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sparkle + blink 104
© 2020 Quiet Lightning

cover art © Claire Rabkin

clairerabkin.com

“Home, a Becoming” by Gustavo Barahona-López

first appeared in Homology Lit
“My Personal Brand” by Matt Leibel
first appeared in X-RAY Literary Magazine
“The Tale of Tucker and the Toast” by Clyde Always
first appeared in Unmuzzled Monkeyshines
“Duracell” by Jon Bennett
first appeared in South Florida Poetry Journal
“Rage” by Mackenzie Studebaker
first appeared in Weird Women Zine
set in Absara

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quietlightning.org
su bmit @ qui e tl i g h tn i n g . o r g
 Contents
curated by
Sean Taylor + Jason Whitacre
featured artist
Claire Rabkin | clairerabkin.com

Gustavo Barahona-López Home, a Becoming 1

Jyoti Arvey Chicken 3
Nicole Henares I Will Wear Yellow 7
Jennifer Lewis Sandhill Cranes 11
Lowlife 13
Kai Sugioka A Quarter Japanese 15
Scratched-up Records 20
Emilie Osborn Froggie, Hymenochirus
Boettgeri / African clawed frog 23
Keith Mark Gaboury Voiceless 25
Matt Leibel My Personal Brand 27
Zephir O’Meara Five Word Poem 31
Clyde Always The Tale of Tucker and the Toast 33
Jon Bennett Duracell 37
Kimi Sugioka Senseless Extraction
of Internal Serenity 39
Danielle Truppi Female Cricket, 30s 41
Tammy Zo Pollard The Balance 45
Peter Bullen Pudding 49
Dear Diary 52
Emily Bornhop Piano Bouquet 55
Serena Chan How Do We Talk About Grief 59
Kelly Gray When the Shooter Comes:
Instructions For My Daughter 61
Mackenzie Studebaker Rage 63
 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

 a
v o Bar hona-L
ta óp
us ez
G H o m e, a Be c o m i n g

I remind myself that my legs are countries. The way

Borders are the hemlines of worn jeans.

How do you say goodbye to backyard pomegranates?

They demand remittances like body parts.

Lips and arms and cheeks to be kissed by a monarch

Butterfly. I rip off the barbed wire across my spine,

Protection for the casa triste that lives on my temple.

How do you greet America? Like a lost lover

Torn from you by time or lust or hate?

Like a child not at peace with self?  

I become the orchard and the railroad. I raise

The children, bury the dead. I make myself

A home. I build connection like water creates

Caverns, writing names on stone walls.

1
 Arvey
Jyoti

Chicken

My friends told me from the beginning that moving

into a vegan house was a bad idea. “Agnes,” they said,
“you love eating meat.” But I was offered the room, and
took it on the spot. I could eat meat in my new vegan
house. It was only banned from common spaces and
obviously the refrigerator. And I wanted to be vegan.
I want to be vegan. I know that I can be one day and
that I should be. It’s just a process for me. Anyway, a
week after I moved in, I bought a rotisserie chicken.
The supermarket down the road makes them super
yummy. I like to pick up each chicken to find the
heaviest one, and there were so many chickens there
that day. It took me almost thirty minutes to choose.

Luckily, no one was home when I returned. Still, I

went straight to my room and placed the chicken on
the floor. My desk was covered in papers and trash,
boxes were still stacked in the corner and my books
were lying in piles, but when I turned on the overhead
light, it illuminated the plastic covered chicken in
the middle of it all. It dazzled against the grey carpet.
I needed sauce. I poured barbeque sauce and green
goddess salad dressing onto two paper plates and
set them on either side of the chicken. I sat cross-
legged in front.

3
The plastic cover snapped off easily, and I realized that
the chicken was smaller than I had expected. Petite.
I wondered if I had really chosen the heaviest one. I
knew it wouldn’t feel so small in my stomach, but for
a moment I considered whether I could have bought
a second. Nonsense, I realized as I started eating, this
one chicken would be enough. I’m very delicate when
I eat a rotisserie chicken, by the way, like a pianist.
It’s meditative. Through my curtains, I could see tree
branches swaying and the shadows of falling leaves.
I took deep breaths after each bite. Eventually I was
full, but I continued eating. I had no place to store this
chicken, nowhere it could go except my stomach or
the trash, and I couldn’t waste it. The only thing worse
than eating meat is buying meat and throwing it away.

So I finished the last pieces, making sure I got every

bite, and licked my whole hand. I laid back, looking at
the overhead lamp, thankful that the fan was turning.
As I was about to fall asleep, I heard the front door
open and panicked. Another door clicked shut, and
I realized it must have been Marie, who lived in the
room right next to mine. My hands were all greasy
and smelled of meat. I tiptoed past her room to the
bathroom. I used my wrist to turn the faucet on and
push down the soap. After three washes, my hands
still smelled. I rummaged in the bathroom cabinet
for essential oils, and poured some lavender into my
palms, relieved. But I went out and the chicken carcass
was in the middle of the living room floor. Benny, the
housedog, was licking and chewing the bones. Chicken
bones are not safe for dogs. As I reached into Benny’s
mouth to retrieve them, the key turned in the front
door. Mark walked in and saw Benny, the chicken and

4 J yot i A r v e y
me, frozen in front of him. Bones were scattered across
the floor, and small pieces of meat were hanging from
Benny’s mouth. Mark gasped, dropped his metal bike
lock in shock, and Marie came out and saw it all, too.

