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Silhouette
Spring 2007
Literary and Art Magazine Volume 29, Issue 2
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Silhouette, Volume 29, Issue 2, was produced by the Sil-
houette Staff and printed by Inove Graphics, located in
Kingsport, TN. The paper is 80# Patina Text with a 100#
Lustro Dull cover. The font used throughout the magazine
is American Typewriter (Regular), Helvetica (Medium and
Bold), Times (Italic), and Papyrus. The art on the front
cover is an excerpt of One with Nature by Stacey Swann,featured on page 32. Silhouette Literary and Art Magazine
is a division of EMCVT, Inc., a non-prot organization that
fosters student media at Virginia Tech. Please send all cor-
respondence to 344 Squires Student Center, Blacksburg,
VA 24061. All Virginia Tech students who are not part of
Silhouette staff are invited to submit to the magazine. All
rights revert to the artists upon publication. To become a
subscriber of Silhouette, send a check for $10 for each year
subscription (two magazines) to Silhouettes address above,c/o Business Manager or visit EMCVTs e-commerce website
at www.collegemedia.com/shop. For more information please
visit our website at www.silhouette.collegemedia.com or call
our ofce at 540-231-4124. Enjoy!
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STAFF
Jenna Wolfe
Business Manager
Lana TangAdvertising Manager
Jennifer JohnsonSpecial Events Coordinator
Danielle DowningAlumni Relations
Megan McCarthyPublic Relations
Erin SnyderPromotions Director
Naeemah McDuffeyCommunications Director
Katherine LeonbergerProduction and Distribution
Kalyn SaylorGeneral Staff
Michelle RiveraGeneral Staff
Hali Plourde-Rogers
Editor-in-Chief
Corinne JeltesPoetry Editor
Laura V. CookFine Art Editor
Marisa PlesciaProse Editor
Erin OKeefePoetry Editor
Misono YokoyamaGraphic Designer
Joel RileyWebmaster
Katherine BrumbaughGeneral Staff
Joselyn TakacsGeneral Staff
Vanessa RamosGeneral Staff
Katie Fallon
Editorial Advisor
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Art7
9
13
15
17
18
21
22
27
2931
32
36
37
42
43
Ginger Peach Elizabeth Pacentrilli
Arlington Cemetery Annabelle Ombac
Holding Hand Shaozhuo Cui
Ti Amo Dane Miller
Moray Circles Annabelle Ombac
Untitled Ryan Arnaudin
Passion Elizabeth Pacentrilli
Untitled Ryan Arnaudin
Abandoned Heather McMillan
Glasses Amanda Kubista Untitled Garrett Bradley
One with Nature Stacey Swann
Rope Annabelle Ombac
Your Path Annabelle Ombac
2 Heads are Better Than 1 Annabelle Ombac
The Fish King Heather McMillan
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Literature6
8
10
12
14
16
19
20
23
2426
28
30
33
33
34
Instead of Picking Her Up From Class Ryan Donnelly
Daylight Savings Time on the Graveyard Shift Rob Talbert
Playing Cards Tara Marciniak
Garden Morning Tara Marciniak
I Have a Scar Beside My Left Eye Ryan Donnelly
Id Rather Not Die in My Sleep Ryan Donnelly
Going Home with the Headlights Turned Off Leo McLaughlin
Street Sweeper Kate Michel
Chess Nights Tara Marciniak
Solitaire Will Holman A Bittersweet Twenty Degrees Leo McLaughlin
Starbucks Noir Zaki Barzinji
A Flock of Sheep Tara Marciniak
Begone Rana Fayez
Untitled Rana Fayez
Crocuta Crocuta Mark Settle
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Instead of picking her up from class,
I took the bus to Roanoke Airport
to watch the planes.
They wouldnt let me near the gates
because I needed a ticket, or a boarding pass or something
apparently theyre not the same thing.
For a while I stood with my arms crossed
at the security checkpoint,
right next to the woman checking passes with a marker,
watching her running over each piece of paper,
wishing people a pleasant ight,
glancing at me from the corner of her eye
like I was standing a little too close.
But I stayed there, next to her,
as people in suits and trench coats dropped their bags onto a moving belt,
stepped through metal detectors embarrassed
as if theyd arrived late to a funeral.
Some people have jobs
where they have to walk like that every day.
After a while, she told me that if I didnt have a boarding pass
I would have to leave, so I sat down
at the oor-to-ceiling window
next to the gift shop.
I made sure she could still see me.
Planes were still ying at three
on a Wednesday afternoon,
out of all ve gates of the airport.
Of course, the engines roared and seared
across the tarmac then off into the air, gone,
but I wasnt on any of them
because I wasnt wearing a suit.
My phone rangshe was wondering where I was.
I told her I was at the airport and she got worried,
like she thought I was going somewhere, leaving her.I hung up and bought a snow-globe
with a little sunken church,
plastic evergreen trees covered in glitter, snow
I took a picture of it with my camera
and emailed it to her.
