The Penn ReviewLiterary and Visual Arts Magazine

Scott FishmanElizabeth SlavittJonathan Richter and Jerome Y. W. ChenCatherine Lim and Ayaka IwataMichael StewartAndy Han

Editor-in-ChiefManaging Editor

Publicity and Fundraising EditorsVisual Arts Editors

Layout EditorTreasurer

Staff

Heather LevineSherrie McGrann

Alexander PerkinsJennifer Rozbruch

Liz ShayneJulie Steinberg

Andrew TierneyRichard Topaz

Devon AndersenNellie BerkmanAnand BhagwatSheira FeuersteinAdam FisherRachael HutchinsonYumeko KawanoWilliam Lee

Editors

Editor's NoteAfter a year of impassioned debates seeking to answer the elusive and yet always pressing question - what is art? - we cannot find a way to introduce a literary and visual arts magazine without sounding pretentious. We do not pretend to hold the great Truth of life in these pages or to revolutionize the creative process through our selections of poetry, prose, paintings, drawings, and photographs, arranged in a subtle thematic progression meant to intrigue your subconscious. The works in this magazine made us laugh and cry and think. We are excited about the addition of visual art this year and are grateful for the opportunity to award the 2006 The Penn Review Prizes in Poetry, Prose, and Visual Art. As we explore these changes to Penn’s oldest literary magazine, we hope that The Penn Review will continue to be a haven for creativity on campus.

University of PennsylvaniaSpring 2006

Sometimes it’s like you can almost touch it

Jonathan Richter

AltiplanoDodocomo era en el principio ahora y siempre por los siglos de los siglosA ReplyObservations from F ---The CommonplaceLeavesOde on a Potato Chip Bearing an Uncanny Resemblance to “George Washington Crossing the Delaware” by Emanuel Gottlieb LeutzeThe State of USThe Lion and the RatFishy Fate*Daughter Nature Peaceful GraceUntitled (Blue Nude)Untitled (Yellow Nude)UntitledAn Account of the Distant MoonUntitledUntitledUntitledUntitledAlwaysDrugs is a Sexy GameTracesShoesAlignment*You are LoveLost

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Table of Contents BreaksThe Meal Plan Man Done Got Me Downblues for PabloThe White of the Clouds or the White of the White*A Broken Piece of Porcelain Doesn’t Give You Much InformationOpus for Ann ArborStranded in OmahaBurning LogicTangerines

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AltiplanoJess Purcell

They believe llama fetusesare good luck, crusted bodies hangingfrom the stalls, tiny dried faces suspendedover us. We walk, two white womenin western clothes, the afternoon air thickwith coca leaves and sweat. Cochabambinossaunter by in bowler hats, bright wool scarveswrapped around their heavy bodies,the smell sharp with decay. I pay for a woven bag,the woman’s face brownedand withered by time. Tomorrowon the bus to La Paz my friend will tell meshe is afraid to go home. Her family waitsin a house where death is suspended,impassive in the shadows, fifteen silent yearswinding to an end. In a yearher father will be dead.

Coca tea before dusknumbs the altitude sickness,the air thin and sparse in our lungs.The knife he will stab into his neckis already there, waiting, in a hushed drawer.They are a world awayfrom our bare altiplano, a scrubbydesert that leads nowherehigh in the mountainswhere winter begins.

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The bus descends into the capital at night,metropolis sprawled across valleys, gleaming hillsdraped with steel and electric light. I wakefrom sleeping, cold in the shadowsas the bumpy road winds down. She is turned away,silent across the aisle,her face reflected in the glassa pale half moon.

DodoSam Donsky

Everything we know about death is not enough to kill us.-Dionisio D. Martínez

Everything the Dodo Bird knewabout extinctionwas not enoughto anticipateits ownwing-clippedtaper of mind.

Everything I knowabout love lettersis not enoughto startcallingmyself onesays Xone afternoon.

Everything he knew about Marilyn Monroe was not enoughto keepDiMaggio

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from crying at her funeral.

Everything I know about my father is not enough to stop me from growing out of him like a third arm.

Everything astronomers know about greed (and Pluto)is not enoughto stop them from asking 10 Planets? Why not 11?

Everything I know about the 19th of June

is not enough to remind me that it is

Caroline’s birthday.Everything they knewabout The Babewas not enough to stop Mantle or Marisfrom wonderingWho’s counting,really?

Everything X & I knowabout cinemais not enoughto actouta kissin the rain.

Everything Shakespeare knewabout Los Angeleswas not enoughto write a play called The Slow,Pacific-LikeShrinking of Heart.

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Everything my Father knowsabout small talkis not enoughto keephim from smalllisteningfor hours.

Everything I knowabout the Dodo is not enoughto spare X from an extinctionmetaphor,from leaving.

Everything I knowabout my Fatheris not enough.

como era en el principio ahora y siempre por los siglos de los siglos*Aichlee Bushnell

on sunday summer eveningsold ladies with sad eyes and generous smilesperch on front porches under umbrellas and streetlampsfolding and refolding threadbare handkerchiefs,the relics of their grumbling husbands, who oncefondled dominoes with arthritic fingers

now, smells of chicken grease and honeyand sweaty sex saunter throughscreened windows and giggling brown boys strut andscrawl their names on walls and kiss proud girlsbehind cars and in alleyways

where oil-slicked catshide hungry under barbeque grills and sleep atoprusted bicycles and inside garbage cans

where squirrels dance with butterflies in treetopsthat whistle like broken radios

where ghost houses weep in the dark

where men pray on cornerspadre nuestro que esta en los cielos**and women hang out of windowswatching babies stumble across patioswhispering hallelujahs

*“as it was in the beginning is now and forever shall be” – the glory be prayer** “our father who art in heaven” – the lord’s prayer

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A ReplyAlexander Perkins That noble poet, skilled as he wasGot it most wrong. In his words lieA sad mistake, clear to those whoFrom sweet dreams of love awake.“‘Tis better to have loved and lost”Was the poet’s sweet refrain,Yet how can one proclaim the lossWhen that love was never gained?This, oh poet, this is an immortal pain.In plain words, better then, notTo have loved…for now there is aLesson learned, from the unkind powerThat in one’s answer burns.For then one would never yearnFor a reply that cannot be heard,And Love, to them, would not becomeThat cold and broken word.I say with my greatest respectFor your wondrous winged words:With regret, to us, they do not applySo…let me make this reply(An addendum as it were, for I amAdding one much needed word.)‘Tis better to have been loved…Than to never be loved at all.For while the loss of love can beSo terribly cruel…love gone unrequitedMakes the heart a fool. And in the soul

Creates a most terrible thunder,That tears a hopeful heart asunder.And while your wisdom and your lossI neither deny nor defame,Love’s fire can hurt no more,Then when “I love you not…”Is tossed upon the flame.

