Tulane Review Digital

Tulane Review
Digital Edition
Spring 2020

Flash Fiction,
Q&A
Graham Andreae is Editor
in Chief of the Tulane
Review. He watches cooking
shows; everything else
he reads. What he can
find to watch on television is usually not worth
mentioning. He writes himself and resides currently
in Maryland, but graduates from Tulane
this May. What follows is a conversation between
Lee Hodge and himself and the winning
entry for the flash fiction contest.

Butter
After Terrance Hayes
By Lee Hodge
That’s the hottest part of the fire: the turfburning
underneath. Make use of yourself
and blow on ita bit,keepingthe door to the
stove shut so thatanything thrown in immolates
right away. The way that log is burning,
it looks like the hottest part of the fire but
it isn’t, it is the peat which was once plants.
Peatburns hotter thanwood withflamesthat
areblue, nearly greenlike the northern lights
you have never seen in person, nor have
you ever owned a woodstove but this will be
enough for today;having control over what
is going on inside this one.This peat that will
soon be burnt to nothing accumulated at
one millimeter per year andhasstrange oxygen
deficient and antibacterial properties enabling
the preservation of things like butter,
sometimes bodies. The bodies are perfectly
detailed; thehairstyles, the nipples cut off so
thathe could not be king are hanging offstill,-
like two little tags. His face is peaceful in the
museum copy despite the throatbeing slit.
Q&A
Do you consider your piece a poem, prose, or a
mix of the two and what do you find most interesting
about those intersections?
It’s definitely a mix! I enjoy work that blurs boundaries.
I wrote this piece in response to a cross disciplinary work,
Highborn, reportedly, but who knows how anyone
else lives that much closer to the center.With
all this tallow offered to the land, these great
unlit candles buried in the bog, they begged
the weather not to curdle the flesh of theirchildren.They
will befoolish, bearingmore children
an essay-poem by Terrance Hayes, so genre hybridity was on the eve of a famine. What they don’t know
a very fundamental concern. Work that explores these in-coultersections offers the opportunity for critique on so many sometimes like when you liedown on the earth
fill a book. You can feel it pulling on you
different levels and allows for conversations about the by the ocean, the jagged feeling of some rock
way we read and why to unfold. The unfolding of genre pointing in an uncomfortable direction,some
boundaries is crucial to changing perceptions regarding touch of fear. It has becometoodark to see your
the capabilities of language and I am all about that. loveragainst the shape leading to the other side
of the harbor.You never needed a lover,have almost
forgotten you brought one hereand do not
What do you think separates writing that works
and writing that does not?
notice when they have left you.Later, staring at
I was talking to a friend recently about my dislike of the the fire for a long time, you are satisfied in the
word “craft” and its application toward writing. I was imperfectabilityof making a fire and not having
holding down some nebulous and stubborn claim that intended to do anything at all today, anotherday
the appeal of the term is in its physicality- an attempt to when there were unknown numbersof people
make an intellectual task like writing seem more tangible underneath you that were always there, distinct
and real and thusly “crafted”. It conjures up images of in some vapor of moleculespushing edges into a
sanding tables or weaving fabric or doing any other cooler
more muscular thing than sitting in front of a comput-
people lived, they buried food even though they
place thatjust happened tobe and like you, those
er typing. I tend to identify writing that hangs around in were starving, stared at the fire a long time, and
my mind as writing that works, regardless of whether I wanted to be king.
would consider myself to have liked it or not.

Q&A
You play a lot with visual imagery, but
play little with form in your story. Do
you feel that how you arrange text on
the page shapes the readers perception
or do you see it as a crutch?
For this piece in particular I wanted it to have
a blocky and sort of aggressive presence on
the page. I wanted it to seem like a wall or an
accumulation of historical strata and information
that builds up. The tone of this piece
has this kind of plodding, didactic momentum
and I wanted the almost…obstinate…lack of
movement in the form to mirror that conceptually.
What was the inspiration behind this
piece?
Peat bogs are one of my periodic obsessions.
My first encounter with them was literary;
in Brontë’s Wuthering Heights the bog is the
magical otherworldly place that preserves
Kathy’s body after death. More currently I understand
bogs as an environment that is rapidly
disappearing as more and more peat is
harvested as fuel. I was fresh off a read from the Hayes’
collection Hip Logic when I saw some bog bodies in person
and began drafting this piece. The Hayes essay-poem
is this rumination on sexuality and power and how those
forces shape social structures and resource allocation. I
was thinking about those allocations and ambitions which
often manifest in entropy and destruction under the guise
of progress.
What brought you to writing in the first place?
What’s your history with words so to speak?
I’d say my interest in writing probably grew out of a fairly
common place- reading. A lot of my writing responds
either directly or indirectly to recent reading. I try to value
equally the experience of reading something great and
wanting to talk back to it with the experience of reading
something so awe inspiring that I am dumbstruck in its
wake.
Lee Hodge
is a current Master of
Fine Arts candidate at
Virginia
Commonwealth University.
She holds a Bachelor’s
Degree in writing from the
School of The Art Institute of Chicago. Her
work has appeared or is
forthcoming in *Euphony, Clinch Mountain Review,
After Hours, HeartWood *
and *F News Magazine. *She is a recipient of a
2020 Laura Bassi Scholarship
and lives in Richmond, Virginia.

Editors
Olivia Longoria is a
freshman from El Paso,
Texas, majoring in English.
She is an avid
Fitzgerald fan, and
when not editing prose
for the review, she enjoys painting.
Prose
Rachel is currently a
freshman in the School
of Liberal Arts, majoring
in international relations
and philosophy,
with a potential minor
in German. Born and
raised in El Paso, Texas, she plans to continue
on to law school and work either in immigration
advocacy law, or as a public defender.
Some of her favorite authors include Frederik
Backman and Michael Chabon, though she
has a soft spot for historical fiction.

