Volume 1, Issue 4
The Birds and the Bees
Letter from the Editor
Our spring issue buzzes with the excitement that we experience this time of year when we walk past flowers blooming scents that were hidden by the grey of the past couple months, filling us with renewed vigor and imagined songs. We may seek shelter from spring rain but only to enjoy the smell and the feeling of coolness that somehow reminds us of the heat to come. Spring is a continual dance of transition between the chilly breezes and the oppressive heat. The energy we gain from the season comes from the moment we wake to sunshine only to discover that we still need to wear layers.
But spring, like the theme of this issue, is not just about nature. It is the time of “the talk” and the time of renewed passions. Authors in this issue wrote about sex and love (requited and unrequited) and of intimate experiences in nature. Perhaps because of the tendency for writing on this topic to lean toward the lyrical, we are printing more poems than we have in the past and each of the three poems approach the theme in unique ways. Authors have dealt with the theme with their tongues in their cheeks and in ways which show the complexity of intelligent-emotional-sexual people living in a thriving world.
The Talk
Ezra Fox
Son, you’re not old enough to know this, but I’ll tell you anyway. You were absolutely a mistake. Not the worst mistake I’ve ever made, but close. Your mother was the worst mistake. Knocking her up was the worst mistake. You, I like. I just wish I hadn’t had you. You understand, don’t you, son? Don’t get me wrong, I do like you. And truth be told, I wasn’t much older than you when your grandpappy sat me down and gave me the talk just like I’m giving you now. He said I’d understand someday, and damned if he wasn’t right. Son, you’re going to do some stupid things in your life. Don’t try to tell me otherwise- it’s just going to happen. I won’t say you were born with stupid genes, but they sure didn’t help. And I sure didn’t give you a good role model either. And, truth be told, I’m never going to get better. That’s the way your grandpappy was with me, and I see no reason to change. Shoot, what I’m trying to say son, is that you’re going to screw the pooch, pretty much your entire life. You’re going to make a helluva lot of mistakes and I’m not going to stop you. I’m not even going to bother. You’re going to do things, really stupid things from now until the day you die, falling off a roof with copper wire tied around your waist. Don’t try and fight it, you’ll only make it worse. You’ll probably meet some girl, think she looks like an Asian Sofia Loren and chase her halfway around the country, until you knock her up in a shit town like this one, and settle down for a lost decade of your life. You’re definitely going to drink on Sundays and root for a sadsack team like the Bengals. You’re going to work with good, tough men and hate your job until the day you retire, then miss it like it was your own mother. You’re going to see stupider men succeed and better men will come into your life only to shame you and gloat. You’re going to lose a lot of fights. I mean a lot. Shit will rain on you, pretty much continuously. It’s probably already started happening, and I won’t be able to help you much. The best I can say, son, is that maybe every once and awhile, we’ll get drunk and watch the Bengals lose together, and maybe laugh about all the shit that rains down on us, and how we only make it worse by fighting it. We’ll drink and swap stories about all the times we screwed the pooch and how it’s almost comforting to know that the natural law of the world still holds true. And maybe, just maybe, a lost decade after your two worst mistakes in a shit town with a fat Asian Sofia Loren you’ll sit down with your son and give him the talk and you’ll realize that it’s not all your fault, and at least one thing might’ve turned out alright.
In Velvet
Matt Stenovec
I pick up the phone, dialing the familiar 530 area code. Northeastern California.
Hey Dev, it’s Steno. Got a minute?
Sure.
Listen, remember that deer last summer?
Yeah.
I had some questions.
Alright, about what?
Let’s start at the beginning.
