SHR Fall 2024

Fiction

Nonfiction

Poetry

Visual Arts

Digital & Interactive

Media

Editors

Genre Staffs

Editor-in-Chief Jennifer Poull

Advisor Dr. Rebecca Meacham

Managing Editor Heba Obaideen

Co-Layout EditorGrace Musial

Co-Layout Editor Alicia Thern

Web Designer Mel Weigand

Chief Copyeditor Grace Zander

Assistant Copyeditor Shia Chang

Assistant CopyeditorJasmine Puls

Assistant CopyeditorJeremy Thompson

Genre Editors

Fiction Nitalya Rose

Jeremy Thompson

NonfictionShia Chang

Kimberly Rouse

PoetryJasmine Puls

Brooke Schoening

Visual Arts Jillian Novak

Fiction

Zoom Coe

Grace Zander

Kayley Grady

Emily Luedke

Madeline Perry

Poetry

Venus Hansen

Tatum Bruette

Vanessa Stalvey

Jashelle King-Skenadore

Nonfiction

Lara Gates

Chaz Rowell

Jasmine Emmons

Visual Arts

Hali Simon

Ellah Komp

Maddie Brown

Cas JonesWilliams

2 | Sheepshead Review Volume 48 NO. 1 | 3

Letter from the Editor

Trees and sky rush past you, blurring together to the point where you feel

nauseous. Someone bumps your elbow and you shift around in your seat. Your

legs are cramped and your body is ready to move. You just can’t take it anymore.

It’s been about four months. You ask the dreaded question–“Are we there yet?”

You have arrived at your destination. Welcome to the Fall 2024 issue

of Sheepshead Review! It has been a journey from start to finish. Just like any

road trip, the staff of Sheepshead Review has collected a lot of souvenirs through

the process of creating the journal. As with all road trips, we laughed, faced

disagreements, and had a great time overall. Now, we’re opening the door for

you. Hop in!

Our road trip theme began with our layout editors, Alicia Thern and

Grace Musial. Once they shared their mock-ups, everyone was ready to load up

and get this expedition started. Our design team also wanted to include everyone

on this journey, so genre staffs were able to share input on what they wished their

journey to look like. You, the reader, also have the opportunity to be a part of the

journey: we’ve included a handful of blank pages for you to take notes on your

favorite works, and to get inspired to create.

What attractions will you find in your road trip through this issue?

Our Fiction staff encountered fast-paced stories, like a train speeding along its

tracks. You will go from laughs to heartbreak, from fantasy to realistic fiction,

and Fiction’s train will leave you ready to continue the journey. Meanwhile, our

Nonfiction staff had the chance to sit back and enjoy the tea they made. As they

describe it, “This is the part of the journey where the drama unfolds.” You may

want to grab some tissues as you may find yourself relating to the stories you

read.

At the same time, our Poetry staff took a walk in the woods, seeing

the beauty in the wild as a wolf howled to say hello. You will be awed by the

different styles found within these woods as you travel down roads you never

thought you would. This is your chance to go on an adventure all in the comfort

of your home. When our Visual Arts staff wandered into the woods, they were

met with BigFoot! They ran as fast as they could and ended up on a nice beach,

but readers, beware: something sinister lurks in these pages. Be prepared to

see beauty, feel the sun on your face, and shudder from the sense you are being

watched. Finally, don’t forget to make a stop for our Digital and Interactive

Media, where you can visit a utopian world, realizing maybe it isn’t as perfect as

you hoped. Hopefully, you can escape before it’s too late!

. . .

The crunch of gravel reaches your ear as your cabin comes into view.

You step out, give a quick stretch, and smile as you prepare for the adventure

ahead. We hope you’ve enjoyed the journey as much as we have. Thank you

to everyone who has joined us on this trip. Thank you to the readers and the

contributors for trusting us to get you safely to the end of the road. Thank you to

all the staff members who helped create this magnificent journal. As a first-time

Editor-in-Chief, I couldn’t have asked for better travel mates. For anyone who

knows me, I am terrible with directions, so I am glad I had others to help me

navigate. Finally, I would like to thank our advisor, Dr. Rebecca Meacham, for

being such a wonderful guide and leader. Without you, we may have ended up in

the middle of a pond miles away from our actual destination. Thank you all for

making this a truly memorable road trip. Safe travels on your next adventure and

maybe our paths will cross again!

Editor-in-Chief


Contents

Contents

Fiction

Fairy by Robert L. Penick 12

Brooke by Rose Tiedt 13

A(ce) Switch by Caitlyn Mlodzik 17

The Obvious by Tim Conley 19

Eye of the Storm by Conor Lowery 20

A Fall Sonatina by Kenneth M. Kapp 21

What Looks Like a Covered Bridge by Kevin B. 25

Nonfiction

Care Bear For Sale by Rowan MacDonald 30

Cutting Him Off by Conor Lowery 33

Pear Sauce by Sunday Dutro 35

Cookbook by Marie Cloutier 36

Eulogy for the Dead Creatures by Nelly Woodhead 39

Poetry in Commotion by Ellen Notbohm 40

Blue Angels by Abraheem Dittu 43

Poetry

Indiana Sunflower by Jaclyn Fulscher46

asunder by Linda M. Crate47

Sonnet for a Starship by Kimberly Gibson-Tran48

A Lay of Long Defeat by Jeannette de Beauvoir49

second rain piece by Louie Leyson51

This is Meant to be My Last Prayer by Samantha Marie Daniels52

THE SONG OF THE SUN FROM DUSK TIL DAWN by Marc Janssen53

Indefinite by Alexis Barton57

The Wild, The Strange, and The Disturbed by Pooja Singh58

hanging the lights by Michelle Fung60

puppy by Oliver Walton61

Hunger by Atticus Combs63

Reader’s Digest by A.D. Powers65

Teeth We Lost in Winter by Austin Anthony67

Diamond Heart by K.B. Silver68

In the Aftermath by Briana Meade70


Contents

Contents

Visual Arts

In the Distance by Kira Ashbeck 74

Trained on the Sky by Pete Kornowski 75

Forest Road Creatures by Pete Kornowski 76

The Bird by Madeline Perry 77

Hotel Hell by Stephanie Schiles 78

Liminal Space by McKenna Kornowski 79

Egret with Gold McKenna Kornowski 80

Soaking up the Sun by Rachel Turney 81

Home of the Tired by Sarah Snip Snip 82

Haiku of the Troubled Mind by Sarah Snip Snip 83

High Tide by Kira Ashbeck 84

Broken Home by Gabby Feucht 85

Dancing and Basking by Aza Isdeep 86

Brunswick Street by Madeline Holmes Grutzner 87

Frozen Existence by Eric Calloway 88

Tea Time in a Lamp by Ellah Komp 89

No Basis for a System of Government by Devan Giese 90

Sauron’s Bane by Ash Brown91

To See by Donald Patten92

I AM YOUR DAUGHTER by Brooke Schoening93

Cats and Reading by Jennifer S. Lange94

Digital & Interactive Media

hakoniwa - Minature Garden by Kimberly Rouse96

High School Contributors

UW-Green Bay Contributors

Sheepshead Review recognizes High School and UW-Green

Bay contributors. These stamps indicate all High School and

UW-Green Bay submissions.


notes

10 | Sheepshead Review

Fairy

Robert L. Penick

Brooke

Rose Tiedt

I was sitting in my living room reading Mr. Mercedes when I noticed her

out of the corner of my eye. She hovered, still as a statue, over in the corner, with

my Revenge of the Sith poster on one side and the framed quartet of arrowheads

that I bought at a yard sale on the other. At first I mistook her for new artwork

(when did I buy that?), but a moment later I realized that 1) there were no angel-winged

cosplay characters on my shopping list, and 2) her feet were at least

six inches off the floor. Immediately I knew who she was.

In times of extreme stress or confusion, it is important to maintain one’s

head. One rarely gains an advantage by going to pieces. Returning my gaze to

the novel, I searched for a rationale. Perhaps this was a mistake, like when the

police go to the wrong address, kick in the front door, and maim a family having

dinner. Maybe she wasn’t aware of her gaffe, and would excuse herself and leave.

Clearing my throat, I tried to be nonchalant.

“Um, hello there. How are you this evening?”

No reply. She could have been one of those creepy staring paintings,

except she occasionally blinked.

“You know, I haven’t, um, lost any teeth lately,” I continued.

With a look of disdain, she sighed.

“Not yet you haven’t.”

That’s when I noticed the pliers in her hand.

I know you shouldn’t hit a woman, but she was armed and she was the

tooth fairy. I did what I had to do, and she disappeared, leaving only a few feathers.

Now I sleep with a light on and my jaws clamped shut. It won’t help, and

she’ll be back. I can feel it in my incisors.

The poetry and prose of Robert L. Penick have appeared in well over 200

different literary journals, including The Hudson Review, North American

Review, Plainsongs, and Oxford Magazine. The Art of Mercy: New and Selected

Poems is now available from Hohm Press, and more of his work can be found at

theartofmercy.net.

I sit at the bar waiting. The man I’m waiting for is late, but I suppose that

is to be expected from a man like him. I’m in a little black dress, black four-inch

stilettos, and nothing else. I have some light make-up on, but nothing fancy. I

don’t want him thinking I’m trying too hard. From what the girls told me, he

likes a challenge. Yuck. Sounds like he doesn’t know how to take “no” for an

answer, but I guess that’s a good thing for me.

Finally, twenty minutes after we agreed to meet, he saunters in. I shine

my best smile at him and wave just my fingers in his direction. He’s wearing

a tight black shirt to show off his admittedly impressive physique, some loose

black dress pants, and is freshly shaved, leaving behind his full mustache and

some subtle stubble. His dark brown hair is grown out and messy, but styled just

enough to look natural but good. His smile is pearlescent and he is at least 6’3”.

As he walks over, I notice two things. First, he isn’t wearing the necklace

his girlfriend gave him for their anniversary. According to her friends, he

never takes it off. It isn’t anything specific, just a silver chain with a single bead:

a round obsidian stone. Since it doesn’t give away his relationship status, I don’t

know why he would take it off. Guilt, maybe? Second, his wallet is in his front

left pocket but his phone is not in the right.

He reaches me and leans in, extending his hand, “You must be Brooke?”

I shake his hand limply, as a lady is expected to, “Yep, and you’re John?”

“That’s me,” he beams. I watch his eyes scan me up and down, “You

look very nice tonight, Brooke.”

I roll my eyes, “Well, you’re pretty easy on the eyes yourself.”

He smirks and cocks his head away from the bar, “Let’s find a seat, shall

we?”

He grabs my hand, but I let him walk in front of me. I note that his phone

is not in his back pockets; he left it at home or in the car. I suppose he must not

want any inconvenient notifications. We make it to a table and he starts looking

around the bustling restaurant. Once he locates a waiter, he snaps his fingers at

him until he comes over. The waiter hurries over and apologizes for any waiting

we had to do. John says nothing and asks for two Tequila Sunrises. I interrupt and

ask for just water. John insists. Two Tequila Sunrises are ordered.

