Q uiet L

ightning
s P A R K L E
& b L I N K
3.1


eOCg]

`)g
as performed on
Dec 5 11
@
BeatBox

2011 Quiet Lightning
ISBN 978-1-105-25808-4

art by Genine Lentine
geninelentine.com

edited by Evan Karp
evankarp.com

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Contents

SIDE Q

Nicole McFeely
Untitled 8

Kirk Read
Raccoons 12

Mac McClelland
from For Us Surrender Is Out of the Question 18

Cassandra Gorgeous
from Chapter 2: Becoming A Writer 22

Genine Lentine
Pubic Bone 26
Poem for Uncle Johnny (1929-1986) 27
Double Agent 28
Molt
*
30
Samsara Is Nirvana
*
32
My Fathers Comb
*
34
Americas Most Wanted 36
Adam, Are You Ready? 38

K.M. Soehnlein
Everybody, Everybody from Tomkins Square 40

3.1

Genine Lentine
Froth front cover
Broken Window 46, 47
Forms of Cells 48
Magnitude 49

The original texts for the series of poems On Growth and Form come from
the book by the same name by DArcy Wentworth Thompson. (New York:
Dover, 1992. Originally published by Cambridge University Press, 1942)

SIDE L

Jack Foley
Chorus Son(g) 50

Adelle Foley
Sixty Years Later // After the Camps 58

Chicken John
Ulisse from The Book of the Is 60

Mira Martin-Parker
Newsreel IV 66
Newsreel VIII 68
Newsreaal IX 70

Andrew Sean Greer
from an unpublished novel, Many Worlds 72

Siamak Vossoughi
Too Much Genius 78


info + guide to other readings 84

* from
Mr. Worthingtons Beautiful Experiments on Splashes
7
sparkle + blink
As he did every Thursday at exactly 4 o'clock for
the past 7 years, 6 months, and 3 weeks,
Anchester Mottle sat down at his laptop and
typed:

I am an imaginary person.

Just like that, emboldened and all.

As he had with each time before this, he stared
at the phrase until his contacts got too dry to
see and the words no longer said anything.
Then, he closed his eyes hard, breathed in
deeply, and held the breath as he counted
silently in sync with the steady tap of index
finger against delete key 25 times, which was
both the number of letters in the phrase and his
current age (though the latter fact had no weight
in the situation save for mere coincidence). As
soon as this was done, Anchester could open his
eyes again and exhale. It was very important, the
order of these events. If he exhaled before he
opened his eyes, the ritual was moot, and he
assumed he'd have to start all over again. He
didn't know for sure, however, and had no
reason to believe he would ever do so before
opening them.

"24, 25" he thought as the world reappeared
and he began to breathe out.

I am an imaginary person.

leapt from the screen and into his throat,
stopping his breath somewhere between lungs
and larynx, causing him to spit out a muffled
noise similar to that of a brake pedal thudding
against the floorboard of a car when the lines
have been cut. For a moment, Anchester could
8
Nicole McFeely
not understand what was wrong with the picture
in front of him, though he knew something was
very, terribly wrong. He blinked his eyes
vigorously, but each time they opened, it was
there, screaming at him in all its outrageous,
bold glory.

I am an imaginary person.

He sat quite still, in the throws of an almost
expected shock. Somehow, he felt he had always
known this would happen. Each time he opened
his eyes and exhaled, he snubbed out a subtle
moment of fear no less heart stopping than the
feeling some incur upon thinking of death. This
moment was the only time Anchester could
honestly admit to feeling afraid. The thought of
dying did nothing for him, as it hadn't for as
long as he could remember living. However,
because of this fear, he had never stopped to
think of what he might do if the moment
actually came and now found himself at
something of a loss.

I am an imaginary person.

continued to stare at him unapologetically and,
he thought, somewhat expectantlya very real
sentence on a brightly lit screen.

He stared back without moving until suddenly,
almost as if he were attempting to surprise even
himself, he lifted a hand that had been hanging
limply at his side, and struck the delete once,
very hard, dropping it back down almost
immediately. For some reason, he noticed he
held his breath during the moment.

Nothing happened.
9
sparkle + blink

The period seemed to expand and contract as he
stared at it, still occupying space on a mostly
pure page, breathing in, out, in, 18, 17, 16

"Stop it," he said firmly, startled back to reality
by the sound of his own voice. He glanced
sheepishly around the apartment relieved to find
that, as usual, he was alone save for his three
houseplants. Craig, his roommate who he had
met through craigslist, was out, as he always
seemed to be, probably at the gym or with one of
his ever-rotating girlfriends.

Placing both hands on his knees and leaning
forward, Anchester breathed in deeply and
sighed, his pupils shrinking to the size of
pinheads as he inched his face closer and closer
to the screen. By the time his nose was touching
it, they had almost disappeared entirely into his
charcoal irises. He continued to sit that way
until it crossed his mind that something might
be wrong with some of the other keys too. He
leaned back and began to try each one, calmly,
pressing their plastic forms gingerly onto the
pad beneath, sending signals through the
circuits to produce the expected and desired
results. He started at the top:

`1234567890-= qwertyuiop[]\asdfghjkl;'
zxcvbnm,./

Just to be sure, he had skipped caps lock the
first time around, and repeated the whole
process with it engaged:

`1234567890-=
QWERTYUIOP[]\ASDFGHJKL;'
ZXCVBNM,./
10
Nicole McFeely

and checked the shift key:

!@#$%^&*()_+{}|:"<>?

Though he knew it was fruitless, he tried to
delete once more. There was nothing to be done.
The phrase was there, and, now, so was the
evidence of his attempt to understand and fix
the malfunction. Defeated, Anchester did
something he had not done in 7 years, 6
months, and 3 weeks. He saved a document:
"Untitled." After carefully quitting each open
application and shutting down his computer, he
wiped down the screen and keyboard
thoroughly, and packed it away.

"Untitled, huh? he thought. Oh well, what's in
a name anyway?" he said and began to laugh for
he thought the reference to be equally
uninspired. Then, Anchester did something he
did not do except through sheer necessity. He
gathered his computer and the rest of his
belongings and stepped towards the front door,
stopping before he grabbed the handle to check
for his wallet and keys. No one heard him
singing "a rose is a rose is a rose..." as he
stepped into the waning sunshine of a San
Francisco summer; he had grown silent as soon
as he heard the heavy iron gate slam shut
behind him.