Mark quickly suggested a house meeting to discuss the

incident, which was a great idea. I hadn’t broken the
rules. I hadn’t brought the chicken into the living room.
Benny had. Through my shame, I knew that everything
would be fine. In fact, this could only bring us closer
together. When we finally found a time to meet, all six
of us, someone wrote “AGNES CHICKEN MEETING”
on the calendar in all caps in orange crayon. I prepared
a special dinner that night – coconut rice with tofu
stew and a big kale salad. Everyone had gotten plates
and sat on the couches in the living room. I sat on the
floor with my dish on the coffee table, big wool socks
pulled over my pajama pants and my hood over my
head. Perhaps I looked too casual for them, but I was
really taking everything very seriously.

It was chilly out. I had the heat on in my room all day,

so the skin on my hands was dry. Every few minutes, I
squeezed some hand cream directly onto my knuckles.
This is what I was doing when Marie began the meeting.
She suggested that we skip check ins. Mark and Allie
agreed, and the rest consented by their silence. I
figured that this was okay with me, too, having never
lived in a vegan house before, and I rubbed more rose
cream into the cracks in my hand.

I started with a long apology, explaining my side of the

story, laying out my guilt and my shame, reiterating
my desire to become vegan, and saying a prayer for the

Jyot i A rve y 5
chicken that I ate that day and all the chickens that
I have ever eaten. I was so moved by my own speech
that I even shed some tears. I looked around, surprised
to find only dry eyes looking back at me. I continued
putting lotion on my hands, and eating the tofu stew
while the others responded. Only Mark and Marie
had seen the actual chicken carcass, but everyone
had something to say about it. Lila smelled the meat
in the house as soon as she arrived home. Allie saw
chicken pieces hanging out of Benny’s mouth later
that day. Jeff stepped on a bone walking into his room.
By the end of the meeting, I had been asked to move
out and given a month and a half to find a new place.
No one felt confident in my ability to uphold house
agreements, even as I cried and assured them that I
could. The rental contract stipulated thirty days move
out notice from the first of the month, so they couldn’t
legally ask me to leave earlier, but I was encouraged to
find a spot as soon as I could.

So that is the reason why I am leaving my current

place. It’s been a week since that meeting. By the way,
I want to assure you that I read and understood your
house guidelines on the listing. I was so excited to see
that you were looking for a new housemate because
I really am hoping to become vegan, and living in a
vegan house is an important part of that for me. I like
those two paintings, by the way. Did a co-op member
paint them? I have some posters and tapestries that I
would love to hang in the common spaces if I do end
up moving here, obviously if everyone else likes them,
too. I’m a bit nervous. Anyway, I’m sure you have other
questions for me.

6 J yot i A r v e y
 ole Henare
Nic s
I W il l W ea r Ye l l o w

el poema es la erección del ahorcado. Demasiado tarde y para

nadie. Pero ahí.
david eloy rodriguez

Te quiero,
entiende?

I will wear yellow.

Estes palabras son las palabras

de mi sangre,
y mi alma,
entiende?  

No entiendo como tu es como es.

No entiendo nada,
sobre tu comes mi corazón,
mi cuerpo, mi cabeza, y mis ojos.

No entiendo nada,
sobre te quiero.  

No entiendo nada,
sobre te quiero.

I will wear yellow because

7
I am always trying to find light.
Every night the sunset echoes from behind the trees.

I remain a heart
in the green of mourning.
But I will wear yellow.  

Tonight I am with the waning moon

who hovers
over the world
with her ever changing face.
I have listened closely to the secrets
the past has told.
Don’t worry so much about the future-
only the differences
between intention and expectation.
The oranges are beginning
to appear again,
and in May the jacaranda
will bloom electric and purple.
There is always the possibility of starvation
and catastrophe and ego and war,
but, even then,
there is the humble magic
of licorice
and I know how to find it.

Sometimes I hear pointing, 

accusatory silences, and the sunset continues
to cry louder and louder with the click of time.
I will wear brass hoops around my ears and around
my wrists.
I will fall into water.
I will wear yellow.

8 N i c ol e h e nar e s
All lovebirds are mourning doves.
They know my sorrow, like you know my sorrow,
and have poured salt and pepper into these wounds,

reminding me to look for light

as my words turn into the echoes
of ragged claws scuttling
across the ocean floor, 
and I dress my heart in yellow.

Ni cole h e na re s 9
 nifer Lewis
Jen

S a n d h il l C r a n e s

This was not a dream. We lay above a yellow field in the

branches of a 150-year-old Oak Tree. The wind howled
and the cedar swayed. Kris’s body molded into mine.
Her legs free of the sleeping bag while mine remained
trapped in the zipper. As she slept, I watched the
spiders we spared, and hoped they weren’t poisonous.
I wondered if we fell the 30-feet, would it kill us? I
envisioned landing on top of her. Bloody dislocated
bones. Unable to call for help. Drinking our own
urine. Why did I always imagine the worst? Prepare
for tackling intruders. Anticipate violence. Now I
had been smoking a lot of pot back then, but I knew I
wasn’t being paranoid.

The high wind roared and the tree house shook. I

imagined a Jurassic Park raptor’s eyeball peering into
the window. Seriously, something was out there. A
poltergeist at sunrise? I felt it before I heard it: A
beating of wings. A flock of feathers. A gaggle of
moans. A stereo of honking. A goddamn conspiracy of
birds! Hundreds of heavy fowl with red crowns, white
cheeks, and long bills. They flew with their necks
stretched out their gray bodies; their feet trailing
behind them. Their prehistoric wingspan was the
size of my six-foot frame. Not dissimilar to a raptor!
And they were heading straight for us. I shook Kris
awake.
11
 She jumped up, smiling. “What the?”

The tall graceful birds landed on the field, surrounding

us. Only some had red crowns, others had a rusty
plumage on the back of their necks. Orange and brown
feathers braided into their charcoal wings. Kris opened
the window and we listened to the male trills, female
cries, and baby squawks. We marveled at their total
communication. A community. A family. For hours, a
rave of birds partied beneath us. They leaped. Strutted.
Pecked. Ran. Cried with joy and downright boogied.

