Silhouette

Literary and Art Magazine Volume 30, Issue 1 Fall 2007

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 4.16.07
Ross Abdallah Alameddine Partahi Mamora Halomoan
Christopher James Bishop Lumbantoruan

Brian Roy Bluhm Lauren Ashley McCain

Ryan Christopher Clark Daniel Patrick O’Neil
Austin Michelle Cloyd Juan Ramon Ortiz-Ortiz
Jocelyne Couture-Nowak Minal Hiralal Panchal
Kevin P. Granata Daniel Alejandro Perez
Matthew Gregory Gwaltney Erin Nicole Peterson
Caitlin Millar Hammaren Michael Steven Pohle, Jr.
Jeremy Michael Herbstritt
Julia Kathleen Pryde
Rachael Elizabeth Hill
Mary Karen Read
Emily Jane Hilscher
Reema Joseph Samaha
Jarrett Lee Lane
Waleed Mohamed Shaalan
Matthew Joseph La Porte
Leslie Geraldine Sherman
Henry J. Lee
Liviu Librescu Maxine Shelly Turner

G.V. Loganathan Nicole White

Annabelle Ombac, SPPS Photographer
 6 Impact Kate Michel
8 The Beauty of It All Tara Marciniak-McGuire
10 The Patient Evan Luzi
12 Naked Mike Bury
12 Dark Night Matthew Vera
12 whenever lonely Paolo Busante
14 Because I couldn’t think of any thing Kate Michel
to write except a love poem
16 Sibusiswe Kristen N. Brugh
18 my Native American sculpture Tara Marciniak-McGuire
20 Remember Grandma Xavier L. Herrera
21 Boy Soldiers B. Casey McGrath
24 The Fruitless Task Emily Mook
25 Hard Times for a Hispanic Xavier L. Herrera
27 Empires Emily Mook
28 Mixing concrete on my carport on a Tara Marciniak-McGuire
warm January evening
30 Above the Roots B. Casey McGrath
32 MARCHing forward head 1st Mary Morser
34 Everlasting Kristin Semeyh
36 Coming Home Will Holman

Literature
 Art

7 Lost Paradise Jessica Turrin

9 Biological Clock Ryan Arnaudin
13 Oedipus Zachary Gunner Madrigal
15 Untitled Stacey Swann
17 Untitled Kristen N. Brugh
19 Accordion Will Taylor
22 The Three Stooges Garrett Bradley
23 Grumpy Old Men Garrett Bradley
26 Voice of the Individual Jessica Turrin
29 Union Will Taylor
31 Is That Alien in the Background Freaking Ryan Arnaudin
Anyone Else Out?
33 Snowman Annabelle Ombac
35 Appalachian Amanda Kubista
Six

Impact

It was the early morning and it was cold.

It was the bumpy West Virginian roads that woke me
in a silver pick-up truck passing mountains that
I imagined then as breasts. Sour with age
with eyes like great gray magnets,
my father drove us north.
Most days the anger was metal melting
in red hot vats; the forest fires—
flames that thrash irrationally.
Tonight it was the cursing at city lights
and driving determinedly in darkness.

Tonight the sky would blink with a thousand

burning meteors like grains of sand
in a dark, milky sea—I liked the image of
foreign rocks igniting
on an unforgiving atmosphere.
They say that some escape the disintegration,
(the hard jolt out of their quiet womb)
And impact in soft grass with the chance
Of becoming whole—I liked that image, too.

The engine cuts off. On a drab gravel road

we watch the sky. We both close our eyes
when cars pass with bright headlights. Like children
we both point hungrily at the flashing horizon,
the cream-colored screams of light.
And there are stars falling because
I am born my father’s daughter tonight.

Kate Michel
 Seven

Lost Paradise

Jessica Turrin
Eight

Imagine Moss and flowers recede from

cherry the gum lines of trees, roots and
blossom bark. A new vulnerability is
petals exposed as winter approaches.
spilling Can I show it? Can these dots
from of black on white man the
the thing that is happening outside;
pockets inside me. The morning glories
of collapse inside themselves,
a sucking their color back under
white the surface of the earth, to
silk explode and wind through my
robe air conditioner again next
hung summer. The air is thin and
on runny like cider. The ground is
a hard but brittle; yellow. Vibrant
clothesline colors have drained into a messy
billowing puddle of oil in my driveway.
in What a way to see the earth, so
a condensed, so scared, so
slight patiently waiting while the
curling summer months rest, exhausted
breeze. from shedding too much color.

