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She was not what I’d been expecting; not less but somehow not quite enough. She was a stunner, slim waist, cross-legged now on the rug; a wine glass between her knees, balancing not falling. I was telling her about Caracas; she feigned interest but she was waiting for me to touch her. I don’t know how I could tell but I could. I knew that I wouldn’t and she would make a scene. I got up to change the record and instead walked into the kitchen to fix myself a whiskey. She unfolded her legs and leaned back on her hands, forming creases that I didn’t want to see. She wasn’t an intelligent girl but she showed a willingness to please. She had initially scoffed at my apartment then said she loved it. I didn’t like that about her. It implied lack of character. I wanted to tell her so but I didn’t. She could be wrapped up in bed with anyone she wanted. The pretense was ugly. I wanted her gone. I was tired and I didn’t want her sleeping over. I listened to the clock ticking, finished my drink and went back into the living room. ‘I’m gonna hit the sack now. I’ll call you a taxi. We’ll do lunch, yeah?’ Her face registered disbelief, ‘You piece of shit.” She scraped her coat off the sofa. I envied her for the first time that evening. She felt something. She would take that home with her. After the doors slammed I vaguely wondered if I’d made a mistake. I cleared up the living room and went to bed. I dreamt something sweet, but the truth is I didn’t want to tell anyone about it.

The world courses on arhythmic heartbeats, now too fast, now too slow-- vulture-winged clouds swoop, then fly, circling just beyond range. No storm tonight. But soon. Earth pulses, resetting tides rise and fall, each wave similar, each unique, vanishing in a tumbling froth, kissing the sand. Astronomers say the moon wobbles, and I watch her, waiting for the hiccup in her song. But she gazes at me, silver and serene, with merely a slight tremolo in her hum. Merril D. Smith writes from New Jersey, where she walks along the Delaware River. Her poetry has been published most recently in Black Bough Press, Anti-Heroin Chic, Fevers of the Mind, Sledgehammer, and Dead Skunk.

Luna and John sat side by side, a pair of clocks unwound into stillness. Their faces stared forward. Backs leaned up against a cracked plaster wall. Hands no longer moved to avoid the circumference of each other. The thin skin of an old air mattress sagged beneath them, bought for a camping trip they never took. There were only a few hours left. Before Luna vacated her apartment. Before they fully committed to this belief that life paths resembled things straight and narrow as planks. John would stand at the end of an aisle and wait for someone-not-Luna who wanted things like a French tulle veil and a child’s hand tucked in her own. Luna would take off down an airport runway where she hoped that old ties to this childhood city would finally snap as Flight 802 soared up towards new skies and unknown clouds. That’s the thing with planks. They have foreseeable ends. And Luna figured that perhaps if she hurled herself as fast and as hard as she could, she’d be rewarded with something open and blue, devoid of uncrossable borders and lines that existed even when left unsaid. JENNY WONG is a writer, traveler, and occasional business analyst. Her favorite places to wander are Tokyo alleys, Singapore hawker centers, and Parisian cemeteries. Recent publications include Acropolis Journal, Five Minutes, and Tiny Molecules. She resides in the foothills of Alberta, Canada and tweets @jenwithwords.

to stand still and yearn to go you sit in silence, ground moving beneath the soles of your shoes, beneath the tracks; cities rushing by, a blink of an eye– and you're gone again somewhere else, somewhere new, pink trees and white skies and the smell of sunscreen in the air; take a picture, but the moment's already gone and now you're driving through the night, a different kind of calm, except you're still here – slowly realizing the magic of standing still and yearning to go. good for you I’m not good for you– you, who crave to love and be loved falling asleep in the arms of hope free of tomorrow’s nightmares I’m not good for you– me, daughter of dying stars and useless daydreams words slipping through my fingers and crumbling like fallen leaves I’m not good for you– a man with the universe in his eyes and comfort in his touch a gentle eventide after a harsh day I’m not good for you– a woman gone mad from trying to find galaxies and painting the sky red with starfire but your turn of phrase, moonlight spilling out of your every word, a soft brush of midnight, somehow feel like an eclipse in reverse so maybe these stellar explosions I can’t help but desire should make way for the quietude of dusk an unhurried, restful slumber; I’m not good for you– but I want to be. sunlight incarnate He sits on the edge of the world, turning a pair of sunstruck eyes toward the skyline something about the sight is startling but really, it should be no surprise that he’s brighter than sunshine and so hours pass in this silent calm– he looks on as another day dies, Helios climbing back into the divine; still, he stays golden, defying the dark, and in that moment, I realize I’d give anything to make him mine.

