Mouse Tales Press

shades of sorrow

OCTOBER 2014
Mouse Tales Press
 Mouse Tales Press

- a literary magazine -
Since September 2010

MANAGING EDITOR
Linda G Hatton

COPYEDITOR
Erica Ellis

PROOFREADER
Carrie Wicks


 Front cover art by Clinton Van Inman

Other photo and illustration credits:

Rebecca Barray, pp. 1, 4, 5, 17, 29–30, 32, 33–34; Jennifer J. Chow, p. 11;
Linda Hofke, pp. 8, 35–36; Clinton Van Inman, pp. 9, 19, 28.

This collection of edited works copyright © 2014 Mouse Tales Press.

Poems, photography, and artwork copyright © individual authors,
photographers, and artists. No works within this collection may be
printed or copied without written permission from both
Mouse Tales Press and the author, photographer, or artist.
 Contents


Poetry and Short Stories

“Stillborn in Hokkaido” by Kate Garnett 2

“Searching for a Mirage” by Desirée Jung 3

“Days of Sun” by Desirée Jung 6

“April’s Sun” by Kevin Casey 7

“In the Great City” by Desirée Jung 10

“Hsi-wei and the Rotating Pavilion” by Robert Wexelblatt 12

“Night Stroll in Namsan Park, Seoul” by Jesse Efron 18

“Mongrel Dog” by Joe Giordano 20

“Night Sounds” by Mary B Sellers 24

“The Impressionist” by Jesse Efron 27

“Astro Cupid” by Eric Howard 29

“A Fool’s Journey” by Eric Howard 31

“Unlikely Today” by Josef Krebs 33

“At the Ishikari River” by Kate Garnett 36

Contributor Bios 39–40

Stillborn in Hokkaido
Kate Garnett

She calls it Why and cries all night—

sibilant, while the moon falls half-lit
on her heaving chest, which is still
swollen, her nipples firm like
lotus buds cupping empty
nectar and shrinking slowly,
mourning, nearly dry.

7
2
 Searching for a Mirage
Desirée Jung

A million possibilities, needles in red nail polish.

Centipedes in the garden on gigantic leaves.

Your words are unbearable.

The ladder is green and covers the asphalt. Cars splash water.
Inside the eye, the car crosses a tunnel.

I need to protect myself against you.

3
10
Days of Sun
Desirée Jung

When he enters the acupuncture room, the scent of mint calms his senses.
It is there that he has the idea to buy a present for his girlfriend. The sea
salt on the table shines like salty diamonds. “This attracts good things,” the
doctor explains. He believes in the words and asks to be happy forever. In
his ear, the coffee beans accentuate his sensibility. After the session, he buys
a pair of earrings with yellow stones, imposing, beautiful, but with no
value. The seller wraps them in a flowery paper. He doesn’t know if she
will like them. But still desires to see her smile like a day in the sun.

11
6
 April’s Sun
Kevin Casey

The soil cleaves in silvered sections

along the latticed, diamond lines of ice

the spading fork releases. Each muddy gem

was formed from seeds of frost the fall had sown;

now grown to sliver-rooted seedlings,

the garden’s choked with these cold weeds.

A blackbird grips the wire the beans

had seized before the sun grew dim,

his crimson epaulets the only hue

beneath the vacant wash of April’s sun.

Soon, the spruce and pines behind the pond

will bleed their green across the field,

dissolve beyond the garden’s frozen verge,

and kindle April’s sun.

7
13
In the Great City
Desirée Jung

Ever since he arrived in the city, he began to take solitary walks. Sozinho,
sozinho, in the great metropolis. Sometimes he stops near a convenience
store or a supermarket and reads the words in English. He is very far from
his country, distante, distant. In Brazil, he could have a wife or a couple of
kids, if that were what he really wanted. He has saudade, do outro lado do
oceano, of what he will never become. The past dissolves in presence. Part
of his destiny is to be. “I have a house inside myself,” he says in confidence.
He thinks about his father and his chest tightens, a desire to be uncondi-
tionally loved. Intimately, that’s his greatest fear.

15
10
 Hsi-wei and the Rotating Pavilion

Robert Wexelblatt

D uring his visit to Chen Hsi-wei, retired then to his little house outside Chingling, the
Tang minister Fang Xuan-ling inquired about several of the poet’s works. His detailed
record of their conversations has survived and done much to illuminate the origins of well-
known poems like “Yellow Moon at Lake Weishan,” “Exile,” “Justice,” and “The Silence
of Hermits.”

