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She'll catch a glimpse of herself in the glass, realise she's beautiful but know too that in her shadow a ragamuffin stray slinks down littered streets. Her favourite season is always the one to come, Sierra, Playa. And why not? Things go on as they always have. The cacophonous voice you cannot ignore, a parent giving advice you did not ask for and will not use yet a lover too, sweet flamenco nothings at twilight, a jasmine scented caress. She gives you the intimacy of years, her discontent and her blue skied joy. leads you along cypress paths then trips you up on a cobble. You question why you stay but she only shrugs, offers the rivulet of her hand, turns you towards some new splendour. Becky May´s poetry and short fiction have been published in various literary magazines and anthologies, including Full House Literary, Ellipsiszine and Janus Literary. She currently lives in Granada and tweets at @beckymaywriter.

Daughters of We are the daughters Of sons of fathers from another land. We are the daughters of babbas who see in us the shadows of their mothers Of papas who see in us The youth of cousins Long left somewhere else. Of babbos who raise us in the margins Of what we might have been had none of them left, Or crossed time zones, Or borders, Or languages. We are called honey, mija, bimba, habibti Our names are translations, We come subtitled. Our lives are simultaneous interpretations, Aquifers of words running away together. We marry boys who come from outside in, Sons of daughters of fathers from this land. Or another. And together, we make a third And send messages back and forth In boats made of Pasta, Tortillas, Hobs Or Nothing But Words. And sometimes, you are home. When you first came in the room, There was the oddest shock of recognition. Not from daydreams. Not from photos sent and studied, Not from missives back and forth through DM, But something in just the very way you WERE… A beautiful, composed stillness, with something coiled beneath it. When we stood to greet each other, there it was again… As if to say hello, remember me? I saw you startle for a moment, as if you felt it too, Something from before we were ourselves in our present forms. And when you kissed my cheek and held my hand ever so briefly, I suddenly knew what it was…. It felt like home…. And I hope you felt it, too. Welcome home, we have been waiting for you, It’s nice to have you back… A note from the author: I am a Californian born arts journalist who teaches film and media studies at several colleges in San Diego. My personal writing and arts projects focus on language, identity, and belonging. I have lived in EUrope, Morocco and the US, and work on projects about North Africa and curate art shows with artists of Latino and/or Middle Eastern origin.

The Violence of Sound Parcels of darkness take to the sky, storm warnings that strip skin from bones, swallowing the blood of entire generations. Heavy wings blacken the sun, relentless beaks spitting smoke, staining the horizon with doom. Empty bellies are filled with ash, lips tattooed with terror. The violence of sound scars agony into stone. War slices into the marrow of families, splinters cities into shards of shadows, echoes of the dying left caged in the ruins of time. Seduction I pour the first drink to settle my nerves, throw it back with determination. I snatch up the second to take the bite out of self- loathing, eager for the solace of denial flourishing in the depths of a tequila bottle I gulp down the third to loosen my tongue, delight in the way it scalds my throat, burning up the roots of inhibition. I indulge in the fourth to feel beautiful, drown in the seduction that warms my belly spreading like a potion beneath my skin. By the fifth, I forget my name. Soundtrack The movie business has shut down. Aspiring starlets and boys with chiselled chins are holed up in box car apartments, faces pressed against the glass, wondering when it will be safe to breathe again. The streets of Hollywood, usually filled with dreamers, wide eyed and desperate to be seen, have dropped into death watch quiet. The sidewalks are patrolled by men armed with sticks and plastic knives, losing their minds under the rolling eye of covid and an unexpected heatwave. I walk the dogs, but never leave my block, smile at the rare person passing on the other side of the street, forget they can’t see beneath my mask. Across the road, a saxophone player practices on her rooftop deck, a soundtrack of smooth and mournful notes connecting us through the social distance. Susan Richardson is an award winning, internationally published poet. She is the author of “Things My Mother Left Behind”, from Potter’s Grove Press, and “Tiger Lily” an Ekphrastic Collaboration with artist Jane Cornwell, published by JC Studio Press. She also writes the blog, “Stories from the Edge of Blindness”. You can read more of her work on her website.

The air horn blew loud and I woke up. I turned over and with narrow eyes looked over at a wind up alarm clock sitting on the bureau – its glowing green hands read: 6:47. Another morning, another dream interrupted, and Monday of all days. A school day. Now for whatever reason, my mind chose sunrise as the best time to get imaginative. And like all the other weekday mornings, it ended abruptly courtesy of the Union Pacific Railroad. As usual, I laid there listening to the rolling clamor and metal clanking fade into the distance until another familiar sound intruded – one almost as loud as the train. “Mack! You up?" "Yeah!!" "Time to get up." I discarded the bed linen and sat up, and sat there, and sat there, and then laid back down. I tried stealing a few more minutes. Suddenly, darkness vanished as bright sunbeams shined off the walls. She parted the dark curtains and blinds. I put the pillow over my head in a futile attempt to keep out the sun’s irritating radiance, and befriend the Sandman again, if only momentarily. "Mack? Wake up!" Her voice resonated clear and close. Nancy Ivory, also known as Granny, or Mother Earth, as I fondly named her, stood large yet only five foot three in the bedroom doorway. Nancy could've been mistaken for an old Hippie, or some Bohemian type, with her chestnut skin in her decorative and brightly colored caftan, those open toed sandals, ankle and wrist jewelry, and two long French braids nearly touching the floor. She's not. Mother Earth was Native American, Chickasaw, from Mississippi, and proud of it. "Boy! I thought you were up. Get your butt out of bed. I'm not up for playing today. Let’s go. Speed is what you need. Now get up or I'll get you up. Is that what you want?” “No, ma'am. No, I don’t.” “Alright then. So get up and get ready for school.” She departed and began her normal count down from ten. Pokko'li, chakka'li, ontochchi'na, ontoklo…a warning I better get up, and get up fast. Last time, she reached one (chaffa) and then came back and landed her short and stocky frame across mine, tickling me unmercifully. I laughed so hard I nearly emptied my bladder. Luckily, a series of protests and foul farts forced her to quit. To this day, my body cringes at the thought of being tickled. I liked it as much as dream-shattering air horns. So when she reached the three count (tochchi'na), I quickly sat up and then stood, still somewhat drowsy. "I'm up. Happy now.” “Yes.” I ambled lazily into the bathroom. There, I handled my business except for combing my recently unbraided hair. Hair care came after getting dressed and before the bureau mirror. Soon the climate in the house changed, becoming more aromatic. Sniffing fresh percolated coffee generated hungry growls. So I sped up my hair grooming, having breakfast on the brain, and hurriedly picked out and hand-shaped a head full of kinky hair into a nice big, circular Afro. I should blame Mother Earth for having so much hair. She frowned on haircuts for biblical and cultural reasons, and as I grew up, it did as well. My Afro became so huge, friends said it looked like