Author’s Note: “To learn about myself, I study my parents, both the stories they told of their childhoods and the stories I witnessed. I was a player as well as a spectator to the theatre of my parents’ marriage. Their partnership was not idyllic but found an equilibrium in dispute. Can the telling, the receiving of stories transmit wisdom between generations? Whether versed in the language of water or war, whether believed or not, stories hopefully serve as a bonding current that flows beyond the boundaries of lives.”

Learning to Swim

The tide is out, and Atlantic Beach is barren,
barren of my father who loved the ocean
and its beatings as if his body deserved them.
My mother had to cross an ocean to meet him.
She never learned to swim. My father could never
teach her. In 1938 she’d fallen into Suwalki’s Czarna River.
Her brother fished her out with a limb.
Indigo dye dribbled down her legs and trailed tails of inky bruises.
That night, her father’s belt smacked deep into her pale skin
for ruining her dress, staining their name.
The tangle of violet tattoos grew into my parents’ knotted bond.
My father did teach my mother to drive—shouts, slams, cries—
in the 1958 blue-mist Buick Riviera. I learned to keep my head down
and buried in the aquamarine velveteen of the expansive backseat.
Above, beyond, the waves of battering sound. 

⧫

Ellen Sazzman, from Maryland, has been published in Another Chicago, Poetry South, PANK, Ekphrastic Review, WSQ, Sow’s Ear, Lilith, Beltway Quarterly, and CALYX, among others. She received an honorable mention in the 2019 Allen Ginsberg contest, was shortlisted for the 2018 O’Donoghue Prize, and won first place in Poetica Magazine’s 2016 Rosenberg competition. She was also a 2012 Pushcart Prize nominee. Her collection The Shomer (Finishing Line Press) was a finalist for the 2020 Blue Lynx Prize and a semifinalist for the Elixir Antivenom Award and the Codhill Press Award. 

Delmarva Review, now in its 15th year,  publishes compelling poetry,  fiction, and  nonfiction selected from thousands of submissions annually. Designed to encourage  outstanding new writing, the literary journal is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. It is available  from Amazon.com, most online booksellers, and regional specialty bookstores. Financial support includes tax-deductible contributions and a grant from the Talbot Arts with funds from the Maryland State Arts Council. Website: www.DelmarvaReview.org

 

Editor’s Note: “Butchery,” from the 15th edition of the Delmarva Review, has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize in fiction.

Author’s Note: “When you’re a scientist doing fieldwork in another part of the world, uncertainty comes with the territory. That includes the other scientists on your team. How will they act, especially if things go wrong? I set out intending to tell the tale of a field season soured by recklessness. Instead, “Butchery” reveals how misplaced priorities can destroy careers . . . and even cost lives.”

Butchery

AT DINNER, Sondersohn told Kate they’d reach the site by late afternoon. But when they arrived at the river crossing the next day around noon, the ferry was missing. 

The two-track road they’d rattled down all morning wound back through tan scrub into haze. On the bank, four men squatted beneath the weak shade of an acacia. The only sounds were buzzing flies and the wet chewing of the men’s jaws as they worked khat. Decorative scars covered their bare chests, their split earlobes hung pendulously. Each wore an AK-47 slung over his shoulder. A pungent odor filled Kate’s nostrils. Goat. 

Birhanu, their driver and guide, wrinkled his nose. “Mursi.” 

“The stalwart guardians of our ferry,” quipped Sondersohn. 

Birhanu stepped toward the acacia. Three dogs crouched beside the men: tough little things, by the look of them, covered in bites and scratches, missing chunks of ear and, in one of them, an eye. They growled but, undaunted, Birhanu began speaking to the men in a language that sounded nothing like Amharic. 

