QUIET LIGHTNING IS:

a literary nonprofit with a handful of ongoing projects, including a monthly, submission-based reading series featuring all forms of writing without introductions or author banterof which sparkle + blink is a verbatim transcript. The series moves around to a different venue every month, appearing so far in bars, art galleries, music halls, bookstores, night clubs, a greenhouse, a ballroom, a theater, a mansion, a sporting goods store, a pirate store, a print shop, a museum, a hotel, and a cave.

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1. you have to commit to the date to submit2. you only get up to 8 minutes

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sparkle + blink 63 2015 Quiet Lightning

artwork Paul Kalcicpaulkalcic.carbonmade.com

CONTENTScurated by

Alexandra Kostoulas & Evan Karp

featured artist Paul Kalcic

MELISSA TAN Greg 1

EMILY KIERNAN St. Anthony of Potrero 7

EMILY DREVETS Coffee, Extra Hot 13 The Man with a Watch 17

L.J. MOORE How it Came to This 21

KATIE ALIFERIS Fermata 27 Evolution of My Being 28 Silver Medal 29 Ode to the Olive Grove 30 Ill Be Ares, You Be Aphrodite (VII) 31

APOLLO PAPAFRANGOU Harpoons 33

CASSANDRA DALLETT Im Just Like You 43 Whats With the Hair Trigger? 46 First Date 48

ANNELYSE GELMAN

QUIET LIGHT

NING IS SPONSORED BY

l a g u n i t a s . c o m

QUIET LIGHTNING

A 501(c)3, the primary objective and purpose of Quiet Lightning is to foster a community based on literary expression and to provide an arena for said expression. QL produces a monthly, submission-based reading series on the first Monday of every month, of which these books (sparkle + blink) are verbatim transcripts.

Formed as a nonprofit in July 2011, the board of QL is currently:

Evan Karp founder + presidentChris Cole managing directorJosey Lee public relationsMeghan Thornton treasurerKristen Kramer chair

Kelsey Schimmelman secretarySarah Ciston director of booksKatie Wheeler-Dubin director of films

Sidney Stretz & Laura Cern Meloart directors

Rose Linke & RJ Ingramoutreach directors

Sarah Maria Griffin & Ceri Bevandirectors of special operations

If you live in the Bay Area and are interested in helpingon any levelplease send us a line:

evan@ quiet l ightning .org

- SET 1 -

1M E L I S S A T A M

GREG

Greg was a sweet man, although his appearance made those who didnt know him understandably wary. He must have been in his late forties or early fifties, but he had a childlike way about him in his ratty old bomber jacket covered in fighter plane patches. His hair, long and grey and balding at the front, was always combed back. It exposed his long, tan face as he flashed goofy smiles at his favorite girls. He was usually in his booth, any booth away from the tables, although he preferred the ones flanking the old smoking room. Otherwise hed meet you at the martini stage, making small talk as he finished folding a meticulous B52 or Concourse out of dollar bills and scotch tape. Sometimes he sat in the stairwell leading down to the mens room if he was really running behind on his origami that nightit was the only place in the club with overhead lighting. Hed casually reach into his jacket as he was talking toward you, revealing tiny rows of pre-cut tape along the edge of his inside pocket. He approached his craft like a bird watcher in the field, and in appreciating the meticulous care he took I could almost forget that the field was a strip club and the subjects were the girls.

Rumor had it that Greg had some kind of autism

2spectrum disorder. We guessed at the details of his life outside the club during the slow hours of the early evening. London claimed he lived with his mother, said hed let it slip once in conversation, then changed the subject and never mentioned it again. She gets money from the state, London said with authority. She must, because he spends all of the money he makes as a bicycle repairman here at the club.

I never found out where his passion for origami came from, but for the longest time I saved everything he gave me. Rings and airplanes mostly, sometimes an airplane taped to a ring; once two airplanes taped to little dollar bill pedestals attached to a ring, a stiff mess of finger prints trapped in scotch tape. These miniature money sculptures filled the bottom six inches of my locker at the club. When I finally took them all apart there was over a hundred dollars in singles and two dollar bills. The stubborn bills refused to lay flat, retaining their memory as fighter planes and paper jewelry. Greg loved airplanes. Fat little bombers, long thin jet planeshed point the differences out enthusiastically as if each time was the first.

It was London who introduced me to Greg after Id asked about him. She told me he brought his favorite girls gifts, and that I could get him to bring me whatever music, movies or books I wanted. Hed even bought Rachelle a diamond bracelet once, and gave it to her with the receipt for four thousand dollars.

Melissa Tan 3

He started by leaving small tips and Japanese candies at my stage, half sacrificial offering, half courtship ritual. Once I got to know Greg better, I became part of his regular rotation.

At least once a week he brought something for me. He bribed the house mom to share girls schedules with him, and planned his visits accordingly. If I didnt see him Monday, I knew Id see him by Wednesday. Greg made me promise to tell you hell be in with a present for you tomorrow, London would laugh offhandedly.

Best Buy didnt have Ghost Rider on BluRay, so he had to make a trip to Target, or something.

I pantomimed the gift-opening process with enthusi-asm because I figured it was what made him happiest, watching us appreciate his gifts. He kept the receipt from every purchase, taping it to the front of each CD and DVD case. He bundled each of our gifts in a small plastic bag and tied a bow with the handles, never a knot, so that they were easy for us to open without damaging our fancy manicures.

Happy Holidays Holly From Jolly G.

The small torn binder paper label taped to the bag might say. Or:

For Holly. Tuesday night Happy Greg!

4Each was meticulously penned with a name, date and salutation. Sometimes he adorned them with hearts or smiley faces. For Christmas, he brought me a BluRay DVD player with a drawing of a Christmas tree. Every-thing had a system for Greg. From the origami tips he gave to the exact number of table dances he planned on getting, and who he planned on getting them with, all preordained by some secret Greg logic. He organized his money in an envelope. I never once saw him with a wallet. In the envelope, twenties with tips were paper clipped in a collated fashion, groups of paper-clipped bills carefully rubber-banded together by the day he planned to spend them. Sometimes the groups of bills even had names on them. Reminders in case he forgot who he was supposed to dance with that night. It was as if Greg felt more of a responsibility to us than we did to him.

Through his pathological study of us, Greg learned each girls taste in film. Holly likes Audrey Hepburn and bad action movies; London likes Lady Gaga and drag films. On one occasion he took a gamble and brought me grind house double features with sordid stories of lesbian vampires and punk rock horror tales.

I thought you might like these because of your style, he said, nodding at my fishnets and latex skirt.