a dark halo behind my face, and gave the impression I favored a black cosmic angel. "Good morning," she said, as I set foot in the kitchen. The window was open and a nice breeze circulated, making the curtains gust in and out, as if breathing. "Morning." "Sleep well?" "I did until that train blew. It screwed up another dream just when it was getting good." "What was this one about?" "I met the astro-botanist, Carl Sagan, on some distant planet and together we gathered and named plant specimens." "Astro what? Carl who? You watch way too much television, you do know that, don't you?" "PBS?" "PBS my foot. It wouldn't hurt to look at those encyclopedias every now and then. I spent a small fortune on them, you know." "I know and I do use them, including those old Oxford Dictionaries." “Just sit down and eat your breakfast.” I pulled back the chair and sat. Mother Earth placed breakfast on the square cedar wood kitchen table: a bowl of Malt-o-Meal, topped with blackberries – taken off the front yard's fence line – brown sugar, butter, a half a cup of coffee, a glass of Tang, and goat's milk. "Mack?" She began, a nickname given for my fondness and constant request for oven-baked macaroni and cheeses. "Have you heard about Mrs. William’s son, Gregory?" "Heard what?" "He's in the hospital. I found it out yesterday from Mrs. Hunter while talking across the fence." I looked over my shoulder, giving a wry smile, and thinking good. Since I never liked him anyway. Not one bit. I mean, who likes a bully? Nobody I know. I couldn’t stand him. He tormented people regularly and soon made it his business to get into mine, focusing his attention on my homemade insect and animal traps scattered throughout the community's woodlands. I enjoyed catching and releasing anything that slithered, flew, crawled, or bounced. Somehow, Greg learned about what I did as fun and considered it as fair game. "Really?" "That's right. Something got him good. That's why I worry about you when you're running around out there alone. It's news like that. I know you're trying to become this Carl fellow, but do your Grandma a favor, and put nature exploration on hold for a while." "Because of him? I don't know, Granny?" "Mrs. Hunter never said what attacked him, but whatever it is might hurt you." "I doubt it. Unlike him, I have a connection with nature and a healthy respect for it." "I just know something out there sent him home soaking wet and covered in nasty green swamp slime. Mrs. Hunter also said: "Greg had bumps all over his body.'" "Really!" "That's not funny." "Yes it is. I can picture his fat butt running, arms flailing, and screaming, before he jumped into that pond." "And how would you know that?" "He must've found that yellow jacket nest." "Yellow jackets!" "Yeah, yellow jackets. I've been studying them for the last month." "Studying them?" “Yeah, studying.” I discovered them by chance. One day, I was searching for a better place to hide my traps and sticky pads from Gregory who took pleasure in vandalising them. Once done, I explored further, going farther into the woods, and marking the trail when necessary. Then I came across a patch of wild mint and sat in it, ate a few leaves, and put a couple more into my notebook. Then, a drone buzzed by my head. I believed it was a bee, and if lucky, there's a beehive, and some honey nearby. As the sound became louder, I looked skyward, shading my eyes from the sunlight penetrating through the treetops. I discovered something else altogether. Not only did I find myself in an abandoned garden, actively producing wild fruits and vegetables, but also a big mud mound at the base of a peach tree. Although excited, I fled right then and there. I knew what they were; I recently captured a yellow jacket, but only after watching it defeat and devour a bumble bee following an aerial battle. And now I've stumbled across their hideout, to study them up close, and do so every Saturday and Sunday morning. I learned they were breakfast for a family of blue jays. Plus, yellow jackets fed mostly on rotten fruit and decaying animal carcasses, and they rarely flew near the wild mint, for it served as a natural repellent. Thereafter, I made sure to stop at the wild mint patch to crush up and put as much of it on my skin and clothes as possible, in order to get even closer to their nest without spooking them, and facing their relentless wrath. The one thing I wanted to do, which would've been foolish, no matter how tempting, involved breaking the nest open to look at its insides. Then, I got a bright idea. The next day at school. I confronted Gregory. I told him to leave my field tests alone, particularly my latest one, or I would finally give him that fat lip he rightfully deserved. I hinted at studying a bunch of flying insects near this pond and they lived below ground. To which he replied: "Flying insects don't live in the ground." This coming from a guy who thought termites were albino ants. So, I said: "Okay, just don't go playing with them, alright; seriously. They're dangerous." Greg resented being told what he could and couldn't do, especially by a dweeb, and he did what I expected. He tampered with them and got attacked. "Mack, Mack, Mack?" "No, no, no." I said. "Had he minded his own business, he wouldn't've gotten swarmed. That's his fault. So, no, I don't feel bad for him, not at all. I told that fool: 'don't go looking for it.' But, did he listen? Nope. That's why he is where he's at, the hospital." "Mack, that ain't right, what you did." "He's a bully, Granny." "I'm not raising you to do ugly to other people." "I know, but he deserved it." "Maybe? But that's not your job. Now eat your food and go on to school before I do something rash. I'll deal with you when you come home, and come straight home. Don't think about wandering off, you hear." "Yes ma'am." Mother Earth sat down, bringing forward and putting her braids into her lap, and then rubbed her left knee. "I think it's going to rain," she said. "My knee is hurting something terrible." I stood up to go to the refrigerator and took out a cold Mason jar. It contained thick pieces of willow tree bark. After unscrewing the lid, I dipped my fingers inside and removed one, and then handed it to her to chew to help alleviate the knee pain. I sat back down and devoured my breakfast, placed the dirty dishes in the sink, kissed her on the forehead, and ran out the front door. Sprinting as fast as my legs would allow, the wind pushing back my Afro. Down the street I dashed, taking a winding shortcut through a meadow. I soon met crushed stone, a gauntlet of railroad tracks, and box cars. After crossing and climbing them, I took another trail through a forested area, to which it led to a well-bent section of the fence behind the elementary school. I jumped over and pretty soon greeted my classmates. Some were playing around. The others stood discussing when to visit Gregory, and what to give him for get-well gifts. I disliked the gift giving idea, but I would go anyway. Just so I could tease him. To say, his thick skull and ignorance put him in the hospital. His situation, albeit regretful, produced a sense of gratification and others felt likewise. Apparently, everybody welcomed his absence. Some even laughed at his expense, I sure did. Right then, a second train blew, and then a third, and finally the morning school bell. Playground joy and chatter halted, for it alerted students everywhere they had three minutes to line up at their teacher's classroom doors. So off I ran – my soul buzzing happily until the final bell rang and upon meeting Mother Earth. Wayne McCray's short stories have appeared in Afro Literary Magazine, Bandit Fiction, The Bookends Review, Chitro Magazine, The Dillydoun Review, Drunk Monkeys, The Green Hills Literary Lantern, Ilinix Magazine, Roi Faineant, The Ocotillo Review, Ogma Magazine, Pigeon Review, The Rush Magazine, Sangam Literary Magazine, Swim Press, and Wingless Dreamer. He practices Minimalist writing from a small country home in the Mississippi Delta.

