66
WORMWOOD MAGAZINE: SPRING 2014

Wormwood Magazine April 10

Embed Size (px)

Citation preview

1

1

WORMWOOD MAGAZINE: SPRING 2014

WormwoodInaugural IssueSpring 2014

Edited by Marc David Bonagura

Copyright 2014Talking Weeds Publishing

Contact: [email protected]

All rights revert back to authors. No part of this journal may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the authors, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.

CONTENTS

FRANKIE LOPESPhysicsSARAGRACE STEFANGrowing PainsOakHearts of JerichoGames That Gametes PlayMARIANA SIERRALiving WillNirvanaHeartLast RiteJASPER DOOMEN A Perturbing TurnCHRISTINE BRYANTEggsThe Violin Beneath My BedTo DorothyPost-OpDear UterusNJ TurnpikeHurricane Sandy, Belmar NJEye

Martin Ramrez Drawing: Horse on Stage

LAUREN SCHMIDTNeedThe Day the Train Stood Still for HoursDevotionRebellionTo the ClearingSecond DrinkThe Room Toss VillanelleThe Social Worker and the English LessonAfter-Love LoveTil DeathAt the Strip Club

SHANNON LEE GROOMSCollecting Dust

-Frankie Lopes

PhysicsIn my junior year of college I took an astronomy course. Im still not sure why. I sat in a dark lecture hall once a week for three hours and tried to focus on the slides that were projected onto the large square screen. There was nothing else to look at. It takes Mars six hundred and forty days to travel around the sun. The professor spoke for the duration of the lecturereading the exact words that appeared on the screenwhile the students pretended to take notes, scribbling into their notebooks and usually doodling human eyes that would never get the chance to blink. I wondered how many years he had used the same slides and recited the same lines, if he had it all memorized by now. Regolith is the powdery soil on the moon, which is made by the rocks that were pulverized by the impact of comets.

Everybody failed everything. So much to the point that the professorwho taught this course every semesterwas known to grade every test on a curve, thus passing every student.By the third week, the professor himself consumed most of my attention during the long dark three hours. The way his mouth didnt seem to match up with the words that came out of it, the way the projector reflected perfect white squares onto the lenses of his black thick-rimmed glasses where his blinking eyes shouldve been, which made him look like a robot, how his hands stayed in his pockets and when they left the cotton chambers, they were covered to the knuckle by the baggy cardigans he wore every week.When he paused between points on the projector, the time intended for me, for all of the students, to put the periods at the end of our sentences, I would look past the white square eyes and see the tedium and boredom in his face. His mouth was always slightly open in a sad way, like there was something he was thinking about saying, something that wasnt related to the compression wrinkles on Mercurys surface.As the fifteen-week semester progressed his beard grew longer, I noticed this on the fourth week. It was then that I realized he would someday die, that there was something before and after those three hours discussing the spectroscopy of neutron and gamma rays. I looked around the room, expecting to see someone else as disturbed by this as I was. Nobody else seemed to notice.What happened next, week after week, was that for three hours I ignored the difference between geocentric and heliocentric models of the universe and became lost in the white squares of his eyes and black void between his lips. He mustve gone grocery shopping, pushed a steel cart through fluorescent lanes and pawed through packages, contemplated Pepsi and Coca-Cola. By the seventh week I had learned nothing about astronomy, but I was almost certain that he drove a gray Toyota Corolla, ate Frosted Flakes for breakfast every morning, and had a wife named Emily who only did laundry on Tuesdays, even though I had absolutely no evidence to support that theory. By week nine I was terrified that the professor would die. I thought about the class every day, it might even have been considered praying. I was always treading in the anxiety that on Thursday, I would walk into the lecture hall and he wouldnt be there in his oversized cardigan, wiping the dust from his glasses. Maybe none of the other students thought about this, but somewhere, there were people who cared about him, who stopped to chat about the inaccuracy of the neighborhood paperboy in aisle six while holding a box of saltine crackers. There were people who were happy to see him by chance. He was loved. I worried for those people, too.I failed everything. My notebook was blank. I had no idea what solar wind erosion was. When I asked a classmate if I could copy her notes, in preparation for the final exam, she gave me a confused face and asked me, what notes?Everybody failed everything.

-SaraGrace Stefan

Growing PainsI need you to understand:Im a teenager, half-formed.There are countless morningsI wake up, and in theTangle of sheets I See my feet all the wayWay at the end of the bed,And am surprised at my length.

Some nights Ill fall asleepIn the backseat of our minivanAnd consistently forget thatWhen we reach our destination, I will no longer be carried inside,Like I am precious by the pound.

There are still mealtimes when I Wait for the crayons and the Connect-the-dots, butInstead I write poetryOn the inside of my wristsAnd try to connect theBits of me that knock againstThe top of the table and Blink nervously at the waiter.

Ill go to school in myBig-girl jeans and bootsAnd when I close my eyesAnd count to ten, its likeI convinced my beautiful motherTo let me dress myself and am Wearing polka-dot shorts andA bright yellow t-shirt and my Sneakers have Velcro and light upWhen I stamp my foot.

