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sparkle + blink 71
2016 Quiet Lightning
artwork McKenzie Coonce
mckenziecoonce.com
Your Mother Came to Me Again by Alexandra Naughton
from the forthcoming novel American Mary (Civil Coping
Mechanisms)
The Rules by Annelyse Gelman
from Everyone I Love is a Stranger to Someone (Write Bloody, 2014)
book design by j. brandon loberg
set in Absara
Promotional rights only.
This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form
without permission from individual authors.
The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the
internet or any other means without the permission of the
author(s) is illegal.
Your support is crucial and appreciated.

quietlightning.org
su bmit @ qui e tl i g h tn i n g . o r g

CONTENTS
curated by

Lapo Guzzini + Joanna Lioce

featured artist

MICHAEL PALMER

McKenzie Coonce

Christmas Vacation

A History of the Spine

7
Knock-Knock 8
LAURA JEW

HEIDI ANDREA RESTREPO RHODES

Lamentation for a Broken
Constellation 9
ALEXANDRA NAUGHTON

Your Mother Came to Me Again

11

CARLY NAIRN Tapeworms

15

KRISTINA TEN Good

21

EMILY PINKERTON Birds

Olivia on a Thursday Evening

25
27

LAURA JEW

On Giving Reiki With My Mother

29

ANNELYSE GELMAN

The Rules

31

MINDELA RUBY Hoffman

33

CHRIS CAROSI Funeral

35
36

Funeral
HEIDI ANDREA RESTREPO RHODES

For the Boy Who Went to War and

Came Back Fire, Came Back Song 39

ET
QU I

G IS SPONSOR
LIGHTNIN
ED B
Y

lagunitas.com

QUIET LIGHTNING
A 501(c)3, the primary objective and purpose of Quiet
Lightning is to foster a community based on literary
expression and to provide an arena for said expression. QL
produces a monthly, submission-based reading series on
the first Monday of every month, of which these books
(sparkle + blink) are verbatim transcripts.
Formed as a nonprofit in July 2011, the board of QL is
currently:
Evan Karp
executive director
Chris Cole
managing director
Josey Lee
public relations
Meghan Thornton treasurer
Kristen Kramer
chair
Kelsey Schimmelman
Sarah Ciston
Katie Wheeler-Dubin

secretary
director of books
director of films

Laura Cern Melo

art director
Christine No
producer/assistant managing director
If you live in the Bay Area and are interested in
helpingon any levelplease send us a line:
e v an @ qui et light nin g . o rg

- SET 1 -

MMM

MMMMMMMMMM

CHRISTMAS VACATION
Everyone acts nice and friendly;
everyone wants to talk.
We share genes
but little else.
This is Christmas.
My Father insists on cooking the meals.
Hes 92.
When I leave to return home
we wave to one another.
I know only a little
about his life and
he knows only a little
about mine.
We both wonder
if this is the last time
well see each other.
I drive past Chino, past Pomona
and turn west
to go through Los Angeles.
1

Around Pasadena
vehicles leave the freeway
to go to the Rose Bowl.
This is New Years Day.
Yesterday,
Bhutto was assassinated.
At the edge of LA
the Santa Ana winds predicted
on last nights news
whip us without mercy.
I grab the steering wheel
and pray.
The huge electronic sign
at the side of the freeway says
Fierce Winds: Drive Cautiously
stating what we all already know.
I go up and over the Grapevine
entering and leaving
the Angeles National Forest
arriving at level ground
near Bakersfield
in one piece.
I stop at a service station
and open the door of my truck.
The wind blows the door
out of my hand.
My hat sails away
2

out of sight.
I search for it
but cant find it anywhere.
In the spirit of Christmas
I hope its found by someone
who needs a hat;
a lonely field worker
whose back is aching.
I stand in the line inside the station
to use the restroom.
Its too windy
to stand outside
to fill the tank with gas.
I drive on.
Farther down the Interstate
I find a station
at a place
with less wind.
As I fill the tank
a pack of motorcyclists arrive.
Theyre white guys
in their 30s and 40s
maybe one is in his 50s.
They all have leather
jackets and chaps.
Printed in front of their jackets
Mi ch a e l Pa lme r

are their names.

