1

PR
O
LI

TE

RA

RY

AG
A

PT

ZI

NE

02

Table of Contents
Cover Art: Brush 1 // Wilson Smith
Brush 3a // Wilson Smith
I Think This Poem is for You // Kori Alston
Untitled Photograph // Caroline Olsen
Amy // Kaitlin Jennrich
Brush 4c // Wilson Smith
NWANNA OCHA // Onyinyechi Ogwumike
Patchy // Danny Kelleher
Brush 1a // Wilson Smith
\\23. // Onyinyechi Ogwumike
How to Live Here // Danny Kelleher
Stocking // Daniel Moynihan

03

04
I Think This Poem Is For You
By Kori Alston
Bluebird
Key-changed
And latch-keyed
In the cellar
Sold short
Wings clipped
Fell shortly
After ever after
Into the hands
Of a boy
With a tight grip
And a curled lip
And something to prove to his father.
Its easier
To remember the girl
With freckled shoulders
Whose heart you broke
To prove that your heart
Wasnt the only one
That could shatter
And leave shards
Of poetic bullshit
On the floor
For you to step on.

05

Photograph by Caroline Olsen

06
Amy
By Kaitlin Jennrich

Amys brother came to live with her after the war. Or,
rather, first he lived with his girlfriend, who had long, shimmering brown hair and a scab on her lip, who called up Amy and
cried on the phone, I just cant do it anymore. Amy drove down
to the city through the night with the windows down, the whole
way, and her hair was in knots by the time the girlfriend buzzed
her up. All the light moved slowly in that dusty, dirty apartment,
like they were underwater and treading through murk and sea
grasses and small silvery fish. The girlfriend curled up in a chair
and watched them with slitted eyes. She didnt say anything when
Amy and her brother went out the door, and into the car, and
a hundred miles away. There were flies smashed up against the
glass of the windows, and a red bowl of cornflakes on the table.
Amy dreamed about that apartment sometimes, after that.
Her brothers name was Cal, and they had the same
white-blonde hair. As kids, shed cut her hair short and hed let his
grow a little long, so they almost looked the samealmost, but
not quite, like a funhouse mirror. They hadnt seen each other in
a long time. Amy thought, Who do I look like now? as they were
driving back through the corn-ripened countryside and Cal was
pretending to nap instead of talking to her. Cal looked a thousand
years older. Cal looked like someone she didnt know.
He had called her, once, from a bus station in Nashville.
She hadnt recognized his voice.
Amy? he had said. Amy?
Amy lived in a farmhouse. She hadnt always lived in a
farmhouse. First she lived in a yellow house, with Cal and their
parents. Then she had lived in an apartment, and then another apartment, and then another apartment. Then she lived in a

07
farmhouse, except not a farmhouse with fields and crops and a
cheery red barn. When she turned onto the driveway, long and
winding like a sand-colored river, Cal spoke for the first time.
He said, Shit.

Every building on the property leaned or collapsed or
rotted: the barn, the tractor shed, the wood shed. Rust streaked
the silo dark red. Next to the old barn, flowering vines snaked
through the windows of a rusted-out truck, and young trees
pushed their way out of the caved-in barn roof; swallows were
nesting in the bright green branches. The shingles of the house
had turned grey and weather-beaten years ago. Everything
around the house was overgrown and nettle-poisoned, except
for the small circle of neatly mowed green grass where Amy had
been beating back the thistles for months. Beyond the houses
sloping silhouette, the overgrown fields were whiskey colored in
the sunlight, trees like charcoal sketches against the sky.

Amy said, Rents cheap.

It was. The rent was cheap. The soil was poisoned, people
said. No one could grow a thing. Amy had known a person who
had tried to grow a garden of roses, once. The nettles came from
underneath, and the thistles came from the left, and the wild
parsnip came down and gobbled it whole.

Cal didnt say anything. He snorted. He didnt want to be
there. Cal didnt want to be anywhere. Amy knew the feeling.

Amy hadnt lived with Cal since they were teenagers,
years ago, with ripped jeans and curfews. Then again, she supposed that was the way of siblings: sixteen years spent under the
same roof, sharing the same bathroom, hiding in the same nook
under the eaves of the attic, and then for the next sixty years, you
see them less than you see your boyfriend, your children, your
coworkers, the lady who bags your groceries.

08

Amy showed Cal where his bedroom was. She didnt have
another bed, so they carried up the sofa from the living room. Cal
wore a hunter orange shirt with the sleeves cut off. While they
lifted and strained to push it up the narrow staircase and through
the doorway to his room, his tattoos moved like they were dancing. The tattoos were all of women, black-haired women and redheaded women and sirens whose hair was wavy green seaweed,
women with owl wings soaring across his forearm, women with
clocks where their eyes should be, women whose mouths were a
cavern of stars. If he noticed her staring, he didnt say anything.
Possibly, Amy thought, it was not the kind of thing he could
explain to his sister. Possibly it was not the kind of thing he could
explain to anybody.

Ill bring you some sheets, said Amy. And a pillow.

Cal nodded.

I work in town. He had gone to the window and was
looking out over the land again, as if he wanted to convince himself that it was real, or a dream. About twenty minutes away, at
the diner. Theres only the one car. She waited to see if he would
complain, but he just twitched the curtain back over the window.
I need it during the day, but I guess you can have it at night, if
you need it, I guess.

Cal turned and nodded at her again, and she realized he
just wanted her out of the room.

Well, she said. Okay, then. Sandwich meat in the
fridge, bread in the breadbox. Just holler if you need anything.

He was already leaning down to unzip his suitcase as
she finished speaking. When she closed the door behind her, she
imagined their twin exhales of relief. Then she shook her head at
herself, for thinking she could imagine anything about Cal anymore.
At the diner, Henry and Christina cornered her in the
kitchen. Henry was the short order cook; Christina was the prettiest waitress. Henry wore black and yellow striped chef s pants,

09
like a smoke-wreathed bumblebee.
Christina said, Why did you ask off work yesterday?
She smacked cinnamon gum between her teeth with every syllable.
Henry said, Theres a guy, isnt there?
Please, Henry, said Christina, rolling her eyes as if this
were an argument theyd been having for hours.
Sort of, said Amy.
I knew it, said Henry. Jesus Christ, its good to finally
have someone else out there with you.
Amy said, My brother, and Christina whacked Henry in
the back of the head.
I told you, she said.
You didnt say it was a brother! said Henry, rubbing the
back of his head and looking wounded. You said it was a family
emergency!
I think this qualifies. Christina grabbed Amys arm and
spun her out of the kitchen and towards the cash register, over
Henrys plaintive cries of, No fair! Low, in Amys ear, she said,
Your brother was overseas, right? Cinnamon-scented breath
swirled past Amys face. Whats he doing here?
Just needed a place to stay for a while, said Amy. Ive
got all those extra rooms.
Thats good of you. Christina waved at the Bakers, said,
Yall can take your regular seats and Ill be right with you! Then,
to Amy, she said, If one of my brothers wanted to stay with me,
Id tell him to get a damn motel, Im not a goddamn bed and
breakfast.
Amy smiled weakly.
But I guess Im not close with my brothers, said Christina, grabbing the pen from behind her ear. It must be nice, to
have close family like that.
Sure, said Amy to Christinas back, I guess. Al

10
Lienhardt came through the front door. The little bell tinkled, and
the smell of honeysuckle and gasoline came swirling in around
everyones ankles, and Amy said, Hi, Al, let me get some coffee
for you, okay?
Amy, its me.
I need your help.
I need
The days passed.
At the farm, Amy brought home enough lunchmeat and
bread and beer to keep Cal from starving. They moved in slow,
separate orbits. Amy turned in for the night just as he was taking
her car to go down to the bars. She wondered where he went and
who he saw. She thought about asking him if she could come
with. She imagined the look on his face, and hated herself all over
again.

