Marist College
Literary Arts Society
Presents:
T'fie Mosaic
Fall 2008 Edition










·------------
--
--
Fall 2008 Mosaic Staff
Editors-in-Chief:
Amanda Mulvihill and Amy Wheeler
Assistant Editors-in-Chief:
Jennifer Sommer and Sarah Holmes
Mosaic Committee Members:
Alyssa Alvarez
Warren Amidon
Alexandra Bickel
Katie Black
Alison Carter
Marina Cella
Shelley Doster
Leigh Everett
Kelly Gallucci
Lauren Hall
Kellie Hayden
Jayne Helfrick
Florencia Lauria
Brian McMillan
Tim McMullan
Christi Sheehan
Heather Staats
Katie Warren
Special Thanks:
To Tommy Zurhellen, our club advisor,
for his dedication and support of the Literary Arts Society.
To Bob Lynch, for his continuing enthusiasm and encouragement.
To AndreaMosaic, for making the cover artwork of this book possible.
Original cover photo by Whitney Viola








Table of Contents
Kelly Gallucci,
Poetry from nothing
1
Brit Fiorenza,
This distance between
Shelley Doster,
Sinking Ships
2
our existence
40
Julia D'Angelo,
Energy
2
Alison Carter,
Snowflake
41
Jesenia Sanchez,
The Vineyard
3
Amanda Mulvihill,
My Favorite Part
43
Michael Cresci,
America,
Marina Cella,
Poughkeepsie
43
A (Relatively) Short Story
4
Chris Cho,
Stubborn Conscience
44
Samantha McGrew,
Thoughts of a Rush 7
Nichole Boisvert,
Orchid Garden
45
Katie Warren,
Katie Warren,
single digits.
46
One pomegranate martini
8
Jennifer Sommer,
Ashes
47
Nichole Boisvert,
The Human Heart
9
Julia D'Angelo
,
Love is a Verb.
47
Michael Ardizzone,
A Vivisection of
Shelley Doster,
Contemplations
Loneliness and its Reason
10
ofan Autumn Leaf
48
Brit Fiorenza,
Emerge/Image
11
Michael Cresci
,
Me Without You
49
Olivia McMahon,
Busy Hands
12
Katherine Bilsky,
Patience
49
Chris Cho,
luv ur smile
14
Sarah Philpot.
Untided
50
Katherine Bilsky,
Say Anything
14
Ashleigh Whitfield,
Masks and Mazes
51
Christen Downes,
Kelly Gallucci,
Feeling
59
Gold-digger's Lovechild
15
Julia D
'
Angelo
,
Michaelangelo
60
Jennifer Sommer
,
Rain Storm
21
C
.
Earnshaw
,
Affirmation of Helios
61
Michael Cresci,
10 Years
22
Nichole Boisvert,
Eastern Seaboard
62
Jared Topalian,
Two Faceless Soldiers
22
Maxine Presto,
Burdensome
63
James Napoli,
Untitled
23
Michael Ardizzone,
Silence
63
Leigh Everett.
An Ode to my
Megan Shannon,
The Stroke
64
Favorite Coffeehouse
24
Michael Cresci,
Untitled
65
Richard M
.
Frias,
Here We Are
26
Sarah Philpot,
love bleeds out
66
Michael Ardizzone
,
Between
Shelley Doster,
Slow Dance
66
Static and Bars
28
Kellie Hayden,
It
'
s getting late ...
67
Tim McMullan,
Remove the Jokers
29
Maxine Presto,
6 a.m.
69
Chris Ceballos
,
The Pampas
32
Kelly Gallucci
,
Beautiful Dreamer
69
Brian McMillan,
Months
33
Chris Cho,
Untided
70
Kelly Gallucci,
Polaroid Sky
34
Richard M. Frias,
Hypotheticals
72
Marina Cella,
Sunrise
39
Katherine Bilsky,
Kill the Spotlight
74
Shelley Doster,
no good deed
Brit Fiorenza,
Myths, midnight
goes unpunished
39
and mayhem
75







poetry from nothing
by Kelly Gallucci
I can't write!
I call myself a writer, a poet
And I am
Though can I write on demand?
No!
I can't just write about any willy-nilly thing
There needs to be passion
Inspiration
Love
Desire
I need a throbbing in my head
A beating in my heart
A tug on my soul that forces me to put pen to paper
And when I write, oh, when I write
It's water flowing from a fountain
I could go on for hours about the smell of the flowers
If
my heart enticed me to do so
But about the grass?
I'll
pass
Let's look at the sun or the moon
In June!
Oh the Milky Way on a starry night
I can write on that indeed
I'll
write you a novel on those glimmers of hope in the distant heavens
But poetry without passion?
Madness, I say, madness indeed!
Give me a blank sheet and
I'll
write a sonnet
But give me a topic I can't feel
And
I'll
laugh and write nothing
1









2
Sinking Ships
by Shelley Doster
tripping over tongues and
handmade bracelets
(you stare over my shoulder at a charcoal memory
its dust courses its way down your face
mapping a chalky trail
disaster: start to finish)
as you push me away with a two-handed shove
with a double meaning loaded behind each guilty palm
Energy
by
Julia
D'Angelo
I feel inspired when my heart beats
My system kicks, I'm on my
feet
Striding
,
stretching,
ATP
It's sugar
,
caffeine
,
nicotine.
Release me impure dopamine
So
I
can stop
,
stretch
,
breathe
And
leap.






The Vineyard
by
Jesenia Sanchez
I like the gnarled undersides
Snagged into distorted shapes
Grinding into one another
Never halting for a single harvest
They are good little ruby ovals
Taking water into their roots and
Sheltering us from the delicate sun rays
I like the hue soaked bark
Colored with passion and crawling with new life
Some specks of color fade into the grime covered earth
Along with the rotting fruits of neglected answers
And the new dew drops reflecting the baby rays upon their old faces
I like the little bundles of god
'
s fruits
So presentable upon my man's mouth
As their juice squirts from that little dimple
On the revealing crescent of his smile
I like the gnarled undersides
As I lay there with him
3






4
America: A (Relatively) Short Story
by Michael Cresci
Somewhere
in
the endless infinity of the universe floats an unimportant blue
and green dot. On that dot lives a group of generally unhappy people
.
Many of these
people have it pretty good
,
but that doesn't stop them from wondering if all this
"
ex-
istence" nonsense is worth the trouble. A lot of these folks like to point out how it has
been
"
all downhill since the womb
."
Some of these people live in a place called the United States of America
.
They
have an odd flag with fifty shapes on it called stars despite the fact they are most defi-
nitely not stars
.
These are accompanied by thirteen red and white stripes
.
To under-
stand this design it helps to know the story of America:
Everyone in America is taught that before 1492, America didn't exist. Fortunately
for them in that famous year a man from another country, named Christopher Colum-
bus, discovered America
.
He was the first to do so. Coincidentally, a man with a funny
hat
,
named Leif Erickson, accomplished this exact same feat 400 years earlier. Any
person who points things like this out has a special name in America -
"
asshole
."
The
odd part is that for all the hoopla over who discovered what, the place ended up
being
named after another man
.
All of this naming and discovering business fails to consider the fact that there
were already millions of people living full lives there. Th
i
s is an "asshole
"
thing to
mention. Some of the ignored natives complained that the new neighbors killed their
friends and stole their food, but they lost most of the arguments because that the new
neighbors possessed lighter skin
.
The neighbors were from a place called "Europe." They were called Europeans.
(People on this meaningless space rock tend to name things in this fashion
.
) The Euro-
peans began to spread out and fight w
i
th each other about who got to take what. The
current residents of the land being taken weren't invited to the debate
.
Eventually all the European countries divided America up into colonies. The
people in those colonies (known as colonists due to the same style of naming) grew
angry with one of the European countries called
"
Great Britain
."
No one is quite sure
who decided the
y
were
"
Great
."
Because they were angry
,
the colonists threw some
tea and a man waved a letter opener around
.
This is a famous story in America
.
The
colonies started a war with Europe to settle things once and for all. A war is when two
groups of people agree to kill each other in order to solve a problem. These happen
surprisingly often.
The colonies won and named their new country America. The only politician was
a General with wooden teeth so he was put in charge.
Things were up and down for the next eighty years until some people decided it
would be nice to let their slaves go. A slave is someone stolen from his or her house
and forced to work for someone else
.
This was more popular than you'd imagine it
to be. Others, who lived in the South, were outraged that someone didn't think it was
within their rights to own a person.
America proceeded to split in two and have another one of those silly wars I men








foned earlier. These tend to be a reoccurring theme. In the end a tall bearded man in
1
hat managed to stop everyone from killing one another. As a result he was killed.
a
Not much else happened for a while, until a war broke out in Europe. It was called
"The
War to End All Wars."
It
was also the first of two sequential wars.
To avoid missing out on the killing, America joined in.
After this war ended everyone decided to buy a hula-hoop and crash the stock
market. This caused many to get hungry so they all complained about their leader, a
man named Hoover. They named cardboard cities after him and spent their days being
greatly depressed.
All this changed when a crippled man pretending to be an un
-
crippled man took
charge. He created a bunch of new laws and got some people jobs. Most folks liked
him.
Meanwhile over in Europe an angry man with a mustache started another war.
Several other countries fought him and asked for America's help. America, however,
was far too busy and sent lovely postcards which read
"wish
we were there."
They would not be convinced to join the new war until some men in airplanes
from a place called Japan made a convincing pitch. This began "World War II" which
was the first war to use Roman numerals, prompting the "War to End All Wars" to
change its name to "World War
I."
A lot of people killed a lot of other people until the mustached man decided to be
a sore loser and America pressed the delete key twice to end its battle with the men in
the airplanes.
After the war everyone built picket fences, left
"it"
to "Beaver," and decided to hate
the color red. Hating the color red wasn't actually all that bad for America. It gave
everyone something to agree upon. Also, kids learned how to hide under desks more
quickly.
Once again a change occurred when yet another war was declared. This one
wasn't called a war, though. It was called a "conflict," and as a result was incredibly
unpopular. A lot of emphasis gets put on names in America.
It
makes little sense. All
of this particular fighting was by a curtain made of metal. A lot of folks got angry
~bout the curtain so they played hockey and America won. This was considered quite
important.
Some arguing ensued and eventually a wall in Europe fell down. David Hassel-
hoff, a man who wore a bathing suit on American television, sung a song while people
celebrated.
This wall's abrupt plummet made everyone in America happy but left them with
no one to hate. Another mustached man, this one from a place called Iraq, managed to
take on the job of being hated. Mustaches seem to upset Americans. He was annoying
Al mericans so some soldiers were sent to kill some other soldiers but not the annoying
eacter.
A ~ver the next decade everyone had money and was happy. Times were good. The
mencan leader was a fun guy but ruffled some feathers by cheating on his wife in an
oval. Lots of American leaders had cheated on their wives but for some reason every-
one made a big deal out of it this time. People who point this out are also called
5









6
"assholes
."
The leader also had his own definition of the word "is."
Then a new millennium started and things took a turn for the worse. A man from
Florida, named Al, and a man from Texas, named George
,
both attempted to be the
new leader. More people wanted Al to be their leader, so George was given the job.
This is due to something called the "Electoral College
."
The next year some unhappy looking men flew planes into two tall buildings.
George responded by attacking the country they were from and another country that
wasn't involved but that had a mustached leader. This part of the story has no ending
.
Meanwhile in one part of the country, called Massachusetts, a new law let people
who were in love get married. California soon followed suit. People in other parts of
the country got angry since the people who were in love seemed to be a bit too simi-
lar. The dissenters like to wave a book around, which has a
"
t"
on the cover
.
It
is called
"
The Holy Bible." Some say this is a strange name because it is not sold with holes in
it. A lot of fighting seems to happen over this book, which is silly because the book
clearly states, "don't fight.
"
Ending America's story is a problem because there isn
'
t an ending yet. Chances
are, when it comes it will include an explosion and the "assholes
"
will just say,
"
Well,
it's about time." Until then it's easier to say: to be continued .
.
.