12 | Sheepshead Review Fiction | 13

“So, what’s a beautiful girl like you doing on Tinder?” He says, stealing

glances at my chest over his menu.

Christ, how did this man ever get a girlfriend, “Ohh, I suppose I just haven’t

found Mr. Right yet, y’know? What’re you thinking of getting? I’ve never

been here.”

This is my favorite restaurant, and the sole reason I was on Tinder was to

find him. His girlfriend’s friends found me and asked me to do this for them. She

won’t leave him, no matter what he does, so they believe this is the only way to

get her out. At first I was hesitant, but then they showed me screenshots of their

texts, the awful things he’s said to her, the names he’s called her, and pictures of

the bruises he’s given her. Along with their personal stories of his sleazy behavior,

I decided this was worth my time. Sometimes this is the only way to put an

end to this kind of behavior. It’s a dirty job, but someone has to do it.

Getting him to match with me on Tinder was easy. I have nice tits, a good

enough face, and a vague profile that says “I don’t care who you are as long as

you have a dick I can use” without actually saying it. Sure enough, it only took a

day before he was asking me out to dinner.

“Well,” he says, not looking up from his menu, “I usually get the steak,

but the salmon is just as good if you prefer that sort of thing.”

“Hmmm,” I say, putting my menu on the table and leaning in to expose

my incredible cleavage, “I don’t wanna order something too expensive.”

I pout as he looks up at me. He puts his menu down and reaches across

the table, beckoning for my hand. With a smile, I delicately place my perfectly

manicured hand in his.“Sweetheart, that’s too kind. You can get whatever you

want,” he rubs my hand and smirks, lowering his voice. “I’m sure you’ll pay me

back later.”

I giggle and return his flirtatious look, “Oh, don’t worry, I will.”

The rest of the dinner goes just as planned. He provides more blatantly

sexual comments and I respond with giggles and blushes. All the while, he

reveals nothing about himself and asks nothing of me. He doesn’t want to get to

know me. He wants to get to know my body, and quickly too, as he ate his steak

in less than ten minutes. I only ordered a salad and sipped lightly on the Tequila

Sunrise that was pushed upon me, so I finish quickly as well.

The waiter comes around to give us our bill and I make a weak attempt

at offering to pay, but John hands over his card and the waiter says he’ll be right

back. While the waiter is gone, John leans across the table, picks up my hand,

kisses it, and says, “My place or yours?”

I match his pose, leaning in and bringing my hand to his face. I trace his

jaw, looking into his eyes as seductively as I can, “Yours. Mine has unwanted

company. Roommates.”

I live alone.

I let him lead the way to his car where he drives us to his house. It isn’t

too far, but I knew that already. I’ve done my research. I make sure he stays in

front of me as he leads me up the stairs of his apartment complex and into his

apartment. The apartment is quite large and sparsely decorated with no traces of

female presence. He’s wiped this place clean of any clue that he might have a

girlfriend. Astounding. Two years and he’s managed to keep this up.

He throws his keys on the marble counter and I back up, pressing myself

against the door. I lift one leg up, dragging up my already short dress to expose

my lacey thong. Without a word, he struts over and uses one hand to grab my

face and the other to grab my leg, pressing his body against mine as he kisses me

forcefully. Some might mistake force for passion, but I’ve learned the difference.

His hands find my face, hair, thighs, ass, but I keep them from finding my upper

back.

I push him away slightly and whisper, “Bring me to your bed. I want to

get more comfortable.” Eagerly, he grabs my hand and brings me to his bedroom.

He turns around to grab me, but I push him down on the bed. He scoffs, looking

surprised, “You’re stronger than I thought.”

I smirk as I look him up and down, a real smirk this time, “You don’t

know me very well.Take off your shirt, John.” I annunciate his name more than

the rest of my words. He smiles. He likes that. He doesn’t move, so I drop the

smile and repeat, “Take off your shirt.”

Startled, he whips his shirt over his head and then begins taking off his

belt.

I put my hand up, the smile returning to my lips, “Nuh-uh!” I tease, “I’ll

do that in a bit.”

He stops, puts his arms behind him, and leans back on them. He watches

me with hungry eyes as I unzip the side of my dress. I strip it off with as much

elegance as I can muster. He moans slightly at the sight of my lacy black lingerie.

“Now,” I say, knowing he would do anything I ask in this moment, “lie

down on your back.”

He drags himself further onto the bed and lays with his legs in an acute

V, his hands behind his head. Slowly, I walk over, crawl over him, and straddle

him. “Keep your hands as they are and close your eyes,” I say as I touch his

chest. He nods and lets his eyes shut.

“Good boy,” I grumble.


His smile is so wide, almost giddy, as I reach behind my back, grab the

four inch kitchen knife from its holster on the back of my bra strap, and plunge it

straight into his neck. His eyes and mouth fly open and his hands spring out from

under his head. He makes no attempt to grab at me as the blood spurts from his

neck. In shock, I’m sure. In one swift move, I rip the dagger across his throat and

jump off the bed. Sputtering, he chokes and shakes, but barely makes an attempt

to move. I watch as his blood spreads around him, soaking into the gray sheets,

and he slowly stops struggling. His eyes glaze over, and I know he is gone.

I sigh, the relief of the kill washing over me. I go to the bathroom and

look in the mirror. Only a few specks on my face to match my blood soaked

hands and knees. Not bad. I use a tissue to turn on the sink and open the toilet–including

the seat. I wash all the blood off my body using wet tissues, including the

specks on my face, then use the small handkerchief I keep tucked in my bra to

turn off the sink and flush all the bloody tissues down the toilet. I put my clothes

back on and check the body for any hairs I might have left behind. Once I’m

finished, I use my handkerchief to open doors on my way out, and make my way

to the street.

As I walk a couple blocks to the nearest restaurant, I text one of the

friends that hired me:

Hey girl! Thanks for such a fun night :) Don’t forget to venmo me for

the drinks and stuff. We should do this more often. Love you so so much! Xoxo–

Brooke

My name isn’t Brooke.

A(ce) Switch

Caitlyn Mlodzik

The first time I brought a date to my dorm room, we lay on our stomachs

on the bed and watched a movie on my laptop. I don’t remember the name of the

movie because I was so focused on the closeness of my date’s body against mine

that I couldn’t follow a plotline other than ours.

We’d been dating for three months—an eternity in college, spring semester,

especially. The semester where time slows down, and the weather forces you

inside, and there aren’t any football games or homecoming activities to keep your

brain preoccupied otherwise. We’d kissed even. Two weeks prior at a St. Patrick’s

Day party in the student union. It was warm and quick and tasted like the

shamrock sugar cookies University Catering had set out. But after, it didn’t feel

like anything. I didn’t feel anything. My date smiled, then I smiled back because

I realized I was supposed to—that’s what couples did in the movies. But I also realized

what I’d been guessing ever since the first time I pretended to have a crush

in middle school because every other girl had a crush—that kissing didn’t affect

me the way it did everyone else. Now, in my room, on my bed, I wondered if my

date expected more after the movie and that thought squeezed all my muscles,

contracting and releasing until I felt like an overbaked biscuit, tough and tasteless

on the outside and unyielding dough in the inside.

My date’s foot bumped mine, and I jumped, and they asked if I was okay,

and I said yes because I had to be. Because if they wanted more then I was supposed

to want it too because I was their girlfriend and that’s what girlfriends were

supposed to do, and I didn’t know what was wrong with me that I didn’t feel that

way too.

I closed my eyes and imagined a switch inside of me I couldn’t reach and

maybe had never been turned on in the first place. I thought maybe if I could just

reach that switch, I’d understand and I’d feel. But then I imagined…what if everyone

had a switch inside of them too? What if some people chose to keep theirs

on because sometimes being in the light with everyone else feels safer than being

in the dark?

Rose Tiedt is a junior at UW-Green Bay majoring in English with an emphasis in

Creative Writing. She has always loved writing and favors stories with plot twists

and interesting characters. She dreams of one day publishing a series of novels and

being known for her stories.

continued


When my date reached for more popcorn, the bed tilted me in their direction.

They laughed at something that happened in the movie, and I laughed too,

because that’s what I was supposed to do.

The Obvious

Tim Conley

Caitlyn Mlodzik (she/her) is a writer based in Colorado. She got her M.F.A. in Creative

Writing from Bowling Green State University and has had fiction, poetry, and photography

published in journals such as The American Library of Poetry, Dual Coast Magazine, Thurston

Howl Publications, Save the Earth Poems, The Palouse Review, and Furrow Magazine, among

others. In her fiction, she believes in the power of representation in everyday life and strives

to write stories and novels that capture the variety, complexity, and beauty that exists within

and all around us.

A man, having mislaid his favorite hat, hit upon a strategy for finding it.

First he went round to all the houses and shops in town where he had recently

had occasion to visit; then he tried the houses and shops to which he had not been

in some time; and finally he tried each of the houses and shops to which he had

never been. As the search went on, talk spread of the imbecile looking everywhere

for his hat. To every nonplussed, curious, or annoyed welcome he found

at each door, as well as to the increasingly heated imprecations of his wife, he

answered simply, “It’s my favorite hat.”

Just when his hopes dropped as he turned from what seemed the last

threshold of the last house, he sighted through the gray evening air a glow from

a distant cottage he had never noticed before. The way was mostly uphill and it

was darker still when he arrived and knocked at the door. As it opened, he offered

apologies for the late hour of his calling, but blinked as he made out the features

of the inhabitant, whom he thought he somehow recognized (as everyone does

when they come at last to this encounter). “It’s my favorite hat, you see,” the man

said. His description of the lost item was listened to attentively, with sympathetic

nods.

The cottager’s voice, though soft, had the whoosh of the blade cutting

long grass. “Might that be what’s on your head now?”

And the man’s surprised hands touched the brim, seized it, and brought

the whole item to his wide eyes for inspection. So it was—his favorite hat.

Deep relief gave way to profuse thanks and, immediately afterward, sudden

fatigue. All of his travel and effort and worry caught up with him. He raised

his hat, repeated his thanks and thanks again, and took his leave of the cottage.

He thought he heard the cottager’s voice say behind him, as the door closed,

“Transient phenomena.”

When the man returned home at an irresponsible hour, his wife denied

up and down that he was wearing the hat when he went out and that there was a

cottage so far out from town and that he had any sense at all in his head.

Tim Conley’s most recent fiction collection is Some Day We Will Look Back on This and Laugh.

He lives in St. Catharines, Ontario.


Eye of the Storm

Conor Lowery

A Fall Sonatina

Kenneth M. Kapp

Wind blew past the crew like the ghosts of old, yet the water was infinite.

These were people of peril, those whose sails blew widely and white

in the air, rippling as though themselves were the ocean, the front of the ship a

ram against the air itself and the sailors infinite, perhaps, in number. How many

pulled at the ropes or hoisted the sails hardly mattered. All that mattered was that

they sailed upon this ship together, the salty waves beneath them invading their

senses as danger flowed through the winds and clouds devoured the sunlight.

