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Cur(rent) Is(sue)

  Welcome to Is(sue) 17, Kinfolk! Thank you for loyally contributing, reading, and sharing! It is you who make this ezine and you who keep it breathing. The eighteenth regular is(sue) will go live on December 15, 2025. ***Deadlines for each is(sue) have changed -  See Sub(missions) in the menu (for more information).***

​As Ed(itor)s,  Sabne Raznik and David Sykes would like to remind those who wish to contribute work that this e-zine is about experimental writing and art. So, please, send us your weirdest, most exciting, and avant-garde pieces! (Please, read the guide(lines) under Sub(missions) in the menu thoroughly. Short Story guide(lines) have changed!) Please include the state or country in which you currently reside in your submission email.

Please note this change in the submission guidelines: 
 We no longer accept simultaneous submissions! **Apple devices now save images and videos made with their cameras as HEIC files as default. This is a file extension that saves data space while retaining high quality. But most websites and operating systems do not yet play well with it. This website does not play well with the HEIC file extension. To ensure that your image files are JPG when taken with an Apple device, go to Settings > Camera > Formats > Camera Capture: you will see that "High Efficiency" is checked by default. Please, make sure that "Most Compatible" is checked instead.** 

​
We are artists - the rules need not apply. We also welcome submissions from around the world as one of our stated goals is to bring the world to Appalachia and Appalachia to the world. 

​Remember!: If you like what we do here, consider donating to keep this website up. See  
Donat(ions) in the menu (for more information) on how you can keep this e-zine alive.


(Avant)Poetry

Picture
"Flood"
Germain Droogenbroodt, Spain
​

Like wide-open arms
reaching pleadingly to the sky
the branches of a tree
in an area flooded by the storm

Nearby
pleaded heavenward
also of people numerous arms

but in vain.
"What Did You Do When Wild and Precious was Still an Option?"

Carla Schwartz, Massachusetts

​
When the oceans turn,
when the waters recede—sand.
And in the sand, flecks of ash.

When the earth becomes a grave,
when all life, to the last tree, turns stone

look to the sky for what imitates life
look to the clouds for what water remains.

Look for a horse’s head in the stone
look to the sun from the scorched earth.

What is joy but something to jump for?
Where is sorrow but buried in shadow?

​
"El Corazón"
​

Tony Brewer, Indiana

The heart is a dormant,
eroded volcano of Ecuador.
A hungry animal, hunting
and pumping day and night.

A loose rivet in the otherwise
smooth aluminum skin of the wing
of the B-52 of the soul.

The heart does not care
it is the core.
It is a sour green apple.
A tart green apple.
A mushy red apple.
A bowl of cherries
wriggling around outside their pits.
The heart is never hungry
with all this fruit on the vine.

An angry bee
mistaken for a lightning bug
trapped by children in a jar.

The heart is a slave and labors
till its end: freedom
after the lash and a last dark run.

The heart is not amused, especially
where it is connected to everything.

The world is too much for the heart.
This world is bitter
with all hearts beating,
and quivering like the fruit
of overhanging trees.
Auction blocks and specimen jars.
Fear toys locked inside a laugh box
nesting inside a hideous living doll.

The heart is no joke.
All riddle and rhythm.
Reputation and resolve.

And behind its back
are all the heart’s detractors.
Laughing themselves red
in the face.


"Spring Wasps"

Tony Brewer, Indiana
​
Still winter and waking up
a human in my trash
can empty except Kroger bags
of spent cat litter

lumbering close to Earth
stiff and able to fly
when it’s warm
enough to go barefoot

I tread carefully
don’t want to step on one
won’t call cops
or warn neighbors

This is normal
It’s only spring returning

A boxer drags
scraps from my gray bin
down the porch into my yard
I follow his master’s call
and fix that issue
with words

These guys you stomp them
they sting you half-awake

I shoo him past the neighbor’s recycling
watch him all the way round the corner
his feet barely leaving the ground

​
"On Wings"

JS Choi, South Korea

i.
 
At the edge of a branch,  
a bird leaps,  
reaching for the one across.  

The empty sky holds its weight,  
its wide wings pulling the heavens close. 
 
Since its first embrace of the abyss,  
the bird has never folded its wings.  

ii.
  
When the mountain stretches open  
the wings it has kept folded,  
snow begins to fall.  

The sky hums with the beating of wings—  
snowflakes, relentless,  
each stroke a fight to stay aloft,  
each flurry a fleeting birth  
from the shadows above.  

iii.  

A sparrow swept in by the storm  
rests for a moment by the fire,  
its small body soaking in the light, the warmth,  
before vanishing back into the cold. 
 
Life feels like that—  
a bird’s fragile wings  
beating against the dark.  

Rise, language of the earth!  
Strike against the wind,  
shape a sky of your own.  
Where you’re going, I don’t know. 
 
But I watch your honest ascent.  
Flight is not a path;  
it is the purpose.  

Wings are rebellion—  
a quiet defiance of gravity.  

iv.
 
What soars in the endless sky  
is not a bird.  
It’s a human dream,  
draped in the shape of wings.  

Wings are flesh, yes,  
but they belong to the infinite.  
The fairy hangs her invisible robes  
on tree branches,  
while the bare angel, wings trailing,  
moves between heaven & earth.  

v.

Wings are born in cages.  
​
Oh, lone bird cutting through the wind—  
in this age where a tear says it all,  
tell me,  
is your wing  
still whole?

​
"Late Night Reading Ancient Greek Elegies"
​
Ma Yongbo, China

...the brown sailboat carries the ashes of stars
a Sailor's name blurred on the oar... sweet home
The strong wind that just blew...the waves crash upon us...
…who bides his time in the clouds… hiding Poseidon’s terrifying gift
...strengthen quickly ...weak fear ...ah shame
It’s the same for everyone... How long are you going to lie down ...
Let us not accept...I will endure...calamity...

Strong chests, towering citadels...we are in the middle
Falling down...sinking...rows of oar-seats
Fighting for...the stones of the motherland...the silver one
...will tremble...like snow from the grey sea
Farewell to the dark goddess... finally we arrive at the wide peninsula


Lorie Conley, Kentucky
​
That big pine tree by the pond
Came down hard this morning
It’s thick, olden trunk was no match
For the harsh, March wind

Pinecones cover the pond surface
From bank to bank, no water visible
I wonder if any light shines through
I bet the fish think
It’s Armageddon


"Longing"
​
Lorie Conley, Kentucky
​
Walking in the woods
The late autumn breeze
Caresses my cheek

I long to sit
In the cradle
Of a bare-limbed oak
To stretch tired limbs
On a rock covered
With a soft bed of moss

I long to dip
Toes in the cool water
Of the muddy creek
Bathe in nature
To wash away the world
And cleanse the soul

I long to lay
In the damp, brown leaves
Immerse myself
In the smell of earth
Sink in whole
To emerge in spring anew

​
"My World Is Better"

Lorie Conley, Kentucky

Sometimes it gets too hard
So much sickness and death
Uprisings and riots
Drugs and guns
I must run away
To a world of my creation

Where love and happiness thrive
No one goes hungry
My favorite music plays
The creek runs clear
The grass is green and soft
And bunnies can fly


"Anagramming ‘Love’: a Bilingualcultural Poem"
Author's note: This poem is inspired by Helena Qi Hong   (祁红).