Greg would call us over to his booth, smiling and waving from across the floor, or else he would send the previous girl over to get the next one like a patron holding an audience. Usually, when he had brought

Melissa Tan 5

me something, I would talk to him for a couple of songs before bowing out to put away my presents or fix my makeup. Otherwise, Greg could hold you captive with his conversation for the better part of an hour. Sometimes a regular would text or send a floor host to get me, and Id end up sitting at a table or in a champagne room for the rest of the night, carrying around a carefully packaged copy of the latest Twilight novel or action thriller, hoping I wouldnt have to explain Gregs gifts for fear of other customers passing judgement on him.

His taste in girls was arbitrary. Greg had no type. I dont even think his interest in us was sexual. I never knew how to dance for him, but I knew I wanted him to enjoy it more than most people I danced for; I knew I wanted him to feel my appreciation or approval or whatever it was he was seeking. Wondering why he came to the club bothered me, maybe because it made me wonder why I was there, too.

What did Greg bring us this week? my roommates would ask when they saw the carefully packaged plastic bags in the living room. Books, movies and CDs piled up until my drawers were full. The majority of them sat unopened, still bearing their notes, times-tamped by a man I never could tell if I was humoring or disrespecting. I simultaneously wished he would stop coming to the club in the first place and hoped that if it was what really made him happy that his illusions were never shattered. Eventually, I moved in with my

6boyfriend and decided that there was no place in our home for Gregs gifts.

I peeled the receipts and hand-written labels from each small blue plastic case and stacked them neatly into shopping bags. I wadded the old paper and bits of tape into a sticky ball and tossed it unceremoniously into the trash with last nights food scraps. That weekend, I stood at the buying counter of the used record store as each of Gregs gifts was stacked coldly according to resale value. The sum total of his offerings amounted to $45 in store credit, which Ive never been able to spend. The folded receipt lives in my wallet next to the seven dollars I made during my first audition.

7E M I LY E I E E M A M

ST. ANTHONY OF POTRERO

This is a place of many cranniesstreets pushed together at odd angles and secret coves huddled by hills and waters. The fog glides in and vision is concentrated to a foot, or to five feet, or to the end of the block. This supports the common misconception that it is easy to hide things here, or easy to lose them. This belief has taken on metaphorical and spiritual dimensions, all of them false. I dont know how it is in the rest of the world, but I know that it is impossible to lose anything in San Francisco. The ground spits up anything you bury. This is a place of re-emergencesburied hatchets, bad laws, old boyfriends, they all tend to come back around. While some of the city is, indeed, built on ancient Indian burial grounds, more of it is built on landfill, an efficient substance for material resurrections.

Nothing is lost, but it is only fair to admit that, every now and again, something may become lost to you. Short-sighted concealment of difficult facts and objects is obtainable, within certain boundsgo to a place you do not know well, cover the thing with sticks and leaves or nudge it into a particularly dark afternoon shadow, walk away and never come to

8that spot again, even in dreams. It isnt lost, but youve left it for someone else to find. In most cases, that will be me. I am a prodigious finder of the things youve left behind.

There is nothing unusual in the way that I find, though I flatter myself that I have made an ethic of noticing. A friend who works for the housing projects out on Alameda tells me the kids dug up a barrel of jet fuel left over from the military base. They only had to put that stuff a few feet deep, she said. Out in the desert, they found a girl whod been buried in 1965. For fifty years the wind had stood at her graveside and scooped the dirt away in handfuls, like a good dog or a lover, down on wind-hands and wind-knees.

Once when I was young, a spring flood brought up the box in which Id buried the last years hamster. Bobbing in the small creek, the box had been shining hard plastic, bright purple and irresistiblelike something with sunken treasures inside. Now there has been no rain for three years, but the dust has proved just as good for uncovering.

This is earthquake weatherhot and dry and so still that sounds drop into quietyou hear the drop into quiet more than the sound itself. Earthquake weather is finding weather. All that shiftingit churns things up faster, and from deeper down. In 1989 I found an iron wedge from pioneering times, and my neighbor in Bernal Heights saw the entire history of his failed

eMily Kiernan 9

first marriage expurged onto the lawn. He pulled two folding chairs out of the garage and we sat side by side, sipping beers that had gotten warm, and he let me look through what was there. The earthquake is just the worlds mistaken belief that it can lose us.

On todays search I found a full can of navy beans, three womens high-heeled shoes, a stained and stinking twenty-dollar bill, five handfuls of animal fur, and a piece of carved rock that could be from almost any age of human history. Yesterday I found a love letter to a man who shares my name and many details of my personal life, a piece of green cloth, and a small fire burning. Tomorrow I expect to find smooth stones, sea glass, and a long, curling red hair, but that is only speculation, and what I do find may be very different.

I have found only one body (a too-brave swimmer, washed to the top of Ocean Beach), but I have discovered many piecesblood dotting the sidewalk outside a Valencia St. bar on a Sunday morning, a crushed and tiny tooth beneath the monkey bars in a Bayview schoolyard, bits of fingernails everywhere, blending into the fine gutter-grit. Tony Bennett left his heart here; I wonder who found that.

I am not a collector. I do not take these things home. I have watched a mans flannel shirt decay into loam just outside the gates of the McKinley Square dog park. The lost things are rarely found, almost never used.

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Not long ago, I found something that disturbed me. I found it at rush hour in the Embarcadero Bart station. People were bending around it like something dangerous, great streams of people parting all around it, but no one looking. I stopped a woman to ask her if she saw the thing and knew why she was walking this arcing path, but when she looked at me there was real fear on her face, and so I let her go and said that I was sorry. I took that thing home. It is sitting on my bookshelf now, but I am growing less and less sure of it. It wants to be lost more than most thingsit comes closer to achieving it.

I am restless now, at night. I count the things I have found the way I was once told to count sheep, but the moment when my mind loses hold of them always shocks me back awake. An empty Starbucks cup on Telegraph Hill bleeds its image into an empty Peets cup in North Beach, and I am clammy-hands-heart-pounding, the last one who knew the difference. I look at the thing on the bookshelf. I try to remember it before I open my eyes. The details shift and blur. I remember a blue necklace sitting on top of a closed trash bag outside a hair salon in the Avenues. I remember four or five different discarded barbie dolls, smooth and pink. I remember a rusted metal coil poking out of soccer-field sod. I remember these things and fix them in place. I look at the thing on the bookshelf and for a moment I am reassured. I close my eyes and let things slip. I hear the settling of the house or the rustling of the woman downstairs awakening

eMily Kiernan 11

and dressing for a late night shift, and I think I am hearing the crackling of faultlines. In every passing truck I feel the rumbling of the big one that will launch the California coastline into the sea, bobbing and driftingfinally, fully shaken loose.

