Q uiet L

ightning
sPARKLE & bLINK
3.2

SPARKLE

+
BLINK
as performed on Jan 2 12 @ Club Deluxe
2011 Quiet Lightning
ISBN 978-1-105-36834-9

all art Molly Campbell mollyhcampbell.com edited by Evan Karp evankarp.com

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Contents
SIDE Q
John Panzer
Occupy UC-Berkeley: Sproul Plaza

7 9 13 17 21 29 33

Ross Wagner
Mirror-Master Muses

Joe Case
from The Expat Diaries

Jarett Kobek
General Notice of New Opportunity

Cassie J. Sneider
Romance

Melissa Cistaro
Strip-Searched

Timothy Walker
Tiny Blue Snips

3.2
Molly Campbell
Untitled* Untitled* The Wren^ Grasslands#

front cover back cover 37 38

* Acrylic ink on paper, 2010 ^ Acrylic ink and graphite on paper, 2009 # Acrylic ink and collage on paper, 2009

SIDE L
Chris Carosi
One by_by One

39 45 46 47 49 55 57

Zara Raab
Mattole Billy Gawain

Amanda Meth
Ballerina Boy

Boris Glants
from The Multiparent

Keely Hyslop
If the Pine Trees Were People

Davy Carren
American Dreams

info + guide to other readings

65

OCCUPY UC BERKELEY: SPROUL PLAZA

NOVEMBER 16, 2011 Who stood here before me To take the billyclub of change? I, too, see a rainbow in the clouds I whisper down generations: The riot cop in front of me is cute Tell him - she says Maybe after you crack my skull You and I can kiss a little bit. He actually smiled. I have seen amber waves of grain It's a place: There are people there I don't like them very much, they don't like me either And that's all right That billyclub is about to make enough room in my head for all of us. Even the riot cop swinging it.

7 sparkle + blink

8 John Panzer

MIRROR-MASTER MUSES
I I don't quite fit. Duplo block in a Lego world It was a strange conclusion Arisen at staring at the dull Static of this so-called real life The skipped frames dancing Leaping from stage to stage With no love for the in-between. I found no comfort from this Undesired insight Except for in the crystal clear reflection Of other people's judgement And there become reflection To their imperfection Longing to reach through And touch the regular path. III Perhaps it is my own fault I thought nothing of choosing This winding path Deep inside the mirror Where I was Master of my own design Free to travel where all were forbidden. I say choice, but the path Opened, begged me to partake Of Escher painting reflection I hardly noticed jumping staccato Fractured to all eyes Absent the proper progressions
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Adulthood without lust Anger without jealousy My assault against assimilation Lacking any malicious forethought And so quiet I scarce heard myself complete it. V I find myself in a Rogue's Gallery Hung upon the mantle with the dregs Stirred up by pinky-out dainty Peccadillo of proper gentlemen I find myself spread thin Across the disco ball, my light Glittering briefly against a Bright red Flash As it goes down Taking with it the future dreams Of my immigrant grandparents Trying to catch the illusory blur By rapid redefinition upon a thousand Skilled artisanships Each desperate jump no matter how Hastened and masterful Only allowing to track The bored indifference as it Navigates deftly past A generation of Rogues Always left choking in Our Glorious Hero's dust. VII Was it wrong to know the truth That the hunted haunted haze
10 Ross Wagner

Was so insubstantial as to fall Tumbling ricochet across my labyrinth Of behind the scenes and in-between. Even in my Mastered Mirrorverse I know better than to try and grapple He is only there to keep me Panicked, unable to think more beyond Basic necessity and survival instinct. I am locked to his shadow His acceptance, my rejection His proud chin, my distorted features His passion, my solitude. Order reestablished I am "trapped" as observer Safely ensconced in red, red awareness Of my own planned failure. Here with gallery of Rogues As we share our stories On the glittering streets Of this Keystone City

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12 Ross Wagner

FROM

THE EXPAT DIARIES

PARIS MORNINGS

Another morning. The dangerous thing is that they really arent bad. That is what gets you. They are actually pretty good. That is how this city sucks you in. It really is pretty good. It sort of sucks out your will to strive. When you can walk out of the front door and step into a stream of beautiful and nice things, your will to growth and your reason for change team up and take off, consoling each other on the fact that you dont need either of them anymore. This is the subtle sting of this city. You just dont really have to work for it. Back home things are easy to dislike. Here you have to submerge for a long time before you realize most people are just as boring as they are back home. The thing about this city is that it is easy to feel accomplished in the art of lifestyle, in the craft of hedonism and the pursuit of something. But you are just buying in like anyone else. True, you get to be here, you get to wake up to it every morning. But you didnt create it. You are just living off the dividends of the hundreds of years of cultivation before you. As much as you like it when you go home and people call you European, say how great your life is, you cant claim full credit. Indeed you put yourself in this town. That counts for something. You took a chance and bought a plane ticket. But the lifestyle, that is not yours. You cant take credit, even if you dont deny it when people attribute it to you. This place seduces. And you dont really know who is doing the seducing. It was a bunch of people long
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ago. Even the French are seduced by it. As ignorant and unaware as you believe the tourists are, perhaps their experience is more honest. After all, you are no different. You are merely at different points on a spectrum, not two different sides of anything. But I guess that is what you come here for. That is why you stay. Because the mundane is simply sexier. But the reasons that brought you here are the same reasons that will prevent you from simply accepting the beautiful things. No, you will taint them with doubt. As soon as they start to accept you, you will begin to find the faults. Why do you need a purpose when drifting is communally accepted and really quite attractive? This dialogue plays out every morning, as it does right now. It happens in those pre-movement hours, the ones where things start to move outside, but blue is still strong in the sky. As I contemplate my overall purpose yet again, I look over and see the mess of brown hair next to me. It seems savage and sophisticated at the same time. There is something quite natural about it. I sense the soft naked body attached to it. A body that leads the mind. Not one that follows it. That right there is the magnetism of French femininity. That is why you get addicted. They arent all interesting. Many are shockingly boring. But they are all taught from a young age, that that body is a strength. It is to be used and enjoyed. It is not to be afraid of. And most of all, that there is nothing wrong with that. For me, a recovering puritan, it is a wonderful default setting. A certain upgrade
14 Joe Case

