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Staff, PoemMemoirStory

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PMS 2 (Complete Issue)

Dumesnil, Cheryl

PoemMemoirStory 
Volume 02 Article 11 
Somewhere in a Box Marked "Keep" 
Cheryl Dumesnil 
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Dumesnil, Cheryl () "Somewhere in a Box Marked "Keep"," PoemMemoirStory: Vol. 02, Article 11. 
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Cheryl Dumesnil 
SOMEWHERE IN A Box MARKED "KEEP" 
I'm looking for the words again, in the dusty file box 
marked "literary theory," in the pistil of a red trumpet 
flower. Frigidaire offers its sputter and hum, with 
the neighbor's leaf blower playing contra-rhythm 
as I tear up the house. The woman who lives in my 
broom closet taps her foot and advises, Remember 
when you had them last-a cornfield in Iowa, 1993; 
a university soccer game-hot cider and October 
rain. I think I left them at a rest stop on Interstate 80, 
on the shelf above the soap dispenser, in the space 
between I want and I will. Yesterday, I cut open 
a head of red leaf lettuce and found the word chicory 
hiding in the center. I think I left them in that 
apartment in the West Village, in a cupboard, behind 
the recycling bin and the Clorox, in the wine box 
with the rag rug, where the fat old cat used to sleep. 
14 -


Somewhere in a Box Marked  Keep

Rekdal, Paisley

PoemMemoirStory 
Volume 02 Article 16 
On Getting a Dog and Being told What I Really Want is a Child 
Paisley Rekdal 
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 Part of the Creative Writing Commons, and the English Language and Literature Commons 
Recommended Citation 
Rekdal, Paisley () "On Getting a Dog and Being told What I Really Want is a Child," PoemMemoirStory: Vol. 
02, Article 16. 
Available at: https://digitalcommons.library.uab.edu/pms/vol02/iss2002/16 
This content has been accepted for inclusion by an authorized administrator of the UAB Digital Commons, and is 
provided as a free open access item. All inquiries regarding this item or the UAB Digital Commons should be 
directed to the UAB Libraries Office of Scholarly Communication. 
Paisley Rekdal 
ON GETTING A DOG AND BEING TOLD WHAT I REALLY 
WANT Is A CHILD 
For years I considered the journey. What meals 
I'd make, what cities I'd conquer, the foreign thighs 
of walls tattooed with graffiti. I imagined 
the exhaustion of mornings up, 
without a home, the pushing on, and thought 
of sailors hovering the frozen 
river crusts, or the way stones 
struck the mouth of Magellan walking 
through the Verzin gates. How they burst 
through lip and gum! And how dangerous 
their animals must have seemed to him with their yellow 
faces and small teeth. And then, of course, I thought 
about how Magellan knew his men all hated him, the one 
Portugese on a ship of Spaniards, irritating and obvious 
as a nipple. How they plotted 
to revolt at each intersection of the sea 
and cheered when the unknown natives 
threw stones. Perhaps I am promiscuous, 
the way some sailors choose to love 
themselves on long journeys 
and Magellan, when he reached each new port, 
lay on its fish-rotted quay 
20 
and sobbed. What I want 
is the dust of towns, canyons 
full of dead seas and the sun a killing god. No need 
for wars or discipline, 
to make my body a bark 
for others cast adrift, bobbing like buoys 
or ice flows. There are monsters on the Pole, Magellan wrote. 
And giants, a handsome people. 
Though he never knew what to say of the woman 
who crawled aboard his boat to see if it was true: 
that dinghies suckle from the mother ship like pups 
from wooden bitches. And snuck a loosened nail deep 
inside herself to carry as she hobbled home, 
nursing it in secret 
as if its iron was really gold. 
21 -


