OneOta Review 2014

the

The Oneota Review

Volume Forty-Two, Spring 2014

Co-editors

Emily Alpers and Katherine Mohr

Editorial Board

Alexandra Fitschen, Matt Hall, Jenn Jansen, Nils Johnson, Carrie Juergens, Aaron Larson, Aubrey McElmeel, Sarah Rickertsen, Marissa Schuh,

Angela Stancato, Britany Thorpe

Faculty Adviser

Lise Kildegaard

Published for Luther College byJohnson Publishing of Rochester, Minnesota

Cover: “Vatican Staircase” by Evan Sowder

Prayer Marley Crossland 6

A String, The Orange Margaret Yapp 7

Tales of the Sea Katelyn Storey 7

Golden Dog’s Shoulder Emma Cassabaum 84th of July Robbie Helgason 9

Hogwarts, A Home Sarah Rickertsen 10

Takeoff Aubrey McElmeel 14

A Winter Party Britany Thorpe 15

The Taste of Stars Hannah Lund 16

Toast Walker Nyenhuis 17

Mother Emma Cassabaum 18

nacre Britta Thompson 21

Frosted Dragons Dia LeFebvre 22

Labyrinth Laura Hayes 23

The Note on the Coffee Pot Matt Hall 23Waiting for spring Nathaniel Man 24

Silence Marley Crossland 25

Lost and Found Dia LeFebvre 25

Harmony Margaret Yapp 26

Alone, after the funeral Nathaniel Man 27Senses Kassonda Johnson 28

Florence, Italy Evan Sowder 29

Oculus of the Pantheon Evan Sowder 29

Stonehenge Kaitlin Thune 30

Giants Ring Kaitlin Thune 30

April 2012 Marcia Gullickson 31

My London Eye Erika LeMunyon 32

Luna Walker Nyenhuis 33

The Lion’s Head Anna Johnson 34

The Rainbow Fish Anna Johnson 35

Jessica Evan Sowder 36

Dunluce Castle Matt Hall 36

Beach at Lido, Italy Evan Sowder 37

Faerie Glen Aubrey McElmeel 38

Giants Causeway Sarah Rickertsen 39

If we were bears Emma Cassabaum 40

twenty-something version of Dad Emma Cassabaum 41Roger G. Bannister Tricia Serres 43

Rothko Verse Brian Nnaoji 44

‘66 Ford Bronco Paige Harne 44

Before Marley Crossland 45

Sestina Hannah Lund 46

Ice may be calving on the river Nick Gabanski 47‘rain-pool and soul-place’ Emma Cassabaum 48The Coffin Maker Evan Woodard 52

How To Pluck Your Eyebrows Margaret Yapp 53August at Trinity Farms Emma Cassabaum 54Je ne regrette rien Marley Crossland 56Being Careful Not to Tumble Off Madi Johnson 57Losing Her Aubrey McElmeel 61

No. 12 Emma Cassabaum 62

House Key Jessa Anderson-Reitz 63

Body on the Run Hannah Lund 64

Heirloom Emma Cassabaum 65

Bye Robbie Helgason 66

Table of Contents

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Thank you, God, for this body:for these feet which which can flyon wooden floor,toes that grip with callus. Thank you for a skull to roll upon, for shoulders that bear backpacksand are soft enough to lean on.Thank you for thick thighsand hips that swingThank you for a throat that can singor shout, lips that can caressand curse.Thank you for a nose to decorate, which can smell mom’s honeysuckleThank you for wide eyes which swimin Decorah sunsets, and skin to feelsun’s warmth upon--skin that bleedsand a heart that races. Thank youfor a cracking spine and the cage of my ribs. Thank you for yearning lungsthat draw in crisp winter airreminding meI am alive.

PrayerMarley Crossland

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A String, The OrangeMargaret Yapp

We find a long white threadunder a tree in Chicago. You cutit with your smiling teeth, tie one half aroundmy left wrist, I twirl the remainderover your right. Under the tree we feed each otherbits of orange, nibbles ripe and heavy. Our arms extend and bend like old branches,white vines bound around their tips.I love you. I’m glad I exist.

Tales of the SeaKatelyn Storey

I’m all salty! You are too?Are we a salty two?Then this isn’t going away -- oh well!Complaints to the Captain I will never tell.

How dreary to not be salty --How blandThe sea leaves its marks on youUnlike when you’re locked on the land

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I am quite sure those who are most sereneare travellers before a journeya long one of coursenothing shorter will do.because January at home is not beautifulyet the way the golden grasses lookin the light of a sunset just before five—the fur of a sweet old dog’s shoulder—certainly is magnificentwhen you are readying to go.Little wooden crosses on the gaping lip of the ditchin the grey words of apologymarking where blood has been spilledeven those seem exquisiteand with a pang of guiltthat leaving soon I am far more readyand perhaps they had not beensurely notfor they had not ever seen this dayor held up traffic with daydreaming aloneof the luminous straw-colored dogthat may yet rise and reveal himselfand shake out that shoulder of grass.Maybe that is why I trust in age above all elsethe rheumatic woman in the waiting roombeautiful as craggy hill and full stormcloudsthe kind you grow to appreciateeven after shying away at first.Age is honestand I like to believe age is contentat the very least it is from the outside.The stone walls cracked and chippedand adorned in emerald moss andtopaz and peridot lichens

Golden Dog’s ShoulderEmma Cassabaum

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here before all else and still standing—they could be crying outstrike me downbut I have not quite learned to listen like thatso instead I say my prayers to them.To old and damp stone wallsto the one who sees that golden dog’s grassy shoulderand to old women in waiting roomsthose aged and presentwho may not want to gobut those who are sailing away on a something someday.I am not certain if they will ever be replied toyet I say them because I know they will be heard.

It’s about freedoms,The birth of the nation

But all I could think aboutWas talking to you,In that red sun dressSipping iced tea.

We never saw any fireworks that night, But I remember a few sparks.

4th of JulyRobbie Helgason

10

Tall, proud doors swing open on a towering room. There are only five tables, four for students and one for faculty, each gleaming with hundreds of gold plates, goblets, utensils. As I slip through the doors to walk the middle aisle, winking candles float, thousands gently hovering, reflecting in shining tableware. Chatter climbs to meet the arched ceiling glittering with stars—real stars.

“It’s bewitched to look like the sky outside,” I hear Hermione whisper. “I read about it in Hogwarts, A History.”

The hat sings, and new students, nervous eleven-year-olds, are sorted. The boy I am following, green-eyed and black-haired, is sorted into Gryffindor. I would be Ravenclaw, I decide. But the hat skips over me.

“I think that’s enough for one night,” my mother says firmly. It is the third time she has tried to stop.

