THE ASBURY REVIEWFALL 2011

EDITORGabe Webb

DESIGNERAnna Bloom

FACULTY ADVISORDr. Marcia Hurlow

STAFFTiffany BeverlyDavid BrunerMichael GroutBrenna HowardJessica MalloyThaddeus Stewart

COVER PHOTO“Decadance”

Thaddeus Stewart

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

PSALM 42:1-2April Wackerly 4

HUMMINGBIRDTiffany Beverly 5

UNTITLEDTodd Bagley 6

IN DEFENSE OF WANDERINGJoel Sams 8

A THOUGHT!Ben Marchal 9

FOGKenton Sena 10

THE PEOPLE BRIDGERebecca Landry 11

WRITER’S DILEMMATiffany Beverly 12

ANCHORKayce Price 14

A VISION IN SEED TIMEDavid Bruner 15

FIRST LOOK AT A CAMERABrian Troyer 16

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INHERITANCEGabe Webb 17

ASLEEP ON THE TSamuel Miller 18

THE MAPLE TREEJerry Lynn Grugin, Jr. 19

UNTITLEDAlex Caldwell 20

ENVOYDavid Bruner 22

SOUVENIRMea Adams & Logan Dennison 23

LIBERTY BOULEVARDWill Houp 24

WOUNDED STAREBrian Troyer 33

I AM THE SEA MONSTER IN YOUR WASHING MACHINEGabe Webb 34

UNTITLEDTodd Bagley 35

THE WINDOW Joel Sams 36

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PSALM 42:1-2April Wackerly

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HUMMINGBIRDTiffany Beverly

The ruby red dashes through my line of vision,

slicing through the predominant grey skies.

Love, what has caused you to stay so late?

My dear, accept no substitutes for your sustenance.

The false nectar that you drink

is a poison more strong than sweet.

From coneflowers and daisies

only browned stems and bowed heads remain.

Heed advice from this broken soul,

leave this place before icy raindrops

bring your fragile form to the ground.

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UNTITLEDTodd Bagley

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IN DEFENSE OF WANDERINGJoel Sams

Had Helen stayed discreetly chaste at home

And Menelaus kept his pride intact,

Would all the nations have agreed upon the fact

That she, though somewhat over-wont to roam,

Got but her due when Troy was sacked?

Had Helen never gone to Ilium

She would have been an ordinary wife,

And in her aging years made bold

To speculate on how she’d undersold

Herself, and wished she’d tried Parisian life.

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A THOUGHT!Ben Marchal

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FOGKenton Sena

Breaking light

inspires lifeless shroud

to incandesce, become

smokeless white flame

rippling up from the water

into nothing…

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THE PEOPLE BRIDGERebecca Landry

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WRITER’S DILEMMATiffany Beverly

Stephen sat typing furiously at his writing desk. The cold keys of the typewriter clicked underneath his fingertips. The two o’clock train would soon pass by; it was his signal to stop writing. However, today he decided not to stop. He had no control over the decision, though, because his main character, Jerome, was in the middle of a serious contemplation of his life. Jerome had been kidnapped by gypsies as a child and never knew his father, or his mother. Stephen felt horrible for Jerome, especially since it was his own fault, as the author, that Jerome didn’t know his father. The train had passed by. Two engines and sixty-eight cars total; he always counted. Now Jerome was walking along the road. England had changed before his very eyes. The England that Jerome had wandered as a white gypsy child was changing. Stephen scoffed. He rubbed his clean shaven chin with his hand. England was changing, and not for the good. Stephen took a sip from a cheaply painted blue china cup. The fact that the lines overlapped and did not match bothered him. This was nothing like what he had grown up with at his parents’ house. He was the son of an aristocratic family. Following his dreams had led him to this dreary flat with this dreary life. He sighed, looking out the sooty window at the smokestacks, remembering the first time he saw them when he was moving to London with Caroline. He imagined Jerome seeing the same smokestacks for the first time. Turning back to the typewriter, he recommenced slowly, contemplating each letter. Now Jerome was walking down the train tracks. He was still contemplating his life in a very Dickens- esque fashion. His adoptive family had abandoned him to the city, the city with metal bowers and fires that were never extinguished. Stephen’s mind drew on the England of his childhood to write Jerome’s memories. He recalled the rolling green hills punctuated with white sheep on his family estate. He remembered the frigid and clear willow lined streams that he had waded in. He remembered the fresh air and the vibrant green of the plants. His hands faltered on the keys. These memories had to stop. His novel was getting nowhere, and this novel had to sell. The grandfather clock in the parlor sounded the half hour. Tea would be ready soon. Caroline would soon be wondering what was holding him up. He stared at the bare boards of the floor, walls and ceiling of his

