Selected Work

Prayer

Sean
Arnold

I heard this riding the bus at noon,

a city spring, florid with blooming gray lightposts

xxx

the system is corrupt and everyone knows it

things are going to get worse before they get better.

 

I heard these words from the drunk at the edge of the barstool:

Have I not reason to lament what man has made man?

we don’t re-use our souls

so often as we should

we do not recycle our souls

so often as we should

our souls new with each waking.

I speak of soul because I am yet young and dumb enough to believe it still exists and I want to wrench myself upon it:

gentle thing

lazier than a hound with a limp

or a road in desert summer heat.

I almost thought we lost it

at the table

to the shit gamble of industry

and death

But we got it back

we are getting it all back

we are taking it all back.

 

Driving I heard these words tapped out on the hood of my car by the rain in three different ways:

GIVE: the love: smear it like stars dripping like jelly

as if it was not yrs to give.

LIFE: is yours and not yours: it hangs by a thread from the moon to you.

have sympathy in yr control:

the you will slide away.

you will slide away

you will never see yr name in lights.



There is a smell on the wind, a musk . . .

Anna
Ross

You can't go home again.


There is a smell on the wind,
a musk of fur and soil,
and I fill my lungs with it,
rolling the
fecund air into the
dream of you,
little bird.


I watch,
her belly grows with the corn and I am hollow,
I touch his hair and I am hollow,
there is only an empty circle
where the moon should be.


I fill myself
with raw meat and smoke, I collect it in my eyes
until I burst,
arching my back like a hen into her chicks mouth
except you are not here, little bird,
I watched you fly away.