At one point, Minister Fang asked Hsi-wei about “The Rotating Pavilion,” a less
celebrated poem.

A thousand globes of orange, green, and blue floated on the summer night,
lighting lacquered pillars, glinting like will o’ the wisps over the teak floor.
The lords and ladies of the court, ten score at least, reposing in their silk
robes, wondered at the pavilion’s beauty, gleefully giggling
at its measured revolution. One by one, they took turns standing
at the still center, a merry game. Here they might truly feel
themselves at the very center of the Middle Kingdom.
Our Northern nobles behaved courteously to those
up from the South, made them welcome, as the Emperor
had sternly directed. As for the defeated princes of Chen,
they upheld their dignity without being standoffish or servile.
Men spoke approvingly of the new currency, tax laws, penal code,
the clever plan for militias. Women rejoiced at the peace,
admired the exotic fashions, greeted old friends, new rivals.
All breathed in the promise of the newly united empire,
looking out on Yuwen Kai’s dream of a vast Daxing, its
gardens and temples, broad roads extending on every side to the
horizon, as if the capital of Sui were the whole world.

12
Hsi-wei and the Rotating Pavilion

Emperor Wen arrived in state and all bowed low,

not with grudging submission but in tribute to what he had
already accomplished and the foreseen glories yet to come.
The gods themselves must have nodded, smiling as
the stately pavilion circled reverently about their Son.

“‘The Rotating Pavilion’ is not much like your other work, Master,” I ventured to observe.
“I hope you’ll pardon my saying so, but it’s more a courtier’s poem than a peasant’s. I’m
expressing myself poorly, but those long verses feel loose, weightless, though at the same
time heavy.”
Hsi-wei nodded. “Like a river man’s cable falling through thin air. Like the fulsome
flattery of a hired woman.”
His comparisons startled me, but they were, unlike the poem, in his mature style. “If
you like,” I said. “Am I wrong to think it’s an early work?”
“Not wrong, my lord. And early enough to show all too clearly how early. ‘Rotating
Pavilion’ is indeed a court poem, one written by a novice whose wretched calligraphy could
hardly be read even by himself.”
“I’ve heard of the rotating pavilion. Did you actually see it the evening it was unveiled?”
“Oh, yes. The poem is accurate in an external sense. Master Shen Kuo dragged me along
with him on that memorable occasion. As one of the official ornaments of the court, he was
invited to attend and received permission to bring one of his pupils.”
“Dragged you, eh? Why was he keen for you to be there?”
“In order that I should write this poem. You see, Master Shen wished to make a gift of
it to the prime minister. Remember, I began my career as a dancing dog. The object was to
demonstrate the trainer’s skill, not the dog’s.”
“So these verses were written under duress?”
“No. That would be unfair. Master Shen did not threaten to beat or behead me. But he had
the ability to make himself quite clear. It was an assigned task, a duty. He wanted a court poem
and explained the requirements of the form to me. His idea was that I should be dazzled and
say so in respectable verse. I was to glorify the occasion and, of course, the master of my master,
the emperor.”
“You had already done good service for Emperor Wen on that perilous trip to the south.
As I understand things, you turned down the offer of money, land, and women, asking to
be educated instead.”
“That’s true.” Hsi-wei laughed and grabbed at his knee. “Master Shen was not well
pleased by the order to educate an illiterate peasant boy whose only virtues were fast-
growing hair and an unaccountable knack for survival. He was strict with me and quick
with barbed criticisms, but the more he insulted me, the more I learned. It was an effective
method for us both.”

13
 Robert Wexelblatt

“The poem, then, is an accurate account of that evening?”

