Brought to you by the Kalamazoo Poetry Collective

Melodiesat the Jawline

Melodies at the

Jawlineby the Kalamazoo Poetry Collective

Spring 2012

Kalamazoo College1200 Hicks Center

Kalamazoo, Michigan49006-3295

Hello Reader, Poet, Person.

You hold in your hands the second annual chapbook produced by the Kalamazoo Poetry Collective—otherwise known as KPC. e creative work within this compilation came from submissions by my fellow KPC members and classmates, and from ‘drop boxes’ placed sporadically throughout the Kalamazoo College campus. On each of the eccentrically decorated boxes there is a label taped to the side which reads:

is is a box. is is your box, actually. You can put anything in it. Okay, not anything. It has to "t in here. And it can’t mold. Don’t let this box get gross, okay? But really. is wacky looking thing is for you. It’s for you to express yourself. You could drop a recipe, a letter, a doodle, a poem, a note, a homework assignment, a package slip from the mail center—signed of course—or a secret, into this box. is box is anonymous. It’s a collection of expression, if you will. So, take a second to sit and re#ect. Or empty your pockets of lint and gum wrappers and that note you found on the sidewalk. At the end of the quarter we’ll collect everything from these boxes and see what comes out of it.

And this, my friends, is what came out of it. Any piece that is not typed was an anonymous submission from one of the eleven boxes which were quickly "lled with love notes, garbage, a "nger painting, a raisin, some laughs and a lot of depth.

I am extremely impressed by the creative expression within these pages. I’d especially like to thank the poets and friends who submitted their work, their words and their support:

Salwa Tareen, Bridgett Colling, Jon Posner, Jasmine An, Dion Bullock, Liz Caputo, Max Jensen, David Landskroener, Keeney Swearer, Melissa Sparow, Megan Martinez, Katie Ring, Jose Churape, Tshephiso Teseletso, Ashley Williams, Michelle Keohane, Natalie Cherne, McKenna Kring, Erika Worley, Jennifer Tarnoff, Ian Geiman, Anna Witte, Korinne MacInnes

anks for reading! Stay poetic. -Hannah Daly, K’13 | June 2nd, 2012

Cover Photo by | Keeney Swearer

So now we’re stretched |Bridgett Colling

So now we’re stretched. Here’s my left arm pointed west,And my brain on better things to come.

And farther south, I left my hands and heart and mouth. And I’m unsure of how to hold or what to say.

And on my right, ere’s no one next to me at night.I only see your smile in sepia.

So we’re extended. We are time zones now transcended. We are planning for a future that is futile.

So what if how we met isn’t how we stayed together.What if we need more than rain boots to trudge through this bad weather. When there are lightning bolts and other people to see,Excuses and tornados and you if it’s not me.

And so we’re here.And we are everything but near.We’re hopeful now but not naive.

Movement |Melissa Sparow

It was the largest peaceful movement of people.Of bodies.e way their hips swayed,Arms raised toward heaven,And they were all praying for something.

It was the peaceful movement of people,Bodies "t next to each other like puzzle piecesFragilely held together Yet bending in unison Like malleable metal in my hands.

It was the movement of people.Or rather, the stillnessOf a globe still spinningLike a record,Bodies absorbing rhythm.

It was the people,e intoxicating peace,e intoxicating movement,And at last, the forced silence.

Attention: Poets! |Dion Bullock

…but I do not mind saying to you, that all poetical imitations are ruinous to the understanding of the hearers, and that the knowledge of their true nature is the only

antidote to them – Plato, the Republic, Book X

Let’s get radical. Put pen to paper, make it magical, bibbidi bobbidi, BOOM, give this sophomoric shit a sabbatical. roses are red, but so is menstruation.

Voice is currency: economists green with envy,as we $aunt our panache, force these left brains to quashidiocy. Poetry is efficiency: we do more with less.Science is mimicry: creating more boxes for us to think outside of. Poetry is gravidity: turning shy guys into boasters, pushing envelopes like baby strollers crafting rhetorical roller coasters

Poetry is rebellion—We real cool. Webreak rules. We manipulate language, turn punctuation into puppetsmundane into mysticaldetriment into liberation.

We must return to the audacity of Whitman laugh in the face of logicians.

Bring apathy into dissolution and start a poetic revolution.

