Neon Literary Magazine #35
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Transcript of Neon Literary Magazine #35
I S S U E # 3 5 www.neonmagazine.co.uk [email protected]
This compilation copyright © Neon Literary Magazine (2013). Do not copy or redistribute without permission.
All content copyright © respective authors (2013).
Authors may be contacted through the publisher.
Cover image copyright © Imran Khan (i-k.co.uk).
ISSN 1758-1419 [Print]
ISSN 1758-1427 [Online]
Edited by Krishan Coupland.
Published summer 2013.
Subscriptions and back issues available from the website.
2
C O N T E N T S
J e n n y G r a y . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 37 Milvington Road Hampshire Saddleback We Always Swam In Rivers
J a c k B r o d i e . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Nothing, Shadows
N o e l S l o b o d a . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 2 The Cannibal Affair My Stepfather As A Porcupine My Mother As A Raccoon
S a r a h G r e e n f i e l d C l a r k . . . . . . . . . 1 6 But What Can We Do About It? This Gun Takes Vowels And Consonants (Smug Sister) I Don't Mean To Brag But... Boot Sale Blues Voodoo Dreams Hunting In The Snow
N i c o l e C l o u t i e r . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 1 Coyote Runs
D e r e k A d a m s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 9 What You Need To Know About Your Caesarean Section Paranormal Investigation The Eels
D e b o r a h S e l l e r s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 4 Methodist Hospital What To Do In Paris I Need A Sharper Knife For This
A n n e t t e V o l f i n g . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 8 Pinpricks: Before The Conference Sharing The Row
C o n t r i b u t o r s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 2
3
Image by Jesse Therrien
4
J E N N Y G R A Y
37 MILVINGTON ROAD
I undress for you,
sliding soft cotton from cold, pimpled, skin.
Watching you unfurl. The dizzying
stripes of your blue pyjamas. We touch
in non-erotic places. I learn the hairs on
your arms, the curves of your calf.
Run me a bath.
Alone, I sink with hot relief. You
lean on the door, "Will you
tell him?"
"Nothing happened," I say.
"No,
nothing did."
5
HAMPSHIRE SADDLEBACK
When he was done arguing
he went to the barn, he had a wrench
crooked under his left arm.
(He'd been fixing the tractor
before the fight began).
The sow shuffled, idle in her stall.
He paused a moment, he put his wife's
face on the sow and the sow's
face on his wife.
When he was done beating
he scooped the sausage meat into a refuse bag
and went to bed.
In the coolness of the darkness
his wife curled round
him, her breath warm
on the nape of his neck.
6
WE ALWAYS SWAM IN RIVERS
and lakes, in the coolness
of a Scottish summer.
I found I lowered myself in
fighting the semi-pain, aware
of jagged rocks and the dog's sharp
paws.
You always
dived deep.
Red hair flowering behind you
the murk in the water
made your skin
seem more like stretched
canvas.
I always watched
in those brittle months
you self-absorbing.
You towelling off. Goose-
bumps forming like the ripples
on the loch.
7
Image by Maxime Perron Caissy
8
J A C K B R O D I E
NOTHING, SHADOWS
I was lying alone in a double bed, doing terrible things to a pair of knickers.
The house was the student house of White's girlfriend – the room an absent
house-mate's. Every few minutes an ambulance would roll past in the night,
turning the room into a silent disco, red and blue. Whenever this happened,
she smiled at me, the girl, from the hundreds of photos on her walls.
There was knocking at the door.
"Yeah?" I pulled over the duvet, tucking myself in. The door scraped
over carpet, stopped, and then White flicked on the light. He stood there in
unbuttoned jeans, rubbing his eyes.
"Class night," he said, and I nodded, although I had spent the last two
hours of it pouring drinks into toilets and checking the time on my phone.
"Turn the light off," I said. He turned it off and lay down along the end
of the bed. I waited for him to say something.
"It's so cool you came," he said, head down like he was talking to Betty
Boop on the duvet cover, "I mean, all my best mates up here together. But you
and me, man. We're like brothers. I'm serious - we're like brothers or
something."
"Thanks," I said. "What's up?" He didn't move for a moment and I began
to think he'd fallen asleep. "What's up?" I said again.
