MIRAGE _________________2010

Literary & Arts Magazine

Cochise CollegeCochise & Santa Cruz Counties, Arizona

Editors Faculty AdvisorsChrista Crowell Shirley NeeseCappy Love Hanson Jeff SturgesAjaa Jackson Jay Treiber

Rick Whipple

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Front and Back CoverArt: “Up Clawson” by Jan SearleCover Design: Rick Whipple

Acknowledgements

For their help in producing the magazine, the Mirage staff would like to thank the following people: Keith Ringey and Juan Zozaya for printing; the staff of the Copper Queen Library, Bisbee, for use of the meeting room; and Dennis Gordon, Doris Jensen, Ceci Lewis, Elizabeth Lopez, Diane Nadeau, Shirley Neese, and George Self for proofreading.

Creative Writing Celebration Winners

Mirage publishes the first-place winners of the previous year’s Cochise Community Creative Writing Celebration competitions in poetry, fiction, and nonfiction, if available. The Celebration takes place in late March/early April and is produced by Cochise College, the University of Arizona South, and the City of Sierra Vista. The following are the winners of last year’s competitions:

Poetry: “Refuge, Las Vegas, New Mexico” by Cappy LoveHanson

Fiction: “Snake Picture” by Cappy Love HansonNonfiction: “Tricky” by Kathy Swackhamer

Mirage Mission Statement

Mirage Literary and Arts Magazine has a three-part mission:

1. It serves Cochise and Santa Cruz Counties by showcasing high-quality art and literature produced by community mem-bers.

2. It serves Cochise College by establishing the College as the locus of a creative learning community.

3. It further serves Cochise College students by providing them an opportunity to earn college credit and gain academic and professional experience through their participation in all aspects of the production of the literary and arts magazine.

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Font

This year’s Mirage is printed in Palatino Linotype, a Renaissance-influenced serif typeface designed by Hermann Zapf and released in 1948. It mimics the letters formed by a broad-nib pen.

Copyright Notice

All rights herein are retained by the individual author or artist. No part of this magazine may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without writ-ten permission of the author or artist, except for limited scholarly or reference purposes, to include citation of date, page, and sourcewith full acknowledgement of title, author, and edition. Printed in the United States of America.

© Cochise College 2010

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Table of Contents

Literature Rain HarvestDeborah Girard 1

Placed in the BrainMichael Gregory 1

Judgement DayStephen Bovée 2

One YearLavendra Copen 10

IllusionDorothy Stroud 11

Art Chapel Chair with Candle at Canelo

Richard Byrd 12Lucy with Pearls

Lindsay Janet Roberts 13Green-Eyed Lady

Lindsay Janet Roberts 13Artist’s Sphinx

Christina Molidor 14Up Clawson

Jan Searle 15Taking the High Road

Jan Searle 16Jay Chafin, Tailor, Cannery Row

Richard Byrd 17Winter’s Wings

Christina Molidor 18

Literature SurmiseDorothy Stroud 19

TrickyKathy Swackhamer 20

Refuge, Las Vegas, New MexicoCappy Love Hanson 24

David’s HaircutDonna Naa 25

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Last-Night RadioMimi Ferraro 27

MothsLavendra Copen 28

Drinking Gin with Joshin Muskegon

Kevin McBeth 29Real Characters

Harvey Stanbrough 32

Art CobblestonesChristina Molidor 36

TwistedCrow Dicehart 37

Ice FishingLaurie McKenna 37

Pallid Bat CruisingRobert J. Luce 38

UntitledPat Cole 39

Rose Johnson Paintingthe Jonquil Motel Mural

Richard Byrd 40

Literature Of CatholicismNadine Lockhart 41

The Death of a Small GirlMolly Harrico 42

Snake PictureCappy Love Hanson 44

UntitledMolly Harrico 50

Biographical Information 52

About Mirage 55

Submission Guidelines 55

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Rain HarvestDeborah Girard

Tata’s porch roof leaksRain splash on ceramic tilesRusted pails fill fast

Placed in the BrainMichael Gregory

so might some actual manhave spokenYeats

Placed in the brainBy Plato, confined

by process of elimination

to the pinealby Descartes,

locatedby Aquinas

throughout the bodytill death do them,

progressivelymore tangible

liberatedfrom the conviction

that only ideasare real.

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Judgement DayStephen Bovée

I rolled over with a groan and died, and then things started hap-pening very fast. For a brief instant, I floated upward, and then I wasmoving through space—I mean quick. I was hurtling. I went streakingthrough the void like a beam of light on fire. The universe rushed byin the manner of a speeded-up film: galaxies, nebulae, vast whirlpoolsof stars and matter—all sorts of astronomical stuff. It made me dizzy;I got vertigo just looking at the supernovas flash by, spraying sparksand burnt-out planets. It was exhilarating, but it was scary, too, in away. It was all so huge and overwhelming, you know. But the really,really scary part began when I soared in for a landing (there was akind of a cosmic runway out there, made of mother-of-pearl and linedwith blue lights; it seemed a logical place to touch down) and fetchedup against God.

The last thing I ever expected! You see, I’d never believed in thefellow. But there He was, big as life, and scowling. “Big as life” doesn’t convey it very well. He was huge. Sitting down, He measuredabout twenty-five thousand feet high, as best as I could judge. Hishead was so high it poked up over a layer of clouds that formed aboutHis breast. Perspective made Him look all out of proportion. I landeda couple thousand yards back from the throne, and from where Istood, His toes loomed up out of gargantuan sandals like the faces onMt. Rushmore. Horrible things, from that angle. His head lookedmiles away—hell, it was miles away. I said He was scowling. Boy, wasHe ever. He had that I’m-very-disappointed-in-you,-young-man look,sorrow mingled with wrath, and He was rhythmically flexing Hisgiant toes the way a cat flexes its tail. It scared me. You’d betterbelieve it scared me, that hard look. But He let it go on a bit too long,and little by little, the dread started to give way to boredom. Thatstern dad act gets old pretty fast—I don’t care who is putting it on. Ihad time to give the old boy a good once-over, Him and his chair. Thething was gaudy with diamonds and emeralds and gold; no tellingwhat it would be worth back on Earth. Yet one of the legs was sprung.That wasn’t the only jarring note. His toes, massive as they were, hadyellow nails. They say it’s some kind of fungus that does it, I don’tknow. I didn’t expect it here, anyway. The sandals were impressiveenough, and the shimmery robe, which would have looked plain silly

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on anybody else, gave Him a look of real authoritative dignity. Andof course, His face was awe-inspiring. At first glance, that is. Thosebeetling brows, those blazing eyes, that noble nose! That leoninemane of hair! But His beard—well, let’s face it, long, stringy beardsdon’t look good on anyone. It was kind of nasty, to be honest. It didn’t look especially clean, for one thing, and could have used acombing—was that a bug I saw in there?—no, it was a human, anaked woman. She looked frightened and skinny and wretched. Oureyes met across all that distance, and she gave me an imploring lookwhile pressing a finger to her lips. I gave her the slightest of sympa-thetic nods (hoping The Big Guy didn’t notice) and she burrowed herway back into the hairs.

All this inspection didn’t take more than a second or two. Butnow the toes stopped flexing, and my attention sharpened up in ahurry. Unless I missed my guess, it meant He was about to speak.And so He began—speaking, I mean. How to describe it? It was like ahundred thousand jet planes taking off at once. Yet He wasn’t bellow-ing; it was just His normal tone. Well, what kind of voice would youexpect out of a monster that size?

He bracketed me with His fierce gaze (which caused me toshrivel a bit, you can be sure) and opened His stupendous mouth todraw a breath, and the vast suction almost pulled me in; then He letout a roaring blast of wind that sent me spinning the other way. “IHAVE REVIEWED YOUR LIFE,” He began, in awful tones, “AND IHAVE COME TO A JUDGEMENT.”

This was it, I thought in a panicky flash. The big moment, andno time to prepare!

“YOU,” He thundered, “HAVE NOT BEEN A VERY GOODMAN.” And I will drop the capitals here, so long as you understandthat the volume continued undiminished.

“Yes,” I said, trying to keep my feet. It was true. That brought anunexpected pang, and I was ashamed.

“You have had many opportunities to do good, and yet you per-sisted in doing wrong.”

“Yes. Yes, I certainly did.”“You have sinned. You have lusted after women. You have

drunk and stolen and lied.”All true.“You have used My name in vain. You have mocked the

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righteous and turned your back on the needy. You have cast aside thegarments of holiness and reveled in filth. You have . . .”

