Don’t be Frightened by Appearances

July 2020 | nonfiction

At the orphanage, the Sisters dressed us in street clothes, brown leather shoes, and white socks that standardized our economic backgrounds. Yet, we could distinguish ourselves from one another by our thinness, broken or twisted limbs, cigarette burns, and other scars from abusive parents or caretakers. Even our facial expressions in scallop-edged, black-and-white photos shouted, “Caution!”

The other scars, those internal injuries that no one saw until we cried, bullied each other, or withdrew, we carried years later like a bursting backpack that rounded our adult shoulders wherever we went. Its contents might empty with hard work. But, how many of us pretended we could stand straight when we forged ahead into the world unaware that we needed a better sense of ourselves separate from our accumulated traumas? That we would struggle with forming a stable identity, of becoming autonomous. And how many of those internal scars would keloid into permanent mantras? “I don’t trust you. Love me. Don’t love me.”

But I had optimism. Some days, parents interested in adopting a child would arrive at the orphanage to decide which girl or boy would fit within their family, which one they could picture eating at their kitchen table, which one they could love. Around four or five us pre-selected by the nuns, bathed, and cautioned to behave, waited in a room. We had to smile, stand straight in a line, and not fiddle with one another. If we picked our noses, she added nose-picking. I liked to pick my nose.

While waiting for another nun to bring in potential parents, a Sister waited with us—saplings that one set of parents would pull out by its roots and transplant. She clasped her hands in front of her bib or fingered her rosary at her thigh while she scrutinized us as though attempting to guess which child the parents would select. Afterwards, she nodded her head and smiled at the designated child and parents as though, “Why yes, that is the child I would have selected for you myself.” And while I had waited and hoped they would take me, I continued to look up at them, smiling my best, hoping they would change their mind, their selection. Each time the parents left the room with one of my friends, I wondered why I stood behind.

Perhaps I had forgotten and picked my nose, so they didn’t pick me.

  

Sharon L. Esterly

As a freelance writer and journalist, Sharon has published articles in many newspapers and national magazines. She has taught highschool language arts, written educational grants, and provides private writing lessons to children and adults. She won First Prize in Nonfiction at the Philadelphia Writers Conference, 2016. In their Winter 2020 Issue, the literary journal Ruminate Magazine published a selection from her recently completed memoir, Bastard. At the University of Pennsylvania, she received her MLA in writing and worked for their Critical Writing Program where she edited and published 3808: Journal of Critical Writing, as well as res: A Journal of Undergraduate Research. Additionally, Sharon belongs to the Brandywine Valley Writers Group and The Authors Guild and is a board member at Glen Mills Schools.

Grief Is Round

July 2020 | poetry

The cabbage knows

only one thing—to head.

The moon looks like a cabbage

or a head but it isn’t either.

Moonlight veils my window

unwelcome down the walls,

too much and in the wrong place.

Dripping sounds keep me awake.

 

There is no way to contain

moonlight or mop it up.

It pulls on the near skin of the earth,

stretches and makes waves.

I dream here is a huge baby,

round faced, that I have to care for.

I do, and it gets smaller. The moon

is often a metaphor–breast, eye,

fingernail, communion wafer,

scab–yet it is still just the moon.

 

Mary Jean Port

Mary Jean Port is a three-time Pushcart Prize nominee. Her chapbook of poems,“The Truth About Water,” was published in 2009 by Finishing Line Press. She recently had poems published on Indolent Press’ poem-a-day site, “What Rough Beast,” in “Leaping Clear,” and in “ellipsis….” She has work forthcoming from “The Halcyone.” She lives in Minneapolis, where she taught at The Loft Literary Center for twenty years.

Well Shod

July 2020 | poetry

They gentrify the old West with python & ostrich

or click the homesick heels of ruby, the lazy

slip-on slip-off of loafers, inventions of slogans pithy—

moon shoes: mini trampolines for your tootsies.  My father’s

army of polished Florsheim nines line up in his closet

in his closet like an obedient narrow-sized parade, my new

daisy Kmart sandals for flirty cheese fries on opening day

of the fair, splotches of chocolate milkshake assault

my saddled oxfords which in turn deliver a bruise

(the size of a coconut) on the mean bitch shin of schoolmate,

negative heels only make campus hills steeper but college

boyfriend’s blue suede shoes make me fall in love for a lifetime,

I ain’t no dominatrix but I know how to work thigh-high boots

intimate as skin, then tibial tendon surgery cause my stilettos

to mutiny.  Arrogance of jeweled soles that patronize others

to manipulate their bootstraps, how to shoe the world, dominance

of Air Jordans dangle from a power line, at the sit-in we throw

frenzied sneakers at the mayor, too many screenshots of her

Jimmy Choos but not worse than those evil stepsisters cutting

off their heel or toes.  Gibran believed that the earth is always

jazzed whenever it feels our soles bare but we also stand tall

in shoes that resemble buildings, armadillos, or handcrafted

in the wee hours by elves. Wear dreams on your feet my

mother cooed, dew-sprinkled sprigs of rosemary and thyme

tucked overnight under tongues.

 

Rikki Santer

Rikki Santer’s poetry has appeared in numerous publications both nationally and abroad including Ms. Magazine, Poetry East, The Journal of American Poetry, Hotel Amerika, Crab Orchard Review, Grimm, Slipstream and The Main Street Rag. Her work has received many honors including five Pushcart and three Ohioana book award nominations as well as a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Her eighth collection, Drop Jaw, inspired by the art of ventriloquism, was published by NightBallet Press in the spring. Please contact her through her website: www.rikkisanter.com

Robb Shaffer

July 2020 | visual art

Hidden Stairway

Hidden Stairway

 

Robb Shaffer

Robb’s background is diverse, and his fascination with other cultures has exposed him to a wide variety of colors, sounds, tastes, and smells. He seeks the unusual amid the ordinary. Robb frequently writes about his experiences, and at times he documents them with photography. His subjects include people and nature at their finest, but the majority of his work centers around architectural images. Robb and his wife live in Hartford, Wisconsin, a rural community about thirty miles north of a more urban environment, Milwaukee.

Late Night, Hotel, HBO

July 2020 | poetry

In Iran in the rich, delicious pear region,

there sits the centrifuge for the development

of atomic bombs.

 

I don’t want to end up like Bukowski,

a bitter career alcoholic, Writing classes?

Classes are for asses. (can’t even look

at people or talk to them), hating other poets

Writing is all about leaving behind

as much stink as possible.

 

Or George Carlin who went from hippie,

dippy weatherman, The forecast for tonight

is mostly dark, but getting light toward

morning, to a working rageaholic

out of rehab and in denial.

 

I’ve imagined how the two of them

would have gotten along during

an all-night “drinking fest,” insulting

each other to the point of fist cuffs.

 

I turn on Carlin’s 3a.m. HBO special,

an endless rant, dropping numerous F-bombs.

Lynn says and I agree, Turn it off.

Bukowski, a life-long pugilist of men

and women, Carlin, a pathetic skeleton

of his former self.

 

Both mummified

in a dangerous atom smashing,

If you have em, smoke em,

deathly moving, indifferent universe.

 

 

John Sierpinski

John Sierpinski has published poetry in many literary magazines such as California Quarterly, North Coast Review and Spectrum Literary Journal. His work is also in eight anthologies. He is a Pushcart nominee. His poetry collection, “Sucker Hole”, was published in 2018 by Cholla Needles Press.