That’s why he’s here, Kate thought. Why she was here, well . . . once they reached the site, that’s when her skills would come into play. But it was taking a long time. Too long, Sondersohn said, and she agreed. Nearly two weeks in-country so far. First Addis: an interminable blizzard of Amharic negotiations, with many piles of birr exchanging hands. Then five dawn-to-dusk days lurching along progressively worsening roads in their field vehicle, a white Toyota SUV overloaded with field tools, camp supplies, and extra fuel and water. At the site, she’d be in her element. Until then, she was just one more piece of cargo.

Birhanu turned to Sondersohn. “Doctor, the Mursi say we go across. The toll is 250 birr for each, 2,000 for the truck.” 

Sondersohn wiped sweat from his eyes. Stocky and pale, with short straight hair and a pudgy boyish face, he gave off more the impression of an overgrown schoolboy than of a star scholar of ancient human prehistory. “Where is the ferry? Ask them where’s Bulaba? He’s the one we negotiated with last year.” 

Birhanu turned back to the Mursi. Sondersohn gave Kate a Can you believe this shit? look. She’s seen it often since they met for the first time—she’d known him only by reputation and her adviser’s recommendation—in the Bole Airport. 

As the two farenji, they were set apart. Alone together, Kate thought, like the book. The staring, the begging, the kids chanting “you, you, you” everywhere they went, only amplified the aloneness. So what happened at dinner last night — which really wasn’t much of anything, just a brush of the fingers — was about companionship, not anything more. 

“Bulaba not here, they say,” Birhanu informed Sondersohn. 

“Really?” Sondersohn glared. “Thanks for helping figure that out.” 

Whereas Sondersohn treated Birhanu with absent condescension right from the beginning, Kate had wanted very much to like him. At first, she thought it would be easy. A compact man with wispy white hair and crooked teeth, he gave off a grandfatherly vibe. The slender National Tour Operators cap he wore made him resemble a train conductor, and she imagined him conducting them out to the site in an orderly yet caring manner. 

Once they set off, however, he grated on her. He ignored Kate completely and spoke to Sondersohn only when necessary. This despite his excellent English and propensity to argue or negotiate with nearly everyone they came across. Vendors, government officials, police, managers of the restaurants and hotels they stopped at on the road; Birhanu spoke with them all, sometimes at great length, but to what end she never knew. The conversations went untranslated and unexplained. 

And, for a so-called tour operator, he wasn’t much of a guide. As they drove through the lush, hilly countryside— nothing like the arid scrub she’d seen in photos of the site or here by the ferry crossing—hours would pass without his saying a word. One afternoon in the midst of his silence, he’d made a sudden remark: it sounded like a swear word. She spent the rest of the day wondering if something had upset him. But that evening, when curiosity got the best of her and she asked Sondersohn, he explained with a laugh that Birhanu was merely pointing out a bustard near the road. 

“Tell them,” Sondersohn said, “there’s nothing more to talk about until we know the whereabouts of the ferry.” Reluctantly, Birhanu reengaged the Mursi, who—faced with the prospect of their leaving without parting with any money—suddenly had a lot to say. 

They had spent last night in Jinka, the nearest town of any consequence. After dinner, the inevitable beg wot the only choice at the hotel’s dingy restaurant, Sondersohn ordered another beer. Heading to her room to swat cockroaches off the walls and lament the lack of running water was distinctly unappealing, so Kate joined him. 

When the Bedeles arrived, they clinked them together. “May be our last cold beers for a while. About time, huh?” Then he added, eyes gleaming, “Afar, 1993, 2.2 million years old.” 

This was a reference to why they were here, to the scientific record they seemed poised to break. During last season’s excavations, Sondersohn unearthed ibex bones with suspicious cut marks. The site was old, older than 2.2 million years. So were the bones. He’d recognized the possible significance but wisely left them in situ when the rains drove him back to Addis. He needed an expert evaluation, and through a convoluted set of referrals, here sat Kate, a mere doctoral student yet one of the world’s top experts on an incredibly obscure, hyperspecialized topic that almost no one cared about. Except for the few who cared passionately. 

“The Leakeys,” she replied. Their hands crept closer to one another across the battered tabletop. “The cover of Science magazine.” 

