Black Words On White Paper – Issue 04 published by Shawn Adams collection copyright 2011 by Shawn Adams
Editor: Shawn Adams
Visit http://www.bwowp.com for the latest issue and submission guidelines.
ISBN: 978-1-105-20343-5
Letter from the Editor: I usually take a day or two to think about this letter, to consider how this issue's selections speak to a particular theme, or to talk about how difficult it is to put this thing together. This round, however, I'm going to keep this part to a minimum. It's been more than a year since BWOWP 3, and I don't want to waste any more time getting volume 4 published. The one thing I would like to mention is my apologies for the delay. I've told the authors that the transition to ebooks has been a big stumbling block, but changes in my personal life have been just as consuming as the technical challenges. When I started this journal, I was out of work and had no other luxury than time. Since then, I've settled down with two things that I hope will last throughout my life: a fulfilling career and a brilliant, beautiful, loving wife. I had thought that this might be the last issue, but I love it too much to give it up. I won't be able to keep up with the schedule that I had originally intended, but I'll do my best to publish on at least a quarterly basis. Which means that this is the first and last issue of 2011. I hope you enjoy it. - Shawn Adams
Contents Jeff Alfier
1
Katarina Shih
4
Jennifer Hurley
6
Sophie-Marie
8
Kerri Farrell Foley
10
Judy Viertel
12
Jon Von Huben
14
Richard Luftig
16
Joshua Young
18
Stephanie Manuzak
20
Nancy Flynn
22
Mary Cafferty
24
John F. Buckley
26
Lauren Dean
28
L. M. Thompson
30
Lennart Lundh
32
1
Jeff Alfier Jeff Alfier is a 2010 nominee for the UK’s Forward Prize for Poetry. His poems have appeared recently in Crannog (Ireland) and Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, with work forthcoming in New York Quarterly. His latest chapbook is Bluesman’s Daughter (2011). His first full-length book of poems, The Wolf Yearling, will be published in 2012, by Pecan Grove Press. He serves as co-editor of San Pedro River Review.
2
Taking the Union Loop in December The wide, sunless face of winterblue sky delivers its hard-edged promise of snow above the tick-tock of railcars trundling over time-worn joints, nudging passengers behind their rustling newsprint. Half awake, they watch shades of wind-besieged foot traffic thread the sharp sting of oncoming weather that culls paper trash from the remnant night. On platforms, north- and southbound turnstiles spin above a boarding house. Its occupants hear blowtorches plume in the wind, knowing they’ll trade eviction for urban progress, molten sparks flaring in that fleet brilliance the blind know, turning pages in their sleep.
3
Homeward from Austin The road becomes a single lane into the absence of all you knew. Foreclosed houses dimmed heavy with despair line the street of your return, holes in the memory of no one you know now. Certainly not the young girl selling lemonade to no visible customer. Not the homeless pair, their tinder-parched forms recumbent under broken lattice of some abandoned porch. Nor the old woman mowing her lawn, a crone neighborhoods like these never lose, where high noon finds the young girl impatient to sell in Dixie cups a lemonade that weakens from melting ice. Watching her lips move soundlessly, you know girls from this town never go far – few with fresh starts, most taking anchorage in this deadbeat county, dreams cold as life itself. But you shift into drive and leave, safe in the knowledge you’ll make it out decades from now – if you are lucky, still content, worn-down, and not ever going home.
4
Katarina Shih Katarina Shih is a high school freshman from Seattle, Washington. She finds inspiration in grocery stores, fairy tales, music and wading pools, among other things. When she isn't writing she can be found perusing local thrift shops, or walking her cat.
