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Wednesday Night Writes
Fall 2013 Edition
Table of Contents John Biggs The Perfect Man
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Dr. Steve Klepetar In the Pines 16 The Arrow Frog 17 Nine Days 18 Paul Beckman A Garage Full of Lawn Mowers Frederick Pollack Dream Before Sleep Little Sensation Rick Hartwell Openings
19 20 21 27
Richard Larson Wet Work 28 John Grey Close 30 William Doreski Two-Tone Frog 31 Saturday Bean Supper 33 Elephant Gray 35 Kenneth Pobo Wandawoowoo 36 Gerard Manley Hopkins Visits 37 Greifswald in May 38 Bill Vernon Hearing the Music 39
Nikita Gill Capture This Moment
41
Melodie Corrigall Table Man
42
Leah McAllister Roses Are Red
43
Biographies
46
6
The Perfect Man John Biggs
Ti Mama Gentry stood beside me on the corner waving at cars and looking sweet. She shook her mercury dime bracelet in my face to ward off the evil eye, just in case. Working girls were careful back in 1995, especially where magic was concerned. We had to be careful about something. “Rebecca ain’t no kind of name for a sister.” That’s how Ti Mama liked to start our conversations, sociable but full of attitude, because drama always was a big part of the business. Still is, I guess. I put my hands on my hips and wobbled my head back and forth like an Egyptian dancer. The two of us made a pretty picture, arguing on the street corner, and when cars slowed down to get a better look, we turned the volume up. “Rebecca Sunnybrook’s a fine name for girl like me,” I said. Ti Mama smiled because I was hardly any kind of girl at all. I suppose that’s why we never got along one hundred percent. “Oh yeah,” she said. “I keep forgettin’ about that ‘somethin’ extra’ between your legs.” She wiggled her hips like she might turn me straight if I gave it half a chance. My “somethin’ extra” wouldn’t be around much longer. I’d picked the doctor and the hospital. All I needed was twenty thousand dollars. That was the price tag on transgender surgery back then. “Don’t hate me ‘cause I’m beautiful,” I looked over my left shoulder and ran my hand over my bottom, slow and artistic, the way I’d seen exotic dancers do. Ti Mama made a horse sound with her lips, but she knew I spoke the truth. Except for my somethin’ extra, I was the perfect woman. Part Africa, and part Mexico, with just enough Europe to give me good hair. My eyes were a contact lens blue, with no help from science, and my legs were long and fine without the slightest pebble of cellulite. “No boobs,” Ti Mama said, “and you walk kind of like a boy.” I let her have the last word, because I didn’t want to hurt her feelings. Besides, my boobs were kind of small, even with the hormone shots, and I did walk like a boy—a pretty femme boy with a tight little butt that cost twenty dollars just to touch. Too frail to be a natural boy, too sweet to be a natural girl, my exotic look kept the men coming back. And they’d keep on coming, as long as I could help them pretend they didn’t want what made me special. I was 7
a genius that way, and it’s a good thing, because Oklahoma City boys get rough when they find out what they didn’t want to know. Business picked up when the city cops chased the whores off of Lincoln Blvd, but so did competition. The northwest side was too white for retail sex. Northeast was black whores only. So the only place for a girl like me was the southeast side of town. Open territory. All kinks welcome except for gay men because Oklahoma was the buckle of the Bible belt and unless a sin was listed in the Ten Commandments, you couldn’t do it there. I did pretty good with out of town visitors looking for my kind of trouble, because I’m just the kind of girl every man wants to be with for half an hour. No ink, no trashy clothes, no gaudy jewelry or wigs—the perfect girl next door, as long as they didn’t look too close. I could fool a salesman on a trip from Dallas, or a politician with his heart set on corrupting a sweet young thing who looked too good to be true. Not that I fooled everybody. Tricks who faced the facts were the big spenders, the return customers, the ones who’d pay for the operation that would fix what God mixed up. I had everything all figured out until Oberst Goering moved into the little wood frame house across the street from me. He was all I ever wanted in a man, and I made up my mind to tell him so, as soon as I was sure he wouldn’t kill me. “Hello, neighbor,” I already knew his name because rumors traveled fast in the southeast part of town. I caught him coming out his door with a serious look on his handsome face. He ran a manicured hand over his head, which was shaved slick, Michael Jordan style—hard to know if that meant anything. There were lots of skinheads back in ’95, but he wasn’t white enough for them. Not a gangster either; the only ink I saw was a funny looking red, white, and blue eagle on his left forearm with the word SWAPO printed under it. Good work, not like tats he’d get in prison or the back room of some hoodlum’s house. He had four parallel scars on each cheek. Exactly the same size and color, like tribal marks, but there was nothing tribal about Oberst Goering. “Good day.” He made a moo sound with his double o’s and his d’s were crisp and wet like the noise a head of lettuce makes when it’s torn in half. His smile made the skin pucker around his scars. I wanted to run my fingers over them, and maybe that would happen later, but right then, my new neighbor looked at his watch. A Breitling. Not showy like a Rolex, but a sure sign of money. “It is good to meet you, but the time . . . ” Oberst Goering spoke slowly, like he was picking his words out of a dictionary in his head. 8
I stuck out my hand, white businessman style, and he took it. Gentle, but there was strength behind his touch, and I could see the way his muscles worked under the white, short-sleeved, Mormon missionary-style shirt he wore. His eyes were the brilliant green color of fake emeralds, and they locked onto mine long enough for me to be pretty sure he liked what he saw. “You’re not from around here,” I rolled the end of the sentence up so he’d know it was a question, but he didn’t take the hint. “I must go.” He spit the words out one at a time, just like before, and tapped on his watch to make sure I understood. Then he walked away like he was marching in a parade. He turned and looked at me when he was half a block away, and smiled again. “Made you look,” I said, even though he couldn’t hear me. He glanced my way again as he turned the corner, and made a gesture that was half way between a salute and a wave. That was the exact moment I fell in love with Oberst Goering—9:02 A.M. on April 1st, 1995. April Fool’s Day. Perfect timing for a girl like me. An almost-girl can’t have a pimp. Too many problems with their other whores, and besides they take your money. Pimps are businessmen, and in Oklahoma City back in ‘95, business was pretty bad. Our mayor thought we had too many whores, and the chief of police went right along, and so did the governor, who was Catholic and wanted the Baptists to like him more. “Trouble is, city whores and pimps don’t go away; they just change locations. So I wasn’t too surprised when Roynell Jones moved his girls onto my street. He was a big strong man who didn’t need an African name to prove how black he was. He had a gray cast in his right eye, but that didn’t stop him from staring right through you. “Hey, sweet thing.” Roynell made me jump when he put a hand on my shoulder. You’d think a man that big would make some walking noise, but he was quiet as a pickpocket. He stood there quietly staring at me with his dead eye. No good trying to fool him. “Nice morning,” he said. “Even if the sun ain’t shinin’ yet.” That was his way of reminding me how dark it was. How no one was around to notice if something happened to a girl with the wrong attitude. “I like the early hours,” I told Roynell. “The boys who still have money in their pockets are too tired to be mean.” I put my hands on my hips, took a backward step and turned so he’d get a good look at my bottom. When men get feelings they’re not sure about, sometimes they walk away and think it over. It was worth a try. 9