I Miss You to Hell

Ellen
Herget

?I miss you to hell,? she told Cort, pouring herself coffee. He sat at the table, rolling a cigarette in one hand, stretching and rubbing his head with the other arm. He yawned. ?I know,? he said. She gave herself sugar--plenty of sugar these days, no cream--and sat across from him at her kitchen table. The eastern light came in on them, shone darkly through her tall glass of coffee. ?It?ll be a long day. We have another ?van coming in this afternoon. A dozen people.? ?You?ve dealt with bigger groups, Jules,? he said, lighting his cigarette. The smoke danced through the sunbeam that warmed the center of the table, between them. ?There could be more kids,? she reminded him. ?We have room for a few more, I think.? ?Yeah, a few,? she said, sipped her coffee, brooded. Silence. No clocks were ticking; nobody knew what time it was anymore. ?You?re worried you?ll have to turn people away.? Cort puffed on his smoke. He squinted at her as she thought. ?We might, eventually,? she said. ?I think it will be my decision.? ?You?ll know the decision to make, when it comes.? *** At school, Union?s twenty-one children ran the asphalt parking lot in a shouting mob. Julia stood in the middle, an obelisk of adult amongst the swarm, and shaded her eyes, counting. Always counting. There?s Carrie-there?s Aidan-there?s Dan-there?s Kyra, she thought, there?s Luke-fuck, where?s Samantha?-oh, in the corner. She knew all of their first and last names, which ones still had parents, which ones slept in the old civic center?s gym. The latter were her responsibility to tuck in at night. Eight of them had no blood kin alive. Cori, who had been a preschool teacher before, jogged toward them across the lawn. She was usually late. ?G?morning, guys!? she said. As she approached, several kids ran out to greet her, clustering at her knees, the older ones hanging back. Every child over thirteen was, in Union, an adult; they apprenticed around the little town, worked at getting life back together. The younger kids gathered at school every day and those that could read, did; those that couldn?t, Cori and Julia taught; and somewhere in there, some days, they attempted to teach math and science from the books that were left. Mostly, Julia thought of the school as child crowd control. But that was a good enough reason. *** When their backs were turned, Luke took to climbing on things. Today it was the pile of desks in the back of the room, stacked three-high, that Julia and Cori had stopped making the children use in favor of sitting in circles on the floor. Julia was using the outhouse outside; Cori was focused on the smallest kids, whom she understood best. Luke, eight years old, tow-headed, and quicker than either of them could catch, was perching surfboard-style on the top desk when Julia came back in. ?Lucas!? she shrieked--which startled him, and his big green eyes locked on her in fear and surprise as he fell sideways. She tried to catch him, but was nowhere near, several feet short of his awkward landing as she darted through the door and across the room. Luke landed on his left arm and, after a sickening second of silence as everyone in the room watched, his howls started. Julia was on top of him a second later, scooping the thin boy up in her arms, trying to not to jiggle any broken bones. ?It?s ok-it?s ok-it?s ok,? she panted, hauling him up and carrying him toward the door. ?I?m so sorry, Jules,? Cori said, following them to the door, her heart-shaped face pale under her brunette bob. ?I didn?t see him, I?m so sorry.? ?Go watch the rest before there?s another crisis,? Julia snapped, not looking at her, and carried Luke out into the hall and toward the door. *** She waited outside the doctor?s office and thought bitterly of how the doctor meant exactly as it sounded; they only had one. Dr. Martin had come in the first week of gathering, and while they were relieved to have him, the founders were also a little disappointed that he had been a prostate specialist. Since his installation as the head of Union?s medical care, he had been studying pediatrics and ear/nose/throat care at the local library. One of his interns, 15-year-old Sharon Tanaka, poked her head out of the exam room and smiled at Julia. She was heartbreakingly pretty; Asian descent, long black hair and slim-hipped. Julia wondered if they should start looking at pharmacies in adjoining towns for birth control. She thought of the town?s two hundred people, the only known settlement in the state, and supposed not. Martin had better start researching ob/gyn, she thought as she followed the girl in. We?ve been here for sixth months; give it another few before the girls start catching pregnant. Probably have already. Luke sat on the waiting table, kicking his legs and sucking a green lollipop. Julia stared incredulously at the ?cast? on his arm: a piece of cloth wrapped tightly around two bracing strips of wood. ?I set it as best I could,? Martin told her. ?I don?t have an x-ray here.? ?That?s all right, Doc,? she said, and turned to Luke. ?How?s it feel, bud?? ? ?s ok,? Luke answered through his candy, his teeth and tongue turned grass-colored, like his eyes. The same color as Cort?s. ?Doc says I can stay here today, if you let me. Do I have to go back to school?? Luke?s parents had died in the first wave. There was nowhere else for him to go, if not hanging around the clinic or sitting through lessons at school. ?Only if Doc doesn?t mind watching you. I have to greet the new ?van in an hour.? ?I don?t mind keeping him company,? Sharon said, looking at Doc and smiling wistfully; it was unclear whom she meant. Julia thought again of birth control, then told herself not to worry about it, for now. *** ?You think Doc would actually sleep with her?? Cort asked, walking with her to the eastern edge of Main Street, where the ?vans came in. ?I don?t know. Who would put him in jail for it? Who would judge him? Who really cares? The rules have changed.? ?The rules are nonexistent,? Cort agreed. They arrived at the square, where one group, all on bicycles, was already gathered. Sam and Liam, who had arrived with Julia by the same method six months previous, looked on, took names, helped them unload from their bike trailers. Sam spotted her first. ?Jules!? he said, smiling, and approached her with a short, older man, the leader of this new caravan. He turned to the man as he walked. ?This is Julia Strode, the other founder.? ?Good to meet you,? the new man said, ?Bill Park.? He held out his hand and she took it. The man looked around. ?You three have done good work here.? ?We were lucky,? Julia said, ?the town cleared out a week before the Fall. Religious zealots. I think they all went into the mountains at the end.? ?It?s a good thing they did,? Bill said cheerfully, and that struck at a tiny piece of Julia?s heart. She didn?t like this man. Sam sensed her discomfort and steered Bill away from her, back toward the people he had brought in with him. They were older couples; no children. This was a relief to Julia, whose resources were running thin. She felt an odd tickle at her shin, and didn?t place the sensation until she looked down and spotted its source; a little black dog was licking her legs, which were bare below her knee-length shorts. She started and the dog looked up at her, grinned, and went back to slurping the morning?s sweat on her legs. ?Aw, you guys saved a dog,? she said, and smiled for the first time that day. ?He saved me,? a woman said. She approached Julia slowly, as though her muscles were sore; most people weren?t used to bicycles when they became the straggling survivors? population?s number-one source of transport. ?He brought me food when my house collapsed. Didn?t you, TJ?? The dog, hearing his master, turned toward the woman and wagged his tail. ?TJ?? Julia asked. ?Remember T.J. Hooker, that old show? That was my favorite show. I miss tv,? the woman added, looking around deserted Main Street. Julia agreed, lying. *** They lay together, drifting, in the apartment she had fashioned in the couple of offices in the top level of the civic center. Julia reached over him to turn out her little kerosene lamp. She couldn?t feel his heartbeat through his denim shirt, what he had been wearing when she last saw him. ?I?m so sorry I shouted at you,? she whispered, laying on her back and roaming her eyes over the black ceiling. ?I know. It?s ok. You were upset.? ?I love you so much,? she said, ?and I lost my temper. That was stupid. I should have told you everything.? ?If you?d come home with me,? he said softly, ?you would?ve died.? ?I know,? she answered, and for a second, she clenched her fist. Downstairs, the kids slept, six hours from waking to hunger and an empty world. ?I wonder how it would have been.? ?No way of knowing. You couldn?t find my body.? Cort, eternally smoking, puffed his cigarette the way he had when he?d walked out her door. It had been just over six months since she?d ejected him, hysterical; scant hours before the sirens started and the world collapsed. ?South city was a wreck,? she said. ?Your apartment was vaporized. I tried, though. I looked for days.? ?You looked long enough. There was nothing to find.? ?I should?ve tried harder.? Cort turned onto his side, resting against her, and stroked her hair. He twisted it in his thick fingers and let go, twisted and let go. They lay that way for a while. ?I miss you to hell,? she said finally, spoiling the silence. ?I know,? he answered, though he wasn?t there. Julia slipped into sleep, alone in her bed.