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sparkle + blink 68© 2015 Quiet Lightning

artwork © Taylor Mazertaylordraws.com

“Undertow” by Prartho Serenofrom the collection Elephant Raga (Lynx House Press)

“The Adventures of La Dos in Costcolandia” by Javier Huertafrom the collection American Copia (Arte Público Press)

book design by j. brandon loberg

set in Absara

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CONTENTScurated by

Lauren Traetto & Charlie Getter

featured artist Taylor Mazer

MK CHAVEZ Artemis 1 Wild 2 American Chien 3

XIAOJUAN SHU The Cornfield 5

CHELSEA KIRK Eulogy for a Goldfish 13

JENNIFER LEWIS My Collection 15

CLAUDE CONVERS Did I Really Paint My Lips Red? 21

LAURA JOAKIMSON Where We Lived 23 Smaller 24 Alien Rights 25 Always Speak to Strangers 26 Red Dress 27

LISA PIAZZA (something) 31

CLARA HSU Manzanita 33

JOHN HAGGERTY Polar Bears 35

PRARTHO SERENO Undertow 37

JAVIER HUERTA The Adventures of La Dos in Costcolandia 39

JOSEPH BODIE Ukiyo 45

MK CHAVEZ Do You Know the Huntsman? 47 Baby—our—Sorrow 48 Ideation 49

JULIA SILLS Fifteen 51

QUIET LIGHTNING IS SPONSORED BY

l a g u n i t a s . c o m

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 monthly, submission-based reading series on the first Monday of every month, of which these books (sparkle + blink) are verbatim transcripts.

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

Evan Karp founder + president

Chris Cole managing director

Josey Lee public relations

Meghan Thornton treasurer

Kristen Kramer chair

Kelsey Schimmelman secretary

Sarah Ciston director of books

Katie Wheeler-Dubin director of films

Laura Cerón Meloart director

Christine Noproducer/assistant managing director

If you live in the Bay Area and are interested in helping—on any level—please send us a line:

evan@ quiet l ightning .org

- SET 1 -

1

M K C H A M E M

ARTEMIS

Come ridemy

ovarian horns.Down

with the captiveClitori.Be free

&speak

mygrizzly

bearlips.

2

WILD

There are good bearsand bad bears.

I am one of them. She-bear, a honey and potential man-eating mammalian.

I forage because times are hard.I growl at the wrong moments,it’s the juxtaposition of my needs and the foodin your hands.

We have all clawed at someone.

Remind me of the year I became the unknownvisitor.

I am still learning— eastern & western time.

Once I was a dancing bear.

Here are my teeth.

What do you think?

MK Chavez 3

AMERICAN CHIEN

She pats itlike

the family dog

Treats itlike

an umbrella

Now open/ Now close

Makes it do tricks

Sticksan eyeball in it

Scaresall the customers“Eye can see you”

Personanon-grata

Vaginadentata

thatthing

down there

5

X I A X X U A X S H U

THE CORNFIELD

“Yaya! Let’s go play ‘Fucking,’” whispered Bing outside the window.

It was noon rest time. Grandpa was asleep in the bamboo chair in the living room. I tiptoed through the front door. Cicadas on the trees in front of the house were complaining, “Too hot!” I followed Bing on the dirt road to Feng’s house next door. Bing’s grandma was my grandaunt, and I had been following him around since Mama dropped me off at grandparents’ three months ago. After Feng joined us, we headed west. The large green cornfields were on the left beyond a ditch with muddy water.

I was five, Feng six and Bing eight.

Through a side trail, we crossed the ditch and walked on the narrow footpath between the cornfields. After making sure nobody saw us, we quickly entered the forest of corn. It was cooler in the cornfields with the corn tassels looming above me, twice my height. Smelling the dry dirt and the ripening corn, we threaded our way through the cornstalks further and further until the cicadas sounded distant.

6

Bing and Feng pulled leaves from the stalks and flattened them on the ground to make a bed. “Let’s do it!” Bing said. Feng looked at Bing with his crossed eyes and pulled down his pants half way and lay down. This was the second time I played this, and I didn’t know why my heart raced like a galloping pony. I slowly pulled down my pants half way and lay on top of Feng, face to face, naked part touching naked part. We just lay there while Bing watched us. Time went by slowly and I grew bored. Was this really what the grownups do, as Bing had seen?

