Th

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2015

No. 3

No. 3 / Summer 2015

Editor-in-Chief J.D. GREENER

Poetry Editor KRISTIN DISTEL

Fiction Editor GARY GREENER

Visual Art & Layout Editor MICHELE WOO

The Critical Pass Review is a semi-annual

literary review that was founded with the

purpose of bringing exemplary works of

poetry, fiction, and visual artwork to a

broader national and international

readership. Utilizing the efficiencies of

cutting edge editing, communication, and

publication technologies that expand upon

traditional print models, we provide our

readers with the exhilaration of reading

new and singular works of writing in

innovative, digital contexts. We pride

ourselves on bringing new ideas, new

styles, and new artistry to the forefront to

create publications that engage both writers

and a broader cross section of the reading

public.

Submissions for The Critical Pass Review are

accepted year-round at

http://www.criticalpassreview.com.

The Critical Pass Review also hosts the

following annual competition:

Cover Art: At the Window

by Clinton Inman

The Critical Pass Review Copyright © 2015, GJM Partners. All rights reserved.

Critical Junior Poet's

Award Contest

“The aim of every artist is to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial

means and hold it fixed so that a hundred years later, when a stranger

looks at it, it moves again since it is life.”

-William Faulkner

VERSE

MICHELLE CHEN

Girl 9

Kitchen Sestina 45

Interview 47

TIMOTHY KRINTON

The Wayward Feast 25

SCOTT WARD

First Blood at Chancellorsville 27

STEPHEN MASSIMILLA

Plum Summer 63

FRED DALE

In the Cotton 65

JENNIFER FLEN

The Waiting Room 88

PROSE

SCOTT SELDEN

The Riverbanks Are Dark 11

SARAH MITCHELL-JACKSON

Swamp Water Boy 50

JON PEARSON

Spangle of Quafe 69

ALEXANDER BEISEL

Delenda Est 72

VISUAL ART

ELENA BOTTS

Very Much in Love with

No One in Particular 8

Give Us Something to

Dream About 86

OTTO VALENZUELA

Of Crocodiles 10

Ra 61

STANLEY HAYMAN

Exodus 24

LEONARD KOGAN

Untitled 26

SDVSD 44

ALINA PENG

Contemplation 49

Reflection 71

JOYCE ASPEN

Epiphany 62

The Velvet Burgeoning 67

DUANE LOCKE

Worm 64

STEPHEN MEAD

Rescuing a Painting from the Trash 68

MARY POST

Vengeance 87

Portal 89

Letter from the Editor

On behalf of our editors, I would like to welcome you to the Summer 2015 Issue of The

Critical Pass Review. In thinking about summer and what it means to put together a summer

issue, one can’t help thinking about the meaning of summer and the power that summer holds

over us as readers. To put it another way, the promise of summer ostensibly lies in a certain

sense of freedom that the season seems to bring to all that it touches: a freedom of lapping

waves and lazy sunlight, mild, light-hearted breezes, family vacations, and sand between the

toes. However, there is a deeper, less-tangible freedom inherent in the promise of summer

that is at once linked to a sense of self (a freedom of identity that flourishes under the lax

auspices of summer) and an outward-bounding sense of expanding potentialities (a certain

sense of new possibilities of self and activity allowed to flourish in summer’s levity). Where

then are we to find this sway of summer in the written word? That is to say, in moving beyond

mere allusions to summer, where can we find the promise of summer itself? Perhaps a good

place at which to begin our search is one of the most seemingly unlikely of places: a prison of

sorts.

In the 18th century, the British utilitarian philosopher, Jeremy Bentham, conceived of the

panopticon, a prison of such shape and design as to allow a watchman to observe the activities

of any given prisoner at any time. Inherent in this design was the desire to regulate prisoners

by causing them to police their own activities for fear of observation and punishment in the

event of misconduct. In his classic work, Discipline and Punish, the French philosopher, Michel

Foucault, built upon the carceral concept of the panopticon in extending the concept into a

broader, more generally-applicable theory of panopticism. For Foucault, panopticism

encompassed not simply a prison design, but rather the society-wide framework for the

systematic identification of, enforcement against, and thus motivation (and self-regulation)

against, behavior inconsistent with societal standards necessary or desirable to support

entrenched power dynamics.

Panopticistic limitations on freedom are to be expected, to some extent, as part of the

social contract. However, it is noteworthy that societies’ framework for self-regulation

imposes certain notions of order and constraints upon freedom that are generally rooted

(superficially and/or substantively) in complicated systems predicated on reasonability. To

put the matter more fundamentally, though today’s punitive motivators are often far more

sublimated than their carceral antecedents, there is an immense external pressure placed upon

the individual, and indeed on the population, of a modern society as a whole, to conform in

both thought and action to the confines of reasonability and the ancillary mores of society.

While this brand of commonality has its utility, it also poses, with a kind of sublimated

violence, a threat to individual identity and possibility. However, it is in relation to this

external pressure on the individual, this sublimated violence exacted with systematic,

institutional efficiency, that we find the promise of summer in the written word: as the very

climate of a countervailing, internal force necessary to achieve equilibrium.

As noted previously, the promise of summer rests in a certain freedom of

individualistic experiences and possibilities implicit in the latitude that the season affords.

Consequently, if the full bounty of summer is to be found in the written word, it is to be found

in a nobility of the self and the imagination that counterposes itself against the rational dictates

of external reality. To quote the American poet Wallace Stevens, one finds that this nobility is

a “violence from within that protects us from a violence without [,]… the imagination pressing

back against the pressure of reality” (The Necessary Angel, New York: Vintage Books, 1951, 36).

It is, in the final analysis, this ennobling climate of summer that reveals itself as a counter force

in written letters (in a panoply of imaginary and personal spaces), in the face of tremendous

external force, to create, at the level of the individual, a sustaining equilibrium. If, in the

context of the written word, this quality of summer sustains individual identity, it also

sustains continuous self-determination. Thus, under summer’s paper sun, the written word

predicates the reader every bit as much as the reader predicates the written word.

This summer season has been a productive time filled with possibilities for the editors

of The Critical Pass Review as we have read through a wide variety of submissions. We have

been delighted by the imaginativeness of the unique works presented by our contributors. We

would like to extend our gratitude to these exemplary contributors and to our increasingly-

broad-based readership. The editors would also like to congratulate this year’s winner of our

Critical Junior Poet’s Award Contest, Michelle Chen, who faced some stiff competition and

whose works are being published in this issue (along with an interview). Lastly, it is my

privilege to recognize and thank our world-class team of editors for all of their tenacity and

vision, without which this issue of verse, prose, photography, and other visual artwork would

not be such a decidedly-exciting collection. On behalf of all of us at The Critical Pass Review, we

hope that you enjoy the summer sun and the singular works that await you on the pages that

follow.

Warmest regards,

J. D. Greener

Editor-in-Chief

VERY MUCH IN LOVE WTH

NO ONE IN PARTICULAR By Elena Botts

9

GIRL By Michelle Chen

The barn roof’s gentle,

Booms shadowing the streaked shoulders

Of farmhands

And the cowbells’ hymns, come here, girl,

Tramp us home through the chaff,

And the jackdaw figurine atop the peak,

Beyond the Aeolian stalks. She invited us in

With a dish of unpasteurized milk

Left on the porch at seven every evening,

Wide-brimmed ranchers running,

And the subsequent calcium crescents

Of their nailbeds, huff!

That stood out as they piloted the goats

Across the yellow synagogue,

Parting each of our salutes

And wading across the yard, crest-backed,

Egrets pluming love.

The whip cracking dust, eddies of tarnish

Rising and falling like apparitions’ puckered chins,

Boots slapping, race me to the paddocks,

The bloodless bovine fur. Race, erase.

My mother three miles from the chimney

Her paisley doesn’t stain near these rafters anymore. No one touched our

Knees, ripped in the loft, but we dabbed our foreheads gingerly after knocking

Into the peak of the hen house, gulping oxygen to resuscitate

The dripping, golden sun. No praying. Run faster.

The lease of the land burned with the ruminated grass.

August lasted one day less.

OF CROCODILES By Otto Valenzuela

11

THE RIVERBANKS ARE DARK

By Scott Selden

The speaker system crackled into existence, spitting out orders like jagged bolts of

lightning.

“Blue crab dinner, pork ribs and collards, cheeseburger extra mayo . . .”

A family, come directly from church, shambled up to the counter and retrieved

their crab dinner. The mother in a gingham dress, the grandmother in a woven sun hat,

and the father in a shabby, beleaguered suit. Their only daughter wore tired leather flip

flops and her toes were dark and dirty. As she walked back to her table, she quietly

kicked up dirt and sawdust and small bits of shells.

The Galley was the only restaurant in Deltaville open on Sundays, as it had been

for decades. It was history there, open for nearly seventy years and the only place in

town that served local crab. The blue crab dinner came with boiled potatoes and

succotash and sometimes a couple of rolls, enough to feed a family. Regulars brought

their own shell-cracking hammers, because the ones supplied by The Galley were old

and warped and chipped along the edges from constant and enthusiastic use. Everyone

who grew up in Deltaville had worked at The Galley at some point, doing something.

Most waited or bussed tables, others cooked the food, while a few supplied the

restaurant with fresh seafood every morning.

Out behind the restaurant was the dumpster shared by The Galley and Sal’s

Pizza, the only Italian place in town. Sal’s was opened a few years ago by a local family

who had since sold it. The shared dumpster was full of spoiling seafood and drying

mozzarella and the heat of that day lifted the smell, but the humidity made it stick

around. A kid came out of Sal’s carrying an open bag of garbage. He was fourteen with

freckles and light brown hair, and though his legs were skinny, they were strong. The

kid caught the smell and stopped where he was. Coughing loudly, he pulled his shirt

collar over his face.

12

He scrunched up his face to try and keep the collar in place over his nose and he

held his breath as he swung the garbage bag over the lip of the rusting dumpster. The

kid quickly stepped away and exhaled and then inhaled too fast. He coughed again. He

leaned with one hand against the back of Sal’s Pizza, but quickly straightened up. Sal’s

left something sticky and black on his hands that he tried to wipe onto his faded jean

shorts. He had recently moved to Deltaville after his parents bought Sal’s, and so far he

hadn’t found much to like.

“What you doin’ over there?”

The kid turned quickly and noticed for the first time, an older boy leaning against

The Galley and smoking a Red Apple cigarette. The older kid was tall and lanky with

thin arms and a cowlick in his blonde hair. He was seventeen and wore a stained apron.

“Nothing,” the younger boy said.

“And what’s your name?”

“Henry,” replied the younger one nervously. The older boy was much bigger

than he was and blew gray cigarette smoke in his direction. But Henry looked him in

the eye. “Yours?”

“Birddog. You can call me Bird.”

“Is that your real name?” asked Henry.

“It’s what people call me.” Bird finished his cigarette and lit another from the

stub. He shut his eyes and raised his face to the sun.

“Why?”

“I don’t know.” He blew smoke into the sun. “‘Cause if I spy something and I

decide that I want it, I’m gonna get it.”

“Okay.”

Bird looked Henry up and down and then spat on the ground. The sun worked

on evaporating it.

“Last summer, for instance,” said Bird. “Recently blessed with a real nice pair of

titties, young lady Constance Mae come walking past me as I was making my way to

work. She was thirteen, but she looked about twenty-three. So I said to myself, ‘You

better make it so, Bird.’” He chuckled and dropped his cigarette to the ground. “Two

13

days later, I was feeling her up behind the Presbyterian church.” Grinning at Henry, he

said, “You’re new here.”

“Yeah,” said Henry. “I moved here two weeks ago.”

“That’s all right. You ever touched a girl before?”

“No,” said Henry and he kicked a small rock into the dumpster. The clang

echoed in that small place.

“You how old?”

“Fourteen.”

Bird frowned and he looked at Henry for a few seconds. “Well. That ain’t so bad.

I tell you what, meet me here in a week, all right? Next Sunday, meet me at 2:30 and I’ll

show you something.”

“Really?” Henry looked up at Bird and smiled. “Okay.”

“All right, Hank. I’ll see you.” Bird walked back into The Galley and left Henry

smiling at the air.

***

Sunday was ninety-two and stifling and when Henry exhaled, his breath hung

around him in a cloud of carbon dioxide and sweat. He coughed hard as he stepped

closer to the overflowing dumpster. Bird sat with his back to the wall, long legs

stretched out and crossed at the ankles. In his hands were a lighter and a battered

Polaroid camera in a plastic bag, and around his neck was slung a pair of binoculars that

looked like they had seen World War II. His eyes were shut and his face glowed with

sweat and oil.

“Hey,” said Henry.

Bird looked up at him and then pushed himself up the wall with his feet.

“How you doing today, Hank? You ready to see something?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, all right.”

14

Birddog grabbed Henry’s shoulders and turned him around and they walked

back the way Henry had come, through the joint parking lot, tar simmering and hazing

in the heat, and eventually they left the shops behind and crossed two lanes of traffic

and disappeared into the deep quiet of the woods.

