King of Repetition

I am none but king of repetition.
I am none but a soldier with naught but a mission.
     I am the hand with its finger always touching REPEAT—
     I am the winding street—
          I am the windy street.
I am none but king of repetition.

I am none but king of supposition—
     I suppose, then, I must take a position.
     I suppose I must await battle boldly,
and shun selfish pleading, turn away coldly,
then sway the hot day into brazen submission.

I am none but king of repetition.

I am none but king of said persuasion.
I am none but the salt for the sanguine abrasion.
     I am the finger of the hand that keeps the wound wet.
     I am the finger of the hand that you never forget.
I am the finger, the hand—this mad persuasion.

I am none but king of repetition.

I am none but king of opposition.
I am none but a soldier, pale malnutrition.
     I am the sickly stomach, and your lips and your eyes;
     I am your lips and your eyes
          and the things that arise.
I am none but king of repetition.

I am a liar with a folksong's heart.
I cannot start, and I cannot restart.
     I am the finger and the foot and the following eye
     which is present, which is prescient; a lie.
I am a liar, and the lying my art.

I am none but king of composition—
composing a song, a lie, a mission.
     I want to repeat
          and I want to repeat.
     I am the winding street
          and the winding street.
I am none but king of composition.

Marc J.

Seafood Sonnet

In summer cities built of fishing crates
Of fresh crustacean wrestling for more space
The restaurants dim, low hum of the Jazz Greats
A night’s gestation reveals but perfect taste
The red-hot bodies’ juice flies with a crack
The tender meat dipped into butter drawn
And when devoured comes another smack
Whose butter licks my tongue like summer’s dawn
Warm and yellow leaves the seafood sweet
For this dim night is why I bought the ticket
And no more satisfaction will I ever meet
In rich down-eastern towns life is but wicked
Good people’s New England ways I’ll always greet
For that steaming creature I forever long to eat

Emily B.

Fernandez McDougal

Fernandez McDougal’s real vocation was as a plastic surgeon. Yet somehow, at the age of 45, he found himself at the Saint Idaho Nursing Home down on Timber Street. As he made his evening rounds, he was reminded of his youth. All his life he had wanted to help people. He thought, “If somebody saves the world, it won’t be me—but if he’s sick, I’ll cure him.” Ms. Sherry was wandering the halls.

“Vivian!” he called to her. She failed to respond, so Fernandez took a few more steps in her direction and tried once more. “Vivian, dear, it’s time.”

“Ohhh!” she squawked. Gathering her white lace nightgown with her dexterous fingers, she started towards her room with a bit of a jump. Her feet patted against the tile floor with the softness of her terrycloth slippers. Medical school. He had always wanted to go to Medical School. The night before his high school graduation while everyone rode through Yoreville in their convertibles, Fernandez sat cross-legged on his plaid comforter, Gray’s Anatomy his fig leaf. Falling asleep in his own drool, he forgot to set the alarm clock. They had his diploma sent to him.

Now as he returned to the infirmary, Fernandez saw it framed on the white wall, just as beautiful as it had ever been: Fernandez Timothy McDougal, Class of 1963. He took off his starched white poncho and hung it on the coat hanger. His bedroom was just next door. Margarita, the nurse, was humming as she sterilized his utensils. Originally from Haiti, she had emigrated to Yoreville eight years before in search of adventure. As she wiped the stethoscope clean, she marveled at the reflection of her white teeth in the tool’s immaculate silver. When she saw that Dr. McDougal was watching her, she hummed a little louder and wiped a little harder. Fernandez looked away while the image of the Virgin Mary flashed through his mind. He looked at the clock; it was already 11:12 PM.

“I think I’ll head in for the night, Margarita.”

She turned her head, feigning surprise, “Oh, all right Dr. M. I’m just finishing up here and I’ll be on my way.”

Daniella G.

The leaves that sprout stubbornly
          from the boulder I am sitting on

Are dark pink

Deep with the combined blushes
          of one hundred children
And folded, draped ever so gingerly
          like long gauzy skirts
          hiding and yet accenting the legs
          of seven ballerinas.

Britton T.

Postcard from Cape Canaveral in Extended Format

Yesterday they turned the blue sky
into plumes when metal exploded.
It was intentional, perpetual, loud.
Someone wanted to dot up a Lichtenstein
like pixels and bloodthirsty antibodies,
and like a calamitous BANG BOOM CRASH,
a populace prayed for antigravity
as anxiety launched.

We do not expect this normally,
among winter geraniums and potted seas,
and then a child, an innocent,
uncovered the bird of paradise.
I do not know whether you will get this soon,
hopefully before excitement falls,
before the end of the evening,
before we are done.
The boy with the birds in paradise
has his slingshot aimed at light years
as a redwood owl croons before the horizon breaks.
There is nothing here more prelapsarian
than a rocket ship with fire,
nothing more empty-headed than this space virility,
and nothing more romantic than unnatural rise.

To strengthen the moment of the in-between,
to make rigid the slide among
our uncertain terms and our feasts of decisions.
Prayer for the dropping after the bread
loaf rises and yeast renatures,
song in the subjunctive for antigravity.
I know nothing of the air but helium balloons,
yet still sits your conviction of return.

Tonight is lift-off before tomorrow’s ball of fire.
I am one who dreams in premeditation.
You are newfound determination.

And when you die a Shaker,
Massachusetts will mourn your stoicism,
your plagiarism used while avoiding wit.
When I was born a Roman poet,
I drank like a symphony its melody
and reappeared eating venison in Prague.
And when I finally returned,
you were still sitting there, a silent film
holding up the signs of your dialogue.
And now you will leave it all in a ball of fire.

There are men who believe in the Florida dream,
a land of roseate spoonbills and knee-deep marsh,
of key lime pie and soft-shell crab,
the simplicity of those edible earthlings and their pink feathered eyelids.
I imagine them peering out of the palms
like the tigers in an eastern jungle I draw as images of Rousseau.
And now we live a rocket launch in the glades everlasting,
everlasting as balls of fire in after-images.
Vine wrapped around banana leaves,
like creases and riverbeds in open hands,
opened as sculptures,
as cultural remnants,
as after the earthquake in Tokyo
they razed the Wright building that rightfully stood.

This may not be a postcard,
but rather my writing of your autobiography.
And since I write for myself when I
write for you, you an understudy of Marceau and I
seemingly a newfound mother of risk and misadventure.