Yuan Changming, Canada
​
In English, ‘love’ is meaningless if anagrammed
But if I add a letter, it will become a magic word
Full of possibilities as in the case, say, where I
Take off my glove, use a clove or olive to write
A novel about how to solve my problem of ‘I’
As a vowel in a hovel in its laevo form; whereas

In Chinese, 爱情 [love] can be embarrassing, for
If I remove two strokes from the root-character &
Add them to my feeling, 爱情would become受精
[Fertilization]; so, I’d avoid saying爱你 [love you]
For if two strokes were taken away from the root-
Character for 你, it would mean 受伤 [getting hurt]

​
"En Route"
Author's note: This poem is inspired by Helena Qi Hong   (祁红).

Yuan Changming, Canada

1/ Attachment Detached

I thought you’re the home
To my little bird as to my
Large soul
                 But alas, I find
You are just another hotel
Along the long way to Dao

2/ Night Vision

As the tide surges forward
From the heart of the ocean
A tiny white flower
                        Is blooming
Against all the dark noises
Rising high along the coast

3/ Celebration of Sunlight

Stop, Seeker, and set yourself
In a moment of meditation

If you listen to the sunshine
With all your inner & outer ears
                           You would hear
A serene song of serendipities


"OurGlass"
​
Alex Park, Connecticut


So much I don’t understand,
There are only a few words I’ve learned to say,
But I don’t care.
I
Don’t
Care.

Above the sky of Expectations,
And below in the ground of Nostalgia.
My heart is here.

I had a reason to cry,
I had a reason to grieve,
But I don’t care.
They don’t care.
Because the hourglass does not turn upside down,

On it’s own, I’m looking ahead.
It will work out, coming full circle.
So just run with what I’m feeling.
Let it all out, don’t freak out.

“I’m not sure about my life yet…”
Sometimes I don’t think at all,
And that’s why I never stop.
But it will, it will.

The hourglass doesn’t turn upside down,
That’s all I know for the show.
So, it will work out, come full circle.

No muse? Come on, laugh it off.

Rain or dry,
I haven’t lost anything yet.
But it will work out,
If only I could keep running.

Ten fights,
One smile,
And it all feels like a ruse.
I can’t explain,
But I hope you get the idea.

"No Coast Conjurings"

Kiyoshi Hirawa, Nebraska


When you're born on the West Coast,
raised on the East,
and marry on the Gulf,
but death and unemployment
leave you stranded
in the only triple-landlocked state,
you haunt local swim meets,

a childless cheerleader and
closed-eyed collector of sensations,
clumsily reconjuring a seaside kingdom
so forgotten
that bewildered roads, expecting a tunnel,
slam into mountainsides and explode
into confused cobblestones.

Time is a candle, burning the edges of a map
that was once burned into memory,
a consciousness slowly cordoned off
and now demanding touchstones for reentry.

So on Saturday mornings, you scavenge
swim meets at random parks,
immersing yourself in everything but water,
a refugee in search of runes to resurrect ruins,
and even a pathetic forgery
of an ocean vista will do.
​
Riotous eight-lane churning stands in for sea foam,
sentient waves that know to construct–not consume–
sand castles on each retreat to the horizon.
Swaying lane markers grow blue and green scales
of sympathetic sea serpents.
Parking lot gravel softens into sand slipping between toes,
parental screeching soars into seagulls’ songs.
Discarded orange slices waft the perfume
of a love whose own paracosm once rose up,
stood shoulder to shoulder,
face to face,
then lip to lip with your empire,
until creatures, canyons, and coastlines
crumbled, creation following creator,
leaving your own realm to rot.
​
But not from disease,
only the decay of disuse,
a dreamscape turn desert,
until, landlocked three ways from every coast,
you mourn a lifeguard locked high in a chair,
a towerbound captive,
and stepping forth,
reconjure
and reclaim what you once ruled.


"Burnout"

​Jane Helen Lee, South Korea


A monster comes alive on her desk
Spewing its toxic orange over her heart

Keeping her awake
And her heart beating

Maybe too fast

As if being chased
The rubrics and half-written essays scramble
Falling over onto the floor.
Crumpled in the bottom of her bag

Their wrinkled whiteness stained with tears look
Enviously at the walls

Where the certificates of gold, not silver, hang
Proud
On display

Looking down at the failed mess
They wink

Looking up at the smiling faces of everything
They would never be
The Fs hang their heads

Capturing the rare moments,

The memories smile down
The light bouncing off their films
The sharpie writing fading

They say farewell to the stars each night
But they never leave
The blinds won't open, no
As she scribbles away
Desperately. Trying
To regain all she’s lost

The only hint of morning
Seeping through the clearance in rays


"Ode To My Stilettos"
​
Rose Mary Boehm, Peru


These shoes are made for wearing
with assurance, with determination
and the intent of seduction.
Bring out the language
of my leg, the curvature of my calf,
bring on the furtive look of devotion.
The prayer made of pressure,
the staccato of steel heel,
the needle that takes my weight,
shortens my foot, adds to my height
and gives me a perverse power
is only underestimated by the target
audience. Sharp suits, shoulder pads,
off the shoulder, satin evening dreams,
swishing skirts, wide-legged pants,
partners in a game of dominance
and come-hithering.
​
My wardrobe today is full of casual gear
and comfortable shoes.


"Helene Haiku Sequence"
​
Christiana Doucette. South Carolina

Autumn leaves fall
all in a rush, limbs crushing
the living room next door.

open ravine
between the falling oaks
and all my emotions

Out the side window
where there was only yard
a quickly rising creek.

Face the thundering
wind. Headfirst into the storm
crossing to safety.

Low rumble. Dry
blankets and warm light. Hope
re-generator.

The sky
lightening
ribbons. 

Bunny nose-to-nose
through the crate with neighbor's cat.
Sun breaks through the clouds.
​
All the buzz
what we saw next door. Neighbor
chain reaction


"The Artist Speaks: Be Angry"
​
Charles A. Swanson, Virginia


Take out your sketchbook. This exercise
like every exercise, may be
a throwaway. But it will profit you nothing
if you treat it like a throwaway.

Stick Figure Man is your blank canvas.
You will draw him on your page,
but you must make him angry. Cartoonish
will not please me, nor should it you.

A “grrr” penciled in will not look angry.
It will look like you don’t care.
Nor will a flat line mouth, nor one with teeth,
nor one with the lips turned down

show anything like real emotion. How
will you do it, show anger,
without becoming angry? Will you channel,
remember, find the spring of that

time you did what all humans do, get angry?
I hope every day, in day-to-day
meetings with others you hold it in,
but, today, you must seethe a bit,

churn, grind your teeth, dig your nails
into your palms. And for Stick Figure Man
what will he find that is justifiable, yes,
moral, moral enough for anger, for art?