I wanted to get up, but Bing’s frown made me stay. A week ago when we played this for the first time, Bing lay down with me to show Feng. That time, Bing had asked me to lie down first, then he lay on top of me. But I could hardly breathe, so he decided that I should always be on top. I felt I was being cared for.

“Let’s go!” Bing said finally. I sprang up. We walked out of the cornfield in single file, with Bing leading, me in the middle, and Feng the last. Feng didn’t go to the one classroom school for kids over age six because he was slow in his head, I heard, and his crossed eyes were often mocked by other boys. Whenever they saw Feng, they would all cross their eyes and laugh until their tummies hurt. One boy would always ask if Feng saw him as one person or two. Feng rarely spoke. What a bore to play “Fucking” with. We walked along the ditch. At the end of the ditch, Feng took off his new sandals to wash his feet. On impulse, I threw one of his

Xiaojuan Shu 7

sandals into the ditch, and instantly I wished I hadn’t done it. The muddy water was deep. “Give me back my shoe,” Feng said. I ran home.

At dusk, Bing came to take me to a new secret place. We walked to dachang. Dachang was the open flat land that the villagers shared to dry the harvested crops and sift grains, and also a place for village gatherings.

We passed the cornfield on the left and then crossed a narrow cement bridge over a small creek before we arrived at dachang, where many hay piles were stacked. My favorite thing to do with these hay piles was climbing them. I would run from afar towards a hay pile, as Bing did before he climbed to the top. But I always slid down half way.

We stopped at one of the hay piles, and Bing removed the hay from the front of the pile. It was hollow! I bent down and followed him inside. The outside noises disappeared like magic. I breathed in the smell of the fresh hay mixed with sunshine. I sat down while Bing blocked the entrance with loose hay. It went dark.

“Shhh!” he said. People were walking by and talking. They had no idea that we were inside the hay! I could barely hold my laugh.

“Yaya! Dinner!” Grandpa called in the distance. We crawled out and then camouflaged the entrance.

I ate dinner as fast as I could because my favorite movie

8

“Nezha Conquers the Dragon King” would be shown again on dachang that night. Then I heard Feng crying and his mama yelling about the lost shoe. I felt a big knot in my stomach, fearing his mama would suddenly show up at the door and ask for the sandal. But she didn’t come. Quickly, I washed myself in a wooden tub and then changed into my favorite pink flower dress with lace.

Grandma walked with me to dachang, but I felt like running as the breeze tickled me through my pink dress. I ran ahead all the way to dachang, where Uncle Jin and several others were raising a big white rectangular cloth tied between two poles. Soon, more and more people gathered that I didn’t know. They brought their own little wooden benches to sit in front of the white screen. The big crowd excited me. I felt pretty in my pink flower dress and I loved the attention that I attracted. I opened my arms to spin my body so that my pink flower dress would fly out.

“What a pretty girl!” I heard someone say. I spun faster until I felt too dizzy to stand. I found Grandma and collapsed onto her lap.

The sky grew dark. The movie began in a cool breeze. When the movie was over, everyone stood up to leave at the same time. Jumping off of Grandma’s lap, I worked my way through the crowd, but was pushed from behind and fell. I tried to get up, but someone was standing on my dress. I was scared and began to cry. A pair of big hands pulled me up. “Don’t cry,

Xiaojuan Shu 9

pretty girl. I’ll get you out of here,” the stranger with big hands said. He lifted me up and carried me in his arms. In the moonlight, through tears I saw Feng in the crowd.

The man walked fast and soon the noise of the crowd was behind the narrow cement bridge. My grandparents’ house was nearby. I wanted to be put down, but he kept walking. I smelled corn. We were in the cornfield. Suddenly, I was scared.

“I want to go home,” I said.

He locked me in his arms and pressed my body against his chest.

“I want to go home!” I kicked him.

His big hand moved under my dress between my legs, like the sandpaper Grandpa used, scrubbing my skin.

I began to cry.

One big hand covered my mouth while the other was touching my naked part in a strange way, a finger poking inside. It hurt so much that I wanted to scream, but my voice was trapped in my chest. I kicked him harder, but his body was hard like a rock.

“Ahhh!” a voice shouted. It was Feng.

10

“Little bastard! Shouting for what?” the man said.

Feng kept yelling. The man finally let go of me and disappeared into the dark. I let out my cry.

