Silhouette

Literary and Art Magazine Volume 29, Issue 2

Spring 2007
Silhouette, Volume 29, Issue 2, was produced by the Sil-
houette Staff and printed by Inove Graphics, located in
Kingsport, TN. The paper is 80# Patina Text with a 100#
Lustro Dull cover. The font used throughout the magazine
is American Typewriter (Regular), Helvetica (Medium and
Bold), Times (Italic), and Papyrus. The art on the front
cover is an excerpt of “One with Nature” by Stacey Swann,
featured on page 32. Silhouette Literary and Art Magazine
is a division of EMCVT, Inc., a non-profit organization that
fosters student media at Virginia Tech. Please send all cor-
respondence to 344 Squires Student Center, Blacksburg,
VA 24061. All Virginia Tech students who are not part of
Silhouette staff are invited to submit to the magazine. All
rights revert to the artists upon publication. To become a
subscriber of Silhouette, send a check for $10 for each year
subscription (two magazines) to Silhouette’s address above,
c/o Business Manager or visit EMCVT’s e-commerce website
at www.collegemedia.com/shop. For more information please
visit our website at www.silhouette.collegemedia.com or call
our office at 540-231-4124. Enjoy!
 Hali Plourde-Rogers Jenna Wolfe
Editor-in-Chief Business Manager

Corinne Jeltes Lana Tang

Poetry 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

Joel Riley Naeemah McDuffey

Webmaster Communications Director

Katherine Brumbaugh Katherine Leonberger

General Staff Production and Distribution

Joselyn Takacs Kalyn Saylor

General Staff General Staff

Vanessa Ramos Michelle Rivera

General Staff General Staff

Katie Fallon
Editorial Advisor

STAFF
Art
7 Ginger Peach Elizabeth Pacentrilli
9 Arlington Cemetery Annabelle Ombac
13 Holding Hand Shaozhuo Cui
15 Ti Amo Dane Miller
17 Moray Circles Annabelle Ombac
18 Untitled Ryan Arnaudin
21 Passion Elizabeth Pacentrilli
22 Untitled Ryan Arnaudin
27 Abandoned Heather McMillan
29 Glasses Amanda Kubista
31 Untitled Garrett Bradley
32 One with Nature Stacey Swann
36 Rope Annabelle Ombac
37 Your Path Annabelle Ombac
42 2 Heads are Better Than 1 Annabelle Ombac
43 The Fish King Heather McMillan
Literature
6 Instead of Picking Her Up From Class Ryan Donnelly
8 Daylight Savings Time on the Graveyard Shift Rob Talbert
10 Playing Cards Tara Marciniak
12 Garden Morning Tara Marciniak
14 I Have a Scar Beside My Left Eye Ryan Donnelly
16 I’d Rather Not Die in My Sleep Ryan Donnelly
19 Going Home with the Headlights Turned Off Leo McLaughlin
20 Street Sweeper Kate Michel
23 Chess Nights Tara Marciniak
24 Solitaire Will Holman
26 A Bittersweet Twenty Degrees Leo McLaughlin
28 Starbucks Noir Zaki Barzinji
30 A Flock of Sheep Tara Marciniak
33 Begone Rana Fayez
33 Untitled Rana Fayez
34 Crocuta Crocuta Mark Settle
Instead of Picking Her Up From Class

Ryan Donnelly Instead of picking her up from class,

I took the bus to Roanoke Airport
to watch the planes.
They wouldn’t let me near the gates
because I needed a ticket, or a boarding pass or something—
apparently they’re not the same thing.
For a while I stood with my arms crossed
at the security checkpoint,
right next to the woman checking passes with a marker,
watching her running over each piece of paper,
wishing people a pleasant flight,
glancing at me from the corner of her eye
like I was standing a little too close.
But I stayed there, next to her,
as people in suits and trench coats dropped their bags onto a moving belt,
stepped through metal detectors embarrassed
as if they’d arrived late to a funeral.

Some people have jobs

where they have to walk like that every day.

After a while, she told me that if I didn’t have a boarding pass

I would have to leave, so I sat down
at the floor-to-ceiling window
next to the gift shop.
I made sure she could still see me.

Planes were still flying at three

on a Wednesday afternoon,
out of all five gates of the airport.
Of course, the engines roared and seared
across the tarmac then off into the air, gone,
but I wasn’t on any of them
because I wasn’t wearing a suit.

My phone rang—she was wondering where I was.

I told her I was at the airport and she got worried,
like she thought I was going somewhere, leaving her.
I hung up and bought a snow-globe
with a little sunken church,
plastic evergreen trees covered in glitter, snow—
I took a picture of it with my camera
and emailed it to her.
Right then I started making plans to buy a plane ticket
so that the woman at the security checkpoint
had to let us near the gates.
I planned to make her believe that this snow globe Editor’s Pick
could leave Roanoke Airport if I wanted it to.
Six
 Ginger Peach

Elizabeth Pacentrilli

Editor’s Pick

Seven
 Daylight Savings Time on the Graveyard Shift

Graveyard shifts are easier in the company

of street sweepers. We’ve been given
another hour to live our lives. This, a duration
better spent calling someone when I’m not drunk
for a change, or building homes in the kitchen
out of glue and popsicle sticks. Until then, I’ll
keep fiddling with my watch and wait for the sun
to come up early. Instead of only an hour, we should
be allowed to go back as far as we need to. Return
to when lovers left, or when Christ walked the earth,
or when the harvest moon lit paths for species now long
extinct. We could go back to our own births and watch, touch,
burn our skin while our understandings manifested
through pokes and pressures. If a baby is born every
few seconds, I think it’s important that we tell the ones
born tonight that the moment they were real their hearts
were already ahead of schedule. They should know
that the second they existed they were getting younger,
and while they could almost reach themselves in a former life
the rest of us were working late into the dawn.
Trying to keep up with the planet, while all our faith
and watches went the other way with a silence that grows
between the branches.

