Milestone : T H E V O I C E S O F E a S T L O S & B E Y O N D W

Milestone : t h e v o i c e s o f e a s t l o s & b e y o n d w

East Los Milestone:

A ng ele s Co lle g e the voices of east los and beyond

Cover Illustrations: Ryan Ito, front cover; Bonnie Chau, back cover East Los Angeles College Bonnie Chau Art 633 Project 5 06.25.07 Summer 2007 Milestone2009_Cover.indd 1 4/17/09 11:16:40 AM Milestone2009.v2.qxd:Milestone2004.qxd 4/28/09 12:00 PM Page 1

M i l e s t o n e : the voices of east los and beyond

East Los Angeles College Monterey Park, California Milestone2009.v2.qxd:Milestone2004.qxd 4/28/09 12:00 PM Page 2

M i l e s t o n e : the voices of east los and beyond

Editor, Advisor Carol Lem Selection Staff College Literary Magazine Editing Class of Spring 2007 & Spring 2008 (English 32) Book Design Trish Glover Photography Christine Moreno Student Artwork Julio Aguilar, Jesse Caleron, Dulce Cerritos, KiKi Chen, Samuel Chen, Kelvin Cheung, Ryan Ito, Yi Ling Lai, Ling Lin, Tracy Liu, Janice Lo, Lisa Mao, Patty Metoki, Fabiola Nava, Susanna Negrete, Ignacio Oliveros, Eddie Ponce, Valerie Samora, Mike Seidel, Lorna Trinh, Ling Ju Yu, and Najera Zaira

East Los Angeles College 1301 Avenida Cesar Chavez Monterey Park, California 91754

Milestone is published by the East Los Angeles College English Department. Material is solicited from students of the college.

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Each Day I Choose From Among The Steepening Reminders

Each day I choose from among the steepening reminders of all I have failed to finish, failed to begin. I open a right-hand cover and read the last page.

Phrases severe and perfect rise before me, wrung from every extremity of joy and sleek-limbed loss. Borges, Sinyavsky, Hadewijch, Sappho, Li Po.

More arrive each week, ink sharp as new hunger.

And these are only the books: the thing already ambered, capable of waiting, turned to words.

— Jane Hirshfield

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Contents

Editor’s Note ...... 7 Sandra Acosta WaitingRoom ...... 9 Sharon Allerson TheAsian Mechanic in Graytown ...... 10 Korean Tea/Offerings ...... 16 Night Sky at Bulgarini’s ...... 17 Monique Alvarado TheWoman Who Rolls Cigars ...... 18 Happy Father’s Day ...... 19 Samuel Dominguez Not to Touch the Sun ...... 21 SunBurn ...... 23 Kali and the Ancient Smoke ...... 25 Jose Galicia Mama Nina ...... 27 Sarai Gonzalez Winter Wedding ...... 28 Joan Goldsmith Gurﬁeld Professor of Ambiguity ...... 29 Louis Herrera In the Basement ...... 33 Walk ...... 34 Carol Lem Library Staff Lounge ...... 36 Louise Leftoff The Gathering ...... 38 Little Bear ...... 40 A Sonnet: Making Stock ...... 41 The Taste of Tears ...... 42 Evidence of Life (A Villanelle) ...... 46 Ernesta Lucero-Irwin EsPorTi ...... 47 Jenssy Martin HighSchool ...... 50 Life of a Woman ...... 51 MyName ...... 52 Adriana Michel After the Morgue…in a car… following her…2008 ...... 53 Haikus ...... 55 Danna Prak Silent But Speaking ...... 57 Unfamiliar Reﬂection ...... 59

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Diana Recouvreur LonelyPlayground ...... 59 Moon Shadow ...... 60 Anywhere U.S.A...... 61 Los Angeles is Burning ...... 62 Luis Rodriguez Fevered Shapes ...... 64 Perhaps ...... 67 Jennifer Romo Synopsis: Let It Be ...... 69 LetItBe ...... 71 Sandra Serrano Moving Closer ...... 84 Karen Stram *$$$ (Starbucks) Story ...... 85 Susan Suntree Rivers ...... 88 Trami Ton White Candles ...... 89 Nature’s Consciousness ...... 90 Evangelina Vasquez A Prayer for my Friend ...... 91 Alhelíes ...... 96 The Persian Rose ...... 99 Michael Venegas Burial ...... 101 The Mirror Distance ...... 103 Nature’s Retelling ...... 108 Paper Plane ...... 109 Dianna Virata All in a Day’s Work ...... 113 Outlaw Torn ...... 116 Contributors’Notes ...... 119

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Jesse Calderon

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Editor’s Note

ooking back over the many years I’ve had the pleasure (and Loften the pain) of getting an issue of Milestone together, I have never been more proud than I am now—perhaps because of having seen it evolve into a professional looking literary journal. I remember the days when a few of our dedicated students from my English 127 (Creative Writing) class would sit around a table and, with sta- plers and freshly typed pages of poems and stories, assemble as many copies as they could with money raised from either a co-op effort or fundraisers. But what has always remained constant are the varied voices of East Los that find a home between the covers—some pass though our doors once and move on with their lives while others return like Luis J. Rodriguez, who in his book, The Republic of East L.A., acknowl- edges Milestone as one of the publications that gave voice to his early work. At a reading here last year, I proudly asked if he would write a blurb for our next issue; instead, he handed me the pages of the two new poems he had just read and simply said,“You can have these.” Like many other poets and writers who began their creative lives like our students—by finding a place such as an East L.A. magazine to respect and honor their community of voices that echo the streets they walk every day, the concerns of family, friends, love, identity,as well as the social/cultural issues, and more recently,the war— Rodriguez, along with Gary Soto, Helena Maria Viramontes, Jimmy Santiago Baca, Denise Chavez, Graciela Limon, to name a few—is one of the many honored voices that give our emerging writers a vision beyond the borders of our campus, hence the title of this year’s issue, Milestone: The Voices of East Los and Beyond. And, indeed, it is a milestone not only for the production and content quality but also for its endurance and longevity. I remember combing through the early issues way back in 1979—when a colleague, the then Milestone adviser, Earl Jaeger, kindly passed the torch on to me. I discovered a small, stapled copy dated 1952. One of the names I came across was Hal Fox, who was a student here and later became an instructor, then the English Department Chair. That’s how I knew him when I was hired in 1977. Seeing his name there gave me pause, for he had recently passed on after retiring to return to his first love, writing and reading; and I thought, yes, this is why we do it, why we keep returning to the page—that face looking back at who we were, are, and might become. I would like to thank those who have contributed to these pages—not only the above mentioned writers who have inspired our emerging voices over the years but also those on the production ground such as Trish Glover, Graphic Arts Designer; members of the

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Art Department, in particular Chris Moreno for her gathering of student art in this issue; members of the English Department: James Kenny,Department Chairperson, and my colleagues on the Milestone Committee—Susan Suntree and Joan Gurfield. I would also like to express my appreciation to those students who helped me launch English 32 (College Literary Magazine Editing) in the spring of 2007. For the first time, we now have a course devoted to both the creative writing and editing process in producing our annual literary journal, Milestone. Thank you, students in the spring 2007 and 2008 classes, for helping me select the pieces for this issue. Congratulations, we did it again!

— Carol Lem, www.carollem.com

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Sandra Acosta | Waiting Room

You swivel from side to side behind a desk, filing folders on a hill where old money charms doctors. Photos of indigenous people on walls, quietly looking pretty, smile eternally with paint on faces and bones through noses. A waiting room is full of people flipping through magazines — An ugly old man demands he be seen. You make him wait his turn, you say, have a seat, sir. Mad eyes laser in on your brown face like you just told him heaven is in Mexico. Blood light narrows in on your soft heart he shouts, Go back to where you came from. Deadness fills the room, its thick walls offer no escape, no climbing trees, no filling buckets with sand you offer the ocean, no chanting red rover, red rover — Your small voice growing like a thundercloud, you finally speak.

Najera Zaira

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Sharon Allerson | The Asian Mechanic in Graytown

“Story?” “Sure, Mom.” She lies down on the bed. “Once upon a time?” “Sure, go for it.” “Once upon a time—” “In a kingdom far, far away?” “Not a kingdom—just a beautiful little town with a beautiful little river running through it. A small dam right below the bridge at Bridge Square created a beautiful little waterfall and on the other side of the river, straight up from the waterfall rose a castle!“ “A castle? You said it wasn’t a kingdom!” “OK, maybe it was actually a factory—but it looked like a castle. Guess what they made there.” “What?” “Chocolate cereal. So, the factory pumped out the best pollution ever—chocolate pollution!” “Isn’t that like where you grew up, Mom?” “Maybe, a little. But it’s different.” “How?” “Remember Bridge Square with the benches and flowers? Right across from the factory?” “Yeah, but Mom—” She looks over at him. “Boring,” he whispers. “But I haven’t told you about the heart.” “What heart?” “The heart that kept pumping and pumping. It was actually the fuel pump for the whole the town.” “Gross.” “Gross? Why? Oh, not a blood–and–guts heart. It was a big metal factory of a heart right in the middle of Bridge Square. The mechanic, who worked at the gas sta- tion next to the factory, always took care of that heart on his way home for lunch.” “That’s Grandpa!”

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“Grandpa? No, this is a story.” “No, that’s Grandpa!” “OK, let’s make him Grandpa, who—on his way home for lunch—always stopped to polish up the metal factory of a heart. Actually, as the town grew, the heart grew, too. It grew and it grew—” “And it blew up the town! In a big explosion! The end.” “No, no explosion. Do you wanna hear this story or not?” “Sure, what happened with the heart, Mom? I’m getting kinda tired.” “That’s the point. You’ll never know what happens because you’ll fall asleep. Your eyelids are getting heavier and heavier. You can’t even—” “Mo-om!” “OK. Time passed, and the mechanic stopped taking care of the heart. The heart was pumping away. Everything was fine. The river flowed. The chocolate pollution kept everyone in the town so happy.” “Like on drugs?” “Kind of.” She readjusts her arm around him. He snuggles in. “So this heart started to have some trouble. It was pumping—but there was this clinking, clunking. And there was this gray exhaust spewing from the valve at the top. Until—” He looks up at her.“Until what?” “This other mechanic came by. He found the latch, opened it, and examined the inside of the heart, trying to figure out what was making the clinking sound.” “Did he find it?” “Not really. He kinda cleaned it out a little, then just stopped. I don’t know why.” “Like Dad?” “Huh?” “Dad used to change the oil in your car and stuff, but then he just stopped.” “Yeah, like that.” “How come he stopped?” “I don’t know. I guess I couldn’t find the tools he needed fast enough. Or maybe I didn’t say thank you. Or I said thank you the wrong way. Or I shouldn’t have said thank you at all.” “He’s so hard to figure out.” She nods. “I used to be scared.” “Of what, honey?”

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“That I’d come home and find my computer chopped in half. Like how he used to cut the fire wood.” “I know what you mean. I used to be afraid that I’d come home, and he would have used the tree trimmer to saw my piano in half.” The boy nods.“Scary, huh?” “Mhmm.” “So that mechanic guy just stopped and never helped the heart again?” “Right. He closed the heart, and that was that. But the big metal heart kept clinking and clunking worse and worse. More time went by, and the clinking got louder, and the clunking got even louder. Soon, no one in town would go near the heart.” “Wow. They were probably afraid it really would explode.” “Maybe.” “Nuke the whole town!” “Hey—Anyway, more and more gray smoke spewed from the valve on top until the sky was gray, the river was gray, the whole town was gray, and no one could even smell the chocolate pollution.” “Wow.” “Then one day, this tall, young Asian mechanic with cool glasses came to town. He crossed the bridge to Bridge Square and noticed that everyone scurried past the big metal heart. You know what he did?” The boy shakes his head. “The handsome, young Asian mechanic with the cool glasses threw back his head and laughed.” “How come?” “He thought they looked so funny running away, I guess.” “Or he thought they were so silly to be afraid?” “Maybe. Anyway, he walked right up to the heart and looked it over. He went over to the trash can and pulled out some newspapers, then rubbed and rubbed the heart with those papers, polishing it until he found –” “What?” “The latch—but he couldn’t open it no matter how hard he pulled, so he took out his pocket knife—” “Is he going to hurt the heart?” “Hurt it? No, he has to get the latch open to check it out, and it was rusted shut.” “Oh.” “He scraped away and then pulled and pulled, and finally the heart opened up.” “Oh.”

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“What do you think he saw?” “Metal blood? Like mercury oozing down the—?” “You play too many video games! No, he found love.” “Love?” “Love dripping from the valves in drops and plops. It made this thick liquid sound: gulump, gulump. The handsome, young Asian mechanic with the cool glasses stuck his head further into the heart, then pulled back—” She makes a face. “Stinky?” the boy asks. “So stinky! He went over to the trash can for more newspapers and wiped and wiped away the sludge.” “The love sludge?” She chuckles.“Yes, love sludge. That’s it all right. Anyway, he examined the heart closely—” “That heart is pretty lucky, huh?” “I guess so. Anyway, the cool, young Asian mechanic took out his pocketknife again and scraped away—gently—just enough for part of the pumping mechanism to pump again!” “He really fixed it?” “Mhmm. He cleaned up the heart with a few more old newspapers and shut the door. With other newspapers, he spent some time rubbing and polishing till at least parts of the heart were shiny again. Then you know what he did?” “What?” “He polished a part of the heart with his shirt sleeve, then leaned closer and kissed the shiny heart.” “He kissed it?” “Mhmm. Then he picked up the dirty papers, threw them in the trash and walked down the road. The end.” “The end? That’s it?” “Yes, he walked and walked and faded away into the sunset—and finally there was a little bit of a sunset again as the wind blew away the gray, and colors came back to Graytown.” “But that was it?” “Yes, honey.That’s the way stories are. The hero always rides off or fades away into the sunset, the end.” “Mom.” “What? You ready to sleep?”

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Kelvin Cheung

“No. Mom. You crack me up!” “What?” “You really think that’s the end? You think the Asian mechanic guy doesn’t want to see how the heart is doing? He doesn’t want to—“ “No, the Asian mechanic threw his head back a little and laughed as he headed down the road. The end.” “Mom. How many Star Wars movies are there?” “What?” “And how many Harry Potter films?” “What?” “You really think stories still end that way? Stories never end. They keep going and going—” “Little story—bunnies running around, ever ready for another sequel?” “Wha—? Right. That’s what happens, so the Asian mechanic comes back and —” “Maybe he has other hearts to fix—or that he’s responsible for.” “What does that mean? He stopped in Graytown. He fixed the heart. It’s like it’s his now, so he has to come back.”

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“Maybe. Time to go to sleep, don’t you think? Hug?” She hugs him, kisses his cheek, and then rubs the kiss in.“There you go! Keep that till tomorrow! Love you.” “Love you, too.” She walks toward the door. “Mom?” “Mhmm?” “Will you take care of my heart?” “Yes. Always.” She turns out the light and starts to close the door. “Mom?” “Water?” “No. Mom, remember what they say.” “What’s that?” “Everyone needs a good mechanic.” He pauses.“Right, Mom?” “Where’d you hear that, honey?” “That’s what Grandpa used to say.” “Well then, I guess he’s right; we probably do.” “Even you, Mom?” “Guess so—even me.” She watches him curl up into his blankets.“Night, honey.” “Night, Mom.”

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Sharon Allerson | Korean Tea/Offerings

I try to offer him tea properly Left hand touching my right forearm Honoring him, humbling myself, a little

He holds the cup freely, balanced on his open hand, His other hand lightly touching the front of the cup, protecting it— The way I’ve always wanted to be held

He swirls the tea counterclockwise, Releasing chestnut and pomegranate, pine pollen and honey The ceramic sphere translates my warmth into his hand

Three sips, four sips, done He doesn’t drink my whole heart He leaves some for me

Love has always been a too sweet grande mocchaccino This is so simple: a few sips of tea I like it

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Sharon Allerson | Night Sky at Bulgarini’s

Silky gelato slides over my tongue An old English tune jumps to the static on the radio and sneaks out on a breeze Black asphalt catches the night sky, reflections in an urban lake Dark, jagged clouds, torn from the fabric of the sky, are backlit by a moon in hiding

I watch and I wait, slipping smooth, sweet coolness through my lips Where is she, that unseen artist that draws out her drama in gradations of gray So serious for a summer night—the moon, the moon Will she dare come out and play?

The old English tune bounces back in, lilting and lifting my—Ah! The moon! She peeks out, shows a bit of her bottom, tantalizingly full! Then more clouds cover her, then more round white bottom I scrape the sides of the bowl, thinking, then lick sweetness here and there

Shall I get out and join her—peel off one fear then another and another Swing them around high, then fling them far away on the breeze? But again the moon hides, no more striptease! The sensuous summer show is over

I call back the lilting tune, lost on the breeze Roll up the windows and set aside my cup Put my car in reverse, the time is up I leave my stage, the lot full of moon shadows.

I make the required right turn, wrong way for me, Then go back around the block only to see Baldly and boldly, bawdy Ms. Moon Dancing in front of the clouds to that old English tune!

I roll down the window, a few fears fly out Dancing away on the cool night breeze And that old English tune on the radio Catches me up in the moon’s striptease

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Monique Alvarado | The Woman Who Rolls Cigars (after Naomi Shihab Nye)

You tell me to write the story from my blood Pulling out ballots marked Democrat, Republican, and Green— Tell the stories of places and people I remotely care about. Save for a moment’s deep depression There sits the woman rolling cigars Roll, flip, heavy aged leaves, stagnant In the stuffy factory,“Lector” droning old words No room on her bench for feminine needs Starved leaves, which are her livelihood, are owned communally. We buy what we want, she waits for rations set aside For our fat, pale faces shoving dollars into their hands For a picture?

Roll, flip, and cut the aromatic leaves The descendants of slaves pick with deft hands, their“rebozos” Straining the weight of leaves, pregnant girls gape their faces To your piercing eyes. Have you never seen a farm? Stacks that will end up on the floor of the woman Who rolls and flips the leaves, neat and even,“Maduros” Cut for the beards of discerning gentlemen that Pay twice for one than the month’s wages of a worker.

She looks like all the workers The woman who sells Santeria to feed her family, Can she make a“gris-gris” bag for your troubles? Her dark features small and ugly to your pale faces. Her sons roll and flip the black market leaves from Colombia—your embassy doesn’t allow their wares. Roll, flip, and cut off the rotten stems, humidified to The lulls of a hungry belly, a steady temp that Salsa and cumbia cannot abate. Are you afraid to be Red? Will the island sun Imprint roll, flip into your Anglo-mutt soul? We dance to the same beat of repression— When you open your border 90 miles away It will spill out divinely and you will Smoke their cigars plainly

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Monique Alvarado | Happy Father’s Day

I don’t want you to drink— my hands fly across the keys, the phone across my head. Beleaguered night smarts my arm as I smart my mouth, bite the hand that feeds, the same hand that drinks

Presidente on the lips, el Rey . . . without queen or throne, make the spade fall across my neck for my pride wells deep both the child of privilege and sorrow, the heir of perjury. Another feat tomorrow. Let me live out of my copper plated cage, the bastard of liquor, the champion of my own temperance.