“Yaya! Yaya!” Grandma was calling.

I walked home, sobbing. Feng followed at a distance.

Grandma was waiting for me in front of the house. I couldn’t tell Grandma what happened. It still hurt there and I was afraid to touch it. After Grandma and Grandpa went to sleep, I crawled under the bed and hid my wrinkled pink flower dress in the far corner. I didn’t want to wear it again because it would remind me of the big hands.

The next day, I walked to the hay house and sat in the dark, hugging my knees until Grandpa called me for lunch, then for dinner, then lunch the next day, then dinner again. When Bing came after school, I pushed him out with all my strength.

Feng was the only one who shared my secret. When other boys mocked his crossed eyes again, I felt sorry for him. If they knew my naked part had been poked by a big hand, they would shout together, “Big hand poked! Big hand poked!” and then laugh until their tummies hurt.

It was quiet in the hay house.

Xiaojuan Shu 11

Three months later I turned six. The ditch was drained and I saw Feng’s sandal in the mud. I washed it in the creek and left it by his door. As I was walking to the hay house, something was lifted in my heart. All of a sudden, I felt like running. I ran, and ran. I ran as fast as I could. So fast that I believed none of those boys could catch me. I ran, and ran. I ran toward the tallest hay pile and climbed all the way to the top for the first time. I stood there, shouting at the top of my lungs,

“Wo liu sui le!” (I’m six!) Tears washed my face like a warm spring.

13

C H E L S E A K I R K

EULOGY FOR A GOLDFISH

Today in church I am reduced to nylon and cottonand my stepdad: a narrow necked urn–the best he’s looked in years.

When I was younger I watched my mother dunk herself in holy water believing The Book of Mormon would save her. I told her drowning is being saved and today the pews are brimming with politeness, people trying not to drown.

After the phone call, I felt hands touch my back as I sobbed in the shower, and now I can’t help but imagine him trembling on the bathroom floor like cabin doors on take off, buckling himself in, surrendering his own fate, breathing out slow. That’s drowning.

My mother asked me to write his eulogy andI didn’t know which words to use. We sat on bus

benches and ate donuts, watched football and killed angelfish. We went to Vegas once, came home with a ferret and starved it by our third apartment. I told her I couldn’t write a eulogy for a man who died

14

before I met him.

It’s understandable that we would all read eulogies for a different man today. I read one for the man who

chased dragons in motel rooms, let his daughter microwave

foil, and found his happy place in the bend of his arm.

My sister read one for her carnival prize, asked me why her

father died, and cried when I told her fish aren’t meant to live

in fish bowls.

15

X E X X I F E R L E W I S

MY COLLECTION

I bought my first wig when Mo was diagnosed with breast cancer and she had started losing her hair. She and I went to the Lemmon Wig Shop and I remember being impressed by the quality and selection. They looked like real human hair! They were more expensive than what I’d budgeted for, but the sky was the limit for Mo, and it was important that she walked out of Lemmon’s feeling pretty, or at the very least—amused. I remember being nervous when we walked in, seeing all those wigs on cartoon mannequin faces in the windows was a little creepy, but the people behind the counter gave us big smiles and encouraged us to try on every wig in the store. Hours later, we rolled out of there with four wigs, fake eyelashes and bedazzled press-on nails.

Paul had been dead for only a month when I found Jonathan, my grown-ass son, in my walk-in closet. I heard a wig rustling off one of the six Styrofoam heads. What was he doing in there? Trying one on? My knees trembled and my heart galloped thinking of him finding my collection: a waist-length platinum job, a short red number with bangs, some curly brown locks, a Dolly Parton, A Crystal Gail and Britney’s

16

pink alter ego. Instead of walking backwards out the door like I had intended, (I don’t know what came over me!) I shouted, “Haven’t you taken enough?”

I almost expected my son to come out with Virginia on his head, my long platinum beauty that flipped up at the bottom, because that’s just the kind of relationship we had. We were able to joke about the most serious things, but he walked out empty-headed. He looked stunned, pale. His blue eyes glazed over. He couldn’t even look at me. His own mother who had bailed him out of jail. Twice. Usually he had something clever to say, but he just put his hands in his pockets and his sour mouth turned down with disgust. “Get out,” I said. “Get out this minute.”