Rob Talbert

Eight
Arlington Cemetery
Annabelle Ombac

Nine
Playing Cards
Tara Marciniak

“Not so fast there baby,” he said slowly, “lemme fetch you my business card.” He was a rather plain looking
black man, just a bit taller than I was and round in the belly. He had something though; the way an old jukebox
has something that a CD player doesn’t. “Hang on now, it’s somewhere.” He said, looking down to the cafeteria-
like floor.
“It’s alright,” I offered, “I’ll be back tomorrow, I can just get it. . .”
“Huh-uh, no way, I sure as hell know this isn’t important to you and I know even better that I’ll forget by
tomorrow. It’s either now or never.”
His hands came out of his front pockets with a wad of chewing gum wrappers, mini golf pencils, rubber
bands. . .
“Could you just,” he glanced at me as he handed me the junk in his hands, “thanks.” He handed me more
and more seemingly useless trash as his search continued. I noticed three guys in a corner fiddling with a puzzle.
Each one took a turn to look up and see how I was reacting to the chaos before me. But when their eyes met mine,
they quickly adverted their glances back to the table.
“Here we go.” He said as he opened his wallet. “You want two of them? You can have more than one you
know.”
He handed me the ace of clubs and the seven of diamonds.
“Wait!” Billy jumped up from the table next to me, “Give her my card too!”
“You damned fool,” my new pal responded, “I ain’t got yours, you aughta have yours.”
I wondered if I could slip away. Neither of them was able to concentrate on more than one thing at a time.
And this time it was playing cards, or business cards rather. My own thoughts clouded out the steady hum of
their bickering voices. I drifted to the outside, longing for fresh air. These guys hadn’t been outside for weeks. All
they were granted of the natural world was a five foot by ten foot court yard, a mere splinter of light entering the
building. It wasn’t even used, unless you were one of the crew, armed with three sets of keys and a watering can
for the small pyramid of flowers in the middle of the yard.
I didn’t ask that day why either one was in there. I never wanted to know.
The next day my father and I came back at the same time; my mother liked schedules. I’d sit with them
at first. Stare at the flowers I had brought her. Run my fingers over the coarseness of her bed sheets. And she’d
complain, about the food, about her roommate, about the woman who wailed at night for attention. “Well, you
shouldn’t a done what you did.” My dad would say. But then he’d talk with the crew and convince them to let him
bring her food and switch her roommate and anything else he could still do for her.
They were lost, driving around an unfamiliar city looking at a pad of sheet music instead of a road map.
Reading notes as boulders and treble clefs as tornadoes, they steered themselves away and away from symbols
they thought they understood.
The same conversation happened between the two of them each day and each day I wandered out to the
common room. By day three I had learned to bring a pencil and pad of paper with me. The more I drew, the bigger
I became. I became a part of everything my pencil created and I was bigger than the mental hospital and my
parents and the ace of clubs. Then Billy came. He’d sit next to me and not say a word. He alternated between two
flannel long sleeved shirts each day and he’d hum his own song quietly while he sat.
Then one day he brought his own pencil with him. I drew a mountain range. He drew two birds. I drew a
cloud. He drew a pine tree. It went on like that until there was nothing left to fit inside that picture. There was
no need for conversation, the graphite spoke for us. My friend, the ace of clubs, was not out that day. Then Billy
reached over me to get a clean sheet of paper. He drew another pine tree. I drew a snow man. Twenty minutes
later we had a world with its own people, its own smells, and it’s own traditions.
“I’m not crazy you know.” He looked me in the face for the first time. He had distant, icy blue eyes. I
looked at them, back and forth, skimming his words, trying to find the meaning behind them. I didn’t like it.
“I shouldn’t be in here.” He said as he looked around the ceiling and then straight at the glass where the
crew sat. “They know it, they know I don’t belong here. It’s a money thing.”
I remember that I didn’t ask anything. I let his story spill out of him as he had probably rehearsed it day
after day until it was just right.
“I was mowing the lawn behind my mom’s house, right. And it’s a nice house, I mean one of those
community things. The trees planted in certain spots and the man made lakes and all that. Well, there was some
kind of nest in the ground, I mean a bee hive. Well, I chopped the shit outa it. Not on purpose of course. And those
little bastards were stingin’ me and stingin’ me, so you know what I did? I ran towards one of those lakes. But
I didn’t wanna get my clothes wet. So, quick as a cat, I tear my clothes off ‘n jump in the lake.” He smiled at me,
proud of his little story, thinking it sounded as real as can be. “Well, I’m scared as shit, right, stung all over and
I ain’t coming out. Awhile later the police show up. Talkin’ ‘bout they got a call that some naked madman was
swimmin’ around in a lake. I was the naked madman you know. And they cuffed me and brought me here.”
This was bad. I didn’t want to think about why he had told me that story; why he felt it important to
convince me he was sane. And as awkward as I felt at that time, I enjoyed the story. For the first time in my life
I had said to myself, “I am going to file this one away. This will be one of the things I remember until I’m eighty.”
Concentrating on how to remember this story, I barely noticed him place his small hand on my knee. I stopped
filing and looked down. Then I looked at him. He wasn’t looking at me. He was prepared to hear that it was wrong
of him to touch my leg, to get the hell off, to get a smack in the face.
“Ace!” I shouted as I stood up, allowing his dainty white hand to curl back into his body.
“Oh, hey honey, how long you been here? I’m just about woke up now.” Ace said as he scratched the back
of his head. He looked over at Billy and must have seen something he didn’t like about his face or his energy or his
embarrassment.
“You, go on ‘n get outa here a minute. I wanna have time alone with the girl you see.” He said quietly over
to Billy, not needing to shout, knowing it wouldn’t take much. I didn’t even see him get up or cross the room to the
hallway. I guess he never seemed there with me in the first place.
“Baby doll,” he said to me, bowing his head a bit but still looking me in the eyes, “our friend Billy there told
me something yesterday, it had to do with you. You know he ain’t all bad. He. . .”
“I already know.” I cut him off.
“Well, I figured you might. Just don’t think he aught to be lookin’ at you that way.”
I saw my dad coming down the hallway, coming to tell me that he was sick of this place, that he didn’t want
to come back, that I should say goodbye to mom. But he’d be back the next day, and the day after that. I didn’t tell
him anything about Billy. I just told him I didn’t want to go back for awhile. He didn’t question it, and I don’t think
mom even noticed.
Maybe it was a week later, maybe it was two or three weeks later when I decided to visit again. I stayed
with my parents this time. Admiring the wilted flowers, listening to her voice, picking at a thread in my shirt. We
didn’t stay long, dad had enough earlier and earlier each visit. He did what he was obligated to do, in his mind. He
fed her cantaloupe and a half a sandwich. He fluffed her pillows. He kissed her cheek.
My dad left the room. He was walking down the hall to the car. He had grown accustomed to coming
alone, forgetting to wait for me. I told something to my mom, ‘It will get better,’ or some little tid bit that I may as
well have found in a fortune cookie, and I hugged her. This would be my last time coming until her trial. In the
hallway, I saw Ace headed my way.
“Hey baby,” he said to me, “take this. Don’t worry nothin’ ‘bout anything. We’re all fine here ‘aight?”
I didn’t look into my hand. I knew what it was but I didn’t know why I needed another one of them. I
stuffed it into my pocket. I shook Ace’s hand and I ran to catch up with my father.
The four of hearts. ‘Billy’s Business Card’ was sloppily written along one side and turned down the other.
Billy wrote his mother’s number in the middle with a smiley face.
 Garden
Morning