On the back,
printed in large letters,
it says Hells Angels.
One by one
they stride into the service station store
swaggering,
grinning with supreme confidence.
For this moment
they own the place.
When told that the restroom is closed for cleaning
one laughs and says
Ill go piss in the back of the building.
I see one buy
a chocolate milk
and a Twinkie.
I cannot help but think
that these are the guys
that Thom Gunn was always hot for:
no bullshit politeness,
always on the move.
And God help you
if youre a sissy
Heavens Angel
and you get in their way.
4

I imagine them
as the front-line
in a Medieval battlefield.
I leave to return
to Interstate 5.
I see families ride in suvs
with tiny computer screens bolted
above the back seat row
where movies show
to keep the kids quiet.
Tumbleweeds,
barbed skeletons,
fly across the freeway and
roll in front of vehicles
moving at 80 miles per hour.
I watch the tumbleweeds bounce
into an open field
and stop.
Some are alone,
some are connected to others.
Until the wind
takes them.

Mi ch a e l Pa lme r

LLLLLLLLL

A H IST O

RY OF THE SPIN E

It must have been July. We were getting our first

tattoos and the parlor, with its wood panel walls
slathered red, felt as if it were sweating, too. Outside,
the sun was invasive. The shop was called ftw, and my
brother and I couldnt decide whether it meant for
the win or fuck the world. Still, we never asked. The
tattoo artist was pale, his whole head was clean-shaven.
I had mine done first. I had planned on wearing my
faux silk halter-top with the qipao collar so that my
spine and shoulder blades would be exposed. There is a
picture of me lying belly down on the table, eyebrows
arching upwards even though I could swear they
werent. The artist drew my grandfathers name along
my spine in characters we couldnt read. The needle
felt as if it were digging a trench. I tried to think about
what homework I had to do. My brother went next.
With his arm laid out on the table, he looked exposed.
The paleness of his bicep made me turn away. I got the
call, then. Right then. It happened right at the moment
we were being marked with his name. On the drive to
the hospital we said nothing. In the hallway, we hid
the bloody patches underneath our clothes. In the
room, we stood like history over our grandfather.
His name a grave blooming in our skin.
7

KNOCK-KNOCK
The body is not born
into loyalty. It will entice you
through senses borrowed out
like books until the edges grow
dull and frayed from overuse.
Even your bones have seasons.
Even they, in their brittle geology,
record the years with poetic striations.
And as the wind cuts in, your body
will stay behind as you continue on,
wondering who betrayed who,
wondering how you could have fallen
for that trick when you knew
the ending all along.

H
HH

H
HH H

H H H HH H H H H H H H HH

L A M E N TAT I O N F O R A

BR OKE

HH

N CONSTELLATION

HH

for Gwen Amber Rose Araujo, 1985-2002

Shovels are for gardening, frying pans
for breakfast & ropes for tug-of-war in the muddy
splendor of summer sunsets. Blankets are for
cuddling closely
your friends & darlings in foggy damp sadly-moving
winters & canned food
is for an easy meal when you & your mama have
survived another long day beneath the nail.
They ripped you open to make of your body a kite
that would never fly & the Westboro vultures
scavenged
our beat-paused hearts in the name of a stony &
callous god,
& I will not forget the clamour & hue of hell in my
ear, nor the false shoe
of panic thrown at the gavel, nor the weeping storm
of your bruised & weary body
clutching to the tapestry, the trance of aspirations
& pennies spent on lipstick & fountain wishes.

I will not forget the fetid fumes of rocky

Masculinities tightening the death lariat against
your trachea & gleam, nor the madness of carrions,
those
confused arthropods scratching their heads at your
unexpected arrival
to that seat beneath the soil home, nor the surprise of
angels questioning the fist tap
of you & your sidereal sisters knocking early at the
liminal door, mossed twigs in your hair where
flowers should have been, & I will be
loosing the knots at your wrists, ankles, under
the years of these cringing, aching, nightmares, & I
will be
grasping at the reddest marigold, ferociously digging
the silt of these
weathered & fertile flowerbeds, under the empty,
mnemonic apertures of a ruddy
& perforated twilight sky.

