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Interim
Volume 29 / Issue 3 / 2012

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Interim
Vol 29, Issue 3
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Editor: Claudia Keelan
Assistant Poetry Editor: Christopher Arigo
Assistant Poetry Editor: Mollie Bergeron
Assistant Fiction Editor: John Douglas
Assistant Poetry Editor: Andrew Merecicky
Fiction Readers: Bruce Johnson, Tim Moungey

Interim is an annual publication. Subscriptions are $12 for one year.
Visit our website for complete guidelines and more information:
www.interimmag.org
Indexed by the Index of American Periodical Verse and American Humanities Index
Library of Congress National Series Data Program
ISSN 0888-2452 1999 Interim
Tanks to UNLVs English Department and the Black Mountain Institute for their
generous support.
Interim Vol. 29 2011 Interim
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Editors Note
Te present edition of Interim is a multivariate presentation of writing from America and abroad.
Te poetry collected here crosses the spectrum of aesthetics and modalities of our current moment.
Te Special Features section serves to stage Mani Raos interaction with Lorine Niedeckers work and
Hank Lazers Notebooks project. Both pieces negotiate a temporal space whose pictorial performanc-
es begin with sight and end with Vision. We are also pleased to introduce translations of Mahmoud
Darwish by Mustapha Marouchis and poems by contemporary Chinese poet Yin Li, translated by
Fiona Sze-Lorrain. Fiction, previously underrepresented in the pages of the magazine, is amply rep-
resented and introduced by John Douglas, Interims new fction editor. New books by poets Ariana
Reines and Maggie Nelson are reviewed by Erica Anzalone and Eliza Rotterdam.
Tanks for reading!
Claudia Keelan, editor
INTERIM
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Volume 29 2012
Interim
Contents
Poetry
Andy Carter
Te Workers Were Smiling: Tey Were Happy
AE Clark
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4
Geoff Collins
I Drew Her a Picture

Christopher Davis
Man on Man
Orphic Orphan
Oath
Shira Dentz
Sound of Gardening
Peycho Kanev
Psalm
Small Revenge
Brian Henry
Static in Winter
Cynthia Hogue
Te Sibyl
Joseph Lease
Hammer
9
John McKernan
Te First
Every Morning I Feed
Jenny Mueller
Landscape with Astonished Figures
Nuns Falling Down Stairs
Simon Perchick
Without a Riverbed
Jordan Reynolds
R.M.R. Chain Letter Sutra

Eliza Rotterman
I Didnt Know Anything About Anything
Forgive Me My Hyperbole. I Learned It from the Poppies
Leia Wilson
Herself Tats Where He Learned
Post It Note
Nicholas Wong
[type 1, presumption]
[type 0, introduction]
[type X, inventing]
Brian Young
Given Tis Space
Special Feature: Mani Rao + Hank Lazer
Mani Rao
Lorine Niedecker
Hank Lazer
from Te Notebooks (of Being & Time)
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Translations
Mustapha Marrouchi (translating Mahmoud Darwish)
All I Want from Love / Is the Beginning
When Its Time to Go / I Love You Even More
Te Violins
Fiona Sze-Lorrain (translating Yu Li)
Te Old Teatre Was Torn Down
Burst into Laughter Anytime
Home by a Construction Site
Construction Site Seen from the Window
When I Tink of Tese
Palm Tree by the House
Watching from Far a Girl on the Derrick
Fiction
Ann Robinson
Iguana Moon
David Hancock
Gyre
Stephen Mannion
Daccord
Amos Wright
Tilting at Windmills
Mary Koral
Baby Slug
J.W.M. Morgan
Tirteen Ways of Looking at San Francisco
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End Notes: Book Reviews
Coeur de Lion by Ariana Reines
reviewed by Erica Anzalone
Bluets by Maggie Nelson
and A Beautiful Marsupial Afternoon by C.A. Conrad
reviewed by Eliza Rotterman
12
poetry
13
Andy Carter
Te Workers Were Smiling; Tey Were Happy
Tis an abalone
golf so terribly
this young lady
feeds AP photography
I write poetry.
I boycott Disney.
under my proposal
shell make Frisbees
feminine hygiene
plus toiletries
we train them
to eat Mac & Cheese
gave my son
the SUV, for straight Cs
and we translate the bibles
so no worry
RFID tag pets
RFID tag our employees
thanks to our health care benefts
no babies
we pipe in Casey Kasems
Top Forty
dont see a T.V.
where are we?
14
I make sweatshirts
and exchange currency
redo her work table
with Travertine
I wish my insides
came to life like Wolverine
had I gone to school
this would be my frst painting
Freeze. Hes looking at me
like that scene in that movie.
these factories
cascading style sheets
I hope we can jet ski
with a Wii on the balcony
if I snatch that pad
there better be writing
a kind of reverie, standing
when you need to pee
Im beyond commodity
beyond books in the library
the hot sweaty
nights bring only melancholy
sounds so nice
so unlike anonymity
center to periphery
aint no love
- your pity -
without surveillance
15
how could I retaliate
appropriately?
dont blame me
blame the query
Intention is Nazi
whales, vagina, fart cherry
olly olly
oxen free
in a room full of crackers
I might cut the cheese
you can haz read?
there are three, four
fve of me
15% less guilty
before leaving
can you take me?
need a Dell Power Blade
running Apache
I too believe
in programming
the heart warming story
of a child
terrorizing
his family
anal beads
and Rice Krispies
browsing
and trajectories
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walk the same
earth, diferent history
will never be
reversed, I guarantee
tomorrow
Ill go get cofee
Ill come home
and feel sorry
the Marianas islands
to the United
States Congress
poems Karaoke science
your data supine
compliant
this jpeg degrades
waits
for a system to migrate
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AE Clark
3.
when he called, i called out to
the approximation of you
in your brothers voice. theres no comfort
in knowing you approximately : fatherishness
wont ever be enough. father,
youre my ghost today.
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4.
i fnd you where i look for you :
fastbacks
jack daniels
train tracks
mechanics
youve almost always been dead, but
more than before, youre dead
again. i make it up.
i haunt me myself.
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Geoff Collins
I Drew Her a Picture
Without pencil or paper
I threw her name into a dream sky.
I sang her name in so many colors
no rainbows came that summer.
Evenings rang with the call
of cicadas and neighborhood children
played make-believe games
in back yards and alleys
but in all those weeks it never rained.
Wispy clouds came dressed
for dancing on the river at sunset
then drifted away into nothing.
Te grass turned brown.
Te river retreated into mud.
Crowds of sulphur butterfies gathered
around the last few puddles.
Nighttime brought a caucus
of impudent stars as I lay in bed
and dreamed - yellow hair, pale skin,
long, thin legs and a smile from heaven.
And the picture I drew stayed
where I left it - in the air, in the air.
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Oath
Why stop calling this lifestyle mental
illness? I get bored. My imaginary
pals vowed to make angels gobble
chocolate poo. Reader,
I have no earthly idea how you feel:
I cant achieve erection unless
the other seems.
Crazy. Youll never catch
me in the Target
with my partner, buying
birdseed for our daughter.
Bow before a curio cabinet, its porcelain fgurines:
a boy in a blue cap, tooting on a fesh-beige fute;
a girl in a pink dress, holding up sheet music,
treble clefts, bar lines, sixteenth notes signifying
nothing, no real song,
yet, look, mouth
open, she sings!
*
On the outskirts of Augusta, check in
to a sex place, the Parliament House,
a motor lodge built in the late twenties,
converted, decorated in Southwestern style,
adobe entrance, crenellated, reminiscent
of the Alamo, painted pink. Historically,
the name refers to speaking, parlement
some kind of legal body of the ancient
regime; on the darkened tennis court,
in the stench of sweat, poppers, semen,
hot men say absolutely nothing, un-
shared pleasure physical, preverbal,
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self-referential. My self-
fngered sphincter squirms
like a hole in the dust,
puckering,
the entrance to the city,
leaf-cutter ants making,
in their jaws, a leaf-gruel
they spit out all over a fermenting
mushroom
the whole colony
feeds on,
a round, white face, a Capuchin monkey,
peeking, blinking, withdrawing,
tail curling and uncurling, moving
quickly, quietly,
testing, tapping
the hard green nubs of unripe mangoes,
testicles,
licking mites of its fngers, fangs
bared, long, translucent, needle-sharp,
a baby boa hanging from its fst,
smooth, gold, slick, rain-wet,
looping, limply,
over curled knuckles
like a shoelace,
snapped:
my dick! Did it
bite it?
Does it,
my private part, its
absence,
matter?
Silence
isnt its way in,
in this relationship.
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special feature
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Mani Rao
Lorine Niedecker