That look he gave me! I can still see it now. Who was he to judge me? I didn’t want to keep the wigs in a box anymore. They get all bent out of shape and they’re never really the same if you don’t treat them properly. Why was he on my side of the house anyway? Can’t a fifty-six-year-old woman have some privacy? Haven’t I suffered enough? Two dead husbands and a troubled son. Most women my age have grandchildren. I’ve never put any pressure on him.

Now I know it must have been hard, losing his father in the middle of the night. I can still remember when the police knocked on the door. Those words: “car,”

“tree,” “under-the-influence. A woman passenger—who had survived without a scratch.” “That couldn’t

jennifer LewiS 17

be my husband!” I remember saying that over and over. I was twenty-six years old. There had to be some kind of mistake. The police officer kept repeating my husband’s name. He finally had to wrap my fingers around his driver’s license. And when I saw his picture, I started crying. I suppose I was screaming. Now that I’m thinking about it, you could’ve called me hysterical. When Jonathan walked into the living room, I guess I should have composed myself. Thought about his feelings first. A six-year-old boy shouldn’t see his mother in that state. He shouldn’t have had to figure things out by himself. But that was a long time ago. Thirty years ago.

When Terry comes over in the middle of the night, I don’t think Jonathan could hear us. I moved my bedroom to the other side of the house next to the pool. I had to. We couldn’t afford to go to hotels anymore. Even the cheap ones add up. Plus, neither of us liked checking in at the front desk. Dallas is big, but it’s a small town and I’ve gotten a little vocal these days. I don’t know what has gotten into me. I’ve never really understood sex before, just went through the motions hoping it would be over soon. It must be those wigs. They make me want to scream. The silky hair that hangs down my back and covers my breasts. Even the short ones that tuck under my ear, they make me feel so giddy. I finally know what this body is for. I don’t even mind being older. With my wig on, I’m just pretty hair.

18

Last week when Terry was over, he picked up a picture of Jonathan and said, “Right off the bat, I could tell he was yours.”

“He may have gotten my cheekbones and my almond shape eyes,” I replied, “but he’s all his father. He tans like me though. In the summer, we’re the same shade.”

Look, here’s the picture. See his glossy eyes. Always looks like he’s just been stung by a bee.

Like the time he was playing in the backyard by the black-eyed Susans. He used to pick up those daisy-like things and run in circles. The golden flowers matched his straw hair. I remember seeing the yellow jacket flying around his head and instead of crashing onto his shoulder, it landed in the dark center of the flower. He had reached for butterflies before, orange and red ones, so why would this be any different? From my poolside chair, I watched him grab for the yellow and black stripes. I saw the bee land on the webbing between his thumb and index finger. I watched the pain travel up his tan little arm, to his clutched jaw, and just when he was about to wail, he looked at me and we locked eyes, and instead of screaming, he just held it in. Spent his whole life holding it in. He had to be about eight years old or so because we had already moved into Paul’s house. I remember because after he got stung, I ran to hug him and Mo went into the house to get some ice.

I’ve never told anyone this before. That night the police

jennifer LewiS 19

officer asked me if I wanted to know the name of the woman who was in the car. I remember shaking my head. Beating my hands on the policeman’s chest. The police officer trying to calm me down by putting me in a bear hug. But it was printed in the paper the very next day. I didn’t know that name. Had no intention of ever looking it up. I did keep those clippings in an album and when Jonathan got older I let him see those scrapbooks. I watched his face when he read about the woman. Saw him wondering who she was and how strange it was that someone had been next to him when he died and it was neither of us. But he never did ask, so I never did say anything about it. Figured it was all there in black and white.

Jonathan’s missing now. It’s been a little over a week since he found my collection. Sometimes I wonder what I could have done differently. And all I can come up with is that I did the best I could. If Mo was still with us, I would call her. She would know what to do. After the accident, Mo drove Jonathan to school on the days I couldn’t get up. I know she’s watching over him right now, keeping him safe, telling him to do the right thing and go back home to his mama. I don’t want to burden Terry with all this. He has his own kids and a handicapped wife. All I can do is sit here and smoke cigarettes until either the police come knocking again or he walks through that door. Speaking of doors, I locked the closet door. None of that matters anymore. Silly wigs. Making me feel joy—like a girl again.

21

C L A U D E C X X M E R S

DID I REALLYPAINT MY LIPS RED?

