art and literary publication2009

the editors

The Realist painter Gustave Courbet noted in his manifesto that one cannot paint subject matter outside of one’s experience. The verity of this statement became clear to us as we sorted through our submissions. We noticed that our strongest pieces were the ones that were most genuine; writing that was born of personal experience and art that sought to convey the emotions of the artist. The beauty of each piece of work stems from a sense of nakedness, the viewer is afforded a glance into the artist’s or author’s thoughts and experiences.

In this year’s Impressions, we focused on simplicity and continuity. As we began laying out the pages of the magazine, we learned an important lesson; less is more. With each layout we crafted, we focused on producing a subtle sense of balance that complimented the nuances within each submission. By stripping the design to its bare elements, we mimicked the sense of exposure in our submissions.

Cover: Ian Sullivan ‘11

Opposite: Cyrus Jalai ‘10

Riverdale Country School5250 Fieldston Road,

Bronx NY 10471

I m p r e s s i o n s 2009

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Art

Photograph – Danya Contreras – 4Photograph – Owen Barrett – 5

Painting – Daisy Hackett – 9Photograph – Danya Contreras - 11

Photograph – Owen Barrett – 12Photograph – Owen Barrett – 16

Painting – Jianna Lieberman – 18Painting – Lily Adler – 19

Painting – Daisy Hackett – 25Photograph – Clio Massey – 28

Photograph – Clio Massey – 31Painting – Jonathan Desnick – 32

Photograph – Isabel Borish – 34Drawing – Jianna Lieberman – 36

Photograph – Ali Kokot – 37Painting – Cyrus Jalai – 45

Photograph – Owen Barrett – 47Painting – Ben Kaplan – 49

Photograph – Juliana Bernstein – 51Painting – Fahmina Ahmed – 52

Painting – Margaret Arias – 55Painting – Daisy Hackett – 57

Drawing – Charlotte Simons – 59Photograph – Alyson Klinow – 60

Photograph – Juliana Bernstein – 62Drawing – Jianna Lieberman – 63

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Literature

from Serial Poem 12/14 - Manuel Abreu - 4Sixteen - Margaret Arias - 6-8The Singlemost - Manuel Abreu - 13-15D-M-T - Samuel Hodak - 17Wings - Stephen Rosen - 18Weeds - Margaret Arias - 20-24Rollercoaster - Anonymous – 26Zoe - Lovia Gyarkye – 29-30More Than She - Emma Horwitz – 33Caul - Kelly Baltazar – 35from Serial Poem 12/12 - Manuel Abreu – 37Neem - Fahmina Ahmed – 38-44Arcade - Zachary Schwinder – 46Portrait of an Artist - Jianna Lieberman – 48-49Absent Glance - Emily Keating – 50Villanelles - Gabrielle Hoyt-Disick – 52-53Beat Up - Isabella Jorrisen – 54Short Story - Sophia Yapalater – 56-58Haiku - Carla Diaz – 59Our Collective Heel - Stephen Rosen – 61Drawn - Anonymous – 62Contemplation - Sophia Yapalater – 64

Table of Contents

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4

Defer the tiny eye of a treeyelling in distances, the blondness of smell for which dewis a paperclip or rubberbandlike the smallness of mountains

ondness of smell for which dewbecomes a small droplet of ananimal like rain on a car’swindow. Proof of motion is still. This today’s handshake

yelling in distances, the blades of yet-sharpened grassesserrating the rocky surfaceof the water for which everything is a mirror, and the f

like the smallness of mountainschanging names, or the smallnessof a person on a census, whichcomes to an end as a bowl of cereal spells a well-liked word.

is a paperclip or rubberbandfor a maw of papers like braces for unruly children, likespaces between things becomingcoin-faces that pass mute hands,

Manuel Abreu ’09Danya Contreras ’09

from Serial Poem 12/14

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5Owen Barrett ’11

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6

I’ve said it before and I will say it again. Memory is a funny thing. But then again, so are humans. We see our faces change. We see our feelings change. We see ourselves change. Not every day, of course. But someday, we stand above our reflection—that comes in many dif-ferent forms: mirrors, pictures, daughters—and realize that we aren’t the same as before. And what we carry with us, the proof of our journey, the evidence of our struggle, is memory. Except, as I said, that’s a funny thing.

It’s weird how our memory captures events. It holds them like a treasure and you don’t understand why you remember this or that, you just do. It’s as if the brain is selective. It closes its eyes as we flash images before it and grabs one randomly and hoards it. Forever. And sometimes, its fingertips graze over it just picking up the

sense of it, but that’s more than enough to leave an impact, to change an idea, to change a life.

My dad remembers all the names of his high school friends, and yet sometimes he forgets my age. “I know you’re older than 13, I just don’t know how much older.” I tell him that he has Alzheimer’s. Now I’ve learned that I shouldn’t have done that. He uses it against me. If I say, “Papi! You promised that you were going pay me for doing x, y, and z.” His response is, “I have Alzheimer’s.”

I hate The Home Depot, but normally I have no choice whether to go or not. Like now. My parents have to buy wood and they decide to drag me along. So I come, because I have no other choice, not because I want to. I have declared the bright orange cart mine. It’s the type that’s flat with something to drag it with, like an oversized, squarish scooter, which is exactly

Sixteen

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what I was using it as. I looked up to see my dad moving his fingers in the air, taking huge dance-y steps to the music. The radio speakers are playing an old song that I used to know well. It’s a man singing about his friend named Marvin. I push off and lift my foot off the concrete gray floor that makes the orange wheels look like polka dots that don’t belong. As the oversized scooter rolls, I do my own mini-dance. He looks at me, a smile on his face, shaking his head as if to say, “You have no shame.” He has Alzheimer’s. He already forgot his own mini-spectacle five seconds before mine.

