Gary Presley

Elegy for Backseat Passion

A '78 Chevy Caprice, silver once, faded now into the dull gray that mimics paint primer, a raggedy red pinstripe decayed pinkish, rear hubcap missing, and rust spots gouging holes in the rocker panels.

On the dashboard, two open packs of cigarettes, both Marlboro, a flashlight, a crescent wrench, a bottle of Sam's Club water, and a box of animal crackers. Grace will be offered from Albrecht Durer's "Praying Hands" dangling silver from a chain looped over the broken rear view mirror.

Back seat toddler, mouth howled open, fists clinched, legs out rigid from the openings in the child safety carrier. The little seat is bright green, he is dressed in vibrant yellow overalls, and his face is red. A passion flower.

Driver fists are clamped on the steering wheel at the classic ten and two position, knuckles prominent, thumbs arced upward in tension, an echo of the child's tiny hands. Shadows of that same tension trace upward along driver arms, weight-lifter's muscles bulging, a tattoo of an angel sitting on a rose, chin in hand, on his bicep beneath a glaringly white sleeveless t-shirt above carpenter jeans, above ankle-high athletic shoes, laces untied, feet captured and hard-pressed against the bowels of the old car. Driver looks out the driver-side window, eyes obscured by wrap-around sunglasses.

A woman, chin on hand, slumps against right hand-door window, eyes focused downward. She wears a blue jean jacket, sleeves rolled to mid-arm revealing a gold bracelet on her left wrist from which dangles a single key. Beneath jacket, beneath hazy, off-kilter hair peroxided into an afro, is a dull gray t-shirt with faded maroon letters arcing across its center. Pressure against cheek distorts her expression, and her breath has clouded the lower portion of the glass.

She raises her eyes. She raises her arm. She writes in the mist:

A L L Y O U N E E D I S L O V E

The light turns green, and the road stretches out beyond the horizon.

CP

Gary Presley is an essayist whose memoir, SEVEN WHEELCHAIRS: A Life beyond Polio, was published October 2008 by the University of Iowa Press. Find links to his other work at http://www.garypresley.com

J.S. Graustein

Choice Cut

He asks, "Want a bite?"

She watches him swish a generous slice of pink sirloin toward her—tines down, with his left—then studies the hand that offers it; a hand with no ring, bronzed by outdoor work yet elegant in gesture, moon-shaped nails scrubbed clean.

In the movie version, she'd lock onto his caramel eyes and open her mouth to be fed. Run the tip of her tongue along the tines before closing her lips. Slip the morsel off the fork and chew slowly with a sensual smile. She'd hold a reciprocal bite just out of reach to watch his tongue quiver in anticipation. Her right foot would escape her suede sandal and slide along his denim-covered calf. He'd eventually capture his prey, though his maple lashes would flutter as her foot traveled higher still.

Instead she watches her own hands--hands that shake, left one branded with a gold ring—while she prepares a bite of crimson filet for him. Breathless. Speechless.

As if on cue, glass shatters like a vow behind the drink station. Then the autistic boy across the aisle brings the scene to a complete halt with a too-familiar line: "That's alright, Thomas."

So she replies, "Sure. Trade forks for a sec?"

CP

J.S. Graustein writes in flannel, a stuffed frog nestled in her lap. A list of the resulting works may be accessed here. She also plays Managing Editor at Folded Word.

Edith Parzefall

Euphoria

I see the spinning airbag, no larger than a child's balloon. A hissing noise startles me. An alcoholic smell creeps into my nose. I look down at my legs. They're fine—not crushed.

I stumble from the wreck and into the arms of a woman. Soothing me in Spanish, she leads me to the curb. I sit and stare at the X-Trail, unable to believe I stepped out of it unharmed. The front looks like a giant has kicked it in. Euphoria floods me. I laugh and tell the woman how lucky I've been. I'm clasping her hand so mine won't shake.

My heart beats an excited rhythm.

I'm alive.

CP

Edith Parzefall studied literature and linguistics in Germany and the United States. She works in Information Technology, but her true passions are writing and traveling. Edith lives in Nürnberg, Germany, and spends part of the year in Australia.

Wayne Scheer

A Lucky Woman

Cindy was about to be alone for what seemed like the first time in her life.

