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Holly Rice

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According to Jezebel.com, Brad Pitt is coping with his breakup
with sculpture, weed, and by listening to Bon Iver.

This is cliché and almost the perfect prescription.
So, a great start.

Funny: I think an old photo of Brad Pitt
once helped me get over a breakup.

Or was it a photo of someone else?
A photograph is an eye’s residuum, technological output of desire.

He uses art, soft drugs, and music to heal himself.
This is tried and true, but certainly not complete.

You know—friends.
We’ve all used that one song…you know the one…
a roaddog of self pity.

I would love to be placed in a little cradle right now.
Throw on the right song.
I’ll fall asleep in no time.

Or just let me look at something beautiful.
Hold me like a baby.

Sleep and care is what the alien overlords have gifted to us
with the math of music. It is ok to be sad.

Once I went through a breakup
and all the drugs and art and music in the world

could not heal me.
I needed a clock

to pass its hands over itself
many times. I also needed sleep.

My dreamscape had to reconfigure its organization of the world,

and I needed to come out of a trance.
I thought about old TV shows, and how common media diverged from personal experiences.

I thought about how my parents found love,
and without resenting them, I needed to find my own person to love.

Once I dreamt my parents pushed me
into a craggy ravine.
I needed to meet another guy at the fruit stand

and to pet at least 24 puppies of friends
and even strangers—that’s not just a metaphor.
But this is: I needed to make awkward eye contact with a cat.

I needed to stare at one person’s Instagram photos for hours
wearing a deerstalker hat while smoking a pipe
and playing the violin under the cover of darkness.

Once I needed to stay up all night and imagine he was beside me.
Once, no thrice, I needed to be gently chided by my friends.

Once I needed to break down in tears in the glorious sun of the Getty Museum.
Once I needed to be privately aroused by Robert Mapplethorpe’s ability to love

the image as expressed in his photos.
Once, as I watched Love Actually with my family,
I tried hard to not to be an asshole.

Once I understood the way Mapplethorpe’s camera was an eye, was even a cock, how his camera was a machine blinking with desire like a text message alert from a crush,

I was able to finally recommit myself to “online stalking” in a refreshed way
where I saw an end.

Once in college I took an extra bong hit and needed my hand held the whole walk home.
And once I laughed all day.

unnamed Amy Lawless is the author of two books of poems including My Dead (Octopus Books). Her third poetry collection Broadax is forthcoming from Octopus Books this summer. A chapbook A Woman Alone is just out from Sixth Finch. With Chris Cheney she is the author of the hybrid book I Cry: The Desire to Be Rejected from Pioneer Works Press’ Groundworks Series (2016). Her poems have recently or are forthcoming in jubilat, Reality Beach, The Volta, Washington Square Review, Best American Poetry 2013, and the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day: 365 Poems for Every Occasion, and the Brooklyn Poets Anthology (Brooklyn Arts Press). She received a poetry fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts in 2011. She lives in Brooklyn.

feature image via Aslaveoflove at Pixabay.

     For their first date, they met for happy hour. Ben suggested Inde Blu, a classy little restaurant with an Indian inspired—not fusion—menu. Sonia thought it was kind of cute, like– Oh! He’s picking an Indian restaurant because I’m Indian. She didn’t call him out on it. She told him it was a great idea, that she’d never been, and heard the food was tasty.

     It wasn’t what she was expecting. In her 20s happy hour meant sliders, cheese fries, pizza, wings, tacos, chicken fingers, well-drinks, PBR, Yuengling, and shots. But nowadays happy hour wasn’t a food-drink special between five and seven. It was any hour past noon that she could steal with someone, dining on cheese plates, charcuterie, Kobe skewers, sushi, avocado fries, oysters, wine, top-shelf liquors poured straight, and cocktails—cocktails that were not listed on the five-to-seven happy hour menu. But never ever had happy hour meant Indian food, even for her.

     Sonia was walking fastish to Inde Blu recalling the two times she met Ben over the last five months. Once at an exclusive menu reveal party for the much anticipated vegan restaurant on the popular E. Passyunk corridor of South Philly that she was invited to by her new friend, who happened to be his pretty-good friend, Stephen. And again at a Toys-for-Tots fundraiser that Sonia attended with Allison because Allison was four swipe-right dates past desperate for a new social scene. Ben and Sonia had chatted briefly at both events, if one can call repeatedly cheers-ing cocktails and catching eyes while laughing, chatting. Ben was one of those guys that everyone felt warmly toward; he was kind, fun, and classically attractive.

