Penumbra Online
Summer 2026

America at 250:

Dreaming the Dream

Table of Contents

Art
American Jazz

Poetry
Gorge
For my country I grieve
Three Fifths
This’s Going to Fizzle Out if Something Don’t Happen
Will it be my brother? Will it be my friend?
Ravenswood
Southern Flights
On U.S. 1 In Saugus, Mass.
Off Exit 137 Past Vantage
Great Lakes Naval Training Center 1945
They Put Us to Shame
The American Dream
Sacrifice
Bone Flute Beside the Irrigation Canal
To Be American
Fish
Elegy for the Penny
All-American
This poem is not about the Alamo.
America, Warehoused
Beautiful Girls, Cleaning Houses
American Dream

Fiction
The Typist
Tuesday

Bone Flute Beside the Irrigation Canal
by D. Anson Lee

The old man plays only at dusk.

He sits beside the irrigation canal

where cattails lean in the wind

and mosquitoes stitch the air.

Children on bicycles slow to listen,

though none recognize the melody.

My grandfather would have.

He once told me certain songs

survive longer than nations.

This valley knows something about survival.

Beneath almond orchards

lie Yokuts villages,

buried fishing hooks,

charcoal from cooking fires

older than maps.

Now supermarkets glow all night.

Subdivisions spread across fields

where quail once vanished into wheatgrass.

Still, each evening,

the flute returns.

Its sound is thin, unfinished, nearly breaking:

like a voice remembering itself.

I think of all the ways a people disappear:

through boarding schools,

through renamed rivers,

through silence practiced long enough

to resemble peace.

The old man closes his eyes while he plays.

Coyotes answer from somewhere beyond the canal.

For one suspended moment,

darkness gathers around us

not as erasure,

but shelter.

The first stars appear cautiously

above the valley.

No one speaks.

Even the water seems to pause

to hear

what remains.

The Typist
by Thomas Healy

He sat down at one of the wobbly metal tables outside the coffee house and took a sip of his cappuccino. It was much too hot so he set it aside and opened the battered Olivetti typewriter case and began to pound away on the stiff keys. At first, he typed his name, "Rick Stedden," over and over again, then he typed what he remembered of the Gettysburg Address.

As he did, the "clack, clack, clack" sound of the typewriter ringing in his ears, he was aware of others looking at him, some even stood behind him for a minute or two. He felt like some exotic creature in a cage at the zoo.

In his third year in college, Stedden worked part-time at the Odd Old Ends, a collectibles shop near the school. Mostly he stocked shelves and sometimes helped the owner, Mr. Honeyman, price the inventory.

"I've got an idea that might stir up some more business," Mr. Honeyman said one afternoon.

"What's that?"

He smiled his crooked smile. "It involves you, son.”

"It does?"

Still smiling, he explained what he had in mind: "Suppose, every other day or so, you take one of the manual typewriters we have for sale and sit outside some coffee house and just type for a few minutes."

"You really think there'd be any interest in buying typewriters?"

"Perhaps, but the key thing is you'd be wearing one of our T-shirts and that might prompt some folks to pay us a visit to see what other things we have to sell."

"I've never used a typewriter."

"You've used a computer."

"Of course."

"The keyboard is pretty much the same, so all you have to do is make-believe you're typing on a computer."

One afternoon, instead of typing outside a coffee house, Stedden found an empty bench at Millwell Square, which was at the edge of the Financial District, and set the typewriter beside him and again began to type out the Gettysburg Address. Millwell Square was always packed with people so, not surprisingly, he drew quite a lot of attention.

"You know what century this is, friend?" a guy in dreadlocks asked as he slid by on a skateboard.

"Don't your ears hurt?" someone else asked. "Making all that racket?"

"That machine belongs in a museum, not out in public."

He ignored the wisecracks, having heard them before typing outside various coffee houses the past couple of weeks.

Just before he was about to leave, an older woman with purple fingernails sat down on the bench across from him.

"I had a Smith Corona when I was in college many years ago," she recalled. "I used it so much I wore out some of the keys."

He smiled as he put the Remington typewriter back in its case.

"I miss it," she admitted. "I know computers are faster and easier to use, but I miss the effort it took to tap the keys and even the sound they made when struck. I suppose that's silly but I do."

"It's nice not to have to plug something in all the time to get it to work."

"It is, young man. It certainly is."

The more often he typed on the old manual typewriters, the more he began to think of himself as some kind of street performer who entertained people with these peculiar machines. Sometimes, he even appeared on the same street corners that were usually occupied by jugglers and magicians and fire dancers and knife throwers and balloon sculptors. Rarely, but on occasion, people even left him tips.

The largest tip he received was a ten dollar bill that an older man dropped into his typewriter case.

"In its day, that was a very valuable machine that you have," the older man declared as he watched Stedden type out Lincoln's speech.

"I believe it still has some value."

"Not like it did."

"Probably not."

"You know, when people were evacuating Saigon at the time it fell, they were only allowed to bring one item with them when they boarded the helicopters," he recalled with a faint grin, "and some reporter from Time decided to take his typewriter instead of his bag of clothes."

"Is that so?"

He nodded. "Which shows you how valuable such machines were then."

Not quite a week later, about halfway through the Gettysburg Address, Stedden got up from his table and went back inside the coffee house to get a refill. He was only gone a couple of minutes, but when he returned the typewriter was not on the table. He was stunned. Wondering if he was looking at the wrong table, he glanced at the three other tables, but the typewriter wasn't there, either.

"This can't be," he muttered, after setting his cup on the table. "It just can't be."

At once, he asked a couple at one of the other tables if they saw what happened to the typewriter, but they were so engrossed in conversation they said they didn't have any idea.

"None at all?"

They wagged their heads in unison.

"Someone took it," a bearded guy at another table informed him.

"Who?"

The guy shrugged. "Never seen him before and I'm here almost every day."

"Damn it."

"He dropped something in your case."

Stedden looked down at the case and saw a small white envelope and inside it was a wrinkled one hundred dollar bill. He could not help but smile. He had made his first ever sale for the shop.

Southern Flights
by Schuyler Becker

Cypress trees contain

the darkest night

only broken apart

by shards of lightning

or the occasional

Waffle House

What a rush

of lost planes,

lost luggage,

and time spent

crossing state lines

in a mini van four too many

for our size

When life gives you lemons

I guess

you get the hell out of Texas

and brace the sticky

Georgian dusk

with a dream and a

melatonin

ready to go

Gorge
by Timothy Dodd

Tracks of hot rolled steel slice through

this valley. Almost Eden. New River.

Hillsides steep and dark angle up away

to the sky, hiding thin waterfalls, morels

in April, and winter deer licking icicles

off rusting coal cars. Coke ovens line

the bases of these mountains, furnaces

deserted mining towns disappeared.