“Please?” I beg as before, but my eyelids fall and I can’t keep them up. As I am learning to read on my own, Mother is careful to take Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone away with her. My yellow square room shimmers into a gray tower dormitory as I snuggle into Winnie-the-Pooh sheets, my little bed a grand four-poster with soft, scarlet curtains.

“I was travelling back to London on my own on a crowded train, and the idea for Harry Potter simply fell into my head,” says author J.K. Rowling on her website. It was 1990. “I did not have a functioning pen with me...I simply sat and thought, for four hours...and this scrawny, black-haired, bespectacled boy who didn’t know he was a wizard became more and more real to me.”

Real to her, real to four-year-old me, and real to millions. The seven-book saga of Harry Potter broke sale records, touched hearts of all ages, and officially translated into seventy languages, generating billions of dollars, Euros, pounds. But while Harry was learning about his magical lineage and dark past, Rowling was jobless, penniless, and struggling to support her infant daughter. Harry was only an idea, pieces slipping onto cafe napkins and creaky typewriters.

Doors that wouldn’t open unless you asked politely, or tickled them in exactly the right place, and doors that weren’t really doors at all, but solid walls just pretending, writes Rowling. I am careful not to spill greasy cookie crumbs on the page. A portrait of a large, pink-dress woman, affectionately called the Fat Lady, is the door to the cozy Gryffindor common room;

Hogwarts, A HomeSarah Rickertsen

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Slytherin’s skulks behind a dungeon wall. The Room of Requirement has no real door at all and opens only to passing wishes. As first year students at Hogwarts, we often get lost trying these entrances, and the passage to the forbidden west wing, I learn with Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Neville, is locked for good reason. Phantom hot breath lingers on my neck as my friends turn to see a massive, three-headed dog. My clammy hands close Sorcerer’s Stone, leaving Hogwarts, and turn out my bedroom light, heart settling as if I, too, ran from third floor to seventh at one in the morning.

Rowling saw many doors, all of them closed. After moving to Portugal to teach English, she married Jorge Arantes in 1992, two years after Harry first appeared on the train. They separated just thirteen months later, his door closing on wife and infant daughter. While Rowling never spoke of being abused, an interview with Arantes details a hard slap and aggressive dragging outdoors on their final night, prompting Rowling’s return to England, a single mother with three chapters of wizards and wands in her suitcase. Left with nothing but her daughter and a boy named Harry, Jo dedicated herself to the world in her mind. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, fresh from a manual typewriter, was ready to meet editors in 1995 after five years of work. Twelve publishers rejected the scrappy boy with his mother’s eyes until Bloomsbury in London accepted her manuscript. That shining phone call, however, would not arrive for a whole year, and meanwhile Jo and Jessica Rowling got by on welfare and waited in their tiny Edinburgh flat. The fog of uncertain future lay thick, and yet Rowling had already written the last chapter of the final book, Harry’s life clear in the gloom.

One hundred and forty-two staircases grace Hogwarts. Wide, sweeping ones; narrow, rickety ones; some that led somewhere different on a Friday; some with a vanishing step halfway up that you had to remember to jump, I read. Perched on a wicker chair, my feet dangle just above the floor, but I do not notice. I am carefully skipping over the trick step, hurrying to keep up with three black-cloaked students hurrying to their next class. Only their hair—untidy black, curly brown, and shocking red—identifies them. Together, we learn the castle. Potions is in the dungeons, Charms on the third floor; the west wing of that level, and the forest, forbidden. Peeves, the school poltergeist, will drop chalk on unsuspecting students and sneak around invisibly to grab unfortunate noses. Enchanted paintings gossip, fight, and visit other ornate frames. Every morning, hundreds of owls soar into the Great Hall, dropping letters and feathers into laps and goblets while the enchanted ceiling changes pinks and golds into blues.

Are the colors this clear, the morning sky this shade of blue, the fluttering and whoos of owls this distinct for young Jo Rowling at the Elephant Cafe in 1994? Did those walks to coffee shops birth more details on houses, banners, and secrets as she went round and round

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to put little Jessica to sleep? Only then could she scurry with the stroller into the nearest cafe and pull out notebook and pen, spinning worlds while her daughter spun dreams.

For all her work, not even Rowling sees every corner. Secret rooms, hidden passageways, dark moments in time—tucked behind tapestries, in alcoves—all shifting, moving. Wizards claim Hogwarts is the safest place in Britain, yet danger beckons. In our first year alone, we fought a mountain troll in a girl’s bathroom, battled with a magic chess set, and even faced He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, a wizard whose humanity lies dead behind red eyes and snake-like nostrils. Voldemort is his name, and wizards refuse to utter it—yet when Harry is recovering from his ordeal and I sit patiently at his side, our gold-bespectacled headmaster Albus Dumbledore tells us to speak his name, wary but unafraid. Sitting in the hospital wing, and yet also at my kitchen table, I listen carefully. Harry and I will cross Voldemort again, and we will be ready.

I, too, battled for the Sorcerer’s Stone. I, too, do not know what the next page holds, for I am not turning pages but corners in a magic British castle. Dark times, dark creatures for eleven-year-olds, but Harry stands firm, I turn pages, and Rowling writes despite clinical depression and suicidal thoughts.

In an instant, the green hangings became scarlet and silver became gold; the huge Slytherin serpent vanished and a towering Gryffindor lion took its place…It was the best evening of Harry’s life…he would never, ever forget tonight, says Rowling. Upon publication, the fog began to thin in Edinburgh. Within five months, Harry and Rowling won their first award, the Nestlé Smarties Book Prize, first of a flood. Welfare stamps faded behind a multimillion-dollar industry, built in five years: a woman, a pen, and a boy named Harry. Hogwarts, inked in pain and hope, prints home for a young woman grappling with poverty, an unloved magical boy at Privet Drive, one imaginative little girl wrapped in sheets and dreams.

And, suddenly, their wardrobes were empty, their trunks were packed...they were boarding the

Hogwarts Express...pulling off their wizard robes and putting on jackets and coats; pulling into platform nine and three-quarters at King’s Cross Station. It’s time for summer holiday. Harry must leave his friends and return to dreadful Aunt Petunia, Uncle Vernon, and Dudley. I must close one book and open another.

The books ended; July 2007, Harry took his final train ride home. The last movie faded to black on the scarlet Hogwarts Express in 2011. J.K. Rowling claimed that Harry’s part in the story is over, and she kept that promise. However, her interactive site Pottermore,

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upcoming movie on Hufflepuff Newt Scamander, and hints at writing a Harry Potter encyclopedia keep Hogwarts bright and welcoming. Trick corridors and talking portraits, moving staircases and shining armor suits. They are Rowling’s home, Harry’s, mine. Four thousand, one hundred pages.

“Whether you come back by page or by the big screen, Hogwarts will always be there to welcome you home.” —J.K. Rowling

Consulted

Rowling, J. K. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. Thorndike: Thorndike, 1999. Print.J.K. Rowling.” J.K. Rowling. TM. Web. 11 Nov. 2013.“JK Rowling.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 19 Mar. 2014. Web. 27 Mar. 2014.Stars taken from Mary GrandPré editions of Harry Potter.

