. Jo-Jo stopped then, too, staring at me, stricken. My mouth burned worse than the time I had accidentally eaten a habanero pepper. I coughed into the back of my hand and when I took my hand away, it was covered with something dark and wet. Blood dripped down my chin and rolled down my jaw bone, spattering as it landed on Timmy’s face. I started to panic. My mouth and throat burned like I had just swallowed a pack of lit matches. I drooled bloody foam on my jeans and sobbed, coughing and heaving. I glanced toward Whistler again, tears streaming down my face, dripping on Timmy, whose body continued to convulse on the floor.

My lungs were on fire. Timmy’s head was still in my lap, hitting my legs with an erratic rhythm, but I couldn’t focus on him anymore as I spat blood on the concrete floor, my lungs trying desperately to cough up the searing fire that consumed my mouth, throat and chest.

Whistler and Jo-Jo backed away from me, looking at each other and back at me as I gasped for air, screaming in pain as the burning intensified and blood filled my mouth. Jo-Jo fled up the stairs yelling over his shoulder for Whistler to follow. I couldn’t hear what he said, but through my pleading, hysterical screams and a film of tears, I saw his lips form the words “oh fuck, Dana, I’m so sorry,” before he turned and ran. I lost sight of him, screaming and

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PROSE coughing, gurgling blood in my throat and mouth, until the burning inside me reached unbearable levels. I felt myself sinking to the floor, head landing on Timmy’s suddenly still forearm, and then the world disappeared; it was like someone had hit the power button on the TV remote– one second I was watching some horrible reality show and the next, the screen was black and the world was silent. *

I frequent the bridge in the city when I have nowhere else to go. Sometimes I sit against the wall, feet propped on a stack of day-old newspapers, with a homeless woman named Bonny who plays the violin for change. She never sees me, but I can tell by the way she plays her music with such spirit when I’m around that she appreciates my presence. Other times, I gaze at the city streets from the covered bridge, shivering occasionally from a chill that never goes away. The only warmth I ever feel now is the remnants of the acid that burned my mouth and throat. The coroners determined my cause of death to be caustic ingestion– from that cup I took from Timmy. At that party, the dealers were pissed at Timmy and were looking to cut him down, but I got in the way.

As for Timmy? He did himself in that night with an overdose. Funny how the thing that Whistler and Jo-Jo were going to kill him for ended up killing him before they could get to him.

They never got their money from Timmy. No one has been able to pin my murder on them yet, but I take solace in haunting them regularly, tormenting them with my presence on the city bridge. I may be dead forever, but Jo-Jo and Whistler watch me like scared puppies, nearly pissing their pants when they see me, and I know that I’m well on my way to breaking the dealers into dust– for me and for Timmy.

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PHOTGRAPHY

Berlin by Davidson Ward

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PHOTOGRAPHY

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POETRY Trapping by Brittany D. Mammenga Release the animals with ribs extending like a glassy skeletal web.

A fragile cage of famine from the grace of last season.

Clear, steel teeth gleam with snapping thirst.

A spring loaded trap underneath my calloused palm.

A tired wheeze of air pushed from foxes, whispers past my frost nipped ears.

Red-tipped coats freezing to stones, a blanket between my boot and tundra, while cries entangle watery sunrise.

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POETRY Penniless Lovers by Brianna Simonds after Eugenio de Andrade We had teeth and live birds in our hair, and a long way between us.

We had a basil patch littered with words lost along the way home.

We had the same memories as everyone and we called them Variations on Space, Time, and the Physics of Lemons.

We had an immeasurable fullness.

We had eyes longing to bite down hard, staring at each others arms, and the newly green grass growing past our knees was full of hidden messages and beasts, but with each gust of wind our old shadows were torn from our bodies.

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POETRY Bongo by Sacha Orozco Sometime in the night my ear suctioned itself to your rib, as if the canal was playing telephone with your aorta.

Bongo, riddle me a mambo.

But as my cheek cradled your accordion cage, murmured beats redirected dreams that I could someday persuade the palmings of your lambskin love.

So for now, as my snores dance to the tune of your fear, drool pools on your epidermal abode, anchoring me solely in topical lust.

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POETRY The Jazz Ensemble by Justyn Rubenstein Tender hearted?

Please.

I once thought this about you.

