April 2014 | back-issues, fiction
Big commotion last night. Brianna O’Quinn ripped a shotgun blast into the night on Lookout Mountain. No one knows what she saw. She won’t tell neither. The widows on picket duty say they found her on her haunches, eating dirt. But they must of confused her with Darkish. No one else eats dirt but her.
I’m a man of few words. Back at LaGrange, my mama always told Gib and me, “Quiet, boys.” I listened. Gib didn’t.
But I want to ask Brianna what she seen last night. I want to do what I do best: listen. I sit with her at breakfast. But I don’t know what to say. All the widows look at her queer. But I remain with her. Brianna’s appetite has doubled since last night. She stuffs as much food in her mouth as possible. Eats like a hog, except she chews her food slow. She closes her eyes, which look like they might could tear up.
I want to talk to her, tell her whatever she thought she seen last night is gone. But I cain’t. Don’t have the words.
—Jeff Stayton
April 2014 | back-issues, poetry
Savannah, Georgia
Ralph was a painter of
miniatures—
miniature couches, mostly.
Ralph wore thimbles, like rings &
wore one too many watches, which is to say, two watches, one on each wrist &
sometimes if you listened closely, and you likely listened closely, you could hear that subtle subtle ticktock coming from his ankle. But he wouldn’t dare
cuff his khakis & you
wouldn’t dare drop a dime, half
accidentally, to snoop.
Ralph watched
creepshows and peepshows and couldn’t tell the difference
because really what’s the difference
& he only knew George, and George
knew everybody, yes everybody, and George: he made his own paper.
George’s car was only fancy from far; it was covered in duct tape &
the duct tape was covered in sludge,
the kind of sludge that comes from duct tape, & mud
the kind of mud, a tire
might kick up, or down, in Georgia.
Those willows were deceptively weepy.
They’d be just fine & so would Ralph.
Poor George, now that’s another story.
Train tracks & neon signs,
Open late
Open late
Open late.
Thimbles
And when the trampoline started to sag, & the sheds became infested with bats and/or the idea of bats, & when the chandelier became a warped and golden spider in its reflection in the spoon, and when the piano bench broke a tendon, and then another tendon, and the thimbles, all the thimbles fell, but did not break, & the banister bore splinters, and the cold from the window, turned the books that were up against the window, blue—that’s when they knew it was time to raise that glass, and strike that match, and burn it burn it burn it all. And wouldn’t it be something? Just to burn it all? Wouldn’t it be dangerous, not to?
—Molly Schulman
Molly Schulman is a poet; she was born in California; she grew up in New York; and now she lives in Georgia. She has many brothers! She has many sisters! She has a crush on most things. After receiving her BA in Creative Writing from The New School in 2009, she went on to work in the publishing industry as an assistant and in-house editor for Molly Friedrich at The Friedrich Agency. She left the agency in October 2013 to pursue her own writing. She is currently working on a book of prose poetry/performance piece called ONE-OF-SIX: A STORY IN HOUSES.
April 2014 | back-issues, poetry
In which the poet confesses a love too real
In words too plain
In which he recalls a social services waiting room,
stolen star wars action figures therein.
In which he laments his inability to time travel
In which he records his voice for his father imprisoned,
whom never relates the conditions thereof.
In which he boasts his ability to perfectly love rabbits
to her, whom he considers a perfect rabbit.
In which the poet attempts to strangle his heart shut
as it bleeds out into his words.
In which he confuses himself for Tom Petty
In which his father hangs a Skip Barber poster
while the poet sleeps on the floor of his office,
drinking tea and reading sutras beforehand
In which his child dies
In which the child’s mother sleeps with his best friend
while he spends three months in Spain learning to drink,
learning to dream in new languages.
In which his next lover shreds his passport
In which he performs yard work in exchange for drugs hard and soft
In which the FBI kicks the door in on the poet at six years old
In which a female FBI agent tucks the poet into bed
In which he holds his children and sings
In which he loves too much
In which he confesses he can’t stop
He is lost.
—Adam Tedesco
Adam Tedesco has been reading and writing poetry for a long time. Some of his poems and criticism have been published. He once ran to the top of the tallest building between Manhattan and Montreal. His lungs turned black.
April 2014 | back-issues, nonfiction
My father bought rounds of shaving soap wrapped in crinkled pastel paper and stored them in the bathroom drawer. When I was small enough to perch on the counter, I’d watch him wet a caramel-colored brush, swirl the bristles around a mug of soap, and paint his face with the froth. I loved the squelch of the bristles, the hollow ring of the wooden handle against ceramic, the razor’s chilling scrape, the satisfying reveal of soft, pink skin.
Later in the day, I’d sneak into his bathroom and peer into the mug, at the morning’s bubbles fossilized in dried soap scum. I’d press the damp brush to my nose, inhaling the concentrated piney scent, so sharp compared to the faint trace he wore at 5 o’clock.