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These words are liquid on my tongue |Jasmine An

I have not vomited for at least three years.Consequently, I am terri"ed by the heaveand swell of my own body. I get lostin the pathways of my throat, pressmy "ngers over my lips to hide the shameof not knowing what will surge past my teeth,demanding to be heard. Hot and scathing, bile acidifying on my tongue, sour secrets demanding to be aired. If I must, I spill them through my "ngertips, over Facebook chat, keys pounding the nausea away.e contents of my stomach staycradled in the smoldering sea lockedbehind my belly button. e daysof a bucket at my bedside are yearsburied. I cannot remember the last timeI disgorged a story to puddle stinkingand true on the sheets betweenmy mother and I. I e-mailed her three times yesterday. Google chattedher today, texted her last week. My "ngers are blistered from rubbingup against so many keyboards. I washmy hands too often. Nothing scares memore than the stomach $u going aroundcampus. Nothing except getting drunk,losing control of my own esophagus and watching mute as it ejaculatesthe contents of my brain into the mouthfumbling against mine. I can thinkof no better way for a stomach bugto spread than a drunken make-outsession. is is my main motivationto remain sober. When I was littleand sick, my mother would alwaysput a cup of lemon ginger tea beside the just-in-case bucket undermy bed. I grew to associate the smell

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of of citrus and sharp root with the ugly contents of my stomach I should never share. Last winter, my mother and I went downtown, ordered lemon ginger teasfrom Sweetwaters and sat ourselvesin a window seat. She tooka picture of us with her smartphone and posted it on the family blog. I watchedher head bent over the palm sized screen,felt the sweet spice curl against the inside of my cheeks and wondered what confessions would juice down my tongue if I could just open my mouth.

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Koi No Yokan |Katie Ring

Her hand: smaller, softer, all skin, bones and sinew, handshake stuck to my palm like sap--her subtle smirk told me in no uncertain terms that one day she would love me.

Maybe it was in her eyes with her back-away-slowly glances--glance up and down my body and she smirks.

Something in that smirk told me she had forgotten my name though I had just introduced myself.

Every quality she had screamed "I do not like you and no longer wish to be in your company" but she merely said, "fuck off."

She's the type with class.

But regardless of her pleasant behavior, I knew that sometime in the distant future we would be mushy together.

As in: my legs would jellify when I see her and I would sink into her hugs as if my bones wanted to meet her lungs but also, the kind of mushy where she gives me a pet name and I bake her French tarts with hearts on them.

And that smirk would say "I love you" not "I want you to fester and rot in a hole."

Koi No YokanJapanese - a sense when "rst meeting someone that it is going to evolve into love. Differs from "love at "rst sight" because it does not mean there are present feelings of love, only that those feelings will come in the future.

Octofall | Liz Caputo

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Melodies at the Jawline |Dion Bullock

I recognize you, your scent,the smell of estrogen, vodka, and perfume. We embrace, I wrap my hands around your waist as if your hips were form "tting,My palms are sweaty, but the humidity and asbestos convince me that everything will be just "ne.I move my hands from your waist to your ass, nervous for the sin but prepared to repent.I look into your eyes, you have that look—inviting me to your face. My lips RSVP, cueing "reworks, sparks, cannons, applause, cinematic response. None. Our kiss is jazz, my lips keep the beat, yet my tongue cannot improvise. I search the roof of your mouth for piano lessons, my lips play the scales while my tongue tries to harmonize. We hold notes in the key of you, my tongue belts out in legato, your teeth chomp down to staccato. What—do—I—do—now? I escape to inhale, the air tastes sweet. e remnants from our kiss stain my tongue, my face tinted with lip-gloss, shame and romance. Spectators nod in approval, yet I am empty. e resonance of your teeth echo my naiveté—I must learn to sight-read. I collect my fears and return to center stage. e audience silences their phones as we prepare for our duet, you the harp and I the bass.

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Rich tones of me infuse with your saliva. We synchronize and syncopate, my "ngers tap your spine like a metronome, our time together trickles with every tick. I savor your strings, turning eighth notes whole.

Sky Scrapers |Hannah Daly

If you throw a penny off the 86th $oor of the Empire StateBuilding it could kill a man. at’s what they say. It could killa man. What they don’t tell you is that if the weather is right,it snows in the spring. While suits and skirts in galoshes duckunder striped awnings on 5th Avenue, it’s snowing where the topscrapes the sky. Little children in overalls stick their tongues out,balancing over the balcony while grandmothers button theirblouses and try not to think of falling.

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Anything set in paint can be expelled |Megan Martinez

Bad taste isn’t permanent, unlike bad credit.Or the chronology of family history, all thosedecaying apples held taut by genealogical stems.

Each brushstroke, some kind of release—from that fungal color on the bathroom walls.Granted, back then it was tasteful. Back then,harebell blue left the inside of your lips wanting more.

Incest within the color wheel breedsjuxtaposition. Primary, secondary colors off- kilter, falling all over each other. Remember,lewd shades should be reserved for the bedroom.

Mirrored in your choice of paint is self-realization.Note that you choose color, not the other way.Orange for insatiate appetite, the need for pulp between your teeth, organic hunger.

Acquiesce to the itch in your painting "nger,ready-made satisfaction, dollop on thick.Savor temporary contentment, until fresh painttires. Dries and becomes brittle, skeleton-like,

unappetizing. en repeat. Seek color stripstitled Vanity Fair Violet. Titled Wake-upWhite. Too bad your husband won’t notice.Extremity loss might go unobserved, for him.