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Observations from F— Brooke Palmieri

Earl Kinders is a man whose spiritual essence is summed up in his manner ofdental hygiene. Yet, being as this an intimate act of connection between thesoft recesses of the fingers, the teeth, and the brush, and being as this a story without the privilege of third person omniscient narration, the relevanceof this oral ritual is little help to readers. Likewise, because Earl’s paste-of-choice is a store-brand, economic and anonymous, this information bears even less use to those readers who sell toothpaste.

But Earl flosses daily.

In fact, just yesterday while walking to work Earl himself was spotted at thelocal drug store buying more floss, and his total came to $1.75.

When the clerk gave him his quarter back, he dropped it and the world watchedEarl cause the first great heartbreak that was to take place on that day: thequarter rolled too far, much too far for its value it seemed, and Earl, beingvery economic and realizing the quarter was causing more trouble than it wasworth, promptly abandoned it on the tiled floor of the store.

The world went about its business shortly afterward. “Workin’ hard, or hardly workin’?” the janitors still joked.“Call me on my cellphone!” the pedestrians still spoked.Earl himself did neither, and went to work unhappily, ruining any rhyme scheme I might have just formed at the end of this sentence.

The world is separated between those who love their work, and those who do no>From those two options, being as they are so few in number, it is hardly anuncommon thing that Earl should find himself languishing in the latter. So he

continued to languish without much concern, and continued making tuna sand-wiches on Sunday nights that would last as his lunch for the workweek. Some-times, for my job I would walk down the street playing a game, a game collecting the ending parts of conversations I could grasp from those walking by me , and using them to make new sentences. Earl’s contribution never was more than pes-simistic:

“No, no, no syntax is everything—can you believe she would say that? Pizza’sgood, I’m good, Lord knows what it’ll do to the economy but I think I’m gonnareally try to get an A in this one, pornography’s not a bad thing, but are you avegetarian too? I’m thinking of buying a new T.V. in a week or so, excuse me doyou have foot spray we had wrongly assumed I’d love to, this job is a waste oftime.” Thanks, Earl.

(Once Earl liked to write, and wrote a short story about a man named George who hated his job and realized he would have no impact on the world. He liked the story because a professor he admired liked it, too. He also liked anything with chocolate and peanut butter in it, and the last time I saw him, when I could not speak, I remember seeing a sign at the local fast food place: GET YOUR CHOCOLATE PEANUT BUTTER SHAKE HERE. And I couldn’t speak, but I wanted to, and wanted to tell him that I thought the chocolate peanut but-ter shake might be something worth looking into. But we just drove on, look-ing out opposite windows in his second hand Volvo, reducing ourselves to the tiny pieces you only find in Quantum Physics. Afterwards I always feared white Volvos—

But I play this game of sentence-making often. Earl told me he liked me becauseof this, because I was childlike, once, when we were on a patch of grass andwhen he was still and idea to me and not a person.

If I had thought to write this Prelapsian, before falling and before ideas had

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time to prove unstable, Earl might have been a romantic at heart, who loved theopera, quoted Byron, sighed at sparrows, and allowed the world to watch himbrush his teeth. My imagination is very, very unfair. And Bruce Purchase can doa mean one-man show called Johnson is Leaving, like Earl and I left anunpracticed jazz band one time, like I left Earl, and like Earl left his job,and like jobs leave us unfulfilled, if we find ourselves one day caught in thatcategory of people who dislike their jobs. And when I left I wrote him a poem toexplain, but he didn’t understand it or like it at all...

“I write these verses, feeling cheated and spited,Because there are nightsWhen my work keeps me awake,And my sleeplessness is unrequited...”

But there are always little moments when dislikable things drop off and becomelikable, I think.

“Good morning good Sir.” I said to Earl on the phone, on his lunch break. I usedto call because I hoped that his day might be likeable if I did. And I rememberEarl was so fastidious and economic, that he would remind me his cell phone plan only allotted our conversation to ten minutes. Any more than that would not make his bill likeable at all, and because I can talk I would always accidental-ly go over that 10 minute limit (as, time really only matters when you waste your life staring at a clock, and when you’re not, you forget about it, because humans are not meant to think of time, not really, the invention of the watch was abackwards step for us). I’m sorry, Earl, my intentions were not to make yourbill inconceivable.

Most things are, whether you plan it or not, inconceivable anyway. I was backthen inconceivable myself; writing, reciting poems, singing aloud, making jokesduring movies, I was back then confident and reeling all over the place just

because the smell of the air made me do as much, and I was back then incrediblyblind to my own inadequacies and vulnerabilities. I always ironed my jeans twicebefore seeing Earl, in my excitement I could not bear wrinkles. I always put onmy best perfume before seeing Earl, and it was humiliating to know he didn’tlike perfume. Earl was not sympathetic, Earl was not even there, he was the onlyone not there at the airport when I came like that traveler from an antique land. I was full of Swiss air and Italian gelato, fresh from cities where romance is everywhere. Earl said, there really isn’t a point to life. I said, life is full of points, ballpoints and pinpoints and three pointers, how could you think that? Earl said, I don’t find myself feeling emotion much, or caring about anything either. Earl, Earl how could you push ideas like that through your white teeth?

It was at this point that, if I had imagined Earl brushing his teeth, I wouldhave imagined him as harsh, attacking his gums with quick strokes, the bristlesof the tooth brush not neat but misshapen, flattened a bit, from the force ofhis pressing them against his teeth, white teeth because he abused them so, sowhite from heated friction and bleeding just between the two front ones alittle. Fighting plaque and gum disease is no easy business, sometimes one mustbe cruel, the television commercials tell us this much but do the words thatthese chattering teeth and pink tongues and gums issue have to be that way? Why can’t the two be unrelated and absurd, like an Ionesco play? Why can’trelativity prove only a theory and not a practice now and then? What are youtrying to prove to me now about yourself? Why do you have to make life intochair from the de Stijl movement? Why do you brush your teeth like that, Earl?Earl?

I don’t understand you. I don’t understand anything. Why is Earl Kinders a manwhose spiritual essence is summed up in his manner of dental hygiene?

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The CommonplaceAdam Fisher

Allen P Nice is gay

- Sidewalk inscription between 38th and 39th Sansom Street

Well, Allen. Is it true what they say?That you were looking for a legacy. I stareat the sidewalk too. I see the words, the names and longfor the feel of wet cement in my mitts.That is how you did it, right? You kneltdown with the beating sun on your neck and insertedyour index finger into the sidewalk. And there was only one thing to write, wasn’t there. That name your parentsagonized over, “Allen,” and “P,” because it is nice.And after lifting your dripping digit, what then?Satisfaction, fulfillment shared with every otherarid inscription? But you hadn’t countedon an errant force. Who, Allen, who tacked onthe epithet? What slinking soul forfeitedan opportunity for immortality only to vandalize a name drying in the air?

