Staff Page

Emma Nichols Editor-in-Chief

Sean Case Fiction Editor

Peter Viola Poetry Editor

Jenny Curtis Resident Artist

Petrichor Review is an independent arts and literature journal that publishes work from a global, online community. Petrichor is the collaboration of the above-mentioned individuals. Send all nonsubmission correspondence to editor@petrichorreview.com. Copyright 2012-2013, Petrichor Review. All rights reserved. iii

Letter from the Editor

ne of my favorite words is propinquity. I picked it up a few years ago while reading Michael Ondaatjes The English Patient, stole it off the page and stored it in my vocabulary. I dont only like the word for its lofty, academic mouth-feel or its staccato syllables, though those are a plus. I like propinquity for what it represents: a physical nearness. Currently, and throughout the making of this issue, my fellow editors and I are separated by state lines and an ocean; we lack propinquity. And despite the rapidly expanding web of social-networking that (for better or for worse) threatens to engulf us, theres still something to be said for the intimacy of a face-to-face encounter. This issueour thirdhas been our most difficult. It was slated for release in August as a Summer 2012 issue. Its December. So what took so long? The easy answer is we got lazy. But thats not entirely fair. More precisely, we got overwhelmed. New cities, new counties, new timezones, new jobs, less contact. Video meetings failed. We spent more time trying to make sure everyone could see and hear one another than we did talking about the issue. Meanwhile, our inbox was overflowing with unanswered submissions, and honest inquiries from contributors for this issue were nearly drowned in the mix. A far cry from the olddays, when the three (sometimes four) of us huddled around the same dining room table with a small fleet of laptops, using index fingers instead of cursors. Stress piled onto stress. We lost several good submissions to other journals and, worse still, the support of a few excellent and patient writers. And so the road to this issue has been paved with loss, stagnation, and at timesto borrow a harsh word from a would-be contributorapathy. It was that last word that made us get off our sorry asses and push this issue through. And if we didnt Im not sure we would ever release another. Id like to thank everyone who stuck with us when they had every right to take their work elsewhere. Anyway, enough excuses. We dug our hole and heres us clawing our way out. In a way, Im glad it took so long. Theres an overarching theme of loss, death, and decay in these pages that fits so well with wintertime. Yet theres also a lot of life. After all, these things are far from mutually exclusive. We open with John Mahoneys sobering poem, the release of pain as three breaths exhaled, one that captures not only the pain of life, but the ultimate relief of death. We close with Matt Wilkinsons equally sobering piece, W/ Love, a portrait of life and of unadorned, everyday love. And, of course, theres everything in between. Notice the nostalgic celebration of life in the Emily Dorrs collages, the shift from vibrancy to dread in the works of Julia Walters. Were glad to welcome back the stunning, often dark photography of Eleanor Leonne Bennett. Shell always have a place in our pages. Were thrilled to have published our first sestina, Last Dig at Tikal, courtesy of Sarah Wyman. In these pages youll find some madness, some cruelty, some compassion, and a healthy amount of play: things that share propinquity in the human experience. Well, here it is: issue three of Petrichor Review. Sean

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Table of Contents
Baby Teeth by Jenny Curtis................................................................................................................Cover Untitled by Victoria Krinsky...................................................................................................................viii the release of pain as three breaths exhaled by John Mahoney.................................................................1 Fishbone by Sarah Wyman.........................................................................................................................2 Skulled by Eleanor Leonne Bennett............................................................................................................3 Gold Print by Julia Walters.........................................................................................................................4 The Torturers Apprentice by Richard Peabody.........................................................................................5 To Julie at Washington Park by Jenny Morse............................................................................................6 Life Goes to a Party by Emily Dorr............................................................................................................7 By His Grace (Dreams Where the Dead Go) by T. Fox Dunham...............................................................8 Deforestation Scene by Julia Walters........................................................................................................11 Valley of Fire by Keith Moul....................................................................................................................12 Cocoon by Cooper Sy Blumenthal.............................................................................................................13 Last Dig at Tikal by Sarah Wyman............................................................................................................14 Green Bird by Julia Walters......................................................................................................................15 Bloody Rouen by Richard Peabody...........................................................................................................16 Brown by Eleanor Leonne Bennett...........................................................................................................17 Building by Eleanor Leonne Bennett........................................................................................................18 The Editors Hats by Jay Herman.............................................................................................................19 Winding Stair Rec Area by Keith Moul...................................................................................................20 Burra Mullah and the Poison Tree by Nabeela Rehman..........................................................................21 2:30 a.m. by Cooper Sy Blumenthal.........................................................................................................23 Untitled by Anastasia Sergeeva.................................................................................................................24 Head First by Joshua Kandalaft................................................................................................................25 v

Untitled by Victoria Krinsky......................................................................................................................26 Uruguay Colonia del Sacramento by Keith Moul..................................................................................26 Four days off the coast by Jenny Morse....................................................................................................27 Dead Print by Julia Walters......................................................................................................................28 Watercolors IV by Janet Butler.................................................................................................................29 All the Lost Crayons by Richard Peabody.................................................................................................30 Red Bird by Julia Walters.........................................................................................................................32 Six by Rinzu Rajan.....................................................................................................................................33 Untitled by Anastasia Sergeeva.................................................................................................................34 Untitled by Anastasia Sergeeva.................................................................................................................35 Sublimation by Nabeela Rehman..............................................................................................................36 HIS ONE AND ONLY SHOT by John Grey.............................................................................................37 Green by Eleanor Leonne Bennett............................................................................................................38 it was implied by John Mahoney..............................................................................................................39 Untitled by Anastasia Sergeeva.................................................................................................................40 At least they didnt call me Gordita by Jenny Morse................................................................................41 Portland Potted Plant Shadows on Redwood by Keith Moul................................................................42 Behavioral Health Clinics, Waiting Rooms, and Wandering Thoughts by Heather E. Pecoraro...........43 LISTEN by Emily Dorr.............................................................................................................................43 Dill+emmer by Bernardo Bolt Gregori.....................................................................................................44 Untitled by Victoria Krinsky......................................................................................................................44 Memory Plum by Nabeela Rehman..........................................................................................................45 Untitled by Anastasia Sergeeva.................................................................................................................46 Wet Exit by Sarah Wyman.........................................................................................................................47 Arizona by Keith Moul.............................................................................................................................48 vi

