On I-66

by Kimberly L. Becker 

At Manassas the highway stained with blood 
from where you hit the deer or seepage from 
the Civil War (you didn’t hit the deer 
but might have or perhaps you hit the person 
whose bicycle—front wheel and severed frame 
was one of three incongruous symbols 
seen that day as you drove towards Roanoke, 
the others being a group of three white horses 

and a stone bridge to nowhere now--now here?) 

And in your highway reach of mind you held 
sadness swaddled like an infant, stillborn, 
and said goodbye to every inch of it, 
examined it the way they say elephants 
do their dead, exploring all the contours 
in a ritual of grief, saying God be 
with you or in Cherokee or German 
until we meet again, knowing that you wouldn’t 

“On I-66,” was first published in The Dividings, by Kimberly L. Becker © 2014 Wordtech Communications LLC, Cincinnati, Ohio. Reprinted with permission. 

Kimberly L. Becker is author of Words Facing East; The Dividings (WordTech Editions), and Flight (forthcoming, MadHat Press). Her poems appear widely in journals and anthologies, including Indigenous Message on Water; Women Write Resistance: Poets Resist Gender Violence; and Tending the Fire: Native Voices and Portraits (University of New Mexico Press). She has received grants from MD, NJ, and NC and held residencies at Hambidge, Weymouth, and Wildacres. Kimberly has read at venues such as The National Museum of the American Indian (Washington, DC), Split This Rock, and Wordfest. She has served as a mentor for PEN America's Prison Writing Program and AWP's Writer to Writer Program. www.kimberlylbecker.com

Hearsay

by Deborah Jang 

They say you sang like an angel 
on that island in the bay 
where foghorns drowned out 
nighttime murmurs : children’s 
names recited, prayers to deaf 
dumb gods, poems chiseled into 
barrack walls, lives left out 
in the rain. 

I heard them say I have your giggle 
and your preference for peaches. 
I never touched your flesh or face 
but this is what I gather: 
From Fat Yuen to Gold Mountain, 
from girl to wife now claimed, 
tides ferried you from village 
hearth to far foggy days. 

The island where the angels weep 
nabbed you just offshore. Offered 
a thin blanket, cold rice, 
interrogations, and a dreary 
three month chill. Finally you 
and Gong Chow found a spot 
to land on. You served up rice 
to sailors and to homesick fellows 
hungry for your song. 

My mother June, your feisty first, 
Roslyn and David followed. 
Restaurant shiny, children strong, 
then came the day to return, 
history called you home to China. 
June refused to go along and kept 
Roslyn too. The clouds and tides 
that brought you here, ushered 
you back through. 

Within two years word arrived 
Gong Chow died in China 
like he wanted. One month later 
on a whisper you too passed 
away. Especially on misty days 
I listen for your song:

I know your fathoms of despair, 
your gentle grasp on pleasure. 
The peace of spirit that you seek 
encompasses all in-betweens, 
measures life in graces. Though 
ocean tides rip heart from heart, 
the interwash of time and tide 
returns us deep to deep. 

© Deborah Jang. All Rights Reserved. 

Deborah Jang writes her way through the mysteries, perplexities, and joys of being human — on this planet, at this moment, in this skin. She is also a visual artist, engaging connection through forms and objects. She wanders between Denver, CO and Oceanside, CA; between mind and heart; between land and sea. She invites you to visit her website at deborahjang.com

Urban Fauna

by Kim Shuck 

You know how the deer on Market Street are 
With their stoplight eyes 
Picking their way down old runoff paths 
Past the disappearing relocated indigenous women 
The ravens are here to sing us visible 
Drumming on their collection of upended pots and Industrial buckets 
Don't you tell me how we've changed 
We were right there Near the department store 
Near the burial sites Singing to the ancestors 
This isn't an abstract gesture 
It's not a schoolroom exercise 
There are predators here 
And the maps of safe passage change every day 
And the wind comes up in the afternoon 
Don't you tell me how we've changed 
The roots of this hill have learned what to call us 
Just about 
Our clothes collected for the festival 
Our family members taken to who knows 
You might just sit down and listen for a change 
I'm not part of your curriculum 
We're a whole other thing 
Light reflecting off of the miles of glass 
How many feet deep was it? 
Can you hear the water like shattered windows 
Piled just like them 
Just there where the tall buildings lean like stealing 

© Kim Shuck. All rights reserved.

Kim Shuck is a complicated equation with an irrational answer. Shuck is the current and 7th poet laureate of San Francisco and will have a new book out from City Lights Press in the Fall. www.kimshuck.com

Alphabet of the Republic

by Chip Livingston

Always I’m asked what I love about Uruguay.

