July 2014 | back-issues, fiction
No Good Deed
He might have been twenty-five, or fifty. His face was so dirty it was impossible to tell.
Mayra first saw him picking through a pile of litter near her dormitory. His purposeful search stopped with the discovery of a half-eaten cheeseburger. Horrified, Mayra watched the burger travel from the grass to the man’s mouth and disappear in two bites.
Her friend Lauren, a social-work major, said, “That’s Big Bill. Shelters don’t take him because he’s usually drunk, but he’s harmless.”
He’s still a person with dignity, thought Mayra, who tried hard to see the spiritual beauty in everyone. She gave him a ten. He thanked her.
“You’re just enabling him,” Lauren rebuked.
“But someone’s got to help.”
And she did, organizing a benefit concert and convincing the university to hire Bill as a janitor. When Bill stepped into the entrance of his new apartment, reporters were there to capture the moment. Conscious of the spotlight, he examined the secondhand furniture and full pantry with stoic gratitude.
Mayra chose to major in journalism after reading the feature article and deciding she could do better. A year later she won an internship at the local newspaper.
She interviewed Bill and discovered he was homeless again and unemployed. His breath reeked of vodka. She choked back her heartbreak, filed the story, and resolved to forget.
Two days later, she received an email.
Thank you so much for writing about Bill Arnolds. I’ve been searching for him for years. He’s my son.
Guilt
“Joe, get rid of that gum! You’re goin’ to church!”
Joe extracted the pink blob and smashed it into the coin slot of the parking meter, then ran to catch up with his mother.
His older sister Maggie scolded him. “That was nasty. God will get you for that.”
During Mass, Father Mayhew opened a birdcage and released two doves. As they escaped toward the open window, one defecated on Joe’s head.
Maggie elbowed him. “I told you. That was God.”
No, Joe thought, that was just a bird. And for that, he felt guiltier than he’d ever felt before.
Anna Zumbro
July 2014 | back-issues, poetry
I am reading secrets of yellow
tomato plants, studying life-lines
on their leaf-shaped palms.
Home from school the neighbor boy leans
over the fence. Asks about my day.
I’d tell him I found a lump
under my skin. I think it will end me.
Like a fly on meat
it’s hatched its eggs.
I’d tell him how my husband knew
a year ago, my mother three
decades before that.
I’d tell him but we’re done
talking. He hangs a thick arm
over the chain-linked fence.
Last week we admired our shadows
over cardboard guns held together
with rubber bands and silver
tape. He told me he’s an artist—
that sometimes he watches me
from his kitchen window.
I want to say that I’m an artist too
but the arrangement has turned
somehow, fast like a fire, or slow
like a leaf.
Tamra Carraher
Tamra Carraher has published two books of poems and illustrations for children titled PICTURE/BOOK and Bluefish Haiku and is currently exhibiting line drawings of poems at Bahdeebahdu in Philadelphia. Her poetry has been featured in the online literary journal Toe Good Poetry. She received an MFA from New England College in January 2014 and has worked as an Associate Editor for the Naugatuck River Review.
July 2014 | back-issues, poetry
I: Ascription
i ascribe meaning to moments
you: to dice and bones and chance
what did the tea leaves say this morning?
lies are coincident to actuality—
the bees are disappearing
do you take yours
with cream or sugar?
one scoop
or two?
II: i prayed a Novena
i prayed a Novena
you don’t come around much
anymore
squirrels are the least interesting
creatures in the yard.
i spend so much time waiting
water boils
the phone rings
the postman comes and goes
everything happens eventually,
says the praying mantis,
hungrily
III: Jicama stick salads
winter beaches
frozen sunset
ice chimes
tea, watered down more than it is already
cancer-survivor relatives
seekers of good fortune (read: lost change)
cinnamon jicama stick salads with maple syrup
and rye whiskey; French pressed coffee
cereal for dinner
midnight; spring-time shower trysts
walking. home—not a place, but
fingers grasping fingers
IV: on poems written in the middle of the night
he said, don’t
read too much
into all this
i’ll tell you
when you
need to know
most times,
i just like the way
the words sound together
C. L. Carol
C.L. Carol tries to be a good human. But, humans being humans, he’s known to fall short, stumble into a local haunt and spend time ruminating. Sometimes he writes. More often, he thinks. Diane Wakoski once likened one of his poems to Yeats, but the poem is lost and the story has now been relegated to fable. He lives in Northern Michigan with his wife, Emily, and their daughter, Berkleigh. Companion to cats. Friendly gentleman. Terrible golfer.
