Young Ravens Literary Review

Issue 2
 Young Ravens Literary Review

Issue 2
Spring 2015

Editorial Staff:

Sarah Page
Elizabeth Pinborough

Copyright © 2015 by the individual authors

All content and graphics in this publication may not be copied or republished without
written consent. Copyrights of individuals' work are held by the relevant author and
requests for reproduction should be made to them.

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 Table of Contents

Cover art by Tommy Ottley

Raven artwork by Elizabeth Pinborough

Introduction 5

Beauty and the Beast Bobbie Berendson W. 6

Book of Monsters Laura Madeline Wiseman 7

Pink Robert A. Kaufman 8

Candy House to Gretl Laura Lovic-Lindsay 9

Sidereal Accretion Rebecca Page 10

Why the Frog Rejected the Princess Lanette Cadle 11

Rathaus Michelle Hrvat 12

Gingerbread Houses Heather Monson 13

Toronto Island Sunset Maria S. Picone 28

Selkie Mary Bast 29

The Little Mermaid Bobbie Berendson W. 30

The Mermaid Remembers Bridget Gage-Dixon 31

Man-Eating Mermaids Call

After the Lost Boys (art) Liz Pulido 33

Man-Eating Mermaids Call

After the Lost Boys Elisa Pulido 34

Wendy, Young Citizen

of the Metropolis Liz Pulido 35

Municipal Employment Agent

Mary Darling Informs Wendy

about Her Future Career Elisa Pulido 36

Viennese Ballerina Michelle Hrvat 38

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LOST Katherine Simmons 39

Light on Schneeberg Mountain Michelle Hrvat 41

Lonely Eyes Thalia Spinrad 42

Becoming Medusa Wilda Morris 46

Calypso Ruth Foley 47

Snow White Bobbie Berendson W. 48

RAIN Brent Danley Jones 49

Dendritic Refraction Rebecca Page 50

Pumpkin Muffins Sarah Sadie 51

Throne Room Tommy Ottley 52

Biographies 53

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Introduction

A wise folklorist once taught that variation is the key to the survival of stories in human
society. When fairy tales and folktales becomes static, with only one dominant or “right
way” of telling, that is when they are doomed to lose relevance and remembrance in
our collective consciousness. By exploring retellings of the same tale and differing
perspectives in narration, stories thrive because they are never done being told anew.

After Midnight

In the deepest hour of night

I bury a once starlit thing—
What dreams may teach me:
Glass slippers break easily
Leaving only shards.
And yet . . .
Cinderella's next step
After midnight
When the ball and all
Her gossamer glories
Were completely undone,
That step was the most important.
Barefoot in the dark,
She made her choice
To go on.
“Must I write?”

I must.

-S. E. P.

L1 paraphrased and L16 taken from: Rilke, Maria Rainer. (1903). “Letters to a Young Poet.” TinyLetter.
Retrieved from http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/07/letter-to-young-poet.html.

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Bobbie Berendson W.

Beauty and the Beast

6
Laura Madeline Wiseman

Book of Monsters

Of course I read Where the Wild Things Are, a book

where a kid sails off to an island of monsters to
become their king while wearing white rabbit-footed
pajamas. I used to think how lucky a punishment, to
go to bed without food, knowing downstairs there
were steamy bowls of soup and a whole wheat roll,
mugs of cocoa topped with marshmallows and
chocolate curls. Should I tell you about all those
empty cupboards of roach legs, those fridge shelves
of crumbs and splatters, the beer, salt, and ash? My
mother painted windows for Halloween—iron footed
cauldrons, green-faced witches, children dressed up
as monsters. She painted river rocks and boxes,
balsawood made strong by bright acrylic and shellac,
little spaces to hold something good. I didn’t need
jungles to grow up overnight. I didn’t wish for a
sailboat to sail me where they roared and gnashed
their teeth. I lived there. It’s okay, you’d tell me. How
much should I tell you? How much should I let die,
stay dead, gone? For our first Halloween date, I
donned faux rabbit ears and white tail, and you
arrived at my door to feed me—great hot bowls of
curry soup, whole chickens with rosemary, salted
avocados, cocoa made with milk and real chocolate
bars.

7
Robert A. Kaufman

Pink

8
Laura Lovic-Lindsay

Candyhouse to Gretl

Not quite sixteen when she cursed me. I cannot remember

my offense. She called to me in the husked voice of my love, lured
me into forests of evergreen and bone, woods with no paths.

There her fury kindled. She trembled and grew me, stretched
and caverned me into cracked timbers: a house that must shelter her.
A house she would watch consumed by birds, beasts, and wanderers,

slowly eaten, ripped and chunked. "Let them shred and peel you," she intoned,
scratching at my walls with her cane as she passed, room to room. I
saw the two of you walking and I let the winds shift me, enough to catch

sunlight, to glint your way. Your brother caught the flash, brought you
to me, the only children I ever carried within. I nursed you on lemon panes
and honey-wheat door, bricks of molasses cake, ginger cane-mortar,

sugared cherry wattle and peppermint crunch daub. Take and eat. I
watched her bundle you into beds. I blew warm apple blossom breezes
over you through my windows, a patter of rain like a heart beat,

the dance of a plank swing on an old oak limb. Tiny Gretl, you hid
under the table as she dragged and caged Hansel, but you were never in
danger. I alone controlled my fires and when you pushed her

to me, I breathed deep as a bellows and we scorched her, top and tail.
She shriveled to no more than a walnut. I cracked open my floor slats
to bestow her gold, the only inheritance I could offer my children.

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 Rebecca Page

Sidereal Accretion

10
Lanette Cadle

Why the Frog Rejected the Princess

Sometimes it comes down to frogs.