from the landscape of over-thought, underconfidenced, and blanket judgment that one gets back home as soon as the specter of nakedness enters the room. Humans being human is a great concept that in this situation, has an equally wonderful reality attached to it. Most French concepts are wonderful. It is a culture built on concepts and ideas, and most stay right there. A French person can completely nourish themselves on an idea. Clich is, not ironically, a French word. As much as we Anglophones think that a clich is unjust or unoriginal and thus should be avoided, there is the other way of thinking about it. Why abandon something that is simply good? And why complicate it? A clich can be a distilled truth, highly refined by decades of field-testing. The body stirs. One round, firm, silky, 22 year old breast is revealed as my cheap Ikea sheets are pulled down by stirring feet. The window is open as it has been all night. The hot yellow light has finally cracked the rooftops of the building across the street and begins to heat the naked skin next to me, highlighting the microscopic hairs and the dust hovering in the air. I think of coffee. Its hard to be ambitious when the day begins with everything that is right.

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16 Joe Case

GENERAL NOTICE OF NEW OPPORTUNITY FOR CONSCIOUSNESS ARTISTS

In late September 2009, a team led by Professor Shakib Chaudhuri, the Howard Hughes Investigator and Professor of Neurobiology at the University of Berkeley Californias Department of Molecular & Cell Biology, discovered via functional magnetic resonance imaging that unique receptors within the human brain are activated by a specific repetitive form of human language. This language might be described colloquially as small talk, the sort of dialogue that is the daily glue of human existence. Despite extensive testing, no other form of human language has been found to activate the aforementioned portions of the brain, leading to speculation that these receptors are an atavistic remnant of prelingual evolution, perhaps offering the first hard evidence of Rupert Sheldrakes morphic field. Through the auspices of several peer reviewed studies, it has been determined that the incidental scenes of celebrity sex tapesthe moments in which there is no quasi-reproductive activity, but rather in which the participants communicate verbally between their trystingare the purest distillation of this form of language. A program funded by generous grant of the Ford Foundation has been instituted to read the following text at a series of points throughout the contiguous 48 states. Each point has been chosen
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for its relative position in a vast, plotted mandala. The hope is that when this text has been read at each designated location, the mandala will activate a resonance within the morphic field. It has been speculated that such activation may, perhaps, open the tenth aethyr of John Dee and Edward Kelley, instituting a state of Choronzon on Planet Earth. No record of these readings will be made public. Parties interested in participation may contact the Ford Foundation at 320 East 43rd Street, New York, NY, 10017.

The Text: TRANSCRIPT OF DIALOGUE FROM A VIDEO IN WHICH PARIS HILTON USES A COMPUTER TOPLESS WHILE
PREPARING TO SMOKE MARIJUANA FROM A DRAGON SHAPED PIPE WITH

TOMMY HILFIGER MODEL JASON SHAW

JASON SHAW: I wanna see if our camera works. JASON SHAW (whispering): Nice body. Sexy. PARIS HILTON: Get away from me. JASON SHAW (still whispering): Sexy. JASON SHAW: Give me just give me a little tit action, okay? Give me a little tit action. Come on! Come on. PARIS HILTON: Wanna smoke a little bit? AK47. Its not that strong. JASON SHAW: Out of our dragon! Youre so beautiful! Mm! Mmmm! PARIS HILTON: Out of the dragon? 18 Jarett Kobek

JASON SHAW: Out of the dragon. Bellissimo que bella. [sic] PARIS HILTON: But then I cant bring it on the plane anywhere. JASON SHAW: Why? Well clean it. PARIS HILTON: Theres weed enough? Yeah, whatever. Uh-oh. Found it. JASON SHAW: Whats that? PARIS HILTON: Dutch farm. JASON SHAW: Jadid? PARIS HILTON: Mm-hmm. Let me see how nasty I look. Ew. Im erasing all of that. JASON SHAW: You look so hot. JASON SHAW (to the camera, whispering): She looks so hot. PARIS HILTON: Ow. JASON SHAW: I just squeezed her nipple. It was very exciting. PARIS HILTON: I dont want to be filmed. I look nasty. JASON SHAW: Mmmm. I love her! I love her! How about that? Yeaaah! Yeaaah boy! PARIS HILTON: Stop. JASON SHAW: Yeaaah boy. I love that. Look at that. Look at the dragon. Look at the dragon. 19 sparkle + blink

Look at that nipple. Aw shit, its all fucking dark. You cant make it out. PARIS HILTON: Good. JASON SHAW: Give me some light for the nipple! Give me some light for the nipple! Thats bullshit, I bet you we can see it PARIS HILTON: I have all this like fucking cucumber shit on my face. It looks gross. WW-W dot dutch Stop, I dont like that. JASON SHAW: Thats all you have to say to me. Baby dont like it.

END TRANSCRIPT.

