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sparkle + blink 108
© 2020 Quiet Lightning

cover art © Nancy Sayavong

nancysayavong.com

“Hindsight is a Long Distance Runner” by Anhvu Buchanan

first appeared in Azure
“Carnival Days” by Peggy Schimmelman
first appeared in Haight-Ashbury Literary Journal
“Greenpoint” by Doug Mathewson
appears in Nomad Moon, forthcoming from Cervena Barva Press
“Happy Birthday, Dad” by Tammy Zhu first appeared in CRAFT
“Prophecy” by Diana Donovan
will appear in Cloudbank in May 2021

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
Danielle Bero + Sage Curtis
featured artist
Nancy Sayavong | nancysayavong.com

Anhvu Buchanan Hindsight is a Long Distance

Runner 1
Dena Rod an ode to femmes 3
Shilpa Kamat My Favorite Messiah 5
Amber Carpenter Bodies are not meant to 7
Paolo Bicchieri Crescent City 8:45 pm in July 11
Peggy Schimmelman Carnival Days 13
Jacqueline Bengfort Tilt 15
Karla Brundage Alabama Dirt 17
Paolo Bicchieri To Be A Gay 21
Madeline Cash Hostage #4 23
Doug Mathewson Greenpoint 27
Joshua Berriors From The Depths 29
M. J. Arcangelini Family Law Ghazal 31
Diana Donovan Prophecy 33
Madeline Cash Sponge Cake 35
Sangita Rajan Honest Cover Letter 37
Abbie Jeanne On the Record 39
Lucie Pereira Poem for the walk home 41
Tammy Zhu Happy Birthday, Dad 43
Allyson Darling Gentle Sorrows 47
Anhvu Buchanan No, Nothing Left to Say 49
Karla Brundage Memories 51
Diana Donovan First Communion 55
Next Chapter 57
Alia Salim Deep State 59
Sydney Vogl The First Time You Learned Your
Body Was Not Your Own 67
Dena Rod a place of extremes 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

Meghan Thornton treasurer
Kelsey Schimmelman secretary
Connie Zheng art director

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Chris Cole Tom Pyun
Rhea Dhanbhoora Katie Tandy
Kevin Dublin Edmund Zagorin

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t h a n k y o u t o o u r pat r o n s

yvonne campbell sophia passin

sage curtis tom pyun
rederica morgan davis monica rocha
linette escobar jessie scrimager
chrissie karp
jon siegel
miles karp
katie tandy
ronny kerr
charles kruger meghan thornton
jennifew lewis emily wolahan
shannon may edmund zagorin
catherine montague connie zheng
 h vu Buchana
An n
H i n d s i g h t is a
Long Distance Runner

When the stars turned their backs on us we decided to

find another way. Sacrificed sleep to the sky. Sacrificed
the sky to an unmade bed. We lived through telephone
wires and whispered postcard talk. Two tin cans tied
together by string: this is how I found you. Can we
push time face down in the dirt again? Travel back
to the first of our firsts. I’m charmed by the charm of
your accent holding me tightly in its arms. And every
morning my mouth caves in to seal in our memories
of last night’s last night. Can we push time face down
in the dirt again? Fate saws through our chest through
our bones. You left me pieces of your teeth and told me
to stare at the sun until it turns into your eyes. There
aren’t enough surprises waiting at the door. There
aren’t enough ways to turn vacation into four more
seasons. Can we pull time up from the dirt and let it
breathe? With each passing day we collect more and
more miles until we can build that front door that
picket fence that front porch call it together again.

1
 Dena Rod

an ode to femmes

salt breaks mascara swiped like

spidery lines over and over until they 
reach the arch of darkened eyebrows. 
tears drip down my face, i dragged myself 

as i called for love speaking red 

lipstick nothings to get what 
i want against shining teeth. 
a sharp miracle still denied again. 

don’t expect diamonds to fall down 

my shoulders into my palms, while
the perfect twerk doesn’t shake anything
that shouldn’t. i belong to the kinship 

of burning your neck on

a curling iron, searing skin 
with the hot syrup of wax 
razor bumps peppering 
where hips crease thighs 
gluing fur to lashes as we’re 

bathed in buttery light. looked upon 

as we adorn and drape
what’s seen as unneeded,
we set the altar never worshiped 

3
 wiping away a tear with a peacock feather
we spit of pearls of wisdom yet no one is 
holding their hands out with needle and 
thread to sew them into a necklace.

4 De n a R od
 pa Kamat
Shil
My Favorite Messiah

is Sailor Moon
in the third season

you know, the season

where they finally introduce

canonically queer characters

one of whom she flirts with

when they’re their schoolgirl

alter egos or handcuffed

together and chased

by a motorcycle demon

and nobody including her

suspects she is the messiah

even when the yomas she kills

scream Lovely! as they die

even when the talismans are plucked

from the pure hearts of her friends

to form a holy grail

that she just hands over

5
 to the main villain because
really, she’s not a fighter

just wants to save everyone

and manages, too

6 S h i l pa K a mat
 b er Carpente
Am r

B o di es a r e
n o t meant t o

1. ricochet like shrapnel [fragments of AK-47s] off

cement or pavement.

2. catch bullets at speeds averaging 1,700 mph;

and while I have your attention, bullets travel
at 2,500 feet per second. Your, as in all. Travel, as
in move from one location to another. But the
body is not a location. It is an assemblage of parts,
parts easily susceptible to pain: foreheads and
fingertips.

3. act as targets.

4. become an obscured version of Target with

Four Faces, 1955. The anatomical heart is not a
bullseye.

5. hang from trees, tied to rope and bough.

6. hang from walls, stuffed and mounted.

7. exist as slaves.

8. exist as others expect us to exist. A rural town

in Western North Carolina is home to Emma

7
 Smith, a transgender girl. Due to House Bill 2,
the Buncombe County School System neglected
to let Emma use the girls’ bathroom. I grew up
in North Carolina. My dad is buried deep in its
soil. My wife and I married on April 6, 2014, in
the same county where Emma lives. The U.S.
Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage on
June 26, 2015. People often ask why we refuse
to move back. The answer seems obvious, but
obvious and oblivious are easily misconstrued.

