NEIGHBORHOOD HEROES

QUIET LIGHTNING IS:

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including a monthly, submission-based reading series
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sparkle + blink 89
2017 Quiet Lightning

cover Katie McCann

beetleblossom.com

Periodic Fits by Cassandra Dallett

first appeared in Bad Sandy (Pedestrian Press)
Watching Fast Black by Cassandra Dallett
first appeared in Water Wars (Pedestrian Press)
Lovely and Lonely... by Cassandra Dallett
from Collapse (forthcoming, Nomadic Press)
When the Guns Clap by Cassandra Dallett
first appeared Water Wars (Pedestrian Press)
60s Again by Cassandra Dallett first appeared as Its the Sixties
Again in Rusty Truck
At the Motel Behind the Dennys by Christine No
first appeared in Writing Without Walls
Long-billed Curlews by Hugh Behm-Steinberg
first appeared in Sweet
Flower Instructions by Maw Shein Win written for Flower
Interruption, a collaboration with artist Megan Wilson for the
LIZ/Living Innovation Zone at the Asian Art Museum

book design by j. brandon loberg

set in Absara

Promotional rights only.

This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form

without permission from individual authors.

The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the

internet or any other means without the permission of the
author(s) is illegal.

Your support is crucial and appreciated.

quietlightning.org
su bmit @ qui e tl i g h tn i n g . o r g
 CONTENTS
curated by
Quiet Lightning
featured artist
Katie McCann | beetleblossom.com

KIM SHUCK Green Glass 1

Long Road Car 2
Sunflowers 3
Hero 4
One Feather Dropping Wise 6
Rattle 7
The Rain is Coming 8
FAITH ADIELE from On Walking and Writing 9
BARUCH
PORRAS-HERNANDEZ Failure 15
CHRISTINE NO At the Motel Behind Dennys 19
Sainthood 22
Ariel 25
My Red Name 27
End of Lease 29
New Years Day 30
JASON BAYANI Antidepressants 33
Greater Joy 36
Kein/Muenchen 38
CASSANDRA DALLETT Periodic Fits 41
Watching Fast Black 44
Lonely and Lovely
are Almost Spelled the Same 46
When the Guns Clap 50
60s Again 53
Atomic Dog 56
MAW SHEIN WIN Flower Instructions 59
Listen 61
Durian 63
Grapefruit 63
Limes 64
HUGH BEHM-STEINBERG Soft Spot 67
Three Teenage Poems 68
Two Poems on Kissing 70
Long-billed Curlews 71
 G IS SPONSOR
ET LIGHTNIN ED B
QU I Y
 QUIET LIGHTNING
A 501(c)3, the primary objective and purpose of Quiet
Lightning is to foster a community based on literary
expression and to provide an arena for said expression. QL
produces a monthly, submission-based reading series on
the first Monday of every month, of which these books
(sparkle + blink) are verbatim transcripts.

Formed as a nonprofit in July 2011, the QL board is currently:

Evan Karp executive director

Chris Cole managing director
Josey Rose Duncan public relations
Lisa Church outreach
Meghan Thornton treasurer
Kelsey Schimmelman secretary
Laura Cern Melo art director
Christine No production

If you live in the Bay Area and are interested in

helpingon any levelplease send us a line:

e v an @ qui et light nin g . o rg

 NEIGHBORHOOD HEROES

Once a year, Quiet Lightning honors exceptional

members of our communityour Neighborhood
Heroesfor a special edition of our show (and
accompanying issue of sparkle + blink).

For a full list of our Heroes, to read their work and

watch them read with Quiet Lightning:

quietlightning.org/neighborhood-heroes

sparkle + blink 89the very book you are

holding in your handsfeatures writing by this
years Heroes.

For their bios and links, visit:

quietlighting.org/candlestick-point

We would love to know who your heroes are,

and who youd like to see participate in Quiet
Lightning. Please send any nominations, thoughts,
and/or questions to:

evan at quietlightning dot org

 KKKKKKKKK

G REE N G LASS

Hes flaking old beer bottles into

Precarious leaves the
Summer fog is thick and the
Shards click and ring and
Drip an
Absolute June green how long can you
Hold your breath?
There is a
Dry smell in the air
Sticky and bitter how long can you dance to a
Rhythm of urban leaves the
Foliage of walking away
Something must have moved because he
Wasnt there last week the
Seasonal election
Postcards
Amulets
Pages from a book we are writing about salvation the
Postcards blow down
Sanchez like
Fall there is no other
Place
Nowhere but here

1
 LONG ROAD CAR
Crossing and crossing the Truckee
I unravel
Am woven backSan Francisco Bay to Neosho
Where my heart curls unfinished
On the long road
Some mountains are impatient some
Creeks unhurried
Stripers arranging
Songs coded in gill and
Fin
Fan meltwater to prayer
Something they can dance to
In the car
Cheek pressed to glass the Wasatch
Hum stories of great blue heron
Mumble water to salt
Count time by birds
In my grandmothers voice
Some will think of this as metaphor
Others recognize a feather when they see it
At night
With all of the bird thoughts
Caught in my hair
Like highway reflectors
We can stay between the lines
Can read history by this light
Road spirits pulling us
Towards the ache that might be healing

2
 SUNFLOWERS

They arrive at the front door they

Pick through the beads they
Stare through them
Whisper poems to the pines
One
Word
At
A
Time
Because these days are short
Every seed watches and
Who knows what they are thinking?
Generational affiliation
I find dried seeds in the toes of my shoes
Singing of dancing of
Medicine
I find dried seeds
Every day closer to the creek
It isnt patience
Its hunger

