Author Archives: admin

Sydney Koeplin

Sydney Koeplin is a Chicago-born editor and writer with a special interest in speculative fiction. She’s a Midwesterner at heart but has also lived in Maine, North Carolina, and Germany. Her work has appeared in the Allegheny Review, Lovers Literary Journal, and the Intrepid Times. She won the Elmira Nelson Jones Prize for Creative Writing from Colby College in 2021. An avid bibliophile, she cannot pass by a bookstore without going in.

Martha Coats

Martha Coats is a full-time writer of novellas, short stories and poetry. She earned a B.F.A. in Writing, Literature and Publishing from Emerson College and has worked for Peachtree Publishers in Atlanta, Workman Publishing in NYC and Pearson Education in New Jersey. When not writing Martha can be found laughing with her husband, cheering-on her teenage sons from the soccer stands, gardening or baking high-calorie, French pastries.

Halsey Hyer

Halsey Hyer is currently an MFA candidate in Creative Writing at Florida International University. They’re an Editorial Assistant for Seven Kitchens Press, Associate Editor of Pittsburgh Poetry Journal, and the Virtual Events Assistant at White Whale Bookstore. Halsey’s debut chapbook, Always yours/Boy, was awarded the 2021 Rick Campbell Chapbook Prize and is forthcoming from Anhinga Press in July 2022. Their micro-chapbook of micro-poems, everything becomes bananas, is set for release from Rinky Dink Press in 2022. Their work can be found or is forthcoming in Cutthroat: A Journal, North American Review, Notre Dame Review, and elsewhere. Find out more—www.halseyhyer.org.

Leonard Finds God in a Panel Van

Lights up:

One-Armed-Kenny sits in his window-less panel van, drumming the fingers of his one good hand on the steering wheel.

An unlit cigarette hangs from his lips.

Leonard approaches.

Kenny steps out of the panel van, the cigarette still hanging from his lips.

 

KENNY

You’d be Leonard?

LEONARD

Kenny?

KENNY

That’s right.

LEONARD

Sorry about the whole meeting in a public place thing, but I’ve been lied to and scammed on Craigslist so many times–

KENNY

Oh, this is no scam, Leonard.

LEONARD

So, you’re telling me you have indisputable evidence—‘cause

A thundering noise, sad and terrifying, erupts from the back of the panel van.

KENNY

Jehovah! Hush!

Kenny kicks the door of the panel van.

LEONARD

The God of the Old Testament is in your panel van?

KENNY

How’s that for indisputable?

LEONARD

Can I look?

KENNY

Well, historically, that hasn’t worked out so well, but–

Leonard looks.

LEONARD

Oh my God. He’s beautiful.

KENNY

Yeah, I found him in the Rainier Mountains just East of Spokane, Washington. I was walking around, smoking a doober, and there he was, humped over a log, taking the most impressive shit I have ever seen in my life, and I confess, Leonard, all I could see were the dollars signs, so, I shot him in the face with a tranq gun and hauled his ass home.

LeONARD

This van smells like raw meat.

KENNY

Yeah, well, it’s kind of like his kennel.

LEONARD

I’m sorry, did you say: kennel?

KENNY

Yeah, I mean, we got along great at first. We were always hanging out, drinking beer, and he’d do this thing where he’d fart, and after he farted, he’d waft it up so he could smell his own flavor, but after about a year things went bad. Fast.

LEONARD

What?

KENNY

See, I was always out partying and sleeping with a lot of strange women–prostitutes–and I think he got a little upset that we weren’t spending as much time together as we used to, so he started punching out the walls in my house, and then he set fire to my wife’s antique doll collection, but the final straw was when he broke into my gun safe and shot holes through my JBL surround sound. So, I put his ass in the van.

LEONARD

You taught God how to use a gun?

KENNY

Not that he needed one. But, yeah.

LEONARD

You’re a terrible person.

KENNY

Excuse me?

LEONARD

I said: you are a terrible person and you don’t deserve–

KENNY

Hey: the only difference between you and me, Leonard, is that I can actually admit to being greedy and an asshole, as while you on the other hand, all you wanna do is judge, but really–

LEONARD

All I want is to talk to him, to ask questions.

KENNY

Oh, you think I didn’t try that?

LEONARD

When? Between prostitutes?

KENNY

Hey: I asked him all sorts of shit, all right, mostly about why he saw fit to take my left arm from me in a freak jet-ski accident when I was seven years old, but he never answered, Leonard, and he never does, ’cause he hates questions, ‘cause–

LEONARD

Well, you know, maybe you’re just…not asking him right.

KENNY

Fine. You try it. Ask him a question and see what happens.

LEONARD

I will.

KENNY

Ask him something right now and see what happens. See if he doesn’t get pissed off and start breaking shit, see what he–

LEONARD

God–

KENNY

He prefers Jehovah, Leonard.

LEONARD

Jehovah, why, when I was twelve years old at the McLean Middle School Winter Wonderland Dance, did you see fit to let Ms. Bachman corner me in the boy’s room and proceed to–

Loud banging, accompanied by very, very angry and terrifying noises, erupts from the back of the panel van.

KENNY

What’d I tell you, what did I fucking tell you, he does not–

LEONARD

Yeah, well, once he gets to know me a little better–

KENNY

And for the record, I don’t see why you’re so upset about accidentally getting some when you were in middle school.

LEONARD

She was older than my grandmother.

KENNY

Well, Leonard, in my book, pussy is pussy–age, size, color–I mean as long as she consents–and it sounds like she did–

LEONARD

(taking out his wallet)

You know what? Here. Just take the money.

KENNY

Excuse me?

LEONARD

Take the money, I mean: that’s all you care about, right, you said so yourself, so just take the money and leave us alone.

Beat

KENNY

Well, you know what? Maybe I don’t feel like selling anymore.

LEONARD

No, we agreed on a fair price and you’re going to honor that.

KENNY

Hey: don’t you tell me what I will or will not–

LEONARD

Yeah, well, I’m telling you right now, you fucking redneck.

KENNY

Leonard, you ought not start shit with people you don’t know.

LEONARD

I will kick the shit out of you, you one-armed, piece of–

KENNY

Well, come on, Leonard, come on with it, give me what you got, ’cause I’ll knock your dick in the dirt, I’ll lay the ace of spades and the five of clubs on your ass and let’s see what–

Enya’s “Orinoco Flow” begins to play, slowly getting louder and louder and louder throughout the following lines.

LEONARD

Oh my God…

KENNY

Yeah, that’s not good.

LEONARD

It’s beautiful.

Leonard approaches the panel van.

KENNY

Leonard, all our differences and your insults aside, I would highly advise you to keep your distance, ’cause you don’t know him like I do and you have no idea what he is capable of, so–

Leonard opens door of the panel van.

LEONARD

I think he likes me.