Permit me to become Biblical, just
for a moment, let me speak
as God did to Jonah, “Do you
have a good reason to be angry?”
​
Perhaps, one day, thumbing through
your sketchbook, you’ll return
to this page. You’ll rethink this anger
you once allowed to bloom.


"Rain, You, and Me"
​

Jaideep Khanduja, India

​

I. Rain
The sky unbuttons its gray shirt,
lets loose a flood of sighs--
each drop a confession,
a half-forgotten song,
a revolution whispered in liquid tongues.

Pavement becomes a prophet,
translating these riddles into ripples.
Listen.
The rain is not rain.
It’s a sermon,
a fistful of stars dissolving into the earth,
a breath you didn’t know
you were holding.

II. You
You are the silhouette
etched on the canvas of a storm--
a memory soaked in monsoon nostalgia.
You carry the weight of rain
in your laugh,
the softness of drizzle
in your fingertips.

If I could,
I’d bottle the scent of you in rain,
wear it on my skin
like a hymn,
like a secret
that’s only mine.

III. Me
I am a puddle,
trying to reflect the sky
and hold the rain’s chaos
in shallow waters.
My edges blur under your gaze,
and the storms within me
sing louder.

I wear your name like a raincoat,
but it’s full of holes.
The downpour always finds me,
carving your silhouette
into the architecture of my longing.

IV. Us
We are the thunder between breaths,
the lightning stitched into every glance,
the collision of gravity and grace.

Rain laces its fingers with ours,
and suddenly,
we’re rivers--
breaking banks,
reshaping landscapes,
finding ways to merge
without drowning.

V. Epilogue
When the rain stops,
there’s only quiet:
you tracing galaxies
on my palm,
me drinking the aftertaste
of sky and storm,
the two of us
etched in watermarks
on this fleeting page of time.


"There must be a road to this"
​
James Croal Jackson, Tennessee
​
When you unwrapped the Instagram dog poems
and said this is my favorite poet, I wanted the book
to be a swan, wings of canvas, a bone in a beak,
saliva, paws sprinting across the muddy landscape
of instant ramen.

​​
"The Screen Between Us"
​
JS Choi, South Korea
​
Is it the light in the dark,
or the illusion the light creates,
that pulls you toward it--
grasping, peering inside with desperate motions?
I see you (though you might say you see me).

Are you the one trapped,
or am I?
In this drowsy evening,
hunger thickens the air.
The darkness creeps closer,
and we both fade into an unseen freedom.

But still, the screen separates us--
neither of us truly free.
Am I blocking your way
to protect my own?
Or have you confined me
for the sake of your escape?

The darkness deepens,
and I can no longer tell
if you’re the insect,
or if I am.

If I could make you whole,
if my blood could fill the space,
I’d share it willingly.
But your narrow focus,
always pressing against this fragile barrier,
refusing to look beyond the wide open sky--
I can’t accept it.
​
So, I’ll step into the screen,
become the insect myself,
and lock your freedom
inside my own cage.
Know this, and nothing more.

​
"FREE & TITLED: TWO HAIKU"

Yuan Changming, Canada
​
1/ Bird vs Wind
​
The bird strives to catch
The wind, but it is so strong
It traps the bird instead

2/ The Cosmos vs My World

Just as our cosmos is, supposedly, where
Light can reach in space, so my world is
Where my voice can travel through time

"SUPERCALFRAGILISTICEXPIALIDOCIOUS"
                (for Helena Qi Hong) 
​

 Yuan Changming, Canada

Your inner being is so full of sunlight
Every flower that catches sight of you
Begins to bloom against the season
Just as each face that turns towards you
Bursts into a smile when you pass by

​
"Writing on the Snow"

Ma Yongbo, China
​
Clean snow is separated by road and tree’s shadows
into irregular geometrical shapes.

On a triangle, somebody tramples out some words,
“full of power and grandeur.”
each as long as the height of a person
recognizable only to those on the road.

In a yard enclosed by rusty fences,
another one wrote down, “Good luck for the year of the rooster.”
It followed by some careless bigger words--
“No bullsh*t! Wait and see the turnover of heaven and earth!”

On the bridge over an artificial lake,
chemical green paints show beneath the worn snow carpet.
Looking down, several words stand out on a rectangle,
“You idiot! You’re late!”

When we were young we went to play with snow,
kids who came early would write just like that
but now no one is to be caught doodling
and find someone waving his fist behind.

There, it's getting brighter in the woods,
some spaces in the woods, no snow,
but clean earth ground cleared out
for the morning runners,
Kidney-shaped lake linked by paths.

We went to kick at the thin pines,
kick and run away as soon as
the dust of snow falls from their dim silence.

Under low pines trees, footprints of a puppy
lay one covering another, the yellow urine stain is still uneven
after several falls of snow, prints in the woods expand into traps.

In another birch woods
Someone drew hoof prints shaped like plum blossoms with a stick,
stretched out into the woods, then disappeared,
there were no human footprints nearby.

We went back to the road,
you wrote with the black fingers of your leather gloves an equation,
“Ma Yongbo + so-and-so =love.”
Why not “Ma Yongbo + so-and-so+so-and-so-and-so……=love?”
“You go to h*ll!”
“Ha ha write that down too,my dear!”


"WATCH OUT – DANGER AHEAD"

John Grey, Rhode Island


at this moment

the future is conducting
three wars
in various parts of the globe

two coups
a tsunami
a miles-wide forest fire

an earthquake
various droughts
and an upswing
in gang killings
random beatings
and inflation –

it sounds like
it doesn’t want you there

but
off you go

living the next moment
and so foolishly
the one right after that


"THESE DIFFERENT WORLDS"
​
John Grey, Rhode Island


A tiny spider darts
out from underneath the sofa,
senses my presence,
then slips back into hiding.

Two worlds co-exist
in this one parlor.

One is a web
that traps the tiniest mites.

The other is a TV,
a stereo, furniture,
a fireplace and a mantle.

Occasionally,
the inhabitants cross paths.

“Hi,” I say.
“Hi,” says the spider.

Actually, none of this.
​

"Print Perfect"

Lynn White, Wales


I had new jeans,
pale green denim
hipsters with flares
the IN style in 1970.
But they weren’t right,
I thought, not quite Me.

So, I bought fabric paint
and carved up a potato
to print intricate patterns
in blue and red
along the outside legs.
They were perfect then!

But I had paint left
and the potato
was still sound.
So I painted the bare walls
in an intricate pattern
of blue and red perfection.
​
The jeans are long gone.
I’m wearing pyjamas now
as I sit on the old sofa
looking at the old walls
still intricately patterned
in blue and red perfection.