10

AA

A
AA

AAAAAAAAAAA

YOUR MOTHER

AA

C A ME TO ME A GAIN
Your mother came to me again, all sunken dreams and
smoker lines, leaning on the bell. I could smell her
disappointment in the vestibule. Too sweet perfume
and hot breath swirling around her in waves like a
deranged tattooed halo.
I must have said hello but I cant remember now I can
only remember the way I felt the blood in my wrists
coursing like fire ants and how I hate when I can feel
that or having my fingernails touched or hearing water
in my stomach splosh around. We must have looked at
each other for some time but then I turned.
She followed me silently up creaking stairs, so close
behind, too close, silently closely everpressing.
Did you need something. Maybe I can help, and
pausing and feeling like wringing my eyes to guess a
motivation, adjusting with hands moving slowly like a
supplicant but she just glared, peeling linoleum.
This cant keep happening.
I pressed.
11

You know, you should call me if you are going to come

by. I could have picked up a coffee cake. Mothers like
coffee cake.
She opened her mouth and I could almost see small
children picking up litter, birds crashing into tall
buildings. It is always a mirror.
Its like I dont understand anything. Even though
I shouldnt have to, she is difficult to impress. My
accomplishments mean little to her. I could do
anything. I am not the one she wants.
Inside my head are boxes all empty some unfolded
some stacked scattered corrugated honeycombs. I can
only sense the floor.
She kicked at my shadow and my hand started to shake.
I put it in my pocket. And she was starting to move
her mouth, but there was no sound. Lips opened and
writhed making shapes. I could feel a rush like stale air
and fruit flies, but no words.
This is how we operate.
Do you ever feel sorry for clothes you dont wear
anymore. Do you ever feel like maybe you like feeling
guilty. Do you feel the room get dirtier when someone
else comes inside. The second youre done. Do you feel
like youre always trying, always trying. All we have in
common is decay.
12

I never know what to say. Its not like were friends.

She made a beckoning motion. The word is special for
her. Its one I remember from stories about suspension
bridges, death personified.
I turned to leave, fumbling over broken stairs and
buyers remorse, remembering an appointment.
She followed, grabbing my bag, dioxin eyes splitting
my ends.

Ale xandra Nau gh t on

13

CCCC

CCCCCCC

TAPEWORMS
Hypochondriacs dont necessarily fear death; they just
believe everything is about to kill them.
Growing up, my hypochondria was the touchstone of
my adolescence.
(Lets just say puberty is a bitch, anxiety disorder or
not. But for me, every time I witnessed a change in my
body, from armpit hair to the inevitable menstruation,
instead of chalking it up to the progression of life into
adulthood, I freaked the fuck out and pleaded to go to
the emergency room.)
Suddenly the emergencehow did I not see it before?
of my pronounced collarbone got me into a fit of terror.
I run up to my mom, who is watching tv in the living
room.
Whats this? I cry, using both hands to cover my chest
area where the protruding bones appeared.
I dont know, what are you pointing at? my mother
answers, unaware that children can be so incredibly
unaware of their own bodies.
15

I scrunch into a ball on the floor, hoping that tomorrow

I will go back to the way I was before.
While my body was changing, seemingly overnight,
I sought out answers in a creepy medical textbook
my parents kept in a cupboard. No book jacket, just
hundreds of pages enclosed in a navy blue hardcover.
Along with a matter-of-fact, symptoms-and-diagnosis
section for many common ailments, there was also
a section that showed photos. Pictures of body
parts covered in scabies, rosacea tinted arms and
legs. Ringworm. Jaundice. The page I always, always
turned to though was a photo of a black hairy tongue.
Stuck out in defiance with a dark, thick coat of
gorilla hair filling in the middle part of the tongue, it
became a recurring character in my nightmares. As a
child, even thinking about it now as an adult, I was
horrified, yet curious. And while I didnt understand
the implications then, I vividly remember reading that
one of the causes was masturbation. I vowed never to
come close to masturbation, believing it might be a
plant, or some sort of chemical kept under the sink.