The Beauty of it All

Tara Marciniak-McGuire
 Nine

Biological Clock

Ryan Arnaudin
 The Patient
Evan Luzi
Beep. Beep. Beep.
The room was silent to go along with its white walls,
white floors, white sheets, white instruments, and even the
white face on the bed; all speaking no words, emitting no sound.
Except for the black heart monitor with its red line that darted
up then shot back down creating a mountain chain of activity, of
life, the mountain chain of a person.
Beep. Beep.
It was all that separated a world of silence from the
noisy, busy world that exists today. That world was on pause
right now. For one moment, in the white world of hospital room
number 247, the world stopped and listened. Listened for what?
It stopped its jobs, its cars, its planes, its money and its nature
for what sound? The only thing making noise was a black heart
monitor next to the bed with white sheets on which a man lay
with a pale white face.
Beep. Beep.
That heart monitor seemed as if it were the only life in
the room and, ironically, was the one thing that would soon take
life away. The life support stood tall, powerful, as it gave what was
called life to the patient. The patient was the only one listening.
He listened for the family, the pastor, anything; he listened to the
sound of the black heart monitor in the corner of the room.
Beep. Beep.
It’s hard for a six-year-old to take death seriously. By
the time a child is six, he’s undoubtedly played numerous violent
video games (if not his own then at his friend’s house. Everyone
has that friend whose parents let anything happen: the parents
that will buy anything, who act more as a broken bank ATM than
they do parents). By the time he’s six he has also more than
likely seen death and violence on TV and in movies more times
than he could measure. A child spends more time watching TV
by the time he graduates high school than talking to his parents.
In this time he’ll experience the entire spectrum of human
emotion more than once, but he won’t understand it.
A six-year old doesn’t understand or grasp his
emotions and he can’t understand others’ emotions until he
can understand his own. The six-year-old mind is set up much
like Play-Doh. The early experiences of childhood absorb, mold,
twist, roll, and shape the mind into something to play with. The
mind is merely a segway for a six-year-old to laugh with and
enjoy the ignorance of his childhood. Not until adulthood, after
he has left the Play-Doh out of its yellow cylinder container with
the red top, will the mind harden into something definite. Some
minds become round and able to understand all around it. Some
harden flat and can see only one point of view.
When I was six-years-old, the mold of my mind was made
fast. It had to be. My mother first received news of the cancer
four years earlier. Of course, her tears were hidden from the
youngest of us kids. My sister Traci was only half a year old while
I was almost two. At two years old, you’ve already doubled your
lifetime. My two older brothers, Kyle and Tony, would have been
five and eight years old respectively. Our family was always very
close. We fought, we played, we laughed, we cried, we especially
cried in the coming years, and we lived a happy, middle-class,
white picket fence lifestyle.
My father was diagnosed with cancer when I was only
two years old. He was told he had a rare type of cancer that
the medical community lacked very much experience in dealing
with. He was raising a family and he was diagnosed with cancer.
Doctors were optimistic in the early stages of the war. He
fought little battles everyday against the disease. My father was
not even forty and he was diagnosed with cancer. I was not even
two and my father was diagnosed with cancer.
I knew my dad more as a person than I did as a cancer
patient. In fact, the two words “cancer” and “patient” meant
about as much to me as Operation Desert Storm did. My father
would later claim his scar from the first surgery occurred
during Desert Storm. I always saw my dad bald, skinny and tall.
At five-foot eight-inches, he was a giant to me. At one-hundred
and twenty pounds, he was a sumo wrestler. I didn’t know he
was bald from chemotherapy or that he had lost weight to an
extreme degree. My dad wasn’t a cancer patient; my dad was
my baseball coach. My dad used to chase me around, catch me,
pick me up and tickle me to death. I called him a monster. My
dad was a tickle monster. My dad was there for me. My dad was
diagnosed with cancer when I was not even two.
If you look at the entire time line of the last few years
of my father’s life, everything he did was a countdown. One
week until surgery, two weeks for recovery, a month until a
procedure. At one point, my father entered into the hospital
late at night after having spent a whole week on vacation at
the beach. My mother didn’t know but he was told before the
vacation he only had nine months to live. Another countdown.
The doctors found his tumor to be the size of a football. He
loved his family so much, when asked why he went on vacation
he could answer only in short, panted breaths,
 Eleven

“be..cause..I..wan..ted..to…be…there,” he said. live on my own, but at eighteen-years-old I still know not more
“Ma’am, we need to make a decision on what to do,” than an inkling about death than I did at the impressionable
the doctor said. age of six. I made feeble attempts to write letters to my father
“Well, how long do we have to decide?” my mother soon after he died, but eventually I gave up understanding. At
asked. eighteen-years-old, triple the lifetime I lived when my father
The doctor glanced down at his Rolex. passed away, I’m still lost for an answer. Steven Francis Luzi died
“Two minutes. He’ll die in twenty,” the doctor spoke that night and he was my father. I will never forget him.
with some urgency.
“You have to fight,” my mother said.
“I..kn..ow..,” panted my father.
“I’ll be here waiting for you. I’ll be right here,” she said.
The last time my mother ever spoke to my father was
that night. Her last words to my father were exchanged by
notes they wrote before the morphine took over, before his
cancer took over.
What does a six-year-old know about death? The
hospital was never a bad place for me. Everyone who was there
was always really nice. I enjoyed the cafeteria food. I got to see
my dad when I went. I knew my father was sick, but I didn’t
know the seriousness of it or how it would affect me later in
life. I knew my mother was sad, but I didn’t know exactly why. I
was sad because everyone else was sad, but I didn’t know why.
My last words to my father I don’t remember, but my mother
did for me. I told him I loved him and that it would be okay for
him to leave. He was so stubborn we all let him know it was
okay for him to give up his fight. Relief is what we wanted for
him. He probably didn’t feel the pain because of the morphine,
but we knew his body was working hard against an uphill battle.
Beep. Beep.
The people the patient, my father, had touched
throughout the years were now in a circle around him with
their hands on his body, touching him. The doctors, friends, a
priest, and family all stood in room 247. The process of “pulling
the plug” began in the morning and lasted all day. The last organ
to fail was the heart. The last machine to do anything was the
black heart monitor.
Beep. Beep…...........
At 11:59 P.M. it stopped beeping in a rhythm and let
out one long note that hushed the room even more so than
before. My father lay on the white sheets of the white room
now freed, relieved, and dead.