U-Turn. It’s something people do when they drive; it’s also something they do in life. My parents decided to move in the opposite direc-tion because they can’t find the right sized wood, which happens a lot. Not finding what you’re looking for, I mean. Sometimes it’s simple like wood. Other times it’s hard, like answers. Why

do some memories last? Why do others perish, disappearing in scattered directions like blowing ashes into the wind? Why did my dad and I grow more distant? Answers I’m still looking for.

I scooter behind them, feeling like a little kid again. My dad laughs and says to my mom, “Look at your little baby.” My mom doesn’t laugh as much as my dad does. She just looks at me and raises her eyebrows; all the things she needs to say are written on her face. My mom is a woman of few words and many expressions. My dad falls back and pulls the cart so that all I have to do is ride on top. We pass a security guard, who gives me a pointed smile. Once again, someone is replacing expressions for words. I hop off and obey her silent warning. I help drag the cart that now has wood on top.

People say I look a lot like my dad. And even if I didn’t, it’s easy to tell we’re related by

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the way we act, like dancing in the aisles of the Home Depot to “Nightshift,” by the Commo-dores. I had to grow up quickly, like him. We are both older siblings, who learned to take care of the younger ones and dealt with our heavy bur-den of responsibilities. “You’re living proof that God answers prayers,” he told me once. I could say the same about him.

Sometimes I act like I’m 20. But I’m not. I need him to help me drag my orange cart over the gray floors we all travel. Except in real life, the floor isn’t smooth. It’s bumpy and difficult. But he’s there to help me. The security guard is out of sight, and I’m back on the oversized scooter cart. Though my dad forgets, I’m six-teen. But he’s never forgotten that I need him.

I’m going remember this. And if I don’t remember it to exact detail, I’ll remember the sense of it, like fingers grazing over a memory.

A sense of happiness. Orange wheels on gray concrete floors. Rolling on oversized scooters behind security guards’ backs.

I’m 16. But sometimes I act 6.

Maybe that’s why sometimes my dad forgets my age.

Margaret Arias ’11

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9

Daisy Hackett ’09

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10

Tomorrow night

If I were to tell you everything tomorrow night, would it matter? What makes tomorrow night different from the next?

Is it the fact that when I think about you I don’t think about tomorrow, I think about NOW!

I think about everything that should be now, Everything that should’ve been yesterday, Everything that shall be tomorrow.

Tomorrow Night Is it I? Is it the fact that maybe I don’t have it inside me to tell you — To tell you the feelings that’ve grown since the beginning, Since before the beginning, since before I knew you? Because even before I knew you, I had these feelings for you. I didn’t need to know you to know that you would be there for me to catch Finally.

Tomorrow Night

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So yes, it does matter if I tell you tomorrow night, because tomorrow night is too late, Because tonight is too late, now is too late, so here. Now. Finally.

Zachary Schwinder ’10

Dan

ya C

ontre

ras

’09

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12Owen Barrett ’11

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13

Bottles like little plastic women wrapped in garish tube-tops lie about the gratings of gutters; wrinkled concrete is covered in age-blackened gum like one giant gray shoe-sole or a wounded animal on its belly; bare branches are like sullen urchins reaching for the surface, for an escape from the murk. People people people push. Languages like crumpled paper and broken glass litter the air like stars the sky, fragments of phrases trapped like rags in the sharp nooks of the stripped-naked trees. A sock hangs in another tree. A balloon pops at the highest branch’s pinprick. Shoes hung from telephone wires signify that person’s death and subsequent mourning and forgetting. A basket-ball hoop fashioned from a green crate, ashy elbows and crooked teeth and ain’t, shoes scuf-fling and stepping over dog shit. People people push push. The smell of the fish market prompts

a man seated on a black crate to make a joke about his wife. They call him Lindo because at forty his face is a tanned prune, his eyes set far back into his head like pissholes in dark snow, reeking worse than the worst taxi-cab-armpit smell ever encountered by any person on earth. The soft, anonymous light of curtained windows. Never taller than six stories, the peeling build-ings cough fat black smog, darkly burping worms of smoke that twist and braid into the blue shield of sky—there are still incinerators—and the win-dows rub their bellies, loosen their belts; stout workers on squat roofs and wet scaffolds drink energy beverages tasting of battery acid and ut-ter clipped phrases. A table is laid out, a chair, one next to that, two chairs, a boney-thin Cuban man perched next to the gated threshold leading to a gritty alley which snakes around my building, into which is tossed all of the garbage not incin-

The Singlemost

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erated. Heaps of mossy wood and stained metal are tossed on shiny black bags which bulge as if alive; a torn photograph; shredded documents; the guts of ancient computers; a rat itching its way around. Back on the street, dominoes and Spanish squealing, a stack of old newspapers fluttering, a bottle of water and a cup placed par-adoxically next to each other. Lady next to an ice fridge with the word ICE loud on its flank says ‘pastelitos calienticos,’ her violent mauve curls graying further every year. An Arab man with complex, interconnected facial hair leans and peers from a fifth-floor fire escape, pondering the desert of broken roofs before him. The same Cuban man now with a cigar bigger than a small dog clamped between his yellow lips. A yellow car, its windows rattling with bass. All sound is devoured by a blue and red wail, far then close then far, the pitch rising and falling in tandem. You always stare at the Finest when they drive

by, looping through red lights and slow drivers towards whatever destination beckons them. There is a story of one who spit at a passing car and was beaten and arrested on the spot, screaming about his silk pajamas and newly-permed hair, his green Gucci glasses akimbo in two pieces, lying dejectedly on the pavement for days. I walk the gray plummet into the mouth of the naked park down large, cracked steps, from which flowers grow in the spring, built against a hill of dead grass gray; mulch blows in the austere wind like ash, maundering through the dusk between the gaps of gates, the snow hard and black and cigarette butts perched in it like watchful birds. One face, then another, with-out name, only the heaviness of being brown. Two faces, city of the world, a man with only stumps for legs, creaking and laughing along in his rusted wheelchair, bumping down each step

