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Cargoes<br />
2009
Cargoes<br />
Quinquireme of Nineveh from distant Ophir<br />
Rowing home to haven in sunny Palestine,<br />
With a cargo of ivory,<br />
And apes and peacocks,<br />
Sandalwood, cedarwood, and sweet white wine.<br />
Stately Spanish galleon coming from Isthmus,<br />
Dipping through the Tropics by the palm-green shores,<br />
With a cargo of diamonds,<br />
Emeralds, amethysts,<br />
Topazes, and cinnamon, and gold moidores.<br />
Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smoke stack<br />
Butting through the Channel in the mad March days,<br />
With a cargo of Tyne coal,<br />
Road-rail, pig-lead,<br />
Firewood, iron-ware, and cheap tin trays.<br />
John Masefield
Special thanks to<br />
Lisa Radcliff<br />
Brenda LaPrade<br />
Tony D‘Souza<br />
Claudia Emerson<br />
Richard Dillard<br />
TJ Anderson<br />
The Nancy Penn Holsenbeck Fund<br />
& the outstanding <strong>Hollins</strong> community that<br />
contributed to the creation of the 2009 issue of Cargoes.<br />
Front Cover<br />
Bum on Park Bench<br />
Catherine Stillerman<br />
Black and white photography<br />
Inside Covers<br />
Untitled<br />
Tiffany Robinette<br />
Oil, spraypaint, and collage on plexiglass
Cargoes 2009<br />
Editors<br />
Jeanette Jo Price<br />
Kathy Transue<br />
Readers<br />
Debbie Chow<br />
Amanda Gaye Smith<br />
Meaghan Quinn<br />
Kat Connor<br />
Jessica Franck<br />
Lilly Gray<br />
Taylor Hodge<br />
<strong>Hollins</strong> <strong>University</strong><br />
Roanoke, Virginia
Jessica Franck<br />
Meaghan Quinn<br />
Erin McKee<br />
Aaron Greenberg<br />
Debbie Chow<br />
Luke Johnson<br />
Kathy Transue<br />
Allison Hitt<br />
Amanda Mitchell<br />
Tallula Ho<br />
Amanda Gaye Smith<br />
Amy Dixon<br />
Anya Work<br />
Callie Bonatz<br />
Brittany Jamison<br />
Taylor Hodge<br />
Debbie Chow<br />
Renee Branum<br />
Kathy Transue<br />
Emily Campbell<br />
Erin McKee<br />
Amy Dixon<br />
Helen McKinney<br />
Jeanette Jo Price<br />
CONTENTS<br />
Poetry & Fiction<br />
A Scarlet House<br />
Letters, 1921<br />
Without Shoes On<br />
French French Burger<br />
a proper response to an old, white man who<br />
claims i shall know my place and write things<br />
asian-american<br />
THE HEART, LIKE A BOCCE BALL<br />
the debonair locals<br />
Cusco, Perú<br />
Route 7, Box 363<br />
Pattaya<br />
―Gentlemen‖ a found poem<br />
Saint Michael Lights a Candle<br />
The Reluctant Monk Ponders the Loss of His<br />
Hair By The Sea<br />
Experience<br />
1967<br />
Origin<br />
Stream of Mock Love\(Consciousness)<br />
Queenswalk, November<br />
Word Problem: Post-Colonial Theories<br />
Ladybug<br />
Avon Girls (excerpted from a longer work)<br />
Seven half diminished seven<br />
Praise For a Sick Woman<br />
Homme nu, homme noir<br />
6<br />
8<br />
9<br />
11<br />
16<br />
18<br />
19<br />
20<br />
21<br />
22<br />
24<br />
25<br />
26<br />
27<br />
29<br />
30<br />
32<br />
35<br />
36<br />
37<br />
39<br />
40<br />
42<br />
48
Catherine Stillerman<br />
Leigh Werrell<br />
Elizabeth Lawrence<br />
Catherine Stillerman<br />
Shazy Maldonado<br />
Kathy Transue<br />
Jeanette Jo Price<br />
Tess Waugh<br />
Kelly <strong>Hollins</strong><br />
Leigh Werrell<br />
Tiffany Robinette<br />
Tess Waugh<br />
Tess Waugh<br />
Kyra Orr<br />
Artwork<br />
Caroline<br />
That one‘s actually a man<br />
being comfortable with my feet<br />
Docks<br />
La Primogenita<br />
Okay, so this is how the universe works<br />
Le Coucher du Soleil sur le Sahara<br />
Mail Pouch<br />
Untitled<br />
Gesture<br />
Untitled<br />
Pure Gold<br />
When the fat lady sings...<br />
Untitled<br />
7<br />
10<br />
17<br />
23<br />
28<br />
31<br />
34<br />
38<br />
41<br />
47<br />
49<br />
50<br />
61<br />
62<br />
Fifth Annual National Undergraduate<br />
Poetry & Fiction Competition<br />
Liam Green<br />
Jessica Franck<br />
A Break From the Neighborhood<br />
From An Old Maid To Another<br />
52<br />
60<br />
Nancy Thorp High School Poetry Contest<br />
Allison Swagler<br />
Emily Swanagin<br />
Emily Swanagin<br />
Robin E. Burns<br />
Alexandra F. Brown<br />
Kelsey Greenwood<br />
Emma Roberts<br />
Eventually, it becomes too much<br />
Coordination<br />
Shema Yisrael<br />
―sensation‖<br />
Foiled<br />
Untitled<br />
What You‘re Not Telling Him<br />
64<br />
65<br />
66<br />
68<br />
70<br />
71<br />
72
A Scarlet House<br />
In a stark room<br />
I looked at projections<br />
of a scarlet house with<br />
four chambers and two chimneys<br />
It was precious<br />
the size of my fist<br />
velvet with warmth<br />
but I began to wonder<br />
how this delicate nature<br />
could keep going and<br />
How hadn‘t I noticed<br />
this exertion, that<br />
it was going to tire<br />
it was going to stop<br />
my life.<br />
A hand grasped my chest<br />
groping frantically against<br />
ribs bucking wildly<br />
breaching my body<br />
and nerves like hot wire<br />
squirming for an escape.<br />
When my fingertips<br />
heard a whisper<br />
of a chimneys‘<br />
rhythmic breath.<br />
Hushed, inside<br />
a scarlet house<br />
allaying my body<br />
by chambers rocking.<br />
Though,<br />
every so often<br />
a trembling hand<br />
slides off my collarbone<br />
and listens.<br />
Jessica Franck<br />
6
Caroline<br />
Catherine Stillerman<br />
Black and white photography
Letters, 1921<br />
I kept yr letters. the ones posted from Israel. in a hatbox on the mantle.<br />
You wrote on onion paper in black ink and quoted<br />
almanacs, the bible, Hitler, the stars.<br />
sometimes when I cannot sleep<br />
I read them out loud and wonder if<br />
sometimes, when you lie awake, you<br />
unfold my letters, envelopes balled in the coat pocket of yr frock<br />
slung over the back of a rocker. yr face bagged skin so plain in the den where<br />
you pick yr eyebrows and drink straight whiskey, hack, cough vanilla tar sucked<br />
out of a pipe. whiskey unwinding. stereo turned on low. cassette tape winding<br />
listening intently. soft copy of Anna Karenina read twice over on an arm chair.<br />
why.<br />
unblindfold yrself, glass owl eyes<br />
follow my umbrella out to the balcony. crow, a willet, straddles telephone wire.<br />
caw.<br />
have you shaven yr beard do the peonies still grow crooked against the white<br />
and black garage have you fixed the broken stove light Is there meaning in a<br />
word, in two bodies making love<br />
I‘ve been sleeping with yr letters, suckling the paper with my mouth<br />
open, palm open awaiting Eucharist, emptiness. yr translation of<br />
Catullus has bleached itself upon my tongue. why.<br />
an owl has been living in a tree near my house, you again. cuckoo.<br />
hammock halfmoon halfmoving in the wind, a cradle nesting in the owl‘s tree.<br />
museums, yr reflection hidden, blurred, color and water like a painting.<br />
the smell of paint contains me. You are pollution.<br />
plastic, crows, candles, genitals, clocks. why.<br />
Winter.<br />
we took the tram to Munich, yr eyes looked black from the moon. It started to<br />
snow.<br />
We spoke of the frost, art, the opera, yr wife. why.<br />
Meaghan Quinn<br />
8
Without Shoes On<br />
I.<br />
We're not in business to give away shoes, ma'am. But Ma'am is a revision--<br />
Mama's. The clerk-woman has on butterflied spectacles. Still works there, still<br />
wears them. And if I'd of had a peep hole, I'd of seen us reflected: Mama, rough<br />
pleats over her swelled-up belly, and Clinton there barefoot and folded in her<br />
skirts. But I can't see out. Naked and slick as a rabbit, stuck in a widow's gut. I<br />
can't see out, but they tell me about it—later.<br />
II.<br />
I'm telling you. I laid up for three months grieving that sonofabitch but I waited<br />
til Jim got born. Drank soda water and quit my insulin. No money. Let my feet<br />
fat up like grape-rot. Went on in the kitchen, and honey, the deeper that knife<br />
went the better I felt. See the scar, there— looks like rope burn but it ain't. Clinton—<br />
he's the one that ran for the ambulance. The oldest. Very smart. Course<br />
he's in a home now out in Garner. Owned by the same company as this one, can<br />
you believe it. Got him medicated so good he don't sit up straight. Let me tell<br />
you about that boy: He wasn't but six years old, walked down to the barber shop<br />
over yonder from the house and got him a haircut. Barber says that'll be two<br />
dollars. And what did that boy say He said just charge it to my account.<br />
Walked his little bare feet on out the door.<br />
III.<br />
Well, they got this dirty scab out back where the grass don't grow and they call it<br />
a courtyard. I said to someone this ain't much for a garden and they said what<br />
do you expect. Well. They call this place Martin House like the birds. Gourdliving<br />
birds, shit the ground white as April snow. Mama had a rack of them<br />
Martin gourds out back like to have drove us crazy. Maybe did. Noisy birds.<br />
And the smell. But the smell fits this place, now don't it. Got a younger brother<br />
comes twice a week and like to pass out. Works in an office in Raleigh, and<br />
does alright. You wouldn't know it, but Jim was born crooked, and without<br />
shoes on.<br />
Erin McKee<br />
9
That one’s actually a man<br />
Leigh Werrell<br />
Pen and ink
French French Burger<br />
William‘s voice makes a kind of high buzzing chirp. The sound your<br />
voice makes when you talk through an electric fan. He has not yet figured out<br />
how to clear his throat without tonsils. He comes out of the shower playing<br />
drums on his wet belly with plump little palms. He sings, ―Don‘t you wish your<br />
girlfriend was hot – like – meeee Don‘t you …Don‘t you‖ and then, ―I‘m<br />
gonna buy you a draaank, yeah eeyeah, ‗cause I got money in the baaank!‖<br />
William does not know what the words mean. He is seven. A little Italian<br />
Stallion. Slick hair, olive skin, macho swagger. Big brown heartbreakers<br />
framed in long lashes. The gold chain hung around his neck is sized to fit a<br />
grown man loosely. Saint Anthony rests just above his belly button.<br />
William has a clean, white scar that neatly bisects his scalp from ear to<br />
ear. He has an aide. A one-on-one. This skinny blonde high-schooler covered<br />
in freckles. She wears her hair in shoulder-length twin braids, like the girl on<br />
the Swiss Miss box. Her job is to stay with William all the time he is awake.<br />
William‘s first day at camp, I took the aide aside. I asked about the scar.<br />
―His skull was too small when he was born,‖ she told me. ―The doctors<br />
had to open it up and let it out a few inches so his brain would fit. At least, you<br />
know, for now.‖<br />
The way she said it made me think of a tailor altering a crotch. Because<br />
of his brain‘s short breath of fresh air, the aide explained, William is a little off.<br />
His thoughts jam up sometimes. He gets angry. The aide‘s job is mostly to deal<br />
with the freakouts and get him places on time.<br />
William goes over to the long green bench where his aide has left his<br />
backpack. He shoves his fist inside it and yanks out his pair of blue goggles like<br />
gutting a chicken. He brings them to the old sagging couch where I have been<br />
sitting, waiting for him to get out of the shower. The couch got left outside during<br />
the off season. We dragged it back into the pool house at the beginning of<br />
the summer. It smells like rotten pumpkins. I smooth William‘s hair and sling<br />
the band of his goggles over his head. He slaps the lenses into his eye sockets.<br />
He holds his hand up for me. I take it, and walk him poolside.<br />
William is my first lesson today. I hand him a bottle of sunscreen and<br />
he glops himself with white. The sun streams the dew off the soccer field beyond<br />
the pool house fence, and the woman I am in love with comes striding<br />
through the wet grass. Olena Anatolyevna Mokrenko: soft mass of rippled redbrown<br />
curls, like something you would drizzle on a cheesecake. Long, tanned<br />
legs crowned with two perfect muscular nerf balls of ass. Flashing warrior‘s<br />
eyes. Sly predator‘s smile. She calls me ―Malisch.‖ In her language it means,<br />
―little boy.‖ From her height, that is how I look. As she passes, on her way to<br />
her ropes course in the woods, I put my hand over my heart. I call out to her,<br />
―Ti oten kressiva ya!‖ In her language it means, ―You are beautiful!‖ I do this<br />
every morning. It is a ritual of ours. It is a win-win situation. I get to vent this<br />
boiling joy reaction that happens in my stomach when I see her. She gets to<br />
have the first sounds she hears each day be the birds singing, and children<br />
laughing, and someone telling her she is beautiful. We would have to stop, of<br />
course, if any of the campers knew Russian. Or maybe we would not. After all,<br />
11
what I say is not lewd, or in poor taste, or of a corrupting nature to the mind of a<br />