What does an eighteen-year-old know about death? I

have never been back to that hospital since. As legal adult by all
measures of society I’m able to vote, I’m able to smoke tobacco,
I can go fight a war, buy a gun, go to jail, change my name, and
Twelve

Naked Dark Night

Who likes naked? On a pitch dark night

I like naked Two kids got in a fight
We should all hold hands naked So on the only tracks
Run around without any clothes This railroad town had
Because the body is beautiful They duked it out
No longer should we hide it Fighting hand to hand
Let’s all be naked And when all was said and done
Who likes naked? Neither one could stand
I do So they both laid down
You do Known they were beat
Let’s all run around without any But not by each other
clothes! But the girl for whom they compete
So on the tracks both boys lay
Naked is good. Waiting for the train to come
And make it a better day

Mike Bury Matthew Vera

whenever lonely

i drive around
town and stick
my hand out
the window just
so i can feel
another cold
hand pushing
back against
mine

Paolo Busante
 Thirteen
Oedipus

Zachary Gunner Madrigal

Fourteen

Stacey Swann Untitled

Because I couldn’t think of anything to write
except a love poem

I.
Mornings, an alarm clock squeals and ricochets the painful sounds of 7am.
Your roommate and I fumble on our respective sunken mattresses
Racing to reach it first, to grope the snooze buttons awkwardly
So we don’t wake you.

But I do, anyway, climbing back to wrap around you

For a quick, hot minute before responsibility washes over like guilt.
I thought, as I dressed, you told me once that we’re all pushing that great boulder
of middle-class labor up the mountain for eternity, just to spite God.

But your pessimism doesn’t keep you from blinking aside 7:45
to trace a heart in the air as I close the door quietly.

II.
Mornings, in our lazy bed sheets lined with early sunlight on the floor,
Are laughter and yelps as we wrestle for that easily concealed and long sought after
Ticklish spot. Do you think your roommate hates that we’re so loud in bed?
With wicked eyes you kiss me lightly above your borrowed boxers

And pretend to demand that I get dressed. It’s 2pm and you have wasted the weekend
In me, the books and food wrappers, and the empty cups of tea that have lately
Perforated your desk of quiet towers of paper. I love time and deadlines
When they’re flying by idly on Saturdays. I pull you back.

I wish I had the words, just then, that moment, not now, alone,
But I suppose a poet has emotions with cold pen and paper, or a girl with little to say.
Just know, when we have time dripping off our hands, or
When we are giving up slowly to old age, or when

I have a great boulder to accept—I would spend

every morning with you.

Kate Michel
Sixteen

Sibusiswe ewsisubiS

I still dream of you In your absence

In staggering detail
Seldom unguarded thoughts
Vivid allegory frequently disquiets
Are you such a dreamer?
Nostalgia is seductive, overwhelming,
cherished
Focus on the few details which remain
I will remember what I choose
Pacified in the midst of reverie
I am never closer to an understanding of you
Disconnect
What you put in. What I take out.
Your eager giving smile
Ebony coat
What you have witnessed, endured, sacrificed
Warm me.Your freedom fills my oppression
Pure and clean
I can breathe again
At times I catch sight of my skin, pallid
I want to hide it, I hope you haven’t noticed
The stark contrast
The privilege contrast
The ethnic contrast
The human contrast
You catch me, open and ashamed
I have seen the best of you
I have seen the worst of me
I tried to breathe it out. All of it.
Let it sink out through my mouth. My skin.
Into your rich soil.
Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust.
So that when I left your place the worst of me would
remain with the best of you.
Africa
I have never struggled to write you before
Constantly faltering, fumbling, failing for words
What if I try, all of my life, and I still can’t get it right?
I pray
The following days always remind me
That you never leave me
And that I never find the words to cheapen the best
of you.

I held your hands

I washed you, fed you, taught you, breathed
you
Day in and day out
What you put in. What I take out.

I saw your sister

Alone crying in the corner
I saw your sister and understood
Newly starched sheets

Kristen N. Brugh
 Seventeen

UntitleddeltitnU

Kristen N. Brugh
Eighteen

my
Native American
sculpture

you speak yellow corn

and stir prayers and smoke
on a tongue that has carried
the two of us through silver rivers
and icy misconceptions; full and starving.
you knead red clay
with gentile smearing fingers
that once fought red, deep and crimson,
a shadow of purple, a thick crease of oil
because respect was beaten into you–to others.
your delicate tea cups; your handsome statues
hold imprints of scars from your fingers
carrying the past into the present.
and so I sit on the floor, Indian style,
facing your sculpted buffalo
telling him stories of the tiny indents
on his cheeks, his forehead, his eyes
from a man I never really knew;
you, my Cherokee child.

