Red Wheelbarrow 2008 text FINAL REVISED.indd - De Anza College

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White Rose | Maaya Licht 50 | Red Wheelbarrow
My First Abortion | Ashley Barros Abandoned dogs are my crux. I visit the Humane Society during adoption hours every day. I started the day after my firstborn would’ve been due. Mostly, I’m satiated. But there’s a part that feels guilty, that the dogs will be there when I come back, over and over. The dog shelter is a hell for the aborted. People get dogs to top off their families, their lives, like a cherry on perfection. Until something else could top it off. Aborting a dog is more ethical than aborting a baby, easier than aborting tattoos. Dogs are disposable. This year, my cousin’s pregnant. She can’t hang onto jobs at places like the Sports Warehouse of Bend, Oregon. She doesn’t have any skills, except in personal hygiene. She was on the Pill for four years, but is inexplicably pregnant by a translucent meth addict. I’m confused about her self-esteem, and physiology. I feel physical agony as seconds flake off, like dead skin from my life. There isn’t enough time to be too busy for impromptu day trips into San Francisco, to remember to buckle in the car-seat every time. There are millions of people with babies, with the same life. I still feel like I’m being stabbed from the inside out, like it’s not all the way dead. I see families everywhere; getting into Honda Odysseys, picking their lost dogs up at the Humane Society, sitting at bus stops. They’re incandescent. Day-Glo. Nuclear. When Becky and I were in school, our friend got pregnant. Sixteen, not too smart to poke holes in condoms. She didn’t know who its dad was, but had plans: “If it turns out to be Anthony’s, I know he’ll want to get married. That’s just how he is.” A fat Cheshire cat smile on her face, like an evil queen. Becky told her, “That’s nasty. It’s wrong to have kids until you’re married, because they have a better chance of being happy when they grow up.” And it was so believable. At the shelter, there’s a cage with a nine-year-old pitbull, missing her left ear, white crisscross marks on the side of her head where it’s supposed to be. Her card says “Pokey.” Her half-lidded eyes fixed on pee-stained cement, hundreds of barks bleating off the cinderblock walls. She doesn’t move away from me sticking my fingers through the chain link, to rub them up and down her wrinkled white snout. I prod her scaly pink nose, telling her plot lines of movies I go see by myself, because all my friends have outgrown me, with their obligations and responsibilities, channeling into the same life. I wonder if she intuitively knows I obliterated a baby, because I don’t want to grow up and have responsibilities. To remember to Red Wheelbarrow | 51
Page 1 and 2: Red Wheelbarrow Literary Magazine S
Page 3 and 4: Editorial Staff Jose Acevedo Joann
Page 5 and 6: 133 | Years Pleat Us Hilary Strain
Page 7 and 8: Litfest Blues | Bo Kearns Southern
Page 9 and 10: then a lovely text stating that his
Page 11 and 12: She asked. And I told her. Fuck, I
Page 13 and 14: The Earthquake | Jaesun Kim Red Whe
Page 15 and 16: Care bears and telletubies love to
Page 17 and 18: 6 dollar sandwich | Andrew Jiang dr
Page 19 and 20: no cell phone no food no computer y
Page 21 and 22: suck it in spit it out in a thousan
Page 23 and 24: amplifies your own competitive fire
Page 25 and 26: Ojos de Mi Padre | Anaruth Hernande
Page 27 and 28: A Boy and His Bike | Helena Grunwal
Page 29 and 30: “My brother fell in the pool,”
Page 31 and 32: My dad came home hours later and wa
Page 33 and 34: Heavy | Lauren Catron Like the air
Page 35 and 36: “I need it to register for the SA
Page 37 and 38: La Virgen de East Los | John Gibert
Page 39 and 40: Black and White Abstract | Constanc
Page 41 and 42: Not so Changed | Jose Acevedo Anoth
Page 43 and 44: Nail Bowl | Jim Sauer Red Wheelbarr
Page 45 and 46: I arrived at the home of my client,
Page 47 and 48: “I mean, he is just so thoughtful
Page 49: ICU | Lauren Catron The needle weig
Page 53 and 54: Trish | Tamika Hayes Trish was the
Page 55 and 56: you come to America, you should lea
Page 57 and 58: situation. Plainclothes cops made r
Page 59 and 60: Guru (fragment) | Elena Peretz Red
Page 61 and 62: like a date rape than a molestation
Page 63 and 64: what you want? Cuz seriously, apart
Page 65 and 66: of a Soviet train to the government
Page 67 and 68: call their subway system) deterred
Page 69 and 70: for the sake of profit margins. The
Page 71 and 72: with the fish fork and stuck the me
Page 73 and 74: Shrug | Tina Wilkerson Sun-kissed s
Page 75 and 76: The Brown Land | Annie Mand A man p
Page 77 and 78: After years of hard work and a life
Page 79 and 80: she collected; twelve place setting
Page 81 and 82: Confectioner’s Sugar | Anne Fang
Page 83 and 84: the conversations just fine, he oft
Page 85 and 86: that has been bleached—bleached
Page 87 and 88: or at least shield her from the sig
Page 89 and 90: Fast Food Nation | Debbie Bakker Re
Page 91 and 92: The darker the flesh Then the deepe
Page 93 and 94: Fists clenched… Head down, Eyes s
Page 95 and 96: Queen of Sheba | Elena Peretz Red W
Page 97 and 98: Iris| Michael Vu Red Wheelbarrow |
Page 99 and 100: Escape from Uganda | Shoba Rao Nove
Page 101 and 102:
kept his eyes on the chessboard.
Page 103 and 104:
“Will you marry me tonight, Soni
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I twisted some arms to be put in a
Page 107 and 108:
Joann Andrushko: In your poem “Gi
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Autopsy Camp Wolverine, Kuwait Staf
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BT: I’m glad you’re not. But wh
Page 113 and 114:
Ruth Rabin: How did you write? Did
Page 115 and 116:
Then push off forty years in the fu
Page 117 and 118:
me. Humans have common ground and i
Page 119 and 120:
the poems I wasn’t writing them t
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soldier I met on a different base,
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ecause I didn’t really show my ca
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They train you. It helped me sort o
Page 127 and 128:
W’s War | Esmeralda Bustos Saddam
Page 129 and 130:
The Brave Boy | Gerri Tiernen He wa
Page 131 and 132:
Canyon Land | Lauren Catron Telepho
Page 133 and 134:
Years Pleat Us | Hilary Strain The
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A River of Cottons | Paul Edison A
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By the Hair of His Chinny Chin Chin
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“Does he always wear that coat?
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night and went their separate ways.
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salt. His hands were wet and sweat
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1521 | Yusuf Chao (First Place, 200
Page 147 and 148:
at night. That’s the problem with
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Red Wheelbarrow 2008 text FINAL REVISED.indd - De Anza College

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