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3 Copyright 2024 The Parliament Literary Journal, ISSN 2767-2158 (print); ISSN 2767-2166 (online) is published quarterly. All correspondence should be sent via email to parliamentlit@gmail.com. All rights are reserved by the arsts and authors. All works in the journal are conal. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author's imaginaon or are used cously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is enrely coincidental. The Parliament Literary Journal and logo design are registered trademarks. Submissions are accepted for our themed issues and contests via Submiable; details on our submission requirements can be found at our website. www.parliamentlit.com

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5 TABLE OF CONTENTS 6/7 Nikki Gonzalez 8/9/10/11/12 Eliza Scudder 13 Ulysses Nowhere 14/15 Evgeniya Dineva 16/17 Willy Conley 18/19 Taylor Franson-Thiel 20/21 Oz Hardwick 22 Paul Luikart 23 Cyrus Carlson 24/25 Aaron Beck 26/27/28/29 Donald Patten 30/31 Glenn Ingersoll 32/33 Aman Bibi Gray 34 David Howard 35 Shannon Kiley 36 Leah Oates 37 Chelsea Whittington 38 Diamante Lavendar 39 Carolyn Schlam 40/41 Margaret Rose Smith 42 Zoe Hansen 43 Diego Gonzalez 44/45/46/47 Anne Whitehouse 48/49 Marina Outwater 50/51 Ellen White Rock 52/53 Ochie 54 Begonya Plaza-Rosenbluth 55 Nikki Gonzalez 56/57 Michael Brockley 58/59 Stephen Kingsnorth 60/61 Steve Barichko 62/63/64/65/ 66/67 Toni Kochensparger

6 “Man is not what he thinks he is, he is what he hides.” - Andre Malraux Dear Readers, Several years ago, my sister and I traveled to a not-so-far-away university to see a lecture given by Frank Warren, the mind behind the “PostSecret” phenomenon, a now worldwide project that began when Frank deposited blank, self-addressed and stamped postcards around his city with the invitation on it to strangers who happened upon one to mail him their secret. People not only wrote their secrets down on these postcards, but they began to decorate them with art, as well, before mailing them back to Frank. Very quickly, he was receiving several postal sacks filled with postcards each day. And, of course, they weren’t just from residents of his city, but from further and further away. He has since amassed enough to curate 6 books, host museum exhibitions around the world, and maintain a weekly website, updated with new secrets every Sunday. (See www.postsecret.com.) As I sat in the auditorium next to my sister hearing Frank speak about the project’s inception and the profound emotional effects it has since had on him and others, I stirred in my seat with my own secret. A big one. And when a Q&A period began - a period that had become, at PostSecret events, to be the opportunity for audience members to share their own secrets aloud, should they wish, I squirmed. I sweated. I agonized. Do I take the opportunity to finally unburden myself -- not only to my sister but to a room full of supportive strangers? In the end, I didn’t. I chickened out. And I suspect that this issue is that secret’s -- and the others’ that have accumulated since then -- way of sneaking out. Oh, how I struggled to write this opening letter. How I struggled like no other letter I have ever written. How I am STILL struggling at this moment. That opposite page there? It should be filled with words of confessions -- MY confessions. Instead, I’m chickening out again and letting it seep only controlled and concealed. As writers and artists, we have a particularly beautiful way to cathex our secrets. Is that what the contributors to this issue did? Did they spill their own secrets or are they pure, imaginative fiction? I’m not telling. Nikki Gonzalez 1

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8 Rebirth

9 Eliza Scudder

10 Eliza Scudder

11 Eliza Scudder

12 Eliza Scudder Eliza Scudder is an arst and writer who creates drawings, poetry, and graphic narraves about her life. Many of her stories are about childhood memories, experiences of sexual trauma, astrology, and mental health. Her work was recently featured in an online magazine called Oddball Magazine. Follow her on Instagram @elizascudderwring.

13 Secret Sperm The origin of the word "secret" is an interesting one. Its roots trace back to the Latin "Secretum," the past participle of the verb "Secernere," signifying "to set aside." This verb evolved from another, "Cernere," meaning "to separate" or "to distinguish." In ancient times, sharing or holding a secret meant more than mere withholding words—it denoted the separation or exclusion of individuals. Even today, we continue to discern trustworthy individuals from others, determining whom we involve or exclude from different parts of our lives based on the secrets we choose to disclose. Secrets exist only in the realm of choice and exclusion. They don’t thrive in complete public exposure (obviously) or absolute privacy. When only one person knows something without any deliberation on inclusion or exclusion of others, it’s not a secret; it remains merely a thought or a private action. Secrets, originally, involved at least a duality. Later in history, as medicine advanced, "Secernere" took on another meaning relevant to our understanding of secrets. This is evident in the English word most closely related to "secret": "secrete." This term commonly associates with cells or glands and their function of releasing substances. To secrete implies producing something distinct from its origin (for example, sperm is distinct from the testicles) yet connected to it. Similarly, secrets adopt facets of this meaning. When we possess or share a secret, those words or actions, though related to us, take on a life of their own. They become separate entities, performing their function independently of us. This encapsulates the essence of a secret—its ability to accomplish a task that we, on our own, cannot achieve. A secret can draw us closer to some individuals while distancing us from others. It might reveal our true selves or portray someone else in a manner inaccessible through conventional means. It might signify complete surrender or convey an unspoken "I belong to you" that words cannot express. Ultimately, though, another observation can be made about this modality of the origin of secrets. A truly revealing one when it comes to secrets and their beholders. Just like a fully developed gland is properly functioning only if it secretes the substance it is supposed to, a fully-grown human being is properly living only if they have secrets. “To be is to have a secret”; “I have a secret, therefore I am” should be the human’s motto. A life worth living is a life worth sharing with someone but not with everyone. A life worth living is a life where you have secrets that you share with someone else. A life worth living is, even, a life where you are someone’s secret. Considering both etymologies, then, a secret emerges as a means of separating, setting aside, or isolating individuals through a substance that, while not us, emanates directly from us. This substance operates independently and fulfills a specific function that couldn’t be achieved otherwise. Sharing, having, or keeping a secret are diverse mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion that, once in existence, transcend anyone’s control. Like a newly formed substance, secrets take on a life of their own, engaging in a game beyond the creator's intentions, and that give to the creator’s life meaning. Ὁ μῦθος δηλοῖ ὅτι: Always be fearful of a person with no secrets as they have not lived properly I think you already know How far I’d go not to say You know the art isn’t gone And I’m taking this all to the grave J. Homme, The Lost Art of Keeping A Secret, Rated-R