5
Evan I can hear the way the wooden gate slams behind us, and I know just how the cherry blossoms fall against your driveway. I know the way down the alley, without looking back. Pause on the precipice overlooking a steep drop, into the gully. My flip-flops slip-sliding on decay and leaf mold like thick water spilling away from us as we descend. I know where the ferns are thick on the gully floor, spreading their fronds like camouflaging spider webs. The plants are like island, my feet searching for high ground. I know the unfinished backs of houses perched, balancing precariously on the ledge of this tiny canyon. The dead-end, where bramble vines loop and curve, nature’s barbed wire. We retrace our steps, this time cutting corners up someone else’s stairs.
6
Jennifer Hurley Jennifer Hurley's short fiction has appeared in Front Porch, The Mississippi Review, The Arroyo Literary Review, Stone's Throw Magazine, Commonline, and Slow Trains, among others.
7 Lemonade Stand I was tired of the city--of its filth and loneliness--so I moved into a suburban neighborhood of families. My first day there it was raining and the streets were too quiet. But the next week the weather cleared up, and in the sun my neighborhood was glorious. The streets were richly black, shaded by ancient oaks. The colorful Victorians made me think of candy. One day when I was out walking I spotted a lemonade stand, something I hadn't seen since I was a child. Behind a crooked card table was a little girl in a dirty Snow White costume, and her father, who sat in a lawn chair reading a newspaper. “How much for a lemonade?” I asked the girl. “Mister, can't you read the sign? Ten cents,” she said. I gave her a quarter and asked for two cups. She made my change from an old cash register tray. “I can do it,” she said, shooing away her father. With both hands she lifted the pitcher of lemonade and poured unsteadily into the paper cup. It was a hot day, and the lemonade was cold and tart. I could hardly believe this was my new life. In my old neighborhood I had walked down the street avoiding used condoms. “The lemons came from our backyard,” said the little girl. I introduced myself and pointed to the street where I lived. The father was about my age, and for a dad he was hip: day-old stubble, tattoos, a T-shirt advertising a punk band. Maybe he played guitar, I thought. Maybe we would jam together in our garages, play some covers at the summer block party. As if he knew what I was thinking, he said, “We should get together sometime. Grab a beer with the other dads.” “Oh, I'm not a dad,” I said. “You will be. The wives make sure of it.” “I'm not married.” “You live there by yourself, then.” “Yes.” He was staring at me with a strange expression when thunder crackled in the sky. We looked up at the darkening clouds. When the rain fell the little girl shrieked--half fear, half pleasure--picked up the tray of money, and ran towards the house. The man got up slowly, folding his ruined newspaper. “Well, there goes our summer day,” he said and followed his daughter into the house. The lemonade stand sign, inked on white paper, had become a soggy gray mess. They'd left the pitcher out, and the lemonade was getting rained on. I carried the pitcher to the front door and was about to knock when I thought about how the dad had looked at me. It hadn't occurred to me until then that a single man--a man without the accessory of a child, or a wife--might raise suspicion in that neighborhood. I walked back to my house. By the time I was inside my clothes were soaked and sticking to my skin. I looked out my front window at the empty street and wondered who had looked out their windows at me. For a second I almost missed the city, which was never this empty but where no one noticed me at all. The pitcher of rainy lemonade was still in my hands. I held it to my mouth and drank, but it had lost its taste.
8
Sophie-Marie Sophie-Marie is a young writer living on the east coast of England. She has had work published in Spilt Milk, The Delinquent and New Horizons and has a chapbook available at www.sophie-marie.co.uk .
9
Untitled Baby, I lied. I stole lines from your sleeping lips, slipped them into prose, everyday conversation, our lovemaking. Being a part of you was never enough. You had the swagger whilst I was left stuttering over broken fragments of ideas. In essence becoming you was your idea. I immersed myself in your influences, became obsessed with Godard and your subtle acts of art. You left traces of cinnamon in the bed sheets on sullen winter mornings as I followed your indiscretions with exact precision. I found apologies written over photographs which you later burnt, apples worked their way into the bathroom, you wrote less. I sang old punk songs, learnt Japanese, saved for the plane ticket. Every time I stole a little of you, you divided up within me, became more skeletal. Your eyes narrowed, lost colour and belief as I worked my way around you. I figured you out and wasn’t comfortable with the conclusion. You were always an empty shell forged from movie scenes and surrealist art. I have become an imitation of an imitation.