Great waves of water, that great and primordial thing by which humans

lived and died, thundered down upon them like a million guns, and yet no

surrender came to the great ship. Instead, its oars propelled ever forward as Hell

rose, the sea cackling as it swept up humans by their dozens in a taunting mockery

of their mortality. Time did not slay an ocean. Water existed before the era of

humanity, and it would be there long after that artificial human-crafted era.

Even so, the ship continued its dogged journey. Even as spirals coalesced

around the ship, even as the winds began to hiss with malice, they pointed the

ship forward and pressed on. This sea, which would consume them, was their foe,

and it was infinite. There was nothing to gain, no treasure to be won. That did

not stop them. Their journey may have seemed purposeless, but they needed no

higher purpose. They desired to live another day only so that they could say that

they had done so.

In truth, the ocean could not help but envy the humans. In all its immortality

it had never gained a singular strength that humanity had crafted for itself.

Without the fear of death always at its back, the ocean never had a chance to

develop humanity’s most splendorous trait:

The will to live.

They sailed into the eye of the storm, and lived another day.

Conor Lowery is a UW-Green Bay student from Lakewood, WI. Having focused his

studies around writing since middle school, he strives to create pieces that evoke

emotion among readers. With an aim toward the intangible feelings of the human

condition, explored through fantastical and realistic means alike, Conor Lowery

writes with the belief that art should be a celebration of our humanity.

Winter. It’s cold here in prison. Outside, the needles from the larch in the

square have fallen. Surely they have covered the ground in a golden carpet; one

that I will see no more. Victoria’s painting lessons had started shortly after they

fell two years ago. The needles had been covered by a snow the previous night.

Perhaps his footprints showed where he crossed the park from his studio on the

way to our apartment. It’s too late to ask now.

“Life is—” Pierre started to say when Yosef, the old convict on the upper

bunk, coughed and spit into the corner of the room. Pierre took a deep breath,

thinking this is what one gets when tossed in with the salt of the earth, the very

people we are taught to love, and started over. “Life is like a two-headed coin.

One side brings good luck, the other bad. You spin the Czar Nicholas in the air, it

lands heads and things look up for you; it lands tails, and your fate is sealed, life

taking a turn for the worse, and one ends up in here like me waiting for the Grand

Executioner.”

Yosef protested, “Ha, only the likes of you have gold 5-ruble coins to

toss in the air, when most of us don’t have a spare kopek. You toss your gold

Nik in the air in here, no disrespect meant to the Czar, and it would be snatched

before it reached the top of its climb. Like him and his family, Jesus bless them,

no fault of their own, they are what they are. But you, you minted your own coin,

false metal it is too. Not a chance for my sympathy no matter how you spin your

story.”

But Pierre was not one to give in readily, not when he wanted his story

to remain long after he was gone. It may take generations, but I know I will be

vindicated. He desperately swallowed, wishing not to spit like a common convict

no matter how vile the tobacco.

“Well then, I must explain myself again. The Grand Executioner will

soon appear and then there may not be anyone to replace me with the amusing

story that I tell. And since you now have my last 5-ruble Czar Nicholas in your

shoe, it’s only fitting that you listen. I’ll start again at the beginning, as any other

place would make little sense. The end you already know. I killed my wife and

her lover.”

The flimsy beds rocked as Yosef struggled to sit up. “Oh, I wouldn’t want

to miss a word. You told me how you had important business in St. Petersburg


and would be gone for at least two weeks and then came back after four days on

Thursday, the day your wife took drawing lessons from ‘that French fop whose

name was sprinkled with so many zh’s your tongue dried and your jaw ached

from saying it.’ There’s your words—payment enough for your coin.”

“Yes, but you’d owe me change if that’s the all of it. I’ll continue. It was

his hands that I noticed with their long fingers and manicured nails. The first time

I surprised them his hand was wrapped about Victoria’s, he was standing close

behind her, moving a slender stick of charcoal across a canvas, whispering, ‘comme

ça, comme ça—like this, like this’ in her ear. Being a gentleman, I coughed

politely. He turned and smiled innocently while my wife turned the color of a

peasant’s beet borscht. I could see he was more reluctant to let go of my wife

than the charcoal. He hesitated, whispering ‘un petit moment—just a second—

ma chère,’ It was as if he thought I was too coarse a person to understand his

French—‘my dear’ indeed!”

Yosef leaned forward and spit into the same corner by way of expressing

his agreement. “Da, da—yes, yes!”

“Well, I clicked my heels, nodded politely, and said I would see to the

children. Victoria and I had agreed long before our vows that we would be faithful,

never mind the music that played on the world’s stages, we knew our waltz

and would keep to its tempo. Or so I thought. The painting lessons continued.

Victoria no longer blushed when asked how her studies were coming along. She

demurred, ‘Monsieur Zhu-zhu says I’m making progress though really I despair.

But I’ve learned to see life differently, to understand the underlying structure of

things. I think it may come from first sketching the outlines in charcoal.’

“And when I said I’d be gone on extended business trips, she begged my

permission to go to the theatre or a concert with M. Zhu-zhu. ‘I’m so distracted

home alone with the children. Grownups need adult entertainment—you understand,

don’t you?’ I could only answer, ‘Bien sûr—of course.’ Her eyes lit up and,

blushing, she could only blow me a kiss as if I were a little boy. We seldom spoke

French anymore and she ignored my mockery.”

Yosef jumped down from his perch and went to piss in the bucket in the

corner. He cackled over his shoulder. “Proof. If you had proof wouldn’t the court

understand?”

“Oh, I had proof enough. Her clothes smelled of his perfumes. And there

were his hairs on her undergarments. To have to smell him in that way set my

resolve.”

Yosef climbed back onto the top bunk, his unwashed odor causing Pierre

to cough.

Pierre realized it made no sense to continue and couldn’t keep from

thinking ça n’a plus d’importance—it doesn’t matter anymore. But he said he

would finish.

“Yes, I had proof and proof the more grew in her swelling in her belly.

It was not from delicate French pastries and I was not the father. We had stopped

having relations shortly after she began her painting lessons. And it was almost a

year after they began that I noticed the first signs. That’s why I came home suddenly

from my trip.

“I found them embracing in the parlor. He jumped up, muttering something

about being late for a lesson elsewhere. He went up to gather his things

from the room they had turned into a studio. That’s when I confronted her about

her being pregnant. She denied there was any liaison. Said I was foolish. ‘The

child is yours.’ And didn’t I remember Count so-and-so’s party? ‘There was a

special performance of Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata. You became emotional and

couldn’t stop drinking.’ I denied it all, ‘Nonsense!’ Then she started to cry. ‘Think

of our children.’

“I yelled at her. ‘Tears are for fools and those that aren’t brave enough

to face reality. I’m no fool.’ She became angry at me, at me who had done no

wrong, and stormed out of the room, saying that she would pack and leave in the

morning. ‘I’ll send for the children once we’re settled in Paris.’ Her lover was

waiting in the hall. I heard them whisper and then the sound of the front door

slamming.”

Pierre paused, remembering how incensed he’d been. “I rushed into my

study and unlocked the cabinet, taking out my father’s dueling pistols. They were

loaded. I charged upstairs into my wife’s bedroom. She was already packing.

She turned and sneered at me. ‘You will never understand love!’ I shot her in the

belly, throwing the pistol at the head of her bed.

“I ran out onto the street. Her lover’s studio was on the other side of the

square. Could you imagine? She would tell me how she sometimes walked there

with our children! There was no going back. I knew he’d be waiting for her. I

tucked the pistol under my coat and marched straight ahead. I don’t remember

crossing the square but fifteen minutes later I was at the corner of his block. It

was late. No one was on the street. I decided I would knock gently on his door,

try whimpering, ‘Help, let me in!’ He did. He saw me, stepped back, and then

saw the pistol. ‘Mon Dieu.’ To which I replied, ‘Mon droit—my right,’ and shot

him.”

Pierre didn’t realize that he had been pacing from the bars across the

front of the cell to the back wall. He stopped, pivoted, and marched to the bucket.


He returned to the bunk beds, resting his hands on the board across the top. “And

there you have it for the last time. I’ve been told the Grand Executioner is coming

at first light. Now you know that love never lives easily nor dies at peace.”

Yosef sighed, remembering the square and the larches. He had played

there when he was a little boy and wondered if the needles were still golden.

Kenneth M. Kapp was a Professor of Mathematics, a ceramicist, a welder, an

IBMer, and yoga teacher. He lives with his wife in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, writing

late at night in his man-cave. He enjoys chamber music and mysteries. His essays

appear online in havokjournal.com and his articles in shepherdexpress.com. Please

visit www.kmkbooks.com.

What Looks Like a Covered Bridge

Kevin B

She simply wanted him to have someone to talk to. I don’t blame her for

that. I was not born into this world with any anger inside me despite my larger

counterparts being fueled by fire. I am battery-operated. The force is not strong,

therefore I am not able to muster up much emotion. Even the day I became

aware, I didn’t feel much of anything. There was no time to drum up shock or

surprise. I had a job to do. I had a track to cover.

This is what I’ve gathered over the past two years—

Mark is the one who loves me. He comes to me every night and turns me

on. I do laps around the track for about an hour or so. He talks about how one day

I’ll be powered by something other than a battery, because he hates knowing that

the thing that keeps me going is slowly running out the more he uses me. He tells

me that it makes him feel as though he’s taking advantage. That he wants me to

be never-ending. Even if the world runs out of batteries, he wants me to continue

on. He never talks about other trains, not even real ones. He makes adjustments

to my surroundings. A new tree. A general store. A covered bridge, or what looks

like a covered bridge. I now understand that nothing I see is real, but merely representative

of a real thing. To me, it shouldn’t make a difference. If you’re several

inches tall, then a doll house is simply a house, isn’t it? Even if you’re not a doll?

It provides the same shelter for you as a normal house would a normal person.

If it sounds like I have a lot of time to think, that’s because I do. When

Mark leaves me each night, he shuts off the lights, and I’m by myself with my

thoughts. He turns me off, so I can’t run the track. I hear noises sometimes, but

they don’t scare me. I can’t be killed, because I’m not really alive. I’ve been

given sentience, but not humanity. I don’t believe that was what was meant to

happen, but I have no way of really knowing, because I can’t speak.

What I do know is that Mark’s wife is named Ada. I know this, because

Mark tells me about Ada. He tells me that she is strong and thoughtful and that

she dabbles in the spiritual arts. I surmised that she’s the reason I’m in the state

that I am, and I’m not sure whether I should thank her or curse her name. If I

wanted to curse her, I could, since that can be done in isolation. Thanking her

would require her coming downstairs, and I don’t see that happening anytime

soon.


Mark tells me that Ada doesn’t come downstairs, because she believes

Mark’s fascination with me is something that should be his alone. I support her

supporting Mark. Mark seems like he needs something to contain his attention,

and I seem to be a good container. Mark tells me that his job is very tedious. He

watches television shows and writes about them. I determine what “television

shows” are based on what Mark tells me, and they sound very depressing. Mark

has opinions about the television shows he watches, but he cannot write about

those opinions, because he writes something called “recaps” where he summarizes

the television shows without a lot of input from his brain about whether the

shows are good or bad.

(From what he tells me, they are mostly bad.)