Guardians by Janet Butler.........................................................................................................................49 Jump for Joy by Emily Dorr....................................................................................................................49 a body is a body on a paragraph by Cooper Sy Blumenthal.....................................................................50 W/ Love by Matt Wilkinson.......................................................................................................................51 Arcade by Eleanor Leonne Bennett..........................................................................................................52 LIFE->Bunnies by Emily Dorr.................................................................................................................53

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Untitled

Victoria Krinsky

viii

the release of pain as three breaths exhaled

John Mahoney In the end, for there must always be an end, there was not so much a coming into light as there was a release from the light, as from the light of waking in the night to grope for the bottle on the bed-side table, to fumble with the cap, child-proofed against a home that has had no child for twenty seven years, to shake out the pills that may not bring relief, spill a bit of water down the side of the glass, try to swallow the pills without their sticking against the back of the throat and releasing their potency to burn the soft tissue there, and then turning off the light, to lie still, seeking release from the glare of that light, far too well known as an enemy and as a friend, both, for Dennis instead there was merely the release of pain, with the three soft breaths, exhaled, as though this could push all of the pain out from his body, as though in this way, at last, his body would have its release from that pain during the long time of his dying. Mar 2, 2012 for Dennis, who died the very night I wrote this.

Fishbone
Sarah Wyman The fish-spine waits, his array of ribs hardened to a brittle gray, in anticipation of some cat or other who might come along to gnaw tenacious scent from bending bones. Between the vertebrae a tendon dries, warping the resistant palm from its planar grip on falling flesh. The once supple structure stretches in a spread of frozen rays a startled offering, his half-meshed self like a generous sieve releasing. What he once explored in times more plump could now traverse his very being. Each carpal curve yields less and less to salty wave or feline tongue.

Skulled

Eleanor Leonne Bennett

Gold Print
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Julia Walters

The Torturers Apprentice

Richard Peabody Forget everything you know about being human save for anatomy. Rely on childhood memories of injuring small animals. If it can hurt you it will hurt them. If youre squeamish wear earplugs. Sunglasses mute the blood. Take it one step at a time. Dont allow anticipation to ruin your moment. They always confess. Theres never any doubt. Yet for you it must be about the journey.
[Originally published by riverbabble June 25, 2012]

To Julie at Washington Park After Gonzalo Milln

Jenny Morse The stoplights flash their patterns. Headlights flash shadows. Two headlights. Six headlights. Shadows are the lakes big sisters. Relatives of the moon. The moon makes waves. Darkness waves in yellows and reds. The trees are shadows of things like mountains. The trees are paralyzed giants, stone statues. The headlights cut down the trees. Tree cutters cut down dead branches. They plant grass inside the drip lines. They follow the stop lights to their side of town. Lights ripple along the water. The ducks ripple along the shore. Their heads tuck under one wing. Their bodies float in the water. Their bodies float in the sky. The park bench is someones memory. All of us will be lost. Only our names retain us.
[Originally published by The Write Room on Aug. 31, 2012]

Life Goes to a Party

Emily Dorr

By His Grace Dreams Where the Dead Go

T. Fox Dunham

eter slept little since starting chemo, and he felt grateful for the insomnia. When he dreamed, he dreamed of Grace. He wondered if dreams are the realms where the dead go. He lay awake on the floor, and his mind astral projected into space, reaching for the sun. On its molten bloody surface, he witnessed the big-head race building an orange pyramid from parts of themselveslegs and arms and ribs and bums flattened when several of the race sat on the bits for several days. His alarm keened. He showered, quick now without hair, and dressed in his black suit jacket. Peter paused at the door. He placed his black aluminum cane against the wall to free his hand. He touched each of the snow globes placed on the two shelves on the wall. He moved down the rows, shaking each globe: depictions of holiday scenes, of three dimensional U.S. state cutouts, of lions on the veldt and ducks in ponds, forest scenes and waterfalls, and happy couples dancing. Many of the globes hed bought at yard sales. Their glass had cracked or the plastic leaked; their tiny realms blurred and faded. Still he agitated them all equally. Hed want no less for himself. He grabbed the cane, locked the door to his apartment and took the stairs one step at time, leaning on his cane. He paused at the front door. Today, it will snow. He dragged the weighted door. It scraped over the tiles, following an eroded path from sixty years of the same motion. He scanned the parking lot, looking to the sky for snow. Perhaps God had shaken his snow globe and the weather had not obliged. He sighed, then fished out a black bandanna from his suit jacket pocket. He wrapped it over his shorn head. He drove out to the Lansdale Terminal and waited on the platform for the R-7 to 30th Street Station in Philadelphia. He gazed at the magnolia trees, listening to his heart beat in his ears, and he attempted to speed time. He imagined his mind an 8-millimeter camera, and he was turning up the play speed. For several moments, he perceived a bud dangling from one of the branches swell and split, a nascent white blossom daring to bloom early, even under the threat of a late snow. A Septa train flowed past the station, and he studied the faces staring out of the greasy windows, each face belonging to Grace. Each Grace watched the world, sucking on her thin lips, silver eyes chained down. She touched her fingers to the greasy glass, and he reached for her. The train passed down the track and faded into the single point perspective. Cut a paper doll for each lost soul, he made a note to himself. His train slowed to the platform, blowing steam. He climbed up into the car, took to one of the torn seats. His heart pounded on his ribcage. His black jacket hung on his papyrus-thin body like a kite on a still day. A silvery-haired woman seven days from death looked at him and sighed. He couldnt practice telepathy, but he knew her thoughts: Sad to see a young man so sick and probably on his way to feeding the daffodils. 8