Poem for People Who Say They Don’t Pray This is a poem for those who say they don’t pray. Poem is a prayer. If you write, you pray. I write to the light of the candle. I walk with the moon at the end of the day. Walking is a prayer. I write with the devotion of a nun to her god. I walk with the devotion of a monk to his vow. I repeat: anaphora. I chant: Oṃ maṇi padme hūṃ. I say: Santa María, Madre de Dios. I write. I walk. I pray. I burn incense for you. Frankincense. Violet. Rose. Myrrh. I pray. I drink wine. Prisoner Red Zin and Rombauer Chardonnay. I pray. I write. I walk. I say your name. You don’t answer. I write. I walk. I drink. I burn. I chant. I pray. Poem for Sylvia Plath TOO DARK told me I couldn’t speak to you through my Ouija Board, so I’m going to try to reach you through this poem. I want you to know how famous you are now and how many people adore you. My favorite poem of yours is “Tulips” and I also really love “Edge,” which is credited as the last known poem you wrote, but that’s debatable because Ted burned your last journal. That’s also debatable. I also want you to know that there’s a 1,154-page biography about you called Red Comet and that your tarot deck recently sold on Sotheby’s for $200,000. Can you believe that? Can you believe that some of your fans take a trip to Indiana just to see your braid? Others go to your grave in Heptonstall to deface the Hughes name from your headstone. You also have a bot that is quite active on Twitter. You probably don’t know what that means, but I think you may have liked Twitter and would have had a lot of followers. Ok, you probably wouldn’t have liked Twitter, but you definitely would have had a lot of followers. I would have loved to follow you. I follow Frieda for you on Instagram. You probably don’t know what that means either, but it’s a place where she posts photos of a menagerie of pets (including 14 owls!), paintings, cooking, nature walks, motorbikes, and flowers. I learned from Instagram that she had a big art exhibit in London recently. Frieda looks a lot like you. She has also published several children’s books and several poetry books. I want you to know that she seems to be doing well—in spite of it all. She still has your laundry box seat from the 1950s. She says she painted her feelings onto it. Poem for Gianni Versace For my birthday in 2020, I booked a room at Casa Casuarina to celebrate not being dead. I swam in your pool at night after everyone went to bed. I also ran up to the observatory to see if I could reach you through the red. You didn’t take my call, so I left you a heady trail of roses there instead. A word from the author: These three poems are part of my Poems for People series. Others have been published in HAD (Poem for People Who Don't Like Poems and Poem for People Who Are Tired), Maudlin House (Poem for People Who Take Public Transit), and Marvelous Verses (Love Poem for Fire-Star), and one is forthcoming next week in The Daily Drunk (Poem for Paris Hilton). Nicole Tallman is the Poetry Ambassador for Miami-Dade County, Associate Editor for South Florida Poetry Journal and Interviews Editor for The Blue Mountain Review. She is the author of Something Kindred (The Southern Collective Experience Press), and her full-length debut collection is forthcoming in the summer. Find her on Twitter and Instagram @natallman and at nicoletallman.com.

CW: mentions/light description of sexual violence, murder, and cannibalism. Defendant name: Andrew F Moore (A.M.) Age: 36 Court: Leeds Crown Court Judge: Judge Henry Stevens QC (J.S.) Country: England & Wales Date: 20-10-2008 Offence: Murder Sentence: Custodial Immediate Length: 30 Years - Life Defence Chambers: Furnival Chambers Defence Barrister: Ron Smithers QC (R.S.) Prosecuting Chambers: St. Paul’s Chambers Prosecuting Barrister: Oliver Sullivan QC (O.S.) REPORTER’S PARTIAL TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS O.S.: What is it that made you want to become a chef, Andrew? A.M.: I was always good at it. I’d been meaning to go for it further, you know, before I was scouted. O.S.: And what changed, again, in the last several years? A.M.: I turned thirty. O.H.: How did turning thirty affect you, specifically? A.M.: The gigs dried up fast. O.H.: Of course. I see. Is that also why you decided to kill Daniel? Was it a resentment stemming from that? A.M.: No. I still don’t remember. O.H.: Is it no, or is it that you don’t remember? A.M.: I don’t remember. O.H.: Do you remember declaring yourself heterosexual in several of your personal emails? A.M.: How is that relevant? O.H.: You probably also recall admitting that you only ever entered these competitions because you succeeded in them. . A.M. Yes. And? O.H.: It was easy for you to win them, what with your face and your physique. I saw the sashes hanging in your apartment. It’s all quite impressive, really. I watched some of the clips, those bar crowds endlessly praising you and calling out your name. You were not only the first Mr. Gay UK, but possibly the most highly decorated one to date. I’m sure it’s been quite lucrative. Is that correct? A.M.: Sure. O.H.: Explain to me then why you invited Daniel Littlefield in for a romantic evening on the night of the 23rd? Why hid you invite him into your home if you are indeed confidently heterosexual? A.M.: Yeah, well, I’m not always confident, you know. O.H.: That’s a rather convenient thing for you to express here and now—don’t you agree? It is noted that you’d told Daniel in your texts that you wanted to take things slow; to me, that doesn’t sound like the request of a man genuinely interested in his date. A.M.: I said that because I was nervous. I only wanted to make him dinner, watch a movie, and just see how I felt about it. How I felt about him. O.H.: And you felt that you had an influence on him. The fact that he’d been an audience member on your episode of God’s Gift… he was one of many screaming for your attention, hoping to be picked by you for the prized date. Wasn’t he? So you knew that you had power over him, still, for that reason. A.M.: That was a long time ago. It was just a coincidence. I didn’t intentionally target him or anything. O.H.: I see. Was it also just a coincidence, then, when you stabbed him thirty-six times, on the night of the 23rd? A.M.: No. I mean, I don’t know. O.H.: How about when you slashed his throat? Or when you cut out sections of his thigh and his chest? A.M.: I just don’t remember. O.H.: You know what seems the most intentional about what you did, Andrew? You seasoned all of the meat you cooked! You seasoned it. With herbs; with garlic! You were so precise in the way you prepared and served Daniel’s flesh to yourself. The officers said that your apartment smelled quite lovely. A.M.: I’m not trying to pretend that I didn’t do all of it. I know that I did. O.H.: Sure, but I’ve been a prosecutor for a long time now, and I have never seen any act of violence—certainly not one as precise and adept as yours—be a result of the state that you’re so claiming for yourself. A.M.: Well, I already told you that cooking is what I’ve always known best. So I’m not so much surprised that it’s what I would go back to, in that sort of extreme panic. O.H.: What would you be panicking about? A.M.: Like I said, the last thing I remember is still just waking up to his head between my legs. And like I told you, all I remember after that is just me screaming. O.H.: Okay. And nothing, afterwards? A.M.: That’s it. I have no clue. O.H.: But you remember it setting something off in you, don’t you? When you started to scream? A.M.: Meaning? O.H.: The feeling you had in that moment—it must have been memorable to you. Now, and also then, too. Has there been another incident like that that could have made you vulnerable to such blinding anger? A.M.: Such as? O.H.: For instance, has any person forced oral sex upon you in the past? Perhaps, such an incident was so upsetting that you lost control when it happened again? A.M.: Oh. Well… I think that depends. O.H.: Hm? It depends on what? A.M.: You said you watched the clips, didn’t you? End Appendix Some creative liberties taken, this piece is based on the 2008 killing of Damien Oldfield by former model Anthony Morley.

