+------------------------------------------------------------------------+ T M M OOOOO RRRRR PPPPP OOOOO RRRRR EEEEE V V IIIII EEEEE W W MM MM O O R R P P O O R R E V V I E W W H M M M O O RRRR PPPP O O RRRR EEE V V I EEE W W W M M O O R R P O O R R E V V I E WW WW E M M OOOOO R R P OOOOO R R EEEEE V IIIII EEEEE W W +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Volume #10 June 1st, 2003 Issue #1 Est. January, 1994 http://morpo.com/ +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Contents for Volume 10, Issue 1 Hand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dean Kostos Spoken Under Hypnosis: An Earlier Life in Burma as a Woman Named Mi Aye . . Dean Kostos Exercises in Memoir or A Tarantula and a Bong . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Elise Bonza Geither The Bridal Shower . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Kelly Ann Malone The Dark . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . jj goss Candlelight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Amanda Auchter Mortal Nights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Durlabh Singh To Die at the Springs of El-Hamma . . . . . . . . . Elisha Porat What became of us . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . W. Wessels Asleep . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Keith Felberg Thunder on a Clear Day . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Eric Prochaska Tower 147 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . D.G. Harris About the Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Authors +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Editor + Fiction Editor Robert Fulkerson The Morpo Staff J.D. Rummel + Poetry Editor Associate Editors Kris Fulkerson Lori Abolafia, Skip Ciulla +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ The Morpo Review. Volume 10, Issue 1. The Morpo Review is published electronically on a quarterly basis. Reproduction of this magazine is permitted as long as the magazine is not sold and the entire text of the issue remains intact. Copyright 2003, The Morpo Review. The Morpo Review is published in ASCII and World Wide Web formats. All literary and artistic works are Copyright 2003 by their respective authors and artists. ISSN 1532-5784 +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Hand Dean Kostos In the midst of glass he can't quadrate a mannequin's hand into its polystyrene wrist. He can't adjust its gesture. The square flange lodges in the wrist's square hole the wrong way, so the hand won't rest at hips (poised as if the mannequin stalked breezes, long hair scrawling toward a future), instead twists forward, agitated as if it could rip a hunk of flesh, as if it could strangle him. +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Spoken Under Hypnosis: An Earlier Life in Burma as a Woman Named Mi Aye Dean Kostos Imagine stepping through a gate that is exit and entrance: Pass from who you are to who you could no longer be. What do you see? Pretending not to notice men's glances, I traipse, soles tasting soil. Filaments I embroidered into dragons entwine on the longyi skirt whispering across my calves. Lanterns yaw overhead. Pushed by the crowd, a soldier falls into me. The way a blade slices an envelope, he opens my silence. What does he say? He calls my eyelids suede seeds, my hair black streams. His arms gleam like leaves after rain. By candle-flicker, my hair scrawls calligraphy onto his chest. He leaves, but always returns until the moon no longer bleeds persimmon. My belly swells like a rice sack. While another life ripens, I grow thin. Can't eat. Food reeks. I'm a door closing, a door against. Not wanting to shame Mother, I spill air from my veils and sail into a ravine. In brief oblivion, my silks and hair tint a cut of sky. When spasms cease, she holds the baby: bald squab, flesh flinching against death. She wraps it in banana leaves, buries it by the creek. What do you see now? Mother wakes me with a bowl of rice but it looks like maggots. My arms go cold, my self coils from its core. I lift from flesh: pit from fruit. She spreads my cloths across her pillow, entombs her face in embroidered leaves. . . . What do you see after dying? Petals hover in hoof-smoke as a gold Buddha riding a gold throne sails men's shoulders on a palanquin. A basket swells with saffron rice; another spills pomegranates and lotus pods the color of oxblood. Binding my days to Eternity, an altar wears a swag of knotted ropes. A man tilts a mirrored disc-plate full of sky, a boy breathes into an oliphant, an elder thrums a boat-shaped harp; from its strings, dead ancestors sing me toward them, our words dissolve like gauze. Are you at peace? I can't say; peace no longer has an opposite. +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Exercises in Memoir or A Tarantula and a Bong Elise Bonza Geither I'm not lying when I tell you his name was Ken Wolf. He was a senior theater major, had a single with a loft, a bong, and a tarantula. He had blue eyes, faded so they looked like reversed mirrors in his head. First time: I was sitting under the blue lights of the student-run bar smoking clove cigarettes. I was in that uncaring mood; classes hadn't even started. I could sit here and get drunk as hell. I could lose myself in remembering last year: beer and boys, my soft legs and feet tangled up in chairs and beds, one special boy I thought I loved. I was still sad over him. I still wondered if I had gotten pregnant if he would have married me. Ken came into the bar. He recognized me from last year. He'd been a friend of my boy. Ken bought me a beer. He bought me two and we just kind of looked at each other. The music thumped up and down in my belly. Ken leaned forward and said, "he wanted to marry you. But he asked us and we told him no. But he wanted to." My eyes filled with sugar-water. The tears ran down my face in rivulets. I held in a sob until I couldn't any more and it broke out of my throat like the cracking of glass on glass. Ken leaned back in his chair. Other kids came in and one guy started to rub my shoulders and say, "C'mon, c'mon. You're just drunk." I tried to say, "No, you don't understand. He wanted to." But I couldn't get the words past my throat. The music slowed down and Ken pulled me up by my arm and dragged me to the dance floor. I buried my face in his jean-jacket shoulder and he gripped me. Really held on like we were both in trouble, I'd like to say "drowning" but that sounds stupid. At that moment I didn't know about us, about my dreams of being a super hero girl and flying just to show Ken Wolf that he needed me. I didn't know he'd leave me for a girl we'd nicknamed "Death" because of her black hair and pale, China-plate skin. I didn't know that he'd say, "I wish I could tell you I was falling in love with you," and then I'd tell my mom, "He is falling in love with me." I didn't know how much he loved his room, his pot, his TV. At that moment, I was attached to him. We were like two small animals or one-celled creatures, like a flower and its petals. I was filled with pink lights. I WAS a super hero girl and we were flying up into the night sky. I could