The Silhouette - Spring 2007

8/14/2019 The Silhouette - Spring 2007

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Silhouette

Spring 2007

Literary and Art Magazine Volume 29, Issue 2


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Silhouette, Volume 29, Issue 2, was produced by the Sil-

houette Staff and printed by Inove Graphics, located in

Kingsport, TN. The paper is 80# Patina Text with a 100#

Lustro Dull cover. The font used throughout the magazine

is American Typewriter (Regular), Helvetica (Medium and

Bold), Times (Italic), and Papyrus. The art on the front

cover is an excerpt of One with Nature by Stacey Swann,featured on page 32. Silhouette Literary and Art Magazine

is a division of EMCVT, Inc., a non-prot organization that

fosters student media at Virginia Tech. Please send all cor-

respondence to 344 Squires Student Center, Blacksburg,

VA 24061. All Virginia Tech students who are not part of

Silhouette staff are invited to submit to the magazine. All

rights revert to the artists upon publication. To become a

subscriber of Silhouette, send a check for $10 for each year

subscription (two magazines) to Silhouettes address above,c/o Business Manager or visit EMCVTs e-commerce website

at www.collegemedia.com/shop. For more information please

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our ofce at 540-231-4124. Enjoy!


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STAFF

Jenna Wolfe

Business Manager

Lana TangAdvertising Manager

Jennifer JohnsonSpecial Events Coordinator

Danielle DowningAlumni Relations

Megan McCarthyPublic Relations

Erin SnyderPromotions Director

Naeemah McDuffeyCommunications Director

Katherine LeonbergerProduction and Distribution

Kalyn SaylorGeneral Staff

Michelle RiveraGeneral Staff

Hali Plourde-Rogers

Editor-in-Chief

Corinne JeltesPoetry Editor

Laura V. CookFine Art Editor

Marisa PlesciaProse Editor

Erin OKeefePoetry Editor

Misono YokoyamaGraphic Designer

Joel RileyWebmaster

Katherine BrumbaughGeneral Staff

Joselyn TakacsGeneral Staff

Vanessa RamosGeneral Staff

Katie Fallon

Editorial Advisor


4/44

Art7

9

13

15

17

18

21

22

27

2931

32

36

37

42

43

Ginger Peach Elizabeth Pacentrilli

Arlington Cemetery Annabelle Ombac

Holding Hand Shaozhuo Cui

Ti Amo Dane Miller

Moray Circles Annabelle Ombac

Untitled Ryan Arnaudin

Passion Elizabeth Pacentrilli

Untitled Ryan Arnaudin

Abandoned Heather McMillan

Glasses Amanda Kubista Untitled Garrett Bradley

One with Nature Stacey Swann

Rope Annabelle Ombac

Your Path Annabelle Ombac

2 Heads are Better Than 1 Annabelle Ombac

The Fish King Heather McMillan


5/44

Literature6

8

10

12

14

16

19

20

23

2426

28

30

33

33

34

Instead of Picking Her Up From Class Ryan Donnelly

Daylight Savings Time on the Graveyard Shift Rob Talbert

Playing Cards Tara Marciniak

Garden Morning Tara Marciniak

I Have a Scar Beside My Left Eye Ryan Donnelly

Id Rather Not Die in My Sleep Ryan Donnelly

Going Home with the Headlights Turned Off Leo McLaughlin

Street Sweeper Kate Michel

Chess Nights Tara Marciniak

Solitaire Will Holman A Bittersweet Twenty Degrees Leo McLaughlin

Starbucks Noir Zaki Barzinji

A Flock of Sheep Tara Marciniak

Begone Rana Fayez

Untitled Rana Fayez

Crocuta Crocuta Mark Settle


6/44

Instead of picking her up from class,

I took the bus to Roanoke Airport

to watch the planes.

They wouldnt let me near the gates

because I needed a ticket, or a boarding pass or something

apparently theyre not the same thing.

For a while I stood with my arms crossed

at the security checkpoint,

right next to the woman checking passes with a marker,

watching her running over each piece of paper,

wishing people a pleasant ight,

glancing at me from the corner of her eye

like I was standing a little too close.

But I stayed there, next to her,

as people in suits and trench coats dropped their bags onto a moving belt,

stepped through metal detectors embarrassed

as if theyd arrived late to a funeral.

Some people have jobs

where they have to walk like that every day.

After a while, she told me that if I didnt have a boarding pass

I would have to leave, so I sat down

at the oor-to-ceiling window

next to the gift shop.

I made sure she could still see me.

Planes were still ying at three

on a Wednesday afternoon,

out of all ve gates of the airport.

Of course, the engines roared and seared

across the tarmac then off into the air, gone,

but I wasnt on any of them

because I wasnt wearing a suit.

My phone rangshe was wondering where I was.

I told her I was at the airport and she got worried,

like she thought I was going somewhere, leaving her.I hung up and bought a snow-globe

with a little sunken church,

plastic evergreen trees covered in glitter, snow

I took a picture of it with my camera

and emailed it to her.