At first, the forest was cool and being in the shade was a mercy. But the air was

close and humid. Soon Henry’s shirt stuck to his back and as he crunched through the

dead leaves and detritus, he kicked up bits of dirt and leaf and fallen bark that seemed

to float around them like insects, held aloft by the thickness of the air. Henry risked a

glance over at Birddog walking beside him. To Henry, he looked impossibly tall and his

legs were long, and he noticed that Bird had some stubble on his chin. His footsteps

were far apart and Henry vainly tried to match Bird’s long step. Henry had trouble

picking out solid footing among the leaves, but Bird never stumbled. He seemed to

know just where to walk.

The pair of them walked through the woods for a time until the smell and the

sound of the river overrode everything else, and it was ceaseless and final. Its gentle

rushing took precedence over the birds and the sound of crunched brush, and its salty

tang was a smoke on the air, tangling with dirt and sweat. Birddog and Henry crested a

small hill and they could see a ways down the river to where a group of a dozen young

girls, all in white, stood in the salt water. A larger group of parents and friends in their

best Sunday clothes stood barefoot on a small and misshapen beach, their feet

disappearing up to their ankles in the loose sand. Henry and Birddog were only yards

down the river, but well hidden in the trees and brush.

“Whole of the girl’s ninth-grade Sunday school class,” whispered Bird.

Henry nodded, but didn’t take his eyes off of the girls, their hair curled or

braided, reflecting the sun in shimmering waves like the turn of a lighthouse in the

nighttime. In that moment, the sunlight itself was a gift from God. A pastor in a red

robe stood in the river. The girls surrounded her and she was a single splash of red in

the otherwise unbroken group of white. Her voice carried over the water and she held

up her hands in supplication.

15

“It’s by the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost that I baptize y’all today. You go under

a sinner, but come up old and new, a sister to me and all your fellow Christians, washed

in the blood of Jesus Christ himself.” She motioned with a hand. “Jenny.”

Henry watched a black-haired girl wade forward. The pastor held Jenny behind

the neck and lowered her carefully backwards into the river and as she came up a small

group on the beach cheered and shouted, praising God. She spat salt water from her

mouth and rubbed her eyes.

“Katie R.,” said the pastor.

“Time’s now on hand,” said Bird and he handed Henry the binoculars. “You eye

her real close.”

Henry put the worn binoculars to his face and looked downstream and found

Katie R., a being of blood and skin and pure sunlight. Apple red hair hung coiled over

her shoulders and down her back, and she had a small nose spotted with a few freckles.

“Hold,” said Birddog.

The pastor lowered Katie R. downwards into the water and when she came up

heaving and soaked, she was something entirely new. Her wet robe clung to her body

and revealed breasts, round and straining against their white cover, rising and falling as

her breath passed into and then out of her body. For a just a moment, Henry couldn’t

breathe.

“Wow,” Henry finally exhaled.

He heard the click of the camera next to him and looked over to find Birddog

shaking the picture, willing it to clarity. He handed it to Henry.

“Keep that.”

Henry looked down to find a picture taken from too far away to capture the

delicacy of Katie R.’s body. “You can’t really see much of anything,” he said, putting the

photo into his pocket.

“Ain’t what it’s for. Picture’s a reminder. And memory’ll serve well enough.”

***

16

The next week, Birddog and Henry were walking along the road at the riverside,

full of day travelers and folks passing through, looking for a pretty view out of their

windshields. The pair of them walked in the grass, careful not to step out onto the

simmering black top. There wasn’t enough wind to keep the bugs away and each

attracted a cloud of gnats, buzzing around their perspiring bodies. Birddog had a black

eye sticking out of his face, swollen to the size of a golf ball.

“How’d you get it?” asked Henry.

“A dude at the gas station came looking for it. So I went ahead and scooped out

his eyeball.”

“What?”

“Sure,” said Birddog. “I done it four or five times before to those in particular

need.”

“Wow,” said Henry, careful not to look over at Bird. “What happens?”

“They scream. Usually they scream.” Birddog paused. “Scream a lot, I guess, is

what happens.”

Maple seeds popped under their feet.

“Swear on my life,” he said. “Swear to God, I done it.”

A large mosquito hovered in front of Henry, trying to find a piece of bare skin on

which to land. Henry raised an arm to swat it, but missed. Quick as lightning, Birddog

reached out and clapped the mosquito between his hands. It left a stain of red and guts

on his palms. Henry nodded his thanks.

“I’ve never been in a fight. I’ve never been punched, even,” said Henry.

“You got a mind to be?” and Birddog stopped walking.

“No,” said Henry quickly. “No.”

Birddog started moving again. “Hit my daddy one time. He was dead drunk

and beatin’ the hell outta my mom. So I took this arm here,” and he held up his right,

“and I gave it to him harder than he ever done to me. Toppled down, passed out right

fuckin’ there. Woke up, didn’t have a goddamn clue why his head felt like some worn

out old punching bag.”

17

“Felt like I was God and Jesus. Felt like doing a model and getting loaded all at

once. Single greatest moment of my whole entire life.” He paused. “Of course, it don’t

end the world, a fuckin’ beating.”

“So anyway,” he said, and they kept walking.

***

After three days of overt threatening, the thunderstorm finally came through on

Thursday evening, throwing to the ground drops the size of stones and bringing with it

cooler weather, but only barely. The raindrops themselves were hot and offered little

respite to those they drenched. In two minutes, the parking lot shared by Sal’s and The

Galley was darkened by rain to the point that the very notion of dry seemed fantastic

and impossible. The heavy hiss of rain and crackle of thunder drowned out Henry’s

thoughts inside Sal’s. And business had dried up.

Henry sat at the front counter bored and upset that his parents had sold the

Galaga machine that had come with the place. Sal’s was a refuge from the rain at least,

but that hardly made the night go by any quicker. He sat in his chair and practiced

balancing on two of the four legs and he landed with force enough to rattle the cash

register. His father was cleaning the dining room and bussing tables, while his mother

was busy in the kitchen. A bell clanged somewhere overhead and Birddog walked in

through the front door, soaking and cursing and he pushed his hair backwards over his

head to keep it from his eyes. He wore a beige apron, stained and covered with

something red and runny.

“You look like a guy in a mobster movie,” said Henry.

Birddog aimed an imaginary gun and said, “Yous guys stay real quiet in here,

capisce?”

“What can I get you, boss?” asked Henry.

“Me and the boys next door want some dinner.”

“You can’t just make it yourself?”

18

“Can’t do it. Besides, boys next door clamoring for famous Sal’s pizza. Oblige us?

Two pepperonis. Large.”

“Sure.” Henry grabbed the microphone and lowered his head toward it. “Two

large pepperonis going next door,” and the sound of his voice tumbled out of a set of

tinny speakers in the kitchen, where his mother yelled her acquiescence. Birddog stood

in front of the window and looked out into the parking lot and the downpour.

“Raining a little outside,” he said. “Jesus, Hank, I tell you, one time –” he stopped

as a truck pulled up to the front of the restaurant. Henry couldn’t make out who

stepped from the passenger side, but Birddog pressed his face to the window and put a

hand over his eyes.

“Unafraid of God or partial witnesses, in comes Katie R., prepared to mingle with

neighbors and strangers alike,” he said.

Katie R. walked in and the bell sounded and to Henry everything else that existed

in the world fell away. Her hair was pulled up and her ponytail was dark red and hung

limply against the back of her neck; he could tell that her eyes were a crystalline,

sapphire blue, expertly matching the blue of her tank top. Henry couldn’t help but pay

attention to how the top of her chest was dappled with rainwater, droplets sliding

silently down and out of sight. Her shirt was wet and stuck to the perfect curvature of

her body and Henry risked a look down to her chest, rising and falling in practiced

rhythm.

“Were you just talking about me, Bird?” she asked and smiled over at him.

“Could’ve been. How does the good Lord find you today?”

She reached behind her head and squeezed her ponytail from top to bottom and

rain dropped to the floor. “Doing fine.” Katie R. looked at Henry and frowned. “I

don’t think I know you.”

Henry swallowed and cleared his throat. “Um, I just moved here after school got

out.”

“Oh, okay. Found your way to East Jesus Nowhere to run a pizza place?”

Henry grinned. “Yeah, I guess so.”

19

“Well, that’s all right.” Katie R. smiled and it bounced off the walls. “It’s nice to

meet you. I’m Katie Reynolds.” She walked over to the counter and held out her hand.

Her grip was firm, but her skin was soft and smooth and the smell of magnolias

followed her unhampered by the rain.

“Hi. I’m Henry.”

She squeezed his hand a little tighter. “Hi, Henry,” and she looked him in the

eye.

Birddog coughed and stepped forward. “You be out on the river this weekend,

Katie? Maybe I’ll see you.”

Katie turned her head a little, but didn’t look away from Henry, nor had she let

go of his hand. “Yeah. Maybe I’ll see you, Bird.”

Henry’s mother emerged from the kitchen with three boxes. “Two for The

Galley,” she said. “And this other is – oh,” she stopped after seeing Katie. “Are you

Reynolds?”

“Yes ma’am,” said Katie. Her hand left Henry’s and she squirmed it into her

pants pocket, from which she pulled a ten and a five and laid them on the counter.

“Thanks!” she said. To Henry, “Maybe I’ll see you this weekend on the water, over by

Stingray Point.” And she smiled at him before walking out of the door and back out

into the rain.

The room seemed smaller and pale without her. Birddog stared at Henry, still as

stone.

“All right, Hank.” He took the pizzas and was gone.

***

Sal’s was closed on Saturday morning so that Henry’s parents could clean the

entire restaurant. Floor sweep, they called it. Normally, Henry would have been

expected to help out, but his parents were pleased when Henry told them he had plans

with friends. Henry rode with his parents to the restaurant, but when they unlocked the

20

door, he instead took a left and began to make for the tree line on his way to the river.

The weather was warm and very humid.

The air hummed along with unseen cicadas, buzzing and chirping until it

drowned out all other sound, except for the occasional piercing scream of a hawk. He

made his way through the brush and the closeness of the forest. He parted ferns and

broadleaf plants and then a honeysuckle. He plucked a bud and squeezed out the juice.

The air smelled floral and sweet and Henry stopped walking. He let the scent surround

him for a moment, and then he put the plant onto his tongue and drank, swallowing the

nectar.

Leaves crunched underneath his feet and he enjoyed the sound, stomping into

piles of dead plants, the taste of honey still holding tight to his gums. As he walked

through the woods, the leaves and branches that clutched at his arms and legs seemed to

be holding him back, like the woods were desperate to keep Henry in the shade, jealous,

watching him forever: like the woods knew what lay on their far side. But Henry

pushed through and through until he could make out the far tree line and bits of what

lay beyond: a pristinely white beach, but dotted here and there with driftwood and the

bodies of horseshoe crabs. Henry saw Birddog and Katie R. Henry couldn’t see their

feet for the brush, but their torsos floated and behind them lay a deep blue river gently

rolling in steady motion, assured of its course and its right to that course.

Henry kept walking and forced his way through the clinging branches and

needles and finally onto the beach. Birddog and Katie R. stood facing each other with a

kayak and a canoe between them. The canoe was old and warped and peeling. Henry

had the impression that it could be a hundred years old, and the plastic kayak seemed

an immature and playful aside. Bird and Katie R. were angry, and Henry could feel the

tension in the air and in the marrow of his bones. It lodged there in his chest. Birddog

looked to Henry as he crashed through the undergrowth, but Bird said nothing and

stepped towards Katie R., who took a step backwards.

“How you, Hank?” said Birddog.

“Henry, hi!” said Katie R. She turned to face him and smiled small, eyes

hurriedly moving back to focus on Birddog.

21

“Hey,” said Henry. “What are y’all doing?”

Katie R. opened her mouth, but Birddog cut her off.

“Just talking about God and the river and life.”

Henry nodded without replying and then looked to Katie R., marking that she

hadn’t spoken. “And you?”

She exhaled and looked relieved. “Honestly? Bird’s pressuring me a little.”

Henry looked over at his only friend in town, who didn’t move. “It ain’t like she

hadn’t done it before, and there ain’t nobody else here. Except for you, now.” He stared

at Henry and pointed back towards the woods, their branches waiting. “Maybe you

oughtta walk back the way you come. Might get a little wayward out here.” And he

grinned.

Katie R.’s eyes were wide and Henry could see they were red and watery. And

though she said nothing, he took the hint. He shook his head.

“No,” he said, looking Birddog in the eye. “I want to go out on the river. I’ve

never been on the water before.”

Henry saw Birddog’s jaw line set and for a moment, he was nervous. Bird was

several years older, after all, and had at least fifty pounds on Henry.

“Henry. I’m asking you to leave. I’ll take you out on the river tomorrow.”

Henry looked over at Katie R., at her worry and crinkled brow and clenched jaw,

and he knew that he couldn’t leave. And he knew that Bird could beat the shit out of

him.

“No. I think maybe you should go.” Henry felt queasy all over his body, but he

didn’t move. Birddog walked over to Henry, who planted his feet as firmly as he could

in the sand, and he clenched his fists to hide their shaking.

“Henry. I’m really asking you to leave, here. As a friend.”

“No. Katie doesn’t want you here. You need to leave.”

At that Birddog looked hurt, but then his eyes got hard and distant and narrow.

“Hank, one of us is leaving, one way or another.”

Henry did nothing.

“I’m not asking anymore.”

22

“No.”

