September 2002 | back-issues, fiction, Michael W. Giberson
We had this big old Chinese elm tree by our patio taken out last year. Now a two hundred square foot area next to the patio is nothing but dirt, which my two ninety-mile-per-hour Australian shepherds are constantly tracking onto the patio. So my wife wants me to lay flagstones over the whole area to keep the patio clean. It will take about a ton of stone, which runs around twenty cents a pound, for a total cost of about four hundred dollars. I figure I’m getting off cheap; she could have insisted on extending the concrete patio slab, which would cost a couple of grand.
So Sunday morning I start leveling out the dirt by the patio, and I immediately hit the stump of the Chinese elm, which the guys we paid to take the tree out the year before only ground down to about an inch below ground level. This is too high to lay flagstones over and too low to do anything decorative with, so I get out my ax and start chopping, figuring to lower the level of the stump just enough so I can lay the stones over it. But I hit a live PVC water pipe, which is charged with about 60 lbs of water pressure, but has no shut off valve. What kind of an idiot lays a live plastic water pipe with no shut-off valve, four inches below the surface, for the next idiot to come along and chop through?
Instant geyser.
So the yard is now mud and the patio is flooded, which seriously ticks my wife off. I shut down the main water valve, which interrupts her laundry and ticks her off even more. I dig up the pipe and find three more pipes, all tangled around the roots where the Chinese elm gradually screwed them up over its 25-year life span. Now I have to dig a trench a couple of feet over, paralleling the original pipes, in order to re-route them away from the stump. I break two more pipes in the process. There are huge piles of dirt all over the lawn.
I go to Orchard Supply Hardware and buy the various pipes and fittings and cans of PVC glue and stuff that I need to repair the pipes but that I naturally don’t have in the huge collection of pipe and sprinkler fittings that I have accumulated over twenty years of repairing my lawn sprinklers.
I manage to cap off the live pipe (the other pipes are connected to the sprinklers and have proper valves and timers at their seminal ends, so they don’t have water perpetually flowing through them with no way to cut them off if by chance they get dinged by a shovel-wielding ignoramus) and I turn the water back on. Now my wife can finish washing my clothes and my daughter can take one of her frequent and interminable showers, but not before I have to make another trip to Orchard to buy another 14-cent fitting that I didn’t realize I didn’t have, but which is absolutely essential to the undertaking.
Now it’s nightfall, so I say to hell with it and I quit for the night, leaving great piles of mud, shovels, pickaxes, pliers, wrenches, broken bits of pipe, debris, and miscellaneous PVC fittings all over the lawn for the dogs to run off with and hide. I track mud into the house and all over the kitchen floor, and get dirt all over my wife’s new throw rug, which ticks her off all over again.
So Monday night, I get off work and go back out there, leaving the wife to go to the daughter’s open-house at school without me, which ticks them BOTH off. I finish re-routing the pipes, cover them up with the dirt from the piles on the lawn, get all the roots, broken pipe pieces, and trash picked up and tossed, get all the tools put away, and now it’s o-dark-hundred hours again. So I quit for the night. And now I’m right back where I was when I first started the project.
Today I’m going to see if I can rent a stump grinder to finish the job that the tree people got paid $1600 a year ago to not finish.
My wife says she doesn’t understand how I can make things so complicated. All she wanted was a few flagstones to keep the dogs from dragging dirt onto the patio.
August 2002 | back-issues, fiction
short fiction by Joseph M. Faria
([email]jmmf [at] msn [dot] com[/email])
[b]one day, one night[/b]
Bob is an upstanding citizen. He smokes big, black cigars. He says they’re Cuban to those who don’t smoke cigars. Bob’s hair is gray-speckled white and on his upper lip he wears a slippery thin mustache that looks as though he painted it on with a magic marker. He says to those who don’t dye their hair that it’s naturally black.
Betty, his wife, is a blonde. Her eyes are stone blue and her lips are full and expressively red. She keeps a diary. She uses a tiny copper-colored key to open the clasp. She writes diligently everyday as if she were errantly snowbound. She is quite utterly alone until Bob returns from the office. The words in her diary are not the same words she uses in real life.
Bob and Betty have been married for twenty-three years. They have lived in the same house for the better part of them. In front of the house there are two maple trees, a bright yellow mail box, a brick walk to the front door, and a black-top driveway to a two car garage. In back of the house there’s an in-ground pool. The pool is dry and filled with twigs and autumn leaves.
