California State University (CSU): Open Journal Systems

Lee, Douglas

NR
City Lights
On the outside looking in,
Lights ablaze.
Colorful flames on pins,
Rainbow haze.
 Flooding the night sky,
Light reigns.
Embers learn to fly,
Moonlight’s bane.
 A sight to behold,
As a bystander.
Inside stories untold,
No answer.
The multicolored fires
Don’t burn,
The city’s dark choir,
Voices of concern.
 A discordant sound
Off pitch
A crescendo bound
Found in a ditch
A uniquely dull melody
Flat noise
Song fighting desperately
Not to be destroyed
A threnody not yet written
Unheard
Roams ‘round madness stricken
Hymn blurred.
Sickening sour notes,
Mistakes.
Disguised and rewrote,
Betrayed.
A false masterpiece noticed,
But unexplored.
Vivid lights steal the focus…
 
Darkness ignored.
D
ou
g
las Lee
10


English

City Lights

Porras, Natalie Jean

|  17 |
Natalie Jean PorrasSerrata  con Venezia


Serrata con Venezia

Batchelder, Timothy

A Golden Hour

Karraa, Ameera

reincarnation

Cervantes, Clarissa

48
MENTOR - CLARISSA CERVANTES
digital photography


Mentor

Alfaro, Christina

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Y


Record Keeping

Freebird, Raven

They Remind Me of 
Home
Raven Freebird
I bought these
long Dentalium earrings
back in October 2019
It is now April 2020
The cost?
80 bucks & a beaded heart
I still haven’t gotten those earrings 
The people I complain to, ask me
”Why don’t you get your money back?”
”Why are you waiting so long?”
If they could picture a sliver
of my world 
they would see
the earrings that remind me
of my mommy 
a pair of
beautiful, one-of-a-kind,
long Dentalium earrings 
I remember them on mom
before being ripped from her
She was breathtaking
144
These earrings remind me of mom
the one place I called home
Once at a powwow
fresh brown skin
& thirteen years young
I saw a pair of
long
Dentalium
earrings
They gave me a longing
of being 
“How much?”
I even asked if she would give me an indian discount
like the way mom would have
”$200” 
& laughed at me
for asking about the indian discount
”It’s 2013 girl”
ndns really know how to give bad news
maybe it’s because 
they are usually on the receiving end
I only had $5
an urban Indian taken,
Taken 
from my community 
long before I could choose to run
145POETRY
I never did learn how to be kin with
Dentalium
Now I know
The system
captures broke kids
and shows them 
the only way
to achieve their dreams
is thru material things
& so, I was taught
to Reach for the dream
a home projected to look
something like
a long
pair of
Dentalium earrings
So now that I can afford them, I don’t want to let them go
$90 and a trade
& when I get the
long Dentalium
earrings
I can say
“Mom, I’m finally home”
146POETRY