20 Jarett Kobek

ROMANCE
Gustav and I broke up on the subway platform on the way to work and it ruined my commute. I could no longer sit on the same wooden bench every morning, cupping coffee in my gloved hands, people watching with the sunny optimism of someone in love. I guess I could still sit on the bench, but it would be with the despondent anger and bad posture of someone whose relationship had dissolved just in time for Valentine's Day. There would be no hello to the empanada cart man, no high fives with the African refugee selling scarves. I would just sit on the hard wood bench, risking bedbugs, glaring at people through the clouds of my own breath. Even though getting to work involved a death march in the dirty snow through Bed-Stuy, I liked looking at all the people more glamorous than me on the way to their jobs. There was Out-of-Work Model in Blue Corduroy Coat, Bald Guy with Hoop Earring and Beanie Cap, Bearded Hipster with Charles Manson Haircut and Peacoat. Everyone was so beautiful, standing in the freezing wind, looking immune to it because they were already dead inside from living in Brooklyn. My soul needs to maintain a core temperature of at least 98 degrees to look on the bright side. Any slight drop in climate and I am giving the finger to kids in strollers
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when their parents aren't looking. It didn't help that everyone around me was in a relationship. After band practice, a time that should be reserved for shooting dope or banging chicks in an airbrushed van, my band would snuggle on the livingroom couch with their significant others. I took to sitting in my bedroom by myself, staring at the ceiling and listening to Gary Glitter, feeling the cold, diddling hand of February reach through the cracks in the windows and rob me of my optimism. I was working at an antique store in Soho where the heat had suddenly stopped turning on and I had to walk around with a bright red nose, following rich people and saying, May I help you? No? Well, let me know if you need anything. It was vaguely demeaning in the way that jobs helping rich people always are, where you start to feel shrunken and insignificant and question your own purpose in life. My feet were numb all the time, a symptom which I started to wonder whether or not was diabetic neuropathy instead of just perpetual cold and a broken heart. The owners of the store were really nice, rubbing their mittened hands together, saying, Eat is sooo cold! and He ease an eediot if he thinks he will do better than you! On one particularly freezing day, a couple came in off the street. She was blonde, with
22 Cassie J. Sneider

long hair and perfect rose-kissed cheeks. He wore a plaid scarf, a tweed jacket, and otherwise looked like he could be an underwear model. They gazed into each other's eyes with longing as he pointed to expensive objects, asking her if she wanted each one with a puppydog eagerness that made me want to throw up. Sweetheart, she said, gesturing to a vintage sign for a 'SHOE SHOPPE.' What do you think of that sign? Oh, I think it would look great in the livingroom. Do you want it? Well, I... perhaps, she said. I wonder how much it is. Five thousand dollar, one of the bosses said. Eat ease from nineteen-twenties. Well, honey, he said. We can get it if you think it will go well in the livingroom. But, lover, she said, five thousand dollars is so much. Sweetcakes, he said. When it comes to what you want, money is no object. Where did you guys find each other? I asked, disgusted by their happiness. What I really meant was, What freak planet of
23 sparkle + blink

unconditional love and mutual understanding did you both come from? E-harmony, they answered at the same time, then giggled at the jinx. No way, I said. Really? Yes, the woman said, blushing just a touch more. I never would have dreamed that I would meet someone so perfect for me on the internet! I had always viewed meeting people online with skepticism. Sure, it was an option if I ever decided to cyber with vocally willing underaged girls or Chris Hansen, but any relationship I knew that had flourished from the internet seemed like more of a last resort, a cool, dry place where you could just lay down and die, stop doing anything cool, and have regular sex with somebody ugly. But maybe that's exactly what I needed: somebody ugly to settle down with. Somebody I could just let myself go with. Somebody I could throw away all of my old dreams for, and get a new set of dreams, dreams like microwaveable chicken, cable television programming, and human reproduction. He warmed her hands in his, breathing on them while she looked at lockets. They spent
24 Cassie J. Sneider

three-hundred dollars on a heart-shaped one and left the store. I went home and signed up for OKCupid, which should pretty much be called, OKCupid, I'm Doing This So I Don't Kill Myself Tonight. I filled out my profile honestly, maybe a little too honestly. The username I created was 45RPMayonnaise, which combined my two favorite things: records and mayonnaise. I figured it would weed out anyone who didn't like either, and I would only get emails from people who truly understood me. I got three messages in a row when I first signed up. The first was from a dude who worked at a record store and was kind of jacked, but he was only five feet tall. His taste wasn't that great, mostly toughguy hardcore, which is kind of a turn-off to begin with. I am barely willing to pretend I care about Agnostic Front when someone is sixfoot-seven, and even less so when I have to stoop eight inches to hear my tiny boyfriend tell me how well Victim in Pain holds up after all these years. The next message came from someone named Supersperms who looked like Ted Nugent on the cover of Cat Scratch Fever and bluntly asked if I wanted to get down. The third email was from a guy who was wearing a trenchcoat in every photo, and his interests were roleplay and fencing. Did the anonymity
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of the internet allow me to be selective? Was I just being superficial? Why couldn't I just get down with Supersperms? What was keeping me from playing Magick the Gathering with Trenchcoat guy followed by a noisy and regrettable makeout on the band couch? Perhaps I should have delved deep within myself to get to the bottom of why I was suddenly a picky, judgmental bitch, but there were already so many questions about myself I wasn't sure I wanted the answers to. I didn't reply to any of my new suitors, and got lost in the sucking void of the internet, looking at profiles of people's projected best selves when I could have been sleeping or crying or writing letters to God. Then I saw him. My soulmate. The person I was destined to be with based on a computer-generated 96% Love Match rating: Bearded Hipster with Charles Manson Haircut and Peacoat! Who knew that every winter morning when I had stared down the subway platform quietly hating everyone around me, that I had actually been gazing into my own future, my other half, who couldn't be bothered with shaving and stood frigid and stoic, looking annoyed by the cold and irritated by the other commuters? I had just written him off as some hipster douche, but how wrong I was.
26 Cassie J. Sneider