* * *
It’s been a slow week, made slower by the heat. We’ve reached mid-July, so the perpetual feeling of being slow-roasted is not unexpected, but it still makes working 14-hour days outside hard. Seven months before our phone conversation, Devin and I sit out on the dining deck at the camp we call home every summer. Coppercreek Camp rests midway up Keddie Peak three miles outside the quiet main street town of Greenville, California. Two and a half hours northwest of Reno, Nevada, we are in the part of California the rest of the world forgot. The shade offered by the towering Ponderosa pines does little to stem the 98-degree heat. The meat of the day has already passed; the sun is on its way out as we engage in the favorite pastime of camp counselors – digesting the events of the day and gossiping about our coworkers. Devin is six years older than I and has been working at summer camps since he was seventeen.
We recline on benches opposite each other, enjoying the quiet fifteen minutes before table setting for dinner. Devin spins a story of his misadventures when he was my age, and I am eating up every last bit. A voice comes in over the radio sitting on the table between us, interrupting Devin’s avuncular parable.
“It’s Craig. Anyone up in programming copy?”
Becky, the programming head and wife to Craig, grabs her own radio from the office adjacent to where Devin and I both sit. “Becky here, Sweetie. What’s going on?”
Both radios respond in stereo. “I just got a call from Linda at the barns. There’s a deer stuck in the loose goat fencing out near the maintenance sheds on the ranch property.”
Becky’s face darkens. “Well, what do you want me to do?”
“Get me some guys to get down here and help!”
“I have Devin and Steno here; I’ll send them.”
“Tell ‘em to hurry.”
Devin is already untangled from the picnic-style tables and striding towards the stairway off the dining deck. To no one in particular, Becky shakes her head and says, “I told Craig to clean up that fucking fence.” And then to me, “Well, Mr. Stenovec? Get!” She turns and walks back into the office, the radio still in her hand. Devin is almost to the green GMC parked in the lot below the dining deck, and I scramble out of my seat and over the railing, jogging after Dev. I jump into the passenger seat while Devin throws the old truck into gear, and we head over the bumpy dirt road towards the pasture.
* * *
Devin Bradley is a big man. Not just by his six-foot-three, 200-pound mass, but so more by his crushing laughter and ever-present smile. Devin’s a native of the area, born and raised in Chester, California, right on that dusty line separating the Sierra Nevada from the Cascades. An elementary school teacher, a gifted camp counselor, and a close friend, Devin is one reason I keep coming back every summer.
There is a story about him comes up a lot during staff meetings towards the middle of the summer. When everyone is tired of the kids, tired of the heat, tired of the incessant schedule, Lauren, the camp director, tells the story of when Devin’s grandfather died. Devin heard the news but kept right on doing his job to the fullest. He went to the dance that night, worked his magic pulling the wallflowers onto the dance floor, making a fool out of himself so even the shyest kids were in stitches. The next day he left for the funeral. Lauren uses this to pull all of us out of our own self-pity and remember why we are here: for the kids. Devin demonstrates his well-earned title as the “Super Counselor” by his ability to separate his own personal issues from the task at hand.
* * *
I just need to make people laugh, I need others to feel comfortable.
And you do a good job of it.
A short, barked laugh.
I’ve been doing this shit for a long time – there’s a reason they call me the super counselor. Kinda weird, huh? I mean, I feel like I’ve never shown my real face to anyone, at least not at work.
* * *
It’s only a five-minute drive down the main road and out the camp entrance, and then a quick left towards Craig’s “office,” a collection of barns housing the ski boats, skip loader, and wood shop. Devin and I turn towards the maintenance sheds. Craig stands near his house and waves us down. I scoot over so that he can join us in the cab. Craig is from Ukiah, over on the west side of the mountains. He moved east to be a chairlift maintenance worker in Tahoe, a job generally intended for old cons without much to lose. While working late nights in season trying to get the lifts running by morning, careless co-workers occasionally lost fingers, or even whole limbs. He revels in the cavalier. Craig Hogland is the sort of man who sits in his hot tub with a shotgun, a case of beer and an auto-fire clay pigeon launcher; he’s a hunter, small-time rancher, and full-time camp counselor. I’ve known Craig since I was twelve years old; he’s another reason I keep coming back every summer.