In the rock state of Maine they whale watch,
spending hours on boats for seconds of prehistory,
to see mammoth mammal evolution reborn
before someone calls the gusts a Nor’easter
and they bundle up for a hurricane spiral of snow and ice.
On this peninsula we are sharks for the dolphins
that jump more graceful on water more blue
before a storm more devastating and a mess more extreme.
On this peninsula the dangers are wolf and lamb.
In Florida we balance meals of meat and seed.

This has become a carnival at Cape Canaveral,
those who sell cotton candy to fill gaping mouths,
those who push and pull and trample and sit on shoulders,
the rocket rumbling on its pad,
the limping leg of the laughing lady,
just sitting there.
Blind like the man my father knew who stamped tickets on the Cyclone
and rearing to go like winged heel and helmet of Hermes.
My mailman has no map to tomorrow’s destination.
May you get this without a postmark’s delay,
and with sudden dilation of sense
fall victim to the tug of what I outlearned you.
May your calming child be a subject of lulling
ebbed to the waves
at your return by sea.

Julia F.

New York Soliloquy

Plastic progressive flesh has melted,
Safety evaporated and fizzed itself to bone,
O that we had not fixed
Our canon to self-slaughter! O God, God,
How futile, deflated, tin-foiled, and trinket-like
Seem to me the pre-anthrax joys of this world.
Damn it! Damn! It’s an ever-fuming ash grave
That spouts out present life. Phantom movement and clogged tear ducts
Possess it merely. That it should come to this:
But three weeks obliterated—no, not so much, not three,
Structured monolithic colossuses, spines straight compared to this
Apparition; so stable and placid
That they would not let the winds of elsewhere
Burn our faces roughly. Heaven and earth
How long must we remember? Why should we hang on them
As if indigestion for appetite grows
With each moment of CNN? Within a month
We have been proved to be only frail skeletons,
A little month, before our thoughts scorched,
Following wide-teared and tar-eyed,
Like the tower itself, all bones—why they
(O God, a beast that lacks the instinct of love
Would have thought longer!) married hatred,
Something familiar, but no more like the known
Than a frozen medieval holiness is to the present. Within a month,
Before tears callused and turned
Burnt eyes to paralyzed ducts of cast-iron,
Something married unexpectedly. A strange pair, wickedness
Dexterously traveling from the pussing wounds, turning to candled heat!
How strange that there could be a small reaction of good,
As the world, broken, showers us with ash and sun.

Jacob E.

Thyme

Standing proud over a dormant flowerbed, my mother rests her soil-stained hands on her hips and looks up at the sky. The sunlight glistens off sweat on her forehead, eyelids shining, damp hair rustling in the passing breeze. She inhales deeply, nostrils flaring, and exhales in a sigh. Her figure, statuesque and still, casts a shadow across my extended left leg. Another thorough inhale, eyelids fluttering.

I am going, I think, to give her until the count of ten, and then I will smack her with a carrot. Curling my leg up, I squat, grabbing the leafy top of the dried vegetable in my fist, and mumble.

“10…9… 8 …7…” I pull my arm back over my head. “6…5…4 … ”

“Doesn’t the thyme smell wonderful?”

I drop the carrot. My mother’s eyes are still closed. Her voice is so dreamy that I half believe I’ve imagined it. I say nothing. She pushes her sweaty hair off her face, leaving dark streaks on her cheek, and turns around. I look at the ground and dig with my trowel at the dirt between my feet. Her eyes gaze softly at me. I don’t look up.

“It’s wafting up from the herb garden,” she continues. “I hear thyme gets stronger-smelling the longer it’s growing in one place. It’s certainly strong this year.” I squint up at her, my face tight. Her eye sockets appear empty in this light. In fact, her skull speaks to me as though she has no skin at all. She gazes at the horizon, sighs again, then continues raking the leaves away from the base of a tree. It is a November Saturday at home.

November is such a useless month. Its purpose has always been lost on me. November school seems like a never-ending marathon through a knee-deep sea of bullshit, ravenous standardized tests biting at our necks like misdirected watchdogs. All the junior kids have got dark bags under their eyes, suburban refugees of the war against academic failure. They’ve turned into twitching messes, one by one succumbing to tobacco to calm their nerves.

“My mother says I won’t get in to Stanford with less than a 1500,” one girl with slick straight hair moaned to her friends as I passed by. She gripped her cup of coffee with both hands. “What am I going to do? I only got a 1320 on the practice, and that’s, like, 200 billion times easier.” She gazed dolefully at her friends, who joined her lament, seeking comfort in each other’s stress horror stories.

I find it hard to sympathize with people who think the only road to happiness is the one their parents have been telling them about since they were in diapers. They believe that if they falter, and don’t get into daddy’s alma mater, the rest of their future decomposes before their feet. It doesn’t matter that the world holds a myriad of opportunities for those just released from high school, or that though they weren’t set upon the path of life they would have chosen for themselves, they still have a (relatively) functioning brain. What matters is that they did not win. They were not the best, not good enough, and thus these students become consumed by desperation to avoid this fate. They must make flash cards of the entire dictionary. They must hammer the entire algebra textbook into their brains. They must take practice tests, make study groups, and stay up late with their notes. They must, or life becomes shit, with the blink of an eye and the filling in of an incorrect answer bubble. All the rest have no idea what they want, and follow Kaplan and Princeton like puppies for fear that if their indecision gets the better of them their life will also, inevitably, deteriorate.

Georgina and I discussed the concept of life “becoming shit” in the park one evening.
“There’s always another opportunity somewhere, though the trick is to be open-minded enough to grab it by the tail,” she told me, then paused to lick shut the joint she’d been rolling on her leg. “So you flunk out of law school for failing a couple tests. You can still become a car-washer.”

“Or a hang glider,” I added.

“Or a motherfucking tap dance teacher. Unless you’ve got your head too far up your ass to realize you’ve got another choice, in which case you mess yourself up by holding on to your failures.” She lit up, gazing down at the jungle gym we were atop of.

“That’s their dilemma,” I said, taking a sip from Georgina’s fingers. “They’re so blinded by the fear of their dreams crumbling that they ruin their own lives.” Our legs swung and collided, sneakers butting one another.

“Stupid bastards. Stuck on a sinking ship,” Georgina muttered. “They enslave their own sorry selves…hey, there’s Pete.” I followed her gaze to the tall lanky boy walking towards us.

“Sweet cheeks!” yelled Georgina, almost falling off the jungle gym. “How are you, darling boy? I haven’t seen you in ages!” He was climbing up to us.

“Watch yourself, George.” He grinned at her and steadied her shoulders. “Hey, Lee.” He leaned over and gave me a quick kiss. Georgina yawned loudly and rested her arm around Pete’s neck.