Right then I started making plans to buy a plane ticket
so that the woman at the security checkpoint
had to let us near the gates.
I planned to make her believe that this snow globe
could leave Roanoke Airport if I wanted it to.
Instead of Picking Her Up From Class
Ryan Donnelly
Six
Editors Pick
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Ginger Peach
Elizabeth Pacentrilli
Seven
Editors Pick
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Daylight Savings Time on the Graveyard Shift
Graveyard shifts are easier in the company
of street sweepers. Weve been given
another hour to live our lives. This, a duration
better spent calling someone when Im not drunk
for a change, or building homes in the kitchen
out of glue and popsicle sticks. Until then, Ill
keep ddling with my watch and wait for the sun
to come up early. Instead of only an hour, we should
be allowed to go back as far as we need to. Return
to when lovers left, or when Christ walked the earth,
or when the harvest moon lit paths for species now long
extinct. We could go back to our own births and watch, touch,
burn our skin while our understandings manifested
through pokes and pressures. If a baby is born every
few seconds, I think its important that we tell the ones
born tonight that the moment they were real their hearts
were already ahead of schedule. They should know
that the second they existed they were getting younger,
and while they could almost reach themselves in a former life
the rest of us were working late into the dawn.
Trying to keep up with the planet, while all our faith
and watches went the other way with a silence that grows
between the branches.
Rob Talbert
Eight
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Arlington CemeteryAnnabelle Ombac
Nine
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Not so fast there baby, he said slowly, lemme fetch you my business card. He was a rather plain looking
black man, just a bit taller than I was and round in the belly. He had something though; the way an old jukebox
has something that a CD player doesnt. Hang on now, its somewhere. He said, looking down to the cafeteria-
like oor.
Its alright, I offered, Ill be back tomorrow, I can just get it. . .
Huh-uh, no way, I sure as hell know this isnt important to you and I know even better that Ill forget bytomorrow. Its either now or never.
His hands came out of his front pockets with a wad of chewing gum wrappers, mini golf pencils, rubber
bands. . .
Could you just, he glanced at me as he handed me the junk in his hands, thanks. He handed me more
and more seemingly useless trash as his search continued. I noticed three guys in a corner ddling with a puzzle.
Each one took a turn to look up and see how I was reacting to the chaos before me. But when their eyes met mine,
they quickly adverted their glances back to the table.
Here we go. He said as he opened his wallet. You want two of them? You can have more than one you
know.
He handed me the ace of clubs and the seven of diamonds.
Wait! Billy jumped up from the table next to me, Give her my card too!You damned fool, my new pal responded, I aint got yours, you aughta have yours.
I wondered if I could slip away. Neither of them was able to concentrate on more than one thing at a time.
And this time it was playing cards, or business cards rather. My own thoughts clouded out the steady hum of
their bickering voices. I drifted to the outside, longing for fresh air. These guys hadnt been outside for weeks. All
they were granted of the natural world was a ve foot by ten foot court yard, a mere splinter of light entering the
building. It wasnt even used, unless you were one of the crew, armed with three sets of keys and a watering can
for the small pyramid of owers in the middle of the yard.
I didnt ask that day why either one was in there. I never wanted to know.
The next day my father and I came back at the same time; my mother liked schedules. Id sit with them
at rst. Stare at the owers I had brought her. Run my ngers over the coarseness of her bed sheets. And shed
complain, about the food, about her roommate, about the woman who wailed at night for attention. Well, youshouldnt a done what you did. My dad would say. But then hed talk with the crew and convince them to let him
bring her food and switch her roommate and anything else he could still do for her.
They were lost, driving around an unfamiliar city looking at a pad of sheet music instead of a road map.
Reading notes as boulders and treble clefs as tornadoes, they steered themselves away and away from symbols
they thought they understood.
The same conversation happened between the two of them each day and each day I wandered out to the
common room. By day three I had learned to bring a pencil and pad of paper with me. The more I drew, the bigger
I became. I became a part of everything my pencil created and I was bigger than the mental hospital and my
parents and the ace of clubs. Then Billy came. Hed sit next to me and not say a word. He alternated between two
annel long sleeved shirts each day and hed hum his own song quietly while he sat.
Then one day he brought his own pencil with him. I drew a mountain range. He drew two birds. I drew acloud. He drew a pine tree. It went on like that until there was nothing left to t inside that picture. There was
no need for conversation, the graphite spoke for us. My friend, the ace of clubs, was not out that day. Then Billy
reached over me to get a clean sheet of paper. He drew another pine tree. I drew a snow man. Twenty minutes
later we had a world with its own people, its own smells, and its own traditions.
Im not crazy you know. He looked me in the face for the rst time. He had distant, icy blue eyes. I
Playing CardsTara Marciniak
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looked at them, back and forth, skimming his words, trying to nd the meaning behind them. I didnt like it.
I shouldnt be in here. He said as he looked around the ceiling and then straight at the glass where the
crew sat. They know it, they know I dont belong here. Its a money thing.
