Upload
ssmalmia
View
18
Download
0
Embed Size (px)
DESCRIPTION
Stepping Stones Magazine is web-based journal showcasing poetry, short fiction, visual and audio art by artists of all skill levels. Whether you’re an author, who publishes regularly, or new to the craft, this is the place for you.
Citation preview
Stepping Stones
2010 - 2012
Best of
Dedication
To the authors and artists, thank you for creating magic with your words and pictures. To the
readers, thank you for inspiring us to continue to mine for gems that sparkle on the page. To
the editors, thank you for being the glue holding it all together.
Contents
Stepping Stones Magazine
Best of 2010-2012
PublisherTrinae A. Ross
Poetry EditorsHeather Lenz
Lisa J. Alexander
Fiction EditorNicole Turiano
Art EditorAshlie J. Pollard
Website Addresshttp://ssmalmia.com
The Best of Stepping Stones
Magazine 2010-2012 (ISSN
1092-521X) is a special issue of
the best works appearing on
the Stepping Stones Magazine
website, as voted by its read-
ers. Stepping Stones Magazine,
the editors and the publisher
assumes all work appearing is
the original work of the named
author and assumes no liability
for plagarism on the part of the
author. No part of this maga-
zine may be reproduced with-
out permission of the author or
publisher.
copyright 2013
Stepping Stones Magazine
Poetry
01 In My Mind I see Us As One
02 Outcast
03 Death of a Student
04 For Sylvia, Broken
05 Do Not Linger
08 Blowing Kisses to Star-Marked Backs
09 December 2010
10 In Lak’Ech
11 Morning Haze
12 New York
13 Stanzas on Poetry
16 The Japanese Word for Heart and Soul
17 Without the Tambourine
18 Radio Waves
19 Reading Her Body of Skin
22 Spotlight: Jasmin May Smith
29 Lying Next to Giles Corey
30 Eight Stories
31 Just for Now
32 Whaling
36 Spotlight: Lorraine Tolliver
47 Spotlight: Scott Owens
Fiction
06 Prozac Ice Princess
14 Bookworm
20 On My Way to Dying from Dehydration…
26 Survival Skills
33 Mary and the Walrus
35 Goodnight Minnesota
40 Visitors
42 Mr. William Sanderson Strikes for Home
i
Poetry
01
In My Mind I See Us As OneStuart Sanderson
In my heart, love would flow endlessly towards you
In my eyes, I see beauty surrounding and brightening the world around me
In my ears, I hear her voice talking to me for never ending.
The nights would be sharing
Our lives come together and dreams for a better tomorrow
Yet in my reality I see a new friendship coming towards me
And nothing more.
Yet I accept her friendship with an open heart with love and tenderness.
I hope she accepts my friendship with an open heart.
In my reality.
Poetry
02
OutcastP. Mari
How can I stare back?
Your soul looks at me
into a reflection of its
own grave –
A deep-chill in my eyes
freezes your words
And there is a knife in my
hand
ready to rip open a warm
heart
(Now both of us can bleed)
ove dies a wounded outlaw
–
It flees
Poetry
03
Death of a StudentElise M. Tobin
The snow reached up from our walkways
four inches, eight, ten, a foot
cartwheeling in behind other storms of this season,
grief on the palms of its hands,
tumbling, touching everything:
mailboxes, phone lines, cell towers and now collapsing
his young skull, springing him from his seatbelt
to land on salted asphalt. Snow filling his wounds—
the bloody original
gone. gone. gone.
So we each pick up shovels
to knock down this reaching snow
to build damp alleys
to let the grief walk
casket-wide—
with winter walls on either side,
two feet of fresh powder
topping brown and ivory strata.
Marking and marking storms past,
like the height chart still on his wall.
One foot, two, three feet, four.
Six foot two when the pavement came up.
We pray for no more storms this season,
for the gods, for Christ, for the groundhog
not to shake and send us further
into the beyond.
We walk alone
behind, in the casket’s path,
like a comet’s tail
waiting for the light of the sun
to melt a wider way.
Poetry
04
For Sylvia, BrokenKori Frazier
(Stephanie Baniszewski – October 26, 1965)
In my arms you are
dwindling, as if life
has mass and you exhale it
out. Your waxy, matted
hair sticks to my wrist, the bruises,
burns rough, abrasive. A vessel
of glass shards rattles in your chest.
Everything has gone
to black, you said, then
nothing, and I knew—
[Mother, stop. Please.
She isn’t faking.]
I think of us in swirling nightgowns
you singing about those thousands
of stars, smiling closed-mouthed
to hide a missing front tooth—
Hold onto me, honey.
You’re almost a ghost now.
Poetry
05
Do Not LingerRev. Judith Mensch
Do not linger long under the stars
Do not imagine yourself to be any other
Place except where you are
Do not let the breeze of night carry your
Heart to places you’ll never see
Hopes you’ll never know like you know
The hard ground your feet stand on
Stars can trick you into believing there
Is life in the dark
No, let those breezes make you shiver
Make you crave the warmth of hiding
Let the stars go
Fiction
06
Prozac Ice PrincessMatthew Dexter
We were watching my best friend’smother skate a circle eight across theentire length of the ice when we lost
count around three hundred and twenty-two.She twirled from one corner to the next like aballerina, dancing like a fairy on the tips of hertoes. The little children feared her, but she ma-neuvered effortlessly around them, cautiouslypeering over her shoulders, and no major colli-sions ever came into fruition. There were minorones on rare occasions, but nothing significant.
“I’ve been walking these streets at night…just trying to get it right…it’s hard to see withso many around…you know I don’t like beingstuck in a crowd…and the streets don’t changebut maybe the name…I ain’t got time for thegame…”
Her name was Nan Myers, and of course, weall knew who Nan Myers was because she wasunforgettable, most fascinating to gossip aboutand her children got suspended from the clubmore than anyone in its hundred year history.Her behavior was out of the ordinary and shewas an American outlaw. People like her onlycome around your town once every century.
“Just a small town girl…living in a lonelyworld…she took the midnight train going any-where…”
We threw a couple tennis balls at her, butthey missed and she flashed us a wicked glancewhile skating backwards. The balls bouncedacross the ice toward the boards where theyrebounded and rolled back across the rink andwere picked up by small children–toddlersholding onto orange cones and upturned plas-
tic garbage cans for balance began falling ontheir snow-covered rear ends like dominos inan attempt to pick up the balls between bladesas sharp as machetes.
“A singer in a smoky room…a smell of wineand cheap perfume…for a smile they can sharethe night…it goes on and on and on and on…”
It was a general skating session, whichmeant that people of all ages could be skating.No hockey, no pucks, no tennis balls permit-ted–just eighties love ballads blasting from thespeakers and a crazy lady who came every dayfor exercise and to inadvertently petrify thechildren. Nan Myers was always listening toheadphones, and Jesus only knows what cas-sette tape she was listening to (Devil music afew mothers said). But those headphones werelike earmuffs and that Sony Walkman was like amagic carpet ride to another planet.
“Some will win, some will lose…some wereborn to sing the blues…oh the movie neverends…it goes on and on and on and on…”
She skated lost in her own mind, often withboth eyes closed, yet always cognizant of othersaround her. Those were her mandatory safetyobligations, since she used the entire surface ofthe rink at random, not flowing in a clockwisemotion around the perimeter like the rest ofthe skaters, nor in the center circle designatedfor figure skaters. We would often practicecrossovers around those red face-off circles inthe corners, but nothing as ambitious as NanMyers’s skating sessions. They were a spectacleto behold, beautiful and dangerous at the sametime. You couldn’t help but hold your breath asshe floated across the ice like a ballerina oncrystal meth. She would skate in torn off denimshorts with the threads crawling down her legs
Fiction
07
like hungry spiders, as if she was a young AndreAgassi on ice, or Tanya Harding on crack andwhiskey.
“Don’t stop believing…hold on to that feel-ing…streetlight people…”
We waited for her to finish as the sun wassetting. She finally sat down on the woodenbench next to us, stretching out her sweatylegs, and started unlacing the laces. She wasblowing humongous streams of smoke throughthe cold December air, and steam was risingfrom her shoulders. Her figure skates werewhite with worn dark scratches in a few placesaround the heels and toes. God only knowshow many years she’d been abusing thoseskates, but they must have traveled thousandsof miles on that frozen surface; a Zamboni’sworst nightmare for more than a decade. AfterNan Myers finished an ambitious figure skatingsession you would have figured the ice had justexperienced a pee wee hockey game. She dugthe chiseled tip of her skate into that ice with acrack more powerful than any ice pick.
“Times have changed and times arestrange…here I come, but I aint the same…”
She took a sip from her homemade waterbottle, changed her sock, and put her tennissneaker on as she unlaced the other skate. Shewas sweating on her forehead and her cheekswere flushed a brilliant shade of pink. Wewaited and Elijah told her to hurry up.
“Come on Mom,” he said. “The movie startsin half an hour.”
“I’m going as fast as I can,” she answered.And that was true about Nan Myers; say
what you will about all her peculiar behaviors,she was always going as fast as she could, evendriving. Two and a half minutes later we piledinto her blue Chrysler station wagon and buck-led our seat belts–a procedure I rarely did withmy own mother–who drove just as fast though
perhaps a little more angry and cautious.
“You took me in and you drove me out…
yeah, you had me hypnotized…lost and found
and turned around…by the fire in your eyes…”
The smell of Nan Myers’s car was more po-
tent than the pervasive yeasty scent on the
New Jersey Turnpike. The smell was foreign, not
familiar like the Jersey smell we all got used to
as the years wore on and our accents got uglier
and the air quality poorer. I often enjoyed the
dirty Jersey yeasty odor, and inhaled it deeper
than oxygen, as I did with gasoline, breathing it
into my lungs like a toxic hit of euphoria.
“Huuuuufffffffffff…,” I held my breath for as
long as I could. “Ummmmm…”
“Bakery…”
We parked in the no parking spot in front of
the Tenafly movie theatre but needed Nan
Myers to buy us our tickets, because she was in
her thirties and the movie was rated R.
“Two for Basic Instinct,” we told her to say.
