tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-84760818891661430312024-02-21T09:22:06.453-05:00Redux: A Literary JournalAn invitation-only literary journal of writers' favorite, previously published stories and poems, not found elsewhere on the web ~~ edited by novelist Leslie Pietrzyk ~~Lesliehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00619211671334466665noreply@blogger.comBlogger290125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8476081889166143031.post-57118232323896840712018-08-06T10:27:00.003-04:002018-08-06T10:28:16.182-04:00#272: "I Dreamed of Mark Messier" by Leslie Pietrzyk<i><br></i>
<i>***As noted <a href="http://www.reduxlitjournal.com/2018/07/and-now-we-come-to-end-almost.html">last week, </a>this post will be the final to appear in Redux as I have decided to put aside my editorial duties. Archives will be maintained, and a guide to the more-than-250 authors published here appears below, to your right.</i><br>
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<span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">~This
story previously appeared in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">New York
Stories</i> (2001)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br></div>
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<span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , serif;">This happened several years ago,
though I had to look at a calendar before I believed that much time had gone
by.</span><span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , serif;">In fact, I think Mark Messier plays
for another team now, is retired, has left the country, something, something
big, something dramatic.</span><span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , serif;">But what do I
know about any of that?</span></div>
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<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; mso-hyphenate: none; tab-stops: -.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>My boyfriend Andy had been watching
Stanley Cup hockey play-offs all weekend, so when I told him Monday morning
that I’d had a dream about Mark Messier, he said, “Was he playing for Edmonton
or New York?” and I said, “I don’t know,” and he said, “Was he on the Oilers or
the Rangers?”, and I said, “I don’t know,” and he got kind of ticked:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Well, what color was his shirt?”, and I
said, “Coral,” and then he got really mad—“No team jerseys are coral, not even
expansion teams would pick coral.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What
the hell is coral, anyway?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Actually, Mark Messier hadn’t been
wearing a shirt, because what’s the point of dreaming of a muscley hockey
player if he’s got on his shirt the whole time?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But that wasn’t anything you’d say to your boyfriend, not when you were
talking around the edges about getting married and no one was getting any
younger and there were biological clocks going off all over the place.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Well, what else, Lynne?” he asked. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“It was just a dream,” I said.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“So who cares?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We were going to be late for work; he was driving,
and there was some crash miles ahead of us on the highway.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whenever he drove there was some crash.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When I drove, we had green lights and clear
lanes and no commercials on the radio.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Right now, we were absolutely still.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Every car in every lane was still.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I watched drivers around us whip out their phones to scream at people
already at work.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“I have to know if the Rangers are
going to win the Cup,” he said.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Not unless their defense steps up,”
I said, repeating what I’d heard on the radio in the shower this morning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I wouldn’t know defense from picket fence.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“This traffic sucks,” he said.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“The Rangers’ defense sucks.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"></span></div>
<a href="http://www.reduxlitjournal.com/2018/08/272-i-dreamed-of-mark-messier-by-leslie.html#more">Read more »</a>LesliePhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14481570436014889814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8476081889166143031.post-88859141154450224982018-07-30T13:09:00.002-04:002018-07-30T13:19:16.111-04:00And Now We Come to the End (Almost)<br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I launched <i>Redux</i> in August 2011, with the simple thought
that there should be an outlet for excellent stories, poems, and essays that
have appeared in literary journals but that never subsequently appeared in a
book; work that felt lost in the dusty stacks of a library or, more likely, an
archive, whether the journal’s or the writer’s. I know that I’ve published stories
along the way that—for whatever reason—I would never choose to include in a
collection of stories, if I were to put one together. They don’t fit my current
areas of interest, or they read a little too old-fashioned now, or I don’t want
so-and-so to read this one. Sometimes, the situation is that I see too many
flaws in the writing or in the writer I once was. Yet each publication was
deeply important to me, and for sure there are stories that I just simply love—flaws
and all—that I want to present once again. There should be a way (I thought
back in 2011) to honor these works. In fact, there was a particular story of
mine I had in mind: </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">this story</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">, I
thought, it makes me sad that </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">this</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
story will never be in a collection or seen again, especially since the journal
that published it is now defunct.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Someone should do something, I thought. I should do
something, I thought.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I already had a simple blog through Google’s blogging
platform, Blogger, so why not add a simple literary journal, where I could
publish my beloved story and work by other writers? Ta-da: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Redux</i> was born!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It was immediately clear that I couldn’t exactly publish my
own beloved story without looking like I was running a vanity project, so I
solicited some work and some contributing editors who would also solicit work…and
eventually I opened submissions to the world. I loved reading these lost
stories and poems and essays, and I also loved reading the stories behind the
work: how this might be someone’s first publication, or how someone was
experimenting with a technique, or the way this poem always made them remember
their grandmother. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Redux</i> has
published writers I know, writers I’ve heard of, writers I didn’t know, writers
I didn’t know but who now are my friends. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Along the way, I’ve had wonderful people helping Redux, either
as contributing editors or as assistant editors, helping me evaluate work
during the open submission periods. And while I was able to set up a fairly
low-stress formula for the myriad of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Redux</i>-related
tasks: reading the work, posting the work, communicating with writers, etc…even
low-stress editing takes up a certain amount of time and energy. Which is why…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">…I have made the difficult decision to wind up my
participation in Redux. There will be one more post, next week, of the story
that started it all, my story that I will never put into a collection, that I
still sort of love for a variety of reasons, one being that it’s the story I
wrote when I first started loving hockey: “I Dreamed of Mark Messier.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">As for now, I will keep the archives alive as long as it’s
inexpensive and easy to do so. But I’m also open to passing along the entire
enterprise to another person and/or institution. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Might that be you?</i> If so, some quick thoughts/suggestions/cautions:
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">~A social media presence is helpful to find a wider audience.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">~My web skills are waaaaaay outdated, so it seems to me that
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Redux</i> needs a major web update
undertaken by someone with skills waaaaaay better than mine.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">~I would expect that whoever might take over <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Redux</i> would be committed to maintaining
the archives.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">~Finally, it’s getting a bit harder to find work that has
been published in print that isn’t also online already, so the mission of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Redux</i> might be tweaked a bit. On the
other hand, there’s a world of out-of-print books (if one wants to investigate
copyright issues) and there’s also, unfortunately, a world of online
publications that are now defunct, leaving behind a sea of sadness and empty
links.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In the end, I’m glad I took my thought forward into action,
and I’m grateful for everyone who contributed their work, read and shared <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Redux</i>, and, especially, those who helped
produce this journal along the way:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Current assistant editors, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Kenneth A. Fleming & Clara Jane Hallar;</b></span></blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Current contributing editor, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Stephen A. Ello</b>;</span></blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Former contributing editors, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Rachel Hall, Deborah Ager, Marlin Barton, Sandra Beasley, Anna Leahy, Joseph
M. Schuster, & Susan Tekulve</b>; and</span></blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Designer, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Bill
Skillern</b>.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Email me at lesliepietrzyk AT gmail DOT com if you’d like to
learn more about the possibility of taking over<i> Redux</i>. And definitely come back next week to read <i>Redux’s </i>final post!</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<br />LesliePhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14481570436014889814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8476081889166143031.post-32907038726064937982018-07-23T14:30:00.000-04:002018-07-23T14:30:10.036-04:00#271: Two Poems by Mark Liebenow<br>
<h1 style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 1.0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br></span></h1>
<h1 style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 1.0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></o:p></span></h1>
<h1 align="right" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 1.0in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: right;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;">~This poem previously appeared in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Spoon River Poetry Review</i> (2008).<o:p></o:p></span></span></h1>
<h1 style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 1.0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></o:p></span></h1>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<h1 style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 1.0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Anger, No. 15</span><span style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></h1>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Jackson
Pollock, “Yellow Islands,” 1952, oil on canvas<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<br></div>
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<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">The tortured pain of Jackson Pollock is
not some rehab diatribe <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .75in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">that freed his demons, let him sit with
bodhisattva Zen smile.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Strangled at birth by umbilical cord left
a web of motor, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .75in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">learning disabilities that hammered his
mind with bristled scorn.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Tangled unbent anger for prestige
galleries who couldn’t see <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .75in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">his great talent, the backlash against
family, friends, his paint.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">The stabs at the hole in his mythical dark
soul he starved to fill, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">the vapid, cathartic release that never
held enough death.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">This painting shrivels grand mysteries
into drips of disdain <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">for academy tastes that cater to the
known, the well-dressed,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">the pricks, the bores, the intellectual
crap, the painted taps, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .75in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">the crank of the well-heeled that clank on
hollowed out pipes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Turned upside down, I wouldn’t know which
way was right, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">like tube socks yanked on the wrong foot.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Pollock’s hand is weary of sketching the
shuttered interior light,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .75in; margin-right: 22.5pt; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">the slippery decay, the pneumatic musk,
the stench below city tenements.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">His vision of society’s oblivion twisted
into streets he crashed,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .75in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">the spackle of grackles that jig-sawed
beneath his skin,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">dumped into urine back alleys like chump,
fetid trash scrounged for scraps<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .75in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">of cadmium yellow, white scraped from the
fat of electric blue clumps.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">He attacks the canvas, people that hang
around, fills them with scurry <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .75in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">of rats, the splinter, the shiver, the
bones gnawed in the gutter.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">The drift of the single-celled anemic, the
brown grind of cortex rind <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .75in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">that tears apart, the draft that pulls no
where but down.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Depression, alcohol, the failed suicide
attempts, the night screams <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .75in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">on a subway lost on its one short stop
between genius and pity.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">His cords of elemental rage disguised as
art, laid out, strangled<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .75in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">on the whorl of passionless sex fermenting
in the upper left.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in; mso-outline-level: 1;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in; mso-outline-level: 1;">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in; mso-outline-level: 1;">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">****<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"></span></div>
<a href="http://www.reduxlitjournal.com/2018/07/271-two-poems-by-mark-liebenow.html#more">Read more »</a>LesliePhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14481570436014889814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8476081889166143031.post-2724635137671978732018-07-16T11:05:00.000-04:002018-07-16T11:05:03.328-04:00#270: "News of the Loch Ness Monster" by Carla Douglas<br>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: right;">
~This story previously appeared in
<i>The New Quarterly</i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(2003). <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
My father has his
telephone set to ring twelve times before the answering machine picks up.