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YawnLong wait ahead

Stand in lineCheck in

Stand in lineLiquids outShoes off

Put it all back inMore waitingAnother line

“Have a nice flight!” I feel the pressure build as the plane gains speed and lifts off the ground

I feel the pressures of my life fall away as the space below fills with untold possibilities “Anything to drink?”

“Coke, please.”Tray tables up

The bright lights of a new city below get closerStep off the plane, now it begins

The next adventure. . .

TakeoffAubrey McElmeel

15

Purple and pinkstripes crawl overthe wintery ground;the sun is waving goodbye and goodnight,yawning and stretching asbeams of light retract,slipping beneath the blanket of snowpreparing for sleep.Yet in the night,while the sun dreams,winter weather has its fun –leaving the remnantsof revelry for the morning.

The snowflakes are softlike powdered sugarthey cling to the handsand hair of travelers,dressing them appropriatelyfor the gathering.Clouds push tiny flakes,inviting them to dancewaltzing under the lamp-glowthrough the night.

The winds whistle,making their music;using branches and window sills as instruments.Frost makes hisrounds this nightdecorating all the earth –his painting laced onglass and metal,tracing his twirling,splintered trail.And all the while,they wait for youspectators for the show.

The hall is lit,the trim is hung,the night is ready.Come.

A Winter PartyBritany Thorpe

16

What do stars taste like? she asked me as I waited for the train to come. I was in the habit of staying neutral, not of smiling but of waiting for the world to remind me of why I should.

I guess they taste like fire, I said, and she said of course, but what does that taste like, and I said maybe red, orange, yellow, white. Pain and pleasure rolled into one. Joy and sorrow. And she said okay and looked down the train tracks into the darkness, and it bled deeper than night and I said if I ate a star I might break in half and be put back together by the magnetism of…

Of what? She said and I said I didn’t know, but it was something binding anyway, something that no one talks about but that everyone had and something that creeps inside of you without you even realizing it until you’re a galaxy within and you’re spitting stars and setting the world on fire and she said that’s interesting and I said yeah.

It’s like Edison maybe, she said with a smile and I said maybe, but maybe not because none of us needs light bulbs to harness whatever this is and it’s something that exists and will always exist like even after our concept of time is done and we’re nothing more than ruins and the thumbprints of ourselves. And then she said that’s pretty messed up but I like that and asked where I was going and I said home, but that I didn’t know what that meant anymore and then we were quiet.

I thought about home and the people who would run toward me with tears and say how much they missed me and I’d say the same but the words would clunk off my tongue to the dirt and it would be like eating stars in a way I guess because it would be like my body trying to escape from my skin like I was bigger than the confines of what I was given even though I’ll never be given anything more. Like drinking liquid death I guess but if I had to die that’s how I would do it.

Should be coming soon, she said pointing to the tracks and I nodded and tried to be a goddamned Jolly Green Giant, but she just smiled and said it would be okay and hey, I could always eat stars when I was bored and we laughed but the sound died before it began.

And the dark of the train tunnel stripped years off of me and I began to wonder what shadows tasted like until I saw a star and then saw the light of the train and then forgot it all as it screeched to a halt and I got on.

The Taste of StarsHannah Lund

17

People often sayMy toast is undercooked.For I rarely allow itThree minutesTo brown and hardenBefore I seize it,Slap on some spreadAnd go on my way.

I’ll claim it’s the texture –That I only needA thin layerTo crunch and tearBefore I reachThe soft interior,The warmth of which disappearsAll too rapidly.

It reminds meOf myself –Making preparations

Without patience.Buttering my lifeIn reckless abandon.Opting for half-baked crispinessOver golden brown perfection.

But it’s still delicious.It’s still toast.I just can’t decideIf I’m the bread,Made sweetWith these extra flavors,Or if I’m the butter,Spread thinOver incomplete work.

In any case –I’m always awareOf someone aboutTo gobble me up.

ToastWalker Nyenhuis

18

My mother is a different sort of proud now-she beams more over the women we have becomeand the places we have yet to discover.She reads with a new appetiteand comprehends as a painterrather than an executive.Her hands are strong and beautifulthey have lived and lived well-blue lines are every river she has crossedand swam and sailed.Her rings are the stars she has earnedmerits and memoriesand the lines that adorn her foreheadare both a crown of grassand the ladder which I aspire to climb.Her eyes are yet a mirror for methe one place we are unmistakable.In these I wonder my futureand only hope that mine will continueto see and love and create as muchand hopefully morefor mothers always want to do betterby their childrenso I’m told.The way she speaks to the family dogsas if they are peoplethis gentleness in the way she speaksa light in her timbre-it makes me yearn for childrenthat are still so far awayand for holiday dinners and weddingsyet to be planned and prepared.She is not the woman my father marriednor the mother that birthed the three of us

MotherEmma Cassabaum

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and she is a far cry from the person I often loathed in my years of misunderstanding.No she is more.She is a woman of the worldof desperate understanding and strange content.She finds herself in piecescreating a whole that is yet in constant accumulation.A bit here in the dregs of her morning coffeewhich she takes black even though it is really deep brownlike the color of her hairand a morsel she discovers on a Thursday eveningspent in the screened porch with her best friendand a glass of wine.She drinks herself from a mason jarfilled with replenishing ice waterafter challenging the weeds in her gardenand some of herself she finds in evenings spent in bedwatching dramas and forgetting.When she watches my sistersat athletic events and concertsshe cheers and smiles from her seatand ensnares another pieceand then some more on a weekend afternoonspent in antique shopsturning someone’s lost sentimentality into her own.She sits next to a part of herselfon Sunday morning at massin the second pewin full view of the worldand of God Himself.She carries two fragments in her designer pursefor when she goes shoppingone for herself and one for everyone else.In her stream of amateur photographymost of it iPhonelives anotheroften sent to me who is far away.There’s a piece in her teases

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about tattoos and our boyfriendsand in the way I can never really tellif secretly she’s serious.Her laugh is worth the world’s weight in goldand a thousand silver spoons andher advice the same.Once I had asked her to let me see her soul,to meet her and know herand I was met with only the cleanest of steel answers-only fair for such a rude question from a lost girl.Never did I need her to tell me anythingI just needed to watch and truly see.What I wanted before she now gives freelyif I only take the timeand taper my full-grown impatienceto find it.It’s in every one of those piecesin every little part of herselfshe lays out hoping the world will find.I can taste it in all that oatmealshe loads into her cookiesand I wonder at itwhen I return homeand she asks meif I want to have a glass of wine with her.She’s right theremaking sure the yard and houselook just soand I can hear her way back in my mindwhen she used to sing Irish lullabiesand hymns to meas I fell asleep.I watch it as she speaksbefore a crowd or just usher ever expressive facethat just dares younot to pay attention.In her wooden boxfull of clipped recipes from magazines

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and in her Williams-Sonoma vanillashe sits and waits.The way she pulls her legs upon the couchand sits as close as possiblewhenever I’m home.She’s therea different kind of proudone justified by her piecesall part of a beautiful whole.