I remember that I didnt ask anything. I let his story spill out of him as he had probably rehearsed it day
after day until it was just right.
I was mowing the lawn behind my moms house, right. And its a nice house, I mean one of those
community things. The trees planted in certain spots and the man made lakes and all that. Well, there was some
kind of nest in the ground, I mean a bee hive. Well, I chopped the shit outa it. Not on purpose of course. And those
little bastards were stingin me and stingin me, so you know what I did? I ran towards one of those lakes. ButI didnt wanna get my clothes wet. So, quick as a cat, I tear my clothes off n jump in the lake. He smiled at me,
proud of his little story, thinking it sounded as real as can be. Well, Im scared as shit, right, stung all over and
I aint coming out. Awhile later the police show up. Talkin bout they got a call that some naked madman was
swimmin around in a lake. I was the naked madman you know. And they cuffed me and brought me here.
This was bad. I didnt want to think about why he had told me that story; why he felt it important to
convince me he was sane. And as awkward as I felt at that time, I enjoyed the story. For the rst time in my life
I had said to myself, I am going to le this one away. This will be one of the things I remember until Im eighty.
Concentrating on how to remember this story, I barely noticed him place his small hand on my knee. I stopped
ling and looked down. Then I looked at him. He wasnt looking at me. He was prepared to hear that it was wrong
of him to touch my leg, to get the hell off, to get a smack in the face.
Ace! I shouted as I stood up, allowing his dainty white hand to curl back into his body.Oh, hey honey, how long you been here? Im just about woke up now. Ace said as he scratched the back
of his head. He looked over at Billy and must have seen something he didnt like about his face or his energy or his
embarrassment.
You, go on n get outa here a minute. I wanna have time alone with the girl you see. He said quietly over
to Billy, not needing to shout, knowing it wouldnt take much. I didnt even see him get up or cross the room to the
hallway. I guess he never seemed there with me in the rst place.
Baby doll, he said to me, bowing his head a bit but still looking me in the eyes, our friend Billy there told
me something yesterday, it had to do with you. You know he aint all bad. He. . .
I already know. I cut him off.
Well, I gured you might. Just dont think he aught to be lookin at you that way.
I saw my dad coming down the hallway, coming to tell me that he was sick of this place, that he didnt wantto come back, that I should say goodbye to mom. But hed be back the next day, and the day after that. I didnt tell
him anything about Billy. I just told him I didnt want to go back for awhile. He didnt question it, and I dont think
mom even noticed.
Maybe it was a week later, maybe it was two or three weeks later when I decided to visit again. I stayed
with my parents this time. Admiring the wilted owers, listening to her voice, picking at a thread in my shirt. We
didnt stay long, dad had enough earlier and earlier each visit. He did what he was obligated to do, in his mind. He
fed her cantaloupe and a half a sandwich. He uffed her pillows. He kissed her cheek.
My dad left the room. He was walking down the hall to the car. He had grown accustomed to coming
alone, forgetting to wait for me. I told something to my mom, It will get better, or some little tid bit that I may as
well have found in a fortune cookie, and I hugged her. This would be my last time coming until her trial. In the
hallway, I saw Ace headed my way.Hey baby, he said to me, take this. Dont worry nothin bout anything. Were all ne here aight?
I didnt look into my hand. I knew what it was but I didnt know why I needed another one of them. I
stuffed it into my pocket. I shook Aces hand and I ran to catch up with my father.
The four of hearts. Billys Business Card was sloppily written along one side and turned down the other.
Billy wrote his mothers number in the middle with a smiley face.
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feel you most in the thin air
of the 7:00 am morning;
when the satin breeze
folds the scents of garden bay leaves
together with wild moss and
fresh shampoo from my waking shower.
If I could stir from bed earlier I would;
youve been up breathing the air
for hours now and I so wish to be like you.
All of those dark orange mornings
I stumbled to the porch
to nd you sipping tea from the
pink owery cup your daughter gave you.
I missed you in bedbut knew I would enjoy you more
on the patios wicker chair.
You cloaked me with protective arms
and breathed cinnamon into my hair.
We had stopped wearing the layers
of calendar months separating us,
and you were you, and I was I.
I
Tara Marciniak
GardenMorningGardenMorning
Twelve
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HoldingHand
Shaozhuo Cui
Thirteen
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I have a scar beside my left eye, and I dont know how it got there.
I would hope Id notice a blow to the side of my head,
especially one that would leave a scar.
I noticed it when I was driving home from the liquor store:
my rear-view was angled poorly because shed just taken the car
to go visit her mom up in Harrisburg.
Anyway, I couldnt see what was behind me,
but I saw this tiny, esh-toned line
running down my face from the edge of my eyebrow.
I straightened the mirror at a stoplight, but nothing was behind me.
She took the car from me yesterday, to go visit her parents.
She has a scar below her chin that she remembered to ask her folks about while she was there.