     Sonia was half a block shy to the restaurant when she thought—oh no, what if this turns into one of those nights where our conversation centers around me translating Indian foods and curry attempting to find a decent American-food equivalent. She could just see it: Tandoori chicken is like buffalo chicken. Both are chicken. And red. But tandoori is made with a yogurt-based marinade of ginger, garlic and spices. And buffalo sauce is made of, I don’t know—sugar and hot sauce? Try the tandoori chicken, most people love it.  

     With that exhausting thought in mind, Sonia walked the last half block at a calmer pace, arriving on time, fully prepared to be Ben’s cultural cuisine guide for the evening if that’s how it went down.

_____

     Inde Blu was a long narrow space with a cozy bar at the entrance and table seating in the rear. The interior was contemporary with dark hardwood floors and chandelier lighting. Thankfully, the design team managed to create a relaxed energy without the tackiness of turmeric-colored accents and a playlist drowning in whiny sitar music.

     Ben was sitting at the bar, toward the far right end, with a tall glass of water and the better part of a Bengali Tiger Six Point IPA finished. He was talking with the bartender and smiling aimlessly when he looked her way. His eyes warmed in recognition. Ben held his gaze, easily pulling out the bar stool next to him while remaining seated as Sonia made her way over.  She greeted him with the affection a sideways hug, which he returned with a small kiss on her cheek as she scooted on to the stool and said hello.

     He was dressed well, gray slacks, collared shirt, and crewneck sweater. His hair, dark brown and cleanly combed, was styled the way Sonia had seen before, like a modern Ronald Regan, just shorter on the sides and more severely parted left. His neatly trimmed beard was full but not overly thick, affecting the appearance of a gentleman verses a tragic hipster. Sonia was a total sucker for those preppy guys, and she was getting into this gentleman’s-beard-look.

     Cocktails were ordered, and Sonia allowed Ben to take the lead.

     “I was thinking we would order a few things. Are you hungry?”

     Ben passed her the evening menu. Sonia glanced over the small plates section. “Oh! There’s a lot of stuff that sounds tasty–”

     “They have a great menu, right! I was thinking the naan pizza, the spinach chaat, and shrimp-goat cheese samosas.”

     “Let’s do it!” Sonia shut her menu—and wow! This man knew his Indian food—shame on me, she thought.

     The food was delicious. Ben was a darling. The drinks were the right degree of strong—they each had three by the time it was said and done—happy hour was a success.

     After that night, they weaved into each other’s schedules, making the most of their free pockets of time. Dinner at 11? Sure. I have a ten-minute break before my next meeting, let’s grab tea? Yes. Replying to a text after six hours, not a problem, he/she is busy. I’m working all weekend but have Monday off, wanna drive to the shore for the day? Let’s do it. I can’t make our 3pm lunch– that’s OK, I’m swamped here too!

     Sonia and Ben had made a smooth transition from dating to being in a relationship. But it was early and many things were still new.

_____

     About a month in, Ben called, “Hi babe, how’s your day going?”

     “Not bad, working from home. How about you?”

     “It’s going well. I have an event tonight, but it shouldn’t be too late, hopefully done by 10.”

     “Oh nice. I cooked dinner. Swing by after your event. There’s plenty of food, if you’re hungry.” Sonia invited.

     “Perfect. I’ll text you when I’m wrapping up.”

     Sonia cooked all the time. Ben came over all the time. And they ate together all the time. But, even though it was casual, this would be the first time Ben would come over for dinner.

     Ben arrived at 10:30, knocking-knocking-knocking on Sonia’s door.

     “What’s for dinner!”

     He brushed a quick kiss on her cheek, walking past her, dropping his event-planning bag on the floor, aiming for the kitchen. Ben opened the oven, looked at the stove, eyes and hands ready. He saw the covered Corning Ware dishes on the island counter, peeked inside, covered them again, and looked to Sonia for help.

     “I ate a while back. But, I left the food out for you.” she encouraged.

     Ben seemed to understand. The stuff in the Corning Ware was dinner. “What is it?” he asked. Sonia had cooked a few of her standards: chicken curry, cauliflower with peas, cucumber riata, and white rice. They were basic dishes, recognizable even in it’s Indian preparation, but there were no Yelp reviews or Instagram pics to preface or validate their tastiness.

     He seemed confused. She was confused. Sonia gave Ben some space to adapt to his new idea of dinner. She poured him glass of wine and re-filled her own. Ben picked up a bowl but decided on the plate. Touching the spoon, he grabbed a fork instead.

     “What’s this again?” Unsure, he pointed at the riata.

     “It’s a yogurt mix. It makes the food creamy and cools down the spices. There’re cucumbers in it. Kinda like tiziki on gyros. Or sour cream on tacos.”