Bob is in the kitchen reading the Evening Journal.
Betty is running her fingers over a rump roast.
Outside, an easterly wind is poking its nose at every window. Soon the pink clouds will turn dark, and Betty will have to turn the lights on.
[b]Digging Graves[/b]
The moon was a white bandage on the starless night sky. There were two men in the graveyard. One was leaning on his shovel smoking a cigarette. He had on a brown tweed walking cap, and dressed in dirty dungarees. His mustache needed trimming, and his face a good washing. His tattered coat kept most of the cold out. He blew on his fingers. He was talking loud. “I don’t see why Wheezer has to dig so many holes. It just ain’t right, I tell ya’.” He let the cigarette burn down to his fingers. “It just ain’t right.” He dropped the burnt out cigarette, and jumped down into the hole. He coughed and wheezed and spit into the dirt. “You got to quit those things, Wheezer,” he said.
He took up the shovel and dug for a few minutes, throwing the dirt up and over the hole. Then he stopped and climbed out of the hole. He lit another cigarette. “I don’t see why Wheezer has to dig so many holes. It just ain’t right, I tell ya’.” He walked around the grave to his partner who was sitting on the ground propped up against the pile of dirt. He wiped the dirt off his partner’s face and shoulders. Then he placed the cigarette between his partner’s lips. “No, no, Wheezer’s got plenty more where that came from. You just sit there tight now, we’re almost done with this hole.” He jumped down into the grave again and dug for a few more minutes. He stopped and blew on his fingers. “Yeah Wheezer’s cold too, but Wheezer’s almost through down here. A few more times.”
When he was satisfied the hole was big enough and deep enough, he climbed out of the grave, picked up the corpse and dropped it into the hole. But the corpse didn’t fall straight, it clung to the edge. He had to sit and work his way down to the arm, then he kicked and pushed it down straight.
By now the moon was cracking white, and the wind picked up the leaves and blew them around and over the graves.
He walked to the cart of piled up bodies and worked the shovel in between the dead limbs. He climbed aboard and shook the reigns.
“I don’t see why Wheezer has to dig so many holes,” he spoke to the horse. “It ain’t right, I tell ya’. It ain’t right.”
[b]Listen[/b]
Death nimbly stepped into my living room with his lead-laden breath, and his gentle, hand-maiden eyes. His hair was neatly trimmed as if he had just come from a barbershop. I could smell the talcum powder as he sat in a chair across from me. When he crossed his legs, shiny copper wing-tips flashed in the moonlight, and the starched light-blue Arrow shirt crinkled when he folded his arms across his chest.
I pulled the afghan over my knees. My mouth went dry. I worked my fingers through the knitted holes, and waited. Then he spoke–smooth, light, airy words. A string of soft sounds floated from his mouth. I thought of chocolates, cherry filled sweets, and my mother’s hands.
I settled back against the couch, my face turned toward the window where I could see the shadows of the trees, and the sudden glint of the leaves when the wind shook them.
I closed my eyes and listened.
[b]Flies[/b]
The dog was dead. It was really dead. It lay still in the middle of the road. A speeding car had crushed its head. Tim ran at the car throwing stones and tears. The car was too big, too fast. He stopped and watched it screech around the corner and disappear. He walked back to the dog. The sun baked the road. Shadows moved slightly behind him. The dog’s skull was crushed. A long red stream of blood leaked from its eyes. He wanted to pick the animal up and take it home, but he was afraid to touch it. Mama said never to touch dead animals. So he stood in the sun, staring at his dog, dead in the road. Then the flies came and buzzed around the dead eyes. Tim stamped his foot hard to scare the flies away. He wanted to say poor Jude, poor dog, but he didn’t say anything. He didn’t want to hear his voice. He knew if he did, he’d start bawling. The flies came back. He stamped his foot again. Some of them flew away, but a few stayed as if they knew it was just a scare.
When Tim got home his father was in the den watching TV. His father was sitting on the edge of his chair, grunting, and breathing hard through his nose, slamming his fist on the arm of the chair. Suddenly, he jumped out of the chair, kicking the air and stomping his feet. He was watching a wrestling match.
“Hit ’em. Hit ’em. You son-of-a-bitch,” his father shouted. Then the match was over. His father fell back into the chair, exhausted.
“Papa?”