My door swings shut, my noose hangs, You will find my remains . . . where there are no bones to bear. Where are my words when I need them most, where my soul rattles in deep song? Am I nothing to you but gypsy to the heart of a drunk, the offspring of your lust and the object of my deepest hate? RIP the fucking womb from whence I came, burrow my shell to cleaner lands and peace.

What trap lay behind that door that I meant to open, I meant no harm, but peace- ful offering and promise lay unbroken. Now my tears well, my anger swells, my sire in anger and in fear keep away . . . hot tears, hot pride, hot blood of the president.

You lie behind those dark beady coals that I endeavor to avoid? Who are you whose claims of power scare me? Like throwing glamour, rise heaving chest, booming voice, trembling hand. Yet I am my mother’s daughter, yours when you are happy let me out... who is this caged bird who doesn’t know why she sings? go free... be away far away . . . take me back to my chapel . . . sing me a song of freedom, follow the drinking gourd, run to the border, run with the wind,” vaya,”“vete,” marry me off . . . any thing save kill me for there is nothing left to grind of my ash. I am comfortable, who can I run to when my cage is so comfy? The bars are my shelter, I do not want— You want for affection, you want for tenderness, you want for Yin and balance.

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I will laugh and be gay, say nay I will not be free, let me engender myself to my role, I will play the queen regent to the king with no heir, I will mop the throne of my blood where none really exists. My mouth gets me in trouble too oft to betray my tears, I hate you my captor and rely on your patronage. What a sad way to put things . . . No wonder spirit flies in and out of me like the wind. The self blows away my pyre, with no phoenix to be reborn. I am too cheap, remember? I can’t rub a dollar to save my own ass, so thence . . . is the story, be the jury, I to my sentence . . . I hang on my tongue.

Valerie Samora

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Samuel Dominguez | Not to Touch the Sun

ears ago, in another life, I walked home from junior high Yschool. It was a hot day and we were let out early, they called it a pupil free day. It was 12:15 and the sun was directly overhead. My friends would not go home, instead they would go to the park and play basketball while others would make their way to someone’s house and, well,“disappear” for a couple of hours, as they would describe it. I lived just down the hill from the school, in a corner house; it was more of a curve, but my house was right where the street curved. I took the usual route, passing my friend Santana’s house to the left and the mountain of stairs that followed after a couple of houses, stairs the other kids took to a jungle plain above; it was a mini forest up there and they would smoke weed and drink cold Colt 45’s or King Cobra’s beneath the shade of the large, hanging boughs. There was something magical about the fire at the end of the joints as it carried them away from the jungle at the bottom of the stairs and gave them wings to lift them that much closer to the sun. Their eyes would shrink as though they were struggling to look through the darkness inside of themselves. I had been up there with them before, always passing the joints, never drinking the booze. My mother’s words would always echo in my ears from the moment I grabbed the joint to the moment its burden was lifted off my hand.“No hagas drogas, mijo, mira como están tus tíos y tu hermano.” Her eyes would pierce the scales on my skin and reach a darkened spot inside, my hands would go tight as a cold tension would swiftly grip my body.They wouldn’t notice the change in my voice or the blankness in my stare, more for them. My corner house danced in the horizon as I walked, it felt like a distant dream. When we first moved into that house years ago, I remember walking up to school with the morning mist still filling the air.These walks were usually solitary,allowing me to meditate on my friends and why I felt so disconnected, I wanted to connect and be one of the guys. On this occasion I was stopped by two young men who approached me from the opposite sidewalk. The one that spoke first stands vividly in my mind, he was tall with a bald head, he wore baggy Ben Davis pants, and a blue and grey flannel shirt that fit just as loosely as the pants.“Where you from!”“Nowhere,” I replied as I became a fixture on the cement I stood upon.“El Hoyo Mara,” the young man said as he and his companion walked away towards the stairs. I stood there for a couple of moments, unable to take a step, running the scene in my mind like a maddened film projector, seeing the different ways I could have handled that, the different things I could have said, and the different things I could have done. I should have said that my uncles were Cisco and Crook from Gage Mara, I should have said that I knew Rulies

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and Beto from their own clicka. They were roughly my size and I should have said, “Fuck you, and where you’re from!” If they would have proceeded to mug me I would have only taken a few hits then yelled for my brother to come out and watch as he thrashed these worms. No, my stomach could not fathom such actions; the thought of flesh being molded like cookie dough frightened me, and the thought of the concrete being stained with blood horrified me. My feet burned a hole in the ground and after a few moments, being ashamed but content no harm was done to me. As I walked home I felt something different, the heat was stronger, my step was slower, I would usually see the neighbors out: Huero wasn’t working on his car, Betty wasn’t watering her garden, and Ricardo wasn’t out with his brother Luis throwing the football around. The houses were quiet, the streets empty. My brow was heavy with the rapidly building sweat, the heat and the eeriness of the scene slowly crept in. It was the longest walk I can remember, each step was slow and cautious as though I was walking on glass. I looked at the ground as I stepped on the broken fragments, slith- ering through the streets like a creeping snake. When my body raised and my eyes widened, a woman was standing in front of me. She was pushing a shopping cart filled with pieces of clothing and empty soda cans, she was clothed in loose rags. She was covered with wrinkles from her cheeks to her tiny hands. Her eyes were like two tiny coals buried in dried-up sockets.“Take care of your mother, she loves you very much,” she whispered through chapped lips. “Be a good boy and don’t get in trouble,” her words sent a shiver of fear down my spine and my hand began to shake incessantly, her eyes swelled and tweaked out in the corners.“Quédate en la escuela y no seas vago que tu mama se preocupara.” My mind was numb and my lips heavy. I began to step away.“Espera mijo, no te vallas.” I walked blankly towards my house, even slower than before. I turned a couple of steps away and saw the horizon dancing in the distance. She was gone.

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Samuel Dominguez | Sun Burn

hen I was a child I screamed to Mother, “Things would be W different if Dad was around!”As I lay on top of the bunk bed with my brother quietly agreeing from beneath, I would watch her squint as a thick tear would trick- le down her cheek, the salt in the drop would leave behind a white residue that would clash with the dark brown of her cheeks. Growing up, I always wondered about my father, why would he drink so much? Why would he beat me so much? I did not understand why he was in jail, everyone would always tell me that it was because he owed the government money, and it was enough. I would believe it and come to hate the police. Nothing made sense, I just wanted Dad, the way he used to be, sitting on his lap—listening to him talk to me about working the fields in Mexico, before he…before he would drink, before he would stay out all night. I used to wait for him to come home but now my lids were too heavy with tears, my eyes breaking like the darkened sky above, it was my only fear. He failed to come home one night, the morning was quiet, I was alone in the kitchen. Where is Dad? I would ask Mother but her eyes would freeze and stare blankly at me as though the echo of my voice in her ear would drain the blood and quench the heat in her tiny brown eyes. I would ask my older sister but she would become so tense and so full of tears that she would run away and slam the door behind her, she would vanish from sight for days on end so that when I saw her again I knew that I must not inquire any further. I would not see my older sister very much in those days. The only time I really saw her was in tiny yellow walled rooms with chests full of toys at the base of the four walls. I would see her with my older brother and little sister for half an hour, the only time we were together. The woman with us would separate us and ask us questions alone, not even mother was allowed in the room. Did Dad ever do anything funny? Would he hug me, hold my hand, something, anything? It seemed as though she wanted me to say something, her hands squeezed me as though I were a sponge, trying to drain me of a most hidden life that she shaped like clay and surely must be there. When we visited Father only Brother and I would go, our aunt would take us, always to the desert. I could still feel the burning sun falling on my face, taste the moist ham and Kraft cheese sandwiches, the red and orange fruit punches. The air was always so dense, so hard to breathe—and the dust, dust and ashes everywhere. It was as though we were journeying into the center of the earth—red rocks, barbed wire, and the fucking sun. The horizon was always dancing so that the people walking in the distance would appear like ancient shamans at a peyote retreat. Sometimes they

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would not even let Brother and me in, only my aunt would go in, so that I would wait in a little room filled with toys; I had never seen so many toys in my life. I loved toys, not these toys, they were dull G.I. Joes, legos never seemed so meaningless, only the window would entertain me as I would stare at the prison, what was Father doing? What was he saying? Mother, Mother, your tears still follow me, the cold walls in my room bleed your tears. I see your tiny brown eyes swell, the green carpet beneath my feet is damp. I could see the salty drops clearly. You would bend your knees and fix my ingrown toe- nails, always to endless curses and wails. My clothes were always sharp like the knives you would use to carve the carne asada. The white ceiling stares at me like the salt in your eyes when you walked away from me that night after I screamed,“Things will be different when Dad comes out.”

The setting sun chases me through the desert, I feel your blank and broken stare, your tongue always bled, the skin under your eyes still shows the cracks of time in solace while you spent countless hours

breaking

your back

from job to job.

Blazing,

it burns

and follows

step

after step,

as I sink

into the dust

and feel

the red rock

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Samuel Dominguez | Kali and the Ancient Smoke

ushing through everything that I have—the adversity of Pmy neighborhood, the spiritual turmoil within, the educational challenges, and the constant conflicts at home, I have always found it easy to take in advice. No matter who the person was or is, I know that there is something I can take from them, a piece of fire, which I must steal like Prometheus and carry to my inner cave. My father was never around when I was growing up and my brother quickly went down the wrong paths as my mom used to say. I always looked for guidance, advice, a piece of wisdom that could bring me back from the darkness that surrounded me. Religion was important because it gave my family structure and hope, an end to strife and something to look forward to, like a warm bed after a long day in the rain. In Japan, there are two principal types of religious attitudes known as tariki,“outside strength,” or “power from without,” and jiriki, “own strength,” “effort or power from within.” Growing up I was dependant on the principle of tariki, neglecting and fighting a lot of my interior passions, desires, and fears. The external God outside of the self provided shape and form as well as the source of light that would often times beat violently on my skin, creating boils and blisters. This happened for many years, I was born and raised with a Protestant faith, so that I developed a long shadow, a cool shade that I would stretch and try to reach. This was dangerous because it challenged everything I grew up with. My religion became a self-fulfilling prophecy with the old saying echoing in my ears—without God you will have nothing. Nothing, nothing comes of nothing, I follow nothing and reach nothing—in the darkness of my room, the solitude of a full church, the silence of the multiverse. Everything became nothing, I loved the nothingness that surrounded me, dirt growing on dirt, dust everywhere, and I worshiped Kali and ate the black smoke. I saw not the many bulbs on the ceiling but the one light that emanated through all the bulbs. All life is sorrow, the sorrow is attachment, the connections that bind us and the struggle to break them. Breaking those attachments and diving into the vast ocean within is the only source of growth. The kingdom of God is spread upon you, only men do not see it, do not see it, with stones for eyes, do not taste it, with a mouthful of dust, do not feel it, with blisters and sores on their palms and finger tips.

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Do not force yourself to succumb, your tongue bleeds and your beat slows like a caged panther in the dead of winter.Allow your imagination, your creativity to take you to the pit of hell. The harrowing of hell is a private and personal journey that no one can tell you about, you cannot learn it through others’ journey,you must descend alone. Once, long ago in another life, I walked through the dining halls of the second floor of church. Sunday school had ended and everyone was eating, as was the usual prac- tice between Sunday school and the afternoon service. My mom and little sister made a line to buy their food, and I found myself sitting in the hallway next to the dining room. I felt a vacuum in my stomach, draining my energy like a black hole in the center of this old building, tearing the roots, the foundation of sand that it rested upon. My head was weightless, my thoughts were fugitive. I watched the older people walk up and down the hall, like they often did so many times before, the same greeting would fill the air, like they did so many times before, the same extended gesture would stretch, like they did so many times before, the same single service embrace that clutched, like they did so many times before. My stomach turned and I looked for the nearest restroom. I walked into the yellow light and the fading pistachio green walls. There was another boy in there with whom I exchanged a half smile before he walked out. The thick air was stifling and the walls were coming forward and receding like the tide under a full moon. I opened the green door to the toilet slowly. Each tiny step towards the toilet was calculated as I felt my stomach turn and turn and begin to burn wildly. I fell on my knees, my head became heavy like a boulder as I stared into the bottom of the water into the little pas- sageway that was like the exit out of the universe. My throat filled and my eyes rolled back revealing the yellow that filled my pupils. As my body began to compress and fluctuate I felt a sharp pang in my head and a coarseness that filled my throat. When my eyes rolled down again I saw the water had turned a darkened yellow-green. I got up on my tiny feet and flushed the toilet. My left eye tweaked as I saw that water exit the universe. I walked out of the muggy room ready to eat again.

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Jose Galicia | Mama Nina

I walk into the room and you’re facing me, Tones and sounds resonate like starships Your chest rises and falls like the tides on a beach, A tear falls from your right eye and treads south Seeping back into your pale winter skin

My heart quickens as I near your bed Mom caresses your ancient white hair As Bianca stands near your limp ears Singing‘Solamente una Vez,” your favorite song; A soggy grunt comes from your drooped mouth You shake your right arm up and down, searching behind you

I grab hold of your winter hand And your thumb caresses my own As if you forgot this burro

Your nose flares the way it did When you smelled the stench of happiness

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Sarai Gonzalez | Winter Wedding (After Sharon Olds)

I see my mother at the altar doors I see her crying, Her tears stroll down like daggers, I see my father yawning . . . His eyes are blank bullets After snorting several lines of bliss. I see her family relieved she’s found a man to give her impregnated self a last name. She stands in white, decorated with frozen tears that dangle with every sob she takes, tearing her shining dress, opening the wound her heart seeks to show. The doors freeze with the icy January air, They are about to be married. They are adults but think like kids, all they know Is they are worthless. They will never marry anyone else, Who would take them? I want to go up to her and say STOP! Don’t do it—he is the wrong man . . . Your wound will never heal, Your face will forever scar, You will make your child suffer your pain She will want to kill you, And you will almost kill her And you’ll all want to die. I want to go up her and say it, Her helpless beautiful face turning to me, His stupid clueless blue eyes Reflecting the sky he is flying high in. But I don’t. I want to feel her, I want to hug her. I want to call her mom. I say do what you are going to do, And I will write about it.

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Joan Goldsmith Gurﬁeld | Professor of Ambiguity

nna wandered around in a miserable, CNN-infused daze three Aweeks after the World Trade Center attacks. She’d always judged people by their I.Q.s and had trouble dealing with the idea of highly educated terrorists. Her job teaching English and Critical Thinking at Rutgers, New Brunswick had led her to believe that most people, particularly the educated, were mildly psychotic, not insane. Often, her students seemed wiser than fellow faculty members, like Shelley, who spent a good deal of time these days urging her to change desks with Bernie August, who was moving over to the bungalows. Imagine, his desk — the desk that she could have if she played her cards right — was next to the copier! Shelley had called her at home twice since the attacks to talk about the relative merits of various people’s desks. Similarly off-center, one of the faculty members in the history department, whom Anna knew by sight, was promulgating a theory that the attacks were part of an FBI plot to overthrow the American government. A student asked Anna what she thought. “Uuuh…that sounds…weird.” She knew you weren’t supposed to badmouth colleagues, but…. How could people still believe in God? If there was a God, how could such things happen? If not, were people just gussied-up animals, scarfing up Chilean sea bass, prancing around in pashmina shawls, and procreating, to no purpose? She didn’t mention these things to her students or to Daniel, the man she slept with three nights a week, who couldn’t commit to her because of his “issues”. Anyway, how could you marry and bring children into a world like this? Besides, she was getting too old for a child, almost forty. She huddled, night after night, a shaking, scared rabbit, clinging to Daniel’s back and trying to sleep. Since the attack, she’d gone over to his place every night, and for once, he hadn’t said he“needed his space”. From time to time sadness would zap her, and she would take to the couch in her living-room, mesmerized for hours by the well-dressed announcers on TV. Wolf Blitzer was her friend. Christiane Amanpour: smart, analytical, and somehow com- forting in her hoarse articulateness about the unimaginable. Anna watched the spe- cials about women in Afghanistan and tried to come up with anything remotely like it in her experience. She’d had men whistle at her and make crude remarks. She’d been afraid of rape, more than a few times. She didn’t stay at the college after dark unless she was with other people. But she went out alone at night to meet Daniel or her friends for dinner or movies. She drove wherever she wanted; she worked. She had a life of her own, freedom. In her effort to understand, she made analogies: women in Afghanistan were to men as Jews, gypsies, and homosexuals were to Nazis

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in WWII. Afghani women were objectified, as Jews and the others had been. She’d heard many Holocaust stories, seen many newsreels of the camps being liberated. Still, inured as she thought she was to horror, the picture of an Afghani woman, swathed in the garb that depersonalized and restricted, kneeling with a gun to her head and being shot, was unconditionally, gut-wrenchingly appalling. She multiplied that image and the videos of random, senseless beatings and hang- ings, taped secretly by women who would be killed if their footage was found. She remembered a newspaper story she’d read. A fourteen-year-old girl in some backwater town there had been raped. According to that society, this meant she’d had sex, and therefore had so dishonored her family that her two brothers took her out of town and killed her. This was considered justice. Why wasn’t everybody going crazy? She couldn’t sleep. No one she knew was sleeping more than a couple of hours a night. Her colleagues came up with endless theories about the WTC. The Canadian pontificated,“It doesn’t bother me at all. It’s just a repetition of world history, from time immemorial. Think about the Roman Empire. Biblical times. Think about what America did to the Japanese — the bombings in World War II. It’s gone on forever, and the same thing will happen again and again. The U.S. should take after Canada and stop trying to be a policeman for the rest of the world.” It didn’t bother him at all? Bernie August, who relished being a provocateur, couldn’t fathom why everybody was sending money to the rescue efforts or the Red Cross. Why didn’t people give money to the homeless? Mostly, Anna felt like vomiting. An older colleague insisted that they needed to deal with the ongoing problem of essay prompts. What worked and what didn’t in English 101? Who cared? Thousands dead, fear of nuclear or biological or chemical warfare, and they were supposed to be concerned about the students’ ability to compare and contrast? It was Monday. The Lit. class. Was she supposed to be teaching the Symbolists? It was amazing how everything related to the WTC, everything was a symbol: the towers, the firefighters’ uniforms, the omnipresent flags, the turbans that made Sikhs vulnerable to attacks, the headscarves that marked Muslim girls, some of whom were afraid to come to school…. The interrelatedness of all things, in this“best of all possible worlds”. She might be losing her mind. Or at least, she should go back to therapy. But therapists were overwhelmed. She’d read in the newspaper about how many people