10
Kerri Farrell Foley Kerri writes for the same reason that she picks scabs and rearranges furniture at midnight. At an early age, she recognized her addiction to semicolons. Shortly thereafter, a similar relationship developed with nicotine. Now, all she really wants from the world is a hyphen. For a list of publications and contact information, visit www.kerrifarrellfoley.blogspot.com .
11
Christiane's Handbag It was January, so you must have been cold. My stunted knowledge of the German climate is based solely on a few Munich walks. From the hotel room near the train station, to the Dunkel-drenched tents that spot the landscape at the feet of a false Olympian, and back. A little fuzzier each time. This is a tourist’s knowledge. An American’s knowledge, scraped together hundreds of years after you floated to the surface, or sank to the bottom. Forgive the liberty, but I assume you were cold. Hunched down, hiding your ears under brown felt. Blushing from the strain of winter burning holes through your lungs, the strain of hauling your intentions behind you. Walking at an hour too early or too late for most people to ever see, you saw. You saw the sky teeter between two shades, a dome of indecision, looking like a bruise. Landmarks blurred by. That was where he; that was where we. And patches of skin on your face were already dying as tears and snot froze solid. You re-wrapped your hair, sick of the needles arrowed into your scalp by the chill. You considered turning back, not forever, but because you remembered the tradition of a note. It was too cold. It was best to get to the river, quickly. Before dawn could seep in and push memory down deep in the cracks between cobblestones. Before resolve could even become an issue. It was tucked under your coat. Nested in your armpit, it was cracked leather that might have stayed pretty if you’d taken the time to polish it once a month. A gift or an impulse buy? Coinless and rougeless, silent for once, as you came to the river with only what was necessary. It stayed hooked around your limb, safe beneath your felt when you flew. In the water, it spun around your maypole. Instinct met resolve and you flailed with the possession of their battle. Helpless and stinging, you sank deeper into your chest and waited to welcome the victor. You swallowed mouthfuls of ice, and knew you would win, either way. Your skin got tighter under the struggle, under the weight of water. When the war fizzled and Nature swept decision downstream, you slipped further from the churn of the surface. Your arms stayed clamped against your ribs, even as warmth ceased to matter. Leather stayed lodged, and legend bubbled up. You drowned with the dandy dresser tucked in your purse. You died as an echo of a paperback. It’s not healthy to romanticize these things. But Christiane, we still carry handbags crammed with war paints and life plans and tokens. We still clutch them close. Very few will ever dump it all out to clear space for dark inspiration. Still fewer know what that means. It’s best that we forget about you; it’s best to focus on lipstick, worry about metro cards, shove down receipts, and act like tourists. Paperbacks no longer belong in purses. Christiane von Lassberg drowned in 1778, during the height of Wether-Fieber.
12
Judy Viertel Judy Viertel leads the Drunken Goats, a San Francisco-based group for wine-swilling writers. She wrote Miss Judy Goes to the Yucatan, a blog about her adventures among the Mayan people of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. She’s been published in Gargoyle Magazine, Gold Dust Magazine, Mad Swirl and Read Short Fiction.