KENNY

Leonard: he doesn’t like anyone.

Leonard gets in the panel van.

LEONARD

No, it’s like the music is his way of saying he understands me, and that he wants to talk to me, just me, and him, and–

KENNY

Leonard, I’m telling you, for your own safety: remain calm and very, very, slowly back yourself out of the van before–

LEONARD

Oh. My. God.

KENNY

Leonard–

Leonard is ripped over the back seat, thundering noises and screams, belonging to Leonard, ensue, subside.

Kenny gets back in the driver’s seat, lights a cigarette, turns off the radio, looks to the rearview mirror.

KENNY

I had that under control, just so you know.

Loud, thundering mocking noise.

KENNY

Yeah, I know, and, the Good Lord taketh away. Okay. Now, we gotta meet some dipshit named Stephen in the Baskin-Robbins parking lot in thirty minutes, and I’m all for doing your work, Lord, really, I am but I swear: if you play Enya one more time I will straight up drop your ass like a bad habit.

Lights down.

End of Play.

 

 

Emergency Contact

CHARACTERS

JULIAN, mid-twenties, male-identifying, Bryce’s live-in boyfriend
BRYCE, mid-twenties, female-identifying, Julian’s live-in girlfriend
NURSE, any age, ethnicity, or gender; working the late-shift

(Lights up. A hospital emergency room, in some city. A few seats, paired together. A small table with some magazines. It’s late, maybe midnight: We hear sounds of ambulances, doctors being paged, beeping monitors, maybe a baby crying. After a moment, JULIAN enters supporting BRYCE, who is limping on one foot. They are both in sweats.)

JULIAN

Okay, let’s get you over here-

BRYCE

I’m really fine, we don’t need to be here.

JULIAN

You can’t walk!

BRYCE

I don’t need you to hold me up, babe.

JULIAN (ushering her into a chair)

Bryce, you’re obviously hurt, just take a seat. I’ll check us in.

BRYCE

I’m here against my will.

JULIAN

Don’t say that, people are going to think I had something to do with it-

BRYCE (shouting, joking)

He hit me! Pushed me down the stairs!

JULIAN (shushing her)

Don’t joke about that!

BRYCE

Would you relax? We can go, seriously, I’m fine.

JULIAN

You slipped.

BRYCE

Jules, please, let’s just go.

JULIAN

Bryce. C’mon-

BRYCE

This is going to cost a fortune, I can just stay off it for awhile.

JULIAN

Tell you what: you take ten steps for me to that chair right there (he points) then we can go home. I’ll pay for the car myself.

BRYCE (excited)

A yellow cab?

JULIAN

Yes, fine, a yellow cab.

BRYCE

I love to watch TV while being driven somewhere by a stranger.

JULIAN

I know.

BRYCE

Ten steps?

JULIAN

Ten steps. And we’ll go.

BRYCE

Swear?

JULIAN

I swear.

(They shake hands. BRYCE hoists herself to her one foot, attempts to put pressure on the other one. She winces, almost falls back into the seat, but catches herself. JULIAN watches, amused. BRYCE smiles weakly back at him. She plants both her feet, barely putting weight on her bad ankle. She smiles back at JULIAN. Finally, she slides like an ice skater across the floor, barely touching the ground with her bad leg. She makes it to the seat, ten paces away. She turns, does a little hobbly-bow, and plants herself in the new seat.)

BRYCE

I hope the yellow cab is playing old Jimmy Fallon clips.

JULIAN

Okay, you win, come on back now.

BRYCE

That wasn’t part of the deal!

JULIAN

Let’s get you your cab, come on now!

BRYCE

Maybe you could carry me?

JULIAN

Maybe you could get an x-ray?

BRYCE

Fine, I’ll come back. Twenty steps just to prove you wrong.

(BRYCE hoists herself up again, starts to do the exact same move back to JULIAN. After a few steps, she stumbles, falls, catches herself on the table, knocking over the magazines.)

BRYCE

Okay, okay, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ouchhhhhhhh.

JULIAN

You good?

BRYCE (wincing in pain)

Okay, help me up.

JULIAN (helping her into the previous seat)

Still want that cab?

BRYCE

Fine. Go check me in.

JULIAN (looking offstage)

A nurse is coming.

(The NURSE enters, carrying a clip board. They approach the couple.)

NURSE

How we doing tonight?

JULIAN

We’re good. Well, actually no, she’s got a broken ankle, we think.

BRYCE

It’s not broken, just sprained-

JULIAN

She can hardly put weight on it.

BRYCE

I just did!

JULIAN

You fell.

NURSE

What happened?

JULIAN

She was getting a roll of paper towels down off of the top shelf  and the chair slipped out from under her.

NURSE (to BRYCE)

You landed on it?

BRYCE

I’m sorry?

NURSE

You landed on the ankle?

JULIAN

All her weight on it, yeah.

NURSE

Alright, well we’re gonna have to get you checked out. You two came in on a good night.

BRYCE

Yeah?

NURSE

Hardly anyone in tonight. One stabbing, that’s it.

JULIAN

Oh, my…

NURSE (starting to fill out the forms with the info provided so far)

He’ll live. His wife’s going to jail, though.

BRYCE

A guy’s wife stabbed him?

NURSE

Missed his heart by (gesturing a tiny amount) this much.

JULIAN

Wow.

NURSE

Oh, shoot. I probably shouldn’t have told you that. Don’t tell anyone I told you that. Anywho! (they hand over the clipboard and a pen) Fill these out and we’ll get to you when you’re done. You want something for the pain right now?

BRYCE

I’m fine, thanks.

NURSE

Holler if you need me.

(The NURSE exits back the way they came. JULIAN starts to fill out the paperwork.)

BRYCE

I can do it, babe.

JULIAN

I got it, you just relax.

BRYCE

You don’t have to take care of me like this.

JULIAN

It’s what I do.

(A beat. JULIAN fills out the forms.)

BRYCE

I wish you hadn’t said that to them.

JULIAN

What?

BRYCE

Told them what happened.

JULIAN

They asked.

BRYCE

No, they didn’t ask *specifically* what happened. You could’ve just said I fell. You didn’t need to include the paper towels or the chair or whatever. It makes me feel stupid.

JULIAN

It was an accident, Bry.

BRYCE

Well now the nurse thinks I don’t know how to get paper towels down off of a shelf.

JULIAN

I’m sure they don’t And if so, who cares? You’ll never see them again after this.

BRYCE

But that’s the thing, they’ll tell people. I can tell, they’re a gossip.

JULIAN

What? Just because they told us about the guy and his wife? We interacted with them for like a minute. You can’t tell that after one minute of interaction.

BRYCE

They’re going to go home and tell their husband or wife or boyfriend or girlfriend or kids about the idiot woman who fell getting a new roll of paper towels down and broke her ankle.