She had married Lloyd a month after her high school graduation. A wonderful husband and father, she loved him completely. And he, absolutely devoted to her, never left her alone for periods longer than a workday. Even then, he'd call at lunch just to say, "I love you."

They began a family almost immediately. Tommy was now three, and Jamie almost two. They were her life, but they clung to her like nails to a magnet.

"Mommy, look at me!"

"Mommy, see how high I jump!"

When her family slept, she often sat alone with a glass of white wine and thought. "God forgive me, but I need time away from the people I love most."

So when Lloyd's boss ordered him to attend a business conference, she could barely retain her joy.

"I'm sorry," he said. "It'll be for a week."

"Oh, I'll manage."

In her mind, she saw herself lounging in the bathtub or strolling through the park without chasing after two little ones. She arranged for her parents to take the children.

"That's so wonderful of your parents," Lloyd said. To celebrate, he surprised her with an extra plane ticket. "There'll be a group of wives during the day that you can join and we can be together at night. Isn't that wonderful?"

"I'm such a lucky woman," she said. But in her mind headlines flashed: Mother of Two Stabs Husband.

CP

Wayne Scheer has locked himself in a room with his computer and turtle since his retirement. (Wayne's, not the turtle's.) To keep from going back to work, he's published hundreds of short stories and essays, including, Revealing Moments, a collection of twenty-four flash stories, available as a free download at http://www.pearnoir.com/thumbscrews.htm. He's been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and a Best of the Net.

Russell Berrisford

ghosts

i don’t believe in ghosts
just shadows on the wall
footfalls on familiar carpets
that shimmer through the hall

there are no restless spirits
just reflections in the mind
scents on clothes and closets
are all that’s left behind

there is no hidden message
just words we should have said
and constant conversations
with the cold side of the bed

CP

Russell Berrisford lives in Vancouver and tries to avoid writing poetry about mountains and oceans.

Mel Bosworth

Morrissey Bled Through An Open Door

By the time I made it to the bar, my shoes were gone. The bouncer gave me a small ration of shit, but eventually let me in. "Next time wear fucking shoes," he nodded, then stepped aside. I thanked him with a nod of my own and pushed past. Three steps in, broken glass started raping the soles of my feet. I dropped to my ass and grabbed my ankles, lifting them. The trickle ran south, but when I pulled a particularly nasty shard from my heel, a stream spurted east, maybe west. Two girls, one in yellow mesh and the other in acid wash, clutched and screamed, then laughed. The bouncer hooked my armpits and lifted me up. "Get the fuck out," he said, but when he let go, I fell again. "What's the matter with you? Are you deaf?" I tried to explain that I'd stepped on broken glass, and that I was in no condition to walk, let alone stand. I tried to explain this as the girls laughed and pointed, yellow mesh blowing me kisses. The bouncer dragged me by the arms through the doorway and onto the sidewalk. Only then did he realize the red snail trail I'd left behind. Looking up, I could see his apology, but it came out rough. "Next time wear fucking shoes." I asked if he'd mind me sitting for a few minutes to pull the glass from my feet before walking. He didn't say anything, but jerked me a few yards from the door into the shadows. For a short time I felt like we were working together, him checking I.D.s while I fingered my soles. As he smoked a cigarette, I asked, "Do you like your job?" He frowned, then disappeared into the bar. He came back out with a coffee can. "For the glass," he said, setting it beside me. Then he sighed, and sat on his heels. I thanked him. The cigarette snapped red flicker onto the street, and I could feel him watching me as I wincingly worked. He began to ask a question, but stopped. I didn't have the answer anyway.

CP

Mel Bosworth lives and breathes in Western Massachusetts. Read more at http://eddiesocko.blogspot.com/

Diana Rosen

ICU

I took the night shift so’s I could see the kids off to school. I shower at the hospital even though home is just a few blocks away. Wake up the kids, Jeremy still lets me do it with a hug and a kiss, Anthony is in the “Aw, Ma,” stage, wants to hear about gunshot wounds, stabbings, freeway crashes; not babies being born with complications, not heart shunts, not tumors---or worse. Pack the kids’ lunches, cook oatmeal, cut up bananas on top, pour milk, juice, “Gotta big day ahead,” I say. “You got your books? Homework? Come straight home; I love you,” I shout after them as they saunter to the bus stop giggling and tussling, climb into that golden yellow bus, wave me a goofy goodbye. That’s when I sit in my chair, reckon with the silence, try to rock away the night shift, rock away what happens. Every day. To ordinary people. Just like us.

