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Spring 2008
VanBuren's picks:
Antonia Clark
Brad Johnson
Dale McLain
Roger Pfingston
Richard Rippon
John Anderson
Cristina Baptista
Cynthia Brackett-Vincent
Michael Brownstein
Nuala Ní Chonchúir
Alison Eastley
Brent Fisk
David Fraser
Krikor der Hohannesian
Amy MacLennan
Lisa Markowitz
Damon McLaughlin
Micki Myers
Roger Pfingston
Heather Schimel
Rachel Stewart
Lafayette Wattles
Matt Alberhasky
Margaret Fieland
Robert Johnson
Willie Smith
Alex Nodopaka
Jennifer VanBuren
Jai Britton
Patrick Carrington
Download is still free.
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Heather Schimel
Spring 2008
What Weddings Are Made Of
My aunt tells me
that anyone
who does not hope
for eventual peace
is not human. She hugs
her growling dogs
and two days ago
you asked me to marry you
after I found my ring hidden
in a gun case.
I listen for the yelping
of dying animals
in the night time. You asked me
if I would like to go
shooting again, perhaps
plastic bottles
this time or trees.
December has fingers
and claws. I wonder if
our anniversaries
will be like melting snow or
kenneled sad things
or the sounds of elephants
about to demolish everyone living
without them.
I want to write
my aunt a letter, send it
to South Carolina, where
she lives on a gated island.
I want to tell her peace is not
our eventual search
anymore. Someday,
we will be just like
how we are today-
you not worrying
about who bites first,
just whether it leaves a mark
and whether or not that mark
lasts forever
Wearing Other People's Armor
I have a notebook of secrets and I glued
the cork from our last bottle of wine inside. If you want
to prove the existence of the world
you just need every letter that started in New York
and never made it to Arizona .
Once when you were miles away I went to a bar
and just sat in the corner like the one red door
in a succession of white doors.
Out of all the times I wanted to kill myself,
there was only one time I tried, but I tried to kill myself
with sleep, which apparently does not work too well.
It only makes you angry and terrible to
small animals.
You introduced me to your parents on a Sunday. Your mother
was twirling cocktail umbrellas in her morning coffee. I sat
by a TV dinner tray and wished I had my own umbrella or
the Pulitzer Prize to talk about. Or that Okinawa had been my
idea. Or anything else but these tight pants and a wallet
sized photo of my own face, which they asked about, of course
they asked about.
I have no good explanations left.
You know, once I was
a great storyteller, I could have entertained
a houseful of Republicans. But all I have now
is this notebook of secrets.
All I have are these nights we spend in the canyons
miles away from anything. Out of all the times
I have wanted to kill myself, I have never wanted
to kill myself with you or carry photographs of myself
so the funeral parlor remembers what I am
supposed to look like.
I used to be a storyteller, but now
you're dangling at the top of a ledge,
the moon cupping your jacket sleeves.
I don't need this
notebooks of secrets anymore.
I guess you would call that
a cliffhanger.
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Heather Schimel has her Bachelor's Degree in English from Oswego State University. Currently, she resides by the US/Mexico border. She has worked with police, doctors, professors and the insane. She spends her time polishing boots, catching animals in an old bean jar, and kayaking. Heather dedicates everything she does to JNB because without him, she never would have written any of it down.
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The Trunk by Alex Nodopaka
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