On Getting a Dog and Being told What I Really Want is a Child

Burns, Suzanne

PoemMemoirStory 
Volume 02 Article 22 
Cinderella 
Suzanne Burns 
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Recommended Citation 
Burns, Suzanne () "Cinderella," PoemMemoirStory: Vol. 02, Article 22. 
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Suzanne Burns 
CINDERELLA 
1. 
Oh, more color of violets they propose to carry, my sisters 
Paint their lips, hipbones adjusting to the latitude of any Prince. 
I, only I hide like a star at dawn, tending pumpkins in our manor 
Garden. Tomatoes speak in red breaths, pedestals of Brussels 
Sprouts raise their green scepters. In a laden plot, no slipper 
Supports my gardening efforts. My feet sweat into my boots. 
2. 
The dainty toes of Queens do not fit the girth of boots. 
My own toes flatten in their corral of stinking leather 
As my sisters, with their velvet countenance, remain 
In slippers. I stoke the dinner fire, sew an apple in the mouth 
Of a pig, a fat, goodly Prince. I would measure alterations 
To place him on a pedestal if not for all the conversations 
Rolling about the kitchen like pumpkins. 
3. 
The Prince's Ball nears the harvest of my pumpkins. 
A festival, halls glitter-scuffed from golden boots. 
The Prince announced himself a groom-to-be, his pedestal 
Sitting empty as a new moon. Step-Mom goaded my sisters 
To accept his challenge the way summer accepts fall. 
You cannot argue a Prince's fate, what with his coming-out ball 
And how he spoke soft as a slipper gliding on ice. 
4. 
Coronations weight my gut. I cannot choose a slipper 
To accessorize even common threads. And I can make 
My own decisions. I have no time to be picked by a Prince. 
28 -
I clean the hairs from Step-Mom's brush, resole my work boots 
With tarry sticks. Yes, with breasts dangling like participles, 
My sisters attain a design that fits best on any pedestal. 
5. 
But I claim talents, too. I can decipher the tune of birds 
Perched on pedestals of branch, twittering the Ball news 
With their slippery beaks quenched from garden berries. 
My sisters ignore their feathered lessons. You might as well 
Hitch rides to the ball in pumpkins for all their contentions. 
Becoming a princess is no different than lacing up your boots. 
One foot at a time, that's it. And who really needs a Prince? 
6. 
I'd rather be a meadow than one flower, a mountain 
Than one stone in a princely ring. During the ball, 
I tend my manor garden while my sisters seek their Prince. 
While they pirouette, I pick fat pumpkins to pile high 
On a grassy pedestal. I am not made for a glass slipper. 
Sorry, Prince Charming, but I'm keeping my boots. 
29 -


Cinderella

DuBois, Felicia

PoemMemoirStory 
Volume 02 Article 30 
My Father Holding the Hounds 
Felicia DuBois 
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DuBois, Felicia () "My Father Holding the Hounds," PoemMemoirStory: Vol. 02, Article 30. 
Available at: https://digitalcommons.library.uab.edu/pms/vol02/iss2002/30 
This content has been accepted for inclusion by an authorized administrator of the UAB Digital Commons, and is 
provided as a free open access item. All inquiries regarding this item or the UAB Digital Commons should be 
directed to the UAB Libraries Office of Scholarly Communication. 
Felicia DuBois 
MY FATHER HOLDING THE HOUNDS 
In the rose garden, my father 
is holding back the hounds. Behind him 
my uncle holds the horses; they lean 
and whinny, eager to run. All night, 
they stomped and clattered, sounding 
the feedbin' s gong. Somewhere 
out there, beyond the stone walls 
and fences, the fox-a red slash 
carved with a palette knife-hurtles 
through thickets, already panting, 
the hounds' barking and howling 
like a thorn in his paw. But here, 
where roses nod, dropping petals-
red, pink, yellow-where bloated carp 
raise their ancient, whiskered faces 
to the light, where swans glide 
on the black pond, here, where nothing 
has already happened, my father 
holds the five hounds like a bouquet 
and my uncle chides the champing 
horses, while I watch from the porch. 
I lean on the whitewashed post 
and imagine my uncle and father 
galloping their mounts through 
Bashford's Brook, the water splashing, 
mist rising over the meadows like 
their shouts as they close 
on the baying hounds, the fox 
treed, leaping nervously from branch 
to branch. All that living beyond me, 
that thicket too dense to probe. 
These two men who will later wash up 
and sit to dinner, to fine crystal 
and china, who will tuck their napkins 
neatly into their collars while my mother 
passes the silver tray of yams, 
sweetbreads of veal, 
the cut-glass gravy boat 
in the shape of a swan. 
39 
• 