Tara Marciniak-McGuire
 Nineteen

Accordion

Will Taylor
Remember Grandma

She was a rare Beauty,

someone not to be forgotten.
Today you can find her sitting alone
smiling, yet struggling to remember.
Midway through a story, she stops, and tells me to shave.
A man in white walks by and reminds her she is my Grandma.

Yes, that confused vieja is my Grandma

and as I look upon her thinning white hair, I see beauty.
Then laughing, she tells me to shave,
even though soon, she will have forgotten.
Her glazed eyes triumph, thinking she remembers,
but she won’t remember why she feels so alone.

I turn my eyes away, leaving her alone.

Glowing, my Grandma
believes that she remembers.
Through my salty waterfalls, I announce her beauty.
I pray for her to know what has been forgotten
as she commands me with a stern face to shave.

Touching my beard, she reasons why I should shave.

Then asking for Luis, my Grandfather, she wonders if he is alone.
She hopes he found the note, hopes he has not forgotten
to come pick her up, because my Grandma
has her appointment at the beauty
salon. It’s at 3 o’clock. She remembers.

Wait, maybe she does remember

saying she thought I was going to shave.
She then recalls a time when she saw beauty
when a single rose had a perfect blossom all alone.
Regardless, it is time to leave. I stand and hug my Grandma,
making a silent promise that she will not be forgotten.

It’s frustrating knowing that she has forgotten

but pains like a plague knowing what she can’t remember.
“It is late,” they tell me. I have to walk away from my Grandma
but then she calls out to me, reminding me to shave.
My dried waterfalls flow anew as I, like her, sit alone.
I fear I have lost sight of God, I fear I have lost sight of beauty.

It’s punishment knowing my Grandma

is forced to live in a community of the forgotten.

I wonder if she is still able to see beauty

as I pray for her to be remembered.

In the dark of loneliness, in these times I am alone

all I can think about is my Grandma telling me to shave. Xavier L. Herrera
Boy Soldiers

His eyes pierce through mine

A hungry little boy
Who has every excuse not to smile
And yet he does
Hope still chokes his skinny face
A victim of the famine flood
He shouldn’t have to love in that place
Where boys become soldiers
And are trained to lust for blood
But it’s not their fault
They grew up knowing love
Kidnapped past midnight
Taken to a place darker than the darkest night
And if they refuse to fight
They will pay the price with their life
Kill or be killed little one
I love you still
For you know not what you have done
Tears now swallow his tortured eyes
But who can blame a child who wants to cry
When the best thing in his life would be to die

B. Casey McGrath
Twenty-Two

The Three Stooges

Garrett Bradley
 Twenty-Three

Grumpy Old Men

Garrett Bradley
Twenty-Four

The Fruitless Task

Where are you, in medias res?

I look for you in the summer soil,
in ditches beside highway signs
and the jade glow of the firefly.

Tell me, are you as frozen as forever feels?

I reach for you in glassy ponds,
in waxen lumps of cinder and ash
and a hand raised in its last goodbye.

Sometimes the door is open, and

I hope the wind will carry you
in to comsume these questions in my mind
and leave me empty before your eyes.

But I will never find you, in medias res.

I will always be a world too late.
In my heart I know this: some are born to live;
and some to wonder why.

Emily Mook
 Twenty-Five

Hard Times for a Hispanic

Hard times will follow your every move

when you’re the only Hispanic
in a family of Mexicans.

Constantly singled out as the Black sheep

(I suppose I’m destined to fail them...)
you know every foreign word shared
was some critique of how menacing you are
(or seemed to be...)

Every cooked meal shared at that table

had a special–odd ball–dish just for you.
(what was my problem...)
I’m different... I’m difficult...
and I’ll choose Pizza or Burgers
over menudo any day.

Every family night shared in that living room

was spent sitting–silent–focused
staring blankly at the television,
absorbing which ever novella was on.
(bad acting never caught my attention...)
I always wondered why the only thing
I ever understood
were the commercials for Budweiser Beer.

Every time I look back on those days,

I tell myself...
No one is to blame...
It’s not that my family didn’t love me...
They just didn’t understand...
They’ve just never known who I am...

Xavier L. Herrera
Twenty-Six

Voice of the Individual

by Jessica Turin
 Twenty-Seven

Empires

by Emily Mook

History begins with the cell, the smallest unit

with the biggest task: building a nation
without knowing itself. But identity is easy
when there’s a need. There is a reason for
the eyelash, for the occasional skinned knee- things
that must be blinked away, lessons that we bleed.

Perhaps we aren’t fit to be nations, amassed

in this dependent state, composed of small soldiers
who legislate our fate. But laws don’t live
from limb to limb. They grow and harden in
variant branches of bone that dispatch orders
to sinews that they control alone.

What can we do when an order is delayed?

Disregarded or disobeyed? Existence is
a call to arms, legs, and heart, but why do we
survive when these things break apart?

