January 2014 | back-issues, nonfiction
Driving up a curvy incline, all that mattered was the beautiful sunshine which illuminated my rough, grey booster seat. Out the window I saw endless hues of forest green and muted browns that looked like my aged dinner table. Everything in the woods; the trees and faint noises of birds emanated a deep ingrained feeling of my own belonging. As the car crept up along side of a cliff I gazed out at gorgeous cracked rock. Half Dome laid right in the middle of the valley, just to the left was the thundering water drifting down off Yosemite Falls. Through the wonderland of heart-opening trees I rose higher and higher into the valley.
“You ok back there Daniel?,” asked my mom.
“This is better than Disneyland!”
My doctors had warned my parents of altitude with my seven life-threatening heart conditions, but they wanted to try it. As we reached a peaking ecstasy of life in the inner valley, I began gasping.
The world began to deteriorate into a mere image, then suddenly my body fell cold under a redwood as tall as the sky. Cedar, pine, and the valley floor were the only things tangible. A hazy gray seemed to encapsulate my existence. Loud sirens blared as men in white rushed me down the mountain, disturbing the natural world.
Opening my eyes seemed like a mission. What if I can’t open them? What if it’s only gray? The room was an exploding fluorescent white. The white bed, toxic cleaning products, the sting of the IV and of course the smell of rubbing alcohol. My eyes drooped forward and I slouched down. Turning over onto my side I peered out a cellar like window to see the bright sun, which only a few hours ago I had been under.
by Daniel Wallock
January 2014 | back-issues, poetry
I roll him out to the Water Lilies, break
away one foot at a time. I watch
my father from across the room, bald
head angled up, swaying under eight
by eight feet of psychedelic purples, blues,
and living greens. I read once that water
lilies are always hungry, and I’m thinking
this when my father is pulled out of his
chair into the pond, his morphine pump
drifting away, his body turning, nerves
cooled, smile soft. Poppies cover his skin,
their leaves cocoon him in costume. He
begins to dance among bamboo, reaching for
feathery willows, losing himself in himself
until he realizes he’s all alone, twists his neck
to find a daughter. As the last leaf spins
imperceptibly on the water, my father rotates
his chair around, his face shocked with the
light. He searches for me, a confusion
in his eyes: Why did you leave me? My
red purse ridiculous on his lap.
by Janine L. Certo
Janine Certo is a poet and associate professor in the College of Education at Michigan State University. A former public school teacher, she has long advocated for more attention to poetry writing and performance in U.S. schools. Her poems appear in The Endicott Review and The Muddy River Poetry Review. Her work has been supported with a grant from The Spencer Foundation.
January 2014 | back-issues, fiction
“Have another?”
“Can’t, I have to go.”
“You always say that.”
“Only when I need to leave.”
I can still hear the corny music on the jukebox, the clinking of the glasses. The barkeep heard our chiming, collected his money, a too generous tip. We left, bade each other platonic adieus, walked separately to our separate families. How I miss my travelling days!
At home, always the same or nearly the same scene: I open the door, panting after my three story climb, my wife at the range frying or boiling something. “About time you got back.”
“I was delayed.”
“I bet,” smelling my breath, it’s cheap vodka, not kissing me. “Did you pick up the bread?”
“I forgot. I can go get some.”
“Don’t bother, it’s late, you may get delayed again, besides bread makes me fat. Do I look fat in this?” She twirls away from the steaming stove.
I say nothing or say something mollifying. My expression does or does not give me away, I can never tell with her, besides she isn’t fat. We eat in silence, our son long gone, the damn TV still on, a carafe of mineral water our only splurge. I pick at my meal, not wanting to mix drink and food, that’s why I’m too thin.
“If you drank less, we’d both eat better.”
I rise, clean off my plate, return, put my arms on her shoulders, nuzzle her ineptly, we don’t kiss. “But we wouldn’t be so happy.”
by Clyde Liffey
Clyde Liffey lives near the water.
January 2014 | back-issues, fiction
The fish is staring at me from the plate, its blackened skin and brittle tail spread between rice pilaf and sautéed mushrooms. A foot of omega-3 fatty acids, which my mother, who set the plate before me, said helps with depression.