Sometimes, on evenings when syrupy gold light stretched
like fingers over the fields, Cal came out and sat on the porch
steps to watch Amy weed. While he watched, she thought about
all the stories she could tell him. She had always used to tell him
stories, even when they were teenagers and it was only gossip
and whining, even when they were kids and it was just badly
remembered fairytales. She could tell him a fairytale, now, a sad
one, about a girl who fell in love and followed a prince to a ruined
castle in the hills. She could tell him a story about a man she once
knew who had tried to plant a garden, who had gone to a flower
warehouse in the city and picked up roses and watched as the
nettles and the thistles and the creeping vines wove up through
the stems and tore all the roses down. She could tell him about
a brother and sister who were cursed, but then again, she didnt
know how that one would end.

11

Instead, she just worked and weeded, a pile of nettles and
wild parsnip growing next to her. Eventually Cal hopped off the
porch and called, Night, and drove off in her car. It had been
just her for so long. She had forgotten what the silence was like
when someone was always leaving.


At work, Henry told her, Its good for you to be out there
with someone else. I just havent felt right about it, since everything happened.
Oh, come on, Henry, she said. Its not like you ever
needed to confiscate the fucking razor blades or anything. And
later, because she felt guilty about being mean, she bought him
a pack of cigarettes and wrapped them in a napkin to make him
smile.

Christina told her that shed met Cal at the bars, they all
had, and he was awfully quiet, wasnt he? She said, Hes kind of
like a tortured hero, huh? You know, like someone from a Nicholas Sparks movie or something?

Shit, Christina, I dont know, said Amy. They were
refilling ketchup bottles, and Amy was counting her tips in her
head, trying to see if shed been shortchanged by a busboy. He
just doesnt talk much.

Mm-hmm, said Christina knowingly, flipping around
her long black ponytail. Secrets.
At night, Cal screamed, and Amy learned not to jump
up out of bed and run and crouch in front of his door and wait,
agonizing, floorboards cold and warped against her feet. She
dreamed of her childhood, and the time Cal had climbed all the
way to the top of the oak tree in their backyard and fallen, and
how he had begged her not to tell their parents even though his
arm was curved and his face gone white. She dreamed of the
murky underwater air in that small apartment, of all the women

12
on Cals arms unpeeling themselves from his skin and dancing
around in slow, lugubrious motions like mermaids, of his girlfriends narrowed eyes in the dark. She dreamed of the phone
ringing, over and over again. The voice on the phone said, Amy?
Amy? Amy? but when she spoke, the voice went silent.
You okay? she asked Cal once, in the morning, when
hed come down for some water.
He looked at her blankly. White-blonde hair stuck up in
the back of his head like dandelion fluff.
Yeah? he said, and hesitated. A robin scolded something outside the kitchen window, bright and insistent. He looked
around at the kitchen, and the dining room, and the burnt caramel tiles, and the peeling floral wallpaper, and Amy saw a question forming in the lines of his mouth. But as quickly as it was
there, it was gone, and Cal took his glass of water upstairs.

Six days after Cal moved in, Amy came home late from
work, a long shift, a shift from hell, because Christina had gotten
the stomach flu and Nicki had been so high that eventually Amy
told her to just go home, and then it was only Amy, for hours,
alone in that tiny linoleum place, and the old vets wouldnt stop
asking her, And hows that brother of yours doing? and she lied
and lied and lied. The sky had darkened and bats wheeled around
the old barn by the time she pushed her way through the front
door. Cal sat at the dining room table, staring glassily into space.
There was a bottle of whiskey, whiskey she had known to be full
just a few days ago, empty on the table next to him. She thought
about what Christina had said: Hes kind of like a tortured hero
you know, someone from a Nicholas Sparks movie. Something
hard and unforgiving rose in her throat.
Cal said, You know what you need in this godforsaken
hellhole? He leaned back and crossed his arms. Cable. Who the
hell only has five television stations?

13

Amy shrugged. Cal laughed, and went to pour more
whiskey, and then remembered the bottle was empty.
Fuck this, he said. Fuck this place.
Amy dug her nails into her palms and started counting
to five. When she got to three, Cal tilted the chair on two legs
and pointed at her. What the fuck, he said, Are you torturing
yourself for?
What are you talking about? said Amy. Look at you,
look at yourself, and you think Im the one?
Look at myself? repeated Cal, thickly, like his lips had
stopped working.
Amy didnt say anything.
Look at myself? he said.
I just wonder, she said, quickly, If maybe youre drinking just a little too
Cal dropped the chair back onto all four legs, and the
slam in that quiet room made Amy jump. You bitch, he said.
You abso-fucking-lutely unbelievable bitch.
Cal.

Fuck you, said Cal.
I just think
Fuck what you think.
Amy pulled back her hair until it hurt. Cals eyes shone
wetly, rimmed with red.
Im going upstairs, she said.
Fuck you. He was breathing loudly, and hollowly, like
something was rattling loose in his chest. You dont give a shit.
You dont give two shits about anyone, do you. Bitch.
Amys chest was burning, but she swallowed and said,
Goodnight, Cal.
Fuck you, said Cal one more time, and then Amy
turned and went upstairs. When she reached the top of the
staircase, she wrapped her right hand around her left wrist and

14
squeezed until her bones shifted. Stop it, she thought to herself.
Stop it. But she didnt stop until she heard Cal push his chair away
from the table, and then she went into her room and locked the
door.
The days passed.

Cal drank, and slept, and woke when the sun set. Amy
worked, and in the evenings she would weed and prune and mow.
The farm was a living creature, a hydra of nettles and thistles and
wild parsnip. Weeds were the only thing that could grow here,
but they grew like viruses. They were clever; they created deep
networks of roots so that even when Amy thought she had pulled
the last of them up, they could bloom again in a week. The nettles
brushed up against her neck and her cheeks, and left angry red
welts that burned for hours. When the coyotes started to yip, far
off in the burned-out fields, shed put away her trowel and her
shears and go make herself dinner.