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were depressed. Most women in the U.S. She was just one among many. Why should she put another burden on an already overburdened shrink? Besides, she knew how to cope. She was a professor, ergo, she coped. Mostly. One of her students was a helicopter pilot in the Reserves. She talked to him after class, sharing tidbits gleaned from TV. He seemed more knowledgeable and more skeptical than anyone else she’d spoken to on campus. “Bush’s handlers are okay,so far. Cross your fingers,” he spoke in clipped sentences. “We sent the 147, from Newark, over the weekend. I have to miss class Wednesday. Reserve meeting. Be back Friday.” He was excused from everything. She’d heard about the Newark unit on TV, so she knew he wasn’t making up an excuse to cut class. He’d get an“A”for calmness. She wanted all the pilots and soldiers and sailors to be like him: a hero, compact, with strong bronzed arms and a tight mask of a face. And alive. She glanced at him often as she lectured, so she wouldn’t say anything stupid. She stood in front of the Critical Thinking class, the prepared lecture before her on the podium, and she veered off, again, to the subject everyone wanted to talk about. “If we take a cultural relativism approach, can we attempt to understand what made the terrorists believe in their awful undertaking?” She thought about nothing else. There was no way she could get her mind around it. The knot at the base of her neck wouldn’t go away, no matter how much Red Tiger Balm she rubbed into it. She was all right. Daniel was all right. But he couldn’t save her. He didn’t know any more than she did about what would happen, or how crazy the world could become. Which class was this? She had to concentrate. Should she teach the unit on the war poets? Wilfred Owen, Sigfried Sassoon, and the others from WWI made good anti-war cases. No, it wasn’t “sweet and right to die for one’s country,” but wasn’t it wrong to teach such skepticism to the twenty-year-olds sitting in front of her, some of whom had signed up for the armed forces in the heat of the moment, after the WTC? Yet she couldn’t teach them that war was good: patriotism above all, and all that baloney. She was sure the students saw through her. Let’s discuss the professor’s complete lack of critical thinking skills since the attack. She seemed okay at the beginning of the term. A friend of mine had her last year and said she was great, but she sucks, bigtime. She wanted to go shopping with her friend, Cathy, and buy ten pairs of shoes. She wanted to eat a half gallon of Ben and Jerry’s“Cherry Garcia”. She’d spent four hours on Saturday organizing her closet, but she couldn’t deal with the button that had

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come off her blue cardigan. She was falling apart. No, she was fine. She didn’t need to call Dr. Binder. She dismissed class early and drove home warily past the airport. Finally, she was able to stay on the highway. The past couple of weeks, since the attack, she’d veered off and used surface streets, even though it took an extra half hour. Newark Airport was definitely a target. Tall buildings. The museums. Libraries. Rutgers. Was it just a few months ago that people had looked around at the older buildings on campus and joked,“Someone should bomb this place …”? At home, she turned on the TV. The problems that she’d gone to the shrink about, five years ago, weren’t resolved. Daniel’s ambivalence. Her ambivalence. Did it matter if she got married or not? Romantic love was a dead issue, Daniel said, “Grow up and stop living in the nine- teenth century.” Nothing was settled. Everything in flux. Her problems with her father. At least he’d answered the phone when she’d called to tell him about the attack. “We should bomb that whole fucking place, bomb those fuckers off the face of the earth.” Sweet, peaceable dad. That was why everyone had suggested she should have a male therapist in the first place. She still wanted a baby. Daniel still didn’t. She could adopt, as her friends had been telling her for years. Only now, she’d adopt an orphan from someplace bombed, by Us or by Them. A child who’d lost both of his/her…his — she was sexist, she knew she was secretly sexist — parents in war/ in the WTC/ in the planes. A slightly older child with problems or disabilities: “hard to place”. She couldn’t. She was too weak, too irresolute. Too confused to be someone’s mommy. Did it matter if she had a baby or not? Or if she and Daniel lived? Did any lives matter? Clearly, the terrorists didn’t think so. Not even their own. She couldn’t go back to class. She’d resign. The Canadian would get the desk beside the copy machine. Shelley would throw a shit-fit.

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Louis Herrera | In the Basement

The basement, a world unto itself, was a tornado and bomb shelter. It protected us from the Malathion sprayed that summer to kill the mosquitoes. Twelve of us crammed together to keep from getting cancer from the sticky brown resin.

My mother once prepared for the worst and those rusted cans of tuna, coke, and spam told us that she planned on staying down there for weeks, months if wisely rationed. Powdered milk had spilled on the concrete floor. It was petrified and cracked by years, like those people in Pompeii.

What had she wanted to run from? Hide from?

My father’s sinister fingers, the whimpers from my bedroom at night, or my bloodied underwear in the wash.

She could live a comfortable life in the basement eating tuna and spam, drinking Coca-Cola. She had to stay close by to give us a sense of comfort. A tinge of normalcy. She couldn’t just leave outright. It was tradition to stay, her duty—It was only proper.

I found her in the basement today, cold and brittle. A rust-splattered kettle sat on top of an old hot plate down there. The electric cord cut off years ago, knotted around a rose bush to keep it growing up, not out.

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Louis Herrera | Walk

Sunday I take the laundry to the river. I walk on the cracked dirt road all the way down The long trail; this is the same walk my mother made From the same adobe house to the same blue river in Mexico. The blisters on my feet bleed hard; This is how much I love my children.

The women around me in their homes by the road Look at me with eyes of envy and contempt That say,“How could you work on Sunday, The day of rest?” They know why, It is the day of no waiting to wash in the river Fragile clothes. God has bound their feet To their homes for the day, but he can not bind mine; They are too strong.

The old bruja sits on a rotting wood chair in front Of her adobe breaking a neck of a chicken. She has bartered a charm today, eased the weight Of living for some woman in the village, Carmen, perhaps? She has eleven children. The bruja stares, beckoning me to buy her charms; This will take the pain away, drink it down slowly Or put it in their oats in the morning, con mucha azúcar.

I carry the wicker basket on my head, the weight of clothes Press on my black braids, if I stop to rest, to breathe, to soothe My feet with a rub, put down the basket on the brown road It will only make my work harder, dirtier clothes to get clean.

My husband Alfredo, gone to America for work, That was three years ago. I have not heard a whisper since. Alfredo’s hands are strong. But time that cracks wood, Crumbles our adobe house, thins the lemon yarn Of my daughters’ sweaters is stronger.

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He will not be coming back to this life, America has given him hope. I know this. But when I tuck my girls to bed At night, I say“Soon, mijas, Papa will be back soon.”

The river is hard. The rocks’ slimy coolness Soothes my blistered feet.

Water bubbles from the hole in Martha’s Blue pleated school skirt. Her strong hands and feet Could not keep the stitches from ripping once again.

Eva’s apricot colored blouse, The one she got for her seventh birthday Two years ago, has been bleached by the sun. It is pale orange now; her hands, her feet Have no power against the sun.

My children are always by the river, looking in, hoping to catch a reflection of their father. They will not find him there.

My daughters wait, like me, for a ghost, For something better than this walk.

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Now that my ladder’s gone I must lie down where all the ladders start In the foul rag and bone shop of the heart. — W. B. Yeats, “The Circus Animals’ Desertion”

Carol Lem | Library Staff Lounge

The conference table strewn with books and papers centers this room accustomed to charts and graphs, pinstriped men with combination-locked briefcases.

But today writing students scrawl across the page the rags and bones of stony places, the silent plains we sometimes dare to roam alone.

On these Tuesday afternoons, gathered around backpacks of untold stories, we leave our baggage at the door, watch pens move and stop, scratch out

and start again like tourists in a new town studying maps, unsure of the next step, where to turn and ask for help.

I think of Basho,“If you want to know where this road goes, ask the one who goes back and forth . . . ,” and read the shadow poets,

those who linger in dim-lit rooms, gazing out windows or stumbling through doors, each one with a new lock and key.

Everyone here is a traveler, who in this momentary setting, has only paper and pen to tell us where to go next.

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Ignacio Oliveros

For at least two hours, we are all on the same train with one eye on the page and the other on signs passing by, knowing where to get off

before getting lost. Sitting in our stiff-back wooden chairs, pens at rest, we stare into that nothing that is everything to the still small voice who follows us out the door when class is over.

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Louise Leftoff | The Gathering

n a hot day in early August we assembled by the old family plot Oat Inglewood Park Cemetery. Though I had not been there for many years, the spot was familiar since my mother and grandmother often brought my brother and me here as children. We were always curious and explored the territory as much as possible during our visits. We always tried to get into the little houses (as we called the crypts) that were erected intermittently between the marble angels and green tomb- stones throughout the green. It seemed to me that the little houses were the perfect size for a child. I found my great-grandmother’s grave under a bed of green grass that was min- gling peacefully with the weeds. In contrast, the white marble headstone lay adjacent to the graves of my grandmother and grandfather. There were also the graves of two uncles killed in a war before I was born, and that of my great-grandfather who died as a young man in 1911 before my mother was born; he was the first to be buried here. If she saw the graves now, she would have said they needed a haircut, and were she able, she would pull on her garden shears and trim the encroaching crabgrass to leave all six of the headstones properly framed and symmetrical. Thus, the stones would fulfill their purpose and reveal the identity of each occupant. My mother always took care of everyone. My mother had chosen to be cremated and then wished to be buried in the same grave occupied by her own mother—the one that lay between her father and grandmother. Her wishes were as clear and direct as the sunlight was that day; she herself had made these arrangements so there could be no misunderstanding. Not that I would think of ignoring her wishes even in death when she could provide no resist- ance. I had no reason to object and I thought it fitting for her to be buried with parents and grandmother she had the good fortune to have. While I knew my mother did not wish to have a funeral, here I chose to bend a little. Of course there would be no formal event, but the family wanted and needed to gather and remember this woman who had made most of us possible. That’s it: it was a gathering, I told myself. Squinting in the sunlight, my oldest son, Larry, stood before our group, his khaki sun hat covering the remnant of his surfer-blond hair as he spoke of someone he would miss. While he spoke, I remembered a summer many years ago when my seventeen year old son saved for weeks from his summer job pay to present her with a birthday gift of three spanking new one hundred dollar bills. His grandma beamed with pleasure that day. Following him, his wife Janet held an armful of white roses

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that her Japanese heritage taught her was proper. Janet and my mother became close after Janet lost her grandmother six years before. My younger son, Chris, his face strained, couldn’t find words, so his daughter, Jasmine, came forward to recount memories of her More Grandma. The fifteen year old brunette explained that “More Grandma” was the name coined by her uncle, who was my brother, for his great- grandmother who lay nearby. She was the first More Grandma to be followed by my grandmother and mother in generational succession. As a toddler, my brother was asked by our father who was that as he pointed to my grandmother. Carl responded, “Grandma. It’s Grandma.” Pointing to my great-grandmother, my father then asked who that was. “It’s More Grandma!” Thus, the family tradition was born and someday it will be my turn to hold the title. When my turn came, I read a poem I had written during my mother’s mercifully short illness. Not too long before this day I sat with a tiny old woman in the hospital bed who refused to speak to me, while her eyes accused me of being the well from which all of the bitter water she had to swallow had sprung. Her nurses described how she stood beside her bed and swung the phone receiver by the cord around her head to keep them at bay. Unable to find any reason for her hostility, I realized the kind and decent woman I had known my whole life just might not be there anymore, that both her body and her mind had betrayed her. A kind wind brought both of us the gift of a temporary recovery, and she came home with me and we were given two months of lucidness and clarity. It was as though all of her anger and bitterness evaporated like disorder dreams do once the mind awakens with the reality of morning. During that time we lived together and ate our meals together and watched television together. Even though she often asked me when she would go home, I made excuses for her to remain. The last evening we spent eating mocha ice cream and she seemed satisfied. When she was tired, she put on her pajamas and came to kiss me goodnight and told me she loved me. I am happy I responded likewise because she didn’t wake up the next morning. On a hot day in August, at the place where the bones of our ancestors rested, we buried my mother’s ashes. I was surrounded by my children and grandchildren, nieces and nephews and cousins and friends, and I wiped my tears and smiled at my family.

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Louise Leftoff | Little Bear

For a long time now she can gaze over the top of my head; she wears a fresh body that screams of youth though it’s round and full as a woman’s. “Grandma,” she asks, “This year can we have a Christmas tree?” “Perhaps a small one, Little Bear,” I say.

In jeans so tight the air can hardly escape and a carefully ripped shirt of frayed ends tied together in a macramé of red cotton— her bounty of brown curls frame the golden rings that honor her ears,

I watch the girl half-sit, half-lie on the sofa reading The Bluest Eye, a book she picked up for the face on the cover she said looked like her. And I brace myself for the embryos of questions that now gestate in her brain.

Her cub brown eyes catch and lock with mine as she asks,“Why does Claudia tear apart her baby doll?”

“Because Claudia realizes the blonde-haired, blue-eyed doll was just another lie she had been told – a lie that ripped her friend Pecola apart and left her mind scattered like funeral ashes in a swift wind.”

And I brace myself for what she might ask next.

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Louise Leftoff | A Sonnet: Making Stock

I roast meat and bones‘til they’re brown and hot, bring them to boil with water, pepper, salt, carrots, garlic, and onions in the pot— add the bay leaves and celery and leeks squeaky clean—simmer together‘til time to skim the broth and make it amber clear. When the simmering is done, the broth rests then is strained through cloth to become fine stock.

With care, child, you became like fine stock: for you have been thoughtfully assembled from the best provisions, and gently reared; and now you have reached your promise. Walk then, with clearness and purpose; become the source. But always remember the roots that brewed you.

Lorna Trinh

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Louise Leftoff | The Taste of Tears (Reflections on a Photograph)

n the pathway I had chosen that led from the lunch pavilion Oto the cake table, I was stopped cold by a large mud puddle blocking my way. Dressed in my mother-of-the-groom finery, I had no wish to ruin my new pastel shoes, so I looked to my right and my left to find another way to approach the cake to watch the newlyweds perform their ritual. Safe ground seemed just beyond the reach of my leaping abilities. At that moment appeared the father-of- the groom, my first husband, a man with whom I had not exchanged pleasant words for more than twenty years. He held out his hand and helped me to safely navigate across the mud with the words,“Be careful, it’s slippery.” “Thank you” was my stunned reply, and I went on to watch our son cut his wedding cake. The wedding was at Rainbow Tarns, an idyllic spot on the eastern side of California’s High Sierras. Along with my small family, we stood in the midst of the green aspens and willows and posed in the secluded wilderness for the wedding photograph that I see daily propped on my desk. The arbor just behind us holds an abun- dant array of orange and purple flowers and leaves that seem to overwhelm the structure with their importance. Above the arbor two leafy branches interlace. In the picture, our little group stands on a green lawn dappled with the sunlight that escaped from the sky through the dense trees. The air is immaculate having been freshly cleansed by a thunderstorm the evening before, and it strikes a sweet note in my lungs as the clear water does in my mouth. Although it’s missing in the photograph, I can still hear the sound of water moving through the nearby stream quietly splashing over the rocks and branches and into the small lakes and ponds. Also missing is Irv, my second husband.

Irv was born in Detroit and joined his family in Southern California after World War II on his release from the army. After graduating from UCLA, he joined his family’s business, but many years later, he found the law to be a fascinating subject and, despite the lateness of his years, he enrolled in law school and became an attorney. I became acquainted with him about this time, for Irv was my older cousin Helene’s boyfriend. Often on Sunday mornings, the three of us joined forces to work the crossword puzzle, always in ink and never pencil. At family gatherings, I watched how deftly this man was able to ease the anxiety of my cousin, Ricky, Helene’s autistic son, with patience and respect.

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My family had gathered in this perfect place called Rainbow Tarns that had been carefully selected by my son and daughter-in-law to take their vows. In the photograph, I stand with my two sons—Larry, the bridegroom, and my younger son, Chris. Eight small white shoes hold legs covered with white stockings that contrast with the grass. The eight legs support the matching flower girl dresses of blue and lavender, and thus, my granddaughters flank the pretty lady in the white dress. The lady in white is my new daughter-in-law, Janet, and her smile is wide as she holds her bouquet of white roses. I cannot see him but I know my oldest grandson is there too, but he hides behind the white flowers, behind the white dress, for Max has only existed for a few weeks.

My first marriage had been one between two teenagers who evolved into adults so foreign to each other they no longer understood the other’s language. Divorce brought quick and quiet relief to our relationship, leaving me a single mother raising my two sons. Many years later, after my cousin Helene died, Irv and I joined forces, first to care for her handicapped son, Ricky, and then, because I realized that I had found someone who would never intentionally cause me pain, I came to care for this man who was more than twenty years older than I.

Both of my sons wear gray suits in the photograph, the older a white shirt and the younger, a black one. Larry, the older, looks satisfied and glances pleasantly into the camera for it is the beginning of his marriage, and he and his bride have planned the celebration as carefully as they have chosen each other. Parties began on Friday afternoon, the day before, when people gathered for a champagne toast at 11,000 feet on Mammoth Mountain. I took a wide angle photograph of the two hundred celebrants closing in together and raising their glasses before a spectacular vista. I watched my granddaughters play in the last remaining patches of snow that would soon evaporate with the warmth of the encroaching summer sun. Amid all these merry people— friends, family and strangers—I ambled around feeling as though I was visiting private club in which I was not allowed to become a member.

My second wedding took place at Temple Beth Am on La Cienega in Los Angeles. Making plans for our small, simple ceremony became a fairly complicated process with mothers and sisters telling us which of their friends must be invited to the wedding and who must sit where at the reception. As Irv and I drove to the temple that day, my brain was so clut- tered with the details churning inside that I was not concentrating on what

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he was saying. “Listen to me, dammit,” he yelled at me. “I am talking to you. Pay attention.” I was only able to stammer, “I’m sorry,” but I could- n’t find the words to explain the turmoil in my head. It was the first (and last) time that he ever raised his voice at me, and I saw that my inatten- tion had left a mark of pain on his face. Dazed by his anger and my own agitation, the sting of his words left me reeling. Whenever I recall my wedding day, I nearly always remember that moment when we caused each other so much pain that marred our otherwise perfect day.

All of us moved on to Rainbow Tarns for a candlelit dinner of steak and shrimp beneath the clear night sky heavy with starlight. Early the next day we returned to Rainbow Tarns for the vows to be exchanged, and this photograph was taken right after the morning’s ceremony, during which I was deeply engaged in my own mourning ceremony. Everyone rejoiced in the perfect July weather that fell on us like small gifts floating down from heaven for this happy day. Lunch was served under canopies trimmed with flowers and surrounded by the trees and the ponds. The water danced to the tunes of the knives and forks and singing and children and laughter; the cake was cut. A perfect place for a perfect day. Like a sleepwalker, I wandered from food to wine to cake to friends wanting to track down the celebration but I could not find my way.

With Irv, my marriage was a safe and warm place where I was allowed to become myself. My family grew as my younger son gave me four granddaughters within twenty-six months—the twins fitting in perfectly between their older and younger sisters. Chris came to live with us after his brief marriage ended, and my granddaughters became weekend resi- dents at our home, along with my cousin Ricky who was there most week- ends. Thus, we became a family. Having no children of his own, my husband skipped a generation to become a grandfather, reluctantly at first, but soon with much enthusiasm. I often found him patiently teaching the girls how to use the computer to find answers to their homework, showing them how to change the bulbs in the headlights of his car or discussing the finer points of constitutional law to a captive audience.

The reception planned by Larry and Janet in the evening required another set of clothes. Chris and I drove the girls to the tavern in Mammoth for a festival of dancing and drinking and talking and eating and more laughing. I sat at the table and watched the young ones dance. Chris asked me to dance because he wanted to bring

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me into the merriment. I drove him and his daughters back to the condo that Irv had rented for us all, our temporary home. So much happiness made us all tired.

