California State University (CSU): Open Journal Systems

Foster, Sesshu

City Terrace Field Manual 
Sesshu Foster 
Prose Poem Fragtnents 
Sixto Tarango 0957- 1987) died a few Septembers ago, and 
his wife took the kids and moved to Bakersfield. But one day 
I saw Sixto standing there on the sidewalk in front of a house 
on a residential street. He was looking pretty sad, big and 
dark and lonely. After his Dad died of a heart attack when 
Sixto was eight, he had always been prone to moodiness. It 
looked like another bout of self-doubt and frustration. He 
always came out of it with a winning smile. Like in the 70s, 
president of Cal State L.A. Student body and a big Afro, 
watching the Chicano movement go down in flames. Nowa-
days if I mention him to someone, they'll say, "Sixto? I 
thought he was dead." "Yeah, that's what they told me, too." 
Sixto and I shook hands and he invited me into the house, 
which tumed out to be gloomy and vacant, without electricity 
or running water, the late aftemoon sunlight dappling the 
windows. Even Sixto reflected the Colorado-colored loneliness 
of the cottonwoods. He had a lot more on his mind than he 
could say. I told him what was obvious: "Evetybody thinks 
you're dead." He gave me a pained look. "I have AIDS. I have 
no friends any more. I can't find a place to stay, that's why 
I'm out on the street now, looking for a place to stay. Nobody 
wants anything to do with me. They know it's gonna be bad. 
It ain't right, the way people are treating me. You know I 
always treated people right." "You did," was all I could say, 
nodding, "You always did." Then he shrugged, as if to shrug 
evetyone off his back, and he looked around at the empty 
house. "I just need a place to stay." "I'll help you find some-
thing," I promised. We talked as twilight fell like a shadow on 
the room. And it was years later as I woke in the early morn-
ing sunshine coming through the cottonwood leaves into the 
second stmy window in Durango, Colorado. 
Alturo ran that way and disappeared into the afternoon. But 
at 4 AM the signal on the corner of City Terrace and Eastern 
blinks red, silent off and on. The intersection is black and 
empty, but shining under a galaxy of streetlamps as if all the 
unending light, gases, energies, and the vast emptiness of the 
universe stops there at the intersection of City Terrace and 
Eastern, comes to this edge at a red light blinking off and on, 
and ctystalizes into the shapes of night, these parked cars and 
an asphalt island with a broken concrete bus stop bench kids 
knocked down, treetops, the dark rooftops of apartments and 
houses. As if the shining black asphalt and gleaming steel and 
the glass of windows without people looking out of them 
absorbed and were consituted of the emptiness of space and 
the spiral lights of dead galaxies and the dark forces of un-
seen stars. Forever. But that's just appearances: time moves, 
66 Northridge Review 
:'>eSSIJ U /<OSTer 
the universes spin off in different directions. A car makes a 
rolling stop at the light and left turn, heads toward the free-
way. A dmnken guy, only a kid as it turned out, comes down 
the long hill of Eastern Avenue north just past the former flre 
station inhabited by a Vietnamese family. He's roaring down 
the hill in an old black Camaro. He must have been having a 
hell of a night, or a hell of a week. Maybe he sees the red 
light too late, and his brakes fail. He veers to the right. Or 
maybe he never saw it. Maybe he was asleep, and thought he 
was dreaming about it. He slammed into the back of those 
parked cars at more than 70 miles an hour. They said death 
must have been instantaneous. We all heard the explosion. It 
happened right in front of Eddie's House, and he said they all 
knew what it was. It was the second time in 2 years. Every-
body ran out to see whose cars got hit. The Camaro was spun 
out in the street, only half a car lying on its side with the kid's 
body still mostly in it. And the cars along the curb had 
accordianed into a big mess all jammed together, sprinkled 
with shatp beads of glass. From our house on the hill, I heard 
the sirens and watched the cop cars and the flre engines 
arrive, and even the towtmcks had their lightbars on, all the 
vehicles working for hours to clear the intersection with red 
and white lights flashing in evety direction. Eddie said how 
everybody was talking about where they could park their cars 
and how it was the second time in 2 years. I told Eddie I 
think space only feels empty and the night only looks quiet. 
Sure, Eddie said. Somebody's going to sleep through it all, I 
guess, I said. 
Spring 1994 67 