Her mom said chicken-pox. Her dad said nothing.
When she came home early, she hugged me like that night
we stayed up late watching horror movies. We both hate horror movies.
She hugged me for a while, then poured herself some wine and sat with me on the sofa.
Driving up to the house, I started wondering
why I never drink like she does,
why under the chin hurts more than next to the eye.
She didnt need any more wine tonight.
She was already asleep on the couch when I came in, eyes half closed, thinking Im still gone.
I Have a Scar Beside My Left Eye
Ryan Donnelly
Fourteen
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Ti AmoDane Miller
Fifteen
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Id rather not die in my sleep.
When you have a month to complete
a project, you always wait till the last day,
and your boss yells at you for not starting earlier,
so Id rather be awake for a long while,
maybe even die right as Im about to fall asleep
Id just woken up when my cousin goaded me into a game of chess.
When he asked if I wanted to play, I said no,
but he quickly offered me both his sts, so I tapped his left one,and his ngers uncurled around a black pawn.
I was black, at nine-thirty in the morning.
By nine that night, we had two boards running side-by-side.
My dad kept having my little sister rell his scotch glass,
and each time I grabbed her to make sure it was well watered,
but each time shed already taken care of it
shell be the one to arrange Dads owers by his casket.
She turned thirteen a few weeks ago.
I bought her a CD player and a Joni Mitchell album.
She says that she wants it played when she dies.
I dont know what I want played at my funeral,
but I want to hear it at my wedding rst.
So essentially the lucky girl I marry must embody my death.
When she looks at me, I must feel cold and awake,
I must feel that Im capable of playing chess for twelve hours,
or however long death takes,I must quickly rub my eyes as she shufes the pieces
behind her back and offers me the choice
between her left and her right hand,
I must stay awake the entire time,
regardless of how late she likes to play,
or how dark those eyes become.
Sixteen
Id Rather Not Die in My SleepRyan Donnelly
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Moray Circles Annabelle Ombac
Seventeen
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UntitledRyan Arnaudin
Eighteen
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POEM
Id Rather not die in my sleep
Going Home with the Headlights Turned Off
Im tired like the meaning
of distance. Who else in this old
city is awake tonight, and comforted
by the stadium of darkness? Defying
sleep in the absence of shadows,
orescent hours opening their arms
to those who turn their backs on the sun.
Does the grass reach for the moon
because they were once lovers?
They probably never were considering
the distance between them. That is
the excuse you give me.
Leo McLaughlin
Nineteen
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Street SweeperKate Michel
To see this body, this city,
built and rebuilt
by many men;
this city, forced to clean her
streets and sidewalks,
having seen the litter piled in her ears
and waking eyes.
To see her built with slabs of stone
at a time when eyes were bright,
when we were clean.
Waking now with the pollution
of a years worth of words
in the brain
of her,
My city.
Twenty
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Passion
Elizabeth Pacentrilli
Twenty - One
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Untitled
RyanArnau
din
Twenty - Two
Editors Pick
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Chess Nights
Tara Marciniak
That chess set was the only thing parting us;the everything parting us.
At night, those shapes moved between incense clouds
and thumbs and ngernails.
Shadows stretched like taffy in the dark,
away from dollar store candles and towards me.
So gorgeous, they became
long, bending ngers grabbing at the table,
reaching to pull me in, claws and all.
You sipped red wine from a blue goblet,
never smudging the glass with dirty ngers.
You told me we would buy cheese next time
to bring out the avor of the wine.
You told me your ex-wife would stay up with you in the kitchen
after the children were asleep;
you had cheese then.
I wanted to ask you if it was strange, staying up with me now instead
but I knew I didnt need the answer.
I wanted to leave right then and get you what you were asking for
but the game was still alive, and the shadows still. . .I wanted to slide all of it off of that table,
hear each clack as pieces fell to the oor
but I couldnt because Benny Mardones played
and a bead of sweat dripped from your forehead.
Twenty - Three
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Our writing professor had us meet in the fourth-
oor student lounge in the English department. It was not
a classroom; people were laid out there, napping, noodling,
drinking coffee with a novel or last-minute homework. Betsy
went up and gently shooed them off, all apologetic smile and
gentle voice, and they ed, earphones and spiral notebooksdragging. Then she turned, with a bright vicious face, and
opened her arms like a minister, indicating the seats. There
were never enough spots on the couch and elsewhere;
students eager to not so much as brush elbows and so they
spaced themselves out and out and out until half of us were
on the oor. An adolescent awkwardness seemed to hound
our seminar, writers being such a neurotic bunch, laying lives
down on the page for other people to read, analyze, dissect,
and judge. All this shyness manifested in little gestures:
bouncing knee, downcast eyes, picked-over hangnails,
studious aversion to eye contact, fringing notebook paper indoodles or tiny tears.
I climbed aboard the windowsill and leaned back.