Ki m Sh u ck 3
 HERO

Weight and shape of bravery

Is particularly your own
Is not the only challenge you will face
Morning today was not as cold
Tests of your heart are
Constant I have seen you
Wedging yourself into cracks between window
and frame
Seen you squarely on your feet
Beak to muzzle with mythology
Fortunately a story you recognize
Conclusions reeling out in all directions
Blue and light blue and then
Unseeable but this is a thing youve seen
Caught
Here
By your own childhood sweat dream
In this moment you are too tired for fear
Eyes open this is
Actually dangerous
Equation of meat and alcohol and anger
Your calm doesnt help and you are
Not interested in the choreographies of submission
Physical language that too many women are forced
to learn

4
Feet firm you do not conform
Sad for the moment you do not conform
Tomorrow can be anything else tonight is not yet an
Emergency

Ki m Sh u ck 5
 ONE FEATHER DROPPING WISE

The bay wakes

Shakes her wings
As if her body was a bell as if
Bells yearn to ring warning
She arranges her feathers and
One drops
Wise and damp
To the pebbled shore that sings importance and
Responsibility
As if a bay can forget what it can be
Forget how to rainbow or
Essential lessons in healing
As if bodies have forgotten the
Ocean as if weve let slip the habits of salt
Blood and dancing with the moon
A palm placed on the fallen feather knows
Remembers that selling isnt knowing
Slip banks
Shake the equation of wings start the
Deep work of making well

6
 RATTLE

When the first four-legged frog cousin

Pulled herself out of water it wasnt rejection
Soft wet skin called her back again and again
Blood a
Contract with water a
Promise in the cells a
Rattle we pick up and hand on a
Moaning song that arches and
Clenches to
Bring our babies cradled in
Water a
Gift returned a
Rattle we pick up and
Hand over one
Generation to the next

Ki m Sh u ck 7
 THE RAIN IS COMING

Panic is a luxury for those

Who are only in danger
Seasonally
Relax between battles
Some people dont want your
Smile or help
Dont want you in the neighborhood they have
Chosen from a catalog
There is a heat that only comes from these sidewalks
Nowhere else
And I can only sleep with my head on the shoulder of
a
Cousin these days
Perilous I understand
Explain to me
What is safe
Away from this kitchen table
Texture and quality
Words
We weave
Weaving time is here
Sift
Pull
Edit
Manage
Stand with me here
In the ceremony of living

8
 FFFFFFFF
FFFF

from
ON WAL
KIN G & W RIT I N G

you are walking, your writer-mind sputtering

from one image-stone to another in the stream.
Monkey-mind, you learned to call it in the temple. Its
like African storytelling, each story alive in the past,
present and future, the three realities swirling by each
other, like one of your fathers untethered stories,
where he could be talking about the armed robber who
shot him in the chest at the side of a Nigerian highway
before you knew him, or the doctor who just now
replaced his pacemaker in Nebraska, or the coming
pain, when a demagogue will highjack democracy in
Africa or America and break all our hearts.

The way your writer-mind is working, a word or idea

from one story becomes a jumping off point to another
story that circles backnot so much a sequential
progression of stories, but opaque layers, as if your
mind were constructing hypertext,
ideas and words
layered and linked,
Yes, thats it. Youve always been like this, but since
the advent of the interwebs, its become worse.

9
you are walking a dirt path in a regional park in
northern California. Yes, walking for recreation, you!
Six years since moving to the Bay Area, the prodigal
daughters return to the West Coast, a little dismayed
not to be folded into your California friends lives the
way you were during visits, but even more dismayed to
receive invitations from potential replacement friends
to get together for a walk.

A walk?

After having finally escaped cold, segregated places

like Boston and Iowa and Pittsburgh: a walk?

And not a walk to any place, say, to walk around an

organic farmers market (one available nearly every
day of the year somewhere) or to watch subcultures
race from one picturesque destination to another in
costumes or nothing at all. No. A walk as the destination,
a troubling cultural practice suggesting that, after all
your years spent accruing degrees and scars in the East
Coast and Midwest, you are no longer West Coastian.

This becomes even more clear when you receive a

party invitation that includes the directive, b. y. o.
mug for tea. You are (somewhat) African, and wonder
what, exactly, would lead this poor hostess to believe
that anything she has planned for the eveningthe
setting of intentions, the conversations about social
justice, the brewing and consuming of (youre guessing,
herbal) teas in guest-provided mugscould remotely

10
be considered a party.

Should you do an intervention, gently suggest she

should avoid using the words mug, tea and party in
the same sentence?

But somehow now, a mere year (or three) later, youve

drunk the Kool-aid and are walking alongside all the
other northern Californian, Tevad, Hi-Texd, Merrilld
hikers with their hamster-sized dogs and babies
strapped with expensive contraptions to toned backs
and chests.

Your eyes land on the feet of the hiker ahead, which

reminds you of the last time you did walking practice,
really did it. You were a Buddhist nun in the Thai
forest, wrestling with this body of yours, which had
been so maligned and menaced at college, in classist,
sexist, racist Boston, that youd flunked out and fled
the entire northern hemisphere to a cool bit of shade at
the foot of a storybook waterfall to lick your wounds
and tame your obsessive mind that runs up and down
every possible path faster than your body ever could.

