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opportunities + community events

sparkle + blink 110
© 2021 Quiet Lightning

cover art © Stuart Robertson

conalyn.com

“My Boyfriend Steve” by Naomi Rosenthal

is an excerpt from the novel Missing Insects (NaoMinRose, 2011)
“Do Not Be Alarmed” by Carol Dorf
first appeared in Maintenant 2020
“To Your Assailant Who Attacks Us All” by Michael Warr
first appeared at twolanguagesonecommunity.com and in Poetry
Planetariat Number 5, Summer 2020
“That Kind of Famous” by Carol Dorf
first appeared in The Marsh Hawk Review, Spring 2021
“地圖” by Chun Yu was published in Xinhua Daily.
The poem was published in both English and Chinese in Poem of
the Day (San Francisco Public Library)

set in Absara

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quietlightning.org
su bmit @ qui e tl i g h tn i n g . o r g
 Contents
curated by
Kevin Dublin + Antony Fangary
featured artist
Stuart Robertson | conalyn.com

Rohan DaCosta Somewhere in this Town 1

Naomi Rosenthal My Boyfriend Steve 7
Carol Dorf Do Not Be Alarmed 13
Siamak Vossoughi One Night in College 17
Lauren Ito As Solace Wilts 23
Michael Warr To Your Assailant 25
Translated by Chun Yu 致攻擊你們的人 27
Dawn Angelicca Barcelona Asian Girl Wants to See 29
Emily Dezurick-Badran Ghosts 31
Carol Dorf That Kind Of Famous 35
Sally Love Saunders I Need Couples Counseling 37
Siok-Hian Tay-Kelley Cracking 39
Charles Kruger Poem Written... 41
Alexander Laurence Black and White Playground 43
Nick Plett Hitting Refresh... 45
Genie Cartier Notes from the Cave, 2021 47
Sara Biel Beanie Face 51
Paolo Bicchieri for 48 hours I get phone calls 53
Sara Biel The Day After 55
Carolyn Wilsey ....art deco landscapes... 57
Andrew Paul Nelson Matutinalis 59
...the award for best dream... 63
Chun Yu The Map 67
地圖 69
Lauren Parker Love Like a Swamp 71
Mojave 73
Mary Gayle Thomas Love Poem Two Decades Later 75
Leah Mueller Somewhat More Than Zero 77
 g is sponsor
et Lightnin ed b
Qu i y
 Quiet Lightning
A 501(c)3, the primary objective and purpose of Quiet
Lightning is to foster a community based on literary
expression and to provide an arena for said expression. QL
produces a bimonthly, submission-based reading series on
the first Monday of every other month, of which these
books (sparkle + blink) are verbatim transcripts.

Formed as a nonprofit in July 2011, the QL board is currently:

Evan Karp executive director

Meghan Thornton treasurer
Kelsey Schimmelman secretary
Connie Zheng art director

Anna Allen Christine No

Lisa Church Sophia Passin
Chris Cole Tom Pyun
Rhea Dhanbhoora Katie Tandy
Kevin Dublin Edmund Zagorin

If you live in the Bay Area and are interested in

helping—on any level—please send us a line:

e v an @ qui et light nin g . o rg

 help us invest in a sustainable
e t hi c a l a r t s ecos ys t em

Support us on Patreon
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t h a n k y o u t o o u r pat r o n s

yvonne campbell sophia passin

sage curtis tom pyun
rederica morgan davis monica rocha
linette escobar jessie scrimager
chrissie karp
jon siegel
miles karp
katie tandy
ronny kerr
charles kruger meghan thornton
jennifew lewis emily wolahan
shannon may edmund zagorin
catherine montague connie zheng
 han DaCosta
Ro
So mew
h e re in t his T o w n
Somewhere in this town there is a sideshow that
nobody can see
Yet the fumes are insufferable and the screeching is
unrelenting

Somewhere in this town there is an uncle

Sweating out half a can of O E
Shouting “Naw! Let them fight!”

This town is what the cat dragged in

Somewhere in this town there is a bowl of fruit

spilling over
Spray painted on the wall of a crowded underpass
Right between the tents

Somewhere someone is praying for abundance

I thought of manufactured scarcity

When one of the twins came to my front gate
telling jokes

1
“You wanna know why all the McDonalds around the
world strugglin’?”
A smile creeps across my face
“Why?”
“Cuz there’s only one Mac left.”
“Man if you don’t get from my yard talkin’ that
nonsense” I say unable to conceal my laughter

Somewhere in this town there is a community

garden
Begging to be set loose

Somewhere in this town there is enough to go

around

Somewhere in this town

The Isley brothers is carried on a breeze
Fluttering past the kente cloth and obsidian
A sensual agenda pollinated by a black man of a
particular age
Cruising on a motorcycle of a particular make

Someone in this town just said “Make a left on Huey

P. Newton Way”

Somewhere in this town a precious baby finds their

way home

2 R oh an Da C o s ta
By searching for the house with the women panthers
lifting their voices and raising their fists

This town is what the cat dragged in

Somewhere in this town a man sits ashy and naked

on the top of the NL bus to the city
OPD tries to talk him down
“Gangsta Party” plays in a car nearby

Somewhere in this town

Iridescent boys on dirt bikes
Weave like schools of fish
Past the boarded up shops and protest murals

Somewhere in this town a woman is telling her

friend
That every time a man looks at her
She feels like she is being pulled over

Somewhere in this town an Asian elder is being

protected
Because somewhere in this town there is still
strength in numbers

Did you know that there are over 15,000 vacant units
in this town right now?

Roh an Da Costa 3
Did you know that there are over 4,000 homeless
people in this town right now?

Somewhere in this town the mayor is eating an Oreo

With a napkin tucked inside her collar
She unlocks the magic
And discards the chocolate that holds it together

But somewhere in this town there is a parade just for

black joy

Somewhere in this town the Black Woman is God

Somewhere in this town God Almighty is a Mom 4
Housing

Did you know that you can get yourself one of them
new fancy studios on Broadway for $2,200 a
month?

Somewhere in this town there is an artist on a

scaffold
Threatening to say the quiet part out loud

Somewhere in this town hella can’t begin to describe it

Born cross-faded
Raised too vibrant
Out of night bursts a sweet defiance

4 R oh an Da C o s ta
This town goes hyphy to keep from dying

Somewhere in this town the needle drops on Randy

Crawford’s “Raw Silk”
As two lovers moan over the sounds of a sideshow
that neither of them can see

Roh an Da Costa 5
 o mi Rosentha
Na l
M y B o y f ri e n d St e v e

Before we started hitchhiking across Africa, I had

already had some adventures of a different kind with
Steve. We had stumbled into each other in early 1968,
and ignoring warnings from concerned friends, we
were soon a campus couple.

After his father bought himself a new car, he gave

Steve the old one. Steve was very happy, but not as
happy as his friends at SUNY Stony Brook, for now
they wouldn’t have to chauffeur him around anymore.
He was constantly on the go, and always persuading
someone to pick him up here, give him a ride there,
just one more trip into the city, etc.

