Christine Swint

Foreclosure

The woman was a sucker for a tricked out bathroom, and this one came fully loaded: russet Italian marble, bronze fixtures, a Japanese commode that washed and air dried after each use, plus a Jacuzzi with nozzles calibrated to hit all the right places. One night as she soaked in lavender-scented water she felt the bathroom’s fingers begin to press into her scalp, rubbing circles over the skin until she said, “yes, yes, of course, I’ll sign anything.”

Kneeling next to her, he whispered, “I promise never to let us go underwater. The value of our love will always be greater than the payments we make to keep it alive.”

But the installments he required rose day by day, and his long arm began to drag the woman under the surface. He liked to sneak up on her whenever she was relaxing, after the candles had been lit. Just as she settled in with a novel, the slick water gliding over her stomach, he’d slip into the tub, splash the pages of her book, and turn the faucets on full blast until they were flooded up to their necks. He’d balloon with laughter, dunk her head under for good measure, and then hop out of the tub, saying, “what’s wrong, am I crowding you out? Lighten up.”

His interest in her toilette accelerated. He fixated on bathing with her morning and night, and she couldn’t keep up the pace – the shenanigans wore her down.

“It’s a matter of bad faith,” she told him, “of not living up to promises. This relationship is overrated. I can pay an hourly rate with a masseur on an as-needed basis, there’s a gym with a sauna right down the street, no need to saddle myself for life with a knave.”

He floated with glee. “Don’t bank on it, baby, you’ll be at my door, begging me to let you back.”

The next time she tried to enter the bathroom, it was padlocked, her entrance barred. She banged the heel of her palm against the paneled door. “I know you’re there, mister. You had better let me in. Do you hear me? At least let me get my things. You in there? Let me in.”

The only reply was the silence of water hissing through pipes.

Bio: Christine Swint is a former high school Spanish teacher who now devotes herself to creative writing and the practice of yoga. She also co-edits ouroboros review, a poetry and art journal. Her work has recently appeared in Mannequin Envy and qarrtsiluni, and is forthcoming in the Tipton Poetry Journal.

Kirsty Logan

dear creatures

i was in the bath reading a library book of adrienne rich poems (plastic cover buckling from steam) and watching my skin turn red (strange colours under smudging tattoos) and drinking cheap red wine (teeth filtering cork cos we had to bash it in with a screwdriver) while my girlfriend listened to her band's 4-track demo on repeat which i'd told her was like wanking in front of the mirror but it didn't matter cos all i could hear was the sirens echoing through the air conditioning vents.
and i was thinking about when we first got together, how i couldn't stop thinking about her hands (so small and always fidgeting, picking at the edges of the menu and twisting her rings and untying and retying her shoelaces), those nights when i told my friends i was going out for a smoke but went to the club where she worked and found her still hanging around even though she'd finished hours ago and she kissed me in the street (both of us rain-drenched and shivering in our t-shirts), and how i fell in love with her when she told me she collected fruit stickers in a little notebook because her uncle and grandpa did.
i must have dozed off cos the bathwater was goosebumping me and the skin on my soles felt too tight and the pages were glued mothwing-thin to my sternum when my girlfriend shouted baby come and see this so i climbed out and dripped onto the carpet while she held my pruned hand and we stood at the window and watched two girls kick the shit out of each other in the street three floors down. we stayed there for a long time until we heard the sirens echoing through the air conditioning vents.

Imaginary Birds

On the red-checked tablecloth in a clapboard house somewhere in the middle of your country: a china white saucer of butter and rye crackers, muddy lettuce, still-warm bread, a cluster of beers and some water that you’re sure is drinkable despite the reddish grit. Here you will eat and drink with your hands straight from containers, and with eating comes talking. You will make walls with words; you will build up this little cell.

Some of you will leave, break through the walls to build more in someone else’s country, uninvited and entirely necessary. You will bring tablets to make the water drinkable, pieces of printed paper to explain your theories; scrawl pictures in the dust when words become too heavy in the mouth. You will wipe soot from leaves, soak oil from birds. You will weave shelters from torn branches with ends still weeping sap. You will build things up for others to break down.

Some of you will stay, grow the walls and the people behind them. You will crowd around this thing you all made, this baby raised by committee. Some of you will forget, even just for a moment, whose belly she came from – who made her guts and voice, each toe and eyelash – and maybe in that moment you will even think that she is yours. You will smile to think that you made this tiny perfect object grasping her fists in the middle of the table – to think that you could create this from your body! And you will remember, after that moment, that you did not. All you made was this table, and this meal, and these walls, which after all are made of nothing but words.


Bio: Kirsty Logan is an MLitt student in Creative Writing at Glasgow University. Her writing is in print or upcoming in Word Riot, Polluto, Neon, Pank, Moondance, and others. She lives in Glasgow with her girlfriend and the rain.

Sarah J. Sloat

No Stars Tonight

On the hot night

of a muggy day

I take a shower

with the door open.

Not to live dangerously
but because laissez-faire
helps me live. Mostly

I’d like to live less
like the drain in the sink,
and do my chewing
more quietly.