My Father Holding the Hounds

Bierlein, Stacy

PoemMemoirStory (literary 
magazine) 
Volume 02 Article 38 
2002 
My Father's Head 
Stacy Bierlein 
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 Part of the Creative Writing Commons, and the English Language and Literature Commons 
Recommended Citation 
Bierlein, Stacy (2002) "My Father's Head," PoemMemoirStory (literary magazine): Vol. 02, Article 38. 
Available at: https://digitalcommons.library.uab.edu/pms/vol02/iss2002/38 
This content has been accepted for inclusion by an authorized administrator of the UAB Digital Commons, and is 
provided as a free open access item. All inquiries regarding this item or the UAB Digital Commons should be 
directed to the UAB Libraries Office of Scholarly Communication. 
Stacy Bierlein 
MY FATHER'S HEAD 
Here's what happened: I turned eleven, my father died, and 
my mother found a man with a hollow head. Grandma started 
coming over all the time to check on us. We thought it was nice 
to see more of Grandma, but Mom said Grandma was med-
dling, even if she stayed only a few minutes and brought logan-
berry pie. 
One time Grandma came when Mom was out and Hollow 
Man was sleeping in front of the television. She knocked on 
Hollow Man's head and her knocks echoed back at her. She 
sighed hard and loud, looked over to us with wide eyes. We ate 
pie on the good china that day-Grandma insisted. Then like all 
the other times, she shrugged her shoulders, clucked her 
tongue, and went home to cut coupons with Grandpa. 
My younger sister said Grandma and Grandpa agreed with 
her, that nothing happening around us made any sense. My 
older sister thought everything did. I just thought it sucked. I 
missed my dad's sound and his heavy head and the way he 
could tap it against a door and the door would shatter to pieces. 
My younger sister heard Grandma using our phone one 
day, complaining to one of her sisters, one of our great aunts. 
She said, Their father is gone and their mother is selfish and 
that man-you know he's hollow, right? It's amazing the girls 
don't up and run away. 
But if I ran away, I'd want to take all the pictures of Dad. 
And I'm worried that if all the pictures were gone, some of the 
people who came over to visit might forget he used to be here. 
My father's head was heavier than I can explain, full of dia-
grams, sculpture, and verse. He could scratch his head and 
instantly answer whatever question I asked. My mother always 
said she couldn't stand the way he had rested his head on her 
right shoulder when they slept, the way the heaviness would 
leave her whole arm red, flat, and sore. 
My father was quiet and wise and hummed good music. 
The greatest music. Sometimes he'd sing with the radio and 
83 
Bierlein 
he'd get the words wrong, but his words were better, smarter. His 
earlobes were round and his hair was thick and black with 
streaks like pewter. 
It's true-we hated the man with the hollow head. Mom 
found him at the market. He talked a lot in a muffled voice but 
none of it made any sense. He was soft and couldn't carry a tune. 
He sat in the living room chair all day staring at the television. 
Mom didn't let us watch soaps, but didn't care if he did. 
Sometimes his face fell, his skin wrinkled, a deflating balloon. 
You could hear air just moving between his ears, waiting for 
something to cling to. 
Sometimes we cracked each other up by imitating the world 
inside Hollow Man's head. We pulled our faces thin, sucked in 
our cheeks, held our eyes wide and empty. Then we'd breathe 
long and airy and sway back and forth. Sometimes Mom laughed 
and told us to cut it out. Other times she looked so mad, we'd 
stop for a while. 
After a few months Mom's right arm got white and fat and 
she seemed to like her arm that way but I didn't care. I liked her 
arm the old way. Red is a very important color, I told her. Red is 
the first color babies see, the color that keeps traffic in order. She 
told me to be quiet, stop being sassy. I explained that in my teen 
magazines, sassy was a good thing. Fat was a bad thing, and her 
arm was white .and fat, fat, fat. Look at the magazines, I yelled. 
We're supposed to curl our hair and look thin and sassy! 
Mom glared at me that day and canceled my subscriptions 
the next. She asked me if I wanted to talk to someone. Duh, I 
almost told her. I wanted to talk to the same person Grandma and 
my sisters and everyone in town wanted to talk to. I wanted to 
talk to Dad. 
My younger sister said Mom likes Hollow Man more and 
more everyday, then made gagging noises. She faked the gagging 
so great that sometimes she started coughing for real. My older 
sister told her, Stop it, said, Get a clue, Mom's empty too. And I 
just stared out the window, watched the gardens and houses 
below. 
There were boys down there, kicking Nerf balls and making 
kites. I knew they were cute but I didn't care about them. I didn't 
care about anything. Everyday was the same. I ate Grandma's 
84 
poe:-:nmemoL story 
loganberry pies and stole hair ties from my sisters and watched 
Mom forget: My father's head was so heavy that one day he took 
a nap outside and when he woke up there was a canyon. 
85 


