Car Trouble by Robert Rorke (fiction, ’10)

An excerpt from the novel Car Trouble, by Robert Rorke (fiction, ’10) from Harper Perennial Paperback Original:

From Car Trouble

One Sunday morning a few weeks later, we came down to breakfast and found Himself slumped on the kitchen floor, back against the white enameled oven door. Mom leaned against the sink, sipping a cup of coffee in her pink flannel nightgown, and looked down at him, as if trying to figure out how she was going to lift him—or if she was just going to leave him there.

He was conked out. If you screamed in his ear, he wouldn’t have heard you. We’d found him passed out before, usually at the kitchen table, but never on the floor. Did he fall off the kitchen chair? He looked like the guys you saw on the Bowery. How do you come home like that, so drunk you just collapse? I didn’t want to see him like that and almost went back to my room until Mom hustled him upstairs.

I waited with my sisters in the dining room for the okay to walk in. Mom put the coffee cup down and waved us over. I went

firstMom lit a cigarette on the gas burner and took a long drag on it. “She’s all yours,” she said, pointing.

As shocked as we were to see Himself in such bad shape, the bigger surprise was the dog. She was reclining next to his bent left leg, a tricolor collie blinking at us in the most bewilderedway, as if she were waiting for us to tell her what she was doing here, in our kitchen. She was really very striking, even beautiful. Her coat was mainly black. Her forelegs were brown, her paws and chest white. Her snout was longer and narrower than most collies, with a thin stripe of white in the brown. It gave her a slightly aristocratic air. In this house she was going to need it.

Like me, my sisters were half-asleep. Ringlets of damp hair stuck to their necks and temples.

Maureen immediately knelt to pet the dog. “Look at you,” she said into the dog’s confused, melancholy face. She looked up at Mom. “Where’d she come from?”

“Your father brought her home from a bar. Where else? Who wants coffee?”

The aroma of a freshly perked pot filled the kitchen. I raised my hand. “I do.”

Maureen glanced at Dad. “He’s really smelly, Mom.”

I didn’t plan to get that close. A thread of drool hung from his lip, a pack of Pall Malls crushed in his shirt pocket. I checked the clock over the kitchen window. Eight a.m.

Maureen gently unbent his leg to free the animal. Now Dad was sitting with his legs spread out in front of him, blocking the way to the sink. Standing on his other side, Mom poured coffee into cups that she took from the drainboard and passed them over Dad’s head to Dee Dee, who put them on the table.

“Let’s get her some water,” Maureen said. Mom filled a Tupperware cereal bowl and passed it to Maureen. The collie lapped up half of it and then reclined on the floor next to Himself, crossing her front paws. Master and pet, in repose.

“Ooh, she’s such a lady,” I said. “Definitely not the saloon sort. What did he say when he brought her in?”

“What was there to say?” Mom said, flustered. “He opened the door and said, ‘I got something here for the kids.’ I looked out at the front porch and there she was.”

Having the dog there made it possible to overlook Himself, as if he were a sofa too cumbersome to move.

“Well, she’s pretty and that’s nice,” Patty said. “What’s her name?”

“I don’t know if she has one,” Mom said, wiping her glasses on a hand towel. “I think that’s up to you kids.”

We all looked at her.

“Well, we could name her after the bar where he found her,” I said.

Maureen shot me a rueful look. “Like what? Dew Drop.”

“We are not naming her Dew Drop,” said Patty. “Don’t be such an ass.”

“No, I think we’ll name her Queenie,” Maureen said.

She was always so pushy. “Hey, who says you get to decide?” I asked.

Mom took a ratty leather harness off the closet doorknob and handed it to Maureen. “Before you worry about giving her a name, why don’t you get dressed and take her out for a walk? Your father swore she was housetrained.”

We threw our clothes on and walked the dog together, the five of us. Me, Maureen, Patty, and our two youngest sisters, Dee Dee and Mary Ellen. I found my sneakers under the couch in the living room and helped Maureen put the harness on the dog. I felt the hairless skin under her coat. Himself was grum- bling on the kitchen floor.

“Go on now, while I get him up to bed,” Mom said.

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“The Salt” by Peter Schireson (poetry, ’17)

The poem, “The Salt” by Peter Schireson (poetry, ’17), from the chapbook of the same of the name,  from Unsolicited Press and available at Amazon in paper and Kindle.