child. It is just a very loud, from-the-diaphragm statement of fact.<br />
I am teaching William to dive. I climb up onto the diving board and<br />
show him. Palms together. Arms out straight. Hug your ears with your elbows.<br />
Push off with your feet. Legs straight. Feet together. I dive. The world is gone<br />
for a few seconds. Everything is cool and blue and silent. I weigh nothing. I am<br />
everywhere embraced. The water loves me.<br />
I break the surface. Swim to the side. William claps. We start him on<br />
the side of the pool, not the diving board. He starts kneeling instead of standing<br />
so it is not such a long way down. So he is not so afraid. I watch him from the<br />
water. His first try, he skids off the surface like a panicked alligator. He swallows<br />
some water and coughs.<br />
―You okay, William‖ I know he is okay. If you‘re coughing, you‘re<br />
breathing. But I ask anyway.<br />
―Yeah,‖ he says, ―did I dive‖<br />
―No,‖ I say, ―but close.‖ I tell him what he needs to do. He needs to<br />
push off more, and think about going more down than out. He needs to pick a<br />
spot in the water, keep his eye on it, and push off with his feet until he is there.<br />
He swims to the side, and beaches himself on the wet concrete. He stands up<br />
and squeezes the water from the pockets of his trunks. He shakes his butt and<br />
sings, ―My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard!‖ His voice is like a cricket<br />
from Brooklyn. He kneels down and tries his dive again. He gets a little closer<br />
this time. Tries again. He needs to keep his legs together. Point his toes. This<br />
would be a lot easier if I could do what my father did. If I could put one hand<br />
around his waist, the other around his ankles, and guide him into the water.<br />
But this is America, and it is better not to touch if you can help it.<br />
―Did I dive‖<br />
―Not yet, William. Closer though. Let‘s try it standing up this time.‖<br />
He shrugs his shoulders. He claps his hands and rubs them together.<br />
He plants his feet, bends his knees, and springs up, arcs beautifully, brings his<br />
legs too far forward and flips over as he enters the water. He makes a long<br />
splash with his feet. It spatters the opposite side of the pool. It kills a bumblebee<br />
on the wing. I hear it slap the pavement. I hear its last feeble buzzes. William<br />
twists himself around and comes up for air.<br />
―Did I dive‖<br />
―Almost, William. Your splash killed a bee though.‖<br />
―Yes!‖<br />
―William, that‘s not nice.‖<br />
―Oh.‖<br />
―We should go over and say we‘re sorry.‖<br />
William nods solemnly, and we swim across to the other side of the<br />
pool. The bumblebee is still there, twitching a little in the puddle from William‘s<br />
splash. We climb out and squat down. William pokes the bee in the furry<br />
hind end with his pinky finger. The bee shudders. William grabs my shoulder<br />
and shakes me.<br />
―He ain‘t dead!‖<br />
―Don‘t touch it, William. I don‘t want you to get stung.‖<br />
The binder with the chlorine test log leans up against the fence. I slip a<br />
12
lank log report out, and slide the paper underneath the bee. Lift it off to a dry<br />
spot on the deck.<br />
―He gonna get better‖<br />
―Yeah, I think he just needs to sit out in the sun until his wings dry off.‖<br />
―Oh. Should we blow on him‖<br />
―No. I don‘t think we should. Let‘s just give him some time.‖<br />
We get back into the water and keep on with William‘s diving. He gets<br />
steadily better. His only problem now is not letting himself flip over. For this I<br />
say he needs to point his toes and get a good strong push that will propel him<br />
straight into the water. It is getting to feel like we have been in the pool for<br />
awhile. I cannot be sure, though. I have lost my watch. I am sad about this. It<br />
was a great watch, a waterproof Timex with a brown faux-leather band. It had<br />
hands and fancy-written numbers. It lit up green when you pressed the little<br />
silver stud on the side. I felt elegant wearing it. Thirty dollars I paid. At Wal-<br />
Mart. A deal. And it is gone now. Disappeared like so many things in my life.<br />
When I was little I can remember thinking to myself, ―You will be a great magician<br />
someday. Everything you touch disappears.‖ I look around for someone<br />
with a watch. The only people at the pool are me, William, and his aide. William<br />
is not wearing a watch.<br />
―William‖<br />
William has been trying to fit his head into the pool filter. He does not<br />
stop when I say his name. He says, ―Yeah‖<br />
―William, what‘s your lady‘s name‖<br />
―My what‖<br />
―Your aide. The lady who comes to camp with you.‖<br />
―Who‖<br />
I tap William on the shoulder and point over the side of the pool to<br />
where the aide sits, reading her paperback.<br />
―That lady, William. Can you tell me what her name is‖<br />
―Ummm…‖ his voice makes this keening buzz. The largest mosquito<br />
you have ever heard. He says ―um‖ for a very long time. Then he says, ―I<br />
dunno.‖<br />
―William,‖ I say, ―that lady is with you every second of the day. Are you<br />
sure you don‘t know what her name is‖<br />
―Umm… Jessica‖<br />
I hoist myself up onto the side of the pool and say ―Jessica‖ to the aide.<br />
The aide plays with her hair. She takes the end of one braid between<br />
her thumb and index fingers. She slips it into the corner of her mouth and begins<br />
to chew it and suck on it with great enthusiasm. She seems totally absorbed<br />
in this and in the paperback she reads. She does not answer when I call,<br />
so I call again.<br />
―Jessica.‖<br />
She wiggles her feet out of her sandals. The sandals are made of translucent<br />
pink plastic. She crosses her legs at the ankles and begins to swing them<br />
gently back and forth. She keeps swinging her legs and chewing her braid, and<br />
she does not answer when I call, so I call again.<br />
―Jessica!‖<br />
She opens her mouth and lets the braid drop out. The part she has been<br />
13
chewing has darkened from blonde to orange-brown with her spit. It falls heavy<br />
and sopping against her inner shoulder. She stops swinging her legs. She looks<br />
behind her, and then to the side, as though I might be calling some other Jessica.<br />
She touches her index finger to the bone between her little ice cream sundae<br />
tips of breasts. She looks at me and says, ―Are you talking to me‖<br />
―Yeah,‖ I say, ―your name‘s Jessica right‖<br />
―My name‘s Chelsea,‖ she says.<br />
―Oh,‖ I say, and look at William. He smiles and shrugs his little nutbrown<br />
knobs of shoulders. I ask Chelsea if she knows what time it is. She takes<br />
a pink cell phone from the pocket of her shorts and says, ―8:47.‖<br />
―Thanks. Sorry for getting your name wrong.‖<br />
She says, ―It‘s cool,‖ and goes back to her paperback, and starts sucking<br />
her braid again with great gusto. She is in for a trichinobezoar at this rate. William‘s<br />
mistake with Chelsea‘s name makes me wonder.<br />
―William, I‘ve been working with you for a couple weeks now,‖ I say,<br />
―Do you know what my name is‖<br />
William is treading water. He says, ―Umm,‖ and scratches his head. He<br />
forgets to keep treading water, drops below the surface, and begins to drown. I<br />
slip back into the water, grab him by the shoulder, tug him back up. He says,<br />
―Umm… I dunno.‖ I bring him to the side of the pool, grip him under the arms,<br />
and lift him out of the water. I climb out by the ladder and sit down beside him.<br />
I say, ―Okay, William. How about I give you three guesses‖<br />
―Okay.‖<br />
―Okay. Guess Number One. What‘s my name‖<br />
William scratches his head. He slaps his wet bathing trunks with his<br />
wet palms. He says ―um‖ for a long time. He puts both hands in the air, as<br />
though he is on a rollercoaster. He says, ―The Rock‖ My name is not The Rock.<br />
―No, William,‖ I say, ―my name is not The Rock.‖<br />
William says, ―Oh.‖ He picks his nose, and draws out a big, soggy, yellow<br />
booger. He wipes it on my arm. He does not do this out of malice. He does<br />
it because he has a booger. And my arm is there. I cup my hand, take some water<br />
from the pool, and splash it off. ―William,‖ I say, ―that‘s gross. Don‘t do that<br />
again.‖<br />
―Okay.‖<br />
―Guess Number Two.‖<br />
―What‖<br />
―What‘s my name, William Guess Number Two.‖<br />
William lies back. He puts his hands behind his head for a pillow. It<br />
looks like an excellent idea. I do the same. The sun is fully up now. It dries my<br />
suit and skin very quickly. I begin to feel a tight, pinched feeling at my temples<br />
and the crooks of my elbows. This means I am shrink-wrapped in an invisible<br />
sheath of dead chlorine. All the time I have been feeling these things, William<br />
has been saying, ―Umm.‖ Now he is done thinking. He turns his head to the<br />
side, to look at me.<br />
He says, ―French French Burger‖<br />
My name is not French French Burger.<br />
―French, French Burger‖ I say.<br />
―French French Burger,‖ William says.<br />
―William, what does that even mean‖<br />
14
William shrugs his shoulders. ―I dunno.‖<br />
―French French Burger‖<br />
―Yup.‖<br />
―Really‖<br />
―Uh-huh.‖<br />
―Wow.‖<br />
―That isn‘t your name‖<br />
―No, William,‖ I say, ―my name is not French French Burger. But I<br />
would be honored if you would call me that forever.‖<br />
William laughs. He slaps his belly. He kicks his feet in the water and<br />
churns up foam.<br />
―Okay, French French Burger!‖<br />
―Okay William, last guess.‖<br />
―Last guess for what‖<br />
―For my name.‖<br />
―You said to call you French French Burger.‖<br />
―I said call me that, I didn‘t say it was my name.‖<br />
―Oh.‖<br />
―So, last guess, William. What‘s my name‖<br />
William stops laughing. He does not say ―um.‖ He sits up very straight.<br />
I sit up with him. He looks at me very clearly and alertly, and he says, ―Mark‖<br />
My name is not Mark. Mark is the name of the counselor whose job it is<br />
to look after the day campers. William is one of these. He sees a lot of Mark, so<br />
it is perfectly understandable that he should make this mistake.<br />
―No, William,‖ I say, ―my name is not Mark.‖ And then I tell him my<br />
name, and William claps his hands. He throws his arms around my neck and<br />
says, ―French French Burger!‖ I pat him on the back and muss his hair. After<br />
the hug has gone on long enough, I take his hands from around my neck and put<br />
them by his sides. We sit for a moment and look across the pool. A breeze picks<br />
up. The blank log report flutters off the ground and over the fence. The bumblebee<br />
was the only thing holding it down. It has flown away.<br />
Aaron Greenberg<br />
15
a proper response to an old, white man who claims I shall know my place<br />
and write things asian-american<br />
my face is not all i am at all.<br />
so how dare you tell me to limit<br />
myself to writing asian-american<br />
things a lying jungle of railways<br />
occupy my mind as much as anyone<br />
else's, having gone to a lot of places,<br />
not just going down one path<br />
because nobody's life works that way.<br />
if my eyes were a few shades lighter<br />
and two sizes bigger, asian-american<br />
would suddenly have meant nothing,<br />
or wouldn't be expected in my pieces.<br />
why does my text necessarily<br />
have to reflect people's common<br />
beliefs about my face really,<br />
it's the trick of rumors people<br />
have spread of my face—and of others'.<br />
no expectation must be added<br />
to those rumors or writers with eyes<br />
appearing close to mine to write<br />
about asian-american identity<br />
questions/answers. is it because poets<br />
like me are oppressed to do so why<br />
shall i not get to write about beaches<br />
and letters like the girl with the ivory<br />
skin and turquoise eyes why does she<br />
never write about the color of her skin<br />
because she already knows that people<br />
perceive her as being too good that she<br />
doesn't need to inform them of the positivity<br />
of her whiteness so, she can write<br />
about the sun and moon. without sprinkling<br />
white-american adjectives to her work.<br />
i'm not subjugated by what my eyes receive<br />
from hateful people like you, sir.<br />
i, too, shall have a right to create my poetry<br />
as she does with hers.<br />
Debbie Chow<br />
16
eing comfortable with my feet<br />
Elizabeth Lawrence<br />
Digital photography
THE HEART, LIKE A BOCCE BALL<br />
The jack sits low in the grass. We‘re dead drunk,<br />
cannonballing across the lawn, gouging<br />
handful divots, each of us still nursing<br />
a tumbler of scotch brought home from the wake.<br />
We sons and brothers and cousins. I spin<br />
my ice and let that black-tie loosening<br />
buzz swarm. The others choose the sky, looping<br />