They Remind Me of Home

Garcia, Adriana

NR
Crafting on a Sunday
Miranda chewed her cereal slowly and deliberately as the sun crept out early 
on Sunday morning. Since her leave from work at the local elementary, she 
had taken the most time she could completing even the most basic tasks. The 
days did not feel so long and useless if she chewed every bite exactly thirty-
two times before swallowing, as her doctor suggested, and if she flossed and 
brushed after every snack and meal. Her digestion had never been better and 
her teeth had never been brighter, but her mind felt as if it continually shrunk. 
It expanded and shifted inside her head, giving her thoughts and mood swings 
that produced anything from crying spells to utter and absolute emptiness. 
She scanned the word search on the back of the cereal box in an attempt to 
gain full alertness when the phone’s loud and acute ringing did just that. She 
contemplated just how much energy it would take to get up and walk the 
five steps to the wall mount, and whether the call would be worth it, before 
she remembered her mom saying: “If I need you to pick your brother up from 
practice, I’ll call to let you know.” Miranda thought having her license would 
involve more thrilling endeavors. In her head, she had seen herself offering 
the most attractive underclassmen rides while they waited at the bus stop. If 
a male senior could go out with a junior or sophomore, why couldn’t she? But 
instead, she found herself driving to her therapist’s office twice a week and her 
psychiatrist’s once a month. At least her pharmacy delivered, because if anyone 
familiar had seen her pick medication up, they would poke and prod around 
until they found out just which ailment Gonzalez suffered from and which 
medication they were taking to aid it, and if that happened, her family would 
be absolutely mortified, and her brother Diego would probably be chased off 
the lacrosse field with kids badgering him about his crazy sister having finally 
A
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cracked and being locked up at home. She finally rolled her eyes, leisurely stood 
up, stretched until her back cracked, adjusted her lilac bathrobe, and made her 
way to the phone.
“Hello?”
“Miranda!”, a nauseatingly cheery voice boomed on the other end.
Miranda grimaced. “Yep, who’s this?”
“It’s Debbie from church. Listen, is your mom home?”
This was no help. Miranda was four the last time she was in a church. “No? Can I 
give her a message?”
“Well,” the woman hesitated before continuing, “I just wanted to let her know 
that your dad was in my neighborhood this morning.”
Miranda’s eyes narrowed. She swallowed hard and felt remnants of cereal go 
down the back of her throat. The line was silent.
“Hon, you still there?”
“You live on Maple?” 
“Yeah, I just thought I’d give your mom a call. She’s been through so much this 
year,” the woman lamented.
Miranda shut her eyes and let out a livid breath. “Sorry, who is this again?”
“It’s Debbie! You all came to my place for New Year’s.”
Silence.
 “You took off with my Alex and kept him till two, remember?”
Miranda finally remembered, but wished she had not. “Right.” She tightened 
her grip on the pearl-colored phone and asked, “Is he still there?”
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“I don’t know, doll, maybe. I just saw him go in.” The woman paused, then 
added, “I’m really sorry.”
“Yeah, well, thanks for letting us know, Debbie.”
Miranda hung the phone up with a loud clang, paused with her hand on her 
hip, then sped to the kitchen drawers. Once there, she leaned over the counter 
with her head hanging low and breathed in and out. “One flew east, one flew 
west,” she whispered to herself. She stood up straight, staring at one drawer 
in particular. “One flew over the cuckoo’s nest,” she said aloud, and pulled the 
drawer out. From it, she grabbed a large, slender knife. She held it in a stabbing 
position and looked at her reflection on the small microwave door, holding her 
chin up with purpose.
“No, that’s ridiculous,” she murmured, and put it back.
She grabbed a cleaver, and thought it was even more ridiculous, but made a 
mental note of the fact that she liked the way she looked in a bathrobe holding 
a cleaver, and that it would make a good concept for her and her friend Emily 
to write around and shoot later. She placed the cleaver back in the drawer, just 
about ready to abandon her plans, when she caught sight of her mother’s large 
orange coupon-cutting scissors. Her eyes lit up as she picked them up, gave 
them a trial snip snip, and slipped them into her robe pocket. She grabbed her 
keys and headed out the door. 
Her dirty bunny slippers’ ears flopped furiously as she treaded through the snow 