 

The Salt

I set out to attain nothing more
than myself, and before long,
had no money
and only one tooth,
the price I paid
to locate this exotic kingdom,
where mud-caked holy men
wander barefoot from place
to arduous place,
where the people need salt,
find it in the sea, call
what we call sea, “The Salt,”
and sing, “Let us walk
along the shore of The Salt.”
Yes, that will be the title.

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What Luck, This Life, by Kathryn Schwille (fiction ‘99),

An excerpt from the novel, What Luck, This Life, by Kathryn Schwille (fiction ‘99), published in September by Hub City Press.
(pub date: Sept. 18) Used by permission of Hub City Press. This section originally appeared in New Letters

What Luck, This Life

She was a bit of a free spirit, his wife. Not your run-of-the-mill preacher’s mate. Pastor Will Simpson knew his congregation, some of them, at least, thought Holly MacFarland and her long wild hair had brushed against the devil’s ways. Her first husband had turned out to be gay. Also, there was her yoga studio, a shady bit of spiritual business. The members of Spring Creek Baptist might have chosen differently for the second wife of Pastor Simpson, but he loved her with all his heart.

Holly had closed her yoga studio – Kiser could not support it – but a little group of them still met on Saturdays, here at the house. Soon they would be coming up the walk in their flowing tops and unfettered pants. Simpson still had tomorrow’s sermon to write, and this presented a problem. Before the yoga, the women would talk, and they would take over the den, which had the most floor space but also his favorite chair. He’d typed a few words from Job on his laptop screen: His wealth will become hunger. Thanksgiving was next week.

            Simpson had married Holly on the rebound, his critics would say, two years after her divorce. She had come into the marriage with a large, stubborn pony and a smart but troubled boy. It seemed to Simpson that he’d spent his whole short marriage trying to connect with the child. He loved Frankie but was relieved when, after totaling Holly’s car in a wreck a year ago – the day after Thanksgiving – Frankie had moved to Houston to live with his father. That left Simpson and Holly with most of this year to themselves. He’d expected it to be different.

            The pony was still with them and Simpson could see him from the den window, staring at his pasture when he should have been eating from it. Drought had brought Texas to its knees; the fields were devoid of grass. There was no hay anywhere in the state, a drought like this not seen since the fifties. Rosco’s new diet was all processed, too expensive by far, and still he was chewing on the fence posts.

Holly came into the room and spread out her yoga mat. Simpson helped her move the coffee table to a corner. “I’m sorry honey,” she said. “You mind going in the kitchen?”

He could smell her shampoo in the damp frizz around her shoulders, a grapefruit scent that wouldn’t linger, though he would not have minded if it did. When they were first married, they would take long showers together and his fingers would be greedy for the slick, lathered abundance of her hair. Soaping her bottom, or her breast, he would wonder how Wes MacFarland could not have wanted her, the way any normal man would. His early sex with her was ferocious, desperate and frequent. She was the most exciting woman he’d ever been with, and she had competition in that regard. Simpson was tall, and some said handsome, dark auburn hair when he was young, a slender build going only a little soft now. He had answered the call later than most.

Holly set a portly beige candle in the center of the room and lit it. Now he smelled sandalwood, which he disliked. “Seems like a nice day,” he said. “I’ll go hide out at the church.” He didn’t have an office there – the church was too small for that – but it was a warm fall day and there was a bench by the cemetery.

“If you hadn’t left it to the last minute,” she said. “You weren’t even teaching this week.”

“I know.”

This was old territory. He procrastinated about the sermons. He was a part-time minister; pastoral inspirations came and went as they pleased. His other job, substitute teacher, came and went, too. The teachers had been remarkably healthy this year, with no emergency surgeries or problem pregnancies. He wouldn’t wish the flu on anyone, but he could wish for the women – the married ones, of course – to be more fertile.

“I’m a sloth. And you’re a good preacher’s wife.”

“So they tell me. What are you writing this week?”

“About hunger, I think.”

“Mmm. Nice.” She gave him the smile that said, I’m about to ask you for something. Her usual smile was girl-next-door-bright, like a model in an outdoor catalog. This other displayed the slightest tension at the corners. He often wondered if Wes MacFarland had found her so telegraphic.

“Could you stop by the feed store?” she asked.

“Again?”

“He has to eat. There’s nothing in his –” she hesitated. “Nothing in his pasture.” When he met her, she would occasionally curse. Nothing in his damn pasture.

“Poor guy. So more alfalfa pellets. How many bags?”

“How many can we afford? He’s going through one a week.”

