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2010 2010 2010 2010 2010 2010 2010 2010 2010 2010 2010 2010 2010 2010 2010 2010 2010 2010

REED COLLEGE
CREATIVE REVIEW
2010 2010 2010 2010 2010 2010 2010 2010 2010 2010 2010 2010 2010 2010 2010 2010 2010 2010

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EDITORIAL STAFF
Editor-in-Chief: Sacha Baniel-Stark

Submissions Editor: Allie Werner

Layout Editor: Michelle Carroll

Assistant Submissions Editor:Lauren Seegmiller

Assistant Layout Editor: Stephanie Bastek

Copy Editor: Jessica Fancon

Technology Editor: Emily Crotteau

Assistant Copy Editor: Erin Kleinfeld

EDITORIAL BOARD
Sam Grenrock
Crystel Hadley
Kyla Haimovitz
Malcolm Kemeny
Kayleigh Stevenson
Reed College, 3203 SE Woodstock Blvd, Portland, OR 97202

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Dear Readers,
As Im sure youve noticed, youre holding the 2010 version of

the Reed College Creative Review. While many things about it are
the same as the 2009 Creative Review, there are also some exciting,
pretty much hidden changes.
This year has been an exciting one in terms of implementing some
structural and content changes for us. For the first time, we accepted
submissions in non-printable media, started a website, and had
multiple editors per task! It probably sounds boring, but in the world
of the Creative Review, this is big.
Our hope is to get this publication more robust, more
representative of Reed, and easier to get involved with. Hopefully,
the implementation of assistant editorships will lead to a more
stable publication, and hopefully next year even more of you (!) will
choose to submit music, videos, audio recordings, and of course all
our usual staples photography, visual art, poetry, and prose.
Right now, what our changes mean for you is that very soon,
youll be able to visit our website, see digital copies of our content,
listen to the songs that were submitted this year, peruse other
submissions, and see archives of Creative Reviews past. Were
also excited to be able to include more content online, including a
number of submissions that we loved but couldnt print due to space
considerations, some excellent recordings of spoken word poetry,
and music made by Reedies.
Look out for an announcement from us regarding our website, and
if this volume inspires you to get involved (I hope it will!), please
feel free to email me Im lucky enough to get to steer this ship
for one more year, and would absolutely love to hear all of your

feedback. Good, bad, ugly, post-modern, whatever. If you have

questions about our process or about how to get involved next year,
also get in touch!
I am also very pleased to announce that some submissions from
the 2009 Review have been chosen for inclusion in plain china, a
best of national undergraduate literary anthology! Reedies make
wonderful art, and were happy to get to showcase it to you, our own
community.
As always, a special thanks goes out to Mara Thrush and
Bridgetown Printing, for putting up with our crazy publication and
lots of questions, and thanks to Colin Diver, Student Activities,
and Senate for their support. Also, a special special thanks to the
editors and Review Board who have put in many hours making this
publication possible!
I hope you love the look of the new Creative Review, and I
hope to see lots of your work next year! Be on the lookout for an
announcement of our website, and definitely check out all the other
great submissions that will be online. And email me! I want to hear
from you!

Sincerely,
Sacha Baniel-Stark 11
Editor-in-Chief
banielsa@reed.edu

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nceranthroughitthefloodstarknovaforceelementamericaharkminorgoddessesoftheodysseyphilomenablueskullsmaamencounterlateaugusttaylorscottstilllifethetwistworldwarIIbettery,peaksisland,memylifeinbookscontemplationrooftop

oftopsphiladelphiaseashellstairwelltudeinciminorthroughthefogtheamericandreamroosterlampgoodbye,invisiblemancherryblossoms.lostinadreampipedreamscentralsteppes doorwaytosleeplessexhaustedinflightchildlossfromoedipusf

TABLE OF CONTENTS

essexhaustedinflightchildlossfromoedipusfailedromanceversion4.0spring,summer,fallwintertheshattering.andafenceranthroughitthefloodstarknovaforceelementamericaharkminorgoddessesoftheodysseyphilomenablueskullsmaamencounterlateaugusttaylorscottstilllifethetwistworldwarIIbettery,peaksisland,memylifeinbookscontemplationrooftopsphiladelphiaseashellstairwelltudeinciminorthroughthefogtheamericandreamroosterlampgoodbye,invisiblemancherryblossoms.lostinadreampipedreamscentralsteppes doorwaytosleeplessexhaustedinflightchildlossfromoedipusfailedromanceversion4.0spring,summer,fallwintertheshattering.andafenceranthroughitthefl

caharkminorgoddessesoftheodysseyphilomenablueskullsmaamencounterlateaugusttaylorscottstilllifethetwistworldwarIIbettery,peaksisland,memylifeinbookscontemplationrooftopsphiladelphiaseashellstairwelltudeinciminorthroughthefogtheamericandreamroosterlampgoodbye,invisiblemancherryblossoms.lostinadreampipedreamscentralsteppes doorwaytosleeplessexhaustedinflightchildlossfromoedipusfailedromanceversion4.0spring,summer,fallwintertheshattering.andafenceranthroughitthefloodstarknovaforceelementamericaharkminorgoddessesoftheodysseyphilomenablueskullsmaamencounterlateaugusttaylorscottstilllifethetwistworldwarIIbettery,peaks

art & photography

6
18
33
35
37
38
38
39
41
42
43
44
46
47
48
55

Doorway To | Rachel Cole-Jansen

And a Fence Ran Through It | Sacha Baniel-Stark
Blue Skulls | Tatiana Oudine
Encounter | Katelyn Best
Taylor Scott | Tatiana Oudine
Still Life | Lucy Butcher
The Twist | Kayleigh Stevenson
World War II Battery, Peaks, ME | Malcolm Kemeny
Contemplation | Leslie A. Zukor
Rooftops | Tatiana Oudine
Philadelphia | Tatiana Oudine
Seashell Stairwell | Erica Boulay
Through the Fog | Malcolm Kemeny
The American Dream | Malcolm Kemeny
Rooster Lamp | Chip Williams
Lost in a Dream | Rachel Cole-Jansen

poetry

prose
9
10
11
12
16
17
20
25
26
27
31
32
34
36
40
45
54
56

Exhausted in Flight | Dominic Finocchiaro

Childloss | Stephanie Bastek
From Oedipus | Kate McCully
Failed Romance Version 4.0 | Lindsey Dono
Winter | Kayla Sheridan
the shattering. | Natalie Sheehan
Stark | Camille Charlier
Force | Allie Tepper
element | Sam Grenrock
America | Christina DeVillier
Minor Goddesses of the Odyssey | Susan Lynch
Philomena | Stephanie Bastek
Maam | Kayla Sheridan
Late August | Greta Moran
My Life in Books | Dominic Finocchiaro
tude in C Minor | Stephanie Bastek
cherry blossoms. | Natalie Sheehan
Pipe Dreams | Jeffrey Weeks

9
10
11
12
16
17
20
25

Sleepless | Amanda Pichel

Spring, Summer, Fall | Dahlia
Grossman-Heinze
The Flood | Lauren Seegmiller
Nova | A. Werner
Hark | Dahlia Grossman-Heinze
Goodbye, Invisible Man | A. Werner
Central Steppes | Lauren Seegmiller

Sleepless
Amanda Pichel
The harder you try to make yourself sleep, the more frustrating it is

Doorway To
Rachel Cole-Jansen
Black & white photograph

come. You turn the blaring alarm off without batting an eye and sit right
up.
At first, you avoid other people, take the paths behind buildings, keep
eyes down on the ground or up in the sky or forward behind the funny
curtain of consciousness. Youre tired and touchy all the time and you
dont feel like talking to anybody. Those first days, in class, you sit there
and you feel your head nodding off every couple of minutes. Its all you
can do to keep jerking it back up. You cant help it, and your eyelids feel
so heavy, you feel like they may never fully open again. You wish you had
stayed home and tried to sleep, but you know that if you had skipped class
youd just lie on your bed or on your couch. Youd close your eyes and try
to sleep, but for all the good it would do you might as well go to class.
3:47 a.m., 5:29 a.m., 27:82 a.m., it all looks the same and doesnt mean
anything. You know that those little red numbers signify something, but
when you try to focus your brain like a telescope to figure it out, you just
notice that the two is a little red snake, and it slithers off the face of your
clock and down the leg of the dresser.

when you cant seem to do it. The way the paint dried on the ceiling
created little figures, and you watch them dance around as you lie awake.
4:51 a.m. You cant stand the demonic red numbers taunting you, so you
get out of bed, turn the clock to the wall, and lie back down. You lie, and
you wait, and you remember that time when you wandered into that 7 a.m.
yoga class in a daze after a night of float-like wandering, and you try to
practice evening out your breathing like that perky blonde teacher said.
You try to sleep, and you wait, and youre aware of every single tiny little
lump in your mattress, of every creak and tick of your house. You find
yourself counting: up to sixty, start back at one. Up to sixty, start back at
one. You do this about a hundred goddamn times, until you get so sick you
cant stand it, and you get up and turn your clock back around to face you.
4:58 a.m.
You wonder what you did to deserve this purgatory. Youre in this
weird sort of limbo, a sleepless waiting room for an appointment thats
never going to arrive. Its the worst time of the night right now, because
you have to shower and start the day in a couple hours, but not soon
enough to justify getting out of bed yet. Its the time of night when all your
worries and stressful thoughts start to crawl in through your bedroom door,
languidly spreading over your carpeting until all you see of the floor is a
squirming black abyss.
You lose yourself in outer space, where time ticks by oh. So. Fucking.
Slowly. Youre frustrated, but its like in space: you can flail your arms all
about, but when you cant push off of anything, you wont go anywhere.
You can stew and screw your eyes shut and lay perfectly still, but youre
suspended in the infinite emptiness until your alarm goes off. 7 a.m.
arrives like a barbed life preserver, just when you thought it would never