11
sparkle + blink
Raccoons

I always wanted to be the kind of man who could
do things. Like my father tilling his garden. Like
my neighbor growing up who could fix his car,
and if there were missing parts, he could
fabricate bypass solutions out of scraps of metal,
loose wires, duct tape and blocks of wood. Of all
the men in my life who could do things, the
strongest influence was undoubtedly my mother.
At 73, she mows an acre of grass with a push
mower. She weeds 19 flowerbeds, dutifully
plants bulbs, rakes hundreds of black walnuts,
composts a hundred pounds of leaves each fall.
She rises early for all of this. 5:30. Ill call her at
noon her time and say Hey Mom, what are you
doing? And she will say I cleaned all the
gutters, then remortared the brick wall because
the garbage truck backed into it, then my lawn
mower broke and I took it out to Turpins to get
it fixed and they wanted to charge me $35 to
change out the spark plugs. And Im not paying
that. So what did you do? I changed the
spark plug myself. I want to be the kind of man
who can do things.
Right after the renovation started I met a
man named Bubba. An Alabama charmer. He
was drunk when I met him, crying about his
mother. All southern men will cry about their
mother in any given evening. Before leaving the
house at midnight, I had completely destroyed
the kitchen. Carefully at first, then with a
hammer, then a crowbar. There were parts of
the floor I could put my fist through. Thats how
much the wood beetles had gotten in there.
Bubba came home with me and walked through
that kitchen. He said I ought to bring my
carpentry tools over here. Which is like telling a
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Kirk Read
diabetic person that you have a roll of
Starbursts when you dont. Over time I realized
he was not a man who could do things. I guess
there were things he could do. Carpentry was
not one of them.
A week ago I trapped a raccoon, drove it ten
miles away across the river and released it. This
raccoon and a number of its friends and family
had taken up residence in the crawlspace under
the house. I would wait for them to leave, then
board it up with two by fours so they couldnt
get back in. On the deck, they would walk
toward me, growling. Raccoons are amazing that
way. This raccoon got in one night when I left
the door to the laundry room open. When I put
the floor in, I did a shitty job patching the holes
in the corner that go into the crawl space. I just
put boards down and stuffed wire screen into
the corner. It was at the end of a day where Id
emptied a room, cleaned the cement, installed
the washer and dryer, cut the flooring and then
put everything back. I shouldve paid more mind
to the crawl space access but I didnt. And she
zipped right down to the place where she was
born.
Raccoons are like salmon, biologically
programmed to return to their birthplace in
order to have children. The mother would go out
at night to forage for food and I would wait her
out, then board the house up tighter. She was
chewing through panels, ripping plywood out in
places where it had been drilled into soft posts.
Stuff that would be challenging for most
humans without the benefit of tools. I borrowed
a trap from my friends Keith and Jim. They are
always trapping raccoons and feral cats. Taking
the cats to the humane society to get fixed or
driving the raccoons out into the county. They
live on a steep hillside that gives me vertigo just
13
sparkle + blink
to think about. They taught me how to use dry
cat food as bait leading up to the inside of the
trap, where there is an open can of wet cat food.
People swear by different strategies. There are
dry dog food people, there are dry cat food
people, there are people who insist on
unconventional bait like grapes. Jim and Keith
are dry cat food people. They are men who know
how to do things.
I carried the trap all over the yard, trying to
figure out if it should go near the place where
she poops, which happens to be in the upper
channel of the water feature that the gay couple
built shortly before they lost the house. They
paid a speculative price for it during the era
when everyone believed that California real
estate had nowhere to go but up. Property
values were doubling and tripling and people felt
entitled to that happening again and again. The
water feature is made of round river rocks in
cement. There was once an electric pump that
turned it into a waterfall but at some point
during the renovation, when I was getting rid of
dysfunctional hillside lighting and drip irrigation
lines that crisscrossed the property, the line to
the waterfall got cut. I did not make this cut. I
believe it was Eds sister. However, and I will
quote the House Republicans, we dont need to
play the blame game. The top two areas of the
water feature are full of raccoon shit. They scoop
out mosquito fish in the little pond, as if it were
a sushi bar. Then they ascend for their dump. I
feel like they might as well smoke a Winston
Light while theyre at it.
I didnt set the trap there. I set the trap
near the place where she enters the house. Its
also a spot where I can shine a flashlight and
see if anythings in the trap. That night I
inadvertently caught a neighborhood kitty. One
14
Kirk Read
of the siblings of a big litter of kittens who lived
on the deck last summer. Right before the rainy
season started, we gathered them all up and
took them to the SPCA. They were beautiful. I
would spend the day demolishing a floor with a
sledgehammer and then go out on the deck and
sit in the light of the full moon. Mama kitty
would crawl in my lap and her three kittens
would follow, nursing in my lap. And I would sit
there and cry.
I bring this up because after I trapped the
mother and relocated her, it dawned on me (a
little late) that those babies werent going to
make it. They were too young to make it in the
wild. Male raccoons would kill them, not
wanting competition. There is no Big Brothers
Big Sisters program in the world of raccoons.
Just Darwin.
After Ed and I released the mother in a
redwood forest with a creek, she climbed a tree,
then looked back at us. We didnt know what we
were doing. Not really. We wanted to be men
who knew how to do things and we were slowly
gathering the information. From friends, from
books, from strangers in hardware stores, from
Wikipedia. Ed and I went to Pats, a downtown
Guerneville divey diner. I ate biscuits and gravy
and Ed had an omelet. I am against omelets. I
dont like eggs to taste like Im chewing through
pig skin. Eggs should be in small pieces and
someone else should chop them up. We sat with
different sections of the Santa Rosa newspaper,
shitty except that there are eyepopping short
articles about life in the country someone
arrested for taking a 2am joyride on a three
wheeler through the grape lanes of a vineyard.
The discovery of a meth lab less than a mile
from an elementary school.
15
sparkle + blink
It has been two weeks since I stole the
mother from the four baby raccoons living under
the house. I know there are four because I heard
them screeching. I opened up the crawl space
doors to coax them out. I didnt know they still
had their eyes closed. I should have just grabbed
each one of them and put them in a box and
taken them to Wildlife Rescue, where they would
be rehabilitated and sent back into the wild. But
I choked. They are wild animals. I was too
nervous to do what I should have done.
I want to be a man who knows how to save
baby raccoons and I wasnt yet. The next day I
spent an hour listening to them chirp and
shinny and whee. They make about five distinct
sounds. I set the trap under the house where
they had been. I put a bowl of water inside it
and closed the door. I sat outside and made
noises similar to the ones Id heard them
making. I heard one coming. I made my sounds
louder, then slowly opened the door.
It was in the trap. Its eyes were crusted
over because its mother hadnt been there to
help open them. The baby was about 8 inches
long, the side of a kitten. It was sitting near the
middle of the trap, but was too small to trigger
it. I pulled the lever and trapped it, then filled
the bottom of a plastic tub with mulch. I set the
baby into it with water and some dry food. It
didnt eat any of the food but did splash around
some in the water.
I drove the baby to Petaluma, to Wildlife
Rescue. On the phone, the woman scolded me
for relocating the mother. She told me this
practice was illegal in California, that I should
have waited for her to raise the pups so they
were old enough to make it on the outside. I told
her I had thousands of dollars of newly installed
furnace ductwork and that raccoons were known
16
Kirk Read
to rip through these ducts and crawl into them,
seeking heat. She scolded me more and I said
Im doing my best.
Over the next few days, I tried to find the
others. I called to them and listened for them in
many parts of the crawl space. I know I should
crawl on my stomach through the darkness of
the crawl space and gather the bodies before
they decompose and draw maggots. I want to be
the kind of man who does that. I want no fear at
all. Instead I opened the doors to the underside
of the house. I lit a tealight candle and burned
peppermint oil in a copper burner. In part to
ritualize the deaths, in part to cover the coming
stench of death.
17
sparkle + blink
from For Us Surrender Is Out of the Question