I Lorine Niedecker
My father saw his wife turn deaf and away I mourn her not hearing






water soft


daughter serious

a
new
a
new
s
in
cere s
in
cere
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waterlily
floating
lilyLea
o my
liptiplily

I was born with eyes and a house
The sun hits
See!

High, lovely light Hey day!

My only fear: Ill go blind

bornsworn
to sound, light saw a star whistle

peet tweet
teardroptittle
be dee dove
round sound I must have been washed in listenably

pure duration
cough blackbirds please
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Hank Lazer
from Te Notebooks (of Being & Time)
N14P11
so that each day is far too busy
pick one thin & stick to it because of course each thing is every thing
Te essentially hidden throws itself toward the light, without becoming signifcation. Not
nothingness but what is not yet. Tis unreality at
the threshold of the real
does not ofer itself as a
possible to be grasped. (256-257)
as if
as is
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Translations
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Mahmoud Darwish / translations from the Arabic by Mustapha Marrouchi
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All I Want from Love
Is the Beginning
All I want from love is the beginning. Above the plazas of my Granada
doves mend the days cover.
In the clay jars there is wine in abundance for the feast that will follow.
In the songs there are windows that will open and open
so that the pomegranate blossoms burst through
I leave the jasmine in its vase; I leave my little heart
in my mothers closet; I leave my dream, laughing, in the water;
I leave the dawn in the honey of the fgs; I leave my day and
my eve
in the walkway that leads to the square around the Orange tree where doves fy.
Am I the one who bent down to your feet so that the words could rise,
a white moon in the milk of your nights . . . pound the air
so that I may see the Street of the Flute in blue . . . pound the evening
so that I may see how this marble grows languid between you and me?
Te windows are void of the gardens of your shawl. In another time
I knew many things about you, and I picked the gardenias
from your ten fngers. In another time there were pearls for me
around your neck, and a name engraved on a ring from which the night would
spring.
All I want from love is the beginning. Doves have fown away
above the roof of the last sky, they few away and away.
Tere will remain, after us, abundant wine in the clay jars.
And enough earth so that we may fnd our way, and that there may be
peace.
*original Arabic on preceding pagespread
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Poems by Yi Lu ())
Translated from the Chinese by Fiona Sze-Lorrain

Fiona Sze-Lorrain
6, rue Guillaume Bertrand, 75011 Paris, France
(+33) (0)1 43 38 06 39 phf.lorrain@orange.fr

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31
Yu Li / translated from Chinese by Fiona Sze-Lorrain
Te Old Teatre Was Torn Down
workers stand on its roof
God reckons this is a new show
they smash all the tiles
squash the aged grass and moss
daylight pours down
all corners brighten
those artifcial lights boxed performance spaces
lose their boundaries in an instant
dust mouse holes plastic fowers decayed curtains
shun the limelight
does the old theater too yearn for a real rain
not an artistic rain
rain for showers
their show goes on
they destroy the futuristic tiles
destroy roof beams of the Absurd
destroy Brechts pillars
destroy Stanislavskis walls
multi-tasking directors make-up artists stage designers
where are you?
workers stand on the naked stage
no one seizes the chance to shout a line
ah Morality Truth
heads bowed they lever up planks piece by piece
a fnger is pricked by a rusty nail
ah blood runs through the heart a cry of pain
a small unrehearsed riot
a rag dancing solo in the wind
is grabbed as a prop for dressing wounds
a wooden plank that Hamlet clowns and emperors
once stepped on
is angrily smashed
honest wood doesnt even know pain
while the evil nail is already nowhere
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Poems by Yi Lu ())
Translated from the Chinese by Fiona Sze-Lorrain