No too long ago, one of my nearly-grown granddaughters, Chrystal, asked me, “How do you know if you love someone?” I pondered on my first marriage that ended with two people intent upon saying or doing something, anything, that would cause pain to the other. I have long since realized that this too is a manifestation of love, albeit, not necessarily a desirable one. Chrystal had posed a serious question that deserved a careful answer. I told her, “Long ago, I read about an ancient belief of some native American people—I don’t recall it exactly, but the essence was that ‘ if one of you cries, the other can taste the tears.’ It didn’t have much meaning for me when I first read it, but it stayed with me. From time to time I would go over the thought in my mind, until finally, it just simply made sense. I knew that if I saw that your grandpa was in pain, I was also in pain. And if I was the one who had caused him that pain, then I was even more dev- astated. I know this is also true about anyone I love, my children, my grandchildren, and my friends. Perhaps if you can taste the tears of others, that is how you can tell if you love them.”

In the photograph, I am wearing my new haircut, having just days before had my old long hair cut off. The short hair was very different and felt unfamiliar to me; I was not yet used to it. I am posing with my small family, now even smaller, and there appears to be a pleasant smile on my lips. Only three weeks before the photograph was taken, my good friend Denise had called Rainbow Tarns in search of my son Larry who was there making his wedding plans. She told him that Irv had just died, and that I needed Larry to be with me. Of course, he came. And three weeks later, we all returned to Rainbow Tarns to celebrate my son’s wedding, but not before we buried my husband and my marriage. I awaited my new grandson to arrive into my life not too long after my husband left it. Irv is missing from the picture. I see in my smiling image in the photograph that I was no longer a wife, but a widow. And I knew the taste of tears.

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Louise Leftoff | Evidence of Life (A Villanelle)

Sometimes I move on the same awkward feet My mother gave me for passage to find my own way, So often it’s her words that my lips repeat.

Just as I am and she was, we still often meet In the things that I do and the things that I say And sometimes I move on the same awkward feet.

She carried herself well though her life wasn’t sweet, Like an old blanket, her life began to fray And often it’s her words that my lips repeat.

When I’m tired and bitter and find a retreat That’s quiet and warm and I know I should stay, Sometimes I move on the same awkward feet

Leaving a haven for life new and replete With living and birth and death and decay, and often it’s her words that my lips repeat.

As evidence she lived, my heart has a beat And I still feel her now in all I survey. Sometimes I move on the same awkward feet. So often it’s her words that my lips repeat.

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Ernestina Lucero-Irwin | Es Por Ti (Because of You)

-que late mi corazon (my heart beats) After my divorce, many times I wished that my heart would stop beating. My heart could not withstand the pain and loss that I was feeling. I knew that I should not want my heart to stop beating. I had to survive for my son, Jason. Because of little Jason my heart did keep beating. Because of Jason my heart began to heal slowly, but surely. Now, I am thankful for surviving and for having Jason there with me.

-que brillan mis ojos hoy (my eyes shine today) For a period of time I could not see anything clearly, anymore. Everything was blurry, spiritually. I did not know what was going to happen in the near future and I could not put anything in perspective. My daily question was, how am I going to face the future alone? I had been married eight years and we had dated for about five years. I depended on a lot of things from him. I did not know how I was going to survive. Because of Jason, though, my eyes began to shine. There was a dim shine at first, but soon enough they began to get brighter. Jason’s laughter, his sweetness, his innocence, his love, just him made it all shine bright. His happiness spilled over to me. He brought the light into my eyes once again.

-que he vuelto hablar de amor (I have spoken of love, again) It was bitter. I did not want to hear, speak or see anything that had to do with love. I was done with that thing called love. I wanted no part of it, but because of Jason this was not going to happen. He was not going to allow it. His baby sweet talk, his random acts of love and his hugs were just not going to allow it. Oh! So many love hugs. All of a sudden he would blurt out I love you’s when they were least expected and most needed. They would land by surprise on my heart. And I would surrender to love. All because of Jason’s innocent true love.

-que calma mi dolor (my pain is soothed) The pain. It was constant heartache for a while. I would think of everything I had lost emotionally, the time and the energy that I had focused on my marriage. I can actually say that at times it felt devastating. Then, unexpectedly, Jason, my beloved son, would kick into action. He was the only thing that could actually ease the pain. He was like a Tylenol for my heartache. He is just so full of happiness and innocence. His cleverness and his loving little heart made it all better. He did not realize the effect he

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had on me. He was just an innocent little boy doing his little boy things. Sometimes, just looking at him would calm and soothe my pain.

-cuando veo qua mi lado estas me siento renovado (I feel renovated when you are by my side) At this point I realized that the only thing that I had now was my son. He was the only thing in my life that seemed real to me. He was the only thing that kept me func- tioning. On the days that he was with me he would renovate my soul. When I did see him there close to me I would think to myself,“Thank Goodness,” for Jason. He was the one good thing that flourished from my marriage. He is also the best thing that ever happened to me in my life. He lifted me with his spirit. He kept me in motion and very busy. He would renovate me every day.

-controlas toda mi verdad (You control my truth) The only certainty I knew was that Jason was real. He was my truth. He was my reason to continue struggling through life. He was the only thing that controlled my truth. He was a symbol of true love and truth.

-que me siento perdidio por el mundo (I feel lost in this world) When Jason would leave to his father’s home, during the first year after our divorce, it was very hard for me. I felt like a piece of me was taken away every time. I knew he was returning in a day or two, but that period of time seemed eternal. I would feel totally lost without him. I did not like it. I did not know what to do with myself. I would cry it out, until there was some relief. I felt scared being alone. I did not feel any tranquility until his return. I had to do this, though. It is a part of being divorced, if there are children involved. Not only that, Jason wanted to be with his father, too. I know that he adores his father and I would never take that from him. I have no right to take his father’s love from him. Taking him away from his father would be the most selfish thing I would have ever done.

-desordenado si tu no estas (a mess if you are not around) I could not find a spot for myself, inside of my soul. I felt such a loss and I did not know how to repair it. Everything in my life was chaotic. I did not know how to plan my days when Jason went to his father’s home. There was something missing, out of place. I would become a mess. I was left nervous, sad and angry. I realized some time later that I had to figure something out. I had to do something with myself or eventually go crazy. I started organizing my thoughts. I came up with many extracurricu- lar activities to do, anything to make the days go faster. Eventually, I became accus-

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tomed to this transition. Just the way Jason had done. I know it was harder for him. I had to hide so many of my emotions from Jason. I had to be there for him. I had to be strong, even though I was a mess inside.

-mueves tu mi felicidad (you move my happiness) Jason takes care of my happiness. I was not thinking much about it lately. I just wanted to get by one day at a time. I would not worry about being happy at all. I just worried about our next day. But he shook awake my happiness. He rattled it up and brought some to me.

-tus ojos me llevan lentamente al sol (your eyes take me slowly towards the sun) Jason was the only sign of hope that I could see throughout this whole five year ordeal. I did not know how I was going to continue with this despair. It was so sad to me that everything that I had worked so hard for was gone, gone, gone: my marriage, my home and my family vanished into thin air. But there was a sparkling little ray of hope, Jason. He guided me towards relief through his shining eyes and loving heart. He took me towards the sun. I do not know how or if I would have survived this episode of my life without him. He is my strength, inspiration and will to survive.

Jason, You are truly loved by both of us, Your Mommy and Daddy

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Jenssy Martin | High School

All my life I’ve been a lake compared to the ocean. Often my dreams row me back to those years, trying to be part of the stream. A wave splashing over me, my insecurities picking at me, and my body changing with the water. These memories of high school always make rain. I could never be good enough, cool enough or pretty enough. My friends always had boys swimming to them and I wasn’t even in the water. I was like a cat; I did not belong in the water. I did not know how to swim; I kept trying but could not learn. I was too shy to be myself, too afraid to speak up, too insecure to swim at all. Four years of going against the current, I feel I never won. I missed out on many things and yet on nothing at all.

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Jenssy Martin | Life of a Woman

Being a woman is a rose bud rising from earth. Flaming UV rays igniting desire. Disruptive winds almost destroying its roots. Sometimes it blooms in calm pastel colors, sometimes as red as blood. A lonely rose moistened by rain, unable to speak, to walk away. A beautiful rose whose liberation is only attainable that day it perishes.

Patty Metoki

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Jenssy Martin | My Name

My name is Jenssy Martin. Oh, I like the way it hides who I am. This name make others wonder where I come from, until they take a look at me. My name is from a movie my parents watched. They don’t know what language it was, it was subtitled. The girl in the movie was Jenssy, they named me after her. It hides where I come from. I am a descendant of the Mayans of Yucatan. I am Mexican, I am Mayan. My dark hair and dark eyes are mixed with a lighter tone of my skin than my ancestors. I remember my father always trying to make me better. I had to be faster and smarter than others. It was his insecurities gleaming. My dad tried like many others to become an“American” and make sure his kids were as American as they could be. Yet we are already Americans, we just happen to speak Spanish too and follow some of the Mexican culture.

We have a blended culture mixed with Mexican food, Mayan dialect, and hamburgers too!

We, who are only capable of mowing grass, are exploited with long hours and low pay. We are seen as indigenous because of color even though some are educated. Not ignorant but powerless because white is better. But my name can be American too, that is its purpose. My last name can be white or black, whatever you like. But I’m brown, the color of the trees and the land in which my ancestors have sweated, the color of my eyes and my lover’s eyes. You can’t tell who I am by looking at my name, it defines what I’m all about. I am Mexican and American. I carry the dreams of the Mayans and my own— my life here in America, my luck and their hardships. Different, my life will not be like my parents’ or theirs. Different like my name.

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Julio Aguilar

Adriana Michel | After the Morgue . . . in a car . . . following her . . . 2008

I enter the Gates at Resurrection I find myself In deep meditation Tell me your names

Nobody mentioned death When I came into the family Just about life and having babies

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Nobody mentioned death But it does have to Happen—but why us, Too often I break my heart Everyone we put in This park I know all your names—from

Belita, Gina, Uncle, Auntie, To Rosie… I’ve personally put everyone Under this park

I enter the Gates at Resurrection And wonder about mom And dad How could I have Done this Without them Where would I have put her Where do I put them I cry As cars follow and park Strangers come to witness Meet us in Black under sunlight

She has to go Sunny day She had to go Sunny day He had to go OR Sunny day She had to go Blackened She had to go Hello . . .

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Adriana Michel | Haikus

Rosie, I heard you Let me tell you everything Missing you, my heart

My mind goes slipping To what is to be of us Together standing

Everything I did I did it from love for you Nothing in return respect your mother-in-law Feel no regret once she’s gone

I look out for you Bring some food for you to eat Helped with your meds Combed your hair that last day Cried above your bed

my body shakes See my tear fall on your ear can’t seem to stand I cry so hard my heart falls Falls out my chest in pieces

It was because of The mean way you treated me, The harsh words you said, I got my last chance with her Because of your words, Thank you

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Thank you for being So mean, so ugly, so rude You opened my eyes, And helped me decide my life, Stopped me from being you

Thought you could stop me Thought I would listen to you Thanks for your advice See you in the industry Think again of who I am

And if I had the chance to say goodbye, I’d hold On to you until the day I died

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Danna Prak | Silent But Speaking

The tree is silent, but speaking to the wind. The flowers are silent, but speaking to the bees

The silences of the letter speaks to the receiver The books are silent, but speaking to readers Words are silent, but speaking everywhere

Your hopes and dreams are silent, but speaking to your heart The framed portrait is silent, but speaking to the one who framed it Your memories are silent, but speaking in your mind

Even if silent, I want to be speaking the way myths and poems do, not because of the context, but because it never lost its voice.

Tracy Liu

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Danna Prak | Unfamiliar Reflection

You left before I ever knew you The bright white bed sheets Pale as your face You are gone now Your flesh shriveling in the dirt Clots that blocked like shadows A dark shadow your face Bruised spots on your body

I thought I saw you In the placid lake Smiling again like a reflection does Before a ripple disperses the image

Your voice is unfamiliar Just hidden behind the other relatives Who stood motionless for that snapshot Smiling faces that are merely memories now Silent and still Smiles that hid more than sickness Hands outreached to forgetful youth

There was a framed picture of you smiling At a festive celebration Sitting on my mother’s mantle As tears flooded her eyes I look at it and wonder How could you be her daughter? How could you smile so peacefully?

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Diana Recouvreur | Lonely Playground

The leaves cascade onto earth, rustling like ghostly footsteps.

They play in the park when there’s no one around, when the sky is gray, and the wind whispers“haven.”

Sand blows upward, grains of magical dust, restoring momentary form to transcended beings, offering a hand at a chance of lost childhood.

In the silence you can almost discern an airy giggle, a scream of delight in finding earth so welcoming and new.

Swings sway haphazardly, weighted insufficiently and claimed by a novice.

This is no ordinary haunt, no unrequited anguish resides here, only games and jests of young phantoms in want of old prerogatives.

Susanna Negrete

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Diana Recouvreur | Moon Shadow

Lunacy is a woman, draped in self-erected barriers, set in veils against her own reflection on a winter evening.

Fog rises over glassy water, settles firm yet uneven, unnerved in imbalance, wanton for equilibrium.

What is woman anyway? What defines the irrationality fostered in voluptuous curvatures, the visceral inclination which gravitates toward such dichotomies as masochism and simultaneous dominance?

Her body is a vessel, capable of spawning new life, new light or darkness, but definitely flesh of ambition to find an uncertain road—the North, toward immortality.

She grapples with the thoughts of tomorrow, indecisive of how today will end, provoking tempests in fate’s domain, biblical in her resolution.

Light cannot filter through the fog, will not uncover her Achilles heel, her kryptonite, her only existing isolation, since all her else does not belong to her.

What is it to be fully devoted? To be a breathing testimony and conduit for love, for family, for sensibility—for all but one, within.

For woman is lunacy, who can ritualize triviality, find eternity in every smile, champion battles against inanimate foes, but is incapable of conjuring enough spirit to lift mere vapor.

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Diana Recouvreur | anywhere, u.s.a.

matha’, potha’ don’t kiss no more she packs the lunches with water in her eyes he ain’t come home until the cat stirred and the sky turned purple i heard the door slam and waited for the shouting

matha’, potha’ don’t speak no more she has talks in a low voice with a man that hangs up on me he drinks the devil’s ale and throws rocks at the old tree i trip on them ‘cause the yard is wild

matha’, potha’ don’t see no more she left the house messy and put five whole dollars in my pocket for lunch he was too busy shoving clothes in his trunk, ain’t even look when i left i been playing hooky, spend all the days long by the creek they says is dangerous

matha’, potha’ don’t love no more

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Diana Recouvreur | Los Angeles is Burning

Dull haze lighted our shadows, and our backs burned with an unusual heat.

A veil of smog capped the sky, and the sun irradiated orange hue like a child’s lantern on Halloween.

The phenomenon is sick and I can see a sweating river flowing slowly, nearly stagnant, drifting with the day’s waste.

Where is shantih now?

II.

The conflagration reached toward the heavens, and wild flames invaded the hillsides with orange tongues that tried to lick the sky.

Are the stars really ill at ease?

What testimony is this, that hisses in the dark and causes hot wind to rise in the night?

It is as if the anguish that thrives beneath the city ran out of places to go.

The dirty secrets of voluntary moral suicide, speaking of the thousand evils that can only be communicated in whispers, to like souls.

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The devil’s dialect slithers from behind a tree, under the shadows, out of the wall of fire itself and threatens the brave souls who weather the storm with nothing but rubber and water in short supply.

III.

The next morning ash blanketed everything, wind-blown debris settling, holding witness to the blaze that ravaged over 800 acres.

An oak leaf, still the image of its conception, landed on my windshield. How did you get here?

On whose breath did you ride, so many miles, through the night? (Did the whispers preserve you?) Now, one touch will shatter your perfection. The hillsides are still dripping embers. The charred landscape lies drenched and defeated, wind still fanning the remaining flames, and

the brave souls are now tired, stomping through the sludge of ash and earth, hoping for success, for affirmation of their existence, dreaming of fresh air and soft pillows.

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Luis J. Rodriguez | Fevered Shapes (For Jose Montoya, David Henderson, and Pedro Pietri, and the first poetry reading I ever attended, Fall )

I wallowed in a needled-spawned world, addicted to dope and the crazy life, and yet there I was—in Berkeley for my first poetry reading.

I was eighteen—with a bullet, as they say. Earlier I had flown on a plane for the first time. Sure I’ve survived half a dozen gun assaults, cops knocking me around, ODs, blades to my neck in jail cells, homeless in dank streets, and beat downs in barrio brawls—but flying? That scared me to death.

I sat there in a crowded cafe, not knowing what to expect. Poetry? I’d never heard this before. Oh, I had written lines: vignettes, images, fears, thoughts. But I didn’t know they were poems. Dulce Cerritos

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I had no idea what a poem was.

First up on the mic was Jose Montoya, with Chicano prayers of old pachucos, and strained loves and guitar solos, and Indian hands in corn flour.

Then David Henderson took the stage, gleaning urban black streets, racist stares, Black Panther fury & Southern cooking.

Finally, Pedro Pietri came up—Nuyorican word meister, flashing El Barrio’s experiences with poems located in phone booths & real life wisdoms that made us laugh and shake our heads.

I had never heard words spoken this way, more music than talk, more fevered shapes than sentences, more Che and Malcolm than Shakespeare.

These poems came for me, lassoed my throat, demanded my life’s savings, taking me for a sunset ride, knocking me to the dust.

These poems were graffiti scrawls along the alleys & trash-strewn tunnels of my body, the metaphoric methadone for the heroin hurling through my bloodstream, the lifeline I already had inside and didn’t know.

These poems were pool sticks, darkened gangways, a swirl of sunrise after the graveyard shift, a blood-black yelling behind torn curtains, a child screaming and nobody coming to help.

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They were a woman’s scent after a night of lovemaking, a sweet touch of hand to face, a forest of hair on a pillow, a moan during an elongated kiss.

These poems were shadowed intents, startled doubts, sorrows without grief, the moon without sky, unknown melodies… the falling inside that happens when you push razor onto wrist.

They came for me as I sank into my suicide, while fidgeting in a chair, inching under the skin, as I wondered why I even came.

Jose, David, and Pedro —I was never the same after this. They came for me and I’ve never let go. They came for me and I’ve perspired poems ever since. They came for me—and all my addictions, my sorry-ass lies, my falling masks, my pissed-off wives, neglected children, angry friends, and back-to-back failures could never, ever, take them away.