Tonight he gets it on the eighth—just as I’m deciding whether or not to leave a
message.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
“Hello,” he says,
expectant but not hopeful.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
“Hi, Dad, it’s
me—”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
“Oh, yes.” He
fumbles with the phone. “Yes, of course, hello dear.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
“Hi, Dad.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
He always knows my
voice, but I tell him who it is anyway. He’s going blind—I have just recently
learned this, and I presume he needs help making the visual connection. I
realize this is something like shouting at people who don’t speak English.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
“You’re home. I
didn’t know if you’d be there. I didn’t wake you up, did I?”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
“No,” he says,
“I’m just resting. I’ve just finished my dinner.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
“Uh huh. What did
you have?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
“A meal on wheel.
A piece of chicken with a vegetable and potato.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
Did the people who
invented meals on wheels ever intend for them to be anything but plural? I
imagine a chicken drumstick on a unicycle, somehow managing to get up the steps
to his apartment door and press the buzzer.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
“And was it okay?”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
“Yes, it was
fine,” he says, “very nourishing.” He says noorish—rhymes with moorish.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
I have two
pictures of my father. Or rather, I picture him in two ways. In one, he is
sitting in a bright, spacious living room. He is nicely dressed in grey
flannels—slacks, he calls them, or trousers—and a clean, pressed shirt. He
could be expecting a visitor. In this picture he is pleasantly occupied; a
fresh breeze blows in through the open window, and there is definitely no gold
shag carpeting.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
In the other
picture, the one I see when I talk to him on the phone, he is hunched over his
unwiped kitchen table in the dim light of a single overhead bulb, staring at
the blank wall. The sink is stacked with oatmeal-encrusted bowls and glasses
rimmed with rinds of old milk. There’s a smell, too—sour food combined with
cooking odours from other apartments and the open tube of liniment in the
bathroom. I am in this picture because I am the one connected to the other end
of the telephone.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
And what am I
doing? Mostly, I’m trying to keep these images at bay. And on this particular
night I’m fumbling with a flashlight and candles, because to the east of
Toronto, where I live, a blanket of ice has descended upon us and shut down the
power grid. I wonder if he can see me in the dark.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
My father lives in
Niagara, in a renovated red-brick cannery. This sounds quite grand, and it
could be. Everywhere, it seems, old warehouses and factories have been
transformed into spectacular living quarters, with cavernous interiors, exposed
brick, and walls of floor-to-ceiling windows looking out on urban streetscapes
full of shops and cafes. On the outside, most of these buildings have retained
a period facade, some even sporting signs identifying the original owners and
uses—Dempsey’s Candy Factory; Canadian Textiles.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
These lofts always
seem to be occupied by designers and artists, part of the space being given
over to studio, where they work, live, and entertain lavishly. You see them in
magazines and on the Home and Garden television channel. Seldom do they have
children, but in the rare cases that they do, the family occupies two floors of
the building, the parents’ and children’s spaces connected by a system of
intercoms, wrought-iron spiral staircases, fire poles, and perhaps even a
slide.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
My father’s
apartment isn’t like this. You would have to be told—and then you still might
not believe it—that until the 1950s it was a thriving little cannery, one of a
dozen or more in the city that packed soft fruit and shipped it across the
country. Peaches, plums, apricots, pears—staple winter fare in most homes
before advances in refrigeration and trucking brought oranges, strawberries,
cantaloupe, and anything, really, from the south, year-round.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
Only traces of its
former use remain on the outside of the building. The old, tall windows have
been replaced with cheap aluminium sliders, smaller than the originals, and
brown siding fills in the gaps at the bottom. But the bricks are pleasingly
weathered, and the oversize double doors hint at how the structure could have
been transformed, if only the developer had had more imagination.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
“… but they always
give you too much. I can’t work my way through all that.” He’s still talking
about his meal on wheel.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
“I didn’t know if
you’d be home.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
Usually when I
call, he isn’t. Nearly every night he has dinner with his woman friend, a widow
he met at his bridge club not long after my mother died. She has become his
constant companion. She feeds him, phones him, and fills his head with ideas
about how offspring should properly behave. For her fussing attention my father
returns a kind of blind party loyalty. She is the final word, the source of all
opinion, and he acts as a conduit, reporting all the news to us—mostly about
her children’s and grandchildren’s (wholesome, practical and infinitely
superior) achievements, but other things, too. She persuaded him to rent this
dismal apartment a few blocks from her house. “He’s legally blind, you know,”
she told my sister, hurling it like an accusation.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
For a time her
mere existence provided me with guilty relief, but this soon made way for smug
certainty that my mother wouldn’t have liked her either. “She’s not really my
type,” my mother would have said, with a sniff. So now I stand on guard with my
siblings, ready—eager, even—to preserve our parents’ marital tensions beyond
the grave.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
</div>
<a href="http://www.reduxlitjournal.com/2018/07/270-news-of-loch-ness-monster-by-carla.html#more">Read more »</a>LesliePhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14481570436014889814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8476081889166143031.post-1295522091990742942018-07-09T13:16:00.001-04:002018-07-09T13:16:45.487-04:00#269: "We Take the Bus" by Jacquelyn Bengfort<br>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">~This poem was previously published
in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Gargoyle</i> (2016).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">I
take her on the city bus<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The
six blocks to the library<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Six
blocks too long for toddling legs<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">I
take her on the city bus <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">So
she knows what it costs to spend a dollar eighty<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">For
an hour’s trip across the District<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">We
take the bus.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">I
take her on the city bus <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">So
she will learn things <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Some
people never know, see things<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">See
the women bent over their drugstore walkers<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">See
the men with eyes stuck shut, murmuring<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">See
the girls, young, with babies like her<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">And
hear the boys in the back rapping freestyle<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">She
is nearly two and’s seen <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">More
than I at twenty-two:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">A
gang of masks on Halloween punching out a neighbor,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Panhandlers
asking only for a smile<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Homeless
people passing the peace at church<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">And
all the sirens at night<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">In
place of stars, sirens and<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Helicopters,
bellies full of hurt children<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">How
young should one begin to know?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Will
all this turn her callous <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Or
cause her pain?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">A
man on the radio the other day:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">“When
it comes to our children<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Know
the space between pain and suffering</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">“Pain
is a teacher. Suffering<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Destroys.