Thoughts of a Rush
by
Samantha McGrew
A soft surprise is she
Like a dulcet
memory
ca
lm
and smooth only
There's more to
her
expressiveness
More than the
loveliness
Of the flowing
faintly glowing
Goddess swaying
to the groove
She's entered my
mind
Even though
hard to find
And a voice so
lush,
succulent and
true
Speaks to me
It's
virtually crazy
...
A pulse
penetrating
and
mysterious
Pressing
t
e
nderly into my unspoken depths
Carries
my heart
and
psyche
to
the
rhythm
of a mellow beat
Mmm
that
silky sound,
Teasing me down
with
its honeyed pause
Caressing the sentiments
Of a
romantic ...
Could it
be
Is it that I
see
In the
smooth
melody
The
exhilarating
rush
of a sensual
touch
in
her
sweet caress
A fading cry
As
classic meets the new
A clever
mix
As
the
story
is left to be continued
...
7







8
One pomegranate martini
by
Katie Warren
another night
,
another set of false ideals
,
watch others
"
living it up
"
terrace is a perfect perch
.
judgments come and then pass
that time is gone,
smeared in blurry freshman memories.
living learning forgetting remembering.
pomegranate martinis made
by an old friendly neighbor
close a disappointing evening
with a rare personal chat.
maybe there are real people out there
.
feel detached being a good listener
,
feeling like i'd rather be much farther north
than here
.
but here is where I am forced to learn,
even if that means being alone
on an echoing terrace
listening to an old stranger
,
because they need you to.







The
Human Heart
by
Nichole Boisvert
The way its beat is untraceable
without instrument.
Silent thump
,
a cascade of blood.
Constant internal river.
The reason you're standing.
So much metaphor about the human heart-
immeasurable strength,
love
without words,
the revelation of a soul.
And yet the heart is but a machine.
Striated muscles contracting
relaxing
in evolution-perfected time.
With the liver, the brain, the bone,
an organ.
Absolutely necessary
.
Capable of betrayal.
Like a close friend
the human heart gives and
takes
9







10
A Vivisection of Loneliness and its Reason
by
Michael Ardizzone
)the ending.
Here we see a lonely songbird
singing (solitude, its tune),
voice weaving through leaves
filtered by the warm
air between the trees of a forest(
a foolish, poorly wrought end
)the middle--
Here we discuss
(we whisper in our wistful a
c
ademic tone)
the nature of love
and why would two pure reasons converge
in flesh so impure?
--waits on the beginning
where truth shines unfiltered
by a forest,
by a mind
,
and is not caught on the lips
of Aphrodite (but spreads
from Athena's open hands)
.










Emerge
I
Image
by
Brit Fiorenza
it takes a darkroom to fabricate
i.
there, steady, stand
smell sweet chemicals sting
the 35mm's
presence in your hand
advancing film
grooves pull
resist, rewind, release
hands and film
work by touch not sight
releasing negatives
under metal leverage
match the freed strip to holders
hold your breath
for no exposure
produce shadow previews
at the window
before the sunshine of noon
only reverse images seeping through
ii.
in a viewfinder
safeguarded with a red filter
an image magnified in shadows
focus in
until light-dark barriers define
expose to the low light
count out Mississippi's
save face, resist over exposure
produce blank, white photo paper
glossy side up
harboring a hidden image
waiting for the chemicals to wash over
and strip the paper
of its light sensitive seal
the darkness creates the art
an image so crisp
burnt into the white page
by shadows
what is displayed on white washed gallery walls
11





12
Busy Hands
by
Olivia McMahon
There is a new man in the kitchen tonight,
And it is as if I'm noticing h
i
m for the first time.
His eyes are dark and directed downwards,
As he chops the potatoes one by one.
And I envy the cutting board, the potatoes and the knife,
Because they are in his possession
,
cradled in his hands.
The air in the room is thick with a current;
An electricity so scalding that it leaves welts on my skin
,
And on my thoughts
:
the ones I shouldn
'
t be having.
There
'
s a ring in his brow and it reflects the light as he grins.
He laughs and his mouth curves, soft, in contrast to the shadow.
Black curls spill into his face and it is a game I play to see his e
y
es.
They are dark and directed downwards,
Never looking up at me, but we would share the same glance.
He laughs, and in the kitchen, the vegetables simmer.
"Wasn't your hair just braided
?"
he asked
,
As I stood there slicing the bread
.
I smiled
,
because I knew for sure he had been looking
.
"
Yeah, it was, but I changed my mind
,"
I offered in reply.
I had changed my mind as I looked in the mirror while standing in the bathroom,
Stalling between dinner and serving others
.
I stared at my reflection, at my poor curls,
Suffocating in the mass of twisted strands
,
A look far too organized for everyone's liking.
I decided instead upon unruly fly-aways and spirals crowding my face
,
That dipped and bowed when I looked down to slice the bread.
It wasn't until later
,
When I pushed the unkempt tendrils out of my eyes for the hundredth time;
I didn't realize until then that if I had kept my hair bra
i
ded,
We would have matched
.
While kneeling on the floor beside h
i
m,
I tried to make small talk:
A means of conversation meant to drive him away from his task.
He was shelling clams
,
one by one
,
in choppy jagged movements.
A new knife
:
smaller than the ones for chopping potatoes or slicing bread
.
Sharper, shinier
,
but still blessed by his fingers.
I knelt to retrieve forks and knives that I was in need of
.
"
Aren
'
t you afraid you're going to cut your fingers
?"
I questioned
,
counting the forks.
Math is so difficult; yet it takes over my life.






A ratio of two forks to every knife is what ailed me that day.
"
Yes
,"
he mumbled,
Th
e
words always only managing to make it to his lips before tumbling out.
Men are so much more difficult; specifically the younger ones,
And the unexpected answers they give.
"
Hav
e
you cut yourself yet?" I asked
,
spurred by the actual emotion in his voice,
Endearing fear.
I stopped numbering knives long enough to gaze up at him.
"
Yeah
,
see? I have cuts all over
.
My hands - "
But he only shook his head and did not continue about the state in which his hands were.
I nodded in understanding to eyes that did not see,
And returned to counting forks and knives.
Ma
y
be there
'
s a reason our hands are always busy when we speak to one another
.
13









14
luvur smile
by
Chris Cho
Catalyst416 (11
:23:56
PM): luv ur smile
Catalyst416 (11 :24:03 PM): so
i'll stay a while
Catalyst416 (11 :24: 12 PM): if
you
'
d have me stare at yoiu
Catalyst416 (11:24:18 PM): it's not that i'm creapy
Catalyst416 (11
:24:30
PM): though a bit sleepy
Catalyst416 (11
:24:36
PM): cause it seems i only dream of you
Catalyst416 (11:24:42 PM): life
Catalyst416 (11:24:53 PM): ·s too short to keep searching for
Catalyst416 (11:24:57 PM): the one in front ofme
Catalyst416 (11:25:00 PM): so come with me now
Catalyst416 (11:25:08 PM): Otherwise i won't know how
Catalyst416 (11:25:13 PM): to function minus the better part ofme
BreatheDeeply returned at 11:25:27 PM.
Say
Anything
by
Katherine Bilsky
quietly observes covering high desperation
shifts in her seat and throws glances around
gathers her valor and stands up abruptly
she speaks the actuality, as staring eyes burn into her infidelity
gasps echo into the silence as tearful expressions dominate the room
consequences are trivial in this situation
the fact that encumbered her has been lifted
she drifts in and out of focus
authenticity seeps through her skin
she snaps out of her daydream and back
into
the crisis, as reality continues
to
conceal the truth
holding onto self pity, she feels helpless and small
watches the outrage
and does nothing at all






Gold-digger's Lovechild
by
Christen Downes
"Say goodbye
,"
my mother said
,
balancing my younger sister on one hip and a box
full of blankets on the other.
I slid my polka dot covered pillow under my arm and zipped my last suitcase
shut. "Goodbye
,
room
,"
I said, switching off the light and walking out of the doorway. I
followed my mom through the living room and out of the front door
.
I had lost count
how many times I'd had to do this. I looked at my bedroom that was now scattered in
the back of another moving truck.
"
Poppy
,
throw that suitcase in the van," my mom said, pointing to the moving
truck sitting in our driveway
.
Instead, I turned around to look at one of the many
homes I had momentarily inhabited. I took a mental snapshot of the white siding,
royal blue front door and emerald green shutters. Our realtor had said the big bay
window in the front of the house was our main selling point, whatever that means.
The bushes lining the front walkway needed some trimming, but I was sure the new
homeowners would take care of that.
"Goodbye, house," I whispered, before throwing my suitcase in the back of the
truck along with the rest of our house.
* * *
I, Poppy Harper, was born out of wedlock to young, model-esque Hailey and her
lead guitarist boyfriend. Things didn
'
t last very long between my mother and father;
my dad couldn
'
t be dragging diaper bags and pacifiers on the tour bus with his band.
As a result
,
I grew up in a handful of different homes with all of Mom's boyfriends,
who were quick to pretend they could be the next Daddy.
Only a select few actually went from boyfriend to husband. First
,
there was John,
an attractive man's man, who owned his own landscaping company. My mom pretend-
ed to share a love of playing Frisbee in the park with his three dogs, but it was hard to
catch in heels. After a couple of months, while he was out walking his golden retriever,
she slipped the ring off her finger and left a post-it on the kitchen counter
.
Next, there was Connor
,
a self-made businessman, who saved up his sick days to
go surfing in California every summer. They fell head over heels in love and decided
to run off to Vegas to elope. Four months later, Mom found out Connor wasn't legally
divorced from his first wife
.
So
,
we left, again
.
The first child my mother popped out after exchanging promise rings with Ter-
rence was Iris
,
who
,
like me
,
was blessed with our mother's bright blonde hair and
nav
y
blue eyes. The next child was Violet. Just after Violet's second birthday, we once
again packed up the U-Haul, for a reason unknown to me
.
.
My mother was quick to marry millionaire William
J.
Nolan
.
They met when Wil-
h~m interviewed my mom to be his new secretary
.
He claims it was love at first sight
,
With her long blonde-hair, bright blue eyes and curvy body. Mom seemed to look past
the fact that he was a sixty-four year old
,
gray-haired man, a mere twenty-six years
~er senior. Regardless
,
William was stepfather number three. By th
i
s point
,
I was get-
ting used to the routine.
15











16
Right after the two exchanged vows, we all moved to Acacia Harbor
,
a gorgeous
picture
-
perfect town, as one big happy family
.
I was astounded at the number of
families just like ours. Gorgeous
,
young women and graying old men shared massive
homes like
i
t was normal. I hated the town from the moment we moved in
.
M
y
mother
fancifully decorated each of the many rooms in our oversized home. I, on the other
hand, created a plain bedroom that was easy to pack up, something I was always
ready to do.
It
was this new house that my third half sister, another blonde-haired
baby girl named Zinnia
,
was born.
*
* *
I stepped outside, shutting the huge
,
wooden front door behind me
.
I walked
across our neatly landscaped front yard and made my way down the street. The
expensive car William bought for me was collecting dust in the garage. The summer
breeze sweetened the air
;
the gentle wind pulled the hair away from my face. From
here, I could just make out Colby's house down the street.
"
Hey." Colby said, opening the front door to let me inside. I kicked my sandals off
and followed her into the kitchen. We sat down, in silence, as we sipped soda from
the
can.
Colby Harrison
,
my one and only friend in Acacia Harbor, was nothing like me,
because she wasn't wrapped up in money, material and forced love
.
She was the only
child of two doctors who were rarely home in their brick mansion
.
She was a genius
when it came to chemistry, but not when it came to relationships. She and I were good
friends, but Colby could be reclusive at times
.
due to the isolation she exper
i
enced
throughout her childhood. Her parents didn't know anything about her, so she didn't
seem to go out of her way to be close with others
.
I was constantly trying to pull con-
versation out of her.
If
I couldn't make conversation
,
then we spent most of our time
silence
.
Regardless, I still liked Colby.
* * *
"
Who is that?" I whispered, ducking down behind a big patch of bushes
.
"Leo Bridger
,
" Colby answered. "He just moved in
."
"
Are those his kids?" I asked
,
looking at the two rambunctious boys
i
n the front
yard
,
throwing baseballs at each other.
"
I guess so
,"
Colby whispered
,
crouching down beside me
.
She silently watched
fi
a few moments, then quickly lost interest and sat down on the curb by my feet.
I continued watching
,
enthralled by this new Acacia Harborer, with his messy
brown hair and tanned skin.
"
Leo
,
huh?"
Colby nodded, sliding her dark sunglasses from her eyes to her head
.
"He's a dad
Poppy
."
"I know
,"
I said, "I'm just looking."
"
Okay," she mumbled. She waited a moment, slid her sunglasses back down and
stood up from the ground, w
i
ping the dirt from her jeans. "I think I'm gonna walk
back. See you later." She didn
'
t wait for a response and turned around to walk down
the street back to her empty home
.
I couldn't tell you what I found interesting about Leo Bridger
.
He wasn
'
t consider-
ably good-looking; he seemed like an average man. I continued to duck behind the









