Delmarva Review, Volume 11

Delmarva

Review

Evocative Prose & Poetry

Volume 11

2018

Table of Contents

Delmarva Review

Copyright

Preface

Alejandro Pérez

ORIGINS

BROWN

THE DOOR TO MY HOUSE

FIGMENTS

WORDS OF MY FATHER/ PALABRAS DE MI PADRE

Mark Jacobs

AMERICAN DREAM

Darien Gee

DAYBREAK

PAR AVION

OBEISANCE

BEQUEST

Holly Karapetkova

COTTON MOUTH

TRANSACTIONS

WHAT OUR MOTHERS DON’T TELL US

CURSED

WAS THERE EVER A MOMENT OF RECOGNITION

RESPONSIBILITY

Evalyn Lee

FIRST DAY OF THE SECOND GULF WAR

Holly Painter

MAN-HOURS

NIGHT SWIM

THE SAN FRANCISCO SELF-EXAMINER

Ashley Aquila

CUSTODY

Timothy Robbins

UNION ANGEL

A TRICK TO FRIGHTEN THEM

TRIALS

TOWN MATES

TOTEM

Emily Rae Roberts

PRAIRIE FEVER

Sharon Kennedy-Nolle

SOMETHING WILD STILLED

COMMITTED

IT WAS ENOUGH

PATCHWORK

Brian Koukol

THE QUALITY OF ONE’S PRISON

Daisy Bassen

CATHERINE-WHEEL

ANCESTOR

EPITHALMION

GRIEF

TREATMENT

SEVEN A.M. WAS YELLOW AND GOLD

Rustin Larson

EINSTEIN

Devon Miller-Duggan

THE HIEROGLYPHICS

Tony Motzenbacker

HERE IS BURIED

Aya Elizabeth

SISTER IN GOODNESS, SISTER AT LAST

NEGOTIATING LIGHT AS A HUMAN

Michelle Berberet

MY DAD JUST DIED AFTER ALL

Joel Showalter

EXCERPT FROM THE MASSEUR SAYS

AUBADE

LETTER TO THE STUDENTS OF WRITING 358, AFTER A VISIT TO THEIR CLASS

FUNERAL VIGNETTE

OCTOBER SONG

THE ROBIN OUTSIDE YOUR DOOR

Abigail Johnson

ON BEING ENOUGH (OR PARIS M’A LIBÉRÉ)