Just hold your babies<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">When
they are hurting.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">So
we take the city bus<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">With
grandmothers and their grocery carts<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">And
men preaching Jehovah’s promise<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">We
take the bus to see the city<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">At
the slowly rolling speed of<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Start-and-stop
amidst strangers<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">My
daughter and I, she and I,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">We
take the city bus.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">*****<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<a href="http://www.reduxlitjournal.com/2018/07/269-we-take-bus-by-jacquelyn-bengfort.html#more">Read more »</a>LesliePhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14481570436014889814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8476081889166143031.post-28913252901511559632018-07-02T09:50:00.000-04:002018-07-02T09:50:07.376-04:00#268: "Between Foreclosures: July 2009" by S.J. Dunning<br>
<div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: -.5in; margin-top: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-align: right; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 200%;">~This essay previously appeared in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Dogwood: A Journal of Prose
and Poetry (2013)</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: -.5in; margin-top: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: -.5in; margin-top: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: -.5in; margin-top: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 200%;">In
the field of foreclosure we measure our days by cities and houses: the condo
and the house in Coeur D’Alene, Idaho, on Monday, the two-story farmhouse in
Washougal, Washington, on Tuesday and Wednesday, “The Shack” in Fairfield,
Idaho; from Thursday thru Saturday, a 1600-square-foot million-dollar condo in
Big Sky, Montana on Sunday, and there will be many others coming up, each
vacant. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: -.5in; margin-top: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 200%;">My
father has said it’s like we’re living the Jonny Cash version of the song “I’ve
Been Everywhere,” or I’ve said it’s like we’re living that song on the road, or
we’ve both made the comparison. There’s some truth to the analogy—we’re always
totin’ packs as the song goes—except our travels are limited to States within
the Pacific Northwest: Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming. We might as
well be driving across the country and back again, however, on account of all
miles we tally between these properties. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 200%;">“We
trashout foreclosures,” is the answer I give when people ask what my father and
I do on the road, but to “trashout” a house is to remove everything it
contains, even the appliances in some cases, and that’s not always why we’re
dispatched to a foreclosed property.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 200%;">What
we actually do at each property depends upon its accompanying work order. In
the process we call the “trashout”, we clean the houses, winterize or
de-winterize them, change the locks, and do landscaping. Or we might “refresh”
a house that’s already been emptied (dust and sweep and make new vacuum tracks)
or we might mow a lawn. The yard at the house in Great Falls, Montana, our
current destination, is overdue for mowing, so that’s why we’re going
there—even though the grass (if there actually is any) is probably dead, even
though the mower’s blade will merely spit dust and gravel and litter at me as
it spins. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br></div>
<a href="http://www.reduxlitjournal.com/2018/07/268-between-foreclosures-july-2009-by.html#more">Read more »</a>LesliePhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14481570436014889814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8476081889166143031.post-61329955549853916422018-06-25T10:05:00.001-04:002018-06-25T10:05:21.583-04:00#267: "Another Curio Shop" by Dan Branch<br>
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~This poem was
previously published in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Explorations</i>
(1992).<o:p></o:p></div>
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~Selected by Clara Jane
Hallar, Assistant Editor for Poetry<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br></div>
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<br></div>
<br>
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<br></div>
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Winter die back comes early to this tourist town.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br></div>
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The east coast sleaze boys left after the last tour boat,<o:p></o:p></div>
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taking their cardboard boxes of cheap furs<o:p></o:p></div>
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and the money of visitors who believed that Loring<o:p></o:p></div>
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is an igloo village.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br></div>
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Forty percent off sales and moonlight madness pass like<o:p></o:p></div>
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Chinook winds over the downtown stubble fields.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br></div>
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Curios still need dusting, don’t you know.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br></div>
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Some folks ride out the season south of the Tropic of
Cancer.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Five Star and the Potlatch stay open<o:p></o:p></div>
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to give comfort to Thomas Basin.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br></div>
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Our pale teens prefer Mickey D.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br></div>
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June of June’s Café stays but won’t thaw out any meat.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br></div>
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Last fall they gutted Charlie’s for another curio shop.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br></div>
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Last fall I cared.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br></div>
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I walk on past the Arctic Bar to drink espresso<o:p></o:p></div>
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and watch the sea lions hammer herring near Ryus Float.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br></div>
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Soon the black cod fleet will off load at Silver Lining
while<o:p></o:p></div>
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eagles watch perched in the trees along White Cliff Street.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br></div>
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I’ll have a double,<o:p></o:p></div>
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The first Princes boat isn’t due ‘till May.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br></div>
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*****<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br></div>
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<br></div>
<a href="http://www.reduxlitjournal.com/2018/06/267-another-curio-shop-by-dan-branch.html#more">Read more »</a>LesliePhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14481570436014889814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8476081889166143031.post-20882413042922092452018-06-18T11:02:00.001-04:002018-06-18T11:02:14.955-04:00#266: "The Conveyance of Sound" by Virginia Hartman<br>
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<br></div>
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_Hlk485760985">~This story previously appeared in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Hudson Review</i> (1998).<o:p></o:p></a></div>
<span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk485760985;"></span>
<br>
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<br>
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“The
doctor will be here in a moment, Mr. Cameron.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The nurse pulled the door behind her as she left, and I turned toward
Tommy, sitting at the end of the examining table, his white-sheathed arms
wrapped around himself in an involuntary embrace.</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“What
happened?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I said.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My voice echoed in the bare room.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>He
looked down at his dangling feet, the only limbs still free.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He moved them aimlessly as if he were sitting
on a dock, cooling his toes in the water.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He acted like he belonged here, like it wasn’t all a mistake.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But it had to be.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Tommy,
what happened?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I repeated, with a bit
more force than I’d intended.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He didn’t
answer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That used to be his way of
getting at me—acting vacant, giving me a “Duhhh…” when he didn’t feel like
answering.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now, he wasn’t kidding.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was sitting at the edge of that table like
an idiot—so help me, that’s exactly what was going through my mind—my older
brother looking like the village idiot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I took him by the shoulders of that awful jacket and said, “Tommy, tell
me what is going on!”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He looked at me—an
unfocused, distant stare—and then he looked away.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I
felt someone’s hand on my shoulder, and heard a soft voice say, “Mr. Cameron,
why don’t you join me in the next room?”<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>It
was a thin, severe-looking, middle-aged woman with black hair pulled tightly
back in a barrette.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On her coat was
embroidered in cursive writing, “Dr. Landis.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>She was the man in the white coat, I thought.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The one who comes to take you away.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>We
stood behind a one-way mirror and watched Tommy from the other room.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I couldn’t shake the sensation that all this
really wasn’t happening, that sooner or later I’d wake up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’d call tom and we’d laugh about this
dream.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I touched the glass in front of
me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was solid.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Tommy
went back to watching his feet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
doctor must have been standing back here before, observing my brother and me
like two bugs in a jar.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She had probably
been sizing me up, too, diagnosing me.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Could
you please take that jacket off him?” I said.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Yes,
we will,” she said.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her voice was a low
whisper.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“He doesn’t seem to be a danger
to himself anymore.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She stood behind
me, the two of us peeping through the glass at Tom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“I was hoping that you might be able to
elicit a reaction,” she said.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I
was going to ask her what happened, but before I could ask, she began to tell
me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Tommy had called the crisis center
shouting, she said, shouting that something was about to happen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When the operator asked what he meant, Tom
said something like, “I just need some talk-back!”<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Talk-back?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What is that?” I said.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>She
didn’t know.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She thought I might
know.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She waited, then continued.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After he said this, he accused the operator
of not wanting to listen to him, and dropped the receiver, leaving it off the
hook.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When the paramedics got to his
building he was on the roof, sitting out on the edge of a cornice, dangling his
feet, just as he sat now on the examining table.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>According to the rescue team, when they
pulled him back to safety, he flailed and resisted, but he didn’t say a word.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The
doctor stopped talking.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I felt like
