Daniel LuévanoMoney & Time As Do Scars You Wear

Free of the men’s room, I weave my way throughCivilization, one widening outThe parking lot & over the vast

American fainting boondocks. Teeth-check,Zipper-check, hair re-tousled. My best to you

& that weathered social drinker you’re with.How can I spend my day like you. NamelessCitizens making vines of two bodies.

Then the dream of it—the kids were watching& your spouse showed up. If you strip your eyesOff my wife you might see about you more

Childhoods inverted in well drinks, spongyBy mood lamps. They barely see each other

So risk their meaning. What’s that you can’t prayYour way out of. Where’s that you’re hot to go.

You don’t expect to live like this adInfinitum, giving thanks for tomorrow.I’ll let you get back to your table.

Money & TiMe As Do scArs you WeArDaniel Luévano

clevelAnD PArk By DAyDaniel Luévano

lAnDfillDaniel Luévano

BlinkeD/BlAnkMark DeCarteret

A GliMPseSamara Spence

My MoTher is kneelinGJohn McKernan

DAviD roDe The PoWer MoWerJohn McKernan

Hello My voice sAiDJohn McKernan

sunriseJohn McKernan

This neW WorDJosiah Spence

AlfreD hiTchcock PresenTsJosiah Spence

TAll GrAssJosiah Spence

Layout and Design by Josiah Spence.Photography by Matthew Payne.

Edited by Matthew Payne, Josiah Spence,Suncerae Smith, & Michael Young.

All content © Rust+Moth 2012.ISSN# 1942-5848

rustandmoth.com

Money & TiMe As Do scArs you WeArDaniel Luévano

Free of the men’s room, I weave my way throughCivilization, one widening outThe parking lot & over the vast

American fainting boondocks. Teeth-check,Zipper-check, hair re-tousled. My best to you

& that weathered social drinker you’re with.How can I spend my day like you. NamelessCitizens making vines of two bodies.

Then the dream of it—the kids were watching& your spouse showed up. If you strip your eyesOff my wife you might see about you more

Childhoods inverted in well drinks, spongyBy mood lamps. They barely see each other

So risk their meaning. What’s that you can’t prayYour way out of. Where’s that you’re hot to go.

You don’t expect to live like this adInfinitum, giving thanks for tomorrow.I’ll let you get back to your table.

lAnDfillDaniel Luévano

If not in sleep, waxed in blood supply—& allWhat you thought meaningful & given:

A pillowless ragamuffin in REM-Sleeping summer bog, bedclothes hiked & twisted

Half-off. While beyond the privacy fenceSlimy earth bulldozed to a voodoo pieOf semen bathmats, lengths of skin, mangled

Live chicken crates. But by microwave lightThe ice-maker clunks, dishwasher jerks on.

Tomorrow’s wake magnetized as the sea.Night to night you wax in blood supply.

Churning mountains, mulch of scorched latex,Fungal mattresses, un-baptized organ slough.

How to know heaven so rested on hell.You rise only a morning to increase

A kingdom. How to know this much heavenSpurted through sea, hissed with salt, cooled to mass.

clevelAnD PArk By DAyDaniel Luévano

Grownups, who were you, spit from flamingo-Stoned dawns. The mercury of windblown cheeks

Your tongue raised a child’s imprimatur

Shouted from sun-sobered teeter-tottersToward the letting go of little gods

Who eat their weight in time & claw through sandFreshly raked of the used rubbers & butts

& currencies of gone peoples sucked down

The retroactive night. Who eat their weightIn sand & claw through time. Take a lessonFrom kids left to monkey bars & saddled

Dinosaurs & squeal your pudding head off —

BlinkeD/BlAnkMark DeCarteret

when my eye lids sangof all I’d seen shadow-wisethat other life carved out of darknessI wasn’t able to listen

when my eye lids saidall that the corporate heads insistedtheir fiery brands on my templeI lost my own scent

when my eye lids saggedinto cold & colder artifactthoughts entrenched in my skullI could no longer feel

when my eyelids sank& my body cramped into a ciphera reminder of what it once played atI became even dumber

when my eyelids sawnothing of what they once wereonly light & light’s offspringI knew all along night had dreamt me

A GliMPseSamara Spence

I caught a glimpse and it was restlessrelaxing wasn’t relaxingstillness was not possible

I caught a glimpse and it was lonelyhuman contact wasn’t connectioncrowds were just a distraction

I caught a glimpse and it was boringcuriosity abandoned meall things interesting waned

I caught a glimpse and it was emptylife became pointlessgoals signified nothing

I caught a glimpse and I was a prisonerfreedom wasn’t freedomthe world at my feet but I wanted a hole

I caught a glimpse and it wasn’t meI couldn’t find herthe me I know was lost

I caught a glimpse of a life without youI long for naive faithWhen hell is not a myth, the fear is real