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E M I LY D E E V E T S

COFFEE, EXTRA HOT

In college, I thought I had umbrellas all figured out, but I actually knew nothing. At least, thats what the oldest woman in the world told me over a cup of coffee. Her hair was very long and very white.

You know nothing, she said. Umbrellas arent from earth. They come from somewhere else. Many years ago, there was a celestial storm that caused the closets of heaven to tumble open. Here she stopped for a very long cough break. It was pretty gross.

Finally she continued, Trillions of dunderbums, trigglydoos, batbatbats, and other magical beings were swept into raw, unprotected space where they fell prey to all kinds of evils. Many of them never made it back. Sadly, umbrellas were among the lost. They wandered for centuries until they were caught in a great whirlpool of spacetime that caused them to thunder to earth.

The stratosphere is made out of plastic wrap and price tags, she told me. Oh I didnt know that, I said. Here was another very long, very disgusting cough break. I checked my phone. She caught her breath

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and answered, Yes, well, thats obvious.

I thought that was unnecessarily snarky but I didnt fight back. She was, after all, the oldest woman in the world. Id had to pay for her coffee too, extra hot. She went on, As they fell (a fall which took millennia by our accounting of time), the umbrellas were covered with packaging and prices and they flew into the general stores and gypsy wagons

She mentioned several other places that I dont think exist anymore but Im assuming she meant Walgreenss and CVSs and Targets and other deodorant stores.

Here, she said, the noble umbrella was trapped and scared, unable to tell us about the wonders of heaven beyond our carbon-based earth, on which they had been converted into carbon-based beings. On earth they are mere commodities, bought and sold like so much chattel. Her eyes teared up and I didnt know if it was because of the umbrellas or because she was old as all hell.

But know this, that your money means nothing to the umbrella. It comes from a place beyond perception and it is certainly, certainly not bound by our economic system. She broke into a weird laugh that ended, of course, in a hacking cough. I wondered what would happen if she died on the spot. Yikes.

No, she said raising one fingerclaw, the umbrella

eMily DreveTs 15

is in a continual state of transition back to the ether from which it came. It cannot be owned, nor can it be lost. Your money does not purchase the umbrella, just as it cannot purchase the wind. It merely transfers its stewardship to you for a little while. Then, one rainy day, it will leave you. And this is as it should be.

I guess that makes sense. I said, Its just annoying to have to buy another one when I lose it, or whatever happens to it. Based on the look she gave me, this may have not been the right thing to say.

You are too young to understand, she said. Dinosaur bones are more youthful than you, I thought. And I know you think Im just an old woman with her peculiarities. Another big coughing fit. But it is within you to know things for what they are. The silly things you worry about, the annoyances you let yourself get annoyed with, even the fears that strike you and mount upon your heart like an avalanche, like the fear that I will die right here on the spot. Gasp, I thought to myself.

These are of no matter. What you think is the problem is not the problem. I have to go now. Please call me a horse carriage. I called her a taxi and we parted ways.

Years later, I still have no idea what that old bat was walking about, but I do believe her about the umbrellas. So when your umbrella flies up, dont be frustrated. When your umbrella is lost, dont be mad.

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And when you see an umbrella lying broken next to a trashcan, dont be sad. The umbrella is on its way home, just like you.

eMily DreveTs 17

THE MAN WITH A WATCH

Sometimes I see an attractive man at the coffee shop. He is tall. He has broad shoulders. He dressed himself in the morning and made sure that his clothes go well together. He combed his hair and considered how his glasses would look with his chin. They look good.

The man wears a watch.

It is a small thing. It only takes up a couple of square inches around the left wrist area. It is made of geometric shapes, like rectangles and circles. It has all-natural ingredients.

It is useful. It tells its wearer what time it is. Sometimes it has other information, like what time it is somewhere else.

The mans hair has at least one product in it.

I see this man and think I could love him. I could definitely love that chin. Then I see his watch. I dont know about the watch. The watch is a studied accessory. It means purpose. It means serious. It means advertisements in magazines about what it means to

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be a man. I dont know if I could love the watch.

The man sees me. He sees that my hair is pulled back. There is no product in it. Im not wearing makeup. The only thing that guided my outfit was making sure I didnt wear this shirt yesterday, unless Im wearing all black, in which case I just wore all black.

He sees that Im wearing tennis shoes, that I have a wrinkle growing on the left side of my mouth.

He thinks maybe he could love me. He could definitely love my nose.

His watch is not certain. His watch sees lack of attention to detail and opportunities that have been missed. It sees escapism and monologues about obscure feelings. It sees advertisements on what it means to be an iconoclast. The watch does not know if it could love me, and the watch tells the man what to do. At least, it tells him what time it is.

There are other kinds of men too. There are men who dont wear watches, men who wear hats, men who shine their shoes, men who refuse to buy clothing, men who cut their own hair, men who shave their legs just for fun.

The watch is a small thing. It is so small that some people will say that it doesnt matter. But it does. The small things have always mattered because they

eMily DreveTs 19

indicate big things. They are signposts. They are crumbs leading the way home, waiting to be eaten up by birds.

In a different world, the man with the watch and I make eye contact and smile about something we both understand. We start up a conversation and find we are more similar than we could have ever imagined. Our children have strong chins and their mothers upturned nose.

In this world, we make eye contact and pretend it never happened. He looks down at his watch. I look at my computer screen. He sees that it is 7:40 p.m. in Paris. I see that I have no new emails. Life goes on.

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L . J . M O O E E

HOW IT CAME TO THIS

At this moment, Lucky thinks about lowering his head and rushing the cops. In his mind, he sees it play out: their repeated warnings to stop, his perceptions slowing and lengthening in the surge of crisis, the thump and sting of bullets followed by the beloved quiet and the relief of weightlessness. In his favorite dream, Lucky floats, drifting past farmhouses, hovering outside their warmly-lit windows, looking in at the comfort of full bookshelves and thick rugs and old quilts and scarred kitchen tables.

Before this:

Lucky stands at the highway exit, scanning for oncoming cars. Nearby, stashed in the weed-strewn bushes of the median, lies his backpack stuffed with cash. In the distance, he sees the glint of an approaching vehicle and begins to pace back and forth frantically, hoping to attract the drivers attention, hoping for the kindness of a stranger who might recognize his distress and give him a ride. When the car begins to slow and pull to the shoulder he sees the red light bar on its roof, and recognizes the insidious

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shape of a New York State troopers blue sedan.