For 19 hours a day, long before Mindfulness was a Bay

Area catchphrase, you upheld a vow of silence and
single daily meal, forsook money and shoes, and tried
your hand at Insight Meditation, either sitting on
the wooden floor of your hut until you thought your
scoliosis would snap your back in two, or creeping
down cement walkways, beside the manicured gardens,

Fa i t h Adi e le 11
 next to the rushing mountain stream. It was difficult,
not to mention boring, and you learned to wear a veil
over your head to stop from inadvertently breathing in
gnats and committing Buddhist murder. Your favorite
moment was when the nuns gathered at the morning
bell and processed to the daily meal, you, the lowest
in rank and last in line, trying to ignore your unruly
breasts, focusing instead on your ragged breath and
the green breathing of the forest around you and the
muffled beauty of the foot of the nun before you: the
strong, golden arch as the foot rose, the pristine white
cloth pooling on stone as the foot dropped.

Your mother, who reminds you of the head nun, with

her impossibly high ethical standards and fearless
determination, has impossibly high arches and tiny
feet, more than two sizes smaller than yours, despite
her weight. When you were young and just a few
years out of government cheese, the entire trailer
home would shake as she sped down the hallway
towards either the bathroom or your room, and you
would pause mid-play, trying to gauge the signals in
her stepexcited to share a book with you, enraged
at some imagined disrespect, or merely in need of a
pee? She talked too fast and walked too fast for such
tiny feet, and in her later years has taken to losing
her footing and tripping on doorjambs, tumbling
down stairs, flying over cracks in the sidewalk (you
dont even need to do itshes gearing to break your
mothers back herself, literally).

12
Youre torn between an adult-childs terror that your
only immediate family member on this continent will
fall and then require hip replacement surgery and then
develop bedsores and then contract pneumonia and
die (isnt that the progression?), and a still-adolescent
impatience that when you walk together, she trails
behind, as if you were the head nun, the two of you
unable to walk abreast like equals. Your mother suffers
from arthritis, exacerbated by her weight, and takes
tiny, mincing steps like a courtly Chinese woman with
bound feet, but if you slow down for her, she slows
even more, so youre still ahead but going nowhere.

Occasionally she barks out, Pause! Hold for a minute!

sounding irritated and imperious, which irritates you:
If shes not going to walk with you, then why should
she care how many steps ahead you are? And, who is
she to be barking out commands, so many years out of
the trailer home? You have your own two-story house
and a career and admirers and a husband who walks
like a little boy, completely flat-footed, slap-sliding
around the house in Made in Taiwan flip-flops, which
in Nigeria they call appropriately enough, slippers.

Slap-slip Slap-slip: He comes to a stop and stands like

a little boy, small round bottom high, grinning eagerly
like a little boy, which is one of his greatest charms,
though his boyishness is one of his greatest failings too,
the way he shouts out random, hurtful nonsense during
arguments or awakes every morning as if newly born,
fully believing that this time his latest money-making

Fa i t h Adi e le 13
 scheme will bear fruit and today he will start paying
the bills that are starting to weigh on your body, like
the extra you that is pooling and settling as you heal
less quickly from your car being rear-ended last spring,
more than a year ago, from the breast biopsy this fall
that led to three infections, from the winter virus that
in two months has downgraded from feeling like a
toddler standing on your chest, to an infant balancing
on soft feet, as puffy as your own. You awake, hand to
throat, gasping for breath, while he awakes, sunny and
full of belief in today, completely unencumbered by
the 1,295 days before today, this moment.

14
 BBBBBBB
B BBBB BB
BB BB
BB BB
B FAILURE

I once was told to make a list of my successes

instead I wrote a list of my failures,
here we go!

Being straight.

Learning about credit scores and

why the fuck they should matter.

Not running away when I was a kid.

Running away when I was a kid,
I always found my way back
or they found me.

Not lying at least once every day.

No, theyre not terrible lies maybe.

Doing the right thing.

Killing myself.

Not drinking. AA.

The other twelve step programs Ive joined
that I wont mention because, whatever,

15
 anonymous for a reason, right?

Being a good brother. Being a good son.

Being a good boyfriend.

Being a good friend. Being good to myself.

Being a good bottom.
Basketball.

Gong to U.C. Berkeley, sorry Dad.

Being Mexican, according to some Mexicans
Ive been doing it wrong for the past 32 years.
That is a lie. 36 years.

Having a savings account. With money in it.

Being Gay.
Technology. Acquiring property.
Knowing the correct meaning of words.
Grammar. Spelling. Monogamy.

Being in a Band. Blogging. Not using deodorant.

Being a vegetarian. Being a Vegan. Being a raw Vegan.

Catholicism. Atheism. Being Goth.

That one really hurt, I really wanted to be Goth.

Forgiving myself.

Pushing myself.
Meditation. Guitar.

16
Making sense of why Im here.
Piano. Jogging.

Breaking through the walls of reality in search

for other realms or planes of existence beyond
comprehension of my human understanding.

Growing up.

Ba ru ch P orras- He rnande z 17
 CCCCCCCCC
CCC

AT THE MOTEL
B E HIN D DE N N Y S

1.

High on the I-40

Up since six no sex and
fighting

The stoned row of Cabbies

White plates, empty Big Gulps
Plastic St. Christopher

an altar on the sticky dash

The wet hairedpriestess

Her bare feet
Holy black soles pad
From room to room to room, cooing:

Ill be your ghost queen

Ill be your anything

Invite me in

Moonlight, neon - Exit sign

The porcelain bath - the hiss, the squeak

19
 The water comes
My cue

Let me clean
Your tired soles

Mutter your transgressions

Into my mouth

I will bear witness

To your secret sins

In room 7B:
Hail Mary

2.

Once I loved a traveler.

Once an ambassador, a fog
so sweet and hard

Once a ghost
A soft half-opened mouth
Her cold finger, snug beneath

We speak our woes differently

We repent our sins the ways we were shown
By others, full of grace

He slipped his confession

My hands grip the tired sink

20
Under running water he said:
Hail Mary

3.