The clerk took her bill through the hole in the
bottom of the window and filled it with more
bills, coins and two tickets. We took the tickets
and went inside. Unbeknownst to us Nan Myers
had decided to park the car and purchase an-
other ticket. She sat near the back of the the-
atre a few rows from the exit. We noticed her
two hours later when we were walking out and
she was sitting there smiling at us with her box
of butter-salted popcorn on her lap.
She looked at us particularly strange and
salacious that evening. Even the Halloween,
Jason, and Freddy Krueger movies we rented as
usual made me fear the image of Nan Myers
with the butcher knife nonetheless more than
the blades on the bottom of her figure skates.
2012 Pushcart Prize Nominee
08
Blowing Kisses to Star-Marked BacksKarlanna Lewis
Bind me fine in the other side of the mirror
for seven years. Break the glass so I can’t escape
the realm where loss is what you make it, where the man
you slept with once or tried to plant a kiss on sideways
could be your shepherd, if you wanted. And I do, I want
back every seventies High Times cover on the wall,
every aging olive-tin lying tongue-out on the floor
where we sat because it was cold and the dogs barked
through our fingers because they knew our kind,
because even though I never stayed till the other side
of night on the flannel heater, on stale sheets, I keep flecking
at this unscabbed sore, this chipped tooth that never
snapped. And I know who got the short half of a smoke
on the bed. It was me, not the window that didn’t shut.
2012 Pushcart Prize Nominee
09
December, 2010Stephanie Kaylor
This is the month you would haveturned two if what the doctorsaid was true
if I hadn’t thought my freedommeant a world alone, without you
but I went to the clinic thatsticky summer day, its windowscovered with grey cloth, blockingthe sun from further ripeningthe pungent blossoms who walk in.
It was not a child that left mygaping body, but my childhood,all the frivolities and daydreamsI wanted to have in your absenceleaving my womb one piece at a time.
The roses bloomed all around meas I waited for his car to pull over.Neither of us spoke the entire rideback, the smoke of his cigarettedancing to our thoughtstoo raw for any tongue
and I knew as he left meone last time at my mother’sdoorstep that he never would havebeen good enough for you tocall him Daddy, but justthe two of us would provideeach other all the love we neededin this world I took you away from.
But Isobel, you came out strong,for you only lost but once whileI still feel the knife every day.
10
In Lak’EchDylan Amaro-McIntyre
I am Smoke to flame. Flame to spark.
Slow burningSince past livesDanced out of deathTendrils curling twistedAs train yard hieroglyphs
I am the only song leftThe plumed quetzal pluckedFlying into Northern horizonsFor the very first time
I am grooves in desert stonesThat still remembers rainfall
I am the call of guerilla poetribesChameleoning their wayThrough a concrete creationismOf past begotten privilege
Spray painting acrylic answersTo questions society asks
I am fireside chants and dancePulsating heartbeat rhythms
I am original sinThe first taste of knowledgeSevering mankindFrom a blissful futureOf not knowing any better
I am the Ceiba Tree on fire
I am char. I am soot. I am splintered wood.I am memoryForgotten
I am
2012 Pushcart Prize Nominee
2012 Pushcart Prize Nominee
11
Morning HazeAlyson Hess
Fog creeps in quietly,
to smother the coming light of day.
Only the tops of cathedrals
and old redwood trees
escape its murky grasp.
The grass perspires,
anxious that the sun
will lose. Trees in the distance
stand still and dark
as the ghosts in your dreams.
A bird cries somewhere,
looking for its home.
You sleep
because you’re afraid to wake.
2012 Pushcart Prize Nominee
12
New YorkJoshua Bauer
There is a fence in Greenwich Village
Where the poets hang
Their small ravenous hearts of paper.
There is no better place to start.
Actually we stayed in New Jersey
Maybe that was our first of many mistakes
But you found a hell of a deal at the Ramada
And it’s easy enough to take the bus.
We walked all over that city.
My memories look like those famous photos
In which everything is very bright and out of focus.
We were walking in and out of every open door
and I told you the thing I am most scared of
That strange jabberwocky movement of the subway
We both laughed at Alice so wide-eyed, so naïve.
I wanted to know everything about you.
I want you to know I was sincere then.
Times Square at night darts
at the back of my eyelids.
I know I will dream of you.
2012 Pushcart Prize Nominee
13
Stanzas on PoetryJoseph Hart
Rhythms, stanzas, meters, short or long,
Blank or rhymed – all fodder for the Muse -
Elements to make a living song -
Chaos and insanity refuse.
8 or 10 or 14 lines or less -
Or longer when I would indulge my soul,
Exhaust a thought or simply to digress -
Or play like a comedian a role.
Properly rhymed stanzas for dead mourners -
The Muse in meter – Housman was the Prince -
Or ragged rhythms flowing around corners -
That was Poe – and none has done it since.
Rhythmed versicles, bad rhymes, alive,
Whose meanings pierce the heart with metaphor -
Dickinson who lived to 55
Closeted alone behind a door.
Magic sonnets – Shakespeare, Keats, Millay -
Ace of poetry – I cannot write them -
Invented for great geniuses at play -
I lack the skill, the brain that can indite them.
My notions and my feelings not consummate
Expressed in magical archaic fluff,
From a cliff into the ocean plummet -
With that said, I think I’ve said enough.
Fiction
14
BookwormWilliam Doreski
They met for coffee almost every after-noon. She liked to talk, he liked to listen.He pretended her voice reminded him of
wind chimes. He knew it was an ordinaryvoice, but it resonated in his loneliness, andsometimes he heard her in his sleep.
“My husband’s travelling again,” Lynn said.“He sells guns, you know. I’ve told you. ForColt, in Hartford. I wish he’d find somethingelse, something a little more constructive. Butyou guys like that bang bang stuff.” Like a rac-coon clutching a corncob, she held her coffeecup in both hands.
Nick leaned back in his chair and smiled. Hislife in the bowels of Widener Library didn’toffer much bang bang, only dust mites and oc-casionally, in the more remote stacks, aglimpse of sultry graduate-student sex.
Lynn went on. “Jimmy makes a lot of moneybut he doesn’t enjoy it. Never has time. Hewants a bass boat, wants to fish the Ever-glades. Imagine spending a month every sum-mer down there with the hurricanes andsleazy motels. I couldn’t take the mosquitoes.Big as June bugs. Besides, what would I do?Jazz in Miami’s pretty shopworn. Strictlytourist stuff.” Lynn photographed jazz musi-cians, but whether that was a hobby or a liv-ing Nick didn’t know.
They’d met like this for a year, ever sinceNick had attended the opening of a show ofLynn’s photographs. He had liked the darksurly faces glooming over their instruments,and fueled by cheap white wine had told herso. Nick admired Lynn’s sleek confidence, her
seamless body and bright expression, but he’dnever mess around with a married woman.They seemed too experienced, too sly. Notsexually—Nick had been around, he sup-posed, as much as most guys his age. But mar-ried people knew all about being married, andhe couldn’t compete with that knowledge. Be-sides, for all her glib conversation Lynnseemed remote as an asteroid. Sometimesshe looked right through him at something faraway, at the vanishing point.
Summer dropped a stratum of humidityand smog on Cambridge. The heat stifled eventhe slowest movements. Traffic sobbed downthe avenue and snarled. The stale library airreeked of farts and perspiration and rottingleather bindings. Heather, the head librarian,simmered like an old steam boiler. All wintershe had smiled at Nick, but now she gloweredfrom her glass cubicle as he arrived for work,and again when he retired for the day. Hesank under armloads of unshelved books andalmost wept with frustration. His shirt stuck tohis back.
Edna, his co-slave in the reshelving depart-ment, offered a paper cup of water. “Takeyour break. Meeting your friend today?” Ednahad already worked ten years past retirementage, and looked ready to work another ten.The heat didn’t bother her. Nothing botheredher except unshelved books, which she hated,and reshelved as violently as possible to pun-ish them.
“I don’t know. I like Lynn, but what’s thepoint?”
“The point? Guy meets girl. They like eachother. You need a point?”
“Come on, Edna, she’s married to a guy
Fiction
15
with a good job. I’m just a horny bookworm. Ishould get my MLS and get out of this hole.Maybe if I saw more daylight I’d feel less like azombie.”
Edna sighed. “Just get out and get someair.”
Nick crossed Mass Avenue, plowingthrough a fog of bus exhaust. The storefrontsglowered and the gleam of plate glass hurt hiseyes. Among the outdoor coffee drinkers atAu Bon Pain he saw Lynn staring into space,waiting for him. What did she want, anyway?Why waste her time and his? He turned leftinstead of right and hoped she hadn’t seenhim.
A week later the phone on level six rang.Someone at the circulation desk wanted Nick.No further explanation. He climbed the rack-ety metal stairs, sweating up six flights, andemerged like a coal miner from the depths.Lynn stood at the turnstile. No Harvard ID, noentry.
“Lynn, what’re you doing here?”“What do you think? I thought you were
sick or dead or mad at me. What’s going on?”“Nothing. I just—”“Nick, come on. Outside. I need to tell you
something.”As Nick hesitated, Heather swooped from
her cubicle and bore down on him like a cruiseship on a rowboat. “For heaven’s sake, Nick,she’s trying to tell you something. Go some-place private.” Heather smiled that dragonsmile he hadn’t seen for months.
Nick and Lynn sat on the library’s massivestone steps. Summer school students flickeredpast, chatting in bright colors. They looked tooyoung for college, too energetic to sit still inweepy classrooms.
“Nick, my husband. He… well, you know,
Nick, I really like you.”
Nick went a little cold despite the stifling
heat. Had this gun salesman found out about
their silly little trysts and threatened her? Or
him? Shot dead on the lowest level of
Widener. He would become a ghost story to
titillate generations of future students.
“He… well, he doesn’t exist. I mean not any
more. I’m not married. I was, but that was a
while ago. Just one of my little failures. I just
thought I’d tell you.” Lynn stood and the
faintest breeze ruffled her plain brown hair.
“Just thought I’d tell you. If you wanted to
hear.”
“Why did you….” Nick didn’t want to say
“lie” so he shut up.
“I just wanted to see how loyal you were.
Just wanted a friend. You wanted something
else, so you got bored, right?” She didn’t
sound like chimes anymore. She sounded like
she was crying a little. “You just got bored and
didn’t want to talk to me anymore. So you
didn’t show up. Just didn’t show up. Men are
like that. Little boys. Can’t talk to you. Only at
you. And you don’t want to hear.”