I did it. You hear me, Allen? I did it.I write the “is gay”s and the “sux”s after some girlfriend’s initials. I strike through hearts and x-out “loves”s and “forever”s.I spray paint over every inflated letter in “VYRU$” or “ERBAN PLAYAZ.” I interrupt scribble with carrots, becausehe is NOT cool, she is NOT hot. I’m NOT

going to apologize the next time the smileyface in the bathroom stall grows a long nose and eyeballs. I bet you could tell me why, Mr. Nice. Whydo I deface without bias? Why waste my living inkon barren lines and curves? Maybe because I have neverscratched catchphrases into tile. I have neverscrawled a heart with two-letter vessels. And no,Allen, I have never bent down on the sidewalk andcarved my name into rock.

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LeavesJulie Steinberg

The leaves are falling.One by one they trail offLike the ellipses at the end of summer’s sentence.

I wait for them to change in that archetypical transition.In some cases, I get lucky.

I see purple.

Now descend the gustsLike the city’s specters.

I believe in the ghosts of memorySwirling down in the changingOf the guard.

One is a conversation in front of some stately buildingAt 4 a.m., another the kiss exchanged in partingOn the pedestrian avenue.

These ghosts returnFalling quietly on what once was.On ground where betrayal lies.

And I want to see their vibrancy againIn some sublime forgotten state.

So I crunch among themDown this empty street.

Ode on a Potato Chip Bearing an Uncanny Resemblance to “George Washington Crossing the Delaware” by Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze(Imitation of Keats’s Ode on a Grecian Urn)Adam Fisher

Thou uneaten soldier of saltiness,Thou commander of silent victory,O, Great President! how I must confessSnack and art to be contradictory.What piquant prowess captures such a scene(With biting passion truer than meter) Of vessels braving the choppy water?What seamen toiling? What boat doth teeter?What wind-torn faces? What courage unseen?What heavy hearts? What approaching slaughter?

How sweet the taste of victory, but deliciousIs the unchewed triumph; therefore, row onYe crew of intrepid souls! AmbitiousBe thy will, and churn the waves that flow on:Those that rock thy rigid craft shan’t be feared;Ice and wind may threaten your bold crossing,But never shall they capsize your dear craft.Man the oars with strength! Don’t mind the tossingCurrent; your great passage shall be reveredAnd celebrated with delight and draught!

O American indulgence! Taut treat!What uncanny lard lottery gave birthTo Leutze’s masterpiece? None more eliteThan Washington poised above sea and earth

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Dost stir a soul, but O! what trickery!Despite the labors and wars of mankind,Through unforeseen hardships thou shall remain:Immortal art of the crunchiest kind.“Flavor is taste, taste flavor,” sweet hickoryChip thou say’st that is all one need retain.

The State of USKara Daddario

When you were still a libertarianI would have declared my constitution as an addiction to your intelligence

and told you amendment is not made with sex.

In New York,you twirl your spaghetti and we realize it’s me.

Two breaths and your forkvanishes in vodka sauceas it slips out of your hand.

You will tell me it is fine to still believein independence during cohabitationand Oreos for breakfastbecause you never did know how to cook.

Tell me you never actually coulddig things likewomen’s civil rightsand my uncivil insanity.

Let it linger there – INSANITY.

We’ve moved to tea.I fill my cup with a dollop ofIrrationality, the

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gentle china cracks;sugary water seeps outrunning hot on the table.

Tell me again thatlife gets better

eventually.

I don’t hear the wordsseething from your mouth.My mind is on your cold noodlesand my index fingerthat is soaked in tea.

Leave now.Slide down past Washington Mews where,if you listen carefully,you can still hear Dylan play.

Go past the all-night Chinese food jointthat serves sangriawith light pink lycheesthat dance on liquid tension.

Keep going until you vanish slowly into your doorwaycast in mundane yellow light,

before I realize the fundamentals,

of US, have ceased to exist.

The Lion and the RatElaine Simeon

“I am a liar,” cried the rat mournfully. “I have tried so hard to be good, but I am always tempted by the weak and stupid creatures around me. How can one be expected to tell the truth when the animals of the world are so happy to believe lies?” The good and honorable Lion looked condescendingly down on the rat and declared, “You cannot truly have tried, brother rat, for we each have control over our actions. I myself have often been tempted to use my speed and strength to take down such young and tender animals as happen to pass me, but I listen to my conscience and only hunt such prey as have a fair chance of escap-ing by using what cunning and wit they possess.” The rat sighed deeply and con-tinued in pitiable tones, “I simply must not be as strong as you. Truly I say that no matter what I do, I can not seem to help but use my shrewdness to con and trick those around me. What shall become of me?” The great lion settled himself upon the ground, and bent his head that it might be on a level with the little rat, “Do not give up, my small friend, there is yet hope for you. Listen now, to my story about the Whartonite and the College student, and you shall see that I am right.”

The Whartonite and the College Student

There were once two great friends, a Whartonite and a College stu-dent. One day they were walking together along Locust Walk when the College student, generous and idealistic, said, “You know what I’d love to do? I’d love to start a mentoring program for the children of West Philadelphia! We could meet with the younger students and help them to better themselves by tutoring them and exposing them to all sorts of new things! What do you think my friend?” Now the Whartonite was shrewd and ambitious, so he thought carefully before replying, “You know, I think that is a good idea. I’m sure that if we put together a convincing proposal the University will even fund us for it!” The College student

