riverrun 2006 - Dowling College

riverrun
2006
© Dowling College Press, Oakdale, NY 2006.
Staff
Natalie Green
Editor–in–Chief
Layout Developer
Courtney Young
Art Photographer
Sincere Thanks to Our Faculty Advisors:
Artwork
Elissa Iberti
Associate Professor of Visual Arts
Stephen Lamia
Associate Professor of Visual Arts
Literature
Andrew Karp
Professor of English
All contributors are
students, alumni, or staff of Dowling College,
whose generous patronage makes riverrun possible.
“riverrun, past Eve and Adam’s, from swerve of shore to
bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of
recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs.”
– James Joyce, Finnegan’s Wake
Cover: Stephen Stack, Untitled,
watercolor and acrylic painting with crayon and candle wax
riverrun
2006
5
Isaac Awuah Asiamah
INVISIBLE THREADS
6
Kevin Jackson
RAISING AWARENESS
7
Natalie Green
HUSH
9
Mitko Grigorov
UNTITLED
10
Denice Frohman
GUNS N’ ROSES
12
Tamara Etheridge
JUANITA
15
Vanessa Lendino
SEVEN STEPS BACKWARD
17
David J. Niland
SNOW
19
Roberta A. McQueen
SUBURBAN MYTH
20
Mitko Grigorov
A DREAM OF DEPRESSION
21
Veronica Lugo
PARCEL OF FURY
24
Kaylee Tully
THE WHOLE TRUTH
29
Gina DellaSperanzo
JARRED MEMORIES
30
Tamara Etheridge
THE PHOENIX METAPHOR
33
Natalie Green
THE SUBSTITUTE (TEACH HER)
37
Vanessa Lendino
WHITE DUST
39
Ray Marino
DEAR OLD FRIEND…
41
Margie Suarez
JACKET
42
Denice Frohman
A GOOD DAY AT SCHOOL
44
Kevin Jackson
COMING CLEAN
48
David J. Niland
NIGHT WIT (IF ANY)
50
Natalie Green
FOR MY FORTUNE, COOKIE
57
Susan Valoroso
FORGIVENESS
58
ILLUSTRATION PLATES
59
ABOUT OUR CONTRIBUTORS
4 riverrun
Christopher Pilieci, Untitled, illustration
riverrun 5
INVISIBLE THREADS
Isaac Awuah Asiamah
Invisible threads weave us together, yet in our hearts we remain apart.
Our faith has brought us here and our unyielding hope in Oyame, Allah, and Chineke
Has carried us across those deadly waves of the Atlantic.
I can still hear the thumping sound in my head; I feel the beating of the atumpan
In my ear.
I might be so far ...
Yet not distant enough to feel the rhythm that bonds one to his roots.
Our pain is overbearing, our destinies entangled with our troubled past.
My people are disillusioned in this era of bytes and chips.
We remain trapped in our strongholds of traditions, customs and “Kusum.”
The battle cries of Songhai are now lullabies to the modern ear,
And the spear of Kante and Diata almost seems to have frozen in time.
The days of the Akatakyie and Asahene are over.
Our warriors are nothing but subjects of folktales and myths
Yet we still dwell in the past
And proclaim “Sankofa!”
Perhaps Nananom are right … the answers may indeed lie in the past;
But will the pains of our past release us to progress?
Welcome, my friend, to the many-edged problems of the Dark Continent.
**********
6 riverrun
Jennifer Comunale, A Walk to the Pool, acrylic painting
RAISING AWARENESS
Kevin Jackson
Jarred by a lightning bug, I step outside Myself,
take Myself by the shoulders and accordion up to a handstand.
Thumbing the wind I, Myself, add to the staff, unfurling Me
to beam across the scheme
that had dimly been passed over before.
**********
riverrun 7
HUSH
Natalie Green
tell me
a secret – any little thing
to imbue my rue–riddled core with the
promise of immaculate possibility
give me
some haze – one unclear thing
to render my once resounding brain wretched and
wavering in your palling veil
save me
this sky castle – every schoolgirl thing
i cling to strokes my inner menace pleading please don’t
leave me listening to silence
spare me
this fiction – no goddamn thing
you speak show pledge deem do is new
only words
that one day will end
my wanting my secret–searching my waiting
my sentence
with the reverberating message in the last and
endless umbrage of their
empty noise
**********
8 riverrun
Carla Dyck, Self Portrait, charcoal drawing
riverrun 9
Darina Boycheva, Rectilinear & Curvilinear Designs, collage
UNTITLED
Mitko Grigorov
Stretching my hand to the other side of the bed
To touch soft, long hair and a lovely face
But all I feel cold sheets and pillow ... and empty space
Makes the blood in my veins freeze I'm dead
Walking slowly at dawn through this haunted house
Each step a drop of the loneliness torrent in which I douse
But Time is dragging, every hour is close to eternity
As I sit down on the sofa to enjoy this disgusting serenity
Arranging the table for the anniversary dinner
I set two glasses, two plates, two bowls, and two rings
But there is only one candle that still shimmers
And there is one incurable wound that always stings.
**********
10 riverrun
GUNS N’ ROSES
Denice Frohman
I never asked you for guns n’ roses
you claimed you just could never find the “in between”
yet you managed to find
all that lay in between my rose petals, my fingertips
and the space that lay between my soul and spirit
oh, how I feared it
I never asked you for more than you could give
and even then I just needed something
something to stay for
something to say that you stood for
but now the wind pulls the rain down pour
and I’ve lost touch
I can’t seem to feel much of anything anymore, between
war and peace there seems a reality
as though truth meets fallacy
I never asked you for New Orleans jazz or
West Coast hip-hop
I took you to enjoy the sounds of the
horns and the beat box
this “in between”
never more or less than I thought you could give
I never asked you for guns n’ roses
guns n’ roses
guns n’ roses
the bullets and seeds that fall by our waist sides
the push and pull of wishing well waters
I simply asked for the calm tide that rests
before the storm hits
before the storm submits
to life’s trembles
I never asked for guns n’ roses
guns n’ roses
guns n’ roses
I simply asked
for just something
that lay in between.
**********
riverrun 11
Elizabeth Aiello, Artichoke, clay sculpture
12 riverrun
JUANITA
Tamara Etheridge
Amid the old boxes piled near the clothing bins of dirty shirts and socks,
a book of torn photos peeks out from a corner of the bed where a little girl used
to sleep with the stuffed lion her mother sent her at summer camp when she
was 9 years old and afraid of being alone in the dark – when she was 10 she hid
the lion in the back of her closet where her friends wouldn’t find him and tease her;
by then she thought she was too old to have him. Beneath the bed, a floorboard
that swivels to either side reveals a hidden space about a foot and a half long by
5 inches wide and 11 inches deep; it holds 3 cans of coke, a shoebox filled with 8
bottle caps, 2 seagull feathers, a stick of gum, 20 folded notes from Lauren in
English class, 6 seashells, a plane ticket stub, half of a broken mirror, 3 quarters,
5 nickels, 7 pennies, and an empty jewelry box – all things she collected over the
years at rest stops on trips visiting her father.
Crossing along the wood flooring, varied grades of scuff marks curve from
bed to door and window to closet, then intersect both ways from the center of
the room beneath an overhead ceiling light: that once had served as a disco ball
for a retro roller skater; she had traced the boards with her wheels like they
were rink lines in a roller derby stadium, and on weekends would listen to
Abba, KC and the Sunshine Band, and Jimi Hendrix on repeat for hours on her
black bubble boom box. Drawings of mapped diagrams for her dream house –
here’s one of a wide Victorian estate with white paint and high windows on the
balcony and black shuttered panes on the ground floor – blow about the room on
the breeze from the half–open window next to her bed; there goes another with
a stocky frame made completely out of birch planks running horizontal to a red
door and dark grey roof shingles that sits atop a cliff overlooking a rocky shore –
all the others blow by too fast to distinguish.
Matthew Oates, The Good Ol’ Days, digital photograph
riverrun 13
Everything on the wall is misplaced or shattered, like the painted porcelain
Mardi Gras mask dangling with empty eye sockets and no ribbon to tie back
the right side, or the unhinged orange plastic book case whose contents are
spread out at the foot of her bed: an endless assortment of R.L. Stine’s
Goosebumps, Alvin Schwartz’s Scary Stories, a Native American Sign Language
manual, stripped National Geographic magazines, and a key–lock diary that
rests atop a black and white photo of her 12–year–old pug, Winnie. Five paces
from the spilled books the blue accordion doors of a walk–in closet lean up
against an adjoining wall and expose what used to be a colorful wardrobe still
hanging on white plastic hangers, though the shelf above where she’d tossed
her assorted sock hats and French berets had collapsed; the shoes lining the
closet floor had been hand–me–downs from her mother.