But you will. Turn down bedroom lights.Gaze at the wall. Fall asleep to inhaled chemicals.

There’s a Pill for That | Jose Churape

Let me call you happiness. Let me make the world make sense.Happiness prescribed in a little brown bottle.Simply put, I’m sick. Sick of all sorts of wrongs, and you’re my only helper.Mom’s not home, let’s take four. Daddy’s drunk, guess one more.Little thing that teases the tongue, bitter tastesits there, washed away only by cold water’s touch.Big gulp, like always. Force it down, keep it there. Side effects: drowsiness, time for bed. Dry mouth, drink more water.Liver failure, there’s a pill for that. Dad’s mad again, bottle in hand, time to leave.Fresh air open spaces, they no longer hold distinguished faces.Numb and getting nummer. ere’s a pill for that.

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Vagabonds

|Colin Smith

e sun blinkswe follow the sandstruck by the man on the moon,or the lunatic,who watches over us.

I walk over myself fromclumsy thoughts that weighmy feet down with each stepas if I drank too much whiskeytoo fast.

Don’t forget to letyour brain breathe in satisfaction.Open the gatesfor there are no strangers to us,because we’re like monkshere to stay.

Or maybe we’re more likegypsies, carrying our caravanover our backs. We live everywhere,but our home is nowhere.We only bring the artifacts of ourselveslike journals, because we butter our breadwith words; we pour thoughts into our glasses.

We strum along the strings that suspend us,walk down the unlit road.Watch the cat scurry behind the red brick,it will wanderand let it, because we are doing no different.

When the road dies down to an endI lust for slumber.My eyes have been open for too longlike the head lights of the car were left on,they’re drained of energyand when I wake up I want to sleep.

To Casie, the woman who eats her dead husband’s ashes

|Salwa Tareen

Let the world call you crazy.I say you embody the power of love,e bond that remains past the perils of death. As you ingest every piece of your love Each particle of him absorbed intoYour bloodstream, pumped to every extremity by your heartMaking you feel his presence in every "ngertip and toe to the thinnest skin of your eyelid.I cannot help but envy your love. I know you only want him within your every moleculeWorking with your cells to help make your moving a little easierAnd your breathing a bit lighter. In death, his dust remains have become your daily supplement As his kisses were in life. Never let the skeptics tell you your love is strange.It is more than they will ever know. ey name it an addiction because they are afraid of such devotion.But Casie, Soon the ashes will be goneAnd you will not feel any less whole. When that time comes, I need you to keep believing that his spirit remains within you. Not because of the ashes collected in every pore, follicle, and capillaryBut because from the "rst time he laid eyes on you, years ago, He never left. I need you to believe that…Because if there is any hope for true love, I "nd it in the immortality of yours.

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Sister |Michelle Keohane

For Rachel

Little sister, before you start your journey, I want you to remember where we met, at the junction of loon sound and harmonica trill, where soft green pines push out of smooth white quartzite hills, where lake water turns to mountain and the line between them shifts with the lick of every tide.

Remember how lake water slurped into the voids we carved with our canoe paddles and when, day one, during my lesson on lighting the stove, we all suddenly caught the odor of my burning hair. For us, it was the space between summer and another school year, that awkward tension between being called your leader and drowning in the pressure to be the role model you deserved.

Remember the dawn when we climbed our tallest peak. We fell behind the others when you felt the oppressive weight of long days, sore muscles, and recent goodbyes. You shared your fears; I shared my doubts that I could make you less afraid, but I said I knew you’d make it and I didn’t mind missing the sunrise. I had to force the words out over panting breaths and halting insecurity, but it was worth seeing how they tasted if only so you knew I was still on the path behind you.

After we came out of the woods, we were bobbing in a blacklit basement with a couple of beer cans attached to bodies like the dancers we are and you told me “You’re like the big sister I never had.” Remember how the next morning we created the branches of our new family tree with green peacord soldered around our wrists, and in our high heels or hiking boots, with made-up faces or unshaved legs, whichever worlds we chose to juggle, sisterhood was looped around our limbs because we put it there.

Sister, we were both meant to blaze our own blueprints, dance our own directions. I spent 18 years mapping their expectations onto my skin, as precise as spider-webs. But now I tiptoe barefoot around my self-image so that you know to be gentle with yours. Now, I break out into spontaneous pirouettes because you noticed I always stand in fourth position. Now, when I feel a canoe balancing on my sternum, swaying back and forth as in a lake breeze and pinching my lungs like I’m drowning on land, you are my breath of fresh air.

Sister, I will draw you a map of your failures with a contour line for every challenge so you’ll remember how you got from that valley to this peak, but I

Selected haikus for every person I’ve kissed |Bridgett Colling

(Person #10)Met you at Funk Night. I needed a ride and youLooked like Mark Wahlberg.