He eased back into the seat. Hummingbirds poked at the scar tissue in his throat, so he pinched a white pill from the bottle in his jacket and swallowed down the poppy powder. It would do little to assuage the pain, but he felt better for having the illusion. He looked up at earths starthe deaf father. Grace infected his thoughts, and he meditated to bury her, to drive her from his mind to the pit where the lost belonged, the hole filled with cut paper dolls. When he let his mind wander, it always found her. When hed succeeded in diverting his thoughts from her and securing a little peace, she manifested in his dreams. He gazed at the sun till his eyes stung and melted like burning candles. Then as in the dream, they made contact. He could remotely see them as if his eyeballs took flight and traveled via tesseract, the single astronomical unit that marked the distance of daughter earth to stoic father star. On the sun, the alien race dwelt and loved and died. GUNNA HO BOB-BA, their chief spoke. Their heads expanded like balloons. Their stick-figure bodies dangled below, a fraction of size in comparison. They gambled on their toes over the beclouded surface of the plasma world. I know your kind, he transmitted his thoughts through his spectral avatar. The late eighteenth century astronomer William Herschel predicted you lived on the sun. We watch you microheads. Sometimes you stop and move no more. Then the still-moving ones burn you up or put you in the brown stuff or cut you up and feed you to the flapping things. Why? The train wailed and broke his concentration. It slowed into his destination. It stopped, and the momentum knocked him back. He leaned on his cane through 30th Street Station, pausing beneath the black marble angel holding up the heavens. He grabbed a cab to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, followed the gleaming corridors to the chemo room. The nurse sliced an IV into his forearm. The vein rolled, and she tried twice more. Stubborn little snake, she said. Her accent spoke of tropical islands, of tanned skin and hot thighs. Dont be a naughty snake like the bad one in daGarden. We owe that snake our knowledge, Peter said. He ground his teeth from the pain on the third stick. People would rader be stupid and happy, she said. Daserpent brought death into the world. And our tears filled the oceans. Now honey, dont you worry none. Im going to take care of you. So young. He couldnt stand an obsequious nurse. She finally hit vein and hung a saline bag. She injected the purple elixir into his IV. Over the hour, he sensed the poison souring his body toxic, sickening every cell and turning his stomach. He faced away from Graces usual seat in the chair circle. He struggled against the gnawing, toothless gravity ripping at his limbs, sucking him into the hole shed left in the world. Hed never told her of his love. Hed forgotten the words. His head had filled with the words from the books he read about snow globes, so instead, hed cut the pages into paper dolls for her. 9

Doctor Helsinki galumphed over to the chair circle. He waved to the elderly patients, then he pressed under Peters chin, down his neck. Whats new, pussycat? he asked. Im seeing men with giant heads who live on the suns surface, Peter said. When I was a lad, I thought God lived on the sun, he said. I was wrong. Peter looked down and spotted the oncologists shoelace on his left loafer, dangling and flopping as he walked. Where does God live then? Peter said. The doctor shrugged. Close perhaps, he said. Maybe a homeless old man living in a box under the Walt Whitman Bridge. The orange pyramid in the courtyard, Peter said. The old bastard is there. Im going to ask Nurse Wolfe to take some blood. Im not liking this. Not one bit. I think Im going to get you a room upstairs. Doctor Helsinki pinched his nose then strolled off to call the admitting desk. His shoelace dragged on the floor. Just peachy, Doc, Peter said. A lithe lady stood at the doorway, her back to the chemo room. Tea roses blossomed on her white summer-dress. Grace adored that scent. Crimson hair bloomed and flowed down her neck, just as Grace had described her appearance before the chemo. Peter switched off his pump. He disconnected the plastic tub from his IV. He grabbed his cane. He got up to speak to her, but she stepped into the hall. He gave chase, but she flew like a birch leaf on a storm wind, gliding down the corridors. His body weakened, his limited potential spent on the trip to the hospital. Nurse Wolfe looked down both ends of the corridor, and Peter ducked into one of the smoking lounges. The reek of sour smoke turned his stomach, and he lifted the collar of his black turtleneck over his nose. Where is my Grace? he transmitted through his avatar, asking the bigheads on the sun. Look down and see. UG GLOG. Gone to the temple where your kind goes when your bodies stop. We build it to understand, but we never understand. Why your kind just stop? He renewed pursuit. The rubber end to his cane beat the tiled halls. He jogged, paused to catch his wind, then hared, taking the elevator and exiting the building through the cafeteria. He glimpsed her red hair just ahead. Sunlight stung his tender eyes, and he waited for them to adjust. Grace! he called to the wind, hoping she was near enough to hear. I never told you. I didnt want to have anything to lose in my life. I couldnt stand the gravity pulling on me. He gripped his cane till his fingers tingled. When his vision restored, he climbed the cement stairs, passed the metal picnic tables, and passed student flocks on their way to class. He bumped into one of

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the tables, knocking over empty Pepsi bottles. One rolled off the edge and shattered on the concrete. The pyramid glimmered in the light. Orange paint smeared down its metal frame, sealing the glass triangles that composed its body and soul. He knew the pyramid well but had never seen it with open eyes. Hed dreamed of decorating its railings with snipped paper dolls cut from books of faith dressed in tiny black words that crawled like ants on their skin. She walked to the orange membrane and pressed her hand through the glass. The pyramid absorbed her soul. She merged with Anubis, the jackal keeper, the watcher who dwelt in the vacant heart of the sculpture, the machine. Her spirit filled the pyramid like a wasp replacing the pit within a peach. Air lashed his lungs as he struggled to catch his breath. He grabbed a glass bottle from the table. He had no pen, and hed cut all of his paper into dolls. He searched for the means to write her a note. He picked up a glass shard and sliced into his skin, but no blood dripped from the hollow vein. He wept. He aimed the bottles mouth to his eyes and captured his tears. His love had gone now, and she was always his love. If hed told her, perhaps Grace would have grown roots to keep her in this world. Shed drowned in his silence. Now, he drowned in Gods. Humans mouths failed speaking such words till they could speak no moremute paper dolls tied with string and kite-flown. He tossed the bottle at the pyramid. He fell to his knees. It struck the glass and cracked. Three shards split, and they scattered to the base. The orange painted glass declined to fracture. The snow globe wouldnt crack. He struggled to stand, to close the distance and beat on the pyramid, but his racing heart denied him strength. He opened his mouth to speak, to break down the structure with words ancient and true, but his heart strained his wind. His lungs twitched and skipped.

Deforestation Scene

Julia Walters

11

Valley of Fire

Keith Moul

12

Cocoon
Cooper Sy Blumenthal Her body is wrapped in silk twice tighter than a cocoon. Some have been known to shed their hides during the dry season when dirt turns to dust and one must crawl across rivulet to riverbed. This is definitely my dry season. There isnt a drill bit or pinking shears I havent tried and yet nothing is sharp enough, nothing bores through, nothing lets light spill across the great divide. Last night the wind howled like something wild had gotten loose. Her hair, skin, bones, back, knee, face and toes were still and warm. My hands on the outside of the window slipped fast to the bottom of a steep decline. I sat on virgin snow for days. I thought my assignment, some would say fate was to connect with the eye that caught mine across a narrow table in a crowded bakery in New York City, summer of 09. Yesterday I saw the same longing, desire for capture, redemption, and lost dreams in the eyes of a man whose face was pinned to the wall of the Post Office. He was wanted for some despicable crime. They offered a bounty for his capture, need for justice, suffering, longing, emptiness hope and hopelessness. I had a feeling he and I made the same mistake trying to puncture a hole in the mask of the world and stuff our empty pockets (in the old days I would have said heart) with loot.