smell the summer night flowers and a tang of stale beer. I felt his fingers grip my waist. I wrapped my arms around him and squeezed harder. The tears stopped. I closed my eyes and watched the blue sparks from us shatter into the cold air. +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ The Bridal Shower Kelly Ann Malone As I wrote the name of the gift-giver on the back of a paper plate I couldn't help but think what a silly mistake No amount of tulle or pink lipstick can make this work Desire is an attractive but misleading motivation The bride-to-be is savoring her interim glory At her peak and never thinner, with an impressive tan Envious ladies offer gifts and praise A white confection with blush roses graces the table Undignified games produced intelligible banter How many items on the tray? Don't cross your legs! Cold-cuts and veggie platters along with a spinach dip The round thin mints in pastel colors tease the weight conscious guests "John and Jill forever" printed out on delicate white napkins She assumes if it's in writing, it will work +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ The Dark jj goss last night I ran out of white the kind in dark bottles and too soon I was dreaming of the glass stem cool and smooth as words overheard in the hallway yesterday afternoon dreaming of wine and a lazy slipping off of my skin and words that slide out without stumbling over clenched teeth over other people's voices droning through movies I've watched a hundred times before dreaming of the woman in the upstairs bedroom screaming at night until my ceiling cracks in a strangely familiar pattern her words creep in between my sheets in between the dreams I have of dreaming her face reflected in my mirror in the mirror and in the mirror again my face kept in clear uncolored glass so I can keep an eye on the level of emptiness so I can tell how much is left inside +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Candlelight Amanda Auchter A match strikes. The white flame dips into an open mouth . clean, blank, sleeping. The black tongue curls upward in repose, rough edges cracking with soot, then flicker, spark, and rise. It is a quiet voyeur in a room, dancing upon walls, twirling shadows down curtains, across the floor, dark, light, passing over a face, a book, breaking into a half moon of yellow glare. The jagged fire bobs above the pool of wax, the sweat carving rings of age around and around, down, down, melting and then out, silent, gray ghost trails into the night, cough, sputter, spent. +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Mortal Nights Durlabh Singh Mortal nights The wind with serpents The trees with stones And stars with dust bowls. The original nakedness of Being Cornered now with Vacuity of gaze Empty eyelids feebly abound With nettles of teared streams Mortal nights Full of secrets Full of arrows Freshly calcined In dust bowls the undertones Amid heartaches begin anew In seasons of whispered tones. +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ To Die at the Springs of El-Hamma Elisha Porat Down into the fichus boulevards at the springs of El-Hamma come the starlings, trembling then landing. The water is hot at the springs of El-Hamma, Yet night is more hostile than day. Layers of sand on those who landed before: Layers of sand cover their faces, The water is dead at the springs of El-Hamma. From great distances come the starlings Beating to these death-ponds: always they come. Who sends these birds to end In the booby-trapped springs of El-Hamma? They fly so urgently, with no chance or time, No time for life and no chance to learn If someone expects their return. The starlings are flying in to die in the seducer Springs of El-Hamma, poisoned by the salt. Fowl can't stop the soldiers, for their faces Are pointed into the earth. Oh, how easy it is To finish as a starling, and not as a soldier. translated from the Hebrew by the author and Ward Kelley +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ What became of us W. Wessels We walked the luckless streets through a strange city desperately searching for work in old ugly buildings blankfaced offices stared back at us scared secretaries tuned sharply to the comfort of smooth featureless phones wished us away static voices promised distant money when we left. By noon John's feet were killing him his cheap shoes surrendered to smaller steps we slowed down and ceased to joke about the borrowed suits our tired reflections scattered across countless blind shop windows I judged the few Stuyvesants in a crumpled pack weighed the change in my pocket traffic lights blinked nervously moments before rush hour descended we couldn't cross when the demon dark angel man cornered us in a brilliant move cars pushing home blocked our escape left us with no excuse when he held out his hand I stepped back said fuck off sensing heavy wings under a black coat two coarse growths beneath peroxided hair but he liked the jinglejangle of my coins too much and still persists those streets a ghostly reminder of luckless ones like us +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Asleep Keith Felberg Light slid along thin strands of cobweb, and the morning sun poured through the green vineyards in the valley. He brushed the sticky invisible threads from his face, and walked the steep path towards the top of the hill. He breathed hard of the air that was stale and humid and had the pungent smell of earth. Plants flourished everywhere, and there were groves of small white flowers covered in dew. He could feel them brush damply against his bare arms as he began to sweat. Tall green hills rose on all sides and above them the air was bright and drowsy. There was no breeze and the odor hung thick in the stillness, strong and sickly sweet. He looked down the way he came, the path vanishing in the green, and then to a farm down in the distance where he heard a rooster crowing. She was sleeping down in the car. There was a monument there where a battle was fought in the Spanish American War. A tall stone stuck from the earth, and the ground glimmered with broken glass all around it. They had driven in the night, and parked when the sun was still cool and rosy on the horizon, and the air was crisp and fresh and smelled of eucalyptus. They watched the mist that settled in the valley, and the rolling green mountains that rose out of it. There was that potent beauty that comes when the eyes are tired of looking, or when the sun comes after watching the ghosts of places in the night, and the hypnotic rush of asphalt. They dozed in the car while tall palms swayed and swam in the gentle morning breeze. They rolled down the windows and the breeze came cool and lovely through the car. She leaned back in the driver's seat and closed her eyes. He stared out into the sway of the palms, and the deep sun lightened green of the hedges. It really was a fine morning. He leaned over and kissed her neck. She started at first: opened her eyes, then leaned her head back smiling. "That tickles," she said, and shut her eyes again. He pulled the strap of her gray tank top over her shoulder "Quit it," she said playfully and sat up. "I'm