STENDEC

I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, not the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all. - Ecclesiastes 9:11

It is raining outside. It is nighttime. I hear the droplets hitting the windows. I do not want to look outside. I could lose myself, probably would lose myself, in the pattern of rain droplets on the parking lot and window. Here and there and there…spelling out a new theory of interpretation of Macbeth or a more efficient electric motor armature configuration. Instead, I sit at the table in this large wardroom, surrounded on three sides by grated windows. Even sitting here, head bowed, the sound of the drops is tapping out the structure of a new anesthetic. But I ignore it by humming to myself to mask the patter of droplets. Sometimes I would like to leave, not this room tonight, but the hospital. But that would not be a good idea. They would not let me leave anyway and that is to the best.

There are certain distinct moments in my life. Pregnant pauses, perhaps, or pivot points of possibility. Instants and instances of deep sight and deeper insight, flashed slices of ephemera in which the interconnectedness of things is revealed to me. After that is the consuming madness as I scribble and scramble to record it all.

I have tried to breach that mania but every attempt has failed. Once viewed the new truth must be recorded, in whole, before I can rest again. I become obsessive. Inside I move in a mist but to others I operate with a frightening focus that will not be denied. The last incident – a week ago - was the rocket nozzle – a new shape that only took three hours and some minutes to itemize. No food; no sleep; no urination; just tabulation and enumeration until the design is complete and recorded.

So long ago…I was twenty and walking a path beside Lake Ontario on a winter night. The lake was frozen over and the ice was snow covered in white that faded with distance away to black. And it started snowing, slowly at first, but quickly increasing. Big fluffy flakes fell with languorous grace, thousands, perhaps millions fading into the darkness over the lake. It was entrancing and hypnotizing. A man could stare at these flakes as he stepped off a cliff to his death. And yet, and yet, at the edge of understanding, just beyond intellect, the falling flakes spoke of a thousand truths, written in a foreign language, an Incan knot language, unreadable yet elegant. I shook my head and walked on.

I was thirty-five and sitting on a bench waiting for a bus. It was early morning and a school bus turned onto the main road I waited beside – the same as it had done yesterday. The same man walked by as the day before, carrying a cup of coffee, as before. Next would be a woman carrying an umbrella. That had not happened yesterday but it would today. Three cars go by. The next car is yellow. A small bird – a sparrow? – lands for seven seconds on the bus stop sign. I see my bus turn out of the university complex and back onto the main road. I stand and gather my packages.

I read once that of course the cure for cancer was encoded in the structure of the piece of cake you ate this morning. But you didn’t have the alphabet to read it. Imagine if you could. That is what happened to me. I imagined that I could and then I could. Now I see patterns everywhere and most reveal deep truths.

I cannot stop myself. I have tried. Once I see a pattern I am compelled to record it. This is a gift and a curse, a gift of knowledge to the human race and a curse on me. I live terrified of the theory that will be so detailed and extensive that I will die while writing it down. And that is why I am here. The staff in this ward will not allow that, should it come to pass. They will restrain and force feed me, if need be.

But that need has not arisen and perhaps it never will. The summaries and notes and pages of text contain shorthand and codes and these seem to indicate that no recording would ever take so long as to be fatal. But that risk is an existential danger and one I need not bear, and so here I am.

My evening medications are brought to me by Sarah. She is a pleasant nurse of early middle age with a kind demeanor and pleasant aspect. The medications are in a small cup and are mostly to help me sleep. I dare not look into the cup. I swallow it in one gulp. Sarah also brings me a small glass of orange juice and a snack. She changes the snack. Sometimes it is a piece of cake, or a small tart, or even a fruit cup. She helps me to keep a small mystery in this existence of perfect yet useless knowledge.

The snack always has a featureless surface. Texture and pattern are dangerous for me. I see light and dark and difference and I start decoding. I need a smooth surface. White icing works well. No chips or raisins in cookies. Monotonous and isotropic are the watchwords of my life.

The rain keeps on. I consider requesting the quiet room but I think I will be okay. A few minutes later I turn out the ward lights and retire to my private bedroom. The raindrops are muted here. The walls are plain and bland and cream colored. The sheets and blankets are monochrome. There are no varying colors and no patterns. For me patterns are dangerous.

I am a voluntary inmate. A foundation has been established that receives my notes and presents the insights and inventions for development. Frederick Banting led the project that discerned and purified insulin. He won the Nobel Prize. The purification of insulin turned juvenile diabetes from a terminal illness into a manageable condition. Imagine that – a death sentence commuted, life rich and full again - and long.

Banting wanted his treatment for diabetes to be available to all so he and his partners sold their patents to the University of Toronto for one dollar. I want the same. My notes are given in trust to various developers, business people and foundations. The charter states that they may make a profit but not profiteer. If I am able to improve the world it will not be for the bottom line profit / loss of a corporation but instead for the good of all.

I blow my nose and drop the toilet paper into the toilet bowl. I should have looked away. An insight lies in the swirls and curves of the wet toilet paper in the bowl but this one does not require pen and paper. The ultimate answer is 42. But what is the ultimate question? If we assume it has to do with existence, what is this all about, what is the meaning to life, why are we here, then 42 are makes sense.

The asterisk character, *, is used in various computer languages and applications as a wildcard placeholder. The asterisk wildcard is still used today in UNIX and Perl. Way back in MS-DOS, if one typed *.*, this would list all files on the selected media. However, c*.* would only list files that began with the letter c. Similarly, *a*.* would only list files that had an embedded ‘a’ character in their name, and so on. Therefore the wildcard character * meant, whatever is selected, or chosen or found – whatever is wanted. The asterisk is a user defined operator – as wished – whatever works. The asterisk is therefore the universal answer to any and all questions – whatever you want. And the number 42 is the ASCII code for the asterisk.

Carol visits me the next day. I struggle to stay focused and not be distracted. She has worn a single color blouse. The shades on the windows have been drawn. The lights have been turned down and everything is dim. There is minimal visual stimulus. All is very quiet. This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper.

She still waits for me to leave the ward. She waits for me to come home. She still doesn’t understand that I never will. I have told her but not forcefully. As much as our shared life is over, I am weak and would be bitterly alone if she did not visit. So in my own way I string her along to keep her coming.

She stays several hours. We chat and visit and it is so good to see her. Sarah brings a featureless snack and a wan smile. We do not say it but I think we both know it is over. These visits are ghosts rising from the grave of our past life together. I stare at her, an idiot smile plastered on my face, it is so good to see her. I should let her go, drive her from me if need be, but it is so good to see her.

A few days ago I was visited by a military man so impressive that he had a staff that sat at a nearby table while we met. I do not know uniforms. I do not know which branch of the forces he was from. But he was obviously quite senior and privy to the fact of my existence by dint of his authorized classified status. And he used that knowledge and status to bring himself through the gates and metal detectors and to this locked ward to see me.

He sat glaring at me. His demeanor was hostile and he became aggressive. He had brought coffee and doughnuts instead of a cooperative attitude. The coffee was good. The doughnuts looked sugary. He did not ask for a cure for ovarian cancer; he demanded one. It doesn’t work that way. I told him that. This is not a vending machine. I do not get a choice of answers. I cannot pull a lever or press a button to select a solution. I see a pattern and I lose myself in the understanding of it until it is fully explicated. I do not get to choose.

“I don’t either!” he said.

“I can’t help you. I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry, too.”

He reached into his jacket, festooned with colors and medals, and pulled out an effective looking handgun. I don’t really know anything about guns but this one was sleek, dark grays and blacks, and compact yet imposing. It looked like a battleship or armored vehicle, an efficient machine for dealing death, a snug method of force. I burst out laughing.

He looked surprised. He was puzzled and a bit frustrated. His tool of intimidation had failed. I don’t think he was fundamentally a bully. I think he was desperate. I didn’t know what was going to happen but I didn’t really care. We don’t get to choose, General, or is it Admiral? Time and chance to all. All you get is now, this moment, right now, while your daughter lies dying.

Will you throw that away, be arrested, carted off to jail for killing a man who has done you no harm? You are my time and chance. I cannot stop you pulling the trigger. I cannot give you what you want. Be my hurricane, tornado my house to wooden splinters, a destructive force that leavens all.

His men at the other table are rising, realizing there’s a problem, moving closer. He points the gun at me. I don’t care. You, General or Admiral, have the comfort of grief. Mine is a life suspended, placed on hold, consigned to limbo because I cannot walk down a street without seeing patterns and patterns everywhere and everywhere and always.

But then I see that the muzzle of the gun is not open. There is only a tiny hole. His men have rallied to his side. He tucks it back inside his jacket, this realistic water gun. And his hand emerges with sugar packets. He tears them open, scattering the white grains onto the dark brown tabletop. I try to look away but it is too late.

“This won’t work!” I say through gritted teeth.

More sugar, scattered again, stars in his pocket like grains of sand, burning hotly, velvet white, on the vast dark tabletop of night, I see nothing, I refuse to see, I will not try. I will not be manipulated, galaxies scattering across the cosmos of the endless universal inevitable. And then, despite myself, there it is, a lock and key, an enormous polypeptide, a protein chain thousands of amino acids long. This will empty the wards, sending the mentally unwell home, clearing out the hospitals. This is a curative prion, one that will take a folded and spindled and mutilated brain and make it flat and new and creaseless again. I reach for paper and begin to write.

Chains and chains of amino acids. I write out the single letter codes. No J, U, V or X and Z. Every other word can be made, CODEC and KODAK. No RUBISCO but definitely NABISCO. I laugh as I scribble. The naming of that plant enzyme by a senior researcher in 1979 was done in very cognizance of Nabisco. No JUICY but very ICY. Without thinking I group the letters into words in those cases where they read as words. Not often, only occasionally, but words do jump out.

STENDEC, the last Morse message sent from the passenger plane Avro Lancastrian Star Dust before it crashed in 1947 in the Andes. For fifty years the fate of the airplane was unknown, until 1998, when two hikers near Mount Tupungato came upon the wreckage. Ever since the Star Dust disappeared people have puzzled over that last message. Perhaps one day I will look into an angry ocean or turbulent windy day and know the answer. Until then, STENDEC, in three letter amino acid codes, Ser Thr Glu Asn Asp Glu Cys.

The fugue begins. I do not lose consciousness but I become dissociated. I am detached and disinterested. I see all that transpires but I am disengaged. I do not care. After a great deal of time I see Patton and his minions rise and leave. I am scribbling away. My hand aches but I do not care. In a way, I do not exist right now. The scribbling goes on and on. I could not stop if I tried.

And finally, hours later, it is over. It is dark outside. The creases of my fingers bleed from where I held the pen. I feel the usual exhaustion. I can barely keep my eyes open. But it is not fully over – not yet. This is when I come back to myself. I look at what I have written, thirty-one sheets of letters, several hundred per page, describing three prionic proteins.

The first protein is quite short, a mere page and a half of amino acids. The other two are approximately equal in length and both quite long. The first one will prevent and even cure early stage Alzheimer’s. It can be taken by anyone without harm. Injecting one dose of this protein at age thirty will prevent Alzheimer’s from ever developing. It will be a universal preventive measure.

Once the dementia crosses a critical threshold, however, this proteinaceous prion will have no effect. The window of prevention will be permanently closed. Thus, anyone already significantly suffering is not helped.

The second one will cure Schizophrenia. Of the current cases, ninety-seven percent will be cleared by three doses of this protein, spaced ten days apart. This may be taken anytime in one’s life and twenty days later, hours after the third dose, the symptoms will start to clear and be totally gone eight days later.

However, it will not cure everyone. Three in one hundred will be unaffected. Again, like the prion that will cure Alzheimer’s, not everyone can be helped. But the odds are greatly in favor, so much so that there is no risk in trying it. Is this a good thing? I will improve the quality of life for many. Many more will be out of work, as their jobs in nursing homes and hospitals and other care facilities disappear. Is this a good thing?

I do not know what the third one will do for the average person. Perhaps nothing. Perhaps it is a poison. But for me, if I take it, a single dose, I will lose this ability, this blessing and cursing, and be able to live a normal life. I can go home. I can announce myself magically cured and go home, to normal life and to Carol.

And the world can go hang. I have done enough for a hundred lifetimes, I have been Banting and Haber and Bohr again and again. The very small royalty paid into my account would support fifty families at the height of luxury. That is more than enough for Carol and I to live a quiet and comfortable life.

I expect that in a week or two the first samples of these proteins will have been synthesized. I will explain what they are and what they will do, telling lies about the third, and in half a month I will have the option to be normal. But I will not take it. I will remain here, for the good of all, as long as Carol keeps visiting.

Belle of the Ball

“How about this?” Julia holds up an impressive stiletto—golden quarter with sheeny turquoise vamp, the heel at least four inches tall—and smiles mischievously.

“Hah!” Lina says. “You trying to kill me, bitch?” They giggle together.

“I know, right? I couldn’t even handle these.” Julia sets the shoe down and they amble to the next display.

It’s late morning in a small boutique on Fifth Avenue in Midtown. The store has a half dozen or so women in it at the moment, not counting the three saleswomen, one of whom happens to be the famous actress who owns the place and occasionally makes an appearance to chat with the clientele and introduce them to her new shoe designs. The two friends whisper to each other while splitting their gazes between the elegant merchandise and the other customers being helped.

“Just go up to her after she’s done with that lady,” Julia says. “I bet she’ll remember you. Everyone does, right?”

“Ugh, when you say it like that.”

“Oh, please. That supercrip thing is gold and you know it. I’m just living in your reflected glory, queenie.”

They laugh again, louder this time. Lina’s long, blonde hair jounces slightly. Her upper lip lifts and her pink, beetling gums with their nicely rowed teeth debouch into the world proudly. She edges past Julia to approach a kaleidoscopic wall of rear-facing heels. She walks toward the wall unsteadily yet with hard-earned assurance. She is pigeon-toed, the bottom half of her legs splayed like supportive rafters to steady her torso that cants forward while her rear juts backward just enough to reach equipoise. Her arms sway as needed for balance, akimbo in the air, her hands hanging like tassels. When she steps, the ball of her pensile left foot usually hits the ground first, brushing along briefly before finding its grip. Her gait is singular in a way that prompts the other customers to glance in her direction before tactfully pulling their eyes away.

Lina scans the display wall, chooses a shoe, then puts it back. She reaches for another near the top. A middle-aged woman browsing sequined flats on the next shelf turns and gives her the grandest of smiles. She asks, “Do you need help reaching anything, honey?”

“Thank you, but I’ve got it,” Lina smiles.

Julia suddenly appears on her other side. “Check out this bad boy.” She holds up a blackstrapped peep toe heel. “Don’t tell me you wouldn’t slay in this tonight.”

“Ooh, that’s sexy. You think I can stay vertical in it all night, though?” Julia sighs emphatically. “You told me to come with you so you wouldn’t pussy out, remember? So here I am. Besides, what’s all that shit you’ve been talkin’ about that special CP Pilates class you’re in? Telling anyone who’ll listen how your core’s all strong now. Wearing bikinis and everything.”

“Yeah, I know,” she squints. “I don’t think I’ve fallen down in like a year. Haven’t sprained my ankle since that time at the High Line.” She takes the shoe from Julia, admiring its silky profile. “But look at this heel, it’s at least three inches. I don’t know...”

They stop talking as the shop’s proprietress walks over to greet them, her face brightening when she catches Lina’s eyes. “Well, welcome back!” she exclaims. “I helped you a couple months ago, right? With those lace-up oxfords?”

Lina beams. “Oh my gosh, yes! I can’t believe you remember!”

“Of course! So how are you liking them?”

“I love them. I’ve been out on, like, five date nights with my husband in them.”

“That’s so good to hear!” The three of them stand smiling at each other for an awkward moment before the actress speaks again. “I’m sorry, sweetie, but I don’t remember your name.”

“Oh, no, no, that’s fine. It’s Lina. Lina. And this is my friend, Julia.”

Julia waves slightly and nods. “Nice to meet you. I’m a big fan. Lived here for almost ten years and I think you’re now officially the most famous person I’ve actually met.”

“Ooh, who have I dethroned?” she asks with mock intrigue.

“I ran into Mary Kate or Ashley down in SoHo once. Still not sure which one it was.”

“I still can’t tell them apart!” They all laugh, eyes gleaming. “So what brings you in today, Lina?”

Lina explains that she’s hoping to find a new pair of shoes to wear to a gala fundraiser that evening. “It’s for a non-profit I’m involved with,” she continues, “for kids with cerebral palsy. Very fancy affair: red carpet, big name emcee, silent auction and all that. Gotta look my best, right?”

“Of course,” the actress agrees. “I remember you mentioning last time that you worked with some charities. That is just so lovely, so important. To see someone like you, who’s overcome so much, out there just working it. So inspiring. And what an example for those precious kids!” She leads them to a beige loveseat, watching Lina’s easy, tottering shamble with a solicitous smile that seems to hold out invisible hands for her, just in case.

Lina sets herself down heedfully toward the edge of the seat and Julia sits next to her on a clear acrylic vanity stool with a thick cushion. One of the saleswomen joins them and the actress makes introductions. “Adrianne, this is Lina. She’s got a big soiree tonight and wants to be the belle of the ball. Let’s see what we can do for her.”

Adrianne had seen her when she came in. She smiles profusely and gently takes Lina’s hand. “So nice to meet you, Lina. So, what do you have in mind? I suppose we should start with your outfit; what will you be wearing?”

Lina looks at Julia. “Do you still have that picture from last week?”

Julia scrolls her phone for a few seconds and then holds up the screen. “Pretty killer, right, ladies?” They ooh and aah.

“We have some nice flats that would go marvelously with that dress,” Adrianne motions to a table nearby. “Or even a few kitten heels you might like.” She looks at the actress. “Maybe Divine? Or Spy?”

“Just what I was thinking.” She hears her name being called and looks across the store. “Excuse me, I have to go talk to them real quick. But I’ll come back and check on you, ok?” She grips Lina’s shoulder and pats it a couple times before leaving.

Adrianne asks for Lina’s size and goes to the back of the store. Lina turns to Julia, narrowing her eyes. “Shut up,” she says. “I’ll tell her when she comes back.”

“You better. ‘Cause you know I will if you don’t.” Julia punches her friend’s arm. “You gotta speak up for yourself!”