pop-flies that swirl with backspin, an earthen<br />
thud answering grunts while the soft dirt caves.<br />
I bowl instead, slow-ride hidden ridges—<br />
the swells buried beneath the grass—carving<br />
a curve, a line from start to stop, finish.<br />
The heart, like a bocce ball, is fist-sized<br />
and firm; ours clunk together, then divide.<br />
Luke Johnson<br />
18
the debonair locals<br />
they sit, Cezanne's card players, one slumped over a quarter-written story<br />
about two sunflowers that grew twisted in their own leaves. he gives dialogue<br />
to what was left after the wildfire, ashes blowing down blazers and dresses<br />
like a whisper. the other smokes pipe dreams and his tobacco eyelids<br />
deal out the next hand of sleep, sampling blood from his own bit lip;<br />
he chiseled his look after lions.<br />
in the south of france they drank absinthe, the emeralds rolling back time, curled<br />
like a moon into the top lip crescent. between whiskey slosh and wind chimes,<br />
autumn<br />
unfurled into black bare trees and alligator mud snapping back coattails, killing<br />
the gypsy moth in its decadent sleep. the cafe breeds leathered old men that<br />
foster youth in their gut.<br />
Kathy Transue<br />
19
Cusco, Perú<br />
Su rostro es sucio, pequeño,<br />
ojos negros como carbón me mira,<br />
la cabeza inclina en una manera<br />
que alinea su mandíbula con los grandes<br />
montañas verdes que rodea el pueblo.<br />
Ella lleva un chullo lleno de color—<br />
rojos, amarillos, anaranjados mezclan<br />
para coronarla, para realzar<br />
las mejillas redondas y rosicleres.<br />
Me agacho, ojos morenos conocen negros,<br />
su sonrisa la luz de su cara.<br />
La ofrezco una moneda y ella la agarra,<br />
dedos llenitos la envuelve. Sus pies cortos<br />
la cargan lejos de mi,<br />
delante de puestos de bolsas,<br />
de Inca Kolas y de tarjetas,<br />
a una mujer baja, su vientre hinchado<br />
y otro niño en sus brazos fuertes.<br />
La niña me mira, la mira a su moneda,<br />
sus ojos negros como carbón.<br />
Allison Hitt<br />
20
Route 7, Box 363<br />
Halter tops and frayed short-shorts,<br />
eighty degrees and climbing.<br />
Radio. Three girls laying stomach up.<br />
Pass the joint and take a hit.<br />
―I hate my mama.‖<br />
Bronzed thighs bond to a worn, wooden porch.<br />
Hair hangs from the porch stairs, crisping with sun,<br />
sticky rivulets drip and dry;<br />
lemon juice sweetens the darkest strands.<br />
The prettiest one wears aviators.<br />
―Blew a guy once and spat his load in his Coke bottle.‖<br />
Her eyebrows arch over her shades,<br />
―It‘s the real thing.‖<br />
Now dusk, bare feet in the grass,<br />
chasing fireflies, cupping light in their palms,<br />
as the mountains bruise to night.<br />
Amanda Mitchell<br />
21
Pattaya<br />
My wife Greta is still in bed, the lazy bitch, when I slam the front door and sling<br />
my brown leather trunk into the back of the taxi. It is appropriately sunny: I am<br />
glad to leave my frigid wife, at least for this week-long business trip in Thailand.<br />
I can‘t remember the name of the place; I know it sounds like an exotic fruit—<br />
juicy.<br />
The interior of the hotel lobby is silhouetted against the fierce noon sunlight;<br />
the receptionist‘s smile burns my wretched plane-dried eyes. As I hand her my<br />
passport, a well-groomed blonde comes up to the counter on my right. She<br />
flashes a clean white smile at the other receptionist, whose dark, slanted eyes<br />
register nothing. ―Welcome back, Ms O_____,‖ her plum-coloured lips say. The<br />
blonde and I get into the same lift. She hums a tuneless song, keeps her steel<br />
blue eyes on the rising numbers. We shudder to a stop at 13, and I watch her<br />
hips‘ restrained sway across the carpeted landing. I call a polite farewell after<br />
her, but she doesn‘t turn and smile.<br />
I‘ve had enough mai tais to last me till the morning—been getting up every half<br />
hour to piss in the tub. The floating numbers on my bedside table read three in<br />
the morning. I think of Greta, out for brunch with her biddy friends. Her perfect<br />
curls and red socialite grin swarm my drowsy mind, and I groan as nausea engulfs<br />
me. I lunge through woolly darkness to the bathroom. I meet my own red<br />
eyes as I raise my head from the toilet bowl. I‘ll need more alcohol before I can<br />
stomach returning to Greta tomorrow morning. Fucking Greta. I throw on<br />
khakis, a crisp white polo shirt, beach-worn sandals, and snap the door shut<br />
behind me.<br />
The lift makes no other stops. No blondes, only rowdy delight leaked in from<br />
outside crowds. I push myself out of the revolving doors and the heat of a spent<br />
day‘s air weighs like a whale on my bare forearms. Four blocks down is the Pink<br />
Feather Club, sign lit with bulbs flashing a disorientating green. I stumble in,<br />
miraculously locate the bar, and sprawl across the counter asking for three shots<br />
of clear tequila. The bartender bangs them onto the bar. I throw back three and<br />
spill the last one. I toss a bunch of sweat-smeared notes onto the counter and<br />
launch myself out of the booming club.<br />
Torches line the sand-peppered sidewalk, a tunnel of fairies. I follow them to the<br />
neon-puddled street where sex steams from the sewers. My throbbing eyes<br />
couldn‘t have missed them, those Thai girls rocking their proud hips down their<br />
pavement-catwalk—the locals don‘t turn a hair. I am entranced: black waterfalls<br />
down to derrieres, yellow urine bobs, paper thin necks arms legs smooth and<br />
brown teardrop tits cheap skirts small enough to fit around my wrist, giraffe<br />
22
eyelashes turned oil slick butterfly wings. One of them, twittering on a bench,<br />
catches my feasting eyes and swings her thighs open, flashes me her boy bits.<br />
Greta, safe at home in her cashmere cardigans, pearls and glowing angel hair,<br />
would have sucked in her scentless breath, clicked her teeth at the sight. Seeing<br />
my eyes lose focus, the ladyboy turns back to her friends, legs crossed, and my<br />
arousal subsides. A little temptation was what I came for—starving, I make my<br />
way back to the hotel.<br />
I revel in the cool of my spinning room, bare thighs and zebra stripe panties still<br />
swimming in my mind. Greta my ugly fucking wife, Greta with her shrill sugar<br />
voice cuts through my hazy reverie: she will start in with her screaming as soon<br />
as my taxi pulls into the drive—Did you fuck anyone Albert did you smear your<br />
cum all over her face was she young were her tits bigger than mine was her<br />
pussy tight Answer me, Albert!—and I will pay the tomato-faced taxi driver<br />
calmly, walk up to her, trunk in hand, and slap her.<br />
Tallula Ho<br />
Docks<br />
Catherine Stillerman<br />
Black and white photography
―Gentlemen‖ a found poem<br />
the prophet<br />
Was not sent to the eastern Man on October mornings<br />
with dizzying terms<br />
his discussions were In relation to benefit:<br />
This woman is not Evil, or Ugly<br />
like money.<br />
Amanda Gaye Smith<br />
24
Saint Michael Lights a Candle<br />
Amy Dixon<br />
25
The Reluctant Monk Ponders the Loss of his Hair by the Sea<br />
At the edge of the sea the wind is angry,<br />
its fists punch up the water to create foam<br />
sloshing like a drunkard who wanders<br />
away from his home.<br />
The land, too, is uneasy, dips and curves,<br />
forms now forbidden to my kind--<br />
I touch the rocks, cup my hands<br />
around them, but they are harder than I‘d like.<br />
Miles away my future brothers are chanting,<br />
their voices thump against my ears,<br />
a reminder of what is to come--<br />
Once I leave this landscape,<br />
the monastery will be waiting<br />
to slide a glinting razor across me,<br />
lopping off my locks.<br />
Anya Work<br />
26
Experience<br />
Updating the Record Book: 2008<br />
I‘m meticulous about going to my computer, opening the document titled<br />
―Numbers,‖ and adding the new name--if I remember it. Every boy is sorted<br />
into either the sex and/or fellatio category or simply added as miscellaneous.<br />
This is not a sex life; it‘s a job title.<br />
Previous Experience:<br />
I worked as a lifeguard one summer at a pool thirty feet away from the<br />
Delaware River. After days of rain, the river flooded and the thick, black mud<br />
filled the pool and covered the grass. As I steered full wheelbarrows back to the<br />
river, I wondered where it all came from. Clear water. Silver fish. Yellow flippers.<br />
Gray rocks. Tan sand. Green weeds. Brown dirt. They were all so beautiful<br />
on their own, but once too many of them were added together, the black took<br />
over.<br />
Working Overtime: 2007<br />
Benny was an aspiring musician. He sang one of his songs for me before<br />
we started the movie. After twenty minutes on the burgundy couch in his<br />
darkened apartment, I told him I had other places to go that night. He smoked<br />
a cigarette after I finished.<br />
On my way home, I got a text message from Mike. I knew him from<br />
elementary school. We met in a supermarket parking lot, and I got him off<br />
while he watched for the flashing red and blue of a cop car. It was a waste of his<br />
time though, the lights never came.<br />
By that point, it was too late to go home, so I met my friend at a party in<br />
Nazareth. I shared a bottle of rum with my gay friend Drew, but once he passed<br />
out, I found someone else to talk to. He helped me stumble to his car. My<br />
friends told me later I blacked out while he was on top of me.<br />
Scheduling Appointments: 2006<br />
I worked with Erik at the YMCA on Tuesdays. We hid between the yellow<br />
school busses in the parking lot and hoped security wasn‘t watching the<br />
cameras. He assured me the grainy gray pictures would camouflage us even if<br />
they were.<br />
In the spring, Chris and I met after school and after his girlfriend drove<br />
away. I appreciated his car; it protected us from the rain the sky threatened to<br />
spill. Our scheduled meetings lasted longer than their relationship.<br />
Scanning the Want Ads: 2005<br />
Pat and I usually got along but not when we were at a party with hot<br />
girls. At one party, he ran into some girl he cheated on me with. Not wanting to<br />
disrupt their happy reunion, I went outside by myself. Eventually, Billy came<br />
out and started talking to me. We talked for three hours before he even asked<br />
for a kiss, but it didn‘t take long for a kiss to turn into more. He politely asked<br />
for my number. It reminded me of the way I used to ask my mom if she needed<br />
help with the dishes as she dried the last cup.<br />
27
The Real World: 2002<br />
It was almost my 12 th birthday when I was allowed to go on vacation to<br />
California to visit my aunt and two cousins by myself. The first night, I slept in<br />
my cousin‘s room. He slept on the floor. I was still awake when he stood up and<br />
felt him walking toward me in the darkness. It must have felt like kissing his<br />
own hand, because I tightened my lips as hard as I could. His hand moved up<br />
my pajama top; I wished I was old enough to wear a bra. I squinted to watch the<br />
door, and I prayed to see footsteps breaking up the white strip of light underneath<br />
it. The wind carried an early birthday gift in through the open window. I<br />
heard familiar songs from a nearby Eminem concert. I listened. He finally finished.<br />
A thin, blue sheet was the only protection I never knew I would need.<br />
Freeloader: 2001<br />
My first crush: Michael James. He was older than I was, but he lived in<br />
my neighborhood, so I saw him a lot. We hung out in a fort we made in the<br />
snow surrounded by evergreens. I had always appreciated the way the white<br />
acted like a giant eraser: covering up all the imperfections on the ground.<br />
I knew we would kiss for the first time that night. We walked back to<br />
his house and watched a movie. I tried to freeze the picture in my memory. Our<br />
ankles crossed, our hands interlaced, our heads overlapped. I wished it would<br />
never end. I had nowhere else to go that night.<br />
Callie Bonatz<br />
La Primogenita<br />
Shazy Maldonado<br />
Black and white photography
1967<br />
Like a cyaneous Sagittarius sunburst<br />
Remembered ingeniously as doxologies in silence<br />
Deliberately chokes behemoth on Beatles albums<br />
Diarchy eschatology; isoprene, I dream of Jeannie<br />
Reeling gridelin seriatim<br />
Retrophilia unctuous.<br />
Ostentatious comeuppances feeling around dour percussion<br />
Lilaceous karrozzins, electric Kool-aid, and the mired crumbs of Mariolatry<br />
Xenolith and cymbals; solipsism suckles color television,<br />
Vietnamese girls have phytosophy in their pinkie toes<br />
Hippies chew nubiform brains<br />
Cannot stop the windy rain because circularly we are in the Combine<br />
Oviform hegemonic monikers: LBJ, JFK, and cuckold KKK.<br />
