FALL 2017



Brought to you by the Marist College Literary Arts Society





CONTENTS
The Cool
Brian Nolan
4
Tulip
Katharine Yacovone
5
Aletheia
Matthew Hanright
7
In My Mind About You
Ezekiel Eden
8
The Good Medicine
Kevin Hudson
9
This Is Me Letting You Go
Caitlin Gaudio
10
Kites and Filament
Adriana Duffy
12
You There, Mephisto?
Kevin Hudson
18
You Are a Fire
Caitlin Gaudio
20
Judgement
Matthew Hanright
24
5 Years After an Eating Disorder
Amanda Dettmann
32
Give &Take
Amanda Dettmann
35
Communion
Amanda Dettmann
36
Stone Shoes
Amanda Dettmann
37
Feathered
Amanda Dettmann
38
Sam's Table
Amanda Dettmann
40
Madonna Complex
Kaliyah Gardner
48
The Circus Man
Anonymous
53







The Cool
Brian Nolan
Second Place, Prose
Anything nature touches is beautiful. Imprisoned by a free
spirit, thunderstorms rage outside; windows open to hear it. Water
glistens under wind, shimmering as a suspended lake, the vivid-
ness of it all. Tranquility persists; less a pebble drops and ripples
outward. Surface tension proves its paradox; delicacy. What we feel
is witness to a call, God is gifted and relentless. To that suspicion,
commend it. Actions are merely his reverence, it's recommended
you give to his legend; of ours, of our hours.
Against a fallen tree, autumn astounds the meek. Arms fold
at my knees as I watch fire colored leaves reminiscent of a late
October feeling, nostalgia reels me. Butterflies find themselves
fluttering amongst the buttercups and dew drops; feel as you do.
It's a delicate balance. Eloquence effervesces elegance. Although
elephants in rooms cause irrelevance, this is a hypnotic junction
where words blend with feelings. Frequencies frequently keep
me from sleeping. Sounds echo even outside of headphones; who
rarely heads home? The essences of adolescence demand attention;
to beg us to ask those questions. Good humor enables inspiration.
Walk vacant streets half man half amazing, show me who's lonely.
What are the lengths you've gone to bring together those moments
apart, the space between? A void as tangible as goosebumps on
skin, adrenaline courses within. Something has to give.
Prose is our paradox. Describe the indescribable; inscribe
your wishes to make them more palpable. Circumvent certainty to
discover the bounds of it, what remains around forgotten events?
Insomnia.
4







Tulip
Katharine Yacovone
Second Place, Poetry
TµUp n. 1. the birthing pink blossom of setting spring/ thawing
through the ice of frosted grass. The first color poking through
a placid, dead winter. The budding of color, the bobbing of a bell
shaped head in the breeze. The embellishment of a garden. The
petals of various sizes and colors, either left, cared for with a wa-
tering can or cut and plucked from the ground in mischievous
greed. 2. The bundle of joy, brought home by my father with a peck
on my mother's cheek. Red petals bleeding in march. Stems cut
like the snap of a pea. Bell petals placed in a simple white vase,
with my mom's blushed smile watching over. The smell filling the
kitchen far fuller than a simple cake or pie/ the smell of home and
happiness/ the smell of innocence and hello/ the smell of thank
you and goodbye. The shape of love. 3. The breaking of twigs as I
run through the yard, run through the years. The shriveling, pain-
ful pitfall of wrinkled fingers grasping at each petal. "She loves me,
she loves me not" The bell of churches, the petal of promises. The
poison of old age. The breath of beginnings, sweet and pure and
peaceful. The exhale of ends.
5





6
BRENDEN DAVIS
Third Place, Art







Aletheia
Matthew Hanright
When first we met o'er a rented repass,
Your temper toss'd like the tattered flame,
You spun my life a view of what I miss'd,
A glimm'r of the joys to be held 'loft
.
Through your eyes I saw the colors of love,
Through your lips I tasted the fruit of life,
With your nose I smell' d perfumes o' experience,
With your skin I felt th' embrace of fullness,
And your voice graced my ears with songs true.
Door after door you opened before me,
Setting strange paths I stutter'd to follow down.
Through you I liv'd; what twisted death waits now?
And each even' that passes reminds me,
That you showed me all,
But what have I kept?
Without your sweet shape to guide me along,
How shall I find such blessed halls again?
7






8
In My Mind About You
Ezekiel Eden
Your beauty is so amazing
You're like the sun to my moon, it's blazing
Now you got my heart racing
When I think of you, my heart keeps pacing
Let me keep it real with y'all
I'm not the one to express myself, face to face and all
But I was too scared to even make a call
Blinded by my thoughts and it kept me stalled
Luckily, I came to my senses
Started writing in past tenses
Even though we still had tension
But what else is there to mention
Ok chill, Let me stop second guessin'








The Good Medicine
Kevin Hudson
SNAP! Curackle! Pop, motherfucker!
Hemingway knew nothing
Of the sizzle, the spice of life,
So delicately hoarded from the tower
Yo, Stephen! How do you do it?
Book after book after television interview----
After magazine article after-----
Major film release and-----
How'd
you
slash up your soul into thirty-seven
Thousand
Texts, like crumbs to the mad flock of braindead pigeons,
Or dismembered limbs to the raven?
I don't hate you, Dr.
K.
In fact, I
Love you. You figured it out long ago,
That, frankly, no one gives a shit.
It's so fuckin' cold out here,
My hands burn and my gut howls.
(And I know you know the feeling)
Better to shatter, if you ask me, Dr.
K.
9



10



11










Kites and Filament
Adriana
Duffy
[
......
-
...
-
..
---]
Hello. If you are listen-
ing, if anyone is listening, hello.
It's funny. I can barely remem-
ber what that means anymore.
It feels like it must be either
a prayer or a sacrilege, just
to
say it and to think that maybe,
someone is out there and they
are listening. I don't even know
if this recorder is working,
honestly -- I just feel less crazy
if I can tell myself that someone
will listen to this someday.
Anyway. Hello. It's day ...
forty-five, since the city went
down. I don't know how many
people are sick, I haven't left
the bunker since day fifteen.
It would probably be easier
to
count the people who aren't
sick.
Well there's me. For one.
And you too, hopefully.
Names hardly seem
to
matter, when it comes
to
these
sorts of introductions, so in-
stead, I will offer you memories.
My first memory is of a
kite. It was red, like blood, and
the sky looked the way hon-
12
ey in a glass bottle looks, you
know, when you hold it up to
the light? The kind of sky that
comes right when something
is about to end. Someone was
holding my hand, I don't re-
member who. In my head, no
one is flying it -- it's just flying,
all by itself. The person holding
my hand was laughing.
Lately, I've found my-
self categorizing my life into
neat little segments, tidy-edged
befores and afters. Right now
we're in what I like to call the
After All. What happens after
the happily ever afters -- you
know, like when Cinderella mar-
ries the prince and then finds
out that he's banging the kitch-
en maid. Or something. But
that's the Right Now, and I'm
doing my best to spend as little
time in that as possible.
Because in the Right
Now, I'm alone. In the Right
Now, the After All, I am watch-
ing lights click off above my
head and sending out a desper-
ate, SOS-style friend request
into that darkness. But in the
Before All (the fondly nick-
named Happy Years), I step off
an airplane in America wearing
a scarf knit by my mother and