Today was cold but bright, the October sun low on the horizon and bouncing rainbows from the car windscreens. The children were laughing as they scuffed their toes through stray piles. Watch for dog poo, she mouthed silently at a lone dad amidst the gaggle of mothers, but he was harassed, clearing snot from a toddler in a pushchair. No time for a drab old lady, especially with that blinding sun blurring the outlines of her face. She was used to the adults’ blankness, but occasionally one of the toddlers would gaze at her and break into a smile. “I see you, you see me,” she would whisper. Small happinesses shared, even if she was soon forgotten in the hurly burly of the school run and the shrieks of friends meeting at the crossroads. The hill made her puff a little and she was glad to wait amongst the chatter for Charlie the lollipop man. She thought he looked tired. Not surprising, he’s been here forever. “Shall I high five his lollipop like the children? No. Dignity as befits my age. How old am I anyway? Don’t the years drift by?” At the sports centre she had to wait for the doors to open at 9am. She took the time to lean against a pillar out of the wind and close her eyes into the sunlight. There was no warmth in it for her but it was nice to pretend, plus it shielded her from the effort of trying to make small talk with others in the queue. There were a few like her waiting amongst the fitness freaks who might have been amenable to a vague mumble about the weather if she had the energy. Him, what was his name? He started coming about the same time as her although she never saw him around town, just at the sporty. Maybe it was the clothes, he was always in a baggy t-shirt and old tracksuit bottoms. Who knows how he would look on the high street “Could I ever change my clothes?” she wondered. “I’ve had this old thing for so long. It’s what I’m used to, it’s practically part of me. And the costume underneath, oh I’m a canny one. Quick in and zoom, barely seconds and I’m changed and into the freedom of the water. Three more minutes until she opens. Never a second early. You’d think we’d learn and come a bit later”. Tracksuit bottom man turned his head and waved at another woman turning the corner towards them. "Here we are again. How are you? "Doing away. Aqua Zumba is it?" He laughed. "Not for me, like. Catch me in there dancing like a hippo. I only ever go to the gym now." "Do you not mind the smell?" "I’ve been so long about it I don’t notice, I just run. Well it’s something to do. Not like I’ll ever lose weight." They laughed, then saw her looking and gave her a quick chin nod of acknowledgement. "Oh, here they come, to the second. You’d think they’d let us in a wee bit early out of pity." She lost them in the jumble of bodies heading through the entrance and nipped past the receptionist into the changing area of the pool without bothering to show her pass. No need after all these years. It was such a habitual routine that her brain didn’t bother to record the hows and wherefores and as she hit the water she thought muzzily, “What locker was it again? I never have a pound coin anyway, I’ll just try all the open doors I suppose and then it was all lost in the shock of the cold and the bliss of the movement. I can feel myself,” she thought rapturously. The sting of chemicals in her nose made her sneeze and she wiped her nose surreptitiously with her arm as she glided on the downstroke, but the lifeguard wasn’t looking anyway and she let her head duck the water and sneezed again, defiantly this time. “I can feel, dammit, I am queen of the water! Bloody dolphin that’s me. No dancing hippo on this side of the barrier.” She had twenty minutes before Zumba started. If you swim during the school holidays the pool is awash (hah) with people and there are so many more swimmers than lanes that it becomes a non issue, one just swims where one can. No one notices if you swerve out of their way, or indeed, under their feet in the hubbub. In quiet times the pool has more lanes than swimmers and one just drifts up and down in solitary territorial splendour. Today was an in between time, just too many swimmers for the number of lanes. So she tucked right into the wall of the pool and concentrated on her side stroke, a nice old fashioned swim that let her face away from trouble and just gaze through the plate glass into the cafe. She could sense another swimmer in her lane but ignored them. There was a young mum at a table with a crying baby in a high chair. “Looks like it’s teething,” she thought as she edged past, peering through glazing. Dried apple rings, that’s what she should use. Remember Lily and her apple rings? She gummed them to mush and wore them like a slimey beard, she loved them so much. Such a beautiful baby. Such a beautiful girl. Starting back down the pool, she could see the instructor setting out floats against the wall. “How can I remember every moment of her childhood? Lily with a face like a painting, what was the one? Ophelia floating in the water with eyes like pansies, so deep and almost violet. Who had violet eyes? Elizabeth Taylor wasn’t it. She wasn’t a patch on Lily. So fragile and yet a will of iron. I can only remember her as a child. What happened to her? Still my child but so far away from me now. We can’t talk. I can’t reach out but I try, God knows I try.” Another length and the crying baby has been given a banana. “Well it’ll soon demolish that,” the thought satisfied. A slight swell behind her as the lane sharer passed by, and she risked a quick glance. “Oh it’s only him,” she realised, relieved. Another one of the gang. The Zumba instructor turned on his boombox and a frantic electric drumroll ricocheted off the walls while the instructor fiddled with the volume, then he switched it off again and the silence was almost as jarring in its suddenness. “That’s the one with the Madonna remix,” she thought, “Time to get out.” The only hot tub was unreliable, off for weeks on end waiting for a plumber, muffled forlornly in its cover with a rope across the steps. Not out of order today though, she smiled. She had heard the WHOOM of its jets starting up as she arrived, and she snuffed the hot chemical fug like ambrosia. A young couple of lads were swithering between the tub and the