He was so pissy and judgmental, with his earbuds and his skinny jeans, of course he was The One all along! I made my first internet move, something I thought was funny by being intentionally creepy. A real cyber yawn-and-boob-grope, which he would certainly understand based on our 96% compatibility rating: I SEE YOU ON THE SUBWAY EVERY DAY. WE ARE OBVIOUSLY SOULMATES. Three days went by before he replied. I was wrapped in ten blankets in my freezing room, lit only by the computer blue screen. Yea, I usually take the subway. That was it. Our love had died before it even had a chance to blossom. The worst part was, he couldn't even bother to spell 'yeah' correctly, and had instead spelled it 'yea,' as in, Yea, though I walk through the valley in the shadow of the elevated train, I will not use spellcheck or fear loneliness, for springtime is upon us, and I will find a skinny girl who listens to Animal Collective and fits into American Apparel leotards without looking like a chimp in a wrestling suit. Yea, I forsake you, Soulmate of Bed-Stuy, and banish you to six more weeks of winter. It was awkward after that, our love, because I still saw him every day, whether I wanted to
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or not. Discouraged, I deleted my profile and decided to leave my romantic possibilities up to chance and actual human interaction. The winter seemed to last forever, and Bearded Hipster pretended he didn't notice me, standing cold and indifferent to the elements, adjusting his iPod and yawning from seasonal ennui. Bald Guy with Hoop Earring and Beanie Cap read a new book every three days, and Tall Out-of-Work Model in Blue Corduroy Coat disappeared and left us behind for nicer neighborhoods and other subway stops. I hopped around on the platform, cold and waiting, rubbing hand against gloved hand, trying to replicate the feeling of something to hold onto.

28 Cassie J. Sneider

STRIP-SEARCHED
1978

My mom is sitting in one of the red vinyl booths, waving the waitress down with one hand and pointing to her coffee cup with the other. Shes wearing her powder-blue silk scarf with faded morning glories, the one her sister sent from New York. I wave hello to her from the doorway and she waves again at the waitress to refill her coffee cup. Ive seen her for a total of two hours since I turned thirteen last August. The cinnamon rolls are sinfully good, she says as I slide into the booth across from her. I quickly run my fingers along the underside of the table between us searching for lumps of old chewing gum. Its a habit that my brothers and I have. We take a count by feel, and sometimes add our own pieces to the collection. It reminds us that there are other kids like us. Sorry I havent been around since I arrived, says my mom. Its all right, I say. I had a History test this week, plus a book report. You heard what happened, right? Sorta. I heard you got arrested. The waitress sets down a big spiral sweet roll in front of me and pours fresh coffee into my moms cup. Yeah, Ive never been so humiliated in my life, she says as she rips two packets of sugar at the same time. I pull at the edge of the sticky roll thinking about when she arrived several nights ago. I
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knew she was drunk when she left our house. Her keys were dangling out of her back pocket and she said that she was going to spend the night in Santa Rosa with some friends. She was wearing blue mascara. Ill stop by tomorrow night, she said as she sashayed out the door. And I remember being annoyed with her because she was acting so happy about everything and I wondered why she couldnt at least spend more than two hours with us after driving all the way down from Washington. But I needed to study for History anyways, and I know better than to tell adults that they cant drive when theyre drunk, because they can and they do. What did they actually pull you over for? I ask, because Im not stupid. I know that cops cant pull someone over unless theres a reason. They didnt pull me over, I flagged them down, says my mom. You what? Well I was lost, and I wanted to ask them where I was. I can so imagine her doing this, batting her blue eyelashes at the cops and believing she was being charming by saying she was lost. Then they found the hunk of hash in my pocket and everything went downhill from there. My mom reaches over and snatches the center curl of my sweet roll, the best part of the whole thing. Just too tempting, she says stuffing it into her mouth. And in the next second, the waitress rushes by and grabs my empty plate up. Get another one, if you want.
30 Melissa Cistaro

Thats all right, I say looking at the table across from us at an old lady in a clear plastic rain bonnet holding up a donut with two hands and nibbling it like a squirrel. I listen to the dips and rises of my moms voice. I watch her lips, glossy with copper lipstick. You know, I brought that hash down for Reggie to help her through her chemo treatments. I know this part is probably true. But how could she be so stupid and careless to flag down the police? If she had been smoking that hash, she would be donning that awful Southern drawl she falls into when she smokes pot. The worst part was that those goddamn Santa Rosa cops strip-searched me like a couple of dogs. Checked every inch of my body inside and out, if you catch my drift. I think they were getting off on it, she adds. Thats terrible, Mom. I say in a whisper so that she might talk more softly. I wish I had another cinnamon roll to pick apart. Instead of making eye contact with her, I keep my gaze on everything in the diner except her pale blue eyes. I watch her hands, full of turquoise and silver rings. A garnet snake ring with a diamond eye is coiled tightly around her middle finger. I hear her words as if they are far away and disjointed, like a static radio. The jail cell was cold. The cops were cruel. They didnt believe her story about why she had the hash. I slide my hands back underneath the table and search for another lump of gum.
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My Mom lights up a Camel. I know shes here, making an effort, trying to share her thoughts and be all candid with me. But I dont want this. These arent the conversations I want to have with my mom. I want to tell her that things in the yellow house are starting to spin in all the wrong directions. I want to ask her if she has ever felt so scared that she couldnt close her eyes at night. I want to ask her if she is going to spend the night on this visit. But I dont. Because I know better now than to ask the questions that have unpredictable answers. I take in the frayed edge of the morning glory scarf around her neck. I take in her breath of coffee and sugar, cream and Camel no-filters. The diamond eye on her snake ring winks at me in the light. I funnel these small things into myself because it is all I can do for now. What good would it do me to unravel the coiled anger inside of me? What could I be capable of? I might hurl this heavy ceramic cup across the table. I might stand up and tell her she sucks at being a mom. But this is not me. Ill take her as she is right here, right now my mom, fragrant, strip-searched and full of mystery.