Fiona Sze-Lorrain
6, rue Guillaume Bertrand, 75011 Paris, France
(+33) (0)1 43 38 06 39 phf.lorrain@orange.fr

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33
the stage is now in ruins coalescing into the earth
yet the show goes on
random butterfies right by the side
clouds free of formula drift from above
steam rises from a dining table
mounted by torn columns and stumps
a bird dives into but fails to reach that bowl of rice
fat mice stare at salted fsh on the foral plates
a wet nurse has no time to shield her other breast
a leaf falls into the soup
I hear God laugh
but but
the show still goes on
the next act is to rebuild a bigger theater
dig a deeper base drill thicker piles construct a wider stage
for bigger shows more eclectic shows
if they ask me to be the stage designer
Ill certainly use the tabletop that workers carted away
and hang it as the rising sun
God you will laugh again
the show still goes on still goes on
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fction
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When We Ceased to Be Animals
Te human animal is just that: an animal. Regardless of every rule and stopgap that society places
upon us to be civilized and austere and genteelthere is an animal inside us that receives short
shrift. Freud, in Civilization and Its Discontent, cites that a major cause of unhappiness in Western
man is their discontent upon discovering natives in the Americas and other lands. Places where
savages roamed free, unburdened by the requirements of suppressive culture and religionthese
natives were free to enjoy their bodies without worry of concealment, to enjoy sex without the
burden of excessive taboo and to enjoy food, without the rigamarole of prayer and social niceties.
Western man saw this, and he was sad.
Te stories in this issue of Interim remind us that, for better or worse, we are all animals. Beneath
the social construction of what makes us civilized humans, there is a human animal waiting to
surface, waiting to eat without ritual, love without pretense, and live without condition. Along with
this freedom also comes the burden of consequence; within the bubble of civilization, consequences
are minimized. Tese stories remind us that along with the pleasure of living life as an animal,
comes pain, sufering and inevitable death. Tough, while living like an animal may be a digression
at times, it is seldom ever a transgression.
John Douglas, Fiction Editor
INTERIM
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Ann Robinson
Iguana Moon
At Strattons Rest Home, an iguana lives in an aquarium decorated with rocks, sea logs,
plastic daisies. Te Strattons brought the iguana from Mexico and noticed that he was mesmerized
by the pert Walmart fowers on their kitchen table. Tey placed the fowers by the rocks, and the
iguana snifed and licked around the daisies as if they were organic. Te aquarium was on a table
overlooking Lucas Valley, California. Behind the iguana, a window with autumn. Crisp leaves and
clouds scribbled the sky. In the past year, I had come here several times to visit my friend, Mildred
Birch. I hated the iguana.
He licks Walmart fowers.
I shifted in my chair. Te iguana moved backward, staring at a point behind my head. His
horns quivered. What was he seeing? I turned around.
Hes like the CIA. What does he know that I dont?
Mildred was eighty and sat in a wheelchair next to a television with Spanish voices. Most of
the employees at the rest home were Hispanic. Whenever Mildred spoke, I expected another lan-
guage, not the slight French-Canadian accent. A small, frail woman with ocean-blue eyes and hair
the color of clouds. Her slip was showing, blue and soiled. Her left side was limp from a stroke;
mouth slack on one side as if caught by an upside-down hook.
Purvis Ortega is aware of your attitude. Dont look at him.
I couldnt resist. I stuck my tongue out. Mildred wheeled over to me.
Verna, I cant stand it here. Take me with you. Please, please.
Each week, she called up her daughter in Foster City and begged to be taken back to her
home. It had been sold a year ago. Her daughter would show up at the rest home the next day with
fowers, books, bribes. Mildred yelled at her in French. Te daughter, Sally Mae, chain-smoked,
sometimes burning holes in the furniture. Te Strattons threatened eviction when the area rug from
Pakistan caught on fre.
I was seventy, squat as a football, and used to giving advice from Ann Landers column. Be
patient. Give it a go. Adjust.
Mildred hit me on the knee. Ann Landers is a bitch; do you hear me? A fat, rich, mouthy
cunt who has her own teeth. She doesnt feel like I do. Te rich can aford to give advice.
I stroked my knee. I cursed her silently, though her spirit drew admiration. We had been
neighbors for years in a large complex. Te frst day I met her, she was watering fowers, a cigarette
jutting from her mouth. I had a copy of Cornell Woolrichs I Married a Dead Man.
She smiled through smoke. Ive published six detective novels. I can always tell what kind
of person Im dealing with by his or her underwear. All my heroes wear purple briefs; the heroines
wear silk, red with black. Im guessing you are Sears foral.
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Dont be obscene. Im not cheap.
She had guessed correctly.
Mildred stubbed out her cigarette in a fower bed. Im never wrong. Youre someone I need
to know about.
She invited me in for tea. I was lonely after my husbands death. I yearned for more than
soap operas or the voices on TV. Underwear hanging from the mantel of her freplace, hanging of
the backs of chairs. Hosiery on doorknobs. Sheets and towels hung up on the tops of doors.
I told her that she was indecent. She laughed and fxed tea. We became friends. I admired
the fact that she liked what she did for a living. She didnt worry about a pension or a retirement
plan. She went for the bone.
I was a retired elementary schoolteacher. During my tenure, I had several nicknames: Fish
Girl, Dead Fish, Fish Butt. My eyes were large, bulbous, and encased by black glasses, and my nos-
trils fared because I had hay fever. One parent told me that he had expected scales. I was aware of
sucking noises behind me down the hall. I thought of myself as a good elementary teacher, but the
principal explained that I was one of the few teachers who could make something interesting dull.
My retirement party was not well-attended. At least I have my pension.
Mildred leaned over in her wheelchair. Most of my underwear has been stolen, Verna. All
the nice ones. Im helpless without red.