“So what do you think about failed law students being forced to become shark wranglers?” I asked him. He frowned thoughtfully.

“Sharks don’t get along with lawyers,” he said. “They can sense hostility. It might do the world some good.” We sat, sharing the joint, until it singed my fingers on my last inhale.
Pete began drawing a naked lady with a boa constrictor on Georgina’s bare back. He hummed “The Star-Spangled Banner” atonally. Georgina swayed dreamily, trying to catch a moth flickering beneath a street lamp, its powdery wings casting long black shadows on her hands. I watched the picture taking shape on her pale skin as we talked about nothing.

“That’s what’s getting you into Congress, Petes,” I said, staring at the masterfully drawn flowing hair that curled around the woman’s shoulders. “Clinton’d go crazy for shit like this in the White House. You could become his interior decorator, get a leg up on the competition.”

“Eh, be quiet,” Pete murmured. The woman had thigh-high leather boots. Then he laughed. “Well, Mum’d be proud.”

We all exhaled simultaneously, each mulling the thought over in our minds. Pete’s mother, impressed by her only son. His six older sisters all worked in politics. Pete had green hair. Only on good days did his mother pat it lightly and fondly call him Oscar the Grouch.

“You’re on the way to greatness,” Georgina said, watching the moth land on a tree branch, out of reach. “Sheila’ll love your picture.” She twisted her neck, trying to see her back.

“You know, she found my father’s stash of Playboys. She’s been stealing them.”

“Like sister, like sister,” mumbled Pete, sketching in curling armpit hair.

“He let me have them,” Georgina grinned sheepishly. “And I sold them soon as I could.”

“Yeah, twenty bucks to the ninth graders,” I said. “You ever wonder what your dad would say when he saw his ‘artistic photographical archives’ being considered porno smut?”

“You’d think he’d wonder,” Georgina sighed, “why all the freshmen shake his hand when he walks by them.” We started spotting constellations in the inky sky. A night provides little perspective, no visible movement or rotation of these formations. We wondered who made up connect the dot puzzles, lines forever suspended between points as stationary as a single nights stars.

“What day’s tomorrow?” Pete asked, biting his lip and scribbling furiously at the snake’s scales.

“Uh, Wednesday? Friday? Something with school in it,” I mumbled.

“Fantastic,” Georgina breathed dreamily. “We shall lock ourselves in the art building,” she glanced behind her. “Help Peter finish his opus.”

“Scratch that,” Pete muttered, concentrating on her pursed, pouting lips. “My mom’s got a meeting with the college counselor. ‘Bout my future, I suppose I’m obliged to attend.”

“Aw, Petes,” I sighed, putting my arm around his neck, “why do you put up with it? Tell her that you’re not going to ‘real’ college.”

“No need to upset her now. I’ll tell her at the end of the year about the scholarship.” Pete was going to art school in California.

“Sweet Pete, you’ll be toast,” I wailed, stroking his hair, shining lime in the street lamp’s light. “She’ll eat you for breakfast.”

“No, no,” he said, turning to look at me. “She’ll be disappointed, but won’t do any physical harm. She keeps herself quite composed when she’s pissed. You’d be surprised.”

“Oh, poor baby,” Georgina moaned, reaching back to pat Pete’s cheek. “We’ll never see you again. You’ll be trapped in the confines of your mother’s stomach, digested for all eternity. We won’t be able to hear you scream.” Pete bit her finger and grinned.
Georgina and I shook our heads. This was where our understanding faltered; my mother being a space cadet, not holding disciplinary ground with me and my life, and Georgina’s parents being artists, supporting her every whim, we saw Pete’s mother as a prison guard. Pete insisted that his mother loved him dearly, but we suspected that she would shoot him point blank when he revealed what he was going to make of his future. A final insult to their family.

“Fool,” Georgina muttered, rubbing her pinkie. “In denial.”

I’m looking for grubs. They eat my mother’s flowers. She’s given this job to me as I’m not afraid to grind them between my palms. She can’t kill them. Prowling the soil, trowel in hand, I feel for hard lumps. My fingers slide against damp slippery stones. Dirt inches further and further into the crevices of my fingers. In my peripheral vision, I catch my mother talking on the cordless phone while raking the lawn.

“Lord, Jean, really?” she murmurs. “Smashed it with a baseball again? You should tell his mother and father. This is the fifth time. Yeah. Uh-huh. Little punk…”

I’ve found one, felt it on my left middle fingertip. It’s deep, and I dig it up with my trowel. Sorting it out from the damp earth I can see it, pale and stiff, in a fetal position. Its curled body rolls in my concave palm.

“Well, Jean, you can’t keep replacing your windows yourself. Mmmmmm. Yes, I can understand. Oh sure, it makes you angry. I would be too.”

Grubs don’t move once you’re holding them, and I doubt they move too much in the ground. Its body feels like armor, and I bring it up to eye level to get a good look.

“Oh all right, Jean,” my mother laughs like a tinny whistle. “How’s Lee? Well, she’s great. You know kids, one day this way, one day the other.” I can feel her teeth gleaming at me, catching the sunlight, and pretend not to notice. “Oh, yes. Well, I don’t know for sure. It’ll be her decision either way. Lee’s got to decide for herself. Yes, this college pressure is really unnecessary…lord, Jean—really? Claire Dobbs? Ran away to New York City? Oh, no! From all those tests, I bet. I remember when she was just a girl. Yes. Oh, sure. It’s like I say, the pressure gets to be too much.”

When I was little, my friend Sarah told me that all insects and their children wear red rubber rain booties. You can never look at them, though, because they’re too small for the naked eye. Watching the grubs in my mother’s garden, I often wish a shiny pair of galoshes would glimmer in the sunlight for me to see.

“Well, I’m proud to say, Lee’s got quite the level head about this whole business. She knows she’s got her whole life to decide what she wants to do. Like I always say, the university’s open to all ages. Sure. Mmmm. I agree, Jean. Quite right. She can go if she likes, whenever she likes.”

I see nothing exceptional on this one’s feet today. It can die. Pinching the pale gray creature between my thumb and forefinger, I begin to roll it back and forth roughly. I can feel it start to crack.

“Oh, I understand perfectly. Yes. Mind you, Jean, remember to get those neighbors to pay you. Don’t take no for an answer. Ha ha! All right, you take care now. Bye.” With a clunk, my mother tosses the phone onto the ground.

Small flecks of matter are flying from the grub, and it becomes sticky on my fingers. I rub and rub until there is nothing but paste. I feel dirty now, as always, so I stand up and wipe my hands on my jeans. A breeze rustles through the trees, around the lawn, coming nearer. My mother is bending over crudely to inspect a brown spot in the grass. My hair ruffles.