Nick leaned into his folded arms. Bored?
What did she mean? Anything but bored. But
he couldn’t compose a response if he had a
lifetime to think about it, and already the mo-
ment had passed. When he looked up, Lynn
was striding across Harvard Yard. Thunder
grumbled a thousand miles away. He stared as
hard as he could, but she couldn’t have felt
anything because she didn’t look back. Some-
where, probably in the belfry of Memorial
Church, real chimes sounded. Three o’clock.
Nick rose and returned to his unshelved
books.
Poetry
16
The Japanese Word for Heart and SoulRichard Fenwick
The wind reveals itself in eddies,
bending fields of parachute balls to the east,
that burst apart and float through the air
like a million milky helicopters.
I write and revise in quiet interludes,
follow trails that lead to larger fields
with granite rocks that I can lean against
to think of what she is to me.
We’re circles within circles, sky
and earth in one blue blur, laughing
over the smallest things: Christmas lights
in August, who will eat the last
tangerine in our green bowl, the dew
that seeps against our sandals.
At that, I think I’ll throw in the towel –
I have no way to properly describe her.
What I’ll do is draft one random thought:
I’d write ten thousand poor lines of poetry
before I captured her kokoro,
and by this rock, in this empty field,
with parachute balls floating all around,
I’ll sit awhile longer, to begin the task
of writing.
Poetry
17
Without the TambourineJane Stuart
This year I wrapped your birthday presents
using ribbon but I forgot you did not want any bows
and very pretty paper I bought then saved
for special occasions. You were dropping cards
on the table, you could not find one you liked
and so I asked: the pink and white, the purple,
or that green paper over there? another card?
A little gift-wrapped up somewhere,
all the beauty I could find and what I thought
you’d take but you did not want gifts this year
because you wanted something I
could not find for you at the store, you said,
and what was not available was not there.
It’s tough when life does not turn out
(if you don’t get your way) but love is not like that,
I said, and that made you mad.
I did not have plane tickets or a ship or plane,
I did not own an island, I had no forest to give away
..and all that jazz.
Sometimes, we have to see in empty pockets,
sometimes we come up short or there is..
only love.
You left, I stayed alone to mop the chili off the floor,
pick up the eggroll you put in my chair,
and nix the hot tamale.
It wasn’t right but you declined the birthday cake
I made and because you’d reached the age of indecision
you said it was your birthday but you were
too cool to care.
Poetry
18
Radio WavesJackson Burgess
When I extend my inner antenna
and fine tune to the station of divinity
I don’t even get white noise static anymore.
Not like the old days—
then, perpetual bubble wrap ruckus whisked me away
on my never-ending search for self-appreciation.
Jesus wept over my inhibitions
but he forgot to flush my fears
out of existence, so, as recompense,
I’m putting away my radio for a long time.
Maybe now I’ll hear my heart beat.
I’m tired of these cookie-cutter faces
with their stainless steel teeth and
silicone breast extensions invading my vision.
I need them to go away.
I’m lonely without my imaginary lover
and now that I’ve coughed up my conscience
I’m not so sure I’ll be able to fall asleep.
Flickering streetlamps and fireflies are
the only things that remind me I’m alive.
To test out my abilities, I’ll double knot my legs
right before I fall asleep
so that I’m chased by the monsters
I met last Sunday.
They’ll probably give me a head start
but unless I’m quick on my feet
they will catch me
and they will not let me go.
Poetry
19
Reading Her Body of SkinRichard Fenwick
She walked in the room
with a Bilgere book, curled up beside me
on the sofa, laid her head in my lap
and slowly turned pages as I tried to read
a paper, studying my face like she was
inspecting my blueprints.
All I could think was that love isn’t static,
it’s a place where we learn to read
one another, to flip through our pages
wary of content and style, plot lines
and archetypes, nouns and verbs, trying
not to read between the lines and drafting
rainy passages together on those days
when tears get in the way.
When I read her, I’m careful not to skim
over paragraphs, break bindings or smear ink.
I love her foreword, dedication, signed
inscriptions and how she introduces characters
in my life. When I reach the epilogue,
I flip to the index to find my favorite passages
and prepare to read her all again.
Our dénouement came that afternoon,
in a lightly lit room, on a thin red checkered quilt,
when I found a way to read the softness
of her skin, and the insistence in her voice,
making sure I marked my place in the middle
of chapter three.
Fiction
20
On My Way to Dying of
Dehydration in My SleepJenny Ortiz
We’re on the F train, on our way to
a wine bar somewhere on De-
lancey. I haven’t told him I don’t
drink wine and when he says, “If you like this
place, I can take you to another place I
know… maybe sometime next week,” I real-
ize I haven’t told him I’ll be in Iraq. On the
train he talks loudly and his eyes are focused
on the windows, making sure we don’t miss
our stop. Although the AC is on, he’s sweat-
ing. I can smell it and when I look at him,
there are beads of perspiration above his lip.
He’ll be the last man I sleep with before I
leave. I chose him at the party I’d been to a
few days earlier because he reminded me of
Adrien Brody: tall, long, and the way he
stood with a slight bend forward reminded
me of a sexual proposition. I wondered what
he would think of me if I simply asked him to
skip the drunken courting he had in mind
and go to his place to fuck without the AC on
and then order Chinese takeout, something
spicy with cashews. I’d turn on my iPod and
play Spinnerette’s Ghetto Love, while he’d
open the window, letting a light breeze
sweep in and pick up the smell of our sweat
and his dirty sheets.
I go to tell him my plan, but a little girl gets
on the train and sits across from me. The
train car feels small and even whispering
sounds like yelling. The little girl is given a
piece of chicken, white meat, by her father.
The fried skin makes her small fingers greasy
and she takes large bites, leaving her cheeks
bulging and her chewing slow. She reminds
me of when I was a little girl and my father
used to take me on train rides. We’d travel to
Brooklyn to visit my grandmother; sit around
a small television, yelling the wrong ques-
tions to the answers on Jeopardy!
The little girl is still eating the chicken
when we get off. We head to the wine bar
where he orders a bottle of wine for the both
of us and I ask the waiter to bring me tap
water. I think of the girl and how I should’ve
asked her for some of her chicken, or at least
where she got it. When will I eat a big piece
of fried chicken in the next couple of
months? My dad told me that when he’d
been in the army, a guy he knew stole a
whole slab of bacon from the mess hall. Was
going to eat it raw had my dad not convinced
him he’d get sick. They were in Germany and
it was snowing. While my dad cooked the
bacon in the guy’s helmet, the guy went off
to steal a loaf of bread. They finished off the
bacon and cleaned the helmet with snow. I
wonder if the guy smelled like bacon the
Fiction
21
next day. I wonder if it ever gets cold in Iraq.
I take a sip of wine, but I don’t taste the
subtle notes and stick to my tap water. Dad
has told me that while I’m over there I
should keep myself hydrated and keep my
boots dry. He didn’t mention anything about
keeping my gun clean, but has told me to
keep mace under my pillow and to pee in my
helmet at night. He told me this while we
watched M*A*S*H together. As my date
pours himself another glass, I imagine he is
Adrien Brody, and rather than explain the
wine to me, he is telling me war is kind and
you just have to stand on your mark. Even
with the explosions all around, if I stay on my
mark, I won’t get hurt. Before I left on my
date, my dad was putting on another episode
of M*A*S*H and I told him that Adrien Brody
would make a good Hawkeye. My dad
laughed. I laughed too, relieved.
My brother’s angry with me, although I
tried to explain to him that war’s the best
route for me. My father has said it’ll keep me
tight lipped and I usually tell him to shut up,
but then I apologize because everything’s dif-
ferent now. My brother told me war, espe-
cially for a girl like me, isn’t the way they
make it out to be on TV, but my father said
for some people it might be. I asked what
does being a soldier feel like and my dad
said, “You tell me. Aren’t you one?” But I
don’t feel like one. Maybe it’s cause I’m in
civilian clothes, and because I’ve been away
from the base.
But even then, I feel like I’m pretending.
Like I’m a female version of Alan Alda, hold-
ing a martini glass filled with water and
wearing a dirty robe asI pretend that there’s
fighting going on outside my tent.
All the people in my unit will be real sol-
diers, afraid of Iraq because Iraq means the
possibility of dying. I told my father I wasn’t
afraid of dying and asked him if that made
me a bad soldier?
He told me it made me a good soldier, but
a stupid person. I told him I could live with
that. I didn’t tell him I was afraid of killing
someone, or worse, of someone dying next
to me. A soldier who was a father, who was a
husband, who was a son. I didn’t tell him be-
cause he was laughing at something Hawk-
eye said and I too wanted to make my dad
laugh, but I’m bad at jokes. My brother as-
sured me my sense of humor wouldn’t get
any better, but my father told me it’ll get so
good, I’ll be the only one laughing.
My date asks me what my plans are for the
summer. I take another sip of my water. I
imagine I can taste the residue of the pipes.
Spotlight... Jasmin May Smith
22
Free to RoamJasmin May Smith
At ten years old I was free to roam
To be one with the land
To see beyond the mind set
To explore behind exploration
At twenty I was blind sighted
I was lost in the world
Of which 1 once explore
I knew not where to turn
Where to roam for I was a prisoner in my world
At forty, my life began to transform to greatness
I was back to exploring
Roaming as I please
Yeah this time I was wiser had a sense of me
And I know how to be free
Spotlight... Jasmin May Smith
23
I WantJasmin May Smith
I want to set my foot out my room
Put on some running shoe and run a mile
I want to breathe the air of a sweet sea breeze
To catch that breeze on my lips and let it kiss me
I want to be free to flee
To leave my mind
To leave me
I am tired yes, I am
I want to love
I want to fight
I want to set my feet on heaven grounds
To give I life
I want to settle on a bird nest and joining them
In the singing of their songs
24
Spotlight... Jasmin May Smith
Summer RageJasmin May Smith
The summer pours its rage on my back
The day stops at the point that
If a volcano interrupted
It makes that one difference
My lips had dried up
The water from my eyes burry deep inside
Not a shred of spring had past me by
The fall
Its colorful ways
The beauty of its stage
Call me crazy
Call me weird but my swear is that this summer
Has become my greatness enemy
Spotlight... Jasmin May Smith
25
UntitledJasmin May Smith
Look at me
I’m living in that ghetto fighting my way
To prosperity
I am trying to hold onto sanity
For insanity is in love with I
If I lie I will fall
If I sleep I will waste tomorrow dreams
if I play then a reward will never be mine
To find my way it a hassle
It’s a war
Never thought my world would be this dark
Wakening up no food in my belly
I pray that one of these guns shots I hear will seize I
But that just a moment of insanity speaking
Success is mine to hold
Never a day go by that I will waste on yesterday lost
To know me is my goal
To be strong
To win this war
To roll down my tears off my cheeks and smiling is my hopes
My future is mine
Time is beating down my door saying I am fooling myself
But I know that my tomorrow tell no lies
Fiction
26
Survival SkillsJean Ryan
Iwant to come back as a plant. A life aboveand a life below. No thinking, just finding.Water, food, light.Maybe not a redwood; that’s a long, long
life. A sunflower might be fun. One sturdy stalkzooming skyward, pushing fuzzy heart-shapedleaves, and then the grand finale: a giant yel-low flower brimming with seeds. The ending anoffering, a promise kept. Half a year on earthand not a single wasted moment.