“A girl can’t work with a man like you standing around,” I said. The sun would come up in a few minutes and the businessmen would drive by, all ready with their late-for-work excuses and their hundred dollar bills. I looked at the place on my wrist where a watch would be if I’d been wearing one. “You know, Roynell. Time is money.” “Been meaning to talk to you, sweet thing,” he said. “Ain’t no one works this street unless she works for me.” He smiled big enough to show the gold in his back teeth. “No hard feelings, baby,” he said. “But you got to go someplace else.” “Someplace far away.” Roynell’s voice stayed calm, but he took a step closer. “Don’t make me spoil that pretty face.” Still talking sweet, but he had slipped his middle finger through the silver ring on the handle of his butterfly knife so he could dangle it in front of me. Roynell knew the cops wouldn’t look too hard for the man who cut a she-male prostitute, and his girls would walk the line at least until the rain washed my blood into the gutter. “Your ladies don’t work this early.” My girl-voice was completely gone. Something bad was coming faster than I could run in heels, and even if I got away, Roynell Jones knew where I lived. He kept the knife closed, waiting for me to come to my senses. “I’ve got nowhere else to go,” I said. Sounding helpless. Sounding hopeless. Sounding like a whore who wouldn’t listen. Roynell’s smile turned south. “Please don’t.” The knife flipped open as the sun eased over the horizon. Perfect timing. The silver handles glittered as they exposed the blade. The weapon slid into Roynell’s hand like a pet snake and there was nothing I could do. I prayed Roynell would only hold the knife against my cheek hard enough to make me cry, or cut me just a little—something that wouldn’t leave a scar. A girl like me can’t ask for too much when she prays, even though everyone knows Jesus has a soft spot in his heart for whores. “God help me, please.” That’s the best kind of prayer, because God gets to choose what happens next. Who’d have thought he’d send Oberst Goering out of his house at sunrise, just in time to save my life? “Leave the girl alone.” Oberst spoke as if there wasn’t any doubt Roynell would do exactly as he said. His accent had authority. So did the way he 10
stood, braced solid on the ground with one foot under each shoulder, leaning forward like a wolf ready to spring on a lamb. But Roynell Jones wasn’t any lamb. He took a backward step so he could get a good look at the man he might have to kill in the next few minutes. “You willin’ to die for this bitch?” Roynell asked. Reasonable, indifferent, like he was bargaining for a better price on pound of bruised apples. “This is your chance to walk away,” Oberst Goering said. Roynell might have done that, but his girls had gathered in a semi circle behind me, waiting to see who’d come out on top. “I know who you are, African man.” Roynell held himself a little higher. His knifepoint rose a little higher too. “I know what you done back there.” I couldn’t tell if Oberst Goering heard Roynell’s words, but he didn’t answer—even when Roynell accused him of murdering black men in their sleep. The big pimp took a step forward. He cast a sidelong glance at his whores, making sure they’d see what happened next. That glance robbed him of his full attention long enough for Oberst to send the toe of his right boot into Roynell’s solar plexus. He slapped an open hand over the pimp’s right ear, and while Roynell tried to figure out what hurt the most, Oberst gripped his knife hand and broke a thumb and two fingers. Three quick snaps and Roynell Jones’ right hand was no good for whipping whores anymore. The pimp ran off leaving his knife and his girls on the street for Oberst to pick up if he wanted to. The whores stood around, waiting to see if Oberst’s violent streak had run its course. “You ladies can go home,” he said. “This is finished.” He reached inside the collar of his shirt and pulled out a black, peanut shaped stone hanging from a silver chain. He kissed it and let it fall onto his chest. He waited quietly until the whores were too far away to hear. “The pimp lied,” he said. “I killed only soldiers. A colored man in Africa does what he must.” Colored was a word you didn’t hear much in Oklahoma City. Maybe Africa was different. It didn’t matter to me, because I loved Oberst Goering more than ever. “That’s the first time any man’s ever stood up for me.” Oberst Goering kissed the stone he wore around his neck a second time instead of kissing me. “Trouble is coming,” He kissed the stone again. “Big trouble.” I don’t think Oberst really knew what kind of trouble was coming, not just to the southeast side, but to the whole city. He backed away from me 11
without saying another word. He backed all the way across the street and didn’t turn around until he reached his front door. Ti Mama came from New Orleans so she knew all about African magic. “That rock around his neck is his otane,” she said. “Full of spirit power.” She shook her mercury dime bracelet to prove she was an expert. “Hooks him up with the spirits,” Ti Mama said. “The ancestors too. Whatever he needs.” I’d always thought Africa was one big jungle full of black people, like in the old Tarzan movies, but Ti Mama said no. “There’s all kinds of Africans, but the most magic is the colored.” According to Ti Mama, nobody liked colored Africans except the spirits. So if I wanted Oberst to love me I’d better get them on my side. She didn’t know what kind of magic would work best. “Spirits are like tricks,” Ti Mama said. “They’ve got peculiar wants and needs.” So I tried everything. I broke an egg beside his photograph, collected dirt from his footprints, and reflected sunlight onto him from a mirror painted with leopard tracks. When that didn’t work, I mixed my tears with cornmeal and sprinkled it onto his front steps. I blew him kisses through a cup of flaming rum. I whispered his name in cigar smoke so the spirits would hear. Ti Mama brought me seven votive candles she’d robbed from St. James Church. “Strong magic. Bought, prayed over, and stolen.” She’d doused their flames with holy water to keep their batteries charged. I kissed Oberst’s picture wearing the brightest whore-red lipstick I could find and propped it behind a candle. I set a shot glass of rum beside the photograph, just like Ti Mama told me, and a lit cigar to carry my prayers to heaven. “Now the only thing to do is wait,” Ti Mama said, “because there ain’t no way an African colored man is gonna want a girl like you unless the spirits take a hand.” Not many men want a girl like me, and to tell the truth, I don’t usually want the ones who do. So I lit my candles and poured my rum, and smoked my cigars, and prayed. “A whore would starve if she relied on magic,” I told Ti Mama. We traded rumors on the street corner, while a pair of undercover cops drove by in a Crown Victoria. The vice police already arrested three of Roynell Jones’ girls, and chased away two others. Now, just his bottom whore was left. 12