After the first few days of no sleep, it changes. You dont try to lie in
bed until you fall asleep anymore, you know that doesnt work. You stay
up and smoke some weed, you have a drink, you exercise more during
the day, and drink warm milk before bed. You buy herbal remedies at the
health food store that taste like chalk and dont work at all. You do all the
right things: avoid your bed unless its nighttime, do mental math. Nothing
ever works. Your days slide into each other, your world gets further and
further removed from you. You dont remember showering and leaving
your house, but you tune back in to find yourself walking to class.
The even pounding of your feet on pavement pulls you back into
7

reality, not in a snap, but slowly. It comes into focus, like after youve
been on vacation for a long time and you drive home through your town.
Youre not even conscious of where your feet are taking you, but it feels
like theres an invisible force pushing them forward, so you dont worry
about it and let them do the work. Its a sunny day outside but everything
is bright in that faded way, like if you touched it, it would all have that
same dry, papery consistency. The air like tissue paper, light but crinkly
to the touch. Of its own accord, your hand reaches out to feel it. The grass
doesnt look bright green anymore like it used to; you wonder who tore
up all the little emerald blades and replaced them with blades of shredded
newspaper. They must be moving in the exact right way like Benhams
Disk, creating color out of black and white.
After a few days though, you dont care that you seem weird. You
walk aimlessly around and smile at strangers. You see your friends, who
ask you how youre doing, and instead of a smiling Fine, you offer
them a rambling narrative about how you want to fold a giant paper boat
and put it in the ocean and sail around the world with a crew of Lego
sailors. They look at you funny, and you giggle because theyre more like
dream-people, not really solid, and its more like, like talking to people in
paintings, or maybe those people on the infomercials that play on repeat
on channels 2 to 7 from 2:30 to 5:30 every morning. You know all the
words to the Magic Bullet and Total Gym ads now, though youre never
really sure what they mean. Words are so funny now, because theyre just
noises, just hums and clacks and hisses, and no matter how loudly the
infomercial hosts shout, they can never jump out of the TV and into real
life. The noises coming out of your friends mouths mean that they think
you should go to sleep, that they think itd be good for you, but they sound
just like that shouting bearded man telling you to buy OxiClean, you
look like you could really use it. You tell them in complete earnest that
youve passed that threshold. You no longer feel the need to sleep, because
youve achieved a sleepless nirvana of sorts and its marvelous. They look
dubiously at you, but before you know it your feet have propelled you

forward again and you mumble an excuse about being late to class.
Enlightened sleeplessly, youre not tired anymore, and in class, you
stare vacuously at your professor. He is lecturing on the importance of
endoplasmic reticulum in cell bodies but youre not listening, youre
noticing that if you keep your eyes fixed on him, he and the blackboard
behind him appear to be moving closer to you, then further away. Its like
someone is zooming in then out, in then out, and then you realize that you
havent done any of the homework thats due, which is too bad because
you have all the time in the world. Its hard to remember due dates when
you have no idea what day of the week it is.
You wonder about Rip Van Winkle. He was asleep for twenty years.
Maybe his dream world became more real to him than reality, maybe it
was more like home and he had already unpacked his silverware there and
everything. It was hard for him to wake up again and live in an unfamiliar
world, but he probably needed to wake up to take a break so that he could
be well-rested when he fell back asleep. Dying was like going home for
him, you decide.
You dont try to sleep anymore. You take long walks in the cold, dark
night to try to make life seem more realistic. You watch the sunrise
while sitting among the ducks at a nearby park. Youre pretty sure they
understand you when you talk to them, and you know exactly what theyre
thinking. You start hanging out with druggies, because theyre always
awake at 4 a.m. and theyre just as spaced out as you are. You smoke weed
with them, and they offer you other things, but you laugh and thank them,
saying, I definitely dont need to be more out of touch with reality. And
one day youre just lying on your back on the floor, contemplating the
insanely high probability of life on other planets. You know that every
single star in the sky is its own sun in its own solar system, and out of all
the planets that could be orbiting each of those suns, you know that at least
one other warm space rock has to have life besides Earth, and the clarity
of that simple fact is overwhelming. Its paralyzing, and you think about
what a trance is, and finally you close your eyes and go home.
8

light

in F
Exhausted

her, but
Streaming higare lighter than this,
y grip
Birds wings ing trouble keeping a stead
And I am hav tus of my ascent.
On the appara
of joy,
t of sorrow or
o
n
re
a
rs
a
te
n,
The
red dissolutio
But of measu ngth, and the certainty
Withered stre ch I rise in magnitude
That every in in resolution.
Is a foot I fall
in the sun,
Icarus melted ffin dropped into the sea
Until the para what I am made of,
I dont know it is not wax;
But I am sure easy, though,
aters,
It will melt as into Atlantic and Pacific w,
And will seep precipitation of a grey day
Like the light re it hits the ground,
Forgotten befoor as it freefalls.
Turned to vap

occhiaro

in
Dominic F

Childloss

From Oedipus

The kitchen begins to hiss,

so she rises from her chair
and stands before the stove.
The kettle sweats in steel and plastic;
her hand above the spout grows clammy.
Her fingers stick together.
The water is ready.
She saves the kettle from the stove,
and pours, and pours,
fills her mug up to the lip.
She wraps it in her fingers,
scalds her palms on the ceramic.
She lets it pierce her through the underbelly.
Her fingers tighten she wont let go
she has strangled it.
The tea lies cold beneath her touch.

A sweet tickle to the skin not of

peaches and lips and union,
but of fear, that animals can smell and grow hungry.
As she runs through the halls, gilt peels and light dies
every time she blinks: an earthquake.
These oak doors need the strength
of two men to open, and she feels
two men and it makes her heavy inside
her chamber, her crypt
there are three imprints on the bed that make
pools, fathomless
inside her nightmare,
the deep blue reddens as water burns in the harvest sundown.
Three shadows play
their games before her eyes as tears make
ripples. The bedposts
howl in anguish, and the windows hang their heads
in shame. The blankets, polluted, coil.

Stephanie Bastek

Kate McCully

10

11

Spring, Summer, Fall

Dahlia Grossman-Heinze
We spent the weekends together. I packed a couple outfits, my

Failed Romance Version 4.0

His voice reminded me
of five to midnight
and not much else.
He was so afraid
that the world would end
with that last strike of twelve
that he forgot the very
best part of hot cocoa
is gumming the sludgy muck
at the bottom of the cup.

Lindsey Dono

12

I told him I was applying to transfer to another school. He pretended

to be happy for me. He was actually happy when I was rejected from
one. He was not happy when I was accepted at another. He took me
out to dinner on my birthday, the day I was accepted at the last one.
I turned nineteen, and I knew that he knew I was leaving. We got in
a fight. I met him for hamburgers and onion rings. I saw his bike on
campus and left him a note in the spokes with a heart and my initials.
He took photographs of us. I called him a racist. He told me he knew I
was trying to pick a fight with him. I asked him to leave. He met me for
lunch after my therapy appointment. I called my friends and talked to
them about where I should transfer, but I never asked him. We went on
a break over Christmas and I made out with my ex-boyfriend and never
told him. We broke up and I went on a date with a boy I knew from
class and never told him. We got back together and I never told the boy
from class. We went to San Francisco and stayed in the Pickwick hotel.
I carried around college catalogs and looked at them when I was waiting
for him. We went to a concert. I proofread his essays and told him it was
unacceptable to use the first person in scholarly work. He accidentally
spilled coffee on my sociology project. He listened to my radio show
every week even though it was on at two in the morning. I never told
him that my co-host flirted with me during the commercial breaks. We
broke up. We had sex. We took the bus to the nearest Sprint store two
hours away when my cell phone broke and he didnt complain. We
biked in the dark singing songs. We both got ticketed and fined $180
for biking without a light. We spent the day shopping and I bought a
pink bra and he said he didnt like it because it made me look like an
old lady. He told me he didnt like Brokeback Mountain and I called

contact case, contact solution, my toothbrush, and my phone charger

in my backpack and I biked to his apartment. I called him when I was
outside and he let me in. He took my backpack from me and kissed
me. I sat on his bed and he told me that hed already ordered pizza.
We watched illegally downloaded movies on his computer and we fell
asleep. I slept on the right side of the bed because it was closer to the
bathroom and because I liked to sleep on my right side facing him. In
the morning we biked to a park. We biked to the classy grocery store
and I bought chocolate with raspberry filling, goat cheese, French
pink lemonade in glass bottles, crackers, and cupcakes. We biked
to Starbucks and I got a chai latte. We spent the day shopping and I
bought a pink bra. We got Chinese food and he got mad because there
was a fly in my Won Ton soup. We spent the day in bed eating and
sleeping. We took showers together. We went to the movies. We went
to San Francisco. We got sushi. We went to Borders and I asked him
to lend me money so I could buy the new Hannibal book. We had sex.
We watched an Americas Next Top Model marathon. We went to a
nice restaurant and I ordered steak and he paid. We watched Bravo.
We talked. He drew and I read. I read him my stories for class and he
offered suggestions that I sometimes took and sometimes didnt. I was
sick and watched The Birdcage and he made me chicken noodle soup
and rubbed my stomach. We went to McDonalds and stayed for three
hours. We did homework together. We ate all the food we had bought in
his bed on the sheets that I bought him for Christmas. On Sunday night
I biked home to my dorm room. He asked me to call him when I got
there.
13

him a fucking homophobe. I suspected that he had a crush on one of my

roommates. I told him I didnt want to be friends with his friends. He got
mad when I drank. He got mad when I smoked pot. I went to therapy. I
went to yoga-therapy. I was often late to yoga-therapy because at three on
Wednesdays both of my roommates had class and he and I had sex before
yoga-therapy at four. I got in a bike accident on my way to yoga-therapy.
I cried and told him to leave me alone. I cried when I thought about
being alone. We went for walks. He told me he thought my therapist was
poisoning me against him. I had a crush on a boy in my Intro to the Novel
class until I realized it was only because he looked just like him. I told him
I was going to transfer. We went out to dinner and he ignored me and I
walked out. We stopped having sex.
The school year ended and he went home before I did. My mom came
and helped me pack up my dorm room. I called him when I got home.
I unpacked my things. He came over. He spent the night. We avoided
talking about the fall and my new school. I left to visit my friends in
Kansas and to work at a summer camp. We talked while I was there, but
mostly I talked about work. He sent me a dirty drawing and I hid it before
ripping it up. I talked about him with my friends in Kansas and most of
them asked me why I hadnt broken up with him yet. My ex-boyfriend
told me he wasnt good enough for me. He called me and I ignored him.
I went back to California. He came over and we got In n Out for lunch.
I watched whole seasons of shows on demand alone and when he called
me I said I was busy cleaning my room before I left for school. We went
to a deli across the street from our high school and watched all the kids
in uniform leave when the bell rang and I remembered when that was us.
We went to movies. I hung out with friends who used to be our friends but
were now only my friends. My friends and I went to the fair and we didnt
invite him. I went to a water park with a friend everyone knew had a crush

14

on me. He got mad at me for going and I told him I could do whatever I
wanted with whomever I wanted. When he spent the night we slept facing
away from each other. He accused my mom of being an illegal immigrant.
I packed my things to leave. I packed two photographs of him. I asked my
mom if it was okay if he spent the night at our house that last night. She
said he could if I wanted him to. I went over to his house late that night.
His mom told me to make sure to stay in touch. She asked me if I was
excited to go and I said I was, but I didnt tell either of them that I was
mostly scared. He cried and then I cried too. We agreed to break up. We
agreed we would talk things over the following Christmas and talk about
getting back together if thats what we both wanted. He hugged me for a
long time in the hallway. He stood on his front porch and watched me go
and I didnt turn around. He said he loved me. I didnt invite him to spend
the night.
I called him when I got there. I didnt call him again for a while. We
fought on the phone. I made fun of him to my new roommate. He told me
I was the worst thing that had ever happened to him. I hung up on him.
I met someone else. I blocked him on the Internet. He told me he still
loved me. I hid the two photographs of him in the bottom drawer of my
nightstand. He told me to block him on the Internet. I told him I didnt
want to talk to him ever again. I unblocked him on the Internet and he
immediately asked me why I had blocked him. I told him I wasnt ready
to have him in my life and he said I was selfish. I called my parents. I
told him I couldnt talk because I had to write a paper. I told him it really
wasnt a good time. He said he missed me. I told my new friends about
him. I rolled my eyes when he texted me while I was with them. He called
me once and I told him how happy I was and I could tell he was sad. I told
him I had to go. We didnt talk or see each other at Christmas and then we
didnt talk or see each other at all.