"Don Juan's Reckless Daughter"

R. Bremner, New Jersey

Gallivanting britches in the kitchen
hoodwinked the winking rigamarole.
A codger bamboozled flabbergasted ragamuffins,
Malarky lollygagged considerably.

Hullabaloo brouhaha forged
cold blue steel and sweet fire.
Don Juan’s reckless daughter’s autonomic shenanigans
ran afoul but abreast of her father’s.
​

"Counting Minutes"
​
Joan McNerney, New York


We hurry through afternoons
of thunderstorms.
Drizzle zig zag splashing
fast steps as winds
brush over trees.
Trance-like and in a fog,
we have discovered
no solutions.

Does any one have answers?
Going home across moist
blackness. This day finished.
Another piece of the puzzle gone.
Sprays of lost thoughts.
Raindrops shimmer on
branches...watery bouquets.


"How"
​
Joan McNerney, New York


Did the snow fall on
each barn and shed
spreading over grass
and bushes but
miss the trees?

I heard the Canadian
geese honking
last week. They
fly in flocks with
V shaped precision

The willow tree
is green yet snow
fell in that bough
while other trees are
slightly trimmed
with white

Birds still sing
here through
every winter, I still
question how?


"Dude"

Kelley J. White, Pennsylvania


At the border of the present
at the suprachiasmatic nucleus
an animal does not want to live
too far in the past, nor I in the future.
Follow Zeno’s arrow to your death
and you’ll never get there, breathe
in between the pain and you may escape
it (though I do not want to try.)
The cats predict the dog’s behavior
though they may try to befriend
it. Elephants mourn their loved ones,
I don’t wear your time anymore.


"Tripping The Sky Fantastic"

Brian Ji, South Korea


Clouds soar,
don’t drift away.
Outstretched
like swans,
they hide behind
colors assumed
by sky.
Flying formationed
horizon bound,
clouds dissipate,
morph into fish
yearning to be,
to become,
to forever dwell
within the cloudy
confines of a print
cut from wood.


"Left, Wrong, Right"

Jane Helen Lee, South Korea


Bell rings.
Piercing.
The children
              Split.
Right and left. They go
Into
Single file lines. divide that into
              Two
At the crossroads.

Right: filled to the brim,
each crack and corner bursting with light

Of course.
One should know,
Perfect
Children choose. right.

The
            Lines
Of fresh cobblestones. Of beauty. Of untouched innocence.
Line the picture-book lanes.

You can almost smell it
Lingering above the stench of the
Left.

Expired goods. They say.
Don’t want to end. up. like. that.

The un-
Right.

“Wrong?” Perhaps,

For there is

Nothing left
Of them

Yet, the un-rights are simply
Left. ≠ wrong.


"A Grove Of Shelter"
After Rhonda Gail Williford

S. Abdulwasi'h Olaitan, Nigeria

In my heart I have planted you like seed
for some opaque reasons, nebulous as it seems.
firstly, the cluster on your face fades
the spiel of your crib carries a worn-out citole
yet the music walks out of asphyxiation, outside
the door to its grave, Othe threadlike
the smoke of cold chrysanthemum tea in the street
touches everything that touches you. equilibrium/
in the dappled life of our shared breath, I've drunk
the progeny of your canvases then found an oscillation
within choices, flowering, year-round the long veiled
of shadow. Secondly, your verses chiseled off -apartheid-
a wall paint of skin with familiar seeds of justice
sown in the fertile soil. now, the gavels fall
in silent, automobiles are fashioned into the glory
of the soundboard, the zither is loosing a string as
if by losing virginity. her snoot telegraphed
her displeasure.
when you speak
everything about you speaks/wears
the music of gregarious hounds: a self-portrait of
a woman as a genus dendrocalamus.


"I Have Never Done It–a Cento"
(for Carla M. Cherry and JP Howard)

Patricia Carragon, New York


I have never done it
. . . I have been very careful
I won’t promise
. . . this gutted globe
I wish them a strange town and the last tampon
This is how to throw back a fish you don’t like
. . . this is how to make ends meet
My sleep floats within a listening
Who can say you do not know how to throw
your voice into the air?
What woke to war in me all these years
Behind me is the forest
Before me is the field, a loose run of grass
And the blood ran down my legs
The parasitic closing on our thumbprint,
we were smudged in a yellow book
Like a mother who puts white lilies
on the headstone of a dead child

Cento credits:
“I Could Not Tell” by Sharon Oldes
“Song for Baby O, Unborn” by Diane DiPrima
“Wishes for Sons” by Lucille Clifton
“Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid
“Praise Song for Patricia Jabbeh Wesley by Tsiti Ella Jaji
“Obedience, or the Lying Tale” by Jennifer Chang
“The Birth” by Dorothea Laskey
“In Knowledge of Young Boys” by Toi Derricotte
“Homeless” by Juliet Kono


"Breast Pump Drive: contrapuntal"

Christiana Doucette, South Carolina

                             I pull down           the pump purrs.
                             the breast pump
                             dumping out
                             the pieces
                             to clean them
                             a mother
                             I do not
                             know hiking
                             through mountains
                             nursing child
                             tied to her
                             rivers bite
                             against bark
                             she edges
                             across with
                             her sleeping
                             baby close
the black bag
lands with a thump
the memories
clattering
I soak each
hands in suds
spin them I
through dark nights
of lost sleep
whimpering
one strong hold
cold fingers
on warm chest
out out out
everything left
power wakes


"Momentum"
​
Carla Schwartz, Massachusetts


                      I want to make the moments                                                                     move over
                     want to make them slide out                                                                     make room
                for new moments                                                                                        I want the wind
                to calm                                                                                                        I want the wind
           to rise up and roar                                                                                        I want to keep moving
           like my pen                                                                                                 I want to find my dream
                  again                                                                                                           I want to know
       who is knocking on                                                                                       my dream when I lie down
          who is trying to learn                                                                                   who is trying to horn in
       who is sliding                                                                                                 through my wall of brain
               and offering me                                                                                                what? a tool?
               is it a pen or                                                                                                      a rolling pin?
of course I need both                                                                                       I need to roll my thoughts smooth
        after kneading into a ball                                                                                     I need a strong arm
     that I might toss that ball far                                                                            into the water to splash back
                   at the full moon                                                                                                and the pen
             so that when I succeed to slide                                                                           just one moment
                  to add space in time                                                                                           I can use it

                                                                        to record my dreams.