He sets the backpack on the counter in front of the tellers window and shoves it toward the woman that faces him. On top of the backpack is a note. The note says, I have a gun. Put all the money in the backpack. Do not activate the alarm. Her dark brown eyes lock with Luckys for a moment, and then she opens the drawer and calmly fills the backpack with bundles of cash. When her drawer is empty, she hesitates and briefly looks over her shoulder. Lucky snatches the backpack and takes off running out the front door of the casino.

Lucky is up in the blackjack game. Hes nearly doubled the $2000.00 he started with. It looks as if hes broken the bad streak. A bad streak of days and years. He will pay his brother back, he will look him in the eye and say Im sorry, but heres the beginning of what I owe you. He will have a leg to stand on again. One more hand and Im out. His top card is an ace. He hits and draws a nine. The dealers top card is a seven. Lucky goes all in.

In the middle of a thunderstorm and sixty miles southwest of the poker table, a cab pulls up, its wipers working furiously. Lucky slides into the back seat, peeling off his backpack and placing it on the floor by his feet. Ill pay you a hundred

l. J . Moore 23

bucks to run me up to the casino.

The trailer stinks of tobacco smoke. Around the living room, Lucky picks out traces of his motheran aquamarine pashmina draped over the easy chair, amethyst and quartz crystals lined up along the window sill. On the coffee table is a Polaroid of Lucky and his brother posing beneath a whitewashed piece of wood with Dude Jail written on it in crude block letters: they are so young they are barely tall enough to grasp the fake bars. Lucky moves down the carpeted hall into the back bedroom, which had been his mothers. The bed is stripped bare, the closet empty, but the room still smells faintly of the blood orange perfume she wore to kill the smell of his brothers cigarettes. He tried to hide his own habit from her. Lucky closes his eyes. He and his mother had always had a connection. Sometimes she would call him and tell him what he was thinking, or tell him that she had seen a signa dead hawk or deer in the road that meant he should be careful driving. Mostly, he just felt her presence, no matter how far apart they were, watching, knowing. There was a time when he wanted nothing more than to shake that feeling, when it felt like he would never get away from her. Never be alone with his thoughts. He waits. He hears the leaves outside the trailer stir, and a low rumble that must be thunder. Somewhere nearby, a chickadee gives

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its two-syllable, sinking call. The sounds slide past him like thin, flat sheets of paper. Lucky turns and heads back into the living room. It only takes him five minutes to find his brothers hiding place. His brother doesnt trust banks.

Lucky watches his brother move slowly down the steps of his trailer and ease himself into a cab headed for town, on his way to yet another doctors appointment. Lucky watches the cab navigate the curve at the end of the road, pass the mailboxes, and disappear south. He smokes a cigarette, and then another. A cicada calls from somewhere overhead in a towering cottonwood tree, and another answers from further into the woods. The air presses down around him, humid and tinged with ozone. Through a break in the trees he sees a portion of the sky darkening from purple to black. A thousand summer afternoons of his childhood flood back over him. He never expected to return to this place. One or two fat raindrops splash the steps around his feet. He lights another cigarette and steps inside.

His brother purchases the ticket and tells him where to claim it. Lucky boards a bus. Beyond the window he watches tall palms stutter past blue and white beaches like the bars of a luxurious prison. He watches the traffic give way to open highway and twilight and darkness. He is going home.

l. J . Moore 25

Lucky texts his brother that he has been kicked out of his apartment, that he is living on the streets, sleeping on the beach or climbing the fences of resorts and sleeping on chaise-lounges beside swimming pools. He texts his brother every few minutes. He cant remember if hes already texted. He does not know when his phone will die. He texts that he is clean. He texts that he has a job. He texts that he lost his job. He texts that the cops are staking out his apartment and hes scared and paranoid. He promises that he is telling the truth, will tell the truth, wants to tell the truth.

A $23,000.00 check arrives for Lucky in the mail. A week later, all the money is gone. Lucky texts his brother that he owed all the money to the IRS and they came to his door to collect and hed had no choice but to give it to them, so can he please wire $70 to pay rent. With a hundred, he can get some food.

Before the heat of the season, before the green and the yellow of the first flowers have pushed up through the old snow, when the trees and the air are still grey and frozen and empty, just a few months back when it still hurts to breathe the air, Luckys mother dies.

Lucky texts his mother that he needs $70. Just to pay the rent. A hundred and he could even

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get some food. Luckys mother drives on bald tires to the grocery store, where she agrees to pay the $25 fee to wire him $100. The woman at the counter swipes her card and hands it back,

Im sorry maam but theres insufficient funds.

Luckys mother sits in the parking lot of the grocery store, enjoying the feel of the heater running. She is watching the crows. They have arrived in flocks of hundreds this winter, settling in the frost-thin branches like glossy black leaves. She has never thought badly of crows like other people do. She thinks they are beautiful and insouciant and self-aware. Like her, they enjoy parking lots. Soon, they depart in a feathery cloud that seems to erupt out of nowhere. She would like to follow them in her car, to see where they go.

Long before any of this, Luckys mother wakes in the middle of the night from a dream. She sits up, looking out her bedroom window. A blonde, blue-eyed baby, seated in a Lotus position, is floating outside. The window is on the second story. She asks the baby what it wants. It says, Im your baby, let me in.

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E A TI E A L I F E E I S

FERMATA

This song starts and ends with the same words,the same notes

Creating a fluid transition from intro to intro, from opening to opening

Leaving me with no knowledge of ending, no feelings of staccato stoppage

Letting those beautiful tones flit from moment to - - - p a u s e - - - moment

In an endless circle of melody and the sweetest lyricism

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EVOLUTION OF MY BEING

Before these orbs of flesh and blood were placed upon youWere they eyes? Did they even see?

Before these sticks of skin and bone had touched your skinWere they fingers? Did they even feel?

Before these mounds of atria and oxygen had found their homeWere they parts of my heart? Did they even beat?