“No one will ever believe us,” Kris said.

We made love to the sound of the birds.

When we returned home, I learned everything

about the Sandhill Crane. I knew that they had long
windpipes that coiled into the sternum causing their
low harmonic pitch. That juveniles stayed with their
parents for 9 or 10 months after hatching. Through
the years, when we told the story, Kris would always
say: What was the name of those birds again? And I
would answer as if the birds’ migration symbolized
our commitment to each other. My tone would imply
that we had to maintain our pair bond by performing
elaborate courtship displays, insinuating that we had
to mate for life because we experienced something
magical—once.

12 J e nni f e r L e w i s
 Lowlife

Even by the creek, I can still hear him clumping around

the driveway, packing his gear. I ask the redwoods:
How did I get here? Not in Big Sur. But with this ill-
tempered man, who makes me ugly. I breathe in the
damp ground. It does not smell of wild ginger or fresh
honey. It smells like Lyme’s disease and soot.

As I recline on my elbows, a black and white animal

prances toward my face. It’s bold, fearless, and gallant
as fuck. Like me, Pepe Le Pew completely sticks out
of the forest. I smile at the rascal, noting that we
are both low-grounded creatures. Stubborn and
headstrong. We are not monogamous; but we are
playful, entertaining, and fun. We don’t cause much
trouble. In fact, most of our enemies stay away from us.
We are usually nonthreatening and stay out of harm’s
way. But occasionally, we have to defend ourselves.

I look at my new friend. We lock beady eyes. Pepe

doesn’t seem to recognize our same-ness. He looks
somewhat frantic. A familiar adrenaline-stress, poisons
my ribs. What am I suppose to do again? Make myself
big? Rattle keys? Loud noises? I can’t stay still and let
this thing walk all over me! I feel the dirt under my
fingernails before I realize that I’m whipping a rock at
its black and white softness.

Pepe doesn’t run. Instead, he hisses, exposing

(surprisingly) sharp teeth. He digs his long claws into
the mud. I horror-film scream and spring to my feet.

Je nni f e r Le wi s 13
Before I even stand, I see his tail lift and feel his oily
filth on the left side of my face. DARKNESS. I hit
a wall of smell. My mind becomes a burning tire. I
gasp. Choke. Scream out of my stinging eyeballs. My
whimpering insides tell me: You deserve this.

I hear the man’s heavy boots on the stairs, the trunk

slams shut, then he says, “Fucking hell.” He starts
coughing. I imagine him with his gray t-shirt covering
his mouth, turning away in disgust. He hops in the
car and rocks fly. I am blind and alone. I feel my way
up the steps, through the bedroom, to the claw foot
bathtub outside. I turn on the water and run my face
under its coldness.

When I sit up, my vision is blurry but I can see pink

legs with gravel cuts. I take off everything, throw my
clothing far away, and scrub my body with soap. The
smell doesn’t move. Naked, I rise and throw my clothes
and shoes on the lawn. I will burn them later. But now,
I go back in the tub—and drown.

When I emerge, the man is standing over me, pouring

baking soda and vinegar into the bath.

“Don’t open your eyes,” he says.

I’m so grateful for his concoction that I listen to him

like the small animal that I am becoming. He goes
around the cabin opening the windows but the smell
permeates like smoke. This cabin is going to smell
forever. I’m tagged for life. I peer at him, honest in my
new scent, truthful in my toxicity.

14 J e nni f e r L e w i s
 ugioka
Kai S

A Quarter Japanese

I identify with the quarter

and I still don’t know
about the nickel and seven dimes.
Cut up the sun
it still shines.
Even if the river is narrow
the wind still blows
over the flat meadow of the sparrows
and the pond with little stepping stones.

I watch the Sugioka-Stone ripple

and trust love without light
but my blindness
“this cannot be helped”
makes windows never exposed
shutter and crack
even if they don’t fall flat

Apparently a quarter is all it takes

15
 just some slanted eyes
so I can get a “what are… you?”
and suddenly you’re a specimen
and the ground beneath your feet becomes the back
of my head
and now that gravity’s no longer listening
I guess we’ll take whatever we want
and you can call it stolen.

“this cannot be helped”

still chants
from a diamond-passion,
twice-as-hard generation
even though auntie dora was going at it
with that list
with those house chores
7 minutes is 70
when you’re 70

but when you’re a Sugioka-Stone

The sun isn’t down yet
and even if it is
it’s not that dark outside
where chronic fatigue
and depression see sideways

16 K a i S ugi oka
and meet each other
on the midnight lawn
and they don’t know how to see farther
than grandfather
than the sidewalk
on their side of the street
the other side of the street?
they see a world I’ll tell you
and they don’t want a refund

Quarters confuse people

because if I’m confused about the quarter
then the whole dollar is in question
and Farewell to Manzanar equipped me with
shikata ga nai
and a narrative that I can’t remember
but this phrase and its meaning echo across me
in phases I cannot predict
and do not understand.

the book took my lungs and without my knowledge

it wrote on my back
so I go back
and make sure

Kai Su gi oka 17
 the tracelines don’t get drawn in
I see the boats of the captured asian americans
and apart from it
the car
grandad dragged himself away in
it mattered that
he was the one driving
because road mapped
wings clipped
he still thought he was flying
through the apricot orchards
white dirt tried to steal
so he’d turn in his grave
before
and after
dying.

Fear trusts your mother’s word.

anything other than silent servant
is running towards absurd.

My mind
stumbles and cries
as identity flies

18 K a i S ugi oka
in and out of 3.14-sided lives
would it be too much
a seemingly endless enigma
of truths and lies.
I never knew how I fit
into this pie dish
and now that I’ve thought about it
it makes more of a lot less sense.