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writing office. There was no inspiration here. He grabbed his mackintosh and umbrella. He slipped quietly down the servant’s stairway and out the back kitchen. The wormy fishy scent of rain mixed with the petrol scent of industry. Stephen walked along the lane of quickly built and scantily clad houses. The train tracks followed the row of houses, or rather the houses had followed the tracks. He walked to the main yard. He imagined Jerome standing in the same place. He imagined that he was Jerome. His hair suddenly felt longer. He reached up and touched it. It almost didn’t surprise him that his hair was long and stringy. He felt the rain on his shoulders. His mackintosh and umbrella had dissolved. He balanced one foot on the train track. His old, yet well polished dress shoes were now ragged and holey. He felt the cold metal on the ball of his foot. He kept walking. These tracks led out of town. Stephen or Jerome, or Stephen Jerome, whoever he was now, turned his back on the smokestacks and industrial buildings, and turned his face towards country. He closed his eyes and kept walking, putting one worn shoe in front of the other. He could hear the roar of the wind on the moors. He could see the brightness of the sunlight. His eyelids turned orange with the power of the light. He heard two warning whistle blasts, and then he felt something sharp, and then nothing. By dinner time his wife was frantic. The tea tray sat untouched in the parlor. Her hair was undone, and her hands were red from wringing. Caroline broke Stephen’s one rule: she went into his office and read what was on his typewriter. She covered her mouth in horror as she read about Jerome walking on the train tracks. She saw the train coming. She saw her husband in this man’s holey shoes. She would have fainted onto the floor had the doorbell not rang. Caroline steadied herself, and walked down the stairs. The door opened to reveal a gypsy man holding a body. “This is address I found in his pocket. He look like one of us,” he said in broken English with a Romany accent. The man in his arms did look strangely familiar. But he was not dressed right. His hair was too long, his skin too dark and worn out by the sun. He looked like a breathless version of the man in Stephen’s story. Covering her mouth in horror, she refused to believe that it was possible. “No, no, I do not recognize him,” Caroline said shakily as she closed the door. He would be back by tea time tomorrow. He had to be.

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ANCHORKayce Price

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A VISION IN SEEDTIMEDavid Bruner

The word sung was roots

and loam, the stuff

of earth, burrowing ever

deeper into my brain.

It was in a language

I had no knowledge

of, but I understood that

at its command, green

shoots would burst forth

from my overripe eyes,

exposing my soul’s fruit

to the searching sun.

Seed-prophet, organic

Tiresias, I would wander

the earth, feeling out every

subtle shade of green.

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FIRST LOOK AT A CAMERABrian Troyer

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INHERITANCEGabe Webb

Without pulsation, undulationthe muddy banks disintegrate, exhaled grain by grain, sighing into silica dregs and reeds. The swamp relaxes.

The sisters sleep in their inheritance:the hotel perched at water’s edge. They’ve sold the crystal chandeliers,the hand-painted china. The claw-foot tubswere carried out.

The act of theft is not passivity,unless by an other force. This foggedglass reflects stalks of grass. This amberhouses the living skeletons and dissolves the dead.

A will is constant, their father’s will in flux. And how wholly could the man articulateeither? Like a willow’s shadow tackedto the foot of a bullfrog, the staticbecomes an effigy of dynamism.