Adrianne returns with two boxes, sets them down and begins to open the first. Julia clears her throat and widens her eyes. Lina starts, meekly, “Um, these are beautiful, but I already have nice flats. I was hoping to maybe try some... some taller heels. Nothing too crazy, my balance obviously isn’t the best, but I like those Mary Janes right behind you.” She points to a little single-strapped number with an oval buckle sitting on the display table, shimmering there in silvery iridescence. “Could I maybe try those?”

“Ah, the Tartt. It’s one of our most popular. And it has a nice, thick block heel, so it should help with your…” she hesitates.

Lina smiles kindly, assuaging the other’s discomfort. “It’s ok to say it, I don’t mind. I mean, c’mon, it’s not like it’s hard to notice. I have cerebral palsy, in case you’re wondering. I’m trying to be more open about it, so it’s actually nice when it comes up like this.”

“That’s wonderful,” Adrianne gushes. “And so brave, I have to tell you.” Lina tries not to notice Julia’s slackened eyebrows and open-mouthed sneer. She keeps looking at the saleswoman kneeling in front of her. “I think you’re right about the block heel, too; more stability definitely won’t hurt.”

“Well, let me go grab them for you, then.”

As soon as she’s gone, Julia starts sounding off in whispers about ableism and paternalistic bullshit. Her sibilant rant ends midstream, though, when Adrianne returns. The attentive young woman kneels with her legs tucked under her and puts the shoes on Lina’s feet. Lina takes the hand that’s offered to her and is helped up.

“Let’s see what they look like in motion,” Julia prods from her stool.

Lina steps cautiously at first, testing her inner gyroscope. Finding it sound, she walks across the store, then back. Julia catcalls her with a slow whistle, making Lina laugh and even sashay a little, taken up in the moment. The actress returns jubilant with her arms thrown out.

“Lina, look at you! And those shoes! You go, girl.” By now most of the patrons have dispensed with discretion and moved their attention plainly to the uplifting scene. Lina hasn’t noticed the shift.

She lowers herself back onto the loveseat as her attendants take care of the shoes. They ask her what she thinks, if these are the ones. Flushed and satisfied, she says, “I love them, yes. I’m gonna get them.” She looks at Julia and continues with excitement, “And while I’m here, I want to try those red ones over there, too.” She points at the wall of heels across from them.

The actress and Adrianne look over for a second, then to each other. “You mean… the stilettos?” the actress asks. Her eyes go to Julia, then back to Lina. The gears in her face stop moving for a moment—“Are you… sure?” she asks—before her delicacy and expression return. “Pardon me, of course. Those are… lovely. Let’s, let’s give it a shot.” She runs to fetch them, Adrianne right behind her.

Julia leans over with an amused look. “‘Let’s give it a shot?’ You’re giving that poor little celebrity a heart attack, you know. She’s probably gonna make you sign a liability waiver!” “Shh-shh-shh,” Lina pleads under a faint titter. “Not so loud!”

They return in a procession with the box. The actress sets it down and takes a knee in front of Lina. She fixes the sleek, v-shaped stilettoes onto her feet, intent in the task. The others in the boutique have become sanguine onlookers, watching the event quietly. Lina glances around and some give her nods or reassuring smiles when their eyes meet hers. Two young women near the register whisper to each other.

“Do you need some help up, sweetie?”

“Thanks, but I think I’ve got it.” Lina stands erect, wavering only a moment, and begins walking several inches off the ground. Her dangling left foot skids gently as usual and manages to find its place with each step. Her bent arms extend out slightly more than before to shift some mass away from the newly reduced pivot point. The adjustments are minor and straightforward, but her ungainly, marionettish frame appears teetering to the audience, more precarious than before. They watch her like she’s a funambulist over a chasm and the wind has picked up. She jokes to Julia as she turns to come back, “Whew, this feels dangerous. Might get a nosebleed up here. But I think I got it.”

“Of course you do, babe. Never a doubt.”

Lina strides past and continues toward the door. She’s focused on the endeavor and doesn’t notice that all other activity has ceased; everyone’s eyes are on her. When she swivels at the door and starts back, the actress calls out, “Way to go, Lina! Nothing can stop you!” Adrianne lets out a small woo-hoo, pumping her fist in the air. Someone begins to clap, then another joins, and another.

Lina suddenly reddens and shrivels under the vitiating applause. In trying to hurry back to her seat, she shifts her center of gravity a touch too quickly and catches her toe on one of her last steps. Her ankle buckles. She jolts forward as though shoved from behind by a malicious classmate, collapsing onto the waiting sofa.

The spectators stop rubbernecking at once. They look to each other, or to the floor. The actress and Adrianne rush over as Lina pushes herself upright. Julia watches for a signal to help—she’s been there for numerous falls, she knows the drill—but, as usual, there’s no entreaty in Lina’s expression or bearing: only a serene, Good Lord, head-shaking private chuckle of selfdeprecation that follows after the reflexive flash of white hot dignity. She shakes her head calmly with eyes closed, then looks up at everyone. Finally, she burlesques a seated bow, “Ta-da!” They all exhale simultaneously and quasi-laugh along with her. “For my next trick in the show, I’ll be biting the head off a chicken. Stick around, y’all.”

The actress looks concerned. “Are you sure you’re ok, honey?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Lina says. “Happens all the time. I was pushing my luck with these beauties anyway. Guess they’re not meant to be.” She removes the stilettos and holds up one of the block-heeled Mary Janes, rotating it in the light. “But I love these ones. So sparkly. They’re gonna be perfect tonight.”

“I think so, too,” the actress says. An ushering, vaguely rushed quality enters her voice. “I’ll get them wrapped up and Renée over there can check you out. It was so nice seeing you again, Lina. You keep letting that light shine for the world to see, all right?”

They say their goodbyes, take a selfie together, and then Lina and Julia walk slowly to the register, half browsing a display case of purses along the way. “Never a dull moment with you,” Julia teases. “Maybe she’ll give you a part in something next time, huh?”

“Shut up,” Lina elbows her. “I’m just glad I tried them.”

“Me, too, Lina-bean.” Julia puts an arm around her and leans in, squeezing.

Lina pays for the shoes and is almost free before she’s hit with a parting shot. The cashier wears the familiar look—benevolent, charitable, obliterating—as she hands her an overfull bag. Seeing the extra box inside, Lina squirms and shrinks privately. She starts to protest, to claw back what is hers, but she’s silenced at once, pinned down by the kindness.

“Complements of the store,” the cashier smiles with all the sincerity in the world, nodding over at her boss. “She insisted.”

Lina lifts the lid off the box enough to poke aside the tissue paper and see the hard, red gloss underneath. She manages the feeblest of “thanks,” pivots carefully on her tender ankle, and pushes Julia out the door. .

The Scandal at Pebble Elementary

Ms. Stewart, our best fourth grade teacher, rushed to my office at Pebble Elementary School in the Bronx and stood in the doorway, a disturbed look on her face. “Ms. Zimmerman, I need to tell you something very important.”

The last time I saw her like this was four years ago when she learned that one of her student’s and the girl’s family had perished in their apartment. I looked up from my computer and gave Ms. Stewart my full attention. “What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Several of my students just told me that Ms. Raymond tried to get them to change their answers on the math test.”

I opened my desk drawer and took out the binder where I keep notes of conversations with staff and turned to a blank page. “Please sit down,” I said, motioning to a chair opposite me at my desk. “Tell me everything.”

“This morning when I went to my classroom, Ms. Raymond was there. I didn’t know why the other assistant principal was there. She told me that the principal had told her to oversee my students while they took the state math test. He’d also put in that teacher’s aide who always falls asleep as the second proctor. Got me out of my classroom by having me write answers for a student with a broken arm in Ms. Smith’s class. As you know, students usually test with their classroom teachers whenever possible because this helps reduce their anxiety, so I found my removal highly unusual, but I obliged, nonetheless.

“When the test was over and I returned to my room, my students were out of control, frantic to speak to me. Everyone began talking at once,” Ms. Stewart said, clicking the retractable pen in her hand. “I passed out paper and told them to write down what happened. Ifthey didn’t see anything, I said to write that. I wanted to hear from every student. In the meantime, I interviewed four of my most responsible students, one at a time, outside my classroom.”

I stopped writing and looked up at Ms. Stewart. “What did your students say?”

“Mohamed said Ms. Raymond told him to change question number four to C,” she said, pushing away her blonde shoulder-length hair from her face and reading from the notes on her yellow legal pad. “He said he didn’t do it because he knew his answer was correct. He said Ms. Raymond returned to his desk a few minutes later and again checked his answers. She pointed to additional answers and told him to change them, too.”

“Did Mohamed say Ms. Raymond told him which answers to bubble in?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said, “She did.”

“What did Mohamed do?” I asked, turning the page in my binder, and continuing to write.

“Mohamed told me he didn’t listen to her because he had checked his answers and knew they were correct. He’s an excellent math student. Always gets at least a ninety-five percent on all my classroom tests,” she said, proudly, as if he were her own son.

“Who else did you talk to?”

“I spoke to Samantha. This child is very smart, but she lacks confidence in her abilities. She said Ms. Raymond stopped in the aisle between her desk and Miguel’s, looked back and forth at both their answer sheets and pointed out three answers she said Samantha should change.” Ms. Stewart looked down and checked her notes. “Samantha said she was uncomfortable with Ms. Raymond’s help and re-checked her answers but didn’t change them.” When Ms. Stewart looked up at me, I could see the pain for her students in her bright blue eyes.

“Can you believe this? she asked.

“Did you speak to Miguel?”

“I did.” Ms. Stewart began to laugh. “I’m sorry, Ms. Zimmerman, but I found Miguel’s response quite amusing. He said he began to solve a problem in front of Ms. Raymond and explained his thinking, step-by-step. Ms. Raymond interrupted him and announced to the class that she hears talking, then reminded them that they’re in the middle of an examination and there should be absolute silence. Then Miguel resumed his verbal explanation, and Ms. Raymond put her finger to her lips to silence him.”

When Ms. Stewart finished, I shook my head. “As you know, this is quite serious. You’ve just brought an allegation of cheating against an assistant principal,” I said, standing up, trying to hide how upset I was, and walking her to the door. “Please leave the statements with me. I want to read all of them. I’ll speak to the teacher’s aide and get her testimony, too. Thanks for reporting this to me.”

After Ms. Stewart left, I reflected on what I had just heard. I don’t believe it! Cheating on a standardized test. This has never happened at Pebble Elementary before. There’s obviously no limit to what this assistant principal will do to see that our students score well. Now I know why the students at her former school were known for getting high scores on the state exams. Thank God Ms. Stewart has a conscience.

A few minutes later, the teachers’ union representative came in. I’ve known her for over fifteen years, when she was the union rep at my former school. Not only is she an excellent teacher and highly trustworthy, but she’s got a big heart, and advocates for the teachers and aides. She looked at me from behind her round tortoiseshell glasses, and I could tell from her facial expression that she was concerned about what she had to say. I watched her sit down in the chair in the corner, lean her head back and rest it against the wall.

“Ms. Stewart,” she said, “just told me what happened in her classroom during the math test. Wanted to know if she is going to be in trouble for reporting the incident to you. She’s worried about retaliation from the principal. I tried to reassure her that she did absolutely nothing wrong. Told her she followed protocol. You’re her assistant principal.”

“Well, we know Mr. Antonio’s going to be outraged that his name and school will now be under investigation,” I said.

“Since none of us are on the in with him, when he finds out we’re not letting this cheating allegation go away, I’m sure he’ll try to make our lives difficult,” the rep said. She reached into her shoulder bag and pulled out a bottle of water, unscrewed the cap and took a few sips. “I just got off the phone with the teachers’ union district representative. Said she’d inform the superintendent. He’s probably spoken to Mr. Antonio by now.”

No more Mr. Golden Boy

“Now what?” the rep asked.

“I’ll report the incident to the testing coordinator at the district. She’ll either tell Mr. Antonio to do an internal investigation, or she’ll report the incident to the Office of Special Investigations at the Department of Education, and they’ll investigate. But first, I must inform the principal. I’m going to his office now.”

As I walked down the stairs, Mr. Antonio came charging up with Ms. Raymond behind him. We nearly collided.

“Let’s go to my office, Ms. Zimmerman,” he said, turning around and touching Ms. Raymond on her forearm. “I’ll catch up with you later,” he said and continued down the stairs with me following close behind.

When we entered his office, Mr. Antonio firmly slammed the door behind me as if he were closing the cell door on a prisoner. He removed his grey suit jacket, loosened his tie, and rolled up his shirt sleeves. Then he sat down behind his desk and motioned for me to take a seat. He looked into my eyes, hard and cold.

“I heard you and Ms. Stewart spoke,” he said. “I talked to her, too. The incident ends here. Are we clear?”

“You know I’m obligated to inform the district testing coordinator of any alleged improprieties.”

Mr. Antonio sat up tall, elbows on his desk, hands clasped together hiding his mouth, and glared at me. “Maybe you didn’t hear me the first time? I am the principal. I said, do not call the district. Ms. Raymond said she didn’t tell the students to change their answers, and she doesn’t know why they made up those lies.” He stood up, walked around his desk to the door and opened it. “We’re done.”

When I returned to my office, I put a “Do Not Disturb” sign on my door. Then I sat in my chair and closed my eyes. This is huge. Why did the superintendent bring Mr. Antonio to this district? He has no experience in administration and only one year of teaching kindergarten. Wants Pebble Elementary to become a showcase school but has no idea how to make this happen, except through unethical means. Does the superintendent know this? Is he planning to coach him in every aspect of running a school?

A few minutes later, I got up, walked to the bookcase at the back of my office anddistractedly rearranged the framed pictures of my husband and children. Mr. Antonio’s only been at Pebble Elementary for four months and he’s already ingratiated himself with various groups from the school body. Got a lot of people to like him. Probably thinks if they like him, they’ll do whatever he wants. They don’t know what really goes on here. Have no idea how he’s segregated the staff and the administration into the “in” and “out” groups. Ugh.”

~

Later that afternoon, after dismissal, Ms. Stewart and the teachers’ union rep returned to my office to report that Mr. Antonio had spoken to Ms. Stewart’s class. “He told them he heard about what they said happened during the math exam,” Ms. Stewart said, reaching for the squishy ball on my desk. She squeezed it a few times. “He told them that sometimes people make up stories to get others in trouble because they’re mad at them for something. Reminded my students that Ms. Raymond recently gave many of them detention, and she had spoken to some of their parents because of the fights and bullying during recess. Told them that the things they said about Ms. Raymond could get her into serious trouble.” Ms. Stewart took a deep breath and continued: “He tried to suggest that the students didn’t really see what they claimed they saw.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Mr. Antonio said he thinks it’s likely that Ms. Raymond pointed to their answers because she was trying to let them know that they skipped a question or bubbled in two answer choices for the same question.” She paused. “Of course, he shouldn’t have done that, either.”

At that moment, the rep stood up and hit the dome-shaped gadget on my desk. The robotic voice blurted out, ‘that was stupid.’ She hit it again. Ms. Stewart and I laughed, and Ms.Stewart continued: “Mr. Antonio told the students he knows that no one wants to see Ms. Raymond lose her job. Asked them to rewrite their statements and make sure to write the truth.” Ms. Stewart got up and started pacing. “It infuriates me how he tried to blame my students, to make them feel guilty for being responsible.”

“I understand completely,” I said, feeling sick at the wrongness of this. “I shouldn’t be saying this to either of you about a fellow administrator,” I said, looking first to Ms. Stewart and then to the rep, “but what he did was inappropriate, totally unethical. I’m sure he and Ms. Raymond discussed that if he put her in your classroom, allegedly to oversee the test-taking, she could give students the correct answers. Figured if she could get a whole class of high scores, the percentage of top scores for the fourth grade would increase and his school would look good.”

“I’m thinking the same thing,” the rep said. “Afterall, the state looks at the fourth-grade scores to determine a school’s status.” She stood up, took a cup, and helped herself to some water from my cooler. “I wish this was stronger,” she laughed. When she sat down again, she asked, “What did the teacher’s aide say?”

“Claims she saw nothing unusual. Said Ms. Raymond was walking around and making sure the students weren’t looking at each other’s papers. The aide did admit that she dozed off for a bit.”

“You know the teacher’s aide is one of his people, right?” the rep asked, pushing up her glasses.

“Of course. She was on the committee that interviewed him for his position,” I said. “She was very pro Mr. Antonio. And I think I remember that she also came from his old school.”

“He came to us with a lot of baggage,” the rep said. “The teachers tell me that the three teachers he brought with him can’t teach, and our teachers are afraid to speak up during teacher or staff development meetings because they think his teachers are Mr. Antonio’s eyes and ears. Everything goes back to him,” she said, fondling her wedding ring.

“I feel the same way about Ms. Raymond,” Ms. Stewart said. “She’s always in his office. I’m afraid to say anything to her myself because I worry she’ll distort what I say.”

“He’s duplicitous,” the rep said, then turned to Ms. Stewart, cocked her head, and suddenly became very animated. “You should call the district testing coordinator. Tell her you reported the incident to the assistant principal in charge of testing at your school, but you thought you should inform her, too. Can you do that?”

“I don’t want to get fired,” Ms. Stewart said, clicking her pen. “Mr. Antonio intimidates me.” She was quiet. Then, “I’ll do it. I must. Afterall, Ms. Raymond wanted my kids to cheat on a state test.”

The rep got up and hit the gadget again, trying to reduce the tension in my office. ‘That was stupid.’ We all laughed

“What Ms. Raymond did goes against everything I’ve been teaching my students this year about being honest and taking responsibility for their actions. I’d be a hypocrite if I didn’t do what I tell them to do.” She clicked her pen again.

“Thank you,” the rep and I said, in unison.

“By the way, what did the district testing coordinator tell you to do?” the rep asked.

I looked straight into the rep’s hazel eyes. “Mr. Antonio forbade me to call her. Said he’d take care of everything.”

~

The next day, during her preparation period, Ms. Stewart entered my office and sunk into my couch.

“Mr. Antonio got to them,” she said, her head down so all I could see was her hair. “My students changed their statements. All but six.”