Shades of Red
By Annie Burky
My mask was a frigid blue. The first strap rested
in the space where my head and neck met.
The
other reached above and over, to the crown of
my head in the exact place where putting on a
hat or removing glasses became a calculated
maneuver. The mask formed a kind of medical
blue shell over my mouth, protruding, rigid
and firm in its isolation of air.
The straps of Mengqi’s mask were forthright,
two loops reaching back over either ear.
The mask was designed to be easily brought
below her chin to eat or drink. The fabric was
flimsy, made of red mesh, the same shade that
bordered most doors during Spring Festival,
the
same color that would erupt in fireworks at
midnight to usher in the New Year, frightening
off the
supernatural demons that could be roaming
about.
We were two of few wearing masks. The security attendants
weren’t wearing any; the
children and elderly weren’t either. I had a feeling Mengqi
was only wearing one because I was.
Her brother rejected the accessory altogether. I considered
removing mine in the name of
community, until a man with a persistent cough sat next
to me in the stadium-sized waiting area,
a particularly rattling attack shaking his frame. My eyes
inadvertently drifted to his, driven by a fit
of unnamed anger that I failed to place until I saw betrayal
reflected back at me. The shame of a
lack of cultural propriety faded as I imagined a million
particles of death finding the minuscule
cracks between protection and skin.
We had begun our journey from the Chongqing North
Railway Station. One province
removed from Hubei and its capital city of Wuhan. There
were few confirmed cases of the novel
virus in Chongqing despite a large population.
Even if we were departing from someplace smaller we
would likely not have had seats to
accommodate the three of us. In the midst of Spring Festival
traffic myself, Mengqi, and her
brother took turns enjoying the one seat we had managed
to reserve and leaning against
handrails next to the compartment bathrooms.
The train was one of the new models, fashioned
and perfected within the space between
the last epidemic and the one this virus promised
to become. These were the fast trains that
connected the corners of the country in a spider
web of constant exchange. I had been
astonished by their compartments when I first
arrived in China, feeling myself looking at the
future of travel and the beginning of a new life
in a new country, a place I’d fallen into a quick
love affair with, hoping to establish my career in
a land of seemingly infinite potential.
Unlike the old slow trains, these were a sleek
white, always, immaculately clean. Seats
leaned back into surprisingly comfortable angles.
The cushions were still new and therefore
lacking the indentations of bodies. Usually, it
was quite easy to reserve one of the seats due to
the sheer volume of trains departing and arriving
daily, but in these times of celebration, it
wasn’t uncommon to find oneself pressed
against a wall, hoping for an empty space. And
so
that is where Mengqi and I found ourselves -
standing, yet lulled by the ever so slight rumble

of
efficiency.
“My mom told me there are no cases of the virus
in our city,” Mengqi said as her brother
enjoyed his shift in the seat.
“Good, I can breathe easier.”
“What does ‘breathe easier’ mean?”
“I can relax.” She sat with the phrase for a
moment.
“When the virus is gone we can all breathe
easier.” She said the last two words like she
was afraid of dropping them. We exchanged a
smile.
“Did your parents ask you to wear a mask?”
She posed the question with an expression
that was hard to read with the lower half of
her face covered, but I thought it was something
akin
to curiosity or compassion.
“No, we haven’t talked about it.” Her eyes expanded
slightly and then with control,
relaxed.
“How often do you talk to them?”
“Maybe once a week, it depends.”
“Is that normal for America?”
I tried to imagine what was “normal” for my
country, which reality I existed beneath.
“I guess so.”
Even when I could sit comfortably for my allotted hour in
the seat, the area under my
mask was agitating. The avoidance of an urge to scratch,
the accumulating stale humidity, the
general heat - all sensations rose into a crescendo whenever
I took the time to notice them.
The virus was small then but anyone could have predicted
what it would become, anyone with
an understanding of viruses in China. I have this knowledge
now, after diving into the corners of
the internet at night while Mengqi gently snored. Her
parents assured us that the government
would handle things, that this plague would pass by our
door. Yet I continued to read a deluge
of western assessments, acquiring a sweat that was acidic
with tension.
When I woke the morning after our arrival in the nearly
anonymous town of 100,000
people, Mengqi’s mother commented on my tired eyes as
she offered me breakfast, directing
me to eat slowly and eat more and rest more. I bristled at
her prying suggestions, ones that my
own mother had not offered since primary school.
We had arrived a few days before the Spring Festival was
to begin. Taxis continued to
prowl the streets, boats meandered down the river,
shop doors yawned wide in a passive
acceptance of the world and its multitude of human
incubators. Mengqi’s parents owned one of
such stores. Therefore, we were left on our own
to wander the streets with a small gang of
young relatives.
The city was still a city, but small compared to
the commonplace giants of China. The
buildings seemed to layer upon one another, an
acceleration of the abandonment of rural life.
With only our steps we could encapsulate the
area in the better part of an afternoon, invariably
finding ourselves at the pebbled beaches of the
river that divided the city.
The population of masks seemed to ebb and
flow depending on our location. Most
people hid them somewhere on their person and
then upon entering the bustling markets or the
downtown area where women sold candied apples
on sticks and men offered games for
children to play, the masks would be donned
with passive acceptance. Despite the presence of
people beside the water none wore masks, wel-

coming the cleansing breeze dancing in
accordance with the flow of the river.
Our crowd was a small huddle of cousins and
sisters whose relations were unclear to
me. I abandoned clarification and found myself
with the youngest member of the group, a
12-year-old who handed me a lighter and a
handful of firecrackers the size of cigarette filters.
“You hold the fire here,” she said while pointing
to the black tip, “and when it changes
color you throw it away from you.” She
demonstrated. Standing tall, holding the flame
steadily at
the end, black circle turned scarlet. In a second
that seemed to stretch on, she held it to
ensure
its triggering, then she tossed the small explosive.
It floated on a pool of water amongst the
rocks, releasing a small trail of smoke until it
let off a stifled thud and water shot into the air.
“Your turn.”
I squatted low, held the flame steady. When the
images of bloodied stumps and the sound of
my mother’s admonishments cascaded
through my mind, I tossed the cracker into the
puddle.
We waited, ears plugged.
Nothing happened.
“You threw it too early. Try again.” I held five in my
hand; fully aware that if I were to fail
again the loss of this 12-year-old’s respect would be imminent.
She was quite possibly the
coolest 12-year-old I’d ever met, proven by the maintenance
of the most demanding
requirements for friendship.
I held the cracker closer this time. The fire and black
meeting, slowly turning to a burnt
crimson. My pounding heart was unheeded. When I was
certain I would lose a finger, if not a
whole hand, I threw it.
Again, we covered our ears. The sound wasn’t terribly
loud but it was more fun to
pretend it was. This time a hollow thud rang out with
dancing water. We exchanged a smile. The
air tasted of confirming ash.
When the news of the virus had first broken, there had
been electricity in the air, something to
talk about, and something to fill the hours between meals.
People took turns offering new intel.
Groups of unmasked greying men sat in circles, one by
one tossing cards in the downtown
square.
And then supplies began to run low. Pharmacies
displayed signs declaring their lack of
masks. Lines started forming in the early hours.
The bubbling conversations became hushed,
hidden, a need to express fear coupled with a
desire to allow one’s neighbor a reprieve.
Mengqi’s parents asked us to find masks. We
managed to track down a livestock supply
store at the edge of town. We bought every last
one they held in-store and on the way home
complained about the people who had left the
pharmacies dry. When we met her mother at the
shop, she hid the bag behind the counter, explaining,
“if customers see me wearing one they
might be afraid.”
Mengqi’s family only wore the masks in the public
park where we would pass an hour
after every lunch. People meandered in clusters
as usual, but now left each other a wide berth,
space for wind to fill. It was there that we heard
the latest rumor from a neighboring group of
walkers: a car with a license plate from Wuhan
had been spotted. “The police were informed
but
there’s no word as to what happened to the driv-