     Ben served himself white rice—lots and lots and lots of white rice, two small spoonfuls of cauliflower—no peas, and a huge dollop of riata. He sat down at the kitchen table, shoveling forkfuls in his mouth, eating fast. Sonia was sure he didn’t even taste the food. They didn’t talk about it, the dinner. He finished and joined her on the sofa with the bottle of wine, and the rest of their evening fell into place normally although she went to bed not knowing what had happened.

 _____

     To be clear, Ben—Benjamin Bridges, was white. His parents were white. His parents’ parents were white, and their parents were white. At some point long long ago, Ben’s lineage crossed international borders—maybe his origins lay in Italy, Ireland, or Germany, but there was no distinction of that anymore. He grew up in New Holland, PA, a mid-sized township with some grit, twenty minutes northeast of Lancaster and a solid hour and a half west of Philadelphia. This boy was as white as they came. But that’s not to say he was culturally unaware or uneasy in mixed settings. No no—Ben was relaxed and intelligent with all varieties of company: male-female, straight-gay-transgender-drag, wealthy-homeless, tall-short, big-boobs-no-boobs, Christian-Muslim-Buddhist-Hindu-Catholic-Scientologist, black-white-yellow—the kind of guy who could have a beer with anyone, feel like he was in the company of his other-half, and exchange some meaningful dialogue. But social behaviors and paradigms on private archetypes don’t always mirror, and can be jarring when one ideal seeps into the other.

 _____

     Sonia woke early the next morning with last night’s meal still laying heavy on her mind. She slipped out of bed, closed the bedroom door, quietly left the apartment and walked to the gourmet deli around the corner. She purchased all her favorites: eggs, croissants, kiwis and peaches, cheese, thick-cut apple-smoked bacon, fresh squeezed OJ, coffee and two chocolate donuts. She returned to the apartment and made a big breakfast, a buffet of American yumminess.

     When Ben peeked into the kitchen, he looked adorable, all happy-eyes and smiling body, “It smells amazing! What’s going on in here!”

     “I’m cooking you breakfast, babe. I don’t think you ate well last night.”

     “I ate well!” He said as he settled on a barstool at the kitchen island, mixing milk and sugar into his coffee.

     “Ben…” Sonia insisted looking over her shoulder at him.

     “I just thought we were having brussel sprouts. And grilled chicken maybe.”

     “Brussel sprouts?” That seemed odd. Sonia continued slowly scrambling the eggs and it began to dawn on her—was Ben foodie cultured? Did he only venture new foods if they were trending? What did he think she normally ate at home? She asked the obvious, “You know I’m Indian right?”

     “But you’re American.” He said slicing the kiwis. Sonia thought he was being cute and slid the eggs in the empty space on his plate.

     “Babe, if I’m cooking dinner, there’s a really good chance it’s gonna be Indian food.”

     Ben was so deep into his eggs and bacon and croissant he didn’t seem to hear her and they finished every last bite of everything.

_____

     Several months into their relationship, Sonia accompanied Ben to a black-tie event for his work. It was a beautiful evening. They strolled around the party, chatted with his colleagues, stole flirtatious moments for themselves, snacked lavishly on crab cakes, filet mignon sliders, mushroom risotto, and drank glorious glasses of dry Riesling. It felt like a scene from a movie, the formality and decadence of it all.

     Hours of socializing passed and the event began to relax; the silent auction table was replaced by a dessert buffet, a coffee bar appeared. They made their way to the patio joining their friends that were lounging on and by the steps, enjoying the cooler night air. Ben sat next to his former boss, Ms. Lisa Stockholm, and Sonia sat next to him. Ms. Lisa Stockholm was a dignified lady, a businesswoman, who lived a colorful life. Sonia was introduced as Ben’s girlfriend, and enjoyed being a mostly silent witness to their fond catch-up session.

     The conversation touched on a business venture that Ms. Lisa Stockholm was pursuing, one that would take her to Bangalore, India for the better part of next year. Ms. Lisa Stockholm asked Sonia, politely recognizing that she was very clearly Indian, which Sonia confirmed that she was, if she had ever traveled to Bangalore. Sonia had and absolutely adored the city, which derailed the general conversation as the two ladies lost themselves for a moment connecting on their loves and annoyances of popular Bangalore culture.  

     Lisa looked at Ben. “You should head-up this Bangalore project for me.”

     “Lisa.” Ben’s voice sounded heavy. “I would love to manage any of your projects abroad, just not Asia or India.”

     “Why not Asia or India?” Ms. Lisa Stockholm asked.

     “I don’t know. It’s so different.”

     “Well of course it’s different. That’s not a reason not to go,” Ms. Lisa Stockholm laughed. “There’s a lot that’s the same as well.”

     “Doesn’t seem like it.”

     “Ben, you know I’m Indian right?” Sonia asked.