screaming at Tommy, “Cut it out!” but with that glass between us, my words
would have only bounced back to me, unheard.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The doctor, standing at my shoulder, resumed speaking in her low tone,
telling me that it might have been an isolated incident, but then what about
his unresponsive state?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Had he been
acting erratically?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Had he been
depressed?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No, no, I said.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I couldn’t think.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The last thing I heard her say was that
they’d keep him there for observation, and then I stopped listening.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Pulling
out of the dark parking lot I passed the “St. Mark’s Hospital” sign, and I
thought of the directions Annie and I gave people who were driving to our house
for the first time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We used this place
as a landmark.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Turn left at the loony
bin,” we always said.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ha ha.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br></div>
<a href="http://www.reduxlitjournal.com/2018/06/266-conveyance-of-sound-by-virginia.html#more">Read more »</a>LesliePhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14481570436014889814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8476081889166143031.post-10226214487982280952018-05-26T15:48:00.000-04:002018-05-26T15:48:01.581-04:00#265: Three Poems by Sophie Cabot Black<br>
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<br></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #040404; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">~This poem was
previously published in</span><span style="background: white; color: #040404; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="ES-TRAD">Bloom</span></i></span><span style="background: white; color: #040404; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"> (2015).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #040404; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">THE PENITENT</span></span><span style="background: white; color: #040404; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #040404; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">How tired the day of me realizing</span><span style="background: white; color: #040404; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #040404; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Again not the way wanted, the waste</span><span style="background: white; color: #040404; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #040404; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Of each body by mine and yes</span><span style="background: white; color: #040404; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #040404; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">I kept myself capable and yes</span><span style="background: white; color: #040404; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #040404; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">When entering a room I was the center</span><span style="background: white; color: #040404; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #040404; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">But how unchosen I stood</span><span style="background: white; color: #040404; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #040404; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">In a slow undraping to catch</span><span style="background: white; color: #040404; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #040404; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Any task of your broad and apparent</span><span style="background: white; color: #040404; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #040404; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Hands; no longer do I know what to cover,</span><span style="background: white; color: #040404; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #040404; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">The cat in the corner overseeing</span><span style="background: white; color: #040404; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #040404; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">My fall toward not how I have changed</span><span style="background: white; color: #040404; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #040404; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">But finally how I could not bear you.</span><span style="background: white; color: #040404; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #040404; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">*****<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br></div>
<a href="http://www.reduxlitjournal.com/2018/05/265-three-poems-by-sophie-cabot-black.html#more">Read more »</a>LesliePhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14481570436014889814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8476081889166143031.post-40435897271259459912018-05-13T16:03:00.001-04:002018-05-13T16:03:37.179-04:00#264: "Goosepimples: by Dallas Woodburn<br>
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</div>
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~This story previously appeared in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Arroyo Literary Review </i>(2014).<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<br></div>
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~Selected by Kenneth Fleming, Assistant Editor for Fiction<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br></div>
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<br></div>
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He isn’t bothering anybody. He’s just sitting in his car in the parking
lot by the freshly mown soccer fields, waiting for his daughter to be done with
practice. He isn’t looking at anything in particular, just gazing out in the
direction of his pony-tailed daughter and her friends, running forward and back
across the field, their cheeks flushed and their toothpick legs like pinwheels
in their high rainbow socks.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; mso-pagination: none;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>But he isn’t really watching them,
nor is he particularly aware of the pigeons squatting along the telephone wire
in the distance, clumped together like old ladies gossiping, nor of the acute blue
of the sky behind them, so blue it almost seems artificial. He gazes towards
all of these things but he doesn’t really see them, in the way one stares off
vacantly into space when deep in thought or daydreaming.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; mso-pagination: none;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>He isn’t daydreaming or deep in
thought, but the opposite. His mind is blank, blissfully blank, like the clear
blue bowl of a sky above them, only an occasional cloud-thought skittering
past, dissipating before it wakes him from peaceful emptiness.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; mso-pagination: none;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>It is a shadow that finally rouses
him, falling across his face like a summons. He glances up through the
dirt-streaked windshield, expecting to see the shiny red face of his daughter,
but instead he is met with the round, shapely behind of a young woman. Tight
Lycra shorts grip her perfect, tan thighs. He takes in the smooth-shaven backs
of her knees, her slender calves tapering down to exquisite ankles, her running
shoes edged in pink trim.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; mso-pagination: none;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Quickly he looks away, out at the
blue sky, the telephone poles, the gray brick restrooms huddled in the midst of
green expanse of soccer fields—but immediately his eyes itch to return to her.
She is, after all, standing right in front of his car. Her curvaceous lower
half directly at his eye level. Where else is he supposed to look?<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>He looks.<o:p></o:p></div>
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</div>
<a href="http://www.reduxlitjournal.com/2018/05/264-goosepimples-by-dallas-woodburn.html#more">Read more »</a>LesliePhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14481570436014889814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8476081889166143031.post-5292684389466247832018-05-06T13:48:00.000-04:002018-05-06T13:48:20.322-04:00#263: Three Poems by Meg Eden<br>
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<br></div>
<div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-align: right; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">~This
poem previously appeared in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Kansas City
Voices, Salzburg Review</i> (2015).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Civilized
People Keep their Silver Polished</span></b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">My
mother polishes her father’s silverware<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">on the
dryer downstairs because<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">he’s
asked her to, and there’s no room<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">to do it
elsewhere. The basement bathroom<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">hasn’t
been clean since my grandmother died.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">In the
living room, her Greek statues dangle<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">from
bird cages, her piano untuned and unplayed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">In some
of the rooms, it still smells like her.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">My mother
tries to go through each room<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">with “a
woman’s touch”—as if she’s<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">some
spin-off Midas, who can make<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">the ugly
shine—but my granddad<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">won’t
let her throw away anything<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">that
might come in handy one day.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">In his
workshop, rusting hammers wait<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">to fix
and be fixed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p> *****</o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<a href="http://www.reduxlitjournal.com/2018/05/263-three-poems-by-meg-eden.html#more">Read more »</a>LesliePhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14481570436014889814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8476081889166143031.post-32632044423736261582018-04-24T16:11:00.001-04:002018-04-25T16:26:48.326-04:00#262: "The Jaws of Life" by Todd McKie<br>
<div class="WordSection1">
<div align="center" class="Body" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: center;">
<br></div>
<div class="Body">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body">
<br></div>
<div align="right" class="Body" style="text-align: right;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">~This story previously appeared in<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> Conclave</i> (2012).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="right" class="Body" style="text-align: right;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">~Selected by Kenneth Fleming, Assistant Editor for
Fiction<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="right" class="Body" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: right;">
<br></div>
<div class="Body" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="Body" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: center;">
<br></div>
<div class="Body" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Give us this day our daily bread. And
give us, please, the good stuff. Give us something that smells of wheat, not
plastic. Give us this day—right now—something good and chewy, baked with care,
to sink our teeth into.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br></div>
<div class="Body" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Years ago, newly married and full of
youthful enthusiasm, I tried to learn to bake bread. How hard could it be? In
our pint-sized kitchen, surrounded by cookbooks, I added water to yeast, salt
to flour. I kneaded until my fingers ached. I patted and poked and folded the
dough. Eventually I produced six or seven edible loaves, but I also baked some
things the dog wouldn’t touch: dense, burnt things more like rustic doorstops
than loaves of homemade bread. The successes we ate immediately. Denise oohed and
aahed. She made a fuss.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Mmm, this is good with butter,”
she’d say. Or, “This is so good hot.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was an awful lot of work for
something that could be eaten in one sitting, something that only tasted good
hot. After a few weeks, I gave up. Ever since, I’ve been glad to pay what’s
asked for a good loaf of honest bread.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br></div>
<div class="Body" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Stories should have a bit of
historical background mixed into them. That’s what I’m doing when I tell about
my early attempts to bake bread and that’s what I’m doing, I suppose, when I
tell you that Denise and I are good people. We’ve had, like most married folks,
our share of hard times: lost jobs, dreams that disappeared so slowly we didn’t
notice them creeping away, a thousand sad things big and small. I don’t recall
a time, though, when we were too discouraged, too angry or scared to sit down
at the end of the day and eat a meal together. We’re good people who love to
eat.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>should mention one unhappy fact: Denise and I are fat. We’re not pudgy.