I truly, truly apologize, I don’t know why butI really do. I don’t know why I painted my lips redand removed my shoes at the board meeting.I don’t know why I was drunk with I believe,some various glasses of something I forgot. I don’t.But I apologize for not holding it together. You know,my husband is in the hospital, I don’t really know whyeither and I am sorry. He is very sick, the doctor told me.Me too, I said, I have a constant headache I am trying

to kill.You know that he burned me with cigarettes butI never said anything. Well, I am sorry I walked on

the tablewhile you began to speak about, I don’t know,the financial report, I believe. I am sorry, truly,truly sorry that I also removed my skirt and threw itin the face of I forgot who. I mean, I forgot. I truly

forgothow I got home. Did I really paint my lips red?Did I really remove my shoes and walk on the table?My colleague told me so. You know my son left home,he never said where he went, I don’t know why,he never called. I apologize, truly, even if I can’t

remember.I am sorry I don’t know why.

23

L A U R A X X A K I M S X X

WHERE WE LIVED

for Ibn Hazm

It was your idea to split your heart— for me to climb inside; to stay with you wherever you roamed.

But my weight had a way of dragging you down, and you lacked brute strength to shelter me.

After I made your hurting back fail— you had some revenge—kept me locked inside the cold place your love for me was buried.

For years I slept inside the darkest heart of you— dreamed of making an escape. I asked worms to carry me.

24

SMALLER

Sometimes I think the world wants my voice to be smaller wants me to be smaller like the woman in Delaware who starved herself small enough that her married boyfriend could squeeze her body into a Styrofoam ice chest and float it out to sea; I don’t want to need anything; don’t want to be heard or validated or seen — don’t want you to think about me after you stop.

Laura joaKiMSon 25

ALIEN RIGHTS

Would it help if I told you all the ways I don’t quite belong to the human race?

All the times I’ve been turned down, looked over, found short of the mark?

If I ask you to judge, you’ll find me wanting. I know. I know. I know.

Would it help if I lie and say your acceptance doesn’t mean much to me? Would it help

if I say your pity, your condescension, your stony-eyescan’t flay my skin? Would it help if I told you all the ways

I don’t quite belong to the human race?

26

ALWAYS SPEAK TO STRANGERS

Once strangers were strange. Now your mother is a stranger and your father is a stranger; you’re a stranger in your grandmother’s house.Make people who care about you a fetish; seek those who don’t find you disappointing— who cherish your imperfections as precious proof of your humanity.What good is success if you can’t love people you haven’t yet met? If you can’t come home to someone who, like you, is slowly trying and failing to heal the world?

Laura joaKiMSon 27

RED DRESS

When I was six years old I overheard my mother talking about things I couldn’t do.

“She can’t wash her own hair.” It outraged me. Because she’d never asked me to.

I took the shampoo from her hands, the next time lathering my own long hair; she looked stunned.

I stand too far away from you at the bar; not wanting to enter your sacred space.

I don’t want to see in your eyes a disappointment in things you think I can’t do. Like wear a red dress.

28

Or open up to you. Or appreciate you for who you really are. A storyteller on stage mentions a man who loved her

more than she loved him and though she offered to give him what she could. Her friends told her

it wasn’t enough. So she pushed him away. It might not have been the reason

he died less than a year later but the thought that it might have played a role makes her voice tremble. I was afraid if I wore the red dress

you would have known I love you. And you would have sent me on my way.

- SET 2 -

31

L I S A P I A M M A

(SOMETHING)

this spill of sounds this waste of words each lettera rough touch tender on the tongue this skin story this blue-black constellation told by the bruise-hurt of truth this collision of light this balled-up sentencetight in my fist each earnest vowel pressed to my lips this breath balanced on fingertips

(i know i owe you more than this line about the sheet of stars in the sky)

all the glow n glory out my open windowproof of nothing (something) everything

33

C L A R A H S U

MANZANITA

Manzanitahow naive of meto think we have finallychangedA grove of untreescarmine congealedon the branchespeeled skinfrom a woman’s armshold tight her loveas you become a man

Bright like the bushthat opened Moses’ eyestwisted limbsAt your fingertipsan offering of fruitsthe promise of sweet tasteafter bitternessbitterness that seems to go onmoment after moment