carrying my father's old suit-
case. In the Before All, I sit on a
blanket in the grass and watch
fireflies, for hours.
In the Next Bit, the part
where everything tilts back
onto its axis, I rally my troops
of apocalyptic survivors, rebuild
society, reclaim the earth, and
never eat canned beans again in
my
life. In the Right Now, I'll
double my ration and eat a full
can, making a gallant effort to
pretend that it's a Porterhouse
steak and onion rings.
It's getting late. Which
just means I'm tired -- the abili-
ty
to tell time is a luxury I don't
have anymore. Like running
water. And microwave popcorn.
God, I miss microwave
popcorn.
My mood today: now
trust me on this one -- optimis-
tic. I know it's hard to believe.
But last night, I dreamed about
a red kite kept aloft by a young
woman's laughter.
I'm doing good, folks.
[ - ---
-]
.
..
.
..
Hello, folks. Day fif-
ty-one.
Today, I've been thinking
a lot about families. Specifically,
mine.
Unfortunately, there's
some baggage there that I'm
not quite prepared to deal with.
So let's start somewhere else
-- picture this, okay? So I'm out
of the bunker, on day, I don't
know, thirteen, looking for sup-
plies. The streets are full of shit
-- garbage and dying people and
soon-to-be-dying people who
are just trying to stretch that
soon as long as humanly possi-
ble. And I'm just trying to get
out of there as fast as possible
before I got shanked by some-
one who wanted my shoes, but
then I see this kid. This little
girl, all by herself, picking half-
dead flowers from a window
box. And she starts singing this
song --
Little bird
Golden bird
Little golden song be heard
Watch him fly
Across the sky
The hunter's watching too.
For a second, she looked
like my daughter, Thea, and for
a second, I would have done
anything to protect her. But
then she started coughing, and I
turned and ran back to my bun-
ker.
13





Thea had eyes like a
thunderstorm. She loved ducks.
She loved ham sandwiches, and
she loved feeding the ducks that
lived behind our house ham
sandwiches. When we moved to
the city, she decided that bar-
ring access to ducks, pigeons
would do.
That's how I choose
to remember my daughter.
Crouched in the street, trying to
persuade pigeons that they were
really ducks.
My mood today: lonely. I
have to believe someone is out
there, that someone is hearing
this, or ... I don't know. I don't
know.
I don't know.
[
..
-
....
-
...
--
---
.-. -.-
...
]
Holy -- fireworks! Some-
one is setting off fireworks.
Hello, folks. It's day fif-
ty-eight. I suppose I should have
said that first. But: fireworks!
The last time I saw fireworks
was ... god, a year ago? When
they set off the flares to distract
the rioters? Does that even
count?
Back when we lived on
the farm, my husband used to
set off fireworks all the time: on
14
my birthday, on Christmas, our
anniversary. Every occasion oth-
er than Fourth of July because
he thought that was too main-
stream.
He died six years ago.
One of the first batch to get
sick. We tried moving back to
the country to get away from it,
but there are some things you
can't run away from. The day he
died, it was beautiful and sun-
ny, and he had finally stopped
coughing. We sat together on
the porch, hand in hand, and
watched the wind blow the tall
grass, watched Thea braid the
few half-wilted flowers in our
garden into a crown.
That night, he died in his
sleep, and everything changed.
Nothing looked the
same, nothing felt the same.
Every happy memory seemed
marred. When I thought about
coming to America, I could only
remember the loneliness that
sucked at my soul like leeches,
the spinning terror of stepping
off the plane. I couldn't look
my daughter in the eye without
seeing all the ways she was like
him. I wouldn't leave the house,
because I couldn't stand to face
the new world I lived in, the one











without him in it.
Thea was the one
to
drag
me outside, finally. She was
thirteen. She sat me down in
the grass and set off old fire-
works for an hour, standing
triumphant like her father, hand
poised over her eyes to watch
the full ascent.
It wasn't exactly hap-
piness, but it was light. And
sometimes that is enough.
I don't know who's set-
ting off fireworks off of a roof
on 42nd Street, but thanks for
the light. I needed that today.
Current mood: let's try
not to define it. Let's just ... let it
be.
[- .-. -.-- I - --- I.- .. . - .. - --..... ]
There's this joke my Thea
used
to
tell all of the time -- I
have no idea where she heard it
the first time, but she would tell
it to everyone we knew and die
laughing every time. It goes like
this -- so there's this religious
man, and he's trapped on a roof
because of this massive flood,
and the water is still rising.
Some time passes, and a boat
comes by. "Do you need help?"
the captain asks. "No thank
you," the man says, "God will
save me." So the boat moves on.
So the guy just sits there
praying while the boat drives
by. Soon enough another boat
comes, and the man says again,
"No thanks, God will save me."
Soon enough, the guy
drowns, obviously, and he ends
up in heaven. He goes to God,
pissed as all hell, and he's like,
"What the hell, man? Why
didn't you save me?"
And God's like, "I tried
you idiot. I sent you two boats,
for God's sake."
It's a good joke. Every-
body always laughs.
It's day seventy. No boats
in sight. But maybe I'm just
looking in the wrong place.
[ -
--
--
-
-
-
--
]
.
. .
.
...
.
.
.
..
.
.
Hello. I can't sleep. My
brain won't shut up. Day seven-
ty-nine.
I started coughing yester-
day.
So much for the Next Bit
and my world without canned
beans. It doesn't look as if I'll be
that fortunate.
I've been thinking a lot,
because that's all I have left to
do around here, and all I can
think about is how scared I am
15





which is fucking ridiculous be-
cause I've seen so many people
die why does it still scare me so
much? And I've decided that I
don't think it's the death I think
it's the forgetting. It's not the
ceasing to be it's the ceasing to
exist.
If
a person dies and no
one is there to remember them,
have they even made a sound?
I'm afraid that I'm hold-
ing a lot of people's legacies
inside my head and when I die
they'll rise from my body like
smoke and disappear just the
same and I'm afraid that if I'm
one of the few left then when I
die we'll all just stop.
Everyone I've ever loved
or lost or loathed.
All of us -- soundless.
But I'm here. I'm here
and I'm screaming. You have to
hear me. Someone has to listen.
My parents saved money
for years to send me to America,
to send me to school, to give me
what they thought would be my
best chance. My mom sent me
a three page, handwritten letter
every two months, and a new
scarf or hat every six. She was a
creature of habit and supersti-
tion. When he could afford it,
my father would send me books
16
that he liked and leave notes
in the margins. I haven't seen
them in person in almost ten
years.
The day I married Chris-
topher, he paid to have my par-
ents flown in to surprise me. He
would leave my favorite flowers
in paper cups around the house
when he knew I was having
a bad day. He could speak six
languages fluently but couldn't
figure out fractions for the life
of him. His last words: "Good-
night, my love."
Thea was beautiful and
she loved animals and she want-
ed to be either a princess or
President of the United States,
whichever was available at the
time. She cried for a week when
her goldfish died and when I
tried to buy her a new one she
told me she wasn't ready to
move on yet. She was eighteen
when she died and she fought
so hard that I almost thought
she was going to grab Death by
his collar and scold him until
he apologized. Her last words
were "I can hear them singing.
I'm not afraid." She was never
afraid.
I am afraid. I'm alone and
I'm afraid.