Swelling the pylons, then the floorboards,as soil turns silt, the stilts collapse as water’s edge plots. And the sisters sleepin the tomb they were grantedby a paper and ink.

A pile of slats and shingles, empty,is what the executor left on the sisters’doorstep.

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ASLEEP ON THE TSamuel Miller

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THE MAPLE TREEJerry Lynn Grugin, Jr.

The young maple stands still

while the night surrounds

stiff leaves, looking crisp.

Where is the ghostly wind

that makes quiet limbs

rattle in the midnight air?

Where are the animals who

would make their den

amidst the comfort of smooth bark?

The tree stands reaching out

to the night hands who

caress the leaves, thinking nothing.

And the tree feels and tingles,

and it has movement inside

as the sap flows under the

hard shell which protects life.

The jagged limbs form

structure and give shape

to an otherwise chaotic symbol,

a representation of wonder,

a marvel of creation.

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ENVOYDavid Bruner

+ yet to say one sure word

to you would be to send out

from the void of my desert

throat a small poor thing forced

to walk a tightrope it must

weave itself across the sightless

sea of atoms between your body

+ mine tripping stumbling dancing

clumsily down to the caved-in cup

of your ear where it would curl

into a shriveling mass + die

unwept unburied unknown un-

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UNTITLEDAlex Caldwell

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SOUVENIRMea Adams & Logan DennisonRecycled steel, lights, magnets

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LIBERTY BOULEVARDWill Houp

“Night as night should be, then it dawns on us we have nothing to wait on at this abandoned bus stop but our own lives and love and screaming and pain.” The voice came out of the shadows. I glanced at the shrubbery behind me. The voice seemed to come from there. I squinted, but everything was too dark to distinguish. The brisk wind picked up, so I pulled my jacket closer and stood with bus ticket in hand. “Who are you?” I whispered as I stepped backward into the broken light from a cracked lamp. It illuminated about an eight-foot radius. I read my ticket again, 12:00 AM. LIBERTY BOULEVARD BUS STOP The empty road seemed to go on forever. I looked toward the sign: “Liberty Boulevard.” “We have nothing to wait on,” the voice said, directing my attention to the shrubbery again. An old man hobbled from the dark and sat down on a bench that was on the outskirt of the light circle. I didn’t see his eyes, but his hair was long. He didn’t look at me, but I didn’t stop staring at him. “You might not have anything to wait on, but I’m waiting on the bus.” I tried to sound important, as if the bus were coming merely for my desire. With his hands in his pockets, he stood and walked into the streetlight. The wind blew a couple leaves from the sidewalk, and one landed on the old man’s sleeve. He turned his head and swiped at the leaf. I glimpsed his face. His eyes were blue with hints of gray. They didn’t focus on anything as he turned, his gray hair matted to his forehead from his sweat. The beads dripped into his eyes. Lowering his head, he wiped his brow. I watched him stand in the street. He kept his eyes on the pavement, wiping his forehead over and over. My watch said only a couple more minutes till midnight. I had stood in the same spot since arriving here, and the old man kept wandering on the outskirts of the light—in and out of the shadows. “He must be drunk,” I told myself. “Or he has a fever.” Black clouds blotted out the moon; the only light came from the lamppost. I caught myself drifting to sleep standing up. The old man ventured back into the darkness, and, for a while, my mind rested on other things: on my brother, on the bus. I shifted weight from my left to my right foot. My