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was thrilled at the prospect of realizing her dream, and she hurried off to put together a list of all the subjects that should be taught and the trips and activities that they should plan for the younger students. Meanwhile, the materialistic mind of the Whartonite was very differently engaged. “I’ll arrange with the principals of the local schools for them to first pay a flat overhead rate in order to be involved in our program!” he thought greedily. “I bet I could even convince them to pay a small fee for each child involved, and since our expenses will be covered by the university, the profit will be all ours!” Before long, the mentoring program had been approved by the Univer-sity and the two friends were in charge of a large number of eager Penn students, all anxious to serve the community. Unbeknownst to the College student, profits were also rolling in. The Whartonite rejoiced in his cleverness, and celebrated by using his money to redecorate his entire high rise apartment with furniture and decorations from Urban Outfitters. One day, when his friend the College stu-dent was over for a visit, she asked him curiously, “My friend, where did all these beautiful new things come from?” The Whartonite, basking in the praise of his apartment, answered “I bought them all with the money I made from our men-toring service! Just wait till you see the other rooms!” He at once jumped up to give his friend a tour but was interrupted abruptly by his friend. “YOU DID WHAT?!” she screamed indignantly, “This was meant to be a service to the community! A way of giving something back! It wasn’t an opportunity for you to milk the local schools for all that you could!” The Whartonite just glared back at her, and folding his arms stubbornly said, “You’re just jealous that you weren’t clever enough to have thought of it first!” The College student looked at him sadly and said, “I’m very disappointed in you. You’ve used your talents to exploit others. My friend, I expected much better of you.” With one last sad and disillusioned look, the College student walked from the room. Left alone, the Whartonite began to think on what his friend had said. “Perhaps I was wrong to have used our program in such a way,” he mused. “I will have to make it up to her somehow.” He sat and sat, until he thought of how to

redeem himself. “I’ll use the profits from the mentoring program to create copies of the new math tutorial computer program that I’ve designed!” he thought excit-edly. “Then, I’ll distribute them in all the local schools for free!” The Whartonite set to work at once, feeling deep inside himself the growing feeling of joy and pride that comes from putting others before yourself. When at last his work was finished, he went to his friend and apologized humbly, “You were right all along my friend. I’m sorry to have disappointed you so, and I’ve changed my ways so that you might be proud of me once again.” The College student hugged him at once, saying “I am proud of you! You’ve overcome your greed and ambition and have become a good and generous person! Noth-ing could make me happier.” And so the Whartonite and the College student were reunited and stayed close friends all their days. They continued to run the mentoring program, free of charge, and it prospered under their leadership.

***

“Wow!” exclaimed the rat. “If the Whartonite could learn to put aside his greed, then certainly I can overcome my demons!” The lion laughed with plea-sure. “I knew that you would see it my way, brother rat. All you have to do is try hard enough and you can achieve anything!” “I cannot thank you enough my friend,” said the rat. “You must come to my house for dinner so we can celebrate my new outlook on life.” The lion hap-pily accepted, and the two friends set off side by side. They shortly arrived at a pleasant house. “After you,” said the rat, with a respectful bow to the lion. “We shall eat just through there.” However, as the lion made his way across the room the floor collapsed beneath him and he found himself trapped inside a deep pit. “Help me friend!” cried the lion, “I have fallen and can’t escape on my own!” The rat leaned over the edge of the pit and laughed scornfully at the lion, “You fool! Did I not tell you that I am a liar! You played right into my paws, just as I said stupid animals always did!” At that moment, three jackals entered the room. “Have you done as we

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bid you?” they asked the rat. “Of course! See, here sits the noble beast!” gloated the rat. “Now, all that he rules over is his little hole!” The jackals laughed cruelly, “Here kitty-kitty! You’re just a big pussy cat now! You’ll never thwart our hunts again, for now we have all the power!” Through all of this the lion had remained silent, but as the rat turned to leave he cried out, “Brother rat! Why have you done this to me? I thought that you had learned from my stories!” “You are far too gullible,” scoffed the rat, “I was just tricking you to pay off my debts to the jackals. Besides, you got it all wrong. That’s not really the way the story of the Whartonite and the College student ended! The Whartonite was far more clever than you gave him credit for. He wasn’t really helping the schools! He just used it as an opportunity to enter and dominate the high school market so that it would be ready and waiting for him when he finished university. He started a company that sold tutorial programs for other subjects as well as math, and created updated versions every other year. He made millions for himself!” Still laughing to himself over the folly of the lion and marveling at his own clev-erness, the rat skipped from the room, leaving the wicked jackals to do with the lion as they pleased. The moral of the story: A person can’t change his true nature, the honest and idealistic are often easily fooled by the sly, and Whartonites will always show their true colors eventually.

*Disclaimer: The author actually quite likes Whartonites, and is sure that, deep down, they are all wonderful, generous people with hearts of gold.

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Fishy FateBrittany SiegalJanuary 2005ebony pencil on paper19” x 24”Recipient of the 2006 Penn Review Arts Prize

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Daughter NatureBrittany Siegal

April 2005 watercolor

24” x 36”

Peaceful GraceBrittany SiegalAugust 2003Acrylic 24” x 36”

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Untitled (Blue Nude)Jennifer Rozbruch2005Watercolor on paper14” x 10”

Untitled (Yellow Nude)Jennifer Rozbruch

2005Watercolor on paper

10” x 14”

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An Account of the Distant MoonTadashi MoriyamaJanuary 2006acrylic and oil on canvas70” x 56”

UnititledRaphael Coh

June 2005Oil on paper

11” x 15”

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UntitledRachel MeyerSeptember 2005digital photograph

Untitled Catherine LimOctober 2005

digital medium

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UnititledRachel MeyerOctober 2005digital photograph

UntitledRachel Meyer

Spring 2005digital photograph

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Drugs is a Sexy GameWun Ting Wendy TaiDecember 2005photograph8” x 10”

AlwaysWun Ting Wendy Tai

December 2005photograph

8” x 10”

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TracesSam Donsky

This is the way our story goes under. Either worry or lack of it.Both precision & pace.The Earth expands daily & if that doesn’t refuteAmy’s fallout of loveor Brian’s cat killingit’s first mouseor scientists’ discoveryof bittersweetin the ’90’s,(well.)

This is my half of the city. Either this arm or disarm.Both the trapdoor& the door. A film ends with snowfalllike a song ends with it’s alright, becauseevery time we are comfortedwe were disturbed,because every two hoursit snows, because

every kissis a breathwhen it misses.

This is the swollen arc of our passion. Eithertoo much forgivenessor too much at stake.Both the occasion& the bruise. A painter has a stroke& his art reaches new heights,the sky no longer faceless,the woman undissolvedfrom her luminous ether,her dress finally red,her heart finally foundin his traces of a worldat large.

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ShoesAichlee Bushnell

I couldn’t find my church shoes this morningThey just plain brown shoes but the insides feel like peaches.And Mama plucked me on my ear cuz I guess peaches is expensive.She plucked me like she ain’t want me to hear no more.But I couldn’t feel it.

Couldn’t feel it kinda like when I come in late after jumping in puddles in the schoolyard and my toes be all numband Mama just be yellin. But I can’t hear it.

Feel like I got mud in my earswhen her voice be hollerin heavy like the gait of an angry pianoor sometimes even when she just be smiling.When she smell like pancakes and musk and her hair look like licorice.

When it’s the morning time andI got my Sunday school shoes onso my feet feel like peacheswhile we walk to the church soft and proud like elephants.