"I swear that Irish girl's cheating on me." Just then an ambulance went
past and the lights started rolling around the room. I looked up and took a
tour of the house-mate's life. Hair blown back by a rollercoaster. Some
tattooed boy by a pool. Parties from year ten onwards: the plainer girls
pushed to the sides as she became beautiful.
"How sure are you?" I said, sitting up and feeling the knickers brush my
legs. "Because I don't get the feeling Caoimhe would–"
"I swear she's cheating on me."
"Fine. Why?"
He fell forward onto the duvet and sighed. "Texts."
"Texts?"
"From this Charlie bloke. Work mate. Blatant douchebag, right, clearly
just wants to bang her." He turned over and spoke to the ceiling. "But no:
'We're pals, Tom, he's my pal from work.'"
"Good impression," I said.
"Thanks, I know."
"So what's the problem?" I said. "They're mates; he's a loser."
9
White sat up. "He is a loser. One of those gamers – you know. Probably
likes Lord Of The Flies or something, probably goes to fucking wizard
conventions. It's actually funny. But you should see the fucking texts he sends
her. 'Bought some new boxers you can help me remove.' It's actually funny."
"It's out of her control," I said. "It proves nothing in itself."
"He's one of those gamer boys. Ugly cunt. Works at Costa, right, full-
time – he's twenty-five or something – and then he goes home and plays his
games and has a wank. It's actually funny."
I heard footsteps on the landing. White fell back onto the bed. "But I
swear she's going with him."
"I very much doubt it."
"I swear down she is, mate. I know I deserve it. It's basic karma for all
the times I went with other people." He paused. "The worst was that Sophie – I
shagged her on Caoimhe's birthday when Caoimhe was downstairs."
"You bastard," I said.
"I know. And she wasn't even fit." There was a silence, a long one, and
from far away on another street came the noise of people arguing, a girl
shouting Leave him alone. "Dylan," said White, "Can I sleep in here?"
I sat up. "Go back to Caoimhe, mate."
He stood and reached to lift the covers back; I held them down.
"Mate, you can sleep with me or you can sleep with Caoimhe. I know
which one I'd choose."
The door brushed over the carpet and there she was. Caoimhe flicked
the light on and stood in the doorway wearing a grey dressing gown, no
makeup. Her long black hair was wet at the ends from where she'd been sick
and wiped it out.
"Turn the light off," said White into the duvet. She turned it off and all I
could see of her was a slant of street-light across her face.
"Are you coming to bed?" She might have been talking to either one of
us, or both. "Dylan, will you please tell Tom to come to bed with me?"
"Tom," I said – he was pretending to be asleep – "Will you please do the
right thing and go to bed with Caoimhe. Look at her, for God's sake. If you
don't go, I will." She laughed; strings pulled inside me.
"And will you also tell Tom that I'm not cheating on him with Charlie
from work?"
"Tom," I said. "Come on. Of course she's not cheating on you with
Charlie from work. And even if she is, who cares! She's here now. Look at her,
for God's sake. I think I'm in love with her."
10
No one spoke. From far away came the noise of smashed glass,
screaming. Finally, White rolled off the bed and onto the carpet. As he fell he
took the duvet with him, and I lunged forward to pull it back.
"What was that?" said Caoimhe.
"Nothing," I said. "Shadows." They stood in the doorway and pressed
their foreheads together. As they kissed an ambulance went past, and I
watched the fluttering lights on their faces. For a long time after they had
gone, I could still hear them. I lay there, still tangled with the knickers, and I
listened: to the toilet slamming, to White falling over, and finally to the faint
but rhythmic squeaking that came through the wall.
Next morning the pavements shimmered with broken glass. I had lost my
shoes, and it would be months before they arrived in the post from Caoimhe.
By then she'd have finished with White and would be seeing Charlie from
work. The sun was out and the pavements were hot. At the bottom of the road
White took his trainers off so we'd be barefoot together. We tiptoed across the
city, and as we spoke, about football, films, and girls, I looked down and
imagined the tarmac had turned to soil, the glass to fallen nettles, and that we
were weaving through trees on our way to the rope swing, many summers
before.