er,” a middle-aged woman said at an octave
just
loud enough for us to pick up as we passed her
group.
I had thought the virus was still a small topic
to be shared over meals, between bites.
However, when I understood the weight of
those words I looked to the group of walkers,
catching the eye of an elderly woman. There
was a certainty in them, an awareness of what
had
happened in the past and will happen in the
future and may be happening now. It was in
their
eyes, the experienced, that we should have
seen everything to come. But, like the rest of
the
youth, I refused to acknowledge the things that
were not yet ours.
The next morning, New Year’s Eve, we
woke early and shared sweet dumplings. As
Mengqi’s
mother placed the bowl in front of me she offered
gently, “eat slowly.” When I finished the
bowl
she refilled it, “eat more”. The instructions
were placidly comforting. Not to read the American
news that seemed to conjure up a new virus story every
hour, nor the Chinese news that
promised an imminent complete containment, but, rather,
to simply eat and rest and in the
process, inadvertently wait.
We began a merry-go-round of sorts between the houses
of Mengqi’s family. Apartments
crackling with movement, women bustled with the preparations
of a meal large enough to fill
more than one cornucopia. The young scampered,
squealing and accepting nibbles of snacks
from offering hands, the men sipped a white liquor literally
named white liquor, the elderly
watched television a few clicks above mute. The screen
projected a drama centered on the
Japanese invasion of the latter century. The seniors were
rapturous while no one else seemed
to take notice. Sightings of Japanese soldiers were rare;
traces of their brutality marked their
footprints: a bloodied soldier yowling in a hospital bed, a
woman clasping her coat, explosions. It
seemed that no matter the backdrop the flashing signs of
blasts lit up the actor’s faces, a
promise of the things to come, perhaps only on the opposite
side of the horizon.
A woman I assumed to be Mengqi’s grandmother
turned to me, “does your family watch
these shows?”
“My father likes movies about World War Two.”
“About the Japanese?” She looked encouraged.
“About the Nazi’s.” there was not the disappointment
in her face that I expected, rather a
confirmation of universality bounced in her
nod.
The program was never switched off. As the
meal began, plates poured from the kitchen.
One table stood high, surrounded by chairs and
men with a bottle of liquor between them.
Another table, short, a couch on one side and
stools on the other, hot milk for every cup,
surrounded by women and children. Segregation
based on beverages.
A small cup of liquor was offered from the taller
table, “we know that foreign women can
drink.” In acceptance, I rose, taking the cup. As
the liquor warmed my chest the men continued
their discussion.
“There is an unconfirmed case of the virus.”
The cups were refilled.
“Where?”
“At our hospital.”

A nod passed around the table as cups were
lifted.
My mind began to spin with the truth and
the alcohol and the sound of explosions that
could be heard between sips.
The rest of the meal passed quietly with a
distinct appreciation for the proximity to
others and
the heaping mounds of food so opulent that
plates buried one another. Meats fresh and
preserved were placed into my bowl by
Mengqi’s aunt. A toddler newly exposed to
the early
frustrations of chopsticks was aided by her
mother after an unsuccessful joust with a
mushroom.
Perhaps her attention was distracted by the
red envelope clasped in her other hand, given
to
her by an unidentified relative. When
prompted she seemed unable to offer up the
significance
of such an item or its monetary contents but
her quickly whitening knuckled exhibited an
awareness of its unsaid value.
A passive connection molded space for solitary
thoughts while being surrounded by the
people they had always been surrounded by, the people
they would always call their own, the
people they would lay down next to, and lay down their
lives for. I realized that no matter the
hospitality nor the comfort nor the acceptance, these
were not my people. They would do
whatever they could to protect me, but if they looked
into my eyes they would see only this one
moment, not an entire lifetime of warmth shared. That
was the moment I knew the virus was
real.
Upon the finishing of lunch, everyone added masks to
their ensemble before traipsing
out into the mild cold to pass the hours between lunch
and dinner. The markets and the squares
were devoid of their economic pursuits. Wandering bodies
exchanged the occasional spattering
of conversation while holding a constant, passive sense
of camaraderie.
Mengqi and I walked astride one another.
“I think one of your uncles said there was a case of the
virus here.”
She searched my eyes before cocking her head back to
her mother to ask for
confirmation.
“There are three cases in our town,” her mother
said flatly.
Mengqi’s eyes returned to mine. “Will you tell
your parents?”
A weighted exhale passed through my nose,
catching in the mask.
Upon a completed circle we continued on to another
family member’s house where we
ate dinner before returning home to watch the
New Years Gala. We sat with our phones aloft,
playing the various games and the occasional
lotteries trumpeted by the television hosts. It was
only when the sound ebbed that we were woken
from our reveries by the eerie reality of silence.
“Tonight we will break our regular schedule
with a special segment.” A seemingly
ageless man along with his impossibly young female
cohost was met by a group of equally
famous Chinese television stars.
The screen cleared and settled on a group of
doctors fortified as though they were to
pass within a radiation zone. They passed patients
laying askew with their own masks feeding
oxygen. As the announcer’s disembodied voices
spoke with uplifting platitudes the camera
shifted between everyone who would be affect-

ed: patients, doctors, children. The final image
fell
upon a small boy kissing his mother goodbye
as she donned her white coat and stepped
into a
van that would take her into the heart of
darkness.
The announcer’s flawless faces returned
with fists held skyward.
“Come on, Wuhan!”
“Come on, China!”
The live studio audience cheered.
Music indicated a return to televised festivities
as we reverted to our phones.
“Annie,” with a second thought Mengqi’s father
set his phone down, “What do your
parents think of this?”
“America seems worried but it’s hard to
know from here.”
“Are they worried because they don’t trust
our country?” Perhaps it was a leading
question, or perhaps he knew more about
America than he initially let on.
“I believe that Americans who don’t trust
China do so not because it is China but
because it isn’t America.”
He nodded knowingly.
“Are you afraid to travel through the train station?”
I tried to imagine the least insulting response, something
that could balance between
truth and propriety.
“A bit.”
He nodded again and looked at his phone.
“My older brother is driving back to Chongqing tomorrow,
you can go with him so you
can avoid the crowds.”
He did not offer the one remaining seat in the car to his
daughter or son who would
inevitably make the same trip.
“That way if you need to fly back to America it will be
safer.”
His words rested between us.
“Thank you,” I nodded, he held my eyes, “I’ll tell my parents.”
When the hour encroached on midnight we left the
couch, each grabbing a bundle of
fireworks, passed through the kitchen, out to the balcony,
and climbed the stairs on to the roof
where the flashes of light could awaken the sleeping
plants in the rooftop garden. Mengqi’s
father and brother each took a hoe and dug a small trench
in the dirt to ensure the stability of
the tubes. We held lights to guide their digging.
The city was dark, the only dimensions of the
skyline defined in varying shades of grey.
There was the light ash of the small ledge that
was Mengqi’s building; beyond, the pewter of
the
surrounding apartments; further the iron mountains
backed by an ebony sky, for a moment
their
shapes remained vague and untraceable. Then,
in less than a blink, color erupted. To the east,
a series of firecrackers spewed in machine-gun
fire: to the south, arms extended beyond their
balconies holding dancing sparklers; to the west,
small, arching fireworks reached into the near
night while Mengqi’s father took the tubes from
our hands, placing them firmly in the ground,
packing the dirt. Mengqi’s brother offered me a
lighter. “For our guest,” he said with a quiet
smile.
I came close in order to see the fuse, my heart
galloping around the catching flame. The
five of us stepped back with hands against our
ears and quiet anticipation on our faces; we
inhaled a collective breath, exhaling into the
night air. It seemed like the whole world was