Great numbers of empty glass bottles and jars are stowed in the back corner
in a faded box that once held imported china, each container with a history: all
the pint jars were the mild salsa she’d bought from a 15–year–old farmer in
Santa Fe, the wide–lipped bottle was expensive pumpkin soda she had bought
in New England and nursed for days, and the short jar once had held blood.
High wide ceilings anchor a series of interconnected nylon strings running the
diameter of the room from every corner, with sporadically placed paper stars on
which she’d written her dreams, prayers, and thoughts; she had run out of
room and stopped hanging them 3 years ago – right after her uncle died – and
after breaking her arm while climbing to take down the web, she had counted
it as an omen from him to leave those strings attached always.
Ivy vines from the roof hang low and breeze into the glassless window
pane, breaking the bars of sun into splintered shards of light and flames all over
the floor and sending a slight chill up and down the rescue worker’s weary spine.
“Just find her, son,” Lieutenant Breghan calls to him from another room
along the hallway, “and don’t get yourself too caught up in it. Kids always seem
to be hiding, even when they aren’t playing – if you know what I mean. Leaving
them alone only encourages their craftiness.”
Men rummage throughout the remaining rooms of the house in full suit:
oxygen masks and flashlights at the ready, axes in hand, and covered in ash
and soot from head to toe; they’re searching for whatever might remain within
this decaying shell of a place. No one expects anything will turn up, considering
the horrific structural damage and the fact that the only call to come in had
been from a passing driver whose view had been obscured by the thick smoke
emptying into the road.
Only the girl knows what happened.
Pieces of floral stationery paper flutter in a counterclockwise spiral
towards an uninvestigated wall where, alongside a television crushed by fallen
planks and plaster, the worker notices a spot of blackened floor unlike any
other in the room. Quiet breezes sweep through a long crack in the wall just
behind the spot; it climbs up and over in the H–shaped outline of two horizontal
doors, which are barely open and emitting a faint odor. Removing the debris
and the television, the young man uncovers a small dumbwaiter that no doubt
had delivered laundry and supplies from the upper levels of the house into the
cellar when the old place was first built; huddled inside the car of the contraption,
a blackened husk still clutches the ancient rope.
14 riverrun
She’d become stuck in the shaft while trying to escape. The child looked
to be the correct age, 12 years old. Undeniably, she was the girl who was
thought to have not been in the house at all. Vague patterns of violets are
still distinguishable in the fabric of her nightgown; her soiled hair remains
neatly parted and perfectly braided. Where does a life go once it’s been forgotten
her belated rescuer cries in silence.
Yesterday is frozen in time here.
“Zero Chanced a Survival” tomorrow’s headline will read; when asked
to verify the discovery, Lieutenant Breghan will state, “No one needs to know
she was here.”
**********
Stephen Stack, Untitled, charcoal drawing
riverrun 15
SEVEN STEPS BACKWARD
Vanessa Lendino
She was sure that she hated him;
he was sure that he loved her.
And oh, but if he touched her,
she would beg him
never stop.
She hated that
he spoke to everyone, yet directly at her.
She hated that
she wanted him to, waited for him to.
She hated that
with a sentence, he could make her feel at once
brilliant and foolish, that he did so with intent,
that he watched in anticipation for her reaction:
a breath he could hear, a heartbeat he could see.
She hated that
he made her stare out a window for hours
inventing their
first kiss.
A quiet hallway, a late day
shadows cast low from behind closed doors
holding empty rooms.
A corner turned and two people stand
startled by the certainty of the moment.
She would open her mouth to say no
but he would capture the word
with his kiss,
his breath
spilling over her shoulder and
pooling in places it should.
There would be no resistance
as he walked her, slowly,
seven steps backward
and against the wall.
16 riverrun
She was sure that she hated him;
he was sure that he loved her.
And oh, but if he kissed her,
he knew he could never stop.
He loved that
she listened while pretending not to, that she heard
what the crowd did not hear.
He loved that
he could memorize
her face while she listened to him speak.
He loved that
it held him and he could not look away.
He loved that
she sat so straight, her back
pressed against his words
begging him come no closer.
He loved when at last she broke away.
He loved that
she made him stare out a window for hours
inventing their
first kiss.
A quiet hallway, a late day
shadows cast low from behind closed doors
holding empty rooms.
A corner turned and two people stand
startled by the certainty of the moment.
She would open her mouth to say no
but he would capture the word
with his kiss,
his breath
spilling over her shoulder and
pooling in places it should.
There would be no resistance
as he walked her, slowly,
seven steps backward
and against the wall.
**********
riverrun 17
SNOW
David J. Niland
I hate the snow when it’s fresh and bright
It stings my eyes, blinding me
Forcing me to look back into my own skull
And remember days of purity and innocence
And it slaps me with how much was lost
And it kicks me with how much was taken
I hate the snow when it’s piled and gray
Like my body, like my mind, like my soul
Pushed away into every corner
Buried beneath all the sand and shit available
Salted like an unwanted slug
To slowly corrode away
I hate the snow when it melts away
Liquid blending with earth
Mud drying in the sun
And soon there is no evidence
That anything was ever there
Only the dirt survives
**********
Johanne Hartvig Mahler, Flooding Men’s, woodcut
18 riverrun
riverrun 19
SUBURBAN MYTH
Roberta A. McQueen
Have you heard the legend
about an Indian princess
who fell in love
with the wrong man?
Her father was tribal chief
he forbade the romance
no man was good enough
for his little girl
He caught his lovely daughter
naked in her lover’s arms
he swore the youth
would suffer a most painful death
Fresh from the evening hunt he
pointed with a maniacal grin
to the bloody scalp
tied high on his belt
The princess lost her mind
and jumped in the muddy waters
of Lake Ronkonkoma
her watery grave
If you walk along the shore
you may hear her moan
mourning her lost love
over and over
Throw a rock in the water
see if it stops the wailing
see if it stops the pain
see if it stops
**********
20 riverrun
A DREAM OF DEPRESSION
Mitko Grigorov
Chiaroscuro reality universally extending
A leafless tree shaking with fatal fever
Just I at a bus stop on a road never-ending
And the song of birds that are no longer there
A child with ocean eyes and wheat field hair
Scavenging the garbage for food and for love
Over a grave, the heavy smell of wax in the air
From crude yellow candles that will never burn
Words perfectly written, never to be read
A sparrow feather that rests on dying autumn grass
Smooth bullet flying towards your boy's head
All this is I, before the morning comes alive.
**********
Laurie Ann Wasilition, Bipolar, acrylic painting
riverrun 21
PARCEL OF FURY
Veronica Lugo
It boils in the
Trenches of my tolerance
Like a vessel of water
Filled to its capacity
Another
Drop
More
Can tip the scales
Some days I feel it
Creeping its way up
To the lump in
My throat
Some nights I want only to
Scream
I cling to my tears
Refuse to give in
To allow them
To be free
So they remain
Concealed
Deeply contained within me
No one knows
Their existence
My secret
A portfolio
An anthology of every segment of
Melancholy
Ache
A damn nail in the foot
Divergence perplexity isolation
Guilt
Data assembled over the years
Wrapped up in one
hideous, sickening package
Waiting on some poor man’s doorstep
Without any warning label
(I must have forgotten to include it)
22 riverrun
A tear
Permitted every so often
Cunningly masked behind
“A Walk to Remember”
Or D.C.’s “Emotions”
There’s no reprieve
Liberation
Seems so far away
And what of the
Yet To Be Dealt With?
In the meantime
Shoved in that place
Distant
In the back of my mind
Exceeding consciousness
Even further than the realms
Where dreams dance
No matter the circumstance
I feel it
I always feel it
Lurking
Waiting
For that wrong look one too many
Or that vulgar mention then
BAM!
Like a nuclear missile it explodes
On this poor man
Now the victim of my unsolicited
Parcel
Of
Fury
I sit here horrified
So frightened
Can this be averted?
Can I consent to release
Without fear?
Is that even possible?
Or must I continue holding it
Inside?
**********
riverrun 23
Lucianna Basilice, Shiva Project X (VII), mixed media collage
24 riverrun
THE WHOLE TRUTH
Kaylee Tully
The atmosphere was polluted with a mixture of aerosol hairspray, color dye,
and tobacco. This salon wasn’t like the Kiddie’s Cut where her mother usually
took her. Posters dressed the white chipped walls with gaunt high-fashion
models wearing only their hair. The employees looked just like the models,
except they wore black Juicy Couture baby tees carelessly damaged with
cigarette burns and dye stains. Camryn thought they looked fabulous, which
was why she’d made the appointment: so that people would think she looked
fabulous, too.
Fabulous was one of the new words she’d been practicing ever since she
met Anna, who was already amazing. Sure, she had accompanied Camryn on
her mission, but Anna’s own naturally fabulous hair was as smooth and dark
as a panther; it outlined a flawless complexion painted with the newest shades
of eye shadow and blush and was so long that it faintly grazed her thin hips.
