The Bookends Review

I’ve seen her fragmented,
with pupils swollen, overfilling to black,
not mourning the absence of color.

My neck tilts—revealing 
her skull to be a collection of shards.
Yet, always her mouth curls up,
the corners pointed to satisfaction.

Tonight, the moon strikes her.
Rotted prisms bark back at me.
I peel along my damaged skin,
scraping the imperfection,
hoping my blood gives her new life.…

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Getting them into bed is easy. Once there, many get the wrong idea.

“It’s not that kind of club,” Nemo chides, grabbing her hands before they snake below his waistband.

Pouting, the USO girl toys with the filmy mosquito net draping the bed. “I’ll be very quiet.”

“I’m sure you will,” he purrs, playing along. “But first, sleep. It’s part of the experience.” Nemo hands her a NightCap elixir. “Be a good girl. Take your medicine.”

Giggling, she downs the cocktail, flops onto the bed, and drifts off in seconds, nostrils quivering with whistling snores.

He’d like to join her, but Nemo does not sleep, not yet. Rubbing his gritty eyes, he pulls the gauzy fabric closed, watches the black dots of her nightmares swirl into the net, then leaves to find another sleeper.…

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Hell is nothing like what anyone says, Michael thought as he walked through the large iron bar gates. They were cracked just enough for him to slip under the chain linking them together. He stood there for a moment. As he walked down the cobblestone street, the thought solidified in his mind. Not like anything anywhere. Plato has described a giant layered prison of sins. The vikings told of a barren, cold wasteland at the bottom of the universe. And every sunday morning preacher or day-time televangelist warned of fire and brimstone and demons ready to torture the damned.

In reality, Hell was a vast city, made up of buildings and monuments from every architectural movement in history. As if they had just been plopped there from the living world, large gothic cathedrals stood next to roman temples; log cabins neighbored domed babylonian mosques; even a handful of Sears and Roebuck Home-kit houses were sandwiched in between Addams family style mansions and small wooden huts.…

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The old man crouches beside a straw basket, weary from his travels, his skin glistening with sweat. Children run past him, tumbling through bright saris hanging from twine. Squatters look over his clothes, the few possessions he’s carried for miles on his orange turban. He closes his eyes and blows into the tip of a pungi, emitting a low humming sound. “Come one and all to see what the divine Nagas reveal! The guardians of water have surfaced from great depths to tell us their secrets.” A crowd slowly forms around the old man. He plays the reed instrument, carefully, teasing out the high notes; the music is strange, hypnotic. “But beware! The Naga’s message can only be understood by the one it is intended for.”…

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The moon’s gaunt and narrow.
…………..They say our corridor through life’s
…………..measured by the moon.
…………..Slim as a tunnel, I tuck my legs under my knees.

Pat scratches licks on the rosewood,
…………..strumming them in fragments of silk and nylon.
…………..Three-Part Rasguedo, Golpe,
…………..Rumbagitana.
…………..He plays.

 Fire-starting calluses, fireboard,
…………..spun Mullein, none of these items
…………..are amazed by their use.  In the circle dance,
…………..my back foot scratches the dust. 

Farruca, the wild form, mournful Soleares,
…………..the tragic Segurias.
…………..He adjusts his segilla,
…………..demonstrates Tarrantas y Tarrantino,
…………..its dramatic turns and contemplative open rhythm.

 Rising into the horizon.
…………..I hear the shuffle of leaves in the Sequoia,
…………..the rattle of rain upon the green roof.…

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            Laura liked to think she was honest with herself; it was everyone else she lied to. In the end, what difference would it make? It would only cause everyone to worry and fuss and make a big deal out of it, and she just wanted to live what little life she had in peace. Was that too much to ask?

            Actually, if she was honest with herself, she needed to acknowledge that it couldn’t be a secret forever. Questions would start popping up on the lips of busybodies, especially as she started to appear as sickly as she felt. She would cross that bridge when she came to it, though, throwing back her shoulders in the meantime, facing her encroaching doom head-on, albeit alone.…

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It was May 14^th 1971, my seventeenth birthday. I was stuck in the restaurant kitchen at chi chi Bullocks’ Department store in Sherman Oaks, California, working the early dinner shift for Tuesday’s weekly designer fashion show. It sucked being young and poor, but restaurant work was a good source of rent and provided meals every shift; two blessings for an only child in the recession of the 70’s living with a single, bipolar mom.

I reached up, tore the sole remaining ticket off the stainless steel order wheel, and popped two slices of cheese bread into the toaster for what I hoped would be the final order of the afternoon: one of our specialty bacon, avocado, and tomato sandwiches. I paused for a deep breath, as I tried to strip the day’s work and my mother’s morning’s antics from my brain, then grinned as I thought of tonight’s birthday rendezvous with my girlfriend Jen.…

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