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in rhythm with the muffled click of his dentures. A building is gutted, flashing at me its toothless widow’s smile. A coven of pigeons casts spells and suddenly bread is broken before them. A black-clad Hassid flees into the shady corners of Montefiore’s tiny cottages and hulking Brutalist-inspired institutes, relics of the stagflated seven-ties; hipsters walk their dogs and run and pay raised rent, pruning out the brown like a wash cycle with bleach. Taggers scurried through MTA alleys like pearls in nauseous oysters and the train used to roll by on Jerome covered in color like a snake wearing scarves, before they scraped the skin off the screaming chains of cars and showered them in boiling acid. Charred faces used to melt when superintendents burned their tenements and women in stairwells gave birth to lifeless puppets after dining gourmet on freebase. There is no cross-Bronx train. The roaches tried to

write up their Bill of Rights; they figured they had strength in numbers. The light flicks on and they all scurry into their hovel-nooks. Their world be-gins at the edge of the darkness. Poisoned rats lie on their bellies. Gangs of hooded figures in bubble jackets and Timberland boots, the smell of gas and liquor lingering about them, roam about, yelling “Hootie-hoo!” and “Soo-woo!” and flashing their teeth—and guns—at anybody. The writing on the wall.

Manuel Abreu ’09

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16Owen Barrett ’11

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17Samuel Hodak ’09

Dream more,Think,Disregard mortality, time,Distance, mechanical tyranny

Divinely motivated,Trucking down my trackDreary?Mild, true.Doubt my theory? Disrespect my timorous display?Miss the disguise.

Myself, Titan,Dancing.

Music,

Thought,

Deity manifest.

Thanks.

D-M-T

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18

Wings

I didn’t try to go to sleepNor could I have, had I been free

There’s something writhing in my gutA twisting, churning something there

It claws at me, this smell-less rotA little, knowing voice that says

That what I see will never beIn words, upon my lips to breathe

I wish to tell you of my thoughtsThe beauty that my mind has wrought

And yet there’s still the voice that saysMy winged words have wings of lead.

Jianna Lieberman ’09 Stephen Rosen ’09

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19Lily Adler ’10

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I find it ironic that from this position all I can see is the green crane towering over me. Instead of the green leaves of trees, I see the green paint on metal, the metal that picks up the trash and throws it into a massive pile.

When we first moved, the thing I loved the most about our new house was the green tree. It was the biggest one on the block and maybe even more than just my block. It was massive. It became the umbrella of my house. When lightning would strike, thunder would pound, and rain would pour, all seemed serene under that tree. And sometimes we wouldn’t even notice it was raining until we looked down the sidewalk and saw the dark wet pavement and the water droplets bouncing back from the concrete as if they were trying to reach the place they had come from. It was only then that we

saw the truth: that we were sheltered from the storm under a tree taller than a three-story house.

I used to hate weeding. I didn’t get it. Why would you pull out the green things that were growing? Wasn’t that murder? I learned in third grade that plants could breathe. They had a respiratory system. Using water and carbon dioxide, they made sugar and oxygen. My teacher called it photosynthesis; I called it breathing. My dad told me plants grew better when you talked to them, but only when you said positive words. My dad believes a lot in positive and negative energy. Plants didn’t have a brain; they didn’t work like humans. I knew that. But they could breathe. And they could hear. Couldn’t they feel pain too? I liked flowers. I named many of my Barbie dolls after them; Rose and Daisy became my favorite dolls. But that didn’t mean we had to pull out all the other plants, the ones without pretty colors and pretty

Weeds

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names…did it? Why should we let only the pretty things grow and pull out the ugly things? Ugly things are still living things, right?

I’m in a squat. I have these huge creases on my black Nikes that just keep getting bigger, thanks to the fact that I’m weeding. The guy told us it was called knotweed. Another weed. I didn’t know weeds were named. Bindweed. Burdock weed. Dandelion weed. Ragweed. I’m not a little kid anymore. I understand that weeds are bad…to some extent. They suck up the nutrients from the other plants and drain the ground of nutrients. They choke other flowers and kill them mercilessly. They grow everywhere. “A valueless plant growing wild, esp. one that grows on cultivated ground to the exclusion or injury of the desired crop.”

But whatever happened to survival of the fittest? What happened to the stronger race survives? We kill them. We yank them

by the roots, because without the roots they are nothing. Their power lies in their roots. So here I am in jeans that are no longer blue, but brown, black Nikes, and a T-shirt, pulling out the things that I once thought had a life, a right to live because I am told they are weeds. “Any undesirable or troublesome plant, esp. one that grows profusely where it is not wanted.”

Sometimes we get things right when we are kids, and then screw them up when we are older, all in the name of “knowledge.”

I grew up in this neighborhood, the pit of the Bronx, where the Bronx River (yes, the Bronx has a river…and it’s not the Hudson) meets the garbage of the world. When I first came to New York, I was one, so I don’t remember what it first must have been like. Fifteen people crammed into a two-bedroom apartment. We moved. We moved back. We moved again. We moved back again. It seemed

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to have the power of pulling us back, no matter where we were. We moved out again. And sometimes on weekends it pulls me back, sometimes on days like this, I land in the place where I learned what garbage was. I think it’s because my roots are still there and it drags me back, no matter how hard I try to escape.

I grew up in this neighborhood, but I promised not to stay here.

My parents had some of the branches cut off the tree in front of my house. And they had the top trimmed off too. Its branches were getting in the middle of the cable lines and it kept messing things up. But when you think about it…wasn’t the tree there first? Didn’t we intrude on its space and not the other way around? I screamed at them when I heard the chainsaws outside cutting away the branches of the tree I loved so much. “What do you think you’re doing?!!?” Rrrrrrrrrr. “How could you?” Rrrrrrrrrr.

“But it was so pretty!” Rrrrrrrrrr. “You’re killing the environment!” RRRrrr-Rrrrrrrrrr. And so on.