Let us forget how solid we are, how our veins

are road map rivers that have carried us
this far- I want to remember where I began,
an unnamed essence in an untraced plan.
Twenty-Eight

Mixing Concrete on my carport on a warm January evening.

The neighbor’s yard is contaminated.

Toy vehicles lay upside down, wheels exposed, and some still turning.
Laughter explodes from behind a pine tree as the two children come
bounding through the yard. I can’t tell which is chasing the other.
They wear the same colors as their spattered, mud covered toys,
completely neglected because the two of them have found a stick to play with instead.
I make small movements on my carport. Perhaps I can turn and head inside before. . .
“Hey! Hey! Whatcha doin’?” The little boy screams as his sister stands and stares.
I do not want to turn. I do not want to answer the boy. I continue to pour concrete into
the molds of rocks I have made for the back yard. I am covered in concrete and red pigment.
“Hey. . . HEY! You! What’re yoooouu doing?” That little bastard. I realize I cannot win this.
“I’m pouring concrete. . . see?” I lift up one of the finished rocks for him to marvel in his four
year old mind. Miraculously he is amazed by it and begins climbing his fence to get a closer
look. If I cared about him, I would stop him; tell him that what he is doing is dangerous. Instead
I just stare. He mutters a line up of words garbled by a tongue he has yet to learn to control. I
understand none of it. I turn back around. His mother screams to him from inside the house to
get off that fence! He does. He is embarrassed for awhile and quietly plays with his sister. I
swirl gray with red and add tan when I am feeling adventurous. The aggregate grinds and I find
the sound pleasing. The sound of work. I use an old wooden spoon, because god knows I won’t
cook with it; and cake molds lined with aluminum foil, because god knows I won’t bake with
them; and tupper wear containers for mixing, because god knows I have nothing else to put in
them. I peek back over to their yard. They are again playing with sticks, which to me, seems
even more dangerous than trying to climb the fence. Their little Jack Russell is going crazy
along with them. Jo Jo. I hate Jo Jo, and I think their mother does as well. She screams more
than she speaks and I think I realize I hate her as well. Gray and red and tan. Red and gray and
tan. “Look!” I turn. A stick, wow. “I see.” I answer. I turn back to my concrete. Then the
little girl comes over and wants me to look at her stick too. “Yes,” I say, “a stick, I see.” They
stand next to each other like little soldiers, just staring back at me as if I was supposed to say
something more about the little branches they found. . . “It’s poop!” The boy screams to me.
Sure enough, each of them found some shit in their yard from Jo Jo and expertly globed it onto
their sticks. I wonder where their mother is now.

Tara Marciniak-McGuire
 Twenty-Nine

Union

Will Taylor
Thirty

Above the Roots

This man, he stands, in the middle of the streetway.

“Say sir, I’m not sure, but you look as if you’ve had a bad day.
I’d love to listen if you’d like to share. If you come with me,
we’ll dry your hair.”
Soaked in clothes from head to tow, skin wet with regret, not sure just
what he has to show. Rain has no shame in being the pain that helps
his misery grow. It seems insane, but he’s not the same so he doesn’t
expect the sane to know.
“No thanks kind mind. Leave me be, I’ll be fine. I left that body,
it was never mine. I searched the seas attempting to find, but
fell in love with the way this concrete shins. After the drops,
they stole my eyes, it never felt better to be left behind. We’ll
have to wait and see where the rain takes me this time.”
Southern Mother, nature uncovers like a blanket, deafening him with
thunder. Buick embraces with arms wide open. Suitcase shuts, hiding
everyday faces. A business man fed up, the nine to five routine escapist.
He’s been so many different places, like a friendly fox, unsure of what
he chases. With palms turned up, he looks for love. Searching the cracks
in his weathered hands, he finds no such.
“Things don’t have to be this way, living each day like there’s
nothing to say. Bending your limbs, doing your best to obey. Well
Mr. Mime, I’ve got something to say. I realize this town is colored
shades of gray. But after the storm, the sun will shine another day.”
A suit of abuse, he sulks in sorrow. Staring at the puddles, reflecting the
same face he will see tomorrow. If you have a heart, lend him some kind
words, or perhaps one he could borrow. He drinks up the rain till he no
longer feels hollow, but the bitter taste of his life makes it hard to swallow.
“Say sunshine, why do you hide your eyes? If you don’t mind, I’d
like to see your smile. Now, more than ever, I could use the light.”

B. Casey McGrath
 Thirty-One

Is that alien in the background freaking anyone else out?

Ryan Arnaudin
Thirty-Two

MARCHing forward head 1st

Sometimes I feel like I live life trying to dodge the raindrops

Avoiding the inconveniences

dampening spirits, spit in the eye and a soaked pant cuff
But I inevitably get hit.
Its naïve to believe
That I can be the one who gets aways with it.
Selfish in fact.

But the rainy days continue to come

And raindrops continue to find a way to land on my
Head
Hand and
Heart.

So I’ll wait out the weather and look for the bow tied by the rain
And be grateful for the moments I am in the dampness and darkness
that make me continue to seek the sun.

Mary Morser
 Thirty-Three

Snowman
Annabelle Ombac
Everlasting
Punching out at five o’clock,
He grabs his lunch pail, his hat and gloves.