Right then I started making plans to buy a plane ticket

so that the woman at the security checkpoint

had to let us near the gates.

I planned to make her believe that this snow globe

could leave Roanoke Airport if I wanted it to.

Instead of Picking Her Up From Class

Ryan Donnelly

Six

Editors Pick


7/44

Ginger Peach

Elizabeth Pacentrilli

Seven

Editors Pick


8/44

Daylight Savings Time on the Graveyard Shift

Graveyard shifts are easier in the company

of street sweepers. Weve been given

another hour to live our lives. This, a duration

better spent calling someone when Im not drunk

for a change, or building homes in the kitchen

out of glue and popsicle sticks. Until then, Ill

keep ddling with my watch and wait for the sun

to come up early. Instead of only an hour, we should

be allowed to go back as far as we need to. Return

to when lovers left, or when Christ walked the earth,

or when the harvest moon lit paths for species now long

extinct. We could go back to our own births and watch, touch,

burn our skin while our understandings manifested

through pokes and pressures. If a baby is born every

few seconds, I think its important that we tell the ones

born tonight that the moment they were real their hearts

were already ahead of schedule. They should know

that the second they existed they were getting younger,

and while they could almost reach themselves in a former life

the rest of us were working late into the dawn.

Trying to keep up with the planet, while all our faith

and watches went the other way with a silence that grows

between the branches.

Rob Talbert

Eight


9/44

Arlington CemeteryAnnabelle Ombac

Nine


10/44

Not so fast there baby, he said slowly, lemme fetch you my business card. He was a rather plain looking

black man, just a bit taller than I was and round in the belly. He had something though; the way an old jukebox

has something that a CD player doesnt. Hang on now, its somewhere. He said, looking down to the cafeteria-

like oor.

Its alright, I offered, Ill be back tomorrow, I can just get it. . .

Huh-uh, no way, I sure as hell know this isnt important to you and I know even better that Ill forget bytomorrow. Its either now or never.

His hands came out of his front pockets with a wad of chewing gum wrappers, mini golf pencils, rubber

bands. . .

Could you just, he glanced at me as he handed me the junk in his hands, thanks. He handed me more

and more seemingly useless trash as his search continued. I noticed three guys in a corner ddling with a puzzle.

Each one took a turn to look up and see how I was reacting to the chaos before me. But when their eyes met mine,

they quickly adverted their glances back to the table.

Here we go. He said as he opened his wallet. You want two of them? You can have more than one you

know.

He handed me the ace of clubs and the seven of diamonds.

Wait! Billy jumped up from the table next to me, Give her my card too!You damned fool, my new pal responded, I aint got yours, you aughta have yours.

I wondered if I could slip away. Neither of them was able to concentrate on more than one thing at a time.

And this time it was playing cards, or business cards rather. My own thoughts clouded out the steady hum of

their bickering voices. I drifted to the outside, longing for fresh air. These guys hadnt been outside for weeks. All

they were granted of the natural world was a ve foot by ten foot court yard, a mere splinter of light entering the

building. It wasnt even used, unless you were one of the crew, armed with three sets of keys and a watering can

for the small pyramid of owers in the middle of the yard.

I didnt ask that day why either one was in there. I never wanted to know.

The next day my father and I came back at the same time; my mother liked schedules. Id sit with them

at rst. Stare at the owers I had brought her. Run my ngers over the coarseness of her bed sheets. And shed

complain, about the food, about her roommate, about the woman who wailed at night for attention. Well, youshouldnt a done what you did. My dad would say. But then hed talk with the crew and convince them to let him

bring her food and switch her roommate and anything else he could still do for her.

They were lost, driving around an unfamiliar city looking at a pad of sheet music instead of a road map.

Reading notes as boulders and treble clefs as tornadoes, they steered themselves away and away from symbols

they thought they understood.

The same conversation happened between the two of them each day and each day I wandered out to the

common room. By day three I had learned to bring a pencil and pad of paper with me. The more I drew, the bigger

I became. I became a part of everything my pencil created and I was bigger than the mental hospital and my

parents and the ace of clubs. Then Billy came. Hed sit next to me and not say a word. He alternated between two

annel long sleeved shirts each day and hed hum his own song quietly while he sat.

Then one day he brought his own pencil with him. I drew a mountain range. He drew two birds. I drew acloud. He drew a pine tree. It went on like that until there was nothing left to t inside that picture. There was

no need for conversation, the graphite spoke for us. My friend, the ace of clubs, was not out that day. Then Billy

reached over me to get a clean sheet of paper. He drew another pine tree. I drew a snow man. Twenty minutes

later we had a world with its own people, its own smells, and its own traditions.

Im not crazy you know. He looked me in the face for the rst time. He had distant, icy blue eyes. I

Playing CardsTara Marciniak


11/44

looked at them, back and forth, skimming his words, trying to nd the meaning behind them. I didnt like it.

