ISSUE 12 | JAN 2012

HOME AND PAIN

Katy Rossing

Smothered: American Nostalgia and the Small Wisconsin Town

a simple formula - chests full of corn-fed indignation - boosterism - « It’s just a tragedy. A tragedy » - free-range childhoods - the Normal Rockwell dream - the control region for American cultural innovation - slack-jawed, Ritalin-addled, Type II diabetics - a salve to the despair of the late capitalist

Teal Gardner

Homemap

the coop has been flown - nooks that hoard the very painful stuff - sentencing is pronounced in the Corridor - quickening and saturation - a structural warp which breaks through as a smell - beneath the carpet is the Prairie - the stolen cloth item or sock - a completely ossified door - sniffing the bedskirt - the prominence of vulnerability - Layer 4 is a slick, heavy rope

Anna McConnell

Big Sky Big Sky What More Could We Ask For: Part 2

the Lincoln library - homage to the Zapatistas - chemtrails - we all have our hang-ups - the dance of death - a UFO–just watching us - forty stabs - inflationary cosmology - two fingers lodged in a whole - a woman as a gesture - they smile at each other pause and well, she begins - everywhere you blink

Michael Kinnucan

The Uncanny and the Rest of the World

« that which ought to remain secret but has come to light » - a tremor in the world - adult reasonableness - parents who are just like hers except that they seem to love her more - something goes wrong with a mirror - an ambiguity between the living and the dead - « The Sandman » - (bleeding eyeballs strewn on the floor) - « Oh, inanimate, accursed automaton! » - he is obsessed with giving her this fear - Grand Unified Theory of the Uncanny

Cat Pierro

The Elder’s Touch: A Scene from The Brothers Karamazov

monastery to monastery - he sees his mother’s tears, and he rejoices - the loss of a son and the lack of a son - the gradual realignment of attachments - could the elder help the mother with words? - a frantic soul - there is nothing to cry about, our little boy is in heaven - « I’d hide in a corner » - you are not required to be selfish - an old joke about a lodger - « you have all already returned your debts » - people do not just go away

Tessa Cheek

Postcards from the West

giants developed the West - brand new tribes of homeless programmers - evangelical mega-institutions - follow the links back - an aunt’s arm’s length - you knelt there and harvested stones - non-polluting industries - the comings and goings of missiles - yours, the emptiest room - the thing we mistake for beauty, over and over again

Elizabeth Bidwell Goetz

Circle Game

bring-a-stranger parties - reporting a dream - her sexy voice - « Are you my special friend? » - a platonic family - so slanted were the floors - communal food - landsmanschaften - that cat with his backpack

Claire Rabkin

Making a Life or Making a Livelihood

our only small resource - the first beer, jam, and pickles we've ever made - necessary thrift, uncertainty, and improvisation - campsite as home base - the most gratifying forms of work - a market to fund backstories

Raji Manjari

At Home With Pain

a witch’s attempt to bite - yes, youth, I was told - inspecting bruises - not about the humiliation - only their shoes stick out - watching is fine - hands everywhere - « Step on Me, Please! » - look out for « skeezeballs » - mummified in Saran wrap - I should thank anyone who plays with me