When he was sick, the nurses used a plastic razor, too-blue shaving gel, and a kidney-shaped bowl of tepid water.
After his death, I wandered around my house, curiously poking in reorganized closets and cabinets. I found his bathroom drawer empty.
“Mom. Where did you put dad’s shaving kit?”
I was hoping she’d reveal a secret room where she stored his ties and shirts, combs, buttons, broken tools, old pictures and books. There I could rub my face in the soft folds of his sweaters, and once again breathe the mingled scents of piney soap and sweat. I could clean the shaving cup, set it on my desk, repurpose it, use it to store pencils or thumbtacks or something.
But we lived in a house of three girls; there was no need for collected masculine accouterments to gather dust.
“His shaving kit? I threw that away…”
Of course she did. She saw bristles stiff with age, a ceramic mug ringed brown from years of soap scum and water.
—Verity Sayles
Verity Sayles is a freelance writer from Massachusetts and enjoys airplane food and the ocean in winter. She graduated from Trinity College (CT) in 2011 and is currently reading all the Pulitzer Prize Fiction winners and writing about them at pushandpulitzer.com.
April 2014 | back-issues, poetry
Morning
The sun spins silk over
gold threaded hills that ebb
and roll and spill back onto themselves
while the morning mist lifts
like a loomed lace mantilla revealing
slivers of ecru, lavender, moss ~
that cast shadows of what
seem like a million horizons.
Cypress meander like drunken crusaders,
grapevines stand steadfast, shackled
in rows. Olive trees bend gnarled in low
genuflection, like women in church
who’ll both gossip and praise.
And on the ledge of a hillside basilica
the birds line up like notes on a staff
and open their throats to trill
morning lauds ~ as the sound
of a clock tower thrums overhead
and trumpets me into a glorious dawn.
The Roseate Scarf
It’s the one you bought
from the milliner just west
of the train station even though
it was August. We had paused
at the storefront to remove sand
from my shoes, a vanilla Coke
and a knish still in hand from the guy
who sold lunch out of a shopping
bag to the strollers and fishermen
on Sheepshead Bay. You threaded
the wool under my hair, wrapped it once
around my nape, drew me in like a cigarette
and exhaled my name upon the wind.
I came across the scarf again a week
or so before you left. It had weathered
sixty summers and countless stares
from others who thought it odd attire
for the time of year. And on your final
day at home I wheeled you down
the length of our sidewalk, seared
my name into your mind burnt black,
and wrapped you lovingly into its soft,
exquisite fringe.
Waltz With the Tempest
Some slammed their shutters
to keep out her fury, I all
but sent an invitation.
I welcomed her rigid ribs
pressed hard against mine,
the steady hum of roots
rocking beneath my feet.
Watched as leaves fell up
like kites toward heavy-lidded clouds
lined with soot, plump with rain.
I nodded to the knowing of
a rage that could shake the last
gasp of autumn between its teeth,
whip limbs like wet hair
across barked shoulders.
She bellowed like a baritone
down the necks of oaks,
their fingers twined and trussed
to frame the ghost-eyed moon.
—Brie Quartin
Brie has been published previously in Freshwater as both a poetry contest winner and general poet and is currently struggling to complete a collection of poems worthy of publishing as a chapbook.
April 2014 | back-issues, fiction
Why doesn’t love end when it should?
The man I loved has found someone else. Palm trees lance skies full of low clouds. Sunset breaks like a jellyfish tide. It will rain.
She walks to his door with her wolfhound. I’m shocked seeing how old she is. Black hair, dark eyes, short, thin, not his type. He greets her, hugs her, and the dog, immense, jumps up. She glances in my direction.
What am I doing? Stalking? What is this craziness?
I married him six years ago. We divorced. What am I doing here in a rented car, looking at Jack and this woman? In the cloudy light, her long hair sways; she reaches for his arm. I hear soft rumble of thunder like the dog growling. She’s ordinary, nothing but a dark woman with a huge dog, an eerie look, Jack grinning like a fool at the door.
Don’t let her in.
Don’t don’t don’t don’t let her in.
In Greece, on our honeymoon, Jack found a statue of the goddess Hecate. We laughed, swam, drank too much wine, made love by a sea that hissed against black rocks. I left that small figure among shards and broken shells, dead fish and live gulls on that stony beach. I didn’t like her.
Jack, don’t let her in.
Death walks around these havens where the old come to the humid air, the orange groves, come in their millions, and die, one by one. In a flash he is shadowed, inside, in her arms while a wrongful dark stretches under the palms.
The woman, maiden, mother, crone, whatever she is, reappears, as red sirens rip the distance and some eager ambulance begins begins begins in the dusk-filled street to arrive.
—Janet Shell Anderson
Janet has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize for fiction and published by Vestal Review, decomP. FRIGG, The Citron Review, Grey Sparrow, Cease Cows and others.