KaTie aliferis 29

SILVER MEDAL

Froth; this bile soils my appetite

ruining my rose-petal breath

Fluid; this acid burns my senses

ruining my rose-hued vision

Frozen; these muscles constrict and stop

ruining my rose-infused circulation

Finished; you have ended my existence

leaving only a puddle of rose-scented residue

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ODE TO THE OLIVE GROVE

A swift current moves through this wind-swept landThe smallest ships traversing these soft shoresPassing salt breakers over this wave-drowned heart

My prayers to the thunder goddess answered with sweet weeping

Beautiful mid-heaven huntress shooting down the stars to

Illuminate my whirling darkness and alleviate this longing sting

And under this canopy Of brown and greenA brave spring is roused

KaTie aliferis 31

ILL BE ARES, YOU BE APHRODITE (VII)

You sleep with your forehead pressed to mine

The next morning confessing you dont remember that intimate oblation

And my heart explodes into rapid-fire bursts of cardiac glory

Deeply touched by this innocent sacrifice on our wild altar,

Our roving love, in this religion of purple darkness

- SET 2 -

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A PO L

L O P A P A F E A M G O A

HARPOONS

One rainy, Saturday morning around his thirteenth birthday, Angelo accompanies his father out to the suburbs, their destination a diner called Democracy where Tasso Koutouvalis has been installing new lighting. The owner, a man named Zacharia Skourtis, whom Angelo has never met, insists they come enjoy a complimentary breakfast. On the drive over, the pair say little, both content to enjoy the sounds of classic Stevie Wonder on the stereo, Angelo stealing side-glances at his father. He pays particular attention to the mans posture behind the wheelslightly slouched, steering with one hand, the other flicking a string of amber komboloi. He wonders what Dad is thinking, what great secrets his furrowed brow conceal, but Angelo cant find the words to ask him, unsure what hed even do with such insights were they revealed. These weekend excursions with his father have increased over the past few months, Angelo possessing a vague sense that they are meant, on some level, to help him transition into adolescence.

They arrive at Democracy Diner, an A-frame building of white-and-blue exterior. Upon entry, Angelo marvels at the custom bubblegum machine,

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its base a statue of Atlas holding up a world of multi-colored candies.

Ah, you must be Angelo! Your father has spoken much about you. The girls better watch out, youre even more handsome than your patehra.

Angelo smiles, feeling his cheeks flush as he takes the hand of Mr. Skourtis, a man around his fathers age with eyes the color of Tassos string of worry beads.

Efharisto, kai heyro polee, Angelo says.

Ah, the boy speaks Greek! And with good accent. Bravo!

Angelo looks to his father and experiences a rising sensation in his chest, as though his heart has sprung wings, at the sight of the mans approving smile. The feeling is short-lived, however, as Tasso replies:

Amai! He speaks pretty well. Of course it wont do him much good when trying to talk to American girls. He has some trouble with them. Nervous, I guess, though he is young still.

Angelo lowers his gaze, and when he looks up again Mr. Skourtis regards him as though hes a complete stranger.

Trouble with the girls? With this guy as your father? Mr. Skourtis asks. Unbelievable.

apollo papafrangou 35

Angelo feels heat at his cheeks a second time, again adverts his eyes. His father and Mr. Skourtis converse in Greek at a pace and fluency with which he cant keep up, and Angelo wanders back over to the bubblegum machine, eyeing his tiny reflection in each bright little ball.

Angelo and his father eat at the counter, Mr. Skourtis serving them plates of eggs over-easy, hash browns, Greek sausage, and toast with hunks of Feta cheese. The men resume the conversation in their mother tongue, and Angelo is content to focus on his breakfast. He eyes various knick-knacks: salt-and-pepper shaker-statuettes of Zeus and Hera, napkin holders shaped like ancient ships. There are framed pictures of the parthenon on the wall behind the counter, and between them Angelo spots a sizable photograph of two menin their late teens or early twenties, he guessesstanding at the edge of a cobblestone harbor, the ocean at their backs. They wear their hair curly and long, and are clad in wide-collared, button-down shirtsopen at the chest to expose their muscular torsos, identical gold chains encircling their necksand pants that flare out at the ankles. The men are flanked by women, their forms just visible at the edges of the frame.

Angelo eyes the picture as he eats, unable to shift his attention. Something about their piercing gazes and broad-shouldered stances resonates with him to the degree that he finds himself posing in the reflection

36

of the chrome espresso machine, trying to mimic their supreme air of confidence. Then he hears his fathers laughter and goes red in the face yet again.

Ti kaneis ekei, re? Tasso says, and then, I see now. You like the picture, eh? Recognize those two?

Angelo takes another look at the photo, and suddenly it dawns on him; only surprising that he hadnt realized sooner that the men are none other than his own father and Zacharia Skourtis. You guys look... cool, Angelo says. His father sets his fork down and lays a hand on his shoulder.

Summer of nineteen-seventy...

Nine, Mr. Skourtis finishes for him.

Angelos father snaps his fingers in apparent affirmation. Yes, some time before you were born of course, Angelo. Those were the days. I was just twenty in that photo. Zacharia and I are from the same town, but there we were on the island of Spetses. You remember from the last trip, eh?

Angelo almost reminds his father that it has been a mere three years since their most recent visit to Greece, but he just nods instead.

From behind the counter Mr. Skourtis refills Tassos coffee, then Angelos juice, before leaning his hairy

apollo papafrangou 37

forearms against the formica and adding, Summer of nineteen-seventy-nine, the year your father and I established ourselves as the kings of the kamaki! Has he told you the stories?

Angelo glances from his father to the photograph, then back to Mr. Skourtis before shaking his head.

Mr. Skourtis seems to regard Angelos father with some surprise, and then he says, toh paidi einai what, thirteen-years-old now? Its time he learns the truth.

Angelo, his heart rattling in his chest with the frenzy of a caged bird, senses that that which has long been hanging in the air between him and his father will finally be revealed.

Tasso looks to Mr. Skourtis, who gestures a pushing motion with his open hands as though to give Angelos father a final boost, and then Tasso leans forward on his stool. There was a group of us young guys, he says, old friends from the horyo, and they looked to Mr. Skourtis as a leader, though Im not sure why...

No, no, Mr. Skourtis chimes in, they looked at you as leader, yiati eisai polee mankgas! Tasso chuckles.

Thats not quite how I remember it.

Your father had the extra confidence, Mr. Skourtis says.

38

Tasso shrugs. Its a typically Greek quality, but perhaps all the Koutouvalis men have more than the usual.

Angelo wants to remind his father that the trait has apparently skipped a generation, but he still keeps quiet.

Your father would walk down the street like this, Mr. Skourtis says, stepping out from behind the counter to demonstrate a square-shouldered strut, his arms held slightly away from his body. Mr. Cool.

Tasso laughs. Dont pay attention to this guy, Angelo. He is known to exaggerate. Anyhow, you must understand Greece was regaining a sense of freedom at that time, after years under military rule. The Greek girls were still very sheltered, but the towns were flooded with tourists from France, Germany, Finland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden. Blonde-hair, blue-eye women everywhere...

And when your father saw one he liked, Mr. Skourtis begins, he went right for her. Just like a true kamaki! That is the Greek word for

Harpoon, Angelo cuts in.