13 Life in France My mother took us to a diner. I must have been about ten years old, and my brother, about seven. I remember the tables: they were yellow. I ordered a French Dip sandwich. That one doesn’t come with potatoes, the waitress said. That's okay, I said. You can have some of mine, my mother said, or maybe Carl can share. Why does everyone think I want fries, I asked; I ordered a French Dip sandwich, and that's all I want. What I really wanted, even at that age, was to go to France. My mother had never left the Western states. She'd dropped out of college to marry my father and then, soon after my brother was born, they'd gotten divorced. I didn't want to end up like her, working in a supermarket. I saw myself strutting past the Eiffel Tower in a blue silk dress that swiveled around my knees. That image: I must have gotten it from a television commercial. When the sandwich arrived, I was entranced: it was roast beef on white bread, toasted and cut into two sharp triangles. The waitress placed a little bowl of broth next to my plate and stood there, waiting. Perhaps she was still expecting me to ask for fries. I dipped one of the triangles into the broth and took a bite. It's divine, I said. Might you have a suitable wine to go with this? We don’t serve alcohol, the waitress said. She flashed her eyes at my mother, and then added: don’t you think you’re a little young for wine? We drink it every Friday night, I informed her; even Carl gets a little. I watched the woman’s mouth drift open. Daphne, my mother scolded. She turned to the waitress. It’s part of our Sabbath ritual, she said. We’re Jewish. Oh? Well, I wouldn’t know about that. In my family, we don’t give alcohol to children. Too bad for them, I said. This sandwich is exquisite, even without the appropriate beverage. I’m going to order it every time. Shut up, Daphne, my brother said. He took out a superhero action figure. He bounced it angrily up and down along the edge of the table. Carl, my mother hissed, put that thing back in your jacket. And don’t speak to your sister like that. Daphne, finish your food. I glared at them, certain that one day I’d leave them both far behind. I imagined them, my mother and brother, in some cavernous airport, begging me not to leave. I’d wave at them with a weary smile. Then I’d stroll through the gate. They would go home, and my mother would continue putting on her polyester pants every morning, and taking the local bus to work. My brother would become an accountant, or perhaps a contractor: something like that. Meanwhile, I'd be in France. In France, in France... for years that phrase motivated me. I studied to become a paralegal; my plan was to build up a quick pool of money and move to Europe, at least for a few years. But then I met Isaac. We were discussing where to go for our honeymoon when he told me: nothing overseas. It's too expensive, and besides, he said, I hate flying. That's how we wound up in Tahoe. The lake was just as blue as people had told us it would be, and the hills were very green. I saw it all and wondered: could anything be more beautiful?
14
Jon Von Huben Jon Von Huben is an editor of various media in the land of LaLa. His work has previously appeared in Black Words On White Paper and (pseudonymously) in Bergamot.
15
The Dynamic Betwixt Us The surface is smooth in the manner that glass is clear, if that glass were smudged with fingerprints and dusted with ash; flaws unseen by the average eye, but they exist, they can be felt when running your fingers over the smoothness of it, and that's when you discover how rough it truly is, how it's almost so rocky that it's like water, the way the ridges of your fingers slip through the cracks as easily as breaking through liquid, and then suddenly you're reaching inside of it, and you can feel the wet, pulsing repulsion of it, this clean, gentle thing has this dank core that stinks like rotting fruit which is still somehow living, attached to some hidden vine that feeds it and animates it, and it's this life in the thing that's needful, and what it requires is you, and so it pulls at you, not by a physical tug, but by an attraction; this vile, disgusting center is somehow calling you without a voice, and you discover that you can't resist it, you're swimming in its putrid entrails now and wondering if you knew this all along, that you could see through that smooth surface, just like glass, and you knew what you were trying to get at, and it was you who put the cracks in the surface, it was you who rubbed to the point of breaking through it, you forced yourself into it and now you're drowning in the thoughts that are buzzing through your mind and this mud that you're sinking into, this sludge of perpetual paranoia, and as your lungs are filling you're realizing that you were here in the beginning and somehow you had made it out but you just couldn't stand to see things from the outside where it looks so clean and so clear and so smooth, where you couldn't see the truth.
16
Richard Luftig Richard Luftig is a professor of educational psychology and special education at Miami University in Ohio. He is a recipient of the Cincinnati Post-Corbett Foundation Award for Literature and a semi finalist for the Emily Dickinson Society Award. His poems have appeared in numerous literary journals in the United States and internationally in Asia, Europe and Australia.
