everythingThere was a boy at the grocery storeand I followed him.Do they still call them boys?A young man, then,of that sort-lanky awkward skinnyPushing a cart with filled with foodunexpected , not your usualcollege kid crap.He ran through the store, ranchoosing and smiling-a secret about to bloom like red dots of bloodonce scratchedAnd so I made up his story.A romance.

He chose thingsand granted them reprieve from a sure deathif purchased by the likes of me.

I wanted to talk to him.See what it felt like to be so filled with joy- joy!A standout in this army of womendesultory, pushing cartswith children now old enough to be left at home.Grabbing blindly at this and that.

Can you imagine this boy–this boyin an ill fitting t-shirtand the abandonand the promiseand the rising thought of later.This boy

Allison Martin Noel

1

CCOONNTTRRIIBBUUTTOORRSS::

FAUST Barkovskii, page 16

MEAGHAN Brothers, page 5

MARY Clancy Mango, inside front cover, pages 4-5, 8-9 and 12-13

TRUDI Cohen, pages 14-15

ALLISON Martin Noel, inside front cover

d.f. skinner, pages 2 and 6

ALENA INDIGO ANNE Sullivan, page 12 and inside back cover

ARLEETA Viddaurri, page 6

CHERYL Welch, page 7 and 10-11

RODNEY White, front & back covers, pages 3 and 6

Special thanks to high-schoolers RRaannddyy RRiicchhaarrddss,, MMoollllyy BBrrooddyyand NNoorrbbeerrttoo GGoommeezz for their contributions on pages 14-15

and nothingCCOO--EEDDIITTOORRSS:: MARY Clancy Mango

and CHERYL Welch

Copyright Notice: Articles and Illustrations with by-lines are © 2012 or previously by their creators. Unsigned material is: © 2013 by The Wormwood Press.

No part of this publication may be reproduced without permission of the contributor responsible for the work.

Please join us on FFaacceebbooookk at The Wormwood Press,and online at TThheeWWoorrmmwwooooddPPrreessss..ccoomm

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one week

by d.f. skinner

sunday looks like a missing child. tastes like bitter coffee and sweet gatorade.smells like scrambled eggs and ambergris. feels the burden of duties to be done.she sounds like the ringing in someone's ears.

monday wishes she were friday. tastes like a peanut butter covered finger. feelslike going back to sleep. sounds like the pop pop pop of bubble wrap. looks toodark to see outside.

tuesday looks like a guy, acts like a gentleman. missed the license plate of thetruck that hit him. smells like white opium and cedar oil.tastes like toothpaste.looks through one eye. feels under the weird weird weather and sounds likevehicles speeding down loop 1.

wednesday. tastes like listerine . smells like bay rum. Feels a mite chilly. shewears sensible shoes.

thursday feels like wednesday. smells like nothing. he tastes like orange crush.looks promising. sounds like the white noise from the sound screen and thebabbling voices in the mind.

friday, he feels as rare as a rhodium night. tastes like almond butter and honey.looks like a fibonacci blossom spinning, spiral arms akimbo. smells like lemonpledge and cigarettes, and sounds like the chanting of hindu mantras.

saturday smells like incense. tastes as sweet as shabbos. feels like a hot bath.looks like he wants to rain. as spring comes walking, the leaves follow dancing.saturday leaves footprints on my mind.

3

4

5

vanishing point

“action is the only thing that enables a man to live.” - sartre

“the question is not when he’s gonna stop, but who is gonna stop him?” - supersoul

who built this road through the desert?parted this seaof death,etcetera,was parted by thearmy the force the injury to the gutwho built thisclean white machinefast as thisfast as thisgunhandle gearshiftwho built thisbroken stage whowove this basket full of snakes?hang around long enough,you might get religion,you might get releaseout of this seaback to the earthwho built this seawho built this bluethis bullet fastthis radio bulletin supercharged speedthis gravel this gospelwho built this roadand does it endor does the sea justopen up and swallow

you should have listened to wire, lindsey buckingham

if you really wanted to blow things upyou would have abandoned your delicate touch.you tried, I knowdon’t get me wrongbut your face wasn’t made for the

nasal feedthe bad tooth flashback

hammer & nailthe kind of songs kids in

brick prisons sing.and then, wait,it just gets weirderthe older you getthe longer you stand out in the rain.But if you never leave

california(on ten thousand dollars a day)then this becomes one of those thingsthat slips further and further down

stream – an impetus for metal,a fist through a sheetrock wall.if you had laboured longerif you had abandoned

your bottlecapsyour fine corinthian leather

interioryou would maybecatch a fleeting glimpseof the rest of us.you would get this next point implicitly

that our angerthe anger of all of uswith bruised hips from sleeping on

floorswith crumpled clothes from dimestore

alleyswith gutted bellies and blue-stamped

hands – you would get this –

that our anger is the swollen tideand you simply drift upon it,a sweetly sleeping buoy.