Bravo ta Ellenika sou! says Mr. Skourtis. But also hustler, or flirt. Katalaves?

Angelo nods again.

apollo papafrangou 39

As, I said, Mr. Skourtis is good at spinning tales, Tasso says. I didnt know much English then, but obviously I didnt know any German or Finnish or Danish or whatever. I would say to them Mademoiselle, you are beautiful. How do you enjoy Greece? Would you like to go for a drink or dance?

Angelo looks to Mr. Skourtis who nods in confirmation of the story.

Most of the time, Tasso says, the women just ignored me.

Ha! exclaims Mr. Skourtis, As I recall, it was typical for your father to go with four women in one day!

Thats not exactly

But Angelo, with eyes wide, cuts in to ask, To dance?

Mr. Skourtis flashes a smirk. Ohee, re! To... you know... to bed.

Angelos eyes go even wider. He looks to his father, but the man only shakes his head.

No, I remember! says Mr. Skourtis. It was definitely four in one day average.

Tasso smirks. I think you have your past confused with my own. Understand, Angelo, things were different

40

back then. In most parts of the world, including Greece, it was much more open. Sex was no big deal. I know you are growing up, and girls will start chasing you like they occasionally chased me. I want you to understand the power you have and to use it wisely. But definitely use it when you are ready.

Angelo cant help but think of his Spider-Man comics. With great power comes great responsibility. The gift of the kamaki? he asks.

Yes! says Mr. Skourtis.

Tasso adds, Gone are the glory days of the kamaki in high numbers. He laughs, then says, But who knows? You may follow in Mr. Skourtis footsteps and lead a new generation.

Angelo lowers his eyes. Ive never even kissed a girl.

Tasso just waves. Nothing to be shame. You have time. Now, finish your breakfast.

Later, back in the car on the way home, Angelo cant look at his father without picturing the man as a twenty-year-old Lothario, despite Tassos inexplicable efforts to downplay his past. Its a bit like discovering the man is a super-hero, and Angelo wonders when his own powers will reveal themselves. He supposes he can hold off investing in a suit-and-cape, at least until he sprouts his first few chest hairssure signs of the

apollo papafrangou 41

emergence of his inner-kamaki. He smiles to himself, sensing even then that this is a morning he will long remember.

43

C AS S A

M D E A D A L L E T T

IM JUST LIKE YOU

I loved Hip Hop on first listenseventh grade in the cold country winter a white kid holding a boom box on the playground I memorized every word of Grandmaster Flash and

The Furious FivePeople Think Im Nasty People Think Im WrongI heard The Message I learned it the streets gospel from Melle Melfresh from the bottom to the top I drank Gin and Juice Before Snoop house parties got turned out cassette tapes recorded from kpoo every Sunday we hit the triangle button before Yo mtv Rapsand then all that too but I didnt just listen

I had to breathe black intellectualism and gangsterism

I had to have a baby by the ex con realer than real deal Holyfield

live in housing walk broke pushing my brown babys stroller marginalized

I toted the books Sister Souljah told me read my first albums told me Six In The Morning Police

At My Door

44

my Fresh Adidas Squeaked Across Bathroom Floorsnwa and utfo inhaled with white lines Whodinis

magicthought I would be an old white lady in the ghetto these babies gathered round I can cook and I had to cause it was in the music I ran

to there was history fried chicken and grits that I didnt have I grew up on borrowed time a culture of someone

else

Mom I got this from you you loved Bluegrass found it a barefoot teenager in the folk clubs of

legendso beat nick the music sang in your veins hungry you learned to strum guitar you didnt just sing it you lived it built houses chiseling wood gardening vegetables the songs of working fingers to bone of boney fingers

sewing clothes singing the blue out of the grass sucking the grass through two thin lips licking pressing Zig Zags tight white and perfect fingers flat on strings heart break ringing into green

valleys blue collar shoulder blades pushing ever skyward like cathedral rooftops maybe its the Ireland in us but some part of the pale mish mash we pass as we sing for flight

CassanDra DalleTT 45

we sing for hometo feel we live inside music shape our very cells to the soundour whole lives to the pitchit is our only identity.

46

WHATS WITH THE HAIR TRIGGER

This frothing at the mouth This bubbling under the surface these white menthis dick contest they cant stand losing

this hot eruption the N word burning a patch in their tonguessome super sour lemonhead theyve rolled around in there far too long then spume

and the bullets are the same no probable cause no warning shot no shoot to maim a bullet in the leg a taser theyre fucked up things but even an escaped tiger gets a tranquilizer

today a white man waving a gun at kids at bystanders at the policegot took down with a neat shot to the legjust boop like tiger like elephant or like the foul rabid human being he wastaken down for a sec to cool off

CassanDra DalleTT 47

but not our kids noour kids somehow so terrifying so black hoodied-criminal our boys must be hunted haunted trophies cause the bullets like the words seem to be carried around right on the tip of the tongue just looking for a reason to spit.

48

FIRST DATE

I got his number at the tire shopmy home girl had hit the curb hella hard and fucked

up her rimI got the white boys number who worked there toobut the brother called right away.

I left my baby at home girls house and he picked me up we drank in his trunk tilting paper cups and telling war stories down by Van Nesswent to the new movie theaterdrunkenly sprawled the front row seats through

Roninafter sandwiches at Tommys Joynt across the way.

Later on we made a run to the Avenues and dropped a sack at a cheap motelcutting back across town through the Presidiothe truck filled with blue light and we got pulled over right outside the gate.

Hes looking at me and Im looking at him he throws some saran wrapped rocks out the window

CassanDra DalleTT 49

and pulls into a parking place the cops take him over to the curb to question himhe starts to rub his stomach tells them he feels sickleans down into sprinters positionand hes gone. The cops run off after him all leather belt radio belly and Im just sitting there alone again in a streetlight puddle its cold in the white Bronco the white rocks in the

street and here I am out the house after darkI got a babysitter and Im on a first date.

51

A MM E L Y S

E G E L M A M

52

somewhere. I will find it. Ill tell it to you and youlllaugh and Ill keep tensing up my heart because if I dontIll die and this love poem will have been for nothing.

annelyse gelMan 53

ESCAPE ARTIST

Ive listened to this album so many timesI cant hear it anymore and Im worriedmy sex life is boring. Even our handcuffsare cheap, the kind you can slip openwith a corkscrew and a little patience.

My drummer says he feels like hes hitting mewhen he uses sticks. I cant tell if hes flirting.I cant tell if thats okay. Hes kind of a slut but he calls himself a curator so he gets away with it. Meanwhile I feel an obligation to mistrust

the missionary position because I had sexin a graveyard one time and need to proveIm still adventurous. You have no such need.More than once you have straddled me, gazed lovinglyinto my eyes, and whispered: What is a shallot?