CP

Diana Rosen's poetry has appeared in the anthologies Kiss Me Goodnight, Those Who Can....Teach, and Bold Ink plus the journals Lucidity, convolvulus and RATTLE, among others.

xTx

It's Up to You...

What do you guys want? Do you want to do something? Let me know. I’m up for anything. Mostly. I like hiking, but as long as it’s not too strenuous or hot.

I like to wash a cool car in a driveway but there must be good music playing and the sun must be out and there has to be frosty Newcastles in a cooler nearby, and at some point you’ll have to squirt me with the hose and I will scream and try to hit you with my soapy sponge.

I don’t think I can rollerblade. I think arm wrestling is boring. I don’t like to go shopping. I like to walk fast at the beach. Maybe we could just sit side by side and read. I’ll take a second from the page to watch you shift position and then I’ll smile because, look!, we are reading side by side! Maybe we will have lunch afterwards. There is a sandwich I keep dreaming about. I mean, not while asleep…while awake. It’s a grilled turkey and cheese with an Ortega chili on sourdough. It’s pretty incredible. I think about it at least 4 times a week.

Last night I dreamed about lesbians. I dreamed that Betty White was a lesbian and nobody could say anything.

So, any of this sound good to you? Do you notice how I didn’t suggest anything sexual? Are you proud of me? Maybe we could go to your place and watch movies. I’ve been craving some Abbott & Costello. If you can get hold of a box set or something, I’d come over. I’d bring snacks and maybe you’d have bottled water or something. Maybe you’d have a blanket and maybe you’d watch me while I was laughing. Maybe, then, you’d think I was the best thing ever.

CP

xTx is widely published and has a large under- and above ground following. She also blogs at no time to say it, where she provocatively displays more of her angst, vitality, and outrageous behavior. Consider yourself forewarned.

Shaindel Beers

Cicadas

Where will we be the next time
they emerge, in 17 years,
when brood X nymphs first wriggle their way
out of exit holes, climb the trunks of oaks and maples,
sun themselves on viburnum,
pale and helpless, before their wings dry
and darken
so they can fly safely to trees to mate, lay eggs,
and die?
I'm not sure I have a concept of 17 years.
I remember Ronald Reagan was President,
I was jealous of my friend Lindsey because
she had a Debbie Gibson hat.
The Princess Bride came out, and is still
my favorite movie.
Seventeen years in the future seems daunting.
The boys at the little league field behind my house
will be men, the neighbors' dog will be dead
and the tree in my backyard
will no longer be mine.
I could be living anywhere—
not one to put down roots, I can't even guess.
Just yesterday, I realized, looking out your window,
that in less than two months
new trees will greet me from another window.
No longer the canopy of hardwoods,
but lush, tropical greens year-round
1300 miles away from you.
And though we've talked about this,
I wonder what you're thinking,
what you would like to be doing
with the seventeen years that this year's
nymphs will spend underground,
burrowing, living on the roots of all those trees.

—From A Brief History of Time

CP

Shaindel Beers is a Professor of English at Blue Mountain Community College in Pendleton, Oregon; the Poetry Editor of Contrary; and the host of talk radio’s Translated By. Her work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. A Brief History of Time, her first book of poetry, is available here.

Nancy Calhoun

Howl

Don’t bother with the moon
howl instead at love
that weaves your breath with another’s,
sharing the intimacy of oxygen
only to take it back
while you still need to breathe.

Howl at the vampire of memory,
who broods in the labyrinth of empty rooms
and hedge mazes of remembered events.

Howl at loneliness that fills the lungs
and drapes itself heavily around the shoulders
while memories pile up
on your side of the bed.

CP

Nancy Calhoun recently retired from corporate America. She has also sung opera part-time (quite well known in places no one has ever heard of). She lives in a small ranch town in southeast Arizona, in a home nestled in grasslands on a hill surrounded by mountains. Its beauty inspires her every day as she writes by the window, with opera playing on her Ipod.