If I stamp my foot now, Im a feminist or an anarchist,But maybe Im just tiredAnd didnt get my juice box today.I know some days it must feel likeIm yanking you around likeA slinky dog but really ImJust spun around likeA child hitting a piata, And I never know whichDirection Im facing.

When youre too tiny to reach the counterAnd you say you want to beAn astronaut or the president, you get A smile and a pat on the head,But lately when I tell peopleI just want to be a writer or a teacherThen I get the dubious looks and smilesOf condescension; those who claim to knowBetter, despite never having feltWords in their hands. The smiles that say:we said shoot forThe moon, but do notExpect us to catch you whenYou crash back to earth.

I see the looks you give meAnd the way you reach for my handBut Im worried that if you kiss meIll break apart, and all this Play-Doh thatIve saved up over the years to Sculpt and to shape who I want to beWill fall between the couch cushions,Never to return.

I know you want me to write youLove letters but how can I think Of love like its all pink valentinesWhen I know that its a fireThat burns and scars.So just let me stop, drop,And roll.

But what if my life is one big twisting roadAnd my terminus is the realization that thereIsnt always a final destination. I see all my friends giving themselvesAway like rainbow erasers and double-bubble At the end of a birthday party and I cant stop wonderingHow can you know who deserves you When I dont even know what deserving means yet.

OakI am not a flowerWaiting to grow.A weak green bud,Barely strong enough to Break the dirty surface,Something becoming prettier and ever-more fleeting.

I am a million fists clenching.A deep inhale.The final word.I am the slamming of the door,The crunch of the snow underfoot.I am not many but alone I am just enough.

I am not insufficient as I am.Not some please excuse our current condition.Bigger and better things may be on the way,But that does not mean that theCurrent things arent fantastic.These years of my life are notThe prologue; they are the first volumeVital and necessary to the rest of my story.

I am not a sapling crushed easily underfoot;I am oak.Always have been and will always be.Maybe stronger later, but I have been Just as strong as Ive needed to beAnd isnt that what matters?

Do not say certain problems are insignificant, Because who judges what is important and what is not?Call the Titanic, tell them, its just an ice cube.Write to the tigers in the rainforest and tell them,Its just a few trees.My path might not be the bumpiest butYou sure as hell would not knowIf I have been walking on sheaths of silk or Broken glass.

I am not a dark cloud on the horizon. I am not a plant that needs to be nurtured With a tender hand.I am a sun shower gleaming far away.I am a forest of intricate roots hidden beneath the soil.I am not coming.I am going.

Hearts of JerichoI keep wondering About your eyes,Looking in the mirror And tracing every curve of your body.Not with pleasure or appreciationBut distaste and loathing.

I keep wondering aboutYour teeth as they Clamped together,Closing your mouth shutLike a city that no one could enter.

And your hands, Pushing away all ofThe brusque words, So the barbed wire glances could not touch you,Could not break you.So no well-meaning person could Touch you and rip your paper skinOff of your splintering bones.

And your feet as theyDragged you day to day,Wishing away the time And cursing the sluggish hours.Your knees buckling underScarcely anything at all.But it was enough for you.

When you looked in the mirrorYou no longer saw something Beautiful and belovedBut something ugly and malformed.I wonder and I wonder,As the time goes by,How your mind took you captive.Tricked you into seeing somethingTerrible where such loveliness lingered?Turning the kindest eyes into somethingTo be resented, making your own Warm embrace something to be escaped from.

And I wonder most of all,About your heart.How it must have sputtered and Ached during those too-long days.How it must have hungered moreThan any other part of you. For something your brain did not comprehend.

And during my own lengthy days,I wonder about my own heart.And how it could have been so blind.So caught up in its own hindrances that itDid not recognize your Self-loathing.I should have swooped to your rescue,Arms wide and ears open.But I was blind and foolhardy.

I swear the only thing yourEyes, your teeth,Your hands, your feet,Your mind, your heartWill know, from this point on,Is the sound of my words,Saying: You are needed.You are loved.You are whole.Stay. Please stay.

You will no longer need a mirror, But see your beauty with your eyesClosed.You will break down your walls,I will hold your hand.And your feet will dance,Once again.

Games That Gametes PlayThey tell you to wait.To preen and to powderAnd to bite your lip.Be outspoken,But only whenthats whats desirable.

Say what youre thinking,but only if it endears you.Make sure your one flaw isThe clumsy way you knock Items off shelves andYour need of a hand toAssist you every time that you step outOf a car.

So that way you cant goAnywhere by yourself,And if you somehow do,Youll fall.Youll always fall.

Because love isnt a gift,Its a trap.Because youre weakIf you give in, but youreForever undesirable and unwanted ifYou dont.Fight fire with fire,But only if it wont burnThe one who decidesWhat time is right forA bout of extinguishment.