steam room, and she nipped up the steps smartly to get ahead of them. "Steam first, get the next one as it’s already going?" said the hairier of the boys and she cheered them off silently as she plonked onto the bench near the best nozzle. One of her lot was already ensconced and moved over companiably when he saw her notice his feet bobbing above the bubbles. "Can you hear me?" he shouted and she nodded and laughed. "The jets are a bit loud today, do you think it’s going to pack in again?" she said. "Oh probably. You can never tell." They settled into the thrum and swirl and eyed each other. "Come here often?" he asked. "Oh yes," she replied. "All the time in fact. Not normally on a Tuesday though. Not keen on the Zumba music." "It’s quieter on a Wednesday but then they have the schools in later on. Doesn’t affect us in here but plays merry hell with that poor bugger." He nodded out at the elderly man who had shared her lane, and she gazed out at him, still gently paddling up and down. "He’s always here then, fascinating.” "Oh aye. Always. Never stops." "Now that you mention it, he is always in that lane when I swim. I like it there myself. You can see the cafe." She stopped and remembered. "Yes, he is always there." He seemed small, distorted through the glass tiles that made up the wall of the health suite. Up and down. The Zumba class had assembled in the shallow pool and were gazing expectantly at the instructor. The boombox leapt into cacophony and the instructor fiddled with his bluetooth head mic. "Let’s get this party started!" he roared, and the quivering masses of swimsuited flesh jumped obediently to attention. She saw the lady from the outside queue tucked discreetly into a corner waving a leg out of time. The little swimmer kept his steady pace, resistant to the rhythm of the music.” I wouldn’t be able to do that,” she thought.” I would fit my stroke to the beat. He has his own beat. “ “For how long do you suppose?" she asked. "Since they closed the outside pool at the harbour. When that went he came up here, he likes to swim in straight lines. I don’t think he likes the sea. Keep swimming out there, you'll end up in Edinburgh." "Or Denmark," she said absently. "Oh aye I suppose. I don’t know what the rules are for that sort of thing. Whether there are international boundaries and suchlike. Or you just make them yourself. He’s a local lad. Born here. Died here. I don’t think he’d understand people from Denmark. Or Edinburgh for that matter," he laughed. "So just up and down here then. Why?" "It’s what he’s used to. What he used to do. Every day, he swam at the lido. It makes him happy, if he can feel happy anymore. It’s been so long I don’t know. He used to stop for a chat. I think he got out, went home even. But he’s lost that now." "His home?" "Oh I mean that went years ago, they turned it into flats. But wherever it is you go when you’re not…" he gestured. "You have a habit then you become the habit. You have a routine then you become the routine. I’m out of the game, on the sidelines if you like. I still like a chat with those that can. But you know. It’s soothing here. Find the right jet, you can get it right up your... back." The whine of the motor eased and the bubbles slowed. They sat in the ripples and then in the stillness. The Zumba music throbbed gently around them. "So he just swims?" "They turn the lights out, he still swims." "I’m surprised he hasn’t dissolved," she laughed, uncertain. "He might yet. I think he’s losing his, what you call, constructional integrity." "Structural integrity." "Aye. Corporeal fuzziness." "Is that what happens then?" She was puzzled. "Not to me. But I'm, what you'd call, community outreach." He hesitated. "But if you’re here then dammit you might as well have some enjoyment.” He changed his focus. Look at her out there." He pointed to the lady in the Zumba, just visible still through the glass tiles, wading waist deep as the other class members flailed foam floaties. "She always liked to feel part of things. You go down the High Street you get walked through by tourists, nobody catches your eye they’re all into the arty craft shops or trying to park their fancy four wheel drives. It’s a bloody nightmare if you’re local. Here everyone is concentrating on the same thing, you’re all looking straight ahead at the pretty boy there in his lycra. She actually died doing Zumba to a video but those with a bit of gumption, they can adapt to circumstances. She’ll be like “swimmerboy” eventually but not yet, not for years yet. He spat into the hot tub. "Pardon my manners but it’s diluted enough by bumcrack sweat from the steam room anyway. Speaking of which, shift up." The door to the steam room opened and the two boys came out and hit the on button. There was a whoom and whoosh and they plunged into the resurgent jets. She found herself side by side with the youngest, and he twitched uncomfortably as if it was her hand slithering across his thigh rather than the wake of bubbles.” It probably might as well be,” she thought mischievously, but she restrained herself. "She’s still got something about her,'' he said, ignoring the boys, "I have, we’ve had enough going on to keep our marbles for a few years yet. It’s what you’ve done all your life that makes this," his waved largely, "What it is. Him," he pointed back to the swimmer, "I remember him, his wife went first and then he did nothing but swim. It was in his head. It’s what kept him going." He grinned sourly. "And now it’s what keeps him from going. Until he’s gone. But he’s just a habit himself now I’m thinking. Like old faithful out there. He was lollipop man when I was a boy. Always will be. Don’t think he even noticed dying. Bloody world will be a volcano again, he’ll still be lollipopping. And the kids still love him. They don’t notice him but they still tap on that bloody lollipop because he’s there and the love is still there. Parents don’t have a bloody clue, too busy with their phones." She thought about her own life. The sad little life after Lily left home, and the rows and the drugs, and the scenes and the bruises left on her arms as she clutched and called after her, “don’t leave me, I never meant it.” “There’s NOTHING for me here,” Lily had shouted. “Nothing. Why the fuck should I stay, what