January 2011 | back-issues, fiction
It was back in ’63 they set down in my wheat field, and I was too damn angry to be scared. I knew that crop was gone and it wasn’t a thing anyone could do about it. When they come out of their spaceship-no, no it wasn’t a door that swung down like on a castle, but a giant car door, like on my Buick? They come out, three of ’em no taller than my knee, and just stared at me, no expression in those big glassy eyes, no sorrow for what they done to my field.
“We come in peace,” they said without sayin’ it out loud but I heard it in my head, and I looked at my flattened, withered wheat and said, “The hell you do.”
Have you ever seen mangled wheat, the stalks cracked, the feathers singed? A whole season: It’s enough to make you cry. And I did, standin’ in the middle of my broken field with those three aliens, wellin’ up, the door to their giant ship propped open, a sickening light pourin’ from inside and slicin’ across my barren field like a knife. They do somethin’ like rock, paper, scissors and one come over and tells me I’m supposed to be some kind of alien ambassador.
100 acres, gone, the exhaust from their craft fellin’ my crop like a tornado, the shoots fallin’ like dominoes, like ambushed soldiers, the stink pourin’ into my nostrils.
“You fellas best be on your way,” I said as patiently as any man who just lost his livelihood can, and for the first time they look around. Sure I think they’re doin’ damage assessment, conjurin’ a way to bring the wheat back, and I picture those fuzzy stalks risin’ like an army of mini Lazaruses across the dead plain, work hard to send that image to them with my mind. But they’re fixed on somethin’ else now, and it’s Tessie, comin’ toward us, haunch-slow, jaws workin’, wheat cracklin’ beneath her bovine hooves. I point to her, my prize heifer, shake my head and give them a firm “NO!” But Tessie and the aliens, they’re starin’ at one another, stock still, as if hypnotized. And even today I wonder what they said that made her walk right past me, through the blade of sharp light and into that shiny crop killin’ machine: You’ll be happier with us, He don’t appreciate you, YOU are the true alien ambassador. So that’s how I lost my wheat and my cow in the same hour.
The man from the insurance company, he don’t believe me, but I know you do. You see this stuff all the time, so I was hopin’ you could talk to ‘im, tell ‘im about the giant car door, the two-foot Martians, a prized cow that trundled, hooves clickin’, into another dimension.
January 2011 | back-issues, poetry
City of Trope L’oeils
It goes without saying
that a newly married American
accompanying her husband
to Naples on business
wants to avoid
the stares
of handsome Italian men
and thereby
the appearance of impropriety
while sipping espresso
at a café outside the hotel.
Instead, she looks at a magazine,
perhaps Vogue.
Of course, out of a sense of decorum,
she refrains from wearing 3D spectacles
while gazing at layouts of seminudes
lest a half-starved model
escapes the pages
and takes off down the street
in search of a slice of pizza (or lemon
gelato.)
Later that afternoon
fresh from a little nap,
the lady goes in search
of the city’s artistic treasures.
she pulls a purple scarf
from her purse
and covers her sleeveless top
before entering San Severo Chapel
where she intends to view such sculptures
as Queirolo’s Release from
Deception.
She passes by Jesus Under a
Shroud
almost missing the illusion
of a sheer, frail gossamer
draped about the body
of the Christ.
There can be no mistaking though
the other veiled creation,
a transparent-marble masterpiece
whose modest figure
Corradini deceptively displays
beneath a thin, fine gauze
causing the lady,
out of decorum,
to blush.
Just then the sound of someone singing
lures the visitor from the church
in time to find
no one at all
standing in the courtyard.
From whence came the Siren song
now suddenly silent?
She looks for a clue
but finding none
cannot be sure
she heard anyone at all.
“Ancient Casserole”
My mother’s own mother
and many another
going back to Toulouse
have slaughtered to the goose
the fowl and the pig
to make a stew twenty quarts big.
I stand by the oven trying to peak
at what’s taken all day but seemed like a
week.
Then I open the door and what should
appear
but a garlic herb crust quite golden and
dear.
Though it may seem a bit dumb,
I poke under the crumb,
but instead of finding a fatty feast
I discover a dish fit for neither woman nor
beast.
The white tarbais beans are not on my
side
but poke all about quite shriveled and
dried.
The bouquet garni has crumbled.
My hopes have now tumbled.
The duck is amock.
I’ve run out of luck.
Oh my. Oh my.
Hello and goodbye.
Ave atque vale,
cassoulet.
Lara Dolphin is a freelance writer. Her work
has appeared in such publications as “Word Catalyst Magazine,”
”River Poets Journal,” “The Foliate Oak Literary Journal” and
”Calliope.”
January 2011 | back-issues, fiction
Beyond and above –
no fear.
I crumbled.
The darkness invited the light.
Tender and trembling.
Uncertain and fading.
Surrounded by hideous giants…
A moment.
A sigh.
Departing from previous lives.
Defrosting
and pouring
over a bottomless well.
Awaiting.
And breathing.
Involved with no will.
Too late
or too early,
but never on time.
Suspicious.
Attracted.
Stuck to the ground.
Withholding one hand,
pulled by the other.
Survive or surrender –
above and beyond.
January 2011 | back-issues, poetry
Far worse than being unemployed,
in some respects;
Employees with nothing to do.
The Dubai street sweeper polishes his sidewalk,
that is already polished.