But actually, now that he had the car, the problems

were just starting. First, he was a terrible driver, and
second, he was always misplacing his car. He not only
forgot where he had parked it, he couldn’t remember
what it looked like. Both problems stemmed from his
terrible absentmindedness. He’d forget what he was
doing, start talking to his friends in the car, forget the
road and … crash. He got into so many accidents that
soon his car was covered with big dents. This was
an advantage, however, for it helped him with his
second problem, locating his misplaced car. “I just
look for a car that’s the most smashed looking, and
that’s mine,” he’d say.
7
Fortunately, he had not been involved in any serious
accidents. Still, I was becoming uneasy. I’d always
have to remind him to watch the road. One time, he
was talking animatedly at me sitting next to him, and
I noticed that we were coming to a T intersection,
with the road ending ahead as it branched to the
left and right at the foot of a grassy hill. Steve’s head
was turned towards me and I wondered what would
happen if I didn’t say anything. Well, sure enough,
he was so engrossed in what he was saying that he
didn’t notice. He just kept going straight off the road,
straight up the hill. He didn’t notice until we drove
into a tree. Fortunately, the steep ascent had cut our
speed to a crawl. After that I decided not to ride with
him anymore.

Another aspect of his absentmindedness was that he

was always losing stuff, leaving his books and things in
his various classrooms and the cafeteria. Also, he had
a hard time distinguishing between what belonged to
him and what belonged to others. If he went to visit a
friend, he was more likely than not to leave with his
friend’s jacket, and leave his own behind. This he did
unconsciously, for he was seldom aware of what his
things looked like.

You may wonder why, with these faults, he had so many

loyal friends. Well, he had many endearing qualities
also. One was that he wrote his friends’ English papers.
He loved to string words together, whether orally or
in writing. It was a pleasure to watch him write. He
had no need of making a rough draft. He just sat at a
typewriter, the keys raining down steadily without a
break while sheet after completed sheet drifted to the

8 N aomi R os e n t h a l
floor. He had incredibly long fingers, and the fact that
he had played violin since he was seven had given them
a life of their own. Thus he was a very fast typist. He
told how he would walk into secretarial employment
agencies looking for a summer job. The receptionist
and all those coifed and polished girls would look
askance at his long hair and bell bottoms. But then it
would be time for the typing test. “I’d leave all those
girls far behind, for I can type up a storm, and I’d get
the best paying job.”

Because he was always losing things like his textbooks,

he had to constantly replenish his supply by stealing
from stores, and this he did easily, for his long, quick
fingers helped him develop this into an art. He seldom
walked out of a store without something he hadn’t
paid for hidden somewhere on him; sometimes it
would be a half dozen books or records stuffed against
the back of his jacket, sometimes just a little trinket
up his sleeve. He would often be surprised at what he
found later in his pockets. He never kept anything he
stole. He either gave it away or quickly lost it again.

His most memorable theft happened just after his

grandmother died. He had been very close to Nana,
for it was she who had raised him. His mother had
emotional problems and had been unable to care for
him much of the time. I had met Nana. She was very
old, and hunchbacked since childhood.

“She always wanted me to massage her hump, since I

was little, for it hurt her,” he said. “I’m so glad I did
that for her.” He came back to my dorm from the
funeral, red-eyed and holding an enormous bouquet of

Naomi Rose nt h a l 9
 beautiful flowers. He had gathered them from nearby
graves. “Flowers should be for the living,” he said,
holding them out to me.

Steve lived in the dorm next to mine, with a roommate

named Bob. Steve and Bob were good friends, and got
along in most ways except one. Bob was very neat and
finicky about his clothes and possessions, while Steve
was sloppy and careless to an extreme. They resolved
this discrepancy by dividing their room straight down
the middle. While this was a working compromise, Bob
was always anxious about the chaos that seemed to be
forever on the verge of overflowing onto his territory,
while Steve had to constantly fight the temptation of
trampling onto the pristine purity that beckoned from
Bob’s side.

One day I came over just as Bob was leaving to go to a

chemistry lab class. “Look, Steve,” said Bob, “I just put
clean sheets on my bed. The bedspread is still in the
dryer, so don’t sit on my bed, you hear? Just stay off it!”

Steve assured him that he had nothing to worry about,

but as soon as the door closed, Steve eyed Bob’s snow-
white sheets hungrily.

“C’mon, let’s do it on his bed,” he murmured as he

pulled me towards Bob’s side of the room.

“But Steve, you know he just told you to leave his bed
alone!” I protested.

“It’ll be better on his bed,” Steve insisted. “I’ll be

careful. He’ll never find out.” No matter how I tried to

10 N aomi R os e n t h a l
maneuver him onto his own bed, Steve had his heart
set, and we wound up on his roommate’s virginal
sheets. I must say there was something to Steve’s claim,
for sex on Bob’s bed really was fantastic. Afterwards,
we fell into a deep, satisfied sleep.

I awoke a couple of hours later to the familiar cramps

that always signaled the beginning of my period. I
checked, and sure enough, there was a bright red stain
on the sheet. Immediately realizing the implications, I
jumped up, threw on my clothes and shook Steve awake.
“Get up,” I yelled, pointing out the spot. “I’ll throw the
sheet into the washer so it’ll be clean when he gets back.”

“No time,” said Steve, looking at the clock. “He’s due

back any minute.”

“But Steve, he’ll be furious when he sees what we did to

his clean sheet.”

Realizing that something had to be done, Steve grabbed

a thick black wax pencil from Bob’s desk, the kind used
to mark laboratory glassware, and with a few wide
marks covered the bloody part completely so that it was
now a big black spot instead. “There,” he said, “you can’t
see it anymore.”

I looked incredulously at what he had done. “Now it’s

worse,” I screamed at him. “You’ve made it even more
noticeable and impossible to wash out.” Noting the
logic of my words, Steve decided to end the problem
once and for all. A pair of scissors suddenly appeared
in his hand and before I could stop him, he had cut out
the black spot.

Naomi Rose nt h a l 11
I stared aghast at the hole. “You’ve completely ruined
his sheet. He’ll kill you.”

Again Steve had to concede that I was right. But he

didn’t panic. Instead he went over to his own bed and
cut a hole in his sheet, the same size as the one in Bob’s
sheet. He put the scissors away and had just finished
putting on his clothes when Bob walked in the door.

“Look at that!” announced Steve indignantly. “Some

joker cut holes in our sheets while we were out. I bet
it’s that smart-aleck Harvey next door. He’s always
playing these stupid practical jokes.”

Bob was so upset and angry at Harvey that he didn’t

notice my inadequate attempts at a straight face or the
muffled choking sounds that escaped as I hurriedly
left their room.

