Adelaide Magazine No. 39, August 2020

Revista Literária Adelaide

reputation heightened marching in 1965 appears innocent enough. Most of us like to
with Reverend King from Selma to Mont- be considered sexually alive. Leon and Will
gomery in the face of threats and killing by appreciate the notion. Fun, sex, sure.
Ku Klux Klansmen.
Still—
The last student leaves and Leon’s and
Will’s smiles hint the conversation might Who wants to be a donkey with a mon-
turn lighter than I supposed. ster pecker?

Will puffs his cheeks and squints. “Pro- Or, worse, butchered like Emmett Till.
fessor Jacobson.”
Will and Leon probably breathed the
I’d asked students to use my first name details. A decade ago the 14-year-old Till
because the informality might relax me and visited relatives in Mississippi and allegedly
maybe relax them too. They’ll learn little if flirted with a white woman. Two locals, one
I can’t break into their caution. of them the woman’s husband, grabbed the
boy from his great-uncle’s home and gouged
Will’s eyes flicker over my face. out an eye, then shot him and wrapped his
naked body in barbed wire, bound him to a
“Is it true. . . ?” He stops and they both cotton-gin fan, and dumped the corpse into
chuckle. the Tallahatchie River.

“Is it true white people think we . . . ?” A quiet day in November, I straighten
up the office, gather books, and hope for
The class has been uneasily discussing dinner at the greasy spoon where I’d caught
white stereotypes of black people in Elli- black diners smiling whenever I wandered
son’s Invisible Man (Ralph Ellison once a past. I switch off the lights and open the
student at Tuskegee). door. Rachelle freezes, clutching herself
near the door, her chin trembling, and she
Will’s hand drifts to his groin, he too gra- won’t look at me.
cious to use the words. “Do they think we
are more . . . ?” “. . . sis . . . .” She mumbles phrases I can’t
untangle and finally sits in my office after
The three of us laugh in unison. some coaxing.

So this is my role, an explainer of white She stares into the rug.
foolishness.
A sister, it turns out, is visiting from De-
“Yeah they do,” I shrug, palms up in a troit and she’s unloaded. The “sister” says
beats-me expression. “You’re having more fun.” she is really Rachelle’s mother. The elderly
woman Rachelle calls “Mama,” Rachelle’s
Leon slaps a thigh and elbows Will. deepest love, is in fact her grandmother.

“That’s what they think.” “Who am I now?” Rachelle hunches in
the hard wood chair, a palm raised as if to
Leon and Will nod. They ask nothing else. ward off the old beliefs. “They lied to me.”
I’ve confirmed what they suspected and
they stroll into the empty hall shaking their Her “sister” and “Mama” have never said
heads. White people. who Rachelle’s father is because he could
bare the truth about her actual mother,
I have no idea whether black people are
any more sexual than anybody else, except
white acquaintances think so. And the view

149

Adelaide Literary Magazine

and even today they wouldn’t say, though shelves and floor sheeted with dust. A mid-
Rachelle has pressed them on the subject dle-aged white woman glares at us from
for years. A child of a man her family won’t the register and Rachelle doesn’t look back.
discuss, Rachelle has no dad, and the shaky Whites consider eye contact from a black
status gnaws at her. And spurs her. person insolent.

“Where do I live after this? With my My tweed jacket marks me as a teacher
‘sister’?” at the college, one more do-gooder, the
woman probably figures, sniffing around
I twist in my seat. another “colored” tramp.

“Will you take me to town so I can buy a I go in search of pens and paper as Ra-
few things for school?” chelle slips down an aisle. I can hear the
secretary, Why go there, young man. You’re
I missed the transition. what the white folks hate, the races mixing,
and the girl knows better. Someone, per-
“I need things.” haps you, perhaps us, will pay for you-two’s
blindness.
She wants to put the “sister” on hold,
I’m guessing, hide in the routine, settle her- I don’t care.
self, forget for a time.
I haven’t come to Alabama to fuel the
But downtown. The college section with race war yet in this moment, in this tiny Tus-
no noticeable Southern whites, and almost kegee shop, I’m not a harmless bystander
a mile from the center, provides a sanctuary anymore. Rachelle and I are hollering—Fuck
for students and us faculty. The white- your cracker rage.
owned, white-run stores downtown—a dif-
ferent matter. I haven’t gone in the months I lose Rachelle, then join her by the reg-
I’ve been in Tuskegee. ister and wait, Rachelle ahead of me behind
a group of white women I hadn’t noticed.
Even so, I lack supplies, yellow paper and We wait, and the women and the clerk take
certain pens I can’t find on campus. Rach- their time, none of them in a hurry, Rachelle
elle understands how the center works. and I seeming not to exist for them despite
the frequent peeks.
“Sure, let’s go. Show the way.”
Finally the three exit for the street and
I drive Rachelle to a square of tired build- it’s our turn.
ings and park on a narrow street next to a
statue of a Confederate soldier, feet away The stout clerk gazes right past Rachelle
the alley where police found Rachelle’s at me, “Can I help you, sir?”
friend, a dead Sammy Younge. Only months
ago he’d helped poorer black people reg- Rachelle and she stand inches apart,
ister to vote at the courthouse, and he’d separated by the narrowest counter, the
made for the white restroom at the Stan- clerk locked on my stunned face—Whites
dard Oil station across the square where the served first.
attendant stopped Younge with a .38.
A pickup roars just outside.
Rachelle and I enter a windowless store
with a low ceiling and meager light, the Rachelle sets three, yellow, #2 pencils
in front of the clerk along with a Three

150

Revista Literária Adelaide

Musketeers bar, and my eyes follow her de- burst its Southern banks. My dad claims
liberate walk to the door. heavyweight boxer Joe Louis “understood
his place” and the current champion, Mu-
Someone in back could have a gun. hammad Ali, who opposes the Vietnam War,
doesn’t. Multiply my dad’s Connecticut out-
Rachelle glowers through the windshield look by white millions and you have another
as I settle behind the wheel and touch her clue the swamp churns nationwide.
arm. She winces and won’t talk.
I sit on no high perch. I represent one
I’m thinking she intended the trip down- more troublemaker to white Alabama, no
town for minutes together. Still there’d more exalted than the “coloreds” who press
been safer options like the coffee shop near to organize and march and vote and not
school. Maybe she needed to show me how heed the tag Does Not Qualify.
she suffers in the South, how white people
always deal crap cards. With her “sister” And yet I lack Rachelle’s and Leon’s
urging her to bolt north, she’d challenge and Will’s grit, their trek within a country
custom a last time to see if the city upris- which flays and shames and degrades and
ings in the summer had altered anything in might kill them. How long can they last un-
town. Or it could be, foolishly, she’d hoped harmed? How long can I?
my professorial demeanor, however young
I appeared, might change the whites-first I trudge for home days later, fat folders
practice once. of English papers in my briefcase, and cross
a yellow patch of campus green, the trees
I’d changed nothing. I suspected Tim had providing small protection from the sun,
changed nothing too. and a breeze washes my face.

Black men in pin-striped suits I’d seen Rachelle waves her hand.
in Montgomery and Birmingham absorbed
insults like the shop woman’s. They nodded, “Let’s go dance Saturday. Will’s band’s
they smiled, they feigned indifference. They playing outside town.”
accepted Alabama or pretended to, what-
ever defiance they carried, invisible. Ra- A car passes too slowly.
chelle’s defiance isn’t. She refuses to be
classed a lesser-than. “I’ll ask Desree.” Rachelle senses my re-
sistance. “She should get out. She hasn’t
I’d descended on the South feeling ex- been the same since Sammy.”
alted. “Gentlemen,” the college deans
called us. And I’d spun into a professor in “What about Tim?”
Brooks Brothers’ herringbone, more up-
standing than the gas jockey in Birmingham “He’s busy and won’t mind if we all three
and the shop clerk in Tuskegee and, worse, go. He hates to dance.”
more upstanding than their black victims. A
voice in me whispered constantly, Anyone Tim plans to stay in Tuskegee. She and he
worth their salt would quit this hole. may be verging on an end.

And now I’m asking, Where would they “Who goes where Will’s playing?” (and
go? You can’t outrun your skin. The up- what happens when I stroll in with you?)
risings in the North say the racist swamp
Rachelle glances to the street.

Black faculty don’t go to roadhouses, too
backcountry for them.

151

Adelaide Literary Magazine

“It’s Will’s band. How bad can it be? Come sweetness of rhythm and blues, and heat
on, you’ll like it. You dance, don’t you?” pours from the windows.

Two black women and a white guy in the Desree and Rachelle wear the thinnest
middle of East Jesus. We’d dip into worse of dresses, me in polo shirt, jeans, tennis
than downtown. shoes, and stale sweat. We edge into a
murky room heaving with dancers, the air
Saturday night and it’s hot, and we climb gooey with liquor and every kind of per-
into my wrecked Cadillac. I’d inhale another fume. Not a white face.
Alabama, I tell myself, Will, the music, the
countryside. Suck it up, forget the threat. If The song ends, and the dancers slide
Rachelle can do this . . . . into a slow, thick silence. Eyes fix on me, the
white boy with the two black women. The
I’d met Desree every so often and each male scowls say, Honkies show any damn
time she talked about returning to college where and figure they own us. Get the son
at Howard, and then about staying home in of a bitch out. He brought women? This is
Tuskegee, and then, she’d try Atlanta. She Alabama, pretty boy.
seemed undone—her droop, the scuffle
step, the muted speech, the drifting focus. Rachelle and Desree slip into the crush
Sammy Younge and she had been friends and I camp at the door and glance left to
since childhood and she’d watched a white Will by a microphone. He waves me in, and
jury acquit his murderer in an hour. waves again. Come on in, come on in.

I drive under Rachelle’s direction, Desree “People, this is my teacher, Professor Ja-
in back, and we follow a rutted, patchy, one- cobson at the college. You’re welcome, Pro-
lane road without a middle line, and nose fessor J. You’re welcome. Say hello.”
across farm fields that run flat for miles. No
lights, no cars, no houses, no barns. A hush I lower my head and force a smile, and
in the car and I grip the wheel tighter—“You the band plays my favorite song, Tommy Ed-
know where we are?” wards, “Many a tear has to fall, but it’s all
. . . .” Conversation stirs, and laughter. They
Rachelle: “We’re almost good. Drive. It’s love Will. White boy won’t spoil this party.
out here.”
I search for Rachelle as the Edwards
We’ll vanish in this emptiness, the three song plays and find her in a friendly cluster.
of us dumped in a gully off a dirt path, the
car torched, and five hundred FBI agents “You really a teacher at the college?” a
and federal troops won’t find us, even if woman asks.
they did find what was left of those civ-
il-rights workers in Philadelphia, Missis- Rachelle spreads her arms high and
sippi, the black Chaney and the white New thrusts her pelvis out, eyes wide, head
Yorkers, Goodman and Schwerner. tipped back, dancing. Nothing has hap-
pened, her joy says, nothing has happened,
A mass of derelict trucks and cars looms we’re safe: on this floor, in this room, with
ahead, parked around a long, low, weary Will’s band, inside this battered, forgotten,
building, a rusted Drink Coca-Cola sign be- falling-down roadhouse.
side a weathered door of vertical planks.
Cigarette smoke, loud talk, the raunchy We aren’t safe, no one’s safe. Rachelle
knows it and I know it, yet I understand the

152

Revista Literária Adelaide

hunger to make a home all the more in a My shirt clammy, my forehead pouring
bitter place, to throw acid at tooth and claw sweat, I reach for Rachelle and she drifts
custom, to sink your feet in the mud where into my chest, her dress silky to the touch,
you find them, to be who you are. her fingers on my neck, her thighs moving
against mine.
My life can begin here, I decide, in this
bitter place. What will become of our broken nation?

“Time to dance,” she says, “time to dance.”

About the Author

Kent Jacobson: I grew up in a tough Rhode Island mill-town but wasn’t ready for Alabama
days before Martin Luther King was killed a half-day’s drive away. Yet my experience at
Tuskegee Institute led to 30 years teaching in minority settings, including a Great Books
program (Bard College’s Clemente Course in the Humanities), a 2015 winner of the National
Humanities Medal from the Obamas. My nonfiction has appeared in Hobart, Under the Sun,
Punctuate, Thread, and elsewhere.