My brother doesn’t drive anymore. When herides with me I find myself driving more cau-tiously: hands on the wheel at ten and two,eyes scanning left and right. Every block or sohe glances up, then jerks his head back down.His hands, jammed in his lap, rub against eachother constantly. He is trying. A few monthsago he couldn’t get into a car. Couldn’t even saythe word.
An accident, that’s what most people think.No. Nothing happened―at least nothing we’relikely to understand. There he was driving towork, normal as you and me, when somewherein his brain a pair of neurons fired and doubtwas born. Had he hit someone?
He checked the mirrors, turned around, cir-cled several times. Nothing in the road, but hecouldn’t be sure. He may never be sure again.
Locomotion. That’s our problem. If westayed in one place we could grow unerringly,drinking the rain, absorbing the sun, pulling infood with our feet.
With a brain you get options, illusions, sec-ond guesses, mistakes. One trifling incidentslips into that gray jelly and just like that you’re
hardwired for trouble. Everything is a matter ofassociation and interpretation; the margin oferror is incalculable. The fact that we can’t seethe forest for the trees doesn’t make muchsense, considering what we have to work with:The human brain is so disproportionately largethat as infants we can’t hold our heads up.
The reason we need a brain that big? Lan-guage. Our crowning achievement. We areword wizards. Not only can we learn any num-ber of words, we know how to string them to-gether so that we may comfort or seduce,cajole or deride, inspire or coerce, inform or in-flame.
Double talk. Slander. Fine print. Filibuster.Language may be getting the better of us.
Wendy Mack, my nearest neighbor on thislake, has given up the spoken word. No onearound here has heard her speak since the dayher daughter died, two years ago this June, of arampant staph infection. She lost her mind,people said, snapped like a twig.
Aside from Wendy’s silence, she seems nor-mal enough to me. Sometimes she brings mecuttings from her garden, sometimes a basketof tomatoes. I just nod and smile and take themfrom her, figuring that if she’s not talking, she’snot keen on listening either, at least not towords. Every so often I walk across the tall grassthat separates our houses, and we sit in thewicker chairs on her porch and watch the set-ting sun turn the lake to copper, and listen tothe crickets and leopard frogs, the occasionaljumping trout, the buzz of a dragonfly. Lift awaylanguage and you hear all kinds of things.
Kris, my daughter, has no patience forWendy. “What is she trying to prove?” sheasked me last week. “What’s the point? It’s like
Fiction
27
she’s trying to punish someone.”“Who knows?” I said. “Maybe she’s punish-
ing God by not using the gifts she was given.”You’ll not believe this but Wendy used to be amotivational speaker. She lectured all over thecountry and wrote four books—two of thembestsellers―on how to rouse yourself. I havean autographed copy of her first book, YES YOUCAN!
Oddly enough, on the opposite shore of thislake, in a yellow house directly across frommine, lives a man who speaks volumes. Hisname is John Dalrymple and he used to teachChaucer and Shakespeare at Northeastern Uni-versity. I’ve always been impressed with hisprodigious vocabulary, which he still happily ex-ercises, though his sentences are now indeci-pherable. Several months ago John fell out ofhis hayloft and smacked the side of his head ona horse stall. When you ask him how his wife isdoing, he is likely to say something along theselines: “Oh yes, the more the better. One daysoon. Biscuits with blackberry jam.” I have noidea if he understands the words that flow outof him, but he seems remarkably at peace.
Plants communicate with exquisite subtlety.If a tree on the African plain is being ravaged byantelopes, it will send a chemical signal to itsneighboring relatives. Instantaneously theseother trees will begin manufacturing more tan-nins, just enough to render them toxic to theherbivores, who, in their own canny way, willseek an alternate food source.
In response to beetle attacks, a conifer willrelease wads of resin, embalming the maraud-ers. If ground ivy loses its shade, it quickly getsto work toughening and thickening its leaves.
Whatever happens—floods, droughts, bugs,
beasts―plants are always making corrections,becoming the best they can be.
“Why do you think you hit someone?” Iasked my brother.
“I saw a shadow.”“Maybe it was a road sign, or a passing bird.”Eric shook his head firmly. “I felt a bump
under the tires.”“Probably just a pot hole or a frost-heave.”“No. It didn’t feel like that. It was more than
that.”“But you went back and nothing was there,
right?”He didn’t answer, just glared at the floor, his
mouth set in a grim line. I had no idea at thatpoint just how often we would have this ex-change, or how much time he would start tospend on these frenzied searches. That Ericnever saw any bodies in the road did little toreassure him. Maybe, he reasoned, the victimhad crawled away. Maybe another motoristhad stopped and picked him up. Maybe an am-bulance had already come. Was that a siren inthe distance?
Dysperceptions are what they are called:sights and sounds the brain creates to confirmits greatest fears.
Field dodder cannot afford doubt. A leafless,thread-like vine, unable to make its own food,it snakes through garden beds, ambushing theinnocent. With no energy to spare, doddermust be swift in finding a proximate host in ad-equate health. The wrong choice, a moment’slag, and the vine perishes.
And yet dodder is next to impossible to kill.“Devil’s Hair,” gardeners call it. Yank out thethin yellow strands and the smallest remnantspersist. And forget about saving the strangled
Fiction
28
host—a prize dahlia, say; the poor thing is al-ready gone.
In college I had a roommate who was afraidof wind. Breezy days would turn her wide-eyedand quiet. Gusty days she took Valium andstayed indoors. Gale force winds would chaseher under the covers, where she hugged herknees and moaned and cried. Naturally, Icouldn’t use the fan I had brought from homeand had to keep it out of sight.
There is a word for the fear of wind. Ancrao-phobia. In fact there are names for nearly anyphobia you can think of: otters, garlic, knees.There is a fear of beautiful women. There iseven a fear of sunshine.
What a comfort for the afflicted, to see theirillness respected with a name. I’m glad thatsomeone is keeping up the list.
Orchids! Over 25,000 species in the wild andeach one fabulous simply because it managesto exist.
The quickest route to extinction is cross-pol-lination; to avoid this threat, each orchid vari-ety seduces a particular insect, bird orbutterfly, offering up whatever scents orshapes or colors the creature craves. An orchidpollinated by a hummingbird is likely to havered tubular flowers filled with nectar, while anorchid fertilized by carrion beetles comes inshades of brown and smells like rotting meat.
Imagine being that sure of yourself: Sweet orstinking, you claim the right to be here.
We spook too easily, a throwback to thetime we were prey. Nowadays this hair-triggeralarm is more trouble than benefit, but there itstill is anyway, lodged deep within the brain,steeped in ancestral memories.
The truth is, our noggins are still evolving.We can’t help it that we see a stick and think:snake! 3000 years ago the brain’s hemispheres
were not even integrated: one side “spoke”and the other side listened. Which goes a longway toward explaining all those oracles andtalking gods.
My brother began calling hospitals to ask ifany accident victims had been admitted. Whenhe started phoning the highway patrol, severaltimes a day, he wound up in a rehab centeroutside of Boston where he stayed threemonths in a sage green room, eating nutritiousmeals and learning ways to calm himself. Be-cause his fears began behind the wheel, that’swhere they launched his lessons. “Car,” hewrote, over and over, filling pages of a legalpad; then he had to say the word; then he hadto look at pictures of cars; then he had to carrythe pictures in his pocket, and so on. Believeme, it’s been a long journey to the passengerseat; I couldn’t be more proud of him.
Bull’s Horn Acacia is a tree in South Americathat sports giant hollow curving thorns. At-tracted to these formidable thorns are stingingants who drill their way inside and take up resi-dence. If a branch is disturbed—typically by de-structive leaf-cutter ants―the stinging ants willrace out of the thorns and sting the attackers todeath. In return for this service, the tree pro-vides its defenders with shelter, nectar and, asif not forgetting anything, tiny protoplasm-richnodules that ensure complete nutrition.
If we ever saw the big picture; if our mindscould accommodate, even for a split second,the terrible balance of life on this planet, wewould surely be frightened out of our wits.
No way are we ready for custodianship.So, plants. No brain, no fear. Just the urge to
grow. The right to be here. I’d love to comeback as a lilac, but a stinking orchid would beokay too.
2013 Pushcart Prize Nominee
29
Lying Next To Giles CoreyDonald J. Barrow
I said, “Wait, let’s go running naked through the woods.”
“No” you replied “what if others see”
Then, right then, I should have fled from you…
before the daily bills, before the children’s suck, before the
tarnished coffee cups,
before our story pages structured, confining, crushing,
heavy, unhappy book…. a lifeless tale… oh, “poor players.”
I should have ran that naked day, lungs bursting, soles
bleeding, the low pines striping
I should have fled- alone- from all of you.
2013 Pushcart Prize Nominee
30
Eight StoriesJackson Burgess
It’s warm on my tongue like the
blood slipping down your throat,
even though you tried your best to
let it coagulate before the fall.
Empty in your heart and your promises,
you must have tripped over your old
unfulfilled virginity—and as for me?