“Yes, the evening that sealed the reconciliation with the nobles of Chen, the night the
empire was truly unified for the first time in three centuries. I was overwhelmed by the
experience, as my master anticipated, and struggled to do what he asked of me. Still, he
made many corrections.”
“Was your heart in it?”
“My heart? An urchin who stares at a princess becomes tongue-tied. I come from a small
village and had only glimpsed Daxing briefly before being sent off to the south, though
even that glimpse awed me. By the time of my return, the emperor had transformed and
expanded the capital. He had made it magnificent.”
“‘Yuwen Kai’s dream,’ you called it. Who was he?”
“He was the emperor’s architect, one of the truly remarkable men of his generation.
He laid out the plan for the new capital in only nine months. Then, for a final touch, he
conceived the rotating pavilion. Has he been forgotten already?”
“He belongs to another time.”
“That’s true,” sighed Hsi-wei.
By then, afternoon had turned into night. A waning moon was on the rise. My host
asked if I would care for some more tea.
“Rice wine would be more welcome,” I said, “if you have any.”
“I’m sorry, my lord. Only tea.” The poet blushed and I regretted my words.
“Tea will be most welcome.”
Hsi-wei went inside the little cottage. Perhaps our conversation stirred his memory.
After he returned with the tea, he spoke more freely of the past.
“When I was a child, I believed Mr. Kwo’s four-room villa must be the grandest
building in the world. When I was told that Emperor Bei Zhou lived in a great palace in the
capital, I imagined it as just a larger version of Mr. Kwo’s place, with more rounded pillars and
fresher paint.”
I laughed.
“Well, you may laugh, my lord, at the innocence of a poor peasant boy, but I think
Mr. Kwo was a better landlord than Bei Zhou was an emperor. My village was poor; even
Mr. Kwo just scraped by. Nevertheless, when Mrs. Ts’ao’s husband died and she could not pay
him the rent, he didn’t turn her out. The laws of Bei Zhou, on the other hand, were hard benches
without pillows.”
Hsi-wei’s imagery appealed to me. I replied, “And Emperor Wen put pillows on those
benches so they would compromise with life’s imperfections?”
“Just so. Wendi began all things afresh, just as he did with Daxing. At his direction,
Yuwen Kai made space for large markets in both the east and the west. He got rid of the
tangled lanes and laid the city out in good order, on a grid. To honor the emperor and
display his skill, he devised the rotating pavilion where two hundred guests could take tea

14
Hsi-wei and the Rotating Pavilion

together without once bumping elbows. The night it was unveiled, the most sophisticated
courtiers were as amazed as this peasant boy. Between them, the emperor and his architect
rolled all Daxing out before us the way a merchant does a carpet.”
“You think well of Emperor Wen?”
“I do.”
“Yet he could be cruel. He is said to have executed fifty-nine princes of Zhou and to
have emptied the state treasury.”
“I’ve heard the tale of the fifty-nine princes. Even if it is true, it was one of the evil
necessities of wartime, not essentially different from the savage battle on the Yangtse or the
razing of Jiankung. As for the treasury, if Emperor Wen emptied it, at least he did so in good
causes. He built granaries for the people and the empire’s defenses. It was not empty flattery
when the scholars he patronized nicknamed him the Cultured Emperor.”
“And the Emperor Yang, his successor?”
Hsi-wei made a face, as if he had tasted something sour. “Wen’s son, executed, it’s
said, not by your master but by his own ministers, poured money and lives down his so-
called Grand Canal. Lusting for dominion, but not leading his troops, he sent whole armies
to be slaughtered in the mountains of Goguryeo. Yang would have done better if, like his
father, he had economized on concubines and cruelties, paid attention to the grumbling of
the nomads, taken into account the widows planting rice. He might have given a thought
to men too old to dig or fight who wished only to be left in peace to recite the verses of the
Shijing masters.”
“So, in your opinion, Wen’s son was in no way worthy of his father?”
“Yang may have been a fair poet, but he was a terrible emperor. In my last travels,
I saw the villages he had stripped of men and money, poorer than ever. While the people
suffered, he led a shameful life in Daxing, carelessly spilling lives and money as people
say he did the strong yellow wine. To speak plainly, I’m glad that your master has
replaced him.”
Though it felt strange to hear such bitterness from Hsi-wei’s mouth, I wasn’t all that
surprised. By the time of his overthrow, Yang had scarcely any defenders left and—if half of
what was said of him is true—merited still fewer.
Before departing for the night, I asked if I might return in the morning to resume our
conversation. The poet agreed with his usual courtesy and then excused himself and went
inside again. He returned with a scroll tied up with the rough twine peasants use to stake
climbing beans.
“You were right to criticize that early poem of mine. I never think of it without shame.
When I heard of the overthrow of Emperor Yang, I recalled it again. And so to get the bad
taste out of my mouth, I’ve written a second part, a sequel. As you’ll see if you honor me by
reading it, it’s not the naive effusion of a callow youth but something different.”