32 Melissa Cistaro

TINY BLUE SNIPS

Meredith was at the sink. There were dirty dishes piled in stacks beside it. The water was running. Soap sudsing in a slow growing mass. There were birds twitting in and out of the little redwood cluster springing up beside the driveway outside the window above the sink. The empty driveway. The sink full and warm and ready, she turned off the faucet but did not reach for a dish. Instead, she looked at the phone, resting in it's cradle like a contented mule in the mud. Wishing it would ring. But if it did ring, what then? How might there be something in this worth talking about? What to say? Family came, then went. A void had been filled by their presence, but in that filling there had been a creating, for had she not been content before their arrival? Had not there been no voids worth shouting into, no echos heard in the dead of night when awaking to those small midnight sounds none can ever identify? But now there was this. An absence of light. A stillness. A series of moments like bilious clouds gathering dark in the air, waiting to be broken by the slightest of movements or even sounds. Before she had been happy. This she told herself over and over again, eyes lost in the branches of the redwood, ears tuned to the slow, quiet pop of dying soap bubbles in the sink before her. A great cloud had been lifted off and discarded with the arrival of her brothers
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and sisters. Now, what had for so long been muted by the woolen shroud of distance and time, was thrust up into the immediate and the unavoidable. All was illuminated. Visible. Achingly alive. She was lonely. This much was true. How simple it seemed to her, thinking of times long past, when the family you were born into was the family you died beside. Now things were different. No longer are the strings of familial bonds worked and wrought into a single, concentric ball, fit to bounce in the love and closeness unique to the equation: Years Shared + Genetic Similarities = Egoless, Godlike Absolution. The passing of the last few centuries had created a stretching of these strings. A lengthening to shadow. And beneath even that, a distancing of one beating, loving heart from another. The phone rang and the gathering clouds all shattered dark inside Meredith's eyes. It rang again. She picked up. The voice on the other end began, Hello, this is a courtesy call regarding a debt... An automated telemarketer. She dropped the phone in the sink. She watched the hole in the bubble layer created by the phones passing slowly close up, swallowing, albeit temporarily, the knowledge that a telephone had ever passed through it. Physical presence negated in an instant. Good bye. So long. Adios. She blew into the bubbles, breaking them apart, pushing them aside, so that there was a space where she could just make out the phone lurking lopsided and
34 Timothy Walker

bloated by the lights refraction through the water. Hello, phone, can you hear me? The sound of her own voice startled her, pleased her, warmed her. Hello, phone. She went to the knife rack above the stove and one by one, took them all down. Why so many knives? Little knives, big knives, bread knives, old knives, new knives. She dumped them all in the sink. Hello phone. Game? Find the phone. Hello. Meredith was glowing. The bilious clouds broke dark and drove the dust from the ground, leaving it polished. Gleaming. Where are you phone? She thrust her hand through the bubbles and grabbed ferociously. A swirl of red. No phone. Hello? Game. She thrust her other hand in. Phone? Game. More red. It was like kneading dough, making pizza, only, not. Clenching and unclenching with red red glow. Like a heart. Like a heart. Like a heart.

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36 Timothy Walker

37 sparkle + blink

 ONE BY_BY ONE

as they cannot themselves speak, they indicate their meaning PHOTIUS, THE BIBLIOTHECA, 72

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5 (waking up) no harm came (what seems) a daylight: heat understood from an aimless body slumped down in the room all the stutters come breath worth breathing because again by now the place was sorted locked with thoughts and change who conceives their place what kind of story is that the one bearing some significant weight

40 Chris Carosi

4 (the poets) if we are the stage names the players we do no such control because machines now mine

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3 (twilight) what do with the boundary of lordly names and so many people the shifting faces theyve fallen exhausted no quenching their histories a nice house with light within takes them makes them happy invites into kitchens proud sets a prize on their snouts to wait the portion of estrangement the left half of clean in the countryside waiting the trees are low this is significant in the wind its wind and rustle here whats born twice still takes a while to learn spokes reeling woods the screen of branches the strength at their edges we so for leaning lack a word
42 Chris Carosi

a theory life

no word please no who has stayed here touched this gaze I have lingered in the brilliance to escape a name for it failed so I will wonder to fail will be 2 (night) black wings on the ribs this has become the best sense of what is a dram what is a dram to the bottles health the chin of saxophone wishes the breath be gone day be gone between hours of was down the angle spine spine over the houses back

the skin stripped of shells what looseness crept from my ears mouth where on the dawn I mean the new light all this is simple yes the question of light