I feel you most in the thin air

of the 7:00 am morning;
when the satin breeze
folds the scents of garden bay leaves
together with wild moss and
fresh shampoo from my waking shower.
If I could stir from bed earlier I would;
you’ve been up breathing the air
for hours now and I so wish to be like you.

All of those dark orange mornings

I stumbled to the porch
to find you sipping tea from the
pink flowery cup your daughter gave you.
I missed you in bed
but knew I would enjoy you more
on the patio’s wicker chair.
You cloaked me with protective arms
and breathed cinnamon into my hair.

We had stopped wearing the layers

of calendar months separating us,
and you were you, and I was I.

Tara Marciniak

Twelve
Holding
Hand

Shaozhuo Cui

Thirteen
I Have a Scar Beside My Left Eye
Ryan Donnelly

I have a scar beside my left eye, and I don’t know how it got there.
I would hope I’d notice a blow to the side of my head,
especially one that would leave a scar.
I noticed it when I was driving home from the liquor store:
my rear-view was angled poorly because she’d just taken the car
to go visit her mom up in Harrisburg.
Anyway, I couldn’t see what was behind me,
but I saw this tiny, flesh-toned line
running down my face from the edge of my eyebrow.
I straightened the mirror at a stoplight, but nothing was behind me.

She took the car from me yesterday, to go visit her parents.

She has a scar below her chin that she remembered to ask her folks about while she was there.
Her mom said chicken-pox. Her dad said nothing.
When she came home early, she hugged me like that night
we stayed up late watching horror movies. We both hate horror movies.
She hugged me for a while, then poured herself some wine and sat with me on the sofa.

Driving up to the house, I started wondering

why I never drink like she does,
why under the chin hurts more than next to the eye.
She didn’t need any more wine tonight.
She was already asleep on the couch when I came in, eyes half closed, thinking I’m still gone.

Fourteen
 Ti Amo
Dane Miller

Fifteen
 I’d Rather Not Die in My Sleep
Ryan Donnelly

I’d rather not die in my sleep.