15
 Robert Wexelblatt

This poem, in Hsi-wei’s true style, is blunt, elegiac, and angry, an epitaph for the Sui
dynasty. In the rotating pavilion of Daxing, he finds a new significance, an emblem rather
than a spectacle.
I was careful to keep the scroll dry and delivered it personally to Emperor Tang on my
return to the capital.

So, the glorious Duke of Tang

has declared Daxing no more.
It is to be called Chang’an now.
I’m told it looks much the same.
Would I still recognize its alleyways,
its markets and villas? Perhaps not,
but I shall never forget that
evening of the rotating pavilion.
Our new emperor must be brave.
It’s said even his daughter,
the Princess Pingyang, raised her
own troops and led them well, too.
And so ended the Sui dynasty.
Somewhere in Lungyu the news
will have reached the village of Zhaide.
At first the peasants would be impressed
that Heaven had stripped Yang of its
mandate and settled it on Tang.
But that is far-off news, business of the capital,
home of marvels, murders, intrigues, luxuries.
Perhaps they had once heard talk of a teak
pavilion that goes round and round.
Emperor Yang should have taken better note
of the moral of Yuwen Kai’s masterpiece,
how nothing stays, not even dynasties
that look immovable as the Blue Mountains.
The pavilion rotated so slowly that one
enthroned in the middle might well think
himself secure. But still the pavilion turns.
Such an end from such a beginning,
the peasants in Zaide would say, then shrug.

16
Night Stroll in Namsan Park, Seoul
Jesse Efron

Faces all shadow, I walk with you

at night and talk about nothing
in particular, like how we love or hate
olives, the tropics, or panda bears
being exploited in the news, or the shapes
our smiles make when we
are uncomfortable, and we pause; smiles
for silence, for big-bang thoughts we have about
each other but will never share—never
ruin this shadowtime, sliver-of-moontime—
and maybe next we’ll sigh,
like the universe did when expelling the stars,
and look up into that midnight beach
and hear waves crash against the rocks
we carry within us.

23
18
 Mongrel Dog
Joe Giordano

S tickball on a Brooklyn street was a game of skill. Don’t look at me like that. Unscrew
your mother’s broomstick, wrap the grip with electrical tape, and let’s see you hit a wildly
spinning spaldeen two sewers. Our playground was a canyon of parked two-toned cars, brown-
brick apartment buildings, and asphalt-shingled row houses. Neighbors heard us on the street
and dreaded the crash of a broken window. The old lady who poured a kettle of water on our
chalk-marked skelzie box hovered behind a screened window like a gray ghost. The guy with
the shiny maroon Buick who didn’t say hello to my father asked me not to hit his vehicle. My
parents were worried that I’d shoot out from between parked cars chasing a ball and be hit by
one of the speeders down our block. I was taught to look both ways before crossing even on our
one-way street.
We played “automatics”: a ground ball not caught was a single, a hit beyond one sewer was
a double, and two was a home run. A ball caught on the fly was out even if it bounced off a car.
It was my turn to bat, and I stood at the sewer home plate. Lenny Spazzolato pitched. Gene
Kaplan was in the outfield and his younger brother, Carl, was backstop. My nickname for Lenny
was Cousin Weak Eyes. His peepers bulged like a toad, but if I called him Frog Face, I would’ve
had a fight on my hands. He didn’t like the Cousin Weak Eyes moniker, but it didn’t rise to
an insult that demanded a punch in the mouth. Gene was Jewish and lived in the apartment
house. He was a chunky, curly-haired redhead. His mother told my mother that her Gene was
like “white bread.” I didn’t get it, but Gene was my best friend, probably because he emulated
everything I did. Carl was dark, skinny, and a pain in the ass. I tolerated Carl as the toll for
Gene’s company.
Lenny pitched a knuckleball that looked like a half moon in the air before it bounced. It
was destined to squib and be impossible to hit, so I was happy to see the pink DeSoto round the
corner. I yelled, “Car,” and play was suspended.
We squeezed aside as the DeSoto rumbled toward us. The tires screeched and I jumped. A
man with a three-day beard rolled the window down and stuck his head out like a turtle. “You
want a dog?”