When I walked outside after the workers were done with their dirty work, the tree was no longer the tallest tree for three blocks down. It wasn’t even the tallest on my block. My bus driver could never figure out where I lived because the tree blocked the image of the house. He called it an improvement, so did my parents. I called it a recession. It looked like a tree that had been cut so that the top would fit in a box. And then someone forgot the red bow…oh, I guess ’cause it wasn’t a gift to the world. It would rain, and water would fall through. I needed an umbrella under my tree now. I could now feel the tears of the sky.

All the weeds are going into the black garbage bag and then we all empty the bags on top of this huge pile. If a match fell on this, the whole thing would go ablaze and all the

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knotweed would disappear…until tomorrow. No matter what, weeds always seem to do that. Reappear. Survive.

I got out. Sometimes I’m still shocked how. Sometimes I just don’t care. But many days I do. And on those days I have to be satisfied by saying that it was through a course of many miracles, a life composed of hope, and long nights titled work. I look at the school I go to now and am left speechless. When people ask what school I go to, I say “Riverdale.” Many of them have never heard of it. Many of them have no idea where it is either. Many of them don’t realize that it’s a place too. Many of them don’t realize that one of the richest neighborhoods in the city is no farther than 20-minute drive away. So close and yet so far.

Sometimes when I go back to my old neighborhood, I wish I could scream at the people I see walking past me. Scream and tell

them that there is something better in the world. That there is so much more that they don’t see and they can’t see. I want to tell them to dream big and never stop dreaming. If I could hold all the babies born in this place and tell them three words, they would be Dream, Work, and Persevere. But this isn’t a Cinderella story. Life isn’t that easy.

I see these kids—the kids I go to school with. We are all people with beating hearts and thrumming dreams. Yet our experiences have made us different. They look at this place where I live and think…poverty. I used to look at this place and think…home. My family, my friends, my school. This place was my life. What a small life it was. There was so much going on around me that I didn’t see. I remember walking over the broken glass of beer bottles and syringes, not realizing they were the detritus of alcoholics and drug addicts.

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24Margaret Arias ’10

I’m still pulling at the weeds. Though right now I don’t really want to do this. And not because I think we’re killing them, but because I think it is a waste of time. The kids here will pull out these weeds, leave, and never come back…except for me. I have to come back; my family is here. My roots are still here. The crane keeps moving and dumping garbage, all the garbage in this part of the Bronx is collected and dumped here. They used to put it in the River (which my sister proved has dangerous bacteria); they don’t now—supposedly. And while the crane driver performs the job he does every day, we Riverdale kids pull out weeds for a few hours. The people in this neighborhood are the weeds in this society. We pull them out because we don’t like to look at them, because they remind us that this garden isn’t perfect. Sometimes we ignore them, but then they grow too tall and too loud and they drain the city of money. They

complain about the factories nearby, about the garbage dump around the corner, about the stench of their lives. And all around, we turn deaf ears and pretend that we can’t see them. But when it’s too obvious, we pull them out. We yank them and hope to God they don’t come back. But they do, they always do.

My tree is growing. It’s back to being the tallest on the block, though the one two blocks away is still taller. I don’t feel the rain as much, but it is still there. They didn’t get it at the roots. It’s still growing. It’s surviving.

I got out.

My life isn’t a fairy tale. It’s a survival story. And so are theirs. They just go untold.

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25Daisy Hackett ’09

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26

Rollercoaster

You know that feeling, the one where your stomach turns upside down,The one that you get as you go down a rollercoaster?

You used to do that to me.

I woke up waiting for the moment I could see you, your face, your eyes.I went to sleep dreaming of you.

Sometimes waking up is the best part of the day, because you know you’re alive.

When you kissed him, I never wanted to wake up again.

Anonymous

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27Margaret Arias ’10

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28Clio Massey ’09

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It’s like feeling lost in a crowd of millions. There’s a girl sitting by the cafeteria window. She sits there every day at the same time. She always has a different lunch, something unique each time it surprises me. I always see her, pale face, dark freckles crowding her face. She has the palest sapphire eyes; they speak of purity and isolation. Her face is crowded with freckles. Her strawberry blonde hair falls right to her shoulders. The spilt ends look beautiful, almost as if they are performing an intricate dance.

She dresses weird. That’s what most kids say. I think she dresses nice. Her style seems out of this world, but that makes them even more special. Today she is wearing jeans. She never wears jeans, so it surprises me when she walks into the cafeteria. But these aren’t ordinary jeans; they are black with multicolored

paint splatter. I stare at her as she walks over to her seat, keeping a steady pace and stride. Her shirt is purple and embossed with a Chinese dragon, and over it she has on a white cardigan with the letter Z on the right breast pocket.

“Zoe!” one girl shouts at her. She stops and turns around, her eyes show no meaning.

“Yes,” her voice is soft and melodic like an angel. I can’t help but stare. The raven haired who had just yelled her name begins to snicker and doesn’t respond. Zoe blinks once, then twice, and continues to walk. I notice the book she is carrying; did I mention that she has a new one every week? This one is titled Wuthering Heights. I assume she has a love for the classics.

She takes a seat and tucks a strand of

Zoe

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hair behind her left ear. A light cough escapes her mouth as she opens the brown paper bag. On the front the name Zoe is written neatly. It makes me wonder if her mother packs her lunch or if she has a personal chef who makes her a special meal every day.

Today she has a chicken salad. Taking out a fork, she sticks it into the bowl and takes a bite. She slowly eats and I watch her every move. I wonder what it would be like to sit next to her, to touch her hair or to share a laugh with her.

I stare. She never looks up. Today something is different, I can feel it. Zoe looks up. I look down. I glance quickly around the lunchroom and I see a boy. Blonde hair. Dark almond eyes. He walks over to Zoe’s table. I hope he doesn’t sit there. It’s a selfish thought, I know. He sits down. She looks up at him, confusion in her eyes.

“Hi,” he says to her. She gives him a small smile and says hi back. I watch them. They start off shy but by the end of lunch they are laughing. I watch her. She gets up. He gets up. They walk away together. A hint of jealousy and pain encases my heart. I wish I were that guy. He did what I was afraid to do.