9. act as sacrificial lambs.

10. endure rape, to force inanimate objects into

genitalia, to rip apart like paper.

11. endure slaughter, particularly for body parts,

such as rhino horns and elephant tusks.

12. die in piles, to imitate rubble or rubbish.

13. dodge vehicles, to act as bowling pins—that rock

maple wood coated in plastic material, standing
upright, alert.

14. ingest microplastics.

15. live in captivity. In 2014, Boko Haram militants

abducted 276 Chibok schoolgirls. In 2017, 82 girls
reunited with their families. Militants retained
113. Teachers ask students to retain dates and
facts, not body counts—certainly not foreign
bodies. We let them down. We, the world.

8 A mb e r C a r pe n t er
16. experience female genital mutilation, also
known as female genital cutting, also known as
female circumcision.

17. burn alive, to feel the blue part of the flame.

18. encounter beatings on account of gender identity

or sexual orientation.

19. die for religious beliefs.

20. withstand torture for religious beliefs.

21. wash up on shorelines like kelp fronds, jellyfish,

exoskeletons, and genuine sea glass.

22. leap in front of rapid transit systems, to land

on parallel lines [electric traction]: slacked and
decapitated.

23. shatter glass. Splitting cracks move at speeds up

to 3,000 miles per hour.

24. leap from buildings and bridges, to break open,

to resemble shards of glass: severed and scattered.
Based on wind resistance, the terminal velocity
of a skydiver, belly-down, is roughly 122 miles
per hour. The body is not an equation.

25. drown in oceans while fleeing perilous condi-

tions.

26. tolerate atomic radiation, to die from Little Boy

bombs. Forgive us, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Us,

Ambe r Ca rp e nt e r 9
 as in the United States of America. United, a term
that needs to be revisited.

WARNING: not all bodies are created equal, not

according to humanity or history.

10 A mb e r C a r pe n t er
 Bicchie
olo ri
Pa
C resc ent Cit y
8:45 pm in July

I drink green sauce out of the back

of a cracked taco shell and your
dad’s Volvo leaks nostalgia out
of the sunroof which is too bad
because it is too new and the coast
etches on like a painting

and what of honey? cracking out

of throats from highway crossed
bears smudging the barrows?

and I want to talk about the smoke

that makes the bees syrup their
honey into hexagons. the funneling
of smog. pipe. baptism of fume.

and that inked pressure slathers

the streets of Oakland, Brooklyn,
Seattle, CHOPing the blocks into
barricades, boroughs into beehives,
milking pain into laminate,

loving a summer with you

while the streets shatter.

11
 g y Schimmelm
P eg an

Carnival Days

This tilt-a-whirl planet spins and pivots

rattles my spirit, dizzies my soul.
Those sudden swerves they slip and slide me
How can one expect, at the end of the day
to walk a straight line or think clearly?

My friend rides the carousel, dreamy eyed

as around she goes in predictable circles
ups and downs gentle, the music merry
nostalgic, hypnotic, and chosen to give her
nothing she won’t want to hear.

Now come the screams, glee swirled with fear

from the roller coaster, zipping dipping:

“Wahoo!” shouts one.

“Let me off!” wails another.
As out of the Fun House I stumble
she tightens her grip on the unicorn’s mane
and sways to the sweet calliope.

13
 u eline Bengf
cq or
Ja t
Tilt
I’ve been taking calls from other planets.
I don’t know why they’re calling me; I’m just one minor
poet on the edge of a minor galaxy, but I guess when I
said I was open to the messages of the universe these
guys took down my phone number.
So they call me, to ask about… modifications?
Upgrades, I guess. Tips for developing temperate zones,
strategies for unlocking water frozen in their cores—
that kind of thing. Recipes for primordial sludge, now
that’s a popular one. You pop that in the oven for an
open house and make the whole place smell like home.
But then, the planets asked me about tilt.
You know, tilt, like the twenty-three-point-five
degree list of our own Earth, or the way I drop my ear
towards my shoulder when I’m asking a question. Tilt.
And if I do—this—then what happens?
And the answer, of course, is everything. Is all of
it. Is dinosaurs, Homo erectus, the invention of paper, the
95 Theses, rubber, America, baseball, plastics, acid rain,
and autotune;
is the threat of nuclear winter;
is summer coming earlier every year?
I’m just a minor poet, I tell them, but I don’t
recommend it. One planet pressed me, so I said, well,
why don’t you talk to her about it? And he said,
Don’t you think we’ve tried? She stopped
answering the phone years ago. She just sits there
quiet, like a woman in the ashes of a house burned
down. 15
 rla Brundage
Ka
Alabama Dirt

never tasted Alabama soil

phloem clay
it’s the dust I’m made of

sweet tomatoes
Uncle Sam bowed
under the sun
gently handles the small fruit

so few men in my
family line
live

family secret
buried in denials

Sammy lies in a pool of my mind

golf club in hand of blood

I call my mom on the phone to ask

about vigilante justice in
the segregated south

we don’t talk about that

but was there justice?

I ask
17
 time follows no rules
and gun shots still deafen
as a child I was obsessed
with a black and white photo- I’d hide in
the corner and go over it
in my mind

lay in the bed with Sammy Younge Jr.

dreaming him to smile

what made him decide to fight his battle alone

at night
in Macon County
after participating always as part of a team

you had emotional problems

mother says,
back then
I just did not want to talk about it

all the things she does not want to

talk about
my emotional problems she calls
them

images of blood still pooling on

Black cement
imagined weapon
justification
for death

was it in his beautiful head

that they found the bullet
college educated brains shot out

18 K a r l a Br un d a g e
for being hot headed, uppity

ripples of this one death

penetrate generations

here I am still
swallowing pills

Ka rla Bru nda ge 19

 Bicchie
olo ri
Pa

To Be A Gay

I split tobacco in the Sunblind

with my legs folded into hammock

thought become cloud, smoke

come south from a harvest of Glass

escape the phone, the heavy gram,

pacing the room a new Cyber Chase

any ways, a Velma follows me

a thot remaining thicc mass

in repose:

