Claire Scott

October 2024 | poetry

Keeping Score

 

The score 983 to 735

he’s quite a bit ahead

(as you can see)

46 points for washing my car

52 for buying me flowers

minus 10 because slightly wilted

I lost 66 points when I called him fuck face

after he watched four hours of women’s

beach volleyball, focused on barely-there bikinis

and 358 when I dropped our tax return in the toilet

but wait, just in

579 points for fixing his phlegmatic computer

saving us a small fortune

I gloat and glee around the room

eternally grateful to You Tube

the god of Fixing All Things

I love this game

but the score suddenly shifts

I lose 937 points for flouncing & swaggering

I collapse on the sofa & swig straight gin

(lose 88 more points)

who cares

stupid ledger

stupid game

 

 

Cutting Onions

 

My husband is cutting an onion with a spoon,

an almost impossible task. I notice

there’s a lock on the drawer with knives,

the first drawer on the left, under the counter.

Is he slow-sliding into dementia? Our kids

 

are long gone, no need to hide knives, especially

since I just sharpened my Kyoku carving knife

to slice tonight’s roast chicken. What of the row

of wine bottles lined up like empty soldiers?

Did he pour out all that expensive chardonnay?

 

And where is the thick cotton clothes line

that just arrived from Amazon,

the god of Good Things? I watched

a YouTube video on how to make a clove hitch

that won’t come untied, even under the weight of wet sheets.

 

Is it time to call Dr. Campbell? Am I losing my husband

to a one-way disease? Could Aricept help?

What of coconut oil or Coral calcium

or maybe twenty jumping jacks a day?

The onion is reduced to a soggy goo.

 

My husband frowns and tosses it in the trash.

For sure a call to Dr. Campbell first thing in the morning.

Tonight I will drive across the Golden Gate Bridge

and gaze down at the currents of swirling water.

If only I could find my car keys.

 

 

Claire Scott

Claire Scott is an award-winning poet who has received multiple Pushcart Prize nominations. Her work has appeared in the Atlanta Review, Bellevue Literary Review, New Ohio Review, and Healing Muse, among others. Claire is the author of Waiting to be Called and Until I Couldn’t. She is the co-author of Unfolding in Light: A Sisters’ Journey in Photography and Poetry.

Granted

October 2024 | nonfiction

My wife sends a text: I love you. I’m sorry I take you for granted.

I text: Where are you?

Her text: Doctor’s office.

Fear. I call. She answers.

My wife mentions the call I received last night from my 99-year-old kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Merritt. She turns 100 in a week. She begs forgiveness for not doing something about my father. I touch an old scar on my chin as I listen. I stroke the seam on my cheek from the old fracture. I feel the bump on my nose. Old injuries yet still, sharp ticks of pain.

Times were different, Mrs. Merritt says. That’s what I say to myself. But I know now and I knew then. I should have told the sheriff.

Pause. I can hear her breathe. Labored breathing.

Alan, her voice quavers. Can you ever forgive me?

Of course I forgive you Mrs. Merritt, I say.

Silence. For a few moments I think the call dropped.

But? she prods.

Oh, Mrs. Merritt, I say. Don’t worry about it.

But? she repeats.

But inside me is a boy who will never forgive anyone. Never. Ever.

Mrs. Merritt cries.

Oh Mrs. Merritt, I say. Don’t cry. My brother and I love you.

She continues to cry. Oh that hurts, she says. So bad. Do you still love your father?

This horrible question. I grit my jaw hard. This question maddens. This question hurts. This question burns and wrecks.

Why, Mrs. Merritt? I say. Why does a child beaten and injured by a man remain attached to such a man? Because a child wants a father. But one day, a child wants a different father.

Oh, Mrs. Merritt cries. I know you do. I know your brother does too.

 

Alan? my wife says.

Yes, I say.

So, my wife says,  a 99-year-old can have a crisis of conscience.

So? I say.

So. So I don’t want to let things slip away, then bite me that way. I don’t want take you for granted anymore.

No no no, I say. No. Please. Don’t say that. You always can take me for granted.

 

Alan Nelson

Alan Nelson, a writer and actor, received nominations for a Pushcart Prize, Best of Net, and Best Microfiction. He has work published or forthcoming in journals including New York Quarterly, Hong Kong Review, takahē, B O D Y, Blue Unicorn, Litro, Stand, Acumen, Maryland Literary Review, Main Street Rag, Texas Observer, Arc, California Quarterly, Connecticut River Review, Adirondack Review, Red Cedar Review, Wisconsin Review, South Carolina Review, Kairos, Ligeia, Strange Horizons, Illuminations, Review Americana, Whale Road Review, North Dakota Quarterly, and Eunoia Review. He played the lead in the viral video “Does This Cake Make Me Look Gay?” and the verbose “Silent Al” in the Emmy-winning SXSWestworld, and narrated New York Times videos on PEPFAR.

Promise I Make Myself

October 2024 | poetry

When I turn 70, I am embracing vices

like a newly-discovered, long-lost twin,

like an adolescent puppy love,

vices I avoided all my life out of fear,

abundant caution and good common sense.

I will smoke cigarettes like Bogart and Garbo—

seriously, mysteriously, sexily,

and casually.  I will smoke cigars

and pipes.  I will dare cancer to catch me.

I will dabble in recreational drugs,

will sample ecstasy, hallucinogens,

and, of course, marijuana.  I will eat

the whole brownie, maybe two, and will sleep

the deep and blissful sleep of the stoned

and will laugh myself silly

at ordinary wonders of the world.

I will mix myself boozy drinks with names

like Moscow Mule or White Russian or Sex

on the Beach or Mai Tai.  I will go nude

at nude beaches and stare unabashedly

at naked splendors there displayed.  I will.

I will hire expensive companions

and have unwise, illicit, unsafe sex.

I will gamble.  I will ride in helicopters

and bi-planes, on backs of motorcycles,

my arms around the supple, sinuous waists

of younger daredevils.  I will be

a daredevil.  I will eat like Anthony Bourdain.

When I turn 70, I will explore

all the vices, including the one

my parents thought the worst of all

the others, the biggest sin: indolence.

 

Cecil Morris

Cecil Morris has been nominated for a Pushcart in 2021, 2022, and 2023. He and his indulgent partner, the mother of their children, divide their year between the central valley of California and the Oregon coast. He has poems appearing or forthcoming in The Ekphrastic Review, English Journal, Hole in the Head Review; Rust + Moth, Sugar House Review, Willawaw Journal, and other literary magazines.

Yewon Han

October 2024 | visual art

Polyphony 2

Polyphony 2

Yewon Han

Yewon Han, a Senior at Dulwich College Seoul, is fascinated by surrealism and philosophy in art. She experiments with form, texture, and color in mixed media. Inspired by filmmakers like Gerwig and Coppola, Yewon seeks to expand her artistic range and express her unique view.

Featured Artist: Stevie Rosenfeld

October 2024 | visual art

In the blue hour

In the blue hour

Three

Three

The path less taken

The path less taken

 

Stevie Rosenfeld

Stevie has always been fascinated by nature, finding beauty in its intricacies, resilience, vulnerability, and anthropomorphic tendencies. She feels welcomed into its culture, always without question or judgment, and is where she receives some of her greatest gifts and feels most at home.  Her series, Nature’s Spirit, is an homage to the natural world and her deep connection to it.  Nature’s Spirit aims to transcend visual perceptions and capture the spiritual essence of each unique encounter, prompting reflections on human entanglements, relationships with darkness and light, elemental similarities, and what mysteries may lie beyond. Stevie’s photographic work has been in many publications and galleries.