bushes and watched Leo and his family move ii:ito their new mansion. Maybe he was
CEO at some fancy company in the city. Or maybe he inherited millions of dollars
~rough a dead relative. Just as I was exiting my hiding spot, Leo turned around to
Jook out into his yard. We momentarily made eye contact. I think he even smiled.
* * *
"Do you know where the salad dressing is?" a man from behind me asked. I
turned around holding a ripened pear in my hand. It was the new neighbor, Leo
Bridger. 'Tm new to town. I don't know where anything is in this store," he said with a
smile.
"It
doesn't take long to get it down," I said, remembering when I got lost in this
supermarket the week we moved in.
"Salad
dressing is in the fourth aisle, next to the
ketchup and peanut butter."
"Thanks," he said, slightly turning, but then looking back at me. "Do they have
Thousand Island? It's my favorite."
"That's
my
favorite, too," I said, with an excited smile.
"They
have it."
"Oh,
good. Need me to pick you up a bottle?"
"Well,
actually," I paused, thinking of the dressing I had just bought two weeks
ago.
"I
think
I'll
join you. I do need some." Although there was a full bottle sitting in
the refrigerator right now, I thought I'd join Leo. He seemed fairly interesting and I
found myself wanting to know more.
'Tm Leo," he said, sticking his hand out for me to shake.
I dropped the pear down with the others and took his hand. "Poppy."
* * *
A
couple
of mornings later, I ran down into the kitchen around noon looking for
something to stop my stomach from growling so loudly. I passed my mom, who was
busy doing her nails at the kitchen table.
"Mom,
I thought you said we had bagels,· I said, standing in front of the open
freezer. The cold breeze sent goose bumps down my arm.
"We
do," she said, with a nail file in one hand and a bottle of red nail polish in the
other. "William got them."
"But, they're not
in
here."
"Oh,"
she said, staring down at her nails, unconcerned with my lack of a lunch.
"Maybe
Iris ate the last one."
"No, I didn't," Iris said, walking up from behind my mom.
"You
did, Mom."
"Did I?" she asked, turning to my younger sister.
"Mom, you had the last bagel for breakfast."
I didn't wait for the conversation to end. I closed the freezer, grabbed my phone
and wallet off the counter and walked out of the house. It was just past noon, so my
mom couldn't have eaten breakfast too long ago. I was used to my mom not paying at-
tention very often. I walked down the block, the breeze pulling my hair back. The deli
Wasn't
too far away, plus it was a nice day.
"You again?" Leo said with a smirk, as I stepped into the deli.
"Me again," I said with a smile. I placed my order with the man behind the coun-
ter. Leo held a paper cup of coffee in one hand and a wrapped up sandwich in the
17









other. Against my wishes, he paid for my lunch, offering to eat it with me. For barely
knowing this man, I felt unreasonably at ease.
During our conversation, I couldn't pinpoint what intrigued me about him, but
he
was easy to talk to for someone I didn't even know.
"Speaking
of this weekend," he said,
"I
need a babysitter."
"I
could ask my friend if she wants to."
"No, no," he said with a smile. "What about you?"
"Me?" I said. I guess I was used to watching after my three younger sisters. I'm
sure his kids couldn't be too hard to handle. "I guess I could."
"The wife and I are going to some dinner with her friends." He didn't seem
excited. He took a couple more bites of his sandwich, then looked up at me.
"You
can
come by at seven on Saturday."
* * *
I made my way up the front walkway admiring the landscaping in the front
yard.
It
looked as if gardeners had just planted the flowers along the house. I calmly
knocked on the front door, unsure if I should ring the doorbell instead.
I could hear a woman's high heels clicking loudly against the floor.
"You
must
be
the babysitter," she said, opening up the door to let me in. She was hurriedly
brushing
through her wet hair.
I walked in, looking at the scattered boxes across the floor. Soccer balls were
thrown in along with dish towels and someone's leather belt.
"Sorry, the house is a mess," she said with a smile. "We just moved in." I could
relate. I knew what it felt like to
just move in.
"Audrey,"
she said, sticking her hand
out
I shook it lightly, finding it strange to shake another woman's hand.
"Poppy," I said.
"Well, the boys are upstairs. They should keep to themselves. Don't let them both-
er you." She turned around, continuing to brush her hair, and walked down the hall-
way. I followed her
into
the kitchen. Grocery bags of food were sitting on the island
in
the middle of the room.
"Leo
went shopping today. Feel free to eat whatever you
want
Make yourself at home," she said with a cheery smile.
"Oh,
and our cell phone num-
bers are on the fridge." She paused, scanning the room, trying to figure out what else
to include in the new babysitter speech.
"If
you don't have any questions, then I need
to finish getting ready." She didn't wait for my response as she loudly click-clacked
against the hardwood floors and up the stairs. I didn't even know her sons' names.
"You
made it," Leo said, coming up from behind me. I didn't even hear him
walk-
ing; I didn't know where he came from.
"Did
Audrey let you in?"
I nodded my head, uncomfortably running my fingers along the granite kitchen
countertops. He stood next to me silently, staring into my eyes. I didn't know if I
should say anything or even move, for that matter.
"We won't be late," Leo said, placing his hand next to mine on the counter. He
moved it closer, so they were touching; I couldn't tell if he meant to or not.
*
* *
Things were gradual with Leo. We were friends. Colby insisted that it wasn't right
for a married man to be friends with a teenage girl, but he made me feel comfortable,
18









nd even older. Besides, I was used to being around older men; nowadays, I found my-
a elf surrounded by William's elderly friends, who were double the age of Leo. He was
:he
change I needed. Our relationship was not romantic; he wouldn't cheat on his wife.
We talked about issues he claimed he couldn't talk about with Audrey. She always
seemed so busy and distracted. He needed someone who would take the time to sit
down and talk to him. We never exchanged our ages, though, but it was implied that I
was still in high school and he was thirty-something. I didn't care though. I didn't need
to
know how old he was.
We grabbed lunch on Saturdays and went for walks down the block on Sundays.
Audrey was never home, but when she was, she was talking loudly on her cell phone
or checking her e-mail constantly. Leo's sons were always running around the house,
which was still littered with cardboard boxes and sports equipment. The outside of the
home was beautiful though. Outsiders would have no idea the family was new to town.
Colby, who was minimal with her words to begin with, stopped making conver-
sation altogether to show her disapproval of my relationship with Leo. She couldn't
understand just being friends.
* * *
I passed Leo the bowl of popcorn we had made earlier. He took a handful then
placed it in between us. I sat back into the couch
,
licking the butter off my fingers
and looking up at the TV in front of me. Just as the movie was coming to an end, Leo
turned to me. He moved the bowl of popcorn out of the way and scooted closer.
"I
liked the movie," I said, turning to look at him. Why did he keep moving closer?
"It's one of my favorites," he said, slowly placing his hand on my knee. I tried mov-
ing over, leaning my body further away. Friends didn't have to sit so close together.
"I
should
get going," I said, pretending to search for a clock to look at, but the
walls were bare. Nothing was decorating the plain living room.
"Stay," Leo said, smiling at me, knowing I was becoming uncomfortable.
"Let's
talk." I didn't want to talk though. I wanted to get out before he got the wrong idea.
I decided to sit still for a moment, staring at the TV. The credits were rolling up the
screen. Leo was still looking at me, nearly on top of me. When I turned to look at him
to say goodbye, he wrapped his hand around my neck and pulled my lips to his.
"Leo,
get off of me." With both hands, I pushed his shoulders back and leaped off
the couch.
"I thought you were just like your mother," he said, smirking.
"What
is that supposed to mean?" I asked, backing away from the couch.
"Just
another gold-digger," he answered.
"Leo,"
I said, shaking my head. We had talked about this. He knew I wasn't my
mother.
"Oh,
so you
'
re just a gold-digger's lovechild."
He called after me as I ran through the front door, letting it slam shut after me.
1 ran faster than I ever thought I could. My hair wildly danced behind me as I tore
~cross the front lawn. My body felt like air; I don't think I could have slowed down
1
1
wanted
to. I didn't stop running until the house was way out in the distance. I sat
down on
the
cold curb in front of me, resting my pounding feet. The warm tears rolled
19












20
down my
cheeks,
forming
a
salty
pool
in my mouth
.
A tangled mess
of
blonde hair
fell
in front of my face as black streaks of mascara ran from my
eyes.
I dug my
cell
phone
out of my jacket pocket
and
called Colby.
After three rings, she picked up
,
"Hello?"
"Colb,
I
need you to do me a favor,"
I
said in between gasps, still trying to catch
my breath.
I
quickly told her what
I
needed her to do, unsure if she'd go along with
the plan. As
I
finished, she
complied
and hung up the phone.
I
didn't
even
have to fight
her to follow through;
all
she
said
was,
"
okay
.
"
I
turned off my phone and placed it on the grass behind me.
It
would be
a
while
before
I
had to talk to anyone listed inside of it.
I
pushed my hair out of my face and
watched for Colby.
About fifteen minutes later, she showed up in that fancy car William bought me.
She flashed the headlights to assure me that it was her driving.
I opened up the pas-
senger side door, smiling at my friend. She, for once, smiled back.
"Where
are we going?" she asked as
I sat back in the seat.
"Out
of here,"
I said
.
We didn't say anything else
as
she stepped on the
gas
and
drove the car out
of
Acacia Harbor. She didn't have to question my motive and
I didn't
question why she wasn't curious.
I turned up the radio and opened the window, send-
ing my hair into another dancing
fury
.
I
may look like my mother, but
I
was not going
to be her.
I
was not going to be just
a
gold-digger's lovechild.
I
was not going to suc-
cumb
to the norms of Acacia Harbor
.
I
was going to get out before
I
could
get sucked
in.







Rain Storm
by
Jennifer Sommer
The rain falls
with
utter ignorance.
Each drop hits exposed skin,
running down spines,
gently sitting
on lips
.
The water seeps in,
slowly,
surely,
passionately,
and
then suddenly
the storm passes
.
Dangerous and volatile
it runs off to newer pastures.
Then I'm alone again,
left only with water-stained sheets,
and a heart
cold
and battered
by the storm.
21









22
10 Years
by
Michael Cresci
Behind those salt water eyes lies a macabre sense of doubt.
Damaged goods lure fools like me
,
since misery indeed loves company
.
And girls
,
like decades, seem forever
,
but slip away a bit too soon
.
Yet they all mean less
Than the first decade that fell in love with you.
And on the tenth New Year's Eve, you shake your head and say
"
Boy, the time flies by. Where's the decade gone
?"
But whether it was a decade well spent or not,
The first decade to get away
,
the one where things were simpler.
is the one you really want.
Two Faceless S
oldiers
by Jared T
opalian
Two Faceless So
ldiers
Blades Flicker
,
Clash a
nd Seek
A Calm, Silen
t War
Advance
,
R
e
trea
t
Quickness and Cunning Are
Tru
th
Our Minds and Feet
Battle
A Swift Pierci
n
g
Stab
The Play of Blades an
d Blood
Brutal Eleg
an
ce
W
e
Grasp V
ictory
Our Lives upon Our Two Sw
ord
s
Eternal Mo
me
nt











untitled
by
James Napoli
E
l
rio
canta con
la voz de! oceano,
Como ella
desemboca a su amor.
En
l
as
montaflas, sus
aguas,
libres e inmaculadas
zarpaban
lamentablemente en vueltas
y
revueltas
.
E
ll
a
Hora en la ausencia de las aguas saladas
,
Desprecia
al aire
fresco
,
y extrafla a la salmuera.
Pero
,
en su adelantamiento
a las aguas
Salobres,
su coraz6n
acelera,
Pulsando
sangre
urgentemente a sus afluentes
.
Mas
,
y
mas rapido ella navega al mar.
Con su alma
llena hasta
los
tapes
,
Ella estrecha
las aguas fuertes entre sus brazos,
y
Lo
toma
en
un
abrazo
carifloso
.
Sus aguas se
entrelazan
con las
Del oceano,
y
el
le da un beso a su esposa con sus labios desatados.
Y
junto
s,
se
embarcan
a su destinaci6n final.
23