12 N aomi R os e n t h a l
 l Dorf
Caro

D o N ot Be Alar m e d

The irrelevant will follow like urchins biting through

sea stars when the tide withdraws
Once I went out so deep on the rocks a sneaker wave
flipped me over

At the time I was staying with people I can barely

remember
and I have no idea what became of any of them

This could be called interrupted narrative

That is a slight exaggeration

Only about half a foot of sea level rise in the last

hundred years so
the tidepools will be moving on just like all
the rest of us

My actual friend from those days is no longer

a friend despite
the times we walked her dog and my baby
around Lake Merritt

13
We couldn’t stop to watch the pelicans (though I
could describe them to you)
because a dog is a dog after all

She had to put that dog (or was it the next?) down
after it bit a child,
not mine, Thank God

In any case, in terms of tidepools, while the kelp

sways
and the crabs are in constant motion, you stop

That dog would be dead no matter what now, and

that child is in her own apartment –
the friend, I don’t really know though I ran into her
sister in front of the pet food store

How many of them, friends of the moment in that

house by the sea
that weekend are here by which I mean breathing

It takes me two sticks to get down near the tidepools

which
is not the kind of detail you are supposed to admit to
in a poem

14 C a r ol Dor f
the way the naked body of a lover does belong in the
poem’s center
no matter how you measure the tides or the heat or
the rising waters

Ca rol Dorf 15
 m ak Vossoug
Sia hi
O n e Ni
g h t in C o l l e g e

Hamed and I were walking back from the fields and

up ahead among the fraternity and sorority houses we
saw Ben Upshaw. It was getting dark but we could see
him pausing and looking at the houses as he walked.

I called out to him.

“Hi Keyvan! Hi Hamed!”

It was only October but we could see our breath.

“What do you think?” he said. He pointed at the house

he stood in front of. “It looks like a good place to be
lonely in, doesn’t it?”

“To hell with that,” I said. I felt good from the game.
And the walk from the park. Down at Ravenna it was
me and Hamed, and everybody else was a graduate
student. We were young men of the city walking home,
and the university was far away.

“I think it looks like a very nice place to be lonely in,”

Ben said. “I can picture some good lonely nights. Of
course the Teke house is good for loneliness too. All
that brick. What do you think? Is brick lonelier or
wood?”

17
I was disgusted but I liked him too, and underneath all
that I had a fear that he might be right.

“You want lonely? You should live at home with your

parents like I did last year,” Hamed said.

“You’re right. I’m a coward. I want a safe loneliness.”

“Never mind that stuff,” I said. “We were down at

Ravenna. It was beautiful. We played three games and
won one. Now we’re going home. There are things to
get good at besides loneliness.”

“I never had sports,” Ben said. “Not like you guys. When
I join a house, maybe they’ll stick me on some B team.
Who cares?”

“What’ll you play?” Hamed said.

“Who knows? Football?”

“That’s no way to talk about football,” I said.

“I’m sorry,” Ben said. “I tried. I really did. I tried it in the

dormitories, but my loneliness wasn’t even interesting
to me anymore. At least I’ll know what my loneliness
is made of here. All these houses must have one guy
who’s lonely here, don’t you think? They do look like
very nice places to be lonely in. It’s nice to be sitting
in a big room with a book being lonely and see some
people come in.”

All of a sudden the game seemed far away. I’d made

some nice plays and I’d figured I’d hold them in my

18 S i a ma k Vo s s oug h i
head till Thursday at the park again. But I didn’t feel
like holding them anymore.

“It’s not so bad,” Ben said. “I didn’t know before. I

didn’t know it was good to choose the place you were
going to be lonely in. You’re going to have to design
your own loneliness, it looks like. That’s the only way
I can figure it. Might as well pick a nice-looking place
to be lonely, don’t you think? Nice-looking places are
the loneliest because your loneliness there is a surprise
to the people around you.”

I had to admit, he made a case for it. I looked up at

the fraternity house and it did seem like a nice place
to be lonely. The dream of being lonely there was
very close to the dream of a girl who had joined a
sorority house because it looked like a nice place to
be lonely to her. Loneliness would recognize loneliness
in a neighborhood where you weren’t expected to be
lonely at all.

“What do you think?” Ben said.

“They all look pretty lonely to me.”

“They do, don’t they?”

“Never mind this stuff,” Hamed said. “You don’t have to

go for any of it.”

“I’m a coward, Hamed,” Ben said. “I want my loneliness

to be seen.”

“That’s not loneliness then,” Hamed said.

Si a ma k Vossou gh i 19
“I know. That’s the worst part of it. I know already
that I want a group of pretty girls to come in with a
bunch of the guys who live in this house and say, why’s
he always sitting by himself with a book? It’s sad to
already know that. It’s sad and pathetic to already
know that and to still do it. But they won. The pretty
girls and the guys they’re coming in with already won.
All you have to do is look up and down this street to
see that they already won. I have to figure out what
I’m going to do in a world where they won.”

“You think they won?” Hamed said.

“Look at this street,” Ben said. “You think each one of

these houses is just a house? You think each one is just
the guys who live here now? They each go back a long
way. They run the world, these houses. I have to get
used to being lonely there if they run the world.”

“Let them run it,” I said. Whatever his case was, it

wasn’t so good that I wanted to sound defeated. Even
with the girl who’d joined a sorority for a nice place
to be lonely.

“It’s just college,” Hamed said. “The world is too big for
fraternities.”

“That’s what I thought,” Ben said. “But that’s all the

world is. That’s all it is in one form or another. Maybe
I’ll find a spot for myself if I start now. Maybe they
want to have one guy who’s sitting by himself with a
book so they can say, okay, that’s what loneliness is too.
Somebody has to remind them, don’t you think?”

20 S i a ma k Vo s s oug h i
I was too disgusted to say anything.

“Don’t do it,” Hamed said. “Don’t do it if you’re just

going to be lonely.”

“Thanks, Hamed,” Ben said. “You’re a good guy.”

We said goodbye and he went to look at a few more

houses to see how his loneliness might fit.

“I feel sorry for white people,” Hamed said.

“Me too,” I said. “What if he’s right though?”

“Ah, forget it.”

“Maybe he’s right that we should figure out how to be

lonely among them.”

“I know how to be lonely among them. I’ve been doing

that my whole life.”

“Ha ha. Me too.”

“That’s why I feel sorry for him. He could’ve asked us.

He could have said - you two have been brown your
whole life, what’s the secret to being lonely around
white people? That’s why I feel sorry for him. Every
one of them thinks they’re the first one. Some of them
end up walking around the fraternity houses and
looking at them like which one seems like the best
one to be lonely in. That’s all we’ve been doing. That’s
all we’ve been doing anyway, whether we’re walking
around out here or not.”

Si a ma k Vossou gh i 21
“We have, haven’t we?” I said.

“Of course we have.”

“It would be terrible to discover your loneliness and

think that it was only yours.”

“That’s why I feel sorry for him.”

I felt good again. I thought of the nice plays I’d made

today, and I thought I could hold them in my head till
Thursday, and probably beyond.

22 S i a ma k Vo s s oug h i
 Lauren Ito

As Solace Wilts

Today sorrow has no bones left to cling to

I collapse
Haunted by cries of those I’ll never meet
Yet whose lineages of horror
Braid deeper into mine

We join our ancestors’ screams

For a future not paved in

Snapped bones,
averted gazes
Page Act of 1875
9066
Madam Butterfly
elders’ heads cracked open on
street corners,
a father with his sons ages
3 and 6–all
stabbed in a Sam’s Club
buying rice
6 Asian women murdered in a spa in Atlanta...