Alignment*Yona Silverman

Tziona stops going to school when she decides that the earth is about to fall out of orbit. In August, she begins refusing to sleep alone, so I lay with her every night for hours until her eyes close and I can hear her breathing deeply. In the mornings when I go into the girls’ room to wake them she is already up, always, lying in bed and facing the wall, shivering a little. By November she is wetting the bed at night. “You’re back,” she says most days, sitting up and unclenching her fists when I walk in. “Of course I’m back,” I say. “It’s the monsters,” Tziona tells me, when I ask. “If I make a noise at night when you’re not there, they kill me.” I put up invisible monster signs, made of the ink that mommies and monsters can see, and she watches as I paint them directly onto the wall with a new paintbrush we chose out together for the purpose. At first I think they’re helping, but in less than a week she is having accidents again. I say maybe she should just sleep with us all night, or maybe I should stay in her bed, but Ezra thinks this is a bad idea. We are already dealing with all of this when the orbit stuff starts. Still, Tziona is seven. She can afford to miss one day of classes, or two, I think, and though I spend a few minutes trying to get her out of bed, I end up just letting her say she has a stomachache. After three days I get nervous, and I have things to do that I can’t do with her home, so on the fourth morning I try and put my foot down. “You have to get up, Tziona,” I say. “You don’t have a choice.” But she doesn’t even move, just looks at me and looks away. “I don’t think it’s safe,” she says. “Of course it’s safe,” I say. “Would I want you to do anything not safe?” Liat, who is a sound sleeper and is always congested from allergies and asthma, is wheezing softly in her bed. “You may not understand,” Tziona says. She turns back over and looks

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at me, and the areas under her eyes are dark in a way that’s not appropriate for a girl. Her hair is knotty. “I’m your mother. I think I know as much about the gravitational orbit of things as you do.” “You don’t.” She is small and scared, wrapped up in her comforter, and I have to get Liat up and dressed and ready so that she doesn’t miss the bus. When I try and pull Tziona out of bed and she starts kicking, I grab Liat’s outfit from the dresser and take her into the dining room to put on her clothes. Ezra always brings the girls down to the bus, and when he sees that Tziona still is not up he gives me a look, and is going to start really yelling, but then I point to Liat and he just shakes his head. “This is not okay,” he whispers. “So you get her out,” I say. “She doesn’t listen to me,” he says, and picks up his briefcase and Liat’s little knapsack, and slams the door when they leave. Once she realizes she isn’t going to be made to go, Tziona gets out of bed, and comes into the living room. “I’m feeling a little better,” she says. “Not good, but better. What are we doing today?” “We’re not doing anything,” I say. “Well, can I sit here with you?” I nod, and I continue reading my book, and she picks up one of hers. When the cleaning woman arrives I tell Tziona that I’m going to the gym for a while, and then for coffee with a friend, and I’ll be back soon. “You can’t go,” she says. “Please.” “I have to,” I say. “Seriously, kiddo.” “But we’re just hanging in space, mommy,” she says. She is gulping for air, getting ready to have a tantrum. I feel panicky. “Whether I’m here or not, we’re hanging in space.” I tell the housekeeper that I’m going out, that I’ll be back in two or three hours. “Please call if there are any problems,” I say.

“Yes, yes,” Faye says. “Of course.” When I am at the door Tziona runs and grabs my legs, wrapping her arms around me and screaming. “You can’t leave me. It’s not fair.” I pull her off, and close the door as firmly as I can, holding the knob tight as I lock the top lock with my key. Even in the elevator down, I can hear her wailing. Outside it is bright and cold, and the doorman warns me to button up when he lets me out. The subway station is less than two blocks from the apart-ment, but before I get there, my cell phone rings. It’s our own number. “Mrs. Grossman, come home,” Faye says over the phone. I can hear the shrieking in the background. She is not a nanny, just someone to clean the house in the mornings, because I am bad at it. “What?” I ask. “She’s sick. Very sick.” I turn around, and walk towards the building. When Jorge opens the door again, he smiles. “Back so soon?” he asks. “I forgot something upstairs,” I say, not smiling back. Tziona is on the dining room carpet, writhing. “Very sick,” Faye says, standing nervously in the hallway, the vacuum turned off at her side. Tziona has cried so hard she has thrown up.

Ezra thinks Tziona is being spoiled, so even though he isn’t usually around when the girls are awake in the evening, he gets home early from work that fourth day, and Tziona has moved from her bedroom into ours, and is watching TV under the covers. He goes in, without stopping to say hello to Liat and I who are finishing dinner, and I can hear the voices on the television shut up. Fifteen minutes later he is back, his forehead scrunched and veiny. “I sent her to bed,” he says. He gestures that Liat should go. “Are you done, Li?” I ask. She shakes her head and picks up a macaroni with her hand and tosses it into her mouth.

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“I’m still really hungry,” she says, puffing out her round cheeks so they are swollen with air. “Can you please pass the trees?” I scoop some overcooked broc-coli onto her plate. “So we’ll go into the other room,” Ezra says. “Andy.” I get up, and if it was Tziona she would have a fuss, but Liat just contin-ues humming, and mushing her broccoli into her noodles. “What happened?” I ask when we get to the entry foyer. He is still wear-ing his shoes, and he bends down and unties them, pushing them under the breakfront. “She said she won’t go tomorrow, either,” he says. “I take her to therapy Friday afternoons, anyway,” I say. “And it’s a short school day.” “I don’t think this therapy is working.” “So what do you want to do?” “I’ll wake her up tomorrow.” “Fine.” “Fine.” Liat comes in, and tells Ezra that she has a song to teach him. I leave the room, and I hear her asking him why he’s home. “I wanted to see my girls,” he says, and then they both laugh at some-thing, him deeply amused, Liat high and giddy. Tziona is in a ball under her covers. I get in bed with her, and she shifts into me, her face wet and slimy. Ezra comes in about an hour later, and Liat is bathed and naked. “Maybe you will lie with me tonight?” Liat says in a squeaky voice, tap-ping my shoulder. “Not tonight,” I say. “I’ll lie with you tonight, pumpkin,” Ezra says. He turns off the light, and gets in bed with her, so that all four of us are in the same room, but after Liat starts wheezing I hear the creak of the floorboards as he leaves. I don’t get up un-til morning, and Ezra doesn’t bother trying to wake Tziona up, just silently takes Liat by the hand when she is done eating her cereal, and ignores me as he closes the front door.