Anna motioned to one of the models on the wall. “Look at her Cam,” she said.
Camryn was just getting used to her new nickname. “Yeah, I’d kill to look
like that.”
“That’s why we’re here. You can look like that – you’re going to.”
“You really think so?”
“Of course,” Anna said with certainty. “Look at me. Don’t you think I look
pretty close to this girl right here?” She was pointing to a lingerie ad in the
magazine on her lap.
“Yeah,” gushed Camryn, “I so think you look like that!”
“Well, that’s because I come here. My mother comes here all the time –
that’s why she has so many guys calling the house. They make you beautiful here.”
That was exactly what Camryn had been longing to hear: that these
hairdressers clad in ratty Juicy Couture would make her look and feel like Anna.
Yes, just like Anna and her mother, with guys calling the house and chasing
after them. Not that Camryn was an ugly duckling. She was pretty in her own
way, but she wanted the power to enter a room with the kind of confidence that
exploded into the air.
Usually she’d wake up, tuck her hair behind her porcelain ears, slip into
her high–waist jeans and tee from the Gap, and consider herself ready to go.
Her long hair, streaked blonde from the sun, was somewhere between straight
and curly.
And her body?
She had what her mother and aunts called The Brody Curvaceous Curse,
which they tried to convince her she’d cherish when she was older. Now that
she was older, the only thing she cherished was finding a pair of jeans that
flattered the curves of her Brody hips.
“Who’s up?” asked a tall, thin hairdresser as smoke shot from her nostrils.
“Um, me.” The soon–to–be-transformed Camryn stepped forward nervously.
“Let’s get you washed, hon.”
The stylist directed her to have a seat and toss her hair back into the
sink; while she sat there, Camryn stared at the hair advertisements shellacked
onto the walls. The cold water rinse bursting through the faucet woke her up
riverrun 25
from a daydream: she’d been one of the fabulous models in the posters.
Before she knew it, her hair was being combed precisely in front of her face,
barricading her eyes from their surroundings. Scissors sliced through her
hair without any discussion, and the snipped pieces fell from her face like
feathers from a mountain. A few more snips and one foxy blow dry later and
suddenly, she really was Cam.
“Oh my God!” raved Anna. “You look fabulous!”
“Thanks, I feel fabulous!” The fabulous friends burst into laughter.
“Hey, I got you something while I was waiting for you. It’s a ‘Best
Friend’ necklace.”
“Thanks, Anna. I love it!”
“It’s cool, right? Now everyone will know that we’re best friends.”
Tiffany Trava, Gli Amici Dalla Scelta, i Cugini per Caso (Friends by Choice,
Cousins by Chance), collage
Cam almost cried; Camryn probably would have. She’d never had a best
friend before. Sure she’d had friends, but never a best one. She clasped the faux
gold chain around her neck; it fell directly onto the tube top she’d borrowed
from Anna. The micro mini skirt she had on – micro being the key word –
was Anna’s too, and the new Cam was feeling more and more comfortable
with showing off a little leg.
The two girls left the salon with synchronized footsteps and stepped out
into the blistering Bronx sun. Cam noticed that for the first time ever, she
was catching the eye of every guy she passed as they walked along the street.
As she followed Anna’s movements and expressions, she began to understand
what “been around the block” was all about. Cam had been studying the
fabulously experienced Anna intently when her ringing cell phone interrupted
her first lesson in eye contact.
26 riverrun
“Just don’t answer it,” said Anna.
“I have to. She’s going to bug me about it later and tell me how worried
she was and blah, blah, blah. You know how it is.”
“No, I don’t know how it is. My mother trusts me. I’m telling you, don’t
answer. Later you can say your battery ran out, and you have no idea why
‘cause you charged it all night.”
“Your mom’s not like my mom. Whatever – I hope you’re right.” She
slipped the phone back into her newly–purchased Baby Phat purse and
shrugged her shoulders.
“I’m right. Trust me, it always works with my mom.”
“You mean lying always works with your mom?”
“It’s not lying. I never lie. I just don’t tell her the whole truth.”
After a few more blocks, the girls decided they were on a mission: to lure
two eligible teens into a movie date that would help them escape both the heat
and parental supervision. Anna searched the crowd for prospects until she
found just the right match for Cam and herself.
They were tall, dark, and Italian – of course.
They were leaning their gleaming bodies against the brick wall of Sal
Anthony’s Pizzeria, and their tanned olive skin practically matched the
rust–colored stones. Cam knew they were the type of boy she could never bring
home to her Irish mother, and her stomach started to hurt as she and Anna
approached them. She’d never been good at starting conversations with the
opposite sex, and these guys were no exception. To Cam, they were the definition
of suave.
Sal Anthony’s was famous for its pizza and loved for its Italian ices. Anna
deliberately paraded past the boys and flirted as she led the way into the
pizzeria, past the neighborhood old timers at the front tables, and up to the
counter. The décor was traditional Italian – tables draped with red and white
checkered table cloths, walls covered with painted Italian villas, large
wood–burning stoves. Sal himself looked just like the other men sitting in his
restaurant: large bellied, grey–haired, and decked to the nines with gold chains.
The heat from the wood–burning stoves, mixed with the Bronx humidity,
was turning Cam’s fabulous hair into a fabulous scare. She quickly flattened
out the budding curls with her hands; this was a trick she’d picked up from Anna.
Armed with rainbow ices, the girls strode back outside and pressed their
own bodies against the storefront, just a few bricks away from the ones the
boys still occupied. For some reason, Cam was unable to make eating an Italian
ice look as attractive as Anna did; instead, she found herself with sticky red
and blue hands while Anna’s stayed as clean and fabulous looking as before.
Except for a few giggles and cued “Yeahs,” she took the time to observe
Anna’s natural poise in flirting; with a little practice, she might be able to use
these techniques herself. After discussing the heat for a while, the boys suggested
catching a movie – just as Anna had planned. Cam was amazed at her friend’s
ability to get exactly what she wanted.
As the two debutantes walked into the movie theater on the arms of their
hunks, Cam thought, me locking arms with a hot guy in public – wow, another
first! The theater seemed darker than usual, and she wasn’t sure if it was
because she’d been in the sun all day or because this was The Texas Chainsaw
riverrun 27
Massacre, her first R–rated movie. Her phone rang just as the movie started;
she grabbed for it, quickly turned it off, and threw it back in her purse.
Thanks to Anna’s coaching, fibbing was no longer a worry for this fabulous girl.
She screamed at the gore on the screen and her date tossed his arm
around her, trying to convince her it wasn’t real. His hands were large and
clammy – just like his face, which was nearly hidden by the mass of dark,
slick curls that covered his head. Cam did find his deep, light blue eyes
attractive, so she tried to focus on that good quality. She glanced over to see
whether Anna was enjoying the movie as much as she was.
But Anna was enjoying something else – the mouth of Clammy’s friend.
Cam had never made out before, and hadn’t ever actually witnessed a steamy
make–out session. She was hoping she wouldn’t experience one herself any
time soon, because she had yet to have a lesson in how to do it from Anna
and was positive she’d be unprepared.
She was right.
Cam felt her date’s clammy hand grab at her “Best Friend” necklace
and then fall slightly above her breast. She stayed as still as possible, hoping
that if she ignored his swathing arm on her delicate shoulders it would go
away. A tug, and suddenly she was closer to his body; she could feel his
passionate temperature escaping his skin. She felt a vibration in the seat
as he scooted his rear end closer to hers.
Cam concentrated on the movie screen and the sight of blood flying
from the chainsaw like drool from a dog.
As his scoundrel arms wrapped around her uncorrupted body and
pulled her in close, as he placed his clammy kiss on her innocent lips, she
tried to follow Anna’s example; but she was drawn to the actress’ screams and
couldn’t pay attention. Cam pulled away from his attack and gasped for air,
forcing a smile. She stared into his piercing eyes and searched for attraction.
“Are ya okay?” he whispered.
“Yeah.”
“It’s just that you pulled away, ya know. I thought it was me or somethin’.”
She concentrated on his heavy Italian accent and that crazy hair. Those deep
blue eyes she’d tried to focus on before were violating her now. Just then
Anna took a break from her session to enter the conversation.
“Cam! What’s the matter with you? People are busy over here, you
know – they want some privacy.”
“Sorry! I didn’t mean to interrupt. I’m fine. Really, I … I was just scared
from the movie, that’s all.” Her date motioned to his chest.
“Alright then – c’mere. I’ll protect ya.” His grin was slimy like his hair.
Cam tried once. She leaned into his body and placed her blushing face
on his chest. He took her chin in his big clammy hand and directed her lips
to his.
Anna was so right; not telling the whole truth does come easy.