If this worked out, it would be a find of staggering significance. She imagined a Science cover with their names on it, rather than the Leakeys. The media appearances. The professional society accolades. Even … tenure. It would make her career. Their fingers brushed. 

If it worked out. Kate slowly withdrew her hand. 

Now she glanced sidelong at Sondersohn, intently watching Birhanu parlay with the Mursi though he couldn’t understand any more of the back-and-forth than she could. 

That brief touch last night, she hoped they were both clear on what it was … and wasn’t. 

She turned her gaze across the coffee-colored river. A glint on the opposite bank drew her eye. Not one but several large pieces of sun-roasted metal protruded from the tan mud. A termite mound rose, like a stalagmite, from the dust-caked edge of one. 

She pointed and Sondersohn scowled. “Birhanu!” 

“Doctor, the Mursi say they will give us a bargain. Only 1,000 for the truck.” 

Sondersohn blinked. “Have you been haggling over price? The ferry’s on the other side of the river. It’s in pieces. Let’s go.” Flushed, he strode toward the Toyota. Kate followed. 

At the truck, Sondersohn turned back toward the Mursi and unleashed a torrent of verbal abuse. She’d seen flashes of his temper before, but nothing like this. 

Though they couldn’t understand the words, it was surely clear to the Mursi that their payday had evaporated. The dogs growled again, baring their fangs. One of the men, broad chested and muscular, rose to his feet and shoved Birhanu, who’d been standing mutely during Sondersohn’s tirade. He went sprawling, his NTO cap landing beside him in the dust. The other Mursi men stood up. One slipped the rifle off his shoulder. 

“Erik!” Kate yelled. She stepped forward, but Sondersohn stopped her with a hand. 

Birhanu retrieved his cap, then inched back and rose awkwardly to his feet. He was covered in dust. The Mursi shouted what Kate was sure were taunts. 

“I said, let’s go,” Sondersohn chided him.

Teeth gritted, Birhanu limped to the driver’s side. 

THE ONLY OPTION now was to cross the river at the nearest bridge and approach the site from the north. This was a terrible option. They’d need to drive most of the way back to Addis to reach the bridge and would then face a longer journey on the western side of the river. Just how long they didn’t know, as even Birhanu had never been that way before. Every day on the road ate into their precious time at the site. 

The next morning, back in Jinka, Birhanu took the Toyota to be serviced, leaving Kate and Sondersohn with some hours to kill. The center of the town was a large grassy field that served as both an airstrip and grazing for goats. Corrugated metal-roofed shacks — homes and shops in an undifferentiated jumble — lined the dusty road bordering the field. Bright-colored Amharic signage everywhere advertised she had no idea what. Diesel fuel and woodsmoke ripened the air as they strolled past wandering chickens and goats, women hauling wood and water, and kids who called to them. Sondersohn kept up a low-level chatter, complaining about the ferry, the Mursi, and the added time. Kate, overwhelmed by the surroundings, listened with half an ear. 

At a small roadside market, old ladies sat beside pyramids of produce: tomatoes and mangos, potatoes and garlic. A stocky man managed piles of brightly colored spices and a rickety balance. Heaping bags of brown grain, which Kate surmised was teff, rested next to stacks of spongy, freshly made injera discs. There were jerry cans and water jugs. Washbasins and buckets. Candy and tinned fish. Cheap digital watches and tired clothes of the sort that, in the US, would remain unsold at the end of a big Sunday tag sale. 

Many of the vendors called out aggressively. Sondersohn ignored them while Kate muttered, “Just looking,” unsure they could even understand. An adolescent offered to be their guide for the day. “No,” Sondersohn told him firmly, while Kate— remembering Sondersohn’s outburst the previous day—pressed a few consolatory birr into his hand. A small girl tried to take her hand, and Kate looked around for the parents. They’d quickly gained a following: an uncomfortably large group of children, toddlers to teenagers, dressed in dirty t-shirts and tribal cloth. One little one slowly hobbled after them on a crutch. 

