The Desert

The sky is pallid and dull; the wind sweeps the sand dunes forward, never ceasing its motion. The ancient turtle is slowly climbing the tall rock; the pattern on its shellthe blurred grey octagonsis faded like old black-and-white photographs. Its eyes are motionless as it stretches out its wrinkled neck and looks into the distance, carefully planning its next step. It is the object of Zeno's paradoxes: it will never reach the rock but is bound to stay in motion, forever. That is also the paradox of the desert itself: it is in perpetual motion, but it is so slight that it is imperceptible; however, in its minuteness lies its power. Little by little, its emptiness spreads to the surrounding cities and shrouds over them, absorbing all their grandeur and complex constructions, revealing to them their nakedness and solitude, their intricate network of intersecting lines unwound and traced back to the original dots and accidental marks that constitute them.

(Every soul is a desert, for it hides within its depths a series of incommunicable utterances that remain unspoken, forever. It is inevitably suspended on the verge of being and nothingness, always becoming but never solidifying into a single form. The soul thinks it is stationary, but in reality it is always propelling forward; because the motion is constant, the soul does not notice it, like a passenger in a train, who has forgotten the time of his departure because it occurred as soon as he was born, and who does not remember his destination, because it is an abstraction that changes so frequently that it ceases to exist. And so, every one wants to be robbed of his solitude, but, paradoxically, it is precisely what keeps him intact, preserving his essence.)

. . . But on a starlit night the desert changes its appearance. The lizards with black piercing eyes come out from the sands to breathe the cool air. Tiny green snakes curl up in the distorted shadows of the cacti, their scales shining in the starlight. For an observer there is an increased awareness at this hour that every desert hides a well. The sky is deep purple; the sand dunes resemble an infinite river of gold. There is still silence, but now it is rather like a low lull, the hum of the universe, the poignant moment when it is on the verge of saying something or revealing one of its secrets, but finally overrides that wish, preferring to stay silent.

(And finally his emptiness dawns on him, and he comprehends the infinity of paths branching off from the desert; with hesitation, he chooses one and finds himself drinking pure cold water on a starlit night, the silence ringing in his ears in a thousand voices. . . )

Natalya S.

Mirrors

Sara F.

Pit

Some memories, even those quieted by time, remain
Stomach-pumping graphic—recollections that become equated with
The act of removing the poison from the food pit instead of the result—
Instead of the good as new, the corrected.
Hurl, heave, hack and you will find them.
Time teaches neglect. You wreck yourself to forget those visions
But you are only a wild goose chasing its own tale,
The fusion of two types of trying without an end—
You're wasting your time honey

Helpless you remain without a barrier between you
And the rhythm of that which is waiting steadily to appear to you—
The beat of the relentless, that which is constantly creating
That pounding sensation under the tongue, behind the ears, on the
Underside of the jaw,
Pounding the announcing of a remembrance in its approach

Then it's upon you, licking, striking, tricking
Till you are only a vessel for this nightmare of an image
To mount, spread its wings, envelop you, always in time to the music.
Ominous, the notes perceive you, see what they have
Opened to you, contemplate coming to your rescue, then leave you as
The only survivor of the crash, lone, movie-worthy, legend,
You, glorified for the act of being saved from the poisoned pit of decay,
Not for the result, a lifetime of fear, a duck and cover reflex
At the mere mention of an airplane—this part ignored, legend

Maybe you thought you were the exception, that you could outrun the music,
That you could live without the memory—
Thoughts like that and
You're just wasting your time honey

Caroline H.

“I'm not leaving, honey. I'm just stretching,” replied Jack.

Jack had been sitting at Rose's bedside for almost three hours, waiting for her to fall asleep. He had read almost all her favorite stories: Goodnight Moon, Are You My Mother, Amos and Boris, Ferdinand the Bull, and Hiawatha. The clock said 11:15. Rose's bedtime was eight. Her sleeping problems were normal for a five-year-old, he thought . If only she hadn't had any Coke for dinner...