I think her Milf vibe

could only turn me on more

if she were inter / trans

the hip stuck out / hand on waist

pose:

21
 joins the misty smoke break

in the only way a body might

In the thinking flash • before the idea floats into

amity • why it eddy? • I see her hands grab my arms
• her knees on both sides of my curving • maxing •
thighs • a blip

Annie Lennox plays me off and I think

to be a gay is to not run away

from the thinks, the thighs

the thoughts, the thots

22 Paol o B i cch i e r i
 deline Cash
Ma

Hostage #4

I’m thirteen and I look like a child bride in my

Confirmation dress. I receive the sacrament by an old
Pastor who’s also my math teacher and it’s titillating
the way he grazes my tongue with the wafer. I hoard
quarters to play Dance Dance Revolution at the arcade
after school and my feet fly over the neon arrows. I’m
on level:EXPERT and I’m so good that I have to lean
back on the bar for support. My friends are on Animal
Crossing and Club Penguin and have Nintendogs and
Neopets and Tamagotchis and all of the simulated
animals of 2008 and the US is in a financial crisis and
I’m reading a book called TTYL by Lauren Myracle
which is the pinnacle of literature as far as I’m
concerned. The pastor tells me to read the Bible which
is not written by Lauren Myracle. I imagine Noah’s
Arc filled with Nintendogs.

My Lutheran middle school is putting on a theatrical

reenactment of the Iranian Hostage Crisis to teach
us about modern secularism. It’s directed by Mr.
Hayworth who everyone calls Mr. Gayworth until he
actually leaves his wife for a man and they move to
Missoula. In the play, I get cast as Hostage #4 and I
spend afternoons with my crush Dante who smells
like asphalt and Fun Dip and it’s titillating. I’m
IMing with Dante and he asks me to take something

23
off and then he’ll take something off, that’s the game,
but I’m too shy to take something off so Dante calls
me a virgin and blocks me. I roll up my uniform skirt
to make it shorter and get detention and I practice
cello in detention which makes me hate the cello and
I probably could have been a first chair concert cellist
had they just let me wear my skirt above the knee like
an American but now I forever associate cello with
punishment and rejection and stop playing and start
stealing cigarettes from my mom’s friend Lisa’s purse
and sneaking out of my bedroom window at night to
huff computer cleaner with boys and my mind is clean
but the computer is filthy.

My mom is dragging me to the dry cleaners where the

dry cleaner man has an abacus and an African grey
parrot that says hello in a voice like a computer. I realize
that my mom doesn’t have to pick up dry cleaning at
all, that she comes in just to pet the bird and feed it
cashews through the bars of its cage. She’s feeding the
bird as I’m rolling my eyes and counting the seconds
until I can watch makeup tutorials and eat Tidepods
and compromise my mom’s credit card information
on Korean wholesale websites. It’s 102 degrees in
Los Angeles and my mom is picking me up from the
mall security office for shop lifting from Victoria’s
Secret. She is furious in the car like why do you needed
a rhinestones Bombshell anyway and I can’t explain so
we sit in silence in the Honda Civic listening to NPR
which is playing “the sounds of Navajo Nation.” What
I can’t say is that I saw Lacey McKelvy changing for
PE and she has the most insane rack I’ve seen on a
seventh grader and I need a rhinestones Bombshell
because when Lacey McKelvy saw me changing for PE

24 M a d e l i n e C as h
she scoffed and there isn’t a sound in Navajo Nation
loud enough to drown out her scoff and the torque of
her massive tits as we play capture the flag.

I’m laying on the bathroom floor after cutting my

labia with safety scissors while trying to trim my pubic
hair. My mom takes me to urgent care and totally loses
it like what were you thinking, kid? It’s not your fucking
bangs as she paces back and forth and tells me I was
in labor for fifteen hours, do you know what that did to
my vagina? It was like Vietnam down there. I tell her that
Lacey McKelvy has enormous tits and I have nothing
but a misdemeanor and a deviated labia and she looks
at me as if through thick glass, squinting to see clearly
but can’t.

I take edibles with Hannah and ride the bus from

the valley to Santa Monica which takes forever and
by the time I get there I’m so high you can’t navigate
the boardwalk or my Motorola Razor to call for help
and end up in a Bubba Gump Shrimp gazing into the
lobster tank wondering how I could free all of the
lobsters without the hostess noticing when suddenly
Hannah’s mom is picking us up because she’s a cool
mom who picks us up in Santa Monica and lets us sleep
over and doesn’t tell the uncool parents we were high
and the boys call her a MILF and she even lets Hannah
drive before she has her permit, not just in a parking
lot but on the freeway and my mom is feeding cashews
to the bird while Hannah is driving on the 405 and
I’m so hungry I could eat a lobster. I’m thinking about
the financial crisis and and the profound depths of
the universe while Hannah’s mom is telling me about
Nxivm and the car is moving so fast and my heart is

Ma de li ne Cash 25
 beating so fast it’s like I’m on level:EXPERT but there
isn’t a bar to lean back on.

I’m twenty four and everyone on instagram has been

sexually assaulted and I’m allowed to roll my skirt
up as short as you want now because of #metoo and
because there is no God and Trump’s railing Adderall
and Lauren Myracle died of cervical cancer and Dante
went to jail for vehicular manslaughter and Lacey
Mcelvy is on Onlyfans and Mr. Gayworth adopted
a beautiful baby girl and the dry cleaners man was
deported. My mom mourns the bird and secretly
cries for it at night and I wonder what happened to
all of the simulated animals, if the Neoopets starved
to death. My mom’s parents were immigrants from
Ireland who lived through famine and witnessed civil
war and car bombings and revolution and came to
America with only $36 in their communal pockets and
I lived through a moderate recession and monitor my
caloric intake and the revolution was an arcade game
and I can spend $36 on drinks at Good Luck Bar in
a night easily. But the difference is that they were
nothing. The difference is that I’m a Lutheran and
an American and a hostage, perennially updating like
a smart phone, barreling forward into the profound
depths of the universe.