I shouldnt be in here. He said as he looked around the ceiling and then straight at the glass where the

crew sat. They know it, they know I dont belong here. Its a money thing.

I remember that I didnt ask anything. I let his story spill out of him as he had probably rehearsed it day

after day until it was just right.

I was mowing the lawn behind my moms house, right. And its a nice house, I mean one of those

community things. The trees planted in certain spots and the man made lakes and all that. Well, there was some

kind of nest in the ground, I mean a bee hive. Well, I chopped the shit outa it. Not on purpose of course. And those

little bastards were stingin me and stingin me, so you know what I did? I ran towards one of those lakes. ButI didnt wanna get my clothes wet. So, quick as a cat, I tear my clothes off n jump in the lake. He smiled at me,

proud of his little story, thinking it sounded as real as can be. Well, Im scared as shit, right, stung all over and

I aint coming out. Awhile later the police show up. Talkin bout they got a call that some naked madman was

swimmin around in a lake. I was the naked madman you know. And they cuffed me and brought me here.

This was bad. I didnt want to think about why he had told me that story; why he felt it important to

convince me he was sane. And as awkward as I felt at that time, I enjoyed the story. For the rst time in my life

I had said to myself, I am going to le this one away. This will be one of the things I remember until Im eighty.

Concentrating on how to remember this story, I barely noticed him place his small hand on my knee. I stopped

ling and looked down. Then I looked at him. He wasnt looking at me. He was prepared to hear that it was wrong

of him to touch my leg, to get the hell off, to get a smack in the face.

Ace! I shouted as I stood up, allowing his dainty white hand to curl back into his body.Oh, hey honey, how long you been here? Im just about woke up now. Ace said as he scratched the back

of his head. He looked over at Billy and must have seen something he didnt like about his face or his energy or his

embarrassment.

You, go on n get outa here a minute. I wanna have time alone with the girl you see. He said quietly over

to Billy, not needing to shout, knowing it wouldnt take much. I didnt even see him get up or cross the room to the

hallway. I guess he never seemed there with me in the rst place.

Baby doll, he said to me, bowing his head a bit but still looking me in the eyes, our friend Billy there told

me something yesterday, it had to do with you. You know he aint all bad. He. . .

I already know. I cut him off.

Well, I gured you might. Just dont think he aught to be lookin at you that way.

I saw my dad coming down the hallway, coming to tell me that he was sick of this place, that he didnt wantto come back, that I should say goodbye to mom. But hed be back the next day, and the day after that. I didnt tell

him anything about Billy. I just told him I didnt want to go back for awhile. He didnt question it, and I dont think

mom even noticed.

Maybe it was a week later, maybe it was two or three weeks later when I decided to visit again. I stayed

with my parents this time. Admiring the wilted owers, listening to her voice, picking at a thread in my shirt. We

didnt stay long, dad had enough earlier and earlier each visit. He did what he was obligated to do, in his mind. He

fed her cantaloupe and a half a sandwich. He uffed her pillows. He kissed her cheek.

My dad left the room. He was walking down the hall to the car. He had grown accustomed to coming

alone, forgetting to wait for me. I told something to my mom, It will get better, or some little tid bit that I may as

well have found in a fortune cookie, and I hugged her. This would be my last time coming until her trial. In the

hallway, I saw Ace headed my way.Hey baby, he said to me, take this. Dont worry nothin bout anything. Were all ne here aight?

I didnt look into my hand. I knew what it was but I didnt know why I needed another one of them. I

stuffed it into my pocket. I shook Aces hand and I ran to catch up with my father.

The four of hearts. Billys Business Card was sloppily written along one side and turned down the other.

Billy wrote his mothers number in the middle with a smiley face.


12/44

feel you most in the thin air

of the 7:00 am morning;

when the satin breeze

folds the scents of garden bay leaves

together with wild moss and

fresh shampoo from my waking shower.

If I could stir from bed earlier I would;

youve been up breathing the air

for hours now and I so wish to be like you.

All of those dark orange mornings

I stumbled to the porch

to nd you sipping tea from the

pink owery cup your daughter gave you.

I missed you in bedbut knew I would enjoy you more

on the patios wicker chair.

You cloaked me with protective arms

and breathed cinnamon into my hair.

We had stopped wearing the layers

of calendar months separating us,

and you were you, and I was I.

I

Tara Marciniak

GardenMorningGardenMorning

Twelve


13/44

HoldingHand

Shaozhuo Cui

Thirteen


14/44

I have a scar beside my left eye, and I dont know how it got there.

I would hope Id notice a blow to the side of my head,

especially one that would leave a scar.

I noticed it when I was driving home from the liquor store:

my rear-view was angled poorly because shed just taken the car

to go visit her mom up in Harrisburg.

Anyway, I couldnt see what was behind me,

but I saw this tiny, esh-toned line

running down my face from the edge of my eyebrow.

I straightened the mirror at a stoplight, but nothing was behind me.

She took the car from me yesterday, to go visit her parents.