waiting, not knowing if a flame would burst
forth or a sizzle would fade into the night.
When the first tube released its ruby parcel the
trail was brilliant and the explosion was
felt, hearts settled with the first blast, falling
into sync. As the shades of red unfolded above
our
heads we forgot our caution, letting our hands
fall, leaving our ears left free to absorb every
bit
of the new reality. Fireworks in the countryside
mirrored our own, the mountains were outlined
by flame and promise and a fierce resolve to
not abandon the future to the demons that
threatened to extinguish everything
Memories like Spider Silk
By Annie Burky
I can see the spider on my crooked ceiling fan.
I know I shouldn’t be able to. It’s night and the
moon is out. If I was anywhere else I wouldn’t
be able to see its spindly, needle legs twitching
and moving about. But the lights from the city
never fade. They fill my room, all bright and
white so that if I close my eyes I can feel them
burning against my lids and pretend that it’s the
morning.
The city is close to New York, it grabs at the
morsels that New York decides to drop its way.
It’s not a pretty or extravagant place. People love
to make fun of it, call its inhabitants rude, call
them cruel. We are not rude and we are not cruel.
We are simply not like them, we are not used
to being catered to. We have hard shells over our
hearts and harsh lights in our faces. We know
eyes are on us but we don’t care to act differently.
We are the underbelly and take pride in it.
The lights let me follow the creature’s twitching
legs as it builds a bridge line with two, near-invisible
strands. The creature begins to add in

anchor points, lays the frame threads, and on
and on in its primal need to create a temporary
home. Come morning, I will destroy the
web with a broom or duster or anything that
I’m able to get my hands on. I’ll crush the spider
under bristles or suffocate it beneath layers
of feathers, whatever makes it hurt more.
Amma wouldn’t have been happy to hear
that, and neither would Baba. They’d tell me
how everything has a life, everything deserves
a chance. Yet, I remember when we’d travel
to Dadi’s house far outside of America, into
the heart of Rajasthan where Amma would
scream at the sight of a tiny gecko and demand
it be tossed out or killed. Isn’t it hypocritical
then for them to ask me to let the spider
live? My spider is like their gecko. I liked
the geckos, I found them comforting and kind.
They were sweet things, more scared of me
than I was of them. If I approached, they’d
skitter up the walls in a frenzy, moving with
amazing speed for such little things. They
meant no harm. Amma and Baba would have
said the same of my spiders.
When I lie in my bed and stare at the crooked
ceiling fan and watch that stupid spider
make its temporary web, there are two moments
that I find myself going back to. I always go back to
them. I don’t think of them on purpose. Instead, they
come to me rising from the back of my mind, unbidden.
They leech their way into my life over and over
like a recorder stuck and unwilling to move onto the
next scene. Sometimes the words crumple together
and create new images, different images. Sometimes
they’re the same image repeated over and over. I
don’t know which one is more accurate, I don’t know
which one is the lie and which one is the truth. Sometimes
both the moments come crashing together,
sending fire and shrapnel in all directions, forcing me
to watch because how can I look away from such an
enticing sight?
They are moments that are always there but when
sleep refuses to come and the white lights of the city
burn into my eyes, illuminate my room, and fill my
four walls with noise, my mind begins to wander into
the recesses that I try to keep away from. They are
moments that I want to be pushed aside, especially
after what I’ve just been told.
The call had been brief and short and full of breathy
sobs. They begged me to come home. They said they
needed me back. I didn't want to go back. I don't
think I'm able to go back. Like the spider, my home is
temporary and unlike the spider, it’s not Shiva
or Allah who will come down, their hands intertwining
to become one entity as they crush
my home while I’m still inside. No, I’m going
to destroy it all on my own. No one will take it
from me. I will willingly give it up.
I listened for a long time and then I hung up,
saying nothing back. There was nothing to say.
The phone still rests next to my head, the metal
cool when my forehead bumps against it. I
don’t bother to touch it, to reach for it.
I was praying when they called. I don’t know
to which god. If I sit up I can see the shrine in
the corner of my room. It’s an oak case, a gift
from Bhai. The glass has fingerprints on it. I
should clean it, make it clear but I won’t. Even
with the fingerprints and the dirtied glass I can
see Lord Shiva looking at me with the threepronged
spear in hand. He doesn’t have a particularly
angry expression, nor does he have a
happy one. He seems indifferent to staying in
the oak case. The snake around his neck looks
angry. The blanket with the names of Allah
sits next to Shiva. Under the pair is Ganesh
with his elephant head and kajal rimmed eyes
and the janamaz, brought from the markets of