When you have a month to complete
a project, you always wait till the last day,
and your boss yells at you for not starting earlier,
so I’d rather be awake for a long while,
maybe even die right as I’m about to fall asleep—

I’d just woken up when my cousin goaded me into a game of chess.

When he asked if I wanted to play, I said no,
but he quickly offered me both his fists, so I tapped his left one,
and his fingers uncurled around a black pawn.
I was black, at nine-thirty in the morning.

By nine that night, we had two boards running side-by-side.

My dad kept having my little sister refill his scotch glass,
and each time I grabbed her to make sure it was well watered,
but each time she’d already taken care of it—
she’ll be the one to arrange Dad’s flowers by his casket.

She turned thirteen a few weeks ago.

I bought her a CD player and a Joni Mitchell album.
She says that she wants it played when she dies.
I don’t know what I want played at my funeral,
but I want to hear it at my wedding first.

So essentially the lucky girl I marry must embody my death.

When she looks at me, I must feel cold and awake,
I must feel that I’m capable of playing chess for twelve hours,
or however long death takes,
I must quickly rub my eyes as she shuffles the pieces
behind her back and offers me the choice
between her left and her right hand,
I must stay awake the entire time,
regardless of how late she likes to play,
or how dark those eyes become.

Sixteen
Moray Circles
Annabelle Ombac

Seventeen
 Untitled
Ryan Arnaudin

Eighteen
Going Home with the Headlights Turned Off Leo McLaughlin

I’m tired like the meaning

of distance. Who else in this old
city is awake tonight, and comforted
POEM
by the stadium of darkness? Defying
“I’d
sleep in theRather
absence ofnot die in my sleep”
shadows,
florescent hours opening their arms
to those who turn their backs on the sun.
Does the grass reach for the moon
because they were once lovers?
They probably never were considering
the distance between them. That is
the excuse you give me.

Nineteen
Street Sweeper
Kate Michel

To see this body, this city,

built and rebuilt
by many men;
this city, forced to clean her
streets and sidewalks,
having seen the litter piled in her ears
and waking eyes.

To see her built with slabs of stone

at a time when eyes were bright,
when we were clean.
Waking now with the pollution
of a year’s worth of words
in the brain
of her,
My city.

Twenty
 Passion
Elizabeth Pacentrilli

Twenty - One
 n
yan Arnaudi
R
ed
Untitl

Editor’s Pick

Twenty - Two
Chess Nights
Tara Marciniak

That chess set was the only thing parting us;

the everything parting us.
At night, those shapes moved between incense clouds
and thumbs and fingernails.
Shadows stretched like taffy in the dark,
away from dollar store candles and towards me.
So gorgeous, they became
long, bending fingers grabbing at the table,
reaching to pull me in, claws and all.
You sipped red wine from a blue goblet,
never smudging the glass with dirty fingers.
You told me we would buy cheese next time
to bring out the flavor of the wine.
You told me your ex-wife would stay up with you in the kitchen
after the children were asleep;
you had cheese then.
I wanted to ask you if it was strange, staying up with me now instead
but I knew I didn’t need the answer.
I wanted to leave right then and get you what you were asking for
but the game was still alive, and the shadows still. . .
I wanted to slide all of it off of that table,
hear each ‘clack’ as pieces fell to the floor
but I couldn’t because Benny Mardones played
and a bead of sweat dripped from your forehead.