17
Abandoned Drive In At sixteen, we would wait all day for darkness then drive to the edge of town, park and watch for the flickers on the screen, listen to the pop and crackles through the speakers hanging from the windows, and watch the ads for soda, candy, coming attractions. Later, we’d slump down in the seats with only the blue glow of the dashboard, the red tips of forbidden cigarettes for illumination, the windshield fogging to hide windfall kisses, thinking we’d live forever, taking our chances on the sweet dangers of happy endings.
18
Joshua Young Joshua Young lives in Chicago with his wife, son, and dog. He teaches writing at Columbia College Chicago, where he also studies poetry in the MFA program. He is the author of When the Wolves Quit: A Play in Verse (forthcoming Gold Wake Press 2012). For information on his writing, films, and other projects visit http://thestorythief.tumblr.com .
19
from To the Chapel of Light: A Film in Verse EXT. HILLSIDE – EVENING in the outskirts, there’s salt in the water, but not an ocean for miles, over two ranges. the town hides the roads leading there, as though it were some kind of trespassing vein. no one ever finds the town, cause no one ever finds the road. it’s all gravel and grass, and looks like a dead end. the families there stand under dead trees tearing at their skin as though they could lift the sunlight from their hands. boys from the outskirts always stop their cars to kick the road kill. once, they found a young girl from the mid-west rolled into a ditch, for some reason they just reached out and moved her hair out of her eyes and watched her lie still. it wasn’t till night fall, when they picked her up and drove. they found the town, but not because they were looking, because they were trying to find an ocean to bury the girl. they buried her, but never left. they built homes on the cliff hanging over the ocean and lived there talking about returning home till they were too old to actually do it. they all died there, on the cliff. left their bones to settle. no, you won’t find a camera here. there’s nothing inside houses and shacks but dust and furniture, and sometimes bodies. you won’t even find photographs on walls. people got sick of always getting reminders of how young everyone used to be. you can find pieces and piles of cameras by the willow trees if you follow the trail up to the overhang. they’re rusted by now, maybe choked by weeds, and warped from sun and water. sometimes, the youngest ones here picks at the piles and wonders what these used to be, but that question only lasts half a year. CUT TO:
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Stephanie Manuzak A native of Maryland, Stephanie Manuzak studied creative writing and English at Oberlin College, and has lived and written in Denver since 2003. Her work has been published in several journals including Wilderness House Literary Review, Avatar Review, Perigee, The Nautilus Engine and Kestrel.
21
Moving The photographs with the sticky tape residue on their backs were slipped under the covers of books, and the books were loaded into the plastic cubes that had acted as a dresser of sorts and held her sweaters. The sweaters were packed into garbage bags that stuck, static charged, to her arms as she opened them. The few dishes went into the few boxes, not buffered with newspaper or bubble wrap - they were cheap, and if they broke during the move, she’d get new ones. She’d leave behind the books she’d picked up at the used bookstore or the coffeeshop exchange bookshelf, and the ones she’d gotten from friends and would never read again. The shirt that no longer fit, the skirt she never wore anymore, and the two-dollar yard sale bookshelf all went likewise down to the alley by the dumpster. They would be gone in a day; someone would take them. By afternoon the garbage bags and plastic cubes formed a floating island in the middle of the living room floor. She liked the look of it: compact, self-contained. She didn’t need to hire movers and she didn’t need to ask anyone for help. One carload would take her to her next place as it had taken her to this one. She was grateful that there was nothing tying her down, that there would be no pangs of nostalgia, no last longing looks at the white walls, that it was always so easy for her to go. She had bought the chairs specifically because they folded up like umbrellas. The side table collapsed flat. With her computer, she didn’t need a television, and the microwave went with the apartment. The bed was the last thing. It was made of plastic, hollow tubing, and air. She knelt on it to fold it down, compact as a suitcase. The air came out in a breathy rush that subsided to a hiss and flutter of air that was almost inaudible in the empty room.