We used to be. We used to be ample, heavyset, substantial. Now, God help us,
we’re enormous. I guess, relatively speaking, I’m fatter than Denise, but
that’s quibbling—we’re both porkers, plain and simple.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Body" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br></div>
</div><a href="http://www.reduxlitjournal.com/2018/04/262-jaws-of-life-by-todd-mckie.html#more">Read more »</a>LesliePhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14481570436014889814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8476081889166143031.post-34934522555284387572018-03-20T13:45:00.001-04:002018-03-20T13:45:51.884-04:00#261: "Sam's Way" by Ruth W. Crocker<br>
<div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: right; text-indent: .5in;">
<br></div>
<div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: right; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">~This essay was previously published in
<i>The Gettysburg Review</i> (2012). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: center; text-indent: .5in;">
<br></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">“We
call contrary to nature what happens contrary to custom; nothing is anything
but according to nature, whatever it may be.”</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: right;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Michel
de Montaigne <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Of a Monstrous Child</i></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: center; text-indent: .5in;">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> “Look
at that face! Okay you kids – get close to Sam – give him a tickle – let’s get
him to smile – here we go.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Click.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">The
earliest memory I have of my brother, Sam, is this photograph taken by my
father with a Kodak box camera in 1950. Sam sits scowling in a red Radio
Flyer wagon pulled by our older brother, Bobby, over the bumpy flagstone
walkway in front of our childhood home behind the nursing home in Old Mystic,
Connecticut. I am standing next to the wagon, my blond pig-tails sticking out
like a four year old Pippi Longstocking, with a child-sized garden rake in one
hand and the other on Sam’s tiny shoulder, steadying him on his perch. This
pose with me as the big sister trying to keep a grip on Sam foretold our
future. His expression, with his chubby lower lip pulled up to his nose and
eyebrows scrunched together under a wide-brimmed girlie sun hat, was also
prophetic. There were arrows coming from his eyes towards the camera. He was
eight-months old in that snapshot, but I would see that same expression many
times over the thirty-nine years of his life. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> From
his earliest days he could aim that scowl at anyone and the word went out:
“Sam’s not happy.” He sent mood telegraphs with his facial expressions. As soon
as he could stand up on his little mutton chop legs, he further illustrated his
discontent by taking off in all directions as fast as those mini gams could
carry him. Drooping cloth diapers never slowed him down. Sam could turn ornery
at a moment’s notice and demonstrate demon behavior – something that I aspired
to as a child but assumed I could never get away with. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Our
parents battled for control over Sam’s moods and meanderings. Many a
family outing ended with my mother’s frantic cry: “Where’s Sam?” and the alarm
went up: “Sam’s taken off again!” We would all go to our lookout points. Even
at a picnic table in a park in an open clearing with ten pairs of eyes looking
left and right, he could vaporize. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">He
would never have his picture taken with Santa Claus at the G. Fox & Co.
department store, in Hartford, Connecticut, a yearly tradition for the rest of
us. He was already on the lam as soon as we entered the store. Each year,
as my older brother and I waited like automatons to sit on Santa’s lap,
standing on fake snow in the line of children that snaked through Frosty
Village and the elves’ toyshop, Sam had already departed for the luggage
department or housewares or men’s clothing with our parents in pursuit, my
father panting in his wool suit, overcoat and felt hat, my mother slipping and
sliding in her high heels and taffeta dress with her coat over her arm – both
wearing a look of alarm. Sam could do that to adults. They never knew <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">what</i> he was going to do even though
he seemed to do the same thing, over and over. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> “What
ails that child?” said my grandmother, “he just goes off on a toot whenever he
wants. He takes after Grandfather Sam. He couldn’t stay t’ home either.
Shouldn’t have named him after him.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">This
knack at physical disappearance raised conversations within the family both
about the origins of Sam’s behavior and/or the reinforcement of such
propensities. Was it nature or nurture? “How did he get like this?” they
wondered.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">My
father: “Sam needs a good hiding.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">My
grandmother and mother, in unison: “Don’t you dare touch that child.”</span></div>
<a href="http://www.reduxlitjournal.com/2018/03/261-sams-way-by-ruth-w-crocker.html#more">Read more »</a>LesliePhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14481570436014889814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8476081889166143031.post-84223383596676736112018-03-15T14:31:00.002-04:002018-03-15T14:31:38.487-04:00#260: "Ant Farm" by Laura Oliver<br>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: right;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">~Selected by
Kenneth Fleming, Assistant Editor for Fiction</span></span></div>
<h1 style="line-height: 200%; text-align: right;">
<span style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">--This
story was first published in <i>Glimmer
Train Stories</i> (1999).</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></h1>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After Brian moved out I bought our
daughter Erica an ant farm. I thought it would distract her. A flat plastic
skyline sat on a slice of sand wedged between two clear plastic panes to form
an underground window. Toys R Us couldn’t stock live insects however, so after
buying the kit, we sent the enclosed coupon to Uncle Willy’s Ants and waited
for our tenants to arrive in the mail. We were not to be alarmed if they
arrived “sleepy” the literature stated, which meant, barely thawed.<br>
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We set up the display in
preparation of their arrival and read the instructions. “ANTS DON’T LIKE
LANDSLIDES!” That meant don’t shake the farm. “ANTS DON’T LIKE LEFTOVERS!” A
piece of fruit the size of an asterisk can feed a whole colony for a week, we
discovered.<br>
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think of that now as ants scurry in erratic
patterns to nowhere across the family room floor--but these are garden-variety
ants that have somehow found a way into the house. Uncle Willy’s ants must have
been derailed somewhere, because it has been three weeks and they have not
arrived. <br>
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Don’t step on them Mom,” Erica
says. “We can put them in the farm.”<br>
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am not actually stepping on them.
I have bought a few ant traps and am encouraging one to venture inside with the
toe of my shoe. He veers off again and again. Finally I pick him up and drop
him on it. He scrambles away.<br>
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Things have been like this since
Brian left. The house painter I hired turned out to be an evangelist. My son
Adam, a freshman at St. Luke’s, announced to Sister Francesca that he’s a
practicing Hindu, pierced his ear and got a tattoo.<br>
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“At least it’s not a skull and
cross bones,” my son points out. “At least it doesn’t spell anything.”<br>
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“It could have said, ‘Mom,’” I
say.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"></span></div>
<a href="http://www.reduxlitjournal.com/2018/03/260-ant-farm-by-laura-oliver.html#more">Read more »</a>LesliePhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14481570436014889814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8476081889166143031.post-33762037041584001662018-03-05T17:19:00.000-05:002018-03-05T17:19:04.866-05:00#259: "No thanks, I'm just looking" by Welton B. Marsland<br>
<div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;">
<span lang="EN-AU">~This
poem was previously published <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Cargo</i> (1988).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;">
<span lang="EN-AU"><br></span></div>
<div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;">
<span lang="EN-AU">~Selected by Clara Jane Hallar, assistant editor, poetry</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 14.0pt;">"No thanks, I'm just looking"</span></b><span lang="EN-AU"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">I stand and peer in through the window.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">I want him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">Everyone else thinks I'm admiring the
clothes<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>placed so strategically casual in the display<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>but
it's him that I want wrapped up to take with me.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">Every night, on my walk home from work, I
stop<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and
fuck him through the cold glass.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">Does he think I only like the clothes, too,
or<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>is
he aware of me outside his shop,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the
red neon light illuminating the lust in my stare?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">I don't think I want to speak to him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">He's simply another item in the shop,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>to
be admired, perused, pinched, considered, bought and used.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">And so I watch him -<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>he
woos customers, wrestles coat-hangers,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>stands strangely on one foot 'cos those new shoes are hurting again,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>placates complainers, runs long sensual fingers through jet black hair,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and
looks relieved to see the last of them go at half-five.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">He glances at the window and my eyes dart
back to the display,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>that cream jumper is cheaper than last week... how interesting...<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">Then I walk away towards the train station,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>leaving a foggy patch on his window to remind him I was there,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and
I go home empty handed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">*****<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<a href="http://www.reduxlitjournal.com/2018/03/259-no-thanks-im-just-looking-by-welton.html#more">Read more »</a>LesliePhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14481570436014889814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8476081889166143031.post-91956032764042751652018-02-21T22:29:00.000-05:002018-02-21T22:29:06.113-05:00#258: "Remember the Grass" by Tariro Ndoro<br />
<div class="Standard" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="Standard" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div align="right" class="Standard" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: right;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Indie Flower";">~This story
first appeared in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Thyini <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i>as “Inevitable.” (2015).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="right" class="Standard" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: right;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Indie Flower";">~Selected by Kenneth A. Fleming, assistant editor for fiction</span></div>
<div class="Standard" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="Standard" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Indie Flower";">You know it is over when your grandmother comes from the
general dealer and confronts you about it. You deny it all because perhaps you
weren't just ready to deal with it yet. Your grandmother takes you on the next
bus to town anyway and just when you've thanked God that the General Hospital
is already closed, a young pharmacist tells your grandma that pregnancy tests
can now be bought over the counter.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Standard" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Indie Flower";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>She buys five to make sure before dragging you to your
uncle's house in the township where dust floods the streets and kids ran around
with snot on their faces and no trousers on. Unconcerned men laze around on
rundown cars with their shirts off because it is summer, just like Mutare, just
like the neighborhood you were uprooted from, while guavas fell from the trees
and Rutendo played marakaraka with you until sundown.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Standard" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="Standard" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Indie Flower";">Your uncle’s wife is surprised to see you, but when she sees