Oberst kept out of sight when the cops were out, and the spirits couldn’t seem to find him in his house. “I knocked on his door, and he wouldn’t answer,” I told Ti Mama. “Magic hasn’t weakened him a bit.” I thought maybe I should wait ‘til after my operation and try again, but I was afraid Oberst would move on, the way wanted men usually do. Ti Mama was already talking about fate and karma and things that weren’t meant to be, because Roynell Jones had told his bottom whore he meant to kill Oberst Goering. “Won’t be long,” Ti Mama said, “’Til Roynell makes his move.” I had three candles left. Maybe they would do the trick. Maybe the African gods would get together with Jesus and make my dreams come true. If that didn’t work, I still had the special kind of magic I’d learned on the street. “Whore magic might get a man, but it won’t hold him,” Ti Mama warned me. “It’s best not to doubt the spirits out loud.” So I just lit my candles and waited, as if I didn’t mind. It came to pass on April 19, 1995 at 9:02 A.M. That’s how they’d write it in the Holy Bible only without the date and time. Exactly eighteen days from when I fell in love with Oberst Goering. Ti Mama said eighteen was the same as three sixes—mark of the beast. We should have known something bad would happen, but it took us by surprise. Just like everybody else. The eight o’clock hour brought me an insurance salesman who hadn’t made his quota and wanted to tell his problems to a pretty girl. He gave me thirty dollars, told me secretaries weren’t what they used to be and then he drove away. The whole thing took less than fifteen minutes. A lawyer gave me one hundred dollars to let him touch me in places his wife had put off limits. Not the places you’d imagine, either. “Just one spot you can’t touch baby. Not for no hundred dollars.” I might let him put his hand there for a thousand. Cash, no credit cards or checks. “Maybe another time,” he said. I nodded my head and stepped out of his car. It might be worth it just to see the look on his face when he found my “something extra”. A white limousine with tinted windows pulled up on the curb. The driver rolled down the passenger side window and motioned me over. I waved him on because I never liked limos, and Oberst Goering had just walked out his front door. Heading across the street. Looking right at me. Thank you, Jesus. I had lots of things to tell him, starting off gradually with how much I loved him and working my way slowly to my penis. I could convince a man of almost anything once I got him motivated, and a young man like Oberst Goering shouldn’t take too long. 13
His eyes sparkled in the morning sun like a special effect in a cheap romance movie where everything turns out all right in the end. His mouth moved like he was practicing what he had to say and it must have been pretty serious because he held his shoulders forward as if he was walking against a heavy wind. But the wind wasn’t blowing the way it almost always does in Oklahoma City. Like the city held her breath waiting for something too important to ignore. The back door of the white limousine opened and Roynell Jones stepped out. He looked at me first, and then at Oberst Goering, and showed us both his hungry dog smile. I didn’t notice his little black pistol until he pointed it at Oberst. He held it in his left hand because Oberst had broken his right one, and he turned it sideways the way black gangsters point their guns. Roynell said something about dying and something about revenge and something about Africa but he said it way too fast for me to understand, and then he pulled the trigger. The world shook hard when he fired that gun—hard enough to make me fall onto the street. Roynell fell too, and so did Oberst Goering. The wind started blowing again, police sirens wailed, and fire trucks too, all over Oklahoma City at the same time. Roynell looked at his pistol trying to figure out how that little gun could shake the world. “Dang!” Not a proper swear word, but it was all Roynell Jones could manage. He tossed his pistol into the street and took off running, too worried to think about his limousine. I don’t remember getting back onto my feet, but I must have, because I was kneeling beside Oberst Goering covering his face with kisses—especially the red streak across his slick, bald, head where the bullet grazed him. “Wake up!” I shouted, but he wouldn’t wake up. I pulled back his eyelids and saw his pupils were different sizes. I knew that wasn’t good, but I couldn’t remember why. Then Ti Mama was beside me telling me how a building in downtown Oklahoma City just exploded. Later on we’d learn about a crazy white man with a grudge against the government, but right then nobody knew anything. Nobody cared much either because so much happened all at once. “We need to get him off the street,” Ti Mama said. “He needs an ambulance,” I told her. But then I listened to all the sirens and I knew every ambulance in Oklahoma City was busy, so we carried him to my house. We put him in my bed, right beside the candle-picture shrine that was supposed to bring him to me. “Guess the magic worked,” Ti Mama said. 14
“It never works exactly like you plan.” She got a paper towel from the kitchen and wiped the blood off of Oberst’s Goering’s face. She took off his shirt. “So he’ll be more comfortable,” she said. But Oberst didn’t look more comfortable. He looked pale and weak. “Lets get those pants off,” Ti Mama said, because as far as she was concerned that’s what a woman was supposed to do with a man. “They always feel better naked.” She unzipped him and pulled his pants down past his knees. “Well would you look at that,” she said when she got to his underpants. I thought she was checking out his penis size or the brand of shorts he wore, but then I saw what captured Ti Mama’s attention. It captured my attention too, because Oberst Goering had something I’d wanted as long as I can remember. “A vagina!” I said, pretty loud. Loud enough to make Oberst Goering open his eyes. “Girlfriend,” Ti Mama said. “I think you found the perfect man.” Oberst tried to sit up and reach for his missing pants, but he fell back onto his pillow. Ti Mama shook her mercury dime bracelet in his face and told him, “Just be still, sweetheart. You don’t know what’s going on, but pretty soon you will.” She turned my way and gave me a big working girl wink and said, “See you later, baby.” I blew the candle out in the Oberst Goering shrine. The magic was too strong to leave it working any longer.
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In the Pines
Dr. Steve Klepetar
After days of walking, she has come to a palace in the pines, old ruin with green ghost fires dancing in back rooms. And this statue crumbling in the Great Hall— was this the king who desired her, whose lust sent her wandering beyond dunes or diving into salt marsh pools? His dancing maidens have become yellow dust, his horses nothing but bones. Has she been gone a thousand years? When the phoenix rises and dawn blazes in sweet eastern sky, her steps will shine golden above mists obscuring sandy shores of Quail Lake from the covetous eyes of men.