I have mastered the art of the perfect fit.

I have mastered Love, and not-love.
Mastered go-on, get-out, good-night

I have mastered alone.

My favorite lover sunrise

My second lovers billfold
All my lovers, secret sinners
Here for absolution
Overnight.

The last confession,

Continental breakfast
Coffee black,
Sleep

I have forgiven
I have been forgiven

And repeat:
Hail Mary

Ch ri st i ne No 21
 SAINTHOOD

I.

Motel room Patron

Saint of cigarettes O! keeper of dirty secrets
Two thighs, Milk white

Lift that blue dress

An absolution

Tungsten Haloed
Hallelujah

Says: Honey, Sainthood begins

and Sainthood ends

II.

Holy ghost of black dog and Winnebago

Odd job Sam, no address neighbor -

Found him
In the Costco lot
No sign of dog -

Cant do this any more.

I want to go home

22
 III.

Does location make confession holy?

Indiscretion in rest stop bathrooms, thumbing

broken tiles, like rosary

On warehouse floors,
Fervent Magdalena at my lovers feet

Washed, Perfumed,
Tongued a benediction, finally solve solve solve

Praised the Lord of seven-elevens

Of green amphetamine buzz, of
Holy cash machine
The clipped hearts Incantation Hail Mary

Unfurled dervish
Boys and girls, neon
Angels here

Cursed the dimming streetlamps

That herald dawn

Stiff neck and ache

Ch ri st i ne No 23
 IV.

A Nameless Saint
Ascends a staircase

A body descends
Come morning

Plead Sanctuary

Close the blinds, pray

here to wound, to marrow
sucked dry. To broken glass Your Neon Angels, gone -

Come down alone Cold inheritance

Make parable of your suffering:

Remember: Sainthood begins

And Sainthood ends

Not sure: How it feels

Mea Culpa: The bodys wreckage

24
 ARIEL

I remember nothing, dead body

Girl afloat in the thick, and
Vicious: so viscous
So well preserved

I can see you, ancient mariner

Examining my skin
My bones, my mid and
Cross - section

Smoothed, belly-wide
Mouth to tail

Notice how the human body

Is a vessel of compartments
Valves and pumps, such capacity
At rest now waterlogged

Eyes blinking
Fish belly up, wrinkle free how
Obscene this must all seem, my naked
My stubborn lack of transparency

I couldnt tell you if I wanted

Ch ri st i ne No 25
 I told you I remember nothing

Spin me around, count the ways in

There are many: garish and pink like
Arrows pointing here
And here
And here, too

Take your gander, examine

Like specimen, like salt pillar
Like vision:

I am The Girl Preserved

Eyes open, bright and hopeful

Such detail work, her gaze
Almost loving

Admire my craftsmanship

I see you
See right through

26
 MY RED NAME
(for my mother)

Mother named me Soon Night

Obedient daughter, good Torn open,
Natured
Worn,
Faithful dog, soft Unholy Spine
Pink
Fashioned
My fathers humid Gloves
Lap Tongued
Meat from
Did not speak Nail
Did not mouth
Dead thing Swallowed
Buried
Alone, Prayed
Unhinged
Jaw Exhumed
Gnawed each piece My Red
Crowned Myself Name

Sunrise Bone
Buried Adorned
Prayed Rubied

Ch ri st i ne No 27
 String My Red
Name
Aubergine
Globule As They:
Finally
Dinner, Daughter
My Red Name Father, Viscous
Enrages Mother, Master
My mother
Soon, Sun
My Red Name
Refuses Soon, Gone
My Father

Soon
My Red Name
Burns

Avert
My Red Name
Sees

Hunts
Jaw
Dangling

Devoured
Men
Prayed pink

Earned

28
 END OF LEASE

A whole year gone, already

On the anniversary of the death of us, I crushed myself

like a pill bug: laughable armor but brave, still

And slept forever, or wished I did, the dog curled,

my small concavity.

The sun is out now; they say

Spring is here. And I was born two days ago. For the first
time
felt reason to unfurl. Imagine that: my body a
celebration.

Hasty: an acceptance

The days grow long.And I was born two days ago; lighter
practically afloat. Winter shed. Watershed.

Ache and bone extracted you

Today is Monday. And I was born two days ago.

I feel I should apologize but

What for?

Ch ri st i ne No 29
 NEW YEARS DAY
After great pain, a formal feeling comes
Emily Dickinson

Mournings rules:
Love & minor chords
Sound either/or

Everything / nothing ebbs

Floods / you cling to
Eddy / stand at the edge let
Either / or pelt you until you feel
Either / or will do when desperate

Come over
Bring cigarettes
Sing to me / we are allowed our distractions

The vibrato in your chest / your bravado

Your stomach, my cheek: the rise and fall
Wall of water

What it sounds like inside your body:

Television in another room
Distant traffic, motor whirr
You all hum and murmur

30
This world feels
Nothing meant
Understood / Believed

Ch ri st i ne No 31
 JJJJJJJ
JJJJ J

A N TI D E P R ESS A N TS

If I ever receive a letter from my younger self, asking

what is it like to be older now? Id write back
Two words. More pills.

Why are so many bad decisions, pleasurable.

Who is there to blame for these things? Arent we
to learn from mistake? Who would set up this binary
of reward and punishment only to throw in
a whole bunch of immediate rewards that become
punishments in later life? Is someone fucking with us?

Sometimes I dont know what body Im in anymore.

As if someone switched things out when I wasnt
looking.

Im trying to figure out how to mark the years

by the shape of my body, my great loves
or my great barbers, my clothes, the tattoos, poems,

all these departures we make

to our former selves? Always feeling
like Im having to grieve for someone
who gets left behind.