"my garden"
​
Mina Beach, Pennsylvania

good morning summer, good morning summer before summer comes again
i’m going lake surfing and tending a garden of stone roses
i’m cutting out paper hearts and trying on glasses

good morning summer, good morning summer before everything goes dull again
i’m picturing leaves on trees and staring at the cloud-covered moon
i’m performing love spells and dreaming up a county fair

good morning summer, good morning summer before summer comes again
i’m writing her name in cursive with the pressure washer on the driveway
i’m buying new socks and making popsicles in the ice tray
good morning summer, good morning summer before the magic evades me again
i’m kissing the sweat off from under her necklace and sitting on the balcony
i’m looking into the lake and seeing what looks back

good morning summer, good morning summer before summer comes again
i’m dying my little death in the sweet grass and cutting her hair in the kitchen
i’m finding a new spray of freckles and wondering who i’ll be

i’m

spinning a nickel on the page of the phone book to see where it lands
and
making crayon-wax candles
and
cooling down on the tile floor
and
writing devotions and holy letters behind her belt
and
finally feeling like myself again


"EAST VS WEST: A SYNOPTIC CULTURAL COMPARISON"
​
Yuan Changming, Canada

During the great flood
Noah hid himself in the ark
                                    While Dayu tried to contain it
                                    With his bare hands

Prometheus stole fire
From Olympian gods
                                   While Sui Ren got it
                                    By drilling wood hard

Smart Daedalus crafted wings
To fly away from his prison-tower
                                   While Old Fool removed the whole
                                   Mountain blocking his way

Helios enjoyed driving his chariot
All along in the sky
                                  While Kuafu chased the sun
                                  To take it down & tame it

Sisyphus rolls the boulder uphill
Because of his deceitfulness, while
                                  Wu Gang cuts the laurel as a punishment
                                   For distractions in learning

​
"Unstitchable"

Kiyoshi Hirawa, Nebraska


The trunk was a reluctant reliquary,
a shuttered museum
in the worst part of town,
rent paid to the sump pump
under the last basement step,
three decades undisturbed until jostled awake
by a girl-woman learning her third decade
from stories on porches
and long-lost trunks

hiding lost long looks and
a police uniform:
faded French blues, crinkled shirt,
despondent gloss of a duty belt,
sagging velcro straps criss-crossing a kevlar vest.
But no badge or gun.
Costume clothes? she wondered.

Stolen artifacts, confessed the curator,
a woman-gran bitterly burning
a lost decade
in story-torches lit
with the hot oil of memory,
sifting the incomplete ensemble,
voice crackling like vinyl.

                                                                             Ask a police department how they handle misconduct–sexual misconduct–and
                                                                               they’ll ask for your badge and gun. And clothes and gear. Then you’ll gather
                                                                          shirts and pants darkened by spots of bodily fluids. Some yours, most not. Vomit
                                                                               from a man you dragged out of a garage foggy with carbon monoxide. Blood
                                                                         from a train v. car wreck, a woman almost cut in half. Baby spit-up from CPR on
                                                                                   a three-month old, two-finger chest compressions in the back of a swaying
                                                                           ambulance, paramedics clutching an IV, tapping frantically for a vein. They all
                                                                         lived. Makes no difference. You’ll be asked for your jacket. The hat, too, with the
                                                                           badge so shiny you turned it backwards searching buildings on burglar alarms.
                                                                         They shoot at what’s bright. Burglars do, too. Try turning in a duty belt after one
                                                                         thousand seven hundred and four calls for service in a single year. And all you’ll
                                                                        think about are stitches, tiny ants scrambling over the leather snake of a duty belt
                                                                        and the molded kevlar that never contoured to a woman’s body, then you’ll recall
                                                                       your first perineal stitch after your second child. Your discomfort accommodating
                                                                             someone else's comfort.
You don’t own these stories, you’ll tell them. We own
                                                                           your voice, they’ll tell you. And when they own your voice, they’ll stitch as they
                                                                         please, suturing your future, invisible stitches crisscrossing and lining the length
                                                                                                                                                           of your body from lips to lips.


The girl-woman let wool and polyester
slip between fingers and thumb,
the embroidered badge
scratch across knuckles.
Why not keep the badge and gun, then?

The woman-gran,
ever the contemplative, conscientious
grave robber,
held up a uniform shirt against the sun,
rays oozing through the subterranean window,
penetrating the threadbare layers
but halting at the dark patches,
arching, twisting, genuflecting
before the splotch of stains
haloed by light,
worn out and worn through,
wholly unstitchable.


"L’ANTI-«PROMESSA» D’AMARE"
 
Ivan Pozzoni, Italy

Da anti-«poeta», vittima della mia anti-«poesia»
non sarei in grado di dedicarti che un’anti-«promessa» d’amore,
la mia anti-«promessa» d’amore avrebbe i tratti d’una sinestesia,
la durezza staliniana dell’acciaio e la dolcezza del colore,
la finezza dell’amicizia e la consistenza dell’amore,
i tuoi occhi, candidi, mi tramutano in cinico malato d’idrofobia,
e contro la rabbia – monamour- non esiste dottore.
 
Anti-«promessa» d’amore da leggere davanti all’ufficiale di stato civile,
come riuscire a convincere un mondo tecno-triviale
che ti ho amata dal Giugno del 1976, forse, addirittura, da Aprile,
io ero un embrione e tu, ancora, eri immersa nell’aurora boreale,
saresti stata sei anni un angelo, un fantasma, l’inessenza di un frattale,
senza fare una piega a attenderti, sei anni, trentasei anni, senza niente da dire,
i contemporanei montoni di Panurgo mi condannerebbero al silenzio totale.
 
Sei la mia anti-«promessa» d’amore e, magari, il concetto ti suona insensibile
ti osservo dormire, serena, come una briciola adagiata in un tostapane,
il mio amore – mi spogli dal ruolo di «guastatore»- è abissale come un sommergibile,
condannato a disseminar siluri sotto (mentita) spoglia di pesci-cane.

"THE ANTI-PROMISE TO LOVE"

Anti-poet, victim of my anti-poetry,
all I could do is dedicate to you an anti-promise of love,
my anti-promise of love would have the features of a synesthesia,
the Stalinist hardness of steel and the softness of colour,
the finesse of friendship and the consistency of love,
your white eyes turn me into a hydrophobic cynic,
and there's no doctor for rage, my love.

An anti-promise of love to be read before a registrar,
as to convince a tecno-trivial world,
i've loved you since June 1976, perhaps, in truth, since April,
i was an embryo and you were still immersed in the aurora borealis,
for six years you would have been an angel, a ghost, the inessential of a fractal,
without batting an eyelid waiting for you, six years, thirty-six years, with nothing to say,
the sheep of Panurge's contemporaries would condemn me to total silence.

You are my anti-promise of love, and the idea may seem imperceptible to you,
i observe you sleeping, serene, like a crumb abandoned in a toaster,
my love I am stripped of the role of ‘sapper’ - it is abyssal like a submarine,
condemned to scatter torpedoes under the (false) guise of a dogfish.