“Did you see that? Did you see that bum?” His father said, looking at the TV screen.
“Papa, Jude is dead.”
“What? Who’s dead?” his father asked, glancing at his son. Then a chorus of boos, and loud jeering, pulled both eyes to the screen.
“My dog is dead.”
“Okay, okay, sit down,” his father said, waving his left arm in the air. “Watch those two bums coming up now.”
“But Papa he’s dead in the road. A car ran him over.”
“Okay, don’t worry about it. The town will take care of it,” his father said, twisting, sweating, gripping the arm of his chair. “Look at those Goddamn bums, will ya.”
Tim watched the two wrestlers get into the ring. They looked big, fearless, capable of crushing a man’s head with one blow.
[b]Author’s notes:[/b]
Joseph M. Faria was born on the island of Sao Miguel, in the Azores. He studied Creative Writing at Roger Williams University. He published his first poem when he was twenty-three: “The Black Crow Symphony: 4th Movement”, Ishmael, Spring 1973. His short story “Threshold” won 2nd Prize in the 1997 CWA National Writing Competition. His first book of short stories, “FROM A DISTANCE”, was published in the Azores in June 1998 by Nova Grafica Press. He is the Fiction Editor for the on-line journal, “Painted Moon Review”, and the Contributing Editor of the web quarterly, “Linnaeanstreet.com”. His has work forthcoming in “SnowMonkey”, and “The American Journal of Print”. He lives in Bristol, Rhode Island.
August 2002 | fiction
a short story by Marian Wilson
([email]pobdjw [at] nidlink [dot] com[/email])
Gerald dropped a box of rat poison into the hole and grinned. He was sure that stupid fox hid her babies there. “Damn varmints,” he muttered through his gapped teeth.
Gerald was a hunter and it didn’t matter for what: ground birds, squirrels, rabbits. He kept some of them for meat. It didn’t take much to get by, no wife or kids to feed. Some people shoot for the racks, then create furniture of balanced glass over a maze of antlers. Others say they like the taste of game. Gerald didn’t try to fool anyone with excuses. He just liked the hunt, the challenge of the kill.
It was before elk season ended and deer season began. He was polishing his rifle when he heard scratching. Through the window, he saw her. The fox! She was a scrawny thing, no bigger than his dad’s old heeler mix. He grabbed his gun. As he stepped outside, a little speck of gray tumbled over the knoll. Gerald ran with his boots unbuckled and his flannel shirt flapping in the breeze. He thought he saw her to the left, just a flash, a blur. He headed over a slab of granite, toward the field where a few stray apple trees grew.
There he saw her. Not the fox, not the little gray fluff-mobile, but something else, something big. The hump on her back and the massive paws told him this was no ordinary bear. She swatted at green apples that were nearly out of reach. Gerald knew he couldn’t shoot her. These bears were “endangered” after all. The forest roads around him had all been closed to protect the beast.
“Look at the size of that Momma,” he thought. “Grizzlies’ll be taking over the country if the tree-huggers have their way. They won’t be happy ’til the livestock’s gone and their women and kids are in shreds.”
He couldn’t shoot. Not like this, not unless she came after him. The bear went on picking apples as Gerald watched her feast.
“Come at me, bitch. I dare ya’,” he yelled. The bear raised her silver head for a second, then returned to popping whole fruit in her mouth with barely a chomp from her yellowing teeth. Gerald rested his gun on his knees. Movement in the corner of the field caught his attention. He turned in time to see the tiny fox dart away.
He looked back to the tree. It stood alone. He wasn’t sure from where the noise emerged, but it was a deafening groan. The first thing to go was the rifle. It flew from his arms as he was flattened on his back. The bear didn’t flinch under Gerald’s pounding fists. The pain was humane and brief.
Later that night, the bear finished her meal and waddled across the field. The fox waited in the wings, then crept out to examine the remains. There wasn’t much left: a blood-spattered leg of jeans, the laces of a shoe, some straggly hair. She didn’t see anything that she could really use, so she turned and trotted away.
[b]Author’s Note:[/b] Marian Wilson is a writer and registered nurse whose stories, poems and articles can be found in Potpourri, RN, American Journal of Nursing, the Dead Mule, Cayuse Press Book of Remembrance, Moondance, L’Intrigue and the Spokesman-Review. Her neighbors in North Idaho include hunters and grizzlies, but she has yet to meet the latter.