They say that love is Clearly not somethingSimply deserved, But something that takes trainingAnd the consumption of This sparkly-lettered knowledgeThat holds the secret to Every type of happiness.Or at least the kinds youreAllowed to have.The kinds that make you sweetAnd weak and vulnerableAnd helps them feel big Because youre so small And they will never have to fearYou attacking if your shoes wontLet you run away.

They tell you to wait.To keep your legs crossedAnd ankles together,But those ankles better be coveredUnless we want to see them.Because you were not given yourBody to carry you from place to place butJust so we can have something to Look at that makes us feel good-To hide the fact that we can no longerLook at ourselves.

They told me to wait,To trim my nails into half-moonsIn order to keep my association withBlood from growing any larger. Because clearly something that bleedsFor days at a time must Be weak and frail.

I should shave off the hair thatTries so desperately to warm my bodySo that when the cold sets in I Am not able to protect myselfAnd must seek your shelter.

I must wait.And I must wear all the clothingYou give me, lest I beShowing offWhat no one wants to see.The cursed anatomy that I Clearly chose.

How dare I thrust the perversion ofNature in anyones face?

Unless its whats being asked for.If I wont show you what isClearly not mine to control,I am suddenly a Jezebel. The quality of my characterHaving a direct correlation withThe number of teeth in the smileI aim towards strangers.

They tell you to wait.But I put on one high heelBecause I like the heightAnd one sneaker Because I was born to move,And I took off runningA long, long time ago.

-Mariana Sierra

III. Living WillI, being of sound mind and rational thought, willfully and voluntarily make this declaration to be followed if I become incompetent or incapacitated to the extent that I am unable to communicate my wishes, desires and preferences on my own. This declaration reflects my firm, informed, and settled commitment to refuse life-sustaining medical care and treatment.

NirvanaSanskrit (nir-v-na,blown or put out, extinguished)once during Compared Religions in high schoolBuddhist death was explained in metaphor:imagine you are a cup of waterbeing poured into a riverI remember thinking that must bebliss

Heart A muscular organ that pumps blood through the body. A heart transplant can be used to help those suffering from heart failure, as well as babies born with heart defects.

Everything is music.I was not the first nor lasthis black voice hummed to.There is rhythm in your step.He nestled symmetry-obsessed fingersbehind my knees. In your breath. In your heart.

Not anymore.Flush out these deserted atriums,these four chambers,fist-sized, withstrange new blood.Last Riteplease let there be no afterlife, no heaven, no paradiseno dwelling on mistakes made and lessons learnedjust sleep, black and dreamless

burn what is left of meleave nothing to be resurrected in case Jesus keeps his promise