I’m content to sweep the chalk dust
from tall doorways. I’ve been with you
since patriarchal death dances, since the
breeding rituals practiced by drunkards, since
suicide note courses and shotgun conventions,
and while you might not have recognized
my gaping eyes among the masses, be aware
that you were silent. The least you could have done
was tried to talk me down from the fall.
2013 Pushcart Prize Nominee
31
Just for NowSandra H. Bounds
A tiny thing,
this girl child of mine.
I hold her and rock her,
croon and whisper to her
in sweet mother language
as I marvel at the utter perfection
of fragile fingers curled trustingly
around just one of mine.
I watch her,
letting my gaze linger
from softly crowned head
to pink soles
of happily wriggling feet.
I gave her life,
and for just a moment,
she is mine to love,
she who is so vulnerable,
so dependent on that love.
Just for now, she is mine,
but already
I plead for courage
to love enough for letting go.
2013 Pushcart Prize Nominee
32
WhalingElise M. Tobin
With frost the ladybugs become
a shape-shifting wound
covering the southern side
of our white stucco home.
Their molten collection
brings them into relief.
Stubborn dozens slide inside
surviving in the fireplace,
the dining room,
the darkened wardrobe;
crawling over the one tie left behind—
left ready with its double wide windsor
and little white whales—
left ready for a train, a date, a neck
to choke, to match
the fury of Ahab,
a woman scorned,
a woman who will crush the whales
beneath her pegs
and kick the creatures
through open screens.
But my legs are tissue,
and heart just as thin,
so I’ll live within the wound,
and rock in the belly of this house
until the scab flies off
and leaves my toughened skin
at the gate of a winter
no whale could survive.
2013 Pushcart Prize Nominee
33
Mary and the WalrusKarlanna Lewis
My father is a walrus,” Mary was con-vinced. Each day, when classes let outat exactly fifteen minutes past three,
she tied a length of polka-dotted ribbonaround her schoolbooks and trekked to theBloomsberg zoo. “Your father is not a walrus,”her mother repeated each morning, as shespooned two level dollops of oatmeal intoMary’s favorite orange bowl. But Mary in-sisted, to any seventh-grader at BloomsbergJunior High who would listen, that her father,in fact, had tusks.
When she was not looking at the walrusswim through the granite caves, Mary waslooking at the pages of books. “Did you know,”she often inquired of her mother, “that thewalrus prefers red algae to green?” And soonMary was asking for red food coloring in herpeas, as her walrus blood gave her strongaversions to the bitty green globes. “Did youknow,” she would begin over dinner, “the wal-rus is a close relative of the cactus and octo-pus?”
“The vitamin and mineral levels of cactusare superb,” answered her mother, the nutri-tionist, who soon began to serve cubed cactiwith cumin once weekly. After reading Underthe Tuscan Sun, Mary strongly believed thesun was a giant burning walrus, tusk-en andgolden, and she was sure this was her father’sGod. Since her mother was more concernedwith the caloric content of goat’s milk and themerits of one bleach over another, Mary tookup the religion of “Walrusism.”
At Mary’s parent-teacher conference, allthe faculty of the school expressed concern.“Mary is a bright girl,” hemmed and hawedthe biology teacher, “but she is misunder-
standing one of the basics of mammalian mat-ing. That is, Homo sapiens does not mate, andnever has mated, with Odobenus rosmarus.”
“Mr. Heeby,” interrupted Mary’s mother, “isthat a particle of a curly fry caught in yourmustache? Fried food is one of the worst cul-prits of heart disease, and I think you woulddo well to abstain from such indulgences. If bi-ology is the study of life, you must really showthese students how to live wholly and health-ily. Mary, you know, has never eaten a curlyfry.” Mr. Heeby fiddled a bit with his mus-tache, which was neither wide nor full enoughto hide the tickle of pink that crept into thefolds of his cheeks. He had been meaning toshave his sideburns for a long time, andwatching Mary’s mother adjust strands of herhair behind her ear, he thought now might bethe time. Her horn-rimmed glasses, whichframed her deep, slate-grey eyes attractively,made Mr. Heeby feel inferior. With some mut-terings of “Well, I suppose you know best,” hequickly ended the meeting.
When Mary came home from the zoo thefollowing week with a package of curly fries,her mother sat her down for a lecture. Thetalk lasted the better part of an hour, and in-cluded the words betrayal and disappoint-ment at least five times each. But when Marycame home a week later, with two piercingsabove her lip holding thin, white bones, hermother washed out the pans and laid millet &cauliflower casserole on the table without aword. “She’s an odd one,” said her nicer class-mates. “Yeah, but exactly ‘one’ of what isshe?” replied those not as nice.
Mary began offering tours to her classmates,who joined her in watching the great grey ani-mal circle its aquatic dome. The zookeepers be-friended Mary, and asked her if she might liketo conduct “Walrus Observations” on Satur-
2013 Pushcart Prize Nominee
34
days. “My father,” her talks began, “is a walrus.”They wrote up an article on Mary in theBloomsberg Gazette, titled “Walrus Child: AtHome in the Dome.” Her mother, who wasbusy advising the town’s mayor against eatingprocessed corn, did not notice as Mary car-peted her room with dried seaweed. She alsodid not notice as Mary brought home drift-wood to surround her bed, and painted thewalls a deep cerulean blue. And when Marytraded her wooden desk for a rusty anchor andiron chest, she noticed nothing.
“Please,” she began one Saturday, “help mebring my father home.” Three hundred andtwenty-nine local children signed a petition,and they began planning. Eight-year-old Ezra,whose father owned a fishing supply shop,brought the biggest net in stock. After nine,when the zoo closed, three hundred andtwenty-three children (six were home sick)snuck past the lion, past the giant tortoise,and past the gobbling turkey. They set up aladder against the walrus’ cage, and Maryclimbed up. She lassoed the net around thewalrus and caught him up. “Oooooeeeeee,”he bellowed. “He said his name’s Huey,” inter-preted a young boy with a feather in his cap.
Seventy-four kids yanked on the net atonce, and sent Huey flying up over the rim ofthe glass. As fast as they could manage, themob of kids pulled Huey back to Mary’s bath-tub, which was overflowing with salty waterand padded with a sandy bottom. Shethanked each of the kids with one of hermother’s carob and rice milk “Oreos,” and bel-lowed “Ooooooeeeeoooo, long live the Wal-rus!” The kids threw fist pumps and tiptoedhome, while she sat on the lid of the toilet,teary-eyed and gazing at Huey.
“Excuse me,” interrupted one boy with par-ticularly long arms and legs, and what resem-bled black lip-liner at the corners of hismouth. “I have been wanting to meet you.You know, my mother was a squid.” In the dimlight of her bathroom, Mary’s tusk-bonesglimmered. “Why should I believe you?” sheasked finally. Her round eyes were half closed,and she rested an elbow on Huey’s back. “Be-cause my mother was a squid,” the young boyanswered seriously. He flapped his arms andsquirmed his legs, and she realized that he satthree seats behind her in biology. Mary could-n’t remember if his name was Kurt or Squirt,and so she looked at his pitch-black eyes andtried not to think about the dark trail squidsleft, or how it felt to swim through warm ink.
“Did you ever look on the other side of thewalrus cage, and see my mother?” he asked.She hadn’t. Mary had no idea they kept asquid in Bloomsberg. “Let me kiss you on yourtusks,” Kurt or Squirt pleaded, and Mary,though she had never been kissed before,knew she had to say yes. His two dark lipstouched each of her tusks, before they movedto her mouth, filling it with ink. This was hisproof, his squid liquid swirling over hertongue, and this is exactly what her motherfound when she walked into the bathroom.
“The zoo called,” began Mary’s mother, notlooking at any of Mary, Kurt/Squirt, or Huey,but at a place on the shower rod above theirheads. “They want their walrus back.”
“But Dad belongs with us,” retorted Mary.“Your father was not a walrus,” sighed her
mother, removing her pristine glasses, obviouslyexhausted. Mary’s lip quivered and she fiddledwith her two semblances of tusks. “Your father,”her mother looked far away, her face cloudingand eyes glistening, “was a manatee.”
2013 Pushcart Prize Nominee
35
Goodnight, MinnesotaMichael Warne
Istared at the clock flashing 11:22 with tiny
red fingers as I heard the door open down-
stairs, and slam shut against the winter
wind. I wrapped myself in blanket, covered my
head and buried my face into a tiny space be-
tween pillow and cold wooden nightstand.
‘Is the door locked?’ I heard a voice ask.
I felt my skin wet and warm against the blan-
ket. I rubbed the sweat from my head, felt a
curl of hair and wiped it away from my face. I
lifted up the covers and welcomed the fresh air.
‘Seattle?’ I asked.
I looked over to the window, rubbed my eyes
and let them focus on the girl leaning against
the windowpane. I got out of bed, the blanket
still wrapped around me. I walked over to her,
my little feet cold against the attic’s floor, and
wrapped my fingers around a little silver latch.
The window opened, a cold breeze blowing in,
falling across my face. I shivered.
‘Minnesota,’ she said, then went quiet, star-
ing at the stars in the night sky.
I looked at them for a while, too. Pitch black
outside, except for a few doorway lights blink-
ing on and off. I knew enough to know it was
cats, not ghosts.
‘Minnesota,’ she said again, trailing off into a
whisper, ‘I still can’t believe Dad named you
that.’
I looked up at her. She looked angry.
‘Name me after a city,’ she said, and
propped her legs up against the side of the
window, ‘and you after a state. What a fucking
good father he is.’
Her boots shined in the moonlight, brown
leather coated in something, clean as the day
she’d gotten them. She reached into her pocket
and took out a pack of cigarettes, glanced at
me, and put them away.
‘Did you remember to lock the door?’ She
asked.
‘Yeah.’
I yawned.
‘You’re still sleepy.’
I managed an ‘Mhmm’ and wrapped the
blanket tighter around me.
‘Come on, sit beside me.’
She sat with her legs over the ledge, dan-
gling above the roof below and patted a hand
against the window sill. It sounded hollow, like
it had been eaten out by something. I hopped
up anyway and gestured to wrap her in the
blanket.
‘No, it’s yours,’ she said.
I leaned against the wall of the window and
looked up at the stars.
‘What’s up there?’
Seattle dragged a finger across a patch of the
little lights.
‘Well, there’s one. Ursa Major, I think.’
‘What’s Ursa Major?’
She looked at me.