153

THE RACIST INSIDE US,
AN EVOLUTIONARY
PERSPECTIVE

by Bill Portela

Out of three-billion sequenced DNA codes chimpanzees guard against superior, dead-
in the human genome, chimpanzees share ly predators. Yet over eons, their most fear-
99% of our hieroglyphs letter for letter. some challenges come from hostile com-
Would eyebrows then heighten to consid- munities that murder males and absorb de-
er that we are overwhelmingly chimpan- sirable females. Lions or hyenas specialize
zee-like? Because we are. Biologically. To in picking off lone mammals. But warring
observe chimpanzees is to travel back in chimpanzees may chillingly erase or con-
time four-million years to when our ances- sume an entire community over time. And
tors were starting to walk upright but did this is where our story about prejudice and
not yet possess our larger-outer cerebral racism begins.
neocortex. The newest, uppermost portion
of our brains expanded two million years A racist is defined as “a person who shows
ago. Toss an extra bit of neocortex onto or feels discrimination or prejudice against
a great ape, and you’re perilously close people of other races, or who believes that
to becoming a Homo genus species—like a particular race is superior to another.” For
us. In chimpanzee communities, male war that relatively small cadre of people who
bands patrol the outer reaches of territory, outwardly identify with extremist organi-
while mothers with young generally cluster zations, any of us could cast the first stone
within protected, central locations. As Jane and declare them racists without a second
Goodall recounts in The Chimpanzees of thought. Many people believe hate must
Gombe: Patterns of Behavior, a community be taught. The “nurture” folks have it that
weakened by the loss of protective males human behaviors spawn from emotional
can fall prey to neighboring clans and be blank canvasses, waiting to be sketched
systematically exterminated. Clans, tribes, in total, by their environment. Good fami-
peoples, species. Like any other mammal, lies, from moral cultures, produce children

154

Revista Literária Adelaide

without hate or prejudice. Bad upbringings (monkeys, apes, humans), kin relationships
or societies foster mistrust and ethnocen- also receive special accepted status. But
trism. We humans are programmed to spot why then, should humans act apart from
everyone else’s biases, except our own. Ar- the other eight million animal groups?
en’t these notions just one more way to Some of our three-billion DNA snippets
discriminate against people from different are nearly four billion years old. Layers of
backgrounds? It’s okay. Millions of years instructions build instinctive, thought net-
of finely-honed neural networks have de- works handed down through our previous
signed us to harbor contentious thoughts incarnations. Charles Darwin’s observations
against people who aren’t precisely… like on natural selection predict that creatures
us. Our default thought patterns are biased not protecting both themselves and their
and self-centered. offspring become extinct. Evolution is a
numbers racket. Increasing populations
What if we didn’t identify with a racist are better, decreasing communities are
group, but instead, on average, only associ- worse, and once a species reaches zero in-
ated with people of our own race, religion, dividuals, they are kicked off the universal
or cultural background? If whisked away game board forever. 99-percent of earthly
to an exotic continent and surrounded by species or five-billion unique lifeforms have
throngs of foreigners practicing a different perished. In the wild, to trust—is to open
creed or not speaking our language—sup- oneself up for having a bad day, including
pose we were to become uncomfortable or possible annihilation. Prejudice comes with
anxious. Would we be racists? Anthropo- good evolutionary reasons.
logical studies show that people interacting
with images depicting other ethnic groups Our lineage Homo sapiens is descendant
display physiological indicators of fear and from three more recent ancestries: mam-
anxiety. Important to note, responses to mals, primates, and hominids (great apes).
pictures of people in out-groups (people There are several dozen human-like rela-
with perceived cultural differences) are tions whose fossils reside across an epoch
often subliminal. And this phenomenon spanning between 4-million and 50-thou-
is especially distinctive when cataloging a sand years in the past. The Australopithecus
subject’s reactions to out-group males. In families are distinctly intermediate be-
contrast, we tend to have reduced, visceral tween great apes and the dozen or so
reactions when encountering out-group Homo species such as Homo erectus, Homo
women. Regardless of how unbiased we neanderthalensis (Neanderthals), and our-
proclaim we are—residual thought patterns selves. Of all our closer relations to have
(nature), play a significant role in fashioning been discovered thus far, we are the only
our interactions with people from outside surviving species. Humans with less recent
our established clans. African ancestry (from European and Asian
origins) carry up to 5% of our genes from
Of the eight million animal species on Neanderthal lines. I sometimes guardedly
our planet, most display an inherent dis- reveal to the uninitiated, how all humans
trust of any creature that is not a mate, originated in Africa. Even more startling to
offspring, or group member. In some so- people is that there exists more genetic di-
cial families such as elephants, cetaceans versity between the several distinct black
(whales, dolphins), wolves, and primates African peoples than there is between the

155

Adelaide Literary Magazine

African, European, Asian, and Island races. and the mass incarceration of minorities
Returning to the Neanderthals, did we (again, usually men) for low-level canna-
exterminate them or assimilate them, or bis-related crimes, we notice institution-
both? And as we approached becoming a alized racism—unquestionably. With 14%
single, interbreeding species, we may have of the U.S. population, black Americans
replaced or consumed tens or hundreds of make up nearly 40% of our prison popula-
hominid species, ethnicities, and cultures. tion. We fear out-group men. But none of
Our evolutionary history suggests that if this would be surprising to anyone versed
our ancestors were not wary of foreign out- in Darwin’s evolution. Did we think that
groups, we might have ended up along with “liberalized” schooling and writing in select
the deposed 99-percent. 5,000,000,000 localities would erase 4-billion years of DNA
species—gone. engineering? Our core neural patterns are
over 250-million years in age. In his ground-
Why are we wired to be so suspicious breaking treatise The Triune Brain in Evolu-
of out-group males? Male animals follow tion, neuroscientist Paul Maclean presented
instinctive directives to find mates, mate an insightful premise that primate brains
with many females when possible, and then such as ours layer upward through two
abruptly leave the family unit forever. While previous incarnations of ancient vertebrate
many females also jettison eggs or young thought-processing. Discrimination is part
quickly, in mammals and birds, mothers of our make-up. It comes from very deep
often manage mates or social systems to in our triune minds. Just above our spinal
acquire additional resources to raise young brainstem lies our reptilian or R-complex.
successfully. Because males compete with This lowest of three primary brain centers
one another for mating privileges, Darwin’s was built as the earliest fish, amphibians,
sexual selection sculpts sexual dimorphism and reptiles hunted for food, found mates,
or physical and instinctual differences avoided predators, and established power
between genders. In mammals—usually, hierarchies. Less so with fish and amphib-
larger, more combative males counterpoint ians, reptiles create rigid pecking orders
with smaller, nurturing females. No one where subordinates acquiesce to larger,
would bat an eye describing males of vir- stronger, or more pugnacious members of
tually any species displaying reckless and their same species. Usually, adult males
contentious behaviors. Males are built and clash with males, while females engage
programmed differently. Humans are not other females for dominance. We notice
unique. Throughout recorded history, tales similar patterns of behavior in every human
of savage bands of female brigands roaming, culture.
pillaging, and plundering are rare. Sexual
dimorphism. There has always been good Above our R-complex lie the limbic
reason to fear men, especially when they system and newest, outer neocortex. These
aren’t from our clan (ethnicity or nation)— two processing hubs are decidedly more
this is, in effect, our customary mental set- advanced in mammals. Surprisingly though,
ting. many documented cases of genetic or in-
jury-related brain abnormalities show that
As we look back on the last decade: humans with severe damage to their cere-
#BlackLivesMatter, the killing of unarmed bral cortex (up to 70%), can still maintain
blacks (usually men) by law enforcement, functional lives as they hold jobs, marry, and

156

Revista Literária Adelaide

have children. Many of our drives then or- across behaviors but also in the literal gray
chestrate from the two bottom-most areas and white matter density and distributions
of our early-mammalian gray matter (neural in our brains. Male thinking patterns and
cells). In social mammals like wolves, horses, gray matter are weighted slightly into the
whales, elephants, and primates, the en- lower two areas of the triune brain. At the
larged neocortex allowed new reflective same time, women often display more pro-
patterns to regulate complex interactions cessing in the outer neocortex and regions
between herd mates or clan members (the associated with language. How do brain
social brain hypothesis). Our cerebrum is differences between genders affect our pre-
primarily designed to work out issues with conceptions concerning ethnic out-groups?
our OWN species. But our reptilian R-com-
plexes and limbic systems still function to Men suffer from Autism Spectrum Disor-
protect us from challenges arising from any ders (ASD) at four times the rate of women.
quarter, and importantly, from hierarchal ASD is now broadly defined as behaviors
cohorts (family, work, society). The lower revolving around lack of communicative
the programming level, the more ingrained skills, preoccupation with things instead of
the neural patterns, the more resistant to people and relationships, behavioral inflex-
alterations. For example, few of us can even ibility, and problems with empathy and so-
slightly alter our breath-rates, heartbeats, cialization. Darwin’s sexual selection acted
or digestive smooth-muscle pulsations. on males to enhance the combative skills
But we also encounter difficulty moder- needed to garner mates and father addi-
ating protective instincts arising from the tional offspring. Nurturing, less-bellicose
lower two areas of our triune brains. Our males left behind fewer offspring. Changes
neocortex and environmental experiences to instinctual drives in men (if any) may
(nurture) are indeed capable of modulating have only come about with the arrival of
impulses from our hind and midbrains—but humans proper, which accounts for a paltry
not always. .08 percent of our reptilian-mammalian,
evolutionary history. Men’s minds are over-
Incarceration statistics reveal that men ly-occupied with things, processes, and hier-
overwhelmingly commit violent crimes at archal power intrigues. Unlike most females,
rates ten times those of women. Taking males are prone to solve dilemmas by es-
into account racial biases of juries and legal calating into physical or confrontational
systems, incidences of rape and sexual as- coping strategies. Male emotional program-
sault also tilt towards perpetrators being ming responds rapidly and significantly to
men (even in countries with more homoge- “being bested” in confrontations with other
nous racial populations). We fear men with males or within group-dominance echelons.
good reason. Male brains are particular
(nature, not nurture). But so are women’s. In contrast, female mammals, including
The newest research clarifies that 250-mil- women, are predisposed to care for the off-
lion-year-old neural disparities shape subtle, spring they always know are theirs (pater-
yet distinctive inclinations between men nity surety), while thoughtfully considering
and women—just as in the other 6,000 spe- all potential threats to themselves and their
cies of mammals. Women show more em- young. In carefully designed tests, women
pathy and enhanced affinities for communi- show empathy to other living beings at
cation. These tendencies show up not only rates exceeding those found in most men.

157

Adelaide Literary Magazine

Females must somehow negotiate care and single hominin species (human-like) made
protection from mates (like the socially mo- it out of the Pleistocene epoch 12 thousand
nogamous bird matrons) or from social en- years ago. Why then wouldn’t we maintain
claves, as do the matriarchal elephants. With well-proven sentiments to be watchful of
recent world divorce rates doubling, and de- “foreign” peoples and their men?
spite pseudo-appearances to the contrary,
humans may not be optimally programmed Racist fears in each of us are predicted
to exist in long-term, monogamous rela- by evolutionary causality. And of course,
tionships. Women must systematically con- we ALL feel more comfortable amongst our
sider all potential options to enhance their kin, and with people who share our cultural
welfare. Women display memory patterns norms. Prejudice is not all about nurture
more vividly shaped by emotional encoun- and our upbringing. The instinctual behav-
ters, as throughout time, females ALWAYS iors of the other eight million animal species
need to carefully gauge social interactions must be ignored entirely to arrive at such
to avoid the devastating effects of violence a scientifically indefensible conclusion. Rich
and mayhem on their kin. The evolutionary people are just as racist as are the work-
instincts for performing constant emotional ing-class folks doing societies’ heavy lifting.
analysis of surrounding circumstances still We don’t just “teach children how to hate.”
manifest onto women who suffer from se- Our inherent predispositions lean toward
vere depression at twice the rate of men. suspicion of outsiders and maintaining our
status quo. Emotions in socially advanced
Our triune brains know that men are mammals evolved to keep us alive. We now
deadlier than women. And both genders realize that many other mammals use emo-
harbor core impulses to adhere to a chosen tional algorithms (neural programs) to help
clan’s cultural norms (ethnic, economic process complex survival outcomes with
class, cultural, etc.) We seek societal valida- same species cohorts. Our intellect, helps us
tion for lifestyles reinforcing our particular improvise fewer basic strategies, like those
belief systems. Out-group peoples, rituals, originating from our hind and midbrains. But
or customs present existential threats to we all don’t reconcile these complicated
our wellbeing. Using simple, but no less thought patterns in the same manner. Hu-
powerful Darwinian axioms, we sublim- mans and our brains are highly variable. And
inally lump potentially competing tribes fearful. These crucial aspects allowed us to
into two crucial, evolutionary bins—friends survive the last few million years, while all
or foes. In the distant past, our ancestors our human-like kin perished. But, before we
didn’t have the time to carefully winnow uproot racist behaviors, we must first under-
allies from adversaries. Concretely, ONLY a stand who we are and how we arrived here.

About the Author

Bill Portella – Author’s statement: “I have engaged students in instruction at every fundamental
learning level in Maine to include elementary, middle, high school, and university I am a Maine
certified science teacher, wildlife rehabilitator, and breeder of draft horses. The manuscript
from which this article derives serves as the basis for evolutionary seminars at the University
of Maine.”