15

inter winter winter winter winter wint

inter winter winter winter winter winter winter

*
*

Kayla Sheridan
16

the shattering.

i loved the green-gray trees covered in first snow.

the ground, barren.
the silence, absolute, of falling snow, of nothing moving.
the utter depths of winter,
never darker than the human spirit, than the cold bottom of an endless lake.
the shattering of an iced tree like cannon shot.

*
*

my red breath against the ice lake, the ice forest.

(alone, the world is at war with you).
you can almost hear the declarations of winter birds,
the silent mockery of the predator-cats,
the ice-stillness of a wolf at bay.
i remember the swooping of the snow forms against the trees.
the sudden disappearance of winters glory
the summer sun swung back into orbit.
i used to worry that this winter would be the last.

that i would never again be embraced by the great gray arms of

snow and storms. silence.

Natalie Sheehan
17

tering shattering shattering shattering shattering sh

I think Eskimos
must always be in love,
because its too hard
not to,
when your breath freezes
on your teeth.
If your words
fall frozen on the floor
like snowflakes,
my body
heat could warm them
nicely [and you, too].
my thermostat, it seems,
is still completely
on the fritz, but we
could breathe moist warmth
into each others necks
and scald
our frostbit lips.
I think my hands
might be more warm
if they still had another
pair to hold,
and thats,
I think,
why Eskimos
must always be
in love
its cold.

shattering shattering shattering shatterin

Winter

The Flood
Lauren Seegmiller
I am thirsty all the time; it is so dry here. I am far away from

pinned to her throat. It would be a nice picture if her eyes looked more
lively. She has never had hardship, and huffed spitefully when Nancy
told her to take those white tubes out of her ears. She has limp, stringy
hair and she still insisted on wearing it down. When I was her age, I
would have loved to wash my hair every day, but I was not allowed that
luxury.
This is a very nice photo. You look very pretty, I said to be polite.
It would be so nice if you took this much pride in your appearance all
the time.
All she did was huff and ask her mother for change to go to the soda
machine. I have not seen Madison since that day, and I turn the photo
against the wall unless Nancy comes to visit. She always tells me that
Madison will not come unless I promise to be nice. I always tell her it
is not nice to huff at ones elders and then Nancy huffs at me. I know I
raised her right; it is this desert that has sucked out her manners.
In the recreation area, I tried to show the others how unflattering
a photograph it is. One man with a hearing aid shouted at me that
I should feel blessed to have a granddaughter who remembers my
birthday. When I showed the woman who never talks, she studied the
face closely.
She is very disrespectful and you can tell by looking, I said.
She took it from my hand, and slowly put her thumb squarely over
Madisons face. Her mouth opened, and a creaking sound came out.
I looked down and saw a stain migrating over her lap, soaking her
pants, eating up the color. I wanted to talk to her some more, to see if
she might answer me again, but the nurse came over and told me quite
rudely to stand back.

everything, but I could be in the center of town and still be far away
from everything. It is designed to be like that. Everything here dies, but
slowly. It never rains, but scrub brush still clings to the ochre dirt. There
is no reason to, but everyone in the recreation area keeps clinging to
life. There is a woman here who never talks, who looks as though she
is made of cornhusk and moves as though her bones have rusted. But
when they bring her a walker, she will not use it. When they bring her
a wheelchair, she stands up out of it. When I still played cards with the
others, they would show their hands by accident, either because their
hands all shake or they do not pay attention. I do not play with them
anymore.
I barely leave my room anymore unless it is time for supper. I
have lined up all my old photographs passed down from my greatgrandparents so that I may be reminded of their hardships. They crossed
the Great Plains in covered wagons, and I can read the prairie in their
stern expressions, and also in their eyes, which look like wagon wheels.
My mothers eyes look that way in her picture, too, even though we had
a Ford Model A when I was a girl. She is standing on it in a flowered
dress, with the rows of corn behind her. It was taken only two years or
so before soil crumbled into dust and ate up our fields. That was what
I thought was happening at the time: a big brown mouth eating up our
dead crop. It rained dirt instead of water and I felt like I might choke all
the time. I never felt that way since, until I was forced to move here.
On my dresser, there is also a photograph that Madison gave me last
year on my birthday. It is some sort of joke-picture done in sepia tones,
with Madison in a high collar and her hair done in a bun, with a cameo

And a Fence Ran Through It - Sacha Baniel-Stark - Black & white photograph
18

19

or

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Camille Charlier

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The pull of grief is like a snake wound tightly.

A mighty transformation washes light like the watercolor
of a forgotten child.

st e
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I do not know how to mourn.

di

Half black, half white

and you cannot take both in at a glance
but oh how you try.

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Nova
A. Werner

Victor Nova leans back in the drivers seat of his car until his line

ull

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like

It is the gasp of a sob,

the sucking of air and life and sense
the indeterminable purity of reason
like a lover who leaves you again and again.

Eyes flying lids as damp as dew

swollen in the early morning of
a late, late night.

it

hin

of

It is half a face, an empty pool, a starless night

a blank page so full of script and scribble
like a field of thorns cross-hatching the light,
distilling it to a smooth, clenching coolness.

nd

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Is the sound so deep in my belly

I cannot feel its fullness.

rip

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small, dark restaurant called the Helsinki Caf. The detective follows
at a distance, shuffling slowly down the sidewalk and gazing into the
windows of the restaurants and antique stores. Vic stops in the front
of the caf and pretends to be interested in the menu of Scandinavian
specialties tacked to the inside of the window. The subject sits across
from a young woman with long, silvery blonde hair. Very pretty, thinks
Vic. Much prettier than my wife. Cant blame him.
The detective walks across the street and into a diner that looks like it
might be more to his taste. He sits in a red vinyl booth in the back, facing
the window, so that he can keep one eye on the door of the caf. He is
the only customer in the whole place. A waitress materializes at his side
almost immediately. He is surprised by how fast her bulky middle-aged
frame moves.
Not that Vic thinks of himself as such a looker. The years have pulled
at him like gravity, softening his belly and forming perpetual bags under
his eyes. The stubble that begins to form on his face every afternoon
comes in grey. Just because he was a little beat-down, though, didnt
mean he didnt deserve a decent view from time to time.
It alright if I smoke in here? he asks the waitress.
Its illegal to smoke in Massachusetts restaurants. Has been for a
while, says the waitress. Besides, its terrible for you. You should quit.
Ive been on the patch for three weeks now and its working great. She
stops and takes a pen from behind her ear.
Listen, says the detective. I started smoking when I quit drinking.
What I like about cigarettes is theyre bad for nobody but me.
The waitress looks at him, pen poised above a pad of order slips. Her
eyes, haloed by blue mascara, betray nothing. Then she says, Ill get you

of sight just clears the dashboard. He smokes his cigarette down to the
quick, blinks, then lights another one. The car is old enough to have
an ashtray. He broods like a dogfish and keeps his eyes on the squat
industrial building in front of him.
Vic pulls the cigarette from his mouth and watches the smoke spiral up
from between his fingers into the noon light. The detective feels boredom
settle over his solid body like a lead sheet. He puts his cigarette back
in his mouth and sighs through his teeth. The smoke circling through
the closed air of the car creates a grey veil between him and everything
else. Its like looking up through murky water. Vic allows his eyes to
lose focus, to increase the effect. He lets his lids drop shut and imagines
sinking through the suddenly liquid seat, through the metal chassis of the
car and the asphalt beneath, until he is buried deep in the mud.
The detective opens his eyes just as his subject exits the building. The
subject is a small, neat man with high cheekbones and horn-rimmed
glasses. He dresses in corduroy. Vic doesnt like the look of him. The
subject looks like the sort of man who would smoke tobacco in a pipe.
Vic leans forward and the movement creases new wrinkles into his
dark suit. The detective removes a small notebook and a ballpoint pen
from his pocket. He speaks aloud to himself as he writes. Six-fifteen,
says Vic, Subject leaves office. Surveillance to follow at a distance.
When the subjects car rolls out of the parking lot, Vic raises himself
up and brings his own car to life. It is a good twenty minutes from the
college campus into town. During the drive, the detective tries to think of
nothing at all.
The subject parks his car on the side of the road and goes into a

coo

lne

21

an ashtray. The waitress hurries off behind the grill and is gone.
Vic takes out his notebook. Six-forty-five, he murmurs to himself.
Subject takes supper at the Helsinki Caf with an unknown blonde
companion.
The waitress returns with his ashtray. Thanks, sweetheart, says Vic.
Now how about a pot of coffee and a corned-beef sandwich?

The subject and the blonde are easy to follow. They move slowly,
their arms slung low about each others waists. They eventually turn and
disappear through the heavy wooden door of a bar marked by neon. The
detective hears loud music as the door swings open, then only muffled
rhythmic noise as the door swings shut. Vic waits outside. He stands near
the curb and lights a cigarette. He blows smoke and watches it change
color with the neon. After a while the music blares into life again and Vic
turns his head.
The girl from the diner stumbles out of
the bar, an unlit cigarette clenched between
her teeth. She sees him and freezes.
You following me? she says through
closed teeth. You following me, you hardboiled fuck? Shes coiled up like a spring.
The detective imagines her driving that
hatchet face into his forehead and splitting
his skull in two.
No, he says. Not you.
The girl sighs and uncoils. She looks
sideways at him. The way her eyes slide
around in her skull betray how drunk she is.
Just because youre paranoid, she says
apologetically, doesnt mean theyre not
out to get you. She sits down on the curb,
as if standing has become too difficult. Vic
sits down besides her. Talking to the girl
makes him look as if he is supposed to be there.
She clumsily digs through the pocket of her jeans. The detective
anticipates what shes looking for and flips open his gleaming Zippo to
offer her a light. She takes it. The girl inhales deeply and then lets the
smoke run out through her nose. Her eyes stabilize in their sockets.