‘Well, I think it’s a bear.’
I strained my eyes, tilted my head one way
and then the other.
‘Doesn’t look like a bear.’
‘You have to learn to connect the dots. See,
2013 Pushcart Prize Nominee
36
that one is the end of the tail, and those are
the legs, and the one there is his nose,’ she told
me, pointing to one, then another, then an-
other. But I couldn’t follow. I sighed and let my
eyes drift.
‘You’ll get it one day. You’re still too young.’
‘My eyes are tired.’
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘just as tired as mine used to
be. But they’ll adjust. And then you’ll see.’
I wrapped my arms around my legs beneath
the blanket. I didn’t want one of my feet to ac-
cidentally slip.
‘Why did you run away?’
I looked at her and felt as if she might look
back. But she didn’t.
‘Was it because of Dad?’
She stared at something distant without
blinking.
‘Was it because Mom left?’
Still, nothing.
‘Seattle,’ I whispered, ‘why did you leave?’
She looked at me for a moment, stared into
me. Not into either of my eyes, but past me, at
something buried in the back of my brain.
Something I couldn’t quite remember.
‘I was afraid,’ she said finally. ‘I was afraid of
Dad. I left to find—’
She stared out into the distance again.
‘Who were you looking for?’ I asked. ‘Was it
Mom?’
I could see her face quivering, her lips shake.
‘No. You know as well as I do Mom isn’t out
there.’
‘Do you want the blanket?’
‘No,’ she said again. ‘You know as well as I
do—’
She looked at me, a tremor in her arm this
time.
‘Was it Granma?’
She reached out to touch me, held her hand
a moment away from my cheek, then drew it
back and smiled, tears forming in her eyes.
‘Yes,’ she said, her body as still as the cold air
now, ‘it was Granma and Granpa.’
I breathed in, drew my lips into a circle and
let my breath escape slowly. In the darkness, I
think I could see the tiniest of ice crystals form.
‘Minnesota,’ I heard her say, ‘don’t follow in
Dad’s footsteps. Don’t drink a drop, okay?’
I let my eyes rest, kept them closed, feeling
the cold paint chips like egg shell on my cheek.
‘Okay.’
‘And take your time while driving, okay?’
I yawned through my throat, keeping my lips
shut and letting the warm air flow out my nose,
fill my ears.
‘Mhmm.’
‘And don’t leave the house at night, okay?’
I sucked a tiny patch of saliva from the cor-
ner of my lips back into my mouth.
‘Come back home soon, okay?’
‘Minnesota,’ she said, fainter now, ‘I love
you. It’s time to close the window now, morn-
ing’s coming. I love you. I love you.’
And as I closed the window with my eyes still
shut and walked into bed with my eyes still
shut and drew the covers up to my chin with
my eyes still shut, I thought about how much I
loved my sister too.
‘Seattle,’ I whispered, ‘I miss you.
Spotlight... Lorraine Tolliver
37
The VisitorLorraine Tolliver
Most generallyhe can be thought ofas far off somewhere,taking care of business.His work is notpaid much attention to,except in occasional news flashes.Brushing up againsthim personallyis to be avoided if possible.Usually, he’s an undesirable,unsociable loner.But thenas time goes bysuddenlysomething becomes suspect.A presence is felt,inching right up,moving right in.Uninvited,he’s come to visit.Backing away doesn’t help.He’s staying.He’s strange, but oddly companionable.He can edge in closeand dissolve into specks——into the flow of things.He shatters himself apartand scatters throughout the house.He has not come without intention.He has chosenthe one he will take.
That one he intimately embracesinvades, enfeebles, and claims.When his victory is complete,the house is speckledwith this guest Death.In one corner, he has crumpleda life into his being.He will gather himself againinto a solid form of tearand move on.
Spotlight... Lorraine Tolliver
38
Big AirLorraine Tolliver
I know you big air.
You hold knowledge
writhing within your bonds.
You speak all tongues
and hear the unspoken
as it spins through
your silent chambers.
Beyond DeathLorraine Tolliver
Out of the sharp tunnel of first knowledge,
out of reach of the bloody blades
that chop loved ones into the grave,
I am trying to emerge
into a soft and benign expanse
which includes and mutes earth’s harsh identity
into translucent outlines
and permits the worried solid self
to accept cold but comforting accountability.
Spotlight... Lorraine Tolliver
39
Fiction
40
VisitorsLynn Beighley
Martha and Bruce spent the morning
cleaning the house. They were ex-
pecting another couple, Jack and
Susan, to spend the day visiting with them out
by the pool. They tossed shoes into closets.
They vacuumed cat hair off the furniture. They
gathered glasses from various rooms and
washed them. They shared the house with a
cat and dog. They were comfortable with a cer-
tain level of clutter and cat hair, but they as-
sumed that visitors wouldn’t be.
“Maybe they’ll cancel,” he said, with a flat
tone.
“Not likely. Anyway, we need to get this
place cleaned up, might as well finish now.” She
sighed and reached for the bleach spray.
Eventually Bruce deemed the house clean
enough and they went outside to the pool to
wait for Jack and Susan, who arrived an hour
later.
Martha was floating on a raft in the pool re-
laxing in the bright sun. She had a plastic glass
full of beer and a book. Their dog, a white Ger-
man shepherd with one floppy ear circled the
pool, waiting for a chance to give her a lick
when she got close enough to an edge. Bruce
was tapping a keg of beer.
Jack and Susan let themselves in. Jack imme-
diately removed his shirt and sandals and dived
into the pool before Bruce even realized they
had arrived. Jack swam to Martha’s float.
Martha was always attentive to Jack. Bruce
would watch Martha’s face when Jack told sto-
ries. She focused on him to the exclusion of
anyone or anything around her. She would quit
drinking and moving. Sometimes she didn’t
seem to be breathing.
“You splattered my book!” Martha pre-
tended annoyance, but she wasn’t good at it.
Bruce could see that she was enjoying Jack’s
presence.
“Why are you reading anyway? Come swim
with me.” Jack started shaking Martha’s float
until she was seriously in danger of falling in.
She laughed and broke away. She paddled to
the side of the pool and deposited her drink
and her book. She slid off the float in to the
water.
Bruce and Susan were chatting about the
weather, the pool temperature, and the beer.
He poured her a glass from the kegerator. Every
few seconds Bruce’s glance would slide from
Susan to Jack and Martha.
“Jack, come get a beer, man,” Bruce said. He
could see Martha frown for a second as Jack
climbed out of the pool.
A few clouds drifted by. The four of them
swam, rested, and drank. The conversation
shifted to politics, not a subject Jack and Bruce
could discuss without arguing. Martha winced.
“I’m telling you, they shouldn’t recall him at
all. The voters elected him. It’s like on your
wedding day saying you can always get a di-
vorce if it doesn’t work out.” Bruce folded his
arms.
“But Bruce, how can you not vote for
Schwarzenegger? You can’t tell me that you
don’t think he’d do a better job than Davis? Es-
pecially since you know he’s going to work as
Fiction
41
hard as possible so he can jump to the presi-
dency next?”
“Jack’s got a point,” Martha interjected.
Bruce didn’t seem to hear her, but began to
argue more loudly.
She and Susan started talking about how
stubborn men were. They both spoke loudly in
an attempt to distract Bruce and Jack. The dog,
lying near the kegerator, lifted his head up.
Jack didn’t reply to Bruce’s last point. Instead
he was staring at the corner of the patio.
“Look at that,” he said. “There’s a rat!”
Martha inhaled sharply. Susan and Bruce
stared at it. Martha didn’t want to see it, but
paddled over.
“I think it’s trying to get dog food,” Bruce
said.
“I can’t believe it. I’ve never seen any rats
here before.” Martha’s hand was covering her
mouth. She could see it now. It wasn’t that bad.
It was small for a rat, light grey and almost
cute.
The rat stood very still for a few more sec-
onds. Instead of making a run for the dog food
or leaving, it stared back at them. The dog no-
ticed and ran after it. The rat dove off the edge
of the deck.
Martha, Jack, and Susan began trading rat
stories. Susan talked about having kept a rat as
a pet, and how affectionate and smart it was.
Jack told a story about shooting rats with a b-b
gun when he was in high school. Martha and
Susan made noises of disgust, but laughed at
Jack’s exploits. Bruce was quiet. His face was
slightly flushed. He got out of the pool and wan-
dered to where the rat had been. It was gone.
“It’ll be back,” Bruce said. “I’ll have to set up
a trap. I can’t poison it because the dog might
eat it.”
Martha ordered some pizza. When it arrived,
Bruce answered the door and paid for it. When
he came back out, Martha was leaning on a
lounge chair with Jack sitting at her feet. Bruce
asked Martha to help him with plates. As she
got up, Bruce saw Jack’s hand brush her foot.
After the visitors left, Bruce and Martha
cleaned up. Bruce talked about the rat and tried
to get Martha’s opinion on how to deal with it.
“I think it’s gone now. It probably won’t
come back,” she said. “The dog scared it off.”
That night, Bruce heard the dog barking as
he brushed his teeth. The next morning, Bruce
put on his swimming trunks and went out for a
morning swim. The dog was standing on the
other side of the pool and didn’t come over to
greet Bruce. Bruce could just make out a brown
furry lump that the dog appeared to be guard-
ing. He walked around the pool and discovered
the body of the rat. The dog was sitting next to
it. It looked unscathed but unconscious. He
prodded at it with his foot. It appeared to be
dead. He picked it up by its hairless tail. Holding
it at arm’s length, lips pursed with disgust, he
walked over to the garbage can, opened the lid,
and let it fall from his fingers. He made certain
that he had put the lid back on securely, in case
the rat wasn’t really dead.
When he went back upstairs, he washed his
hands and told Martha that he didn’t want to
have Jack over again. Martha nodded, but
Bruce could tell that she wasn’t listening.
Fiction
42
Mr William SandersonStrikes for HomeRebecca Burns
Some things could no longer be denied. His
horse was lame. For the last three miles,
Albert had stumbled over uneven, black-
ened grass, hooves gamely picking out a line
towards the brown dot in the distance. Up
ahead, the homestead stood silent on the
plains, tranquil against the purple sky. A faint
light flickered in an upstairs window: a tell-tale
line of smoke oozed from the chimney stack
like sweat beads on smooth skin. Mr William
Sanderson had been mesmerised by the
smoke’s languid movement, his aching, travel-
worn thighs relaxing against Albert’s flanks.