OUTSIDE, a breeze was trying to slog through
the humidity. Htan Dah and I started back
across the suburbs of Mae Sot, late, my having
promised to protect him from feral dogs. All was
silent but for the occasional barking we stirred
up as we passed in the dark.
I think Wah Doh was asking me for
money, I said.
Really? Htan Dahs face was pained. He
hated his peers asking me for money like he
hated taking it, even when it had been for his
personal safety, or food. What did he say?
He was talking about how he needed to get
more education, but didnt want to resettle. I
think he wanted me to tell him I could somehow
get the UN to accept him for resettlement and
then pay for him to go to America and then pay
for him to go to school and live in America and
then pay for him to come back to Thailand.
These requests were motivated as much by a
gross overestimation of my personal wealth as
by desperation. Two days prior Eh Na had asked
me for money, too, however much I thought
would be necessary to bring a load of Karen
children out of the jungle, build them a shelter
in a refugee camp, and indefinitely keep them in
school supplies and supplemental rations once
they were installed in it. It was hard to explain
to him that I couldnt afford it, because hed
asked me just a day before how much money I
made, and Id said eighty thousand baht, or
some two grand, a month, to which hed replied,
after letting that sink in for a minute, I dont
think in my life I will have that much. Hed
shown me all the money he had in his life
currently, the only kind of money a lot of Karen
18
Mac McClelland
had in their lives, passed down from
grandmothers, from times that were more
prosperous, from when Burma was still part of
British India: two ancient rupees folded in a
cloth.
Id told Htan Dah how bad Id felt about
turning Eh Na down. Id also told him, several
times, laughing, about how anytime my
roommate Eh Soe saw me pull out my wallet, he
said, Can I have some money? Now, Htan Dah
was frowning.
Im sorry, he said.
Dont be sorry. I mean, I get it. If I had no
options, Id ask anyone I met for money.
What did you tell him?
I didnt tell him anything. He didnt really
ask. Just kept talking, hoping I would offer, I
think. Wed turned out of the subdivision and
onto the highway toward downtown, back
toward the office where we lived. He was doing
this totally weird thing to my hand while we
were talking, though. He kept putting it on his
mouth. But he didnt like, do anything with his
lips, just touched us together. Like this. I took
Htan Dahs hand and connected the back of it
with the lower half of my face. Yes, he
laughed. I think he was very drunk. He was
kissing you.
He was kissing me? What do you mean?
Why was he doing it like that?
Because! That ishow we do it!
Do what? Kiss? What do you mean, thats
how you do it?
I clucked my tongue. Thats how we do it,
he says. But then when we were inside, at the
party, and theyd asked me to show them how
people in Ohio kiss each other to say hello, Id
spent 20 minutes trying to show them just how
to pucker their lips, and no matter how long we
19
sparkle + blink
worked on it, they somehow just kept failing to
replicate the gesture I was making.
Hold on! I stopped Htan Dah and put my
hands up, like wait a minute, and raised my
voice. Thats how you guys kiss, with your faces
totally straight and relaxed like that?
Yes!
Reeealllly?
Htan Dah stood on the side of the road, on
the other side of my exclamation, speechless,
tense. I was, suddenly, screeching at him.
You really dont pucker your lips like
this!?
No! he said. Didnt you notice that we
didnt know what we were doing?
Yes! I said. But it never occurred to me
that that was why!
Why not?
Because I just couldnt have imagined that.
Because for all the distance between our worlds,
with the land-mine dodging and child soldiering
and starving on rice soup and midnight burning
refugee camps and murdered fathersthis, this
was crazy. I just cant believe that! Do you ever
open your mouths?
No.
Ever? REALLY?
No!
You dont use your tongues!?
I have seen, Htan Dah offered, in
movies.
In movies! I exploded. Are you seriously
telling me that you guys dont kiss with your
mouths open or use your tongues!?
Clearly, he was seriously telling me that,
but I couldnt help the screaming.
He laughed self-consciously, and at me.
No! We dont do it! he shouted back. I didnt
knowthat people really do that.
20
Mac McClelland
When we got home, I tore into the house
yelling for my roommate, Eh Soe. I found him in
bed. When I flipped on the lights, he looked out
at me from behind his mosquito net, groggily
alarmed in his underwear.
When you kiss your girlfriend, do you ever
open your mouth?
Eh Soe relaxed his head back down and
tsked. Thats just Hollywood, he said.
Thats not just Hollywood! I shrieked.
People really do that! All the time!
For the record, when Yale researchers
released a sexual-behavior study of 190 societies
in 1951, it reported that 4 percent didnt kiss.
The Balinese, for example, instead brought their
faces close enough to breathe in each others
warmth and smell. Some South African
Thongans who caught sight of Europeans
kissing a few decades earlier had exclaimed,
Look at these people! They eat each others
saliva and dirt! So though tonguing is older
than the Kama Sutra, its not universal, and my
acting like everybody had always been doing it
all the time wasnt exactly justified. Even Kinsey,
in his 1953 Sexual Behavior in the Human
Female, found that as few as 80 percent of
American women whod had premarital sex had
Frenchedwhich is to say that as many as 20
percent of them had had premarital sex without
Frenching. But I digress. I had just been
screaming at a groggy refugee:
Thats not just Hollywood! People really do
that! All the time!
My roommate made a face of mild interest.
Really? he asked. And then he rolled over, and
went back to sleep.
21
sparkle + blink
from Chapter 2: Becoming a Writer

I kept turning him down but, in the end, his
emails wore me out.

I finally said yes to becoming a rapist.

But not before I made him beg for it. I didnt say
yes until his third email. I can be such a tease.
Later on, as my fame rose (I was like the San
Francisco version of Jack the Ripper), I would
get more and more rape requests. I became a
serial rapist. But that first rape I committed took
a lot of convincing. I told him No its not part of
my brand. Pretty girls like me dont go around
trying to tie up and rape middle-aged business
men.

But in the end, I broke down and gave in. We
both said yes to rape.

Everyone has a price. And mine, to commit this
heinous act, was $350.

Rapistry was not my first vocational choice when
I was young. Back then, I wanted to become a
princess when I grew up. In fact, when I look at
myself in the mirror when putting on makeup, I
can still see remnants of the pretty little girl I
once was. It makes you ponder over the
curveballs life throws you. One moment youre
dreaming about happily ever after, and the next
moment youre listed on sex-offenders-
registry.com.

I know, I know: you would have never guessed
from the lovely girl on the book cover, but it is
true. And like any serial rapist, I am here to tell
22
Cassandra Gorgeous
you that rape is a lot of work. I mean, a LOT of
work. People have no idea how much actual
physical labor goes into tying someone up. Not
to mention the difficulty of staying focused and
keeping my candy hard while trying to penetrate
my squirming and struggling victims. To them, I
owe a debt of gratitude. If they werent so
cooperative, and so patient, I dont think I could
have succeeded. Too much multi tasking is
involved.

Rape is a team effort.

But, alas, my first rape was not successful. It
was an *attempted* rape. I believe the critical
distinction is that there was no penetration. I
just couldnt: I was too damn tired after tying
him up. I remember sitting on my bed, the sweat
pouring down my face, with not an ounce of
energy left in me. I couldnt even muster up the
strength to untie him.

Tie-Me-Up was his name. He was my first, and
most prolific, rape victim. Being raped, in one
form or another, in varying degrees of
complicity, is the number one requested sexual
fantasy I get. By far. If you ask me, this is the
problem with America today: no one wants to
take responsibility for their actions any more.
Its always, Can you tie me up? Can you force me
to suck your candy? Can you make me feel
helpless? Can you take control of me?

Sometimes I just want to say, Man up! You like
being fucked up the ass. Now quit being so
tortured.

The truth is, many straight guys have secretly
fantasized about being tied up and used as a sex
23
sparkle + blink
toy. Preferably by a hot vixen like Angelina Jolie.
But if she is away on a movie set, then, for
some, a tall Asian drag queen will do.

Tie-Me-Up was a meticulous guy. He brought
over all the props. They were grouped separately,
in large manila envelopes, before being tossed
into one big Ross department store shopping
bag. Tie-Me-Up brought out

ropes,
pantyhose,
blindfolds,
duct tape,
bandages,
tube socks,
and more rope
and more rope

Until I finally thought to myself, holy fuck!

Are we going to go rob a bank?
24
Cassandra Gorgeous



25
sparkle + blink
PUBIC BONE

Its true, my synapses
fired, my spine
lengthened, my
pelvic floor tilted the moment
my yoga teacher fanned
her hand across my sacrum
and said now lift your pubic bone
a little more, but she said it
so matter-of-factly
without qualification
it startled me:
as if I had a pubic bone,
as if I had a body.


26
Genine Lentine
POEM FOR UNCLE JOHNNY
(1929-1968)

Hadnt anyone told you
that inside the green
pupa the monarch
caterpillar returns
to liquid before re-
assembling its code
into wings? It must be
that you never saw
the thin gold line
crowning the brow
of the pupa. Could you
have held out
if youd discovered,
as I did this morning,
that just before
the drenched wings
shake loose, the gold line
has disappeared back
into the same,
the changed
body?

27
sparkle + blink

DOUBLE AGENT

First, acted upon,
then (a quick study)
acting along with,
finally acting alone:
the hands at my throat, the hands
masking my eyes: my hands.
The arms binding my ribs,
palm cupping my mouth,
skin I suck in when I inhale,
skin on the hand that warms
as I exhale: my own.
Long fingers throttling
my windpipe: now always mine.

28
Genine Lentine


29
sparkle + blink
MOLT

There was one moment
I was certain he loved me
by loved I mean could see
:
my pants
on the bathroom floor
in a heap, legs up
socks still holding
the form of my feet
waistband open against the tile
slipped off in one piece
and he came in to pee
as I stood under the shower
and then he stood over my pants
and asked me
pulling back the curtain
How did you do that?