Michael Ferro

WAKE UP SONG FOR TEAGAN AT DUKE

WHAT I DON’T TALK ABOUT

SLEEP SONG FOR GARRETT AND HIS GRADUATION

JUSTIN ASKS ME TO TUNE HIS GUITAR AFTER YOUTH GROUP

Marc Mayer

THE LAST HIPPIE HITCHHIKE

Michele Wolf

ALMOST FIFTY

EROS BY THE SEA, COLLECTING DOVES

John J. McKeon

CANTABILE

Betsy Martin

THE BRINK

WHAT’S A COAT

Colin Pope

A CRAFT TALK

Carolyn Sherman

GOGGY SENDS LOVE

D Ferrara

THE TYRANNY OF MEMORY, A GHOSTWRITER’S LAMENT

Valerie Perreault

THE RADIUS OF A CHILD’S ARMS OUTSTRETCHED

Kenneth A. Fleming

CHILDREN

Katherine Gekker

SLEEPING BEAUTY IS THE KEEPER OF LANGUAGE

BODRUM HAMAM

James P. Hanley

RETREATING

Frances Park

A LOVE LETTER TO MY SISTER’S DOG

Luther Jett

SAUDADE

BORDERLAND

James W. Horton

THE EMPTY FLAT

Adam Tamashasky

ENTROPY

CAROLINA CHICKADEE

AUTUMN SESTINA

Helen Sperber

NINETY-THREE POUNDS

Ginny Fite

MAY THERE BE ABUNDANT PEACE

Caroline Bock

THE SECRET LIFE OF POOL CLEANERS

Gareth Culshaw

SLOWLY BURNING AWAY

PERPS

THE WORK OF TWO MACHINES

Book Reviews

IN THE MARGINS

THE JERSEY BROTHERS

STILL WATER BENDING

THIRD HAVEN

ALTERED SEASONS

Contributors

Orders & Subscriptions

Copyright

Delmarva

Review

VOLUME 11

Cover Photograph: Sharps Island Light by Jay Fleming

Delmarva Review is a national literary review with regional roots. It publishes annually in print and digital editions by the Delmarva Review Literary Fund Inc., a nonprofit organization encouraging writers and readers of the literary arts. Financial support is provided by sales, tax-deductible contributions, and a grant from the Talbot County Arts Council, with revenues provided by the Maryland State Arts Council.

The Review welcomes new prose and poetry submissions from all writers, regardless of residence. Editors consider only those manuscripts submitted according to the Review’s guidelines during open submission periods, which are posted on the website: delmarvareview.org.

Send general correspondence to:

Delmarva Review

P.O. Box 544

St. Michaels, MD 21663

E-mail: editor@delmarvareview.org

Copyright 2018 by the Delmarva Review Literary Fund Inc.

P.O. Box 544, St. Michaels, MD 21663

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018959327

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-7239278-0-5

Preface

With humble deference to the great literature of the ages, this collection of poems, short stories, and creative nonfiction is proof that all stories have not already been told. Here, each writer gives us an original, new voice. The creative pen endures. Welcome to the eleventh annual Delmarva Review, a literary journal publishing exceptional new writing.

Our editors selected the work of 45 authors that stood out from thousands of submissions. Enclosed are 57 poems, 10 short stories, 11 nonfiction and four micro nonfiction selections. We also reviewed five recent books by regional writers. In all, the authors come from 19 states and two other countries.

A common theme emerged from this year’s writing: the discovery or realization of individuality. Often during difficult times, adversity leaves its impression on one’s identity; it shapes us. It can also be celebrated. Individuality and creativity are inseparable.

As a journal, our focus is on the voice and literary qualities of authors’ work to tell their stories. We are impressed by the courage and clarity of a writer to reveal skillfully a personal feeling or truth that will be remembered. They represent human challenges in a changing world. In most cases, the stories take on more than one meaning. In all cases, the voice is authentic.

Delmarva Review was created to offer writers a new venue to publish literary writing in print at a time when commercial publications were going out of business. We still favor the permanence of the printed word, but we added an electronic edition to meet the digital preferences of many readers. Both print and electronic editions are immediately available at major online booksellers.

We welcome submissions from all authors who pursue literary writing. Our editors read each submission. Since the first issue, we have published the new work of over 300 writers from 40 states, the District of Columbia, and 10 foreign countries. Fifty-one percent are from the tri-state Delmarva and Chesapeake Bay region. Over 50 have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and others have received notable mentions in Best American Essays and other publications.

As a nonprofit literary journal, we are greatly appreciative of the funding support we receive from the Talbot County Arts Council, with revenues from the Maryland State Arts Council, and from individual tax-deductible contributions.

Wilson Wyatt, Jr.

Editor

Email: editor@delmarvareview.org

Alejandro Pérez

ORIGINS

I can almost remember the dogs

howling on rooftops, begging for

food that would never arrive.

I can almost remember the children

filling buckets with river water,

blowing off the dirt and leeches.

I can almost remember the woman

carrying mangoes on her head,

walking with a limp and a hunched back.

I can almost remember, but I can’t.

I cannot remember where I come from.

BROWN

Look at that mud in which you step

and the brick houses you pass on your

way home and the logs in fireplaces.

Look at your own eyes in the mirror,

your family’s eyes,

your best friend’s.

Brown.

Flip through the pages of books,

rotting, slowly decaying with age.

If your voice had a color,

it’d be brown too. Never

overly excited, no cracks,

never a whisper or a scream.

And your normal-paced walk,

never hurried but never dragging your feet.

Your forward gaze, never looking back

or sideways or up toward the sky.

A brown existence.

Sometimes you curse its dullness.