158

STORM AND THE
PARABLE OF LOOKING

AT THE FENCE

by Bruce Hoppe

Me: My writing time is my best time, hands of self-entertainment. I think of that when I
down. tune in to these extempore conversations in
the Latigo. No telling where they’ll show up
Wind-humming-through-the-wind- or who the participants will be. You could
break: Rrrrrreally? Wwwwwwhy’s that? eaves drop on the exchange between the
pumpjack’s motor chugging along like the
Me: Cuz that’s when I’m safe. little engine that could and the well water’s
melodic splash surges from the discharge
Wind-humming-through-the-wind- pipe into the trough—that one a model of
break: Oooooh? Hooooow so? community engagement. You could whistle
a Duetto with a meadowlark secreted in
Me: It’s complicated. a nearby tuft of buffalo grass, though fre-
quently you can expect a delayed response.
Wind-humming-through-the-wind- I like to think it’s the bird first sizing up if
break: Hmmmmmmm. your contribution is up to avian standards.
Yelping coyote ruses, rustling grass gossip-
Me: Look, you ever have something so ings, growling thunderhead threats, the
important you just leave it be cuz messin’ invitations to creative dialoguing abound,
with it might ruin it? enabled by the advantage of a discerning
ear and a kinship with solitude.
Wind-humming-through-the-Wind-
break: Arrrrrrrrrrrre you kidding? Look at The move and set up in the Latigo had
me bloooowing through the gaps in this come off without any major hitches. I de-
creaking, fence. It goooooooes, my singing cided to turn in right after the whiskey
days are tooooooooast. nightcap, intent on getting an early jump

Me: Well then, there you have it.

I have a friend who insists that what
life is about is eighty years plus or minus

159

Adelaide Literary Magazine

on things the next day. The perimeter fence down and wrapped myself in it, sliding to
needed repairs to make ready for the two the floor, my back against the sheet metal,
hundred yearling steers that would be de- knees drawn up. My first thought was to
livered to the Latigo for the summer grazing make it to the pickup, fire it up and get the
season. If I started at first light, I might get heater going. But the truck was running
all the work done in one day. I zipped into on fumes. I’d be lucky to make it to a gas
my sleeping bag and drifted off thinking pump as it was. Idling the engine through
here I am encamped free and clear in an the night was not an option. The luminous
outpost of my own making, a good pony hands on my alarm clock glowed half past
at the ready and a substantial chunk of the one. The closest gas station had long since
natural world as my private preserve. These closed and road conditions would probably
are the perks of the shelter challenged. be iffy anyway.

I awoke in the dark, wet, and shivering. A firsthand experience with hypothermia
Teeth chattering. I grabbed the flash- came to mind. During my Peace Corp tour
light and snapped it on. My breath jetted some of my students suffered attacks on our
streaming vapor clouds across the beam of trek up 17,000-foot Mount Kenya. The symp-
light. A mix of rain and sleet/slush driven toms: confusion, drowsiness. But catch-22.
sideways by the wind speared the trailer How does one self-diagnose? I might think
interior through gaps in the flapping tarp I’m okay, but could not that be a delusional
side curtains. The air had a bite to it like any symptom of a bewildered state? Wait. Get a
second you’d expect to hear the exploding grip. No time for diagnostic fretting. I opted
pop of a shattering tree branch collapsing for hands on actions as the work around. I
under the weight of glaze ice. It was mid- lit the railroad lantern and the cook stove
May but on the high plains winter like blasts and set one on each side of me as close as
then are not uncommon. possible. Raising my arms with the blanket
draped over them made a cave like space
A quick flashlight scan of the inside of to trap heat from the modest flames. The
the trailer showed my sleeping bag, cot, effect was enough to begin turning my cold
crates, and boxes on the windward side all wet sweats into clammy lukewarm ones. I
encrusted with a layer of icy slurry. I scram- said a quick thank you to the gods of small
bled up and rifled through the soggy boxes favors while knowing this minor improve-
in hope of finding some dry clothes. No luck. ment could be short lived. The forecast had
Everything soaked. Gusts of wind rocked the been for a cold front but without the storm
trailer and a steady rain snow mix streamed conditions. How severe and more important
in through the gapping seams in the rapidly how long the surprise norther would stick
deteriorating tarps. around was the sixty-four-dollar question.
Late blizzards on the high plains with fatal
The rounded nose of the trailer was solid consequences are a matter of record. The
sided and offered some shielding from the fuel reserves in the small lantern and cook
storm. A second rummage through my stove would not be enough to last the night.
gear yielded the railroad lantern and my
one burner cook stove. I grabbed both and The wind had picked up. Now a steady
crawled to the small dry patch in the nose. At gale it shredded what was left of the plastic
the very front was a saddle blanket hanging tarps leaving the trailer’s slatted sides
high and dry on a hook. I yanked the blanket

160

Revista Literária Adelaide

exposed to the full force of the weather. from contemporary life. I think I could go
The trailer was parked in the lee of the for bush. To catch the Latigo by surprise and
windbreak and, in the sections where bat- latch on, cling through the frozen slush and
tered boards still clung to the fence, it of- then to the grassy plain, hang on for better
fered some buffering from the worst surges times. I could catnap reclined against its ar-
of the storm. The downside was the chance royo bank, warmed by dappled sunlight fil-
for boards to break loose and turn into tering through the tall bunches of Little Blue-
wind-driven, spearing, projectiles aimed at stem that arced over me. I could stalk the
the trailer’s semi open sides. Amid the roar Pronghorn drinking unaware at the spring to
of the storm I could hear crackling, metallic within a few feet to establish my predator
rattles of the corrugated iron sheets that creds in the grassland’s food chain hierarchy.
made up the roof of Dancer’s lean to—the Out there is a good place to be, where the
shelter I’d grafted on to the far end of the heart is lured to wander. Out there the heart
windbreak. The mare was likely on high reaches for its unguarded frontiers. I think
alert in her stall, the flight instincts of a of the vastness as an easy and genuine ab-
prey animal at-the-ready. I tried not to think stinence upon which at any moment unsus-
about what might happen if the lean to pected indulgences get conferred.
didn’t hold. There was nothing left to do but
tough it out. I snugged the horse blanket up Still I do wonder if this can be done.
making a hood to duck under and tried for Most of us are many generations gone from
sleep. Huddled there in the shadows cast the Latigos you know. And the road back?
by the railroad lamp’s mesmeric flame, I fi- Well memory and mystery lay down their
nally dozed off fitfully to the wall of wind challenges. It’s not just about being there
keening, what chance? What chance? IS but how to be there that is the elephant
there no chance? on the savannah. Then to live on the out-
back under its anointed skies, and ride its
* reaches until our calm spirits are made fully
in evidence to each other, and as accepted
I came to the Latigo not to find something and enduring as prairie winds.
but to forget about having a need to. Not
to seek in this wild place some ancient ac- *
cord of deliverance but to tune in to the un-
sought. To lay low the ubiquitous construct I awoke with a start. Disoriented. The pitch
of agenda until I am left with only the clar- dark. Right, the railroad lantern gone out.
ity of my natural instincts. The prairie’s liv- What was different? Ah, there it was. The
ing presence is a testament to the essential. silence save the multiple tinklings of wa-
If I could be in my own way like the prai- ter dripping with surround sound fidelity
rie—knowing all that is in my company, em- throughout the trailer, like clocks ticking
bracing the moment and death with equal in Geppetto’s workshop. No wind or snow/
ease and taking on with ardent conviction rain. I’d have to wait for daylight to sur-
whatever comes my way. vey the full damage but at least the worst
looked to be over. I stood up and did some
In Nigeria there is a phrase in pidgin En- stretches to work off the stiffness from the
glish. To go for bush. It means that the person hours hunched up. Then I bundled back up,
has returned to the forest to live there far slid to the floor, and waited for the dawn.

161

Adelaide Literary Magazine

* anatomical orientation, into the plowed dirt
of the arena floor. To counter this con, our
I didn’t think I would grow tired of the world plucky rider must commit to an existential
this soon. Reach the point where you stop alternative. Ignoring the mounting body of
imagining a future. Can’t put a finger on a visual evidence, he must, instead, invest
precise day or event, just somewhere along himself in the belief that this pony has no
the way your cerebral tranny dropped that intention of slamming into that wall but
gear and then, further on down the road, rather, at the very last instant that counter-
you notice it’s gone missing. And maybe it’s feit snide intends to duck hard to the right
no big deal. Maybe it gets a shoulder shrug or to the left and, in so doing, dispatch that
and a, “Huh, well I’ll be damned.” Not like pesky human post-haste. It is the duck our
you can find a pressing need to fret about man must make ready for not the crash.
it. I mean should I be wringing hands or, for
the biblically inclined, gnashing teeth? Re- There would be times that summer in
ally. And, anyway what about those sages the Latigo, when I would rely on the lesson
and how they are always instructing us to of looking at the fence as my go-to reality
live in-the-moment, right? Ah but those check. My aide-mémoire to, every so often,
dreams, those dreams, the tyranny of them. relearn how to stop seeing what’s not there.
And what now that they are no more?
*
There is this aphorism known in some
parts of the West, “Looking at the fence.” The morning came on with a brilliance of a
Its root is rodeo cowboy jargon, (as dis- Spring determined to dispel any rumors that
tinguished from ranch cowboy lingo. A Winter would ever have another chance. As
different ethos altogether.) Originally it re- if by some covert vernal cue, the whole of
ferred to a situation during a rodeo perfor- the prairie was transformed into a carpet
mance when a bucking horse, rider astride, of saturated emerald hues, a photo op that
is charging, with all deliberate speed, on a could easily pass for an Irish travel poster.
collision course with the arena perimeter
fence. Meanwhile, the bronc buster, to In the days to come my borderline shel-
keep his arse (Wait is he a Brit?) in the prox- tering would acquire a righteous upgrade.
imity of the saddle for the eternity better Returning from town one day I would find
known as eight seconds, must sustain a a tiny six-by-six travel trailer, the pale blue
mind-body focus dead center in the middle paint on its aluminum sides faded and
of the twelve hundred pounds of thrashing peeling, parked, front and center, in the
mayhem that, at the moment in question, middle of my base camp like a surprise visit
happens to be his mount. To succumb to from the publisher’s clearinghouse entou-
temptation and risk a look at the rapidly rage. A note stuck on the sliding plastic
approaching fence, ponder the possibility window in the single door was from Hal
the prevailing conditions suggest, turns out and Hugh, the brothers who were sending
to be the reddest of herrings; its sole effect their steers to summer on the Latigo. It
to divert vital concentration from the task said, “Thought you might be able to use this.
at hand and, thus, facilitate a most public of We’re going to be too busy for any fishing
failures, vividly validated by an involuntary, trips this summer. It ain’t exactly the pres-
pile driving dismount, often in a perilous idential suite but, having seen your camp,
we figured you for the no frills type (meant

162

Revista Literária Adelaide

that as a compliment). We noticed that the me of a scene in that Peckinpah film, The
one tire seems to be going flat. We’ll bring Ballad of Cable Hogue. For the rest of the
a spare next time. Until then you may have summer I would rest nightly on the comfort
to jack up that side to keep your coffee mug of the dinette cushions that converted to a
from skidding off the dinette. Enjoy.” sleeping platform, rustle my grub in the only
remaining space, the combination sink and
Note still in hand, I backed up to get a two burner propane cook top, shelter from
big picture look at my new digs. It was so monsoon cloudbursts with their ruthless,
cute you just wanted to hug it. And the way strobing, sheet lightning, retreat from the
it fit right in; the cluster of camper, wind- gritty, hot winds of anxious dry spells, the
break, pumpjack, Dancer’s shelter, pickup searing ultraviolet glare of the high altitude
and horse trailer—this quixotic outpost sun; tucked in and undaunted in my fragile
in modest attendance, dwarfed in the un- fortress—looked after by this doughty ap-
broken expanse of the llano. It reminded pliance of tender mercy.

About the Author

Bruce Hoppe is a multiple winner of The New Mexico Press Association’s E.A. Shaffer award
for writing. He is the author of two novels “Don’t Let All the Pretty Days Get By” and “The
Thomas Ladies Club.” His recent work has appeared in the Sinking City Review and The
Scarlet Leaf Review. He has taught writing at Colorado State University and New Mexico
Highlands University. He has an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University-Los Angeles.
When not at his writing desk he can usually be found horseback prowling Colorado pastures.

163

THE BUS RIDE

by Susan McCartney

Into Africa I fly on a one-way ticket. Journey through fourteen countries in twenty-two
months on local transportation. A woman without advantage of youth or money. Learning.
Resting. Changing. The journey has many pieces. This is one.