30
Genine Lentine


























from Mr. Worthingtons Beautiful
Experiments on Splashes
New Michigan Press, 2010


31
sparkle + blink



SAMSARA IS NIRVANA


he then
sto od
be fore
my arm
ch air
& de-
mons
tra ted
h is
do uble
zip per
in both
dire ctions











32
Genine Lentine



























from Mr. Worthingtons Beautiful
Experiments on Splashes
New Michigan Press, 2010

33
sparkle + blink
MY FATHERS COMB
Black plastic
raised letters
proclaimed it
unbreakable
and so I began
to bend the un-
relenting spine.
First nothing,
then a little give,
heat at the seam,
blanching
at the faultline.
Half an hour
at his mirror, I
worked at it.
I worked it away
from me and
back. I worked
at the word
until the word,
until the atom
of its lie split,
until the word
broke in my hands.

34
Genine Lentine




























from Mr. Worthingtons Beautiful
Experiments on Splashes
New Michigan Press, 2010

35
sparkle + blink
AMERICAS MOST WANTED


On the 6 Parnassus down Market
he gets on at Sixth;

the duct tape on his hooked arm
keeps it together so he can brace

the plastic bottle of vodka against
what is now his wrist to open it.

He takes a swig of the vodka
and I think, Vodka should be housed

only in glass. He takes another
mouthful, chases it with pink Squirt

from a 64 oz. bottle, its sides collapsing
within the force of his hand.

Im Americas Most Wanted, he announces,
tries it out a few times, shifting

the stress. Americas Most wanted.
Most wanted, beloved, you are,

for now, beloved of the form
world, the sphincter of your iris

narrowing in a sudden glare,
opening at dusk, your ear

36
Genine Lentine

so finely tuned, it knows
cold water from hot coffee

just by hearing it poured.
















37
sparkle + blink
Adam, Are you Ready?

Adam, Are you now ready

to be gentle?
Adam, are you ready
now to be gentle
with your brother?

38
Genine Lentine




39
sparkle + blink
Everybody, Everybody (excerpt)

August 1987. Every day was different, and every
day was full: I ran my ass off as a production
assistant at whatever location I was sent to, then
rushed somewhere elserendesvouing with
Darren along the wayfor that nights ACT UP
committment, and after that it was out for beers,
and after that wed crash on whatever couch or
bed or floor was available. I slept poorly in
strange apartments but I thrilled at seeing how
these New Yorkers lived, the way they furnished
their spaces, the images they hung on their
walls, the books that lined their shelves. I said
yes to any book that anyone held out to me
critical theory, queer novels, monographs from
artists new to me but apparently essential
stuffing these into my backpack with the extra
clothes and toiletries (Colgate, Mennen Speed
Stick, Paul Mitchell hair gel) that I carried
around.
One night I called Eliot, our Administrator,
to let him know Id miss a coordinating
committee meeting because a production shoot
was running into overtime. People are dying,
he said, and youre going to work? Beneath his
usual irony I sensed a real pressure, an urgency:
every one of us felt we could always do more.
One Saturday the Outreach Committee met
at Dojos, the cheap Japanese place near NYU,
writing the text for a palm card to be handed
out at the March on Washington that fallit was
a business card, really, though wed never use
the word business. The meeting was overseen
by Rochelle, a professor with decades of activist
credfeminist, labor, queerwhose long, frizzy

40
K.M. Soehnlein
hair and crooked overbite made her seem less
intimidating, like your favorite aunt instead of
someone who would outsmart you in the next
argument. Amanda and Jonathan were on the
committee, too, and the three of us, the
youngest in the group, gravitated toward each
other. We haggled over every word. We started
with a phrase from a previous fact sheet: BY
1991, MORE PEOPLE WILL DIE FROM AIDS EACH YEAR
THAN WERE LOST IN THE ENTIRE VIETNAM WAR. It
should say more Americans, Rochelle pointed
out. That statistic doesnt include Vietnamese
deaths. Then there was the debate over the
word genocide. The governments failure on
AIDS absolutely seemed deliberate, a plan, but
genocide pushed buttons, especially for
Jonathan and Rochelle, both Jewish and averse
to the-Holocaust-as-metaphor. Still, werent we
already using the pink triangle on our T-shirts?
In the end we phrased it as a question on the
palm card: WHAT IS THE GOVERNMENTS REAL POLICY
ON AIDS? IS THIS GENOCIDE? Wed keep arguing
about language; meanwhile we had to provoke
people to join us.
The meeting broke up, and Jonathan,
camcorder in hand, asked if Amanda and I
wanted to come along to Tompkins Square Park
for some kind of neighborhood fair, where he
hoped to interview a straight couple hed
recently methe called them recovering IV drug
users passing out information about clean
works. I knew nothing about IV drug use, Id
never been to Tompkins Square, Id never even
walked east of First Avenue into Alphabet City,
the grittiest, crackiest part of downtown. But I
said yes. Of course I said yes.

41
sparkle + blink
The sky was gray that day, a silvery blanket
with a sharp ozone sting, and the gray sidewalks
were covered in even darker splotcheschewing
gum, spit out and flattened into blobs like
lesions. On St. Marks Place, buildings of
limestone and brick, with ornate scrollwork
along their cornices, suggested some lost,
profitable age. Large windows glared behind iron
bars, warding off thieves. Soot framed
everything, a fine powder outlining the
architecture, and fire escapes rippled with rust.
Even though wed just eaten rice and vegetables,
we stopped at the corner of First because
Jonathan said I had to try Strombolis pizza.
How long have you lived here? Amanda
asked him. I think she, like me, was a little
starry eyed.
He said hed come to the city three years
earlier, a punk escaping Long Island. While Id
been ensconced in college, hed picked his way
through odd jobs and rotating apartments with
too many roommates and not enough furniture.
Amanda said that she was looking for
somewhere to live. Her nomadic father was
reclaiming his tiny rent-controlled apartment,
where shed been staying with one of her college
girlfriends, Josie, and now Josie was moving in
with her new girlfriend. She hasnt been my
lover for years, Amanda said, but now that she
found someone else, I want her all over again.
I need to get out of my situation, too,
Jonathan said. Hed been staying in a storefront
on Thirteenth Street, off A, with an older artist.
Theyd blacked out the windows with paint, but
street noise churned just beyond the muddy
glass. And now Pierre is dealing coke and
speed, which means too much temptation,

42
K.M. Soehnlein
Jonathan confessed. I dont know even if hes
my lover. Its undefined.
Through stringy bites of pizza cheese, I told
them Darren and I were looking, too. Jonathan
seemed surprised: I assumed youd already
moved out from your parents.
I know, its embarrassing.
No, I justyou dont seem like someone
living in the suburbs.
Yes! I enthused, and he smiled along with
me.
Amanda said, Lets find somewhere big
enough for all of us.
It would have to be a commercial space,
Jonathan said. Something cheap we could
convert. Hed been helping out at a gallery,
installing video art, and said he could ask
around.
I rocketed right into the fantasy of this
communal future: the furniture wed drag in
from the street, the film-editing station where
wed assemble Jonathans footage, the painted
floor on which our friends would sprawl, making
banners for the next demonstration. I imagined
the graffiti-tagged freight elevator. I was already
planning potluck dinners with lots of Scotch,
wine and cigarettes.
As we neared Tompkins Square, with its
wrought iron fence and its cracked pavement, I
was vibrating with all of itthe weather, the
architecture, the biographies of these new
friends who were the same age as me but
already storied and worldlyeven the pizza, a
tangy, doughy New York slice. I felt the power of
walking beyond the limit of where Id previously
ventured, even if that new distance was only a
single city block.