You know, along at first, I was feeling very low about all this, butthe more He got to talking, the less effect it had on me. It was thesame mistake as He made before with His gaze: He overplayed Hishand. Blah blah blah, yammer yammer yammer, on and on He went.It got ridiculous after a while. Just pure nitpicking. He laid into me forcoveting my neighbor’s oxen, for God’s sake.

So after about ten minutes of this, I just had to put a stopper in it. I cupped my hands and yelled as loud as I could, “All right, guilty ascharged!”

He jerked and glared, and I regretted being so cheeky. I had toremind myself I was playing a most dangerous game. It was still hardto grasp, you understand, that all this Heavenly-Father business wastrue—yet in my post-death heightened state of awareness, I knew itwas no illusion, and it was true. Those old Bible-thumpers had it rightall the time; you had to hand it to them. What a dismal prospect. But(my mind was racing) there was one small ray of hope in the situation.Scriptural literalness had some interesting implications. It meant thatthe figure on the throne was omniscient, omnipotent, immortal, andinfinitely vindictive. It also meant He was a giant dunce.

“You freely confess your sins?” He roared.“Sure.”“You know that I can see into your heart, that no secret can be

concealed from Me.”“I suppose not.”“The face of wickedness cannot be hidden. And confession with-

out contrition is a sin in and of itself. Yet you dissemble. You presumeto lie in My Almighty presence! You seal your doom, wretch. Aban-don yourself to everlasting despair, for I damn you and cast you intoHell for an eternity.” Daft bugger, He meant it! He lifted His mon-strous foot. The shadow of it darkened the ground for miles around.He was intending to squash me like a bug, or a worm, or something.

“Hold on! Not so fast! I’ve got something important to say.”The foot kept coming.“I warn you, you’d better not!”“WHAT!?” His shriek almost rent the cosmos. “Are you threaten-

ing Me, insect?”“Of course I’m not threatening You. I wouldn’t dream of it. I’ve

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always looked up to You,” I added, with a slobbery, fawning smile.At least I had Him talking. I was thinking hard, trying to remembereverything I could about this character—not very much, unfortunate-ly. Why, oh why, had I frittered away my earthly days on vain pur-suits when I could have been studying the Bible, looking for Hisweaknesses? Oh well, it was too late for regrets. To hell with it, any-way—He said He could read my mind, and He probably could.

“All right,” I said, ”You’ve got a point. I didn’t always measureup to what I should have, and I’ll admit it. But who are You, anyway,to condemn me? I didn’t create this mess, You did—and You saw fitto throw in a lot more stupidity and cruelty than was strictly neces-sary, I might add. I’m just a little part of Your botched experiment.Don’t blame me for being defective. I didn’t make myself. And if Youthink I’m going to take the fall for Your lousy workmanship, You’recrazier than a shithouse rat!”

His guffaw was like a million sour trumpets. “Is that your ideaof an intellectual riposte? I’ve heard more sophisticated argumentsout of eight-year-olds!”

“I notice You didn’t answer the question.”“I advise you not to go debating theology with Me, puny man.”“Who better?”“Your childish logic does not interest Me.”“Maybe it’s the subject that’s childish.”“I don’t think you’ll find anything childish about Hell,” He said

ominously.“Just what I wanted to discuss with You! Let’s take the subject of

Hell—”“Let’s not. Do you have any idea how boring, how trivial this is

to Me? I’ve heard every argument, by people far, far abler than you, atrillion times over. The fact that I live forever does not make My timevalueless.”

“All I’m saying is, You owe Your creations certain obligations.”“Do I? You really think so? Watch.” He pursed His lips and

worked up a wad of spittle. You could see Him swishing it around.Then He blew out a froth into space; the spittle became planets, solarsystems, numberless worlds, inhabited and beautiful. (In my super-human, deceased state, I could see everything in detail.) Quadrillionsof creatures lived, loved, fought, and hoped: it all appeared before mein kaleidoscope fashion. But then the bearded titan lifted His hand,

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and from His fingertips flew quasar lightning, each bolt more power-ful than angelic hosts of hydrogen bombs, and in an instant all thoseworlds were blasted out of existence. “Do you see?” He said. “I create,I destroy; do you really suppose it means anything to Me?” He spatout a tiny leftover planet and pinched it to dust between His fingers.

“Well that’s cute. That’s just peachy. Nice show You put on, huh?What it tells me is that You’re a sociopath, a nihilist—not even thatprincipled. You’re a moral zero. And You call Yourself God!”

“You would do well to watch your tongue. I will not be mocked.”“Neither will I! You’ve got a lot of nerve passing judgement on

me. You’re not one bit better than I am. Bigger, sure. More powerful—no denying that. And You live a lot longer. So what! I’m supposed toworship a big galoot just because He’s big?”

“Fool! You think that’s all there is to it, do you? Size? Brutestrength?”

“It sure isn’t character!”“Your paltry mind is simply not equipped to apprehend My

immensity.” He thought for a moment. He was upset, you could tell.His brow was all knotted up, and the clouds around His breast wereturning black and spitting lightning. “Very well,” He said at last. “Youclaim to be My equal. Prove it! Take a sock at Me, I dare you. Give ityour best shot. We’ll have it out, mano a mano.”

“You’ve got to be joking. I might as well try hitting a mountain.”“Our disparity in size is meaningless. But if you wish, I’ll rectify it.

In fact, I’ll make you bigger than Me, if that makes you happy.” Hemade a curious pass in the air, and I began to rise; He was levitatingme up to His eye level. Hideous boils were breaking out all over myskin, and a horrible stench was gushing from my every pore. He wastrying to psych me out. “Let’s see,” He said lazily, “shall we playlarge—or small?” His eyeball up close was as big as a stadium. Icouldn’t even see His other eye; it was lost behind the Matterhorn ofHis nose. He winked, and the wind blowing off His immense eyelidwhirled me away, and I was falling . . .

. . . and shrinking. God was shrinking, too, even more swiftly thanI. Together we diminished in size until we were no larger than poppyseeds, then motes of dust; we shriveled to molecules, to atoms, everdown, down, down, into the quantum world, and there we stopped. Itwas all quite strange in that realm (difficult to describe), but I couldrecognize God’s mocking laugh, and recognize also that I was indeed

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larger than He, though only by a Planck length.And then we began to grow, shooting up so fast I lost my break-

fast before we were more than a few miles high. We rocketed up pastplanets and stars, accelerating, God growing a bit faster than I, so itwas all I could do to keep up with His ankles. I was the size of anordinary galaxy by now, but what of it?—He was the size of a galacticcluster. I caught Him, though, in the end. We were exactly matched,billions of light-years tall, both so huge we had to stoop a bit to fitinto the cosmos. He grinned and made one of His magic gestures,and I grew just a wee smidgeon more. It was done. I had two incheson Him now, two inches and an extra half-inch of reach.

“Satisfied?” He said with a smirk.“Perfectly.”“Then have at it, kiddo.”Oh, He was a tempting target. Oh, how I’d waited for this day.

I swung. I wound up halfway across the Universe, a right-hook hay-maker that would have flattened . . . well, God. But wouldn’t youknow it: my fist went through Him like He was smoke. He just wasn’tthere. And in another second, I was flat on my back on the floor of cre-ation, spitting out teeth. When my vision cleared, God was shakinghands with Himself over His head and doing a shuffling little dance.“I’m the greatest!” He crowed. A couple of dimwitted angels, no big-ger than solar systems, whistled and applauded.

I got up slowly, first on my hands and knees, then on my feet. Ibrushed a cobwebby star cluster out of my hair. I was mad. I wasboiling!

“Do you begin to apprehend My point?” God simpered. “Orshall we Indian wrestle?”

What a rotten, juvenile trick! What a cheap stunt! And what aloony universe, with a joker like this at the helm! We faced each other,eye to eye. “All right, Mr. Smart Guy,” I said deliberately. “You win.You win, sure enough. But only because You make up the rules, asusual. You’re really something, You know. You can dish it out, butYou can’t take it. And do You know why? Because You’re yellow.”

“I am like hell yellow.”“You’re yellow as a toad’s belly. You’re yellower than any cur

that ever slunk down a road. You haven’t got the guts of a tapeworm.Here You are, The Big Shot in charge of it all. I’d like to see You tryjust once—just once in Your miserable life!—try being an ordinary

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schmuck. See what it’s like to not be all mighty, to be not one little bitmighty, to be an ordinary guy trying to hold his skin together. Just fora day! But You’d never do it; You’re too yellow.”