Mark tells me about all the things he is going to build for me. He tells

me that he has promised Ada that he will not build any more than he already has,

but he tells me that is not true. He doesn’t like lying to Ada, but she wouldn’t

understand. Her passion is potions, and making good luck charms, and giving

sentience to trains that are not real trains. None of that takes up space, and so Ada

can do as much of it as she likes. Mark tells me this has always been one of their

biggest differences. She loves things you can’t see, and he loves things you can.

Even in the way that they love each other, this difference is notable. He loves

her cheekbones. She loves his patience. He loves her belly button. She loves his

determination.

And they love each other in ways the other doesn’t always understand.

Mark promises to build me a countryside that takes up the entire basement.

A track that goes over the washer and dryer. A track that goes around the

furnace. Cotton clouds all over the ceiling. Plastic grass all over the floor. Little

houses for me to pass by as I make my way around and around the room—never

stopping, because one day I will be electric. I will go under what look like covered

bridges, but are not covered bridges, and it will not upset me that nothing is

real, because I will feel real, and the more real I feel, the less I will be able to tell

myself that nothing is real, because part of being aware is being able to summon

up denial. And I will summon as much denial as I can as Mark watches me and

feels great pleasure in knowing that he is my god. That he has given me everything.

One night Mark explained religion to me, because he came from a very

religious household, and he told me about a god and about the people who worship

that god, and I realized that we have the opposite relationship. He talks to

me constantly and I never talk to him. I never ask him for things, because what

more could I ask for than what he has already promised? I simply need to wait,

and I am good at waiting. Mark’s family was very upset with Mark when he married

Ada, because they didn’t like the things she believed, but I could never be

upset with Mark, because he is god, and I could never be upset with Ada, because

she has given me god and myself.

Mark tells me that he grew up confused, because of all that religion, but

I am never confused. Not by him, anyway. By everything else, maybe, but never

by him. The only time he confused me was when he saw me going under the

covered bridge for the twenty-third time one night, and spoke words I didn’t understand.

I can’t ask him what they mean, but I’ve never forgotten them. Not the

look in his eyes as he said them. Not the smile that came across his face as they

left his mouth. Not the little pumping motion he made with his fist to go along

with the words.

He said “Choo Choo.”

And again “Choo Choo.”

I may never know what that means, but I suppose some things must

remain a mystery.

Kevin B. is a writer and poet from New England. Their work has been featured in

Esoterica, Molecule, Havik, Qu, and New Plains Review.


notes



Care Bear For Sale

Rowan MacDonald

I’m about to be mugged over a fucking Care Bear. Togetherness Bear.

Don’t ask how it came to be in my possession. Okay, fine, go ahead. I opened my

front door one morning and it was sitting there. I’m not lying. There was a box

and I opened it and there he was.

I hear you say, “That’s a bit unusual, mate.”

Well, yeah, I guess it is. But ‘unusual’ has this way of happening to me.

Like the time I opened my door to find detectives standing there. I would have

preferred the Care Bear, especially as the house was surrounded by armed police

officers.

Two words for you: past occupants. The detectives mumbled apologies

and left, but this Care Bear has stayed.

The first time I was mugged it was over a pair of drumsticks. I thought

the man running towards me in the flannelette shirt was going for a late-night

jog–until he stopped and began throwing punches. The second time I was

mugged, it was over a traffic cone. This will be the first I’ve been mugged for a

Care Bear.

Why am I so certain I will be mugged for the Bear?

It starts two days ago, with someone who shares the name of a Brontë

novel. She comes at me within seconds of creating the listing.

“I really, really want this,” she says. “When can I get it?”

“How does tomorrow sound?”

And so, while I sit waiting, I browse her profile and notice something.

Care Bears. Everywhere.

Buying, selling, it doesn’t matter. She needs Care Bears like a junkie

needs their next fix.

“I’m really sick,” she tells me, and I think to myself, “in the head?”

“I can’t make it today,” she continues. “I’m pregnant.”

I say congratulations, and tell her it’s okay, and that in the meantime,

other people are longing for this Care Bear, and she understands this, because at

this moment she wants nothing else more than said Bear.

“Can you please hold it for me?” she asks, and for a second, I think she

wants me to embrace the chap; to cuddle him, and let it know that a new owner

will be with it soon. But then I snap out of this Care Bear daze of insanity.

“Yes, of course,” I reply. “Same time?”

“Yes!” she says. “I want him so much.”

So, here I am on this couch, rocking back and forth while reading a news

headline:

SELLER BEATEN BY THUGS POSING AS BUYERS FOR IPHONE

“This isn’t an iPhone,” I reassure myself. But thoughts of rooms filled

with Care Bears, like those on her profile, start to infiltrate logic, and I resign

myself to fate.

STABBED FOR CARE BEAR

I can see the headline now. I ponder my final words.

“Shhh!” I whisper to the empty house. I hear a car pull up outside. I run

to the toilet window, because it’s inconspicuous, and no one will expect anyone

to peer at them through there.

But shit. She has already escaped my vision, she’s already at the door.

This is it.

I pick up the box, the same one that appeared on my doorstep on that

sunny morning in November. My dog stares directly at me.

“Really?” she says. “You could be making something of your life.”

I shrug my shoulders. The Care Bear is life.

I turn the door handle and there she is. Dripping wet, curly red hair

and barefoot, as if she has taken part in a triathlon to get here. I look around,

expecting to see a bike and other competitors, before remembering that I’m about

to be mugged.

She stares at the ground, unable to make eye contact, waving cash in the

air.

“I’m here for the Care Bear,” she says, breathing heavily, eyes fixated on

my feet.

“Here it is,” I say, presenting her with the Bear.

This is when it will happen; the shanking. The box arrives in her hands

and I reach for the money. The knife will pierce my skin any minute. I’ll fall

to the ground, arms outstretched, clasping for the Care Bear that caused this,

reaching for the remnants of my life.

But it never comes. The money lands in my hand.

“Merry Christmas,” I say, relief washing over me like the waves that

clearly drenched her hair.

“You too!” she replies, skipping away with the Bear, back towards a car

that still has the engine running, driver in place for a quick getaway.

She clearly forgot the knife. I look at my dog and she wags her tail.

Nonfiction | 31

The Care Bear is responsible for my next two dinners. As I sit chewing

my food, a sense of gratitude hits me. I’m grateful I wasn’t shanked over a Care

Bear and grateful for the food on my plate.

I still think of him whenever I open my front door. Maybe one day there

will be another box. Maybe not. But I will always remember the day he arrived

on my doorstep and the day he left, via a barefoot girl with dripping wet hair,

heavy breathing, who was maybe pregnant, and who may or may not have forgot

to bring a knife to our Craigslist sale.

Rowan MacDonald is a writer and musician from Tasmania. He is a recipient of

the 2023 Kenan Ince Memorial Prize for Prose and Poetry, and his short fiction

is published in New Writing Scotland, Bright Flash Literary Review, The Ignatian

Literary Magazine, Sans, PRESS, and Overland (forthcoming). His dog, Rosie, has

been there for every word.


Cutting Him Off

Conor Lowery

I only knew him online, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t my friend.

I considered him a friend for a decade. I had known him since I was thirteen, and

I had spent around five years sharing discourse with him through a combination

of messages. He was a published horror author, a crusader for social justice, a

defender of marginalized people, and a man I was absolutely proud to know.

In public.

In private, he was different. A strange, enigmatic ball of mood swings

and rage. He was our friend, so we turned our heads and glanced to the side when

he said he wanted to kill somebody he’d argued with, when he accused someone

of antisemitism for not accepting his piece, when he came to us making resentful

comments about women daring to reject him. One moment, he was the kindest,

most generous friend you’d ever had. The next, he leveraged your friendship to

make you do what he wanted, all while he guilted you because he was so poor, so

put-upon, so lonely, so stressed.

It didn’t really shock any of us that our “friend” turned out to be a

vicious, abusive man. Women had stories about him, acquaintances had stories

about him, writers had so very many stories about him. He was more than a

horror author; he was a living horror story. Maybe that was why, when I got told

around 4:00 P.M. that night that he was finally being unveiled as a monster, I took

the gamble. If the rest of my colleagues—my friends—disagreed with me, if they

maintained their loyalty to him, I would be an outcast. Even so, I knew what I

had to do. I admitted I believed his accusers.

I chewed my nails for ten minutes before my friends admitted they did

too.

By 4:30, I understood why they call it “cutting him off.” It was like

amputating a limb. I blocked him on every social media platform we shared,

removed myself from every server we were in together, deleted all evidence I

had ever associated with him, thanked goodness he was already banned from the

forum we shared—a ban my friends fought for days out of sheer loyalty to him

and what he meant to us. Did we mean the same thing to him? I don’t know. He

said he loved me, but he never said he loved anyone without an ulterior motive.

Soon enough, he was a ghost. His stories have been stricken from their

collections, his agents disavowing him while his publishers have let his work fall

Nonfiction | 33

out of print. I remembered all the times he was resentful, envious, unnecessarily

cruel or bigoted, and I know that it was all because he was angry. Angry at

everything, all the time, and it never did him any good anyways. He’s still angry,

but now he’s angry and alone.

I think about him a lot. I wouldn’t write this if I didn’t. I wonder,

sometimes, if he thinks about me. If he thinks about the fact he reintroduced me

to a childhood story that I wear like a badge nowadays, if he thinks about the

books he recommended me, if he thinks about the time I told my own girlfriend

she could trust him because he was my friend. Most of all, though, I sit up and I

compare the two of us. I hold that same anger he does, I think. Aimless anger at

the world, always waiting to come out, all because I didn’t get something I feel

entitled to.

So I stay up, and I worry. I worry about him. Is he doing alright? More

than that, though, I—selfish man that I am—worry about me. Will that be me

someday, getting published and ruining my own reputation because I couldn’t

help but mouth off behind closed doors? Will that be me, letting the prejudices

that fester in me slip out from between my lips just loudly enough that it

eventually catches up to me? I don’t want it to be me.

I don’t want to be him.

The saddest thing to me, though?

I don’t think he does either.

Pear Sauce

Sunday Dutro

“It’s easy: put everything in a pot and cook it. Shove it through one of

those sieves and you’re done.” I don’t have a sieve. I take the advice given with a

grain of salt and forge my own path. We spend hours removing seeds, cutting into

manageable chunks; everything is simmered with a splash of water and lemon

juice. Stir, stir, stir. When it smells like food, we dump cupfuls in the blender,

turning it into mash. It tastes like fall and perfection. The children approve and

want more. An entire day for a taste of fall in winter.

Conor Lowery is a UW-Green Bay student from Lakewood, WI. Having focused his

studies around writing since middle school, he strives to create pieces that evoke

emotion among readers. With an aim toward the intangible feelings of the human

condition, explored through fantastical and realistic means alike, Conor Lowery

writes with the belief that art should be a celebration of our humanity.

Sunday Dutro is a creative nonfiction writer with publications in or forthcoming

with Bear Paw Arts Journal, Nunum, Meniscus, and BarBar. She is a UC Davis,

Writing By Writers Manuscript Boot-Camp, and Haven I Writing Retreat alum.