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Last Dig at Tikal

Sarah Wyman The diggers axes woke the toucans slumbering in the leafy jungle. Theyd come to free the Mayan ruins hidden in the earth so long. Jaguars prowling eyed beasts among the vines, but men looked just the size to swallow. Men should have seen the flight of swallows, a sign more stern than clown-beaked toucans. Instead, they wrestled the stubborn vines, a woven, twisted, braided jungle cover, away from stoneno heed to jagged warnings. Hearts in their spades, passion met ruin. For each, a life unearthing ruins, tropical climes amid swirling swallows beat cocktail parties, driving Jaguars, filling out tax forms two by two. Can you imagine a life unjungled? Their veins had grown to rainforest vines. They knew the stories of holy vine wine washing newborns, when ruins smiled gleaming steps at the creeping jungle. Jade-decked priests read the arcs of swallows, watched while howler monkeys took cans of relics. The diggers dug on unwarned. Jaguars inched forward, paw by pawjagd wars had honed their claws on the thickest vines. Dark eyes narrowed to cracks. The toucans perched on limestone, admiring rue in the landscape change. But the wary swallows foresaw tooth-torn death in the jungle. Maybe the Mayan ghosts of the jungle feared for their treasure, coaxing the jaguars on. Certainly not the crying swallows, hopping in frenzy among the vines. Men pursued their beloved ruins, smoothing white stone, watching the toucans. Swallows winged close, feathers brushing rough vines. Sprung through jungle curtain, jaguars ruined the men, their screams shaking the toucans. 14

Green Bird

Julia Walters

15

Bloody Rouen
Richard Peabody There is a Charnel house in the city of Rouen which has become an art school. Very fitting somehowan art school whose exterior is decorated with Memento Mori. I think of this now, because when I moved from my Bethesda apartment I tossed my old futon in the dumpster. Too big, it stuck out like a white elephant. That night it rained. In the morning the futon was a gruesome crimson as though somebody had poured buckets of blood over it in the darkness. My girlfriend, on seeing this spectacle, told me in no uncertain terms that my previous girlfriends were all disgusting pigs. I was much more afraid somebody would call the cops and Id have to somehow explain this red nightmare. Which brings me back to Rouen, where they burned Joan of Arc at the stake in the town square. Rouen, which I pronounced Rowan to the delight of the entire country. Stupid American tourist. The French are much more comfortable with blood menstrual or otherwise. And in a country where the plague and perpetual war have killed so many people, few would raise an eyebrow at my failure to own a mattress pad.

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Brown

Eleanor Leonne Bennett

17

Building

Eleanor Leonne Bennett

18

The Editors Hats

Jay Herman Part 1 Executioner I seize the instrument of death and with savage strokes and red gore purge the curse of banality that is to me as nails on a chalkboard. Part 2 Surgeon I probe, painstakingly inserting the edged tip into bloated subjects as my tool resects necrotic sections to expose a lusty vitality that warrants display. Part 3 Bouncer I sneer at groveling wannabes as across a velvet rope; crazed puppet of the ruthless, self-preserving status quo.

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Part 4 Sentry I select with vindictive brutality, only the fresh; zealous guard of the zeitgeist impatiently dictated to the idiot masses by the ruling elite.

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Winding Stair Rec Area

Keith Moul

Burra Mullah and the Poison Tree

Nabeela Rehman

nce upon a time there was a country that did not like its Neighbor. The people were very suspicious of their Neighbors, who came on tourist expeditions to buy blue enameled pottery and gold embroidered linens. They didnt mind overcharging them, but once the money was gone, they expected their Neighbors to return promptly to their side of the border. One day, Burra Mullah was walking along the street and peering at the tops of the walls because his wife had misplaced her silver necklace. Although other members of his household were questioning the children or scolding the sweepers, Burra Mullah suspected a crow might have grabbed it, flown for a bit, and then dropped the glittering necklace. As he scanned the mudbrick walls topped with barbed wire or glass shards for signs of his wifes jewelry, he noticed his friend had a strange tree in his backyard. There among limpid palm fronds and spiky orange-tree leaves, a tall thin tree held aloft thin branches of dense purple-black foliage. Curious, he knocked on the door, invited himself in for tea, and between bites of tea cake, Burra Mullah asked his friend about the unusual tree. Burra Mullahs friend poured steaming green tea into the blue porcelain cup. He set the teapot on the tea tray, scratched his head, and finally stammered, Well, f-f-funny you should ask about that, but a man from the Neighbor country paid me some money to see whether their trees would grow in our soil. They want to expand their orchard business, but they are not sure their trees can grow just anywhere. Special soil requirements, he told me. And you took him up on this venture? asked Burra Mullah, his hand raised to his heart. His friend shrugged his shoulders, Well, he offered me a huge sum and I have a daughter who is getting married next month. She expects a big wedding. Burra Mullah nodded sympathetically. It is a very easy tree to grow. Hardly requires any work or water, and it is flourishing. The only problem is, it is a poison tree. Burra Mullah sputtered his tea all over his coat, the tea tray, and the tea cakes. As the two men sopped up the tea with paper napkins, Burra Mullah said angrily, How can you tolerate this alien, poison tree in your household? We were warned it was poisonous, and I have told everyone in the household not to go near it, and besides, he sighed, I need the cash. In the days that followed, Burra Mullah noticed many of these purple-black leafed trees growing up all around his village. The shade the trees cast was so dark that nothing could grow underneath them. As Burra Mullah interrogated his neighbors about their gardens, he soon learned that the businessmen from Neighbor country were very keen to open new agribusiness opportunities. Although they had plenty of poison tree orchards in their own country, they could not keep up with the poison tree product demand. Burra Mullah and his closest friends regarded the thriving poison tree business with dismay. They formed a close union and vowed to protest this invasion of a new species into their country. They 21

