California State University (CSU): Open Journal Systems

Centurion, Sophia

English

Another Dru nk

Hejran, Sophia

How to Tell Your Friend She\u27s Being Cheated On

Hernandez, Susana

Salton Sea: Collection

Mejia, Ellen

|  54 |
E l l e n  M e j i a
W h e n  B r o w n  M e t  G o l d
my parents
crossed borders
to eat fruit & opportunity
instead of
dirt & poverty
they swam across
clotted rivers
& red seas
to see fireworks & city lights
instead of
missiles & dynamite
they came as
teenagers with
degrees in labor
instead of
honors on papers
they came to cities of
emerald palms &
golden dawns
with 7 dollars &
priceless hope
they were met with
slurred greetings &
hostile waves
a welcome when
brown meets gold


When Brown Met Gold

Luna, Yesenia

|  47 |
You find your next victim to prey on,
and place false hope into their hearts.
Proud of the damage caused,
you stroll on to the next.
Love is a foreign language to you,
yet you manipulate its mechanisms like a pro.
Those three words recited over and over
I - Love - you.
With a fake smile,
you armor your selfish, arrogant heart.
The way your fingers glide,
leave your prey weak and submissive.
Your gentle tongue knowing exactly what to do.
The devil is a trickster,
even he would fall for you.
Y e s e n i a  L u n a
S k i r t  C h a s e r


Skirt Chaser

Chen, Carrie

Marsha P. Johnson

Reyes, Mariana

NRSmiling in the Rain
96
M
arian
a R
eyes


Smiling in the Rain

Lee Kinne, Gregory

GREGORY LEE KINNE 
"The repression Carl Jung 
of sexuality is the and Alestair Crowley 
main cause of our will back me up 
society's neurosis" on this" 
he wasn't sure she he took a sip of 
could follow what whiskey 
he was saying and went on: 
(she was so young "let people experience 
that he wondered how their own sexuality 
she got in the bar without a built in 
in the first place) societal guilt complex 
and the world would 
she considered this be a much saner place" 
for a moment 
"I suppose that's 
tilting her head true enough" 
to one side she answered 
and making her lips "but what about 
pouty homosexuality?" 
he sensed that she was cute 
she was a little 
lost he thought 
but 
he continued anyway: but young 
and 
"Sigmund Freud really not my 
type ''Hrnmm'' 
she said 
"well" 
he began she sipped at the 
glass of wine he 
"there is no bought for 
objective reason her 
for our society to 
have any objections they talked about 
to homosexuality" unimportant things 
for a while 
"certain Native American 
tribes accepted then finished 
homosexuality as a their drinks 
part of life and made and 
space for it within decided to 
their society" leave 
"The shock troops it was dark outside 
of the Roman Empire and as they both 
in fact stood shivering 
were made up of in the parking lot 
homosexual couples 
and at the time she surprised him 
they were the most by asking for his 
feared army in the phone 
world" number 
he felt that he'd he gave her 
probably thrown in his card 
too many references that 
she wasn't familiar I'll never 
with call 
but he thought 
what the hell as she wrote 
her number on 
he was on a roll his palm 
and she was 
probably a little he watched her 
impressed walk to her 
car 
36 
trying to make 
her look better 
than she 
did 
but she was 
too young 
cute 
but not 
attractive 
to him 
nympho 
he thought 
Repression 


Repression

Tapp, Tom

TOM TAPP 
w I N T E R 
T HE WINTERS SEEMED TO BE GETTING LONGER AND THE years shorter. He stepped out of the idling sedan and turned to wave but it sped off, 
trailing a white sheet of exhaust. The snow and frozen slush near the gutter 
were mottled brown, the color of his overcoat and the suitcase in his hand. 
Instead of going inside where the wind wasn't, he walked across the street to a 
phone booth and made the call. 
He slid the glass door closed to keep out the wind. 
"Jenny, put mommy on. Yes honey. Put mommy on." 
"Darlene ... yes ... I- all right. Goodbye." 
He crossed the street again and went up a flight of stairs next to an alley. At 
the top of the stairs he moved down a hall past doors until he got to the one 
marked 2B. He took out a key on a gnarled wire chain and opened it. 
Inside were the usual amenities. Bar soap, clean toilet, water glass, ice bucket. 
He went down the hall and filled the bucket. 
He put the bucket in the middle of the bed next to where he had placed the 
suitcase. Opening the suitcase, the man removed what appeared to be a jar of 
pickle relish and placed it in the bucket. He read the label through the ice. It 
said: serve well chilled. 
He assembled a rigging from the other contents of the suitcase. A plastic 
funnel was attached to a small valve with a hook on the side. This was con-
nected to several feet of half-inch tubing. To the end of this was attached a soft 
rubber nozzle, not unlike a saxophone mouthpiece, but smaller. He took the 
whole thing into the bathroom and mounted it on the side of the shower door. 
He turned on the radio and listened to a fight before noticing the beads of 
condensation forming on the jar. He took a towel, wrapped it around the jar and 
CHRIS JURGENSON 