But you are like piss in an alley way A rancid smell emitting from an infested and diseased, dirty Chicago street.

The odor makes me scrunch up my nose at how soured you’ve become.

You opened your mouth, interrupting my convalescence like maniacal waves of syncopated jazz.

Preventing my healing, the reviving of my skinny hands.

Your words, like crooked rhythms that should have never been written, evoke tiny heaves that shudder from my body.

Droplets of exhausted perspiration collecting in pools at your feet.

I’m so tired of hearing the same bars played.

Your indifference at one time ceased to bother me Until your notes reached higher range A shriek above the rest of the ensemble wrinkled to the point of unrecognizable melody

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POETRY Ugly Beauty by Ryan “Rodeo” Morgan I’ve only had 3 drinks She says, Attempting to sell her soul for sex with therapy.

Maybe the devil has her hand Skipping rope, playing together.

What if he neglects to whisper With a soul you have sympathy.

But she breaks it down like this With a little curiosity I can’t resist; Using those disarrayed, four-letter words Mumbling her flimsy call for compassion She alludes to subsequent intentions Masking her true thoughts by false smiles.

Maybe time will lone his tongue Choke me into some other form of reality.

For now what I see Is her mind being raped By life’s lies and hypocrisy; Simplicity lending its hand, Creating this world of mediocrity.

My eyelids heavy; pull my mind in Blurs of faces walk by Tilted, cocked a little to the right.

Goose bumps rise to attention on her skin; Her satin blouse still salutes other men.

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POETRY This feeling is never right.

Hat and hood on, I muffle the echo accompanying my footsteps.

She wouldn’t have noticed. Her vision is blurry.

Times running out, she has to fall in love.

This is Ugly Beauty.

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PROSE January Nineteenth Two Thousand and Seven; A Brief Journey into Her Imagination

by Colleen Smith

It’s 2:31 PM and time is pressing. A man sits in the secluded back corner of a coffee shop where smooth jazz plays quietly through the speaker system. It is an average coffee shop, and this is an average sort of man. He finds himself suitably situated within the confines of this environment. The man, however, does not think himself as so very average. Very few people think of themselves as entirely average. The reality is that every single person ever born was, is, and will be forevermore entirely standard regardless of what he or she is or does with his or her life. It’s silly to think otherwise.

But people are rather silly. In any case, the shop smells appealingly of freshly ground coffee, as it ought to. The floor is tiled with big 2X2’ squares of earthen colored marbleized looking stone. One wall is painted a dull, pine green color. The next is painted a subdued mauve. The third is clay red. The last wall is a large glass window with a door stuck in the middle of it, all facing Middlington Avenue where cars and people are continually bustling by. A collection of artistic miscellany peeks out at the world from its place mounted on the walls. Oddly shaped blown glass bulbs of opaque orange hang from the ceiling at regular intervals throughout the shop. From these bulbs a warm, reddish glow lights the air to a comfortable but dim coffee-drinking visibility.

The man likes the sort of coffee-drinking visibility that can’t be found anywhere but in quaint shops like this. For some reason, it suits him. It makes him feel at home. In this visibility, he wears glasses that have small, rectangular lenses with thick black frames.

His vision is not very badly impaired, and he could have easily gone without the expensive glasses. But he saw those glasses on the rack at the expensive glasses shop and decided that they suited him. He bought them regardless of the cost. Average people occasionally do such things. Sometimes they don’t. Average people are rather unpredictable. To complement his glasses, this man routinely shaves his jaw so that there is just a thin ribbon of black fuzz following the curve of his chin. When he looks upon his reflection in the mirror, he finds that the glasses and beard-ribbon please his eyes, but not so

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PROSE much that he stares. He has promised himself that if he ever becomes the sort of man who self-stares in the mirror like he’s something extra special, he will shave his head and facial hair and throw away the glasses. He doesn’t want to be consumed with appearances. He believes himself a man of greater depths than that, as most average people do.

Time is pressing as he sits there in the secluded back corner of the coffee shop. This isn’t unusual because time is always pressing.