26 M a d e l i n e C as h
 u g Mathewso
Do n

G reenpoint

On the bus to New York she made a dozen lists, and

changed each one a dozen times. On the plane to New
York he made a dozen lists, and changed each one a
dozen times. Always first on her list was a knife. A
good sharp knife and she’d use it too if that bastard
(or anyone else) came after her. Always first on his list
was a knife. A good sharp knife, that’s the first thing
you need in a kitchen his grandmother had taught him.
Overhead was her duffel. The few clothes she could
grab, and of course her iguanas Peaches and Herb.
Overhead was his duffel. The few clothes he owned
worth taking, and of course his drawings and books.
Dozing she thought of the husband she left, how he
hit her one time too many. She could still picture him,
drunk, breathing heavy, belt doubled in his hand. She
ran. Dozing he thought of his grandmother, all she
taught him, the heart break of her death. He could
still picture her, with her short orange hair, smoking
her little home made cigar, and walking her old iguana
Judas on his leash. He couldn’t stay. Off the bus from
Texas she found a cheap Brooklyn rent. Off the plane
from Ecuador he found a cheap Brooklyn rent. She
cut her hair short, to look like a city girl, died it
woodpecker red. He cut off his long braid, to look
like an American, saved it wrapped in tissue. She
took what work she could, wouldn’t file for aid.

27
He took what work he could, visa long expired. Hot
summer night. She’s on the fire escape, smoking what
she rolled, hunting knife, cutting up bananas for
Herbie in her lap. Hot summer night. He’s on the fire
escape, lemon soda, chef’s knife, cutting up plantains
to fry for dinner.

Knives in hand their eyes meet. She smiles, then smiles

again. He seems nice.

“My Christ,” he whispers, “what a beautiful woman.......

She reminds me of someone”.

28 Doug M at h e w s o n
 Berrio
shua rs
Jo
From The Depths

I smile at you.
I walk with a skip in my step.
You only know me as that happy guy.
You’ve never seen the gloom and despair I’ve felt,
that in which I walk every waking moment of my
days.
The last 12 months tested the depths of my willing-
ness to live.
As I sunk deeper and deeper,
I never thought to myself I would ever get this far.
“How did I get here? Who am I with? Why can’t I just
go?
Why won’t you.. let... me.... just..... go?”
No one says anything, why would they?
I smile at you
I walk with a skip in my step
You know me as that happy guy.
I isolate myself, Try and regain control, I become a
hermit
Try to make my exit, only way I .. know ... how.
But a ray of light shines through me pulling me from
the dark crevices within me.
Waking me up to moments knowing that,
I smile at you
I walk with a skip in my step cuz of you
I am that Happy Guy Now Cuz You.

29
 a
J. Arc ngelin
M. i
Family Law Ghazal

Paying lawyers to negotiate the swap of a CD for

some potted plants. He says: “It’s the principal of the
thing.”

What was he doing bathing his three year old daughter?

The same story told in different ways.

She didn’t want half his fishing boat until the lawyer
told her she could get it. Community property state of
mind.

She kept a secret diary of all his transgressions,

then pounded him with them like hard rain.

The office bank balance is anemic. Find someone

with money in retainer and do something for them.

After jail for the DUIs and the custody/visitation decision

he hunkered into a sleeping bag with his freshly serviced
pistol.

31
 na Donovan
Dia

Pro phecy
That New Year’s when we meet
I’ll lose my shoe in a snowbank, stumble
while you hold my drink on the deck
touched by the plastic bag rubber band contraption 
you offer—all the flourish of pulling a rabbit out of
a hat.

I’ll throw a rock through my own window

pick at shards of glass to let you in
just to have you pass out on my couch 
miss your ferry in the morning
taking a piece of fruit, asking if I ever get to Boston.

But I’ll continue to avoid cities, people

and the next time you come to the island
we’ll wreck my uncle’s F-150 in a field 
pound on doors in the middle of the night
begging strangers for gauze and disinfectant.

33
It’s like we’re running from a burning planet 
straight into the eye of the storm
family legacies we’ll never live up to
bosses asking for sexual favors
all these powder kegs waiting to explode.

I’ll look down at the bottom of every glass

surprised anew at the persistent opacity
at the damage that lies hidden, invisible bruises
and even when we can’t see straight, we keep
grasping blindly
at something out of reach—something like love.

34 Di an a Do n ovan
 deline Cash
Ma

Sponge Cake
Your mom is birdwatching and you’re thinking about
rapists. She points out a woodpecker or something.
She used to be a big name in publishing. Now she’s
retired. Now she makes sponge cake and points out
woodpeckers. The walls are painted eggshell so she’s
walking on eggshells as she’s climbing the walls. She
has the best landscaper in Connecticut. You wonder
if your mom has a rapist. She’d have the best rapist in
Connecticut. Her trees are so lush that they’re top-
heavy. Their trunks buckle under the weight of their
foliage. It’s like they’re suicidal says your mom. The
best landscaper in Connecticut bolsters them with
structural reinforcements.

Your mom asks if you slept on the flight here and you
tell her you don’t sleep. You try to shower but your
mom’s faucet is in French. It says “chaud” and “froid”.
It’s too froid. It isn’t froid enough. You think your
mom could use a visit to Froid. She asks where your
rapist is now and you say he’s in your pocket.

Your rapist is on instagram, hanging out with everyone.

Everyone is like, so-and-so invited him. He used to be
a big name in raping. Now he’s retired. Now he
hangs out with so-and-so and this must have been
some fluke thing because he’s a really nice guy if
you get to know him everyone tells you. The trees

35
 are suicidal and it doesn’t matter what language the
shower is in, you never feel clean anyway.

You have trouble breathing at night. Your mom asks

where your rapist is now and you say he’s in your lungs.
You go for a walk on eggshells. Your mom’s landscaper
is the best in Connecticut. He waves you over to see
where the trees are buckling. He tells you he got into
the country in a shipping crate so small he had to
dislocate his shoulder to fit inside. You tell him your
rapist is on instagram, hanging out with everyone. He
says sometimes life throws a lot at you.