But at night, you find it comforting,

as cinnamon and nutmeg are brown,

and when mixed with your tea they

make the perfect balm, leading to a

dreamless sleep.

THE DOOR TO MY HOUSE

The door to my house,

made of bronze,

like a church façade,

torn down.

Now, the metal corrodes

and bends in my basement

as if a junkyard.

My backyard lawn

with ancient shrubbery,

growing a pale brown color,

unpleasing at first sight

but still setting the scene

like the gargoyles that welcome

to museums of art.

I cut all those shrubs away

with gardening scissors

that had been tossed

in some cupboard in the kitchen,

never used.

Look at how empty my lawn is now.

I wanted to redecorate, refine,

reset the scene,

make my house

more beautiful.

But I only made it barren

and somber

and dark.

FIGMENTS

I think that dreams do not exist, 

and if they do they trick the eye,

a trompe l’oeil, like lightning 

bugs they come out

and shine their light, 

the next second they’re gone 

and the night is dark.

WORDS OF MY FATHER/

PALABRAS DE MI PADRE

(after Jamaica Kincaid)

Always say hello, even if the others do not say hello back.

We are Latinos, and Latinos always say hello.

When you shake a hand, shake it firmly, and look a person in the eyes. Never look away. Character goes a long way in life. And we aren’t born with character. We build it.

Character is a house of hay that becomes sturdy with time.

Never try to eat a mango without getting your hands dirty. Let the juice ooze onto your fingers, let your fingers become sticky. When you’re finished eating it, you can wash your hands. Remember, any mess, no matter how big, can always be cleaned up.

When you play soccer, always be the best player on the field. And be a little selfish. You pass the ball too much to your teammates, and assists, they don’t get you anywhere in life. People will only remember you if you score all the goals.

Know when a dream is worth chasing forever and when it should be abandoned to go off in pursuit of another.

The same goes for women. When you love a woman, if your heart begs to see her whenever she is gone, never let her go.

If you’re only half sure of your love, then you should walk away.

If you ever have a problem, come to me and ask me for advice. But most likely, I won’t give you an answer. I’ll just sit down beside you and we’ll both close our eyes and pray to God for guidance because two prayers are better than one.

For anything good in life, you must wait. You cannot make guacamole with a green avocado because it will taste bitter.

You must wait for the avocado to ripen and turn black.

You need to remember all these things, mi’jo. You need to remember all these things. But the most important thing you should remember is that you are Latino. That means you should always say hello, even if the others do not say hello back,

because we are Latinos, and Latinos always say hello. 

Mark Jacobs

AMERICAN DREAM

Fiction

Nothing that happened the night Nelson killed the raven was funny. Especially not what happened to me. Started happening, I should say. The mystery was why I kept laughing. I thought if I figured that out, I would know what I was supposed to do. For the record, Nelson did not mean to kill the bird.

Nelson Pacheco was the Hilltoppers’ catcher. He was having a terrific season, batting .285 and making some killer plays at the plate. Somehow he managed to connect with a vicious curve ball delivered by the opposing pitcher. The ball popped up over the third-base dugout at the exact moment the bird happened by. They collided, the bird came down dead, a few morons in the stands laughed, and the ump called a time-out. Everybody thought it was a crow, me included. But there was some sort of professor at the game that night. He recognized the dead bird for what it was. Eventually the play-by-play guy announced it wasn’t a crow, and the ump hollered play ball. Our guys went on to win by a run and hold on to second place in the standings.

From what I read, later on, we didn’t have all that many ravens in our area. Knocking them off with foul balls couldn’t help.

I loved baseball. I loved our stadium. It sat on a hill on the west edge of the city, and from just about any seat in the place you had a knock-out view of the Blue Ridge mountains in the distance. Summer nights, the sun going down softened the scenery. It glowed, and the glow made you feel like you had stumbled into a significant moment. You sat there sipping a cold brew as your eye swept from infield to outfield, over to the scoreboard and up over the fence to the trees, and finally to the mountains in the distance. You wished you could stop time because there it was, right in front of you, the American Dream.