-Jasper DoomenA Perturbing Turn

At times when the burden of menial tasks, sought out by anyone who appreciates the minor pains they bring compared to the agony and wicked blessing of a reflective mind, abates to such an extent that its operations can no longer be suppressed, I tend to recall an event whose apparent lack of excitement was amply compensated by the grave and lasting impression it had on its wretched observer. Indeed, what might be more innocent or innocuous than a stroll in the woods, appreciating the bounty of nature? Yet it was a nature of another kind, found in this instance through introspection, I would soon learn to appreciate in new and hitherto unexpected ways.Nothing menacing was initially found. Even with a limited knowledge of the varieties through which nature is expressed it is easy to be fascinated by the diverse manifestations of the creatures one encounters on their way to find means to prolong their lives, or those close to them, each with its own preoccupation, survival being the common denominator. The plant life, though obviously somewhat static in comparison to the business displayed by the fauna, likewise brought forth awe. The only element that struck me as peculiar, on account of its artificial appearance, considering the surroundings, was a sign; the letters I could discern spelled out a message matching the oddity of its location, for it read: The delicate balance of life made more delicate for those who proceed."Although their meaning eluded me, these words seemed to harbor an ominous warning. At the same time, my curiosity was aroused, and since such a place contained no physical threats, as I had already assessed, the reference could only be to one of the same kind as the warning, namely, information, which I, in my erstwhile ignorance, considered harmless; it would be beneficial, I reckoned, or in the worst case irrelevant. Not inhibited by the wisdom that usually follows the actions of man rather than to precede them I continued to walk and to reflect, noticing that the former abundance of animal life was no longer there; the woods, by contrast, grew denser, darkening the surroundings, providing a gloomy atmosphere, and it became clear that none must have threaded here for a long time; I could not even preclude the possibility that I was the first person ever to venture here. Following this path, another sign appeared. It was less elusive than the first, but just as curious: Would you push a button that would instantly end the universe? What a strange question! Who could even entertain such an action? was my first reaction, considering the issue so absurd that if further questions of the same kind were to present themselves either thus or through reflection, no curiosity of mine stood in need of satisfaction. Still, I might be too hasty in my rejection, so rather than to turn around I proceeded, eager to know whether something more agreeable would ensue. As I continued it appeared impossible not to contemplate the question, as I was unable to dispel it from my attentive mind. An instant end would not cause any pain: it would not bring with it the collapse of buildings, nor would tidal waves or earthquakes occur, or any other grave event. In fact, there would be no noticeable event whatsoever, given the instantaneous nature of the occurrence. Wouldnt it be a shame, though, if all those beings I came across today should cease to be, not to mention the results of mans creativity, although the fruits of this creativity are not merely manifest in fine works of art, and it has been employed with great success in producing a wide variety of destructive means with the same enthusiasm.The most pressing of my ponderings, though, was why it would be a shame at all. Would the cessation of all things, including those who might observe them in its absence, really be such a dire thing, something never being objectionable or agreeable absolutely but always in accordance with an observers capabilities to suffer or delight? Their nonexistence dissolves the problem. Besides, their existence or nonexistence should be appreciated in light of the fact that survival is a means rather than an end. A confusion of the two is frequent here, especially with those who, when asked what this end might be, would find the question doubly challenging as this would be their first confrontation with it, never having considered the issue a problem in the first place and thus never contemplated it. For others the observation that life is hostile to the living, at least frequently, is inevitable.As soon as these conclusions had been reached, however, it became apparent that an important issue had been left unaddressed. An originator of the universe, if any should exist, might remain and regret the outcome. Rather than to lose myself in idle speculations whether such a being would be part of the universe, and thus be annihilated along with it, or not, I considered that not only did I not know whether such a being existed in the first place but I was oblivious as to its character, presuming it did. It might as well be malicious as benign for all I knew; in the latter case, its position might be a relevant given, while the former would preclude taking its interests at heart, and one might even find an added motivation to be active rather than remain passive. No relevant information on the issue being at my disposal I must regard the issue without resolve and thus irrelevant. My thoughts were directed further in the abstract, wondering whether a meaning could be discerned, so as to find a reason not to push such a button. My quest to find the meaning of this meaning remained fruitless.I could certainly imagine that life would be valuable, enjoying things like music, the company of friends and delicacies, but why these experiences should not be reducible to pleasure I could not see, so that their presence could only avert pushing the button if the enjoyment they bring would surpass the pain from other experiences qualitatively or quantitatively. That this is not the case can be denied by no one who earnestly reflects on his life. Nevertheless, I wondered if a less radical alternative, if available, might not be preferable. It was at that time that I noticed a third sign, reading Would you push a button that would fast-forward your life? If such an action were undertaken, less extreme results would follow than in the former case. All events would take place, but in such a way that I would not vividly experience them, or rather even experience them at all. Any plans I might realize would still come to fruition, but the pains and pleasures normally experienced as the necessary would be forgone. I would skip them and die immediately. Here, too, the only task to be undertaken would be to determine their proportions. Even a meaning of life, whatever that may mean, would not seem to preclude the necessity of pushing the button by anyone analyzing the matter with the thoroughness and willingness it warrants.As I continued, the plant life became less pervasive and I was enlightened, perhaps in more than one way. Having discovered more about myself than is good for anyone with a desire to cling to the sanity needed to conduct ones life in an orderly manner, I had left the woods but did not know whence to proceed. All the sanity I presently find is summoned in a quest for either of the two buttons. In their absence I consider the menial tasks that constitute a viable alternative to others a pitiful alternative. Absent the means to reach ones goal, a numb mind is the greatest blessing.

-Christine Bryant

EGGSPins holding my dresss hemprick fingertips belonging to no one, like unwanted Oriole eggs, fingerprints on white shells,abandoned in a lonesome habitat of crabapple blossoms.

Only when they hatch, and on days when her urges press onward, the golden gowned female returns,flies in and out of realms, blossoms, cascades around her nest by the shore.Who tends to the small chirping children in this world, mouths open and dry

another female in a golden gowndressed as motherspitting up fruit flies, little black insects with iridescent markings?Until someone kisses the wound, faintly touches the untouched cheekand I see a shimmer of red hair and gown.

Self Portrait ProjectionMy arms are not a mothers

coupled in kin and kitchen plates. This is notabout him (tourmaline stones)

undoing slopes of my curvature hip on canvas swirlor oiled tongue of the last onesprint.

Post-Op.I round my pulsating corewith pulsing palm that glowsacross laparoscopic scarsand Im still a woman

drying out and drinking willow barkfrom glass sunk to meadowby a farmers silo,

drunk on low strungcords of a guitarthats away. I pinch fat aroundmy stomach,

rub liquid on myskin waiting. Until a hawk callsfrom a birch tree,harmony?

soonit is joking,Probably. It's God.

Dear UterusI should cut you outyou backed up machineyou empty oven

smoking last nights pot roastwhat would work bewithout your stabbingheal easyol girl--shhhh

NJ TurnpikeA screech owl shit on my windshield as it tornadoed noonelectromagnetic in iTune rain. There all wet, in glisteningbillboard clef, anothers feathers radiatebraves airport

downwind New York City. Screeches are aboundmeadowland tollboothsintimate in residue. What a glorious bong!

Hurricane Sandy, Belmar NJThe sea drownedour home washed black-tops sleek slithered

asbestos foundations. I thought cyclone

under an old threshold drinking windlike seagullsgossip: bungalows black outage air boulders

as strangers budged

in ocean ink smudged photos

drippingformer lovers

EyeAsbury Park pushes open, splits black seato choppy, piercing taciturnstares gliding topsof wool hats to the smashed rivers beaten bank.