24
An
Ode to
my
Favorite Coffeehouse
by
Leigh Everett
"Here it goes, here it goes
Here
it
goes again
,"
The sensory overload
Of nouns, verbs and expletives
Forming extraordinary mazes
In black spiraled notebooks
For us to read
And perform
His voice soothes the ache in my written soul
Seven hundred poems deep and lonesome
I hear the sway and swish
Of thumbs and forefingers snapping
Artists of the spoken word
Connect again after a season
Left behind but never gone
She trembles
Topics jump off the tip of her tongue
Out into the air
Coated with cliche' but
Just getting by
I remember
My first time
Paper resting against
The back easel,
Light harsh
My voice, the only sound
Against the coffee makers
Memories
,
moments
,
dreams
,
wishes
Written and given up to the world
To be devoured
By talented artistic minds
Like ours
The others
,
they sit quiet yet are excited
As the colors, sounds, and wordy allusions






All cram on to one stage
In the one small coffeehouse
In Poughkeepsie, New York
This place is my homeward bound
The beginning of belonging
Paper crinkles, a young man laughs
His beautiful mocha hair
Doesn
'
t distract from
His words on the page
They lay dormant ready for offering,
Verses,
truths
Creative memories
Striking life lessons
Unchangeable remedies
All is here, written
For novel maniacs
And worldly magicians
Poetry
is
comfort
Always
In my favorite coffeehouse
The Cubbyhole, on Monday nights
25









26
Here We Are
by
Richard
M.
Frias
Here we are naked in this bed
Time has stopped
And I am happy
Her breath becomes my breath and our breath is one
We laugh
Sometimes silence says it all
Sometimes even soaring means to fall
Sometimes I want to let
it
all go, just so it is only her that I hold
The petals in my head are all but gone
I don't know
In darkness we belong to each other
And we forget what it means to sleep
Awake, we dream of a world of our own
A world where time can condone-
What we have
Whatever that may be
If
it is nothing
Then it is the best nothing that my eyes will never see
Whatever that is real.
If
it is something
Then
it
is the best something that my fingers will e
v
er feel
In our hours we can live lifetimes
Intervals of infinite happiness
Illusions comforting our stressful souls
Even if it is too fast
Even if they say
it
won't last
Even if this was so unexpected
Even if the future sp
i
tefully wrecks it
No "Evens
"
will ever take this away
Some where at some time we will always have that day
And then the weekend ended





Here we are clothed in this car
Time is moving
And I am happy
Her breath is her own breath and mine is mine
We laugh
Sometimes a song says
it
all
sometimes even holding hands means to fall
Sometimes I never really want to let go, just so it is only her that I hold
The petals in my head are all but here
!know
27






28
Between Static and Bars
by
Michael Ardizzone
Sated by windows
by portholes and gaps
through which we could see this-
that which we can't have-
soon we will reach for
the way we should be
with arms made of plastic,
too playful, too free.
When stronger our need is
we're weaker (it shows):
Our winter has melted
what spring let us know.
As truth is a curtain-
we close it with fear-
our fate is uncertain
(our families nuclear,
for TV has told us
'tween static and bars
that all we should think of
are candies and cars.)









Remove the Jokers, Scene from The House Always Wins
by
Tim McMullan
RISI:
FARCEUR:
RISI:
FARCEUR:
RISI
:
FARCEUR:
RISI
:
FARCEUR:
RISI
:
FARCEUR:
RISI
:
FARCEUR:
RISI
:
FARCEUR:
RISI
:
FARCEUR
RISI
:
FARCEUR:
RISI:
FARCEUR:
RISI:
FARCEUR:
FARCEUR is alone, peering over the edge of the top floor's courtyard
'
s
weather beaten wall. He clenches up as he hears loud frantic footsteps
clamoring up the staircase
,
but as the door swings open with RISJ's hand
hanging onto the knob as he collapses onto the floor, FARCEUR is no
longer alarmed
.
Unafraid, he laughs at their farce.
(Climbing out of the staircase, he turns to FARCEUR with an inquisitive
look on his face.)
What are we now?
(through his smirk of content)
All the same, prodded on, like plain
people, like Prods.
(lamenting)
I just cannot believe it. Is this how
it
starts?
(raising his brow)
How it ends?
Prohibition. Now what
,
after the barons? We were the top. No longer a
part of the family
-
(cutting RISI offJ -
Apart from the family now.
(trailing on)
Pro? Like the best?
Yes.
We were the best, best barons in town. (clasping his fist with his other
hand) In the country!
(effortlessly)
Were
.
(still inquiring)
Pro? Like it's a good idea?
For them
,
for men, for the scum who ride on high horses. (slowing down
and slurring his speech)
Who think they're better than us. (points his
index at RISL and fluidly retracts it as his thumb points to himself,
repeating the motion until RISI catches him doing it)
(hysterically)
Pro
?
Pro
,
pomegranate? The pomegranate!
(grieves
.
nodding)
Ah
,
your favorite of brews. 'Tis a sad time.
(staring down at FARCEUR's feet)
Irony has it that
,
when I must, I cannot,
you follow? (pause) This isn't like us. Uncertainty has cast its terrible
shadow
.
Ominous
.
When the chips are down we were the first to go. (authorita-
tively)
Remove the Jokers
.
Remove them on a flop! (snaps) Barn! (snaps) No hesitation! No sign!
(without hesitating)
No need.
(practically singing)
A good man would give those but the King of Hearts
does not. A heart that beats like mine
,
but is so cold. Oh so cold
.
Rather boils at its core with hatred
.
(scoffs) And no longer needs to beat
for the rage and the money flow keep his heat.
(reminiscing, not hearing FARCEUR's response)
A great man! He got us
on our way
.
We were putting down and cashing out. the good times
.
(logically)
But Risi, for how long could such activities continue? (RISI
29






RISI:
FARCEUR:
RISI:
FARCEUR:
RISI:
FARCEUR:
RISI:
FARCEUR:
RISI
:
FARCEUR
:
RISI:
FARCEUR
:
RISI
:
FARCEUR
:
RISI:
FARCEUR:
SPADILLE:
RISI:
SPADILLE
:
RISI
:
SPADILLE
:
30
rolls his eyes with some acceptance.) We gambled with our time against
the odds one too many times, it seems.
(unfocused) Only us two left. (He stares past FARCEUR with self-defeat)
And on that final roll, what could have been a dozen strong
,
now one
dot
one die.
Red dots between the eyes
,
snake eyes. He was stalking in the darkness
like the serpent he is.
Called his bluff but we got duffed
.
(exhausted) This emotion - I'm falling down the stairs but there
i
sn't a
landing
.
Down the chain of command, a chain that is used to beat us
.
To
beat us down!
Struggling would only give you hope
.
Don
'
t brother, don
'
t bother.
We tried; we had them.
(arguing) Trying is not good enough - there is only success and failure
.
Give up on your hope
;
it is the last left for the defea
t
ed.
(raising his voice) I hope I can try.
How devastating!
(He gives RISI a look of distaste.) He'll send his ace
in the hole -
(braying) The Ace of Spades! His top card! They call him Spate.
The same
,
but that's not his name.
(puzzled) You mean not his first?
(annoyed) No, not his first.
(persisting) His last name must be
.
Enter SPADILLE, the Ace of Spades
,
hidden from the Jokers.
No.
(RISL determined to solve the riddle
,
looks up with squinting e
y
es,
mouth ajar, but even his contorted facial expression yields nothing.)
It
Is
said that you understand why he is called Spate,
(he looks up) when -
he
- kills - you -
(He trails off as his eyes widen, and the Spade's blade
shines piercing his left breast as it is soaked in the ruby redness of his
blood).
(booming) My name is Spadille! You silly pad. Why do none of you high
waymen not know anything? Both meanings hoodwinker. (relaxed) I am
spate; it is an adjective
.
My work is spate; large in quantity. Spate
:
arriv-
ing sudden and strong as I am the only one and much needs to be done
.
Why am I even killing you fools?
(Exhaling he straightens out his suit
and starts toward RISI)
Well
,
I don't have much information but I am sure there is a better per-
son with greater knowledge than I who can answe
r
your question with
more effectiveness
.
(bored) What?
It's the nicest way for me to tell you that I don't know.
(uninterested) He said you'd say that. I'm still going to kill you. Your








RISI
:
SPADILLE
:
RISI:
SPADILLE
:
RISI
:
SPADILLE
:
RISI:
SPADILLE:
RISI
:
SPADILLE:
RISI:
SPADILLE:
FARCEUR:
SPADILLE:
FARCEUR:
RISI:
struggle is as futile as it is lame
.
Bqt isn't it all part of the plan?
You tell me. What should I know
,
what shouldn't I have?
(trying to contain his laughter)
Oh but I could, yes I cou
l
d, but I dare say
I don't even know myself.
Oeering)
You puppet, choke yourself with those strings.
(waving his fi.nger at RISI)
Ah, servitude does not exclude distaste.
(unafraid}
Do what you must.
(grasps his chin}
.
No
,
I will do what I must.
The remaining morsels of dust need to be swept out for a new era! I have
something for you.
(chuckles)
A going-away present. Then, you'll go
away.
(confi.dently)
Present it then.
(brings out a piece of parchment and begins to read}
Now I am aghast with glee
That the great fools last see me,
The reason for a joke
Will be revealed in time,
Key is building up a good punch line.
(He smiles, cocking his gun inches from RISI)
(scoffing)
You like to rhyme? Shall I clock you?
Oooh, the suspense could kill me.
Oeering)
How fortunate, try rhyming this one: Eviscerate!
That is something I should contemp -
(FARCEUR, who has been lying
wounded on the floor, suddenly rises and stabs SPADILLE in the stom
ach}.
(audibly whispering into SPADILLE's ear with a wild grin)
And under
pressure the dust become diamonds.
(baffled and furious)
Diamonds? Ha! A farce like you and transparent like
him?
(hissing)
No, sharp and priceless
.
Like your demise.
SPADILLE falls, curtain drops.
31





32
The Pampas
by Chris Ceballos
Speak to me with an Argentinean breeze
blown back like an Italian in a strange land
prime beef in smoke stacks in outstretched fields
of patchwork and quilts.
Look at me like the red caped damsel looked to the sky
to see tips of trees-
Those icy autumn trees!
Twisted twigs so broken and big
suitable setting suns
like when the west had one
but this frontier is so far I fear
the cowboys here run home for dinners-
Simultaneous dinners
in cabins, in winters
Here when voices expand out they sing-
They turn out
They churn out
They wear out
To meet the breeze in the fertile lands.
But to be freed forever from several severed tethers
and a greed so in style
locked with love and an Italian in a strange land
I would reach up to take her hand to the sky-
That icy autumn sky!