I bought you an aluminum abacus for ouranniversary because anniversaries are dumb.At night we get naked and you start countingevil thoughts. Click, click, go the little beadslike tiny clocks every time you come.

54

AN ILLUSTRATED GUIDE TO THE POST-APOCALYPSE

What? -Hamlet, to the Ghost

1.

The future has an obscenely happy ending: one day there you arethen suddenly BANG!

3amand youre spending the rest of eternityeating a plate of eggs over easylistening 102.1, incandescent with fever You look at me and I begin to melt Just like the snow when a ray of sun is felt

so sing along, you lovesick vampire And Im crazy bout ya, baby, cant you see So dont you dare go ahead and die on me

2.

Fifteen people have lived and diedfor every one still aliveand thats just the pre-apocalypsemy god!Were the protagonists of our own storiestrapped in the basement of our lives!I will wipe the yolk from your chin and paint our faces green

annelyse gelMan 55

so when the aliens find ustheyll nod Keep up the good work instead of kidnapping us for their human milking machinethat is how much I love you.

3.

A conductor, an undercover cop, and a functional adult walk into a bar. Happy birthdaylets get wasted and watch late-night television!Close your eyes and make a wish!

(blowjobs blowjobs blowjobs)Now back to our scheduled programmingbut firstour weekly weather forecast: there will be girls! (girls girls girls girls)

4.

It was winter for years. I had your voice-mails on repeat like digital jukeboxeseating all my quarters in new AAAs. Did you know three people were crushed to death by vending machines in 1988?I bet too many people couldnt eat just oneand one and one and I cant blame themyou are my favorite song, all clatteringcages, shattering bulbs, dead skin cells grind-dancing dead skin cellslike tinder on kindling, keeping me warm.

56

5.

Sometimes I imagine youve died instead of just moving to Chicagoand how impossible it would beto replace you. When the world endsthere will be no cars or textiles or houses that arent blueprinted in Kid Pix, no food that isnt Easy Mac looted from abandoned supermarkets.I love you like a felony conviction. I love you because you weigh probably 600 pounds less than a vending machine, which is one less way for you to kill me.Take off my skin before the atom bomb, pronouncemy name like identity theft. Fill your lungs with ghost-muffled sirens to blessthe brittle refuge of my ankles.I love you cosmic anonymity I love you organized a littleout of entropy I love youpale blue dot in the red shift I love.

6.

Welcome to continued existencein the face of nothingness, this electron-aimless search for a heart that open

-swings like a gate, and thats notallyouve got to knock and see if someone is home and if they are

annelyse gelMan 57

do they want to buy a subscriptionto US Weekly?

Long odds, yeah, but youve got todo itthats life.You cant touch the world without being touched back, not even after the world ends.Every breath is still shameless seduction, every moment the latest vital scene so applause my hands, youyou accident of flesh We are not victims of life! We are survivors of death.

59

J E S S IC A H A H M

THE BALLAD OFSAN FRANPSYCHO

in this city that she called homeone of many, but unlike the restfrom the abandoned mansion on Twin Peaks,now torn to rubble, condo erected, to the splay of Market Street,a golden arrow in the nightpointing east, to the dark blotchof the bay, where Humphrey the whale once swamback when she was a child, when theeucalyptus groves were her slides,cardboard & a steep slope her sincerest thrills.

in this city that she loves to hatewhere a pair of virgins tried & tried to no availdoctors said it was solely nervousness& then the pain, where was the pleasure,in this city, where a gods hands melded out of the sky one nightsaying it was okay, everything was alright, a mother in jail, a father dead, a tyrant sister,but one day shed be free.

the cutting classes. school a joke,

60

the boys in her bed, the loves& the cheer at the bottom of a bottle,so high on angel dust she couldntdrive a car through the city.the bass & the drums of punk rock.the possible freedom from whatever, the un-namable, the essenceof a city. this one. from scum to slick.on turk street, on polk, at the embwhere skateboarders had their arms out,being a bird is best, take to flight, sail across the city, a blue angel, the clouds at her side,the smog rolled against the Oakland hills,the valley the city looks to be,the mounds covered with housesthe hill with the goats, with the bluewater tank, with the curviest street,where five cent spells went onbehind her slatted door, incense smoldering,a cat named Bastet curled by her side,the sign of a star, the power of beliefthat one day the city would altershed its skin, quake everything offlike a snake does, like a wig weareror shed take off, she had to.

in this city, where upon return the suddenbald, terrible, out-n-out, flagrant gentrification& the overwhelming changes of her town.shocking. that party house blown to ashby a basement speed lab. an acre of projects

JessiCa HaHn 61

wiped out in a heartbeat. assholes swinginginto the mission district. the mother growing older,whiter haired. music changing its tune.the wrinkles of advancing age. shes not a childany longer. nor the teen.gray hairs already at the age of 22. a heart that hurts, shedding skins. friends come& gone & come again.has it really been four years absence?

in this city she calls nothing, she wonderswhat everything is all about. she feels lost.its an imposter to her memory.a mockery, a fable lacking romance.maybe it was the charge of youthcoupled with drugs & new experiencesbut the city once was Pandemoniumwhere demonkind giggled in gaggles & thenetherworlds touched base with here & now.the chatter of a rattle-jawed wingnut,crackheads on the corner, hookers at 850 Bryant. now the people in unknown files.

and so many decades ago she cannot recall,a marshland where beasts would wallow &long-necked birds choked on silver fish.water mixed with sand, slim grass,not a wheeze of tenements or the faintest scratch of concrete, nor neon pulses.rather, the push & draw of ocean, mud,a boggy land, awash with water,

62

sunlight, seasons as they always turn.a tankerload of murk, a pocketful of salt.

by degrees. by days. the flux of humans. cry of gold, bursting tree trunks,shaking ground, determination.there shall be a city here. a golden one.

place her memories in a poems cache, hopesomeone understands what it isto be gone & return with a slap,to lose a land, a city one called home.the thoughts of the past wrenched out. the people of the city ousted. back & forth. condominiums rising all around.seasons changing, territory not pissed onany longer, losing ground control.