We were floating aimlessly through the void, God bristling andchewing His beard with anger. I recognized our Milky Way as it drift-ed by. “Look there,” I said. “That’s where I’m from, that galaxy.” Myvision zoomed in effortlessly; it was a bit like Google Universe, only alot more impressive. Earth was visible now, swirling blue and white.“That’s my home. There isn’t a living creature down there that doesn’tsuffer and die, while You sit smug on Your merry throne. The lowliestslug that crawls is braver than You are. You couldn’t stand being mor-tal. You couldn’t bear it! You’d have to feel worry, pain, fear, old age—and that scares You stiff.”

“Nothing scares Me.”“Oh, no. Of course not. Not You. See those billions of people down

there?” We hovered over a miserable, impoverished country (therewere plenty to pick from). “Take a good look. They’re all Your betters,every one of them.” I pointed. “Look at that guy there by the side ofthe road.” He was a wizened little fellow in a loincloth, with a sad,beaten face. He was selling cheap plastic toys from a cardboard box,and nobody was buying. Every rib in his chest stood out. “He knowswhat it’s like to be mortal. To feel pain. If You’re so tough, swap withthat peckerwood. Just for a single minute, if You’ve got the guts,which You don’t. And none of this supernatural-being-in-a-human-body nonsense. Play fair, for once. Ah, but You’d never do it, wouldYou? Too yellow!”

He set His jaw and narrowed His eyes, and sparks of holy ragecrackled out of His hair. A vein was pounding in His forehead.“Damn you, we’ll see who’s yellow!” He gritted through clenchedteeth. And suddenly we were there, standing before the toy-seller, wholooked up at us in astonishment. His surprise was understandable:two beings appear out of nowhere, one of which is a crazy, wild-eyedgeezer in a nightgown.

“Yellow, am I?” said God, choking with fury. He raised His armsand made a demented gesture. “All right, then, triple-damn you: LETTHERE BE SWAP!” He howled.

And it happened. The toy-seller’s body jerked. The two fused,melded. I could see the exchange. The form of God the Father besideme twitched and stumbled. The toy seller (by which I mean God, you

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understand—He was now inhabiting that body) began to feel Himselfall over with His hands, and a look of uttermost horror was on Hisface. His eyes were full of disgust, self-loathing, and infinite dread.Meanwhile God (that is, the toy seller) was blinking at his robes in astupid way.

I didn’t waste a moment. I was on that toy-seller’s body in undera second. I grabbed Him by the throat and yanked Him clean into theair. I backhanded Him twice, then whirled Him over my head. Hewas begging and gibbering and crying like a madman. A heavy truckwas passing by, a diesel blowing oily smoke. I threw that runty bodyunder the wheels. There was a sickening crunch and a squish. It madequite a mess, I can tell you. The truck just kept on going.

It was very quiet, there by the road. “I guess that takes care ofHim,” I said to the individual in the robe.

“Yes . . . yes, it does,” He said wonderingly. “Except . . . now . . .I’m Him.” He smoothed His robes. “Yes, I’m HIM!” Then, with grow-ing triumph and conviction: “I’m God. I’m God. I’m GOD!” He turnedto face me, and His expression was stern. “I can see the secrets ofyour heart,” He said. “Don’t try to hide your thoughts from Me . . .”

Yes, He turned out to be a bit of a disappointment, that toy sell-er. Who would have thought being God would have gone straight toHis head? He’s not as bad as His predecessor, maybe, but that’s notsaying much. One of His first acts, I understand, was to commandHis children on Earth to worship toys, in particular dolls, and bowdown daily to an arch-doll in the image of You-Know-Who. It’s ratherdepressing, really.

On the good side, Hell isn’t nearly as bad as I thought it wouldbe.

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One YearLavendra Copen

Her father is one year dead—felled by his congenitallycongested heart, fired to ash and bits of bonetoo hard-grained to incinerate—when she declares herselfabsolved from grieving, real and wished for, freeto rub clean the soiled lens of remembrance:

how, in the amber dome at the beer bottle’s bottom,his eyes widened, how he seemed to wonderwhen his lids had turned that bubbly gold, his cheeksso glassy. When had his skin become untouchableby fingers lolling down the bottle’s sweaty flanks?When did the walls become too slick to climb back out?

He had to slap away that surrogate self, spraythe last few drops across the dining table, swipe upthose fizzy mirrors with his sleeve.

Maybe wonder never entered into it. Either way,she now revokes the promise he extorted from hernot to tell, locked deeper with every click of her bedroom doorknob, every bottle cap’s key-like snap. She spits on her own cuff now,wipes away some grime—spits and rubs again,leans her full weight into the work.

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IllusionDorothy Stroud

It is dominatingthe museumlike the gasin the chambers.It is shaped like mindsthat fractured the worldinto bleeding angles.

It should be brute ironor congealed, coiling smoke,or steel rickrackstretching taut undertrains on ghastly tracks.

Inspecting the uniform’s flaccid sleeve,I found to my disbeliefthat the terminalswastikawas made ofblack grosgrain ribbon.

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Chapel Chair with Candle at CaneloRichard Byrd

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Lucy with PearlsLindsay Janet Roberts

Green-Eyed LadyLindsay Janet Roberts

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Artist’s SphynxChristina Molidor

(Sculpture by Ben Dale)

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Up

Claw

son

Jan S

earle

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Tak

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Ro

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Jay C

hafin

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ichard Byrd

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Winter’s WingsChristina Molidor

(Sculpture by Ben Dale)

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SurmiseDorothy Stroud

The earth is rabid.People soak up evilthrough their feet.

Recurring holocaustsfeed an addiction to dirtfrom acres of empires.

A hunger for landcancers its waythrough all time and humanity.

The blood of Abelhas saturated the earth.

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TrickyKathy Swackhamer

(Winner, nonfiction competition, Cochise Community Creative WritingCelebration, 2009.)

My Corolla slides to a stop in my gravel drive. I’m running late.Jay T., autistic and twenty-one years old, should be back from his newjob. Since his recent seizure, I press to be home in time for his return.

Pushing the door open, I listen to the insides of my house.Silence. I call out, “Jay T., are you home?”

From his bedroom, he stammers, “I hear a person sounding likeyou, Mom.”

Not long ago, the deli gave him a pink slip because of a businessslump. Perhaps a truth peeks out in Jay T.’s version: “I didn’t get morehours because they didn’t get enough patients.”

Currently, he shelves books at the high school. Marching downjammed hallways to the library, he calls out, “Honk, honk” to studentslolling in the way. A perfectionist, he attacks his tasks with an accoun-tant’s eye. The library’s low noise level accommodates his super-charged hearing. Even so, he wears ear plugs just in case the firealarm buzzes.

Because the school budget cannot afford even his token wage, heis not compensated. But the joy he derives from work transcends pay-ment. Living by an ancient covenant, an old promise that guaranteeslaws will be constant, he thrills to the library’s steadfastness. In theeast, which is on the left, facing south, the sun will rise. After winter,spring will green the brown. Likewise, Dewey decimals and alphabetswill always stand in order.

“Why do you like numbers so much?” I used to ask.“Because they’re my serious friends.”“Serious?”“They’re untricky.”Indeed, for him, numbers are straightforward. They are his confi-

dants, guardians of truth, stability, and birth dates. Whether solvingSudoku puzzles or timing his running laps, he senses their draw.

When he wrangles a birth date from a teacher, clerk, or UPS driv-er to calculate the day of birth, I feel uneasy. I know that years later,like a royal herald, he will trumpet across the cafeteria or parking lot,

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“You are fifty today. I know that. You were born on a Tuesday. Yes.You are fifty.”

Unlike numbers and laws of constancy, language and wordsunsettle him. Once, for homework, he looked up “fast” in his diction-ary and made an appalling discovery: two definitions—speedy or noteating. Wham! The dictionary slammed shut. “I’m confused in myshoes,” he wailed. “They tricked me.”

Material possessions have never inspired him either. Throughgrade school, he could imagine only two gifts for his birthday: linedpaper and Oreos. But at age fifteen, the upwelling of an intangiblewish startled him and me.

Before bed one evening, he asked, “When I finish twelfth grade,will I have children?”

“Well,” I began tentatively, “you’d have to get married first.” Ipushed on blindly. “But you don’t want all that whining and chang-ing diapers and no peace and quiet. Be smart like Aunt Julie. Shenever married.”

With his long back bent, he gazed into saddened air. Soon hiseyes began to waver.

“Where do I have to come to get a wife?” His voice pled forwhat I was unable to give.

Sighing, I poked around every pocket of my brain to find some-thing. Empty handed, I mumbled, “We’ll see about that when you’rean adult.” We both grimaced at my non-answer.

Six years roll by, and Jay T. meets Katie, his new job coach.Winsome, nurturing, she intuits his wishes, talks his lingo. But alas,after one month, she is called away to care for family in New York.She jots her address on a wrinkled deli receipt and hands it to him.“You can write me.”