Meaghan Brothers

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Player

like the skilled player whonever follows rules for a gamewhile disengaging corksfrom bottles of stale champagnei slip between the sheets of honey and despairmoving through the gamelike your piece isn’t there

shuffling faceless black cardscashing in chips through red eyesi accept the reward of your lipswhile gaining the loss of your lies

nothing is everythingas i unravel your schemewinning is compromisingand not at all what it seemed

my cold blood has stopped runningthrough your last collapsing vein still i roll the dice while imploring you to remember my name

Arleeta Viddaurri

places to hide

in a long, cool, deep purple sleep

in the leaden silence between our kisses

in a cloud of heavy cream and hot java

wrapped in the lyrics of bell bottom blues on the

pages of a book about an ancient, dark house and

in the rhythm of a language I cannot, yet,

comprehend.

d.f. skinner

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10

They had been there the night before. At midnight, just a few ... but by the third trip she

made to the bathroom in the small hours, as a moonlit rectangle smacked the floor, the

faces in the shag carpet beneath her feet continued to grow in number. They mocked her fat legs, and

cackled at the sight of her unkempt pudgy toes. The Shag Men and their vile beasts had returned to

torment Reba, displaying their terrible grimaces under cover of darkness.

“Don’t look, don’t look,” Reba coached, covering her face in her hands. She cursed her small

bladder and silently begged for their cruel comments to stop. “Tomorrow, I will exercise and I’ll eat less,”

she promised her palms. The Shags narrowed their eyes and judged her slovenly appearance. Reba tried

to remember when she last showered, when she last laughed, when the Shag Men (as she called them)

first appeared in her bathroom rug.

The big yard sale served to purge her past, and Reba felt good moving into the studio apartment

across town. She had grown weary of post-marriage sadness, had quit her job at the mosquito net

factory, and had pledged to write a memoir. “My story will change lives,” she thought.

By week three of her new life, Reba had left the title to her story—Queen of the Lavatory—to fend

for itself on the laptop, and had instead begun focusing fanatically on her appearance. She weighed

herself after every meal in an effort to “inspire” a new diet direction. She examined every facial hair in

a magnifying mirror and cursed her freckled lineage.

Reba had only been divorced for a month when the Shag Men began showing up in her bathroom

rug. At first they were benign, glancing at her with insignificant care. But as the days grew in number,

so did the taunts from their furry faces. Reba could barely hear them at first—small, tinny chirps that

caused her to momentarily suspend a tweezered hand mid-air as she cocked an ear toward the floor.

Soon she could make out their mean comments and hideous high laughter. She could see them spit and

sneer each time a breeze, from the dirty window, blew them this way and that. Each morning for two

weeks, Reba pulled out the mini vacuum cleaner and jabbed at the rug as if to defend her very existence.

Stop, check ... vacuum. Stop, check ... vacuum. Stop, check ... vacuum. Their fibers dispersed by day, but

reformed into menacing caricatures by night.

This night she vowed, sitting atop her porcelain throne, would be their last. It was time for the

Shag Men to diappear. As the morning sky grew light, Reba rolled up the shag rug and placed it in a

garbage bag. She taped the bag shut and bound it with cord. Reba drove with the Shags to the city dump

and paid an old man to dispose of the creatures.

That night, as she stood in the bathroom examining her bloodshot eyes, Reba heard a slight rustling

in the shower curtain. She stopped breathing. She glanced sideways at the curtain rippling in the evening

air. There among the patterned leaves peered a set of angy eyes. stor

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"Selkie"

Bramble-haired and sloe-eyed,

Star-smeared bruises on a mouth stretched wide

Around words too big for a meager mortal life,

Longing at once to be a sea-storm and a wife,

Wrapped around herself and the stark, cinnamon sky,

Sordidly straining, keening high,

Like gulls and brass bells and the end of the day,

Hollow and gaping, words too sharp to say;

She can only love you like fish love the sea,

Because it's all that they know, all they can breathe;

She shimmers like sunbeams slanted through glass,

Unreal if you're looking, but real if you ask

Her who she is and where she's been--

She's long since lost her sea-soaked skin.