Suddenly, with the intensity of a bullet, I can smell it. Thyme seeping through my sinuses, my lungs, my bloodstream, into my flesh. It’s overwhelming me, creeping all over, and my eyes widen in horror. I fall to my knees and furiously rub dirt under my nose until all I can smell is soil. It recedes, slowly, as each breath is inhaled and expelled. My heart is slowing. I sigh in relief, and when I can bring myself to stand up I do so slowly. I cannot handle herbs.

Samantha M.

Summer Nights
or do you still dream of beaches?

I never dream about him anymore. Faces
flit in and out of my sleep
and his is one of them, but it fades
as quickly as the rest, sliding
deeper into my memories,
which are of summer, those nights.

In the gathering hush of nighttime
stars appeared to light the dimly upturned faces
of people gazing through their memories.
“Last night at this time, we were asleep.”
A sudden flash, the shooting star’s quick slide
as it glitters and falls and fades

over the briefly illuminated field. As the star fades
the heaviness of night
air returns and reminiscence slides
away, taking with it his face.
When I wake from my sleep,
I am confused by the thin border between dream and memory.

He says that he remembers it all; his memory
is better than mine ever was and the fading
effects of dreams don’t affect someone who sleeps
through the night,
waking to no smiling remembered faces
or the sounds of windows sliding

open and shut downstairs. His parents don’t slide
around the doorjamb into his room to check on the memory
of their baby. Faces
don’t hover dreamlike, watching at his door, to fade
when he rises in the night,
and so he sleeps
the night through. My sleep
is more childish, a slide
through the layers of nights,
of memories
of people whose names slip and fade,
leaving me only their faces.

But his face does not haunt my sleep—
as swiftly as most, it fades, barely whispering as it slides.
“Remember: I loved you on those summer nights.”

Alisa B.

The rose with its bloom swift and eternal
Is a thorny, unpredictable fruit
Fickle as the sisters at their spindle
Who weave the day away, merciless, mute
And give no proof to the curious eye
Thus is the rose, now hypnotic, now sharp
Alluring, enticing, a sting like lye
Enslaving the sight and pricking the heart
A vulnerable organ, it lacks sense
It grabs and it takes, it wants recompense
It wants justice like a hammering nail
While the rose thrives on his shimmering vine
And the eyes of the eager seek, numb, veiled
Choosing their failure, to say, “It’s not mine!”

Megan G.

An Onionarian

Grandma chips big mouthfuls of onion,
Grinning through dry facial folds.
From Saran-Wrap skins,
That crinkling right hand grips raw onion orbs,
Thick with stinking fruit—not fruit!
But Grandma’s archaic lips savor and shakily hug onion casings
That grow in flavor with huskings of skin coats.
Grayish-pink brow furrowing.
That hoary matron
Strains, taps, digs, drills for any flavor,
Any kick to what buds still function in an aging mouth,
Any sign or any punch of youthful days.

Through coils of mind,
Grandma sits imagining youthful onions—
Onions of past nights and mornings,
Grandma crawls happily within thoughts,
Lolling on a firm childhood stool,
Watching fast dicings of onions for dusk food.
Grandma thinks how at first
Grains and shards of onion would nip alarmingly
From snips of roast, spinach, or sandwich
Laid out on a worn family dish.
Mists from cutting onions
Would fill Grandma’s vision with moist salt,
Dripping occasionally.
But with many hours and days,
Grandma could gradually favor onion flavor.
With still soft palms and juicy joints,
Grandma would flay onions, blushing bloody-lilac
Or paling bulbs of minty snow
For a hungry husband and two blaring boys.
Sons grown, Grandma’s first child
Found work and a woman to marry in a gargantuan borough.

Now with frosty hair,
Our arthritic Missourian nymph visits annually,
Migrating from Halfway to Brooklyn.
My family works to coax Grandma
Into consuming food of far-off nations.
From tasting any bright Indian onions,
Which snap in oily pans,
Grandma shrinks.
Ozarkian onions
Saitsfy Grandma most,
Nudging and nosing up from rustic turf,
Born into baptist hands,
Plump ivory spoils from sunny soils.

Christina Porter

If this were simple
we would hold hands and spin
on the fresh-cut grass.

Rose C.

“Stephanie! I’m not going to tell you again. I want you to come downstairs.” The voice bellowed up the stairs and into the pink and white of her room. She froze momentarily and looked around to confirm that it was just the voice that had entered her room. She continued to read her book. The Witches. Page fifty. When she had sat down, she was only on twenty. She was improving. She picked this book from the list that school had sent her. “Now Stephanie!” Mom always did this to her. She put her book on the bed. Should she take it with her? She picked up her book.

“Coming!” She ran down the hallway. Stop. Carefully down the steep stairs. She fell down the steep stairs and cut her lip last summer. She held onto the railing. Rose was sitting in the corner of the kitchen cutting spinach leaves. “Your mother’s been calling you, dear.” She nodded in response. Rose was afraid of her mother. “Want one?” Maria offered her a grape as she walked through the kitchen towards the dining room. She was afraid of Maria. Maria was the tallest woman in the world. She was afraid of Maria like Rose was afraid of her mom. “Yes, please. Thank you for asking.” She smiled at Maria. When she was done with her grapes, she reached her hand up to the part of the door where she was allowed to put her fingers and she pushed with all her might against the brass plate. The door pushed a light breeze through the room as it swung closed behind her.

She wondered whether Ellen was going to come. On the beach she had promised that she would. “Well, what do you say we move into the dining room?” She couldn’t wait forever. This wasn’t really Ellen’s scene, so it was all for the best. It did cause a problem with the seating, though. Maybe Jon and Fran could sit across from each other rather than next to each other; and then the other chair could be brought into the kitchen. There was no need for everyone to be aware of Ellen’s absence by the empty chair. Out of sight, out of mind. She walked through the back hallway, past the family room, and into the kitchen. Rose was standing at the counter cutting spinach. Where was Maria? “Rose!” She couldn’t be bothered with Maria’s problems now; it was urgent that that chair be removed from the dining room table before people realized that there was a guest missing. “Rose dear, I need you to grab the chair on the far right corner of the dining room table and bring it in here. As quickly as possible,” she added. “Rose. Where’s Maria? I asked her to make the desert for tonight.” “I think she went to the bathroom.” Rose spoke too quickly and quietly for her to understand. Rose always looked so frightened. She liked Rose. She hoped that she wasn’t too rude to her. Did she scare her? “Thank you!” Barbara smiled her friendliest smile at Rose. Rose didn’t turn around, though. She rushed quickly across the kitchen, placed her hand against the brass plate, and pushed the door open.