43
sparkle + blink
The three of us wandered past the punks
with their studded collars and wire-sharp
Mohawks, past the homeless encamped on the
parks inner green, a labyrinthine village built
from tents and tarps and shopping carts. A
musty, decidedly human stench mingled with
incense, patchouli, Puerto Rican food frying in
oil, marijuana rolled into tobacco and smoked in
thick blunts by dim-eyed men in zip-up jackets.
I saw the three of us, in our black boots and
cuffed jeans, our activist buttons pinned to our
activist T-shirts, playing our necessary part. We
followed Jonathan to a table where a guy with
dreads and a woman with hoop earrings and a
doo-rag around shiny hair were demonstrating
how to sterilize works with bleach, and handing
out pamphlets about a needle-exchange pilot-
program in Amsterdam. While Jonathan
recorded, another man stepped to the table,
identified himself as a recovering addict, too,
and challenged them, saying, The only path is
strictly clean-and-sober. A debate ensued, and
voices were raised, but in the end the stranger
left wishing Blessings upon us.
Later, when Darren asked me about my
day, I mentioned the idea of living with Amanda
and Jonathan, but he was waryShouldnt we
look for somewhere just for us? I wanted that
tooour lovenest, at lastbut I tried to convey
to him my earlier excitement, wrapped up in
that intangible feeling of arriving: approaching
the park with Amanda and Jonathan, and being
absorbed into it, and in doing so taking the next
steps toward becoming someone who would earn
his place in this vibrant and risky world.

44
K.M. Soehnlein






49
sparkle + blink
CHORUS: SON(G)
for two voices

beginning
hisfirstconsciousness/wasanimmensenostalgiaan
awareness/ofpassage
theuniverseisrunningdownalwaysinthedirectionof
increasingentropy
thebrutalityofthewordtu-meurbecarefulhereis
intelligenceatwork
self-hatredmasochismhespokeofthedogas
dominant
itwouldbenecessarytogiveafullaccountofthepresent
stateofthepublictasteinthiscountry,andtodetermine
howfarthistasteishealthyordepraved;which,again,could
notbedeterminedwithoutpointingoutinwhatmanner
languageandthehumanmindactandre-actoneachother,
andwithoutretracingtherevolutions,notofliteraturealone,
butlikeofsocietyitself.Whatofallthese
voices?
Thelanguagepoetorderstongue
howcanwelook
towords?howcanwelook?thetwo
ofus
stranded,touching,telling
ImjustbeginningtoreachthepointwhereI
whatyoureobjectingtoinmypoemisnotits
stylebutthoughtitself,itsshifts,itsevasions,its
magicalabilitytofunctioninmanycontextsat
once
itwastherockstarnervesjanglingveinsopenwho
couldtellhimanything?
thenews/
paper
whichhadbeenfoldedoverflatontheground
yes/

50
Jack Foley
terdayisnow
wideopen
thewindreadsit
Tosaythatapoemisaboutself-consciousnessisnottosay
thatitisonlyabout
self-consciousness.Theremaybepoemswhichareonly
aboutpoetryandmaybe________
wrotesomeofthem,butifsothatisanextremelylimited
conception
ofpoetry
Self-consciousness
isbyitsverynatureexpansive,passionate,interested,
anxioustodiscover
resonances
ofitself
atlargeintheworld
thisdesperateobsessiveneedtotalk
IwalkthroughthehousealonethismorningSong
Dryisland.Embattledsky.Voicesofthesea.
Strangeflowering.
TotellyouthetruthIenjoyedchasingafteryou.Perhapswe
coulddoitacoupleoftimesamonth.
passingbyherhandsinherpockets
whatareyourhands
doing?
tobeone,tobeonly,tobelone
TherewasanelectronictuningtestattheBellSystemexhibit
inDisneyland.Bypressingbuttonsyoucouldheareitheratone
offixedfrequencyoratonewhosefrequencyyoucouldadjust,
butnotbothatthesametime.Afteryouhadmatchedthe
frequenciesascloselyaspossible,themachinescoredyour
performance.Mywife,
whoisamusician,didmuchbetterthanI.

Isitinthecarintheexactmiddleofthefrontseat.Ihearthe
announcersvoiceasacompactsoundsourcedeadahead,
midwaybetweenthetwospeakers.AsImovetotheright

51
sparkle + blink
thesoundsourceatfirstbecomesdiffuse.AsImovefurther
right,allthesoundclearlycomesfromtheright-hand
speaker

[with the paragraph beginning, I sit in the car,

my wife begins to speak. As she speaks the last
lines she moves to the right]

Ihavesaidthat,ifasoundreachesuswithequalintensities
fromtwosources,wehearallofitascomingfromthenearer
sourceifthedifferenceindistanceis
aboutafoot
orgreater.todabbleheretowander
ibeforeeexceptafterctestedbythewordatheist
likecuttingapaththroughthejungle
withabureaucrat

Temptedansunbnitier Tempestinaholy-waterbasin
LeSouverainPontifeavecque ThePopewith
Lesvques,lesarchevques Hisbishopsandhisarchbishops
Nousfontunsatanchantier. Makesadevilishmessforus.

Ilsnesaventpascequilsperdent Theydontknowwhattheyre
losing
Touscesfichuscalotins Allthesewretchedpriests
Sanslelatinsanslelatin WithoutLatinwithoutLatin
Lamessenousemmerde TheMassisshitty
jndsoffrequencyorintensity
sechangeeneaudeboudinchangesintoblackpuddingwater
Theprecedenceeffect,thefactthatasoundseemstocome
fromthedirectionfromwhichitreachesusfirst,isbadfor
stereo,buthighlydesirableineverydaylife.Whensomeone
speakstoyouinahard-walledroom,youhearallthesound
ascomingfromhisorher
mouth
[speaker indicates mouth]
eventhoughmuchofthesoundthatreachesyouhasbeen
reflected
fromthewalls

52
Jack Foley
herpowerovermeis(whatistheword?)silence
whistlesarrowfromwhirlwindrainthroughhisheart
saywhatImcalled
andwhorouses&calmsmy
power!
Itischaracteristicofthemassmediathatthefiguresinthem
areallabsent,notthere,cantbetouched.Thisisalsotrueof
books,whichwereinasensethefirstofthemassmedia.
SpeakingtoG.P.Skratz,IextendedthisideatotheCatholic
Massaswell.TheMassisstillanothermassmedium,an
attempttoreachasmanypeopleaspossible.Atthe
beginningoftheMass,Christis(andremains)profoundly
absent,hasnotreturnedandtheMassis,precisely,a
fictionalassertionthatthisisnotthecase,thatChristisin
factpresent.(Faith=theevidenceofthingsnotseen,the
substanceofthingshopedfor.Fiction!)
thepossibilitythatherdisasterousrelationshipswithmen
ariseoutofthedesiretoprovehermotherright.Menare
suchbeasts
Toobadyoudidntcomewithustotherestaurant.Wefound
it(withalittletrouble)&hadjustbeenseatedwhen
suddenlyinpopsIshmael&Callahan&Alta&everybodyso
weallsatdowntogether&atetoomuchItalianfood&hada
verynicetime
Whatcrazybirds
thesecrowswhosawcutslice
thesound&goodoldbranch
ofthecrosswheretheyhaveperched
ThenameCohanstillhasmagic.Themerementionofitwas
enoughtounleashastreamoftalkfromthetwoofthem.

[FIRST VOICE, speaking simultaneously with SECOND VOICE]:

alliedw/leavessoft-spokenBendallyourbows,saidRobinHood
thisdayatthekirkofGamry
asuddenspasmmonstrouswings
cantwalkcanttalkfuriosospasm
EVILISEVERYWHERETOBE

53
sparkle + blink
SEENTHEREISNO
RESTFROMIT
THEPOWEROFDEATH
MULTIPLIES
THEREISNO
LIFE
AndjustwhenImighthavereproachedmyselfItwas
Luciennesthoughts,her
mentalattitudes,theplenitudeofherbeingwhichI
encountered.Notoneofmy
kisseswentastray.
estrangedfromthatmuchcanbesaiddifferently
Allthesearepromisesmadeatacertaintime(yetbroken)to
Love,which
stands,waveringinadoorway,speakingwordswhichI
canneitherhearnor

love,
youareendless,sorrowful
everything
innaturebecamefragmentedbeforehim
Gaehame,gaehame,goodbrotherJohn,Antellyoursister
Sarah
shefoundhimdrownedInYarrow
fuckyou,manTothinkofthisagain:think:fortyyearsago
there:myfaceinthemirror
thehermeneuticalsituation
fortheletterkillethbutthespiritthebreath
asthewindturnsthem(leaves)
theyseemtosay
good-bye
soil
bridge
stone
AuldIrelandiscalling
ThousandsofMadridresidentsprotestedPresidentReagans
visittoSpainlastnightbybangingonpotsandpansand
turningofftheirhouselights

54
Jack Foley
Itiedmydrumtothetopofmylance
farewell
farewellmysweetmy
gbye,love,
darkone,daughterendlessly
blonddarkfairsweetbittermildsoftharshfiery

[SECOND VOICE, speaking simultaneously with FIRST VOICE]:

Itmighthavebeendocks,itmighthavebeenblocks
Itmighthavebeensurelytheschoolofhardknocks
Shemighthavedetestedallgrandfatherclocks
Ordeclaredthatshenevercouldbeartowearfrocks
Butcrossingherleotards(shedidntwearsocks)
Andsquintinghereyestillshelookedlikeafox
(Ignoringmycommentonbagelsandlox)
Shewhisperedobliquely,Thesubjectisrocks.