Alena Indigo Anne Sullivan

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B U L L E T I N

14

Tastes on the TownBy Walter Berman and Matty Green

KEW FOREST CAFETERIASEATING: 200TIMES 12:00-12:45, 1:00-1:45

It seems essential to mention thatonce you get your cardboard trayfrom the fine stackpile in thisestablishment that you make surenot to spill your milk or whateverother beverage you may choose to enjoy with your meal on yourtray (otherwise, you will be treating the floor to a milk bath). I havehad my repast several times from this cafeteria and Matty and Iagree that the ambiance could use a little freshening. The speckledlinoleum floor could use some color—other than specks of food, thechairs could be sturdier and most of all, and most importantly, thefood needs improvement. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy theoccasional hot dog and fries like the rest of my classmates, but thefries are vile—mushy and with more than a trace of the previous

day’s oil. They say that to be a schoolcafeteria cook you must know how to putone foot in front of the other. I have neverseen Mrs. Wainscot personally, but if Iever had the opportunity, I would like herto bend down so I could slap her acrossthe face for doing what she does to greenbeans. Green beans should not be brown! And let’s have a moment of silence for

the many chickens that have been thoughtlessly killed only tobecome fingers. It is a crime. This chicken once had a head, feathers,a joie de vivre—cut down in the prime of life to be macerated andserved with ketchup and a sauce our principal has allowed to becalled “honey mustard” –heavy on the mustard.

I fear I may have to ask my mother to make my lunch for me, asI cannot stand to use my well earned allowance for what theylaughingly here present as “food”. Maybe I’ll splurge now and thenfor a devil dog or an apple. Matty says he will trade with me onThursdays.

JAMAICA HOSPITALSEATING 1TIMES: 8AM 1:30PM 4:30 PM

The BEST thing about getting yourtonsils out is that everyone is sopleased that you’re so brave andeverything. Wally said he wantedme to rate the hospital food, but I justthink it’s great that I don’t have to getup from my bed to eat. There’salways a variety here, there’s blue

food and red food and mashed potatoes and if I ask nicely, they’llgive me another dish of chocolate pudding.

What’s also great is that I don’t have to listen to my stupid sisterSally and she’s not going to tattle on me for the whole day! Of course,I am missing school and soccer practice, which can be a drag—Sallydid say she would get all my homework from school—THANKS ALOT SAL!!! But Wally said he would visit me if he has time. I’mgetting a little sleepy now, so it’s time to go.

OWL SWAN FREE EAGLE CAMPSEATING 40 CAMPERSBREAKFAST LUNCH DINNER AND SNACKS

My Darling mother has decided that I neededoutdoor exercise, a place to meet young ruffians, andfor eight weeks of summer vacation, not to be“underfoot” or on her laptop. Fortunately, Wally’smother has also decided the exact same thing so weare paired in Bunk 27, the sole Queens refugees to thisforestry hide-a-way.

While Wally appreciates the opportunity to beaway from his female sibling Sally, I confess that I find the trill of thebullfrog and the cicada of the grasshopper to be no match for thethrilling random ambulance siren and the friendly neighborhoodbodega. I tried to pack my trusty devil dogs, to stave off hungerpangs but alas they have gotten smooshed, and I have ended up witha few packages of cream and chocolate cake—mixed together in thevery very worst way.

I’ll allow that it is a camp for campers interested in reducing their

by Trudi Cohen

Kew Forest High School May 2013

Wally Matty

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girth, but the food here is horrible. They serve burgers of soy andreduced calorie ketchup. And, must I be allowed only one? Theyclaim that they provide the required nutrients for a daily dose ofactivity but please! They call the midday fruit allowance of a solitaryplum a “snack”. And while we are on the subject of snacks, let mejust say that the idea of shaping cheddar crackers into the outline offish seems absurd to me. When I think of fish, I know that the flavorof cheddar does not come to mind. Chips are okay, they come in avariety of sizes and flavors: my favorite is the thick deep fried kind,with a bubbly overlay. I love a chip that I can crunch. I’ve asked mymother several times to send me a “care package” of those kinds, butI fear they have been confiscated. It seems that allowing oneself intothe confines of this enclave demands the surrender of certaininnaliable rights protected by the constitution!

Wally feels out of place but he has become so popular as he is acamper who can pitch, hit and run. Wally can play volleyball andhis height allows him to spike with a frightening vengeance. I amlucky to have Wally on my team most times and it is good to be amember of a winning team.

There is one thin hour allowed for reading and texting “SOS”messages home—and much needed rest. Once a week we get to usethe phone to call parental voices. I was horribly disappointed by theweigh-in on the first day—the only thing the nurse allowed me totake off was my shoes.

Bunk 27 could use another coat of paint and a bonfire.Everywhere I turn there is dust and grime. I swear I hear micesqueak during the night.

I’m told I have to get “excited” for the “camp Olympics” wherethe owls , the swans and the eagles fightviciously for supremacy and the winninganimal gets a pizza party at (heaven forgive)Pizzaria Uno—Chicago’s blessing upon thechain restaurants. When God lookeddown upon the earth and decided “That’s

what the humans need! Another Deep Dish Pizza Palace!”I’ve taken up some boating, or really canoeing, and I can paddle

fairly quickly. The girls from Bunk G13 have taken to giggling when Iget on the water.