the look on your grandmother’s face she acts like a good daughter in law and
silently makes tea. Your grandmother refuses to drink it. Sweat beads down her
temples, running from somewhere beneath her doek to the bottom of her neck and
there is an eerie silence, like the time you snuck out at night to go dancing
and locked your her in the house.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Standard" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Indie Flower";">Taking the tests is hard enough with
your grandmother and your aunt watching as you intently pee into the cup. Like
the old ladies they are, there is a great fuss about following all the
instructions to a T. The results don't surprise you – you’ve skipped two
periods already. You have to wait for your uncle anyway, so your aunt makes
another pot of tea – hot water in a yellow metal kettle with the milk and sugar
thrown in it already and chunks of bread with only one slice margerined, just
the way you've had it every day for the past two years since coming to live
with your grandmother.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Standard" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Indie Flower";">When your uncle arrives, the tribunal
has to be held via loudspeaker on your grandmother’s solar phone, although not
everyone’s opinion is heard because they are all headstrong and all loud and
all right. Your grandmother is broken, she looks angry but she's crying. You've
never seen her tears. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Standard" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Indie Flower";">Every family member has something to
say about it all but as always your own mother is silent. Your mother was
silent too when you'd been caught talking to your Math teacher after twilight,
and when you had failed all your subjects that school year and when you were
caught changing the marks on her report card. They decide that your uncle and
aunt should escort you to your new home.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Standard" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="Standard" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Indie Flower";">The journey back to your grandmother’s is tense. From Rusape
town all the way to Gunda turn-off no one speaks to anyone else, all you can do
is listen to the vague radio somewhere behind the gossiping mothers and watch
as the brown grass flies past you, just like the journey from Mutare, the one
you thought had a return date on it but didn’t.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Standard" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Indie Flower";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When you arrive
they pack everything you had with you when you came – it all fits into one
satchel, and even the satchel was a donation but this isn't the time for
details. That is why you went to the grass in the first place; it helped you
forget about the rural school you now had to attend. It was light years away
from feeding the chickens with their pecking, and the pigs with all their
hovelly sounds...</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Standard" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="Standard" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Indie Flower";">Most of all it helped you to forget gratitude. They always
forced you to remember that when you arrived you had nothing but the clothes
you wore, that your Aunt Rumbidzai had paid your school fees and that it was
Aunt Namato who brought you food every month. You were tired of justifying your
existence. You hadn’t planned to stay that long with you grandmother. No one
had planned it – except your mother.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Standard" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Indie Flower";">And so it is with your uncle and aunt that you walk the 2 km
journey from your grandmother’s home to your new husband’s home. You will go
without a price because you sold yourself cheap. You walk past fields that
smell of fresh long grass and cow dung, fields in which you had lain as he had
loved you. It was in these fields and fields further on that you had sat with
him and learnt to forget, the world stopped still when you were here, but now
it's catching up with you.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Standard" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Indie Flower";">As you hear the njiva sing above you,
you think of all the days you had played truant with him – he had quit school
long ago so his presence came with intoxicating freedom. Out of the trees
hanging low, he would pick hute for you as you sat there in the grass, hiding
from busybodies.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Standard" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Indie Flower";">The welcoming party is meager, one
skinny sister in law suckling her baby, and your lover. Their homestead is
peculiar in its lack of livestock. Your uncle and aunt leave after saying the
necessary and for the first night you will be joining in his hunger, the hunger
that that drove you to steal from your grandmother to feed him, isn’t that what
love does? That is why Grandmother had insisted you leave with nothing, so you
can see for yourself that he doesn't really love you.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Standard" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Indie Flower";">But he does love you. Of course he has
not been you first lover; your first lover had been the neighbour. But that was
before he wanted to play the game with your baby sister too and that got you
into trouble. Love stops where marriage begins. That's what they say. It is
that way when finally you live with your man. You struggle for money and give
birth to your first child on the side of the road and he dies before you get to
hospital. You get pregnant again. You fight over something as crazy as five
dollars and you make up, but not before he kicks you in the stomach and you
lose that baby. Six months later you're pregnant again.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Standard" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="Standard" style="line-height: 200%;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Indie Flower";">*****<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="Standard" style="line-height: 200%;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Indie Flower";">THE STORY BEHIND THE STORY<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="Standard" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Indie Flower";">“Remember the Grass” was inspired by a course in synchronous
narrative. One of the readings for the class was “Rooster Pollard Cricket
Goose” by Noy Holland which reminded me of rural Zimbabwe and also made me
think about narrating a story from the perspective of a character who has been
robbed of agency. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Standard" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="Standard" style="line-height: 200%;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Indie Flower";">*****<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="Standard" style="line-height: 200%;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Indie Flower";">ABOUT TARIRO NDORO<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="Standard" style="line-height: 200%;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Indie Flower";">Tariro Ndoro</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Indie Flower";"> is a Zimbabwean writer and an alumnus
of the Rhodes University Master of Arts in Creative Writing progamme. Her work
has appeared or is forthcoming in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">New
Contrast</i>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Oxford</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Poetry</i>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">AFREADA</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Fireside Fiction</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Standard" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="Standard" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<br />LesliePhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14481570436014889814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8476081889166143031.post-40830715218097726692018-02-12T21:15:00.001-05:002018-02-12T21:15:32.223-05:00#257: Two Poems by Jacqueline Jules <br>
<br>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p> </o:p><span style="text-align: right;"> </span></div>
<div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;">
~This poem previously
appeared in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Cape Rock</i> (2014).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">How Is Mom Holding
Up?<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<br>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When they heard the news in December,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Mom did not cancel their summer cruise.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The doctor said three rounds this time, if all goes well.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Besides, they bought insurance.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
She hasn’t canceled yoga, either. Tuesdays 9 a.m. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
are blocked off from January to June<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
to breathe deeply in class,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
not at the hospital in chemo spouse position.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
With no surgery scheduled, no bedside duty,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Mom plans to keep tutoring Wednesdays, too.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
She’s already flipping through catalogs,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
choosing seeds for the spring garden<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
unplanted last year in the storm<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
of a darker diagnosis.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And when I asked why she was gazing<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
through a frosted bay window<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
with dreamy gray eyes,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
she said she was picturing <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Sunday walks at the lake<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
hand in hand. Each day <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
growing longer and longer <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
until twelve hours of sun<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
and dinner for two on the patio<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
consumed the fear<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
of one plate on the kitchen table<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
and a six o’clock sunset outside. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
*****<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br></div>
<a href="http://www.reduxlitjournal.com/2018/02/257-two-poems-by-jacqueline-jules.html#more">Read more »</a>LesliePhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14481570436014889814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8476081889166143031.post-481342576511553702018-02-08T10:21:00.000-05:002018-02-08T10:21:26.595-05:00#256: "Far-Away Love" by Nahid Rachlin<br>
<div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: right;">
~This
story was previously published in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Virginia
Quarterly Review</i> (1980).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: right;">
~Selected
by Kenneth Fleming, Assistant Editor, Fiction<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: right;">
<br></div>
<div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: right;">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 7;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; tab-stops: 0in .5in 1.0in 1.5in 2.0in 2.5in 3.0in 3.5in 4.0in 4.5in 5.0in 5.5in 6.0in;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"> </span><i>I am
standing at this street corner,<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; tab-stops: 0in .5in 1.0in 1.5in 2.0in 2.5in 3.0in 3.5in 4.0in 4.5in 5.0in 5.5in 6.0in;">
<i><span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"> </span>Where we
used to meet<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; tab-stops: 0in .5in 1.0in 1.5in 2.0in 2.5in 3.0in 3.5in 4.0in 4.5in 5.0in 5.5in 6.0in;">
<i><span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"> </span>But is it
the same street?<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: auto; text-autospace: ideograph-other;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"> </span>--
a Persian song <!--[if supportFields]><span lang=EN-CA style='mso-ansi-language:
EN-CA'><span style='mso-element:field-begin'></span><span
style='mso-spacerun:yes'> </span>SEQ CHAPTER \h \r 1</span><![endif]--><!--[if supportFields]><span
lang=EN-CA style='mso-ansi-language:EN-CA'><span style='mso-element:field-end'></span></span><![endif]--><span lang="EN-CA" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-CA;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: auto; text-autospace: ideograph-other;">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Soosan
sat in the Gelato Lab, eating her plum sorbet while her son, having finished
his, stood by the fish tank in a corner of the cafe watching the fish tumbling
in the water. They both needed rest. For hours, they had been going from shop
to shop in the labyrinthine Grand Bazaar in the center of Tehran, with her
doing some the last minute shopping for the party she was giving for Darien’s
tenth birthday. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The
café with the bright display of fruit and Cola bottles on a counter, green
lights from tiny bulbs in the ceiling beaming, and its air fragrant with floral
scents used in sorbets and gelatos was serene. But Soosan was far from relaxed.