is there? It’s all old women and the druggies behind the rec and the fucking rich kids with their mum’s valium getting screwed against the trees in the park and you want me to stay here? Get a fucking life Mum, God’s sake. “ Heading to the big city and bright lights with more than the small town niceness with the bruises like a stain leaching under her skin, and the people walking through you with their nice empty smiles. And she never had really, never had got a life after that. She walked up the road to the pool and swam, but never on a Tuesday since the Zumba except today, things were odd today. Up the road and down the road, and up the road, and swim, and never noticed the dead man. Well you wouldn't would you? All those small drab people with their small drab habits. Who’s to know the dead from the living? So unlike Lily. Lily, so vibrant and angry; who left her? Why did she leave? She stared at the man sitting in the hot tub, his feet bobbing in the bubbles again, and frowned. "Are you always here?" she asked inanely. The two boys were chatting freely now, laughing at something she had missed. "Well, no. I get called in when there's a bit of an issue." Up the road, swim fifty lengths, sit in the hot tub, down the road, up the road, swim fifty lengths, sit in the hot tub, down the road. Stare at the walls. Wait for the pool to open. Up the road, smile at the children, the parents never glancing her way, small person with her drab habits, who’s to know? “Lily, oh Lily,” she thought. “Where are you? Small drab habits, who’s to know who’s dead and who’s -“ "Sorry?" she asked, "I missed that." The man sighed and leant over the hairier young lad. "I said, they asked me to tell you, you missed out a bit." "I missed? I missed what you said, I said." "Yes but you missed out the…" The boys paused. The hot tub jets seemed somehow whiny, she could hear a vague hum from under her feet. "Can you not remember?" he asked. He was looking at her kindly, but she was suddenly nervous. "It’s what you’ve done all your life that makes you this?” she said, “ Is this what I am?" "Yes my lovely. But you never died. Lily died." "I died,'' she said. "We thought you were like one of those psychics,"' he said, watching her, "but then…" He looked toward the boys, who muttered and waded out of the water. "Fucking broken again," sighed one. She looked down at the water, stray hairs caught on the surface by the meniscus. “I do hope those are from his chest,” she thought absently. “Then how did I die? It's good to have a routine, gives you something to live for.” Then, frantically, “I died, how did I die? Like a small bird battering helpless against the glass tiles I can't remember how. They don’t, they can’t see me!” "I DIED," she screamed, and beat at the water with her fists and smashed at the mosaic, "I DIED I DIED." And the last small ripples stilled and the man stood up. "Might want to change your days up a bit more,'' he said, not unkindly. And was gone. Sadie Maskery lives in Scotland by the sea. Her chapbook, Push, is published by Erbacce Press.

My cousin, the know-it-all procrastinator, Would rather host barbecues in his backyard Than sit at the shop his father bleeds his pension for. My uncle, tomorrow-man’s father, Plays cards with his gang in the alley all day For there’s no social distancing at the office. The socially distanced animal’s brother, l’homme de la littérature, Has canceled his gym membership (one must not work out masked!) And has long unmasked dinner chats With the pretty lady down the street. The immunity conscious pretty lady, Doctor’s wife and too good for our town, Nibbles on sushi and stuffs her enamoured husband With last night’s leftover seekh kebabs. The French littérateur’s woman, President of Gossipers Anonymous, Holds the weight-watcher’s witch trials at her place To avoid the evening rush at the vegetable market. The diabetic doctor, husband of the alleged witch, Sermons at-risk gluttons on weekdays And on weekends attacks the crowded corner bakery Armed with insulin jabs. The baker’s wife who’d rather keep Her twelve children out of school than risk infection, Crams them in the lorry headed for the market For she needs no less than The baker’s dozen to carry her ingredients. The lorry driver who won’t wear a mask for how-on-earth-would-he-chew-tobacco-in-one, Forbids his wife from visiting Gossipers Anonymous hotspots. The lorry driver’s wife, Sulking at her overanxious tobacco-chewer, Vents out by inviting her aunts and sisters from across town For risk-free lunch at her home. One of her sisters, Nurse and my mother’s friend, Gladly accepts mother’s invitation To bring her kin over for dinner at our place. My mother, furious at my precautionist father Who didn’t take her out shopping And went to play cards himself, Insists that I bring my band For an acoustic set at the ladies’ dinner. I, fully aware that gatherings Must be avoided for the good of all, Am slipping out at dusk To have my poem peer-reviewed At my know-it-all cousin’s barbecue. Ankit Raj is a former software engineer, rock band frontman and assistant professor from Chapra, Bihar, India. He teaches English at Government College Gharaunda, Karnal and is a PhD candidate at IIT Roorkee. He has poems published/forthcoming in Trouvaille Review, Roi Fainéant Press, Seafront Press, Brave Voices Magazine, A Thin Slice of Anxiety, Discretionary Love and Bullshit Lit, and has a short story forthcoming in The Broadkill Review. Ankit's research articles have appeared in Routledge journals and he is guest editor of the upcoming "Myths, Archetypes and the Literary Arts" special issue of Essence & Critique: Journal of Literature and Drama Studies. He tweets @ankit_raj01

The ice-cream soda comes in brown bottles, sometimes with a packet of crisps, as we play under the table, under everyone’s feet, in the dark bar, the sun blazing down outside, while dad and his mates tell loud-laughing stories, and the older kids are allowed off to the beach. My striving tongue seeks out the delicate flavour, drinking too fast in elusive capture, nothing left to savour but empty time that could have been spent digging damp sand and being salt-licked by waves, the stated purpose of the day that I could only dream of, on the gritty, butt-strewn floor.