Twenty - Three
 Editor’s Pick
Solitaire
Will Holman
Our writing professor had us meet in the fourth-
floor student lounge in the English department. It was not
a classroom; people were laid out there, napping, noodling,
drinking coffee with a novel or last-minute homework. Betsy
went up and gently shooed them off, all apologetic smile and
gentle voice, and they fled, earphones and spiral notebooks
dragging. Then she turned, with a bright vicious face, and
opened her arms like a minister, indicating the seats. There
were never enough spots on the couch and elsewhere;
students eager to not so much as brush elbows and so they
spaced themselves out and out and out until half of us were
on the floor. An adolescent awkwardness seemed to hound
our seminar, writers being such a neurotic bunch, laying lives
down on the page for other people to read, analyze, dissect,
and judge. All this shyness manifested in little gestures:
bouncing knee, downcast eyes, picked-over hangnails,
studious aversion to eye contact, fringing notebook paper in
doodles or tiny tears.
I climbed aboard the windowsill and leaned back.
This was my favorite time in this class, besides leaving,
because everyone was caught with a faint trace of their
newest story or poem in their face, apprehensive to read
it aloud. Outside, the lawn mowers skittered sideways like
crabs, red and smoking in the sunlight. The leaves had just
started to attain real size, and the sycamore looked so close I
thought I could touch it. The windows didn’t open.
After settling down, there was much ahemming and
shuffling of notebooks. Betsy straightened out the shattered
mess of papers, paperclips, staples, tape, manila folders,
pocket folders, printouts, newspaper clippings, book reviews,
and other colonies of clutter that lived in the bottom of her
shoulder bag. She was short, rounded, with a preference for
unbleached linen this time of year. There was a symmetrical
band of fat around her belly, under huge sagging breasts,
and the linen smock looked like a burlap sack on her lumpy
frame. Her hair was dark brown, pulled tight to the back of
her head as if she hoped it might help pull up her chins. Betsy
very proud of being a poetess, dripping with beads, loose
papers, and gentle smiles, perpetually feeling and emoting
and writing it all down. She didn’t like harsh criticism; unlike
critiques across the quad in architecture or art that left
students in tears, she believed far more in the carrot than the
stick.
“Alright, attention ladies and gentlemen.” Her voice
was preternaturally low and masculine, sounding like a boy
of ten or twelve. “Today, instead of work shopping on work
completed since our last session, I thought we’d do some
exercises.” Betsy’s voice hit hard on exercise, as if this was a
special privilege bestowed upon us by the queen poetess. The
Twenty - Four
sun fell through the milky windows, casting a white light
on her face. It glistened with sweat, small lips smiling, fat
cheeks compressing her eyes into tiny pockets. Papers
shuffled back into bags all around the room, everyone
whispering, wondering. I had taken nothing out; I had
nothing to put away, just sitting with my foot against the
window, notebook limp in my lap.
“Here’s how it works: I’m going to write up this
sentence with some blanks in it. You complete it, ‘Mad-
Lib’ it if you will,” she crinkled up her nose and made air-
quotes with her stubby fingers, “and then that sentence
will become the title of your piece.” She never said poem,
story, or essay, because piece was packed with more
writerly ambition and worldliness. “I’ll give you a half-
hour, and then we’ll share.” Pleased with herself, she
shifted the mass of crap still in her lap to the floor and
stood unsteadily to weave her way through the crowd.
There was a scrap of chalk on the ledge on top of the
blackboard, requiring her to stand on her toes and expose
a white mass of belly flesh, soft as a ball of bread dough.
Then she wrote her sentence and disappeared into the
stairwell, footsteps echoing for a long time.
It read like this: After ____, _____begins to _____.
People gradually clotted up or spread apart,
secreting themselves in corners, knees up, staring
intently at ballpoints as if that would help. I sat very
still on the windowsill and tried to think of something
funny, a throwaway haiku or limerick that would just
piss Betsy off. Every other week I brought a new piece
that touched a new low, daring, maybe even begging, for
someone to tell me it was terrible. Classmates sat in the
circle, politely averting their eyes as they muttered mild
comments: Yeah, Coleman, that was interesting, it was
really cool, your dialogue was very, umm, colorful. Betsy
would give her serene Earth-Goddess smile and bestow
similar thin guidance. But now Betsy and the rest of them
had wandered into dangerous territory – an exercise,
especially one with that stupid brief. I felt around for a
punch line that I knew must have been hidden in that
insipid phrase, but got nothing. Instead, I left my notebook
where it lay and watched the mowers. Men worked two
levers back and forth, swinging in tight pivots, smooth as
Indy drivers around trees and flower beds.
The thirty minutes hardly touched down long
enough for me to get my hands around the thing. When
the mowers began to bore, I eyed the writers spread on
the carpet. Some were actually quite good, those who
could fathom their own truths without relying on Betsy’s
poor advice. One of them, Julia, was a shy grad student
who always sat against the back of the sofa, knees pulled
to her chest, notebook folded in her arms like a secret.
She was beautiful, with big, crescent eyes and clear skin
like cold water. As the class coalesced again, she pulled
her notebook tighter to expansive chest, auburn hair
doming around her face like a closed curtain. I watched
that hair, shining in the filtered light, thinking how it must
look fanned out on a white pillow, new sun through blue
curtains. Betsy showed with a single sheet of paper and a
cup of tea. She settled in her chair, bringing her legs up to
the side, curling into the chair like a cat.
Someone want to go first? One pushy person or
another always volunteered, and then we were off. The
chain of excerpts and poems drifted from one mumbler to
another. People ran through their words fast and toneless,
eager to be done. Eventually that chain got around to me.
“Coleman, what do you have for us?” Betsy’s
near-permanent enthusiasm creased the skin around
her mouth, cracking heavy makeup like a root buckles
sidewalk.
“Umm, nothing.” I felt the eyes pivot up to me on
the windowsill, at a remove that might seem haughty to
some.
“Why’s that?”
“I just feel like that question, the brief,” I gestured
incoherently in the direction of the blackboard, “has so
much complexity in such a short space that I only got a few
possible titles but never got into their text.”
“Well, just read whatever you’ve got.”
I cleared my throat. “Um, actually my paper is
blank.” I held up my notebook to her, brought back to my
lap, shot my eyes out the window.
“Alright, then, Coleman, I’ll expect to see
something on Monday.” Betsy must have practiced
sternness somewhere in the mirror, because she looked
like a sitcom actor. We both knew I would have nothing on
Monday, and we also both knew that it wouldn’t matter.
“Next?” The room resumed its chatter. I resumed
following the lawn mowers sidestepping across the grass.
Eventually the apparent end of the circle came around,
but Betsy was never satisfied to let it end there; some shy
student was always holed up in the corner, sitting behind
the sofa, fingers crossed.
“Julia? Have you shared yet?”
“Ummm, no, but this piece is kinda personal.”
She had shifted from my view, retreating further into
the couch, if that was even possible. All I could make
out from my perch was one blue-jeaned ankle ending in
knock-off sneakers, aping something popular amongst the
undergrads.
“Julia, all writing is personal. It wouldn’t have
any real emotion if it wasn’t grounded in the personal.” A
beatific, cheek-crinkling smile appeared on Betsy’s little
mouth. “I mean, this seminar has and will always be a safe
place.” She leaned forward, intent as a therapist, trying to
pierce that auburn veil. One or two ass-kissers in the crowd
joined the chorus, egging Julia on. She finally caved. The
room fell silent except for the hum of the air conditioning,
the faint buzz of the lawn mowers outside, distant traffic
mewling across campus. Julia stayed where she was. She
raised her head enough that I could see the top of it, hair
swept back with a consciously casual gesture.
She began in a small voice. “This is about my
husband, Tim.” I hadn’t known she was married, but it made
sense, twenty-eight, linked up to a man in a salmon polo
shirt and square jaw. She cleared her throat again, and saw
her head rocking slightly back-and-forth, back-and-forth.
“After sex, Tim begins to play solitaire.” The room, if it
was possible, got even more quiet; no sniffles, no sliding in
chairs, shuffling of paper, crossing and uncrossing of legs.
Betsy looked astonished, and her face finally drew down
until featureless.
I don’t recall the precise text of her poem, but I
do remember it was one of the most heartbreaking things
I have ever heard – Julia naked and damp in bed, huddled
under sheets, Tim at the end of the long hallway that leads
from their bedroom door to the computer niche, sitting
there, naked and damp, hugging one knee, illuminated only
by flickering computer blue, playing Solitaire. Julia reached
for a pillow and rolled over onto her belly, sobbing. Tim
clicked on and on, glum and still in the dimness, the simple
game more numbing than drinking, more quieting than
exercise, more satisfying than holding his wife. He waited
until she went to sleep and crawled in beside, pajamas back
on, alarm set, no words, no touches, just rigid loathing sleep.
The room shook with silence. Betsy’s face got whiter
and whiter in the harsh sun through the windows, and a red
blush began to bloom from her double chin. She seemed to
be in a trance, staring into the middle distance, face glazed
over. Suddenly, she snapped to, took a long swig of tea and
cleared her throat.
“Ahem, umm, Julia, that was wonderful.” That
was also the precise worst word for Betsy to use; it was a
wonderful piece of writing, yes, but Betsy made it sound as
though Julia’s disintegrating marriage and self-hate were
wonderful. No one else spoke up. I wanted to help, reach a
hand out to Julia across the room, but I couldn’t speak up.
No one took me seriously – I had cried wolf too many times
with crappy poems and ragged jokes.
I’d tell her that her poem cut me through, hot and
cauterizing. I would tell her tomorrow, Monday after class,
in two weeks at the next seminar; I would tell her sometime,
but for now I slipped away from class, notebook blank and
swinging in my hands.
Twenty - Five
A Bittersweet Twenty Degrees
Leo McLaughin
We were knee-deep in snow but waist-deep
in each other. Out of ourselves and in the forest
with a silence that grows between the branches.
Silence last heard by Apache ears pierced
with Elk horn. Elk still roam these parts though
no longer hunted by empty stomachs
and those in need of a blanket or wedding dress.