**********
28 riverrun
Brooke Ackerson, Earl Gray, charcoal drawing
riverrun 29
JARRED MEMORIES
Gina DellaSperanzo
Tiny wave–worn pieces washed ashore
varied green, blue, and yellow glass.
Camouflaged among the sand and stone
so careful are we not to let one pass.
Eagle Eyes I’ve come to call her
so swift is she with her find.
Although every now and then
she’ll leave one for me behind.
Sometimes we catch a downy feather
or a gull goes sailing through the sky.
In the distance, at times, we can hear
the sounds of children’s playful cries.
So absorbed when we are here
as if in our own private space.
Quiet chatting, soundless expression
sweet delight shows on our faces.
Precious moments we gather tighter
mother–daughter time at the shore.
Battered driftwood, colored bits of shells
always searching, wanting more.
Memories collected through the years
of all the beaches that we’ve roamed.
Sprinkled in jars, all our treasures
are decorations throughout our home.
**********
30 riverrun
THE PHOENIX METAPHOR
Tamara Etheridge
A part of me just died and faded away.
Like the phases of the moon,
a piece of me disappears but never goes away,
a reminder that our shadows turn
to break forth new faces.
Slowly we change until we turn full circle
and cause earth–shifting movements
that shape the tides.
A pale white ball in an endless black abyss
eerily casts dim rays of blue
in a solemn reach of death,
like a warm breath on cold glass.
But now I can see the black abyss
transition from purple and blue,
and birth is given to a brilliant yellow orb.
**********
riverrun 31
Jasmine Hallen, Beyond Those Eyes, mixed media collage
32 riverrun
Annjane Dorsey Hanvey, Torso of a Young Boy (Front), cast study
riverrun 33
THE SUBSTITUTE (TEACH HER)
Natalie Green
Where do you go when you drive around with her and she sits in my place?
I tease myself with this riddle
now that I’ve managed
to dissolve your manacles
the platinum ones
that held me in your seven–year itch
with a concentrated mixture of
truth and acid.
Sorely a sight for all the eyes that
bare witness to the regrettable truth
that the only rings you ever managed to give
left me with a matching set of still purpled
permanent
chemical wrist burns.
True
they sprang from the rough and heated river
of my flowing imagination
but the pain is as real as the water is wet
and you are the source.
When I think of you cruising around with her
in that pristine ‘70 LeMans
the pale yellow hardtop you bought for me
I imagine an impromptu drag race
between you and your conscience for the right to trespass with
someone else
someone new
over our former haunts.
My dream always ends with you running out of nerve inside one quarter mile.
Could your roving reaching hand
ever slide across that front bench seat
and seek out the right angle of
her crossed knee
with the same addicted urgency
as when I was there beside you?
34 riverrun
I wonder how many thorny seconds
snag and rip into that black vinyl interior as you
drive in aimless circles
and wind up a tongue–twisted mess
a tripping breath away from revisiting
the highlights of some you and me story that she
couldn’t possibly know.
My toes curl impishly at the thought of too smooth you caught up
in that glorious uncool moment.
What do you say when the memories
follow you
chase you
into the foreign darkness
of the bar she suggests as you
spin your wheels
waiting for an out?
I see you there
inside that new place and
out of your suave element
there in the dark
invoking blindness
to cover your dread your shame your fear
of the threat with no name
that ruffles your
proud turquoise feathers
as you bravely bracelet her waist in your flexing forearm.
Your complete undoing and my
climax comes
just as you my dear
finally dare to lean in close enough for whispering and are
caught in the headlights
of her candy sweet unknown perfume
and it’s the best sex we never had and the river of my imagination
runs in watercolors.
Her night haunt is darker than ever
and she rakes her fingers across your precisely styled
chestnut hair and her pretty little hand lingers at the back of your neck
and you resist the compulsion to wrench free and haul your
sorry yellow ass back to my
stolen yellow muscle car and leave her
a mile–long rubber goodbye.
riverrun 35
The poor girl is drunk on your slow gin
cock tale
and flits like a delicate moth
to the dizzying dazzling firelight
lusting in closer still
if only to feel the flame
under your skin.
How could she know it would remind you of me?
Whether she is one face or a thousand
holds no consequence
for her
for you
forever
for the rest of your self–absorbed life
she is only someone else
filling up my vacant space.
I would be your worst nightmare if I believed I could
teach her
all the bitter fruits of your tangling branches
though there may be
time enough yet to invite
whatshername
down to the river.
I could
school her in the nature
of the undercurrents and
you could
imagine that
I
never learned enough
to know it was time to leave
you
driving aimlessly
staring blankly
at the disillusioned ghost
sitting in my place.
**********
36 riverrun
Annjane Dorsey Hanvey, Torso of a Young Boy (Back), cast study
riverrun 37
WHITE DUST
Vanessa Lendino
His hands have white dust on them;
usually so do his pants.
He writes with his left hand and
I watch the words materialize,
trying to frame them before he finishes;
most of the time I do.
I know what he writes, what he says,
I finish the sentences he cannot;
he expects me to, waits for me to.
Sometimes, I think, just to work with me;
other times to assure himself I still care.
If he kissed me I would
kiss him too;
I would beg him to
get white dust on
my pants.
**********
Darina Boycheva, The Shape of Love, digital photograph
38 riverrun
Shaina Dulberg, And the Wind Stopped to Listen In,
dry-pointed etching
riverrun 39
DEAR OLD FRIEND …
Ray Marino
Dear old friend
it’s been miles and miles
since last our paths crossed
and ages since our eyes last met
You were always that hot bowl of soup
to my winter–metal working hands
and all I can do is thank you
and all I can say is sorry
Sorry that the past is so far away now
and those days will forever be
out of reach
For me
the last leaves are falling
on the tree in my heart
and the last green one
is yours
clinging
to the very top
I tried so hard
to forget you
but you were the only rock
on my sea of gray
and the only one
who walked by my side
Laughter surrounded me then
I just want to remember
before sadness envelops my
small little part of the world
I never told you how I felt
and I never will
regret may consume me
but not for you
40 riverrun
Dear old friend
will you ever see me again?
or will the world continue
to spin too fast
for us to slow down
Walk slower for me
I may just be there on the breeze with you
that will be my wish
Walk backwards and you may see me
but you may miss all else
just slow
just slow down
for me
Dear old friend
you were
a dear old friend
I can’t always remember you
but I promise
to never forget you
I stand here now
remembering yesterday
for me there is no tomorrow
just the hope of now
and this prayer for you
I am here now
lying in bed
and the tears
are bittersweet
Though they craft
no more hope
and they reflect
no joy
They remind me
of you
and your kind smile
your warm heart
and your welcoming hands
**********
riverrun 41
JACKET
Margie Suarez
You came to me
Off the sales rack of Wilson’s Leather
Unblemished by human hands
You didn’t know what desperately beautiful things awaited
Soon you were
Worn in where it counted
Worn out from seeing too much of life and its trappings
White scars across your black face
Falling apart but still holding your strength in every stitch
Pieces fall with every brush of humanity
Like wishes repelled from the first star of a night
Shooting stars were meant to die slow like this
Soon I had to throw you in a box called Innocence
Every shooting star reminds me of you
**********
42 riverrun
A GOOD DAY AT SCHOOL
Denice Frohman
At 8:25 AM sharp every day, Dana’s bus stops at the corner of her
street, about 100 feet away from her Hugh Hefner-sized mansion. Bouncing
off the walls with a large pink Hello Kitty backpack and a package of Sour
Power candy in her right hand, she skips down her front steps and into a flurry
of snow; her mother Maureen waves goodbye and closes the door, confident in
the safety of the quaint little neighborhood that’s been her home for 22
years: it even mitigated the uncontrollable worrying and overprotectiveness
she’s felt for her kids since losing Dana's younger brother, Shawn, in Cosco
31/2 years ago.
Catching the tiny snowflakes in her mouth as they fall under the winter
glow, Dana makes her way to the bus stop, where a navy blue family van sits
waiting alongside the curb.
Dealing with their sticky divorce, Maureen's soon to be ex-husband
Edward smiles and waves to Dana from inside the idling blue van. Eager to
see his daughter and determined to do so despite Maureen’s restraining order,
he opens the door and invites her inside. For a moment Dana hesitates,
remembering her mother’s warning about going places without telling her,
but on seeing her father's eyes, she is taken away by her own innocence.
“God, I've missed you! Hurry and put on your seatbelt, we gotta get out
of here,” says Edward as she hops into the passenger seat. He kisses her
forehead. “I love you, Sweetie.”
“I love you too, Daddy!”
“Just to let you know, me and you are gonna play a little hooky today –
but don't tell Mommy, okay? Knowing her, she’ll just get mad. Let this be our
little secret.”
“Mommy told me I can’t see you anymore and it made me really sad,”
sniffles Dana.