She shifted in her wheelchair, left leg dangling of the side. A memory of her standing in the
doorway of her old apartment. Small fnicky hands darting about with a cigarette while she ex-
plained her latest novel. Her legs, muscular, feet rooted to the ground.
Ill buy you red. So youll be pretty like you once were. How things used to be.
You know, Vern, youre almost seventy-fve, even though you lie about it. She leaned for-
ward in her wheelchair. Dont condescend.
My soul was blistered. Dont burn me, Mil. I didnt put you here. Is it my fault you live
with a lizard and thieves?
Te iguana rattled around in its box, the little eyes darting in the ugly head. How I hated it.
Mildred looked down at the iguana. Its just that you are able to walk out of here.
Te door slammed in the next room. Didge Stratton, the proprietors large voice, could
be heard through the walls. Mildred pointed to the hall. It was a signal to get away from Didge. I
pushed her down the hall into her bedroom, a large bud pink afair with cowboy bedspread and a
bookcase. Shakespeare, PD. James, and Roberta Strump, her pen name. A small desk with loose
papers, manuscripts that she had been working on for the past fve years. Interrupted by her stroke.
She had been a writer since she was fourteen. When she fnished high school, she married a tax ac-
countant who embezzled from Bank of America, which then was Bank of Italy. He left her with a
small child. Her villains and murderers had the same facial tics as her husband; her heroines resem-
bled her daughter, all blondes with red mouths and dark cigarettes.
I smell, dont I, Verna. Mildred turned to me.
I was afraid to inhale.
She took my hand, her eyes dimmed. Listen, Vern. I have to get out of here. Last night I
had a dream that I was dying. Suddenly, my body wasnt there anymore. She began crying. I could
still hearmy heart beating. I want to go home. Take me with you.
I stepped back, dropping her hand. I wanted to be very far, far away. Away from wheel-
38
I thought of my neighbors, Sally and Joe, and how they avoided me.
Mildred, it isnt any better outside of these walls. No one likes old people. With us, every-
thing is yesterday.
Sally and Joe were beautiful, shallow people. Young, young, young. I listened to them make
love, my ear to the wall. It was as if they had entered a magnetic feld, arriving on each other and
staying, bucking and cavorting. Te bed board backed into the wall.
I looked at Mildred who was studying me closely. A fash of my husband and I making love
that last time, hands stripping away lycra and spandex, hearing aids, false teeth. Our bodies like
moths coming apart in the ancient light as opera played on the radio. How I disgusted myself.
Mildred took my hand. I know what youre thinking.
You and I know what I am thinking, Mil. Neither your daughter nor I can care for you.
Im tired of arguing.
She was crying movie tears. I know but Im scared. Youve been good to me.
I stared at the wall, the ceiling, the foor, not at her. I couldnt bear to see her like this, so humble. It
was so out of character.
Ive got to go. Ill see you tomorrow.
Mildred looked at me, squinting. Teres a look about you that has never been there before.
You look strange.
Ive never been so strange; its a part of growing senile.
Mildred laughed and slapped her hand against her thigh. I wish we could be roommates.
I love you, Mildred. Love you for being not what I am.
Tere was no answer, really.
I got into my car. Loneliness multiplied like those little Chinese boxes. I started the car and
drove of. It was still early and I needed supplies at a hardware store. I got out of the car, thinking of
my husband Arthur. How he was always the one who went into the hardware stores.
I studied the shelves and got a plunger. A man who looked familiar asked for copper wires.
Something about the voice, the slight lisp as if the tongue were glued to the lower lip. Te more he
talked, the stronger my suspicions. He was one of the ones who had called me Fish Butt. A bloated,
little culprit who had placed a dead trout in my desk drawer. When I opened the drawer, the inhu-
man eyes stared back. Te sixth grade laughed. I burned. Fish Butt was taped to the tail. In the
halls I heard him bragging while others laughed. I sent him to detention hall for weeks. He was
never apologetic.
He had been nicknamed Tubby Fork. He was no longer fat but tall, a straight line at thirty-
fve. I listened. He bought fsh bait. I felt my mouth yank at the edges.
I stood beside him. I would like help also, after this young man. I emphasized young.
Te clerk nodded and put fsh bait in Tubbys bag. Tubby looked at me curiously.
Excuse me, Mr. Fortenberry, do you remember me? I am Verna White, your elementary
school teacher.
Why, erruh, yes, Mrs. White. How could I forget you? His voice had a shiftless insin-
cere quality like canned goods. He gathered his purchases. Tere was a look that passed between us
that revealed the whole of my teaching career. He nodded and left as if I had no more consequence
than fsh bait.
I watched him get into his car, the face hooded behind the wheel. I fancied I saw him laugh.
39
Ten he squealed out in his shiny Mercedes. Who was this Tubby Fortenberry who could be
so cruel to a schoolteacher and end up in the same hardware store years later, driving a Mercedes?
Who indeed? I became angry, an unnatural brightness fooding my face. It was people like
Tubby who made me not want to look at myself in the mirror for fear I would change into an ani-
mal or amphibian species. All the laughter and cruelty, but the worst cruelty was meeting up with
the perpetrator years later and seeing that none of it mattered. I was of no consequence.
I had a breakdown the year of Tubby Fortenberrys prank. It wasnt just Tub; my husband
had an afair with a young woman, uglier than I but with better hips. Te enormity of his actions
made my mind break into a hundred pieces. Tere was quietness about me after that. Oh, two
weeks in the hospital, meds, my husband came back. It wasnt the same. We slept in the same bed,
but rarely looked at each other.
But there was always Tubby, fat-cheeked, short, a snout, leaving notes, pranks. He became
my shadow ego. And I hated him the way I hated my husband because they have no remorse.
Looking through the phone directory, I found his number and address. A hotshot who lived
in the suburbs in a two-story while his elementary teacher sat in a 78 Chevy, watching his plush life
through a windshield. It was 8 p.m.
You ask me why bother. I was like my dear friend Mildred. She wrote a thousand pages