CW: vomiting The seat on window view was left empty by a man, coeval as me, moved to the middle row and kissed a woman who sat alone. I was slightly tipsy— thanks to cheap wine— unconsciously spoke out loud, Never thought I’d witness people falling in love on a plane. The woman— I swore, she looked like a descendant of a Greek deity— chirpily replied, We were a couple actually, we fought days before but now we miss each other. I laughed boisterously as I took last bite of a dull chocolate croissant while nodding my head, hoping they caught my congratulatory gesture and shifted my back, away from the couple, avoiding the potentially teeth-rotting sweetness of the scene. Forty thousand feet above the sea, somewhere over the Pacific Ocean, I gazed out the window— tried to digest the aftermath of this first solo trip— and also the stupid chocolate croissant— thought of how I could’ve had the same sick-to-the-stomach kind of love story, identical to the couple right beside me. Last Tuesday, as I pushed a luggage trolley with a jammed wheel, I wondered: which shoes you’d rock in wintertime, which colour of hairpins you’d show off to me, how opaque your walnut irises, taste of cherry Chapstick on your lips. Not once did I think of my actual itinerary for a conference I got an invitation from. Fuck all of that as long as I have you, I thought. The last day, the day we were supposed to meet, I chose the table spot where moonlight glowed on the dainty rusted wood. Then a waiter came with your note. I have something to do. Sorry. And the moment I went back to my hotel, you blocked my phone number. I laughed boisterously, just like tonight, hunched my back over the toilet bowl. We are(?) a couple, we did fight, but do you miss me like I miss you? Fuck, I need to throw up the damn chocolate croissant.

I want to lie with you on a hotel mattress and listen to a turntable play Sweetheart of the Rodeo. You should hear this country music, and find like I have, desire’s poverty in slow, drawled lines. Midnight weeps like a steel guitar. The mountain you want moved keeps its radio tuned to night. I can burn its brush and vines, and everyone will know what dayrise means. Just watch me on the television bolted to the wall. Leave your sandals on the green rug by the door, and come near as water on sleepless banks of a lake. We were meant to open eyes on the horizon, why not on each other? Kyle Vaughn’s poems have appeared in journals and anthologies such as The Shore (2021 Pushcart Prize nomination), A-Minor Magazine, Adbusters, The Boiler, Drunken Boat, Poetry East, Vinyl, and Introduction to the Prose Poem (Firewheel Editions). He is the author of Lightning Paths: 75 Poetry Writing Exercises and the co-author/co-photographer of A New Light in Kalighat. www.kylevaughn.org / twitter: @krv75 / insta: @kylev75 / email: kylev75@gmail.com

ACT I The preamble. INT. ME - ALWAYS - UP UNTIL NOW I don’t call my mother’s father ’grandpa’. In English or Cantonese, it is a title that refuses to stay in the back of my mind, one accompanied by a feeling of wrongness. My mother’s father died when she was four. She recalls him in pieces, in glowing recollections. One of these was his fish tank situated on a creaky cabinet, flush with tropical colour. He collected exotic creatures from around the world, as he did with stamps. He hoarded an abundance of stamps, each inked and weathered with history, that I now keep tucked in a box in my closet. My favourites stuck on the pages of a square notebook with their countries inscribed below. Like him, I prefer to collect—memories of a grandfather I never knew. INT. HER BEDROOM - KAUFU’s APARTMENT - ONE OF THOSE VISITS THAT STEEP DEEP INTO THE NIGHT My maternal grandmother moved to Canada five years ago. She lived with my uncle, her oldest son. In Kaufu’s small apartment, my grandmother’s presence was nearly inconsequential. Upon one of the first visits to the new home, with its minute alterations, I sat on her bed, irked by the scratchy polyester topside. When she urged me to nap to relieve my headache, the discomfort was reason enough not to. Instead, there were the pictures on the windowsill to examine. Curiosity can keep any person awake, alive and ignorant of pain. I wondered which way Paopao faced as she slept—whether it was towards the grainy pictures, or up at the blank ceiling, away from the watching eyes. Which ones did she pick up the most? Which ones did she leave to dust? There were smiling snapshots of unknown relatives or lost friends; I couldn’t tell the difference. And there was a wedding photo—mute, devoid of colour and modern gloss. Up until five years ago, I had never seen the face of my mother’s father. INT. RED CHAIRED DINING ROOM - THE OLD HOUSE - FAMILY GATHERING Paopao’s arrival changed things. I started to think, as I usually am in the habit of doing, and he itched at the back of my mind. I grew up with my paternal grandparents always in tow, cracking open my bedroom door to give me soup, checking if I was warm enough at any given moment, and urging me to sleep earlier with a routine jo-tao, goodnight. My Mamaa, whose hand I love to hold, and my Yeye, whose shoulder I love to lean upon, formed the crux of many childhood memories. Their influence in my life meant I was raised on affection, crowded with family. Along with their love, they gifted me with cousins, aunts, uncles, and those in between, with a title for each relative in the round vowels of Cantonese. (Paopao has an accent, you see, remnants of her village dialect cling to the voice she Hong-Kong-ified for decades. She uses formal words, doesn’t understand the pieces of English I sneak into sentences when I struggle to communicate, as I do with Mamaa and Yeye. Paopao speaks like a song—I know it is Cantonese but I know nothing of its meaning.) While my mother seamlessly fit into every reunion, the scales were tipped: I didn’t know any of her people, none of the cousins she grew up playing with, or any distant relatives that coddled her with snacks. I could count into the fifties