Nuzzling his head against hers he says, “Hush, hush – Mommy didn’t
really mean it; she was just mad, and you know people say things they don’t
mean when they’re mad.”
Over the bridge they drive, and Edward shows her the San Francisco
Bay. Pissed off at Maureen for bad–mouthing him and telling Dana she’d
never see him again, he takes his daughter as far away from home as possible.
“Quick, look over there!” he says as a pack of seagulls fly by. Reaching
into his pocket, he pulls out a Hello Kitty pin and gives it to Dana.
“Sooooo cool – I’m gonna wear this everyday, I swear – thanks!” she
says and leans over closer to hug her father.
“Ughh, you’re very welcome sweetie,” he says as they pull into
McDonald’s and look for a parking spot. “Vacant, yessss!” he shouts, as he
turns into an open space. “Two points for me!”
With 3 PM approaching - the time school lets out - he suggests that they
hurry up and get back home. Excited that he got to see Dana but sad to let
her go, he takes the long way home to spend a few more minutes with her.
riverrun 43
“You are so beautiful; just know that Daddy love you so much,” he manages
to say as they pull up to the house and she jumps out. “Zip up your coat
sweetie and remember, don’t tell Mommy about today – I’ll see you soon,” he
calls, and watches her skip away.
Dana walks into her house and immediately she’s greeted with a kiss
from her mother, who is coming into the foyer from the kitchen.
“Hey, honey! Did you have a good day at school?” Maureen asks.
“Yeah, Mom I did – we had a spelling bee and look what I won,” Dana
says. She pulls out her Hello Kitty pin and raises it high in the air like a
trophy. “I can’t wait for tomorrow!”
**********
Carla Dyck, Rivky, colored pencil and pastel drawing
44 riverrun
COMING CLEAN
Kevin Jackson
Drenched limp, the dozen or so personalities bunch together into one
corner of the ballroom. This is how Indigo sees it: a ballroom. As far as he
can tell, this space is plenty vacant most of the time. But tonight? Bliss: a big
mess of people hurtling – a few stumbling – through the spirals and turns of
the thirties. Their bodies are all soaked for now, but they’ll shake off like
dogs soon enough.
The air is stale and pent-up. Indigo imagines this otherwise, too. The
swing music blares on – it’s a Sunday – but the whole numb lot just keeps
still. They always do this.
“What, are we sardines?” he slips as the others wait for their host to
mop in the rest. They don’t like dancing with the door open.
Violet, his date, gets across to him. “You’re dreaming out loud again.”
“I know.”
The lights drop. Two pairs dislodge from the crowd and meander onto
the floor. Several more roll out after them, clothes still damp. The rest fall in,
but Indigo keeps pinned to the wall. Violet eyes him. He stays put, chewing
on a sudden conclusion.
Violet sustains him. Indigo can tell, but he can’t say: they’d only met a
day ago and after this, they’d meet just for a few hardly-more-often-thanannual ski trips – if at all. Indigo wants to be ridiculous, but knows Violet
won’t take the weekend for more than what it’s been.
I’m well-worn enough to understand this, he thinks. Still, for whatever
reason – call it magic, chemistry, or maybe just something in the water – I’ve
come alive!
Indigo peers out into the crowd. There’s been no shaking this pang that
life, for him, had somehow been shelved that whole long while before he met
Violet. Not that it’d been some extraordinarily dull existence or anything like
that; it just hadn’t been very passionate, either. But Indigo’s all full of wants
now. He thinks it’s about time to seize control, follow his own directions. He
could definitely go for Violet – who’s presently peeling him off the wall – but
even more so he’s starving to stay awake, to come into focus and then grow
into something bigger, something beyond himself.
This is how Indigo sees it. Totally far out.
He turns to Violet.
“I didn’t just say that,” he argues. “Did I?”
“Didn’t just say what?” she asks. “Never mind. Let’s go.”
Violet reels him out into the middle of the pack. For the first time all
night, she catches sight of her sister, all tangled up in Blue.
“Good for her,” Indigo toasts. When the ski boots came popping off the
night before, he’d had himself wrapped up in Violet, but her sister had been
alone, thrown off in a corner.
Indigo tries hunting out his own brother. Most likely, he’s lurching
around with the bunch that’d decided to wagon up on the fringe. They hope
to master the Charleston – no simple matter. Indigo decides his brother’s
whereabouts and spins Violet out to the side.
riverrun 45
“Y’know, I’m glad we met.”
“Ditto!” Violet sparkles.
Indigo grins, pushes a bit further: “I think I’m falling for you.”
“Pshaw! Come on, now. All I’ve done is put you in the black.”
“No. No, there’s more to it,” Indigo insists. “Much more to it! What’re
ya’ talkin’ about?” He wheels her back in. Violet sighs.
“There’s still plenty we don’t know about each other,” she offers, her
whole weight against him.
“Well, what’s the future for?” he asks.
“And there’s still plenty you don’t know about yourself, either.”
Indigo looks just past Violet. An intrigued stranger’s sashaying about,
flaunting her brilliant green ruffles. She’s apparently been throwing him a
warm, inviting gaze for quite some time, too – her partner is this mean sort
of ticked that can’t just be flashed on by cue. This hadn’t registered with
Indigo until now.
Violet coughs.
“For one, you can’t cover your wandering eye for anything.”
More than a bit embarrassed, Indigo turns back to her and musters, “I
know. I still have a lot of growing up to do.” Green’s date is leading her away
now. Her flutter’s unstompable.
Violet pats him, cheering, “Go ahead – I don’t mind! Admire the
scenery!” Twirling out, she adds, “Just don’t get greedy.”
Indigo laughs. The weekend has been all changes for Indigo, but Violet
has only kept the same. Her personality refuses to be washed out.
He ventures on. “What can I do to be better for you?”
She fidgets, hoping to stifle her scoff. “Be better for me? Be better for
yourself! Heck, just be! I’m glad we met, Indigo, I am. And I don’t mean any
harm, but what if we’re supposed to cross paths – just cross paths and nothing
more? I’m okay with it! We’ll get to be all ‘ships in the night’-like. And hey, if
there are bigger things in store, if we’re meant to do the whole puzzle piece
thing, then yeah! We’ll snap together! We’ll form some … some big picture
together. Or something. I wouldn’t mind that, either – you’re real swell. But
don’t pin your plans on ‘us.’”
[Webster’s: floored (flôrd, flord), v.t., – 1. surprised and confounded;
nonplussed. 2. see Indigo.]
Violet, having danced away much of her breath, can only huff out, “Be
better for yourself. Don’t do it for someone else.”
Indigo cuts their pace, pulls Violet in deep, then releases her. They hazard
through the still-bustling crowd, steam rising up over them.
Violet soaks in great gulps of air, then sputters out, “Personally, I’d like
to be less philosophical. And when I have to be, I’d rather not feel like I
always have to close with some inspirational poster caption. ‘Be better for
yourself’ – what’s that?!” She sighs. “I don’t know, Indy. Maybe I’m just not
made to be anything but this.”
Indigo and Violet retreat into a corner. The others continue sailing
around the ballroom, nearly dried. Violet’s sister surfaces for a moment, still
wrapped around Blue.
46 riverrun
Maria Edwards, Valentines, digital photograph
riverrun 47
“Violet,” Indigo starts, “we’re not made to be anything – ”
“Maybe on some world outside of this one we aren’t,” she bursts. “But
it’s different here. You have to see that. I like living in this fantasy with you,
pretending we’re dancing around, pretending everything’s alright. But you
and I both know our cycle’s nearly done. We’re not meant to last long with
the game set up like this.”
Indigo knows she’s right and, for once, doesn’t try imagining the situation
otherwise. Instead, he eyes the huge foyer door, finally seeing it for what it is.
“Get your sister,” he appeals, “and round up my brother, too. We can
still make a run for it.”
______________________
A few minutes later, the buzzer sounds. Sean opens the dryer door and
peers in. It’s a heavier load than usual: Kim had insisted they bring several
changes of clothes with them up to the Poconos. Sean fishes out a pair of her
blue jeans, perfectly dry now. He’d succeeded.
A purple ski sock falls from one of the pant legs and onto Sean’s bare
foot. He mimes a shriek, flapjacks the sock into his hands, and looks around
for any other woolly assailants. When reinforcements fail to arrive, he tosses
the sock into a straw basket. The radio’s playing the last few strains of an
old jazz standard. Sean whistles along as he pulls out the rest of the laundry.
Article by article, the weekend revisits him. First out is the fuzzy black
sweatshirt that Kim had caked snow into all yesterday – she’d never skied
before. Sean folds this gently. He then retrieves the navy Rangers ski cap he
hadn’t been able to find until 7 minutes after check-out. This he immediately
plants on his head and pulls down over his ears. Reaching through the pile,
Sean unearths Kim’s green undies, brilliant ruffles all slinking. He remembers
these fondly.
