 Photo by Roman Kraft on Unsplash It started, as it always does, with a small movement. We sat at the dining room table, our heads bowed for grace, when I noticed it. Just beside my chair the tattered fringe of my mother’s hand woven Persian carpet lifted ever so slightly and curled over on itself. I slid my foot closer to my body as we said Amen. Then she began to escalate. There were the blonde hairs that fell across my shoulders and lap while I read, the sound of sheer fabric sweeping the floor as I scurried across the hardwood to get a glass of water at night, the single wool socks that never make it back from laundry. I hid my mother’s lipsticks because I knew she was using them. I could smell her perfume lingering on everything, the eyeshadows, the cakey translucent powder. I prayed my mother wouldn't notice. At school, Marcie from Spanish warned me about Artie’s, the old firehouse-turned-antique store in town. Things come home with you when you go there. And I’m not talking about the items you buy, she said. Other things. But when I decided to skip 6th period and wander through the unsteady stacks of yellowing books and walnut desks, I found her on a shelf between A Curious Farmer’s Field Guide and Best Baseball Stats: 2001--the centerfold page falling open to reveal her photo, the white lace, the barn setting, her eyes at half mast, her sheer skirt dipping across her lap, Miss October 1976. She wasn’t on a sketchy website, or hidden behind a group of snickering high school faces; she was published in gloss across three pages, elegant, proud. And I couldn’t leave without her. But the haunting was getting worse. Small fires began to start in the basement, my father’s church shirts turned up shredded, boiling cups of tea tipped and fell into our laps. My mother had to stick a wooden spoon in the kitchen window frames so they wouldn’t slam shut while she cooked. On a night when Father Bard came for dinner he left the table to use the bathroom and after ten minutes tore down the hall and out the front door, his coat still swaying on the coat rack. That night, I knelt beside my bed and slid her from her hiding place between the pages of a biology textbook. Please stop, I begged, I’ll do anything. I don’t want anyone knowing you’re here. Just then, a draft moved through my bedroom, fluttering the captivating look in her eyes, and I understood. It all made sense. I knew why she was so agitated. The next morning I rummaged through the box way in the back of the closet and found one of my mother’s wool hats, my father’s scarf, a thick pair of socks that were lined with fuzz. I folded them neatly and tucked them under the bed, next to the stack of textbooks. There was silence for a while, and I laid awake each night, worried that she had left me. But I was wrong. The hauntings returned, but now, they were sweet. The trashcan nudged closer to the counter to catch a falling potato peel, our clothes already warm when we dressed in the winter, a soft hand on the shoulder when things got tough. I was relieved. Now, Miss October 1976 is there for me when I need her, perpetually smiling through deep red lipstick, her clothes slouching away from her body, her hair poofed with hot rollers, her thumb grazing her cheekbone. I admire her most nights. Take her out and gaze over her. I imagine her voice, her laugh. I’ll keep her forever. I’ll learn to be seductive in her specific way. She is everything. She was just cold. Kale Choo Hanson is a writer from Philadelphia. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Peatsmoke Journal, Grande Dame Literary and Lunar Lit Magazine. She holds an MFA from Temple University and is working on her first novel.
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 Photo by Andrew Seaman on Unsplash I am at the point where it is hard to remember precisely when things happened. Or in what order. I am not good with dates, never have been, will over- or hugely under-estimate how long it has been since ______ . Even when the events were of great significance: A birth. A death. The day I met the person who is literally the most important individual in my life. They blend together, months and years, jumble around. Most often I recall a scent, or the weather that day, if there was snow on the ground yet or if we were wearing shorts. In real life things do not march in orderly lines toward their conclusions. Some effects have no causes, some causes no direct consequences. You let go of blame over time. This happened, and this, but one did not bring the other into being. Like husbands, arguments, kisses. Like departures that in retrospect seem just natural next steps in the walk of life. I carved a pumpkin out of habit, will hang up the stockings when the calendar says it is time. Were my parents still alive when my niece was born, the young woman who is now planning her wedding? I did not know about my ex-husband’s heart attack until months later. He could have died. But he didn’t. And I met him in the produce aisle one day by chance, heard the whole story. And then have not seen him once since. What are the odds for anything? Everything seems to happen at once, and I still wake up the next morning unprepared. I put a clock in every room, yet am surprised that the hands keep turning.