In the psychiatrist’s office in the afternoon, Liat and I build a tower out of blocks while Tziona talks with the door left a crack open, so that she can see me. “We’re building to the sky,” Liat says, and then knocks her structure down a few seconds later. The blocks crash around her, and she laughs and laughs. Ezra insists that she clings to him and not me because when she was born, she saw that I was already taken, so she just sort of accepted the leftovers, but the reality is that she doesn’t cling to anyone. When Tziona was a baby she would cry for hours, no matter what we did, and if we weren’t paying attention to her sometimes she would just go limp, to scare us. Liat really almost never cried. “She’s the good baby,” Ezra used to say. Tziona was still tiny at that point, but not too tiny to maybe understand. “Tziona is passionate,” I would explain to whoever was listening. “She was a personality from the moment I had her.” When the door opens Tziona runs out, escaping. “We should talk about things,” Dr. Marshall says, her hands fidgeting in front of her. She wears a pearl necklace and fancy earrings, and skirts so expen-sive that I am always surprised to see her playing dollhouse on the floor with Tziona. She is supposedly one of the best specialists in children’s anxiety in the city, but she has no kids herself, though she is older than I am, and married. “In here?” “They’ll play out here,” the doctor says. “We can talk in my office. You guys are the last of the day.” Now we leave the door shut in the opposite direc-tion, so that we can keep a small eye on the two of them. “What’s going to happen?” I ask, when I have sat down, in the lowest voice possible. “The orbit stuff is nothing to be worried about, specifically. It’s just more of the same. She’s an anxious kid.” This is not news. “And of course, extremely in-telligent. Still, it’s just anxiety that if she’s not with you, things will fall apart. We can work on it. But, in terms of school, we have immediate problems and imme-diate options.” She starts going on about medication and behavioral techniques, and I nod, and nod. “If I were you, I would take her to school on Monday. Don’t

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wait for the bus. Just bring her yourself. My guess is, she won’t act out as much in front of her friends.” “Maybe.” I’m doubtful. Dr. Marshall can tell. In the other room it sounds like the girls are about to argue, but then I hear Tziona laugh, and then Liat, and I relax. “If it doesn’t work on Monday morning, then call me,” the doctor says. “This happens. Tziona’s not the only kid with these kinds of separation issues.” “I know. It’s normal.” She stands up and I do too, and she puts her arm on my shoulder. “It’s not normal, Andrea.” I feel myself blushing. “It’s fine, and treatable, and she’ll be okay, but it’s something we need to keep working on.” “Of course, of course.” She writes out a prescription form, and runs through the safety concerns of giving this drug to kids. “I highly recommend it. It works.” When we leave the office, Tziona comes over and takes my hand. Liat, who is not yet five and has never had a therapy appointment, kisses Dr. Mar-shall’s arm before we go outside. In front of the building, there is a squashed bird by a bus station. “Icky,” Liat says, pointing. I put my hand out to hail a cab. “It’s not just gross,” Tziona says. “It’s dead.” “Like mommy’s daddy,” Liat says. My father died when I was 18, well before the girls were born, years and years ago. “Yeah,” I say. “Like your grandpa.” Both of Ezra’s parents are alive, as is my mother. “Do you still miss grandpa?” Tziona asks a few seconds later, after the taxi comes and I have gotten both girls inside and buckled. I tell the driver our address, and think for a few seconds. “I don’t miss him exactly,” I say, and this is really true, especially since he has been dead for more of my life than he was alive. Though I don’t believe in God, really, not in the concrete way Ezra does, I wish I could, and I want them to be able to, if they want. It is something I’m hoping Ezra can give them, if he tries hard enough. “There is a part of him, I think, that is still alive, even if he’s dead.”

“Which part?” Liat asks. Tziona is playing with her ear, folding the soft top down and up again. “His head?” I start laughing, and cannot stop. “No, idiot,” Tziona says. “Not his head. His soul in heaven.” “Something like that,” I say. “Not a real piece of him. Just a piece of him that’s not imaginary, but invisible.” “Mommy,” Tziona says. “If you get to heaven before me, will you wait at the door for me to get there, before you go in?” I see, for a moment, heaven as my daughter does. One big entry foyer in front of a vast world of cloud and candy. “Of course,” I say. “There’s no question I’ll wait at the door.” In my mind, I recognize the problems with this; the entry foyer crowded with generations of mothers waiting for their children. I want to explain it all to her. Explain that I do not have it within me to separate her from me. I direct the driver to take us to Broadway and not West End. Sometimes, next to Liat, Tziona seems so big. I need to remind myself that she is a small girl. Even when she is not having a fit, she is still young. “We need to pick up some medicine at the drugstore,” I say. “And then we’ll go home.” “Can we have ice cream?” Tziona asks. “We’re going to have Shabbat dinner later,” I say. “With dessert.” “Please, mommy?” Liat asks, and I am going to say no, because the whole point is I have to set limits, and be firm, but when we get out of the cab Tziona doesn’t cling to me. Instead, she and Liat start running towards the drugstore, shoelaces dragging against the pavement. Of course I will let them get ice cream. Ice cream after ice cream until ice cream is no longer mine to give or take away.

*Recipient of the 2006 Penn Review Prose Prize

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You are LoveAdam Fisher

You are loveplucked from a distant plant.I grind you down and breathe in your aromaof green earth and thyme.When I sprinkle you into a crease of paperand pinch you between my fingers,I am caressing the wings of a moth.

I smooth your curves, squeeze your waist.Like a sapling, you are slender and ready.Firmly, I grasp your bodyand roll you over in my hands.

I lick your length and fold,then hold my flame against you.Ignited, your body burns awayLike the bark of a tree.

I put you between my lips and inhalethe pale summer sun and crushed moon of autumn.I hold,And feel your pressure in my lungs—Tribal drums beating from my chest.When you leave my body in a wisp of smoke,I feel your lingering loveLike the last orange leaf on a bare branch.

LostNellie Berkman

A figure in the mirror staring back,his eyes the blue and cream of foam on waves,clings to my lashes, turns, then runs away,his cryptic orbs now memories I lack.It must have been my boy with humble tact,returning from the shadows of his grave.It must have been his rapt gaze that I cravedbetween the broken time of hour-glass cracks.

And was it fear that made me see the face,the eyes bewildered throwing me a glance?And should I look beside me to embracethe one I never really gave a chance?And even though his crisp eyes left no trace,did I find here the rapture of romance.

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BreaksNina Godiwalla

Summer breaks during junior high were always a bore for both me and my grandmother, my father’s mother, who had lived with us ever since her husband died ten years earlier. She joined my parents when they immigrated to Houston, Texas, from India. During the summers, both my parents worked everyday and my grandmother and I had no car and nowhere to go in the suburbs of Houston. Each week we made sure that my mom had stocked up the kitchen with our favorites snacks. We both had a weakness for cheese so most of our snacks had a cheese theme—Cheetos, string cheese, nachos and Cheese Nips. Sometimes, when we would fight, I would find that she punished me by hiding the Cheetos, my favorite, in her room.