11
Image by Miguel Saavedra
12
N O E L S L O B O D A
THE CANNIBAL AFFAIR
"Better to roast and eat him after he is dead." - Montaigne
During the French Renaissance, no
philosophers could have imagined
you and I would one day embrace
anthropophagy on weekends.
Starved by meagre rations
in arranged marriages, we dragged
bony bodies to a secret banquet
in my Toyota's tight backseat
behind the community tennis courts
gorging on a pale, fleshy feast;
we could not stop ourselves
under the leering moon, who wondered
if we would swallow enough to swell up,
float into the sky and join him.
Tantalized by the vicious caress
of your canines, I was ready to give up
slices of liver, finger sandwiches,
slabs of ribs, a breast, a thigh–
until you designed a fixed menu
for every day of the week and demanded
I do all the cooking too.
13
MY STEPFATHER AS A PORCUPINE
Whenever he held me
at arm's length, he promised
it was for my own good,
never reckoning his legacy
was already at work inside–
spikes that lanced my kidneys,
scratched my lungs,
and pricked my brainstem,
making me bristle with spleen
no matter how delicately
the arms of another warmed me
in an unforced embrace.
14
MY MOTHER AS A RACCOON
Dropped us in trashcans
filled to bursting with blessings
during that first lean winter
I discovered my love of colour.
Taught us schadenfreude
strutting across broken lines
on crimson roads that claimed
whole clans of squirrels.
Cared enough for us never
to remove the midnight mask
covering strain marks
scored around her eyes.
15
Image by "sskies"
16
S A R A H G R E E N F I E L D C L A R K
BUT WHAT CAN WE DO ABOUT IT?
It'll run its course
What if it doesn't?
He'll grow bored of her
Bored? He's never had so much sex.
Eurgh. Just pictured him naked.
Enough girls
It can't be serious.
He's sick in the head.
And the dick.
Enough
(Mother leaves)
He must be a pervert.
A paedophile.
She's legal though.
Agreed.
But what can we do about it?
17
THIS GUN TAKES VOWELS AND CONSONANTS
Open fire
in the etiquette fog,
"Isn't he too old" (a little,
or a lot...)
The air is scarred with a bullet tongue,
and the seconds still
as the round of heated sour words
curdle the atmosphere like an underground carriage.
Reload,
"He's nice enough" (for someone else)
More waiting while the medics check for wounds.
The clock hand beats again. The victim
smiles with false precision;
an artist's impression.
No bleeding, but
we've lost her for good.
18
(SMUG SISTER) I DON'T MEAN TO BRAG BUT…
I've walked
the same shifty underpass home,
no different to you.
I've watched the faces
crease between their brows
as they try to work out
if indeed that man beside me
was my father.
But no,
a father wouldn't swagger,
arm rested over shoulder,
brushing the top of my boob.
I've watched the faces
change to dirty looks
as if they've just eaten shit.
I don't mean to brag but...
I took note.
Now I walk home
with the right man beside me.
And I watch the faces smile politely.
BOOT SALE BLUES
Good advice adorns the Sunday tables; cherished, worn and faded.
She snubs the said befores and I know betters, but,
isn't the best wisdom pre-loved?
19
VOODOO DREAMS
Like mist at midnight
Gently travelling its course;
Poison stops your heart.
HUNTING IN THE SNOW
With us you never camouflaged;
you were the siren on the robin's chest.
I'd killed you in my mind
a thousand ways
a thousand times.
She might have loved you, but she didn't fall.
With a barbed lasso
you hunted her.
Forced the bud to open before its bloom.
Your hunting season's over.
Ours is just beginning;
so cover your tracks as you leave.
20
Image by "bjgr"
21
N I C O L E C L O U T I E R
COYOTE RUNS
A hazed dawn. Coyote runs down the mountain. His body moves almost too
quickly for his feet and the muscles in his legs lengthen to keep up with his mass.
Moss-covered rocks seem to burst from the ground; the coyote leaps,
nearly catching his toes. The mountain sheep stand chewing cud and tossing
their horn-curled heads with unease. He passes by.