They are what they are, and no
fairy tale can make it different.
They’re green like river rock
so that predators can’t see them
and some of them spit if cornered.
Yet, generations look for frogs to be
princes, at least inside books,
and that ain’t going to happen.
Not even once. It gives books
a bad name. Let’s see what
new tales we can tell daughters,
for sons already know
that if you kiss a frog, you don’t
get a princess (or a prince).
Let’s tell new tales. How about
the frog who built a palace
weaving lily pads with his ladyfrog
and from that petaled shelter
they raised a swarm of tadpoles who
grew up strong and spit in the eye
of any human stupid enough
to plant hands in mud and lean in.

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Michelle Hrvat

Rathaus

12
 Gingerbread Houses
By

Heather Monson

People who live in gingerbread houses should not live in rainy forests, the witch

thought for the umpteenth time, as she placed a bucket under the newest leak in the

roof and rolled out another batch of shingles.

She started the oven preheating — a natural gas, stainless steel, professional-

grade oven that was the pride and joy of her existence. She cut the gingerbread dough

into perfect squares and transferred the squares to cookie sheets.

She stopped, spatula in hand, when she heard a rustling on the front porch and

hurried to the sugar-glass window to peer out.

There wasn’t much left of the forest, sadly. The only tall trees left in the

neighborhood were in her own sprawling back yard. But she couldn’t argue with the

convenience of supermarkets and a light rail. Sneaking into the big city on weekends

was the witch’s guilty pleasure.

She turned her attention to her front porch. A child—a boy, perhaps seven or

eight years old—stood there calmly, staring out at the falling rain.

The witch’s stomach did a flip-flop. She had lived in this gingerbread house all

her long life, but never before had a child come all the way to her door. Children had

stared and pointed from the safety of the sidewalk. Some had thrown rocks, until she

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hexed them. A few had even opened the gate on a dare, but none had come all the way

to her doorstep, until this one. Bother, thought the witch. Parents seemed far less

understanding about breadcrumb-trails and cages than they had been in days of yore...

Did she remember the rules? The witch scowled. She did not want a child anywhere

near, let alone inside, her precious oven. She would have to scare him off. The rules

allowed children to run away. She opened the door.

“Well?” the witch sneered. “Aren’t you going to nibble the ginger-bricks? Maybe

lick the lollipop doorknob? Or will you throw stones through my sugar-glass windows?

I hexed the last child who did that with tone-deafness and an insatiable love of

karaoke.”

The child jumped when the door opened, but faced the rest calmly. “You mean

this is real food?”

The witch glowered. “Entirely.”

The child made a face. “Ew. It’s getting moldy.”

He pointed, and, sure enough, the fruitcake foundation-blocks were getting

moldy. “Oh, damn,” said the witch, then hexed the mold to dust that washed into the

soil by the candy-cane fence.

The child was impressed. “I bet Gran would love to know how to do that.”

The witch rolled her eyes. The child was not frightened. The rules were clear…

“Won’t you come in?” she asked through gritted teeth. “There’s fresh gingerbread

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baking.”

The child hesitated. “I guess it’s okay,” he decided. “We’re neighbors.”

He walked into the house. The witch stared at her neighbors’ homes, quite sure

this child did not belong in any of them. She closed the door. The child stood in the

parlor, dripping water on the nougat sofa cushions and pressing buttons on a tiny

plastic-and-metal box.

“What are you doing?” the witch asked.

“Texting Gran so she knows where I am,” the child answered. He put the box —

when did cell phones get so small? the witch wondered — back in his bag and looked at

her expectantly. The witch felt flummoxed — the rules didn’t say anything about

texting — but quickly recovered. “Ah. Gingerbread. It’s still baking.”

The boy nodded and followed her into the kitchen. Dratted nuisance, the witch

thought. “You mentioned we’re neighbors,” she said. “I haven’t met you before.”

“Moved in last week with Gran and Grumps,” the boy replied. Gran and

Grumps — probably the retired couple who used to run Minnie’s Café downtown. The

boy set down his backpack and sat at the kitchen table, kicking his feet against the chair

legs exactly as the witch’s little sister had when they’d both been young. The witch

turned away.

A dreadful thought occurred to her. Was the boy a foundling child? The rules got

terribly complicated for foundling children, and she didn’t want to raise him, any more

15
than she wanted to bake him. “Where are your parents?” she asked.

The boy shrugged miserably. The witch let the subject drop. If she didn’t know he

was a foundling child, she didn’t have to follow those rules. She went to the cupboard.

“Milk?” she asked.

“No, thanks,” the child replied. “I’m lactose intolerant.”

The witch blinked and wondered what to do. Children were supposed to eat

cookies with milk. “Er… tea, then?” she asked after a moment.

“Do you have any soda?” the boy asked.

“No,” said the witch. “Dreadful stuff rots your teeth.”

The child started laughing and laughed even harder at the witch’s perplexed

expression. “You live in a gingerbread house,” he explained between giggles. “Your walls

are covered in candy. And you’re worried about teeth rotting?”

The witch caught herself smiling and stopped. “Tea, then?”

The boy nodded. “Sure, I’ll try it.”

The witch filled the teakettle and put it on the stove. She looked at the child.

Fattening him up would take a long time… The child adjusted the too-large glasses on

his nose and stared back.

The witch turned back to the teapot. “Have you a name, boy?” she asked.

“Tom,” the child replied. “What’s yours?”

“Brunhildegarde,” the witch replied.

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 Tom tried to repeat it but stumbled over the syllables.

The witch hesitated. “Brinna. My sister called me that, when she was your age.

You may, too.” Though it wasn’t forbidden, the witch thought that sharing a nickname

and a childhood memory with one’s would-be culinary endeavor went against the spirit

of the rules.

“Brinna,” Tom repeated and nodded. “Why’d your parents give you such a hard

name?”

“Tradition,” Brinna replied shortly. She magically hurried the kettle to boiling

and retrieved her strainer and tea leaves.