She liked the farm best in the time between day and
night. The hills turned purple, and bats chittered as they swept
out of the attic, and she could watch the stars come out, one-byone, until the whole sky was lit up in a sea of constellations. The
weeds whispered, through the open windows, though if they were
saying something to her then she would not listen to them. Cal
made soft sounds, up in his room, but never came out until she
had gone into her room and latched the door behind her. Then
she would hear the crunching of his boots on the gravel, and the
coughing rattle of her car, and he would disappear until the moon
was already setting.

In the night, then, each night, there was screaming. Amy
stared out the window and chewed at the soft skin around her
thumb until everything went quiet. The whole sky was awash
with stars. The whole house was awash with dreams.

15

Amy? the voice on the phone had said, a long time ago.
Amy?
Amy had held one arm across her stomach to keep from
throwing up, and she pressed the phone against her ear, and she
tried to curl her toes into the floor to steady herself, but the floor
was tile and her toenails just scrabbled against it.
Amy, its me, said the voice, and cracked. Things erupted from that crack; Amy couldnt see, her vision had gone spiderwebbed and smeared, but even then she could see the dark
scuttling creatures coming from the crack and disappearing into
a purple horizon.
Me, she said, or maybe she didnt. Her arm wasnt doing
enough. She bent over and retched all over the floor.
Im in Nashville, the voice said in a tight, desperate way.
She made another retching noise.
Amy? Her vomit smelled like bourbon and wine, orange and pink all over the tiles. I need your help. I need help.
Who?
I cant By now, the voice was really crying and hiccupping. Amy couldnt match up the voice with any of the faces
in her head, she didnt understand what it was saying, she didnt
know where she was. She stuck her finger in the back of her
throat, and retched again, because in a fuzzy and stupid way she
thought it might help.
I have to go, she said into the phone, or into thin air.
She didnt say it like that. She said Ihuvtogo. She said it with her
tongue loose and flopping around. Amy threw the phone under
the table and, in the morning, waking up with her cheek pressed
into her own vomit, she came to as if lurching from a nightmare.


She knew that voice.

She knew that voice.

She knew that voice.

16

When Amy came home from work on a dusky Thursday night, nine days after Cal had moved in and three days after
he had disappeared from sight, he was downstairs and looking
relatively bright-eyed in the cool dark of the dining room. Amy
flinched, when she came through the door. He was like a feral
animal she had let into her attic and forgotten about, and now
that he was roaming around in the open, she found she was afraid
of him.
Hey, said Cal, in a rust-covered voice. Lets go to a bar.
Um, said Amy. Okay.
They went to a bar.

Amy picked Kleemanns, because it was the least smoky,
and because Henry and Christina preferred Puempels. She hadnt
been to the bars in a year. Kleemanns was a lot like what she
remembered: wood paneling, and scary stuffed animals on the
walls, and a scratched-up bar, and smoke coming from undetermined places whirling around the ceiling.
Cal ordered a beer, and Amy ordered a whiskey, and Cal
barely raised his eyebrows, but he still raised them. He clinked
his glass against her and drank, for a long time, while old mens
conversations ebbed and flowed around them.
Then he said, Your friend Henry. He told me some
things. He doesnt really stop talking, have you noticed that?
Amy couldnt help it; she laughed, for what felt like the
first time in a long time, and she thought, How stupid, that I havent been laughing. Cal wasnt laughing, but his mouth twisted up
in almost a smile. Then he drummed his fingers on the bar like he
was working himself up.
Finally, he said, Why did you stay?
Amy took a sip of whiskeyit burned, in ways both bittersweet and pleasantand, after a little while, said, I didnt have
anywhere to go. That was true and not-true. Cal still hadnt
lowered his eyebrows, so she tried again. By the time I got
around to finally feeling like I could move,

17
I just didntI didnt want to. Maybe I should have.
You were punishing yourself? said Cal without looking
at her.
No. True and not-true. A lot had gone wrong. At that
point. Most of everything, actually, had gone wrong. All I had
was my stupid job, and this stupid town, and the stupid, fucking farm. She stopped again, and laughed, but this time angrily.
Why are we talking about me, anyway? There isnt anything
tragic about me. Why dont we ever fucking talk about you?
Cal twisted up his mouth, and then they didnt talk for
a long time. The bartender, Randy, came over and refilled Cals
beer. The women on Cals arms were staring at Amy, she could
just feel them, they were staring at her and accusing her for
crimes she kept trying to forget. She had fallen in love, and it had
gone badly, and she had been left alone. Cal had called her, and
his voice had cracked, and she had been drinking, and she had
been heartsick, and she hadnt known what to do.
She wondered, not for the first time and not for the last
time, what Cal had wanted to say to her.
She finished her whiskey, and Randy poured her another
one and smiled at her. Cal sat like a stranger next to her. Amy.
Some things, said Amy, and paused. The smell of old
smoke rose up out of the wood of the bar table, like ghosts. She
said, Some things grow insidethey choke you. We lose
things. I lost things.
Your boy, said Cal. He was pushing his beer stein back
and forth between his hands so that brown waves rose up and
almost spilled over the glass.
Amy rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand. That
too, she said. I lost that too.
Jim Tyler put on his favorite sad old country song on the
jukebox, and half the bar groaned.

18

I wish you would have told me, said Cal, in the kind
way of someone who is drunk enough to forget about things.
You could have gotten in touch and told me what happened.
Amy tipped back the rest of her drink, and then smiled.
You couldve too.
Cal squinted at her and then said, considering, Well,
fuck. I guess I couldve.
Slowly, hesitantly, Amy put her hand on Cals shoulder.
She hadnt touched him in a long time. He turned his head and
gave her a sideways smile, and in that moment, just in a brief
second before his face settled back into its familiar new lines, he
looked like someone she had known.
God, said Amy. I need another drink.
Soon, both of them would be too drunk to drive, and
someone was going to have to give them a lift back to the farm,
and Christina would need to come in the morning to get Amy for
work, teasing her the whole time, asking if this meant the reign
of abstinence was over. But Amy didnt want to leave. She knew,
surely, deeply, that once they left, nothing would have changed. In
the morning, Cal would wake up with a rotten taste in his mouth
and remember all the things he kept trying to forget. Hed go back
to slowly drinking himself to death, and picking fights with her
when she looked at him the wrong way, and moving around the
house like a shadow. One day, maybe soon, hed disappear, and
then Amy would be left behind with her dreams and the weeds
and the ghosts. So she called Randy over, and flirted to keep him
from cutting her off, and told Cal long and rambling and halftrue stories about their childhood, and spun slowly with Kevin
Ott across the sticky floor to all of Jim Tylers sad, lonely country
songs. She could hear Cal laughing in the haze of the bar, somewhere far away and close by at the same time, and he was saying,
Amy, Amy, Amy, he was laughing and clapping and he was
saying her name, Amy, Amy, Amy.