This was my favorite time in this class, besides leaving,
because everyone was caught with a faint trace of their
newest story or poem in their face, apprehensive to read
it aloud. Outside, the lawn mowers skittered sideways like
crabs, red and smoking in the sunlight. The leaves had just
started to attain real size, and the sycamore looked so close I
thought I could touch it. The windows didnt open.
After settling down, there was much ahemming and
shufing of notebooks. Betsy straightened out the shatteredmess of papers, paperclips, staples, tape, manila folders,
pocket folders, printouts, newspaper clippings, book reviews,
and other colonies of clutter that lived in the bottom of her
shoulder bag. She was short, rounded, with a preference for
unbleached linen this time of year. There was a symmetrical
band of fat around her belly, under huge sagging breasts,
and the linen smock looked like a burlap sack on her lumpy
frame. Her hair was dark brown, pulled tight to the back of
her head as if she hoped it might help pull up her chins. Betsy
very proud of being a poetess, dripping with beads, loose
papers, and gentle smiles, perpetually feeling and emotingand writing it all down. She didnt like harsh criticism; unlike
critiques across the quad in architecture or art that left
students in tears, she believed far more in the carrot than the
stick.
Alright, attention ladies and gentlemen. Her voice
was preternaturally low and masculine, sounding like a boy
of ten or twelve. Today, instead of work shopping on work
completed since our last session, I thought wed do some
exercises. Betsys voice hit hard on exercise, as if this was a
special privilege bestowed upon us by the queen poetess. The
sun fell through the milky windows, casting a white light
on her face. It glistened with sweat, small lips smiling, fat
cheeks compressing her eyes into tiny pockets. Papers
shufed back into bags all around the room, everyone
whispering, wondering. I had taken nothing out; I had
nothing to put away, just sitting with my foot against the
window, notebook limp in my lap.
Heres how it works: Im going to write up thissentence with some blanks in it. You complete it, Mad-
Lib it if you will, she crinkled up her nose and made air-
quotes with her stubby ngers, and then that sentence
will become the title of your piece. She never said poem,
story, or essay, because piece was packed with more
writerly ambition and worldliness. Ill give you a half-
hour, and then well share. Pleased with herself, she
shifted the mass of crap still in her lap to the oor and
stood unsteadily to weave her way through the crowd.
There was a scrap of chalk on the ledge on top of the
blackboard, requiring her to stand on her toes and exposea white mass of belly esh, soft as a ball of bread dough.
Then she wrote her sentence and disappeared into the
stairwell, footsteps echoing for a long time.
It read like this: After ____, _____begins to _____.
People gradually clotted up or spread apart,
secreting themselves in corners, knees up, staring
intently at ballpoints as if that would help. I sat very
still on the windowsill and tried to think of something
funny, a throwaway haiku or limerick that would just
piss Betsy off. Every other week I brought a new piece
that touched a new low, daring, maybe even begging, forsomeone to tell me it was terrible. Classmates sat in the
circle, politely averting their eyes as they muttered mild
comments: Yeah, Coleman, that was interesting, it was
really cool, your dialogue was very, umm, colorful. Betsy
would give her serene Earth-Goddess smile and bestow
similar thin guidance. But now Betsy and the rest of them
had wandered into dangerous territory an exercise,
especially one with that stupid brief. I felt around for a
punch line that I knew must have been hidden in that
insipid phrase, but got nothing. Instead, I left my notebook
where it lay and watched the mowers. Men worked twolevers back and forth, swinging in tight pivots, smooth as
Indy drivers around trees and ower beds.
The thirty minutes hardly touched down long
enough for me to get my hands around the thing. When
the mowers began to bore, I eyed the writers spread on
the carpet. Some were actually quite good, those who
could fathom their own truths without relying on Betsys
poor advice. One of them, Julia, was a shy grad student
who always sat against the back of the sofa, knees pulled
to her chest, notebook folded in her arms like a secret.
Solitaire
Will Holman
Twenty - Four
Editors Pick
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She was beautiful, with big, crescent eyes and clear skin
like cold water. As the class coalesced again, she pulled
her notebook tighter to expansive chest, auburn hair
doming around her face like a closed curtain. I watched
that hair, shining in the ltered light, thinking how it must
look fanned out on a white pillow, new sun through blue
curtains. Betsy showed with a single sheet of paper and a
cup of tea. She settled in her chair, bringing her legs up tothe side, curling into the chair like a cat.
Someone want to go rst? One pushy person or
another always volunteered, and then we were off. The
chain of excerpts and poems drifted from one mumbler to
another. People ran through their words fast and toneless,
eager to be done. Eventually that chain got around to me.
Coleman, what do you have for us? Betsys
near-permanent enthusiasm creased the skin around
her mouth, cracking heavy makeup like a root buckles
sidewalk.
Umm, nothing. I felt the eyes pivot up to me onthe windowsill, at a remove that might seem haughty to
some.
Whys that?
I just feel like that question, the brief, I gestured
incoherently in the direction of the blackboard, has so
much complexity in such a short space that I only got a few
possible titles but never got into their text.