At seven-fifteen a girl barrels into the

restaurant and collapses into a booth by
the door like all her joints are loose. A tall,
bearded boy follows her and sits across
from her. He moves like hes walking on
eggshells with bare feet.
The girls eyes scan the interior of the
diner over the boys shoulder. She has short,
cropped hair the color of bricks. Her darting
eyes stop on the detective. She glares at him
like she knows him. Her face is too harshly
angular to be pretty, all nose and pointed
chin. Vic stares back at her, trying to find
the words to capture her particular features.
Hatchet-faced, thinks the detective, thats
what that kind of ugly was called.
He notes it on his pad of paper and returns
to his coffee.
The hatchet-faced girl and the bearded boy leave at eight. At eight
thirty, Vic watches the door of the Helsinki Caf swing open and two
familiar figures emerge. He leaves a pile of crumpled bills on the table
and weaves quickly out of the dinner, slowing his pace as soon as he hits
the street.
22

You know anything about a certain Mr. Effington? asks Vic.

Oh, says the girl. Ah-ha. Thats who youre following, isnt it?
Im not at liberty to say, says the detective.
The girl gives him an exaggerated wink and runs and imaginary zipper
closed across her lips. Got it, she says. His wife hired you, didnt she?
I like that. Its very classic. Anyway, hes kind of a sleaze.
A sleaze, repeats the detective.
Oh, you know. You know. You wouldnt
be here if you didnt. Hes got a fondness
for pretty young things. Hes in there with
one right now. But you know that, too.
You know anything else about
Effington? He having any troubles at home?
Financial troubles, maybe?
Hes an art historian at a third-tier design
school. I dont think that its an especially
lucrative career. The girl purses her lips
and exhales a long plume of smoke into the
street. Have you read his book?
They dont pay me to read, says the
detective.
No, says the girl, I suppose they
dont. She rearranges the cigarette, shifting
it from one corner of her mouth to the other.
Where you from? she asks.
Pittsfield, says the detective. You?
Texas, originally.
Youre a long way from home, says Vic.
The girl shuts her eyes hard and then opens them. Believe me, I
know. Then she says, Why did you decide to become what you are?
Why a private dick?

I prefer professional investigator, he says.

Okay. Professional investigator, says the girl.
I like secrets, says the detective.
The girl rolls her shoulders inside her black t-shirt. Here, I have a
secret for you, she says. She leans very close and puts her hatchet face to
his ear. Its the closest anyone has gotten to Vic in a while.
I am planning my escape, she says. Vic is surprised by his bodys
response to her words in his ear. He
wonders briefly what it would be like to
have her tongue there, or her teeth in his
shoulder.
The girl stands up. She shakes her hands
in the dark, hands flapping from loose
wrists.
Here I go, says the girl.
Vic stands up too. He reaches into his
coat and pulls out a smudged piece of
cardboard. Heres my card, says the
detective. In case you remember anything.
The girl nods conspiratorially. She takes
the card and shoves it deep into her pockets.
She takes a crumpled pack of cigarettes
from the waistband of her jeans and sticks
another cigarette in her mouth.
One for the road, she says.
The Zippo flares between the detectives
fingers and she leans forward to sip fire into the end of the cigarette.
Then she tucks the rest of the pack into the front of his coat. She brings
two fingers above her eyes like a salute.
Good luck, shamus, she says. She moves herself woozily down the
sidewalk. You never saw me, she calls without turning around.
23

Force

You and I in our beds

are rocks recycling.
By habit, I at the window and you the door
Sleeping, we think, requires space
So we are two, until too cold.

Interrupted once or thrice

a foot knocking,
a buried sentiment brought to sheets,
a silence scraping.
We however,
mostly melt
down and deep to some unvisited threshold.
To beginnings
your stress,
breasts compressed,
ejecta hot,

recyc

25

Allie Tepper

ks
oc

recycling
s
k
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oc

and the one glassy black left on the blankets,

Obsidian.

cycling

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Wordless, dense pebbles roll to middle,

breathe,
convect.

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24

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The door to the bar opens and the bearded young man emerges onto the
sidewalk. Hes got a face like a mournful werewolf. He turns his shaggy
head to Vic and says, Have you seen? But Vic doesnt say anything.
The young man turns his head the other way and sees the girl further down
the sidewalk. He lopes over to her and says something too low for Vic to
hear.
Ive got to go home, says the girl, and she begins to move down the
sidewalk again.
The young man puts one long arm around the girls shoulder and steers
her gently, gently around back toward the bar.
You cant keep me here, says the girl as they pass through the
swinging door of the bar.
You got that right, agrees the detective. He stares down at the names
carved in the asphalt and smokes her cigarettes until the door swings open
again, this time pushed by Mr. Effington and the blonde. The detective
crosses the street and keeps parallel to them as they make their way back
to the car. When he gets to his own car he discovers that the essence of
the afternoon has congealed in his absence. The car reeks of stale smoke
and old sweat. Vic starts the car and follows the pair to a roadside motel
just outside of town. He parks at the other end of the lot and leans his seat
back so that his eyes just clear the dashboard. He inhales shallowly and
tastes ashes in the back of his throat. When the subject and the blonde stop
to kiss in the doorway, the detective takes his first picture.
He doesnt need the pictures. His client didnt ask for photos, only
information. But Vic takes his photos anyway. He will file them away in
the big steel file cabinets lining his office, and he will file them away deep
in the back of his head, where he keeps his knowledge of secret things.
The digital camera does not make the reassuring noise of an actual shutter
exposing film, so Vic speaks for it.
Click, says the detective as he brings his finger down and the camera
whirrs. Click.

you exist, you exist, tell everone you exist. you exist, you exist, tell everone you exist. you exist, you exist, tell everone you exist. you exist, you exist, tell everone you exist. you exist, you exist, tell everone you exist. bags of apples buy one get one free at Safeway. One dozen green apples. One dozen red. Its like lining them up on the windowsill in the bathroom to put a heartbeat of color into the foul endless gray Portland sky.

element

America
and you repeat and repeat because
in the silence you become silence and silence is what lingers in the
aperture of .
play then.
draw out your ductile
love.
thread it through the
aperture of an
ear,
through
a fingerprint
rapidly owning the
sixth hour a.m.,
the hour of non-existence,
the hour of your element,
tungsten,
aglow,
in your artichoke
heart.
you exist, you exist, tell
everyone you
exist.

you are in your element,

an alloy of
artichoke heart tungsten
love
for the keys rapidly owning you.
this loom of hammers and strings makes the piano
percussion, but you only
know it as the switchboard
of your internal
relay,
the short circuitry of your
incarnation.
you dont care that its
six hours after midnight and that the
neighbors might hear.
they dont exist; the world has fallen off the curtain
rod and you are the only thing behind it. they dont exist.
you existin
E major,
in babys sleeping pianissimo,
in the spinal epiphany of
arpeggios.

Its like a headache caffeine cant fix,

like the one I had this morning when I stumbled
into the damp cold stew of morning,
out of the dark cruel ocean of the bed,
and thenisnt that lifetoo much sugar
in my tea. Its like the thinning sole that came
just before the hole in my favorite brown shoe.
Its like the hard-boiled egg I put in my pocket
and forgot and now my pocket will smell of yolk
forever. Its like the apple I bit but never finished.
There were plastic mesh bags of apples buy one
get one free at Safeway. One dozen green apples.
One dozen red. Its like lining them up on the windowsill
in the bathroom to put a heartbeat
of color into the foul endless gray Portland sky.
Its like throwing the plastic mesh bags in the trash
and knowing they will blow out of the landfill
and fly on soft plastic wings to the ocean
and strangle small fish. Its like this trend: hopeless
but nonchalant. I couldnt resist the apples.
Theyre watching me shower. Its like my guilty pleasure:
long, hot shower. Olive oil soap. How many children
go thirsty in Sudan? I met a man from Kenya

at the bus stop in the middle of the night

who told me I was beautiful over and over
for half an hour and asked me where all the love
of the world has gone. Its like that, beautiful
and without love. My grandma also thinks Im beautiful.
Its like my grandma, slouching up and down in a hospital bed:
too much high fructose corn syrup, not enough walks
in the sun. She still smells like cats. Her eyelashes
are gone. Let this be a lesson to the young. Its like
me: a cynic without reverence. Its like blossoms
choking the gutter. After visiting my grandma
my cousin and I crawled into the tunnels under
Louisiana State, took photos. Its like mud, rats,
asbestos, graffiti, cellophane. At LSU they have a tiger
who lounges like butter in his three-million-dollar
cage and yawns in the hot rain. His name is Mike
and Mike was the name of all the tigers who came before
Mikes I-VI. Its like trotting him out to roar at football games
because goddamnit this is America. Its like the sun,
rolling in the oily sky like the golden fish
of my abridged childhood fairytaleslike something
to be wished on, scaled and boned, fried in buttermilk
and eaten, always, with vinegar.

Sam Grenrock

exist, you exist, tell everyone you exist. you exist, you exist, tell everyone you exist. you exist, you exist, tell everyone you exist. you exist, you exist, tell everyone you exist. you exist, you exist, tell everyone you exist.

26

Christina Devillier

goddamnit this is America. Its like the sun, rolling in the oily sky like the golden fish of my abridged childhood fairytales -- like something to be wished on, scaled and boned, fried in buttermilk and eaten, always, wit

27

Hark
Dahlia Grossman-Heinze
A month after she died, Allen Stewart began hearing his wifes

out of the bottle until the glass overflowed and he finally jerked his hand
up. He had heard it again. He had heard her. Somehow above all the
recorded laughter, the many voices, he had heard her laugh. The high
breathiness of it, the utter delight and abandon, the girlish rising and
falling, that laugh could only belong to Eleanor.
Allen ran to the television; he sat in front of it with his face so close
he couldnt discern any figures on the screen, only saw a blur of tiny,
colored dots. He closed his eyes and turned the volume dial up. He heard
laughter leaping out of the television, into the room, into his ears, up to
the ceiling. Allen opened his eyes and pressed his face against the screen.
He placed his hands, outstretched, over the picture. The light from the
screen cast strange colors on his skin. He looked at the photograph
portrait of Eleanor that hung above the fireplace. She smiled down at him
and he waited. Another character made a joke. The audience laughed.
Eleanor laughed.
Allen sat without moving until the show ended. Then he went to the
attic.

laughter coming from the television. The first time he heard the laughter,
he was in his yellow-lit kitchen, washing a teacup. The water was
running in the sink and he had forgotten to turn off the television after the
six oclock news; an old rerun sitcom was on now. Allen had his back to
the television and he hummed to himself as he ran the sponge around the
edges of the china. He had begun to take pride in his newfound ability
to live alone and take care of himself. A character on the sitcom made a
self-deprecating joke and the audience laughed, charmed. Allen dropped
the teacup. It shattered as he braced himself, clutching the edges of the
sink with both sinewy hands. He leaned almost all the way over the sink,
the water still running. He closed his eyes.
He stood that way for a few moments, then shook his head, angry
at himself, and turned off the sink. The metal on the edges of the sink
pressed into his thin skin deeply enough to leave impressions. Allen
picked up the pieces of the teacup and decided they were worth saving;
he would fix the cup later. Putting the pieces on the countertop, he
walked toward the living room. The program on the television had gone
to commercials and Allen couldnt believe he had been afraid, that he
had thought he heard her. He went to the bar to pour himself a glass of
scotch. Its just nerves, he thought. I just miss her.
Allen kept a well-stocked bar in the corner of his living room. He
opened the cabinet and took out a glass. He placed it on the counter and
unscrewed a bottle of Johnnie Walker. The characters on the television
program were now screaming about something, some escapade had
gone hilariously wrong, and the TV audience laughed with hearty
embarrassment for the characters. Allen froze. The scotch kept pouring