September 2009 on these skiffs. Go south every night, stop
at each village.”
Kigoma is tucked in the northern corner
of vast empty Western Tanzania. I got here The thought of being stacked onto a
yesterday. This small town is the northern hard-boiled skiff sliding through midnight
port on Great African Lake Tanganyika for black bottomless water gives me the willies.
the regal British ferry M.V. Liemba. To-
morrow I will ferry three hundred miles to Half-way back to Port Office is an empty
Zambia at the southern tip of the Lake. pebble beach. I thank the gracious Official
for his time and stay on the beach. A swim-
At Port Office the Tanzanian official in suit is under my kanga today.
tailored khaki speaks perfect British English.
“Unfortunately, Madame, the ferry is unex- I swim into the green shimmer of Tang-
pectedly dry docked for repair in Zambia.” anyika—longest lake in the world—second
deepest—estimated nine to twelve million
Broad smile. “When does it return to years old. Water soft and light as spider silk.
Kigoma?”
Drying on flat stones, I think on how to
He looks sad. “No one knows.” Taps ball- get south to Zambia.
point on highly varnished desk. “There is
one other way to go south on the Lake.” No planes fly south—not that I would
take a plane. I relish seeing magical sur-
He escorts me down the shore to a fly- prises of unknown land and people—hard
filled stretch deep in mud. Swaying hollow to do from the air. A second reason is the
wooden skiffs have no lights or cover. Bare- laughing young ginger-haired English lady I
foot locals spatter through mud shouting met yesterday. We had tea. She held aloft
Swahili. a ten-inch Bowie knife. “I have passed
through four airport security areas with this
The Official explains. “They buy and sell knife,” she told me.
tickets for the night journey. They overload

164

Revista Literária Adelaide

Trains don’t travel south through remote of scribbles tacked on a hand-drawn map.
Western Tanzania. Points sooty finger. “First to Tabora.” He
shows me the map.
Buses probably do—they go everywhere
in Africa. Broad smile. “Isn’t Tabora in the oppo-
site direction?”
I roll on my back, prop on elbows. Breathe
in Tanganyika. It’s late afternoon. My mind He laughs. “No hurry.” Points again.
luxuriously rolls back nine to twelve million “Tabora south to Mbeya. Only way. Many
years. Ancient sunshine runs warm yellow buses from Mbeya to Zambia.”
sheets across the Lake. It smells like butter.
The bus is short, round, yellow with a
At my hotel—cheap white box on a tree- black stripe. Inside is clean, grey and empty.
less hill—I ask about the bus. The bus goes Half-way down the narrow aisle I take a seat
tomorrow for sure. No one knows exactly on hard cracked vinyl. Sun eclipses early
what time it leaves. Everyone agrees it will morning freshness. Head climbs into the
be ‘morning’. bus.

Early morning. I scurry in what the hotel Riders board now and then. Barefoot old
tells me is the direction to the bus. On si- men, pants tied with rope. High-cheeked
lent British paved streets, I pass square brick women in splashy blues, reds, oranges, in-
buildings, clipped green lawns, carefully tricate head wraps. Babes back slung in col-
pruned bushes. Paved streets narrow, turn to ored cotton quiz me with button eyes. Bare
dirt. Square brick replaced by wooden shacks. polished shoulders of children. Men in tees,
vibrant capes, crisp white shirts.
A few men loll on a shabby porch. I ap-
proach. Polite, enunciated English. “Bus? The aisle crowds. Every seat is taken
South?” except one—next to me—the only white
person on the bus.
A mile-high ebony man with arms to
his knees looks me over—mature white “Good morning!” Young man in white
woman in orange and brown kanga rolling shirt. “Everyone but me is too shy to sit with
a battered black canvas suitcase. Dyed red you. My name is Iman. I am a student at the
hair straggles from yellow head wrap University of Dodoma.” I see his pride” He
smiles all over himself. “Buses here do not
He grins. A gap between strong white leave until every seat and standing space is
front teeth. I follow his loping grace down taken.”
pinched snaky streets. He stops in front of
a row of bare-board stalls. Gestures, nods Iman sits down. Immediately the bus
and is gone. rumbles off.

The stalls look empty. I yell at them. “Bus? All riders have open windows. Breeze
South?” blows heat away. Green nourished by Lake
Tanganyika gives way to parched lips of land.
A dark head bobs. “Where you go?”
“I’m going to Mbeya.” I say to Iman
“South. Zambia?”
He nods. “I am also going to Mbeya. This
A dot of a man. His bandy body squats bus to Tabora takes eight hours. The bus to
on the dirt floor of the stall. Studies scraps Mbeya will leave tomorrow morning.”

165

Adelaide Literary Magazine

Why didn’t the bus guy in Kigoma tell me Tanzanian Shillings—Six American Dollars.
I’d be staying in Tabora overnight. We ride all day, all night till past sunrise.

I doze to slow revs of rhythm. Awake to Unsettled flat land expands. Horizons
a tiny storm of outside noise. The bus has back away. Dimension disappears. Riders
stopped at a village. Stripling arms sent by descend bus steps—walk off to invisible
mothers stretch up on both sides of the bus destinations. Riders appear from nowhere
to sell from baskets of homegrown food. to ascend.

I buy sweet brown bread and sticks of Some seats empty. I sit for a while with
barbequed goat through my window. Hours Iman on his lopsided seat in the back. Only
later—the second village—last one Iman tells he and I speak English. The bus threads dry
me—bush meat jerky, fried dough packed plains. The road changes to wagon tracks
with cabbage and carrots, lots more bread. of sand.

Nearly dark. Tabora. Iman asks the driver I’m high on the desolate freedom of
to drop him on the dusty main road where this back road. Iman and I duck swollen
his brother Jasper waits. Iman invites me thorn buds big as baseballs that swipe at us
along. The gallant brothers guide me to a through open windows. Thorn thickets dis-
tiny inn—hot room with featherbed. Fetch appear. Sun-punished earth is white powder.
me in the morning for pots of chai and
stacks of chapati at a local café. I hardly hear the shout, pitched so high.
The red-ridged mouth is open. Thin black
We walk to the Mbeya bus. The bus shoulders glisten with sweat and alarm. A
has no place for me. All seats and standing small barefoot boy runs hard at us from a
room are reserved. Why didn’t the bus guy lone straw hut about three hundred yards
in Kigoma tell me about reservations. off our sand track.

Iman and Jasper talk to the bus con- Dark heads don’t turn toward the high-
ductor in Swahili. I understand nothing. The pitched shouts. Looks are straight ahead.
brothers tell me the conductor agrees to Ramrod stiff like cardboard cutouts. Iman—
sell me his seat for Two Tanzanian Shillings— next to me—turns to cardboard. Another
Twenty-Five American Cents. Sold. The con- mile—second little boy—runs, shouts.
ductor seat is a single window across from Riders and driver deaf and blind. A third—
the driver in the small sparse cab. the last little boy with an old mouth.

The bus fills. The conductor takes a “Iman! What did those little boys shout?”
standing position on the entry steps.
Iman shifts. Embarrassed. Weary. “They
Last to board is the driver. A sparkplug of ask for water.”
young wide muscle. Stretched white tee. He
pulls in through his offside door. Takes the Predatory thorn bushes reappear. Road
high seat without a sideways glance. Flat crusts brown. We pile out for the first of three
fingers grip the steering wheel. Engine revs daylight breaks. Men turn their backs to pee
under the rubber bonnet at his side. Grey where they stand. Women hustle in groups
smoke blows out back. He throws the clutch. down a worn thorny path. Squat. Giggle.

Top speed is forty miles per hour. Bus Together again near the bus everyone
fare from Tabora to Mbeya is Twenty-Four pulls out food and drink brought with them.

166

Revista Literária Adelaide

I didn’t know to bring anything. The women Everyone stays near the bus to pee. Women
share with me—bread, oranges, and water. pee standing up. I already know how to do
this. The secret is no underwear. All women
Ascenders from nowhere fill the bus. I’m are in fine African cotton but don’t wear un-
back in the conductor’s seat. Three lanky derwear.
flat-muscled young men culled from the
plain hang on handrails above my seat. They Back on the road. The driver smirks
lean close. Curious. Silent. Thrust chests sideways—his first look my way. He flips a
forward. Look over the top of my head out switch under the dash. Rock and Roll pulses
the window. I don’t look at them either—sit down the aisle—Beatles, Dylan, Presley—
still—white animal under inspection. blue rayed riders lean back-to-back, weave
to the beat—Charles, Doors, Stones—rows
The conductor rages from his position on of seated riders sway in the dark—Zeppelin,
the entry steps. The young men straighten. Hendrix. The miles dance by.
Mystery bends them close again. Twice
more the conductor yells. Young men slant The driver stops the music. Whips the
backward—forward. clutch. Backs up. Headlights spot over-
turned wheels and glints of metal. A flipped
Women who stand in the aisle sally forth. motorcycle gleams at the edge of the road.
Float glances. Puff soft laughter. Ease in. Bus doors whish. The conductor steps down.
Circle me with brilliant kangas. Young men Two men follow. Voices stir the dark.
lounge away.
The cyclist is carried up the stairs.
Dusk. Overload. Headlights reflect blue Jammed riders move back. His broken body
rays on riders wedged against the wind- lies at my feet in shades of blue—deeper
shield and on the steps. My circle of women where blood seeps.
tightens. Those with babes tied to their
backs think nothing of standing all night. Silent hours. Engine thrums. Standing
They allow me to hold their young. Some riders press together. The driver clutches
babes readily come into my arms. Others down and stops. Opens the door. Silhou-
refuse with effortless screeches. ettes murmur. The cyclist is lifted down.

We take only one night-break. Black Door closes. Bus starts. Music blasts.
plains sigh and groan. A baby arm reaches Riders dance. Sun rises.
up to grab the muted silver slice of moon.

About the Author

Susan Gene McCartney was born in Montana. A world traveler, she follows her heart to
enrich her life. In New York City, she studied acting and playwriting at Ensemble Studio
Theatre. Her play ‘The Freak Show’ was produced in the City. In Belize she founded Placencia
Children’s Theatre Company. At 64 she traveled to fourteen African countries in two years
via local transportation. She taught English to Swahili boys in Tanzania. She is now writing
stories about her two years in Africa and hopes to publish a collection in the future.

167

IT LEFT A BAD TASTE
IN MY MOUTH

by Carol Glick

I have yet to find a dentist who delivers the income tax folder, hoping for some re-
top-notch services and a billing system that turn on my investment.
doesn’t drill holes in the bank account.
Back in my twenties, thirties, and for-
On a recent check-up, the dentist’s as- ties I enjoyed going to the dentist, not just
sistant bibs me up and abandons me. I have because of the freebies I amassed—dental
ample time to think about the oral invaders floss, cups, toothpaste, and toothbrushes—
who mock my efforts to eradicate them. but because of the dentist’s declaration, “A
They retreat to tiny foxholes, immune to perfect check-up again.” Bound by the Den-
twice-daily ambushes with floss and brush tist’s Pledge to maintain my dental health,
and biannual trips to the dentist. The night but torn by the need to pay for supplies,
guard, a $200 buttress, takes over when I’m equipment and staff, it’s hard to imagine
asleep to keep the troops on my side strong, any sane dentist rejoicing over those stellar
but this has not wiped out the dental as- check-ups of my past. In retrospect, I think
sailants either. Crowns and root canals, like he knew what the future held and figured
headstones in the military graveyard, mark a little soft sell-now would keep me coming
the fallen and wounded. Their numbers back.
amass with every check-up. Considering all
the cash I’ve dumped in dentists’ laps over Now that my teeth are degenerating
recent years, I still lack the radiant smile of at a rate my paycheck can’t keep up with,
my youth. I have a feeling my dentist appreciates my
business way more than he did in the olden
During childhood, Mom masterminded days. According to statistics, dentists earn
my dental care. She made sure my sister over $150,000 with annual lows dipping to
and I had regular check-ups and the hal- about half that amount. I’m sad to report
lowed fluoride treatments. My sister, two that I’ve contributed a substantial portion
years older than me and now eligible for of my savings to support those numbers.
Medicare, boasts just one cavity while I
shove one dental receipt after another into I interrupted visits to my regular dentist
just to try out the one where my daughter

168

Revista Literária Adelaide

goes for braces. The modern, upscale bath- the dentist’s activities. I silently applauded
room fixtures along with the trendy inte- my success as the floodwaters in my throat
rior designs in the waiting and examination begged to be cleared once again. The effort
rooms duped me into thinking that they to keep up exhausted me. So was main-
offered exceptional dental care. The dentist taining my dignity with my mouth agape
assigned to me, astute like his predecessor, and drool leaking at the corner.
zeroed in on a multitude of problems: a few
disintegrated fillings and two fractures be- The technology at this office surpassed
yond repair that required crowns. I winced, my former dentist’s facilities. The assistant
amazed that my teeth had deteriorated so at my old stomping ground took an impres-
much in the six months since my previous sion of my real tooth before the dentist
check-up. shaved off the enamel to accommodate a
crown. She tamped down a pink, profes-
The dentist interrupted my thoughts. sional, quick-set putty over the site, waited
“Do you grind your teeth? That’s probably a few minutes and then pried off the stiff
why your teeth have those fractures. You mold. The lab used this as a model to shape
might want to consider a dental guard.” my thousand-dollar porcelain replica.