Maybe the world ends
tomorrow. Maybe none of us
survive and no one can hear me
and I'm just another corpse on
a dead planet and that's it. But,
historically, we are very good
at surviving. And if someone
survives, if the Next Bit goes on
without me, I'm terrified that all
of us will just become another
number in your mind.
I'm not a statistic. I'm a
red kite in a golden sky, I'm the
way it feels to step off a plane
with nothing but a scarf and a
battered suitcase, I'm fireworks
in an open field, I'm a jar full of
fireflies, caught by a little girl
with thunderstorm eyes. I'm
a voice screaming out into the
darkness. I am light, I am trying
to be light,
I am trying to
find.
The. Light.
Remember us. Bring our
memories back into the light.
I
do not have enough
time to tell you everything. So
I
will tell you everything that
I
can.
[
-
-- --
-
-
- ]
♦
•
•
•
• • • • • • • • •
[A flashlight beam cuts
through the darkness -- flickers up
up up to the ceiling, underneath the
desk, off the bright edges of empty
cans. Heavy boots kick up bits of
dust that drift in the light like lazy
snowflakes, spinning in a sleepy
waltz.]
Empty -- safe.
[A voice
confirms, a second flashlight joins
the first. Their sweeping lights tangle
together and separate and stray close
again. Close.]
Hey,
[says one of the lights.]
Hey check this out. [The light has
found something. Something has
found the light.]
Old recorder.
[In shadows and covered in
dust.]
This button still lights up
if you mess with it. You think
there's something on
it?
[Lights touch the buttons
again, fingers out of the darkness.
It is a gentle darkness, but there's
something kinetic about it. The light
is gentler: It calms it.]
I don't know. Try it.
[It speaks. It has been wait-
ing.]
"Hello.
If
you are listening, if
anyone is listening, hello."
17







18
You There, Mephisto?
Kevin Hudson
Look man, I ain't no Faust.
I wouldn't waste your gift on shit like
Knowledge, the divine truth, love.
Hell, I don't even know ifl'd ever put your powers to work,
But I know I ain't stupid enough to trade my soul for garbage
Faust got it wrong
,
see?
He asked for fruit; you want to be remembered?
Aim small, under expectation.
What good is an apple when you got this here gum?
A pebble would make a bigger ripple,
But I doubt the fools on the other side would see it
A soul for change,
What more could you ask for?





Mephisto, Mephistopheles
My main man Beezlebub
You want a soul? Trade mine-
For a nickel. Promise. Just a
Nickel. Surely you got the spare change?
It's about all the thing's worth, really
Nickel's a lot, really
Five pennies, before Generation A fucked
Generation B,
I
could buy some nice things.
The paper, a cake, a big ol' stick of Bazooka.
19







It was summer
You Are A Fire
Caitlin Gaudio
And as the sun smiled brightly on the world
I felt myself being chased by a darkness that I would never outrun
No matter how much I wanted to deny it
We were living on borrowed time
And I destroyed myself bracing for an impact that I could only
imagine abstractly
We were happy at the beach
Both fully committed to living in this fantasy we constructed
around ourselves
I fully submerged myself in the ocean of your eyes
And continued to pick myself up every time a rough wave took my
legs out from under me
I spent endless days in the sand
Reading stories that were not ours
And trying to escape reality
If
only for a fleeting moment
When August came
A certain darkness cast over me
Like clouds of thick smoke
Forging dizzy paths into the sky
As they curled off of charred logs
20


The smell of the campfire gave me a false sense of security
A reminder of fall
When things were easy and we didn't have impending separation
on our minds
When cool nights were an excuse for close contact
And marshmallows over the fire were intoxicatingly sweet
But now, the marshmallows are me
And you
Are a fire
Blazing ruthlessly
Searing your mark into the places you've been
Blackening everything your carelessness touches
The more I bristle on the outside
The sooner I find myself collapsing internally
Behind my finely constructed shell are liquid vulnerabilities
That I'm trying so hard to keep hidden
Even so,
I can't keep them from oozing through the cracks
And neither of us know how to fix this mess we've created
So the fire continues to burn until we blacken beyond recognition
Crumbling into ash and blowing away
Like dust
21



22






ELIZABETH BOUYEA
Second Place
,
Art
23








Judgement
Matthew Hanright
The darkness lifts slowly
from his eyes. First it is total,
and complete. Then follows the
hazy eigengrau of open eyes in
closed night. Finally his aching
head turns, almost of its own
accord, and the darkness breaks
in waves around a sputtering
torch farther down the hall. A
lone chorus of "Christ be our
Light" drifts by, though he
knows there is no chorus at its
source.
His body is still. But he
knows, somehow, that that will
pass, just as he knows that the
pain from his right temple will
remain. Though he lays in the
ruins of Saint Barnaby's Cathe-
dral, the torch is far, and he is
safe. What is he doing here?,
he begins to think, but decides
that it doesn't matter. Here he
is, now.
Something is wrong
though. He should be safe
anywhere in the cathedral by
now, so why doesn't he feel
that he is? A spatter of rushed
footsteps echoes from far away.
They
pause-perhaps the person
is deciding which way to
go?-and
24
then resume. Right. He needs
to stop ... someone
,
from do-
ing .... something. Oh well, the
what doesn't matter now
,
only
the who.
The floor recedes and
now he is on his feet. His left
ankle burns, but he knows that
that will pass, too. He limps
closer to the torch, knowing
that is the right way to go, it
must be. There is a neat line
on the floor where the light
begins and the darkness re-
treats, vanquished. He tests
his foot. It is almost recovered.
A cautious right foot crosses
the line, bridges the light and
dark. A left swings forward and
descends firmly into the light.
Pressing his back to the far wall
he sneaks along the hall.
Just as he nears the next
blessed pocket of darkness, his
eyes lock on the torch. Anoth
-
er pair of eyes meet his. They
stretch from the flame, two pure
white crystals reaching forth.
A golden protrusion emerges
beneath them. Together they
form a beak and feathered face.
A gurgle escapes as his gasp
catches in his throat. Wings
spread from the sides of the
torch and a shriek builds in the




hall from everywhere at once.
A
call of death, normally echoing
from the heavens as a predator
sweeps to catch its prey.
He tries to jump out of
the light, but his ankle fails him.
This is why he survives. The
golden beak pierces the stone
wall just where his head would
have been. He throws himself
forward, free from the light, and
tries to gather his legs under-
neath him. The shriek is gone
when he stands, as is the bird
of light. He blinks, and there
are the unblinking eyes locked
to his. He turns his back to the
light and continues on his way.
This is new, but changes should
be expected. Especially with the
work unfinished.
The halls twist and jerk
in ridiculous, almost heretical
directions. Doors and other
halls split from his own, but his
way is sure. Suddenly, it is not.
Another torch divides the hall.
Surely, if he focuses his eyes on
this torch, another pair of burn-
ing white eyes will peer to meet
his. His eyes snap about him.
There is nothing but locked
doors to either side. He has
passed no furniture.
His way is made clear
once more. The door to his
right clunks as the lock is
turned and it is pulled open.
What are surely fingers curl
around the door, one at a time,
and grip the edge. They are
deep black, deeper than the ei-
gengrau, deeper than the com-
plete, total night which greeted
him before. They appear sharp,
and yet the flesh seems ready to
drip from the bones. The door
snaps fully open with a crash
and the hand is gone.
The door is embedded
into the stones of the wall.
Beyond the now empty portal
is a small bedroom. The bed's
sheets are stained a cracked
brown in a menacing splatter
though the desk immediately
adjacent is pristine. Hanging
over the desk is a large mirror
edged in brass. His hands clasp
each side and begin to raise it.
Inky black fingers inter-
twine over his own and push his
fingers harder against the trim.
His fingers ache and protest
the pressure, but the burning
is much worse. His flesh burns
and cracks immediately, his
blood comes to a boil and his
bones begin to crack.
The fingers disappear
25