33
Maybe to be born away from your homeland
is to carry a sense of loss youll be struggling
to understand your whole life. How many different
types there are to be born into.

Ive been to the pharmacist four times this month

and Im always feeling like I have to explain myself.
Maybe a quick, Just trying to get healthy man
or Ive had insurance for two years and only used it
twice,
one day I said to myself, Im going to see all the
doctors!

The last time I went in, I am handed the bottle

of antidepressants I promised a former love
Id look into, years ago. I accept
many things about who I am.

That there is a sadness in my body. That I got to push

a little harder to get shit done. That I spend more
time
hidden because every bit of self care is erased
when I become visible and brown in the world.

At what point does acceptance save me? At what

point
will it only hurt me even more? A person
cant keep submitting to the conditions theyre living
in
if those conditions continue to hurt them. Thats
history.

34
I question what kind of person Ive become in this
world.
How much Im willing to accept because I dont
think
well ever be able to win. But everything outside the
window
is louder than it was the day before. And has grown
louder, since.

This morning my homie tells me maybe it isnt loss

that Im born into but possibility. Always on the
verge
of arrival. An iteration of what if.

Maybe its both. Maybe that corny ass meme got it

right.
The moment you are lost is the moment you arrive. It
is possible
I can hold all these things at the same time.
All of the grief and possibilities.

And, as he tells me, if that condition isnt Filipino,

I dont know what is.

The first day Im on antidepressants I wept in my

chair
after popping that first pill. I thought it was because
I was ashamed, but it wasnt that. I could see
that away is what Ive grown used to becoming.
But in the distance I could see it. I could see the way
back.

Jason Bayani 35
 GREATER JOY

How little there is to know of the body, that we

would emerge
from the water, never a complete newthere, inside

a facsimile of older grief.

They say that the body inherits memory. Maybe

it is just the newer pain that learns to understand us
through us. Trauma as a wire through the
generations.

We are not alone in this, I repeat

then inhale. Each flush of air
sketching in my mind all the parts of me
that will remain hidden. We are not
alone in this. I need to tell myself
that this, too, is a practice in faith.

On the day the coroner will hold

my dead heart in his hands. What will we call it?
Out-of-commission parts? A collapsed engine?

What becomes of the well of ideas, the great

imagination, every bit of touch that ignites

36
and remains, still? Where does this go?

I want to believe that joy is inherited, too. Wouldnt

they want
us to have this, as well? Doesnt everyone you love
deserve the entirety of you. Some day Im gonna get
gone
from here. Some day you will. I grieve for you,
already.

But I believe that grief is an honest gift. It is how you

learn
to hold the whole of a person. So much of sadness is
counted
inside of the absences.

There is nothing missing when it comes to any of you.

It is your fullness that overwhelms me. The rich and
varied
life of a person, all of its requisite pleasure and
madness

Maybe there is a way to learn to live with this.

Maybe well make
the place that has learned to love us and our pain
in equal measures. If there is a greater joy, I must
believe
it is one as equal to the weight of our living.

Jason Bayani 37
 KEIN/MUENCHEN

Nobody told me it snows in Germany during Winter. I

brought all the wrong shoes, must have slipped the ice
seven times before eating it in the Botanical garden.
There are several ways to get got in a city. The prime
offense is to always be looking up. I couldnt help it
though. Ive never seen the street break form like this.
Munich is so gutteral and heavy on the tongue. The
buildings are an impractical math. I am relearning
shape. The city where I love is a grid, a digital timepiece:
bending and folding: in and out of space. Here the
streets are series of gears; the metal and the motor; all
of it turning; the great wheel of time; it is breaking me;
I am broken; I came here broken. I can say that now.
There is enough time.

Today, being around people who speak a different

language than me feels like less pressure. Bitte, bitte
means please, but sounds so much like bitter. Kein,
under my breath I repeat the word kein: I have no, I
speak no, I am without.

A poet told me she wouldnt be able to translate one of

the lines from my poem: I love you in this city, and
make it sound right. She said it wouldnt sound sincere.

38
I didnt tell her, the person I wrote it for didnt think
so either. I would have tried to make it sound like a
joke. She wasnt getting my jokes. Instead she wrote
one of my other lines on the wall: What else would it
mean to be human if not a lost thing. I could have fell
for her but I didnt. Maybe when we say love, we mean
a safe place to fall apart.

I feel like Richie did that first night we took acid.

Around 5am he said, When is this shit gonna be over?
Im listening to Junior tell me the same thing he told
him Later.

You know how at some point, some asshole always ends

up asking you the question, If you were a superhero,
what power would you have. I hate that question.
Theres a superhero who talks to cities, but you dont
want to have to explain who Jack Hawksmoor (God
of the Cities) is. So you say what everyone else would
say, Id fly. I wish that maybe someone would say, I
would spit medicine into my palms. Or, I get stronger
whenever I experience grief or loss and the more grief
or loss I experience, the stronger I get. Dont make me
sad. You wouldnt like me sad. Then maybe talking to
cities wouldnt be such an outlying notion. Even today,
in a place as cold and unfamiliar as Munich is this
morning.

If I were a superhero I would talk to cities. Maybe to

hear it say five more minutes, come back to bed. Some
feral hound nuzzling its way between us. I think of all

Jason Bayani 39
 the parts of me I am losing. How none of it makes me
stronger, just different. I wonder if Ill ever be myself
again. And if not, why would that be such a bad thing.

Munich, I am without. When I slipped the ice nobody

laughed. Ill get you for this, but you got me. You got
me son.