Between Coyote's gritted teeth is a stick that burns from one end. The red
flames devour the scorched bark and singe the hairs on the coyote's cheek. The
sun rises orange. Each breath burns.
A girl, fifteen, throws her leg through the open window and straddles the sill,
balancing one foot on the loose toilet back, the other on the coiled hose that
hangs carelessly against the house's panel siding. The girl shifts through the
window, then winces at the sound of her feet hitting gravel. She releases a
breath, pulls her jacket over her shoulders and walks, hunched, along the side
of the house.
The forest looms up beside her. The glow from her parents' bedroom
window disappears into the spaces between the peeling birch.
Around the side of the house, past the pond and through the garden
that the deer always get to first. Past the stone wall that draws a line across
the top of the downhill driveway, she's safe enough to quicken her steps,
sending garnet stones in a tiny avalanche down the twisted length of the
driveway and into the dirt road.
It's darker here, the lantern-like house over the hill behind. The girl
stuffs her hands in her jacket pockets and walks quickly, her back straight, her
eyes flicking back and forth across the road in front of her. She thinks she
hears something, a rustling of leaves or a chittering of great teeth. She reaches
down and grabs a rock the size of her hand, curling her fingertips around the
uneven edges. It's all about posture, she knows. The animals here attack only
those that won't fight back.
A car's headlights absorb the darkness, until there is no place that does
not see her. She blocks her eyes with her hand, but is too late to duck. The car
pulls to a stop beside her and she looks in the driver-side window.
"Where do you live?" The voice comes before the face. It is not the one
she was expecting.
"Sorry?" She squints.
22
"Do you live nearby?" A woman. One the girl has never seen before.
Curly gray wisps waver around the illuminated face, the darkness slipping
into the crevices of her skin. The green numbers of the dashboard clock reflect
back in the woman's glasses.
"Yes, just down the street." She feels suddenly known.
The woman becomes clearer, her eyes hesitating, suspicious. Her lips,
white, press together.
"Do you need a ride home?"
The girl shakes her head. "No, no. I'm just out for a walk."
The green numbers move up and down as the woman nods. "Be
careful."
Gravel grinds against itself as the car drives away, leaving the girl in
darkness.
She wonders if she should turn back. How hard would it be now for her
parents to piece together? This street was too small for anonymity.
The next car that pulls up, she gets in, sliding into the back seat, the
right side of her body pressing against a boy who smells like leaves. He passes
a pipe and a lighter and she takes them, filling her lungs to prove that she will
not waste. The boy smiles.
In the front seat, the driver grips the wheel like a chauffeur. The smoke
drifts towards him in a suspended stream. He breathes. A black briefcase rests
on the passenger seat – the one his father will need for work tomorrow.
"How long do we have?" the girl asks, exhaling.
The sun, rising, smears Coyote with orange heat. Thief, it calls. Thief. A vulture
floats in the hot air, rising. Her shadow spreads across Coyote's back and he
keeps running.
The blonde driver holds up three fingers, each representing an hour before
the car has to be safely back in his parents' driveway.
"To Anne's?" the girl asks.
The driver nods without turning his head. She sees the shadowy curve
of his upper lip in the rearview mirror – the wide indent that travels upwards,
bending into the underneath of his nose. Around his silhouette, the road
unravels into existence beneath the headlights. The girl focuses on each stone
that passes, trying to hold them in her sight as they disappear under the car.
For some reason, she thinks this will be possible. Each new stone begins to
disappear faster than the last – or is she imagining this? She can't decide. In
the rearview mirror, the driver's upper lip curls into a grin and the wide-eyed
girl presses her fingers into the leaf-boy's shoulder.
23
Suddenly, her body swings sideways, and the leaf-boy wraps his arms
around the girl's shoulders as their bodies fall first away from, and then
towards the car window. The deer's massive chest seems to pass in slow
motion, a held breath; she swears she sees its heart beat, hears the blue fly
buzzing in its coarse fur.
The girl cranes her neck, desperate to see its face, its eyes. The car bolts
past. She spins around in her seat, pupils pressing into the corners of her eyes,
trying to catch a glimpse of it behind them, but there are only shadowy clouds
of dust.