I live right therein bricks and buckled salt-wornboards. I remember being naked submerged in the unsound

lies of gulls whose thoughts told me it was youI was on the brass bed listening to buss screeching halt

you by the wrought iron gate, agape and unfolding

The Violin Beneath My Bed Vivaldis Four Seasonsounds on violins crafted in beautiful midnight-mania by unknown luthiers: fingers slipping on strings wound tight around tuning pegs, bows fraying porousribbons of horsehair, locks of great stallions that once rose in stampeding winds.

I can hear barren wilderness screaming, bleak horizonscrying out hollow melodic posts,

the dormant oak corpus mute inside my inherited, blue canvas case untouched, as if frozen in the chalice of winter.

To DorothyIf you were maternal, Grandmother, together wed enjoy gourmet chocolates at my kitchen table, clay mugs of aromatic teas, like jasmine you steeped for me when I was six.

Id show you where I walk,beyond the silo, through yellow meadows,pointing out buzzards hovering lowto witness us among dandelion ghosts.

Still, when a solemn doe feeds in the distance, I envision a mirage from childhood never etched into memory: gazing out the panes of your French doors, your hand pressed to my shoulder, whispers of deerbeyond our wooded borders...ones Ive never seen.

Martin Ramrez Drawing: Horse on Stage A Stallion embarks wildflowerstages, the rhythm of rolling hills- catchingfibers of napkin to pen.Next he creates curtains,hooves stampingsorrel legs like stiltswhich clack wooden floor as his tapping shoes.He is even more feral than the wild horse, bound by oppression spotlights,straps of fluorescent walls.

-Lauren Schmidt

NeedI need to eat / the table / if I am that hungry, / need to appreciate / what is / before me, / not / what is not, / slather it / with mayonnaise / if I have to. / I need/the television/ in my dreams / to have closed-

captioning / provided by / better spellers / and maybe a decoder / other than Freud. / I need/the phone /of the last lie / I told /myself/ to stopringing, /need it / to go directly/ to voicemail,

give it a call back / later. / I need/ the bags under my eyes / to have more / compartments/and zippers I wont catch my finger in. / I need /happiness / to cling / a bit longerfor steam

is too easily streaked from glassbecause need rises inside me/ until it doesnt, / like when I stub my toe / and a flap of skin opens, / a trapdoor I collapse through. / Suddenly, just / my bloody toe.

The Day the Train Stood Still for Hours For Eric

I barrel down my tracks with an athletic will huffing gray-purple plumes into the air of this no-name town, just one block from the high school.

I roll over the bird heads you kids put there, flatten and disfigure them despite the dangerthat it could send me wheeling off my rails.

A few miles northward, I speed through woods whose leaves embed scrapped bottles of beer, invisible wintering critters, and the body

I ripped through. The boy stuck his head out to see me hurtle around the bend, then pressed his cheek against the cold, humming steel to sleep.

Didnt you hear my cries of warning,see red lights flashing, or the bars I lowered to stop the towns cars from crossing?because

this boy always stood too close (eyes closed as if dreaming) and his coattails would lift in wind behind him like large, dark wings waiting to be clipped.

DevotionHis fingers fumble to refit the clasp of his ladys bracelet as he once fidgeted at the hook-and-eye behind her back in their first darkness together, eager to feel her flesh

That night, she giggled at his clumsy hands

Both giggle now at his bumbling. He drops the bracelet twice before pulling her wrist to his eyes and cocking his neck like a pigeon to inspect the delicate trap that gives him such trouble That night, she reached behind to release her supple youth, her breasts full and round against his chiseled chin, but he shook his head and refocused

Still giggling like children, though her breasts and his jowls droop, she waves him off and starts to put the bracelet in her purse. But he, determined as that young man in the dark, persists in refitting the bracelet to the wrist he kisses.

RebellionIn the backyard sheda childs stride from the pool,just behind the garage,near the fence dividing our homes,built atop the small patchof grass we used to pee on we compare

our underthings.I pull aside my bathing suit, you shuck and shimmydown the waist of your trunks. We shrug.

But still the shed swellswith sweet summer heat,swirls with the stench of just-cut grass caught in the mower.Tools wilt on wallslike unrequited questions.Insects riddle the floor.Our bodies buzz, layers of skin lift and twist into the texture of a lingering fig. Outside at the picnic table, we smile

and share the seedy fruitmy mother chunked in bowls for us.I see the wash of your biteroll clear as it dripsfrom your lips and chin.

Your mouth presses againstmy pink-lipped grin.You taste like watermelon, I say. We shrug.

