The Sigma Tau Delta Rectangle Journal of Creative Writing Sigma Tau Delta International English Honor Society Volume 89, 2014 Editor of Publications: Karlyn Crowley Associate Editors: Rachel Gintner Kacie Grossmeier Anna Miller Production Editor: Rachel Gintner St. Norbert College De Pere, Wisconsin Honor Members of Sigma Tau Delta Chris Abani Katja Esson Erin McGraw Kim Addonizio Mari Evans Marion Montgomery Edward Albee Anne Fadiman Kyoko Mori Julia Alvarez Philip José Farmer Scott Morris Rudolfo A. Anaya Robert Flynn Azar Nafisi Saul Bellow Shelby Foote Howard Nemerov John Berendt H.E. Francis Naomi Shihab Nye Robert Bly Alexandra Fuller Sharon Olds Vance Bourjaily Neil Gaiman Walter J. Ong, S.J. Cleanth Brooks Charles Ghigna Suzan-Lori Parks Gwendolyn Brooks Nikki Giovanni Laurence Perrine Lorene Cary Donald Hall Michael Perry Judith Ortiz Cofer Robert Hass David Rakoff Henri Cole Frank Herbert Henry Regnery Billy Collins Peter Hessler Richard Rodriguez Pat Conroy Andrew Hudgins Kay Ryan Bernard Cooper William Bradford Huie Mark Salzman Judith Crist E. Nelson James Sir Stephen Spender Jim Daniels X.J. Kennedy William Stafford James Dickey Jamaica Kincaid Lucien Stryk Mark Doty Ted Kooser Amy Tan Ellen Douglas Ursula K. Le Guin Sarah Vowell Richard Eberhart Li-Young Lee Eudora Welty Timothy Egan Valerie Martin Jessamyn West Dave Eggers David McCullough Jacqueline Woodson Delta Award Recipients Richard Cloyed Elizabeth Holtze Elva Bell McLin Sue Yost Beth DeMeo Elaine Hughes Isabel Sparks Bob Halli E. Nelson James Kevin Stemmler Copyright © 2014 by Sigma Tau Delta All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Sigma Tau Delta, Inc., the International English Honor Society, William C. Johnson, Executive Director, Department of English, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois 60115-2863, U.S.A. The Sigma Tau Delta Rectangle is published annually in April with the continuing generous assistance of Northern Illinois University (DeKalb, IL) and St. Norbert College (De Pere, WI). Publication is limited to members of Sigma Tau Delta. Members are entitled to a one-year subscription upon payment of the initial fee. The subsequent annual subscription rate is ten dollars (U.S.). Sigma Tau Delta is a member of the Association of College Honor Societies. 2013–2014 Writing Awards for The Sigma Tau Delta Review and The Sigma Tau Delta Rectangle Judson Q. Owen Award for Best Piece Overall Megan Tilley “Flowering” Frederic Fadner Critical Essay Award Alex Muller “‘Aggressive Disintegration in the Individual’: A Lacanian Study of Signification and the Destruction of Self in Shakespeare’s King Lear” Eleanor B. North Poetry Award Virginia Pfaehler “The Heaviest Postcard” E. Nelson James Poetry Award Joshua Jones “Repairs” Herbert Hughes Short Story Award Megan Tilley “Flowering” Elizabeth Holtze Creative Nonfiction Award Elisabeth Schmitt “Saving Abe” Judge for Writing Awards CHRISTINA SHEA received her B.A. from Kenyon College and her M.F.A. from the University of Michigan. She is the author of two novels, Moira’s Crossing (Grove P, 2001) and Smuggled (Gallery Books, 2011). Some of her awards include the Barnes & Noble Discover New Writers Selection, a Mary Ingraham Bunting Institute Fellowship, and a Soros Foundation Grant. She is on the faculty of Lesley University’s M.F.A. Program in Creative Writing. Shea lives with her husband and children in Boston. Contents The Sigma Tau Delta Rectangle, Volume 89, 2014 Poetry The Heaviest Postcard 9 Virginia Pfaehler Eleanor B. North Poetry Award Repairs 10 Joshua Jones E. Nelson James Poetry Award Seeing Spots 11 Andrew Chenevert A Ghost with Four Names 12 Chelsea Ortego Working Titles 14 Linnea Nelson Elegy 16 Linnea Nelson Girldolls 18 Catherine Kyle Post-partum 20 Julia Petrich grandpa, the cowboy 22 Julia Petrich My Being Here on the Benefit of Drugs 24 Quinn Gilman-Forlini Cultural and Personal 26 Crystal Stone Anonymity 28 Jamie Berilla-Macdonald Culicidae 29 Martha Paterson My Dearest Mountain, Living Memory & Master, My Text 30 Chelsea Kachman Summoning 34 C. Michael Downes Half-caste 36 Jessica Perez-Jackson Creative Non-Fiction Saving Abe 39 Elisabeth Schmitt Elizabeth Holtze Creative Nonfiction Award The Visit 44 Jiordan Castle The Stars 49 Connie Chan On Time 52 Jordan Kelly Just the Two of Us 57 Bunny Arlotti Reflections of a Kuwaiti Ex Libris 62 Ayat Al-Bloushi Unspoken Parentheses 67 Kathryn Baumgartner Two-Wheeled Freedom 74 Tyler Auffhammer The Abstract Human 78 Sarah Towle An Exposition of Death 85 Sara Tickanen Short Fiction Flowering 92 Megan Tilley Herbert Hughes Short Story Award Judson Q. Owen Award for Best Piece Overall The Ins and Outs of a Death-Defying Trick 99 Sean Pessin The Cure 103 Juliana Goodman The