The car horn blares into the darkness.
Coyote crosses a stream, but does not stop to drink. The tattered shadows of the
tree line decorate his golden fur. Tiny silver fish scatter from the shadows of his
paws. Water splashes against Coyote's shins. His fur darkens and shines.
The car pulls down the tree-lined driveway, stopping in front of the old stone
house – headlights pressing through the window and reflecting off the gold-
striped couch and the mirror that hangs above it – until the engine shuts off. In
unison, the girl, the driver and the leaf-boy pull their car door handles, step
out and walk towards the house, their footsteps like waves on a pebbled
shore.
"You're smallest," the driver says, and bends his knee in front of the
loose window, intertwining his fingers like a stirrup. She presses the sole of
her shoe into his hands and he lifts up, leaning his shoulder against her
hamstrings as she lifts the screen from the window frame. The screen drops to
the ground with a singing saw shudder.
She presses the glass with her fingertips and the window creaks open.
She pulls herself through the opening and drops, landing on a wooden chest.
Across the room, beside the gold-striped couch, is a pianola, the keys yellowed
and cracked.
The boys' shadows sprout across the stained wooden floor, and she
considers not opening the door. Instead, she could run into the next room,
lounge on the Victorian couch in one of Anne's dust-covered dresses and listen
to a record of Mozart while they ran from window to window, watching the
little Tippler–
There's a light tapping of fingernails on glass and the girl steps into the
stream of moonlight that seeps into the floorboards. The blonde driver and
the leaf boy stand beside each other, the latter out-sizing the former so
dramatically that she presses the outstretched undersides of her knuckles
against her smile. The driver tilts his head and taps the glass again.
24
From this side, the lock turns easily between her fingers. It clicks open
and she pulls the door towards her. Their shoes cross the clapboard.
"Remember what we agreed," the driver says, his eyes blue and severe.
The two nod. If one gets caught, the others run. No waiting, no heroism.
"We're in this alone."
They separate. The driver rests on the gold-striped couch, his heels
propped on the wood-trimmed arm while he flips through a photo album
filled with old stamps. The leaf-boy has taken to spraying the floors with white
vinegar, wiping them with a dry-mop they kept in the closet. The girl sits
down at the Victorian cylinder desk and rolls up the thin wooden cover.
In the corner of the desk are three coconut dolls – souvenirs from a
tropical island where their hair was made of the brown bark, pulled after all
the milk had been drunk. Paper rests on the desktop, a pen beside it that had
dried itself of ink long ago. Indentations are made in the corner of the page
where the girl has tried, once before, to bring it back to life.
The hairs on Coyote's cheek are charred and curled tight against his reddening
skin. He slips between the trees, feeling the gods at his back. The wind shouts.
The girl pulls the long drawer until it presses against her stomach. From it, she
takes a pile of yellowed letters tied together with thin, brown string. She tugs
the string's frayed end and lets it fall from the paper in a loose coil.
Dear Anne, the first letter starts. Thank you for the pictures, Dear.
Especially the one with the display of hose. I love you more than I can... The
pencil strokes soak into the paper, lines of confession invisible after all this
time. His name was John Beban, and hers, as they knew her sixty years later,
the woman who lived alone in the little stone house, was Anne Citron. The girl
imagines that John died there in the trench after he wrote this one last dirt-
splattered letter. Anne would, perhaps, take them out and read them from
time to time, while she waited, while she mourned, while her new husband, a
book draped over his face, snored on the wood-trimmed couch. It wasn't that
she never loved him, this second one, but she would often wake up in the
middle of the night, her body soaked in sweat, with the image of John's face.
And when her husband, this college man, tried to comfort her, it was never
enough.
In Anne's bedroom, the girl sifts through the clothes that still hang in
the armoire: long dresses with lace-trimmed sleeves. She drapes a knitted
shawl over her bony shoulders and sits on the corner of the stiff mattress, one
arm wrapped loosely around the canopy post.
25
The leaf-boy starts the pianola and Bach's ghostly keystrokes drift
through the door frames. The girl sighs and lies back on the bed, staring up
into the canopy's dizzying garden and allowing the song to become familiar. A
slant of light breaks beneath the curtains.