Months
.
by
Brian
McMillan
1 know she didn't choose this from the start,
But I wanted her and found her heart.
It
was a surprise that began to grow
,
covered us from head to toe.
I
knOW
this thing that fits in my hand,
I can feel this beat against the plan,
But then it grew too large for me,
What
c
ould this pounding be?
S
w
elling begins and fibers tear
,
It's love
,
it's love I swear
.
But it was out there for all to see,
So clear how it meant much to me.
N
ow I want it more than ever,
Choice is gone and I surrender.
The beat in my hand begins to fade
,
The end of all we've made.
I didn't choose this from the start,
But she could always break this heart.
But she could always break this heart.
33









34
Polaroid
Sky
by Kelly Gallucci
Let's take a picture
Of
you and me
Of this moment
Of just being happy
Let's hold hands
As we walk down the street
Smiling g
e
ntly
As we hum to our own beat
Let's dance to that song
That only we can hear
And we
'
ll ignore the car honks
As we hold each other near
Let's pretend that
we're in love
For one last time
And forget what sunrise will bring
Because this night is sublime
Let's wish on a star
For a never ending night
And boo at the sun as it rises
So it runs away in fright
Let's race through fields of flowers
And fall down
in
the grass
We'll cloud gaze for hours
And
Jet the time just pass
Let's take pictures of you and me
Pretending we never have to say goodbye
And then we'll have captured that magical moment
Of you and me and the P o 1 a r o i d s k y



35





37









sunrise
by
Marina Cella
cool water running over hands
,
slipping through fingers
onto silver chrome and white porcelain
washing away a thousand yesterdays
In a single stream that runs down the drain.
Today I wake with the sunrise,
Tear-stained cheeks, head spinning
Being carried to a nearby place
where solace is found in frozen moments
when everything else disappears
When time stands still, and brilliant colors spread across the sky
like ink dropped into a jar of water
just as the last of the morning sun cuts through the fog.
no good deed goes unpunished
by
Shelley Doster
i had designs
to capture the sun
and seat it
(cupped)
in my hands
a flaming beacon
to light your way
through the enveloping darkness
but my plan
backfired
Within the cage of meshed fingertips
as the sun resisted
and scorched me
branding
Words of apology into my palms
39






40
This distance between our existence
by Brit Fiorenza
seagulls suspended on the current
lmagists would believe it is enough: one image captured and conveyed
i settle in stance, balanced on splintered planked piers
swaying on the Hudson,
i have yet to say my peace
i have yet to make a release, to substantiate my existence here
following smoke escape as my breath i see
reflections of my presence resonate in ripples
amidst all that surrounds me, i am small, against
the trees
,
the mountains in the distance, the river
between our existences - all so impossibly beyond me
outdoors: less confined than hallways and stairwells -
painted white and peeling
,
placing the paces we've stepped
nevertheless the motions of gulls in flight are
projections of our positions as we lie in bed lazily lifting
our bodies simultaneously still and shifting
today one image cannot sustain my solitude
everything is releasing, not fulfilling
just as the smoke of my exhale
only wanting to find myself beside you
;
pulled into my core
no longer pulling familiarity from the images from the sky
with the river to my back blue waters are your eyes
how can i find comfort in your absence?
the echo of my name down the hallway is resonating in the echoes of the gulls
down the river, the trees stand in rooted places
less subject to dissipate than i
uprooted and grasping for a higher meaning to lead me back to
believing
i'll
return to you
instead, i surrender to all that is not within myself
next to the river, even my tears are stagnant
against the wind my lungs incompetent
the elements between our beings





snowflake
by
Alison Carter
We were wandering through a junkyard, hidden behind a wooden fence. There
were rows upon rows of crumbled cars. There was a gutted yellow school bus and the
rusted remains of a trailer. We were
in
a muddy area of the woods and the ground
was littered with leaves, broken glass and rusted car parts. Behind us were train
tracks, overgrown, overtaken by the brambles and trees, two tracks in the woods
and just beyond them a barbed wire fence and a cow pasture. In the pasture were a
shallow stream and an uprooted beech tree that revealed its roots
,
revealed the world
beneath the surface and the green plants still clinging to upturned earth. We walked
down a stony path. There was a garage and we sat down inside the garage, sur-
rounded by the dusty skeletons of automobiles and played an electric organ, putting
our weight on the pedals and pressing our fingers on the keys. We wandered out into
the tall grasses where a postman's truck, or maybe a milk truck, was rusting. We pried
open the sliding door and climbed up onto the rotting leather seat. We pulled down a
steamer trunk and unclasped the corroded hinges, pulled the top clean off and flung it
down in the grass
.
Inside was a pillow case. It may have once been white, but had become the color
of teeth. The front was embroidered, hand stitched with a maze of stick-thin branches
and yellow-green leaves. There were yellow and red butterflies on either side of the
branches, and they were surrounded by purple and blue flowers with red centers. The
flowers were about the size of a child's thumb print. The butterflies hid in the branch-
es. A word was stitched below the branches in smooth, young cursive. The word was
Snowflake.
We began to wonder. We imagined and we thought. "Edelweiss, edelweiss .
.
.
Blossom of snow may you bloom and grow
,
" we sang. They were not edelweiss, these
flowers. These flowers were lavenders and periwinkles, with blood red centers. We
wondered, we imagined, we thought.
We told as if we knew
.
It was 1969. Civil War raged in the Republic of Chad. A
young girl lived among Arab nomads in the Sahara desert. She was seven years old.
Her name was Anisa and she had a family. She had a mother and a father, but the
government rode through the desert on horses and cut them down like acacia trees.
She was pulled up on a horse and carried across the desert. They gave her water and
t~ey brought her to Faya-Largeau. They told her that her people had done wrong. She
did
not understand. They put her inside a flying machine and they sent her to Cairo.
They put her in a school where white faced people called her Anna. A man and woman
one day took her hands. They put her on another flying machine and she slept. When
she woke up it was very cold, like the nights in the desert, but
it
was day. The ground
Was hard and gray and dirty. They put her in a car and they took her to a place where
the ground was covered in green and yellow grasses. All she could do was sleep. All
she could do was dream. When it became warm she lay beneath a tree and slept for
a Week. When she woke up the tree was covered in tiny purple and blue wings. There
Were flying paper creatures. They were the color of sand. The wind blew and she
41






42
closed her eyes, and she watched the blue and purple fall on her knees and her hands
She danced in the colors as they fluttered down on her and she rolled in them and
·
she laughed. She laughed and she cried and felt that she was bleeding laughter and
so
were they.
The man and woman taught her words she didn't know. They put her in new
clothes and gave her tiny
,
thin knives and strings. They told her to make needlepoint.
They gave her a square cotton smock for her pillow and they told her to make flowers.
They showed her pictures of pink flowers. But instead she made the branches of the
tree and the blue and purple and the paper creatures the color of sand and each one
bled laughter
.
"
Edelweiss, edelweiss
,
blossom of snow, may you bloom and grow forever
,"
they
sang
.
She said,
"
What is snow?"
They told her,
"
It falls from the sky
."
"
Oh
,"
she said
. "
I know snow
.
What is one snow
?"
"
It
is a snowflake," they said.
"
This is what I am. I have fallen across the sky. I have bled laughter
."
They wrote the word
Snowflake
in ink for her and she copied it in purple string
the color of snow.
In three days all of the snow had fallen off of the tree to the ground
.
She rested
her head on her needlepoint and lived among the paper creatures and the snowflakes
.
This is how she would dream.
We found her story
in
a ste
a
mer trunk, stuck in a postman
'
s truck, while we
were
wandering across a junkyard
.







MY
favorite Part
by
Amanda Mulvihill
After
(when
your
finger lazily spirals,
winding itself in tendrils of my hair;
when
I trace your face's contours and planes
with a
blushing, wondering fingertip;
when our
limbs entwine as our fingers would,
were we walking,
instead of whispering
softness
to one another
through parted lips that long to fuse,
our entangled
souls breathing words
though
we
know not which soul speaks,
because
both
mean, both speak the
same).
Poughkeepsie
by
Marina Cella
Home isn't a place anymore
It's
a
state of mind
A place by a river, a valley that dips into the sea
Where
a thousand brilliant suns light up dim hallways
Reflecting on tile floors
sun setting,
light diffusing into dark
sounds
of midnight trains - fade in, fade out
tail
lights in the chilly fog
and voices
that tell stories of a life, a million lives all coming together
the nights we stayed up ti! dawn, and told stories until the sun came up
laughing
A small city
where we all found each other
And found
ourselves
43








44
Stubborn Conscience
by Chris Cho
Fractured and beaten, his own
words
he
'
s eaten
within a hearty humble pie.
What would possess him to commission such an ambitious mission delving deep into
one's mind
'
s eye? He hears songs sung alone with words too well known as heavy
steps carry feet along. Silk-clad and sad, the hatter jabbers mad, smooth inconsisten-
cies to tempt all who he may deflower in the wake of his suave debonair. Making
rankings and rantings with ratings and hatings he judges with the haste of a mullah
glut of pride. All smug and consistent, his thoughts are resistant to the hypocrisy
that
dribbles down his chin. Each sip of tea, another catastrophe of a human being who has
sinned, their life the only cost. However fault is crass and malicious, altogether vicious,
but brutally honest all the same. She finds him alone, locked up on his own, convers-
ing with the callous voices that see to the end that the honor, much to his horror,
feels like salt in his wounds, like sulfur. Thus he eats his own words, all twisted with
verbs that have him tearing away from the glass. The mass imperfection, mirrors so
much rejection that skims only the surface in the deepest parts of him. It's more than
obscene, his face so clean-cut and lean
,
staring back but lacking humility.








orchid Garden
by
Nichole Boisvert
The orchids
glow in the low light,
petals
almost
transparent
in
their brilliant fragility.
With
the Spanish moss
,
ethereal
mist,
soft colors
.
It's
easy
to forget I'm just in a greenhouse
in
th
e
middle of the city
two
blocks from the Capital,
where
some group is
prot
es
ting something
with crowds
and shouts and
performance poetry
.
Here
,
the rhyme is soft.
Fans
whisper
misty secrets
.
The Spanish moss lifts to reveal a face
as
light shifts into verse
.
45










46
single digits.
by
Katie Warren
Single-digit sentences dictate our relationships.
Three words start, four words end
,
five offer a reason.
I love you
.
We need to talk.
It's not you
,
it's me
.
In descending order of meaningfulness
.
I love you.
Slips out unaware, so stealthy
You barely know it's been said
.
Drunken
"
Lurv
",
mistaken for lu
s
t.
That troublesome L-word,
Big L
little
I,
capitalization makes all the difference.
We need to talk.
Universal yellow light
That if you speed through,
Could result in a fatal crash
.
Safer just to stop,
but who wants to stop
,
or be safe?
Not me.
It's not you, it's me
.
R
i
ngs so true
And cliche it breaks your heart,
So you can't ask for the real reason.
And just as 3-4-5 show the rise and fall,
It's 1 and 2 that offer hope:
I do, and
Love
.
That's why it's number
1
.









f\SheS
by
Jennifer Sommer
our bodies
remain
pressed between
w
hite
linen
sheets
like butterflies stuck
behind pained glass
.
My crystal
frame cradled in yours,
paper
arms encircle
my
waist,
as
passion
sparks
and
burns the paper into soot.
Once strong arms shrivel away
as
my
crystal
frame hardens.
The flame extinguished
as
quickly as it came.
Love is a Verb.
by
Julia D'Angelo
Love is a verb.
It grows,
expands,
moves,
constantly.
It
stalls,
shrinks,
stops,
unfortunately.
A moment caught on
the jagged edge of minds
it sticks
it waves
it tears away
Enabling the disabled
Turns gray to beige.
47






48
Contemplations of an Autumn Leaf
by Shelley Doster
When is it time to let go?
Should I be a daredevil
And throw so much away
While green and freshness linger
And not experience
(Bittersweet)
The sensation of Change?
Burnished gold and russet
Gleam fiery and dazzling -
Should I be like all the others
And feel the joy of drifting en mass,
Entwining and circling with reckless abandon
Upon glorious descent to become part
Of the earth once more
/
Or shall I cling to certainty
And never give in to such temptations? -
To survive
Browned and brittle
:
A fragile skeleton reminiscent of indecision
Clutching to a long-past life
By an emaciated stem.