(Person #12)Quito. Salsa club. Seemed sweet but so machismo.“You come home with me.”

(Person #1)Jen’s Christmas party. Eighth grade. On a dare. It sucked. I loved you later.

(Person #5)You were my best friend.Your parents were out of town. We don’t keep in touch.

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will not tell you where to go next. I only hope your path takes the form of some lopsided daisy because that will mean that between every leg of your journey, no matter how long it is, you made a stop in the middle to come home, where we fought the chipmunks who stole our dried papaya and sipped cocoa out of peanut butter jars as the sun set over the lake. Little sister, I want you to look down at the peacord on your wrist and remember that home can be wherever you make it and you will always have a refuge in me.

Micro |David Landskroener

A handshake opens its mouth anda plastic bowl of dense goop is carefully seton a glass pedestal.2bleeng 0bleeng 0bleengbleengLights up.Cue the music.e purr of applauseas the star slides back and forth.Smooth unblemished hot.And then suddenlyone hundred and nineteen seconds are over andit’s 0:01.No wait, please, I can stillbleengbleengbleengbleengOne last handshake.No longer appealing.e potatoes are soggy.

Black and White #3 | Ian Geiman

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then the Four TopsStevie’s harmonicae Isley BrothersAn easterly breeze bringsthe Supremes

that fadesinto the buzz of motorspunctuated by the clickand clack of a love trainen route from Philly through Detroitnext stop Chicagobottom out in Los Angelesand back again

It forms a ringwith the Great Lakes as the stonesapphire blueliquid hope diamondsese are majestic like oceans that buckedthe trend and stayedFresh

See the midwest is salty enoughfrom clearing snow at anksgiving and Christmasand Memorial day maybeour collective snow shoveltoiling and school days in blizzards hardens us like ice$ows dotting shorelines likesequins sparkles like it must bewritten somewhere that we GreatLakers are destined to be fabulous

here our boots cracklelike the white

MoTown |Jon Posner

My mother raised meon Motownand though the "rst cassetteI ever picked for myselfwas by the Beastie Boysit was her box set of Hitsville USA singlesthat I kept reaching for

particularly disc 2which in lieu ofits missing hitsville logo sportsa soft felt cover that simply reads“soul”

the opening track is “My Girl”

with that bassline thatthumps and gulpslike my heart and my throatwhen my eyes seesome thing of beauty so intense that my brain almost overloadsand I’m left standing slackjawed andstuttering, “h-hah-h-hi”

it catches me like thatbut also in the pit of what little gutI have, and I feellike I’ve shrunk to half my size;overpowered by the noise.

when that twangy guitar comes inI am jolted forward like a marionettein total submission to the stringsand they set me down on the cd covernow a $owing "eld of fabricthat harmonizes as it rustles"rst the Temptations

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If God Was a Waiter |Jennifer Tarnoff

For Wes

God better serve you a four course meal"All on the house," He'll say cuz you deserve that special dealand besides, how could you pay?

First course is the appetizer:a sampler tray consisting ofbowls "lled with skittles- your favorite energizer and new kinds I told Him you'd love.

Next up is a steaming tray stackedhigh with potbelly sandwiches-vegetarian with everything, in fact He almost forgets the hot peppers. en He'll bring you a steaming mug full of chai tea that tastes as if you brewed it yourself- don't shrug it off, that night it made me lift.

For the dessert He'll roll out a cart: toppings from forever yogurt-of course. "Eat your "ll," God will remarkas you ingest my comfort.

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noise from the record needle backing up the hum from the Hitsvilledo you feel it?in your anklesand your heels do youfeel the smoothness of the singles?Sending sustenance everywhere likethe water hydrates the studio tapesshining

these lakes are a dance $oorand disco-balland they emanatethey irrigatebones $exingand twistingwrithing and jivingslidinggrapevining

like me and my mamathrowing down to Smokey afterschool across thekitchen my mother is my match makermy bride veiled Jackson 5 times in lake mist in the morningand Marvin Gaye willbe playing on our wedding night

ese lakes my sunshine on cloudy daysI hold her names hard in my mouthMichiganHuronErie OntarioSuperioryou make my heart shake likeba bum bum ba bum bum ba bum bum

2019

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I can see the past just as clearly as the present. I was there with my Nani and Dadi in Gujarat, ere with my mother in Hyderabadere at my Dada’s deathbed in KarachiAnd I am here, a proud product of too many homelands,Still in love with you, India.

To those who consider Indian to be an insult |Salwa Tareen

Cricket games aside, I love you. Like that forbidden kind of love because I’ve been told I’m not allowed to love youAnd yet, I cannot help myself.Poured over photographs of you in travel magazines. Longed to cross the border between you and my mother’s land.To walk upon the paths of Mughals and Maharajas, Feel the heat of the breaths of a billion people, And choke on the exhaust of their millions of cars.Let the noise of the aunties’ chatter and the uncles’ bicker in hundreds of tonguesBeat my eardrums to burst.