The closer it got to Darien’s birthday, the more she missed Bill, the American
father of her child. How could she forget Bill, the stormy love between them
that had come to an abrupt end ten years ago when he had to leave Iran,
practically escaping, going back to America? Darien, looking so much like him,
a son he had no idea existed, was a constant reminder of him. When the
Revolution raged through Iran, with the Shah overthrown and a new Islamic
regime about to take over, there was a wave of anti-American feeling that led
to 52 Americans being taken hostage. Then the State Department had ordered all
Americans residing in Iran to evacuate-- special planes had been sent for them.
So she didn’t have a chance to even say good-bye to Bill. The Revolution and
then the war with Iraq, which ended just a year ago, brought communication
between Iran and other countries to zero. Phone lines were mostly disabled;
post office didn’t deliver to other countries or received mail from them. The
soap factory where she and Bill had both been working had closed soon after the
American employees were forced to leave. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>She had kept hoping the
relationship between Iran and America would resume and Bill would return. But
everything got only worse. The hostages were held much longer than expected,
over a year; the American embassy never opened, and a war, with Iraq attacking
Iran kept going, making communication between Iran and other countries nearly
impossible. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>She
tried and tried to find a way to go to America and search for Bill but it
became clear it was impossible for an Iranian to get a visa to go there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even if she could, how would she track him
down in the vast country? She had no idea even what city he was living in. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Her
thoughts went to when she just met Bill. A young American man stopped by her at
a bookstore where she was buying a novel in English. He began to talk switching
back and forth from English to Farsi. They realized they both worked at the
office of Parsa Soap Factory; she was a receptionist there, and he was an
engineer consultant.<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“I’m taking an English course in an evening
class,” she had said to him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“I see all
the American movies shown in cinemas. I want to understand them in the original
language.” <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Maybe
we can go to one of the movies together,” he said.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>She
shook her head. He seemed to understand that she couldn’t accept the
invitation, knew that it was forbidden in this culture for men and women to
interact freely before they were married. They would have to see each other
secretly.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Let’s
go to dinner then, I know a good place outside of town.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>She
hesitated but then she agreed to that. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
</div>
<a href="http://www.reduxlitjournal.com/2018/02/256-far-away-love-by-nahid-rachlin.html#more">Read more »</a>LesliePhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14481570436014889814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8476081889166143031.post-21641439138107099072018-01-29T10:53:00.000-05:002018-01-29T10:53:16.438-05:00#255: Three Poems by Gregory Luce<div align="right" class="Poem1" style="line-height: normal; text-align: right;">
<br></div>
<div align="right" class="Poem" style="line-height: normal; text-align: right;">
~This
poem was first published in <i>Logical
Reader </i>(1997)<i>.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="Poem" style="line-height: normal;">
<br></div>
<div class="Poem1" style="line-height: normal;">
<br></div>
<div class="Poem1" style="line-height: normal;">
<br></div>
<div class="Poem1" style="line-height: normal;">
<br></div>
<div class="Poem1" style="line-height: normal;">
<br></div>
<div class="Poem1" style="line-height: normal;">
<b>“Better
git it in your soul”</b><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="Poem1" style="line-height: normal;">
<i>(for
Jim)</i><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="Poem1" style="line-height: normal;">
<br></div>
<div class="Poem1" style="line-height: normal;">
Better embrace it like Mingus’<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="Poem1" style="line-height: normal;">
bass, stroke it, caress it, pull it
in, <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="Poem1" style="line-height: normal;">
draw it like smoke, drink it<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="Poem1" style="line-height: normal;">
like old bourbon burning<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="Poem1" style="line-height: normal;">
all the way down.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="Poem1" style="line-height: normal;">
Then give it back.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="Poem" style="line-height: normal;">
<br></div>
<b><span style="font-family: "Times",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><br clear="all" style="mso-special-character: line-break; page-break-before: always;">
</span></b>
<br>
<div class="Poem" style="line-height: normal;">
<i> *****</i></div>
<div class="Poem" style="line-height: normal;">
<i></i></div>
<a href="http://www.reduxlitjournal.com/2018/01/255-three-poems-by-gregory-luce.html#more">Read more »</a>LesliePhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14481570436014889814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8476081889166143031.post-80794950343788254472018-01-22T13:20:00.000-05:002018-01-22T13:20:25.948-05:00#254: "N.O.M.E." by Hildie Block<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<br></div>
<div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: right;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">~This
story was previously published in <i>The
First Line</i> (2005).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">"That
was the best game we've ever had!"
Her eyes were shining as the setting sun glinted off her long dark hair
with the pink streaks. She looked like a
little girl instead. Instead of the 25
year-old with a wasted B.A. in English, suffocating as an administrative
assistant that she was.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">He
dumped the Scrabble tiles into the box without another thought. She suddenly looked like she'd been
stabbed. <br>
"What
are you doing!" She was standing
and looked agitated. She was digging her
nails into her palms. The blood started
to drip again. He wondered, not for the
first time, why she filed her nails to a point.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">He
looked shocked. "Wha' "<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">"The
perfect game! The perfect game! It's gone!"<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">She
sat down and looked about to sob. He
looked around the park to make sure no one was looking. "Look," he said covering her hand
with his, "we know we played the perfect game. We know we did it, finally, we used every
tile, and we know the score was exactly even." The wind stirred the leaves at his feet. He put his hand in his pocket, fingering the
blue velvet box that he kept there like a talisman – the box that would come so
close to making a public appearance and then disappear again-- and instead
grabbed a clean napkin from lunch.