Jaipur, plucked from the stall of a screaming
vendor trying to sell all his wares. Under
them are the prayer beads. The mala with
its hundred and eight beads and the tasbeeh
with its ninety-nine. Both have seen wear,
both have the paint chipping off the beads. I
should get new ones.
Bhai wouldn’t approve of the sight. He
would get angry. Uppi would find it sad, pathetic
that I still clung to both like a starving
dog. That’s how she liked to put it. I was a
starving dog and my gods were giving me
small morsels. Enough to satiate my hunger
but not enough to have me full enough to
cast them aside.
It’s all because of their sobbing pleas that
I’m like this. I’d nearly refused to answer either
of their calls but finally picked up. Uppi
was crying, telling me to come home. I could
hear Bhai not too far from her. His hiccuping
cries were familiar. Uppi’s cries were foreign.
I’m unable to stop my thoughts from
going back. They’ve latched their hooks in
and they won’t let go until they’ve got me
on the deck of their ship, flopping around,
gasping for water to fill my lungs.
Was that how Amma and Baba felt when they found
them? Did they do it willingly? Or was it an accident?
Uppi said that Amma wanted to be buried next to
Baba but Baba wanted to be cremated with Amma.
Of course, the idiots hadn’t discussed it amongst
themselves. They were always like that. Their big romantic
gestures meant to be a surprise. Amma wanted
to be buried in the Islamic way, contrary to her
beliefs and Baba wanting to be burned the Hindu
way, contrary to his beliefs. Maybe they hadn’t done
it on purpose then. Maybe it really was an accident.
If it was on purpose it would have been planned out.
Wouldn’t it?
Uppi sounded scared. I hadn’t heard her sound like
that for a long time.
The first moment, the first and only other time I saw
Uppi scared, I know that I was five. Uppi was much
older, I’d thought she was an adult but when I’d asked
Amma only days before, she said that Uppi had only
been thirteen and when I asked about Bhai, she said
that he had been ten. At the age of five, I snuck into
the Jersey City mandir that we frequented, with Uppi
and Bhai to catch the Jinn and send it away. Snuck
in, is a generous term on my part. I was more a follower,
it was Uppi and Bhai who chose to act. I didn’t
do much without them. It was more Uppi than it was
Bhai.
On Friday evenings Amma would take me
and my siblings to the temple in Jersey City.
We each had religious class there. Amma
didn’t want us to forget her religion, just as
Baba didn’t want us to forget his when he sent
us to Saturday School in the masjid during
the early morning. It wasn’t very big back
then, only a small building with crisp walls
and a little stage at the center where Lord
Shiva sat. Off to the left and right were the tinier
stages of other gods. The rugs would be
laid out before the stages for people to sit and
pray, their hands joined and a wish ready on
their lips. I considered myself lucky, I had two
places that I could send my wishes.
The Jersey City Mandir was a building that,
despite its small and dingy outside, was taken
care of and loved but not one that had many
people present inside of it. There were more
Muslims in the city back then. I think there
are more Hindus now. I’m not sure but from
the way that Chachu keeps complaining and
the way Mamu keeps praising the community,
it seems that way.
Before Amma would take us, I would have an

hour to eat a snack and finish the homework
I should have done earlier in the
week. If I’m remembering right, Amma
was busy dealing with Bhai and Uppi so I
was sent to Chachu’s house because it was
the closest to ours.
I would walk outside the door, jump the
two steps where Amma kept her pudina
plant and there would be his door only
three steps away.
When I was finishing the homework I realized
my cousin was peering over my shoulder.
I’d written that Rama and Muhammad
had gone to the forest with Hajr. I’d
written that Shurpanakha was a Jinn. I’d
tossed the words I’d learned in both schools
into a pot, mixed them up, and slopped
them onto a plate that I’d created.
Basma, my cousin, felt the need to make
fun of me. “You idiot.”
“That’s a bad word,” I mumbled.
She shook her head in a pitying way.
“You’ve got all the questions wrong.”
“How could you know that?” I asked,
keeping my head down.
“Because the Jinn aren’t yours, they’re
ours. The Prophet isn’t yours, he’s ours. Hajr isn’t yours,
she’s ours.”
I didn’t disagree with her, choosing instead to erase my
answers and fill in names that I thought might be right.
My teacher, the mean uncle, was disappointed and
made me stand outside the classroom. I was left there,
forgotten. I was never the sort of student to cause a
scene or to be remembered even with my botched answers
and my pathetic pronunciations. When the other
kids were being sent out, my teacher remembered me.
He gave me a gold star for the day if I promised not to
tell Amma about being left outside.
I wouldn’t have told even if he didn’t give me a gold
star. But I didn’t tell him that, I stuck it on my frock and
watched the light catch the sheer gold of it.
Uppi came to get me. She dragged me off to toward the
closet where Bhai was waiting and hid me, then herself.
When I asked why we were hiding I was shushed. When
I asked if Amma was here yet, I was shushed. When I
kept asking Bhai finally answered, his voice clipped and
annoyed.
“We’re here to see the Jinn,” he hissed.
Uppi elbowed him in the stomach, “Don’t talk to her
like that. But, yes,” she agreed. “We’re here to see the
Jinn.”
“There’s a Jinn?” I asked, starting to pick at the golden
star I was given.
“Yes,” they both said together.
“Why is the Jinn here? Basma said that Jinns
are theirs.” A bit of the gold came off on my
thumb, making it shiny.
“What does that even mean?” said Bhai.
“Don’t listen to Basma,” Uppi said. She
pulled me into her lap and began to fix my
ruined braids. “Basma doesn’t know anything.
Jinn can be whatever they want.”
I’d frowned and thought that over for a moment.
“The Jinn here is a Hindu,” explained Bhai in
a low and serious voice.
“There are Hindu Jinns?” I’d asked.
“Of course,” he said, no longer angry and irritable
now that we were talking about something
he liked. “They’re Christians and Jews
and Muslims. They choose what they are, like
us.”
“We didn’t really choose,” Uppi whispered in
my ear. “Not yet.”
Bhai didn’t hear. He continued on his tirade,
“Did you know you can also marry a Jinn?”
“I didn’t know that,” I said.
“I did,” said Uppi.

Bhai scowled at her for ruining his knowit-all
moment. “Do you think they’re handsome?”
“Pretty,” Uppi corrected him, her eyes
grave and serious for a moment.
Bhai startled and nodded in agreement,
“Yes, I meant pretty.”
“I think they are,” I piped up, still scratching
the color off my golden star sticker.
We waited there for hours until we were
certain the doors had been shut. Only
then did we crawl out of our hiding place.
Amma was sure to be worried, thinking we
got lost on our way back. When we were
found in the morning, by the nice priest,
not the mean one, he brought us back to
our parents. Amma was in tears and Baba
was furious. But until then we were out
hunting for Jinn, looking for answers.
I don’t remember when I got separated
from them. But I did. I don’t remember
the alley way that appeared before me with
its winding path and endless hall. I think
it wound up and up and up. There was a
bump in one of the steps, jarring and startling.
In the dark I couldn’t see it, my feet
tripped over it and I was on the floor. I tasted copper in
my mouth and felt something wet and warm coat my
teeth. My braids had come undone and the golden color
of my star was white.
I felt fingers in my hair. Threading through the undone
braids. Baba had always said to keep my hair tied when
night time came or the Jinn would grab hold of it. I’ve
kept my hair tied ever since. I remember feeling familiar
arms around me. They were Uppi’s arms. She was
shaking, she was sobbing. She began to recite the bits of
the ayatul kursi that she managed to remember. It was a
broken, stilted prayer with me cradled in her arms like a
baby. My own voice mixed with hers pitched and just as
frightened.
***
The second moment that refuses to leave was when
I was seven, probably, and Uppi had decided to make
an announcement. I don’t remember the day, I don’t
remember what we’d been doing or when. Sometimes
when I look back I think it was in the morning, perhaps
before Baba had to go to work and before we had to go
to school. We were sat together on the small, round table
and Amma had made eggs or maybe we’d ordered
out and gotten puri and aloo subzi and cholay. Maybe it
was dinner. Maybe we weren’t even eating.
I don’t think it matters what we were doing because
what I remember is what Uppi said. Perhaps
Amma had asked her a question that had angered
her. She and Amma were always fighting
then. Uppi would always turn to Baba and
expect him to be on her side. Or maybe she’d
said it unprompted. The words bursting from
her chest because she could no longer keep
them locked and shut tight inside.
I don’t even remember how old we were.
Did I say I was seven? Maybe I was seven, I
meant, maybe.
“I’m an atheist,” She’d said the words slowly
and deliberately so that Amma and Baba
would not misunderstand. Still, it seemed that
they did.
“What do you mean?” Amma demanded.
Baba said nothing, choosing instead to ignore
her.
“Did you hear me?” Uppi said to Baba.
“Don’t ignore your mother,” he said. His
accent had still been untouched back then, the
Americanisms slipped in later I think.
“I’m not,” Uppi said in that defiant way she
always had to say something like that. Like she
was challenging someone.
Bhai chose to stay quiet but I could see him