We stop at the edge of the meadow and exit the truck. The buck is immediately visible, staggering as if it’s afloat in a storm. The deer is clearly dehydrated, frothy spit like shaving cream falling from its mouth. A certain fear creeps up from my lower back, a basic wariness of sharp hooves and feral strength. The buck must have gotten stuck in the fencing while browsing; the hard black plastic mesh interwoven with copper electrical cable would have been all but invisible carelessly left in the tall grass after the goats had been transferred to their permanent corral. The buck is young, his velvet antlers containing a total of four points, his fur still bearing traces of the spotted camouflage found on fawns.
Craig, the most senior among us, naturally assumes control of the situation. He orders me to find the spigot and hose near the edge of the clearing and sends Devin in another direction to grab horse blankets from the back of the truck. Craig readies his knife.
I hose down the blankets Devin carries and the three of us slowly approach the exhausted animal. The buck’s eyes roll, white showing all around. His soft antlers are wrapped in the black mesh of the electric goat fence, a shadowy veil pulling him off his feet. Only now does he notice us. Devin has the lead, and the buck turns to face him. The animal starts towards Devin, then collapses. I begin spraying him down with the hose, a light mist to cool him off. Devin and Craig run in, Devin throwing the sopping horse blankets over the heaving belly of the buck. I fill my water bottle and toss it to Devin.
Craig instructs Devin to hold the buck down, using the wet blankets as he cuts away the black plastic and wire mesh. Devin holds the neck with his forearm and attempts to pour water into the buck’s gaping mouth. The deer halfheartedly laps at the stream. He appears scared and feeble, his face still showing the disproportionate delicacy of youth.
* * *
I remember those eyes. I was swallowed in them. They were terrified, full of terrible life. The buck was helpless and he knew it, I wanted to scream, I wanted to tell him to hold on…
* * *
The buck’s one visible eye locks on Devin, and then seems to fade. When Craig finishes cutting the antlers free, he stands and slowly backs away. I get as close as the hose will allow and continue to spray the sweat-soaked hide. The buck’s legs move, a shudder runs through him. A small hope swells up inside me.
“Stop,” says Devin softly, “it’s over.”
I stand there, impotent with the hose in my hands, water falling slowly around the three of us, providing a brief respite from the absolute heat.
* * *
Did I ever tell you about Cameron?
No.
My little brother, Cameron, had leukemia. I’d watched him suffer since he was five. One morning my parents asked me if I wanted to go with them to hospital for one of Cameron’s checkups. I said no. It was the first day of school, you know? I didn’t want to get behind. Later that day, my folks showed up and pulled me out of class.
* * *
The buck has stopped all motion now and lies still in the grass. Craig stares at the ground, mumbling curse words. He turns. “It’s different, you know?” Craig says. “ I mean, I hunt buck, slaughter cows and pigs, but it just wasn’t his time. Dammit.” He looks to the ground. “I should’ve cleaned up that fence.”
Devin is still on his knees, face down, the buck’s neck in his arms. He looks up, tight-lipped, saying nothing. “Well,” Craig says after a minute, “I guess I’ll call Don; he’d be willing to take care of this.”
Don Williamson was the manager and sometimes butcher over at the Evergreen Market in town. That realization seems to settle the matter for Craig, but Devin remains silent. The sun has fallen to a steep angle; our shadows are long and thin across the meadow, dark pillars on a sea of gold.
* * *
Yeah, as if I didn’t feel shitty enough after staying home the day Cameron died, there was my girlfriend back in Vermont.
What happened?
After college back east I returned to northern California. She called me to tell me she was pregnant. I sent her money for the abortion. Get it? I wasn’t there – I was out West. Fuck, I felt awful.
* * *
Craig walks over to the maintenance shed, talking on his radio. Devin stands up and walks over to me. The hose is still running; mud forms around my shoes. I realize this and turn off the hose, coiling the black length of rubber in the grass. Devin signals to me to walk with him back to the truck, and we ride back in silence.
