I S S U E 10 · S P R I N G 2 0 1 3
Bestiary: the best of the inaugural demi-decade
Guest Editor
GINA OCHSNER
FOUNDING EDITOR
Colin Meldrum
FICTION EDITOR
Amanda Lyn DiSanto POETRY EDITOR
Lisa McCool-Grime
COVER & SECTION ILLUSTRATOR
Anna Bron
A cappella Zoo (ISSN: 1945-7480): a magazine of magic realism and slipstream. A cappella Zoo was founded in 2008 as an independent, labor-of-love publication.
Contributions to this special issue were selected by award-winning author Gina
Ochsner (www.ginaochsner.com). All illustrations were done by artist Anna Bron
except where otherwise credited to contributors Cheryl Gross and Gavin Faherty.
Support A cappella Zoo and its contributors by sharing your favorite stories and
poems with friends and colleagues. Enjoy.
Copyright © 2013 All rights retained by authors/artists of respective works.
www.acappellazoo.com
Contents
5
a conversation with GINA OCHSNER
F I C T I O N P O E T R Y
· Aquarium ·
11
The Creature from the Lake
Ginny
16
HAYES MOORE
ELIZABETH O’BRIEN
17 The Life Story of a Chilean Sea Blob Versions 27 THEODORE CARTER ALI LANZETTA
30 The Sand Ship selections from
In the Circus of You NICELLE DAVIS &
CHERYL GROSS
33 CLAIRE MASSEY
40 The Collector of Van de Voys
EDMOND CALDWELL
46 Brunhilde’s Escape
DANYA GOODMAN
· Phylum ·
49
Proximity
Dialysis
63
JOSH DENSLOW
PATRICK SUGRUE
64 Postcards from Home three Conrad poems 72
JOHN JASPER OWENS KRISTINE ONG MUSLIM
75 The Sacrosancts
RACHEL ADAMS
The Story of Jimmy
Draws-So-Small
84 81 Larva
RANDOLPH SCHMIDT ROBIN PATRIC CLAIR
F I C T I O N P O E T R Y
86
When the Weather Changes You
AMBER SPARKS
93 War Crumbs Reintroduction 97
JOE KAPITAN
JEFF PEARSON
· Shelter ·
101
part one of Atomic Summer
Flowers, Shears
108
ANTON BAER
MICHAEL SCHMELTZER
109 Requiem for a Glass Heart from The Centipede Love Songs 113
ROXANE GAY
DANIEL PORDER
115 Oldjohn’s House This is the House That 123 MICAH DEAN HICKS
SHELLIE ZACHARIA
124 Three Times Red an excerpt from the human-suit series
JESSICA YOUNG
127 A. A. BALASKOVITS
130 Stain
MARIA DEIRA
· Topiary ·
133
Take Up the Bonnet Rouge
an excerpt from
Lilith’s Extra Rib ALANA I. CAPRIA
139 CHANTEL TATTOLI
141 A Theory of Music WALTER BARGEN
144 The Watchmaker Beauty School 149 ERIC SCHALLER MARY LOU BUSCHI
150 The Legs Come Off Easily The Adventures of Starfish Girl 157 EMILY J. LAWRENCE LINDSAY MILLER
160 The Wooden Grandpa Man without a Wishbone 162 KURT NEWTON
PRARTHO SERENO
· Crematorium ·
165
When the World Ends
Leaving La Dulce Vida
177 NICOLE MIYASHIRO
MARTIN OTT & JOHN F. BUCKLEY
179 Trouble in Mind Eclipse 192 JULIA A. ROSENTHAL FENG SUN CHEN
F I C T I O N P O E T R Y
193
The Rocket in the Sky
Teaching a Post Lunar World
201 ANDREW MITCHELL
CAITLIN THOMSON
202 Dearest Dirty Dig 218 TINA HYLAND & GAVIN FAHERTY MARGARET BASHAAR
219 Popper’s Choice The Gun Game 221 ROBERT EDWARD SULLIVAN
BENJAMIN CLARK &
COLIN WINNETTE
222 Transaction
REDFERN BARRETT
· Sacrarium ·
243
What Follows Us
In the Emily Dickinson Museum
247
ADAM MCOMBER
MARGARET WALTHER
248
The Paranormal Guide
to Wedding Etiquette
Kentucky-Fried Christ
261 PEDRO PONCE C. E. CHAFFIN
262 The End of the Objects Tale of the Avian Saint 273 JACK KAULFUS WILLIAM KEENER
274 Finding Your Way to the Coast Ballad of Conjure 284 JULIE DAY
FELICIA ZAMORA
285 La Chanson de l’Observation Beelzebubstomp 296 BERNARD M. COX
M. P. POWERS
· Aviary ·
299
Showtime
Circling of Cranes
306
NANCY GOLD
CHARLENE LOGAN BURNETT
307 Birds Every Child Should Know Sigilism 315
KATE RIEDEL
JOHN MYERS
316 Calling Rain The History of Sexuality 330
LORA RIVERA
JOSEPH HARRINGTON
332 Old Myths Magic Realists in Love 335
COLLIN BLAIR GRABAREK
LINDA ANN STRANG
Notes on Contributors
336