19

20
NWANNE OCHA
Father Lord, parfum me with the fragrance of favour
By Onyinyechi Ogwumike
Chamomile, honey and 2% hydroquinone,
mornings Ngozi rubs down her clavicles with Tiger balm and
drops lavender oil behind her ears.
Amongst the grooves of her fingerprint and the walls of her nail
beds she shares pomegranate stains and the upbeats of Stevie
Wonder

(magnolia, olive oil.)
Momma brings her into the kitchen,
Where she is made busy with humming and dough
(buttermilk)
She kneads

(white flesh lapping up to peck her brown knuckles sugar
kisses pooling on the backs of her hands)
Momma needs Ngozis arms
(there is jojoba oil in the dimples in her shoulder blades)
in turning a jar.
And they lock at the elbows,
Applying pressures through the damp face of a worn green towel.
(Dawn Ultra with Olay in cucumber + melon, water, benign
kitchen bacteria)
Ngozis palm skews plum and rose with the curdling of blood,
Her mouth waters with effort (peach and ginger) until momma
says,
Dont worry I will try another.
Ngozi wanders back to the edge of the kitchen, leans.

(frying palm oil)

21
Back to where there is clutter and atop a makeshift shelf
a basin of garri.
Towering over yam tubers with shoots extending into the room
Like fine fingers
Like long dark hairs from the ashen chins of old aunties
Whose husbands always smiled wide and toothy at her and sista
at the clan meetings.
Women with their blanched skin laden with powder as if theyd
stuck their made-up faces into a similar expanse of ground cassava.
At the last party,
One of the men called one of the fair-skinned girls nwanne ocha.
Everyone laughed,
A quiet reverence in their wet eyes,
pulpy admiration spilled into the airs rolling cologne,
brandy cooked the room.
Along Ngozis hairline
fine bleached-copper strokes
gather light.
She cracks open the window to let out the thick smells
Which taste caustic on her tongue,
Which run coarse and greedy on the interior of her lung
Which are like the sharp exhale of ancestry giving

( heavy parfum, amber, brown paper).
Ngozi lathers creamy whites onto the deep yet yielding browns of
her calf, thigh,
the tender flesh on the underbelly of her arm,
bubbling forth are moles rich black
she looks at them
as pockmarks on flyblown meat
her rusting baby hairs like the ochre crown of kwashiorkor.

22
Her nose is tight and sharp.
Her forehead is churning,
tied in inumerous knots like the beaded joints of a weeping cherry branch
she slips her ringing nostrils under the window sill into the rush
of outsides breeze
it is sweet outside.
she remembers there was a sweet wind which cloaked Chidiebele
when she saw him last.
she wants to rest in that wind
she cannot be heavy to rest in that wind
she must be light,
and it will be easier,
sauntering without skin of lead.
If I pale away into a night where all I smell is cypress,
tell momma
Not all stretch marks result from growth.

23
Patchy
By Danny Kelleher

The boy had been running the sink on and off for minutes, and the sound of it, muffled and vacant as it creeped out
from under the bathroom door, had the mothers interior writhing. She fidgeted in their bedroom and waited for it to cease.
She hadnt heard him enter, but that wasnt something to
fret. The father had been home far too early again, with whiskey
and cheap cologne seeping off his shoulder blades, and she had
been screeching at him with remarkable volume, chastising him
for his lethargy and far-too-visible apathy. She figured the boy
mustve slipped in during the caterwaul.

There was always something to scream about in their
living room-bedroom-guest room; all it took was a little reminder a mold stain spattered on one of the meekly boiled potatoes
they called dinner or the inevitable tear of a worn-to-parchment
blouse to resume the perpetual quarrel. Today it had been the
clock, which had refused, inexplicably, to keep ticking at 3:44.
Dont you think I aint listenin to that faucet, the mother said.
The boy said nothing as the water resumed its herky-jerk
rhythm.
Most of his indignant bathroom trips happened when his
face had been maimed during or after school. Hed snake through
the door with his hands on his cheeks, silent despite the violent
leakage from his nostrils. Somehow his face could always become
more asymmetrical than it was already, and his cheeks or chin
could invariably spare another bump or divot where smoothness should have maintained. But for whatever reason, perhaps
because the boys muscles were developing an adult firmness that
the mother sometimes felt with her feet or, more likely, he was
simply learning to strike first it had been months since that was

24
last the case.
Think I aint hearin that faucet? his mother hissed
again.

Sure as shit not me gonna be payin for it, his father
added this time.

Still no response.

Somehow, as it went a begrudgingly frequent amount of
the time, the mother and father were now stroking each other, ignoring the shrieking and slamming and slapping of less than half
an hour prior (though the clocks state left them uncertain even of
that). They were now turning the vitriol into something roughly
sensual, as they would likely be doing even if the boy were in the
room. When he was young, lying perpendicular to them at the
edge of the bed, he never spoke out against their thuggish lovemaking, never even moved a muscle. And one particular night,
when the post-coital moon had been low and reflective through
their caged-up window, shed accidentally glanced at the boy and
almost squealed. Hed been lying on his back, stiff as a mummy
besides his shivering, and within the sunken cavities of his face,
somehow even more withdrawn and rotted than they appeared
in daylight, shed seen his two gray eyes, differently sized and unmistakably wide open as they peered up at the ceiling. Something
about their utter blankness had terrified her; it was as if he was
fully awake and not awake at all. The image of it was still vividly
stamped inside her.
Get out here! the father said.

The mother wondered again what could be the cause of
the boys preoccupation. She thought back to when hed last holed
up in their freezing little bathroom: it had been early morning,
before any of them usually woke, when she rose to find him out
of the bed. Irritation seeped through her lungs when she noticed
the bathroom door had already been closed, but it was only when
shed stepped onto the cement floor and felt the moisture on her

25
toes that she knew his reason for hiding. She lunged her hands at
the edge of the bed and felt the wetness as she howled. When the
boy finally came out, shaking and naked with follicles on edge,
the father bent him over and made sure it never occurred again.
As the father now glanced at the belt by his clothing pile, the
mother realized they were recalling the same scene.

Swear to god, boy, you wetted this bed again, the father
hollered.

You rotten p The mother paused. The faucet hadnt
been running the first time hed done it; it didnt make sense. She
ran her hand over the sheets. Dry.

What in Gods name could he be doing? She racked her
vicious mind for an explanation but found nothing within grasp.

Get to work, she told the father. Aint helpin nothing,
your stayin here.

Dont dare start that with me right now, the father
snapped back, more money swimmin down the sink this minute
than Id make out there anyway.

As they brought their mouths together, she thought
again. What lord almighty Christ was that ungrateful boy doing?
It hit her right then. You son-of she said as she pulled away,

Ima be checkin that tongue for bruises. Ima know what
you done.

The father looked at her with bloodshot eyes inflated,
cheeks boiling through the cold. You thinkin hes spankin
boy you get the fuck out here!
Movement made their necks whip as the door creaked
open jerkily, a few hesitant inches, before it slapped shut again.