At dusk, limestone outcroppings loom

above like giant outstretched hands, pale

and sure. So little is seen, and even that

passes in a flash: wildflowers pop up in

spirited colors, dotting the slopes until

sitting down again, retreating to the soil

like us, like comets and planets whirling

into, out of infinity. I’m here in a little box

with an engine, little man for a little time,

while the people sit around asking when

the cafe car will open, wanting coffee

and cans of Coke, hamburgers and chips

as we zip through mountain core, a soon-

to-be-forgotten blip of the cosmic mundane.

American Jazz
by Yailin Gutiérrez
Medium: Colored pencils and water color

Elegy for the Penny
by Jonathan Fletcher

Forget the quarter.

Forget the nickel. Forget the dime.

Forget the dollar.

Hand for lure, search inside

your seams for what can mean

the small difference

between having enough

to pay for a single pack of Spearmint

and the sour look

from the surly cashier as they fish out

a newly minted coin

or reel in the gum from your hopeful hands.

If your catch is instead

larger than most, consider giving

something extra

in the Take a penny, leave a penny.

With intentional finger,

trace the copper-plated zinc,

cherish the cost of 3.7 cents

of metal in your open palm.

When it turns to Mars

in look and feel, don’t spend it,

don’t exchange it.

Make proud America’s Quaker,

worth $100 since 1914.

Deceased, like the penny, in Philadelphia.

His words about the coin

as timely now as was then.

In the folds of your pocket,

keep Mr. Lincoln safe.

In between thumb and forefinger,

clinch 238 years.

In the creases of your hand,

hold a little bit of Revolution.

With resolve as firm as fist,

protect the undervalued.

For my country I grieve
by Corey Mesler

For my country I grieve.

It colors the everyday.

Yet, when Cheryl takes

my hand, just that, I

know a peace that is

fulsome. People, we all

need this. And we need

to feel that we’re not

losing, just losing, every day.

Beautiful Girls, Cleaning Houses
by Keith Melton

I often wonder where you come from.

El Salvador, Mexico, Panama.

It doesn’t matter

our good fortune, your nose to the grindstone,

doing the thankless jobs.

And I remember the Bible verse

“That which you do to the least among you,

you do also to me,”

and I shudder at what we have become,

for all is not well.

A madness in the country now

each day, another fiasco.

The gulags spreading across the landscape

the gerrymanders stealing votes,

cops in black masks kidnapping refugees.

And I think of the lady in the harbor

“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses,”

and it no longer fits.

We the people, subdued. The stooges

carving up the Constitution. Chaos. Corruption.

The troops in the street.

The Courts, on life support.

So, I try to learn a bit of your language

when you come, shy, reserved

ready to work. For it is hard to fathom

the courage to find a new life

to hold it; cherish it.

Before a darker Amerika,

a 19th century Amerika, rises

in jack boots and riot gear, to crush your dreams.

Crazy Water

by Michael White

The only school in our district that had a pool was John Evans Junior High. It was a circle school, meaning that it consisted of “pods” that orbited a center “pod.” This of course led to no end of confusion, but it was designed and built in the 70s when such high ideals seemed innovative and realistic and cool. Now it was just an asbestos filled hulk looking like a nest of alien spaceships smacked down in the middle of a neighborhood full of rotting tract houses that must’ve been pretty fancy in 1965, but now they all seemed from another time, another era, like

John Evans Junior High itself.

But the pool.

It was a brick outbuilding connected to the gym “pod” by temperamental doors that didn’t always turn easily for my master key. Every night at 11:30 I would head from my office in the middle of nowhere, speeding down the isolated first avenue road while listening to Art Bell’s weird stories about pyramids on Mars.

The crickets were still audible, but there was a sharpness to the air, an unsubtle hint as to what was coming. Yet there was also a sliver of summer left too, a heaviness to the sky, which sparkled with stars. It smelled like mown lawns and dead leaves, like fireplace smoke and swamp coolers. It was like being between two worlds.

I had been feeling between two worlds lately. Adrift and ambivalent, I struggled to find some kind of emotional perch. I felt such a growing distance from my wife, which I pushed aside as long as I could. It was like every day she grew less familiar to me. And the person that she became was not a person I liked. I told myself, if only I could fall in love with her all over, we could carry on. We had these times before in our 26-year relationship. Every marriage had its dips and valleys, but I had come to the point where nothing short of adultery was a deal breaker. We had invested so much into it; I couldn’t see either of us throwing it away.

So, it had disturbed me one night when during dinner, my ten-year-old son said apropos to nothing, “Are you guys going to get a divorce?”

I was shocked and reassured him, “No of course not! That will never happen! Why would you ask that?” I looked at my wife for support but her face was blank. He just shrugged. My wife remained silent.

Suddenly there was a bright light in my eyes and someone was tapping on my window. It was a cop. I rolled my window down and he looked at me, his expression a question, waiting.

“Hi officer. I’m the night foreman for the school district and I’m just making sure my people leave when they’re supposed to. There’s been some monkey business going on...” I trailed off and offered him my school district ID badge. He softened.

I could see the crew exiting the school and making their way to their cars, looking my way, watching the police leaning into my side window. I knew they knew it was me. Their boss.

“Well, you know I drove by and saw you just sitting here so I had to check it out.”

“Oh of course.”

“Have a good night.”

I watched him walk back to his cruiser and drive away. My heart was pounding from the adrenaline surge. When I finally looked back toward the school the night crew had gone. The parking lot was empty and looked lonely with its row of security lights making bright pools on the asphalt.

I walked in circles from “pod” to “pod” in the semi darkness feeling my way having walked this catacomb like stroll a hundred times before. It was like a giant combination lock. So many steps right, so many left and so on. The school was all circles and the classrooms were like pieces of a pie. I had to travel taking right turns or I would end up in a gloomy maze of round brick walls and dingy lockers. But I knew the school well and was used to traveling through dark empty school buildings at night.

It was my job.

I got to the gym and walked across, my footsteps echoing just like in the movies. The silence was big. The gym had a beautiful round wooden roof, like the roof of some great lodge, the boards of wood latticed into a geometric design that was really out of place for such a weird

funky building. I always made a point of stopping mid gym and appreciating it, communing with it as if it were something sentient, patient, alive.

The chlorine smell hit me as I entered the pool, the warm wet air and the hum of the pumps and a gurgle from the edge. I went into the locker room and got ready. I put my clothes in a locker and hung my tie on a hook and put on my trunks. I couldn’t bear to walk on the floor barefoot, but I did anyway. I went to the breaker box and with a flip of a switch I plunged the entire pool building into pitch blackness. It was a darkness that only a windowless room could achieve, a darkness so complete that it voided any sense of direction, time or place. It was a tangible darkness, heavy and claustrophobic.

I immediately entered this new world. I felt my way to what I hoped was to the edge of the pool, my heart pounding my senses keen. The sounds of the room seemed intensified; rhythmic and foreboding. I had no way to orient myself. I tentatively stuck my foot out and down and felt water, the edge of the pool.

I stepped up, and I jumped.