His mate pretends to pick up garbage with a pole grabber,
the streets are absolutely empty.
Ana, my hotel tourism saleswoman
sits at her little table by the exit,
tries small talk with the Pakistani bell boy
to no avail.
She stares out the glass door at the rain.
Muhammed at Fish World has fish sandwiches to sell
but no one is biting.
With his blue collared shirt, yellow vest, and sailor’s hat
he scratches his arm,
reads the menu for the thousandth time,
stares out at the rich mall rats who are free.
Wishes he could be beautiful,
like the azure-suited Chinese in Chinese Palace
or at least popular,
like the baseball-capped Filipinas in Burger King.
At last, the fish-eaters have arrived,
he smiles.
Bio note: Brian Briscombe burns wood in Falls Church, Virginia, USA. He’s never been published before unless you count his 60 Facebook Notes or the 600 US Government publications of his economic analysis. Recently Brian edited four painful papers that analyzed the costs and medical benefits of conducting male circumcisions in selected African countries. Although those papers might never be read, at least they paid better than Burning Wood. Brian likes it when strangers email him, so long as they are not Nigerian scam artists.
January 2011 | back-issues, poetry
The chocolate-covered calendar read August
yet the citrus pork bellies lounged
casually on Christmas china waiting
for their escorts to the table, pigeon peas
freshly picked and still boiling
in a pot on the iron stove
the iron as black as night
the coals singing below
while nearby they lay
the potatoes quiet and still
meticulously scrubbed
carefully dried and seasoned
now asleep in a glass bowl
the red Idaho’s peeled
and poached in white wine
as the blind man sniffed the air
surrendering to the smells, succulent smells
pungent like cloves or tar;
the aromas escaped from the kitchen
entered the dining room, then hovered
like an eagle over the table
right above the midget squirming in his chair
his eyes fixed on the Christmas tree, an old wood pole
with branches made of toilet bowl scrubbers
their green bushy heads as prickly as pine needles
their arms draped in Christmas lights
trembling, shimmering, blinking rhythmically
to the music seeping into the midget’s head
the sound escaping from him, an iPod perhaps
as he sat on a high chair, his legs swinging
his mouth chewing on chocolate
his hands creating hills in front of him
hills of chocolate raisins
hills of M & M’s
hills he will hide in
when the pigeon peas appear.
January 2011 | back-issues, poetry
i. April, 2005
The week before, his hands in the seat of my jeans.
The lake before us is low. The exposed shore reaches
under the beached docks, spread open to coming rain.
He said he’d wait for me here.
Hours after I leave him, he calls.
His voice nods slow through affections.
I never shot the shit. Never saw it,
either. I refused to see he still did.
After five days, the phone rings.
His mother found him, a needle in his arm, seven a.m.
He ran into the woods outside his house, screaming
that he wanted to die. He wants to die.
A Friday night, dark at 4 p.m. I close my window.
Spring ends with him in prison. The air thickens
as the lake is slowly filled. The first waves
splash against the docks, finally afloat.
ii. May, 2007
We sit on the porch of her farmhouse
at her stepdaughter’s college graduation party.
We watch the two dogs roll under stars
on the field of her front yard.
She pours two shots of silver
tequila like a blessing. Salut.
She toasts the lumps in her breasts
as we soothe agave fire with champagne.
I’ve come to this farmhouse since before
my breasts. She sobs as I light
a cigarette, insisting on silence
until a date for surgery is set.
Through the kitchen’s window,
her stepdaughter’s laughter. We hear
the cork shoot from the last bottle
of champagne, a glass shatter on the floor.
iii. August 2005 – November 2007
Six months after she died in the Iraqi desert,
he and I meet. We start against hallway walls.
We build between train stations,
all-night trips up and down the coast.
He leaves Lajeune, moves north. One night,
wrapped in the same blanket, he shows me pictures.
We come to her, naked, the vital parts censored
by an inner tube. Her wet hair. Her laughing face.
I end it shortly after. I watch him
do coke for the first time, watch walls.
I watch the walls, too, to find what he sees.
More blow, booze. Weed to balance.
We still go to bed together. He usually
falls asleep just as dawn seeps through
the window by the ceiling. His length warm
at my side, her memory curled at our feet.
iv. May, 2008
I received the summons, but the addressee’s name was incorrect.
I sent it back. I haven’t checked the mailbox since.
In the morning, they call because I have to be retested,
the initial test positive. I find a ride from a friend, leave
my brother a message. Outside my house, I tug
on my hair, scalp from skull, to know if I feel it.
I get in the car, can’t answer questions requiring
explanation. I twice light the filter of the cigarettes
I quit. Fiberglass sparks, singes in a crackling burn.
I get the third to light, swallow smoke.
In a tiny room, they ask me about drugs about fucking
about where a white suburban girl could pick up HIV.
They say I’m not in the risk group. With my blood,
they close the door. I stare at a Parenting magazine.
When they come back, they don’t shut the door. Negative.
I check they tested the right sample. The doctor nods, slowly.
In the parking lot, my brother waits, weeps into my hair.
A stoplight turns on Main Street, horns blare. No one moves.
Stefanie Botelho is a recent graduate of Western Connecticut’s MFA in Professional and Creative Writing program. She has been published with The New Verse News and has writing in the upcoming Sentence: A Journal of Prose Poetry.”