Birddog looked back at Katie R. for a moment before he turned around and

quickly thrust out his arms. Henry felt Bird’s hands on his chest and then he was on the

ground, sand in his clothes and in his hair and grinding underneath his fingernails. He

felt a sharp pain underneath his right shoulder blade and knew that he had fallen on a

rock swept to shore by the tides. As he stood, he reached behind and his fingers closed

around the stone. It was about the size of a baseball and though it was mostly smooth,

the grain was rough against his palm.

He exhaled slowly and then threw his arm around and slammed the stone into

Birddog’s face, and Henry felt a slight resistance before Birddog’s nose went and blood

began to run down his face and into his mouth.

Birddog made a coughing noise as he fell to the ground. He rolled onto his

stomach holding his nose, but blood ran through his fingers and mixed with the sand.

Henry stood above him, fingers still holding tight to the rock in his right hand, breathing

heavy and praying to God. He thought God would forgive him.

“Jesus!” said Birddog. “You fucker. I’m going to kill you and-”

He was quieted by Henry’s foot in his ribs. “Go home.”

Birddog crawled a few feet and stopped, and Henry watched him rest for a few

seconds before picking himself up from the sand and staggering into the dark of the

woods. Henry waited until the uneven sounds of his footsteps faded before looking

back at Katie R.

Her face was pale and she was crying. She shook her head and said, “Henry, I-”

“Can we just paddle out?” Henry said.

She was quiet, and then she nodded.

She helped him set the canoe into the water and then went back for her kayak.

She showed him the basics of paddling before she said, “I want to show you something.

Will you be alright by yourself in there?”

Henry said he would and they moved slowly away from the shore, he, still

getting used to paddling, and she, giving him encouragement and help until he felt

23

more comfortable. And then there was silence for a long while except for the quiet

splash of paddles in the water and the soft toppling of waves.

“I’m sorry that happened,” said Katie R.

“Yeah.”

They paddled out further and her kayak was faster than his canoe due to her skill

and his inexperience, but she slowed to let him keep pace. It was cooler on the river and

the wind whipped her hair around until she grabbed handfuls and used a rubber band

to hold it back. Henry watched her and smiled while the sun reflected off of the water

in irregular patterns.

“I’ve never really been in a fight before,” he said.

“Everyone gets in a fight sometime.”

“Well.” They were drifting and he laid his paddle across his lap. “But I didn’t

want to fight him.” He was quiet for a moment. “And I think he might be really hurt.”

“You did what you had to, Henry.” She nodded at him and smiled, but Henry

said nothing. “I’m so glad you stuck up for me. Really. Thank you. I don’t know what

he would have done.”

They paddled again for a few minutes until they reached a bend in the river.

Forests lined either side and the trees seemed dark and secret to Henry, hiding

something he used to know, but was now far away. On the river, there was nothing, but

salt and sunshine and her, paddling ahead of him.

“Just around this corner,” said Katie. “Then we’ll be there.”

Henry paddled hard and soon they were around the bend. Suddenly the river

opened wide and became a mouth into the Chesapeake. The water was deep along the

shipping channels out in the bay, where it was a dark navy and Henry watched the

wind kick up waves and white caps. He could see for miles and there was nothing in

sight but open water.

EXODUS By Stanley Hayman

25

THE WAYWARD FEAST

By Timothy Krinton

The seeds of the moon

Mixed with the pomegranates

Tasted of dark earth

UNTITLED By Leonard Kogan

27

FIRST BLOOD AT CHANCELLORSVILLE

By Scott Ward

*Note: This is an excerpt from a novel in verse entitled Rebel.

May 1, 1863

A box of forty dead men thudded the ground.

His eyes flung open. He rose and grasped a handful

of cartridges. Shovels thrust in glacis spoil

stood like shorn crosses in a vandalized graveyard.

Soon, the men were formed and ordered forward,

scrambling out of the ditch and striding through sunlight,

hopper’s wings scuffling papery, wind-up rattles,

till wilderness canopies brushed the light from his shoulders.

Clutching his rifle before him, he moved through shadows,

making leaf meal ruffle and twig snap, brushing

low hanging branches; in their wake, no discernible sound

of breeze, mockingbird, or jizzywitch.

In his chest, a lithe wild creature hurled itself

against its cage, each lunge making him gasp.

Every forest shadow held its bead.

They halted and officers made adjustments to the line.

The men, silent and feeling expectancy, peered

through trees. Left Tenant came strolling along behind them.

“Easy men and keep yourselves together.

We’re fixing to show these Yankees, Southern manhood.”

Forward again, his hands slick on the stock.

A rustle in front, a brown shape bolted from thicket,

dodging zigzag behind them, and he could feel

the guts of fellow soldiers clench and unclench

amid some rippling laughter. Buzzard said,

“Gone, old hare. I’d run if I’s a hare.”

28

He near jumped out of his socks when musketry broke

in front, a cascade of angry balls swarming

through branches high, one tearing past, snicking

a sapling pine at his elbow. They returned fire

and smoke spewed from the line. He could see nothing

inside the cloud, so knelt and reloaded. They were ordered

forward again toward pop and grumble of musketry,

muffled by density of foliage as voices around him

were swearing, shouting orders, groaning in pain.

Caleb struggled through briers, the noise of firing

closer, more voluble, changing from a long ripping

sheet to distinct cracks, desultory, but crowding

together. He yanked his feet through thicket tangles,

ducking branch-hang. Another volley and repercussive

thwacks of balls, drilling trunks. The woods were patched

with smoke in irregular obfuscations, swathing

brake and bramble, hanging in boughs like storm clouds.

The racket was now a presence, pummeling him

from every quarter, disorienting sense. He strode

through smoke embankments, breathing acrid scorch

in his throat, a gray blindness, weird with spinning

hiss of bullets, zinging the air and tack

tack tacking tree trunks. They emerged in a forest clearing.

The man on his left had vanished, but Caleb was still

on his right. Another volley sheared the branch-hang.

He flattened, hearing behind that rush of noise,

clamor of Yankee soldiers, their accents distinct.

Caleb raised and fired, he followed suit,

saw blue shapes close. Captain Blackwood appeared.

“Pull back, but fire. Keep it brisk for the Yanks.”

He discharged five or six rounds, edging backward

through wilderness thickets until they joined the regiment,

sheltered in a slight declivity, the officers working

to get them back in line. Caleb mopped

29

his face, shining with sweat and powder burn.

The newest recruits wore keenly alert expressions

like cornered beasts, the presence of terrified men

lending him a measure of consolation,

as he strove to steel himself to keep from trembling.

They crouched among red oak and tulip trees,

enjoying the respite. In the crenellated bark, a black ant

scaled his vertical trench on an urgent mission.

Again, they were ordered forward. The line surged

toward the hellish nest of musketry. Blackwood ordered

them to hold their fire, and they sprinted ahead

as best they could through bramble and woven brush.

A Yankee volley burst in their faces, showering

rachis and twig. On his left, he heard a wail,

prolonged and piteous, everywhere swearing and groans,

a cry,

“Goddamn you all.” His face burned

with fear and exertion. Another volley startled him

and loosened strings in his knees. The Captain halted them

now; they fired a mass volley and reloaded.

The command to charge echoed down the line,

Blackwood again, moving behind them and shouting,

“Charge ‘em boys. Let’s give ‘em goss on a stick.”

The men rose in a body, surged through the wood,

struggling through thickets in retarded dream motion.

The Yankees got off a volley, wild and high,

shredding oak debris and spiraling leaf meal.

The charge had knocked the Yankees back on their heels.

They pushed forward and fell in a shallow run,

the bank behind him littered with cartridge tops.

His mouth was pasted shut. He emptied his canteen,

pushed leaf litter away from the run’s surface

and filled the vessel. The fire had died a little,

his stomach roiled. An abandoned U.S. haversack

30

lay by the run. He crawled through water to fetch it,

tossing a pocket diary, a sheaf of letters,

and finding crackers, a baked Irish potato,

and fried bacon, which he portioned out to Caleb

and offered to another soldier who shook his head.

He gnashed his ration. Blackwood scuttled up.

“Are you loaded?”

“No,” he croaked through a mouthful of spud.

“Well goddamn, load your piece; don’t you know

what’s coming?” There needed no response. Through brush,

the deep chested Huzzah of Yankee infantry, the chanting

rolling forward. The Captain scampered off,

hoiking Rebel soldiers back into line.

“Hold fire. Keep your barrels low.” Their line

got off two shots, but the Yankee charge was savage

as a bark knife. “Pull back slow.” Blackwood again,

everywhere at once. He was astonished he hadn’t been shot,

exposing his person hoofing the line, armed only

with a pistol he’d never seen him draw. “Slow

now, keep in good order. Load for bear and fire.”

Now soldiers peeled away from the line, dodging

for cover, swinging round trees to shoot. He leaped

a fallen pine, behind which Henry Barkloo

made a redoubt, keeping a brisk rate of fire.

He laughed at Henry’s powder blackened face,

its sweaty sheen, appearing swart…

“Come on, Henry, let’s mosey, it’s too hot here,”

yelled Caleb.

“You boys go ahead on. I’ll keep

the Yankees busy for a spell and then catch up.”

He and Caleb took off, and Henry disappeared

in hanging smoke and branch clusters as he leapt

31

vine tangles, dodging elm and Virginia pine.

The company regrouped in a hastily dug entrenchment

where a fresh brigade was waiting. Their spirits rose,

grim and glad to enjoy some reinforcements,

reforming behind these men, waiting with iron

patience. When Yankees burst from underbrush,

a Rebel volley shocked them, spinning them round,

reeling them back to the refuge of forest shadows.

Blackwood again, ecstatic,

“All right boys,

we gwine to give these Yanks a gaub of trouble.”

Surge and forward. Garland stepped over the line

of dead, lying still as mannequins. No charge,

but they went on the trot, making a steady, relentless

drive, taking them deep into woods and pressing

the enemy. Advancing thus, they discovered Henry

behind his log. He turned him over and recoiled

at his misshapen face, left eye and cheekbone shorn

away leaving a raw and clotted mass.

A few steps away, Caleb looked on. A shout.

Far down a palisade of elm and oak, the captain

was waving his arms and calling. “Back in line!

Get back in line!” The hour was creeping toward dusk,

and dusk was already dark inside the wood.

When Rebels surged across the Furnace Road,

they raised a high-pitched keening, a wave of madness

rolling through the wood, his own voice forcing battle

racket out of his head and stoking his blood

as they drove the Federals back. Across the lane,

the line swagged, retarded by bramble and brake.

And now above the musketry, a bump and whistle,

flowering down in shrieking trajectory—a shot

crashed through branches, hollowed a shaft of weakened

twilight. Now, more distant coughs, racing

32

like a heartbeat, became a steady roar, and shells

and terror broke in an iron rain above them,

ice in his blood, as oak crowns shivered in splinters

and ground before him and behind, heaved into air,

some shots caroming off trunks in mortal ricochets.

The prodigious racket pressed his body down.

He was watching the man to his left, heard a piercing

whistle, saw a flash where he stood, a spray

blow crimson on leaves, his body evanesced to air.

A wide-eyed soldier was pacing about as if lost,

toting something in his right hand. Looking closer,

he saw the soldier clutching his severed left arm,

his eyes, black stones. A patch of his skull sprayed out

in front of him. He shivered to knees, then fell.

Garland’s stomach turned, his mouth went sour.

Again, the order to charge. Left Tenant came

along behind them urging speed.

“Forward,

men, on the double quick! Forward for God

and Country! Independence lies ahead.”

The order regrouped and reinvigorated will

and strength. This must be the decisive battle.

Good. Do the thing and have done and be done.

The line went sprinting forward, raising a boisterous,

crooning yell, he, running in a hunkered crouch

and screaming, the clamor filling him with dread

of himself, he, leaping roots and grasping briers.

Do the thing. Do the thing and go home.

A volley shredded leaves and branches. He stopped,

his back against a trunk and panting, seized

by infernal, unrelenting thirst. He spun and sprinted

farther into shadows. The Yankees fired, a rushing

lead wind sweeping past, and he dove spread-eagled

hard on the ground, scuffing elbows and knees,

33

his face, slashed by briers, fear contracting

his whole musculature, his animal heart heaving,

a volley ripping leaf and limbs, but coming

from behind, inciting panic, men’s voices crying

inarticulate and bestial. He closed his eyes

and tried to calm himself, then raised his head

from brambles. Yards ahead, a Yankee soldier

was strolling away, loading his rifle in slow

deliberate motions. His heart was knocking in every

extremity, his face grew hot. He raised his Enfield,

sighted the bead of metal between blue shoulders,

pressed the sweating trigger, the slight pressure

building to decision’s crux. He could not do it.

He could not shoot a man in the back. He raised

the barrel a hair, put his ball in a pine trunk

inches from the Yankee’s head and dropped back down

in thicket cover, watching the blue shape hasten

into shadows. He reloaded, calling,

“Yankees in front!”

He rammed a cartridge home and raised himself

in a penumbral copse of trees. He was alone.

A blade of nausea stabbed his gut, his face

burned with panic. He closed his eyes and tried

to think, get his bearings in this forest abattoir.

Noise of guns and screams and cries and musketry

crowded sense. He swore. A battery opened

on his left. He imagined the Yankee line running

from where he lay to the guns and began a deliberate,

backward prowl perpendicular to that line,

scrabbling over downed tree limbs and staring corpses.