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hotel was a half-mile from this bus stop, but it was the closest in Silverton. My brother’s voicemail was over three days old, but he said he needed me. The doctor’s results had come in and prescribed more tests—tests seemed to provoke tests. The old man limped into the street. He had shed his overcoat. I chilled looking at him, but, again, he was sweating. With every step, he would kick the rocks that lay in front of him. My watch played its midnight ditty, and the old man’s head popped up. “Shush! What was that?” He scurried into the middle of the road. “The bus should be here soon.” I stared down the road that wound through the valley then back up the mountains. “Have you ever been up in the Rockies?” I looked at him, but he cocked his head to the left like a dog who doesn’t understand. “Up there,” I pointed east to the silhouette of the peaks. “They’re beautiful in the summer, well that’s the only time I’ve been, but they were jaw-dropping. Above the clouds. I loved it.” The old man still said nothing, but he looked at me. “One night, we were camping, and, I swear, a bear was outside our tent. My brother, it was just us two, decided he was going to pee. I mean, it was like he didn’t hear the bear. He unzipped the tent and stepped out.” I brought my head back to the old man. His eyes seemed to focus on nothing. “What does it matter? You don’t even know what I’m talking about.” When I quieted, he looked away and hobbled to the side of the street. I still hadn’t moved. My eyes followed him. He sat down in front of me; I could see the shirt underneath his faded jacket. I made out a word: “Gary’s.” “Did you work at Gary’s Donut a Mutt store? When I was in middle school, I loved petting those dogs and feeding them bits of my donuts.” I got no response for a couple seconds. Then, he turned his head and said, “I did. But it doesn’t matter anymore.” “Did you work on the donut side? Or the dog adoption side?” I sat next to him, but he crawled away from me. “Are you not going to talk to me?” “It doesn’t matter anymore,” he said again. Two distant headlights took a turn and came up the road. The two dots of light hunted us. They seemed to steady on the old man and I. He caught his breath and his words trembled as they left his mouth. “It’s coming.” The lights illuminated the power lines that traveled above us. The

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power lines came from darkness and left in darkness. I looked at the ticket and my watch. Seven minutes late. While the vehicle approached, the old man stood and crept into the shadows. He looked my way and said, “Night as night should be.” “What? You’re crazy. It’s the bus. You know, the whole reason why we are here,” I yelled at him as he disappeared. “Come to think of it. Why am I the only one here?” I wondered aloud, for I gave up hope that the old man listening. “Is no one else going on this bus?” My voice rose as if I were calling the people out of the blackness. I heard the old man rummaging behind some shrub. He seemed to be going deeper and deeper into the dark. The headlights were not far now. “Those don’t look like bus lights.” The bus didn’t sound like a bus. I started to back away. The lamp flickered, and for a moment, it was just the headlights and me. My heart started to thump. “Michael, calm yourself down. The old man is a hoax, a loon. The bus is coming, then you’ll be away from here.” I breathed deeply a few times, but the lights kept coming. “But why is it late?” The light felt hot now. I walked backward toward the edge of the illumination. Sweat dripped from my forehead. “Well, if it is the bus, then you can walk out of the shrub and right onboard. You’ll be safe back there.” I took a step onto the sidewalk and lost my balance. I scurried on all fours away from the light with my eyes on the road.The car was a black two-door with a thick, dull grey stripe across the side. The old man must have heard me enter his foliage, because I heard him crawling toward me through the grass, crunching the twigs and leaves. “You have to be quiet,” I hissed. “They’ll hear you. I can’t afford to be caught.” He paid no attention and stared at the car. His steady breathing stopped when the passenger door opened. My eyes darted from the figure stepping from the car to the old man’s face, set in a grimace. His eyes never ceased moving. I saw only the silhouette of the person as he or she stood and then bent back down into the car as if retrieving something. “It looks like a girl.” The old man kept staring. He didn’t blink.