Sunday lives in Montana with her family and is actively working on a memoir. Find

her at sundaydutro.com.

34 | Sheepshead Review Nonfiction | 35

Cookbook

Marie Cloutier

I was at a loss when my mother called the weekend before Thanksgiving

asking for that old cookbook back. The last time I saw it was on a weekday that

August, a few months before the call, sitting on my kitchen floor in a dirty t-shirt

and shorts, bare legs chilly on tile. Sorting through our two shelves of cookbooks,

I pulled down that sticky brown photo album that she’d handed me almost 20

years before, when I moved into my first apartment. Now we were preparing for

another move. My husband Jeff was starting a new job in Manhattan; we were

going from a three-story home to a 1,000-square-foot apartment in Queens. We’d

spent most of the past couple of weeks clearing out, deciding what would and

wouldn’t fit into this next chapter of our life.

While he wrestled with pots and pans, I leafed through this collection

of magazine clippings dotted with stains, mimeograph sheets with faded purple

ink left over from my seventh grade home ec class, and index cards covered in

scrawls. Most were things I’d never made; others, I’d never make again. There

was the buttery coffee cake I liked when I was 13, the old pancake recipe from

the side of the Bisquick box, which I’d make on the many weekends I’d spent

home alone as a teen. There was a Woman’s Day casserole from 1970-whatever.

Maybe my mother had made that for dinner, who knows. It all seemed to just

take up space. I exhaled and closed it, let it rest on my knees. When I lifted it, the

cover peeled off my skin with a hiss. I weighed it in hands achy and dirty from

work. There was nothing here I wanted to keep. I put it to the side and washed

my hands. I never saw it again.

I had talked to my mother around this time, to give her my new address,

but I hadn’t seen her in a couple of years. She’d moved down to Delaware from

Massachusetts after my wedding ten years before. She’d come back once for a

high school reunion. I hadn’t visited either and we rarely talked. Her move had

come as a shock; she’d told me over dinner a few weeks before my wedding.

Until then we had never lived more than an hour apart. Although I depended

on her less as I moved into adulthood, I had no idea she was planning to leave.

She’d closed on her new house the day after my bridal shower and I’d had no

idea.

Fast forward a few months after that day in my old kitchen and the scene

opens in Forest Hills, Queens. I was home alone; Jeff was away for a few days

at a conference. I don’t remember exactly the time of day or what I was doing,

but I imagine myself in the living room, maybe having a cup of tea or reading.

My cell phone lit up with her name; I pressed the green button to answer. “Hi,”

I said, smiling, “how are you?” I imagine leaning back on the blue velvet sofa,

forgetting for a minute about the roaches in my new kitchen or the job interview

I’d bombed the week before. Maybe I turned on a lamp or brushed open a

curtain.

“Marie, I’m calling about the cookbook I lent you.”

I sat up straight, eyes on the blinds on the front window. “What about

it?” My stomach sank.

“I need it back. There’s something I want to make for Thanksgiving,

for Mary Beth.” This was my cousin’s teenage daughter. I’d met her once, as an

infant.

“Okay,” I said, looking around the apartment. “I’ll have to find it. I’m

not sure where it is right now.” Thanksgiving was less than a week away. I could,

I thought, mail it out on Monday, if I could even get my hands on it. We had

fully unpacked, but there were some still boxes of keepsakes shoved in a closet.

As I scanned the room, I thought back to August and a memory presented itself,

me in the basement looking at bags of trash and thinking about the cookbook.

I remembered the scene in the kitchen but nothing after that. It had been such a

hectic time. Maybe, I thought.

“Okay,” I said, “I’ll check. I’ll let you know. How are you doing?”

“I have to go. Let me know when you send it.”

Mary Beth, as well as her mother and grandmother, were my mother’s

Delaware neighbors. I’d heard a lot about Mary Beth over the years—she was

a bright, nice girl, and my mother enjoyed watching her grow up, chaperoning

school field trips with her and such. I’d always smiled a tight smile at these

stories. My mother worked hard to raise me alone, always busy with her job, a

demanding and important one at a successful local business. I grew up doing my

homework in their waiting room, or waiting for her at the local public library

after school. I was always waiting for her.

I first checked the kitchen, just in case, then those keepsake boxes in the

closet. Nothing. I called my mother-in-law in Massachusetts; we’d left a few

boxes in her basement. Again, nothing. When Jeff came home we checked a last

box tucked on a high shelf. Nothing.

“I’m sorry, I can’t find it.”

“I need it. Find it.”

I looked back and forth across the apartment. I inhaled sharply at raising


the possibility that I’d thrown it out, a breath I held.

. . .

She called again before Christmas.

It might have gotten lost in the move, I offered. Other kitchen things

were missing. My cooling racks were gone; so were my cookie cutters. I

suggested I could search the Internet for some version of the recipe.

“I want the book back,” she said. “It’s mine. I want it back.”

“What do you mean it’s yours? You gave it to me a million years ago.” I

fell back.

“I loaned it to you, that’s all.”

That was news to me. Now it was my fault that she’d disappointed her

niece, been unable to share the family recipes with her. Because I was careless,

and selfish too. And she never intended for me to keep this part of our family’s

history. She wanted to pass it on to someone else. Which, if I’d had it, probably

would have been fine with me. This fight would be just another bad memory

housed in its pages.

I said I would check again at my in-laws’ house at Christmas. It was all

I could say. Wherever it was, it was gone, and I couldn’t bring it back. That was

the concrete-floor truth.

I didn’t find it. I have never found it. I probably held it in my hands that

summer day and thought something like, I’m never going to make this middle

school coffee cake again, I don’t need it. And as it turns out, it was never meant

for me anyway.

The last time we discussed it was on my next birthday. I thought the

email she sent might be a happy birthday wish but it was just to tell me she was

giving up, that she was disappointed. I can’t remember if I replied or not and

eventually I lost that message too. I lose things all the time. She should know that

about me. She should know how to hold on to the things she wants. It’s not my

fault that she didn’t know what she had when she had it.

Eulogy for the Dead Creatures

Nelly Woodhead

“Though the skull goes dry, these eyes will see again.”

Sesson Yubai, trans. Burton Watson

Let us contemplate the creatures that have met their ends at my parents’

vacation farm.

We pause to reflect upon the rodents killed in gruesome ways by traps

and poison, and pet chickens who suffered death by snake. We remember the

animals that have inadvertently entered the farmhouse and found they could not

escape, like the owl that decades ago became trapped during a winter. Or the

raccoon, christened Rufus post mortem, who before his demise by starvation

deeply scratched the bedroom windowsills in his struggle to free himself.

We ponder the creatures who, after their deaths, become decorative

objects. A cattle skull, its long horns thrusting laterally across the living room

wall, is accented with thin rope coiled at the base of the horns and a brunet

forelock. Other skulls, turtle shells, and ball-and-socket joints, presumably

discovered on strolls around the fields, rest artistically on side tables among rocks

spray-painted gold and antique tools, creating a country-style memento mori. The

desiccated flesh still attached to a deer cranium adds an element of the macabre

to the tableau.

And what of the catfish skeleton, spines attached, that resides in a

garbage bag on the laundry room floor? Let us with reverence pledge to offer

beings of the water the same level of consideration and display.

Marie Cloutier (she/her) is a writer and poet. Her work has appeared in Bending

Genres, Dorothy Parker’s Ashes, HerStry, Corvus Review, Bare Back Magazine, and

elsewhere. She is at work on a memoir. Her website is www.mariecloutier.com.

Nelly Woodhead is an author based in Texas. She writes about rural landscapes,

mother-daughter relations, and the consequences of hoarding. Her essay, “An

Observation of Color,” can be found in an upcoming issue of the literary magazine

Griffel, and her creative nonfiction work, “How To Make Patient Prawns,” will be

published in the inaugural edition of the University of Alabama’s food and place

journal, Al Dente.


Poetry in Commotion

Ellen Notbohm

That smarmy smile. I’m compelled to remember it well, two lifetimes

later.

Professor Geoffrey Overton, PhD taught the Poetry class where I landed

because I needed three last English credits and it was the only class still open.

Tall, with longish brownish hair, his steadfast ingratiating smile seemed to be the

only expression Dr. O was capable of. He never lectured, didn’t say much at all.

He would ask a leading question, then let the students perpetuate the discussion,

more or less conduct the class themselves as he smiled and nodded smarmily

until inserting the next question. I suspected the class had a campus-wide

reputation as an easy A.

I’d come into the class with neither love nor loathing of poetry. Dr.

Overton’s style only fomented my indifference. His everlasting smirk became, to

me, a fingernail on the very blackboard behind him. For this, I’m paying tuition?

My classmates were an insufferable band of humorless critics, English

majors all, who took their poetry very seriously, their devotion absolute—and

narrow. Those who say they don’t understand poetry can’t be expected to. Poetry

requires the highest intelligence of any writing. Yes, there is such thing as a

stupid question.

The burden of my ennui crushing me, I finally snapped one day as the

class discussed Ezra Pound. I spoke up for the first time: I declared Pound’s work

stultifying.

The class turned on me as one and pounced. How dare I? Pound was a

titan! I shouldn’t even be in this class! I was wronger than wrong; Pound’s work

is gorgeous and profound! He wrote the single greatest poem in the English

language!

Dr. Overton stood there silent through this assault, with that same toady

smile on his face. I detested him even more for it.

When the barbs began to wind down and turn to looks-that-kill, he spoke.

“You cannot call yourself scholars of literature, let alone creators of it, if

you’re not able to listen to someone who simply disagrees with you.”

His decree paralyzed the class.

“Her opinion is no less valid than yours,” he continued. “Literary

criticism is inherently subjective. Pound himself said, ‘The serious artist must be

as open as Nature. She is rugged and not set apart into discreet categories.’”

In the deepening silence, I began to see him differently, to detect

something I’d perhaps missed, a direction, an intent underlying that static

expression.

He turned to me. “Ellen,” —I was surprised he knew my name— “please

tell us why you feel this way. The class will now listen to you respectfully.”

I hesitated only long enough for my eyes to sweep the class and realize

I couldn’t put a name to a single one of them, despite having sat here with them

for weeks.

“I have trouble separating the man from the art,” I said. “No one’s

perfect but Pound was ardently antisemitic and pro-fascist.” I heard several soft

intakes of breath. “I’m not able to judge his work in a vacuum.”

A small voice quavered from the other side of the room. “Do you like

any contemporary poets?”

Dr. Overton looked at me, his trademark smile unchanged, but now

speaking wordlessly to me of curiosity and encouragement.

“Maya Angelou,” I said. A girl near the front of the room scribbled in her

notebook while pretending not to. “Tolkien. Frost. Bob Dylan.” Knowing Dr. O

had my back energized me. I couldn’t resist poking the bears. “Theodor Geisel.”

Three crackling seconds elapsed before a student behind me barked, “Dr.

Seuss? Get serious!”

“Ut-tuttututtututtut!” Dr. Overton barked back. The class again fell silent

as their shadows. “What could be more serious than, ‘A tree falls the way it

leans. Be careful which way you lean.’”