20
Mongrel Dog

The black snout of a camel-faced animal with brown, bushy eyebrows popped out next to
the man’s head.
My parents had cautioned me to be wary of strangers beckoning me from stopped cars. I
took a half step away. “Why?”
“I’m taking him to the pound. They’ll put him down.”
“Is he sick?”
“In the head.”
“What’s his name?”
“Faccia Brutta. You want him or not?”
I’d pressed my parents for a dog. My father had given my mother a wink and countered
that a baby sister would be better. Christmas was six months away. The dog panted, red tongue
lolling. He smiled at me, and I made an executive decision.
“Yeah.”
The man tipped the bench seat forward, and the dog jumped from the back to freedom. He
slammed the door and took off. The gangly dog jumped up on me, pressed his paws against my
chest, and I was pinned on a hood. His breath was hot, and his yellow-brown eyes seemed to say,
“Guess which one of us is in charge?”
Lenny had hands on hips. “Why is he your dog?”
I peeled the paws off my chest and the dog sat. “Because the man asked me.”
Lenny reached out to pet the animal, and the dog growled.
Lenny withdrew his hand. “Okay, he’s yours.”
Gene and Carl neared. Carl picked his nose. Gene was wide-eyed. “What are you gonna
call him?”
“Georgie, like Georgie Russell, Davy Crockett’s buddy.”
Georgie had a leather collar. I found a piece of rope and attached it as a leash. I pulled, but
his nails gripped the ground. It took all my strength to move him a few feet. “Come on, you need
to meet my mother.” The plea had zero impact on cooperation. “Are you hungry? Want to eat?”
Georgie’s yellow eyes brightened and he came along.
Georgie and I walked into the kitchen. We had a white fridge, a bread box, and a brown,
patterned, metal-topped table we ate most meals around. My mother was a slim brunette, and
today she had on a blue print dress. She was washing dishes in the kitchen. She saw Georgie and
screamed. “Madonna mia, what a beast. Get him out of my house.”
“You said I could have a dog.”
“I said no such thing.”
“Mama, the man was gonna put him to sleep.”
“He’s a horse. This isn’t a stable. Give him back.”
“Mama, please.”
She made a chopping motion with an open palm. “Wait until your father gets home.”
Georgie crawled on his belly to my mother. She was cornered. He licked her feet. He rolled
on his back with all fours in the air, imploring, and my mother’s face softened.

21
 Joe Giordano

I puffed out a sigh of relief. “He’s hungry.”

“We don’t have dog food.”
“How about the leftover rigatoni?”
My mother had an old plastic bowl. The pasta was cold from the fridge. Georgie’s nose
pushed the bowl around the floor as he ate. He scarfed up rigatoni like it was sirloin.
My mother crossed her arms. “He stinks. Give him a bath.”
Georgie was a model citizen while within the sight of my mother, and I led him out of the
kitchen. She said to my back, “He’s your dog. You need to take care of him. Keep him out of my
vegetable garden, or I’ll shoot him myself.”
I got Georgie into the tub and turned on the tap. Georgie took my arm in his jaws and his
eyes said, “We’re not going to hurt each other, are we?”
Water splashed everywhere. Georgie looked like a drowned wildebeest. I used every bath
towel to dry him and sop up puddles on the floor. He left a ring around the tub like an oil slick.
That evening when my father came home, Georgie jumped on him, and his back hit the
door. “What the hell?”
“Mama said I could keep him.”
“The Hound of the Baskervilles?”
I pulled Georgie off my father.
He shouted toward the kitchen where my mother prepared dinner. “Carmella, you told
Anthony he could keep this mongrel dog?”
My mother knew better than to answer.
I had Georgie in a headlock and held him with every fiber in my body. “He’ll be good.
I promise.”
My father reached the kitchen. “Carmella, the dog?”
She stirred a pot. The kitchen smelled of roasted meat and sautéed garlic. “Taking care of a
dog will teach Anthony some responsibility. He’ll guard the house. Maybe you could turn him
into a hunting dog.”
“Hunt what? Elephants?” My father kissed her cheek with a look of extreme dubiousness.

That night, Georgie snuck out of my room. In the morning my father found him as he was
leaving for work. The dog had gnawed the pedestal on the banister down to raw wood.
His voice boomed. “Anthony.”
I jumped out of bed and sped down the stairs.
My father was red-faced. “I’m taking this mutt to the pound.”
“They’ll execute him.”
My mother huffed when she saw the tooth marks. “We can’t keep him if he ruins things.”
“It was my fault that he got out. It won’t happen again.”
My father looked at his watch. “We’ll talk when I get home tonight. I’ll expect you to make
this look like new.”