for all the people I knew through my father’s blood. My mother gave me scraps—‘There’s an uncle in Mississauga, the rest in Hong Kong, spread through China’. Even my Kaufu got invited to the Chan reunions. It was like the branches of Cheung were sawed off at the shoulder, the rings of its flat stump getting smaller, smaller, further. Gone. There, but invisible, inconsequential—yet ironically, monstrous in size. It was a hole, essentially. Where my mother’s father stood. A dark smudge of forget, forget, forget. INT. BED - A MOMENT BETWEEN AMAA AND I - INCOMING CONSOLATION We were already heated by something serious. I sat with my mother on the sheets, as we always do—her bed, a failsafe comforter, a life net that never breaks. Here, we have had many good moments together, laughing, crying in solidarity. This was not a good moment. Years later, in revisiting my darkest and most emotionally vibrant moments, the only thing I tend to remember is the fatal, cutting line. AMAA: No. I sank against the pillow, staining it with tears. I drew up my arms to ask for her, and my mother gave herself to me in silence that I had to accept. She held me, it was the opposite of hurt—but the hurt was still there. I only asked if I could ask Paopao about him. I just want to know. Never once in my life had I felt so desperate, so weak. Even in just asking, even before the no. LOK KWAN: I just want to know. You see, after my mother’s father died, leaving my grandmother with three children and a dye factory to run, there has been an unspeakable stitch of pain threaded through this family. It is a thin, fraying line, barely visible most days—but it is one that pulls. It tugs and tugs and is taut in moments like these, when his name comes up—straightening like a dog on a horizon. The healed skin tenses and there—it tears with a small rip. AMAA: You can’t do this. Don’t bring up things that could make her sad. I was twelve. But it happened again and again within the confines of my mind. The hollowing no with its eternal, trembling echo. Soaked in tears and tears, this no was something I learned to handle carefully, like a hot stone at the beach that I knew I had to take home. So I dropped this no into my plastic bucket of cold sorrows, salty water, slippery kelp; rough with the sandy coarseness of Chinese confidentiality. And like a child, I constantly carried it with me, swinging the miniature ocean back and forth, shaking the foundation of its long-untouched, unexplored depths. ACT II The moments in which he makes sudden, brief appearances: faux-resuscitations. INT. CORNER - PARENTS’ BEDROOM - A DARK BUT WARM MOMENT A gift came for me. Indirectly from the donor. A jade necklace, heart-shaped, topped with a coronet clasp and chain. White gold. Heavy with expense. I liked my Paopao a lot, but we didn’t have much to say to each other, so this was communication enough. My mother handed the necklace to me, the open drawer of her old, dark cherry desk pressed to her gut. AMAA: Here. PaoPao wanted to give this to you. I have one too. She did. She never wore it, but it’s not like I do either. I used to. I wore it every day for three years. I wore it like a sigil. I had never gotten anything like this before, that’s why. I’m not sure if that reason was strengthened after I was told its history: upon my mother’s near arrival, my grandfather went to the betting tables and was perfectly lucky. Two authentic jade necklaces for his first daughter and his wife. Both rounded to a point so they looked like hearts. This is the closest thing I have to physical proof of him, even if it was just once an object he had touched. To think that PaoPao, my mother, her siblings, were living, moving surfaces he had touched too. INT. WINDOW BOOTH - RESTAURANT - LATE AFTERNOON WITH WHITE SUN One afternoon, we sat eating at a Malaysian restaurant. We were speaking of something, something lost to insignificance compared to what came next, when my mother suddenly popped up with realization, remembrance. AMAA: Your Paopao told me my father was born in Venezuela! He had a Venezuelan mother! My father was surprised. In all the years of their marriage, her father rarely came up in conversation. I—well, I was also surprised. Then I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I told a few people; it became my new ‘so-this-happened-a-while-ago’. Still—I couldn’t shake the question directed towards my mother: how could you fail to mention something like this? She barely spoke about her father, information came like a backed-up fountain that babbled once a year, and not for long. You could tug at its spout, kick at the base—it would answer once it remembered it could—but whenever I asked my mother for more, she’d shrug and say— AMAA: What? There’s nothing else. After, the Venezuelan thing began to matter more. My mother’s face would change, grow a bit sheepish, wide-eyed, childish in her musings. It was like she dug out a long-lost favourite book, only the pages were unstuck from the spine, messy in order and faded ink. AMAA: What do you think of me doing a DNA test? There’s one on sale now, I could do it! Though it is still expensive. Ah, I don’t know. She never did get that test. AMAA: Paopao told me he wasn’t happy when he came to Hong Kong. He couldn’t speak the language and knew no one. His father had immigrated to Venezuela for work. He found a woman, had a few children, ones that looked white—mother said so, their noses said so. She too, with her light eyes and bumped bridge—that quarter of her shone like moonlight, setting her apart from the rest of our family. When death left my mother’s great-grandfather without sons in Hong Kong, he asked to be sent a replacement, a boy to raise once more in a mix of mourning and healing. His eldest grandson—my mother’s father—would do. When I opened my mouth to ask my mother how her parents met, how long it would’ve been after her father arrived in Hong Kong, I remembered her no. I closed my mouth around a spoonful of curry, and listened to the din of the restaurant instead. INT. AUDITORIUM 