“Does your sister live here, too?” Tom asked.

Brinna set the tea to steeping and shook her head. “The gingerbread life wasn’t

for her. She left, a long time ago. She still sends postcards.” The postcards, at first, had

come from the university, then different cities, then different countries. But, in recent

years, they all came with pictures of a happy, normal family. Last year’s card featured a

grandbaby. Brinna hated the cards, all of them, but kept them carefully tied with a nice

ribbon in the drawer of her bedside table.

Brinna poured the tea. “Cream? Sugar?”

Tom grinned. “Nah, they’ll rot my teeth.”

Brinna smiled in spite of herself. “Straight it is, then.” She poured two mugs and

got the gingerbread out of the oven.

17
 Just then, Tom’s phone beeped. He pulled it out and pushed a button. “It’s Gran.

She wants me home,” he said. He picked up his backpack and walked to the door. “It

was nice meeting you, Brinna.”

He opened the door and left. Brinna watched him go. Well, they are allowed to run

away, she thought wistfully.

The next time it rained, Tom came back. He brought two bottles of his favorite

soda. “Gran says it’s okay to visit you,” he said, “as long as I’m home before dinner.”

Brinna discovered that she did not like soda (though, if boiled long enough, it

might make a nice doorknob). Tom discovered that he did not like tea. But he loved

Brinna’s gingerbread.

“You should sell this stuff,” Tom said around a mouthful. “I bet lots of people

would buy it.”

Before dinner, Tom left again. According to the rules, Brinna should have tried to

stop him, but she was confident Tom would visit again. Besides, she couldn’t afford to

fatten up a growing boy.

Tom came every time it rained after school, and Brinna baked fresh gingerbread

whenever the weather forecast said afternoon rain.

Brinna learned that Tom was not seven or eight – he was almost ten. He was just

small for his age and didn’t like to talk about it. There were a lot of things Tom didn’t

like to talk about, but he did like to talk about what he was going to do.

18
 Tom was going to get a good education, for starters. His pack was always heavy

with books. He was going to get a scholarship to the best schools. He was going to

become a businessman, a doctor, an astronaut. He was going to play basketball. He was

going to climb Mount Everest, then build a submarine that could go right down the

Marianna Trench (and, yes, he knew exactly where both were located). He was going to

find a cure for cancer. He was going to fly to the Moon, then on to Mars, then a lot of

other places if he could. He was going to go to Australia, just because.

Brinna found she liked listening, just because. It had been a long time since she

had allowed herself any dreams.

“Why do you stay here?” Tom asked one cold, rainy day. He had come with a

very red nose and a cough, so he was sipping Brinna’s cold-mending potion, instead of

his usual soda. Brinna grumbled while setting old towels under the newest leak in the

roof. “You spend so much time baking stuff to repair it, but it still leaks, and you’re

always chasing mice away from it, and I heard Gran talking about what the developer

would’ve paid you for the land. How come you don’t move?”

“Tradition,” Brinna answered without thinking.

“That’s what you say for a lot of things,” Tom pressed. “Really, why?”

“Tradition,” Brinna repeated, but she sent him home with extra gingerbread.

That winter was a harsh one. Brinna slipped while fixing her roof and took a bad

fall. She woke up in the hospital with one leg in a cast, aches all over, and a doctor

19
telling her sternly that she was much too old to fix roofs.

After the doctor left, Brinna noticed that someone else was still in the room – a

plump old woman with curly iron-gray hair and thick glasses. She looked vaguely

familiar. Her knitting needles clicked in rhythm regular as a heartbeat.

“Hello, there,” she said in a cheerful-but-firm voice. She looked right at Brinna,

without interrupting her clicking needles at all. “I’m Minnie Johnston, Thomas’s

grandmother. You’re going to come stay with us for a bit, until your leg’s better.”

“No,” said Brinna, even more firmly. She checked herself out of the hospital and

went home.

She was in the middle of brewing a bone-mending potion, and had not even

thought about gingerbread, when there was a knock at the door.

“Confound it,” she muttered — the potion had to be stirred, constantly, counter-

clockwise, until it reached 350 degrees. “Come in!” she hollered.

She heard the door open and close, and Tom stood in the kitchen doorway. He

looked angry. “Why didn’t you come stay with us?” he asked, without saying hello.

Brinna stopped stirring her potion. It gave off a puff of noxious green smoke, and

another of sparkling purplish-black ashes, and was ruined. “Confound it,” she

muttered. She tried to figure a way of getting the heavy pot to the sink while it was hot

and she was on crutches. “Curse and confound it…”

Tom went on. “I know Gran asked you. She made up the spare room and

20
everything!”

Brinna sighed and left the ruined potion where it was. “This is home. Besides, the

old place needs somebody to look after it.”

Tom stomped his foot hard enough to crack one of the peppermint tiles. “The old

place is about to come crashing down! What if the roof gets soggy enough to collapse?

What if the house blows over in a storm? What would’ve happened this time if it hadn’t

started snowing on the way home from school?”

Brinna realized who must’ve found her and called an ambulance. Then she

realized Tom was genuinely upset. His voice cracked, and tears welled up behind his

glasses. “I don’t want to lose anybody else!” he finished.

Brinna didn’t know what to do. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly, while Tom tried to

pretend he wasn’t sniffling. That didn’t quite seem to cover things, but Brinna

remembered something that might. She handed Tom a handkerchief. “Wait here a

moment.” She hobbled back to her own room and returned with a very old album

tucked under one arm. She bespelled the dust off, but couldn’t mend one corner that a

mouse had nibbled.

She opened it toward the back, to a page with a black-and-white photograph. “It

will make more sense going backwards. See? That’s me, long time ago. That’s my sister,

there’s my mum, there’s Dad before he vanished. That’s how the house looked, sixty-

odd years ago. Mum liked rounded shingles. Mum’s name was Brunhildegarde, as

21
well.”