Dark and windy, icy and black,

The road seems endless.
He drives through streets
Painted with couples–
Laughing, Dancing.
He smiles and remembers years past,
Still driving on.

Finally. Throw it in park.

Deep breaths, a short prayer,
A swig from a flask.
Car door slams, ice shattering from the window.
He walks, a single red rose in hand.

There she is. Same as years past.

Grey as stone.
She waits for him as she does every year.
He stares at her, she stares right back.
A single tear falls.
His hands grace the emboss of her date–
1922-1984

Kristin Semeyn
 Thirty-Five

Appalachian
Amanda Kubista
 Coming Home
Will Holman
The moment of just arriving, after work, back to home,
was the only unshakable minute in his day. In the summer, still
light, smog-tinted pink might halo the house for just a minute,
dazed, five fifty-five and the birds angling around. His car would
pause on the ramp of driveway, then idle up the concrete,
wheels spurring twigs into the air.
The garage had no door and leaned to the left,
shadowing the neighbor’s picket fence. It was that kind of
neighborhood, real picket fences erected with a real lack of
sarcasm, owners projected onto drapes that never moved. Jim
parked, got out, humidity pressing his face into a fine sieve. His
collar stuck to his neck. A short push into the blast of kitchen
and cool wood floors.
Katie, his wife, was sitting in the living room. She was
pretty, in a distracted way, as if her hair and eyelashes couldn’t
be bothered most days. Her high cheeks and forehead were
dusted with sweat. Even on a day spent in the house, like today,
she would put on nice jeans and a buttoned shirt, clinging to her
hips and ass in a way that they just didn’t before the baby. His
son, Jacob, kicked and pawed the floor in aimless baby circles,
wrinkling the blanket that had been laid out. Small red rashes
grew from the creases in his skin. Katie looked exhausted, as
usual, leaning back and breathing slowly.
Hey. Jim was reluctant to puncture the silence, feel the
reserve hiss out of the room. He took a tentative few steps
into the room and put down his briefcase, his blazer, unknotted
his tie.
Hi, honey. Katie’s voice slid out of her chest, barely
there. She made a half-move toward him, managing to push
partway out of the enfolding wings of the chair, then stalling,
eyes still fixed on Jacob. Her eyes followed his silent scuffling.
Jim closed the gap with the chair, leaned in, deposited a
lukewarm kiss on her forehead with a casual toss of his chin, the
same toss echoed minutes later by his hand dropping change
into the glass in his closet, kicking off loafers. He was thin,
and looked strange in the funhouse closet mirror, undershirt
exposing a rib here and there, long neck studded with stubble.
There were the jeans from yesterday, his tennis shoes bought on
sale in last year’s colors.
Downstairs, Katie fed the baby. The air conditioning
kicked on, and the street began to light up with others; the
same trips, deposits, same doors opening and shutting, the same
crawl of cicada buzz over the windows, August dead-ending into
September.
Jim came down just as she was finishing with Jacob. He
always came down when she was just finishing up with the baby,
and she knew his next sentence before it happened, the same
way he made a selfsame web of creaks on those stairs, the same
rhythm of shifting weight, the dependable squeak of his shoes:
Hey, what d’you wanna do for dinner? He stood at the
top of the kitchen, looking down on her seated, Jacob pulling on
his bottle.
I dunno, hadn’t really thought about it. She usually didn’t.
But then, some anonymous Thursday, she would reproach herself
for not even cooking something canned, or setting the table,
or just having anything ready when he walked in the door, just
once. She knew her mother’s faint click-clucks of disapproval,
tongue snapping at Katie in a way words couldn’t; and just as
soon, she knew she didn’t owe Jim anything as simple as dinner.
Being there was enough. Feeding and swaddling and clothing and
bathing and all the crying and tugging at her exhausted breast
– that was god damn plenty.
Then, in the same thought, she figured working for
her father was punishment enough for Jim already. Seniors
in college, no stress, just having some fun, and one night they
forgot. And the clinic was closed in the morning, and they
figured they were worrying about it too much anyhow. The job
with newly-minted Grandpa Jack at the bank was just to tide
them over, until he could get some night classes and advance.
But she couldn’t let all that avalanche her to the ground. She
made her promises and tried to only break the ones that didn’t
matter.
How about I make some sandwiches, then, simple. Katie
nodded a bare assent, then went wordlessly to the nursery to
put Jacob down. He had just gotten some shots, and had been
colicky, uncooperative, two welts on his powdered bottom
refusing to fade.
Jim regarded himself as a master of sandwich
architecture. It began earlier, in college, the first couple times
smoking weed – at home, a kitchen full of free food, the giddy
chasm of hunger that was pried open by the joint. Since then,
in the same kitchen, the same fridge, even, inherited when his
parents retired, he had refined his skills.
So he unloaded the fridge and set to work. Outside,
the screens seemed to boil with bugs trying to get into the cool,
or maybe he just imagined their scratching, wishing someone
wished to be where he was.
Once the plates had been cleared, Katie went to lay
down for a minute. She had taken a nap that afternoon, but the
early-morning feedings and shrieking seemed to have left her
permanently disabled. There never seemed to be a way to catch
up, weekends evaporating in a flurry of tasks that had to be done
together. If it was sunny, they would walk Jacob in the stroller, Jim
with hands jammed into his pockets, Katie pushing the stroller.
The Johnson’s just got a new car. She didn’t point it out
to be prideful, or jealous, though those things colored her words
unconsciously; she just had to have something to say, to fill in the
gaps between passing minivans.
Oh. Yeah. Nice. Jim didn’t talk so much as murmur,
waiting for the wind to pick up his hair, waiting for mail truck to
bring him his magazines. He liked to walk, where he could think,
just think awhile without checking over his shoulder for Katie’s
flat mouth, grimly into the sun on a Sunday afternoon.
He ducked into the back room. Katie lay on the couch,
legs curled, hair laid out on the pillow. That room had been the
repository of TV and board games growing up, but now they had