     “Babe, you’re American. You might be Indian too, but you’re definitely American.”

     Sonia didn’t know how to respond.

     Others appeared, approaching Ben and Ms. Lisa Stockholm, and the conversation turned again. Sonia’s arm looped around Ben’s, she smiled alongside him inwardly wrestling with her thoughts.

     She was startled—not offended, but uncertain why Ben’s comment felt so impactful—redefining. She had no direct conflict with his statement. He was right. She was Indian. And she was American too. But for the first time she was directly faced with trying to understand how that translated to her romantic relationships, particularly now, being of an age where potential hinted at a serious future. It was a non-issue when she dated Indian guys who were raised in the states; she assumed they were more or less on the same page. And with Indian guys raised in India, she had long ago formulated lines in the sand on what she would protect of her American-ness if their relationship progressed. But now with American guys (guys of a non-Indian, or similar, background), she suddenly felt she was in the aggressor position—what margin of ethnic tolerance did she require, what aspects of being Indian did she want to share and for her partner to embrace, what was irrelevant.

     She wasn’t sure.

     “Babe. I’m going to grab a coffee. Want anything?” Ben asked. Sonia shook her head and he slipped away.

     Sonia watched her boyfriend—kind, fun, classically attractive—stride across the room. She liked his navy blazer and that she was his plus one. Ben got his coffee and stopped by the dessert bar. He popped a mini white-frosted cake square into his mouth and caught Sonia’s eyes.

     He gave her a twitch of a wink.

     She blew him a tiny kiss, from across the way.


unnamed Anju currently lives in Brooklyn and is pursuing her MFA in Fiction at The New School. She is a lover of animal socks, fruits (obsessed), and whispered conversations. And though many cities have been called home over the years, she always seems to find her way back to Philly.

featured image via Grub Street.

Consider the Apple

  1. And its many names

     Akero: pale green strewn with white like light snow dusting leaves. Ambrosia. Annurca: the oldest, depicted in tiled frescoes beneath Herculaneum’s ashes. Arkansas Black hangs as coal in the trees. Ballyfatten, Belle de Boskoop, Bloody Ploughman. Carter’s Blue like the winter sky in cloud-heavy bloom. The spring-frog-skin green of a ripe Catshead. Chelmsford Wonder: the diffuse orange of chiffon scarves. Honeyed Elstar. In botany as on the stage, Falstaff proves a sturdy pollinator. What is it like to cultivate rich crops of Fortune? Goldspur, Greensleeves. Imagine orchards ruled by trees that bear Jupiter and King of the Pippins. The howl of wolves that is the sound Macoun. Two women who contain the oldest story of women: Maiden’s Blush and Mother. In cold mountains, the Northern Spy. A vault spilling Opals and Pink Pearls. Pound Sweet like a song of sex beneath low-hanging boughs or so quietly beside brandy bottles inside the wine cellar’s dark. Saturn in late fall, resolute and stern. Snow Apple. Winesap. And all of them a waterfall of blossoms in the spring.

 

  1. In the beginning

     In the Garden of Eden, the snake curled around the tree tight as a new lover clasping his hands around your waist. Then it uncoiled and slid towards Eve like a whisper: Take, eat. Aren’t we glad that she did? Some sort of echo, a kind of omen. This fruit is the fruit of the body. If we were not cast out, how would we know Paradise had ever existed? The apple is only an excuse; it’s exile that brings knowledge. We are tempted and torn asunder and rent from what we love so that we understand we are separate: this is how we learn to recognize ourselves.

     The Norsemen believed golden apples kept their gods young: Iounn was their appointed keeper. When trickster Loki lent her to a giant, the gods grew old and withered like rinds cast away. Freya, goddess of beauty, toothless; Thor, the god of strength, too weak to raise his mighty hammer. Loki donned a falcon skin to bring her back and Iounn was a nut he carried in his claws; the bereft giant pursued in the shape of an eagle. As the birds reached Asgard, the gods lit a bonfire and set the slow eagle aflame. Beside that kindling, Iounn gave the gods their youth again, the golden apples like little planets in each of their hands.

     Druids called the apple sacred. The isle of apples—Avalon—was a summerland, a kind of heaven. Merlin, the king’s magician, cast his spells from inside the arched room of an apple grove guarded by birds. His gift blossomed inside him only after he ate an apple given to him by the Faerie Queen, but that kind of gift is a knife. To know the future is to grieve forever: you see the decay behind every kiss. Before the fall of Camelot and all those other betrayals (the King cuckolded; the bastard son plotting for his father’s throne), Merlin fell in love with his young apprentice Vivian. Her beauty was clouds, fog. She took his magic and locked him inside a tree deep in the forest, trapping her former mentor behind bark. Did he read auguries in pattern of wind-swept leaves or decipher prophecies the birds sing to foresee his own future? That kind of end anyone could see. Someone old and lonely; someone young who wants to learn everything.