Because the food, I say, because the people. Because the rhythm of the place, the Culture. Carnaval. Candombe

Drums that demand I dance. It’s different:

Everything. Its Education – free through university and evidently effective. Everyone seems wise, well-read, and worldly. It’s egalitarian. And though I know one Richie Rich, the majority of people are equal. They treat each other as equals. It’s

Fun, I mean, fatal, just

Going to the grocery store, a walk in my

Hawaianas to practice my holas. The Healthcare – universal and fucking fantastic.

lemanja, the goddess of the ocean. Idea Vilariño, the first poet whose collected works I read entirely in Spanish.

Jacarandas.  

Karaoke at Il Tempo. Kioskos to buy my tobacco y hojillas.

Loros, the small green parrots that top the palmeras. La Paloma in Rocha, where I’ve beached seven summers.

Llaves antiguas – old skeleton keys to open my doors, and, oh man, the beautiful doors of Uruguay. There are photo books and collage posters of the puertas in Montevideo. I take

Mate at merienda, I

Nap at siesta,

Obey the rhythms of my borrowed land.

Public transportation. Public wifi. Public Welfare. Public exercise equipment. Institutions that actually serve the public.

Queso. I guess it makes sense that if Uruguay has the most natural beef in the world, its dairy would be as pure. Quince paste, which they call membrillo, and I have a story about that for another time.

Really it’s remarkable I haven’t mentioned the meat.

Rrrreally rrrremarkable but

Seriously, Uruguay outlawed antibiotics and hormones in its livestock in the 1970s, it’s banned Monsanto and GMOs, imported

Transgenic foods are marked with a yellow triangled T.  Tomatoes still taste like tomatoes in

Uruguay; bananas still have seeds. It’s a long trip south but

Vale la pena. Now if I shortened “vale la pena” to just “vale,” it would suggest I’m from Spain. The abridged version in Uruguay is “dale,” used like “okay,” pero ta,

You know I love learning those distinctions between spellings and palabras.

Zorrilla.

Zorrilla’s on the twenty-peso note, which you can imagine as a dollar, Juan Zorrilla de San Martin, an epic Uruguayan poet, whose home, bought by scholars of the state, is now a national museum; a street and park are named for him. Juana de Ibarbourou appears on the thousand peso, another poet. The hundred peso features Eduardo Fabini, a musician and composer. Do you know what I’m getting at? The Uruguayan money has artists and thinkers on it. And I think about the killers I carry in my U.S. wallet.

Zumba, my first onomatopoetic Spanish word, the drowsy bee’s buzz.

Yerba Mate, obviously, if you know me. I’ve nearly always got a mate full of yerba, the Guaraní herb that motors the world’s most nocturnal country, Uruguay.

Xcept Uruguay isn’t really the country’s name. No tiene nombre oficial but is officially known as La República Oriental del Uruguay, the republic east of the Uruguay River, referencing itself by location, by the X on the upside-down map, and uses the indigenous name of the nearby river, this cattle country crossed and bordered by rivers and sea, its bays a sweet and salty mix,

Which are just some of why and what I love about this watery paisito, the first time I met her crossing the Río de la Plata from Buenos Aires, on a whim, a mention, just the first weekend of a 10-day escape from North American winter with another U.S. writer. We decided within 24 hours to stay the entire holiday in Uruguay.

Verdad. Era verano. It was summer in our wintertime. Carnaval. And we toured the Atlantic beaches, convinced we’d been secreted into a kind of heaven, as if the venteveos saw and sung to us, the velas lit for Iemanja an extraordinary riverside welcome, warm beacons with carnations, coins, watermelons. Y acá volvimos, vivíamos, y yo vivo de nuevo.

Uruguay. Uruguay. Uruguay.
“Ur-u-guay? You’re a guy?”
“Ur-u-guay? You’re a gay?”You’re a single gay guy living in Uruguay? Que suerte, che! Uuuuu!

Ta! It’s tranquilo, and truth be told, todavía no sé what it is to be exact. Todo: los tomates, las tortas fritas, los teros, el tortugon, el tango, los tambores. The drum groups in the streets, the people on their feet, the two beats that keep the culture dancing. Los tambores. Los tangueros. The tango. The tambores. And los Tupamaros.

Spanish as a second language. I’d studied a semester with a Spaniard, had Cuban friends teach me to cuss, heard my share of Puerto Rican pillow talk, but learning to speak Uruguayan Spanish, No es poca cosa. No es Catalán, cierto, pero casi Canario, an idioma of opposites, where a former prison is now a luxury shopping mall and the current prison is called Freedom, where barbaric and fatal are adjectives for amazing, where to experience joy is to die or to be killed by something. Sino es así, no? O sí? Sí no? See?