40
 CCCCCCC
C CCCC CC
CC C
P E R I O D I C FI TS

Last night I texted four men:

two of them exs,
one of them married.
One of the four informed me
we share a moon-in-Gemini,

whatevs I said

This would explain many things he said

I was only texting to ask about his favorite sex club.

I looked it up; Google says we share a rapid speed of

thought, vanity, a desire to make many things all
at once.

Our emotions are very changeable it says.

I say the only sin is doing a thing that you know is

wrong.

Sexting with married men may or may not be

a thing that is wrong.

41
 Restless is what it says about us.

I believe in Happy Endings, not in fairy tales

or relationships but in massage parlors.

Doesnt monogamy sounds like monotony?

We struggle to maintain our independence.

Our feelings are held in too much scrutiny.
A direct need to speak the truth.

Tonight on stage
I will spill secrets down my shirt,
purple like wine
I will kiss and tell.
I will call it poetry.

Springs are scarred into my fallopian tubes.

tiny fruitless trees prevent the eggs
falling failing little Pac Man.

I almost married one of the four.

He was a teacher.
He taught me to run.
He was the moon-in-Gemini Cancer.
Cancer is what it felt like most.

A cancer that picked my bones

left me starving,
a beautiful carcass I was.

42
They never stop, it says
reading, thinking, talking,
they never stop.

They often come off as fickle,

thats what it says about us
I text the teacher.

Cassandra Da lle t t 43
 WATCHING FAST BLACK

I think of Dwayne Reed, write list poems of lovers-

lovers as in people I hooked up with lovers who never
said make love
but were tortured like the love songs we listened to.
Between us color lines, my being underage, and our
poverty.
But when the lights went down there was only his
hands.
His weedy brown lips, lean chocolate frame,
He was scary quick to slap.
Although he never did, I knew he was a trigger
without warning.
That was as close as I have been to love
sleeping with someone so dangerous.
It makes you want the meat of them,
crawl the floor bare-ass and beg for it
whisper Daddy while straddling his bucking frame.

These are the men whose perfection graced auction

blocks
the white world still trying to own it, cage it,
while milking it for inspiration
so caught up in the mythology of pimps and blues
men,

44
the mystery behind dark eyes.
Women like me want to be owned by it
feel safer with someone who isnt afraid of us,
someone who gets our soft spots and that exteriors
are just that.
There are words and then there are hands
and sometimes its all too much.

Dwayne lived on the brink

finally fell in
to insanity
to the nut house
Oh but Dwayne
you really turned me on.

Cassandra Da lle t t 45
 LONELY AND LOVELY
ARE ALMOST SPELLED THE SAME

I did not die

when Ant Wiley dragged me up the stone wall
dangling over the bay

Police lights bathed me

in relief of his relentless
fists and feet

I was not shot by cops

when guns were pointed
at my head

I did hide in my room

a lot
still do, huddled here now

With the twitching dog, the computer,

and my stomach ache

Im lonely
and I want to eat Xanax
and cereal

46
Never overdosed
but wanted out
many times

Never cut
having too many scars
already

Begged to have my hair pulled

my face smashed into the head board
that escape is short lived

I went to the movies tonight

with a guy from a bar
just to do it. just because Im lonely
or something

His desperation
was rubbing on me, giving me
indigestion

He wanted to show me off

he wanted to take me to the mall, to eat,
to his bar

I wanted to get out

couldnt get home fast enough
all that need reminded me
of my own

Cassandra Da lle t t 47
 How it feels to really like someone
and how these months I relearned what its like
to like no one

to look into the future

and see nothing
like I did

Back when guys like Ant Wiley

beat the shit out of me
and I still wanted a boyfriend

To pick me up after work

eat chicken fried steak at Dennys
drink gin and juice in the car
with someone

Cause he made me laugh

and got that look in his eye when he came
that glazed dazed look that made me feel
some kind of way

Numb like this, I miss feeling

some kind of way

Actually it was the worst reminder

that I have not grown up
at all

That I will obsessively text

48
where I once
paged

That I will sit in my room

and cry for a very long time
broken and looping
no power button shut off

love lives only in pages and songs

so Im thinking about buying cassettes tapes again
stacking them high with the books on the shelves
surrounding me, and the shivering dog
late into the cold night

There is moon
and there is me
and
I did not die.

Cassandra Da lle t t 49
 WHEN THE GUNS CLAP

Its in your chest full of bass

I read poems about beat to white folks.
That prolly never rode in a scraper hittin corners.
The speakers shaking your insides
shape shifting your very cells.
Every seven years Im on a mission
still thirsting dream.
I been settled down with my heart-of-gold-thug
threw it all off in search of sex and intellect.
If only there was balance
but we tip our own Libra scale.
Dating reality is like eating
youve got to take small plates
of the things appetizing to you.
Some nights its big dicks only
on others all bets off.
Good conversation is the slipperiest thing.
Wet panties and music you know that shit in your
gut.
Im not above it, cant outgrow wanting
to chop it up all night about rappers, the best R & B
comeback,
and favorite movies of childhood
when gangsters were just kids

50
wearing slippers from Chinatown
to see Bruce Lee.
Its not the inevitable gentrification we are running
from,
the Salt n Peppa on insurance commercials
Its insanity madness creeping up the back of our
necks.
The Big Take Over yeah
our Bad Brains overwhelmed with anger just wanting
love
but they dont write those songs no mo.
I swear if one more sweetheart-of-a-brotha tells me
how exhausted his cheeks are
from smiling at white people
so they wont think hes so scary.
Once you know certain things
you cant put them back in the closet
of your white mind.
I just cant do this thing
but I thought it would be less racist
to at least try dating a white guy
less objectifying but so much more fake.
I cant protect yo neck from the sidelines
all I can do is cheer. Im listening
and smiling so hard my cheeks hurt with you.
I tell you fuck em if theyre scared.
But Im not the one getting hauled off to the joint.
I heard Angelas warnings.
Whatever I say in court no matter how crazy
will still sound more innocent than you.
And I cant explain this to one white boy

Cassandra Da lle t t 51
 busy playing victim in the post racial beat down.
Having a black president
sure has brought the Klan out of the woodpile
or was it just the internet
that gave them all the balls.