22
Nancy Flynn Nancy Flynn hails from the coal country of northeastern Pennsylvania where, at an early age, she fell in love with words instead of into a sinkhole or the then-polluted Susquehanna River. Her writing’s received the James Jones First Novel Fellowship and an Oregon Literary Fellowship; her second chapbook, Eternity a Coal’s Throw, will be published in 2012. A former university administrator, she now lives in Portland, Oregon. More about her writing and publications at www.nancyflynn.com .
23
Folk Dance Maybe it was the mazurka on the radio that called me, triple-time back to you—our skittish feet an insouciant skip to my Lou. How we kick-stepped the cobbles, ignoring that rose drooped hours after the cut, after our slide, slide, slide. Now fog rakes morning with paper clips scattered across this desk in need of a scrub. I never thought we could dip any further akimbo but we managed, oh, breathless revenge. Candles and the six o’clock bells as your jealous fists met the sheetrock. You shook my shoulders, snapped my buttoned-down neck. No spring, only wobble in my once festive steps.
24
Mary Cafferty Mary Cafferty is always sitting on the edge of her chair, as though she may bolt from the room at any moment. Her work has also appeared in Eclectic Flash, Burning Word, and 5 X 5.
25
Always, Always He looked at her and he asked: are you dreaming still? She closed her eyes and her hair burst into flames, sending shimmering golden sparks across the wooden floor of their tiny one-bedroom apartment. And his eyes were blue and they were pouring out water that could not quench her or drown her but hold her only, curving around her small smoldering shape. She looked in and in and into him and said, finally: yes, I think I am. And the day drained out of their tiny space and then there were no walls and then they were just fire and water standing together in a field of sunflowers. In the yellow field, the two wove entwined until they were one elemental rope, fire and water holding hands, arms against arms, mouths against mouths. And then they were steam – two bodies become one cloud. Recombined, they felt their atoms grating together as they floated up over a thousand wavering yellow suns, relishing that delicious atomic friction and he looked at her and he looked at her and he was water again, crying back to the earth, where she collected him in small galvanized buckets knowing the answer to the question he could never ask was: always, always.
26
John F. Buckley John F. Buckley lives in Orange County, California. His work has been published in a number of places, one of which nominated him for a Pushcart Prize in 2009. His chapbook Breach Birth was published on Propaganda Press in March 2011.
27
Inquisition On the tip of every tongue, sluiced by spit from gums and the walls of the inner cheeks, squats a phrase encapsulating the job of exculpating foxes caught in coops. It almost only is used figuratively and left in the original Latin. It sits tight in the pit of the mouth and refuses to move, a wet black verbal pebble. Practice declension twice a day to discern its grammatical cases: ablative, maybe dative. But you cannot pull the hard wad forth from its willing prison to speak it deftly. Again, the guilt of a dead rooster. So take these red-hot iron pincers.
28
Lauren Dean Lauren Dean in a senior at the University of Alabama. She is majoring in the Classics and minoring in Creative Writing. Her work has also been published in Straitjackets Magazine.