She has a scar below her chin that she remembered to ask her folks about while she was there.

Her mom said chicken-pox. Her dad said nothing.

When she came home early, she hugged me like that night

we stayed up late watching horror movies. We both hate horror movies.

She hugged me for a while, then poured herself some wine and sat with me on the sofa.

Driving up to the house, I started wondering

why I never drink like she does,

why under the chin hurts more than next to the eye.

She didnt need any more wine tonight.

She was already asleep on the couch when I came in, eyes half closed, thinking Im still gone.

I Have a Scar Beside My Left Eye

Ryan Donnelly

Fourteen


15/44

Ti AmoDane Miller

Fifteen


16/44

Id rather not die in my sleep.

When you have a month to complete

a project, you always wait till the last day,

and your boss yells at you for not starting earlier,

so Id rather be awake for a long while,

maybe even die right as Im about to fall asleep

Id just woken up when my cousin goaded me into a game of chess.

When he asked if I wanted to play, I said no,

but he quickly offered me both his sts, so I tapped his left one,and his ngers uncurled around a black pawn.

I was black, at nine-thirty in the morning.

By nine that night, we had two boards running side-by-side.

My dad kept having my little sister rell his scotch glass,

and each time I grabbed her to make sure it was well watered,

but each time shed already taken care of it

shell be the one to arrange Dads owers by his casket.

She turned thirteen a few weeks ago.

I bought her a CD player and a Joni Mitchell album.

She says that she wants it played when she dies.

I dont know what I want played at my funeral,

but I want to hear it at my wedding rst.

So essentially the lucky girl I marry must embody my death.

When she looks at me, I must feel cold and awake,

I must feel that Im capable of playing chess for twelve hours,

or however long death takes,I must quickly rub my eyes as she shufes the pieces

behind her back and offers me the choice

between her left and her right hand,

I must stay awake the entire time,

regardless of how late she likes to play,

or how dark those eyes become.

Sixteen

Id Rather Not Die in My SleepRyan Donnelly


17/44

Moray Circles Annabelle Ombac

Seventeen


18/44

UntitledRyan Arnaudin

Eighteen


19/44

POEM

Id Rather not die in my sleep

Going Home with the Headlights Turned Off

Im tired like the meaning

of distance. Who else in this old

city is awake tonight, and comforted

by the stadium of darkness? Defying

sleep in the absence of shadows,

orescent hours opening their arms

to those who turn their backs on the sun.

Does the grass reach for the moon

because they were once lovers?

They probably never were considering

the distance between them. That is

the excuse you give me.

Leo McLaughlin

Nineteen


20/44

Street SweeperKate Michel

To see this body, this city,

built and rebuilt

by many men;

this city, forced to clean her

streets and sidewalks,

having seen the litter piled in her ears

and waking eyes.

To see her built with slabs of stone

at a time when eyes were bright,

when we were clean.

Waking now with the pollution

of a years worth of words

in the brain

of her,

My city.

Twenty


21/44

Passion


Twenty - One


22/44

Untitled

RyanArnau

din

Twenty - Two

Editors Pick


23/44

Chess Nights

Tara Marciniak

That chess set was the only thing parting us;the everything parting us.

At night, those shapes moved between incense clouds

and thumbs and ngernails.

Shadows stretched like taffy in the dark,

away from dollar store candles and towards me.

So gorgeous, they became

long, bending ngers grabbing at the table,

reaching to pull me in, claws and all.

You sipped red wine from a blue goblet,

never smudging the glass with dirty ngers.

You told me we would buy cheese next time

to bring out the avor of the wine.

You told me your ex-wife would stay up with you in the kitchen

after the children were asleep;

you had cheese then.

I wanted to ask you if it was strange, staying up with me now instead

but I knew I didnt need the answer.

I wanted to leave right then and get you what you were asking for

but the game was still alive, and the shadows still. . .I wanted to slide all of it off of that table,

hear each clack as pieces fell to the oor

but I couldnt because Benny Mardones played

and a bead of sweat dripped from your forehead.

Twenty - Three


24/44

Our writing professor had us meet in the fourth-

oor student lounge in the English department. It was not

a classroom; people were laid out there, napping, noodling,

drinking coffee with a novel or last-minute homework. Betsy

went up and gently shooed them off, all apologetic smile and

gentle voice, and they ed, earphones and spiral notebooksdragging. Then she turned, with a bright vicious face, and

opened her arms like a minister, indicating the seats. There

were never enough spots on the couch and elsewhere;

students eager to not so much as brush elbows and so they

spaced themselves out and out and out until half of us were

on the oor. An adolescent awkwardness seemed to hound

our seminar, writers being such a neurotic bunch, laying lives

down on the page for other people to read, analyze, dissect,

and judge. All this shyness manifested in little gestures:

bouncing knee, downcast eyes, picked-over hangnails,

studious aversion to eye contact, fringing notebook paper indoodles or tiny tears.

I climbed aboard the windowsill and leaned back.