Wesatinthecoffeehousebreathingtheair
Tothecasualobserverwehadntacare
(ItwasCambridgeinSpringifyouveeverbeenthere)
Whenfixinguponmehervacuousstare
Andassuminganattitudebornofdespair
Sheratherungracefullyfellfromherchair
(Theclamortheytellmeresoundedforblocks!)
Andwhisperedobliquely,Thesubjectisrocks.

AndnowthatImolderandverywellread
ItoftenoccurswhenImgoingtobed
ThatIwonderwhatcouldshehavemeantwhenshesaid
Inavoicethatmighteasilywakenthedead
Inatonethatwashollowandheavyaslead
WithatremorthatfilledmewithInfiniteDread
(Thereweresomanythingsshemightspeakofinstead!)
Butshegraspedatabundleoffreshlypickedphlox
Andwhisperedobliquely,Thesubjectisrocks.

55
sparkle + blink

EastOaklandsEastmontMall.Elevenp.m.,papersstrewn
everywhere.AsIdrivebytheliquorstoreinmycarInotice
twomenwhoseemtobeconfrontingeachother.Oneof
themstandsinfrontoftheopenliquorstore.Inhishandshe
holdsanenormousrifle.Theotherisseatedonamotorcycle.
Heisdrivingthemotorcycle(asviolentlyashecan)insmall
circlesbeforethemanwiththerifle.Everythingseems
violent,open,uncertain.Ipassby

56
Jack Foley
[The two voices end at exactly the same time.
There is a moment of silence before the
concluding lines are spoken.]

articulationofsound
memoryinthe
ear
asubstitution
ofthe
audible
for
the
visible

towritethisday
toinsist
uponit

57
sparkle + blink
60 Years Later / After the Camps

They were our neighbors

Torn from our community
How could this happen

How could this happen
Nurseries and barber shops
Sold at bargain rates

Sold at bargain rates
Please, take the horse and chickens
And the fields left fallow

And the fields left fallow
Crying for childrens laughter
Young lovers meeting

Young lovers meeting
Near barbed wire, guard towers
Boredom and hot dust

Boredom and hot dust
Faded memories. At last
Soft voices speaking

Soft voices speaking
To those who did not witness
Utter disbelief

Utter disbelief
It will not happen this time
They are our neighbors

58
Adelle Foley

59
sparkle + blink
Ulisse from The Book of the IS

I like diggin around the junkyard. It relaxes me.
Noodle around, dig through glove boxes. Look
under the seats. See what possibilities are still
in the things people threw away. Its like
reincarnation.

There was an old Ford Granada. Terrible car.
Late 70's as I remember. The back was all
smashed in. It drove to the accident, as they say
at the junkyard. Good parts under the hood, all
that but not really a 'car' anymore. Now a
loose association of parts. After theyve been
stripped, most end up in a compactor. But
before you can squash it, ya gotta clean out the
trunk, to make sure there isn't any toxic waste
or whatever in there. You wanna make sure
there isn't a suitcase of money either. Both of
those things have been found in trunks. Get rid
of the spare tire. You also wanna make sure
there isn't a dead body. So you can imagine the
surprise when that is exactly what was found in
the trunk of that old Ford.

It was in a beautiful little box, tow-colored like
the sexy lady in Goldfinger. About the size of a
standard nick-knack, but heavier. Kinda shiny.
Very majestic. I opened the top. There were two
pieces of paper and a set of very burnt military
dog tags. One piece of paper was from Chaos, a
handwritten poem. The other, an official
document from Control. Under them was a
plastic bag with a twist tie; but a twist tie of a
quality Id never before seen. In the bag were the
cremated remains of Ulisse Virgili.


60
Chicken John
Now think about how this happens: Ulisse dies
with no heirs, and a friend is presented with the
remains. Maybe a relative that didn't even know
him came to pick them up. When youre a
veteran, they pay for the cremation. The remains
go in the trunk, and on the way to the funeral
home, car gets in an accident. Or maybe they
were in that trunk for 7 years. Or 17 years. Ya
see, he died on 1-18-83. There is no way to
know the story, really. But I couldnt stop trying
to put it together.

There is one fact that I did know: Ulisse had no
service. No funeral. No memorial to his life. He
was thrown in the trunk of an old Ford and
forgotten. Like a pair of jumper cables. A
forgotten man. I imagined he worked hard. A
machinist at the Navy Yard. His wife died before
he did. I imagined that their son was a deadbeat.
Maybe he was from Atlanta before he relocated
to SF after being stationed here in WW2. Or
maybe he was from Meridian Mississippi; with a
name like Ulisse he was likely from the South. I
imagined he died of lung cancer, after smoking
Pall Mall's for 70 years. A slow and agonizing,
lonely death. And the shame and degradation of
not having a proper funeral. I took the ashes to
the bar, and put them on a shelf above the
whisky. And waited until Bloomsday, June 16th,
to Give Ulisse his rightful event.

I gathered together a table on the stage, and
transferred the ashes from the golden box to 50
or 60 smaller zip lock bags. I put a few bar
candles on the table, took off my hat and asked
everyone to please be quiet for a moment. And I
began to speak. I had no idea what I was going

61
sparkle + blink
to say. I really never do. I just kinda wing it. Not
being an actor and all I just started talking.

I talked about the kind of people who own Ford
Granadas. Thought that would be a good place
to start. My first proper girlfriend drove a Ford
Granada. Of course it was a hand me down from
her dad. Its like the official car of men whose
pants chafe their armpits. I talked about how no
matter what it is, what it cost or how coveted it
was in its life, in death it all gets processed at
the junkyard as one of 4 things: ferrous metal,
non-ferrous metal, precious metal, or garbage.
Thats it. Your laptop. Your iPhone. Your $3,000
54 inch LCD TV. All in like piles moved around
by forklifts. I talked about how every once in a
while something comes to the junkyard that is
simply amazing. A 1950s fat jiggling machine. A
gynecologists examination table. All the guys do
the same thing: scratch the seat and sniff. Sorry.
Sometimes things that come to junkyard dont
make sense. Like hundreds of 9 iron golf clubs.
Or three trucks full of booth displays from the
Irritable Bowel Syndrome seminar and
conference. I told them that sometimes youll
find a gun under the front seat. Garbage bag of
pot in the trunk. Jarico found 1,000 records in a
car once. The driver was killed by the accident.
There was evidence. He still DJs those records
to this day. Sunglasses. Umbrellas. Tools. Toys.
Maps of strange places. Really old gum.
Newports. And now, human remains.

Thus far, Ulisse was the first human remains
discovered at the junkyard.