Well, just read whatever youve got.
I cleared my throat. Um, actually my paper is
blank. I held up my notebook to her, brought back to my
lap, shot my eyes out the window.Alright, then, Coleman, Ill expect to see
something on Monday. Betsy must have practiced
sternness somewhere in the mirror, because she looked
like a sitcom actor. We both knew I would have nothing on
Monday, and we also both knew that it wouldnt matter.
Next? The room resumed its chatter. I resumed
following the lawn mowers sidestepping across the grass.
Eventually the apparent end of the circle came around,
but Betsy was never satised to let it end there; some shy
student was always holed up in the corner, sitting behind
the sofa, ngers crossed.Julia? Have you shared yet?
Ummm, no, but this piece is kinda personal.
She had shifted from my view, retreating further into
the couch, if that was even possible. All I could make
out from my perch was one blue-jeaned ankle ending in
knock-off sneakers, aping something popular amongst the
undergrads.
Julia, all writing is personal. It wouldnt have
any real emotion if it wasnt grounded in the personal. A
beatic, cheek-crinkling smile appeared on Betsys little
mouth. I mean, this seminar has and will always be a safe
place. She leaned forward, intent as a therapist, trying to
pierce that auburn veil. One or two ass-kissers in the crowd
joined the chorus, egging Julia on. She nally caved. The
room fell silent except for the hum of the air conditioning,
the faint buzz of the lawn mowers outside, distant trafc
mewling across campus. Julia stayed where she was. She
raised her head enough that I could see the top of it, hairswept back with a consciously casual gesture.
She began in a small voice. This is about my
husband, Tim. I hadnt known she was married, but it made
sense, twenty-eight, linked up to a man in a salmon polo
shirt and square jaw. She cleared her throat again, and saw
her head rocking slightly back-and-forth, back-and-forth.
After sex, Tim begins to play solitaire. The room, if it
was possible, got even more quiet; no snifes, no sliding in
chairs, shufing of paper, crossing and uncrossing of legs.
Betsy looked astonished, and her face nally drew down
until featureless.I dont recall the precise text of her poem, but I
do remember it was one of the most heartbreaking things
I have ever heard Julia naked and damp in bed, huddled
under sheets, Tim at the end of the long hallway that leads
from their bedroom door to the computer niche, sitting
there, naked and damp, hugging one knee, illuminated only
by ickering computer blue, playing Solitaire. Julia reached
for a pillow and rolled over onto her belly, sobbing. Tim
clicked on and on, glum and still in the dimness, the simple
game more numbing than drinking, more quieting than
exercise, more satisfying than holding his wife. He waiteduntil she went to sleep and crawled in beside, pajamas back
on, alarm set, no words, no touches, just rigid loathing sleep.
The room shook with silence. Betsys face got whiter
and whiter in the harsh sun through the windows, and a red
blush began to bloom from her double chin. She seemed to
be in a trance, staring into the middle distance, face glazed
over. Suddenly, she snapped to, took a long swig of tea and
cleared her throat.
Ahem, umm, Julia, that was wonderful. That
was also the precise worst word for Betsy to use; it was a
wonderful piece of writing, yes, but Betsy made it sound asthough Julias disintegrating marriage and self-hate were
wonderful. No one else spoke up. I wanted to help, reach a
hand out to Julia across the room, but I couldnt speak up.
No one took me seriously I had cried wolf too many times
with crappy poems and ragged jokes.
Id tell her that her poem cut me through, hot and
cauterizing. I would tell her tomorrow, Monday after class,
in two weeks at the next seminar; I would tell her sometime,
but for now I slipped away from class, notebook blank and
swinging in my hands.
Twenty - Five
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We were knee-deep in snow but waist-deep
in each other. Out of ourselves and in the forest
with a silence that grows between the branches.
Silence last heard by Apache ears pierced
with Elk horn. Elk still roam these parts though
no longer hunted by empty stomachs
and those in need of a blanket or wedding dress.
You took my arm and we crossed the frozen lake
Disputing whether or not the sh confused the ice
for the ground; ipping over after bumping their heads.
Theres mysticism in re, and I fought the urge
to dance around it when we got back to the cabin. The heat
from burning logs stung our faces, reminding usof runny noses, and I missed not seeing my own
breath pass over cracked lips.
That night, everyone fell asleep under the weight
of a full moon. And silence was a new gesture
for us. Drinking tea with our eyes, and each other
with our mouths, on opposite ends of the room.
We listened to the pipes freeze overnight.
A Bittersweet Twenty Degrees
Leo McLaughin
Twenty - Six
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Abandoned
Heather McMillan
Twenty - Seven
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What do you want? Make it an iced latte. Iced, like his heart.