This was my favorite time in this class, besides leaving,

because everyone was caught with a faint trace of their

newest story or poem in their face, apprehensive to read

it aloud. Outside, the lawn mowers skittered sideways like

crabs, red and smoking in the sunlight. The leaves had just

started to attain real size, and the sycamore looked so close I

thought I could touch it. The windows didnt open.

After settling down, there was much ahemming and

shufing of notebooks. Betsy straightened out the shatteredmess of papers, paperclips, staples, tape, manila folders,

pocket folders, printouts, newspaper clippings, book reviews,

and other colonies of clutter that lived in the bottom of her

shoulder bag. She was short, rounded, with a preference for

unbleached linen this time of year. There was a symmetrical

band of fat around her belly, under huge sagging breasts,

and the linen smock looked like a burlap sack on her lumpy

frame. Her hair was dark brown, pulled tight to the back of

her head as if she hoped it might help pull up her chins. Betsy

very proud of being a poetess, dripping with beads, loose

papers, and gentle smiles, perpetually feeling and emotingand writing it all down. She didnt like harsh criticism; unlike

critiques across the quad in architecture or art that left

students in tears, she believed far more in the carrot than the

stick.

Alright, attention ladies and gentlemen. Her voice

was preternaturally low and masculine, sounding like a boy

of ten or twelve. Today, instead of work shopping on work

completed since our last session, I thought wed do some

exercises. Betsys voice hit hard on exercise, as if this was a

special privilege bestowed upon us by the queen poetess. The

sun fell through the milky windows, casting a white light

on her face. It glistened with sweat, small lips smiling, fat

cheeks compressing her eyes into tiny pockets. Papers

shufed back into bags all around the room, everyone

whispering, wondering. I had taken nothing out; I had

nothing to put away, just sitting with my foot against the

window, notebook limp in my lap.

Heres how it works: Im going to write up thissentence with some blanks in it. You complete it, Mad-

Lib it if you will, she crinkled up her nose and made air-

quotes with her stubby ngers, and then that sentence

will become the title of your piece. She never said poem,

story, or essay, because piece was packed with more

writerly ambition and worldliness. Ill give you a half-

hour, and then well share. Pleased with herself, she

shifted the mass of crap still in her lap to the oor and

stood unsteadily to weave her way through the crowd.

There was a scrap of chalk on the ledge on top of the

blackboard, requiring her to stand on her toes and exposea white mass of belly esh, soft as a ball of bread dough.

Then she wrote her sentence and disappeared into the

stairwell, footsteps echoing for a long time.

It read like this: After ____, _____begins to _____.

People gradually clotted up or spread apart,

secreting themselves in corners, knees up, staring

intently at ballpoints as if that would help. I sat very

still on the windowsill and tried to think of something

funny, a throwaway haiku or limerick that would just

piss Betsy off. Every other week I brought a new piece

that touched a new low, daring, maybe even begging, forsomeone to tell me it was terrible. Classmates sat in the

circle, politely averting their eyes as they muttered mild

comments: Yeah, Coleman, that was interesting, it was

really cool, your dialogue was very, umm, colorful. Betsy

would give her serene Earth-Goddess smile and bestow

similar thin guidance. But now Betsy and the rest of them

had wandered into dangerous territory an exercise,

especially one with that stupid brief. I felt around for a

punch line that I knew must have been hidden in that

insipid phrase, but got nothing. Instead, I left my notebook

where it lay and watched the mowers. Men worked twolevers back and forth, swinging in tight pivots, smooth as

Indy drivers around trees and ower beds.

The thirty minutes hardly touched down long

enough for me to get my hands around the thing. When

the mowers began to bore, I eyed the writers spread on

the carpet. Some were actually quite good, those who

could fathom their own truths without relying on Betsys

poor advice. One of them, Julia, was a shy grad student

who always sat against the back of the sofa, knees pulled

to her chest, notebook folded in her arms like a secret.

Solitaire

Will Holman

Twenty - Four

Editors Pick


25/44

She was beautiful, with big, crescent eyes and clear skin

like cold water. As the class coalesced again, she pulled

her notebook tighter to expansive chest, auburn hair

doming around her face like a closed curtain. I watched

that hair, shining in the ltered light, thinking how it must

look fanned out on a white pillow, new sun through blue

curtains. Betsy showed with a single sheet of paper and a

cup of tea. She settled in her chair, bringing her legs up tothe side, curling into the chair like a cat.

Someone want to go rst? One pushy person or

another always volunteered, and then we were off. The

chain of excerpts and poems drifted from one mumbler to

another. People ran through their words fast and toneless,

eager to be done. Eventually that chain got around to me.

Coleman, what do you have for us? Betsys

near-permanent enthusiasm creased the skin around

her mouth, cracking heavy makeup like a root buckles

sidewalk.

Umm, nothing. I felt the eyes pivot up to me onthe windowsill, at a remove that might seem haughty to

some.

Whys that?

