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sparkle + blink 103
© 2019 Quiet Lightning

cover art © Golbanou Moghaddas

golbanou-moghaddas.com

“With Gangrene” by Thea Matthews first appeared in Foglifter

Journal, Vol. 4 Issue 2 and is forthcoming in Unearth [The Flowers]
(Red Light Lit Press, 2020)
“Ascetic Protest” by Thea Matthews
is forthcoming in Unearth [The Flowers] (Red Light Lit Press, 2020)
“Take Me To Your Heart” by Tony Press appears in Crossing the Lines
(Big Table), and was first published in SFWP Journal
“Borders and Boundaries” by Carol Dorf
first appeared in *82 Review
“To June of the Night Blooming Jasmine—”
by Elizabeth Horner Turner first appeared in Gulf Coast
set in Absara

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su bmit @ qui e tl i g h tn i n g . o r g
 Contents
curated by
Sophia Passin + Kathleen Torrez
featured artist
Golbanou Moghaddas | golbanou-moghaddas.com

Sean Taylor This Room Misses You 1

Robert Pesich Black Cat Alchemy 3
The Stomach 4
Men’s Business Casual 5
Caitlyn Clark Rat King 7
Thea Matthews With Gangrene 11
Ascetic Protest 13
Tony Press Take Me to Your Heart 15
Sara Biel Telling 21
Conspirators 25
Spring 27
Peter Bullen Reverie 31
Couple 33
Carol Dorf Borders and Boundaries 35
Jennifer Kulbeck Three Stories about a Mule 37
Lea Gulino A Witnessed Account... 41
Abe Becker Grief Strategy 45
Chelsea Davis Leatherface 47
Tomas Moniz All In My Body 49
Richelle Lee Slota Just So You Understand 53
Chandler Rae Fitchett One Hundred and Ten Hours 55
Elizabeth Horner Turner What the Schoolteacher
Told St. Peter 57
To June of the Night
Blooming Jasmine— 60
Sarah Paris Monk Tries To Meditate 63
Amy Smith Neap Tide 67
A Man Afar (lipogram) 68
An Uncertain Victory 69
 g is sponsor
et Lightnin ed b
Qu i y
 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 bimonthly, submission-based reading series on
the first Monday of every other month, of which these
books (sparkle + blink) are verbatim transcripts.

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

Evan Karp executive director

Chris Cole managing director
Meghan Thornton treasurer
Kelsey Schimmelman secretary
Christine No producer
Lisa Church curator liaison
Connie Zheng art director
Edmund Zagorin disruptor
Katie Tandy disruptor
Hadas Goshen disruptor
Sophia Passin disruptor

If you live in the Bay Area and are interested in

helping—on any level—please send us a line:

e v an @ qui et light nin g . o rg

 Taylor
Sean
T h is R o o
m M isse s Y o u
“She originally took dog photos to make rent. She lived
off of it, taking pictures ofpeople’s dogs while they’re
not even home. There’s this app that costs five dollars a
month, most people signed up right after they adopted,
she had two hundred clients, that’s a thousand dollars
a month. Basically she showed up once a week, and
took a picture of your cat or kitten or dog or puppy in
the exact same place and position, once a week, every
week. That’s what the app promised. Then every year,
or six months, her clients get a growing slideshow of
their Pet.”

I stopped and took a breath.

I went on, “All two hundred of her clients hide a spare

key for her somewhere on their porch. She runs into
the maids and the occasional pool guy, they trust her
because she has a camera around her neck and her
shirt says the name of her company with this smug
innocuous logo. Once she told me that after she takes
the client’s pet’s pictures, she seeks out the sunniest
room in the house, and she lays in the rich, soft, warm
carpet of the upper class, sometimes she accidentally
falls asleep there.”

After the waitress dropped off our food I continued,

“It turns out she was also taking pictures in all of
these rooms, the sunny soft ones. She took pictures

1
out of these sunny soft windows, or, of these views as
the sun passed by. And as it turns out, I must say, the
photos are pretty astounding, people are saying no
one has mastered the beauty of lens flare like she has.”
To this I tipped my drink.

“Listen, these photos are selling at galleries around the

world for hundreds of thousands of dollars. They’re
popping up in art magazines, people are buying up their
licenses so they can sell perfume and wristwatches
with her photos as the backdrop.”

“Isn’t that invasion of privacy?” He asked.

“Actually the app says that she’s allowed to photograph

in the house. It’s all written very vaguely for a reason.
Her clients though, they’re starting to notice their
very own sunroom views in the backgrounds of
billboards on freeways when they drive home from
work. You know what they say? Because I’ve spoken
with a lot of them, because I’m writing a book about it.
They say that it feels like being both naked and alone,
when they’re stuck in traffic and everyone else stuck
in traffic with them is gazing out of their cars at the
very same view that they are trying to go home to. And
when they do get home, if they’re lucky enough to beat
the sunset, they will run up their stairs, and they will
hope, just for once, that the view will be as beautiful
to them as it was to some stranger that takes pictures
of dogs to pay the rent.”

“And is it ever?” He asked.

“It never is.” I replied.

“Sounds like something must be missing.” He said.

2 s e an tay l o r
 ert Pesich
Rob
Black Cat Alchemy

Sometimes, Night is gone for weeks. When she

returns, she brings nothing back
but the smell of burning rubber or the river’s rot.
Grandma says she climbs
over the city to shriek and scratch our sleep.
Says even the moon will get cut
in the name of my brother for all to see. How
everyone will disappear
for a day and maybe get a taste of their own ash.