made clever banners and staged a number of very loud protests, but their warning calls seemed to fall on deaf ears. The problem was the versatility of the poison tree. The fruit itself, when eaten raw, was thoroughly toxic. However, if the scabrous yellow rind was removed and the magenta fruity flesh was put through a series of cooking and condensing procedures, the resulting pink paste was quite edible and high in iron. The smooth brown seeds of the fruit were also highly lethal, but when ground into a powder and used in small amounts, the poison seed spice made food unbelievably tasty. The branches of the poison tree grew quickly and the wood was light and flexible, perfect for furniture manufacturing. The sap from the roots could be boiled into a sort of rubbery plastic that was naturally biodegradable and could be used for everything: packing peanuts, car tires, mops, erasers, gaskets, spark plug tips, or trash bags. The medicines derived from the poison tree seemed to have miraculous, nearly overnight cures and far surpassed anything traditional remedies were able to offer. The scientists of Neighbor country were quite clever, and always came up with new uses and inventions based on the poison tree. Poison trees were lucrative and everyone wanted a part of this emerging industry. Burra Mullah saw his brightest students leave for the universities in Neighbor country to become agronomists, pharmacists, and manufacturing engineers. Burra Mullah and his companions decided that they should try to develop their own trees of many uses from the indigenous fauna of their country. They searched for native trees that could compete with the poison tree, but these trees always became sickly and scrawny when grown in a commercial orchard network. Finally, one of them discovered that if the native tree was grafted onto the roots of the poison tree, the resulting hybrid grew quite well. Soon, Burra Mullah and his friends had a comfortably successful tree business of their own. Their trees were not quite as flexible, and they were exceptionally toxic, but they grew well. Burra Mullah and his associates soon developed a small, but devoted, following who believed in the superiority of the native trees. The problem with the hybrid tree was that the fruit was so poisonous that it had very few applications. One of the more passionate young men of the group was certain he could find a way to render the fruit less toxic. Burra Mullah was proud of the young mans enterprising spirit, but troubled that the roots of the native trees consisted of that mysterious foreign plant. He wondered whether he should tell the young men about the grafted roots, but as he gazed at the reddish black leaves of his poison tree, he decided against it because he wouldnt want to say anything that might dampen the enthusiasm of the younger generation.

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2:30 a.m.
Cooper Sy Blumenthal Who in the middle of the night will write poetry imagining a rainforest replacing wild flowers in your terrace garden, a banana fish floating past your bedroom windows, or notice the thin stem green plant bending its neck toward your reading lamp dropping leaves on the novel that pleased you so. I am the witness so solidly framed by my own illusions you have to take your tongue out of its metal lock box and swat me down like a fly. Flee or stay, but do not speak of taking me down the river in your leaky boat, dear. I have sailed grand canals when students marched carried guns without bullets, wrote poems on planks of wood falling bricks broken glass sharp as swords. And the beautiful young girl? Slugged shots of whiskey, tasted dry kisses felt sharp teeth pierce my tongue. Reading Lorca? No, Borges. While strangers waited at the entrance to your golden shore. I remember a beautiful boy with dark eyes and black hair. He spotted me smoking behind the tiny cinema on Rue Michel. 23

Gitanes, I said. Were you smoking Gitanes? Gauloises, more likely, she said. I let him fuck me against the wall. I told him I loved him in French. My accent merged with his. I didnt change anything for a week. No, Im lying, three days. She laughed, bringing it all back, lifting her spirits off the mountain above the sea a mile from her cottage once a retreat. Turning my own memories over and over again like a brown postcard with faded ink, I cannot recall one as luminous as those of a stranger.

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Untitled

Anastasia Sergeeva

Head First
Joshua Kandalaft

ur faces touch, brain-to-brain. Telekinesis. I jump through your week. I hear the scraping of butter over Mondays burnt toast. I feel the release and relaxation from your Tuesday night jerkoff session. The cool beads of rain hitting your jacket on your way home Wednesday. I see Thursdays haze, the lazy mundane filing of papers and answering phones. Friday, its warm bed sheets and crisp afternoons, full of possibilities. I move away, the connection broken. You open your eyes, curious, almost concerned by my features. You stare at my nose, wondering why my eyes seem like trains on the wrong tracks, outbound, away from the city and away from you. You notice how my hair is tumbled grass, overgrown and bristled. What were we doing? you ask, the first words spoken. This silence wasnt broken, just cracked. I put my finger over your lips and push you along. We leave your house, guided by sound. The door slam brings us up to the next noise. Were in a subway station, the trains roaring in and out, people clambering about. The pushes and shoves separate us but we stay in view. My enchantment brings you back. We run up out of the station. You feel the cold marble stairs sucking your heat one shoelace at a time. Its your mind trying to pull against me, against our dream. I give you my hand and we continue through the foggy automatic doors. We walk past the theater district. You can make out all the chatter outside the bars, the sound of ladies rubbing their fingers, scratching against their glasses. The air is smoky, full of tobacco and last minute stage fright. You take a whiff and then were back, running. Downtown, up the cobblestone walk. You hear the scraping of our shoes on the stone. People move away, skittering like pigeons, letting us run up. We manage to reach the top and look out at the town. The trolley rolls by, heading down for its last trip of the night. The metal groans. The minute that thought seeps in, darkness seeps over and the sky blisters with stars. Its a lucid dream, I say, but you pay no attention. You stare up at the constellations. Stars and lines blend and morph to your imagination. You see Pisces, twin fish swirling around each other, the big dipper filled with hot cocoa. You always loved chocolate. Youre lost looking up in the air. I take your hand. You feel my squeeze and squeeze back. I feel your happy cheeks filled with sweets. We stay there crumpled like paper planes fallen to their destination, waiting for the wind to pick us up again.

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Untitled

Victoria Krinsky

26

Uruguay Colonia Del Sacramento

Keith Moul

Four days off the coast

Jenny Morse I. Our pictures show only grayscale divided by blonde hair, as if the wind had asked for my portrait. II. Relieved of monotony in the Gulf of Pena, Dramaminesedated passengers, the Swedes from the pink bus, costumed like armadillo bandits, skipped meals theyd paid for, while we ate their jello and ran up stairs our knees meeting our chins at the top, arms out, and the walls meeting palms at acute angles. III. The brochure portrayed the sea as adventure, but the coast is a distant island: three rocks swathed in white cotton, a few birds gray and out to sea, three penguins, a seal.