Indeed, of what I’m speaking’s the littlegrain which slid from saltwater its way past your lips. Sotiny a thing, but it itches you, rattles,gentle-kind. When you shift, you’ll hear itclicking with your edges, peeking about, questingfor a nesting place. At some long lastyour tender inner gives a holding home;and as you lose it, it grows smoother, settlesinto its cradle. Blindly your insides refine it, onlyrarely you’ll recall it there (when anythingshakes you, once, again, again the clicking, just nowthe echo’s better, prettier, cleaner, carries throughyou deeper) but most other time it’s a sleeper,but when it stirs, it stirs you. This’ll be howyou keep it. Safe, tight, hiding, drapinglayer after layer of your own secret sheen until crack, someone breaks you open and behold –your treasure, your ownshiny petite dream.

nacreBritta Thompson

22

We were frosted dragons oncerunning and free,cold outside, warm inside,but you got ice in your veins. No matter how I try to burn it outthrough love,pain,rage,it spreadswith flaked fingers,gripping,and reachinguntil all I can see is this sculpture of you,made to be seen but never touched. Now I’m afraid to warm you.I’m frightened you’ll just melt awayand I’ll lose even the illusion of the youthat ran with me,warm and wrapped,laughing and flying,the vapors of our life swirling like smoke.Evidence of our heated souls. And if you melt, all I will have is chilled liquidthat will slide through my fingers,escaping into a worldwhere no on remembers you. The real you. The little dragon you once were.

Frosted DragonsDia LeFebvre

23

It begins with the descent.The corridor opensthrough a barred gate—a red thread in my hand.The silence screams;lost words escaping into nothing.The darkness envelops,my hands becomemy eyes.Twisting and winding,the halls fold over,wall over wall,floor over floor,dream over dream,until it bottoms out intoabyss of broken threads.And in my own hand,the red thread,my lifeline in the maze,rips with a bang.

LabyrinthLaura Hayes

Mavis,

Shipping out, again.

Love you.

The Note on the Coffee PotMatt Hall

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The lady bug’s clacking its backagainst the sun-warmed glass.

The sun in the skyis the size of a cork.On this winter daythe wind whistles

spitting through the slit between his front teeth;the glazed power linesabout to jump rope.

I am on the bug’s side,kicked back under a blanket,blinking seconds byuntil it happens: the spray

of springtime champagne.

Waiting for springNathaniel Man

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When I want to speak, I thinkthoughts larger than lips and tongue--like embers inside of me,hissing steam.I am a kettle before it boils--silentand agreeable,but when I touch paper,it burns.

SilenceMarley Crossland

She came to himSharpDouble edged and lostA raw blade of nervesWith no sheath for shelter He pulled her inWarmSoft edges and foundNot what she'd hunted forBut perhaps a home

Lost and FoundDia LeFebvre

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this is what Poets and Grandmothers already know

1. nothing is anything but a Small Circle 2. the Tiniest Flower is the work of ages

pick one from the Tree watch it fade in a vase on your Kitchen counter not a crime against Nature but a glance in a mirror

3. we are all Small Circle 4. we are all Tiny Flower

Together we wind and fade

HarmonyMargaret Yapp

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Your headstoneis cold

on my palm.A black vein

beginning the firstletter of your name

is deep enough to bea slot for a penny.

Dried leaves cuddlea single glove

under the yew tree.The purple lip

of the horizonswells up from the sun’s

leaving.Your absence

finds me like a bad dream

always does, hidinginside a hall

of mirrors.

Alone, after the funeralNathaniel Man

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Senses Kassonda Johnson

29

Florence, Italy Evan Sowder

Oculus of the Pantheon Evan Sowder

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Stonehenge Kaitlin Thune

Giants Ring Kaitlin Thune

31

April 2012 Marcia Gullickson

32

My London Eye Erika LeMunyon

33

Luna Walker Nyenhuis

34

The Lion’s Head Anna Johnson

35

The Rainbow Fish Anna Johnson

36

Jessica Evan SowderDunluce Castle Matt Hall

37

Beach at Lido, Italy Evan Sowder

38

Faerie Glen Aubrey McElmeel

39

Giants Causeway Sarah Rickertsen

40

If we were bears Emma Cassabaum

41

Dad knows allwhen we take the weekendand go to a gameback to the place where I was bornand where he exhausted his wild years.Officially he was herefor a graduate degreebut when I return here with himI am sure he was herefor the sole purpose of becoming intimatewith the city.On the entiretyof our six hour drivenot once does he bother with mapsthe city’s streets are contained in hima mental atlashe has no trouble recallingand we both speed when drivingeven when Mom calls to remind uswe both received tickets this past spring“a steady five over is just fine”he says and I agreehurtling through semi-familiar townsCanton, Palmyra, Hannibal, Bowling Green, Troy.Although the game we’re attendingisn’t until tomorrow afternoonDad flips the radio to 1120 AMjust so we can pretend we’re there now.I am any great American sonas we swap opinions of middle infieldersand discuss the certain beauty of radioin relation to baseballand agree that there is nothing likehearing the crack of the bat

twenty-something version of DadEmma Cassabaum

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and having to wait just a momentbefore knowing what has happened.I don’t mind as the twenty-somethingversion of him slips outand he drops a curse word here and thereand drums on the steering wheel.I stay in the car when he goes into check into the Sheratonlistening to the fourth inningour right fielder homersI whoop in the passenger seatand moments later Dad reemergesswinging his imaginary batcomplete with sound effects‘thwack’ and ‘ahhh’ and a grin.He looks so younggreen-eyed and sandy blonde and happyas any little leaguerheaded to watch his team play.Dinner at his favorite placeup on the hilland he makes me memorize the way“44 and Kingshighway and a right on Shaw”a place perhaps a bit too nicefor us to be incessantly checking our phonesto keep up with the gamebut we do anyway.That’s what fathers and their sons doon a weekend away for the gameand we stuff ourselveswith the best damn Italian foodand still manage desserteven though Mom would be giving me a lookwere she here.But the redbirds won tonightand even though they won’t tomorrowwe will celebrate nowbefore a night of Dad’s snoresthat turn up in questions at the end

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and make me giggle at five in the morning. Because tomorrowthe hottest day of the year breaksand we’ll get sunburnedDad more than meand we’ll guzzle waterbut never leave to peefor fear of missing somethingand I’ll carry his ratty old lucky shirtin my purse with our ticketsand his new lapel pin.Then we’ll drive back sweatyand tired and exhilaratedsix hours of deep conversationand REO Speedwagon.Just a firstborn daughterand the twenty-something versionof her Dad.