Paul came to check up on his father after his fifth phone call went
unreturned. He unlocked the front door and stepped into the house.
Dad? Paul said, closing the door behind him. He took off his brown
coat and folded it over the back of a chair while he looked around.
The usually immaculate house was dirty; the living room floor, tables,
and couches were covered in papers, glasses, and empty bottles. The
television was on as high as it would go, and there were VHS tapes
scattered around the floor. Paul walked over to the set and turned it off.
His father stepped into the room. Why did you do that?
28

Paul stared at him for a moment. He seemed different. Usually, Allen

was very neat and wore a white button-down and slacks, but his shirt was
unbuttoned, he was wearing old and broken reading glasses, and his hair
was unbrushed. Are you okay?
Allen turned the television back on. You shouldnt have done that, its
almost time for her to come back. He sat down cross-legged like a child
in the mess of the living room floor, in front of the television.
Time for who to come back? Paul looked at the television.
Your mother, Allen said, without looking at Paul.
Paul leaned his head back and closed his eyes. He opened them and
breathed in deeply. Paul walked to the couch facing the television, facing
Allens back, and sat down. He pushed trash away from him and put a
hand up to his face, pressing into the bridge of his nose.
Finally, he said, Dad, are you okay?
A commercial came on, and Allen turned to Paul.
Its her. Its her laugh. I didnt understand at first, but now I do.
Paul looked at the mess around him and pulled an empty bottle of
Johnnie Walker out from underneath a pillow. Paul looked accusingly at
his father. Does this help you understand?
No, its not about that. Ill explain it to you while the commercials
are on. But then I have to wait for her again. Its all in here, Allen said,
lifting up a small leather-bound book from the floor.
He handed it carefully to Paul.
Paul looked at the cover and saw the word Journal embossed deep
into the old, cracking leather. He turned to the first page and saw his
mothers handwriting. He leafed through it, pages of her neat, beautiful
cursive.
I didnt know she kept a diary, he said. He flipped to the last entry
and saw that it was dated August 1951.
Its from before we met. Its from when she was nineteen. She went.
Thats why I can hear her, because she was there. Allen pointed quickly

from the diary in Pauls hands to the television, back to the diary. Paul
stared at his father until Allen, obviously exasperated, grabbed the diary
out of his hands, thumbed to a page and shoved the diary back into Pauls
hands. There, he said.
Paul looked at the page. What?
Its there! March 1950 she went on a spring break trip to Los Angeles
with her friend Molly. They went to a filming of a television show.
Thats what it says.
Paul closed the diary in his hand. So?
Allen looked him in the eyes for a second, before the theme song of the
television show started, then suddenly turned back to the TV.
Dad? So?
Pauls father did not turn around, nor did he seem to remember that
his son was in the room. Paul shook his head and started picking up the
trash around the room, stopping to rub his temples. Laughter came from
the television and Allen breathed in deeply, excitedly. Paul turned to his
father.
Without looking at his son, Allen said, Its her. Allen had closed
his eyes and placed a hand over the speaker of the television. Before
Paul could answer, he spoke again. Eleanor went to the taping and they
recorded the laughs. For the laugh track. And now they just use the same
laughs. The same recorded laughs, they use them on practically all the
programs, Ive been listening. Allen pointed at the screen with one thin
finger. An actor on the television program made a face and the audience
laughed. Allen snapped his fingers. Did you hear that? Did you hear
her?
Paul hesitated. I didnt hear Mom, Dad.
Well, you just werent listening, thats all. Laughter came from the
television again. There. Did you hear her?
Paul got down on the carpet and crawled to his father next to the
television. He put his hand on his fathers back.
29

Dad, I dont hear anything.

Why arent you listening? Shes there. Its her laugh. I can hear her.
Why arent you listening to her? Shes your mother.
Allen began to cry. I didnt realize how much I missed her, how much
I need her, he said.
Allen reached for his son, and Paul held him, terrified by how fragile
his father seemed.
Paul caught a tear on his own face with the back of his hand, and
breathed in deeply before continuing. Dad, lets turn the TV off, okay?
He reached for the set.
How dare you! He slapped Paul. Allen put his hand on his own
chest, and breathed in and out quickly.
Paul was stunned. He turned his face away from his father and looked
at the ground. Allen breathed in again and spoke. Its your mother, Paul.
I can hear her.
Dad, I know you miss Mom, I miss her too. But Paul picked up
another bottle underneath the coffee table. You have to stop this.
Stop? I cant stop, Paulie. Its her.

at Eleanors things. He held each necklace, remembering the times she

had worn them. He read her letters and her favorite books. He tried to
memorize her expression in every photograph. Each thing was a part of
Eleanor. Allen spread out her possessions around him, and spread the
quilt she had made for their bed over them and his thin body, and slept.
He never turned off the television. He fell asleep every night listening to
her laughter reaching out to him through the speakers. Paul kept calling
and leaving messages, leaving some doctors phone number, but Allen
didnt pick up the phone.
The noise coming from the television no longer resembled laughter; it
no longer resembled any human noise. It sounded more like an endless
roar, a pixilated fuzzy screaming that flooded the room.

When Paul came back, the house was unrecognizable. It was covered
in Eleanors things. Allen was unrecognizable. Allen looked dead; his
eyes looked cloudy and unfocused, he was flithy, and his skin seemed
gray.
Dad? Paul said to Allens back.
Allen was seated in front of the television. Both of his hands were on
the speakers of the television, as if he were trying to feel the unbearably
loud laughing that still flooded out of the television. Paul put a hand on
Allens shoulder. Allen didnt move.
Dad? Dad, Im really sorry butI dont think you can stay here. I
dont think you can take care of yourself anymore. You wont answer
my calls andI think you should come stay with me, at least for a little
while, get out of this house. Im so worried about you. Allen didnt
move. Youre just sitting here in front of the goddamn television. Shes
not in there! Its not her! Please, Dad, stop.
Paul tried to turn Allen around to face him, but Allen was steadfast
with his eyes closed and his hands on the television. Paul began to cry.
At the noise, Allen slowly turned to face Paul.

By the following week, Allen had created a loop of Eleanors laughter

on a VHS tape. He had bought another VCR, taped program after
program onto one tape, and then taped bits of laughter he had collected
onto another tape. He narrowed down the time in between clips until
he had perfected a tape that was two hours long of only laughter: one
continuous laugh.
Allen slept in the living room. He had cleared out all the tables and
couches from the room and had brought out all the boxes Paul had
packed away in the attic, boxes of Eleanors things: clothing, jewelry,
notebooks, photographs, scarves, perfume bottles, and letters. These
relics were spread out on the floor, and Allen slept among them every
night. Allen spent the days with the laugh tape playing on a loop, looking
30

Allens face was lined with streams of tears. His blue eyes
seemed miles away. Oh, Paulie, He reached out and placed
a hand on his sons face. I forgot her. I forgot all about her,
but she came back. She didnt want me to forget. Paul put
his hand over his fathers and squeezed it. They were
motionless for a moment.
Suddenly, Pauls eyes opened and he looked quickly
at the television, and then looked back at Allen.
Pauls hand dropped from his fathers. Paul slowly
reached out to place his hand on the television
screen.
Allen smiled sadly and blinked, sending
more lines of tears down his face. Dont
you understand? I can hear her.

Minor Goddesses of The Odyssey

I hate saying the same thing
so stop your ears if you must.
Watch out for traps
in sweet flesh, laced
with wine; cooked up
by nymphs in crazy
gladiator heels. Might
wind up pig-faced.
Likewise: armor,
brave curls. Great love
but Im off. Over and over.
Im just saying.

Susan Lynch

31

Philomena*
Like a fish, they pull the skin from my flesh,
with barbs to hook the squirming bait,
and lower me into the sea. I sink
beneath the surf, at the mercy of the waves,
before the angels come
to cut the ropes,
to heal my wounds,
to raise me to the riverbank.
Doubt pierces me with iron teeth
which is worse, to die once
or three times for God?
I turn my face to heaven.
The fourth time, no feather falls.

Stephanie Bastek

Philomena was a Christian saint martyred in the fourth century. As the

story goes, upon refusing to be the Roman Emperors wife, she was
flogged, drowned, and shot with arrows. Angels reversed the effects of
each instance, save for a fourth, when she was permanently decapitated.
*

32

Blue Skulls
Tatiana Oudine
Collage

Maam
The moon is [you
are] so dizzyingly close
[a peach
in my grip] but
trying to reach will
leave me slipping
into space [you?] and
fizzing like my onetoo
many [three] cups
of punch and I know
I should shut my [mouth] blinds.

Kayla Sheridan

Encounter
Katelyn Best
Color photograph
34

Late August
By this time of year the insects have quieted.
I tell myself its cause Ive grown accustomed to their sound,
But the dead flies on the windowsill tell me otherwise.
At night we stretch our bodies out on the dock.
The wood is rough, but it does not splinter our skin.
Our skin has become firm in summers play.
My mind is like jelly. It floats over the water
for the entire night until I am awakened by the sun.
In the morning the insects are quieter than
they were the night before.

Greta Moran

Taylor Scott
Tatiana Oudine
Color photograph
36

37

Opposite page:
Left: Still Life
Lucy Butcher
Color photograph
Right: The Twist
Kayleigh Stevenson
Digital photograph

This page:

World War II Battery, Peaks Island, ME

Malcolm Kemeny
Color photograph

38

Larkin Marcel Proust Natsume Soseki James Joyce Gabriel Garcia Mrquez Jean-Paul Sartre Philip Larkin Marcel Proust Natsume Soseki James Joyce Gabriel Garcia Mrquez Jean-Paul Sartre Philip Larkin Marcel Proust Natsume Soseki James Joyce Gabriel

My Life in Books
Here lies the collected Philip Larkin,
Its margins littered with my own bad poetry;
Here stands Proust,
Weather-beaten and full of amorous underlines;
And heres Soseki,
Page 78 a maelstrom of coffee stains,
The unfortunate results of a
Late Tuesday in September,
Where tears shed themselves
Simply because they could.
There is Joyce,
Progenitor of a forgotten posture;
And there is Mrquez,
A lure for someone, somewhere,
At some time, maybe;
And over there, in the corner, is Sartre
A last reminder that there is always someone
More depressed than I,
At least in France,
In 1953.