She glanced at them uneasily, and Sondersohn said, “They’re just bored.” He pointed to a nearby storefront. “Here’s something you’ll like. Come on.” 

The metallic scent of blood hit her nostrils upon stepping inside. Flies buzzed through the fetid air. As her eyes adjusted to the dimness, she made out four goat carcasses, skinless and splayed open, hanging from hooks. Two men worked at a table, taking a carcass apart with cleavers. One was short and stout, the other tall and slender, both wearing dirty aprons stained with gore. The men looked up at the two strangers but then went back to work. 

While not every chop or slice would leave marks on a goat’s skeleton, many would. Kate watched with practiced eyes, having witnessed the butchery of numerous animals. Were she to look at the bones under a microscope, she could reconstruct the angle, force, even the order of every strike. She’d know they were using metal tools, not stone. Most importantly, she’d know that the animal was butchered by human beings: not hunted by lions, scavenged by jackals, or merely scraped up by postmortem wind, sun, and dust. 

To do this work was painstaking, subtle, and anything but glamorous. Great for chatting about at cocktail parties or, more often in Kate’s case, house parties. Maybe not so great for making a living . . . at least not so far, though her fortunes might be about to change. 

What had drawn her to study such a crazy topic? More than the thrill of investigation and discovery, more than the physics or the forensics, what drew her in most was its intimacy. With the butchered animal but, much more, with the people who did the butchering. To reconstruct their actions was in a small way to know their thoughts. This brief communion—a half-step into impossibly remote minds from vastly different cultures and times—this was the draw for her. 

The men finished with the carcass. One called out, and a moment later a boy led a live goat into the shed. Kate appreciated this, too: the connection between a living organism, its death, and our sustenance. How far removed from the typical modern American experience: the supermarket’s sterile meat department, where a single drop of blood—or, more precisely, myoglobin—staining the pristine white packaging was cause for squeamishness. 

The boy pushed the goat down onto the earthen floor. It chewed placidly as the taller man sharpened the straight-edged knife he’d use to kill it. What a mercy: the beast’s ignorance of death. She envied it. 

“Tonight’s wot at the hotel,” Sondersohn whispered, and she suppressed a chuckle. 

The other man, the stout one, grabbed the goat, which bleated and pulled away, finally realizing something was wrong. The stout butcher slipped, landing on the goat. Something snapped. The goat began thrashing, and the man with the knife yelled angrily. 

The stout man strained to hold the goat as the one with the knife went for its throat with the blade, missing again as the goat bleated and writhed. Kate recoiled. Finally, after too many seconds, the blade struck home, and the goat’s bleating ceased. 

“Interesting method,” observed Sondersohn. “About on par for efficiency with everything else in this country.” 

Revolted, Kate left the shack. She squinted in the sunlight, drinking in the open air and the scents of the market. 

Most of their youthful following had dispersed, but the boy with the crutch lingered. No more than six years old, his underfed body was draped in rags. One of his legs was stunted and twisted at an impossible angle, while on the side of his head was a large patch of gnarled skin. Not a birth defect, she noted analytically, but likely the result of an accident of some kind. 

He shambled toward her: eyes large and clear and a smile full of perfect little white teeth. “Farenji,” he said, but in an affectionate murmur rather than the yelling she was becoming accustomed to. Never one for maternal instincts—career-killers those—she nonetheless resisted an urge to embrace him. 

But who was she to feel that? His crutch was well-crafted, pieces of dark weathered wood smoothly jointed together. Effort and skill had gone into its making. Who was she to surmise he wasn’t already deeply loved? 

Sondersohn wandered out, his expression sheepish. She hoped he realized his quip had irked her. “Birhanu might be back by now,” he said, checking his watch. He glanced at the boy. “No. Go away.” 

Kate removed a stack of small bills from the pocket where she kept her birr. 

“Don’t,” Sondersohn advised. “He’ll just . . .” 