JULIAN

We don’t know it’s broken.

BRYCE

You said it was.

JULIAN

What do I know?

BRYCE

Just let me do the talking when we meet with the doctor, okay?

JULIAN

I’m sure they won’t even let me in the room with you, babe. Everything will be fine.

(A beat. BRYCE massages her temples.)

BRYCE

I should’ve asked for aspirin.

JULIAN

Is it hurting you?

BRYCE

A little.

JULIAN

Well, let me-

BRYCE

No, it’s fine. I’m fine. You don’t need to do anything for me.

JULIAN

Okay? (moving on) Hey, what’s the address of the agency?

BRYCE

Why?

JULIAN (indicating the form)

They’re asking about your employment, they want the address.

BRYCE

It’s on 52nd between 7th and 8th.

JULIAN

You don’t know the building number?

BRYCE

No I just know which doors to walk into. (flustered) Hold on, lemme look it up.

(BRYCE pulls out her phone and looks up the address.)

JULIAN

They also need the main office line.

BRYCE

That’s the 646 number, you know it.

JULIAN

Right.

BRYCE

The building number is 739.

JULIAN

Got it. And for occupation, you want me to write Associate or-

BRYCE

That’s not my title.

JULIAN

Well, you haven’t switched over yet, so I figured-

BRYCE

I’m a director now, you can put that. Director of Marketing.

JULIAN

I thought it wasn’t official yet?

BRYCE

They’re making it official this week.

JULIAN

You didn’t tell me that.

BRYCE (stumped)

What?

JULIAN

I didn’t know that was happening this week?

BRYCE

I thought I told you. They told me a few days ago.

JULIAN (over-the-moon)

Babe! That’s huge, congrats.

BRYCE

Yeah, can we not celebrate right now? I’m just not like-

JULIAN

Right, right. Okay.

(A beat. BRYCE looks around, grabs a magazine. She starts to read it, flips through quickly, then puts it away.)

BRYCE

What do you think he did?

JULIAN

Who?

BRYCE

The husband? Who got stabbed.

JULIAN

Oh, I don’t know. Must’ve been pretty bad to have his own wife stab him. A crime of passion.

BRYCE

I would never stab you.

JULIAN

Awww.

BRYCE

Wait this is fun, we should- Yeah. What’s the most you’d do to me?

JULIAN

What do you mean?

BRYCE

I mean violence-wise.

JULIAN

Well. That’s kind of a weird question.

BRYCE

No! It’s fun! What’s the most you’d hurt me.

JULIAN

I don’t really want to talk or think about that.

BRYCE

C’mon, it’s fun! I think I’d/

JULIAN

/Babe, that’s freaky./

BRYCE

/Burn you.

(A beat. JULIAN looks at BRYCE.)

JULIAN

Burn me?

BRYCE

Yeah.

JULIAN

Like with a hot pan, or-?

BRYCE

Like grease. Like throw grease in your face.

JULIAN (astonished)

Babe-

BRYCE

Or with like a branding stick.

JULIAN

That’s so fucked up.

BRYCE

No! C’mon, it’s fun. What’s your answer?

JULIAN

I really don’t want to play.

BRYCE

I told you mine, you tell me yours.

JULIAN (final)

I wouldn’t hurt you, Bryce. Like. I’m not capable of that.

(A beat. JULIAN goes back to the forms.)

BRYCE (feeling foolish)

I just thought it’d be fun.

JULIAN

It’s a morbid question, I really don’t want to think about it.

BRYCE

Okay. Okay, sorry.

JULIAN

It’s fine.

BRYCE

Babe. You don’t have to like, be afraid of it. I wouldn’t actually burn you.

JULIAN

Okay.

(A beat. BRYCE picks up a different magazine, she flips through it for a moment, pauses on an article.)

BRYCE

Apparently the country is running out of gold…

JULIAN

Do you have your insurance card?

BRYCE

Yeah, in my purse.

JULIAN

It’s Blue Cross Blue Shield, right?

BRYCE (getting the card out of her purse)

Yeah.

JULIAN

What’s the member ID?

BRYCE (reading it off to him)

JZ3454789087.

JULIAN

Allergic to walnuts-

BRYCE

Right.

JULIAN

Emergency Contact-

BRYCE

Just put my mom.

(A beat.)

JULIAN

Your mom?

BRYCE

Yeah.

JULIAN

Why would I put your mom?

BRYCE (reassuredly, nonchalant)

She can get here, she’s just in Jersey.

JULIAN

Bryce.

BRYCE

What?

JULIAN

Why wouldn’t I be your emergency contact?

(A beat. JULIAN stares at BRYCE)

BRYCE

I don’t know?

JULIAN

We live together.

BRYCE

It’s not like-

JULIAN

We’ve been dating for five years.

BRYCE

We’re not engaged or anything.

JULIAN

So?

BRYCE

I just said my mom, put yourself if you want! You’re the one filling out the form.

JULIAN

But you said-

BRYCE

I just said my mom, I wasn’t thinking. My ankle is killing me, I was just-

JULIAN

So lemme get this straight: say you get hit by a car on your way to work, you want them to call your sixty-five-year-old mother, who lives in Hackensack-New Jersey to come and get you in the hospital? But not your boyfriend of five years who you live with and who could get here in two minutes?

BRYCE

You’re making this into a bigger thing than it needs to be.

JULIAN

Why wouldn’t I be your emergency contact?

(The NURSE re-enters.)

NURSE

Doing okay?

BRYCE

Actually, it is kind of starting to ache. Can I get some aspirin?

NURSE

Sure thing. (to JULIAN) Just let me know when you’re done with the forms, okay?

JULIAN (bluntly)

Yeah, hang on.

NURSE

All right.

(The NURSE exits, a little peeved.)

BRYCE (to JULIAN, an almost whisper)

Don’t be rude! They’re just doing their job!

JULIAN

Why wouldn’t I be your emergency contact?

BRYCE (blurting it out)

Because we don’t know what’s going to happen.

(A beat.)

JULIAN

We don’t?

BRYCE

I meant-

JULIAN

You meant you didn’t know if we were still going to be together.

BRYCE

Don’t put words in my mouth.

JULIAN

Then what did you mean?

BRYCE

Okay! Yes, I meant that.

JULIAN

Wow this is fucked up.

BRYCE

Can we finish the form so I can get my ankle x-rayed, please?

JULIAN

You’re not sure if we’re still going to be together, so why list me as an emergency contact, right?

BRYCE

I just told you to put yourself.

JULIAN

Not at first!

BRYCE

Babe, c’mon. My ankle is broken over here, I’m in no place to be talking about all of this right now. My head is all mixed up.

JULIAN

This kind of makes sense. You didn’t tell me about the promotion being official, and you want to burn me with a hot rod, apparently-

BRYCE

That was a joke!