glad we came," she said. "Me too," he said, still feeling the dampness of her skin. "Do you remember when it used to flood by your house, and we'd race paper boats in the street." "I remember," he said, sitting up. "I miss it there," she said. He stared out at the flowers that shivered in the light wind, with the birds singing in the stale humid air, and the long shadows falling across the parking lot. "I miss how we used to just stay in bed in the winter because it was always cold and the wind seemed to go right through it," she said. "I remember being all warm and tucked in, and just listening to it howl outside." He still wasn't looking at her, but knew she was smiling, could hear it in her voice. "What's wrong?" she said. He blinked, then looked at her. "Nothing." "Do you want some water?" "No, that's ok," he said. "This one's still cold. I froze it before we left see," she said, and put the cold bottle of water against his cheek. "Stop that." "No." "Don't make me tickle you." "You wouldn't dare, we're in public." "You never though of this car as public before," he said. "What do you mean?" "You know what I mean." "That's it mister," she said opening the water bottle. The water was very cold and his shirt was halfway soaked, but it felt kind of good in the heat. "You win," he said. "I know," she said. "I always win." He leaned over to tickle her and she backed against the door. "No no I'm kidding I'm kidding," she said, and he sat up. "Are you happy now?" she said softly and almost scared. They were early at the park, and the sun was hot after the hike above the monument, and there was that over-ripe taste still in the air. Inside she wanted to see the birds, and pointed and smiled with the sun on her face. He told her they should ride the tram first, it would be crowded soon. So they stood in the shadows of the trees and against the rising leaves of the brush until the tram came. The sun was higher now, and white, and their car was full of children. Some cried and were unhappy, and stared sometimes out at the animals that roamed free on the rolling green savannah. Sometimes their eyes were wells and other times fixed, out past the shadows in the heat of the morning sun. The little girl that sat next to him looked at him for a long time, and he looked back at her. She had blond hair and blue eyes and was about four. When he imagined having children, it was always a little girl with blond hair and blue eyes. He didn't know why. They rolled across the bottom of the long green valley, and tigers moved lazily and catlike in the shade. They passed the last of the white rhinos that laid like giant pale stones beneath a broad shaded tree. The guide said there was nothing to be done for them. There were only five left in captivity, and two in the wild. She said all the females were past their breeding age, and they would be extinct inside three years. He looked out at them a long time. They did not move, but laid perfectly still and hot in the shade. He thought for a moment about the last time he was in San Diego, and how they found a whale washed up on the beach. It was long and grey like the sky above the water, and they climbed over the rocks that were wet with rain to get near it. Seagulls pecked at it, and they could see where they'd broken through the thick dark skin to the pink inside. It was sad to watch: those tiny scavengers picking apart that great animal that just laid on its back with dead black eyes. The rhinos were like that, not on their backs, but like stones, like they were already dead. People gazed into the hard white sun with fading sour smiles, cameras cocked, no wind. There was a woman in front of him: horse toothed, wrinkled eyes, and just staring. They were just staring out at them. None of them would ever see another alive again. Would they live on vacation film? One last generation brought down from time immemorable, to be gawked at by tourists in khaki shorts with sun burnt noses. How could that be destiny. Their lives, such startling and beautiful things, fierce and wild, but now just like stones, porous, unmoving, flies swarming. The rhinos were colorless in the shade, and the harsh whiteness of the sun. They were alive, but not alive. There in that car full of people he felt unspeakably lonely for a moment, but just for a moment and then it was gone. He looked away from the horse toothed woman. "Hi." Said the girl. "Hi," he said. His wife squeezed his hand, her eyes the color of corn flowers. "Why do you miss my old house?" he said. "Don't you like the house we have now?" "No I do. It's just, I don't know, good memories." There was water down in the gully and he could see the insects alive in the sun. They walked over the boardwalks, and she gazed into the water that was green muck, and at the birds that swam heavily through it. It was very hot now, and too bright. He could see the giraffes nibbling on the long slender limbs of the trees, and the children pointing though the wire mesh of the fence. They left the park and were very tired. It was early in the afternoon, and he slept in the car and did not dream. He was almost awake when they pulled into the hotel, on that pleasant edge of sleep, but he kept his eyes closed so she could whisper to him to wake up, they were there. The air came cold and damp off the water even before the sun had set, and now he stared out past the end of the pier to the darkening Pacific. The ocean was always strange at night, a dark vacuum, with the lights of the city pushing at its edge, and the sound of the waves coming in. He looked up for the stars, but they were distant and weary with the lights of the restaurant, and San Diego glowing not so far away. They ate fried clams that were fresh and greasy and looked out at where the ocean should be. He took a drink of the cold wine, smelling the salt air, and the fish death smell of bait from where the old men sat with their poles at the end of the pier. He looked up at her, and she was just watching the darkness. She looked back at him and smiled. People always smile when you catch them staring. "How's your food?" she asked. "Not bad," he said, watching her sip her wine. "Whatcha thinkin' about?" she said, watching him with her full beautiful eyes. "The Rhinos," he said. "The Rhinos at the park?" "No." "Oh you must mean the rhinos back at our hotel," she said smirking. "The two left in the wild." He said, turning to the darkness where the tide was coming in. She did not speak for a long time, but it wasn't bad with the clams and the crab in drawn butter, and the old men fishing in the night. "I remember when you went to San Diego when we were in college, and you brought me back that seashell nightlight you said you bought at the airport because you didn't have time to shop." He didn't speak, but just looked at her. "You always used to bring me back little things when you'd go away," she said, and she was still smiling, but her eyes were sad. He'd watched that look on her face before, the way a smile could ebb, find its peak and then pull back just slightly. "I couldn't afford big things then," he said. "No, I didn't mean that," she said. "I loved it. I loved that you did that. I