Couldnt call it decaf because that lusty clich keeps it pumping
like Mozart done by Slipknot. Muddied mocha brown by the
complications, strains, lies, curdled milk of boiled blood. Never seen
him before but I know his type; his feelings swing with his legs from
the barstool. The barista brings the drink as he brings the money
from his pocket. The walls, counter top, and oors are scrubbed
hidden pearl. Stevie Wonder wails, mufed. Sobs are drowned bycoffee; hes a perfect actor. Faker! His brain yells at his heart,
then buries a cool silenced .45 into his nervous system. Aftermath:
coffee spills on the snowscape. Barista grunts at this human stain in
his Shangri-la. Synthetic towel mops the mess, his natural problems
remain. Like an orgasm, his body shudders rhythmically in time
with shy gasps, despair playing ecstasys understudy. Makes you
wonder, who was she? Just the whip cream of life, delicately placed
on top of the mud of necessity to look nice, exquisite, exotic, but
when the drinks done, shes still there, seductively out of straws
reach at the bottom of it all. I observe no longer, place the newspaper
on the table, rise, and walk the golden mile to the pathetic sop. My
hand, a dancing buttery lands on his shoulder, then moves to caress
and turn his face towards mine. Slowly, his frowns in a dryer, tossed
upside down. I radiate megawatts back. Then I left-hook that son
of a bitch in the face. Like a sack of American St. Patricks day, the
imposter of love learns what it means to speed-date with the oor,
his caffeinated mahogany blood making love to the asylum white
oor. Tears mix with milk. I cant stand the hypocrisy of iced lattes.
Give me a fucking green tea.
Starbucks Noir
Zaki Barzinji
Twenty - Eight
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GlassesAmanda Kubista
Twenty - Nine
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Untitled Garrett Bradley
Thirty - One
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One with Nature
Stacey Swann
Thirty - Two
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Begone
What seemed to be waterproved to be acidas you took a sipit dissolved your insidesuntil there was no tissue leftuntil there was only the residueof a pride once embraced
but now stolen, off guard
Untitled
They raise us to be soldiers
of the corporate political world
armed with razor sharp wallets
and words we cannot afford
When all we want to be are protectors
of lambs meandering elds of rye
with honey-suckle sweet words
singing that well never die
Rana Fayez
Thirty - Three
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High in the rise of wind squeals creak
And grind in fervor
Hoarse groans of cackling laughter
Stilt the hair upright
And rm on the neck
Bristling quill-like in silence
For devilish halloos to curdle
The blood in expectation
Of answer.
And whooping and lowing and growling
Drivels like saliva
To a morbid chimeOf teeth grinding a mill
Churning bone splinters, muscling
Marrow with spittle
In the joints of the wheel
The jaws crunching, bunching incessant
Grunts into prattle, like the speech
Of babes.
This riles discord in arid airs
The Serengeti dry in the lowlands
Where snickering scavengers gather
In devilish bivouac
To dig trenches, carve channels
In the ribs, the spine, the skull
Of a jackal corpse stripped,
Mawed with miry chops
Splayed with vagrant mud, tufts
Of hair, graveled marrow
And shrinking sinews.
Hyena! Hyena! Hunches of lurching hunger
Choke, muzzle, and ay
The echo of desperate gluttons
Insatiable of stomach
To roam like speckled imps colored
Like an ugly outcropping of the plains
Wearied, stained carpet.
Cry, pummel sweet vapor
Into stubble with foulest breath
In a scent of raw, red-handed
Death. Oh yes,
Sought with glee.
But none too much out snap sharp snarls
Tirades of discontent
Among the grave diggers,
Bellies like a half full morgue
While mouths run over the brim
In discord, The little shit! Nothing worth
The chew; his hair runs in my gums,
Askew between my teeth.And none for meat! Lions!
Mighty! Mighty! Killed a jackal.
Left it to rot in our devil play.
How I starve! I miss
Blood on my lips!
Snout rst then he shovels his maw
Into the mangled carcass
Pinching the jackal pelt with lusty
Vice-like grip while another heckles
And halloos in return
Wheezing, grinning between jests,
Blood is a fresh steal
Or a trying match. Ill have none,
But wait in the shadow of grass
And on vultures watch!
They lead the way to lion prey
Which we and they
Together may fall on
In mass
To eat! Then well roam elsewhere
Piss on the nothing
We leave behind in our wake!
Said one in his slouching, sniveling, snatching.
Vagrant beasts! A chuckling chorus
Rises and another, she slavers out speech,
The meat of mongrels, these jackals!
Crocuta CrocutaMark Settle
The power to declare war, including the power of judging the causes of war,is fully and exclusively vested in the legislature. James Madison
Thirty - Four
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Fire in my belly rages yet.
Lions work! At least, gone
Is some pest who searched
Our dens, our spawn!
Merciless! Vile! Better let us hide
In the great rifts while they plague
The plain like murderous
Disease!
Up, up ripples a shrill coughing yelp
Like a cloven tongue
A voice against itself, a feud civil and foreign
Echoing in hecklesVain, fruitless, but virulent
Peppering across the tall grass in violence
As ruinous as tendrils of vagrant brush re
Biting ashes to dirt smoke to chafe the brow
Of paradise. Flame does ame
Conceive destruction on destruction, avarice
On avarice
So too with naked tongues.