I just feel like that question, the brief, I gestured

incoherently in the direction of the blackboard, has so

much complexity in such a short space that I only got a few

possible titles but never got into their text.

Well, just read whatever youve got.

I cleared my throat. Um, actually my paper is

blank. I held up my notebook to her, brought back to my

lap, shot my eyes out the window.Alright, then, Coleman, Ill expect to see

something on Monday. Betsy must have practiced

sternness somewhere in the mirror, because she looked

like a sitcom actor. We both knew I would have nothing on

Monday, and we also both knew that it wouldnt matter.

Next? The room resumed its chatter. I resumed

following the lawn mowers sidestepping across the grass.

Eventually the apparent end of the circle came around,

but Betsy was never satised to let it end there; some shy

student was always holed up in the corner, sitting behind

the sofa, ngers crossed.Julia? Have you shared yet?

Ummm, no, but this piece is kinda personal.

She had shifted from my view, retreating further into

the couch, if that was even possible. All I could make

out from my perch was one blue-jeaned ankle ending in

knock-off sneakers, aping something popular amongst the

undergrads.

Julia, all writing is personal. It wouldnt have

any real emotion if it wasnt grounded in the personal. A

beatic, cheek-crinkling smile appeared on Betsys little

mouth. I mean, this seminar has and will always be a safe

place. She leaned forward, intent as a therapist, trying to

pierce that auburn veil. One or two ass-kissers in the crowd

joined the chorus, egging Julia on. She nally caved. The

room fell silent except for the hum of the air conditioning,

the faint buzz of the lawn mowers outside, distant trafc

mewling across campus. Julia stayed where she was. She

raised her head enough that I could see the top of it, hairswept back with a consciously casual gesture.

She began in a small voice. This is about my

husband, Tim. I hadnt known she was married, but it made

sense, twenty-eight, linked up to a man in a salmon polo

shirt and square jaw. She cleared her throat again, and saw

her head rocking slightly back-and-forth, back-and-forth.

After sex, Tim begins to play solitaire. The room, if it

was possible, got even more quiet; no snifes, no sliding in

chairs, shufing of paper, crossing and uncrossing of legs.

Betsy looked astonished, and her face nally drew down

until featureless.I dont recall the precise text of her poem, but I

do remember it was one of the most heartbreaking things

I have ever heard Julia naked and damp in bed, huddled

under sheets, Tim at the end of the long hallway that leads

from their bedroom door to the computer niche, sitting

there, naked and damp, hugging one knee, illuminated only

by ickering computer blue, playing Solitaire. Julia reached

for a pillow and rolled over onto her belly, sobbing. Tim

clicked on and on, glum and still in the dimness, the simple

game more numbing than drinking, more quieting than

exercise, more satisfying than holding his wife. He waiteduntil she went to sleep and crawled in beside, pajamas back

on, alarm set, no words, no touches, just rigid loathing sleep.

The room shook with silence. Betsys face got whiter

and whiter in the harsh sun through the windows, and a red

blush began to bloom from her double chin. She seemed to

be in a trance, staring into the middle distance, face glazed

over. Suddenly, she snapped to, took a long swig of tea and

cleared her throat.

Ahem, umm, Julia, that was wonderful. That

was also the precise worst word for Betsy to use; it was a

wonderful piece of writing, yes, but Betsy made it sound asthough Julias disintegrating marriage and self-hate were

wonderful. No one else spoke up. I wanted to help, reach a

hand out to Julia across the room, but I couldnt speak up.

No one took me seriously I had cried wolf too many times

with crappy poems and ragged jokes.

Id tell her that her poem cut me through, hot and

cauterizing. I would tell her tomorrow, Monday after class,

in two weeks at the next seminar; I would tell her sometime,

but for now I slipped away from class, notebook blank and

swinging in my hands.

Twenty - Five


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We were knee-deep in snow but waist-deep

in each other. Out of ourselves and in the forest

with a silence that grows between the branches.

Silence last heard by Apache ears pierced

with Elk horn. Elk still roam these parts though

no longer hunted by empty stomachs

and those in need of a blanket or wedding dress.

You took my arm and we crossed the frozen lake

Disputing whether or not the sh confused the ice

for the ground; ipping over after bumping their heads.

Theres mysticism in re, and I fought the urge

to dance around it when we got back to the cabin. The heat

from burning logs stung our faces, reminding usof runny noses, and I missed not seeing my own

breath pass over cracked lips.

That night, everyone fell asleep under the weight

of a full moon. And silence was a new gesture

for us. Drinking tea with our eyes, and each other

with our mouths, on opposite ends of the room.

We listened to the pipes freeze overnight.

A Bittersweet Twenty Degrees

Leo McLaughin

Twenty - Six


27/44

Abandoned

Heather McMillan

Twenty - Seven


28/44

What do you want? Make it an iced latte. Iced, like his heart.