“Are those the statements?” I asked, gesturing to the papers in her lap. “May I see them?”

Ms. Stewart stood up and handed them to me.

“The six are on the bottom.” she said.

I flipped through the students’ testimonies. “I didn’t see anything,” one student wrote. Another: “I am telling the truth. I didn’t see anything.” “Some kids said Ms. Raymond told them the answers, but they just want to get her in trouble. I didn’t see her do nothing bad,” wrote another. I read aloud a portion of Miguel’s statement: “During the math test, Ms. Raymond told me to change some of my answers, but I didn’t. I knew mine were correct. I tried to explain to her how I got the answer to a question, but she told me to be quiet. I’m surprised she doesn’t remember you gotta solve what’s in the parentheses first, when doing order of operations. That’s why she got the wrong answer.”

I read aloud a portion of Samantha’s statement: “Ms. Raymond stood between mine and Miguel’s desks during the math test. She told us to change some answers. I rechecked the ones she pointed to on my answer sheet, but I didn’t change them because I knew I chose the right answers.”

I started to laugh. “Ms. Raymond wanted to give the students the correct answers, but she actually pointed to the wrong ones, and she didn’t even know it.”

“She’s not too bright. Mr. Antonio brought her from their previous school,” Ms. Stewart said.

I shook my head. “The dumb and dumber duo.”

~

The following morning after the Pledge of Allegiance and the announcements, the math and literacy coaches, the grade leaders--teachers representing each grade from kindergarten through fifth—and I assembled in Mr. Antonio’s office for a meeting. He sat down behind his desk and stared ahead, a despondent look on his face. He was wearing the same white shirt and gray slacks he wore yesterday and had not shaved.

I have some very disturbing news,” Mr. Antonio said, running his hands through his greasy spiked black hair. “The superintendent called me early this morning. The Office of Special Investigations will conduct a thorough investigation of the cheating allegation. Many staff members will likely be called in for questioning. Unfortunately, Ms. Raymond has been reassigned to the district office for the duration of the investigation. Until further notice, I will supervise the teachers of upper grades. Ms. Zimmerman will be responsible for kindergarten through second grade

At that moment, surprised by the news, the teachers whom I supervise turned to look at me questioningly.

Mr. Antonio looked past me with that same despondent stare. “Ms. Zimmerman’s office will be across the yard in the mini-building with the kindergarten classes,” he said.

I briefly caught his eyes, glared at him, and shook my head, as if to say, what gives? The teachers and I now understood what was happening. Retaliation. Not only am I being isolated from the school community, but I now need to run back and forth between two buildings to service the grades I supervise.

~

I heard Mr. Antonio stayed in his office for several hours that afternoon. Maybe he was strategizing. If Ms. Raymond was removed from her administrative position and assigned to the district office so quickly, certainly he knows he is next in line. Even though he initially had the support of the superintendent, I’m sure the superintendent told Mr. Antonio he couldn’t risk losing his own job. I know Mr. Antonio has a wife, young children, and a house on Long Island. Surely, he’s worried about losing his job and license. He should be.”

At the end of the day, Mr. Antonio sent home a letter to the parents informing them of the alleged testing improprieties, assuring them that the allegations against Ms. Raymond are false, and telling them that this incident will not affect their children’s high-quality education.

~

I settled into my new office and soon acquired respect for the kindergarten teachers’ pedagogical skills. Although I didn’t know the curriculum for kindergarten, I quickly familiarized myself with the state learning expectations for the grade. I purchased a few stuffed animals so that the children who were brought to my office would feel comfortable.

The atmosphere in the main building at Pebble Elementary was very tense during the next week. Whenever I went there to visit my first and second grade classes and passed Mr. Antonio in the halls, he lowered his head. He excluded me from staff meetings, but Ms. Stewart and the rep visited me during their lunch periods and kept me abreast of everything.

“Everyone’s so on edge in the main building!” they’d exclaim whenever they came over.

“The teachers’ patience has become short, and they’re snapping at their students,” the rep said. “The dean’s office is filled with students whom the teachers would ordinarily not send to him.”

Ms. Stewart added, “Cliques are springing up everywhere, and no one talks in the hallways, anymore. Mr. Antonio comes to my classroom every day, stays nearly thirty minutes, and is always taking notes.”

“Does he discuss with you what he observes?” I asked, trying to determine if he was rating her teaching ability.

“Nope. Doesn’t talk to my students, either. Just plops down in a seat in the back and writes. It’s nerve-wracking.”

“I’m sure that’s his intention,” I said. “Retaliation.”

~

In the coming weeks, all of the staff members and students involved in the investigation and I were assigned attorneys and our statements taken. The rep told me everyone was nervous and fearful about what to expect at the hearing. She also said Mr. Antonio told her to inform the staff that he continues to believe in Ms. Raymond’s innocence and vowed to stick up for her in court.

On the day of the hearing, the courtroom was filled with students and parents, district personnel, and Pebble Elementary School staff eager to hear the outcome of the charges against Ms. Raymond. The Office of Special Investigations found the students’ testimonies credible, and the judge deemed Ms. Raymond’s actions egregious. During the cross-examination, the teacher’s aide who was in the classroom with Ms. Raymond admitted that she napped on and off, and the few character witnesses who testified on Ms. Raymond’s behalf could not provide substantive testimony. Ms. Raymond lost her administrative license and was banned from ever again working for the New York City Department of Education.

To everyone’s surprise, Mr. Antonio was nowhere to be seen, and a few days later, the superintendent reported that Mr. Antonio had resigned from the New York City Department of Education. I was not surprised when I encountered one of his friends at a meeting, and he informed me that Mr. Antonio had taken a job as principal at a Long Island school. It seemed to me that Mr. Antonio knew what was in store for him and decided to bolt before the probe began. The Office of Special Investigations cited Mr. Antonio’s resignation in its written decision and noted that he, too, is banned from ever again working for the New York City Department of Education.

With the support of the superintendent, I accepted the principalship at Pebble Elementary, and Ms. Stewart became my assistant principal. Mr. Antonio’s three teachers and the math coach transferred to different schools, and Ms. Stewart and I worked hard to rebuild and raise the school morale. Together, we analyzed the results of the state reading and math scores and devised ways to address the students’ deficiencies. Within three years, Pebble Elementary became a showcase school and we were proud of it.

Map of Matter

I could talk about the past like anyone else
about surfing the winds of childhood
to get here and the things I remember
as if the limbs of earth can be owned
by reminiscence
but that’s someone else

I don’t have a story to go back to
or a scenario to play out Everything
I’m from was made up by the Shaw Brothers
and their starlets under dramatic lighting
cat-eyes tinted lips mansions cocktails

Those were not the days and I didn’t live
through them as much as I slewed
across the surface of their rotten skin
because the decayed hand of the past reaches
for everyone not one finger of truth

Don’t lie. Don’t lie. My memory speaks in sleep. But be
creative and quick about it. Soak in the salt
of the world’s illusion. Deliquesce. Be true.

I can reassemble the dismembered limbs
of the past by ingesting them
then making a new body of history
and pining for it like a farmer weeping
for her country lost to flood and fire

I have total recall of the Belle Epoque the Age
of Innocence the Age of Anxiety the turn
of the century the Ways of the Swanns
by demarcating the borders reconfiguring the atoms
of my birth I’m born again
and again

In the movies in the library I watched and read read
and watched until I was entombed
with recollection molecules degrading in travel
in moves
from East to West village to city town to town

The spaces between I lit with candlelight of nostalgia
to illuminate the path of sequined shifts beaded gowns
satin shoes I wore them over my tattered t-shirt dirty feet

Once I moved on a flat space a blank topography
a village for squatters the homeless
not worth visiting or revisiting
in the dark in my telling it transforms
becomes the enchanted forest apples snakes gardenias
a place I find myself time and time
again then again In my telling (tell and retell)
I redraw the geography of slanted truth
and an ending happy
enough to last forever and ever
after that

A Basalt Princess

Pacific reaches for the valley.
In side glances see-throughs
in fuchsia dawns and hell fire dusks
with a latent thrust of impudence:
outer space beckons to the sea trench.

This once was her isle -
with quenching guava scrub,
manioc, taro fields, mango orchards,
decorous breadfruit trees -
glugging the sky
between Capricorn and Equator.

She delivers the shadows of her house to me.
Looks me up and down until
I ebb into remoteness.
Ninety years have streamlined
her down to timelessness.

Crowned with island rose and ivory.
Porpoise teeth inter-woven with buds
gleaming like mortuary relics.
Glory still nestles in the furrows
of her face smoked in tattoos,
a Brueghel blue of soot and thunder
from head to toe.

Her voice, a blast of surf,
a dark inclusion in a storm’s crystal.
I can see her as then,
draped in royal tapa,
one splendid smooth arm
fanning the dormant air.

Then my own time topples
when, suddenly clairvoyant,
she predicts that money
will devastate the world.

Luxury

Before the Florida roads were
bleached whale bones for barons
to pick their teeth
we had the luxury to flick
the fucking matches.
We stole fruit from laden
branches and stars
still tipped scales. Remember
the luxury of disconnected everyone.
Remember the luxury to walk where birds
hid in their tiny rooms singing. The luxury
to joke with clowns driving
tinkling trucks. The luxury to stand
on a beach without fish hooks
in our knees. Remember sticking
out your thumb because you could.
Remember when no one prospered.
Remember never knowing
who we might become.

Where Nobody Is

Last weekend, a friend asked to go for a walk—
somewhere without people, she said
She doesn’t want to see people:
hiking trails are packed,
so I suggest our town’s cemetery.

There are people, you know, but not really.
She agrees.
We meet at the entrance.
What a beautiful place to be put to rest—
overlooking the pacific.

We walk up and down the hills,
reading tombstones, sharing stories.
It’s all too familiar. I spent my childhood there:
my Austrian mother obsessed with death.

My friend spoke of her mother’s passing,
and her ashes are in the closet
under a fake candle, and how each day,
she whispers good night.

No wind in this cemetery; trees are still.
Something in the distance beside a gravestone
caught our eye—a balloon on a stick in ground,
gently swaying back and forth. flowers beside.

We glance at one another and walk in its direction.
We arrive to gravestone of Jose Garcia:
January 13, 1989 - April 1, 2016.
A photo of his truck in the lower corner:
gone but never forgotten. joined the twenty-seven club.

I glance at my watch.
It’s his birthday.
He called us to sing to him and we did:
we wished him a peaceful journey

I still ask if a cemetery
is really an empty place.

The Gasconade

— for M

---

We make Southern Missouri by dusk,
arrive at your river, park, & walk
along your shy, thin corpse.
I come to you by firefly tonight
to do what children do with mothers
and rivers: to take from you
without asking & have you pass
again from my life. You will not
remember that you are dead.
That your body & blood went bad
on alcohol & grief. But this is before
all that. Before recompense &
Lethe, & your final command
that we not do as you had
and carry it with us like a glacial pressure
and wound. This is what the dead know.
Do not tarry on the two miscarried &
the one child taken by fall. I will not so much
as whisper it in the eddy of your ear.
For I come to you now before that agony.
Even before I was born, when we met
in that neither space, when your heart
stopped for minutes during the final push.
As if you or I or something could not decide.
This time, it is before I existed, unless
we always are & were & will be again.
The river seems to imply. You may not
know me. But you will know my voice
because you live within it. It is before
your courtship with the boy, my father,
who would take you off the farm to Chicago
and Palo Alto, the unenvied edges
of the world. Before even the trip to Tulsa
or your wedding in the little Chetopa church
or your honeymoon at the Bob Cummings
Motor Lodge in Joplin. Before your sister
introduced you to the river that would change
your course. The transaction of rivers is
transactional. One becomes another.
They are less noun & more verb. Such that
the plate-on-plate New Madrid quake
caused the Mississippi to run backwards
for three days straight & reversed time.
I come to you now by broken light.
By the heather atop a field of wheat.
By the immortal moan of cicada.
By shadow of the co-op grain elevator.
By the last cow into the barn for milking.
By the kittens drowned in a burlap sack.
The little skip in your heart when you ran
too fast along the irrigation ditch.
That was you, or me, the voice inside you.
The Irish in the wind & the expanse
of the large that pares us down to seed
and lifts us into confluence. Though
I am doubtful you found peace,
frantic as you were in the letting
and the loss & cautious not to offend.
I want to tell you what your river says to me.
It boasts of nothing or grand nothingness.
Fanann muid. We wait.
Leanann muid ar aghaidh. We abide.

An Interview with Chioma Urama

The following is a transcription from an in-depth interview with the poet and professor, Chioma Urama, and Co- Editorial Director Tyra Douyon. Some portions have been excised from the transcript at Tyra’s discretion, or condensed for clarity and content.

Chioma Urama is a storyteller of Igbo and African American heritage. She creates and grounds channels through painting, poetry, prose, and oral storytelling. Using these mediums she creates pieces that question what has been shattered, exploded, and transformed in the cultural traditions of African American and Indigenous people. Her creations are the result of a deeply meditative process, connecting people, patterns, and ideas in efforts to heal herself and the collective.

A Body of Water is Chioma Urama's debut collection of poetry. Her poetry and fiction have been published in the Southern Humanities Review, Pleiades, Blackbird, Paper Darts, the Normal School, and Prairie Schooner. She received a Fred Shaw Fiction Prize and an honorable mention from the Lindenwood Review Lyric Essay Contest. Urama is a Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship alumna and a graduate of the University of Miami MFA program, where she was a Michener Fellow. She taught creative writing and English composition at the University of New Orleans. Her writing has been described as intuitive, intentional, and heart connected. Please visit her website https://www.chiomaurama.com for more information.

Tyra: When did you start writing A Body of Water and how long did it take you?

Chioma: So I started writing the poems around 2016 when I was still in my MFA. I was in my last year of my MFA, but a lot of the different poems that are in this collection have been answering questions that have been circling me my entire life. I started organizing the book around 2017 after I left Miami. I did my MFA in Miami and I moved to New Orleans which is a place where I have no connections and I didn't know anyone. I started writing because I wanted a better understanding of where I was heading. Most of my family stayed— I’m from the DMV area, from Virginia and a lot of my family is from Maryland and D.C. as well— and they stayed in that area for the majority of their lives. But I continued to move and leave and go to different states. I wasn’t really sure what I was searching for or what was missing, but I know that a lot of wisdom can be mined from the past, so I started looking back on my own past to examine where I was in the present.

Tyra: Okay, so you started it in 2016 and then it was published a few years later in 2021?

Chioma: Yes, I received the award in 2020 and then it was published in 2021.

Tyra: Okay. I think a lot of people go in with this idea that to write a book, if you really dedicate yourself, it can take 6 months to a year. You can get it out and published. But it’s a process too and you have to live while you write through it and you might take breaks. I think it's important for our readers to know that because sometimes you can go in with the mindset that you should just be rushing this or by the time you graduate you should have something published. I know people push that narrative a lot.

Chioma: Yeah, yeah, to publish around graduation for sure. My intention with this collection wasn’t publishing. For me it was to better understand myself and my own life. And I was thinking wouldn’t it be wonderful if this was organized in some cohesive way that I could look at my entire life and for any generations that are coming after me, they wouldn’t have to do this kind of searching to find certain ancestors or certain recipes, or places, people… we’ll have one place where our information is collected. So that was why I started organizing it. It’s important to think about why you want to put a book together. And not just because it’s a thing that you feel like you have to do, but what is causing you to want to arrange these things in a specific way? And I think that can really support you in creating something that is your authentic self and really something that you’re excited about creating. I think a lot of times you can get so caught up in doing what you feel like you need to or or what you’re supposed to do. You don’t actually care about what you’re creating. And so that’s something that gets lost in the artistry a lot.

Tyra: Absolutely. Like you said… [people] can get so caught up in wanting to publish and being known. Just to pause and ask yourself ‘hey, what are you doing and why are you doing this’ is so important. A second question off of that. You had all these individual poems written and then you found a cohesive theme and that’s how you put together the collection?

Chioma: Yeah, I had all these poems that I put together. I was trying to better understand myself by understanding my family, my lineage, and my heritage. And so that’s why I started organizing these pieces. I know a lot of time with Black or African-American families you get told different things in pieces. You get pieces of stories. Pieces of things. As I moved to New Orleans I started doing a lot of ancestral work. Working with my ancestors and learning how to hear them and how to channel their voices. I wanted to organize this information. I wanted to figure out what it looked like when I wrote it down and put it in one place and how that can create meaning for where I am in my life.

Tyra: I know when I read A Body of Water I could feel that energy in the pages.

Chioma: (laughs, goodnaturedly) I’m so glad.

Tyra: A Body of Water includes poems that celebrate your African American heritage and others that reflect on traumatic experiences such as the history of enslavement. What inspired you to include these difficult topics in your collection?

Chioma: So, one of the things that I understand now from creating this collection is how connected we all are. When my grandmother was pregnant with my mother she's not only creating my mother but she was also creating the cells that would later become who I am. So everything that happened to my grandmother, the good and the bad, before and after conception I was also a recipient of in some way. And I knew I needed to look at that history in order to better understand the way that they lived and I lived. The way that I loved. The way that I leave things. And how I behave. And so that’s what inspired me to include a lot of those ideas.

Tyra: I think we don’t realize how much of who we are is a part of other people. It goes from your mom, to your grandmother, to your great-grandparents, father… all of these people that build that puzzle then there’s a column of just you that you pass on to your next generation. That interconnectedness is so prevalent. Sometimes people think they’re walking through this world alone, but they really aren’t. Even if you don’t think they have a strong connection with your family they are still very much with you in the way you think and do things and you might not even realize it.

Chiome: You said it perfectly. All those things are woven into who we are and we have to look back to unpack it or we’ll continue to carry these things without really understanding why we are behaving or moving in certain ways.

Tyra: So unpacking… writing about these traumas in your family and in African American history… why specifically did you want to have poems about that and not make it a celebration of joy? I know that’s something more people are saying– ‘We want black joy, Black boy joy, Black girl magic…’ What does it mean for you to include things that we don’t want to talk about as much, especially right now.