 

     Isaac Newton and the apple of gravity that never existed. William Tell and his crossbow and his son.

 

     Johnny Appleseed wandering America scattering seeds that then grew into trees that were themselves fecund. Of course, this is sexual; seeding the earth.

 

     Snow White and her stepmother’s malice: the apple that brought a glass-coffined sleep. This is everyone’s life: we wake up as the corpse-girl in the morning and go to bed terrified, seeing in the mirror the recognizable self slipping away.

 

  1. Today’s apples

     Apple cold in my fridge as iced champagne. Gala: a chilled party.

 

     Apple bitten into by a blond man walking past. So loud like crashing glass. Interrupting again the map my thoughts follow of someone I should not still miss.

 

  1. False Apples

     Dogbane growing near the Dead Sea’s barren shoals is called Apple of Sodom. The tendrils leak a bitter milky sap and are adorned with green globes–beautiful, but hollow.

 

     May Apple has other names: American Mandrake, Devil’s Apple, Wild Lemon or Duck’s Foot. A sweet fruit, but the leaves and roots contain poison.

 

     You can find the Thorn-Apple by its rank odor: pungent, a reek redolent of rotting flesh. It grows wild at the margins of parking lots, rubbish heaps, anywhere ruined where things decay. If you cull the seeds and take them in sufficient quantity, they bring pupil dilation (the eyes’ doors flung open to bring in additional light), giddiness and delirium, but be careful: too many and death will be your harvest.   

 

     The Shining-Leaved Custard Apple’s wood is so soft it stoppers bottles like cork.

 

     Some false apples are named for the animals that eat them: Elephant Apple, Monkey Apple, Kangaroo.

 

     Apples as slang for barbiturates, downers. A bushel of apples means a handful of pills.

 

     Malay Apple, Rose Apple, Star Apple of the West Indies.

 

     Thin electronic Apple on which I type this as I sit at my desk.

 

  1. The apple in language

 

     Apple for the teacher, apple of my eye, bad apple: these three phrases, shuffled into any order, contain all the love stories in the world.

 

  1. Ritual apples

 

     A branch leads diviners to water; pliable wood that forks like rivers underground. Druidic poets and shamans carried a branch constellated with bells that chimed silver as snowfall to announce their presence to new towns as they wandered.

 

     Two female skeletons were found in the Oseberg ship, a Viking burial mound in Norway. One wore a fine red dress and white veil; the other a blue dress with a blue veil. Surrounding them were buckets of apples.

 

     An apple cut crosswise reveals a five-pointed star, the symbol of Freya, Norse goddess of love.

 

     On Rosh Hashanah, you must eat apples dipped in honey for a sweet new year.

 

     During Samhain, each women wrote her secret mark on a piece of fruit and then all apples were tumbled into a cauldron to float like round red galleons on a cold sea. Men bent down to bite. When a man pulled an apple held tight within his jaws from the tub, the woman whose apple he’d chosen became his bride. Another variant was to hang the apple from the ceiling on a string–Snap Apple: the men would leap and gnash their teeth. The first to bite down on the apple was the first to bed the woman who had inscribed her name on its skin.

 

     Roman feasts began with an egg and finished with an apple: from alpha to omega, the beginning to the end. The egg is the tenderest new life; the apple the symbol of resurrection, the life eternal.

  1.  Apples and the body

     (a) As medicine

          Rotten apples were used as a poultice by the Puritans to restore clear sight to sore eyes.

 

          In Medieval Europe, an aphrodisiac salve was made of equal parts apple pulp, swine’s grease, and rosewater and then applied to the most sensitive skin.

 

          An apple a day may keep the doctor away, but its seeds contain trace amounts of amygdalin, a compound of sugar and cyanide.

 

     (b) Next to death, sex is the purest expression of the body

          A Balzac story where a countess kept a bowl of apples by her bedside so that when she entertained a lover, she could eat one before kissing him awake. This seemed like the most seductive thing—like instructions for how to be an adult woman. Dappled apples piled in a blue bowl. The taste of apple in our mouths.

 

          On the first day of winter, during Allantide in Cornwall, the unmarried place apples under their pillow to conjure dreams of their future spouse. In Poland, to obtain the same result you must sleep beneath an apple tree on New Year’s Eve. Imagine how cold you would be, blanketed under snow, dreaming of your future lover.

 

          Peel an apple in one continuous ribbon. Throw the peel behind your left shoulder and you can read your future husband’s initials in the pattern it makes on the ground.