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The Arrow Frog Dr. Steve Klepetar
A frog sits on a lily pad with an arrow in her mouth while the young prince looks confused. Meanwhile the frog, really a beautiful witch under her father’s idiotic curse, explains things patiently as women must in cases like these. “That’s right,” she says, “you really do have to marry me— you shot your arrow right onto my lilypad, and those, boyo, are the rules.” He was upset, of course, worried what his what his big brothers and their glittering brides would say (she’d give them theirs, burnt bread and tiny swans dancing on a lake of wine). For her part, she was satisfied, knew he would betray her, tossing her frog skin into sizzling fire (she could almost smell the muddy burning in this swampy air). But she could see the heart beneath that thick chest, good if not wise, and knew he would wear out seven pairs of boots to find her in that deathless demon’s cave, handsome face scored and shocked by love.
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Nine Days
Dr. Steve Klepetar
I hung in that tree, suffering rough ash scrapes, branches tearing at this wistful skin, birds screeching hymns in my tormented ears. I learned that evening’s lightness is easily borne. I learned the language of leaves, and on the third day I wept for the pale, white eggs that spiders lay. Then it was my turn to shiver in January cold and breathe an air of icy steam. My lungs turned to stone and my heartbeat slowed and my fiery blood congealed. My speech became sap, sticky and hard on my swollen tongue, and I earned the bruises on my arms and shins. Nine times I fell in love with dawn, nine times I cried to feel night’s black silk caress. Nine times I called to eagles and watched their white tipped wings, bodies suspended in swirling currents of air. I dreamed and called out in terror and rage. Nine times I dipped my fingers into flaming springs and learned to utter the ragged sinews of my name. 18
A Garage Full of Lawnmowers Paul Beckman
I stole a package of gum while my mother was paying for her groceries. I was seven years old. I was thirteen when I spotted the bag of fresh rolls and bread the bakery driver had left in the restaurant’s doorway. After that I had fresh baked something every day for breakfast, but not always from the same restaurant. Variety is good. In high school, I worked in the super market and noticed that women leave their purses open in the baby seat of their carriage with coupons protruding while they molest the fruits and vegetables. One wallet a month was my limit. College kids are trustworthy and don’t lock their dorm rooms. Need I say more? Mealtime was always a good time to visit. I borrowed my English professor’s wife and then moved on to the sciences. I worked in the main office and knew when the department heads would be away on trips. They should be ashamed of the personal things they left for people to find. I confronted them directly and extracted something of value—a grade, the use of their car, a little cash—never too greedy. These days, I’m married with two kids, a ranch house in the suburbs and a good job. Unlike my earlier years when I justified my actions by my low socioeconomic conditions—I now just accept who I am.
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Dream Before Sleep
Frederick Pollack
I’m leaving, the rich man (the richest, actually: Dives) subvocalizes, to become Lazarus. His private Artificial Intelligence informs him he’s confusing Luke 16 with John 11. Whatever. As the great door closes behind him, his dependents fold swiftly into one dimension, a point on a screen, which goes out. He admires the profound emotion accompanying the thought They felt no pain. Some workmen are painting his flagstones with a barely material polymer that sheds acid rain. Illegals, they murmur with that famous oldworld politeness. Taking a last breath of autumn, he thinks how they’ll die at their post. As he crosses his lawn, the grass dies. As he enters his woods, the leaves fall, his remaining accounts are liquidated, the liquid flowing into the most arcane of instruments. For who knows? Non omnis moriar, his AI contributes, and translates. An elevator opens in a tree. Dives descends. The tree vanishes. At the end of the shaft lie a bed, a pill, and machines. He wonders what he’ll do eventually with resculpted continents, under clean skies and undoubtedly strange trees. He isn’t worried that others will inherit, or if so that they will have no use for him. For business inheres in number and number in nature itself. I began as a numbers-cruncher, he thinks fondly, drifting off. Start again at the bottom . . . 20
Little Sensation Frederick Pollack 1 I imagine a style, humane, compassionate, almost inhumanly understated, full of immense but negotiable imaginative leaps, saying almost nothing, suggesting whatever is needed. Impeccably liberal-minded, urgent, engaged—well, I said “compassionate.” And the most perfect element of this style would be its unreadability. Not only to those who don’t read, who ask what they’re “supposed” to feel, who never think or say anything that isn’t an authorized abstraction or cliché— no: sophisticates like you, heavy with knowledge and discipline, would find their attention helplessly slipping after a verse or two. What would be interesting would be to know what you, what they vaguely imagine or desire, instead of all this unbearable complexity and passion at their moment of departure. A nap, a snack, beer? TV (the Olympics are on)? No reading ever again? Universal conflagration?
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2 The homeless man now in residence in our neighborhood is squarish, graying, impassive. If you saw him elsewhere you’d think “veteran” first, then “plumber,” or even “contractor.” He sits on a bench by the library, but it’s unclear if he’s reading that thick, coverless paperback or meditating. And he has a base in the triangle, half-waste half-park, at our intersection. Among the trees, he encircled an area with twigs and branches, and planted flags and carefully labeled orchids. One orchid partly bloomed. Above this garden, from a cord between trees hang a bulging plastic bag and a small, red-and-purple teddy bear. It’s better, I think, not to think “madness,” but that sanity shrinks to fill the space provided. It’s also good, if there are homeless in your neighborhood, to remember the gods who used to appear in ancient times. They were good for a laugh. Our minor pity-spasms are like laughter. 3 Doing at 35 what I should have at 16, I sat in a park within sight of the statues of several kings. It was one of those countries where every fountain, tree, pissoir bears a plaque thanking some king. I was reading my guidebook, seeking a restaurant within my budget, where I would sit and read my guidebook,
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as I did every night in every town when the museums had closed. Suddenly a couple at the next table talked to me. Brits, younger, they had been everywhere this side of the Iron Curtain; had made enough in a year in, of all places, Seattle to afford more travel. I was charming. I described the older woman at the Kulturhuset in Stockholm who, lacking another American, had blamed me for the first year of Reagan. “We won’t do that,” laughed the wife, “if you don’t blame us for Maggie.” They were light, neat, bold. I’ve forgotten their names. They made me feel, or perhaps I had always felt heavy. They played off each other in ways that were delightful yet painful to watch; the wife was unbearably lovely. I had been alone awhile, and was traveling alone. The husband counseled me not to despair: he had hope, still, for Mitterand, Solidarity in Poland, Euromarxism. The wife was intensely aware of the Sandinistas and FMLN. I cited, even quoted leftist poets, Dalton, Enzensberger, Cardenal, and impressed as well as charmed them. They knew a restaurant in the dusty, unrecommended district south of the Royal Palace. We met there at eight. The place was dim, almost ruinous, the food the best I had on my travels. There was even a guitarist, playing not for tourists (there were none but us) but himself, in the corner opposite the one in which a cat nursed her new kittens. The wife had changed—spaghetti-straps; the husband also—“Well, it’s a sort of defiance, isn’t it? Of the conditions of travel.” I felt as dingy as the restaurant, yet amused; a supporting role . . . 23