In a gardenyour bones are discussed

between the artist and the

34

architectwhether it is more suitableto place them on a table with votive candlesor to decorate the entrance of a hallHow naive of meto drink your tisaneand without a messagepossess your bodytime becomes intolerable

Manzanita standingin front of a fleet of tanksManzantia, concrete pouringMandellaGhandiTheresaBeautiful the new Doyle drivemajestic with spectacular viewsno more car accidents on windy curvesManzanita, you were the only onemust we sacrifice ourselves for your beauty?Did we not spend money on your welfare?Did we not pick you up with the gentlest hands?Tamed in the grove of untreesdriftwood

XXTE: Franciscan Manzanita, a species native to San Francisco, had not been seen growing wild since 1947 until it was spotted growing in the Presidio of San Francisco in October 2009. Caltrans transplanted this specimen on 23 January 2010 to make way for the Doyle Drive Replacement Project. Transplanting costs were funded in part by Federal Highways Administration, Caltrans, The Presidio of San Francisco, and private donors.— Wikipedia

35

X X H X H A G G E R T Y

POLAR BEARS

The polar bears have come down off the ice, now that there’s no more ice to be had. They wander through the streets, gazing forlornly in shop windows; their cubs play disconsolately in the parks. They monopolize the swimming pools, submerging themselves for hours at a time, watching the sunbathers and volleyball enthusiasts with a quiet, unblinking stare.

Landlords don’t like renting to them. Nothing personal, they say, it’s just that they’re hell on the facilities. Fix up the guestroom for your air-conditioning man—that’s how much you’ll be seeing him. And there’s the smell—a fishy, walrus-blubber kind of thing that’s simply impossible to get out of the carpet and drapes.

But we’re doing our best to adjust to the situation. Even the maulings have become routine—we barely slow down to look anymore. Instead we stride on by, eyes fixed on the horizon as a bear, its beautiful white fur sticky and red with blood, hunches over the convulsing body of some financial planner or software engineer. Should you look into the animal’s face at a moment like this, you will be met with a gaze of sorrowful resignation. “What did you think was going to happen?” it seems to ask. “What did you really expect?”

37

P R A R T H X S E R E X X

UNDERTOW

The great whales, they say, once cavorted on land— their closest cousin, the dairy cow. But these homesick bovines waddled back to the sea, foreleg morphing to fin, hind leg to fluke.

And so this is the story of a sea creature, wrapped in her own warmth, and how her heart grew to the size of a small cathedral, so that when she sang the notes became round and traveled in rings.

But first, this is the story of a cow, heavy with barley and wheat, fed-up with gravity and heat. About the call she barely heard in the murmur of the sea, and how her wobbly legs seemed to carry her on their own, gingering down over boulder and shale to the shore.

For a few glory days, she cooled her hooves in the shallows and nibbled on seaweed, but the callinsisted from deeper down and away. So that one day she strode into the breakers, great head lifted up,

38

huge nostrils drinking in air. And then the ocean floor fell out and she drifted down in a slow-motion paddle, buoyed by something strange yet familiar—thick, echoing, tasting of salt.

39

X A M I E R H U E R T A

THE ADVENTURES OF LA DOSIN COSTCOLANDIA

Este cuento se trata de dos fascinaciones: 1. mi fascinacion con La Dos 2. la fascinacion de La Dos con el Costco. I should say “nuestra fascinacion” porque somos dos los que estamos fascinados con La Dos: 1. El Pie Derecho 2. El Pie Izquierdo. El Pie Izquierdo y El Pie Derecho—ese soy yo—walk to the El Cerrito Costco because we have heard that La Dos lives in one of the aisles. We look for her in aisle #2, but La Dos is not there. We ask one of the stockboys where we could find her, but he tells us a joke instead.

“What do you call los enamorados de La Dos?”

“Que?”

“Los PerdiDOS!”

The stockboy laughs uncontrollably, and as we walk away he says, “One day when you have forgotten it you will hear the joke for a second time, but this time from La Dos, and I promise you will feel like you’re dying from the laughter.”

40

Just outside of aisle #2, we encounter a second stockboy, and he points and gives us directions. “1. you want to go è. 2. you want to go ç.” El Pie Izquierdo goes ç, and I—El Pie Derecho—go è.

Encontramos a La Dos lying in the makeshift aisle between the wine bottles and the breakfast breads. She greets us with a huge smile :D.

“Por que tan feliz?” le preguntamos.