The thing about hypochondria is that believing you

have it is a symptom of the disorder. And the worse
you think it is, the more you are proving the point.
Nights I would toss and turn, until my sister, hardly
a year older, would come up to my lying body in the
dark, and place her hand on my chest, breast buds
16

starting to form.
Can you hear it?
Yeah, its ok.
Shed sit there until I dozed off, hand gently resting. It
went on like this for years.
In the sixth grade I went to an emergency room nine
times. I didnt attend school for a month and a half. It
was one of the worst periods in my childhood, in an
altogether checkered one. It started with a real, banal
infectionbronchitis. Winter was particularly cold
that year, and the Central Valley air made it difficult
to breathe some days. Bored and alone, waiting for
my parents to come home from work, I would read
the medical textbook. Before I knew it, what became
a small throat virus was first diagnosed by me as
esophageal cancer. A headache was a brain tumor and
a pain in the abdomen meant my appendix burst. My
long-suffering parents tried to reason with me, but I
would cut them off.
You are not a doctor! I would wail.
Not that I would always believe doctors anyway.
When I returned to school, my prognoses continued. I
favored parasitic infections, the more exotic, the better.
A bookishly shy child, its not like I exactly wanted to
Ca rly Na i rn

17

acquire dengue fever, it was more like that would be a

very good excuse for my introverted behavior.
Im sorry I cant go play Skip-It with you today, I think
I am coming down with Chagas disease.
But one of my all time favorites, my go to, my old standby,
was tapeworms. Every time I lost a few pounds, or my
appetite, I believed a tapeworm was having its way
inside my gut, its segmented body growing millimeter
by millimeter as it consumed the nutrients that were
supposed to nourish me.
Sometimes, late on a Thursday afternoon, alone
in my apartment, I still Google tapeworms. (Not
recommended.)
And it was tapeworms that got stuck in my head for
most of my teenage years. They grew a mythological
importance in my mind, and maybe, if I am going to be
honest, substituted for other relationships. They were
my tapeworms, and just like some people in our lives, I
suffered with their neediness and came to regard them
as another part of myself, especially after my sister left
for college.
I eventually, through the discovery of sexwhich
has its own set of frightful diseases to consume my
attentionlet my tapeworms go. That doesnt mean
they finally came outthey were never there but
just like giving up that final teddy bear, I dewormed
18

the last remnants of my childhood.

Later in life, after out-of-state college towns and a
meandering idleness, we find ourselves, my sister and I,
in the same city and at the same time.
I get a call one night from the er. Its my sister,
she thinks she has a brain tumor, and I realize my
hypochondria has jumped ship.
She calls it brain pain and doesnt understand why
the nurses are not immediately ringing up for an mri.
We would later find out that it was nothing serious,
just what amounted to a migraine. But now she is
frazzled and scared, lying on a hospital bed, fidgeting
with her phone. I place my hand on her chest and feel
and listen.
Nodding, I say, Its ok.

Ca rly Na i rn

19

KKKK

KKKKKKKK

GOOD
the pavement was grey
the pavement was grey and pink
the pavement was grey and pink and crawling, and
in parts marked by colored chalk left by four
sticky hands and a lemonade stand and a sunny
afternoon, unsupervised just for a second and a
child misspelling her neighbors name
the pavement was crawling
the payment was in the misspelling
the pavement was grey and pink and crawling
when the rain smelled good and the worms came up
so the rain smells good and the worms come up
the rain smells good, the worms come up
the rain was falling
the rain was falling
the rain was falling something strange
the rain was falling like a dairy cow milking, in fast
hard spurts and a little unwilling, with sad eyes
and a body heavy from carrying whole continents on its side, on its flank whole continents
black and vast seas white
the rain was falling
21