After a long scuttle through briers and leaf mold,

a voice called out from a thicket,

“Yank or Reb?”

and the Georgia drawl was sweet and reassuring.

34

“Reb, and lost,” he called and ducked into brush.

“Lost as a goose. You fellers know where we are?”

“Got nary idear where I am, but I know where you are.

You with the Third Georgia, Wright’s brigade.

We and McLaws is fencing off a bulge

of Yankees on at hill up yonder, to sweep ‘em off.

So, you best buckle up and get yerself ready to plow.”

But whatever the reason, they got no orders to move.

The night was final. He wanted to find his unit,

but he was afraid of moving around in the dark.

So, he shared the rations of his Georgia friends and slept,

thankful for having survived his first day of combat

and wishing he were any place else in the world.

May 2, 1863

Timbre of voices fluttering like leaves, forced

his eyes from dark to arborescent shadows, diffuse

and cool, vanquishing longed for, dream expectancy

that he might wake back home in Alabama.

The men of the Third Georgia introduced themselves—

Hugh, Turner, and Cobb, and now that fires

posed less a danger, they struck one up and boiled

some coffee. He ate a hardtack cracker and tried

to steel himself. Officers nearby were deep

in conference, riding boots spattered, hands on hilts.

He approached a major with curly mutton chops,

a slim, triangular nose a boy might have cut

with a compass.

“Major,” he saluted, “Private Cain.

Could you direct me back to Wilcox’s brigade?”

The major studied him with warm brown eyes.

35

“I believe that General Wilcox was ordered back

to cover our rear at Banks Ford. You, however,

must be an aggressive soldier to have advanced

so far ahead of your line. Did you bag many?”

“Sir?”

“Did you shoot many Yankees?”

“Oh, it’s hard

to get a bead in such dense brush, but one came

close and I surprised him.” The Major’s face shone.

“Superb, smashing. Why don’t you remain

in line with us? Georgia can use you today.

This will keep you in Anderson’s corps and you’ll

meet up with Wilcox soon enough. Where’s home,

Sir?”

“Barbour County, Alabama.”

“Superb. Alabama men are fine soldiers,

keen for difficult work. I’m Major Jones.

Welcome to the Georgia line. Let’s fotch us some Yankees.”

He made to salute, but the major shook his hand,

so he returned a foundling to his Georgia mess,

marking how officers never answered a question

head on or consented to give you exactly what

you were asking for, as if accommodation were some

inherent form of weakness always to be eschewed.

But now whole regiments were coming out of line,

leaving the ditches almost bare of soldiers.

Rumors flew about like a widow killing

snakes with a how blade. The Rebels spoke in hushed,

incredulous voices.

“Jackson is moving his corps—

they going round the Union right by God!”

36

The man in line by Garland, by name of Powell,

was not transported by the rampant enthusiasm.

He pulled down a bough and looked toward Fairview Hill.

His eyes were wide and watery, his face foul,

unshaven, his brown slouch hat cocked on the crown

of his sweaty head.

“I reckon ‘at means we got

a line of not near fifteen thousand Rebs

holed up in front of ninety thousand Yankees.

Ninety thousand. Jesus God, all muddy.”

He wiped his brow with open palm and screwed

his features up as if his skull were splitting,

his eyes desperate and dumb like a gasping fish’s.

“Boy, if Yanks come charging out’a them woods,

you take my advice, you turn tail and run,

I mean run screaming like you’s fixed for the Devil.”

This knowledge put him on edge. Each time a bullet

snicked the brush, he started, no matter if he told

himself he wouldn’t, jitters drawing out

abrasive hours, till late afternoon when guns

on Fairview Hill let loose, fluttering shrieks

high and gathering fury downward, thrilling

electric expectations of instant death.

“Damn Yankee flour barrels,” Powell muttered,

the projectiles’ birling whirr churning earth.

The incommodious, Georgia major sprinted

to their position, ordered them from under the cannonade.

“Press them, but don’t engage too hotly. We want

Sickles and Slocum held at bay, but not

pushed back. If they should begin to fade, the order

will be given to charge, that we may bag them entire.

But for now, we want to nail them down.” The major

turned and headed for the rear. The company moved,

made about fifty yards toward Union skirmishers,

37

blue shift and shadow, which they started pushing back,

yard by contested yard, toward Sickles’ line,

the guns’ apocalyptic magnitude, displacing

all sounds, shot and canister blistering air.

Spiraling limbs, leaves, and leaf meal showered,

and earth heaved up, spattering boughs, then raining

maelstroms. With every incoming shriek, his nerves

recoiled; with every deafening burst, his heart

heaved, the racket, so fierce the battle seemed

to wage inside his skull. He pulled himself forward

from beneath the deluge of iron and brush, hugging

the ground, discovered boot soles protruding from a leafy

bower. Powell. He lay on his stomach on top

of his musket, crushed by an oak limb bigger around

than Garland’s thigh. A solid shot had sheered it

off, and falling, it had broken the poor man’s back.

His face was turned to the side, his eyes still glassy

with astonishment. Garland closed them and lay for a while,

allowing the garb oil of boughs and leaves to cover him,

battle racket humming in his teeth. The eruption

rolled away to the west, still raging. He shook

from under his camouflage and fired at the roiling

commotion in front. In deep dusk, a ragged

corporal found him.

“Who in hell are you?”

“It’s a long story, sir.”

“Well come with me,

we fixing to get our lines contracted and ready.”

The line was only thirty yards behind him,

but he doubted he could have found it inside a year.

To be in line with a mass of soldiers worked some

calm. A boy, elbows and knees soiled,

wearing a raccoon mask of powder burn,

fell down by Garland, his face wide with elation.

38

“Stonewall and Bobby Lee done done it again!

They rolled the Yankee flank like biscuit dough,”

he crowed, guffawing and slapping his Enfield’s stock.

“They say that Howard’s dirty Hessians ain’t

stopped running yet. Hot damn! I can’t wait

to write my pappy. Carl Cleburne by the way,

from Noonan, Georgia.”

“Pleasure to know you, Carl.

Garland Cain from Eufaula, Alabama,

down in the Wiregrass.”

“Damn, if I ain’t starved.

I et my victuals the first day’s march.”

“Here,”

he rifling his sack, “have a Johnny cake.”

“Hey thanks. You got a heart in you.” A layered

smoke feathered and densed beneath the canopy,

far off the erratic sputter and pop of rifles.

Behind them, came the clopping of battery teams,

and cannoneers fumbled by lantern light to unlimber

and drop trail. The guns made darkness tremble,

and muzzle lightning showed a line of Rebels

in instant red refulgence, half buried in earth,

some men raised up to fire, and among the battery

guns, another man stabbing a barrel with sponge rod

or worm rod, an officer poised behind the Napoleon,

one foot propped on a stack of canisters, and then

the catastrophic fracture, the noontide flash slamming

a black door in his face, so behind his eyes

the gun crew floated weird, scarlet and throbbing,

till the next ignescent burst revealed them again,

glimpsed living by the infernal muzzle flash

in different postures consequent to rote exertions.

He plugged his ears and watched the guns spark visions

39

until the fury died and the wilderness was burning

in patches, casting weird halations reflected

in ghastly unreality on smoke woven like broadcloth.

At last the noise of battle receded, replaced

by the piteous groaning of the wounded. He lay unsleeping

and thought how pain, the tooth and claw of suffering,

belied man’s spiritual nature. He recalled a boy

in school, who [attempted] to cultivate a roguish superiority

by means of his learning, espousing [views from] a certain Englishman

who proposed that men derived from Simian ancestry.

Some students received this information quietly,

but most mocked it wholesale, deriding the boy,

making monkey sounds when he entered a room.

These screams of agony, ushering from forest dark,

bespoke a legitimate history of animal lineage.

***

May 3, 1863 Chancellorsville

Picket of wilderness boughs, smothering dawn,

he struggled through crepuscular, corpse gardens in a line

of men, discerning tension in faces, nervous,

staring expectancy. The Yankees had moved their guns

from the hill left of their position, and Rebel batteries

were firing the other way, urging them forward

with hoarse and apocalyptic admonitions.

Musketry was light, their movement steady. Federal

lines were fading back to the Rappahannock.

Past Hazel Grove, they halted. They started and stopped

once more.

“Hell and high water. Why don’t we move?”

“They keeping the line in order. Keeping us ready

to repulse a counter attack or make a push.”

40

It was Hugh, who’d heard him muttering. He’d dug a twist

of tobacco from his sack and cut himself a rasher.

“Care for a chaw to soothe yer nerves?”

“No thank you.

The thing for my nerves is to get this monkey show done.”

“Well don’t you worry, old son. She’s a coming.”

He felt like a shunted engine bleeding steam

through vents and valves, killing motion, the pistons

and driving rods denied their force of action,

and desire for action all he could feel to hold

his mind and heart to this savage purpose. His body

was lathered. He glanced at his fingers, saw them white.

He closed his eyes, breathed in, relaxed his hands.

He checked the hammer and counted his cartridge sack.

Twenty rounds. He wiped his forehead and took

a sip of water. Then the commands of officers.

“Forward. Forward! Guide center.” The line surged.

The Georgia major came riding up behind.

“Keep your line together, men, and keep

the pressure on.” The men crept forward using

wilderness cover: trunk, stump, and bramble.

A flight of balls raked the branches above,

causing the men to flatten out in a wave.

He rolled behind a pine trunk, braced himself

and waited. He put one eye around the tree.

Before him, shadows moved in shadows. He raised

his rifle and the line fired with him in a splurge

of flame and smoke. He tore a cartridge and loaded,

waiting, his hearing blunted, and just as he

was about to rise and move with others springing

forward, above his head a volley scythed

41

chest high. He heard men scream and groan. Smoke boiled

through the wood, and musket racket rose and sputtered.

Again they waited. Officers conferred, adjusted

the line and ordered them forward.

“Two hundred yards,

men, two hundred yards!” A captain cried.

“Go forward, Georgia!” The line surged, his heart

surged, musket fire slackened, receding

ahead of them, thickets and brier patches thinning

out, sunlight shafting between the tree trunks,

racing through green leaf smells and acrid smoke,

pace and pulse throb gathering momentum, the mind

equating the drive with diminished fire, the ironic,

irrational notion that hurling oneself headlong

into peril was the only way to neutralize peril,

the manic action leading the mind away,

leading away the conscience, judgments, exactitudes,

a crooning Rebel yell spurring his feet,

and despite himself, beyond his reckoning, he caught

the taste and savored it, felt the caress of her hands,

swift brush of her wings, felt he were charging

a precipice, that he would step over that verge into bodiless

air willingly with absolute faith he would rise.

The line of soldiers burst from under a margin

of branches to an open swale and dazzling light.

On a rise ahead, a house with columned porches

billowed flame, and smoke disgorged from a gaping

hole in the roof. A tumult rose on the left,

at the farthest reach of a hundred acre clearing,

rolling in crests and troughs through the line of infantry.

“What is it?” he asked, going from one to another.

A soldier, begrimed, his teeth white, … said,

“The wings of the army has met—Lee’s has met

42

with Jackson’s corps! The danger is over now,

friend, and trouble for Yankees is gwine to commence.”

Now the shouting like a mighty wind redounded

to a place behind him, swelling jubilantly. A horse,

winter gray with storm cloud mane, stepped

a canter up the rise toward Chancellor Mansion.

The rider sat erect and solemn, his frock

plain, his only insignia three inconspicuous

stars high on the collar, his broad-brimmed, straw hat

level above his eyes, his only weapon,

opera glasses, slung across his shoulder.

As Traveler approached, the crowd of soldiers parted,

hands waving, hats leaping in air, two walls of water

divided and held erect by ancient miracle.

The prostrate wounded gathered strength to prop

an elbow and watch him pass, hoarse with cheers.

He gained the rise of ground and presented himself

in tableau with ruination of the manse, and lifted

his hat. Garland was close enough to see

the hoarfrost beard cropped close, the face revealing

no exuberance of emotion, in spite of victory

and hysterical adoration. His eyes impressed him,

their pathos and humility. He received this praise as a man

might take the sacrament in uncomprehending awe.

He overheard the conference of an officer nearby,

“It must have been thus in ancient times that men,

by deeds, attained to the very dignity of gods,”

the gauntleted hand grasping a saber hilt,

his blouse brand new, no speck of mud on his boots.

He looks the sort who’d like to be a god.

A courier rode up, his horse’s shoes gouging

black earth, and passed a note to an aide and only

then did he notice that General Lee was attended.

The aide perused the note and handed it over.

43

Lee’s face altered and his gray eyes roved, searching

the wilderness’s deciduous shadows. The hand holding

the note hung straight at his side for a moment. He turned,

dictated an answer, and began giving orders, no doubt

for a rapid realignment and advance. Hooker was trapped

between the coiling Rappahannock and the Rebels,

and Lee was bearing down, poised for the kill.

Garland longed for the kill to happen, do

the thing and go home, but that night the Federal Army

slipped across the river; the Yankees were safe.

They would fight another day. The Rebels marched back

to Fredericksburg, returning to winter quarters.

Never would he have thought a piss-poor, sod-lined

hearth would appear so welcome to his weary heart.

SDVSD By Leonard Kogan

45

KITCHEN SESTINA By Michelle Chen

The burning crockery pot shrivels

White shreds of pomegranate pith

Like the insides of open eggs.