Don't write a story about a ball rolling down a hill. —Workshop adage A ball that is my life is rolling down a hill. The hill, I suppose, is made up of sedimentary layers of years—in my case, decades. That the ball will slow and wobble to a stop is not in question. It is totally expected and utterly, irrevocably predictable. Still, there remains a haze of drama on where it will land. I think of it as being red rubber, the kind we used to hurl in dodge ball, thumping against the gym wall as kids shrieked. This ball is pudgy, a little deflated. There are mars and scrapes on its tacky surface. Will the ball dribble across the busy street at the foot of the hill, only to lodge against a chain-link fence? Will it splash into a puddle by the curb, muddied with leaves from last night's rain? Or will the ball keep miraculously angling down a sloping street lined by ranch houses, like a pinball, going impossibly far? The streetlights will blink on, and it will finally be scooped up by two boys chasing fireflies in the front yard. The taller one will kick it clear over the roof of the house. I wonder if the ball retains some sense memory of teetering on top of the hill, buffeted by a strong wind or soaking up sun. Up there the whole town can be seen, its toy cars and clutches of houses, in the distance gleaming corn silos and a splindly water tower. But the ball that is my life is wary of too much metaphysical blather. There is a hill to be rolled down, with a rutted ravine and stubby tree stumps, more or less against its will. Along the way, there are bumps from roots and stones sticking out. They're not symbolic, they're real— threatening to puncture the ball or knock it off course. Those two skinny boys are me and my older brother, Don, our chests pale in the summer heat, hands clasping mason jars as we pounce on flickering insects in the grass. Ruby, my dad's mom, is watching us from a lawn chair on the front porch flanked by spirea bushes. Later we'll join her to count car lights sweeping past. From the basement, we we'll be able to hear the squealing frequencies of my dad's ham radio. I imagine I can see my mom, a nurse, across the street at St. Joes where she works, in the big yellow-lit window on the top floor I'm convinced is the operating room, like in a Frankenstein movie. Somehow the ball that is my life thuds onto the OR's steel table. I'm dying, but I don't know it yet. There's a sharp scent of ammonia. Through an incision in my skull, the surgeon has slid in a clip to seal off the blood vessel that's feeding an aneurysm, but the tool has accidentally ruptured a smaller, hidden vessel too. The whole world is going bright red, the color of a flashlight haloing through closed eyelids, and I'm cramped inside that orb that's lurching down a steep hill, like a dirty snowball gathering up smudged letters and torn-out, frilled sheets from notebooks, as well as movie stubs, gold-sealed diplomas and wadded-up tissues from old calamities, plus broken eyeglasses, pulled teeth, the smell of hot asphalt, and the sound at night of a train chugging through a crossing three blocks away—all getting swept up into a gummy, awkward, ridiculous clump that hobbles along before it comes to a halt of its own weight on a dark street where the houses have all gone quiet. A few neighborhood kids whiz by on bikes, shusshing through leaves by the curb, and a mother's voice can be heard playfully calling out the back door, Olly olly oxen free! Gary Duehr has taught creative writing for institutions including Boston University, Lesley University, and Tufts University. His MFA is from the University of Iowa Writers Workshop. In 2001 he received an NEA Fellowship, and he has also received grants and fellowships from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the LEF Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation. Journals in which his writing has appeared include Agni, American Literary Review, Chiron Review, Cottonwood, Hawaii Review, Hotel Amerika, Iowa Review, North American Review, and Southern Poetry Review. His books include Winter Light (Four Way Books) and Where Everyone Is Going To (St. Andrews College Press).

Suddenly, it was second grade and we were allowed to walk to school together without a parent. We had to cross at the corner. If we didn’t obey, Jane’s mom, that witch in her bobby pin curls, would yell out from her second-floor kitchen window: “I’m going to call your mothers if you cross when the light is red.” Being tattled on by another mother was like having a note sent home by the teacher. In my house, it meant my easily riled mother would get angry and say that I was fresh, with that look. It felt worse than being hit. We always walked to school down Ocean Avenue, the noisiest four-lane street in Brooklyn. The brakes on the trolleys shrieked when they got to our corner. The trucks rumbled by and the drivers banged on their horns. It was just before Columbus Day. when I said to the other kids, “I don’t want to go to school this way anymore. It’s too loud and boring with these old apartment buildings that look like creepy dominoes. We’ll go around the college. Okay?” They agreed. When we crossed the avenue, we walked a little further and made a left turn onto Campus Road which circled around Brooklyn College. As we were talking, laughing, and clattering around the corner, we crashed into a man who was walking his dog, just minding his business. He was a handsome man who looked like Jimmy Stewart with dark glasses. I was startled when I saw his white cane. I knew what it meant. “Are you OK?” Sharon asked him. “Sure. Were you all running because you’re late for school?” I said: “No, we just like to run.” He laughed and said: “I did too. I live around the corner. I’m Carl. Is one of you Carol?” I clapped my hands. “I’m Carol!” “I recognize your voice. I once met you in Bohacks with your mom. She plays mahjong with my mother.” “Please don’t tell her we were running.” “I won’t.” He laughed. “Who are you?” he asked the other kids. They each said their name: Joey, Sharon, Paul, Alan, Susan. Carl said, “This is Smokey.” Joey asked, “What is he?” “He’s a fox terrier.” Smokey had a black and brown coat, a cute face, and seemed happy for us to pet him. When I got home from school, I told my mother about meeting Carl. She knew him and said we shouldn’t bother him. She told me that he’d lost his eyesight when he was a soldier. “He said he’d meet us again on Wednesday morning.” “Well, don’t be a pest.” Almost everything I said was met with her frowning face. I don’t remember that we made a real plan with Carl to meet every day, but we started seeing him on the corner almost every morning. When we arrived at the school yard, we’d say “See you tomorrow.” I began to watch Carl; how he figured out where the curbs were by feeling with the toe of his shoe, and how he used his cane to find the parts of the sidewalk that were damaged and stuck up at jagged angles. He made a system that worked for him. Unlike Carl, I hadn’t figured it out because I was always in a hurry. I’d trip on the tree roots and tilted sidewalks in front of my apartment building and scrape my knees. My father always said: “Your knees have the map of Brooklyn on them.” Bits of sharp mica and cement would get stuck in the scratches and my mother would yell at me as she tweezed the bits out. She'd put iodine on the cuts, ignoring my pleas to use mercurochrome so it would sting less. She said, "If you stop running so fast, I won't have to put the iodine on." Carl was a good listener. In the way that kids work things out, we developed an understanding that if one kid was hanging out with Carl, the others would walk ahead, realizing that it was a private talk. I decided to try it out. When I told Carl about my knees and my mother, he tilted his head to one side, listening. “Carol, about falling, when I became blind, I had to learn how to slow down and figure out how to avoid obstacles. Slowing down, looking and listening