Jack tried to sing. His wife used to do that before going to Japan a week ago.

           Hush little baby, don't say a word
          'Cause Daddy's gonna buy you a mockingbird

He quickly stopped when he saw Rose moving.

“Daddy, your voice sounds like a toad.” She giggled at what she had just said.

“Thanks,” he said sarcastically. Rose giggled some more.

The time went by in silence in the darkened room. Jack looked at the clock again. He hated those clocks with the bright red numbers. They hurt his eyes. He wondered why it was in her room and if she liked it. He'd have to ask her another time.

12:06. Jack was getting very tired and he had to wake up at 5:30 tomorrow. He wished his wife were here. He missed her a lot and she was closer to his daughter than he was.

Jack decided to make a run for it. He got off the bed and went into the hall. The floor had carpeting, so he was able to walk quietly. He reached his bedroom without making a sound. He got on his pajamas and hopped into bed. He closed his eyes and went to sleep.

“Mommy!” Jack heard the cry. He pulled the covers off himself and ran down the hall to his daughter's room.

“Daddy's here.”

“I thought you weren't going to leave.” Rose's tears were starting to stop.

“I have to sleep, honey. I've got to wake up early tomorrow.”

“Don't leave again, Daddy, don't leave”

“I won't, honey. I promise.”

Jack looked up at the clock. 1:45.

John S.

Desensitization (Snapshots)

Intertwined
woven to perfection
molded concretely
until,
like the last days of summer
left empty
it falls apart

I.

You are inside what looks to be a bodega
minus the flashing lights.
Your head is being shaved
and you are speaking loudly
and crassly about “things”
you say “a girl should not hear.”
I tap you as if to say,
“I am here.”
You kiss me on the cheek, wet
lip untucked
and I begin to feel it all
unraveling.

II.

It is Thanksgiving
and the rain outside
is comforting.
I am upstate
with my family
and you are
at home alone
in your bedroom.
You are getting your driver's license
in a month.
I sneak upstairs,
feet soft on the carpet,
and call you.
(201)
New Jersey.
“Hello—”
You always sound like
I've woken you.
You tell me you are seeing
your son today.
I tell you that the sun is not shining today.
(Here, unbroken, is the clash of
us.)
I talk to you but
know I am only speaking to myself
and what I have created.
The phone cord
tangles around my feet
and I feel that
is the only thing
holding me.

III.

You are taking
pictures of me—
for my eyes,
you say.
You tell me
to slip my shirt
(shift)
off my shoulder
and I want to cry
because you don't know
how cold I feel,
empty and breakable.
You just want to take your pictures
and develop your film
while everything else
comes undone.

Sophie S.

The seasons forget it is there; mother nature refuses it her subtleties; only summer reigns with an iron fist that throttles the land. The wind does not remember to refresh the panting earth with his sweet breath. He gave up trying to make his way through the maze of gambo branches. Only the darkness, the shadows of the night, remember the secret kept by the thick canopy of trees.

Those that live in the village forget how they got there. They know only each other's faces: small dark eyes that mar the smoothness of their taut skin, thick black hair that runs straight and long, tiny square teeth scattered in a mouth with lips wide and flat. They know only the gambo trees and the Chin-ook river that trickles gray water and the botbot bird that perches and stays for days on end. When night falls, they sleep to forget and are haunted by dreams that repeat themselves over and over, never relenting.

Then came a day when the only one of them who could remember shut her eyes, never to open them again. Her breath stopped short, and with a gasp she let go of their world and plummeted into the unknown. That was a great day of mourning for their people; her fragmented memories had been their memories, they clung to her weak link to the outside world with all their might. The women wept and mourned for fifteen days and nights, as is the custom. The men could not work or hunt, and the whole village was to remain still until her soul could escape from inside their heads.