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1 (dream) down to the beach waist waters dont swim the black but can stand on the rock watching night birds keep their flight you the chance restless to me I will hold to me when one evening I wanted to escape tell me you want me here so I will leave when you want me to and stay where the mouth says

44 Chris Carosi

MATTOLE

FIRST PUBLISHED IN Crab

Orchard Review

Long ago fierce wind drove redwoods from the homesteads. Far inland now, the groves. Dry, straw hills roll ahead like folds of challah bread sprinkled with cypress, oak. The wind whips your black hair into your face, between steamy breath and cold air. Hills halve the coast, halving again at each ravine the mares summer pasture. Like the land, we grapple. Our children skip ahead on lanes of loose gravel. I rake manure from sheds, you knead and bake the bread. Well eat when the loaves cool. But nights building his wall, capstone of inky darkness vised by ratchet and pawl. How close the cypress, oak, pastures, and coppice, once night has fallen.

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BILLY GAWAIN

FIRST PUBLISHED IN Evansville

Review, Swimming the Eel

Wed been traipsing the long afternoon through the bramble, when we came upon him hanging from the oak, his black boots almost scraping on the ground, bowing down a branch half-cleft from the oaks crown. His hands seemed to take back what hed done, they at least had wanted life, clawing, frantic to unknot the fraying jute, his thick, blackened nails cut and bloodied. Now the arms hung loosely at his side. His trousers were stained dark in the crotch, the eyes in his ancient face held watch on the air where the black crows circled. Id never seen a body before, cut down and laid out in the stinkweed. He had no kin, so he was buried with our own, the only name he bore the name we gave him and had chiseled on his headstone at the spring solstice: Billy Gawain, A Stranger to Us.

46 Zara Raab

BALLERINA BOY
Walking the line dividing life from death can look like an earthquake erupting out of Gods calloused fingers, hands trembling from the stingers of 10,000 wasps that attempted to take down the sacred the day they found out somebody was trying to steal their dance; somebody was trying to rename the romance. Now I have these bones that cant stop shaking, these bones that want to instruct my fingers to perform this sacred ritual marked by the blood of my heart spilling thoughts onto a page and I try to walk the line but its so hard when were all so blind because were not supposed to believe that boys have the right to dance. Id like to question this circumstance by restoring the vision of a little boy walking along a balance beam that contains his ballerina dreams, gracing a projection screen that well watch as were suspended from the wings we buried under our skin the day we decided that intangibles werent worth the sacrifice of knowing the ground. His feet compose a sound that only butterflies could recognize drawing lines as a stem divides its leaf, making sure symmetry hasnt lost its place. Trees catch his breath as they sway in relief, forbidding his step to fall because all it can do is spring. And Ive seen butterflies perform their ballet next to bullets that swear they were flying by the grace
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of God and Ive seen men who would rather be dancing next to wasps than practice lying to their dreams who would say that crying is just an art form created by river streams to make sure that our feelings have a chance to be alive. Walking the line dividing life from death can feel like a human on a power line, filled with envy at the fact that birds and butterflies possess a design that doesnt keep their wings under solid ground. A design that welcomes earthquakes to provide lines for ballerinas to turn their pleas into plis and crevices where roses emerge when the dance of light departs its stage. So go on little boy, cultivate a garden full of your ballerina dreams that gets you so lost in it that you can no longer hear your enemys screams. I want the roses to be fully bloomed and I want you to remember that the greatest difference between a butterfly and a wasp is that the toxicity of a butterfly is forgotten until it is consumed.