“Because I’m eating the second saddest fruit. May I interest you in some canned peaches?”

“Do you feel sad when you eat the second happiest fruit?”

“Of course not. The second happiest fruit is pineapples, and they hold sunshine.”

As we enjoy our canned peaches, we inform La Dos that we are interested in writing a book about her experiences called Las Aventuras de La Dos en Costcolandia. She flashes a huge smile :D. “We should start with some basic information you should know about me,” says La Dos gestures to El Pie Izquierdo that he should record what she says in our notebook. La Dos begins, “I’m an extrovert on the inside. I’m trained as an urban planner, but I’m bad with directions. I put on my pants two legs at a time. I have two friends named Claudia, but I refer to each Claudia as Claudia #1.”

javier huerta 41

I turn to El Pie Izquierdo and say, “Son dos Claudias.”

El Pie Izquierdo writes it down and below that he adds, “Solo hay una Dos.”

And La Dos continues, “I have been in love only once, pero de dos personas. O tal vez me enamoré dos veces pero solo de una persona. I met him here at Costco. He still works as a stockboy in aisle #2 and likes to tell jokes about me.”

El Pio Izquierdo looks at me to suggest that this would be a good time to tell La Dos what we came to tell her. In reality we have come to Costco to declare our fascination. “Dos, tengo dos cosas que decirte: 1. me fascinas. 2. me fascinas.” Pero tenemos un problema de dos porque lo pensamos dos veces y al fin decimos dos nadas.

La Dos starts up with a huge smile :D because she remembers it is time for free samples. She grabs both of us by the arm and guides us to what she calls “bite-size wonder.” And it is wonderful. We eat gelato, hummus, crackers, chocolates, and wings, and we drink it all down with cappucino and water. La Dos laughs at El Pie Izquierdo y El Pie Derecho—ese soy yo—when the gelato server scolds us because we try to grab a second sample.

Then La Dos sees a huge Costco cart and runs to it. We follow behind. One Costco cart is as big as two

42

regular grocery carts, and they come equipped to accommodate two babies with two legs each. La Dos says, “May I interest you in a ride.” El Pie Izquierdo and I sit down and let our legs dangle. This makes La Dos smile :D. La Dos pushes the cart and us to the fridge, which, as she claims, is big enough to walk around in.

“You should go inside to get me a case of milk and see for yourself how huge the fridge is,” La Dos says.

When El Pie Izquierdo and I step into the fridge, La Dos closes the glass door on us. We look back to see her huge smile :D. El Pie Izquierdo and I act afraid until she lets us out. When we hand her a case of milk, La Dos says, “See. In one case, you get two gallons of milk. Costco believes everyone should have a friend to share milk with. You two should take this one home.”

El Pie Izquierdo whispers to me that we are running out of time and that we should tell La Dos exactly how we feel. La Dos wants to know what we are whispering about. We want to say, “Dos, tengo dos cosas que decirte. 1. quiero sentir la singularidad de la Dos. 2. quiero sentir la singularidad de La Dos.” Pero lo unico que nos sale son dos silencios. We could have enjoyed two glorious joys for the price of one. La Dos breaks los dos silencios with her beautiful smile :D.

“Tengo dos cosas que darles: 1. My recipe for black bean patties. 2. My recipe for white bean patties.”

“Dos, why do you love Costco so much?” we ask her.

javier huerta 43

“Because bulk is beautiful,” she says.

And as she guides us through the Costco aisles looking for ingredients, El Pie Izquierdo y yo El Pie Derecho find ourselves alone in ailse #2 not knowing when La Dos had left us. The stockboy, the one who was loved twice by La Dos, is still there.

“May I interest you in a piece of Tres Leches cake?”

El Pie Izquierdo y El Pie Derecho, ese soy yo, take one piece and split it in half. El Pie Izquierdo takes 1 ½ and yo El Pie Derecho take 1 ½.

“I thought that eating Tres Leches cake would help me move beyond La Dos. But I have come to realize that it is the second saddest cake,” the stockboy says.

“Why do they call her La Dos?” we ask.

“Porque tiene dos ojos costcoltecos.”

45

X X S E P H B X D I E

UKIYO

It has these really big balloons that help keep it in the air. 25 balloons. Papa says this is because the floating city is 25 square miles.

I dream of working on the balloons.