14 Her Name was Neda My mom called but I didn’t pick up, she says, waving at the bartender for another daiquiri. It’s Tuesday and we take whisky shots before we get kicked out and I skip work the next day. We see Hamlet on Thursday but she is laughing so hard that people start to hush and turn. We leave before the end to thread the burnt orange ground and toss mud in the foamy green water by the factory outside town. I never finished the book you gave me. She grabs more mud to drown and tells me she slept with a guy on Wednesday. We go to the zoo in the afternoon because she hasn’t seen the penguins yet and some plants in the garden have bloomed at the wrong time of the year. It’s just us and a bunch of preschoolers with their teachers. She scolds them for throwing popcorn at the bears but we all get ice cream in the end. I no longer ask her what she’d call her daughter.

15 I woke up and found him dead on the floor. Actually it wasn’t him who died but his dog. Its ribs were forming a balloon in the middle of the frail shape. This once delicate flesh turned into a scab a hole sprouting from its stomach. I didn’t know dogs had hipbones like my sister’s right after she decided two biscuits and whisky were enough for the day. The taste of wet soil fills my mouth as I walk out on the porch because I don’t know where he keeps the white sheets and what he is doing with all the food. In the bustling clouds of the approaching winter there are no smells, no hairs, no collars. No misunderstandings, no shouts or commands. He didn’t say he’d miss this but he will. Evgeniya Dineva Winter Ribs Evgeniya Dineva is a poet from Bulgaria. Her works appear in The Hong Kong Review, Ethel, Asian Cha and others. Her debut poetry collecon Animals Without Fathers came out in November 2023. Evgeniya is a fellow of the Elizabeth Kostova Foundaon for Creave Wring.

16 Even Statues Need a #MeToo

17 On the morning my father and I drove to the Baltimore Museum of Art to see the Dale Chihuly glass exhibit we passed The Johns Hopkins University. On the outskirts of campus a Hans Schuler bronze and marble statue the university’s namesake flanked by two bronze figures. On Hopkin’s left, a male figure “Knowledge and the University” on his right, a female “Healing and the Hospital.” My father says, “Let you in on a secret… the pledge class always polishes the female statue’s breasts every year…for good luck – the only thing that really shines on the whole thing in my opinion.” Willy Conley Willy Conley's most recent book is Photographic Memories – Essays, Playlets, and Stories. His other books are: Plays of Our Own – An Anthology of Scripts by Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Writers, Visual-Gestural Communicaon: A Workbook in Nonverbal Expression and Recepon, The World of White Water – Poems, Listening Through the Bone – Collected Poems, The Deaf Heart – A Novel, Vignees of the Deaf Character and Other Plays, and Broken Spokes – A Play in Seven Scenes. Born profoundly deaf, Conley is a rered professor emeritus and former chair of Theatre Arts at Gallaudet University (the world’s only liberal arts university for deaf and hard-of-hearing students) in Washington, D.C. Fun fact: In an earlier “lifeme,” he used to be a medical photographer at some of the top hospitals in the U.S., and became the rst and only deaf person to become cered as a Registered Biological Photographer. For more info about his work, please visit: willyconley.com

18 How to Discover Atlantis It takes attending to your mothers’s whalesong which can extend for thousands of miles, reverberating waves through the body guiding toward water of dark, water of obscurité. How the water around you is familiar in the way your mothers tongue is familiar. It takes getting sonorous, loud in your deepness—it takes venturing into inconnue—So you can forge a fresh dialect, Sing your own song. Decouvrir, as your mother always says. Of removing covers and reaching into the au courant. You look to your mother afraid of what might be out there. She smiles, sings. C'est à l'intérieur de toi. It is inside you