48 Amanda Meth

FROM THE

MULTIPARENT

Jason jumped up and put his hand on his hip. He looked as if he was about to stomp his foot. I want to play a game, he said, furrowing his brow. What kind of game? said Anna, standing up. She loomed over him in a way that made her feel uncomfortable, and immediately she crouched down, so she could look at him face to face. Knights and Dragons, said Jason. So, how do you play? said Anna. So, said Jason, dragging out the o in a mocking manner. There is a dragon, and he kidnaps a maiden and keeps her in a cave. And he has seven heads and each day of the week a different head guards the maiden. Then there is a knight and he comes and kills the dragon and rescues the maiden. And then they get married. That sounds like a story, said Anna. How do we play the game? Thats easy, said Jason. We pretend to be the dragon, the maiden, and the knight. Anna kept a straight face, suppressing her desire to laugh. It felt strange that she couldnt express herself freely even in the company of a child. There are only two of us, while there are three characters, she said. One of us will play two parts, he said. What character do you want to play? she said. The knight? Jason frowned.
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No, he said. I am the maiden. You play the knight. What about the dragon? said Anna. You play that too, said Jason, folding his arms. Now, I am going to go to the bathroom, which is the cave where you are hiding me. He walked into the bathroom, turned on the light, lowered the toilet lid and sat down. Can you fight the dragon in front of the door, so I can see? he said. Anna looked at him sitting on the toilet, his feet dangling a few inches above the ground. So this is what she had to do, play a dragon and a knight, to be part of this boys world. She let out a sigh. Jason frowned, no doubt suspecting her lack of enthusiasm. That was a fire breathing sigh, she said. Did you see it? Jasons eyes widened, and he nodded his head with both fright and amazement. With her arms spread out and her back hunched, Anna swayed from one foot to the other as she moved to the door, in the way she imagined seven headed dragons must have sauntered about their lair. Ive come to guard you, she said, letting out another fire breathing sigh. Please let me go, said Jason, almost in a whisper. The tenderness of his voice made Anna shudder. She straightened her back with a jerk, and had to stop herself from running up and embracing Jason, unsure where the sudden surge of tender feelings originated. Immediately, her back was hunched again, more grotesquely than before, in a draconian gesture meant to both banish any tender feelings left in her chest and frighten the little boy into fits of shivering.
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I will never let you go, she said. Until, until you love me. I will never love you, said Jason. But if you put your head down on my knees, I will pet it. Again, Anna straightened her back. Thats an interesting maiden you are playing, she said. Jason shook his head, as if shaking the character of the maiden from his body. Whats so interesting about her? he said. Why will the maiden pet the dragon if she doesnt love him? she said. She has to eat, doesnt she? said Jason. The dragon doesnt feed her unless she pets one of his heads. Then he broils her a chicken with his breath. Its pretty cool. You know, one of those big rotisserie chickens with brown skin. Have you ever had one? They are really good. Yes, Ive had rotisserie chicken before, said Anna. See, said Jason, smiling. Wouldnt you pet a dragon for a rotisserie chicken? I dont know, said Anna. I never thought about it. She lowered her arms, dismantling the last visible attribute of the dragon pose and stood with a tilted head looking at Jason. Are we still playing? he finally said. Anna shook herself. Yes, yes we are still playing, she said. Then where is the knight? he said. He needs to come and rescue me. Anna raised her nose into the air and sniffed. I smell an intruder, she said. I go fry him with my breath.
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She shifted her weight from side to side, flapped her winged arms, and with speed and elasticity that was surprising even to her, darted out of the bathroom. In a moment she returned to the bathroom door, prancing as if she were riding a horse. Ahh fair maiden, she said, as she dismounted her invisible steed. Ive come to rescue you. The maiden looked suspiciously at her knight, then turned her head to the wall. Have you killed the dragon? said the maiden. The knight puffed out his chest and brandished his sword above his head. The coward flew away as soon as he saw me, said the knight. The maiden looked back and assumed the frustrated expression of an adult about to scold a wayward child. He is a much braver dragon than that, said Jason. He has seven heads, while the knight only has one. The knight is more likely to run away, not the dragon. I know, said Anna. The knight is pretending to be braver than he actually is. He is being boastful to impress the maiden. Hell fight the dragon when the dragon returns. Jason frowned, then jumped from the toilet and walked out of the bathroom. What happened? said Anna, following him as he approached the bed closest to the window light. I dont see a point of being rescued by a knight, who is as much a liar as the dragon, he said.
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He climbed into bed and covered his head with a blanket. No amount of pleading, apologizing, or cajoling could induce him to emerge from the cave of his own making.

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54 Boris Glants

IF THE PINE TREES WERE PEOPLE

If the pine trees were people in the winter when the blizzards coated them in suffocating white powder like asbestos clinging to curtains after an old roof collapses, when piles of fallen snow incased their trunks in thick white boots like medical shoes worn by old men in easy chairs, the pines might fear this long cold sleep. They might forget the spring thaw, the brilliant rivulets of melted snow filling the lakes and rivers like music fills a woman dancing after a long day in a silent office. If the pine trees were people they might doubt and discuss amongst themselves. The pines might make an ambitious plan to forget their sadness, then feel abrupt despair at their failure to implement such an elegant intention. If the pine trees were people sitting in a silent huddle
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like a football team whose quarterback lies prone on the field surrounded by medics, if the pine trees were people for whom calendars and clocks had lost their meaning in the face of a cruel season, if the pine trees were people. they might think that summer would never come again.