Becky meets us on the porch and I relate the news. Devin continues on into the cool darkness of the programming office, seemingly without noticing Becky. She shakes her head and clucks her tongue when I finish. The dining deck fills with sunburned and smiling faces, boys and girls eagerly trying to outdo each other while recounting the grand adventures of the day. I locate my charges and we sit, waiting for grace.
* * *
You know what, man? I’d never felt like a good person.
Devin…
No, before the deer. The buck came to me right when I was wondering who the fuck I was. I wasn’t at the hospital, I wasn’t in Vermont. I’ve been absent for the most devastating moments of my life, and I’ve hated myself for it. The buck, he looked up at me, his eyes, they focused. He spent his last moments terrified. That moment made me so happy I wasn’t there to see Cameron go; I have so many great memories to thrive on. And there I was beating myself up because I missed the worst.
* * *
That night, after dinner, after skits and campfire songs, after TAPS and lights out, a quiet descends on the camp, not unusual for night, but still surprisingly refreshing. The temperature drops to forty-five degrees, a much-needed change from the day. Devin sits outside, his campers asleep inside his cabin. I see him on his porch, a lighter figure in the world of grays. The full moon, just rising, has trouble penetrating through the thick woods where the cabins stand.
I sit next to Devin. He looks at me, and then back to the carpet of pine needles and red volcanic dirt eddying around his feet. I feel absolutely helpless for the second time that day.
We watch the stars come out, doing their best to shine despite the moon. Devin stands, turns, and walks back into his cabin, making sure the door shuts silently behind him.
The Infinite Possibilities that Dishwashers Provide
Drew Arnold
If I had a dishwasher it would do all my dishes for me. More than just my dishes, it would do all my housemates’ dishes for all of us. The dishwasher would make my house much cleaner than it is now because instead of leaving dishes all around the house whoever was drinking out of a cup or eating off the plate, the bowl, or the Tupperware would put those dishes in the dishwasher because dishwashers make cleaning up so easy; so much easier than washing dishes by hand.
If I had a dishwasher my house would be clean and if my house was clean then people would come over more often. We could have more parties because our house would be clean enough to entertain and we would clean up after the parties instead of leaving debris all around because there are enough messes now caused by dirty dishes that we do not bother to clean up much; but if we had a dishwasher there would be less messes around my house and we would clean up the messes that we made. Our clean house would be welcoming for people; people would want to come to my house more. Many more girls would come to my house if I had a dishwasher. People would respect me more for having a cleaner house because people like cleanliness because cleanliness is next to godliness but because I do not have a dishwasher my house is close to godlessness. If I had a dishwasher and the girls who came to my house respected me more then the opportunities of me getting laid would be much more frequent and likely to occur. If I had a dishwasher I could get laid.
If I had a dishwasher I would not eat as unhealthily as I do now. I would not eat fast-food so often, I would not eat fried food at the place right up the road, and I would not eat frozen pizzas and other unhealthy meals like that that I could microwave or heat in the oven which do not necessitate using dishes. I would cook my own meals on the clean dishes that I would have in my kitchen and those meals that I would cook would be healthy because I would be in charge of my own diet instead of fast food restaurants and other conveniences being in charge of my diet. I would make salads with my family’s salad dressing recipe. I would cook chicken and pork; and I would cook broccoli and green beans and wild rice. I would snack on apples and oranges. I do not have a deep-fryer so I would not eat deep-fried foods. I would avoid trans fats.
If I had a dishwasher and all my clean dishes inspired me to cook more in my kitchen I would eat more healthily and I would lose weight. I would lose my gut; I would lose my tits. I would lose my chicken legs and I would shape my butt. Because once I start eating well because I have clean dishes and start making my own healthy food I will start to exercise because once I start feeling healthy I will want to get healthier. But I won’t just get healthy; I’ll get buff. I’ll get huge. Chicks dig huge. If I had a dishwasher I would be a chick-magnet; if I had a dishwasher I would get laid.