I wasn’t depressed last winter when I hugged the possibility I might be pregnant, wrapping my heart around the secret, envisioning my baby tadpole-size clinging to the side of my uterus, our blood intermingling. Brian’s baby. There was a bridal shop down the street from my apartment; I already knew the dress I wanted. But then I wasn’t pregnant after all and Brian told me he’d met someone else.
At night I drank and wept, working up a Camille-like tragic image. During the day, I sniffled at my desk until co-workers rolled their eyes when I reached for another tissue. Then, in early April, a bunch of us got let go.
When I couldn’t find a job, my mother said she’d moved her sewing stuff out of my old room and I was welcome to it. So, I’m back home with this damn fish, my mother eyeing me across the table, and my father hunched over his food like a wolf with a fresh kill. Who wouldn’t be depressed?
The fish doesn’t want to be here. Once it shimmered in fast moving water. It might have been pregnant with hundreds of luminous eggs. How can I eat it when, like me, all it wanted was to have babies? I try to explain this to my mother, but she can’t get past the sex part.
by Anna Peerbolt
Anna Peerbolt’s flash and short stories have appeared in Drunken Boat, Prick of the Spindle, Apollo’s Lyre, The Legendary, Long Story Short, DOGZPLOT, and elsewhere online.
January 2014 | back-issues, poetry
In the twilight the rain
is like silk threads.
Its beauty is deceptive.
Snow has piled up
like mounds of salt.
My bed is suddenly cold.
I’m unable to sleep.
All night I hear ice crack
on the roof and in the eaves.
Wind chaotically blows
the last of fall’s leaves.
The birds have long
since departed. Alone,
I reach for the light.
But I can no longer write.
Who writes poetry anyway?
Young men with
unreal dreams and old
fools like me,
with nothing left to say.
by George Freek
George Freek is a poet/playwright living in Illinois. His poems have recently appeared in ‘The Missing Slate’; ‘Torrid Literature’; ‘Bone Parade’; ‘Hamilton Stone Review’; ‘The Oklahoma Review’; ‘The Poydras Review’; and ‘The Empirical Review’. His plays are published by Playscripts, Inc.; Havescripts; Independent Playwrights; and Lazy Bee Scripts (UK).
January 2014 | back-issues, poetry
Curing/Coddling
I tell you, I’ve had a poem brewing in my head
And you say, oh really
And maybe I detect your disinterest, but maybe I don’t
Either way, I don’t care if you don’t care
I continue
The words have been churning away, I say
And you nod, yeah that’s cool
Too preoccupied by the TV and waves of conversation
Tides coming in, fluctuating volumes of voices
Yes, sure, you reassure
I’m listening, go ahead, keep talking
But I guess it doesn’t really matter
About that pin I found buried under papers
Whether it truly is an artifact of Hispanic culture
Or just another manufactured stand-in
Courtesy of the America we know and love
I confess, I epitomize myself
Plucking up Corn Pops from a thrift store cup
Sipping at Tylenol like it’s a candy-covered elixir
Only to shadow grasp
Stare down my red-eyed Savior
I tell you, My words feel too stiff
No matter how much the tendrils of spring
Twine ‘round my ankles, drowning this February
Or how many slips of birth control pills I swallow
Or how often I watch my blue-tailed betta swim
Or how long a bucket of carnations sits in the corner by the sink
Too many sensations, I say
Sometimes add up to not much at all
And you gift a glance
And you masquerade around my self-proclaimed doctrine
You are so deep, you promise like a mother
I re-cross my legs
The matter is done and I want coffee
You agree, but wait a moment
Maybe your wallet is thinning
Maybe it’s empty
by Sarah Lucille Marchant
Devilish Daydream
I fool myself into thinking I’m flattering
the hipster boy in the second row
by shamelessly ogling his knit hat
and imagining my fingers tracing his tattoos.
Blinking, counting down sleep, my lips
at his cheekbones, neck, collarbone.
Black tea paints my throat,
preparing.
Polite-faced
I stroll through day-space, a blot of
color, an awkward stumble down the stairs,
plucking music measures
and privately planting them
in other people’s heads.
Rub my eyes, shut
the door, lay out your
thoughts in the
fiercest whisper.
by Sarah Lucille Marchant