Your mom has a hybrid dog. You scratch its belly and
pick up its shit. Once it dislocated your mom’s shoulder
by pulling too hard on the leash. She could have fit in a
shipping crate, you think. The dog cocks its head at you.
It tells you that it used to be a person, a person who
threw a quarter in a well during a lightning storm and
woke up in the body of a hybrid dog in Connecticut.
Some fluke thing. You’re like why are you telling me
this. He says sometimes life throws a lot at you. You
ask what it’s like being a dog and he says it has its days.

Your mom is making sponge cake and you’re thinking

about rapists. Yours is a really nice guy if you get to
know him. Your mom used to work in Paris. Now
it’s only Paris in her shower. Now she’s buckling but
bolstered with structural reinforcements. Now she’s
blanching the basil and deboning the branzino and
she’s mastered the sponge cake which is very moist.
Don’t pathologize the sponge cake says your mom. Eat
up. Life is hard but not as hard as a stale sponge cake.
She makes extra for the dog and the landscaper.

36 M a d e l i n e C as h
 gita Rajan
San
H o n e st C o e r L e t t e r
v

To Whom It May Concern,

I was very excited to see your posting for this position.

I have a Bachelor of Science in Statistics from UCLA,
a great relationship with my little brother, a penchant
for the films of Taika Waititi, and a crush on my
neighbor. I believe that I can meaningfully contribute
to your organization.

In my current role as a gentrifying yet somehow

underpaid resident of San Francisco, I’ve had to use
intellectual rigor and creative thinking to save money.
I conducted a thorough analysis of my local grocery
store prices by making a shopping list, checking the
prices at each store, then comparing them all on a
color-coded spreadsheet. Safeway is the worst. After
using my data-driven insights to save money, I spent
all these funds at various salsa dancing venues. Given
all the irresponsible ways that I could have spent this
money, I like to think that I was relatively responsible.

When I was a student at UCLA, I developed a

comprehensive understanding of various topics,
including: strong female friendships, west coast
hip hop and rap, and disappointing presidential
elections. I bribed my college counselor with samosas

37
 in exchange for enrollment in closed classes; I believe
that this demonstrates my tenacity and initiative. I also
stole many random objects from campus including a
curtain, traffic cone, dining hall table decorations, and
“out of order” signs from broken vending machines that
I could throw at people when they were being out of
order, as it were. It was just a phase, but I believe this
demonstrates my resourcefulness.

As indicated on my resume, I have a very diverse

technical skillset. I am fluent in three of the five love
languages (I do not wish to disclose which three),
capable of processing spicy condiments at an intensity
of approximately 7000 Scoville units, and good with
kids. I have a cursory knowledge of marine biology
that only impresses people who did not grow up near
the beach. I wear a fake gold anklet that I never take
off, and this for some reason impresses everyone.

If you were to ask me where I see myself in five years,

I would say that I hope to be doing more pushups,
killing fewer succulents, writing more short stories
and less cover letters.

I would love an opportunity to make an impact at your

organization.

Thank you for your consideration.

38 S an g i ta Ra j an
 e Jeanne
Abbi

O n the Rec o r d

Van Morrison, Nilsson, the record player,

in the living room, the jukebox,
in the bar, many of them. So many,
I can’t count.

The same song,

different ones.
“Lay me down,” yes.
“To be born again.”

On the carpeted floor,

under the pool table,
with one hand cupping the amber light.
In the vinyl booth,
propped up on the starlight wall.

My picture, with the others,

smoking out the back door,
in cold the cold of frozen thunder.
In our sleeveless tops, our navels,
our stomachs filled with beer.
Your little thrifted shoes, with the gold buckles,
and the kitten heel. Me, dressed like a man,
eyes bigger than my head,
wiping tears away in the bathroom stall,
puking in the sink.

39
 Never a lost weekend,
always born again.

Somewhere to hide, to be remade,

my sleeve lit on fire, who cares.
To be remade, in oblivion,
through every season,
though every waiting,
under every streetlight.

40 Ab b i e J e an n e
 ie Pereira
Luc

Poem for
the walk home

I am trying so hard
to be alive to everything.

The days gape open, wide-mouthed.

I tuck a few small truths in my pockets like pennies,
as quicksilver seconds slip over each other in rivulets.

Early evening—the deer

eat apple branches from my outstretched hands.
Day breaks and recognizes me.
Late morning—my chest is full of broken windows.

In the surface of each passing airplane,

I look for my own face.
I am searching for something diamond to break my
teeth on.

Tonight I will grin right back at the Cheshire cat

moon,

41
 reach toward tenderness,
and wish that my palms could soak up this suffering.

Sometimes it feels neon and

sometimes it doesn’t.
Even now, the universe never tells me no.
Even still, I keep asking.

42 L uc i e P e r e i ra
 Tammy Zhu

Happy Birthday, Dad

The electronic beat pulses through my veins like a

drug, and I shimmy toward the man. He takes my hand
in his soft warm palm and pulls me close. “Guapa,”
he whispers in my ear, his breath steamy. His scruff
tickles my neck. I throw up my arms and let his hand
fumble up my torso over my flowy strapless top. The
discoteca starts playing a pop song in English about a
single parent protecting her child. Today is my dad’s
birthday, and I haven’t called him yet.

My dad lives two oceans and several landmasses away.

The sun’s peak warmth is pouring over his front porch
just about now. Over the years, the dry heat has eroded
its sea-green paint. The salted air has splintered the
deck boards, popping the nails loose. He and my mom
built the porch before I was born. Dad and I used to
spend Saturday afternoons there, swinging on the
smooth acacia glider. My dad fiddled with his guitar
that smelled like fresh pencil shavings. Whenever I
asked why my mom left, he shrugged and said, “She
didn’t say, kiddo.” Then he sandwiched my hands
between his and stooped his face toward mine. “Don’t
worry,” he said, “you and I are sticking together.” We
watched the fiery sun dance across the sky. When
it dipped behind the neighbor’s jacaranda tree, we
chased after it to the beach. On the way, my dad

43
 clutched my hand as though I might stumble and fall
if he didn’t hold on tightly enough. Now brush fires
scorch the region, but my dad won’t leave. He says my
mom might come back. “Dad,” I remind him, “she’s
been gone for twenty years.”