5
a conversation with
GINA OCHSNER
Gina lives in Oregon and divides her time between writing and teaching at Corban
University and with the Seattle Pacific Low-Residency MFA program. She has been
awarded a John L. Simon Guggenheim grant and a grant from the National
Endowment of Arts. She speaks at universities, retreats, conferences, schools, and
book clubs on creativity, magic realism, flash fiction, prose poetry, the intersection
of art and faith, and other topics related to writing. Her stories have appeared in
The New Yorker, Tin House, Glimmer Train, and The Kenyon Review. She is the
author of the short story collection The Necessary Grace to Fall, which received the
Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction, and the story collection People I
Wanted to Be. Both books received the Oregon Book Award. Her first novel, The
Russian Dreambook of Colour and Flight, was published by Portobello Press and
Houghton-Mifflin-Harcourt.
COLIN: Based on your selections for this collection, how would you
describe A cappella Zoo’s landscape?
GINA: I’m struck by the frolicsome, mischievous nature of so many of these
pieces. Though the subject matter of much of the work is deep—dark
even—the treatment rarely is and I think that this suggests a profound love
of language among these writers.
COLIN: One of my favorite of your stories, “How One Carries Another,”
is a contemplative, unique sort of ghost story, and it’s certainly not the
only one you’ve written. We’ve seen zombie and vampire fads dominate
popular media lately, but would you agree that ghosts have kept a more
consistent seat at the story sharing table? Why don’t we tire of ghost
stories?
GINA: I would agree that ghosts do in fact inhabit a more consistent seat.
Ghosts will outlast any bloodthirsty vampire or brain-deprived zombie
because the idea of ghosts being present among us speaks to a collective
desire between both living and dead to remain connected. I don’t know of
any culture that doesn’t have some kind of a “position” as to the presence
and meaning of ghosts (either as the subject of rumor and tales or as
accepted “witness” of another time/day). I don’t think I’ll ever tire of ghost
stories because I find them fascinating forays into the world of the
speculative. What happens when a person dies? Where does the soul go?
6
What happens if someone were to become stuck for a time between two
worlds? What reason would a person have for hanging around and making
noise? Is it just noise or is there some larger message meant to be pieced
together? I suspect magic realists Gabriel García Márquez and Isabel
Allende found ghosts to be useful manifestations of history, of adding
complexity and texture to the narrative and to other characters. And what
better way to show the contradictions inherent in living than by rousting a
ghost who can hold up the mirror, so to speak.
AMANDA: In a 2005 interview with Writer’s Digest, you mentioned a
special love for the short story form. Since then you’ve published your
first novel. Now that you’ve experienced writing in both short and long
forms, has your view of short stories changed? What do you think the
short story form offers readers?
GINA: I don’t think I’ll ever abandon the short story form. In fact, when I’m
feeling quite stuck on a longer project (and this happens more often than I
like to admit) I go to the creative sandbox, a soup of words and images, that
place of wonder and astonishment and surprise. I go to play, to have some
low down messy fun. And inevitably I’ll emerge elbow deep in story. Short
stories are like a burst of fireworks—energy only momentarily contained. I
can’t think of a more fluid, malleable form.
