I S S U E 10 · S P R I N G 2 0 1 3

Bestiary: the best of the inaugural demi-decade

Guest Editor

GINA OCHSNER

FOUNDING EDITOR

Colin Meldrum

FICTION EDITOR

Amanda Lyn DiSanto POETRY EDITOR

Lisa McCool-Grime

COVER & SECTION ILLUSTRATOR

Anna Bron

A cappella Zoo (ISSN: 1945-7480): a magazine of magic realism and slipstream. A cappella Zoo was founded in 2008 as an independent, labor-of-love publication.

Contributions to this special issue were selected by award-winning author Gina

Ochsner (www.ginaochsner.com). All illustrations were done by artist Anna Bron

except where otherwise credited to contributors Cheryl Gross and Gavin Faherty.

Support A cappella Zoo and its contributors by sharing your favorite stories and

poems with friends and colleagues. Enjoy.

Copyright © 2013 All rights retained by authors/artists of respective works.

www.acappellazoo.com

Contents

5

a conversation with GINA OCHSNER

F I C T I O N P O E T R Y

· Aquarium ·

11

The Creature from the Lake

Ginny

16

HAYES MOORE

ELIZABETH O’BRIEN

17 The Life Story of a Chilean Sea Blob Versions 27 THEODORE CARTER ALI LANZETTA

30 The Sand Ship selections from

In the Circus of You NICELLE DAVIS &

CHERYL GROSS

33 CLAIRE MASSEY

40 The Collector of Van de Voys

EDMOND CALDWELL

46 Brunhilde’s Escape

DANYA GOODMAN

· Phylum ·

49

Proximity

Dialysis

63

JOSH DENSLOW

PATRICK SUGRUE

64 Postcards from Home three Conrad poems 72

JOHN JASPER OWENS KRISTINE ONG MUSLIM

75 The Sacrosancts

RACHEL ADAMS

The Story of Jimmy

Draws-So-Small

84 81 Larva

RANDOLPH SCHMIDT ROBIN PATRIC CLAIR

F I C T I O N P O E T R Y

86

When the Weather Changes You

AMBER SPARKS

93 War Crumbs Reintroduction 97

JOE KAPITAN

JEFF PEARSON

· Shelter ·

101

part one of Atomic Summer

Flowers, Shears

108

ANTON BAER

MICHAEL SCHMELTZER

109 Requiem for a Glass Heart from The Centipede Love Songs 113

ROXANE GAY

DANIEL PORDER

115 Oldjohn’s House This is the House That 123 MICAH DEAN HICKS

SHELLIE ZACHARIA

124 Three Times Red an excerpt from the human-suit series

JESSICA YOUNG

127 A. A. BALASKOVITS

130 Stain

MARIA DEIRA

· Topiary ·

133

Take Up the Bonnet Rouge

an excerpt from

Lilith’s Extra Rib ALANA I. CAPRIA

139 CHANTEL TATTOLI

141 A Theory of Music WALTER BARGEN

144 The Watchmaker Beauty School 149 ERIC SCHALLER MARY LOU BUSCHI

150 The Legs Come Off Easily The Adventures of Starfish Girl 157 EMILY J. LAWRENCE LINDSAY MILLER

160 The Wooden Grandpa Man without a Wishbone 162 KURT NEWTON

PRARTHO SERENO

· Crematorium ·

165

When the World Ends

Leaving La Dulce Vida

177 NICOLE MIYASHIRO

MARTIN OTT & JOHN F. BUCKLEY

179 Trouble in Mind Eclipse 192 JULIA A. ROSENTHAL FENG SUN CHEN

F I C T I O N P O E T R Y

193

The Rocket in the Sky

Teaching a Post Lunar World

201 ANDREW MITCHELL

CAITLIN THOMSON

202 Dearest Dirty Dig 218 TINA HYLAND & GAVIN FAHERTY MARGARET BASHAAR

219 Popper’s Choice The Gun Game 221 ROBERT EDWARD SULLIVAN

BENJAMIN CLARK &

COLIN WINNETTE

222 Transaction

REDFERN BARRETT

· Sacrarium ·

243

What Follows Us

In the Emily Dickinson Museum

247

ADAM MCOMBER

MARGARET WALTHER

248

The Paranormal Guide

to Wedding Etiquette

Kentucky-Fried Christ

261 PEDRO PONCE C. E. CHAFFIN

262 The End of the Objects Tale of the Avian Saint 273 JACK KAULFUS WILLIAM KEENER

274 Finding Your Way to the Coast Ballad of Conjure 284 JULIE DAY

FELICIA ZAMORA

285 La Chanson de l’Observation Beelzebubstomp 296 BERNARD M. COX

M. P. POWERS

· Aviary ·

299

Showtime

Circling of Cranes

306

NANCY GOLD

CHARLENE LOGAN BURNETT

307 Birds Every Child Should Know Sigilism 315

KATE RIEDEL

JOHN MYERS

316 Calling Rain The History of Sexuality 330

LORA RIVERA

JOSEPH HARRINGTON

332 Old Myths Magic Realists in Love 335

COLLIN BLAIR GRABAREK