By the time the local station’s two-hour swing program has given way
to the news, Sean’s collated their clothes into neat little piles. All items are
accounted for, save two socks: one a deep, almost black, indigo and the other
an undeniable violet. Sean sets together the missing socks’ brother and sister
for now.
He can’t imagine where they’ve stolen off to.
**********
48 riverrun
NIGHT WIT (IF ANY)
David J. Niland
We sit in the blackness
Twins floating in thick fluid
Our chords plugged into the same wall
We wait for a light that never comes
Barricaded in together
Yet separated by two locked doors
You reach out to me with a stick
I grab it and for a second we are one
The signals are sent into the air
Looking for a new port
To dock our empty ships
We write limericks and smile for a moment
We both have those who wait on shore
As the rocks wait as the sharks wait
We navigate by the same stars
They laugh knowing we are still lost
I hear your voice briefly
And then go back to the endless slapping of the waves
I think about diving into the silence beneath
I think you are a mermaid who sings sea shanties to me
I know our sails have collected the coldest winds
I dream of a place where the ice and salt no longer burn our skin
**********
riverrun 49
Mike Gottfried, Untitled, woodcut
50 riverrun
FOR MY FORTUNE, COOKIE
Natalie Green
“Memory believes before knowing remembers” – William Faulkner
She forgot to pick up milk at lunch this afternoon.
How could you forget again now there’s no coffee and no bread and no
laundry detergent and no shampoo and no peanut butter and no MILK shit
what the hell is wrong with you just put on your flip flops and go to Ralph’s
for fuck’s sake they’re open 24 hrs and the parking lot is lit up like a carnival …
Outside on the street a stream of skateboarders roll past the cramped
bank of open–air parking spaces around the corner from her building. Her
dimpled up little roller skate of a compact sits locked down tight in one of
those spaces, but right now she’s convinced it’s being eyeballed – those
skaters dropped their momentum just as they reached the dulled chrome of
Miguel in 12B’s rear bumper, she’s sure of it. Coasted long enough to make
sure it was the same white Ford they’d seen her duck into somewhere
(maybe when she was leaving her session).
Or they could have been watching her get out of the car and maybe saw
every place she went afterwards. Now they’re down there, she hears their
wheels grating still, and they’re sneering and sharing their nasty rumors
under muffled static. And laughing – they’re laughing at her. Not even the
resonant Pacific winds ribboning two blocks past the boardwalk and in
through her bedroom windows can silence that sound, the noise in her head.
She has to leave, has to go and buy milk because there’s nothing left in the
apartment nothing left except that laughter.
No, not now I can’t go now. It’ll be dark in an hour and what if I’m not
home before then what if something happens like my car breaks down on the
way back and I’m left stranded on the side of the road and now it’s pitch
black and my cell phone is getting no service even though I just took it off the
charger and I can’t seem to work the pepper spray because my hands are
shaking? But maybe I’m just exaggerating. I mean I haven’t been feeling good
sick in my stomach my back in a pretzel it HURTS and throbbing in my head
my head especially I’m really scared I mean I think I’m going– am I going crazy?
Suspicion hangs from her shoulders like a suit of mail, but even under
its fine armored rings she’s afraid all the time – of going out of being in of
noises and shadows and her own shallow breathing and especially of losing
her mind. The cagey little mind in the pretty little head that keeps her
locked up and locked in, even though the goddamned store is less than a mile
and a half away. Last week it was the cleaners on Rialto and a few days
before that, she missed the bank because she didn’t want to take the detour
to Cabrillo …
Just take the left will you just make the turn just GO! That route still
keeps you blocks away from fucking Abbot Kinney Blvd. and you’ll be safe in
your car you’ll be safe and it’s daylight. Blazing daylight and completely
SAFE what the hell are you running from anyway? You don’t remember a
riverrun 51
fucking thing that happened you fucking baby. You make me want to throw
up with all this pathetic bullshit just turn around then and go back home
back to your cell and lock it down tight you paranoid freak.
She considers buying enough plywood and deadbolts to shut herself in
permanently, but resolves to not render her existence completely hopeless. If
she could just find a way to keep away the eyes their eyes always watching
they’re watching they follow her every move. Like the monochrome wide–set
eyes of the bartender, the one from that place on Abbot Kinney. The one from
that night. He had called her at the salon. He had called her by name.
“Hey Cookie, this is –––,” he said. “The bartender from the other night,
over at the –– about four stores up from you on Abbot Kinney. You know
where it is, right?”
“Yeah, the white squarish–looking building. Okay, yeah. I’ve been there
once or twice I think, but I don’t know any –– ”
“Look, I have your stuff here. A little Louis Vuitton with backpack
straps and a wallet with a broken zipper. There’s a bunch of debit card
receipts but no cash, not one dollar. Hey what about this picture of you and
another girl with the orange wall in the background – wow, she looks just
like you but with dirty blond hair.”
“Wait a minute. Would you mind tell ––”
“Heh yeah, very dirty. Must be her twin.” He was talking to someone
else while she struggled on the line.
“I’m sorry – how do you know me? I mean okay you found my wallet, so
thanks and maybe you could just not go through my things. But how the hell
do you know where I work?”
“You need to come in here personally for these things so I can make
sure it’s really you,” he rasped. He was taunting her. “Or I could just come by
your apartment and deliver them in person. Would you like that Cookie?”
She’d slammed down the receiver with such force that the tiny teak
appointment card holder bounced off the reception counter and struck the
floor tiles in a thousand splinters. He knew where she worked and he had
her things her bag her wallet with her license with her address. He knew
where she lived and that her sister’s pet name for her was “Cookie.”
Then just last week he’d had the balls to walk right into the shop while
she was with a client. She’d known who he was without knowing how, without
a name for the tug of panic just below her solar plexus. He had someone with
him, someone who did most of the talking and stepped in close to her when
he spoke. Everything the friend said was tinged with a kind of sickening
laughter that stretched his dark lips into an exaggerated smile that disappeared
into his eyes and made him look like a lunatic.
“Y’know youse girls was pretty trashed over at deh ––– dee uddeh
night,” he accused. The thick inflection of his speech reminded her of New
York. “Yeah, I seen evreeding, deh whole show – dee uddeh one, wit doze pink
streaks innuh hair, she fell right offahuh barstool. En den you, oh deh dings
you was doin … I mean, Madonn’!”
He was laughing at me laughing and LAUGHING and leaning up
against me with his clothes smelling of clove cigarettes and his hot breath all
over me and he was laughing.
52 riverrun
“Lemme just givya some frenlee advice: dey don’t go feh dat kinda ding
over dehre. It ain’t no dive like dat, honey. So how ‘bout deh next time youse
wanna act like putanas ya do it someplace else, like my house or som’n, ‘eh?”
He walked out with a smirk, tramping over the imaginary goodfella carpet
that the equally hardass and highly satisfied bartender had unfurled for him.
They were there I know they know they were part of it they know me
remember what I can’t remember. The other guy I’m sure I don’t know, but the
bartender there’s something in his eyes and I feel like I can almost remember
but I don’t want to know where I’ve seen those colorless eyes before. I hate the
way they see what I can’t God can you see me here suffering frightened
stripped raw and prone before you?
She feels countless eyes on her even when she closes her eyes and can’t
come to terms with the unexplained flashes dreams impressions that plague
her, chase her in and out of whatever broken sleep she finds. Her only certainty
is the condition the place she had found herself in that afternoon a few
weeks back – a seedy, rank motel room whose stained drapes, hung heavy
with dust, eclipsed any trace of light.
She had opened her eyes with a great effort, as if she’d never used them
before and the muscles had to be trained how to raise and lower the lids. On
the bed next to her, her boss was passed out and face down and wearing the
same clothes she’d had on at work the day before; one of her sandals still
dangled from her foot. Her other foot was filthy. She left her laying there and
got up, tried to walk some sense into her stunted memory. But the questions
of where she was and how she had gotten there played on her mind for only
a few disoriented seconds before giving way to the guttural terror that rose
up as she looked down at her scratched and bruised and naked body.
Where are my clothes? What the fuck is happening where are my
CLOTHES where am I what is this place my God please what’s happened?
Indy, wake up wake up wake UP India – something is wrong get up get your
stuff don’t TOUCH anything! My head my head I need to throw up something
bad happened I don’t know what I don’t know it’s a motel or something just
get up NOW we have to leave leave leave I’m AFRAID!
You have bruises Indy, bruises on your arms cuts on that knee your lip is
bloody you need to keep your eyes open. You need to walk and keep your balance
in case we have to run I don’t think I can carry you. Oh Jesus I’m all bruised
too – what are these welts from and why is my chest so sore? They’re bite
marks God please help us full–teeth fucking bite marks they’re all purple
where did they come from I’m disgusting. What the fuck what the fuck
HAPPENED to us? We need to call 911 and tell them tell them I don’t know.
