Christopher Connelly I Look Up I ache to catch what's hurled down at the earth, though any heavenly object leaves most of itself in the flash that lifts my attention from the intersections and the hurtling masses that really could hurt me. I walk on my toes, even to work, to press sensitive points of contact against the earth and discern even the slightest of vibrations that signal impacts. I, who wore the smallest tux rentable to my parents’ wedding, whose plants die, in whose orange juice nothing ever swims, who has a stomach too sour for anyone to sleep against its walls, though my chin is dimpled, I want to glow. Christopher Connelly's work has appeared in Black Book, La Petite Zine, Lungfull!, Painted Bride Quarterly, and elsewhere. He is a former associate producer of The World of Poetry, the sequel to the PBS series The United States of Poetry and is a senior editor for Painted Bride Quarterly. Shafer Hall Terror Count the Ts on your tongue: Fprget. Tuuxedo. Azteca. Now knit several Ss into a blanket for your mouth: Estoy. Some sort of providence. Give yourself some room, now, with silent sounds: Knot. Knowingly. Now pronounce the commas As, you, try, to, get, away. Shafer Hall lives in a leaky apartment at the bottom of the shallow end of the Brooklyn Ocean from which he communicates with collaborator Jamison Driskill by can and string. His poems have appeared in La Petite Zine, Unpleasant Event Schedule, canwehaveourballback, and failbetter. Stacey Harwood Confessions I steal my neighbor’s newspaper and commiserate when she complains. I do this on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays for the dining out, decorating, and weekend entertainment sections. Otherwise, I don’t read the paper. I’ve rearranged my schedule so as not to miss reruns of Felicity, a canceled TV series about a girl who changes her college plans and moves to New York City to be near Ben, who doesn’t know she exists. Sometimes I watch both the 7:00 and 11:00 reruns. I’ve never wanted a husband or children or a career; I’ve only wanted to be rich. I’ve exaggerated my father’s meanness for sympathy. Sometimes, when making love, my husband resembles a feral cat; this arouses me. Sometimes I think Felicity would have been better off in pre-med at Stanford, as she originally planned. She’s too good for Ben. I’ve learned to be a good listener to keep from revealing my ignorance of most subjects. “That’s fascinating. Can you say more?” “I’ve never really thought about it in quite those terms.” “What would those who disagree with you say?” Whoever says “life is too short” should spend a Saturday afternoon in a checkout line of a a suburban supermarket. “Paper or plastic? Paper or plastic? Paper or plastic?” My favorite possession is a red leather business-card wallet that I stole from a boutique that was going out of business. I think Felicity should have lost her virginity to Noel, instead of the art student she slept with when she thought Noel was breaking up with her. On the other hand, if she hadn’t slept with the art student, she’d still be with Noel and never would have gotten together with Ben, the love of her life. I plan elaborate dinner parties while making love to my husband. I have a good memory for quotations because I’m incapable of an original thought. “Nothing concentrates the mind like a hanging in the morning.” “Govern, or be governed.” “If equal affection cannot be / let the more loving one be me.” I’m not so sure I agree with that last one. When my husband travels, I worry that he’ll be in an accident and I see myself as the tragic grieving widow. When he arrives home safely, I’m mildly disappointed. I like to clean. Sex is one thing, but I prefer to sleep alone. Some familiar words seem so strange that I fear they are my fabrications: “aloof, obfuscate, flippant.” Observe that the letter f is frequently found in them. I let my husband believe that I don’t understand the futures market so that I can daydream as he explains it to me over and over and over again. I believe it’s only fair to use every set of sheets and towels in a proper rotation so none get left out. If given the choice, I’m not sure that I would pick brains over beauty. I wonder if Felicity married Ben after all. If she did, they probably have a really great apartment. Stacey Harwood is a writer living in New York City. Reb Livingston Color of Ass For Amy Gerstler Aren't I just the cat's ass calling the monkey's back bushy? Electric blue locks, simply not appropriate. Who dyes his hair to shock a friend who never wakes? Who wears his hair like a veil, morbid blue, funeral blue, bluer than a wine-soaked tongue? Aren't there more appropriate ways to mourn? I lost a friend too. We didn't speak for years, I read about his death in the obituaries. I was appropriate, put in a surprise funeral appearance, tasteful gray slacks, not daring the black envelope. Penned a letter to the mourning mother, blue ink. Who writes in black these days? At home I cried, green in my proper life, the queen squatting in the Field of Asses. Reb Livingston is a poet and jewelry designer residing in the greater Washington, DC area. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Post Road Magazine, 5AM, Slope's F U: An Anthology of Fuck You Poems, and Drunken Boat. Tara Wray Cornered It is impossible to tell if your grandfather has fallen out of bed on accident, or has simply forgotten the mechanics of sleep. Either way, when you go to tell him his tea is on, that breakfast is ready, you find him not under his covers. Instead you find him cornered on the floor between the box springs and the wall. Grandfather, you say. Why are you sleeping on the floor? I have not slept, Granddaughter. I have only been able to doze. He sniffs loudly the way old people do. Pass me my glasses, please, he asks. You say: Grandfather, you do not wear glasses. Then hand me my cane, is his reply. So you help him off the floor and steady him with a bamboo walking stick. He has needed this cane since you were small. Once in a while you hide it from him, which is not hard to do, or dance around the living room on cold days threatening to use it for kindling. You take him down to breakfast, and sitting around the table, playing with the sugar dish, he tells you he can’t remember his name. Grandfather, you say, your name is Grandfather. But what, he asks, is my family name? Do I have a first? A last? I should have both, yes? You’ve always just called him Grandfather, except once, by mistake, you called him Father. You shrug, silent. The lapel of his bathrobe falls open. Through his thin pink skin you can see the rhythmic thump of his heart. It is slow and it is shallow and it beats like the end of a song. He looks into his cup of hot green tea and says: I don’t much like tea. And you tell him sure, you do like tea, remember the days spent drinking with Grandmother? But he doesn’t remember her either. Let's take a walk, you say. So then you do. Outside, your grandfather stands under a weeping willow. Leaves touch his nose and he barely notices. Then he kneels down on the grass. You walk up to him, pat him on the shoulder and realize he doesn’t have a clue who you are. Come with me, you say, and he follows. Your name is Peter, you tell him, and your wife, my grandmother, she was Imogene. Oh, he says, then pauses, looking at the veiny back of his hand. You walk him to the edge of a small brown lake. Imogene, he smiles. You nod, then lead him knee-deep into the water. I-M-O-G, he stops. He hands you his cane, goes the rest of the way himself–hips, chest, neck. Imogene, you hear him bubble, as he sinks into mud. Tara Wray was born in Manhattan, Kansas. Her stories have appeared in Fiction, Sycamore Review, 3rd bed, Gulf Coast, New Orleans Review, Black Warrior Review, and other publications. She lives in New York where she is an associate editor of the Land-Grant College Review.
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