I recall his storming into the house, face quavery red, handsflapping at ears.

“She’s gone!” In a flash flood of outrage, his lean body pitchesand rocks.

“Slow down,” I order. “Who’s gone?”“Katie!” he howls. He shoves the address into my hand. “My

heart is pounding too hard. Take it out. I need a new heart.”Then, as if every muscle and bone in his body were battered, he

hobbles to his room, crashes on the bed, and weeps.For weeks, he eats halfheartedly, sobs alone, and groans, “I’m

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worried about Katie.”His new job coach, Carol, comforts him. “Katie was homesick.”“What is ‘homesick?’”“Homesick is when you miss your family and need to go home.”He muses over this. Then, like Mount St. Helens, his body begins

to tremble. He lifts his shirt to his mouth and then lets go. Raising fiststo eye level, he shivers them. Energy snapping around him, he toe-dances in place as he cycles the movements: lift shirt, shiver fists, liftshirt, shiver fists—faster and faster until he erupts, “I’m homesick forKatie!”

One morning, as he sulks, I suggest, “You can write her.”A dawn of hope lightens his blue eyes.

Dear Katie,Thank you for driving me home on your last day in

Arizona. How do you like New York? I’m going to do mychores without sitting there crying about you. Hear from yousoon.Love, Jay T.After mailing the letter, I worry this might inflame his hurt.

Maybe choking passion outright, leaving no air for hope, is kinder.Each day he rushes home: “Did the letter come from Katie yet?

Does the Post Office have too much business?” Then he consoles him-self: “I have to be like a rubber band to wait for Katie.”

Without conviction, I intone, “Maybe tomorrow,” which instantlyelicits a scowl and tirade of “I don’t like maybes.”

Day after day, he flounders in a grief he does not understand.One afternoon, a letter arrives from Lisa, a former tutor.

“Look what came in the mail, Jay T.”Speechless, he grabs the letter, charges into his room, bangs the

door closed.Five minutes elapse, and he reappears. A telltale crease deepens

at one corner of his mouth.“The sad news is I miss Katie, but happy news is Lisa remem-

bered to write. Are we sorry Katie is tricky?”I nod gently. “Yes, but, for sure, you can see Katie in another life,

the spirit world.”Squinting his eyes to hear inside himself, he announces, “That’s

another tricky one.”As for all of us, time quiets pain. Gradually, wounds heal from

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the inside out. The toughened heart resets, and habits, loyal as spring,return.

Tonight, he prepares for another workday. Handing me his box-ers with a thread dangling from the waistband: “There’s a string try-ing to get out of my pants.” Then he sets out his breakfast, transitticket, and school ID badge. Dewey decimals await his guiding hand.Tomorrow, books will stand in heavenly order, numbers and lettersradiant.

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Refuge, Las Vegas, New MexicoCappy Love Hanson

(Winner, poetry competition, Cochise Community Creative WritingCelebration, 2009.)

January, and I’m hot rodding away from one morefailed affair, foot pushed down a dozen miles an hourover posted limits on snow-margined roads. Downout of the Jemez Mountains, St. Francis Drive the lengthof Santa Fe, Glorietta Pass through the Sangre de Cristos:names that drip like water on my chapped lips as I hangon a cross by the nail through my heart.

All afternoon, I idle through the prairie-grass, cottonwood,and salt-cedar wildlife refuge, distract myself with eagle-decked trees, sandhill cranes picking over corn fields, mallardsand Canada geese mottling ice-rimed ponds. Huddlein my fiberfill jacket, envy them their insulating down,their wings. Hope for alleged pronghorn herds the wayI have for love and find them just as elusive. The highpointis feeding Fritos to a gray roan jughead gelding on a privateinholding, who rolls back black lips, curls his tongue,and grins yellow-toothed infatuation into my camera.

The ghost-ridden 1800s Plaza Hotel is too pricey, the 1950smotor inns cheap and worse than charmless: too manylayers of paint over too many layers of nicotine and splashedbooze and sweat from bodies rubbed together, dreamingin their own juices. I take a room in a modern motel, biganonymous box, so characterless that my jeans and jacket,thrown over Naugahyde chairs, add appeal. Insteadof struggling against that institutional tide, I give in, let itswamp and submerge me, sob into chlorine-clean sheetsas I rub and press and spasm into whatever release I can get.

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David’s HaircutDonna Naa

I.

“You got time today?” David asks, rubbing a hand over the slickspot on top of his round head.

“I do. Just now I do. Come have a seat.”“You got time to take all this off my face, too?”“I don’t see why not,” I say. Securing the cape around David’s

neck takes me to the final snap on its collar. “That too tight?” I ask,wondering what I’ll do if he says yes.

“Naw, it’s alright. I’m in a good mood today. Just came fromcourt. My case was dismissed. Hey, it’s kind of funny getting my haircut after court.”

“Dismissed?”“Yeah, the cops gotta quit harassing me.”“Whoa, you did get lucky, but next time come in here first, just

in case. So, what exactly did the judge say?”“He said, ‘David, did you hit this man, Mr. So-and-so?’ (He’s

one of the only ones besides you that calls me David. Even the copscall me Dozer.) So I said, ‘No, sir, I did not.’ And he said, ‘That’swhat I thought. This is frivolous. Case dismissed.’”

“Did you,” I ask, glancing in the mirror, “hit him?”David smiles. One half of his head is smooth and slick, the other

still populated with the kind of straight dark hair that DeGrazia soloved to paint.

“I wanted to. I would have, but it was too late.”“Too late?”“Yup. It’s kind of hard to hit someone when you’re laid out in

the street with your head bleeding. So the judge dismissed my case.You know, one of these days, the cops are just gonna have to learn toquit harassing me and let me drink my beer.”

I gently push David’s head forward to expose the hair in thecreases just above the nape of his neck. “Well, David, do you thinkthey’re harassing you because you’re sitting right under that sign thatsays ‘No Loitering’ while you’re drinking your beer?”

David’s head jerks upright, halting all progress. “They had noright to put that sign there. I’ve been loitering on that spot since I was

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five years old. It’s illegal. They didn’t go through city council or noth-ing. The police chief just put that sign there.”

I take the opportunity to switch from the clippers to the trim-mers, the better to clean up around his ears. “You know, David, Ithink you’ve got a point there. Let’s see—that’s thirty-five years. Yououghta be grandfathered in by now.”

“That’s what I mean. Those cops gotta quit harassing me.”While I finish cleaning up around his hairline, I think about what

David has just said. He might be right about the police chief not goingthrough channels. It is a bit odd to have a no-loitering sign at the busstop. But what do I know? “You want me to take everything off yourface?”

“No. Leave my mustache, if you would. Well, no. Go ahead andtake it off. Today’s my aunt’s birthday. She doesn’t like to see me look-ing too straggly.”

II.

Round—round and smooth—that’s the best way to describeDavid’s head and face by the time I’m through with them. Round,smooth, and shiny like the caramels inevitably found at the pillowcasebottom two days after Halloween. His coloring is like a caramel, too.Even the creases along the nape of his neck remind me of the creasesin those round, flat candies once you peeled the cellophane wrapperoff. We’re the same age, David and I, both born in 1963, both born inthe same state, and both here now in David’s native Bisbee, Queen ofthe Copper Mines.

I don’t charge David for his haircut and beard trim, both execut-ed with the same blade on my clippers, a triple aught. I don’t chargeDavid, not because I’ve just turned him into a moon-faced innocent byclear-cutting his bandito mustache and pointy diablo beard, butbecause, well, because he’s David. The same David who, back when Istill only knew three people in town (and two of those my bosses atthe library), called out my name as I made my way down DrugAddict Alley, and threw me a flattery so simple and sweet I let it slipright through my ears, down my throat, and into my chest until I feltlike maybe, just maybe, I belonged.

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Last-Night RadioMimi Ferraro

I am the last late night DJ on planet Earthlet’s play it holy station ride electro-magnetic wavesway past infra red shoot synth rhythm bursts matrix the weary ether of timeblast the vacuum of soul kick karma’s asswhistle past birth ion showers junk debriskick it for KJAM KWHY sweet afro KWSINothing’s the same when you’re movin’ at the speed of lightTONITE I am the last late night DJ on planet Earth!!Hijack the station this is the last transmission Earth in flameseverything collapsing got to catch my breath this is a testthis is a test this is a test alert from your favoriteall night satellite radio & I am the last late night DJ on planet Earth

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MothsLavendra Copen

Another brownish blotchdetaches itself from the wall, whirsinto a tannish blur against the kitchenlight fixture. The pet store’sfailed to freeze the birdseed again,and fingernail-sized moths erupt in mid-November. Hatchedamid millet and safflower, they findno blossoms and die in clean-rinsedglasses in the cupboard, butterypopcorn bowls, pans set to soaklike soapy lakes. The sink’s low spotpools the spigot’s drip and floatsa coating of wing dust.