shifting in place. Uppi said something and
now he had to say something too. But he
was holding back. Why?
“I’m choosing neither of you,” Uppi
said. Again that defiant tone.
Baba’s face had started to go red and
Amma’s started to go pale. That was how
you knew they were angry. Baba’s white
face sprung with color and Amma’s dark
one drained of it.
“I’m going to be like Baba,” Bhai finally
piped up. Perhaps he felt it was his moment,
and that he could leech some of the
anger out of our parents. I knew that was
not what he wanted to say in that moment.
But he was not like Uppi and neither was
I. We did not make grand statements that
would anger both our parents. We made
statements knowing at least one of them
would be on our side. “I’m going to be a
Muslim.”
Baba became pink. Amma stayed pale.
Baba gave Bhai a pat on the shoulder, forgetting
what Uppi had said moments before.
Amma looked hurt but Bhai wouldn’t
look her way. I knew even then that Baba
was Uppi’s favorite and Amma was Bhai’s. I didn’t understand
why they chose what they did. I didn’t understand
why they had to choose. I felt the need to contribute
as well, to toss my voice into the mix.
“I’m going to be both,” I said with a sort of haughty
pride. I still have that pride.
Baba became white and Amma became dark. They
looked at each other. When we, the children, were
around it was only through looks that they displayed
their love for each other. They smiled a sad smile that
held all the pity in the world.
Uppi turned to glare at me, “You idiot.”
It hurt more than she thought, it still hurts. I don’t
know why she was so angry.
“Leave her be, she’s still little,” said Baba.
“She still has time,” Amma said in her gentle voice.
Bhai snorted in his attempt to keep from laughing. It
wasn’t joyous laughter, it was cold and harsh and biting.
“Alright, Bhakta Mullani.”
It was a stupid, uncreative insult. A mock of my
choice for both religions, a cruel cut into the thought
that I would not only be welcome in both religions but
revered. It was unfair of Bhai and Uppi to behave like
that towards me. Unfair of them to push me away as
they did Baba and Amma. Unfair of Baba and Amma
to hold me at arms length. Unfair of Baba and Amma
to distance themselves further and further
from Uppi when all she had wanted was to
be accepted. Unfair of them to force Bhai to
keep his secret, knowing he would need to
take it to his grave.
“Leave her be,” Baba had said again.
“She’s still little,” Amma had finished.
Amma and Baba are gone now and I’m
not so little anymore. I pull myself off the bed
and begin searching for the broom. There’s
no point in waiting until morning, I won’t fall
asleep any time soon. I find the broom and
wave at the spider. I tear through the intricate
thread that its created. I rip apart the beautiful
interlocking patterns and bring it down
to the ground like the rest of us. It twitches
and tries to leave, to run, to escape. I press the
bristles of the broom onto its skittering body
until I hear the whispered crunch. When I lift
the broom up the spider is gone.

Editor
Morgan Burns (he/him)
is a rising Tulane junior
studying English and philosophy
with a serious focus
on creative or essay
Poetry
writing. He is from Baton Rouge, Louisiana but
also lives partially in Jackson, MS. He is a DJ at
the college radio station along with his duties as
poetry editor. In his spare time, he likes to hang
with the boys, play guitar, and pretend to read
Ulysses.

After The Burners Leave There’s Ribs
By Lauren Arthur
answer screams thunder
rips away your dry scars
Wedding Gifts
By Mary Ann Dimand
Wait here for ribs outskirt explosions
where jewels destroy bikes
collect less messy sound waves
you’re getting ready on dusty roads
you climb but fall from measures
a treasure becomes a cosmic peak
weakens a return days on end
render defiant masses in robes
mid-week longs block filters
travel to for roller coaster rides
seems to falter this soothing damsel
burn my answer grants a problem to end
not claim
Bring it on beeswings, with breath
from the ocean—rich drunkenness poured
with the waters that slake—news
of rejoicing, of spirals of dance,
of two cheeks whose touch
closes eyes with delight. Give
them your laughter, your handclaps,
your blessings—drip wild
honey on fresh wedding cake.
At morning they’ll look
on the site of the feasting, from sheets
moist and sticky that wind
them in folds. The cakes
that are crumbs—the grease
that shines slickly—the plates
that were splintered—the silence
of song. Who will take up the brooms?
Who will make new calm then?
Who grasps firm the gifts
they’ve been graced with, now, time and again?

Note From the Hospice Ward
Wedding Gifts
By Lauren Arthur
Wait here for ribs outskirt explosions
where jewels destroy bikes
collect less messy sound waves
you’re getting ready on dusty roads
you climb but fall from measures
a treasure becomes a cosmic peak
weakens a return days on end
render defiant masses in robes
mid-week longs block filters
travel to for roller coaster rides
seems to falter this soothing damsel
By Cal Freeman
The stylus claws
at dull grooves.
A time-release capsule
leaves a gloss over
the spidered
sleeve of the mind.
I’ve failed
to metamorphose
into any creature
I’ve dreamed:
dog, roach, horse.
This dying is slow

music, aphasic
gestures beneath
a hissing lamp,
the payload’s
unbearable delay.
THE TWIN
By Laura White Gray
My cervix opens,
a shutter on the eye of a camera
grasping light
from the outside.
But you, unborn something, don’t
blink against its shock—
you spew out—
brown and smooth and hard as bone,
arms extended in petrified stillness,
tiny thumb thrust up
to meet those stony lips.
Your brother, plump, and pink,
and loud with his ragged
cry of wonder,
squints and fists against reckless life—
But you, undone one,
meet the world,
the clamor, the brightness
with humbling silence,
a constant presence that reminds me
you are his
and everyone’s
other half.