22
Mongrel Dog

I dragged Georgie into the garage to retrieve the sandpaper, wood filler, and stain. His face
had the look of a penitent. “Georgie, you’ve got to behave or my father will take you to the
pound.” The dog looked into my eyes like he understood. Nonetheless, I kept watch on him as I
made repairs.
I finished just before my father got home. My mother saw the work and nodded. “Good.”
She looked around. “Where’s Georgie?”
The front door opened and my father walked in. We heard a bark from upstairs. The three of
us rushed to my parents’ bedroom. Somehow, Georgie had opened my mother’s armoire where
she kept her lingerie. He had a pantie in his mouth and a bra on his head. She screamed.
My father grabbed his head. “That’s it. He goes to the pound.”
“No.”
Georgie almost knocked my father over as he ran from the room.
“Anthony, I’m sorry, but we can’t have an animal that causes damage.”
Tears came to my eyes. It wasn’t fair. He was my dog. I sped down the stairs and threw open
the front door. “Come on, Georgie.” We ran down the stoop and into the street. The driver of
the Chevy Impala didn’t see me. I froze outside the beam of its headlamps, and everything went
into slow motion. Georgie barked viciously and jumped in front of the oncoming car. The driver
swerved, but the chrome bumper caught Georgie and threw him twenty feet. The left fender
smacked me a glancing blow, and I slammed into a parked car. I crumpled to the asphalt and a
black curtain came down.
I awoke in my bedroom. Dr. Sprandio bent over me. He’d delivered me and lived close
by. He was heavyset with thinning hair and cool hands. His brow was deeply furrowed.
“He’s awake.”
My parents stood behind him with red-rimmed eyes. My mother sobbed. “Thank God.”
Sprandio stood. “When the ambulance comes, I’ll take him to the hospital and check for
a concussion.”
My father slipped out of the room and returned cradling Georgie like a baby hippo in his
arms. “I’ll take him to the vet.”
Georgie whimpered. My father placed him at the foot of my bed, and the dog smiled through
his pain.

23
 Night Sounds
Mary B Sellers

T hey’re in the walls, my mother tells me, leaning in and listening.

How’d you know?
Don’t you hear them? The creaking—listen—there’s a moan.

I’m standing in the hallway in my pajamas and watching my mother go crazy. She’s been
hearing things for the past few weeks, and I’ve been blatantly lying to my father about it. In the
shower, I find a dark hair on my nipple and tug at it until it comes free, washing it down the
drain like a dream. I turn the water up extra hot so that the steam looks like smoke and I cry,
again, hotter tears than before.

In the morning, she doesn’t wake up to fix me breakfast. Noon comes, and she’s still asleep, or
still pretending to be, so I call my grandfather and ask him to take me to Sonic. I wait outside on
the porch steps, watching sweat form in beads along my thighs.
We’re sitting in the drive-in, and I order a grilled cheese, medium fry, and a watermelon
slushy. The woman who brings it out is sad—yellow, brandy-colored hair, a tarnished face with
crinkles, and wrinkles in tree rings around her eyes. Her hands are covered in scars. She is my
mother’s age. She smiles at me, and I take my drink and turn away in the seat, closing my eyes,
listening to the rattle of change my grandfather finds in his britches.
How’s your mother? he asks on the way home.
She’s fine, I say, something catching in my throat that feels like a sob, a scream, an
infinitesimal moment that I can’t shake despite my very best effort.

It’s one o’clock in the afternoon and I’m bored. It’s summertime, and the weather is sticky-hot
like wet fingers climbing up and down my skin. There’s a wasp that’s guarding the garage door

24
Night Sounds

that I’m scared to pass. I wanted to lay out, to work on my tan that I hoped to show off next
month at my eighth grade locker, so I can get a boyfriend to take me to football games.
I press my ear against the back door, imagining this is how my mother feels, listening to the
other end of things. The wasp buzzes and I hear it bumping itself into the ceiling. I’m afraid of
small things.

My mother comes out of her room at three. She’s in her bathrobe, and her highlighted hair has
grown out, betraying the blonde. It’s skunk-like, and I’m fascinated by the roots that look dark
as dirt.
I made coffee earlier.
Thanks.
I wanted lunch like four hours ago.
What’d you get to eat?
I got JB to pick me up and take me to Sonic. He gave me twenty dollars.
I hold up the bill that JB—my grandfather—had given me. A bribe for silence or for the
truth? I wasn’t at all sure, but I took it just the same.
I’ll have to call him later, she says, unsmiling and bloated. She’s gained so much weight in the
past few months that I find it hard to look at her. I wonder if my father loves her anymore.