3
 The Stomach
what we call our trawler does not stop at night. It
continues to growl, hiss, and pitch
for the next catch, our search for something to love,
good enough to eat. Everything
processed below deck in half-light. The low-value
ground and reformed into nostalgias
named Medley, Chorus, Family-Pak. Word now often
comes from corporate, software
manufacturing taste.

4 R ob e r t Pe s i c h
 Men’s Business Casual

Momma sewed a bullet proof sweater for a hedgehog

that won first prize for somethin’ at the county fair,
a special attraction because of its two
heads, each one receiving its own
neckline, one gray, one grayer.
Even the two-headed rattler seemed jealous
staring at the red carpet ceremony.
Orders started coming in late that night,
half a dozen tailored sweaters for men with two
heads.
Sequined seams for the darkened soul.
She included red snaps supposedly
to help button down their nightmares of sins.
Each snap secretly greased to fail.

Robe rt P e si ch 5
 tlyn Clark
Cai

Rat King

i. my father tells me
regret is his only memory these days

he weeps in the car

the sound of his shrieks split the road in two

ii. the word gook

comes from the korean word, migook

meaning, america.
during the korean war,

american soldiers thought the korean villagers

repeating migook
were calling themselves gooks

and began to call the koreans gooks accordingly

i think there exists a world

in which the people in the village

and the american soldiers

are both my parents’ parents.

i. i ask my father about the military

all he can offer me is dead air.
7
ii. to say the word gook
and to mean america

to hear the word migook

and think of a wound

and think of a head like split rock

to think of my grandfather’s face and see a gun

to think of my grandmother’s face and see a gun

iii. in korean class,

a girl means to say

i want to go to korea.
by accident, she says

i want to be korean.

out loud the class recites

migook migook migook

all i can offer them is dead air.

i. my father says he has

never thought much about race.

his calloused hand curls tighter around

another woman who looks like my mother.

i think her face carries war in the same way.

8 C a i t lyn C l a r k
iv. a rat king is a collection of rats whose tails
become intertwined / unable to survive in this
condition, they promptly die, tethered to one another.

ii. at the dinner table, my father’s mother

says she thinks my mother should

go back to where she came from

my father answers in dead air.

on the mantle,
my grandfather’s war medals blink with pride.

iv. a rat king can be bonded together through

blood / what else do we have
but this?

Ca i t lyn Cla rk 9
 ea Matthews
Th
W it h G an g r e n e

A thin body–the city–with gangrene

the slow decay : the decomposition
the welfare-lined skyscraper benumbs limbs.

The localized death : discoloration of

smooth skin once golden brown ebony / of
apartments once home to the blue blood / of
neighborhood shops food spots once thriving / of
streets once filled with humbled families / of
playgrounds once held by immigrant laughs
worn in Payless shoes neon ball scrunchies
heralds new money a smeared one-tone laugh
same look each district hides the methadone
clinic the elder flirting with a child
the drunk activist who raped a woman
the politician guilty of deceit
the police force warped guilty of murder.

A confederate soldier boards the bus

with a bouquet of funeral flowers
to the commodified debauchery
of the beatnik the hipster the hippie
the yuppie the millennial hipster
the techie the apathetic one who
moved in from the middle of nowhere no
where or some other city now strolling

11
 now sipping on five-dollar pour overs
now in line midnight to pay for fifteen-
dollar burritos (not including chips).

The latex know better than to suck rich

cocks for free they charge triple. The forlorn
snatch duffle bags sell electronics on
streets steal car registration tags and smash
windows to find their next fix. A city
of haves and have-nots stands struggles divided.

Urine-stained blue hospital pants trudges

concrete worn jeans laughs to himself on the
bus and animal-shaped hair barrettes on
tightly greased scalps are found nowhere for blocks.
The new metropolitan dissonance—
the elders in canes struggle to walk and
hold their groceries the town’s negligence
scrapes the bottom for leftovers shoved in
boxes near gutters near brands near five-star
trendy restaurants where heels and speed mix
in a martini glass. For those who want
to call this city your home make sure you
are the vertebrae connected to the
willful spine enduring the obstructed
circulation make sure you are the dirt
flowers who see the wings of hummingbirds
the Samaritan who feeds the hungry
who knows who hears the tears of the under
class with no butlers no paid assistance

if not then you are a digit dismembered.

12 T h e a Mat t h e w s
 Ascetic Protest
cracked
callused
feet listen
to the cries inside my belly
slowly

bleed the walk of the ascetic

denounce oil and sugar
refractory potbellies in suits

the protest is now

is tantamount
is the new blood
new peace
magnanimity

the revolution
from within
is within
each cell each step each fight
against an avaricious oligarchy—
a government who can never

control
the perception thoughts ideas
of a human being
as much as they want to

[keep
walking
they can’t find
you]
Th e a Mat t h e ws 13
 Tony Press
Take M t
e to Yo ur Hea r

“Elvis died on my birthday. My fourteenth. We lived in

Delavan then. My mom worked at the club on the lake.”

Stirring wretched coffee with a fork while a tinny

radio played something that must have been relevant
to the assertion, fifty-seven year-old Alonzo Johnson
wondered how it had been decided, at that moment, in
a packed Greyhound diner, that the stranger sharing
his two-person table would disclose that particular
piece of information. Or, more properly, those pieces,
as it wasn’t only the Elvis-death-birthday declaration,
but there was also Delavan, the mom, and the club.
That must have been Hugh Hefner’s old place on Lake
Geneva. He wondered which was most pertinent.