Chioma: That’s a good question. I was talking to a friend earlier this week and they were saying how with their depression comes joy. And it’s like their joy is like this guardian of some of their lower states of consciousness right? It’s pointing to where their attention needs to be given and how joy can better flow, right? If we tend to these sadder, more traumatic moments. So for me, getting to my joy, like writing this collection, was a big part of moving to my joy and learning what I do know, what is pleasurable and what is good for me. Sometimes we want to skip over the difficult part and that is something I never found to be realistic or practical or healthy for me. It’s important to dive into those heavy emotions because the more that we’re able to feel that sadness, the more pleasure we’re able to open up to and actually feel, right?

Tyra: Yeah

Chioma: You can’t selectively numb an emotion. You numb yourself to sadness, you’re also numbing yourself to certain parts of pleasure and joy. And that’s one thing I learned through this process of writing.

Tyra: Yeah, that’s a really great point. We stop ourselves sometimes from going in that direction. It’s like that quote, you won’t know true joy unless you know true pain… unless you embrace that part that you want to hide from. I totally get that. What is your writing process—do you have a certain environment that helps you access memory, a certain routine?

Chioma: My writing process is deeply informed by Maureen Seaton who is one of my beloved professors and mentors and she’s such a beautiful teacher. One of the things she had us do is to take an unruled notebook and within that unruled notebook you kind of have the freedom to be yourself on the page. You can add stickers or pieces of magazines or just like words you’ve heard, dreams… I have so many things. Just phrases that I enjoy, songs that I enjoy. I’m also an artist so sometimes I just start sketching something or illustrating something that I want to be on the page. So, I really give myself a lot of freedom to play within my writing process. I flip the book upside down. Nothing is linear, everything is all over the place. Completely chaotic.

Tyra & Chioma: (laughing, good naturedly)

Chioma: But when you really zoom out and look at it, it really begins to make sense in a really interesting way. You start to notice different patterns in your own writing. So this process allows you to see ‘What are my patterns? Why are things that I care about? What are words that keep coming back to me? What are places I continue to revisit?’ A large part of my process is being outside and putting my feet in the grass, you know, sitting beneath the trees and communing with them. Being present with flowers and things like that. Just being out in nature and allowing myself to receive. It easily puts me in a state of receptivity.

Tyra: Yeah, Yeah Chioma: That’s what it looks like for me. Nothing linear. Lots of freedom. And lots of play.

Tyra: Yeah, I love that. [As you were sharing] I was thinking about my own writing process too because I’m a poet. I wanted to create a memory box. I’m working on poems about my grandmother and my family as well. To fill it up with pictures… and a lot of things are food related because my family is all about food and dancing and different types of laughter. The sound of dominoes clinking together… all these different memories… and I was thinking, how do I put this all together? So, I like the concept of doodling in a journal. I also like tangible things too. That might be a cool concept to get into.

Chioma: Yeah, a memory box sounds super special. I haven’t made one of those in a long time.

Tyra: (laughs, goodnaturedly)

Chioma: That sounds like a lot of fun and I think that a lot of writers, the younger generation, they aren't writing with their hands anymore which I think is really interesting because you think in a different way when you have a pen in your hand versus when you’re typing on a computer.

Tyra: Sure, sure.

Chioma: So, you know whatever that means to each individual, like that's what it means to you, but I think it’s something to consider. You think differently when you have a pen in your hand, when you have a crayon in your hand, when you have something tangible. When you’re touching physical objects and items. For me it’s important to get back to those practices.

Tyra: I love that. The world is so increasingly digital. I personally write, you know, my poems on a computer (laughs), but getting back to the paper and pen definitely is like a new experience for sure. You talked about being in nature and finding inspiration from the things that are around you. I think that’s so important too… to just get outside of your usual place. Some people really thrive on routines like [they say], ‘I wake up everyday at 5 AM and write for an hour.’ It doesn’t seem like you work within the confines of that. You’re kind of like, ‘I take from here and I take from here. I go outside. I sit by the window…’ and you let it come to you. I really like that approach. You never know what is going to inspire you. It can lead to something really beautiful.

Chioma: Uhh humm, yeah like I take my notebook everywhere. Like I don’t adhere to that 5 AM practice at all.

Chioma & Tyra: (laughing)

Chioma: It’s like if somebody's talking and I’m enjoying what they’re saying, sometimes I whip out my notebook and start doodling or writing what they’re saying.

Tyra: Yeah?

Chioma: Because you know, I feel like writing is about living. And I think it’s important to get back to that. To make sure you are living and having experiences to write about.

Tyra: I think with poetry it’s a totally different beast, right? I did the 5 AM thing when I was working on a novel.

Chioma: Me too. (laughs)

Tyra: I think it works really well for fiction or nonfiction, but poetry lives and breathes in such a different way. You really have to be outside of yourself because you’re really telling the truth, right? From beginning to end… so it’s like how can you say your truth… I don’t know, just for me… how can you say your truth within the confines of a schedule or a system? It’s almost like the truth doesn’t want to live within that. You have to be a little bit more free so you can see it from different angles. Poetry is just… different.

Chioma: I like how you said that. Poetry does need more room to move and breath. I agree.

Tyra: So, we kinda talked about this a little bit already. Family is a prevalent theme throughout the collection; what drew you to this subject matter?

Chioma: I think, especially in the U.S., we’re encouraged to believe that the past doesn’t matter. That’s the whole idea of the American Dream, that you can start here and it’s a fresh start and nothing else matters. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. I see my life as a point on a timeline that extends both forwards and backwards and we talked about this, but all the events that have happened to my family have shaped everything about me. And until we consciously engage with those events they’ll continue to shape the choices that we make, the behaviors that we have and we can respond from a place of trauma or reactivity versus actually being present with what’s happening. And that’s not to say that every choice my family has made has been an ill one, but I do recognize that was family has lived through the trauma of war and famine and enslavement and displacement and if we don’t address these truths within ourselves and examine how they impact our behavior we’ll continue to pass on these patterns that no longer serve us.

Tyra: Absolutely. Everyone has been talking about generational trauma and childhood trauma and how do we address that, how do we overcome it? So, I love the conversations that people are having and how it’s being pushed more to the forefront. Your collection really talks about that and gets to the root of that. Have you ever been hesitant to talk about your family and talk about the things you weren’t present for, like someone else’s story?

Chioma: Yeah, that’s a good question. So, when I was initially writing this, I was writing for myself and I wasn’t really thinking of publishing at all. I did my MFA in fiction. And so I wrote poetry, but I never saw myself as a poet. These were completely for myself, so I think I had a lot of freedom in that aspect of the writing. I was never thinking about an audience other than myself and maybe like one other person in the future that would come across it. And what was the second question that you had?

Tyra: Umm, how… were you ever hesitant to write about someone else’s story? You said the audience wasn’t on your mind and these poems were just for yourself, but what about the poems that you weren’t present for, you weren’t alive for. Did you ever feel weird about writing someone else’s life?

Chioma: Yeah! Yeah, I think you always want to make sure that you get it right, but I think as I began to, umm, as I began to like commune with my ancestors more deeply and understand some of the things that they live through, I think it’s important to give voice to things. Things are meant to be said and we’re never going to get rid of the lens that is ourself. So, whatever I say is always going to be filtered through me and I’m going to touch those things. Uhh, there’s no way to sanitize myself out of that experience and I don’t think I wanted to. So, I did come to a point where I did feel comfortable with working with different voices and telling different stories.

Tyra: I wanted to speak about that specifically because I’ve been grappling with that myself like ‘How much can you say? Do you want their name [in the poem]? Should you change their name? Should you have a conversation before you try and publish?’... things like that. So I always try and ask people how they approach that in their own work.

Chioma: Yeah, so another thing I want to say to that point is, when doing ancestral work, I think a lot of times we forget we can ask for permission directly. There have been a lot of poems I’ve written, not about my ancestors… sometimes you just know things… and umm there’s a difference between knowing information and having the permission to share that information. So, I would just go direct and ask if it’s okay for me to share this information? Is this something you want me to lend my voice to? Because there’s a lot of things we know knowledge of but it’s important to ask. I think that can be lost a lot of the time in western culture— asking permission. Especially asking for permission from our ancestors, consulting them and letting them know this is my intention. My intention is pure, my heat is pure, is it okay for me to tell this story?

Tyra: Have you ever been told no?

Chioma: Yes. But that one poem it wasn’t my ancestor, this was just information that I had and I wanted to share this poem in a certain way. And it was a really good poem, but it was like ‘You need to stop telling this poem. You need to stop reading that. You know it’s not for you.’ And I was like, ‘Oh, okay!’ (laughs, goodnaturedly)

Tyra: I love that practice and I think that is so important. It will make you feel better as an artist, but also [you need to ask yourself]... Why are you saying this? Why are you bringing this up? It comes back to that reason you were talking about earlier… Why are you doing this? Why are you writing?

Chioma: Uhh huh, intention is important.

Tyra: Yeah, it is. Okay, let me ask some specific questions. The collection is split into three parts: Bridge, Groom, and Witness. What was the reason behind this separation and the titles?

Chioma: So, I was examining my family through the lens of my grandparents' marriage. My grandmother was a 15-year-old bride and my grandfather was a 19-year-old groom and I felt I needed to understand the experience of both of these blood lines to situate myself. So, in each section I’m examining their unique bloodlines, their unique experiences. And then in the section “Witness” I focus on the experiences of the children that were the result of these unions. So, I included pieces about my brothers and sisters and myself. And how the dissolution of my own parents' marriage made an impact on me.

Tyra: I love that separation. I know in other collections [authors] separate it just based on time or the progression of things… like summer, fall, winter… or how they got through things [referring to how Rupi Kaur separates her poems in her two published collections Milk and Honey and the sun and her flowers]. But to have two separate people and the result [of their union] coming down the middle? That definitely caught my intention. I was like ‘Oh she’s doing something different here.’ That was pretty unique.

Chioma: Thank you! It started with my grandmother and asking questions about her experience. She started having children when she was 14 and she wasn’t able to raise that child. Then she got married at 15 right away. So I began to ask her questions and that is what gave the entire collection shape.

Tyra: Yeah, having those stories is a goldmine. You know, being able to speak with your grandparents about their life and how things were. I mean, it's priceless information.

Chioma: Both of my grandparents, all of my grandparents are passed so it was a little bit trickier to get some of the facts, but it was a really enjoyable experience to learn how to communicate with them. For me I don’t see death as a final destination. I see death as a transition, so if it is a transition to another form, [I’ve asked] ‘How can I still communicate?’

Tyra: Yeah, I know with some things that I’ve done— my grandmother is alive, but she doesn’t speak English— and she’s lived with me my entire life. She speaks Creole. I’m Haitian and—

Chioma: (excitedly) Ohhh! I love Haitian people. I have so much respect for Haiti.

Tyra: (smiles, laughs goodnaturedly) Thank you! So, all my life— I write that in my poems— that we speak in laughter, clapping hands… I talk about how we communicated over time and it’s not with words most of the time and I let that live in the poems and just write about her and the things I’ve been approaching. I have to go through my dad and then go through her. So, I get what you mean when you have to figure out how to get the information and how to get the language because you want to be authentic in your work and you want to tell the story as truthfully as possible. I just understand that. Your poem “A Google Search for my Ancestor “John Best,” “Plantation,” and “North Carolina” reminded me of the recent news story about a cabin that once housed slaves that was turned into an AirBnB. What significance did you hope to draw upon for your reader by including a poem about the missing sanctity of southern plantations?Airbnb Removed ‘Slave Cabin’ Listing In Mississippi Following Viral TikTok Takedown.

Chioma: That’s a good question. So, John Best was one of the names that I came across. He’s an ancestor born in 1867, right after the abolition of slavery. So, when I saw his name I was so excited. I thought there would be some record of him doing something, or him living somewhere. So I thought, let me Google him. I went to Google and I naively put in that name thinking I was going to find my ancestral line and what came back to me were those search results. And in that moment I just cried; I was so upset. And I think it’s important to allow ourselves the space to cry for the things our ancestors have moved through and the constant erasure they’ve experienced in America— in American history and in America’s present. It’s very painful and it’s hard that we don’t always have the names of our loved ones or even a place that we can go to to pay our respects. At that moment, that absence just really just broke me open. I think now though that absence of a specific place allows me to be present with my ancestors wherever they are. Whenever I need them it allows me to go in nature and connect with them on a daily basis. But, I’m not surprised at the way America treats plantations. I’m definitely upset and enraged about it at times, but that disregard is present in all that they do. You can see that disharmony in every aspect of our society. We live in a society that is largely unwell. And if we were to pause and take a moment and trace it back… you can’t disregard the history, the genocide, and enslavement and expect a nation to thrive.

Tyra: Yes

Chioma: It’s not realistic. It’s not going to happen and we see that. Those atrocities impact the direction of your entire life so no matter how much you want to wipe that slate clean and pretend that we can stand on a place where none of that existed is just not true. And it’s not only African American people that are affected by it, but everyone in this nation. Everyone in this nation is touched by that history and they’re touched by that disconnection and disharmony. I don’t hold onto it anymore. It definitely still makes me angry, but I see that there is nothing I need to hold onto because the impacts are alive and well. And they will be alive and well until people are ready to address that history.

Tyra: There’s so much that has happened. When the Black Lives Matter protests started again in the quarantine and distinctly when the backlash of that happened in schools… what they wanted to take out of the curriculum, who they were targeting, why they were targeting these people… people don’t even realize the full scope of the effect of that. And I just remember when I saw that Tik Tok [video] I wasn’t surprised. I don’t know why anyone was surprised that they did that because like you said American history, true American history, African American history, is not taught in schools. It’s not revered anywhere. I mean, you have the African American Museum in Washington, D.C., specific things like that, but it’s just not talked about. And there’s always some kind of backlash when you do want to bring it to the forefront and you just want to say, ‘We’re talking about Black history today. We’re talking about Black people.’ It’s always an issue. It’s always, ‘What can we do to stop this’? I wasn’t surprised by that video.

Editor’s Note: In her statement above, Tyra is referring to the formation of special interest groups and passing laws that targeted the educational sector following the BLM protests in 2020. These groups (in collaboration with politicians around the country) have tried to ban over 2,000 books from American schools in several states. Over 40% of those books featured people of color as the protagonists and these books included topics about race, racism, discrimination, equity, and the LGBTQIA+ community. Additionally, numerous U.S. states have tried to outlaw an educational pedagogy called Critical Race Theory that has never been legally sanctioned (or widely used by educators) for use in K-12 public schools. The ideas around banning CRT escalated from banning teachers from discussing racism as a modern societal construct permeating American society (i.e., institutionalized racism, generational wealth gaps, and mass incarceration of Black and brown people), to try to ban the teaching of racism and the effect this has had on Black and brown communities in the past and in the present.

For additional sources please read the following articles:

https://www.propublica.org/article/georgia-dei-crt-schools-parents

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/whos-behind-the-push-to-ban-books-in-schools-180980818/

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2021/07/02/why-are-states-banning-critical-race-theory/

https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/states-that-have-banned-critical-race-theory

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/05/09/florida-banned-textbooks-math-desantis/

https://www.npr.org/2022/04/28/1095042273/ron-desantis-florida-textbooks-social-emotional-learning

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/22/us/florida-rejected-textbooks.html

Chioma: Yeah, it’s important for us to keep talking about our own history and not to minimize our own experience. Even in the way that our history is talked about it still feels minimized, to me in a lot of respects. Sometimes I feel that we should be sobbing. I remember in my MFA experience, especially in a lot of these literature courses, I was just angry… pissed off. And there was no regard for the sadness and anger that comes to brew. And a lot of the work that I’m doing now is about creating the spaces where we can move through those emotions together. Because it’s one thing to talk about those situations and intellectualize it and another to [work through it] together in a group setting. Being in a group and allowing someone to witness you [can help you to] move through those emotions a lot easier.

Tyra: I really commend you for even approaching these topics because I have tried to do that before and it was just an angry poem. (laughs). Maybe that’s it. Maybe the title is just “Angry Poem” and you keep going but I felt like, even though the anger is justified, there has to be a different way to talk about it and maybe I’m not the one. Anyone that approaches these topics I commend them for that because it’s a lot of work and emotional labor.

Chioma: Yeah, it is a lot of work and I think it’s interesting because you said you wrote an angry poem, but why can’t we be angry? You know? Why can’t we be angry? Why can’t we be sad?

Tyra: Yeah… yeah

Chioma: There is space for those severe emotions as well and honestly those are the emotions that are begging to be seen and heard and validated. And like I said, we talked about this at the beginning, but there’s so much joy, there’s so much pleasure available but we can not get there if we continue to minimize our anger, minimize our saddness, and minimize our depression. Those are valid too. So yeah, I think ya know, you said you’re writing the angry piece, those pieces are so important to the entire picture of this experience.

Tyra: Yeah, I agree with you because the concept of moving forward and having harmony is great, but not everyone is quite there. And some people are there and also at the same time they have this duplicity of feeling this full range of emotions and that should be championed as well, just right along beside it.

Chioma: Yeahhh

Tyra: Here’s the next question. You use many poetic techniques in your collection. From lyrical free verse, to prose, and erasures; how does the formatting for each piece work to tell another narrative or reinforce your central theme?

Chioma: So, working with different forms I wanted the freedom to bring in the different voices and the different experiences of my ancestors and also a lot of the different voices that I hear culturally. And a lot of the different voices that I’m experiencing when [I’m] walking down the street or talking with my friends. I realized I would need a lot of freedom when I’m dealing with form because all of those people express [themselves] in different ways. And so when I was working with different forms I was thinking, ‘What is the best way to bring forth this voice? How do they want to be represented on this page?’ And so I think it was a lot of fun as well. I think sometimes when you’re working on projects things can start to feel stale but it never really felt stale for me because I was jumping in and out from all these different voices and experimenting with different forms as well.

Tyra: I think that’s great. So you just let the voice tell you how it wants to be written? Because I know some people get stuck [and ask themselves] ‘Should this be prose? Should I rhyme here? Should I do some lyrics?’ You kind of, again, feel from your ancestors and that’s a main part of your creative process when it comes to the content and when it comes to the actual technique of writing it. It seems like you just have a lot of inspiration from others in your work.