More than a few in the room subtly straightened like reeds in their

chairs.

“Geisel writes most of his books in anapestic tetrameter, a form favored

by Browning, Byron, and Shelley, among others,” Dr. Overton continued. “I’m

not alone in thinking this is one reason his storytelling is so widely appealing.

No other contemporary poet has used it as effectively. Now, which of you poetry

experts would like to explain anapestic tetrameter?”

I began to catalog in my head: how silent could this class be? Let me

count the ways. Quiet as a stone, still as a graveyard. Piped down, traps shut. Not

a peep. Can hear the grass grow.

Dr. Overton sailed on, more words than he’d ever spoken in any

one class period. “Anapestic tetrameter has four feet per line, each foot with

three syllables, two unstressed and the third stressed.” His fist tapped the air.

“DadaDUMdadaDUM. ‘I say!’ murmured Horton. ‘I’ve never heard tell/ Of


a small speck of dust that is able to yell.’ And ‘I know some good games we

could play,’ said the cat. / ‘I know some new tricks,’ said the cat in the hat.

DadaDUMdadaDUM.” He chuckled—a startling sound—before adding, “‘A lot

of good tricks. I will show them to you. / Your mother will not mind at all if I

do.’”

He moved across the room, his pace matching his words as he repeated

oh-so-softly, dadaDUMdadaDUM.

Then he turned the full force of that fawning smile on us, his gaze

moving across the rows of desks. “Come to class Tuesday prepared with ten

examples of anapestic tetrameter from at least two Theodor Geisel books. Extra

points for examples of his use of trochaic and iambic tetrameters.”

I hung back as the class skulked from the room, sparing all of us having

to interact. As the last one out, I stopped at the door to say to Dr. Overton the few

words I’d been rehearsing in my head for the last ten minutes. But he had turned

away, bent intently over a sheaf of papers resting on his briefcase, a pen loose but

poised in his fingers. I left without speaking, but the words have never left me.

They misjudged me. I misjudged you. Lesson learned.

Blue Angels

Abraheem Dittu

Naked in a jacuzzi, exposed and vulnerable, looking up. Blue angels—

fighter pilots—are always heard before they’re seen. An alien warble raping your

ears, tearing open the sky. Looking up I feel stupid, shameful, worthless.

Naturally (or unnaturally) I assume they see me. I see them so they see

me—but they don’t, they’re oblivious to my existence. As the warbling grows

more faint, I look at the sky— blank, blue—and think of god, and it comes to me

all at once.

Every time I was on a flight, in a window seat, looking down at

rectangles, I was blind to the souls of the dead and the living; I couldn’t see their

bare-naked bodies, I couldn’t hear them screaming.

How many millions, how many billions, how many trillions—die

waiting.

Waiting for angels to descend, but they fly overhead.

They exist, they invade but you— you’re invisible.

Ellen Notbohm’s work touches millions in more than twenty-five languages. She

is the author of the award-winning novel The River by Starlight and the nonfiction

classic Ten Things Every Child with Autism Wishes You Knew. Her short prose

appears in many literary journals, including Eclectica, Brevity, Halfway Down the

Stairs, Fabula Argentea, Eunoia Review, Bookends Review, and in anthologies in

the U.S. and abroad. Her books and short prose have won more than forty awards

for both fiction and nonfiction.

Abraheem Dittu is a Pakistani-American writer and poet from Los Angeles. He’s

been published in Oddball Magazine (prose), Cultural Weekly (articles), and The

Squawk Back (poetry). He recently lost his brother Ali—his best friend.


notes


Indiana Sunflower

Jaclyn Fulscher

asunder

Linda M. Crate

Even when the velvet evening sheds

its bleak tears

He tilts his chin up to the absent sun

A halo of yellow brushstrokes

blows wild in the wind

His face

a sincere pointillist painting

freckled by brown dots

Somedays I want to step out into the rain

Rip the stalk out of the earth

and take it home to

a daisy printed kitchen

Display it in a glass vase staged beneath

the golden glow of a pine plank ceiling fan

But complete control

would rot my love

until his spine snaps and he is beige

So I watch through the window for as long as I can

before the pane is fractured by

a mosaic of raindrops

coyotes howl,

an eerie sound;

i know you

find it beautiful but

losing pets to them

i burn with a rage

that they exist in the

same universe as me—

there are so many beautiful things

in this universe to love,

but i cannot love these beasts

who took away members

of my family;

i wish the same moon they

howl at is the thing that tears them asunder

so they can know a fraction of the

pain they gave me—

i’ll howl at them,

and they can see that i don’t

need fangs to be scary.

Jaclyn Fulscher is a second-year M.F.A. Fiction candidate at Wichita State

University. She graduated from Butler University with a bachelor’s degree in

English-Creative Writing and German. She has published works in Forgotten Ones:

Drabbles of Myth and Legend, Menagerie, and Manuscripts. Her poem, “What

Dementia Stole”, won third place in Manuscripts’ 2022 poetry contest.

Linda M. Crate (she/her) is a Pennsylvanian writer whose poetry, short stories,

articles, and reviews have been published in a myriad of magazines both online and

in print. She has twelve published chapbooks, the latest being: Searching Stained

Glass Windows For An Answer (Alien Buddha Publishing, December 2022).

46 | Sheepshead Review Poetry | 47

Sonnet for a Starship

Kimberly Gibson-Tran

A Lay of Long Defeat

Jeannette de Beauvoir

The silver ships in mirror parallax

attempt a cosmic getaway beyond

the gloomy pull of stars. There isn’t hope.

A breach beginning just a hundred yards

off starboard binds them to each other like

a pair of suicidal sparrows caught

in window-glare. Perhaps the other ship,

another crew is answering the hail—

but no—it’s only time unscrewing from

unknown distress, engulfing streams, and trails

of streams, a swerving vortexed pimpernel

eclipsing the galactic tidal sphere.

At last the crystal interstices sheer,

and shards of hoar-frost pierce the voyagers.

In the early years of the Common Era, Roman legions invaded Britain, known to

them as Albion. The tribes, unable to unite against a collective enemy, fell, and by

61 CE all the islands were subjugated. One chieftain, Boudicca, rose up against

the occupation. She united the tribes and marched, taking Colchester, St. Albans,

and finally London, before being defeated. She killed herself so she would not be

taken to Rome as a curiosity.

I sing a lay of long defeat,

the end of a lifetime, the pause

before something else begins.

Is there nobility in lost battle,

lost land, lost beliefs? I have

to think yes, that honor still

survives, that we died good deaths

for good reasons.

But, oh, Andrasta, Raven of Battle,

how we once ached for victory.

Kimberly Gibson-Tran studied linguistics at Baylor University and the University

of North Texas. She’s written critically about poems with “Lines by Someone Else”

and has recent creative writing appearing or forthcoming in Saw Palm, Pandan

Weekly, RockPaperPoem, Anodyne Magazine, Passengers Journal, Elysium Review,

and The Common Language Project. Raised by medical missionaries in Thailand,

she now lives in Princeton, Texas, and works in college counseling.


the end of hope, the cries

of my warriors, the tears

of my daughters, the long nights

trying to remember a time

when we were free, when Rome

was not a curse, when we could read

the future in the howling wind

and be haunted only by our own

twisted breathless dreams in the night.

But, oh, Andrasta, Raven of Nightmares,

how we once ached for solace.



when long nights and lost voices

told of another world. The forest,

filled with sound, mist-drenched

and ghostly, a place I still haunt,

my shadow flitting in that liminal

space between here and the hereafter:

the only way I can still be part

of this land once loved as home.

But, oh, Andrasta, Raven of Mystery,

how we once ached for divination.


the gray wolf running through

the pines, the flutter of dark wings

in the night, all portents of what lay

ahead, for in the swirling autumn

mists of Albion, the light of freedom

flickered in my hands… and went out.

But, oh, Andrasta, Raven of Death,

how we did once ache for life.

Never the preferred outcome.

Never the dream where you’re

still there. Pointless to blame

the remembering skull, a study

in compartments—of what can

and can’t be neatly organized—

how after dusk, that injured dark,

I arrange regrets into smart rows

the same way revulsion arranges

a face. Yours, when you now look

at me, even in my emerald dress,

the one that puts Keira Knightley

in Atonement to shame. O mercy

me. I ate the statute of limitations

for asking to be forgiven. Silence,

yours, now swords the air above

my head, hews an aloof Damocles

out of me. Never have I been decent

at precarity. Never have I leapt out

—damned spot, out I say—leapt

from the detail of your seventh story

balcony, although once I had folded

in half like a robe on the storm-damp,

verdant railing, sewn mouth startled

open as if I’d never been touched

by rain.

second rain piece

Louie Leyson

Jeannette de Beauvoir wrote a lot of really bad, self-referential, derivative, and

overly dramatic poetry in her teens—and then didn’t return to the genre for thirty

years, during which she turned to writing novels instead (that were a lot less selfreferential,

derivative, etc.). Her poems are generally somewhat more bleak than

her murder mysteries. Some people find that odd. More at jeannettedebeauvoir.com

Louie Leyson is the recipient of a Literary Research and Creation Grant by the

Canada Council for the Arts. Their work was awarded a CBC Literary Prize in

Nonfiction and was selected as a semi-finalist for the Nimrod Literary Awards:

Pablo Neruda Prize in Poetry. You can find their works in Catapult, The Malahat

Review, Stonecoast Review, and elsewhere. Their X is @aswangpoem.


This is Meant to be My Last Prayer

Samantha Marie Daniels

THE SONG OF THE SUN FROM DUSK TIL DAWN

Marc Janssen

Ferment my blood until I’m drunk and happy—

this is my wine, poured out to you

from a body of water.

Drench the dirt around my shallow roots

until the soil gives

so I may slip in, green as Eden.

Trace me down the river,

branches aimed high,

sewing words into the wind—

Can you hear me now?

I

When I think of Grandma

Her Swedish face

Full of quickness

When I think of Grandpa

With his broken nose

And jokes

I know the sun has already set

And everything they were

To me

All the love and memories

That I can recall

When I am gone

Well,

Then they are gone too.

Samantha Marie Daniels is from Sacramento, CA. Her work has been most

recently featured in the Tiny Moments anthology, as well as Constellations and

Broad River Review. Her work was selected as a finalist in Broad River Review’s

2024 Rash Award for Fiction.


II

What am I really;

What are you?

A collection, a jumble, a construction of cells

And those cells made of a few elements: oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen,

calcium, phosphorus, potassium, sulfur, sodium, chlorine, and magnesium

And a handful of trace elements: iodine, iron, zinc, and more.

A couple bucks worth. Here’s ten dollars.

Those elements, atoms, a collection of atoms, a swarm, a grist

Electrons slip in and out of gravity, out of magnetic lassos,

Like rogue planets looking for a friendly sun;

And the nuclei- protons and neutrons are made of gluons and six kinds of quarks.

Each fundamental particle seems to have a fundamental particle and reduce in

size until it is closer and closer to raw energy.

Take away this flesh, this veil of cells and I am energy and light

The same as you.

Have I ever told you how beautiful you are?

Have I ever told you how beautiful you are?