Nelson, the catcher, was living in our basement, in Pete’s old room. Single A ball did not pay much, unless you had a signing bonus. In that case nobody expected you to stick around long—they bumped you up to a Double A or even a Triple A club pretty much overnight. One way the players got by was living with families when they were in town. Most of the host families were pretty well off. Realtors, car dealers, that kind of person. The guys who stayed with them had a good thing going. A big comfortable room of their own, sometimes a private apartment. Nelson did not have it that good, staying with us. I was a welder. My wife worked at Big Lots. Luck of the draw, Nelson’s and mine. Ginny Elizabeth and I tried to make up for not living in a showplace by feeding the hell out of our ballplayers.

We had been hosting players a long time. We got free season tickets out of the deal, but that was not the reason we did it. My wife liked baseball, although not the way I did. It had something to do with the solid feeling you got, making a contribution. In my experience, most people like doing something generous. No one puts a gun to their head to force them to do it.

The night Nelson killed the raven, Ginny Elizabeth was out playing spit-in-the-bucket with her friends, but our daughter, Carrie, came with me. That surprised me, her wanting to see the game. From Carrie’s point of view, baseball was nothing but embarrassment. It meant a strange guy staying in the windowless room her brother fixed up for himself in the basement back when he was a teenager and wanted to get away from us. She knew how the other host families lived. But she was a month away from turning eighteen, and there was not much I understood about her, so when she said she was coming with me, all I said was Great. In the bottom of the second inning, she got a text from a friend on the other side of the stadium and moved away to sit with her.

After the game, I went looking for her. Found her where I did not expect to. She was down on the field staring at Nelson. He was swinging a bat with a doughnut on it like he was warming up. He was staring back at her.

That was all it took. What made fathers so dense? My daughter was growing into her looks. She was not the kind of girl you were going to see on a magazine cover, but there was a freshness about her. Ginny Elizabeth said Carrie was earnest, and earnest was attractive. After a three-month bout with blue, she had let her mother’s wonderful auburn hair grow out again the way it wanted to. The pouty air she had been cultivating through her senior year bugged the hell out of me, but I knew better than to make a big deal out of it. And I was not naïve—I also knew it had something to do with sex.

You going home with me?

I was talking to both of them. I guess this is the place to say that Nelson was from the Dominican Republic and spoke English with a pretty heavy accent. And had brown skin. People are going to climb all over me for mentioning that. All I can say is, it was relevant.

Thanks, Mr. Boggs, he said. I’m going out with the guys. Home later. He dug in his pocket and brought out a key ring with a neon orange fish head, held it up. Ginny Elizabeth had given him a house key once we decided we trusted him.

He smiled. It was a smile you could imagine seeing on a baseball card some day. He was handsome in a sports-hero way.

The ride home with Carrie was not one of my finer moments.

I know what you’re thinking, she said.

What am I thinking?

That me and Nelson are going to…do something.

I won’t repeat everything we said. My part came down to, Nelson was too old for her and wasn’t going to be around anyway. Her part was accusing me of being a racist.

He’s living in our house, I said. He sits at our table. Tell me what’s racist about that.

She pounded the dashboard in frustration. It was her way of telling me I didn’t get it. At home she flounced off, made herself scarce. I watched a little TV then went to bed. Six a.m. came early. By the time Ginny Elizabeth came to bed, I was sawing serious wood.

It must have been fatherly intuition that woke me in the middle of the night and sent me to the window. When I looked out, there was my daughter dancing with Nelson on the flagstone patio I’d laid myself three years ago. Dancing, and no music. There wasn’t much light, either, just a couple of lanterns on the picnic table.

Ginny Elizabeth sat up in bed and said What’s wrong, Patterson? I didn’t answer. I tore downstairs and outside and broke up the dance party. To his credit, Nelson knew he had crossed a line. He hung his head. Meantime, Carrie was furious, spouting every kind of nonsense about me not trusting her and her having the right to live her own life and…fill in the blanks based on your own experience.

Get out of my house, I said to Nelson.

It was two o’clock in the a.m. He had no car. There were no buses in our neighborhood. He might or might not have had enough cash on him to cover a hotel room. But he went.