52
 60S AGAIN

and Im born.
All that Public Enemy-
I was raised on, Paris, and KRS,
finding revolution between lines in Short and 40.
I watched the whole movie last night with no joy.
Recognized the OG, dated a hundred of him-
cold blooded to everyone but his Moms.
It was too late for her-
room crowded with meds, mismatched afghans,
dirty walled Victorian.
We all bitches-n-hoes till death bed.
I can sing you all the lyrics-
all the shit dudes rapped they never would-
do for us.
pussy-money-weed prayer.
Isnt it all strip-club-church
Chris Rock blamed the misogyny on crack.
He wasnt all the way wrong-
so, we back it up, flip it, rub it down
our asses so full of love and anger-
we fuck with a vengeance.
Search the tender part, near iris.
Pillow talk dumb shit
you search for a nugget to love.

Cassandra Da lle t t 53
 I loved a thug once,
because he was the only person I ever knew
who spoke in metaphor.
Sometimes you got to ask yourself,
is this dick worth this conversation?
Young MA wonders why the whole world
wants to see her strap
and you think about it,
while he fucks you.
Youre never present.
These times tumultuous
as when I birthed, Nixon Moonwalk
Whitey on The Moon
They killed Fred dead.
We still war, we still march,
I need a gun -a survival plan.
There is a big dick in office
with a little dictator complex.
The oligarchs are coming-
shore up your scarcity walls
thats that bitches n hoes mode.
So bendable and expendable
makes pulling the trigger easy
me or him, me or her-me.
The future doesnt look like we thought it would-
a kid called thug wearing a dress made of Princes
lampshade.
small liberties slipping through fingers
unable to pull the breaks.
We roll back.
The only one who gets me-

54
is an OG on Telegraph outside the liquor store.
He looks me up and down,
says, Hey you remember Blondie?
filling my heart of glass like a fish tank in Vegas
Amazon is the monkey on my back.
Assorted cardboard boxes come-
filled with bags of air
Pal is my Pay.
Maybe I just be buying
random time
and things to fill it with.

Cassandra Da lle t t 55
 ATOMIC DOG

What is there to write

when summer has turned cold
the sky pressing gloomily down
Tiki torch lynch mobs
plan rallies near you
a thousand posts
on what you should do, can do,
wont do
guts knotted and afraid to leave the bathroom
this is no surprise
just a campaign promise
the unveiling
of the pale sick country
we belong to
now you know
the white kid handing you a hot dog
an aspiring Klans-man,
oh youve known some
skinheads, and white boys
who joined the Brotherhood behind bars
can wish them nothing
but boots upside the head
youve heard the ridiculous
rationalizations
freedom of speech arguments
typed madly to the Alt Right abyss
too many masters

56
manipulating
stirring up fear and paranoia
Othering Othering Othering
we should all be
terrified of the terrorists among us
white dudes talking take back
shit that was stolen in the first place
we all pointing fingers and wringing hands
its here
the year they promised
at all those rallies
all the red hats
telling you it was this
birther bullshit
go back to Africa
calling slaves migrants
migrants criminal
vegetables rotting on the vine
stop the rewriting
the propaganda
fueling painful flames
stop protesting Top Dog
and listen to your God
or your Dog
my God,
we might be busy killing each other
when they drop the bomb
My Dog,
hand me my machete
these white boys might be the zombie apocalypse
weve been preparing for all along.

Cassandra Da lle t t 57
 MMMMMMMMMMM
MM
FLO WER I
N ST R U C TI O N S
1

Blanket the streets with plum blossoms.

Rest body against warm concrete.
Find rose petals on sidewalk.
Glimmer of the memory garden.

Follow the trail of invisible bees.

Nectar guides for the lost ones.
Fling lasso into summer darkness.
Hear whistles and megaphone.

Hold body close to body.

Breathe in the greenhouse.
Wear wet glitter and silver hose.
Lick salt on skin.

Catch whispers in libraries.

Greet strangers with acorns and grapefruit.
Remember eyes, ghosts, smoke.
Watch brothers as they disappear.

59
 5

Imagine a new world.

Keep sisters close.

60
 LISTEN
I said rock whats a matter with you rock?

-nina simone
from Sinnerman

Spend summer
in makeshift tree.

Stand on all legs.

Listen to Nina

as the fires begin.

Maw Sh e i n Wi n 61
 DURIAN

I am the lonely king.

Ruler of all, both sick and sweet.
I sit on my throne alone, woven
branch and leaf.

Cloak of spikes
and thorns prevent touch.
Hard husk, I trust
no one.

Should I crack open

upon fall or wall, a scent
so foul and rank. Tremble
and crawl. Tremble and crawl.

62
 GRAPEFRUIT

My flesh appealed to you

that fall. We fell for each
other, flush peach

Though my taste to your

tongue was bitter, you remembered
my juice and we rejoiced in sweet fiction.

Maw Sh e i n Wi n 63
 LIMES

Stranded in an airport bar, vodka with lime, missed

flight.
Thoughts of my unwashed hair, knee pain, my love at
home reading a book.

That day. Feeling as if my body could levitate from

the office chair
as I sat and marked essays.