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28

Dead Print

Julia Walters

Watercolors IV
Janet Butler Surface slips from us as paint follows line to that distant point where impossibilities meet in a haze of color. A swath of flat brush and grass sprouts lush viridians softened by a wash of ochre toned in turn by ceruleans now sky now shadow. A middle distance anchors us, with, perhaps, a shape become door, or windows impenetrable to all but imagination. Slender strokes, a splash of olive, and we lie against rough bark. Blues drip and puddle and dry cobalt shadows to cool us.
[Received an honorable mention from the Berkeley Poets Coalition]

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All the Lost Crayons

Richard Peabody 1) Prussian Blue (ceased 1958) Kids fight over their favorite crayons. If you reach for my Aquamarine or Copper I might just bite you. And who didnt love you, Prussian Blue? I needed you for the deep water surrounding Mike Finks river boat, the night sky above Bull Run, the deep sea adventures of Sea Hunt and Captain Nemo. When they changed your name to Midnight Blue we were too young to get it. This new color will have to work. Look, it almost matches. I wouldnt learn about Kenny Burrells Midnight Blue for years. 2) Flesh (ceased 1962) I used Flesh for all my cowboys and Civil War soldiers. My Davy Crockett and Lone Ranger coloring books. Bronco, Lawman, and the Cisco Kid. What on earth were they thinking when they changed your name to Peach? No hero is Peach-colored. Every kid felt betrayed. The Peach crayon was too sissy, and it wasnt remotely close

30

to the color of the peaches we ate on summer visits to North Carolina. Peach. We all wanted to grow up to take over the crayon companies and name our own damn crayons. 3) Indian Red (ceased 1999) My favorite crayon of all was Indian Red. It was the first one to have its paper peeled off, the first one to be used down to a miniscule nub. Parents balked at buying a new set of crayons just because one was toast. Use Red Orange, they said. How can you color Tonto Red Orange? Parents dont know anything. How dare they change your name to Chestnut? I just missed using you again when I began coloring with my daughters. But you havent been in most sets of crayons in living memory. I thought youd given up the ghost long long ago, when all of the TV westerns were replaced by bikinis and secret agents, when I couldnt find you no matter how hard I tried, one hand on my Tales of Wells Fargo coloring book Dale Robertson and that stagecoach, another hand on Maverick or Roy Rogers. Nothing else worked in your place. Not Brick Red, Mahogany, Maroon, or Salmon. And only now I discover that you, Indian Red, werent based on real American Indians at all.

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You were always meant to be the type of red used in fabric from mainland India. Youre dead to me now, along with the other retired colorsRaw Umber, Thistle, Blizzard Blue, Magic Mint, Maize, and Blue Gray. Replaced in the Crayola Universe by Metallic FX Colors and Silly Scents, with names like Alien Armpit, Booger Buster, Big Foot Feet, and Sasquatch Socks.
[Originally published by Vox Poetica on Sept. 26, 2012]

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Red Bird

Julia Walters

Six
Rinzu Rajan Six years. I counted them as six minutes or six lives. Sixth was the day, sixth the month when I stabbed you to six deaths. Outside my house, mountains rose out of molehills, wrecked wheels transformed into cars and coaches, markets became malls, towering in the streets while women wailed against crimes of lust and loathe even with a lady of husbandry. Here in my country nothing changed. I still tie my hair in a bun, wear barrettes and love my grey, abhorring with audacity my obsessive compulsive disorder of scrubbing tables, floors and my brown skin of dirt and disgust. I poached plants to fill my belly and heart, practising dishes I never wanted to cook for you. And in these six years Ive loved children deserted by spouseless mothers and starving men, seen muted maidens step out of their porches after being cremated till dry, fallen in love with coccus creatures those that levitate light. Cribbed and choked in clich, poetry you may call not worn, my veil in respect to men, tongue tied them in a vain act of valour mooted and mimed their dominating desire to love me as a woman.

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When I learned to brew my coffee without bitterness I realized six men had walked past me. The first and third loved my poetry while the second condoned it to banality, the fourth with bibs around his neck wanted to braid a noose for me, the fifth never existed in my poems and parables, and then on another sixth a sixth one walked in, the one who gave me a garland of gold, my marauded earth swallowed all five while nailing the sixth in your coffin And I developed cold feet, those without cracks, and forgot the number six.

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Untitled

Anastasia Sergeeva

Untitled

Anastasia Sergeeva

35

Sublimation
Nabeela Rehman

e was fidgeting behind the podium, thumbing the edges of his index cards. The public offering did not fare well: stumbling over words, dropping cards, mumbling, forgetting the order of his slides. In the darkened, poorly ventilated room, the wheezing projector provided no reprieve. He clicked the wrong slides and stuttered as he broke away from the lucid haze of his note-monologue. His jokes lacked timing, and he kept brushing the clip-on microphone to create a cacophony of feedback. Afterwards, she found him sitting alone at a table set for ten, laboriously cutting into his vegetarian lasagna. She sat down next to the new initiate. He was surprised at how easily she could make him laugh. His whole body relaxed when he smiled, a joyous acceptance of her snares. How odd they read the same books? That was years ago. The dusty projector has been retired; PowerPoint presentations on sleek laptops are the new helpmates. Staring at him across the crowded conference room, she wonders how much of him is left. His presentation was polished, his timing impeccable, his success tangible, a welltempered TED talk in his future. She stands in the line of people waiting to congratulate him. Do you remember me? Yes, of course. Then he smiles. No joy, no awkwardness, just the feeling of dipping ones foot into the shallow end of a long Hollywood swimming pool. The smile confirms it. Every trace of him evaporated in the crucible of success.

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HIS ONE AND ONLY SHOT

John Grey Under orders to shoot the sparrows in the barn pointing up at beam, iron tongs, ropes, with BB gun trembling one shot, birds scatter, boys showered with dust and web and hay sparrows in their wholeness gather in the eaves boys a mess, like an extra in a Stooges short, gun at side, the only broken wing hereabouts

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Green

Eleanor Leonne Bennett

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it was implied
John Mahoney it was implied rather than stated outright, as all these things must be when spoken of at all, with cousins playing in the hayloft of the old barn next door at the neighbors, so the children would not hear and I stood, looking out the window, at the glorious spring, unfurling in the soft butter yellow of one crocus the earth giving us back our lives, as though the prairie winter still held the power to carry us away in storm. The coffee gone cold in my mug, as I did not listen, or I did listen but paid no attention, to the whispered vehemence of aunts. It was done now anyway, as has always been done by women everywhere, it was implied. Mar 1, 2012

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Untitled

Anastasia Sergeeva

40

At least they didnt call me Gordita

Jenny Morse The first time I heard my name, two men called out: Rubia, where are you going? Why arent you smiling, Rubia? They saw how blonde fits unnaturally inside these borders. On another path, men yelled to each other: Make way for la Rubia! I speak their language, eat their food, live in their cities, and remain strange. I am yellow like old books, like dried toenails, like pawns in the landscape; yellow like the sun against locks, like split pine, like a north theyve never seen. Bueno, Rubia, would you like some wine? I remember you, Rubia. Are you from Argentina, Rubia? Thats where all the Europeans are. What is America like? Tell me, Rubia.

