Gwendolyn

January 2020 | nonfiction

At 2:30 a.m. and two weeks early, her water breaks. She calls her mother. I pack: notebook, pen, phone chargers, On Becoming a Novelist, my laptop, my clothes, her clothes, the duffel bag, grogginess, excitement, hope, fear.

At 3:26 a.m., I text my family. “Her water for sure broke this time. Now at the hospital.” On the delivery room couch, I take the January stillness into me. Because of her principal’s promise of being fired, she sits in the bed, tethered by machines and data, and tries to lesson plan. I read, underline, and write page numbers on an ink-smudged sticky note under the front cover. We wait in peace only broken by the occasional nurse’s check.

At 9:15 a.m., her parents and sister arrive from over four hours away. We worried they wouldn’t make it in time. We didn’t know they had ten hours to spare.

At 11:24 a.m., contractions cause her to clamp hands on the bars of the bed. I sit on the couch devouring donuts necessitated by low blood sugar. Unsupportiveness consumes me.

At 12:30 p.m., she’s stopped dilating. Eight is her plateau but ten is the magic number. I begin to get impatient. Anxiety cascades, overloads, and overflows my brain. What if my daughter’s heart stops beating on the monitor? What if they both die and leave me?

At 2:00 p.m., she’s pushing, breathing, pushing. I need to check the mail. Have my comics been delivered? “You’ve got to remember to breath.” I could have taught all my classes by now. “Make sure to keep your chin down.” No more pushing. Instead, walking, standing, leaning. Why can’t they get her out? What if she is in there too long—her head squished and her brain damaged?

At 4:10 p.m., there’s no more natural birthing, but instead, an epidural after the point they said it was unsafe. I watch without watching through the reflection in the mirror above the sink.

At 5:30 p.m., the bro anesthesiologist throws the cap for another needle across the room at the trash bin. He misses just like his efforts to relieve her pain. She’s delirious and shouldn’t feel her legs by now. She can still feel everything.

At 5:40 p.m., the doctor and nurses talk about what to do. They decide a caesarean section is the only choice if after another hour and a half nothing changes. She’s too tired to care or worry, but neither of us wanted that option and thoughts of her death return.

At 6:15 p.m., she’s still not ready. They give her more drugs, but they’ve stopped telling us what they’re pumping into her. I write this and everything else in my notebook. At first, these were notes for a poem, but now, it is record just in case.

At 6:30 p.m., her delirium breaks. “I need to push!” she yells.

At 7:36 p.m., I cry more than anyone else even Gwendolyn, my healthy daughter.

 

Seth Kristalyn

 

Seth Kristalyn holds an MA in English from Kansas State University. His work has never been published. He lives in southwestern Kansas where he works as an English instructor.

At Quarter Past a Lifetime

January 2020 | poetry

There were no witnesses to his loss,

it was a private affair.

 

He stood with sober eyes and watched

the sun fade behind his dream.

 

Darkness folded over itself,

covering far reaches of space.

 

A vast expanse of stillness

soon enveloped all.

 

Closing the door behind him,

walking beyond the breech.

 

At quarter past a lifetime,

he knew the end had come.

 

 

Ann Christine Tabaka

 

Ann Christine Tabaka was nominated for the 2017 Pushcart Prize in Poetry, has been internationally published, and won poetry awards from numerous publications. She is the author of 9 poetry books. Christine lives in Delaware, USA. She loves gardening and cooking. Chris lives with her husband and two cats. Her most recent credits are: Burningword Literary Journal; The Write Connection; Ethos Literary Journal, North of Oxford, Pomona Valley Review, Page & Spine, West Texas Literary Review, The Hungry Chimera, Sheila-NaGig, Pangolin Review, Foliate Oak Review, Better Than Starbucks!, The Write Launch, The Stray Branch, The McKinley Review, Fourth & Sycamore.

The Usual Distractions

January 2020 | poetry

The cathedral is coming down.

Oaks, hickories splinter into leafy glass.

Shards spiral. Cold drifts down.

The wind dumps truckloads.

The kaleidoscope is shattering blue.

Frost laces the grass.

 

He calls a friend to launch a boat

in the river: “It will sink of dry rot

before it gets wet again.”

Soviet citizens chided their officials,

“They will walk out of the water dry.”