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Luis J. Rodriguez | Perhaps

Perhaps when the stories are lost and the dream is a dry river and what makes the flesh sing is a long-gone prayer, we may find our true names;

Perhaps when the earth’s rotation stops, when the moon has wilted and the sun’s rays scorch down this squandered ground, we may uncover our inner eye;

Perhaps when the poisons that once were our sustenance and the radiation that once gave us light, now foster our insatiable hungers and an abiding darkness, we may know what really feeds and guides us;

Perhaps after we’ve created so many borders, so many walls, and conjured up even more laws to make even more lawless, we may realize it’s ourselves who’ve been made illegal, it’s our spirits we’ve alienized;

Perhaps when parents lose their final grasps on their children, they will finally grasp that their sole purpose is to bring loved, healthy, and understood children into this world—to re-seed and remake the universe, better and more holy each time;

Perhaps when the wars in the names of countless Gods that look and act like those who evoke them finally end, we may realize that God is the unnamable, unobtrusive wind that caresses our cheeks, the rain that falls on us all, and the very air that enters our lungs, our blood and brains so we can name whatever God we want;

Perhaps when all the textbooks and written histories and science papers cease, we’ll understand that nature, and our own natures, are the source of all knowledge, language and histories, and we’ll always be able to re-write them, re-imagine them, and re-weave them into the world;

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Perhaps when love has become the embers of what we hate, the residue of what we’ve destroyed, we’ll know that love is the stream that flows through each and every one of us, the water we thirst for in the deserts of our days, the ocean from which all our tears, full of salt and unmet desires, surge and flow.

Mike Seidel

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Jennifer Romo | Synopsis: Let It Be (a screenplay in progress)

rich, successful man tries to prevent himself from falling in Alove with an eccentric young woman. Both characters yearn for a change inside of themselves that simply will not develop. The rich man, Ivan Peterson, thirty-one years old, owns a substantial amount of real estate and several prominent art galleries across the United States and Europe. The young woman, Sondra Edelstein, twenty- three, works as a full-time waitress, often helping decorate the restaurant with her paintings. Ivan lives alone in his large Victorian mansion contemplating what his life will be in the future. Will he still be wealthy? Will he marry? Will he even live past fifty? He is somewhat of an alcoholic, but his vice grows as his past refuses to unclench its grasp of him. His childhood was filled with negativity and demoralization. His father was his entire world, representing the only hope and happiness he had until a freak accident took his life, leaving Ivan alone with his alcoholic mother. His mother constantly belittled him and embarrassed him in front of their family by saying that he would never amount to anything. She died of liver disease when Ivan turned thirteen. Sondra always lived in poverty and had to endure the endless arguments between her parents. One day, her parents decided to leave her at the age of fifteen. She expresses her anger as well as her small sense of hope in her paintings which depict dark and melancholic images that symbolize her tortured soul. There are several other characters in the film. Among them are Claire, Thomas and Andrew. Claire is Sondra’s best friend and roommate; in fact, she is like a sister to Sondra. Claire is the epitome of a country gal; she was raised on a ranch in Oklahoma. She has a thick country accent and is often the comical person in the film. She left the quiet country life for the exciting world of the noisy, complex metropolitan realm. Although she is a dorky, funny person, she has her share of dark secrets. Thomas is Ivan’s business partner always asking Ivan when he is going to settle down and get married. Thomas is married and has two children, but still has his fun on the side with an occasional hooker or the random one night stand with one of the secretaries in the workplace. Andrew is Ivan’s dying uncle. Ivan resents him not because he is his mother’s brother, but because he always tries to show him the beauty of hope. Andrew used to be a bitter and pessimistic man, but his entire life took a turn when he took Ivan in after his mother died. He believed that by taking care of him, he was given the opportunity to create a good person. Unfortunately, Ivan is just as pessimistic as his uncle was in his youth. The weather is very significant throughout the entire film. It sets a gloomy mise-

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en-scene to coincide with the characters’ lonely and melancholic lives. Thomas is a womanizer on the brink of a divorce and although his attitude seems indifferent, one can notice through close-ups on his face that he is a troubled man. Claire is like Sondra’s own reflection in the mirror, she is able to notice when something is wrong with her and when an event has occurred. However, she conceals her true self so well that no one could ever suspect that she is a very depressed and troubled young woman trying to escape from her past. Ivan hardly shows any true emotion, not even when it comes to his dying uncle, who cared for him since he was a teenager. Sondra is the only person who is able to crack Ivan’s hard exterior and reveal both his vulnerabilities as well as his desire for true love. The opening scene of the film shows Ivan walking out to lunch with Thomas and other business associates in a metropolitan area. They are all very well dressed; Ivan often wears black, making him look pale and extremely serious. They walk into a restaurant close to their job and this is when and where Ivan meets Sondra for the first time. The restaurant is dimly lit, giving a relaxing environment and is full of Sondra’s beautiful works of art. She takes their orders; Ivan looks up at her and is stricken by her beauty but says nothing. The weather is very symbolic in the movie. For instance, the climate of the area is cold and cloudy,giving the film a gloomy feeling.The wind is constantly blowing, pushing each of the characters while they struggle to fight against it. The characters are happy when it begins to rain; this symbolizes a cleansing as well as an opportunity for a fresh start. Unfortunately, as the film progresses, the state suffers a massive drought and the characters are left unhappy and sullen.

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Jennifer Romo | Let It Be (a screenplay in progress)

EXT. A LARGE CITY—NOON

Opening scene shows an aerial shot of the city. The camera drops slowly, focusing on Ivan Peterson and his business associate/friend Thomas walking down a metropolitan area, heading to lunch.

THOMAS (to IVAN) Come on, you’ve gotta check this restaurant out, you’ll love it!

Ivan takes a small drag from his cigarette as he and his co-workers keep walking down the streets and into a near block filled with several restaurants and shopping areas.

IVAN All I know is that I’m tired of eating the same shit all these pretentious assholes eat. If it were up to me, I’d tell them to shove their damn sushi and caviar up their ass!

THOMAS a lot Trust me; it’s got of things you’ll like.

The men walk into a restaurant called Bourgeoisie.

INT. RESTAURANT—LUNCH TIME

The ambiance of the restaurant is calm and dim lit and decorated with Sondra’s paintings. As the camera gives an overview of the restaurant, the camera focuses on one of Sondra’s paintings, a delicate, yet distorted woman lying face down with her hand in a pond. Another painting shows a woman trapped in an abyss in a sinking boat. They are seated as Sondra takes their orders. Thomas is seated on the left and Ivan is on the right.

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SONDRA Good afternoon, what kind of drinks would you like to have?

THOMAS Coffee, thanks.

Thomas winks at Sondra. Sondra gives an uncomfortable and forced smile for the sake of being polite and continues to take orders, looking at Ivan.

IVAN I’ll have a scotch and coke with extra ice.

THOMAS (chuckling) Jesus! I know it’s past twelve, but we still gotta head back to work, you know.

IVAN extra That’s why I ordered it with ice.

Both men laugh for a second and continue with their conversation. Sondra brings them their food. Their voices fade away as the camera follows Sondra to the counter to give more orders to the chef. Claire quickly stops her, almost crashing into her, to talk about Ivan.

CLAIRE (thick southern accent) Do you know who you just took an order for?

SONDRA Yeah, that corporate asshole who thinks I’m interested in him. Why?

CLAIRE him No, not .

Claire points with her eyes over to Ivan while he is speaking to Thomas, not noticing the two girls talking about him.

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CLAIRE Him.

SONDRA I don’t know, Claire. My head isn’t in (starts speaking in a southern accent) them rich folk magazines ya’ll people love to read in Missouri.

CLAIRE Oh shut up! That’s Ivan Peterson, you know, the one who owns those fancy art galleries down Main. I heard he’s lookin’ for some new art work, you should turn that bitch switch off for a second and give him some of that charm. And it’s Mississippi, stupid!

SONDRA My art isn’t for sale.

CLAIRE your Is that a fact? Well then tell me why paintings cover every damn wall of a restaurant called Bourgeoisie?

Sondra rolls her eyes and carries two trays over to another table. Thomas and Ivan finish their meals and head to the door when Ivan spots Sondra heading to the counter.

IVAN Excuse me, miss, but do you happen to know where I may find Sondra Edelstein?

SONDRA (chuckling) I’m Sondra Edelstein, see? Right here.

Sondra slightly lifts her name tag high enough for Ivan to see.

IVAN Impressive, I haven’t seen anything like your work before. I was wondering if you would be interested in selling.

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Sondra analyzes his face in an awkward manner, tilting her head left and right. She slightly smiles and replies.

SONDRA Sorry, I don’t sell any of my work, especially to your kind.

Ivan gives a mocking smile and hands Sondra his business card.

IVAN Well, someone with your kind of talent shouldn’t go unnoticed and it seems to me like you can use a change of lifestyle. Do you really want to keep working in a restaurant, taking orders from guys like my friend Thomas over there? Never mind, just give me a call in case you change your mind.

Sondra takes the card, not taking her eyes off of Ivan. He and Thomas walk out the door. The camera stays focused on Sondra as she stares at the business card, the light from outside shines on her as the door rapidly opens.

INT. SONDRA’S AND CLAIRE’S APARTMENT—LATER THAT DAY

It is a simple two-bedroom apartment located in the outskirts of the city. They are sitting on their white couch drinking coffee and watching television.

CLAIRE Why shouldn’t you take it? Hell, he’s got money; do you know what kind of reputation you’d receive if you had Ivan Peterson as your primary benefactor?

SONDRA I don’t know, I mean sure I can use the money, but then what will that say about me? About my art? I’ll just be another sell out. (Beat)

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A close up shot of Sondra fills the entire frame.

SONDRA (CONT’D.) I feel that if I sell my work, I’d be tainting it... I’d taint what is inside of me. It won’t be pure anymore.

Sondra looks over to Claire. Claire is speechless and looks at Sondra’s face with an understanding expression.

EXT. BACKYARD—MORNING

Ivan enters his uncle’s backyard. It is filled with weeds and the soil in the lawn is unhealthy and only has a few patches of dry grass. His uncle Andrew is sitting on a beach chair.

ANDREW (laughing at first, then coughs violently)

Ah! There he is! How’s my boy?

IVAN Ugh, Uncle Andy, you know you’re not supposed to be outside; it’s not good for ya.

ANDREW Bah! Don’t tell me those things; don’t talk to me fine like I’m a damn cripple. I’m , look at me! Besides, the sun is out, I love it when the sun comes out right after a storm, I love the fresh air. Did you know the air is much cleaner after it rains? Bet you didn’t.

IVAN (looks up at the sky) Well, rain or shine, Uncle Andy, you can’t just go outside like that. You’re gonna end up back in the hospital, do you want that? Your lungs can’t handle the slightest attack.

The camera slowly closes in on Andrew.

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ANDREW No, Ivan, the thing I can’t handle is your cyni- cism. Even if I am dying, why should that stop me from seeing the sun rise every morning? What’s to stop me from seeping in even the slightest breath of fresh air cleansed by the rain? Nothing, that’s what, not even your spooky threats of goin’ to the hospital.

INT. ClAIRE’S AND SONDRA’S APARTMENT—ONE AFTERNOON

Sondra is painting on a canvas. It is an image of a young woman looking into a mirror and touching her reflection, but the reflection is in actuality an alter-ego of the young woman. The volume of her radio is on full blast, playing “Son et Lumiere” by The Mars Volta. The image is filled with bright colors: pink, white and blue, but the alter-ego image is dressed in dark blue and pale in complexion. She looks for a pencil and scavenges through her coat, remembering she left one in there. She finds Ivan’s business card. Camera closes up on Sondra holding the card.

SECRETARY (O.S.) (a snobby voice) Ivan Peterson’s office, how may I assist you today?

SONDRA Yes, I’m calling to set up an appointment with Mr. Peterson.

SECRETARY (O.S.) And in what way are you associated with Mr. Peterson?

SONDRA Associated? What do you mean?

SECRETARY (O.S.) I mean, are you in any way associated with his business? Is he considering having you for any position?

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SONDRA (laughing nervously) Oh, no, no, no. I’m an artist. Mr. Peterson was interested in buying some of my paintings and I’m calling to set an appointment to see if he is still interested in buying.

SECRETARY (O.S.) I see. Well, he’s in a meeting at the moment, business. I’ll see to it that he gets your message.

SONDRA (hesitant voice) Uh, alright, thank...

The secretary hangs up on Sondra before she can thank her. Sondra gets ready for work.

EXT. STREET—LATE MORNING

The sky is once again engulfed in clouds and the cold wind hits Sondra’s face as she slowly walks off the bus and heads toward the restaurant. Her facial expression implies her guilt in calling Ivan.

INT. RESTAURANT

The camera shows Sondra’s point of view as she enters the restaurant filled with people seated at almost every table.

CLAIRE (analyzes Sondra’s face) Whoa! Hey, what’s up with you?

SONDRA It’s nothing. I’m just a little stressed, that’s all.

CLAIRE Don’t give me that BS, what’s wrong?

SONDRA I called him.

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CLAIRE Who? SONDRA That business guy, Ivan Peterson. I called him an hour ago to set up an appointment so he can see which paintings he wants to buy.

CLAIRE I knew it; I knew you’d give in sooner or later. Hey, maybe you’ll find his human side and make him fall in love with you and he’ll take you far away to one of his many mansions that he owns.

SONDRA Cut it out. They’re just paintings, not a gold digger’s ticket.

CLAIRE Well, I’m off. See you later on tonight, alright?

SONDRA Yeah.

INT. OFFICE—AFTERNOON

Ivan’s office has large windows and oversees the city. Ivan and Thomas have just returned from their business meeting. Thomas sits on a black leather seat that Ivan has in his office, playing with a stress ball. Ivan’s secretary walks in to hand him his messages.

THOMAS Well, hello Diane, you’re looking lovely today.

DIANE Good afternoon.

She exits the office in a stern and subtle angry manner.

IVAN Why do you do that?

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THOMAS Do what?

IVAN Every time she comes in here, you always feel something like you have to say to make her feel uncomfortable.

THOMAS Oh, come on, she’s a nobody. So has that chick at the restaurant called you yet? You know that pretty little painter or whatever the hell she does that interests you in her so much.

Ivan holds up Sondra’s message.

IVAN As a matter of fact, she did. Shit. I didn’t think she’d actually call. (beat)

Ivan’s usual apathetic facial expression fades for a moment and a small smile crosses his face as he reclines on his seat to read the message.

THOMAS were Ah ha...so you interested in her after all. I knew it; I can almost sense these things.

Ivan proceeds to read the message.

IVAN Looks like she wants to set up an appointment.

THOMAS Olalla.

IVAN You think she’ll sell me that painting she has of that woman dipping her hand in the water?

THOMAS Maybe she’ll want to have dinner later. You should ask her. Ivan?

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IVAN Or maybe that other nice one with the little boy and the torn up flowers...

THOMAS Ivan?

IVAN What? I like her work, Tom, that’s it. There are other things on my mind other than hooking up with girls. Maybe you should spend some time with your wife. Remember her?

THOMAS We’re gettin’ a divorce. She wants half of everything, like I’ll let that happen.

IVAN Nice one, Tom, you’ve managed to screw up a perfectly good relationship.

THOMAS Don’t give me that. You don’t even take the ini- tiative to even meet a girl. At least I go out there and explore, you just stay in your own little world, breathing in the fumes of your many alcoholic drinks.

IVAN Have you tested yourself for STD’s?

THOMAS you Have gone to the doctor for liver disease?

Both men chuckle. Ivan decides to return Sondra’s call and tells Thomas to leave so he wouldn’t distract him with his smart-alecky comments. Claire answers the phone.

IVAN Hello, I’m calling for Sondra Edelstein. Is she in?

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CLAIRE (O.S.) Oh, she’s at work at the moment, may I ask who is calling?

IVAN This is Ivan Peterson. Could you just tell her that I called, please?

CLAIRE (O.S.) Oh yeah, yeah! Of course!

IVAN Thank you very much.

Ivan hangs up the receiver and looks at Sondra’s message for a bit longer. He turns his seat to face the overview of the city. He looks to his right and remem- bers that the restaurant is only two blocks away.

INT. RESTAURANT

Ivan spots Sondra at a table and distinguishes Sondra’s voice among the several conversations going on at once.

SONDRA So here are your drinks and I’ll be right back with your orders.

IVAN Sondra Edelstein? I received your message and called your home phone number, but your roommate said you’d be here. Is there any way we you can get a break, maybe discuss which paintings I can purchase?

SONDRA Yes, yes of course.

Sondra turns to another waitress.

SONDRA Hey Maggie, can you cover table three for me?

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MAGGIE Yeah, sure.

EXT. BENCH OUTSIDE THE RESTAURANT

Sondra and Ivan sit to discuss the paintings that may be up for sale. Sondra expresses a somewhat less sassy attitude in contrast to their earlier encounter but remains suspicious.

SONDRA To be honest with you, Mr. Peterson, I’m still not sure I should be selling any of my paintings. I mean, I know I could use the money, but still, it’s a very tough decision for me to make.

IVAN Please, call me Ivan. I understand perfectly. Your art is something that is a part of you and you feel as if selling it would be an act of desecrating your inner- self. I know, but you must understand, I truly can’t go on without having my own Sondra Edelstein in my home.

SONDRA I admire your enthusiasm for my paintings, but is it my aesthetics that attracts you to my work or is it the simple fact that I’m not letting you have what you want, so you feel as though you need to have it?

IVAN I can see that there is no convincing you. Perhaps, we can strike another deal. How about making a trade? Hm? One of my personally owned paintings for one of yours.

SONDRA Alright, that sounds fair.

Both stand up as Ivan turns back to his office. He turns around once more and calls to Sondra.

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IVAN Sondra? SONDRA Yes?

IVAN Would you care to join me for dinner?

(TO BE CONTINUED)

Fabiola Nava

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Sandra Serrano | Moving Closer (with apologies to T.S. Eliot)

Let us go then you and I to the crack-stained streets of South L.A. where $15 is worth 15 minutes of satisfaction or 30 minutes for $25

A bargain

Let us go to the new apartments where I live an imitation of wealth

Come now with me Downtown where cardboards are homes for many

and the CEO of the latest.com in his new red convertible speeds fast ahead making the gap harder to close

On to East Los Angeles College old, run-down, falling apart everyday more Do not let this front fool you unlike my apartment it wasn’t created for fools

The walls leak with new knowledge whether teachers teach well or students actually learn

Still, it is there waiting— waiting for those who will close the gap.