loved all those things. Didn't you ever notice how I kept all of them?" He smiled sheepishly and squeezed her hand, and stared back out at nothing. He felt sad now, but didn't know why. Gifts always made him feel sad after they'd been given. "I miss my seashell nightlight," she said. "What ever happened to it? "It broke when we were moving," she said. "I put it in a box, and then when I opened it up again there were just the white shards of it." "I could buy you another one," he said. "It wouldn't be the same." They walked up the beach in the dark ocean breath of the night. He listened to the sand shift in their footsteps, the tide washing up the shore. His eyes glided over an infinity of footprints dimpling the sand, and the strange dark shapes of seaweed washed in by the tide. He stopped though he wasn't really sure why. He felt his hand against hers, closing on it, stopping her, moving it to the small of her back, her feet turning in the sand. She opened her mouth in surprise, but she was already against him, and he kissed her long and soft beneath the starlight. It was funny too because he was thinking about the winter in Korea, about waking from the cold in the dead of night with a month's worth of pneumonia. He remembered about how the heat was out, and he shivered and huddled over the blue light of a stove burner for warmth, listened to Miles Davis, watched the light dance over the empty liquor bottles strewn though the kitchen two days before Christmas. She was warm and close against him. It isn't the loneliest I've ever been he thought, and ran his hand through her hair, pulling it towards him, down against her cheek, fingertips tracing her throat, down against the edge of her breast. "Not here," she said, gently pulling back. "There are people." All he could think was she used to close her eyes, she used to tremble. His eyes drifted, watching the facades of the houses along the waterfront. Light came thin and latticed through the shut blinds, or the windows were dark and uncovered as if no one was home. He imagined people behind those dark open windows, sitting back against the furthest wall, watching the night. There was the veil, the silence: the almost purging drift of it. "I don't know what to tell you," he said, and her not looking up, but straight ahead and towards the sand, and him listening to it shift in their footsteps. "It's alright," she said evenly, and not hurt, and him not knowing what to do or say ever when she started to lie. "I'll be back before you miss me," he said, listening to the movement of the sand again. "When I was a girl I used to want to live on this beach," she said. "But not anymore," he asked. "No." she said. "Not anymore." "That's alright we couldn't afford it anyway." "It doesn't look the same as it used to," she said, and never lifted her eyes from the sand. In the morning they drove east, with the sun bright against the horizon. They traced their way back along the same roads: all different somehow, the desert flatness, the upturned boulders against the road, and the white crests of dunes gleaming in the sun. All of it seen before but from another angle, and the backward motion making it seem new and eerily familiar at the same time. He did not speak, but watched as they fell back through those landmarks with dry mouths, and felt the hum and shiver of the road run in reverse till they came through the glaring heat to places they knew. Farmhouse with the rotted fence and green hills against the pines, the world he knew materializing suddenly, snapping into focus the way it can when you know where you are. They turned the corner of the drive, the house seeming small, the sun sloping through a break in the clouds. The engine sputtered to a stop, and when the car door creaked open she stretched in the shade of the pines. The air was clean and cool and tasted damp like it would rain in the afternoon. He felt his lungs empty. There is never anything like coming home. He drank a glass of water, and put his tackle in the car. "Be home tonight," he said, feeling the dust of Sonora as he pushed his fingers through his hair. Her face still as he kissed it, and still again as she waved from the drive, and he thought of the rhinos sleeping far to the west in the hot shade of the afternoon. Flowers tremble beneath the starlight. You remember how it was; dark against dark, the still, shallow curves finding each other in the night, the petals black and damp. You felt it then, in the turning of limbs, in the quickening pulp of the heart. Don't feel love or the slipping burning purity of any true thing. Do you still taste that air, that fertile decay, bleeding its strange musk through the tram. The heat of it gone like milky bowls of rice wine, or the skin taste of salt, blossoms of apricot in moonlight. He watched the twin yellow curves vanish beyond the headlamps and lose their color, the red of the stones faded to nothing. The steep mountain roads darkened and cool. A haze of moon glowed through the thinning clouds, and he felt the crisp fragrant darkness wrapped around him. It was comforting somehow, the blackness, and the dreary silent rain that fell like sparks past the streetlamps. He walked up the street in the cold gentle wind, and the trees whispering with wet branches, and he could see the lights in his house. He remembered he left his pole and tackle in the car, but felt too tired to turn back. He opened the door, and felt a stirring queasiness in his stomach. The lights were dim inside, but it was pleasant and warm. He saw her, and felt suddenly weak, and hollow. Her eyes had become heavy with sleep, and she stretched lazily on the couch. He came closer, towards the fire, and felt its warm crackling breath. She shifted silently on the fat white cushions, and curled like a cat in the fire's flickering glow. The rain had stopped, and droplets slid off the roof and past the window to the damp and curving ground. He smelled the rain through the cracked window, and saw the luminescent beads of dew that collected on the screen. He slid his cold white hands underneath her, and lifted her gently into his arms. She grumbled, half awake, but was soon relaxed and soft. She breathed slowly as he carried her back towards the dark of their bedroom. He couldn't see the clock, but it seemed he'd been lying awake for hours. He wasn't particularly comfortable anymore, but didn't dare to disturb her. He just kept looking at her, and secretly apologizing. He told her silently I love you, I love you, again and again. He meant it too. He stroked her hair, and in his heart thought of all the things he could say to make things right. This was the only time when everything seemed right, when she was sleeping against him. They didn't fight or speak, they only loved each other silently. He closed his eyes, and ran his fingers through her hair, and she kept her eyes closed and pretended to be asleep. +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Thunder on a Clear Day Eric Prochaska For a moment, the sky showers thunder and I can't hear him breathing. No heartbeat. Only the slight swelling of his chest, which lifts the weight of my reposing head, lets me know he is