Pitter-pat, Pitter-patRoger G. BannisterShattered the bar of theFour-minute mile. Once what was thought as anImpossibility,Now is essential forOlympic style.

Roger G. BannisterTricia Serres

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This song reminds me of the time I saw a RothkoSitting quietly in the MoMA, Wait give me a second

Because my mind flew to another zone, no need for a check-inI knew my life would never be the same since the moment I stepped in

Life here gets hectic, so I sit in iso pondering the esotericWill the bright nights star shine on thee for good merit

If the white wings of fortune wrapped around me and I shared itOr should I be stunting and living lavish since I only live onceIgnoring my old friends, ain’t talked to mama in some months

You can build a castle with your cake, but one day all that you’ll got is crumbsAnd the crows will be right on time as soon as the day comes

Rothko VerseBrian Nnaoji

Along the road, I stop, and ambling inThe field ahead – a timid filly, mare; Their chestnut hair and chrome barefoot stockingsThat shine beneath the glittering star-soaked air.The filly whinnies, her carriage not quiteAs graceful as her mother’s. Flank and gaitAre strong and confident while being slight.She stands and waits, so patient, for her mate.She spots me suddenly, her glass eye gazeIs fixed on mine. I freeze, engaged in this –This staring contest while she shies awayAnd takes her filly into sheltered bliss. I canter to my balking, waiting truck And kick-start it into a wild gallop

‘66 Ford BroncoPaige Harne

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When I thought of cancer, I thought of the bandanas or wigs which hid blank-slate skulls, cheeks that gather the weight sucked from the rest of the body, and chemicals--like the ones under the kitchen sink or in the laundry room--pumped into fragile veins, but no one talks about watching their mother’s pallid face against hospital pillowcases as her cracked lipspull back to bare her teeth in some sort of smile, or how to bite back a grimace when the nurses peel away bandages to change the cream twice a dayon her stitched-up blue-purple stomach, or how adult you become when she shuffles across the tile floor wearing those socks with gel grip bottoms--one of them turned around, the grippy part on top like a child--and clutches at your hand warmer than hers, or how you wish cancer was a person, a tangible predatoryou could beat for herwith all your spitfire and saltuntil your knuckles were bloodyor how to sit in class an hour and a half away trying not to cry,and when it’s time to study or write,or go to ballroom, or to choir,how absurd it is to focus on anything but counting daysuntil the surgery results come--until we know if they dug it out of her like buckthorn,or if it has only been clipped back, to sprout again.

BeforeMarley Crossland

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We used to dream of walking flashlight beamsOn rubber Sorels, tiptoeing the night.Quivering anticipation, our march,(or tight-rope wobble) was never fartherthan the strength of our torches or courageas we slid open windowpanes and stepped. “Don’t look down!” you hissed every time I stepped,uncertain, heartbeats entrusted to beamsmore vital than father’s words on courage.(He never, like us, saw the blackest nightwhen streetlamps fade beyond the lane, fartherand deeper than even soldiers dare march— men braving buckling bridges can’t marchon golden dreamscape.) Where phantoms once steppedwere places you wanted to go farther,long past constellations and their light-beams.I sometimes wondered if you were born Night.You, always, who turned back to encourage my tepid feet as yours, brimming courageleapt like a dancer’s. I could only marchif you were with me. Holding my hand, our nightendless, extended as long as we stepped.Eventually, I stayed back, gave you beamsto step without me, to make it farther. I longed for better light stretching farther—in tandem with your night-walking courage.I watched you disappear beyond the beamsand I waited. I waited for your marchor the splintering hitch of light when stepped.But alas, I didn’t hear it. And Night,

SestinaHannah Lund

47

our ravenous playmate, our fleeting nighttook you away into shadows, fartherthan my imagination dared to step.I couldn’t follow. I lacked the courageof the shining walkway we used to march.You left me behind, searching for your beams. Hero of the night, lend me your courageto venture farther and lead the bleak marchto where you stepped last: our doom—fading beams.

Or Death may be out for a stroll with his mournful fluteYou might be able to hear his weeping songOut in the Misty Veil Death walks with that delicate flute held to his dry lipsFaerie lights gliding about his black-robed formIlluminating the shadow of his hooded-faceAnd reflecting luminescence from the sepulcher windNo scythe can be seen in his gaunt handsJust a simple carved bone resonating its melodious knellMusic is the sound that soothes the soulSo it soothes yours as he glides by on a pale nightThe moon smiling down on you bothNo words he doesn’t even stop to greet youDeath merely strides silently on and you merely followForever listening to the soft sweet sound of your soul passing on

Ice may be calving on the riverNick Gabanski

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Why is it that sometimes sad songs make us feel most alive?I can’t really put it into words-I can only make assumption and observations,and ramblings.And that usually seems like enough-but not now.Did you know there is a certainbeautyto sadness?To quiet thought or weeping fit.The Earth understands it,and so does her companion.Rainy days can be clarifying.Illuminating all with a glossy sheennot found during sunny spells.To be pulled into a tranceby the intermittent delugeof Earth-bound seraphimheading home to disappear-now, that is dolefuland almost erethreal. Why is it that some people don’t understand that?To understand sad songsand rainy daysand how awakening they areis to understand a hidden condition. Some people rain from their eyesin a sadnessbut for someand for meand my brotherthere is a cold downpour in the mind.It overflows and cascades downpooling up until we are swimming in it.

‘rain-pool and soul-place’Emma Cassabaum

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After a time you become used to itused to not seeing the bottomwhich you aren’t sure existsand the temperature is tolerable,and even pleasant. Sad songs reverberate off the damp stone walls-sending ripples across the waterthat reach your toesand yes, you are alive.Yet treading in the water can be tiresomeand your skin is eaten awayyour palms and soleswhite and melting. The clarion pool no longer glistensas a beaconbut winks, a menace-the gilded silver of twenty piecesand you find yourself without air-but unable to die. Once after a near-drowningI found my way to the surfacewhere my brother still struggles-is there anything more than this?I had seen something therein the depths of the rain-pool.And I had sworn I heard a voice.I took a gulping breathand plunged.Opening my eyes under the surfacethere it was-a ladder-it led down, down,down to the bottom,and I realized that there really is a bottomand then there is more than-and the pool simply ended.