While I chewed on that, a woman from At this new office, the dentist shoved
the front office translated the dentist’s find- a saliva-resistant camera into my mouth.
ings into tangible figures. Damage assess- It traced the contours of my tooth. The
ments come to $3,500. I wasn’t surprised, doctor, doubling as a tech-savvy graphic
just discouraged that every six months my artist, touched up the computerized image
savings washed up into the dentist’s coffers that appeared on the screen to my right. He
with tidal regularity. turned the likeness at odd angles to perfect
the final product. From this, an in-house lab
A couple of weeks later, I settled into the technician fabricated a temporary covering
dentist chair’s familiar contours, opened that the dental assistant glued on to protect
wide and braced myself as the needle emp- the naked remnant of the tooth worked on
tied its stinging contents into the hinge of that day. The computerized picture, working
my jaw. As the anesthetic kicked in, my double duty, served as a template to create
mind fast-forwarded. my permanent crown.

Despite my dental vigilance, I saw my- I cringed as I imagined dental technology
self shopping around for a prosthodontist wiping out my bank account. I’m sure the
in 20-30 years. I gulped away the thought as putty my former dentist used to make a cast
my new dentist sauntered in for an update of my tooth cost a whole lot less than what
on the state of my mouth. the new office used.

“How’s that anesthetic feel?” After two hours, my ordeal at the den-
tist wound down. I collected my next ap-
For the next hour-and-a-half, I amused pointment card at the front desk, tried to
myself by looking beyond and around the articulate a farewell to the office staff with
blinding fixture above me, scanning the my numbed mouth, and headed out. When
burnt orange ceiling for irregularities and I got to my car, I pulled down the visor to
challenging myself between suctions to check out my temp in the mirror. So far, so
swallow, open-mouthed, without disrupting

169

Adelaide Literary Magazine

good. But I resembled a stroke victim with the pain. The dentist tried flossing with
my right lower lip sagging and puffy. no better luck than I had. He snapped the
overworked strand several times, trying
My stomach complained about its ear- to remove what turned out to be dental
lier brush-off with the five-calorie Trader cement, the overflow from the stuff they
Joe’s Myntz I passed off as breakfast. I had used to secure my temporary crown. The
to agree; my stomach was justified. I was dentist resorted to drilling the obstruction
starving. But with my mouth hung over from out while I imagined the drill abrading the
the dentist’s anesthetic cocktail, I couldn’t good enamel on the neighboring tooth. I’d
distinguish food from my inner cheek. Now managed to wear down my dental defenses
I knew why the dentist advised me, “Put off on my own without any help from a doctor
eating ‘til the numbness wears off.” whose dental school ranking I suspected fell
within the 0-1 percentile.
Although he didn’t mention it, that also
applied to liquids. I stopped at a drive- Next, I mentioned the jolt on the tempo-
through and ordered a glass of water, but it rary during mealtimes.
dribbled down my chin. So I parked in the
lot and went in to collect a straw, to offset “We might want to hold out before we
my imminent dehydration. glue your crown on permanently. If the pain
doesn’t go away, you’ll probably need a root
After seven hours, my mouth was still canal.”
groggy. I knew that my metabolism had
slowed down over the years, but I started Wait a minute. When I walked in the
wondering if my thyroid needed a tune-up. I door three weeks ago, I felt no pain. After
decided to visit the Y to distract myself from treatment, I was in worse shape than when
food fantasies. At the same time, I hoped I started?
to drive the oral numbness away. Ha! After
another hour-and-a-half, too famished to I suppressed my anger and paranoia as
cook a hot meal, I consumed refrigerator the dentist proceeded to doctor the frac-
leftovers, even those with a questionable ture on the other side. I assumed that he’d
residency. try extra hard to avoid losing my confidence,
not to mention my business. Before he ad-
With the numbness gone, I encoun- ministered the numbing drug, I brought up
tered a new sensation, tenderness when I the seven-hour delay for the last anesthetic
chewed with the tooth the dentist worked to wear off.
on. I attributed that to the torment the
tooth endured. That night an obstruction “We’ll use a different formula then. You’ll
between that same tooth and its neighbor regain full sensation a lot faster.”
prevented the dental floss from passing
through. I shredded the floss trying. Over The ceiling landscape entertained me
the next three weeks, while waiting to have again for another hour-and-a-half. I left the
my crown installed, I experienced no letup office hopeful of the predicted relief from
in the pain and I gave up on flossing the area. the anesthetic and tentatively optimistic
about my dental care. I willed the pain in
After a good breakfast, I showed up my first tooth to subside.
at the appointed time for my next visit. I
voiced my complaints about the floss and The numbness lingered, committed
like a Type A personality to an eight-hour

170

Revista Literária Adelaide

workday. My pain persisted. As for tidiness, for a high-caliber dentist. I got referrals from
no improvement. Once the numbness sub- friends who boasted about the dental care
sided, my tongue grazed, presumably, a they received. None of these stellar profes-
sheet of cement that spanned below the sionals joined ranks with those on my insur-
lower margin of several teeth. I managed ance company’s rosters, so I settled for my
to peel this off, a 1-inch × 1/4-inch artifact. old frills-free dentist. My not-quite-trust-
worthy standby squeezed me in a month
After assessing the quality of this den- later, willing to forgive my renegade behavior
tist’s work against the fees he charged, I re- and elated, no doubt, to welcome back my
fused to risk another visit. I dreamed about mouth and the copious source of income. Of
my teeth falling out. These reruns coincided course, he evened the score by charging an-
with my upcoming dental appointment. I other $3,500 for services rendered.
yearned for the opportunity to open wide

About the Author

Carol Glick, in keeping with her tradition of pursuing low-
income professions, has launched a new career—writing.
She has completed two tongue-in-cheek-memoirs, Tails
Behind the Scenes: the Uncanny Parallels Between my Zoo
Career and Family Life, Desert Deliverance: a Tongue-in-
Cheek Memoir, and a multitude of short stories. Most of
her work is accumulating dust in the computer’s hard drive,
but retirement from parenting, zookeeping, and teaching
the visually impaired has stripped her of an identity. That
compels Carol to remake herself, this time—with any
luck—as a world-acclaimed writer. Her publications have
appeared in Funny Pearls, Potato Soup Journal and will appear in an upcoming issue of
Academy of the Hearts and Mind.

171

NOTES FROM THE
FATHER FIELD

by Lisa Romeo

Though my father never touched the When I got birthday packages (or think-
large-number cell phone I once gave him, I ing-of-you packages) from my parents—
like to think that, if he’d lived longer, and dozens over the three decades I lived thou-
had I the patience to teach him, he may sands of miles away—nestled in with the
have taken to texting. cashmere sweater and photos Mom sent,
perhaps tucked just behind a magazine
During his working life, Dad cracked wise clipping either thought I’d enjoy, would be
and shared inside industry jokes while ne- a note from Dad. One single line.
gotiating business deals on the telephone.
At home though, he preferred handing the Usually it wasn’t anything much: Hope
receiver over to my mother when I called your cold is gone. Good luck at the horse
from college, and later from my own home show. Or fatherly reminders, mostly unnec-
across the country. He never owned a com- essary for a daughter grown fiercely inde-
puter, knew nothing of email. Letters, I as- pendent while still in high school: Do your
sumed, were something he left to his secre- taxes on time! Have you checked your tires
tary. The fax machine flummoxed him. lately? Be sure to confirm your airline res-
ervations.
What he liked, instead, were notes. Short
ones. But sometimes the notes strayed from
practical matters, and struck me with their
* fervor, displaying a kind of humility and love
I knew my father found difficult to express
My mother kept every room in their large in person. Mother and I are proud of you.
house stocked with pens and notepads of Congratulations on your promotion – knock
all shapes and sizes and colors, and every ‘em dead! Happy Easter, with love from your
year or so ordered notecards with Dad’s dear old Dad.
name etched on creamy stock. Yet mostly
Dad grabbed or tore off what was handy— I sometimes kept the notes, at least for
an envelope, receipt, scrap of newspaper, a while. When I was single, if a note from
displayed greeting card, a corner from the Dad arrived when I felt low—lonely, missing
calendars Mom had scattered about.

172

Revista Literária Adelaide

home and family; licking wounds after a behind a bureau. Why didn’t I see then that
boyfriend break-up; feeling undervalued those notes were little pieces of my father’s
at work—I’d squirrel the note somewhere. heart? The very essence of his protection
Then, while going about my daily routine, and care? The wise way he’d hoped to gain
there it would be. Smoothed out on the the attention of a very busy daughter?
bottom of my purse, tucked into the side
pocket of the suitcase I packed a few times a *
month for business travel, beneath a jumble
of brushes and dashed dreams in the ele- I occasionally imagine how lovely it would
gant tack trunk that accompanied me and be now, over a cup of tea, on a windy win-
my (Dad-funded) horse on the show circuit ter night—now that my own children are
(where I was finding it difficult to win). grown and flown—to wander through
those notes, through the stages of my life,
I’d love finding those notes, reminding and feel (and read) the care and concern
me that someone was in my corner. I was of my now-gone father. But from the time I
in St. Louis once to see clients whose out- left for college, until my father died 30 years
spoken political opinions made me feel di- later, I lived in ten different places. With
minished (but which I was forbidden by my each move, I cavalierly tossed stuff, believ-
boss to address), and in my briefcase found ing I was not only lightening my load, but
a note from Dad telling me Concord grape that the decluttering act itself was valiant,
juice contains a lot of vitamins and minerals. that it was admirable, being able to part
Once, in a West Palm Beach bar at the end unemotionally with mere material objects.
of a challenging day in the hunter/jumper
show ring, I was shrinking from the more The truth though is, as always, more
successful riders, riders more skilled in the complicated. Much as I liked them, there
saddle, plus far wealthier and sophisticated, was also something about those notes that
when I reached in my purse for a cigarette bothered me. For one, I disliked that they
but fingered one of Dad’s notes: Here’s a seemed to represent the extent of my fa-
fiver, have a drink on me. ther’s abbreviated attention span for any-
thing not related to his business, the stock
Were I a more sentimental person, or just market, politics, or his house and property.
a woman who could intuit that decades later,
she’d yearn to hold, to read, to feel those Then there was the look of them. My
notes in her hand, I might have kept them all, mother’s newsy, multi-page letters dis-
and forever. Surely, I kept all sorts of other played prize-winning penmanship (she’d
less important detritus—meaningless play won a 1937 schoolwide award). But Dad’s
programs and ugly Christmas ornaments, bad notes were a visual challenge, the writing
books and ill-advised clothing, in drawers, distracted and varied. My father—who was
shelves, and bins. Why, I want to know now, made to quit school in the 10th grade to work
did I let the notes from Dad slip away? for his father, despite earning top grades
and longing to become a doctor—hand-
Often, I’d toss notes away as soon as they wrote always in a haphazard combination of
arrived, along with the gift wrapping. Push upper and lower-case letters, mixing cursive
them aside (or into the garbage?) weeks or and print. For so many years, I thought of his
months later when I’d find a note among a handwriting as a mess, and an uncomfort-
messy pile of papers on my desk or fallen able reminder of how little formal education

173

Adelaide Literary Magazine

he’d had. (Though, come to think of it, had a book about the way grief unexpectedly
he become a physician, he’d have the per- slammed into me after his death, mixing
fect writing for prescriptions!) abrasively with the emotions of midlife
and motherhood. Trying to understand
Had I stopped to think about it, I’d have why I experienced grief in the way I did—
recognized that the notes’ appearance did constantly “talking to” my father post-
not invalidate the content, nor obscure the mortem—I went in search of anything
underlying emotion. If anything, the notes, that might help me recreate on paper the
as esoteric and oddly timed as they might sometimes-fraught relationship I’d had
have been, reinforced what I suspected with Dad during his lifetime. The notes
from a young age—that my father was were gone, I knew, but I hungrily handled
deeply knowledgeable about the important photographs, objects I’d claimed from
things in life, if not in books. Dad’s desk, some of his sweaters that now
lived in my closet.
I sometimes wonder what was written
on the last note my father ever sent me. Around the same time, Frank and I were
clearing out old household financial files, in-
* cluding the one that held payment records
of our long-ago all-paid-up mortgage (pri-
Four months after Dad father died, I got a vate mortgage holder: Dad). That’s where I
call from an editor at the New York Times found the one note I did, unknowingly, save.
who wanted to publish something I’d writ-
ten about motherhood. My husband Frank It wasn’t anything special: about 15
had answered the phone since I was in the words, in black pen, written on a slant on
shower, and as I toweled off, he handed the corner of a piece of corrugated card-
me a plain slip of white paper—written in board. It was torn, I’m guessing, from a box
a strange combination of print and cursive, lid in his garage just before taking one of
upper and lower-case letters. Not Frank’s Mom’s packages to the post office around
usual handwriting, but he told me his hand the corner to send to his youngest daughter
was shaking, knowing what a stunning vic- across the country.
tory a Times byline represented for me. The
note looked, in every aspect, as if my father Be sure to file the mortgage completion
had written it. papers with the state before April 15.