about a mass murderer. He had seventy-seven disguises, each more outrageous than the last. She
told me that she was obsessed. We are not so diferent, Mildred and I. Perhaps it was madness or
sheer rage, but once the hook is there, I craved the bait. After all these years, I couldnt stand Tubby
Fortenberry.
I wanted to confront him. Te front porch light was on, and James Fortenberry came out
the door, calling his dog. He was as tall as one of those trophy Marlins, silver, glistening up in the
moonlight. He was almost handsome. I felt a pang. He looked over in my direction, craning his
head.
Te dog, a small white poodle, ran across the yard, barking, and then stopped. Te little fool
snifed the grass and slowly whimpered over in my direction. James called his dog.
James Jr., you come back here.
Te dog snifed steadily over to my car. My breath shifted to my throat. I sunk down. My
bladder tingled like a bell. I peed in my seat. Te dog barked and raced around to my car door. His
master now stood on the sidewalk. I could almost see the color of his eyes, so bright was that moon-
light. He approached. I sunk even farther into the seat, watching him from the rim of the steering
wheel. My pants were soaked, I smelled like a hundred back alleys. Te poodle barked at my door,
the little powder-puf body snifng at me. I could hear the paws scraping at my car. Suddenly, the
dog scampered of. James Sr. stood on the sidewalk, not moving. He turned his back on me, look-
ing over his shoulder. I heard him say something. He and the dog went through the front door. Te
porch light went of. I sat therenumb, motionless, aware of the stench, wanting a bath. I stuck my
tongue out at the house. I chanted fat boy over and over again. Tere was a tap on the window.
Outside, a man in a uniform stared down at me with a fashlight. He motioned to roll down the
window. Te light shone in my face.
Maam, can I see some identifcation? Phew, what is that?
I fshed in my purse for my drivers license and showed it to the ofcer.
He studied my license and my face. I felt as if I were being held underwater.
40
Maam, Ill cut to the short. I patrol this area. Its up end. And I care about my people. He
straightened himself. When I saw this clunker, I had to check it out.
He wrote something on his pad. Ten he scribbled over it. He tore up the page.
Maam, I think youd better go.
I started up the car, backing up, instead of going forward. My car crashed into something.
I turned my head and saw his car with a red light twirling on top. My car had crashed into his car,
fender to fender. I wondered if this cop were an ex-pupil of mine.
Ofcer, my clutch is out.
His face was a mask. You do not have a clutch.
I moved the wheel from left to right. I had one this morning.
But I was remembering 1964.
Te ofcer continued in a monotone. You have destroyed the front of my car.
Te moon took on an edge. Te ofcer looked vampirish, the long front teeth fxated on me.
Please dont cite me. I live on a fxed income.
Te fashlight beamed in my face.
You have destroyed the front of my brand-new Saturn. Years on the force with trash and
now a car ft for TV and you destroyed it. Get out of this car and look!
Even in the dark, I could see that his face was burnt orange. He helped me out. I tottered
over to the front of his car. His fender with two right lights broken, little points in the center. Te
hood slightly pushed up and dented.
Tey just dont make cars like they used to, Ofcer. My voice stepped up. My car had no
marks. A 68 Chevy, with fns and no scars.
We stood there, looking from one car to the other.
Maam, my name is Ofcer Gene Autry Hayes. He coughed as if choking on a bone. My
father named me after that cowboy who rode in the West. My daddy taught me to respect my elders
no matter what. His breath was all over me like a tornado. I can take anything. I am one tough
hombre. But when you ruin my car, you ruin my horse. He looked around as if something more
interesting were out in the night. Get out of here.
I tottered back to my car and got in. I switched on the ignition and the car purred. Te
ofcer was swearing. Te lights on James Fortenberrys house went back on. I drove like a turtle
combing the path until I got out of the ofcers sight. I barely noticed that something was on the
foor of the car. James Jr., the little ass, was licking my leg.
Listen, bastard, you are just like your father.
Te poodle whimpered and I stomped on the brakes, opened the door, and shoved the dog
out with my foot. I stomped the accelerator and looked at the poodle in the rearview. He stood in
the middle of the road, looking lost.
Te next day I went to see Mildred at the rest home. I felt low. I was like James Jr, lost.
Didge Stratton stood in the doorway. A tall, heavy-boned woman with dyed black hair. She wore
a peasant dress with a red and pink shawl. She looked like an Easter egg. She fancied herself to be
Spanish, related to Cortez. Mildred was told that she was from Ireland, from a long line of Irish
drunks. Red hair shone at the roots.
How are you, Verna? My little Senorita Castanet. Yip, yip. I think Mildred is depressed. We
need to get her out. I take Catalina and the van. Get ready, andele!
41
A short burly woman with a moustache came out of the kitchen. Eyes like tar pits. I am
not taking anyone out. You phony Mexican. I lost my license.
Didge smiled stify. Get Senorita Mildred. You are my peasant and youll do as I say or get
unhired. We will go to a restaurant. Come, we are countrymen.
Catalina hissed through her teeth. You have never seen the inside of Mexico.
Didge stomped her high heels and pointed at the door. Catalina disappeared. I waited.
We will take Senor Purvis Ortega with us. He is feeling likewise depressed. She pointed at
Purvis who was staring at the ceiling from his aquarium.
My breath stopped. I gurgled inside my throat.
Didge smiled. You are not afraid of a little amphibian, are you?
My feet quivered. No restaurant will permit a giant lizard to dine. I wont go.
Didge hufed with her shawl. My cousins in Tiburon own a high-class restaurant, and Se-
nor Purvis is always welcome. Mildred needs us. We are her only friends.
Catalina stood behind Mildred in the doorway. Mildred looked dreadful, as if she hadnt
slept. Her hair went several directions, and her lipstick covered the space below her lower lip. Her
manuscript or her current book was in her lap. Her hands were clasped over it.
Verna. I know what I look like and its not Hollywood. I fnished my book. Its done,
Vern! She smiled weakly. I want you to read it, the good and the bad.