“Delavan.” Alonzo took the safe route, geography. “Is

that Walworth County, near Elkhorn?”

“That’s right, Walworth,” said the younger man. “You

can have one foot in Walworth, you know, and the
other in Illinois. I guess it sounds better saying ‘one
foot in Wisconsin, the other in Illinois,’ since they’re
both states. When I was in fourth grade they got
our whole class to some park or something once,
and they lined us up, left foot Wisconsin, right foot
Illinois. My mom’s still got the picture somebody
took.”
15
Alonzo’s eyes focused on the window and the black
winter night. He imagined a column of frozen
jumping jacks posed forever on the borderline. He had
often argued, internally, that state borders, all borders,
their entirety, should be marked in a meaningful
way: emboldened by massive yellow highlighters, or
painted, or chalked, as the white lines on a football
field. Sometimes you need to see the lines.

“My mom liked Elvis a lot, had all his music, but it
was this friend of hers who was the fanatic. She was
staying with us that summer, on her way to ‘California,
or maybe Colorado.’ She was crazy in love with him. I
was sitting right next to her when she heard it on the
television. She looked like a clock someone threw out
a window.”

The abrupt resumption of words shoved away Alonzo’s

image, and he mourned the loss. He would like to see
that photograph as it sat on an aged mother’s piano,
or, more likely, in a dusty box in a closet, though he
suspected it wouldn’t match the one in his mind.
Smashed clocks, however, were something he had
really seen.

“She was devastated. She dressed in black for a week,

but I guess all she had that was black were these tight
leotard dance things, and real short shorts...hot pants
maybe? It was weird. She looked like something out of
Hollywood. I couldn’t stop staring at her, and she was
as old as my mom. I was even thinking about her in bed.”

Both sides of the tiny table paused at the revelation,

giving it its due.

16 T o n y Pr e s s
“She never left the house, just played those records
over and over and over. One night, when my mom
was pulling a double-shift, she told me to sing—no,
she didn’t tell me, she ordered me—to sing ‘Love Me
Tender’ to her. I don’t even know if she knew I could
sing or not. I hadn’t sung a word since they kicked me
out of choir the year before, for smoking.”

Smoking at what, thirteen? Alonzo himself had started

at fifteen. After a few desultory attempts over forty
years, he had quit completely, hadn’t smoked in eight
months.

“It was the one she played the most, I heard it literally
thirty-five times, maybe more, that week.”

It was rare to hear the word “literally” used correctly.

Alonzo believed he had just experienced it.

“‘Sing it to me at midnight, on the back porch.’ That’s

exactly what she said. She went to the porch—it was
screened in, that’s where she was sleeping—and came
back with a scrap of paper with the lyrics. They were in
handwriting. Hers, I guess. She put it in my hand and
didn’t say another word, just walked back out through
the porch to the yard. I took it to my room, but I could
watch her out my window, about twenty yards behind
the house, sitting cross-legged on the hood of her old
Pontiac, smoking and staring out somewhere. For the
entire time, almost two hours, she just sat there, her
eyes fixed. I angled my neck, but I couldn’t see what
she was looking at.”

Stars, Alonzo explained to himself. She was searching

Tony P re ss 17
 southern Wisconsin’s endless summer sky, certain that
solace could be found if only she knew where to look.

“Of course, I knew it already, the song, I’d heard it so

much that week. I especially like the line in the middle:
‘Take me to your heart.’ But I did practice it a bunch of
times. At first just to myself, then a little louder, and
once, after I shut my window, at full strength until I
knew I had it the way I wanted. Then I waited, but
double-wide awake, keeping an eye on the clock, and
keeping an eye on her, too, sitting right where she’d
been the first time I looked.”

Alonzo stretched his right arm across his chest to knead

his left shoulder. He lifted his coffee but replaced it
without touching the cup to his lips.

“At two minutes of, I was still watching her. She slid
off the hood and started in to the porch. I stuffed
the lyrics into my jeans pocket even though I knew I
didn’t need them, and I went to her. I remember I was
barefoot, and I had on a Packer jersey, but for some
reason I can’t remember which one. I had three or four
different ones. I wish I knew.”

Alonzo had a fleeting memory of a refrain: “I went to

her.” How much, in four words?

“When I got there, she was standing at the far end, by

the head of the day bed we had, the one that she used.
She motioned me to stay at the other end, so I was
standing just inside the screen door. Next to her was
a circle of candles on a little wrought-iron table. She
lit every candle. Then she spoke, but when she did, I

18 T o n y Pr e s s
could barely hear her. She said ‘Now. Now, please.’ She
closed her eyes and I sang. Maybe they were already
closed the whole time, I don’t know.”

Even on a windless August night, the flames would

have danced, sending gentle shadows to the fake-wood
paneling of the summer porch.

“I nailed that song. I had a band later, and I still sing

sometimes, but I’ve never hit it like that. About thirty
seconds after I stopped, she opened her eyes and kind
of tiptoed to where I was standing. She put both her
hands on my face and kissed me for as long as the song
had lasted.

I had kissed before, but I hadn’t, after all. In those

minutes with her, with her tears pouring all down my
face, I realized why and how grownups kissed.