(The NURSE re-enters with a small cup with two aspirin and a cup of water. They hand them to BRYCE.)

BRYCE

Thank you. You’re a life saver.

NURSE (pointedly)

That’s my job.

(The NURSE exits.)

BRYCE

Now you’ve made them mad and they’re going to charge me for like a sonogram and an ultrasound and all this other stuff-

JULIAN

So you don’t think we’re going to stay together?

BRYCE (definitive)

Jules, I can’t with this right now.

JULIAN

Why did you say “we’re not engaged”?

BRYCE

When?

JULIAN

Before. You were making the argument I should put your mother down on this line, and you said “we’re not engaged”.

BRYCE

Because we’re not.

JULIAN

All right. Another question: will you consider us an actual, real relationship once we are engaged?

BRYCE

Absolutely.

JULIAN

But we aren’t now?

BRYCE

I didn’t say that.

JULIAN

So then what are we?

(A beat. BRYCE looks back at the magazine.)

JULIAN

Are we roommates? A couple? “Seeing each other”? Fuck-buddies? Hmm? Huh?

BRYCE

What do you think happens when we run out of gold?

JULIAN

Bry. This is fucked up beyond belief.

BRYCE (turning to him)

I shouldn’t have said anything.

(A beat. JULIAN turns back to the form.)

JULIAN

I’m just going to put your mom.

BRYCE

Jules, don’t do that. Just put yourself.

JULIAN (turning to her, pointedly)

I’m putting your mother down on the line. End of discussion.

(A beat. JULIAN finishes filling out the form. He clicks the pen closed. The NURSE re-enters.)

NURSE

All set?

BRYCE

Looks like it.

NURSE (taking the clip board)

I don’t want you walking on that without support. Lemme drop these at the nurse’s station and I’ll come to help you to the x-ray machine. Be right back.

BRYCE

Thank you.

(A beat. They sit in silence for awhile.)

BRYCE

Julian?

JULIAN

I’d stab you. That’s my answer. I just carried you ten blocks to the ER, I’ve taken care of you, lifted you off the floor, paid for meals, compromised in a ton of ways, loved you unconditionally, including now, which has been pretty shitty. I wouldn’t shoot you because that would be quick. Shoving you down stairs or off a cliff would probably be a lot of build-up to not-that-satisfying a result. And you said burning, which I think is just fucking malicious. I’d probably stab you. Because it *is* a crime of passion and it would at least show you that I felt strongly enough about you. It’s personal, you know? Because I love you. And I could at least show you I loved you.

(A beat.)

BRYCE

Wow.

JULIAN

You wanted to know, so.

BRYCE (relishing it)

You’re a little fucked up inside, aren’t you?

JULIAN

I didn’t used to be. Before I met you.

(They sit in silence. The NURSE re-enters with the wheelchair.)

NURSE

All right, let’s get you kids out of here. (to JULIAN) You’ll have to wait out here. That okay?

JULIAN

Sure.

NURSE (holding out a hand for BRYCE)

Here we go.

(BRYCE stops the NURSE.)

BRYCE

Wait, I’m sorry- (to the NURSE) Why did the woman stab her husband?

NURSE

Oh, I really shouldn’t have said anything before. HIPAA and all that-

BRYCE

C’mon we won’t tell.

NURSE (thinking it over)

Well. You know? I like you two. (getting into the gossip of it all) I overheard her giving the police her statement. They’ve been together forty-five years, just celebrated their anniversary with some big party the other day, blah blah blah. And tonight she just snapped! Came into the living room, he’s sitting on the recliner watching some game show or something, eating the lasagna she made, and she comes into the room and asks him what he’s watching, and he tells her, she says “huh”, just kind uninterested, and then *BAM* stabs him right in the chest. One of the cops showed one of the other nurses the crime scene photos on his phone- blood right there, all over the chair and the lasagna! She didn’t even let him finish! But this part you really can’t tell anyone- it was because he was whistling.

BRYCE

Whistling?

NURSE

Yeah, he just kept whistling. All through the anniversary party, for the past month, as she tells it, he’s whistling over and over and he won’t stop. He was whistling that- what’s that kind of racist song from Disney that everyone was all up in arms about? They’re changing that ride?

BRYCE

Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah?

NURSE

Yes! That one! He’s whistling it over and over and over and, apparently, it’s driving her crazy, but she doesn’t tell him this. As she tells it to the cops, she actually kind of likes that song, racist issues aside. But tonight, for whatever reason, she lost it. But this part I can’t get over: the absolutely crazy part? She wants him to call her. She’s waiting at the police precinct and she wants him to call her when he gets out of surgery. Just make sure that he’s okay. And he said he would. The first call he’s going to make is to the woman who stabbed him.

(A beat.)

NURSE (finally)

Say what you want, love makes people do some fucked up things. Pardon my language. Anyways, I’m blabbing on here. Let’s get you all better.

(The NURSE helps BRYCE to her foot, supports her. BRYCE turns to JULIAN.)

BRYCE (scared)

Jules?

JULIAN

Yeah?

BRYCE

 You’ll wait out here for me?

JULIAN (seeing her fear)

Sure. I’ll be here.

BRYCE

Okay.

JULIAN

Okay. (reassuring) It’s all going to be fine.

BRYCE

Yeah?

JULIAN

I’ll wait right here for you.

NURSE (to BRYCE)

Ready?

BRYCE

Yes.

(They start to exit.)

BRYCE (to NURSE)

You know, you can tell my story to people if you want. It’s kind of funny.

NURSE

Oh, honey, your story is not that interesting. 

(They’re gone. JULIAN sits and stares for awhile. He exhales. He picks up the magazine BRYCE was reading earlier. He reads it. Lights down. End of play.)

For Life

Family

I was too young to know these things. They were my big, beautiful and exciting teenage stepsisters. I had inherited them overnight when our mothers fell in love and moved us all in together to that apartment on 15th street with the tall ceilings and steep winding stairs that led to a sunny patch of concrete backyard. There was passionate lovemaking in the bedroom in the middle of the night; I would wake up terrified, but Elizabeth and Traci always laughed and teased our mothers the following mornings about how loud they had been. I reassured myself that it must all be okay, normal. Maybe even funny.

We had cats, two or three, depending on the time of year. Traci would bring one home after finding it in the backyard crying for its lost mother: we have to take it in or it’ll die! I cuddled these creatures and talked to them during the long weekend afternoons when I waited patiently for some attention. I would sing to the cats softly, tell them my secrets and make cozy beds out of pillowcases for them.

Traci and Elizabeth had crazy 80’s haircuts, and clothes with lots of holes: gray, black, netted. I looked up to them and they mostly ignored me, except when they got jealous that I had a father who took me out to eat, who bought me presents, a father who had a stable home I could visit every other weekend.  Then they would make clear to me that I was a spoiled brat. I believed them, and longed to be close, to taste some of their wild teenage life that was still so far from me, to believe that I was part of something, and even if there were two moms, at least I had sisters that sat around the table with us at dinner time. I counted: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Family.