Kai Su gi oka 19
 Scratched-up Records

Follow the vinyl.

it is going full circle
with a second of gapped teeth in the first verse

it is looping the not loved enough

and with untrimmed lyrics and undone rhythm
all the half hearts rerun.

Unfinished albums
and the melody plays again
Unloved ideas
and the music turns sour
Unending fantasies
And the tune still has a thousand plays
and you still make it still
sound
like
the first time

Seven seconds
when all it takes is one now,
over
the worn disc’s dust

it is here where plain sight hides

and brave doesn’t need fear
and the needle is going over the same groove
getting all the other edges
it missed last time around

20 K a i S ugi oka
it’s having trouble forgetting
what
just
played
and
playing
what
just
happened
next

comes the rest

of the song
the currently being unwritten
the silence is new
it sings of to come
and it’s making peace with record scratches.
As this
story
comes full circle
it skips
a beat
a gain

Kai Su gi oka 21
 lie Osborn
Emi

Hym e Fro g gie

n ochirus B fr o g
oettgeri / African clawed

What is required in a long term relationship?

You lie in a box in the freezer, with the ice cream
and popsicles. After thirty-two years, you have
succumbed.
You arrived as a tadpole pipidae, mailed in a plastic
bag.
You had no rainforest river, no shaded pool, just a
plastic aquarium with one smooth rock you
never sat on.
Year after year you swam laps, your back getting
more hunched, your legs long, muscular, arms
short as petals.
You were silent, laid eggs. You must be female.
You looked at me when I walked near, came to the
surface to breathe, legs dangling like seaweed,
sipped a pellet from my finger.
Then you got an upgrade. A new aquarium with
waterfall and rock cave.
But it made you sick. You became bloated like a
jellyfish, legs orange under translucent skin.

23
I took you to the vet in Berkeley, the only amphibian
doctor in the Bay Area. You need antibiotics,
twice daily.
On a wet paper towel, you wiggle as I drop the
medicine on your back. You live another two
years.
I dig a hole near the pond in our backyard, cover your
box with wet dirt, place your small rock over you.

24 E mi l i e O s b or n
 h Mark Gabo
ur
K eit y
Voiceless

“Hello Mary.” “—.” “Why can’t you talk?” Mary opens

her mouth to reveal a frog in her throat. “Why is there
a frog in your throat?” Mary writes MY HUSBAND
GERRY PUT IT THERE on a torn page from her
writing journal. “Can you remove the frog?” Mary
nods no. “Can you kill the frog?” Mary nods no. “Can
I kill the frog?” Mary nods yes. “I’ll jab your frog with
my keys. Julie — you know my wife Julie — she often
marvels at the jabbing quality of my keys. Can you
open your mouth? I promise I won’t jab your tongue.”
Mary opens her mouth and Sam punishes the green
intruder with his serrated apartment key. Blood squirts
onto his blue ocean eyeballs. “Do you have a napkin?”
“I have a tampon. Can you clean your bloody eyes with
my tampon?” “Thank you, Mary.” “My pleasure.” “I’m
happy you can speak now.” “My female voice doesn’t
enjoy wearing handcuffs.” “Why did Gerry put a frog
in your throat?” “He stuffed it in while I slept.” “Why
did he do that?” “He says I talk too much.” “Do you?” “I
only talk when I have something worth saying.” “Are
you happy with Gerry?” “We’re divorcing. Gerry wants
to sign the papers tomorrow at dusk.” “Why dusk?”
“That’s when all our neighborhood bullfrogs come
out looking to mate.”

25
 Leibel
Matt

M y Personal Br a n d

My personal brand is integrity. My personal brand

is fresh, innovative thinking, and a commitment to
excellence. My personal brand sets me apart, in the
sense that many people refuse to stand within 50 feet
of me, as if my personal brand stinks, or something;
my personal brand does not stink. If anything, my
personal brand exudes a fresh, clean scent, evocative of
wintergreen, or a cool spring breeze. My personal brand
does not harm the skin. My personal brand contains no
known carcinogens, and has been extensively tested
on laboratory rats. Unfortunately, one of the rats has
recently escaped his cage. If you happen to see him,
do not panic, do not subject him to an inhumane trap,
for this is no ordinary rat, but a spectacular rat, one
infused with my own personal brand, and all that this
entails. You can find out more about my personal brand
on my website, mypersonalbrand.ki. All of the other
internet domain extensions for “mypersonalbrand”
have been taken, by the way, so I had to use“.ki”, the
extension designated for the tiny Pacific Ocean island
Republic of Kiribati. I even traveled to Kiribati’s main
atoll to set up my personal brand’s website. That’s how
new and fresh my personal brand is. In Gilbertese,
incidentally (the official language of the I-Kiribati
people), the word for dog is Kamea. Apparently
the etymology of this is that European invaders

27
used to say to their dogs, “Come here, come here!” I
didn’t learn that on Kiribati—I discovered it on the
internet. But the internet is only the tip of the iceberg
so far as my personal brand goes. Speaking of icebergs,
I’ve projected my personal brand onto the face of
several massive ones spanning Greenland, Siberia, and
Antarctica. You can see videos of these projections on
my YouTube channel; they are rather spectacular. I’ve
done all this, by the way, at enormous personal cost,
and am beginning to wonder if the payoff justifies the
expense I’ve gone to to get my name out there. My
personal brand has destroyed both of my marriages,
and has deeply strained my relationship with my
teenaged son Zeke, whom I enlisted in my scheme to
light up the endarkened, icy ends of the Earth with
a gigantic symbol of myself. This involved, among
other challenges, taking Zeke out of school for an
entire year, and hiring an instructor to train him in
the driving and care of sled dogs. Zeke now vows that
he will never forgive me, but he is still young and as yet
lacks the perspective on what really was a truly unique
once-in-a-lifetime experience he will one day thank
me for (which other of his friends have had the chance
to enjoy the meaty tang of fresh-killed whale meat?)—
and that thanks will come, in part, via a full-throated
endorsement of my personal brand, once he himself is
in position to become an influencer/thought leader/
social media superstar on his own. My personal brand
is all about providing unconventional, and memorable,
branded experiences. My personal brand is “sticky”
like that. My personal brand is—and let’s just be
honest about this—my last real chance at this point.
It’s a shot in the dark, a rabbit I’m trying to pull out
of a hat, and, in fact, I’ve had some hats created for my