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The car drove off, leaving the girl-looking shadow on the side of the road. She sat on the roadside bench away from the streetlight. The grass was wet and soaked my jeans. I steadied myself on my toes and brushed the dirt from my knees. The old man crept toward her. “Come back, come back,” I whispered. Soon enough I found myself following the man. He crept behind her—it was most definitely a girl. We were not a yard from her, but she stood and walked into the light. I followed her. “Hi.” My voice wavered. The light seemed hot again. I tried to step out, but I had startled her. She had jumped backward and faced me. Her body looked frozen. Her gloved hands were over her face, but her eyes peeked through the holes between those fingers. She didn’t say anything. “I didn’t mean to startle you. Are… are you waiting for the bus as well?” I wanted to reach out my hand for comfort, but I kept it by my side. The light still seemed to burn my skin. She kept staring and took a few steps back, sticking her hand in her purse. “Are you not waiting on the bus?” I asked. Her eyes looked just past me and grew. I spun around, slapping into the stomach of the old man behind me. He grunted as his back hit the pavement. I stepped to steady myself. I reached to help the man, but he backed up on all fours shaking his head. “Who is he?” She shuddered. “I don’t know. He showed up here while I was waiting.” “What are you waiting for?” she asked. I pulled out my ticket and showed her. She looked at the sign and at the ticket, then back to the sign. Her voice was still faulty and her skin pale. But she looked me in the eyes. Hers were green, a soft green. I smiled and with a shrug said, “I don’t know where it is. It’s been over half an hour.” I turned and pointed to where the old man had once been. “He told me this place is abandoned, but I didn’t believe it.” “I’m waiting on the bus too,” she said. She had big dimples—ones you could balance a pebble on. “This is the only bus that runs through the night. At least, that’s what I was told.” I didn’t know what to say. I kicked the rocks at my feet. She kicked them back.

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“Why are you here?” she asked. “I was planning to visit my brother, He lives to the east,” I said. “He’s sick.” I stared at the mountain peak’s horizon line. Light from the few stars separated the earth from the sky. “This road seems worn.” “It is,” she sighed. “I used to drive out here a lot. It’s quiet.” She had pulled her hand from her purse and began playing with the gold watch on her wrist. A twig snapped, startling the both of us. The old man stepped into the street. “Are you going on the bus?” I asked him. He kept walking. I asked again, with a sterner approach, “I asked if you were going on the bus?”He seemed to look at me for the first time. He stared at me then the girl. “Yes, but it doesn’t matter.” He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter.” I stared a little longer, but he kept walking. She took a step forward. “What’s your name?” “Excuse me?” I stumbled over my words. She had caught me off guard. “What’s your name?” She giggled and relaxed her shoulders. “Oh, I’m Michael,” I said with a wave. “And who are you?” “Melanie, my name is Melanie. It’s nice to meet you, Michael.” She smiled. Her teeth were whiter than her skin. “Want to sit down?” “Sure.” We left the light and walked to the bench. Nothing was in the light now. The old man scuffled through rocks and twigs and grass and more rocks to our left. The night wouldn’t allow me to see him. I sat on one side, she on the other. We kept silent for a while. I had walked from my hotel almost two hours ago, and this bus had still not arrived. “When is your bus coming?” I asked her. “You’re funny,” she smiled and readjusted her seated position. “What?” “We both know the only bus comes at one.” Putting her head down, her black hair covered most of her face, but I saw the tips of her cheeks. I waited a minute and laughed. “No one told me.” She laughed with me and said dismissively, “I’m sorry.” “You’re telling me that there isn’t a bus at midnight?”

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She shook her head sideways. “Unbelievable,” I scoffed. Melanie looked down the road. “Are you not from here?” she kept her eyes away from me. “No,” I said, “This is my first time.” We stopped speaking. It was warm and quiet. The city noise was muffled. She stared into the night. I stared at her, and the fireflies that congregated in the field across the road. Little lights flashed then disappeared just as quickly. A soft breeze hummed through our hair, lifting hers slightly. “Why are you here?” My eyes stayed on my shoes as I asked her. “I want to go back to my dad’s house.” She picked at her nails then squeezed her fingers tight. “Was that a friend who dropped you off?” I shifted my body, so I faced her. “He was. Well, he kind of was,” She shook her head. “I don’t want to talk about it. It doesn’t matter.” After she spoke, she placed the hood of her velvet sweater over her face. I took the cue and, putting my head in my hands, closed my eyes. I heard my watch beep. It read 1 a.m. “Have I been sleeping?” Melanie shrugged. “I think I hear the bus.” She pointed west. The old man must have heard it as well. He rushed into the light then over to where we were sitting. He panted. “You all right?” Melanie asked. The old man stared fixedly at the headlights. He growled. My heart beat faster. “Should I take this bus?” I asked Melanie. “Why not?” She didn’t turn when she spoke. “Is it my bus?” “It’s going east, toward your brother.” The old man mumbled, “Our own lives and love and screaming and pain.” I tried to ignore him. The three of us watched the bus until it pulled in front of us. The door cranked open, and the driver hollered, “Get in!” Melanie stepped aboard, and the old man followed. I climbed the stairs and deposited my change. The driver was missing a couple teeth, and he had a lazy eye that seemed to look around me. People filled the bus: most