LINDA ANN STRANG

Notes on Contributors

336

5

a conversation with

GINA OCHSNER

Gina lives in Oregon and divides her time between writing and teaching at Corban

University and with the Seattle Pacific Low-Residency MFA program. She has been

awarded a John L. Simon Guggenheim grant and a grant from the National

Endowment of Arts. She speaks at universities, retreats, conferences, schools, and

book clubs on creativity, magic realism, flash fiction, prose poetry, the intersection

of art and faith, and other topics related to writing. Her stories have appeared in

The New Yorker, Tin House, Glimmer Train, and The Kenyon Review. She is the

author of the short story collection The Necessary Grace to Fall, which received the

Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction, and the story collection People I

Wanted to Be. Both books received the Oregon Book Award. Her first novel, The

Russian Dreambook of Colour and Flight, was published by Portobello Press and

Houghton-Mifflin-Harcourt.

COLIN: Based on your selections for this collection, how would you

describe A cappella Zoo’s landscape?

GINA: I’m struck by the frolicsome, mischievous nature of so many of these

pieces. Though the subject matter of much of the work is deep—dark

even—the treatment rarely is and I think that this suggests a profound love

of language among these writers.

COLIN: One of my favorite of your stories, “How One Carries Another,”

is a contemplative, unique sort of ghost story, and it’s certainly not the

only one you’ve written. We’ve seen zombie and vampire fads dominate

popular media lately, but would you agree that ghosts have kept a more

consistent seat at the story sharing table? Why don’t we tire of ghost

stories?

GINA: I would agree that ghosts do in fact inhabit a more consistent seat.

Ghosts will outlast any bloodthirsty vampire or brain-deprived zombie

because the idea of ghosts being present among us speaks to a collective

desire between both living and dead to remain connected. I don’t know of

any culture that doesn’t have some kind of a “position” as to the presence

and meaning of ghosts (either as the subject of rumor and tales or as

accepted “witness” of another time/day). I don’t think I’ll ever tire of ghost

stories because I find them fascinating forays into the world of the

speculative. What happens when a person dies? Where does the soul go?

6

What happens if someone were to become stuck for a time between two

worlds? What reason would a person have for hanging around and making

noise? Is it just noise or is there some larger message meant to be pieced

together? I suspect magic realists Gabriel García Márquez and Isabel

Allende found ghosts to be useful manifestations of history, of adding

complexity and texture to the narrative and to other characters. And what

better way to show the contradictions inherent in living than by rousting a

ghost who can hold up the mirror, so to speak.

AMANDA: In a 2005 interview with Writer’s Digest, you mentioned a

special love for the short story form. Since then you’ve published your

first novel. Now that you’ve experienced writing in both short and long

forms, has your view of short stories changed? What do you think the

short story form offers readers?

GINA: I don’t think I’ll ever abandon the short story form. In fact, when I’m

feeling quite stuck on a longer project (and this happens more often than I

like to admit) I go to the creative sandbox, a soup of words and images, that

place of wonder and astonishment and surprise. I go to play, to have some

low down messy fun. And inevitably I’ll emerge elbow deep in story. Short

stories are like a burst of fireworks—energy only momentarily contained. I

can’t think of a more fluid, malleable form.