July 2014 | back-issues, poetry
In dreams or in sweaty moments driving, the classroom—
clarity spins away like water carving out a canyon.
I do not know when mind sinks into past crevasses
if it is Rumpelstiltskin padding down the dark hall
outside my room, or Captain Hook who will play
forbidden games.
These ill spirits are not poured from a bottle.
The hands sliding like serpents under the covers
are not healing. I go away and become a new
born, sleek baby seal swimming in arctic
waters with my mother. I nurse at her nipple,
the milk fat, hot, thick, nourishing, as she
protects me from those who would fill me.
This is the ocean womb, where I can take refuge
in shadowed canyons, hidden, watery valleys.
Safe from those who take away my blanket,
Nazis with lugers aimed at my being, panzer
hands driving their muddy tracks over my body.
Corrupted beyond their concentration minds,
deeper into shadow’s valley, I go to earth’s
heart beneath salvation’s waves.
This is the secret place that I prepare.
Here I will grow big, grow strong.
Here I will prepare for reckoning’s resurrection.
Here I will build the russet fire.
Here I will eat the hearts of men.
Ralph Monday
Ralph Monday is an Associate Professor of English at Roane State Community College in Harriman, TN., where he teaches composition, literature, and creative writing courses. In fall 2013 he had poems published in The New Plains Review, New Liberties Review, Fiction Week Literary Review, and was represented as the featured poet with 12 poems in the December issue of Poetry Repairs. In winter 2014 he had poems published in Dead Snakes. Summer 2014 will see a poem in Contemporary Poetry: An Anthology of Best Present Day Poems. His work has appeared in publications such as The Phoenix, Bitter Creek Review, Full of Crow, Impressions, Kookamonga Square, Deep Waters, Jacket Magazine, The New Plains Review, New Liberties Review, Crack the Spine, The Camel Saloon, Dead Snakes, Pyrokinection, and Poetry Repairs. Poet of the week May, 2014 Poetry Super Highway. Forthcoming: Poems in Blood Moon Rising. His first book, Empty Houses and American Renditions will be published by Hen House Press in Fall 2014.
July 2014 | back-issues, fiction
Bill’s desk was clean, nearly antiseptic, holding a stapler, a rolodex and a computer terminal, the computer tower stashed under his desk. He had always believed the neatness of his desk represented his efficiency, and thus his value. That and his expertise with the Infamous system. By now, he was its resident expert. Surely that guaranteed job security.
He had recently seen others “let go” during the current downsizing, but he knew he was safe. Until he tried to log on to his computer:
LOG IN FAILED. SYSTEM DOWN.
Then his phone rang. It was Jim from Human Resources.
“Bill, can I see you in my office for a minute?”
Walking down the hall, his footsteps muffled on the carpet, Bill felt as though he were following an invisible executioner leading him to the gallows.
Jim’s office was sparsely furnished: a wastepaper basked next to a desk with a chair on casters behind it and a straight-backed metal chair in front.
“I’m sorry it has to be this way, but the company’s been downsizing for some time now…” Jim droned on. Bill stopped listening and stared at the curtain fluttering at the window.
After eighteen years, no retirement, no “golden parachute,” just a man saying something about “references” and “severance pay.” References? For what? At 58, who would hire him? He was alone; no children, his wife dead five years.
He began to listen again. Heard “… let you go,” and, at the word “go,” did just that – ran to the open window thirteen floors above a concrete sidewalk.
Lon Richardson
He has been writing non-fiction and fiction for about 20 years — in journalism having been published in newspapers, magazines, industry newsletters, and have had short stories published in two literary journals: From The Depths (“Two Tickets,” December 2012) and The Torrid Literature Journal (“One Thing Led To Another,” October 2013).