Yellowed tombstone teeth of maize

Punch, one by one, out of their roots

And freefall under your pinwheel eye.

Dear, hunger wedges in your eye.

The flambé shrivels

The ends of your grotty hair, broiling their oily roots.

You reflect in the juice of onion pith

And the greening of old maize.

Sizzling oil covers the sleeping eggs.

Crescent violets slice in your palms, cupping eggs

Of heavy gold, golden in the milky eye,

The runny yellows inside seeds of maize.

Your gaze swings and shrivels

The underbellies of pans, eyes’ white pith,

Lonely beside seared burdock roots.

Morning steam knits and rolls, roots

Breaking, bubbling gas like eggs.

You smudge the lilies on your apron with red pith

Juiced and wrung from dimpled meat, stew bowl a brimming eye.

The boiling rawness cooks and shrivels,

Your flushed heart tendering a thousand fields of maize.

I was little your teeth were already showing grains of maize

In the sunshowers, traced in the creases of our palms, those roots.

Once the bees landed in your hair three dove in deathless shrivels,

And died on our arms in minutes, bodies torn like eggs.

46

The poison caramelized your cupped eye,

And for weeks, we clawed the skin from our pith.

Now home for years, your knife sieves citrus pith,

Juice stains spreading August motifs on maize.

The satchel on your hip weaves asbestos in your eye,

Mirrored in stainless steel and wild yam roots.

Dear, you were born as startling as eggs

And as swift as October stalk shrivels.

When hungering pith dives and shrivels,

Your eye burns with the guts of tenement eggs

And maize eats air like monsoon roots.

47

INTERVIEW WITH POET MICHELLE CHEN Winner of The Critical Pass Review’s 2015 Critical Junior Poet’s Award Contest Winning Entries: “Girl” (on page 9) and “Kitchen Sestina” (on page 45)

Q: Tell us a bit about yourself; who is Michelle Chen? What are your interests?

A: Well, I’m fifteen and I go to Hunter College High School

in New York City, though my birthplace is Singapore. I

love paper mail, warm zephyrs, fried noodles, and I’ve had

infatuations over the years with dancing, fencing, bowling,

swimming, and playing the piano. I’m a devoted fan

of The Legend of Korra and Avatar: The Last Airbender TV

shows. I also can’t get enough of Fall Out

Boy and Marina and the Diamonds on my earphones. I’m a

very quiet person and don’t have a lot of friends who aren’t

adults, so I naturally gravitated to the written word to

express myself. Because writing is such an essential part of

my identity, I’ve been entering the Scholastic

Art and Writing Awards ever since I was old enough to do

so, and I’ve been honored regionally and nationally. I’ve

performed slam poetry at Lincoln Center and created a

Submittable account that has become increasingly Kafkaesque after a ton of submissions. [In

May], I read at the City College of New York after winning first prize in the citywide, high

school poetry competition see the included photo of me at the event… It’s been an

exciting and healing year for me after some troubling things that happened to me

in the past, and I can’t wait to pursue my passions throughout the future.

Q: If you could meet three poets (alive or deceased), who would they be and why?

A: Three poets? I’d have to say Sylvia Plath, Monica Youn, and Gaius Valerius Catullus. I

only recently began reading poetry widely, and I’d say that my interests are very diverse if I

stumble upon a poem that I like, it doesn’t matter if it’s classic or contemporary. Plath won the

Pulitzer Prize posthumously in 1982 for The Collected Poems. Many people are familiar with

her tragic life, but I believe that she deserves the fame simply for her poignant poetry. Her use

of imagery startles and stuns me even after several reads, and I manage to discover new

emotions every time. She’s a master of human connection. I recently read Monica Youn’s

Ignatz, which was a finalist for the National Book Award. Her poetry’s truly one of the most

unique and revelatory things I’ve ever read, and as an Asian-American myself, with a shortage

of Asian-American poets to [whose success to] aspire…, she makes me believe that I can

actually do it. With Catullus, well, I’ve begun reading his poetry in Latin class at school, and

very little is known about him besides what has been extracted from his surviving poetry. The

48

idea of an entire persona only known from writing fascinates me, and I can’t help but wonder

if his work truly represents who he was. His poetry is often witty and I feel that it’s one of the

best and earliest accounts of love and personal struggle.

Q: What excites you about poetry; what keeps you interested?

A: To me, poetry is exhilarating, and I’ve been lucky enough to have a group of teachers who

are as equally devoted... There’s no limit to how much anyone can read or write, so there’s a

constant influx of new poetry in the world. Time after time, I’ve… read new poems that

simply astonish me there’s a definite level of how good a certain turn of phrase is. You can

just feel it in your gut with their unique perspectives on the world. It’s this continuous

renewing and reshaping of poetry that gives me courage and motivation. Also, competitions

and submissions are crucial to sustaining my poetry production, so I usually spend some time

looking for contests and reading through literary journals to up my interest.

Q: What is your poetic process? Do you employ any techniques in arriving at the concept for a poem?

A: The only technique I can think of is simply experiencing everyday life to the fullest. That

and looking up the most interesting facts… [of which] you can conceive... I don’t believe in

only writing about what you know because I never think I know anything. Both Girl and

Kitchen Sestina are about very realistic sequences of events that I have never personally

experienced. Poetry grants me this lens into any number of perspectives… [of which] I can

think… I usually employ the information I’ve absorbed, both through imagination and

researching… facts, in order to live through another’s mind. From there, it’s just elbow grease.

Q: Do you have any tips or advice for poets or writers in general?

A: Read widely. Submit. Put yourself out there and someone, somewhere, will respond.

Q: What are some of your goals and/or plans for the future (including your goals as a writer)?

A: Well, I recently got accepted into the Juniper Institute for Young Writers at Amherst and

the Iowa Young Writers’ Studio. I probably won’t be able to afford Iowa, but I did get a full

scholarship from the Scholastic ASAP awards to Juniper, so I’ll be definitely going there this

summer. I’m also looking forward to submitting and improving my writing. In the future, I

won’t have to fib about my age to submit to adult poetry contests, though I should probably

just focus on that coveted Scholastic National Gold Medal for now. I hope that I’ll survive

junior year and being old enough to drive. I’ve… planned to write a novel from the age of

eight, so I’m hoping I’ll accomplish that, or at least give it a fair try. I’m hoping to impress…

my English teachers… [by getting] into a good college. Living in New York City, I’ve

discovered this year that poetry is very much alive in certain circles, and as a writer, I’m

hoping that I’ll be as brave as I was this year in exploring these realms.

CONTEMPLATION By Alina Peng

50

SWAMP WATER BOY

By Sarah Mitchell-Jackson

She was alone. She was always alone. While this provided her with

plenty of time to think and reflect on the world, other people and life, it was

inconvenient when it came to taking holidays. This was why she found

herself on an organised tour out to one of the islands that was not actually

inhabited.

It had been a long academic term. Losing little Mike Skinner had been

the point from which she didn’t think she could recover, but she had dealt

with the assembly without breaking down herself and her closest colleagues

had praised her fortitude and the gentle way she had told the other children.

For many, it was their first experience of death, so she was relieved to have

handled it well. She had dealt sympathetically, gently, with the stone-faced

Mr. Skinner and the watery Mrs. Skinner – it had been her idea to give them

as much of Mike’s work as his teachers could find. As a school, they had

offered counselling for the staff, but there was a general attitude of stiff

Englishness about it and she had been the only person to sign up, partly

because she thought that they should be seen to be making some effort to

behave as the outside agencies expected.

She tried not to feel awkward as the tour group collected by the pick-

up point outside the airport. Inevitably, there were couples of all ages.

Sometimes, it seemed to her as though the whole world had paired off,

leaving no one, apart from her, un-twinned. At these times, she tried very

hard not to feel sorry for herself.

She didn’t really envy them. She liked her life – in which there was no

one else to control her. She was the authority at work, a responsibility she

bore with seriousness and kindness. She had dispensed with anger – it was a

blunt and often ineffective tool – and she had noted that over the years, the

other staff had grown more like her, until the whole school was a calm place

to work. She didn’t have to cater for anyone else at home either, so her house

– with its neat femininity – reflected perfectly her own studious and aesthetic

51

sense. She had plenty of time to work on her yoga and tend to her garden

and read all manner of novels so that she was always up to date. All this

pleased her. It was just the holidays that she found difficult and, even then, it

was only the difficulty of going away and not having anyone with whom to

go away.

She sat next to an elderly lady in the coach – small and bird-like and

frail. Mari realised with a little internal jolt that for all the lady’s frailty, she

was probably not that many years older than Mari. It was just that no one

could guess at Mari’s age, because she insisted upon taking such good care of

herself.

The ferry port was tiny. The floating hut that they called a ferry was

alarmingly rudimentary, but Mari took this all in her stride, giving away none

of her own discomfort. She listened attentively to a guide giving a careful

description of the island in formal language that was amusingly flowery and

foreign-sounding even in its accuracy. She looked dutifully at the stone slabs

protruding like newly cut teeth from the gummy, grassed surrounds, trying

to imagine them as they might once have been long ago as a temple or fort or

house. Her concentration was failing her and the colour of the sky was

alluringly blue – she could feel her eyes being drawn up into it and her

thoughts being drawn away from the accented speech of the official tour

guide.

At lunchtime, they were encouraged to explore on their own.

“The island, it is not very large. You will have no fear of getting lost on

it yourself,” the guide assured them. “Enjoy – for today, the island is yours.”

It was the least awkward time for Mari and she felt her freedom like

relief. The tension of being alone in a group of about thirty people troubled

her, made her feel somehow less whole. She took herself off swiftly, past the

line of bulbous trees and beyond.

Soon the path, which had needed to narrow to circumnavigate the

trees, opened out before her stretching with a brilliant green, the perfect

companion to the stretch of royal blue that was the sky. She felt as though she

had been transported into one of the children’s drawings with their over-

52

reliance on the primary colours that felt tip pens could afford. For children,

there was little of the gradations of colour which seemed to make up Mari’s

own mind.

It was refreshing, as though she had regressed to a simpler time.

Out, beyond the trees, she couldn’t even hear the chatter of the others

on the tour. She felt, deliciously, as though she was completely alone.

It was as she was sitting on a small protuberance of stone and

unpacking the lunch the hotel had provided that she saw the boy. He was

small and she warmed instantly to the neat, careful way that he walked

towards her over the lumpy ground. She was puzzled to see him, because

there hadn’t been any children on her tour and she knew the island to be

uninhabited. However, she had seen, when they first arrived, that they were

not far from the mainland or a variety of other small islands which seemed to

dot this area of ocean. The small boy stopped in front of her, just a few feet

away. Looking carefully at him, Mari was able to estimate that he was about

seven years old. Naturally, from working in a school, she was adept at

guessing children’s ages. In fact, she often used the skill as a sort of party

trick.

“Hello,” she said, using her best professional voice and smiling just

enough to seem inviting. “How are you enjoying your trip to the island?”

He said nothing in response and his face did not change. He just went

on looking at her with the large greyness of his eyes.

Not English, then, she thought, although his clothes would not have

been out of place on a non-uniform day in her own school.

“Bonjour, est-ce que tu aime l’isle?” Again, there was nothing in

response from the boy, except that he shuffled just a little bit closer with his

trainers squeaking as they rubbed together. Mari smiled again, more broadly

this time, and scanned the area for signs of his family. Her eyes just brought

her back images of green and blue and she could feel the hot sun beating

down on the backs of her arms.

53

“Dónde está mama?” Mari said, as her Spanish failed her and she was

forced to ask less and less precise and prosaic questions as she moved her

way through Greek and German.

Mari didn’t know what more she could do. The boy clearly didn’t

understand her. She was getting hungry and unsettled by his unspeaking

proximity, so she slapped the stone next to her with the flat of her hand and

offered the boy half of her sandwich. He looked at her carefully before

perching near her and taking the food from her hand. Side by side, he did not

look at her.

After lunch, Mari beckoned the boy back with her through the trees to

where she was due to meet the others. As they emerged from the other side,

Mari could see that only a few people were gathered together. She felt

awkward and looked down at the boy to see if he would dart off to meet

anyone without her having to intervene on his behalf. She was more and

more convinced that the boy had never been a part of her group, not least

because they all spoke English.

“Hi,” she said to a white-haired couple both dressed alike in beige

trousers and white shirts. “Did you see this little boy with anyone when we

came over on the ferry?” Two pairs of pale blue eyes regarded her vaguely

and they too did not speak.

“Okay, not to worry,” Mari said, prickling a little at their rudeness.

She moved on to the woman with chestnut hair and her curly-haired

daughter.

“Hello, this young man joined me for lunch, but he doesn’t speak

English and I don’t know who he belongs to. Did you see him with us on the

way over?” The woman cleared her throat and the girl rolled her large, black

eyes and then peered demurely at the boy from beneath her long eyelashes.

Feeling frustrated, she looked down at the boy who looked back at her

– the grey of his eyes seeming sad now and maybe a little frightened.

“It’s okay,” she said to him, aware that he wouldn’t understand her

words, but hoping to hit on just the right tone to soothe him. “We’ll find out

where you belong.” It was as she was contemplating breaking into

54

conversation with the tall blond family that the little boy took her hand. She

looked down at him again and smiled, and that was when he began to tug at

her.