August 2002 | fiction
short fiction by Kathy Fish
([email]mrsfish1960 [at] yahoo [dot] com[/email])
[b]July[/b]
A hot breeze blows through the bedroom window. Jake Harvey looks up from his tattered Huckleberry Finn. The elm trees whisper. Their limbs bend, telling sign language secrets only he can decipher. People come and go from his little room but he doesn’t notice. He listens and watches and waits.
[b]August[/b]
Swaddled in the moonlight that streams through his window Jake Harvey likes to imagine himself the offspring of ghosts. He closes his eyes and raises his fingertips to the ceiling but he does not levitate. He sleeps and dreams of his sister Emily.
[b]September[/b]
Only his mother comes and goes from the little room. She reads Huckleberry Finn late into the night when Jake can’t sleep. A corner of the curtain brushes his cheek and he turns to see the elm trees offer up the full, fat moon to him like a communion wafer.
[b]Author’s Note:[/b] Kathy Fish writes both full length and flash length literary fiction. Two flash pieces were published in the premier issue of The Painted Moon Review and her story “Cardamom” will appear in Vol. 18 of Thunder Sandwich.
July 2002 | back-issues, fiction, Michael W. Giberson
I’ve got a streak of mean.
Yesterday I had to take the bus to work because the chariot was in the shop. I love to ride the bus because you meet all kinds of friendly persons from the lower socio-economic stratum. They’re far more interesting than rich white people.
So, anyway, I’m sitting on the bus near the driver and we stop for a wheel chair person. The bus has a lift platform that pushes out and down for the chair to roll up on. When the chair person rolls up on the platform, it pulls the bus over a fraction of an inch to the right, and the curb is too high at that spot so the platform is still in contact with the sidewalk and it won’t retract. After several unsuccessful tries, the bus driver, a short, black, female dynamo wearing black leather racing gloves, gets up and orders everybody sitting on the right side of the bus, maybe thirty people, to stand up and move over to the left side of the bus to shift the weight of the bus to the left so the platform will lift up enough to retract. The driver has to explain the concept several times before everybody gets the idea, but once they do, everyone cheerfully gets up and moves over and the bus shifts to the left just enough so the driver can operate the lift. Then everybody sits down and we’re on our way again, the whole bus laughing and talking about the experience.
About three stops later, the wheelchair person gets off the bus, again using the lift platform. But two other persons get on at the same stop, and they sit – you guessed it – on the right side of the bus, so the lift won’t retract again. This time all the people on the right side of the bus see what needs to be done and they all get up and move over to the left side of the bus again. All except this one fat lady. She had stood up on the previous occasion, so it’s not like she doesn’t know the score. She just doesn’t want to get up again, so she stays in her seat reading her book, no doubt thinking that the weight of one person won’t make any difference on a loaded, 40,000 lb mass transit vehicle. So she’s the only person on the right side of the bus.
The driver keeps trying to operate the lift, but it’s still stuck on the sidewalk. She tries and tries and the thing beeps and clicks and groans, but it won’t retract. The fat lady stays in her seat, reading her book. The bus driver keeps trying. She can’t see the fat lady because of all the people standing in the aisle, but everybody else on the bus is looking at the fat lady, waiting for her to get up, but she keeps on reading.
Finally, I get tired of it and I yell, “Hey, lady, get up and move over!”
The lady looks up and everybody’s watching her and she’s watching everybody back, and I can just see what she’s thinking: “If I stand up and move over, and the lift works, everybody will think it’s because I’m so fat.”
So she sits there for a minute more, and the lift still won’t retract, so finally, very reluctantly, she stands up and moves to the left side of the bus. At that instant, the lift pulls free and the driver is able to retract it.
So I says loud enough for everybody to hear, “Yup. It was her.”
Like I said: I’ve got a mean streak.
Just goes to show, though, that it ain’t over ’til the fat lady stands.
June 2002 | back-issues, fiction, poetry
[b]Don’t ask me to play Uno[/b]
I saw my dog’s eyeball on the ground this morning. Okay, I didn’t but my brother did and he was so upset that he cried. He’s 10 and a big boy and isn’t supposed to cry so I knew I had to stay in the car. Mom hit Diamond with the car but I think he was okay. Diamond is our dog, and boy is he smart. We taught him to play Uno this morning. He sat outside the window of our house and we set his cards up in front of him and he points a paw at the card he wants to use. He gets it right usually, but he is a beginner you know and so I win most of the times when we play.