After the rest of the wine we walked the crowded nearby plaza. The wife had been describing her ambivalence about endemic looks and whistles. Comments, pinching, grabbing were definitely off-putting; but stares . . . We decided she should walk ahead ten or twelve paces. In sight, but alone. She became remarkably fearful and flushed, then did it—clutching her purse, the lights stroking the back of her neck, her shoulders tense then relaxed, being bumped but harmlessly, the husband and I talking Marx, she gliding ahead like the prow of a ship, an idea, someone being tailed, or an allegorical figure. 4 Meanwhile, at that restaurant I thought The guitar is like a poet. Someone lightly, fluidly chokes a neck; complaint resounds from the belly. When in disgrace with meanings and ideas, I wish like any Modernist I wrote music. This poem was first entitled “Suite for Guitar,” but that would have been pretentious. 5 Warmer summers have brought strange centipedes, vines, bacteria nort—and this lizard, emerald and purple-black in bands, who is somehow on the porch, tasting air. He’s afraid of the cat, but not of verticals; crosses ceiling and wall with, at each step, the same double writhe, and one wonders he can escape so fast— 24
between the screen and floor, onto the lawn. Where he encounters an uncoiled hose he avoids, the neighbor’s fence, the place where the bird that hit the window died, the mole-tunnel mound, the shadow of a fern. Then scuttles under the brown leaves that have fallen all August. A crow makes a tactless remark from a branch, but the lizard eventually reaches the brambles and brush at the end of the lawn. We think animals live without stories; but what if his stay on our porch was a visit to Hellmouth, his tale of the Crossing still more sublime? 6 I was the sole crew apart from software. So trained and dedicated, so wired and tubed in frozen sleep I too was scarcely human. Beyond the Oort Cloud, the Drive switched on and shit happened. I appeared on a street in my old—childhood, civilian— neighborhood. It’s the guy from the Ship, people said. They were used to apparitions, holograms they could poke their fingers into, but not one that saw them when it spoke to them and, I’m afraid, panicked. When contacted, Mission Control came up with an explanation: quantum entanglement— the effect vastly augmented by the Drive. Monitors showed me 25
aboard, asleep. As to what I should do, I faded before I heard, and when I returned, Houston was gone. I was always a team player, gung-ho for the Mission, and used each epiphany to plump for the Mission, science, and courage. We still don’t know— I can tell from the data streamed through me— if the Planet is inhabited or just could be, but either way it’s vitally important. So stay the course, like I am, I said. After a few centuries, however, I noticed things weren’t changing; were even regressing. Even wars looked personal again. Only ruins were grand. When people saw me they seemed to have to struggle not to kneel. Sure, science, they said. A new start for all of us, they chanted. But really they only wanted to change in ways they were changing—backward. I decided I was the problem, and tried as far as I could to appear only in wilderness or to hermits, their books and cobwebs. Till one day a new Mission Statement, or let’s say a new truth, occurred to me: It doesn’t matter if the Planet’s inhabited or not. There’s a third, amazing, alternative And whenever the Ship let me I sought out people again. But I had become a myth.
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Openings
Rick Hartwell
I’ve been thinking of the vaginal openings in one’s life. There is, of course, birth and the passage through the canal and into the brightening light of life. And one could make an argument that death is the complementary passage to the dimming light of something else. But there are also the numerous ins and outs (pun accepted, intended, but not meant to deflect the reader for long) of life that are also entrances and exits. I think of the initial experiences with acute physical pain, with loneliness, with loss, with puberty, with love, with sex, with work, and many others that are dependent on the vagaries of individuality. All of these entrances and exits form the flux and flow of animate awareness. Truly, they may be “screwed up,” in the vernacular sense of the word depending on one’s reaction to their unpredictable appearance; and, truly, they may impregnate one’s life with joy or sadness, but certainly with the responsibilities, regrets, remorse, and realization that all that remains is change. I mean not to belabor the metaphor that these are all vaginal openings in one’s life, but it seems to be so apt.
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Wet Work
Richard Larson
Bryan sloshed up from the surf howling like a banshee and almost felt bad for scaring the hell out of the young couple sunbathing. He knew he had to look a fright, hair salty and wild, skin emblazoned with a pasty white tank-top and burnt red everywhere else. A real contrast to the lovely girl dropping her novel in the sand and the strapping lad raising both sunscreensmeared hands in surprise. Bryan hiked his tog up off his thigh, exposing the puckered purple welt. “Christ,” he said. “Christ, I’ve just been stung by a jelly. Have either of you got first aid? A kit?” “Oh, shit,” said the lad, running his hand through surfer shag and leaving white traces in it. “No. Kristine, you don’t..?” “Why would I?” the girl demanded. She began fumbling through her bag. “Was it a venomous kind? I mean, should we call someone? I’ve got my phone.” “No, no, I’ve seen this kind before,” Bryan said, grimacing. “Just needs something to neutralize the barbs. Have you got any vinegar? Lord, stupid question.” “Does it hurt very much?” the girl asked faintly. She was staring at his leg, and Bryan had to admit it did look ghastly. “Like nothing else,” he said. “Christ, I never thought I’d say this. Would you consider pissing on it?” The couple exchanged a look. The girl burst into giggles. “I’d much prefer you to do it, but I don’t trust your aim,” Bryan said. “Jack? I told you.” The girl’s shoulders shook with laughter. “God. I told you staying hydrated was important!” “Jack, is it?” Bryan stuck out a hand. “Bryan. Look, this isn’t the usual for either of us, but my leg feels like it’s been dipped in hydrochloric acid and I’d appreciate it not feeling that way. Alright?” “Ah. Good to meet you.” The lad took the handshake and it came away greasy. “Kristine, fuck’s sakes, stop laughing. Just right here? Or where?” “Nowhere else for it,” Bryan said bracingly. He flopped down in the sand and watched Jack’s thumb hook into the band of his togs, pulling away just slightly from suntanned skin. He could practically count the lad’s abdominal muscles. 28
“As long as you don’t peek,” Jack said, half-jokingly. “Not a peepshow, is it?” “God, Jack, you’re a hero,” his girl laughed, climbing back onto the blanket with phone in hand. “This is going on the old Facebook, love. People must know.” Bryan kept still and tried to keep his breathing steady as Jack took a wide stance over him, sculpted face twisted in concentration. His sea-green eyes levelled with the horizon and he took out his cock. Bryan peeked, of course, and it was a gorgeous piece of meat. The burning was a bit upwards and to the inside of his thigh, but Bryan couldn’t complain. The warm spray over his goosebumped leg, a bit just splashing up the inside, had him shivering all over. “Say, what were you doing out there, Bryan? Chilly for a swim.” “Hm? Oh.” Bryan opened his eyes, inhaling the ammonia smell. He found it a bit hard to speak. “Collecting rocks. Left my bag down the beach.” “Feels, ah, feels better?” Jack asked, retying his togs. “Much,” Bryan said, rolling awkwardly to his side. When he judged himself able, he stood up and thanked both of the sunbathers profusely, one hand on Jack’s sinewed shoulder. “No problem, was it?” the girl said. “Can we take a picture with you, Bryan? For proof.” “Why not?” Bryan put himself between the two, wearing a suitably sheepish grin, and waited through several flashes from her smartphone’s camera before exchanging another solemn nod with Jack and skipping back to where his bag had fallen. He checked on his materials. The waterproof makeup had held up pretty well, but Jack’s hot piss had smeared the edges of his welt just a bit. Something to work on. “Anything seem odd about that?” Jack asked, stretching out beside Kristine. “Everything,” she said. The photo of themselves with the sunburned man was stacking up a legion of comments. Jack peered at it more closely and pointed his finger. Kristine leaned in. “Oh, my god. He’s . . .” “He’s got a huge stiffie.” Both looked up, but aside from a seagull picking at the tide, their stretch of beach was well empty.