The father bolted up. His fists clenched white with red
splotches a macabre sort of Rorshach test as he stomped in a
beeline toward the door. He grabbed the handle before the boy
could slide the latch back on. For a moment, the boy attempted a
feeble resistance from behind the door, but it was only a matter of

26
seconds before the father ripped it open.

The mother and father beheld the boy as the doorknob
clanged against their tattered wall. He had his left hand in a
post-beating position, gripping his scarred face as he stared
straight through the mother and father. But there was no blood,
and it wasnt until the mother looked down that she saw the other
was holding the fathers rusted straight razor. Water dripped off
the edges of his hand as she realized hed been shaving.

Thats what you been doin? Wastin our water for a
shave without a mirror? the mother asked.

Makes for a spotty shave, the father chuckled. He
grabbed the boys hand and ripped it off his face.

For a moment there was silence. The mother glanced at
the boys visage as memory of the low-moon night stepped forward in her mind. She understood then that it was all the same:
the thin little gray lips, chapped and cracked; the misshapen and
forward-facing ears; the expression as immoveable as the floors
cement.

But then she looked harder and saw something new.
Jutting out from a bumpy cheek and part of his upper lip were
patches of fuzzy facial hair, barely visible in the pale afternoon.
The father had been right: the boy had missed some spots. She
focused harder, fixating on them, until she saw it. Swept by
disbelief, she stared until she knew that what she was looking at
couldnt be blinked away. The breath parted from her lungs, like
heat from the cracks of the front door, as she tore her gaze to the
side.

The hairs werent brown, like the wires that came out
from his scalp. They werent salty black, like his fathers. No; in
front of the mothers eyes, shed seen hairs sprouting out of the
boy that were conclusively, jarringly, blue.

Slowly, the mother turned back to him. The blueness was
still there, almost synthetic in its vibrancy despite the hairs faint,

27
young stage. She looked up instinctively, attempting to confirm
her reality with another form of life. But she found no such solace
in the boys gaze, and as the father reached for the belt and said,
Dont know what else you expect, and the boy stared right back,
all the mother could do was stay frozen. Peering at those cavernous eyes, neutral in mortification as they were in elation, she had
a sudden sense that somehow, in the depths of their crumbling
home, she and the father had created something colder than the
bathroom.

28

29
\\23.
By Onyinyechi Ogwumike
Morning has three tongues,
each of them stripe off of his throat, blister
and then pour into my lap with the remnants of my palms, my
eyes and cheeks.
They visited and they wanted to know when their adas belly will
curl.
i did ( yes), saw split-rooster-scalp red flowing down into the
cracks of her feet
forming a paste with the amapu clay
saw her stomp four good times say
fear in this house! di na-atu m, ujo na-atu m, and i cannot feel
him.

i cannot feel him.

his eyes are far from me and i am a fool.

the air behind my eyes stirred and the pink of my tongue stood
on alert,
and my sista,
of whom i am of common choler,
in whom i see the same spinning pink underlid,
i told her to bathe three evenings in the river when the sun is
sitting in it.
i told her to be acquainted with red and orange
and bring me three bags of good groundnut
to be sure it is good
so she will bear a good child.
eh heh,

30
ezi nwa
for the good mother: ezinne
her mothers name as well is ezinne
it is a good name;
dalu.
Her fathers eyes are yellow with a taupe peck just beneath the
glossy black of the iris,
he loves his daughter very much
loves his wife,
wants this love to bloom
wants his eyes to water for sweeter mornings
very soon,
he would crack his calves, split the knotted bone at his temples
shift skull to say sweeter dawns come soon
and have honesty in his eyes as he does so,
he knows his wife tires of his lying eyes
he tires of his lying eyes
he wonders when his iris got so opaque, so good at sealing.
after they leave i sit in the northwest corner of my room,
stick my forehead into the soil
the cool just above the earth is plump beneath the skin of my
eyelids
and i sob into it
a wet anger which keeps skipping in my throat and catching on
my tongue and then falls out limp
and sleeps in the corners condensation
chi,
baba
you like to see me cry oh
Deje

31
ada will not be seeing babes scurrying after her chickens,
she will always hold their limp necks in her palms
i will never run the bloom of my thumb down the unkempt hairs
behind his neck,
even if i love him
well
even with a good name
i am so afraid
i am so acquainted with red and orange
i am so raw,
angry
have i done well here baba,
heh?
am i pink?
Deje, dalu

32
How To Live Here
By Danny Kelleher
Upstairs Bathroom Sink

Careful of this faucet. Somethings not right with it. Mom
had two different inspectors come by and check it out. The first
one was a brown man with a glass eye, and Dad wouldnt stop
barking at him, as hes liable to do. Make sure you really get in
there, he said as the man squatted under the sink. Youve checked
your measurement tools, yes? Theyre up to date? You need a
second pair of er, um, some more eyes?

The second one seemed Wisconsin born and bred. The
way he said maaaaam was sheep-y. I remember his lanky arms,
behind the short sleeves, and how spit would get on his bushy
mustache when he moved his mouth.

Looks perfectly alright to me, maam, no problems here,
he said.

That just cant be true, Dad blurted with his arms crossed
as he stood behind Mom.

Afraid I dont know what to tell you, I dont see a damn
near hint of mercury in any of these pipes!

Did you check way up there? In the back? Dad asked.

My son is not okay, not alright at all, Mom said as she
chewed her lower lip.

Im not gonna do that, no offense, the inspector said. Ive
got another inspection at two. And besides that. I ardy told you,
no offense, theres no damn mercury in here.

Dont you understand? Something is wrong here! Something is infecting my son! Mom screamed as she petted Justin like
a sick dog.

Well you can go ahead and cross off mercury from the
suspect list, he said as he gathered his tools up.

Give us our money back, Dad demanded. He put a hand

33
on Moms shoulder and Justin looked down.

No can do, the inspector said as he hurled his hands up
like a touchdown and walked out the door.
***
Living room window
The glass here is liable to break. Dont let pets sleep on
the ledge.

First time it gave in, we were playing with our neighbors
outside, Kick the Can, something like that. Probably about noon
when Justin started mumbling and I went up to him slow, like I
knew to do.

Whats wrong? I asked.

Streets too hot, he said. Feet are burnin.

Smiling one second, crying the same. Happened in light
speed. Usually the neighbors just turned away when Justin started
going, but this time Ellen Roover made the mistake of asking
whats wrong. He twitched and shrieked and threw his hands
up before he picked a rock up and chucked it straight through. I
pulled him inside and told him to blame me.

He shook his head.
Justin!

Shook it again.

Justin goddamn it! Why not?

He pursed his lips and just kept on shaking.

By the time Dad came home I could tell Justin had
calmed down. I was reading one of Moms magazines and he was
next to me on the couch, pattering his knee in triplets with his index and middle. Dad came in and ripped the headphones straight
off his head.

F H What is this? he said. Fuck happened?

Justin looked like he saw a ghost as he fumbled for the
headphones and Dad grabbed his arm like a claw.