23
That first visit to Golden Gate Park I was followed
Called “chink”
Told to “get the fuck out of this country or I’ll make
you...”
Two stone faced cops later asked me,
“What did you do to provoke this man?”
“No police report will be filed today,” they said.

That evening a friend told me it was illegal for any

officer to deny a person the right to file a police
report.
I cried.

How many gravestones until someone sees us?

I tuck a different future between my ribs

Reminding myself it, too breathes, sacred
Even on days like today

As solace wilts like tissue paper in the rain.

24 L aur e n I t o
 hael Warr
Mic

—Wh T o Y o u r Ass ail a n t

o Atta r e ss )
c k s U s A l l ( A R a n t in P r o g

translated by Chun Yu

Do you call yourself God-fearing?

Devoted to “do on to others”?
Does your God condone your violence?
Your ignorance?
Your corruption?
Does your God hate your neighbor?
Like you do?
Does your God share your love
For Prophets bearing “false witness”
Fueling your grievance fever?
Do you swallow the lies they regurgitate?
Do you really need a reason?
Are you truly a True Believer
of both God and Golden Calf?
Does the All-Knowing know you?
Do They love you as you are?
Does it matter that They are watching
Your naked depravity?
Do you pray before you prey
On innocents in this guilty world?
Do you have your God’s blessing?
Or are you as Godless as you seem?
Did your father teach you
to beat, demean, and maim?

25
 Is he proud of your cowardice?
Does your mother say “well-done son”?
Did they train you in backwardness?
Do you feel bigger in your smallness?
Content with acts of uselessness?
Is your inner bully seething still
beneath your concealed surface?
Are you comforted in your criminality?
Stupefied by “superiority”?
Simply insane? Or lost?
Who are you?

26 M i c h a e l Wa rr / 翻譯：俞淳
 邁克爾·沃爾

—他 致攻擊你們的人 哮)
們 也在攻 的咆
擊我們所有人 (個正在進行中

翻譯：俞淳
你自稱敬畏上帝嗎？
你致力于“己所不欲，勿施于人”嗎？
你的“上帝”寬恕了你的暴力？
你的無知？
你的腐敗嗎？
你的上帝像你這樣仇恨你的鄰居嗎？
你的上帝會認同你的
帶著“假見證”
讓你的憤怒不平不斷發燒的
所謂的“先知”的愛嗎？
你吞下他們反複口吐的謊言嗎？
你真的需要理由嗎？
你是你的神和金牛犢真正的信徒嗎？
你那全知的神認識你嗎？
他們會愛這樣的你嗎？
你在乎他們看著你赤裸的墮落嗎？
在襲獵這個有罪的世界上的無辜者時你祈禱嗎？
你有上帝的祝福嗎？
還是像你看起來那樣沒有上帝？
你的父親教你去攻擊，貶低，和殘害他人嗎？
他會爲你的怯懦感到驕傲嗎？
你的母親會說“幹得好兒子”嗎？
他們訓練你倒退落後了嗎？
你卑鄙渺小時感到更強大嗎？
你滿足于自己無益的行爲嗎？
隱藏在你的表面下的惡霸還在沸騰嗎？
你在被“優越性”麻木了的犯罪中受到了安慰嗎？
是瘋了？還是迷路了？
你是誰？
27
 elicca Barc
Ang el
n on
aw ASIAN GIRL ANTS TO SEE a
D W

I am short / like the dirty fingers of your hand / I am

infantilized / I am fetishized / I am bold like a brush
stroke / I am ornamental like a holiday / I am the
seasoning to your longing / langka / laaing / bangus
/ bagoong / sinigang / sisig / kamayan / You say / “you
come from conquistadors” / the product of rape / the
product of imperialism / the product of pity / The
ships were sailing in from all directions / to mail
our women as brides to be / I was born and bred in
this country / You say / “you don’t have an accent” / I
wonder which one you were expecting / My parents
pushed me away / with their absence / The Balikbayan
box sits in our living room / I fell on my face so I could
wait for them at home / My scarred lip needed balm /
so my dad mailed it / without coming home / I asked
for a toy / on the phone / my dad asked / “what kind
of toy?” / I thought he should know by now / When
he came back / I looked for my surprise / he pulled
out a doll / a baby with a bottle / I was confused /
why didn’t it look like me? / It was before I visited his
home country / I thought brown skin was beautiful /
but suddenly it wasn’t / Later I went to a warehouse
/ my mom, my sister / and our nanny / who wasn’t
supposed to be in this country / Mom said / “get
whatever you want” / so we ran through the aisles /
she got a raise / I only knew limits before that day / I

29
remember the taste of the minty chocolate sticks / the
beaded necklaces / princess tiaras / pink bubblegum
tape / I felt lucky / carrying two trash bags to our car
/ stuff that was finally ours / When we all lived like
a family again / I got introduced to the casinos / I
recognized roulette and black jack / I saw the fishnet
tights of the cocktail girls / my dad felt lucky / enough
/ to lose what my mom made / I saw old white ladies
in wheelchairs / smoking in the non-smoking section
/ they were also losing / our skin was not the same / I
wanted to be Italian / I wanted to be Irish / I wanted
to be Polish / I wanted to change my last name / get
rid of our oppressors / I wanted to lighten my skin /
lighten my hair / blend in with the crowd / I wanted
to find my mom / lost in the quarters sinking deep
into slot machines / I wanted to find my dad / and
see if we were winning / I wanted to be seen / and
when I wasn’t / I learned to be alone / alone / alone /
when I was alone / and lonely / you’d be surprised by
what I could see / now my eyes are wider than you’ll
remember / there are thousands of us gathering / in
Antioch / New York / San Jose / in this country / we
know home / we know ourselves / My dad is from
Manila / My mom is from Cebu / I am an American

What are you?

30 Dawn An g e l i cc a Ba rce lona

 Dezurick-Bad
ily ra
Em n
G h o sts

So recently I found this album called ghost painting. It’s

by this guy from Berkeley called Onix Dawn who raps
about urban tunnels, diamonds, and the Latin names
of flowers. On ghost painting his songs are told from
the point of view of a ghost with ptsd. As a ghost
Onix follows his friends through the dark slats of
their lives trying to find someone to haunt but every
time he finds out they’re already haunted. He is like a
balloon with no static in that he has trouble attaching
to things. As a ghost he is mainly sexually attracted to
the space in doorways. I am in real life romantically
excited when I see people I’m attracted to reflected
in windows or mirrors or in a square on my phone.
But when I look directly at him/her/them/et cetera it
becomes unbearable and that’s not another word for
sexy, either. The bad thing about being a ghost is that
you can’t touch anything. The good thing about it is
that nothing can touch you.