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Close
John Grey
Your breasts are held up by lingering youth, kisses by the scented breath behind. Your nails are painted purple, taste like grapes to the unwitting tongue. Those clothes aren’t much, a mismatch of hand-me-downs and thrift shop specials, but the woman hidden beneath the sloppy sweat-shirt, tattered jeans, curls up full and new inside my arms, turns ribcage into hope chest. Bodies become blurred, like trees through foggy windows, only we’re inside the glass, we’re the half reflection, half vision, of your unforgettable skin and its tremulous tracing by my fingers. Your hair falls where my face begins. But for my heart, your closeness keeps my details from becoming.
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Two-Tone Frogs William Doreski
Two-tone poisonous frogs hop around the basement offices. They’re scouting for mice to kill with a thrust of a venomous tongue and swallow in a single gulp. Toxic enough to kill a cat or possibly a toddler, these frogs evolved behind the boiler where damp spawns wooly clumps of mold. I usually avoid consulting my colleagues in the basement, but today I need some blueprints so descend with timid steps. A frog as big as a hedgehog challenges for a moment, then leaps with defiant grace, disappears into a yawning storage room, which I would never, regardless of threat or incentive, enter. My colleague’s office features wicker frog traps scattered about. They don’t catch but may deter the green and white frogs bustling room to room in search of prey. My colleague doesn’t worry. They’ve never attacked a human, and shy away when he slings a book or even stamps a foot. I resolve to tread as heavily as I can. When I’m upstairs again I glance out the window where storms bustle in the west. Each looming cloud, prickly with lightning, suggests 31
a giant frog darting many tongues, venomous in several languages, not all of which I can speak.
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Saturday Bean Supper William Doreski
Regular as teeth in jawbones, we citizens sit at long tables with plates of scalloped potatoes, ham, beans, and coleslaw. Above the kitchen window, The Last Supper, hung there by some holy wag, grimaces with impending doom. I’m embarrassed by my appetite for this communion of competing nutritional forces. The crowd fills every seat. The cashbox grins and overflows. Good cause: the local homeless shelter. At the big exterior windows the windy lake slops and slathers. Geese herd goslings through the chop. Whole families bob in the shallows. I clean my plate and prepare my tarnished soul for dessert. My neighbors choose from among half a dozen homemade sweets, each too rich for the human heart to embrace without imploding. I brave something with apples. The old church groans and settles on its stone foundation. Jesus advised building on rock, and so the nineteenth century did. Leonardo’s masterpiece hardly applies to this munching crowd; but I’m glad someone hung that cheap reproduction to remind us 33
how every meal, properly eaten, offers reverence enough to brace us against a thunderous summer breeze and the gloom it rakes on water.
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Elephant Gray William Doreski
Hot day. The smell of blacktop tempers the glare that otherwise would blind me. In a folding chair erected in a parking lot I’m reading Tolstoy to correct my usual fluster of brainwaves and enlighten me. Elephant gray darkens the smoky horizon. Maybe thunder’s plotting to foil me by angling fasces of lightning across the view. Or maybe that wrinkled old color belongs to an alien atmosphere— one that soon will colonize Earth to revise the future. The blacktop, unusually black today, resists and defers my gaze by absorbing so much light that even the casual passerby, the one who waves a mild hello, looks unsteady as a mirage.
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Wandawoowoo Kenneth Pobo
Before kindergarten, I had a fabulous invisible friend named Dun-Dunt. Not being real made him glamorous like a TV character, a glitzy Wally Cleaver. By the time I turned eight, I didn’t abandon Dun-Dunt. He faded away. Guess his show got cancelled. That’s when I met Wandawoowoo. She was real, or so I’m told. There’s a seam between what’s real and what isn’t. I live in that seam. I live in that seam. With Wandawoowoo. Don’t have impure thoughts. There’s no hanky panky except for the Tommy James song which Wandawoowoo can sing so well that Neptune puts her blue face to the window and sighs. Neptune isn’t cold, just lonely. But not when Wandawoowoo sings and sings, and Neptune starts to jig and sass. I ask Wandawoowoo for nothing. She has plenty of that and pours it into my mouth. It tastes like cream of chicken soup. In December. When Dun-Dunt makes crispy eggnog in the kitchen.
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Gerard Manley Hopkins Visits Kenneth Pobo
I’m tongue-tied before my mentor. He shies away when I blurt how I admire his work. Stan suggests a backyard walk. Raspberries redden at the edge. Gerard follows us, timidly at first, starts devouring berries, one after another, mouth runny, shirt red. He praises weeds I’ll pull out tomorrow and bugs, says even the peskiest has a place, slaps a mosquito, looks guilty.
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Greifswald in May Kenneth Pobo
On the pebbly path by the Ryck River, I walk beside canola’s fire. Bikes sneak up, stone pressing on my heels. Apartment blocks, barely gray. Back in the town square, vendors pack up roasted chickens, books, flowers, a red begonia winking, white asparagus, a local delicacy in hornfish season— blue translucent bones hold firm to the fish before giving way.