and he is left holding the mir-
ror which is now free from
the wall. His hands are whole
and undamaged, if a bit numb,
though there remains an ashy
mark where the demonic fingers
gripped him. He turns the mir-
ror in his hands and steps back
into the hall, to the too-clear
edge of the torchlight. Surely,
so long as the light can't actual-
ly touch him, he will be safe.
He holds the mirror
over the line which, rather than
become obscure, bends around
the shape of the mirror. Moving
the mirror closer to the ground,
the bend become more definite.
He drops to his knees behind
it and shuffles forward. When
his whole body is past where
the line once marked, he waits.
After a minute of silence he re-
sumes his trek across the torch-
light.
Halfway to the other
side, a thought strikes him still.
His fingers, wrapped about the
trim, are exposed. In the still
silence, bile rises in his throat
as anxiety nearly crushes it. His
eyes lock on his right fingers
which seem bathed in their own
shadow. The mark from the
hellish fingers from behind the
26
mirror have shaded them. He
feels that he should smile, but
the muscles in his face are still.
He finishes his crossing
and rests the mirror on the floor
while he stares at his fingers.
They appear ashy now, but in
the direct light they had looked
so much darker? Unsure of ex-
actly why, he weaves his fingers
together into a single fist. He
rests his head against his chest,
and, unbidden, a prayer to his
God passes his lips. When that
is done, he picks back up the
mirror and continues, swifter
than before.
Soon the hall splits in
three directions. He turns
to
the leftmost paths and begins
to pump his arms. Dashing
down the hall, nervous foot-
steps once again grace his ears.
He remarks, though only for a
moment, that he cannot hear
his own. The path veers
to
the
right and there, around that
final corner, stands the black-
clad figure of Father Thomas.
He lets out an angry bark-like
sound, which the Father turns
to.
A torch is lofted high
in Thomas' right hand and the
light reflects from his offen-





sively bright collar. When his
bespectacled eyes meet the man
racing toward him, the torch
jumps from his hand
.
The
surprise is quick and Thom-
as ducks to grab at the falling
light. Even so, the top bounces
against the flagstones before
his fingers latch back onto the
shaft
.
A cloud of smoky shadow
reaches out from the wall and
consumes the flame, banishing
the room back into full night.
Father Thomas throws the unlit
torch when he sees the shadow.
The Father was distract-
ed too long, long enough for
the charging man to reach his
target. The pair flies through
the air and lands in bloody
moonlight thrown through a
tall window. The job is soon to
be done, but only if he does not
hesitate, as he did before. He
raises his hand and there is the
inky black arm once more, offer-
ing a burnt and worn hammer
to him. He reaches and grabs it:
an old forge hammer, worn from
crafting hundreds of blades for
war. His yellowed eyes twinkle.
The hammer swings behind him
as he readies for the killing blow
when Thomas speaks.
'i\.lastor, it is not yet too
late." The hammer stops.
"You are not yet lost."
Fury blossoms in his chest. He
hesitates, yet again.
"You can be forgiven."
His shadow casts over the Fa-
ther, giving him hazy wings.
"You can only lose at
what you attempt."
Now it is too late. He
did not pay close enough at
-
tention. From the Father's left
hand shines a golden cross. Red
moonlight beams from its an-
gles as it smashes into the side
of his head. His vision swims,
but this is not the welcoming
dark of before.
"But I cannot find it in
myself to forgive you. I am too
weak a man." Thomas crashes
the cross into his temple again
and he rolls onto the ground.
"What you did to cause
all this,"
smash,
"How you
turned on those who loved
you,"
smash,
"What you did to
your son!"
SMASH!
"Only God
can forgive you now."
He can feel the cross
breaking through the air on its
deadly path. But first a vision
clouds his eyes. He knows why
he is here, what is wrong with
the cathedral, what his mission
27



is and why he tried to complete
it
.
He sees a baptismal
fountain, surrounded by freshly
lit candles. A dark blade slashes
across his palm which drips into
the water. The blood of the sin-
ner. His past self's head turns
and, though he closes his eyes,
he still sees too clearly. There
lies his infant son, sleeping in
peace. He lifts him and his
son's eyes open. He smiles at
his father. Then the smile van-
ishes beneath the bloody water.
The life of the unbaptised. His
son thrashes beneath his hands,
and though there are tears flow-
ing into the fountain, his grip is
stern.
Then he is thrown
across the room. He crashes
against a pew and his breath
vanishes. There before the font
stands Father Thomas. Gold-
en wings stretch behind him,
but surely that is a trick of the
candles. Thomas looks to the
fountain, but he is too late. He
gently lifts the little body from
the water and places it on the
ground before it. Bloody water
28
drips from the boy's still limbs.
Thomas looks up and catches
him in a gaze that could burn
through a mountain.
But he is too late. The
building shakes as it is tossed
by an earthquake. Shadows
rush from every corner and the
once bright room becomes dim.
Where once the church felt safe,
it now feels like a graveyard
with the reaper treading be-
tween the rows of headstones.
He pushes away from
the pew he was thrown on and
dashes for the doorway. A can-
dle stand falls across the path
and he trips, twisting his left
ankle. He glances a final time
into the room he just left only
to see Father Thomas rushing to
catch a falling crucifix.
The wall to his right
begins to glow golden, but that
didn't happen then, did it? The
wall reaches to him, but he
turns his head away. For some
reason, he knows that it's not a
wall; it's a cross rushing to meet
him. He feels it tap his right
temple and is blinded by a white
light. He is still. But that will
pass.



29







AMANDA DETTMANN
30
POETRY FEATURE
"Every
single written work of mine contains
alliteration, sound, and rhythm because I am
obsessed with the way a poem sounds when
spoken out loud. My process varies every
single time. I keep a list of random words that have
unique sounds or syllables, and the list contains an
inspiration page - lines from famous poems that have
hit me in the gut. Sometimes I read a poem in a book
and someone else's line will push me in my own direc-
tion. I am always conscious with the way a poem looks
on the page, and how other poets strive to create shape
from a visual standpoint will always drive me to keep
pushing boundaries."




PHOTO COURTESY OF AMANDA DETTMANN
31







5 Years After an Eating Disorder
Amanda Dettman
Like a dying braided bunch of sunflowers stepping into
a vase of fresh water,
She is here.
She is, and She stands
releasing Herself
like a monarch's glow
after winter.
She is here and She knows it.
She can feel the inner burble bubbling
of Her sound again. Her voice
dancing
across accordions and wild orchid orchards
Her voice
that was meant to reek
&
rattle, one that shoots
overalls off clotheslines
and sends them flying somewhere around the mid-Atlantic.
A voice of noisy claps
clap a snapping sound in
32




half
Her throat's guttered
utterances leaving even the kitchen's feathers ruffled in all yellow
&
yolked everything
after hitting
every pot
every pan
with Her speech palms.
She never wants to stop ringing.
So many winking wind chimes now
She messes everything into radiance,
tingling junk drawers into treasure troves
where angels live in thimbles tangled by rubber bands.
They are still there. Lighting
the junk drawer candles
every anniversary
of her birth-death.
She breaks chairs
and rebuilds them into dazzling synecdoches
so She is not alone.
She can sit on wood in company now
She tells her story, many times
with open hands.
33




She is flustered and sincere now,
sincerely flustered
by Her body's ability
to
crack back together, to finally expand
Her tight lips into full teeth. She grows
Her commotion into
motion
like a sweep of cinnamon dusting,
an unstoppably
twirling
skirt, a face
in your window kind of awakening.
She did not know she could feel so full.
I did not know
life could fit so beautifully tight
around my hips.
34









Give & Take
Amanda Dettmann
Third Place
,
Poetry
Insert my voice.
Take my left heel and twist.
Pull my real hair.
Cup my knee and pour honey
.
Swallow.
Screw in two AA batteries
in my eardrum. Yell.
Say everything I never let you and
more.
Locate the silence.
Slice in two.
Gulp. Repeat. Gulp. Repeat.
We are stronger in pairs.
Before you roll over on your side of
the sheets,
unwind my fingers
and spread into sweet spit.
I am the snapping percussion
stunned and spinning.
You can shut me up if you want.
Crumple my skin in accordion sheets
and make music of the softness
you have given us.
35









Communion
Amanda Dettman
If
you told me that our bodies were made of
dirt or
honey or
acrylics set in motion
I would cut myself open
with the x-ray of your hand
.
You have
to
pierce deeper
than my gut of footprints in snow
to
know that we share the DNA of thunder
without the muted lightning.
36