Simpson had not yet told her that his church salary would be fifteen percent less next year. The Great Recession, as people were calling it now, plus the drought, had bit deeply. Collections were down and the deacons had been firm. He could hardly complain. Some in his congregation had lost their jobs. The salary cut, when he got around to telling her, would trigger a round of frugal, meatless meals. She felt guilty that her job at the furniture store, tied to commissions, paid so little.

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Two Poems by Daniel Jenkins (poetry, ’18)

Two Poems by Daniel Jenkins (poetry, ’18) from the Tupelo 30/30:

 

 

From Daniel:

I loved everything about writing for Tupelo Press’s 30/30 Project this past August. Yes. I did have a mental breakdown. But who wouldn’t? Writing poems on demand was, well, demanding. After a conversation about love poems with some of my closest friends from Warren Wilson, I decided embrace an insane virtual tour of the world through the voice of a speaker searching for a lost love. This involved a ton of research on place and culture. Wow. Not only did it bring closer to the world at large, but to my little world here. After a while, the majestic and mysterious swallowed me whole, stretched my imagination. One stop included Mountain River Cave in Vietnam—the largest in the world. Once the poem appeared on the Tupelo 30/30 blog, I received a friend request from a girl who worked as a tour guide for  Mountain River Cave. My favorite experience came when writing poems for friends who’d donated to support my campaign. I wrote about destinations and themes important to them, which was much more satisfying. I feel I grew closer to everyone. I loved every second. These are just some of the many reasons I’m grateful to Tupelo for the opportunity to write for thirty days. I heard faculty tell us to write immediately after graduation. Well, it worked.

On the two poems—In March 2017, I started taking pictures of my boring food and writing absurd and hyperbolic descriptions of them. We all found this funny, and soon the joke caught on. It brought people joy. That’s why I loved doing it. “Cook-Out on Tunnel Road” was based on my last Cook-Out visit with Jodie Free before graduating. The second, ” Dvīpa Sukhadhara,” is about Socotra Island, one of the most unique places on the planet. Over 33% of plant life, and a few strands of DNA, are found only on Socotra.

Cook-Out on Tunnel Road
Asheville, North Carolina

What I meant when I said hushpuppy
was this: oil-baked bread-crusted dinner donut,
half-dozen’d, splashed with shredded
leaf globe, or what you call home-made slaw.
Words were not enough—so I said, stuffed
in a styrofoam cup, cold cow tit cream,
brightly-iced powder cane, lactose whip,
polystyrene drink. I should’ve just said milkshake,
but I didn’t, and you said thinly-grated swine saucer
in red pepper paint—a barbecue pork plate—
or instead of onion rings you said ringed white
pungent-fruit fry-breaded, or when I tried
to say potato-sheaved fry double-dozen’d—
why the fuck didn’t I just say French fries?—
French fries aren’t French. In lapses of absence,
of presence, glades, hazes, ourselves sunk
by slight indulgence, dizzied beyond by words,
let’s just say filets of flightless bird,
twice salted, instead of chicken breast,
or just say wine instead of sulfide-derided
vine juice. Good things time-capsuled,
and we will mean it’s okay, it’s going to be okay.
I know another two dozen suns is a day.
I know it. It brings merciful, forgiving shade.

  for Jodie Free 

Dvīpa Sukhadhara
Socotra Archipelago

The clefts and caves in the steeper drops
to the water, somewhere once called very good,
a relief from the shades, some eternal
effect of self-knowledge, Socotra—word a brazen

arrow swiftly flung from Sanskrit, meaning,
island supporting bliss. The rhetoric of her waves,
the hills billow the down-cone tops of trees,
kindled roots in the air, pores opened for Thomas

the apostle, his finger jabbing at his side
to show the space between two ribs the centurion
pierced Christ. Thomas in tatters, waving a staff,
recalled his face-falling, crying, my savior

and my god! Once Thomas left, a stone hut
stood molten gray, barely holy. I think he left
not from failing faith, but from boredom.
You, however, only came at night, shifting

wisp of claw prints lizard-made, spaces opening
decades: yes, I heard you say, we are quite rare—
you’ll find these genetic lines made nowhere
else. Nothing else but silence. I wait for you, I said,

the fishermen, shepherds and vinedressers
building huts, docks, boats, homes, years and years
still going, still in longest being. On the brown
hills the trees loosened from the dirt and marched