She turned to the previous page and an older photograph. “There’s Mum, with

her mum and sisters. Grandmother Brunhildegarde had a secret recipe for spun-sugar

arches. You can see one, there, in the background.”

She turned to the previous page. “Here’s Grandmother Brunhildegarde, with her

parents. You can see that their gingerbread-trim was real gingerbread.”

She kept turning pages and introducing Tom to more generations of

Brunhildegardes and the gingerbread house. Photographs turned to illustrations that,

toward the beginning, were almost too faded to recognize. “That’s why I stay, Tom.

There has been a gingerbread house, and a witch named Brunhildegarde, on this spot of

land for four hundred twenty-three years. I don’t know what will happen to it, when

I’m gone.”

“That’s really cool. Thanks for showing me,” Tom said. His forehead wrinkled

up in thought. “The house has changed a lot,” he said. “All the Brun… um… all the

ones before you… changed it a lot, made it theirs. But you just changed the shingles.”

Brinna shrugged. “I’m not much for design.”

“What did you want to do?” Tom asked, his forehead still wrinkled in thought.

“When you were my age, what did you want to do?”

Brinna paused to consider. “I knew I’d stay here. I was the Brunhildegarde.”

“But what did you want to do? What do you want to do?”

22
 Brinna was rather taken aback. “Well… I’ve always liked baking. I’ve always

liked the big city. I might’ve studied to be a chef, maybe started a café of my own.”

Tom’s forehead unwrinkled. He grinned and kicked his feet happily against the

chair legs. “I’ve got an idea. I know you don’t want to stay with us, but will you come

to dinner? On Saturday, maybe?”

Brinna hesitated. Nothing in the rules, or in her own experience, proscribed how

to handle friendly neighbors. “If it’s all right with your Gran and Grumps,” she

answered.

“Great.” Tom smiled and stood up.

“Tom,” Brinna began, “you’ve asked a lot of questions today. May I ask you

one?”

“Sure,” Tom replied.

“Why did you keep coming back?”

Tom hesitated, and his forehead wrinkled up again. “Because we’re the same, I

guess. We’re both alone.”

Brinna raised her eyebrows. “Your Gran and Grumps take proper care of you,

don’t they?”

Tom smiled, but it was a small, sad smile that had no business on a child’s face.

“You don’t have to be by yourself to be alone,” he said. “See you Saturday.” And with

that, he left.

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 Saturday came, and, while Brinna enjoyed the meal, she walked away with more

food for thought.

After a couple of days, she called the developer who had been trying for the

better part of two decades to buy her land and set an appointment to meet him and

discuss conditions on Thursday.

Mr. Harold Dotsbrough, a down-to-earth fellow with gray hair cut short, arrived

precisely on schedule. Brinna ushered him into the parlor. “Shall we discuss my

conditions?” she asked.

Mr. Dotsbrough nodded warily—in years past, the conversation had dissolved

into Brinna’s best maniacal laugh at this point. But this time was different.

“First, I want it named after this place,” Brinna began. “Gingerbread Circle,

Gingerbread Lane, something like that. Second, I want the four plots with the enormous

old pines turned into a community park. I know, that lowers what you’ll pay me for the

land, but it increases the value of the community, and they’re the last bits of the old

forest. The trees stay. And third, I’d like you to preserve the look of the place.”

Mr. Dotsbrough looked relieved. “Done, done, and we were planning that,

anyway.” He pulled blueprints from his bag, designs for houses and townhomes. They

looked very familiar. Mr. Dotsbrough continued, “Our architects used old photographs

of this place for inspiration.”

Brinna nodded and smiled. “Then, as long as we can agree on a price, we have a

24
deal.”

Even minus the land for the park, Mr. Dotsbrough’s offer still seemed generous

to Brinna. She haggled it several thousand higher, just because she could. Two weeks

later, the contract was signed, and the deal was closed.

Brinna bought a place downtown, with a shop downstairs and a flat upstairs.

The roof did not have one single leak, and Brinna’s natural gas, stainless steel,

professional-grade oven fit perfectly in the back of the shop. Tom’s Gran and Grumps

helped Brinna navigate the maze of licenses and permits. In the evenings, while grown-

ups discussed Brinna’s new business, Tom sat in a corner, writing everything down.

Two months later, Brinna’s Bites opened for business and was an immediate hit.

The goth crowd raved over her décor. The health crowd adored her homeopathic

remedies. Young children clamored for her candies. Busy businesspeople stopped by

every afternoon for her pastries and coffee. And everyone who tried it loved her

gingerbread. The very busiest time of year was around Christmas, when everyone for

miles around wanted one of her fabulously ornate gingerbread houses to decorate their

holiday tables. Only Brinna and Tom knew that each house was modeled after one

generation or another of Brinna’s old gingerbread house.

One blustery evening that had the faintest hint of spring in the air, Brinna sat

down with a mug of tea and a tired but very contented sigh. Tom, who had been

sprawled across her new sofa (upholstered cushions were much more practical than

25
nougat ones, Brinna had decided), sat up eagerly.

“All done?” he asked.

“For today,” Brinna replied with a grin. “Shouldn’t you be heading home for

dinner?”

“Gran knows I’ll be late,” Tom replied. “I wanted to show you this.” He pulled

an envelope out of his pack.

Brinna squinted. The envelope had a fancy seal on its front and looked as though

it had been torn open with some gusto. Tom grinned sheepishly.

“I meant to wait and open it when the shop closed, but I couldn’t wait,” he

explained. “You remember all that stuff I was writing down, about how we came up

with Brinna’s Bites and what we all did to get it open and running?”

Brinna nodded. “I’d wondered what you were going to do with it all.”