When the somber period finally came to a close, the council met and all brows were furrowed with questions. Who would carry on? Who could replace her? What were they to do? What were they to do? The villagers grew more and more frantic, and even the steady gambo trees seemed to have a desperation about them. The council was wise, but slow and methodical. They deliberated for thirty days and they argued on for thirty nights. During this time the villagers tried to carry on but with little success. They were without guidance, and their frightened tongues began to wag and spin wild tales of what would happen to them, this forgotten village. Sensing the unrest in the village, the council came to a hasty conclusion and decreed that the next born child would replace her. There were two wives who had swollen tummies, and when they heard the council's decision they each resolved to outlast the other, for who wanted their child to be the replacement? But they both were able to let go a sigh of relief when, before either of them heard the cry of their child, a young woman without a husband or lineage gave birth to a little squalling girl. The woman wrapped her daughter in the sticky warmth of a gambo leaf and presented the child to the council. A new link had been chosen. This child would be both insider and outsider, both remembered and forgotten as she who was before her and she who was before her. And all the others who had been banished from memory.

Damon G.

On a Theme from Ovid

“Will you stop!” he declares coquettishly, the sun reflecting the indignation in his obscure brown eyes. Salmacis' shoulders sag but she lifts regally her chin and says, “I yield the spot to you, stranger, I shall not intrude.” And she retreats.

The naive boy, satisfied and composed once again, strolls about the soft and grassy bank with leisure, sliding his feet through the moss so as to feel its texture, plucking a leaf here or a berry there to occupy his hands.

He stands still and quiet, both legs planted evenly upon the ground, watching the crystal pool of water.

Salmacis, in turn, watches him, having hid behind a nearby bush. She watches him as he walks about the bank and as he stands still, and she crouches tensely, sweating from the heat of the late morning.

She listens to the forest glen around her, hearing insects as they scurry about, and the birds chattering together peacefully.

He is taking off his clothes! Her blood rushes faster in her veins as she sees the straight back and nude slender figure of the boy. As he steps out of his garments, she sees his soft supple skin move over the muscles in his shoulders, back, and bum. His shoulders two cheeks of softly toned muscle! His neck a strong base for his head!

With a dash, a splash, and a dive he is inside the pool and she is running out in glee to join him.

Julie P.

One
I'm sewing.
Darkness cradles the room,
batting uselessly at the single bulb
       swinging above my head.
I carefully sew a letter to a letter,
       forming words,
forming sentences,
forming stanzas,
something to throw over the bed.

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

dropping winks at her.
She wants to go home
She wants the check
She wants this to be a part-time job.

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Hanna B.

Visiting a Friend

I decided to start with the feet; having never seen them, they were, to me, the least tangible. I could imagine the way they looked though, as if through his socks, shoes, from the side view in x-ray---I could even map the bone structure. I imagined them to be in perfect proportion to the rest of his masses: small and slight in bone mass, yet heavy in the way of padding. Not “thick” but the heaviest set of “slender.” “Full” around the center as birds often are. And hairy; I had seen the strands of hair forever peeking out over the top of every type of shirt he'd ever worn. There was the saying that he could turn the most respectable into a prostitute---clothing included.

But the throat leads to the jaw, and the visage was still too far from my abilities of contemplation at present. So I moved back down to the feet. Only there he had to go and be wearing sneakers with his suit. And not the trendy glam-rock-running Nikes or Adidas, the type you'd see on men in their early thirties standing on line outside the Knitting Factory (or West Coast equivalent); his were oversized black suede that had always reminded me of happy-faced clowns in the third ring at a circus (or a vain attempt to make up for short feet, small hands, and so goes the stereotype). I almost laughed at his ability to ruin every public function, only I caught myself at the nature of this one in particular. The cuffs of his pants were slightly wrinkled and I remembered how he'd always had a knack for looking as if he'd simply woken up in whatever outfit he had on. It was always an “ensemble” too; he had no feel for simply a shirt and pants, for separate articles of clothing. And one always wondered what he had been doing to warrant such fancy attire the evening before. Usually just going out for cigarettes or playing video games. It was the appearance of galas and dining events which made him alluring.