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Beneath it, a space-a room, a home.Just big enough for meand my soul,and whomever we choose to share it with.A place of comfortable chairsand a fireplace that purrs and then cracks-like a happy arthritic housecat. There are blanketsand family photographsof the people I loveand the people I will lovethe people I will shape.Brick walls and candlelightand all of my favorite booksthere on oak shelves made by my grandfather.Easy music and sweet-smell,and a smile sitting in your seat,waiting, here in the soul-place. Above, the glass ceiling of the rain-pooloffers a view of what I have done.And far above, the thrashing tired feetof my brother fight the heavy waterand he is failing, drowning,lungs full of saltwaterand without a purposehe is screaming.I shout to him-but the echoing space in the rain-pool steals my words.He cannot hear but muffled soundsamong his own cries,cries that press upon the glass ceiling here.He must find his own soul-place,he must discover his own power over the power of the rain-pool.He need only know he can take a cool swimwhenever he wishesand plunge to the bottom,for the best way out is always through.

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I am not meant to live in that water-no one is.Yet I still feel alivewhen a sad song playsand when the rain-pool fills.I take refreshing swims into its discernable depths,only for short times,and midnight dips,but I always reemergethrough the water.I know where the ladder is.I know the rain-pool’s secrets.I keep it now,rather than it keep me.I know of my soul-place,I know of myself.As I continue to craft itand lay out pieces of myself thereamong books and quilts and warm,there is more beauty nowin the sweetness of sad songs-and rain reminds me why I’m alive.

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I once knew a man

who built coffins every day.

He’d take in to his workshop

and in there he would stay.

He’d tried his hand at brighter things

like baking apple pies,

but coffins were his money tree

for everybody dies.

In them he would carve designs

and inlay varnished gold.

No one wished to see it

yet all of them were sold.

He told me coffin making

was the business of the smart.

I thought it was a pity

for he used to make fine art.

I saw him painting once. I watched for hours, transfixed, while bursts of navy, bronze and ebony would follow his arm, drifting effortlessly across the canvas. He pulled a streak of yellow into the black horizon of the portrait. “Make a wish,” he said, “before I paint over it.” I guess my wish never came true.

I once knew a man

who made coffins every day.

That man was my father

in a coffin he now stays.

The Coffin MakerEvan Woodard

53

Go to a secluded area where you will not be bothered.

Turn on the harsh lighting that picks up every dip, stain, and wrinkle of your skin, do not look at these things.

Pick up tight silver tweezers in your dominant hand, press them together with thumb and pointer--this is practice for the big show.

Bring the tips together around the unwanted stubby black hairs underneath your eyebrow arches.

Pull. Repeat. Repeat again, and again.

Do not be embarrassed if you find a few wispy threadsin between your brows--

you are human.

How To Pluck Your EyebrowsMargaret Yapp

54

As he passes through the glass doors the noise of the girls laughing erupts behind him, undoubtedly poking fun at him heading out in his muddy shorts and once white t-shirt. He smiles and slides the doors closed again, cutting off the sound. The two dogs, a guardian and a herder come bounding over, their long nails clicking on the porch. They wriggle and whine, competing for his attention, knocking into one another as he bends over to pet them, which he always does when no one is looking. He doesn’t want the girls to know he has such a soft spot for them—he has to keep up the pretense that he just likes them for their potential usefulness on the farm.

He rises and turns to look at the field, squinting as he always does. Out past the wire fence the hogs and sheep shuffle about, each group keeping to themselves, not actively making any sound, but causing the tall dry grasses to whisper in raspy tones. He crosses the backyard in five long steps and opens the swinging gate, tossing the chain to the side. He then clambers into the truck and pulls into the field, where he parks the truck and returns to close the gate again.

He checks and double checks that it is fast- no need for any animals to get out again—that has happened more than enough times in these first several months of the farm’s existence. He returns to the truck and sets off across the field towards the small old horse barn, where there were no horses but several lambs, following their mothers so closely they might as well be magnetized. Stepping out of the truck again, he carefully swings himself over the fence to check the sheep’s water. It is full, clear and wonderfully cool, just like this late August afternoon.

He returns to the red truck and sits for a moment, staring out at all the young trees they had planted just a year before. They have certainly grown, the poplars stretching out tall and lanky just like his youngest daughter, although soon they will be even taller than she is. The oaks are sturdy and quite green, as are the rest of the trees in the windbreak. He stretches his arms above his head and spreads his fingers, his nose turning up as his joints snap and pop. Bringing them back to his lap, he cranes to get a better look at the trees. All of the leaves and branches and tall whispering grasses obscure the trees he wants most to see, so he exits the truck.

August at Trinity FarmsEmma Cassabaum

55

He strides through the field, the grasses underfoot calling chuff-chuff and shhhh-shhhh. He passes through the poplars and oaks in the windbreak and breezes past the apples and walnuts, and comes to a stop dead center of the orchard. The young cherry tree has only just barely survived, growing little more than a foot since its planting last spring, but the black soil around it is moist, and its leaves are green. He smiles and sits down on the earth next to it, once again squinting across the field, just as his father used to.

Songs of Redwing Blackbirds and Whipoorwills seem to carry further in the dimming golden sun, but above their whistling he hears the briefcase calling in the backseat of the truck. It will be waiting for him come Monday morning, tearing him away from content and back to the clinic where he will heal others with his callused hands and wise words. For now, his hands are soft in the soil, and he wants for no words.

56

We enter the hallto scrawl some wordsas soft on pageas our whisperswhich ripple off the wallstingling.Maybe you’d go here if you want to feel like a limbof stone curvaturearching around you like some giant womb.You can hear yourself here.She plays Édith Piaf ’s“Non, je ne regrette rien,”and sound stretches from the speakersmagnified on a glass ceiling,rolled “R”s sparking like crystalson a chandelier,rich French vowels floating in the airlike a little sparrow.My chest aches as Édith’s voice swells of some long-agoglistening pavement dream,and I think, mes chagrins, mes plaisirs, (My sorrows, my pleasures,)je n’ai plus besoin d’eux. (I no longer need them.)I can hear myself here.

Je ne regrette rienMarley Crossland

57

Tears pooled in Millie’s eyes as she heard a bowl slide from the kitchen countertop, crashing with its contents over the floor, and soaking the straps of her store-bought sandals. Lord—the cabbage. “Oh, dear,” came a gentle voice from the end of the room. The widow Wilma Schroeder limped to her young friend’s side, her mouth pinched tight, turned in up a bit on one side. The smirk etched sympathetic wrinkles into her cheeks. She patted the girl’s shoulder, and said, “You’d better go and change those shoes.”

Rising from the floor, Millie smiled at the older woman and thanked her. She kept her head aimed straight at the door, away from Wilma’s face, and blinked her eyes rapidly as she walked. She shut herself in the darkened bedroom at the end of the hall and switched on the radio with a flick of her wrist. “Down in the meadow in an itty-bitty pool, swam three little fishes—and the momma fishy too… boop-boop rizzle dizzle dazzle, bop!” On her way to the same bed she had left too early that morning, Millie kicked her soiled sandals into the middle of the floor and relished the feel of her rug—an old one she had brought out of her parents’ home. She crawled onto the end of the bed and curled her body into a ball below her pillow, feeling the delicious comfort of cool, soft cotton under her skin, promising herself the rebellious indulgences of a full night’s sleep, a warm bath, the orange juice she liked so much to drink, if only she wouldn’t work herself into a fit.