19 Learning How to Tell a Lie My body rejects untruth like an unwanted graft. When I try writing: he pushed me down a hill while I wore 4-inch heels and laughed when I rolled my ankle, I become a haunted house, full of lies tucked behind the horror—because that isn’t quite what happened. He did not laugh. He wept, put his face in his hands and said: Why would I do that? I am so sorry. I don’t know why I did that over and over until I comforted him, winced off the pain. All I have is honesty, or at least, what feels the most like honesty. So I call his abuse what it really is, an apology. I convince myself. I convince myself. I convince myself. Taylor Francon-Thiel Taylor Franson Thiel is a writer from Utah, now based in Fairfax, Virginia. She received her Master’s in creave wring from Utah State University and is pursuing an MFA at George Mason University. Her wring frequently centers on playing as a Division One basketball player, the body, and mental health. Along with wring, she enjoys liing heavy weights and reading fantasc books. You can nd her on twier @TaylorFranson

20 The Great Escape It used to be that your name was all I had in my diary, neatly penned in day after day. Times varied, and there was a complex system of rubrication, but the words remained the same, digging deeper and deeper through each day, like the tunnel in an escape movie. On my way to work, or to the shops, I’d surreptitiously scatter the fragments of my clandestine excavations from flour bags laced beneath my coat, while at night I’d leave a makeshift dummy in my bunk. As weeks, then months, passed by, I rolled each page into a fine tube of bartered leaves, then smoked away the evidence by the perimeter fence in plain view of searchlights and guards with unconvincing accents. Sometimes I felt I was in the moment, but more often I felt I was in a badly dubbed movie, made more for morale and sentiment than artistic vision. It’s not mentioned on imdb, but there are clips on YouTube. There I am, shuffling and avoiding eye contact under questioning, makeshift cigarette burning my fingers: and there’s your name, barely scratching the surface, and I’m unsure of the spelling.

21 4/4 Oz Hardwick Human mysteries unpeel themselves like gleaming bananas. Meaning of life, secret of happiness, and all that jazz. All that jazz? Not even hard bop, wide and harsh with blazing tempos and simple percussive refrains. This is session men on union scale, reading the charts like instructions on a TV dinner in studio downtime. The sort of jazz you only see in charity shop boxes, with inexplicable covers: an out-of-work dancer, wrapped in gauzy cultural appropriation amongst plastic palm trees, peeling a banana in a risqué pastiche of Freud’s instinctive urge. Who bought this first time round – and, frankly, why – is a mystery for another time. This is a moment for the genesis of desire and for reaching out hands in the darkness. We peel the scales from our eyes like … like … We forget the background music even as it plays. Oz Hardwick is an internaonal award-winning poet, who hides things from himself that everyone else noces immediately. He has wrien a lot of books and has forgoen how to play bass guitar. Swings and, indeed, roundabouts. Oz is Professor of Creave Wring at Leeds Trinity University (UK).

22 Pool Party I remember Ethan’s white legs. Matt’s last pool party. My goddamn hard-on. I wouldn’t take off my shirt till the sun went down and Lee wouldn’t quit talking about little boy things—Pokemon, X-Men, his new favorite root beer. Meanwhile, Ethan flickered through the water like a slow torpedo fired from the underwater lights. Lee said, “Pikachu—” and I snapped. “Shut the fuck up. Bro.” We didn’t speak for two weeks, but we made up over root beers at Matt’s house—like a UN summit that he’d arranged for us. At least as consequential. By then, Matt’s dad had already covered the pool for winter. Paul Luikart is the author of the short story collecons Animal Heart (Hyperborea Publishing, 2016), Brief Instrucons (Ghostbird Press, 2017), Metropolia (Ghostbird Press, 2021) and The Museum of Heartache (Pski’s Porch Publishing, 2021.) He serves as an adjunct professor of con wring at Covenant College in Lookout Mountain, Georgia. He and his family live in Chaanooga, Tennessee.

23 Green Mist Cyrus Carlson is an abstract painter from the Midwest

24 Pity and pardon me this anguished crying

25 Aaron Beck Aaron is a pianist and writer, who lives in Portland, Oregon.

26 Figures

27 Donald Patten

28 Donald Patten

29 Donald Paen is an arst and cartoonist from Belfast, Maine. He produces oil painngs, illustraons, ceramic pieces and graphic novels. His art has been exhibited in galleries across Maine. His online porolio is donaldpaen.newgrounds.com/art Donald Patten

30 What Has a Secret Life found in the Berkeley Public Library online catalog according to Brian Lynch: pets according to David Grubin: the brain according to Sylvia Tara: fat according to Gina Prince-Bythewood: bees according to Laurence Pringle: the red fox according to Susan L. Prescott and Alan C. Logan: your microbiome according to Mariano Sigman: the mind according to Jack Viertel: the American musical according to Anthony D. Fredericks: clams according to James W. Pennebaker: pronouns according to Erica McAlister: flies according to Sue Monk Kidd: bees according to Kira Vermond: money according to Przemyslaw Wechterowicz: a tiger according to Kenneth Libbrecht: a snowflake according to Isabel Coixet: words according to Kat Duff: sleep according to Dawn Raffel: objects according to Sarah K: a submissive according to Roberto Poli: musical notation according to Trevor Corson: lobsters according to A. Peter Klimley: sharks according to Steve Biddulph: men according to Hannah Holmes: dust according to Victoria Nelson: puppets according to Carl Jones: the mother