You took my arm and we crossed the frozen lake

Disputing whether or not the fish confused the ice
for the ground; flipping over after bumping their heads.

There’s mysticism in fire, and I fought the urge

to dance around it when we got back to the cabin. The heat
from burning logs stung our faces, reminding us
of runny noses, and I missed not seeing my own
breath pass over cracked lips.

That night, everyone fell asleep under the weight

of a full moon. And silence was a new gesture
for us. Drinking tea with our eyes, and each other
with our mouths, on opposite ends of the room.

We listened to the pipes freeze overnight.

Twenty - Six
Abandoned
Heather McMillan

Twenty - Seven
 Starbucks Noir
Zaki Barzinji

“What do you want?” “Make it an iced latte.” Iced, like his heart.
Couldn’t call it decaf because that lusty cliché keeps it pumping
like Mozart done by Slipknot. Muddied mocha brown by the
complications, strains, lies, curdled milk of boiled blood. Never seen
him before but I know his type; his feelings swing with his legs from
the barstool. The barista brings the drink as he brings the money
from his pocket. The walls, counter top, and floors are scrubbed
hidden pearl. Stevie Wonder wails, muffled. Sobs are drowned by
coffee; he’s a perfect actor. “Faker!” His brain yells at his heart,
then buries a cool silenced .45 into his nervous system. Aftermath:
coffee spills on the snowscape. Barista grunts at this human stain in
his Shangri-la. Synthetic towel mops the mess, his natural problems
remain. Like an orgasm, his body shudders rhythmically in time
with fishy gasps, despair playing ecstasy’s understudy. Makes you
wonder, who was she? Just the whip cream of life, delicately placed
on top of the mud of necessity to look nice, exquisite, exotic, but
when the drink’s done, she’s still there, seductively out of straw’s
reach at the bottom of it all. I observe no longer, place the newspaper
on the table, rise, and walk the golden mile to the pathetic sop. My
hand, a dancing butterfly lands on his shoulder, then moves to caress
and turn his face towards mine. Slowly, his frown’s in a dryer, tossed
upside down. I radiate megawatts back. Then I left-hook that son
of a bitch in the face. Like a sack of American St. Patrick’s day, the
imposter of love learns what it means to speed-date with the floor,
his caffeinated mahogany blood making love to the asylum white
floor. Tears mix with milk. I can’t stand the hypocrisy of iced lattes.
Give me a fucking green tea.