My Father\u27s Head

Rosenberg, Karen

PoemMemoirStory (literary 
magazine) 
Volume 02 Article 39 
2002 
Eclectic 
Karen Rosenberg 
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 Part of the Creative Writing Commons, and the English Language and Literature Commons 
Recommended Citation 
Rosenberg, Karen (2002) "Eclectic," PoemMemoirStory (literary magazine): Vol. 02, Article 39. 
Available at: https://digitalcommons.library.uab.edu/pms/vol02/iss2002/39 
This content has been accepted for inclusion by an authorized administrator of the UAB Digital Commons, and is 
provided as a free open access item. All inquiries regarding this item or the UAB Digital Commons should be 
directed to the UAB Libraries Office of Scholarly Communication. 
Karen Rosenberg 
ECLECTIC 
The journal called Eclectic didn't cost much. Just the leisure of 
its editor and publisher, listed as Harry Hoffnung on the mast-
head, since some people wouldn't take a Harriet seriously. Her 
plan for the magazine was simple. Leaving her children with her 
live-in maid, she traveled to professors, lawyers, politicians, 
union leaders, poets and artists to solicit an article on any idea 
they couldn't publish under their own names. 
Every one of them had stumbled upon taboos. Some had 
avoided them, prudently, anxiously. Others had confronted them, 
sideways at least, and discovered just how dangerous that was. 
Many were eager to show that they weren't hypocrites and cow-
ards, if only to themselves and Harriet, for she promised she 
would never reveal their identity, not even to her future curator, 
archivist, and all-around amanuensis. From the very beginning, 
she had imagined me and decided that I wouldn't get the whole 
story. 
Her husband humored her because he supposed her project 
would last only a couple of years, like most little magazines. But 
she had tapped into a strong underground spring that would not 
be quelled. Six times a week, except for holidays, mail poured in 
through the slot in her front door. Manuscripts inundated her. 
Many people had theories which they preferred to circulate 
anonymously, so oversights and errors would not humiliate them 
later. And when their friends and colleagues confessed in confi-
dence to some heresy, Harriet's nickname and home address were 
often passed on. Eclectic was considered the perfect place to 
launch a trial balloon, for if it crashed, no one could be held 
responsible. 
Bought or borrowed, the journal got into other hands. It was 
leafed through by accountants acquainted with the hidden life of 
money. Fishermen and hikers who had seen something dumped 
in the dark. Would-be whistleblowers who knew the penalties for 
tattle-taling. I could tell this from the letters to the editor, always 
published without the writers' real names. One, signed An Old 
86 -
poemmemoirstory 
Progressive, went, "Your magazine is necessary because the 
United States became most censorious when it attained its 
greatest influence, like the Catholic Church in the thirteenth 
century." But I suspect that articles also came in from abroad. 
How many I can't say, however. 
"I threw out my correspondence with all authors," Harriet 
announced when I took the job as Keeper of the Hoffnung 
House Museum. "Don't bother to search for it." 
Nevertheless I checked the crevices in her office rooms and 
living quarters thoroughly. There is no record of a storage place 
lent or rented to her. It is possible she told me the truth. 
She did save her subscriber lists and they are international. 
Never long, but with a lot of eminence. When I make them pub-
lic, historians will probably go wild. For some of these well-
respected men and women were almost certainly not merely 
readers, but also her writers, cloaked as The Last Honest Man, 
Holy Fool, and A-B von C, to mention just a few pen names. 
Sooner or later, scholars will match opinions in her journal with 