31 according to Thomas Verny: the unborn child according to Misty Evans: cranberry sauce according to Alan D. Eames: beer according to Kory Stamper: dictionaries according to Eve Ensler: girls around the world according to Richard Fortey: a natural history museum according to Mandy Aftel: scent according to Josie Iselin: seaweed according to Keith Houston: punctuation, symbols, & other typographical marks according to Clare Longrigg: women in the mob according to Fiona Giles: breasts according to Susan C. Law: the country house according to Charles Fishman: water Glenn Ingersoll Glenn Ingersoll works for the public library in Berkeley, California. Videos of his poetry reading & interview series Clearly Meant can be found on the Berkeley Public Library YouTube channel. Ingersoll's prose poem epic, Thousand, is available from bookshop.org and as an ebook from Smashwords. Autobiography of a Book is forthcoming in late 2023 from AC Books. His poem "Personal Tesmony" was given a Special Menon in the 2022 Pushcart Prize anthology. He keeps two blogs, LoveSelement and Dare I Read. Poems have recently appeared in Thieving Magpie, Furious Gazelle, and Trash Panda. hp://loveselement.blogspot.com hp://dareiread.blogspot.com twier @loveselement instagram @theloveselement

32 My parents were teachers (and they did not know it) I would take little bits of the sun-warmed life around me and tuck them into my breast. Crammed behind my molars. Seep through my toes, run away; sweep away my footsteps from the sand. It was always little, little: too-thin white lines on my ankles, knowing how long I’d have to watch the clock tick. ‘Fore I reached out, white cloth. Swing my hand through the air. Ghost fingers tangle in mine, her laugh on my lips. Piece of my cornea: every suit of the shopfront. (My pockets: phone, keys, my dad’s pocketknife. Couldn’t do without all three.) When I looked and felt nothing but the want to kiss, to hold hands, to lie together and sleep. (Of course it wasn’t a nothing but. Not to me. Not to me.) Pulled by the hand, whispers behind oak library-shelves: and my head hit all their laminated spines, but her fingers were so tight in my curls that I didn’t much care.

33 Aman Bibi Gray My wife holds me like a neighbour’s baby, or an orange, like something precious. I know: she wonders my password-locked everything. how my lips shape into lies when I’m half-awake. Indeed, I still do not let her wash the blood from my socks. I know: she will wait for me to speak of it all, I know: she will not ask my heart repent, repent. My ears are overflowing, still. And I turn behind when we walk. So that my footprints will be wiped from the soil — Converse-stamp by Converse-stamp. Aman Bibi Gray is a writer and photographer based in Durban, South Africa. They love chasing their three rabbits around the house, playing the tabla, and crocheng — though not all at the same me!

34 Everyone wants to be chosen New Zealander David Howard is the author of 'Rāwaho: the Completed Poems' (Cold Hub Press, 2022) and the editor of 'A Place To Go On From: the Collected Poems of Iain Lonie' (Otago University Press, 2015). In a past life David acted as Tour Supervisor (SFX) for both Metallica and Janet Jackson. He also lived in the Czech Republic and Russia on UNESCO residencies. David has now rered to Croaa. His personal website is: www.davidhowardpoet.com

35 Untitled Shannon Kiley graduated from Sonoma State University with a BA in psychology. She lives in Sacramento, California. She is the self-published author of Rise Above Poetry Book (2020) and Turn the Tide Poetry Book (2021).

36 2015 Oates has B.F.A. from the Rhode Island School of Design, an M.F.A. from The School of the Art Instute of Chicago and is a Fulbright Fellow for study at Edinburgh College of Art in Scotland. Oates has had solo shows at Black Cat Artspace, Susan Eley Fine Art, The Central Park Arsenal Gallery, Real Art Ways, The Brooklyn Public Library and at the MTA Arts and Design Lightbox Project. Oates has been in group shows in Toronto at the Gladstone Hotel, Arta Gallery, John. Aird Gallery, Propeller Gallery and at Papermill Gallery. Oates has been in numerous group shows in NYC at Wave Hill, Edward Hopper House, Chashama, WAH Center, Metaphor Contemporary Art, Denise Bibro Fine Art, Nurture Art Gallery and The Pen and Brush Gallery @ hp://www.leahoates.com

37 Untitled

38 Faith Diamante Lavendar lives in the Midwest US. She enjoys using art as a medium to explore the issues of life and humanity’s reacons to those issues with a strong emphasis on spirituality. Many of her works are abstract in nature with a focus on color, shapes, and lines. The majority of her work is mixed media digital art which includes some or all of the following: photography, fractals, drawing, painng, and digital art. Diamante’s work has been shown in over one hundred twenty exhibions and has won numerous awards in those shows. Her work has been published in over 20 magazines to date and she has also been recognized in The American Art Awards for six consecuve years (2017-2022) and also The World Art Awards in 2023.

39 Incognito Carolyn Schlam is a painter, sculptor and published author. Carolyn’s books include “The Creave Path,” “The Zen of Art” and “The Joy of Art” books, volumes 1 and 2. Her work is primarily gurave; she loves mixing media, and is currently engaged on a new series called “A Stch in Time” which marries sewn embellishments to intense portraits of the people she has known and loved. She feels like an alchemist bringing these imaginary gures to life on the canvas.