and slipped into her inherited ’84 Jetta. The engine struggled to start and for 
a second she feared the Colorado temperatures might keep her from exacting 
revenge. It started, though, so she peeled out and headed toward Maple.
She knew exactly which house to look for. It was bigger, nicer and cleaner than 
the Gonzalez home, and Miranda remembered lamenting the cleanliness 
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because she knew it was something her father appreciated and couldn’t get at 
home. Miranda’s mother was immensely sweet, but not very tidy, and though 
Miranda tried her best to keep the house in basic order, her mother’s manic 
tendencies made it difficult for it to remain that way. She considered this a 
personal failure and for the first time felt partly responsible for her father’s affair. 
The last time she had been to the home it was decorated for Halloween. Her 
older sister, who no longer lived at home, had torn all the pumpkin garlands 
from the bushes and mailbox after catching her dad inside filling the poodle’s 
water bowl. He never filled the water bowl at home.
Miranda left her Jetta at an angle in the driveway. She slammed the door shut 
and treaded even more furiously to the house’s front door, which she knew 
would be unlocked from experience. Her dad had always taught them to be 
suspicious of the world, but how did he end up in a house with an unlocked 
front door? She couldn’t understand it. She stepped inside and marched 
directly upstairs, sure of where she was headed. She was just beginning to 
feel the creeping cold and wetness of her slippers on her feet when she heard 
her dad and the woman speaking lowly from behind the slightly open master 
bedroom door. Miranda pushed the door open all the way slowly, and when 
they saw her, the woman shrieked and pulled the covers up over her chest, 
leaving only her tacky green nightgown’s straps visible. Her dad immediately 
crawled out of bed, also tugging at the sheets to cover himself, and Miranda 
whispered, “Perfect.”
She went straight to the woman’s side of the bed and grabbed her by a chunk 
of cheaply-dyed burgundy hair. It was brittle in Miranda’s hand, but she was 
grateful, because it only helped tighten her grip around it. The woman shrieked 
in disbelief.
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“Miranda!” her dad yelled. “Leave her, please!” He wasn’t dressed and therefore 
could not, or rather would not, move to stop her. 
“Chivalry really is dead,” Miranda scoffed, looking directly at her father and his 
inaction, but later, she would have the fleeting thought that maybe his lack 
of action meant he cared more for her comfort than his mistress’ safety, but 
Miranda would then rationalize that her dad could never respect her even that 
much, and that he was just a coward.
Miranda ignored him and tugged on the hair as hard as she could to bring 
the woman up from her knees to a standing position. Once this was done, she 
yanked and dragged the woman down the stairs, the woman shrieking and 
grunting all the way. The burgundy broad tripped halfway down, momentarily 
halting the ordeal, but Miranda used her free hand to grab the woman by the 
elbow and get her back up so they could continue. During the pause, Miranda 
caught a glimpse of a family portrait hanging on the wall. Two daughters and 
a husband. Where were they? Probably living their lives thinking Mom was in 
spinning class. A sham. They made it through the front door and onto the front 
yard, where Miranda promptly threw the woman to the relatively fresh fallen 
snow and pulled the scissors out her pocket. She grabbed a new chunk of brittle 
burgundy hair and snipped it as close to the scalp as she possibly could. The 
woman clawed at Miranda’s hands with rhinestone acrylic nails, but Miranda 
was unflinching in her execution. She grabbed the chopped chunk, left the 
woman on the ground, and marched back to her car. By then, her father had 
appeared half-dressed at the front door and the woman yelled back at him, 
“She cut my hair! Do something!” Miranda’s dad called after her, but she was 
already busy making sure no cars were behind her while she backed out the 
driveway. She turned her head right and whispered, “One flew east,” turned 
her head left and said, “One flew west,” and as she heard her dad yell her name 
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one more time over the lady’s obnoxious sobbing, she exhaled, “One flew over 
the cuckoo’s nest,” and pulled out. Her instructor had always reprimanded her 
for forgetting to actually turn and check for cars instead of just relying on her 
rearview mirror. He would’ve been proud if he had seen the way she left.
***
Dinner was silent that night. Miranda’s mom made trout, steamed rice and 