Me
Without You
by
:Michael Cresci
"To a girl who
got
into my head
with all the
pretty things
she
did"
It
used to just be you who called me Michael,
and
I loved it.
Jt
was the
sweetest verbal kiss, and then you'd smile,
and
I loved it.
And
since you
left your friends have started to call me Michael, it's not the same,
but it reminds me how
I loved it.
Patience
by
Katherine Bilsky
the
ivy
hangs from over the hospice, strangling the forgotten concrete.
room
215 the
illness is only beginning, a patient's hope not yet lost.
the
physicians
have sad eyes, as they watch the beginning of death
a synthetic
heart, oxygen tanks, various vaccines,
they
will
not Band-Aid the perpetual life threatening wound.
a
Powerful
crescendo
of long steady beeping overcomes the everlasting silence -
the
doctors and nurses continue to room 216
anct Visiting
hours have long gone by.
49





50
Untitled
by
Sarah Philpot
And he had the most beautiful
Blue eyes she had ever seen.
Captivated, entranced
:
She was only pulled deeper
.
The perfect black pupils -
Pinpoints of eternity -
Welcoming, warm,
Frigid and foreign.
And those cerulean crystalline irises
That carry a world of secrets
On their rays of blue bliss.






rJasks and Mazes
by
Ashleigh Whitfield
She died on a Tuesday
.
She always hated Tuesdays.
I sometimes wonder if I had chosen a different career, would I be living a hap-
pier life? I imagine where I would be now if I stuck to my original plan and quit
this temporary job after one year, instead of allowing myself to arrive every day
for ten.
If
I had put more effort into finding a job more suitable for what I wanted
and been the career woman I intended to be, rather than doing what was most
convenient - but then I realize that this life would have left me without ever know-
ing Caroline. All I like to think about is Caroline, but now she is gone and that is an
awful thing to know. So I will pretend she didn't die and go back to work.
Ten years of insurance
.
I sit in my cubicle everyday, staring at the emptiness
before me
,
waiting to learn about the next accidental death
.
The white walls suffo-
cate and blind each unsuspecting adjustor and the labyrinth of cubicles provide an
inescapable barrier. One after another, they stretch toward the horizon and leave
me with papers that say nothing but "hopeless
.
"
And then she walked through the door.
Her excessively long blond hair flowed behind her as she entered in a remark-
ably low cut designer sun dress. She looked like a china doll with her pale skin and
rosy cheeks
.
I had never seen anyone as beautiful as she was on that day.
It
was a
shame she would have to die so soon.
Her name was Caroline.
"
Sweet Caroline," the song of my teenage years, made
this easy to remember. It plays over and over in my head for no reason at all,
providing a musical mask over my thoughts - a joyous mask that smiles while the
wearer sobs behind it.
Caroline was here, was ready to begin her career in insurance; this little girl
saw the maze of pure white boxes as the key to her own successful future
,
and
believed this was the path that would lead her to the life of financial liberation she
desired. Her ignorance astounded me as I watched her smile, maskless in an office
of covered faces. She never thought for a moment that she would get lost in the
maze. But then I remembered - neither did I.
Ten years, three months, seventeen days
.
I sat in a cell. I read about who did
What, to who, and how. Paper after paper, mistake after mistake. Eventually the
Words all blend together to form an unintelligible memory of accidents. Was it the
teenage girl who killed the kid or the drunk old man? Who cares? Take money
from both. Speaking to victims is a matter of necessity that lacks any form of
1e_sire. The same questions must be asked, no matter what the situation might be.
tis a script, and I have my lines memorized
.
My mask catches any word or phrase
that could hint at my own feelings or personality and mutes them. My opinions do
~ot matter. After so long, nothing matters anymore. I stopped feeling. Emotions
ecame a thing of the past and nothing hurt. Nothing felt good. Each day became
51







52
an endless array of nothing
.
I tried to take my mind off of the daunting papers of
death, but find them hanging on the walls around me, on the desks in white boxes
next to me
,
in the photocopier, on the floor. Everywhere. All there is to do is to
keep reading
.
Her cubicle was in the row behind mine
.
When she worked, she always talked
to the people next to her. She never stopped talking.
"Hi, I'm Caroline! Oh my God, you see that girl over there ... "
"I already can't stand her,
"
Scarlet whispered. She sat on my desk, ignoring
the fact that her short crimson dress hurried away from her knees
.
Her long,
black
hair slapped my face as she used her head to gesture at this foreign creature.
"
You can
'
t stand anyone
,"
I said.
"Beth's right," Angel said from behind me
.
I could hear her tugging at her
high
neckline, fidgeting in her blouse and jacket. "You don
'
t give anyone a chance."
"
I know," Scarlet glared at Caroline
.
"And I'm better for it."
I found out about her life
.
I knew her parents lived in New Jersey, I knew she
graduated from New York University two years ago with a degree in accounting.
I knew that she was engaged and, mostly, I knew that she was happy. She never
mentioned the sad things
.
"
He sent me the prettiest flowers on Valentine's Day last year! I couldn't
believe how big the bouquet was. Took up my whole desk. My boss at the time
wasn
'
t too happy though. That's why I like Roy so much better. I can't wait to see
what he's getting me this year, especially since we are getting married in July
...
"
When she was serious, she twisted her hair around her pen all the way up to
her scalp while she stared at her papers. Her forehead would crinkle in concentra-
tion. But this only happened for certain cases
,
the ones that involved children. I
watched her when she ruffled through tragedies while trying to remain profes-
sional. She always took longer handling those claims. A week into her arrival in
the
maze, I heard her on the phone
.
"
Hello? Is this Mr. Seu!?"
Scarlet came over and sat on my desk.
"
Who is she talking to?"
"I'm not sure," Angel said
. "
Any ideas
,
Beth?"
"
Seu!..." I stared at Caroline's concerned features.
"
That's the guy whose fam-
ily got killed. They were building a snowman last month on the side of the road.
Drunk driver came up and BAM! Killed the guy
'
s wife and two kids." That was the
kind of case I handled everyday. Nice people living their nice lives in their nice
homes when someone bad comes along and takes away the nice.
"
Oh right, I remembe
r
now
.
"
"
SSSHH!
"
said Scarlet. "I'm trying to listen."
• ... Caroline Bates, from Everyday Insurance ... I...no ... no everything is fine
.
. .I
just...I wanted to let you know how sorry I am for your loss
.
" Tears ran down her
face and splattered on her claims
.
She clutched onto a picture frame which I can
only see the back of from my desk. I didn't have any pictures
a
t work. Few of the




rnasked adjustors did.
She was innocent. She still had things she cared about. Scarlet laughed.
"
Give her another month and she'll be yelling at him for letting the kids too
close to the road."
We became very close, me and Caroline. She fascinated me in the way she
would type with one hand while writing with the other. She never complained
about anything - and I hate it when people complain. And I could tell she liked me.
No one smiles like that at someone they don't like. Every time she did I could feel
rny face burn crimson, and I know that she noticed.
Caroline noticed everything. Maybe it was her youth, but I like to think it
was because her eyes were uncovered. There was no mask to block her vision, no
obstruction to get in the way of her seeing exactly what was there
.
Some days, when I went home with her, she walked and absorbed the atmo-
sphere. She didn't drive her car to work, believing New York to be polluted enough
without her help
.
I didn't usually think about that.
She had the energy of a child. No matter how fast I walked, she was always
faster. I could never keep up. The first time I went home with her, I lost her in the
crowd completely. I could tell she felt bad about it, so I didn't mention it to her. It
did make me angry when I finally got to her apartment building after chasing her
the eighteen blocks from work and she forgot to buzz me in. I waited outside the
building for a long time, trying to figure out which windows were hers, but I gave
up when the sun went down. That's when I usually gave up. Then I would walk
back to work to get my car. I thought that was very rude of her.
But then other things started happening. Things that went beyond rude.
"Happy
Valentine's Day!" yelled Angel.
"This is such a waste of a day," Scarlet said, as expected.
"What's
that?" I followed Angel's gaze to Caroline's desk. She had not gotten
to work yet, but on top of her paperwork sat a purple vase with long stem, blue
roses. Scarlet walked over to them, her dress daring her to move faster.
"Hey Beth," Scarlet called while holding up a small card,
"They're
for you
.
Looks like your fiance and I don't agree on this holiday."
"How did they get over there?" I hurriedly placed the vase on my desk before
Caroline arrived.
"You
know what I think?" said Scarlet.
"I
think we have a little thief on our
hands
.
"
"She's not even here yet," Angel laughed.
"And
besides, who steals flowers
from someone else's fiance?"
"I...I'm sure the delivery guy just put them on the wrong desk. That's all."
I actually believed it. It seemed simple enough, an easy mistake. But then
Caroline came and sat at her cubicle. She looked at her empty desk and sighed
deeply.
"It's because it's a Tuesday," she said. "Nothing good ever happened on a
53





54
Tuesday
."
I brought my roses home that night. She was staring at them all day. I got
home and could not focus on anything
.
Things kept racing through my head.
Mr
Seu! and his kids,
I
wonder if his wife saw the car coming at them? Blue roses,
·
everywhere, blue roses. Scarlet told me Caroline wanted them.
I
know she wanted
them. Why wouldn't she let me upstairs?
I
waited and waited and waited.
I
glanced at the mirror resting next to my bed.
I
looked old. Older than
I
should look. Dark shadows trickled down my face while my black hair stuck out
at
odd angles. This is why
I
wear a mask. I didn't look at the mirror for the rest of
the
night and thought about her
.
"
SWEET CAROLINE ..
.
BUM BUM BUM
..
. "
"
Hey, Scarlet? Do you really think she tried to take my flowers today?"
"
Of course I do."
"
But..."
"They were on her desk, Beth
."
"
Oh Scarlet, stop
,
" Angel said. She had abandoned her jacket and stood unbut-
toning and re-buttoning the top of her shirt.
"
You're scaring her."
'Tm not scared
,"
I said
.
"What would she want those flowers for?"
"Maybe she was jealous of me?"
"
GOOD TIMES NEVER SEEMED SO GOOD!"
"
So good
,
so good ... "
One week after the flower incident I woke up late. I rushed into work and
no-
ticed her staring at me
.
Everyone stared as I walked in and I saw Caroline
whisper
to a masked woman who started working here a year after I did
.
Eyes had been
peeking out from behind masked faces for the whole week, following me as the
bodies continued on with their work.
I sat at my desk and my purse clattered underneath me, and then I stumbled
and knocked my chair over. I swore under my breath and bent down to pick it
up.
When I moved to stand back up, my head crashed into my desk. I swore again.
And again and again.
"
BETH!"
"
What?" I looked up and saw my boss, Roy Flay, standing over me.
"I've been calling you since you walked in the door. Can I see you
i
n my
office
for a moment?"
His office was small, but nicer than my box. A window took up the back
wall,
looking out to the maze of misery
.
Deep green walls were accented with wooden
furniture. His desk was clear of any clutter and picture frames were evenly
spaced
throughout the room. A man in his fifties, he had people to go home to who con-
fiscated his mask. I sat in a cushiony, suede chair while my boss stared at me.
He
always stared at me. His hazel eyes watched me through bifocal glasses while
his
smooth head blinded me.





"
Beth
,
" he began
.
"Is everything all right with you?"
"What do you mean?"
·
He ruffled papers in front of him; instructions on how to manage employees.
Be read it as a script.
"You seem distracted. You haven't been finishing any of your claims on time
..
."
"
I'm getting married, did you know that? Yeah, this sumrrier..July."
Flay scanned the page in front of him
.
"I see ... I'm sure that's placing a lot of stress on you .. ."
"No
,
not really, why?"
He flipped through pages, but evidently did not find what he was looking for
and disregarded his Bible
.
"
Er...I've also heard some things from the other employees
.
" He cleared his
throat and glanced out the indoor window. "Some of them have heard you mum-
bling while you work, singing old songs, even staring at them ... "
"They talk about me?"
"
All I'm saying is that you might want to consider..
."
"Why are they talking about me? It's her, isn't it? Did she talk to you?"
"Beth, please .. .I've known you for ten years
.. ."
He was going off-book. He didn
'
t
know the lines.
"Who complained about me?"
He clutched onto his insignificant pages.
"M
a
ybe you should get back to work."
"Yeah ..
.
maybe
."
I glared at her when I walked back to my desk. She pretended not to notice,
but I know she did.
I stayed at work late that night to catch up on my claims. I didn't want her to
think I didn't do my job. I was good at my job. After ten years, three months and
sixteen days I had better be. The dozens of employees disbursed one by one, find-
ing their way out of the mismatched columns of desks and white walls, but Caro-
line stayed
.
I saw her crying over papers earlier, so she must have fallen behind
.
It
was Tuesday
.
We sat in the empty maze. The only sounds came from the shuffling of papers,
the typing of computers, and our minor coughs to clear our throats, to talk to the
people who weren
'
t there. After an hour or two of this, she reached to grab a pen-
cil from the top of her desk
,
but knocked over her picture frame.
I finally saw the photo. In it
,
a handsome young man stood with his arms
around Caroline
.
He stared at her with a seductive grin while she laughed at the
camera
.
"
Who's that?" She gasped when I spoke
,
jumping in her seat.
"
Oh ... um ... Michael...my fiance."
"
MICHAEL!
"
Angel was screaming.
"
Did you hear that? It's Michael!" Scarlet yelled out.
55