28 Mat t L e i b e l
personal brand including these premium models made
out of genuine rabbit fur, and take it from me (and
Zeke!) these hats will help you get through even the
most brutal of winters. My personal brand still hasn’t
gotten the recognition it deserves—but now is the time
to change that. I’m coming to you with an opportunity,
in other words, to get in on the ground floor and see
your own personal brand piggyback on mine and take
flight (not literally, as pigs can’t fly!). My personal
brand has now been certified 100% rat-free, and will
focus henceforth only on areas reachable without
access to sled or snowmobile. Think about it like this:
in the end all things will die. Penguins will die, whales
will die, rats will die, icebergs will die, the I-Kiribati
will die. I will die, my ex-wives will die, my ungrateful
but only son will die, and you will die, too. But our
personal brands will live on long after we’re gone. Our
personal brands are, in many ways, the ghosts of our
lives, and if you don’t want to have your own personal
ghost—well, you’re missing out on a chance to reach
the coveted 18-45s, as personal ghosting is all the rage
right now, according to my influencer friends in the
know. But if you’d rather not join forces, beware: my
personal brand is not fucking around. It will win out in
the end, because it is desperate, it has no other choice.
My personal brand is no longer merely an extension
of me. It has become an independent organism, a lab
creature on the loose, a monster that I can no longer
contain nor control. It will not be forgotten. It will
not be denied. It will flutter under your floorboards
and creep into your brain. It will achieve maximum
stickiness. It will make its mark upon you.

Mat t Le i be l 29
 hir O’Meara
Zep
F iv e W o r d P o e m

two left

31
 de Always
Cly
The Tale of Tucker
a n d th e To ast

once upon a time, in the Marina District of the

charminest little city there ever was, there lived a
swashbuckling pirate named Tucker. Tucker had a
three-cornered pirate hat and he had a big, bushy
pirate-beard and (yeah) he had an eye patch and he
had two (count ‘em—two) peg legs and his timbers
perpetually shivered. Now, Tucker had plundered
plenty of riches over the years, what with the gold and
the rubies and the Spanish doubloons, but he found
the most desirable of booty to be expensive brunch
items—that’s right, brunch. He wasn’t content to swill
grog like all the other fucking pirates—no way—no,
his poison was a finely-crafted bloody Mary with
organic, pickled sea-beans. Whatsmore, rumor had it
that he had hoarded more than one million dollars
worth of eggs benedicts and he’d buried this treasure
somewhere beneath 22nd avenue.

Now, it so happens, one Sunday afternoon, Tucker

had set sail for the poppinest restaurant in the whole
neighborhood and, suffice it to say, he’d neglected
to make any goddamn reservations. In fact,
immediately upon arrival, he hoisted the skull-
and-crossbones up over the flawlessly landscaped,
zinc-tabled patio and he called out into the sea of
terrified diners, he said:
33
 “Avast ye swabs or throats I slash,
yer grub be mine fer takin’—
Now surrender ev’ry heap-o-hash
and crispy strip-o-bacon!”
(as that was his catchphrase).

This struck such fear into the heart of every man,

woman and child in that dining room that they could
only cower pathetically as Tucker went and helped
himself to their sausage-links and their Dutch babies
and their $23 Dungeness crab omelets dripping in
housemade crème fraiche. Then, as if this deed wasn’t
dastardly enough, he forced the executive chef to
walk the plank (right into an enormous vat of Belgian
waffle batter).

When, as fate would have it, a shimmering spark of

something golden caught Tucker by the eye and he
curiously approached the source of the gleam only
to find himself face to face with a pulsating slice of
avocado toast. And the toast, it spoke to Tucker, it
said “eeeeeat meeeeee!” To which, Tucker brandished
his cutlass and curtly replied, “ye scurvy ghost-toast
be cursed!” But, without even realizing it, (and as
if they were acting on reflex alone) his fingers had
already wrapped themselves around all of that rustic,
crusty goodness and he’d sunk his teeth right into its
starboard side before he could even say “AARRR!”

When suddenly, the champagne corks all began to

rocket off like cannon fire (POW! POW! P-POW-
POW-POW!), and a squall of mimosas and bellinis rose
and crashed in sticky, bubbly waves. Then the dining
room erupted into a screaming den of chaos as mortars

34 C ly de A l way s
filled with Hollandaise and maple syrup pounded the
walls and the ceiling. Albatrosses swooped in from
all angles devouring soggy pancake bits and sultry,
sexy mermaids munched frittata in a top-shelf cosmo
lagoon until, at last, the weight of this churning ocean
had buckled the doors of the restaurant, releasing itself
into the street and vanishing into the sewers with
every bottle of coconut rum parading away in its wake.