40 In the Next World Four days before the end of the world, Trent and I were smoking a blunt on top of his aunt’s roof like we did every Sunday. We never fucked sober, or it would ruin the whole schtick where we pretended we were friends. “In the end, we’re just animals,” Trent said, smoke spilling out of his mouth like baby vomit, “it’s like, why deny that we crave that connection, that instinct to pass on our species?” He scratched underneath his chin, where angry ginger stubble was pushing out. He’d stopped shaving when he’d heard the end was near. “You hear that Jodie’s going to Japan?” I said, trying not to think about my instincts for once, and have a civilized conversation with him. “Mm,” replied Trent, passing the blunt back to me, “stupid shit.” “I think it sounds fun,” I said, inhaling and feeling the smoke hit the back of my throat and coat my mouth in the flavor of pencil shavings. “Sure it is. But then what? You get back and you have one more thing to miss when you realize you won’t get to go back.” “I guess that’s true,” I sighed, laying back on the roof shingles and looking up at the sky. It was one of those afternoons where both the sun and the moon were visible, as if sizing each other up for battle. Three days before the end of the world, Trent and I were flipping burgers in the back of the In-N-Out on Playa Del Norte Drive, a task which always ended up feeling like a ritualistic competition for dominance. Whoever could spatula fastest would win possession of the female in heat, in this case the yellowing print-out picture of Our Lady of Guadalupe that hung over the fryer baskets. I liked when the bits of crud from the griddle landed in oily specks on the neck of Trent’s t-shirt. Two days before the end of the world, Trent called in sick to work and urged me to do the same. I was hesitant, but figured there was no point in coming in if he wasn’t going to be there.

41 Our manager hadn’t even come in since she heard about the end, anyway. We drank ourselves sick on Trent’s aunt’s bottle of New Am. She was saving the nicer stuff for a special occasion. The twin bed croaked underneath me, begging to be put out of its misery as Trent gathered fistfuls of my hair and pulled like he was trying to take my mask off. The day before the end of the world, I planned to go over to Trent’s aunt’s house and tell him I loved him. When I got out of bed, the room started spinning and I blew chunks all over the carpet. When the room stopped spinning, I knew it was already too late. I cried like a girl. Maybe, in the next world, I’ll be one. Margaret Rose Smith

42 Secrets Zoe Hansen is an Illustrator and Fine Arst based in Bloomeld New Jersey. With a keen eye for capturing the beauty of life's smallest wonders, Zoe's art and illustraons are a vibrant reecon of her natural surroundings and her ability to nd enchantment in even the most challenging of mes. Her work is characterized by a palee of bright and fantascal colors that breathe life into her creaons. Drawing inspiraon from her daily experiences, Zoe loves to transform the ordinary into extraordinary pieces of art. Her art journey has led her to meet many wonderful people and arsts along the way and she hopes to connue to get her art seen by others that may enjoy it and nd it inspiring. Porolio: hps://zoehansen.carbonmade.com instagram: www.instagram.com/zoepaintz

43 Snoopin’ Diego Gonzalez is a lm student at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. The best joke he knows goes like this: So there was this farmer and he absolutely loved tractors. I mean, he had tractor CDs, tractor posters, tractor t-shirts, I mean he LOVED tractors. Except there was one thing he loved more than tractors. And that was his wife. But one day, there was a bad accident. His wife was run over by a tractor and he ran over to her and he swore to her, as she lay dying, “I’m going to get rid of everything tractors, I’m not going to love tractors anymore because of how sad and angry this made me.” He promised that to her. So, a couple years passed, he grieved, moved on, and was ready to start dang again. He went on a date, but at this restaurant there was an accident in the kitchen. Smoke went everywhere, covering the enre restaurant, everyone was coughing. It was horrible. His date started screaming and panicing but he said, “Calm down, I’ve got this.” With one big breath, he sucked in all the smoke, ran outside and blew it all out, saving everyone! Amazed, his date went up to him and asked, “How did you do that?!” And he said, “I’m an extractor man.” Find more of his work on Instagram @dmgphotoz

44 Cadaver Study a cento, for Tiffany Fisk I’d learned that the fascia hold the muscles and organs in place, but it wasn’t what I expected, not a net, but more like fuzz or cotton candy, tougher in some areas and finer in others. Reflecting back the cadaver’s skin revealed superficial fascia cradling globes of fat, each encased in its own membrane, some pea-sized or like a grain of corn, and the deep fascia below covering the muscles. The patterns in her body showed me how she used her body. The rotation of her rib basket, the rotation of her leg, from habits that formed over time. How distinct the muscles are when you dissect into them, the wide ribbon of latissimus dorsi, subscapularis inside the armpit. When I moved her arm, the fiber layers of pectoralis major did their little twist. It took eight of us three hours to dissect her posterior. I was surprised by the thickness of the thoracolumbar fascia. Its pearly-white aponeurosis was as dense as a muscle connected to her sitting bones. No wonder so many people have low back pain. The fascia is thin at the trapezius, where the muscle fibers lie in three directions to move head, neck, and arm. I saw how the lats and traps come down and the rhomboids attach. All was exactly like the textbooks and different at the same time. When we eviscerated her, it was strangely not strange. I used clippers to snip the ribs and pulled them back to reveal the heart and the lungs, the diaphragm attaching to the pericardium. Except for the first rib, they snapped easily.

