EDITOR David Bartholomy ASSOCIATE EDITOR Chris Tiahrt ASSISTANT EDITORS Casey Aud Louise Halsey Dori Howard Matt Weafer Jessica
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0p24o8.qx 3/9/08 5:43 PM Page 1 EDITOR David Bartholomy ASSOCIATE EDITOR Chris Tiahrt ASSISTANT EDITORS Casey Aud Louise Halsey Dori Howard Matt Weafer Jessica Weafer DESIGNER David Stratton Cover and interior artwork by John Dawson: cover, “Fascination with the Aquatic” cover back, “Dot Moonmuseum” page 1, “The Collectors” page 4, “Harold and Photographer” page 34, “Mr. Allen, Harold, Winston” page 66, “The Parlor Picture” page 93, “Lady Angel” These images and many others are available for purchase and can be viewed on flickr.com. Editor’s Note: All of the 62 writers in this issue—including 15 who are new to Open 24 Hours—were invited to submit work because they are affiliated with Brescia’s creative writing program and because they are from this region or are writing in it. Some are current or former Brescia students, some have given workshops or readings at Brescia, and some have read at 3rd Tuesday Coffeehouse, which is produced by the Brescia Writers Group. The result is an assemblage of talented writers from Western Kentucky and Southwestern Indiana. The policy of Open 24 Hours is to present work that is truthful, fresh, artful, provocative, and clear: work that—though it may be disturbing— deserves to be read. D.B. The views expressed in this journal are, of course, those of the writers. Address all correspondence to David Bartholomy, Brescia University, Owensboro, KY, 42301 or <[email protected]>. Copyright ©2008 Brescia Writers Group. All rights revert to the authors. ISBN 1 0p24o8.qx 3/9/08 5:43 PM Page 2 Contents Malignant Scaffolding Book Burning Teresa Roy With a Shiner,. My. .Husband. Enters.... .5 Kathleen Driskell . .6 Girls in Swimming Costumes Kelly Moffett . .7 Commonwealth Joey Goebel . .8 I try . Matthew Weafer 14 How Young Love is Made in Brooklyn . Adria Nassim 16 The Globe Tom Raithel . .17 To Sappho Elizabeth Oakes . .18 Side Effects Terri Whitehouse . .18 Shadow Jesse Mountjoy . .19 Michael’s Descent Casey Aud . .20 Trapped Misha Feigan . 24 Some Place in Central Kentucky Matthew Branham . .25 BYOB FAQ Terry Bisson . .26 What’s That Smell? Patrick Reninger . .29 I Will Do Any Kind of Honest Work Phoebe Athey . .30 Those Days When Not Much Matters Michael Battram . .31 Syllogism Against Moments Steven Skaggs . 32 Walking Through a Paper Shredder Adria Nassim . .32 Going for Seconds Mari Stanley . .33 Stepping Into Peace Desperation Chicago Dori Howard . .35 Euphony Laurie Doctor . .35 Snowbound John Hay . .36 My Lover in the Kitchen, Singing Lynnell Edwards . .45 Vermont Summer Morning Louise Halsey . .45 Early Morning: China Beach, Vietnam Alice Driver . .46 Field Study Erin Barnhill . .47 The Artificial Heart Mary Welp . .48 First Kill Katie Beyke . .50 Great Horned Visitation Brett Ralph . .53 Without Chris Tiahrt . .54 Mother’s Heart/Stopwatch Courtney Campbell . .54 Scream Cat Wethington . .56 The Attraction of Opposites Joe Survant . .59 The One That Didn’t Get Away Clayton Galloway . .60 To Live Is To Die Cheston Hoover . .64 What I Do Alison Baumann . .65 2 0p24o8.qx 3/9/08 5:43 PM Page 3 Thinnest Hours The Missing Girl Brent Fisk . .67 Something Special (Something Awful) Jason Chaffin . .68 Papercut Bernd Sauermann . .74 Happy Travels Jonathan Mattingly . .75 Quarterly Meeting: Late Arrival... Martha Greenwald . .78 Home Life Richard Taylor . .79 Assassin Richard Taylor . .79 The Long Time Before Dying Alison Baumann . .80 The Call Rey Ford . .82 Poker Holler Todd Autry . .83 Exhibit of Van Gogh in Blues and Greens Annette Allen . .86 No. 7 and Other Heroes Linda Neal Reising . .87 Resident Evil Sagan Sette . .88 schizophrenia Irene Mosvold . .90 Wonders and Signs Chris Tiahrt . .91 Pickle Norman Minnick . .91 Writing With No Ink The Piercing Mari Stanley . .93 What You Gave Me by Accident... Barbara Bennett . .94 Poverty Winter Teresa Roy . .96 A Simple Illusion Kelly Lee . .97 The Indelible Kiss Ed McClanahan . .98 Untaming the Shrew Frederick Smock . .107 To the Letter Dori Howard . .108 Joy Rey Ford . .108 In Defense of Humidity Erin Keane . .109 Landscapes from Socket Wrenches... Jim McGarrah . .110 How Abigail Made Mom Smile Jason Ward . 114 Butterfly Sutra George Fillingham . .116 A Normal Day Mark Williams . .117 Cradling a Pillow Jessica Weafer . .117 Fatal Potential Katherine Pearl . .118 Difference Tonya Northener . .120 Rabbit Woman Danielle Ryle . .120 Contributors . .121 Creative Writing at Brescia . .124 3 0p24o8.qx 3/9/08 5:43 PM Page 4 Malignant Scaffolding “And that’s how Blue Gene remembered his father, as a man who was always on his way to another room.” Joey Goebel, p. 8 “How do you tell someone signing your checks that he is insane?” Casey Aud, p. 20 Open 24 Hours 4 0p24o8.qx 3/9/08 5:43 PM Page 5 Open 24 Hours Teresa Roy Book Burning The good writers touch life often. The mediocre ones run a quick hand over her. The bad ones rape her and leave her for the flies. Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451 Saved from the humiliation of discard at a yard sale and mine for a dime: The New Anthology of Modern Poets, 1971. The op-art binding suggested rebellion! protest! and the poems— laid out in difficult-to-read fonts that altered with each day-of-reckoning fresh voice—underscored that first impression. So earlier tonight, I lay along the hearth of a winter’s fire and lumbered through the book of poems hoping to be shaken, awed, redeemed or (at the least) engaged. Inspired, at last, I lobbed the hardback in a perfect arc onto the lap of a blazing grate. Well, The New Anthology of Smug Little Posers landed straddling a log, tidy and expectant as a saddle. I did not achieve instant satisfaction, and there seemed no recognition on the part of the book that paper meeting fire is a lethal mix. Instead, there was breathless hesitation and suspicion (on my part) that the poets sat astride their mount with an insipid anticipation, as if waiting for a coin to drop and the jolly ride to start. I nudged at curling corners with the finger of a poker, encouraging a little air, a little oxygen to wend its way up narrow channels. The paper tips pinked-up; flared and flamed across the ugly fonts with alarming comprehension. Sometimes it needs to happen— a con exposed, a swagger tripped— the pretentious and vainglorious reduced. The book’s spine shrinks and blackens, the title is the last to go and in the end had nothing left to say. 5 0p24o8.qx 3/9/08 5:43 PM Page 6 Kathleen Driskell With a Shiner, My Husband Enters the Flower Shop I should be thinking about him and how he could have lost an eye when the malignant scaffolding collapsed and a 2 x 4 dropped through the air on the job site the morning of our nineteenth anniversary, but I’m considering her, the florist, looking up from her table to see him walking in sheepish, head- bowed, ringing the bell as he enters. I’m wondering how many times she’s arranged roses for the wounded, the bruised, the stitched hungry male who needs her help—and fast. And I wonder if she imagines me, black cast iron skillet cocked in hand like a baseball bat, as she pulls out the three stems of delphinium, blue as a bruised heart, and two full hydrangea, pink petaled and soft as boxed lingerie. There is not baby’s breath, I’m relieved to see, nor the red lips of soft roses, nor the ubiquitous and overly cheerful mum. She knows, somehow, what he does not—preoccupied with his day today—that even a good long marriage holds small hurts that barb and fester near the skin, so she reaches for the balm of calm sweep of palm leaf, that healer of the unsaid argument of morning, the rising blood, as I watched him back out Open 24 Hours 6 0p24o8.qx 3/9/08 5:43 PM Page 7 Open 24 Hours in his truck, his having forgotten—once again—this morning of all mornings— to hang up the towel, curled like a wet dog asleep on the bathroom floor. A long marriage remembers its youth as a roan, muscled horse rearing, with nostrils flaring. I accept this bouquet for what I could have said but didn’t, and hold onto the thin healing. I accept too, finally, that often a long marriage is a donkey schlepping across the desert. Tender-eyed, I attempt to once again re-love husband as self, to heal the wounded eye as one tries to heal self. And accept the vase on the table which stands to remind, each day as I change its water, that even this good marriage is from time to time a sorry animal, in need, and over burdened, but grateful for the hard day it is about to close sore eyes against. Kelly Moffett Girls in Swimming Costumes Sonia Delaunay As if, as the title suggests, we are in some dramatic scenario. A lost kerchief. A hand. A dangling strap. We are all, at times, unfaithful. Most of me is like that. Cold coffee, beauty. All the hardships compressed into one. Like the day the church bells rang, and all I had inside was me. No altar. 7 0p24o8.qx 3/9/08 5:43 PM Page 8 Joey Goebel Commonwealth Alone on a hill, the mansion stood in white-bricked, white-columned majesty, a quarter of a mile behind a black iron gate. Six miles outside the city limit, the house’s inhabitants had no neighbors to contend with, the closest residencies being those in Vandalia Hills, the upscale neighborhood where Blue Gene’s brother John lived, next to the Bashford Country Club.