Night offers no relief. Outside,the year’s first snowflakesswirl around the streetlightlike swarms of icy moths.

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Drinking Gin with Josh in MuskegonKevin McBeth

It was almost competitive,Us against the world, bottle,This gagging shit drunk,Self-abusive and without purpose,Punishing in its worthlessness,But in the end, it really wasIncomparable in itsGood, numbing quality.

Josh had his own little ritual:Putting on one of his puke shirts,Feeding the cats,Turning off the phone,Cranking the Pearl JamAnd chilling at least a twelve packOf Coke for a combination of chaser andBreakfast.

Then, the two of us’d get down to business.It was like bearing down, heading over to a job—Agro-emotional slave labor boozing.We hated the work but loved the paycheck.

The sheer volumeOf what we would knock backWas absolutely vile.What we warmed up withWas enough to get a crew of sailorsTo burst into song, enoughTo put an entire groupOf frat boys into a pant-pissing-tizzy.

A dozen shots into it,The photo albums would start to come outAnd with them, memories, all good laughers,

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Never tears. No, we weren’t those types of drinkers, andFrom there on out,We were caught in the strangleholdOf reminiscence:

The Willows parties,The Breakfast Club gang,The drunken bench press competition,Josh on videotape at Kamps’ Christmas party,Doing twelve seconds straight Off a handle of Gilbey’s.

Our consumptive crescendo redefined Crescendo andSet a precedent that the producers of the bestGin in the world(Whatever the shit that is)Would truly be disgusted by.

By 4 a.m., I felt sorry for any neighborsAs the conversation got eitherPolitical or religious:“I vote we have another!” or“God damn, you’re wasteder than I am!”

“What’re you want to do with your Life?” I’d say, pouring a couple moreHearty ones.“More of this,” Josh would say, laughing,And meaning it.These were our favorite times,Teenage self-determined outcastsGetting drunk and remembering Our other drunken depravities.

“Ah, we’ll be dead by thirty!” I roar,And twist up a cigarette,

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While Josh puts in a different CD,Tries to turn it up,And realizes the volume button is already maxed.

We each turned thirty a few years back,And I went back to MuskegonTo see the old bastard.We laughed about some of those times,And of course thePhoto albums came out again.

But this time,We split a six pack,And had to keep it down a bit,Because his two kids were sleepingIn the next room.

They say that what doesn’t kill youMakes you stronger.

I believe thatWhat doesn’t kill youMakes for great friendships, rekindlesThe most black and alive moments you have, andFuels the light beer industry.

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Real CharactersHarvey Stanbrough

It was a dark and stormy night, but nobody noticed. They didn’teven care. They were all characters in another novel that would neverbe published because of opening lines like that one. Even before heput them on paper, while they were still little more than electricalimpulses in Jacobsen’s brain, they had breathed a communal moan ofdisappointment. Well, all but Sam Stade, whom Jacobsen envisionedas the main character of the novel.

Sam was the resident tough guy. He never sighed, and he nevermoaned. In fact, shit was nearly all he ever said, usually as he wasflicking a cigarette butt, which was never shorter or longer than three-quarters of an inch, either out the window of his car during a manda-tory high-speed chase or into the corner of an alley just before heslammed a bad guy’s face into a brownstone wall. He nearly alwayslooked neat in his brown suit with black pinstripes, although it wasseldom buttoned. His hair was always in place too, cut short, andcombed straight back. In fact, the only time he looked even slightlydishevelled was when he was getting beat up by bad guys in hisoffice. At those times, his jacket hung on the coat rack beneath hisfedora. The collar button on his shirt would slip out, and his narrowblack tie would loosen and drape across his white shirt at an oddangle. Jacobsen allowed him only a very limited vocabulary that con-sisted mainly of curse words, other tough-guy talk that was usuallyitalicized for emphasis, and clichés, and Sam was none too happyabout it.

“What’s the matter with this jerk?” he said to Sheila, the buxom,lighter-than-air blonde Jacobsen had once again assigned as Sam’s sec-retary. “He just doesn’t get it, does he? Nobody talks like this in novelsanymore! All fragments and one word sentences? Shit!” Sam reachedinto the file drawer of his double-pedestal desk and retrieved a bottleof bourbon. “And to top it off, he’s got me drinkin’ this crap!” He filledan Old Fashioned glass.

He lit a cigarette, then raised the glass to eye level to inspect itscontents. “Liquid fire. All the flavor of piss on a hot summer day.Shit!” Sam quaffed the whiskey, then pitched the glass over his shoul-der. It sailed through the open window and crashed onto the sidewalkfour stories down. Another full glass appeared on the corner of his desk.

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Sam uncrossed his ankles and braced his feet against the front ofthe desk, then pushed, forcing his chair away from the desk. He stoodand walked around the desk, grabbing Sheila by the elbow. “Look,kid, we’ve gotta take him out!”

Sheila’s voice was childlike. “Take him out? Where?”Sam released her elbow with disgust. “Nobody’s that dumb! See

what I mean? Wouldn’t you like to have an original thought every nowand then?” He pinched her naïve face between his thumb and forefin-ger and stared at her. Her puckered lips made her look like a poutyfish. “You don’t have a clue, do you, bimbo?”

The fish spoke. “Talk straight, Sam. I don’t like it when you getlike this.”

He retrieved his hat from the coat rack near the door and pulledit low over his brow, cocking it slightly to one side. Then he lit anoth-er cigarette and reached for the door knob. “Never mind. I’m going toprep the scene. Just call the boys. Tell ’em to meet me at the FlamingoClub. Nine P.M. Damn, I hate talking like this!”

Jacobsen was very punctual, so the boys arrived at the club rightat nine. Their suits weren’t quite as nice as Sam’s, of course. Theyfound him sitting in a booth in a dark, smoky corner of the club. Heflicked a cigarette butt into the corner near the jukebox. Another oneappeared between his fingers.

One at a time, the boys slid into the booth and sidled arounduntil all four of them were seated: Link, the lawyer; Scar, a Coke deal-er from Chicago; Stupid, a thug whose apparent function was torepeat everything Scar said; and Willie, the beat cop who was alsoSam’s only friend. Someone had relocated Scar’s pockmarked noseonto his left cheek, where it interrupted the narrow white furrowsthat would otherwise have run from his forehead to his chin. Hisoverall appearance had earned him the respect of the others. Hespoke first.

“So what’s going on, Sam? I got a load of Cokes to deliver.”“Yeah, what’s going on?”“Shut up, Stupid.” Sam glared at Stupid, then glanced at Scar

and the others. “Look, boys, I’m really tired of playing the patsy forJacobsen. The slob hits a few keys and thinks he’s a writer. I used tothink he’d come around, but not anymore! Damn! I wish someone elsehad dreamed us up.” He lit a cigarette and blew a smoke ring for effect.

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“Well, what can we do about it, Sam? We’re just characters.”“Yeah, characters.”“Shut up, Stupid!” Sam turned his attention back to the others. “I

know we’re just characters, f’Christ’s sake! But there’s gotta be a way toend this agony! Shit! That’s why I brought you boys down here. Wegotta figure out what to do and how to do it! Any ideas? Link?”

Link nervously straightened himself and looked at his fingers. “Iguess we could cuff him to death, Sam.”

“Brilliant, Link! Just goddamn brilliant!” Sam flicked his cigarettebutt into the corner, then lit another one. “Where’d you get yourdegree, anyway? Monkey Ward? Think! Exactly how are we gonna slaphim around? We ain’t even real!”

Sam shifted his attention. “Willie, whadda you think? Help meout here! All these italicized words are driving me nuts!”

Willie slipped his fingernail file into his vest pocket and lookedup calmly. He lit a cigar and blew a trail of smoke over Link’s head.

“We cut him, Sam.”“What? How we gonna cut him? Haven’t you been listening?”Willie was unphased. “Every time he gets near a page of the

manuscript, we all rush to one side. The paper shifts and voilà! We cuthim.”

Sam fired another cigarette butt into the corner. “I think you’vebeen hanging around Link too long. What good’s a paper cut or twogonna do?”

Willie smiled patiently. “How often does he go to sleep with oneof his worthless manuscripts on his chest?”