I noticed the largeness of his suit and caught myself wondering which gender had been the bearer of this gift (and how acquainted they obviously were not with his body) when I remembered his affinity for borrowing his friends' clothing and how very much larger than he they all were. I even recalled the various articles of my own he probably still had between the bags of garbage and the open piles he'd been intending to get rid of for years now in that swamp he called a living space. Asleep on his couch I'd often dreamed trips to the beach and swimming in ponds and the horrible mushy bottoms my toes always trembled at the thought of touching.

I ran my eyes upward and as they were caught by the Gucci lapels I remembered his love of Armani. He had taught me the cuts and their differences as I had taught him the importance of rhythm in language, and I wanted to tell his family how this would anger him, but when I looked around they were not present and I realized how early I must be (I'd always been the overcompensating type for lack of owning a watch). Armani was the suit he wore to sing with Pavarotti for an album as a boy: things he clung to all through life, rather than the present. I had come to know him as a man, when the infamy and enigma had begun to fade away with his youth. With him one had always the sense of interacting with a shell, or a man looking through you and back into the Golden Age of his career. He had eroded his youth with the misguided idea that one need not plan for something which does not affect one at present (like adulthood). Only I think the nights he spent in childhood would not have suited me and I was glad for the quiet hours we spent in discussion which grounded me at a point in my life where (only slightly younger) I was in danger of sliding off the edge.

His face came before me at this moment, as if it were the very first moment it was ready to (completely naturally). He had the smoothest skin I had ever seen and so I knew he had not shaved himself. His lips were smoothed and I remembered how he had been the only straight male I'd ever known never to have chapped lips (though I often used that as the basis for my argument for why he had to have had a hidden lifestyle). I was struck with the need to turn his head to the side since his nasal profile had always been his best feature (though there were rumors of that having been medically altered, and so went my back-up argument). Only touching at this sort of event seems to be seen either as a sign of mental instability or an absolute lack of social education.

His eyes were the worst to see, though: the final admitting of his present state of health. He did not look to be sleeping as I'd always read or been told they did, and his was the first Catholic funeral I'd ever attended (people of Jewish descent do not believe in this sort of “morbidity"). If he were sleeping he would surely have been on his side (he'd read every line about Morrison and the rest) and his mouth would be open, and I recalled the staccato patterns of his snoring---how it kept me up for hours and I was never sure if he had indeed entirely stopped breathing or whether I should stop him and get a few hours of sleep for once. I remembered the times I'd studied him just so, for lack of the strength needed to beat him into consciousness. If they had wanted to feign “sleep” to save us from our “weakness” when confronted with such issues, they should have placed his arm over his eyes to keep the day out and rumpled his hair, flattened it in the back and crusted it over with day-old hair gel. Put a ringing phone by hisand the sound of his mother's voice screaming that it's for him, so could he please get the fuck up and get it? Only they couldn't know these details which make all the difference. He was like a fourth grader presenting an essay on the horrors his father experienced in Vietnam; they'd slicked back his hair, polished his skin to a layer of cleanliness none of us had ever seen and told us that this was our friend, our lover, our relative. And sleeping, too. He'd never rested “peacefully,” and the only phrase that came to mind now was, “dead to the world.” I almost laughed. I had come to the top of his head but was not ready to accept the closed eyes and stilled lips, the end of his body, though maybe I never would be.

Through the alcoholic blues whispering all too softly from the hidden speakers for his always half-deaf ears I recalled a few lines of music torn from a violin and the face of a female clown looking on in La Strada. Her face was half full of love and half full of hope and fully twisted with sadness as she waited for the finish like a pilgrim at the gates to the Holy Land. Only the bit finished with the performer stopping halfway through so no one ever knew the ending.

Rebecca L.