Birthplace of my grandparents, they gave up on you too easy. Moved across Mountbatten’s line. He chose where to split you, cut off your appendages of people, told them to move, And they obeyed. ey walked, then ran, screamed for help, and kept the pain in their memories. ey stayed behind the border for the rest of their lives. ey obeyed. And would continue to, pointing to the horizon telling themselves that was where the enemy lived.

See, the British were smart and deceived you. Were seduced by your beauty and splendor, forced you to beg for their acceptance.Turned a people against their own, Taught us to memorize hate by rote and write it a thousand times embedded within the stitches of our $ags.

How long will it take before we need a white man to tell us how much we are worth?How long will it take before we realize we are more than rubies and spices?More than snake charmers and sing-a-longs?More than the names others seek to divide us with?

Because I am just as much Indian as I am Pakistani. Some see that as an insult, But they just need glasses.

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Charming Girl |Erika Worley

Addie didn’t want to wear this dress. Everything about it was all wrong, sickening even. From the embroidered bodice to the ruffled cuffs to the wide skirt, it looked disgusting. Even the mirror blurred in distaste as Addie stared at her re$ection. She wanted to vomit rather than keep this monstrosity on. Every move she made caused the fabric to chafe, or the stockings to slide down. She could feel the toes of the boots digging into her heels. She couldn’t breathe properly. She couldn’t move her shoulders back. Addie’s hair stuck out of her bonnet in frizzy curls, the high collar made her cheeks look puffy, and the $uffy sleeves dwarfed her hands. Her waist looked so thin in its corset that Addie wondered if she would snap in two.

Biting her lip to keep from screaming, she watched her little brother be dressed in pants and a loose jacket. Her mother didn’t notice and wrapped a scratchy shawl around her daughter before they left the house. Addie followed her family out into the dirt road, trailing behind. She bristled with heat as the sun glared at her black Sunday best. Not too far away, a group of boys her age were walking together, laughing freely. ey wore wide-brimmed hats like Addie’s father’s and walked with con"dent strides, unhindered by awkward petticoats.

It was only after her moment of envy that Addie noticed that the boys were looking over towards a group of girls near the church doors, where all the neighbors were entering the cool of the chapel. Addie’s heart skipped a beat as her attention was drawn to the girls and she swallowed nervously. Becka was with the girls, giggling about something. She was wearing a dress that actually looked good on her and had soft brown hair that cascaded down her back from under a laced bonnet. Addie could hear Becka’s sweet laugh from here and had to remind herself to breath.

As Addie’s family approached the church and Addie became increasingly tense, Becka suddenly turned and saw her. She smiled like an angel and trotted over, elegant and awash with hot sunlight. “Addie,” Becka said, coming up to her. Becka was a little taller than her, and Addie felt dwarfed by such a radiant person. “You look so pretty! Is that a new dress?”

Addie stared a little longer before swallowing air and mumbling an affirmative. As her family ushered her inside, Addie could hardly believe that Becka followed them through the door. Soon after, Becka found a place beside Addie on the pew.

Perhaps the dress would do.

Pastels Gourd | Korinne MacInnes

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God, untie my laces |Jennifer Tarnoff

God, untie my lacesso I may kick off my shackles into the Grand Canyon and waitfor them to sink into the Colorado. I don't want to be bound by rubber andplastic, God. Let me get splinters from picket fencesand jagged cuts from shattered glass left in the alley. Let me trample on the sweet dewy grass of spring and pounce on the burning black topof summer. Let me touch scratchy cornhusks left in the "eld and prickly pine needles dropped on the forest $oor. Let me slide on the slimy rocks in the riverbed and tumble down sand dunes, leaving the gritty between my toes. Let me stand "rmly on rough tree bark and skate through fallenpetals. Let me get bruised by boulders and sliced by the edges of sea shells. Let me shudder in the rain and slip on wet leaves. Let me get scratched by the moon and squashed by big boots. Let me get bitten by red ants and clawed by cats. Let me earn callouses from unpaved streets and woodchipped playgrounds. Let me get stabbed by the chain link fence and slapped by the rush of an open "re hydrant jet. Let me squelch in the mud and get gunk under my toenails. Let me get stained by chlorophyl and ink drips and grease from those chips the elotes man sells. Let me get dried out.Let me sputter out blood. Let me stub my toes on the curbs and get sizzled bymetal playgrounds. Let me get sticky from gum stuck and beer spilled and spit spit on the sidewalks. Let me get blacked by gardens

Mental Escape |McKenna Kring

Socks in pairs on the "replaceand the sea, it gets you, it rocks you.Sock the child in the faceand see where it gets you, it rocks you.-Wipe it up if you’re capable of putting it backen chalk it up to the bad dayWhip it up if you’re capable of healing it’s backen talk about your bad day-Vacations never really did end too wellas the swells of the ocean they take youExpectations never really did end too wellthe eye swells as your imagination takes you

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Unintentional Pregnancy Pact |Ashley Williams

Pact #1

I wondered if she could feel my "ngers as I rubbedher perfectly roundhumble home?