29
The Beer Bottle on the Window Sill I told you that I only saw three people in pajamas on campus, and you told me that you went to the store. You said that’s when you decided to cook because you’d never cooked before, and you thought that cooking would be a good skill to learn. So you did. You cooked lunch. You said that this was easier than it should have been, and I nodded like I agreed. But you didn’t see the dog chase a fly around the apartment, and I felt that we were the same, that we could never accept the loss. It was like that night when we drew pictures and you spilt the beer on the rug. That’s how I felt. That’s why I sat on the cabinet and let you tell me about your day. You said you went to the store, and I said I went to class. We knew there was more to it. We knew it wasn’t that easy. I tried to tell you that, but I told you the burgers were good. You tried to explain it, so you said you hoped I thought so. We treated the kitchen like it was a dining room—the apartment like it was home. I told you I would like to learn the things you knew, and you said you spent the day online because you’d never spent the day online before, so you told me what you knew. I knew what you were trying to say, but I didn’t think Third Eye Blind was all that important until you told me the God of Wine came crashing through the windshield of your car. I told you I knew the feeling. I told you the God of Wine was there. I told you it mattered. I told you there was a beer bottle on my window sill, and you said you saw it. That’s how we realized it; that’s how the discussion began. I remembered that we danced across the rug. We couldn’t say it. We didn’t speak of it. It was there, heavy in the pits of our stomachs, like a rock plunging deeper into the sea, like the beer bottle on the window sill. You offered to cook some more, and I said you should. That’s how we agreed. You pushed the keys across the cabinet, out of your reach. We did the dishes because you could cook and they were our dishes. That’s how we agreed. That’s how we knew. That’s how you said you’d stay.
30
L. M. Thompson L.M. Thompson is a short fiction writer from the Cathedral City of Lichfield, England. He is currently studying for a degree at the University of Derbyshire.
31 CafĂŠ Wednesday night and she asks me about my day. Again. Every night she asks and I never have anything to tell her. Its all so boring. All so similar. When I close my eyes I see plates, stacked and shimmering. Blue trays wet in the hands of aproned girls. I walk from the kitchen to the chaos of families and loners, wanderers and couples, seated on red plastic chairs at red plastic tables. I nod and smile as I check each table. Is everything alright? I ask. Yes, they say, thank you. I say it again at the next table, and again, and again. And again. These faces I forget as soon as I look away. So many lives and souls and yet I barely register them. Did you see anyone fun, anyone different, anyone strange? She says. I think. Details are fleeting yet some stick with me. Yes, I say. There were these two men, filthy from the rain. The rain here carries more dust than water. My car has never looked anything but brown. They came in and sat down and I greeted them. Good evening, I say. Hey, says one, the filthiest, burdened with a rucksack he drops on the floor. My clean floor. Can we get a cup of coffee? Sure, I say, smiling on the outside. The other just looks down and spreads his fingers on the table. They are as brown as his clothes. Muddied. Unpleasant. Can I get you anything else? I ask. Like a bath, I think. No, no thank you. We're fine with coffee. Says the same man. Okay. Where did they come from? She asks. Were they travellers? Were they hikers? I don't know, I say. Probably. Nothing else comes back. Just the endless parade of faces that are all so similar. Smiles and frowns and laughter. No. There was something else. When the two men left, I had to mop the floor where they sat. And the table. There was a hand-print on the red plastic. Dirt brown. Filthy brown. I scrubbed it with some kitchen roll and it went. But that's it. That's boring, she whines, and I want her to shut up. Yes it is. My job is boring. It's all so boring. I can't make it interesting, or fun, or... My voice trails off and she pouts at me. Well, whatever, she says. When I'm older I'll be a fashion designer, a super model, I'll be as famous as Madonna. Yes, I say. My eyes are tired, heavy, and I get up. Goodnight, I say. I lie in bed. Awake. Eyes closed. I flit in and out of sleep. There is no-one beside me. A train rumbles past and the bed shivers. Darkness. My dreams are boring. All so boring. Just red chairs at red tables and a hand-print that won't wipe away.
32
Lennart Lundh Lennart Lundh is a short-fiction writer and military historian who returned to poetry back in his mid-fifties. His work has appeared in various magazines and anthologies since 1967.
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Freeway and Colorado Up above the freeway and Colorado Street floats a skull-and-crossbones kite the neighbor kid got me out of bed to help him fly. In wintertime, my body tells me, there should be snow; but only the breeze is cold now, tugging at my shirtsleeve like the kite that floats up and shakes in no-ing when we ask it to come down.