Dominic Finocchiaro

40

Contemplation
Leslie A. Zukor
Color photograph

Opposite Page: Rooftops

Philadelphia
Tatiana Oudine
Color photograph
42

43

Seashell Stairwell - Erica Boulay - Digital photograph

This barren city now lies underwater,

in echoes of its former self. Those notes chance
upon no mortal instruments, but dance
out aquatic dissonance. Harmony comes later,
in this place where trains and tailfins mingle,
where fish scales slide against arpeggios, in tune
with baby grand piano strings that are doomed
to wet collapse beneath the oceans weight. Single
shark teeth plummet to the sidewalk, in staccato
beats nothing like the heart, submerged years ago,
that lies beneath the lonesome citys tidal waves
of loss. Its heavy sorrows staggered, raced to flee
their homes, leaving in their wake only buried valves
and vacant rusted chambers: an organ with no keys.

Stephanie Bastek

45

Through the Fog - Malcolm Kemeny - Color photograph

The American Dream - Malcolm Kemeny - Color photograph

Goodbye, Invisible Man

A. Werner
The summer I move to Portland I start answering personal ads. The
real paper and ink kind from the back of the alt-weekly newspaper. I do
this out of curiosity and for other reasons. I do not know many people
in town yet and I guess I am feeling a little alone.
These dates are interesting, but otherwise not very good. I meet nice
men, ugly men, lonely men. They are the kind of men who grit their
teeth too hard when they smile. I dont go on any second dates.
I start thinking that I might stop reading the personal ads. Theyre
making me sad. But then I read an ad that says, Claude Rains seeks
Gloria Stuart. I like this one so much that I answer it and one Saturday
night in late August I go out to meet the invisible man.

Rooster Lamp
Chip Williams
Color photograph

mouth.
Yeah, I say. I shake his hand and feel long solid fingers through
thin leather.
So, whats the deal? I ask as I slide into the seat across from him.
A short row of battered pinball machines flashes at me behind the
invisible mans bandaged head. They provide most of the bars light.
The deal? he says. His gloved hand is still on mine. He looks down
at our fingers and then slowly pulls it back.
You a vet? You burned all over or something? I say, rapping
my fingers on the table. You hiding from the mob? Or the F.B.I?
Ive never had good manners. Sometimes people like it. Not always,
though.
N-n-o, says the invisible man, making the word much longer than
it needs to be. His voice is muffled by all the bandages, but I can still
hear him fine. He threads his fingers together and rests his chin on top
of them. The light from the pinball machines flashes behind his head
and makes me think of halos.
So? I say.
I had hoped it was clear from the ad, he says.
So, you mean it, I say. You think youre the invisible man.
He tilts his head to the side and flips his palms up so that hes
holding his chin. Im an invisible man, he says.
I pick some dirt out from under my fingernails while I consider this.
Okay, I say. Why dont you tell me about that. I signal the
bartender for a beer.
The invisible mans real name is Bartholomew Gone and he used to
be a physicist.

For the date, I wear the sort of things I usually wear when Im not at
work. Ripped tights, a black cotton shift with no shape to it, and heavy
army boots that make my feet feel connected to the ground. Its a little
chilly for August and I put on a mans woolen suit jacket that hangs to
my knees. I dont try to look too pretty for first dates. I think it makes
unrealistic expectations. I bike over to the bar and my helmet crushes
my wiry black hair against my forehead. I lock my bike up with a good
thick chain and head inside.
The invisible man doesnt have much of a face on when I first meet
him, but I recognize him right away. He sits in a corner booth, drinking
a beer. His whole head is covered in pale bandages and a pair of round,
dark glasses cover where his eyes should be. He wears a long coat over
a grey suit. I start toward the table and he holds out a gloved hand.
Are you Rivka? he asks. I see his face move underneath the
bandages. A small amount of beer foam clings to the slit over his
49

hands and feel for his face.

Ow, he says as my palm runs into the bridge of his nose.
There you are, I say. I find his mouth and kiss him again. I havent
been this excited about anyone in a long time.
You wouldnt like me so much if you could see me, he says. He smiles
and I feel his cheeks jump under the palms of my hands.
I run my fingers along the edge of his crooked teeth. I feel his long nose
and far-set eyes. Deep creases curve around his mouth and smaller lines run
across his forehead. There are small, scratchy patches of hair on his chin
and upper lip.
I think I would, I say.

After the bar we go back to his place to listen to records. Im curious

about what sort of place an invisible man lives in, but its not just that. I
like the invisible man. He talks in a low, muffled voice that reminds me of
an ocean that goes and goes.
The invisible man lives on the top floor of a nice apartment building with
a neon sign. The furniture inside looks like it came from a few different
garage sales, but it is all very clean. The invisible man takes off his long
coat and hangs it over the door. He keeps flipping through stacks of vinyl,
putting something on the stereo for a few songs and then swapping it out
for something else. He walks back and forth across the room. The invisible
man is tall and thin, and his shoulders curl forward under the fabric of his
coat. I sit on the couch and shrug out of my jacket. I feel like something
important is about to happen.
The invisible man puts on Stop Making Sense and holds still. He looks
up at the ceiling. He is holding his chin again.
Your jacket made me think of them, he says.
I smile at him even though hes not looking at me. The Talking Heads
dont yell as much as the people I normally listen to, but they are jerky in a
way that I like. David Byrne sings about buildings and food.
When the invisible man finally sits down on the couch I am so wired up
that I kiss him right away. The bandages scratch my lips. His tongue slips
out from between the bandages and into my mouth. It feels real enough.
I loop my fingers under a strand of the bandages and pull until they start
to come loose. His dark glasses come off and are lost between the couch
cushions.
Stop, says the invisible man, but he doesnt move away. He lets me
unwind the bandages from around his head while he grips his knees with
his hands and breathes hard through his mouth.
I pull the last of the bandages off him and throw the wad of fabric across
the room. I look straight through the place where his head should be and
out through the window. Theres nothing there. Something in me breaks
a little and I make a sound like ah. My spine feels hot. I reach out both

I dont have sex with the invisible man on the first night, but I do sleep
next to him. He wears striped pajamas and dreams with his unseen hands
resting on my hips. In the morning he makes black tea with loose leaves
from a tin. This is the kind of tea I like. A steaming mug hovers in the air
in front of me and I take it from him and drink it while lying against the
headboard of his bed.
I dont do this. I dont sit in mens beds and drink tea. Often I sneak out
in the middle of the night and then dont answer my phone. But somehow I
have been gentled. The presence of the invisible man makes me feel like I
am better person than who I am.
The invisible man lies besides me in bed in his striped pajamas and asks
me about myself. He asks me where Im from, and what I did before I came
to Portland.
I tell the invisible man that I dont believe in the past. Im here now and
its like Ive always been here. Tomorrow Ill be somewhere else and itll
be like Ive always been there.
Instead, I let him ask me questions like, What do you do?
I tell him that I paint.
What kind of paintings?
No, not like that. I dont have the spark. I paint houses. I specialize in
interiors. This is true.
50

I think while the invisible man dumps the used tea leaves in the trash.
Then I tell him that, to supplement my income, I sometimes deliver
packages of drugs on my bicycle. This is also true.
The invisible man sits back down on the bed. Is it dangerous?
Not if youre smart, I say. Im smart.
The invisible man starts talking about places to eat breakfast.
I would like French toast, I say.
The invisible man puts his bandages back on and we head out onto the
street. He leads the way. I will follow him anywhere.

is why Im still alive. I like oysters, too, I tell him.

The next night the invisible man takes me out for oysters. He pays for
the whole dozen. I complain about it, because I have hard-earned money
from painting houses and delivering drugs on my bicycle and I can pay for
things, too. But the invisible man waves my blue student card away and just
tells me that he received a very big settlement from the company he was
working for when he had his accident. Ill give him that. At least Im not
invisible.

When we do start really sleeping together, it is very good. Its exciting

not to see him. I listen to the constant sea sound of his voice when I touch
him. I read his hipbones with my fingers. I get to know the taste of his
sweat and spit so well that I can sniff him out in the dark. But I cant see
him. Thats the one thing I cant have.
When the invisible man takes off all his clothes he is very hard to see.
We use masks so that I can keep track of where his face is. Without them I
feel disoriented. I fuck paper demon faces and disembodied surgical masks.
I come looking up into the smiling werewolf face of Richard Nixon.
I am very happy.

worried about me.

Whats wrong with you, Rivka, huh? You in love?
Well, I hope not, I say. And I take the package from him and get on my
bike.

I stop smoking and start smiling all of the time. One of my bosses is

When I have been seeing the invisible man for about a month he sits me
down on his couch and tells me that he is in love with someone else
I roll off the couch and onto my back on the floor. I feel like an animal
that has been hit by a bus. Roadkill, with all my guts spilling out. I hadnt
expected to ever feel like this.
This whole time? I spit at him from the floor. Has it been this whole
time?
The invisible hand has his gloves on so that I can see his hands wringing
at each other. Let me explain, he says. Please dont cry, Rivka. Please,
dont.
Im not crying, I say. Water keeps running down my nose and I dont
know where its coming from. Im not.
She was my fianc, before. She couldnt deal with things after the
accident. But shes had time to think. She wants to get back together.
Where? I say. Where is she? Ill punch her in the face. Ill fight her
for you. Ill win.
Canada, says the invisible man. Thats where Im from, originally. I
came to the States to get away.

I tell the invisible man things about myself, because he likes to learn

them. I dont tell him about past things, but I do tell him about things
that are true now. I tell him that people always think Im Russian, but
my parents are really from Lithuania. I tell him that the only people who
dont think Im Russian are actual Russians. I tell him that I am 23 years
old. I tell him that I dont have a drivers license. I tell him that dogs are
my favorite animals and that terriers are my favorite dogs because even
when they are small they kill rats. I say that I like painting houses because
sometimes while I do it my mind goes very still and I dont think about
anything at all.
I tell the invisible man that sometimes I eat entire plates full of raw green
vegetables with my hands and my teeth and absorb their life essence. This
51

373
6
63

I lift my head up from the floor and then let it thunk back down again.
Canada, I say. Canada is a useless country. Ill punch Canada in the
face, too.
Were going to get married, says the invisible man.
I stop making words. I roll back and forth on the floor and keen like
something dying. His bandaged head stays turned towards me, empty space
where the eyes should be. The bandages around the eyes are wet.
Dont you fucking look at me, I say to the invisible man.
Im not, he says. Its impossible for me to tell.
As I lie on the floor I think that I should be like St. Sebastian. I should
stand up, all stuck with arrows, and be beatific. But Im not a man or a
saint and I keep lying on the floor. I say things that I shouldnt. I grind up
words until theyre sharp and stick them between his ribs. I tell him that
no one will ever love him. Not the fianc, not anyone. I am really talking
to myself, though. I know that if I cant keep the nearly nothing invisible
man that Ill never get to have anything at all. I leave at two in the morning
when I run out of things to say.
I dont have my bike with me so I have to ride the bus back from his
apartment. I try to make my face as hard as a mask. I dont want to cry on
the bus, but water keeps running out of my eyes anyways. I squeeze them
shut and wish I had some bandages.