might work for you too.” After that, I stopped hurrying and paid more attention to where I was going. It worked. No more iodine. I worried about telling Carl how thankful I was. I didn’t want him to think I was silly but I wanted to let him know how he’d helped me. I said: “Thanks for telling me about slowing down. I’m not banging my knees so much.” Unlike Carl, my mother was hard to read. She was nervous sometimes, but I didn’t know why. If I came up behind her, she’d jump and yell. If I dropped something, she’d suck in her breath behind her teeth and gasp: “Don’t do that again.” And she never hugged me if I was upset because someone teased me. In a hard voice she’d say: “Sticks and stones will break your bones, but words will never harm you.” All I wanted her to say was, ‘I’m sorry you were hurt,’ and hug me, but she didn’t. I never understood why she was like that. But also, I remember how she was always kind when I got sick. She’d bring me soup and tuck me in and sometimes sit on the bed next to me and read a story. She’s lucky I didn’t get sick a lot, just to have that other side of her. My father was a policeman and had a washing machine business, so he was hardly ever home. When he was, he would get into a bad temper if he felt bothered by me or my little brother. Although, sometimes he’d tell us about plants, and history or watch a tv program with us, you never knew when he’d turn nasty. Then, I’d quickly find a book to read on my bed, or go outside. Some school mornings we didn’t all get to the corner at the same time. Other mornings Carl wasn’t there because he was going to college to become a teacher. One morning in the pale November sunlight, I got there first hoping to talk with Carl. I told him, “I can’t talk to my parents about anything that bothers me ‘cause I’m sorry when I do. Mostly they say I’m fresh and I should leave them alone. Sometimes I get a pinch from my mother” “My parents called me fresh too. It means you’re curious. I’m a good listener: Ask me your fresh questions.” That made me giggle. “Thanks, Carl.” I wondered about him a lot. Was he ever sad about being blind, or worried if someone would love him? I could never ask him that, of course. But I knew that I loved him. Being with him filled up some of the empty places inside and helped me feel less lonely. He sensed that I was looking out for him. “You’re sweet to ask how I'm doing. I’m okay.” I thought maybe he’d be annoyed with my overzealous attention but when he thanked me, I knew it was all right. Carl taught us how he listened carefully to know when cars or trucks were coming. “That’s how I can feel safe crossing the streets. There’s a huge difference between hearing and listening. I hear the sounds of traffic and I listen so I know what each sound means. Remember, listen to the horns, the car brakes squealing, a car backfiring, the old men calling ‘Cash for Clothes’, the bells on the ice cream truck. Get to know the sounds of the neighborhood.” We began to play a listening version of I Spy. We’d go around the neighborhood, listen for new birds, and figure out how to describe them to Carl. We looked for kinds of dogs or cats we’d never seen before. I paid attention to the hail on the window panes and the soft silent snow falling outside my bedroom window onto the canopy below. It lay smooth as a blanket and never got dirty. Once after school, I heard the coal truck rumbling to a stop in front of our building. I could hear it even though I was up on the third floor. I ran down to grab some lumps of coal quickly before the driver got busy unloading the truck. It came tumbling rapidly down the chute. I had to be very careful as I reached into the chute for the pieces with sharp, broken edges that you could write on the sidewalk with. It was only possible if you heard the truck right when it arrived. Susan came out of the doorway too, then Joey. We grinned as we ran to the truck. We began to hear things from far away, like the trolley bells. That gave us time to drop pennies on the trolley track while it was safe. Then we’d collect the pennies that were bent in half by the trolley wheels. All our listening began to pay off. We heard our parents say that we were learning a lot from Carl. We laughed so hard. We knew that it was a good thing that they didn’t overhear our conversations with him. They wouldn’t like knowing it was so much fun. Our immigrant parents liked the education we got at school: reading, writing, arithmetic and memorizing. It was their desire, more than anything, for us to get a good education. ‘Education is the way up,’ they said. Carl helped us learn too, but not in the way that our parents necessarily wanted. He kept encouraging us to notice and pay attention to our environment. Carl taught us to use all of our senses to explore the world. It was hands on and therefore messier, but much more interesting. We thought that spending time with Carl gave us a better education than being in school. I felt my brain growing smarter and I became aware of concentrating better. “C’mon kids, you don’t live in your apartments all the time. Get to know the great outdoors. Touch and smell; look and listen.” That autumn, we began learning about leaves. “Can someone pick up a leaf?” “Here, Carl.” “Thanks, Jane. Carol, Paul what’s this leaf? If you don’t know it, can you describe it to me?” I said: “I’ll make up a riddle. It’s usually green, but now it’s tan. It’s shaped like a fan with little cuts on the outside edge.” Carl said: “That’s a gingko leaf.” Susan found one. “It has six points and it’s red now. It’s got some itchy balls attached to it.” Carl said: “It’s a Sycamore leaf, and those balls? What are they?” Alan knew: “They are the seeds.” "Are there any pine trees around here? Look for them.” When we found some, he’d say “They have needles instead of leaves. Rub them together with your hands and smell them. What does that smell like? Think of the words that describe how something smells.” “It’s sweet.” “It smells sharp in my nose.” “Is it paint?” “Is it turpentine?” “You’re both right!” I began to explore the world the way he did. I learned to detect differences in insect sounds and bird songs. The types of wind and rain., the smoky aroma of wet fall leaves, and the crunch of dry ones. I felt sharper and smarter every day. We almost never asked Carl about his war experiences. Although when one of the boys asked him if he got any medals for being in the war, he brought a purple heart and a distinguished cross to show us. “I was hurt in the Battle of the Bulge, where I lost my sight from a head injury.” That cemented his status for us. I loved him as a little girl loves her hero. By the third grade, our walks had become all about baseball. Every one of us was a Brooklyn Dodgers fan who worshipped Jackie Robinson: the first Black athlete in the major leagues. I had my own Dodgers hat and blue satin jacket. My parents bought me a wooden baseball bat and even a real leather glove. We played ball in the dirt yard behind the apartment building. We all wore our baseball shirts, hats, and jackets whenever we could because we were so proud. We all listened to the games on the radio with our fathers and, of course, we collected baseball cards. Paul told Carl, “You and Jackie are our heroes.” Carl shook his head. “I did what I had to do. Jackie is a hero every day. He has to fight to play because some people don’t want a Negro playing major league baseball. People throw things at him and call him names.” We all felt confused. How could people who cheered for the Dodgers hate Jackie? I began to think more about why there were no Black people in our neighborhood. Jane’s father didn’t like Black people and didn’t want them living near white people. The only Negroes we saw cleaned houses or picked up the garbage. I took a chance and asked my mother about Millie who cleaned for us. “Do you like Millie? “Yes of course,” she said. But she never talked to Millie except to tell her what she wanted her to do. She never said ‘how is your family?’ or anything like that. “Why doesn’t Millie live around here?” I asked her. “Because she wants to live with her own kind.” I knew that was not an answer, but I didn’t ask any more. I always asked Millie how she was doing. I knew her children were Louisa and Henry and her husband was Joe. I didn’t want to be rude. There were no easy answers. But I learned the major difference between Carl and my parents. Sometimes, they didn’t seem to care about who I was, if I hurt or was okay. As long as I behaved and made them proud of me in school, they were satisfied. Carl liked me and thought I was okay just being me. That made all the difference. Several years passed, and Carl still walked occasionally with us. I felt more and more secure inside myself. In the fifth grade, that all changed. We began to see bomb shelters being built, and our parents talked about an arms race and even a war between us and the Russians. Our morning walks turned into talks about our worries and fears. “Do you know about the air raid drills, Carl? We have to hide under our desks or in the hall with our heads between our legs to protect us from bombs. I don’t believe that a roof and our desks will keep us safe. It’s a bunch of malarkey.” Each of us had something to say: “They gave us dog tags that we have to wear all the time around our necks;” “I’m worried.” “I’ve had bad dreams about those dog tags.” A few years earlier, I had seen something in the newspapers that I’d never forgotten: pictures of bodies at a place called Buchenwald, that were stacked like frozen bones with a little bit of skin and striped fabric stretched over them. Even the people who weren’t dead were walking skeletons. I was only six and my parents chose not to tell me that the people were Jews like us. I was terrified by the pictures and hearing that information would have made me hide under my bed forever. But by now, I knew. And it seemed it could happen again. The teachers said the dog tags would help us get reunited with our families in case we were separated. When my father said it was for body identification, that gave me a sour taste in my mouth like I was about to throw up. The words body identification reminded me of those pictures in the newspaper. I could never tell my parents about my dread. They’d just say forget about it. One day, I woke up from a really bad dream about the bodies. I asked Carl if I could tell him about it. I knew he could hear me crying, but that was ok. He took my hand as he listened. “Carol, bad dreams are upsetting, but believe me, it’s good to let it out. I know that this is a rough time, but we’ll get through it. I can’t tell you not to worry, but I don’t believe that the people who run the US and the USSR will push those buttons.” It didn’t change a thing, but it was reassuring. After the 1954 summer vacation, we all met in front of my apartment building to start sixth grade. It was really hot and we were all in our summer clothes; so excited to start our graduation year. I was wearing my prettiest sundress and shiny sandals. We all looked so grown up. I couldn’t wait to see Carl again. We turned the corner and he was not there. We weren’t early but we waited a few minutes longer. Carl never showed up. We were stunned. All of us: girls and boys, teared up and quickly wiped our eyes. We just looked at each other and then started talking all at once. “Where’s Carl?” “I hope he’s OK.” “Maybe he got that teaching job.” “Do you think he moved?” All the joy went out of the morning. The sunlight dulled down to gray and nothing looked real. I never doubted that he’d be there on the first day of school each year. Four years of knowing him disappeared in a flash. The other kids started walking to school. But my heart started to beat quickly and I stood there not moving. I felt some more tears and wiped my eyes. The entire day, which should have been wonderful and exciting, was a blur. After school, I ran home dripping with tears and told my mother about Carl. I had pulled away from her a long time ago, but I allowed her to see my invisible pain and she called one of Carl’s neighbors. They said that the family moved away in July while we were upstate. “Carol, I’m sorry.” I was surprised at her kindness. I knew she cared when she hugged me. I told myself that he wouldn’t have had any way to let us know about the move. I needed him so much I couldn’t allow myself to blame him for disappearing. From the vantage point of age, I know there was hurt and anger that I didn’t feel safe enough to face. He was the only person I could share my pain and confusion with, and now he was out of my life. Only now, as I write about him, do I encounter the remainder of the betrayal and abandonment that I had to suppress. It momentarily twists in my chest and throat. Then it’s gone. He was a life saver, but he inadvertently caused me pain so great that I had to forget him completely for decades. I distanced myself from my hurt and from him. There were no words. It wasn’t that I believed that he didn’t care about me, or was trying to hurt me, although that passed briefly through my mind. There simply wasn’t the same kind of investment on his side. I’m sure if he was leaving in September, we would have said good-by. But he wasn’t going to make a special trip to his old neighborhood to bring closure to our relationship. For a long time that year, the only way I could allow myself to think about him was to daydream that when we rounded the corner, there he’d be with Smokey, leaning on his cane, grinning and hearing us from a mile away. Sometimes, even that was too painful. I’d have to catch my breath and push the image away. Carl helped me change from a scared, fresh child into a more confident one. I learned that by just listening you could make a child feel heard and valued. Carl is why I became first an elementary school teacher, and subsequentially, a therapist. His gift was something powerful. He wanted us to be open to the world all around us. I still light up as I remember how Carl taught us to identify the robins, orioles, starlings, pigeons, and sparrows in our neighborhood. Once we learned, we could see and hear them all the time, and like him, identify all the birds by their songs. “Listen to the robin’s short tweets and screeches. There’s a song sparrow. It has black and brown markings and high whistles and pretty clusters of notes. Listen for the differences in the calls.” “Have you ever seen or heard a woodpecker? They’re rare, but we might find one right in our own Brooklyn neighborhood.” A woodpecker in Brooklyn? None of us had. “Keep watching for it and listening, you’ll know. It’s black with thin white stripes on its wings and a triangular crest that could be red, sticking up on its head. It sounds like this: ch-char-char. It’s a noisy chatterbox.” We never heard that bird chatter, and the woodpecker remained as exotic to me as a peacock. It was only my faith in Carl that let me believe that one day I would hear and see one. His explorer legacy is still a strong part of me. On that first day of sixth grade, I still hadn’t found a woodpecker in Brooklyn. I never did. But as we stood in shocked and helpless silence that morning, there was one consolation. I knew that this Brooklyn girl would confidently explore the world on her own. A note from the author: I'm a semi-retired psychotherapist working primarily with trauma/abuse survivors, and new to creative writing. I co-authored a book and several journal articles for therapists and medical professionals on treating complex trauma. Just prior to the pandemic, I awoke from a dream in which three characters from Longstreet, a 1971 television show I had not thought about in forty-odd years, encouraged me to write essays and short stories. I entered what has become a sustaining and exciting part of my life. In 2021, I applied and was accepted to the Yale Summer Writing Workshop Program. The piece I submitted was "Learning to See."