Dad was the reason I was a writer at That was all.
all. It was his made-up stories when I was
a child, and the way he devoured news- So, I did still have a note, though tech-
papers, that shaped me into a reader, and nically I hadn’t saved it at all; it simply got
later, a journalism major in college. Words caught up in that file, where it belonged. I
connected us. The way Frank’s note looked tossed the file, but for months, I kept that
rattled me, and for a few weeks, I thought cardboard note on my desk as I wrote. Then
again of Dad’s long-gone notes. I moved it into the top right-hand desk
drawer, where I saw it each time I reached
* for a fresh cartridge of printer ink.

Then I didn’t think about Dad’s notes again And then, inexplicably, one day, it was
for a couple of years, until I began writing gone.

174

Revista Literária Adelaide

* wrote to a sister who lived in Italy, and to
two of his brothers—the black sheep of the
In his final years, Dad’s “notes” to me came family who always asked for money, and the
at the bottom of a birthday or Christmas younger brother he’d once promised their
card. My mother signed, Love, Mom XO, and father he’d look after.
then Dad wrote, “With lotions of love, Dad.”
After Dad had been gone for a few years,
“Lotions of love?” I once asked him, prob- I found myself alone in his house—Mom’s
ably in a superior I’m-a-journalist voice. house by then—quite late one night while
“Don’t you mean ‘notions’?” she was in the hospital recuperating from
a heart attack and pneumonia. As adult
“Notions, lotions, what’s the difference?” children are occasionally wont to do, I went
he said. “I like ‘lotions.’” snooping.

A few of the cards must still be in my I had no idea what I was searching for,
house somewhere, buried in years of family but I found it in the bottom drawer of a
stuff I now no longer so blithely toss. Maybe guest room bureau. I dropped to the floor
one day one will turn up again. I think of and began reading, and kept reading until
Dad’s closing valediction whenever I smooth the desert dawn began flitting in around
on hand cream. Lotions of love, Dad. the edges of the black-out shades. When I
stood, my legs were unsteady stilts beneath
* me, my head and heart skittering.

My father’s notes didn’t change my life, In the 1960s and 70s, Dad traveled fre-
but some days, they did cushion it. Though quently for his work as a textile executive,
they expressed the simplest of thoughts, and in his roles with various charities. What
took up the smallest of space, they com- I’d found were his letters from the road to
municated what Dad wasn’t able to say out Mom, his wife—love letters, dozens of them.
loud—and frankly, I might not have stood Pages and pages of mixed up printing and
still long enough to hear. At times though, script of indeterminate case and size, on
I’ve wished for more. sheets of stationery from dozens of hotels.
How he loved her! How he missed her! How
I recall being jealous of a dear friend lucky she was to have a husband who wrote
not long ago because she has a small suit- her letters!
case filled with meaty philosophical letters
from her father, beginning when she went How lucky I was to have a father who
away to summer camp, continuing through loved my mother so. Who wrote her let-
college, marriage, divorce and on into her ters, letters his daughter—who’d carelessly
60s and her own retirement. How I envied thrown out his notes—would find one day,
those letters. years after his death, answering a yearning
to once again see his strange handwriting,
Turns out, Dad did write letters, only not read his words, touch the pages he’d filled,
to me. He wrote to my sister, twelve years and remember that he once wrote to her,
my senior, his first child, to whom he was too, in his way.
bonded as to no one else in life. And he

175

Adelaide Literary Magazine
About the Author
Lisa Romeo is the author of the memoir Starting With Goodbye (University of Nevada Press).
Her work is listed as Notable in Best American Essays 2018 and 2016, and has been nominated
for the Pushcart Prize. Essays have appeared in the New York Times, Brevity, Longreads,
The Nervous Breakdown, Under the Gum Tree, Sweet, Harpur Palate, GreenPrints, and
other places. She teaches in an MFA program, is an editor with Cleaver Magazine, and an
independent manuscript editor and writing coach. Lisa is at work on a new memoir, writing
from her home in northern New Jersey. Visit her website at LisaRomeo.net

176

THE MOST
SCARIEST THING

by Riley Winchester

I am obsessed with time. The obsession and zodiac signs, but it was calculating
started my sophomore year of college the eccentricity of an ellipse, moon cycles,
when I had to take a science class with a and predicting the peripatetic patterns of
lab in order to fulfill the science portion of planets. Only once did we look through
my gen eds for my degree. There were op- a telescope at night, and the professor
tions of physics classes, chemistry classes, laughed at me when, looking at the moon,
biology classes, and one astronomy class. I asked him if the American flag Neil Arm-
By chance I ended up in astronomy. Or you strong had planted was visible. Apparently
could call it dumb luck too. you need the Hubble Space Telescope to
see something like that, not just an Orion
The fall semester of my freshman year, 8945 SkyQuest XT8 Classic Dobsonian.
I took Introductory Chemistry, thinking I
would complete the class and its lab, there- There was, however, one part of the
fore fulfilling my science credit. But there class that interested me. We learned all
was nothing introductory about that class about time and how time can be read by
to me—learning chemistry was like learning just looking at the sky, old methods of
to play the bagpipes underwater. I failed the telling time, old calendars, how different
class with a 46% as my final grade. cultures interpreted and measured time,
time zones and their origins. I thought it
So instead of looking into beakers and was the most fascinating thing I had ever
Bunsen burners, I looked up at the stars. learned in a classroom.
And written in them was Introductory As-
tronomy. I enrolled in the class for the fall se- It wasn’t long before I was immersing
mester of my sophomore year, determined myself in all things time. Like how Green-
to check off the science gen ed, burying the wich, England, is the center of time for
46% chemistry failure under a pile of con- the global system of time zones; how the
stellations and planets and supernovas. moon’s gravity is a planetary drag and days
on Earth are progressively getting longer at
It turned out I was bad at astronomy a rate of 1.7 milliseconds per century; how
too. I thought the class would be stargazing

177

Adelaide Literary Magazine

the most accurate clock is powered by stron- nineteen-year-old boy named Ireneo
tium atoms, and its precision is so exact it Funes, who has an immaculate memory
will be off only by one mere second over the and displays all the signs of hyperthymesia.
course of ninety billion years. These are the Borges writes, “Funes was a precursor of
kind of facts I filled my mind with. And in the the supermen, ‘a vernacular and rustic
end it paid off. I got a B– in the class and my Zarathustra.’” But Funes is tormented by his
science credit, with a new obsession to boot. immaculate memory. His perpetual memory
machine keeps him awake all hours of the
But like most obsessions, I fear that it night, running back events of days past,
may have devolved into a bad thing in my years past, all prior events in his life, which
life at some point. Every day, one of the come to mind instantly and perfectly clear
first things I do is acknowledge the date and discernible. And still, despite Funes’s in-
and run it back in my memory as far back ternal torment, Borges describes him later
as I can. For example, a day before writing in the story as “monumental as bronze,
this, two years ago, my mom got married to more ancient than Egypt, anterior to the
her second husband. That same day but a prophecies and the pyramids.” His memory
year later, I was the best man in my friend’s is seen as a gift to the outside world, but a
wedding. Eleven days before, four years gift that’s short-lived, as Funes dies at the
ago, I started a new job that I ended up age of twenty-one of lung congestion at the
having for over three and a half years. Nine end of Borges’s story.
days before writing this, four years ago, an
ex-girlfriend and I started dating. Four days “Funes the Memorious” is about more
before this, six years ago, I was interviewed than just a young man with hyperthymesia
by a local newspaper after a baseball game and his tragic fate. It’s about the necessity
and felt like a real sports star. It’s thoughts of forgetting, how losing the fine details
like these that inundate my mind every day. in our memory allows for us to think inde-
pendently, to expand our thoughts, to be
I can’t simply start the day and go on abstract and original, untethered from the
with it in its current manifestation—the past and its influence. “To think is to forget
present. The present is always an after- a difference, to generalize, to abstract. In
thought for me, running from my mind until the overly replete world of Funes, there
all the ghosts of today past have been in- were nothing but details,” laments Borges.
dexed and neatly organized. Without separation from the past, one is
forever anchored to it.
The internet tells me this could be the
result of a condition called hyperthymesia, Time dilation is a concept used to explain
but I doubt it. I’m reluctant to self-diagnose changes in the passage of time caused by
anything, especially hyperthymesia, be- general relativity. As it follows, a clock in
cause I lack some of the more telling symp- outer space would move faster than a clock
toms. Nonetheless there is some assurance on Earth, because planets create a gravita-
in knowing the verbiage behind my obses- tional field and slow down time nearby. Al-
sion and knowing that I’m not alone in my bert Einstein was the first to discover and
date perseveration. put to words the concept of time dilation
with his theory of relativity in 1905. By the
Jorge Luis Borges, in 1942, wrote “Funes 1920s, time dilation was understood and
the Memorious,” a short story about a

178

Revista Literária Adelaide

accepted by the physics community. It’s a some of it, I wished I hadn’t. It’s terrifying. I
complicated concept to fully comprehend, was better off not understanding it.
and I had to watch a few “Time Dilation for
Kids” YouTube videos before it even made I haven’t been to outer space, but I’ve
an iota of sense to me. But there is one ex- experienced time dilation in my own life.
ample of time dilation I’m sure many are fa- After I finished college, I moved back home
miliar with. It occurs in Christopher Nolan’s like most History majors do after graduation.
movie Interstellar. The town I grew up in and where I moved
back to is a small town—a tightknit, homog-
Cooper, Brand, and Doyle—Matthew enous group burrowed comfortably in Mid-
McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, and Wes westville, USA. Though I like the town I grew
Bentley respectively—explore Miller, a up in and have no animus toward it, things
water planet, while they leave Romilly— are different there, like time. Time moves
David Gyasi—behind on the spaceship. On differently in a small town. Very differently.
Miller, time moves differently than it does
on the ship. Things go awry on the planet: I was—I am—twenty-three years old
Doyle gets swallowed by a tidal wave, forcing and single when I moved back home. Twen-
Cooper and Brand to abandon the planet ty-three and single, in most parts of the
and leave him behind. As a result, Cooper world, is not seen as an issue of any sort. It’s
and Brand return later than they had antici- normal, I think, to live uninhibited in your
pated. Upon their return, they’re met by an early twenties and settle down later with
aged Romilly, with a receding hairline, silver someone once you have had your fun and
flecks in his beard, and wearing a plaid bath- lived your single life. But not in a small town.
robe you only ever see old men wear—to Being twenty-three and single in a small
really pronounce his aging. When he sees town is the equivalent of being fifty-two and
his crewmates return, Romilly utters, “I’ve thrice divorced in other parts of the world.
waited years.” People think something is wrong with you.
You’re seen as an undesirable. Obviously if
“How… how many years?” asks Cooper. you were a normal human being you would
have married two or three years ago like
TARS, a robot assigned to the ship, says normal people do. It felt like I was Romilly,
it’s been twenty-three years, four months, but this time I was the one returning, and ev-
eight days on the ship. Though on Miller, erybody else was Cooper and Brand, looking
only a couple hours had passed. on in horror and with feigned sympathy.