A summer of love vulviformed into lyrate constellations,<br />
Waltzed tristiloquy with sicilienne imaginary colors of a<br />
Year‘s eponym.<br />
Brittany Jamison<br />
29
Origin<br />
In the back of your `89 Charger, you breathe a filament of smoke into my navel.<br />
Djarums are all you ever touch, the velveteen wraps treated like jewels, like me.<br />
"My mercury's in retrograde," techno salve for punk-sore bones.<br />
Galvanized, electric: this is me. Drunk inside your burgundy thermos.<br />
Once, a woman asked if you were of Cherokee descent. She said,<br />
"It's those cheekbones. But your nose... your nose, now that's from Israel."<br />
You smiled and said, "Ma'am, I'm Italian." and took her order<br />
with your middle finger poised behind the notepad.<br />
It still makes me laugh. I touch those cheekbones now, that nose, that mouth<br />
the color of an Easter egg, this tongue flavored with papayas, with pot.<br />
I don't know where you came from either. It was not Italy. It was not Israel.<br />
You are neither romantic nor holy enough.<br />
We're arcane and this is all I care to know. I plan to sleep tonight.<br />
Slip me something stronger than hymns born from your throat.<br />
Retrograde. When I am older, and I have left you,<br />
I will sculpt those cheekbones in phantasma; I will be your Creator<br />
And I will carve you to life. A clay statue of your face will conduct my sleep.<br />
When I awake, the air will smell like tobacco, like cloves.<br />
I will breathe so greedily.<br />
Taylor Hodge<br />
30
Okay, so this is how the universe works<br />
Kathy Transue<br />
Black and white photography
Stream of Mock Love\(Consciousness)<br />
walls flooded by pink paint, cups of sugar done up into solid goods, caramel performers<br />
showed off fancy curlicues, now stuck on linens and sheets, little fairies<br />
wore jeweled blonde buns on their heads, who are woven in cloth inside and out,<br />
canned peaches dunked in clear melted sugary syrup lost all sense of sourness,<br />
soft pillowy white softness on the kitchen curtains with light blushing pink haze<br />
spread out—<br />
i saw her white hand with those really long fingers,<br />
merely bones covered lightly in thin wraps of clear skin,<br />
which stuck out from underneath a red cotton blanket.<br />
gold polish on her fingernails. lots of tiny glitters on those half<br />
ovals.<br />
i couldn't focus. her bedroom was so pretty. skinny vases,<br />
fat vases, every one formed into female curves. yes, lined<br />
up against the wall around the whole room on a beige carpet.<br />
words on the walls given birth by a black permanent marker;<br />
a total slave of the poet in bed. deep purple ink blotted<br />
and squirted across the black sky outside her window---<br />
one half of the window's face was covered meekly<br />
by a burgundy curtain---probably many glasses of wine<br />
has spilled itself on it repeatedly. her eyes were green marbles;<br />
wavy flowing lines of tan saturated into them.<br />
her eyes were on the ceiling. she blinked. her black hairs were vines,<br />
laying dazed on her three pillows. white lace sewn around her pillows'<br />
faces.<br />
so lovely. she was beautiful. her cheekbones looked cold. i sort of<br />
wanted<br />
my palms to radiate her cheeks, but i left her still figure alone.<br />
she was far too pretty at the hour of nine-sixteen.<br />
i started to see blood dripping.<br />
dripping from the top of her head onto her left cheek.<br />
i blinked rapidly---no, no---i was wrong. no blood.<br />
her breath suddenly stretched. she closed her eyes. her breathing<br />
relaxed.<br />
i tried to concentrate on the form of her flesh. i thought i heard a pair<br />
of heels tap on stairs. i loved her so much.<br />
yes, i loved her. her crystal earrings sparkled<br />
on hooks hanging on the inside of her closet door,<br />
each pair held hands, made shine together. i smelled<br />
eight candles: melon, papaya, apple pie; three kinds<br />
of candles got along to make one fragrance.<br />
32
"what makes you wonder"---<br />
notebooks in her drawers muffled their giggles with their hands.<br />
there were stripes, plaid patches, and criss-crosses of yellows<br />
experiencing first encounters with greens. so many clothes in piles<br />
on chairs, stools, and under her bed. no violent yelling.<br />
no scream that pierced any holes on my skin.<br />
i noticed those objects everyday. when i went outside<br />
to take walks, i watched families and groups of friends.<br />
lots of smiling, patient listening. leisure in their feet.<br />
their voices were rivers without running into obstacles.<br />
trees and rocks in calm postures. so much sunlight.<br />
the beautiful poet in bed---and i---<br />
her cheeks were permanently injured<br />
by the smacks of my hands. driven by her angry<br />
long slender fingernails, i had red-brown crusted<br />
creeks hang along my arms, chest, and face.<br />
she had an old woman's eyes.<br />
they were like overworked mangled hands.<br />
yet, she was a stunning human goddess.<br />
no, no---i couldn't think.<br />
closing my eyes,<br />
i left her bedroom. i crept downstairs. i truly did love her.<br />
i had to drive away for a while. i looked at neon lights<br />
down main street. in my car, driving, i heard loud music<br />
in bars, in lounges. blood cracked on my hands.<br />
kept driving. parked my car in a parking garage.<br />
i stepped into a restaurant, passed by tables.<br />
everyone was like one wall of colors mixing<br />
into one another. laughter became louder.<br />
lots of voices all had a good time. each had a hand<br />
to hold or an arm around their shoulder. i felt sick;<br />
my pulse prompted me to the men's room. i stared dumbly at the violet<br />
puffiness under my eyes. i rinsed off the blood on my arms.<br />
i loved her. she couldn't keep quiet. i shut her mouth<br />
with my hands. i hated how all the colors in her bedroom<br />
drove me crazy, singing and dancing into each other.<br />
she was so beautiful. i tried to grin.<br />
i saw a blade appear. it attacked her.<br />
it was on my side. it helped me quiet her down.<br />
she was so beautiful.<br />
potted plants stretched their green arms out to reach and touch<br />
me. they wanted to ask me if my day was alright. lavender, red, orange, yellow,<br />
purple tulips looked up at me to greet me as they sat on spots of soil living in the<br />
33
ushes', and potted plants' faces. their heads were so low, i couldn't see their<br />
joyful yellow faces. yes, more sadness. more dark hands. i felt no mercy from<br />
the clouds ready to drop rain.<br />
Debbie Chow<br />
Le Coucher du Soleil sur le Sahara<br />
Jeanette Jo Price<br />
Digital photography<br />
34
Queenswalk, November<br />
We are never on our knees.<br />
boat touching boat, crowing defiant.<br />
The gull blazes down,<br />
molten gold leaking from its mouth,<br />
no olive branch to rub frost from railing<br />
or touch the river's rough tongue.<br />
The water lifts itself<br />
shoulders straining<br />
(the river never freezes anymore –<br />
it is too thick)<br />
When did these chains snap and speak<br />
with teeth like bells to clamour over the walls<br />
where the tide rushes up the stairs<br />
Domes still sucking sunlight on the north bank,<br />
moss and copper, shuttered against all nocturnes,<br />
whose eyes are wide enough to swallow the streetlights,<br />
the streets, the hands holding and feet<br />
that knock the cobbles.<br />
Rush and flood<br />
the bruised elbows and tender backs of bridges<br />
Hammer where the rusted shore crumbles<br />
and beachcombers straddle the rocks,<br />
hunting, with torches, for Roman tiles,<br />
a mosaic ceiling fallen in,<br />
now stiffening the river bed with bites of colour.<br />
We were ancient once now we are forgotten.<br />
Renee Branum<br />
35
Word Problem: Post-Colonial Theories<br />
Two people are talking on the phone, stretching East<br />
Coast into West Coast. Compare the ratio of moon-pulled<br />
tides to sand-blasted honey ginseng waves.<br />
A compass<br />
points southeast, ships harbor<br />
on secondhand piers. All holy, all the time.<br />
Prayers circle the mouthpiece, where all breaths<br />
renounce and repent. He hears the singular<br />
whisper, the exaltation that<br />
conducts gravity.<br />
They celebrated Easter once with champagne<br />
at six forty-seven in the morning. The chimney<br />
threw out ashes, the kitchen floor<br />
scattered ripped fabric. The ocean slumped<br />
over outside.<br />
Garlands fall where words should, thorned bouquets<br />
decorate the conversation like punctuation. A pause,<br />
a white rose.<br />
She saw the stretch of highway<br />
median, wildflowers blurred the atlas.<br />
Summer drove her into hiding. He<br />
cleaned the house the day she left.<br />
Through the static, he reprises hallelujah.<br />
Kathy Transue<br />
36
Ladybug<br />
The woman woke in the bruised morning to find a ladybug in her bed—a flaky<br />
red jewel spotted with earth. Perhaps he was attracted to the woman‘s stemmed<br />
legs, the spiced mound they held up like an offering. A hand wrinkled blue<br />
sheets as a face peered close at rust-red wings, noticing the fracture between<br />
and wondering if anything could be planted there, if something might grow out<br />
of broken red earth… perhaps she was more than a sliced open wound, perhaps<br />
he was more than a display of misshapen stains.<br />
Emily Campbell<br />
37
Mail Pouch<br />
Tess Waugh<br />
Digital photography
Avon Girls (excerpted from a longer work)<br />
It was raining and everyone was going inside. Arlene said C‘mon baby,<br />
we‘ll do you up. She had her hair fixed, smelled like White Musk perfume and<br />
tissue paper. Her Avon friends smoked Capris on the porch. Marietta Sensenbrenner<br />
had a cigarette lighter shaped like a lipstick, said Get on out the mud<br />
and come get gorgeous, rang the doorchimes and disappeared. But Dorcas was<br />
looking at a squirrel.<br />
It was an ugly squirrel with a patch of missing fur on its hind-end that<br />
could have been a dog-bite – could have been mange. A front-yard squirrel,<br />
fearless and stupid as mud, under the damned old oak tree. An old one because<br />
it was fat around and had to be, and damned because it stuck the gutters full of<br />
leaves and the garden with squirrels. The squirrel was flapping around in the<br />
grass and smelling at the air. Dorcas took a sniff. Moss-cool, husky with smoldering<br />
leaves. When a raindrop hit on him, he flipped his tail, chirped, went<br />
back to smelling and scuffling over the roots.<br />
Dorcas scooted on her bottom towards the scabby thing. It had a little<br />
fringe of red around its eyes and its bald patch was speckled with little pink<br />
pores. She held out her hand and clucked, rocking on the balls of bare feet. The<br />
squirrel blinked. Its eyes looked wetter than rain. Dorcas snapped her fingers<br />
to watch the lids flash up and down, lashless and quick. Wet-eyed squirrel.<br />
Damned old oak. The rain diddled through the leaves and onto her back in cold<br />
plops. Leaves rolled up, silver-bellied. The screen door snapped in its frame.<br />
The first thunder was far-sounding as trucks down the highway. Dogbite<br />
squirrel, Dorcas figured. Quentin-bit. It scrambled up into the damned old<br />
oak as fast as if it were falling the other way, and Dorcas wondered how it was<br />
that they never seemed to fall, the squirrels, not from the power lines, the birdfeeders,<br />
the chain-link fence around Wee Wisdom Daycare. She worked at a<br />
starburst of dandelion and clover until the roots undid, threw them at the<br />
damned tree‘s trunk, left dirted prints on the screen door headed in.<br />
Quentin stumbled from behind the Maytag, beat his tail against the plywood<br />
floor. A dryer sheet hung from his fleecy jaw. He lapped the clay beneath<br />
her nails and fell beside her, flinching in his sack of skin as the roof-slap settled<br />
in the cove. Arlene and her Avon friends rattled in the kitchen.<br />
When the damned old oak fell through the kitchen next season, this is<br />
what Dorcas would think of: Quentin‘s warm skull, Apricot blusher, the halfeaten<br />
squirrel in his nest.<br />
Erin McKee<br />
39
Seven half diminished seven<br />
Danny likes to fuck retarded girls<br />
he explains, nicotine lipped,<br />
ash stacked pinky thick,<br />
they complain less.<br />
Coarse handed, he takes my lipstick stained<br />
coffee mug, abounding his.<br />
Grey tongued he licks the rim<br />
savoring the taste of skin cells and wax.<br />
Look, he says,<br />
ash teetering.<br />
Amy Dixon<br />
40
Untitled<br />
Kelly <strong>Hollins</strong><br />
Digital photography
Praise For A Sick Woman<br />
Her head<br />
wrapped, doo wrapped: another patient, another day, waiting in chairs at the<br />
Urgent Care.<br />
Head held<br />
sideways, temple propped by two fingers, supported at the elbow sleeping on<br />