some very famous figures. But it will take a while. Harriet, 
faithful to her word, made sure an author's identity would not 
be easy to decode. 
No one was allowed to choose one disguise and stick to it, 
so you could get a sense of how N.N., say, differed from Prof. 
Dr. Dr. X. They had to flit from one cover to another. To the 
uninitiated, Eclectic must have appeared to be a magazine 
which no one wrote for twice. But she had her stable, as she 
called her regulars. No plodding workhorses but thorough-
breds. Nimble, elegant, fast on their feet. Of course, she also got 
aggressive animals who liked to kick and use their teeth. 
Pseudonyms produce plenty of those. Protected from reprisals, 
some people tried to settle scores. Harriet determined which 
vendettas had a wider significance because it was her cash and 
time that transformed typed and handwritten pages into print. 
She claimed an editor's authority and exercised it, even with 
contributors who were extremely prominent. 
She told me, "Sure, I lost some writers while trying to rein 
them in. So what? They were soon replaced. For I provided 
opportunities to voice long-standing grievances. The young 
87 -
Rosenberg 
could take on the oppressive old. The old could recall what histo-
rians omitted. Workers could criticize their bosses, servants their 
masters, and so on." 
As for women, some say she attracted many more of them 
than men, but I can't confirm it. Harriet no longer remembers. 
She'd grown old before I came. 
There was another rumor, spread by her enemies including 
my mother, that the entire journal was written by Harriet alone. 
"The lady of a million masks," they called her, sometimes to her 
face. But they overestimated her imagination and overlooked the 
expertise that went into each essay. Some people need an impres-
sive-sounding blurb in order to appreciate an author. 
"Middle-brows," said Harriet. "Ignore them." 
She worked for a better sort, regardless of their origins. Those 
willing to arrive at independent judgments. I know a movie critic 
like that who takes pride in making up his own mind. He goes to 
festivals to see films before the reviews are out and won't read 
the press packets handed out by publicists there. I can't say what 
gives him that self-confidence, because I didn't get to know him 
that well, although we two were lovers for a while. Somehow he 
escaped the fear that makes others override their own reactions, 
until they fail to notice them at all. 
"I made my readers feel responsible," Harriet bragged and 
told me a parable from somewhere in the Bible about tares, a kind 
of weed which may be useful to the wheat in which it grows. If 
you try to pull it out of the ground, you can destroy a lot of need-
ed cereal, she said, since the grasses aren't easy to distinguish. 
Only later, after harvesting, can the grain be separated quickly 
and with fewer mistakes. I'm a very urban person, and I hope I 
recorded this correctly. Anyhow, I tried. 
Some of her readers rose to the challenge, encouraged by her 
confidence in their ability, and subscribed year after year. My 
mother and her crowd maintained that anything published in 
Eclectic was automatically suspect, otherwise it would not be 
there but in a well-known magazine, with a byline that's a gen-
uine name. Harriet was exiled by them beyond the borders of 
respectability, although she lived not far from New York City. 
"A very gentle punishment, given the alternatives," Hoffnung 
explained to me. "That may be why it was recommended in 
88 
poemmemoirstory 
Paul's epistle to Titus, chapter three, verses ten and eleven. In the 
King James version: 'A man that is a heretic after the first and sec-
ond admonition reject,' etc. No offence, but when your mother 
and her friends Brian and Helen didn't return my calls, I could 
work with greater concentration." 
Harriet refused to be insulted or injured. She continued pub-