veggies to satisfy her husband’s low-calorie diet, so Miranda and her brother 
shoved the plate’s contents around back and forth without actually eating 
much.
“This shit sucks,” Diego whispered to Miranda.
“Shh! It’s your dad’s favorite. It’s good for you too,” their mom whispered back, 
and shot a sheepish smile in her husband’s direction. He sat motionless with 
red-rimmed eyes at the head of the table and paid her no mind. She sighed.
“So,” Miranda’s mom started, “anyone wanna talk about how their day went?” 
She looked around the table, but no one so much as made eye contact with her. 
She patted her greying, messy curls that sat like a bird’s nest atop her head self-
consciously, but kept trying.
“Miranda? That’s an... interesting necklace you have on. Did one of your students 
make it?”
“What, this?” Miranda pointed at the piece of yarn around her neck. She’d 
knotted tufts of burgundy hair to it and separated them with colorful beads 
she’d stolen from her brother’s old craft kit. She was still in her lilac robe.
“I was feeling creative today,” she answered, and shoveled some rice into her 
mouth. Her father cleared his throat, sniffled, and brought a small spoonful of 
rice to his mouth. Miranda watched him intently. He stopped chewing abruptly 
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and brought a napkin to his lips. From them, he expelled a partially chewed 
rice wad with one long, burgundy hair attached to it. He pulled the rest of the 
strand out from his mouth with his thumb and index finger and looked up at 
his daughter. She smirked. He gagged. 
“Santiago, what’s the matter?” Miranda’s mom asked and placed her large, 
worn hand on her husband’s. Decades of factory work had stolen their youth 
long before the Gonzalezes could afford to live in the house they had now, and 
she refused to treat them with manicures and acrylics because she claimed her 
chores wouldn’t let the effect last, anyway. 
Miranda casually gnawed at a sautéed snow pea. “Yeah, Dad, what’s the 
matter?” she asked, and kept chewing while awaiting a response. 
He looked up at his daughter with betrayed, swollen eyes and stood up from 
the table. Everything was still. “This house is a fucking pigsty,” he finally said 
after a few seconds, looking directly at Miranda. She met his gaze with equal, 
if not deeper, disdain and contempt. He marched upstairs, and the remaining 
family members sat motionless.
“Miranda,” her mom whispered after the footsteps had disappeared into the 
master bedroom. “What did you do?”
Miranda nearly choked on the half-chewed pea still sitting in her mouth. She 
cleared her throat and croaked, “What did I do?” She felt the heat of rage rise to 
her ears. “I didn’t do anything. Why don’t you ask your husband what he did, for 
a change?”
“Your father’s going through a really tough time at work right now, and he 
doesn’t need you kids making it harder for him.”
“‘Kids?’ What did I do?” Miranda’s brother asked defensively. “Miranda’s the one 
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who bums around the house all day.”
“Hey, your sister does plenty, and you could have picked your shoes and 
backpack off the living room floor today, mister,” their mother responded.
“I was going to do it after dinner!” Diego rebuffed while Miranda shut her eyes 
and tried her best to breathe steadily.
“Your dad just wants to come home to a clean house, Diego,” his mom 
explained. 
Miranda’s eyes suddenly shot open, sick of the words that had turned to white 
noise. She felt her mind teeter.  
“Enough!” exclaimed Miranda. “You didn’t do anything. Diego and I didn’t do 
anything either. We’re not taking the blame for dad’s bullshit and your marital 
problems anymore.”
Miranda’s mom’s eyes widened in astonishment.
“Oh, excuse me,” Miranda corrected herself with eyes rolled so far up they looked 
as if they might go all the way back. “I meant cleaning problems. If you two 
are having cleaning problems, work it out amongst yourselves or get a fucking 
cleaning lady. But then dad already might have, so check in on that.” She was 
agitated. “How am I the only sane and sensible person in this family? It can’t be 
possible,” she said, and stood up from the table leaving strands of dyed hair by 
her plate and on the floor.
Her mom and brother sat stunned.
“It can’t be possible!” she yelled again while stomping up the stairs.
Everything was silent.
“Well,” Diego said after a moment. “It really was an interesting necklace.”
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“Yes,” his mom responded after a beat, her eyes far away. “Your sister’s very 
talented,” she said, and she began to sob over her trout.
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Crafting on a Sunday