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Karen Stram | *$$$ (Starbucks) Story

’ll have the phonetically enhanced coffee,”I said to the “Istarry-eyed server at Starbucks. “The what?” was his reply. “You know,” I said,“the Super Grande Mocha Cappuccino Latte. “Decaf?” he asked. “Of course,“ I replied, not wanting to confuse him. “Do you want cappuccino or latte?” he asked. “Both,” I said. “You can’t have both. It’s either cappuccino or it’s latte.” “Oh,” I said, embarrassed by my lack of advanced coffee knowledge.“Why can’t I have a latte cappuccino?” The guy stared at me like I was from another planet.“Okay,” I said.“What’s the difference between a latte and a cappuccino?” The frosty-haired woman with the white miniature spaniel behind me in line cleared her throat. I looked at her. She looked at her watch, I got the picture. The line behind me was growing and the crowd was starting to look ugly. I realized these people were serious about their coffee. How can anyone be serious about something called a Mocha Decaf White Chocolate Latte with whipped cream on top at 7:30 a.m. unless they’re drunk out of their skull and haven’t gotten home yet to sleep it off? But these people all seemed to be geared up and ready to meet the world this fine, rainy L.A. morning. All they needed was to have their pumps primed with phonetically enhanced coffee. Decaf, of course. None of them seemed hung over from their single malt happy hour adventures the night before. Maybe their brains regenerate over night.They work all day in an atmosphere so stultifying they can only order one syllable drinks in the p.m. and make up for it in the a.m. by ordering the most complicated coffee concoction Starbucks can come up with. I finally settled for a Grande Americano and went to sit in the corner and watch the scene unfold as I waited for my cuppa. This, I think looking around, is America at its best. A cup of coffee with a wireless computer connection so the left hand doesn’t get bored or out of shape while the right hand holds the cell phone to the ear. They make the straws long enough so you can sip through them without letting go of either connection. You can even bring your dog into Starbucks as long as it’s no bigger than a bread basket, matches your outfit or your hair, looks like its owner, is wearing a shirt and

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reminds the owner to tip. I made that part up. The tipping that is. Everyone knows it’s proper etiquette to drop your change into the tip cup just loud enough to let everyone know you’re not a deadbeat. I shouldn’t be so snide. I really do love Starbucks. They’re the McDonald’s of the coffee culture. I feel at home there. I recognize the logo and know the color scheme. I know the low-fat blueberry muffin I drink with my decaf won’t stick to my butt like the Egg McMuffin I used to eat. And it tastes just as good. Really it does. I know the bathroom will be clean, even though it is bisexual. I know the servers are clean. I know they’re smart ‘cause they went to Starbuck academy. I know they’re peppy from inhaling all the coffee fumes. I know I can sit for hours nursing a single cup of coffee while I job hunt. That is the best part. And I don’t have to envy them their job. I don’t think I could bear yelling,“Mocha Grande Super Cappuccino Latte, Decaf ” all the time with a smile on my face. It’s a crying shame my parents aren’t alive to see the gentrification of the coffee shop. They were the original coffee fanatics. My father beat Mr. Coffee to the punch by twenty-five years back in the fifties when he hooked the old percolator to an alarm clock which he set for 6:00 a.m. The smell of fresh brewed coffee jump started the entire family every morning until I left home at seventeen. My dad was too modest by far. Had he thought to patent that coffee timer he’d have died a multi-millionaire. We took fresh perked coffee awaiting us at sunrise as a

Yi Ling Lai

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fact of life not realizing what a potential gold mine my inventor father had come up with. The coffee went right along with the blasting a.m. news radio, which joined our morning fray the second my dad walked into the kitchen. KYW news Philadelphia would stay on all bloody morning, every morning. Ackkk. But the coffee was superb. My parents drank it like water.They went through at least three pots a day. Morning, noon and dinner and decaf? Fugetaboutit. No way Jose. Ah, how my mother would have loved Starbucks. Phonetically engineered coffee. What a treat. Too bad ya can’t smoke inside anymore, she’d complain.“The world’s going to hell in a handbasket.“How in the hell can I enjoy my coffee without a cigarette?” My mom would have looked at the board and growled,“How the hell do you get a straight cup of coffee here? I don’t want a Cappuccino Latte Grande. I just want a cuppa joe.” My dad, on the other hand, would have been transfixed. He’d have had to try every one. Each would be better than the next. That was the difference between my parents. My mother was an angry smoker who needed the fix of the caffeine, tobacco and alcohol to get her through the day. My dad was chronically depressed and thus always pleasantly surprised when things went well or tasted good or whatever. Fresh, early morning coffee was a mystical experience for him so he created a way to have it. That was back in the days when the A&P ground its 8:00 a.m. coffee in the store and boy did it smell good. Those were the days. A simple ground, roast coffee. No Vanilla Café Latte Mocha Grande Expresso Cappuccino for me. Good God, I can’t even say it with a straight face. Right around the time of the ‘70s gas crisis there was also a coffee crisis. I forget exactly what happened but the price of coffee started to sky rocket. My mom started hoarding 3-pound cans of A&P coffee. The refrigerator in the basement was stocked with it as were the closets and the kitchen cabinets. She was a depression kid and knew the score. Better to be safe than sorry. So every time she went to the grocery store she came back with about 24 lbs of coffee. That went on for about a year. And me? I don’t drink coffee very often. I’m a Pepsi Generation kid. People look at me funny when I order diet Pepsi at breakfast. Heck, we all have our vices. Caffeine is caffeine is caffeine. I cut my teeth on coffee. It puts me to sleep. Besides, I like the bubbles.

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Susan Suntree | Rivers

How can rivers never-mind Their flat courses for centuries for millennia Without forethought of canyon? And carry along whatever falls Whatever sinks drowns drifts Uproots despairs or settles to the very bottom.

Rivers flow in time’s one direction Faithful to gravity’s dictum No backtalk, no quarrel

My blood, my breath my thoughts, though fickle and convinced of their own authority, carry with the river current.

Why is there one direction and no time—no space? Why do I splash, flow, flail in this no-thing world?

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Trami Ton | White Candles

The white unscented candles you left here destroyed my civility, leaving a flickering fire trace.

And though you never considered the hurt it carries it awaits the return of you to bring back its scent

The fracture won’t cease. The hankering still disturbs me, I lie faced to your spurning night and day. These candles have burnt down to toast the scent I used to carry

Samuel Chen

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Trami Ton | Nature’s Consciousness

Rose buds softly swimming in a world of water streaming from a fountain to my finger— smooth as something more deserving than empty thoughts.

My mother spoke to me, she said appreciate the little small things that are in front of you, feel my hand, smell my smells, breathe my essence into your being, and live with me.

Ling Ju Yu

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Evangelina Vasquez | A Prayer for my Friend

t was really cold that January day. The white clouds were glued Ito the blue sky of the valley hidden among the mountains, in the middle of central Mexico, and didn’t move. The cold weather made my cheeks turn red, and I thought I needed some lemon juice to make them softer and nice again. It was my first day of kindergarten, and my mother had taken me to my new school, Athens Academy, on Allende Avenue, one of the main streets in the small town where we lived. I was a little bit scared, and I wanted to cry; but I didn’t because my father had told me that morning kindergarten was going to be an exciting time for me, and I always believed my father. We children were in the patio outside the classrooms waiting for the teacher to come in. I was admiring the pretty daisies in the immense blue pots when I noticed a girl who was crying, not far from me. I thought maybe she cried because she didn’t want to stay in that scary school. I went near her and tried to talk, but she wouldn’t listen to me and continued crying until Sister Maclovia assigned us to our seats. I ended up sharing the same desk with the crying girl. We would be sitting next to each other for the rest of the year, and the rest of our many, many years at that school. Finally, the girl looked at me and stopped crying. Her name was Lupita, she said. This is how we became best friends until the day she died, ten years ago. Oh, my dear friend! How many days of our childhood we spent walking the streets of Guerrero, Pipila, or the Jardin Hidalgo, where the band played every Thursday night! How many evenings, when we were teenagers already, we spent at the soda fountain, listening to the Beatles, talking about the bullfighters in town, or the novels of Francoise Sagan, the young French writer, and why the nuns didn’t want us to read them! How many evenings we spent talking about Heaven? Did it really exist, or was it a nuns’ invention. And after many days of thinking and meditating on the subject, we decided that, yes, there should be a Heaven where there was peace and beauty, and everybody loved each other, and there were no wars or hatred, and angels spent an eternity flying around God’s eternal light. After all, we concluded, it was better to spend our lives believing we would go to such a wonderful place when we died, rather than going through life without hope. But there were days, too, when we were not so philosophical! And you tried to teach me how to smoke, and I tried hard to learn and couldn’t do it. And I told you that the smoke got lost inside of me and never found its way out. And there were days, too, at the soda fountain, when we had our little fights as you drank your beloved

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herbal tea instead of coffee,“because it was healthier,”you argued, and insisted I do the same thing. And I said no; I would drink black coffee,“It didn’t matter if it killed me.” I also remember how we laughed when Sylvia, one of our mutual friends and classmates, told us that the Secretary of State of the United States was her boyfriend and that he was super rich and had houses on the coasts of Maine, Hawaii and the South of France near Cannes on the Mediterranean Sea. But I remember, too, that following her example, you told me one day the prince of Spain kept on calling you, and you thought he looked adorable in the pictures of the magazines, and you had accepted to be his girlfriend already. You laughed at the idea of seeing our classmates’ faces when they learned the news about your having a prince of Spain as your boyfriend. “Oh dear!”… I exclaimed, every time you told me about your royal boyfriend. Time passed, and everything went fine until Sophia of Greece appeared in Juan Carlos’ life, and they got married.“Oh Dear!” I exclaimed once more.“Now,”I told you, “What are our friends going to say? Didn’t I tell you, that the truth always shines?” Finally, you decided to tell them that you had broken up with Prince Juan Carlos because you found him boring.“Oh dear!” I exclaimed once more. Your next boyfriend was a movie star. His name was James Dean…. You told me one afternoon when we were sitting under the shadow of an olive tree in the central garden.“But,”I said,“James Dean is dead!” “Oh!” you said.“Then Rock Hudson will be my boyfriend. Anyway, he calls me once in a while.” “Oh Dear!” I thought, your imagination was better than Francoise Sagan’s … Oh yes! It was fun. I always pretended to believe your stories. After all, you were my friend. And we were friends until the end. You called me one day in January ten years ago and told me you didn’t feel good. You weren’t eating at all.You had nausea.Your stomach ached, and you didn’t have any energy. You also told me nobody wanted to give you some water or some soup. I was so surprised to hear that! “But,” I said, “What about your husband? What about your daughter?” “They don’t want to do it,” You said in a soft voice. “But,” I repeated insanely:“They have to do it!” “No,” you said, sadly… “They won’t”“Oh! For Heaven’s sake,” I said.“You have to call your cousins. You have to tell someone. Did you see a doctor?”“No… my husband is taking care of me. He gives me the medicine I need.”“But,”I said…“I can’t believe it. It is not possible. He is not a doctor…He only distributes medicine to clinics and doctors’ offices. He is not a doctor…!” I repeated like crazy,“He is not a doctor. You have to see a real doctor. Listen! Take a taxi and go see one.” You didn’t answer…. I was so mad.“Listen,” I told you.“I don’t know what is hap- pening to you, but promise you will call me and tell me how you are feeling, OK?” “OK!” you said.

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Kiki Chen

Two weeks later, my brother called me from Irapuato. “Hi!” I said. “What’s up!” “Listen, sister, your friend, Lupita, died yesterday. Her cousin, Mario, told me she had cancer.”“Cancer?” I asked, as if I didn’t understand what it meant.“Yes, there is a notice in the newspaper about her death.” I felt something strange going into my stomach. I felt as if I had eaten a whole watermelon and couldn’t breathe or talk. I thought something like a bullet had hit my head. My brother continued, “She died yesterday in the living room of her house. When her husband called an ambulance, she was already dead. I didn’t know she was sick.”“I knew,” I thought.

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He continued talking and talking, but I didn’t understand what he was saying. Finally, I was able to articulate a sentence.“She had cancer, and she never saw a doctor. She died at home with nobody to give her water or soup. She died in the living room of her house, and she was never in a hospital.” After a few minutes, a terrifying question came to my mind.“Why, why, why…?” “I don’t know,” my brother said.“I’m sorry, sister.” My brother hung up. I sat down and started remembering those days when we were young and free, when you were going to be queen of the city, and the gala ball was near. I remembered our beautiful white gowns that night. I remembered the time when we walked the streets of our hometown in the long summer evenings. I remembered also our school days when you were frightened because you had not done your homework, and you pulled my notebook in order to read the answer to Sister Tarsila’s question. You knew I always did my homework, didn’t you…? Oh yes, I remembered. Suddenly, it came to my mind, also, when you told me many years later that you were going to marry someone from another state. “Are you sure?” I asked you, “You don’t know him. You really don’t know him. Why don’t you wait until you know that man better?”“No,”you said.“I love him.”“OK.!”I said.“But don’t tell me later that I did- n’t warn you. He is a stranger.” The echo of your voice has stayed with me until now. That stranger, your husband, didn’t take you to see a doctor. He didn’t want to give you some soup or water. And you had never told me. Oh dear God! All these years you never told me. I should have guessed what kind of person he was. I missed the signs. A month after your wedding, you told me that your husband had painted all the front windows of your house white, so you wouldn’t see outside. A few years later, when I went to visit my family at Christmas, and I invited you to go to the soda fountain to drink coffee or the herbal tea you liked, you said no, you couldn’t go.“Why?” I asked?“Are you busy? Come on, let’s go!” Finally, you confessed to me that your husband didn’t want you to go.“And why is that? May I know?” I asked you. Then, you told me that your husband thought I would be a bad influence for you because I now lived in Los Angeles, and Los Angeles was a perverted city. I got mad, very mad. I thought that was really stupid.“Do you agree with that?” I asked you. And my friend, my best friend didn’t answer. Deep inside me, in my heart, I felt pain, a terrible pain, but I said nothing. I didn’t insist, and we never went back to the soda fountain of our youth again. Over the years, we rarely saw each other, but we talked over the phone for hours. However, you never told me about your misery. And I never asked you if, indeed, you

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believed that I would be a bad influence for you because I lived in Los Angeles, or you were so afraid of your husband you didn’t dare disobey or contradict him. I should have guessed something was not right in your marriage then. But I did nothing. That should have been enough for me, and that was and is my sin. Finally, I sat down and cried. I knew an era had ended. I looked outside. l noticed the loquats had new leaves. Life continued. Why are the loquats so green and beautiful if my friend is dead…? Why…? To whom am I going to call now, I thought, when I feel down and empty? Towhom am I going to ask about our childhood friends? With whom am I going to share my joy or sorrow…? With whom…? Why did my friend die so soon? The emptiness in me was just starting. And it remains there like an old ghost that follows me everywhere. I sat down on the front steps of my house. The cold wind from the Pacific started to blow as usual at that time of the afternoon, freeing the white flowers from the cactus’ thorny branches near the sidewalk. They went up with the wind, danced for a while above the street, making circles and disappeared in the distance. I watched them for a long time. Maybe they would come back, I hoped. But they never did. And suddenly, I thought I knew the answer to all my questions. That is exactly what we are on this earth: We are like the cactus flowers. We have thorns but also soft petals and a delicate perfume. We bloom into the moonlight of the earth one night and disappear the next into the eternal wind that blows its melody forever and ever in the darkness of the universe. And we never come back. But the cacti will continue blooming in the glitter of the half-moon for a long, long time until they, too, become silent. That day, I knew, also, you had found already the heaven we liked to imagine when we were children, and you were young and happy again… like then.

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Kelvin Cheung

Evangelina Vasquez | Alhelíes

t was one o’clock in the afternoon, and like every afternoon, Ithe garden was crowded with high school or junior high students from local insti- tutions like my own school: School of Athens, The Motolinia, The Amado Nervo, or The Irapuatense. It was the time in which all the sparrows went to hide in the bay-berry trees, and the alhelies faded, tired with the ardent midday sun. These were the days of a yesterday lost forever in the pleats of Mexico’s memory. And with that yesterday, the short stories of those provincial cities which existed long time ago were lost too. And now, they need people like me, who wander through this world with a pen and paper to give them birth and tell of their existence to all those who ignore those days, those stories that were a part of reality at sometime, somewhere in the universe. These were the days of the Beatles… with their “Yesterday,”“Yellow Submarine,” “Imagine.” This was the time of Joan Baez and “Gracias a la Vida” and her protest songs, Bob Dylan with his “Blowin’ in the Wind,” and the Rolling Stones with their “Like a Rolling Stone.”

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On the jukebox at the soda fountain shop, “Strawberry Fields” continued…. Meanwhile my friend Lupita and I, like every school day, were walking in the Central Garden under the pines. Sometimes we sat for a few minutes on those white iron benches that were there since the beginning of the 20th century.We bought some pin- guicas, (wild berries that grew under the big trees in the Sierra), and we ate them slowly, letting that unique sweet and sour flavor fill our veins and soul. After a while, we went our separate ways. She lived on Pipila Street. I lived on Lerdo de Tejada. I passed El Convento and Tercera Orden, The Franciscan churches in the city. Soon I was crossing the gigantic plaza, covering my head with one of my notebooks. The sunlight always gave me headaches. Besides, I didn’t want to get wrinkles. Grandma Gracita said I should always avoid the afternoon sun if I wanted to have nice skin when I was fifty years old. But at that time the great questions of a thirteen year old girl filled my mind: What is love…? When will I find it? Will I get married someday...? To whom…? Will he come from far away…? Will he come from beyond the sea? Maybe… How is life beyond the sea? Hurriedly running, I crossed the big plaza in front of Our Lady of Solitude parish where I was baptized one October day, and soon I was entering the big mercado full of delicious aromas of the different fruits that were sold there: oranges, tangerines, pineapples, mangos… (all of them fresh and juicy) recently brought from Tabasco or Veracruz. There was also the unmistakable smell of the sweet strawberries picked that morning in the surrounding fields of Irapuato. Chonita, the one and only Chonita, was selling her piles of flowers of magical colors, like magenta roses, or white–almost–blue gigantic gardenias that opened their corollas to the navy blue sky, like mute witnesses of time, day, hour, epoch, eternity. I ran across the market to get back to school before 3 p.m.; if I was late, Sister Maria would close the enormous door, and I would be unable to attend the afternoon classes. I ran and ran toward my old house where the shadow of the lemon tree would give me rest and coolness. Outside the market, the big pigeons flew down to the fountain, drawing circles in the wind, getting soaked first then eating seeds from the thistles growing around the iron Florentine fountain, which was brought from Paris especially for the town in the 18th century. There it was, formidable, gleaming in the midday sun. I always thought the fountain looked like a calla lily. The great Mercado Hidalgo got quiet for the afternoon meal, and everything else was quiet too. It was a two hour lapse. It was the sacred hour for all Mexico’s towns.

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Now it is one o’clock in the afternoon, of all afternoons…. The wind runs in desperation… And the branches of the weeping willow swing happily, Sweeping the dust from the street, And it is the same sun, The same branches of yesterday, That yesterday that continues near me And gets confused with my present and will give birth to my tomorrow. And my tomorrow will always exist in my yesterday. Time is like gum. It stretches. It becomes a ball. You keep it and use it to glue stickers to the windows, or some old photos to your school album.