the armrest. Her legs crossed, right over left, foot taps in random flutters of<br />
three.<br />
Tap-Tap-Tap<br />
like the crutch of the high school cheerleader three rows back.<br />
Strains<br />
of sick moans waft out from behind closed doors. The cough a man makes down<br />
the hall, the scratches I itch on my scalp: noise is noise is noise.<br />
A woman<br />
in purple jeans, purple socks, purple Keds, paces the carpet with a mason jar of<br />
black coffee.<br />
All of this<br />
in a room where the clock on the wall is a whore, a slut: men and women eye the<br />
arms, hands, legs of the clock incessantly as tongues slide across lips, and waiting—<br />
Waiting<br />
for their name to be called. The clock moans, Tick Tock Tick. Everyone has had<br />
a look, has had a feel for the time. All come at different times and all await their<br />
turn.<br />
―Alexis Papadopolous—the doctor will see you now.”<br />
With her<br />
head wrapped, doo wrapped she enters behind closed doors. Like the rest of us,<br />
patients, with or without patience.<br />
Except<br />
Papadopolous being the only black patient among us.<br />
Indiscreetly<br />
a nurse shortly enters. I watch her carry on menial chit-chat, with a patient,<br />
about Days of Our Lives from the day before. She pops a rubber glove, ―Oooooo,<br />
evil Stefano.‖<br />
42
Pops<br />
the other one, now shielding both hands. ―…God love its little haw-rt…”<br />
(Recognizably Southwest Virginia, an Appalachian waiting room.)<br />
The nurse<br />
masks her nose and mouth and carries a spray bottle of bleach. Another nurse<br />
enters, also masked, holds a white bed sheet in her gloved hands. I saw the eyes<br />
of masked nurses, saw the hands spray the chair, and neighboring seats, where<br />
poor Papadopolous waited.<br />
Threw<br />
out the magazines her infected fingers breezed through and spread the sheet<br />
across the row of chairs like a dead body.<br />
The crack<br />
of the white sheet in the air catch the eyes of the patients. The waft and gentle<br />
breeze of spring mountain detergent catch mine.<br />
The hungry<br />
bellies of gossip awaken. Whispers swell up, fester like an unkempt wound.<br />
What lives in a room takes on the spirit of the room. In this case, disease and<br />
infection of panic.<br />
―Yeah…well, it was that Nigger.”<br />
“…It must have been AIDS.”<br />
“…Didn’t you see the masks It couldn’t have been AIDS, it was<br />
something airborne.”<br />
“…You sure she was a Nigger Maybe she was one of<br />
them Arabs.”<br />
“…Terrorist…”<br />
“Yeah! A terrorist!”<br />
“A TERRORIST”<br />
“I HAVE KIDS TO LOOK AFTER.”<br />
“She could be a Leper…”<br />
Papadopolous<br />
has legs, has feet, has hands, fingers; no stubs of joints with finger bones poking<br />
through still infected with active Leprosy: growing and eating her flesh<br />
before our very eyes. She carries herself without secrets, without shame.<br />
Dead skin<br />
Flurries from my hand like dust, salt, snow. I should say something, truly something<br />
must be said. Leave the woman alone. I say nothing.<br />
I see<br />
impatient women and their gravy satisfaction with hair hung golden or black, to<br />
the shoulders or pinned back, velvet.<br />
43
A booger<br />
smeared into the chair, in a sticky situation I sit silent, useless: mucus. Speak!<br />
Say, leave her alone. Mutter, mumble, stutter. Anything. Say something, damnit.<br />
They gnash<br />
against her with their teeth. They cry out with a loud voice. The woman in purple<br />
socks stops their ears and opens their mouths. They run on Papadopolous<br />
with one accord. They cast her out of the Urgent Care and stone her.<br />
The lady<br />
in purple socks stands up to shout at the nurse:<br />
“You know I have Lupus and the Lord Jesus Christ has my back. I<br />
could right now drop dead in the floor and I would be happier than all ya’ll in<br />
this room. I have lupus and we have a right to know what that girl brought<br />
into this clinic. We have a right to know!”<br />
Everyone<br />
together now,<br />
―Yeah! Yeah! We have a right to know! We do!”<br />
The nurse<br />
closes her eyes and holds both palms in the air as if she has nothing to<br />
hide. She says:<br />
―Okay, okay, everyone needs to settle down. That is confidential information<br />
and I am not at liberty to discuss this with ya’ll. I assure you<br />
that everyone is alright.”<br />
“Oh yeah,”<br />
demands the woman in the purple socks,<br />
―what about the masks and the spray, the white sheet over the whole<br />
row. I saw you confiscate some woman’s jacket that was sitting on the row<br />
with that Nigger.”<br />
“Mam, you will not use such language in this office or you will be<br />
asked to leave.”<br />
“I am six weeks away from my due date! Tell us,”<br />
shouts a bleach blonde pregnant woman,<br />
―we have a right to know!”<br />
All<br />
together now,<br />
―Tell us! Yeah! We have a right to know!”<br />
Before me,<br />
a nightmare: where every breath is aimed at Alex Papadopolous. And I say nothing.<br />
Silent. Left in loneliness I want something I am not strong enough to have.<br />
44
The eyes to calm and stare to break the panic.<br />
In my silence<br />
I begin to sound like them, imitate them. Even though I did not verbally condone<br />
this behavior, my silence speaks. My silence said enough.<br />
The woman in purple<br />
socks stands up with one hand in the air. She says,<br />
―Lord Jesus Christ I’m hungry for Heaven!”<br />
She sits<br />
back down and crosses her legs, left over right. She whispers to the woman on<br />
her right,<br />
“I’m afraid of this big ole’ world, I tell ya. I have Lupus by the way…”<br />
As the whispers<br />
die down Papadopolous comes back. Silence fills the room like stagnant lingering<br />
flatulence. I held my breath.<br />
“That’s her…she ain’t no terrorist. It’s probably AIDS.”<br />
The lady<br />
in purple socks stands up, nodding at her followers for reassurance. She says,<br />
―Jesus Christ be with me!”<br />
Slowly<br />
she approaches Papadopolous like one might approach a groundhog eating the<br />
produce from their garden. Stalks her like a pest, like a rodent.<br />
Torrential<br />
pulses beat from the lips of the woman in purple socks. My eyes open, startled,<br />
and ringed with salt of humiliating tears bleaching away the flesh around them,<br />
commiserating. How gracefully still she exited, with chin high and knuckles<br />
white.<br />
To hear<br />
the disgust sift quietly away and sighs of relief fill the room like a fever. And all<br />
the while the woman in the purple socks follows her out with hand sanitizer and<br />
Kleenex, wiping clean everything her hand touches.<br />
Praise for a sick woman.<br />
Praise for sinew within the flesh.<br />
The woman in purple socks<br />
comes back in, wiping her hands as if she has, in fact, truly rid the office of that<br />
pesky ground hog, like a thank you is in order. Like a dog bringing home a dead<br />
baby bunny and leaving it on your woolen slippers. Woof Woof Woof to the lady<br />
in the purple socks.<br />
45
I see<br />
Papadopolous through the blinds. She picks up a piece of trash and puts it in her<br />
purse. Another piece and another, without a trash can in sight. A car stops to<br />
pick her up. I see her holding her baby from the backseat (she puts on a doctor‘s<br />
mask to do so).<br />
Tap-Tap-Tap<br />
my finger to the glass in hopes of breaking my silence. Hail.<br />
Praise for a sick woman. Praise her.<br />
Praise for sinew within the flesh.<br />
Helen McKinney<br />
46
Gesture<br />
Leigh Werrell<br />
Monotype
Homme nu, homme noir<br />
I.<br />
Homme nu, homme noir<br />
Tes mains bénites qui prient,<br />
genoux saints qui plient pour<br />
ta croissance, pour ta Dieu.<br />
Héro modeste, simple.<br />
Cœur blanc, corps noir<br />
la couleur de la vie,<br />
de tout qui est bien. Ta<br />
voix semble le vent d‘Est.<br />
Ton sang pur, la première race.<br />
Tes ancêtres ont bercé le monde.<br />
Homme nu, homme noir<br />
Sais-tu que tu es aimé <br />
Tes gouttes de sueur, étoiles<br />
sur la nuit de ta peau.<br />
Ta bouche m‘enveloppe,<br />
me nourri avec le vin<br />
noir de tes mots.<br />
II.<br />
Homme nu, homme noir<br />
Promised land. I dare<br />
discover you. Where<br />
after baptism and shahadah,<br />
we find communion in each<br />
other. Allahu Akbar<br />
We lift wine to our lips;<br />
the taste holy, as mercy.<br />
It cleanses like prayer.<br />
Homme nu, homme noir<br />
Our communion drips<br />
from our hands. We tore<br />
into it like ripe fruits without pits.<br />
Jeanette Jo Price<br />
48
Untitled<br />
Tiffany Robinette<br />
Digital photography
Pure Gold<br />
Tess Waugh<br />
Digital photography
Fifth Annual<br />
National Undergraduate<br />
Poetry & Fiction Competition<br />
This year, the Cargoes staff sent fliers to universities across the nation.<br />
We received many entries in both poetry and fiction, and generated<br />
an engaging and competitive pool of submissions.<br />
With the help of our fiction judge, Tony D‘Souza, we selected the<br />
work ―A Break From The Neighborhood.‖<br />
"In a field crowded with careful character studies, ‗A Break From The<br />
Neighborhood‘ stands out for the way the protagonists Tristan and<br />
Omar come to life as they wander through the Boston neighborhoods<br />
they haunt, always on the edge of trouble. The author displays a maturing<br />
craft in his decision to let Tristan and Omar live and breathe<br />
without heavy authorial manipulation, dressing them up neither as<br />
better nor worse than they are, letting them 'drive' the story as he<br />
takes a distant, and wisely chosen, artistic backseat. Boston itself<br />
becomes a leading player in the work, and the author's attention to<br />
dialect and language is noteworthy."<br />
-Tony D‘Souza<br />
With the help of our poetry judge, Claudia Emerson (Pulitzer Prize<br />
Winner, 2006), we selected the work ―From an Old Maid to Another.‖<br />
―‗From an Old Maid to Another‘ was chosen for its exploration of the<br />
nature of isolation and imagination, and also for its formal poise despite<br />
the disorientation of the woman and the skillful confusion of<br />
her house and yard.‖<br />
- Claudia Emerson<br />
51
A Break From The Neighborhood<br />
―Stay awake to the ways of the world cause shit is deep.‖<br />
-Wu-Tang Clan, ―C.R.E.A.M.‖<br />
―I‘m walking to my coffin<br />
Drinking poison from my chalice.<br />
Pride begins to fade,<br />
And you‘ll all feel my malice.‖<br />
-Dr. John, ―I Walk on Gilded Splinters‖<br />
Tristan and Omar had one big thing in common aside from being halfblack,<br />
half-Dominican and not knowing shit about the Dominican half (except a<br />
Spanish curse word or two): both their fathers had been stick-up boys, legends<br />
on the street, afraid of nobody. They would rob the wiseguys from the North<br />
End, the last of the Mafia in New England. They would rob the white trash that<br />
sold meth and crank from behind their bars in Dorchester and Southie. They<br />
would take on the Vietnamese, their psycho reputation be damned, fresh off the<br />
boat and into Savin Hill and Fields Corner with raw knockout dope straight<br />
from the poppy plants of their homeland. And when it came to people from their<br />
own neighborhood, Omar‘s father, Antonio Wright, had this pearl of wisdom to<br />
say: ―Fuck them niggas. Hate to say it, but local boys is the easiest motherfuckers<br />
in the world to take off.‖ He‘d been dead six years now, since Omar was ten<br />
and Tristan eleven; caught with a pistol and then shanked in central booking<br />
before he even made it to trial.<br />
Tristan Clark, senior, went down on the corner of Northamton and<br />
Reed, a block away from their building in the Roxbury Corners housing project,<br />
after a crew of Irish guys came down to the neighborhood and shot him a dozen<br />
times. At least, that‘s how the story was always told. Tristan didn‘t know how<br />
true it was and didn‘t really care. He wasn‘t proud of the way his father died, but<br />
it made for a great story. On more than one occasion, blunted off his ass, he‘d<br />
tell it like some ancient myth. ―The Legend of Big T,‖ he would call it, always<br />
trying not to laugh. One time, it loosened the legs of this one girl, Shantelle or<br />
something like that; he didn‘t really remember her name. Even though it was his<br />
first time, there was no reason to remember her. All that stuff about how the<br />
first time was supposed to be so damn good wasn‘t true. It was like most everything<br />
else in his life- it was just something that happened, not worth forgetting<br />
or remembering, another moment in a seventeen-year series of moments. Roxbury<br />
was like that. It wasn‘t some Boyz N the Hood bullshit with people getting<br />
shot every five minutes. His mother once described it like this: ―Be like waitin<br />