lishing her magazine as before. It never sold well on newsstands, 
which was a kind of protection. No one sued her to reveal her 
sources because a trial might bring more guilt to light. A law suit 
could create a scandal, which the major media would gladly carry 
to the millions. 
"A gadfly is too small to cause much injury and will fly away 
eventually," she often said with a self-satisfied smile. 
"Not if you're trapped with it," her husband would reply, 
swatting the air. 
There came a time when Harriet was almost popular. She was 
not the only one who felt the change. People she called "the 
kids" -older than I, younger than my mother-discovered her as 
if she had been lost and declared her a national historic treasure. 
Articles appeared about her as a great foremother, which made 
her children laugh. 
To these new admirers, the secrecy of Eclectic was old-fash-
ioned and unnecessary. A romance with revolutionary etiquette. 
In an open letter to the editor, an undergraduate advised the mag-
azine to drop the childish pseudonyms. Harriet answered under-
neath, "Ridiculous!" A few years later, when this generation had 
entered professional schools or gotten full-time positions in 
America, Harriet received apologies. 
"My chairman warns I mustn't waste my time contributing to 
magazines like yours or newspapers. I'm supposed to write only 
for academic presses and scholarly journals if I want to keep my 
job and get promoted. Panels of my so-called peers must decide 
what's fit for publication. Everything else is 'just journalism' to 
my department head," reads a letter printed in Eclectic and credit-
ed to Justine A. Journalist. 
A doctoral candidate wrote in, "Today my dissertation advi-
sor warned me, 'You can say what you want about me in private, 
but if you ever dare to criticize me publicly, I'll ruin you."' 
89 -
Rosenberg 
To which Harriet responded, "Public vs. private: who gets to 
draw the line? Eclectic is both and neither, in-between. Your call." 
She vowed to continue publishing as long as her journal was 
needed. "Only death will stop me, and even it will not finish me 
off completely." That is where I come in, the guardian of her 
memory, dedicated to reminding people that a Harriet should 
always exist. Her children are too busy for that role. 
Here's what she instructed me to put on a placard and mount 
on the wall of her living room, between two armchairs: 
Don't think that conversation is enough. Dialogue is 
marked by smiles and winks; it leaves as much unsaid as 
it explores. Politeness dictates how long one partner may 
hold forth, how many times another is allowed to contra-
dict or question. A tape-recorded chat is not worth pub-
lishing if the parties did not permit themselves the consis-
tency and logic of an essay. When I'm gone, a new Eclectic 
must be born! 
-Harry Hoffnung 
I'm implicated in that mission somehow. Not that I can continue 
her editorial work. I've told her often that my talents are visual, 
so close imitation of her has never been required of me. Harriet is 
much too clever to see the reincarnation of herself in me. My task 
is much more difficult, because ambiguous. 
"What exactly do you want?" I once asked her straight out, 
perhaps untactfully, but I don't think it's an umeasonable ques-
tion of an employer. 
"Who of us knows what he wants?" she asked me back. 
That's when I understood why this job is not as doable as it 
first appeared. 
I can cope with outside operations. Supervise the mainte-
nance of her house and garden, though this is the first time I've 
tended either, having always lived in an apartment. You simply 
find some books with basic definitions and then start talking with 
the neighbors, who gladly demonstrate how rich they are in old 
suburban lore. 
Designing a museum is just as mechanical. Choices in glass 
cases, poster backing, and movable walls are limited. Most 
90 -
poemmemoirstory 