A blue bird flies by Coyote's head – low – swooping closer and closer. It pecks at
the skin on his skull over and over until he's sure he deserves it.
He bends between the trees under the cover of leaves. His tail stretches
behind him and the gods reach for it with fiery hands. In the distance, there is
music.
The leaf-boy is standing by the window, overlooking the back yard. The girl
stands behind him. His wide shoulders rise and fall with each breath. He is
silhouetted by dusty yellow light and suddenly seems small – a grain of sand,
an atom.
They are standing together, watching the first hazed cues of sunrise.
The girl slips her hand into his. The back yard's steep slope is smeared with
treetops and fog. It feels as if the house is floating; just one push and it would
be swallowed whole, like a melon.
"We should go," the girl says. The driver slips the book of stamps back
on the shelf.
Outside, a thick fog presses against them, and they wonder what time
it's gotten to.
The car speeds through the fog, streams of white rolling against the
windows. Through the windshield, they see only white. They are in a cloud.
They are flying.
"Slow down." As she says it, the car lurches sideways, lifting their
bodies from their seats. The driver slams on the brakes and the girl's head
smashes into the seat in front of her. For a moment she is lost; the car has
stopped. Her nose feels like it's been pushed inside her head. She tastes metal.
She reaches up to her face and feels her nose, still there, still whole. Her hands
cup over it.
"Let me see," the leaf-boy says, pulling her hands from her face. Staring.
"You're fine, it'll be fine." He smiles.
"Shit, shit, shit," the driver says, stepping out of the car and into the
glow of the headlights. The front bumper is smashed against a stone wall –
broken rocks strewn across the grass of an apple orchard.
The girl and the leaf-boy come out of the car slowly. She can feel her
heart beat pressing frantically against her ribs and struggles to swallow.
26
"Shit," the driver says again, running his hand along the hood. The other two
step forward, fog separating around them like a sea.
In the headlights' distance, surrounded by a mist of disturbed white,
lies a mass. Its midsection rises and falls unsteadily.
"What is it?" the leaf-boy asks.
They step carefully. "A dog?"
Up close, the animal's grey fur looks as if it's been brushed with gold
paint. Its body is motionless, laying on its side, but its eye – tinted brown
around the pupil – follows them frantically, straining into its corner while they
kneel beside the body. Gravel presses into the girl's knees as she runs her
hand against the animal's luminescent fur and the breathing, shallow,
quickens. "A coyote," she says.
The beast's legs begin to twitch and then kick. The leaf boy grabs the
girl around her shoulders and pulls. They fall backwards, together into the
dirt. They sit still, breathing in rhythm while the coyote stands and shakes the
dust from his fur.
He looks at them, and the girl tries to discern anything from his eyes.
The coyote turns and runs, disappearing over the stone wall and between the
apple trees.
The sun rises orange, setting fire to the orchard.
"We have to go," the blonde driver says, plucking an apple and
throwing it over his shoulder. It lands in the girl's lap and she takes a bite. It
soothes her swelling tongue.
Coyote runs. His teeth dig into the burning stick's bark. His cheek boils. His legs
go numb beneath him – mechanical feet. Coyote stumbles over his own pin-
pricked toes. The fire, loosened, leaps from his mouth, tumbling end over end
over end across the sky–
Until it lands in the apple tree's igniting arms. The fire catches, infecting
the orchard with majesty. Coyote collapses on a twist of upturned root.
The car pulls up to the driver's parents' house. The driver rolls the car
carefully into the previous day's tyre tracks. The three get out and follow
silently, ducking behind the car's broken body. The blonde boy tip-toes up to
the side door and waves once before disappearing through it. The girl counts
to ten.
The two grab the largest rocks they can find, and, gripping them tightly
with their fingers, smash the rocks against the car hood. At first, she does it
tentatively, wincing with each crash. The impact echoes through her body.
27
Morning light glistens from the metallic indents; the paint cracks. The girl and
the leaf-boy shout and cackle over the sound of cracking aluminium.
When the lights in the house flash on, they drop their rocks and sprint
as fast as their feet can carry them. Dew damp dirt splatters the backs of their
bare legs.