I would stop spending all my money on food that costs more when I buy it at a restaurant or fast-food joint. I would not buy pizzas for twelve dollars and hundreds of calories just because I did not want to wash the dishes; I would not buy sandwiches to-go because I would have clean knives and cutting-boards and plates at my house. I would not buy sodas and juices to drink straight from the container because I would have glasses and cups at my house to fill with water. I would save hundreds of over-spent dollars by not purchasing over-priced conveniences. I could be rich with all the money I would be saving.
Chicks dig rich. I could impress women with my disposable cash. I could buy things to make me sexy – things like nice shirts; hip, frameless glasses; Calvin Klein boxer-briefs; a trendy watch; you know, things chicks dig. I could buy things to make women feel special – things like jewelry, or movie tickets, or whatever. Women would flock to my money. I would be a ladies-man because I could spend money on women. If I had a dishwasher I would save money on expensive, convenient food and my extra money would impress women and then they would sleep with me. If I had a dishwasher I would get laid more because of my extra money. (Once I stop eating out I could start eating out, if you know what I mean).
If I had a dishwasher my housemates would put their dishes into it. The dishwasher would make my house cleaner and a cleaner house would make me happy – and not just because I would be getting laid more. A dishwasher and a clean house would make me happy because I do not want to live in squalor. I would not become hair-pulling, self-mutilating, skin-bruising, itchy-angry with my housemates for leaving dishes all around the house because they would not leave dishes around the house, and if they did leave dirty dishes around the house for some reason, I would not mind putting their dishes in the dishwasher because putting dishes in the dishwasher is easier than washing dishes. I would not feel like I was cleaning up after them; I would not feel like their servant. I would feel like I was putting things in their place – dirty dishes in the dishwasher.
If I had a dishwasher everything would seem better. My base level stress would decrease. I would walk around with a smile on my face. The sun would shine brighter (except in the early morning when I am sleeping); the cold would be less biting; the warmth would be more comforting; my bike would be less rickety; my classes would be less boring; my friends would be more friendly; my enemies – (wait, who has enemies?) – they would be as nonexistent as ever; my hangovers would be less debilitating; and food would taste tastier. All because I would feel better about life because the dishwasher would make my life so much better than it is now without a dishwasher.
If I had a dishwasher I would be in a better mood all the time than I am now. My better mood would make me more attractive because I would not be walking around with a bunched brow and a frown. I would be walking around with a smile. I would say hello to people and we would stop and chat and I would be a much friendlier person because the dishwasher would have made such a positive impact on my life that I would have very little worries in life. People like friendly people and people would like me more because I would be a friendlier person. Women like friendly people who other people like. My positive attitude and improved worldview would make women like me and want to be with me and they would not be able to resist my charms. If I had a dishwasher women would sleep with me because I would be a better person. I would have a dishwasher and I would be a better person and women would like me and I would get laid.
If I had a dishwasher I would be getting laid so much that I would not have time to do much else, let alone wash dishes, but that would be ok, because I would have a dishwasher to wash my dishes. And I would be getting laid.
Some brown sparrows who live/ in the Bronx Zoo
Sophie Johnson
I was forced to live in a jar filled with formaldehyde so I couldn’t see or breathe, but I remained aware of it, living but not really alive in the putrid murky liquid. When I woke up at 6:30 in the dark morning I was sweating; my nightmare haunted me; I decided I would get up.
I thought I was the only one in the whole universe who was awake. The thought was terrifying. I felt very small.
A sound came just above my head then, like footsteps. It was a robber upstairs in the kitchen! It was just the time for robbers, 6:30 in the dark morning when no one else was awake. I had to tell my mother.
But she wasn’t in her bed. She had been abducted. I abandoned all good judgment and ran up the stairs to the kitchen where I heard the noise, armed with nothing but my two small fists, determined to fight this robber to the death before I let my mother die at his hand.