She pulled back, traced the line of my jaw with one

finger, and then rested it for a split-second on my
peach-fuzz mustache. Sometimes I can still feel that
finger. Then she picked up her little suitcase, walked
past me into the yard, and drove away.”

He shrugged, took a few breaths, continued. “I’ve had

three marriages, two of them good ones. My wife and
I still surprise each other. I have no complaints. None.
But that kiss will stay with me forever. Up to then, I’d
just been waiting, you know, like you wait for a bus
that might never show up.”

Alonzo Johnson took a large last swallow of cold

coffee, grateful as it graced his tongue and teeth, swept

Tony P re ss 19
 both checks from the table, paid the cashier, added a
generous tip, and, next to the cash register, found
a cigarette machine. He pumped quarters into the
slot until a crisp pack of Camels dropped to the tray.
Grabbing a nameless book of matches from a bowl
on the counter, he strode outside into the chill, his
breath immediately visible, the pack already open and
a Camel between his lips. Instinctively locating the
darkest corner of the parking lot, he leaned against the
base of a utility pole, its iciness cutting his thin jacket
to the small of his back. Amid the constellations he
was easily able to locate, as he struck his first match in
240 days, the screened-in porch in Delavan, the little
blue suitcase and the stringed handbag, and the red tail
lights, one brighter than the other, heading west across
the bright yellow lines.

20 T o n y Pr e s s
 Sara Biel

Telling
The winter sunset seeped crimson behind
the mountains.
She slipped her secret into my ear.
A match to my mother’s.
An unexpected requiem
a pain filled gift
grief and anger pressed fingers to palm.
A string of stories
laundry on a line
wavering.
A call to remember
warning of a fragile boundary
a tentative sovereignty born in blood.
Each story came with a name
Rita, Marguerite, Amy, Joan.

When my mother told me her story I was

surrounded by snow
the early darkness of a northern night.
Our words hung on the phone line.
Frozen, cold and stiff.
21
“It should be easier now. I want to see you after.”

She told of driving with friends from Hollywood to

Tijuana.
A girls weekend in September of ’63.
Smoking cigarettes with the top down, sun and wind.
A flask to pass around the car.
Someone knew someone who had a doctor’s name.
It would be alright.
Then later in a dirty motel room she cramped so hard
she passed out,
vomiting and bleeding through greasy grey sheets.
She tried not to cry too loud.
She listened to her friends dancing in the courtyard
bar outside her window.
Their laughter bleeding into the scratchy radio music.

She held her fear in a place already scarring, already

curling into silence.

I remember the squeaky crunch of tires in the snow

filled parking lot
Dawn blinking out with the streetlights.
Almost strangers
our eyes roam the windshield
search for instructions in the ice left behind
on the wipers.

22 s a ra b i e l
Our teeth and hands grip
hold us carefully within our skins.
We are tangled, breathless in our accidental binding.
Reluctant latecomers,
awkward in the intimacy of this accident.
Cloudy breath floats away from us.
In these strained moments time spreads, thinning at
its edges.

There was no guilt at this undoing.

He stamped his feet keeping warm.
Even in the orbit of his “honor” I lived
these hours alone.

In the room I pulled away from him

but let him keep my hand.
Palm upturned, a place to put his thumb.
A way to feel effective.
Tried not to squeeze too hard in the clenching suck
being rung out.

That afternoon and through the whole

slow husk of that winter
We wandered in a pantomime of coupled gestures.
Incomplete strangers unraveling.

sa ra bi e l 23
 Some secrets don’t age, they calcify
Breathe quietly, hands folded
Lay claim with flat little smiles.

I had a secret
An implicit stumbling
natural as stretch mark.
It lingered
mirrored in the eyes of an old lady,
echoed in my mom’s voice.

And
secrets are transformed by their telling.
Speaking sloughs off scaly shame
pushes them into the light
where they bloom
precarious and commonplace
rose-colored mornings from storm filled nights

24 s a ra b i e l
 Conspirators

Wading into melted twilight

my mind offers a souvenir.
Time buckles in the memories’ pull
my brain gives over
rolls in lost time.

I lift your sleepy weight.

Sweat damp.
Bread warm.

Scoop you up,

rock back
knees bend shift
dance of the everyday and
your determined sleep.

I pull you into my chest

like an ocean wave
curl around hold

for the briefest, deepest of seconds

Both of us sigh.

A syncopated hymn

sa ra bi e l 25
 release from the snakey tangle
the flank and fuss of your car seat
the growl and snipe of traffic snarls.
I glance down.
Vision slips

Past the crash of my work bag

thump of sour lunch boxes
scrape of dirty sneakers
confusion of abandoned sweaters
the sprawl,the tumble flotsam on
clumped weekday shadows.

There
like the sudden moon breaking through.
I spark in the glow of your secret smile
edging up the corners of your mouth.

We are conspirators in this obstacle course.

This going home.

26 s a ra b i e l
 Spring

Born at the water line,

mouth open, head tilted back.

A girl given a name

a cold and hopeful season an invisible ladder to climb.

We watch her from the shore, from striped chairs buried in

the dry warm sand.

She skips, a small flat stone

caught in laughing air

tumbles, loses herself to the

suck of the tide.

Go out and
comeback

go out

come back

go out.

It’s not like in the movies.

She slips beneath the green horizon.

sa ra bi e l 27
 Doesn’t even wave.

Her mother calls. We search the wind.