10 - THEATRE - A CHORUS OF CHINESE VOICES OR LAUGHTER I watched The Farewell alone. I sat in the middle row, to the left, right by the dark alley of the walkway. The blue glow of the screen flashed like pre-dawn. I don’t watch movies alone very often, but I love to. I expected good things from Lulu Wang and her autobiographical treatise on grief. Then the scene came on: dim red light, open window. Billi imagines her dead grandfather clouded in a plume of smoke. A death, in that moment, was dragged through the decades and into my chest. I started crying. I think I was the only one. Everyone else was done with their sobbing, Billi had just finished her teary monologue a few minutes ago, about how ravaging it was to be confined by stifling no she had in her own life. I saw my own no reflected through the screen. It echoed in every image: the wistful smoke, the bloody neon light, the shadowed face I could not see. It was him. I knew it was. He died the same way. Cancer took him, coaxed him away with cigarette after cigarette. I thought to myself, How could empty space feel so suffocating? This was not the first time I cried because of him, but it was the first I cried for him. Someone stolen by grief. What greater crime is there than that? EXT. THE STREETS - KOWLOON - HONG KONG - A MOMENT IN HISTORY A scuffle. A glistening knife. No—perhaps a rusted, dull blade. Money. Lost. Pick an amount, choose the range of valuable items. The facts are not clear. But without a doubt—two men crowd another in a Hong Kong robbery in an exchange of violence. He went home to his wife, cradling a bloodied hand. PAOPAO: What happened? HIM: It’s fine. She wrapped up his hand, staining white linen with red. A story to tell for the ages, blooming through bandages. A scar that will form and stay forever imprinted on this Earth, in its record of happenings. POLICE: What did those men look like? I like to think that he smiled in that moment. A grinning man still smattered with blood and bruises. HIM: I’ll draw them. There is a fifty-fifty chance here that his drawing hand is cut and the wound strains with each stroke he puts on paper. Whichever one it was, it was a hand that created two sentences. They caught the robbers with that sketch. When my mother tells me this story, I look at all the drawings I have churned out, embellished with the praises my parents gave me when they came into my room and saw me drawing. ABAA: Did Ms. Lau teach you how to draw like this? I didn’t, I never drew like this under guidance. I am older now, or something sprung out of me one day. My secret inheritance. INT. A FACE WITHIN - A FACE WITHIN - A FACE It wasn’t just me that had pieces of him hidden within. It took me forever to see it. It should have been obvious. Trespassing into my parents’ bedroom, receiving no answer when I called for my mother, I stopped by her collection of memories. In the right corner, atop the drawer surface, encased in a thick red wood frame, he stood there. Holding his wife in white. A second look was all I needed. Another hard stare at a wedding picture I didn’t even realize occupied a place in my home. One more glance to tell me I should’ve noticed it earlier, any time before now. My mother opened her washroom door, brushing past me to leave the room. LOK KWAN: Mom? She stopped in place. AMAA: Yes? LOK KWAN: LOK KWAN: Nothing. She turned her face from mine and started down the stairs. The face I had loved this entire time, the first face I must’ve seen, moments after being born, the face I’ve always wanted to see, superimposed on mine in any reflection. It was his. My mother, his mirror image. He has been with me this entire time. INT. ON THE SCREEN - AT THE COMPUTER - INTO THE BUCKET I told my mother— LOK KWAN: I’m going to write a story about him. AMAA: But there’s barely anything we know about him. LOK KWAN: Well—I mean. Me. It’s about me. Then him. What I have created of him. All these thoughts. And to think that this is all I have of him; two thousand and seven hundred words, enough to fit on twelve pages. I don’t think of him as mine. I know there is much more to him, secrets hidden under my grandmother’s tongue, hazy with disuse. AMAA: Why don’t you write about Paopao? She’s lived such an interesting life. I think you’d have more to say. She’s right. Sometimes I look at my grandmother and she feels all too far away. As if he is pulling her a step back each time I come near. I don’t blame anyone. After all, you can’t convict ghosts of meddling. But it feels like mine, my fault, because guilt slops down on my head like a reverse anointing. I look at her and make her nothing more than a remnant of him. Despite everything and the longing, I do not think I love him as much or at all, in comparison to Paopao. I do not need to. ACT III The end. The now. EXT. GARDEN - THE SETTLED WATERS In some small, thin moments of my time, very infrequently, very quickly—I allow myself a dream. Not one that comes in my sleep, but one I choose to have. In this dream, I sit beside him and we talk. Everything is perfect here, so I understand him—I can speak perfect Cantonese. I know every little thing about him, but that is not what we discuss. What we speak of is everything we share in luck, in love, in life. Here, we are friends, here, we are so similar it makes my Paopao laugh and my brothers jealous. In this dream, he tells me he loves me. I look at him and see my grandfather. My Gunggung. But dreams are only dreams. You let go. A word from the author: UNTITLED is a personal essay written half as a script, half as the broody monologue an acquaintance trauma dumps onto you during your second meeting. It is a deeply personal rationalization on how grief can become an inheritance, and how the cultural notions of mourning can suffocate a childhood in the most quiet of ways. Lois L. K. Chan (she/her) is a Chinese-Canadian writer from Ontario, currently in her first year at the University of British Columbia, and also—a huge Star Wars fan. Her work has previously appeared in Juxtapost Magazine.