It’s around six in the evening, and my mother is taking a walk. I’m on the computer, fiddling
around with HTML and CSS codes, a hobby I’d picked up in my seventh grade computer class
when I hadn’t picked up any friends. I like creating things with pixels, zooming up close to 200
percent and marking each square with a specific shade of #C62020 and #07598C like some sort
of weird, planned acne.
Eventually, I get up to look in the pantry for cereal and see my mother lying in our cul-de-
sac, staring up into the universe of faint blue stars appearing, her body spread out like she’s
trying to make a snow angel in the cement. I walk outside.
Mom, what’re you doing? My voice sounds strange and tinny in this twilight hour.
I know what she’s doing. She’s trying to find something that left her a while back. She
doesn’t move, so I go down the brick steps and walk into the street. I nudge her with my big toe.
Go back inside.
No, get up. The neighbors are gonna see.
They can’t see me, she says, smiling with teeth that hold a secret I want to smash.
Yes they can.
I start pulling her up, grabbing her arm roughly, and she lets it hang loose like a dead thing.
She finally gets up and her eyes are black matte, empty, just dried-up inkwells. I slap her then,

25
 Mary B Sellers

with all of myself, and see the pink outline of the handprint on her shoulder. She doesn’t even
flinch but passes me and goes into the house, humming off-key.

I stay up late again, listening to my mother’s soft steps. She’s everywhere at once—a collective
thing that thinks the tap of the air conditioner is a friendly ghost; the katydids outside are a call
to arms; her child is just another shadow that should be treated with a vague, empty kindness.
There’s something to be said for getting lost in your own mind.

I’ll tell my father the truth tomorrow.

26
 The Impressionist
Jesse Efron

Molly got out of bed,

didn’t care that I saw her
bare ass swagger from the bed to the closet.
I felt her teeth
marks still wet on my shoulder
and she took her time
bending over, maybe hoping
I’d want a relationship.
She pulled out

a painting, full framed and horrendous,

held it in front of her body
like a model
wearing a graffitied sandwich board.
She brought it close, It’s you.
I stared at the consequence of my actions,
thought I heard Van Gogh
crying. I was so relieved
when Molly put down the smeared acrylic
that I pulled her
on top of me and gave her
the wrong impression.

27

Astro Cupid
Eric Howard

Call it a starburst,
call it a bulge—

a steady ratio of light

to spinning emptiness.

29
Call it that dark percent
of what everything seems to be made of

but not the stars or us—eyes alight

in the violent ballet,

burning as we fall from darkness

into darkness.

30
 A Fool’s Journey
for Heather Wylie

Eric Howard

I’ll walk away from grad school

to write a book of poetry
in a Hollywood garage.
I’ll walk by the LA River
above the herons and below the trains
to witness trees bent and draped
in shredded plastic after heavy rains.
I’ll tell a scallop shell my confession
and tar my skull
to make a hull
that’s wisdomtight. I’ll float
past the train yard and station
to where the river drains
past the giant shipping cranes
and let the tide take me to sea.
At boilerplate’s end, my shrink will scrawl
a family history of decoupage.
I’m sorry, said the note she taped
to the fridge, to me. Verily, verily,
life is but steam. From the cooler I’ll pull
my bottle of salvation.
The waves will roll their eyes and sigh.
I’ll be a boat of fool.

31
 Unlikely Today
Josef Krebs

Today is not
Tomorrow
And certainly
Not
Yesterday
Today
Has no time
For yesterday
As tomorrow
Has no connection
To today

33
Tomorrow
Will find
Itself
In the past
Soon
Enough
After
Today has given
Way
To yesterday
So for now
Enjoy
The sun
Set slowly

34
At the Ishikari River
Kate Garnett

Where is she now, the woman

whose child has died? She has poured
herself into a chipped white cup, a tiny tablet
from the freezer. She is standing
at the open mouth of the river with her plan,
while the currents pull (like veins
on the underbelly of something swelling).
Still, she thinks, not even the rushing, erupting
waters, plummeting out into the Nihonkai,
give the river true flee, or freedoms.