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Hearing the Music Bill Vernon
A vision made me call the YMCA. I found out the cost, days and times for the dance classes, then at the Catholic Youth Organization meeting that evening described Carol Jean: the way she’d entered my girlfriend Gail’s living room in a full-body black leotard type work outfit, which in public could have gotten her arrested for indecent exposure. The way she’d laid her arms on the couch back, popping her chest way out so that material was almost transparent. I said, “She’s sexier than any movie star.” Without asking what kind of dancing she taught, all four of them, Paul, David, Al and even Norbert, recently drafted into the Army, joined me that Wednesday evening. We doubled the number of Carol Jean’s students so she was all smiles, particularly toward me. My friends went gaga, seeing her in that skin-tight black outfit. We signed up for six weeks of classes, shelling out $3 per lesson in advance for the opportunity to watch and be near her. Carol Jean took our money and names, then addressed her pupils. “We’ll concentrate on slow dances tonight, okay? Jitterbug next week. The prom’s a week from Friday, isn’t it?” She looked at me. I nodded. “Yeah, why?” She smiled. “I’ll get you ready to kick up your heels with my sister. Come here.” I’d forgotten Gail entirely. Carol Jean grabbed me by a shoulder, said, “Get into a ballroom position like us,” then jerked me around effortlessly, putting my right hand on her waist in back. Her left arm went around my waist. “Get close to your partner, don’t be shy.” She pulled me up against herself so hard I felt the hot beating of her heart and smelled strawberries in her hair. I was in love. Over my right shoulder she told the others to tighten up, and her moist breath brushed my right ear like a tongue. Our empty hands clasped and she stretched my left forward. “Like this.” She twirled me around to display our hand holds from the reverse angle. Then she spun me back around and released me so I stumbled away. “Partner up with Sheila, please.” Her breath in those parting words was Juicy Fruit-scented, just like her sister’s. I danced with a tall, gawky tweleve-year-old, then we rotated partners. Periodically everyone was in Carol Jean’s arms, even the girls because, she said, we boys were too stiff. Although men had to lead, my left foot moved when she called for the right. In her arms, though, I could do the box step and the counterclockwise turn almost right. Only once did I step on her foot. Then she said, “Can’t you hear the music?” 39
I looked in her eyes and discovered they were brown. “Sure I hear it. You got a good record player there. It’s plenty loud.” She stared, then nodded and muttered, “Thanks.” Within a second I was with Sheila again. Teaching dance was hard work. Carol Jean’s hair got frizzy and clumps of it stuck up. Huge sweat spots appeared on her outfit. Her red lipstick paled and finally disappeared. She said goodnight to us and told me that, no, she didn’t need help carrying her records and record player. “But thank you.” I thought maybe she was glad to be alone. We five friends sat in Al’s black ‘56 Chevy and waited to see her come out and leave in her ragtop: an old Studebaker with a new red paint job that looked great. A gift from her boyfriend, Gail had told me. I told the guys that as she pulled away. We waved but she didn’t notice us, in shadows in front of the post office downhill from her. Wow,” Norbert said, watching her rear lights disappear. Al, as the captain of our airship, took command of the conversation and wondered how Carol Jean’s boyfriend could control himself. Al said he wouldn’t be able to control himself. She’d be pregnant after the first time they were alone. Paul laughed. “She’d never let you touch her.” “She did tonight,” Al said. “Many times.” “You paid to touch her,” I said from the back seat. Al swung around and looked back through the darkness at me. “Man, I can just imagine kissing her.” There was a chorus of yeahs as we all imagined it. Al said, “She’d be impregnated real quick. I couldn’t stop myself.” Norbert laughed. Al said, “I’d French kiss her for sure, and that’d be it.” Dave said, “Huh?” Al looked glanced into the rearview mirror. “Girls get pregnant French kissing.” “Jesus!” Norb said. There was stunned silence, then laughter. But no one argued. Norb certainly could have. Probably Dave too. They were older than Paul and me. I wondered if Al was serious. I thought he was wrong but I wasn’t entirely sure of the facts so what could I say? French kissing got girls pregnant? That couldn’t be right. While I couldn’t remember one step of the dance lesson, I couldn’t forget Carol Jean ‘s perfume and the way she felt against my body and under my hands. The next five dance lessons were exciting to contemplate. I hoped to see Carol Jean when I picked up Gail for our weekly date, especially next week for the prom when I’d be looking cool in a tux. 40
Capture This Moment Nikita Gill
Fall in love with me a little. And we’ll spend the rest of our years in this afternoon. My eyes will meet yours and look away. My hand will run through your hair and stop. My fingers will find yours and pull away, and then find yours again. We’ll drink coffee and sit on stairs that end too quickly. The sunlight will highlight your profile a little too well. My skin will look a little too luminous. I’m not a poet, my darling. Poets are deceivers through refrain. Instead, I’ll read you speeches from Shakespeare and enthrall you with my ancient eyes. I’m not a poet, my sweet. Poets betray themselves in lyrical verse. Instead, I’ll tell you stories and make you wonder with a voice that will make you drowsy in the winter sun. You’re not a poet either. Poets sing too soon with no music. Instead, you ebb your emotions through your musician’s fingers on methodical frets. You’re not a poet either. Poets layer emotions through hollow words. Instead, you amaze me with your wine rich voice and eyes that speak volumes. We feel different this afternoon. Even when we are who we were two days ago. You’re new to me and I’m new to you. I’m not a poet, darling. But forgive me these words . . . Fall in love with me a little. And we’ll spend the rest of our years in this afternoon.
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Table Man
Melodie Corrigall
Gillian wasn’t a practicing Christian but she thought Jesus, had things been different, would have made a loving husband. Always a good sign when a man is close to his mom and Jesus’ mother wasn’t the only Mary who thought he was great. So when she saw the ad, Gillian was captivated. “I can’t walk on water,” it read, “But I’m up to the mark in other ways. My calling starts with a C.” Table Man Obviously it was from a carpenter who wasn’t pretending to be Jesus but did aspire along the God is Love line: a sort of latter day hippie. Table Man obviously specialized in tables, who knew what kind? Modern or rustic? It set Gillian to wondering whether Jesus had built tables or chairs. She immediately responded to the ad and as quick as fast sealing glue, she and Table Man, happily from the same town, had set up a meeting at a local café. They arrived within minutes of each other and settled at a corner table. After a discussion about bus schedules, he blurted, “I bet you’re an Au woman not an Ag woman. ” Taken aback by his opener Gillian replied with her planned witticism, “Here you are Table Man at a table.” “Speaking of tables,” he replied, “my favorite is the Periodic. Is it yours?” Taken aback by the turn of events, Gillian grasped for a response. Risking a rift so early in the relationship she opted for honesty, “No, I prefer constants—like the Times Table.”