Diamond walks to the bus stop with us every morning. This morning Mom went to school with us because she was going to talk to my class, so we went in the car instead of in the bus. I like it better when Mom drives anyway because there’s this kid down the street and he has a crush on me and he follows me around and bothers me and my brother and his brother tease me about it. I tried to tell him to leave me alone but boys just don’t listen. My brother says I’ll end up marrying him, I know I won’t.
I don’t know where Diamond went. When I got off the bus this afternoon he wasn’t at the end of the street waiting for me. He usually is. I called and called for him and then I figured he must be out in the field. We have a big field in our yard and I like to play in it. My brother says a monster lives there, but he only comes after 8 year old blonde girls named Renate. I don’t believe him, of course, I’m not dumb, but I let him think I do. When I was 5 he told me the car would come alive and eat me, I believed him then, I was such a child. I’ve grown now though. I still like to do the things he does so I try to keep him happy. Once we wrapped my Barbie doll in newspaper and set her on fire and then buried her. I didn’t know why we had to bury her, my brother said it’s just what you do. I figured it was so Mom wouldn’t know we had destroyed her. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but Mom found out when I told my aunt about it and got mad at me. My aunt asked how I was enjoying the doll she gave me for Christmas and I told her I enjoyed the fire best. She hasn’t given me Barbie dolls for Christmas anymore which is good because I hate the things. I want more Transformers, but they say those aren’t girl toys.
My brother said that Diamond’s eyeball was on the ground. He’s going to need his eye so I’m going down the street to find it. How’s he supposed to see without it? I can’t understand why everyone seems so upset. My brother is crying and says I won’t see Diamond anymore. I told him of course I would, -I’m- not the one who lost my eye. He just looked at me and kept crying. Mom came in and told me that Diamond ran away. I’d run away from this place too. If he’s not careful my brother might try to wrap him in newspaper and set him on fire. If you see a dog with one eye running around the neighborhood tell him that I love him. Tell him I’ll let him win at Uno if he’ll just come back and play again.
[b]Flight[/b]
Age 4
I think I can fly. No one has told me anything different. I hold onto the rails of our stairs and leap three steps at a time. I fall, go tumbling down and smash into the concrete. I get back up and try again. I know I can fly if I can just get the timing right. My mom combs her hair into her face and puts her glasses on over it. This causes me to run and hide every time. I’m afraid of clowns and Santa Claus and Mom when she does that but not of flying. I watch the sky for airplanes and birds for hours. I watch the clouds. I believe that will be me someday. I know I can fly.
Age 5
I think my younger brother should be the one to fly. Running out the door to check the mail I knock him off our porch. He falls 9 feet and gets up laughing. I go into hysterics. I still think maybe I can fly sometime but wonder what would happen if I tried to and fell like he did. On my birthday, I open the car door before the car stops and tumble out onto the concrete. I’m beginning to think I’m clumsy. Clumsy people shouldn’t fly. I get a balloon but it escapes my grasp. I pitch a fit until they promise me another one, just to shut me up. It works. I think the car in our garage is going to come alive and eat me. My older brother tells me so and he wouldn’t lie. I make him go in there with me every time I need anything. Maybe airplanes eat people too. I begin to wonder if flying is such a good idea after all.
Age 7
Every time my dad is supposed to visit, my brother plays tricks on me. I still think he won’t lie and so I believe him every time he tells me he sees the car. I go running outside. I trip and fall over my feet. A piece of plastic cuts into my leg. I can see the bone and I poke at it. Mom tells me not to. When she’s not looking I poke at it again. I’m not afraid of blood.
Age 8
I get a bicycle for Christmas, but when I try to ride it, I end up in the briars. I don’t try again for 3 more years. I play with transformers and matchbox cars. I still like airplanes. I make them out of Legos. Mom yells every time she steps on the ones I leave in the floor. I climb the trees in our yard and pretend I’m a bird. I’m not afraid of anything, except for the monster in our field. My brother tells me it’s there and he wouldn’t lie. My dog dies but I think maybe he just flew away. My younger brother’s description of the body doesn’t give me much hope though. Every time I have to go to bed when I’m not ready, I think about flying. I’m in my first spelling bee. I think that there may be something I’m good at and I practice all the time. I get out on an easy word because I’m nervous in front of an auditorium full of people.