decisions can be quickly made. Liability for injury and other 
accidents is now covered by a reputable insurance company. 
State-of-the-art smoke detectors installed. A new security sys-
tem. The floors and staircases were coated to keep scuff marks 
at a minimum. As for color brochures, they're done, and my 
relations with the local print shop are cordial, because they 
keep to deadlines and I pay them promptly. 
What it took to change a mostly-private space into a most-
ly-public one was a series of small acts. The first and most 
important one happened decades ago, when Harriet put Eclectic 
right next to her family. That's when strangers began to see her 
address as a home for their ideas. Her husband felt crowded 
out and moved away after their children were grown. 
All I've done is carry through a process which she started. 
Something which a trained curator would have accomplished 
with less effort, but I'm not ashamed of the results. Now comes 
the hard part, however. Maybe I'm wrong, but "a new Eclectic 
must be born!" sounds like a command to resurrect her maga-
zine. I am not sure exactly what she has in mind, if anything. 
Should I discover the next editor, using her museum as the bait 
to lure in likely candidates? It will be a slow method at the rate 
that visitors are trickling in. 
Here's my plan. To attract her successor requires a theatrical 
move. Something almost as surprising and strange as the maga-
zine itself. Which is why I've asked permission from the muse-
um's board of directors to announce 
An Opening Picnic! 
Date: To Be Decided. 
Please check the media 
for further details. 
It will be an unmasqued ball. The opposite of those aristocratic 
evenings where the rich dressed up as peasants and dominos. 
All her former authors can come as they are, without their 
pseudonyms. Show themselves before the world in daylight. 
Won't that be a coup? Think of who I'll get from the most 
diverse occupations. Most must be retired, and so no longer risk 
their jobs or reputations for what they published in Eclectic. 
91 
Rosenberg 
And many of their ideas are now respectable, so they can show 
up proud at once having been daring, avant-garde. Reporters 
can look for a scoop, and the curious are also welcome, for our 
openness should extend to all. I will ask that film critic, but he'll 
be at some distant festival, most likely. 
"You'll get a baker's dozen, no more," predicted the neigh-
bor who is worried my museum will give the town a lousy 
image. "Most of her authors are probably as old as she, so dead 
or barely sentient. And those who aren't will be terrified of who 
they're bound to meet at Harriet's house. My dear girl, you for-
get that her journal was Eclectic and contained very opposing 
views. The lion will not lie down with the lamb just because 
you want to hold a garden party." 
I hadn't considered potential fights, but when she men-
tioned them, I decided that they should be advertised. Some 
people in and around New York might find them entertaining. 
"Why are you still incredibly naive?" asked my mother, 
whom I never told about my plan, so I don't know how she 
heard of it. "You seem to think ideas are in demand, when 
there's such an oversupply that they're sold dirt cheap. With 
what most writers get for an article these days, they can't buy a 
suit unless it's in a final clearance sale. Just tell me, who among 
your friends would celebrate a magazine that's both obscure 
and defunct?" 
So I'll target the next generation, with their quirky and defi-
ant zines. Like the one that's by and for the slackers. In resisting 
work, they're up against a really big taboo as they must know, 
since in order to get unemployment checks they're forced to 
apply for jobs or at least pretend to. I think they might respect 
Eclectic for having taken on the sacrosanct long ago. 
I learned from Harriet to use hostility to my advantage. 
92 -