Down down down into the blackest black, completely disoriented. I had no idea what was up or down or sideways. A stab of panic hit me as I touched bottom; I was in the deep end. Twelve feet. I lunged up, my lungs starting to burn, the panic stabbing again, it was taking forever to find the surface. Could I even tell when I came up? Shouldn’t I have come up by now?

Then I came up.

The room echoing with my heavy breathing.

This was my new fall ritual, something I had fallen into by degrees. It was scary and fun and a great way to fine tune my psychic balance. It was also dangerous and foolhardy. But it took my mind off of the uneasy feeling I’ve had lately, and the strong dreams which followed me around like little clouds.

In the most recent one, I was looking at my books in the bookcase frantically trying to choose which ones to take with me. I was packing in a hurry, making snap decisions about what to take and what to leave. What to take and what to leave.

What did that mean?

I would swim in the deep dark, being sure to always keep my arms in front of me so as not to run into the wall. I kept running into it anyway. I couldn’t swim like this for more than fifteen minutes before I had to get out. The psychic energy it took was depleting, and the darkness and the water had a way of pulling at something very deep and familiar and very dark and dangerous in my soul. I was nowhere and everywhere when I was in that pool, alone and hiding in the blackness, the vastness of a universe of dark.

The City

by Diane Funston

fit in the palm of her hand

like she owned it.

She wanted to consume the whole area,

swallow the beer

lick the custard

gobble the fish fry.

Or, with far less rationally,

suck down the waterfalls

both Genesee and Niagara

drag Wegmans to California to show

them how it’s done

strip naked downtown in the rain.

But with a bit more linear thought,

she absorbed the scent of rain

bit into the freshest NY apple

opened her pores to the cleansing humidity

steeped cinnamon sticks in pressed hot cider.

After weeping for the past,

and she wept enough lately to fill the Erie Canal—

she remembered her one and only

the fragrance of her year-round garden

her dog’s head asleep on her thigh

the promise of the new puppy

the warm sun on her achy joints.

So she reached out

picked up her own small Western town

in the Sacramento Valley

held it to her heart, felt it enter

strong memories unclogged

her arteries of longing

allowing her to bloom freely

without the icy winter of remorse.

Epiphany

By Paul Hostovsky

Maybe this is a guy thing but

I had an epiphany the other day

while standing in front of the urinal—

I was peeing and looking straight ahead

at the Do Not Spit Into The Urinal sign

and I was trying to think of the word injunction—

but all I could think of was Thou Shalt Not

and why on earth, and where on earth—

when suddenly, as though without my own permission,

I spat into the urinal—

as though just the thought of spitting,

the merest suggestion of it,

was contagious as a yawn.

And that’s when I remembered (I was still

peeing) what they say about the body

being mostly water,

and what they say about water

always journeying toward itself—fog to mist,

cloudburst to stream,

stream to river and river to sea—

and I thought to myself, there is no

injunction and there is no commandment

that can stop the water from journeying toward itself.

And I spat again, and then I flushed

and walked right out of there with my epiphany

sort of swirling around in my head.

The Ocean’s Edge

by Chrissy Banks

And when I no longer knew who I was,

when I was done with circles of thought,

when I was sick of myself and pleased

no-one, I curled up and slept.

And in that sleep I was a baby docked

on a hospital shelf, crate for a cot, I was

a baby dropped from the top of a cliff

by a pantomime mother.

And in that sleep I was a baby tossed

by waves and a mother under a whale’s spell

swimming for dear life through a sea

of body parts, to save her child.

And in that sleep I crossed the sand

in a long white dress. At ocean’s edge,

I sang a shell’s song to my baby girl

as she lay sleeping in my arms.

And when I woke I was no longer lost.

A mother and a trembling child, a baby

who’d survived, a woman lined by years,

I was all of these, I knew them all.

Umbrella for Two

by Judy Clarence

In Oregon we had no use

for umbrellas. It rained every day,

drizzle that curled

our hair and made us smile.

Umbrellas utilize one hand,

leaving only one for schoolbooks,

bags, a hand to hold

a chocolate bar while scarfing,

to reach for a hanky when the cold

made the nose run “so fast

I can’t keep up with it,” said Leola

as she trudged toward school through the mud.

And the thing about umbrellas is:

impossible to share. Try it. Neither

of you is covered. Each girl’s

curls turn curlier, drops

seeping down her neck and under

the white Peter Pan collar.

One spot, and only one, stays dry.

The space between.

A Delicate Balance
by Kristina Solomita
Medium: Oil Paint on Wood Panel

Sorrow of the Siren

by Kristina Solomia

I’m trapped between two worlds, never completely submerged, yet unable to resurface. I linger in the in-between, watching from my secluded cove as fish and humans secure themselves to their halves of existence.

I amuse myself by observing the humans who embrace the water without ever becoming part of it. They splash, ride their boats, and don their scuba gear to experience a fraction of my entire life. But at the end of the day, I find myself disconnected from them as they can choose to lift

themselves out and return to dry land.

I tried to find a connection with the creatures below. We both adorn fins and scales. We both spend long hours beneath the water. We both exist in a multitude of colors.

But they do not think like me. They do not feel like me, cry like me, or yearn for connection like me.

I’m living an isolating existence between two worlds. My siren song remains silent as I search for a serenade within myself. An enigma, a myth—let me blend in but never truly belong to either side.

But I Worry

by V. Bray

Water is your guide,

the soma instructor says.

Every organ that makes up my body is mostly water,

running up and down my spine,

clearing the lymphatic system,

bathing my tongue in an enclosed hot tub.

I imagine blowing up a beach ball:

my cheeks puff out and deflate in a whoosh.

Over time, she says, this will create an opening.

I imagine waves filling the void,

watch how they spread,

how they fill my body with liquid,

meandering like a river with tributaries,

branching blood vessels.

But like a river pushing silt across its banks,

the ocean shifting dunes,

a waterfall shaping rock,

how much space will this water carve in me?

Will the water wear down my stories,

smooth out their jagged edges,

transform them into gleaming river rock,

and calm the whitecaps

of my stormy waterway?

Each day will it condense my stories,

deconstruct them until they are mere pebbles

flow over each other into this moment?

Selkie*

by V. Bray

A dark gray seal’s head slips up

through the water, reminding me

of who I really am.

My husband, a sturdy farmer, leads me

carefully from the ocean up the rocky beach

back to the cottage where I listen to whispers

sprinkled through the salty mist.

My days are hazy,

covered with a caul-like film.

I dust to clear my mind

and reach far back into the chimney,

my fingers brush thick, smooth skin

folded and tucked in

between stone crevices,

hidden from memory.

As I remember, my grief flows.

I carve images into slate sea cliffs,

drawings of kelp and fish,

reminders of who I am, until my child is grown.

I will never again forget where I came from,

all I sacrificed for this house on stilts

where the tide rushes in with the moon

daring me to return to my true home.