On a YouTube video of the scene, in a I’ve had married friends try to set me up
comment liked by 282 users, Cholo Del on dates as if I’m some desperate quinqua-
rosari0 wrote, “Einstein [sic] theory of rel- genarian who let the golden hour of love
ativity and gravity are the most scariest passively slink into the blue hour and now
[sic] thing existed [sic] in our life and in our must settle for a contrived relationship be-
universe.” To which user roberto manuer cause I need to marry before it’s too late.
replied, “It freaks me out ! [sic]” I’m only twenty-three, mind you, and I have
friends thinking like this about me.
And I agree with both rosari0 and manuer.
I expended a lot of time and effort into trying And it’s not just friends. Shortly after I
to understand Einstein’s theory of relativity moved back home, my mom sat me down
and time dilation. When I finally understood

179

Adelaide Literary Magazine

for a serious talk. It was about me being legs and all they had done for you in the
unmarried, how some of my friends are past. I think this proves the resilience of
married, how my older sister married at the human spirit, how quickly we adapt to
twenty-three, how my younger sister is in a circumstances and surroundings in order
serious relationship; and the finale was how to survive and keep moving forward. Hu-
when my mom was my age she was already mans are incredibly pliable, almost like our
married, had a kid, and was pregnant with a bones are made of little Gumby dolls, not
second (me). I had stepped into an entirely hardened calcium phosphate and collagen.
different cosmos of time—a cosmos where But this five-year sentiment also reveals the
time was accelerated, especially once you innate effortlessness of being in the present,
reached your twenties. even when it hurts. The past is there in our
minds, and maybe it’s more alluring than
Had Einstein been born and raised in the present, but the present is the only time
a small town, I think he too would have that’s tangible. The present requires no ef-
noticed this small town time dilation phe- fort to be in, whereas the past requires re-
nomenon. He didn’t get married until he call and recollection.
was twenty-three, so he was nearing pariah
status. But Einstein was born in Ulm, a city It came at a pertinent time when I read
in Germany with a population of roughly about quadriplegics normalizing their injury
40,000 at the time of his birth. At sixteen, after five years. The five-year marker of my
he moved to Zurich, Switzerland, the largest dad’s death was approaching. This had me
city in Switzerland. Therefore he missed out thinking if maybe at five years I would nor-
on observing the effects of small town time malize the loss of my dad, and possibly even
dilation, which maybe would have helped erase him from my unconscious memory,
him in explaining his theory of relativity if convince myself I never had a dad anyway,
he had been able to put it in such simple, that life was always this way. I can say de-
applicable terms. Anybody who lives or has finitively that parts of him have been lost
lived in a small town, single and over the to time. And it all happened unconsciously,
age of twenty, is familiar with time dilation, as if one day parts of him started escaping
whether consciously or not. my mind while I wasn’t watching over them.
One of the first things I lost was his voice. I
The idea that time heals all wounds, I be- started to lose it after only six months. Right
lieve, must have first been said by someone now I can’t pin down the tone and timbre
completely devoid of wounds—someone of his voice. I know it sounds similar to
with a smooth, unblemished surface and mine: slightly soprano for a man but able
interior. Because anybody with a wound, to get deep when necessary—like when an-
no matter how small it may be, knows that swering the phone, so people don’t ask if
time certainly doesn’t heal anything. And they’re speaking to my mom or one of my
it’s not supposed to, either. Time has never sisters. To get the sound of his voice, I would
claimed to be a healer, but somewhere have to go back and watch old videos of him.
along the way it got the reputation. But to me that feels fake. It doesn’t feel right
that I can’t naturally remember him, that I
I once read it takes five years for a quad- need the assistance of something artificial
riplegic to feel that their injury was always to bring a piece of him back.
a part of their normal life. Only five years
to forget the function of your arms and

180

Revista Literária Adelaide

I have lost his posture, his gait, even the doesn’t have to be such polarity when
color of his eyes without the assistance of thinking about the past, especially with my
old photographs. The last text messages we dad. It’s not that he’s fading in the past and
exchanged and voicemails he left me were therefore nonexistent in my memory in the
lost when I got a new phone, which hap- present. He’s always there in the past, in
pened less than a year after he died. Family memories, whether I recall them with per-
pictures with him were gradually taken fect accuracy or not. Perhaps to normalize
down in my mom’s house—they were too your life doesn’t mean to heal it. It means
much to look at every day. His closet full of to adapt and accept it. The past is always
clothes was emptied one day without me there—it’s fossilized in time. The present
ever noticing. Over time the vestiges of not is the clay we mold ourselves with, and if
only his impact on my life but his entire we choose to, we can use scraps of the past,
existence in it have perniciously escaped because they’re there if we ever need them.
me, nearing extinction now at five years.
No doubt my obsession with time and in- In 1752, in what would eventually be-
dexing the past has helped somewhat pre- come the United States, the date went from
serve my dad in memory, but even then, I September 2, 1752 on Wednesday to Sep-
can only summon so much of him to mind tember 14, 1752 on Thursday. The reason
now, just fragments sometimes. It almost for the disappearance of eleven days was
feels normal to not think of him at all. the change from the Julian Calendar to the
Gregorian Calendar. The Western world had
I used time to expedite the grieving pro- been operating on the Julian Calendar since
cess after my dad’s death. I know this now 45 BCE, but in 1582 it was found the cal-
in hindsight. After his death, I would obses- endar was incorrect. So Pope Gregory XIII
sively timestamp the days, which fed into promoted a new accurate calendar, epon-
weeks, then months, years, and now half of ymously named the Gregorian Calendar.
a decade. I would tell myself thing like, “It’s France, Italy, Portugal, and Spain switched
been one month now, you can’t keep crying calendars in 1582 and lost ten days. The
over it.” Or, “Six months, no more feeling longer you waited to switch calendars,
sorry for yourself.” Then, “Three years, time however, the more days you lost. The soon-
to move on and leave him.” It wasn’t healthy. to-be United States, Canada, and the United
I realized I had become obsessed with the Kingdom lost eleven days when they all fi-
temporal aspect of grief, not the emotional nally switched in 1752.
aspect. I didn’t allow myself to feel the emo-
tions whirling around in my head and to be an What did colonists and their British over-
actual human being about my grief. I turned lords think about the time change? How did
into a grief-repellant robot, fueled by time to they react? They rioted in the streets, set
tell me all the reasons why I shouldn’t feel flame to government buildings, bureau-
sadness or anger or denial or pain. The treat- crats were hanged, drawn, and quartered;
ment I received from time turned out to only people demanded for their precious time
be palliative care. The pain could be tempo- back, they refused to lose their eleven days
rarily soothed but never cured with time. and be subjected to the jump in time; an-
archy was loosed upon the colonies.
I wanted to live forever in the good
past and run from the bad past. But there Not really. None of that happened.

181

Adelaide Literary Magazine

But there was a myth, known as the Cal- everybody’s life when relationships end.
endar Riot Myth, that depicted this state of It’s sad when it first ends and you mourn
unmitigated frenzy after the time shift. The the end of the relationship, but as time
myth was propagated by a satirical article goes on it feels like it gets easier. All of life’s
written by Lord Chesterfield and a painting distractions become too much and you
by William Hogarth, titled An Election Enter- eventually move on from the relationship,
tainment. Not much is truly known about abating the sadness. There’s drama at work,
how the masses reacted to the loss of family gossip, friend gossip, you have an
eleven days. The primary concern that re- oil change scheduled for next week, you
ceived the most documentation was taxing; barely remember singing “Come On Ei-
many worried their taxes would need to leen” at karaoke the night before and now
be paid earlier than usual. But a provision you’re going to spend all day in a cocoon of
in the act that implemented the calendar embarrassment. Time keeps moving and it
change ensured taxes would be due at their drags you along with it, giving you less and
original date—the date using the Julian Cal- less time to lament the further it drags you.
endar. Time away from someone allows you to
construct them in your own image. Maybe
It’s most likely that the time shift was you now see them as a boring homebody
accepted with resignation. Eleven days had who always kept you cooped up when you
disappeared and were rendered irrecover- wanted to go out, maybe they drank a little
able with the permanent calendar change, more than you would have liked, or they
and that was that. There was still Thursday were constantly criticizing any little mistake
the day after the change, albeit it looked you made, or they were too controlling. The
different now as September 14, 1752, not passage of time gives you the freedom to
September 3. The present was still there, paint portraits in any style you choose.
though, and it was going to happen regard-
less anyone chose to participate in it or not. Of course, the freedom to paint someone
how you choose can only happen when
I sometimes wonder what the world you keep moving forward and live in the
would be like today if eleven days disap- present. You must leave that person behind
peared. Certainly there would be many and create your own image, no matter how
more hang-ups than just taxing. As the abstract it may be.
world has evolved and grown technologi-
cally, our dependence on time has grown When I think of someone, no matter
too. I think those effects would be felt ev- what has happened to them or who they
erywhere. But what about those who have have become, I think of them in their hap-
a second home in the past, those who visit piest moments I ever saw them. It reminds
it when the present gets a little too cold for me of who they are when everything is just
their liking? They’d lose a big part of them- right, who they always wish to be. That, I
selves. Maybe they’d riot, or maybe they’d think, is who someone really is.
have no choice but to be where they are
and be there now. This may sound righteous and perhaps
even poetic, but it’s bad and it belies the
Though it cannot heal, time can distract. distraction time provides. It’s especially bad
And it’s very good at it. The distracting when it comes to the end of relationships—
nature of time, I think, is most evident in when the distraction of time is needed, and

182

Revista Literária Adelaide

the ability to create someone out of an ab- out of our minds and try to forget we ever
straction will help with moving on. Instead lived there. Perhaps it’s a form of time dila-
of dipping my paintbrush into a palette tion. Time passes differently depending on
of abstractions and applying layers to the where we are, and time is interpreted dif-
canvas, my mind is stuck on existent images, ferently depending on how we felt during it.
like how her brown eyes ballooned open
and how squeaky her voice got out of ex- Understanding a problem and its eti-
citement when we were at the black-footed ology doesn’t mean it’s solved. If it were
cat exhibit at the zoo, or the way she kicked that easy, science and medicine would
up sand when she excitedly turned to me to have found a cure for just about every ill-
show me she got the perfect picture of the ness heretofore discovered and researched.
sun setting on the shore of Lake Michigan. It requires work—trial and error, sometimes
more error than I would like. There’s a deli-
The past can be an impasse, a morass cate balance between living in the now and
of memories and old thoughts and feelings remembering the past. Too far on either
that will bog you down and swallow you the side, I think, and you start to lose yourself—
further you immerse yourself in it. It’s fine the self you are now and the pieces that
to occasionally look at it and reflect, maybe went into constructing that self.
even appreciate. But it’s no place to live. It
cannot sustain life. Good past, we cling to it If only I had passed Introductory Chem-
and try to get back to it. Bad past, we blot istry my freshman year.

About the Author

Riley Winchester lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He recently
graduated from Grand Valley State University, where he
earned a B.A. in History. His writing has appeared in Writing
Disorder and Waymark.

183



POETRY



THE CANYON

by Daniel Senser

The Canyon

Over the course of eons, the flow of water Something new is being born,
Has shaped the stone, Something old is dying.
The sharp edges smoothed and rounded
By the water’s constant flow. The stone determines
The river’s course, and the river determines
To weep is an honest exclamation, The shape of stone. Mutability,
A reclamation of the soul. Possible by entwined fate alone.

The rock is old and knows the strain of time I embrace you now because of our shared fate.
But so too does the water, whose circulation You let the tears flow as they must.
From mountain lake, to river, to ocean, to sky, We are as stone, the river of time shapes us.
Is never ending. The river of tears binds my lake
To your sea. God is the mercy.
You have touched the source of my pain, God is the space between.
Is it the mountain lake? Is it the sky?
I weep from my soul down through my eyes.

Just as there has always been youth,
There has always been the flow of the river.
Just as there has always been old age,
There has always been stone.
One was not just born, just as the other
Is not near dying.

187

Adelaide Literary Magazine
An Impresario Stalls for Time

I will not speak my peace tonight I came not to pass, nor act upon,
But declare my turmoil instead. Time. In essence, time does not matter.
I won’t throw any shades over your eyes It is matter-less, vacuous, it does not eat
Or dance around any subjects Breathe, sleep, or dream. It has no substance.
Or mince any words. Let us disregard it for eternity!
This speech has long been in the making, I am here, simply, frankly, and indubitably
Yet, I will not, as they say, seize the moment, To be, and then be gone,
Or even, let it go. As fleeting and lasting as a song.
The moment will happen, But don’t misunderstand me,
Whether I’m holding on or not. Though I am here now does not mean that
I won’t speak of the Devil, I am not also gone.
Say Grace, or the Lord’s name in vain. And though I may be gone later, does not mean
In fact, if I do say the Lord’s name, That I won’t be here later.
It will be a miracle, in which case Ah, but look at me, already speaking according
It would be with great purpose, indeed. To Time’s decree! Here, let the illusion stop.
Do not misunderstand me, this is not When I say the magic word, the curtain drops!
An exercise in rhetoric, and I didn’t come One, two, three.
To exercise my rights. Silence. Someone coughs..

About the Author

Daniel Senser is thirty four years old and has been writing seriously since he was eighteen.
Originally from Cincinnati, Ohio, he received his BA in English from the University of Cincinnati.
His work has appeared in Penwood Review, Adelaide, Blue Stem, Jewish Currents, and Poetry
Quarterly, among other journals. His new book, “Another Missed Connection”, published by
Adelaide Books, came out earlier this year. He currently lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

188

GODDESS

by Celine Low

Saturday Night Fever Goddess

We sit, boozy livers and light heads She was a goddess in his eyes
talking late, when he did not know her.
making fat sounds falling flat
into the carpet, She knew marriage would take her
glasses sweating on the table. One moment off the pedestal but hoped desire
looms large, the
red and love could learn to live
lava lamp on levelled ground.
bleeding
onto our faces: which one of us But when pedestal crumbled
shot himself with a finger gun where are her feet
and laughed,
while in another In his eyes a strange stone creature
room another friend snores, oblivious where a goddess used to sleep.
to the shadow that patted us on the cheek, and
ran away. Bloody ugly blemish hinting
at a wound sealed over
with layers of tough scaly tissue.