LISA: Unlike many literary journals, A cappella Zoo is fiction heavy.
While we hope to appeal to a broad range of readers, our intended
primary audience is fiction readers, an idea we keep in mind even when
considering poetry for publication. What’s in store in this anthology’s
poetry for readers who don’t normally seek out poetry?
GINA: I think that the mark of a successful piece, whether fiction, drama,
essay or poem rests in the strength of the imagery and language. The poems
in A cappella Zoo are particularly image rich, image driven. Because of this,
I find the poetry evocative and yet, accessible. These pieces are built of
blood, bone, skin, and dreams you can sink a fork and knife into.
COLIN: You were a keynote speaker at Western Seminary’s 2011 Faith
and Culture Writers Conference and you teach for a private Christian
university. Does being a person of faith play a role in your sense of—or
approach to—magic realism?
GINA: Being a person of faith absolutely plays a role in my sense of and
apprehension of what magic realism is and represents. I believe in the
supernatural as fact, not fiction, and in the miraculous as a part of reality,
not myth. Moreover, magic realism carries special implications for people
of the book who believe in the Word and in the creative power implied in
7
written and particularly, if you look at the biblical accounts, spoken word.
With a few words, let there be, the universe was created. Light separated
from darkness and with another word this world was sent spinning
widdershins to give us night, day. And with a few more words the trees
were taught to weep from their bark, and swift to swallow winter ticked
toward spring. And who knows how many more words it took to tell the
camelia to bleed first and the chrysanthemum last or what dreams the fish
maintained silently in their deep. But the creation account was just one of
many I grew up with and learned to love because what I learned was that
there’s power and life in word. My forays into the Old Testament confirmed
that this world spins on the twin axes of mystery and the miraculous. And
this belief, I think, fuels my vision and perception. Because I believe in an
invisible God I can’t see but who I know exists and moves and has being
and power and manifestation, I will write of the natural and supernatural
world that reflects this belief. So what I take up with in terms of subject
matter is another way that matters of faith intersect with fiction. I’ll confess,
it’s the somewhat nebulous region of story-land where I work out what I
believe and hold to be true. This is the safest place I know to test out
spiritual observations that can be collaborated by the physical world in
which I wake and breathe.
COLIN: As an editorial board, we at A cappella Zoo are on the lookout
for especially memorable works. What are a few selections that you
expect to remember for some time? What surprises did you encounter
while reading for this collection?
GINA: As I read through the submissions, I thought: lucky editors! Lucky
me! How fun these pieces are, how vivid and marvelously constructed. I
was delighted to see a wide range of magic realism represented and written
with such steady hands. So much can go so wrong with magic realist pieces
and I admired the clear cogent vision and articulation in these pieces. I
admired each of the poems and found particular delight in “Ginny,” “Magic
Realists in Love,” “Sigilism,” “Tale of the Avian Saint,” “Teaching a Post
Lunar World,” and “In the Emily Dickinson Museum.” Though I’ve singled
these pieces out, I’d like to note that every poem burns with a bright interior
light, every piece offers unexpected movement, dynamism. The fragmented
architecture in the story “Transaction” parallels a frightening world in
which every action, word, or gesture holds potential positive or negative
commercial value, a world not wholly unfamiliar to us. For sheer
imagination and inventiveness I admired “The Sand Ship,” “The End of the
Objects,” “Larva,” “Proximity,” and “Popper’s Choice.” Language, a keen
attention to detail, and sound prevail in “Oldjohn’s House.” “Dearest
Dirty,” “Requiem For a Glass Heart,” and “Three Times Red” employ the
fairy tale format and tone in which we are promised a bit of wisdom, and in
each case, these writers deliver.
8
LISA: In your opinion, why do A cappella Zoo and other platforms for
magic realist writing matter? AMANDA: And what can this collection
offer writers who seek guidance or inspiration?