 

My Father Said

Elizabeth called my father to tell him they were leaving to go back to England, all three of them: her, Eve, and Traci. She sounded like she knew what she was talking about, my father said, and the tone of her voice almost convinced him it made sense that she would choose to call him of all people. As if she had even crossed his mind once over the past ten years.

“But did she say why she was calling you? Why you?” I tried to grasp this with all my might: My father, picking up the phone to hear a strange voice of a broken young woman who was the daughter of his ex-wife’s ex-lover. Telling him they were leaving the country. My father. Of  all people. And without any explanation.

“No, I just thought this was part of her mental issues––didn’t you tell me she’d been hospitalized before?” My father wanted nothing more to do with this.

“And your phone number. To think she kept it all these years!” How torn up Elizabeth was the last time I saw her. Her face, how it was puffy and white with a tight smile that never revealed her teeth.

I quickly placed a call to the woman who had once been a type of stepmother to me, a mother-woman caring for me alongside my fiery and anxious mother. I was worried that she and Elizabeth might have already left for England and I would lose that part of my life forever. It had been years since we had last spoken, but I always kept her latest number in my address book. I dialed the digits between short breaths. Eve answered the phone, her voice the same wavy voice, only older. Shakier, but clearer.

 

McDonald’s

Eve had to pick him up in a Mcdonald’s parking lot. You wouldn’t believe it, Naomi, it was so clandestine. She tells me the story shot by shot:

“Uh, yes, Ms. P? I’m calling to inform you that your daughter Traci was taken to jail this morning. We’re contacting you to request you take your grandson in until your daughter’s situation is figured out. There’s no court date yet, but the baby is with a social worker ready to be handed over.”

Eve had no car seat, of course, so she borrowed the one the social worker had with her and promised to return it the following day. The woman looked at her with pity so deep that Eve sensed she was new at her job––the way she handed over the baby, right there in a Mcdonald’s parking lot, and looked Eve in the eye, taking out a business card and handing it to her.

“He’s very lucky to have a grandma to take care of him. Please call if you need support, the district will be contacting you to notify you on the status of your daughter.”

Elizabeth, fresh out of the mental ward after another attempt at slitting her wrists, heard her baby nephew cry all night from her room, next to her mother’s. Eve didn’t tell her why baby Daniel was staying the night; she had to be careful not to upset her.

But Elizabeth felt that something was wrong, she knew there was a reason why her sister Traci hadn’t been returning her calls like she always did, for Traci knew these calls kept her alive, away from the razors and the pills and the hospital. As Elizabeth lay in bed, the baby’s voice carrying through the wall, she wanted to pound the wall with her fist, pound hard, maybe break a hole with a bloody knuckle. Mother, I cannot sleep, get that baby out of here. She tried to remember the last time she had spoken to Traci, was it last week when she called to tell her the baby was starting to crawl? Was it that short conversation on Sunday, or Saturday morning when Traci asked her to hold on, then muffled the phone and never came back? She remembered the voice in the background, unhappy, starting out in a slicing whisper, then getting louder until the phone line had clicked softly, both Traci’s voice and the muffled sound disappearing at once.

 

White Trash

Traci had another child before Daniel. Her name was Jessica and she was the reason Traci was in jail. When Jessica was three, Traci took her and left. Jessica’s father knew she must be heading back to England where she had family and could live off of the state. He didn’t try to stop her. He wasn’t worried about Traci’s drinking; he hadn’t thought it had much to do with her changing moods, or the distance between them that had grown so wide he could hardly feel her absence when she finally left. There was nothing there anymore, nothing between them; he couldn’t make himself feel sad or angry, he just looked at Jessica’s untouched toys, still spread around the stained grayish-blue wall-to-wall carpet as she had left them. He tossed them all in a big trash bag and shoved them into the closet. Better for a daughter to be with her mother.

Traci was pregnant with Jessica the last time I saw her. I was a teenager trying to connect the pieces of my childhood, longing to feel a connection to this young woman who I used to call my step sister. My mother dropped me off at a motel-style apartment building in the middle of nowhere, where Traci and her big belly greeted me and introduced me to the man she would soon leave who was sitting in front of a TV blasting in the background, cheap posters on the walls, piles of pink clothes for the baby. Was this what she had become? Is this what people call white trash? I wondered, immediately feeling ashamed for the thought. The attempt was in the air––she made us tea with milk and sugar, pouring the milk in first before the hot water just like her mother always did when I was a little girl. The Red Rose tea collection of porcelain animals lining the kitchen window sill took me back to the years we lived together when we lived in the City with our two moms in a bohemian apartment in the Mission, in the 80’s, when I was too young to understand anything but she had already been through it all.

She thanked me for visiting her that day, her belly about to burst––it meant a lot to her, and even though she hadn’t been in touch with me for many years, she always thought of me as her little sister, and remembered how I would make her laugh when I was such a silly, silly girl.

 

In Jail

Daniel was two and a half when I called Eve to see if they had already left to go to England, all of them, like Elizabeth had told my father on the phone when she called out of the blue.

“No, Naomi, we’re not moving, Elizabeth imagines things. I was shocked when she told me she had called your father. She was trying to reach out, I guess.”

“So she’s still not doing well.”

“No. She just came out of the hospital after being there for five weeks. It’s really hard to talk about.”

“Wow, I’m sorry to hear. She’s so lucky to have you there for her.”

“Yeah, that’s what I am most grateful about, that I’m stable, finally, after all these years. How are you doing? How’s your mother?”

“We’re good, my mom’s the same. We’re good. And Traci – how’s she doing? Last time we talked she had a baby boy, right?”

“Aaah, Naomi ,” Eve paused and breathed long and hard, “Traci…well, Traci’s in jail.”

 

Photo

It’s all over the Internet: the mother who sold her daughter’s body for drugs, there’s evidence. The girl came out and told her father everything, how her mother allowed men to come in and rape her, how her mother’s new boyfriend raped her, how her mother just watched from the side. The mother pleads innocent, the mother has another child, a boy, from the man who is also in jail, accused of raping his stepdaughter when she lived with them, before her mother sent her to live with her father because she just couldn’t take care of her anymore.

There’s a photo. She is looking straight at me from my computer, from court. It really is her. She looks the same, just older. And vacant. But I can still hear her deep laugh, a stark contrast to this sullen face online. And I see her crooked teeth exposed as she’s laughing–maybe she’s drunk, I realize now, maybe high. I was too young to know these things.