Now, as Albert tilted awkwardly from side to
side, Sanderson sighed and suddenly became
conscious of the evening air, still and dry. It had
drawn an unnoticed, unsightly sheen from the
skins of both horse and rider, and they shone
like the faint light in the distance. Although
Sanderson had removed his corduroy jacket
once on the trail and fully out of sight of the
town, the heat on this New Zealand evening
was still suffocating. His riding boots, newly
purchased and once proudly gleaming, were
dusty and heavy on his feet. Albert grunted
painfully beneath him. With a resigned, almost
bitter glance at the companion riding alongside
him, Sanderson reined the horse to a halt and
dismounted.
Marama also stopped, watching his fellow
rider dismount with interest. The Maori’s
brown skin seemed clear of sweat, a fact that
did not escape Sanderson as he wiped perspi-
ration from his own brow. Perhaps Marama’s
unspoken but determined insistence to ride
with bare arms had saved him from the op-
pressive heat. His inappropriate garb, though,
put Sanderson’s teeth on edge. Thank good-
ness, we are some distance from decent
Christchurch company, he thought. He tried to
recall the studied luxury of the bank’s waiting
room, recently visited, while the evening
breeze whipped through the tussock grass. But,
deep leather seats and shiny mahogany tables
did not rise up in his memory: instead, a mud-
dled collision of silk, red lace, brass head-
boards, and oiled, naked skin reared in
unwelcome, though not unpleasant remem-
brance. For a second he was sure he could de-
tect a faint whiff of perfume in the night air.
And, even as he tried to recall the austere
frontage of Harding’s Bank which dominated
the dusty high street, the grey brick seemed to
crumble and give way to the darkened door-
way of Miss Swainson’s boarding house. Snug
down a side alley away from the main street,
Miss Swainson’s bolthole was a velvety secret,
and her girls had been welcoming and waiting.
The muscles in Sanderson’s thighs tightened
again. Calm yourself man, he thought sternly. In
a couple of weeks, I can make my excuses and
justify another trip into town. The bank would
probably want to see the station’s accounts
anyway. He told himself that, in the meantime,
the station and husbandly duties would quell
his needs. But only just. He looked away from
Marama’s naked skin. A gruff order for the
Maori to cover himself was on his lips, but he
Fiction
43
gulped it back, unsure of how Marama would
react. Instead, he ducked down to stare at Al-
bert’s leg.
“Go lame, eh?” Marama said suddenly, his
quiet low voice carrying in the stillness. A faint
blue line creased in his chin as he spoke and he
reached out to caress his own horse. “We ask
too much of our beasts, Mr Sanderson.”
He supposed a gentleman would make con-
versation, even with a native, but Mr William
Sanderson felt in no mood to talk to this un-
welcome interloper. He hadn’t asked Marama
to join him: circumstances beyond his control
had forced them into companionship. And now
he was expected to give the Maori shelter
overnight on the station, maybe for a few days!
Marama had been quite firm about that.
Sanderson gave a little shake of his head, mar-
velling at the unfairness of it all. He supposed
some tribal resistance lay at the root of these
unreasonable demands. Why couldn’t these
natives see this was no longer their country?
Why their insufferable rejection of English val-
ues and their determination to undermine the
colonists attempts to civilise them? It would
have been far better if Marama had stayed
with his people in the North; instead of coming
south to barter with farmers and merchants,
who were only trying to make a decent living.
Marama should have understood that an Eng-
lishman dealt with a Maori only out of neces-
sity. Blast it! And Sanderson slapped Albert’s
flesh sharply, causing the horse to jump in
pain. Why did Marama have to be at Miss
Swainson’s yesterday?
Then Marama appeared at his side. Standing
up, Sanderson jumped to find the Maori so
close to him; Marama had slid without a sound
from his own saddle. He was now working his
fingers into a leather pouch tied around his
neck, one hand resting on Albert’s side. Grind-
ing his teeth, a small tick pulsing at his grey
temple, Sanderson stood back. “Please do not
do that, Mr Marama,” he said. “You startled
me. And kindly remove your hand from my
horse.”
Marama eyes narrowed into brown lines,
but he brought his hand back to his side.
Slowly, with the other, he drew a small glass
vial from the pouch. He held it out in his palm
towards Sanderson. “For the horse,” he said,
his voice deep. “Rub this on. It will help.”
Sanderson eyed the bottle with distaste. A
clear, effervescent liquid lapped the glass,
smearing the sides with a thick sheen. He was
quite sure it was not a lotion that could be
bought at Kirk’s Imperial Hardware and Gen-
eral Store in town. “No thank you, Mr
Marama,” he said, ducking his head down so
the Maori could not see his grimace. “I have
some embrocation with me.”
Marama shrugged and slid the bottle back
into the pouch. Then he retrieved a pipe from
another hidden pocket, lit it, and began to
smoke.
Suddenly it was dark. The purple haze of
dusk had been fleeting and momentary: now
the sky was frayed blackness, punctured by a
thousand silver dots. The temperature fell rap-
idly. Shadows played on the tussock grass
stretching out before them: strange, mythical
shapes whirling on the charcoaled carpet, re-
Fiction
44
cently cleared by some unknown farmer. To
Sanderson, glancing up briefly from Albert, it
seemed as though Marama was a weird, other-
world conductor, beating out a rhythm for
these unknown, untamed shapes with his pipe.
Marama’s eyes were closed.
Albert cried suddenly and reared up, flanks
shuddering. Embrocation gleamed on his fet-
lock like goose fat on a Christmas bird. The ani-
mal panted and tossed his head for a second,
white flecks flying, and was then still. A heavy
silence slid down upon the travellers. For a mo-
ment, Sanderson felt completely cut off from
the world, caught within its glutinous hold. Dull
panic curled in his stomach for a second; his
eyes strained in the evening gloom, seeking out
the station. It was about two miles away and
he would have to walk.
They set off. Sanderson lit a small lantern and
held it low by his side to mark out their steps. It
cast a sallow ring on the ground, encircling both
his and Marama’s feet. Marama walked in
lengthy strides, murmuring quietly to his horse
every now and then. At first Sanderson felt baf-
fled that the Maori would give up the comfort
of his ride to keep him company, and would
wait for him. He could think of no human con-
nection between them except, maybe, given
where they met, the need for fleshly release.
Since leaving Christchurch, Sanderson had
longed to see the back of the native though he
hadn’t quite been able to shake him off. He re-
membered how he had tried to slip away from
the boarding house and the annoyance he felt
when, turning in his saddle, he saw Marama fol-
lowing at some distance.
“Why don’t you ride?” he barked gruffly. He
couldn’t look at Marama directly and stared in-
stead down at the circle of light. “There’s no
need to walk alongside me.”
Marama gave his easy shrug and continued
his slow lumber. The ground seemed to be
swallowed by his gait, passing through his body
and lit momentarily by the orange compass at
his feet. “Better this way,” he said, without ex-
plaining what he meant. His hand drifted out to
stroke Albert again.
The station blinked up ahead. Sanderson
wasn’t sure if the sight was welcoming or a
warning: there was no comfort in the knowl-
edge he was near home. He thought of Sarah,
probably in bed reading or, more likely, staring
at the wallpaper as the wind whipped about
the wooden building. She slept a lot these
days, crumpled on the iron frame. Sanderson’s
fingers would sink into her flesh late at night.
She was a series of creases and rolls, and se-
cret, soft, folded away places. Sarah hadn’t al-
ways been so. Indeed, on their first night
together when they set sail for New Zealand, a
delirious, violent desire to possess had surged
within his breast when she had removed her
corset: fragile ribs gleamed like chicken bones
through pale, translucent skin, seeming to in-
vite his touch and caress. The sensations
aroused by her disrobing in their cramped,
swaying cabin had taken him by surprise – he
had not expected to feel that way about her.
Within the seclusion of their married quarter,
she had slowly released the fabric binding her
breasts and pushed away the hooped skirt en-
veloping her legs until she stood, naked and
Fiction
45
trembling, blinking like a chick emerging from
its egg. Sanderson had thought he had taken
Sarah off her parents’ hands as an act of char-
ity and convenience. She served a greater pur-
pose than he could have imagined – after their
wedding, he did not visit a boarding house for
a whole six months, not even after their emi-
grant ship had docked at Lyttleton.
His fist tightened around Albert’s bridle.
Their wedding day had not gone smoothly.
Sarah had clung to her mother, and her mother
to her. He had overheard them whispering after
the service, when Sanderson had been thanking
the minister and when Sarah should have been
by his side. Instead, she had stood apart, fingers
plucking the new wedding band on her finger.
Sarah’s mother, thin and shabbily dressed, had
babbled a warning about the married couple’s
first evening together, and Sanderson had
caught a glimpse of Sarah’s horror-struck face.
She had kept her lips pursed together that
night, silent but not resisting, rolling with the
ship. In the morning, she had not met his gaze,
staring at the cabin walls as they closed about
her like a briny womb. She wept for her mother
for several weeks whilst the ship ploughed on
relentlessly through the waves.
He was sure that one of Miss Swainson’s
girls had been on their boat. Of course, the sin-
gle women had been separated from the mar-
ried quarters, and carefully marshalled by two
stout matrons, but still – a girl he had enter-
tained just last month seemed familiar. Natu-
rally, she had not let on, even if she did
recognise him. Instead, she had smiled the
whole evening, a gold tooth gleaming in the
welcoming darkness. She had not pursed her
lips together, as Sarah had done. She had mur-
mured encouragement and caressed Sander-
son’s grey hair, pushing him towards a delirium
experienced only once or twice before. Some-
thing about her allowed him to leave all inhibi-
tions at her doorway. Perhaps it was the
vigorous climate – he had not been to town for
several weeks before that visit and the icy
winds of the plains had breathed hearty fresh-
ness into his bones. He had paid the woman
handsomely in the morning. A pity she had not
been available last night.
Suddenly Marama spoke. “I hadn’t seen you
at Miss Swainson’s before.” His disembodied
voice rang out from the darkness conversation-
ally but Sanderson almost stumbled. The
Maori’s words appalled him. How dare he re-
mind him – an English gentleman! – About the
circumstances of their meeting? He had barely
time to react before Marama spoke again.