I drip the hall’s length
into the hour of sheep
and take my place
among inaudibles.

I like the lonely lick
of the sheets, where for
a moment the pain

behind my right eye
helps me forget
the pain in my knees.

When Wonderful, Add Water

The good thing about this blouse is it fits.
The good thing is beige goes with everything.
The good thing about this blouse is it makes me look thin.
The good thing is the buttons function.
This blouse can do winter and summer.
The good thing is the places this blouse has been.
Mainz. Starbucks. Up the down escalator.
The good thing about this blouse is its raspy laugh.
This blouse says forget age, forgo ironing.
I don't really give a shit what I wear with this blouse.
It does all the work.
The best thing about this blouse is it covers some very important parts of my body.


Bio: Sarah J. Sloat grew up in New Jersey, and now lives in Germany, where she works for a news agency. Sarah’s poems have appeared in Court Green, Juked, Bateau and Opium, among other publications. Her chapbook, In the Voice of a Minor Saint, was published this year by Tilt Press.

Lauren Scotto

Brandonville, Iowa–June 14, 2008

The rangers found the boys on their knees
under tables, ceilings, trees—
their golden scarves still knotted about their necks.
Faces covered with their hands,
hands fisted to protect
each other
when the winds hit.

Huddled and seared still
like the ashen forms of Mt. Vesuvius:
Nineteen Midwestern boys
perfectly preserved
in death masks of brushed dust.

The media said:
They did everything they were supposed to—
Boy Scouts to the end.

God sent the tornado
so the little boys could go home.

Highway Desuetude

The world ended earlier on the ride back into town;
nothing cataclysmic, really—
no bomb-blasts, puffs of smoke, melted faces.
No human dramatics, no fiery Hollywood ending.

It was just a silence that descended.

The tires on the car slipped into a nothingness;
A shell within a shell on a shell—
the highest spire unattainable.
No Rolling Stones on the radio,
no deer leaping into the path.

The headlights illuminated
dusty forests:
constant.

Nothing survived.

Still, I drove when the world ended
and my coffee grew cold.


Lauren Scotto is finishing her graduate work with New England College while residing in Wisconsin. Her work has appeared on NPR, GlimmerTrain, SP Quill, Earthwords, and in the Cedar Valley Review.

Rachel Marie Patterson

Scars
for W.

The half-moon scars around your collarbone are waxing open,
exposing arteries, veins, capillaries: the smallest cell your body makes

I can see, because I can see everything tonight in your pixilated face,
in the shut lashes that quiver awake: the way you sound your pleasure

and the way I understand it, the way you hate to be alone,
the same way I hate to be alone, the way you have balanced

your life on matchbooks and glass splinters, the way you tip the bourbon bottle,
the way your yellow hips are their own skeleton. I see these things

as clearly as I see the purple-gray sheets or the pillowcases,
which are monogrammed with a name that used to be yours,

but I call you something different, I call you what you say to call you,
and you call me a biblical name, a primordial name, a name that opens

a closed umbrella inside of me, forcing the bones and skin
to rearrange my body into something I thought I could never become,

into something I thought I could never show to anyone, even to myself,
something you want to touch, something I want you to touch,

something that reminds me I was afraid to write this for you,
I was afraid to use our language because it was ours, I was afraid

because it would make me cry, because it would make me laugh,
because it’s dark under the blanket but the light touches us everywhere.

Nana

Six, maybe, I watched you undress
in your bedroom, stepping
out of your yellow-gray slip,
bent in half: creased, white
stomach, parabolic spine
dotted with white marbles,
thick-strapped bra, rippled
breasts. You hurried, modest but
not wanting to leave me
alone while you slid
into your polyester slacks—
play clothes, you called them.
I wondered at your body,
thinking of my own
and of my mother’s. I loved
them, I wanted mine
to grow faster. And when
you were done, you pulled
me on a trashcan lid
through the packed snow
on the driveway, smiling.

Today, you sip
your whiskey sour, recalling
how you changed our diapers,
danced the Macarena,
and rode The Sky Princess
at Dutch Wonderland.
You are proud. I watch your fingers
drift down your neck
as you speak, then halt
when they reach your collar-
bone, just above the roadmap
of scars where your breasts
used to be. It was weeks
before you’d return
to your dinner dances,
ashamed. And those doctors
thought you were lucky,
those doctors thought
an old lady wouldn’t feel
embarrassed, didn’t need
to fill out a dress.

Falling Down

My skeleton is not hollow
like a bird's, it is marrowed
with the full ring of your laughter,
the slender give of your skin. I sink
like a wrench in a swimming pool
until I hit the soft ground
of your breasts and arms,
which will build the earth
that cups me, and when I reach
that warm place, I rise
like an anemic drop of blood
in sugar water, the test that proves
no one else can use my body.


Bio: Rachel Marie Patterson is an M.F.A. candidate at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where she teaches introductory composition. Her poems appear in The Red River Review and Superstition Review.