45 Anne Whitehouse The heart was full of red strings that felt like spaghetti. The alveoli of the lungs felt grainy, like mashed-up Rice Krispies. We made a tracheotomy and inserted a straw. When we blew through it, the lungs inflated. Then there were the stomach, the spleen, the liver. I was unprepared for the size of the liver. She had only one kidney and one ovary the size of my fingernail. The other had a cyst. I opened the gall bladder, and bile came out. I opened the stomach, and its contents came out. There was so much poop in the large intestine, yet the smell of the cadaver was not a fleshy smell, but a product of the juices that remain in the body as it goes from being alive to being dead. In her past she’d suffered a trauma. She’d had knee, hip, and shoulder surgeries on her right side. Internal sutures ringed her abdomen. I wanted to see how her hip articulated from the inside. I started on the iliac crest of her bad hip. The tissue was fatty and grisly, the sutures tough to get through at first, but they came apart easily, and I fanned out the muscles stabilizing the hip— gluteus maximus, medias, and minimus, the external rotators, psoas, iliacus— that keep the femur tight in the socket. When I pulled them aside, there was a metal hip, like a golf ball cut in half. It moved around easily on the fake femur neck, but the iliofemoral ligament securing the head of the femur to the socket was missing.

46 The healthy hip was harder to cut into. As the head of the femur came free, it made a sucking sound. We cut off the pelvic floor and the sitting bones. The hamstrings’ attachments were thick and tight. They went right into the bone. She had screws in her sacrum from her trauma. The synovial fluid in her joints was sticky like molasses, but the spinal discs were dry, and the sacroiliac joint was bigger than I expected. We saw the “cauda esquina,” or “horse’s tail,” where the spinal cord branches out to enervate the sacrum. The sciatic nerve was the width of my finger and went from the base of the spine down the back of the leg, into the foot. We took apart her mandible and temporomandibular joint connecting her jaw to her skull. We removed the temporalis muscle under the zygomatic arch and the soft palate. We took out the tongue and voice box, observing the vocal folds, the esophagus and windpipe, the neck muscles. It was hard to turn her head to the right. Then we saw why: a bone spur on the cervical spine, the size of a dime. Four of us took turns with a hacksaw to get into her skull, The dura mater came off with the outer covering. Exposed, the consistency of the brain was less firm than jello, more like mush. The pituary gland was the size of my pinky nail, but round. Anne Whitehouse

47 Anne Whitehouse Teasing out other layers, I found the optic nerve, and I saw the black pupil. The color of her eyes was indescribable. I knew her body from the inside as she could never know it. I made guesses about her life, but I could never know her. After my efforts, I was exhausted, as if I had taken a long journey.

48 We All Wear Masks

49 Self Portrait with Foliage Marina Outwater Marina Outwater is a middle school teacher, a photographer, a poet, and an ice hockey player. Most importantly, she is the mother of twins. She can be found on Instagram at owlspirit14.

50 My mother teaches me the secret of what to do when you don’t know where you are On the way back from piano lessons the smell of Miss Stuart’s meatloaf and my missed notes snarling our hair, she confesses she doesn’t know where we are. She says Let’s pick someone who looks as though they know where they are going and follow them. We settle on the red beckoning of a dented Ford wagon which leads us over the black river, down a grand boulevard past a graveyard with curling iron gates. I rest my forehead against the window, feel the cool, flat night seep into my eyes. This starts to happen regularly. I realize now we never found ourselves lost on the way somewhere only when not quite home, where what waited was monotony of bath, bedtime: One more story. One more glass of water, tomorrow’s lunches, laundry, ironing, bills. Sometimes we returned so late the worn brown paper bags and cartoon-stamped boxes are laid out on the counter next to slices of bread facing each other like tombstones or pages, impenetrable pink bologna on one side bright mustard smiles on the other.

51 Margaret Rose Smith Ellen White Rook is a poet, writer, and contemplave arts teacher who divides her me between upstate New York and Maine. Rered from a career as an informaon technology manager, she now oers wring workshops and leads retreats that combine meditaon, movement, and wring. Ellen holds a Master of Fine Arts degree from Lindenwood University and has been twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Suspended, her rst collecon of poetry, was released by Cathexis Northwest Press in May 2023. She also teaches ikebana, Japanese ower arranging. Visit her website at ellenwhiterook.com.

52 misery loves company Pleasure is very selfish, we all got fleeced not seeing the puny details, the little things acrid flashbacks resuscitate cursorily in the middle of nocturnal self talks, inquiries about what’s underneath vizards, snookering riggings our Janus-faced frail humanity loves to conceal; because the unwritten rules of survival are engraved in greed’s memorandum of understanding some fail to read. Pleasure is very selfish, egocentric; why should its luminous adrenaline in our bloodstreams be for public consumption, when its ownership could be inked in contracts, cautiously sealed for the greater or worse on insight’s ambit, till death do us part or child custody, programmed for cameras and action, for the time being; it’s hard to compromise, pleasure is selfish.