Bees buzz, bugs scuttle,mowers rattle in the distance. The summer still full of light

To the ClearingWe did not point fingers at each other when we learned we had no bug repellant. Never any blame. Instead,

we hiked into the wilderness anyway, ten miles up and back to the start. And you, better furred, armed against

the pointed kisses mosquitoes left on the backs of my legs, arms, the meat and muscle of my hideeverywhere flesh softens

over bone to make the shape of a woman. Quit being such a girl, you teased, and silently, I forged on. For the four miles up

the speech-stealing trail where every step was a stick breaking, a leaf mincing beneath our tread, I smacked the bugs

into tiny bloody crosses on my skin, said not another word. At the fifth mile, a lake. I slipped

the waist of my pants down my hamstrings, feeling the rake of every wound. I pulled my shirt over my head

and the sleeves stuck to my stinging, oozing arms. When I turned to face you, I saw the way you

looked at my skinbadged with bites, red with welts all because Id kept to myself. We turned back.

(But didnt we owe it to each other to keep going though you were tired and I, stiff and knotted like a tree? Because the trek was more than ten miles: it was the winding two hours drive we both feared, especially the last

three miles to the trailhead where the turns grew tighter around the mountains rim; it was the last

half-mile on our feet, the push to the clearing

where I could not feel my toes having scrunched them so hard on the climb they tingled in an imitated freeze.)

That night a fever smothered me: one hundred and three on top of one hundred degrees outside.

On your knees next to our bed, you held wet compresses to my head, lifted a glass of water to my lips.

Your hands soothed calamine lotion all over the throbbing lumps. I had the urge to blame you, then,

but I could see how sorry you were. For not believing me or not loving meI could not decide which.

Second Drink For my Grandfather and the dreams my mother has of him On my pillow bit by bit waking, suddenly I hear a cicada cry at that moment I know Ive not died, though past days are like a former existence. I want to go to the window, listen closer, but even with a cane I cant manage. Before long like you Ill shed my shell and drink again the clear brightness of the dew. (Start of Autumn: Hearing a Cicada While Sick in Bed by Chi-Chi)

On your pillow, bit by bit waking, dreams of playground slides, highways, swatches of sky all scatter into the fume of your first breath, waking.Bit by bit, on your pillow, you wake

and suddenly you hear a cicada cry from its flaky tomb. Caked in green, a fresh buzz breakingthe silence of an eight oclock light, a clear cicada cry.Suddenly, you hear a cicada cry,

and at that moment, you know you have not died. Now, an armada of cicadas, in an apocalyptic quaking,soars from the trees that have not died.Neither, at that moment, have you,

though past days are like a former existence, cast in a tomb, gilded in achinglike the words of a song that only in memory exist.Future days, too, are like a former existence.

You want to go to the window, listen closer to the cicadas rise, their resurrection, their remaking,but your withered legs cannot bring you closer.You want to go to the window, listen closer,

but even with a cane, you cant manage. Never in your daughters dreams are your legs forsakentheyre your wings, your wheels, your dreams imaginingbut even with a cane, you cant manage.

Before long, like the cicada, youll shed your shell your apocalyptic limbs regaining, reshapingstronger now than used to be. Strong like the cicada, youll shed your shell.Before long, like the cicada, youll shed your shell

and drink again the clear brightness of the dew. Youll drink again the clear brightness of the dew,and bit by bit, you will wake.

The Room Toss Villanelle The Haven House for Women and Children

You better wash your hands tonight.

You dont know what is hiding, or what youre looking for,

but this is your job, so you better do it right.

Youve flipped through the childrens books the mothers read at night.

Youve picked through baby clothes, nudged opened closet doors.

You better wash your hands tonight.

Youve shoved your fingers in their shoes, searched under mattresses with a flashlight.

Youve rifled through their bed sheets, scoured their underwear drawers.

But this is your job, so you better do it right.

Youve peaked behind picture frames for something to indict.

Youve held necklaces to your chest, wondered if theyre paid for.

You better wash your hands tonight.

Youve knocked things down youve never placed upright.

Youve left precious things overturned, broken, or on the floor.

But this is your job, so you better do it right.

Youve pored over the mothers diaries, their dreams burial site,

and youve scoffed at the many things theyve said theyre sorry for.

But this is your job, and you know youve done it right. Just make sure before you leave, you scrub your hands hard tonight.

The Social Worker and the English Lesson The Haven House for Homeless Mothers and Children

All of us agree that Milagrosmust improveher English.

Even Milagrosagrees shemust improveher English.

No one will everlet her sit at a deskand answer phonesif she doesnot improveher English,

and she just cant stay here forever, ya know.So, I took it upon myself to help Milagros improveher English.

Todayafter months and months, and monthsall my hard work is done,

cause when Milagros heardher daughter say,Mam, tengohambre,she whacked heron the mouth, ya know,she gave her the backof the hand. Her daughter frozefor a moment,then screamed, ya know,some horrible noise, ya knowcould have been Spanish,definitely wasnt English.

I could tell Milagros was sorry because she pulled her childs face to her own, and said, Mom, Im hungry, then she kissed the tears away.

Was it hard to watch? Sure, ya know, Im a mother too.But I didnt write the rules to this placeIm just trying to do my job.

After-Love Love Variation on a line from Gwendolyn Brooks

I hold my honey and I store my bread,but Id rather taste you, honey, come to your bed:

Id warm you with wiles, bread-and-butter your propriety, And ease you with oaths of the honeyed variety.