“Where are you going?” She knew where Maria was going, but she asked her anyway. “I’m calling Phil. I think he might have called me at home. I don’t think he knows that I’m working tonight.” Rose smiled her most supportive smile. Barbara had smiled at her like that once before, and Rose thought it to be the perfect smile for this occasion. Phil was not very good to Maria. Maria had admitted that herself. She felt that if she told everyone else that she was fine with Phil’s behavior than she really would be. Rose knew that this system wasn’t working very well. At least not for Maria. Rose and Phil were fine with it. Phil knew that Rose was working tonight. He didn’t really care if Maria was at home or not. Rose liked the feeling of being appreciated more than someone else. Especially Maria. Maria was beautiful, but what was worse was that she knew she was beautiful. Rose was not beautiful. She was not sure of herself. She enjoyed thinking about conversations rather than having them. Phil enjoyed thinking about conversations, as well. When they were together, they would think about conversing all night long. They would also have sex. That was another thing that Rose didn’t like to talk about; Maria always talked about sex, and Rose always listened. She enjoyed thinking about sex. She feared that she was beginning to enjoy thinking about sex more than having sex. She didn’t think Phil would prefer thinking about sex. She tried to think about other things. It wasn’t working very well. It always came back to sex. Wasn’t this obsession supposed to end after her teenage years? “Rose!” She bit her lower lip and smiled sweetly. She knew that she was needed; Barbara was too afraid of Maria to ask her for help. That was another admirable aspect of Maria; she was intimidating. Rose knew that she was in no way intimidating. She had to remove one of the chairs from the dining room. She already knew that Ellen wasn’t going to show up. Rose had overheard Ellen talking to Fran on the beach about how awful Barbara’s dinner last weekend was. Ellen had said it was too surface. Rose had stopped listening after that. There was only so much time she could waste listening to Ellen Bridgeman complain about last weekend’s social gathering. She pushed her way through the door, walking backwards so as to not scratch the door with the chair. Maria had returned. “Will you help me with this?” Maria carried the chair across the kitchen and placed it in the corner next to the wooden table. “Did he call?” She knew the answer already but once again felt like asking. Maria shook her head no. She then began to ramble on about how she had called his house and cell phone, but he hadn’t picked up either. Rose was listening intently. She moved herself to the other end of the kitchen where Maria had placed the spinach. She liked that she knew exactly where Phil was, while Maria had no idea. Rose felt empowered by her position in the situation. She knew that she was a horrible person. She knew that what she was doing was wrong, but she didn’t feel it. She felt no guilt. Yes. No guilt. It was time for her to start thinking about herself. She continued to listen contently. She heard the alarm on the oven go off. “Maria, will you pass me the soup bowls?” Maria continued talking, but Rose had stopped listening. She pushed the cart of eleven soup bowls across the kitchen. She turned around and pressed her back against the door and continued walking backwards into the dining room.

The evening was going perfectly. Everyone had finished their soup and was raving about the chicken. She wondered if it was a mistake not to serve the spinach tonight. Jon wasn’t eating his chicken. Was it too bland? Would the spinach have helped? No, the spinach was for tomorrow night’s lamb. Jon had been looking very thin recently; he was probably on a diet. Should she tell him that the chicken was low in fat? No, he might be embarrassed about being on a diet. There was silence in the room. Barbara panicked. This was not what her dinner party needed right then. “You know what Stephanie said to me the other day?” Barbara had learned that children were always a guaranteed conversation starter. And tonight was no exception. Soon the sounds of voices filled the air; Rose walked by pouring more wine for the table. Barbara was enjoying the scene immensely. She felt that this was the perfect time for Stephanie to come and sit on Allen’s lap. “Stephanie will you come down here, dear!” she called towards the ceiling. Barbara loved looking across the dining room to Stephanie and Allen sharing a chair. It was how every dinner party should end. It was classic, but not trite. She feared that Stephanie had not heard her. She stood up, walked through the back hallway, past the family room, past the kitchen, and to the main stairs where she yelled up to Stephanie for the final time. “Stephanie! I’m not going to tell you again. I want you to come downstairs.” She had been up in her room for the past three hours. She couldn’t get her nose out of her book. Stephanie’s newfound interest in reading upset Barbara. She didn’t feel comfortable with the amount of time she had been spending alone these past few weeks. “Now, Stephanie!” As she walked back through the hallway, she thought about planning a vacation for the two of them. Barbara had gone on a vacation with her mother when she was around Stephanie’s age. And although she didn’t remember most of it, she was certain that it had been a great time. She wondered for a moment why it was the wonderful times that she had had with her mother that she had forgotten, while the terrible times seemed to linger in her memory as though they were yesterday. She walked through the kitchen to make sure that Maria had returned. She was finishing up the deserts. Barbara opened her hand, pressed it against the brass plate on the door, and pushed it lightly so that it made a soft squeak as she walked through.

Was he all right? Why hadn’t he called her? She worried that Phil might have gotten into an accident; she always told him that he drove too fast. She knew in the pit of her stomach that he was perfectly safe. Maria had chosen the type that would always be all right. No matter how much damage he caused, he would never get hurt. “Will you help me with this?” She carried a chair over to the table where she had moved Rose’s spinach. She enjoyed Rose’s company. Maria felt that Rose was one of the few people who would really listen to her. She began to talk to Rose about Phil. Maria passed her the soup bowls, and as she watched Rose wheel them through the kitchen door she came to the horrible realization that she loved Phil. It hit her like a bullet. It hurt her to think that she loved him. She was smart enough to know that this was not the way love should feel. She stood still for a few minutes, just standing without thinking. She heard footsteps coming down the back stairs. She squeezed her eyes tightly and then opened them wide. She continued slicing the grapes. She asked Stephanie, as she walked by her, if she wanted one. Maria felt that Stephanie didn’t like her very much. She never spoke to Maria unless Maria initiated the conversation. Stephanie wasn’t like that with Rose. She was always talking to Rose. Maria handed her the grape. She smiled just like her mother. Maria liked her mother; she was loud but never obnoxious. Maria thought about her own smile for a moment. People always told her she had a beautiful smile; she wanted to be able to see another person smile just like her. As she watched Stephanie put her sticky fingers against the brass plate, pushing it with all her might and letting it fly back behind her, creating a cool breeze in the warm kitchen, she thought about Phil’s smile.

Elissa G.