Chioma: Yeah, for sure! I think with the way that I write as well, in the journal… on the pages with no lines, a lot of the pieces came out exactly the way that they were written on the page. And I think writing in that way is a lot of fun as well. When I went back and was looking at those different voices, it was interesting to see the way that they came in on different ideas. What was interacting on each page. Whether it was an image that I drew or a certain shape the words were taking and thinking about what that means for each piece and how I might continue to explore that. Tyra: Hmmm, yes, that’s great… That's amazing.

Tyra: You reference your Nigerian Igbo heritage in several poems such as “Recipe for Jollof Rice” and “Ka Chi Fo!”. Why were adding those parts of your identity so pivotal to the collections theme?

Chioma: So, those are also pieces of who I am. I am Nigerian and African American and both of those cultural experiences shape who I am, how I write, and how I move. And in this collection, I was collecting a lot of the things that have been lost. The dissolution of my parents' marriage led me to lose connection with a lot of the Nigerian side of my family so through those pieces I was going back and acknowledging what was lost and what I found. For me knowing how to make Jollof rice and knowing how to make it well is a very important part of Nigerian culture so when I learned how to make it I wanted to add it to this so it wouldn’t be forgotten by me or anyone else. I was taking a breathwork class recently and the instructor in this course was talking about how we need to revisit the moments of trauma to regain our breath and in that traumatic moment that’s where our breath gets stuck.

Tyra: Right!

Chioma: And we continue to breathe from that moment. A lot of the time it’s a shallow breath because our breath gets stuck. So, you have to revisit that moment and breathe life into it. And so that’s what these poems were doing for me. Going back and breathing life into these moments.

Tyra: I love that! And it can be hard to go back to that place where you felt the most low and everything was falling apart. Even sometimes when [you’re] thinking about it like– ‘Oh my gosh, I could never even think about approaching that situation again.’ You kind of dance around it. Maybe you go down the street, but you’re never right in that exact space so doing that work is so important. And I love what you said about learning how to cook Jollof rice. Food is such a big part of our culture and how we commune together.

Chioma: Yes!

Tyra: I’ve been doing that too. I recently texted my mom. I was like ‘Please send me some family recipes.’ My mom is from Nevis which is right next to St.Kitts in the Caribbean. [I said] please send me some recipes because as I’m writing I want to go back to that place and feel those emotions. I recently found the recipe for Haitian spaghetti that my grandma used to make. I wanted to learn how to make it myself after all this time.

Chioma: Yes, it’s so special and so important to be able to make that food because that's how we nourish ourselves. Including that brings a different layer to a collection. When you’re including pieces that [explain] this is how you nourish yourself, this is how you take care of yourself, this is how you treat yourself and others. And the Haitian spaghetti is very good!

Tyra & Chioma: (laughing)

Tyra: Yes, absolutely. And I think when you don’t have the words or when your or your ancestors don’t have the words, they have the food. They have the songs. They have dance. They communicate in so many other ways and take that because they might not be able to sit down and tell you everything that they went through, but they’ll show you what they ate when they were a child. They’ll show you what they danced to, what they listened to growing up. They’ll show you how they sang. Those things are so important too.

Chioma: Yes, for a lot of women food was the art. They didn’t have paintbrushes or maybe even pencils and pens, but you were in that kitchen and what you were creating, that was your art form. And you’re passing it down. I’m glad that you’re including it in your work as well.

Tyra: (enthusiastically) Yeahhh, I love that; ‘food is the art’. Yeah, for sure. Tyra: I appreciate your poems that question and push back against religion and conservatism. The poem “Jehovah’s People” includes the powerful lines “...there would be no hymns, no ecstasy, no healing touch, only organized religion wrestling my child body into an unnatural quiet…” What is the message you are trying to convey to the reader in these poems? Why was that important to include in A Body of Water?

Chioma: I was raised as a Jehovah’s Witness and I was the first generation in my family to be raised that way. In reflecting and questioning my family, I began to examine my own experience with religion. And growing up in that faith was always challenging for me from a young age. I knew that experience wasn’t for me because of how controlled it felt. And I intuitively knew that that level of control had nothing to do with God and everything to do with something else. And so as I grew up I started going to churches and temples with my friends and seeing what their faith was and what they believed… and seeing how they lived and what they practiced. And I was a little jealous going into different sects of Christianity and seeing the ecstasy and the fainting and the shouting and the dramatics, all of which were influenced by the Africans who were practicing Christianity. And I felt like if I had those religious experiences I would have felt more at home at church and in my body as well. I feel like now I know that’s not true. But that’s how I felt when exploring some of those different faiths. It was important to include spirituality because faith felt so restrictive to me. And it was chosen by my family because it felt like safety and it felt like love and it provided a contrast from the terror and the trauma that they experienced in the home. That allowed me to understand a bigger picture. Understanding how a religion that was so restrictive for me could feel like safety to someone else. And so through that process of understanding how that religion would be chosen I think I gained a greater respect for the different religious choices that people make.

Tyra: That’s really profound. Just the fact that for you it can be one thing and for someone who is so close to you, your mom, the rest of your family, it can mean something completely different. I totally understand that. While I’m not a Jehovah’s Witness I grew up Seventh-Day Adventist and it’s extremely restrictive as well.

Chioma: I heard they branched off of each other.

Tyra: Yeah, they are really closely related. We are kindred spirits here.

Chioma and Tyra: (laughing)

Tyra: So, when I read that in A Body of Water, I was like ‘I have to talk to her about this. This is— I just understood so much of what you were saying. The restrictive part but also seeing it as a home in some ways or a routine, a habit, whatever. You know it’s a part of you that needs to be rooted out, but it’s also so engrained at the same time. With Christianity, with some of the denominations, people are discouraged from questioning. You go a lot of your life having these small moments of wanting to question things, but you’re not “supposed” to do that. It’s very interesting and it’s hard to even come to terms with how you feel about it when your family is within that religion and you have all these thoughts, but who do you speak with if the person you are speaking to is saying, ‘Don’t have these thoughts because if you questions things too much than you’ll lose your faith.”

Chioma: Yeah, it’s very conflicting and a challenging way to grow up. I don’t know, and I was trying to think with some friends who were also raised as Jehovah's Witnesses, as a child I just knew. I don’t know if it was an angel or what, I just knew this is not right. And there was something in my brain and my body that shut me off to what people were saying within that space. I think those experiences within the Jehovah’s Witness faith, those were my first experiences with disassociation because I knew something was not connecting. And I knew this wasn’t for me. And I knew this was not right. And so I just began to disassociate from those experiences a little bit and ummm yeah, dissociation is something challenging to work through. To be present in my body now and I can also see how it served its purpose.

Tyra: Yes.

Chioma: From protecting me from certain ideas and individuals probably as well.

Tyra: The fact that you can call back and know this is the time that I started to think something was different and then to go so far as… ‘Let me see how other people do it. How do they worship?’ … and trying to glean some information from them… I think people push away from religion and Christianity but they never really come back and say, ‘Is there another way? How are my friends doing it or even looking at different faiths?’ I think that’s exceptional because a lot of people don’t take that approach. I know for me I went to a mosque with my friend one time when we were in a different country and it was Ramadan. She wanted to go and she needed someone to go with. And it just opened my eyes completely. [I said to myself], Wow, this is totally different from anything I had growing up. [I started to think] there really is another way. You understand and you know there are other religions, but it’s different]when you’re invited in. It was a total switch for me.

Chioma: Yeah, it’s really beautiful to witness other faiths as well.

Tyra: We’re all connected. We’re all connected at some point.

Chioma: Yes, on some level.

Tyra: There is a connection between African American enslavement and the Black church. Are poems like “Jehovah’s People” meant to question the rigidity of the church and/or call for reform?

Chioma: So, I needed to question the rigidity of religion to understand how that could feel safe for someone else. If you’re growing up in a household where you feel unsafe, where you’re experiencing abuse or assault– whether that spiritually, physically, emotionally– a rigid religion might feel like a breath of fresh air, right? Because you go to church and you know exactly what’s going to happen. This book has the songs and we’re going to sing at these times and this is when church starts and stops.

Tyra: Yeah.

Chioma: I know some churches are orderly about time. I know that some other Christians have different experiences around time, but umm, yeah, you get information on who you can talk to, who you can befriend and that rigidity can feel like safety to someone who is coming from a disorganized or chaotic environment. I can understand why it can feel good to some members of my family. I don’t think we can really reform anything if we don’t understand the choices that we’re making. A lot of time, more than reform, what we need is respect. And I say that knowing how challenging that can feel, but I think that religion is exactly perfect for some members of my family. It answers questions that arise from their experience. It meets needs for them that are important for them and I can respect that. I can also acknowledge and respect that that religion is not in alignment with my soul and my experiences and my unique sets of needs. So, it’s something that is definitely still challenging for me. I don’t want to say that I just move with so much respect for this faith because I’ve had traumatic experiences within it [too], but I know that in the larger picture– especially when we look at what’s happening with religion around the world, wars being created over religion– I think it’s really important to move with a lot more respect and understanding.

Tyra: Yeah, that’s really important and a mature way to think about it especially if it doesn’t align with who you are and you’re not going to continue with it. Just to realize that some people need a map. Some people like to know this is where I can go and this is where I can’t go. This is the time that I should be there and the time I should not be here. Just realizing hey it might not be for you, but it’s for someone else and that’s okay and as long as they’re not causing horrible harms– and I know like you said there are still things about Christianity that are harmful, about all religions that are harmful– but if they are acting with pure intentions and aren’t causing psychological or physically harm intentionally to anyone I think that you leave it.

Chioma: I think needing to know who you can talk to and who you can’t [for example]... that safety is also an illusion, right?

Tyra: Yeah

Chioma: That’s not real safety. It’s the illusion of safety, but I understand how that can be confronting to believe that… this is a safe environment and this is okay. And we see that happen all the time in different religions. People are giving their trust to individuals who don’t necessarily deserve it, but they’re within the same faith. I think it’s about understanding and respecting the choice which leads someone there. It doesn’t necessarily mean that I agree with what's happening there or that everyone there has pure intentions. I don’t think I always have pure intentions, right? We’re human, but… religion tries to create control around that human experience. But you can’t control what everyone is going to do and how they are going to behave in certain situations. But I understand how people can be confronted moving in certain spaces where everyone is holding the same ideas as them.

Tyra: Right, because that pattern, that rigidity maybe is not so rigid to someone that thinks, ‘Well this is just my life and this is how it goes.’ And that’s okay in some situations, but I get what you’re saying. What are you working on now? Can you give us a glimpse into your next project?

Chioma: Yes! I’m not a fan of labels, but I’m wearing the label of storyteller and I feel like that gives me the space to create what I want to create. Umm, so within that label I feel like I can do the things that I do naturally which is prose, poetry, painting… Right now I’m thinking more about oral storytelling and how sound is important in expression. There are certain things that are only available sonically that are important to a message. So, I’ve been thinking a lot about oral storytelling and how to tell some of those stories within our communities where we don’t often hear and how do we hone in on voices that we’re not cognizant of or always listening to. I just finished a studio artist residency in July and in that residency I was exploring Ibo art more deeply and looking at symbolism and different things like that. There are a lot of things that I’m balancing right now. I think my main priority is nourishment as we talked about and really making sure that my body is really present and grounded and available for life. I think in the stretch of the last two years my body has been pushed to the limits of stress, so it’s really important for me to go back and make sure I’m really nourishing myself with the things that I’m eating. With the relationships that I’m in, with the places that I spend time in. So, I’ve been writing a lot less– which is not to say that I’m still not writing a lot— but umm, it’s more so venting, journaling, like this needs to get out vs like consciously creative writing, but who knows? Sometimes that venting turns into something creative.

Tyra: Yes, yes, you’re doing the living right now. There’s this quote that I read a couple of years ago. And it said sometimes you write and sometimes you’re doing the living to do the art. It’s an eb and flow. Some people, ya know, live and do the art at the same time and that’s their process, but for some [they] need a moment or two, years, to just live and feel things and do things. Then [they] come back around. I’m trying to figure that out myself. Like what kind of artist am I? Do I live and do my art at the same time or do I live and come back to it. It sounds like you’re in the living phase. (laughs)

Chioma: Definitely in the living phase, being present phase. Umm, but yeah, as I was thinking about these different questions I was saying, ‘I want to write again. I want to have this experience again. I know I’m working my way back to writing more poetry again.”

Tyra: Yes, and we want to hear from you! We’re looking for that next publication. Your loyal fans, your readers, I’m one of them! (laughs, goodnaturedly)

Chioma: Aww, thank you so much! I think the next thing that I’m putting out for sure is umm I don’t want to call it a podcast, but essentially it is a podcast, but that’s something I’m potentially putting out soon.

Tyra: I can’t wait to see that. I’ll definitely be listening!

Chioma: Awesome!

Tyra: Well, that is the end of my question set. Chioma, thank you so much for coming to this interview. We really appreciate it and I’m excited to get this posted.

Chioma: Awesome and thank you for your beautiful questions. This was a really good experience.

Tyra: I’m so glad!

Chioma: Thank you so much, Tyra.

Tyra: Have a good rest of your day.

Thank you for reading!

Three Pieces

Indifference

Snake Charmer

The Middle of the Other Side

Uncertainty

Uncertainty

Art by Marvin Hollman

Journey (cover)

Algorithm

Artist’s Statement:

The piece titled “Journey” is an abstract narrative painting created by me over the course of several years. It is done in acrylic on canvas and displays a series of figures arranged in a composition along with elements that suggest a voyage or great adventure. One interpretation of the imagery could be that of spiritual perspective. The diving man, the boat, angel or elephant could represent biblical references And illustrate the connection between heaven and Earth. My inspiration is not limited to one particular idea. Just as the boat in the background carries a “roll with the punches theme,” knowledge changes, inspiration changes.

Real Change

My cousin told me he found
Jesus, which was the easy part
since he couldn’t find his way
out of Brooklyn. Then this morning
it was so quiet you could hear
a cat walking. By noon the wind
kicked in making the trees swing
like Count Basie and the traffic
sounded like his horn section.
There is a mystery in all of this
I could never understand even if
I took it all apart, examined it
and put it back together, replacing
Brooklyn with Queens, put tap
shoes on cats paws and took Basie’s
horns away and replaced them with
strings. Sometimes it’s best just to let
them burn like my friend’s cigarettes
he kept smoking as he sat in his dark
kitchen after losing another job.
When he inhaled, the tip
of his Marlboro turned orange
like the moon in the window behind him.
The next month the surgeon removed
most of midnight from his lung.
The next year will mean a lot more
than the last 45 ever did. I wished
he had read the article I did that
said real change starts as soon as
you find yourself. I wasted no time.
That same night I took a red eye, then
an Amtrak to find where I am now.
It took awhile but it was worth the trip.

To Deserve

If you were to step inside Mary’s home, you would think to yourself that she is a person broken. Not that it was disorderly, not that it reeked of non-maintenance, not that there was rotting food and unclean clothes—but there might as well have been. No furniture in Mary’s house looked to be non-store-bought, no carpet made of non-synthetic fibers, no room any less than a perfect square. If you were to step inside Mary’s house, you would be dizzied by how geometrical it felt—every room the inside of a perfect box, edges sharp and defined. Each stair on the steps seemed capable of cutting cloth at its lip. The walls were decorated with paints and textures which seemed to come from an anonymous, clean factory somewhere far away. She couldn’t save herself from occasionally hearing the floorboards creak, a fact which infuriated her, but in all other measures, her house was made as if from a perfect plastic mold.

Mary once read somewhere that her developer had built hundreds of homes across the country with an identical frame and floor plan as this one. But out of all those hundreds of copies, Mary told herself that hers must be the most appealing. She lived in a neighborhood somewhere in the middle of Illinois whose name was decided upon by a marketing company, and somewhere hidden away upon each decorative item in her house, you’d find a serial number.

Mary worked at a health insurance firm and lived alone. She watched TV dramas about police officers while tucked beneath bedsheets she had ordered from a magazine delivered in the mail. Her brother was a police officer in the city, and she worried about him. That added to the thrill of her shows, in a way: that trace of something real. Every morning, she went to a gym whose CEO lived somewhere in Texas—not that she knew that or even knew his face or name. She did Pilates there and bought smoothies with appealing names like Berry Blast.

When she watched her crime shows and grew fearful, she’d remember the shotgun in her safe, given to her by her grandfather when she turned 15. She once read a story online about protests happening in the city, and she took it out just to feel safer. You could see the twisting fibers of a once-growing tree in its wooden frame, smell a liquor on it which her grandfather used to drink, which to this day she isn’t able to identify. He’d sit on a leather recliner called Grandpa’s Chair after Thanksgiving dinner, sipping it as he grumbled curses at the news.

This very house would become the scene of a crime—or, at the least, she called it a crime because it was the exact sort of thing they talked about on the news. Here, there would be a robbery.

Maggie Orlin was a 23-year-old gambling addict who lived in the city. Maggie owed $5,000 to a woman who lived a couple floors above her, a woman who usually wouldn’t demand it back if it wasn’t for the fact her daughter had to stay overnight at the hospital after an unexpected bee sting revealed a serious allergy. Ms. Taylor was now in debt herself and demanded the money back from Maggie.

Maggie once stole from a boy she was dating.

When the fight reached that fragile, unspeakable line of a breakup, she had bravely said, “I can’t date you right now because I’m not a good person. I lie, I steal, I will cheat on you. I will be a good person one day, but I can’t be one now. It’s not worth it to date me, but one day it will be.”

He accused her of throwing herself a pity party and left. This was three weeks before.

But she did mean it. She would be a good person. She would quit and never steal another dollar again. While taking exit 76, turning onto a road that would eventually reach a suburb, she wrung the steering wheel in her hands passionately, as she listened to songs from a playlist she entitled Crying Music.

She couldn’t steal from anyone she knew. Her first step on a long moral path would be doing the risky and more just thing: taking from someone far away instead, someone who could afford it. She was willing to risk her safety—in truth, her very life—to save those who might be most devastatingly hurt by her actions, by this disease she had been given. She thought it a small moral victory, and when the quiet, tinny music played from her phone, banked within the car console’s stained cup holder, she let herself think for a moment with a rage that this boy would miss her and regret the breakup once he saw how much she had changed.