56 Keely Hyslop

AMERICAN DREAMS

Well, this guy, hes a real no-nonsense kind of guy, you know? And, you see, theres this flowerpot on the brick windowsill of an old tenement building that we are all walking by one day. The bricks are real sooty, those deep-red bricks, almost like copper, and old too, real gritty and weathered, like theyve been chipped at with a spike. Some of the bricks had turned white in places, like they were maybe bleached by the sun. I dont know how bricks get that way. The bricks were also pretty uneven in places, like theyd been set crookedly, and so some were jutting out here and there, kind of like the sides of an uneven Lego wall. And around the edges of the windowsill with the flowerpot there is like a coat of black grime, which seems to create this dichotomy, this odd juxtaposition, this image of the lone flowerpot sitting there on the ledge against a charcoal-stained background, and you know what? Its got a fucking daisy growing out of it. A god damn bellis perennis with its white ray florets shining their way straight up into the citys muck and smoggy skies. So, this bastard, who like didnt take shit from anybody, he gets it into his head to climb up there, and, I dont know what hes thinking, maybe hes going to shimmy up a drainpipe or something. But this guy he
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makes a real effort. He starts like scaling this fucking tenement building. Hes got his handgrips, you know, in the nooks between the bricks, and his feet start to dangle at some point, and hes just holding on with his hands, and we are all looking up at him going like what the fuck, you know? This guy is a nut job. Oh, another thing I should mention: this guy was all dressed up. You know, black double-breasted suit, freshly pressed white button-up, tie in a Full Windsor, argyle socks. The whole works. So, he keeps on climbing, going past peoples windows, and the flowerpot is like up on the 5th story of the building, so hes got some hardcore climbing to do. Hed get up to one window, set his feet on the brick of the sill, and stretch himself out over the whole window, reaching high up for some more handgrips in the brick. Just imagine some dude in his apartment looking out his window to see this well-dressed, urbane, rock-climber guy going past. Weird shit to say the least. So hes fucking scaling this building, and people down below are starting to take some notice, and are stopping to stare up at this guy, who is by this point like up above the 2nd story windows, grabbing onto the stucco and terracotta tiles and standing on the head of a frieze of a lion carved into the faade. It was quite the sight to see. We were
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all egging him on of course. Out in front of the building a few people were standing by the front gate, which had some really ornate grillwork going on, and they were holding it open and looking up at him. The fire escapes were all rusted with paint peeling off of the metal in strip-like slivers, and crumbs of brick were coming down from were he was scraping them off with his shoes from the buildings side. Now, the reason he couldnt just climb up those fire escapes was that the flowerpot he was trying to climb to was not near the fire escapes, but was about three windows down. It was a large building, and the fire escape was attached to the middle of it. The daisy in the flowerpot was on a windowsill at the corner of the building, so even if he climbed up the fire escape, he still wouldve had to like spelunk his way over about three windows to his left. Actually, I dont really know why he didnt do that. Maybe he didnt think of it until it was too late. Anyway, he kept right on climbing, slowly but surely, and by the time he got up past the 3rd story quite a crowd had formed on the street below, some people hollering up at him. Folks were starting to poke their heads out of windows in the building, and the buildings across the street. Everyone wanted to see what all this fuss was about. It kind of reminded me of this Norman Rockwell painting Id seen in a
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magazine as a kid. I think it was a picture of some soldier coming home from the war, and the whole neighborhood was like hanging out of windows and off of fire escapes and gathering in the street and waving and stuff like that. But, you know, this no-nonsense, rock-climber guy, I couldnt believe how much concentration this guy had. He was distracted by none of this. Moving along with these tight and subtle motions, his whole body rigid, every muscle tense, he made his way, inching along, not looking down even once, just kind of nodding his head a little, hunching his shoulders from time to time, and pulling his body carefully upwards. It was really something. I remember he even sneezed at one point, and everyone watching below kind of made that hushed, sudden taking-in-of-breath sound, like an all-at-once gasp, but he hung on tight, wiped his nose on his shoulder, and kept on at it. We are all mightily impressed by this. There really was no turning back for him once he got up to a certain height. I mean, somebody mightve called the cops, and maybe a fire truck would come and extend a ladder up there to get him down, or some good Samaritan might open up their window for him and let him in, but none of those things seemed imminent at the time, at least they hadnt really crossed my mind at all, and anyway, he seemed a lot more than a
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little intent on getting to that flowerpot with the daisy in it. Who knows why? Myself, Id stopped caring why. I was having too much fun just watching him go after it. I remember he was up by the 4th story window when one of his feet kind of slipped a little. But he recovered nicely, swinging himself around and up a little bit more, trying to get a better grip up there. Now, he probably didnt have on the best footwear for climbing up the side of building. Not that they make shoes for this express purpose of course, but his patent-leather-soled wingtips would definitely not be recommended for doing any kind of physical activity apart from walking into a business meeting or dancing at a wedding. So, his feet slid around a little, and did slip from time to time, though his recoveries were always quick, calm, and smooth as can be. Once, I even noticed him briskly adjusting his tie when it had become a bit tangled and loose. He was a man of little wasted motion. So, he was getting close to the 5th story and the flowerpot. The crowd was becoming a little unruly, but was still pretty rah-rah about the whole thing. Im mostly wondering what the hell the guy is going to do with the flower once he gets there. Is he going to grab the whole flowerpot and climb back down with it? That would be a really incredible feat, but also much more dangerous than his climb up, probably
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impossible. I figured he was probably going to grab the flower and climb back down with it in his teeth. Thats what Id do, if I were him. I thought it would be a pretty cool thing to do. But, it was really hard to tell with that guy. He was so no-nonsense about everything. Maybe the person who lived in that apartment with the flowerpot on the windowsill would like open the window and scream at him, Hey! What the fuck are you doing stealing my flower? Or something like that. And then maybe theyd let him climb in the window and make an exit down the buildings stairs. Maybe they wouldnt. Maybe theyd be really pissed off at him. Or, maybe nobody would be home. The tension was really starting to build in the crowd. Everyone was wondering what would happen next. The sun was glinting off the windows, kind of getting in my eyes, and I put up my hand like a visor to shield them, but it was hard to see. The bricks looked really pretty in the fading light. Everything was kind of melting into this sepia-tinged color that comes around just before twilight, when the sun is fading but night hasnt really started in yet. The wind was picking up a bit. A few leaves were becoming unhinged from the wiry branches of sidewalk trees, and were getting blown down into the gutter and off into the street where cars would come by and crush them into the macadam.
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I looked around at all the old buildings around there, spying a few weathered signs sprouting from their sides with cracked, unlit neon letters. I remember how distinct everything seemed. How I could separate this vision of things from anything else in the world. This way things looked, the way it made me feel, like an old black and white photo of a bustling street scene, the way the shop awnings hung there, the unique angles that the buildings shapes gave to shadows, the steepness, all the people gathered around and sticking their heads out of windows too, the way it felt to be alive just then, at that particular juncture in my life. And then there is that no-nonsense guy up by the 5th story window of that building, dangling there, right by the ledge where the flowerpot is, this flowerpot with a daisy in it. Hes up there so high. It doesnt really seem possible. And we are all down here, alone. He is above us and he is just another part of this landscape. Nothing more than the protrusion of a bay window, or a concrete entrance canopy with its Doric-column stanchions, or a car parked on the street, or a band of pigeons rooting on a telephone wire, or a loose manhole cover clanking under the massive wheels of a bus going by, or a clarinet leaning against the side of a garbage can, or a white petal floating in midair, or the
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heavy thud of something going kerplunk on the sidewalk

64 Davy Carren

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