Eclectic

Powell, Lynn

PoemMemoirStory (literary 
magazine) 
Volume 03 Article 34 
2003 
Snowscape 
Lynn Powell 
Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.library.uab.edu/pms 
 Part of the Creative Writing Commons, and the English Language and Literature Commons 
Recommended Citation 
Powell, Lynn (2003) "Snowscape," PoemMemoirStory (literary magazine): Vol. 03, Article 34. 
Available at: https://digitalcommons.library.uab.edu/pms/vol03/iss2003/34 
This content has been accepted for inclusion by an authorized administrator of the UAB Digital Commons, and is 
provided as a free open access item. All inquiries regarding this item or the UAB Digital Commons should be 
directed to the UAB Libraries Office of Scholarly Communication. 
Lynn Powell 
SNOWSCAPE 
When nothing' s left of the green enthusiasm, 
no dropped silks of magnolia, 
no sweet rumps of plums, 
when all the scarlet denouements 
have blown to brown, and desire 
has spent itself down to its net worth 
ofwhite-
that' s when someone ought to tell the hussy 
cardinal to give that red a rest, to learn 
the cold discretion of camouflage. 
Otherwise, the mind still flares-
and cannot drift into the soft amnesia, 
the ample nothing else. 
44 


Snowscape

Lindsay, Tammara

PoemMemoirStory (literary 
magazine) 
Volume 04 Article 4 
2004 
Abercrombie&Fitch 
Tammara Lindsay 
Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.library.uab.edu/pms 
 Part of the Creative Writing Commons, and the English Language and Literature Commons 
Recommended Citation 
Lindsay, Tammara (2004) "Abercrombie&Fitch," PoemMemoirStory (literary magazine): Vol. 04, Article 4. 
Available at: https://digitalcommons.library.uab.edu/pms/vol04/iss2004/4 
This content has been accepted for inclusion by an authorized administrator of the UAB Digital Commons, and is 
provided as a free open access item. All inquiries regarding this item or the UAB Digital Commons should be 
directed to the UAB Libraries Office of Scholarly Communication. 
Tammara Lindsay 
ABERCROMBIE&FITCH (since 1892) 1. That magnanimous 
bronzed blonde in a blue-eyed gaze is the signature; a 
perfect equilateral triangle of flesh holds his head together. 
How can I find meaning in all that glow and indifference? 
Ex. I love him (in the false sense). 2. I see gift bags floating 
his image over sidewalks like divine intervention. I feel 
him feeling me, the weight of an invisible dumbbell as I 
walk past his tremendous display case. Ex. I hate him some 
days when my pupils dilate toward his image. 3. 
Abercrombie, your music is like a bag full of broken glass. 
You contain multitudes; you're a religious sphere for the 
saved and fashionable. It hurts to pass through light like 
yours: the blaze, the holy t-shirts, pious jeans, That Man. 
6 -


Abercrombie&Fitch

Roxby, Kathleen

PoemMemoirStory (literary 
magazine) 
Volume 04 Article 15 
2004 
Without No Shoes 
Kathleen Roxby 
Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.library.uab.edu/pms 
 Part of the Creative Writing Commons, and the English Language and Literature Commons 
Recommended Citation 
Roxby, Kathleen (2004) "Without No Shoes," PoemMemoirStory (literary magazine): Vol. 04, Article 15. 
Available at: https://digitalcommons.library.uab.edu/pms/vol04/iss2004/15 
This content has been accepted for inclusion by an authorized administrator of the UAB Digital Commons, and is 
provided as a free open access item. All inquiries regarding this item or the UAB Digital Commons should be 
directed to the UAB Libraries Office of Scholarly Communication. 
Kathleen Roxby 
WITHOUT No SHOES 
I walked the hills without no shoes 
(never did have no shoes) 
I rode the trees in the wind 
And smelled coal every day of my life 
Blackeyed Susans blessed by heart 
High-reached water blessed my tongue 
And the wide sky taught me to dream 
I walked the hills without no shoes 
Into woods only the deer knew 
I rode the trees in the wind 
And smelled coal every day of my life 
While the wide sky taught me to dream 
In the quiet of hidden meadows 
Blackeyed Susans broke my heart 
High-reached water awoke a lasting thirst 
For I smelled coal every day of my life 
I walked the hills without no shoes 
(never did have no shoes) 
But I rode the trees in the wind 
And the wide sky taught me to dream 
21 -


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PMS 2 (Complete Issue)

Somewhere in a Box Marked Keep