53
3
5
3
434

I often think about the invisible man. Sometimes at night I spread my

maps out on my floor and trace imaginary routes north. I dream about
fetching him back. What is worse, though, is that I am thinking backwards.
I think about my early days with the invisible man, when I thought that
I would get to love him. I think about turntables and tea until that dying
sound rises in my throat and I have to stop and not think about anything at
all.
I do this with other men in the room. They watch me spread out the maps
and they dont say anything, just furrow their brows and look blank. When
were in bed I close my eyes and pretend theyre not really there at all.
I start smoking and scowling again.
Theres our Rivka, says my boss. Shes back with us again.
I nod at him, because this is true. He hands me a package and I get on my
bike and go.

33
3
3
232

13
3
1
3
030

93
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9
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828

72
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7
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626

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424

2
323

2
22

2
121

2
020

2
919

1
818

71
1
7
1
616

The invisible man calls me on a pay phone when he is halfway to

1
515

Canada. I only pick up because I dont recognize the phone number. His
voice comes to me through distant wires.
Dont hang up, he says.
Fuck you, I say. I dont hang up.
I believe you, he says. I believe that you would still like me if you
could see me.
I do see you, I say. I see you.
The line clicks shut. Goodbye, I say into the quiet mouthpiece of my
phone. Goodbye goodbye goodbye.

1
313

1
212

1
11

1
010

52

1
99
8
8
77
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6
55
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34

41

42

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70

Words #14
i care you
no aboutthats around, no core
no forthen only
i
would care, and coldly through
so, no
i care you

Sam Levin

53

cherry+blossoms.

an accidental cherry blossom bloomed outside my window once,

like me, out of season. during that winters snowfall,
something was lost between you and me:
we never said there were ways to make me stay
at home in front of the hearth,
empty.
i rattled in that place, banging from wall to wall,
listening to the clash of bone and metal,
cushioning myself with the petals of roses bloomed in a far warm place.
(you always bought them for me).
i lost everything in a smell of pines,
and long days with no leaves and
lacking something even to make a fire,
i picked the snow-flowers and ate the stems;
a modern girl and the wilderness.
short-waisted and long-legged,
i would rather have had hooves to break the snow crust with
and to stop the grounds cold thorns
from piercing the soles of my feet, the palms of my hands.
i forgot to shut the door when i left,
so focused on my snowy blossom;
the ice came creeping in,
building walls on your living room carpet.
you didnt forgive me even after the ice melted,
sweeping away the winter flowers,
leaving stains in the shape of a betrayal.

Natalie Sheehan

Lost in a Dream
Rachel Cole-Jansen
Black & white photograph

Central Steppes
Lauren Seegmiller

Pipe Dreams
to her, I feel as if she were bodying forth
all of my dreams, smoky ghostly unfleshy things:

By ten oclock only the retired crowd was left, so every occupied seat

handed a diploma and newly published, all philosophical and all

she seems like a skin-hued mass outgrowth expulsion from my side:
these are thoughts

in mass.

monstrous

diagnosis:

mental metastatic neoplasia, too many intentions inhaled and not lived, rather simmering in the lungs past boiling pointbubbly
hopes hot and lost
in the steam of stale love (it can moisturize reverse wrinkles if you let it),
yet not forgotten in form, the contents of these dream recipes settle come morning
as fog down the throat, but beware for they can choke or turn the neck to butter,
depending on ones breathing:
awake exhale clear and feel the myofibrils freed,
fresh baked trinity of fantasy nightmare falling
(tenure track, lonely for life, bed down cliff)
or let your lips emanate a whirling spectre,
haunt you it will as youre pulled through a caged tissue forest caked black in nightmarethat some day shell be more than benign.

Jeffrey Weeks
56

was about the time I was getting snapped at for not bringing the coffee
pot around quick enough, or when I scooped handful of nickels, dimes
and pennies off of the table and into my pocket. Eleven was when I was
the youngest person at Glorias by a margin of about thirty years and
time died. But I liked breakfast rush, even though everyone I served was
about to go contribute to global warming, even though their cigarette
smoke made my eyes water. There was a palpable excitement in the
morning; I could smell commerce coming through their T-shirts. They
were carefree in a way that I had felt but that I looked down on with a
twinge of guilt. They had a routine that existed without urgency. They
swathed through the open plains in their Super Duty trucks without
worrying about what people in Denver thought about their cowboy hats
or their Marlboros. I felt like the master of them all when I set a tray of
food in front of them, but a kind smile would soften my ego.
It was just after eleven oclock on a Thursday in mid-May. The
weather was warm enough for the old people to stop talking about the
coldest winter or the biggest storm theyd lived through. I was in the
process of sending back some scrambled eggs deemed too runny, when
the bell rang at the front door.
Too runny? asked the cook. These are fine.
Jesus, I dont have a problem with them, I said and turned to look for
whoever had sat down.
He was easy to spot because he was young, early twenties, but I didnt
recognize him at first under the extra weight and the full beard. Before
I reached the booth, though, I knew it was Marshall, craning over the
menu on his elbows, a timid guy in too broad a frame. He still wore
his uncles Vietnam jacket. My best friend from high school, Jen, was
Marshalls younger sister. She and I hadnt spoken since graduation and

in the diner had a hunched-over spine in it and a lot of my tips came in

change. Glorias opened at six, breakfast rush started between seven and
eight, and just before nine everyone went to the mines. Once the last pair
of boots had hit the street, Gloria would grumble that the line used to be
out the door until the goddamn Perkins stole her breakfast crowd.
And that espresso machinewhat a waste of money, she said as I
grabbed the fresh coffee off the burner. If people want fancy Italian
coffees they go to Starbucks.
Our patrons are just salt-of-the-earth, I guess, I said, and went to do
refills.
I wasnt lying. Gillette, Wyoming is truck-driving, plaid-wearing
America, enjoying steak and eggs at the counter, swilling coffee and
getting excited about hunting and the rodeo. Gloria almost hadnt hired
me because she thought my nose-ring wouldnt go over well with the
regulars. She let me switch to a small silver stud, but I still caught her
scowling at the middle of my face from time to timeeven after two
years.
I sometimes thought about leaving, especially in August when my
cousin Haley came up to visit from Denver. She went to CU Boulder
and also had a pierced nose. She loved to tell me that Gillette was the
armpit of the country and that all there was to do here was rape the earth,
become obese and smoke cigarettes.
You need to get out of here, she always said. At least to Fort
Collinseven Greeley. You go to college in Wyoming you just get
stuck between Laramie and here.
I hadnt decided if I was going to college at alleven though I was
already nineteenbut at eleven oclock each day I considered it. Eleven
57

I hadnt seen Marshall since hed left for Williams College four years ago.
Marshall laughed. Sorry. Driving across the Midwest makes me moody.
He never spent more than a week at home for Christmas, which my family
A blue-hair in the corner waved at me. Do you want a cup of coffee?
split between grandparents in Montana or West Texas. I smiled to remember
Yeah, thanks. Marshall sat back and pulled a pack of Camels out of his
the studious high school version of Marshall stomping around the house with
jacket. You cant smoke inside in Massachusetts, I thought.
thick Russian classics in his hands at all times. When I was younger, I had
thought that Marshall was the only person I knew who really thought about
Marshall started coming in with the breakfast rush the next week with his
things. When I had stayed over at Jens and couldnt sleep, we used to watch
father, uncle and Jens fianc. For him, always just oatmeal and coffee, but
the National Geographic Channel together or sometimes Turner Classic
he looked over the menu with the same discerning look every day, eyebrows
Movies.
knit together and mouth slightly open in a wince. Sometimes he came in
Hey, I said.
after five for more coffee and sat smoking with a book open that he never
Carrie? he said, looking up. I didnt know you worked here. How are
seemed to actually read, just stare at the same way he looked at the menu.
you?
There was ritual involved: first the jacket came off, then the top button came
Good. Its good to see you. What brings you back to the
undone on his shirt, then the sleeves rolled up, and the ashtray
cowboy state?
slid toward him.
Well, I graduated. And, uhJens getting married in
Whatll it be, Moses? I asked him after hed been a
Wyoming:
July.
regular for a couple weeks.
truck-driving,
I heard that. Jen had been planning to marry her
Moses? Oh, right. He laughed. The beard. Coffee.
boyfriend since junior prom; the two extra years must have
And
since I got my first paycheck, I think Ill celebrate with a
plaid-wearing
killed her.
piece of blueberry pie. He pulled the corner of an envelope
And to work. Marshall sighed and let the menu fall to
out of his jacket pocket.
America
the table. Uhmy dad found me a place at the mine, doing
If you want to get out of here so bad, you better lay off
office work. If I dont have to pay rent, I can save up to
luxuries like pie.
travel. Staying out in Massachusetts just didnt make sense.
I think I can afford one slice for a special occasion.
Which mine are you at? I asked, trying not to sound disappointed.
When I brought the pie and the coffee pot back, Marshall had put Dead
Marshall had actually introduced me to the concept of the carbon footprint.
Souls to the side. His cigarette dove into the ashtray while he did math on a
Black Thunder. The big one. He frowned.
napkin with a ballpoint pen. Here was the level of focus I recognized.
Gloria would probably give you a job, I said.
Make sure you budget in my tips, I said, and poured the coffee.
Thanks, but Ill make a lot more money there than I could here. Money
He laughed, keeping his eyes on the napkin. I think if Im careful, I can,
from the mine helped pay for Williams, it fed me as a kid, all that. Refusing
uh, be gone by Labor Day. October at the outset.
the job wouldnt make any difference, and itll get me out of here faster than
Where would you go?
anything else. He shook his head at the table without meeting my eyes. He
Kazakhstan.
never could make eye contact.
Kazakhstan? I put the coffeepot on the table and sat down across from
Jesus, theyre a cheerful bunch in the Northeast arent they?
him.