 Photo by Jorge Bermudez on Unsplash With every heaving breath Elpis took, I saw / god’s bet twinkling in her eyes. Her skin was / transparent—I could see each quiver of her pulse, each hiss / of her garden-snake veins—and I don’t know / if this is the perennial of God’s will but Mama told me / god’s angels have swallowed Elpis, leaving her / frostbitten. I still don’t know / what god Mama spoke of, but Papa says / Elpis is dying, he said her flesh would tighten around her bones /as her eyes sank and her legs crumbled. And I cried / I cried until my eyes rang bloodshot, the innocent glimmer / of Elpis between my matted lashes. Elpis, matted / with tears and a scream prying open my lips. / And slithering out my lips was the gutting sound of a mother losing / her firstborn daughter, of my pupils shrinking / back into my sockets and Elpis’s hands wrinkling my breath / and now when I put my palm in hers, my fingers interlace hers and I see / the prairies she never visited, the daisies and dandelions she braided / around her forearms, each petal falling with a beat of her heart. And underneath her glazed eyes, pink roses / swirling with the black rot as summer parasites blossom, blossom with the pain of a fresh bruise each time / I press it.
 Photo by Matthew Henry on Unsplash for Kate Suppose I stopped running from the walls of your overly decorated bedroom. Suppose I let your laughter twirl my hair, suppose I let my stomach knot, you lay bedridden blocks away, your heart readying to stop. Suppose I stopped running and let the soles of my feet bleed into the road’s endless tar, bordered by the blanket of grass fields. Suppose the silence of summer became too sweet to swallow, the puffs of breath clouding the air like caramel cigar smoke. Suppose I stopped running and filled your maple-soft hand with mine. Suppose your pulse slowed as mine quickened. Suppose your eyelids, touched by gravity, finally closed. Suppose I stopped running and October never ended and the orange and brown leaves clung to their branches and my tears clung to my eyes. Suppose I sat in the frosted grass and whispered in your ear and stared into your sea-black eyes. Suppose pain blessed my heart and my unfulfilled promises don’t hurt anymore. Suppose my words will float off this wrinkled paper and my rhymes will be silk. Suppose you hear me. But you don’t. So I keep running.
 Photo by Said Alamri on Unsplash You asked me to come, and I did, even though I knew it was wrong. In that city of beaten red clay and ramparts, you took my hand and led me through medieval keyhole arches and thin, ribbonlike passages meant to confuse the enemy and disperse the jinn. Some doors led to cool, leafy fountain courtyards. Other doors led to riads rotting from neglect. We were in the medina on the other side of the world, far away from anyone and anything familiar; we could do whatever we wished. We skipped through the souks admiring the beauty of the ordinary – this ancient stone, these odours of cinnamon, clove and rose. Brass lanterns and swords. Bins of talismans. We spied on men in long saffron robes smoking hookahs in their cafes. Young teenage boys cried out – Hey! Who are you? Where you go? I take you. – and we walked past them laughing, as if you already knew the way. You had finished your lectures, and the days unfurled before us now like a fresh piece of paper. Do you know where you’re going? – I asked, hearing the oddest thrill of excitement in my voice, looking vaguely round and letting myself be drawn further in. A bright-eyed boy sold the sweetest orange juice in the square and a suited man named Azeem had shone shoes beneath the clock tower for all his life. The barber, the cobbler, the tooth puller – each shop was nothing more than a wobbly chair. Children behind every shop counter cheated you of change but you didn’t care. You chuckled at the mule with a carburetor tied to its back and the crooked man who called out Balak! Balak! as they passed. From the tiny bakery, you chose a slice of the thousand-layer cake and ate it in three bites. In the mosque, you pointed out the calligraphy that was engraved on the ceiling and walls, the calligraphy that was almost everywhere in the city, you said. For these people had always believed that writing was sacred. Writing was their word of God. Outside, the smiling guard who’d been watching us mistook us for married, asking if this was the honeymoon. But no, I wanted to say, covering my hair again. There’s a wife who knows nothing of this. We are in the realm of the Forbidden. A man stepped out of a doorway and invited us into his carpet shop, away from the heat, and rug after rug was spread out before our feet as three cups of mint tea were poured. When we emerged, it was from a door on a different side and the scene had changed completely. A girl sat weaving in a dark room beneath a single bulb. A blind boy stood singing. ~ I woke from the dream (of what?), the call to prayer echoing through the sky. Come back, you said, pulling me in again and slipping a hand between my legs. ~ Every night at dusk, the main square filled with musicians and storytellers. An old man, remarkably tall and thin, held up various props – a giant ostrich egg and feather plume and sword – as he told tales of choices and danger and fate. A wide-eyed woman with a ruby on her forehead felt it her duty to translate to me. You have the eyes to see you are caught in one story, and the heart to know you could change it to another. We ate sheep brains at the stall of a boy who pointed the way to his brother’s rooftop bar, promising it had the best view of anywhere. Dozens of people just like us were there. You gave me a tiny pill and my heart quickened in beat with the drums. It was our last night and I spun round and round, the sounds echoing loudly within me because perhaps it was true that I was hollow at the core. In the morning, I’d leave, and you’d switch cities, and your wife and children would join you. I glanced up and saw you watching me from the other side without any expression at all. I am alone, I thought, leaning into the sparkly air. Sometime later, I went back down to search for the toilet. There, through the tiniest window, I looked into the yellow room across the alley where someone, sitting before a mirror, was drawing a picture of herself.