 

          Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples; for I am sick with love (2:5). Song of Songs; the Song of Solomon

 

          Danish folklore claims an apple will wither if placed in the same room as adulterers.

 

          The snake that offered Eve the apple of temptation is so obvious in symbolism—the male body.
          What it is to admit that you want things: to take the first bite.

 


Kate Angus is the author of So Late to the Party (Negative Capability Press, 2016), the Creative Writing Advisor for the Mayapple Center for Arts and Humanities at Sarah Lawrence College and a founding editor of Augury Books. Her poetry and nonfiction have appeared in The Atlantic online, The Washington Post, The Awl, Verse Daily, Best New Poets 2010, Best New Poets 2014, Gulf Coast, Subtropics, The Academy of American Poets’ “Poem a Day” and Tin House’s “Open Bar.” More information about Kate can be found at www.kateangus.org.

featured image via Korana Šegetalo Delić on Flickr.

Have you heard the one about the man who wanted to win the lottery? Every week he went to synagogue to pray. “God,” he said, “I know I haven’t been perfect but I really need to win the lottery! Please help me out.” A week went by and he hadn’t won the lottery so he returned to synagogue. “Come on God, please let me win the lottery.” Another week passed, still he didn’t win the lottery. “You’re really disappointing me God. I’ve prayed and prayed. Just let me win already.” Feeling hopeful, the man walked outside. The clouds parted and the booming voice of God came to him from above: “You’ve gotta help me, Moishe! Buy a *&%$#@*^ ticket!”

I thought of this joke recently when I read a story by Grace Bonney, who runs Design*Sponge, one of my favorite blogs. She and her wife, the chef and cookbook author Julia Turshen relocated from New York City to a rural community in the Hudson Valley where they’ve made themselves a lovely home. I’ve followed Design*Sponge for almost as long as it’s been in existence and have marveled at how, over the years, Bonney has grown as a writer and editor and businesswoman and by how she’s made it part of her mission to be inclusive in her coverage of the people working in the design world.

Grace Bonney, second from left, receives a welcome donation.
Grace Bonney, second from left, receives a welcome donation.

My estimation of Bonney went up a couple of notches when I read her recent post about her volunteer work. Shortly after she moved upstate, she became involved in the local food pantry, a food delivery service, and a crisis intervention organization.   It didn’t take long for her to learn how desperately young children and their families need healthy food. “Most of the food that food pantries receive is past or just-about-past due, and it’s illegal for most charities to give out expired baby and toddler food,” writes Bonney.

Instead of shrugging and carrying on, Bonney reached out to Agatha Achindu, founder of Yummy Spoonfuls Organic Baby Food, and asked for a donation. Achindu more than obliged; she donated enough baby food to supply Bonney’s home county for at least three months.

In other words, Bonney wasn’t afraid to ask.

In my own experience, I’ve learned that asking for help is oftentimes a mitzvah, a good deed for both the asker and the giver because by asking, you’re giving someone the opportunity to be of use.  Of course one must be prepared to be turned down, for any number of reasons.  At the same time, it’s likely that those who ask the right question of the right person will get the answer they want. And unlike the man in the joke, if you can show that you’ve done your part, you might be rewarded with more than you’ve imagined possible.

Bird-bodied, women-headed
and so hungry:
the food that spills
over pendulous breasts, the wine
that stains belly-fat, vulva.
The crease, the folds, the flesh of it.
The red of it too.
Who could love you, hideous?
Who could desire
claws that clutch
hair that seeps lank
breath rancid
And so noisy—always talking
shrieking singing if that’s what you call
such noise
claw feet
wings
that you do not use
enough to lift you
fly
rise up high enough
to gouge eyes
out pluck tongues
from mouths
that do not know enough
to know they should praise you

Kate Angus is the author of So Late to the Party (Negative Capability Press, 2016), the Creative Writing Advisor for the Mayapple Center for Arts and Humanities at Sarah Lawrence College and a founding editor of Augury Books. Her poetry and nonfiction have appeared in The Atlantic online, The Washington Post, The Awl, Verse Daily, Best New Poets 2010, Best New Poets 2014, Gulf Coast, Subtropics, The Academy of American Poets’ “Poem a Day” and Tin House’s “Open Bar.” More information about Kate can be found at www.kateangus.org.

featured image via Cushion Source.

The frozen crab legs
and artichoke dip
and french fries.

Endless chardonnay
on the porch at dusk
and a cigar

and my step mom sneaking off
to call her daughter,
who she never speaks about.

The pool, unused and warm,
the sound of frogs calling out around the yard
and the ocean, a few blocks away, also making its call.


In the morning the drive to the liquor store
for more wine and my dad listening
to baseball scores on the radio.

Nothing to talk about
except for the weather
and what we might want for dinner.