Choosing to enjoy her moment of rest, she buried her face into that cold pillow and let her thoughts roam free. She wondered what Lawrence was doing (then made herself stop—too much of him was bad for her brain, turned her crazy), then how her replacement might be working out at the school where she’d taught before she and Lawrence had married, and about her parents who would visit the house soon with Katie and the new baby. The idea of her mother and father, so capable and serious, charmed by a silly child cheered her, and she stood to pull a pair of shoes from her wardrobe. Pausing first to make the bed, smooth evidential wrinkles out of her flour-sack dress, she headed back to the kitchen. Wilma sat quietly under the large window that over-looked their fields, the sun directly overhead now, framing her in a yellow glow and setting the white strands of her salt-and-pepper hair alight.

She had come from a few farms over to help Millie with the preparations for a dinner to feed the seven or eight families of neighboring farmers who would soon begin to arrive at the Hoffmans’ fields. Across the farm, tall shocks of bundled oats waited to be shaken free of their edible cereal grain and left as mounds of scaly golden chaff. Three months into her first marriage, Millie wouldn’t know how to manage the job on her own—she was still too

Being Careful Not to Tumble OffMadi Johnson

58

nervous (had always been too nervous, really), caught up in the strangeness of a new life, and needed a helper like Wilma.

“I’m sorry, Wil’—I needed to splash some cool water onto my face.”

Her friend nodded. There’s no need to explain. “The ham’s started in the oven now,” Wilma said, “and I had a look around the cupboard to see what else you might need me to do—how about I frost that angel food cake?” Millie almost smiled at the mention of it. She had beaten eleven egg whites for that dessert, one of Lawrence’s favorite treats: the real reason he’d visited for dinner so often at her parents’ house. Her understanding of the world became less clear, more singularly focused every time he looked at her from above that cake. She wanted him in some very old and conventional way—one that had existed, she thought, since the very beginning.

At the window, now, Millie squinted out over the fields and brushed at her hair, shuffling pins with her fingertips. On the horizon, she could make out the form of her husband shouting to the ground from his place ten feet in the air. Her feet felt sweaty and crammed-tight in these heavy, closed shoes. He stood atop the large orange body of the community’s threshing machine, the noisy, shaky mass of which was covered with horizontal wooden slats and emblazoned at the front with red-block letters spelling the name “HINKIE,” after the oldest in their group. She was able to recognize Lawrence from across the great distance on account of a conversation they’d had about a meeting of the co-operating local farmers. Lawrence, who had been elected from among the new body of owners to the position of Separator Tender, was responsible for overseeing and helping along the work of the machine, and for being careful not to tumble off.

Dinner was nearly ready at one, when she began shuffling dishes around the kitchen, fretting about which ones would fall in front of each of her guests. The cookin’s good at her place or better eat good tonight, dinner with Mrs. Hoffman tomorrow—it would be settled today. “Mill!” She turned her head away from the table and clicked her tongue against her teeth. She feigned annoyance with the boy, running in from the porch to take a break, maybe flirt his way into sampling some of the crews’ dinner. Richard, was his name? She smiled and opened her mouth to offer a gentle chiding when he began to whisper, sliding against the white plaster wall to the ground. “I think that Larry’s—he’s not… it’s by the tree.” He put the knuckles of one fist into his mouth and bit down hard, lowered his head to his knees.

She ran from him, out the porch door, her mind skipping over each thought that began to enter, praying that this last hope was not gone. Her lungs burned as she pushed farther and farther from the house. From a distance, she saw the scene. Eight of them—seven—surrounding the body, none of them moving, no one there equipped to do anything but send a boy away to call for the doctor. She landed in the dirt a few feet from Lawrence’s body. Her

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knees bled from the fall, but she didn’t wince. Mr. Hinke stood with his mouth half open, clenching his fists at his sides. One of the boys held this head that looked so much like her husband’s in his hands (his thick black hair was wet and pasted flat on one side, cheery eyes relaxed, sweet mouth slack) watching his face for signs of something. A man she did not recognize knelt at Lawrence’s side, his thumb and first fingers pressed to the dead man’s wrist as he slowly shook his head.

Katie peered through the open doorway to Millie’s bedroom, smiling cautiously as she sought her sister’s form in the evening light. Millie was still asleep. It must have taken a long time to exhaust herself—Katie had heard her wailing into a pillow or blanket for close to an hour the night before. Staying in the room right above, she’d been embarrassed to hear her sister’s cries until she’d thought to move a stumpy, padded stool over the floor vent. She crossed very lightly to the side of the bed nearest the door and sat on its edge.

“Mil?” She waited. “Millie, it’s about time for you to be getting up now, sweetheart. There’s some coffee in the kitchen and a plate of food there for you.” Katie leaned down to kiss the top of her sister’s head, then left her there, closing the door quietly behind.

Moving herself out from the middle of the bed, Millie knocked around for her slippers in the dark. She pulled down from a high shelf the black dress, sweater, and stockings she’d laid out sometime early in the morning. It felt as though the bottom part of her stomach wasn’t where it should be, she thought, but that nothing felt all right, that she still wasn’t sure she wanted to be alive, if that made sense, didn’t matter so much now. The only thing then was to keep moving—to do what needed doing.

In the kitchen, covered tin and glass dishes lined every inch of the countertops. Millie trudged over to one pan, lifting an edge of its metal lid to peek inside. Beans sat heavily in layers of cream and ground beef. Little flakes of dried onion littered the surface. She replaced the lid and crossed to her table, where a little white plate sat, as promised, under piles of warm food. Cards were propped up around the vase of flowers in front of her, and Millie pulled one toward her as she took a bite of salad. Two wild pansies pressed in wax paper fell out from between its covers. Mildred, you good girl, the card read. I am so sorry. You’ll get through it. Yours, Wilma. She laid her face down against the cool wooden table ahead of her, and pushed the food away with her open palms.

Millie sucked cold November air into her lungs as she stepped off the last crumbling concrete porch stair and onto a path, preparing to shout for one of the boys. It felt good. “John? John Peter! Get your bag down to the truck, now.” They still had to eat dinner and at this rate wouldn’t reach town till’ one-thirty. She followed the gravel walk, wobbling a little in her shoes over the uneven ground, into the barn. Inside, her son sat feet from the door, absorbed in a little game: carefully scooping handfuls of dirt in both fists and raising them above his head, he released them onto his neat brown hair and coat with a look of intense

60

concentration. Millie swooped in, dusting off his shoulders and britches, and set him to rest on her hip. “We’ve got to go now, little bear,” she widened her eyes and smiled into his face as they spoke. “Are you ready?”