I touched her hand, looking at the manuscript. I heard a rustle behind me. I turned. Didge
was placing Purvis in a toy wagon. She had removed him from his glass home, and now he was
stretched out like a jungle king. He squirmed side to side. My breath went up and down and out
my feet. Mildred pushed up against me, her wheelchair touching my legs.
Vern, get a grip. Court him; hell be yours.
You can marry him yourself.
Didge laughed. Such little sombreros. Cat, go get the van. Yip, yip.
Catalina cursed in Spanish and, seconds later, the engine revved up and the van reversed like
a frecracker. She slammed on the brakes and peeked out of the window.
Dont rush me, she hissed. She swung open the door in a sweat.
Didge scowled as she and Catalina placed the wagon with the iguana on the foor in the
backseat. Te motorized platform lowered for wheelchair access and Mildred wheeled in. I climbed
in, staring at Purvis. He was stationed between Mildred and me. Because of the handicapped access,
there was plenty of foor space. It didnt matter. Purvis stared at me with the tongue fickering.
Go to hell, Purvis!
Oh, Mama is mad, Didge giggled.
Catalina roared around the block, swaying all her passengers including Purvis who looked
stricken as the toy wagon rocked. My feet jumped up and down, independent of my body. Mildred
clutched the sides of the wheelchair. She had placed her manuscript in the toy wagon. Purvis ap-
peared to be reading of the paper.
Mildred, that lizard could shit on your book, I said.
Purvis is trained. How dare you! Didge said.
I thought of the old days when I was married to Arthur. Life was dull but safe. I wanted that
life back, no punches. I fancied I saw Arthurs face in the clouds, but it was only a plane. At a stop
sign, Didge reached behind the seat and patted the iguanas horns. She attempted to put sunglasses
42
on the lizard. He would have none of it. He inched closer to me. Purvis opened his mouth as if to
bite. Didge yanked her sunglasses back and put them on herself.
In Tiburon we parked in front of a large restaurant overlooking the ocean. Te water spar-
kled like gin fzz, and a seal was dining on a rock. Didge got out and slid the van door open.
Mildred descended on the hydraulic lift. Catalina helped Mildred while Didge hauled the
iguana and wagon out of the back. Mildred had already snatched up her manuscript, holding the
sheaf of papers, fngers trembling around the edges. I turned cold in the sun. Purvis wiggled inside
the toy vehicle. A small girl ran up and petted him. Purvis opened his mouth as if to swallow her.
Te child ran of, a blond streak. I tried to pretend that I was not with these people and rushed up
ahead. Soon they yelled at me. Mildred was silent, clutching her work. Catalina pushed the wheel-
chair, even though it was electric. Mildred would not let go of her manuscript to steer her chair.
Its my lifes work.
Te doors swung open and we trooped inside. It was a small, elegantly dark place with a
deck outside. A tall man in a tuxedo greeted us.
Hows my favorite cousin and her son, Senor Purvis? he bowed
Didge stifened. Listen, we are fne.
Henry smiled, revealing gaps. He looked down at Mildred. Hows the writer doing?
Mildred looked up. Even in the dark, she had huge circles under her eyes, like a pansy.
Ten years. My friend, Verna, is editing it for me. Ten years, my Irish elf.
If it takes ten years to get of the toilet, then so be it. Drinks on the house, mineral water
for the iguana.
Fortunately, there were few people in the restaurant. We were hustled to a table outside on
the deck. Mildred insisted that we be seated away from Didge, Catalina, and the lizard. Te sun was
dipping into the horizon. Soon it would be dusk, the amber glow. Mildred situated herself to face
the ocean. Her face was serene. A small wind rufed the pages of her manuscript. I confess I didnt
want to read her book. I wanted to talk about me.
Mildred, I said, sucking the ocean air into my lungs. Lets talk. Ive done awful things.
Mildred looked down at her book. Go ahead, Vern. Ill wait.
A few Ive regretted.
I heard Didge laugh. She was watching me. Could they hear? I lowered my voice.
A few weeks after my husbands funeral. I looked up all the students who hated me and
called them...at 3 a.m., I looked into her eyes, then I hung up. Ten a few nights ago, I parked in
front of my most hated student, the ringleader. He once left me a dead fsh in my desk.
Mildreds feet went of the pedals. She looked at me hard, scanning me like a mirror.
Are you going to continue to do this junk, Verna?
I shook my head. I liked it, Mildred. I had the upper hand. But, no, I stopped.
I dont believe you, Verna.
I dont keep secrets, Mildred.
Mildred smiled. My villains are all voyeurs like you, Vern. People on the verge. She
reached over and touched my cheek. Its not so bad, she told me with her eyes. Te sun cast a halo
around her head.
I guess it was Arthurs death, Mil. Te strain.
I bet the old toad couldnt get it up.
43
Its not like your embezzling husband was so great.
Mildred smiled heavily. Bank of America was never the same. And he didnt embezzle from
them. She touched her wheels delicately. He couldnt get it down, at least with other women.
Verna, read my book.
Didge was beside us with Purvis and the toy wagon. Oh, my little sexual castanets. You talk
dirty. Let me in on it. I have run out of novels.
Get lost, Didge. We are busy, I said.
She stomped her feet and the iguana rattled. Tey moved away to another table.
I began reading the manuscript. Te style was unfamiliar. After forty pages, I realized that it
was a novel told from diferent points of view.
Ramon-Ramon was standing on the edge of the clif, ready to fy, fy, do you hear? But Elvira ran
after him, pitch high, a gun in her hand. Would it be suicide? Would it be murder? No one understood.
Sometimes the book moved fast and then suddenly on page one hundred, the language was
gibberish. Mildred watched me like a cat. Te sun was going down over the wharf.
Fat town with a bunch of shits standing by the railroad tracks. Cigarettes, glue, petrol, a Cana-
dian Mountie. I drug out a cigarette, and a car ran over me. It was a Mercedes with aliens.
Parts of it are wonderful. Parts of it dont make sense. Te stroke?
She shrugged. Go ahead, edit my life. She handed me a pen and a beer. I wrote on the
margins, noting good and bad sentences. I saw what a fne writer she was in her coherent passages.
Sometimes I waited for Ramon-Ramon, standing by the window, the scenery in browns like all
his paintings, no, that was not the correct color, looking back, no, the door, not the mural that he painted.