Twenty - Eight
Glasses
Amanda Kubista

Twenty - Nine
 A Flock
Of Sheep

A river of pulsating wool

flows down a hill,
dripping into the grass,
and murmuring as it devours the land.
It gurgles and effortlessly sways
to a rhythm known by heart
from church organs
and men who can still hum tunes
inside acres of enclosed pastures
and flooded towns.
I hum no tune.
I have been swallowed up
by a sea of white foam
while my children stand
on my shoulders, looking for
a way out, a way to float above
this rising plague.

Tara Marciniak

Thirty
Untitled
Garrett Bradley

Thirty - One
 One with Nature
Stacey Swann

Thirty - Two
 Begone

What seemed to be water

proved to be acid
as you took a sip
it dissolved your insides
until there was no tissue left
until there was only the residue
of a pride once embraced
but now stolen, off guard

Rana Fayez

Untitled

They raise us to be soldiers

of the corporate political world
armed with razor sharp wallets
and words we cannot afford

When all we want to be are protectors

of lambs meandering fields of rye
with honey-suckle sweet words
singing that we’ll never die

Thirty - Three
 Crocuta Crocuta
Mark Settle
“The power to declare war, including the power of judging the causes of war,
is fully and exclusively vested in the legislature.” – James Madison

High in the rise of wind squeals creak Into stubble with foulest breath
And grind in fervor – In a scent of raw, red-handed
Hoarse groans of cackling laughter Death. Oh yes,
Stilt the hair upright Sought with glee.
And firm on the neck
Bristling quill-like in silence But none too much – out snap sharp snarls
For devilish halloos to curdle Tirades of discontent
The blood in expectation Among the grave diggers,
Of answer. Bellies like a half full morgue
While mouths run over the brim
And whooping and lowing and growling In discord, “The little shit! Nothing worth
Drivels like saliva The chew; his hair runs in my gums,
To a morbid chime Askew between my teeth.
Of teeth grinding – a mill And none for meat! Lions!
Churning bone splinters, muscling Mighty! Mighty! Killed a jackal.
Marrow with spittle Left it to rot in our devil play.
In the joints of the wheel How I starve! I miss
The jaws crunching, bunching incessant Blood on my lips!”
Grunts into prattle, like the speech
Of babes. Snout first then he shovels his maw
Into the mangled carcass
This riles discord in arid airs – Pinching the jackal pelt with lusty
The Serengeti dry in the lowlands Vice-like grip while another heckles
Where snickering scavengers gather And halloos in return
In devilish bivouac Wheezing, grinning between jests,
To dig trenches, carve channels “Blood is a fresh steal
In the ribs, the spine, the skull Or a trying match. I’ll have none,
Of a jackal – corpse stripped, But wait in the shadow of grass
Mawed with miry chops And on vultures watch!
Splayed with vagrant mud, tufts They lead the way to lion prey
Of hair, graveled marrow Which we and they
And shrinking sinews. Together may fall on
In mass
Hyena! Hyena! Hunches of lurching hunger
Choke, muzzle, and flay “To eat! Then we’ll roam elsewhere –
The echo of desperate gluttons Piss on the nothing
Insatiable of stomach We leave behind in our wake!”
To roam like speckled imps colored Said one in his slouching, sniveling, snatching.
Like an ugly outcropping of the plain’s Vagrant beasts! A chuckling chorus
Wearied, stained carpet. Rises and another, she slavers out speech,
Cry, pummel sweet vapor “The meat of mongrels, these jackals!
Thirty - Four
Fire in my belly rages yet.
Lions’ work! At least, gone
Is some pest who searched
Our dens, our spawn!
Merciless! Vile! Better let us hide
In the great rifts while they plague
The plain like murderous
Disease!”
Up, up ripples a shrill coughing yelp
Like a cloven tongue
A voice against itself, a feud civil and foreign
Echoing in heckles
Vain, fruitless, but virulent
Peppering across the tall grass in violence
As ruinous as tendrils of vagrant brush fire
Biting ashes to dirt – smoke to chafe the brow
Of paradise. Flame does flame
Conceive destruction on destruction, avarice
On avarice –
So too with naked tongues.
Spine-rattling another and another eat words
Again to words regurgitate in form
More raw, distorted, more fluid
Than origin.
“Curs! Ha! I fear these tsestes not,
But feed on their bowels
Snaking inside them like mambas!
I speed. You wait weary with slow waltzing
On buzzard trails.
The greater the maw, the greater pursuit,
And I am Goliath!
Easy prey is not in the East rifts
But in this West we shall feed on loins
For mouths strong and legs swift!
Dare we flee this plain where water and corpses rest?
Water will you find in the rifts? Jackals without?
Fools, fools!
Nears the dry season, and all things gather
By water – together.
Even if in violence, I like it better
Than thirst!”
O dire, o lustful ravenous shrieks
Splinter like a satanic choir
As they fall off North jeering
Like jesters at court
When on dark dusk-dipped clouds before
The great fallen African sun they spot
A hellish halo encircling
A site like harpies. Vultures hover over lions. Fresh
Must the kill be
As the heinous hyena horde lunges towards
Their gliding guides – gluttons all!
Steady, steady and in revelry
Ready mischief in fiendish marching procession. Silent
In yawning scarlet light
Pupils dilate in excitement
Where mane and maneless cats of might
Wrench and wrestle about the throat
Of a water
Buffalo. Hushed now the brutish jesters
Wait and watch,
And Chance delivers the weak over
Into the hands of hell. Hid in the height of grass,
Lion cubs lie low.
Until two and three and twelve shadows
Of hunches drive in
The cradled perimeter and teeth grin white
But a moment ere murder
Pulls limb from live lion limb
While the unwary elders break the buffalo’s body.
The cubs yelp late as their skins are jerked
Away and legs snapped between teeth
Shrill, as sever live bodies
Piece by mauled piece
In an ecstasy of blood letting – orgy! orgy!
A frenzy of hoarse chuckles christens the new night.
O night is for the devils!
Happy, happy lot!
Thirty - Five
Rope Annabelle Ombac