If our mothers had stayed together, if that last breakup had been like all the previous ones, ending in a passionate, dramatic reappearance of Eve and her daughters in my life; if Eve had been given her stabling medication sooner so my mother could stand to live with her; if she were always as charming as she was on the upside of her illness, full of ideas and desires, and love, and laughter; if we had remained a family; if Traci had me to look down on, or my mother to give her more of what she needed; if there had been a real home purchased together instead of deserted apartments that she could never call home; if there were more family dinners. Maybe then she wouldn’t have needed alcohol and drugs, so much that she forgot that she had a tender side to her, that she was really excited about having Jessica when I visited her in that trashy motel apartment, the crib set up, actually glowing in her pregnancy.

 

Innocent

Eve says the girl made it all up: Jessica was angry that her mother sent her to live with her father, she was still a virgin, she was a liar, her father was out to get Traci as well, still angry at her for leaving, crazy motherfucker, made her tell these lies.

Eve defends her own daughter, tells me Traci is innocent and her poor granddaughter made up these lies because she was jealous of her mother’s new life, husband and baby; the jury couldn’t find enough evidence and they were waiting on another trial, the bail too high for her to get her daughter out. She’s still a virgin, Naomi.

I listen, the words running around in my head. I knew this person, I shared a life with her, I was a little girl with her, I proudly called her my sister when I was holding on to things to call my own. I listen to Eve, telling me how beautiful Daniel is, how he has taken her bedroom for himself and he keeps her going, taking care of a little boy at her age. He’ll be wheeling me around in a wheelchair one of these days. She laughs.

I tell her I will call again soon, I will think good thoughts and send them her way. I know she needs it; I know how she will hang up the phone and almost pick it up again to call my mother after all these years, but she won’t, she can’t bear to tell her all of this, and then wonder herself what could have been, what should have been, what might have saved her two broken daughters if she had only taken care of herself sooner.

 

Dark Circles

My mother hasn’t been able to sleep since I told her about Traci being in jail.

“You should call Eve, mom, you really should. I mean, her daughter’s in jail.”

My mother is sitting across from me, a big plate of pie and ice cream between us. I asked her to join me, so we could talk. It’s been hard for me to digest it all too.

“I know I should.” She’s quiet for a long moment.

“Was there anything so obviously wrong with Traci when we lived together?” I break the silence, “I mean, I was too young to know these things, but did you notice anything?”

My mother’s face is still, she picks at the pie crust with her fork absentmindedly. “Not really, Naomi. She did drink as a teenager, but teenagers drink, you know?”

“You must feel so lucky, mom. I mean, think of Eve: two daughters, each one more fucked up than the other— ”

“Oh, come on, it’s a totally different story. You had support they never had. You had a father growing up, your mother wasn’t crazy, you had a completely different childhood. It’s not about luck.”

I lower my gaze and stare at the polished wooden restaurant table, holding in my words, knowing this is not the time to bring stuff up again. I was getting too old for accusations, and it was true, I did have a father, and unlike the stories I had heard about their early childhood, my father never hit me. Luck would have to stay out of this.

“So, do you think it’s true?” I lift my eyes to meet hers, dark circles around them. “Is it true?! I mean, if we didn’t know her we’d be cursing her way to hell, hoping she never sees the light of day again!”

“But we do know her. And if she was so addicted to drugs, I mean — why not just sell her own body?”

“I don’t know, Naomi, I don’t know. How can we understand something like this? It’s Traci’s own daughter, for God’s sake; would a daughter make something like this up?”

“That’s what Eve said. Mom, she said Jessica was checked, and she was still a virgin—”

“So what? God, you’re so naïve. You’ve always been.” My mother pushes the plate away from her and sits back in her chair, head turned sideways. I know she’s thinking of Traci in that cell, and Eve coming to visit her — an aging Eve, bloated from her medication, not the woman she had once loved. She sees Eve sitting with her grandson and daughter during visiting hours, trying to be cheerful for Traci, to give her hope. My mother is asking herself how in the world she would bring herself to make the call she could no longer escape.

 

Her Cell

Traci thinks about me in prison. When she sits in her cell, when she’s out in the yard, when she waits for a whole week for her mother to come visit with Daniel. I know she thinks of me; I have at least crossed her mind, even after all of these years. When she thinks about being in this place for the rest of her life if she is found guilty, she sees her life, all the years flashing before her, in no particular order, leaving out some places that she can’t remember anymore, but she remembers me and my mother, and she thinks of me. I am in her mind as she sits waiting for her next meal, for the next meeting with her lawyer. She remembers her teenage life before she met Jessica’s father, before she started drinking. She remembers our last visit, when she was almost bursting with Jessica in her womb, and she can’t believe I have children of my own now. She regrets never calling me after that last visit, not sending me photos of Jessica growing up. Traci thinks of how you never know what will finally do you in, of how she stood there with me, carrying her daughter whose words have now locked her up in jail, how she suffered through all-day morning sickness for her, how she tore so badly at childbirth that she had to sit on pillows for months, how she nursed until she could no longer stand the pulling sensation on her breasts, how she never quite felt the same after Jessica came into the world.  In her now clear mind, she can see that she never fully got back on her feet, that the alcohol was becoming more and more of her life. And the phone calls she would make to her mother, who was always moving around — still, after all these years — and who could never tell her when she was coming to visit, when she could help with the baby; she was not feeling well, had been to the doctor, they’re trying a new medication, it will all be fine soon, hang in there, give your daughter all I couldn’t give you and your sister, please.

 

Strawberry blond

Every week Eve visits Traci in prison. They still haven’t got her for life, she keeps telling herself. She takes Daniel to see his mother, takes Daniel for his mother to see: He keeps growing, mom; I never noticed it when he was with me. It’s amazing how my heart aches at night in the cell when I think of him, and how I didn’t give a shit’s fuck about him before.

She takes two buses to get to the prison. She prefers not to drive on those days; it makes it more special. She can hold Daniel close to her on the way there and back, and she can cry out the window without worrying about getting into an accident. It gives her time to digest, to process.

When she tries to remember the last time she saw her daughter so clean, so clear in the eyes, the only pictures that come to her are of Traci’s childhood, with her strawberry blond hair curling around her head. She can almost smell her, the sweetness of her first born, always happy and cheery, unlike Elizabeth who followed quickly after a year and half, born with that serious look on her face, sitting and drawing for hours, then crumpling up her work and running out to look up at the sky.

Eve kisses the back of her grandson’s head as they make their way back from the prison home, whispering into his silky-soft brown hair. They haven’t gotten her for life.

Signed With Love

I am staring down at my grandmother’s sunken face.

 

She wears her FitBit on her wrist, the same amethyst-filled rings she always wore, and her hair is spiked like usual. Only today, the tips of her hair are purple.

“Do you like it?” my mother asks between sniffles. I nod my head.

“She always wanted purple hair,” I say as I gently touch the purple spikes. I look back at my mother. Her bottom lip is quivering.