63

S I AM A E V

O S S O A G H I

BUS LUCK

When we left Holt, Montana, the bus had somehow overbooked and the driver sheepishly asked if anyone would be willing to stand through the night. There was nothing sheepish about it for me. I said I would, as if I had been waiting my whole life for someone to ask me to stand through the American night while people slept softly all around me. It seemed fair: The driver drove, the passengers slept, and I wondered and marveled and dreamed. Everybody was doing their job. I was eighteen years old and sometimes my job seemed to keep me on the outskirts of whatever was happening, and this was a kind of outskirts too, but it was my kind of outskirts. If you were going to stand on a bus through Montana, there was no better way than with people sleeping all around you. I felt like there should be a word for when it looked like you were on the outskirts of something but what you felt was the opposite of that.

If a guy had any hope of making some kind of poetry out of a bus ride across America, then he sure as hell better be the one to volunteer to stand. I felt like the stars were looking down thinking, okay, somebodys going to give it a shot. It seemed to me like the only thing to give.

64

We had taken the bus from Seattle to Madison together, me and Drew. He was quitting school for a while so hed stayed in Madison and I was coming back by myself. The ride there was mostly laughter and the ride back was mostly sorrow, but the elevated sorrow of looking out the window and having no place but my heart to let it all in.

I didnt know there was an elevation where it didnt feel like sorrow anymore until I stood through the night. This is me, I thought. I hadnt known it myself, but that was the clearest I had ever seen myself. I saw myself more clearly than even the ride to Madison with Drew, when wed made comedy out of anything, an elevated comedy that wasnt laughing at anybody any more than we laughed at ourselves. I had thought that that was the truth of who I was, but in that Montana night I felt like the truth was an alone thing, even though Drew wouldve liked to stand through the night too, he wouldve wondered and marveled and dreamed like me.

But the peace that I made with humanity that night was a private peace. Drew believed in that peace and he sought it too, but if he had been standing there with me, it wouldve been very easy to reach for comedy. The comedy was there. It was funny to watch people sleep, but it was a lot of other things too. I couldnt even begin to name all of them, but standing there by myself, I didnt have to. And that was the kind of friendship Drew and I had too, we told each other

siaMaK vossougHi 65

a lot but we gave each other room to not speak the unspeakable. We mightve even given each other that room standing on the bus through the night. But by myself it was effortless.

I felt like a kid. I wanted myself to remember for the rest of my life that whatever happened in the world, somebody might be standing on a Greyhound bus while everyone around them slept. I wanted myself to remember it when I was back in college. I thought it would help me to make some sense of college. I didnt know how. Maybe it was to look at people therestudents, professors, receptionists managing advising officesand to remember that they all could be bus-sleepers while somebody stood through the night. I knew that I wanted to volunteer for that job when I was actually on a bus, and I wanted to do it all the time too. There were a great many people who I wanted to stand while they slept. I couldnt think of anybody who I wouldnt want to do that for. Dormitories and fraternities and sororities and lecture halls, and past the campus out into the city. I knew it was impossible to really remember itpeople werent asleep, for one thing, and once they were awake, you had to be ready for anything. I didnt know if it was possible to remember it as anything other than an isolated event. Maybe a good story to tell. But the story didnt really do justice to the lesson underneath it.

There was something in that night to take with me but I didnt know what. Even if I knew, I didnt think it

66

could be any match for the waking world. This was the whole world were talking about, after all. Your days couldnt be spent in expectation of wakeful nights. Still, Id stood up and volunteered, knowing that there was something I wanted to see from that position. And Id seen it, so what I could take with me was the knowledge that I was already right about something. Suddenly I couldnt wait to get back home and find out what else I was already right about. If that was all I had to take with me, that was plenty.

67

J E FF E E Y E I M G M A M

EVER LISTENING

1.

The office piles up after him, girl privilege this jerk. Shitty, he bucks gun back. Count me no-money by sitting ahead on trackmust appear. Make us. Club expecting to count questions between teenage thought into care. A time in we, when we were one-dollar funny, sounding part of no. We drank silver hundred beers. Im crammed thinking of drumheads, but instantly I grow into plural. Cologne whole constant, playing Gonna Shake Muscular Girl. To hold you only, laughs biker. Guitar angles better, maybe his legs. Its finally each spinning familiar as Tea, Dave and I soon brake, though stop is not enough. Winter all muses. Drummer knows it loads out cold. Wheeze coffee.

2.

Playing myself against sound machines, I find notes to the plunking needs come so. Guitar filling that the easier will counter form. Of themselves I say the meaning along the songs never. Dont thump to shrieking and then suddenly tell it out worse. Wait shut dreams, time tripping and back sweet,

68

but Tourettes embraced in songwriting my hair. For example, I of better seizure.

3.

Sit-records were ready to soft the shaking hand, but it was regular kids who were the real soothers. Thick on dead pop implied that my skin played waves, let it float of need still. Some that shake call for messed pills, just imagine our different pressing, vivid or evil. But interplay around pushing is clean, if sounding absent is helpful in the sun. Quit This is a third focus, calling time wastes six, the clear angels sound. Anyway, it was a pay phone. Call approximations, the screwed up strings, their spiraling lungs can still play what shouldve stuttered back on brother. The glads deliver the bands finishing in sparkle mode. Hovering in whiteness, hair stays and the office steps back. Summer reinflates, fingers work. Our look says, If one flies anymore, theyll meet us there.

69

S E A M T A Y L O E

AND APERFECTLY SORE THROAT

When he said water, it sounded like wetter, though he wasnt wrong in doing so. We went throat singing on the last day of the year.

We did it at the end of the river, like the end of the river, into the lake.

We were told about the gift of extra sighs, that shallow lungs too often give.

All of the different ways we can and cannot breathe.

We met a man with a four-four hiccup count,

his beating life blessed with perfect regularity.

His heart always gulping down the drowning sound of swallowing. Is that throat singing? you asked, quietly beside me.

I think its more of a throat percussion. I said.

The lake was five miles away, it had to be far

70

enough, to get the breath out. They called that run the sound check.

I raced you through the woods, along the river, like the river, to the lake. Where we met the fish, that came to hear us sing.

He pointed out their clapping mouths.

I said it was your throat singing, it was your throat singing.

Their mouths were tiny white caps, their tiny white caps played the applause, like rain or waves, on other days.

We were just out of breath, but louder, which for you, was absolute.

We sang on our toes, like thirty-one days in December.

A man,

the conductor,

his two longest fingers,

pressed us,

two feet in front of us,

sean Taylor 71

to breathe louder,

and more, with more.

After we were done, with my last best lung, and a perfectly sore throat,

I asked you, what you sang about.

And you shook your head, no, Im not telling, smiling.

I sang about everything, I said, serious as a choke.

My eyes out of breath, my hands now doing the talking. I asked again, almost laughing, what you sang about.

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63s+b 63 Reading Copy63 back cover