Do I make sense? Hes dead now.
Te glow of day and night of a writers life. I scribbled more notes under the turning sun.
Something changed inside of me, grabbed at me. I felt needed.
Mildred, you can make it with this. I can help you. We can do it this time.
To be wanted or needed, that was our desire, especially the old cranks like Mildred and me.
No one paid attention to us, just like they didnt with my mother. Years ago, we were on a vacation,
Mother and me, on a tour inside of a cave in the Ozarks. Balding with a cane and heavy bifocals,
she sat in a wheelchair just like Mildred. In the fragile light of the cave, she was pale and quiet, and
I was at her side, middle-aged, fat in a dotted dress. Yet when the tour guide asked a question, she
was the only one who could answer. In a clear, crisp voice, leaning from her cane: stalactites. Te
park ranger gave a look of respect that went past decades.
Mildred grabbed my hand and suddenly went limp.
Mildred, Mildred I looked at her.
Didge yelled across the room. Ten there was a stillness like ice. Mildreds eyes folded back
into bone, and the jaw went slack. Pages of her manuscript fell on the foor. I couldnt move for
seconds. I touched Mildreds pulse and felt a silence. I shook her and cried out. Pages of the manu-
script foated everywhere. I guess it didnt matter anymore. I clutched at my chest as if pulling my
heart out. Suddenly from nowhere, the iguana slithered across the deck followed by loud voices.
Didge called him back. Te iguanas eyes were fery; he moved faster and faster. In a loud thieving
splash, he was in the ocean. I couldnt tell whether it was day or night, thinking I saw the moon
up in the sky, thinking perhaps, I saw a profle of the iguana up there. Tere was a roar of waves, a
sense of freedom. Te wind picked the pages up, and the paper drifted out like gulls into the ocean.
44
Contributor Biographies
Andy Carter is an archivist living in Athens, Georgia.
A.E. Clark received her B.A. From Beloit College and her M.F.A in Creative Writing from the Uni-
versity of Nevada, Las Vegas. Other publications include New American Writing, Colorado Review,
and Court Green. She lives in Las Vegas, where she works as an antiquarian bookseller.
Geof Collins has only been writing for a few years, but has had the good fortune to have stories
and poems appear in Amoskeag, Waterstone Review, Blue Earth Review, Stone Highway and SLANT,
among others. He lives with his wife and two daughters in a small town in Wisconsin, where he
works in the local schools.
Christopher Davis is the author of three books of poems, Te Tyrant of the Past and the Slave of
the Future, Te Patriot, and A History of the Only War. He is working on a fourth collection, to be
titled Rite. New work also appears in Denver Quarterly, American Literary Review, Court Green, Hotel
Amerika, Te Portland Review, and dislocate.
Shira Dentz is the author of a book of poems, black seeds on a white dish (Shearsman), nominated
for the PEN/Osterweil Award 2011. She is also the author of a chapbook, Leaf Weather (Tilt Press),
and another full-length collection, door of thin skins (CavanKerry Press), that is forthcoming. Her
writing has appeared in many venues including Te American Poetry Review, Te Iowa Review, jubi-
lat, Interim, and New American Writing, and featured online at Te Academy of American Poets, NPR,
Poetry Daily, and Verse Daily. She is a recipient of an Academy of American Poets Prize, the Poetry
Society of Americas Lyric Poem and Cecil Hemley Memorial Awards, Electronic Poetry Reviews Dis-
covery Award, and Painted Bride Quarterlys Poetry Prize. A graduate of the Iowa Writers Workshop,
Dentz holds a doctorate from the University of Utah. She teaches writing and literature and works
as an editor and graphic artist, and is Book Review Editor at Drunken Boat.
David Hancock graduated from the University of Iowa Playwrights Workshop. He received two
OBIE awards for playwriting (Te Convention of Cartography and Te Race of the Ark Tattoo).
He is also the recipient of numerous national writing awards including a Whiting Writers Award, a
Creative Capital grant, Te CalArts/Alpert Award in Teatre, and the Hodder Fellowship at Princ-
eton. His fction is forthcoming in Euphony and Permafrost.
Cynthia Hogue has published seven collections of poetry, most recently Or Consequence and When
the Water Came: Evacuees of Hurricane Katrina (with the photographer Rebecca Ross). With Sylvain
Gallais, she has translated Fortino Smano (the overfowing of the poem), a serial poem and poetics
commentary by Virginie Lalucq and Jean-Luc Nancy (Omnidawn 2012, forthcoming). She teaches
at Arizona State University.
45
Peycho Kanev is the Editor In Chief of Kanev Books. His poems have appeared in more than 500
literary magazines, such as: Poetry Quarterly, Evergreen Review, Te Monongahela Review, Te Coach-
ella Review, Midwest Literary Review, Tird Wednesday, Te Cleveland Review, Loch Raven Review,
In Posse Review, Mascara Literary Review and many others. He is nominated for the Pushcart Award
and Best of the Net and lives in Chicago. In 2009 his short story collection Walking Trough Walls
and in April 2010 his poetry collection American Notebooks both were published in Bulgaria. His
poetry collection Bone Silence was released in September 2010 by Desperanto, NY. A new collection
of his poetry, titled Requiem for One Night, will be published by Desperanto in 2012.
Mary Koral teaches at Eastern Michigan University and lives in Ann Arbor, MI with her adoptive
multi cultural, multi racial family. Baby Slug is from a larger work, Ticker Tan Water. She is
delighted to appear in Interim!
Joseph Leases critically acclaimed books of poetry include Testify (Cofee House Press, 2011; Final-
ist, NCIBA Poetry Book of the Year Award), Broken World (Cofee House Press, 2007), and Human
Rights (Talisman House, second edition forthcoming). Leases poems Broken World (For James
Assatly) and Send My Roots Rain have been selected for Postmodern American Poetry: A Norton
Anthology (Second Edition). Broken World (For James Assatly) was also selected for Te Best
American Poetry 2002. Marjorie Perlof wrote: Te poems in Joseph Leases Broken World are as
cool as they are passionate, as soft-spoken as they are indignant, and as fercely Romantic as they are
formally contained. Whether writing an elegy for a friend who died of AIDS or playing complex
variations on Rilkes Duino Elegies (If I cried out, / Who among the angelic orders would / Slap my
face, who would steal my / Lunch money), Lease has complete command of his poetic materials.