They left up to Justins room and I picked up the

34
headphones and listened. Hampton was playing, his favorite.
***
Master bedroom fireplace
Noise carries from here. Remember that. Mom and Dad
shouldve known that. They may have known that.

They pulled me in when I was twelve and spoke in voices
not soft enough.

Look, buddy, Dad said, I know its new here, but youll
like it, I really think you will.

A woman at the store was just telling me theyve got a
great baseball club team for kids your age, Mom said and grinned
at me.

Were gonna like it here, I really think you will, Dad said.

Okay, I said.

Look, buddy, I know its not quite easy, yeah? But Eagle
Riverll be better for your big brother, alright? We need to think
about that, okay? Hes a special type of guy, he needs to be taken
care of specially, see? More nature will be good for him.

You love him and we love him too, Mom said. I nodded.

The look Justin gave me when I walked back into our
room, wide-eyed and almost scared, was the same one hed had
on when Mom told me I couldnt get the Hulk toy back at the
Tucson Toys R Us. Never chatted about it, but I knew he heard.
***
Piano room
Noise also carries from here. Noise just carries.
It was 2 a.m., maybe even later, when I felt the light shaking in
my sleep. I woke up and heard the music coming from the front.
Justin wasnt in bed. Dad flicked the light on across the hall and
walked down.
Justin! Buddy!

Justin couldnt hear. He was pounding the keys, ferocious
as a carpenter.

35

Dad hopped fast down the stairs. Justin! Buddy! What
are you doing? Its the middle of the night! he shouted.

I watched from the top of the stairs as Justin turned to
him. Was in my head, he said. Wanted to get it out.

F Can you Wh Your moms tryin to sleep. Cut it off!
he said as he walked back upstairs.

For at least an hour Justin didnt come back to bed as I
laid there awake, and for short moments, when the wind took a
breather and the heater was calm, I could hear the faint sound of
the piano, tip-toeing under our door.
***
Kitchen cupboard
Wouldnt be a bad idea to keep snacks in here. Least,
thats what wed do. Mom let me eat whatever I pleased more or
less, but with Justin she narrowed the options. Whole grains. No
pesticides. Fruit, only fruit, after dinner.
Never cared much about what was in the lunch bag. Most
days at the middle school Id work trades with Davis or Grant
and get some stuff I wanted anyway. With Justin it always had to
be particular, though. Apple sauce on the lower left, Sun Chips
(plain) to the right of them, ham sandwich swiss cheese no mayo
three squirts mustard in the main compartment. Three components total, always. Mom would leave little notes in his bag,
saying things like Smile today! and Remember to give Ms. Graves
the essay she was nice to give you extra time! and March to your
own drum your rhythm is catchy!
***
Bedroom shelf
Not a bad place for some speakers, especially if you
decide to keep this as the kids room. Ryder or Jason always DJed
on the drives to club games, and when I liked what they played Id
get back with my cap and cleats still on and play whatever it was
for Justin. Most every time hed give me this wry, pity-full smile.

36
Id get frustrated. When we were younger the frustration was
because I couldnt get his approval. When I got older it changed
to ticked-ness about his general stubbornness, about how badly I
wished he would just pretend to nod and be normal. For his own
sake. Or maybe for mine. Or maybe I just wished he would say he
appreciated the effort. I kept getting more irked with it, whatever
it was, until it built up and built up and built up so much, heating my noggin, that one day pretty recently, after I put on a song
Laney showed me and he pursed his lips and gave that same passive rejection of a grin, I spoke up, as Im not all that liable to do.
You think your musics so different than mine, I said.
He shrugged.

I think you just dont like saying you enjoy much of anything other than the shit you find yourself, I continued. Not sure I
believed what I was saying even then.
I think you just like your shit so you can hold it over everyone elses head, I said, I think that if you could just practice in
here, maybe, just maybe, you could pick up a girlfriend or seem
normal for just a second.
He got up all the sudden and I was scared in a way I
never was around him. I stayed on the ground, ready to defend
myself and already feeling terrible.
But he just motioned to follow him, saying nothing, and
thats what I did. All the way downstairs to the piano, where he
sat down and told me to sit down too.
He reached out his right hand and with his thumb and
pinkie equally far from his middle finger hit three white notes.
Triad major, he said as he put his fingers up in hooks, Happy.
He took his left and did the same thing, a little lower on
the piano. Triad minor, he said, Sad. He kept looking at the
piano.
Then he picked his hands up and did both at once. Jazz,
he said as he turned to me and prayed I would get it. In between,

37
he said, Us.

***
Pool heater
Dont try making it work in the winter. Wont get half as
warm as the screen number says. Parker Foleys Mom probably
says its all Justins fault, hes a mini little devil. But I was there.
Parker kept saying, come on Justin, lets just swim, whats the
issue, dontcha wanna, whats the issue, come on, lets just get in,
whats wrong its heated up, come on, whats the issue, can we
please just swim a bit, whats your issue, until finally Justin mumbled out, Fine.

It was too cold. I knew that and Justin knew that and
Parker shouldve known that. I could see on Justins face that he
was cooking in there. But even still he didnt do anything, just sat
there politely as we swum around. Justin was nicer than Parker
deserved of him if you ask me. Wasnt even Justin who wanted
the play date. Mom set it up I bet, as she was liable to do, even
though Justin never said once he was feeling lonely. Mom and
Dad just couldnt get that Hampton and Burrell and Ellington
were good friends to him.

Parker said, Come on, lets wrestle! and I said, Bad idea,
and Justin shook his head and looked down, teeth chattering
slightly. Even still, Justin kept cool. It was only when Parker
started jumping on Justin and Justin shook his head and tried to
push him off but still Parker kept on with it that Justin turned and
shouted and thrust Parkers noggin into the brick of our poolside
like a ref testing a ball before game time.

His head leaked for a while as I called Ms. Foley, and
Mom cried into her hands on the living room couch as Dad
stroked her back that night.
The next day they asked again, Whyd you do it?
Didnt mean to, Justin mumbled.
What do you mean didnt mean to? What was meant?

38
Mom asked.
Justin shook his head.
SPEAK! Dad said calmly.
I dont know, Justin said.
***
Living room mantle
Good spot for photos you want to keep seeing. Maybe
your babys first birthday party, or a vacation where the stranger
happened to get it all, the moment and the lighting and everything you felt right there and then. Course thats never really
liable to happen, but you made something didnt you, something
that reminds you of the sheer amount of everything that existed
right then, existing in ways different and similar now?

Mom and Dad, at some costume party way back when,
sat at the spot furthest right. Dad in some bunny-type outfit,
trying and failing in little ways to keep his face all straight and
serious; Mom leaning forward in her robe, one hand on Dad and
the other on her Gandalf staff with a face flushed red and moist
from laughing too hard. Both their eyes so awake. Neither knows
what the joke was anymore, but looking at it sometimes even so, I
almost laugh with them.