for the Orange Line…people stuck in one spot, just waitin around for something<br />
to happen, gettin frustrated, cause ain‘t nothing ever gonna change. That train<br />
always late.‖<br />
When Big T got dropped, Tristan knew people would always remember<br />
it. He knew that whatever he did in his own life would probably pale in comparison<br />
to the infamy his father gained by simply being who he was and getting shot<br />
52
down for it. No matter what, Tristan, junior, would always be Little T.<br />
One Saturday afternoon, after riding the T to Chinatown, Tristan and<br />
Omar got off and walked down Washington Street through Downtown Crossing.<br />
They had almost a dozen G-packs of dope and coke vials left from what their<br />
fathers had stolen and saved. From summers of clocking it on the corner and in<br />
the courtyard of their building, taking bullshit from fiends and other dealers,<br />
they had just enough money to indulge their few vices and not attract too much<br />
attention. Omar lived to collect shoes and Tristan lived to collect music, but<br />
other than that they didn‘t throw their cash away.<br />
At one point they were in Hip Zepi, a store Tristan hated but tolerated,<br />
the same way Omar tolerated it when he would spend more than an hour trying<br />
to decide what CD to buy. He looked around at all the flashy, baggy clothes for<br />
sale, the Sean John and Ecko bullshit, the throwback jerseys, all of it pandering<br />
to the way clothing designers assumed black people his age liked to dress. It<br />
pissed Tristan off that their assumptions were usually right. It didn‘t matter that<br />
baggy jeans were about the worst thing to wear on the street. He remembered<br />
one time when Omar had to run from a roll-up squad of Narco cops, he tripped<br />
over his pant leg and they fell right the fuck down. The cops, the corner boys,<br />
people driving by, everyone who saw it was laughing so hard.<br />
Taking any elements of flash out of your appearance kept you relatively<br />
under the cops‘ radar, if you knew what the fuck you were doing. The flashiest<br />
part of Tristan‘s wardrobe was a black-and-white fitted Red Sox cap. Wearing<br />
with it a hoodie over a white tee and faded Levis, he looked no different from<br />
any other black or Hispanic guy on the street. Not like some mack-daddy<br />
motherfucker in a powder-white tracksuit, practically wearing a sign that read,<br />
arrest my black ass.<br />
Omar was looking at a pair of sneakers that were black and red, with a<br />
crossed pair of semiautomatics on each side. ―What kind of guns you think those<br />
are Glocks‖<br />
―How the fuck should I know‖ Tristan said.<br />
―Ain‘t you ever seen a gun, nigga I remember my pops had a .50, a<br />
fuckin Desert Eagle. He got it from some Mafia dude…must‘ve been the only I-<br />
talian he never ripped off or some shit.‖<br />
―Only guns I ever seen up close was revolvers. That‘s all my old man<br />
would carry. He‘d always say, a .38 don‘t jam, Magnum don‘t jam, but you get<br />
yourself a semiauto, like a .45 or a Glock nine, it‘s either gon‘ jam up or it‘ll go<br />
off in your damn drawers on account of it ain‘t got no safety.‖ As Tristan said<br />
this, he literally assumed the voice of his father. The slow roll of the words off<br />
the tongue sounding like some old-time R&B shit his mom would put on when<br />
she‘d have guys over, that was Big T right there. Tristan had a talent for picking<br />
up the voices of anyone he heard talking and incorporating them into his own.<br />
―Whatever, man. I‘ma go pay for these, then I gotta go see that nigga<br />
Errol and pick up for tonight. You go spend the next three hours lookin for a got<br />
-damn Big Daddy Kane CD,‖ Omar said, laughing.<br />
Tristan flipped him off in response, a wise-assed grin on his face. ―I will,<br />
motherfucker, and I‘m gonna enjoy it, too.‖<br />
53
―Hurry up with that shit, nigga,‖ Omar said. ―It‘s gettin cold out here.‖<br />
―I‘ll be done with it when I‘m done with it. Be patient,‖ Tristan said. It<br />
was around eight, four hours after they‘d split up so Omar could get weed and<br />
Tristan could go back and forth between FYE, Borders, and Newbury Comics,<br />
perusing the music selections in each store. Now they were sitting on the docks<br />
in the Public Gardens. Tristan dangled his feet over the water as he doublerolled<br />
more than half a gram of weed using one-and-a-quarter EZ Widers. Omar<br />
sat Indian-style, patiently waiting, not wanting to get his fresh new shoes anywhere<br />
near the water. After about four minutes or so of delicate work, he<br />
dragged his tongue along the glued edge of the paper, sealed it up, and handed it<br />
to Omar. ―Now look at that. If I ain‘t rolled that shit good enough to make your<br />
dick hard, I don‘t know what will.‖<br />
―Dag, Little T. You got a fucked up sense of what‘s funny, yo.‖<br />
―Whatever, man, go ahead and light that shit, quit wavin it around.‖<br />
The joint was a little hard to hit, but worth it. Omar coughed hard and<br />
blew out smoke in bizarre-looking, asymmetrically shaped clouds. ―Shit…oh,<br />
shit! That‘s some fuckin…I don‘t even know what. Hit this. Please, nigga.‖ He<br />
passed it back to Tristan, practically shoving it in his face.<br />
―This is that shit from down south, right‖<br />
―Oh you know it,‖ Omar said. He picked up his weed from an old dude<br />
who ran a bar on Blue Hill Avenue; called himself Blind Errol even though he<br />
could see just fine, sold sixty-dollar eighths of what he called ―Big Easy Weezy.‖<br />
Tristan and Omar both thought that was a stupid fucking name, like most weed<br />
names, but it was great, heady bud so it didn‘t matter.<br />
Tristan hit the joint hard until it started canoeing. He thought he could<br />
feel the brain cells cooking in his head whenever he smoked up with Omar. He<br />
visualized sliced chunks of brain in a skillet and the image made him laugh. He<br />
passed back the joint and let out a series of harsh, hacking coughs. He had to<br />
stand up and hawk a chunk of spit and phlegm into the water. ―Oh, fuck. That<br />
shit hurt.‖<br />
―Dag,‖ Omar said, taking the roach from Tristan. ―You just got your ass<br />
whooped by that motherfucker. What‘s the deal with that cough, Little T, you<br />
still smokin them Newports‖<br />
―Nah, my mom caught me, said if she saw me with a cigarette again<br />
she‘d take a belt to my ass. And I ain‘t ever smoked Newports anyway, I smoked<br />
Camels. I fuckin hate menthols. You must be hangin out with some other nigga<br />
that looks like me.‖<br />
Omar laughed. ―I don‘t know, man, I thought you did. Why don‘t you‖<br />
―Cause every other nigga smoke Newports, man, just like every nigga<br />
supposed to like fried chicken, shit like that, you know, what‘s that word…<br />
Stereotypes. That‘s what I‘m talkin about.‖<br />
―Stereotypes‖ Omar took one last hit and tossed the roach into the water.<br />
―Yeah. Fuck all that shit. I‘m not gonna do nothing just cause some<br />
motherfucker think he funny by sayin I‘m supposed to, you know‖<br />
―But you gettin your head up right now,‖ Omar said. ―Ain‘t all niggas<br />
supposed to get high, too‖ He was laughing, knowing what Tristan was getting<br />
at but not really understanding.<br />
54
―Man, everybody get high. Not like everybody everybody, man, but you<br />
know what the fuck I mean.‖<br />
―True, true. Now shut the fuck up…hit that shit again.‖<br />
―I can‘t, yo, you threw it out!‖ Tristan shouted.<br />
―I did Oh, shit! My fault, my fault…aw, shit.‖ Omar said. ―Just roll another<br />
one, man.‖<br />
―Yeah, yeah, whatever, nigga,‖ Tristan said, taking out the EZ Widers<br />
again.<br />
―So yo. What CDs you end up buyin‖ Omar asked, this after he and<br />
Tristan had smoked three more fat joints and burned through almost half of the<br />
weed, almost thirty dollars down the drain in an hour and a half, Tristan cursing<br />
himself for not dropping five bucks on a couple of blunt wraps. The Big Easy<br />
Weezy shit was wasted on joints and even in honey dutches, but it wasn‘t like<br />
either he or Omar was going to go to some head shop that smelled like Nag<br />
Champa and catered to white college kids who had their parents‘ money to<br />
spend on blown-glass bowls or bubblers or bongs, who needed to look pretty<br />
while they got high.<br />
Tristan pulled a Newbury Comics bag out from the front pocket of his<br />
hoodie and showed Omar the CDs. ―Some old-school stuff…O.D.B.‘s solo al-<br />
bum‖-<br />
―Which one‖<br />
―Only one that mattered. Return to the 36 Chambers.‖<br />
―A‘ight, I actually ain‘t heard that one, ‗cept for that one song, ―Shimmy<br />
Shimmy Ya,‖ that‘s some good shit right there.‖<br />
―Wait till you hear the rest of it, yo. That dude Spook, you know Spook,‖<br />
Omar nodding in agreement as Tristan went on, ―he had it and played it for me<br />
all the way through this one time. Shit was tight. I wish I had my fuckin CD<br />
player, I‘d be noddin out to that shit right now.‖ He quoted one of the lyrics to<br />
himself, ―Shimmy shimmy ya shimmy yam shimmy yay, gimme the mic so I can<br />
take her away,‖ using his talent for imitation to sound just like Ol‘ Dirty.<br />
―What else‖<br />
―Yeah. I got Illmatic, and also this one Roots album, Phrenology. That‘s<br />
it.‖<br />
―You don‘t already have Illmatic Even I got that album, and I don‘t<br />
have half the shit you do. But the Roots, yo...fuck the Roots. Motherfuckin hiphop<br />
hippie bullshit.‖<br />
―Nigga you don‘t know what you talkin‘ about. The Roots got Questlove,<br />
that dude make better beats on the real drums than most of them fake-ass DJs<br />
and producers and shit. All of them frontin like they got something when they<br />
ain‘t got shit, like Swizz Beatz, or that Scott Storch nigga, fuckin maricon…‖<br />
―Scott Storch is white, yo. Least I think he is.‖<br />
―Well he definitely wish he was a nigga then. Thievin‘ motherfuckers<br />
take everything, don‘t they.‖<br />
―Aw, man, why you always gotta get serious and shit Its just music.‖<br />
―Just music‖ Tristan did his best to look and sound like he was actually<br />
offended. ―Dag. I gotta school you on a lot of things, don‘t I.‖<br />
―School me, nigga School me in rolling. Maybe then I‘ll be able to get<br />
55
high without draggin yo‘ sorry ass along,‖ Omar said. Tristan made a move as if<br />
to backhand Omar, Omar laughing and yelling, ―Ho shit! You won‘t like this<br />
nigga Little T when he angry!‖ Tristan couldn‘t help but laugh with the goofy<br />
motherfucker.<br />
They spent two more hours at the docks, talking and shooting the shit<br />
but smoking only one more joint, bringing their tally for the evening to five, retarded-stoned<br />
off their asses now, everything in slow motion like there was a<br />
live television-style sound delay on everything they said. As they sat there, various<br />
groups of kids from the theatre district-area colleges, Suffolk and Emerson<br />
most likely, maybe Fisher, came down to the docks, sitting in circles and passing<br />
bowls around, some bringing beer in backpacks, tossing the empties under the<br />
dock or into the just-refilled pond. The kids talked about what classes they were<br />
taking next semester, what kinds of stupid shit they did or said the last time<br />
they got high, what movies they would watch when they got back to the safety of<br />
their dorms. Shit that Tristan didn‘t understand or give a fuck about.<br />
The group that was out here now, two girls and three guys in the eighteen-to-twenty<br />
age range, were sitting around a portable iPod dock, listening to<br />
that M.I.A. track from last summer, ―Paper Planes,‖ something like that. Tristan<br />
thought about fucking with them, acting like he and Omar were going to jack<br />
their shit. He decided not to, remembering when Spook ran the same sort of<br />
game on this younger couple by the Esplanade and getting the shit kicked out of<br />
him for it, the guy being the sort of muscle-bound asshole that would probably<br />
end up a cop. A racist, too, according to the story, telling Spook, ―Some fucking<br />
project nigger trying to fuck up my night with my girl Not fucking likely.‖ It<br />
also didn‘t work to Spook‘s advantage that he was skinny, lighter-skinned, and<br />
didn‘t look threatening at all, but Tristan didn‘t want to take any chances here<br />
now with these people, the two guys looking like frat boys in striped polos and<br />
distressed baseball caps. He might be tougher than them, and he might not, but<br />
he didn‘t need to prove it to anybody.<br />
Omar was passed out, his back up against one of the beams holding the<br />
roof up over the docks. ―Ey yo, Omar,‖ Tristan said. No response.<br />
Tristan grabbed Omar‘s shoulder and shook him awake. ―Yo, Omar!‖<br />
―…the fuck‖ Omar muttered, disoriented, feeling like his head was<br />
ready to pop off his neck and go flying into the air.<br />