Overhead on the speakers, steel drums thump into

the foreground, racing the flash of the strobe light. I
look for my two coworkers from the American school,
who still haven’t come back with their drinks. The
man is now behind me, his hips thrusting to the beat.
His fingers crawl into the front pockets of my jeans.
The DJ scratches the record, and the vocals cut in and
out like my voice the last time my dad called me. He
asked why I was fading in and out. “Poor reception,” I
replied. I wasn’t ready to tell him about the new life
I had sought out. How little I had in common with
my coworkers, the other expats, and the locals. How
I couldn’t stand to eat another meal alone. How I
missed him. How he was right and I shouldn’t have
left at all. All that would worry him even more, so I
stood in my cramped building elevator with limited
cell signal instead of walking out onto the open street.
I heard my dad say, in spotty, broken bits, “Take care,
safety first.” Now his words echo in my ears, drowning
out the drums.

When I told my dad I got the fellowship, he blinked

and asked, “Why teach English all the way there when
you can teach English here?” I could have pleaded for
his support, for him to be happy for me, explained that
there’s not much going for me in this town with its
dormant economy and ashy air. But what’s the point?
I was leaving him behind, alone, and we both knew it.

44 Ta mmy Z h u
On the morning of my flight, my dad dropped me off
at the airport, wished me luck, and even managed a
smile—the first one since I told him I was leaving.

The discoteca smells like cologne and beer mixed with

slippery decisions. The man and I dance into a corner.
The drums bounce back into the song, picking up the
tempo. His mouth hovers closer to mine. The drink in
his hand sloshes over the rim of the glass and onto my
wedge sandals. I stare into his dark eyes. Where are his
parents? Do they live close to him? Are they together?
I turn away and watch his blotched suede boot tap
in rhythm to the beat. His lips brush against my ear.
“Venga, vamos a mi casa.”

My dad is probably sitting on the glider, a cigarette

nestled between his bulged fingers, reading the news
on his iPad—awaiting but not quite expecting my
eventual return. Like my mom before me, I’ve released
myself from his grip. Since I moved away, he has
resisted calling me too often or asking me to come
home. Nowadays the news delivered on his iPad is the
closest he can get to me. He devours it like religion.
He reads articles about the riots, burglaries, and hate
crimes happening where I live and reminds me to be
careful. He blames himself for driving my mom away,
and he is afraid to do the same to me. He doesn’t know
that I want to come home.

I think about telling the man I have to go. I have to

find my coworkers. I have to say goodbye to them. I
have to go home. I have to call my dad to tell him happy
birthday and everything else. Instead, I take the man’s
drink and pour it into my mouth. It tastes sharp and

Ta mmy Zh u 45
 corrosive and crackles down my throat. The nightclub
explodes with a regalia of confetti, and I hope my dad
isn’t buried under a pile of ash. Smoke fills the room,
sweeping me away. I pull the man’s mouth to mine. He
leans in with his tongue. It tastes like salted peanuts
and cigarettes. I whisper, “Vamos.”

46 Ta mmy Z h u
 n Darli
lyso ng
Al
G e n tl e S o r r o w s

Like mud. Like slime. Like bare-boned sticks in spring.

Like the dirt residing under your fingernails from
last Sunday. Stuck. Existing. Ugly. So damn ugly. Like
the sound of your favorite ring’s suicide down the
bathroom sink and the camera you lost in New York
City—three hours after capturing the most magical
sunset you had ever seen in your white backless dress
when you were twenty. Like words you can’t return
to your mouth and cancers you can only accept and
the cold black tar of life, the one with an appetite.
Like every crescent moon of a moment that cracks
your heart. Like the man on the bus holding a tub of
Neapolitan ice cream—sweat dripping, plastic tub, red
handle, and he’s just gotten off of work. And he’s going
to see his kids that he only sees once every other week.
Like an embarrassment of a person publicly. Like the
person who came to your table when you were seven
at Jack in the Box and asked your family if they had
any scraps—saying “scraps” like he was a dog, like he
was less than human. And could he please have them?
And like how you don’t eat your chicken tenders even
though you’re only allowed to eat fast food once a
year. Like the tangling of words told to you that you
can’t breathe through. Like the end of a friendship
that spans a decade, the accidental death of it. Like
the loss of firsts sandwiched between sixteen and

47
 seventeen. Like the unacknowledged sexual tension
that exists in a bed while you watch French films in
your underwear with her, ignoring that you’re sitting
closer than you need to. Like the loss of time. Like the
denial of crushes. Like all the men you fucked because
you felt like something was missing, like there was
something wrong with you. Like a sexuality you don’t
realize until you’re thirty-one.

48 A l ly s on Da r l i n g
 Buchan
hvu an
An
N o, N
othing Left to Say

But you are so good at math you can’t drive you karate
chop you are chopsticks and rice bowls but why are
there fish heads in your soup you are a doctor a lawyer
an engineer you bubble tea you boba you bow to say
hello you hello kitty you take your shoes off at the
door you rice cook you know how to play the piano
the violin the cello you race cars in your honda you
anime your food smells but do you really eat dog you
are a virus you red face when you drink you gamble
you glow you karaoke you never knew your parents
love you hold up peace signs in photos you squat
you don’t want tan skin so you run from the sun you
travel just for the photos you have a small penis you
are submissive you are a fetish you are kung fu you
are kung flu you are your history you can’t escape you
look like you are twelve but why you are so skinny you
are slanted eyes you orient you oriental you can never
win you laundromat you nail salon you joy luck club
you sushi you lotus blossom but do you really eat dog
you can’t speak engrish you listen but are you listening
you, yes you, you need to go back to your country.