On the left we kept one of me from when Mom and I
drove to Sedona just us two a couple years back, climbing rocks
and hiking over the April desert as it warmed beneath our tennis
shoes. Was just a night, an extra day we had after the Spring
Break trip back to Tucson. At Devils Peak Mom said I could go
out on the rocky ledge, nothing below it for hundreds and hundreds of feet, but she didnt want me doing any more than that.
When I sat and dangled my feet over the ledge anyway I could
tell she was perking up and getting all rigid, nervous. But then
she exhaled and shook her head and took another photo, smiling,
and said, Alright, thats enough, get down.

The middle of the mantle had the one Dad says he loves

39
but makes him sad, too. Its the four of us, all on the old couch,
me no older than two, Justin about three. Were in the middle,
Mom and Dad on either side. Justins got his arms around my
shoulders, gripping me in our matching little checkered shirts.
Im gazing up at him as his eyes look straight ahead, straight at
the camera, something Dad said my big brother wasnt always
liable to do for much longer.
***
Inside dryer
Hum a song. Hum it. What noise can you make in this
moment right now? Not the sax in the background, not the hi-hat
running the swing. Not a chord either. All you can do and all
youll ever do is a note after a note after another note, one at a
time and after another. You can hear a chord in your head I bet,
all of it synthesized at once. But all youll get humming or singing, no matter how hard you slave to do better? One little note. A
miniature little snippet that means nothing close to what its supposed to without the rest of it going too. What the hell sound are
you making then? And how are you supposed to tell me all the
little details that your one-note mouth cant get out? All youve
given me is something before and after.

Lets say you took the time to hum all of it, every little
note that makes up every little chord. You really think Ill ever
hear it all at once, like were all liable to assume, like its inside
your noggin?
***
Front staircase landing
Keep the rails to the stairs as they are, if you can. Theres
a comfort in them. Id never get tired of just laying here, looking
out between the white wood of the beams and thinking about
whatever I happened to think. Cant be counted, I dont imagine,
the wasted hours buried in the nooks and vacancies of this old
place.

40

I liked it right here though, between these stairs, when
nothing but passing cars or antsy woodpeckers layered the quiet,
or when Id be lost mulling on something too long and wake up
from it as Freddie Hubbard starting coming out all muffled from
the closed bedroom door, or when Mom would see me and stop
to ask about my homework and I would tell her, Its not bad, really, and she would say, Alright, sounds good.
***
Also inside dryer
You really think your left-to-right words work any better?
***
Downstairs bathroom
The one spot where sound doesnt carry quite well
enough. Wasnt even awake for most of it. Only knew the sirens
werent part of my dream when Mom shook me up and they were
still there.

Justins gotta go to the hospital, she said, sobbing, He hurt
himself, hes hurt himself bad.

The ambulance is here, she went on.

What the hell you mean? I asked her as I heard footsteps
and shouts coming through the house. It was still dark out.
I have to Im s I have to go, she said and bolted out the door.
Learned a few hours later, just before dawn. On some new meds
Justin had become convinced there was a diamond in his shoulder, so sure of it when he looked in the mirror that he started
itching at it and when that still didnt get it started clawing at it
and digging into it and when that still didnt get it started dragging a scissor up and down and through his skin till blood got all
over the mirror and his body squished like wet rubber. Luckily he
hit a frame over when he fainted, and Mom and Dad got him to
the hospital quick enough to keep his life going.

His arm looked like hed pitched way too much when he
finally got back home a couple days after. His brain was cooking,

41
he said when I asked him about it, cooking too hot.

We have to go, have to leave, Mom said to me a few
mornings later as she shook and sobbed more. And so we did, as
were liable to do.
***
Bedroom windowsill
The night after he breaks the window during Kick the
Can, Justins showing me a Steve Lacy song with the lights off. Its
back when we still have bedtimes, and were up way past them.
He crawls into bed when the song ends. We both lay there, silent,
for a long while.
He finally says, Sorry Im difficult.
How do you figure youre difficult? I ask, and for some
reason right then we both start laughing, quiet at first, but as it
becomes something larger than one joke, something truthful and
tender and unspeakable and painful and happy and sad and in
between all at once, it gets louder, louder and louder and louder,
till were laughing so hard that Dad comes into the doorway.
Guys, he says as he flips the lights on. Its way too late for
this.
Sorry, I say.
Sorry, Justin says as he starts giggling a little again.
Dad pauses, looks down then back up again. Dont worry
about it, he says as he smiles a little. Love you guys. Night.
Can you hear the chord?

42
Stocking
By Daniel Moynihan

Can we talk about the fricking sock gnomes for once?

No one ever wants to discuss it, but the fact of the matter
is that these creatures steal your socks. My dad and I live in an
old building where they can use the trash and mail chutes, andI
suspecteven the defunct dumbwaiter for their shenanigans.
I have to be careful doing stuff like checking the postage tubes though, because my dads pretty popular around the
building. In the halls, they say howdy Marty! and stop to jaw
with him. He cracks jokes on the elevator, even though he knows
I hate talking on elevators. Im just being polite, Hank! he tells
me. But hes not, hes being popular. Today, after doing our wash,
on the ride up from the laundry room, dad updates some baggy
senior with an unfiltered cigarette habit on the well-being of old
Mrs. Hauser from up our hall. Dad claims she reminds him of
his mother. I dont really buy it; from what I remember about
Gramma, she was mean as a cornered cat, but he says it.
Back in the apartment I found Ive lost three socks in the
process of washing this load. Three! Im down to fifty individualswhich sounds like a nice round number, but in point of fact
every one that disappeared was a different type, so three orphans
were created out of what had been three pairs. I need to do
something. I am not going to wear mismatched socks.

So I decide to run an experiment. Why not, its Saturday
morning and I dont have to go to my awful job as a counselor-in-training at the neighborhood camp. I gather all my laundry
again and tell my dad it didnt get all the way dry. But in reality,
Im planning on washing it over and over again until I figure out
how the sock gnomes go about their nefarious work.

43

Im watching cartoons with my clothes already tumbling
dry in the basement when my dad comes back in.

Hey there buddy, he says. Listen, Ive got to ask that
you please do me a favor and stow your gear. You think you can
do that? I have company coming tonight and Im hoping to make
the place look as neat as possible. Thanks! He pushes a chair
aside as he heads towards his room. I stack my books into my
book-basket and carry it to the closet off the foyer where my other boxes are. The room with the couch where I sleep is also the
living room, so I have to be ready to move out for an evening at
a moments notice. Hes getting me a bed soon, or at least replacing the couch with a foldout since the springs on the current one
make my back ache. I go back to watching TV.
At the end of the episode I ride the elevator down to the
humid laundry room to advance my wash. But once I get there I
realize I forgot the dryer sheets. Cursing the mental rather than
physical nature of this mistake, I rush upstairs to collect them.

Back on our floor, Mrs. Hauser hovers outside her apartment with her fat soft skin hanging off her chalky bones, kind of
like shes melting you know how old people are. I attempt to
hurry by, conveying with a smile a sense of harried friendliness
and a demurral of all invitations to present or future interactions.
She smiles back and reaches out, mumbling. Im forced to stop.
In the creases descending from the corners of her mouth little
tributaries of saliva gleam.