Only now, he feels it more acutely. He feels time pressing him so acutely that he feels entirely flat. He doesn’t like feeling flat because he thinks of himself as a man of great depth. Depth requires three dimensions, and flatness implies a regrettable two. The deep parts of him cling to the belief that he is, at the least, a three-dimensional man. He secretly harbors the hope that he could be much more multidimensional than three. To become a man of so many dimensions that he can no longer count them is his dream. Why does he feel so flat? This sensation bothers him immensely. He takes a few moments to analyze it. Like every average person, he’s of the type whose brain thrives on analogies. Accordingly, he sits there figuring out exactly the collection of words for how he feels. It’s as though the combination lock of his soul will snap open if only he can discover the correct sequence of words.

One of the artworks on the wall just next to the corner where he sits is a framed bit of white canvas or paper or some such thing with pressed flowers arranged into a bouquet on it. He notices it through his glasses. He likes it. He decides that he is very much like a flower being pressed into preservation. He thinks pleasantly of how he had once had a girlfriend who made bookmarks with pressed flowers. She would open up her enormous encyclopedia to some random page in the middle, place a piece of wax paper down on the page, and then delicately set a fresh flower blossom atop the wax paper. Another bit of wax paper on top of that, and then she would close the book and wait several weeks as the flower dried in such a way that its color and shape would not be lost. Just how he feels.

He is a flower, beautiful enough to be worth preserving in the first place, being pressed into a different, older form of himself that will neither wrinkle nor fade nearly as much as it would have without the pressing.

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PROSE It makes some sense, but he does not like it very much. Is there no potential for deepening his experience of existence? He wants to think about it more, but time is pressing so he cannot.

Flatter and flatter and flatter. Thinking about things gives him at least a semblance of hope that there remains depth in him. Thinking about things makes him feel multi-dimensional. But thinking takes time. Time is constantly pressing.

There is never enough time for anything, no matter how very few or how very many ticking seconds there are available. The time it takes to be, do or accomplish something with life is always in short supply. As soon as the idea of doing something comes to mind, one of two things invariably occurs. Either the thing proceeds to be done, or the thing proceeds to not be done. Either way, it’s over before it can be experienced to the fullest even when a true desire to experience it to the fullest is borne in his heart. When there is absolutely nothing to do, this changes a bit. In this case, time becomes as close to infinitely abundant as it is capable of becoming.

This case, in fact, is the only possible instance when time is ever abundant in the least. But there is almost always something or other to do. Time is almost never infinitely abundant.

Time is pressing because he has to go meet with somebody for some silly reason. He doesn’t really want to go to the meeting.

He wants sit around in the back corner of the coffee shop and figure out how to not feel so flat anymore. He also would like to take his time slowly sipping down his steaming grande white mocha. It tastes delicious and is currently at a perfect sipping temperature. But the meeting he has made is obviously more important.

On second thought, the meeting is of very little significance.

He could call right now and cancel it without consequence. If he makes such a call, he will probably enjoy himself more. What’s more, he could begin an amazing quest of self-exploration and discovery.

Perhaps this is the one moment in his life he’s always been waiting for—that one moment when, if he chooses correctly, everything will change and become incomprehensibly profound. He will finally grasp the wonders of the depth that glimmers before his eyes like a rare, untouchable gem. In his wildest imaginings, he has believed that one fatal day a miraculous moment would defy time and last forever, making him all that a human can be. He imagined it to be an unpredictable thing that could happen anywhere at any time. Is this

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PROSE It? The possibilities of what might happen if he cancels the meeting are endless. But the possibilities of what might happen if he does not cancel the meeting are similarly endless. In his current condition, he reasons that it is more likely that of the endless possibilities following this decision, those resulting from canceling the meeting will be more rewarding. It would doubtless be a life-defining moment if he chooses to make the bold move and cancel the unimportant meeting.

Of course, it must be taken into consideration that the last time he was struck with a case of the “Is this It?” syndrome, it wasn’t It. And the time before that when he was struck with the “Is this It?” syndrome, that also wasn’t It. Would It ever be this? Why would this moment have any better of a chance of being It than the last hundred times he had felt like this might be It? Yet if he gives up once and for all on the alluring but sometimes misled symptoms of the “Is this It?” syndrome, then this will, for him, never have the chance to be It. Fact: he already made the appointment. This simple fact is enough to give it precedence over whatever other thing might come up randomly, such as sitting around in the back of a coffee shop thinking about flatness. A priority list is a prerequisite to any rational existence. When a meeting time is made for a certain date and time, it ascends immediately to position number one on the p. list for that particular date and time. Suddenly, he thinks to himself about how on earth priorities ever get set anyways. Shouldn’t life itself be in position number one on everybody’s list? And shouldn’t everything on the list be subordinate, flexible, and accommodating to life itself? He wonders whether or not most people reflect upon their priorities, why they set them as they do, and if they stick to them as often as they probably wished they could.