Francesco Levato

Flight Characteristics of Human Blood and Stain Patterns

In healthy adults, volume is from 4.5 to 6.0 liters;

not unlike other fluids, it will act in a predictable manner

when subjected to external forces.


            Target surface considerations: size, shape, directionality.


Falling through air from fingertip

it will be larger than a drop from hypodermic, smaller

than if from baseball bat.


            Viscosity is defined as resistance to change of form or flow.


The stain produced by freefall is a function of volume,

the texture it impacts; in order to create spatter tension must be disturbed,

surfaces ruptured.

                                    Size range is dependent on quantity, on caliber
            
            and impeding factors, such as hair, clothing, etc.


Elongated            a stain points in the direction of travel,

if found on the underside of table and chair

                                                                        he/she was on or near floor—

            (fist, bat, concrete block)

            the number of blows effects resulting pattern.


She is lying prone, lower body on linoleum floor, left arm flexed inward,

white pharmacy bag around wrist, she is wearing gold bracelets and a watch.


Figure 9.12 Impact spatter produced by beating mechanism.



Note: The text of the poem is collaged source material taken from Recognition of Bloodstain Patterns by Stuart H. James, Paul E. Kish, and T. Paulette Sutton

Blood, Ink, Patron of Thieves

The wound still weeps            ink and blood

            stamped into bed sheets, a circle divided
like arms outstretched

            like palms fixed in place with a nail.

Seal of Hermes                        messenger patron

its color lost, surface scarred
where needle cut
                                    a little too deep.

                        Machine, iron, to the uninitiated
            gun            
                        click click crack

            what once was seashell tied to stick,
its ragged edge sharpened to teeth.

Melissa Guillet

Vaccine

When we are vaccinated against
ourselves, our
private thoughts
imprinted on microchips,
we are given our rites
of passage at birth,
our homelands chosen for us.

Our blood type is now
Social and National Security:
First bloodied pads,
first license,
first kiss
logged into databases,
all our eggs inventoried
in one basket.
we lose our virginity
Inside MRI's.

Hiding in what forests are left,
away from the cameras,
our passions are contaminated
by trunks burning barcodes into flesh.

we are all looking
for 15 minutes of fame, not knowing
we have only 4o feet of privacy
under surveillance satellite eyes.

My paranoia has a disclaimer:
Read up on all the facts.
How does your prison cell phone know
the right time, when
you cross the heart of your country,
unsure which side you're on?

We freeze our umbilical cords, our
telephones to the womb,
and bleed out of holes
conceived by the government.

"Hold still, child,
while we brand your arm
as our commodity.

Hooks

It hooks us –
this need for tragedy
to teeth on,
pacified by poachers
fishing for better ratings,
eating worms and chasing red herrings.

We wait with baited breath
for someone else’s outcome
as if it were our own.

The sea is so large,
yet we watch through glass tanks,
caught short
by our attention spans,
anchored in.

We hate to be left
hanging like this.




Bio: Melissa Guillet's work has appeared in Appleseeds, The Cherry Blossom Review, Imitation Fruit (winning poem), Lalitamba, Lavanderia, Look! Up in the Sky!, Nth Position, Public Republic, Sangam, Scrivener’s Pen, Seven Circle Press, Women. Period., six Worcester, MA anthologies, and several chapbooks. She teaches Interdisciplinary Arts in Riverside, RI.

Scapegoat Review Summer 2009

“In summer, the song sings itself.”               William Carlos Williams Scapegoat’s Summer Issue is here at last. I apologize for the delay. Working on an MFA while hosting salons has been phenomenal. It has kept me busy, though. This coming fall many more projects are in the works, all to do with poetry and getting others involved; as the projects progress, I’ll keep you informed. Upstairs at Erika’s is busier than ever, and I’ve added on Salon Dinners with Poets, which has been a great way for people to engage with poets on a more intimate level. I am delighted with the writers who have contributed to this issue. In another quote by Williams; “It is summer, it is the solstice the crowd is cheering, the crowd is laughing in detail permanently, seriously without thought.” This is what summer is— a time of joy, of beauty, flowers blooming gardens bursting, the technicolor’s of sanguine Saturday’s, teal tomorrow’s, and yesterday’s aureate’s. Fall is near, colors disappear, becoming muted with melancholy and despair. Aubergine, mossy green, bittersweet apricot— these are the colors of the season after summer; before the dormant frost of winters comes. We are now accepting book reviews 800 words or less that are on the subject of poetry, either about to come out or just published. We are also looking for people interested in blogging on the subject of poetry, and those interested in helping out with the review. If interested, please contact me. Thanks, Erika   © 2009 Louis Seigal
Poetry
Melissa Guillet Vaccine Hooks Francesco Levato Flight Characteristics of Human Blood and Stain Patterns Blood, Ink, Patron of Thieves Rachel Marie Patterson Scars Nana Falling Down Down		Lauren Scotto Brandonville, Iowa–June 14, 2008 Highway Desuetude Sarah J. Sloat No Stars Tonight When Wonderful, Add Water
Flash Fiction
Kirsty Logan dear creatures Imaginary Birds		Christine Swint Foreclosure