I leave her standing by herself at her mother’s casket and join my brothers by a television screen. A slideshow of us—my grandmother’s grandchildren—plays with soft music. Photos of her holding me as a baby come onto the screen, and I find myself walking away once again. She took care of you when you were a baby, because I had to stay in the hospital with Noah. You got to go home to your grandmother first.

I think of all the stories my mother has told me in the past few days: stories of when my twin brother and I were born, and how my grandmother was the one to take care of me. She never put you down, because if she did, you would start crying. She’d sit in that rocking chair for hours with you. Call you her baby; her favorite.

The day my mother told me this was the day that my grandmother could no longer hold her head up on her own. Bedridden in the living room, a remote-controlled hospice bed was the only way we could get her to sit up. The rocking chair sat in the same corner as always, unmoved. “Just let her be,” my uncle said to my mother. She was holding the remote control in her hand and the bed was slowly raising my grandmother’s head. We could hear her groans, but her mouth didn’t move. It remained in a half-opened gape.

“She doesn’t like it. She’s uncomfortable,” my uncle continued.

My mother, who wanted to sit her up to try to get her to eat, looked defeated.

It’s no use. I could hear it in my uncle’s tone of voice, see it in my mother’s face as tears rolled down her cheeks. There will be no miracle.

*

 

I backed into my mother’s car. My grandmother was dying and Mom was giving her a sponge bath when it happened.

I was in a rush to leave the farmhouse I had found myself crying in far too often. My brother had a basketball game; it was my excuse to get out of the living room that had turned into my grandmother’s terminal abode. I was in a rush.

I wasn’t thinking.

I didn’t look in the rearview mirror.

When I heard the crash, I pictured everything that could have happened. Everything besides what I had actually done.

A car came into the driveway and hit me. The pole in the yard was closer than I thought. I didn’t hit anything. The sound came from something else.

All of these thoughts rushed through my head in a matter of seconds. I looked in the rearview mirror.

Behind me sat my mother’s silver Subaru Legacy.

How could I have forgotten that she parked behind me? She parked in front of me last night. I just wasn’t thinking. My mind was stuck in yesterday.

I could feel the tears stinging my eyes as I made the walk back to my grandmother’s porch. My uncle was in the kitchen when I stepped back into the house.

“Did you forget something?” he asked. Then he saw my tears.

“Could you get Mom for me?” I asked. I found it hard to speak. My breaths sounded like hiccups, or gasps for air.

He left to grab my mother. She returned with him.

“What happened? Did you hit my car?” She seemed to already know.

“I’m sorry,” I replied. “I just wasn’t thinking straight. I thought you were parked somewhere else. I’m sorry.”

She tugged on her boots. “Go sit with Gaga,” she told me, then walked out the door.

I went to the living room alone. I didn’t notice until I had reached my grandmother that I had kept my shoes on—something I never would have done months ago. She is still here. This is still her house. You should take your shoes off.

She didn’t seem to notice my shoes. She was sitting in front of the television on a portable toilet with her yellow pajama pants pulled down to the floor. Her hands were folded in her lap to cover herself. A bucket of steamy soapy water sat on the floor next to her.

This was only days before she could no longer hold herself up. “Come here, hon,” she said. “Give me a hug.”

I gently wrapped my arms around her from the side. Her hair, which was usually spiked and crunchy to the touch, was soft and yielding against my cheek.

“I don’t want to be like this, Riah. I hate this.”

Her confiding in me was quick. When I let go of her she turned her attention to my mistake.

“Shit happens, Riah. It’s just a car.”

“I know,” I replied. “I’m just so mad at myself.”

“Don’t be, hon. Your mother will get over it.”

*

 

“She looks beautiful.”

This is the third, fourth, maybe even fifth time I’ve heard someone say this. They stand over the casket, looking down at the body that is supposed to be my grandmother but does not look like her—a face that seems to be missing something: her puffy red cheeks, the fuzzy blonde hair that surrounded her mouth, a smirk that indicated that she always had something ornery to say.

“She looks good, Jul,” I hear someone say to my mom. I hear her sniff.

When no one is standing at the casket, my brothers and I walk over together. Gabe points at the FitBit that is on her wrist.

“Wait, they’re burying that?” he whispers. Noah and I look at each other.

“Yes, Gabe. It was hers,” I tell him. I save him the admonishment I would have given at any other time but now.

There is no heartbeat for the FitBit to read.

She had asked me to go to Dick’s Sporting Goods to buy her the FitBit that is now forever wrapped around her wrist. She loved to track her steps and tell us how many miles she had walked. She must have felt that she was accomplishing something; becoming healthier in her old age. She had beat cancer. What couldn’t she do?

It just had to come back. She thought she was in the clear.

I wonder how long the battery in the fitBit will last before it shuts off forever. I wonder if thousands of years from now someone will exhume her and be in awe of the technology that we buried our dead with. Will her tattoos fade to nothing? Will they be able to make out what they once looked like? I wonder what else they will find in the caskets of others. Or won’t find.

*

 

I have her crooked teeth. I have her green eyes.

I have her light brown hair that I’ve seen in pictures of her, where she is in her twenties and as ornery as ever.

When I am shown a picture of her standing in the yard with her long, light brown hair and a striped, two-piece bathing suit, I think for a second that I am looking at a picture of myself.

The hair to the waist.

The hand on the hip.

The green eyes.

The smile.

It is me.

I want to keep this fragment of her. Piece together every detail and clearly picture her as a twenty-year-old woman. Reveal some indication of who I should be.

*

 

“You can have anything you want,” Gaga tells me. “Don’t be shy.”

I’m 11 years old, staying the night at my grandmother’s house. A girl’s night is what she called it when she told my grandpa that he would have to sleep on the couch. I want my granddaughter next to me.

I wonder if my grandpa is mad that I am taking his bed, but Gaga doesn’t seem to be worried. She continues to search through her jewelry box as I sit on her bed, showing me necklaces that she thinks I might like.

“What about this gold locket?” she asks. “There’s no photo in it, but it’s still pretty on the outside.”

She hands the necklace to me, and I open it anyway, finding nothing inside.

“You can have it,” she says. “It was my mother’s, your great grandma.”

I think to myself that I will never wear this necklace. that I won’t risk losing it, or breaking it, or tangling it. I play with the locket some more, opening and closing it, then set it aside on her bed.

“Now what about some perfume?” she asks. “Do you have any?”

“Just lotion,” I say, and she shakes her head.

“Well, this one is a must-have.” She shows me a bottle that is labeled “Tommy Girl.” She takes the cap off and sprays my neck.

“Smell good?” she asks. I nod.

“Then it’s yours.” She puts the cap back on and adds the perfume to my pile of new belongings.