Marty? she asks.
I nod, then realize Im not sure if shes asking if Im his or
if Im him.
Marty? she asks again. Her hand creeps towards my
arm and clamps on.
YeahIm his son, I say. She shows me her greyed
teeth.
Marty. And before I can correct her she turns away and

44
trundles off, old-lady-bag swinging from her soft forearm. For
a moment I stand in the hallway, rattled. Then I remember my
mission and head to the apartment.

Of course the lock sticks, because our darn lock sticks at
all the worst times. Then I find the detergent and dryer-sheets
missing from under the sink where Im almost sure I left them,
and waste ten minutes trying to find them. They turn up in one
of my boxes in the hall closet. Dad must have moved them hes
a dry-cleaning type of guy.
Back downstairs Im relieved to find everything looking undisturbed. The washer doors still open at the angles I
left them. I miscount my socks as I transfer them to the dryer,
recount, then recount again to confirm that I have not, in fact,
miscounted in the first place one sock has already disappeared.
Im not gnashing my teeth, but this is making me wish I knew
how. I need an entirely new system.
Back in the apartment, I fold the warm clothes, cocooning the socks into pairs; my new security plan covers every step
of the process, so I need to pace everything out to implement
it. Dad comes in and finds me cross-legged in the middle of the
piles. He laughs, kind of, at the back of his throat.
Still working on that cleanup, huh? he says. I wanted
to let you know that you can sleep in my bed tonight if you want,
buddy. Im going to head over to a friends place for the latter
portion of the evening and likely spend the night there. You
know something, Hank? Dont shrug me off, Hanky-man. You
know something? I love you.

Im pretty excited not to sleep on the couch, but I dont
say anything, just keep folding. He wanders off into the kitchen
and after a moment I hear the click of ice in a glass.

45

I try like hell, I really do, to make the security system
work, but things go wrong from the start. I replace my usual
plastic grocery bagfor fear that holes might formbut the new
canvas totes so overfull I keep dropping the already twice-cleaned
clothes in the hall. Old Mrs. Hauser leers at me, rummaging in
her shapeless canvass bag for her door-key. By the time I get to
the basement Im bursting for a pee I mean, its a real emergency. I dump in the wash, dash to the restroom, and dash back
without washing my hands, but still the load comes out a sock
short.
I check the washer and dryer again, for holes and secret
doors, I dont know. The search turns up nothing. The sock
gnomes taunting me then. They must know Im onto them.
I move the clothes forward and keep watch, as per the
intended plan, over the tumbling dryer. Its meditative. Sock
gnomes is a koan on which I ruminate. If I continue to pursue
the sock gnomes will the attrition continue to accelerate? If I
back off and try to forget about this whole thing will they stop harassing me and only take a sock here and there when they really
need it? Or have I awakened in their scaled-down hearts a wrath
that will cause them to pursue a vendetta against me until I am
destitute of stockings?
I must be quite wrapped up in these weighty queries,
because I jolt awake to the dry cycle beeping its completionIve
fricking dozed off, lulled to sleep by the warmth of the room. I
leap up, and my count reveals another two socks have been taken
from right under my nose.
Can this even be possible? Its worse than I thought.
Those little monsters are more powerful than I had ever
imagined.

46

Discouraged and down to forty-six socks, I ascend to the
apartment. I dump my clothes out on the living room floor and
lie on the pile until dark.

At last I decide its time to admit defeat, to attempt to
forget my shin-high nemeses and hope that they too will forget
me. I set a matched pair of my best argyles in front of our door as
a peace offering. When I check again about an hour later theyre
gone, so I allow myself to hope that the creatures have understood and accepted my gesture. I count and fold for one last
time my remaining socks with all the careful dignity of a beaten
general laying out the uniform he will wear to surrender.
Then my dad comes in and sees my laundry still spread
around. He smiles and I know hes mad.
Hank, Im just not going to ask you again to clean this
place up. I need it done now, okay buddy? And as soon as youre
done go help Mrs. Hauser, I promised Id send you over to move
some boxes. Id have done it myself, but right now Ive got to get
everything ready. Folks will be getting here any minute. I know
he wont understand, so I dont bother to tell him that Ive just
given up one of the great pursuits of our time. In any case, he
doesnt know Ive been pursuing it. He heads towards the kitchen
and I salute at his back.
I pick up my clothes box and drag it into the closet. I
stand in the darkness for a moment, thinking about what a good
guy my dad is, and how much he loves me, and how hes always
taken care of me. I feel around in the air for the light-string, find
it at last, and give a tug. As the bare bulb sticking out of the ceiling glows to life, the shelves around me emerge from the shadows, my dads stuff piled up on them in the haphazard bachelors
way I found so appealing when I decided to move here. Then,
behind some stacked-up shirts still rigid with starch in their dry
cleaner plastic, I see a package. I pull it out and open it up. Inside lie three unworn, untouched, absolutely pristine pairs of

47
black dress socks.
The string of plastic connecting the first set gives a pop
as I break it. I take off my shoes as well as the unworthy rags
beneath them, and ease these new beauties on using the roll-out
technique that minimizes leg-hair pull. They are spectacular. No
crowding in the toe, no bagging in the heel. I feel it must be a
sign from the sock gnomes. Of peace, of prosperityof a new
beginning.
I walk shoeless down the hall, brand-new-besocked and
suffused with a sense of wellbeing that is not diminished in the
least by the fact that when old Mrs. Hauser opens her door she
just says oh, Marty, good, youre here before beckoning me
inside and pointing to a tower of cardboard moving boxes. I heft
the blocks off the tower one by one and transfer them to a closet
at the back of her bedroom that she indicates from her seat on
the bed. I work to shorten the stack, enjoying the slide as my feet
move along the floor.
The last box is not taped shut, and after I have set it down
with the others I lift aside the flap to peek in.
Its filled to the top with socks.
I turn to where Mrs. Hauser sits on the bed, her right
shoe now off, bending with groans of discomfort over her legs to
remove sock after sock after sock from her foot.
The socks I say. She looks up at me.
Marty?
The socks you.
Oh Marty, dont be so dramatic, theyre only stockings.
It was you. It was you all along. You stole all those
socks!
Me? Oh no, Marty, it wasnt me, she says, removing
another layer from her foot with a swipe of her skeletal hand and
revealing still more white fabric.
It was the sock gnomes, honey!

48

Prompt Staff
Editor-in-Chief: Erin Holiday
Managing Editor: Miriam Gilbert
Poetry Editor: Jaclyn Zhou
Outreach Chair: Rachel DAmato
Prose Editors: Annie Boniface and Kyndal Thomas
Art Editor: Helen Murphey
Webmasters: Lucy Henningsgaard and Taylor Mikulski
Graphic Designer: Andie Linker
Workshop Chair: Ally Fion

2016