*Selkie: Mythological beings that can change from seal to human form when they shed their seal skin on the shore. A common selkie tale is about a human man who steals a female selkie’s seal skin and keeps her for his wife. In most tales the selkie finds her seal skin and leaves her human family.

Drought II

by Whitney Waters

Every week a new constellation

of rock, stark against the sluggish river,

sky a smudge of haze, elemental

peach, and still, I don’t hate these warm days,

this trickle of sweat down my shin, money

in my bank account, most weeks, a perpetual

tickle in my throat like a long pull

on a cigarette. The summer we fell in love,

I swam with a woman whose eyes

were galaxies. I gripped the frayed rope

knotted around a branch and swung out

above the water’s surface then back

to the ground, feet arching toward

a root. I swung once more and then—

release, the river so cold

I had to hold my breath to cross

to the opposite bank. Sharp spark

inside my ribs. On her truck’s tailgate,

we sipped from bottles, ate soft, funky cheese,

lacey crackers— the fancy kind, while I told her

about you. When she kissed me, her lips were

a reservoir. Without the rain,

there is an abundance of sunshine. Like the stars,

I have spent so much energy becoming.

The Waves

by Kresha Warnock

On my seventy-fifth birthday, I am sitting in a guest house in Oregon, looking out over a calm Pacific Ocean. I came here to ask the water to rest

my soul after the pain and upheaval of the past year, a year where I have been overwhelmed by the outside world, as human cruelty and violence

envelop the daily news. This morning, I avoid my Twitter feed and, instead, watch waves lap up on the beach. I am relatively mellow following days

of walking the sandy Oregon shore, breathing the salty air, feeling my leg muscles harden as I trudge through the loose sand, watching the tide

come in and out.

Calm is fragile. When I arrived, I was alarmed that the instructions in the book for guests began with explicit directions on what to do in case of a

tsunami. “There is only a fourteen percent chance that a tsunami will take place in any fifty-year period,” we are reassured, as the image of a

deadly wave crashing across the porch of the little house fills my imagination. “Get in your car and drive to higher ground” are the instructions

should the ground shake and the mighty wave loom up on the near horizon. Even the power and beauty of the sea are not consistently reliable to

wipe away the legitimate fears and pains of the world.

*

A few years ago, on a trip to Ireland, this truth was brought home to me. Our first day in Dublin, my husband and I wandered the downtown

streets, no plans except to find some fish and chips for lunch. As we walked by the National Gallery of Ireland, I decided we needed to go in. J.M.W.

Turner’s work was on display.

Many huge Turner paintings, but I was caught off-guard by a small, grey-toned watercolor, “A Ship Against the Mewstone.” In a stormy sea, a tiny

wooden-masted boat is being pushed dangerously close to a desolate rocky island, “the Mewstone,” that sits half a mile from Plymouth Harbor.

The name given the painting would seem to indicate that the human story, the possible shipwreck, is the central plot of this dramatic work

and, it’s true, the rocky island is higher than the masts of the ship and a danger to the fragile wooden hull and humans aboard. But the powerful

waves, almost black in their glorious height, tower over everything else in their white-tipped grandeur. It was the water that this viewer’s eyes

sought out.

It was not a soothing painting, but the strength of the portrayal of the magnificent peaks moved me to an emotional depth which I had not

expected to feel. Perhaps its power and beauty buffered me a bit as, for the next few days, we focused on the tragic aspects of Ireland’s past,

especially on the years of bitter violence, “The Troubles,” in Belfast and the North, as we visited sites of bitter fighting and turmoil and

hatred, children killed, communities destroyed.

Before we flew back home, we traveled to the tip of Northern Ireland, the rim of the Atlantic Ocean, and the Giant’s Causeway. Huge rock cliffs,

large waves, endless sea, thousands of birds inhabiting this sacred spot. Legend tells us it was created by a battling giant in the olden times.

Whatever its origin, that day the sun was bright; the sea was calm. No shipwrecks in sight. It was good to be reminded of the powerful beauty of

the world; I took pictures and hoped to embed this spot in my soul.

Scientists, philosophers, mystics don’t understand all the ins and outs of human memory, let alone human or supernatural creativity. My belief is

that the process of vision, of creation, revelation, will remain holy mysteries, sacred, along with the majesty of the creation. I can capture scraps

on my camera; Turner can create a whole canvas that leaves us in awe. In a utilitarian world, there is a desire to attribute value only through

functionality, but perhaps this beauty, this power is inexplicably just there for us.

Art and nature are necessary for my emotional survival. This morning in Oregon, as I stare out the window this morning, the surf has become

rougher. The waves are no longer “lapping” the shoreline. I can imagine my weak frame being swept out to sea if I had the courage or audacity to

traverse it in a tiny boat. For the moment, I can watch it, safe and warm from the upstairs window of the guest house. But by this evening, I’ll be

eating cake and ice cream in my own home. I’ll do what I can to make the world a little better for my baby granddaughter, bring peace, end

hatred...and try to keep myself hopeful with visions of art and the sea.

Annalist

by John Muro

From a deserted shoreline,

I watch a moonless sky darken

and regift to the ocean a tapestry

of wind-battered blue bound with

threads of gold as waves press

then unroll it in frenetic shimmer,

wanting to sustain day’s last light

and early evening calm and, some-

times, at moments such as this, I

become the vessel that holds the

hour’s transitory splendor, making

note of the weight of salted air

and the pungent fragrance rising

from thickset hedges of privet,

the hurtle and melodic falter of

the tides, and the delirious spirals

of swallows at dusk, wanting to

help each of them find their way

into memory and word.

~

Balm of Water

by Nancy Haskett

I. Twice a month

during those unbearably hot

humid weeks of summer,

they come together —

on a day when house slaves are occupied with cleaning

and field slaves toil a mile away —

they walk slowly as a group of three,

fanning themselves, laughing, talking

until they reach the secluded spot,

the deep pool surrounded by trees,

where delicate white hands

untie hat ribbons,

remove lace gloves,

slip off dainty shoes,

unbutton dresses,

unlace stiff boned corsets,

pull off thin cotton undergarments

until they stand naked

unashamed,

slip one by one into cool water,

freed at last

from all restraints

II. Every evening

after the children are asleep,

when the men lay snoring,

the two women put down their sewing,

blow out the candle,

sneak from the cabin,

brown bare feet silent on rough boards,

the packed dirt path down to the river

familiar in darkness,

they follow each other in silence

to the shallow banks,

pull the coarse, unbleached cotton dresses

over their heads,

step over smooth, polished rocks

until they reach the water,

walk without hesitation,

dip down to immerse themselves

into their only feeling

of total freedom

Driving California’s Route 1

by Tom Laughlin

The sun hangs above

the Pacific’s muscular waves

rolling onto seal-flecked beaches

tapping rhythmically at limestone cliffs.

Out beyond the roaring waves of white

sea birds circle and dive

piercing a rippled patch of ocean

until a dark yawn breaks the surface

scattering the wings upward

then slowly shuts its great lipped maw

and slips back

beneath the roiling surface again.