49
 rla Brundage
Ka

M e m o ri es

In 1966 my mother’s first cousin Sammy Younge Jr. was

shot and killed in Macon County Alabama for using a
White Only Bathroom.

I am 7
Blue green shag carpet rubs damps upon my skin
Cement bricks for bookshelves
Planks of unvarnished wood sag under the weight of
Hair over and over .. “ain’t got no..”

My face is always near the floor

belly down

Drugs in the house- part of our fundamental belief in

freedom.

I am good at occupying myself.

Grown ups fighting for liberation.

51
 We don’t talk about him.

Sammy- high yellow

Well educated
Tuskegee boy
Middle Class Negros from Alabama
Rich as some whites
More educated surely

Before we were hippies my family is conservative

Sammy joins the Navy

Fights in the Bay of Pigs

Comes home to Alabama and

Cannot use a White Only bathroom

He marches
He joins SNCC
He follows the rules of revolution

But one night

He doesn’t

52 K a r l a Br un d a g e
What was he thinking I wonder

Sammy shot in the head

I look at the photo
Obsessively
In dark corners
Alone

His curls matted with blood

Still holding the golf club
Clenched in his hand

It seems so useless
A golfclub against a gun
What was he thinking
Going after that old man

II

Boy!
I ain’t no boy
C’ain’t you read
Whites only
What you gonna do shoot me?

Ka rla Bru nda ge 53

 Shots in the dark
Golf club still in his hand
Blood oozes from open wound
In back of head

He sees Cuba
Naval whites
He sees himself
Holding his gun

Urine releases itself

Into pavement
With brain matter, blood

A girl
Named me
Stares at this photo
Taken by a photographer

Hours after his

Spirit floated
Into the half moonlit sky

54 K a r l a Br un d a g e
 na Donovan
Dia
F i r st C o m m u n i o n

Borrow from other poets: words, phrases.

Language is a shared gift belonging to everyone.

I learned this while studying for my First

Communion
at the Sacred Heart on East 91st St. and Fifth Avenue.

Mother White had sharp eyes and a long list of rules

designed to prepare our minds and bodies to accept
Jesus Christ.

My parents promised singing, but it was mostly

scripture and rehearsal
and one homework assignment: to compose a prayer
of our own.

How to begin? At the age of seven, I knew so little of

the world.
God speaks to the pure of heart, Mother White said,
leaning on her cane.
 

55
When—as expected—God refused to speak to me
I went looking for poetry in the Encyclopedia
Britannica.
 
It may have been Wordsworth—or Longfellow—if
memory serves
who acted as ‘divine inspiration’ as I penned my
prayer.
 
I turned in my assignment, pulse quickening.
If God wanted to punish me, He knew where to find
me.

Anyway, it would be years until my First Confession.

I figured I still had plenty of time to gather material.

56 Di an a Do n ovan
 na Donovan
Dia

N ext Chapte r
The houses where you were afraid to fall asleep
hang up your cleats
they weren’t like the others on the tree-lined street
move to the desert
by the pond the neighborhood kids cleared after a
snowfall
take long walks
everyone lacing up their skates as the sun climbed
high on the ridge
plant seeds in the earth
 
the dads setting up the plywood hockey goals—and
later
wake early
the moms would bring steaming thermoses of hot
cocoa
cook over an open flame
no—the houses where you crept into bed scanning
for danger
let go of grievances
they held secrets so tight you could barely breathe
learn to pray

57
 you might wake to raised voices, glass breaking and
was that the crack of bone?
stay quiet
someone having trouble getting her words out
notice the seasons
maybe she’s on the ground, maybe there’s blood in
her throat
study the stars
and lying very still—frozen—instead of getting up
to see
recognize beginnings and endings
 
thinking about the day when you’d be allowed to
ride in a car with a boy
embrace each new day
and you could roll down the window and play music
and hold hands
let the light in
the time would come when you’d live in that other
kind of house
make room for me
you’d like that
it’s been so long.

58 Di an a Do n ovan
 Alia Salim

Deep State

I’m doing the crossword when they call to tell me I’m

dead. It’s September, and it’s no surprise: every week
another absence, another rumor, another scare. My
hair is dyed, my eyebrows plucked into interrogatory
arches. I practice, occasionally, with the other set of
dentures. I listen to oral arguments over knitting in
the evenings. I stay home. It isn’t any bother.

“Looking good,” the agent says when I open the door.

“Hot date?”

He helps me pack my bags before we do the

walkthrough, noting anything I want to keep. There
isn’t much.
* * * * *
The second knock comes around 8 p.m.—the earliest
the car could arrive in full darkness, the latest the long
box might be explained as a furniture delivery.

The first agent answers the door to the second while

I remain at the kitchen table, drinking tea. I watch
the pair of them whisk the box up the stairs in the
reflection in the oven window. Mere moments. She
can’t weigh much. I don’t, by now.

59
 I finish the tea and set the mug down by the sink, then
follow the agents to the bedroom. I stand for a moment
on the landing to catch my breath before calling up.
“Can I see her?”

In the doorway I see them exchange glances, but I

imagine they have anticipated this. Certainly they
have anticipated everything else.

* * * * *

She is in my bed with the blankets pulled back, the

minor disarray of a reluctant discovery to be feigned
the next morning. She wears a careful replica of my
locket necklace and my nightshirt, I suppose to spare
us both the indignity of undressing her body in my
house. A courteous detail. She looks very small.

I take her hand from where it rests against my pillow.

I’m not a sentimental person—I couldn’t be, for this—
but still my heart leaps at the touch. It’s true what they
say, that a corpse goes cold as marble. I picture her in
vaunted halls.

“Ruth,” I say. “An honor.”

“Have you seen a dead person before?” The agent is

an action man: he cannot bear the long silence in the
yellow lamplight. But his voice is not unkind.

“Many,” I tell him. “I have been to many funerals.”