English

City Terrace Field Manual

Eppich Bryce, Laura

The Hanging Tree

Covell, Scott

Railin\u27

Mills, Alan

Two Poems: "Woodcut" and "Inside Him"

Cathrina Yim, Hyaekyong

Do you know body? 
What body? 
Any body. 
No. 
No body. 
Any body there? 
I do not know any body. 
Do I have to know? 
Your body it's yours. 
No no body. 
You have mind then. 
Mind where? 
Inside the body. 
No no body. 
In your heart. 
•BODY 
•NO 
•BODY 
Lips teeth tongue throat trachea. Your trachea is too small. 
I know. That's why I choke even with water. You pat my back and chest. 
Esophagus lungs liver and heart. 
Boom boom boom. 
Your heart beat is strong. Still I cannot see your mind. 
Mind? 
Your mind. 
My mind tells me to go to the bathroom. 
Why do I have a fear whenever I go to a public restroom? 
You do? I have the same fear whenever I push the elevator button. 
Why do you cover your body anyway? 
No. I do not cover but simply wear just not to show my ... 
Kyung Huh. 
Emptied mirror. 
Emptied mind. 
Hundreds of peaple are coming to hearing Kyung Huh's sermon at his temple. 
Along the narrow path to the mountain trees already change their clothes. 
Aspens gingkoes maples. 
Right there you see hundreds of them coming out the side of the mountain. 
Burning. 
68 
No, it's vomiting the blood on the stream. 
The richness of the reds and oranges and yellows moves me. 
Dance of the color. 
Forgetting why or where to go I dance with the color. 
1 dance with the color. 
Nothing in mind nothing. 
Noises remind me I am in the middle of the sanctum. 
All are expecting a great sermon. 
Kyung Huh he himself says it is a BIG one. 
His mother finds a seat in the middle of the front row. 
He comes with a chief stick and sits straight on his platform. 
A hush fall over the audience. 
Without any word Kyung Huh stands up and slowly he takes off his garments. 
Gray garments are on the floor. 
1 can hear my breath. 
Now Kyung Huh slips off his pants. 
HOW DARE YOU!!! 
His mother runs out of the sanctum with all her rage. 
Shrill cries and screams fill in the room and women are hiding their faces with 
hands. 
Huh huh huh!!! 
Mother, you touched my body and you washed my body with YOUR hands. 
You danced when I was born and you were even proud of my sex. 
My body is the same but where is your mind? 
Way without way 
Body without body 
Mind without mind. 
I am here but I am not here 
I am not here but I am here. 
69 
Hyaekyong 
Cathrina 
Yim 


Body No Body

I wrote three poems to show three different kinds of love that people have. The first one is the love that people develop for themselves after days of sadness. The second is the familial love that is riddled with fights and feuds and the third is the romantic kind and how it manifests itself in the body. These three kinds of love encompass being human and they encompass being me.&nbsp

Debnath, Teesha

Teesha
//FRAGILE. DO NOT TOUCH//
I am overwhelmed b! the love
I have for m! mother. 
It’s an ache that I’ve "acked
Into a box, neatl! labelled 
With a si#n that sa!s 
“Fra#ile. Do not touch”. 
Because m! love for her comes
At the cost of m! sanit!
Tr!in# to $uxta"ose love
And dislike, ma!be even hate
Like the!’re two "la!in# cards
And if I line them u" evenl! enou#h 
At least one
Will disa""ear. 
I am overwhelmed b! the #rief
That comes with understandin# m! mother. 
A butcher bird that im"aled herself 
Who took a s"ile to her
Dreams and drained out love and "assion 
To make room for a dau#hter 
who came a decade too earl!
And a husband who shed o% "romises 
The wa! one sheds uniforms 
at the end of workda!s. 
I am overwhelmed knowin#
That even if there are scars from words 
That she used like whi" over m! skin,
Well versed in the art of usin# lan#ua#e
To #o far dee"er 
Than a huntin# knife ever could,
63//FRAGILE. DO NOT TOUCH//
learnt from her time
In a home that #ave her no love
But calloused hands and bruised bones
And a bod! broken 
and stretched after childbirth,
She raised me b! the skin of her teeth. 
She raised me with so much love
That she sometimes did not have an!
Left for herself. 
She raised me des"ite men
Who took hammers to her once a#ain
#rowin# dreams. She raised me 
with the im"erfections
That !ou would see in a child
Pla!in# house house 
In a "la!#round 
Because that’s what she was
A !oun# mother who tried her best
To raise her dau#hter. 
I have the root of #rief and hate
Placed under m! ton#ue
But it has blossomed into nothin#
Other than love. 
The foundations are unstead!. 
Dan#erous. 
Mi#ht blow u" in !our face in a fit of ra#e
Where !ou scream I HATE YOU
To the one "erson in !our famil!
That loves !ou more than love itself. 
But it’s love nonetheless. 
Packa#ed neatl! into a box 
Labelled as 
“Fra#ile. Do not touch.”