with a bucket kick and a thunderclap

the pavement crawling
a tap left running, a running tap of squirming water
when the rain smelled good and the worms came up
when the rain smelled good and the worms came up
there was nothing she could do about her hair
nothing she could do about her hair
having used her smallest hair clips to hold up the
orchids
the trouble was in the untangling
in the heavy body, in the misspelling,
in the many gods who can show up as just about
anything
as the rain
or the worms
when the rain smells good and the worms come up
the bandage was grey
the bandage was grey and pink and red
the bandage was red on the child with dairy cow eyes
and braids tight to the scalp on the playground
made of dinosaurs with the sandbox triceratops
the playground made of dinosaurs with the swing set
hanging on a long neck
the worms rooting in the wood chips
the wood chips
the orchids bursting forth from the wood chips
the child sliding down a hot tin tail
still slick from the rain
and wet from the rain
22

a sign warning dont feed the animals

we all food for the animals
when the rain smells good and the worms come up
the rain smelled good, the worms came up
the man walked the dog on the chalk colored
sidewalk, over the worms
not stopping, over the worms, pink and crawling, not
sniffing
the man said you walk the dog, the dog doesnt walk
you
the man said i like your hair color
the man said how much
the rain smelled good, the worms came up
the man sent a text message
eight ha has in a row
the man sent a letter
one thousand ha ha has in a row
which is short for, of course, god can mean anything
the clouds would not part
as soon as it started, the clouds would not part
and the doorbell rang cruelly
and the driveway was moving
the woman said i cant get the door, i am a vessel not
a person
what do you mean
i am a vessel not a person, i am a vase
body heavy
head like a neon sign with important letters missing
payment in the misspelling
Kri st i na Te n

23

body heavy
body heavy from carrying the man in the mouth, the
child in the belly, the worms in the child, the
milk in the breast, the world on my hips, whole
continents black and blue and vast seas white
body heavy from catching the rain in my mouth, the
rain falling, sweet like lemonade
sweet like an ending
the dinosaurs teeth bared, the bucket tipping and
spilling
when the rain smells good and the worms come up
when the rain smells good, the words come up
when and rain smells good and the words come up
grey and pink and crawling

24

EE

EEEEEE

EEEEE

EE

BI R D S
I.
The pigeon huddled in the driveway
head buried into its chest
matted feathers puffed out,
and I knew immediately it was dying.
I took two steps forward, stooped down
as if to ask: how are you feeling? are you ok?
As if I might pick it up and hold it in my hands
to feel it shiver, to see if it was still alive
if I could help.
I reached down, saw its dried shit beneath its feet
and knew. I didnt want to touch
something the life had already gone out of
so I walked away.

25

II.
Im a different kind of bird.
A lost magpie that smashes into the window
repeatedly, senseless and frenzied in flight,
leaving blood and bits of feather in cobweb cracks in
the glass. I fly forward. I fly forward.
Toward the horizon, evermore frightened
and absolutely certain that the way out is through,
fixed on the horizon I cannot reach.
As for the open window I flew in through:
Ill fly through this glass before I go back that way.

26

OLIVIA ON A THURSDAY EVENING

A girl sitting on my stoop just moved here
from the small town where I spent my childhood
a place named after carbon and coal
we dug out of the muddy banks of the creek
in Miner park as a summer pastime.
She has the sweet moon-face
and eager voice of someone still naive
in the face of hardship. I havent lived
in that town for twenty years, havent
talked to anyone I left behind and still
the dust of the town carries down
to find me. Here. Here. Now, now.

Emi ly P i nke rt on

27

LLLLLLLLL

ON GIVING REIKI

W IT H M Y M O T H E R
Our hands placed at the temples of
two women shrouded in blankets,
light low in pools beneath our calloused feet,
healing the cradled aches of those we might have
called
sister, mother. Side by side in silence, we are
two oak trees bowing over a breathing cemetery.
Your mothers belly a swell of rain; a vessel
filled with stories we may never tell; a collection of
gazes held one second into understanding.
Can we be trusted to forgive
as readily as we trust our bodies to heal?
And when the earth begins to call for you
how much of my form will take on
all your wounds you never found time to mend?