Beneath the Darkness She walks the tree-lined evening way, scattering spectres of the past subordinated to her command. The animals maintain their gaze without fear, accepting her as one of their own. She acknowledges kinship, but wishes to be left to her wounds, believing there is work to be done between them. Ready for battle should they refuse to be tamed, a peaceful resolution remains her goal. Beneath the darkness, there hides a gentle soul. His Last Return I'm waiting by the edge of wilderness, the point from whence my love has disappeared. If I must wait forever, then I must. The woodland sneaks, replete with cleft and cave. He pushed within, wee sacrificial lamb; still soldiers on, unmindful of his cares. Though I have often suffered, I am sure, as I have seen the wildness in his heart, these eyes will also witness love once more, for I am clear of motive and of mind, support him every twist and turn of his. Somewhere beyond, he weighs my words for proof. Our chimney smoke still rises high above. I stoke the flames, peel carrots, warm the stove and patiently await his last return. Lawrence Moore writes from a loft study overlooking the coastal city of Portsmouth where he lives with his husband Matt and nine mostly well behaved cats. He has poetry published at, among others, Sarasvati, Pink Plastic House, Fevers of the Mind and The Madrigal. His first collection, Aerial Sweetshop, was released by Alien Buddha Press in January 2022. @LawrenceMooreUK

Morbid curiosity compels us to do strange and awful things. I sit at the Magnolia Café tucked in the odd space between lunch and dinner, waiting. Normally clients have no interest in meeting their writers face to face. But he insisted, and for three thousand dollars I can’t say no. He arrives in plaid joggers, carrying papers while everyone else in the café grips a laptop or iPad. Only someone carrying papers would want to speak to their writer in person. See the veins in their hands. The crack of space between their lips. He slides in so close to me our arms touch. His hair is beginning to grey at the temples. His eyes are too dark to see light in them. I’m wearing a yellow sweater for him to easily recognize me. “I follow your work. It’s good,” he says. He shuffles through his stack, unearthing an obituary I wrote last month. A woman died on the train tracks. It took weeks to identify her, and the words hurt to type. With each click I felt the impact of the speeding locomotive. Obituaries are my least favorite to write. They take an emotional toll but they’re steady pay – someone’s always dying. “That’s not my best. Here.” I scroll through articles on my phone published in the last year but he shakes his head. “You’re clever at making something awful sound beautiful. The woman on the tracks, did she kill herself, or was it an accident?” His eyes flicker with embers of interest. “No idea,” I tell him. His question feels like picking a scab. “What exactly do you want?” I know the answer. I read his email, but I need to hear the words. “A suicide note.” His voice is flat. He waves to the waitress, asking for a black coffee and slice of pie. “What kind?” she coos, leaning on charm for tips. “Your favorite.” When he grins, he’s attractive. “Is this a joke?” I ask once she’s scuffled off to the next table. I don’t know what to do. Call the police? Toss my water at him? Take the job? “Nothing funny. I need to leave a note for my loved ones, to ease their suffering after I’m gone.” I nod, not because I think I can change his mind. Save him. Instead, I nod because I want to be a better writer. The writer he needs for this job. “Here.” He opens an envelope, and cash flops out. “All yours if the note fits the bill,” he adds grimly. “Unlike the obituaries, I’ll see your handiwork before I’m dead.” “Where do we begin?” I fish out a notepad and pen from my purse, retiring my phone. “You’re the journalist. I’ve never written one of these before,” he says. I think he’s lying and wonder how many times he tried to write the note before deciding to hire a professional. How many crumpled goodbyes litter his trash bin. When I don’t speak, he volunteers meaningless information. “I’m an attorney. Not the charitable kind. I work for profit, so there’s no saving that,” he says after a pause. “Wife? Children?” I ask. He wears no ring but mentioned love ones. “Neither. Four sisters, though. And a mother and grandmother.” This isn’t getting us anywhere. “Tell me a story about yourself. Let me get to know you,” I try instead. He grips the paper napkin, tugging it back and forth as if he’s fighting with himself, then drops a black leather wallet on the table. “I don’t have stories. I have clippings. Mementos.” I’m afraid to pick up the evidence. His name is in there. His address. Once I know those things, I can’t unknow them. I am an accomplice, like it or not. He’s older than I thought. Forty-two. Taller, too, because who can tell when you’re sitting with someone that they’re well over six feet. He’s saved movie tickets from the old theater downtown that still prints them like it’s 1987. He watches historical films. He’s a man who favors the past over the present. And a few barely worn credit cards, organized by color. He prefers cash. He’s neat. Orderly. Nothing screams crisis in the wallet. Tucked off in the side pocket are two pages folded up. One is from the bible. Another, a Superman comic. “Are you allowed to rip this out?” I ask him. “I don’t think comic books are sacred,” he jokes. “Both are reminders. When I was little my Dad forced me to attend church, every Sunday and sometimes during the week. I’d slip comics in my pocket to read them when no one was looking. They made more sense to me than what the priest said. When Dad caught me, he dragged me out back to the treehouse behind our house where I’d dig holes until he thought I was sorry enough for misbehaving.” “That’s terrible.” It’s only my imagination but I see dirt beneath his nails. “No, it wasn’t. He stayed to dig with me. Otherwise he was working, or away. It kept him with me just a bit longer, so I didn’t mind.” “Is he dead?” I ask. “No, just gone.” The waitress delivers his pie. She reads over my shoulder, and I can’t tell if she’s looking at the comic or the bible page. Neither hold her interest. “Is this from your father’s bible?” I ask my client. “Yes.” I’m not religious, so I can’t place the page in any larger context. I just know it’s equally as tattered as the comic. Loss has a way of gnawing at someone over time. I’m wondering how many years it took before my client stopped finding the will to unfold the pages and remember the past. I realize there is a limit to this. If I don’t start writing the suicide note, he’ll find someone else who might take the money and never bother to open his wallet. “Let’s start with the big questions, I guess. Who, what, where, when, why?” I’m traveling blindly, so I go back to the basics. The journalist’s prayer, because I’m down on my knees digging for a way out of this. For both of us. “How,” he murmurs, the first bit of melancholy escaping his lips. “The how is important. I want people to know I didn’t suffer.” “How, then?” I ask. “Sleeping pills,” he responds. “I’ll visit a nice hotel, eat a respectable meal, then sleep.” There’s no saving him, I decide, paralyzed by the resolve in his face. Just delaying him. Delaying him long enough to figure out what the fuck I should do. “Ok, who should the letter go to?” My voice cracks. “My oldest sister, Eliza.” He drops a pre-stamped envelope next to his pie. “What?” “What’s the point of going through all this? What’s the point in doing anything for another forty years? I’m just done.” His breath is even, like a pendulum swinging between us. “Where?” “The hotel. I told you already.” He sips his coffee, wincing at the heat. “Regency South. I’ve booked the honeymoon suite.” I raise my eyebrows. “It was the only suite left. I’m not a weirdo, and I refuse to die on a twin bed in the economy room,” he says. “When?” He leans in and brushes my hair away from my ear so he can whisper. “Tonight at eleven. This is confidential. I’ve paid you. You can’t warn anyone, or you’re breaking a trust.” The last question has been asked and answered, but the interview will feel unfinished if I don’t ask. “Why?” “That I’ll leave to you in the letter. You’re a writer. Come up with a reason.” For the third time he slides something across the table to me. Stationery with a name on the top. “Won’t they recognize that the handwriting is wrong?” The stationery stares up at me. “Don’t worry. My attorney will know, that I hired someone. You can’t get in trouble for this. I promise.” His eyes are dark again, narrowed towards the pen in my hand. He bows his head over the key lime pie. I imagine him in Sunday school, perched on his knees in fancy trousers, sneaking Superman from his pocket. The nuns tell him to be sorry, to tally what he’s done wrong that week. But he’s out of their reach in the make-believe world. He’s waiting for his hero, satisfied when his Dad tells him to dig in their backyard. That’s the letter I write for him. Not a suicide note, but the ending he doesn’t expect. The why evaporates. I write the story I’m capable of, and when he reads it, he stops breathing. Only for a minute. The story where his father doesn’t go. Where the holes are filled and guilt is relegated to the church or buried beneath the treehouse, not in my client’s heart because people leave and others come back. “I was wrong. You’re a shitty writer.” He takes a sip of the coffee, now cooled to the autumn breeze outdoors, once he’s read the letter. But he folds it in fours, tucking it in next to the other pages of his wallet. The envelope to Eliza sits abandoned on the table. “I can’t take the money,” I lie, keeping it firmly under my hand. “You can.” He wipes his mouth and stands, his shadow falling over the table. “The letter eased someone’s suffering. It’s all I asked.” Sarah Clayville can be found at @SarahSaysWrite and at her website SarahSaysWrite.com