"Wild Gatherings: Creasy Greens"

Charles A. Swanson, Virginia

Picture

​
(​Avant)Art

Colourful abstract in a geometric pattern
Colourful abstract in a geometric pattern
Colourful abstract geometric pattern
Abstract geometric image
Abstract colourful geometric image
Abstract black and white geometric image
Watercolour painting
Watercolour painting
Abstract colourful digital art (no AI)
Abstract furry image
Abstract wattle image
Abstract image
Abstract stacked image
Abstract stacked image
Abstract stacked image

(Avant)Stories

Please make sure to address story submissions to Dave Sykes. Thanks!
"Sign My Bucket?"
For Wayne

Larry D Thacker, Tennessee

I was in the back, dusting, of course. It’s what I do, sweeping up behind the rough-skin-chaffed, tire-kickers wandering lost in the antique aisles watching for some long-lost mystery they’ve misplaced out of a dimming past. They leave a little of themselves behind through the store in the way of dust. It’s like a full-time job. I tell myself it’s meditative, this sweeping up of the microscopic, this feathered following on.

Something, someone, banged through the front double glass doors, and fell to the floor. A woman cursed the day under her breath. Something splashed followed by another string of curses.

She yelled out, “Hey! Anyone home? Hello!”

The door slammed behind her. The little chimes I’d rigged to the top of the entrance doors sung out in a song that screamed chaos.

I dropped my feather duster and ran to the front. This could be important. But for the sound of splashing water, I thought maybe a postal employee was having trouble maneuvering a delivery into the shop. It’s happened.

The ruckus this woman caused was unmistakable. She meant business, of some sort, and I didn’t even know what she wanted yet. I’d just opened, and things were hopping.

It was a hot day. Humid as h*ll. She was sweat-soaked in rings through her green and faded Dollywood tank top. I saw sweat trailing down her legs, what wasn’t covered by her acid washed, knee-length jorts. She was barefooted to boot. Her blond-ish hair was stringy on her forehead from the humidity.

She was pulling along one of those bright yellow, industrial janitorial mop buckets, the kind you crank down with the handle to squeeze the life out of your soggy mop. Her mop was in the bucket. She steered with the mop handle with one hand and fought a heavy backpack on the other shoulder. She was standing in a puddle of water. She’d spilled it fighting her way in. A gray, chunky water filled it. She hadn’t spilled it all. Things were floating in there.

I stood and looked at her, waiting, like, here I am, now what?

“You own this place, boss?” she asked, about as loud as before, like I was still in the back.

I didn’t answer that question. I never do. It doesn’t matter who owns the shop. Get on with it, lady.

“How can I help you?” I asked, eyeing the spilled filth.

She asked sort of the obvious question, though it surprised me still.

“How much you give me for all this?”

All this? I almost blurted out. I don’t see sh*t. But I held my tongue.

She stood churning the mophead up and down in the water like this was going to entice me. As if I’d say, Wow! A bucket that holds water! And a mop that soaks sh*t up. I’ve been looking for that setup for months!

Again, I held back. I opted instead for, “I’ve already got a mop and a bucket, and my bucket ain’t full of nasty *ss water.”

She looked down and made a face as if she’d only just realized she was standing barefooted in a mess. She kicked some drops off the toes of her left foot and shifted her backpack a little.

“You might be better off dumping that water. You gonna clean up that mess you’re making?”

She said, “What? You giving me a job, or something?”

“No, we don’t need any help, but it’s your mess, ain’t it?” I reminded.

She was standing on a string of spaghetti like she was smushing an earthworm. She toed it aside. She said, “D*mn. I can’t believe I spilled some! But hey, this here ain’t your ordinary dirty mop water, boss.”

She’d lowered her voice now and was looking around like she didn’t want anyone else but lucky me to hear about this incredible deal she was about to lay out.

How could I not be curious now?

“Oh?”

She nodded, wide-eyed. What was this lady on?

“Did you know Madonna was in town?”

“The h*ll you say,” I responded. I figured it could only get better from here. Besides, I was now just as interested in how long she’d keep standing there in dirty water as for what she might have to say about the Queen of Pop stopping off in Yamertown.

She was growing more enthusiastic, nodding and lowering her voice another notch.

“Yeah. Her and a bunch of her people were down at that Italian place.”

I said, “You don’t say.”

“Yeah. They were making a big *ss mess all over the table and up underneath,” she said, twisting up a disgusted face. “All over the floor.”
That “Italian place” was actually “Dos Fretelli,” my buddy Bill’s Italian-Mexican hybrid restaurant.

“You work there?” I wondered.

“No. I stoled this. I’ve always loved Madonna. Imma material girl just like her. They rolled all this out back when they were done cleaning up. I grabbed it.”

“Madonna, huh?”

“Yep.”

What was I going to do with this? She was obviously out of her mind.

“Why’d you bring it me?”

“Pawn shop sent me here,” she said. I made a mental note to thank Ricky down at Millennial Pawn.

“You sure it was Madonna? The Madonna.”

“Like there’s another Madonna,” she said, sort of aggravated with me. “Oh, and Reba.”

“Reba.”

“Yep,” she said.

“McEntire.”

“Did I stutter, boss?”

Now I was curious.

“Anyone else down there,” I asked. “I used to listen to Madonna a little.”

“Maybe,” she whispered, still looking around a little paranoid. “I didn’t stick around long.”

I grabbed my phone and flipped through my contacts. “Well, why don’t we give Bill a call and see who all’s down there, what d’ya say?”

I thought she was gonna drop everything and bolt and leave her great find behind.

“Who?”

“I know those folks down at Dos Fretelli. The owner’s a friend of mine.”

The mop slipped from her hand. “You gonna rat me out, man? Please don’t. I just love me some Madonna, boss.”

“Hey, you found me,” I reminded her, “if there’s a chance this is really Madonna and Reba’s spaghetti slop, then I need to know before I invest good money, you know what I mean?”

I thought that would shut her up.

“And Britney.”

“Let me guess. Spears?”

“Yep. Ms. Britney was down there too.”

“Now we’re talking,” I said.

The phone was ringing. Bill answered.

“Dos Fretelli’s! Home of the buy two, get one, stuffed fajita calzone!”

It sounded busy in the background. The woman looked nervous, like she had a bellyache.

“Bill. It’s Len. You had some interesting guests today, I hear? Some star power down there, maybe?”

He was quiet for a beat.

“Oh! Len! Yeah,” he laughed. “It’s like Hollywood’s here for the day. Jenny’s next door is having their annual drag review fundraiser for Pride Week.”

It all made sense suddenly, didn’t it?

“The shows start at seven. A lot of the gals are using our back seating area as a green room.”

They sounded loud and busy. I could only imagine what a crowd of drag queens filling up on Mexican / Italian would be like by showtime.

“Let me see,” he said, “I see Dolly…and Cher…”

I nodded and grinned. The lady nodded as if to say, I told ya!

“Um, there’s Reba…Lady Gaga…Martha Washington!”

“You don’t say. You got a Madonna in the mix?” I asked.

The lady grinned wider and inspected her dirty water again and tried picking up some spaghetti with her bare toes. She was like a contemplative monkey discovering intentional dexterity.

I whispered low. “Hey, man, you short a mop bucket from out back?”

“How’d you know?”

“Some nut’s trying to sell it to me, dirty Madonna water and all.”

I thought she was going to hear him laughing through the phone.

I spoke up. “You think Madonna might swing by the shop here?”