LISA: Unlike many literary journals, A cappella Zoo is fiction heavy.

While we hope to appeal to a broad range of readers, our intended

primary audience is fiction readers, an idea we keep in mind even when

considering poetry for publication. What’s in store in this anthology’s

poetry for readers who don’t normally seek out poetry?

GINA: I think that the mark of a successful piece, whether fiction, drama,

essay or poem rests in the strength of the imagery and language. The poems

in A cappella Zoo are particularly image rich, image driven. Because of this,

I find the poetry evocative and yet, accessible. These pieces are built of

blood, bone, skin, and dreams you can sink a fork and knife into.

COLIN: You were a keynote speaker at Western Seminary’s 2011 Faith

and Culture Writers Conference and you teach for a private Christian

university. Does being a person of faith play a role in your sense of—or

approach to—magic realism?

GINA: Being a person of faith absolutely plays a role in my sense of and

apprehension of what magic realism is and represents. I believe in the

supernatural as fact, not fiction, and in the miraculous as a part of reality,

not myth. Moreover, magic realism carries special implications for people

of the book who believe in the Word and in the creative power implied in

7

written and particularly, if you look at the biblical accounts, spoken word.

With a few words, let there be, the universe was created. Light separated

from darkness and with another word this world was sent spinning

widdershins to give us night, day. And with a few more words the trees

were taught to weep from their bark, and swift to swallow winter ticked

toward spring. And who knows how many more words it took to tell the

camelia to bleed first and the chrysanthemum last or what dreams the fish

maintained silently in their deep. But the creation account was just one of

many I grew up with and learned to love because what I learned was that

there’s power and life in word. My forays into the Old Testament confirmed

that this world spins on the twin axes of mystery and the miraculous. And

this belief, I think, fuels my vision and perception. Because I believe in an

invisible God I can’t see but who I know exists and moves and has being

and power and manifestation, I will write of the natural and supernatural

world that reflects this belief. So what I take up with in terms of subject

matter is another way that matters of faith intersect with fiction. I’ll confess,

it’s the somewhat nebulous region of story-land where I work out what I

believe and hold to be true. This is the safest place I know to test out

spiritual observations that can be collaborated by the physical world in

which I wake and breathe.

COLIN: As an editorial board, we at A cappella Zoo are on the lookout

for especially memorable works. What are a few selections that you

expect to remember for some time? What surprises did you encounter

while reading for this collection?

GINA: As I read through the submissions, I thought: lucky editors! Lucky

me! How fun these pieces are, how vivid and marvelously constructed. I

was delighted to see a wide range of magic realism represented and written

with such steady hands. So much can go so wrong with magic realist pieces

and I admired the clear cogent vision and articulation in these pieces. I

admired each of the poems and found particular delight in “Ginny,” “Magic

Realists in Love,” “Sigilism,” “Tale of the Avian Saint,” “Teaching a Post

Lunar World,” and “In the Emily Dickinson Museum.” Though I’ve singled

these pieces out, I’d like to note that every poem burns with a bright interior

light, every piece offers unexpected movement, dynamism. The fragmented

architecture in the story “Transaction” parallels a frightening world in

which every action, word, or gesture holds potential positive or negative

commercial value, a world not wholly unfamiliar to us. For sheer

imagination and inventiveness I admired “The Sand Ship,” “The End of the

Objects,” “Larva,” “Proximity,” and “Popper’s Choice.” Language, a keen

attention to detail, and sound prevail in “Oldjohn’s House.” “Dearest

Dirty,” “Requiem For a Glass Heart,” and “Three Times Red” employ the

fairy tale format and tone in which we are promised a bit of wisdom, and in

each case, these writers deliver.

8

LISA: In your opinion, why do A cappella Zoo and other platforms for

magic realist writing matter? AMANDA: And what can this collection

offer writers who seek guidance or inspiration?