53 To rear his brands from the debris of the content creators realm, and capitalize on programmed behaviors, the digital dignitary must immolate his privacy, devoutly vend our ideals in visually engaging clips, scattered on timelines, with his kin. In an era of viewers worship, the art of deceit proficiency is necessary to sell an image to an audience way too naive to understand, with binary coded hearts, that its data is a currency and that algorithmic injustice won’t cease until its absolute servility. Enraptured in webs of nonfulfillment, doomscrolling on the hypnosis, the congregation of phubbing followers craving for dopamine hits is hardwired to stay connected to our reshaped reality; it won’t be hard to win them over, from nursery we hold their leash. Ochie this week

54 What Secrets Lie Behind Begonya Plaza-Rosenbluth is an accomplished theatre, television, and lm actor, author, and lmmaker. Her two-act/three-character play TERESA'S ECSTASY premiered O-Broadway at the Cherry Lane Theatre. Her wring is included in 2013 The Best Women's Stage Monologues. Begonya has poetry published in various magazines, and books: Silver Tongued Devil Anthology / Rimes of the Ancient Mariner, & 2023 Rogue Scholars Anthology. Most recently Begonya performed her short 1-person play, Quantum's Big Picture at 53rd Street Library for EquityLibraryTheatre as a prologue to her full-length piece-in-progress, recorded and available for viewing on YouTube. www.begonyaplaza.com

55 Sometimes I jump on these pages, too, and my secret is that sometimes I don’t use my real name. But this time, what the hell? Donna Marie can’t sit anymore in the passenger seat of her husband’s car because that’s where he places with thumping heart with fiery libido the woman he’s been loving on with body and words for some months now and who he drives around one hand on the wheel, the other tracing circles that tickle! in the palm of not-wifey’s hand. Donna Marie can’t sit anymore either on the sofa of her living room because she can sense the straddling grinding and (worst of all!) the tender cuddling with whispers that happened on each cushion. She can’t walk at parks near and far; She can’t stand in her husband’s office; She can’t eat in at least 3 restaurants that she knows of; go to 2 museums; ride the train; or borrow that sweatshirt of his ever again. These she knows but all the other what-ifs turn her stomach just the same. (Can she sleep in her own bed? Probably no.) It’s here where we’d pull poor Donna Marie aside and offer a quote by Kanye if only it was still acceptable to quote Kanye without attaching yourself to all the rest of him that’s become an ugly overshadowing hate. Donna Marie, we’d say LOVE IS CURSED BY MONOGAMY But she’s not ready to hear that. Her mindset is stuck in the beliefs planted by fairy tales and grandmothers and alimony lawyers. And so instead her legs grow so, so tired and her body becomes limp with fatigue because she can’t sit or sleep or exist anywhere anymore.

56 Driving Home From the Modoc Winery with Jennie DeVoe’s Cover of “Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” on My Mind On a dark road cut between soybean fields, I pass an ark raised on a hill beside a farmhouse with a blue light in its attic. South of Redkey, a palomino gallops in circles beneath a buck moon. I have worn the eye patch of the lecher and believed the legends corn stalks susurrate while Indiana fog rolls across desire. Road signs warn of wild boars crossing the highway toward a vandal’s jubilee. It is a land where every lesson is learned through lightning strike and thunder. I spent my orphan years as a cyclops, a stork that bowed to its captor, a bird with a death rattle song. I have survived locusts and tequila. Impersonated the chorus of a lullaby and forgotten how to drink pure water. Vultures nest in the rafters of one-room schoolhouses, and the abandoned churches of Dwindle thistle and bane. In this crucible, I have capered and stalked in the skin of a black puma and fled from bloodhounds into the loblolly during a fool’s rain. I followed foot sign pressed into the high ground where the tall grass was trampled. The hieroglyphs of she-chucks, pregnant does, red vixens. Tonight, I cruise the long stretch between Riddle and Antiville, taking the long way home once more. Past neglected Civil War graves and flickers of fireflies. Through crossroads where I hold my breath to ward against the inveiglements of the gold-teeth man in the white suit. Heading east to where storm clouds roil behind colors that bleed into one.

57 The Monopoly cannon cowers in the kitchen. The rocking chair from the billiard room, caput. A witness swore Uncle Pennybags was footloose in the company of Colonel Mustard, loitering behind Peter Pan’s statue in the Kensington Mews. The reprobates reeked of Swiss Army knives as they staged a “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues” duet for a honeymooning candlestick and thimble. Scuttlebutt has it the FBI will APB Bullwinkle the Moose. In such a crisis, we could use Danger Mouse. A fighting chance. A lantern lit with battleship clues. Mrs. Peacock’s prances about the observatory in a poodle skirt, plucking kangaroos and boomerangs from the professor’s stovepipe hat, and it’s just a matter of time before Miss Scarlet elopes with a grifter named Toulouse. A flimflam man who cheats at Chutes and Ladders. A snake oil con with a rap sheet for shoplifting wheelbarrow MacGuffins. On Boardwalk, femme fatales are packing .22s and .38s; we all have excellent penmanship; we’ve paid our patriot dues. None of us were the architects of that atmosphere of quarry stone and panther. That feng shui sayonara. That Cat People zoo. We can’t be jailed for feeding truffles to endangered monkey wrenches. No wonder Erato no longer seems amused. It’s time to elementary Doctor Watson. To shift to mano a mano j’accuse. Who wins the jackpot shootout between Darth Vader and Beetlejuice?* The usual suspects are paging the Patron Saint of Neapolitan. Or spumoni. Let’s snuggle in our loveseat with a bag of pecan sandies. Let’s believe whatever they tell us on the news. *Hint: Choose the silver modus operandi, not the noose. Michael Brockley When the Monopoly Game Pieces Fraternize with the Murder Weapons from Clue, the Mind Wobbles Michael Brockley is a rered school psychologist who lives in Muncie, Indiana. While working as a school psychologist in rural northeast Indiana, Brockley gathered a collecon of 800 conversaonal neckes which he wore based upon a given date's historical signicance, prominent birthdays, designated naonal day, or humorous occurrence. He now has a collecon of 80 or so aloha shirts, which he wears when he is parcipang in a Bards on the Run Poems-on-Demand event. His poems have appeared in Lost Pilots LIt, Whiskey Mule Diner Anthology, and Wordpeace. Poems are forthcoming in Vagabond Dissent, Jasper's Folly Poetry Journal, and The Rosee Malecarum.