The lady gave a little hop and yelped with excitement. She’d maybe forgotten the situation she was really in. I tossed her a roll of paper towels.

“Would you mind?” She started sopping up the mess humming a rendition of “Like a Prayer.” She’d wring the fluid back into the bucket. The smell was up in my nose suddenly, a mix of rancidness, BO, disintegrating pasta, and a drop of Pinesol.

I hung up. “Madonna’s on the way,” I told her. She was stunned.

“Oh, wow. You got a magic marker,” she asked.

I told her I might somewhere.

“You think she’d sign the bucket?”

“Lord, I hope so,” I said. This was getting better and better. I just hoped she didn’t get too nervous and take off. I asked her name.

“My name’s Selma Fay, Boss,” she replied. She was about done sopping up the mess. I told her to go wash her hands in the back if she felt like it. She did.

Then it was quiet for a moment, like when I enjoy time best in the shop, alone, but not really alone, surrounded by this long room of puzzled history all nested together, surely secreting its own combined language just away from what we can clearly make out.

I heard the crowd coming on before I saw them. Some singing. A few chanting, “No justice, no peace!” Someone said they were so full they might pop. They strolled up, tentatively, gazing up and around, I guess wondering if they’d found the right place. I “recognized” a few of them. Reba’s teased hair. Madonna’s proud nose. Cher’s long hot crow black hair. They burst into the shop like a showtune act already in progress.

Madonna yelled out, “Where’s Len? Who’s in charge here?” fists on hips, legs straight and planted, looking like a new sort of superheroine.

Cher stepped in and followed up with, “Yeah! Anybody here?”

I was behind the counter. “I’m right here, ladies! Len Lake at your service!”

Someone yelled, “Oh, now don’t you tease us like that, Lenny Boy!” I guess they’d already nicknamed me. No one but my mother had called me anything but Len since I was born, and she’d been dead ten years. I didn’t mind it.

The rest of the queens and their colorful entourage was dispersing through the antique store, ooh-ing and ahh-ing at the cool stuff and giggling their *sses off trying on old hats and slinging vintage handbags over each other’s shoulders. They stepped leisurely around the bucket and mop. One asked, “You have a little accident, Lenny Boy?”

“It’s a long story,” I told them.

“All stories are long stories, Lenny Boy,” Reba said. “And I’d do something about what’s in that bucket before it grows hair on it.”
They laughed.

I yelled toward back, “Selma Fay, you’ve got company!”

She squealed from the bathroom, “Oh My God!” and came trotting to the front.

Madonna was posing with a mounted 8-pointed buck when Selma Fay ran up and jumped in the frame without being invited. A tall boy, a foot taller than anyone of us, shoved Selma Fay back gently and got between her and Madonna. Selma Fay’s eyes got big and round and crazy.

“Who you think you are pretty boy? I’m Madonna’s biggest fan - at least in this sh*tty little town!”

I shot her a look, like, Calm down, would you? She backed off.

“I’m sorry, boss. I’m just so excited.”

Cher spoke up. “She work for you?”

“No,” I shot back. “She don’t.”

Cher asked the obvious question. “Then why she callin’ you boss?”

“Never mind that,” Selma Fay interrupted, walking over to the bucket and mop and puffing up proudly.

“Ms. Madonna, ma’am, I know you’re busy and all,” she started, humbly, rolling the bucket across the floor and at the same time uncapping a black magic marker she’d found who-knows-where in the back, “but if you don’t mind, would you sign this here bucket?”

Madonna stared at her. Stared down at the rippling sludge in the bucket. Leaned closer with a little sniff and jerked back, scrunching up her lovely nose. In a smooth baritone voice that surprised even me, said, “Listen here, baby girl. Where you get off stealing our left-behinds?”

Selma Fay released her grip on the mop and looked round for where she’d stashed her backpack. Someone yelled, “Ooh, Lordy, Madonna Ray’s about to come out, y’all!”

Then it was as if Selma Fay sobered up instantaneously, like a switch flipped and better light had suddenly flooded the room. She blinked a few times, stepped closer to Madonna. To Cher. Toward Reba.

“What the h*ll kinda trick is this?” she hissed. It was like she was a different person. She
slapped her backpack down and threw the marker at Madonna’s feet and looked over at me. “You
in on this, boss? What the h*ll!”

I shrugged, hoping I appeared as amazed as her.

“You mean to tell me, y’all aren’t who I thought you are?”

She took a closer look at Lady Gaga. Lady Gaga lowered her oversized sunglasses.

“My heart’s just broken in two. Imma fool.”

I think everyone really felt sorry for Selma Fay in that moment.

“You still want that bucket signed, baby girl?” Madonna asked, picking up the marker, her voice an octave higher now.

“Well, maybe just the mop handle, if you don’t mind. I think maybe he’ll want to keep the bucket,” she said, glancing at me.

“Um, no. You’re taking the bucket of swill with you when you leave and I better not find it tossed behind the building either,” I warned.

Madonna shot me a look, like, Give the old gal a break, won’t you? That made me feel a little bad. But what was I to do with it?

“So why you girls dressing up like famous people then if you’re not them? It ain’t Halloween by a long shot.”

After all this, it still seemed she didn’t get that they were drag queens. When she said “girls,” she meant it. They realized it, too, but I guess they didn’t want to confuse her anymore than she was already.

Madonna managed a quick signature on the mop handle. It was hard to read, which was probably best since “Madonna’s” true performance name was Material Ray Mathis. When she was done, she handed it back and Lady Gaga took a turn, signing Luxxxury Adelle. Reba signed, Miss Jazzee. Cher’s real name was Cheri Mae Fox. Selma Fay wouldn’t know any different since all the marker scratching might have said anything. It at least gave her a souvenir from a wacky day no one expected.

Selma Fay looked at me and said, “Well, it woulda been funny if you’d bought this off me in the beginning, huh, Lenny Boy?”

I gave her a look for tossing that nickname at me. She wasn’t in the club, but was feeling like a million bucks, I guess. I laughed. “That wasn’t ever going to happen, but sure. Just don’t go trying to hawk that mop.”

“People do what they need to do out there, man,” she said. “But I’ll never get rid of this. I think I’ll make a walking stick from it.”

“I’ve got an idea,” Madonna offered, pulling a stack of paper from her handbag. “Our show’s this evening and tomorrow down at Jenny’s Party Palace. How about you give these out to people, say, for ten bucks?” She handed them and a bill to Selma Fay.

You’d have thought someone offered her a full-time job with six figures. She grabbed the leaflets, stuck the ten in her jorts pocket, screwed the soggy mop end off the handle and plopped it in the bucket, and headed for the door.

Madonna yelled out, “If a lot of people show up, we’ll know you did a good job handing those out, Miss Selma!"