By the time she and the baby had reached the car, she could see her husband leading John away from the house, the children’s red rocking horse balanced between them. He tilted his head to one side and smiled shyly at her. It was nice not to be all alone, now.

Once the last box had been slid into the trunk, John tucked safely into the back seat with his fuzzy stuffed ox, quarter of a mustard-soaked bologna sandwich clutched tight in one pudgy hand, and Millie had brushed most of the dirt from Will’s hair, they began to pull away from the property. She hugged the baby tightly against her jacket with one arm and reached for Peter’s hand at the wheel. He lowered his arm to the seat and linked his gloved fingers in hers. Millie looked out at the road opposite the farm until they had reached the blacktop, then closed her eyes for a rest.

61

Photos plaster my walls, Windblown, smiling reminders of a different me. Mementos litter my desk; postcards, trinkets, rocks. A braver, more interesting me once existed. Where did she go?

Where is the woman who celebrated Christmas in a bar in Vienna; Who drank whisky in Scotland with strangers? Where is the woman who wasn’t afraid of being alone; Who wasn’t scared of the world? Did she get left behind?

Now I celebrate Christmas in two houses and neither one feels like home. I’m on the other side of the bar, doling out drinks to locals. I tell everyone I can do anything, go anywhere— I’m not afraid of anything. Is that just her talking?

I’ve left parts of myself all over the world, Now trying in vain to pick up new pieces I grasp at the woman I used to be, adventurous, exciting But she just keeps getting farther away. How do I get her back?

Losing HerAubrey McElmeel

62

I think the most beautiful thingabout being far awayis how incredibly starvedyou become for human contacta touch even as simpleas a handshakeor that accidental fingertipgraze you havewhen you and the cashiergo to reach for the same penso you can sign your receiptyou become addictedto touch and then suddenlyit just isn’t available anymoreat least not readilyeach touch is worth gold andyou don’t quite know howto handle it but then you startfeeling things you can’t explaineven to your best friendbecause of the withdrawalsthat make your skin ache untileven bumping your knee on your desk

No. 12Emma Cassabaum

is a hymn that turnsyour face upwardsome songs make youbeg and cry outif only to ensnare a caresseven when it’s only beena few days sinceand when you’re finallyreunited it takes a minuteto remember as you stand too closeand he touches your shoulderin front of his friends and reallyall you want is to kiss him just likethey do in the moviesand that’s the beauty of itthose kisses you take in the carthat last until one can’t breatheor somebody walks by and seesand even though you’re embarrassed to be seenpeople can’t help but watch becausesecretly we all want tofeel like a sigh.

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The screen door shudders against the worn cement step.I wedge my body into the gapbetween the falling screen and the front door.My eyes scan the soft blue surface,I grasp the burnished knob.

The screen swings and spanks the back of my legs.I rotate the handle, shove my shoulder against the door. It doesn’t budge.

I keep the key to my childhood housetucked securely in my book bag. Hanging on a silver ring, hooked toa carabineer, clipped into the plastic jawsat the end of a strawberry red strap.It is adorned and connected; never leaves my bag.

“Oh come-on,” I mutter impatiently. I hike up my left leg to balance the bag,unzip the pocket, tug at the strap.The screen presses me forward, urging me insideThe dead-bolt holds me at bay.

As my key reaches the lock, the doorswings away from me, pulled wide by my smiling mother. Gathering into my arms, the bag with spilling strap, key spinning,I step over the threshold, feeling the final slap of the screen on my heels.“Welcome home.”

House KeyJessa Anderson-Reitz

64

My muscles escaped my skin again.They said I wasn’t pursuingthe urge and twitch of life fast enough,and that they could do much betterwithout me. My eyes soon followed,claiming that I’d simply failedto keep them peeledand that there was so much more to seethan I’d been permitting. My ears agreed,admonishing the music they hadn’t heardwhile my fingers(those traitorous thieves)tip-toed away without waving goodbye. My mouth, tongue, teeth chimed inalong with my nose, my stomachand eventually,my entire digestive system,being generally dissatisfied with myoverall lack of palate(which by now was already gonealong with my pelvis). My bones jangled off,wrapping my skin as a shawl,and soon everything left one by oneuntil it was just meand the faded flickering thought“They’ll come back.” I’m still waiting.

Body on the RunHannah Lund

65

I slammed my hand twice on the side of the truck to signal Lou to take off. The engine growled and turned over, and we were off, not a single soul to see us. I sat with my back against the cool metal side and reached out in the dark, sweeping over the floor until I reached the leg of the piano. Tiny little feet it had, tarnished brass wheels that really didn’t move well anymore, which was to be expected of an instrument of this age. It was Mom’s, and my grandmother’s before hers, and my great-grandmother’s before that, and before that I’m not sure where it came from, and not even Lou-who knows everything there is to know in this family- knew where it came from.

The truck hit a pothole and jostled me around in the back.

“Watch it, Lou!” I shouted, smacking the side of the truck again.

I’m sure he gave some smart-ass answer, but it was muffled by the distance between the cab and the back. I settled back down against the side and reached out for the piano again. I ran my hand along the side, the finish just as smooth as it had been when I was a kid.

“At least those thieves have taken care of you.” I said aloud to the piano.

I grinned. I guess we were the thieves now, Lou and I, lifting the piano from the empty parlor in the wee small hours of the morning, while the neighbors were asleep and the real thieves were away on holiday. It hadn’t been easy to stay quiet and slide the great thing into the truck, but my bruises were certainly worth it, because now it was ours again, mine and Mom’s.

Adjusting my position against the side, I brushed my hand against the sack of tools and remembered the flashlight. I pawed around in the bag, careful not to catch the wrong end of the picks or screwdrivers or anything else that might be in there. It was way down at the bottom, small and cold. I pulled it out and twisted it for the light to come on. It was dim, probably needed fresh batteries. I turned the light to the piano and grinned again, glad to see the caramel-colored wood and brass hardware, especially the tiny handles shaped like heavy branches of fruit and leaves. They were my favorite part of the piano, and Mom’s, and we had run our fingers over them so many times that they weren’t shiny anymore.

I laid on my back and wriggled so I was underneath the big piano and pointed my light at the underbelly.

KP. KM. MC. The initials belonged to my great grandmother, my grandmother, and Mom. I traced them with my finger, rough letters carved into the perfect finish. I used my foot to pull the sack of tools up to me and pulled out one of the picks, then began scraping away, adding my letters to the list.

HeirloomEmma Cassabaum

66

I’m in a very comfortable uncertainty right nowI know where I’ll be today, and sometimes tomorrow. The beyond remains unknown, like death. My life is segments of semesters and summers, in res halls and classrooms. No continuity of fellowship.

Hey, I’ll see you around though. We live in the same state, right now.It’s only 500 miles across.

See you around.

ByeRobbie Helgason

the OneOta Review