GINA: I think journals like A cappella Zoo in which magic realism is

presented as a viable and legitimate form for narrative and image-rich

poetry are vital. A cappella Zoo reminds us of the primal need for narrative

in which the otherworldly, the strange, the supernatural is allowed off the

leash for a little while, allowed to visibly collide with the known “real”

world. The collision sparks the questions: what is real and what isn’t and

how am I altered by what I believe or perceive to be real or true? What

would happen if . . . ? Let’s suppose for a little while that . . . Entertaining

such questions, such speculative acts, allows for a re-seeing—a revision as

well as discovery. Magic realism teaches us how to read extended

metaphor, how to tweeze meaning out of disparate things, how to use our

own imaginations to animate worlds in which anything can happen and

likely will.

· Aquarium ·

. . . above-water, i’m belly up watching his

jugular inflate and deflate. i guess his heart does that.

“do you float?” it asks me. “i do,” i say quietly . . .

—versions

11

The Creature from the Lake

HAYES MOORE

im’s instinct is to kill. He is too civilized to kill. Instead, he saves

things. Right now he is on a ladder saving the rain-gutters.

The creature is underwater. She drifts in circles along the pool’s floor,

following the side of the pool. I think she is searching for algae. I think she

is hungry. Despite her enormity she is surprisingly nimble, as a whale must

be. When the side of the pool suddenly gives way to steps at the shallow

end, she strokes out a startlingly deft spin, accelerating with grace until she

finds her wall again.

I think Tim likes it up there, on top of his house, saving the rain gutters.

After a week of rain and clouds, the sun is finally out. I am at the

poolside Formica table, underneath a canvas umbrella. I am supervising.

The creature bobs up for air and then sinks back down, bulbous and alien in

her tinted goggles, hairpins, and the black one-piece I insisted on. Tim says

the suit isn’t natural. But, I say, neither are we.

It has been a humid summer. The begonias are thriving. The slugs are

too. They slink around the granulated rim of the pool. A family of robins

defends an elm from a blue jay. As the creature slipped into the water I

watched a squirrel chase another squirrel across the edge of the faded-pink

plank fence, up an elm, and then disappear in a leap on the tiled rooftop of

the neighboring house.

The air is redolent of chlorine and leaves mulching in the last rainfall.

I glance at my watch and then get up to wave and shout for the creature

to come out; it’s feeding time. She complies. She waddles up the steps on

the shallow end like a molluscan monster, like the blob. She has no toes.

Water droplets sparkle like crystals over her body. She has a smooth, pallid

hide. Patches of cellulite mottle her legs. Her back and arms are scratched

from Lake Stonewell’s rocky shore. Offset by her paleness, the scars

glimmer scabrous red.

She has healed quickly. She needs to be returned.

When the creature’s bathing suit is off and I’m towel-patting her dry in

the shade of the umbrella, Tim climbs down from the roof.

Like her belly, the creature’s breasts are full and heavy. She is a

globular thing.

Tim is bare-chested, too. He does not come under the umbrella. Flecks

of leaf are caught in his chest hair. Despite the heat, he has stopped

trimming his beard. Like his shoulders and back, his beard is a dark,

earthen-ware red. The unkempt hair on his head, which is dark brown, is

T

12 · The Creature from the Lake

flattened with sweat. His eyes, a darker brown, roam over the creature.

“Should we take out the hairpins?” He says.

“No,” I say. “She needs to eat.”

He stretches, like a plant absorbing sunlight.

The creature observes us behind the tinted goggles.

The creature’s eyes are pink and sensitive and swell up under bright

light. I believe that she is accustomed to the darkness of lake bottoms. I

believe she is nocturnal. For the past week, since we found her, we have

kept the house lights dim. We are finally using our candles. I usher the

creature into our cadaverous living room through the back sliding-door. It is

cool and still and smells like scented candles—like vanilla, key-lime pie,

and sweetened lavender.

Inside, I put Tim’s bathrobe around the creature and seat her on the

sofa. I go to the kitchen to heap a plate with lettuce. We have kept her fed

by scavenging the dumpster behind the local grocery store. Her diet is a

turtle’s diet.