36
Contributor Bios
Rebecca Barray is a mommy, writer, reader, photographer, and perpetual student. Becca
spends her days chasing toddlers and drinking coffee. When she gets a couple minutes to
breathe, she likes to write really short fiction and take pictures, usually sharing them on her blog,
www. rebeccabarray.com.

Kevin Casey is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and received his graduate
degree at the University of Connecticut. His work has been accepted by Grasslimb, Frostwriting,
Words Dance, Turtle Island Review, the Monarch Review, and others. He currently teaches literature
at a small university in Maine, where he enjoys fishing, snowshoeing, and hiking.

Jennifer J. Chow specializes in Asian American fiction with a geriatric twist. Her Taiwanese-
American novel, The 228 Legacy (Martin Sisters Publishing, July 2013), is a Foreword Reviews’
Book of the Year Award finalist. She lives near Los Angeles, California.

Jesse Efron has his MFA in fiction and a master’s degree in English. Most recently, he was the
recipient of his university’s Graduate Research Fellowship.

Kate Garnett recently graduated with a BA in English and creative writing. Her work has been
featured in anthologies and publications such as plain china, Glass Mountain, and Folio. She won the
2013 Folio poetry contest.

Joe Giordano was born in Brooklyn. He and his wife, Jane, have lived in Greece, Brazil, Belgium,
and the Netherlands. They now live in Texas with their little shih tzu, Sophia. Joe's stories have
appeared in more than forty-five magazines including Bartleby Snopes, Newfound Journal, and
the Summerset Review.

Linda Hofke, a native Pennsylvanian, lives in Germany, where she writes, takes photographs,
and puts her lead foot to use on the Autobahn. You can find her work at Curio Poetry, Mirow,
Bolts of Silk, Jellyfish Whispers, the Fib Review, the Poetic Pinup Revue, and other online and print
journals. She blogs at lind-guistics.blogspot.de.

Eric Howard is a magazine editor who lives in Los Angeles. His poems have appeared in
Birmingham Poetry Review, Caveat Lector, Conduit, Gulf Stream Magazine, Hawaii Pacific Review,
Plainsong, and the Sun.

39
Desirée Jung is a Canadian-Brazilian writer and translator. Her background is in creative
writing, literary translation, film, and comparative literature. She has received her MFA
in creative writing and her PhD in comparative literature from the University of British
Columbia, in Vancouver, Canada. She has published translations and poetry in Exile, the
Dirty Goat, Modern Poetry in Translation, the Antigonish Review, the Haro, the Literary Yard,
Black Bottom Review, Gravel Magazine, Tree House, Bricolage, Hamilton Stone Review, Ijagun Po-
etry Journal, Scapegoat Review, Storyacious, among others. She lives in Vancouver, Canada. Her
website is DesireeJung.com.

Josef Krebs's poetry will appear in the Bicycle Review and the Corner Club Press. He’s written
three novels and five screenplays. He works as a writer and editor for Sound & Vision Magazine,
writing film reviews, feature articles, and columns, and interviewing filmmakers and other
industry figures.

Mary B Sellers is a writer who likes red wine and sweater weather. She is currently a freelance
journalist for CLICK Magazine and the associate publisher for Blooming Twig Books. She’s a
sucker for fairy tales, French onion soup, and flannel. Her writing has been featured in Deep
South Magazine, Mississippi Magazine, Thought Catalog, Portico Magazine, and That Lit Site. She
writes book reviews at What Is That Book About.

Clinton Van Inman was born in Walton-on-Thames, England, in 1945 and graduated from
San Diego State University in 1977. An educator most of his life, he is currently a high school
teacher (planning to retire this year) in Tampa Bay, Florida, where he lives with his wife, Elba.
His work has been published in many literary journals, including the Flagler Review, the Metric,
Strong Verse, Southern Writers Magazine, and the Journal of Formal Poetry. He is a member of the
Society of Classical Poets.

Robert Wexelblatt is professor of humanities at Boston University’s College of General

Studies. He has published the story collections Life in the Temperate Zone and The Decline of
Our Neighborhood; a book of essays, Professors at Play; two short novels, Losses and
The Derangement of Jules Torquemal; and essays, stories, and poems in a variety of journals. His
novel Zublinka Among Women won the Indie Book Awards first-place prize for fiction. His most
recent book is The Artist Wears Rough Clothing.

40
Prepared by MagCloud for Kevin Casey. Get more at lghatton.magcloud.com.