Couldnt call it decaf because that lusty clich keeps it pumping

like Mozart done by Slipknot. Muddied mocha brown by the

complications, strains, lies, curdled milk of boiled blood. Never seen

him before but I know his type; his feelings swing with his legs from

the barstool. The barista brings the drink as he brings the money

from his pocket. The walls, counter top, and oors are scrubbed

hidden pearl. Stevie Wonder wails, mufed. Sobs are drowned bycoffee; hes a perfect actor. Faker! His brain yells at his heart,

then buries a cool silenced .45 into his nervous system. Aftermath:

coffee spills on the snowscape. Barista grunts at this human stain in

his Shangri-la. Synthetic towel mops the mess, his natural problems

remain. Like an orgasm, his body shudders rhythmically in time

with shy gasps, despair playing ecstasys understudy. Makes you

wonder, who was she? Just the whip cream of life, delicately placed

on top of the mud of necessity to look nice, exquisite, exotic, but

when the drinks done, shes still there, seductively out of straws

reach at the bottom of it all. I observe no longer, place the newspaper

on the table, rise, and walk the golden mile to the pathetic sop. My

hand, a dancing buttery lands on his shoulder, then moves to caress

and turn his face towards mine. Slowly, his frowns in a dryer, tossed

upside down. I radiate megawatts back. Then I left-hook that son

of a bitch in the face. Like a sack of American St. Patricks day, the

imposter of love learns what it means to speed-date with the oor,

his caffeinated mahogany blood making love to the asylum white

oor. Tears mix with milk. I cant stand the hypocrisy of iced lattes.

Give me a fucking green tea.

Starbucks Noir

Zaki Barzinji

Twenty - Eight


29/44

GlassesAmanda Kubista

Twenty - Nine


30/44


31/44

Untitled Garrett Bradley

Thirty - One


32/44

One with Nature

Stacey Swann

Thirty - Two


33/44

Begone

What seemed to be waterproved to be acidas you took a sipit dissolved your insidesuntil there was no tissue leftuntil there was only the residueof a pride once embraced

but now stolen, off guard

Untitled

They raise us to be soldiers

of the corporate political world

armed with razor sharp wallets

and words we cannot afford

When all we want to be are protectors

of lambs meandering elds of rye

with honey-suckle sweet words

singing that well never die

Rana Fayez

Thirty - Three


34/44

High in the rise of wind squeals creak

And grind in fervor

Hoarse groans of cackling laughter

Stilt the hair upright

And rm on the neck

Bristling quill-like in silence

For devilish halloos to curdle

The blood in expectation

Of answer.

And whooping and lowing and growling

Drivels like saliva

To a morbid chimeOf teeth grinding a mill

Churning bone splinters, muscling

Marrow with spittle

In the joints of the wheel

The jaws crunching, bunching incessant

Grunts into prattle, like the speech

Of babes.

This riles discord in arid airs

The Serengeti dry in the lowlands

Where snickering scavengers gather

In devilish bivouac

To dig trenches, carve channels

In the ribs, the spine, the skull

Of a jackal corpse stripped,

Mawed with miry chops

Splayed with vagrant mud, tufts

Of hair, graveled marrow

And shrinking sinews.

Hyena! Hyena! Hunches of lurching hunger

Choke, muzzle, and ay

The echo of desperate gluttons

Insatiable of stomach

To roam like speckled imps colored

Like an ugly outcropping of the plains

Wearied, stained carpet.

Cry, pummel sweet vapor

Into stubble with foulest breath

In a scent of raw, red-handed

Death. Oh yes,

Sought with glee.

But none too much out snap sharp snarls

Tirades of discontent

Among the grave diggers,

Bellies like a half full morgue

While mouths run over the brim

In discord, The little shit! Nothing worth

The chew; his hair runs in my gums,

Askew between my teeth.And none for meat! Lions!

Mighty! Mighty! Killed a jackal.

Left it to rot in our devil play.

How I starve! I miss

Blood on my lips!

Snout rst then he shovels his maw

Into the mangled carcass

Pinching the jackal pelt with lusty

Vice-like grip while another heckles

And halloos in return

Wheezing, grinning between jests,

Blood is a fresh steal

Or a trying match. Ill have none,

But wait in the shadow of grass

And on vultures watch!

They lead the way to lion prey

Which we and they

Together may fall on

In mass

To eat! Then well roam elsewhere

Piss on the nothing

We leave behind in our wake!

Said one in his slouching, sniveling, snatching.

Vagrant beasts! A chuckling chorus

Rises and another, she slavers out speech,

The meat of mongrels, these jackals!

Crocuta CrocutaMark Settle

The power to declare war, including the power of judging the causes of war,is fully and exclusively vested in the legislature. James Madison

Thirty - Four


35/44

Fire in my belly rages yet.

Lions work! At least, gone

Is some pest who searched

Our dens, our spawn!

Merciless! Vile! Better let us hide

In the great rifts while they plague

The plain like murderous

Disease!