still here, alive, with me. The sky above is clear. Mechanical thunder from a jet, which I see miles distant from its sound, lows through these skies often. Supersonic: like a teenage summer love affair. Then the beating resumes. Distant, but not like the jet. More muffled, as if hidden beneath avalanches of barriers, trying to let someone know it is there. The beating is quick, almost frantic. It's always like that, even when he sleeps -- especially when he sleeps. Becoming desperate in dreams, anxious in nightmares, I don't know. Maybe when he sleeps his heart senses that somewhere in that inconceivable pile of barricades there is a weakness, a path, and it clamors all the more vigorously for freedom. Do I only imagine that his hair, his skin, still exude that faint odor of burnt motor oil, even on his day off? Waiting for him to wake, I reach over lazily and put the Tupperware lid back on the container of potato salad. So odd, that salad. Though I've always detested celery in my otherwise smooth potato salad -- the way my mother always made it -- as I made that batch I found myself slicing up the celery. Even as I was slicing it I thought that I didn't really want it in my salad, but I tipped the cutting board over the mixing bowl and pushed it in with the flat side of the knife, all the same. The residue of the watermelon like Velcro between my fingers annoys me steadily, but I can't reach the cooler to dip my fingers in the melt-water. So I just close my eyes against the steady sun and wrap my arm toward his head, toward the hair I would run my fingers through, if they were not so sticky -- if I didn't fear waking him. __________ Shuddering abruptly, he awakes, forcing me sit up suddenly. It's nearly three in the afternoon on another Sunday, and although I am not working, I do not feel relaxed. I love his company, I guess, but sometimes I resent not being able to just be alone with me. He sits up, stretches a little, cracks his neck (I hate that sound), then reaches into the cooler for a beer. The can makes that crisp breaking sound when he opens it. He puts the can to his lips for a second, then pulls it away with a look of disgust and spits yellow liquid onto the grass, hitting the blanket we're on, too. "Warm!" he says, not yet to me, but to the surrounding animals, people, and trees which certainly have been awaiting his report. He tilts the can and impatiently pours the beer into the grass, watching with a scourging glare, as if he were punishing peasants for insolence. "Let's go get something cold to drink," he says, for the first time acknowledging my presence, though his eyes still haven't met mine. He gets up and heads to the car. Shaking off the grass and bugs and crumbs with a few quick snaps, I haphazardly bundle up the blanket, grab the cooler, and catch up with him. He's always like this when he wakes up. __________ He has more than one "something cold to drink." It is around seven and he's not himself again. Or maybe this is his true self, and the sober guy is an alias. Anyway, the beer has gotten to him, so we end up at my place. With the curtains drawn, it's somewhat dark inside, so the blinking red eye on the answering machine is prominent. As he heads through the bedroom toward the bathroom I set the cooler just inside the kitchen doorway, with the blanket on top, then kneel beside the telephone table and press the "Play" button on the machine. The first is just a wrong number, so I fast forward through the annoying tone. As soon as the second starts, even before I hear the voice, I hear the same wetting of lips that I always hear at the beginning of her messages. So my finger skims across to the "Stop" button. Mother. I don't need this now. He's got sleep on his mind, but the last time his mind made a decision for him was before puberty. He seems to think he has to give me the lay-of-my-life every time we're alone. His front of super-confidence is just a coating to waterproof his weaknesses, I know. There I go again, pretending I can guess his psyche. Might as well guess people's weight and age while I'm at it, and at least I could charge a buck for the novelty. So in his stupor he gets his pants off, but leaves his shirt and socks on, and fucks me with his eyes open only enough to know it's still light out. I can't say it's my favorite part of spending time with him, but there's no sense in trying to stop him. That'd only spark an argument about whether or not I like having sex with him, which I usually do. Men are so fragile. Before he passes out in sweaty exhaustion and relief, he moans something about a perfect weekend. Maybe for him. Personally, I could still use that dose of peace that's been on back-order. I swing my legs over and get out of bed, covering him to the waist with the sheet. How is it that he can't get himself undressed, but all of my clothes are flung to the remote corners of the room? I take a white button-down from its hanger in the open closet and I fasten the bottom two buttons as I pick up my panties with the toe of one foot. His mysteries seem so near the surface when he sleeps. His eyes become gentle, forsaking the piercing glare always found there when he's awake. His brow relaxes, and everything seems calm, inviting, tender. . . vulnerable. I feel I could reach in and encounter that beating something that so desperately wants out. Or extract one by one those blockades, barriers, and battlements that permeate him. But I know better. I only suppose I know what I'd find, but can't be certain. It's only my fantasy. He's not mine to manipulate, anyway. Just a man. Just a good time. Just someone who will leave, not because of me, he'll say (although I know better), but "because of his job." Someone who wants to be a lover, but not in love. Who wants to know my everything, but does not know the meaning of "share." Who wants to know my everything not because he cares, but because he supposes that I want to tell him, and he wishes to humor my desires as long as possible. Without remembering my favorite flavor of ice cream, or my hometown, or why exactly I dropped out of college. Without caring who the last man was, or when I plan to settle down, or why I cry when that certain song is played. But asks me all the same, as if I had some need to expose my soul to him before sleeping with him. As if I needed to feel pain before pleasure, which, if it ever is pleasure, is only fleeting, soon to be replaced by the longing that it truly is: no more than a contribution to the scar tissue on my heart. Confusing me me into thinking that he's sincere, that he's the first one who won't leave. But leaving me with a lump in my throat some morning until he's driven out of sight and I can cry like I need to. That's what I really need to do: cry. Cry for all the bridges I've burned, always on accident, so young in my life, and the mistakes I feel can never be erased. Cry because he's just a man, but he seems so childlike, and I want to help him, hold him more than anything else, and comfort him and tell him it's all right, but I know I can't. Because he's just a man. I pull the door until it starts to get tight in the jam, then leave it ajar that much so the noise