I’ll have an order of Happy Family with a side of pork fried rice. —And, for me . . . General Tso’s Chicken with a side of Lo Mein—and two eggrolls, too! says Nina spryly. —Will that be all, asks Mrs. Réncí. We both nod. —Okay : One happy family, side of pork fried rice; one general tso’s chicken with lo mein noodles, and two eggrolls? she confirms, nodding and winking at Nina. —That’s correct, Nina says. Thanks, smiling. —It’ll be about fifteen minutes. —We’ll wait outside, I say. Thanks again. Mrs. Réncí nods an acknowledgment, turning toward the kitchen. Her daughter, Yù, sits at the lone table in this take-out-only-Chinese-spot, playing a game on her tablet, occasionally looking up to witness the night through the windowpane. We eyesmile and nod at the young girl as we exit. Nina takes a cigarette from her pack, grabs the lighter, lowers her mask, and is inhaling shortly after stepping out. Cigarettes, counterintuitive to the less conscientious smoker’s notion that smoking is a means by which the body calms, cause the heart to race. She’s already drunk on a chemical cocktail of neurotransmitters, bloomed in a warm wash of adrenaline, which, half an hour, or so, ago, was surging through her. A wave, now ebbing, she continues to wade in after the pre-opening-night, invitation-only dress rehearsal. There’s no need for further cardiac arousal, but—what do I, the former-smoker, know. The cast performed well tonight. Three Sisters, she, Irina. Only minor hiccups. A typical audience member won’t be wise to such negligible errs. They may experience the miscues as interpretation, but nothing more. The cast is prepared for tomorrow, opening night. I’m proud of Nina. She’s proud of herself. They are proud of themselves. The pride is well partook of. We’re all a bit giddy, for reasons both personal and shared. —Hand me your phone, I want to see the pictures you took, Nina urges. Fingers clawing the air urgently. —O, it’s a lot. I took so many. You’ll be pleased. —Good, good, good, and good and good and good—now gimme! Upon viewing the first picture, we stop to talk about it as if one of us weren’t just there and required the unphotographed details explained. A swipe or two later, stop again for reportage. Excitement is too often quite repetitive. As we’re swiping back and forth—a duet of “O, wait!” prompted by each picture, recounting what was captured, how the audience responded, critiques—I notice in my peripheral vision a silver sedan slowing, window rolled, down, with a gentleman whose rived eyes are intent on getting my attention. I look up from the phone. My smile recasts from ecstatic to inquisitive. I say : —Hey, what’s up? “You know,” he says dumblysmuglygrinning, with fever bright in his eyes, “if you take that mask off, you’ll grow some balls.” Nina hisses, exhaling. A grumbling something careens up her throat, borne of that odorous stuff in the guttural place whence venom waits, churning. I cut her off by grabbing her wrist, snugly. The silent no need. Caught off-guard, I stare the man in his riving gaze and say, peevishly : —Alright. Calm down, buddy. I turn my back, choosing to ignore him, facing Nina. Later, I’ll resent myself for this misstep, this surrendered position. He turns the corner, leaving his mark. Severance. Scene. Facing Nina, entirely turned around, her body once again makes a grumbling, discontented noise, and I say : —Don’t worry about it. Misery loves company. We’ve declined the invitation. He continues his egress out of the parking lot, onto the highway, leaving this moment, a hero to himself. The one-man show. This moment a triumph, a trophy. In my head, his voice replays, “if you take that mask off, you’ll grow some balls,” and immediately a post-startle emptiness begins to bloat inside me. Similar to when you haven’t eaten in so long, bowel acid distends your stomach into a lacuna of some thing, swollen acerbic, starving. Why must every decision a man comes to in his life be tantamount to a case of having manifested, or failed, his masculinity, his manhood? Since when did concern for one’s health, the health of those proximal, become conflated with the absence or abundance of testosterone? What if my thoughts have always been concerned with being beyond man? Pretentious or proactive, whatever the assessment, I could care less. Should. I pull my mask down, just off of my nose, and breathe the frayed night in. Why? Why would I do that? Pull my mask down—even if only just. I leave it partially removed for a few seconds to not draw attention to the fact that I did, in fact, do that. I return the mask to its mooring. Behind the mask, I smile, a forced smile. I laugh at her fooling about, a distracted laugh. I do my best to reciprocate. This, the etiquette of engagement. Yet, if I were asked to summarize the previous couple minutes of our conversation, I would say : uhm . . . My attention remains riven. Alright, calm down, buddy . . . What! I can’t believe myself. I cannot fathom how my wit so wavered. This is what a writer, one of the wittiestwitterlywritmen this town has ever known, retorts with? Calm down? Calmer. Sich beruhigen. Tranquilo. Calma— Nope. Not in any language would this riposte suffice. I mean, the most material, and mutual, albeit void of sadistic succor, salvo to send would have been to have said : —I hope you have a wonderful night. To you, and your family, be well. No incisiveness. No mordancy. Only decency and good will can serve as salvor to such malignant behavior. I am aware that there are plenty of examples, antediluvian lessons which dictate the fighting of fire with flame. Well, that’s akin to saying, “To respond in kind, one must choke a strangle,” and what sense does make that? Decency. Yes, decency should be allowed to serve as a relief-valve. Decompress. Though the night has surely been blanched of some of its sanguinity, she minds her cigarette, near extinguished, completing the swipe-through of a night well-received, an effort earnestly made. She breeches : —I hope you enjoyed it, Shaun, the performance, I mean. —I did. And as far as I could tell, so did the other guests. I’d say, a success! —I’m elated, excited! Elatedly excited! —I can see it all over you. I’m happy for you. (Pause.) —Hey, you know what surprised me most? —What’s that? says Nina. —I was worried, having worked night after night after night, reading and reciting with you, that the story wouldn’t resonate any longer, would fail to have the impact it did previously; the humor, you know. Before I knew so well the lines, what would occur, and how. —AND? Nina insists, feigning offense. —And I was pleasantly surprised. —Memorization isn’t the same at all, is it, her speech becoming supercilious in tone. It lacks the subtlety and vibrance of a performance. Timing, interplay. A theatrical tincture well blended, she waxes histrionically. —Rehearsal is very rote. Machine, ing, ing, ing. Per–func–tor–ee–ee–ee! I add. We share a chuckle to reward our silliness. The delight of the night has, to some degree, slowly returned. Re-arrival. Less rived. Further decompression. She looks over her shoulder, not turning, through the glass, to check the countertop for a brown paper bag. One that could have our name on it. Not yet, only the two previously there, still awaiting pick up. Yù is staring through the window, at us—past us—with those eyeswhichalwayssmile. I’m certain Yù witnessed the interaction, but how. How has Yù interpreted the previous scene? We see each other seeing the other. She returns her gaze to the game, to swipe through another level. None the wiser? And— Why didn’t I grab my phone, take a picture of his license plate as he was leaving. You never really know with people like that. That information could have been useful, if. If they can convince themselves to rupture the delicate membrane of civil decorum, acting so truculent and uncouth . . . you just never know. You should. I shouldn’t mind. —O, I still have your phone, Nina says. Here you go, extending the phone toward. I take the phone from her. A quick look at the time, almost eleven. Midnight nearing. I persist somewhat twittered. I see the two bikers in the parking lot in front of the market. I saw them before, but now I see them. The incessant americana. The bumper stickers exclaiming a ‘return to greatness’ and “god’s way is the highway.” The back of a tee-shirt which reads “ . . . the bitch fell off!” I saw them before. Now they concern me. They shouldn’t— The claustrophobic nearness, which is night, its defining attribute, it, too, has turned to concern. My appetite hungers absent. Not of my concern. Perhaps I’ll drink a beer when we get home. Maybe. In accord with the cigarette-smokers, I would be in their faulty belief that sanctuary can be found in the form of a substance. We’d coexist in a sameness defined by its differences. And yet again, “If you take that mask off, you’ll grow some balls.” —Do you really believe balls grow in mouths? This, too, a liberal return. Shine Ballard, the fainéantmanqué, uses notebooks . . . and ekes by a pencil. @shineballard