Age 9
We live with my grandmother for a year. There is no flying. She makes me wear dresses when I don’t want to, but I love her anyway.
Age 11
A friend tells me, I’m the ugliest person he’s ever met. I wonder what my enemies think. My self-esteem plummets. I think it’s going to crash. I let people copy my homework so they know that I’m worth something. I receive 13 awards at the end of the year graduation from elementary school. I tie for the highest academic average. My mom and step dad are proud but I don’t really care. Airplanes aren’t on my mind anymore. My youngest brother is born. I have three brothers now. My second brother tells his class that we named the baby M.C. Hammer. They are suitably impressed. Patrick seems like a common name compared to a name like M.C. Hammer.
Age 13
I think I’ve forgotten how to fly. I have no self-esteem. I don’t speak. I have a few friends but I think they just feel sorry for me. I get lost in books instead. I watch Star Wars over and over. If I can’t fly, I can watch people who can. I’m in love with Han Solo and Luke Skywalker. I think I’m ugly. My older brother tells me so and he wouldn’t lie. I cry but only when I know he isn’t paying attention. I tell him I think he’s uglier and he has a big nose. I go to my two-year-old brother for comfort. He loves me. He thinks he can fly. I remember when that was me.
[b]Two sides of the same coin…[/b]
I have been the hunter
I have been the hunted
I’ve tracked down men with
the reckless abandon of a
she wolf in heat,
lusting after their hairy, fur
covered bodies
and their howls of ecstasy
as I sucked them dry.
I have been pursued,
coaxed out of hiding by
sugar-coated words:
“I’m not going to hurt you.
It’s okay to come out.”
only to feel a gun poking
in my side.
I have run in circles,
howling at the moon,
getting nowhere,
my frustration
dripping like spittle from
my mouth and
sticking to my sweat coated fur.
I have fought battles with my heart.
I have run away into
hiding and licked my wounds
until I felt it was safe
to come out once again.
I have poked my snout
into places I was not
ready to handle yet.
A paw into a snake’s hole,
I have learned from experience.
I have faced death and come out on top.
I have raised my paw as a symbol
of truce one minute
and maliciously torn into flesh the next.
I have given myself over to these primal urges.
I have been meek as a puppy
and fierce as a protective mother.
I have sought out a quiet life,
yet I have been sucked into a wild pack.
I have lived for myself.
I have lived for my brothers and sisters.
I have served a dual existence.
I have turned a smiling eye in your direction,
masked a heart full of pain.
I have loved the feeling of
wet grass under my body.
I have rolled down a hill
only to end up covered in briars.
I have searched for one who notices both sides of me.
I have curled up in a corner
and covered my eyes with my paws.
I know the beauty of dark, damp places.
I have hidden from people knowing
they only cause more of this pain,
but now.
now I hold out a paw
and wait for you to take it
knowing things can never be as they once were
[b]Barbies[/b]
First, you must understand
this all happens for a reason.
The baby bird
pushed out of its nest
by the hand of GOD,
the squirrel
that lost its home,
evicted by an angry tornado,
the raccoon
that fried on the power lines
but took the power with it for a couple of hours,
the mother
who stares into space
is asked what is wrong and says nothing.
You must understand
that everyone in the world is happy.
The man who just lost his baby,
left her on top of the car
and can’t find her now,
still smiles at Seinfeld.
The woman who begs for money,
is content on the street
but needs it to pay her Internet bill,
hums a song to herself.
The kid who failed a test,
lost his dog,
and yells at his mom
goes outside to play ball.
Finally you must understand
that none of this matters.
It’s words, on a page,
fucking each other and fucking the world,
thrust together
by a girl who played
with words instead of Barbies.
[b]What I should have said[/b]
please forgive me
if i can not always speak
and as you watch and wonder
if it was something you said
know that it was
please do not ask me what
or strive to make things better again
the damage is already done.
by Renate Moody (c) 2002
([email]renate [at] poetryuprising [dot] com[/email])
[b]Author’s Note:[/b]
Renate Moody lives in Roswell, GA with her husband. She graduated with a B.A. in English in 2001 and now seeks the perfect life and career. Until she figures it out, she contents herself with writing about the search. More of Renate’s work can be found on her web site at [URL=http://www.poetryuprising.com]www.poetryuprising.com[/URL]