“Your English women; I see them getting off
the boats, hoping to find husbands or work. Did
so many expect to be earning their keep with
their bodies?” The Maori cleared his throat, the
harsh sound carrying across the plains.
The temperature seemed to have dropped to
below freezing. Sanderson drew up sharply,
hissing between his teeth. This really was outra-
geous. He brought the lamp up to his shoulder,
swinging it around so its yellow light was cast
against Marama’s face. Marama’s pipe was still
in his mouth, pursed between blue lines, which
met at his lips. His brown skin seemed to gleam
in the darkness, though not with sweat. His
eyes narrowed against the glare.
“A gentleman – a gentleman does not speak
about such things!” Sanderson spluttered,
Fiction
46
heart pounding. “I’ll thank you to keep your re-
marks to yourself, especially if I am to be
forced to give you shelter!” Goosebumps
pricked his arms as he wondered if Marama
would repeat his remarks at the station. Sarah
was not a problem. Sanderson did not think he
could bear the smug glances of the labourers.
Marama slowly drew the pipe from his
mouth. His brown eyes studied the English-
man’s face, taking in the grey bristles and thin-
ning hair. “You have a wife at home, yes?” he
asked quietly. “As do I. Yet we are drawn to
these other women. I sell them lace, which
they use to cover their bodies even as they are
used. They pay well. Sometimes I am offered
more, but I cannot accept. I have a wife in the
North. I still sell them lace, coming back to
them month after month. Do you?”
Sanderson took a step back now, shocked
beyond words. The Maori was clearly mad. He
may have spent time bargaining with townsfolk
and farmers, but he had learnt none of their
English ways. The services of these women
were not to be mentioned, ever – not even in
those exclusive clubs back home from which
Sanderson had been excluded. Nor should a
man mention his wife in the same conversa-
tion. Decent women, after all, were ignorant
about these matters. Sanderson remembered
the whispers between Sarah and her mother
on their wedding day.
Marama’s face was impassive. He shrugged.
“No matter. We will not speak of it again. I
have some things to sell and then I will return
home.” He raised the pipe to his mouth, but
paused. “Does your wife wear lace?”
Sanderson hit him. He hadn’t expected to
and it was at the full extent of his reach. But,
the blow struck home, glancing off Marama’s
jaw and driving the Maori’s head backwards.
The pipe dropped to the earth with a soft
thump and was lost to view. Sanderson, pant-
ing, moved in for a second attempt, fist pulled
ready. Blood surged in his ears and a remote
part of his mind screeched for him to stop –
these natives could be dangerous. Something
had become detached inside and was no
longer anchored to that repressed core. He felt
delirious with violence. Albert harrumphed
nervously.
Then Marama turned to face him and the
anger in Sanderson’s breast and throat died.
Blood seeped from a corner of Marama’s
mouth, snaking down his chin. Images of red
lace draped over the end of a bed bloomed in
Sanderson’s mind. His shoulders slumped
heavily.
The Englishman and Maori stared at each
other for a long time. Albert’s tail switched,
eyes flicking between the two. The orange light
of the lantern drew a circle around them. Be-
yond the orb was only darkness, save for the
twinkling station up ahead. They were quite
cut off from all company. This native could kill
me if he wanted and no one would know,
Sanderson thought. He did not feel fear; in-
stead, only embarrassment that his life could
end in such a way – he could just imagine the
newspaper reports and the incredulous gasps
of Harding’s bankers. They stood for a long
while, Maori and Englishman, caught in that
moment.
Spotlight... Scott Owens
47
SpiteScott Owens
He thinks the room keeps growing larger,
the silence keeps getting louder,
the space between things almost unbearable.
He knows it has something to do with him,
yet another slight, the usual persecution.
He can’t imagine his own complicity,
can’t see that every time he calls her
Bitch in whatever way he chooses, she moves
farther away, takes his world with her.
48
AttendanceScott Owens
We wait, where else, in the waiting room,
comfortable, bland, television perpetually on game shows,
Wheel of Fortune, Jeopardy, Who Wants to Be . . . .
Having tended to every detail of living
at home, we’re left now with filling out forms
for what seems forever: names and numbers,
date and place of birth, list of ailments,
medications, procedures, emergency contacts.
We’ve called them all on our catalog of impermanence:
friends and family, physicians, surgeons, specialists.
None of them can be here, trapped in contingencies
of their own lives, hardly able to address the card,
buy a stamp, use the clothespin to clip it
on the mailbox, hope it will arrive in time.
Spotlight... Scott Owens
Spotlight... Scott Owens
49
Making LoveScott Owens
Is it then something that has to be worked at
so hard? Like making bread, trouble, time?
Like something produced, the calculated end
of an assembly line, a monthly quota
of parts received, turned, passed on?
There was a time we loved to make
the words of love, had them washed
from our mouths with soap.
A man must give himself the right
to speak the words his body knows,
to fight the urge to have his mouth
mind, body washed clean, to keep
from making this a place where nobody fucks
anymore but only sleeps together.
Cast of Characters
50
Dylan Amaro-McIntyre is a 2012 Pushcart Prize
nominee
Donald J. Barrow is a 2013 Pushcart Prize nom-
inee.
Joshua Bauer is a recent graduate from Indiana
University where he studied English. His poems
have been recently published in The Broken
Plate. Joshua is a 2012 Pushcart Prize nominee.
Lynn Beighley is a fiction writer stuck in a tech-
nical book writer’s body. Her stories often in-
volve deeply flawed characters and the
unsatisfying meshing of the virtual and actual
world. She has an MFA in Creative Writing and
currently has 13 books published. Her work is
either forthcoming or published in Apocrypha
and Abstractions, Intellectual Refuge, and
ken*again, and in the e-book “The Lost Chil-
dren: A Charity Anthology,” as well as at
http://www.fictionaut.com/users/lynn-beigh-
ley and on Twitter as @lynnbeighley.
Sandra H. Bounds is an active member of the
Mississippi Poetry Society and was chosen as
its 2005 Poet of the Year. She holds a Master of
Arts Degree in English and has taught in both
private and public high schools, as well as in a
community college. Sandra is a 2013 Pushcart
Prize nominee.
Jackson Burgess is a writer, painter, and stu-
dent at the University of Southern California.
His work has been published in various Ameri-
can and Australian journals, including The Sto-
ryteller, SpeedPoets, Stepping Stones Maga-
zine: ALMIA, and Children, Churches &
Daddies. You can find him performing poetry,
watching clouds, or combating insomnia
around South Central LA. Check out his per-
sonal blog: jacksonburgess.wordpress.com.
Jackson is a 2013 Pushcart Prize nominee.
Matthew Dexter is a young American author
living in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. He writes nov-
els, short stories and everything else in be-
tween. When Mateo is not writing he enjoys
life by the ocean; beautiful beaches, breathtak-
ing views, reading, and being inspired. But
never candlelit dinners on the beach. He’s
afraid of Pirates.
William Doreski has had his poetry appear in
various electronic and print journals, and in
several collections, most recently Waiting for
the Angel (2009).
Joseph Hart is a 2012 Pushcart Prize nominee.
Alyson Hess is an undergraduate student at In-
diana University - Purdue University in Fort
Wayne, Indiana, pursuing a degree in English
Literature and Women’s Studies. She is cur-
rently spending a year abroad, studying in Can-
terbury, England. Alyson is a 2012 Pushcart
Prize nominee.
Stephanie Kaylor is an unemployed twenty-
something from upstate New York, where she
Cast of Characters
52
indulges in gin and melancholy. Stephanie re-
ceived her Bachelor’s degree in English Litera-
ture at SUNY Geneseo, where she studied
poetry writing under Dave Kelly, author of “In-
structions for Viewing a Solar Eclipse.”
Stephanie is a 2012 Pushcart Prize nominee.
Karlanna Lewis currently attends Florida State
University, where she is in the progress of de-
veloping an honors thesis in poetry as part of
her B.A. in Creative Writing. Karlanna is a 2012
and a 2013 Pushcart Prize nominee.
Rev. Judith Mensch served as a pastor in the
United Methodist Church. She began writing
poetry in the last years of her life, as a way of
responding to and coping with breast cancer.
She passed away in 2003.
Scott Owens holds degrees from Ohio Univer-
sity, UNC-Charlotte, and UNC-Greensboro. He
is the author of Shadows Trail Them Home (col-
laboration with Pris Campbell, Clemson Univer-
sity Press, 2012), For One Who Knows How to
Own Land (Future Cycle Press, 2012) Some-
thing Knows the Moment (Main Street Rag,
2011), The Nature of Attraction (collaboration
with Pris Campbell, Main Street Rag, 2010), Pa-
ternity (Main Street Rag, 2010), among others.
He teaches English and creative writing at
Catawba Valley Community College and has
published more than 1000 poems in journals
including Georgia Review, North American Re-
view, Beloit Poetry Journal, Hayden’s Ferry Re-
view, Cream City Review, and The Pedestal.
His work has received awards from the Acad-
emy of American Poets, the Pushcart Prize An-
thology, the Next Generation/Indie Lit Awards,
the NC Writers’ Network, the NC Poetry Soci-
ety and the Poetry Society of SC, and been
nominated for 9 Pushcart Prizes and 7 Best of
the Net Awards, and read by Garrison Keillor
on The Writer’s Almanac.He has given hun-
dreds of readings of his work and taught
dozens of workshops at colleges, libraries, and
arts centers across the Southeast.
Stuart Sanderson is a 54 year old writer, who
doesn’t let cerebral palsy keep him from his
craft. He believes that “Words are in all of us. It
is easier for some people to get the words out
than others, but everybody has a poem in
them.”
Elise M. Tobin began writing poetry as an un-
dergraduate at the University of Mary Wash-
ington. She earned her M.A. from UConn and
currently teaches English in an urban school
district. Elise is a 2013 Pushcart Prize nominee.
Michael Warne is a 2013 Pushcart Prize nomi-
nee.
Other writers appearing in this anthology: Re-
becca Burns, Richard Fenwick , Kori Frazier,
Khristian Mecom, P. Mari, Jenny Ortiz, Jean
Ryan, Jasmin May Smith, Jane Stuart and Lor-
raine Tolliver
- FIN -