Berlin Trilogy
By Laura White Gray
1. The Triumph of Capitalism (Low)
There they sit
bronzed dead gods
under the linden trees
and Prussian blue
skies, vacant-eyed
tombstones to an
empire as lifeless as
Bruegel’s painting. For all
eternity doomed to stare at
the Berliner Dom’s cross
their revolution lost.
Replaced by the proletariat’s new
neon mythos: KFC, Dunkin’ Donuts, Starbucks.
Among the tourists, a private revolt
launched: a girl, doll-like pupils
magnified behind Coke bottle glasses
stomps Marx’s stone foot and smiles
impishly for her mother’s iPhone
as pigeon droppings amass on
the statute’s impotent
bearded head.
2. Upon Their Ashes (Heroes)
Chilled soda bottles popped open.
Wrapped sandwiches held aloft.
Pickles, fried chips, basket, napkins.
Easter Sunday Berlin, 2015
Anno Domini. Germania: Anno Zero
plus seventy. Spring afternoon heavy
with hope. Once divided boulevards
cluttered with tourists’ tired feet.
Ashen stone slabs, a monument for Europe’s murdered
Jews serves as
a makeshift picnic blanket and a
gray as death background for selfies.
Auschwitz’s ashes mere dust on our shoes.
We eat and live and walk over memories
that cast no shadows. We have no past.
3. Darkness in the Sunlight (Lodger)
Light crashes hard against concrete
snapping crisp and easy as a
child’s neck under booted black heels.
Subterranean shadows burrow like
a bunker under an empty parking lot.
Imaginary Lugers from Trabant drive-bys
shoot-up the ghetto’s new walls. We waltz over
metallic faces of the dead
carved from haunted Mediterranean dreams.
Burnt flesh and Zyklon-B mingles with the
scent of Haifa’s bloody oranges and strange
fruit swaying like dead men in the breeze.

Year of Rivers
By John McIntyre
Year of rivers,
Gold and blood
And all the old faces
Without names.
The sound of her
Car coming home
Late and without
Explanation.
She slips into
Bed without a word.
Saturday morning
You almost smell
Beale Street from the
Mississippi’s banks.
The water laps quiet
As a confession over
Coffee -“I ran
Into him by chance, Over near the college,”
Or “It was just
One drink and a
Little kiss.”
Late November
And Lord the St. Lawrence
Looks cold. Smoke and
Exhaled breath, mumbled
Words. Later, red wine
And a slim novel
By the frosted
Window. Silence.
In Shanghai,
New Year’s Eve by the
Bund, watching from
The upstairs bar
As barges wink up
The Huangpu, through
The fog. Downstairs
A Dixieland jazz
Band plays like
it’s 1927,
Every night at 10.
On the walk home,
That Turkish man
By the river
Tried to sell you
Hash but just that
Night you’d written,
“Dear Gordon, All The money’s gone,”
And you hadn’t
Exaggerated
By much.

Shells
By Gad Kaynar-Kissinger
Now that everything closed down,
That vain display windows
Withdraw inward and whisper
Like traitors:
You could have dispensed with us long ago.
Now that stages expose their misshapen Backs,
that tablecloths are pulled off
Tables in luxury restaurants
Like a seductive brassiere from the prosthetic
Silicon breasts of a first-class stripper,
Now that the belly is sucked in to silence
The bellows of the stalled ox,
Now that credit cards are converted to
Fortunetellers’ cards calculating
Galactic Cataclysms,
And all the accountants
Consider how much more they can subtract-
From their heavy
Clients so that they may
Elevate in the refracted light
Ascend upon the shaky rectitude
Of the spirit toward
The shells.
Toward themselves.
Tel Aviv 11.3.2020
NOTES FROM CHINESE PATTERN
BOOKS
By Kevin D. Norwood
We wait in separate rooms,
no longer speaking directly,
but exchange notes furtively,
slipping them beneath closed doors.
Each note in simple ideograms:d
ots, lines, and broad slashes.
Incomprehensible. Leaving us
puzzled and shuffling papers,
seeking meaning in pattern
books lying open on the floor.
Questions persist, unanswered.
Which sign is hope, which, farewell?

Within
By Eli Coyle
Starts the sun up from space
rising red on the horizon
Le Mais
By Jerrice J. Baptiste
See then the rusted
heart red poppy in sleep
Dried out in the aftermath of rain
sealed in and shut off
Sleeping until the sun comes up
becoming in the morning wake
The fertile citrus tree producing again
another heart
A ripe blood orange
pressing and pumping in the cage
Swelling and growing in the cage until it
breaks down metal
Softness of flying sparks
the sweet sour acidity
Dissolving away a little more
opening a little more
The passageway within
metal shavings on the floor
The peeling of the rind
revealing all that is awake
While she waits for the corn to grow eight feet
tall, she walks the fields, a maze of her own creation.
Her hands brush the corn silk, sometimes
stroking it like the hair of her grand-daughters.
Sweet baby corn is the first to be harvested,
grandmother peels the husks. A meditation unfolds
of pulling off the husks, then adding them
to the barrels to wash. One barrel is for the children,
the other for the adults, to be grilled on an
outdoor fire during the village gathering. That
night, the children arrive with their toys, wooden
sail boats, red and yellow tap-tap buses and
cloth dolls and a candle to light the darkness.
Adults and children mingle and choose their favorite
corn. Grandmother plays with babies,
shaking their feet. She smiles with them while
engaging in baby talk and telling them “You are
sweet like my corn.” Her index finger opens the
mouth of each baby, looking for budding teeth.

White Oak Performs Final Act
By J. Ross Peters
The tree in the pasture had executed centuries
Of deliberate magic, biding time with predictable
Routines: leaves and acorns like so many million
Slight of hand operations appearing from its
branches
Like cards in the illusionist’s palm sent spinning,
All the while setting up next the frand finale.
If this cold front had come a week earlier,
The tree might have waited another year or
more.
But its leaves had come all in, so this system
Of green sails became assistants in the stunning
Denouement. The perfect set-up arrived—
The entire system of roots swimming in the saturated
Piedmont soil ready to release counter-pressure
To the western wind driving along the eastern slope
Of the Blue Ridge after the first line of storms
Had already careened passed, destined
To disappear long before they’d made it To the coast. In
the minutes between storms,
The sun played its cameo role entering Stage Left,
Allowing the leaves to use the updraft to flash
Their metallic silver-green underbellies
As powerfully as lights on a Neon Marquis.
These newborn leaves vibrated in resistance
And aided the coiled roots in loosening on the cue
Of a sustained gust out of the south.
They pushed The swelling soil on the west side next,
Then a final muffled yank and pull, and at last
The fall accelerating into shattering branches,
And a trunk pressed deep into the pasture
As an audience of drenched Holsteins looked
on.