She handed the boy the whole wad, not sure how much it was but hoping it was enough to make a difference. 

SONDERSOHN wore the growing strain everywhere . . . his face, body movements, and words. After six more days of travel, they were all grubby—Kate genuinely looked forward to a bath in the muddy, crocodile-infested river when they finally reached the site—but Sondersohn was as rough as the road. Each day that passed, the tension grew. There it was, in his red-rimmed eyes, the set of his jaw, the sweat on his brow. The clock was his enemy. Precious days they’d been relying upon for fieldwork were spent instead on the road. And each day they lost now meant another for the return journey before the rains got too severe. 

They shook and rocked at a snail’s pace along unmaintained roads through hilly forest, misty in the mornings and hazy in the afternoons. Tightly encircled by trees, their track wound up and down, with occasional vistas when they reached the tops of rises. 

Birhanu drove all day, day after day, and he did not complain, though surely this was not what he’d signed up for. Sondersohn nonetheless began arguing with him about where they were and how far they still had to go. Sometime today, Sondersohn insisted, they should reach the hilltop village of Maji and then tomorrow begin their descent into the dry river valley where, somewhere, is their site. 

They must be getting close, though it didn’t feel like it to Kate. 

There was nowhere to pull off the narrow track, so at lunchtime, Birhanu simply stopped the Toyota, and they opened cans of sardines, ham, and fruit salad. Not exactly appetizing, but nothing about sitting in the truck made Kate hungry. Besides, this was the kind of food they’d subsist on at the site. She’d best get used to it. 

They leaned against the vehicle, eating in silence. Still chewing, Sondersohn wandered off down the road, restless, scouting. Maji might be just over the next rise. Uneasy, Kate glanced at Birhanu, but he, as usual, ignored her. 

The afternoon passed, and at dusk they were still nowhere. Once the sun sunk behind the hills, it grew dimmer by the minute. Birhanu turned on the headlights. 

At the top of the next rise was a small clearing where they caught a glimpse of the surrounding landscape. No light anywhere. 

“We stop here,” Birhanu said. “Maji tomorrow.” 

“No, Birhanu, Maji tonight,” Sondersohn replied. 

“Erik,” Kate said, “We’re obviously not close. And it is getting hard to see.” The dark out here was not the dark of home. It was something to be reckoned with. 

Birhanu added, “This is a good place to camp.” 

“You said we’d reach Maji today,” Sondersohn pressed. Kate bit her tongue at this falsehood. Birhanu said nothing. “You’re our expert guide. So tell us: how far are we from Maji, and how much longer will it take to get there?” 

“I do not know, Doctor.”

“Erik, come on,” Kate chided.

“We are not stopping here,” Sondersohn insisted. “We’re going to Maji, even if it takes all night.”

“But it is dangerous!” Birhanu exclaimed. He seemed truly panicked, though Kate had observed that he also sometimes spoke to them with elevated emotions, as though to toddlers, to get his point across. “We must stop.” 

“We are not stopping here,” Sondersohn repeated with finality, then settled back in his seat. 

Birhanu, agitated, shifted into gear. They rolled forward barely a hundred feet before the truck lurched to the left. A pothole Birhanu hadn’t seen. He stopped again. “Doctor, I must insist. We will start at dawn and . . .”

“Keep driving!” Sondersohn snarled, suddenly so fierce that, like his tantrum at the ferry crossing, it shocked Kate. 

Birhanu sat rigid. Then, hands shaking, he turned off the motor. 

All three of them silently absorbed his act of rebellion before Sondersohn stiffly declared, “Fine then. I’ll drive.” 

“No, Doctor, that is not allowable . . .”

Kate interjected. “I agree with Birhanu. Let’s stop. We can’t see a thing out here. And we could all use some rest.”

Sondersohn swiveled to face her and raised his voice. “For all we know, Maji could be over the next hill. I thought this work was important to you.” 

Kate, growing angry herself, didn’t bother keeping the acid out of her reply. “I want to get there in one piece. That’s why we should stop.” 