Winter 
went into the bathroom. The man cracked the seal on the jar and it snapped as 
the air released. It smelled faintly sweet. The jar was held over the funnel and 
tilted so most of the contents spilled in. As the black stuff made its way down 
the tube toward the floor, the man dropped his pants and forced the soft rubber 
of the nozzle up his ass. Bending over the toilet, his knees went weak and he 
sank to the floor when the cold substance entered him. 
He thought of her and the way she had been. Soft and sweet, her sagging old 
chin held up only by the gate of her collapsing mouth. Skin so smooth, almost 
like a baby. Her cunt had looked gray, sagging and hairless except for those few 
stubborn bristles that held on. They didn't seem human, more like a horse's 
mane or paintbrush hairs. The folds of her stomach were crossed with children 
and scars. Maybe some from operations, maybe some from lovers who had 
been too rough. Now it was his tum and he found himself enjoying it, smooth-
ing the sagging breasts that parted as easily as her knees when she was on her 
back. 
He was younger, but not as young as he used to be. She had invited him 
home from the bar near the hospital where he had just gotten a checkup. 
"Come on, it's dark out," she had said outside the bar. "Nobody here but 
you and me." She tugged him by the elbow, half drunken. 
So he had gone with her in the old gray sedan. Partly to keep out of the cold, 
partly to keep from going home, partly because she would give him money, 
partly because he wanted to. 
And the old woman had taken it. She wheezed and coughed - but so did 
he. Under the covers, out of the cold, it was amazingly warm and soft. 
She let him smoke in bed. 
Soon her breathing became regular and slow in its ragged rattle. He care-
fully peeled back the covers. 
The floor was cold in the kitchen and the refrigerator was stocked with the 
things old people eat: bran, prunes, canned fruit, ice cream. He opened the 
freezer and found a bottle of vodka. 
The glasses had soap stains on them and made the vodka taste cheap. 
The kitchen table was white Formica with small gold flecks: the night sky 
in reverse. On it was a lighted make-up mirror and a bag full of lipsticks and 
rouges. An ashtray full of cigarettes, colored stains at the end of each, sat next 
to the mirror. He remembered the woman's painted nails, seeing the coarse 
grainy underside of them when she smoked. 
He moved around the house opening drawers and checking shelves. The 
drawers were full of things once wonderful to him as a little boy in his 
grandmother's house. Dull scissors, a deck of cards, hair curlers, pennies. To a 
child, these were the building blocks of imaginary fortresses; stolen, carried 
through rooms to a secret deposit; to be turned, placed and muttered over. 
There was a garden outside. Summer fruit drooped on the stalks. He recog-
nized corn, bell peppers, and tomato bushes. It all moved crisply in the wind. 
In the bathroom were used Q-Tips, multiple bottles of aspirin, and a crushed 
tube of KY jelly. 
The old woman was standing at the door when he turned. 
"What are you looking for?" she wheezed, bleary eyed and shaking in the 
cold of the house. 
"I don't know," said the young man. 
Then holding up his glass, "Vodka, I guess." 
"Well, all you're going to find in the bathroom is rubbing alcohol. Come on 
and get out of there, I've got to pee." 
He shuffled past her, turning sideways, and stood just outside the door. The 
woman closed it behind her. He heard the stream in the toilet, sometimes strong 
but mostly intermittent and strained. He heard her cough and spit when she was 
done. 
"Getting old is awful," she said when she came out. "Don't let anyone tell 
you different." 
He was mute. 
"My neck hurts. Will you rub it?" 
He nodded assent. 
She led him back to bed. She turned on her stomach and he mounted her 
carefully. He massaged the folds of her neck and soon she began her regular 
difficult pattern of breathing. Out her bedroom window was the garden. 
"What do you want to be when you grow up?" That was the question that 
everyone asked when you were young. 
Once, a barber asked him that question. 
"A bum," he responded. 
The man was shocked and didn't know what to say. 
His mother was embarrassed and hit him as soon as they left the shop. 
Outside the cold air stung the garden. 
He wanted some of his mother's stew at that moment, but was disturbed by 
the old woman's voice. 
"Okay. I guess it's time to take you home." 
He realized he had stopped rubbing. 
At her intimation he got up, put his pants on, and waited out in the living 
room for her. 
She came out and handed him a small stack of bills. 
"Anything else?" 
He thought. 
"Yeah," he said, "do you have an old suitcase I can have?" 
The woman was surprised. "What do you need that for?" 
46 
Winter 
"To pick up some things." 
"Well I guess we could have a look in the garage." 
The old door was heavy and sodden with rain. He helped her lift it and she 
went in. It was dark inside and he wondered how she could see. She came out 
with an old, wide traveling case that had once been quite nice. She handed it to 
him and led him to the car. 
He gave her directions as she drove. Then he began to cry. 
The woman stared straight over the wheel, not noticing. 
The car was warm and he liked it. He sank into the seat and listened to the 
tires on the road and kept sobbing. 
"Are you going to do that all night?" the woman asked. 
He looked at her and felt very small. 
"Well?" 
"I don't know what else to do," he said quietly. 
"Do you have a family?" 
He was surprised. "How did you know?" 
"You have a ring on." 
"Oh." 
The old woman curled her lips around a cigarette and lit it. "What will your 
wife say when she sees you like this? I'd kick your ass." 
"She won't," he said. 
She pulled the car up outside the low suburban house he had directed her to. 
Without a word he got out and ran up the steps, suitcase flapping at his side. 
When he came back out he walked slowly, overcoat pulled tight. He felt the 
wind-dried tears stretch the skin of his face. The woman opened the door for 
him. 
"Where now?" she asked as she drove off. 
He gave her new directions. 
When she stopped he stepped out of the idling sedan. The old woman sped 
off. The car trailed a white sheet of exhaust. The snow and frozen slush near the 
gutter were a mottled brown, the color of the suitcase. His feet were loosing the 
warmth of the car's heater. Instead of going inside, up to the room and out of 
the wind, he walked across the street. 
He slid the glass door closed to block the wind. 