Keri Smith moved from Florida to New York to pursue her MFA in Poetry from the New School. At night she works in various bars in Brooklyn and during the day reads and works for Hanging Loose Press. She finds to time to do literally everything.

featured image via eHow.

have I eaten so much sugar
as in Cuba: profligate blizzard thrown

over churros warm from their oil bath, now wrapped
safe as babies in brown paper blankets. Glamorous

Old Hollywood starlet sparkle of sweet diamonds
spackled over the fruit (guava, papaya, words thick

on the tongue, as if language were edible). Pulped from the cane
by a machine for the thirsty to quaff over crushed ice. Deluge-poured

into coffee. Hurricane-stirred with rum and mint. The sugar
shades of buildings like sucked candies. The syrup of sun. Never

so much sweetness as here where even the smoke
of the santera’s cigar drifts a soft cloud over a shell bracelet

with which she will bless me. Her children bringing
Valentine’s Day candy before the ceremony begins; her face

as she speaks to the gods. Only now do I understand
what sugar is, dodging old cars in the street: my broken Spanish

and my new friends’ patience so words still bridge silence, the picture
in my phone of my boyfriend I look at so I can pretend

he’s still near. To be in love
while in Cuba with someone who waits in New York

is better than all sweetness: the longing that deepens the sugar,
the sugar that is knowing a future embrace.

Kate Angus is the author of So Late to the Party (Negative Capability Press, 2016), the Creative Writing Advisor for the Mayapple Center for Arts and Humanities at Sarah Lawrence College and a founding editor of Augury Books. Her poetry and nonfiction have appeared in The Atlantic online, The Washington Post, The Awl, Verse Daily, Best New Poets 2010, Best New Poets 2014, Gulf Coast, Subtropics, The Academy of American Poets’ “Poem a Day” and Tin House’s “Open Bar.” More information about Kate can be found at www.kateangus.org.

featured image via Wikipedia.

If I slept like an egg
(unbroken), my eyes opening

crack the shell. This morning,
a cloud formation

takes the shape of Great Britain; elsewhere,
a garage floods, recedes,

and America stains concrete.
This is a compulsion

called cartocacoethes
where one sees maps

everywhere. I found the website,
and now left-over breakfast toast

is Cuba, where I want to go. I have a tendency
to make every happenstance

important. The light’s not green?
Take a right at the corner and notice

how those willow branches
are wet hair cascading

down–this means
we should go swimming. Think

how many people
there are in this world. I am so lucky.

This whole planet:
you could have been anywhere.

Kate Angus is the author of So Late to the Party (Negative Capability Press, 2016), the Creative Writing Advisor for the Mayapple Center for Arts and Humanities at Sarah Lawrence College and a founding editor of Augury Books. Her poetry and nonfiction have appeared in The Atlantic online, The Washington Post, The Awl, Verse Daily, Best New Poets 2010, Best New Poets 2014, Gulf Coast, Subtropics, The Academy of American Poets’ “Poem a Day” and Tin House’s “Open Bar.” More information about Kate can be found at www.kateangus.org.

featured image via cesarastudillo on Flickr.

If poetry is love’s banquet, with minstrels reciting tales of cities sacked and sea voyages wrecked while the princely hosts and their guests lift their sacramental chalices and sip the liqueurs of contentment,

Play on, not to the sensual ear but to the spirit ditties of no tone.

Play on, if music be the food of love,

Give me excess of it.

I sip from the cup that Keats says is full of the warm south, mirth, and sun, “With beaded bubbles winking at the brim / And purple-stained mouth,” and I recommend Byron’s remedy for a hangover: “hock and soda water.”

For every poet a fruit or a sweet, plums for Williams, bananas and pineapples for Stevens; the shape of a pear (Stevens), the burst of “Joy’s grape” (Keats), and the word as delicious as the melon sweet as fresh water to the parched lips of the sailor on the abandoned raft: honeydew.

But I have a question for you, dear reader, friend and fellow admirer of the English Romantic poets as we walk hand in hand in the deer park of Magdalen College in Oxford. Why was the original transgression the consumption of a fruit rather than, say, a stroll on a prohibited path or a swim in a no-swim zone or a long dazed look at your image on the surface of a pond? It’s not: you may touch anything but this bush. It’s not: you may go anywhere but here. It is the eating of a fruit that is forbidden, the taste of the fruit that opens your eyes and reveals your shameful nakedness, man and woman, and I want to know why it has to be a fruit, it has to hang from the tree of knowledge, and you have to eat it.   


Stacey & DL La Grenoulle 2016 David Lehman has taught in the New School’s MFA Writing Program since its inception in 1996. His new book of poetry is “Poems in the Manner Of,” coming from Scribner in March 2017.

featured image via Anastasia Linska on Flickr.