“Well, I entered it in a contest for young entrepreneurs,” Tom continued. His

face broke into a huge smile, and he practically bounced across the room to hand the

letter to Brinna. “I won! I won it, Brinna!”

Brinna skimmed through the letter. “A full scholarship to Jeffries Memorial

Preparatory Academy! Oh, Tom!” Brinna surprised herself by pulling the boy into a

tight, grandmotherly hug.

Tom hugged her back. “It’s the best private school in the whole state,” he told

Brinna. “I’ll start in the fall.”

26
 Brinna surprised herself again by tearing up, just a tiny bit. “Does this mean

you’ll be going away?”

Tom shook his head. “The school is here in the city. I’ll still come every time it

rains.”

Brinna grinned. “I’ll have gingerbread waiting.”

Tom smiled and looked relieved. “I’m glad that won’t change.”

Some things did change when Tom started at his new school. He started wearing

school uniforms. He studied even harder and rose to the top of his class. He found time

to join an intramural sports team. Toward the end of his first year, he finally hit a

growth spurt.

True to his word, no matter how busy he got, whenever it rained, he appeared

like magic on Brinna’s doorstep, and Brinna always had gingerbread ready. As his

second year began, he started bringing friends with him.

That winter, before the usual card from her sister arrived, Brinna decided to send

some postcards, herself. On the front was printed a photograph of herself, Tom, Gran,

Grumps, Tom’s friends, Brinna’s employees, and a good crowd of customers who

wanted in on the fun. Each of them held their very own gingerbread house.

Brinna sent most of the cards to family and friends, but she kept one for herself

and carefully pasted it on the last empty page of the album.

27
 Maria S. Picone

Toronto Island Sunset

28
Mary Bast

Selkie

I had thought by some grave

misdemeanor to be doomed,
live as a selkie alone:
gentle shape-shifting,
uncanny eyes,

sometimes woman,
always mammal and lithe,
from my seal-skin crying
May no harm go with you:
Nar gabh olc ar bith agat.

Every seventh stream

I bask upon the shore,
yours the face I dream
when looking to the sun.

They say if you shed

seven tears at high tide
I will come to you
from Suleskerry,
and you have wept
a wave of poems.

If you coax me to your land,

if I slip off my coat,
will you hold it sweetly?
You, the pulse of my heart:
Ta tusa an chuisle mo chroi.

29
Bobbie Berendson W.

The Little Mermaid

30
Bridget Gage-Dixon

The Mermaid Remembers

But if you take my voice away…what is left of me?

For him I surrendered the sea, the peaceful cerulean depths,

my garden of red flowers fluttering with the flux of water.

I missed the echoing anthem of my home, the pledge recited on a tongue of kelp.
I listened to my sisters speak of the way it felt to split the surface,
the shocking thrust of air spilling over moist skin.

When I rose that first night, the moon streamed across

the white sails of his ship, music swelled the wooden
planks the storm would later shatter.

All night I bore his weight, traversed the waves

with his pale body pressed into my own,
looking for the safety the shore would offer him.

I offered up my voice, the song of sisters spinning on the surface,

broke the circle to seek the man who lived along the rocky coast, and though
I seemed familiar to him, mostly I was a silent shadow.

I crossed the sea beside him on his way to meet the bride his parents blessed,
mute as he told imprecise tales of my home, awash in air as
the sea’s gentle hum became a persistent thrumming in my ears.

Of course, he married her, I could raise no protest,

so when my shorn sisters appeared offering the witch’s blade,
I bore it all day in folds of my dress.

I even drew back the crimson curtain of their marriage tent,

certain I could do what was necessary to save myself,
but the stain of sun across his cheek, her dark hair spread

31
like tendrils on his chest, was enough to make me hurl the knife
into the brine, watch the water redden where it fell,
red droplets spurting up as it sank.

For him I surrendered myself to the sea,

to ride the turbulent steely spine of the surface,
my song the gasp and suckle of disappearing foam.

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 Liz Pulido

Man-Eating Mermaids Call after the Lost Boys

33
Elisa Pulido

Man-Eating Mermaids Call after the Lost Boys

Lost boys, fair as feasts, give us the sands

of your lives. You’re what we want, and we’re
the singing you hear. Come down, come here
to the water. Come give us your hands—

We’re Olympia and Olathe—

“Little Sister” spoils the math!
Leave that lady on the shore,
Come and live a little more . . .

We’ll show you our secrets and safe

in our arms, you’ll riot on razor-
sharp charm. Lost boys, come roil in splendor
with us—glimmering, emerald wraiths.

We’re Ottavia and Odette,

Trade your blonde for a brunette!
Leave that lady on the shore,
Come and live a little more . . .

34
 Liz Pulido

Wendy, Young Citizen of the Metropolis

35
Elisa Pulido

Municipal Employment Agent Mary Darling

Informs Wendy about Her Future Career

If I told you the Founders had assigned you

to a position in health care—

If I told you it’s a grand deception—

If I told you your life will be divided,

shared, no, donated without your permission—

If I told you the Founders are not ageless,

but wizened and failing and every year
find their elixir in a graduate
like you—smallish, young, a little bit wheezy—
not offering the Metropolis much
as a whole specimen, but the parts will do—

If I told you what no one else will tell you—

If I told you, your corneas will allow

the Chancellor to read, and your liver
will allow the Vice Chancellor to booze on,
and your marrow will replete the City’s
Highest (and surely most jaundiced) Provost—

If I told you Metropolitan police

are watching us, listening to us, and coming—

If I told you why I’m telling you—

If I told you that once you were mine,

and, though small and sometimes wheezy,
to me you are an amazement, a perfection—

36
If I begged you to save yourself as you are,
whole, free and unique,
would you flee the Metropolis?
would you run?

Run, Wendy! Please run!