When he accused her of a dead heart
that was when she died.

She kept a carefully blank face
and closed off her eyes.

189

His Dirt Adelaide Literary Magazine
Sunday Afternoon Hum

Every night you look Sunday afternoon hum
at the door, of the PS and the fan and his snores
forward to when he returns and my hands at home
on clattering keys.
and in your arms ease,
releasing all the dirt the day heaped No break in the hum
on him. but enough
for a glance to rest
That night he returns sighing in your arms
carrying a black cloud on brown limbs sprawled, chest
he thinks he can keep facing down on the sofa,
hair sticking out from behind the arm
from you, rest; imagine his face below,
just above his head touching mouth open squished on one side by the pillow
no one else. (you smile,
invisibly),
You can’t know and you’re kept your hands still
from knowing. The cloud unleashes clattering and your eyes still
silver-sharp rain, tiny holes pretending they never left the screen.

all over your body. The silence tears Sometimes the best moments hide
you even more because you know that in the humdrum
he knows that for every toxic drop seconds you take a
second
of that cloud you would trade glance at.
in with a drop
of your own tear.

About the Author

Celine Low is a nomad writer, painter, dancer and secret
bathroom-singer. She holds an MA in English Literature,
and her writing is either published or forthcoming in
the Muddy River Poetry Review, Fifty Word Stories, One
Sentence Poems, BALLOONS Literary Journal, and 9Tales
from Elsewhere, among others. You can find her on
Instagram @_ckye, where she posts raw drafts of her
poetry.

190

A GATEKEEPER’S
VIGIL

by Helen Sokolsky

A Gatekeeper’s Vigil

I wander through carpets of I inhale the fragrance of this colorful mosaic
heather and primrose extend my palms to embrace their beauty
leaving behind a discordant arena ready to move into a different space
my salve is found locked in this garden gatekeeper to those forgotten fields
where a single flower can restore the soul where clusters of white blossom into an Eden
no strife present in this cloister of tranquility a shepherd’s purse.
as a soft breeze shakes marigold petals
forming a wreath of gold around my ankles. From that purse pockets of
solace will be gathered
Standing in a meadow of solitudes and when there are enough
one can absorb the peacefulness of earth all the branches with an Easter promise
watch the landscape begin to soften will be carried to the world outside.
the flowers standing monastic in parallel rows
their stems posed as soothsayers,
pensive, pondering.

191

Looking For Monet Adelaide Literary Magazine
More Than A Sign On A Cardboard Box

All afternoon I have been looking for my Monet. Tonight she takes a detour of sorts
If you happen to pass by him you will see Making her way through the wet
a man with a solitary purpose leaves strewn across the paths
standing outside the bus station Seeing the different hues as a canvas of her life.
his gloveless hands Shepherded by the arch of street
cradling his choir of roses, tulips and ferns lamps guardians in the darkness
a carefully arranged still life of She begins this night vigil when
happiness to be delivered. the town surrenders to sleep
He is a constant in the unrelenting And the lights come on in houses one by one
stream of pedestrians Each window framing scenes
all of them rushing to get somewhere. that play out unrehearsed
On his face you might notice a certain glow A script she often writes bedded down on
halo of the inner child whose another street she likes to call Mercy.
roots are bound to earth. Standing there in the crosswalk
she can feel it happening
In memory All those storm clouds she had
he sees the tractor whining its way to peel away layer by layer
over hayfields plowed by his father When she dragged the stones of
a man consumed with talking to the sky her past over so many cracks.
one gloved hand on the wheel, Somehow she learned it best to travel light
the other swinging free and found a piece of sidewalk to own
his mother on her knees struggling That sidewalk her sanctuary.
to gather ripened crops Through the thinness of her bedding
the son beside her with his bucket half empty. the earth would speak to her
In the sounds of footsteps, muffled
He has learned to accept what voices and motor vehicles.
his hands earn in a day One day an angel stepped on
and when fringes of dusk the edge of her corner
spread over the streets Unclasped the matches she held to keep
whatever remains in his arms warm and lit new candles for her shrine.
he will bring to the table Following that invisible thread of a safety
each flower each petal a sacred soul net she hollowed out a little more terrain,
grace notes of beauty Drawing a roadmap into the future
his garden his canvas. this is where she will turn
As she stoops to pick up a branch
fallen on the ground
Carrying it back to her street leaving it
there with her name carved inside.
More than a sign scrawled on a cardboard box

192

More than a tattered blanket Revista Literária Adelaide
covered with alms
Her quest has just begun The Smallest Survivors
A soul hidden for so long is
now visible to the sun. He was sitting by the brook
when I first saw him that morning
his legs dangling over the edge
holding his grandfather’s rod crouched
forward leaning into the silence.
In the water colorful tails would
sometimes rise and then descend
like an array of scattered party
favors being tossed around
but the boy never tightened his grip
never hauled anything into the net.
Not far from the water’s edge a
television was blasting breaking news
more innocent lives taken by
a torrent of bullets
angels trying to soar in flight their
wings clipped much too soon.
What are you doing out here I asked the boy.
–-I’m watching the fish.
The world has gone mad and
you are watching the fish?
–-I take care of them he says as he carefully
starts to scoop a few minnows into the net.
We didn’t speak after that and because there
was something beguiling about this child
I listened along with him, listened to
the lulling sound of the current
hearing the rhythmic changing pulse
that seemed to momentarily
alter the strife on earth
and I watched as he gently rotated
the fish their life in his hands
It was like looking at the hands of a sculptor
trying to mold an aquarium of freedom
for these smallest of creatures. Like
him I wanted them to survive
as if the voices of all those mortal
souls were calling out to be saved
their chorus soon to be a
requiem within the blades.

193

Adelaide Literary Magazine

The Waiting Room

Outside Here we know that nothing matters
The city fully orchestrated more than human gestures
Gridlocked traffic screaming sirens That extra loaf handed to you when the
That world far away blocked from view longest hours stretch even longer
Until our name is called.
Inside Looking around the room I reflect
This waiting lounge this holding pattern on how destiny defines us
We band together a company of strangers In this microcosm this small alcove of the world
Angled in a circle of trust Little did we know what would
Our lives connected by a single thread bind us all together.
As we keep that familial vigil In a singular collective breath,tapped
focusing on the green scrubs into each of our reservoirs
Rotating in and out of sliding doors. An overflow of streaming white ribbons
All of them called Hope.
Here we are in the same room same day
A group of blank face travelers
Pages filled when our glances
cross one another
And we speak the sign language of comfort
As if being together is all we need.

About the Author

Helen Leslie Sokolsky’s poems have appeared in a number of publications including
Confrontation, The California Poetry Quarterly, Poet Lore, The Poetry Review (PSA) and The
Meridian Anthology of Contemporary Poetry. Recent publications include The Ekphrastic
Review, Poetry Quarterly, POEM and The Aurorean. Her chapbook of poems Two Sides of
a Ticket was published by Finishing Line Press in 2014 and she is a three time nominee for
the Pushcart Prize. Helen loved her work as a Special Education teacher where she taught in
the South Bronx for over 25 years. Some of those students have been an inspiration for her
poetry. “I have never forgotten them.” She lives with her husband in upper Manhattan near
Ft. Tryon park and her two daughters and grandson are out in Ohio.

194

FLAME DIVINE

by Nardine Sanderson

An ode to you would be so delight and kindle well the dark of night , where all but
dreams do well provide a greeting met with either side, for heavens gates are bound in
death, but I of love have living breath, and nothing ceased me to believe that you of all
shall then reprieve, the nature of a lasting kind, to dwelleth in this heart of mine
Entirely swept in lullabies, until the end, once the body dies, in subtle differences we
all but love, enclosed by branches like a tree, and spread aground as so below
With little non but ease, fortunately to be well and taking breaths of life into
my lung, and in the end when you arrive, I’ll know the angels sung.

Dreams of he.

Mastered the vessel out on the sea, half sunk where the dreams of he, how
weight in water confined by the tides, stripped bare skin on either sides
The ropes of a faithful hand let go
Into the unknown waves advised
And all I held sacred in my heart
For him it had to rise
Like golden coins in the sun treasured by the open chest where kindled flames a heart does burn
Into the arms of the seas caressed
How well does love console an ocean of life, and sweet memories
Such a chest to open , bearing the essence of waters weight, I loved him intensely by fate,

195

Adelaide Literary Magazine

I swam in the shallows , his deeply embedded eyes, I was absent in his
needing cries, what thought had he in a parting last breath
To love me, and embrace the loins of death,
For I shall never know what’s spoken, but in my heart I’ll hold it was love,
and gather the strength of Many soldiers- just to swim above

Flame divine. (Read both ways bottom too top also)

Cover me in loves sweet notes for all that sound does travel well
And in my heart, I felt each feather
So softly I had fell
- into the light of morning, as gentle as that evening tide, and love was like that river flowing
a peaceful rest aside,
Oh sweet whims of loves full grace
I have my faith divine, as he makes light of every star and in the heart of
mine, I comfort knowing moonlight, I comfort knowing him
I make peace Within the depths he taught me how to swim,
Rivers rush towards the sea immortalizing you and me, like the tides of the ocean shore,
love enclosed to reassure, the more the heavens bless with light, not bound in body but
of flight, his wings embrace the heart of mine we are that kindred flame divine.

Before We Go To Sleep

The initial need to be desired as human being, the sense of fulfilment in
love, all the things we in turn to obtain we cannot take above , such a muse
of money and wildest dreams we share, but once this life is over

196

Revista Literária Adelaide

The cupboard seems so bare
For we are gravely creations and destined to depart, the only thing that lives
beyond is love left in the heart, life is a sweet investment to be particularly
useful in love, each and every day week seek it that immortal glove,
To love on forever in words or images to define, all the love the universe could
offer and greatly increase the mind, the lesson in our daily venture that need to be
expressed without gain, but adding to the limitations love could cease the pain
The grief of lonely shadows makes well in perfect light, we are the
grand possession of the flame and so we all ignite.
Like a coexistence between a heaven formed on earth
We gather information from our day of birth, we live between What brilliance the
earth bestows in trust, before the body dies again and comes back home to dust
The love we collect in a lifetime
Lives on beyond the grave
And we rejoice in it every promise to our heats that gave, we’ll splash out of the ocean
As the greatest wave against the tide, and so our love lives on forever Even after we’ve died.
What does one know of loving , but it’s gentle reminder that love is rare, the companionship of
love we with hearts do share , the ability to produce like rapids that chemical inside that not only
heals in serenity but so often provides the minded with ideals, to love in the vastness of spaces
between those boundaries set aside, complete in all known places the depths we have inside
To produce like oxygen the light in selves and lovers bound
We are merely weightless in what love has found, that unify arrangement we
all do hope and seek, and when we do find breathless moments unspoken
then to speak, the gentleness of a love that dwells the contours of the heart to
keep, before we start our longing journey, before we are laid to sleep.

In every spark.

Don’t be lonely love I’m in the heart
In the breeze, in the prayers
Upon your knees

In the unfolding sun, the rain when falling, the voice when calling

I’m the essence of your tender breath, the light that keeps you safe from death

197

Adelaide Literary Magazine

The peacefulness inside your dreams, the healing and holder of your precious screams

The expression of love you feel in light and dark, the eternalness in every spark

The flame in your fire burning, the beauty in the passion yearning

I’m the light in the morning sun
The moon and the stars
The courage you feel to mend the scars

The passage , the pathway the road that’s leading, I am there when your sadness is breeding

I am the anqor the seas and the tide, the landing and the ground beneath you walk with pride

I am the shelter the covers and pages, the timing and all the beautiful stages

The expression of love in every smile, the distance you travel
Every mile

The bravery the sensitive nature of all, I am here to catch your fall

The sky every sunset , every sun rise, I am the happiness Within your eye’s

I am the love that’s deepest within
The tiny shivers upon your skin
The laughter the tears
The presence the years

The one that burns in darkness bringing hope, the fighting spirit your ways to cope

The antidote to all the pain , the grief of loss that you substain

The rainbow in that cloudy sky
A shooting star, the mountain high

That nurturing of loves great power, the beauty bound in every flower

The nature of a gentle kiss, all things of wonder, you’ll never miss

The sweetness of a lullaby, the found hello and sad goodbye

I am the emotions raw and complete, the beauty in all you

198