The sun hangs above

hairpins and cliff edges

that have carved this country’s coast since 1934

with Roadsters, Woodies, Cadillacs,

Corvettes, campers

and tractor trailers of produce

from family farms to co-ops

to corporations—

their inland valleys now miles of watered green corduroy

rowed and picked by migrant workers—

while hawks and vultures circle

higher and higher.

Beside the great Pacific

the sun hangs above

scorched brown hills scratched with dusty roads

and tired fence posts that lean and twist.

Bridges rumble over snaking sandy beds

that have forgotten their watery names.

In one blanched field

where yellowed boulders of displeasure

seem dropped by angry gods

a lone black steer has bowed his head in shame

muzzle nudging the earth

Searching

The Last Iceberg

by Patricia Behrens

Once, flying the polar route from France

I stared at a North Atlantic chock-a-block with ice,

imagining watchmen pacing decks, wary of icebergs,

of being struck like the Titanic, the icy shock of it.

You had a name then: the Polar Ice Cap.

You’d calved a million icebergs,

released them to ride the Labrador Current

to the Great Banks before the shrinking,

before the final tug from your tethering.

Blue-white opacity,

just building-tall now,

your shaded overhang

suggests a small door

that might allow us back

to the cold world

glittering in your depths

before you were left

to drift idly

in enemy heat.

Little Feet

by Kimberly Reiss

When I was 4 years old, I went to a day-care center where we had art classes with oversized paper and lots of gloppy primary-colored paint,

gymnastics where we practiced tucking our tiny heads and rolling, and swim lessons that took place in an enormous sectioned-off part of a

heavily chlorinated pool, that in mind, looked like it went on forever. I loved all my classes, but loved being in the water best. The weightlessness

and ease with which I could twist and turn and flip my body brought me utter delight. I was in my own magical kingdom when under the water’s

surface. Because we were so little (and maybe because things just weren’t as safe then as they are now) there was a trampoline-like structure in

the pool that served as an artificial floor beneath the deeper water, allowing the kids to safely stand. I was intrigued and distracted by what was

underneath the structure, and instead of focusing on the doggie-paddle, I spent most of my time investigating the trampoline structure. When I

realized that I could sneak underneath it at one of the trampoline’s corners, I waited for just the right moment when my instructor was occupied,

took in an enormous breath, and down I went. I swam like a tadpole to the deep end, taking me farther away from my corner. When I looked up, I

could see the indentations of the little feet of my classmates above me on the trampoline’s surface. It looked like an oversized stretchy

marshmallow. Soon though, I started running out of breath, and all I could see was the trampoline above and water below. My little brain

registered utter terror. I had no idea how to get back to my trusted corner and up to the water’s surface. It felt as though my heart would pop right

out of my chest. I raced towards what I hoped was the side of the pool, which is was, then keeping one hand on the hard surface of the side, I swam

until I felt a corner. I looked up and could see light! Using my arms and legs, I pushed and pushed against the water until my head finally popped

up. I gasped for air, stood on firm ground and wiped the water from my eyes so I could see clearly. I looked at all the kids doggie-paddling and

heard my instructor, Good job everyone, keep your heads above the water and circle your hands in front of you like you’re a dog digging in the dirt

for a bone. It seemed like my instructor and classmates didn’t even notice that I had been gone. It was as if time had stopped while I was under the

water. Did it?

To Be Ocean Water

by Jackie McClure

I am needle-sharp cold,

silver darts on impact.

I am transparent.

You may think

I am blue

or green

or gray to match the fog

I sometimes

allow to hover

just above my skin

but

my surface defines reflection,

tantalizes the sun,

that wary weasel,

always trying to sneak

its steaming swords into my skin.

Glinting does no good,

underneath my salt, my mirror,

my movement,

I am

in cahoots with the moon.

We rise,

we pull,

we conduct

a swelling symphony

and we create the rules.

I lick,

I make a rhythm

with my licking

that the world

must follow.

I whisper to the rock,

my rhythm running

over:

come with me,

let us make sand.

The Consciousness of Sandstone

by Jackie McClure

If I were to write of my own cave

it would be a sandstone undercut

hollowed by the repetition of

rapid generations of water,

salted with a rhythmic spray.

Circular imprints from the repeated

splash after splash have softened

a pattern, defying probability

that single drops of water could meet

a surface, then rise and spray

with enough repetitive exactness

to melt a single hole in stone.

Some areas of this hollow

rarely see sun, some areas

rarely breathe air, all of them

recurrently know water.

Water sometimes fills this cave,

leaving but a slim hand

to connect it to the earth.

The clawing hold on land

is a lingering need to believe

the history that deposits itself

and decomposes layers of densely packed

needles to create a home

for parasitic plants who push themselves, ghostly,

waxlike, from the lives of cedar, hemlock, fir.

Lower down, lapping swallows

the inner walls of what it means

to live a life of rhythm:

knowing fullness - measured through a motion

where the floors and walls cup,

and living barnacles sigh and open

their tongues to lick

the undersides of waves;

knowing emptiness - sun crystallizes

salted vestiges of tidal action

closing the crust on fast-clung

barnacles. Emptiness is not only

a residue, it links the hollow

irrevocably to a land losing

ground and longs to taste the

taking on of water from all sides.

The Traveller

by Deborah Blenkhorn

*An homage to Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “Ozymandias” (1817)

I was a traveller who gazed at an island.

Pronounced it vast--a rust red stone

that crumbled ‘cross the strait to make this sand.

I sank my face into the sea, far down,

and smiled as ocean currents fanned

the tendrils swirling o’er the warm sea bed

and hid the underwater things

my soul caressed as rough wounds bled.

And on the beach these written words were clear:

Summer lasts forever! Nature sings!

Listen to your heart! And don’t despair!

Then came the rains. Around the bay

I could not see what was no longer there,

the sand and sea a memory away.

When The Flood Comes

by Gerrie Paino

Medium: Photography

Mermaid Memory

by Cynthia Gallaher

About to succumb to anesthesia,

I asked my surgeon,

“Instead of replacing my knees,

can you reinstall fins instead?”

“Or give me back that one svelte

mermaid’s tail from the hips down?”

He looked puzzled, I fading to black,

10-9-8-7...

And now, once again, I’m underwater,

mid-ocean, chasing eels and dolphins,

coming up for air

every few minutes.

Who was the who — who captured me,

placed me in that earthly ovum

years ago, to arise

in this place that

Dried out my scales,

turned my flippers into flat feet

to walk crooked and cranky

on moggled terrain.

Only feeling like the one-that-got-away

in snorkel and swimsuit,

admiring my favorite patterns

as they whirl beneath me,

Multicolor mosaic pool tiles,

and wavy French-kissed

reflections between sun

and water.

Pulling myself out to the edge,

where gravity reigns

and years that drag down

once-fertile organs and supple joints,

That I instinctively battle

as I swivel fiercely upstream,

more often now than not, in shallow rivers,

that no longer tributary into endless sea.