Edwin Dewind

Edwin Dewind has dawned
In the dew, found himself
Rewound and dewinged

Emily W.

Midlife

For now
she traces their faces
on papers at work,
in flour on the counter,
and unwillingly anticipates
flight.

For now
her hair is too long
her legs are too short.
There are crows by her eyes
and spiders on her legs.

For now
she goes out blind,
leaving these boys to microwave their limbs off,
set fire to the stereo.

And now
there is a black bullet hole
in her future, sucking
her towards its vacuum self.
Suddenly aware, her
movements grow longer
while the world gets smaller like a finished book.

For now
she waits
for something wrenching or
moving or solemn or bright,
something that plugs the hole
that draws her closer with every step.

Hallie C.

To Her Friends at Scholastic

Had we but world enough, and time,
This hatred, my friends, could bloom into its prime.
We would write and slave away,
´Bout things not lively, nor things gay,
For you in your office, by your desk-side,
And I in my bedroom, trying teenager-like to hide,
Should both compose such complaints as of a stud,
So agonizing, so heartfelt, so beautiful as the ballads of a flower bud.
Fifteen hundred words, no more, no less, I choose,
As time enough to write of how your contest I should refuse.
My fruitful hatred I will sow,
Greater than your stupidity itself it will grow.
Two pages until three I will devote to raze
Thee. With words five-hundred more, countless phrases
Evermore, I shall unload such burdens in my chest
That if you must know I think it best
To tell before they break my breast, my heart
And every other miserable, moody part.
For, Scholastic, you deserve this fate,
For Scholastic, you deserve my hate.

But at my computer I always fear
When it is deadline time of year,
For then I know that to that sty
Of yours I must send poems, stories. Oh fie!
Another year gone by. There is no courage to be found,
So little time to write of things profound.
You’d love to hear my rage, to see me cry
Those words of how I’d surely die,
My body decrepit, turned to dust,
Extinguished feelings of adolescent lust,
Depression, anger you embrace,
Encourage me in such grave feelings and such a grave place.

Now, therefore, while rush hour trains run back and forth do,
I must sit and think of ways of you to sue.
In every vein desire
Burns in my young heart, so tender, glowing, like a fire.
Now let me hate on this very day
And now let me debate to kill you in which way.
Should you at once I devour,
Or rather should I eat you for one whole hour?
Let me toss a torch on you and your rules all,
First mash you up into something tiny, very small,
Tear you to pieces with pleasure, cut you with a knife,
I have only one chance for revenge in my short life,
Thus, though I cannot change rules already done,
Yet with this poem, perhaps, I’ll make you want to run.

Soula H.

An Ode to Eyelashes

Sexy, Shy, Playful, Mysterious:
You are all these things.
With your graceful courtesy, you unveil each day,
Sifting the misty light with parted fingers.

You coquettes, you! You flirty maidens shyly curling
A supple hip.
Cuddling a salty tear, you remind quietly of a time
When eyes were dry.
I love you in the morning, simple and sleepy.
Beautiful without vanity.
Powerful by permanence.

        While falling you are graceful,
                    Always offering a wish.

Eva A.

Drawing a Man

Immediately my eyes are drawn to his penis
poking warily out from the mesh of hair between his legs.
Naturally I avoid recreating that odd mass of flesh
on my white paper; the thought of that reddish dark bulge
bringing blushes to my brain. Breasts I have no qualms with;
I see them every night in the mirror as I undress to shower,
nipples perked in the excited chill of my nakedness. But
this man’s penis
is not an apparatus with which I am familiar. I put off drawing the thing
until the very last moment:

1. I start from the shoulders, curve the clavicle;
there is a little dip in the center of his collarbone,
fits snugly right in between
2. where two arms begin, their muscles
different from the fat woman’s, the one with the sagging breasts,
the one I love to draw; different form the French dancer’s,
the one with the livefire hair; different from the ballerina
from Austria with the plain dark face and the long thin body;
a man’s arms, with the light playing over muscle as one folds
over his
3. chest, without those breasts I have become so friendly with
on my own ribbed body, just two darkened nipples, roseblush puffed
equally out on that flat tanned space, which melds down
though the weaving of skin over muscle, muscle with muscle
4. onto his stomach, shadow splayed by his arm,
by the light cast against his form, the little lithe line
of more muscle, the sudden swift small plunge of navel
where, to its left
5. comes the slipside curve of one hip,
one hipbone,
it plummets onward to
6. penis
penis penis penis
7. and quickly draw my eyes away, down to the clench
of his backside, the muscles tight, there, and firm and smooth
as light splays like fingers over the two equal domes, dipping, then
8. to his thighs where light is second skin, swimming over muscle,
blushing in the shadows and
9. like all knees his are knobbly;
it is impossible to have not-knobbly knees, no matter who you are;
his are lumps of flesh over the two bones meeting at the joint,
ranges of shadow and brightness,
oddly like a potato in the middle of each leg
or a sad, wrinkled little face that smiles when he stretches
the chin slumping neatly
10. into shin, lover to calf, both making one whole;
wrapped around the tight muscles that flex, the long lines of not-light
mating with the not-darkness; he has nice slim-lined legs,
they are strength, they are surprisingly shapely;
that too is familiar, and so I have no trouble
11. moving on to his ankles—ankle-bone perpendicts Achilles’ one weakness,
caresses down to his heel and on to the arch of both feet
12. then the tips of his toes
round and peeking from the slab of bone and flesh

this is the man I have captured with the purple on paper;
mournfully sexless, due to the blank timid space
between those legs so carefully created;
at last I see it is time, my time, his penis’ time;
I lift the purple charcoal and

13. there is first one curve
then two curves
then three;
one is larger, longer, the other two are hidden in shadow;
all around are the wiry curls of hair—for which I employ black—
and then white comes in to contrast shading,
to blend this unfamiliar appendage into life-like insecurity
on the page, purple but real—and it is timid, I realize,
as that voice saying penis penis penis finally dims and dulls and darkens into nothing;
it has been timid all along;
it is hiding in its jungle of hair;
it is shrinking away between his legs;
it is just as afraid of me as I am
of it.

Hannah J.

Mommy puts on makeup and stands in the mud under the moon, laughing about money and milk, the mystery of morphine for her monsters, and why it doesn’t work because of me.

She stands with new soul growing in her center.
Surrounded by darkness, her feet sink into the cool, soft ground.
Above her shines the keeper of night,
And around her dance the horrifying creatures that live in her head.
Throughout her life, riches have jangled in her pockets,
And nutrients have flowed alongside luxurious honey.
Her face sits on her head, caked in disguise,
Yet everything lies unanswered.
The happiness she possesses lies in a prescription,
And I can no longer brighten her days.
All she ever wanted was

More.