The neighborhood was called Pleasant Prairies, and only a house or two had been constructed along its singular road. The developer seemed to have only recently cleared out the land to make a residential area. Maggie was looking for a place like this—expensive, but where people would be isolated from one another in case this robbery was to end poorly. This was her third time breaking into a place where people lived, but her first time breaking into a house. She didn’t feel guilty about stealing the money, but she confessed that she hated the possibility that she might cause even a single nightmare in another human being.

Oh well, she said to herself. I will be a shocking story for them, told at dinner parties.

She drove around at two in the morning in search of a house in Pleasant Prairies that looked like it didn’t have children within it. Out here where no crimes could ever happen, where no morsel of land is untouched by funding of one kind or another, people park their cars in their driveways, out in the open next to a white garage door. She thought she could tell something about these people within the great houses made of cream-colored wood based on their cars. From her perch parked down the street, she saw a pink punch buggy parked in a driveway with concrete that looked designer-made. The squares of concrete in the driveway had subtle, curved bezels and a smooth texture. Out here, it was still 1991, so she knew this had to be a woman’s car based on its color. If this woman had parked out in the driveway, then certainly any husband would have as well. But no other car was in sight. This, she thought, is how she would pay Ms. Taylor back.

There was a soccer field’s length of earth between this house and the second nearest, bulldozed to make preparations for houses yet to be built so that the grass had died and left a muddy heap stretching in all directions once the smooth grass of the lawn reached an edge. Maggie knew about the people out here. They wouldn’t traverse that mud unless absolutely necessary, even if things did go poorly, and even if they heard anything from that distance.

Before entering the home, she couldn’t resist giving three gentle knocks to the white wood on the outside, just to see if she was right. She felt like a woodpecker or a squirrel.

“How about that,” she whispered. The wood was fake.

She took some electronics, some trinkets, things that seemed expensive but non-sentimental. She carried a backpack that once went with her every day to high school, which now held pink and white decorative cutlery, a painting of a sunflower, a hair dryer that seemed expensive, some door knobs, a signed poster of a movie about Italian gangsters—odds and ends. She would only have about a thousand dollars total at this rate, and her bag was beginning to grow full.

She had three choices. A jewelry box with but two or three diamonds could lightly and quickly put her over the edge—but certainly such a prize rested in the master bedroom, where the owner of the house slept. Her second choice was to leave and steal again from someone else, but her conscience couldn’t cut it.

If you’re serious about quitting, she told herself, this has to be the last time, and this way, only one person will face any consequences.

That left option number three: the car. This would mean stealing the keys which hung on a key rack in the first-floor kitchen, driving the car away to someplace safe, walking back to where she had parked her own car, leaving, then Ubering back to the hidden pink car to bring it someplace where she could sell it for, easily, five-thousand dollars or more. No car alarm would go off, no sentimental thing would be stolen, and Ms. Taylor would no longer be in debt because of Maggie.

She held the key in her hand. The smell of dinner still lingered in the dark air, olive oil and garlic. There in the pitch-black kitchen, she felt, for the first time, perverse. The key was attached to a small, black plastic square that was lukewarm to touch, whose lock button had been smoothed and left paintless by someone else’s finger. A thing like a car key—a thing which this person carried with her in her pocket every day—had too much of another person’s life on it to steal.

~

Mary had often thought about what it would one day feel like to point a gun at another human being. She had, almost as if by accident, seen this moment so many times in her head that, when the fantasy finally came true, she was surprised at how non-glorious it felt to order this intruder to stand absolutely still.

Here was a girl who hadn’t showered in at least a week, with tattoos and piercings and all of these other things Mary had always expected a criminal to have. Held up against her cheek, she smelled the gun in her hands and thought of how proud people would be of her for this. Mary had often imagined—with an embarrassing kind of excitement—that in this moment the criminal would try to run, lunge at her, pull out a gun or a knife, and that she would be forced, tragically, to fire. But Maggie did no such thing. Instead, she tried to explain herself.

“I don’t have a weapon. Please lower it,” Maggie said. “Please. I’ll drop everything and leave. This is the last time I’ll ever try to steal. I don’t need this money for me. Someone I know, their kid got sick, and they couldn’t afford it.”

Mary wondered if she should still fire, since it was legal to do so—she wouldn’t need to feel any guilt—but she had no desire to kill anything. It’s just that she imagined this moment feeling different, and she wondered if firing the gun would fix that. She always imagined that she would be forced to fire, and a harrowing scene would follow as she wept for having taken a life lost. But still, how proud her coworkers would be when they heard, how thrilled her family would be, how wide the smile of her grandfather shining down on her from heaven. But she had always imagined that she, herself, would feel pride too during this moment—that she would be able to feel all the strength and justice she’d wanted to see in the world manifest in the texture of that hair trigger. But she felt no such thing. Something about this intrusion needed to be fixed.

“Drop the bag and turn your pockets inside out,” Mary said.

Maggie complied, petrified. Maggie’s cell phone screen turned on when it hit the floor, dully illuminating the room. This woman pointing a gun at her should be trembling too, flushed with adrenaline and emotion, but she seemed to have the distant and intellectual look of a person solving a puzzle.

Mary was embarrassed—the weight of the gun was beginning to fatigue the muscles in her shoulder. It hurt, and that frustrated her. But she had to keep the criminal still until the police came. She knew that if she lowered her gun to pull out her phone and call 911, this girl would take her chance while the gun was lowered and lunge at her. But she wasn’t strong enough to hold this twenty-pound gun with one hand—and if any injustice did happen, Mary wouldn’t have been able to bear it.

“I have an attic,” Mary said. “With one of those swing-down ladders from the ceiling. It’s at the top of the stairs. You’ll walk up there with me behind you the whole time. Then I’ll close you up there, and then I’ll call the police. You’ll stay up there until they arrive.”

Maggie was in tears but nodded and stayed silent. There was no escape now.

She had always imagined building a relationship with someone she loved during her twenties. She thought about characters in TV shows with lives like the one this woman lived; how they talked about being anxious about letting even one year slip by in which life wasn’t lived to the fullest. She knew a couple people in prisons, but no one close to her, so that when they went, they vanished to Maggie, plucked from the face of the earth as if they were figments of her imagination who never truly existed at all.

Once locked in the attic, she swallowed a horrible thought. Maggie wanted to hate something, but she couldn’t bring herself to hate this woman. Maggie let herself hate her parents, her high school, her boss, but more than anything she wanted to hate this woman and yet she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Envious and desperate, she couldn’t let herself hate this woman because all the stories she had ever heard told her that she was utterly guilty and deserved this fate.

Mary locked the attic and let her arms rest. She sat crisscrossed on the carpeted ground of the second floor like a child as she stared up at the attic door. And when she looked down at her brother’s contact information on her phone—the policeman—she realized that calling him would feel wrong. The police escorting this girl out of her house, dispassionately delving out justice on her behalf, would feel wrong. The image of this girl somewhere in some jail petrified Mary. The idea that she would wake up every day wondering about where the girl was, what she was doing, eating, what conversations she was having, love she was building, letters writing, lies telling: and Mary would know none of it.

Now, Mary cried. Crisscrossed on the carpet, she shook and put down her phone, ran her hands across her shotgun like she was petting an animal, as the uncertainty weighed heavy against her spine. She didn’t know what this girl was doing up there in her attic, and it terrified her. Mary was a person broken, every muscle of her body seeming to grow rigid and immovable as she looked up at the attic door on the ceiling. Face red, she could hardly remember to breathe.

Mary looked up the average sentence for a home burglary. Depending, it could be anywhere between one year and thirty.

~

At first, Mary said she would only keep this girl up in her attic for as long as it would take for her to find an answer that felt right. She read blog posts about people who were victims of home invasion like her, about how they felt when the criminal was caught and locked away. She would consider calling her brother every day, but upon each attempt, a brief and sharp pain that lasted no more than a handful of seconds prevented her from making the call. Mary spent hours upon hours of hard labor preparing to transform the attic with Maggie inside, and despite how much energy was expended in keeping her, none of the energy stung sharply like calling the police would.

It first started the day after the burglary, when Maggie saw a piece of notebook paper wiggle its way between the attic door’s cracks. In letters which looped and swirled.

Do you have any dietary restrictions?

Maggie was starved. She had fallen asleep in the attic expecting the police to wake her up. In their place, she received this message.

The thought was too horrible. It had to be that the police were delayed. It had to be that not as much time had passed as Maggie had thought. It had to be something else.

Later that day, Mary came up with the gun and put Maggie in handcuffs. Maggie watched as Mary, first, brought up an elegant plate of food—which Maggie ate. Next, a small bed that could be wiggled through the attic’s door piece-by-piece. Then a television, for entertainment. She brought up plants to filter the air, lighting to make the space sparkle, books, a carpet, an air freshener, toiletries and sanitation products, a large litter box, a notebook, packs and packs of bottled water, shampoo, soap, and conditioner, sound-proofing tiles, art supplies, and a chair. By the end of it, after a process of multiple weeks of renovations, the room was truly beautiful: walls painted, well-decorated, and adorned with as many pass-times as could be included, given that they wouldn’t make it possible for Maggie to escape. After a distraught first week in which Maggie lived in decent but less-than-ideal conditions—a necessary road bump which nevertheless upset Mary—Maggie’s room looked, in one word, expensive. Maggie remained bound when Mary was transforming the attic, but before and after this, Maggie moved as she pleased. Whenever Mary entered the attic to perform maintenance, she would bring her grandfather’s shotgun.

Mary never interacted with Maggie. She was left to her own devices. The two never made contact with one another, spoke, exchanged pleasantries, nor did they discuss their lives. After a month, Mary realized that, although she had asked for Maggie’s name, Mary had never shared her own. She thought that this wasn’t something to fret over.

Mary felt so safe once Maggie was secured in her attic, aware via the creaking of the ceiling above of every movement she made. It wasn’t perfect, but it was closer to perfect than calling her brother.

Even so, although she found the arrangement just, Mary didn’t find it fair that Maggie couldn’t speak to her family or loved ones, if she had such things. As such, after a month, Mary spoke with Maggie for the first time since her capture.

“I’ve come up with a system,” Mary said, annunciating. “No, please don’t try to speak to me. Just let me explain. Please let me explain. Please don’t try to speak to me. Maggie, you will want to hear what I have to say. Yes. I wanted to tell you that I’ve come up with a system. It isn’t fair that you’re unable to communicate with the outside world. If you write messages on this notebook paper, I’ll review them to ensure they’re appropriate, and send them to wherever you’d like. I’ve chosen the return address, and it isn’t this residence, of course, but I’ll check that return address in case you get any messages in the mail. I’m sorry for not allowing you to make contact with the outside world—that was unfair of me.”

Maggie felt ill at the suggestion. To write such a letter would feel like submitting to this woman’s depravity. If it truly did upset Mary that she wasn’t able to communicate with the outside world, perhaps she could refuse to write any letters in protest.

Maggie came up with a plan. She would write letters detailing the genuine and chasmic pain she felt as a result of being separated from those she loved, but she would fail to include an address for it to be sent off to. Mary might read it and somehow remember what she was doing to Maggie.

Mary prepared the first couple of paragraphs of the letter, detailing a false story about running away to a commune somewhere in rural Nebraska. Mary was preparing Maggie’s dinner upon a speckled, black-granite countertop as she read the letter. She purchased organic food and experimented with new recipes weekly. As opposed to a passive chore, she saw preparing Maggie’s meals as an activity that required utter concentration and craftsmanship. Plates would be decorated, spices measured, broths sampled, meats temperature-checked, fruits and vegetables locally sourced, menus designed with care; and calories would never be counted, as Mary was certain that no girl in all of Illinois ate as fully and as well as Maggie.

In the spiced, warm clouds of dinner preparation, there on the granite countertop, Mary sipped broth, stirred a gravy, and licked her fingers in between reading paragraphs of Maggie’s writing.

Dear Mom and Dad,

It’s been a couple of years since we’ve spoken. I wish my apology didn’t have to take this form. I wish I didn’t have to send it under these conditions. I should be saying these words to you, out loud, in our kitchen. You should hear these words and we should make dinner afterward and watch Star Trek together like we did a million years ago together. I wish I could explain more of my situation, but while I’m in it, I know that you reading these words, even if the circumstances are so far from ideal, is better than me having never written them.

Dad, you got addicted. Maybe you still are. And then slowly but surely, I did too, but in a different way. And Mom, you had to live with us and love us. Every day I think about how you never deserved any of this, Mom. You don’t deserve to have a daughter who doesn’t speak to you. You didn’t deserve to live in a house with the two of us. I’ve heard you say a million times how you wanted better for me than what I got. But you deserve someone who tells you: I wanted better for you. I want better for you every day.

Dad, I’ve never had a teacher, coach, or boss talk to me one-on-one if they weren’t telling me how I’m failing at something. I’m so angry at you for everything you did. I don’t even know if you’re sorry, but I’m writing this because the older I get the more I’m realizing that I’m not like Mom. I’m like you. I’ve fought with you so many times in my head. And when I did, I couldn’t admit it to myself, but I knew the parts of you I would fight with—the parts of you I hated the most—are the same parts you passed down to me. I feel awful for everything I’ve done, and if I’m really like you, you do too. The older I get the more I realize that everyone around you would rather see you die than fail, because you could be replaced, but a failure can’t be undone. You weren’t measured by who you were but by your distance from failure. And then you failed. I know it might be hard to believe, but I know a shred of how awful that feels. I need forgiveness so badly. So please let me tell you: no matter what happens, I forgive you.

We didn’t deserve this. We don’t deserve this. We deserved to talk to one another every day. We deserved to build a life together. We deserved to go out to dinners together, talk about who I’m dating, invite friends over during Thanksgiving. Neither of you deserved this. I will always miss you.

I love you, Maggie.

Mary had to read the letter over to ensure it was safe to send, but she was not inhuman. She felt feelings, which were real, when she read it. She served Maggie dinner that day, and for the second time, she spoke to her. Maggie hadn’t included a delivery address, and if it wasn’t for that, Mary wouldn’t have opened her mouth as she set the steaming plate down with one hand, shotgun in the other.

Mary said, “That was a nice note. Put the delivery address on it, and I’ll send it out.”

This time, as she closed the attic door, more softly, behind her, Mary heard the voice of a child screaming, as if from another world, I don’t deserve this. Maggie demanded the voice to be quiet, and silence did follow, but afterward, she was petrified by a new uncertainty. She wasn’t sure if the sound of that voice truly came from the attic.

~

One day, Mary received a call from her brother Mike, the police officer. He asked if he could stop by her house for dinner.

“No,” Mary said, “I’d like to go out to eat tonight. It’s been too long. I’d like to see you too, but we should go out to eat elsewhere.”

“Last year we would talk to one another almost every day. I miss that.”

“I miss it too.”

“And your cooking is second to none, Mary. It’s been ages since I’ve visited. I like to see where you’re living, how things are going—and all.”

“I have no groceries,” she said. “It might be a hassle to prepare it all.”

“I’ll just order whatever you need ahead of time, that’s no worry.”

She thought that it was so silly that if she were to be caught, she would go to jail. But then again, her brother was always so much like Mary herself. Maybe he would understand.

“Okay,” Mary said. “Sure, stop by. How about this, I’ll go grab groceries now, and then I’ll pick you up from the jail on my way back. You have to go back there tonight, right?”

“That’s right.”

“I’ll pick you up, we’ll have dinner, and then I’ll drop you back off at the jail.”

“Perfect,” he said.

“Can I come in?”

“Into the jail?”

“I’ve never seen where you work before,” Mary said. “I visited a jail once when I was a child. It’s been ages. I like to see where you’re working.”

“Sure, come take a peek,” he said. “It’s interesting.”

~

She was escorted in by her brother and another officer. She touched her hands to the bulletproof glass of Mike’s office, entranced by her view of the jail. The glass was warm and plasticky. As Mike changed into civilian clothing, stored away his gun, hung up his baton, took off his badge, Mary gazed at the rows and rows of identical cells. She looked at a four-story, cavernous expanse of white bars and concrete floors, patrolled by watchful guardians that looked to her like angels circling the mouth of the inferno. She wanted to hold a baton. She wanted to orbit the cages, like these angels circling these halls of just consequence. She didn’t know who among them, but she knew that someone in her field of view, someone in one of these cells, had certainly broken into a home before. She felt something perfect, blissful, the closest she’s ever felt to being in love, when she realized that everyone in here deserves this. She loved this place, just like her brother.

Reparated Tombstone

♱

GONE BUT NEVER FORGOTTEN

• • •

A tombstone is heavier than one might think.

Turning right on Broadus Coker Street—the sunglint blindness splays across the windshield—casting a sightless void into which shadowed recollections of his past begin to purge. It comes to him stealthily, no, sneakily, no, cunningly.

Weathered Army-store combat boots charging into the oblique night. Blind hands drag the monument loose off its footing, with a dull grind of stone on stone. Then the heaving. Fingers tucking under into the paste of dew and milled granite. The slab’s wet pressure on the chest. Those first feeling steps forward into the gloom.

Only in this part of Livingston, seldom-visited and Georgia-clay poor, may this long-interred memory be brought to light, a memory elsewhere ever unremembered. He can’t think it away, for undoubtedly he will be nearing Superba Street . . . and the house . . . the one he abandoned it in.

His mind’s eye blurs into myriad questions: Was it a prank? An excuse to indulge in the taboo? Or was it just random evil? Sin as if by chance might’ve beckoned to him, like a long unseen ex-lover calling up unexpectedly and asking for a place to stay; first the kittenish coyness, then the stray’s intimacy. Despite this interrogative ambiguity, these declaratives are clear: He wasn’t dared or goaded. It wasn’t planned. It was as compulsive as compulsory. It came to him on such a ruinous whim, and he’s borne the deadweight of ever-unremembrance over this past quarter century. Why did he have to see this through?

♱

IN LOVING MEMORY

• • •

Summer 1994. He was living in the dank basement of his drummer’s house, a then necrose Craftsman built in the twenties on what would become the further ungentrified Superba Street; a place he ingeniously fled to from his middle-class upbringing in the suburbia of Northridge Estates. The basement in which he stayed stood partially finished, or somewhat less than partially, as did most of the rest of the house. His only source of electricity was from a plug in a light-socket adapter; the shower was made from painted roofing tin; mushrooms grew out of the carpet. But he didn’t care because he lived unsupervised for the first time, which gave way to his sense of right and wrong, or rather, the amorality of youth.