What am I supposed to tell them?
Months have passed and still it was yesterday and even now everything
hurts, she aches. No matter that she’s not responsible, that there’d been more
than martini in her martini, that she’s the victim. Every day she wishes that
the bastards hadn’t been such a bunch of cowards, that she’d been conscious
of every repulsive detail – at least then she wouldn’t be living like the only
ghost in the wide world that’s afraid of people.
riverrun 53
Aleksandra Bucan, Untitled, charcoal drawing
54 riverrun
Maybe then she could remember and someday find the strength, find
faith in the recovery the process the healing and saw back the protective cast
from her fractured life. Instead she drifts here, caught up in a self–protective
purgatory that leaves her peering down on Venice Beach from the perch
where centuries of Ángeles de la guardia have come to keep watch. Her family
was right she can’t do this can’t stay it’s not safe and all these voices in her
head. There can’t be any healing here and she can’t sweep up her broken
pieces and start again. Better to just leave this hell this void this place and
move back east.
That was her at the start of August and by month’s end nothing’d gotten
any easier better clearer less miserable. She left her job on Abbot Kinney
weeks ago because she couldn’t bear to be just a few doors down from danger
anymore, but she still jumps at shadows, even holed up in her second–floor
apartment way over on Pacific.
She doesn’t eat or she eats too much and she started smoking again
and she drinks alot and alone. Sleep rarely finds her where she’s locked herself
away and it hurts it hurts and she lives in fear cagey and half-mad. And
dirty. She’s dirty and she can’t lather it away or scour it off so it’s better to
hide her dirty little self, because rape is a four-letter word.
One day she’ll remember something and the prosecutors will have a
solid case. One day every miserable one of her attackers will see her upraised
face grinning at them from across the courtroom, smiling in triumph from
the witness box – unafraid and smiling. And laughing.
There’s no toothpaste again I forgot can’t believe I forgot to get any
again this morning. I wish that guy on the bike would leave the front gate so I
could walk out. Don’t know who he is and he might’ve been there in the same
spot yesterday waiting and watching. He’s staring at me right now – how can
he see through the blinds? They’re closed really tight, I checked myself now
he’s laughing. Laughing like the man from the salon, and his beard is the
same. Did he just wave? I think he’s doing it on purpose my stomach hurts
and my head, still aching from last night. That party went on for hours with
that goddamn music pealing and that drunk jackass fighting with his friends
about getting into the fucking cab. Trying to root himself to the ground but he
couldn’t even –
She staggers as her train of thought jumps a track; with the force of the
jolt, her mouth falls open and she whispers a deafening revelation the cab – I
didn’t want to get in and he was laughing with those eyes. The presence of
tiny, beady black eyes rushes her senses and the chill of their greedy roving
floods the banks of her memory. Little eyes glaring out from that sweaty,
fleshy oh my GOD the tiny black eyes! And he was sweating staring at me
laughing at me with that, that – oh, Jesus I remember his face!
The blinds contract back with a crack and sway against the window as
she falls away blinking back tears of stunned, silent disbelief. She circles a
pattern in the tracked home beach sand that white peppers the black tiles of
her living room, and the rain pours down as she dances; but for the first time
in forever, these tears don’t sting. Instead they rinse off the filth and cool
away the burning humiliation that she’s worn like a feverish disease since
that night in June when fortune nearly had left her for dead. Alive – she
feels herself breathing and breaths deeper, just to be sure. She grabs the
phone, dials, and slides into her flip–flops as the signal trills across the wires.
riverrun 55
“Sister? Hi it’s me – nothing. No. Nothing is wrong, I promise. Actually,
I was calling to tell you I remembered something – yeah, but last night there
was a fight out in the street and … it doesn’t matter, really, but something
was familiar and now I think I’m remembering his face. No, not ‘him the
bartender.’ Him like one of the ones in the room – I saw his face and I’m sure
I can describe it to Detective –––– in enough detail to really be useful. Well it
just will work, that’s all. I know it will because I just know these things
(laughs). It was a good nickname, you’re right.
“Yeah, I’m going over there right now while it’s fresh in my – well, I
mean yeah. I guess part of me will be for a long time, but I can’t stay holed
up in here forever. Plus I’m out of, like, everything. Okay, I will. Me too – oh
and Nat?
“When you tell Mommy I called, let her know I decided not to move
back to Long Island. I know she will, but she doesn’t understand – if I leave,
it’s like they won. Besides, I’m already home. I love you, Sister – bye.”
She unbolts the door and steps across the startled threshold out into
the late September sun. The world seems no better or worse than she left it
when she left it behind. Placing a hand on the teal posts of the iron courtyard
gate, she senses it: the feeling that for the rest of her life, nothing and no one
– especially herself – can hold her captive again. Not ever. The latch falls into
place and the heavy gate casts its sun–speckled shadow along the sidewalk.
As she tramps its symbolic bars underfoot she thinks, today I remembered –
and I know the rest will come flooding back. It just has to. But more important,
I remember what it’s like to forget. That’s all I need to be free.
**********
56 riverrun
Carla Dyck, Untitled, graphite on paper
riverrun 57
FORGIVENESS
Susan Valoroso
back and forth, back
and forth, with precision and
care, like a watch smith winding
his wares, she winds and rolls
them, back and forth,
between fingers, frail fingers
fingers that linger their attentions
courtingly upon beads,
black beads, beads for
deeds, cold hard and strung
a dark and faceless chain
gang, fifty-nine strong
they bare their cross
and swing it, while she counts
on them one by one
upon the beams beneath her
she places an aged hand
and steadies the weary mass
that shelters her tearing heart
still clutching her prisoners tightly
she recites her penance through
and moves them on to the next in line
who will collect his personal due
on a cold, hard wall is hanging
a clock confessing the time
it is three quarters past the hour
one quarter to the sublime
58 riverrun
Illustration Plates
Cover: Stephen Stack, Untitled, watercolor & acrylic painting with crayon & candle wax
4
6
Christopher Pilieci, Untitled, illustration
Jennifer Comunale, A Walk to the Pool, acrylic painting
8
Carla Dyck, Self Portrait, charcoal drawing
9
Darina Boycheva, Rectilinear & Curvilinear Designs, collage
11
Elizabeth Aiello, Artichoke, clay sculpture
12
Matthew Oates, The Good Ol’ Days, digital photograph
14
Stephen Stack, Untitled, charcoal drawing
18
Johanne Mahler, Flooding Men’s, woodcut
20
Laurie Ann Wasilition, Bipolar, acrylic painting
23
Lucianna Basilice, Shiva Project X (VII), mixed media collage
25
Tiffany Trava, Gli Amici Dalla Scelta, i Cugini per Caso, collage
28
Brooke Ackerson, Earl Gray, charcoal drawing
31
Jasmine Hallen, Beyond Those Eyes, mixed media collage
32
Annjane Dorsey Hanvey, Torso of a Young Boy (Front), cast study
36
Annjane Dorsey Hanvey, Torso of a Young Boy (Back), cast study
37
Darina Boycheva, The Shape of Love, digital photograph
38
Shaina Dulberg, And the Wind Stopped to Listen In, dry–pointed etching
43
Carla Dyck, Rivky, colored pencil and pastel drawing
46
Maria Edwards, Valentines, digital photograph
49
Mike Gottfried, Untitled, woodcut
53
Aleksandra Bucan, Untitled, charcoal drawing
56
Carla Dyck, Untitled, graphite drawing on paper
64
Christopher Pilieci, The Real YOU, acrylic painting
riverrun 59
About Our Contributors
Brooke Ashley Ackerson is majoring in graphic design and digital
arts. She aspires to a career as either a wedding photographer or
graphic designer. The versatility she displays in her work shines
through in her other activities as well, such as baton twirling,
horseback riding, photography, hairstyling, and painting.
Elizabeth Aiello is a stage makeup artist who just began her
freshman year here at Dowling; her major is visual arts. The inspiration
for her work comes from stories of fantasy and myth, as well as the
world of her own imagination.
Isaac Awuah Asiamah is originally from West Africa, Ghana. A
mathematics and economics major, he hopes to pursue a master’s
degree in quantitative studies after graduation. Isaac takes his primary
inspiration from his own experiences with the inner conflicts faced
by Africans in the Diaspora.
Lucianna Basilice is a junior graphic design and digital arts major
with a history minor. She enjoys drawing, painting, and role playing
video games; in fact, her model for the piece appearing in this issue
is a warrior goddess from a popular PlayStation® game. As for her
ideal career post upon completing her studies, Lucianna would love
to teach 3–D modeling at the college level.
Darina Boycheva is an international student and a sophomore in
the graphic design and digital arts program. Her interests include
web, graphic, and interior design. She also enjoys photography,
astronomy, and music: this Renaissance woman even plays piano
and sings! The adage coined by Forrest Gump, “Life is like a box of
chocolates; you never know what you’re gonna get,” is one of her
favorite sayings.