Christopher York

Shining City on a Hill

That shining city on a hill
has blinded us all
the stars are obscured by its
thousand points of neon light
it should never have been built
lets retire to the plains
where the sky is wide
and may the last one out
please turn off the lights

I Sit By the Open Window

I sit by the open window.
A breeze caresses my brow
with a tenderness unlike I've ever received before,
and I know it's you,
making amends,
for past offense.

CP

Christopher York coaches his son's Little League team and is a member of his hometown's conservation committee. His work has been published in Breadcrumb Scabs, Calliope Nerve, Abandoned Towers, and elsewhere.

Wayne Scheer

Trying to Be Good

Boyd Loggins felt like a kid the day before Christmas. He was trying to be good, but it seemed like everyone conspired to cause him grief.

Driving home from his first night at the Wagon Wheel in eighteen months, he realized how much he had missed the curvy North Georgia roads. It had been raining most of the evening and everything smelled like it had been washed clean. He kept his window rolled down and let the rain spray his bare arm.

His radio didn't work, so he beat a rhythm on his steering wheel to the swoosh tada swoosh tada of the wipers. Squinting through the streaked windshield, he focused on the winding road ahead. He drove slower than he once did, imagining someone watching what a careful driver he'd become.

All night he drank nothing but Coke. Most of his old friends avoided him as if he were wired with explosives. But he had expected that. Eighteen months in jail is a long time.

Still he managed to have a good time. He two-stepped with Tammy Ann Lucas. He had almost forgotten how good a woman smelled.

"So what's it like being locked up?" she had asked.

At least she wasn't afraid of him. He stared into her blue eyes, afraid of saying the wrong thing. After a few moments, he realized he was still staring.

"What'd you miss most?" she asked, smiling the way she did when they were sweethearts in high school, before all the trouble started happening.

That's when he kissed her. He put his hands in back of her head and planted a good one.

"I sure missed that," Boyd said. But she pulled away and ran back to her friends. They told Big Roy behind the bar and Big Roy, waving his baseball bat, asked him to leave.

He wanted to explain but decided he'd do better to just walk away, like the doctors told him. At one time, he would have popped Big Roy in his fat face and told everyone to kiss his ass, maybe dropped his drawers for good measure.

But he had to control his impulses. That's what they told him.

Besides, his meds kept him in a kind of fog and it felt way too much trouble to fight through it.

Boyd realized he had allowed his truck to wander across the double yellow line. He swerved to gain control over the vehicle on the slippery, curving road. His tires squealed as he maneuvered his truck back onto his lane.

But flashing lights and the familiar sound of a siren didn't allow Boyd time to take pride in his driving ability.

The sheriff's first words when he squeezed out of his car were, "Boyd, you sorry ass drunken sonovabitch. You're goin' back to jail where you belong."

"Merry Christmas," Boyd said, trying to smile through the fog. Reaching into his back pocket, he realized he had left his wallet back at the Wagon Wheel.

CP

Wayne Scheer, a frequent contributor to Camroc Press Review, has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and a Best of the Net. His work has appeared in print and online in a variety of publications, including The Christian Science Monitor, Notre Dame Magazine, Eclectica, flashquake and others. Revealing Moments, a collection of twenty-four flash stories, is available here. Wayne lives in Atlanta with his wife.

Jack Swenson

Stopping for Death

The old veterinarian picked up the phone. "Earl!" he bellowed. "What's up? Aw, I got cancer. How are you?" His wife punched the pillow on his hospital bed and helped him sit up. "Yes, yes, she's here," the doctor said. He covered the speaker on the phone with one of his huge hands and spoke to his wife. "Earl says hi," he said.

Mavis shook her head. Her thoughts were a jumble of self pity and concern. Why does he insist it's no big deal, she wondered?

And now he was back in the hospital, and when she asked the doctors, they just stared at their shoes. Medical people hated to admit that there was nothing more they could do.

When they had first heard the news, she had cried. He patted her hand and said that he would be fine. Alive or dead, he said, he'd be all right.

She sighed. Alive or dead, she'd be okay, too, she supposed. They had lived separate lives. He was never home. The animals came first. He explained it to her: that's what he did. That's who he was. So where was she on his list? Second? Third? After he retired, he was always tearing off to save the world.

She thought half-seriously about having that carved on his tombstone: "He was never home."