And, when the dust had settled and the wreckage was
cleared away, only a single pair of well-worn wooden
pegs was all that was ever found of old Tucker the
Brunch Buccaneer. Though, it has been said, if one
stands perfectly still out there on 22nd Avenue, they
can just make out the faint sound of a sad sea-chanty
being sung like a whisper on the wind. It goes:

“Oh, I haven’t got me ship ta sail,

I haven’t got me legs
and all I got to dine upon’s
this chest-o-rotten-eggs…”

Cly de A lway s 35
 Bennett
Jon

Duracell

When I worked graveyard

in the psycho ward for teens
they’d take the batteries
out of their radios
and chuck them at me
while I made my rounds.
You might ask
why they had those batteries –
the higher ups considered
depriving them ‘inhumane.’
The day I quit
I’d made it through
another brutal shift,
emerged into that sunlight
sickening when you’ve been up all night.
The building had slit windows
like a prison
and as I was going to my car
“Zap!” they got me,
side of the head, Duracell,
size ‘C.’
Then I noticed the dents
in my hood and fenders
and the scattered batteries
like so much expired
lightning.

37
 i Sugioka
Kim
Senseless Extraction
o f Inter nal Ser e nit y
Someone recently
commented
that I am getting
paid less this
year than I was last
year since I am
now working 9-10
hours per day and since I
am salaried, I am
actually paid
less
for working
more

I hadn’t thought about

this because I
am working so
hard that I am continually on the
verge of something that used to be
called a
“Nervous
breakdown” but now, is
just called
“stress”

In fact, I think of very

39
 little except how
I am going to
manage each day
on so little
sleep and how
to appease the omnipotent
SEIS
(No, not the Seed Enterprise Investment
Scheme,
Nor the Seismic Experiment for Interior
Structure)
but the Special Education Information
System that raises it’s
ungodly fist to
Demand exponentially
multiplying
forms
to meet ever
encroaching
deadlines
to create Individual
education plans instead of
teaching the children for
whom the plans are
created

40 K i mi S ug i o ka
 nielle Truppi
Da
Female Cricket, 30s

The stores have begun putting sweaters on their

mannequins. The humans have begun putting
sweaters on their dogs. There are more leaves layered
on the ground, thin and brittle, and I make a refuge of
them, an alarm system. Crunching cries the approach
of danger: shoes, dogs. I wait. I moult. The songs will
stop when it gets cold, so I know my days to find love
are numbered.

The songs are for us to find them, but also for them
to intimidate each other. I dream about what it will
sound like. What sort of bark will pull me in and send
others away? Will he scrape his forewing across that
ridged vein with a sexy American bravado? Springsteen
leaning against a door frame, a car door, under the
bleachers, his hands in his jean pockets. Don’t worry
about your dad, he says. Tell him the record company
just gave me a big advance.

Or will it be a bleating plea of urgent poetics? Patti

Smith’s pained, “It’s meee, it’s meee.” A bare belly
facing up and reaching out. Too much to hold onto,
this heart of mine. Too much to offer up. “Please,
take me up. Please take me up.” And I get to choose.
What a sweltering delight it will be to take it all in,
to know it’s for me to decide which spermatophore

41
 to keep. If his song doesn’t impress me, if he starts
telling me things like, “I’m just going through a lot
right now,” or “I hear there’s a lot of exciting things
happening in the art scene down in LA,” or “I thought
we were just having a good time,” I’ll get rid of it, I’ll
eat it, I’ll build up my strength for a love that pulses
stronger, steadier, heavy with light.

In college, the best grade I managed was on an essay

for a music history class that I wrote about Björk. It
compared her version of “It’s Oh So Quiet” to the
Betty Hutton one from the 50s. The song describes
a quiet life—crept through, whispered around, so as
not to disturb one at rest—and then what happens
to you when it’s suddenly zapped with love. Chaos,
ultimately. There are these explosive cries. Zing
BOOM. Projectiles of sound that will surely catch
someone in the eye. And she lands on, “so what’s the
use?” But of course we don’t believe her. I know it’s
what I’m built for.

It really is a risk, though. Not just what Björk’s talking

about, but the songs themselves put the singers in
danger, vulnerable to exposure, to infiltration. Imagine
a deep, warm summer night. Instead of singing from
all sides, it’s silent. No sounds of successful unions,
breath and bodies in victorious vibration. No juicy
bachelors ready to build a family, but papery husks,
quiet and crisp. I’ve heard stories… a sweet singer eaten
from the inside by baby tachinids; their mother fell in
love with his song too, but she made him into a feast
instead of a father.

When I was a teenager, there was this fashion catalog

42 Dan i e l l e T r uppi
that came in the mail. The clothes were too expensive—
mom put it in the recycling—but I took it out and kept
it in a drawer for years. There was this one page from
what was presumably their fall campaign: a young
couple in a cabin. A woman is perched on a kitchen
counter, a man approaching the counter, between her
legs. They’re probably wrapping their hands around
mugs, wearing under-buttoned flannels, looking into
each other’s faces and exchanging warm, intimate
laughter. A soft chuckle from the chest. I don’t
know what it was about the image that captured me.
Maybe it was because she was sitting on the counter.
That would never have been allowed. Love is chaos,
smirking with bare legs, and it’s cold outside.

I look in the mirror and consider what love could do to

me, transform me the way Björk shapes herself. I will
erupt into a mother, grow gills of candy pink and dewy
skin like jelly foam. I will sprout vines, no, reshape my
veins so that I might make music of my own. They say
there’s another song, one after I find him, after the
negotiation, the transfer, the making love. A raucous,
celebratory one. How unfair it is, isn’t it, to be unable
to join in.

But I emerge from the leaves with my ears, on my legs,

open.

There is a chill, that is certain. If the songs have ended,

my end is near too. If the love in me will not pearl and
multiply, may it be released and repurposed. I’d like to
be something that rattles, something that screams, or
something that honks.