"Someone's been breaking into that old house down the street," her mother
tells her. "Did you hear?"
The girl shakes her head and sips her coffee. The mother watches her,
and the girl swallows carefully.
Her mother shrugs. "Well, the nephew's taking the place over, finally.
That old woman's been dead for months."
The next time they drive by the old house, a green dumpster overflows
in the front yard – furniture and clothes, the gold-striped couch, the Victorian
cylinder desk. Plywood is nailed over the windows, and a path of pink
insulation litters the grass.
Before the nephew sells it, the three will make it back inside Anne's
house one more time. They will be overwhelmed by the dust-covered floors,
the empty quiet, and they will find a chandelier bead, a photograph and one
broken piano key under the radiator.
When, years later, the leaf-boy and the girl meet by chance on a layover
in Chicago, she'll still be wearing the piano key around her neck. Snow will be
piling against the window, covering the wings of the planes that will take her
east, him west. They will sit side by side at a coffee bar and she'll try to recite
Anne's letters, but stumble over the words. He'll interrupt and say she looks
radiant. She'll comment on how much weight he's lost, he'll say he's stopped
drinking, and they'll wonder how they got away with it all.
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Image by Ognjen Djokic
29
D E R E K A D A M S
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR CAESAREAN SECTION
Turning the pamphlet's well-worn and underlined pages,
in the soft green waiting room,
comparing bellies; yours ripe and ready,
mine a dream-filled pillow.
Choosing the one, that was hard,
the right one, my ideal other,
the right hair, right eyes.
Everything must be perfect for baby,
The plan meticulous,
your home town
a twenty-five minute drive,
just over the state line.
Our meeting "Hey, look at us,
how long? Me too."
away from the video surveillance
of the Grantsburg prenatal unit.
"Perhaps I'll bump into you again."
Not too often, enough for a check up,
not enough for anyone to remember
seeing us together.
Double-checking dates.
Not too soon, not too late.
Timing is the key,
like me arriving at my
"What a co-incidence, next to yours"
auto, in the hospital lot,
with you, the ignition, the battery,
all at the point of despair.
30
My Arm & Hammer smile offering a lift.
Hand, clean and red,
on the car door
"Help yourself to some of my OJ"
Ketamine bottle in my purse.
In the trunk,
distributor wires, carrycot,
sterile sheets, alcohol, scalpel.
31
PARANORMAL INVESTIGATION
I am experiencing strange phenomena
in the streets of this deserted ghost town.
I catch your blonde locks flowing
from the corner of my eye
or your skirt lifted by the wind
in the movement
of a curtain at an open window.
I am setting out my equipment
in search of what once was physical.
I have a tripod-mounted
Full-spectrum video camera
to catch any unusual motion:
the corner of lips lifting into a smile,
or the flash of your glow worm eyes.
I switch on my voice recorder,
ask tentatively "Are you here?"
Listen, straining to create my name
in the distorted buzz of white noise.
Wander around
Electro Magnetic Field meter
in my hand,
waiting for the needle to jump.
32
THE EELS
Several people said
they had seen him
clinging to the guardrail,
after the huge wave
had sent him off the pier,
before he disappeared
into the grey water
and out of sight.
The lifeboat and a helicopter
searched till dark,
then again the next day.
Nearly a week later
just off Dungeness
some fishermen hauling
in their net, drag
a bloated rag doll
from the water.
Out from the jeans' legs
and under his anorak,
leaving the body
by various orifices,
some of them new,
the eels.
33
Image by "soopahtoe"
34
D E B O R A H S E L L E R S
METHODIST HOSPITAL
Hopeless
you in the bed
me in the chair
both of us waiting
You became talkative
near the end of my visit
I counted
the freckles on my arms
35
WHAT TO DO IN PARIS
I put on my best Edith Piaf hair
explored the city with a grin
and a red push-up bra
Frenchmen
thought my accent was cute
perfect loaves of bread
jumped into my arms
strong bottles of wine
followed me
through the French Quarter
I knew you'd be napping
when I returned
hungry when I woke you
so I brought you an apricot tart
and didn't tell you
I fucked Hemingway in the Louvre
his breath smelling of scotch and the
garlic potato salad they no longer serve
at Café Lipp
36
I NEED A SHARPER KNIFE FOR THIS
Sixteen yes,
but, if I was
all too willing,
can it really be said
you corrupted me?