You’re mean, my daughter moaned when he was gone. You’re a racist pig.

Well, I was mad, but I took it. What choice did I have? Harder to take was Ginny Elizabeth’s analysis of the evening’s events. She said I overreacted. After a while, I put a pillow over my head and did my best to sleep.

At Cushman Machine & Welding the next morning, my head was pounding like it used to when I drank too much and got hangovers. Not enough sleep—it brings out the darkness in a new day. My friend Randy Bullock and I were working on a rush job for the foreman. The customer had invented a machine for sorting gravel by size. The novelty was how the shaker connected to and moved the sorter tray. He needed a working model to try and sell the idea. It was a kick-ass concept, and normally I would have enjoyed working on it. But the incident with Carrie and Nelson had me rattled.

It’s simple, said Randy.

For Randy, everything was simple. He spent way too much time listening to the hotheads on talk radio. There was gray in his beard now, and he’d been walking with a limp since he took a spill on his brand-new Yamaha, taking a curve on one of those mountain roads meant for scenic cruises, not daredevil bikers past their riding prime. He lifted his mask and prepared to lecture me.

This country was started by guys with names like Patterson Boggs and Randy Bullock. Am I right or am I right? They’re turning it into a country that caters to guys with names like Nelson Pacheco and Ali Baba. They sneak over the border and look for a sign called Easy Street. They park their ass and stick out their hand. Before you and me are in our graves, they’ll outnumber us, and the whole thing is over.

My friend’s immigration theory did not make me feel better. I did not regret throwing Nelson out of the house. He had betrayed my trust. But I liked the guy. And now it was going to be hell, getting through the rest of the summer with Carrie. In the fall, if everything went the way it was supposed to, she started college. To make that happen, Ginny Elizabeth and I were taking out a humongous loan. Which, be it said, we were more than happy to do. I didn’t give a shit what she studied as long as she studied.

After work, I drove to Hilltoppers Stadium and hunted up Will Abbott. Will handled community relations for the team, including which players stayed with which host families. I found him in the grass outside his office having a smoke. He was a long drink of water with hands like grandma’s spaghetti bowls. Way back when, he used to play third base for the Richmond Flying Squirrels. Never made it to the big leagues but handled defeat better than most of them. He was leathery now. The baseball life will do that to a person’s skin.

When I filled him in, he shook his head, let out a mouthful of smoke. His voice rumbled like a gravel sorter. Too bad. Pacheco is a decent kid. But they know the rules. No fraternizing. Never mind, I’ll find someplace for him to stay.

Ginny Elizabeth and me, we’re happy to take another guy.

He shook his head. I didn’t know what that meant. He told me, ‘Course, you hear this all the time.

Hear what?

Guy’s got a future in the game.

You got scouts looking at him?

He wouldn’t say much more. Team management held that kind of information pretty close to the chest. They had their reasons. But it stabbed me in a soft place, thinking about Nelson moving up. He had a consistently hot bat, he had the command of the field of play a catcher had to have. It would be sensational to watch a ball player who had eaten your meatloaf and mashed potatoes rise through the ranks. Nobody that stayed with us ever got beyond Double A. The best was, one time a guy they called Skinny Pockets hit a grand slam in a playoff game while he was with the Binghamton Rumble Ponies.

Driving home, I kind of wished I hadn’t kicked Nelson out of our house. Not so much because he might make it to the bigs but because, as a person, he was one of the nicest we ever hosted. Polite, soft-spoken, and you got the impression he didn’t mind a bit staying in a welder’s basement. But by the time I pulled into the driveway I was facing a fact I did not particularly want to face.

Think of it as a movie trailer, and here’s the plot: Dominican kid makes it to the majors. Bam, he’s a star, a fence buster with a slugging percentage to die for. The baseball world gushes, look at those XBH numbers. Cameras follow him home, where his young wife is waiting to hug him. Welcome home, sweetie. She’s got stunning auburn hair. A couple of kids are horsing around in the yard. They’ve got light tan skin, a