37
 Michelle Hrvat

Viennese Ballerina

38
Katherine Simmons

LOST

Unwelcome dark, a bleak cold rain, obscure the homeward trail.

I must press on against the pelt of autumn’s sudden winter.
Shipwreck. No salvaged freight. My family fortune failed.
But look – ahead the fog unveils a faint uncertain glimmer.

With grit I heave against the pelt of autumn’s unfair winter.

I dream a castle on a rock, a fire-lit hearth, and feast.
Then in the haze the fog unveils a brief uncertain glimmer --
Warm light – a home, safe haven offered freely by a Beast.

Lit castle on a rock looms forth, a hearth like home, a feast.

Rest, old self, let fear release and sleep in warmth and peace.
A fire, a home and haven for me given by a Beast;
and in the morn I’ll journey home to daughters I must please.

My soul finds rest, for fear has fled. I sleep in peace,

while daughters pine for wealth’s bequest, entitlements of jewels.
And in the dawn I’ll start for home to daughters I must please,
and one who longs for me alone, and just one rose – whose sisters call her fool.

My daughters pine for wealth’s bequest, they covet gowns and jewels.
A ruined man, I fail to please. I go with empty hands.
But one longs most for me alive and just a rose. Her sisters call her fool!
Then, as I leave the Beast I see a rose, blessed flower of this strange land.

A ruined man, I’m scorned by most for feeble, empty hands!

I’ll pluck that rose -- it cannot harm, a single blossom steal.
A rose among enchanted vines, blessed fruit of this strange land!
Enraged by thieving, the Beast appears, sets forth a devil’s deal.

I take the rose -- it does no harm, a simple flower steal,

Its magic flows from Beauty’s grace, broad petals, soft and red.
Weighed down with grief, the Beast appears, demands the devil’s deal:
return I must in two weeks’ time, or a daughter in my stead!
39
Its beauty lies in Beauty’s eye – its petals, lush and red.
With wide deep grief and all hope lost, I mount my horse and ride.
Return I must in two weeks’ time, or Beauty in my stead!
Then soon I’ll face another loss -- my life or my dear child.

With broadest grief and hopeless cry, I mount my horse and ride.
At last I’m home. Collapsed with fear, I drop the stolen rose –
for soon I’ll face a deeper loss – my life or my own child.
I tell the tale – my shame unveiled – the trail of theft I chose.

At last come home, and weak with dread, I drop the stolen rose.
Shipwreck. No salvaged freight. My family fortune failed.
My whispered tale, deep shame unveiled, the sinful crime I chose.
Unwelcome dark and bleak cold rain erase the homeward way.

40
 Michelle Hrvat

Light on Schneeberg Mountain

41
 Lonely Eyes

By

Thalia Spinrad

Greg wasn’t sure where he was. Then again, that was hardly surprising given

that he had been blindfolded and carried a great distance during the last few hours.

During much of that time, he had been too frantic to think coherently. The

kidnapper had first snuck up behind Greg while he was studying for finals in the

cavernous recesses of the campus library. He had been pleased when he first heard the

footsteps, thinking they belonged to one of his friends, come to rescue him from the

purgatory of revisions.

But instead of being rescued, Greg soon found himself blindfolded and slung

unceremoniously over the shoulder of his kidnapper. Greg had given off a

bloodcurdling yell in the hopes that someone would notice that he was being abducted.

However, after only a minute or two, his throat began to get sore. Greg concluded that

his fellow students must have already called it a night, as no one could have missed his

scream piercing the prevailing silence of the library.

Giving up screaming did give Greg a great deal of time to reflect on his situation.

Other than hearing a periodic slight hiss, Greg couldn’t make out too much about the

environs through which the kidnapper was carrying him. However, after a few

42
minutes, he did feel the kidnapper step out from the library’s envelope of artificial heat

into the cool December night. As the kidnapper walked on, Greg wondered why he, of

all people, had been kidnapped. The thing was, Greg was unremarkable. He wasn’t the

kind of person whose unremarkability created a vacuum of remarkability that thereby

attracted adventure. He was surprised not exactly because something strange and

spontaneous had happened to him but rather because he did not understand why

someone would go through such an effort to kidnap him.

So he was curious enough that when his kidnapper placed him gently on a chair,

he was thinking more about what he would get to see when the kidnapper removed his

blindfold than about escape.

Yet as it transpired, the kidnapper did not remove his blindfold. A melodious

voice asked, “Would you like some tea? I’ve got a whole range of black and green and

quite a few varieties of herbal.”

Greg took a few moments to respond, as he thought at first that the voice—if it

was even the voice of his kidnapper and not some hallucination conjured up as a result

of the traumas of this bizarre day—must be talking to an accomplice. But when he

realized the voice was talking to him after all, he replied, “Do you have chamomile?” It

may not generally be a brilliant idea to accept sustenance from a kidnapper (they do

have a proclivity to be a bit light on the sugar, heavy on the poison) but he had worn

out his throat from screaming.

43
 Seeming to realize what the state of Greg’s throat must be, the voice asked, “Any

sugars? Honey?”

Greg went for the honey, and when he received his warm mug, he began to feel

if the situation had been slightly different, this experience would have been quite

pleasant. He could even feel warm licks of air and small crackles about him, a sure sign

of a homey fire.

The kidnapper began to question Greg about a variety of trivialities, even going

so far as to ask what board game he liked. Greg was, unsurprisingly, more interested in

figuring out why he had been kidnapped, but his kidnapper didn’t seem inclined to

divulge any information on the subject. After Greg had noted that his favorite board

game was chess, the kidnapper brought it out and they played, although Greg had to

play blindfolded—luckily chess is one of the only games that has a system designed for

such game play.