If the vibrations of my voice could travel through your rosy stomachinto your uterus, piercing amniotic sack,$owing into her ears.

Words that may or may not be gibberish to her:

Hello, Angelise.

Pact #2

An earthquake is caused by a sudden slip on a fault.

Your anemia was the constant threat Of an earthquake. Shaking to the coreBetween legs, two rows of musky earth,

When he slipped into you, with powerful rippling muscles.

Do you ever ponder whose fault it is, that youhad to let your unborn

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and garbage and dusty closet corners. Let me be surprised by rusted nails and glinting quarters.Let me stumble upon beads and bottle caps and plastic barrettes. Let me clench onto telephone wiresand tight rope walk across the rooftops. Let me rinse off in puddles of gasoline and pee and juice box dregs. Let me get dripped on by melting popsicles anddog slobber and "re cracker sparks. Let me stompon the ice ponds and get frost bitten raw. Let me pick up candy wrappers and apple stickers and toilet paper.Let me pitter patter on linoleum and get scraped up by bricks and snagged in vines. Let me leave footprints on kitchen counters and dirt country roads, plastic restaurant booths, and basement shag carpets, ladders, and trampolines,and mattresses, dusty bookshelves,tall meadow grasses, rainy window panes, and cement when I shouldn't.

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child slip into the cracks of the earth?

Pact #3

I felt Walgreen’s $uorescent lightbuzzing in my teeth, pacing fromwall to sink, anxiety chattering away in my stomach.

My beautiful friend,You will graduate college studded with honors- movingon to something betterthan the lonely roomsof your apartment.

You will be the type of mother daughters dream of.

But these daughters shall not fall asleep, not just yet-

Card Sculpture | Korinne MacInnes

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Open Spaces |Megan Martinez

Arid desert land, like a back-throat scratch,by the foot of a mountain, any mountain that’llcast shadows far greater than him.Dad, he needs a ranch. He says, acresof erasure lines created by wind.Fertile ground left untilled. I’vegiven this a lot of thought, he says,hay on the skyline. I know theignobility of the land—what stirs him—just might be enough for now.Kidney bean shaped hope,life on the outskirts of everything.My "ngertips thrum impatientlynot for long, not for long. Not calledopen space for no reason. e way itpares you wide like a roadside deer,Quiet forms of dying marked by the red-streak of the land.A slow, meaningful look back,taxes the silence with his words.Understand that I need this, he says,vices laid bare. ere’s something calling,wind whistles through my inner ear.Exodus, it calls like a plea. I know I mustyield; escape has secondary victims—me,a zealot on bleeding knees.

Safe |Natalie Cherne

I feel the warmth of my daddy’s touch,His hugs so perfect.I know that when I’m around my daddyat nothing bad will happen.But I also know,Down the street,ere is another little girl my age, Who doesn’t worry about the government taking her dad to WAR.I was ten years old When President Bush continued President Clinton’s policy,Sending my dad to Kosovo.My dad took me and Dillon on a bike ride,Some neighborhood kids rode along,It was one of those perfect August nights,Not too cold,Not too warm.My dad taught us how to signal on our bikes.We all felt so cool,en my dad said Dillon and I had to come in,We needed to talk.I had no idea what I was about to hearOr endure.For a year.My daddy would no longer give me hugs,Or good night kisses,For a year,He was going to make another little girl feel safe.We were promised Disney World, But truth be told,I didn’t care about Disney World.Daddy was leaving.He left a couple weeks later for training in Georgia.e only memory I have of that AugustIs my parents talking to my "fth grade teacher about the deployment.I remember in fourth gradeMy dad had to leave for a week.I told my friend I wanted to break my legJust so he would have to stay.My leg never broke.

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While he was in Georgia,My brother and I each got a gift.I remember getting a Hilary Duff cd.I loved Hilary Duff. In December,He sent me a birthday card.I remember getting money And loving the card,But hating he was not with me to celebrate my eleventh birthday.Or any birthday for that matter.He came home for Christmas, Before he left for Kosovo.I wrote him a letter.I don’t remember what I wrote,Probably along the lines of I love you so much.We drove to MSP To say good-bye.How do you say good-bye for a year?I was eleven,No one taught me how yet. I continued to go to piano practice every WednesdayTook those spelling testsRecording every phone all Each time letting daddy know I love him.I counted the days in every month,Knowing he would be home soon,But it felt so long. So damn long. I didn’t like spending so much time with my mom.I wanted daddy back.en he came back in September,I was eleven. Just "nished my "rst day of middle school.It was a surprise, He came home on Tuesday,My mom told me was supposed to come back on Friday.I didn’t care.I ran upstairs to my parents’ bedroom,I gave him a hug, Never wanting to let go.