Winter

Becker, Sharon

SHARON BECKER 
all slrippeJ dow11 
I've been dreaming of the truth 
in bodies. The awkward glance 
of fingertips, the slouch of reality 
in the rockinghorse curve 
of a relaxed spine. The blank trust 
of a yawning belly button. Lately, 
I've been dreaming of Gary Oldman. 
In one - he chiseled stars 
and ate them raw from hands 
as thin and glinting as scissors. 
He smiled at me, belly full, 
his clean teeth spoke like street 
lights: Stop. Caution. Go. 
I smelled the palms of his hands - stars 
smell like pennies hidden too long in a jar. 
In another he was drunk, said nothing, 
his cheeks bright and dancing with neon 
medicine. He smoked solemnly, stroked 
a hand over his thin English thigh. 
Watching his wrists - I thought 
I'd like to tum them over and bite 
the thin skin underneath, plucking 
veins like guitar strings with my teeth. 
Last night, we swam in the pool 
at my parents house and I thought 
we were both 16. I turned on 
All Stripped Down 
the pool light - he kissed me, 
his tongue plum candy in my mouth. 
He raised his hands to my face, 
on my shoulders his forearms 
felt cool, slick as curving walrus tusks. 
The truth is in bodies and I've 
been dreaming of Gary Oldman. 
All I know - his neck smelled 
of tilled dark earth, his hip bone 
jutted into the world with proud, 
blind isolation. This is not a poem 
about Gary Oldman, it is about 
the dream of my body. The longing 
for bones to show through skin 
like glosses of fine wire. 
The prayer for a belly as flat 
and white as a sheet. To drink 
whiskey with Irish despair -
to kiss a man whose face has grown 
tight with desire and madness. 


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