Thirty - Six
Your Path Annabelle Ombac

Thirty - Seven
Lunch and Dinner 11:30 am –1:30 am Mon-Sun
John’s Camera Corner
Gentry Studio

Book Your Wedding Now...

For all your photography needs.

(540) 552-2319
Our website: Johnscam.com
 Staff Quotes
Katherine Leonberger
“Just don’t give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is
love and inspiration, I don’t think you can go wrong.” -Ella Fitzgerald
Laura V. Cook
“Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why
so few engage in it.” -Henry Ford
Corinne Jeltes
“A cloudy day is no match for a sunny disposition.” -William Arthur Ward
Katherine Brumbaugh
“Inasmuch as nothing human is eternal but death, and death is the one
thing about which human beings can’t know anything, humans know
nothing.” -from Don Quixote by Kathy Acker
Misono Yokoyama
“Simplicity and repose are qualities that measure the true value of any
work of art.” -Frank Lloyd Wright

Contributor’s Quotes
Tara Marciniak
“Face value is very important but, unfortunately, you must also
weigh the motive of a person in an instant.” -Ricky McGuire
Rana Fayez
“You shouldn’t let poets lie to you.” -Björk
Elizabeth Pacentrilli
“Blaze with the fire that is never extinguished.” -Luisa Sigea
Ryan Donnelly
“I consider that I have many responsibilities, but none greater
then this: to last, as Hemingway says, and get my work done.”
-James Baldwin
Leo McLaughlin
“I am interested in anything about revolt, disorder, chaos-espe-
cially activity that seems to have no meaning. It seems to me to
be the road toward freedom...rather then starting inside, I start
outside and reach the mental through the physical.” -Jim Moris-
son
Kate Michel
“Be still when you have nothing to say; when genuine passion
moves you, say what you’ve got to say, and say it hot.” -D.H.
Lawrence

Forty - One
From the Business Manager
When it comes to everything and bagels, it gets scary.
The first time I saw “2 Heads are Better than 1” I had a debate with Hali about whether or not this photo
was of a Siamese llama or simply just a photo of two llamas standing next to each other. After our debate, we
decided to go to the photographer herself and find out the truth once and for all. Typically, I was wrong, and two
llamas it is. However, this accurately sums up what a great experience I’ve had while working with Silhouette.
I would like to thank Hali for being a great person to work with. There is never a dull moment with you.
Thanks for the laughs. “Wait, it looks like a party.” Indeed, it does.
I would also like to thank every member of the Silhouette staff. The work and passion that you have
showed for the magazine this semester has been remarkable, and I am proud to be a part of this with all of you.
Thank you to all of the EMCVT student leaders and advisors for helping me become a part of EMCVT and
guiding me through the semester.
Finally, of course many thanks and love to my family and friends. You make me happy.

-Jenna

2 Heads are Better Than 1

Annabelle Ombac

Forty - Two
 From the Editor-in-Chief
First of all I would like to thank Molly Bernhart and Kelly Furnas for convincing me that I could be the
Editor-in-Chief. If it wasn’t for them I would not be writing this little editor’s note. So, thank you Molly and Kelly
because this semester has been amazing. I feel like I have never learned so much in one semester.
Second of all I would like to thank Jenna. If it wasn’t for Jenna I wouldn’t say things like probs or typs. So,
thanks for the abreves! No, really Jenna you have been awesome. I could not have done such a good and thorough
job without you. Annabelle Ombac is right “2 Heads are Better Than 1.” Between the two of us we have at least one
good brain that seems to work under extreme office temperature conditions! Whether it is 5 billion degrees like
that one day or arctic like every other day we seem to have come up with some pretty brilliant ideas, obvi.
I would also like to thank my staff. You have all done such a good job. If it wasn’t for you this magazine
would not look the way it does. Thank you for sticking to my deadlines and doing a good job with your spreads!
Also, thank you to all the EMCVT student leaders and advisors. You have all been extremely helpful in
guiding me. I have learned a lot form each and every one of you.

I would like to thank those of you who support

me behind the scenes. To my friends and my family
without you life would be a lot more difficult.

-Hali

The King Fish

Heather McMillan

Forty - Three
silhouette.collegemedia.com