(continued)

I was safe again, And nothing bad was going to happen. I hope that little girl in Kosovo feels safe too,I was too young to know the terrors she lived through,And too sel"sh to try to understand.But I hope she is safe. And for the girl down the street I hope she never has to feel unsafe. It sucks when you don’t celebrate father’s day with you daddyAnd not to get that good-night kiss. But for now, I give my dad a hug,Knowing that nothing bad will happen in this moment.

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If You, I Would |McKenna Kring

If you drank Coffeeand I drank teaIf you were the type to be holding the baseball batWhile I was the type to be wearing the ski maskIf you got your stress out by clay pigeon shootingwhile I got mine out by clay pot throwing

If as a child you were a Mommy’s boywhile I attached to neither of my separated parentsIf at your birthday party you face-dived in Jello Bowlswhile I buried my hands in making mud piesIf you were the type to play the original x-box 360 Corewhile I made Frankenstein bouquets out of dismembered $owers

If you ate lunch on a tray at the popular table in Junior Highwhile I hid from the populars in a bathroom stall and entertained anorexiaIf in College you fed text to the miniature forest "res you lit in trash canswhile I coveted my collection of carefully caressed banned booksIf you went out on dates and shared desserts while getting your Doctorate Degreewhile I ate alone out of Tupperware on a t.v. tray while writing my dissertation

If you nervously tucked a ring that would start our future in your coat pocketwhile I nervously tucked wrists with a history of loveless scars in mineIf you researched how to protect the world by being an astronautWhile I had no answers when my premature child left space in my wombIf you focused on the child’s coffinWhen I could only focus on the unyielding church pew

If you were made of powder soft snowAnd I was hard iceen I’d still say we know adversityand how to go against it andI somehow think we should try againand make a ski slope together for our beautiful childrenOr a half pipe if they take after you

The Robin |David Landskroener

• White morningwhen $esh hangs in the airsuspended by the thrustof hopeful eyes.

• A drop of love,the drip of a sewer.

• e father falls to the $oor.e daughter screamsand rubs her throbbing foot.

• Fingers in the skyclamp down uponwrithing happies.

• He tilted the candleand it spat a riverof jelly tears.

• e book opened to a pictureof a spotted hyena.

• She frowned and plucked a swollen $y from her iced tea.

• Burning his handthe sizzleof an empty ring.

• Twenty years laterthey found a tibiawreathed by a tiara.

• e robin woke upand dizzied awayfrom the roller coaster.

So Long Said |Tshephiso Teseletso

Oceans apart, a thousand miles away, at is the least comprehension I have of the distance between you and me.62 heartbeats, that is all that it takes for me to fall in love.irty seconds, 53 milliseconds, that’s the exact length of time I starred at you for the "rst time I saw you, And it seemed like I had paused for another millennium.A dozen of roses, and just one note with 3 words in it: Life is you,Is all that it took for me to understand that you are the other halfat I have long waited for since forever...5 gulps for breath in, one gulp for breath out,Somewhere between those intervals, I don’t know for how long,at’s all it took for you to teach me how to reach places so unreal,Risky and perhaps sinful, yet I knew that I cared less for anything then.For 3 years, I had put my life to waste, doing nothing But mourning your abrupt departure that you decided to exclude me fromFor 3 seconds, I stood there, drained of life, starring at your empty casket,And I knew I had wanted to say the words I had long said to myself And give up all the things I had long denied you or given you in bounty for longBecause when with you, a trillion times, I kept on forgetting to rememberHow we tease, grip each other’s butt, how we look and touch each otherWill one day, in a split of a second, come to an eternal, untraceable halt.A lifetime apart, that is how far I know I am from you, Hovering over a shadow of you in our bed like an impotent penis.Beyond the second coming, that is when we can meet again, And, just maybe, if you perhaps remember to notice me,I will, like I had long wanted, whisper the words and do the things: nasty and pleasant at I had for so long said and done with you in my wildest fantasies, From the time I was 18, until a hundred and three

Visual Music | Ian Geiman

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asian girl knows |Jasmine An

after “what the white-boy wants” by Kevin Coval

asian girl knows she’s a doctor’s daughter.asian girl wants to study words not pre-med.asian girl heard what grandpa said last Christmas- medicine opens many paths -but she just smiled and changed the subject.

asian girl knows that if she doesn’t become a doctorthen she should marry a doctor,an asian doctor.

asian girl likes to be barefoot,wonders if she marries a doctor,will he know how to put her grandmother’sfeet back together again?

asian girl feels the cramp of her toesagainst the inside of rock climbing shoes.she doesn’t want to imagine scaling these wallswith feet wrapped in silk.

asian girl climbs higher but she can’tclimb past the ceiling.asian girl realizes she’s not white.

asian girl does pushups in her roomto make herself stronger.she still can’t climb past the ceiling.

asian girl knows she isn’t supposed to do pushups.asian girl looks at her arm muscle in the mirrorafter she’s been called “sir” again at the ice cream parlor.