“Dan,” the girl beside me calls. I turn around.

“What are you staring at?” she asks with concern.

“Nothing,” I say, and I leave it at that.

Lovia Gyarkye ’12

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Clio Massey ’09

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32Jonathan Desnick ’10

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Ears:Sitting in silence, he tried to picture the girl. But she reminded him of loud things (like china plates breaking and toes crunching on ice) and he couldn’t hear her anywhere. She was listening from across the way, but the way was way far away, and she couldn’t hear anything he was saying.

Nose:When he would walk around the block, the smell of the air crept into his nose and lingered for too short a time. It reminded him of times near a beach, the salty breeze, scraping his skin, blowing through his hair. He turned around to the smell of fried foods. A little boy (plump in tight blue swim trunks) held the stick of a Popsicle. The rainbow sugars would drip down full bellies and in between toes before napkin-moms fly to the rescue. He tried to find her in between the smells of the sweating people, searching for a long time under the heat of the sun. The cloudless sky gave him no shade. He soon fainted.

Eyes: When limbs hit blunt objects, they bruise. And nobody sees except for the nerves next to those limbs that cry out for help. But no kind of cotton or medicine will relieve the thumping. And it thumps. And thumps. Lying on the floor, he asks her if she will help him. She can’t see anything and doesn’t believe. Fairies have bad afternoons in her captivity.

Mouth:What he hears, he will say. What he sees, he will recite. What he smells will make him want to taste. And somehow, he finds himself saying, and reciting, and eating far more than she ever did. Then he realizes. That it’s always going to be more than she ever did, and more than she’ll ever do.

Emma Horwitz ’10

More Than She

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34Isabel Borish ’09

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35Kelly Baltazar ’10

After you were born we kept the caul.Only for a week since the apothecary next door said it contained the secret to eternal youth.

We tried it, we tried it with you, but it didn’t work. As soon as you were born, I wished I could stuff you back inside of me because I knew the winters would feel colder if I didn’t have an extra body to keep me warm, I knew the summers would be intolerable without that extra human sponge to share the infinite and expansive humidity with. When you came out of me you were a deep purple. The nurses said your oxygen had gotten cut off towards the end; your little tube of life had wrapped around your throat and pulled up across your airway. I fingered the idea with horror. My cord, my noose, my baby girl. You were almost blue, like a sick, aged fetus used in a biology demonstration. This is the soul, this is the lust, and this is the imagination. I wanted you to disappear because the crying was too much and the scent of the bloody air was too much and my molten-wax limbs were too weak, my eyes too watery because I saw, in front of me, the one person who could make me complete and rip me apart. When I saw you, I realized how mortal I truly was, how I would never see another day on earth without thinking about you or seeing you, and that after I died, you would still be living. And so, time transcends time. But I couldn’t accept that. I am disgusted and horrified by the smell of afterbirth, the searing contractions of my brain stem against the unfathomable terror of the end of my life. I created you to change religion and reason and the meaning of love. I held you and I tied you to me with ace bandages and gauze and eight-hundred-count cotton sheets and spaghetti and strings of pearls and silk handkerchiefs. I wish I hadn’t loved you. And yet, the idea of your transcending me subdues this sadness.

Caul

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36Jianna Lieberman ’09

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37Ali Kokot ’10Manuel Abreu ’09

The fence that has been painted, andthe grass, noises of insects. Your

‘oh,’ soft or loud, a choice’s timbre,the sun, animal teeth in grasses. Oh,

in two hills’ spaces narrow smile ishalf a sun, a glint like a chipped to

oth or a memory’s smack. The day isblond and the earth early, yet the

rain alert and round. The church bellis dinner; the lamp is oil. Awaying.

from Serial Poem12/12/08

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38

Neem

There’s a tree that lives on the edge of villagers’ tongues. It first appeared to the general public on the pages of a medical journal noting its mild antiseptic and anti-inflammatory effects. But in Sylhet,1 it was discovered long ago when it danced from someone’s blemishes to the tongue and through the air. The curative powers of neem were advertised and exaggerated by the villagers. Perhaps it was because of the lack of other medicinal alternatives, or maybe the need to create magic, but the neem tree became the mythical fruit of all of Sylhet. Sylhet also had a magician. Abdul Mukib Choudhury, born a sakhor beta.2 But with a peculiar genetic defect — he was pale-

skinned. Paleness is next to godliness in our tiny village. The sakhor betas become tan in the long hours in the sun, and their masters remain unmarked by the signs of toil. But when Abdul Mukib Choudhury worked in the rice paddies, his pale skin would shine defiantly against the sun’s tanning rays, growing pink at the edges, like gulapjol.3 He grew, he worked, he gathered. Then one day he disappeared, and after a series of conquests that are still hotly debated, he came back. The story spread faster than a khatal fruit 4 to this day. The hazy story only added to the mystique. The facts grew on people’s tongues and undulated through the air, looking

T h e r e ’ s a t r e e t h a t l i v e s o n t h e e d g e o f t h e v i l l a g e r s ’ t o n g u e s

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39

for their next host. Each rotation helped the rumor grow. Perhaps it was because the village was so cut off from the rest of Bangladesh, or maybe it was the poor telecommunication line — most probably it was the need to believe in miracles. But Abdul Mukib Choudhury became the magician of Sylhet. He did what no other Sylheti man could imagine: he sold steel horses. He took the little village into his palm and kneaded it into his universe, filling it with cars and tilla barries.5 One particular tilla barrie (which he called Shipgoinge) became his home. And from then on, the inhabitants of Shipgoinge played god. There is a tree that lives on the edge

of villagers’ tongues. It lines the edges of Shipgoinge estate, creating an impenetrable fortress of magic. The magic was confirmed during one monsoon season. The sun was hidden for days as water poured from the sky. It filled up the little valleys of rice and crept up the hills and enveloped the tilla barries in water. Only Shipgoinge itself remained untouched.