Ignoring that, Sondersohn turned back to Birhanu. “Either you drive, or I do.” 

The two of them—silhouettes to Kate—faced each other down. Then Birhanu surprised her by handing Sondersohn the keys. Silently, they got out and switched seats. Once in the driver’s seat, Sondersohn shifted into gear, and the truck jerked forward. Birhanu slumped in the passenger seat. Kate checked her seat belt. 

It was slow going. The road wound back and forth in steep switchbacks as they descended, ascended, then down and up again. Deep ruts gouged the road where rainwater had run down the hilltops across the track. Kate could easily have kept pace with the truck if she got out and walked alongside it. She wished she could, despite the darkness and what might be lurking in the gloom in this strange place. 

Fieldwork often lent itself to “we’ll laugh about it later” situations: annoying, scary, or downright awful circumstances that didn’t seem so bad later, back in the lab, or merely after a hot shower and a cold beer. But something about the atmosphere in the truck made her doubt this was one of those times. 

An hour passed, then two. They drove through deep forest, nearly pitch black in the night, with vegetation pressing up against the road as they slowly climbed. They each craned forward to see what was ahead. Even as she anxiously scanned the road, Kate tried distracting herself by thinking about the procedure she would follow at the site. 

The first step would be to locate and uncover the bones. Measure and photograph in situ. Then extract, take additional measurements, and begin analysis of the cut marks. There was only so much she could do under field conditions. The bones would be brought back to a lab where she could investigate them under microscopy. Ideally with a scanning electron microscope, but that wouldn’t be possible in Addis, and taking the bones out of the country was not allowed. Anticipating this, she’d brought special materials to make high-quality molds and casts that would capture the surface of the bones in exquisite detail. The final analysis would be completed at home. 

How long would the field part take? A week? Two? Surely, even with all the delays, they’d have that amount of time. 

At the top of the rise, Birhanu sprang to life. “Light!” 

The forest melted away. More lights appeared as the road leveled and smoothened. Sondersohn accelerated. 

“Maji,” he announced triumphantly, and sped up even more. The vegetation whizzed by, dark on dark. 

Kate barely registered the shadow in the road before something heavy thudded off the bumper. Sondersohn cursed, and they rolled to a stop. “Fuck. A goat. I must have hit a goat.” 

Kate flashed back to the time, when she was a teenager, that her dad hit a deer. They’d gone to pick up dinner and were cruising down a mostly residential street in Stamford. “My God!” he’d exclaimed, “Katie, are you all right?” He pulled over and they’d both stepped out to examine the damage on the hood. 

Now suddenly there were lights and noises behind them. A dozen people stood in the road, with torches and lanterns, crowded around something. Then a woman screamed. 

Kate held her breath. Birhanu emitted an anguished cry. 

The Toyota began rolling forward. “The truck seems fine, thank god.” Sondersohn accelerated. 

“No, no, no,” Birhanu said. “We must stop. We must go back.” 

“Are you crazy? They’ll kill us.” 

Kate told herself there were many unknowns, maybe it wasn’t so bad. Though with that wailing, how could it not be? “We have to stop.” 

“We cannot leave here,” Birhanu urged. 

Even in the darkness, Kate thought she could discern how tightly Sondersohn gripped the steering wheel. 

They drove into the center of the village. After all the build- up, Maji was nothing — a few square shacks around a small square — and shortly they were on its far side, among scattered huts, the dark forest looming ahead. The road descended, gravelly and rutted, the grade even steeper than on the way up. Sondersohn was forced to slow the truck to a crawl. 

Kate sat transfixed by the darkness before them, the road revealed by the headlights a few feet at a time. The child must be dead or maimed for life like the boy in Jinka. 

With effort, she shifted her gaze from the road to Sondersohn’s vague outline peering over the steering wheel. Like a rupture in her brain, the implications of what he’d done exploded and cascaded on and on: the long shadow stretching far out into their futures. She slumped back into her seat. 