//Fragile. Do not touch.//

Tombed Marriage is a short poem about a woman who\u27s dead and must watch a dangerous affair from the grave

Stull, Kaylee

Ka!lee Stull
TOMBED MARRIAGE
M! tomb was desecrated
Robbed and destro!ed
B! vandals of !oun"
Passion.
Fin"ers touchin",
Grazin" le"s scratch across
The "rass I fertilize,
Green ed"es that disinte"rate
And wither as their 
Consummation’s climax
Lau"hs at m! bod!’s
Attem#t at life.
Even in m! death,
I cannot hel# a bud
Bloom.
Even in death,
The "rounds turn 
Cross facin" down.
The devil knows what 
He’s doin". That’s wh!
He brin"s him here…
Ever! da!—
109TOMBED MARRIAGE
Hi#s "rindin" 
On m! "ravesite 
That denies
Our sacred vows—#roof
Left onl! b! a nail bed that 
Alwa!s "rows,
On a doomed rin" fin"er
That never moves or twitches
Buried dee# down,
Melded to bone 
The man! women
Cannot see on his 
Bare fin"er.
—So I can watch 
As he ruins m! finest hour,
An hour that sits on a stone
That’s now cut in half,
Face down
And never to be read a"ain
KILLED BY ASPHYXIATION.


Tombed Marriage

Vogel, Susan

No Price Too High: Featured Illustration by Mina Citlali

Ponce, Andrea

Andrea S. Ponce
WHY I AM NOT A GARDENER 
I am not a !ardener, I am a teacher.
Wh"? Well, I think it’s because
I don’t have the !reen thumb to kee# #lants alive.
One da" I think about #lantin! herbs– 
I like them, the" are !reen,
the" belon! in salads
I don’t #lant them. Instead, I ex#lain
similes and meta#hors to m" students.
Tell them a #oem is like a seed,
or a !arden, or somethin!.
The" look at me, waitin! for more, 
an ex#lanation. A week later I bu" a tomato #lant and
it sits in m" kitchen bri!ht and red
a kind of #romise. I water it at first then,
I for!et. The leaves turn "ellow, the tomatoes brown 
I meant to use them for dinner.
Meanwhile, m" students are writin! stories about
video !ames, adventures, even their #ets.
I read their #a!es, and in some wa" 
ever"thin! is !rowin!
weeks !o b", months #ass, m" #lant is dead, 
the #ot cracked and dr".
But the #a!es in m" students’ notebooks
kee# s#routin! new stories,
195WHY I AM NOT A GARDENER 
new creativit", new #oems,
vibrant and colorful,
like somethin! I had #lanted
without realizin! their academic !ermination.


Why I Am Not a Gardener

Carroll, Emma

43
Moira, Beautiful Inside & Out
Emma Carroll
“She will be dearly missed,” I noted as I 
thanked person after person for their condolences. 
My bottom lip quivered with a sadness that I 
couldn’t allow to break through.
The sun shone down on us in such a way that 
it was almost as if God was telling me everything 
would be alright and that I should mop up my tears 
and get on with life.
Nothing would be alright. Ever. 
Moira was all I had. She was my past and was 
supposed to be my future. I had so many road trips 
and sunset picnics planned for us. 
We were supposed to live out our days 
together.
“I’ll love you forever, lovebug.” I gently tossed 
a store-bought rose onto her.
Moira, you were the best damn car a girl could 
ask for. You will be dearly missed.


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