“Shit, I don’t know. At least once a day, I guess.”“Right. And at least one page is always next to his throat, right?”“Well, yeah . . . I suppose so.”“You know so, Sam. And we’re in all the slob’s manuscripts, aren’t

we? On every freakin’ page.”“Sure, you know we are, but . . .”“We cut him. End of story.” Willie drew his thumb slowly across

his throat. “Then we disappear to wait for some other genius to inventus. And maybe—just maybe—the next one will at least have an agent.”

When Marge Jacobsen came home from work that night, thehouse was dark except for the eerie glow cast by the test pattern onthe television.

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“Baby, I’m home,” she called. No answer. She flicked on the halllight, then walked into the living room and found her husband asleepon the couch, the last few pages of his manuscript sprawled acrosshis chest as usual. Idiot. Give your characters just a little life and youmight actually sell something. “Come on, big guy. Let’s go to bed.”

She reached to shuffle the manuscript pages, but they seemedstuck together. “Eating toast and honey in the living room again,hmmm?” She picked up the pile of papers and carried them to hisdesk, then turned on the desk lamp and screamed.

It was sweet, but it wasn’t honey.

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As Mirage went to press last year, friends and admirers of British-born painter, muralist, illustrator, and performance artist RoseJohnson were saddened by her death at the age of 48. She died in herbeloved Bali. The island deeply influenced her unique allegorical styleduring the last two years of her life. She was working on a memoirabout her life on the island.

Rose, an Arizona icon, won many honors and awards. She exhib-ited in Phoenix, Scottsdale, Bisbee, and the Douglas Campus ofCochise College. Her public art includes murals at the MaricopaCounty Fair and Sojourner Women’s Shelter in Phoenix; hybrid busesin Tempe; the Scottsdale League for the Arts facility; the Child CrisisCenter, Autumn House Women’s Shelter, and Bicycle and PedestrianPathway Canal in Mesa; and the interior of the ChiricahuaCommunity Health Center in Douglas. Her Bisbee murals grace CastleRock, Higgins Hill Park, the Jonquil Motel, and the Boys’ and Girls’Club. Her illustrations appeared in Arizona Highways Magazine, TheNew York Times, and other periodicals. She also collaborated withBisbee novelist Diane Freund on a series of children’s books.

The staff and faculty advisors remain grateful for Rose’s gener-ous contributions to Mirage.

Rose Johnson Painting the Jonquil Motel MuralRichard Byrd

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Of CatholicismNadine Lockhart

And the babysitter takes the catechism, flattens the small book on her bed,shows us our souls—

It’s fascinating like a science, the body outlined in black, not unlike a chalkedmurder on asphalt, colors in reverse.

Hers—she points to it—is pure, not marked, my sister’s the same.Which is mine? She laughs,

Yours is that one full of black dots.

She hates Blake—Piping down the valleys wild,Piping songs of pleasant glee—

And when my mother returns,I’m waiting in the empty lot next door, a field of cold grasses

graze my legs, innocent reeds play to me, wind in my ear,Pipe a song about a Lamb!

And the babysitter, she is blonde, and bright, and perfect.

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The Death of a Small GirlMolly Harrico

The child had loved himLike a fatherOr the supposed fatherIn her mother’s homeHe was a feeble-minded child himselfOccupying the body of a monsterPutrified rage pitting his faceHe had shared his sickness with her whenHe told her to come and take a nap with himPretending to be concernedWith the nap times of little girlsShe was made to lie down in her own mother’s bedLike a child mistressWhen she’d slithered awayEscaping from beneath the broad hand of the sleeping manShe sat in the fading afternoon lightOf an empty living roomAll of the happiness spilling from herLike loosed bloodShe moved her toys around in mock playAs she went through the motionsA rot grew inside of herLike fast-growing mold it covered her small heartUnaware of the longevity of the diseaseShe could only thrash aboutIn the thick slug of the murk that engulfed herShe carried on this wayUntil her mother’s man awokeThis was when she first learnedTo become invisibleThinking herself a ruined creatureThe heinous sicknessCould never be washed awayNo matter how many would claim they loved herAnd were charmed by her beauty

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The shadow that he had cast on her remainedShe hid away the sickness when she couldDangerously tucking it awayInto the passing of days

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Snake PictureCappy Love Hanson

(Winner, fiction competition, Cochise Community Creative WritingCelebration, 2009.)

The first picture that goes missing is the framed Polaroid takensix months earlier at Sea Breeze Mall’s Wildlife Wonderama. In thephoto, Tanya’s just turned thirty-five. She’s wearing black wool slacksand an off-white Victorian blouse with double-buttoned lace cuffs andGreat-gran’s cameo pinned on the high, ruffled collar. She’s at aweight stylish in the late nineteenth century, thirty pounds heavierthan when she met her husband. (Brad—ten years older and a headtaller—hasn’t gained half that.) For the picture, she’s taken off the bluefleece jacket she wears, not against one of the mildest winters onrecord, but against a constant inner chill.

Tanya’s dark-brown hair dips and rises to an elegant twist,caught up with faux-pearl pins. Not because she expected to have herportrait taken with a legless reptile, but because she’d just treatedJeanette, her best friend since high school, to birthday brunch atRoderick’s. The chef makes pasta Alfredo, their favorite comfort food.

The strait-laced outfit makes the jungle backdrop and thirteen-foot Burmese python draped around Tanya’s shoulders look wildlyimprobable and primevally sexual: a living shawl patterned withbrown, black, and tan scales. The snake casually caresses her leftbreast with its tail, flicks its tongue across her cheek like a lover. Tanyatips her head toward it with an open-mouthed smile, eyes half closed.

The snake, as Tanya remembers it now, was smooth and glossy.In the too-air-conditioned mall, it contracted and released against her,soaking up her body heat. Its lidless eyes stared into hers as if boringfor something deep and forgotten.

Its keeper snapped the shot. While suns burned on Tanya’s reti-nas, the man crossed the unnaturally green Astroturf, unwrapped thesnake, and hoisted it with a grunt back into its terrarium. Tanya justsat there, blinking into the fluorescent lights overhead. When the manmotioned, she got up and shuffled to his folding table to pay. Afterpocketing her check and giving her the picture, he stepped behind herto drape the snake around an older woman in a flower print polyester

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dress who had already sat down. Tanya wanted to ask about thesnake, where it came from—someplace tropical and warm, she wascertain—but the man was already running through his patter to relaxthe other woman.

Jeanette oohed over the picture as she handed Tanya her jacket.“I’d never have the courage,” she admitted, “but I sure admireyours.”

Warm for once, Tanya draped the jacket over her arm. After theyhugged, and Jeanette left for her nursing shift at the hospital, Tanyastrolled on to a National Parks booth staffed by uniformed rangers.She glanced over brochures for Yosemite (she and Brad had beenthere) and Yellowstone (they hadn’t). She looked at their taxidermiedgreat horned owl, its feet wired to a branch, and touched the breastfeathers, almost expecting warmth. But the owl was as cold and deadas the sawdust it was stuffed with.

That was when she admitted what she was really doing: any-thing to keep from going home. Her husband and three other com-puter engineers had had their jobs offshored. They’d formed a con-sulting group while they sent out résumés and all worked out of theirhomes. When she arrived, Brad would probably be at the diningtable, surrounded by two laptops and heaps of computer diagrams,the weekend’s bad news blaring from the television.

Knowing she couldn’t bring herself to endure the bombardmentyet, she studied a display of binoculars and birding scopes, smiled atthe salesman as if she might actually be interested.

Five months after the snake picture was taken, Tanya stoodacross the dining table from Brad, hugging herself against shivers,despite the unseasonable June heat. Her skin felt frigid, inflexible. Shewanted to snag it on a twig, rub it on a rock, wriggle out of it. Whenhe finally acknowledged her, she stumbled through her catalog ofhurts and disappointments. Brad motioned her to get to the point.

Tanya said what she’d rehearsed: “I’d like us to refinance thehouse so I can get into a condo.” She’d found it already, a south-facing one-bedroom in a complex with a heated pool and hot tub.

Brad met her comments about their fourteen-year marriage thesame way he’d met most of her communications lately, with arms-folded silence. Finally, he said, “If that’s the way you want it.”

Tanya blinked. “Of course, I don’t.”

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“So stay.”“How can I?”“Just make a decision.”The anger that had been coiled inside her struck. “It would be

easier to be alone alone,” she snapped. In tears, she turned away,thinking, This isn’t who I want to be, a flaming bitch. Neither was thewoman who’d been huddled inside her, torpid with the chill of grief.

An hour later, when Tanya noticed the snake picture gone fromthe top of the living room bookcase, she felt her ribcage constrict.