Aleksandra Bucan’s artwork has been featured in several previous
riverrun editions. She earned her bachelor’s degree in graphic design
and digital arts and presently is completing her master’s program in
liberal arts. A volunteer coach for the Dowling Women’s Crew Team,
Aleksandra hopes to begin working in the graphic design industry
without delay.
60 riverrun
Jennifer Comunale, a communication arts major, considers herself
a sociable person who loves not only the arts, but the art of gab. She
looks forward to finding a communications career that allows her to
use her talents and special interests to promote her clients effectively.
Gina DellaSperanzo, a junior English major on a creative writing
track, is honored that her work is appearing in riverrun this year.
She is the mother of two teenagers whom she credits with nurturing
her creativity from the time they were quite small: on nights when
she had been too tired for reading bedtime stories, she invented her
own on the spot. In addition to their inspiration, Gina is thankful for
her husband’s love and support of her decision to return to school.
She credits his help and encouragement as the things that make it
possible to continue her studies. Aside from plenty of time spent with
her children, she enjoys writing poetry, gardening, cooking, and
practicing yoga.
Shaina Dulberg recently graduated with a bachelor’s degree in
anthropology. She minored in horticulture, which suits her outdoor
lifestyle: among her interests are gardening, camping, and biking.
Her artistic talents, which developed from a general interest, were
given a forum for growth in the art courses she took during school.
Shaina ascribes her favorite quote to Mahatma Gandhi: “You must
be the change you want to see in the world.”
Carla Dyck is a sophomore majoring in English on a secondary
education track. This Honors Program member originally hails from
Winnipeg, Manitoba. Before transferring to Dowling, she earned
degrees in both interior design and auto mechanics. Following graduation,
Carla intends to make her career in the field of secondary education.
Maria Edwards, a Bulgarian native who entered Dowling on a full
scholarship, is completing a double major in visual arts and graphic
design. Work-study landed her in the academic computing lab, where
she met her boss and fellow Dowling alum, Stefan, whom she ended
up marrying. Maria plans to teach art so that she may not only
share what she knows with her students, but also enrich her own
art experiences through theirs. Her interests include a fascination
with foreign languages (to date she speaks six), ancient Egypt, and
her newborn son, Erik.
riverrun 61
Tamara Etheridge is a visual arts major and creative writing
minor in her senior year. Drawing on a personal interest in history,
natural studies, and human development, she looks to their societal
effects as the inspiration for her free verse poetry. With fantasy
career turns ranging from published writer to actor to world–class
stuntwoman and even cross–country truck driver, Tamara’s future
knows no boundaries!
Denice Frohman is a junior English major with a minor in international
studies. She plays for the Dowling Women's Basketball team and is a
consummate spoken word artist who has spent the past two years
performing in the tri–state area. She created and produced her first
spoken word show in November 2005; the event was sponsored by
the S.G.A. and hosted by Dowling College. Denice belongs to the
renowned spoken word youth organization Urban Word NYC and to
Lyrical Circle. What does her future hold? She hopes to see her poetry
published, record a CD of her original spoken word/hip-hop material,
and continue working with underprivileged and underrepresented youth.
Mike Gottfried is a graphic design and digital arts major. Now in
his senior year here at Dowling, Mike plans to establish his career in
the design industry after college.
Natalie Green wrote before she crawled and decided on her career in
the first grade when Mrs. Grosskurth told her they shared a birthday
and made her feel important; nearly 30 years later, they still exchange
cards every August. She’s finally completing her master’s in secondary
education and wouldn’t trade the handful of educators who have
been her champions for a damn thing. Natalie can’t wait to wake up
English classrooms at a high school near you. As editor, she’s pleased
to have worked with this year’s fine artists and writers and thanks
Professor Karp for scouting her out. K, J & J: your unwavering light
keeps me thriving; most of all love and thanks to my sometimes tragic
but always beautiful family for the gifts they give unknowingly.
Mitko Grigorov, a senior majoring in communication arts, is a
two–time riverrun contributor. His work from this year’s publication
recently has been selected for the semifinals of poetry.com’s
International Open Amateur Poetry Contest. Mitko invites all readers
to visit his blog page on the web at http://theeyeblog.wordpress.com/
and view his takes on subjects from current events to literature.
62 riverrun
Jasmine Hallen is studying graphic design and digital arts with a
minor in marketing. Her career goals include joining the advertising
department of a major corporation and creating logos and corporate
identities for worldwide companies. The fashion industry also appeals
to Jasmine, although advertising remains her focal point. Some of
her interests are drawing and the Adlib Steel Orchestra, a drum
ensemble that performs the traditional music of Trinidad and Tobago.
Annjane Dorsey Hanvey received her master’s degree from Stony
Brook University and is a veteran high school art teacher in the
Eastport South Manor School District. Her contribution to this year’s
riverrun is the product of the Master Life Drawing class here at Dowling.
She enjoys drawing, painting, and pottery. Annjane also is an avid
equestrian who uses the outdoors as the inspiration behind many of
her works.
Kevin Jackson is a creative writing major in his senior year. An
adventurer, he has had extensive training in the art of trombonewielding, served as a correspondent for Newsday's Impulse feature,
and even has photographed prehistoric wildlife in Ireland. Kevin's
family and friends are the reason he aspires to inspire.
Vanessa Lendino recently received her bachelor’s degree and began
working on her master’s in secondary education for English and
history. A self–professed perpetual student who loves a challenge,
she bought a guitar and amplifier as a graduation gift to herself and
has begun taking lessons. She plans to attend law school following
her graduate work. Her writing, she says, is enriched by long car
rides with good music.
Veronica Lugo, a senior English major, aspires to be a popular
published writer and producer. Her work as an editorial assistant on
this year’s riverrun staff showed real passion and helped get her feet
wet! She gives thanks to her family & friends for their constant support.
As for her muse, Veronica extends a special brand of thank you to the
source of her harsh motivation (you know who you are).
Johanne Hartvig Mahler is a visual arts major who would like to
study architecture in Denmark. She counts painting and drawing,
architecture, traveling, and family among her favorite things.
riverrun 63
Ray Marino, a sophomore at Dowling, is working toward a dual
major in English with a creative writing focus and environmental
science. Over the past several years he has produced a steady body of
work, writing mainly dramatic pieces and a bit of poetry, as well.
Maya Angelou and Walt Whitman are among those who influence his
craft. He finds great enjoyment in the dramatic arts and currently is
the vice president of Dowling’s Drama Club. Ray would like to thank
his friend Kristyna for her undying support.
Roberta A. McQueen, an English teacher who received her master’s in
education from Dowling College, loves to read and is an award–winning
poet whose work has been published in literary journals, newspapers,
and magazines. She also has a chapter book, “Little Red Moccasins
and Other Poems,” in print. Her work has appeared frequently this
year in the Lion’s Voice and in riverrun in 2005. She confesses that
her three cats Prince, Tara, and Sammy all but run the household.
David J. Niland is an alumnus of the Class of 1988. While a student
at Dowling, his work was featured in riverrun; he later became the
magazine’s editor and collaborated on the 1985 and 1986 publications.
Matthew Oates is a senior graphic design and digital arts major
who hopes to design for ESPN. His interests run the gamut from
movies and poker to football and photography. Chinese general and
The Art of War author Sun Tzu is the source of his favorite quote:
"Opportunities multiply as they are seized."
Christopher Pilieci is studying visual arts here at Dowling. Aside from
drawing and painting, his interests cover anything in the great outdoors.
Stephen Stack is a graphic design and digital arts major in his junior
year. After graduation, he plans to further his academic career by
pursuing a Master of Fine Arts degree in graphic design.
Margie Suarez is a communications arts major in her junior year.
Her area of concentration is media studies. She plans to make her
career in radio or television broadcasting.
64 riverrun
Tiffany Trava is a visual arts major with a minor in education.
Her interests follow the arts and include drawing, painting, and
photography; she also loves the beach and time spent with family
and friends. On the career path, she wants to give back to children
what her own teachers shared with her: a love of art. Tiffany believes
the best part of being an artist is imagining something and watching
yourself create it. Her belief is validated by the words of the great
American abstract artist Georgia O’Keefe: “I found I could say things
with color and shapes that I couldn’t say any other way – things I
had no words for.”
Kaylee Tully is a junior creative writing major with an education
minor. She is excited to have been given the opportunity to see her
work published in riverrun this year.
Susan Valoroso is a junior communication arts major and a
member of Dowling’s Honors Program. Among her interests is a
passion for writing.
Laurie Ann Wasilition is a graphic design and digital arts major
whose post–college goal is to earn her living in a career she loves.
She enjoys photography, music, and writing.
***********
Christopher Pilieci, The Real YOU, acrylic painting