I want to wear an Onix Dawn t-shirt but I’m not sure

I can get away with it. The only t-shirt there is has no
album cover or Onix on it just white block letters that
say black castle. Is that a joke about burgers? But
he’s not even from the Midwest. Anyway I might be
too white to wear the shirt. I’m not all white, but
usually people think I am. What I mean is I might

31
not be Black enough to wear the shirt because I’m not
Black at all. I am kind of a no one person. Some people
own a whole backpack of history and that’s how they
know who they are. My backpack is empty or maybe
full of locked boxes. Everyone who can open those
boxes is dead except my mom and my mom is just not
a talker. If you wonder what it’s like to have a history
you don’t understand I will tell you it’s like holding an
empty glass at a party. If you call what you are being
Syrian or Lebanese then people act like you have a
drink in the glass. Sometimes they act like they made
you the drink, too. But Syrian didn’t mean the same
thing when my people immigrated in 1919. I’d tell you
more but that’s all I have in my glass.

I can’t stop listening to ghost painting. In it Onix says

he feels like a space around a space, which is how I feel
too. He says the life he’s lived has made him invisible,
but if you build a city out of glass then drones can’t
ever see it to strike. Meanwhile you’re inside hundred
miles up drinking glass champagne. It’d kill a mortal
person but you learned to eat the pain. That’s kind of
how it goes, anyway. Actually he drops the last “ain”
sound in “champagne” so it’s kind of a joke. Like a
ghost rhyme. I don’t think Onix Dawn made these
songs for me so I don’t know if I always understand
what he’s saying, but I feel it to the bones.

I think I saw Onix Dawn last week on bart. He

looked just like his pictures on the internet: dark-
skinned with two braids of dreads that make a round
frame for his moon face. His fingernails were peachy
with a black stripe like the hand on his album cover
that holds a piece of mirror up to a toy moon. The

32 E mi ly De z ur i c k - Ba dran
train screamed on the tracks. I looked sideways and
asked Onix Dawn if he was Onix Dawn. He said no,
but when I looked at his reflection in the glass he was
smiling. I guess I wasn’t so surprised he wouldn’t say
who he was. On ghost painting Onix Dawn has this line
about how if white people look for him in public he’ll
just disappear.

I said I understood he wasn’t Onix Dawn but if he saw

Onix Dawn, could he tell him that his music gets into
my bones. That as a ghost I appreciate an album made
for ghosts by ghosts.

“Thanks,” said the man who supposedly wasn’t Onix

Dawn, “he appreciates it.”

He stood and got off in the crowd at West Oakland

and an older Chinese lady with a toddler took his seat.
Soon we dipped deep underground. The bay was far
over our heads. The toddler fell asleep and sprawled
sideways out of the woman’s lap. The glass was black
on every side. Together we were cutting through
the strange water of history, riding on the knife of
the present. I looked at the reflections of the all the
people, one by one, their faces floating in the dark of
the tunnel under the water. I fell in love with each one
of their ghosts, but I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to
look any of them full in the face.

Emi ly De zu ri ck- Ba dran 33

- SET 2 -
 l Dorf
Caro

That Kind Of Famous

My neighborhood is famous
for its abundance
of streetlights

Interrupted nights
fold into each other – who am I
to complain, to speak?

First you are

Cassandra
then events catch up

Rarely can it be said

that your risk is my risk
my dear

Here, crows
space themselves evenly
on overhead wires

Even more in this era

in sickness or in health
reverberates

35
 Love Saund
ly er
S al s

CoupleIs Neednseling
Cou

I need couples counseling

for getting along
with myself.
Doing shelter in place for a long time.
I pick on myself
all the things I should be doing.
It is hard to hear
all the time
Nag, nag, nag.
Those cozy calm days
gotten more scarce.
I feel like a married couple—
too much togetherness
with me, myself and I.

37
 -H ian Tay-Kel
ok le
Si y
Cracking
never thought I’d miss the crush of crowds
the jostling shoving even sharp elbows in ribs
by Chinatown grannies cutting dim sum queues, but
I do
after too many apologies to patients that loved ones
can’t visit
or granting one relative a half hour when death is
imminent, I do

distanced dining a treat in make-shift booths

spilling bistro-lit chic onto sidewalks and streets
in dread we paid the levy from Spring break’s festive
flocking
tightened travel noose magnifies anticipation of an
annual ritual
—rollicking rendezvous with elephant seals!

I made it almost a year before losing it

the stifling masks or their ear-blistering loops
fogged visors, biosuits, hollering across
lunchrooms

39
 relentless acid dripping on steeled melting flesh
erupting into avalanche of ferocious yearning

I crave collective gasps cries touch of friends, heck

strangers
over tea at concerts, in theaters, clubs
lumbering blubber will do! to puncture my bubble
too empty too long
gawd help me till Labor Day when coy cows arrive to
pup suckle fuck
human whinings must pale as Nature’s primal
imperative reigns
yup I’m sooo up for lockdown lift—in seaspray of
salty snot
I will drop my mask

40 S i o k - H i an Tay - K elle y
 arles Kruger
Ch
POEM
WRITTEN ON THE OCCASION OF
THE CO
V F 2020
AFTER ID-19 PANDEMIC O ING-
IN-PL SIX MONTHS OF SHELTER ING
ACE WITH FEAR AND TREMBL

enough

enough enough enough

enough

enough

enough

enough enough enough

eeeeeee

nough

nough

41
 nough

nough

eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

nough

enough

ENOUGH ENOUGH ENOUGH

ENOUGH Enough enough enough

enough enough

enough

enough

_____________________________________________

__________________

___________

____

42 C h a r l e s Kr uge r
 r Laur
x ande en
A le ce
B LA C K A N D W HIT E
PLAYGROUND

A king can move forward and backwards.

Was cancer predicted in this book?
I was glad that I survived the year
of the Zodiac Killer.
I learned how to play backgammon
on Grant Avenue.
Love is not involved
in a black and white world.
I saw Jupiter and Saturn,
and a slice of the moon, with my own eyes.

43
 Nick Plett
Hi a
Vacctting Refresh for ent
ination Appointm

Petulant, the evening birds chirping

Sulk in the now low shade
Whistling a catcall through the window
Mimicking
Men on the corner who
Have gone home
To their lives and unhappiness

Clicks on the keyboard clamor to lockdown

A vaccination appointment, as if it were
A once in a lifetime offering
A radio station all access giveaway  
A backstage pass a front page spread
All expenses paid

Paying our gratitude with persistence—

No, petulance
Our entitled wants and needs.

We were trained for this

On Z100 and Ticketmaster, websites crashed
Like crumbling Rome, phone lines jammed
To eternity, bowing to the busy signal’s
Pulseless yawn. The so-close feeling pulls  
A frenzy into focus but withholds

45
 The whole picture.

Somewhere, someone is sighing

In relief, having their portrait taken
In repose, the sun catching no air
Trapped dust, no tortured smile.
Outside, the flowers smell like cum,
Expensive perfume, boutique hotels.
It could be a gallery opening,
A luxurious weekend, air of opulence
And who could say it wasn’t?

We have been conditioned

(2-3 times a week to achieve that Feel Good glow)
To feel like we’re winning the lottery.
To feel blessed, seen, accepted, inducted—
And why should it feel any different?

The human shift toward progress

Is premised on a will to game the system.
Refreshing the page, vanishing into reality
Waiting for the next round
Of lottery tickets to be called.