 

There is no escaping warring elements,

no matter the day’s brilliance.

“How about a walk somewhere

we haven’t been, crossing

the bridge, walking the ridge

to where it cuts down to the creek?”

His friend is repairing a tire.

He hasn’t finished roofing his studio.

 

“Who knows he might be dead tomorrow,”

Yesterday in Bali, a crowded night club exploded.

Hidden in a car trunk on a street in Washington DC,

a sniper kills drivers stopped at gas stations.

Work on the roof, go for a walk,

who knows when we’ll be done

praying through these leaves.

Two days later, in the hospital bed

He slurs hello, a stroke of bad luck.

 

Walter Bargen

Walter Bargen has published 23 books of poetry. Recent books include: Days Like This Are Necessary: New & Selected Poems (BkMk Press, 2009), Trouble Behind Glass Doors (BkMk Press, 2013), Perishable Kingdoms (Grito del Lobo Press, 2017), Too Quick for the Living (Moon City Press, 2017), My Other Mother’s Red Mercedes (Lamar University Press, 2018), and Until Next Time (Singing Bone Press, 2019). His awards include: a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, Chester H. Jones Foundation Award, and the William Rockhill Nelson Award. He was appointed the first poet laureate of Missouri (2008-2009). www.walterbargen.com

Emerson Little

January 2020 | visual art

Withered Weeds

Withered Weeds

 

In the Forest of the Night

In the Forest of the Night

 

Emerson Little

 

Emerson Little is pursuing a degree in Digital Art and Media Production at Whittier College. He works as a student photographer for the Whittier College Office of Communications, photos editor for the Quaker Campus and video columnist for the Fullerton Observer. His photos of the southwest have appeared in the Sagebrush Review, Greenleaf Review and saltfront. Emerson’s passion for landscape photography has led him to specialize in the strange and the unusual.

After We Are Dead

January 2020 | poetry

After we are dead

Throw out the papers

And spend all the cash.

The memories

are ours,

not yours;

They ended

with the lapse,

of that final,

pulsing synapse,

Shredded and torn,

blasted and shorn,

Leaves that faded

and fell

and decayed

Like all before

From Nebuchadnezzar,

to Christian Dior.

 

So throw out the papers

And spend all the cash

Our memories

are now

naught but trash.

 

A book of rhymes,

You can save,

a doll

or a toy,

That letter you scribbled

on notebook paper

in deepest regret

For ripping the curtains off the wall

and tossing your mattress on the floor,

Til your progeny

Shall throw out your papers

And spend all your cash.

 

But wait!

Along the way

Raise a glass or two

to me

and you,

And have a fillet

with a nice

Beaujolais.

For a joy it was

to be,

to hear,

to see,

Have been,

lived free,

Breathed, walked,

and run,

And all that censored fun.

Depressions,

we savored

and wallowed in,

And despair,

Could not compare

to what is not,

Or pain endured,

for when it passes,

And fear,

for when it’s fled

once we are dead.

 

Life was good,

and after ain’t bad;

It was the dying we hated,

But when done,

was done.

 

So throw out the papers

And junk all the cars,

Rip up the photographs

and sell the manse,

All that is there

is done,

the memories but dust.

And us?

We’re nothing now,

That shall not fade

and pass,

along with tears

and sorrows

and gas.

 

So celebrate

and procreate

What is, was, will be,

for evermore:

An unseen adventure,

an open door,

The drawing of straws,

the roll of the dice

by relict gods

uncaring of odds.

 

And whatever you do

Before you’re dead

Tell ’em all

to throw out your papers

And spend all the cash

For there’s

nothing here

that lasts.

 

James Garrison

 

A graduate of the University of North Carolina and Duke Law School, James Garrison practiced law until returning to his first loves: writing and reading good literature. His novel, QL 4 (TouchPoint Press 2017), set in the Mekong Delta during the Vietnam War, has won awards for literary and military fiction, and it was a finalist for the 2018 Montaigne Medal. His most recent novel, The Safecracker, a tongue-in-cheek legal thriller, was released in Ebook and paperback by TouchPoint Press on September 27, 2019. His creative nonfiction works and poems have appeared in online magazines and anthologies. Sheila-Na-Gig nominated ‘Lost: On the Staten Island Ferry’ for a 2018 Pushcart prize. jamesgarrison-author.com