Light shivers off the ripples.

I lift my words so their meaning surfaces.

Exhale inhale call for help.

The reflex, breath must be obeyed.

My explanation glassy unfocused

tongue cramps before it reaches the edge of my teeth.

Thoughts stumble

catch on drops of melting ice.

Like seeks like

rushes to join the inundation.

The warm waters swell, stroke the degraded shoreline

wander into the buzz of forgotten sun.

Words recede

bob beyond her wrinkled reach.

She closes her eyes.

Wind pushes sand over sand.

28 s a ra b i e l
Her mind wades, rocks in the tick and sigh

the hollow sound of anxious hands.

All my careful accounts push her prayers sideways.

They creep across our briny grief.

“Hush” she says. Drowning is silent.

sa ra bi e l 29
 er Bullen
Pet

R e v e ri e
If I ever died
And that is something
I am told I will have to make allowances for
I’d like not to be the first
And to be relieved of all the times I wanted to be,
first that is.

In addition I hope to resist stage-managing the affair

over-much
I would like singing but I’m choosy and don’t want
an algorithm in charge of the playlist

Sitting down now in a coffee-shop, jotting down my

deathbed’s musical score,
I lean a little holy
And wonder which Leonard Cohen song will best
send me on my way
Also, and I don’t mean to be annoying, but I will
need some melodious Hindu mantras,
and early Dylan

31
Boots of Spanish Leather perhaps, since it’s about a
lover leaving
But also for its everyday vocabulary and its silences,
which remind me how little I will ever know
and how much I may still love

And then there’s people

How strange to leave them for last

Well I’d like them there in spirit

Spirit kind of being the ‘when in Rome’ order of that
particular moment.

But I wouldn’t want to give the people too much to

do

I never wanted to do all that much myself

32 Pe t e r B ul l e n
 Couple

Darlings, don’t look so sour

Because if you look closely you’ll notice,

your laptops are touching

quite tenderly, as it happens.

P e t e r Bu lle n 33
 l Dorf
Caro
B o rd
ers and Bo u n d a rie s

A hedge, a wall. The snail advantage is a home away from home.

When I’m nervous I carry a change of underwear along with a
toothbrush. When you leave a hometown, you are uprooted. In
kindergarten my teacher labeled every piece of furniture. We
children had already been labeled with place of origin.

Salt over a shoulder to chase away the bad luck that threatens to
follow you to a new home—not that it did Lot’s wife any good. For
a while driftwood sculptures populated the salt flats—open to tidal
shifts.

35
 nifer Kulbec
Jen k
Thre
e St o r ie s a b o u t a m u l e

for the light

after the tower was completed the crew kept a mule

on the island to carry supplies up the switchbacks to
the light station

in some stories, the mule is named

jack. in other stories jack was a bargaining chip after
the workmen staged a sit-down strike, though there is
no record of a strike

stories came back

about a keeper’s daughter who called herself the
girl of the farallones, climbed on the mule’s back
and rode around the island, fed him dried apples
and dressed him in hats, whispered to him with a
lisp, i love you, stand still now, you’re my best friend
i can smell the rain coming

after some time it came to be that he was the

oldest inhabitant of the island and when he died his
grave was marked with a stone, and men cried and
newspapers carried the story

37
 notes on the mule

seasick
braying
hoarse

rough ride on the supply ship

pushed into the surf

swam to the island

worked the winches

and pulleys

stone tower
brick lining

hauled drums of oil

four 5-gallon cans on his pack saddle

sacks of coal
for the boilers for the steam for the fog whistle

walked around the windlass

to work the crane on the platform of the north
landing

loved apples
drizzled with honey
and rolled in sugar

38 J e n n i f e r K ul b e ck
from Jack Stories

When the whistle sounds to start the workday

he flies into a gallop, kicking loose rocks into
whirlwinds behind him. He runs until he reaches the
far side of the island and then he runs west and turns
around and runs east and again to the west until the
youngest of the children with the long yellow hair
catches up to him with her apron pockets full of old
carrots, potatoes, dried apples. They walk back across
the rock and she holds onto his mane and talks to
him in her small voice, her breath on his ear. She
feeds him the old apples and vegetables until they
reach the landing site where the winch swings crates
of cargo from the visiting ship.

Je nni f e r Ku lbe ck 39
 Lea Gulino

A Witnessed Account of Detestable

Malfeasance Having Occurred 9
March 1891 as Reported by The San
Francisco Call, Duly Recounted
Here in Rigmarole and Rhyme

Daring Dimber Dambers Strike Cable Car Barn.

Faithful Mongrel Trio Sound The Alarm.
A Lively Fusillade Occurred in The City the Other Day.
Might Be the Rorty Pluckers Cracking Safes Again, They Say.

All was quiet in the Haight Street House and Stanyan

terminus
As the peachy-cheek night watchman dusted down the
luminous.
‘Round two a.m. he heard a knock an’ yollered, “S’elp me
Bob, what of it?”
“My buggy sadly’s broken down. I need a wrench to
shuntit.”

“We deal in cables, sheaves and pulleys fella, can’t

help you here.
Unless yer buggy’s got a grip, you’ll need t’apply
elsewhere.”
41
“Sir, the jammiest of jams on board is right fit to sock me.
Can’t you help me prop the hub, bring home my popsy
wopsy?”