The period from November until January poem for Maria Berry is deer season. which means. it’s time. to dress up. as buildings and hide behind each other. time to cover. the lake. with sheet music. and then. watch it soak through. become itself again. but. with Shubert at the bottom. I like to say. the word. Year. over and faster until. I sound like an engine. like a spinning wilderness. the deer are. everywhere just now. at the window. in our clothes. drinking from the poems. of men in their fifties. the trick. is to be. quieter. than the letter F. to be still. as a calendar if you have. food. you should eat it. if you have. a gun. you should. load it with candy. leave it. in the grass. the ants will thank you. in their copious. halls. in their antlore. we are all houses for someone. Schubert believed. everyone. lived inside Beethoven. he was half right. half of us. only come out at night. only drink. from our own. cupped hands. the other. half. are invisible. against the trees. On Beginning to Feel It You don’t know you’re drunk until you miss something; a beat, a word, a face. Today my computer wants proof I’m not a robot. The ground falls away just a little with each step. Or you sit down too quickly. I’m trying to remember the name of my first pet. I know a man who plays blues records backwards to make his lover come home. Only a kind of innocence has returned. And an old milk cow. It’s a good idea to mark your cup with a pen, a bent straw, maybe a flower from the table. That way there’s no confusion, no red house over yonder. What secret question could you possibly ask yourself to fool an imposter? To be bathed in light is half the universe. I once loved a poet who refused to leave the house. It got so bad, I began to write, too. Dark is the night, cold is every pixel of the night. Drink ‘til you can’t tell you’re drinking, sing the chorus early. My dog’s first name was Doctor. That’s all I can bare to say. To Whom It May Disturb All these envelopes on the table, each with another one inside, we could use them to send love poems instead of money, how easy it would be. Dear Telephone Co., You are a field of blue flowers waving down the night and I am full of stars. Dear Water & Power, My heart is your lightning farm, kiss me. Dear California Gas, Do you think of me when the forest burns, because I think of you and touch my cold stove. If we were steadfast, surely someone would answer in kind. They might even come to our door, a lonely clerk or bookkeeper, whoever reads the mail, standing on the porch with flowers or a suitcase. We could watch from upstairs and cry and cry. A note from the author: I’m a poet based in Los Angeles. In addition to teaching a local high school, I’ve spent the last five years working with speech pathologists to develop poetry classes for people with Aphasia and Traumatic Brain Injuries (TBI).

The dragonflies were out in hundreds, flying erratically along invisible paths of sharp and surprising angles. She sat and watched them and the catbirds that swooped into the frenzy to eat. It had been over four years since she’d moved north and tried to a assume a new attitude, a new identity, tried to slip into a new culture as if it had always fit. It was only here, alone, perched on the uppermost step of her grandmother’s front porch that she could quietly and gracefully accept that she, and her parents, and her grandparents, and their ancestors, they were all from right here. She’d left because she was tired of men who drove barefoot and of having no choice but to see doctors who dined with her parents after Sunday service and of the summertime scream of locusts hidden in trees. She’d left to be anonymous and sophisticated, to try to put her degree to use, only she was tiring of all of that, too. The choice to stay here in her grandmother’s house was wide open to her, like the choice to peel her socks off or let her hair down. She could stay or she could sell, allowing her grandmother’s sitting room to fill with unfamiliar rocking chairs and the bathroom to clear, after decades, of the lilac smell of Everly soap. Both choices were unthinkable. She sat suspended, jerking between them like the dragonflies that pelted against the screen door before floating into the current of brackish wind. She imagined her life in her grandmother’s house. She would remember how to grow things. She would fill the birdfeeders year-round and put the crab traps away for good. She would make the guest room perfect for her niece, Norah. She would make everything perfect for Norah and for Norah’s mother and she would ask them to move in with her. She would work at the library like she did as a teenager, stretching the meager budget to fill the shelves with new books. She pretended that Norah wasn’t already enrolled in a dreamy, elite school for smart kids, that her mother wouldn’t mind throwing away two years on the waiting list to come out here and send Norah to the public school that didn’t have enough teachers or books or desks, for that matter. It was strange, seeing problems that had always been problems and not knowing how to solve them. Or rather, knowing how, but being cut off at the knees and the wrists and, if you tried too hard to push against those things that were meant to appear unsolvable, the neck. The afternoon saw her stay where she was, her elbows rested against warped plywood painted, years ago, red. The air shifted, its moisture getting dragged back out to the bay. The dragonflies followed suit. It was like sharing a secret language, like peeling her socks off, like letting her hair down. It was like closing her eyes and knowing the way. Molly Andrea-Ryan is a poet and prose writer living in Pittsburgh, PA. Her work can be found in Idle Ink, trampset, and elsewhere.

Dinner was over, the plates were collected, and the waiter asked if we wanted to see the dessert menu. I couldn’t manage another bite, but Gus Gringrott smiled and said, “Bring it over, my good man. I’m a slave to my sweet tooth!” Gus Gringrott had been like that ever since I met him a few years previous. Chocolate brownies, salted caramel ice cream, fudge cake, apple crumble…You name it. If it was covered in sugar and filled with calories, he’d eat it. Gus could go toe to toe with a truffle, he would make short work of a shortcake, pulverise a pile of pancakes, knock out a knickerbocker glory. And afterwards, he would always grin and wink, “Got to keep the sweet tooth happy!” After dessert had been devoured and the bill paid, we left the restaurant and stepped into the brisk evening night. The wind slapped my face and a chill danced over my skin. I asked Gus if he wanted to join me for a stiff drink somewhere warm, but he declined and told me he was still peckish, desiring instead to wander off in search for a snack. “But, you just had dinner and dessert?” I asked, exasperated. “You can’t still be hungry?” “I might not be, but he is,” Gus replied, his smile fading. He opened his mouth wide, and one of his canines– discoloured and mean looking– sneered at me. In a voice that sounded like rusty nails and cigarette smoke, it ordered, “Go find us an ice-cream van, or doughnut stand, you big slob!” Gus tried to reply, his jaw still wide open and his face a painting of pain and embarrassment, but all he could manage was a garbled cry of denial. The tooth, half rotted away and full of disdain, yanked at Gus’s own lip with a threat full of malice. “Don’t you forget who’s the boss around here! Now go!” Gus Gringrott closed his mouth and rubbed the tender area. “Sorry about that,” he said to me. “I’ve told you before; I’m a slave to my sweet tooth.” Samuel Edwards writes silly words and foolish stories, all in a vain attempt to be respected and adored. Please don't hold it against him. He has a Bachelor of Arts Honours Degree from the University of Leeds, and is studying for a Masters in Creative Writing. Samuel writes primarily to impress his pet cat, a feat he will never accomplish. Previously published in Vestal Review, The Birdseed and Flash Fiction Magazine, among others. Tweets at @Sam_Edwards1990.