Stone Shoes
Amanda Dettman
When ten feet
from the scuffed stone wall
,
where hundreds of rocks sleep,
I cannot help
but to think of the little girl
'
s feet
and her worn-down shoes,
the little Jewish girl from Auschwitz
whose grey leather soles with straps
are now stacked like a wall of rocks
in a museum in D.C.
I cannot scratch the stone.
For feeling young skin stacked
is a sin
.
37




Feathered
Amanda Dettmann
A man at my dad's work slathered
glue over his entire hairy body.
This is true. My dad's a psychiatrist.
The man undressed outside, at midnight,
planting himself in the vegetable garden
as a human scarecrow.
He was the birdseed, and they came,
all twenty birds came
to rest
on his naked
sticky body.
He had company.
At midnight.
The glow of twenty birds
covering his tremors
and twitching chin.
He stayed there until morning.
Stripped
but blanketed in feathers.
38




And they came,
all twenty doctors with restraints
and baggy pants and a blue hospital gown
belts buttons velcro
zippers for his mouth
they came like biting crows
and not like the birds
they came.
For they came to suffocate, not cloak.
For they came
to
smother, not shower in plumage.
The twenty came because they had always
been taught to come.
The nurses,
head specialists,
medical advisors.
Ones still in training were even there.
They thought they were gluing
the man back together.
All they did was deny
his new wings.
39








Sam's Table
Amanda Dettmann
Third Place, Prose
If
you want Sam to make
you a dinner table, you will
need to wait longer than a year.
I've ordered many tables from
Sam for my kitchen, for my fam-
ily. He's never finished any of
them. I've even met him at his
barn,
to
ensure he would keep
his promise.
I need a dark mahogany ta-
ble, one with the sides extra sanded.
Cynthia and Peter always rest their
little elbows while eating. I practiced
it over and over in my head, the exact
words I would say to Sam. Straight-
forward. Direct. No emotion.
I climbed out of my
navy truck and shut the door. I
walked along his dirt path with
the scattered white pebbles, the
wind hitting my white cotton
t-shirt and making the bottom
fly upwards in my face. I quickly
pulled it down, stuffing it into
my jeans. I had made this walk
many times. I had tried ordering
tables many times. Go over the
lines in my head. Get out of the
truck. Shut the door. Walk. Feel
the crunch of gravel under my
40
toes. Relive his presence.
***
I stepped in through the
front door to our home, setting
Peter's baby car seat on the ground.
I stopped myself "Why is there a bra
on the couch, Sam? Wait
.
.. That's
not mine. That is not my bra, Sam."
''just relax. You're tired,
you're exhausted, and you need to
shower. You don't look like yourself"
"I just had a baby, Sam! You
need to tell me why there's a bra on
our sofa. Answer me."
"Marie, just put Peter into
his crib, and I'll explain the whole
thing."
"Is this why you weren't at
the hospital? Is this why you missed
all your calls when I needed you?"
"What are you talking
about? You're jumping to conclu-
sions, Marie."
"No, I'm not. You ... You
were at home, here, with that, with
that ... With that girl! That girl
who used to babysit for Cynthia
after she was born! I remember.
Annalisa was her name. You always
liked her. You . .. That's not my bra,
Sam. Stop making excuses. That's
hers and you know it."
"Can you prove it? Maybe
I just got you a new bra as a pres-







ent because you've gained so much
weight from being pregnant. Maybe
I
was being thoughtful and wanted to
get you something nice."
"Excuse me?
I
just gave birth
to our child!
I
told you, Sam, and
I'm not repeating myself after this.
That is not my bra. You're lying. You
... You were sleeping with her all
this time while
I
was in the hospital.
Even my friends visited me more than
you did when the doctor said
I
had
early complications. You're disgust-
ing."
"I
mean-"
"Get out." He didn't leave
until after he hit me. Pushed me up
against the wall. Called me a stupid,
worthless mother. Pressed against
me with all his weight until my body
slouched down to the floor, crumpled.
I
glanced at his blue eyes. And then
he left.
***
I slipped my hands in
my
pockets nervously, rubbing
them up and down against the
inner denim to create friction. It
was colder than I thought. The
leaves were changing and the
air hit my neck fast and hard. I
crossed my arms quickly from
the next whip of wind but then
decided to put them back into
my pockets. I couldn't look defi-
ant, or Sam wouldn't like it.
I had come to his barn
a couple times since the day
he left. Each time wasn't any
easier. He needed to make this
table in under a year. I would
convince him. My mother would
be visiting soon, and I had to
have a house that was ready. It
was still unfinished inside. We
had to have furniture. Cynthia
and Peter needed somewhere
to sit, something to lie down
on instead of building a blanket
fort every night in front of the
staticky black and white TV that
would drown them to sleep.
You're a stupid, worthless mother.
We needed color. We needed a
table to look like a family.
"Hello?" My feet rocked
on the gravel as I knocked on
the outside of his barn. It was
red and splotchy, almost pink,
like the cheeks of a newborn
that had laughed once and then
given up. There were holes. So
many holes. Big, wide, and elon-
gated with thatches of straw
sticking out from the hens'
nests up top. I always heard
them inside, laughing at me.
Nobody answered. Only
41






one wooden door was slid
across to the side-open, but
not really. Maybe big enough for
me to squeeze through, but I
wasn't sure. There was a rust-
ed nail right where the handle
should have been. One of the
lightbulbs had gone out in the
glass lantern fixture on the
barn. The other one flickered
as if it was shivering more than
me.
"Hello?" No answer. I
twisted the back of my stud
earring anxiously. A large Ger-
man Shepherd came bounding
around the corner of the barn,
making me back up quickly.
"Whoa, there. Easy, boy. It's
okay, I'm, I'm ... I'm just visit-
ing your friend Sam. Slow down,
whoa ... It's alright, boy." He
was homely looking with hair
sprouting in different direc-
tions, in all different shades of
brown. One ear was slightly
bent while the other stood at
peak height. His teeth were
yellowed, and he had a chin that
jutted out. A couple of his ribs
peeked through his dark skin.
He walked with his back arched
and his head low. I turned my
body away. He started barking
42
nonstop, jumping up and down
around me. "Get offi Just ...
just, go away!" I used my leg to
try and push him to the side.
A sharp whir of metal
sounded and made my head jerk
back. The dog stopped jumping
and stood there with drool drip-
ping like rain. I could hear the
yellow saw machine rev to life
just inside those doors. I knew
Sam's hands on the saw would
be a little off the perfect angle,
positioned to cut the wood for
his tables. Hands off center. Sam
said he never made his tables
perfectly square, or rounded at
the corners. Crooked, he would
say.
That's what family is.
I had to yell. "Sam! I'm
here to talk to you about a new
table! It's for Cynthia and Peter!
And my mother! It's a real proj-
ect and it counts! It's import-
ant!" Nothing. Just saw.
"Sam, I can't wait any
longer! It's freezing out here
and I don't have a jacket!" Then
silence. Even the dog was quiet.
I took a deep breath.
"Can you just ... let me in? I
don't think I can fit through
these doors."
The saw rewed up again.