But then time continues pressing and pressing and pressing.

He gets up from his seat and walks toward the door, feeling flatter and flatter and flatter the closer he gets to the big glass entryway. His grande white mocha is in his right hand and his backpack slung casually over his shoulder. Flatter and flatter and flatter. He gets to the doorway, pushes the swinging door open with his left hand. He walks halfway through the rectangular portal separating the coffee shop with its perfect coffee-drinking visibility from the bustle of Middlington Avenue. Time is pressing, but he

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PROSE holds the door in an open position with his left foot and stands there, halfway in and halfway out. It looks like he is having an intense staring contest with the door’s hinges. He stares and stares and stares. A powerful battle for position number one on the list is taking place in his head right now. The battle is becoming bloodier with each passing second as he stares. The fighting is becoming more and more consuming as he continues to look blankly at the hinges.

There is an entirely average sort of woman standing just outside of the coffee-shop door on Middlington avenue. The permed ringlets towards the bottom of her long mass of brunette hair bob up and down in the wind from the passing cars as she looks blankly at the man. His external appearance melts away from her eyes as her mind dissects his actions. This is how she sees him. Right now.

She watches as he stares down the hinges. He is wearing thickrimmed, small, rectangular, black glasses and has a bit of a beard.

The rest is all conceived somewhere in the spontaneity of her thought processes. How he thinks, his situation, all of that is a figment of her imagination. There is a man standing in the doorway with his left foot holding the door open, his eyes fixed to the general area of the door hinge, a to-go coffee cup in his right hand, and a backpack slung casually over his shoulder. That’s all. He’s been standing there for a little bit longer than would be expected, but now she can see that there is somebody following him out. He was just holding the door open for his friend, who apparently took a bit longer than expected to get out the door. That’s all. She shrugs her shoulders and continues to walk towards the glass doors. I feel like ordering a grande white mocha.

The hint of a smug little smile tugs at the corners of her lips as her tastebuds anticipate the fulfillment of her feelings. I think I will.

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POETRY At Wicks End by Samantha Degen shadows dance on the wall in ceremonial movement, flame flickers softly — hushed here is a single candle, burning brightly amidst the darkness breath wind all is nonexistent ages pass, a lifetime flashes in the flame, tempting all who’d rather leave it unseen temptation tugs at passersby now anxious eyes watch as the wick grows shorter, reaching its end sooner than anticipated a breath is drawn, gasping, light flickers for a moment and then — light has gone, snuffed out, pulled into a chasm of deep, black nothing

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POETRY Maps by Jessica McFarlane

As map as;

States; puzzle pieces thick purple borderlines dividers, hollow walls, cubicles separating blue from red Crooked compass A smudged plot Distance, inches shoes, steps Escape into a traveling song a road trip playlist James Taylor

as map as; A flat world folded- pocket size stuck in a crease Topographic clean blue rivers, orange mountains Mystery unknown territory alien world A small pinpoint inhabited by hundreds condensed reality I overlook the scurry through life

as map as;

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POETRY Time travel wormholes a light to utopia Roads entwined as endless webs weaving stories and love affairs Fate drawn out to read led by choice Digital clock on dashboard

as map as;

Yeah Yeah Yeahs they don’t love you like I love you Mapquest no atlas no straying

as map as; Your face telling a story

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PHOTOGRAPHY

In Your Backyard by Zach Frank

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POETRY False Azure: A Brief Criticism of Pale Fire

by Patrick Nathan When orange angels fall from trees and skies Are damp with failing sunlight; when goodbyes Begin to flicker ‘cross our tongues and trees Become bones, pale and reaching, even bees Begin to weep, their cries caressing dead Thorns, their tears soldering to petals red, Their moans resounding over fields of snow.

What desolation, what undying woe Plagues even birds: in cloudless windowpanes They crash--the shadows of the waxwings slain.