East Bay Times—July 5, 2021
At dawn, the sun is confirmed dead. Loss is heavy, eerie, foreign. Shoveling mounds of debris, oak, and rubble, I locate pieces of ruined porcelain—the head of Buddha, decapitated. I am learning how to mourn without tears the way my parents did after losing their home, their belongings in the Vietnam War, escaping by boat on hazardous seas, displaced and separated in refugee camps, immigrating to America with nothing but hope.
 Photo by Luke Brugger on Unsplash Behind the glass, corn cob bedding pillows the dead finch. Hilly plops into the faux velvet wingback chair, notices the dusty purple dawn filtering through the gauzy drapes. She must be the one who found the little birdy first, like she’d found Edgar unresponsive in the backyard, his joggers and flannel button-up sopping from the streaming garden hose he still clutched. Hilly remembers thinking Edgar’s face was milky and mottled. She can’t imagine that curdled face now. But she can picture Grampa’s waxy, gaunt cheeks and the brown ribbing on the lumpy easy chair where he still reclined, muscles stiffened into place, and the odd tilt to her voice when she phoned her mother with the news. Maryam enters the aviary, carting her supplies to feed the finches, clear their filth from the plastic vines, the ropes and perches, twine spherical roosts. Maryam had taught Hilly the little dead one is a zebra finch. Stripes and polka dots both, browns and greys. Maryam coos at the exotic little lifeless thing in soft public mourning. She advises Hilly to return to her room while Maryam cleans today. Hilly doesn’t. Maryam leaves to fetch an aide, returns alone, and says she’ll take you, Mrs. Moreland, just for today. Stout Maryam hoists Hilly to her walker and caresses Hilly’s hunched shoulder while they plod down the beige hallway, a beaten flat and dingy streak down the carpet’s middle. Don’t be sad about the finch, Mrs. Moreland. He lived a good life. There, sit in the big chair, Mrs. Moreland. Are you okay? Do you need water? Okay. Have a good day, Mrs. Moreland. Hilly looks out her window. Past the tidily manicured boxwoods, sparrows peck at the asphalt parking lot. Hilly watches. Jenny Severyn lives in Ohio with her husband. She holds a BA in English from Loyola University Chicago and an MLIS from Simmons University. Her work has appeared in Litbreak, Eunoia Review, and Apricity Press.