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were asleep, some were texting, and others stared at the leather in front of them. I took my seat in the back. I planned to lay my head against the window, until I glimpsed the old smears of bus travelers—bussers—from long ago. We drove fast, and I didn’t see anything out of my window. It was still so dark. The old man kept touching me. “What?” I felt nervous to talk to him. “My name is Jacobson.” “It’s—it’s nice to meet you, Jacobson.” I smiled. Melanie smiled. Jacobson looked ahead and said, “I believe the time for that was due.” His left hand fidgeted with a ring he had on his right index finger. “Did you win the Super Bowl?” I pointed to the ring and laughed.He responded in a grave voice, “No, no I didn’t. I took it from,” he paused. “I took it.” He stared at the floor while I spoke. “Well, it’s a pretty.” That was all I mustered. He hunched forward even farther and turned the ring. I knew I recognized it. It was something from my childhood. “Did Gary give you that ring?” Jacobson muttered, “It doesn’t matter.” “Did you take it from him?” Jacobson turned his back, so I laid my head against the seat in front of me and slept. The leather was uncomfortable, but I felt better against it than talking to Jacobson. I woke to unintelligible yells. They came from outside the bus. We had come to a stop; I couldn’t see out my window because it was still dark. The driver had cranked the door open again. We watched—no movement. “Let me out! They won’t take me,” he screeched. Everyone in the bus turned to us. Jacobson tried to stand, but Melanie and I held him down. “Who’s going to take you? No one is here to take you.” But my words didn’t matter. The other travelers whispered. Melanie gripped my hand. The bus felt smaller. I stood, but the leather stuck to my pants for a moment as if it planned to not let me go. I stepped into the aisle. My legs felt heavy as if I were walking through mud. The yelling had quieted from the outside, but the chatter in the bus grew. An older woman grabbed my leg as I walked by. “Sir, are you scared?” she asked. Her wrinkles were as deep as if she hid something in them. “Scared? Why am I scared? There’s nothing to be scared of.” The driver had been staring at me ever since I stood.

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“Are you going to get off?” he asked. I walked to the door and peered out. We were at the corner of Sixth and Downing. Lampposts intermittently splotched the road with light. Buildings seemed stacked on top of another. The driver asked me again, “Are you going to get off?” I faced him. His scowl must have been permanent, because it never changed. “How long have I been on this bus?” I met his gaze. “We picked you up at Liberty so about an hour.” As I walked back to my seat, a man sitting next to a girl who looked half his age grabbed my arm. “How long did he say since Liberty?” “He said about an hour.” I looked at the girl. She wore the same velvet hoodie as Melanie. I took my seat, and the driver started to crank the door shut; he stopped suddenly. Someone banged across the side of the bus. “Hold the bus! Hold the bus!” We all waited for the voice to board. A hooded man boarded and screamed at us to “get down.” He held a pistol in his left hand, aiming it at the bus driver and us. His words turned us to statues. I froze in my seat. Jacobson was the only one who made noise, but he didn’t breathe; he whimpered. I reached for Melanie’s hand the same time she reached for mine, our wide eyes not moving from the man. I stared at him for so long but couldn’t recall anything of his appearance. He walked the aisle, kicking at the passengers. More men boarded the bus. They had black masks. One was a sock, I’m pretty sure. He was the man assigned to my row. We kept our heads down. We kept our fingers interlocked. One of the masked men struck me with his pistol butt. “Hand me your wallet.” It seemed like the popular demand throughout the bus. I would have laughed any other time. I handed my empty wallet over wanting to say, “Enjoy, you jerk.” But Melanie’s squeeze told me not to. I didn’t calm my heart this time. I didn’t try to. Jacobson started to cry. I put my hand on his leg. I heard someone in the front speak as fast as his stutter would allow: “I-I’m a holy man. You can’t do this to me.” The holy man sounded like the man sitting next to the young girl. The masked man told the holy man, “You can judge me later.”