no need for that much space. Leftover baby shower gifts, his old
bike, unopened boxes left from the move, all over the floor and
against the walls. They shut off the heat and AC in there usually,
keeping the door closed, but when Katie went in to take her
naps she cranked down the thermostat until a violent shudder
came out of the ducts.
Katie? He was half-whispering, and she didn’t respond.
Katie? Louder this time, and she turned her head away from the
couch and opened one eye.
Yeah? Her lips were dry, catching the soft syllables.
You know I don’t like it when you take naps in here
– turning on the AC just for an hour so you can sack out, honey, it’s a
waste. He hated these confrontations, stupid bickering that came
with living with someone too soon. At any rate . . . he didn’t
pause for her to answer, knowing already what she was going to
say . . . I’m going for my walk. The walk was his nightly ritual, after
the sandwiches, before the book and bed.
Katie rolled back into the couch, repeating her defenses
in the hazy space between sleep and awake: he knows I can’t
sleep in the nursery because I’m so sensitive to his breathing, and I
have the baby monitor, and if I fall asleep in bed, you come in after
your walk and bang around in the bathroom . . .
The sun had finally receded from the sky, leaving a dim
afterglow on the horizon that barely penetrated the trees. Jim
stopped at his car and ducked into the console, opening a small,
air-tight jar he kept there by the owner’s manual. Sitting in the
passenger seat, using the back of his Risk Management seminar
binder as a surface, he rolled a thin joint. It was short work for
him now.
The first time Jim smoked wasn’t until college, and he
fell into the lifestyle at first, all the corny shit that revolves, in
some circles, around weed: reggae, long hair, tie-dye, weekend
festivals on remote farms, a couple mediocre bluegrass bands
jamming indeterminately. His room acquired some tapestries,
his lower-right desk drawer a complement of accessories. But
that, as all phases do, passed. He abandoned the theme clothing,
most of the instruments of inebriation, and turned to the joint
exclusively. By the time he started seeing Katie, he just smoked
on the weekends. Katie didn’t mind; but after Jacob, and the job,
her view dimmed, and she declared he must give it up by the
wedding.
And he did, at first. He escaped the mandatory drug-
testing of all bank employees because of his father-in-law, but if
he crashed a company car or some money went missing, he was
first in line. But after the baby was born and Katie sunk into her
current slump, she became less vigilant, and he, more bored. It
was hard to find now, freighted as he was with baby and wife
– where to go?
One night, at the bar, he ran across a kid he had known
in high school, all shaggy hair and droopy mustache, drinking
Pabst on the copper bar. It was a slow Thursday, random football
on the dim TV. There was slow conversation: Mike had sloped
shoulders, thickened from slinging mulch, shoveling snow, opting
out of college. He worked under the table for his uncle, a
perennial basement refugee, renting out above people’s garages
and the cheap ground floors of garden apartments. A few
beers went down, the words came more easily, and weed was
mentioned. Jim had his source.
The address changed every few months, sometimes
the cell phone, too, but Mike was always waiting on the couch,
whatever roommate or girlfriend he happened to be attached
to at the time next to him, absorbed in TV. It wasn’t like college
anymore –it had hardened down into something different: the
money, the bag, the deep whiff of contents, eyeball for weight,
a muttered thanks, out without having to sit down. The longer
he lingered the longer his clothes had to absorb the strange,
matted funk that accompanied the memories of all the cave’s
he’d known in college.
Jim tucked the joint into his shirt pocket and headed
out. The heat still clung close to the asphalt and sidewalks,
though, sending weak missives of steam up where errant
sprinklers overran the grass. His jeans began to stick to his
legs. At the end of the street, right, another few hundred yards,
and there was his alma mater: Clellon High School, named for
a small bronze man in the lobby. The campus faded from brick
into athletic fields, the remains of office softball just melting
from them to the parking lots; and from the athletic fields they
turned back into woods, sheltering a small creek. Jim made his
way to the tree line and ducked into the green, air shedding a
few degrees in the presence of the tepid stream. The water
had been forced into channels by concrete embankments, now
slicked with green.
He found a seat and watched the water. At length,
he lit the joint and took a deep pull, the smoke spiraling lazily
through the thick air. He ashed, puffed again. The smoke filtered
through his limbs, back into his chest, pushing that familiar
congestion behind his face. Shadows, leaves, lights, sounds;
everything sharpened and dimmed at the same time, muscles
he didn’t know he had un-kinking in his lower back, the trace
memories of daily tragedies evaporating from the back of his
mind.
When he was done, he walked down the channel for a
while, flicking the roach into the water. He cut back through the
neighborhood, not thinking of Katie or Jacob or the Johnson’s
new car, just scuffing his feet the same as he always had walking
home from school.
Katie knew as soon as he opened the door: eyes
glazed, limbs slack, lips slicked with too little spit. Jacob was in
a contraption that let him bounce without rolling around, his
stubby baby legs unsure when they flexed against he floor. Jim
looked at her, at him, impressed with the newness of it all, how
unfamiliar Jacob was with being upright. He seemed to enjoy it,
giving the occasional squeal, fat fingers grasping incoherently at
the railing.
You been smoking a cigarette or something? You smell. She
was squatting by the baby, interrupting her speech to coo.
Jim looked at her, the pleasant arch of her back, the buttons of
her spine shining through her shirt. Nah. Went to Bogen’s for
lunch, you know how it is in there. He unbuttoned his oxford,
headed for the stairs. Gonna hop in the shower.
Ok hon. Katie straightened her back. She caught the
end of Jim as he disappeared up the stairs, the flash of back; the
way she had been looking at him ever since they got married,
watching him walk away; and she knew that he too was trying to
only break only the promises that didn’t matter.
 Staff
Hali Plourde-Rogers Jenna Wolfe
Editor-in-Chief Business Manager