At the memorial service, an old medical school friend told the story about the doctor's final moments. He died at home. A client came to see him and brought her dog and cat because she thought he would like that. He did, too. When the dog, a big, old, happy golden retriever, jumped on his bed, Ted smiled and cupped the dog's face with his hands. Then his practiced fingers curled back the dog's lips, and with half-closed eyes, the old vet examined the animal's teeth.

"He was a vet to the end," the friend said. An hour later he was gone. They found him with the cat curled up on the bed at his side.

CP

Jack Swenson is a teacher and writer who lives in sunny California. He writes flash and micro fiction. He also teaches a class at a local senior center and works around the house and yard when he has to.

Michelle Reale

Aftermath

After the funeral, the sisters struggled to cook a meal in their mother’s unfamiliar kitchen. Their small, stunned mother sat silent, staring ahead, eyes fixed on her own vision. The nearly identical-looking cousins kicked at one another beneath the kitchen table they crowded around like squawking birds in a nest. Unaccustomed to family gatherings of any kind, their husbands nervously lit each other's cigarette, talked of the blistering heat and all that might come next. The sisters were momentarily united in death and impatience with their mother who refused to talk, eat or weep.

Their kids wanted to take sides, as they were raised to do, but there were none to take until one of the sisters denied her nephew the soda he wanted with his meal. We don’t drink when we eat, she said with an upward flick of her chin, glad to be able to rattle off an old dinner table rule that her father had never bent. Her sister winced and restrained the familiar reflex to yell mind your own damned business. She gave her son a look she hoped was sympathetic. They ate like strangers do with one another: with agitation and nervous hunger.

As they sat in the kitchen, the wind and humidity made a mad swirl, threatening a storm. It levitated the detritus in the unkempt yard. A broken lawn chair slammed against the back door. One of the brothers-in-law jumped up from the table, overturning an ashtray, sputtering smoke. Well, now, he said, looking around the table with a smile, while wiping the sweat off the back of his neck. The cousins were wide-eyed and red-cheeked waiting for something to happen.

The aunt relented and begrudgingly offered the can of orange soda to the boy. It’s sweating, it’s already too hot to drink, the boy whined. The aunt slammed the soda can down on the table and no one said a word, but when a thick branch thwacked the kitchen window, they all jumped. Christ almighty, what next? One of the husbands yelled in a high-pitched voice.

The cousins swiveled their gaze to the hunched figure of their grandmother who sat still as a sentry, her skin dry and dusty. She placed her elbows on the table and laid her small gray head in her gnarled hands. Her grandson picked up the warm can of soda and slaked his thirst, his eyes at half mast, quivering, his left hand curled in a fist on his lap. To everyone’s surprise he offered the old woman a sip. It was the first gesture he’d made to a grandmother he rarely saw.

She lifted her head long enough to look at him. She gazed at the only people she had left in this world, all gathered in the small kitchen bathed in heat. They stared back at her, with some expectation. The room swelled and contracted. When she began to sob, they felt it was a good first step for all of them.

CP

Michelle Reale's fiction has been published in Verbsap, elimae, Rumble,Word Riot, Pank, Eyeshot, Monkeybicycle, Dogmatika, and others.

Nana Ollerenshaw

—Photo from Google Images

XAVIER RUDD IN CONCERT

The blond haired feral god ascended.
The crowd roared
before his sound could drown them,
whistled, screamed, chanted
orisons in homage with one throat.
Give it, give it, give it
baby give it, and he gave,
a cave man in the altar of his instruments,
the stomp box kitchen of guitar,
cymbal, drum, harmonica
growl, thunder, bark,
the grieving roll and wail of hollowed log.
To this apocalypse
she moved, sinuous with longing
arms outstretched
an ancient pelvic tilt
the body doing what it craved
old as stones or clacking sticks.

CP

Nana Ollerenshaw grew up in Connecticut, married an Australian, and moved to Australia in 1965. She changed from school teaching to nursing in 1988, and currently lives in Buderim on the Sunshine Coast of Queensland.