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Portland Potted Plant Shadows on Redwood

Keith Moul

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Behavioral Health Clinics, Waiting Rooms, and Wandering Thoughts

Heather E. Pecoraro

o, my doctor has given me this medicine, and when Im not sleeping it makes my brain feel like its melting, and it has me wondering what these people do when they go home, when theyre not doctors (or nurses), when theyre disconnected from these machines; what are they doing, what are they seeing, what are they feeling, what are they hearing? Are they afraid of God? Do they dance on the tops of coffee tables? I wonder if some of them go home angry and rude to their husbands and wives. Little houses with pastel kitchens and cluttered counter-tops, piles of papers and pens. REPORT CARDS. WHOLE GRAIN NON-FAT ZERO CALORIE CEREAL BOXES AND POSTAGE STAMPS. Alice is very well-dressed and drives a brand new car, but her stomach is full of clouds and her head is in the air. And sometimes I really cant imagine why she feels like she has to scrape out her insides with her fingers just to feel like somebody cares. Youve got your method, and this is mine. I hope escapism lets you drift off somewhere nice, somewhere where there are no rules or reindeer games or Sunday schools. Someplace you havent left any fingerprints yet. There are still dust bunnies in the closets and spider webs on the door frames. There are no waiting rooms or little plastic cups or tiny dotted lines. Nobody ever signed them, anyway. They were always fake names, fake telephone numbers, different personae, different masks in every hallway.

LISTEN

Emily Dorr

43

Dill+emmer
Bernardo Bolt Gregori Shoals of bread, speeches of wine. Most of us are many a man when drunk and fed. Some are only three. Stars are multiple, even the dead ones. No body has to resurrect to shine and inspire. Spices never dress tastes. Its my tongue winds up telling myself what Ive been cooked with.

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Untitled

Victoria Krinsky

Memory Plum
Nabeela Rehman

his class participation exercise makes us uneasy. Our teacher is young, and he wants to make the class more interactive. We are accustomed to Quran teachers lecturing at us, quoting eminent scholars from the past and expounding their authoritative interpretations of text. The class starts out, traditionally, with a direct quote: (2:25) Announce to those who believe and have done good deeds, glad tidings of gardens under which rivers flow, and where, when they eat the fruits that grow, they will say: Indeed they are the same as we were given before, so like in semblance the food would be This ayah tells us we are promised a taste of what we have in this life in the next life, says the teacher. Now I want you to think, what is your favorite fruit? Lets go around the class. We start at one end of the class, and each student obediently names her favorite fruit. When it is my turn, without thinking very deeply, I say, Oranges. But after I say it, I think to myself, Why oranges? Youre not that crazy about oranges. I realize I meant to say kinnows, my father-in-laws oranges, a hybrid orange developed in California in the 1930s, and brought over to the Punjab region of India ten years later as part of the Green Revolution. Due to their many seeds, kinnows are considered juice oranges and nowadays are almost exclusively grown in Pakistan and northern India. They have an unusual color, a deep orange that nearly looks red in the shade. The month before this class, my family had spent most of December in Lahore, Pakistan, when the kinnows in the orchard were ripe. My children had delighted in pulling fruit off the trees, plopping themselves down, and eating the oranges right there in the sandy dirt. The kinnows were delicious, a result of my father-in-laws careful selection of the best fruits for his personal orchard. After lunch, the whole family would gather on the front lawn, sitting in patio chairs, a bowl of freshly picked kinnows on the umbrella table. We peeled the kinnows, juice dribbling over our faces and fingers, spitting out seeds onto the grass, enjoying the sun and our time together. My oranges response came from the recent Pakistan holiday, but my favorite fruit is actually the plum. I havent tasted plums for many years because I know the taste of a perfect plum and no grocery store plums have ever neared the taste of my memory plum. My memory plum came one July afternoon in California when I was eleven years old. My mother decided wed go berry picking as a family. She wanted us to pick a mountain of berries, haul them back home, and freeze the harvest. We worked in the field all morning, loading up on olallieberries and raspberries, but my mother also wanted strawberries. This farmer had no strawberries. We had to go two miles east, but en route and in the middle of the hot countryside, my father announced he was hungry. This was not a surprise. All the children indulged in a collective groan. Why couldnt my father just control his appetite and let us finish this berry picking exercise as soon as possible? We all knew his hunger would result in pulling the car over to some farm stand to scrounge around for a snack. Undeterred by our whining and complaining, he pulled over at a stand advertising farm fresh plums. At the edge of the plum orchard stood an old, dilapidated shack filled with small boxes of large, purple plums. My brothers wanted to pick fruit off the trees, but the farmer said, No, too dangerous. They

45

pouted, but my father grabbed four cartons of plums and we sat outside, eating under the trees. The plums were wonderful, juicy. The sunlight filtered through the trees. I cant remember what we said to one another, but I do remember biting into the fruit and thinking, This is what purple tastes like. There was relief from the berry picking and hot sun. We relaxed; the shade was calming, the succulent fruit filled our mouths with amazing sweetness, and we were happy, together. I look back at this snapshot of my family, when we were young and my mom was healthy, long before everything blew apart with disease and death and everyone was scattered and angry. In class, I recognize that my favorite fruit isnt associated with just the fruit. The fruit is always paired with family. So is this the taste of immortality? When the taste of something sweet on your tongue will match the sweetness you feel in your heart? Unfortunately, my epiphany comes while half the students are still naming their favorite fruits. Once the crying starts, theres no stopping it. The tears flow down my face, and thats just how it is. My brothers still refuse to sit next to me in a movie theater. What are people in class going to think of me? I dont like fruit? I rub my eyes as though I am trying to stay awake, but Im trying to rub the tears out of existence. I pull my notes close to my nose, as though I am reviewing some terribly important information on Arabic grammar and the use of imperative verbs.