of shutting it completely doesn't bother him. If I wake him, there goes my quiet time alone. Stiff, once-upon-a-time shag carpet now resists my bare feet more like a cross-stitch piece which weathered a hurricane. Flat, matted patches here and there among the overgrowth of wild yarn. Could it ever have been plush, or anything less than abrasive? Rentals. Layers of other people's paint; cheap carpet the landlord found at a garage sale fifteen years ago; windows that don't open right or close securely because of those generations of paint; smudges on the plastic frames around the light switches and outlet plates -- some of which are white and some beige; dust along the top of the baseboards, which are typically the same color as the walls -- often white -- like they were being weather-proofed or preserved together, and which further foreground the dust because it's the only seam along the smooth scar of accumulated paint from floor to rain-leak-stained ceiling. I don't risk turning on the TV and waking him, but just put in a CD and play it low. The answering machine's red numeral and blinking eye plead for my attention as I pass, panties still in-hand, to the kitchen. Sorry, but you just want to ruin my peace. No matter how harmoniously I strive to accompany Annie Lennox, anyone within earshot can only hear a timid woman with bare feet flat against the non-acoustic grit of Linoleum in a kitchen with cupboard hardware too rickety to pose as a sound booth. As the water heats up in the microwave, I put on my panties and sit at the table, legs drawn up from the cool floor. Tilting my head back, I capture the proper angle and see in the rain-stain over my table the scene of a horse galloping up a cloud of dust. When the microwave bell rings, I wish I'd stopped it prematurely, just so as not to risk waking him. He'll be asleep most of the evening, and then won't able to sleep tonight, but that'll be his own fault. He'll whine about being too tired for work in the morning, but I'll have slept right through the old war movie he'll find on some cable channel, and I'll go to work fifteen minutes early and won't have to hear about it. Walking tenderly on the brown and gold pine needle carpet's worn path back into the living room, I smoothly stir the spinning island of cocoa under the water's surface. I could drink hot cocoa on an Indonesian beach in August. It's relaxation in a mug, for me. But a hot mug. So I set it on the glass-topped table between the rocker and the rattan catalog-ordered couch that I hate. It looked so cozy -- and was an affordable way to help fill up the living room -- but when you sit in it, you're cast back so you can hardly get out of its cup-shaped cushion. You have to really be planning on staying there awhile to make it worth the effort of getting back up. The dully-dust-coated magazine covers glance at me from their plastic cubicles -- those milk-crate style, stackable ones -- but fail to grab my attention. Pulling the curtains open I see the breeze has picked up and is buffeting the high wildflowers across the road. The walls pale to a shadow of white as the sun falls behind a cloud. Even when the sun reappears, the room stays somewhat dim because the sun is over the trees now. The day is winding down. Through the sheers I watch the neighbor's cat hop up on my car's hood to sunbathe. If I had clothes on, I might open the door and scare it away. Then a couple walks by on the sidewalk, looks toward the house, and I wonder if the man, whose glance lingers, can see my breasts from there. Still, I don't button up the shirt. Let them look. What would you say to that, Mother? That's why you called, right? To remind me to straighten out my life? Well maybe someone should remind you that it's my life. Without purpose, I ease into the rocker. The sheepskin cover is matted on the seat, but still softer than the carpet, and warmer than the sleeping air around me. The kitchen clock's tapping both defines and overpowers the taciturn ambience between songs. Lackluster. That framed print has got to go the next time I move. I'm sure I thought it looked fine before, but now its drabness (in fact, it's even cornily drab, like a parody of dullness) dominates the wall, which would be more interesting with only the nail's own shadow hanging in lieu of the picture. Jesus, it's exhausting trying not to look at that damned little red light. Come, come, come, come, come, come, come, its patient mantra repeats like blown kisses. No, no, no, no, no, I think, picking up the cocoa, giving it a last swirl and hugging it near my neck to feel its warmth. On top of the stacked milk-crate shelves lies a letter, collecting dust since Thursday. If I don't read it another will come, and when I don't read that one either Mom will call to see if I received them. She'll give me the same lecture over the phone as in the letter. So I know that reading it and writing back would be the easiest way, but maybe if I ignore it long enough the words will become bored and entertain themselves by re-arranging into sentiments that wouldn't offend or agitate me. They'd talk about the weather, and the Senate race, and the new sit-com on Tuesdays. But nothing about me. No pointed, wiggling fingers, cataloging whatever might be wrong with my life and the way I live it. Let's face it: such neutral words will not likely come from her pen. Not until I've been canonized will the words be benign. In the meantime, all is malicious. She doesn't even know about him. But she's seen them come and go and can guess. But I'm twenty-six years old, damn it, and I have a right to have sex. What would you say to that, Mother? Would you lecture me on the benefits of chastity? No. I suppose not. That's not your style. So what? Should I write you back? That'd be easier than calling you. But calling would get it over with sooner. I could just pick up the phone right now, dial you up and say, "Hey, Mom, what's your problem? Why do you think there's something wrong with my life? Because I don't go to church anymore? Because I dropped out of college? Because I'm having sex? Come on. What disappoints you the most about my life?" And what would she say? Would she critique every mistake I've made over the last few years? No, she'd be reserved. "Honey," she might say, "we all make decisions we regret." "But they were my decisions," I'd say. "It's none of your business. Why do you think I'm not happy? I have a nice place here." She'd never know it's only half true: she's never been to visit. "I have a good job at the trucking company. Not every college drop-out -- or graduate, for that matter -- becomes the assistant director of public relations for a national trucking company in only two and a half years." And she'd say . . . well, she wouldn't cut me down. She never tried to cut me down. She'd say something like, "I know that, Dear. I've been hoping for the opportunity to tell you how well you've done." Then I'd want to tell her she could have just called anytime, but she knows as well as I do that it's me who won't return her calls. So I'll drop that one. "Is it college, then? Are you disappointed that I dropped out? Is that it? Well it wasn't a total