62
Chicken John
As I was talking I noticed that people locked eyes
with me. I was talking, but I really wasnt. I was
starting to think about who was saying these
words. What Idea I was trying to convey. And
why. And how. I was a witness to what I was
saying. Spinning my web, drawing them in.
Holding the mic, just like that. The lights were
bright in my eyes, which is unusual: usually, the
brim of my hat touches my glasses to put my
eyes in shadow so I can see the crowd and make
sure the doorman isnt putting the money in his
pocket or someone isnt drinking from a flask. As
I was holding my hat to my chest, I almost
almost but not quite was able to float into
the audience and disengage completely and just
be a witness. But then I thought about it too
much, and broke the spell. I was talking again. I
noticed my timbre. My tone. My meter. All
perfect. All eyes on me. No one raising their
glasses to drink. No one ordering at the bar. No
arms folded. I had them. Its a powerful place. I
wanted their compliance. I told them that we
take care of our own, down at the junkyard.
That the junkyard is sacred space, and human
remains found at the junkyard get proper
burials.

I explained what was going to happen. What
were going to do. Were going to have a moment
of silence. We are going to light these candles.
We will then bow our heads, and appreciate the
ineffable IS. We are going to raise our glasses,
and salute the man who aged 80 years and
outlived everyone he championed. His funeral
was postponed, but now were going to make up
for that.


63
sparkle + blink
I cracked a whip-it capsule and inhaled deeply
into my lungs. I held my breath. My six senses
melted into one antenna. In that other universe,
that moment of silence lasted forever. In that
other universe, we are all still there at 3223
Mission Street with our heads bowed; forever. In
that other universe, Ulisse will always be young,
operating the lathe with squinting eyes as the
smoke from his cigarette creeps up his face, as
we light candles in his honor. We toasted. And
one by one people approached the stage and
took one of the small plastic bags containing the
last remaining corporeal form of our new friend
Ulisse.

To the far corners of this cruel, cruel world! I
told them. I asked that the coffee powered over-
achievers who are the denizens of the city of Art
and Innovation take his ashes to the winds
hither and fro. And thats where Ulisse ended
up. In the coming months I started getting the
occasional post card or email, reporting that
Ulisse was let go to fly off the starboard side of a
sailing vessel in the middle of the Atlantic. Ulisse
was dumped over the edge of a tram car in
Switzerland. On the plains of Mongolia. The
steppes of Peru. In the sewers of Cuba. A
volcano in Costa Rica. Snorted, a bit, by Tora
before his friends could stop him. I personally
left his ashes both at the Rongbuk monastery in
Tibet and the last sprinkle in the treasure chest
that I buried my beloved Dammitina in.

(the paper in the box from Chaos, a handwritten
poem, below. The paper from Control was
Ulisses death certificate)
goodbye, sweet Louey

64
Chicken John
Thy life twas but a balloon in the hands of a
child.
Let go, to fly
Watch thy spirit soar to the skies
Goodbye, goodbye

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NEWSREEL V

The Unloved. Not just the unloved, but the hated.

The hated with rage. Not just the hated with rage,
but the despised. The beaten down. See, over there,
that guy on the train, in the black hooded sweatshirt,
slumped over, stinking of cheese, drunk on Old
English, on dope, with sores on his arms. See how
the middle finger is coming at him from everyone,
everywhere. That poor guy is a rag-tagged, matted,
stinking embodiment of pain. Just look at the people
sitting around him. Their eyes say it all. We hate
you and we want you to disappear. Poof. Just like
that. And be gone.

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Mira Martin-Parker


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NEWSREEL VIII

pop it in the tank, bubby, the driver doesnt mind

plastic cups and paper clips, made in China, the driver
doesnt mind

a motor bike, explosives, the driver doesnt mind

a militant, collateral damage

a swimming pool, plastic toys, the driver doesnt mind

hips like butter, a body donut wide, the driver doesnt mind

a trimmed lawn, a Buick Cavalcade (the driver needs lots of
room and safety)

4 militants, an AK 47

a ticky tacky in Tracy, a mortgage with Wells Fargo

collateral damage (a 2-year-old boy and his mother)

pink bottoms, pink plastic sandals, a butter-bottomed wife

a freedom fighter, plastic limbs

a flat screen

looting, surface to air, enhanced

an Ikea couch

a Kalashnikov, an IED

fried calamari, soda, soft seats

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Mira Martin-Parker

an entire village

bacon, bread, juice boxes, just open and squeeze, the driver
doesnt mind

Chrysler, Apple, Dell

Al Jazeera

a school yard

crack cocaine, healthcare

Sara Palin, Safeway, fresh local wild salmon

Fukushima, the Federal Reserve, the driver

the Israeli High Fivers

Tony Blair, armored military vehicles, the driver

curry paste, flooding, the driver, hurricanes, the UN, the
driver, the driver

Trader Joes, Twitter, the driver, Facebook, a Pakistani
government official

Disney Land, a drone attack, the driver, the driver, the
driver, he doesnt mind,

he really doesnt mind

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NEWSREEL IX

NEW iPHONE CONCEALS SHEER MAGIC

It can perform an incredible range of tasks

boiled cabbage

It can get stock prices, currency and price conversions,
and check the weather

pit bulls, dirty bedding

It can read your email and text messages to you and
let you respond,
all by voice

beans on toast

You dont even have to hold it to your head

two cigs, a forty

Just press the volume button to snap a photo

crunchy hair, a military knapsack

You can fire up the camera right from the lock screen

a shopping cart

Apple will periodically upgrade the brain

70
Mira Martin-Parker

a place to poop

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from an unpublished novel: Many Worlds

The clinic was not quite what I expected.
Perhaps because we were so close to Halloween,
I thought it would look something like Dr.
Frankensteins laboratory, carved out from the
side of a cliff. Instead, a plaque informed me it
had been a grammar school since 1908, and
even though they had re-carpeted the place and
filled it with framed Mondrian posters, I still had
the telescoping sensation of entering the
battleground of my old childhood. I sat for a few
minutes in a plaid chair, across from an old lady
with a green shawl and a knitting bag, and then
was told Dr. Cerletti would see me now. The sign
on the door: CERLETTI, ELECTRO-CONVULSIVE
THERAPY.
Miss Wells, I see here we have informed
consent from Dr. Gruber, is that right now?
Yes, doctor. I looked around the room for
the device that would cure me.
He did a pretreatment evaluation for us, is
that right?
Ive been depressed, I told him. Weve
tried pills. Nothing seems to work.
That is the only reason you would be here,
Miss Wells.
Dr. Cerletti looked at his clipboard, which
could have had no further information. Do you
mind if I ask a few questions?
Only if I get to ask a few. Im terrified
about electro-shock
We call it electro-convulsive these days.
And I know what youre thinking, Im sure Dr.
Gruber went through it all with you. No data
suggests any kind of damage to the brain. He

72
Andrew Sean Greer
smiled, and the smile in his bland kind face was
reassuring. Things are very different than they
used to be. For instance, Im going to give you
Thiopental, an anesthetic, which means theres
no convulsions like you might have worried
about. Nothing like that. It will be much nicer
than going to the dentist.
Thats sodium pentathol? Will I tell you the
truth, doctor?
Were you planning not to? It doesnt
actually induce truth telling. It just lowers the
patients resolve.
Sounds like the last thing I need.
For right now, its just what you need, he
said, writing something down and frowning.
Well do this twice a week, a course of seven
weeks. There will be a reassessment, but I
expect well do another course of seven. We will
be over by February. It will help you make it
through what seems to be a very hard time. I
understand your brother died recently.
Among other things, I said, staring out
the window to where a school used to be. Will it
change me? I asked the doctor.
Dr. Cerletti considered this very carefully.
Miss Wells, not at all. What has changed you is
your depression, and these episodes. What were
trying to do is bring you back.
Bring me back.
He smiled again and took a deep breath.
You might experience some disorientation
afterwards. Thats perfectly normal.
What kind of disorientation?
Please lie down. A slight dizziness.
Possibly, just possibly hallucinations. Not
knowing where you are, quite who you are for a
moment. Some have auditory hallucinations,

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bells ringing, that sort of thing.
Wait. That sounds serious.
Lie down please. It isnt. Patients say it
can be like waking up in a hotel room. At first,
youre not sure where you are. But then youre
yourself again. Were piecing you back together.
Lie down, there you go. First the anesthetic. You
wont feel anything electrical at all.
The nurse arrived with two syringes the
anesthetic and a muscle relaxant. I lay down on
the crackling paper and looked at the
constellations in the acoustic ceiling tiles. They
seemed so close. I closed my eyes. The doctor
said that I would feel the first injection, but not
the second, and that it would last only a minute
while he administered the procedure, which
would be one and a half times the seizure
threshold for a woman my age. I thought back
on childhood fears of needles; I reminded myself
I was far from childhood. I felt something metal
attached to each of my temples, then the cold
swab of alcohol on my inner arm, then the awful
pinch of a needle going in. I held my breath.
Almost immediately an unpleasant smell filled
the room rotting onions my mind unlatched,
and then I found myself elsewhere. Dont bring
me back, I remember thinking: Take me away.
As for what I feltlater, I would come to
think of it as being cut out of the world. The
sensationnot unpleasant, but more like the
shock of cold limbs immersed in hot waterof
the draft being removed from my skin, the
crackling paper cot from my back, the air from
my lungs, so that I hung for a moment utterly
separate from my surroundings. Cut out of the
world, as a gingerbread man is cut out of dough.
Cut out, and taken who knows where?