The Dead gather inside my temples and soul and make me resurrect them…. They have forgotten what time means. I carry them with me always. They talk to me, console me, caress me with their voice in a continuous, intense monologue… And move my fingers, and my pen, so I can describe them and tell their tales, And they sing to me love songs, And lull me with their marvelous sweetness, And allow me to continue living, When half of the people I love are already in that transparent region… Where neither tears nor the inconceivable pain of those dawns, without Light, without sun, exist, Where everything is soft, soft, Like the feathers of the blue cranes that fly by in the summer Where the voices become an echo… Where the heart doesn’t suffer anymore, neither weeps, neither tumbles in Disillusion, betrayal or bitterness, And it is only that… a great heart that loves… loves… loves…

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Lisa Mao

Evangelina Vasquez | The Persian Rose

The great branches hang under the shadows of the tunnel that obscure tunnel of my dreams, immense like hands of dragons, dark like a night without a moon, quiet like paths in cemeteries. And you exist there, and I call you, Grandmother. You stood up like a warrior, fighting ghosts, strange clowns, adversity and sorrow, solid like a rock. I used to hide behind your apron

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when the Ajuno train passed by, afraid of its wailing whistle. I was only a piece of bamboo, among your great branches. I still remember your aroma, you smelled like that tiny flower blooming under your window, a Persian Rose, and that aroma penetrated my soul, printed its perfume in my skin, my bones, my body. One day you flew in the morning train, I ran behind your shadow, but you diluted in the morning mist like a phantom. I always wanted to be like you, but in the end, we are what life lets us be: a passing cloud, a butterfly, a reed in the river. I weep for the shadows I can’t touch. I weep near the rain puddle, just in case you come back in the hallucinating waters. I see the moon cold and quiet, taking a bath in the pool. That cold light, eternal light, moves gently in the clear water, and I know you are there, and I know that the past exists only as the present, and I know that the future exists only as the present, and the present means eternity.

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Michael Venegas | Burial (For the Willy Loman of my life)

When younger he was told “If you work hard enough you can pull yourself up.” He believed in the propaganda for the American Dream. The self-innovation, the freedom from oppression and the ability to change lives, all for the American Dream. A self-made man, nothing stood in his way, he was upbeat for the American Dream. He was told it was a matter of talent, skill and will, told he was equal and held everything for the American Dream.

But what is the American Dream? He thought the American Dream was: A home, a car, his stay-at-home wife, the itch in his pants and the glint in his eye and his German Shepard Michelob, he needed to be the bread winner and the sta- bility under the rooftop. He thought the American Dream was: A cement packer, turn foreman then a superintendent of construction. He thought the American Dream was: A four bedroom two-bath house, with a cinderblock fence to hold a two-car garage, swimming pool, a backyard forest, a greenhouse, his midnight blue Chevy pick-up, his son’s SUVs and wife’s Cadillac. He thought the American Dream was: A two gigahertz Pentium computer and plasma screens, digital cable or satellite TV, a collection of VHS and DVDs and a cell phone that played his favorite song, The Doors—“Break on Through.” He thought the American Dream was at home in a wife telling him she wants to make enough money so he could rest and enjoy the fruits of his labor. He thought the American Dream was his, but asked: What is the American Dream?

Time has passed and time is gone.

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And America’s dream took and took. It took part of what he made and called it his duty. And America’s dream took and took. Took him to the Dream of Corporate America, to them he was just another cheap labor name who saved GM motors, Oltmans construction millions. And America’s dream took and took twenty-one hour work-days, and three hour sleepless naps,“It took my passion,” he said,“and buried it.” And America’s dream took and took along with Corporate America, tried to take us at his funeral. I still remember, “Damn, I’m gonna miss him, he saved us a lot of money. I wonder when his kids will come into the‘family’ business.” And America’s dream took and took. It took you, Dad, after thirty years of paying into the“American Dream,” it priced you, six hundred and fifty dollars,“Everything else he made or put into social security, we keep.”

The machines said you were dead. But your heart battled five minutes after it stopped. The doctors said you were dead. But your heart resumed two minutes after it stopped. The American Dream said you were dead. You thought you had the American Dream. I’m sorry to tell you, Dad. It was the American Dream that had you.

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Kelvin Cheung Michael Venegas | The Mirror Distance

ears ago in another life I lost Felicia Pemberton inside a fun Yhouse. Funny story how it happened. You see, I was set up on a blind date by my best friends, Jim and Gail. When they first came to me I told them I really wasn’t into the adventure of meeting someone new. First, they told me she was pretty and talka- tive. And well, I needed someone to listen to who weren’t the voices in my head. But I declined. They told me she was a red head, and I smirked in a way in which they weren’t quite sure whether I liked it or hated it. They said she was a natural and they won brownie points. Still I declined. Finally, they told me they would pay for sushi. And I happily agreed. While we were eating I found out she was an arrogant Twilight Zone. Oh, she talked all right. She talked about how she hated the fishy smell at the sushi bar. She made sure to give us her opinions of unprepared food. Now, I’ll admit I thought about it once or twice but it never really concerned me. Some people found adventure while jumping out of a plane, bungee jumping, drinking until all they see is black and then driving home. Oh sure, everyone has their version of adventure, what’s mine, you ask? Mine was making sure to eat as much sashimi as I could. With every strip of salmon, albacore, tuna, yellowtail and octopus, I made sure Felicia was looking at me while I enjoyed the taste of the ocean, the splash of salt water and the hint of lemon. Her

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sneering glance felt like mom’s love. Jim was driving that night, and my life was in his hands. He said his son’s private school was holding a fund-raising carnival. I was tickled at the idea. Last time I went to one I was maybe eleven, twelve, I know my balls hadn’t dropped yet. When I made that joke Felicia was the only one to not laugh. Gail told her she needed to loosen up around us. Felicia said she“loosened up” for no one. And it was quiet all the way to the carnival. “We’re here,” said Jim. He rode up the drive-through and over the basketball courts, and parked near the football field. I gave a whimsical thought as to why we were parking here. “Special parking pass,” Gail pointed out. “Damn right,” Jim said, “This school better give me something extra with all the money I’ve given them.” “Well, they’re giving you son a proper education,” said the contemptuous Felicia. “Lady,”Jim remarked,“not even God could teach that kid,I’m just paying for the name.” We walked up to the ticket stand, boy with boy and girl with woman. I walked off to the side and bought a small diet soda. I caught sight of a fun house. It was simple looking, but there was something about it. Maybe it was the rusted tin clown mouth. Perhaps, it was the red tongue along the green grass. I don’t think it was the blue walls. But there was just something about it that reminded me of something. Quite possibly it was the banners all around it, “Man Eating Chicken” and “Bear Riding Bike.” Something just seemed familiar. I took a sip of my soda and thought I’d buy a churro too. Jim came for me and tapped me on my shoulder. When I turned around he quickly took a bite out of my freshly served churro. I gave a“you asshole” look and tore half for him. “You know, there’s a problem with the fun house,” he said. I knew there was something familiar with it,“It’s couples only.” I gave him a stale glance.“Sorry, didn’t know you had a thing for fun houses.” “Yeah, kinda, I don’t know what it is about them, they’re just fun. Should be okay, we’ll go boys together and girls.” “Uhm… problem.” “What, what do you mean problem?” “Charlie is in the fun house and uhm….” “You mean I have to go in there with the witch? Does she even have a sense of humor?” “Gail said she did. She’s her friend!” “You ever hear the old saying?” “What’s that?” “Your friends are a reflection of yourself.”

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“Yeah, but Gail isn’t like….” I gave him another stale glance but cracked a smile. “Well, she shouldn’t have a problem if we go in boys and girls.” Oh, she had a problem all right. The fight lasted a couple of minutes and she came out victorious. I told him it was fine and he should go in there and tell Charlie I said, “Hi!” Felicia and I sat on a table bench. I heard her sigh and looked around. I scooted down to her. She made sure not to look at me. But I would quickly look at her. The first few times I just turned my head. After that I started making funny faces. I saw her try hard not to laugh and finally got her to laugh when I put on my sweater hood, put my head on her shoulder and batted her baby doll eyes. “You’re stupid,” she said laughingly. “Aha! She does have a sense of humor. Churro?” “No, thank you?” “Want something to drink?” She took a few moments,“Please.” “What would you like, milady?” “Strawberry lemon.” “Hey, that sounds good, I think I’ll get one too. Here’s five bucks get me one also.” She gave me an indifferent stare.“Okay, okay, I’ll go with you.” I stood up and offered her my tender hand. We walked together to the lemonade stand side by side. She ordered two. Not in a voice that was commanding or demanding, rather it was in the tone that I heard my mother use whenever she ordered for my father, it was serene. Of course, like my mother she paid with the money in her partner’s hand. “Thank you,” she smiled. “You know, that’s the first time I’ve seen you smile tonight.” “This is the first time I’ve seen you act civilized.” We started walking back to the bench.“You’re kind of manageable like this.” “It’s an act, you know.” “What is?” “Acting like a kid around people, the joking around the immature jokes. Doesn’t matter how old you are, the penis and flatulence jokes always make people laugh.” “Not all the time.” “Gotta be willing to grow-down.” “Grow-down?” We sat down on the bench again. “What do you think, the only way is up?” “Well, yes, it is called growing up.” “If tennis ball goes only up would you have any fun?”

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“Tennis balls go horizontal.” And I gave her a fusty stare.“But I understand your point.” “Well, anyway, the jokes are just a defensive mechanism.” “What do you mean?” “It’s a way of keeping people away, keeping them at arm’s distance and isolating myself. I was hurt too many times growing up. You ever hear the old saying, ‘Your friends are a reflection of you’?” “Yes.” “Well, my friends are kept at a distance; therefore, I am distant from everyone.” “Sad way to live.” “You get used to it.” The summer breeze started to blow and her polyester dress jacket offered her little protection. I took off my sweater and gave it to her. “Thanks, again.” “No problem,” we sat there for a few more minutes waiting for Jim and Gail. And I finally looked at her. She looked cute in my sweater, all be it, it was a number of sizes too big for her, but she looked like an under-stuffed teddy bear. Her hands weren’t able to reach fully through the sleeves. Her long hair, tucked in the sweater, she didn’t try to work out. She had on pink lipstick and hardly any makeup, a natural beauty, although in these carnival lights all beauty looked the same. When she looked at me she looked over her shoulders and slightly smiled. And for some reason I fell in love with that image. “Say, uhm,” I stuttered. “Yes?” “Would you,” I started to blush,“Like to, I don’t know, um, huh, ugh what.” “Would I like toooo…” “Oh, never mind.” “No, what? What is it you were going to ask?” “The fun house, well it has a rule.” “Yeah, couples, I know, Gail told me. I’d love to go.” “Really?” “Yup.” I got up, threw our lemonades away, walked back and offered her my arm. “Gail said,” she started. “Said what?” “She said you warm up to people, just needed to give you some time.” When we got to the fun house it was a meager place. A place that looked like it

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would fall apart if a spitball hit in the wrong place. When we walked there was a clown laughing. Its laugh was high and screeching, the needle on the record player needed to be changed. We continued down the disorientating tunnel, the sliding staircase and the rocker room. We passed the“Man Eating Chicken” exhibit, which was quite literally a man eating chicken. I said hello and hugged one of my high school friends at another exhibit. His nickname was Bear and he was riding a bike. I thought they were funny so did Felicia. As we were heading towards the end we entered the maze of mirrors. Felicia held on my arm tighter as we worked our way through the maze. Finally, about half way through we found a normal mirror. I noticed, though, every time we walked around it shook like a drop of water shakes a pond when it falls. Felicia took off my sweater to get a good look at herself in the water-like mirror. She handed it to me, turned left and right; she tilted her head left and right while her body stayed still giving model poses. I took a few steps near her and the mirror shook again. Ultimately surprised, Felicia reached out to feel the repelling water. She stuck her fingers in and called for me. She got closer and closer. She stuck more of her hand and elbow into the mirror. One of her legs was getting ready to climb through the mirror. Every inch of herself she let sink in the mirror kept repelling. Until finally she was gone. I called out for a few times. But when I touched mirror it was solid cold to the touch. It felt like an ice cube. It was slick but this cube left my greasy finger print striding vertical- ly on the glass. I continued through the maze and when I came out Jim and Gail were standing outside with Charlie. The carnival was starting to shut down for the night. “Where’s Felicia?” asked Gail. “Well, she….” “Called me,”interrupted Jim,“when you were talking to Bear she called me and told me she was going home because she wasn’t having any fun with him. I really couldn’t say anything. I was still in shock as to how Felicia disappeared, was it a trick, was it an illusion? Was it schizophrenia? Did she really call Jim? And I somehow imagined the whole thing? “Gail, go on ahead with Charlie,” he said to his wife. “But I was… just… wait… what?” “We’ll be there in a second.” With that, Gail walked away. “Jim, dude, am I trippin’ or something? Am I on an acid trip?” “No, you’re sober.” “But Felicia, the mirror, it ate her, man.” “I know,” he said nonchalantly.“I was counting on it.”

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Michael Venegas | Nature’s Retelling

Remember, remember the fifth of November, The gunpowder, treason, and plot, I know of no reason why the gunpowder treason Should ever be forgot. For Marcos

June’s sun—cloudless, decays. The river mirrors the sky.

Memory tells me the pool was clear. As the sun scorches my eyes A benign ominous leaf eases the blast In the air.

There’s a subtle wail from a lemon, And an orange abandons unaware, Unaware of the ground and ricochet sounds Rolling towards the rigorous rock. The orange then kisses and quiets its tears.

And the lime falls down with a plop. It drives the poor docket Straight into its pocket And rolls away from the mound

And a gopher they stir by the ruckus of sound, It reaches the lime and takes underground. And when he returns it calls out and yearns And dashes for the orange round rock. He’s singing his praise and is no longer ’mazed By the claws of the brown Copper’s Hawk.

Just then a tap on my shoulder and beheld my beholder and said that your cousin was murdered.

1Quotation from Guy Fawks Night Rhyme, more commonly known as Fireworks Night or Bonfire Night.

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Michael Venegas | Paper Plane

ears ago, in another life, he took a walk in the park. Nowadays Yhe doesn’t need to, but on that one day Shawn felt he needed somewhere to clear his mind. He took the trip with a notebook in hand. He decided to sit on a three foot tall cinder brick wall near a swing set. At the time he felt melancholy wrap around his shoulders, he felt he would never be something or someone. At twenty-three still in college and working a meaningless part time job Shawn hung his head and cried. “You shouldn’t cry, mister,” said a small child, smiling as she continued,“You’re at the park. Come on, let’s go have fun, purty sure you will smile again.” She wiggled her nose, raised her eyebrows, and gave him the kindest smile she could possibly give him. “Honey,you shouldn’t be bothering that man,”said a gentleman in a brown trench coat. Shawn quickly wiped the tears from his eyes before raising his head and said,“No, no worries, it’s okay. In fact it’s nice to see that someone—even a child—cares about how I feel right now. I’m okay now, little girl, I’m sorry if I made you feel sad at the park. Thank you for letting me play with you but… I’ll be okay here.” “You should go and play now, Eva,” said the gentleman as he patted her head.“Be careful now.” “I will, Daddy.”Eva ran off into the swing set and sat on the shortest chained swing. “One, two, kicking my shoes,” she sang as she started the swing. “I’m sorry again if she was bothering you.” “No, really she wasn’t. It just makes me feel kind of happy to see a child play in a playground.” “Do you mind if I sit with you while my daughter plays on the swing?” he asked. “Please, do, I don’t want to be alone right now.” The gentleman didn’t hesitate to take a seat next to Shawn. Shawn extended his hand,“I’m Shawn by the way.” Firmly grasping, the gentleman answered, “Scott.” Sitting together they watched Eva. Shawn noticed she was dressed in her communion best. Her red jacket covered a long white dress and tennis shoes. Her short blonde hair was pinned up over her right eye clipped to a purplish hair rag wrapped around the top of her head. “So what’s wrong?” Scott said,“I mean, why were you crying?” Dumbfounded, Shawn turned his head slightly and said, “What do you mean? I wasn’t crying. I…I… I just had sand in my eyes.” “It’s okay you know. To cry that is; sometimes things just become too much of a burden for just one man to handle. I’ve cried—genuinely cried—a few times in my life. There’s no shame in it. Any man who tells you otherwise isn’t one,” Scott said, pointing a finger for emphasis.

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Eddie Ponce

Shawn sat on the wall like a bump on a log, staring at Eva while she was swinging. “I guess because I’m finally realizing that I might never get my dream.” “Which is what?” “To be a writer.” “Really?” Scott was intrigued,“Well, why are you giving up on it?” “I’m not really giving up,”Shawn said, trying to convince himself of his own words, “It’s just everything I write is shit. Every time I finish writing a poem or a story I tear it up because it’s shit.” “Do people tell you that?” Scott questioned,“Or do you tell yourself that?” “It’s me mostly,” admitted Shawn,“I always tear it up before showing it to anyone.” “But if it is your dream, why do you do that? I mean, everyone has dreams. My dream was to have a child of my own. My own little Evangeline,”Scott waved his hand towards his daughter,“Eva, for short.” “It’s easier to have a kid than it is to be a writer,” Shawn said dully.

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“Is it? My wife and I had three tries before we finally had Eva.” “Three tries?” Shawn said surprisingly,“Wow, what happened?” “Miscarriages.” “Oh, I’m sorry,” Shawn quickly apologized. “You shouldn’t be sorry, it’s okay, really, I mean if we would’ve had those three children we wouldn’t have had Eva. Knowing what I know now, yeah sure I would’ve liked to have been those children’s father but then I wouldn’t have been Eva’s. Ever since we’ve had her I can’t imagine my life without her. I don’t know if I’d want to live without her.” “She looks healthy,” Shawn said, not really knowing what to say. “Yeah. She is. But I lost my wife.” Shawn became silent listening to Scott continue. “She died when she was giving birth to Eva. Fact is, the doctors don’t know what caused her death, just that she was already dead when Eva was born.” “Daddy?” Eva said as she snuck under her father’s hand tugging on his shirt.“Can you ask the man for a piece of paper?” Without waiting for Scott to ask Shawn grabbed his notebook and ripped out a sheet of paper and handed it to Eva. She grabbed the paper and ran away, laughing. Once she felt far enough she pulled out a crayon from the front pocket of her red jacket to write something on the paper. She then folded it in half, opened it and folded two of the corners, then in half again before folding the wings outward to make a paper airplane. Once she was done she inspected it as best she could with one eye closed and one opened. She shook her head once as if going through her own mental checklist. Feeling a good gust of wind come from behind her, she tossed it with all her might into the wind. She landed on her stomach as the plane flew high into air. She got up, started laughing and chased the plane as it kept floating away. “Aren’t you worried she’ll get lost?” “Not to worry, any minute now the winds will change,” Scott said as a matter of fact.“She’ll never leave my sight.”And the winds did,“You know, looking at my daughter right now reminds of me and my dream of having her. Sometimes the dream would be within my grasp but then suddenly fly away, much as that plane keeps flying away from her.” “But that’s everyone,” said the cynic. “Everyone but you,” Scott said.“I don’t see you doing that, I see that you stopped chasing the plane once it got too high.”Shawn said nothing and only lowered his head again.“You shouldn’t give up so easily.The trials and tribulations you go through make the things you want that much sweeter. Look at my daughter, she’s having the time of her life chasing the plane and not catching it.”