“Okay, I’ll come with you. We’re supposed to be all joining up here,

but I can come with you,” she said to him, as he pulled her gently back

through the trees, towards the place where they had eaten lunch.

As soon as they were out from the tangle of trees, Mari could see the

stone on which they had sat to eat lunch. They didn’t stop there, though, the

boy continued walking, still pulling at her with a mild tension between their

two arms, both outstretched.

“Where are we going?” she asked him, even though she knew he

would not be able to understand her anymore than he had before, but

somehow it seemed right to keep talking, to fill the warm silence that

surrounded them. Soon, they were over a small ridge of land. To their left,

Mari could see swampy patches in the grass and she marvelled that the

ground could be so wet while the air and day were so hot. To their right,

Mari could see the way the land had been eaten away in a sheer drop. They

were standing on a cliff, looking out over the sea, which rose in peaks as the

wind skimmed across the surface. They were more exposed here, than they

had been in the basin of land where they had eaten lunch and, while the air

was still warm, the breeze had a refreshing edge to it.

He started to run, then, to their left, towards the swampy ground and

Mari had to drop his grip so that he would not drag her into the soft, watery

land. He continued running and Mari watched as waves set themselves up in

the marshy places, giving to the rhythm of his run.

“Be careful,” she called after him, scanning the area again for some

sign of to whom he might belong. But he ran on. Then, just as suddenly as he

had started, he stopped and bopped down, looking into the water and

playing across the surface with his hand.

“What are you doing?” Mari asked, stepping carefully over the tufts of

grass and feeling the squelch of her trainers as thin, muddy water filled them.

“Yuck,” she said. “I don’t know if you should play in that. It doesn’t look

55

very clean.” The boy looked up at her, the ghost of a smile playing around

the corners of his mouth. He scooped up a handful of swamp water and

lifted it to his lips.

“Don’t drink it!” Mari said, louder than she had intended in her alarm.

The boy just peered at her steadily over his tipping palm. “Oh, dear. Oh no.

Let’s get you out of here,” Mari said, taking the boy firmly by the wrist and

glancing around again for anyone who could claim him. “You can’t just go

around drinking any water you find. It’s not safe. It’s not safe to drink from

a swamp,” she said, her voice becoming quieter with each word, as she

realised that there was no way he would understand any of it.

When they were out of the swamp she let go of the boy’s wrist and he

looked up at her, quite happily, as though he had not minded her leading him

away, as though he was not frightened at her distress, as though they were

still friends.

“I don’t know what to do with you,” she said, feeling panic rise in her.

“I’m going to have to leave with the rest of the group, but I don’t know what

we should do with you.” They were walking back over the brow of the hill

and suddenly he ran from her, dropping down over the brink. When she, too,

stood on the brow, she expected to see him down near the stone where they

had sat for lunch, but she could see no one. In the basin of the land, nothing

moved.

***

Her conscience nagged at her all the way back on the ferry. Until the

island was out of sight, she stared at it, wondering if she would see the boy

again, wondering if she had done the right thing, just leaving him, when he

seemed not to belong to anyone.

That night, Mari slept badly, dreaming vividly of the boy and waking

often, until she felt as though she were merely bobbing along on a thin wave

of unconsciousness which could shatter without warning.

As soon as dawn broke, she was up and out. Without having to make

the plan, the idea to take the same tour back over to the island gripped her

56

like it was a compulsion. She had to wait hours for the tour to start and sat,

drinking coffee. On the ferry, she found a guide and quizzed him mercilessly

for the twenty minutes or so that the journey took.

“Tell me the history,” she said, as though she were a reporter, as

though he were one of the lecturers she had worked with while at University

all those years ago.

“The isle is locally important in legends. The story has it that the

island, so quiet, so empty of people like you and me, is indeed inhabited, but

inhabited by spirits.” Mari smiled her disbelieving smile.

“But people lived there once?” she asked. “And there are tours like

this one everyday?”

“Oh, yes. Oh, yes,” she was assured quickly. “No one would sleep

here, though, with all the stories that local legend would have us believe,”

said the guide. “You and I are educated people,” he said, seeing her smile.

“We do not believe, but there is no accounting for others. They hear the

whistling of the wind as it swarms over the contours of the isle and they say

they are hearing the voices of spirits, spirits so unsettled that they cannot

rest.”

“Yes,” she said, watching the land approach the ferry with exhilarating

speed. “It is like you said, just the wind over the contours of the land.”

As quickly as she reasonably could, Mari broke away from the rest of

the group, standing apart from them and keeping up a constant scan of the

area. She realised she was looking for the boy.

He could have come on a private boat and left the same way, she thought,

when she did not see him. Someone had brought him and someone took him home.

At lunchtime, when invited to enjoy the solitude of the island, she cut

once more through the trees to the stone where she had eaten lunch with the

boy the previous day. In the hollow of land, there was no one and nothing

moved. She climbed to the brow of the hill and looked out towards the cliff

and then over toward the swampy ground. It was there that she saw two

small figures.

57

She climbed down, finding her way carefully over the tufted and

uneven ground. As she approached, she could see that one of the small

figures was that of the boy and the other was a little girl, smaller and

probably younger.

“Hello,” she called as she came closer, and the boy and the girl stood

up from where they had been squatting and waited for her to approach. “So

you came back again today?” she asked. “And so did I,” she explained, as her

eyes took in this new child. She looked to be a few years younger – 5 years

old, Mari guessed. The two were obviously related, because they looked so

much alike.

“Hello,” said the boy and Mari felt unbalanced, as though the world

spun for a moment around her. “We were playing in the swamp,” he said.

“I didn’t know you could talk to me. I didn’t know, yesterday, that

you could understand me,” Mari said to him, in a tone she hoped did not

sound cross.

“I could,” he smiled and his eyes with their solemn grey squashed to

an amused point at the edges. “And then you spoke to me in all those

languages and I thought you were a spirit.”

“A spirit?” Mari asked, thinking back to the guide’s tale.

“Spirits,” he shrugged, and she had a tender feeling as she watched his

small shoulders rise and fall in the manly gesture. He dropped to his knees in

the mud, working his hands in the thin brownness of the water around him

and the girl, a moment later, did the same. “They are everywhere. I can hear

them. We can hear them,” he corrected himself with a little glance at the girl

who looked into his face at the same time. “The strange noises are the

spirits,” he said, and Mari instantly thought of Caliban’s speech in the

Tempest.

“Is this your sister?” she asked, and the boy and girl nodded in unison,

their unsmiling grey eyes fixed upon Mari’s face. “And who did you come

with? Where are your parents?” but they did not respond and Mari had the

sudden sense that her words had been carried from her on the gust of wind

that muffled her face for a moment.

58

“Have you got mud on your knees?” she asked instead. “I think you

should come out of the swamp.” The boy lifted his head from where it had

been bent to his play and studied her face carefully, as though looking for

signs of anger or distress and, maybe seeing none there, returned to splash his

hands in the muddy water.

“You need to drink this,” he said after a while and both the children

watched Mari as he cupped his hand full of the dirty water and offered it up

to Mari.

“I hardly think I would after telling you not to. I know you don’t have

to listen to me, but I run a school so I do know the things that children should

not do and why they should not drink any old water that they find. It could

make your tummy hurt. It could make you sick.”

“But it will keep you safe,” he said with perfect seriousness. “It will

keep you safe on the island.”

Mari sighed and glanced behind her and, as she did so, she noticed

that the day was thickening into night around them.

“My tour!” she exclaimed. “I must go. What will you do?” she asked

the children, but they just went on watching her as she hurried as carefully as

she could back to the line of trees. When she had got to the other side, she

found no one and nothing. The ferry had gone back to the mainland without

her. “Bother,” she said to no one as she looked around herself at the

gathering gloom and made her way back through the trees to the children.

“They left, didn’t they?” asked the boy when she returned and, feeling

defeated, Mari nodded. “Drink this, then,” the boy said again, holding forth

his hands. Mari shook her head. She was looking past him to the small storm

she could see, swelling in the bay below the cliffs. Suddenly, she felt worried,

although she did not signal this to the children.

She picked her way back over the swampy ground to the cliff edge,

where she could see the tide flooding the rest of the sandy bay beneath her.

“Don’t worry,” said the boy, who had come to stand at her elbow and

look over the cliff as she did. He looked up at her and took her hand in his.

“It will be fine. You can sleep on the island with Rissa and me. We often do

59

it. It will just be like camping, but without a tent.” Mari smiled at his

kindness for it spoke volumes about the way he had been raised.

The little girl joined them on the brink of the cliff and Mari had a

sudden impulse to pull them both from the edge.

“We’re too close,” she said and took two paces backwards. The

children looked at her with their same plain expressions and serious grey

eyes.

“There’s just one thing,” the boy said, glancing quickly at his sister at

just the time that his sister glanced quickly at him. “You must drink the

swamp water.” Mari could feel her face frown. “It will keep you safe from

the spirits,” the boy said. Mari felt she could tell that he believed his own

words. Against her better judgements – against drinking dirty water and

against being seen to believe in spirits – she acquiesced.

***

When she woke to daylight, she was upon the sandy beach, with the

cliff they had stood on the night before, high above her head. She could not

remember how she had come to be where she lay. She sat up, slowly, testing

her aged limbs and finding none of the cramp she expected. In her tangled

hair, her fingers met with seaweed and, rubbing her face, she found her skin

under a thin film of sand. The tide was out, further out than she had seen it

before. Sand stretched for miles, to the point where there was almost a

golden path between the island and the mainland.

At this time of the morning, she thought, we don’t need the ferry.

She looked over her head to the cliff. There was no sign of the boy, but

Mari could see the girl standing above her. She was there, unmoving, as Mari

waved, and then she stood still for the time, it took Mari to climb up, using

tufts of grass as footholds and pulling at roots with her hands.

“Good morning,” she said to the silent girl, as she brushed the dirt and

sand from her palms. “Where’s…?” she started to ask, before she realised

that she knew not the boy’s name.

60

The girl said nothing, but Mari followed her gaze down to the beach

from which she had just clambered. The girl was watching some dark shape

lolling in the water, being lulled to and fro on the gentleness of the waves.

With the sand stretched before her, Mari realised that the dark, bobbing shape

must be quite a distance away.

“Is that him?” Mari asked the girl, her voice high with panic. “Is that

the boy out there in the sea?” The girl remained silent and impassive, staring

out towards the water and Mari had a sudden, lurching sense that she seemed

not to be real.

With fear rising in her, as the tide had risen the night before, Mari

scrambled down the cliff again, slipping and falling in places, but never

coming to serious harm. She ran across the beach, grateful for the solidity of

the wet sand, until she came to the gentleness of the water’s edge. From

there, squinting her eyes, she could see that the dark, floating shape was

probably a body.

Mari started to wade out to the shape, for there was a shelf of sand and

the water was not as deep as she had first thought. She reached his body and

pulled at his clothes. She closed him in against her body, rocking him

carefully as the sea had, holding him tightly as the gulls circled overhead.

RA By Otto Valenzuela

EPIPHANY By Joyce Aspen

Foggedclarity.com. Web. Winter 2014. 63

PLUM SUMMER By Stephen Massimilla

Black horses have a deep blue tint

To their eyes;

In the plum-dark night

They hang in the depths of sleep;

And like the sheen of an equine haunch,

The fruit’s black skin magnetizes touch, misted

Veil of questions broken

By the press of my thumb.

I would bite

Into this sweet, cool planet, red coal

Within, right down

To the hard grooved stone

Through flesh as dense

As the gallop of blood in the lungs, pulse

Of the heart

Within the heart, here under fetlock

And throat-latch of the Horsehead

Nebula—celestial, sanguinary,

All thirst and murmur

To savor, rivering the tongue, parting

Lips too absorbed to ask,

While consuming the universe,

Do I dare?

WORM By Duane Locke

65

IN THE COTTON

By Fred Dale

We catch momentarily in the horned structure of our passage,

oblivious to our desires and the ideas of the carrying fluids,

a needed rest before the bloom, a time to think on our first

lives, the ones that don’t count against us. We are told

through the cord how our skin, crimped in birth, will relax

to the sweetness of long nails on cheeks, coaxing us back

into trances that priests envy, lingering inches above their

doctrines, the sleepy sunlight caught in the stained glass

of baptism. They say we’ll have many faces to live within,

like row houses, each shape showing a decade’s worth

of learning, places where bones will eventually call back

the skin to its own origin, lash-like creases to speak out

for us our forgotten births. In kindness of age, we return,

a powdered light rising through us, making us soft again,

long after our mothers. As for him, capped handsomely

by white grey hair to the end, a ring of dark red stone

and a wedding band, each a finger’s son, his skin’s river

sleeping above its tolling current, he waits. Dying is not

easy. Salmon show us why. The hospice nurse looked

across the miles of him, out to the morning light feeding

the backyard and the birds giving up on the usual crusts

from his waking hand, offering back, instead, songs for

him to pack away. She said, Come now. We must change

him. But there were no women to assist her. Where were

they, the aunts, the friends, the wife who knew the hidden

territory of their marriage—just out of range? Love said

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to me, Help her help him. You will see him as if for the first

time. You are fortunate for the privilege of this comfort.

She unswaddled him, pulling back the blanket on one side,

and he might as well have been on a mountain, or a tooth

in the cotton, his cord off to the side, asleep before the man,

his skin nearly new, its light distinguishing the way.