Have you ever been told?

Do you know?

Have you heard?

Do you believe?

When you close your eyes, do you know how beautiful you are

How amazing

How unexpected and unlikely.

How in this world of arbitrary fixed points

That you in all your dimensions are precious and individual

As nothing like you has passed this way before and nothing like you will ever be

here again

And even in that, in that difference, you and I are twins related and congruous;

Fiercely and unapologetically and emotionally and rightly and wonderfully made.

III

When I breathe I breathe you

When we touch I leave part of me with you

In a symphony of subatomic particles

In the swirling pirouette

In the imagined and real space between you and I

Bond to you

Change you

Like these words

A million hammers tapping

Tone poems of love and eternity

Into the chemicals of your brain

While your electrons, borrowed from

Trees and bears and bats and cousins you no longer know, never

knew, and your mother

Fuse with mine

And mate

And stay forever

Or go

Or both.

IV

I have a London Fog

My grandfather’s

A few buttons gone.

When I wear it, I wear him and I wear Los Angeles and McDonald Douglas and

the red Ford Mustang with the white interior and Tern Circle and Grandma and

cancer and anger and barbecuing on Sunday afternoon and rain taken from somewhere

in the history of the Pacific, China, and the universe.

I add myself to it

Like I add myself to this page

This room

This world


The sun has set

But there is always another morning

As unexpected and beautiful and different as today’s

There is always another morning

If not here

Then elsewhere

They say the world won’t end but

I am seventeen with

Stitches in my mouth and a

Titanium screw in my jaw the

Doctors said would last my lifetime

Indefinite

Alexis Barton

What is there left to say about Marc Janssen, other than he should eat more

vegetables? Maybe his verse can be found scattered around the world in places like

Pinyon, Orbis, Pure Slush, Cirque Journal, Two Thirds North, and Poetry Salzburg

also in his book November Reconsidered. Janssen coordinates the Salem Poetry

Project, a weekly reading, the occasionally occurring Salem Poetry Festival, and

keeps getting nominated for Oregon Poet Laureate. For more information visit,

marcjanssenpoet.com.

Alexis Barton is a poet and student from Woodstock, GA. Her work can be

found in Poetic Power, The Journal of Undiscovered Poets, The Listening

Eye, and more, and she is currently working on her debut poetry collection.

She works a poetry reader for Chestnut Review and attends Kennesaw State

University to become an editor. In her spare time, she enjoys baking

macarons, drinking coffee, and watching the rain.


The Wild, The Strange, and The Disturbed

Pooja Singh

Something scratches the surface of my heart

something restless and stubborn

lurking in the untrodden regions

it scratches and digs its nails deep

it doesn’t know how else to speak

It haunts me like I imprisoned it there, and cursed it to outlive my body

it walks like my ribs are just a temporary fence

to protect the world from its rage

its nails, so long and sharp, it could slice the earth in two

but it knows all the exact moments

when it needs to be quiet, when I need it to be quiet

it has some strange understanding of what I need, in order to function

I think it could be an old friend,

somebody I used to know well and forgot,

I think it could be me.

The more it calls for my attention, the more I have to look away

anywhere but directly in its eyes.

My grandmother once told me to never look in the eyes of

the wild, the strange, and the disturbed

Some days, I wonder if it’s a person,

a prisoner, I locked away

for so long that it is as dangerous

to be haunted by its constant stare as it is to go near it

it may want all its years of abandonment back or payback

I think my life is less about living for me

and more about acting

like the entire walls of my heart are not etched with

deafening screams, etched in blood

that wait for the world to go silent,

like a tick-tock clock, running endlessly

except it never runs out of batteries.

Even when I’m sleeping, it is there, only louder.

Pooja Singh is an emerging poet based in India, a programmer by profession,

and the author of the debut poetry collection Until the Cold Is Gentle. Her

work has appeared in PULP LITMAG, Rogue Agent Journal, and is forthcoming

in Anarchist Fictions Journal. Beyond poetry, she loves to swim, hike,

travel, and learn new skills. Connect with her on Instagram at @p.s.aislinn

and on X at @musebythesea.


hanging the lights

Michelle Fung

puppy

Oliver Walton

and they’re shaped like ghosts, the silly little things

that’ll be up for twenty days before it’s time for change

again. in a past life, we were planning for the holidays,

with complementary clothes and which train we’re taking,

past the rundown factories and booking it together.

we were standing in the kitchen and you gave me

the spoon to lick the batter off. we were uneven

on the dining table, where you were sitting

normally and I was above you, stealing raspberries

from your bowl. I was making soup and you watched me

cut the onions but not the mushrooms, for the flavor

of your preferences and creativity and messing it up.

in a past life, we were the mushrooms, side by side

upon a mossy forest ground. watching the night sky

projector beam back down from the other world

and fixed to the ground until the deers came along.

in a past life, we shared a pair of lung-shaped earrings

and the skin on your arms and a twin-sized bed.

you were the autumn leaves to my blue, perpetual

summer frames behind a cloudy lens. in a past life,

you’re my lover and nothing is hard. in a past life,

I’m a little taller so everything is easier, and your head

can rest on my shoulder without the critical angle.

we get the lights hung, all level on the first try.

hey, puppy. i slept on your side of the bed.

i’m more warm than anything.

puppy, i’m drowning while you’re away. i

wholeheartedly believe that you’re coming

when you say you will. i eat tangerines in

the bath like i’ve never been sad. the water

runs lukewarm. puppy, we’ve got to fix the

heater. i’m cold without you—save me,

puppy, from the loud noise of the arcade,

the dripping faucet, the way your mouth

curves into a big black sky. puppy, i’m scared

while you practice your thunder sounds.

you could have said anything you wanted

& i would have taken it lightly. malnutrition

with me in the bathtub—i forget how i

started to cry. puppy, please come & get me.

i’m starting to shake under the covers. your

side of the bed is real & whole like i shouldn’t

be here. i can’t help myself, puppy. the tangerines

are too, too sweet & no one wants to sleep with me.

hey, puppy, i know you’re just home from

work, but i want to play princess. i saved all your

butts & candy wrappers so finally some of you

could be mine. i treat them, like silk, to a

Michelle Fung is a Chinese American writer from Washington. Her recent work

has appeared in The Denver Quarterly, Common Ground Review, Red Flag Poetry,

and elsewhere. She is currently studying bioengineering at the University of

Pennsylvania and writes poetry in between classes or during study breaks.

soirée while you’re away. all diamonds & god

for you, puppy. you’re religion, you’re polite,

puppy, i would never say anything ugly.


your side of the bed feels princess, too. the

imprint of your back in the sheets like a

fossil record. i learn, puppy, how to excavate.

your side of the bed is decadent. & the imprint

of me, somehow, doesn’t line up like i thought.

Hunger

Atticus Combs

his lips part in an awful grin as my tongue slithers inside

diving between cracked teeth in search of communion

exploring the cavern of his mouth

for a crumb of bread or fish

2 and 5.

1 and 10.

always worth it

always more

licking copper pearls, choking on rusted coins

tasting sour grapes in the crimson sea of his smile

busted lips, shredded gums, earth born wine

flip the table, take the stand, hold him close

blood and blood and blood and him

there is an ugly scar below his last rib

that feels like destiny beneath my starving fingers

he twists like it aches and I press harder

dig deeper, find a way inside

rip the bone from the dirt

like the eucharist

like his skin

taste it

Oliver Walton is a 26-year-old poet from Lexington, KY. In addition to writing,

she looks forward to Sunday dinners, doggy kisses, & long drives with slow music.

Oliver also enjoys collaging for Instagram (@doppelggang) and was most recently

published in Moyé Magazine.

I ask for more

beg at his freshly washed feet

lavender oil, creek bed sand, a kiss to the sole

just a taste


he laughs like there are thorns in his throat, on his head, in his veins

breaking bread with the devil is forbidden

like biting an apple, like turning around, like raising a stone

I ask again anyway, knees pressed to the ground

red, purple bruises. wine stained cracks of flesh.

I ache for it anyway

he gives me nothing

he asks for more

confess and you shall be forgiven

Hail Mary full of grace

please forgive me for my gluttonous greed

over and over and over and then

walk through the desert for forty days

gnaw at his collarbone with dog teeth

dirty him, clean him, eat him whole

kiss his cheek and watch him burn

his hands won’t stop bleeding

my hands won’t stop either

forgiveness is found in penance, he says

penance is found in pain

hell’s pantry is empty

so the devil doesn’t eat

Reader’s Digest

A.D. Powers

Can you stomach me?

I am waiting for love to hit me like a semi

and leave my guts swinging over the guardrail.

One cannot sink their teeth this deep for this long

and come up empty-handed.

Everything must return to Source.

Can you stomach me?

Wild and willing, screaming like a child,

like a secret mission gone wrong—

Loose teeth and smudged ink and

a beat that aches in the cage of your chest.

I have drained the marrow of longing

and it has dripped down my chin and become me,

but so has everything else that has happened.

Good luck reading in between these lines.

(Has anyone ever tried?)

Can you stomach me?

The oozing from my heart is deep black in comparison

to the love of higher beings and pipe dreams—

Let me be the pulsing dark fever to your sunlit sober howling.

Hurtling down the side of the mountain,

we’re a train that’s off the track.

Atticus Combs is a student at the University of Kentucky studying for his

undergraduate degree in English (with hopes to pursue his Masters after

graduation). As a born and raised Appalachian queer, he loves biblical imagery,

nature symbolism, and life in all its funny forms.

Can you stomach me?

You’ll need to learn, honey.

I’m only nice when I’m being digested.

I expect total annihilation—

No one has been good enough to do it to me, not yet.


But it’s a long, hot summer, and I’m sweating it out

in these woods, eaten alive by things that are not you.

So hurry, before the days slip by me, before it’s all over,

before it’s winter again.

I’ll be waiting.

Teeth We Lost in Winter

Austin Anthony

A soldier lied in a heap of his brother’s flesh

and washed out the ash with some blood

in his mouth. It swished around his teeth

and made him feel like a child again, in

the dentist’s chair, with a remnant of adolescence

fallen down into his hands. A piece of his body

which he had simply grown out of. I heard

that blood melts on your tongue

and chills the edges of your cheeks

just like fresh snowflakes do. I heard

that it feels like winter

when waves of it come piling down. I heard

that eventually you grow out of

your entire body, not just pieces of it. And I heard

how relieved he sounded

when he looked over to me and whispered:

it’s almost spring, isn’t it?

His skin stayed behind and rotted,

but it didn’t belong to him anymore:

sunken to the soil, covered with lush green vines—

growing like a first breath.

A.D. Powers is a writer from California currently attending UW-Green Bay. She

primarily writes in the horror genre.

Austin Anthony is a high school senior from San Antonio, Texas. He loves sports,

music, and writing.