After passing a couple of hours in this manner, Greg found himself once again

being picked up. He figured that perhaps this had been the prelude to torture—maybe

the kidnapper was trying to gain his trust so that she could hurt him all the more easily

and thoroughly. But instead, the kidnapper carried Greg out into the cold again and

walked for approximately the same length of time as before. When they again entered a

building, Greg felt the familiar mustiness of his library surround him. Soon afterwards,

he was placed in the same study carrel from which he had been taken; he identified it

44
by running his hand along the graffiti—“Studying sux”—etched into its surface.

Upon being set down, Greg immediately put his hands to his blindfold, hoping

that a glimpse of his kidnapper would somehow give him an insight into the day’s

events. But the kidnapper grabbed his wrists and said, “You’ve got to wait until I’m

gone for that.”

The only plausible response to that statement—“Why?”—popped out of Greg’s

mouth before he even had time to think that it might be better to just do what the

kidnapper said and to remain as unscathed as he had been throughout this experience.

But the kidnapper seemed unperturbed by his impertinence, and simply

answered, “It’s lonely being a gorgon,” before wandering off and leaving Greg to his

own devices.

45
Wilda Morris

Becoming Medusa

Why, when my hair grew out,

did you call me Medusa
instead of Rapunzel?
I let my long locks loose
hoping you’d climb
to my tower. You spurned me,
refused to look into my eyes.
The writhing around my head
was not snakes, not anything
meant to harm you.
It was not I who turned you to stone.
Had you looked at my mirrored
countenance, you would have seen
my eyes were soft as my tresses.
Were my blood to drip
on your cold heart, I swear
it would heal, not poison.

46
Ruth Foley

Calypso

You were drowning—maybe we both

were drowning. If you believed in
faithful waiting, I could not dissuade you,
surf-stumbled, your tattered knees streaming.
We told ourselves we belonged to shallows
and other comfortable lies. I have a handful
of sticks and a thicket. Fashion a weapon
or an oar. If your stars no longer work
for navigation, I will give you mine. I won’t
remember anything before this island garden
you overturned. I will put a pin in the map
of wherever-we-are and circle it. In the sand
I will draw a compass rose and let the tide
erase it. It could be pointing to anywhere.

*In Greek myth, Calypso was the nymph who enchanted the mariner Odysseus to make him hers
forever, but then was forced by the Goddess Athena to let him go because he pined for his wife.

47
Bobbie Berendson W.

Snow White

48
 RAIN by Brent Danley Jones
Rain

rain is undeniable
it falls
it rises
down
up
but
and
gently
violently
finds the ground
scars the clouds
with the cold wind
from warm thermals
only to rise
only to fall
back up

in a cycle that repeats again and again and again and again and again

forming steam
turning to water
simmering on Earth’s crust
gravitating towards the Earth
gently
violently
before rising
before falling
up
down
in a cycle that repeats again and again and again and again and again

rain is with us
an ever changing presence
because it never asserts itself
entering without asking and falling on
presence itself
cannot be stopped
the rain that falls
shall rise once more
never really gone
presence is more than filling absence
rain is undeniable

49
 Rebecca Page

Dendritic Refraction

50
Sarah Sadie

Pumpkin Muffins

The kids and the gods all wait for me to wake up to myself.
One set wants pumpkin muffins, the other for me to realize
I’ve been insisting on the wrong trajectory for years.
Then the coffee kicks in and I learn that’s not true.
The gods would be happy with muffins, they say, and the kids
want me to be happy, to remember how to play.
The morning cracks open to mousetraps and furnaces,
the ditch fills with blossoming chicory, and I set
the timer again like a boundary, a far horizon.
Nutmeg and baking powder, what crucial creation
opens this can of pumpkin and oils the tins?
What kind of world? The first one tested bitter
with too much spice and not enough sugar, I worried,
but the kids said they were fine and smiling boarded the bus.

51
Tommy Ottley

Throne Room

52
Contributor Biographies

Mary Bast
Mary Bast writes poetry, found poetry, and creative nonfiction. Her poetry chapbook
Eeek Love and two found poetry collections – Unmuzzled, Unfettered and Toward the River
– are available at Amazon.com. A Wergle Flomp Humor Poetry Contest runner-up,
Mary’s work has been published in Bacopa Literary Review, Blue Monday Review,
Connotation Press, right hand pointing, Shaking Like a Mountain, Silver Birch Press, Six
Minute Magazine, Slow Trains, The Found Poetry Review, The Writing Disorder, Pea River
Journal, and Poetry WTF!? She’s also an Enneagram coach; author of seven nonfiction
books; and painter of landscapes, waterscapes, and animal portraits.

Lanette Cadle
Lanette Cadle is an associate professor of English at Missouri State University. She has
previously published poetry in Connecticut Review, NEAT, Menacing Hedge, TAB: The
Journal of Poetry and Poetics, and Weave Magazine. She is a past recipient of the
Merton Prize for Poetry of the Sacred.

Ruth Foley
Ruth Foley lives in Massachusetts, where she teaches English for Wheaton College. Her
work appears in numerous web and print journals, including Antiphon, The Bellingham
Review, The Louisville Review, and Nonbinary Review. Her chapbook Dear Turquoise is
available from Dancing Girl Press. She serves as Managing Editor for Cider Press
Review.

Bridget Gage-Dixon
Bridget Gage-Dixon spends her days teaching other people's children the importance of
novels, commas, and putting their phones away during class and her nights hunched
over a computer trying to spin the chaos inside her into verse. Her work has appeared
in New York Quarterly, Cortland Review, and several other journals.

Michelle Hrvat
Michelle Hrvat is an American living in Vienna, Austria. From growing up in a small
town in Connecticut, she jumped right in when it came to marrying her Austrian

53
husband and moving to a European city. A travel enthusiast, Michelle enjoys blogging
about her findings and discoveries of Vienna at: americaninvienna.com.