louder than the sultan’s armies or the Portuguese,
and as the down-coned trees sunk into the sea,
leaving their holes, glowing embers in each sprung
to form like marionettes, and from them came

the bones of the dead redressed in skin, in hair,
with lips, with blank eyes. These reformed Socotrans
danced in the basins of unbundled churches,
waiting for the day’s catch, where I prayed you’d be,

tangled up with fish—your throat, mezzo, loosed
to liberating rage, to song and songs sung, of
this free, ageless thrust, glaze of sun dying off
its red haze, giving life, giving life, giving more

than the life I’m a fool to believe is my own
to waste. So—there you were, there kneeling
in the black dirt by the sea, the rocks wiped clean
of briny whitewater, singing to me, plant here

what no one from this time till then plants elsewhere.

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“Lake” by Ethna McKiernan (poetry, ’04)

An excerpt from “Lake” by Ethna McKiernan (poetry, ’04), one of two poems published at Postcards, Poems, and Prose:

Lake

Filmy ribs of light

beneath the surface, swirling

as my calves step in.

Liquid silk immersion, sky above

a calm bowl of blue.

The willow tree on the shore

shaking its arms back and forth.  […continue reading here]

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“Wait Time” by Katie Runde (fiction, ’12)

An excerpt from “Wait Time” by Katie Runde (fiction, ’12) published at Pithead Chapel:

Wait Time

Margot poured her second glass of cabernet. She sat in the screen porch room next to Brian’s room, as attuned to him and his breathing as she had been to her newborn babies, in those weeks when she convinced herself she couldn’t be trusted to keep them alive. She listened to Liz and Evy breathe in those weeks, waiting in a half-second of panic for each exhale. She breathed in their warm talc and milk heads, and breathed in and out to gather herself for a second when she want to scream at the ugly three-am wake-ups and the long, low cries of loneliness or hunger they let out, and she breathed in the smell of brewing coffee, the only thing that separated night from day.

Seventeen years after those babies, Margot listened to the labored letting-go of their dad, to the slight wheeze and little hum, the occasional sigh that signaled either temporary relief or awe at the constant dreams that were blurring into the end for him; she couldn’t tell which and he couldn’t tell her.

When Liz told Margot she was meeting her friend Kaylee tonight, Margot knew she was lying. She never hung out with Kaylee. But she did a quick risk-benefit analysis, taking into consideration her own depleted capacity for thinking ahead and the chances that Liz would give her that death-stare she had been perfecting lately that seemed to pierce every cell in Margot’s body if she said no. She had a feeling Liz was going to meet the guy she had been hanging around with from work, who she also knew about despite her daughter’s efforts to keep him a secret. Margot considered the inevitable, awful truth that Liz would eventually have sex with someone, someday, and the not-all-that-reassuring fact that she had at least gotten an A in her Sex Ed unit of health class. The blank, Lexapro-induced Zen state she had been operating in since May that dampened any panic took over, and she’d let her go. Evy was out too, and she realized she hadn’t even asked her where she was going. […continue reading here]

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“On World-Making” BY Nomi Stone (poetry, ’17)

An excerpt from “On World-Making” BY Nomi Stone (poetry, ’17) published at Poetry Foundation:

On World-Making

To love is to tell the story of the world.     There was
an ocean with a boat     mountains     a meadow     too painful to stare
at directly. Haven’t I been here before? Yes.     No:     not quite here.
“It is not as if,” the philosopher writes, “an I exists
independently over here and then simply loses a you over there.”
In the mist, a man rigs the Suzelle, little red boat.
Loved labored for months, learning to tie the right knot. The exact
and only knot that will keep the vessel tethered. She rehearsed
for the worst possible thing. “The attachment to you,” it is written,
“is part of what composes who I am.” I know/knew
those hands, hers. I watched her dust the sourdough with flour […continue reading here]
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Angela Narciso Torres (poetry, ’09) interviews Dilruba Ahmed (poetry, ’09)

An excerpt from an interview with Dilruba Ahmed (poetry, ’09), conducted by Angela Narciso Torres (poetry, ’09), and published at NER:

NER poet Dilruba Ahmed (“Underground,” NER39.2) talks with Editorial Panel member Angela Narciso Torres about public acts of resistance and private acts of opposition, the music and mystery of her own mother’s poetry, and the wonder of a new collaboration with an old friend.

Angela Narciso Torres: Like many of the poems in your poetry collection, Dhaka Dust, “Underground” addresses contemporary social issues while also being deeply rooted in history. Can you talk more specifically about the origins and the historical/societal context that gave rise to this poem?