Selma Fay turned with a smile and said, “You can count on me, boss!”
​

"Appalachia Jack, Snarling Yow, and Alexander Gardner as Never Seen Together"

Nancy Cook, Minnesota

This is what Mathew Brady is thinking in April 1862: wartime photos are doing a good business. Not only stills of young men’s faces before they depart for the fighting, but photographs of the scenes of war: pitched tents, physics with the tools of their trade, infantry
cleaning their weapons, cavalry astride their mounts, generals in consultation, and everyone writing and reading letters to and from home. Brady is keenly aware of the profits made in trading in relics these two plus years since John Brown’s galvanizing raid on the Harpers Ferry Armory. Now that the war is teetering on the edge of northern states, opportunity beckons. To cash in on the public’s appetite for memorabilia, Brady sends photographers up to the boundary towns along the Potomac in Harper Valley.

In September, Brady’s best man, Alexander Gardner, heads to Antietam, arriving in time to photograph the hundreds of bodies of men and horses still unburied after the bloodiest day of fighting yet. A curious man, meticulous in his work, and dedicated to his craft, Gardner comes prepared for the sight of extreme blood, severed limbs, broken skulls, for the stench of fear, sweat, sh*t, urine, filth, for the grim faces of leaders and men in shock. It’s in the nature of the business. When he looks around he sees art ready for composition.

He also sees a story, though, and he’s not quite prepared for what it evokes in him. Heartbreak, as he has not felt heartbreak since tuberculosis devastated the close circle of family and friends he’d once assembled here in the US. So he takes pictures, hundreds of pictures that bear witness to grief, lost hope, youth’s fragility, the toll of duty, terror, bewilderment, desire.

Near sunset, Alexander Gardner sits alone on a downed tree a little apart from his tent, half a mile from the now silent Antietam battlefield. Sipping brandy, too tired to eat. The slowly evaporating blue of Maryland sky reminds him of summers in Inverness and he remembers a boy running in Caledonian forests and on the shores of Coldingham Bay.

Therefore it doesn’t surprise him to see a child of about ten emerge from the woods. Gardner follows the boy with his photographer’s eye, takes in the coltish thinness of him, his too-big gray-green overalls, the ragged blond flight of hair that lifts and falls as he lopes along, a small knapsack slung over his shoulder.

The child’s gaze is watchful, like Gardner’s. But the sun’s slant for the moment has hidden Gardner in shadow. Oblivious of Gardner’s presence, the boy steps quickly to the rear of the tent, touches the canvas and waits. After a few seconds, apparently satisfied no one is within, he sneaks up near the front flap where a kerchief hangs from the tent pole. Wrapped inside is a half loaf of bread and a jar of plum preserves. The boy lifts the kerchief, pockets the bread and preserves, and neatly replaces the cloth, all without making the slightest sound or disturbance.

‘Men have been shot for stealing less.’

The boy freezes. His sight travels to Gardner’s voice.

‘Don’t worry, I’m not going to shoot you,’ the man says.

At that, the boy runs for the woods. Gardner doesn’t bother to follow. He has more provisions, and no appetite anyhow.


Long past midnight, it’s black as pitch, and Gardner wakes to a fiendish howl. Instinctively he reaches for his shotgun, then remembers the boy. He creeps from his tent, moves very slowly in the direction of the menace. Is it a wolf? A wildcat? Maybe a coyote?

Inching through the grass, Gardner almost trips over the boy, who stirs and then sits up.

Gardner rests his gun against his hip. ‘What’s your name young fella?’

‘Jack.’

‘Jack what?’

‘Jack nothing,’ the boy says. He’s full of spit, this kid.

‘Okay, what brings you here, Jack Nothing?’

Jack lifts himself up, cocks his jaw. ‘Looking for my brothers, Tom and Will.’

‘Ah. Fighting men, are they?’

‘Mebbe. They just run off.’

‘You’re worried about them, are you?'

‘No. Don’t like ‘em much. They’s mean to me.’

‘Hmm. But you’re here looking for them. There’s a war going on. It’s dangerous. So
why –’

‘They my brothers.’

Jack stands, lifts his knapsack, and trots off.

Gardner lets him get about 100 paces, then follows. A minute later he hears the strange animal yowl and turns left, toward the sound. What he sees are two glowing yellow eyes and a fiery red mouth baring sharp white teeth. The canine creature snarls viciously, otherwise doesn’t move. Gardner raises his gun, takes aim, and fires. He’s a good shot, especially at such close range. He knows he’s hit his mark. But moments later the beast can be heard running in the boy’s direction. Gardner rushes blindly in pursuit.

A thin line of pink dawn breaks through on the horizon and now Gardner can see ahead both boy and beast. They are locked together, the boy’s left arm wrapped tightly around the neck of the beast, which Gardner now observes is a kind of dog, black-furred and sharp-snouted. Its red mouth still blazes like a lantern, but is no longer snarling. The yellow eyes have dulled. In contrast, the boy’s blue eyes are crystal sharp and vibrant in the emergent light.

With his right hand, Jack is holding out a bone of some kind in front of the dog, what he must have used to trick it into submission. The dog is snatching at the bone with his open mouth, but his fangs can’t seem to hold a grip.

‘Leave me be,’ Jack says, as Gardner approaches.

‘I just want to help.’

‘Don’t need help from no killer.’ The wild dog lies down with a whimper at Jack’s side.

It looks to rest against a large boulder, but its big paws and head just pass through the rock and settle on the ground. Gardner looks askance from the dog to the boy, not quite ready to believe what he’s seeing. ‘I’m not a soldier,’ he says after some hesitation. ‘I’m an artist. A photographer. I take pictures. To show what things are really like.’

‘It’s all a frenzy,’ the boy says.

Gardner wonders, does he mean the war? Photographs? Life itself? He lays his gun down gently in the grass. Against his better judgment, because in his mind the snarly canine still poses a danger.

But when he looks up again, the black dog is nowhere to be seen. The boy is readying to take off again.

‘I get paid,’ Gardner says. ‘For the photographs.’

‘I know. I’m not stupid,’ Jack says. His tone tells Gardner the child has often had to defend himself this way.

‘I could take your picture. I mean, I’d like to,’ Gardner says.

When Jack doesn’t respond, he adds, ‘I’ll make you some breakfast. Hotcakes, eggs, pork. I’ve got some beer.’

So Jack follows him back to his tent and heartily indulges himself. He allows Gardner to take photographs, half a dozen of them.

Later, Gardner unpacks the glass slides in his Washington D.C. studio but he finds no images of Jack. The boy, like the beast, has simply vanished.


(Appal)Trad

"Home At Last"

Doug Stoiber, Tennessee


The out-of-state visitor smiled as I spoke
Of the grandeur of East Tennessee,
Its green rolling hills, its remarkable lakes,
The Great Smokies in their majesty.

Of Dollywood’s magic, and Knoxville’s allure,
Old Rocky Top’s legend in song,
I rhapsodized warmly on all of the charms
Of the state where I know I belong.

“You from around here?”, the traveler asked,
As in wide-eyed amazement he stood.
“Not born and raised here”, I Volunteered,
“But I got here as soon as I could!”




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