GINA: I think journals like A cappella Zoo in which magic realism is
presented as a viable and legitimate form for narrative and image-rich
poetry are vital. A cappella Zoo reminds us of the primal need for narrative
in which the otherworldly, the strange, the supernatural is allowed off the
leash for a little while, allowed to visibly collide with the known “real”
world. The collision sparks the questions: what is real and what isn’t and
how am I altered by what I believe or perceive to be real or true? What
would happen if . . . ? Let’s suppose for a little while that . . . Entertaining
such questions, such speculative acts, allows for a re-seeing—a revision as
well as discovery. Magic realism teaches us how to read extended
metaphor, how to tweeze meaning out of disparate things, how to use our
own imaginations to animate worlds in which anything can happen and
likely will.
· Aquarium ·
. . . above-water, i’m belly up watching his
jugular inflate and deflate. i guess his heart does that.
“do you float?” it asks me. “i do,” i say quietly . . .
—versions
11
The Creature from the Lake
HAYES MOORE
im’s instinct is to kill. He is too civilized to kill. Instead, he saves
things. Right now he is on a ladder saving the rain-gutters.
The creature is underwater. She drifts in circles along the pool’s floor,
following the side of the pool. I think she is searching for algae. I think she
is hungry. Despite her enormity she is surprisingly nimble, as a whale must
be. When the side of the pool suddenly gives way to steps at the shallow
end, she strokes out a startlingly deft spin, accelerating with grace until she
finds her wall again.
I think Tim likes it up there, on top of his house, saving the rain gutters.
After a week of rain and clouds, the sun is finally out. I am at the
poolside Formica table, underneath a canvas umbrella. I am supervising.
The creature bobs up for air and then sinks back down, bulbous and alien in
her tinted goggles, hairpins, and the black one-piece I insisted on. Tim says
the suit isn’t natural. But, I say, neither are we.
It has been a humid summer. The begonias are thriving. The slugs are
too. They slink around the granulated rim of the pool. A family of robins
defends an elm from a blue jay. As the creature slipped into the water I
watched a squirrel chase another squirrel across the edge of the faded-pink
plank fence, up an elm, and then disappear in a leap on the tiled rooftop of
the neighboring house.
The air is redolent of chlorine and leaves mulching in the last rainfall.
I glance at my watch and then get up to wave and shout for the creature
to come out; it’s feeding time. She complies. She waddles up the steps on
the shallow end like a molluscan monster, like the blob. She has no toes.
Water droplets sparkle like crystals over her body. She has a smooth, pallid
hide. Patches of cellulite mottle her legs. Her back and arms are scratched
from Lake Stonewell’s rocky shore. Offset by her paleness, the scars
glimmer scabrous red.
She has healed quickly. She needs to be returned.
When the creature’s bathing suit is off and I’m towel-patting her dry in
the shade of the umbrella, Tim climbs down from the roof.
Like her belly, the creature’s breasts are full and heavy. She is a
globular thing.
Tim is bare-chested, too. He does not come under the umbrella. Flecks
of leaf are caught in his chest hair. Despite the heat, he has stopped
trimming his beard. Like his shoulders and back, his beard is a dark,
earthen-ware red. The unkempt hair on his head, which is dark brown, is
T
12 · The Creature from the Lake
flattened with sweat. His eyes, a darker brown, roam over the creature.
“Should we take out the hairpins?” He says.
“No,” I say. “She needs to eat.”
He stretches, like a plant absorbing sunlight.
The creature observes us behind the tinted goggles.
The creature’s eyes are pink and sensitive and swell up under bright
light. I believe that she is accustomed to the darkness of lake bottoms. I
believe she is nocturnal. For the past week, since we found her, we have
kept the house lights dim. We are finally using our candles. I usher the
creature into our cadaverous living room through the back sliding-door. It is
cool and still and smells like scented candles—like vanilla, key-lime pie,
and sweetened lavender.
Inside, I put Tim’s bathrobe around the creature and seat her on the
sofa. I go to the kitchen to heap a plate with lettuce. We have kept her fed
by scavenging the dumpster behind the local grocery store. Her diet is a
turtle’s diet.