 Photo by Andy Holmes on Unsplash The trees are bare enough to see the squirrels’ nests. Frederick scratches his gray mustache and squints his weathered eyes, wondering how a creature could rest on such a fragile bed, at such great heights, amidst winds that could carry away a thin branch. During the spring and summer months, Frederick had spent every morning taking care of his beloved Mariana’s gravesite. He’d bring a pair of scissors in his back pocket, get down on his hands and knees, and make sure there wasn’t a single blade of grass out of place. A fresh set of daisies, strategically placed in a vase next to the headstone, would add a hint of delicate sun to the roughness of the stormcloud-colored granite. With winter on the way, Frederick knows it’s going to be a lot harder to keep Mariana’s headstone clear. The snow doesn’t care about the names it covers, and wool gloves just aren’t enough to warm hands that have been cracked for forty years. The daisies will shrivel up quicker, if they don’t disappear first. Frederick stands in front of Mariana’s headstone. He envisions himself lying peacefully in the plot next to her. When Frederick and Mariana got married, they’d always hoped that they wouldn’t ever be without each other for long. But when each minute feels like an empty lifetime, a day feels like another death. On the way home, Frederick’s walking stick taps against the sidewalk like a ticking clock. His walking stick has seen better days, but so has anything that has traversed the grounds of time. His back seems to hunch more with each step, his frown burrows deeper, and every breath becomes a bigger job when the cold air enters his lungs. The new neighbors whisper to each other from their porch, and Frederick turns away. It’s hard to face the world when you’re mourning your own. As Frederick approaches the walkway of his deteriorating Victorian house, he looks up and witnesses a squirrel falling from the birch tree in his front yard. The squirrel lands on the firm soil, pauses for a moment, frozen, then springs up and darts across the street as if nothing happened. Frederick steps into his home which doesn’t feel like home anymore. He hangs up his scarf, caresses the sleeve of Mariana’s old coat, and sighs. After making his way up the creaking staircase to his bedroom, Frederick lies down in his bed and stares at the ceiling. A gust of wind rattles the shaky windows. The height of his loneliness makes him feel dizzy. He contemplates whether he’ll ever be able to get back up again or not. He closes his eyes and wishes he could be like the squirrels.
You remind yourself not to run but look at you bounce up stairs. For dishes? Your journal? A tissue? Any excuse to step between here and there. There, there, the radiologist didn’t need to say, but she did say you’ll need a surgeon. And, even though you are just 29—short of 30, boob adulthood—a mammogram. You keep moving because you’ve been under strict orders to not increase your heart rate or engage in strenuous activity and you hit your limit. On your evening walk tonight, you were faster than yesterday. But you weren’t breathing hard, you told the air. It’s not as though you want your biopsy site to ruby. It’s not as though you seek infection. The good news is the lump isn’t cancerous, your radiologist began. With an opener like that, you knew there’s an And. But. Even so. Noncancerous but the lump could behave so—spread to other tissue, blossom and bloom your breast into an unbreastlike flower. But let’s stay away from any birds and bees metaphors. There will be no pollen here. Six months ago, you absentmindedly checked your breast while in the thick of busywork and your fingers met rubber within an instant. Call to campus health clinic two minutes before close. Emergency ultrasound. 6-month follow-up this week. Sudden ultrasound-guided core needle biopsy. You walked slowly for two days, post-biopsy, slower than pre-Industrial Revolution glacial melt. Lingered in Ace bandage. Iced with frozen spinach. When the greens thawed, you placed them back in the freezer. FDA-approved assistance? FDA still hasn’t approved the best chance of ending this pandemic. You could only hibernate for a day and a half, and only on these terms: still get your 10,000 steps, however sluggish. 13,500 yesterday, oops. There’s a world you must see. No turtle in sight, and herons might be gone for the summer, but look: ducks, squirrels, coots, bluebirds, and one luminous goldfinch. How to say you’ve considered your mortality since age 12? You made peace with the possibilities before ever placed beneath hands or a scope? So: you will dance. You will steal movement. Become a thief of motion. In a month or two, you’ll be put under. Cut with scalpel. But now? Thrill at this body, this body—all yours. Reece Gritzmacher lives in Northern Arizona in a mountain town surrounded by ponderosa pines, but grew up hugging trees in the Pacific Northwest. Their poetry and prose has appeared or is forthcoming on Barrelhouse, Sundog Lit, Bending Genres, Ghost City Review, and elsewhere. They are a Tin House Summer Workshop participant and hold an MFA from Northern Arizona University. You can find them at www.reecegritzmacher.com.
 Photo by Clarisse Meyer on Unsplash We fled under orders, tracking north along roads so new that the maps didn’t show them, sometimes so new that we had to lay them ourselves. Hardcore and tarmac. Burning palms blistering towards the Pole Star. We travelled by night and we travelled by day. We travelled by osmosis, by sleight of hand, and by a process akin to nuclear fission. We told no one our names, because names are power and we needed them to light our way, but we told ourselves lies to keep up morale and confuse the devil we knew was at our heels. At borders we became birds and rumours, and at rivers we became fish and superstitions. We fled under oath and never let ourselves down. Shadows sobbed as they took our hands. We fled under anaesthetic, and we still feel nothing but the dullest ache.
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