But the watchman had an inkling, from the back he’d

heard the barking.
It was Jack and Tip and Fido, all three mutts a-natty
narking.
They had different barks, those dogs, one for food and
one for fighting,
But darbey darn this barking was one reserved for biting.

As the watchman went to check the safe, behind a

window crashed,
“Throw up your bauds”, the scuttler snarled, the
watchman turned aghast.
There was a pistol poking through durn sure here was a
skila-ma-link,
But rather than surrender our gibby guard optified the
fink.

He shot blind hookey with his pistol, aiming straight at

the holler.
Two bullets whizzed when with surprise he heard a
second caller.
Three guns out now, the engine-house in full row-de-
dow,

42 L e a G ul i n o
From all directions casings clanked as caps winged
Hallidie’s bough.

Out of ammo and into the street our night man found his
neighbors.
The whooper-up arousing them from sleepy mead love’s
labours.
There were conductors and there were grip-men, all
shakin’ out their flannin’,
A tin hat appy dosser and snaggle-toothed nanny bandin’.

A double-breasted water smasher soon joined the liege

And brought along his raggies, still half rats it seemed.
There were even two chokey groggers come in clean from
the can,
It was shack-per-swaw, each man a snuffer firmly held in
hand.

Twenty shots were fired, as the plucking wallopers

escaped.
Down Haight Street they fizzle scurried, pursuers hot on
their plate.
And soon the smoke cleared, and it became umble-cum-
stumble
That the bugaboo had ended, the car-barn saved from
certain trouble.

Le a Gu li no 43
The next day in The Call it was reported, “No One Was
Hurt”.
And that’s true of bipedals, perhaps Darwin would assert.
But under the loco-motion and chuckaboo backbarishin’
Three doggies on duty, found poisoned and perishin’.

There are men who are clean, there are men who are loyal,
But men can be dogs when it comes to spoils royal.
They cruelly slipped some micky meat to Jack, Tip and
Fido
Three noble dogs taught to protect, they lived by that
mighty Cairo.

Bricky Jack woulda ate it last, always leery of strangers

But Fido’d eat anything ‘specially those bangers.
When it fell to barmy Tip he’da lapped up that bossy
meal,
Those thievin’ cheaters musta had no heart, they clearly
couldn’t feel.

To the trio in Oddfellows a granite stone was laid,

‘Round that fateful safe each doggie etched, masterly
handmade,
“Jack, Fido and Tip, ill -fated three,” it reads, “a sad
bequest.
Faithful to the last, now you’re free. Peaceful be your rest.”

44 L e a G ul i n o
 Abe Becker

Grief Strategy

Dad left me a minivan

some new friends said
they all felt sleepy
on the way to my first
salsa class

That’s probably Dad’s

exhaustion. It was
his minivan.

Is he
dead? a new friend
asked

& I want the

truth to be if I say
something kind &
funny in moments of
grief it’s like the
visitation dream that
hasn’t happened:

enough

he’s only visited my

dream once that I know of & it wasn’t
Enough
45
 yea
I said after a pause
full of my awkwardness
& none of his charm
dead

46 Ab e B e c k e r
 lsea Davis
Che

Leatherface

O to touch the tender flesh

Beneath the butcher’s gown.
To be the skin
that strokes the skin
beneath their skins.
I could love you gently,
scarlessly
.
What you’ve done and
killed before
are not my questions:
I, too, have
hurt,
at times.

Their hair was wrong,

those others,
and their skin—
too thin. I come
from thicker
stock, my blood a match
for yours.

Dear one,
let me in tonight.
I vow: when I am done,
I’ll leave no marks.
47
 as Moniz
Tom

O r,
A T he
A ll In m y B o d y
r a p is t th e T
ric k
i s G o o d b u t S o m e ti m es Y o u T u b e D o es

If you really want to know why I’m waiting for you

naked on the couch, I kind of want to blame my
therapist. They asked a question about what excites me
because you know, I’ve been feeling a bit disconnected
from things. From you. From us. I just answered
them without thinking about it really, but clearly I
reconnected with something.

They said, So if you’re uncomfortable talking about

your sexual desire or energy between you and your
partner, I have two suggestions.

Hit me, I said, thinking I was clever because, you know,

that is sometimes something I desire.

They paused with just enough pregnancy that I felt

busted and ashamed and, of course, then more shame
because there I was in therapy caught in a shame loop.

They said, Let’s come back to talking about why and

perhaps where, in your body, you feel discomfort when
talking about sexuality with me, but let’s start with
this: what are the things that get you excited, happy,
aroused in a more metaphorical sense, not sexual?

49
I blurted out, YouTube videos.

They responded in that perfectly matter of fact way,

Any particular kind of video?

I felt that rush of fear again, like they’re going to laugh

or judge me. But I risked it.

I said, Yes.

I closed my eyes thinking about the specific videos

that make me happy, that I feel in my body. Let me set
the mood for you. Say it’s a Tuesday night. I’m having
a nightcap. Picture a glass of red wine despite the fact
it always stains my lips purple in a way that I can never
scrub clean the next day.

I said to my therapist, A while back I stumbled upon

these videos of like, voice coaches listening to metal
bands and commenting on how amazing the singer is
to hit those notes while contorting their bodies.

I sat there in the office, eyes closed, imagining the

faces of the coaches leaning forward and in awe of the
voices and bodies of the singers writhing or bouncing
or hunched over in something like ecstasy. Let me tell
you: the best part is like how these totally straight
appearing voice coaches watch these videos and then
stop every few seconds to offer commentary.