But the robber was not there. Instead, at the kitchen table sat my mother, fully dressed as though the day had begun long ago, sipping a cup of black coffee, pouring over a green leather notebook she bought at Harrod’s department store in London.
“What’s the matter?” She moved toward me in a moment of instinctual maternal panic. I was in a sweat, just gaping at her. She rubbed the back of my nightgown. “Did you have a bad dream?”
I still couldn’t answer. I was still in shock. She scooped me up and put me against her shoulder. Then, I saw out the window.
Everything outside was already awake. The clouds were stained orange and dark blue right above the mountain; the flowers yawned and uncurled; the trees began to regain their color. And in the apple tree just outside the window, hundreds and hundreds of birds.
* * *
I don’t want to go to Chicago. Why did I ever want to go to Chicago? I wanted to be defiant. I wanted to prove something ambiguous to someone who is gone now, and now I am actually going and I don’t want to go.
People belong in one place. They are not meant to get into planes and fly great distances. If people were meant to fly, they would have evolved with wings. No, people are meant to walk. Walking exists for day-to-day convenience; for survival. It is certainly not meant for long-distance travel.
The planes look so unnatural at their mathematical angles as they go up and up and disappear. Their wings are so still and unchanging. I am not a bird.
* * *
"You are my bird.” He says it to be romantic, because he knows that I love to get up early to watch the one yellow warbler – perhaps the only remaining yellow warbler in the world, because he is the only one I have ever seen – eat at my feeder; because he knows I draw them in the margins of my notebook. He says it because he thinks it will get him laid, because he knows it will get him laid, because he wants to get laid by a bird. I can’t blame him. So I kiss him harder than before, knowing what he thinks only he knows, knowing he only said it because it was pretty.
* * *
In Chicago, in Hyde Park, it is colder than I expected it to be. I am wearing layers of old sweaters my grandmother knitted for my mother that she has since outgrown. I smoke American Spirits, but they’re ten dollars a pack here because the cigarette tax is so high, so I try not to smoke very much, and besides my roommates hate it. I only smoke on these long walks I take outside every once in a while to see the parrots.
No one expects parrots in Chicago. Chicago is supposed to be shades of gray, not bright green and yellow. Chicago is supposed to hum monotonously, not squawk. Still, somehow, there are hundreds of monk parakeets in Hyde Park. They build these tremendous nests out of sticks and leaves, and they positively scream (sing?) at the top of their lungs while they sit in the trees, so they’re easy to find.
The story is that once, thirty-something years ago, someone had been breeding a few monk parakeets in their home and had let them go for whatever reason. Against all odds, the parakeets thrived and multiplied, finding unlikely habitats in the enormous sycamores along Lake Shore Avenue and the maples by all the churches on 59th. Somehow – and no one can really understand why – the tropical birds began to survive even better than they do in their home country of Mexico. Every year there are more of them: happy parakeets making a home in the gray, humming city.
* * *
The feeling I had when I graduated could only be described as peculiar. You are supposed to feel wonderful and you are supposed to get drunk. I did neither. I was confused and tired and hungry but not hungry at all. So I locked myself in my mother’s study where all the good books were, deciding to let someone in a poem describe my feeling for me – that was always the easiest way.
But next to the John Ashbery volumes was a green, leather notebook. Out of curiosity, I opened it up.
“June ninth, twenty-two sparrows and three chickadees so far, possible repeats,” someone had written, and then there were eight pages of pencil-lead drawings of birds, and then came June tenth. It went through August, and every day the drawings got better and better. On the second to the last day: “The first yellow warbler I’ve ever seen today. A thrill.”
* * *
Dear One:
If you can leave and go to the University of Oregon which is eight hours driving distance from me, I am going to go to Chicago, which is much farther. I am going to go and study journalism and wear fancy dresses every day and eat out at Thai restaurants and you can’t come with. Now I am vindicated. Now you know that I don’t really love you either, no, no, I never really loved you either. You are deluded to think I loved you at all. I am glad you went to the University of Oregon, eight hours driving distance from me. We are separate entities you and I. Individuals, isn’t that how you put it? Yes. That is how you put it. I hope you have a lovely time at your University. I shall have to send you a postcard.