Tim comes in soon after the creature has begun to eat. He is still

shirtless. She is on the sofa, the plate perched on her lap. Tim goes to the

kitchen and comes back with a beer. He stoops down to kiss my cheek. I am

sorry for him because I want him to shave his beard and I know that if I ask,

he will. I will not ask. I am not his mom.

Tim goes to the creature and, standing before her, he says, “I’m going

to take the goggles off now. Okay?” He mimes the removal of goggles, a

bottleneck in his hand.

The creature watches him.

When he reaches toward the side of her head for the goggles, the

creature squirms and, as he touches her, she yanks herself to one side.

Rotting lettuce is flung across the sofa; the plate topples onto the floor. Tim

continues to wrestle with her. He has her on her back on the sofa, his hands

on either side of her head. His back is broad and knotted with muscles like

stones along the lake shore. Her legs kick uselessly in the air. Beer runs

down Tim’s knuckles and drips on the carpet, but he manages to keep the

bottle from spilling. When he draws back he tosses the goggles onto the

lounge chair. Her mouth is open but she is silent. She can only make sounds

when her hair is down. When her hair is down she wails.

She was wailing when we found her. That’s how I found her.

Last Saturday Tim and I went to Stonewell Park. I was against the idea.

The sky was bone gray and the air hummed with mist. But Tim was

determined. He wanted to fish. He said that the best time to fish is during a

storm—I don’t think even he believes that.

I found my parka and decided to go with him. In a relationship it’s

important to do things together. While Tim fished, I planned to hike the

forested hills that encircle the lake.

[STORY CONTINUES IN PRINT ISSUE] Hayes Moore · 13

We parked just off the dirt road that leads to Lake Stonewell’s visitor’s

dock. It was pouring warm rain. I burrowed into my parka. The only

protection Tim had against the rain was a wide-brim hat. All summer he has

said that he likes the rain. I believe him. He followed me into the woods

with his pole and tackle box before forking down to the lake. On the trail, at

least, the trees provided a canopy that took the brunt of the rainfall.

I had been hiking for barely ten minutes when I heard wailing. It

carried over the water as a high, pig-squeal of a cry, part animal and part

banshee. I couldn’t see what it was and was afraid it might be a rabid

animal. Before going any further I forked to the river, hoping for an

obstructed view.

From a distance, squinting across the lake through the rain, I thought

she was a human—someone who had thought to go for a nude swim and

had slipped on the stones, cracked open her skull or broken her back. She

was nearly fifty-yards down the lake, at a point in the shore where the lake’s

edge curves into a small inlet.

I ran back for Tim.

Tim was good—he lives for emergencies, for opportunities to save

things. As soon as I broke through the trees and he saw my face he reacted,

not even reeling in his line, but merely dropping his pole and running to me.

All I told him was that someone needed help.

When we were close the shrieking overwhelmed all other sounds. He

stopped running and stood in the middle of the trail. “God,” he said. “It’s

gorgeous.”

He was right, it was gorgeous: the two of us caught together in the

middle of the forest, breathless with the same adrenal sensitivity, the same

objective, while rain coursed over us, splattering off the leaves of the trees

around us. I wanted to kiss him, for him to kiss me. Then I heard it, briefly.

I glimpsed it then in his eyes but I have not been able to catch it since. The

beauty of her voice escapes me like something just outside of my vision, a

tonal register beyond the grasp of my auditory reach. I sense that it is there,

but it eludes me. At that moment, though, for a brief instant, I heard it too; I

was able to hear what Tim hears when she sings. The creature’s crying is

normally high and plaintive, like a cat’s screeching against my ears—an

unrefined expression of torment. But for a moment, there on the trail, a

melody of some kind emerged from the wailing, a pattern that softened the

grating shrieks and transformed them to something liquid, clear and cool

and fluid. The tone rendered the anguish into a mellifluous beauty. I heard it

for a moment and then it was gone, replaced by the same high-pitched

squeal.

Tim was transfixed. I shoved him and told him to go and the spell

seemed to lift.

He nodded vacantly, water dripping from his nose. His eyes were as

wide and mesmerized with wonder as a child’s. “It’s unbelievable,” he said.

When we reached the forest’s edge she was thrashing on the rocks.