46

Untitled

Anastasia Serveega

Wet Exit
Sarah Wyman The man held the womans feet lovingly to his chest. As he slept, down and down she swam into dark depths that hid a certain light. Her legs became a two-lane nameless road away. Seaweed hair draped on a coral bed, she remembered the man only by a clutching warmth in her toes. Miles high, the man looked down to see he held a mermaid by the tail, embellished with a curl of kelp. Thinking her simply a fish, mistaking the curve of hip for a play of waves, he let go

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Arizona

Keith Moul

48

Guardians
Janet Butler Soft clouds foam against late afternoon blues but massy enough to build castles on their dark underbelly falsely solid an archipelago that seems to pause mid-air but inches by above me. Brushstrokes of late sun gleam their far ridges mountains no climber ever scaled Mt Zions that shore the wide ocean of sky.

Jump for Joy

Emily Dorr

49

a body is a body on a photograph

Cooper Sy Blumenthal A yellow swash of paint on the doorjamb. A key attached to a sterling silver chain lost on a trip abroad found three years later inside a suitcase saved from getting lost on another trip with a lover, lost now, instead. A blue pillowcase with one or two dark stains could be but are not dried tears. A nappy threadbare hand towel with fading crocheted pink roses as hard as bristles scratch the face. A photograph of four strangers all dead. A photograph inside a cracked glass frame. Two thin women smile against a sterling blue sea, corduroy blazers, brown clogs, two scarves, turtlenecks, pink lips, dark hair blowing away from their cold faces. A brown wedding photograph with the date, 1944, etched below swirls of yellow satin. A Bride. A Groom. Both dead. A photograph with a date in the corner 1972 A photograph with a date in the corner 1984 A photograph with a date in the corner 1995 A photograph forgotten between the pages of a novel; the oversized glasses, wide lapels padded shoulders, circa 1982. A photograph lying flat on a shelf, the boy 2-years old 4, 7, 9 fishing in Hawaii with his father. His father also sucked his thumb until the age of 9 lying on top of a threadbare blanket. A guest, a lover, a friend stand at the mantle and politely ask, Who are these dead people inside the brown frame holding the family together? Mother, Father, three aunts, three uncles, one cousin and a young husband still flushed from his recent honeymoon. I move the dust along from one photograph to the other without noticing almost sixty years have passed.

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W/ Love
Matt Wilkinson

omewhere nowat some drugstore aisle or mall kiosk or gift shop tourist-trap thoroughfare somewhere theres an eight-year-old boy being an eight-year-old boy: hiding behind a spin-rack of greeting cards, waiting in ambush for his unsuspecting mother, who is fifteen-or-so-feet away, behind a closed door, applying makeup in a recently remodeled bathroom. Whats going to happen in just a few moments is this: The suns going to shine through the window; the mothers going to emerge; the kids going to squeal, and the kids going to pounce; the moms going to embrace him; and theyre both going to walk out into the daylight, holding hands. But first things first: greeting cards. Greeting cards are folded cardboard rectangles, the covers of which promise something peaceful & sentimental :: landscapes; puppies & kittens (together!); symbols which may or may not be Buddhist, but are close enough anyway; old-timey swimsuit models w/ humorous talk-bubbles; two sagging, wrinkled old people whose faces melt together in a passionate kiss :: some honeydrop thing that strums us like a chord; something known, and acousticalmost universal. But when the card is opened, there is only blank slate affection. This space is, of course, for the buyer to add their own personal touch to something that is almost completely impersonal: a product of known, marketable appeal. And in the buyers own hand would be written some message of graded sentiment based upon the intended recipient (provided there is an intended recipient at the time of purchase) and their relationship w/ the buyer. And the recipient accepts them, to varying degrees of amusement/sentimentthe idea being that he/she (the recipient) has not gone unnoticed. The boy hides behind these things, not thinking these thoughts. His smile is insuppressiblegapped, yet-to-fall baby teeth peeking out like timid miceas he fidgets w/ anticipation behind the rack. Fifteen-or-so-feet away, behind a closed door, the mother applies makeup in the bathroom mirror, under buzzing fluorescents. The bathroom has been redone. The tile is shining; the colors are multifarious & bright; the doors are painted white; all the locks work; the toilets are clean; an old woman in the stall closest to the sinks has shat herself (which, but for the smell, is of no concern to anyone). Mother can see the bathroom door behind her in the mirror, and every time it opens there is a bombardment of color & noise, of people moving & talking & laughing too loudly, and kids giggling, and machine sounds, and things made of metal crashing & thwacking & banging :: and she can see the glossy magazines adorned w/ young women, & old women whose business it is to look young; and she can see the rack of cards, and the boy waiting. She takes her time in applicationconcealing crowsfeet & smile lines & other such striations of the human face caused by natural aging & emotion under that harsh light, that insectoid hum of fluorescents swarming about her, until she finds herself standing stone-still & staring into the mirror, water flowing continuously from a broken automatic faucet in front of her. She notices a nick in the bright new linoleum when she reaches for a paper towel. She dries two thumbs and eight rough & ringless fingers, one-at-a-time. The boy is waiting. The mother sighs as she heads for the door, having forgotten about the shat-pants air, which she now palpably tastes. Shes only just stepped through the door when he attacks, too eager, too early, a consequence of his long wait. The rack of cards rocks & spins. He streaks toward her shrieking a ridiculous, helial battle crylike a radio frequency of code, dit-dotted by laughterthat goofy, gapped grin spread across his face. 51

Its like a card, rich w/ potential sentiment; and one begins to expect things. One expects the boys steps to fall soundlessly. One expects mothers smile to grow in proportion to his nearness to her. One expects mother to drop to a knee, arms extended. One expects the world around them to be exhaled in a fuzzy aura of light & music & slowness as they embrace, sun streaming through spotless windows. One expects the general, acoustic idea of love. But what happens is this: The sun indeed shines through the window; and the glass is indeed spotless; but only mothers one arm comes out limply as the boy charges, the other arm hanging at her side. Her smile is mostly an effect of her lipstick; she accepts him; he smothers her coat in hugs & kisses; she corals him toward the exit. Its not an embrace; its an acceptance. Noise & color & crowded reality flow on w/ the broken faucet. And the sunlight outside isnt the warm kind. And she doesnt look at the greeting cards on the way out, the disturbed rack just now going still, its many cardboard pieces promising so much human feelingcontaining none if none is applied.

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Arcade

Eleanor Leonne Bennett

LIFE->Bunnies

Emily Dorr

53