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Scope |Anna Witte

Even though it was my childhood that was "lled with the turning -my grandparent’s kaleidoscope somehow feels like a memory decades old. e light is tangerine, is honey dew, is dandelion- shedding onto the couch-I feel the burlap of its armrest against my forearm, the touch of the cool-hot metal to my eye, on my pointer "nger pad- I -sticky with popsicle, collecting specks of dirt- I - regal and elegant. Stain glass geometry spills mystery, seeps through the tiny hole into my waiting iris when I spin the golden rim. powerful; causing reformation, transformation. Creating. Causing the falling- new patterns. Green glass becomes emeralds to wrap my wrists and kiss my neck. Clasped at the nape- I become royal, jut my collarbones and spin. e depth of the ocean comes washing, the warmth dropping into a tingling of adventure and rhythm, I feel a voyage, an adventure, ageless, sexless, I am pirate-captain, I am dame-damsel***Surely there were countless interruptions to my Kaleidoscope; my grandma yelling from the kitchen, my grandpa’s silence his eyes glued to a swing, a white ball, and greens. My sister tugging at my sleeve, my brother breaking an heirloom, my father sneezing one of his giant achoos***Did they get stuck in your chamber? Did sound waves morph as your pictures did?-the crashing of waves, ocean thrusting to the shore. e unhinge of jewelry and jangle of gems as they dangle and drip light, almost uncontained-almost unowned**e gold of the wheel extends-down-out-up-around-into borders, containing colors -into shapes. ey endlessly morph but never wander past the con"nement of the circle, the triangle, the gons-nona-septa-hexa, octa, pent- up energy charging through the tube that separates human from object, explorer from telescope, maiden from riches, child from answers. I am caught between- afraid and eager to enter space – curious. Will it be thick and muggy from heavy secrets and mascara? will it echo with silence- a world of transparency and light, an island between the desire and desired, or a hollow breeze?*If escape can be measured it would be measure by the length of my blink crease. By the traces left behind when my sealed lids open. By how far the creases ran and how much feeling is left in the folds. Muscles numb from the clench, sore from the race to keep up with unending movement, chasing the uncapturable. **I never saw another like you. e way your parts lay exposed, circle of glass seen from afar; a preview, a beckoning. How many eyes had you touched, how many

(continued)

"ngerprints left their own patterns where your in$uence is absent- the shell of your chamber, the frame of your art, the cage of your freedom, the part of you I so yearned to know most. Pondering as my grip tightens- the travel of color. Does the light coax? does the "nger entice green to to emeralds, to pyramid symmetry? Does it force the blues to shatter, then re-congeal? Do reds slip into place? What color pushes forcefully for a shape to host them, or for a host to shape them? and what of the transition? e brief moments where color lingers unshaped by the edges, sides, and angles

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Hot Air Balloons with Dad |Max Jensen

If the night is cold enough, it starts with an X of balsawood, light as air, the wispy strands of grey on top of his head.

Take eight candles – the tiny twisted birthday kind – the eightleft in the twenty pack after the twelve topping your most recent

birthday cake. Take the same X-Acto knife you cut the woodenX's with and trim the candles stubby to two-thirds their original

height. Everything must be as light as possible, light as the balsa,or else the thin heat from the candles won't lift the weight

he tells you. Watch his adam's apple rise as he blowson the pink splotch on his hand he burned

melting the candles onto the wooden X himself. Slideyour hands under it, raise it like he raised your mother's

veil. Check its weight. Light enough? If not, start againand cut the candles even closer to the quick, split

the balsa struts lengthwise and build a leaner X.e plastic bag is next. Slice the handles off with

the knife so they "t fully around the X. Secure thesides to the struts with tape. Carry the whole thing

like a newborn bird, fragile and wispy, out of the warmthof your house, out into the front yard, to the cold

worlds, all wet grass and above, the starry bowlof the night sky. Hold half the bag above the candles

melted onto the struts while he holds the other half and holdsa match, cradles it from the wind like he must have cradled

the match in that story he told you, almost apologetically.How when he was your age, he very nearly burnt

(continued)

his house in Kansas City down because he was playingwith "re outside. e grass must have been dry. Hold

your half of the shopping bag while he lights the one-thirdcandles. Begin to feel the warmth against your "ngers as

the $ames "rst "ll the top of the bag. As it begins to takeshape, you will look over at him and see the $ames

of the candles dancing on his glasses, some warmthsuffusing them as the bag swells by hair-lengths then

inches and you bump it lightly upwards. It bounces onceand slowly drifts back down to your upraised hands.

Raise it again above your head and watch itdrift upwards, accelerating gently now, something

spindly and iridescent $oating through the night.

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Printed on Saturday, June 2nd 2011Compiled by Hannah Daly