This Thursday morning my grandmother sat hunched over on our gaudy pink and green flowered recliner. She firmly dug her elbows into her knees and used her palms to prop up her head. From the profile, where I was sitting, she looked like a bicycle U-lock. I was used to this bored look from her during the 11:00 a.m.-12.30 p.m. break in her television shows. Today she was particularly im-patient between her Price is Right, which finished at 11:00 a.m. and her 12:30 p.m. showing of the Bold and the Beautiful. After the Bold and the Beautiful, she would remain entertained by As the World Turns, and then Guiding Light. These back-to-back shows would consume her until 3pm--her shower time.

In silence, I looked just above her head at the tarnished figurine displayed on the piano, and she eyed a picture, displayed on the side table next to me, of my sister and me dressed up in Ghostbuster costumes for a jazz dance recital. The one and a half hour break was painful for her. She rarely broke these sealed silences, but when she did it was usually because of a childhood memory.

“I used to be a gymnast,” she said abruptly.

Surprised that I had never heard this before I skeptically retorted, “Dad never mentioned that.” My father knew little about her since he had spent most of his life in boarding schools. Whenever I asked a question about my grandmother he would say, “Ask her. How the hell would I know?”

“I was,” she said throwing an irritated vertical karate chop in the air that made me feel like she sliced me into two thin pieces. “I could bend my whole body in half --backwards and forwards,” she said and giddily flipped her right hand back and forth as if cooking it on both sides. “Completely flat,” she went on. She clapped her hands and let out a startling shriek of thrilled laughter and an, “Ohhh.” Then she grinned and clasped her hands together as if captivated with her capabilities.

Not satisfied with the idea that her body could bend backwards, completely flat. I interrupted her glee. “Grandma,” I moaned at the ridiculousness, “that’s not possible—you had your entire back touching the back of your le---?”

“Will you listen!” she said maddened by the interruption. “Like this,” she raised her hands straight up into the air and then desperately tried to arch her back, but her movement was so slight that her hands only moved a half inch and she could not even get her hunchback to straighten out, let alone bend backwards. “I could do it. You just don’t understand.” After a short break, she yelled, “Come here. Come here!” Her hand pointed to the ground in front of her.

Begrudgingly, I walked up to her. “Like this,” she said and sternly pushed my body forward so my hands reached my toes and said, “forwards.” Then, to no avail, she made me lay down flat on my stomach and tried to raise my upper body to bed backwards and touch my legs and said, “And then backwards.”

“Ouch, Grandma! Stop it,” I screeched.

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She let go of me and went on explaining, “Like a chapati (an Indian tortilla). Now do you understand? It is hard to show you because you can’t do it. Even though you have been in gymnastics and ballet for years. It is very difficult.”

Her eyes widened and she opened her hand back and forth like Pac Man, “Back-wards and forwards,” she repeated to herself with a daydreamy smile as if she could clearly see her youthful, flexible body bent flat together like a bobby pin. “Backwards and forwards,” she repeated and paused indefinitely, all the while still asmile.

Still in disbelief but not wanting to be the physical model of yet another floor demonstration, I pretended that it all now made sense. “Yeah,” I said nodding and thinking about what fruit roll-up flavors were left. We always ran short of Wild-berry. I looked at the clock --12:13. Seventeen more minutes until her show.

For several minutes we both sat looking around the living room, in our own thoughts. And I hoped she would stay silent.

“I was a basketball player, too,” she blurted after several minutes. “They had basketball in India?” I said, trying to sound more inquisitive than skeptical, only out of fear that it would make her story longer. I stared at her fleshy stomach and realized that she never exercised in the decade she had lived with us.

“Of course they did,” she asserted with a sharp nod so definite that it formed a temporary upside-down isosceles triangle indention in her throat.

“But were you a serious one. Like on a team?” I stopped because I realized my question would further irritate her, “or do you mean you just shot baskets outside your house?”

“Nina,” she moaned at my lack of common sense. “Now you know we don’t have basketball goals outside houses like that in India. Use your head,” she said slightly rolling her eyes upward and raising her right hand to touch the top of her forehead, a gesture to bless those who need extra help from God.

“No! I played fully,” she said. “And I never missed a basket.”

I couldn’t help from being cynical even though I knew her defense might length-en her tale. I tried to resist, but I could not let her get away with such an ex-treme, unbelievable statement, “Never, Grandma?”

“Never! Did you hear me!” she practically screamed. “Everyone else did, but I didn’t.” “Hard to believe,” I said softly with a small laugh to myself.

“You don’t believe me?” she said raising and shaking her right hand in their air, each finger spread far away from each other in her frustration. “Ask your father,” she said helplessly.

“No, I believe you,” I said and sat up so I would look more interested. “I’m just saying that it is hard to believe, as in amazing,” I said in a squeaky defensive tone. More silence.

I looked at the clock eager for this session to be over. It was 12:28. Two minutes until her show began. I tried not to make eye contact with her out of fear that it may have sparked another story. In those two minutes, I wondered what it was like for her—to have no one who could share any of her memories.

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The Meal Plan Man Done Got Me DownAdam Fisher

The meal plan Man done got me down;His fake food flounders like fish on dry ground.With offers and deals, He proffers an idealOf fun, friends, and palatable options,But beware! Take caution!My bank account’s as empty as His calories,And my stomach’s a maelstrom of quease.Common comestibles circa 1920Are reminiscent of leftovers from the twentieth century.The King’s uncertain edibles and mystery meatImprove little upon awful English eats.And Hill, ah Hill—if there were a pillTo calm my G.I. ills, I’d still rather die or be killedThan consume a meal from the bowels of Hill.

blues for Pablo Aichlee Bushnell

inhale

fires under bread baking and wilted flowers

moonshine sugarpussycats telling me my coochie smell like pecan pie warm and honey-like

got fifty-three cents next to a cup of coffee on the nightstand the baby next door is crying young mother whimpers

shiny applesroll off red tongues teeth like diamonds rough hands rub ripe thighs

his blues breath like mangoesand sunflowers and whiskey exhale calypso and sweet banana sighs a trumpet cries lemon skinned feelings that burn elbows

in between silent breaths

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The White of the Clouds or the White of the White*Sam Donsky