You see, Shipgoinge was a palace. Getting inside it required a half-day’s hike up a hill littered with plant life — ganja,6 mehendi,7 and of course the mythical neem. He built the house in space in 1942, built it in his mind a decade earlier. The house was his dream, conceived in his days as a sakhor

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40

beta. As his body used to work in the sun— dive, drive, rise — his mind was always wandering. It carried him over the fields and back through space and time until he was a little boy again. He was now sitting in a second grade classroom. The dirt wood floor stained brown the soles of his bare feet; his chair rocked slightly on its uneven legs. When he opened the ancient textbook, a picture of the Taj Mahaal leaped off the page and buried itself in his memory. When Abdul Mukib Choudhury bought a plot of land in 1942, the old image of the Taj Mahaal sprang out of his memory and materialized before him in the form of a great white house. For generations to come, the

Choudhury family lived in the great white house on top of the hill.

* * *“ Eh, child, what is your full name?”“Ayesha Ahmed.”“Choudhury, your last name is

Choudhury. It’s in your blood.”“Acha, I mean, Aicha.”“Always speak to me in Sylheti.” 8

He spoke to resurrect the glory of a dying clan. They had skin so fair, they glowed pink. They have to marry other pink people and have lots of pink babies, and keep alive the clan of pink peoples living in villages near the equator. Ayesha wasn’t pink; her mommy had

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41

married an Ahmed. And as he looked at her, he saw her pinkness obscured by the terrible ruddy coloring of those low-class city folk. As the son of Abdul Mukib Choudhury, Enam Choudhury was born in a palace upon a hill9 — Shipgoinge. But he settled in America. Looking upon his darkskinned niece, growing tired of her khala zimzima10 face, his eyes crawled along the plaster walls and settled on the second-hand polyester couch. His shift was about to begin. The few remaining hours would run down like raindrops in monsoon season; soon it would be time for him to enter his cab. Abdul Mukib Chouhury’s sons drove cabs in America. A fact that stunned

the villagers of Sylhet. The children of the man who had brought cars to Bangladesh now chauffeur — kamla betas.11

There is a tree that lives on the edge of villagers’ tongues. It is useful for disinfecting wounds and treating mosquito bites. But it boasts itself the cure for colds and flus and madness and epilepsy and any other disease plaguing Sylhet. Ayesha sighed. She knew there was no magic in pink skin.

* * * Enam’s cab occupied the prime spot in front of the wealthiest hotel in New York. In the late evening hours he was confident in picking

I t i s u s e f u l f o r d i s i n f e c t i n g w o u n d s a n d t r e a t i n g m o s q u i t o b i t e s

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42

up some wealthy socialites on the way to a club; with any luck, they’d leave a fat tip. He was parked right up front, and should anyone leave the building, the doorman would be sure to round up his services first. The moon plunged down behind the skyscrapers and a new sun rose. Not a customer was found. Enam stared at the street lamp going about its routine: green, yellow, red. By the time he had counted 256 red lights, Enam gave up all hope of finding a customer that day. The hazy dawn brought with it a new wave of grogginess, and his pink eyelids shut out the orange dawn. His dreams carried him over the Atlantic

Ocean and through Europe. He swished across the Bay of Bengal and landed in Sylhet. In his dreams, he was a young man again, gazing at his childhood home under the flattering screen of nostalgia. Pollution had marred the white surface of Shipgoinge, and the sun’s rays bounced off in a putrid green. Abdul Mukib Choudhury had died. His vision of Shipgoinge slowly decayed with him. Enam didn’t see Shipgoinge’s crumbling stone or the overgrown leaves. When he heard his mother complain about their depleting fortune, he chewed neem and waited for its magic to take over. Legacy. Enam remembered envious

I t h a s m i l d a n t i s e p t i c a n d

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43

stares and sakhor betas giving him salam.12 Enam’s old life was more a dream than a memory, a mirage conjured in his father’s mind, thriving only in the fertile climate of Bangladesh. Like the neem, the Choudhury name had significance only in Sylhet. It was only in that village that people gave credence to the myths with kernels of their imagination. But after his father’s death, the myth lost its vigor. Uprooted, the Choudhurys found themselves in America. The magic was gone because no one believed in it. Shifting higher in its celestial trajectory, the sun lifted Enam’s eyes along with it. A knock on the door: there was a passenger in his car.

She wanted to go to the Met. He drove. She paid. She was a European tourist, unfamiliar with the custom of tipping. Enam sighed. There is a tree that lives on the edge of villagers’ tongues. It has mild antiseptic and anti-inflammatory effects. But the inhabitants of Shipgoinge believed it to be a cure-all. They sprinkled it like fairy-dust on the keesuri13 and presented it to their sick children. The Choudhury name floated through the air and grew on villagers’ tongues. A long time ago, Abdul Mukib Choudhury had made a fortune selling cars. Generations later, the Choudhurys clung to their name, but the magic had long since departed.

a n t i - i n f l a m m a t o r y e f f e c t s . B u t t h e i n h a b i t a n t s o f S h i p g o i n g e b e l i e v e d i t t o b e a c u r e - a l l .

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44Fahmina Ahmed ’09

1 A region of Bangladesh characterized by its own

colloquial dialect and customs.

2 Servant, a sakhor usually lives with his or her whole

family within the estate of a wealthy family of Bangladesh. A

sakhor is usually bound to the wealthy family for generations

and he exchanges his services for food and shelter.

3 Rose

4 A tropical fruit indigenous to south Asia.

5 Literally means “hill house.” Sylhet is below sea level,

and during monsoon season most of the land lies under

flood water. Wealthier families are able to afford houses on

coveted hilly areas, thereby avoiding flood damages.

6 Cannabis plant

7 Henna plant

8 The word means “okay.” The first time it was uttered, it

was spoken in “Shudho Basha” or the “Clean” dialect that is

accepted as standard Bangla. The second version is spoken

in Sylheti a dialect of Bangla that comes from Sylhet, often

considered its own language.