―Let‘s get the fuck outta here, man,‖ Tristan said. ―It‘s almost midnight.<br />
I don‘t wanna miss the last train back home.‖<br />
―Shit, do we gotta go now I am fucked up.‖<br />
―You want to try getting a goddamn cab, nigga Cause I don‘t. Right<br />
now the cabs only be pickin up drunk white bitches, chargin ‗em extra on the<br />
fare. ‖<br />
―A‘ight, man, damn. Chill.‖ Omar managed to get up, rubbing his buzzcut<br />
head then putting on his hood. He followed Tristan off the docks, eyefucking<br />
the two white jock-looking dudes as they passed, giving them stares that<br />
said, do something, white boy. Do something, motherfucker. One of the girls, a<br />
pretty blonde in a Dave Matthews Band sweatshirt, smiled at Tristan and he<br />
winked back. Once he and Omar were far enough away from the docks for the<br />
guys to think they were out of earshot, one of them said, ―What the fuck was that<br />
56
look about, Lauren‖ Tristan heard this and chuckled to himself.<br />
Tristan and Omar crossed over Charles Street and into the Common.<br />
They were passing the bleachers next to the deserted baseball diamond when<br />
Omar said, ―I gotta piss, yo.‖<br />
―Well go, I ain‘t stoppin you.‖<br />
Omar hawked and spat. ―I didn‘t actually; I just needed to get you to<br />
stop walkin.‖<br />
―What kinda backward-ass thinking is that You really are one of those<br />
at-risk children, ain‘t you‖<br />
―Fuck you, nigga. I got an idea.‖<br />
―Alright, speak on it.‖<br />
―You know how you was sayin, ‗Those thievin motherfuckers steal everything,‘<br />
some shit like that Feel like stealin something back‖ Omar asked.<br />
Omar had the gun. Tristan hadn‘t managed to notice it in the waistband<br />
of Omar‘s jeans, near the small of his back, obscured by his extra-large T-shirt, a<br />
black Hanes with a shitty iron-on of Biggie‘s face that Omar had bought with his<br />
new shoes. It was a cheap nine-millimeter, probably straw-bought out in some<br />
middle-of-nowhere area of the state, the serial numbers shaved off directly afterwards,<br />
then brought back to a dude in the neighborhood named Skinny Mack<br />
who sold guns to all the Roxbury crews. The ease with which Omar got ahold of<br />
it was mind-blowing to Tristan.<br />
―We just gon‘ scare ‗em,‖ Omar said of whatever couple he would pick to<br />
hold up. ―I mean, I ain‘t wanna hurt nobody. Worst thing that happens, maybe I<br />
pistol-whip the motherfucker, just once, he goes down, his bitch screamin or<br />
whatever, we get their shit and bam. We gone. Just like that.‖<br />
They were standing in the gazebo now, it being the best place to survey<br />
this half of the Common. Omar was looking out for any couples, preferably<br />
white ones, but it didn‘t really matter, that just made it a little easier.<br />
―Just don‘t pick anybody that‘s drunk,‖ Tristan said. ―Someone like that<br />
might just be fucked up enough to take on a stoned-ass nigga with a gun. You<br />
don‘t want that.‖<br />
―Fuck no, I don‘t want that.‖<br />
It took Omar about fifteen minutes of looking before he made his<br />
choice. Tristan was able to tell the boy was itching to hold that whistle, itching<br />
to squeeze its hair trigger. His not really wanting to hurt anybody was incidental,<br />
not out of him caring for any potential victim but out of wanting to avoid a<br />
murder one charge.<br />
The couple was olive-skinned Italian, in their late thirties, early forties.<br />
The man was overweight, losing his hair and gaining sizable jowls; the woman<br />
was too made-up and tacky, her face looking plastic under the glow of the lamps<br />
that lined the Common‘s pathways. They would never see it coming, too busy<br />
bitching about the movie they‘d just seen at the Loews and the restaurant they‘d<br />
just been to. Tristan and Omar stepped down from the gazebo, Omar with his<br />
hood up, Tristan with the flat brim of his hat pulled down over his eyes, just<br />
barely able to see. The couple was walking on the path near the graveyard, before<br />
it ran adjacent to the tennis courts, and the two boys moved to intercept<br />
57
them.<br />
―I just don‘t get it,‖ the man was saying. ―What was the point of all that<br />
Who the fuck wants to see a guy get a chunk of his head blown out by some air<br />
tank cattle-gun thing‖<br />
―And the ending. Christ!‖ his wife went on. ―Just him talking about<br />
some dream he had Who gives a shit Why wasn‘t he chasing the freak with the<br />
haircut‖<br />
Tristan had no clue what movie they were talking about, and he didn‘t<br />
care. He just wanted this to be over with, for Omar to be content after playing<br />
out his fantasy of being hard and maybe getting them some more weed money.<br />
The school year was ending pretty soon; they were going to be seniors next fall,<br />
their time to slack off. A celebration was in order, and that would cost.<br />
―Ey yo,‖ Tristan said, low, not at anyone in particular but hoping to<br />
catch the couple‘s attention. He failed.<br />
―Hey now,‖ Omar called out, now audible. This got the couple looking in<br />
his direction. His hand flew to the small of his back, and he drew.<br />
The sound of the gun caught Tristan off guard. It was just a quick pop,<br />
not an overloud bang, not like in an action movie, not echoing, gone as soon as<br />
it was heard. The bullet went into the back of the man‘s head and came out the<br />
front; he went down after a spurt or two from his exit wound. His wife screamed<br />
a few times, the keening screech of some wounded animal, and ran off, dropping<br />
her purse in the process.<br />
It took a while for Tristan to process what actually happened.<br />
As Omar was going for the nine and just about to say, ―Money and jewelry,<br />
right fuckin now,‖ or some other shit that sounded badass, a man in a<br />
skullcap and a leather jacket had strolled over to the couple, the image of nonchalance,<br />
and said, ―Hey, Paulie! Sean Crouse says hello, you fuckin prick.‖ This<br />
guy‘s gun was out, firing, and back inside his jacket before Paulie, his wife, or<br />
Omar could get a word in edgewise. Then he was gone, Omar giving a delayedreaction<br />
yell, ―Oh, shit!‖<br />
They‘d booked it the fuck out of there, running all the way through the<br />
entire Common to Beacon Street and then over the footbridge across Storrow<br />
until they were sitting down on one of the benches on the Esplanade. Tristan<br />
knew they couldn‘t stay there for long, even if he managed to persuade Omar<br />
into throwing his gun into the damn river or at least a storm drain somewhere.<br />
Young, black, stoned- to the cops they were the first people to look at for a<br />
seemingly random shooting on city property. At least Omar hadn‘t taken the<br />
bitch‘s purse when she left it behind; Tristan could be grateful for that much.<br />
―Shit, yo,‖ Omar said.<br />
―Man, just don‘t say nothin right now,‖ Tristan said, almost whispering.<br />
―I mean it was just like…dude just walked up to that I-talian motherfucker,<br />
said somethin quick, and it‘s a wrap. Dag.‖<br />
―Shut up, Omar.‖ Tristan felt half-dead. All that running was murder on<br />
his lungs after five joints, and yet for some reason what he currently wanted<br />
more than anything was a cigarette. Just one.<br />
―Shit was just like, blaow!‖<br />
―Shut the fuck up, nigga! Goddamn!‖<br />
58
―What Tristan, the fuck you mad for‖<br />
―You gonna quit runnin your motherfuckin mouth or what‖<br />
―A‘ight…alright man. Damn. Don‘t gotta scream in my fuckin face like<br />
that…‖<br />
From the Esplanade, Tristan could hear the sirens, becoming less and<br />
less far off as the police converged on the Boylston and Tremont corner. He<br />
imagined the officers practically leaping out of their cars, guns drawn, all chestout<br />
and shit as a show of force, of how well Boston dealt with its crime.<br />
What fucked with Tristan‘s head the most was how unremarkable the<br />
shooting had been. Everything that guy ever was or ever would be was gone.<br />
Erased in a pop and a muzzle flash. He imagined his father had probably gone<br />
out the same way, dead before he realized what was happening, that look of perpetual<br />
surprise like he‘d been caught in mid-flight forever etched on his face<br />
until his unclaimed body went to the anatomy board for use by medical students,<br />
his mother so hurt by the murder that she refused to take responsibility<br />
for any kind of proper funeral. She caught a lot of grief from other women in<br />
their building for that.<br />
Omar cracked his knuckles, every last one of them, and began reciting<br />
the lines of ―Shimmy Shimmy Ya‖ to himself, only the first verse- that was all he<br />
knew. Tristan, still jonesing for a cigarette, tried not to think about his craving<br />
or what had just happened. He tried to concentrate on how they would manage<br />
to get back home.<br />
Liam Green<br />
Emerson College<br />
59
From An Old Maid To Another<br />
I would watch you<br />
lying in your yard<br />
overtaken by<br />
honeysuckle<br />
which all the other<br />
neighbors burned.<br />
Your hair was like ivy<br />
twisting around your<br />
body and they made<br />
jokes about you being<br />
untouched for so long<br />
like a condemned house.<br />
I couldn‘t bear to talk<br />
with that broken ring<br />
finger and smile which<br />
was no longer yours.<br />
But now that you‘re gone<br />
I wish you would have known<br />
empty beds don‘t have<br />
to be such angry things.<br />
Jessica Franck<br />
<strong>Hollins</strong> <strong>University</strong><br />
60
When the fat lady sings…<br />
Tess Waugh<br />
Digital photography<br />
61
Nancy Thorp High School Poetry Contest<br />
The Nancy Thorp Poetry Contest was created by Dr. and Mrs.<br />
Francis Q. Thorp in 1963 in memory of their daughter, a young<br />
poet who died in an automobile accident at the age of 24. From<br />
1956 to 1958 Nancy was a student at <strong>Hollins</strong> where she served on<br />
the staff of Cargoes and was a member of Louis D. Rubin Jr.‘s<br />
creative writing class.<br />
The contest has grown significantly since 1963. It is open to female<br />
high school sophomores and juniors, and hundreds of entries<br />
are received each year from across the country.<br />
Untitled<br />
Kyra Orr<br />
35mm Black and white photography<br />
62
Eventually, it becomes too much<br />
My boy has little lizards living in his heart<br />
and swimming through his blood. He says<br />
he feels them flick their tongues out<br />
to lick his veins. When he opens his mouth<br />
I can hear them. Their nails scratch the insides<br />
of his arteries and capillaries and he cries out.<br />
He asks me, do those scratches scar<br />
If I hold my head to his heart, I can hear<br />
their screams echo through the valves there.<br />
Their venom gives him heartburn.<br />
When they fight amongst themselves,<br />
he can‘t breathe. When he scrapes his knees,<br />
they float out with his blood and he cries.<br />
He shifts his body slowly and with purpose,<br />
because he fears sudden movements would hurt<br />
them. His figure has stretched so that they‘ll fit.<br />
I feel scales under his skin when I<br />
press my fingers to his wrists or jugular.<br />
I go to wake him up one day and find him<br />
dead. The lizards trail out of his open mouth<br />
like a funeral procession. I gather them all up,<br />
take them outside, and set them free.<br />
Allison Swagler<br />
Winner<br />
Alabama School of Fine Arts<br />
63
Coordination<br />
The weight of a breast and a sun is equivalent.<br />
You and I are the exact same. The problem with<br />
longing is that no one is ever satisfied, not even<br />
when we are so close that the air is still and warm<br />
and I cannot tell whose hands are whose. Recurring<br />
dreams eat our nights so we feel like we have not slept.<br />
A dream of Cairo winds tearing your eyes, a dream of<br />
a matador nursing a wound in the soft hollow of his<br />
stomach, a dream of where stories end. But the worst<br />
is the dream where everything has fallen apart, the sun<br />
spilled on the ground like an egg, and you are nowhere<br />
to be found. When we wake up, all we can see are things<br />
that are damaged – like two serrated walnut halves, or<br />
the broken thorax of a black ant.<br />
Emily Swanagin<br />
Runner up<br />
Alabama School of Fine Arts<br />
64
Shema Yisrael<br />
And you shall love the Lord your God<br />
with all your heart, your soul, and<br />
your mind.<br />
And these words that I command you<br />
today shall be in your heart.<br />
And you shall teach them diligently to<br />
your children, and you shall speak of<br />
them when you sit at home.<br />
And you shall bind them as a sign on<br />
your hand, and they shall be for frontlets<br />
between your eyes.<br />
Because your heart is not big enough to<br />
love God, you decide to love people<br />
instead – even the woman you stand<br />