Dilruba Ahmed: The word “resistance” has been on my mind recently: what does it mean to engage in very public acts of resistance, such as protests and marches, as well as more subtle or even private acts of opposition? Part of the lesser-known history of the South Asian immigrant community here in the US, for example, includes families organizing fundraisers together to support Bangladesh’s war for independence. Women prepared pounds and pounds of “chana chur” (a spicy and savory snack) in Philadelphia and the tri-state area to sell at a large gathering in Washington, DC, and then sent the proceeds back home. I’m interested in the ways that—particularly during difficult times—a seemingly small act can contribute to a greater purpose. And how those acts, even when they occur in relative isolation, can bind people together toward a common goal.

On a more public level, I only recently learned of my aunts’ participation in anti-government rallies in the ’50s, during a time of Pakistani rule in present-day Bangladesh. Crowds of women involved in the Bengali language movement shouted in the streets, wearing black saris—with even my mother (just a child at that time) swept along in the tide of vocal resistors.

In this particular poem, I was thinking of the various forms of private and public resistance by women under Taliban rule in Afghanistan, and the risks involved. I was interested in conveying the notion of resistance as not only fighting back, but also finding ways to thrive under very difficult circumstances.

When I consider the incredible resurgence of civic engagement of the last two years here in the US, I find it very humbling to dwell on the lives of women in situations like this. Doing so certainly lends some perspective to the present challenge of organizing and/or participating in protests and other calls to action, engaging lawmakers, placing phone calls, etc. in the midst of the demands of work and family, but still within an existence (for many of us) of relative privilege, comfort, and/or freedom. […continue reading here]

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“To Pray Like A Child” by Alicia Jo Rabins (poetry, ’09)

An excerpt from “To Pray Like A Child” by Alicia Jo Rabins (poetry, ’09) published at Awst Press:

To Pray Like A Child

I have flown halfway around the world to be with other Jews. I have dreamed of my first Shabbat in Jerusalem, to be in the Holy City on the holy day.  But I have come first to the Mediterranean port town of Haifa, two hours north, to study Hebrew at the university. And the only hostel in Haifa is a Christian hostel. So my first Shabbat in Israel is a Christian Shabbat.

Friday night, strangers gather in the hostel backyard in our best traveling clothes. We stand in a circle as the hostel desk attendant claps the two challahs together and holds them in the air. “Hamotzi lechem min haaretz. In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ we bless this challah.”

When I was in middle school, many of my friends went to church youth group together on Thursdays after school. When they invited me to join, I begged my parents—there’s nothing about Jesus, I swear—until finally they allowed me to go, though they would not let me wear a cross around my neck—it’s just for fashion, Mom, I swear. I would walk with my friends to the church down the street from our middle school and hold hands in a circle during prayer time. In the warm camaraderie of the linoleum-floored, wood-paneled church basement, I tried to ignore the dull sense that I was not supposed to be there, that I was in some way lying both to the eager teenager leading the youth group and to myself. […continue reading here]

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“Truth” by Rick Bursky (poetry, ’03)

An excerpt from “Truth” by Rick Bursky (poetry, ’03) published at the AGNI blog:

Truth

If George Orwell hadn’t said “myths which are believed in tend to become true,” I would have. And you could probably say the same about truth in a poem: “poems which are believed in tend to become true.” Truth is important but never let it become an obsession. There are more versions of truth than lies.

That something might have actually happened is not the most important part of truth. The emotional truth is what’s critical. With this said, every word I’ve ever written is true. I would swear on a blood-stained bible that each and every one of my poems happened as written…and my fingers are not crossed behind my back.

I used to date a lovely, young lawyer. We would often go SCUBA diving. In a poem, I once wrote: “Kathy…was futzing with her equipment.” She was angered by this line, claimed it never happened. (Imagine, a lawyer lecturing a poet on truth! That’s when I began making notes on what will one day be a book on truth, a book that will become a textbook in the most prestigious law schools.) I tried to explain to her that something didn’t actually have to happen for it to be true. What made the line of poetry true was she could have futzed with her SCUBA gear, and I knew her well enough to know that once we surfaced she was thinking of how she might readjust her equipment—she was thinking of futzing! And a thought is as close as you need to come to action to make something true. Of course, she argued that the entire poem had little to do with reality. I disagreed; the problem was that she was only aware of a small slice of the world. […continue reading here]

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