Up, up ripples a shrill coughing yelp

Like a cloven tongue

A voice against itself, a feud civil and foreign

Echoing in hecklesVain, fruitless, but virulent

Peppering across the tall grass in violence

As ruinous as tendrils of vagrant brush re

Biting ashes to dirt smoke to chafe the brow

Of paradise. Flame does ame

Conceive destruction on destruction, avarice

On avarice

So too with naked tongues.

Spine-rattling another and another eat words

Again to words regurgitate in form

More raw, distorted, more uid

Than origin.

Curs! Ha! I fear these tsestes not,

But feed on their bowels

Snaking inside them like mambas!

I speed. You wait weary with slow waltzing

On buzzard trails.

The greater the maw, the greater pursuit,

And I am Goliath!

Easy prey is not in the East rifts

But in this West we shall feed on loins

For mouths strong and legs swift!

Dare we ee this plain where water and corpses rest?

Water will you nd in the rifts? Jackals without?

Fools, fools!

Nears the dry season, and all things gather

By water together.

Even if in violence, I like it better

Than thirst!

O dire, o lustful ravenous shrieks

Splinter like a satanic choir

As they fall off North jeering

Like jesters at court

When on dark dusk-dipped clouds before

The great fallen African sun they spot

A hellish halo encircling

A site like harpies. Vultures hover over lions. Fresh

Must the kill be

As the heinous hyena horde lunges towardsTheir gliding guides gluttons all!

Steady, steady and in revelry

Ready mischief in endish marching procession. Silent

In yawning scarlet light

Pupils dilate in excitement

Where mane and maneless cats of might

Wrench and wrestle about the throat

Of a water

Buffalo. Hushed now the brutish jesters

Wait and watch,

And Chance delivers the weak over

Into the hands of hell. Hid in the height of grass,

Lion cubs lie low.

Until two and three and twelve shadows

Of hunches drive in

The cradled perimeter and teeth grin white

But a moment ere murder

Pulls limb from live lion limb

While the unwary elders break the buffalos body.

The cubs yelp late as their skins are jerked

Away and legs snapped between teeth

Shrill, as sever live bodies

Piece by mauled piece

In an ecstasy of blood letting orgy! orgy!

A frenzy of hoarse chuckles christens the new night.

O night is for the devils!

Happy, happy lot!

Thirty - Five


36/44

Rope Annabelle Ombac

Thirty - Six


37/44

Your Path Annabelle Ombac

Thirty - Seven


38/44

Lunch and Dinner 11:30 am 1:30 am Mon-Sun


39/44


40/44

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For all your photography needs.

(540) 552-2319

Our website: Johnscam.com


41/44

Staff Quotes

Contributors Quotes

Katherine Leonberger

Just dont give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is

love and inspiration, I dont think you can go wrong. -Ella Fitzgerald

Laura V. Cook

Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why

so few engage in it. -Henry Ford

Corinne Jeltes

A cloudy day is no match for a sunny disposition. -William Arthur Ward

Katherine Brumbaugh

Inasmuch as nothing human is eternal but death, and death is the one

thing about which human beings cant know anything, humans know

nothing. -from Don Quixote by Kathy Acker

Misono Yokoyama

Simplicity and repose are qualities that measure the true value of any

work of art. -Frank Lloyd Wright

Tara Marciniak

Face value is very important but, unfortunately, you must also

weigh the motive of a person in an instant. -Ricky McGuire

Rana Fayez

You shouldnt let poets lie to you. -Bjrk


Blaze with the re that is never extinguished. -Luisa Sigea

Ryan Donnelly

I consider that I have many responsibilities, but none greater

then this: to last, as Hemingway says, and get my work done.

-James Baldwin

Leo McLaughlin

I am interested in anything about revolt, disorder, chaos-espe-

cially activity that seems to have no meaning. It seems to me tobe the road toward freedom...rather then starting inside, I start

outside and reach the mental through the physical. -Jim Moris-

son

Kate Michel

Be still when you have nothing to say; when genuine passion

moves you, say what youve got to say, and say it hot. -D.H.

Lawrence

Forty - One


42/44

From the Business Manager

2 Heads are Better Than 1Annabelle Ombac

When it comes to everything and bagels, it gets scary.

The rst time I saw 2 Heads are Better than 1 I had a debate with Hali about whether or not this photo

was of a Siamese llama or simply just a photo of two llamas standing next to each other. After our debate, we

decided to go to the photographer herself and nd out the truth once and for all. Typically, I was wrong, and two

llamas it is. However, this accurately sums up what a great experience Ive had while working with Silhouette.

I would like to thank Hali for being a great person to work with. There is never a dull moment with you.

Thanks for the laughs. Wait, it looks like a party. Indeed, it does.

I would also like to thank every member of the Silhouette staff. The work and passion that you have

showed for the magazine this semester has been remarkable, and I am proud to be a part of this with all of you.

Thank you to all of the EMCVT student leaders and advisors for helping me become a part of EMCVT and

guiding me through the semester.

Finally, of course many thanks and love to my family and friends. You make me happy.

-Jenna

Forty - Two


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Documents

The Silhouette - Spring 2007