RR. Errrrrrrrre. Mi perrita, mi porro, mi ferrocarril. Mi fat yankee tongue trying to roll the double RR. Joderrrrrrrr!

Really, I don’t know if that will work on the page. The Rambla: among my first and constant appreciations, Montevideo’s Rambla is 13.7 miles of uninterrupted sidewalk along the river and up the Atlantic coast; it’s where Montevideanos ramble, rest, relax, and meet for mate, to read, to exercise, to take sun, run. Its rhythms still and accelerate me. Requesón.

Que tal? How’s it going? Quizás you’re wondering how much love for this little country I’m going to share. I’ll try to be quicker.

Pero el problema es you can’t rush a Uruguayan, and I am growing more Yourugua every day, and there are a lot of things I love in the republic that start with P: poets, there are so many poets, and the people actually read poetry. There are poems etched in marble in public plazas. The people read! And the people are kind, helpful, pretty and peaceful – until it comes to fútbol, then it’s back to the killing metaphors. But Pizza. Pasta. Pan de Azúcar, where I saw a live wild black puma in a sheep pasture. Ah, population statistics: there are seven sheep for every human in Uruguay and there are four cows for each person. Palermo. Piriapolis. Parque Rodó. Cabo Polonio. Punta del Diablo. Palos borachos.  

Olímpicos and other sandwiches de miga. Las ondas buenas, ojalá, y obvio eating

Ñoquis on the 29^th  of every month.

Niños envueltos, delicious sausage in cabbage with a tortuous name, wrapped children. Riquísimos son.

Mira! Mate, mimos, mercados, murgas, the meat (see “Carne”), medialunas at merienda, the extra meal. They have four meals a day in Uruguay! And merienda suits me, soothes mi hambre at North American dinnertime. I have to mention Mujica, the former president, his example, history, and his changing the face of the republic to el mundo.

Lluvia. I love the fucking rain in Uruguay and it’s a good thing because this country is elemental, water falling into water, sky and sea, sea and earth, sol and sky, where llamadas call me to my feet for their ensayas y desfiles.

Lemeyun, and I’m even allergic to onions, but this Armenian-inspired Uruguayan dish is like, paf!, a grilled pita bread topped with spiced citrus beef ceviche.

Kisses – abundant as bread – and everything starts and ends with a beso. How tender and wholesome and masculine and shattering of macho North American stereotypes of how two humans can so naturally touch each other. Granted this is one kiss on the cheek, but there are exponential expressions of their comfort with intimacy.

JAJAJA is how they text laughter. Y les gusta reir. And I laugh at how distant my language just got when I spoke of showing affection. I have a lot to learn yet. Jamón y queso. Juas? 

lemanja, I have mentioned, an important figure in my knowing the country and my gratitude. Part of my introduction,

How we arrived the first time the weekend of her birthday, February 2, and joined Montevideo on Playa Ramirez to light candles and leave her regalos on the sand and in the sea. Olas de hermosas holas. Horneros. Y hombres excepcionales.  Guapos. Guapas. Gauchos. And Gooooooooooooooooool! We’ve gotten to Fútbol! And I’ve become a fanatic. Ya fui a mi first clásico, between Peñarol y Nacional, and now only lack one task to becoming unofficially Uruguayan – learning to play truco – but of my fondness for the other game. Obviously it has a lot to do with futbolistas. Fainá. Y bueno ta, no falta mucho para el fin, and 

Everything yet to be said yet an expression of some sorts shared. Empanadas. I don’t know if Uruguay invented the tango or empanadas, but it has perfected them.

Desfiles of diversity and marches for more derechos humanos, and the country is already known to be the most humanitarian in the Americas. The first country in the world to legalize marijuana, the first country to allow a woman to file for divorce, one of the few Latin American countries where abortion is safe and legal. Gay marriage, claro, like it was never a question. Uruguay elected a transgender senator and a female vice president.

Chorizos, choripán, chivitos! But Che, escuchame, the way Italian, Spanish, and African genes have mixed with los Charrua.

Carne, the best meat in the world. Happy cows and 52 cuts of beef: pulpón, asado, entrecot, lomo, nalga, peceto, vacío, colita de cuadril, morcilla sweet or salty, chinchulín, chorizo. I dated a carnicero. I dated a cowboy. Carnival drums and murgas, parades and bailarinas, las comparsas, la cumparsita, a never-ending series of cenas and cumples.