My MoTher is kneelinGJohn McKernan

Midnight beside the Christmas treeSlowly unplugging the last string

Of lights as I lug my way to sleepDrugged by cocoa & marshmallowsUp since 6 o’clock papers & ice

She begins singing in GermanIn a voice I have never heard“O Tannenbaum” rising to ariaIn blue light & silver ornaments

That moment was the first time I diedSlowly floating outside my bodyInto a thread of cool yellow light

I don’t know where heaven isAny longer but I know it will have

The smell of blue pine & the lilt in her voice

DAviD roDe The PoWer MoWerJohn McKernan

That summer Weaving over these gravesDreaming of sock hop records in high school

Cary claimed sex with six girls on one graveInto a single moonless night in MayOn a blue blanket Till now That is my record

Stephen [Who avoided girls Their voices & bodies]Would sit for hours drinking one beerThen stagger up & down trying to damageAs many grave stones for his notebook “Record”

None had a sliver of respect for the deadUntil our parents vanished into hospital bedsUntil our brothers & sisters melted in car wrecksUntil we woke curled & shaking in wet grassDawn’s light crawling into our blind-drunk eyes

Hello My voice sAiDJohn McKernan

Up there in my skullIn a pile of drunken bottles

What can you tell meAbout these grapes& the pitch of a harvest knife?

To which the vine repliedYou mean the green plantThat makes red & green thingsThat make you forget?

Yes I replied A grapeI need to learnHow to eat dirtIn such a way& swallow sunlight

sunriseJohn McKernan

Dry white maggots Thin dry maggotsThe cleft rock new splashed with powdered limestoneTeeth parts on the marble path up the hillTwo doves at winged sex on goose-daubed strawA clutch of salt-colored eggs in their nestFeathers floating everywhere their see-through rainbow quilt colorsWhite maggots sliding into dew particlesCorpses resting underground Quiet as a paintingDoors sealed with bleached jawboneThick white sandals Thin white sandal strapsThe strings of a harp in sunlight Each noteleaping up the seven marble stairsTinkle flash of leper bell A huge whiteshadow wrapped around his or her bodyThe hair of goats The beards of old menMist of white pollen in dust of powdered sandThe braids of the albino Her pink eyesGoat’s milk in a wood bucket The ladle floating in bubbles of sunlit foamA woman said the tomb was empty & the cloth used to tie the broken jaw shut was found on the floor Folded neatly

This neW WorDJosiah Spence

There was this new word,divorce.It meant that my motherhad sent my fatheraway.

I figured that hewasn’t a part of thefamilyanymore, so wewouldn’t see himagain.

But he cameto take us,for a time,to the placewhere he was livingnow.

It wasn’t anything likea home.A friend of his hadtold him that he couldstayin a trailer houseout on some landhe owned.

The land had rollinghills andtall trees andI think a pond too.Butit was allbrown and dry,like everythingthat summer.

First came the comedies.Mary Tyler Moore andDick Van Dyke andI Love Lucy.I liked thoseshows okay,I guess.

But I was reallywaitingfor the dramas.

Dragnet was great.Criminals of every sortunfailingly broughtto justiceby the straight-faceddetectives.

The finalé of everynightwas Alfred Hitchcock Presents,a show that filledme with horrorevery time. Afterward,I would turn offthe television andsit in the darkness.

AlfreD hiTchcock PresenTsJosiah Spence

Even thenI had a difficult timesleepingat night.

So I would wait

in my roomuntil my familywas asleep. And Iwould creep,as quiet as I could,into the livingroom

and watcholdtelevision shows

with the volumeturned downas lowas I couldand stillmanage to hear.

And every time,for some reason,I would begin to growmore and moreafraid

that my motherhad died in her sleepwhile Iwas watchingtelevision.

So I would creep,as quiet as I could,into herbedroom,

and I wouldlistenas hard as I couldfor her breathing.Usually,

I couldn’t hear itand my heart wouldfreeze in my chest, soI would lean inand place a fingerbeneath her noseto make surethat she wasstill alive.

TAll GrAssJosiah Spence

Without my dad around,the grass grew uparound the house.

I don’t thinkthat it was ever green.It was brownand dry,but it just grewand grew.

Maybe youwouldn’t call it grass.Every stemwas split at the endand covered in tiny,grainylittle seeds.And it was all brown,so maybe youwould call it weeds.

And it grewand grewall around our house,until it was as highas I was tall.

My mother saidthat the neighborswere angryabout it.

In the tall grass,that you might call weeds,there were bugsthat would cling to your skin,and there were little animalsof some kind, butI don’t think that is whythe neighborswere angrywith us.

They just didn’t like the way it looked,my mother said.

But we didn’t havea red, growlinglawnmower anymore.My fatherhad taken the one we hadwhen my mother sent him away.

So my sister and Iwent out into the yardwith scissors,and spent weekscutting what we could.

rusT+MoTh