To this day
I gauge all men
against you,
even your brother.
To say who was better
is a baby
I won't want to hold.
37
Image by Marcelo Moura
38
A N N E T T E V O L F I N G
PINPRICKS: BEFORE THE CONFERENCE
So you step
out of the three-star hotel
into a different rain from at home.
Numb streets, the narrowing hours.
Search out
a table for one, as you wait–
a single rose, a luminous wine.
But there's no story here.
Just the wait
for the start, just the shivering spell
cast in the clouds so you'll think and you'll breathe
like a doll that somebody hates.
39
SHARING
His dreams are amateur. Maybe,
once a year, a girl;
maybe even one with breasts;
but he can never be quite sure.
She sighs, impatiently, as he confesses–
then explains how she was raped,
yet again, by the entire Red Army
in just two minutes before the alarm went off,
and still had time to re-take
her French O-level and wash the kitchen floor.
40
THE ROW
A swollen day, jabbed.
Soon it will split right open,
to a black place by a black sea,
all outline gone,
just a shuddered spoke
like the devil's tail.
41
Image by Yazmeen Razak
42
C O N T R I B U T O R S
Jenny Gray grew up in rural Aberdeenshire, Scotland. During her school
years she wrote a monthly column for her local newspaper The Ellon
Times. She read English with Creative Writing at the University of Chester.
Since she graduated she has been travelling in Canada and working on her
first novel.
Jack Brodie is twenty-two, and started writing in 2011 after he read The
Rain Horse by Ted Hughes. He lives in Alton, Staffordshire, amid the
screams of the famous theme park. During his degree he took a Creative
Writing module under the novelist Joe Stretch. This is his first publication
Noel Sloboda serves as dramaturg for the Harrisburg Shakespeare
Company and teaches at Penn State York. He is the author of the poetry
collections Shell Games (Sunnyoutside, 2008) and Our Rarer Monsters
(Sunnyoutside, 2013) as well as several chapbooks. He has also published
a book about Edith Wharton and Gertrude Stein.
Sarah Greenfield Clark is just another someone, writing in what little
free time there is. She studies the craft with the Open University and sh e'd
love to do this as a living, but for now she's mostly happy being a mum
and escaping in poetry and prose when she can.
Nicole Cloutier is the Editor in Chief of Lumina. She grew up in rural
Connecticut and is currently completing her MFA at Sarah Lawrence
College.
Derek Adams is a photographer, poet, poetry promoter and sometimes
writer of short stories. You can find out more about him and his work on
his website (www.derek-adams.co.uk).
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Deborah Sellers lives outside of Indianapolis, and is temporarily of the
leisure class, which unfortunately doesn't pay the bills. She lives with
fellow writer Kitrell Andis and their cat who thinks she is a marshmallow.
The most interesting thing she's done lately is seen an Ai Weiwei exhibit.
Annette Volfing is originally from Denmark. She is now an academic
teaching Middle High German literature. Her poems have appeared in The
Interpreter's House, Smith's Knoll, Snakeskin and The Oxford Magazine.
Imran Khan provided the cover image for this issue. You can find out
more about him and his work by visiting his website
(www.imrankhan.co.uk).
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S U P P O R T E R S
This issue of Neon was made possible by the kind support of:
Lisa Clark
April Davila
Shannon Ralph
Jessica Falzoi
EAM Harris
Richard Fox
Matthew Di Paoli
Simon Collings
Patrick East
Steven Young
Victoria McGee
Noah Saunders
Sandra Hiortdahl
Benjamin Liar
CH Thompson
Danica Richards
Kevin Bannigan
William Wallace
Sarah Purnell
Jan-Kees Kok
Sunetra Senior
Cynthia White
JA Underhill
Tracey Swan
Amelia Ashton
Bryn Fortey
Jon Margetts
Scott Thornley
Charles Thielman
Christopher DiCicco
Woodland Grove Gallery
Neal Holtschulte