58 We really should have read the signs: the glass paned door, like afterthought, the rare-used tarmac covered path the corridor from A to B, for those intent on getting there. The Sister took us, a warder to defend her cause, too much gabble, knowing all, compassion as a gossamer. We lapped it up as puppies might, for She was god-like, trusted here, and we of other disciplines, not rude enough as others, right. Mum gobbled at our offered sponge, her blistered tongue dehydrate clue, but, unattuned to obvious, we trusted Trust, as taught to do, for She mature, blue uniformed. I dare not let my mind go there - this verse creeps twenty five years on - that dark place where our mother’s care was in the hands of hurried staff, the nurse we should have harried there - removed her from those clutches, dare to bring her home with us, there, then. We look back, incredulity, but no one questioned medics then; though shocked, but trained in courtesy, we left, her at their mercy, there. A curse which I have borne since then. A secret which I’ve lived since then. There

59 Mutter Matter I keep those Wordles to myself, another word game on the prowl, just like the poems no one reads, more aide memoir of how things seemed. My prompt when I don’t understand, all rhyme and reason gone to pot - when life’s a drag without the drug - so unclear what I meant by that, and unsure which way leant with that, but careless now - there’s more import. My old verse keeps its meaning close, read thrice fore realise its scheme, so unobtrusive, subtle, I, it ’scapes me, like intended lie. Awaiting input, fill the gaps, when I’m freefall before insert the definite, articulate; it’s poets’ licensed friction day, free verse without blank asterisk. Thus here, without impinging voice, fair certain that tomorrow’s leaks will not unleash my secrets’ store, both why and wherefore quite my own. I’ll not divulge. unknown to me, now safely in dementia wrapped - it’s lost from brain, all scandalous, in privy corner of my own. If something slips as synapse flips they’ll read my mutter as a dream. Stephen Kingsnorth Stephen Kingsnorth (Cambridge M.A., English & Religious Studies), rered to Wales, UK from ministry in the Methodist Church due to Parkinson’s Disease, has had pieces curated by on-line poetry sites, printed journals and anthologies, including The Parliament Literary Journal. He has, like so many, been a nominee for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. His blog is at hps://poetrykingsnorth.wordpress.com/

60 sick day playing hooky from work wife and kids gone since seven this morning i drove through new haven to park at union station and walk whalley avenue in the cold collar up on my bomber a college girl in rosegold knit and leggings blushes past me on the sidewalk turns to look as i duck into crown fried chicken two old black guys sitting on the ledge of the attorney’s office across the street shit talking get quiet when i come back out finishing my drumstick in the cold greasy paper plate catching the wind between the dumpster and the building i light a cigar and as i pass them one mumbles now this motherfucker here i pass a woman as the wind picks up hear her drop her bag her baby cries in the stroller i turn around into it her hair in her face stroller top blown up blankets blown off him and i pick up her things

61 even though the window frames the tree’s new leaves i think of the last of the season’s blood oranges piled cold on the table Steve Barichko all the sylvia plath death photos on the internet are fake and cover her son tell her my favorite thing is my daughter waking me up in the middle of the night just to say hi she says the obligatory she must be very lucky and a part of me knows i’ve still got it Steve Barichko is from Conneccut. His work has most recently appeared in The Closed Eye Open. His rst full length poetry collecon, Apocrypha, will be out mid 2024. Find him on Insta and Twier @stevebarichko.

62 Nobody’s Famous America's a funny place where our headlines read like the commentary on WWE and we dress head-to-toe in visible brands like we're racing for NASCAR. The words that will decorate our history all come from pop culture. When someone becomes famous, their name becomes a part of our collective vocabulary. For the last year, I've been writing on the trash in my neighborhood, Ridgewood, Queens, studying the language of worship with which we treat our icons. This graffiti's an attempt to renegotiate the terms that determine a celebrity's presence in our day-to-day lives. What once was a billboard with the Kardashian family becomes a discarded box of diapers reading Kendall and Kylie and Kourtney and Khloe and Kim Jong-un. MILF Theresa. Steven Sondhymen. Jesus Chris. Nobody's famous. The murder of Nicole Brown Simpson has an indirect but historical relationship with Pete Davidson's penis and I, for one, am tired of living in a copy of People magazine. I would much rather read about my neighbors. I would much rather worship my community.

63 Toni Kochensparger

64 Toni Kochensparger

65 Toni Kochensparger

66 Toni Kochensparger

67 Toni Kochensparger Toni Kochensparger was born in Keering, Ohio and now lives in Ridgewood, New York. Their short stories can be found in Kelp Journal, miniMAG, Caveat Lector, Poor Ezra’s Almanac, Bulb Culture Collecve, Free Spirit, Breathe Bold, Alien Buddha, A Thin Slice of Anxiety, The Wring Disorder, Two Two One, and Scribble. Their gra can be found at instagram.com/gothphiliproth and their wring can be found online at linktr.ee/gothphiliproth

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