Despite his unreconstructed side of town feeling so hazardous that he kept a shotgun tucked in the rafters above the couch he made his bed, he decided that the ideal graveyard for possible larceny was in the even more dangerous segment, Rock Black Bottom. For Rock Black Bottom residents, he surmised, wouldn’t be so civic-minded as to watch over the yard of the last plots of land one owns, making the stealing of a headstone go likely unnoticed or even disregarded. With a plan hatched, his drummer drove them out in his pickup, he did the deed, and they hauled it, all 120 pounds of it, back home.

Surreal is the only way to describe the scene of a fourteen-year-old girl’s headstone sitting on a living room floor. The fact that this basement living room doubles as a bedroom and kitchen only enhances the stark uncanniness. There—among the band equipment, the couch/makeshift bed, the antique microwave, the mandatory empty liquor bottle collection, the clock stopped at 4:20, and the stacks of Ramen noodles—it lay with a combination of eeriness yet attraction, like a cursed artifact to a skeptic, totemistic yet a mere object. Alva Freeman was her name. She died in 1901. He had no sense at the time of the significance of that last name, of what he had done.

♱

A LIFE MEASURED IN MEMORIES

• • •

Continuing down Broadus Coker, he passes through the intersection of Flannery Street, the reflection of his 7-Series glides down the windowed wall of Sporty’s Barber Shop. It's there the nausea of it all hits. In the unmoored morals of youth, such an event as grave robbery is almost trivial, and though he has since skirted the line that divides sin from sainthood several times under the pressure of getting ahead, he has found himself to be an overall decent middle-aged man. Not quite righteous but definitely not base. Educated. Successful. Accomplished. Married with children with an American-Dream home. It sickens him to think about what he did that night. The middle-aged perspective indeed damns what were mere follies of youth. But, worst of all, there is . . . how he simply abandoned that girl's headstone to that condemned house on Superba . . . in hopes his acts would be forgotten and discarded . . . carted off with the trash.

Stopping his sedan at the five points with the Hop ‘N Shop, he seizes up. Being late, he has chosen this rarely-taken shortcut, all while knowing that from the five points, right and two streets up, lies Superba Street. Go left at the five points . . . down Myrtle . . . take the quick cutoff to the boulevard and his errand at Ledbetter’s Jewelry . . . he won’t even have to see the Superba street sign. But he is drawn to the right of the five points, to Superba. Something wants to at least glance down Superba. The turn signal signals, the car turns, slows, stops at the old address. It still stands.

He blushes red from white guilt as he peers out of his BMW at the elderly black man on the porch swing and at a home that he expected to be a vacant lot. Pansies grow in window boxes, and the palette of the shutters and trim goes well with the siding. This man has resurrected the domicile from doom. As he focuses from the broad tableau back to the man’s face, the man looks at him with only slightly squinted eyes, an expression akin to half-recognizing an old acquaintance, or clandestinely noting the presence of a potential enemy. Hidden inside the dark tint of the Beemer’s window, he cringes into his seat from envisioning the scene of what he is about to do, of what he feels compelled to do. How does one begin to ask about such a thing?

Deep breaths breathed deeply. Deep breaths breathed deeply. The mantra repeats and repeats. Calmer, he finds the resolve to ask after the whereabouts of the tombstone.

The man from the porch swing meets him at the fence gate and with a broad hand on an outstretched arm greets him.

“Reverend Luther Pines, but people call me ‘Pine Box,’ for I’ve laid so many down low,” the preacher calls to him.

When he responds with his name said aloud, it sounds impotent in comparison. After the handshake, his gaze adverts down to his shuffling shoes, noticing the four matching brogues of his and those of the preacher’s steady shoes; then, his gaze returns to the preacher in time for him to say. And there really is no way to say what he must say next. But he’ll say it nonetheless.

“Is there a tombstone in your basement?”

A cycle of expressions courses through the preacher’s face: the church-door smile solidifies into funeral solemnity; then, with a cock and upward tilt of the head that makes the eyes look on askance, the expression morphs to one judicial but piteous. Finally, with eyebrows rising and with a slap of his thigh, the preacher bellows joyfully up into the air.

“I knew you’d one day come! I knew a man wouldn’t live his whole life long having done what you did and not seek penance! Holy is the rod and the staff!”

The preacher runs his thumbs under his suspenders and leans back, his tie bowing around a heaving chest, as if he is about to announce an altar call, right here at thefence line. Will anyone answer it? Instead, he says rather softly as his head levels and his eyebrows lower to a concerned ridge:

“Come with me.”

The gate is opened for him. Must he go to the pastor’s study for a devotional?

♱

UNTIL WE MEET AGAIN . . .

• • •

The basement is not the same; he is not the same. The tombstone is the same. Its permanence equal to its heft, immutable among the many seasons. The two stand before it.

“I can’t believe you kept it so long.”

The pastor looks up to the ceiling. “Let’s just say that I prophesied that someone would return. I knew someone would have to want to make this right again.” He turns abruptly. “But, tell me, why did you steal it?”

Shrug. “I don’t know. I’ve never been able to tell.” Shrug.

“Hm-mm. It is a question that I have pondered for some time.”

He nods his head, as a child eager to learn the Sunday school lesson.

“In my line of work, I often think of things in terms of how they affect others,” interlacing his fingers, “for don’t we all wish so badly for neighbors to treat neighbors as themselves?” The hands spread apart as if to embrace.

Another childishly eager nod.

“When you did it, how did you think it would affect others?”

“I didn’t care about others. It was all . . . internal . . . I guess . . . I wanted to rebel . . . Rebel, against myself in a way.”

Nearing him, “But nonetheless, how did it affect others?”

“I mean, it didn’t really affect anyone.”  He raises his hand in a sign of surrender and innocence. “The graveyard was overgrown; the church was shuttered long ago.”

Bowing his head slightly, as if to equalize the difference in height, “Would you say, then, that you thought no one would care?”

Nod.

More softly spoken, “After all these years, did you prove it to yourself . . . that no one cared?”

Nod. Tear.

Hand-on-shoulder, “Now, that’s how you treated your neighbor. Did you treat yourself that way . . . feel that no one cared about you?”

Nod. Tears.

Eye-to-eye, “You proved that as little as you mattered, so did this awful act.”

Nod. Tears. The first gasp of a sob; then, the onrush of a bawl. “I’ve been.” Gasp. “I’ve been looking for an answer for so long.” Gasp. “Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you.”

A moment for composure is allowed. Then the hand on the shoulder. He clenches. “But . . .”

“But what?”

The clench releases. Stepping away, beginning to pace, “But what you must realize is that this little teenage prank mattered. It had a larger impact in a larger system. It’s not just about you and your own self-forgiveness. It’s about your neighbor’s forgiveness.”

“But . . . but I didn’t harm anyone.”

“No one? Let me ask you this: why did you choose this graveyard, among these neighbors?”

“I . . . I . . . I don’t know. Because it was the roughest part of town. I thought no one would care.” As he says the words while standing in such a part of town, the irony of his flippancy begins to creep in. Sucking up a sniffle, “Listen, I know where you're going with this. It's . . . it's not what you think." The childish nod becomes an indignant shake.

Turning to face him and standing erect, “It’s not about just you or what you’ve personally experienced. It’s about how it affects others too. Others you don’t even know. The church shuttering, the overgrowth of the graves, the plight of the neighborhood—those were the actions of a system. A system you supported with this deed.”

Waving off the implications with his hands, “I wasn’t thinking like that at all. I wasn’t even thinking at all. I’m not a racist.” His face hardens. “I’m not a racist.”

The baritone resonates, elbows cross, “You have to be honest. We’re in the small-town South. You chose the blackest part of town. In doing so, you chose to steal the only marker of this Freeman girl. Free-man: the first free-born daughter of a freed slave from the oldest black church in the county. Not only is our history condemned; it is literally taken piece by piece. You erased the only memory of her. You contributed heftily to—" The preacher catches himself, realizing he is beginning to sermonize.

The head shake ceased, he gives only a glare.

A tone bittersweet with resignation, arms by his side, “Look, whether you believe this personal or systemic, spiritual or moral, a penance or a pardon, there’s nothing you can say, but there’s what you can do, my neighbor.” A breezy sigh with relaxed shoulders, “Let’s pray over it first.” In the dimming sunset streaming through the hopper window, the whispered words echo with quick decay on the basement blocks.

♱

BELOVED FATHER AND HUSBAND

• • •

DISPATCH: 371, we have multiple reports of suspicious activity in Freedom Memorial Church Graveyard. Gray, late model, BMW, parked with driver out of car.

Car 371: 10-4. That’s that restored church on Pennington?

DISPATCH: 10-4

Car 371: En route.

♱

REST IN PEACE

• • •

The trunk of a 7-series could easily fit several tombstones, and it pops from a button on the fob. The figure of his cemetery streetlamp shadow looks surrealistic with a rectangle in place of the normal tubby torso, like a phantasmagoric sketch in dark charcoal. The stone feels parched from its years kept unweathered, and an eerie chill pervades its surface.

Just as he begins to lumber, the silhouette of his labor in the yellow glow of the streetlamp is abruptly scattered by brightly flashing blue. The sound of two car doors opening. Footsteps. How to explain this inexplicable act?

The blue strobing leaves traces of images in the intermittent dimness, traces of the figures before him, traces of the object in his hands. These glimmers of the outward world shuffle to an array of inner ones, a slideshow terrible and ominous: BLUE FLASH. BLUE FLASH.—The degrading mugshot—Blue Flash. Blue Flash.—The licensure board meeting—Blue flash. Blue flash.—The last time locking the practice—Blue flash. Blue flash.— Gale packing—Blue flash. Blue flash.—Grocery store—Blue Flash. Blue Flash.—ALONE.—Blue Flash.— PORCH.—Blue—BOTTLE.—Flash.

Pistols pointed at him. “Put down the headstone and show me your hands! Do it now! Do it now!”

Utterly entranced now by the strobe, he teeters, trembling. He’s never fallen as an adult.

No slips, trips, or trust falls. The strange sensations of a backward collapse. The smack of pavement. The slab’s smoosh. Crushing rib cage on compressing heart. The forced expiration of final breath with the shock of intense weight. The flickers of blue swelling to flickers of white, interposing on the blackness, he sees himself from the outside for the first and final time. The tombstone is still heavier than one might think.

♱

HIS DUTY DONE, HIS HONOR WON.

• • •

Brother from Another

You moved next door the first year I got left back, a month after someone clocked me in the eye with a rock. Someone called my name, and when I turned, half the world went dark. My little brother from another, I still see you in that bright half. Though three years apart, we fixed into orbit around each other like binary stars. It wasn’t long before we were wailing on each other. You’d sock me in the cheek just below my eyepatch, and I’d wrench you into headlock. I’d throw haymakers after a shove, the bullied becoming the bully. Before you,

I was the ragdoll of the block, there to absorb the rage of bigger boys. Unable to sever fists from love, I hit you harder than I meant to, and you went sobbing to your mom. Like an avenging gunslinger, she cut me off at the pass, that small space between sidewalk and the steps to my porch. This was in the days

of belts and the backs of hands, wet washcloths, and even extension cords drawing welt lines across ours backs and asses. I readied myself for all four. You know how far a kid neck had to crane just to see her face, so high up she may as well have been Christ on his cross—an oak to a blade of grass. I didn’t cry. The pain to come was my pain to take because pain is what I deserved. Instead,

she took a knee to look me in the eye, squeezed me by the shoulders to hold me in place, and said big brothers don’t hit little brothers. She waited until recognition dawned in my face. It did, then she kissed me on the forehead. I never laid hands on you again. Not even if you puffed up and stepped to me. Not even after you left-crossed me in my bad eye after your alchy pops disappeared for good. You swung, I blocked. You kicked, so I dodged. Then we played wallball. Remember

those Christmas times? You always came over to see the lights my pops put up, rainbowed blinking from front door to back? He was a beater, not a drinker. You didn’t want to play, just wanted to look. Sometimes you’d sleep over and bust on me because I wouldn’t let you turn off the lamp in my room. I’d try to describe how the dark wasn’t just on the outside but inside, too. I didn’t have the words, so all you saw was a boy too old for a nightlight.

I wasn’t there when you killed that dude. I had moved away before your teen growl set in. What thought flashed in the flash of the shot as you squeezed that single second into forever? The last time I saw you,

you were fifteen. You seemed to be waiting for some words I didn’t have. I could’ve told you about the time I went looking for Bobby Moran with a sharpened screwdriver. He sucker-punched me in the back of the head while sitting in the bleachers at Hetzel’s Field. Me and the crew I ran with stalked the neighborhood looking for him. Visions of the shiv

disappearing into his belly clawed my insides out. Somewhere between here and there, George, my only friend in that place, leaned to my ear and whispered, Dude, jet! We spotted Bobby alone in Newt’s Playground. I took off in the other direction instead, and they chased until I got too far away. If I had reached to pull you back, little brother,

would you have taken my hand? Your moms tried, sending you every summer to your granny. Your brother tried, too, before vanishing into his girl and college. There’s some things only your boys can do. Thirty-years too late, I stare at the lamp in my twilit room. All night it’s on, brother. All night.

Pea Notes

Hey, fancy this: Clyde Barrow had a thing
for sweet peas (creamed) and Buck’s wife
Blanche did shampoos and perms and cuts 
at The Cinderella Beauty Shoppe in Denton. 
In Blanche’s My Life with Bonnie & Clyde, 
written in prison, the juice is in the sides. 

This morning, I saw Upstairs LeeAnn off 
to Germany. (There’s a Downstairs one, too.)
Upstairs LeeAnn, the way she looks (auburn)
and cooks (cakes) and trails a heavenly scent:
Yum. No, scent is too strong. When she’s near, 
you know and feel warm. In Blanche Barrow’s 

autobio, there’s a lot of crooning over husband 
Buck (honestly, gets to be a bit much). But the
editor’s notes (hot chocolate) and flourishes (with
marshmallows) swoon me. End of the day, it’s
the tiny treats I keep. Seeing Loretta Lynn live 

in Honolulu and, back in high school, friend
Mike and I chirping, “I’m raising black-eyed peas 
and blue-eyed babies . . . prayin’ for weather” 
down in the rec room on Rainbow View Drive. 
(Mike’s dead before I catch the sweet irony 

of his growing up on a rainbow.) Mike, 
his parental units, and dog Ginger. Tupperware 
soaking in the sink for hours. Dad working at the P.O., 
packing Mike’s peanut butter and jellies. If bibles 
have a smell, there’s that mixed in as well. 

And somewhere the secret sadnesses 
absorbed in green shag carpet, parents who dote 
on their only child (the idea of him) though 
they never really see him. Whole. 

When Mike’s grown, out of the closet,  
his mom once impulsively asked, 
“Are you ever tempted to cut it right off?” 
(A lot to unpack, huh . . . ) 

After that, he stayed away for a while. 
But all our lives, Mike and me, we’re full 
of guffaws and squelched guffaws 
that happen when you should absolutely NOT
guffaw. Sitting shiva for his partner Paul, to
name one. Good God, the rabbi’s high strung 

“May the Hebrews gather . . .” before heading 
full-tilt nasal into the Kaddish. Horrified, we
bit our cheeks, eyes spilled water, mouths 
contorted with explosive snorts. Oh well, it’s
the flamingoes that open the dance, 

right? Did I mention: Mr. Clyde also liked French 
fries? (peas, no peas—who knows). BTW, Mike 
would love both my LeeAnns. (There’s always 
room for more.) Tonight I munch perfect
strawberries Upstairs gifted me before a white Uber 
whisked her and her three black suitcases away.

Ode to Grief Bacon

Weeks after the pills folded
my grief like an omelet,
I opened a cookbook to taste  

the hollandaise sauce, buttery
and beaming from a spoon
and asked Alexa to turn

the volume up so Sam Cooke
could croon against the cast-irons,
and for the first time

in months, I whisked
three eggs while shuffling
in my socks. I hummed “A Change

Is Gonna Come,” while considering
the elegance of toast,
how the char makes even

the stalest wheat dissolve
on our tongues
in a quick burst of caramel.

Then I opened the package
of thick-cut bacon
as if it were a letter written

in sodium and fatback,
its cursive sizzling in strips
and sopping in grease

that bubbled against my knuckles
which, friends, was a pain
I too toasted into joy—and harried

by heat, I remembered the Germans
have a word for eating
out of despair: kummerspeck,

meaning “grief bacon,” so I sliced
the entire package and watched
the porky sadness shrink

until Sam’s voice grew heavy
with salt, the strips splitting
and spitting and saying only

kummerspeck, kummerspeck,
which is another way
of saying I glided

with a wooden spoon,
dripping yolk across
the canvas of the floor.

Banished

Whigham, GA, August 3, 1907

I looked up at Nettie. Studied her sharply angled face, her high cheekbones, those autumn brown, almond-shaped eyes. Her dark skin glistened in the heat as we walked. She stared straight ahead, her eyes focused on some point far down the dusty dirt road.

Noah was with us. Distracted by everything he saw, stumbling because he wanted to stop and examine things, anything. But Nettie kept dragging him along. It felt like she was in a hurry to get me to Olive’s house. I didn’t understand why. Maybe Noah felt it too. Maybe his antics were his way of trying to slow us down.

I was on Nettie’s right side, Noah on her left. We were all holding hands. I was carrying a small burlap sack that contained everything I could call mine. We were walking away from our cabin. The only place I knew to call home.

Yesterday, Nettie asked me to come and sit on the front porch steps with her. After we sat down, she announced that she was going to take me to live with my grandmother Olive.

“Why?” I asked.

“Well, the other day, I ran into your Grandma Olive in front of Chapman’s store. She told me that she wants you to start school in the fall. She wants you to move in with her before it starts. I’m taking you to her tomorrow.”

The school was just across the street from Chapman’s Dry Goods. When we went for groceries, Noah and I stood along the side of the building and looked across the street at children playing in the yard. There were two swings under a big oak in the middle of the school yard. I always wanted to try swinging on one. Nettie wouldn’t ever let us do it, even when the kids weren’t there. Going to school sounded like an adventure, but I couldn’t see what it had to do with moving to Olive’s house. “School sounds okay. I want to go to school, but I don’t need to live with Olive. I’ll stay here. That way Noah and I can walk to school together.”