Brent Danley Jones

Brent Danley Jones is a graduate of Willamette University with a Bachelor of Liberal
Arts focusing in English and poetics. Originally from Salem, Oregon, he currently
resides near Tokyo in Japan, where he teaches English to JHS and ES students.

Robert A. Kaufman
Robert A. Kaufman graduated from Brown and served as a Fulbright Scholar in Oslo.
His poems have been featured in FD magazine and Fjords Review. Robert is currently a
MALS student at Dartmouth studying poetry.

Laura Lovic-Lindsay
Laura Lovic-Lindsay left Penn State University with a literature degree in hand in 1993,
having never written more than a few poems at that point. It was a dare and challenge
from her younger brother that made her try fiction -- sparks flew, angels sang, stars
shone brighter. A love was born. She has since won some fiction contests
(writerstype.com, writersweekly.com, Writing Success writers' conferences), had some
pieces accepted for publication (firesidefictioncompany.com, Boston Literary
Magazine). Laura lives and writes in an old farmhouse in a small Western Pennsylvania
town, but her heart roams realms both real and imaginary.

Heather Monson
Heather Monson writes technical nonfiction for a living and writes fiction when her
brain and fingers have words left in them at the end of the day. She also costumes,
quilts, crochets, and takes very long walks. She lives in Utah with her husband and
baby, and thinks the world of both of them.

Wilda Morris
Wilda Morris, Workshop Chair for Poets & Patrons of Chicago, is widely published in
print and on the Internet, recently appearing in After Hours, Whitefish Review, Cyclamens
and Swords, Voices on the Wind, Rockford Review, and The Avocet. Her book, Szechwan
Shrimp and Fortune Cookies: Poems from a Chinese Restaurant, was published by RWG
Press. Wilda has led poetry workshops at the Green Lake Conference Center, and in

54
schools and libraries. She is the author of Szechwan Shrimp and Fortune Cookies: Poems
from a Chinese Restaurant. Her blog at http://wildamorris.blogspot.com/ provides a
monthly contest for other poets.

Tommy Ottley

Tommy Ottley is a technical artist working in the Los Angeles area. If he's not fixing
your computer, he's taking pictures of some of the most underground bands and places
hidden in the heart of LA.
More pictures from Tommy Ottley at bearhorsestudio.com

Rebecca Page
Rebecca Page graduated with a degree in Social Work from Southern Connecticut State
University in 2012. She loves to take apart broken watches and jewelry to create
elaborate steam punk costumes. She uses crystals to create multifaceted,
multidimensional photography.

Maria S. Picone
Maria S. Picone is a writer, painter, and photographer who lives in Boulder, Colorado.
She studies fiction writing at Goddard College. She loves to volunteer and travel, most
recently having done both in a rural village in Cambodia. Her website is
mariaspicone.com, or you can follow her on Twitter @mspicone.

Elisa Pulido
Elisa Pulido's poems have appeared in many journals in the U.S., including River Styx,
The Ledge, The North American Review, The New Guard and RHINO iand in Interchange
and The New Welsh Review in the UK. She is an honorary member of Academi Cardiff, the
national literary society of Wales. She has an MFA in Writing from The School of the
Art Institute of Chicago. She is currently a writing a dissertation in Religious Studies at
Claremont Graduate University.

Liz Pulido

Liz Pulido graduated in from Brigham Young University with a BFA in illustration. She
recently finished her MFA show at the Maryland Insitute College of Art. Her
illustrations snap with color and life, reinvisioning old myths and characters. She also

55
designs textiles for a children's clothing company—Izzy and Ferd—that she runs with
her sisters. Follow her work at http://lizpulido.com.

Sarah Sadie
Sarah Sadie (Sarah Busse) blogs at Sermons from the Mound, on the pagan channel at
patheos.com. Also an editor (www.cowfeatherpress.org), her poetry received the
Wisconsin Fellowship Of Poets’ Chapbook Prize, the Council for Wisconsin Writers’
Lorine Niedecker and Posner Prizes, and a Pushcart Prize. Her collection, Somewhere
Piano, was published in 2012 by Mayapple Press. She has published a children's picture
book (Banjo Granny, Houghton Mifflin) and is at work on two more. She teaches at the
University of Iowa Summer Writing Workshop and online at the Loft. One of two Poets
Laureate (2012-2016) of Madison, she lives with her husband and children and writes
#sexyvoterhaiku.

Katherine Simmons
Katherine Simmons was born and raised in Indiana, but spent much of her adult life in
New York. A practicing lawyer, she recently returned to her native state where she has
had the good fortune to encounter other poets from whom to learn and with whom to
share the art. She has three grown daughters and enjoys Indiana woodlands, her
Australian Shepherd, the changing seasons, and oatmeal sourdough bread.

Thalia Spinrad
Thalia is a college student who hopes to live a life that can't be encapsulated in a brief
biographical statement, though as of yet, she doesn't know what sort of life that will be.

Bobbie Berendson W.
Bobbie Berendson W. is a student of art, culture, history, and is a live-long observer of
the world. She strives to bring a sense of fun to everything she does, especially
illustration. She specializes in pen & ink in the fantasy, horror, and Victorian
steampunk genres with a lot of love put into illustrating bones, costumes and dresses.
She lives in Utah with a house full of family, friends, felines, and one very crowded
studio. And she wouldn't have it any other way.

Laura Madeline Wiseman

Laura Madeline Wiseman is the author of twenty books and chapbooks and the editor
of Women Write Resistance: Poets Resist Gender Violence (Hyacinth Girl Press). Her recent

56
books are Drink (BlazeVOX Books), Wake (Aldrich Press), The Bottle Opener (Red
Dashboard), and the collaborative book The Hunger of the Cheeky Sisters (Les Femmes
Folles) with artist Lauren Rinaldi. Her work has appeared in Prairie Schooner, Margie,
Mid-American Review, and Feminist Studies.

57