You never know where the floating city will be, because it is at the mercy of the wind. Right now, though, it is close to our little town, closer than it has ever been. It is a tiny dot in the sky.

Papa says that I have to stay on the farm. He needs my help. Papa says my dreams are impractical. That’s the word he uses, impractical.

The floating city runs on steam. There are huge exhaust pipes on the bottom of the city, the side that we can see from the ground. The floating city releases steam from these pipes. The steam is thick and dangerous and burns things. Cattle, trees, people.

People say that if you are lucky enough to work on the floating city, on the balloons or in the steam rooms, that, after a while, you can stop working and

46

just live there. People who live there only do what they want to do.

If the floating city is over where you live, everything on the ground is in darkness. Because the city is so big and its shadow so large and because it is so big that it blocks out the sun.

Somebody from our town went to work on the floating city, once. A long time ago, way before I was born, people say that the floating city was over our town and that Claude McGill went to work on the balloons.

The floating city might stay in one place for a week or for a year. It just depends on the wind. If it stays too long it can be very bad, because of the steam and the darkness. One time, the floating city stayed in one place for six months and everything on the ground died.

Papa says that these stories are just stories and that nobody ever goes to work on the floating city. Papa says it is time to milk the cows. Papa says Claude McGill died. On the ground, Papa says.

Each day, the dot in the sky is getting bigger. The floating city is moving and it looks like it is moving towards us.

I am happy and each night I dream of balloons.

Papa is afraid.

47

M K C H A M E M

DO YOU KNOWTHE HUNTSMAN?

In Lodi you can eat burgers among 314 taxidermied animals. The portrait: Lonely visits lonely. I too was once the wild hunt until a huntsman came upon me and carved me out. Once considered interesting enough to try to catch. Now everyone pretends that I did not happen and anything that followed has been denial. Everyone relieved. I still, waiting among crests of cheetah pelvis and loin mane. Some of us sharpen eye and antler. Everything connected to our bodies a potential weapon.

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BABY—OUR—SORROW

After Mark Ryden’s painting “Birth”

Busy with the impending rueyou forgot to feed the knottedbud. The only bulb that could emerge,a weakened mandrake, not quite humanretreated rightly into what it knew best.Burrowed in the dirtnever to be seen again.

MK Chavez 49

IDEATION

Walk on the snail trail pass the coy and the failed. Pick up snail by snail.

They mumble from a mucus covered membrane It’s best not to coddle

the kind of sunshine that comes from a bottle. I think of Alice popping pills. Ache for that orange glow

the familiar cylinder. Vacant smile. The sit & wait, the quiet bait

on medicine shelf. My head is a new exhibition, jaws of old mold, synaptic, break crackle snap. This is just one day in the park. Walk the rain,

wet brain, clean sink consider what’s left. The gunk stuck at the bottom. Some sad brain drain.

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X U L I A S I L L S

FIFTEEN

This is how you feel. This is how words start to feel weightless. This is how you stare at someone on the train in the morning. This is how you swallow anger and this how you let it fill you and feel its thin fingers around your wrists. This is how you stare at the wall and make the insides of your body evaporate. This is how you turn your memory off for seventeen minutes. This is how you turn it back on.

This is how you feel. You’re a fifteen year old girl and you steal your mother’s old gray car and drive it to the other side of the city in the middle of the night. You park it on a street you’ve never been on, in a neighborhood you have been told not to go to. You start to walk and smoke a cigarette from a box you’ve been hiding under your bed for 5 months. You don’t really know how to smoke cigarettes but you do it because it feels dangerous and that’s what you’re looking for, danger. The kind of danger that makes your stomach tight and your fingernails dig into your palms.You think about the fear of your mother finding out. You concentrate on her not knowing where you are, how angry she would be. The fear feels good.

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A man starts walking next to you. He seems like he’s used to walking around in the middle of the night. He walks slowly and studies your face as if he is slowly recognizing something, a secret he isn’t sharing. He has tangled hair, more tangled than yours. As he starts to notice something in you, you see an opportunity in him, in the way he looks at you and asks you if you want to go to the park near here, in the way you are suddenly acutely and crushingly alone together in the dark, and in the way he asks if you are afraid.

You smile quietly. No, you are not afraid. It’s summer, you’re not wearing a jacket, and you look at the pale skin on the insides of your arms, in the soft light the skin is almost translucent.

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