Spine-rattling another and another eat words
Again to words regurgitate in form
More raw, distorted, more uid
Than origin.
Curs! Ha! I fear these tsestes not,
But feed on their bowels
Snaking inside them like mambas!
I speed. You wait weary with slow waltzing
On buzzard trails.
The greater the maw, the greater pursuit,
And I am Goliath!
Easy prey is not in the East rifts
But in this West we shall feed on loins
For mouths strong and legs swift!
Dare we ee this plain where water and corpses rest?
Water will you nd in the rifts? Jackals without?
Fools, fools!
Nears the dry season, and all things gather
By water together.
Even if in violence, I like it better
Than thirst!
O dire, o lustful ravenous shrieks
Splinter like a satanic choir
As they fall off North jeering
Like jesters at court
When on dark dusk-dipped clouds before
The great fallen African sun they spot
A hellish halo encircling
A site like harpies. Vultures hover over lions. Fresh
Must the kill be
As the heinous hyena horde lunges towardsTheir gliding guides gluttons all!
Steady, steady and in revelry
Ready mischief in endish marching procession. Silent
In yawning scarlet light
Pupils dilate in excitement
Where mane and maneless cats of might
Wrench and wrestle about the throat
Of a water
Buffalo. Hushed now the brutish jesters
Wait and watch,
And Chance delivers the weak over
Into the hands of hell. Hid in the height of grass,
Lion cubs lie low.
Until two and three and twelve shadows
Of hunches drive in
The cradled perimeter and teeth grin white
But a moment ere murder
Pulls limb from live lion limb
While the unwary elders break the buffalos body.
The cubs yelp late as their skins are jerked
Away and legs snapped between teeth
Shrill, as sever live bodies
Piece by mauled piece
In an ecstasy of blood letting orgy! orgy!
A frenzy of hoarse chuckles christens the new night.
O night is for the devils!
Happy, happy lot!
Thirty - Five
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Rope Annabelle Ombac
Thirty - Six
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Your Path Annabelle Ombac
Thirty - Seven
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Lunch and Dinner 11:30 am 1:30 am Mon-Sun
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Johns Camera Corner Gentry Studio
Book Your Wedding Now...
For all your photography needs.
(540) 552-2319
Our website: Johnscam.com
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Staff Quotes
Contributors Quotes
Katherine Leonberger
Just dont give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is
love and inspiration, I dont think you can go wrong. -Ella Fitzgerald
Laura V. Cook
Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why
so few engage in it. -Henry Ford
Corinne Jeltes
A cloudy day is no match for a sunny disposition. -William Arthur Ward
Katherine Brumbaugh
Inasmuch as nothing human is eternal but death, and death is the one
thing about which human beings cant know anything, humans know
nothing. -from Don Quixote by Kathy Acker
Misono Yokoyama
Simplicity and repose are qualities that measure the true value of any
work of art. -Frank Lloyd Wright
Tara Marciniak
Face value is very important but, unfortunately, you must also
weigh the motive of a person in an instant. -Ricky McGuire
Rana Fayez
You shouldnt let poets lie to you. -Bjrk
Elizabeth Pacentrilli
Blaze with the re that is never extinguished. -Luisa Sigea
Ryan Donnelly
I consider that I have many responsibilities, but none greater
then this: to last, as Hemingway says, and get my work done.
-James Baldwin
Leo McLaughlin
I am interested in anything about revolt, disorder, chaos-espe-
cially activity that seems to have no meaning. It seems to me tobe the road toward freedom...rather then starting inside, I start
outside and reach the mental through the physical. -Jim Moris-
son
Kate Michel
Be still when you have nothing to say; when genuine passion
moves you, say what youve got to say, and say it hot. -D.H.
Lawrence
Forty - One
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From the Business Manager
2 Heads are Better Than 1Annabelle Ombac
When it comes to everything and bagels, it gets scary.
The rst time I saw 2 Heads are Better than 1 I had a debate with Hali about whether or not this photo
was of a Siamese llama or simply just a photo of two llamas standing next to each other. After our debate, we
decided to go to the photographer herself and nd out the truth once and for all. Typically, I was wrong, and two
llamas it is. However, this accurately sums up what a great experience Ive had while working with Silhouette.
I would like to thank Hali for being a great person to work with. There is never a dull moment with you.
Thanks for the laughs. Wait, it looks like a party. Indeed, it does.
I would also like to thank every member of the Silhouette staff. The work and passion that you have
showed for the magazine this semester has been remarkable, and I am proud to be a part of this with all of you.
Thank you to all of the EMCVT student leaders and advisors for helping me become a part of EMCVT and
guiding me through the semester.
Finally, of course many thanks and love to my family and friends. You make me happy.
-Jenna
Forty - Two
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