Overly heated building. Remnants of paper cathe-

drals on the bookshelf.
Tiny limes rolling off a truck on the freeway.

Sound of rolling suitcases down the aisles, hearts

beating fast.
Looking at clocks and clerks, and finally the flat
spaces below through the window. Jets wings cut
through trails of cloud.

As a child, Id watch my father cut limes for his

cocktails.
He would quickly squeeze slice of lime in tall glass.
Then toss the ends in sink. Steadying himself on
the counter with his thin hands, dry and dark.

64
As a teenager, Id drink with Lisa and Bob, lime and
lemon liqueurs swiped from parents cabinets.
Our drunkenness in the cold night behind
church down the street. Elvis Costello songs on
cassette player.

I would cry in my room when I came home after

school.
I feared the future might not be what I imagined.

Maw Sh e i n Wi n 65
 H HHHHHHHHHHHHH
H HH HH
S O F T SP O T

When youre no longer a baby, after you start wearing

grownup clothes and big person shoes, after you
outgrow the safety seat and you start driving your
mom around instead, you ask, why cant I be a baby?
Id be a very good baby. This time Id get it right, being
a baby. You drive past the Toys r Us, you drive past
the great fountain of money and you drive around the
mortuary, no matter how good youve been youre not
getting anything your mom tells you from the backseat,
because youre a grownup now. Grownups never get
anything just because theyve been good. Beg all you
want, she says. Im never giving you your soft spot
back.

67
 THREE TEENAGE POEMS

1. When I was a teenager my hair was a forest. I

stretched for miles, and I could hardly go anywhere
because someone was always tugging, or tying me up
around trees or family or telephone poles. I tore so
much of it out, thinking if it was so endless I could get
away with wasting it. If I had lovers Id let them braid
me, but I didnt so I stayed wild, and wore it loose with
bangs that hid me about as well as I could hide my
feelings. When I was a teenager everyone wore their
hair like that. No one was going anywhere and if they
had lovers they treated them awkwardly. I wasnt good
at getting out of my body, even when I shaved all of
it off.

2. My counselor refused to let me drop biology class,

no matter how often I told her I hated it. You need to
get used to bodies she said. I know you dont want to
but you do. So I signed up for theatre classes. What I
loved best about them was the warm up exercises. I
loved tensing and relaxing the different parts of me,
rolling my shoulders, becoming rubbery. Wed sit in the
darkened auditorium while the teacher taught us how
to cry. We sat there with our eyes closed, thinking our
saddest thoughts, but I just couldnt. All I felt were my
shoulders cramping, as if Id been carrying something
so heavy Id never be allowed to know what it was.

68
3. When I turned into a teenager, one of the things I
grew to hate were chin-ups. To hang off a bar and yank
my body up, over and over, only to fall back down
again mindlessly; there were just so many better things
I could do with my wrists. The gym coach would lash
out at me and my laziness. What if, he said, there was
a terrible accident, and you were dangling from a cliff,
and the only thing saving you from certain death was
the strength of your wrists, would you not at that
moment regret blowing off all those chin-ups in gym
class? Fuck no, Id say. I have a backup plan. Why do
you think Ive been masturbating so furiously all these
years?

Hu gh Be h m- St e i nbe rg 69
 TWO POEMS ON KISSING

1. My kisses are so sweet you have to bolus for me

every time and Im such a sloppy kisser, my beard
tickles your face. So Im such a delicate kisser you
say come on baby dont hold back. Im such a serious
kisser, my kisses solve all sorts of problems, but Im
such a playful kisser I get in trouble too. Im such a
natural kisser youd never know I spent thirty years
in graduate school. Im such a great kisser all those
academic kissers should just go back to using their
mouths for dissertations. Im such a sly kisser weve
been lovers for decades and your mother thinks were
just friends.

2. There are two kinds of kissers. Theres the polite

little peckers, the kind of people who only open their
mouths to eat and talk and yawn, otherwise theyre
more concerned with gesture, the symbol instead of
the thing itself. They struggle with their kisses and
they always win. Weak huggers, you have to do all the
work and they come to resent it when you do. They
kiss like theyre doing you a favor. They kiss like they
care more about preventing the passage of germs. They
kiss like theyre gargling something more important
than you. Im not one of those. Hugh Behm-Steinberg
is a tongue man.

70
 LONG-BILLED CURLEWS

The literature of sleep splits between those who say

its about escape, you fall asleep

and in your dreams you hang out with curlews on

Candlestick Point, before the stadium was built,

before the last flocks were shot down by hunters, you

dream youre wading through abundance

and it worries you, because in your dreams wealth is

only there to be lost, wrecked or stolen;

you think the birds are oblivious, you keep trying to

save them: one school says of

course this keeps happening, you are asleep, so this is

about death, it sucks,

what sport is there to shooting long-billed curlews

that hunters would climb into your dreams

to wipe out even the imaginary ones?

The breakdown is unpredictable so its hard to be

trusting. Your habits are indefinite one curlew says,

Hu gh Be h m- St e i nbe rg 71
 so its hard to maintain control. Youre asleep and
erotic as youre embodied; one school says we fall
asleep to practice surrender,

but Im more hopeful than that. Barnaby claims the

group he saw seemed preoccupied

with stalking clumsily through the muck after small

fish or grubs, but I think theres nothing

thats clumsy; its an observational problem: you are

not a curlew, you cannot tell if theyre

being clumsy or careful, but Barnaby Im asleep right

now, or writing this poem, which is the same thing,

which means I know, and now you know I know, you

already knew, like the long-billed curlew

telling my wife when we sleep were writing creations

book, and in it were ok, were going to be ok.

72
- september 9, 2017 -