Daniel Romo

In Due Time

She sat across from me
Behind the travel section
On the second floor of the bookstore,
Her hair still wet from the shower.
I wanted to walk over and tell her
How sexy I thought
Girls with wet hair are,
Or ask her if she'd like to go downstairs
And get to know each other
Over overpriced scones
And macchiato,
Or…
Have her put her Cosmo down
And close her eyes,
Embracing the goose bumps
The flirty, grainy sound my pencil induces
As it continuously slides
Across the page.
I'll have her imagine
Intimate tropical islands
I'm writing about,
Where we dissect Dickinson
In a tiny, bamboo cabana
Surreptitiously serenaded
By the staccato
Of an impromptu August rain.
Picture us holding hands
Walking along cobblestone streets
In rich European towns
Whose names we can't pronounce.
Feel my caring finger
Wipe the mustard
From the corner of her mouth,
Because one can't go to Coney Island
Without visiting Nathan's.
She sat across from me
Behind the travel section
On the second floor of the bookstore,
Her hair still wet from the shower.
I wanted to walk over…
I wanted to walk over.

CP

Daniel Romo lives in Southern California and teaches high school there. He has been published in various forums, and is currently seeking admittance into a rather swell low residency MFA program. He strives to be witty and relevant in his poetry, but claims to use first person too much. He's addicted to SportsCenter and thinks gray sky the utmost inspiration.

xTx

Without Words This Is

It comes so easy for some…and others, not so much…

Triple play, koo koo ka choo…stop the screaming. Mottled doves and sand crunched in toes. Fat ladies in swimsuits with beards so dark you ask yourself, “Self…is that really a beard?” and you swab sunscreen over your exposed parts and look at your flesh and smooth it on. You take out someone else’s book and read it while others lob about in the ocean. You normally would peek at strangers but this book has taken you over and you don’t care who’s screaming and if that guy made that kite and how nice her ass looks in that lime green tankini. You don’t care. You are involved….as they say. You could care less.

It’s Saturday.

Then it’s Sunday and it’s like the Beatles and their entire lives are in front of you. You haul shit over and plant it. You lie about in the sun, with your shoulders high upon your torso and the sun.

Yes…the sun.

You can’t forget it because it won’t let you. Fucking you up the ass with its heat and its rays like an unforgiving ex-husband who wants to take the kids every weekend but you won’t let him because you are a bitch like that.

Costco and church confuse you. You don’t want to talk about church but you could talk about Costco but who cares?

Really….

Miles and miles of gargantuan items screaming, “BUY ME PLEASE!”

“BUY ME”

“BECAUSE YOU NEED ME!”

And that shit is so desperate and you are ashamed because you hear that shit and you PAY ATTENTION to it...and you HEED it even; a fucking sheep.

You are not better than anyone.

But there I go…digressing.

Suntans and white sundresses. That girl wears that green dress so well…it’s like we are all staring at her ass and then we all admit to it. You can see her lace thong outlined through it and all I am doing is wondering, “What color is it ?” and I’m framing it over her tanned oval ass cheeks in my head like everyone else is. And I’m thinking, “How does she fuck I wonder?????”

I am not alone.

Wine and conversation. I make friends with a 58-year-old Dane named Tor. He spills wine over his crotch and I take a picture of it which he deletes.

I am not the first or the last girl to scream, “I LOVE YOU PAUL!!!” But I am not crying.

No, I am not crying.

The night is over with staring through my neighbor’s window shades as they have a dinner party. I can see them holding their new prize…a new baby. She can hold her own head up now and they stroke her back like a prize. I know this, because I’ve been there. Look at her, she is the grace of god. She is my sunshine. She is blinding. Without words this is.

Deep breaths give it all away. And a shower will take the stickiness away. Sleep to Dream takes my breath away.

And it’s over.

CP

xTx has been published in places like Thieves Jargon, Cherry Bleeds, decomP, Dogzplot, Zygote, Laura Hird and others. She is included in the 2009 Dogzplot Anthology and has an ebook forthcoming from nonpress. She swears she will never drink again, but always does. She says nothing at www.notimetosayit.com.

Eric Burke

Nostalgia

Patio and thunder.
Stonework and soft
wanting
under.
Oh the full, the rich reality
of a closed
world.

Second Story

1.

The great stinkweed tree
to the east of our house

grew as high as our second-story bathroom window:
I always thought about

throwing a rope out to it      and escaping

CP

Eric Burke's recent work can be found in elimae, Right Hand Pointing, Alba, nibble, and The Driftwood Review. Work is forthcoming in Heavy Bear, Otoliths, and Counterexample Poetics. You can read his blog here.