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Roses Are Red Leah McAllister
Roses are red Violets are blue I can't believe I've fallen for you How can something this wrong Feel this right This forbidden love Keeps me awake at night An aching love A one way street In pain I think of you and weep Its seems like It was meant to be But couldn't it have happened To anyone but me I pick up my blade And sit in sorrow Maybe for me there will be no tomorrow But I put it down And shake my head I've been down that road I'll just sit here instead I can't stand the emotion Building inside I can't stand this devotion I'm lost of all pride I always thought That feelings were wrong It wasn't right To be up all night long Emotion leads to rejection And rejection to depression My breaking point hit I left my feelings in question But my mind was changed 43
When you walked in My heart stopped And my strength wore thin I've done it again Just another illusion Of what used to be love And is now just confusion I despised the thought Of loving you But other times I just wished You would love me too I tried time again To rid of the feeling That I might really like you My heart you were stealing But what hurt the most Was the anticipated rejection Knowing you'd never like me back Time to end this love session I'd never tell you I like you That my heart’s in repossession 'cause its just my crazy mind Filled with pointless aggression To the point of no return Butterflies haunt me So I go down on my knees And frantically I start to plea Lord set me straight I just wanna see clearly How could it be That this is the real me I'm fighting these feelings I find deep inside me Love, hate and fear, Please God help me Its all to much Put me back in my shell All these emotions It feels like hell I'm done with this Lord I need to be with him But this is just ridiculous love's a stupid superstition 44
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Biographies John Biggs is a broad spectrum fiction writer with about twenty short stories published online, in print magazines, and in anthologies that vary in genre from Horror to Western fiction, to literary mainstream. In 2011, his slipstream story, "Soul Kisses" placed third in the annual Lorian Hemingway short story contest and was subsequently published in The Storyteller, and in Pantheon. His Native American literary story, "Boy Witch" was grand prize winner of the 80th annual Writers Digest competition. John's first novel, Owl Dreams will be released by Pen-L Publishing in September of 2013. A second novel is currently underway. You can learn more about him on his Facebook Author Page: John T. Biggs, or his website, http//www.johnbiggswriter.com Dr. Steve Klepetar teaches literature and creative writing at Saint Cloud State University in Minnesota. His work has appeared widely in the U.S., Canada, and in the U.K., France, Israel and India. Sweatshoppe Publications recently released his latest book, Speaking to the Field Mice. Paul Beckman is in the real estate game and is a frequently published author of short stories, flash and micro fiction. He's had two print collections published as well as a novella, several stories adapted as plays, been in several anthologies and his work has been published in England, Australia,Germany, Canada, Sweden, the Netherlands, India and New Zealand. He's been a multi-time nominee for a Pushcart Prize. Some publishing credits: Exquisite Corpse, Connecticut Review, Soundzine, 5 Trope, Playboy, Web del Sol, Long Story Short, Pure Slush, Other Voices, Raleigh Review, Connotation Press, Microliterature, The Molotov Cocktail, The Brooklyner and The Boston Literary Magazine. Frederick Pollack: Author of two book-length narrative poems, “THE ADVENTURE” and “HAPPINESS”, both published by Story Line Press. Has appeared in Hudson Review, Salmagundi, Poetry Salzburg Review, Die Gazette (Munich), The Fish Anthology (Ireland), Representations, Magma (UK), Bateau, Chiron Review, etc. Online, poems have appeared in Big Bridge, Hamilton Stone Review, Diagram, BlazeVox, The New Hampshire Review, Mudlark, etc. Recent Web publications in Occupoetry, Faircloth Review, Camel Saloon, Kalkion, Gap Toothed Madness. Adjunct professor creative writing George Washington University. Poetics: neither navelgazing mainstream nor academic pseudo-avant-garde. 46
Rick Hartwell is a retired middle school (remember the hormonally-challenged?) English teacher living in Moreno Valley, California. He believes in the succinct, that the small becomes large; and, like the Transcendentalists and William Blake, that the instant contains eternity. Given his “druthers,” if he’s not writing, Rick would rather be still tailing plywood in a mill in Oregon. He can be reached at rdhartwell@gmail.com. Richard Larson was born in West Africa, has studied in Rhode Island, and at 21 now lives in Edmonton, Alberta, where he was a semifinalist for the Norman Mailer Poetry Prize. In 2011, his novel Devolution was a finalist for the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. His shorter work has since been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Journey Prize, and appears in Word Riot, decomP, >kill author, Bartleby Snopes, Monkeybicycle, Prick of the Spindle, The Molotov Cocktail, SF&D, The Journal Of Compressed Creative Arts and many others. Find him at Amazon.com/author/richlarson. John Grey is an Australian born poet. Recently published in International Poetry Review, Chrysalis and the science fiction anthology, Futuredaze, with work upcoming in Potomac Review, Sanskrit and Fox Cry Review. William Doreski lives in Peterborough, New Hampshire, and teaches at Keene State College. His most recent books of poetry are City of Palms and June Snow Dance, both 2012. He has published three critical studies, including Robert Lowell’s Shifting Colors. His essays, poetry, fiction, and reviews have appeared in many journals, including Massachusetts Review, Atlanta Review, Notre Dame Review, The Alembic, New England Quarterly, Worcester Review, Harvard Review, Modern Philology, Antioch Review, and Natural Bridge. Kenneth Pobo had a chapbook published in 2012 by Finishing Line Press called Save My Place. Forthcoming from Eastern Point Press is a new chapbook called Placemats. Bill Vernon served in the United States Marine Corps, studied English literature, then taught it. Writing is his therapy, along with exercising outdoors and doing international folkdances. His poems, stories and nonfiction have appeared in a variety of magazines and anthologies, and Five Star Mysteries published his novel OLD TOWN in 2005. Nikita Gill is a 25 year old madness who once wrote an unknown book called Your Body is an Ocean and is now editor of a literary magazine called Modern Day Fairytales. A long time ago, she wrote a single line story for Monkeybicycle.net and was featured there. 47
Melodie Corrigall is a Canadian writer whose stories have appeared in Bartleby Snopes, The November 3rd Club, FreeFall, Six Minute Magazine, Mouse Tales, Subtle Fiction and Switchback. She can also be found at http://melodiecorrigall.wordpress.com.
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