Dan i e lle Tru p p i 43

 m my Zo Pollar
Ta d
The Balan c e

After work I got to the bus stop at Mission & 30th—

which can be a sketch stop, but tonight it seemed OK;
just one older guy, clean, neatly dressed, with a bag of
groceries. Bus was due in 7 mins, I decided it was safe
to sit down. Mistake.

Dude leans over and pulls out a bottle of “juice” from

his bag and takes a huge swig, turns to me bleary-eyed
and burbles, “Happy new year.”

The waft of alcohol nearly knocks me over.

I politely reply the same, “Happy new year.”

He proclaims that I look very ostentatious. He is

making a compliment, but it is clear that he doesn’t
know what that word actually means. I nod politely.
And then he just starts percolating away on an
alcoholic colloquy, rolling percussive sentences across
the two empty seats between us. He says I look 40,
even though he also tells me he knows I’m not 40, as
he wags his finger at me. He grandly announces that
he is FIFTY FIVE. I find this sobering. I am older
than him, but he looks years beyond me. Like he is
in his 70s. He goes on: he has a wife. And kids. Well,
an ex-wife. She left. Took the kids. That he’s smart.

45
Very smart. That he was smarter than her, for sure. He
is a chemical engineer.

He certainly was engineering something in that juice.

I am not without empathy, but it’s been a long day and

I just don’t have the fortitude to shore up his ruinous
life as he drunk-brags about his intellect and salves
his wounds with vodka and a harsh estimate of the
stupidity of his ex-wife. I wish him a good night, and
step out of the bus shelter.

The next 5 minutes consist of his attempts to engage

anyone stepping into the shelter with the same series
of comments, one after the other. Happy new year.
I’m a chemical engineer. I’m smart. Smarter than my
ex-wife.

Each person follows my form, politely excuses

themselves and steps out of the bus shelter.

A small line of tired folks forms, waiting.

Bus in 3 mins.

This brief exodus concludes when the dude finally hits

paydirt.

“Happy new year.”

“Happy new year! Say, have you heard the word of the
Lord?”

I turn to see a slim, young, tattooed fellow. He is

46 Tammy Z o P ol l ard
wearing a large crucifix around his neck.

“I’m a chemical engineer.”

“You know, GOD engineers all things!”

“I’m smart. Smarter than my wife. My ex-wife. She left.

Took the kids.”

“Well, Jesus loves you! Would you like to come to my

church?”

And so it goes, for the next couple of minutes, until the

bus arrives: A garrulous ol’ drunk at a bus stop and a
bright-eyed Proselytizer make for a pretty good match.
Balance in the universe, attained, if only for a moment.

Then everyone goes their own way.

Tammy Zo Pollard 47
 er Bullen
Pet

Pudding

There’s a woman sitting with a man at a restaurant

table. I know this because I am in the same restaurant,
sitting across from them. The woman says to the
man that she’s planning on making bread pudding. I
am happy to hear this although there is little chance
I will get to sample the bread pudding since I am a
stranger to her. There are some people to whom one
is a stranger that one can picture, at some undisclosed
time in the future, no longer being a stranger to. Sadly,
especially given her plans for bread pudding, she is not
one of those.

Then the woman starts to describe her unique approach

to making bread pudding. I can only see the man from
the back. He is wearing a modestly scaled cowboy hat.
I think to myself: good job on the restraint symbolized
by that choice of a modestly scaled cowboy hat. Not
something I would mention to him of course; both
restraint and cowboy hats worry me a little.

Because I can only see the man from the back I’m not
sure his face is demonstrating a sincere interest in the
woman’s description of her future plans for making
bread pudding. I am sometimes at a restaurant table
with someone and I ask myself why. I never ask the
other person why and no one has ever asked me.

49
I think the woman is truly excited about the bread
pudding she will soon be making, but I also think
she is happy to speak of it because it stops her from
wondering why she is in a restaurant sitting across
from this man in a cowboy hat. Also, if you wonder
why all the time you probably never get around to
making bread pudding.

Then something unexpected happens. An unexpected

event coming out of nowhere can be marvelous or
unfortunate or terrifying. But I am always waiting for
one, and willing to take my chances. The unexpected
thing that happens is that the man in the modestly
scaled cowboy hat says: “I make bread pudding
too.” I can see the woman’s face very clearly and she
doesn’t look happy with this news, although she is
not scowling. It’s as if her face is trying to adjust itself
and present a somewhat supportive expression but
not quite managing it. She must have known he was
going to say something because it was his turn to talk
(it’s good when both people get a turn). But it looks
as though the last thing she expected was for him to
jump in with his own claim of making bread pudding.
I had initially pictured their relationship going back
awhile but now I was not so sure. Perhaps this was still
early in their relationship, and perhaps they would be
soon sleeping together after sharing bread pudding
that both of them made separately in their very own
kitchens with their very own recipes. Perhaps after
sleeping together they will compare and comment on
their different approaches to making bread pudding.

I don’t think that would be wise, to sample each other’s

bread pudding at a time like that.

50 P e t e r B ul l e n
What if one of the bread puddings was the real deal
and the other was a noble but failed effort?

If one of the bread puddings fell into the noble but

failed effort category before they made love, that
could lead to a poorly balanced love making session.
However if they both emerged from their love making
with some happy degree of approval for the other’s
passion, perhaps they could pave over or look the
other way in their view of the other’s bread pudding.
Their afterglow satisfactions might make anything
taste good, or even if not quite taste good, certainly be
more than acceptable.

So if they were to ask me (they haven’t) I’d say love

making first, bread pudding second.