next to in line at the grocery store. She<br />
buys whole milk, halved cashews,<br />
measuring cups. Strange, you think,<br />
that everything she buys is so precise,<br />
and in the same way love works. Two<br />
cups for your mother, a teaspoon for a<br />
stranger – it all adds up in the end.<br />
There are words you‘ve wished to always<br />
remember, truths you want to<br />
etch on the cockles of your heart that<br />
you will forever act upon. The problem<br />
is that words are confusing, can have<br />
one, two, five meanings. For example,<br />
the word ―love‖: attraction based on<br />
sexual desire; warm devotion; a score<br />
of zero.<br />
If you had children, you would nourish<br />
them with your love until it was dried<br />
up. ―Know,‖ you‘d say, ―know that I<br />
don‘t love you any less.‖ Your children<br />
could get lucky: maybe their hearts are<br />
large enough for God, their atriums<br />
and ventricles wide enough for that<br />
pressure. Maybe their hearts can only<br />
take small measurements, milligrams<br />
of devotion, a score of zero.<br />
Why the hand and not the arm, the leg,<br />
the stomach – and what are you to<br />
write A word or maybe an action: a<br />
rescued lover, a saved child. Write<br />
something like that on your hand.<br />
Draw your love in the middle of your<br />
eyes, his black-ink arms tickling your<br />
brows.<br />
65
And you shall write them on the doorposts<br />
of your house and your gates.<br />
You don‘t own a house, but you write<br />
Shema Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu<br />
Adonai Echad (Hear, O Israel! The<br />
Lord is our God – The Lord Alone) on<br />
the upper-right hand corner of all the<br />
doorframes in your shoebox apartment.<br />
Maybe He will still try and protect<br />
you. He tries to get into your small<br />
heart – it takes as much as it can, becomes<br />
supersaturated, and explodes.<br />
Emily Swanagin<br />
Runner up<br />
Alabama School of Fine Arts
―sensation‖<br />
I. i love you in the winter.<br />
when the sky gets lazy<br />
and your eyes do your laughing for you,<br />
and the color seeps from your hair in the shower.<br />
you would rather drink tea in a cold house,<br />
swept up in one of my scarves<br />
than dye your hair again,<br />
so you sigh to me it‘s fading<br />
and your roots are coming in dark.<br />
it‘s your own fault anyway, but i love you when you complain.<br />
II. you blame me for your hands,<br />
because they fascinate me when they dry out.<br />
little alien riverbeds, pink and white,<br />
flow red when you play the piano for too long in January.<br />
the keys get darkish in between them<br />
and stick together.<br />
when you can‘t play moonlight sonata,<br />
you tell me it‘s my fault you‘ve been bleeding on the ivories again.<br />
i wrap you in a blanket and refuse to let go.<br />
you pretend to struggle, and play your hands on my waist like an aria.<br />
III. and riding in the car with you and your friends<br />
(while ice kisses the tires,<br />
i‘m pretty sure we‘re going to die)<br />
it isn‘t the skidding that turns my insides out<br />
but your smiles spills over the rearview mirror.<br />
i reach for your hands and they‘re freezing<br />
you laugh cause we‘re the only ones in on the joke.<br />
IV. and yes, you are so achingly pretty in spring<br />
when white petals whisper across your face,<br />
your dress brushes my leg as you breeze by<br />
(i catch you in my arms like you weren‘t expecting it);<br />
and your skin does glow fireflies in june;<br />
and it‘s true that your long sleeves make your face too warm in autumn,<br />
so your long fingers touch pale mine to your cheek to bring them color,<br />
67
plus your legs sing copper in the evening sun;<br />
but you make my heart brim in december<br />
when you chew your red lips in thought<br />
Because i love you in the winter.<br />
Robin E. Burns<br />
Runner-Up<br />
Charlottesville High School
Foiled<br />
Try as he might,<br />
He could not reach the cookie jar.<br />
So, he turned to steroids.<br />
Alexandra F. Brown<br />
Runner-Up<br />
Cincinnati Country Day School<br />
69
Untitled<br />
I wrote your name in French fries<br />
last night, at the catfish restaurant.<br />
After I read it, I couldn‘t decide,<br />
Would it be more reverent to eat them<br />
or let the waitress throw them away<br />
So I leaned on the deck railing,<br />
ripped each fry into pieces<br />
and fed you, gently, to the fish.<br />
Kelsey Greenwood<br />
Runner-Up<br />
Alabama School of Fine Arts<br />
70
What You‘re Not Telling Him<br />
You are falling falling falling for the man who lives<br />
in the Amtrak tunnels, under the Amtrak tunnels,<br />
near the Amtrak tunnels. His hut is silver and gold<br />
but it‘s really only wood, you‘ve fallen asleep in it<br />
more than once, twice, a dozen times. You feel like<br />
you‘ve met him a dozen times because he has a<br />
dozen different faces. He has his crack face and his<br />
pot face, his mother face and his dog face. (4) They<br />
all include two eyes and a nose and a naturally<br />
down-turned mouth. He‘s singed his eyebrows off<br />
more than once, and it seems like everything here is<br />
repetitive in this cycle of dark and night and filtered<br />
daylight. And like anyone else he has his happy face<br />
and his sad face, his I‘ll-love-you-forever face, but<br />
he uses his I-don‘t-trust-you face the most. (8) He<br />
was using his I-don‘t-trust-you face when you met<br />
him. You crawled into his hut after a night of<br />
hypothermia and rejection. He kicked you out but<br />
picked you back up in the morning, fed you like he<br />
feeds his dogs. You are diving in for the long haul,<br />
sleeping with him nights and cooking for him days.<br />
You‘ve piled all of your money in the jar by the<br />
sink, and he puts his there too. You each take a few<br />
dollars out and promise to be back soon, but neither<br />
of you are home by sunset or sunrise, but you‘re<br />
back in time to cook lunch the next day, and he<br />
comes home soon after. You leave him a copper<br />
plated watch on his pillow and he has a new rose for<br />
you each morning. You think it‘s kind of romantic.<br />
One day he‘s high and remembering his family.<br />
You don‘t try to stop him; you think it will be good<br />
for him. His mother was nice and his father was<br />
nice and his sister was nice but that‘s all you get<br />
before he‘s gone again, ten more hits, five, three,<br />
one, he‘s gone again. You crawl underneath him<br />
and hope he‘s fat enough to suffocate you but he‘s<br />
skin and bones so you crawl back out and go cook<br />
eggs for dinner. He wraps his finger around yours<br />
and gets down on one knee to propose but you fall<br />
on the floor laughing and screaming Yes, Yes,<br />
Okay, Maybe, Yes, Yes. He falls down beside you<br />
and you think about climbing on the bed but forget<br />
about it and take off your clothes right then and<br />
there. When he‘s done he pulls you close and says<br />
Don‘t Go To Work Tomorrow And I Won‘t Go<br />
71
And This Will Be Our Honeymoon. You smile back<br />
and say What A Nice Idea but go to work anyways,<br />
because it‘s your job. Your job is something nice on<br />
the twelfth floor of a high-rise. You‘re far from the<br />
top of the ladder and close to the bottom. You<br />
sometimes look down and pretend you see him<br />
gathering his wares around the legs of the ladder,<br />
and you throw him a chocolate covered mint. You<br />
feel like you‘re living a double life, but you‘re not<br />
really, it‘s just that your life has two parts. In the<br />
morning you wake up and cook breakfast and make<br />
your way to the apartment on fifth street where<br />
you‘ve never taken him. You‘ve bought the<br />
apartment out of your savings, but it‘s not good<br />
enough for him. You‘re ashamed to admit it, but<br />
you started out thinking that he wasn‘t good enough<br />
for it. But you‘ve realized your mistake. You reach<br />
into the closet and pull out one of your nice outfits.<br />
The rest of the apartment is empty, but you can<br />
envision the ghost of his bed in the corner of the<br />
bedroom, his clinking refrigerator in the kitchen.<br />
You slide the mirror-closet-door shut and you watch<br />
yourself as you get undressed. Your elbows look<br />
like they‘re threatening to detach themselves every<br />
time you move them, and as you twist your body to<br />
fit into the black pencil skirt that is set aside for<br />
Wednesdays, you feel your bones scraping against<br />
each other. You imagine that they make a sound not<br />
unlike the one when you slide your nails down a<br />
chalkboard. The thought sends chills down your<br />
spine. You ride the subway to work -- your father<br />
sends you train money every year. You realize<br />
that‘s another thing you haven‘t and can‘t tell him<br />
about, your family. You‘re not sure that you would<br />
want to anyways.<br />
Emma Roberts<br />
Runner-Up<br />
Alabama School of Fine Arts<br />
72
CONTRIBUTOR‘S NOTES<br />
Callie Bonatz is a sophomore.<br />
Renee Branum is a shimmering glowing star in the <strong>Hollins</strong> firmament.<br />
Emily Campbell finds writing to be the only therapy that works, a venue where she can<br />
find herself without thinking too hard about exactly what that means.<br />
Debbie Chow was born and raised in Boston, MA. When she goes to the dining hall,<br />
she‘ll only eat from yellow plates. She loves pink things, hopes to become a professional<br />
nomad, and she loves to study the human being, for she feels that it‘s the only education<br />
that people really need.<br />
Amy Dixon collects pictures of former President Nixon and items the size of postage<br />
stamps (that are not actually postage stamps.)<br />
Jessica Franck is competitive in many things, including: athletics, walks on the beach,<br />
games like Rock, Paper, Scissors and Itty Bitty Otten Totten, and potlucks.<br />
Aaron Greenberg was bitten by the radioactive last survivor of the doomed planet<br />
Krypton, covered in mutagenic bio-slime and instructed in the ways of the ninja by a<br />
talking sewer rat. Deal with it.<br />
Allison Hitt is a West Virginia woman, born and reared. She loves Spanish, poetry, and<br />
the crooked mountains of her home state.<br />
Tallula Ho is a junior.<br />
Taylor Hodge is a first-year at <strong>Hollins</strong>. In addition to writing, she fools around with<br />
the piano, drums, cars, etc. She does not use protection and apologizes to her mother.<br />
Kelly <strong>Hollins</strong> is a junior at <strong>Hollins</strong> majoring in Environmental Science and minoring in<br />
Photography. First she would like to say that she loves Jeanette Jo Price and second she<br />
hopes you enjoy her piece just as much as she does!<br />
Brittany Jamison is a sophomore, and her poem 1967 is about, well, 1967.<br />
Luke Johnson is learning to play the banjo.<br />
Elizabeth Lawrence likes to listen to Otis Redding in the winter and sleeping 17 hours<br />
a day<br />
Shazy Maldonado is a Guatemalteca and an Americana. majoring in Spanish and<br />
thankfully graduating in the spring. She wishes to pursue a doctorate in Latin American<br />
literature.<br />
Erin McKee, born with a hammer in her hand, is best known for inspiring the popular<br />
American folk ballad "John Henry."<br />
If Helen McKinney can't write about the shit she‘s seen or tumultuous lessons<br />
learned, then what's the point in living After all, knowledge is stronger than memory; so<br />
hell, why should she trust the weaker<br />
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Amanda Mitchell, age 18. Appalachian native. Student assistant in Swannanoa, waitress<br />
in Catawba, keeper of exotic birds. Interests: l=a=n=g=u=a=g=e poetry, depression<br />
glass, finding God.<br />
Kyra Orr is an Interdisciplinary Major in Publications, with a special place in her heart<br />
for photography. She is a lovable Sagittarius and a proud Virginia native.<br />
When Jeanette Jo Price was a child she went to a friend‘s birthday party . She stole a<br />
decorative plastic figurine off of the birthday cake. Everyone looked for it. The birthday<br />
girl was upset. Jeanette still has it.<br />
Meaghan Quinn. Family is everything.<br />
Tiffany Robinette: Vice President Joe Biden's middle name is Robinette. She is interested<br />
in portals, comparative measuring, the American Dream, and plexiglass.<br />
Amanda Gaye Smith loves weed.<br />
Catherine Stillerman, 18, believes sometimes black and white makes a prettier image<br />
than color. Through a lens the world makes sense. Enjoy.<br />
Kathy Transue is exactly what your mother told you she would be.<br />
Tess Waugh is a circus.<br />
Leigh Werrell paints happy trees.<br />
Anya Work is a junior English and Art History major from New Orleans, Louisiana.<br />
She likes the color red.<br />
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