Sentimentalists 110 Aidan Ryan The Family 118 Kirkland Back A Progression 121 Margaret Yapp The Adventure of Kid Bill Williams 127 Jamal Michel Soundless 131 Jiweon Seo Poetry The Heaviest Postcard Repairs Seeing Spots A Ghost with Four Names Working Titles Elegy Girldolls Post-partum grandpa, the cowboy My Being Here on the Benefit of Drugs Cultural and Personal Anonymity Culicidae My Dearest Mountain, Living Memory & Master, My Text Summoning Half-caste 9 The Heaviest Postcard Virginia Pfaehler Alanna, you remember walking through the market nibbling sandies. We stooped to pet dogs made lazy by summer’s palm closing over the peninsula. She cupped us gently, like you used to hold water. The lady making sweetgrass baskets had my name, or I had hers, and she told us they were remarkable because the more submerged the basket was in water, the tighter the weave became. You’ve been in the desert so long, Alanna, where the air holds only dust. Do you still remember how in the flood the basket’s brim and the wave’s crest were the same? Virginia Lee Pfaehler is a senior at Columbia College, Columbia, SC, where she majors in Literary Studies and minors in Religion. She is the current Co-President of her Sigma Tau Delta Chapter, a classroom partner for the First Year Writing Program, and an editor of the college’s literary magazine, The Criterion. After she graduates in May 2014, Virginia plans to pursue her M.F.A. in Creative Writing. 10 Repairs Joshua Jones The river diverted, and among the bones and bricks, they found an arm thrust up from the black silt floor. A bit of shovel-work discovered a god attached. Tiber himself dredged out of himself. No long locks, but clearly a beard scraped off, only a trail left too rough to make out where it fell on his chest. Michelangelo, come to see the workmen about a model for Adam, was asked to make repairs. He caked the loam in wavy veins from neck to waist and knotted it at the bottom. “Is that how it looked?” “No, but that’s the way I saw him.” Joshua Jones is a recent graduate of Houston Baptist University’s Honors College program, getting his B.A. in English. He is currently pursuing his M.F.A. in Poetry at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, where he helps out with Write on the Dot, a community reading series. He is excited to have this second publication in The Rectangle and thankful for all the help Sigma Tau Delta has given him. 11 Seeing Spots Andrew Chenevert Doc I’m seein’ spots is a common way in old vaudeville programs to indicate illness, stress, general wear; a cause for alarm. Any doctor today will tell you that the condition comes from the eye’s vitreous gel snapping off naturally with aging. Totally harmless, they say. We’ve now reached the narrative’s unspooling. At the word harmless, the crowd can release enough breath to fill a balloon. Death’s flexed muscles deflate, or pop. Harmless drops fall off the actor’s face, like sweat flicked by the back of a hand. A dance number always follows with limbs levitating over tables, and a song to toss off heavy burdens. No one thinks a more accurate word is inevitable. The first sign of rotting you can see: your vision growing cobwebs, preparing for the mind to become an empty room. Our theater unpacks into the street. Ushers inside sweep at the debris. Andrew Chenevert recently received his B.A. in Creative Writing from Lesley University, Cambridge, MA. He currently lives in Boston where he does volunteer work for the Boston Poetry Union and its small press imprint Pen & Anvil. He plans on pursuing his M.F.A. in Creative Writing. 12 A Ghost with Four Names Chelsea Ortego My name is Isabel, a haunt. I am a magnificent holding-the-door-man, Isabel. I fought the Spanish War and knew the world red; and I am a gypsy And my name is Isabel and Francesco, and I knew you when you were soft like a peach. My name is eroded mountains, kicked up by the horses’ hooves, and I am there— Isabel, Francesco, Maria, riding the air, haunting my own. I am a Jew, and a TV repairman—Maria, a haunt (who has lost the shapes taped off in the stars). I am walking this house, and you can watch if you cannot sleep—but then you are the specter. I am Isabel, leaving maps for you (in the walls). I threw the body. I haunt my own, as you pretend I am not watching you come and go. I ate bread with the Lord, fought for La Patria— I am an infant’s mellow dream—fisherman of Greece— Guillermo. I met the Kennedy’s in Grand Isle and burned down the house because of all the straw. 13 And the secret is this: that the leaves will lay themselves open like pages— No, like warm, flowering whores if you whisper to them, “I am Isabel, Francesco, Maria, Guillermo and I haunt my own,” and their undersides have maps for days.