Issue 33: The Forgetting Issue

Fiction/Memoir
Bobbi Lurie | Ronald Pies | Elaine Magarrell | Jeanette Sorrentino

Poetry
Eileen Berry | Jan Bohall | Michael Fulop | Michael S. Glaser | John Grey Judy Kronenfeld | Nikia Leopold | Adrianne Marcus | Bluma Schwarz
Michael S. Smith | Edwina Trentham | Ronald Vossler | John Williamson
Fredrick Zydek

Editors for Issue 33
Mary Azrael | Rebecca Childers | Kendra Kopelke | Ebby Malmgren | Kathleen Fantom Shemer

Graphic Designer
Chris Carbone
Cover art by Gale Jamieson

La Legende des Siecles
A stone table has less thought than an ordinary (wood) table. —Rene Margritte

A chair on a chair. And no table in sight. This is the meal
Of the uneaten. We are waiting for the table to be set, for
The roast to release its hearty juices, for the vegetables to
Shine in all their oranges and reds. There are dark shadows
On the legs of the chair. Perhaps the cat is waiting there
For scraps. And at each corner of the table, a dog lies,
Perfectly still, looking up at its owners. Now there are four dogs.
Now there are three, but the absent one is always there, patient,
Unspeaking, and the owners who are owned themselves
Smile at the corner, and wait for the meal to end.

Adrianne Marcus

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Ich? Or Me? Or Who?
Martha Johnson, née Boeshans

Once there was only Ich—
before I brought the English
home from school and my Vater he
used the strap.

Er Hat gesagt, he told me:
we stayed Deutsch in Russland
and we stay Deutsch here too
in America.

My flesh she remembered
that lesson, but in school
my tongue forgot. Who sat
there in the desk, was it
Ich, or I, or me, or who?

The teacher made her, that kid
I was then, hold for each thing
in German said, big books like
rocks until my arms they ached
from all those heavy words.

So no more school. And no more
talking. Like a cow at a new gate,
this Martha she looked around. Until
the barn dance, that first man who didn't
talk Deutsch or English, he was
the one.

We married.
Albert the Auslander my folks
called him, and my mouth learned
his Norsky way of talking.

It went good until our little ones
come home from school. They teased
our funny brogue, and hid themselves
in English, like nuts in a shell,
so we wouldn't understand.

Now on Saturday nights in town, the
kids head for the movies in the show
hall, and Albert, he saufs and drinks
his beer in the bar.

And with my head heavy on the grocery
bag in the back seat of the car, oh
there is still so much wondering: is
it Ich, or me, or who, waiting for the
long ride home?

Ronald Vossler

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Growing Despite Myself

Hang on, sanity, we're going to face
four more demons tonight.
Shame and grace bring them here
almost against their wills. We shall

eye one another long before we dance.
Out in the garden the iris are going—
and their purplish ways. I should
have left the sweet, tasteless spirits

of my dreams lost in the light—
the blinding indifference of light.
Who could have guessed they'd come
looking for a fight, sleeves rolled up,

cocky smirks on their lips? New
notions of God and faith beat
at the door like tax collectors out
for the kill. I can feel my good

intentions bloom like weeds.
I must learn to keep certain prayers
closer to the bone, my nose out
of the soul's business. Sometimes

curiosity carries a loaded pistol
in its pocket, and truth—variable
that it is—must change both its color
and the way it stays alive.

Fredrick Zydeck

About the Cover

The slide shows detail from artist Gale Jamieson's Heavenly Pivot, an installation exploring the way time is recorded and imprinted on all things. The starting point came as Gale worked with dress patterns from her past. The chair is covered with layers of patterns, evoking for her how we are ourselves layered with memories and other patterns, both ancestoral and acquired in our lifetime. The installation asks us to enter this reverberating circle, a "memory map," and consider the tracks and traces we leave behind as we make our way through the world. Gale lives in rural Pennsylvania.

Cover design by Chris Carbone

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continue to Issue 32: 2000 Poetry Contest