But, in the time of dying leaves, I still Retain my memories: the width of will, The depth of fire, the sin of soul, the ache Of ardor, raindrops, silk, and the opaque Intensity of young eyes. This perfume Doth haunt my senses; one last flower blooms Over this grave, its petals vivid still, And I will cherish, treasure it until It, like the others, withers under wind By so much weather, it is there, and I Find solace in impure, infected skies.

What green still lingers in this paradise Of skeletons and rustling death--of ice And fading stars? What hopeful heart still beats Inside this rusted cage? What wish entreats The stolid gods upon their tarnished thrones?

What fleeting dream remains, entwined in bones?

As in my thoughts, a pale fire burns within My loins: my dreams are ripe with supple skin And fuses--waiting for ignition--and Volcanic ash awaits this flesh, these hands.

I long for flames--infernos to consume These muscles, organs, tissues, and exhume Lost passion--swathed in velvet earth, disguised As love. How I long to open these eyes.

Each time I look into the face of my

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POETRY Wife, I can’t help but weep for time gone by, For zeal expired, for hopelessness. Decay Has caught up with her: her skin has the way Of wax, her eyes the way of stones, her lips The way of earthworms, and her bony hips-Knots at her sides. Her sex is tired, and I Groan only to break the silence, and sigh In turn, her sex is tired, her sex is tired.

Enter a second person--pallid fire Devouring me. From dreams and paper you Are born; with words you’re drawn: eyes grey and blue Like mold; with caterpillar lips and hair As fine as desert sand; with silken, fair Skin; with a voice that dances on my spine.

A secret: I would die to lie supine With you--if only you were poetry Instead of fiction. Sigh: what memories We could create--what music, what sin-Between the sheets, beneath the stars, within This web of flowing threads, this tangle of Soft moonlight, waxing, in the time of love, Of leaves, and wings, and you present yourself Like bait while I swim through the void of hell.

What needles prick the organs underneath This weathered skin? What serpents bite beneath A film of tears? What venom courses through These veins? What poison lurks behind those blue Eyes? And what love that dare not speak its name Doth ache to give? What mad desire for flames-Suppressed by ice, untamed and violent-Burns wild amongst this death? What heaven sent You, love--or hell? What torment--agony-Hath wrapped its fingers ‘round this heart? What sea Of questions hath been asked… no more, no more…

For you’re the needle, you’re the venom, you’re The love--the love, oh God. I cannot mend these wounds that I have, and this is the end.

Resigned to your temptations, I give in and brush my fingertips against that skin,

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POETRY like milk, like cream--so out of season--so incongruous now--as the languid snow comes down with leaves and other rot, that I weep with confusion, but still I wrap my hands ‘round your waist and bring you closer; this is heaven and I refuse to let bliss escape me once again. Our bodies mesh together--one combined display of flesh and bone and come, and when the bleeding’s done, I clutch my chest; I greet oblivion; And, having been destroyed, I live on, fly On, in reflected false azure--a sky That stretches on forever in the clear, Unsoiled glass--spotless--the color of tears.

Please bury me in spring so that I’ll rise Out of the soil and perhaps realize The splendor in my suffering, and the trees Will whisper secrets; I’ll converse with bees As they extract the nectar from my heart, And, even though everything fell apart, Remember--in the time of dying leaves-Though the fire has gone out, we still have these Pale ashes. How they scatter with our sighs

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SUPPORTERS

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SUPPORTERS The creation of Liminal would not be possible without the friendship, support & goodwill from the following people: Z. Cody Lee Carlson Kimberley Gengler Jenny Odegard Eric Price Nattie Olson Alice Vislova Jeremy Sengley (Tech Support) Jeremy Sengley (Design Support) & Jeremey Sengley (For being a really cool guy) Peggy Photo at Sexton Printing Our Professors and TA’s at the University of Minnesota (for all of the late assignments and sleepy eyes) D.J., Ben, and the Employees of the Starlight Cafe (for supplying the necessities for surviving early mornings late nights and supplying space for open-mic’s) The Duellman and Olmschenk Families (For being that extra pound of support) The Wake Student Magazine Staff and Readers And a special THANK YOU to all our dear friends for putting up with everything.

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Liminal was founded by Z. Cody Lee Carlsen.

Univeristy of Minnesota students exclusively produced, edited, and published the journal.

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The Wake Student Magazine www.wakemag.org/liminal