Well, I would kind of knock around the old USSR and the Black Sea area.
I dont think thats it.
I need to decide if Im going to fly into Istanbul or somewhere in Russia.
Well, youll have to today. I just closed.
By yourself?
Shit.
Im talking to a friend of mine from Williams. But maybe. I dont
Im sorry, I said.
know.
My familys having this Fourth of July bridal shower for Jen. I cant
Jesus, Ive never been farther than West Texas to see my grandmother;
think of anything I want to do less than listen to country music and eat
Kazakhstan sounds terrifying.
mayonnaise salad and drink a Bud with people I went to high school with.
He shrugged. Its not so bad. As long as you know where not to golike
Its likeits like I never went away. This eventits like a perfect symbol
Chechnya and a few other places. I studied some Russian in college so thatll
for why I left in the first place. I had to get out of there. He put a hand
help.
through his brown hair, tinged red in the sun. Jesus, how can you stand it
What would you do there? I couldnt help widening my eyes.
here? Why dont you leave?
I might be able to teach English, I might be able to get a graduate degree if
I dont know, I said. Maybe because I avoid Fourth of July bridal
I apply for a Fulbright next year. I dont know. The first step
showers.
is getting there.
He pulled a cigarette out of his shirt pocket and lit it. This is
I shook my head. Jesus, I cant even imagine.
the longest summer of my life.
This is
I dont know, he said. He used the glowing stub of his
He didnt have his Vietnam jacket, just an off-white button-up
the longest
dying cigarette to light another. I guess I cant imagine
shirt over a pair of olive drab cargo pants. Families behind him
having to stay here. I feel like Im allergic to it.
wore their red, white and blue, their plaid, their denim. He had
summer
of
my

hiking boots; they had cowboy boots. He looked like Indiana
It showed. The short monsoon season ended, the sun was
Jones on the set of a John Wayne movie. I looked past him to
life.
always out, and I could smell my neighbors grilling every
my Jeep parked across the street.
day. I started going for drives on my days off, sometimes
Come on, I said. Were getting out of here. I reached in
just to see the plains, sometimes to hike in Thunder Basin. Everyone in town
my purse and pulled out my sunglasses.
started to tan. But Marshall just turned ashen. He rarely brought his books
He opened his mouth to say something, but looked behind him at the Jeep,
anymore, but sat smoking and wincing at Glorias after work. He even came
its gold paint glinting in the summer light.
in the middle of the afternoon on the Fourth of July. The mines had the day
Can I smoke in the car? he asked.
off, so Gloria had kept the diner open until three. Marshall walked up just as
Till we hit the highway. And the windows have to stay open, I said.
I locked the door. The sunlight revealed purple crescents under his eyes. His
We walked across the pavement together and slid into the car. Marshall
face had grown leaner, his beard scruffier. His eyes looked unfocused. For
didnt ask where we were going. He put his cigarette hand out the window
all his grimacing, hed never really seemed unhappy to me before.
and leaned back in his seat. His eyes looked clearer and he had a slight
You okay? I asked him.
smile. We didnt say much to each other. I went five over the speed limit
YeahIm not sleeping very well, he said.
once we hit the highway, going east. Marshall rolled up his window. The
Maybe you should lay off the afternoon coffee.
prairie outside was still green with a hint of wildflowers, but quickly

58

59

yellowing. Clumps of small trees freckled the hills. The landscape was
so massive that we seemed to be crawling by it. I turned off of I-90 onto
Highway 14, going northeast. I felt the urge to run, and I wondered if this
was what kept Marshall awake at night. I pressed the pedal so we were ten
over the speed limit. We started to pass signs for Keyhole and Devils Tower.
Devils Tower? Marshall said. Its going to be packed. We stopped
going to these fireworks when I was, like, eight. You could never get a good
space.
Would you rather be eating ambrosia salad with your sisters friends?
Your sisters friends. You must have had a really big fight.
We want different things in life. She wants babies. I dont know what I
want.
You better start thinking about it, or youll get stuck here forever.
Is that the worst thing that could happen to me? My voice was louder
than I meant it to be. Maybe Im not stuck. Maybe Im just staying.
I mean, are you happy here?
Do I seem unhappy here?
I guess not totally.
I mean, is everywhere else like fucking paradise on earth?
All I can tell you is that living somewhere else made me really happy.
And Gillette will always be here. Gloria would probably even hire you
back.
The landscape became more textured. The flatter plains gave way to
spillover from the Black Hills, and soon we could see it in the distance, a
huge gray pillar erupting out of the ponderosas and into the blue sky.
I havent been here in so long, said Marshall. He leaned on the glass.
Theres a lot of traffic, I said. Somehow I always expect to be alone out
here. I put the brakes on behind a Yukon from Montana.
Its always weird to be reminded that theres something here besides
yellow grass. Every tourist guide says Gillette is between the Big Horns and
the Black Hills and when youre away you start to think of it as just a void. A
pit of coal.
I think its beautiful around here if you know where to look, I said. I

wanted to honk at the Yukon for going into park, but I followed suit.
I wasnt saying its not. If I didnt think the plains were beautiful, I
wouldnt want to go to Kazakhstan. Jesus, you didnt invite me here just to
pick fights with me, did you? Leave if you want to leave. Dont leave if you
dont. If you can stand it.
I sighed. No, I said. I didnt mean to sound that way. I dont know. I
know I dont have a lot of choices if I stay, but I dont want to leave.
You mean you know how to be out-of-place here, he said. Which is
respectable. Admirable, even. I certainly cant do it.
Give me one of your cigarettes, I said, and punched in the cars lighter.
We both opened our windows and lit up when the lighter popped out. I
reached down and dug into my purse until I found my cell phone. I found
Haleys number and opened a new text message. I tried to formulate what
to say. Hey can I come visit you this summer. Hey can I drive back down
with you in August. Hey road trip? I couldnt think of a way admit defeat
innocuously enougheven through a text. I shut the phone and sucked in the
smoke. I felt bad about blowing it into the clean air.
The traffic broke up a bit and we got up to a good thirty. I paid at the
front entrance and wouldnt take Marshalls money when he offered it. We
followed the road to the parking lot outside the visitors center. We got out
of the car and stretched. The Tower was unimaginably huge even though we
were still far away.
You want to go on a hike? I asked.
Sure, he said, leaning back to see the top. A hike sounds good.

We ambled along the longest trail. Forest gave way to meadow and
then to red sandstone, where the Belle Fourche sat alongside us, more like
a ditch than a river. We remarked on the scenery, but said nothing of Jen
or Gillette or Kazakhstan. Marshall kept wiping sweat off his forehead with
his undershirt. By the time we got back to the packed Visitors Center, our
shoes were orange and the sun had turned his nose pink. We didnt have
food, so we split a bag of overpriced chocolate-covered huckleberries from
the Visitors Center for dinner. We agreed that they tasted like chocolate60

covered raisins.
By dark we found a good spot to watch the fireworks along the road toward
the campground. We spread the emergency blanket on top of the car and sat up
there. I listened to the families with children making exaggerated oohs and ahs,
and watched Marshall watch the streams of color. His face turned red and gold
and purple. There was that detached look in his eyes again, but he smiled. I hoped
he smiled for the moment, but decided it was for the future. I knew he would get
his oatmeal and coffee for two more months, hopefully looking healthier as his
exit strategy solidified. I would probably see him at Glorias on Jens wedding
day, wearing a tux and revising his budget on a placemat between the service and
the reception. Maybe he would meet Haley, or maybe I would be away when
he left and Id never get to say goodbye. I tried to imagine where he would be
in September, but I couldnt place him in a bombed-out Grozny or an urbanized
Ulaanbaatar. It was cheesy, but it was so easy to picture him in total solitude,
scaling the Caucasus, canoeing across the depthless Caspian Sea, riding alone
across the Eurasian Steppe on a horse. I tried to place myself outside the diner,
doing anything anywhere else. I squinted past the fireworks focus on the
Tower itself out ahead, and closed my eyes enough to blot out
the stars and sky so that I could only see blackness.

61

CONTRIBUTORS CONTRIBUTORS CONTRIBUTOR

Sacha Baniel-Stark ran away from ballet to sell guitars, have purple
hair, and take traipses in and around San Francisco with a huge camera
taking silly, faux-artistic photos. Six years later, shes doing ballet again
and is back to blonde, but cameras remain a major fixture in her life
(with somewhat better artwork as a result).
Stephanie Bastek has all the wrong kinds of dreams, but at least they are
in technicolor.
Katelyn Best came here from Eugene, Oregon. Her favorite bird is the
Northern Flicker. In the future, she plans to live with a dairy cow named
Blossom and a large quantity of cats.
Rachel Cole-Jansen doesnt really think of herself as a photographer
per se, but a person who just likes pointing things out to other people.
Photography is simply one way amongst many to do this. Other pieces
may be found online: http://rchevalier.deviantart.com.
Camille Charlier is a hybrid between a ninja and a cupcake. She
has fallen out with science and cyborg embryos, and seeks to fill this
yawning void with art. Elle aime aller a la discotheque.
Dominic Finocchiaro is a junior Literature/Theatre major. He spends the
majority of his time drinking iced lattes and imperfectly impersonating
himself.

Dahlia Grossman-Heinze was born in southern California, moved to

Kansas at three, moved back to California at fifteen, moved to Portland
at nineteen, and is planning on moving back to southern California at
twenty-two. Won Ton soup was the first solid food she ever ate. She
enjoys horror films, the Loch Ness Monster, hot air balloons, rap, Laura
Dern, and Twin Peaks.

The youngest student to ever attend Reed College, Amanda Pichel is a four
year old supergenius. Her previously published works include pieces for
the New Yorker, Harpers, and Highlights Magazine. Though she has been
begged repeatedly by the Reed College administration to become head of
every academic department at Reed, she has declined, stating I need more
time to play dress-up, sillies.

Malcolm Kemeny is a senior, hails from NY, and enjoys being abrupt.

Lauren Seegmillers biography is pithy and full of wit.

Susan Lynch is a woman who ran away from prep school on acid,
hitchhiked cross-country, founded a commune in Oregon, became a rock
star for less than fifteen minutes, then helped movie stars with their early
Macs, and was/is a shamanic practitioner who helped fix a river. She
came to Reed at 53 and went to Oxford for a year before doing a thesisfull of iffy poetry, some of which appears in this edition.

Natalie Sheehan is senior who spends her days hanging with her cat, writing
about war, listening almost exclusively to Ludacris, and drinking cheap beer.
When she grows up she wants to be an astronaut.

Greta Moran exists on a slower wavelength than most people. Lately,

she has been dying to get a very big dog. She thinks a dogs heart (as in
soul) is in direct proportion to the dogs physical size. It would makes
things easier if that was also the case with people, but supposes its also
good that its not, because then people would all be gorging themselves
on food to get bigger hearts.
Tatiana Oudine is a selective, yet devout hoarder with varying degrees
of determination to live THE lifestyle.

Kayla Sheridan is an unadulterated

dandelion, on her
good days.
A. Werner likes Kafka and comic books.
Leslie A. Zukor is a senior Anthropology major who loves writing, squirrel
and sports photography, and enjoys political activism. Her thesis is about
debates over smoking and health at selective liberal arts colleges. As a career,
she hopes to pursue investigative journalism and/or wildlife photography.

The Reed College Creative Review is published annually

and distributed for free to the student body.
All spreads were designed using Adobe InDesign CS4.
Artwork was edited using Adobe Photoshop CS4. Copy
is set in 10 point Kokila, and titles, bylines, and captions
are set in 14 point Bell Gothic Std. The Review was
printed by Bridgetown Printing in Portland, Oregon.