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The paper plane began to float through the swing set eventually descending towards Scott and Shawn. Up and down, left and right, over and under the chains, leather strap chairs and poles. Gently gliding down onto Shawn’s lap. Shawn looked over to Scott and heard him say,“You know that doesn’t happen all the time. In fact, in all the times I’ve seen her play with a paper plane it’s never landed on someone; she’s always caught it. Maybe it’s a sign.” Eva ran up to Shawn nearly out of breath, her hairclip had fallen out and her hair fell over her eyes. But he was still able to see her smiling through the shadow of her hair. As she bent over catching her breath, he noticed her jacket was full of sand from all the times she fell chasing down the plane. “Here you go,” Shawn said handing the plane over to Eva. “You keep it,” she said still catching her breath,“it’s not mines anyways, it’s yours.” “We should go now, Eva.” She nodded and held her daddy’s hand. “Remember, Shawn, you shouldn’t give in so easily and expect it to just come to you. If that’s what you really want, it should be very hard for you give up on it.” They shook hands and each parted ways. Shawn looked for his notebook,“Hey, before you go can I have your phone number or something? I would really like for us to talk again.”But when he turned around, he found them gone with the wind. Left alone once more in the park Shawn hung his head low. It was then that he looked down to the paper plane and saw something had been written in it. He opened it up to find the crayon words, “Chase your dream.” Shawn let out a slight chuckle, stood up and stared into the sky. There he saw little Evangeline smiling and waving bye from the clouds, then turning to chase her father home. To their castle in the sky.

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Dianna Virata | All in a Day’s Work

Loving her is like walking into an ocean you want to drown in its beauty even if it kills you

I sit back and watch her run around unaware of her actions, unaware of the damage she unleashes each of her seductions is another bullet in my brain her body, the ultimate weapon, uses it to massacre daily I love this murderous creature

She beckons me to come to her a coy smile armed with dark eyes full of intentions, sinister intentions I walk toward her she’s all that exists the club fades away, the giggling whores, the lustful men become irrelevant pieces in the background the lights stream down her body in all her naked glory and it begins

I taste her in the air she teasingly glides in front of me tosses her silky tresses struts and sways in the art she knows best she enraptures me with her womanly body my eyes ravish her with all I want to do to her my darling, if only I had the chance, the things I would do to you

to suppress every breath out of her little lungs bind her body with such pain and savagery pleasure in her cries, and pleadings of mercy torture her for bringing me to crave her so

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leaving me unable to be sated with another such fantasies so unjust and inhumane especially a man of my stature I can’t help it, this is what she does to me

she crawls toward me arching her body masking her face with the illusion of desire radiating raw sexual power at its finest yes, she sees me, only me she comes closer I’m frozen anticipating her next move she brushes up against me my body reacts to the soft warmth she lets me touch her she chose me, only me she’s mine

Janice Lo

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she watches my reaction eyes piercing me like a silencing blade I curse as I need to adjust myself she grins at her power her work is done I’m caught in her spell, fucking bitch, I walk away in disgust leaving the fools begging to be next

I gulp down a glass of Smirnoff take comfort in this substance’s embrace letting it run through my body numbing my senses, leaving my eyes glazed thoughts in false lush merriment now unaware of the hellish paradise before me the underworld in which souls are sold in the name of lust unaware that my beloved is one of its creatures she is one of its many demons this is all in the day’s work

dawn comes, it’s finally over for tonight anyhow the facade is no more the glamour is packed away she lies with me bare, vulnerable unguarded weeps of her tormenting existence I hold her, coddle her to sleep as her mind disappears into the realm of dreams she takes my sanity along with her

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Dianna Virata | Outlaw Torn

nights like this are what stories are made of another California summer you feel the heat stick to your skin like a lover’s scent after a night of passionate love making the summer moon illuminates your body the afterglow flushes your cheeks it’s dead in the late hours the joes and janes sleeping in the opposite sides of the bed, tired from their 9-5s but not you the sounds of the guitar seams through your body like the burning blood pulsing in your veins You look over at the poor thing at your side, passed out tangled in the sheets like a coiled serpent burned out in satisfying exhaustion unable to keep up but not you

No, you don’t want to cuddle—no, you don’t want to come back to bed the song of irresistible craving softly echoes in the room luring you into the night like a nymph’s whisper of forbidden desire you’re the best she’s ever had, she says tonight was amazing, she says she’ll be captivated by this night replaying everything over and over in her mind like a broken record refusing to be fixed every second, every moment slowly capturing every taste, every kiss but not you

it was just sex, not good sex, got the job done, you’re over it you take a step outside on the porch the cool night air caresses you like an old lover’s embrace closing your eyes, releasing a calming exhale from a cigar the smoke dances with a small breeze slowly dissolving with the still of the night,

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your heart beats in synchronization of the bass the words materializing memories never forgotten, all you can do is think of her the truth digs into you like a slow thrust of a blade with the extra little twist she’s moved on, now that you’re out of her life, being happy but not with you

Susanna Negrete

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Patty Metoki

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Contributors’Notes

Sandra Acosta When I was eighteen, I worked for an ophthalmologist along side my mom. That was my first job and racist encounter. When it happened I was speechless. I just stared at this old man with glasses from 1910, and trying not to cry, I said something like you're a rude, rude man. Then I went to the restroom and cried. I guess the reference to red rover is about being a kid playing games with my sisters and neighbors when that was all we cared about.

Sharon Allerson I’ve always enjoyed reading and writing—thanks to my mom, who always read to me, especially her favorites, Rudyard Kipling, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Edgar Allan Poe. I particularly loved the sound, the rhythm of Poe’s work punctuated by the scary faces my mom would make! I remember sitting at the kitchen table and making up poems—before I had even learned to write. Regarding the pieces selected for this issue, my love for Korean culture comes through in“Korean Tea Offerings,” which was inspired after attending one of the monthly tea ceremonies at the Korean Cultural Center in downtown Los Angeles. I was caught by the simplicity of how to hold the cup correctly: on your flat open hand, protecting it with your other hand gently wrapped around the front of the cup. It struck me that that is how to hold someone in your heart, freely, yet protec- tively. The rest of the poem tries to communicate a simple but deeper love that is not all frothy moccachino passion, but something maybe purer, really worth offering. “The Asian Mechanic in Gray Town” is a simple story of a woman’s internal landscape. Towards the end, although she seems to be OK with just being out of “Gray Town,” her son interjects the idea that maybe having some hope is not unreal- istic. Finally,“Night Sky at Bulgarini’s” is about enjoying some delicious gelato in Altadena/North Pasadena, and feeling refreshed by the cool sweetness, the drama of the night sky, the summer breeze, and the music I was listening to (actually the soundtrack from“Becoming Jane”). I like that towards the end of the poem, the pace, the rhythm and even the rhyme pick up as the moon comes out from behind the shadows and the woman drives away.

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Monique Alvarado My poem“Happy Father’s Day” springs from years of frustration in my relationship with my father. I struggled so hard to understand my“gilded cage” syndrome. Like a lot of people my age, I want to be free from repression. I am a daughter who starves for her father’s positive emotional attention free from drunken chaos, a father who makes“amends” the only way he was taught . . . in the emotional landscape of “machismo.” The poem is my struggle with blossoming independence, a fight against a lifetime of co-dependency. There is much reference to freedom and emptiness, which is the very heart of the conflict. As for“The Woman Who Rolls Cigars,”I chose to concentrate on Cuban-United States relations. I focused on the hypocrisy of an institution that criticizes the Communist regime of the Cuban nation, yet still regards its products and people as curious delicacies. As a Latina of mixed heritage, I’m expected to know the stories and experiences of one mother culture, while remaining loyal to mandates of the country of my birth. I cannot even touch or experience this place of my ancestors because of embargos set up for the sake of example. I thought of the lowliest and most humble of people in Cuba, in contrast to the affluent who gawk at them for the sake of tourism.

Samuel Dominguez I wrote the selected pieces as reflections of childhood memories. Looking through dirty glass I saw shapes with no form, shade with no color….That was many years ago and I want to show the reader bits and pieces of clean glass.

Jose Galicia What had inspired me to write my poem,“Mama Nina,” was the passing of my great grandmother Maria, whom we called Mama Nina. She lived ninety-one years of a hard working life spent in both Mexico and the United States. She was very tradi- tional or“old school” in her attitudes and mannerisms. One characteristic that she attempted to pass on to her great grandchildren was a work ethic that knew no bounds. Maria was also very proud, and one characteristic that our family managed to inherit from her was that of powerful women. I first became interested in poetry and fiction while attending high school but had not become serious about writing until I took Mr. Sanchez’s creative writing class my first semester. Since then, a variety of subjects have influenced my pieces such as my culture, my beliefs in anarchism, my family, and nature. I owe my interest in literature to my father who nurtured my imagination as well as to Ms. Suntree, Mr. Sanchez, and Ms. Lem for showing me the tools for writing literature

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Joan Goldsmith Gurﬁeld We were all affected by the events of 9/11. I am originally from New York and have friends and family there. One of my sisters lives in New York City and is a chef and writer on the culinary arts. She had trained one of the young women chefs who died in the“Windows on the World” restaurant, on top of the World Trade Center. My sister’s husband, a banker, knew forty people in the banking business in the WTC, all of whom died that day. I started thinking about the enormity of the destruction and about how everyone in our country was affected, even if, for some of us, the pain was not so direct and immediate. For the story, I assumed the persona of a teacher in different circum- stances from my own, living in New Jersey (closer to the site of the WTC). Once I settled on the character, the story just flowed.

Louis Herrera The past is a powerful well to draw from. While writing I find myself going on sacred journeys through my ancestors’ and my own lifetimes. Images of sacred and forbidden experiences flood my mind or emotional memories manifest themselves within my being; these are the things I write about. Incest, abandonment, and the pain of struggling to provide are the themes that you will find within the poems in this issue. I offer them to you not as exhibitions but as beacons of hope, of what the human spirit can overcome and survive through. Poems can contain whole lifetimes, tell many people’s stories, and sometimes imbue forgiveness. May you walk out of the basement, past it, and fly. Amen.

Louise Leftoff What is inspiration? Perhaps it’s the conceit of having something to say that is followed by the struggle to find an effective way say it. Over the years, I have completed so many journal entry exercises that Carol Lem typically assigns to her English students—and without realizing it, I seem to have developed a few of the elements necessary to the craft of creative writing. In these exercises, I have found inspiration in imitating the writing of others as well as actually hear- ing for the first time a truth found in a single line of poetry. But more often, inspiration itself is elusive and seldom does it magically materialize. I then find myself deep in thought, ruminating without pen or paper or keyboard—and I review the vast accumulation of material stored within my own gray matter. (Age and experience provide certain advantages.) Inspiration has come to me while I was stagnant in traffic and frustration on a gridlocked freeway—but not

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without a major search for it on my part. However it comes, without the guidance and encouragement of a teacher such as Carol Lem, I don’t think I would have had any idea what to do with it.

Carol Lem I wrote“Library Staff Lounge” in spring 2007, the first semester we offered our new course, English 32 (College Literary Magazine Editing), in which students do creative writing and critique / edit each other’s work as well as submissions solicited from students on the campus, who wish to contribute to Milestone. That particular semester our classroom was the newly furnished Library Staff Lounge, which, with its brown leather chairs and long conference tables, seemed more suitable for board meetings than creative writing. But what inspired me to write the poem was the soul-searching dedication of twelve students and their instructor engaged in digging down into“the foul rag and bone shop of the heart.” I saw us as travelers, each on a separate journey, who happened to meet in this place of crossed destinies every Tuesday afternoon for a couple of hours.

Ernestina Lucero-Irwin Being divorced has affected my life and my son, Jason’s life drastically.When Professor Lem asked for a poem that would come from our experiences, I automatically thought about this traumatic life change. I also thought about the lyrics of this song from Juanes, which is titled,“Es Por Ti,”and dedicated that song to my son Jason from the first time I heard it. My son thinks it’s corny and gets very embarrassed that I want sometimes to sing it to him. Shortly after my divorce, I was very depressed and tried to do whatever I could to make Jason not notice how sad and guilty I felt. This song would take me to work in the mornings, crying, and remind me why I had to go to work and leave Jason behind. Writing this poem relieved the pain of going through this very complicated life change. It made me actually express what I really held inside regarding my feeling of guilt about being a divorcee and still trying to be a good mother to my son. Most importantly, I discovered I could get over this overwhelming feeling of sadness. By writing, I did get over this episode in my life.

Jenssy Martin It’s easier for me to write how I feel than stand up to someone or yell what I feel inside. I sit down, cry and write, which has always been more relaxing for me. Now after taking English 212, Poetry, with Professor Carol Lem, I have gained an admira- tion for poetry and realized that I want to be a better writer and a better student. I

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want to absorb every bit of knowledge and push myself to improve not only in writing but also in life because that is what poetry is for me—life, my life in words. It is life in dark moments and intense love. It’s my life exposed in writing, my dark thoughts exposed to those whom I’d rather not find out, and my deep love to those I love most. Life inspires me and as long as I can see, think, and live it will keep me writing. “Life of a Woman” expresses the obstacles we face as women. Society tells us to be a certain way; even now, society is not ready for a woman president. This poem is about how it feels to be a woman trapped in a man’s world, weak and longing for freedom.“My Name” is about my ancestry and how I feel a different life than that of my parents. I have the opportunity to go to school, learn multiple subjects, especially English. I have opportunities that most only wish for, which reminds me to appreciate everything in life because even though we have more equality than years before we still have to prove we are worth it and erase racism.“High School” was inspired in part by Cofer’s“Quinceanera” and my own experiences, facing the challenges of changing from a girl to a woman, from hating boys to loving them. Though I did recitals and plays, and learned knowledge, I watched others be fearless and daring— but then again, staying on the sidelines kept me out of trouble!

Adriana Michel My name is Adriana Michel and I transferred to a four-year university from ELAC. I am very grateful that I had the opportunity to meet Ms. Lem. I would just like to say thank you to Ms. Lem and her English 212 poetry class for helping me to develop the skills to improve my writing technique long after that class. Ms. Lem has become a mentor of mine, helping me get through the hard times of my life by writing poetry. I have the ability now to be strong and get through anything in my life as long as I write about it. Ms Lem has given me the power to get through heartache and death to rebirth. Thank you, Ms. Lem.

Danna Prak The moment I cultivated the ability to elaborate on my thoughts and emotions became the turning point in my life. I have come to realize that inspiration lurks in all corners and embodies itself in a plethora of forms. How one chooses to utilize this inspiration varies, but my passion has become writing. Writing has always been and will continue to be my primary mode of approaching myself . Words carry a soul and a life of their own though from the perspective of the writer. A story is always being told or waiting to be told. I write not for the sake of writing or for the sole purpose of filling up a blank page. I write because those words epitomize my persona and never fail to help me discover more of who I am.

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Diana Recouvreur Poetry is life on fire, drenched in color, steeped in the aromas of the everyday. Writing is the only way I know how to express myself, to reach out of human isolation in search of like minds and hearts. Writing is life affirming, life revealing therapy, made up of the notes and chords of our experiences and emotions, composing music that stirs the core, opening us to the world.

Luis J. Rodriguez “Perhaps” is an impressionistic poem based on the state of the world today, the conflicts and contradictions that drive much of the confusion, chaos and fears we seem to face today. To have a vision of something better in a time of being lost (modernity can be described as a dark and lost time) is what all artists, visionaries and revolu- tionaries should do. This is one poem, one contribution, to that vision. “Fevered Shapes” is a homage to my first poetry reading at age 18, in Berkeley, while still strung out on heroin. It would serve as a future catalyst to my decision to write and work as a writer, in my mid-20s (that included taking night classes in writing and speech at East L.A. College). I wanted to honor these poets who I heard that fateful night. Their influence on me was profound.

Jennifer Romo Music inspires me to write. I can listen to a specific song and completely fall in love with it both lyrically and instrumentally. Music is an extremely influential tool that gives me ideas about a certain scenario in my stories or the entire story itself. I imagine myself directing my own films and applying my favorite music as the soundtrack so it can relate to the messages that I wish to convey in my story. For example, in my screenplay,“Let it Be,” one of the main characters, Sondra, listens to a song called “Son et Luminerie” by The Mars Volta. The singer constantly repeats in the chorus, “now I’m lost,” and this coincides with Sondra’s internal conflict as she tries to decide whether to sell her paintings to Ivan or not. Music is the one and only thing that has helped me to overcome my writer’s block and begin writing again.

Karen Stram I wrote“*$$$ (Starbucks) Story” shortly after I moved from Staten Island, New York to L.A. in August, 2004. I arrived at my brother’s doorstep in Altadena with three suitcases, three duffle bags and my laptop. Life in New York City had turned sour after I witnessed the Trade Center disaster from across the New York Harbor and took the last safe ride of the Andrew Barberi Ferry before it crashed into the

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Staten Island Pier in 2003. I was determined to start fresh in L.A. I spent about four months looking for a job—most days camped out at the local Starbucks to get out from under my sister-in-law’s feet. I spent many comfortable hours with my laptop going through Craigslist and Monster.com in the upbeat Starbuck’s atmosphere optimistically seeking the perfect job and observing humanity from the Starbucks point of view as well as writing poetry, fiction and humor. My view on humor is that it often improves life by making the horrible ridiculous.

Susan Suntree “Rivers” belongs to a new collection of love poems written over the past four years in my weekly writing group and in my Creative Writing classes at East Los Angeles College. As part of a series of exercises, I received sets of seemingly random words that tripped my imagination into arenas I might not otherwise have experienced. The topic of “Rivers” reflects my long-time interest in the landscape and its work- ings. The natural world’s intelligences, far different than my own, challenge and instruct me. When I’m writing poetry, I feel the boundaries that I imagine separate me from the rest of the world soften, allowing my perceptions to be deepened and inspired by this unfolding, beguiling universe.

Trami Ton In the chaotic worlds both inside and outside of ourselves, it’s hard not to write. It helps make sense of everything that’s going on, whether we’re thinking about friend- ships, the overwhelming, vast world of nature that surrounds us, our spirituality, or the past. I sometimes find the past to be a bit of a challenge, so my way of letting it go is to put it down on paper, or type it onto a world document, save it, date it, and store it away. This way, I can separate the event from the future of my life. I also write to understand myself. My thoughts come quickly, so my poems are short. Sometimes people preserve memories by taking pictures. I prefer to take“words.” Thoughts welcomed. Hello’s from old friends welcomed. [email protected]

Evangelina Vasquez I write because I have this microcosm of faces, voices, images, sounds, scents in my soul and heart screaming to go out into the light. If I didn’t give them life in my writings they would suffocate me. It is very painful for me to give birth to this world of sad or happy memories, but when I recreate them on a piece of paper, they acquire their own life and are free forever, and so am I.

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Michael Venegas At twenty-six, I am an aspiring novelist, poet, and dramatist. A majority of my work has been published in Milestone. But in May 2007 two of my ten-minute plays were performed and directed by the East Los Angeles College theater students. I find inspiration from life experiences, relationships and sleepless nights. Under the tute- lage of Carol Lem, Susan Suntree and Daniel Keleher, I have flourished in the grounds of East Los Angeles College for numerous years. And now I am attempting to complete a B.A. in English, an A.S. and M.S. in Theater Arts.

Dianna Virata With the many duties, and responsibilities we all have, we rarely take the time to take a step back and think of what’s going around us, let alone let our imaginations run wild and free. My poetry is what’s within me, the certain essences that are not shown day to day. My work has words of truth, experiences, and most of all uncen- sored openness.

Ling Lin

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