46 N i c k Pl e t t
 ie Cartier
Gen
N o te
s from the Cave, 2021

In the womb we are blind cave fish

– Jim Morrison

The drive to Stockton is meant to take two hours but

it takes three, one of a multitude of plans that has
been altered this year. My dad comes with me in case
I’m not feeling well after the injection. We split the
drive; the way there, my hands stay resolutely on the
steering wheel, continuously checking the clock and
recalculating whether we’ll make it on time or if this
long drive is for nothing.

This extra effort is all for her. She lives in my body, she
takes my sugar, my breath, my energy, and now she’ll
share my antibodies. A little fish swimming in my belly,
my uterus is her ocean, distant voices the only sounds
she hears besides my heartbeat. I feel her stirring after
I eat or when I lie down, little reminders of our shared
space. Some mornings I feel a notable persistence of
gravity, a weight that keeps me under the covers. I feel
her tiny flutters and I know I have to scrape myself off
the bottom of the pan, pull myself out of the lethal
softness of the bed, for her.

While the little fish grows and grows, my grand-

mother, whose house I knew so well as a young
girl, who was born during the last pandemic over
47
 a century ago, is dying. She, like the society we knew
before the virus, has seemingly always existed with
some degree of sameness and stability. After her
hundredth birthday, her health intact, we all began to
doubt whether she could die at all.

During an anxiously distanced visit on the outdoor

patio of her nursing home, I referenced something
down the line and she said I won’t be here for that. And
then, no, I’ll wait to meet the baby. That was weeks
before the diagnosis made it clear that she wouldn’t
meet the baby, that they would pass each other like
ships, separated only by short months. If we hadn’t
been isolated from her for a year, maybe we would have
caught it earlier, my mother thinks.

When I arrive two minutes past my appointment time,

sweating and breathing as hard as my diminished lung
capacity allows, the woman at the front desk is unfazed.
She gives me a laminated scrap of paper with an 18 on
it and sends me upstairs. There are a seemingly large
number of people ahead of me. I expect a long wait, but
I am barely settled in a corner, double-masked, before
a green-scrubbed nurse calls my number. There are
colored lines of tape on the floor to follow, a yellow-
brick road that eventually leads to a small corner office.
I sit opposite a desk on which rests a small plate with a
handful of syringes, the precious elixir already loaded
in their bellies.

The needle hurts. My arm hurts. I feel tears coming,

the crest of a year-long wave. The weeks of thinking
it would all be over soon enough, the slow dissolving
of hope for a quick resolution, the unknowns and

48 Genie Cartier
anxieties piling up every time we left the house. The
decision to go ahead with the one plan that didn’t have
to be cancelled that year. We’re just sitting around, aren’t
we? Might as well grow a little fish in my womb.

My grandmother thinks her cancer is like an evil baby.

She compares it to mine, but yours is producing something
good, mine is eating my life away. She says the bug in her
belly is killing her, she wants to “starve the bastard” so
she can live. She explains this over and over again when
we tell her she must eat to continue being alive. I scrape
myself off the bottom of the pan every morning to feed
my little girl, go to see my grandmother, explain it to
her again and again. I want her to know it’s okay to
die. We’re all okay, because she always made sure of it.
I’m okay. The baby’s healthy. She will be a happy little
girl with a loving family, who bears my grandmother’s
name in the middle of hers. She will know who my
grandmother was, she will hear her stories, read them
in the notebooks filled with her careful handwriting.

I watch the shadows on the wall every night, a version

of reality with better lighting. I cringe when people
breathe in each others’ faces, enter shops without
masks, sit in unventilated rooms. The in-betweenness
slowly erodes me, a space in limbo where on either side
lies an initial and a confirming injection, lockdown
and a new normalcy, freedom and motherhood, my
grandmother’s long life and her inevitable death.

Driving back from Stockton, I start to feel the effects

drip into my body like an IV. I try not to resist them. I
breathe. I let them in. I put my hand on my belly. The
little fish swims and swims.

Ge ni e Ca rt i e r 49
 Sara Biel

Beanie Face

steeped in quiet
folded in sheets and blankets
and you, Beanie Face
with your hat pulled down to meet your downey
eyebrows

breathe in the even light of dawn

your first morning’s outside

today the world is broken open
every cell sings

51
 Bicchie
olo ri
Pa
f or 48 h o u rs
I get ph one calls

to which the next compounds the fracture

and there isn’t a busy tone to keep
from worrying the flesh of the ear

and it begins with Julian

telling me his father has joined a new cult

and it begins with Teo

on a jog in oil drum thick silence

and it begins with Sage

laughing about the bulls I lassoed in headlocks,
gripped horns through drunk Holiday Inn suites

and it begins with Pops

reminding me the only futures live in the hologram

and it begins with Grandma

on a tear about Kentucky Fried Chicken & poverty

and it begins with Josiah

dancing a paper-mâché axolotl
around and around a camera speaking only of
mi gente

53
 and it begins with Momski
saying Grandma’s bleeding ran out of places to hide

and it begins with Julian

reporting that yes he called again about the
maintenance job

and it begins with Luca

remarking upon a radio interview he heard with
Uncle Mark
wherein he says “I decide how I die” before settling
into a burning building

and I’m not sure how it ends,

or who with it concludes

and I can’t quit the bothering,

the toying of skin,
the lying awake,
the lying,
the waking

54 Paol o B i cch i e r i
 Sara Biel

The Day After

Remember how after the fire

we held hands under the table
dreamed the same dream when we slept.
I laughed with your mother
for the very first time.
She made French toast.
Generously
lent me
socks.

55
 rolyn Wilsey
Ca
P
landoem in which art decople
scapes are always pur

as they rest against another sunset

& the New York that once was my New York
lists toward midnight. How hollowly
the fragile bells of each building unring,
each building bereft of its people.

Purple is more than a color. On my nightstand

a hunk of amethyst cants yearning
like a boat on its side. It wants
hands. The cataract loveliness
of miniature violet mountains dim
into glaucoma, into an eggshell of
Earth crust. & are these scenes not
all the same scene: A swimmer hallowed
by a flood of purple sunrise?

57
 r ew Paul Nels
A nd o n
Matutinalis

I dreamed I saw the sunrise

blue and inevitable

a funeral parade of spiders

dawn backsliding towards
freedom or oblivion

you awoke the volcano

capitulated spleen
on prison break
from the body you awoke
the mutiny written in love

this inkless typewriter left

indentations in the desert sand
whispers in the fumes

you awoke the cartographer’s graveyard

sand dune panopticon of was
where dreams go to die

eternal spring erupted

and all your love
all your precious will and indifference
melted like icarus’ medicine cabinets

59
 when we were poets
we caught the dawn
like it cured cancer
like the sunrise was building a case against us
if only we could arrive at our day in court
a little early or even just on the time
we might be acquitted at the last
moment of this nihilist greed
that defines our generation

we sucked the poison

from every seemingly insignificant
snake bite when we were poets
we believed in nothing

but each other and the taxi cab

roulette of apathy that defines our generation

when we were poets it was just as easy

to dream as it was impossible to sleep

if only our lungs didn’t lack the capacity to grieve

we still know every midnight lullaby by heart
we still drink like trout fish
what was left of our will to create
collapsed long ago under the weight
of debauchery reruns & apocalyptic boredom

now we are asleep

even when we are awake
our phantasms on mute
zombie enamorists perform their immortal rituals
to an abyss of empty rooftops