Sarah S.

My Mistake on Fifth Avenue

Stepping over the edge,
I pull myself down.
Lights flourish and spin as we meet.
I have now taken center stage.

My jaw jerks as glass
Splashes and engulfs me.
A crowd of fashionable and
Delicate connoisseurs
Gather intently to watch my
Intricate dance.

My mouth screams,
While clear orbs sail through
Me, into a silent sea
Of cashmere and silk.

As I drift through the air like a fish
Tied to a balloon, Gravity rises out
Of wet cement and grips
My leg.

I fall
And accelerate towards the ground.
My body and knuckles curl,
My eyelids fold.

Great curtains of flesh envelop the Earth:

The show has ended.

Graham G.

A Visit to Pops

Harry walked into his brother’s room. It smelled of oregano. And perfume. That perfume that all the women on the bus wore. Sometimes Harry took the bus into the city with his mother; they would go to a movie and eat lunch at the Hard Rock Café. He usually ordered the “Southern Specialty” and a Coke. His mother just ordered a salad and coffee, black. Harry didn’t like the smell; that scent of the bus reminded him of his mother, but the spice didn’t mix. The spice was like the pizza place in Fairfield where Harry went when he had to visit his dad. He would get off the train with Neil, his brother, and wait in the pizza shop for him. “Pops” is what they called him. No one else called their father “Pops.” But when Neil was a baby, when they still lived in the small yellow apartment, he called everyone “Pops” like Popsicle; it stuck.

Harry was five when Pops moved to Fairfield. And then their mother took Harry and Neil to Long Island to live with her parents. Grandma kept saying “divorce is hard, but you’ll be okay.” She said it to him, to Neil, and to his mom. Harry didn’t like the word. Divorce. It was a mean word that pierced the inside of his ears sharply, pounding.

Everyone else used the word “lucky” a lot too. “You’re lucky to have two houses now” and “lucky to have two Gameboys.” “You’re so lucky Harry. You get to celebrate Christmas twice.” When Pops was gone, it was like he had never lived there. He just disappeared, and life seemed normal. Sometimes Harry thought that he was lucky. Because he got his mother all to himself. Neil liked to lock his door a lot. Still, Harry missed Pops. He missed the smell of Old Spice, watching him shave before work, and playing baseball in the park.
Everyone acted as if the visits to Fairfield should be fun. Harry was lucky enough to see Pops. Shouldn’t he be happy? Or at least a bit excited? Eager even? Harry wanted to see his father, but he didn’t feel any of those things; he was simply anxious, as if he was wound tightly and about to snap any second.

Neil and Harry arrived in Fairfield one Saturday afternoon in January to visit Pops. It was the first Saturday in three weeks that they’d been able to make it. Harry wasn’t allowed to go alone, and Neil was often busy. They sat in the pizza place; Harry had a cheese slice and a Coke, and Neil had pepperoni while he read a magazine. Pops arrived ten minutes late, but Harry felt lucky that it wasn’t twenty. Pops was frequently late to pick them up.

“Hey guys. The car’s two blocks away, in the lot” is what he always said and then kissed Harry on the forehead. “Did you eat already?”

“We had pizza while we waited,” Harry said.

“Yeah? What kind?”

“I had plain. But they gave me extra cheese. Neil had pepperoni.”

Rebecca D.

What Fear?

Fear of big-shoed, red-nosed, child-abuser clowns.
Fear of unicellular microorganisms that lack organelles and an organized nucleus.
Fear of long, clenching nails as they protrude through soft epidermis.
Fear of the bogeyman, interrupting delectable sleep.
Fear of spaghetti as it tickles the roof of my mouth, making me gag.
Fear of pedophile car service drivers.
Fear of green Jell-O bouncing up and down like cellulite.
Fear of sliding down poles, descending from a children’s jungle gym.
Fear of chair lifts as they carry me up the mountain at a 45° angle.
Fear of hair taking over the world.
Fear of meat and the way blood forms covering a plate of steak.
Fear of body odors as they permeate through the room.
Fear of the Energizer Bunny.
And
Fear of peanut butter sticking to the palate of my retainer.

Karima H.

I will not be that red
Not red of sunsets
Nor of strawberries
          But red-orange in deepness of pain
          When all the blue has been refracted away

When all blue is thinned to pointlessness
It will be that red
          Dull green-red
          Red of dissatisfaction
          When disappointment lingers
     Even after blue is gone

It will be that red
          Tinted with bright-less yellow
          Smelted in smog
          That stays icy-cold
     Even after blue is gone

I will be that red

And I will freeze and not burn
Taste strawberries
          But in disgust
                    With blue on my mind

Molly A.

The Sky Is Covered

The day had quickly become too cool, and Grace Lowe stood on the pink Western patio staring out at the lake and wishing she had not worn sandals. Across the mosaic-green waters, waiters were setting up for dinner under green tents and she could see them weave between tables, straightening forks and regulating the placement of water pitchers.

It was early March. Her choice of sandals had been premature and stupid. They made her feel conspicuous, and she prayed that the faintly orange late-afternoon sun would make its way over to her. A boy once told her she was perfect, and she had met the statement with an unregulated high laugh and she always wished she had been skilled enough in the art of laughing to gloss things over. Sadly she was not, and she’d crushed another fellow’s dream. It had been September with similar deceiving temperatures.

It wouldn’t feel so chilly if it weren’t for the wind, she thought, fingering the edge of her gray starchy skirt. The sunlight had fallen on the waiters and the tables under the green tents, and she held her arms as though she were aggravated at someone in her line of vision. She was of course only trying to protect her steadily numbing fingertips. The entire day suddenly felt ill-advised, and Grace felt as though she might cry, with only the patio stones supporting her. Or maybe she didn’t want to cry because it would make her feel vulnerable, and it was just her eyes going watery from the wind. She began to rub her forehead in a quest for creases.

Lifting her eyes she saw Robert—her Robert—approaching. She limply dropped her arm and smiled self-consciously and expectantly. She was not so pretty when she smiled; her cheeks went up too high. Robert liked her better smirking. Her hair looked damp. He wondered how long she’d been there. She let her arms droop around his neck, and he placed his hand on her sloping back which he remembered to be smooth underneath the clothes.

Clothes. She was clearly desperate for summer, and she became more conscious of her stupid sandals. She struggled for something nonchalant to say to explain them. About how the weather report had neglected the wind chill or that the day had started out warm. But the correct words escaped her, and instead, with her fragile body trembling for a moment and then stopping, she said, “Let’s not go…we’ll sit on your couch and drink tea.”