You need me. You need me so you can
make money. You need me so bad,
but you just won't admit it. I came
all the way here for you. And this is
how you treat me? I came, and I'm
here for you. And the table ... You
know what, maybe I could even help
you make it. Just cut a square for me
and some legs, Sam. I'll do the rest
and glue it all together with the good
stuff that dries fast. You carve and
cut, and I'll piece it into one sturdy
thing. I'm back for you, Sam, and
you need me.
I couldn't bring my-
self to say it out loud.
He stopped the saw and
grunted twice. "Does that mean
you won't let me in?" I asked.
He said nothing. I peeked into
the crack between the one barn
door that was closed and the
other that was six inches open.
He had on overalls and a long
white t-shirt with a gray dan-
delion. The t-shirt covered up
the straps. "Wooden Farms,"
it read. It was like the life was
sucked right out of him. He
still had the same red hair that
curled behind his ears and that
dusty appearance. Hard cheeks.
Long neck. Forceful arms.
Freckles on his nose. Thin body.
Thick shoulders. I just needed
him to do this one thing for me.
I needed this table or -
"Come in."
He slid the six-inch-open
door all the way to the right,
and the hens cackled up above
in their nesting boxes. The dog
followed in, swishing his tale
back and forth and looking
towards the hens. There were
straw bales everywhere, stacked
in rows like cartons of eggs. A
ladder was propped to climb
into the rafters where Sam
could check on the hens and get
his woodworking supplies. The
barn was a mess. Tools were
scattered in every direction on
the ground: hammers, screws,
wrenches, nail guns, doweling
jigs, rulers, and chisels. Spi-
ralized pieces of wood littered
the dirt floor. There was a clock
hooked onto a wooden beam,
but the minute hand was stuck.
It was plastic and beat-up; it had
probably been there for gener-
ations, its numbers etched by
hand in ink that was now faded.
The number four was crooked.
I looked at his eyes. The
same blue. Like a river that
nobody visits. Like a heavy
cloud that wants to open into a
43



downpour but can't. I wanted to
touch his eyes so bad. He was
still my husband after all. We
had never brought ourselves to
officially divorce despite what
had happened.
"Sam."
"Marie." He sat on his
work stool, took off his gloves,
and looked down. I stood stand-
ing, biting my lower lip.
"Sam, I haven't gotten
those tables I ordered from you.
Or the one last year or the one
before that. Or the one in the
middle at the beginning of the
end when we met or the table
last month.
I haven't received
any tables, Sam. I asked you if
you could make me one table."
"You came back."
"I came back because I
asked you to make me one table.
I still haven't gotten it, Sam."
"You came back."
"I didn't want to."
"You came back."
"I had to." I sat down
on a gray metal bench. "My
mother is coming and we need a
wooden table. I know you make
tables full of sweat and tears
and blood and love. I need your
table. My mother needs to see
44
that Cynthia, Peter, and I are a
family. We need to have a ta-
ble. We need to have a surface
to eat dinner on other than the
hard floor that makes us numb.
I want to be able to sit and eat
and eat and sit and talk and sit
and eat and laugh without being
on the ground.
I want to be
higher than the ground, Sam."
"I don't understand why
you came back again."
"I just told you, Sam.
You're not listening."
"You don't need a table."
"I
do.
I
just told you why
I
need a table.
I
need this table
or-"
"Or what." He kicked
the dirt and spit, then walked
over to the clock on the wooden
beam and punched the plastic
frame. The minute hand start-
ed spinning. The number four
stared back at me. I couldn't
meet his eyes. Those eyes. One
of the hens cackled. The dog
started panting. Sam got up off
his stool and stood facing me,
weaving his thumbs in and out,
in and out.
"Or what," he repeated. I
averted my eyes. Anywhere but
his eyes. Towards the saw ma-







chine. Towards the one closed
door. Towards the white pebbles
outside that I could barely see
from in here. Anything but his
eyes.
"Huh? I'm talking to you,
Marie. Meet my eyes,
Sweetie."
I was shaking. He was towering
over me with his gray dandeli-
on t-shirt and his teeth full of
fresh spit, his pale and sweaty
hands drawn back and ready.
I
remembered his hands. The cal-
lused palms that wouldn't stop
bleeding. My callused back that
wouldn't stop bruising.
You're a
stupid, worthless mother.
"I think I know, Marie.
Or what, huh? You need this
table or your own mother will
think you're a failure? That
she'll remember you had kids
when you were sixteen years
old? That you pushed me away?
That we had a fight on the day
we brought Peter home? That
fight over our stupid babysitter
and a bra? That fight in our old
house instead of this goddamn
barn that's falling apart? That
fight over Cynthia and Peter and
who gets to keep who and who
is more important than who
and who is stronger than who
and who isn't falling apart more
than who and who belongs to
who and who loves who and
who stays and who leaves?"
He was breathing hard
now.
I
closed my eyes and tried
to stop remembering. Not his
hands. Not his eyes.
"I
remember it so well,
Honey,
and if I'm honest
I
think
your mother will have no prob-
lem recalling the circumstanc-
es." He flipped over his stool.
His tall figure followed
me as
I
walked out. As
I
ran
out, bolting towards the truck
to get away from his hands.
I
dug around for my keys as my
fingers shook. I rewed up my
engine and gunned it in reverse
while his hands waved back
and forth on the other side of
the glass. He was yelling.
I
kept
driving in reverse, his head
getting smaller and smaller like
those white pebbles. He ran
back inside of the barn and
I
winced. He was getting some-
thing to hurt me again. He was
going to end it once and for all.
But I was almost out of there.
I
could do it. Almost to the
mailbox.
Keep going, Marie. You're
worth so much more than this.
He
45





was in the barn for a long time.
I stopped the engine, waiting.
I needed to see his eyes again.
He ran back outside of the barn,
holding something big up. Blue.
I saw his eyes
.
Blue. I rewed
up my engine and was about to
drive forward. I was almost past
the mailbox now. I was almost
gone.
Out of the corner of my
eye as I left his pebble road, he
held up my finished table.
46




BRENDEN DAVIS
47








Madonna Complex
Kaliyah Gardner
First Place
,
Poetry
The blacker the berry, the
more bitter I am; his saccharinity
touching tips of alabaster tonguez.
The darker the flesh, the
deeper my grudge
against pale hands
molesting obsidian roots.
You was raised as a ghetto child,
within a whirlwind of brazen brown flesh;
but the black backdrop has cracked, white lies of success
crept in like quicksand sin and wicked white breasts.
Nowadays you gravitate
towards cotton-colored cunts
who let you finger-fuck,
to make their fathers frantic.
Nowadays you paper chase,
running from the soil from which you grew,
hop a boat and ride the wave away from our culture
for a chance to break your back like a pack mule
on 40 acres of land still owned by the white man.
Come on nigga, now look at you.
Shit, I aint mad at cha,
but-aint shit changed,
you're still a cotton-pickin coon,
48





a slave wearing solid gold chains,
taught to dehumanize and devalue
the women you call sistas and
the same sista who raised you,
and forsake us like strange fruit,
while glorifying the shameless Yt women
who appropriate our attributes.
Recall the tears teeming from
black pupil, brown iris, white sclera,
down my cinnamon chin,
when you laced my mahogany heart with ivory venom.
"I don't like to see my black women hurtin,"
you claimed, Marvin Gaye playing in the distance-
Lover, miles away from where you began;
Black was the thing to be
before you took her paper hands.
"Don't cry,
dry your eyes,
never let up.
Even though it didn't work out with me
there'll be anotha brotha
who's gunna love ya.
We're not all the same. Forgive me.
In five years,
this'll all just be a memory.
49



Keep ya head up,"
you said
to ease your own guilt,
not realizing
after you left,
the future didn't brighten;
blacker than the darkest night, the next men
did the exact same thing
and fell victim to winter sirens.
You were manipulated
to over-value these vapor vipers,
materializing from thin air.
No substance, venomous, ill-intentioned;
they open their mouths and try you on
like "Interracial is the New Black"
and treat the panther in your pants like the hottest new trend.
They bite deeper and deeper,
colonizing the panther in your blood.
Why open your heart and pardon these culture vultures?
Why justify such a love?
Is it even love?
As Eve came from Adam,
you come from us.
We've been with you
since fleshy-pink fetal tissue,
50





since you've left uterus,
broken bones, and inched through cervix.
After vaginal tearing, you emerge wearing all that is us:
down to the cells, skin, and skeleton
.
We've nurtured and massaged the limbs,
minds, mouths, and hands
that leave us scars, wounds, and bruises.
Please, explain what the issue is
in loving the women who've never left
and by default, loving that which you reflect?
The closest person to understanding
the experience of the Black man,
besides the Black man,
is the Black woman.
Why trade your soil and soul to hail
your beloved snow bunny queen,
when they wouldn't stand by your side in trying times
and would disappear like dope fiends?
Those women are sold as flimsy snowflake dreams.
The women you abandoned are bliss within reality
.
But I say all this and you resist;
the truth in my pleas dissolving to mist.
After you, before me is white abyss.
Nowadays I chase images of black men chasing emptiness.
51