Id wait in your breadline for what is in store,And Id honeycomb new coves for you to explore.

Id uphold your deep secrets like a store-front display,And Id honey your lips and be your sweet-tooth decay.

Id storehouse your scent, leg-hold to your hips,And tongue your honey-kisses in long sticky sips.

Id unlatch and unlid the breadth of my legs,Breadbasket your milk, your cream, and your eggs.

Yet honeysuckle stores like wet-molded bread,so it is better, my honey, that I dont come to your bed.

Til Death For Andrew and Donna

When I die, bury me in those earrings, the ones you raked through an Exxon trashcan, filthy and bare-handed, to find

those two diamonds twisted in a tissue chucking half-chewed fast food and gas slips over your shoulder.

When I die, cross my legs lotus-style, right over left. I want to be stuffed in the ground this way because its how Im most comfortable,

but if Im going to be stuck in one position, love, I wish it were under you. (Even though your body- weight caused chronic Costochondritis

and your thigh draped over me once bruised a rib in my sleep.) I know youll want any one day back, the way I wanted your

sidewalk chalk van Gogh after that August-warm torrent took it from the drive. I know youll want to see me

in that dress again, the one I wore the night you didnt have to ask because everything answered: Yes. I saved the ease of next days waking

for you because when I die, dies with me the sleep you get after a day at the beach, the sleep that drops you off into the kind of darkness you need to feel

your way out of. I hate to say it, but you should give up sweets, love, because when I die, dies with me the day a plum is perfect for eating. You can just forget how good the grass feels, the air at seven in the evening because it all goes, everything, with the heart I gave you at fifteen. You carry it now,

I know: a pulsing, bloody mess in a tissue. But one day, youll pick through an Exxon trashcan hoping to return it to mewaiting

in the car, my face a rain-streaked Starry Sky because, love, youre covered in all Ive left behind

At the Strip ClubThree nightly ladies, naked, bodies wound around their poles,hang upside down like bats, somepterosaurus lady-rexesenveloped in black patagiums tatsas parachutes to slow their fall, their glide from grace. The dark and disc-winged millsenwomb, still-birth their souls inside a caul, chilled by the fan of batting dollar bills.A downward spin, a Dante-esquedescent to dim the light to their prehistorywhere breathing dreams are soon to be extinctreduced to ultraviolet witchery.And while cannonical hours wane softly into light,are these condemned to undivided night.

-Shannon Lee Grooms

Collecting Dust

I sit quietly on the passenger side of my fathers red and white Ford pickup, looking down at my legs, watching as the sun kisses then jumps back and forth from each of the blonde hairs as I moved them. Its terribly hot out and takes only minutes for my skin to stick to the leather. A combination of the heat and my discomfort cause sweat to collect itself in the crease of my legs. I hate my legs. I hate the hair on them. I wish I didnt have to wait until I was thirteen to shave. Then maybe he wouldnt run his callused fingers over them like he does.

I look at everything I can inside the truck, then count the cars passing us on the road beside us. One didnt come by for awhile; so I run my finger against the crack in the dashboard. Its been there since this was Hanks truck. The crack is in the shape of a large nose and I wonder how it ended up such a perfect outline of one on accident. My dad told me that the sun made it crack that way. I do anything I can not to make eye contact with him. I have to pretend when I look at him; pretend that I am not scared, that I dont know whats going on. I have to pretend that I love him, and pretend that Im his little girl. I hear him talking to my mom on the payphone. He is yelling and smoking at the same time. There isnt a moment when he doesnt have a Marlboro Red hanging from his bottom lip. Ginger colored dirt lines the road, and I follow his toes with my eyes as he scratches a shape of a circle with a cross in the middle into the ground, then smudges over it with his flip flop. My eyes trace up his legs; stopping on the scar on his right knee from the surgery he had a few years ago. It looks like two mangled caterpillars on top of each other and is in the shape of a backwards c, or smiley face from this angle.

I can feel through the window and phone that my mother is crying. I overhear him tell her that she made it this way and that he just wants to be a family again. I dont know why we cant just go home. I dont remember hearing them fight the last night I slept in my bed. I usually always hear them when they do. Sometimes the screams put me to sleep, because though my mom is yelling-I know that Im safe because she is home. Plus, I dont like it at the other Hanks house. I dont want to stay there another night. There are cockroaches everywhere and I dont think his daughter, Dawn, likes me. I slept on her bedroom floor next to her last night, knowing that he wouldnt itch to touch me there. Sometimes I see that his eyes want to, but he never does it around other people.

It happens more often than it used to, and is beginning to be all that I can think about. The days seem so far apart but pass quickly in between. I think he does it once a week now and I wonder when he will do it next. Will I look away or close my eyes? Will my answer finally change when he asks if it hurts, or if Im okay? I lay there awake next to Dawn, smelling the stench of her dirty hair while I wonder if her daddy touches her too. Maybe he does, and thats why she is so mean. Maybe this is common after all. Maybe, but I dont know why everyone made such a silent ruckus about it after I told about Grandpa Hank. I was confused. I told my dad about what happened and he held me tight, as if he was gonna protect me. I pretended as if he didnt call me into the bathroom of the trailer behind Mr. Silver and Whins Hardware Store, just weeks, maybe days before, and asked me to soap him up. Everything is so strange so I stay quiet most of the time.