When he left, he took the ketchup. I remember looking at it lying on top of a box filled with assorted condiments and packages of Rice-A-Roni and Mac & Cheese. We had bought it at Trader Joe’s the month before. It wasn’t even good ketchup. Not like the specialty eel sauce. This he took. Or the homemade strawberry-peach jam. This he left. No, the ketchup was ordinary at best. It was organic. It was $1.99. I remember looking at it and wondering, “Is this how it ends?”

When he left, we had been cat parents for almost two years. Chris had insisted on kittens. Up at the PetCo in Union Square, their adoption center nicknamed “The Upper Cat Side,” Chris spotted Kit and Toonces immediately. “These are them. These are our kittens,” he said. He was excited and shoved a finger into the cage to try to pet one of them. Together, they retreated to the back of the cage and huddled into one another. I halfheartedly attempted to point out other cats but I knew he wasn’t listening. When Chris made his mind up about something, any attempt to change it was futile.

Their adoption process was notorious for being over-the-top. Chris began to sweet talk the lady in charge. He told her about every cat he had ever owned, including the one-eyed orphan from the backwoods of Virginia to his parents’ big tomcat Morris. He ended his speech with the tragic tale of Curmudgeon, my scrappy senior cat who had passed away that August when a blood clot tore loose from his heart and lodged itself into his spine, rendering his back legs immobile. Charmed, the woman moved our application to the front of the pile.

After a thorough inspection of the apartment, we were deemed fit cat parents. We named them Kit, short for Kitmudgeon, and Toonces after the “Saturday Night Live” sketch about the driving cat. They immediately huddled together and cowered behind the toilet. Two tiny, furry bodies paralyzed in fear, eyes darting around looking for the nearest escape. By the end of that first night, it became clear that we had not adopted the “normal” kittens Chris had wanted. A website that specialized in teaching people how to bond with feral cats suggested that we each sit with them and say soothing words. I lay there for hours, with my head on their level, repeating over and over, “I love you. You’re safe now. I will never leave you. You are home.”

Early on in our talks of getting a cat, Chris decided that we should teach them to use the toilet. Always thrifty, he placed two 13×8 pans, one on top of the other, in the toilet bowl and taped them into place. These were then filled with cat litter. Chris thought they could be taught in a month. Every week he cut a hole, bigger and bigger, until there was almost nothing left of this aluminum-litter-box hybrid. Kit took right to it. Toonces, being much smaller and much more anxious, did not like this set-up. She would cry and circle around the toilet before peeing on the floor. Chris felt no sympathy towards Toonces and despite my pleas, would chase her around the house and back her into a corner before picking her up the scruff.
“No!” he yelled, pointing his finger at the puddle of urine and then shoving her face in it. “No! This is not where you go!”
When he let her go she ran to hide under the bed. I laid down on the floor next to her and we both cried.
“I love you. You’re safe now. I’m sorry,” I told her.
“You don’t discipline them,” Chris told me. “She’ll never learn if you don’t tell her she’s wrong.”

***

I am thinking of ketchup as he throws his clothes into trash bags and moves furniture into the living room. As he heave-hos the bed down the hall, leaving the cats wide-eyed and afraid. I laid down next to where they were crouching and told them over and over, “I love you. You are safe now. I will never leave you. You are home.” I used to think that ketchup was made the same way as wine. Or rather, how wine was made in that iconic episode of “I Love Lucy.” But that is not how ketchup is made. The tomatoes are buried in spices and set to boil. Once they reach a boil, they are lowered to a simmer, and the whole tomatoes are crushed with a spoon. The mixture is then left to sit, uncovered, for about an hour. Once it has thickened, an immersion blender is inserted to whir the partly crushed tomatoes into a red oblivion. Lastly, it is run through a fine mesh strainer and what remains in the pot is ketchup. The rest can be thrown away.

Sitting on the floor with our cats, I am wondering what happens to the parts of the tomato that aren’t made into ketchup. The stems and the seeds and all of the pieces too rotten for use. Nobody ever talks about that part. About what happens to the pieces of the tomatoes that are left behind. I am wondering all of this as he walks out the door. When he left, he took boxes and bags of our things. Plates and silverware. Wine glasses and mugs. He took the good pepper grinder. And the siracha. The yellow bag of quinoa. The remainder of the packs of instant ramen. The ketchup. The bed. Me and the cats, left behind. Three years, boiled down and reduced to nothing but the separation of things.


Chelsea Wolf is a writer based out of New York City. In her spare time, she writes and performs her own music, takes excessively long naps, and wrangles feral cats. You can follow her on Twitter (@chelswolf) or in real life.

featured image via Channone Arif on Flickr