There is no secret to our sadness. Life lets us go, beautifully,

our bodies becoming, again, displayable without shame,

our living falling right off.

THE VELVET BURGEONING By Joyce Aspen

RESCUING A PAINTING FROM

THE TRASH By Stephen Mead

69

SPANGLE OF QUAFE

By Jon Pearson

Words grew tired of describing things. A donkey named Sally wished harder

and harder against the fencepost with her nose, smelling the sunlight right out of the

wood, while the spent side of the pocked moon yearned to count something, anything,

out of an urge impossible to explain. Summer tasted by in overly small boredoms and

felt lovely and hollow, like a balloon on a string in the sticky hand of the world’s oldest

child, who felt wordlessly that a wolf or a spider might live in the wet dark of his throat,

else how else would he wish to speak, but not know what to say? The earth opened its

ancient frog eyes, and everywhere was the green flower stem of a mother’s love—after

the war. The world was weary of words.

Plus, there was more to say than words could say. The wanting that lay behind

or beneath words felt delinquent and reckless, and often when the words did come, they

felt naked and a bit ashamed, like a little boy in wool shorts and Sunday shoes called

forth to recite for the grownups. “Hammer,” that simple, long-ago word, might wish to

mean “light and airy,” but no, it means “hammer.” A horse cantering in the fields

might wish, mid-gallop, to turn into a sweet-smelling rack of ladies’ coats and dresses

in the cool dark of a closet, but no, it is forever a “horse,” just a horse. Definitions pull

things in and down on themselves like gravity, though a flock of geese might secretly be

a “spangle of quafe” and feel a virgin “ebulgence” verging on patriotism. “War,” that

famous word, might simply mean “to be wanted” or at the very least to flash a pricey

pair of earrings and always be ten minutes late.

“Aveck le swah de vee le mon de sanh le twah awhnn sahn nay saa…” might even be

French, but why quibble? Words feel used. “Butterfly” was originally “flutter by.”

And “butterscotch?” What’s with that? There is a certain wanting in the breast that,

after death, keeps walking down a dirt road, barefoot, and the road knows it is barefoot,

though no one else does. Words yearn to say unsayable things in undeniable ways: like

a pretty woman eating a doughnut. What’s to be said? What can be said? A man

70

watches her from across the café, wanting her, though he doesn’t know her. How like a

cat she is: the mouth, the teeth, the hidden tail. Once, the man had a cat, how it moved

like butter. Butter? Is that the word? There are things that can’t be said, shouldn’t be

said, weren’t said, and can never be taken back.

The lady eats the doughnut with her mouth, which, turns out, is a hundred things:

including a red fire engine with gold numbers on the side, fancy and glossy and driven

by pure white doves that sleep head-to-foot at the fire station in the heart of the heart of

all women, which must be one single, continuous heart that does not so much “beat” as

sink into the inherent—inherent what? Ah, but words are tired, tired of describing.

Instead, I remember my fiancée’s smile. We were sitting at the glass table in her

apartment, talking. We had just met. Her smile was terrifyingly beautiful, the sort of

beautiful that could kill me and, once I was dead, make me live forever, headless maybe

and wandering a dirt road, barefoot, or maybe I would become a hundred-year-old

moth. I sat before the church of her face, the synagogue. She is Jewish. She was talking

about something, but I was dreaming of being a molecule living in the dark corners of

her mouth, the little caves, sucking all the saliva out of her until there was nothing,

nothing left at all. Ah, the woman mystery, for which there will never be words enough.

There I was, seeing and knowing things much greater than my tiny mothly head.

REFLECTION By Alina Peng

72

DELENDA EST

By Alexander Beisel

Jim introduced them to the game eight years ago. When they were kids, really.

And ever since, Adam and Nate had done their best to beat him at it. The tradition was

older than Elise and Jim’s marriage. She’d never take that away from him.

“What’s it called?” Elise hated the game.

“You know what it’s called,” Jim said.

“I can never say it right.” She hated that he had something like this.

“Casus Belli. It’s Latin—an act of war.”

Elise watched as Jim unfurled a map across the kitchen table. He smoothed the

folds with the palms of his hands. He’d made it himself. Every location rendered in

perfect detail. Each line drawn out with a nib-pen. Black and red ink. He’d used cold-

press paper and stained it sepia with teabags. Burned the edges. It was systematically

destroyed to make it perfect.

“Map looks nice.” Elise had showed him how. She was the artist. She didn’t

expect it to look so nice. Jim always ignored her expertise, but with this, he’d followed

her advice to the letter. It looked real. Something you’d see in a museum.

Jim didn’t answer her. He centered the map under the kitchen light. When it

was just so, he placed a twenty-sided die at each corner. Elise picked one up and rolled

it across the map. Jim snatched it before it landed on a clean facing.

“You said you didn’t want to play.” Jim leaned on the table and turned to her.

He’d make this face at her. Purse his lips and shift his eyes to the ceiling. She thought it

was cute before she learned to translate it: I love you, but you’re pissing me off.

“I don’t want to play.” Elise hated that face now. She hated that her husband

could put so much effort into something so fleeting. It was a game—little figures and

dice and him, a grown man. He’d take off work and set aside a weekend a month to

play it. Adam and Nate did too. She hated those two. She hated that once a month

Adam and Nate took over her home. They stole her house and her quiet and her

husband, but that wasn’t true. Jim gave himself to it: to them, to this stupid game.

73

“Okay then,” Jim said. “Then let us play.”

“I just don’t understand it. What’s the point?” she asked.

“The point is to conquer, Elise.” Jim threw a handful of dice across the table. He

smiled at the result. It meant nothing to her. She’d seen empires forged by snake-eyes

and armies routed by boxcars.

“How? It’s just a bunch of little figures and dice.” Elise tried to disguise her

curiosity. She’d played before. Before they were married. She didn’t understand it

then. She didn’t hate it then either.

“Look, you’ve played before.” Jim motioned to his miniature infantry line. “Each

player plays a general from history—I’m Marcus Atilius Regulus, Adam is Xanthippus,

and Nate is Hiero II.” He said the names like they were family members, as though

she’d remember them from her wedding. Their wedding.

“Each player has an army,” Jim continued, “and you fight it out—”

“But they don’t actually fight—you just roll dice!” She laughed.

“Yeah, and the hat token in monopoly doesn’t actually buy Boardwalk.” Jim said.

I love you but you’re pissing me off. “It’s a game and it’s fun and you said you didn’t want

to play.”

“I don’t.”

The doorbell rang.

“That’s them!” Jim shot up from the table.

Elise stayed in the kitchen. Her husband’s toys were all set in rank and file.

They were little Romans. Painted soldiers all posed like they were in the fray of some

important battle. She looked for the two she’d painted for him. She couldn’t find them.

He left the rulebook in his empty chair. It was open. There were numbers and charts.

Words that she didn’t understand. The opposite page was a splash-frame of Julius

Caesar. Beneath it, a quote.

In war, events of importance are the result of trivial causes.

Just like the game, she thought. No matter what you “conquer,” it all goes back

in the box. She could hear Jim answering the door.

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“Fella’s! Welcome—welcome.” Jim held the door open and let Nate and Adam

pass into the kitchen. They each wore backpacks and carried stacked boxes they kept in

place under their chins. They set their things down carefully. The kitchen looked like

army camp now.

“Hey guys.” Elise hated Nate and Adam.

“Elise! How are you?” Nate was Jim’s best man at their wedding. Whenever he

could, he’d speak only in movie quotes. At their wedding, Nate explained to the DJ

“I’m The Dude—so that’s what you call me. That or His Dudeness or Duder or el

Duderino, if you’re not into the whole brevity thing.” Jim would laugh. He always

seemed to know the movie.

“Elise—you look great!” Adam was their officiant. She thought she’d like him

when Jim told her he was a minister, but an interfaith minister. When Jim first

introduced them, Adam told her “excommunicates, homos, trannies, I’ll marry anyone

the church won’t.” And then he laughed.

There was a life before her, Elise knew. And she couldn’t be a part of it. Never

would be.

Jim walked slowly back into the kitchen.

“Take a look at that map, fellas,” he said. Adam and Nate were careful not to

touch anything. They didn’t pick up the twenty-sided dice. They didn’t move it from

the light. How’d they know not to touch it?

“This is fucking unbelievable!” Adam said.

“Really ties the room together.”

“Yup—don’t mind the sepia—it’s all going to be red by the end of this.” Jim

smiled. Adam and Nate scoffed. She didn’t think people really did that.

“Red like…blood?” she asked.

The three of them turned.

“No. Like Rome,” Jim answered, as if it were obvious.

Jim offered each of them a beer. They accepted and began unpacking their

things. Jim stayed with his coffee.

75

Elise watched as Adam and Nate opened their respective kits. Egg crate foam

swaddled hundreds of little toy soldiers. They had rulers and protractors and dice.

Their backpacks were stuffed with books marked Casus Belli.

“Did you guys bring any clothes?” Elise asked. Nate set a miniature chariot on

the table and moved it slightly to the left.

“Clothes?” He moved it back, deciding it was fine where it was. Adam

answered in a way the other two seemed to accept readily.

“What for?” he asked. “Are we going out?” He pulled a foam sheet from his box.

There was something underneath it. “Oh! Did I send you guys the pictures of this?” It

was a miniature war-elephant complete with a turret and archers. He held it under the

light for them to examine. Jim and Nate marveled at it.

“Holy shit, man! That’s amazing!”

“Really nice, Dude.”

Jim took it carefully from Adam.

“Shit—you even painted the archer’s eyes?” Jim was stunned.

“How long did that take?” Nate was impressed.

“Not too long, actually.” Adam was lying. She could tell just by looking at it. It

took days. He must have used triple zero brushes. At least three layers of undercoats.

Another twenty in highlighting. All under that magnifying headlamp that mimicked

natural light. He mentioned it to her once. “Presents colors as they would be seen in

‘real life.’” She never used one. Her colors were in real life.

“Elise—look at this.” Jim offered the elephant to her. When she tried to take it,

he reminded her to only look at it.

“A lot of detail.” And there really was. He’s an artist but not like me, she

thought. He could paint these little toys well, but not in the way she could paint murals

and portraits. She actually got paid for her work—had people appreciate it and buy it

and commission it. This was just a toy.

Nate used a straight-edge to position his spearmen in a perfect line. When they

were ordered to his liking, he drew out a roster he’d made detailing the statistics of his

varied units.

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“Jim—did you decide on a campaign?” Adam bent to the table so as to see

Nate’s army at eye level.

“Yessir,” Jim said. “Sicilian.”

“Which war?”

“First one.”

Nate laughed. “This aggression will not stand, man.”

“You fuckers are done.” Adam motioned to his prized elephant. “Donzo.”

Elise looked at it one more time. It was marvelous on the table. It towered over the

other armies. Fierce and proud. And dangerous.

“What’s the naval operation?”

“Late—I’m using Corvus. Delenda est, bitches.”

Nate and Adam groaned. That meant something to them.

“Alright,” Elise said. “I’ll leave you boys to it.” She filled a mason jar with water

at the tap.

“You working on your painting, baby?” Jim didn’t look up from the table. Too

busy scouting enemy deployment.

“Yeah. You boys have fun.” She left for the sunroom.

***

It was ordered chaos. The walls were papered with sketches and measurements.

A six-foot canvas dominated each corner of the room. All in various stages of

completion. She set down the Mason jar and portioned out mineral spirits and liquin.

She cut the spirits with water. HP Lovecraft watched her.

She’d been working on him since Jim showed her the author’s photo. He had a

face so strange it needed to be painted. Shaped like pickle jar. That granite block of jaw.

She’d never read his work, but under her husband’s advice, she’d incorporated

writhing tentacles into the background to eat up the negative space. She’d painted

them pink. Jim told her they should be green. They were still pink. She turned on her

music and stared back at Lovecraft for a while. She dipped her fingers in the Mason jar

and smoothed the bristles of her brush absentmindedly. It was ox hair, strong and yet

77

soft. She could see every brush stroke she’d make. Every hue she’d blend. Every

second it would take to make it perfect. Cobalt blue. Fast Light Yellow. A jaundiced

green. Something old and ruined before its time.

She set her old step-ladder before Lovecraft and climbed to the top, but she

stopped before she could touch the canvas. She could hear them over the music. She

straddled the top step and turned away from Lovecraft. She looked down at the step

between her legs and absently painted little smiley’s on the wood face. They were a

jaundiced green.

***

They’d been playing for four hours. The war was already being won.

“Fucking right!” Jim howled in victory. “Run, you little bitches!”

Adam groaned as the dice left his hand. They failed him miserably. Elise

wandered into the kitchen using a bag of chips as her excuse.

“Did you win, baby?” She watched her twenty-eight year old husband do his

best Heisman as Adam sank in his seat.

“Fucking right, I did!” Jim said.

“Yup!” Nate did his best not to laugh at Adam’s misery. “Adam’s line folded

and broke under one cavalry element—one!—turned and smashed into that lovely

elephant of his and that’s all she wrote.”

They were just toys and dice. How could they know all that from a three and a

one? What did it matter? It all goes back in the box, anyhow.

“So is the game over?” She hoped it was. Though she knew better. Jim punched

the air and praised Mars Victricis. Adam answered for him.