He ran his fingers through her hair. Across the lake the band was warming up. Awkward drum beats cut through the air. Was her hair damp, or was it just dense and cool? “We have to, luv,” he said, hesitating. She, withdrawing from the embrace, sat down rigidly on a nearby bench looking ahead of her. He followed and placed his hand on her shoulder, his body tilted to her.

“Fuck it, Robert.” She turned to him with a steady look and for a second he was afraid she would cry. He had blond hair and pencil-lead gray eyes. “But I do love you, you know.” Her voice swayed in and out. Nearly cracking. Her milky skin. He wondered how she could manage it, the sun and all. Bone showed through her pink knuckles and her entire body shuddered for a moment. She felt foolish. She was cold, and “I love you” was never supposed to be so glassy. The band was playing a thin, faint dance song.

He debated what to say long enough that she felt awkward. “I don’t know what to tell you.” He spoke quietly, as though not expecting the words. She played with her musty red-blond hair, pushing it back into a loose bun and then letting it go, nervously. He always felt oddly proud when he understood what the mannerisms of someone he knew meant about their mood.

She let her hands smooth her skirt and let her eyes focus on crabweed that broke the patio stone symmetry. “Right now I feel completely awkward and terrible, but I’m terrified tomorrow it will be completely different.” He put his hands on her shoulders again, turning her body to him. He had rough hands—it was odd—he was otherwise somehow smooth. She did not look up. He had the sudden feeling that she might cry.

She didn’t, though. She looked up, beyond him, around and through the air. “It’s going to rain,” she stated definitively, and she stopped looking into his eyes.

Such an impractical girl. Are her eyes blue or green? he was thinking in a dazed way. He was also thinking that it wouldn’t rain at all. He wondered if he should kiss her; she had copper-pink chafed lips. It seemed like the right thing to do.
She kissed him first. One hand on the top of his thigh, the other at his elbow, her tongue slipping in and out of his lips. He had the odd feeling that she wasn’t looking at him at all, and would continue not to no matter what he did. The kiss lasted a few minutes; she pulled away and smiled, slightly brushing the corner of her lips with the edge or her thumb.

He loved her. “I’m not going to cry, you know,” she said. There was that self-conscious grin again. It was so forced, it made her skin seem disarrayed. He wondered if she realized it—that the smile wasn’t charming, just disconcerting.
“Yes, I know.” He smiled too, and wondered if not needing to really speak was a mark of knowing one another successfully, connected-like, or if they didn’t talk because they were too busy with spoilt memories. But Grace knew better. They didn’t talk because there was nothing left to say.

Grace, still in stupid sandals, let Robert be right, though, and chose to go through memories instead of thinking about the wind and the ill-advised day. She ran through their events, her own images and narratives rethought. Meeting in August, with humid clothes and sticky hair. Awkward devotion in September, their inverse March. In October they had actually stayed up past dawn, talking on his bed, cross-legged with pulled-up sheets. In November he’d seen her cry for the first time. In December they’d gone skating. In January she could remember nothing that she couldn’t prove hadn’t happened in December. In February, petrified of losing him, she let him make love to her in a stairwell.

Now it is March, and she sits by him in pathetic frigid sandals, not talking. God, how detached he is. She again feels bitter, completely pent up. For the first time since the cold had come in and she started thinking about the sandals, she does want to cry as all the stupidity of the day and of herself floods into her mind. She holds it back; the only thing betraying her is the dismal, removed look on her face and that her whole body shudders, quivers for a moment. As he holds her, she whimpers once and then it is gone and she feels the tears recede back into her.

The curve of her neck on his shoulder. “Sometimes I want to be in the throes of passion, but sometimes all I really want is to be held,” she says. She wants to add something like, “Not that you’re just that, or that’s all you are, or anything,” but he understands, so she says no more, her brow wrinkled. He feels it too, that there is nothing left to say. So he just holds her head and her undamp hair and looks ahead. Her ears are cold, though he is sure it is warm except for the wind chill. On the other side of the lake people are arriving, and the band starts something new, maybe a love song. Grace really is lovely, he thinks. He can feel it even just now. Even just now when they both feel sour, and even just now when they both have a sense of dread and waste. She is perhaps the most lovely girl he has ever touched. Her lips are little and curved, she has misty eyes and misty skin, and her hair feels fragile and intricate. Her flimsy thighs are crossed under her stupid skirt.

There are no words left, she thinks with a mental intake of breath, only pain. She looks ahead at the distant waiters. Is it possible there are a few couples dancing in warmer light, at the same time they are locked to each other so frigidly? “I’m so sorry…” she murmurs.

“Don’t say that, it sounds ominous.” He says it smirking. Maybe she smirks too, a little, but at something else, distant.

Clasps his shoulders, “What time is it?”

Slim wrists for a man. “Seven to five.” There’s always something childish in her face, even when she cries… why hasn’t she cried? He is almost conscious of his stilted thought.

“Already?” No words left for us, none. “I don’t think” (creased brow again) “that a day has ever been so empty…but I’m so full of things. Does that make sense?”

“Yes, it does.” Not smirking and feeling unprotected from the cold and the evening, too, he kisses her neck. Neither of them can tell if the sun is setting over the gray heavy sky, but they don’t mention it.

It’s almost beautiful, being numb, she thinks. A mental sigh. Robert thinks: Is she beautiful? No, not quite…there’s something wrong with her nose when you get too close to it. Her nostrils are too curved and separate from the bridge. Her parents must have told her she was beautiful when she was a younger girl. Who else would she have believed it from?

Grace lowers her shoulders. Her skin is smooth, like soap or something, he thinks. For him, loving Grace and keeping her was like watching a car accident. It was painful and nearly grotesque, but he couldn’t stop watching. For her, loving him was like the middle of the night, when you sit down and cry and suddenly look up and an hour has gone by. She didn’t know where the feeling came from except that she got it after being with him. He preoccupied her instead of containing her.

Her heart beats by his hand. It’s crazy, the two things that tie them together just now, sitting together and nowhere else; their bond is the same inside. Or at least at the same base level, united for a second. His hand drops. Love is exquisite; it stings. “What time is it now?” she asks, almost standing. That is, teetering.

“Nearly five-thirty.”

“I— I have to go.” She looks blankly across the lake and, finding her balance, stands straight. “Goodbye.” No last look. Her sandals click over the patio, and with her smooth shoulders receding, it starts to rain. And across the lake, couples, laughing, run under green tents.

Ingrid N.