Stumbling syllabically through vous êtes folle,or cursing at you in French,or English, the languageyou invented or dreamtin Dallas, or Paris, or Rome;

myself sipping somethingon the adequate bench, nothingstaining my good white shirt,a breeze shooting through our toesor searching for some leaves,or a head of hair;

the stars, riven & struck, your instincts:“that’s life,” as if to say “that’s the cicadas’ esprit,”or the light’s coruscation;

the moment before anything when everything seems possible, the phone & its ring, its dimensions, its force;

your voice, carried, miscarried:the moment, buoyant & strange, unrecapturable (but understood), in limp location, autumn frames: my voice fumbling, the silence spilled (but a slick, slick, slick accident);

floating or singing in the aptitudeof night, in my microphoneor ice cream cone as I wrap my mouth around the worldlike I am trying to kiss a big nose;

the clarity of it, this uncertainwherewithal (it’s not the where as muchas it is the when, it’s not the who as much as it ought to have been);

the notion that one listens when they least expect to, that everything before everything breaks down holds absolutely;

a smile, a pulse rising, your hand & its graze: the wind’s cognition,a speed, a warmth, & such memories, or so few;

the white of the clouds or the white of the white,everything, everythingbegins with a truth: Vous êtes belle & Iput down the phone, your voice clinging to mine like clothes, the skyinvented & charged with static –

*Recipient of the 2006 Penn Review Poetry Prize

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A Broken Piece of Porcelain Doesn’t Give You Much InformationSam Donsky

When my father funnels me from CanadaI tell Michelle that meters could not keepme from her & this is true.

When Jordan wins the race by a galaxy& breaks his nose at the finish I tell him glory is often unsustained.

When Emily decides we should go to China I dig a hole & we get close.

When my uncle gets marriedin Cincinnati & vows “there is no other world” I believe him.

When Adam gets lice I pretendit is gold dust.

When my babysitter takes me to the museum I briefly become interested in physical coherence.

When Sarah supposes the world to be flat I (regrettably) inform her that so is she.

When she breaks up with me I wonder how something acquires value.

When Peter & I see a whale for the first time he says “look!” & two girls are kissing.

When my grandfather gets cancerI eat vegetables relentlessly for a month.

When an officer pulls me over for speedingI wonder aloud if everything is connected.

When I spill rum on my prom clothes it getsin my mouth.

When I cut my hair short Zach tells mewidow’s peaks are things of beauty.

When I land in Philadelphia the phrase “harrowing end of things” comes to mind & then leaves.

When I finger-smudge my way throughChemistry it is a sign.

When I go home for Hannukahmy sister is taller.

When I ask Mrs. Z what her book is about she says “a broken piece of porcelaindoesn’t give you much information.”

When I meet X I compliment her & six months later I do it again.

When she decides we should go to China I have already started digging.

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Opus for Ann ArborHao Wang

In the Michigan airhangs a warm sea, swarm of handsmuffling sound, stirring the stiflingcity like a cauldron.With the evening comes calm,a surprising lack of mosquitoes.I sit on a dilapidated porchwith my friend the guitarist and his brother,who is drunkand intent on boisterous song.The overhang slouches low above my head,recounts to me a storyabout stargazing,a teaching exchange to a Japanese fishing village,a strange encounter with angry disabled children.The smell of locustswhispers through the openingsand corridors of the house.For an hour, the brightnessof cheap beer fills my empty stomachand welds corners and blocksof incoherent conversationinto an illuminated winged insectaimed toward the rooftops—I draw a breath, hold, and levitate,flip the switch and the expanse becomesbearable—or at least smaller—I grasp the space behind the elms

on either side of the house,the white sedan earnestlyblocking the driveway, the rowof squat bungalows spanning the street:one tends to forget that,in the friction of the everyday, what breathesdull and ordinary,what hums with the mundane,will shift and dissect, zoomand reverberate,catapult and fracture,into eventual holiness:a deserted road lined with streetlight,a screen door laden with rust and midnight,a few dusty lawn chairs flowingwith the voices of friends.

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Stranded in OmahaAnn Danberg

Tonight, there is onlyA five-mile visibility.Passengers shiftIn airport seat clustersReadjusting schedulesAnd stiff limbs.You won’t let us leave,Omaha, you have left usStrandedOn your land-locked island.This corn-fed oasis Just isn’t enough For Sarah, she prefersThe palm treesOf southern CaliforniaTo your surplus of evergreensAnd the occasionalWeeping willow.Stephan knows a girlIn ChicagoWho drinks beerOut of a roller skate,Something he saysWould never happenAmong your tame citizens.They left this morning,Omaha, their other livesLifted from yours.

As for the rest of us,Well, the red lettersOn the flight boardFlash CANCELLEDAnd we trudgeBack past the flickeringLights of the closed café,Into rain-soaked night.It’s not as thoughWe’ve outgrown you,Omaha, or even thatWe’ve deserted Your country highways or cobblestone streets.You are always there,In the middleOf everything, just absentfrom the everyday.To return to youIs to collect the strands,The loose endsOf our lives.We are unfinished With and without you –Most of us couldn’t say why -- But perhaps this is the reasonWe keep coming backAnd why we are delayedAgain and againIn our departures from you.

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Burning Logic Adam Fisher

I see your tight lips and feel the heatOf your breath in waves of burning logic.When we embrace in this metal drum,in this tiny cabin of doors without locks,and your hair sweeps my bare thighs,I am twitching, shaking in the corner.

My eyes, my nose, my mouth is a corner.Don’t look up at me; don’t release the heator expose my quivering thighs.There is nothing in my face for logic,unless you can pick a different lock,unless you can beat a drum.

I can feel your heartbeat drummingthe flesh in my legs’ deep corner.I reach my hand into your brown locksand search for your white-hot heat.I am whole and you are logic.You stop to climb my thighs

until I can breathe inside your thighs,until I can sing to a drum.If you had my animal logic,I’d back you into a corner,devour each degree of heatedbreath and open every lock

on your body. But my lips are lockedto yours. The curve of your thighis the curve of mine. Our heatis shed skin stretched over a drum,and the pounding echoes in each corner—I am the harbinger of logic.

You are the prolocutor of logic:“We are keys. We are locks.There are no cornersin a tangle of thighs,in a dark metal drum,in this room of stolen heat.

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Tangerines Adam Fisher

My heart, the overblown hot air balloon,Careens in vibrant skies over ravinesAnd ancient seas that sparkle like citrines.When swept by tempest, torrent, or typhoonMy craft gains vim and vigor as I swoon.Should the harpoon of Cupid, swift and lean,Explode my buoyant orb to smithereens,I’d rather fall twelve fathoms than be marooned.Such island life of sand and tangerinesIs not for me. In truth, I love monsoonsThat rattle trees like wooden tambourines.I wish for winds and smoldering simoomsTo light the air of my capricious sphereAnd steer me toward the clouds’ cosmic frontier.

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The Penn Review would like to thank the following organizations for their generous contributions.

Blank Rome Law FirmThe Sylk Foundation

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