Tim comes in soon after the creature has begun to eat. He is still
shirtless. She is on the sofa, the plate perched on her lap. Tim goes to the
kitchen and comes back with a beer. He stoops down to kiss my cheek. I am
sorry for him because I want him to shave his beard and I know that if I ask,
he will. I will not ask. I am not his mom.
Tim goes to the creature and, standing before her, he says, “I’m going
to take the goggles off now. Okay?” He mimes the removal of goggles, a
bottleneck in his hand.
The creature watches him.
When he reaches toward the side of her head for the goggles, the
creature squirms and, as he touches her, she yanks herself to one side.
Rotting lettuce is flung across the sofa; the plate topples onto the floor. Tim
continues to wrestle with her. He has her on her back on the sofa, his hands
on either side of her head. His back is broad and knotted with muscles like
stones along the lake shore. Her legs kick uselessly in the air. Beer runs
down Tim’s knuckles and drips on the carpet, but he manages to keep the
bottle from spilling. When he draws back he tosses the goggles onto the
lounge chair. Her mouth is open but she is silent. She can only make sounds
when her hair is down. When her hair is down she wails.
She was wailing when we found her. That’s how I found her.
Last Saturday Tim and I went to Stonewell Park. I was against the idea.
The sky was bone gray and the air hummed with mist. But Tim was
determined. He wanted to fish. He said that the best time to fish is during a
storm—I don’t think even he believes that.
I found my parka and decided to go with him. In a relationship it’s
important to do things together. While Tim fished, I planned to hike the
forested hills that encircle the lake.
[STORY CONTINUES IN PRINT ISSUE] Hayes Moore · 13
We parked just off the dirt road that leads to Lake Stonewell’s visitor’s
dock. It was pouring warm rain. I burrowed into my parka. The only
protection Tim had against the rain was a wide-brim hat. All summer he has
said that he likes the rain. I believe him. He followed me into the woods
with his pole and tackle box before forking down to the lake. On the trail, at
least, the trees provided a canopy that took the brunt of the rainfall.
I had been hiking for barely ten minutes when I heard wailing. It
carried over the water as a high, pig-squeal of a cry, part animal and part
banshee. I couldn’t see what it was and was afraid it might be a rabid
animal. Before going any further I forked to the river, hoping for an
obstructed view.
From a distance, squinting across the lake through the rain, I thought
she was a human—someone who had thought to go for a nude swim and
had slipped on the stones, cracked open her skull or broken her back. She
was nearly fifty-yards down the lake, at a point in the shore where the lake’s
edge curves into a small inlet.
I ran back for Tim.
Tim was good—he lives for emergencies, for opportunities to save
things. As soon as I broke through the trees and he saw my face he reacted,
not even reeling in his line, but merely dropping his pole and running to me.
All I told him was that someone needed help.
When we were close the shrieking overwhelmed all other sounds. He
stopped running and stood in the middle of the trail. “God,” he said. “It’s
gorgeous.”
He was right, it was gorgeous: the two of us caught together in the
middle of the forest, breathless with the same adrenal sensitivity, the same
objective, while rain coursed over us, splattering off the leaves of the trees
around us. I wanted to kiss him, for him to kiss me. Then I heard it, briefly.
I glimpsed it then in his eyes but I have not been able to catch it since. The
beauty of her voice escapes me like something just outside of my vision, a
tonal register beyond the grasp of my auditory reach. I sense that it is there,
but it eludes me. At that moment, though, for a brief instant, I heard it too; I
was able to hear what Tim hears when she sings. The creature’s crying is
normally high and plaintive, like a cat’s screeching against my ears—an
unrefined expression of torment. But for a moment, there on the trail, a
melody of some kind emerged from the wailing, a pattern that softened the
grating shrieks and transformed them to something liquid, clear and cool
and fluid. The tone rendered the anguish into a mellifluous beauty. I heard it
for a moment and then it was gone, replaced by the same high-pitched
squeal.
Tim was transfixed. I shoved him and told him to go and the spell
seemed to lift.
He nodded vacantly, water dripping from his nose. His eyes were as
wide and mesmerized with wonder as a child’s. “It’s unbelievable,” he said.
When we reached the forest’s edge she was thrashing on the rocks.