Corinne Jeltes Lana Tang

Photography Editor Advertising Manager

Laura V. Cook Jennifer Johnson

Fine Art Editor Special Events Coordinator

Marisa Plescia Danielle Downing

Prose Editor Alumni Relations

Erin O’Keefe Megan McCarthy

Poetry Editor Public Relations

Misono Yokoyama Erin Snyder

Graphic Designer Promotions Director

Matt Brubaker Naeemah McDuffey

Assistant Graphic Designer Communications Director

Joel Riley Katherine Leonberger

Webmaster Production and Distribution

Katherine Brumbaugh Kalyn Saylor

General Staff General Staff

Suzanne Watkins Michelle Rivera

General Staff General Staff

Vanessa Ramos Katie Fallon

General Staff Editorial Advisor
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Marisa Plescia: “In the depths of winter I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.” -Albert Camus
Laura V. Cook: “If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each person’s life sorrow and
suffering enough to disarm hostility.” -Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Misono Yokoyama: “Every great work of art has two faces, one toward its own time and one toward the future, toward
eternity.” -Daniel Barenboim
Kalyn Saylor: “We are too young to realize that certain things are impossible, so we will do them anyway.” -William Pitt
Corinne Jeltes: “The artist is not a special sort of person, but every person is a special sort of artist.” -Hakim Bey’s T.A.Z
Vanessa Ramos: “5+5+5+5=20,
0+10+0+10=20,
3+7+3+7=20,
?

5+5+5+5>20,
0+10+0+10>20,
3+7+3+7>20,
?”
- Human Pleasure by Mike Bury

Annabelle Ombac: “Seeing life through a lens shows true beauty.”

Will Holman: “Life is an acute condition.” -Richard Avedon

Contributor
Quotes
 Forty-Three
This has been quite a year. I published my first issue of Silhouette, which was released
in February. And I am proud to publish my second issue. Between these two magazines
I have learned a lot about publication, management, and business. I also learned a lot
about myself.
Letter from the Editor

And like everyone that is part of this campus I have gone from feeling happy, to
confused, to angry, to unbelievably sad. And I want to thank everyone who has stuck
with me through all of these emotions and everyone who has helped me laugh again.

Thank you to my staff.You are wonderful. I will miss all of you graduating, but I can’t
wait to work with those of you returning in the fall. Without your hard work this
magazine would not be half as wonderful.

Thank you, Jenna.You are the best BM a girl could ask for.

Thank you, Max. Thank you, Hill and Veil.

Thank you, Reema for inspiring such beautiful dancing in every girl in Hill and Veil, for
being so dedicated to dance, and for sharing a little piece of your life with us.

-Hali

the Business Manager

Letter from
This has been such a great opportunity and I thank EMCVT for giving me the chance
to be the Silhouette BM. I can’t believe it has already been a year. This year has been
full of everything good and bad, but working with Silhouette has been one of the great
constants keeping me happy.

Thanks to the EMCVT professional staff and other MAT members for being amazing
leaders and teachers.You have all given me so many skills and so much more confidence
than I ever thought possible.

Thanks to Hali.You are a great leader, and I admire all that you do.You keep me laughing
and you don’t get mad at me when I spill chocolate milk all over the draft magazine and
office desk.You’re the best!

Thanks to the staff for being the best staff in the whole world.Your dedication and
persistence is so great, and I have so much fun working with you.

Thanks to my family, roommates, friends, and Nick for being so patient with me through
such a challenging year. I am a lucky girl to have you.

Working with Silhouette is fabulous. Enjoy!

-Jenna
www. silhouette.collegemedia.com