Feeding the fishes

by DS Maolalai

a day on a close coast

and sealife safari,

surrounded tourists,

by children

of tourists, by sea-

gulls and chirruping

dolphins. I feel the boat

tipping, am sick

off the side —

a thunder of organs

exploding like crabs

dropped in traffic.

my companions

expect this from one

of our number;

we spent the night

drinking, and poking

at cards — I admit,

I'm ashamed, though,

to learn that it’s me

who gives over. I look

at them sheepishly,

wiping my mouth.

the prow takes a tip

toward some sunbathing puffins,

and the captain makes cracks

about finally feeding

the fish. weakly

I smile, tilt my face

to the wind

and cold currents.

focus on looking

at nothing.

My Friend, Pacific

by Cleo Griffith

There are not a lot

of oceans

in my life, not a lot

I know personally.

Two.

Well, the Atlantic

is more an acquaintance.

The Pacific is a friend.

My home-town lake, Chelan,

joins the river Columbia,

to mix with the ocean Pacific.

First ocean adventures:

Oregon coast, rocky,

agates, fossils, high school,

college.

California delights,

Santa Cruz, Monterey,

lovers’ point at Pacific Grove,

sea lions, with husband.

So many years of waves,

sand, tide pools, cameras,

children, growth.

Wonderful hugeness,

impressive strength,

calming murmurs,

friend, Pacific.

Drums of Thunder

by Cleo Griffith

Feel the surge, the drums of thunder,

melancholy syncopation of the rain,

frantic pulse of every small beasts’ heartbeat

under roiling skies of threatening hue.

Nature shows how green is made to tremble,

how azure streams are churned to muddy brown,

hail will trample crosswise over young grass,

early flowerings laid to ground again.

Trembling rugged redwoods yet stand sturdy,

centuries of this have ringed their girth,

though tumultuous day be dark as caves,

there is a kind of understanding through.

This is un-plotted, earth’s own ancient story,

violence undirected, explosion quite unplanned,

later the undone will bind itself, renew...

unexpected discipline educating man.

River

by Ron Wetherington

“Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it.”

- Norman Maclean

It began with tiny springs seeping upward through deep conduits in the crust. Separated in their several valleys by folded ridges, these small

capillaries braided their way down slopes. Joining others from obscure origins, these became minor brooks. They converged one by one and

gained momentum, answering the pull of gravity, gathering energy in a focused direction southward as if beseeched. It happened just over three

million years ago, over a time too long to witness.

The several brooks joined as creeks, the creeks as streams to be named by cartographers millions of years later. But eventually, all things merge

into one: as tectonic forces lifted nearby mountains, the coursing waters congregated, cutting a single channel through volcanic rock at a

relentless rate of a few stubborn centimeters a century, and a river was born in what is now southern Colorado.

We know it as the Rio Grande—the Great River—given its name by 16th century Spanish explorers awed by its power and daunted by its role in

curbing passage: the great boundary-keeper. I have crossed it, dipped into its frigid waters. It doubles its volume as it leaves its origin in the San

Juan Mountains and receives the flow of New Mexico’s Red River at Questa. Here it cuts deep into basalt, becoming a canyon with depths of 800

feet. I have descended into that canyon, following an ancient path, reading the petroglyphs pecked into basalt a thousand years ago down there at

the river’s edge. The ancients must have been gripped by its power,

transcribing it in sacred images, telling stories.

Both the rise of the Sangre de Cristo mountains to its east and the subsiding volcanic plateau through which it slices increased its rate of flow and

cut a wider gorge at Taos, a quarter mile across. The passage intimidated westward wagons two centuries back. I could not have breached it, then,

but I have rafted its white waters through Pilar, striking hard against the rocks beneath the rapids, struggling in captive terror, jubilant at each

small victory. The memory of those waters still electrifies and haunts me.

The great river exits its mountain course at Velarde, entering the high scrub at Santa Fe and slowly exhaling toward the dry basin of the Jornada

del Muerto beyond Albuquerque. At El Paso it was called Rio Bravo, where the Camino Real guided passage across the boundary between Old

Mexico and New, the 18th century caretas creaking with trade goods outbound from Santa Fe and then returning. My imagination has taken me

there, trudging beside the yoked oxen over the white desert.

Beyond El Paso it slices and twists through majestic limestone canyons at Big Bend. But the river is gentler here. I have crossed it on burro to visit

Boquillas del Carmen, the row of Mexican adobes on a spit of land across the river. I remember a chained black bear outside a dusty tienda,

drinking from a bottled cola which cost me a few pesos.

Beyond the last bend, the river broadens and straightens its course and becomes navigable through Brownsville, Texas. Steamboats plied its

waters in the 1850s. I have crossed the bridge there, into Tamaulipas, towards Victoria.

And here, at last, the Great River exhausts its energy, dispersing its identity into the Gulf of Mexico and disappearing. Only a fifth of its original

content makes it this far. Evaporation and irrigation ditches and city extraction siphon most of it along its 1,900 miles. The loss is continuing. In

Las Cruces, where the Chihuahua Desert creeps across the border and the Jornada begins, not an ounce now flows in the Rio Grande after the

growing season in September. The river used to run through it all year.

One does not think of a river as ever dying.

Most of the important events in any life are accidental, but some are not, and a river’s life is like that. I am haunted by its waters, still.

Heavy Weather Downtown

by William Doreski

The hot afternoon is drooping.

Storms clench big fists to pummel

insensate landscapes senseless.

We perch downtown by the river

and drink coffee from a polished

insulated aluminum mug

tough as a miniature casket.

Summer arrives next week to apply

its evil temper to every object

and drain the fluids from the human

brazen enough to embrace it.

We’re simple organic engines,

but we plaster ourselves in myth

and legend, preferring deities

to our meaty and practical selves.

The storms will apply a discipline

some will enjoy and others fear.

Whiplash of lightning, leather

of cloud, thunder bleating with pain.

We’re still drinking our coffee

when the first tickle of rain occurs.

We duck under cover and watch

a wall of water harshen past,

the parking lot suddenly flooded.

We praise the rain on behalf

of gardens flimsy with thirst

and hope the lightning doesn’t

unzip and reveal our secrets.

How I Always Picture You Drowning at Sea

After The Mermaid You Left Me For Dumps You

by Juleigh Howard-Hobson

Let the water be cold and the wind sharp.

Let the sky be grey, cloud hung and heavy.

Let waves come crashing down, again, again,

again pushing you under into dark

bottomlessness. May the breath sucking sea

pull you almost deeper than your lungs can

stand. May you rise up, gasping and clutching

in wet frigid air. May there be nothing

to grasp at, nothing to reach for, may your

feet dance deep, frantically, never touching

base, may your cries be merely numb mouthings

of blue lips. Let your clothes become water

logged, let them weigh you down slow, while your hair

floats behind you. May you sink well aware.