60 An dre w Paul N e lson

And yet I dreamed
last night of a symposium
of sunrise poets
a future ad libbed

where we are born brand new

every morning rubbing
sticky afterbirth from our eyes
blindly stumbling to the tambour desk
to retrieve a rusty pair of our father’s scissors
only to find
we have no idea
how to use them
not easily defeated we claw
bite
chew through the umbilical
chords ourselves

this chain of events inaugurates each and every day

we are brand new strangers to ourselves

every morning we are suicidal saints
a miracle leftover sunrise
reaching backwards

a no body
until the smell of coffee
until the purple sky… until i recall
this poem from my unborn dreams

Andre w Pau l Ne lson 61

 r ew Paul Nels
A nd on
and or
best dtrhee awardesfto…
am go

crater face cowboy

professor moonlight

whose only regret

was never having had one
who chose to be abandoned

terribly infantile self saboteur

guardian angel of tramps & marlboro men
latchkeyed desert wanderers & disappearing artists

all your leftover secrets

hidden away inside metamorphic love
safe & sound inside your east village tape recorder
your unfinished manifestos leave a pretty corpse
volume after volume of lust well lived

a junkie magician’s catalogue

a five story walk up you breathe
famous on both sides

and the award for best dream goes to…

old mesmerist kitchen conjurer

Iowa tall grass whisperer

63
a real hole in the floor
a transcendental portal connecting
this leaky basement to the all night
disco and free lunch program

follow the flashing emergency exit signs

to the clever trail of eucharists on fire
from the window at the top of the stairs
to the cellos only orgy beneath St. Christopher st. Pier

how come nobody likes you, Eli?

all bare bones fragmented form
a simple dog [all heavy in heaven

crude renderings of an after life

lilting shapeless like a dead-end street
you surrender raw venality of organs
amorphous febrile phantasmagoria

and the award for best dream goes to…

lonely heart nightingale

death memory miracle worker

a midnight minstrel
ambling the empty avenues at dawn
tongue in hand

every streetlight
a lucid reminder of timelessness
each season returning your warmth
eternal in spring
you are yourself

64 An dre w Paul N e lson

in summer total anarchy
and you are yourself in fall
you have no fear of drifting
back into formless animality and you are
yourself in winter even though the clock hustles
like the wind and you’re eager to forget the killer
inside you

vagabond
eclipsed moon apostle
keeper of irreversible time

on sundays death comes over and

we get high and watch days of heaven
while the winos in washington square park
stage walk outs against the paper bag tax
benjamin franklin tosses his time capsule into the sea

my ghost muse sits cross legged

in a crater on the moon
heavy as america gazing
up at the stoop and dreaming

Andre w Pau l Ne lson 65

 Chun Yu

The Map

When I was born

your bosom was the map
I occupied all of it
in your cradling arms

When I began to walk

your eyes’ sight was the map
I learned my steps
toddling and waddling
in your adoring gaze

When I started school

your mind became the map
I ventured out and back
from morning to night
in your unceasing care

When I grew up and left home

from hometown to other towns
home country to other countries
your heart became the map
I searched far and wide
high and low for my direction
and place in the world
in your loving thoughts

67
 Each time I set out for a journey
you asked for my destination
studied an open map
accurately locating the point
of my being

Then one day

you picked up a magnifying glass
eyes moving closer and closer
hands trembling more and more
Finally, at a loss
no longer seeing clearly
the lines and points on the map
you hold me in your heart

Growing older and older

you can now only walk
in my eyes’ sight
fumbling steps
every trip outside
an adventure

From now on
I will walk
by your side
so you can
lean on me

When we are at a loss

not knowing where to go

love is the map

68 C h un Y u
 春雨

地圖

剛出生時你的胸懷
是一張地圖
我是那地圖的全部
在你的懷抱中

剛走路時你的目光
是一張地圖
我在那地圖中
搖搖學步
在你的注視中

上學時我走出了家門
你的腦海是一張地圖
我在那地圖中
朝出暮歸
在你的牽掛中

長大後我離開了家
從故鄉到外鄉
從祖國到異國
你的心是一張地圖
我在那地圖中
摸索方向
尋找位置
在你的想念中

69
 每當我開始一個旅程
你總會打開一張地圖
詢問我的去處
時時準確地找到
我的所在

後來你拿起了放大鏡
眼睛離地圖越來越近
手抖得越來越厲害
終於茫然中
你已經看不清
地圖上的點與線
我在你的心裡

漸行漸慢
有一天
你只能在我的
目光里蹣跚
每一次出行
都是一場冒險

從此我將
把你攙扶
在我的臂彎

當我們茫然
不知所向

愛是一張地圖

70 春雨
 ren Parker
Lau
Love Like a Swamp

Swamp is open craw, gulping throat

Where everything unloved collects
And sits, held, held for the first time
Rough things, pointed and sharp
Cradled for the first time in sitting water

Wait and see what happens, what grows

What ridges run along the surface of the water
Soak up your secrets and never spit them out
No body, no crime, no nothing on the surface
The swamp owns the dark bits, all that
You killed and that might kill you and it loves
It loves you, your secrets, your teeth rested
Against its algae frosted ear
Speak quietly, it can still hear you
Join its loved unloved collection, and grow to fit
Your container in the swamp heart
Wet and wide and so full of blood it can
Run the world, a swamp is a warm
Hand pressing against the heat of your chest
Fingers in your mouth, something to suck on
As you sink, closing your lilypad eyes

You are only beautiful if you break the surface

Pulling sun down to muddy murky carp dwelling
reeds

71
Let it eat, nibble you, pulls the sheath off your roots
Strip to green shoot and stalk, no barriers

Love like a swamp, are you burning down or

Cracking open, let the water in, let it fill you
Gasp your last fragments of air
Learn to love the bottom of something in return

72 L aur e n Pa r k e r
 ren Parker
Lau

Mojave
The desert and the sky have the same effect
Where you can’t judge the distance
You think you can reach out and touch everything,
You reach out to collect every star and I fill your
pockets
With change when you aren’t looking and say stars
Don’t exchange like they used to

You tell me that you can tell the difference between

Mountains and hills with one special trick
If you can see the top, it’s not a mountain

And even if I didn’t have a spaceship to catch

Or a man waiting on me in the wild of the Mesa
I would still consider it worth it to be able to ride off
into the lush and crowded desert with you.

73
 y Gayle Thom
M ar as
Lov em
Two DeceaPdo
es Later

In my rented house in the outer mission of San Francisco

I reach deep to the back of the closet.
I touch the worn cardboard box of memories and you
are with me.

The dream drifts back that I had one night after you died.
When I was trying not to miss you, trying to go on,
to endure.

Someone told me in my dream

“He’s still here
You need to tell him goodbye.”
Then I looked at you
Through a glass window in the door
And you were standing tall and strong,
And handsome. Not like in your photos.
The camera never could capture you.