BRENDEN DAVIS
52








The Circus Man
Anonymous
First Place
,
Pros
e
When I decided to be-
come a circus man, my wife
called after me as I walked out
the door, "Be home by 6:45pm
for your Zoloft and your 7pm
trauma session with Dr. John-
son!" But I was already gone.
I am a military man
,
or
was one I should say-the word
"order" following every other
syllable of my life. My wife Beth
calls it the "perfect hero," my
being orderly, but I'd begun to
hate order once I got home from
Vietnam. It was the worst at
night; when the air outside was
silent, as still as a crouching
tiger about to pounce out of the
shadows
.
Silence meant some-
thing bad was about to happen;
stillness meant you were dead.
Yet, despite my fears,
my wife continued to have
everything orderly for me-us-
should I forget to say it-just as
she
'
d always done. She relished
in being a military wife. She'd
even joined a military wives
club that met twice a week at
the Baptist Church basement,
which I thought was stupid and
degrading, and she continued
to attend those meetings, even
when I got back from tour, like
a cult. She spent three months
making her dress for the mili-
tary ball one year. And she de-
manded that I wear my uniform
on an almost daily basis, even
thought it'd been six years since
I'd last been on duty and had
been working as an accountant
for a small-time laundry busi-
ness in town since then. At plac-
es like the grocery store
,
where
she'd run into some old friends,
"How are you?" Beth would
say, "Have you met my military
husband? He just got back from
tour," with a smile so grand, I
knew she practiced it for those
Baptist Church basement meet-
ings.
I'd been sitting at the
tacky suburban kitchen table
one morning skimming through
the newspaper, the smell of eggs
and maple syrup choking the air,
53


I saw the circus was coming to
town.
That night, I'd sat down
with her as I did every Saturday
night, me in my ragged HON-
OR THE BRAVE shirt and she
in her lacy white night gown as
she switched on the T.V. for us
to watch some mind-numbing
show. After a couple of minutes,
I couldn't watch anymore, and
as usual I found myself looking
about the room. This night, I
found myself studying my wife
and much to my disappoint-
ment but not surprise, I realized
how dull she had become. Her
hair, which used to loose and
fair, was now worn back, dim
and wiry. Her smile had grown
fake, pressing pre-mature wrin-
kles into the corners of her
mouth. She complained about
traffic and elderly people and
the neighbor's dog. She had an
avalanche of reminders, none of
which she ever removed from
the fridge. She wore loafers. Her
wardrobe had become relent-
lessly unimaginative. My wife's
words to me, even at night,
54
were obedient but untrusting,
creating an iceberg between the
sheets.
In an attempt to make
light of the fact that this was
how I felt about my wife, I said,
"Why don't we take that trip
out to the west coast? The one
your sister was talking about.
We'll drive up from Malibu to
San Francisco."
Without looking up from
the television, the glow of the
screen ricocheting off of her
features, "Oh no, we couldn't.
We have too much to do here. I
couldn't leave now ... "
The TV had switched
from the ending credits of Apoc-
alypse Now to the intro of the
Brady Bunch, and Beth's eyes
glazed over the screen as though
the transition had been seam-
less.
"You used to love to go
to
the beach. We ought
to
go
next weekend."
Mrs. Brady had just
entered the kitchen and Mr.
Brady sat at the table reading
his newspaper. Marcia burst in,



complaining about school. My
wife semi-smiled at the entrance
of Marcia, her favorite character,
then her face went blank again.
"Why don't we go to the
beach next weekend?" I said.
"No."
"Why not?"
A shrug. For some rea-
son, this indifference shot
through my body like a vase tip-
ping over in me and shattering.
"Why not?" I asked again, an
underlying forcefulness begin-
ning to rise in my throat.
"I can't leave my Baptist
Basement meetings. Suzanne
McKay is bringing in her hus-
band. He's just back from Nam.
He has a purple heart award."
My mind boggled, her
words wobbled in my head.
Sometimes I thought of her
meetings as nothing less than
show-and-tells for the wives
to "pageant-ize" one's spouse.
Sharp phrases gathered at the
tip of my mouth, ready to fly
at her, but I held back. "You
can miss one or two meetings.
They're all a bunch of phonies
anyway."
She didn't even look up.
The Brady family was all around
the kitchen table now, laughing
belly-gutted at a joke Alice told,
my wife's eyes dully sparkling
with lackluster amusement.
In a desperate attempt to
reel in my wife's attention, "We
could go. Do something dif-
ferent for once. Go some place
where I don't have to wear-
this," I tugged at my uniform to
show her. Why did I even still
wear it? "I could learn to be a
pilot, something exciting."
"You don't even know
how to fly a plane."
"I could learn."
"Darling," she turned
toward me now, her eyes heavy
with condescension. "Just stay
where you are, I love where
you're at now, don't you? It's
convenient." She turned back to
the TV, the glow of the screen
the jabbing at her features
again, hooking her back under
its veil. "Besides," she said, not
even looking up at me, but now
the slightest hint of disappoint-
55


ment in her voice. "You're just
an ordinary man."
Mike Brady had gotten
up from the kitchen table and,
in the oblivion of reading his
newspaper and not paying at-
tention to where he was going,
slipped on the wet floor Alice
had been mopping in front of
him, hitting the ground with a
compounding smash. Beth let
out an instant cackling roar, so
hollow in depth and shallow in
her stomach, it was startling. In
that moment, I wanted badly to
say something cruel, truth-filled
to smack her out of
her
reality.
I set down the plate of
mash potatoes and peas I'd been
simply forking on my plate for
the past half hour. "Thanks for
dinner," I said, my sarcasm shot
straight at her.
The twinkle went out
of her eyes. The roar oflaugh-
ter abandoned her. "When you
wash and dry and clean every
single-" She stopped herself.
A moment. Then another. Then
an over-compensated smile
transformed across her features
56
as though it'd never abandoned
her at all. "We're just going to
watch some TV tonight. Dear."
I got up and left. Even as
I looked down from the railing,
the couch and her back turned
away from me, behind the red-
stained lips, I knew her teeth
were gritted so tightly they
could crack a nut.
On my first trip to the
circus I met her-Tasmina-so
exotic and smolderingly beau-
tiful, like a wild animal caught
and untamed-that I thought
my heart was going to explode.
She'd stepped out into the
belly of the tent that first night,
her legs hugged by the fishing
net material that clung to her
like fish scales and her torso
squeezed by a leopard print leo-
tard. The jewels lining her eyes
glittered a celestial green and
her black eyeshadow swept up
into her temples. Her hair, bold
and frayed, the color of fiery
copper, stood vibrant against
the backdrop of the tent. A little
fiendish flick of her tongue and