In the morning, after eating breakfast at Bob Evans, Gaga drops me off at home. My mother is at the door to greet me.

“I missed you!” she says as she hugs me. “Did you have fun?”

“Yeah,” I reply as I wave at the forest green Subaru that drives away. I hold up the gift bag full of my new items. “Gaga gave me a ton of stuff.”

Mom rolls her eyes. “Of  course she did.”

*

 

“You need to come to the hospital after you get off work,” my mother texts me. “She wants to see you.”

It’s the middle of January and there’s snow on the ground when I begin to drive down the road. I feel the hot tears fall down my face, knowing this can’t be good. I feel my lotion coming off in the sweat of my hands, making them slip on the steering wheel.

She’s going to be fine. She has to be. How can I live without her?

When I see the bright yellow Mcdonald’s sign at the end of town, I realize that I passed the hospital. I turn into the nearest gas station and head back towards the hospital, admonishing myself for wasting precious time.

When I walk into her room, my mother is sitting on a green couch. Gaga is lying in the bed, sitting up, talking with my mother.

“Why are you crying?” she asks me when I walk into the room. I walk to the side of the bed and hug her.

“I’m not going anywhere,” she says to me. “Stop crying.”

I nod, then sit next to my mother on the couch. They continue their conversation that they were having before. Although there is an IV in her hand, Gaga still runs it through her hair. Although there is no gel in her hair, it still stands up straight.

Within 24 hours we will be told that she has six months or less.

Within a week she will be gone.

*

 

When calling hours are over, we begin collecting the scraps of my grandmother’s life that had been on display: baby photos, photos of her holding her grandchildren, scrapbooks of trips to Disney World, and pamphlets that read Heather Lenore.

For a moment it seems that everyone has stopped crying.

“What time do we have to be back here tomorrow?” I ask Mom as she closes one of the scrapbooks.

“Nine,” she replies. “Maybe earlier.”

Once everything has been picked up, my mother goes to thank the pastor. I stand in the doorway with my brothers. We look over at our grandmother before leaving. The idea of leaving her alone is haunting—a strange feeling that comes with the realization that her body is not under our care anymore.

Here lays a woman that would fall asleep in the tattoo chair.

*

 

My mother asks me to speak at the funeral. I write what I want to say in the notes on my phone.

I find myself struggling to breathe as I talk to my family and friends.

I don’t think about the consequences of cursing in a church as I talk about my grandmother.

I think that maybe the only reason I still want to believe in God is because I want to see my grandmother again.

I tell everyone that my grandmother was the kind of person who would flip other drivers off with a crooked middle finger, put her Subaru in Sport mode, and pass them on Johnson Road. She was the kind of person to tell you how it is. She always had something to say. She always told you she loved you.

I was the kind of person that sat next to her in the passenger seat, giggling as we flew down Johnson. I was the granddaughter that she talked to about sex, smoking weed, and how ugly cancer can be. I was the person she wanted to see as she was dying, but the person that she did not want seeing her.

I wish I had kept more remnants of you. Every now and then I find a birthday card from years ago. Your nickname, Gaga, signed with love.

Mariah Heather Lanzer. In between who I am and my family name is the woman that I search for.

Words From a Midwest Farm Wife

for a traveling circus acrobat

 

You swing here from the East
where nothing is dusty —

just diesel and domes. Where
church spires are syringes

flushed from earth like
strung-out doves, pinpricked

vessels of stupor. Here, cows
cluster in gangs. They chaw

and low. I wish you’d unhook
my blouse, sewn from spit

and calico. But aloft, you sweat
your way through your spiraling

grabs: hand, twist, air — hand.
The dumb meat weight of you

pikes, curls back on itself
like a peeled plum’s skin —

one scared to be caught
staring by the knife. Still

what’s left to risk, or fear? Fists,
maybe. Rope burn. The perpetual

stink of pigs and tractor grease. More
bars like the one you hang from,

showman. But the Big Top’s got
spicier acts than you. Lions seethe

on their stools, their tails like scythes
to slash wheat. And clowns boil

from their red-hot car. They pop
and roll like bath plugs, yanked

from scalded sinks. So, what
would it take for you to blister

your own way down
past the net — the shock

on our Midwestern faces? Are you brave
enough to strike

up a homestead here, in the flattest
form of sky? Fall upwards

at us, like haystacks made you
some sawdust promise: that a girl

would catch you in her
burlap sack. No greater show on

earth: not milk barns. Not flies.
No need to scream on your arrival.

 

In the Stairwell of the Museum of Modern Art

“I will die completely cured.”
-Salvador Dali

On our last night we stared for five minutes at van Gogh’s Skull
of a Skeleton with Burning Cigarette & I asked if he meant it
as an anti-smoking lesson. Libby laughed, her hair like Clouds
-era Joni Mitchell buoyant as her shoulders shook. We spent

that summer cross-legged in front of paintings she translated
into poems: Landscapes are like sonnets, she would say, & Dali
paints only odes. I nodded, told her how close I was to getting it:
a job, an apartment, the shortest route uptown & up the back

stairwell to meet her, how to write poems that could be headed
by brutal stick-figure scenes instead of titles. Human sculptures
creeped me out the most, the threat of having my head forever
rolled & bronzed. What greater gift could there be than being

forgotten? Maybe Dali meant our greatest cures are red velvet
curtains in a windowless room, an underground tomb guarded
in eternity by a terra-cotta infantry. & above ground, we remain
defenseless, picking up what’s within reach. This knife is just

a bullhorn I sharpened with my teeth. Running away is a retreat
only if announced by a bugle & a band of screams. Maybe
Dali meant dying too is a cure. Libby would know. Beneath
the trees in the sculpture garden, she would say What he meant

is a prose poem with no line breaks. Her hands over my eyes,
she would whisper What he meant is I get a head start this time,
then race ahead of me, her laugh careening beyond the weeping
beeches & into the narrow streets, a parade at last unloosed.

Bear Spotted in Delmar

headline from a small-town newspaper

 

I imagine your breath smells —
though I’ve never seen you close

enough to sniff you, or even
wave to you from a window

of a car, piloted by me or another
daylight driver. Though once, long

ago, at summer camp, I saw a horse
wipe its dripping snot on a girl’s

sheer skirt. It was more of a slide
than a swipe, but still. We shrieked.

The girl never returned: she’d been
dismissed for her behavior

a tale that went unshared
with the bulk of us, left snorting

at the hinted story. So why
does your foray into town

seem funnier than any news
I’ve read today? You’ve emerged before

in various guises — suitor with an accent;
a lost clown in Groucho Marx glasses —

all through the state
of banked hay and confusion

that can mark a rural life. Pity the ripe
bear, grabbing at loaves

of stone-soft bread from the counter
of growled hopes: at the scent

of stale humor, thin mockery
and rank, timid despair. It will go hungry.