But because the rhythm of the place I say, because the people: because the food, which centers on the Asado, the barbecue, and ends with aplausos for the asador.

First published in Carve magazine in 2018

Copyright © Chip Livingston. All rights reserved.

Chip Livingston is the author of a novel, a collection of essays and stories, and two poetry collections. His writing has appeared on the Academy of American Poets’ and the Poetry Academy’s websites; and in Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, New American Writing, and other journals and anthologies. Chip teaches in the low-rez MFA program at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, NM. 
He lives in Montevideo, Uruguay.

Comfort Food

by Dawn Downey 

The to-go box on the kitchen counter held a piece of apple pie, a reward for toiling at my computer all morning after a breakfast date with my husband. I savored the anticipation as much as I was about to savor the pie. I imagined the treat nestled inside the box—a deep wedge of sweetness, the peaks of the crust a golden brown and the valleys glinting with sugar. It would be overstuffed with thick filling, an apple slice or two escaping the triangle. How the house would fill with the sweet aroma of hot apple pie when I heated it in the oven. Fork in hand, I opened the box. Staring me in the face was a pile of burnt crust pieces and goop that looked like something swept up from the floor. You call this pie? Scraps. 

Assholes. I can’t believe they pulled this. I should have checked the box before we left. No. I shouldn’t have to check. Maybe they didn’t pull anything. Sometimes pie comes out of the pan messy. Don’t make excuses for them. You might give this to a relative, not to a customer. Who did it? And did they know who the customer was? Assholes. 

As my husband and I pulled into the parking lot of a neighborhood cafe, freezing wind whipped the Stars and Stripes around a flagpole. The lot was packed with pick-ups, except for four off-duty police cruisers. I shoved my hands in my pockets and used Ben as a wind-break, crossing the lot to the restaurant, a red barn with green awnings. The kind of place frequented by regulars, which did not include me, my experience limited to one catfish lunch. Ben ate there often with a buddy. 

A bakery case spotlighted cobbler, cake, cinnamon rolls, and golden wedges of apple pie. The cops lounged at a round table, heads bowed, fingers at work on the keys of their cell phones. I scanned the room for non-white faces (There were none.) and simultaneously chastised myself for the automatic reaction. Beside the pass-through to the kitchen, a life-sized wooden pig held a sign ordering Eat More Chicken. Above the case, another sign boasted Home Cookin’. Just what I needed. Comfort food. In comfort food cafes, the servers were efficient, and they always called me honey. I had a soft spot for both qualities. 

A hostess approached, her expression set in a snarl. She glanced in my direction just long enough to ignore me, then shifted her slitty-eyed attention to a spot near Ben’s feet. “Two?” she asked. 

I knew that move. My sister and I had used it on each other when we were feuding. 

The hostess might have intended the attitude for me in particular, or she might have intended it for both of us. It was also possible a general bad mood had plastered the sneer on her face before we walked in. Ben didn’t seem to notice, much female nonverbal communication being under the male radar. He pointed to a vintage motorcycle balanced on top of a waist-high room divider. “Yeah, two. There’s a spot I like over by the Indian.” 

She’d already shuffled toward stools lined up at a counter. She veered from her original course and headed toward the divider. 

Ben said, “I mean the other side. It’s quieter. That okay?” 

“Wherever you want.” I only saw the back of her head, but I could tell she was rolling her eyes. She led us to a booth, where she dropped two menus onto the table. “Your waitress … “ Her departure swallowed the remainder of the sentence. 

A hook poked from a nearby coat rack, so I reached out to hang my parka. A customer was sitting across the room, glaring over her shoulder at me. I was used to catching an initial gawk when I walked into a room, and then the gawker’s face usually warmed into an embarrassed smile. This woman was ice. She spooked me. She parted her lips, and her companion slow-motioned his stare in my direction. I refused to turn away. Mouths set in twin grimaces, they stared for as long as it took me to hang my coat and fumble out of scarf and hat. I’d seen the expression before—on a couple of good ole boys in a little mountain town. They’d been sitting on chairs outside a pool hall, their legs stretched across the sidewalk, blocking my progress. Mouths frozen in twin grimaces, they waited a beat, then slow-motioned their resentful legs out of the way. 

When I shuddered into the booth, the placement of the table put my back to the couple. Damned if I didn’t land in the path of another poison stare. The woman sat alone in a corner, elbows on her table, coffee cup cradled in her hands. Eyes narrowed, she peered through the steam rising from her cup. Her shoulders were squared as she leaned forward, facing me head-on. She didn’t break eye contact. I was shocked. It was the glare that a guy in a rusted pick-up had used on me years before—both of us stopped at a red light. He’d made eye contact, held it, and then spat out his window. 