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Andrew Sean Greer
What do you call the time when we are
missing? The time, for instance, when weve had
so much to drink that minutes stutter by with
blanks inserted, or whole hours are lost to us
and yet we were there, said and did things, and
are held responsible for what occurred? Or even
the little lost moment when we awaken to find
ourselves partway through a phone
conversation, and have to explain to the person
on the line that they have been talking to a
sleeping person, that only now are we present?
What is that gap time called? What part of us is
functioning? Are we to blame for what we do?
And finally: who are we when were not
ourselves?
There.
I opened my eyes. The doctor was smiling
at me under his little mustache, and I noticed a
drop of perspiration between his brows. You
may feel a little hangover for the rest of the day.
I looked around at the same room,
unchanged, just slightly underwater. And then I
said something very odd, which made him smile:
Where are the what, Miss Wells?
Im sorry, I must be dizzy.
Do you think you can walk home?
I told him yes, of course.
He nodded and said, Now whats most
important is to call me if you feel at all strange
in the morning. I think youll notice a shift.
Youll be back tomorrow, well set it up with
Marcia. He smiled at his nurse and, as she left
the room, he gave her a little pat on her behind.
The nurse, a little redheaded creature with big
eyes and a sideways nose, brought out my
clothes and waited for me to change, a little grin
on her face. Perhaps it was from the doctors

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pat. Or perhaps it was from my funny little
question, while still under the anesthesia:
Doctor, where are all the children?

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Andrew Sean Greer

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Too Much Genius

The boys took off running as Allie began to

count. Each man showed who he was and his
general philosophy towards life by his approach
towards hide-and-seek. Tom Pemberton ran
straight to the tree and climbed to the top of it.
The efficacy of the hiding place was secondary to
the adventure of reaching it. If there was a
hiding place that was effective and difficult to
reach, that was ideal, but the adventure came
first.
Louie Parenti curled up under the bench
on the side of the house. He was a boy of ten
who stayed close to his five-year-old self in a
number of ways, and squeezing into very small
spots was one of them.
Sebby Dudum did not mind darkness. He
found it soothing. He flipped a wheelbarrow
upside-down and went under it, prepared to sit
there for as long as it took.
Jake Loewen ran behind a pile of firewood
and lay back, looking up at the sky. It was an
obvious place to look, but it was worth it to lay
back and look up at the sky for a while. His
mother and father were separating and he
wanted to make his time with his friends last as
long as it could.
Romar Wilson ran to the front of the
house. He was about to dive behind the hedges
when he saw a car coming down the street that
looked like his mother's car. He looked in the car
and saw his mother. He turned to the house and
waved goodbye to nobody. He walked casually
over to the street as his mother pulled up.
"Did you thank Allie's mother?" his

78
Siamak Vossoughi
mother said.
"Yes."
"We have to stop at the market before we
go home."
"Okay."
There are moments of genius in a man's
life. There are moments when he feels that all
his efforts have added up to something and he
has become the person he has dreamed of
becoming. Who am I, Romar thought in the
backseat of his mother's car. Am I a great man,
or am I mean and spiteful? Is it necessary to
disregard other people in order to exercise
genius? If there was a way to exercise it without
disregarding them, I would prefer that. His
father had told him that Einstein used to get so
caught up in his scientific study that he would
forget to put on pants. Maybe it was like that.
Maybe there were just some side effects that
couldn't be helped. He tried to think about how
everybody would talk about it in the distant
future: The day that Romar proved that he was
the once-and-for-all champion of hide-and-seek.
Not just the boys at Allie's house. The news
would spread. It would go beyond the 5th grade.
Fourth-graders would be telling third-graders
about it. They would be talking about it even
after he had left Fox Elementary and gone on to
middle school.
"Did you have fun?" his mother said.
"Yes."
"What did you do?"
"We played football."
The problem with this kind of genius was
not being able to talk about it. There was
another kind that a guy could talk about, the
kind that came with winning the class spelling

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bee, for example. But that was somebody else's
idea of what constituted genius. It seemed like a
man who pursued his own idea of it was always
going to have to face loneliness.
Romar usually stayed in the car when his
mother went to the market, but this time he
came with her. It was better to be among the
people and the noise and not dwell on his
achievement. It was an achievement
though. How else was he supposed to achieve
something? How else was he supposed to prove
that life was more than just going to the market?
He looked at the people examining fruits and
vegetables and he wondered if they knew how
much they were capable of. They certainly didn't
look as though they did. And he felt like his
achievement had not just been for himself, it
had been to prove to everybody that there were
great things that they were capable of. It was a
heavy burden for one man to have to carry, but
he was used to that. At his school where he was
the only black boy in his class, there was a
feeling in the classroom that weighed on him
when they talked about Martin Luther King, Jr.
and the civil rights movement. He felt like he
was always expected to participate in the
discussion and sometimes he had something to
say and sometimes he didn't.
He looked around at the people in the
market and he thought that if he had to be the
one to carry the burden of genius, then he would
do it. The point of hide-and-seek was to hide and
he had hidden all right. There must have been a
reason that his mother had come around the
corner just at the right time. There must have
been a reason why he had been the only one to
run to the front of the house and see her.

80
Siamak Vossoughi
"Romar," his mother said. "They are out of
the cereal that you like. We'll have to get corn
flakes instead.
"No!" Romar said. Something collapsed
inside him and he thought of trying to carry the
burden of genius without the cereal that he liked
each morning, and it seemed like too much.
"What's the matter? You've had corn
flakes before."
It was all of a piece the cereal he liked
and the championship of hide-and-seek and the
way everyone at school would be proud of him.
He couldn't understand how something that had
started out so beautifully could feel so bad. He
began to cry. And he felt disappointed in himself
because in the mornings when he sat eating the
cereal he liked, he had sincerely believed that he
was ready for the genius inside him.
When he told his mother what had
happened, she gave him a furious look and said,
"I'll decide on your punishment when we get
home." She called Allie's mother and had Romar
explain to her himself what he had done.
Allie's mother went outside and found the
boys around the corner and halfway up the next
block. They were looking underneath a parked
car. She called to them that Romar had just
called and he had already gone with his mother.
The boys walked back to the house in
hushed respect. They were done with hide-and-
seek for today and maybe forever. There was no
point to it now. They didn't feel like they had lost
something though. They felt like they had gained
something.
They sat on Allie's stoop. At that time,
Romar was sitting in the backseat of his
mother's car, eating a lollipop his mother had

81
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bought him because he'd felt so bad for what
he'd done. The boys were each lost in the
thought of imagining how it had happened. Tom
Pemberton didn't think that climbing to the top
of the tree in Allie's yard was much of a thing.
Louie Parenti felt like the world was much bigger
than he knew. Sebby Dudum was imagining
telling his father about it, and how his father
would turn quiet and thoughtful the way he had
when Sebby's older brother had beaten him in
chess. Jake Loewen smiled very happily. His
mother and father were separating, and he
cherished the time he could be away from home
and with his friends. Romar's victory at hide-
and-seek made him feel like it all made sense,
because the time with his friends was worth
cherishing.

82
Siamak Vossoughi

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