We’ve been here for a week and Camper Ken has challengedWally’s volleyball supremacy by falling on him. Wally barelysurvived and came back from the nurse in a full leg cast, eager to geton with the rest of the game. Wally likes to deny the pain he is in.With Wally out of commission, our bunk has lost softball andarchery. I fear Camper Ken may fall on me next—maybe it’ssomething I hope for.

While the surroundings are picturesque, this will be a long sixweeks in the country. I miss the heat and dust of Queens, themusical aria of ,” Mr. Softee” and the community pool I used to go toto see my babysitter Charlise dive off the diving board. She has anice Bathing Suit.

71ST & CONTINENTAL STREET FAIRSEATING: NO SEATS! IT’S A STREETFAIR DUMMY!

Me and Wally go to this bitchin’ street fair every year and we love it.Well, I love it mostly—Wally just likes to wander up and down thestreet and tell everyone they can do better. My favorite vendor is thetruck where you get to hit stuff with a ball. My mom gives me moneyto play and I got a prize a couple of times! Wally hates it because nomatter what he throws, and sometimes he even hits the outside ofthe target, he feels like he hurts his arm.

I like that we can be outside and talk to Moms and girls and otherkids. I like that rain or shine, it always happens every year. There arelittle kids that get their faces painted like tigers,there’s even a little ferris wheel that they set up—get that! A ferris wheel on 71st Avenue! OnceWally dropped a dollar down the sewar drain andwe got a kid to fish it out with some tooth floss andgum—after he showed it to him, Wally let the kidkeep the dollar.

I have to step in here for a moment and remindMatty that he has not mentioned the food at all.The smells of the sausage and pepper man aretantalizing. Every year I ask my mother for one ofthose heavenly sandwiches and every year she says she can makeone for me at home, they are too expensive here. Once in a while I’mallowed an Ice cream—can I tell you that the flavors of chocolate andvanilla are getting to be a bore? Where is the Mango, the apricot? Mr.Softee, you’ve been doing your softee tarantella for so long, yet youhave not branched out to other varieties!

Wally is never happy with the food, but going to the street fair forfood is like going to Soccer practice to get exercise! There are teeshirts to buy and socks! There was this one kid who was sellingturtles with his Mom. Wally lost all this weight at camp and he’sgoing to put it back on before school starts.

Ever since we got back from camp, Sally’s been making goonieeyes at Wally. It gives me the creeps—and Wally too. We can neverget away from her—she hangs around us at the handball court and Itell her to get away and get her own friend but then she runs and tellsMom I’ve been mean to her.

MCDONALD’S71ST & CONTINENTAL AVENUESEATING: 20

I believe it’s been a while since someone has reviewed ourneighborhood McDonald’s. Yes, the fare here is predictable, butluscious. Can there be anything better on a hot September day thanan Ice Cream shake and a Big Mac and fries? However, recentlythere has been a subtle alteration of good old Junk food, but I don’tcare what my mother says, a “wrap” will never replace thedelectable combination of slightly sautéed bread, two “beef” pattieswith cheese, “special” sauce and the greenpaper they call lettuce in between. I will neverorder a Yogurt Parfait.

There have been some other burgerinfiltrations into our neighborhood. There’sCheeburger Cheeburger and somethingcalled “Bareburger” McDonalds is our trustygo-to place when mother is too tired to makedinner after work. I love it when I see the whitebag under her arm and I know I will be satisfied.

I regret to report that Matty has resigned from “Taste of theTown”. We will miss his unique perspective and dedication to sports.I humbly ask my classmates for a willing volunteer. You will becompensated with witty repartee and a friend for life. Find me onthe corner of Queens Boulevard, staring into the newest eatery tograce our fine village.

Sincerely,Walter Berman

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illustration: Faust Barkovskii, [in] all the stars in your head

"Love Song for March 15th, 1:35 in the Morning"

You are my victory garden, sustaining me through long tides of violence and fear,

The stretched white satin of an inner elbow, the conch-curl of a sympathetic ear;

You are my humming orange streetlight, pushing back the evening to send me safely home,

The tender sweep of a thumb against my knuckles, a reminder that I am not in this alone;

I have spent more moments caught in the tangled sea-nets of your eyes

Than tired mothers spend telling their children soothing white lies,

More hours bent and braced on the supple stones bracketing your heart, your lungs,

Than crumpled-paper-faced old women spend longing to be young;

I will give them to you, all of my violets and viscera, red-purple and raw,

Gleaming with adoration and seeping such sweetness as you never saw,

And I will tuck them, one by one, into the soft, damp hollows of your cheeks,

Pressed, like petals between pages, against your tongue, against your teeth.

Alena Indigo Anne Sullivan