Now twenty years later I open the dusty box of cards

and photos
And look for the memory that I know will spear my heart.
Now?
Now, is it time to tell you goodbye?

Maybe next decade.

75
 h Mueller
Lea
So me
what More Than Zero

When your boyfriend looks like Elvis Costello, you’d

better be a new wave babe. I was the furthest thing
from a new wave babe, and Rob knew it. Two years
past high school, I still wore earth shoes, gray wool
socks and tie-dyed wraparound skirts.

Nobody in Chicago dressed like that in 1979. I

attracted a lot of unwanted attention. One night, at
a pay phone in front of Hull House, two well-dressed
yuppie businessmen gave me a once-over, then a twice-
over. They gaped in wonderment at the album I was
carrying. “Wow,” one of them said. “Best of Cream.”

Retro is a polite word for my vibe. I was a dork, too

dense to keep up with trends. Still, I thought new
wave guys were cute as hell. I spent hours at record
stores near Belmont and Clark, staring with wistful
longing at Costello’s expression of geek fury on the
cover of “My Aim is True.”

Rob and I worked together at a Howard Street porn

publishing outlet, located above an antique store. A
long, wide stairwell led to the dark office I shared
with several other young women. That stairwell
freaked me out. Perhaps it was haunted, or perhaps
I spent too many graveyard shifts talking on the

77
 phone to lonely men who wanted to buy lists of
swingers for $25.00.

Rather, they shelled out $25.00 if they were desperate

and wanted to do more than masturbate. Rob had his
own cubicle at the other end of the cavernous hallway.
Hunched over his desk, he labored feverishly on essays
that bore such titles as “50 Hot Pick-Up Spots in
Chicago.”

Not surprisingly, most of the porno house employees

liked to drink after work. We had forged a tight bond,
one based on disgust and trauma. Our posse went to
clubs like Neo and O’Banion’s. Everyone dressed for
the scene except me. Though I was a few weeks shy
of 21, the bartenders never checked my ID. They just
shoved vodka tonics in my direction.

After bar time, my co-workers crashed at my apartment.

I lived in a third-floor walkup with two roommates.
Brenda worked in the porno house with me, and
Jackie was usually asleep. Jackie owned Dan Fogelberg
albums and was even more of a nerd than I was. She
didn’t want to know what we were doing in the living
room.

One morning, around 3:00 AM, I gazed at Rob’s

prostrate form as he slumbered on my couch. The guy
looked adorable. His glasses had fallen to the floor, and
one of his angular legs protruded from an armrest. “I
want him,” I told Brenda.

She shrugged. “Go for it.”

78 L e a h M ue l l e r
Rob had a crush on our co-worker, Astrid. Blond, six
feet tall, and fluent in German, Astrid could have any
man she wanted. Though she’d flirted with Rob, I
could tell she didn’t take him seriously. Her boyfriend
was a musician who planned to drive to New Orleans
in an ancient station wagon that was sure to break
down along the way. She’d join him there after she had
saved enough cash.

Rob was mine for the duration. Our routine seldom

varied. We got together for a movie or a walk. He read
aloud from some ponderous screenplay he was writing.
I feigned interest and tried not to fall asleep. He
showed me the latest album he’d bought and spent an
hour talking excitedly about Martha and the Muffins
or the B-52s.

When our obligatory ritual ended, we had sex in my

queen-sized bed. Rob’s saving grace was his endless
fount of erotic energy. His wiry body moved quickly
on my mattress.

Obviously, impermanence had been written into our

arrangement from the start. After a couple of months,
Rick’s disdain became evident. “Why do you dress like
you’re about to head to Woodstock?” he demanded.
“Don’t you have any other clothes?”

Astrid shopped for outfits at Fiorucci, a glamorous

shop on the top floor of Water Tower Place. Their
cheapest wares cost at least $25.00, more than I made
in five hours. I’d seen her shell out a week’s salary for
a sequined Marilyn Monroe tee-shirt.

Le a h Mu e lle r 79
Before Astrid left for New Orleans, she gave me the
shirt and a couple pairs of her Calvin Klein jeans. She
stressed this was meant as a loan, not a gift. Astrid
planned to travel light and return to Chicago in the
spring.

I received several postcards from her during the

ensuing weeks, keeping me apprised of her progress
as she rode to San Diego with her boyfriend, dumped
his ass, went to San Francisco, hooked up with a
European tourist and crashed with him on my friend
Mike’s floor in Fremont. Rob seemed pretty dull by
comparison.

I started seeing another man. Paul wore a black leather

jacket and jeans with knee rips. Though he had an
explosive temper and a drinking problem, he could
really rock the Ramones look. At least, he rocked it from
the neck down. Paul bore a strong facial resemblance
to Pete Townshend, and he played a mean blues guitar,
using his toilet paper spindle as a slide.

My new boyfriend was jealous of Rob, but I didn’t

want to place all my bets on one guy.

Besides, Paul didn’t own me. He had another, part-time

girlfriend – Nikki, a pot dealer and

bigwig in the Chicago chapter of the Communist

Youth League. She called Paul a misogynist but couldn’t
resist that jacket.

When Astrid returned to Chicago, Rob and I decided

to throw a small party for her at my apartment. The

80 L e a h M ue l l e r
boozy gathering devolved into a threesome on my
kitchen floor. Eventually, we migrated to my bed.
Astrid had started to fall for Rob, and he dug it. I felt
like I wasn’t even in the room.

Next morning, we nursed our hangovers with leftover

pizza and listened to Gary Numan’s new album, “The
Pleasure Principle.” I had purchased it before the party,
hoping to impress my cool friends.

Synthesizers droned endlessly as we chomped on bits

of cold pepperoni. The music sounded gloomy and
depressing, like a dirge. Each note pulsated into my
brain and made my hangover worse.

“This record fits my mood exactly,” Astrid said.

Three days later, my phone rang in the middle of

the night. “I want my jeans and tee-shirt back,”
Astrid announced. I could hear Rob laughing in the
background. “When can you bring them to me?”

I should have told Astrid to go to hell or someplace

even worse. But I was a pushover, and I didn’t love Rob.
I loved her. Astrid’s goddamned clothing wasn’t mine
to keep, anyway. I felt like a pretender when I wore
her Marilyn shirt, but I had grown fond of it. Her jeans
fit me perfectly, which meant I was as skinny as she
was, although I loved to eat, and she didn’t.

Afterwards, I never heard from either of them again. I

quit my job at the porno house and found a waitressing
gig. Rob and Astrid got married a few months later.
Word on the street claimed that the new wave couple

Le a h Mu e lle r 81
 didn’t get along. Rob liked to throw public tantrums,
and Astrid spent most of her time doing damage
control.

Meanwhile, I had my hands full with Paul, who threw

tantrums every other day. Both men were Geminis.
Did that have anything to do with it?

The 70s were over, and the 80s stretched ahead like a
paper roll with question marks on it. I had ended up
with Paul by default but wasn’t sure if I’d grabbed the
better side of the bargain. At least the two of us liked
the same music. That had to count for something.

82 L e a h M ue l l e r
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