Lydia Copeland

Lucky

Back to walking through rooms while our son sleeps through the nearly-midnight and the storms are gone and the neighbors have started their fighting again. She throws a shoe into a mirror, maybe it’s his shoe. He wants the money out of her hand. She sounds like twelve.

Under my blankets the lamp shines in, and it feels like morning on vacation, like sea grass and sand on the patio. I wish to peel back and see an unfamiliar view.

I remember how you hate birds singing in the morning, how it reminds you of being little and living in the bad apartments and the woman who busted down the door while your mother was on a date. She brought three women with her. You hid upstairs with your brother and listened to them shuffling papers and opening drawers. They were too drunk to notice the second storey.

Your mother was a lucky woman.

You said there were always crows in the mornings of those apartments, up with the first sun of the day picking through the parking lot pebbles.

Our son was up all the night before with his hands in his mouth. I sat on his bedroom floor and rocked him into my crossed legs until he fell asleep. In the morning his fever was still there.

You called from the hotel where you were living for the next few weeks. You told me not to tell you anything sad. So I told you how our son sings Brother John now, how he knows some of the French words. I told you I’m zipping through the crosswords on the train in the morning and how my new co-workers are all Libras and knitters. I didn’t say how it’s hard to breathe at night, how I eat too much and forget words all day long.

The neighbors are quiet now. I hear the hum of their box fans from my bedroom window. When I sleep the winds from the bay blow into our apartment. Everything is open to cool in the night. When you ask again, I won’t tell you how our son said he wanted you. How he said, “I miss him. I love him.”

CP

Lydia Copeland's stories have appeared or are forthcoming in Quick Fiction, Glimmer Trian, Dogzplot, elimae, FRiGG and others. Her chapbook, Haircut Stories, is available from the Achilles Chapbook series, and as part of the chapbook collective, Fox Force 5 from Paper Hero Press. She lives in New Jersey with her husband and son.

John Grey

—Photo by Ruth Douillette

BEYOND BIRDSONG

It's the birds on the high power lines that tell me. The
song is about nothing more than the possibility of being
fried alive at any moment. Or it could be the tunes of the
frenzied crows mobbing the Cooper's hawk: you only think
you’ve got the numbers. It's not always the melody of
chickadee cloud chirping directions at one another or
courting cardinals on branches. There's a chant for the BB
gun and the drop out of the sky. There's this almost
choral riff for the threat of being road-kill or fuselage
fodder. There's arias of the robbed nest, fugues for the
blood-red claws of night owls. There's concertos we don’t
hear: flute solos played by winter wind in hollow bones
or trembling counterpoints of broken wings and oil-soaked
feathers. Always, there's the music we must have, the
music that must have us.

CP

John Grey has been published recently in the Georgetown Review, Connecticut Review, South Carolina Review and The Pedestal, with work upcoming in Poetry East and The Pinch.

Rebecca Gaffron

Lysander: an apology to my wife

I confess,
wrote my fantasies down in a journal
me and your friend Lettie
wet and wild, like kids
who think they’ve got it so good,
not knowing what it feels like when the earth shakes
and two really do make one,
or four.

And I’ve been
like Lysander. Lost
without a trace
or explanation, here but gone,
while you wait
for someone you thought you knew to reach out his hand,
to forge ahead,
not escape into printed page
or glowing screen.

CP

Rebecca Gaffron is a mother, former teacher and writer who recently traded the lush valleys and rolling hills of her native central Pennsylvania for a wind-swept barn in Britain. Her work has appeared in The Cynic, The Salt River Review, SNReview, Literary Tonic, Sniplits, among others.

Stephen Jarrell Williams

JOYS OF MADNESS

Staying up all night painting
the enamel ceiling dark hues of blue
yellow stars and white lightning

dunking fries in catsup
drinking Pepsi
chewing ice

knowing the whole world is
sleeping on its back
kicking at the universal dream

loving
night shadows on soft skin
music playing in another room

lying quiet
holding on
holding on
to the joys of madness.

CP

The work of Stephen Jarrell Williams has appeared in several hundred publications. He loves to write, listen to his music, and dance late into the night.