Ben studied his menu. I simmered. 

If I mentioned the incidents, how would the conversation go? Me: These people are staring at me. Ben: Well, yeah. You’re beautiful. Me: It’s not funny. And then I’d throw a fit. Or, Ben: Honey I’m sorry. Want to go somewhere else? Me: Let these people chase me off? And then I’d explode. Whatever he might say, I’d blow up. Anger concealed a tangle of other feelings I couldn’t unravel on the spot. Better to bury the knot under pancakes. 

Our server walked over. She was blue-collar skinny, and tension parted in the wake of her unhurried ease. “How are you folks, this morning?” She filled Ben’s cup without needing to ask him, warmth radiating from more than the coffee pot. “Need another minute?” 

I pointed to Number 6 on the menu. “Nope. Pancakes and eggs.” 

“How you want your egg, honey?” 

Servers who called me honey always took good care of me. I relaxed. 

“Scrambled.” Ben said, “Biscuits and gravy.” 

Before I had time to enumerate the ways that choice would shorten his lifespan, she set the plates in front of us. “I’ll be back to check on you.” After the pancakes did their job, I sipped hot tea. A border of chickens marched along the top of the walls, complemented by vintage tin signs. We Feed Our Chickens Gooch’s Best, bragged one. I chuckled at another, a hen that proclaimed He Rules the Roost, But I Rule the Rooster. My rooster and I solved the world’s problems, in between groans of satisfaction. Our server breezed by again to top off Ben’s cup. It seemed her timing was set by a secret code that passed between coffee-drinkers and servers. The magic of the transaction made me smile, and I shook my head in wonder as she walked into the second dining room. “How does she—” I froze. There above the doorway, next to Sweet Lassy Feeds, hung a movie poster for Gone With the Wind. 

But I did not see Scarlet O'Hara and Rhett Butler. I saw bloody stripes on naked black backs. I did not see a love story, I saw slavery. 

Despair and rage threatened to boil over. But I was on a spontaneous date with my husband; it had been my idea. Hell, I’d even picked the place. If I succumbed to my feelings, then the restaurant won. If I shared my feelings with Ben, the restaurant won anyway, by controlling my conversation. I would tell Ben later, at home. The restaurant would not win. 

A phantom self, covered in the slime of partially-digested insults, slipped from her tomb deep within my gut. While I caressed my husband’s fingertips, the phantom wailed, smashed plates, and threw chairs. She ripped the poster from the wall and set fire to— 

Our server gathered up our dirty dishes. “Honey, you got room for dessert?” 
 “Apple pie, please. To go.”

Fork in hand, I opened the box on the kitchen counter. Inside was a heap of burnt crust pieces and goop. 

Assholes. They’d piled scraps in my to-go box. I stared, open-mouthed. Scraps where there ought to be pie. But sometimes pie comes out of the pan messy. Don’t make excuses. But who filled the box? Maybe they didn’t know who the customer was. Maybe this is just about sloppy customer service. Yeah. Maybe. 

I was sick of the constant onslaught. Little things and big things. Repeatedly pulled over blocks from my house for two miles over the speed limit. People who bragged they were color blind. Magazine covers—their dark-skinned celebrities photo-shopped four shades lighter. Pairing up in diversity training class, my white colleagues picked each other and left me standing alone, the black trainer and me staring our disbelief/belief at each other. The neighbor who’d confronted me on my daily walk. “I’ve never seen you. Where do you live?” The straight-haired friend who wanted my nappy-hair dreadlocks, but she sure didn’t want my nappy-hair life. I was a news story on a loop: assault, protest, investigation, no indictment, protest, silence. Repeat. 

Maybe they hadn’t known who’d ordered dessert to-go. Yeah. Maybe. I lay my fork beside the open box. 

White privilege: the ability to attribute mangled pie to bad service. 

© Dawn Downey. All rights reserved.

Dawn Downey is the author of three memoirs: Searching for My Heart: Essays about Love, From Dawn to Daylight: Essays, and Stumbling Toward the Buddha: Stories about Tripping over My Principles on the Road to Transformation. She writes to spread kindness. By writing about her daily challenges, she sees the workings of her mind. In conversations with her fans, she learns that most minds work the same way. She hopes readers will lovingly accept the similarities—in themselves, their loved ones, and the people who drive them crazy. She lives in Kansas City MO with her husband, Ben Worth. Connect with her at dawndowney.com