Hydros

by Juleigh Howard-Hobson

Find me in ever expanding circles

and every drop itself. I am rain, I

am cloud. I am all that is fresh, blue, wet,

lifegiving. I fill the secret sinkholes

below the city. I am earthbound, sky

held. I am puddled. I am dammed. I let

all that is green and primal soak me up.

I draw myself across and through the earth,

saturating as I join aquifers

unseen but well tapped. In hands, curl-cupped

to taste me, I pool, my reflected girth

a ball of liquid self, leaving when thirst

or evaporation take all they can

of me as I cycle around again.

Sealight (X)
by JC Alfier
Medium: Collage

Awaiting Odysseus

by JC Alfier

Medium: Collage

My Surgeon at the Pool

by Kate Hendry

He was swimming breast stroke —

of course — his technique elegant,

ankles meeting briefly at the end

of every stroke. Like a blade,

sun slanted through the glass roof

onto my lane. I switched to front crawl,

and overtook him. Underwater,

I saw the tuft of auburn hair

in the centre of his chest.

His blue cotton trunks,

slashed with cross-stitched stars,

billowed each time he tucked in his heels.

A threadbare pocket turned inside-out

and spilled the remains of a tissue

downstream, like scrapings of my skin.

The sea in your palm

by Laurence Levy-Atkinson

The sea in your palm like sugar in rain,

Light enough to hold.

There is so much water on the world.

It is in the air, your body, your fuel,

The limb and spine of plants;

The highways between continents

Are made of it.

And there is a crush depth too.

A tipping point where too much of it

Will break you and collapse you into yourself.

It can be expressed as a formula,

An equation to prove how much pressure you can take.

Yes, you have your limits.

Yes, you do well to ignore them.

Yes, there is a moment where the weight

Of the water you so sweetly

Hold in your palm

Becomes too heavy to swim through

And will break you

And will never give you back.

Drinking Wasp

by Devon Neal

Here is something to miss

about summer: by the outside

cat bowl, water ribboned

with grass, a red wasp,

its body like crimson beads,

perches on its edge,

gathering crystal drops

with its whisker limbs

in the wet sunlit afternoon

of late August.

Nasty

by Devon Neal

is the word we use for this morning

where, under the still-black sky,

thin sheets of catclaw rain

tatter in the nervous wind,

covering every surface in dripping cold.

It crawls under the edges of your collar,

combing your hair behind your ear.

It’s the same word we use to describe

some secret of a creature squirming

between the wet joins of forest rocks,

a throbbing life in an impossible place.

Beach

by Jenny Liu

The shadow of a seagull flying overhead strikes me for a minute. It is just like a movie as commanded by a cinematographer. A wave cresting much too high, and the lone surfer at the top, who waits to be delivered safely to shore seems to stop my entire being. It is the unseen and the imagination, at once together. Do you understand what I’m saying? Like sands blowing across a desert, above sheltered snakes. Like sands through the hourglass being the days of our lives. You know what it means to build a sandcastle with nothing but plastic. You know what it means to live in it, the same way people say about beds and lying in them. Difference the breeze. Cool, salty. And how shooting the shit and spouting philosophy feels so good and right that even my striped umbrella has to agree, what with its canvas stretched taut like the skin over my knees as I clutch them to my chest and set the flat of a notebook atop. I am and was speaking to no one, but I see my loves run toward me. I see the gleam of their teeth calling my name and their shoulders blushing sunkissed, and I’m raising the rim of my hat now, raising a hand to secure it to my head. I’m rising like the lone surfer. I wave, and there I am, delivered safely at last.

Love Surfaces

by Michael Barbato-Dunn

The first class had begun by the time Dionivus swam in. Master Marinus, bobbing at the podium in the lower bowl, spied him. “Nice of you to

finally join us.”

“Apologies, master,” he replied, feeling the eyes of his classmates upon him.

A maiden to his right grinned at him. Dionivus glanced toward her and offered a sheepish smile.

Marinus resumed his lecture. “Over the next twelve weeks, you will learn how to act like a human being. Yes, they are a crass and vulgar race. But

to preserve Atlantis, it is imperative to have merfolk living among them to monitor how they pollute our oceans. Only with such knowledge can we

adapt our ecosystem to ensure survival. Those transformed will be revered as heroes…”

Dionivus's attention wandered, and he found himself looking back at the maiden. Her skin reflected a rich aqua hue, as did her eyes. The scales of

her monofin shimmered in the sunlight like gold. Fire-red hair swirled around her. She was... the word ‘beautiful’ didn’t seem sufficient.

An appropriate descriptor came to him, though it was a phrase used more often, ironically, by humans: breath-taking.

#

As the class ended, he summoned the courage to speak with her. “I am Dionivus.”

“I know that,” she laughed. “You just made quite the entrance.”

Blushing, he struggled to respond. She broke the awkward pause. “I am Nimiane. Best you are not tardy again. I hear Master Marinus has little

tolerance for such antics.” Her flowing hair obscured a slight smile.

“Trust me, with you as a classmate, I will never be late again.” He saw her smile widen. “May I...escort you home?”

“I’d be pleased,” she replied, offering her hand. A school of butterfish watched and chattered as the two swam off, their flukes beating in unison.

#

“The key to acting human,” Marinus explained in the second week, “is to be self-centered. They place individual needs above the greater good,

while merfolk always prioritize community. Avarice, wrath, envy: these are the domain of the humans.”

The instructor swam forward to make his point. “As distasteful as it may be, for the remainder of this class we will focus on learning how to act as

a perfectly selfish creature.”

Dionivus and Nimiane, floating side-by-side, their fins touching, shuddered as one. Marinus spotted the reaction and called to them. “You two

seem quite the couple. Let’s try some role-playing. Nimiane and Dionivus, pretend you are married humans. Improvise a moment.”

The other classmates turned to watch. Nimiane grinned and, without hesitation, launched into a scene.

“Husband, can you prepare dinner this evening? I am interested in spending time with friends.”

Dionivus recalled Marinus’s lesson on human men. “No, wife. I cannot, for I must watch a sporting event.”

“There is old food in the kitchen,” Nimiane replied. “That is how you will dine tonight. Goodbye, husband.” And then she kissed him.

Their classmates offered rapturous applause. Marinus undulated at the front of the class. “Well, the dialogue needs work, but I think you captured

the essence. A good start.”

#

Each day he escorted Nimiane home, holding her hand as they swam through the tubular channels that crisscrossed downtown Atlantis. But at the

start of the tenth week, she pulled away. “Thank you, Dionivus, but I will travel alone.”

“Nimiane, it is my pleasure…”

“No. We cannot stay so close.”

“But... but why? I thought you felt…”

“I do feel that way.”

“Then what is it?”

“Can’t you see? In a few weeks, the class will end, and we’ll learn which of our group will be transformed into humans to live above. One of us may

be selected, and the other may not. Then we will never be together again.”

She embraced him, and amid the currents of the deep ocean he felt warm tears on his shoulder. “It is better that we part now,” she whispered,

then swam away.