His poems are spellbinding in their terse and ironic authority: Yes, the reader feels when s/he has
fnished, this is how it wasand how it is. An exquisite collection! He is a Professor of Writing and
Literature at California College of the Arts and a member of the Advisory Board of the Princeton
Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics.
Poet and theatre scenographer Yi Lu () is one of the most widely-read woman poets in contem-
porary China. Born in 1956, she is the author of fve books of poetry, including the national award-
winning titles, See (2004) and Using Two Seas (2009). Her ffth volume, Forever Lingering (2011)
was recently published by the Cultural Art Press in Beijing. She is also ranked as Chinas foremost
theatrical stage and set designer. She lives in the southern coastal city of Fuzhou.
Stephen Mannion lives and writes in Boise, Idaho. He was raised in Upstate New York, the setting
for much of his fction. His fction and non-fction has appeared in Te South Dakota Review, Full of
Crow Quarterly, Te Boise Weekly, and elsewhere.
Mustapha Marrouchi is Dean Professor of Postcolonial Literature at the University of Nevada, Las
Vegas. He writes on a wide range of topics including literature, cultural criticism, politics, and East/
West issues. He is the author of half a dozen books, including, most recently, Te Fabric of Subcul-
tures. His Without Telling is under review.
46
Jenny Mueller lives in St. Louis and teaches at nearby McKendree University. Her poems have most
recently appeared on the Poetry Congeries website (Connotation Press).
JWM Morgans short fction has appeared in many literary magazines. He won the 2006 Spire Press
Flash Fiction Contest. He is an assistant editor at Narrative Magazine. In 1998 his story Partners
appeared in Interim. Since 2000 he has taught and tutored English, reading, writing, and math at
Second Start Adult Literacy Program of the Oakland Public Library, Oakland International High
School, and the Refugee Transitions program. Morgan was born in a suburb of New York City and
grew up on Long Island and in southern New Hampshire. He received a B.A. and an M.A. from the
writing program at Brown University where he won some prizes for short fction. He has traveled
extensively in the Americas and Europe and worked in seven countries.
Simon Perchik is an attorney whose poems have appeared in Interim, Partisan Review, Te Nation,
Te New Yorker, and elsewhere. For more information, including free e-books, photo, his essay titled
Magic, Illusion and Other Realities and a complete bibliography, please visit his website at
www.simonperchik.com.
Mani Rao is the author of eight books of poetry including Ghostmasters (2010) and a translation of
the Sanskrit Bhagavad Gita as a poem (2011). Links to her writings are on www.manirao.com.
Originally from Sacramento, California, Jordan Reynolds holds an M.F.A. from the University of
Nevada, Las Vegas. His poems and criticism have been published or are forthcoming in Te Agricul-
ture Reader, Flatmancrookeds Slim Volume of Contemporary Poetry, Te Ofending Adam, zero ducats
and elsewhere.
Ann Robinsons work has appeared in American Literary Review, Coe Review, Compass Rose, Con-
necticut Review, Diverse Voices Quarterly, Te GW Review, Fourteen Hills, Freshwater, New York Quar-
terly, Passager, Poet Lore, Te Portland Review, RiverSedge, Sanskrit, Schuylkill Valley Journal, Spoon
River Poetry Review, Willow Review, and Zone 3, among others. After receiving a B.A. in English
literature from Lindenwood University, Robinson attended the M.F.A. program at the University
of Arkansas. In addition to owning a farming operation in Arkansas, she is also a legal clerk in the
Criminal Division of the Superior Court of Marin County, California. She has been the recipient of
the John Spaemer Award for Outstanding Fiction, a Marin Arts Council grant, and a scholarship to
study at a Hofstra University conference. Shes also studied with Kathleen Fraser, Miller Williams,
and Tomas Centolella.
Eliza Rottermans poetry is forthcoming in Bateau, Fourteen Hills and Poetry International. Her
reviews can be found in Zoland and Late Night Library. Recently she was awarded the Kay Evans
Fellowship from the Vermont Studio Center. She lives in Portland where she is studying midwifery.
Fiona Sze-Lorrain writes and translates in French, English, and Chinese. She is the author of Water
the Moon (Marick Press, 2010) and several volumes of translation of contemporary Chinese, French
and American poets. Also a zheng concertist, she lives in France.
47
Leia Penina Wilson is from MO, but has spent a great deal of time between Tuscaloosa, AL and
Pittsburgh, PA. One of her favorite things between those cities is a long stretch of highway and clif
marked caution: falling rocks. A rock never fell on her but the possibility of possible death is an
eye-opener. She writes poetry and prose and some of the between and appreciates all the coincidenc-
es that have made that luxury possible. She thanks the universe.
Nicholas Wong is the author of Cities of Sameness. His poems are forthcoming in American Letters
& Commentary, Gargoyle, Harpur Palate, POOL, Natural Bridge, Te Pinch and upstreet. He is the
recipient of Global Fellowship Award at ASU Desert Nights Rising Stars Writers Conference in
2012 and a winner of Hawaii Reviews Ian Macmillan Writing Contest (Poetry) in 2012. He edits
the poetry section for Mead: Magazine of Literature and Libations, and reads poetry for Drunken
Boat. He has recently been nominated for a Pushcart.
Amos Jasper Wright is a native of Birmingham, Alabama. After two years drifting hand-to-mouth
in Boston, he returned to Birmingham and recently completed a masters in English at the Univer-
sity of Alabama, Birmingham. Upon realization that he must work for a living, and after acquiring
experience in architecture and planning, he applied and was accepted to Tufts University, where he
will enroll in the fall of 2011 to begin a masters degree in urban planning. He has high hopes that
two masters degrees will equal a PhD. His fction and poems have appeared or are forthcoming in
New Ohio Review, Salamander, Pale Horse Review, Arcadia, Union Station Magazine, Zouch and Yes,
Poetry. He is also co-editor of the White Whale Review, an electronic literary journal, and Te Heavi-
est Corner, a blog devoted to urbanist issues in Birmingham.
Brian Youngs most recent collection is Writing Sample (Human 500), published in the Fall of 2011.
48
I n t e r i m
V o l u m e 2 9 / I s s u e 3 / 2 0 1 2