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Another man tried to fight back, but I heard the cock of the gun, and he must have sat down. I had never heard his voice before, so I didn’t recognize him. I whispered, “Don’t play with your ring. They’ll take it.” Jacobson furiously twirled his ring on his finger. He started to not hear me again. Sock-masked man asked him for his ring. But it didn’t seem like a question. He grabbed the old man’s hand and wrenched the ring from it. Jacobson yelped and reached after the man, but the man shoved Jacobson back down. Melanie had kept her head facing the floor throughout the robbery. The ringleader walked to our row and grabbed her by her hood, lifting her eyes to his. He studied her hoodie and smiled, pushing her back into the seat. They left soon after. I heard the five or six men tramp off the bus. The last one yelled, “Have a nice ride!” and with sneering laughter they disappeared down the road. I could hear Jacobson crying. Nobody moved. The bus driver reached for the emergency radio, “We’ve been robbed on the corner of Sixth and Downing. Can you hear me? We were hijacked. Nobody is in pain. We’ll wait, we’ll wait, but nobody is in pain.”

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WOUNDED STAREBrian Troyer

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I AM THE SEA MONSTER IN YOUR WASHING MACHINEGabe Webb

Slithering on soap

stretched into bubbles and whipped

into froth, I explore

islands of dirt. I decode

reefs of grass clippings. I dive

among splintered wrecks

of torn socks and frayed collars.

I know this ocean’s

depths. I know your pollution.

I could rebuild you from scratch.

The schools of dead skin

could swim, form your silhouette.

Loose hair could wriggle.

But others swim in this sea.

Shirts net fairer skin and hair.

I could remake you

alone, remove the others,

part this oily sea.

But I think that lonely skin

and hair would be rinsed, faded.

I don’t bleach colors.

I let them run together.

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UNTITLEDTodd Bagley

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THE WINDOWJoel Sams

I.

“Put off that mask with emerald eyes,” I read,

And thought of us, what golden masks we wear:

The green unlidded gates and riven smiles

Are trappings of a deeper masquerade

Where knowledge is the same as nakedness,

And God’s own fruits go missing in the night.

I am weary of unspoken words.

I would taste the wind and try the air

If I could be once freed of burning gold,

But you—you have loved the lesser thing,

And drawn the curtains on a sinking fire.

In your silent parlour you grow old,

Unmindful of the changing weather

Or the disembodied hours of the day.

The shapes move darkly in the streets below.

All the emerald strangers that you know

Are twice a fiction in your shining door—

They see their golden faces; nothing more.

Pardon my excessive metaphor.

I meant to say that I agree with you.

“A looking-glass is not to see through,”

Spoke the souls that tried before.

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II.

Once we watched a falling star. Do you remember?

It was summer, and the heavy spice of clover

Sank beneath the darkness and the dew;

The knotted elm-trees rose, and clapped their hands,

And stood between the midnight and the morning.

Twelve o’clock. I saw you clearly then,

And Friday we still spoke into the stillness,

Caught between the first and last, the old and new,

While dreams transcendent grew and bound like vines.

III.

I sometimes think that I have seen the truth

Of you; a flash of knowing in the gem,

Or subtle warming of the precious shell,

And I have thought what fearful beauty lies

Behind your eyes and mine.

How would it be

To strip away the leeching masquerade

And feel the wind upon our faces, fresh

As earth, and stone, and rain, and bark of elm;

To cut beneath the molding rind and taste

The bursting sweetness of the meat of life?

But you are too afraid of wounding words

And eyes that prick and flay like surgeons’ knives

And colder winds than you have known before.

What can I say? The sons of men are cruel,

And if I told you that the world was kind

I could not ease the burning, or the cold.

FALL 2011

38

THE ASBURY REVIEWFALL 2011