The more boxes Tanya packs—gleaned in early-morning foraysto the grocery store before her office manager job at the local dentalclinic—the more Brad clumps around the house in his gum-soledloafers, pulling down the many framed photos they’ve accumulatedand stuffing them in unlikely hiding places. Last to go—she’s sure heintends this symbolically—is the wedding photo over their dresser.

This is only the finale. Brad has been progressively disappearingher for three years. Even before the layoffs, he worked more overtime.Since then, he’s covered the dining table with schematics and thou-sands of lines of code, topped with a cardboard sign lettered inaggressive black marker—DO NOT DISTURB, THIS MEANS YOU—because she once edged enough space for an egg salad sandwich anda glass of white grape juice. He’s kept the television news turned up,the volume and violence and the lack of space on the table drivingTanya to take her meals in the kitchen. As if to punish her, he’s usedtheir king-size bed only for sleeping, back curved toward her like ashell.

Then, a few months ago, he started rolling against her in themiddle of the night, grunting through clenched teeth, crowding herright out of bed. Unable to wake him, she’d trudge around to his side,climb back in. Sometimes, he growled—actually snarled like a furiousanimal—and rolled toward her again. Certain, in the morning, he’donly been snoring. Couldn’t be blamed for what he’d done in hissleep. Insisted she’d dreamed the whole thing or made it up to torquehim.

The snake picture is the only one Tanya searches for. A couple ofweeks after she starts sleeping in the rollaway bed in the guest room/den, she finds the photo face down in Brad’s bottom desk drawer, on

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top of a pile of scallop-edged black-and-whites from his grandpar-ents’ Wisconsin resort. The one directly underneath it is of Brad,about ten, insulated in jacket, hat, muffler, mittens, and fur-linedboots, hugging a snowman.

Brad has previously secreted the snake picture in the diningroom hutch, the bathroom vanity, and the kitchen junk drawer. Itemanates a subtle heat that saves it from the obscure company of hol-iday table cloths, bathtub cleansers, and fancy food recipes Tanya hascut out of magazines and will probably never use.

Tanya doesn’t even ask what hiding the pictures is about.Shaking her head, she rescues the snake photo from the desk drawerand sets it out again. This time, it crowns the growing pile of different-size boxes that contain her books, records, tapes, and CDs,her high school annuals, and the wedding silver her mother gavethem.

Cupping her hands around the gold-toned frame, Tanya studiesthe image. If Brad has noticed the startled, ecstatic expression thephotographer captured, he’s never said so. When she first showedBrad the picture—hoping, in truth, to shock and tempt him—heshuddered. Tanya explained that snakes were only muscles and ribsand dry, smooth scales. He wouldn’t be convinced they weren’tslimy—big worms with fangs and cold-killer expressions.

“Stupid risk,” he spat, tossing the photo across the table at her,clicking on the afternoon news, and going back to work.

Now, as Tanya packs shoes, hiking boots, galoshes, and hergoose-down parka into the suitcase she’s had since her only year ofcollege, she acknowledges that snakes are more than muscles andscales—sensuous and powerful creatures, absolutely present in theirbodies. All Brad would have to do is touch one, let it wind aroundhim. She still fantasizes that a single encounter would reawaken him.

Not long after the photo was taken, Tanya actually stood in frontof the dining table, waited for Brad to look up. There simply wasn’t abetter time; all he did these days was work and sleep. She held outthe snake owner’s business card, which promoted school discoveryprograms and private group presentations. “Transform your relation-ship with reptiles,” it said in sinuous red letters. She pleaded, as shehad pleaded with him to talk with her, pleaded with him to see acounselor.

Brad had already developed a hermetic mantra with two

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variations: I’m fine; I’m fine. This time, he added, “Have you lost yourmind? Normal people are afraid of snakes.” He glared at her, the firstdirect eye contact they’d had in weeks. “Normal people are too busymaking a living to get wound up in nonsense.”

Zipping her suitcase, Tanya wonders again if she’s the crazy one,making such an outrageous request. Snake therapy—what was shethinking?

Thinking is her problem these days. She’s grateful for her job, theflow of patients and personnel issues that busies her mind. In theabsence of distraction, she wonders what she’s done to deserve this,fills in the blanks with endless speculation. Brad is repulsed by hergained weight (Jeanette thinks that’s an excuse, not a reason), thinksher requests for intimacy are unreasonable in the face of work pres-sures. (“They’re hiring kids half my age for half the salary. Be a littlesupportive, will you? I’m doing this for us.” Tanya thinks but doesn’tsay, What us?)

Maybe he’s using work to cover up sexual problems, Tanya thinks asshe packs. Heart problems, a brain tumor for all I know. At her lowest,she’s sure there’s someone else, a woman who’s prettier, smarter, a bet-ter cook, who has a college education and a higher-paying position.All those workday hours when she’s at her job . . . She slithersthrough this mine field, back to the question Jeanette asked atRoderick’s after they did the final walk-through at the condo: “If youknew the reasons, would it make you feel less like ripping your skinoff?”

The following Saturday morning, Tanya sheaths the snake pic-ture in bubble wrap and snugs it into her last-minute box, along withhand soap, shampoo, moisturizer, tampons, a bath towel, and achange of clothes. Behind the bedroom door, Brad either sleeps sound-ly or lies soundlessly awake. Remembering one of Jeanette’s out-bursts—“He’s a coward, and he’s making you look like the bad guyfor leaving”—she vows not to open the door.

So close to the end, Tanya’s body vibrates. In frantic inspiration,she pulls the snake picture out and unwraps it. Tiptoeing down thehall—alien in the house in which she no longer owns an interest or afuture—she props the picture against the bedroom door. The framemakes a tiny metallic tink against the wood that reverberates throughthe house. Clenching her fists and pressing her lips together, she

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thinks, The man should know what he’s missing. There’s a deeper, barelyformed thought, too, from that center of pain that doesn’t feel safe toprobe yet: Maybe he’ll want me back.

Out the den window, Tanya sees the husband of one of the clinichygienists pulling up in his pickup, towing the homemade trailer he’svolunteered to move her furniture and boxes in. Her heart thumps inher throat. She stands still, unbreathing, chilled fingers shoved deepin her armpits. It’s not too late, is it? She can still change her mind,can’t she?

As if to drive home the final nail of inevitability, Jeanette pullsup behind the trailer, gets out in her jeans and a tie-dyed T-shirt,ready to help load. Together, she and the hygienist’s husband strideup the walk. The doorbell rings.

Hefting the last-minute box and angling it against her hip, Tanyastarts down the hall. To staunch tears, she holds her breath, falls backon a recurring fantasy of sitting naked in a pit full of constrictingsnakes. They would see her with those unwavering eyes, gravitate toher body heat. Stroke and embrace her.

When Tanya is almost to the front door, she feels, or imaginesshe does, a flick on her cheek. A breath breaks free and glides like acaress through her body. All at once, she can think. She wheels andhurries back to the bedroom, bumping the box on the wall, not caringif Brad hears. As she snatches up the picture of the snake embracingher, a flush rushes over her, tropical and warm.

The doorbell rings again. She turns and strides toward the livingroom, clasping the framed photo against her chest. As she opens thedoor, the inrushing air strokes what feels like brand new skin.

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UntitledMolly Harrico

I dreamt of myself centuries agoThrough dusty agesI saw myself fresh and nudeLying beneath the ripples of an intimate streamHigh up in the desert mountainsOaks stood closeTangled into hugging shadowsA warmth enveloping my wild primal youthI swam in placeIn the crystal clear brookIts bottom lined byRichest jade, root red, and polished black stonesTumbled and washedTheir thick skins rubbingOver centuries of frictionPlaying the subtle music of their togethernessClicking and clacking through echoing wavesBlessed water trickling for hundreds of miles through woodWaterfall and desert flatsLike a sacred whisper heard through the body of the worldThe creek song travels through evergreensAnd past the plumping little apples of manzanitasAfter the sun fellThe wide darkness blanketed mountains and valleysYet I was thereHigh up in this lovely placeI stayed in these live watersThe steady warmth of a mother’s body surrounding me like a wombThe tendrils of the sweet streamSeductive as the beguiling eyes of some far-off goddessThe water seemed to cast a lightOther worldly and primeval bothHere I reveled in this perpetual deep-seated lightI stayed in the luminous forest high above the raised desertCloser to the stars and moon

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The little stream held me like a prized fishA jewelPolished by eternity

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Biographical Information

(Not all artists and authors provided biographical information.)

Stephen Bovée is a Bisbee oil and watercolor painter, playwright, andcartoonist who has lived in Bisbee since the Bronze Age. His prose andillustrations arise from a unique sense of humor.