waste, you know. I can go back anytime I want to and finish. I've been thinking about that a lot lately. I might take some night classes," I'd say. Still, she'd be understanding. "That sounds like a good opportunity for you, Dear," she might say. "So," I'd say, "are you upset about my personal life? I know you wish I'd get married, but I'm just not ready. So maybe the guys I date aren't husband material, but someday I'll change and the right kind of guy will come along. But why can't you accept that? Is it the church? Is it all that chastity bull that the Bible goes on about? Well, that's your god talking, Mother." "My god?" she'd clarify, and I'd know I had her. "Honey, God is the same. For all eternity. He doesn't just go through phases like us." And I'd be ready for her. "That's not true," I'd say, calmly. I'd want to frustrate and flabbergast her with this one. "God's changing all the time. A few hundred years ago, women couldn't be ministers, but now they can be." "Honey," she'd say, too patiently for me to believe she was just trying to keep her temper -- so much it would make me want to chew the phone cord in half, "that's not God changing. That's people's minds. Yes, women can be ordained now, but skirt lengths have also changed in my lifetime. And even though our society has, for the most part, evolved into acceptance of these new ideas, that doesn't mean anything in relation to the immutability of God. Next year skirt lengths will probably change again. And the death sentence and abortion and drugs and the purpose of education will be hotly debated until after I die, too. But even if everyone suddenly agrees and the debate ends, it doesn't mean the solution was right or wrong -- not on any universal level. It just means we've reached consensus. And consensus is not Truth: it's merely justification." And then I'd hang up. In my mind, at least. She always has to be right. And using words like "immutable." She'd change this into a religious discussion when it's really just about me living my life. __________ Drinking the cooling, last thick bit of cocoa, I take the mug to the kitchen and place it gingerly in the sink. As I return to the rocker, I pick up the phone and pull the slack cord from around behind the table, resting the phone in my lap, then closing my eyes to the music. One of those planes goes over and until the jet is ten miles away the only sound is the bombardment of waves of nothing against the ground -- like intentions tumbling and smashing from hopeless heights. I've missed part of my favorite song, but it doesn't matter: I have the feeling I'll be sitting here long enough to hear it come around again. I don't want to be in there, with him, not now. I don't want to go anywhere, do anything. Just sit and think about nothing, not even memories, and let things fall into place invisibly while I'm totally unawares. It takes doing that every now and then to keep going. The sounds of him getting up, then a groan as he goes to the bathroom without shutting the door because he never shuts the door. I crane my neck and see him emerge from the bathroom in only his t-shirt now, pausing long enough to put some underwear on and open the window for the cool breeze before going back to bed. He'll be out all night. Of course she'll call back. Leaving a message on a machine wouldn't satisfy her, and it doesn't tell her what I'm thinking. So go ahead and ring. I have some wisdom for you, too, Mom. You see, no one has what they want now. You have to be patient, because good things come to those who wait. +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Tower 147 D.G. Harris Murray picked up a bottle of Knob Creek. He sat it back down on the dusty wooden table. He had on a heavy fur lined down jacket, and still the cold got in. Rob unscrewed the cap and took down a healthy glug. "Damn, that's good." "There's another, and a case of beer," said Murray. "Been saving the whiskey for something special, but I figure that ain't no more special occasion than tonight." Rob winced slightly on the words. He had another hit. He stared out through the tower screen, out over the endless vista of cold green sunset Oregon forest way out to the distant cascades. "How long you been a smoke spotter?" asked Rob. Murray kicked his feet up on the edge of the table. He scratched at his beard. "Oh, let's see now, this is my 9th season working for the park service. Worked for the BLM in Idaho a few years before that. Only job I ever heard of where you can sit around and get stoned. If you can handle not seeing hardly another human being outside of the general store over in Ashland for months on end. It's a pretty fair deal." "I done this for 3 seasons myself and I don't mind them putting 2 people to a tower now one bit. Gets boring staring out at that sea uh wood all day long. Nice to be able to share the load with someone else." "Seems stupid to me," said Murray. " I done called in about 30 fires in my 9 seasons. The way I figure it, you don't have to be looking out hardly at all. Seems to me once you been doing it a while that you just get the feeling. You could be taking a piss over the tower edge facing the wrong way and you'd just know there was something sneaking up from the other direction. You'd feel it. You could be asleep. You could be stoned into a coma and you'd know." "Maybe I just ain't done it long enough," said Rob. "Yeah, maybe so." Rob checked his watch. "It's a quarter to 7. Sun will be heading down soon. You think we'll see it when it happens?" Murray sighed. "We'll see it." He stood and stepped to the downstairs ladder. When he returned he had more beer. "Let's see how many of these we can kill before it happens." Rob didn't say anything. He popped a beer and took it all down. Murray did the same. Dozens of moments passed in silence. "You think it'll hurt?" asked Rob quiet. "Too quick. Don't think it will a bit." "You gotten hold of anybody on the Ham?" "Not since yesterday morning," said Murray. "But the last regular a.m. broadcast said it be up our way about 7 tonight. A few minutes till. That was yesterday morning too. Ain't been nothing but static over the ham or the radio since then." Rob closed his eyes but aimed them at the ceiling. "They're all gone, ain't they?" "Yep," replied Murray. Like a sigh. Like a leaf fallen down slow from somewhere way high. "Who woulda thought," began Rob. "Who woulda thought." Murray lit up 2 smokes. Handed one to Rob. "Man fucks around," said Murray. "Makes things that even nature can't. Man's always fucking around." Rob picked up a pair and poured both into him. Murray drank the beer slow, but finished off the good stuff quicker. Robs head began to float. "I ain't gonna look." "You wont have to. You'll know anyway." "It's coming up on 7." "Yep." Rob picked up and quickly drank down half the 2nd bottle of the Creek. He immediately puked all over the floor. "Man, you got to slow down." "Ain't no time to slow down." Murray watched smoke rings blur up and around the lone bulb hung from the ceiling. A rush of wind breathed through the far off forest. He sat up."It's here." Rob stiffened. His eyes burst wide. "What? How do you know?" "It's like a