I felt the tempering

The heaviness weighing me down

Tugging at my heartstrings

Begging to be cut

Opened by slitting

An artery

With a page

Ripped from the

Ledgers of my past

The tinkling of diamonds

Slipped from my veins

Startled me

With a flick of the wrist

Diamond Heart

K.B. Silver

In a crystalline crash

Could be destroyed or

Stolen, sullied or smashed

So I remove it now

Drive it into the floor

Collect all the sapphires

Amethysts and quartz

I stitch them strategically

Onto a gown

Like shimmering beads of

Truth and memorial warmth

Wearing fragments of

Heart outwardly

Allowing the reality of my

History to

Dazzle and scorch

Spreading the look and

Feel of love

With every sweeping step

I kept cutting

Slicing open skin and flesh

Revealing gleaming obsidian

Once red and pumping

Now hardened, black

With shining striations

Like a midnight lake

Removing one’s own heart

Sounds like an

Impossible task

The only thing holding

Any one of you back

Is fear

That the treasures and love

You’ve hoarded and trapped

Patiently grown

I Give away

Shards of myself

As they naturally dislodge

Weathering and changing the

Way I move about the world

Eventually, I start to drag

The weight of a heavy heart

Affecting me once again

K.B. Silver uses the art of writing to support a healing journey, regain memories of

a painful past, and move on to a healthier and happier future. They are a disabled

member of the California LGBTQ+ community and are striving to write from a

place of acceptance and love. They have self-published two books of poetry and

have poems published in the magazine Wishbone Words, the literary journals

Sheepshead Review, New Note Poetry, Twisted Vine, Avant Appalachia, recordings

in Stanza Cannon, and pieces in Wingless Dreamer anthologies.


In the Aftermath

Briana Meade

notes

Your steely-eyed mother says, I understand now

the thing you don’t expect her to say:

how fragile life is.

And you both pause to remember

how you neatly skated into near psychosis.

how your body pulsed like the heartbeat

of a sparrow slapped hard against a window.

Its tiny, beady eyes expecting weightlessness

of windless air, wings presuming–as usual–to carry.

Instead accepting the sand-pressed, solid

stopgap between worlds we call window,

we call glass, we call what doesn’t

shatter sometimes shatters you.

Briana Meade is a writer and poet who has previously published work in Relief

Journal, Literary Mama, and Merion West. She grew up as a “third culture kid” in

Chiang Mai, Thailand and lives with her husband and two kids in Apex, N.C.


In the Distance

Kira Ashbeck

Trained on the Sky

Pete Kornowski

Kira Ashbeck is a UW-Green Bay graduate from north central Wisconsin. She

began digital photography at six years old. Since then, she has expanded her

medium to include film. Kira’s intention as a nature photographer is to inspire

viewers to engage in nature conservation. To view more of her work, you can visit

her Instagram page @photography_bykira.

Pete Kornowski is a Wisconsin artist creating imaginative narratives throughout

his work. His paintings have been likened to “being plunged into the heart of a

book.” His scenes delve into mystery, discovery, and unexpected encounters. A

unique style of vibrant colors, stark light/shadow, and engaging action imbues his

compositions with a dreamlike quality: “If I can rekindle someone’s imagination, I

consider my work successful.” When not painting, he seeks to bring laughter, enjoys

hands-on projects, explores the wilderness, and resists the slow boil of the New

World Order. Pete has produced paintings, prints, and custom artworks, adorning

walls across the globe.

74 | Sheepshead Review Visual Arts | 75

Forest Road Creature

Pete Kornowski

The Bird

Madeline Perry

Pete Kornowski is a Wisconsin artist creating imaginative narratives throughout

his work. His paintings have been likened to “being plunged into the heart of a

book.” His scenes delve into mystery, discovery, and unexpected encounters. A

unique style of vibrant colors, stark light/shadow, and engaging action imbues his

compositions with a dreamlike quality: “If I can rekindle someone’s imagination, I

consider my work successful.” When not painting, he seeks to bring laughter, enjoys

hands-on projects, explores the wilderness, and resists the slow boil of the New

World Order. Pete has produced paintings, prints, and custom artworks, adorning

walls across the globe.

Madeline Perry is an English-Creative Writing major at UW-Green Bay. She has

been published in two prior editions of Sheepshead Review, twice in the Spring ‘23

publication (“Amanita Muscaria” and “Holiday Break is Over”) and once in the Fall

‘23 publication (“cryptid”). She enjoys hikes through the woods—lovingly dubbed

‘leaf hunts’ in the fall—and taking photos of anything and everything that strikes

her fancy, but if the weather’s bad she’ll curl up with a book or a story idea and

notebook. She hopes to begin publishing full-length novels soon.


Hotel Hell

Stephanie Schlies

Liminal Space

McKenna Kornowski

Stephanie Schlies’ journey as a nature photographer has been recognized with five

competitive awards, including NWTC’s Best in Show, NWTC’s Digital Arts Festival

Spring 2022, and gallery exhibition (Gallery 407: Nostalgia). For Stephanie,

photography transcends mere documentation; it is a medium through which she

weaves tales of emotion, infusing each frame with a depiction of what lives deep in

her soul. With every click, she aims to capture not just what meets the eye but the

hidden stories waiting to be uncovered, inviting viewers to embark on a journey of

discovery alongside her.

McKenna Kornowski is a mixed-media painter. She lives in a little green house

on 14 acres of land in Oconto, Wisconsin with her husband and chickens. She holds

a deep appreciation for the environment. In our increasingly high tech society

humans have a tendency to set themselves apart from the natural world. We are,

however, still intrinsically connected to the earth. It is McKenna’s hope that her art

helps to remind others of how it feels to be outside and full of adoration for our dear

Mother Earth.


Egret with Gold

McKenna Kornowski

Soaking up the Sun

Rachel Turney

McKenna Kornowski is a mixed-media painter. She lives in a little green house

on 14 acres of land in Oconto, Wisconsin with her husband and chickens. She holds

a deep appreciation for the environment. In our increasingly high tech society

humans have a tendency to set themselves apart from the natural world. We are,

however, still intrinsically connected to the earth. It is McKenna’s hope that her art

helps to remind others of how it feels to be outside and full of adoration for our dear

Mother Earth.

Rachel Turney is an educator in Colorado. Her poems and prose are published in

The Font Journal, Red Rose Thorns, Ranger, Through Lines, Blink Ink, Bare Back,

The Hooghly Review, and Teach Write Journal. Her photography appears in San

Antonio Review, Umbrella Factory Magazine, Prosetrics, Vagabond City, Dipity, and

Ink in Thirds magazine. Her artwork appears in Cosmic Daffodil. Blog:

turneytalks.wordpress.com Instagram: @turneytalks


Home of the Tired

Sarah Snip Snip

Haiku of a Troubled Mind

Sarah Snip Snip

Sarah.snip.snip is an award-winning Canadian collage artist specializing in

miniature collage. Her work, which has been featured in prominent art magazines,

is celebrated for its quiet power, blending minimalist compositions with carefully

curated found text to evoke deeper reflection. View her portfolio at

SarahSnipSnip.ca or on Instagram: @sarah.snip.snip

Sarah.snip.snip is an award-winning Canadian collage artist specializing in

miniature collage. Her work, which has been featured in prominent art magazines,

is celebrated for its quiet power, blending minimalist compositions with carefully

curated found text to evoke deeper reflection. View her portfolio at

SarahSnipSnip.ca or on Instagram: @sarah.snip.snip


High Tide

Kira Ashbeck

Broken Home

Gabby Feucht

Kira Ashbeck is a UW-Green Bay graduate from north central Wisconsin. She

began digital photography at six years old with her favorite subjects being her

beloved pets. Since then, she has expanded her medium to include film. This

image marks her eleventh publication. To view more of her work, you can visit her

Instagram page @photography_bykira.

Gabby Feucht, a small-town soul from Southern Wisconsin, is living for the thrill of

photographing bigger, broader stories from around the world. She is a twenty-one

year-old living and breathing the arts at UW-Green Bay and surrounding areas. As

an Art Education major ready to share her skills and knowledge to help those who

share her artistic passion, yes, she has been living in Studio Arts for the last four

years. If you think you saw her outside of Studio Arts, no you didn’t.


Dancing and Basking

Aza Isdeep

Brunswick Street

Madeline Holmes Grutzner

Aza Isdeep is a performance artist and filmmaker. She is currently working on a

short film titled, “Aza: Let’s Do It Again,” which is a revisioning of several micro

films she’s released previously in 2024. She also has a podcast and a YouTube

channel, both titled, “Aza Is Deep.” The themes around her work center around

reflection, self-love and female dominance.


Madeline Holmes Grutzner is a junior at UW-Green Bay. She is studying Graphic

Design and Marketing, and she enjoys all things creative. In her free time, she

enjoys painting, writing, and making music. She loves to capture the world

around her in her artwork, and showcase the beauty of everyday life that is often

overlooked.

Frozen Existence

Eric Calloway

Tea Time in a Lamp

Ellah Komp

From Eric Calloway: “Art for me is just a byproduct of my own existence. Whether

it’s a still photo of something that caught my eye or a painting conveying emotion.

If you saw something that was so moving, you stopped in your tracks... that’s what

is the best photo worth taking.”

Ellah Komp is an artist in her senior year at UW-Green Bay. Ellah has always had

a fascination with how everyday objects can be manipulated into works of art and

inspiration. Many of her works feature the manipulation of recycled or repurposed

materials. An example is this work, “Teatime in a Lamp”. This work was created

by collecting objects such as thrifted jewelry and objects found at secondhand

locations.


No Basis for a System of Government

Devan Giese

Sauron’s Bane

Ash Brown

Devan Giese is a Green Bay-based artist who bravely ventures where legend and

art collide. Expect the unexpected with paintings inspired by Arthurian legends,

filtered through a Pythonesque lens. Just don’t ask them to draw a killer rabbit.

Ash Brown is a 21-year-old artist currently based in Milwaukee. She’s currently

in her junior year at the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, majoring in

Illustration. She generally likes to work digitally, usually in Photoshop or Procreate,

but she also paints using oil, watercolor, or acrylic. She likes to make art based in

a fantasy setting, things like Lord of the Rings and Dungeons and Dragons really

inspire her.


To See

Donald Patten

I AM YOUR DAUGHTER

Brooke Schoening

Donald Patten is an artist and cartoonist from Belfast, Maine. He creates oil

paintings, illustrations, ceramic pieces, and graphic novels. His art has been

exhibited in galleries throughout Maine. To view his online portfolio, visit

donaldlpatten.newgrounds.com/art.

Brooke Schoening is a 20-year-old aspiring poet studying English-Creative Writing

and Writing and Applied Arts at UW-Green Bay. Working outside of her typical

medium, she wanted to try her hand at evoking a visceral feeling without the use

of words.


Cats and Reading

Jennifer S. Lange

Jennifer S. Lange is a self-taught artist creating illustrations for books, games,

posters, and world-building projects. Her work has been shown internationally and

in online exhibitions. Jennifer lives in northern Germany with her partner, and a

lot of cats.


hakoniwa - Miniature Garden

Kimberly Rouse

notes

Kimberly Rouse is a senior English student with a special love for video games

and whose motto is “knowing a little bit about a lot of things.” She enjoys reading

and writing stories about the human condition and how good intentions could have

drastic consequences.


48

46

‘24

Thank You, Read Again!

SHR Fall 2024

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