Richard Byrd began taking pictures in Memphis, Tennessee, at ageeight, when his mother gave him a Kodak Brownie. He is known forhis photographs of musicians, some of which will be displayed in theRock and Roll Hall of Fame. His current project is bits of Bisbee—doors, gates, and graffiti. Photography has been a catalyst, capturingdecisive moments, whether in events or changing light. It has changedhis life.

Patricia Cole has been a resident of Willcox for three years. She ispresently enjoying painting at Cochise College with Professor RonFritts. She has always loved art and is an accomplished photographer,having completed instruction at Santa Monica College and gone on tobegin and run a very successful business in Beverly Hills.

Lavendra Copen grew up on Cochise County ranches, attended theUniversity of New Mexico at Albuquerque, and taught high school inthe Four Corners area. She is raising two granddaughters and experi-menting with water harvesting and organic gardening near theHuachuca Mountains.

Crow Dicehart focuses on unusual effects. “Twisted” is a shot of aparking lot through an old-style glass block.

Mimi Ferraro was a finalist for an Arizona Commission of the Arts Playwriting Fellowship and a four-time winner in poetry at theCochise County Creative Writing Celebration. Her poetry and short pieces have appeared in Phoenix House Art Journal (NYC), the Arizonamagazines Mirage, Mule, Blue Mountain Review, the online poetry jour-nals Voices on the Wind and Monsoon Voices, in addition to the 2008 and2009 issues of the New Mexico Sin Fronteras Magazine.

Deborah Girard is a retired park ranger and a teacher.

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Michael Gregory is the author of two poetry books, The Valley Flowerand Hunger Weather 1959-1975, and co-author, with poet Chris Dietz,of Song of the Beast. His work has appeared in over thirty periodicalsand anthologies and has won numerous awards, including theArizona Commission on the Arts Creative Writing fellowship. Since1973, he has lived off-grid on forty acres in the high desert of south-eastern Arizona, where he raises organic fruits and vegetables.

Cappy Love Hanson lives near the Swisshelm Mountains with herhusband and their menagerie. Her poetry, short stories, and nonfic-tion have appeared in Blue Mesa Review, ByLine, Mirage, TransworldSnowboarding, Writer’s Digest, Writers’ Journal, and other magazines,plus Voices on the Wind, an online poetry journal. She is currentlyworking on a memoir about her life with parrots and has been a vol-unteer on the Mirage staff for several years.

Molly Harrico is a student at Cochise College.

Nadine Lockhart received both her MA in English and MFA inCreative Writing from Arizona State University. Last year, she wasawarded the Critical Language Scholarship from the StateDepartment to study Punjabi in India for three months. She’s afounder of the Phoenix Poetry Reading Series. Her work hasappeared in publications throughout the Southwest, including theBlue Mountain Review (anthology) and the Sonoran Review, where shewas a finalist in this year’s contest.

Robert J. Luce was a wildlife biologist in Wyoming for three decadesbefore retiring in 2002 to pursue writing and nature photography. Helives along the San Pedro River and travels extensively to write about and photograph the natural world. He has authored a number oftechnical wildlife publications, supplied wildlife photographs for several books, and written articles for outdoor magazines.Disappearance Creek, his first outdoor mystery novel, was published in2009.

Kevin McBeth chose a career in elementary education to ensure thathe would always have a receptive audience for his music and poetry.He teaches fourth grade at Valley View Elementary in Palominas andresides in Bisbee with his incredibly tolerant wife, Jenny. They hadtheir first child this summer, a boy.

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Laurie McKenna is a painter, writer, filmmaker, and member of theCentral School Project. She holds a BFA from Massachusetts Collegeof Art and has lived in Bisbee since 2002. Her short films have beenscreened throughout the U. S. In her 2-D work, she frequently usesvintage educational ephemera. Her current work is a series of claytiles entitled “The Memory of Water.” Her mixed media paintingsoften examine American historiography.

Christina Molidor graduated from Buena High School, Sierra Vista, in2010. Her passions are theater and photography. She will be attendingthe University of Arizona in the fall and plans to major in history.

Linsday Janet Roberts has lived her whole life with a fierce passionfor the arts. In 2005, she moved to Saint David, Arizona, from Logan,Ohio. Working the last twenty years in tin, she realized that copperwas much more enjoyable. Using copper wire and sheet copper, sheworks portraits, jewelry, purses, frames, garden gates, and furniture.Her works are on permanent collection with the White House and theGovernor’s Mansion in Ohio.

Jan Searle is a sculptor and painter who, as she puts it, is currentlyliving “on the other side” of her life. Her goal is to paint people in thelives they are living, whether they chose those lives, or the lives chosethem. She wants to travel the world and express on canvas the peopleshe sees—their pain, their resiliency, their joy, their lives.

Dorothy Stroud is Oklahoman by birth and Arizonan by circum-stance. She has taught language arts for nineteen years in Arizonapublic schools, where she tried to instill in students the same excite-ment about poetry that her fifth-grade teacher imparted to her. Afterliving in California and Alaska, she settled in Arizona, where she is nowretired with her husband, and searching for places to publish her poems.

Harvey Stanbrough is a retired U.S. Marine. He is also a writer, poet,writing instructor, and freelance editor who lives near Whetstone,Arizona.

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About Mirage

Mirage Literary and Arts Magazine is designed and produced by stu-dents of Cochise College with help from faculty advisors and volun-teers from the community. Those interested in participating in theproduction of Mirage should contact Cochise College at 520-515-0500.

Submissions are accepted from Cochise College students and resi-dents of Cochise and Santa Cruz Counties in Arizona. The works areselected via an anonymous process: Each submission is judged with-out disclosure of the writer’s or artist’s name.

Submission Guidelines

1. Submissions will be accepted only from students at Cochise College and residents of Cochise and Santa Cruz Counties. All submissions must be the original work of the persons submit-ting them.

2. A single cover sheet must accompany submissions, listing all titles of works, as well as the submitter’s name, address, phone number, and email or fax. The cover sheet should also include a brief autobiographical statement of seventy-five words or less, written in the third person. No name should appear on the entry itself, as submissions are evaluated with-out knowledge of the submitter’s name.

3. Artwork and photographs must have titles or must be identi-fied as “Untitled.” If necessary, artists should indicate correct orientation. Digital format is preferred, such as email attach-ment or compact discs; however, slides are acceptable. If photographing original artwork for submission, the photog-rapher should pay attention to lighting and orientation to prevent shadowing, glare, skewing, or unintentional cropping.

4. Submissions will not be returned.

5. Submissions in poetry and prose must be typed. Prose should be double spaced. Single spacing is permissible for poetry. Font should be Times New Roman 12. Unless unique format-ting is integral to the piece, literary works should be aligned on the left margin and not printed in all upper-case letters.

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6. There is a 2,000-word limit for prose entries. Each person may submit up to five pieces of writing and five works of art.

7. Mirage encourages digital literary submissions, which must be Microsoft Word document files.

8. In matters of mechanics and style, the Mirage staff defers to A Writer’s Reference by Diana Hacker.

9. Mirage also encourages digital art submissions.

IMPORTANT: Unless digital photographs of art are submitted in the correct format, the magazine cannot use them.

Art submitted electronically (by email, on compact disc or other media) needs to be at a resolution of at least 300 dots per inch (DPI) and at 100% of its original size. Photos should be at least 6 x 9 inches.

Resolution: Remember, printing on a press requires much higher resolution; what looks good on your screen or from your laser printer will not necessarily look good when printed on a press. Any image copied from a webpage will not have the proper resolution. A minimum resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels in jpg format straight from the camera is best. Any attempt to resize or resample may cause problems for us because print resolution will depend on how we ultimately size the photo for the magazine. The minimum size is impor-tant. If, for example, a photo is only 640 x 480 pixels, it is too small for the magazine.

Compression: Please do not compress photos when email-ing them. Compressed photos lose information that cannot be restored. (It is not like zipping or stuffing files; photos cannot be “unzipped” or “unstuffed.”) Many programs will automati-cally downsize photos for emailing and viewing on a comput-er screen, but they usually have an option you can click to send the photo without reducing its size. Please choose that option.

Note: The staff of Mirage reserves the right to revise language, correctgrammar or punctuation, revise formatting, or abridge content of anyliterary work—which includes the brief biographies of writers and

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artists. The staff also reserves the right to crop, resize, or modifyworks of visual art in any way deemed necessary to ready them forinclusion in the magazine.

Where to Send Submissions:

Submitting via email:

mirage@cochise.edu

Submitting by mail or Cochise College courier:

Cochise College Attn: MIRAGE4190 W. Hwy. 80Douglas, AZ 85607

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