9 Loose translation of “tilla barrie.”

10 Literally pitch black. A pejorative term to describe

a dark person.

11 Working class men

12 A practice of bowing or kneeling before someone so

low that ones forehead touches his/her toes. A means of

showing respect to a member in an upper tiers of the social

system.

13 Rice and lentils in a watery stew. Easy to swallow,

Bengali equivalent to chicken soup given to a sick person.

Endnotes

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45Cyrus Jalai ’10

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46

Walk down the streets,Watch people,Always going somewhere, but not really goingAlways doing something, but not really doing My pocket is empty of quarters, but the people still move No one stands, no one watches, there is only static motion We move, constantly, but never get anywhere Always in circles, until we realize we need more quarters A shame, There are none left.

Zachary Schwinder ’10

Arcade

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47Owen Barrett ’11

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48

I would describe my ring as light blue, dark blue, cerulean, white, gray, indigo, black, violet, with flecks of crimson and brown in the depths, flecks like quick swishes of a paintbrush, but I am an artist. To anyone else, this ring is blue. It is a blue sapphire with two minuscule diamonds alongside, like two tiny eyes peeking around the enormous triangular jewel. However triangular is simplistic; it is multi-faceted, with small trapezoi-dal cuts on each side that give the stone sloping sides in order to attach to the silver setting. Each cut picks up the light in a different way, throwing different colors around the room, as if each little face were competing for the most attention, to be recognized as the most brilliant and complex. The flecks of scarlet are seen only in certain lights, and appear only if observed carefully and patiently. The very center of the stone is black. I know there is color there, but no light ever reaches the center to illuminate the hues I know are hiding.

I have always admired with curiosity the contour of this ring, the contrast between the graceful lines of the sides and the sudden flatness of the diamonds and sapphire. The soft sides of the triangular stone echo the circular settings for the diamonds, yet the straight lines cut through the softness of the curves like the jarring quality of neon red and blue next to each other. I suppose I am in awe of this ring for its complexity, its para-doxical design, its depth and its mystery, its beauty and its flaws. No object is just straight or curved. It is straight and curved and bent and folded. The world is not black and white. It is indigo and scarlet and cerulean. I haven’t really spoken to my mother in over a year. I have seen her once, and there have been a few awkward phone conversations. This ring was the last thing she gave me. I have come to accept that the problems between my mother and me are like those between neon colors. That

Portrait of an Artist

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49

is to say, I am not responsible for the failure of our relationship, and neither is she. We are simply two very different people with very vibrant per-sonalities that do not go together without creating headaches. Between red and blue there is no right and wrong, there is no blame to be attributed for their discord. Apart they are both beautiful, creating contrasts and harmonies, contributing to the blue skies of summer days and the red, crisp leaves of fall, mastering different shades of themselves. Someday, perhaps, two of these shades will create harmony rather than dissonance, like the painting of a sunset over the ocean, where the fiery red of the sun will reflect playfully and tranquilly over the smooth surface of the water. Perhaps in that painting, the water will look not unlike my ring: dark blue, indigo, cerulean, with flecks of crimson sunset.

Jianna Lieberman ’09 Ben Kaplan ’10

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50

His glazy eyes wander, scanning the room as if her company is not enough.He knows better.She had to wear the purple dress; he had to wear the fake unsatisfied smile.The pride of red dressed girls and high-heeled shoes consumed his desires.Purple dress did not.The wine swished in circles, rising rhythmically from his absent glance to the girl in front of him.There she was, and he didn’t see it.The Manolos were irritated from her anxious tapping and the wine never failed in its rhythmic patterns,blurring his thoughts into an swirl ofmanly failures.Purple dress went right back to her closetAlong with the man who was only in love with the flavor of squeezed grapes andred dressed girls.

Emily Keating ’10

Absent Glance

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51Juliana Bernstein ’10

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52

Alone inside my shell, I play pretend,My head is throbbing—unrelenting beat!—While people swirl until their colors blend.

A noisy conversation with my friendsAs, adding to the din, we laugh and eat,Alone inside my shell I play pretend.

Does everyone walk faster? I suspendMy movement even as I walk the streetWhile people swirl until their colors blend.

Virginia always wanted to transcendThe boundaries that keep us all discreetBut still, inside my shell, I play pretend.

Is it just me, alone, who must descendInto my mind, where there’s no company,While people swirl until their colors blend?

Our solitude, I know, will never end—It’s universal. So why don’t they see?Alone inside my shell, I play pretendWhile people swirl until their colors blend.

Adagio

Fahmina Ahmed ’09

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53

The essence of the things we should not sayReverberates in ever-deadening air;I want to crawl back into yesterday.

The darkness that we cannot quite conveyStill clings to us, our eyes, our teeth, our hair—The essence of the things we should not say.

I hide my face beneath my white duvetBut still the noises creep into my lair.I want to crawl back into yesterday.

The farce, the sham, the pantomime, the play,All serve to hide us from their midnight glare:The essence of the things we should not say.

And, while I’m on the subject, can I sayThat, after fifteen years, I’m not prepared,I want to crawl back into yesterday.

I once tried to be truthful, but, dismayed,My own strength failed me; now I cannot bearThe essence of the things we should not say—I want to crawl back into yesterday.

Allegro ma non troppo

Gabrielle Hoyt-Disick ’10

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54

Beat up

Trees punch green into the sky—Great blotches of green and brown,Contrasting with the soft pinks and blues,Floating slowly into hot orange and navy.As the sun drifts towards the ends of the earth,Taking the light with it,The day succumbs to the night,And though rain falls like bullets on a battlefieldHe hears nothing.Seeing nothing butThe harsh glow of the moon and the starsHanging over his head.A stone in a pile of pebbles,A pit in his upset stomach,

Tomorrow in his thoughts.