"Here," he said, handing it to her so she could dry her
hands. She stood, wiped her hands, shook
her head, as if to shake a thought out of it and then smiled -- off they went
for coffee at the new place around the corner, as planned.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: center;">
<span style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">*************<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: center;">
<span style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></span></div>
<a href="http://www.reduxlitjournal.com/2018/01/254-nome-by-hildie-block.html#more">Read more »</a>LesliePhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14481570436014889814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8476081889166143031.post-28994323098534442572018-01-17T12:12:00.001-05:002018-01-17T12:12:27.453-05:00#253: Two Poems by Esteban Colon<div class="WordSection1">
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br></div>
<div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;">
~Selected by Clara Jane
Hallar, assistant editor for poetry<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Before the Storm</span></b><o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br></div>
<div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;">
~This poem was
previously published in <i>After Hours</i>
(2014).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
polka dot dress traced love on<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Japanese streets<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
chalk<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
saying what cards never could,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
waited<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
for a
mother she never met,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
till<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
foster parents dragged her inside<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
drowning in the downpour<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
like<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
drawings<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
erased in the rain<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p> *****</o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
</div><a href="http://www.reduxlitjournal.com/2018/01/253-two-poems-by-esteban-colon.html#more">Read more »</a>LesliePhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14481570436014889814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8476081889166143031.post-75017939081545557862017-12-27T19:04:00.000-05:002017-12-27T19:04:03.890-05:00HiatusRedux will resume publication in mid-January....see you soon!LesliePhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14481570436014889814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8476081889166143031.post-68355454883074648182017-12-06T18:12:00.001-05:002017-12-06T18:12:29.631-05:00#252: "The Departure" by Rebecca Gummere<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: center;">
<br></div>
<div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: right;">
~This
essay was first published in <i>The
Gettysburg Review</i> (2012).<u><o:p></o:p></u></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: center;">
<br></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: center;">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
Early one morning
in mid-May, my ninety-two-year-old father swallows three pills--two for his
heart and one for anxiety brought on by his declining condition. He insists on
taking the pills all at once, so my mother places them in his large,
outstretched hand. In his other hand a glass of water trembles, the surface as
troubled as if a small storm is brewing. He tosses the pills back, pouring the
water after, then he gasps, inhales, and aspirates one, two, or perhaps all
three into his lungs. We will never know for certain, and in the end it matters
little. The sparse bedroom in their senior-citizen apartment already feels like
a small stage, the tall rhododendrons outside the window a shadowy green
backdrop.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<i>Agitato--in
an agitated manner</i><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
Within minutes my
father shouts that his chest is on fire. “Call someone!” he tells my mother.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
Taped
to the kitchen wall is a large sign: Do Not Resuscitate. My father has signed the papers assuring the
State of North Carolina that he wishes to forego any heroic measures. His body
is worn; his mind wanders distant corridors. His heart malfunctions. Basic
daily activities, like getting out of his chair to go to the bathroom,
thoroughly exhaust him. A hospice nurse has been visiting for the past three
months, providing support for my mother and comfort and pain relief for my
father. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<i>Cesura--break;
stop</i><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
Several months ago
as my mother was helping my father get ready for bed, he asked her, “Will I
always be like this?” <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
In
my family we veer down the nearest side road when such questions loom. My
mother smiled and patted his arm. “Let’s get those teeth brushed,” she replied.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
Another
evening during their bedtime preparations, he stopped her to ask, “Will it be
Wednesday?”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
“What?”
she asked, confused.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
“When
I die. Will it be on a Wednesday?” <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
She
kissed his forehead and went back to helping him out of his T-shirt and into
his pajama top. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
He
held his arms up for her like a compliant five-year-old. “I love you, you know,” he told her as she
hooked up his oxygen and buttoned him in for the night.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br></div>
<a href="http://www.reduxlitjournal.com/2017/12/252-departure-by-rebecca-gummere.html#more">Read more »</a>LesliePhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14481570436014889814noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8476081889166143031.post-3044528399212197722017-11-28T14:37:00.001-05:002017-11-28T14:37:31.980-05:00#251: Two Poems by Anita Sullivan<div class="WordSection1">
<div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">~These poems were selected
by Clara Jane Hallar, Assistant Editor for Poetry.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;">
<br></div>
<div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;">
<br></div>
<div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">~This poem was previously
published in <i>Nimrod International Journal (</i>2011). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">A
Broken Abecedarius of How Things Might Be if the World Were Saved <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Achoo</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">! at the beginning of a tale.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Beasts
wandering in daylight, unafraid of being shot, even<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Centaurs,
who would not be drunk any more if invited to your wedding.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">A dragon
or a dinosaur named<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Ellen.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Flies who
would go to the front screen door on command so you could<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> let them out.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Galumphing
as the normal gait of soldiers.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Hazelnuts
that fall one by one into the mouth of the Salmon of Wisdom who swims<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> beneath, until the time comes for her
to be caught by a wizard’s<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> apprentice and cooked over a slow
fire until she has rendered up all the<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> wisdom remaining in her unsung
parts. But<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">I digress. . . .<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Intoxication
once a day by the scent from white<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Jasmine
flowers tumbling over a garden wall, except for the<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Keepers of
Butterflies, who would need to remain sober.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Loping as
an alternate choice (see G above).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">More
respect for Dame Love, who has thoughtfully abolished Reason.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Nearly all
the children reaching the house in the middle of the forest, where they will be<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> temporarily changed into birds, and
introduced to their hearts’ desire by a very<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Old bear,
who knows all the tales with caves in them.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Pearls of
music rolling around between the warm, uneven bricks, under the chairs. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Quiet<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Regales of
yellow leaves, and the musk of grapes.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Sisyphus
released from duty but staying on as a volunteer on weekends when he has<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Time off
from being a taxi driver in New York, something he has always wanted to<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> try.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">An upset <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Victory by<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Whim, who
has finally convinced Steven Hawking that she is indeed the final black hole <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> into-which-and-from-which comes <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Xanadu
with its plazas and feasts, its gardens of endless endings for which we have
all <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> secretly<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Yearned—and
to which we have spent the last million years <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Zigging
and Zagging (see G above) and where we will arrive this very<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> AFTERNOON.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"> *****</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"></span></div>
</div><a href="http://www.reduxlitjournal.com/2017/11/251-two-poems-by-anita-sullivan.html#more">Read more »</a>LesliePhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14481570436014889814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8476081889166143031.post-75092162027538305002017-11-14T19:02:00.000-05:002017-11-14T19:02:26.727-05:00#250: " Where the Highway Ends: Sketches of Denise Levertov & Mitchell Goodman" by Mark Pawlak<div align="right" class="p1" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: right;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">~This essay
was previously published in <i>Hanging Loose</i>
(2007).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">“Life and memory of it so compressed they’ve turned into
each other.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">Which is which?”—Elizabeth Bishop</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">“We do not remember days, we remember moments.”—Cesare
Pavese</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">Preface</span></b><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">I
came to MIT in 1966, on a scholarship, from a Buffalo, New York,</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">working
class family, a family where books were suspect and my decision</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">to
go to MIT instead of a local college surprising. I was majoring in</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">physics
when, during my senior year, I took a poetry writing class with</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">Denise
Levertov. In Denise, and her husband, Mitch Goodman, I found the</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">intellectual
family, and the wider world, that I had been searching for</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">Over the years, I continued to live and work in the Boston
area, mostly in</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">
</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">Somerville and Cambridge. My
relationship with Denise continued as she</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">became
my confidante, my poetry mentor, my guide to a life of the mind</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">broader
than just physics and mathematics. I was soon admitted into her</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">large
but intimate circle of friends, social activists, and writers. This</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">included
becoming an invited guest at her country house in western</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">Maine.
At some time in the early 60s, Denise and Mitch had bought a</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">farmhouse
in the township of Temple—literally where the highway ends.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">It
served them for years as an escape from the summer heat of their</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">Greenwich
Village apartment. After they moved to Boston, as it was</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">closer
to the farmhouse, they took off to Temple more frequently and in</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">all
seasons, as indicated in the following sketches from memory. As you</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">read
them, imagine the effect on a young mind of this couple, poet and</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">novelist,
well-read intellectuals, and political activists.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">Summer</span></b><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">I
remember flying with Denise in a small prop plane from Boston to</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">Farmington.
The twin engines thrummed as we skimmed the green </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">t</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">reetops
of Maine’s endless woods. It was my first visit, August. Mitch</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">was
there to greet and drive us in his Volvo to their Temple farmhouse.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">There
was always at least one other Volvo parked on the front lawn.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">Over
the years, with each visit, I would find the collection had grown.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">Mitch
bought them for spare parts to keep one aging Volvo running. His</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">answer
to inquiries was always “You can imagine how common a Volvo</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">dealer
is in rural Maine.”</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">The
kitchen window looked out on a lone apple tree beside a fieldstone</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">fence
a short distance behind the house; beyond the fence was a broad,</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">grassy
field. It sloped up from the farmhouse to a tree-lined ridge; to the</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">right
of the house the field descended sharply in the direction of Temple</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">Stream.
A granite slab served as the front-door step. Denise and I sat</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">there
one morning as she read me the poem she’d just written: “night</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">lies
down/in the field. . . .”</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.reduxlitjournal.com/2017/11/250-where-highway-ends-sketches-of.html#more">Read more »</a>LesliePhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14481570436014889814noreply@blogger.com0