The sun is blazing and I want so bad to roll down the window further than the crack he broke apart before he got out, but I dont. I pray to something I dont believe inasking to go home, back to my mom, but before I say amen, the door opens and he gets back in. Im sometimes torn between fears and existing comfortably. This is what I know, and though it doesnt feel right, it is all I know. Your momma wont let us come home. Im sorry but this is how its gotta be til shes thinking straight again.

I say nothing in response. I dont believe him. I know that my mom wants me back home and would yell if she knew I was at Dirty Hanks house anyways. She knew what they did over there, smoking dope and drinking all day.

I stare out of the dusty window, across the interstate at the Wendys, and wish that instead, I was with Grandma getting a frosty. Its so hot out and I bet one would taste real good now.

He looked down and over at me and asked if I was hungry before he shifted into drive. I said no, though I hadnt eaten since that nasty Spam Hank made for us girls the night before. I never liked spam, or asparagusbut learned better than to not eat it a few Thanksgivings ago.

Well, I am, he said as we pulled away.

I watched the dust scatter out from beneath the tires in the mirror.

CONTRIBUTORSFrankie Lopes is in his senior year of studying creative writing at Fairleigh Dickinson University. His work has also been published in, Tran(s)tudies Literary Journal, Scribblers Literary Magazine, The Fat-City Review, White Ash Literary Magazine, and Post-Road Literary Magazine. He lives in Matawan, New Jersey.SaraGrace Stefan is a seventeen-year-old from Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey. She has been writing about giant bugs, runaway children, and magical lands since she was a little girl. Her current, more poetic writing is now her buoy amidst a sea of college applications and homework assignments. Her book Hands to Hold for People Trying Not to Cry in Public Places is available on www.Lulu.com

A schoolteacher and Adjunct Professor,Mariana Sierra is a Puerto Rican emigrant currently inhabiting New York's backyard. Her poetry, which more often than not is catharsis, has appeared in both academic and literary journals.Jasper Doomen is a Lecturer in Law at Leiden University and has previously worked in the same capacity, inter alia, at Utrecht University. He holds an M.A. in Philosophy (Leiden University, 2003), an A.B. in Philosophy of a Specific Discipline (Leiden University, 2005) and a J.D. (Utrecht University, 2005). His publications mainly deal with topics in the fields of Philosophy and Law.Christine Bryantreceived a Master of Arts in English with a Concentration in Creative Writing- Poetry from Monmouth University whom awarded her the English Award for Graduate Study. Additionally, Columbia Universitys School of the Arts awarded her The Writing Program Scholarship for their Master of Fine Arts Program in Writing. Christine'spoems are published in the 2011- 2013 issues ofMonmouth Review. She has worked as an Adjunct Professor of Writing at Rowan University and Berkeley College in NJ and presently teaches at Hudson County Community College and Brookdale Community College. Lauren Schmidt is the author of three collections of poetry: Two Black Eyes and a Patch of Hair Missing; The Voodoo Doll Parade, selected for the Main Street Rag Authors Choice Chapbook Series; and Psalms of The Dining Room, a sequence of poems about her volunteer experience at a soup kitchen in Eugene, Oregon.Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in journals such as North American Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, Rattle, Nimrod, Fifth Wednesday Journal, New York Quarterly, Bellevue Literary Review and The Progressive. Her awards include the So to Speak Poetry Prize, the Neil Postman Prize for Metaphor, The Janet B. McCabe Prize for Poetry, and the Bellevue Literary ReviewsVilcek Prize for Poetry. Schmidt is an Instructor of Developmental English at Passaic County Community College. She also volunteer teaches creative writing at a transitional house for homeless mothers and is a Poet-in-the-Schools for Paterson Public Schools.Shannon Lee Grooms majored in Womens and Gender Studies at The College of New Jersey. Shannons senior capstone project focused on developing plans for restructuring the Gay Straight Alliances in New Jersey middle and high schools to be more trans* inclusive. She participated in a six-week faculty led study-tour in Tanzania, funded partly with a Laurenti Scholarship for Study Abroad. Further, as a MUSE scholar, Shannon researched womens contributions in the Tanzanian liberation movement, where she presented her research findings at the National Womens Studies Association Conference in Oakland, CA in 2012 with Dr. Marla Jaksch (TCNJ). Shannon is a member of the Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society and Triple Triota, the National Womens and Gender Studies Honor Society. She graduated Magna Cum Laude and was recognized with the Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon LGBT Activist Award for a graduating senior in the class of 2013.

Front and back cover art based on photography by Taylor Ann Polito.

See you all in the fall, long after the snow faded into dusty leaves swept by in a summer that came and went in a flash.