Nettie shook her head. “You ever see colored children at the school Roy? Noah won’t be going with you. School is for white children. Colored children aren’t allowed.”

White, colored, what did that have to do with going to school? We had a small mirror in our cabin. Nettie used it from time to time, but Noah and I weren’t supposed to mess with it. Nettie worried we might break it. Awhile back, she left it out when she went to the privy. I found it and held it up to my face. I was shocked. I couldn’t believe what I saw. My face was so white, and there were little brown dots all over it. I was ugly. I didn’t look anything like Noah or Nettie. When she came back in, I showed her, and she explained that I was white, and she and Noah were brown. “What white folks in town call colored,” she said. 

I stared at her face. She was beautiful, even with sad eyes. “That doesn’t make sense. It can’t be true.”

She put her arm around me and pulled me close. “Roy, I’ve known this day was coming since Olive brought you to me. I done told you part of this story plenty of times. When you was just two days old, your mama died and you was starving to death. Olive, well she begged me to take you in, feed you—so I did. Early on, all I could think was, soon as you was off the breast, I’d send you back. And I meant to, but the longer I had you, the more that thought faded. I started thinking of you as mine, you was such a precious thing.” She squeezed me. “You still is. But I knew I couldn’t keep you. I kept telling myself I needed to tell you, so that when the time came, you’d be ready. I’m sorry Roy, so sorry. I just couldn’t never do it. We’ve been so happy together and I guess I just pretended if I didn’t tell you, then we could stay happy longer. But the time has come, and you must go.”

“But why Nettie, why can’t I stay here?”

She sighed. “The real world doesn’t allow for white boys to live in a colored home to be raised by a colored woman. Now with you growing up, folks are already starting to talk. I hear it behind our backs. Lately, I’ve been leaving you and Noah at home when I go to town because it could cause trouble. White folk and colored folk just don’t mingle. I even think there may be some laws against it.”

I didn’t understand. It made no sense. I kept asking why and Nettie kept trying to explain it. No matter what she said, or how hard I tried to grasp what she was saying, I couldn’t. 

After a hundred whys, Nettie finally gave up in exasperation and told me to hush, but I wouldn’t. I told her that I didn’t want to go and live with Olive. I didn’t want to be away from Noah. I was terrified at the thought of leaving my home, of leaving her.

The more I begged, the more I pleaded, the more resolute she became. Finally, when she couldn’t bear it any longer, she yelled. She said things that I knew were true, but I could not accept. “Roy, stop being such a pest! You aren’t my child. I didn’t adopt you, and I was never meant to raise you! You don’t belong here. I’m not your mother, and Noah is not your brother!”

Her words made me cry—loud, uncontrollable wailing with rivers of tears streaming down my face. Nettie had always been there to console me, to hug me, to dry my eyes and reassure me that I was going to be ok. But this time, she didn’t. She grabbed a laundry basket and went out the back door. She began gathering clothes from the clothesline. Noah came out onto the porch and sat beside me.

I don’t know how long I cried. I got so tired that I stopped for a little while, but then I looked at Noah and he looked at me and I started crying again. Noah joined in. We hugged and rocked back and forth. It was almost as good as a hug from Nettie. We finally quit crying and just sat there until the sun went down.

Later, when we went to bed, Nettie wrapped her arms around me and whispered in my ear. She told me over and over that everything was going to be fine. Grandma Olive and Uncle Thomas were family. They’d take care of me. I’d be happy there. Starting school next fall would open a whole new world for me. After what seemed like forever, she fell asleep. But I didn’t.

I lay in bed with Nettie breathing softly next to me. Noah was on her other side, sleeping soundly. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t imagine that it was going to be fine. I belonged with Nettie and Noah. I had shared a bed with them my whole life. When it was cold, we would huddle together in a tight knot. I liked being in the middle, but so did Noah. Noah was a heavy sleeper, so I’d let him have the middle and then lay awake until he was very still, and his breathing was deep and slow. That’s when I’d make my move, tunneling under the quilt and squirming in between him and Nettie. I’d fall asleep in seconds. In the morning, Noah would profess outrage at having been displaced. The confrontation usually ended with a wrestling match until Nettie lost her patience and threw us both out of the bed.

I tried to imagine what it would be like at Olive’s. Where would I sleep? Who would I sleep with? Noah and I were afraid to go to the privy at night. So, if one of us had to go, we both went. Would I have to go by myself now? Would Noah have to go alone as well? In my heart, I knew that Nettie would go with him.

There was so much to figure out, and I didn’t want to have to do that. Maybe when we got there, we would all sit around a table at Olive’s and talk it through. Nettie could explain everything. Once she finished telling Olive and Thomas what I would need, well, maybe everyone would decide that it was best if I just stayed with her. Or maybe Olive and Thomas would be so happy to see me, they would fall all over themselves trying to make everything just right. We’d even work out a plan where I could spend lots of time with Noah.

The heat and a long stretch of road with no shade pulled me back to the moment. It was a dry, hot August. Cornfields stretched out on either side. The leaves were drooping and the tassels on husks were withered. I could see a line of trees in the distance. I knew we were getting close.

When we reached Olive’s cabin, we were drenched in sweat. We approached just close enough to stand under an enormous live oak that stretched across the yard. The shade was a relief. Nettie stopped unexpectedly and still holding hands, Noah and I were jolted to a stop. I looked up at her and followed her gaze to Olive’s cabin. It looked about the same as ours, except it was rundown and ill kept. Nettie was obsessed with keeping our place spotless. In the spring, she’d spend hours pulling weeds and grass from the yard, all the way to the road. Once the ground was naked, she’d regularly sweep it. A few years ago, she hired a man to repair the siding and put a new metal roof on. She’d been painstakingly saving for years, and it had taken every penny we had.

Olive’s yard was deep in weeds and bushes. To see the whole cabin, you had to stand right where we were, on the narrow path that led from the road to the porch. The siding was gray and weathered. The roof was rusty. I watched Nettie scan her surroundings. I could sense her thoughts. She wanted to get on her hands and knees and start pulling weeds. I half expected her to do it and enlist us to help. That’s when Olive came out the front door.

Nettie locked her eyes on Olive. She placed her hand between my shoulder blades and gave me a gentle push. When I resisted, she moved her hand to my chin and turned my face toward hers. “It’s time to go Roy. You got family waiting. Don’t make your grandmother have to stand out in this heat. Go on now.”

I had never seen Nettie cry, and I wasn’t sure she was crying now. But her eyes seemed like deep pools, and she was blinking faster than seemed normal. I wrapped my arms around her leg.

Olive was squinting at us. “Roy, come on up now. I’m sure Miss Nettie has other business to attend to.” She gave a nod toward Nettie, but Nettie didn’t respond. 

That’s when Thomas limped out of the house. He was dirty and disheveled. He had a long gray beard that was stained at the corners of his mouth. Despite the heat, he wore a long-sleeved, heavy cotton shirt. He was skinny, and his threadbare pants were held up by thick suspenders. He offered a toothless grin. “Why howdy Miss Nettie. Ain’t you just looking fine! Why I know it’s been years since we last saw each other and yet you ain’t changed one bit. Say, you ever find yourself another man after that fella of yours up and left you? Willie was his name as I recall.”

A look came over Nettie’s face that I had never seen before. Without looking away from Olive and Thomas, she pulled me off her leg and put her hand back between my shoulder blades. But this time she shoved me, hard. I stumbled forward, and before I could recover, Nettie yanked Noah around and hurried away without a word. I wanted to run after them, get away from this place, but I knew I couldn’t. Nettie would just drag me back.

Bewildered, I looked back at the porch. Olive was motioning to me. “Come on child, get on up here and let me take a closer look at you. I haven’t seen you in what seems like forever, and I think you must be a foot taller than that last time; don’t you think so Thomas?”

Thomas leaned forward on his cane so that his head was just beyond the edge of the porch. He cleared his throat and spit. Brown spittle spiraled through the air. Some of it caught in his beard. He leered. “What are you now boy, five, six maybe? You a stunted little thing even for that age. I reckon you’ll be a dwarf your whole life—taking after your mother I suppose. Why, a stiff wind coulda blowed her all the way to the Carolinas.” His eyes brightened. “Or maybe you never got enough to eat, that Nettie making sure she and her boy always got their fill before you got any. That could explain it—or you need wormin', maybe both.”

Olive scowled. “You leave the boy alone Thomas and stop saying such awful things. Go on and get yourself back inside.” Thomas glared at Olive without moving. She stepped closer. “Do as I say or so help me, I’m gonna shove you off this porch and if the fall don’t kill you, I’ll come down and finish the job.”

Thomas turned and dragged himself toward the door. “No need to get all upset Olive. I’m just funnin’ with the boy. He got to be some use.”

I was paralyzed. I had no idea what was happening. Without speaking, Olive came down from the porch and ushered me into the cabin, my new home.

There was a front door and a back door. Both were open and a gentle breeze ran through the house. There were no windows. A canopy of live oaks sent branches above the roof that blocked out most of the sunlight. Even though it was only mid-afternoon, inside it felt like the sun was about to set.

It took a moment for my eyes to adjust. Thomas was sitting in a chair near the back door. There was a cast iron stove five feet from him. Its chimney barely cleared the top of the stove before turning ninety degrees and passing through the wall.

Olive took me to the stove and pointed to a pile of neatly folded quilts lying on the floor behind it. “This is where you’ll sleep Roy. We don’t light the stove much in the summer, but we try to keep it going all the time when the weather starts turning cold. It’ll be a blessing if you could see to it that the fire stays lit when we need it. We keep a stack of wood just outside the back door there. Its right hard on us if we have to get up at night to tend it.”

Thomas turned in his chair and glared. “What Olive is saying boy, if you’re going to live in this house, sleep here, eat our food, why then we expect you to earn it. You turn out to be a slackard, or you get contrary about what we tell you to do, then you’ll end up sleeping on the bare floor.”

I crouched under the stovepipe and crawled to my new bed. The quilts were old and worn, but clean. I ran my hand over the topmost. It was soft and thick.

“I sewed those quilts from flour sacks.” Olive announced from behind me. “Not much to look at and they surely wouldn’t win a prize at the fair, but they’ll keep you warm, even in February.” 

I turned and looked at her. “Miss Olive, will I be sleeping here all by myself?”

She must have seen the desperate look on my face. Her eyes widened and a tender smile crossed her lips. “I never knew until just this moment how much you look like your daddy. We call him Little John, even nowadays when he’s all grown up. When he was a babe, he had trouble with the ‘M’ sound, so when I tried to teach him to say mama, it always came out nana.” She shrugged her shoulders. “The name just stuck. Why don’t you call me Nana too?” She pointed to a narrow bed pushed against the far wall. “I sleep over there, it’s too narrow for two. Thomas sleeps in his chair. Besides, we’re way too old and stiff to be climbing down there with you. This can be your special place.”

Without another word, Olive walked to the table and started shelling peas. Thomas began snoring. I felt the sudden urge to pee, so I went out the backdoor looking for the privy. A narrow path from the cabin led to it. It seemed a long way off. I’d have to make sure I never needed to go there after dark.

Further on from the privy, there was a chicken coop with a run. Half a dozen hungry looking hens scratched in the bare earth. Not far from the coop, was a smoke house. I peaked in. It was empty. Behind the smoke house, was an area with large, blackened timbers jutting up at odd angles. Kicking through the debris, I found a rusted hay fork and some enormous hinges. There must have been a barn that burned down.

The path ended at a tiny stream. The water was clear and cool. As I walked along the edge, I spooked a frog that was sunning on a log. It arced through the air and splashed into the water. A few minnows darted around the commotion. At Nettie’s, we got our water from a tiny brook that fed the Sweetwater Branch. With the path coming back this far, I figured this is where Olive and Thomas got their water.

Dinner was a meager affair. The food was alright, but the portions were small, half an ear of boiled corn, a few chunks of new potato, a tiny slice of some sort of potted meat. No one spoke as we ate. Dinner with Nettie and Noah could be raucous. Noah and I were always in competition, vying for the most elaborate adventure story of the day. Nettie would listen attentively and always laugh when something was supposed to be funny.

I helped Olive wash the dishes and put them away. Thomas returned to his roost. There was a stool with a big pillow on it in front of the chair.  I watched as he struggled to get his left leg up onto it. When he saw me staring, he frowned. “I shouldn’t have to say something boy. Get over here and help me.”

While I helped Thomas get comfortable, Olive sat back down at the table. She lit a candle and pulled some knitting needles out of a bag at her side. She examined the results of her previous effort, then she began knitting. Without looking up, she announced, “I’m making a sweater for you Roy. It’s likely to take me a month or two. It should be ready by the time you need it.”

I watched, transfixed, as her plump, gnarled fingers effortlessly guided the needles around the thread. The hypnotic movement cast a spell on me, and in a few moments, I felt my eyelids getting heavy. A yawn escaped my lips.

“It’s been a long day Roy, why don’t you go crawl into your new bed?” Olive said without looking up from her work.

I nodded and crawled under the stovepipe. It was too warm to get under the quilts, so I laid on top. I rolled onto my back and stared at the rafters. A second ago, I was falling asleep standing up, and now, lying here, I was suddenly wide awake.

I tried to understand the day. It was impossible. Perhaps in the morning I would ask Olive what the trouble was between them and Nettie. It sure seemed to me that something had happened that caused a divide. But then I thought better of it. It might make Olive mad. She wasn’t anything like Nettie, but she seemed nice enough. She was kind when she talked to me and now, she was making a sweater for me. If I got the chance, I could share stories about what it was like being with Nettie and Noah. Once she got a better picture, she’d have to like them. Then they would become friends.

Thomas was different. Always seemed angry. Maybe it was his leg. Maybe it pained him so much that it colored his whole world, made him angry with everything and everyone. That had to be it. I can work on that. Make sure he has as little discomfort as possible. Do what I can to soothe his misery.

I rolled onto my side and wiggled into the quilts. I tossed and turned. I tried leaning against the wall, but it was hard and straight. I started to cry. Just tears at first, then sniffles, then long soft wails punctuated with sobs.

I heard Thomas shift in his chair. Then his voice rang out. “I expect you to quit that caterwauling right now. We won’t have it. Quit it now or I’ll take my cane to you.”

I rolled onto my hands and knees. I crawled under the stovepipe and scurried to the front door. It was still open. There was a halfmoon that made the yard brighter than the dark cabin. I ran down the path and onto the road.

An hour later, exhausted, I stumbled into our yard and called out to Nettie. Sleepy-eyed, she met me on the porch dressed in her nightgown. Noah was standing behind her. He was holding onto Nettie’s gown. His eyes were wide and there was a faint smile on his face. He looked happy to see me.

“What on earth you doing back here, Roy?”

I hadn’t planned on having to explain it. She had to know. I looked down at the floor. Nettie’s bare feet peaked out from under her gown. Her toes were curled like she was trying to hold on. I looked back up, trying to read her face in the darkness. “They made me sleep by myself on the floor. I don’t like it there. Please let me stay, please.”

Nettie’s shoulders slumped. She reached out, put her hand behind my head, and pulled me to her. I grabbed her leg and put an arm around Noah. We stood like that for a while, Nettie softly running her fingers through my hair.

“You can stay the night. But in the morning, you’re going back and this time you’re staying.” We went into the house and climbed into bed. Curled up beside Nettie and Noah, I was asleep in seconds.

Nettie was all business in the morning. We had a hasty breakfast and then she grabbed my hand and pulled me out the door. Noah started to follow, but Nettie shook her head. “You stay inside ‘til I get back Noah. I won’t be gone long.”

It was early, and the air wasn’t hot yet. Nettie walked so fast that I almost had to run to keep up with her. If I fell behind, she pulled on my arm. We got to the corn fields, and I could see the tree line that was just before Olive’s cabin. Nettie stopped and kneeled so that we were eye to eye. Her face was stern. “This is a far as I’m going Roy. I’m going back. You’re going on to Olive’s, and you’re going to stay. I’m done fighting with you. I got better things to do. If you come back to my house, why I’ll get Sheriff Martin to arrest you for trespass. You ain’t welcome anymore.” She stood up. Now get on, get out of my sight.”

She pushed me toward Olive’s. I stumbled a few steps, stopped and looked back. Nettie was standing with her hands on her hips. She looked angry, but tears were running down her cheeks. She whispered goodbye, turned, and started back down the road as fast as she could go.

Coming Full Circle

Imagine the magic a circle holds, its infinite points—dotted or passing through. Imagine my Tagalog and accent erased, so that I could pass.

I uncovered my mother’s dictionaries in the towel cabinet, her scribbles: proof of definition and memorization. Perfecting English helped her pass.

For the sixth-grade spelling bee, I studied intensely, circling only unfamiliar words, burning them into my brain. My mother, orbiting me. And I passed.

Imagine the power of a trophy or a medal, to a child, the rounded
glory beaming from the walls. My wild and free daughter, wanting to pass.

Is she yours? people say to me. Is that your mom? children ask her, studying her coils and caramel skin. From my womb, you grew. Through my body, you passed.

My anxiety rises like a rocket flare, brief but real, being in a fully
Filipino space. Even in a white space. Oh, but you’ll be fine. You pass.

Pass me courage, make us all balls of limitless love and identity. Here is the open field. Pull back, do a double roulette, and pass.

Have we come full circle? Are we still fishing out words and phrases from the stream, afraid to awake the sleeping eye and ashamed of the past?

There is a description for identity confusion, this lostness: Ang Pilipinong nawawala sa sarili. To not always belong or pass.

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This poem—a loose ghazal—echoes concepts and Tagalog phrases from Leny Mendoza Strobel’s book Coming Full Circle: The Process of Decolonization Among Post-1965 Filipino Americans (2nd edition). The “sleeping eye” references page 6 where Strobel discusses the Filipino American community’s “identity crisis,” traditional Filipino values versus modern American values,” and the “invisible minority and the sleeping giant.” The loss of language guilt and shame is further contextualized on page 130 (“Why didn’t you maintain the language? Why didn’t you teach me?”).