Red Line
By Ray Ball
Something you may not know
about me is that one morning
on the Metro de Madrid headed
to the stop at Noviciado I stood—
I thought, securely—among the throng.
Lawyers and custodians and agronomists.
a second before my own. We both scurried away—
as best as one could, we fled through a crowded subway
car during morning rush hour. I never reported it
to the transit or other authorities.
Something you may not know a
bout me is that I added it to a tally
of men, known and unknown, whose eyes
I wish I could forget, whose deeds I wish had
Students with backpacks. I avoided eye contact miscarried— not even a spilling of seed.
by reading Dostoevsky’s The Idiot on my way
Chicago Waste Management
By Alex Shapiro
Truck procession gnashing over the soft
crackle of a Flamin Hot Cheeto
sliding down a hook. Whizzing
arc against the stench wafting east
into a plop next to a mass
of fuzzies and foil, the dust
cloud bloating around matching
it’s young fisher’s red orange
to the Archivo de Villa. I was gripping a pole
with my free hand, when a man attempted
fingertips. Eyelids slump with the shadows
growing under a tree carved full of initials
to masturbate on me. Another woman’s shock
registered
and the newest REI Co-op nestling in a factory
husk, eased

until accumulation riles beeps over the garbage
noise and the parking
lot behind thins. Reeling
levitates the water
logged puff above
the surface, and in
Wisdom
By Liz DeGregorio
Christ, this hurts, he thought
as he squeezed and squeezed.
He knew he had to keep going until
the animal was limp,
but this was the worst part of his job.
were squeezed out of each creature.
But he couldn’t stop now.
Like the rest of the animals,
he could not go against his instincts.
one tug its swung
down their throat midstep
into uproarious congestion.
If only people could read
the frantic look in his eyes,
the warnings about the apple!
He wanted to cry out
and tell people
it was just his nature
forcing him to do this;
he closed his eyes
when the final bits of life

Passage Is All
By Risa Pappas
Women move through ruins single file
winding under veils of hornet swarms
shimmering the eves of towers crumbling
imperceptibly we grow old shoulders
and necks drooping weak stems toward
early frost
Healers only ever can intend
with weeds and drams for props the play
played out on the platforms once stood
as cathedrals for old gods painted on
rectangles guiding worshippers along
paths up and down the sky and around
like veins toward a heart that didn’t survive
a path men rode in boxes with wheels
many ride them still in their still way socket
facing north and south
But the women walk and mostly stop
when one of them ceases to rise and we take
each of her limbs and carry her to the nearest
water and leave her draped there on the edge
a hand dangling in for comfort a face become
young in the rippling
Who awaits the migrant?
By Pradeep Niroula
A migrant stares down
at the scars he made in the desert
when melting sand into gold.
Will the desert mourn him gone?
Gone home, where there are
only tawdry treasures of wood
that bored housewives
polish day in and day out —
the sand follows, but the gold doesn’t.
The migrants ascends,
like wispy fumes from a dying flame;
the palms don’t sway to bid farewell,
nor do camels raise their head to see him go;
the red waters stay motionless, idling,
fiddling with the silver laced coasts;
the oasis glitters like a young bride
The morning of her wedding —
unstirred by a suitor dropping,
another will soon take his place.

Everybody Knows About the Other Sage
Two
By Charles Rafferty
By Evan Joseph Massey
But Michael Collins kept orbiting while the Act you like you been.
lunar module dropped down like a spider Round some money.
to the bathroom floor. For 21 hours and 36 Round the way money.
minutes, he was the loneliest man alive, and on Is Bones.
the dark side, Collins lost contact with all but Coins are minted.
the pressurized stink of the capsule, the lights From iron.
of his switches and dials. They became more In the blood.
important than the sky itself, blazing beyond Round the way.
his window. It must have been unnerving — And blood young.
the need to be touched and the need to not Young blood.
touch anything.
The Old Heads.
Call you.
Wise up, Youngin.
Wise your headup.
Hit a book.
Get a broad.
Hit a star.
Aim your iron bow.
Blood-tipped arrow.
You borrow.
A couple bones.
To spend.
On your homie’s grave.
Your homie’s pit.
Digs a bone up.
From the ground.
Drops it.
At your sneaks.
You hold.
It’s old head.
Whisper,Wise.
In its ear.
Whisper, If I get dropped.
Lick up.
Mycoins.

The Next Day
By James Blevins
Singers die and are buried.
There’s a little sleep
but not much.
My mourning smells of you.
Birds and grief
play violins and clap.
I listen for my healing.
It’s all colorless—the world—
first nothing I woke to in a long time.
I’M AGING WITH GUILT
By Suson Sonde
and my luster’s damaged. Its girth shocks my increment
cast in bright sorrow, mirror which
frames me. My thoughts gone rogue, once coached
mountains into dying, trundled children from
their parents. Left them as kindling for priests and their
congregants.
Quick to offend, I had no offensive. Worked my
whole life for small change, giving polio drops to
infants, body not creating bodies of my own womb’s invention.
Went viral with my unhappiness. My want swept
through continents, tattooing copses with machetes. I
brought the sun to heel like water slowed through
a tap. Sang in courtyard trees and hid among drops
that never licked the leaves. My days went arid,
stretched through time like caravans without
caravanserai and refused to bloom; bore
their entourage of wickedness like a signature
perfume, something to keep them from ghosting.
My body craved danger and vectored my fists
into weapons which hid grim secrets, rosters
teeming with people. Smog in rain, I was
forever changing and unchained slipped away to
where the viper scrapes its scales.
Who judges if not the public; who the pedal
who the wheel: people borne of half-light
and every days’ failings, their masticular habits
marbling others under.
Truth or dare. What’s in a lie? Am I lying?

Left without windows or a door to amble
through, and no digits to speak of, I walk
a narrow vaporous passage like a leper summoning
nightfall and tide. Up, up I swim from
its begging shore a silver satellite pretending to
crater.
I’ve clarity, but none that lasts. The endings of
my sight nerves have died, but I’m not blind.
Don tails and tie: camera ready. All eyelash
and inhale like an estuary of good taste.
My undertow at the ready.
Jurassic Quark
By John Marvin
cry of une lune tune
from the bottom of an arc
where phase change freezes
to the top of an orbit tangled
in fond nudging and embracing
with other many other orbits
too numerous to calculate
too many bodies to formulate
by means mundane
or even arcane
all those many bodies
naked to stars to debris
facing papa the mighty ruler
gravitas bearded strength
electro-magnetic strong and weak
step with care beneath his gaze
and remembering never never
to trust a talking swan
with your chastity
or weep

Dear Reader,
Thank you to all who made this possible. In the middle of this crisis we hope that this magazine provides
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