Beal, Peggy

One Family\u27s Scars

NR
The Knight   
“You’re like Cinderella,” Larry said to his fiancé as she handed him a 
sandwich. The desert sun radiated between them inside the car. The air 
conditioning was out again. Larry kept one eye on the road as he looked at 
Lena with appreciation, not just for the sandwich, but for all she had given 
him. Lena smiled good-naturedly as Larry picked at the sprouts. 
“I’m like the coachman,” continued Larry.
“What do you mean?” asked Lena. She saved him from the sprouts, 
adding them to her own sandwich.
“You belong with a prince or a knight,” Larry answered, placing 
the sandwich on the dashboard and reaching for the road map. He did 
not explain that he was not a prince, that he didn’t even have princely 
aspirations.
“It’s just a sandwich. Cinderella? Any minute I could turn into a 
pumpkin, just like the carriage. I love you too.”
Larry looked out the window at one cactus after another, imagining 
them to be saying “stop, wrong way” or “welcome, nice to see you” with their 
arms in the air.
“Did I ever tell you those glass slippers are a little tight?”, Lena laughed.
Larry signaled back into the slow lane after passing two semi-trucks. 
He returned Lena’s smile. They would have had cool air if they’d taken 
Lena’s Prius, not to mention the savings on gas. They decided to save that 
argument for another day. Luckily, it wasn’t summer yet.  
His knee was feeling better thanks to the physical therapy. It was a 
bullet ten years ago that first injured his knee. The second knee surgery 
was last month. Newly forming scars crisscrossed with the old scar ridges. 
The pain had been unrelenting afterward. One night, Larry was yelling out 
in agony. Lena rushed him to the emergency room. A stent was surgically 
placed inside a vein to keep blood clots from traveling to Larry’s lungs. Lena, 
his savior.
Larry put on his sunglasses and rolled up his shirt sleeves. He felt at the 
front pocket of his jeans to be sure the letter was still there.   
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“How’s your knee?” asked Lena, as she handed him some water. She 
leaned over and placed a hand on his shoulder. “You should have let me drive.”
Larry could feel his knee throbbing a little. It was his right leg where the 
surgical battles had taken place. He thought he’d be able to drive okay. She was 
right. Rest.
“I’ll stop up the road here for a break. Time for another walk. Hope I don’t 
have to run from a snake. You’ve got the wheel next,” Larry said.
 The bullet in his knee had been the least of it. That day turned his mind 
into a twisted torrent of doubt and remorse. Do old ghosts ever leave you 
alone? Larry looked at the tumbleweeds scurrying in both directions across the 
highway in front of him, like the wind couldn’t make up its mind either.
He eased the car off the highway at a roadside rest. Lena got out of the car 
and struck up a conversation with a married couple, with twins and two dogs. 
Flat, dry land stretched to brown hills on one side and a mountain range on the 
other. Larry stepped carefully on the uneven dirt. 
In the high shadowed crevices of the mountains, he saw something 
unexpected. It can’t be. He narrowed his eyes as if that would better focus his 
vision, and determined that, yes, what he saw was snow. It didn’t look very far 
away. Snow in the desert. Amazing. Looking toward the San Gorgonio pass, he 
spotted something else unfamiliar to him. Giant white aliens? Dozens of high 
cylindrical towers, with their three-pronged rotating blade arms. What? Is this 
place on my map? On this barren yellow land, all around him, reptiles with skin 
as hard as the rocks they scurried under, watched and schemed against him 
with their marble eyes. Larry allowed himself a smile and relaxed distractedly. 
When Lena sneaked up behind him, he nearly fell over.
“I startled you,” apologized Lena.
“No, I was on another planet,” Larry mumbled.
“Let’s get moving. Our house adventure awaits us,” Lena gently urged.
Sitting on the passenger side now, Larry wondered how much longer he’d 
be able to feign his interest in buying a house in the desert. He glanced guiltily 
over at Lena, who was deftly maneuvering his 1976 Cadillac Coupe, his baby, in 
and around the big trucks, her back relaxed against the seat. Larry closed his 
eyes and imagined her back pressing warmly against his chest. Larry had begun 
to wonder if it was Lena’s essence alone which effortlessly pulsated both of their 
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hearts. Often, she seemed to be the one who sensuously held them together, 
in their love making and otherwise. A vehicle’s horn blasted nearby, so loud and 
close Larry instinctively braced for impact.
“How ‘bout one of those date shakes the signs are bragging about?” Larry 
suggested.
“Can we please wait until town and get the good ones with soy?”
She was driving him to the future. How would he tell her he didn’t want to 
go?
Cruising along Palm Canyon Drive, Larry felt his mood shift a little. He was 
back on earth amongst brilliant pastel buildings and gleeful people sitting in 
sidewalk cafes with cool mists of water. Green oasis promises surrounded him. 
He and Lena ate at a vegetarian restaurant. Larry poked at his veggie burger 
dubiously. Soon they were back on the road to the realtor’s office, with Lena 
determined to see a couple of the houses on the list before nightfall.
Inside the first dwelling, they followed their fast-talking realtor. The current 
owners were not at home. While Lena inspected the backyard, and the realtor 
fired off details of square footage and copper pipes into Lena’s eager ears, Larry 
doubled back to the kitchen. Still hungry, he pulled open the refrigerator. With 
silent thanks for the abundance inside, greedily he grabbed a fried chicken leg 
and gulped milk from the carton.   
Larry rejoined the women. Lena looked at him with something between a 
question and a frown as if she could smell the meat. He moved to the window 
pretending to admire the framing, and looked past the sage brush, and 
their lengthening shadows, toward the setting sun. Ghosts, like shadows, are 
impossible to escape. The bloodshot yellow eye stared back at him. 
Answering her phone and walking toward the front door, the realtor gave 
them a nod. “Take your time.” Lena tugged at Larry’s sleeve. After her reminder, 
he checked out the backyard.  
Meanwhile, Lena grabbed his jacket, and she swept up Larry’s twice folded 
realtor’s sheet from the floor.   
How do you confront a ghost? Sitting in the back of the realtor’s car, Larry 
kept ruminating about the past. The passing of time had only empowered the 
ghost. The faster and farther he ran, the larger and closer the ghost’s image 
grew until his own shadow was two shadows…until every thought in his head 
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was two thoughts. One belonging to himself. One belonging to the ghost. He 
tried to escape by closing his eyes. Before long, he was asleep. Lena noticed his 
fitfulness.
Lena was about to transfer the papers in her hand to her house hunting 
folder when she saw the letter Larry had folded inside his realtor’s sheet. 
Lena read the contents. It was dated recently, on the tenth anniversary of 
the shooting. A woman named Carol was thanking Larry again for saving her 
life and that of her unborn child on that fateful day. She also pleaded with him 
to understand that he couldn’t have saved the boy on the bicycle. He couldn’t 
have saved everyone. Everything had happened too fast she said. She asked him 
to please forgive himself because there was nothing to forgive. She wondered if 
one day they might yet be friends. Let me remind you of the good of that day, 
she implored.       
 Larry woke just as the realtor pulled in to drop them at their hotel. After 
she left, Lena handed the letter to Larry and confessed she had read it. His 
yearning poured out, “I’ve been wanting to share…,” but Lena caught him in a 
tight embrace. They stayed like that on the boulevard under the hotel’s neon for 
a long time. He felt her love for him. He felt his love for her too. Lena whispered 
softly, barely audible, in his ear, “Not a knight, huh?”


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