56
"Oh no," sobbed Angel. "Oh no oh no oh no
.
"
I grabbed at my hair and shut my eyes tight. They were screaming. I couldn't
breathe. I was screaming
.
"What...are you okay?" Caroline's sweet voice rang out over theirs.
"
Beth?"
"How could you? Michael...my fiance!
"
"Ask her if she is sleeping with him .. ."
"I'm sure it's just a misunderstanding .. ."
"
..
.I
bet that she is
."
"You ..
.
you think you are engaged to Michael?" Caroline stammered.
"They were right...! thought he loved me .. .l thought you loved me!"
"Beth! I don't even know you
...
neither does he
..
."
"You were my Caroline ..
.
my sweet Caroline ..
."
"
Beth
...
this isn't funny ..
.!
don't know why you think this is funny."
* * *
Now that Caroline isn't at her desk, I'm starting to miss her. The picture that I
saw last night sits neatly on her desk, taunting me
.
Flay called all of the adjustors
into a conference room to talk to us about Caroline
.
What a pity
.
"She was working late last night and someone hit her with their car ..
.
a hit
and
run." Flay choked on the last word while squeezing a book in his hands
.
Behind
hls
purple hand I read, Death in the Workplace: How to Handle the Grief of Employ-
ees
.
Streams of liquid fell down his face and onto his Armani suit. He collapsed
into the nearest chair and held his polished head in his free hand. I smiled at
the
thought of him telling his family about what happened
.
A policeman, who had
been hiding in the background, stepped forward and touched his shoulder while
the adjustors allowed tears to stream out from under their masked faces of coun-
terfeit happiness.
"If
anyone has information on this
,
please let us know. We will be questioning
you all individually in a moment
."
"I think I know who did it..
."
"Sssh!" I begged. Scarlet laughed and went away
.
I miss Caroline. I hope she knew that I cared about her
.
"
Is that why you killed her?" Angel asked
.
"I loved her."
"
You hated her."
"
I know
."
The police questioned me and I answered everything perfectly. I went home
yesterday at 6 p
.
m
.
Did not see Caroline when I left. Gosh, I wish I had said good-
bye or something. She was an amazing girl, she really was
.
Such a shame.
An hour later, Flay called me into his office
,
where I found the policeman
who
questioned me and two other men in uniform.
"
Beth, please sit down." Flay was staring at me
.
He was always staring
.
He
had
no book to read
. "
Did you tell this man you left at six o'clock last night?"







"Yes .
.
. yes I did
."
"
But...you see, I talked to you in my offite yesterday and we discussed how you
were behind in work. .. but then I found your finished claim on my desk this morn-
ing when I got here
."
His hazel eyes burned my skin
.
"And when I left last night, at
seven
.
your car was the only one left in the lot...where is your car today, Beth?"
"
You
'
re fucked."
"
Oh no, oh no oh no."
"
It's at home ..
.I
walked here
.
.
.
don't want to .
.
. hurt the environment. Why does it
matter that I finished my claim? I can
'
t be good at my job?"
"He means that you were working later than six
."
The policeman
'
s baritone
voice vibrated off of the walls
.
He saw Flay's discomfort and stepped in
.
"And I for
one would like to know why you lied to me
."
"Maybe I left at seven .
.
.I
don
'
t remember .
.
."
"
That's not all, Beth. Caroline went to Flay and said you had been staring at
her...that you talk to yourself and took her flowers."
"
No
,
Angel and Scarlet...they convinced me
...
"
"
She thought you were following her
,
Beth!
"
"
She walked too fast! I...I was invited
.
.
.
she invited me! She loved me
.
But she
was screwing Michael...so .
.
. so she must have said that to make me look bad .
.
. "
"
Michael..
."
Flay squinted through his glasses.
"
I heard Caroline talk about
him
.
.. they were engaged, Beth
...
do you know him?"
"
Of course I know him!
"
"
Are you sure?" whispered Angel.
"
Yes I'm sure!"
"
He was in the picture
,"
Scarlet said
. "
She stole the flowers."
"
I know! I know she wanted them!
"
"
Wanted what? Please calm down."
"
But Scarlet won't stop .. ."
The policeman in the corner flipped through a clipboard. "Flay, I don
'
t have a
Scarlet on my list..
."
"
What a pity," Scarlet spat at him with disgust.
Angel was behind me.
"
Run Beth
.
Hurry."
"
Better run
..
. get outta here .
.
."
"
Now Beth ..
.
they are gonna get you."
"
I have to go
..
. gotta go
...
go now ..
.
"
I ran out of the office and into the maze
.
Angel and Scarlet sat on my desk in
mat
c
hing, crimson dresses that inched higher with every movement. They were
laughing
.
I sprinted past row after row of endless walls while obstacles in the
form of adjustors flew in front of me
.
But I missed them. I plowed through and
they fell behind me. Masks appeared over the cubical walls
,
staring. I was close. So
close to the door
.
Then I'd be safe
.
Outside that door
.
So close.
But a man in uniform caught me
.
He jumped in front of me and I fell. The floor
57








58
was hard
.
It hurt. I could still hear them laughing
.
The other two policemen a
t-
tacked and I couldn
'
t move
.
I could only scream. I couldn
'
t get out of the ma
z
e.
I thought about how she looked right before my car hit her. She was scar
ed.
When I drove away, I saw her move. She was still alive. But I left her there.
I left
her there to die
.
I wonder how it felt? A jabbing pain erupted in my side an
d I
jumped and screamed
.
"
It hurts! Oh God it hurts!"
I grabbed my hair and felt it rip from my scalp
.
With it, I pulled off my
mask.
People could see me; they could see my exposed face and feelings for the firs
t
time. My throat ached from screaming but I kept at it. I wanted it to stop. I
thought
about Caroline. I was going to miss her. I wish she didn
'
t have to die.
It
hurt
too
much. I clutched at my side and screamed with Scarlet and Angel.
"SWEET CAROLINE BUM BUM BUUUUM GOOD TIMES NEVER SEEME
D SO
GOOD .. ."









feeling
by
Kelly Gallucci
rve got that feeling
y
0
u know that feeling right?
y
0
u have to know that feeling
The one where you see him across the street
And suddenly it's like you're being punched in the gut
And just as you're struggling for air someone's got a hold on your throat
Yeah ...
That
feeling
It's sort of like the taste of his lips
You know those lips
The ones that once tasted like heaven
The ones that you once never wanted to let go of
Till one day you realize that
They taste a little bit more like slut than you remembered
Yeah it's kinda like that taste
Just like it's like that sound
You know that sound
The one of an overheard conversation
The one of him saying her name
The one of your heart imploding
Oh yeah
You know that sound like you know that taste like you know that feeling
And you know all of those just as well as you know that voice
The one that says, "Why did I do this again?"
59







60
Michelangelo
by
Julia D'Angelo
Michelangelo
You were a complex cat
When they called you great
You sighed and spat
From your post
Against the ceiling
Writhing and
Wheeling
'Cause of the pretty forms
You painted
.
Torn and tainted.
Floating in
Scarves and flowing fabrics
Defining curves
You thought served
as hellholes straight to Satan.
Funny how the
Vatican's where
You found your
Glory
As you ruminated
In your story
I'm sinful
I'm gay
I'm ungodly
I say
That I'm as virtuous as they come
cause I'm only as pure
as everyone
Despite my gift
I'm a boy
I'm a man
I'm a girl
I'm a god.










Affirmation of Helios
by C.
Earnshaw
These are the days when the sun refuses
to
dip beneath the horizon until nine o'clock has passed,
as it complements the residents of the season
with its orange-red boughs,
rifting the yellows o'er the shrouded pasture
until its very last ray has waved its farewell
above
the grass in the winnowing distance.
Time may not stand
in the shadows of playground matrimonies
and the motley reds and yellows of youth
.
Such giants have come to pass
beneath the pitching of the sun
that strikes, as ever it has stricken,
'
gainst the rear of the past-
its hands pressed to the palms
of the morrow-
while it drives away prospects lost to Time
from our minds, though not our beings-
though the prospects of a maturing day
may fall short with the setting of the sun.
Change may not stand
to wet its eager feet in the puddles
on the hopscotch concrete e'ermore-
the sun has forced its rays into the ripples
and they have dried to the arches of Time.
We are wrought from the cracked seeds
of relations lost in Change:
thirsting from the aches in our roots
to bring the steadiness of our soil
into the passing of the sun.
But Trust-
Trust may brace our muscles
~o carry us upon our arches
into a shy reluctance for Change
With
the knowledge
t~at all having loved may love again
With talent and equal substance,
61







62
and though the path of our
sun
may
fall beneath the horizon of our protests
,
we leave the days which mark our
youth
with the verve to slake
the desperate thirst in our
sturdy
roots,
though pocked with fears of Change,
that we may warm our stems
with the passing sun
,
though we must not
grow
dependent
on the comforting rays
with which our seeds have rooted-
from which we have been born
.
Eastern Seaboard
by Nichole Boisvert
From the plane window
it looks like a photograph-
all light clustered and spread.
You can almost make out shapes,
heights of buildings.
Philadelphia, Manhattan,
Boston
.
Fenway Park. The Empire State Building
.
Light filled with bodies
blending into one great sea.
No feature can be distinguished
but a
collective
pulse.
And then we pass.












Burdensome
by
Maxine Presto
My head was a round and ripe melon.
The delicate flesh littered with seeds.
Weight collapsed my knees into a crowded plot
of soil.
I met others
in
the same unsettling piece of earth
.
They were busy tying strings from their shoulders to the heavens with
a
heavy head in the way.
The blind soiled hands were no match for such
an
unwavering burden.
Silence
by
Michael Ardizzone
The snow falls--winter rests at our house,
where its cotton mother mutes the light
the sun has sent to wash the ground.
Silence swathes the countryside
(as soft and pale as the light it hosts);
In a certain way the world crouches,
It
shelters 'neath the silence and the snow.
(Somewhere, a baby is born;
somewhere, passion is cooled
in reverence for a spring to come.)
Under winter's solemn eyes,
silence reclines next to me on the porch.
It
shares a drink with me
as we talk of old times, wordlessly,
until we can, together,
embrace the coming of the night.
62








64
The Stroke
by Megan Shannon
Courage, Herculean
courage
.
I knew him well
,
Courage that I admired in a man that struggled
.
He kept his faith, and spoke with no words.
Looking into the eyes of a man I loved,
And believing that he would heal. his days
were
confined.
Found on the floor like a serene sunset.
Left without speech and mobility,
The man had slight movement in his right hand
On the verge of curtains he was tough
,
Determined to beat the unbeatable, his days were confined.
Wonderful how
we went
fishing,
And how he had stewed a day prior.
No smiles left. though the fading eyes spoke,
Confused why the man wanted to survive,
Determined to beat the beating, his days were confined.
I remember the loveable Irishman well,
Blessed with the
"gift
of gab,"
Though the man's conditions worsened,
He inspired us all to live to the fullest.
Courage he expressed day to day, when death was only a heart beat away.
His days were confined.









l]ntitled
by
Michael Cresci
It
crescendos
quite slowly,
Anticipation
sets in
and now
here comes the subtle drums,
as lyrics
hang in the distance.
It
enters
the head and stretches its legs
.
It
reaches
the toes and emboldens.
It
manifests
into your sadness and joy.
It
was
made for you alone and a million others
.
Cue
the bridge
and
wait for something big,
it bears down.
Repetitive
begging and in comes the peak.
Behind it
all ivory keys and hammers sing
.
It's
fading
out and the voice softens,
a
fleeting moment like any other but somehow more full
and as always
it's followed by quiet
yet
still it manages to change the silence
.
65











66
love bleeds out
by
Sarah Philpot
(love bleeds out
as)
lust
shoots
in
be (layersofwarmth) tween
hands grop-
(re
lease) ing
(my
heart)
breathing hard
er
(know)now&(ing
less than we though
t)
what (is) happenshereOh
,(not)now we
un-
cover un(kind)
needed secrets;see
(whatwe
feel is
) who
we
ar
e
Slow Dance
by
Shelley Doster
I
can feel the pressure of your
fingertips
Tingling with
static
(Holding
me)more
Cautiousl
y
Guiltily
Than before
By myedg~
As if you
are afratd
That this contact
might cause
Galaxies to explode with
fury
And bury
you
in the past
with the~
DebflS