“Not even close,” Adam said. “Lilybaeum and Messana are still mine and Nate

over here devoted his entire season to what he calls a ‘consolidation of the ground

forces.’”

“I told you, man—it’s a defensive posture.” Nate said.

“It’s a pussy posture.” Adam laughed. “Some tyrant you are.”

“This isn’t ‘Nam. There are rules.”

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The three of them laughed.

***

She closed the French doors behind her. Mr. Lovecraft was still staring at her.

She’d fixed his jawline and added a delicate sheen to his pipe. The tentacles were still

pink. She was deciding whether or not she liked them pink. The more she thought

about it, the more she realized they should be green.

The boys were still laughing and she could hear them through the glass. She

turned her music up to fifteen before deciding it should be an even number. Fourteen.

“One cavalry element? Come on, Adam!”

“They’re new recruits, that’s all—the Sacred Band is on their way from Utica.”

“Good luck with that sea voyage. The Corvus is on the prowl!

Twelve.

***

Two in the morning and the war still raged. True to his word, Adam had rallied

and put Rome on the back-foot, and Nate had seized the opportunity to abandon his

“pussy” posturing. It was still just dice and paper. Right?

“I’m going to bed.” Elise leaned on Jim’s shoulder. She looked on as he rolled

another handful of dice. They scattered across the table, dancing over the

Mediterranean Basin.

“Okay, baby.” Jim was thoughtful. He collected the dice and examined his

empire. Elise couldn’t help wonder what he was considering. She looked at Adam and

Nate who were likewise thoughtful. It was just paper and pen. Some dice. And what

were really just toys.

“Are you winning?” She tried to find something on the table that would answer

that for her.

“Eh…” Jim said. “I’m not losing—put it that way.” He was so serious. Nervous

almost. Adam and Nate were on edge, chewing on pens and thumbing through books

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and leaflets. She imagined their terror. Who’s he coming for next? Where will Rome

turn? Greece or Carthage?

“Are Adam and Nate on a team?” she asked. Jim ignored her. Adam and Nate

looked up. The thought hadn’t occurred to them.

“We should be, shouldn’t we?” Nate said, turning to Adam.

“It’s the only way, really. Neither of us can break him alone.”

“Oh thank you!” Jim turned to his wife. “Thank you for that—I thought you

didn’t want to play.”

“I don’t.”

“Then don’t—stop fraternizing with the enemy and go to bed.” I love you, but

you’re pissing me off. Good, she thought. She kissed him on the cheek and watched him

roll one more pack of dice before heading to bed. As she ascended the steps, she could

hear her husband forsake the gods that once loved him.

“I’m going to paint this fucking map red. With or without Mars’ help.”

Nate and Adam laughed.

***

Elise woke early. She made her way down the stairs to find them at it again. Or

were they still at it?

“Have you guys been to bed yet?” She moved for the coffee maker. It was fresh.

“No—not at all.” Adam sipped on his own coffee.

“How do you play that game all night?” Elise poured herself a cup and brought

it to her lips. She didn’t expect an answer from them. They were too involved. She

took her kitchen into account. It was a warzone. The miniatures were piled on every

available surface. Field hospitals. The walls had succumbed to still more maps and

notes detailing the game. Dice littered the floor. They’d gone rogue when someone had

thrown them across the kitchen in a fit of despair.

The boys looked like old men. Bags under their eyes. Heads hung low in

exhaustion. Adam leaned into the table. He might be winning by the look of him.

“How’s it going?”

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“Well, thanks to your sage advice,” Adam said, “Rome lies in ashes and Carthage

is on the rise.” Adam exhibited the kind of energy that comes with an all-nighter. An

engine burning up the last of its fuel before sputtering to a dead stop. The last ditch

effort of a metabolism run dry.

“You burnt Rome?” Elise asked.

“Yes, he did.” I love you but you’re pissing me off. “And it’s your fault, Elise.” She

walked to her husband’s side and rubbed his back.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart.” She loved that he was miserable. Something so

pointless and he was so worked up. It all goes back in the box, honey. She watched as

Adam took up his elephant and placed it at the gates of Syracuse. Jim and Nate bowed

their heads in resignation.

“In the immortal words of Darth Vader…” Adam smiled. “…All too easy.” Elise

watched Nate and Jim despair. It was the absolute power of arithmetic playing before

them. She saw the savage delight in Adam and the woe and fear in her husband. But

not in Nate. Nate examined his notes before standing and drawing up a handful of

dice.

“Fucking amateurs.” Nate reached into his box and revealed another figurine,

this one painted gold.

“This is Sparta! Bitch.” Nate placed the figure before Adam’s elephant. Jim

howled in shock and Adam sank back into his seat, beseeching someone named

“fucking Astarte.”

“What does that mean?” She wanted it to end. She couldn’t understand how

there was still hope. How there was still time. How anyone could see something other

than futility at the siege of Syracuse.

“Baby—it’s the Spartans—300, you know?”

“Oh.” She knew the movie. She knew that the 300 were an immovable object.

She knew that no matter what came for them, they would never yield. They would die

where they stood.

“Are you going to finish your painting today?” He actually looked at her when

he asked.

81

“What? Yeah. I think so.” The mighty 300 would hold Syracuse against the

war-elephants, against the Sacred Band—against a million men if they had to.

They were staring at her.

“What?” she asked.

“Everything okay?” Jim asked.

“Nothing—yeah, I’m fine. Are you three going to sleep today?” After the war,

her husband would come home a different man. Jaundiced. Ruined by time. He’d be

lost after this. “Will you guys take a nap at least? I’ll wake you up.”

The idea washed over them. They all realized at once how tired they were.

“That’s a good idea, actually.” Jim knew what she meant.

“Syracuse isn’t going anywhere.” Adam set his dice down.

“No, it’s not, sir. No, it’s not,” Nate said.

They laughed.

***

Nate and Adam slept on the couch together. They were too tired to be concerned

with which parts touched. Jim stayed in the kitchen with Elise.

“I know it’s a mess, but I’ll clean it up.” He was hoping they’d have the

conversation after his friends had left. Elise was angrier with herself than she was with

Jim. Why should she be mad at him for having such close friends? What was the harm

in him playing a stupid game? He could be doing far worse. He had done far worse.

Now that he was sober, what did she have to complain about?

“I just—I don’t understand why it’s always at our place. Have it at Adam and

Nate’s—they live together. It would be easier there.”

“It’s tradition—the winner always hosts the next one. Plus there’s more space

here and would you really let me disappear for a weekend?”

“I don’t care! Why would I care?” She would though. She knew it, too. Elise

didn’t like the idea of him leaving if he didn’t have to. That’s it, isn’t it? You don’t

want to lose him to something else.

“Whatever—I’m going to lie down. Wake me in a couple hours, please.”

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Jim kissed her and left the kitchen. Elise sat at the table and sipped her coffee. It

wasn’t as fresh as she thought it was. Burnt. Must have been left on too long.

***

Mr. Lovecraft was such a strange-looking man. She stared at him and the photo.

The painting. Back to the photo. She’d mastered it. It was exactly him in every way. It

wasn’t her fault he was shaped so strange. The tentacles surrounding him were

repulsive. Phallic and sticky things that looked as if they’d tongue anyone who drew

too close. And they were still pink.

“Wow. Lovecraft?” Adam asked.

“Yup. That’s him.” Elise said. She turned from the portrait and sat atop the

ladder again. Adam was looking straight through her. He walked towards the painting

with his mouth open slightly.

“Unbelievable, Elise—really. It’s exactly him.” They smiled at one another.

“Thanks.”

“Is it done?”

“Not yet. I have to paint the tentacles.”

“What?” Adam looked genuinely concerned. “You can’t! They look perfect!”

“Jim told me they should be green.”

“Fuck that—keep ‘em pink.”

Elise smiled. “Yeah—I just want it to be accurate, you know.”

Adam examined the painting in the way he examined his army placements. He

combed over it with his eyes, careful not to touch it. He measured each brush stroke

and fingerprint buried in the layers of pink paint.

“Accurate,” he huffed. “We’re talking about Cthulu here. If anything, he’d be

angry that you tried to paint him accurately.”

“What?”

“Takes Lovecraft two pages to describe snow and water. The Cthulu shows up

and he says it’s ‘indescribable.’ Pink, green—it’s a color out of space.” Adam smiled at

her. “You paint it how you want it.”

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“I’ll go wake up Jim. Is Nate awake?” She climbed down from her ladder. She

felt too close to Adam.

“Eh—hey, thanks for putting us up, by the way,” Adam said. He didn’t turn

from the painting. He stepped back to see it at a proper angle. “I know we’re a pain in

the ass.”

“I feel like there was more to that sentence,” Elise said.

“Nope. We’re a pain in the ass. So thanks.”

Elise smiled again and left Adam to his vigil for the elder things. That’s what she

called them anyway. She could never say the name right. Cthulu.

She passed Nate on her way upstairs. He lay on the couch and rubbed his eyes.

He stared at a book titled, Tyrants of Syracuse.

“You’re awake then?”

“Meh. Kind of,” he said, throwing down the book. “Hey, why don’t you ever

play with us?”

“With you guys? No way.” Elise stopped midway up the stairs.

“Why not? We could teach you.”

“No. I don’t think so. I’ll leave the battles to the men.”

“Oh, don’t give me that!” Nate said. “There’s plenty of women generals.

Boudicca, Wu Zeitian, Queen Dido…” Nate was counting them on his fingers until he

realized he only knew three. “Well, there’s not many, but the few there are were more

badass than most of the men. Boudicca burnt Londinium to the ground!

“Londinium?”

“London—Joan of Arc—she was the only one man enough to lead the French.

Dido built Carthage.”

“Good for her.” Elise ascended the stairs. Boudicca. She smiled. Joan of Arc.

Dido.

“Hey, baby.” Jim was awake in the same way Nate was. She flopped on the bed

next to him and kissed him. “Your boyfriends are awake.”

“Cool—cool. Did you finish your painting yet?”

“Did you finish your war yet? Don’t rush me.” They smiled.

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She always woke first. She’d lie next to him while he slept and watch the

sunlight paint his face. He’d wake and smile. “You’re a creep,” he’d say and she’d

smile.

But she couldn’t see him that way anymore. He doesn’t see me anymore, she

thought. And she knew why. He’d thrown out his old ways for her. He’d given

himself to her. So much that there was nothing left of the drunken, stupid rake she’d

married. He was something else now. No longer fierce and proud. No longer

dangerous.

She wanted him to touch her.

“What are you up to?” Jim said.

She saw the thing she’d built and lamented it. She wanted to hurt. She wanted

struggle. She wanted bruises on her thighs.

“Baby, not now.”

She wanted him to notice her. If it meant she was just a thing to him—she

wanted to be his. She wanted be used and thrown away.

“Elise—come on. The guys are downstairs.”

“Fine.” And she knew she was.

***

She couldn’t work on it anymore. It was finished whether she liked it or not.

She smiled to herself. It always seemed to end that way. She liked the idea. An artist

had no say in the matter. A piece was done when it decided it was done.

Mr. Lovecraft watched her clean her ox hair brushes. The tentacles behind him

seemed to squirm and fight against themselves. They were green now. He was right,

she thought. She hated him for that.

The kitchen was obliterated. A war had claimed the lives of thousands and set

Sicily ablaze. The map was posted on the wall now. The statues and armies and navies

had all been removed. It was dominated by purple flag-pins. Jim stared at the map

with his arms folded behind his head. He glared at it in disbelief. Nate and Adam were

packing their belongings.

85

“Who won?” Elise asked.

“Carthage,” he said. He turned and smiled at her.

“That’s right!” Adam said.

“Meh.” Nate shrugged. “That’s why there were three Punic Wars.”

Elise stood by Jim and was careful not to touch him. “So it’s over?” she asked.

I love you. “For now.” But you’re pissing me off. “Carthage and Rome are mortal

enemies.”

Jim walked Adam and Nate to the door. Elise waved from the kitchen.

“You guys take it easy,” Jim said.

“The Dude abides.”

Elise looked at the map posted to the wall. It would never end, she thought.

Sicily has fallen, but there’s still Italy. Africa. Spain. There was always more. It would

never be enough. Nothing ever ends.

Jim dragged back into the kitchen.

“I can’t believe they beat me,” he said.

“First time for everything,” Elise said.

Jim stared at the map posted to the wall. He braced against it. Examined every

detail. She could see him working it out in his head. The magnitude of it. The great

fall of a greater dynasty.

“Nah,” he said. “That’s not it.”

Is he really still thinking about this? Elise thought. It’s over—you lost. And they’re

gone.

“You’re weakest at the cusp of victory,” he said. He was referencing something.

Elise wondered if he understood it. She couldn’t look at him anymore.

“That doesn’t make sense,” she said.

“It does once you’ve lost.”

GIVE US SOMETHING TO

DREAM ABOUT By Elena Botts

VENGEANCE By Mary Post

88

THE WAITING ROOM

By Jennifer Flen

The window prying north

Slants into branching leaves

And leaf-topped branches,

Sending me chair-first

Into a foundling

Of lost flight.

In a pane’s promise,

Hungering for the lift

Of my branchward remiges,

Vouchsafed in my airy bones

And in the birthrights

Of this wide glass,

Crouching over the wooden legs,

The potential of my coverts poised,

I wait for the great, kinetic gust

To send me from myself.

PORTAL By Mary Post