Love,
P.S. I am sorry I “screamed” at you. I was not “screaming.” I was only singing, really, and you think there is a difference.
* * *
My mother helped me hang a suet feeder right outside my bedroom window.
“Now they’ll wake you up every morning with their racket,” she said.
“Not racket.”
“At 6:30 in the morning, trust me, you’ll think it is racket,” she said. She paused. A look came into her eye like I was a stranger, or a photograph she had never seen before, but then the look passed and she said, “I wonder who will watch the birds when you have gone away.”
* * *
I bought a pair of parakeets at the pet store last week because they looked so depressed all crammed in the tiny cages the way they were. I turned the storage room downstairs into an aviary with touch-lights; tall, ferny plants; six wooden dowels hung from wire to perch on; a table and chairs. This was a good set-up for a pair of domesticated birds; really, very luxurious.
There’s a cage, too, for the food and water, but it’s just so small. I wired the door to the cage open and left the birds alone for a few days to explore the sanctuary I had built, but five days later they were still inside.
“The door is open,” I finally said out loud, thinking I might be able to get through to them. No response from the parakeets. I stuck my hand in the cage to demonstrate that, indeed, objects could pass in and out of the door. Nothing. Finally, I put on some gloves and tried to grab them to transfer them to their lofty new environment. The birds clutched the wire on the inside of their cage for dear life, until they were chirping so loudly and biting with such force that I had to let go.
* * *
I’m going to have to let you go. You were the force that kept me on the ground. I realize now that I am meant to be up in the sky.
An Irrational Change of Heart Results from the Author’s Overactive Imagination, Emotional Tendency to Associate Spring with Idealized Love as Reality, and an Extensive Academic Background in Fairy Tales, Despite Her Heinous Intentions Toward Men in General.
Gabriella Sterne
Winter and as evening awaits the dark,
we gaze through cold glass, obsessing about love.
Clouds sweep the horizon, darken its arc,
and words black our hands, concealing like gloves.
I would touch you like this, hands under wrap,
hold for myself knowledge of what is real,
to avoid all that sentimental crap
and just get, “what I want”? out of the deal.
But the world-weary birds sigh a new-built
song, serenading worlds toward sentiment.
My stained hands bloom, baring their shades of guilt,
and question the fingers. Why are they bent?
As this thawing place steps down toward the night,
there, sparkles spring in the late-winter light.
Sonnet for a Shadow
Kim Hooyboer
Were I to put you into words,
I'd write your smile (more awkward than amused) in rhyme,
suspend the ebon passage of the night and
stay our hopefulclinging hands in time;
I'd tell of how we melted into black
among the silhouetted trees
and how the match’s glow would
draw the
shadows back from
avid amber eyes and lifted brow.
Then might I set your name amongst the Dark
Lady and Shelley’s ruined stone
to dwell immortal in the
whispered word
and stark black strokes across the barren page.
To tell the truth,
I am no fool who dares expect
my words apt to illume
your silhouette.
Static Air Poem
Katrina Barlow
outside, the air crackles statically,
skittering over the porch, and
knocking against the legs
of a white wicker chair and the rusty frame
of a desk and a man
who thinks in time to the
clacking of his typewriter
and the crooning of the woman’s voice within,
that catches and tears on the screen door
as it crackles from the record player within:
“won’t you please come on in
because I love you—
because I love you—
—I love you—
because I love—”
it skips.
Masthead
| Editor | Drew Arnold | |
| Layout | Kim Hooyboer | |
| Copy Editors | Lizzie Norgard Matt Stenovec | |
| Staff | Ben Gannon Danielle Alvarado Toby Kahn Ben Kegan Stazh Zamkinos |