It's getting late
..
.
by
Kellie
Hayden
"
It's getting late
,"
I observed
.
It was a Thursday night during the last week of August. He and I were sitting on
a
stone wall, overlooking the ocean, at the very edge of the town that we grew up in.
When the tide is high
,
the water comes right to the foot of the wall, so close that it can
wash over your hands if you just lean over a little and reach downwards. At low tide,
the sand is exposed, leaving a boundary between the wall and the sea
.
As the tide slips
out. it leaves the sand cool from its embrace and littered with shells and lost snails and
seaweed. Behind us lay a small motel and restaurant, now desolate
,
famous in town
for their grilled cheeses and soft serve ice cream that filled the stomachs of every
child, and some adults
,
during those unhurried summer days.
He didn
'
t respond to my comment, but it really was getting late. I looked the
other way, pretending that I hadn't said anything
.
The only people who remained on
the beach with us were strolling somewhere in the distance
,
vacationers yearning to
preserve their summer bliss for just a few more days.
I fussed with my hair while I waited for him to say something, anything. My curls
had been smooth when I left the house, falling in graceful waves over my shoulders
.
However, after being at the shore for hours, my hair had transformed into what I
imagined my anxious insides looked like. I tried desperately to smooth it down, my
fingers entangled in the strands. After all, I hadn
'
t expected to be here for this long,
but nothing ever goes according to plan, and nothing is ever easy. The ocean wind
blew my hair wildly across my face.
He reached over to brush the ringlets out of my eyes, and I remembered every-
thing. His hands were warm, rough on the palms and smooth on the backs. Those
h
a
nds
.
I used to pret
e
nd I knew how to read palms just so he would let me hold them.
I guess he always knew that I was making up the meanings of each line as I traced
th
e
m with my fingertips, but he played along anyway - listening intently, smiling
widely at the good news and gasping at whatever catastrophe might strike
.
(I just wanted to know the lines on his hands better than I knew the lines on my
o
w
n.)
The stones of the wall were cool beneath my legs, and I shivered a little. It had
been scorching earlier in the day
,
but August was waning and autumn
'
s cool nights
were upon us. He shuffled, repositioning himself on the wall.
"
It's your green light," he finally said. There was a sorrow in his eyes
,
and I
laughed at his words in a futile attempt to comfort him. He knew me better than
a
nyone
.
Nobody else would ever realize that I would come here every single night in
the summertime because a green light that flashed somewhere across the Long Island
S
ound reminded me of Gatsby
,
reminded me of how we could hold onto something so
unwaveringly, not realizing that it was already lost.
We resumed gazing outwards.
There were boats in the swells, even at that hour, would-be sailors grasping with
their hearts for the edges of the season, the way their hands once grasped for the
67










68
edges of their nets. All summer dreams were coming to a close
.
Dreams of
pir
a
te sh
·
and remarkable adventures filled with love and treasure and glory
.
Ip
s
Wind chimes were silenced
,
packed into unlabeled boxes and shoved i
nto rare! _
opened closets
.
Taken off of white washed porches
,
leaving clapboard ho
u
ses
un- y
adorned and without their voices.
Even the countless glass jars filled with seashell collections were being
pu
s
hed
to the backs of the shelves by their once loving owners
.
Out of season
,
o
u
t o
f
s
ight-
making way for porcelain pumpkins. Seashell collections praying that what
th
ey
sa
y
is
true
,
that absence really will make the heart grow fonder.
The glow from the solitary lighthouse moved westward
,
shrouding us w
ith dark-
ness, and the tide slipped back out.
We too were grasping for something
,
just like those sailors. Grasping for w
hat
was once there, grasping for more time when there was none left.
And we too were without voices, just like those wind chimes. Having so
m
a
n
y
things to say, but having no means of saying them.
And we too were praying that what they always told us was true, just li
ke those
seashells
.
Can absence ever really make a heart grow fonder
,
or does absence
just al-
low a heart to forget?
All that was left was the green light, steadily blinking somewhere in the
dist
a
n
c
e,
marking the passage of time
.
"
It's getting late," he told me
.












6
a.m
.
by
Maxine Presto
The Hudson River boasts of barges and sailboats
6 a
.
m. long thin boats slip though morning moisture,
Metro North train agitates the trees at the end of campus.
Steel blue sky dissipates into pale blue
daylight barges through distant branches and windows
the train startles me - wide awake on uncovered earth
idly breaking twigs, tugging flowers
Beautiful Dreamer
by
Kelly Gallucci
She sits and dreams
Of different things
Of lands so far away
Of a place to belong
Where she can forever stay
She dreams of escape
Of breaking free
Finally off to the place
Where she was meant to be
S
he dreams of green grass
N
o
traffic to be heard
Just the gentle tune
S
ung by a native bird
S
he dreams of magic
And beautiful skies
But will this sweet dreamer
Ever open her eyes?
smoothing out my prickly grass blanket
and rearranging stones.
6'






Untitled
by
Chris Cho
70
d



71










72
Hypotheticals
by Richard M. Frias
1:29 am
This sinful city living got me counting hypotheticals
in
my sleep
I swear to God
I'll
fucking explode
if
this alarm clock beeps.
If
they take me from my mother
If
when dad left there was another
If
I miss that stupid train
If
downtown is to blame
If
they jump me for my gear
If
you don't have to live with these fears that we fear
If
when you sleep I am awake
If
you didn't have to go Anthony's wake
If
I knew his RIP would come at age twenty
Then
Then
Then, I will just
Scream
3:46
am
Scream so happily into the night-Because
Sometimes I want to end it.
Take a bullet and befriend it
Then send it to my brain
With an attachment called
"the
rain."
Just to be melodramatic
Pretend to find shapes in shapeless static
Be more complicated than I really am
Life's a gamble but we got no hand
Life
'
s garden but we just don
'
t dig it
Life's a Bitch but...but...but
Man life's a Bitch.
5:42
am
But that's only one if
What if you had two?
What if your ifs did not belong to you







What if my life was her life and her life was mine
If her dreams are my dreams
When
I
fail, then she fails
Then
,
her tears are my tears and my tears aren't my own
Then,
I
can't breathe
Then
,
I can't sleep
Then
,
I can't dream
If only there was this greatness within me like I once thought
Then
,
why does it itch?
Then
,
what is that sound?
Then
,
who left the window open?
If
I could give her the world
Then
,
this room is too small.
Then, this pillow is too soft.
Then, this sunlight is too bright.
If
there were no ifs, then there'd be no thens
.
7:00 am
Sleep!
Sleep!
Sleep!
This sinful city living got me counting hypotheticals in my sleep
.
I swear to God
I'll
fucking explode if this-BEEP BEEP BEEP.
73







74
Kill the Spotlight
by
Katherine
Bilsky
she begins the intricate journey completely naive;
placing her whole heart and passion into the hands of performance
entering the cool, sophisticated theatre for the opening night she acts through
the eyes of another.
completely indulged in the riches of her own talent
she imprints and records every last moment into her mind
the times are changing, the competition expands
as if thrusting a knife through the sound waves the whisper of criticism
lingers in her ear.
zipping up the back of her costume, she applies heavy coats of makeup to hide
the panic
she stations herself center stage, the curtain is drawn, the spotlights
reflecting her failures
and instead of the admired screenplay coming from her lips, she only brings
forth silence
headline news: a career in shambles, a name is ruined.
the stage has moved on
.
and leaves her with the headache from the night before.











Myths, midnight and mayhem
by
Brit Fiorenza
Tonight is the last night of December
the first morning of January
There is no change
,
only perpetual paranoia
y
0
u see, the moonlight stalked my path tonight
Made my shadows lengthen to catch my legs
Come here
;
press against this glass pane
Does your cheek chap too?
A ruthless barrier between the night and this room
Tonight let's stay awake
To disturb the stagnant air
With fire crackers and sparklers
With streamers and confetti
With champagne and no peace
White lights pulse with our celebration
Let's rally until midnight
Beckoning off the moonbeams with our screams
And if another day comes, then we'll be at ease
To fall over one another in a drunken sleep
To what else could I raise my drink?
Lack of sobriety
:
a tribute to January
The only way I can cope with this change
Is if I apply this anesthetic bottle to my lips
Trace my finger down its neck
To streak the frosted glass
Anecdote of the bottle
To peer through and see
All of your blissful faces distorted
Let's pause for a moment
Watch the sky break
How long does it take?
For the motion and rampage
That
r
esults
in
the rally of the rising sun
Against petrified horizons
75











The Fall 2008 Literary Arts Society E-Board
Clockwise from left: Florencia Lauria,
A
m
y
Wheeler, Amand
a
Mulvihill, Leigh Everett
,
Richard M. Fri
a
s, Jessica Durante
, A
lexander Sutton
,
Julia Stamberger
Well
,
here we are
.
It seems like we
'
ve been working for months
,
or even 10
years, until we've reached this midnight of mayhem. We are wishing we had
some pomegranate martinis as the single digit hours and the 6 a
.
m. sunrise
approach and we contemplate creating poetry from nothing
.
As our patience
runs out and the images don't seem to emerge
,
we just want to say anything and
make this a relatively short story. But then we regain some energy and our busy
hands work like Mich
e
langelo
,
our thoughts coming in a rush. We hope you
enjoy, with your entire human heart
,
the feeling you
'
ll get from our favorite part.
Kill the spotlight
,
it's getting lat
e
.
Lov
e
,
Your Editors-in-Chief
,
Amanda and Amy


Mosaic_F_2008_001
Mosaic_F_2008_002
Mosaic_F_2008_003
Mosaic_F_2008_004
Mosaic_F_2008_005
Mosaic_F_2008_006
Mosaic_F_2008_007
Mosaic_F_2008_008
Mosaic_F_2008_009
Mosaic_F_2008_010
Mosaic_F_2008_011
Mosaic_F_2008_012
Mosaic_F_2008_013
Mosaic_F_2008_014
Mosaic_F_2008_015
Mosaic_F_2008_016
Mosaic_F_2008_017
Mosaic_F_2008_018
Mosaic_F_2008_019
Mosaic_F_2008_020
Mosaic_F_2008_021
Mosaic_F_2008_022
Mosaic_F_2008_023
Mosaic_F_2008_024
Mosaic_F_2008_025
Mosaic_F_2008_026
Mosaic_F_2008_027
Mosaic_F_2008_028
Mosaic_F_2008_029
Mosaic_F_2008_030
Mosaic_F_2008_031
Mosaic_F_2008_032
Mosaic_F_2008_033
Mosaic_F_2008_034
Mosaic_F_2008_035
Mosaic_F_2008_036
Mosaic_F_2008_037
Mosaic_F_2008_038
Mosaic_F_2008_039
Mosaic_F_2008_040
Mosaic_F_2008_041
Mosaic_F_2008_042
Mosaic_F_2008_043
Mosaic_F_2008_044
Mosaic_F_2008_045
Mosaic_F_2008_046
Mosaic_F_2008_047
Mosaic_F_2008_048
Mosaic_F_2008_049
Mosaic_F_2008_050
Mosaic_F_2008_051
Mosaic_F_2008_052
Mosaic_F_2008_053
Mosaic_F_2008_054
Mosaic_F_2008_055
Mosaic_F_2008_056
Mosaic_F_2008_057
Mosaic_F_2008_058
Mosaic_F_2008_059
Mosaic_F_2008_060
Mosaic_F_2008_061
Mosaic_F_2008_062
Mosaic_F_2008_063
Mosaic_F_2008_064
Mosaic_F_2008_065
Mosaic_F_2008_066
Mosaic_F_2008_067
Mosaic_F_2008_068
Mosaic_F_2008_069
Mosaic_F_2008_070
Mosaic_F_2008_071
Mosaic_F_2008_072
Mosaic_F_2008_073
Mosaic_F_2008_074
Mosaic_F_2008_075
Mosaic_F_2008_076
Mosaic_F_2008_077
Mosaic_F_2008_078
Mosaic_F_2008_079
Mosaic_F_2008_080
Mosaic_F_2008_081
Mosaic_F_2008_082
Mosaic_F_2008_083
Mosaic_F_2008_084