I have been to all the funerals, in fact—to the funeral

60 Alia Salim
of anyone who might ever once have missed me. That’s
why I was chosen, and why I said yes.

* * * * *

The agent might or might not have slipped something

in my tea: the night fades to gentle swaying, a cascade
of shadows. I awake to afternoon light in a strange
bed—only an expression; I know it well enough. I have
seen the room in photographs many times, studied
how to fold the quilt, where to set her glasses, which
windows open and which are stuck shut with flaking
paint. When I descend to the kitchen, I know where
to find the mugs.

“Good morning, Ruth,” says the agent. “How are you

feeling?” Per the arrangement, I only nod.

“Take the weekend, get comfortable in the house,” he

continues. “On Monday morning we’ll send the clerk.”

* * * * *

Ginsburg’s latest diagnosis is cancer of the throat

Supreme Court short-list stokes record fundraising,

left and right

Mute, defiant Ginsburg vows: I will serve until my last

breath

* * * * *

She canceled speaking events long ago and had already

Ali a Sa li m 61
 been housebound for months. The pandemic means
most obligations are virtual; the politics mean all are
slow. I need do very little but exist—persist in existing.

Much is expected and done in writing, but I need have

no part in that. When I must appear on screen, the
light is so low and my gestures so practiced, over hours
in front of long mirrors and the agents, that even
magnified behind the enormous glasses they give no
one any pause.

When addressed I write briefly in a notepad to which

the clerk pretends to refer before answering on my
behalf. She is middle-aged, demure, forgettable; she
neither looks me in the eye nor seems ill at ease. I have
no evidence to indicate she is the originator of the
plan, but feel certain of this, somehow, nonetheless.

Besides the two agents and the clerk I imagine there

must be at least one doctor, perhaps some sort of
embalmer or mortician. Some or all of the family. I will
not meet them. “It’s not that they didn’t want to,” the
agent told me once, early on. I doubt this is the case.

* * * * *

Ailing Ginsburg holds the line in latest sally against Roe

Polls show widening lead for Democratic challenger

Election predictions: unprecedented turnout—and a

winner named by the court

* * * * *

62 Alia Salim
I dream I’m climbing the stairs in my old house again,
stepping past the agents at my bedroom door. When
I pull back the covers it isn’t Ruth, but my old friend
Bea—her freckled nose, her rouged lips.

“Who would believe me?” she had protested, over malts.

“It would kill my mother.” It would kill Bea, of course,
instead, and they’d call it a failed appendectomy. That
boy was at the campus memorial a week later, crying
crocodile tears.

Certainly I’d thought of Bea, when the agents first

approached me, of what might have been. I never
asked the agents, but one has to assume they knew,
somehow—certainly they knew everything else. But it
was long ago. She and all the others are gone and I long
for quiet somewhere warm, for a dignified solitude.

* * * * *

In 5-4 vote, Supreme Court upholds presidential result

Red counties roil: shootings, arson reported as feds

confront incensed militias

Unprecedented crowds, security at euphoric inauguration

* * * * *

They swap us back five weeks after the swearing-in—

the earliest a death would raise no questions, the latest
the ruse would hold. The second exchange is swifter,
completed in silence. It was not too long to preserve
a body, they’ve told me, but I prefer not to think of it.

Ali a Sa li m 63
I don’t ask to see her again.

I ride in the back of a windowless van. My agent, the

garrulous man, does not speak except to apologize
for the hard-backed seats. In the pan of a streetlight
across his rearview mirror I see that he is crying, and I
begin again to suspect, as I did in the beginning, that I,
too, have been subject to a great deception. Whatever
assurance was given, I always understood it would be
simpler to hide a civilian accomplice dead than alive.

I reason, as I did at the outset, that there are many

worse ways to go. Most of us die slowly, having done
nothing of any use. Better this, quick and clean, than
wasting away down a long hallway. Better this death
than Bea’s.

I hold on to this thought as the van rattles through

the darkness, grasp it firmly again as we pull onto an
empty airstrip in the woods. I see the plane only when
it turns from the mouth of a small, low hangar and the
moonlight catches its wing. I think idly of an egret at
night, of a long-ago lake summer.

As the agent leads me to the door I notice the suitcases

I packed months ago, stacked and fastened down
behind my seat. I allow myself then, for a moment,
to believe. If they were going to kill me, would they
bother with my luggage?

* * * * *

I watch my second funeral on satellite television, the

commentary muffled by the sound of the waves and

64 Alia Salim
gulls from the open door. The camera pans security
fencing and rows of young women, their RBG
t-shirts, their lipstick and tears. Some are beautiful
and some are not. They clutch cell phones and
posters, some of them, each other’s hands.

Ali a Sa li m 65
 ney Vogl
Syd
Th d
You e F i r s t T i m e Y o u L e a r n e wn
r Bo dy W
as N o t Y o u r O

everything i do sounds like a wildfire

an evacuation of sugar
from my hips

the first time i kissed a girl with nails

under her tongue i tasted bitter for months
swallowed cinnamon to forget her phone number
scrubbed the skin she touched to dust

everything i do sounds like my mother

it must have been summertime
i remember killing
time in the back alley, midnight
slinging glass at the moon

it must have been summertime

i remember sweating cherry lemonade
i fell asleep in the kitchen & woke up
a cracked dish late night
scrubbing tomato sauce from my pants

on the train home belly buttering

the railing i laughed
for yesterday’s girl

67
 Dena Rod

a pl ace of extr e m es

i want everything and nothing at all aching against

ice cubes dropping in my chest. like the incongruous
dissonance of concrete jungles buttressed up against
sea-worn cliffs, i laid my eyes in the palm of my hand, a
sacred offering for you to swallow so you could see me.
pardon the mess but i’m impulsive for joy, that sweet
taste that i only feel once dismembered. sometimes i
can feel you tugging where they tied my threadbare
heartstrings to your intestines but no, it doesn’t bring
me delight, gladness, or glee. when i imagine you and
me, i see a place swimming deeply in illumination
where i can afford a house with a window seat and
breakfast nook. we don’t need infinite sight to know
kindness or kin, but we’re still doing our best to file
away our sharp edges against the dark and silence of
an unlit neon sign.

69
- november 2, 2020 -