I heard my therapist ask, And this brings you joy?

I said, Yes.

50 T o m as Mon i z
They said, Wonderful. Sit with that feeling right now.

I sat there feeling antsy because I needed to explain

more. I kept my eyes closed.

I said, But it gets better.

They said, How? Can you explain?

I lowered my voice and leaned in like I was a nerdy

voice coach.

I said, I discovered this whole subgenre of Christian

couples or like a Christan father and son listening
to Nine Inch Nails or Tool for the first time. All this
revulsion and camaraderie they share, the look on their
faces: pure arrogant self-righteousness.

I stopped talking. It’s like when we got super high

on those gummy worm edibles and we thought we’d
discovered the way the universe was held together. All
the connections between everything and no one could
tell us we were wrong. We felt invincible.

I heard the therapist ask, So seeing their shared

experience pleases you?

That was some of it, but not really all of it. It’s also
their disgust, their offended reactions, the way they
discover something about themselves, it’s voyeuristic,
even erotic, like you witness intimacy right as it’s
created between two people. The bond, the excitement
over hating something I loved. Listen: I watched video
after video, drank glass after glass, until I ended up

Tomas Moni z 51
 making myself cum sitting on the couch in the living
room, all the lights on, right hand holding a wine glass,
mouth open, stained red lips, singing along to “Closer”
or “Stinkfist,” playing with myself with my left hand
as the YouTubers stopped and shared their analysis of
the lyrics, their voices all appalled and indignant.

I hear my therapist ask, So, tell me: what’s going on for

you right now. You appear relaxed.

I opened my eyes and looked at them but thought

of you. Because I figured it out: that’s what I want
for us. You and me. Let’s be the reason people bond
in their discomfort. Let’s bring out the Christan, the
judgmental, the scared in people because we are so
god damn frightening in all our perverted glory. Don’t
answer. Just get naked and join me on the couch. I’ll
grab the laptop. You grab the wine. I want to YouTube
with you. I want to pause videos and banter judgmental
commentary with you. I want to sing satanic songs out
loud with you. I want to feel you all in my body.

52 T o m as Mon i z
 elle Lee Slo
ch ta
Ri
J ust So
You Understand

I don’t do drag
To be an outlaw.

I don’t do drag
to get off, so to speak.

Your license,
I don’t seek.

And, I don’t do drag

To be your freak.

53
 d ler Rae Fitch
h an et
C t
O ne hundred
a n d ten ho urs

the first person i met in AA referred to her sister as a

“normie”/ as if we were odd / unfortunate /
porcelain trinkets collecting dust / because when we
walk by the 500 Club /we feel tingles in our
sockets / we want to touch / become / the neon
cocktail sign / that makes the stars sigh / as our
cheeks bloom / and for the first time in a year / i
called my mother / i told her that i had grown the
same spots / that her freckles are circling the edge of
my forehead / that my patterns are bound by
the candied cherries she fed me / and my mouth can
no longer be washed out with soap.

55
 et h Horner T
ab ur
i z ne
El What the r
Scho
olteacher Told St. Peter

OK. Well, first of all I want you to know, Mr. Saint

Peter, that if I could have helped that young girl with
the marvelously swinging ponytail, I would have. But
there’s nothing I could do once she aimed those eyes—
those beams beaming and the lasers and the first kid
vaporized just so fast. Puff of smoke? Yes. Zapping
sound? Eh...I think it was more like a fart under
water. (I hope that’s OK to say.) Oh! But here’s the
most surprising part: nobody, OK, OK, at least not me,
expected the terrible bloating that happened first—
each body puffed up, the cheeks pouched out, buttons
burst open like that kid in Charlie and the Chocolate
Factory. Then there was the blurpy noise and the smoke
or vapor or whatever it was, and then it was done. That
was it. No blood, no stains, just… gone. Well, until she
turned those scary, scary eyes on someone else.

May I give you a little more backstory, your honor?

No? OK—Sir? So, it really seemed like things were
going well for her. I mean, when they wanted to bring
her into my classroom, I made sure to read her file, of
course, and this time, it really seemed like the system
was getting it right. She had the group home with a
socialization leader, she had the lead walls. Soothing
chamomile tea prescribed three times a day. Group

57
therapy, personal therapy, music therapy and rent-a-
pets; even the lizard survived overnight in its terrarium
alone in her room. So the director thought she might
be ready for school. She needs an education! The director
said. We’ll mainstream her and she’ll learn to play nice
with others. But you know, Kids will be Kids. It was the
glasses she chose to wear, and we were all too afraid of
her to tell her to stop. American flags with lights that
flashed on the edges and if you pressed a button on the
side, Grand Ol’ Flag played for a few seconds. At first,
the other kids thought they were funny, that she was
just… kooky, you know? They’d press the button, and
she’d stand at attention with her hand on her heart
while the song played. Every time. And she’d never
even smile. So funny quickly turned weird and the one,
the only recess I didn’t shoo them out immediately so
I could race to the bathroom, they backed her into a
corner, hands clawing for the glasses yelling all sorts of
crappy—sorry—terrible stuff at her, and we all know
what happened then. It was like Carrie in the 7th grade,
but with bloating and steam instead of pigs’ blood. It
was only her fourth day.

What do I think will happen to her? Well, shoot. If I

were a betting person, which I’m NOT, of course, I’d
bet on lawsuits and articles and Dr. Phils trying to
make a buck with her on prime time.