clear fire. Like invisible smoke. And it's moving in fast. Real fast." Rob looked out. He looked at his hands. He looked at his boots. "I can't see it. Don't want to see it." Murray finished off the 2nd bottle of sweet brown. "I like drinking," he said. "Always liked being alone. Don't dig people all that much. But Rob, I'm glad you're here." Now, Rob could hear it. Now he could know it. He tried to light a smoke trembling fiercely. "Here, let me," offered Murray. The forest began to bend. The trees began to be skeletons. They began to be dust. They were dust. Ferns in the understory withered and blew apart. A slight fog came in, between the trees and everything. "Here it comes," said Murray. "Just like a fire. Rob stood and stood at the opposite tower screen, facing away. Murray was watching. "Look at that baby come. Saw a fire move once like this. Only once. Had this storm of summer wind to push it.." The moss hanging on the eaves began to wither and break up. Rob heard a gurgling sound behind him. A bottle crashed to the floor. He winced. He just didn't want it to hurt. +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ About the Authors Amanda Auchter currently works as an editorial assistant at the Gulf Coast literary magazine. She is completing a degree in creative writing from the University of Houston. Her writing credits include poetry and short stories in Benchmark, Carillon Magazine, Coffee Press Journal, The Moriarty Papers, Rearview Quarterly, Red Booth Review, Shadow Voices, Southern Ocean Review, The Wolf Head Quarterly, Wilmington Blues, Write On!!, and others. She has also published with Sun Poetic Times, who selected lines from her poem .Omniscience. to appear in the 2003 Poets Market. She has published a novel, Burning Sins to Ashes (2000, Writer's Club Press) and has won several awards for journalism and personal writing, and was a 2001 Helios featured poet. At present, she is at work on a second novel. Keith Felberg was born in Kodiak, Alaska in 1976. His father was a Bush-Pilot and a Game Warden, his mother a teacher. More recently he has spent time in the South-West, Europe, and Asia. Currently writes music for his band projectmajestic.com, and teaches English. Enjoys Travel, Music, and Binge Drinking. Elise Geither has had poems published in The Mill, Slant, The Artful Dodge, Whiskey Island, and The Blue Review, among others. Her short plays, "Zephyr House" and "The Poet's Box" were produced in 2001. "Zephyr House" was a finalist and placed at Lamia Ink! in NYC. Her experimental play "The Angel - A Poetic Interview" received a staged reading at Cabaret Dada's Black Box Theatre in Cleveland. In November 2002, Elise traveled to Fuling, China, to complete the adoption of her daughter, Chloe. Elise continues to write and teaches at Baldwin-Wallace College. "Inspiration is in the poets around us." jj goss resides with her husband in central Massachusetts. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in publications such as Happy, The New England Writers Journal, Net Authors E2K, Babel, Branches Quarterly, Amarillo Bay, Lummox, 52%, Copious Lightening Bell, Writer's Monthly, Poetry Superhighway, Entropic Desires, Red Booth Review, Sometimes City, Seeker, Kimera, Eclectica, Blindman.s Rainbow, Unlikely Stories and Slow Trains. Her short story, "Missing a Beat," was nominated for a 2001 Pushcart Prize. D.G. Harris writes in bars and has been doing it for the last couple of years. He's gotten a few hundred works knocked out in late night, smoke laden rooms. In his words, "It really is the only way." He was born and raised in So. Cal., and he's just hoping to stay alive or at least keep off the streets long enough to make a little cash. "It's a tough profession in a tough world. But it's the only one to be in. In the mean time I'll light up a smoke, have another beer, and see if I can get this damn pen to put out one more." Dean Kostos is the author of the collection The Sentence that Ends with a Comma and the chapbook Celestial Rust. He co-edited the anthology Mama's Boy: Gay Men Write about Their Mothers, a Lambda Book Award finalist. His poems have appeared in Boulevard, Chelsea, Rattapallax, Southwest Review, Barrow Street, Poetry New York, Oprah Winfrey's Web site Oxygen, Blood and Tears (anthology) and elsewhere. His translations from the Modern Greek have appeared in Talisman and Barrow Street, his reviews in American Book Review, Bay Windows and elsewhere. "Box-Triptych," his choreo-poem, was staged at La Mama. He has taught poetry writing at Pratt University, Gotham Writers' Workshop, Teachers & Writers Collaborative and The Great Lakes Colleges Association. Kelly Ann Malone is the mother of three active boys. She also has a wonderful husband and a full time job as a Project Analyst in a Cancer Research Department in the health care industry. She has been writing since she was around twelve years old. Her poetic influences are Ogden Nash, Dorothy Parker and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Some of her published credits include York University's School of Women's Studies Journal, Cappers Magazine, The Rearview Quarterly, The Penwood Review, The Wesleyan Advocate Magazine, Free-Verse Magazine, The Street Corner magazine, Promise Magazine, Poems Niederngasse.com and Pulsar Ligden Poetry Society. Elisha Porat, the 1996 winner of Israel's Prime Minister's Prize for Literature, has published 17 volumes of fiction and poetry in Hebrew since 1973. His works have appeared in translation in Israel, the United States, Canada and England. The English translation of his short story collection The Messiah of LaGuardia, was released in 1997. His latest work, a book of Hebrew poetry, The Dinosaurs of the Language, was recently published in Israel. Eric Prochaska teaches English in South Korea. "Thunder on a Clear Day" (Volume 10, Issue 1) is part of a collection started several years ago and recently completed. Aside from The Morpo Review, Eric's short stories have appeared in such places as InterText, Eclectica, Wilmington Blues, Fictive, Comrades, ReadTheWest, The Sidewalk's End, Palimpsest, Dakota House Journal, The Tumbleweed Review, The Woolly Mammoth, Split Shot, and Moondance. Durlabh Singh is a poet based in London, England and has been published widely in anthologies, magazines and in e/media. He has four books of verse published, the latest being CHROME RED (ISBN 1898030464) His aim is to revitalize English poetry with new expressions. +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Subscribe to The Morpo Review We offer two types of subscriptions to The Morpo Review: = ASCII subscription You will receive the full ASCII text of TMR delivered to your electronic mailbox when the issue is published. Send a blank e-mail message to the following address to subscribe to the ASCII list: morpo-subscribe@yahoogroups.com To unsubscribe from this list, send a blank e-mail message to: morpo-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com = Notification subscription You will receive only a small note in e-mail when the issue is published detailing where you can obtain a copy of the issue. 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