Fat, grey drops dribble from the mouth of the nightThe steady rain caresses the window,Its acid plummets into his raw skinEtched with his story:

Trees arise at first light,Stalking the sky,And day bringsAnother bruise,Slow to heal,Great blotches of blue and sickly yellow,The soft tan skin waltzingInto an angry purpleAnd suddenly,Just the harsh glow of the moon,The howling trees silent in the darkness,

Tomorrow in his thoughts.Isabella Jorissen ’12

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55Margaret Arias ’10

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56

He stood quietly in the empty fairground, contemplating darkened shotgun booths and the shut down Ferris wheel, a lonely eyesore under the clear, star-filled sky. There was no moon anymore.

He had felt it before. Impending. The end of something wonderful. He had felt it when she smiled at him sadly as they spun on the carousel. That smile, that big smile, her red lip-stick, her perfect teeth, white enamel. And then it was gone, like the sun setting over the damned cheap carnival.

He never thought he would like the smell of cigarettes. But now it was comforting. The rich smell of smoke had grown on him like a person, finding its way into his lungs and pulsat-ing through his blood stream slowly but surely until it reached his heart. Rushing through his

brain with memories of her blood red lips pursed against dull orange filters; her dark, smudged eyes as she sat wrapped in one of his crisp button down shirts, staring thoughtlessly out the window, following the smoke as it drifted towards the waning moon. Cancer sticks, he would note, they’ll kill you.

She would turn to look at him more than once, locking into his electric grey-blue eyes with her sad, brown ones. I am more alive than all the world.

In the fairground he repeated this phrase to himself under his breath, balancing on an oily picnic bench. He imagined her some-where far away, so far that she could scream and no one would understand any of the words exploding out of her mouth.

Short Story, inspired by the style of All the Pretty Horses

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57Daisy Hackett ’09

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58

tear falls, leaving black tinted residue along its path down her cheek. You won’t miss me, she says. I’m no one.

There’s nothing after no one.

That doesn’t make sense.

It does.

There are no words left, no more impos-sible paradoxes and clichés to share. In the morning she is gone, leaving behind her those countless empty plastic bic lighters, scraps of notebook paper, soggy cigarette butts and lip-stick stained napkins. Him.

Back in the fairground there is still no moon. He can’t recall the last time that there was.

But before he couldn’t understand her itch to go—-her need to move and explore and adventure. He was content right where he was. Why can’t you be too? He had begged her to stay. Pleaded as he hadn’t since he was a tem-pestuous toddler. I need you, baby. Sweetheart. Honey. Please.

The response a flick of her lighter, the flame leaping into existence in disproved spon-taneous generation. The smoke ring blown into his face, arriving faster than her vocal reply.

I’m sorry.

Then stay.

The room fills with smoke. She has for-gotten to open the window. She hasn’t washed off her eye makeup and a single mascara-filled

Sophia Yapalater ’09

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59

If the poet feareddirtying the white pages,there’d be nothing to...

Charlotte Simons ’12

Carla Diaz ’09

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60

Alyson Klinow ’11

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61

I could tell you about the dead trees outside my window.I could tell you about the dry, sickly orange of the sunset.I could. Leaves dangle from their noosesTheir lifeblood drained from green to yellowBodies prepared for rot

The sky is a stark grayOpaque and thick like smokeThe sun chokes on it

The lake that should sparkle in light is suffocatedObscured by a poisonous inkAnd the water is drowning

I could ask you to cry for my dying beloved.I could ask you to feel the pain he must feel, writhing under our collective heel.I could. But I would hope that I don’t need to.

Stephen Rosen ’09

Our Collective Heel

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62

Relax yourjaw,

Relax yourface,

This isn’t a drawingI can’terase.

I’m trying to tracethe feelingsin yourhead.

They’re full of dread and fear

I’m trying to tread lightly here.

Dear,hold stilldon’t move,

There’s nothing hereI can’t improve.

Drawn

Juliana Bernstein ’10

Anonymous

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63Jianna Lieberman ’09

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Prior told Louis to come back when he had Real bruises And at the time, I did not sympathize But now I see The ones inside are real Enough.Prior told Louis to come back when he had Real bruises And at the time, I did not sympathize But now I see The ones inside are real Enough. Prior told Louis to come back when he had Real bruises And at the time, I did not sympathize But now I see The ones inside are real Enough.Prior told Louis to come back when he had Real bruises And at the time, I did not sympathize But now I see The ones inside are real Enough.64

Contemplation on Angels in America

Prior told Louis to come back when he hadReal bruisesAnd at the time, I did not sympathizeBut now I seeThe ones inside are realEnough.

Sophia Yapalater ’09

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Impressions 2009 would like to thank Dominic Randolph and Kent Kildahl for their support and enthusiasm; Sean Dagony-Clark for his technical assistance; Peter Finn, Steve Friedman, and the Ruder Finn Print-ing Company; our faculty advisors, Kendra Mackenzie and David Nicholson, for leading us through the process and helping us to harness the creativity needed to produce this magazine; and lastly, and most importantly, our contributors.

The Impressions Staff would also like to thank Jianna Lieberman, who poured her time, energy, and heart into putting together this magazine. Her talent, unwavering dedication, and copious amounts of patience have not only made this magazine possible, but also inspired those around her.

Credits: The painting on page 49 by Ben Kaplan is an interpretation of a painting (c.1932)

by Winold Reiss in American Artist: Nov. 1978: 54 - 59

The 2008 edition of Impressions received a Silver medal from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association.

Editors-in-Chief: Jianna Lieberman Fahmina Ahmed

Art Editor: Xiaojie Zhang

Literary Editor: Emily Keating

Faculty Advisors: Kendra Mackenzie David Nicholson

Staff: Carla Diaz Juliana Bernstein Jackie Dreier Catherine Rolfe Emily Birge Katie DeMarse Becky Goodman Alyson Klinow Isabella Jorrisen

thank you

Back Cover: Stephen Rosen

www.riverdale.edu

A man who is notafraid of the dark has no

imagination