when she snapped her leather
bound whip into the circus floor
dirt, I nearly fell down the row.
Things went fast from
the beginning, and after four
months of sneaking out of the
house to see her, I would've
thought that I would've gotten
bored or Beth would've caught
on, but to my amusement,
neither did. I would've thought
Beth would wonder where I
went every weekend, which was
sometimes halfway across the
state to small scrappy towns,
but as long as I got back in time
to do the bi-weekly grocery run
with her, and my "Soldier's
Anonymous" meetings (I'd
stopped going to my trauma
sessions, but I didn't tell her
that), she didn't even bat an
eye.
Tasmina on the other
hand, became my life. Her body,
pressed against mine, like a
snake slithering up to me in the
night, was thrilling and many
evenings, after her act, we'd
grapple for each other in her
tent, in the dark, until we be-
came quite unsettled and began
knocking things over. For the
first time in six years, I didn't
mind staying up all night.
On this particular night,
I waited for her in the little tent
some of the circus hands put
up for her as long as they per-
formed in a town. The thought
of waiting for her saturated my
mouth with saliva. Her tent was
cheaply lavish, almost Spanish
Moorish: tattered Turkish car-
pets torn from town to town,
drapes, animal skins where we
usually had sex, mysterious
trinkets on her vanity, bottles of
sultry smelling liquids. Japanese
ink scrolls hung on the tent
walls and strings of beads trick-
led down from the ceiling.
From the other side of
the tent walls, I heard the au-
dience go up in applause and a
few minutes later, she appeared,
thighs and all, her hair was wild
as if she'd been running through
the jungle, and her makeup,
shadowy and sphinxlike, made
my inner thighs tingle.
She removed the bedaz-
57


zled headdress from her head (I
always wondered how much it
weighed) and set it on the floor.
Then she drew the tent curtain
closed, and stared at me, the
backlight hitting her figure so
ethereally, I thought she might
be an angel. Then my eyes ad-
justed, drowned with darkness.
"This isn't going
to
work any-
more."
Her words, so cool and
detached, they hung in the air
tiny and fragile like the dust
particles floating around her,
vanishing as they dissolved
into the dark. Still, in the sliv-
er of light lancing between her
thighs, I could see the flesh of
her silhouette, illuminated in
the opening of the tent, and I
knew I wanted touch it more
than ever. I waited for her
words to hit me, but they cir-
cled around me, so vague and
strangely airy that they left me
dazed. The only thing I was tru-
ly aware of still was the tingling
feeling running rabid, crazed, in
my thighs. I was about
to
reach
out
to
her and catch her, but in
58
that stunned-euphoric moment
when she said, "You're just an
ordinary man."
I stayed still, limp in the
aftermath of her words, which
fell upon me like an elephant
snapping my ribs, crushing
my lungs and heart beneath it.
The heat in my body ran cold.
The tingling feeling between
my thighs evaporated and her
words, sharp and acidic, stabbed
and wrangled at my thoughts-
my heart, writhed like a rabid
animal in my chest. A panic of
cold sweat broke out all over my
head. "I love you."
"No, you love the circus,"
she said, not picking her head
up
to
look at me even.
"No, no I love you." The
words fumbled from my mouth.
But
to
my horror, they tasted
dry, ill of concern. Oh God, no,
this couldn't be happening.
"You love the idea of
me." She went
to
her vanity, a
mirror framed by faded marquee
light bulbs, took two cotton
balls in circular motions to her
face, and began to remove her



makeup. "But it's not me who
you actually love." She peeled
the fake eyelashes from her
lids, spidery feathered things,
and I realized I'd never seen
her without them. Still speech-
less though, I grappled at what
she meant by all these things,
and hopelessly tried to think of
things
to
tell her
to
prove my
love for her, my worth as partic-
ipant in her world, but just then
someone called through the tent
walls out to her.
"I'll get it," she said.
"Stay here, don't move."
I stayed there-as if I
could've left, my organs having
been ripped out. I waited an
eternal several minutes. When
she returned, I'd made up my
mind. "For God's sake, you can't
do this. You've always been
insane like this."
"You didn't even know
me four months ago."
"I knew you," I said,
gesturing to the space in front
of me, as if she'd been there all
my life. "I knew you from the
papers. You were all over town.
Posters, billboards-I saw you-
your face-as
I walked down
to
the pharmacy. I'd pick up my
Zoloft and there you'd be. It
was the highlight of my day."
"It's all a sham."
"What do you mean?"
"None of this is real."
"What are you talking
about?"
She'd taken off her hair
extensions and had laid them
flat on her vanity. They re-
minded me of horse tails. Her
hair, so wild and bold before,
seemed flatter, shorter now, and
although I didn't understand
it, my heart gave out a little to
that. But I'd still made up my
mind.
"What are you talking
about?" I said again, only this
time I got up, as if that signaled
my authority.
She continued to remove
her makeup, not taking her face
away from the mirror. Earrings
came off. Heels came off. And
when she was ready, she or-
dered me to stay where I was as
she changed behind the divider
59



screen. "Don't look," were her
words
to
me before she slipped
behind the canvas folds. We'd
never been together where I'd
been so far away from her, our
bodies, usually in the flesh, hot
and smoldering next to one an-
other on the davenport, on the
animal skin rugs-now it felt
like I was on another planet.
When she came out
from again, I quickly grabbed
her wrist, taking both of us by
surprise I think, for it came so
instinctive, I could only attri-
bute it to my military training.
"Why?" was the only thing that
uttered from my breath, now so
shallow and weak.
She lifted her head and
looked up into me, and I was
taken aback. It's as if I'd nev-
er laid eyes on her before. She
wore a white collared top, but-
ton-down and all, and a plaid
skirt. Socks up
to
her knees.
The song "Sunday Girl," forced
itself into my head.
"I'm engaged," she said,
her voice flat.
"You're engaged."
60
"Yes."
"Why not me?" It came
out my mouth before I realized
I had no control over myself
anymore.
"You're
married and I'm
young."
Perhaps for the first time,
I realized then, just how slim
and bare she was without her
costume on. Healthy, strong,
clean-her hair was brushed
back into a slightly disheveled
bun on the top of her head and
her eyes, usually so hungry and
cutting, were now flat, a deter-
gent-blue, outlined by thick,
feathered lashes. Without the
makeup, her cheeks were oval
and girlish, and her mouth was
thin and sensitive. She might've
been all but sixteen, I guessed.
"I'm ... " the words fad-
ed on my tongue. I'd not been
young in quite some time. It hit
me then, just how out of shape
I'd gotten over the past six
years: unshaven, sweat profuse-
ly beading at my temples, the
beginning stages of a beer belly
starting to reveal its ugly self




under my shirt.
"Besides." She moved
past me, as though I was nev-
er there, and stood by the tent
opening, arms crossed over her
stomach. "You're too disillu-
sioned. You think this is reality,
coming in here and being with
me. But it's not."
I left her words fall on
top of me. I didn't try to fight
them.
"Goodbye, John."
And with that she left. I
was too paralyzed to move. For
minutes, maybe hours, I stayed
there, still, unable to feel any-
thing but my heart pounding
against the cavity of my chest.
As I walked out into the
opening again, I felt the cloud-
less autumn air whisk by me. I
made my way across the field,
past the giant tent, and cot-
ton-candy/peanut vendors. But
when I entered the parking lot I
stopped cold.
There Tasmina stood,
arm and arm with someone else.
She caught my eye and came
over in a school-girl stride.
"John, this is David, my fian-
cee."
I was too speechless to
respond. It was nervous and
unsmiling, as bland as a bowl of
peas.
"He's a middle-school
English teacher." It offered
its hand, a flimsy if not weak
grip, like a floppy fish trying to
squirm away. I clutched it, wish-
ing I hadn't.
They left, but I stayed
standing there. The night drew
its shade over me. I stood there
for the longest time. But when
I did move again, for the first
time in all of those six years,
that's when I realized I hadn't
left my reality at all. I was just a
plain, ordinary man.
61





62
Literary Arts Society Executive Board
Katherine Maradiaga
Emily Hollenbach
Brian Spiess
Julia Franco
Elizabeth Gannon
Matthew Hanright
Brenden Davis
Kaliyah Gardner
Matthew Savoca
Faculty Advisor
Dr. Lea Graham
Layout and Design by Brenden Davis




Dedicated
to the gods who created these worlds,
to the adventurers who journey therein,
thank you.
63




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