There’ll be witch hunts and more group homes. I’m

going to try from up here—if you’ll just tell me how,
please—to get her up to Alaska and start over or
something.

Yes sir, I absolutely have remorse. Gosh. Walking into

58 E l i z ab e t h H or ne r Tu rne r
that classroom—they were alone for three maybe four
minutes!—I just stood there, watching the Atkinson
boy puff up and vanish, then I heard that creepy group
gasp and then perfect silence punctured by Matthew’s
watery scream. He was next to go, of course, and I froze
in the doorway. I was just mesmerized by her silky, silky,
I mean, like a ‘70’s hair commercial, ponytail. Seriously.
Hear me when I tell you that it was perfect—chestnut
colored and tied with a little green bow. It was magical.
At some point, I know I yelled to the kids to duck and
cover and her head flicked over to my face. My second-
to-last vision was of the perfectly curled ponytail
bouncing, so slowly as she moved her head to see me.
And then, well, the last things I saw were her eyes.

Eli zabe t h Horne r Tu rne r 59

 To June of the Night
Blooming Jasmine—
The phantoms found the Ecstasy again—
they rub the pills all over their foggy little throats—
their haunting gets so interrupted and any candy
in the house is gone by morning. Three years ago
today, June,
I gave up the old business for this one—watching the
ships come in
and waxing your old house sills—so the company,
even of these ones, is welcome. It’s true our jobs will
be over
when this house slips into the sea, we’ll buckle and
heave
and splinter our way down to rocks and salt and
anemones
minding their own wet business. But until then, I’ll
keep watch
June, I’ll clean the spackle off each pane with spit
and lemon.
I even left a trail for him to find me, all the pink Dots
he tossed
to the side at the movies and nineteen pennies I
found, tail-side up.
I even kissed a few pine trees with vanilla lip gloss

60 E l i z ab e t h H or ne r Tu rne r
if he needs to sniff his way. The local wolf seemed
willing
to help, but he’s also hungry since the elves packed up
for the British movie industry. My phantoms tell
stories
of other men who lost their way in the woods—
they each were one, and show me their scars as
though to prove
their death certificates. I’d like him alive, but if I find
him post-mortem
with the Candy Kid Ghost Ravers, I’d take him, I
guess. O June,
I hope you’re happy, and when your house falls and
I’m ocean-bound
again, I hope you’ll find at least one pane of glass
floating
in the waves and know I tried to keep the vision clear.

Eli zabe t h Horne r Tu rne r 61

 Paris
Sarah
Monk
Tries To Meditate

an excerpt from “The Hermit,” a novella in progress

Monk had built three little altars, one in the house,

one in the garden, and one on top of the ridge, each
in a spot chosen after much deliberation, soothsaying
and a wet finger stuck in the air.

It is not that I do not wish

To mix with others
But living alone in freedom
Is a better path for me …

Those words of Ryokan, ancient monk and hermit,

were tucked above the altar in Monk’s house, but he
could recite them by heart. As he sat in the garden
this spring evening, there was just enough light left
to contemplate the little white flowers budding on a
small bush whose name he didn’t know and didn’t care
to know. Names and categories just got in the way of
seeing. He could see the flowers clearly. He thought he
could even hear them humming.

Some days, he was able to stay in that now place,

with only an occasional thought crossing the sky

63
 of his mind. The long, dark winter had helped to slow
down his mental chatter. But now, as the sun was
warming his skin, and the first butterflies flitted from
bush to bush, Monk was feeling twitchy.

Butterflies. Lou had been his butterfly, his faithless

lover, haunting his nights. Lou with the golden eyes,
dark curls, wry smile.

Monk stood up and slowly began to walk. Sometimes,

walking was easier than sitting. Step, breath, step,
breath.

The raven he called Munnin came swooping in and

landed on the rock in the middle of the garden.

Croak.

“Easy for you to say,” murmured Monk.

That’s what you think, thought the raven (although

not in those words, because ravens rarely use human
language.)

The raven didn’t feel that anything was all that easy
since his mate had died. He still missed her fiercely, but
not in the way Monk missed his lover. How birds feel
is not something humans can understand. They make
educated guesses which, by virtue of being educated,
completely miss the point.

Monk got up, deciding he might as well make dinner,

drink lots of wine, and read. Or maybe go for a walk
later, through the woods and down into the sleeping

64 S a ra h Pa r i s
village.

Croak.

The raven flapped his wings, jumped off the rock and
hopped across the garden to where a butterfly had
landed.

Butterfly Lou.

Monk knew he would have to go and find Lou’s cave

one of these days. Maybe he would go tomorrow.
Maybe next week.

He couldn’t put it off forever.

Sa ra h Pa ri s 65
 Amy Smith

N e a p Ti d e

drifting at neap tide

under the three quarters moon
glowing down where
the mangroves grow

no signs of brackish impasse

but this morose Spanish moss
silently begs us
to notice time

67
 A Man Afar
(lipogram)

a man afar
pawns arms
plays war
bang

68 Am y Sm i t h
 an uncertain victory

The day it dropped out of the sky

and the dogs understood
we witnessed an uncertain victory

Nurtured,
something ambiguous becomes systematic—
but without that day, immaterial

Motionless and together,

we remain by such slow
and established relocation

To a crow, we are a resting place.

To a child,
the history of the world

Amy Smi t h 69
- january 6, 2020 -