Dionivus, dizzy, grasped for a nearby railing, lest he sink to the ocean floor.

#

Marinus started the final class with a bit of levity. “These are called bathing suits.” He held up two pieces of human clothing. “The small piece is

for males, the larger for women. Humans, it seems, are embarrassed by their bodies and feel the need to wear clothing when they swim.”

Laughter erupted.

Dionivus, somber since the breakup, feigned a smile and stole glances at Nimiane, who hovered at the far end of the chamber. She avoided his

gaze.

Marinus put down the bathing suits, and his tone turned serious. “You have all done well in the twelve weeks of acting class. Tomorrow, we will

announce which of you will be selected to live among the humans. Please gather at the appointed hour.”

#

The next morning anxiety hung in the waters thick as kelp as the students swam in. Dionivus rushed to reach Nimiane as she entered.

“Nimiane, wait. I have a plan. If one of us is chosen and the other not, we will flee together. We will leave Atlantis and make our lives together in a

remote ocean!”

She cupped his cheek. “Oh, sweet Dionivus. Wouldn’t that make us as selfish as a human?” She turned and swam into the classroom.

Dionivus followed, arriving just as Marinus began reading out names.

#

The summer heat beat down on Daniel as he hoisted the twins from the minivan. Naomi lifted the hatchback and grabbed two bags of groceries.

“Can we go swimming now?” Kaley and Grant shouted, almost in unison. “Can we? Can we?”

“You bet!” Daniel told them. “Race you to the pool!” He stripped off his shirt and began running toward the backyard fence.

“Wait, Daddy! You need a bathing suit!” Kaley shouted, clutching her Ariel doll.

Naomi’s aqua eyes gleamed. “Kaley’s right, husband!” She winked at him.

Daniel returned to his wife and took the bags from her hands. “Go swim with them,” he said, returning the wink. “I’ll make dinner tonight.”

Anadromous

by Zach Murphy

Elliott crouches atop a jagged rock on the shore of the river, spine contorting like a tree branch, skin wrinkled like a fallen fig, his weathered eyes

squinting at a run of salmon as they swim upstream and launch their slippery bodies toward a crashing waterfall. He admires their

ceaseless tenacity, their magnificent hearts, their silver scales glistening in the sunlight. The frigid wind whips through his beard, the color of

sand, as the river water splashes his freckled cheeks. His dark blue veins are a map of where he’s been, where he’s going, and where he went

wrong. Mosquito bites and scratch marks paint his arms and legs, but he feels alive. So alive. He takes a deep breath, lunges into the river, and

submerges his head beneath the ice-cold water. He looks around and sees stones that have known the river longer than him. He sees his mother’s

green eyes in the floating bubbles. He hears his father’s angry roar amidst the rushing water. He hears the silence of the son he always dreamt

about but never had. He ascends back up through the river’s surface and exhales everything he’d kept locked up in his brain and in his bones. His

salty tears disappear into his soaked skin. He smiles the widest smile he’s ever smiled, his teeth — abandoned shells. The river feels like home.

Like home. The salmon swim past him in a frenzy. He looks toward the waterfall and follows behind the salmon, his magnificent heart leaping

from his chest.

gave her a song

by Linda Crate

down in the creek

i stood on the stones,

watched as the trees

swayed in a slight summer

breeze;

the creek washed away all

of my worries and all of my pain—

every anger was swept

away in a current

far away from me,

maybe the reason the ocean

is so salty is because she

carries all the brine and cutting

barnacles of a world that isn’t

always fair, just, or kind;

so when she rages she is carrying

a thousand swords of wrath—

but i have found if you are kind

to the ocean,

she’ll be kind to you;

i once sang her a song and she

didn't knock me over in her waves that day.

Domestication of the Transient Mermaid

by Sara Santistevan

Overnight, a mermaid appeared swimming in the waterfall fountain at South Coast Plaza. She’s fished up all the pennies and made herself a

copper crown out of them. She wears a necklace of nickels and bracelets of dimes. The jewelry shimmers, but dully in the breathtaking gleam of

her tail. When she emerges from the water, the shoppers rush past, scuffing their polished leather Oxford shoes and imported pearls. They avert

their gazes and their overflowing wallets, pretending not to notice or care about her presence. But she doesn’t care. Until a man reaches out to

caress her iridescent scales, so she hisses, baring her iridium fangs. The security guards escort the man for ruining the fountain with his blood,

and the mermaid is relocated to the manatee exhibit at SeaWorld. Every night, she reflects as an eternally rotating group of children on field trips

watch her from the other side of the tank. Every night, her pupils dilate as the lights turn off and the children fall asleep, all wrapped up in their

unadorned sleeping bags. Every night, she envies their freedom.

At Red Willow Canyon Mouth*

by Sara Santistevan

(A Sestina)

Red Willow leaves cry out to a sapphire future,

urging my search for the birthstone earrings you gifted me.

Because I lost them in the heat of springtime, daddy,

and even as spring falls asleep, I still can’t forgive myself for it.

In the dark, I envision jeweled fragments, reflecting in the sea

of my mind. I dive for them, until I am drowned, and happy.

Travolta smile bright, Trejo eyes olive and happy—

impressions of you I preserve in brine for future

binges. My musing diagnoses of you run sea

deep. Your daylight, a mythos that haunts me

like La Llorona outside my moonlit window; it

hurts like ghost cysts twisting my guts, daddy.

I’m sorry. I don’t want to remember this either, daddy—

although Mom explained your illness made you seldom happy,

I am snake-bellied and Malintzin-cursed to admit it.

To remember your shadow-born rages could shake the future;

to diagnose how they stamped a fear deep within me,

quivering like mist, rolling in thin from the sea.

The summer after your departure, we visited the sea

wrote letters, secured on shiny balloon strings, labeled “daddy.”

When the balloons drifted toward you, Mom had to uphold me;

grief refused to fuse me into a desired new you: happy,

unscathed. Reverse lightning silhouetted my foresight of a future

sugar addiction: a ghostly inheritance, but none want to claim it.

In the second year without you, we visited your hometown. It

snowed for you. The land on grandma’s house was a white sea

of lacking so vast the horizon projected that present’s future.

In your childhood home, I conjured you by the name “daddy.”

When I grew older, I wanted badly to belong; you weren’t happy

I abandoned that name; like all teens, lineage embarrassed me.

Now, our birth from the Tiwa and their red willow inspires me.

The Rio Grande ends so close to your old home; it isn’t a sea,

but the Spanish still crossed it, then tried to destroy a happy

People. How could this violence birth our polysemy? Even so, it

can’t destroy my idealism; when autumn returns gifting freshly reddened leaves, Daddy,

I’ll pray you and Red Willow Canyon Mouth live on in an untouched and healed future.

*The title of this sestina is the rough English translation of the formal and ceremonial tribal name of the Taos Pueblo (ȉałopháymųp’ȍhə́othə̀olbo)

Needing to Go