29

AA

AAAA

AAAAAAA

AA

THE RULES
The spiral on a spiral notebooks sharp enough
to pop a water-wing. When the nurse unwound it my
whole life
fell out of order. Is it such a crime to cry in a
swimming pool?
Do I have to wear this bracelet? Once youre crazy
anything you dos crazy. One time I asked a blind
woman
what she saw. I was six. Was that crazy?
Whats behind you?
she said. I dont know. Exactly. In summer camp
before I knew what deaf meant I yelled at a boy
for capturing the wrong flag. I couldnt
understand why
the grownups kept saying hes death, hes death.

31

MMM

MMMMMMMMM

H OFFMAN
Philip Seymour Hoffman, dead
syringe and heroin found with his body
the devoted fathers body
Sunday morning, his kids went unvisited
A friend dispatched to the stars apartment
confirmed: something was terribly wrong
Broadcasters claimed the celebrity would
never not show up to see those kids
Subsequent reports hypothesized
doing Death of a Salesman on Broadway
broke the newly-single actor down
First he took to drink. Then worse
I fixate on the kids no longer living with
Philip Seymour Hoffmanthat resonant name
My deceased father was Philip
my doctoral advisor was Seymour
Hoffman was the last name of a boy
I loved at nine years old
Theres a photo of my children
just under and over nine years old
cuddling me from both sides
33

the three of us dressed in khaki and blue

The shot reminds me how safe I felt
that day of my kids friends brothers bar mitzvah
Raising sons armored me against lifes darkness
but, grown now, they peel off to separate lives
In their absence, sometimes I feel at risk
like Hoffman with no child at home that weekend
to shield him
from himself

34

CCC

CCCCCCCCC

FUNERAL
Hail all
pens and paper
all words in the throat
all lasting when last
for now all blink
a darkness out of the eye
all writing has been good
but not the world and not
justice, not a word more
on the preparation of all bodies for
all judges
really the sought has basked
in the core of these teeth
will not grin
does not gain
has not been itself

35

FUNERAL
I was not seeming
could not deny I was a fly
at last a day I could sulk
me like combustion
compacted into engine
a wristwatch
we burn okay
if we sit
the size of a stone
in time
hand our love to
bench in the morning
hand our eyes to
stigmatic men
both of it
sit in the worm
crack and curl
a smile, smile
this hand Im in
ordered a flower to kneel
in order to smile

36

I still smoke out the window

when youre not home
I dont breathe fresh air
when I am alone

Ch ri s Ca rosi

37

H
HH H

H H H HH H H H H H H H HH

HH
H HF
H
OR THE BOY WHO WENT H H H
H
H TO
,

WA R A N D C A M E B A C K F I R E
CAME BACK SONG

For Jacob George, 1982-2014. And for all our lost.

I dont know the names of all the boys who come
home,
the fire in their eyes carrying limp babe bodies
whose light gone out, fire like stars want more for the
world,
like rusty nails dragging under feet, if feet remain, or
one;
fire spit out like yesterdays full metal storms,
running blood and nightmemory askew,
fire like what weighs, swells the heart, smells
burning ash in yesterdays nostril,
infects it with the halo of the moon, sign of the
unborn and gone;
fire like birth cant undo rain, like rain not wet, like
wet dont tear,
like tear burn acidhole in stomach, cheek, the
injured moralbone;

39

fire like song, like guttural wail, railing on the cant

no more,
song giving names to little ones on mountaintops
dressed in infinite snowing questions, open fire sustenance song,
fire light world, world cannot hold: hold you, hold
fire, hold your treble,
tremble, fire love blazing trail, fire marrow fighting
fear, fireshine, wildfire grave and stone;
I know fire fight, fire mourn, fire scorch the heart, it
breath you in, it burn,
not fail, not under, not too much broken fire mad,
you salty fleshly fire wonder, fire bird and ghost on
wing,
I know fire cry, fire sweat up bedsheet, fire tangle
you, rise you up and boom your ear:
you fire, you flame, you radiance, you star wishing on
home, you furnace choir D-string call,
fire fall, voice like yearning thunder, strike, crack me
open, fire dark and done;
fire like morning want more for the world, fire out,
you, spark remain.

40

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by

Breast Milk
tupelo hassman

if you want to be one of them

playing in the streets
by zack haber

- january 4, 2016 -