Pe t e r Bu lle n 51
 Dear Diary
The truth about the false self (isn’t it ironic that
there’s a ‘truth’ about the false self)
Anyway the truth about the false self is it pines for
the true self.
It wants to get busy with it as they used to say.
Do they still say that?
Honestly I love that expression.
I think it comes close to what actually happens.
I am still not clear on what actually happens.
But even without being clear on what happens,
getting busy seems like a pretty good take.
As opposed to the ancient, and therefore close to me
expression, necking.
Which sounds like something you’d need to see a
chiropractor for after you’re done.
Making-out might be my all-time favorite, and I
think it’s stood the test of time.
Plus it sort of suggests an arts and crafts element,
which I don’t know, somehow feels apt.
Hooking up escapes me, perhaps because it was never
offered.

52 P e t e r B ul l e n
Or it was offered but no one told me it was hooking
up.
Also it sounds weirdly nautical, like it might involve
tethering a small boat to a dock.
Which now that I think more about it sounds kind of
romantic.

I’m sorry, I’m confused.

It’s late, I just had a glass of wine and watched some
bad television.

And what I’d really wanted to focus on was the

hanky-panky going on between the false and the
true self.

Pe t e r Bu lle n 53
 ily Bornhop
Em

Piano Bouquet

Slate paint
Swelling wood
Clear thick quarantine plastic peeled up
“That’s one of our bouquets.”
White hydrangea snap dragon
Spring green leaves
Wilting all
Creamy ribbon wrapped.
That’s my bouquet, I don’t say.
I played it last night with you
Mid walk. Like we do. Like we used to.

We know we shouldn’t
But we want to
Satisfy drunken call to hand, wrist, arm
To push white keys
Add the best mix of half up half down
Black risen magic.

55
 Sidewalk North Pacific gray
Points to Our piano
Outside is better than onstage
Through a red window
The first A strong, full
Then skips up to F
Moments where you wonder if the silence
Without pitch or time
Is the failed ear
Translating mediocre tuning
Or refusing resonance
Offering the dream of connectivity
Rather than the emptiness.
Work without creativity
Life without hope of love.

Then I start to hear

As the melody repeats
Phantom notes fill
Make beautiful sense
An imagined love
A dream on screen
See it feel it
But don’t really believe in it.

56 E mi ly B o r n h o p
I hear a couple notes in harmony
But you give up, discouraged.
There will be no nine to five shit
If you listen to the ones with feet firmly planted.

17 keys from all octaves, depending how you count

them
Enough eye roll, tear waterfall.
This maybe last man
Laying on the asphalt hill
The only one worth my time.
“I’ve tried,” I say. “A lot.
But you should try too if that’s what you want.”
I shake your hand
“Stone cold.”
But three long magenta silk layers keep me warm.
Three friends with layers and bouquets and beds
to crawl into.
Until then I steal your muggy heat
Willing my hoarded hope to rub off on you.
I open my hands to clouds with eyes closed
What to do?
Haunted house, what should I do?
No spirits answer me when it counts.

Emi ly Bornh op 57
 I trusted your directions, because you asked me to.
Even though I knew you were wrong.
Each time a letter arrived I gasped.
Could you hear it when I said your name?
Feel a torrid tug on your ear, a break in the bitter
wind?
A few thousand miles away,
I didn’t mind being lost,
but I was hoping to be lost with you.

58 E mi ly B o r n h o p
 na Chan
Sere

How Do We Talk
A b o ut G rie f
it is the lump in my throat,
the steaming mug of tea going cold
while the crow caws perched on ropes
of electrical wires—does it also feel the numbing
hum of energy moving through a body
standing still, yet clinging on for dear life?
birds, they make it look so easy
falling asleep tucked up, perched on one leg
I guess many things are easier
when you weigh almost nothing.
how much does a life weigh,
what is the substance of a soul?
not the material things cast behind in the aftermath,
boxes of musty clothes and paralyzed watch faces
washed up, beached in dark corners of lifeless rooms
smelling of long-closed windows.
I’ve studied enough molecular biology
and organic chemistry to know

59
 that science too stares dumbfounded
so if I cannot take a cross section,
plate and dye it under a microscope
maybe that is the wrong place to look.
so I hum the songs but can’t remember the words
all I know is they’re tucked away in some kitchen
cabinet
along with decades of spices and her cleaving knives.
I climb into her high collared shirts
and vintage linen pants trying to make it all
fit—but her life is too large for me to hold.
she breathed life into this room,
into this air by the window and red-orange-yellow
roses
overlooking our yard and the redwood trees,
which will stand tall even after we’re all gone
to say: they breathed this air, they lived their life,
made a home of love, laughter, and strife,
mourned their losses and tilted their heads to the sky
in remembrance of those gone by.

60 S e r e na C h an
 Kelly Gray
W :
Instrhen the Shooter Comester
u c ti o n s F o r M y D a u g h

I want you to crouch like a badger.

Drop deep into your animal body
become broad and flat.

Dig your sett in the dirt and crawl into the dark.
Wrap yourself with worms and mycelium,
he may not see you in the tangled roots.
You will hear his footsteps vibrate above,
be quiet, be quiet, be quiet.

Listen, we don’t have time for your human needs.

Do not call me,
I know that you love me.
Hold the thickest book to your heart,
and remember when I read to you.

Forget the metaphor and go deep into the closet.

Sit still as the broom

61
 and steady your breath.
Remember the opossum,
and lay lifeless among the dead.

Think of your favorite animal,

emitting the smell of decay to trick the predators
among us.

I’ll think of your small hands,

wrapped in wool
as we drive the cold roads to school.

62 K e l ly G ray
 en zie Studeb
ck ak
a er
M
Rage

Laughter is carbonating water

validating the dull and boring

The abyss!
The abyss!

Do the anger with a safe person

Does everyone have a safe person to do the anger with?
Find people who let you do the rage
Learn how to not run
Someone to share the ugliest feelings with
Learn to not run
and
find people to share the ugliest feelings with

The right people will say thank you!

The right people will say thank you!

63
- march 2, 2020 -