The hours passed as the truck wound its way down and down. The adrenaline shot from Maji dissipated. Despite what had happened and the dangers of the dark road, Kate struggled to remain awake. None of the stories about fieldwork adventures, not those told in the safe cradle of the lab nor by beer-sozzled colleagues at conferences, were like this. 

Her head pitched forward, a big bump jarring her awake. The truck stopped. 

“Fuck,” said Sondersohn. The headlights revealed a dry channel across the road, two feet deep or more. He pounded his fist on the steering wheel. “Fuck!” 

After a moment, Birhanu spoke up. “I will get us across.” 

“You will?” Sondersohn asked, as surprised as Kate. “You can?” 

Birhanu got out and walked to the front of the truck. He gestured in displeasure at what he saw there. The collision must have done damage, left signs. Or worse. Kate shuddered. 

Birhanu contemplated the channel. Sondersohn slid over as Birhanu got into the driver’s seat. He put the truck in gear and navigated to a spot on the edge of the road where the banks were gentler. The down and up were jarring, but they were past the channel in less than a minute. The dark and rough road continued on, and without a word, Birhanu drove on. 

A short time later, he stopped again. A large tree lay across the road. It would take many hours to clear, if they could clear it at all. 

Defeated, Sondersohn suggested, “Let’s sleep for a few hours until it gets light.” 

Without a word, Birhanu turned off the headlights and shut the engine. 

Sondersohn’s soft snoring began almost immediately. 

Kate’s stomach gurgled. They hadn’t eaten since lunch the previous day. The forest rustled. Her mind churned. She dreaded tomorrow. And yet, within moments, she drifted off. 

A LOUD KNOCK rocketed her out of sleep. Six men—clad in grubby t-shirts and checkered wraps, their faces etched with anger—stood in the dim dawn light. It was obvious what had woken her: the butt of a rifle whacked forcefully on the truck’s hood. 

The oldest of the men began yelling in Amharic, punctuating his points by hammering his rifle on Birhanu’s door. Birhanu answered, voice wavering. The man repeated the same words over and over; Birhanu shook his head and gestured toward Sondersohn. Six angry pairs of eyes moved to Sondersohn, then back to Birhanu. Sondersohn sat quietly in his seat, staring straight ahead. Kate wanted to hope this wasn’t what it looked like, that these were only road bandits, and this was just a robbery. 

The men’s leader grunted. Birhanu, sobbing and shaking his head, began furiously rolling up his window. The man yanked the door open, and the others rushed in, prying Birhanu’s hands off the steering wheel and pulled him out of the vehicle. 

“Say something!” Kate urged Sondersohn. 

They hauled Birhanu, howling, to the front of the vehicle. The leader pointed at the hood—to the sign of impact—and slapped his face hard. 

“Wait!” Kate’s arm shook as she removed the pile of birr from her pocket and opened her door. “It wasn’t him! It wasn’t him!” Two of the men raised their rifles at her, the black holes of the barrels like the blank eye sockets of skulls. She held out the birr. “Take our money,” she said. “Take all of it. We’re so sorry. It wasn’t him!” 

The rest of the men began dragging Birhanu into the forest. He yelled and writhed, but his struggles barely slowed their progress. 

“No!” Tears began streaming down Kate’s face. “It was him!” She screamed it, pointing at Sondersohn, who remained quiet and motionless in his seat. “It was him!” 

Birhanu’s cries grew fainter as they pulled him into the brush. Deep in the surrounding woods, a bird called. The two remaining men kept their guns trained on Kate. It grew brighter each second, and as it did, she thought she could discern more of the emotion in their eyes. Rage. Wonder. Fear. Determination. 

Or maybe she had no idea what was in their heads. 

A single loud pop echoed off the hillside, then died away. One of the men grabbed the money out of her hand, then they wordlessly disappeared into the forest. She heaved huge loud sobs, sounding to her own ears too much like the woman on the road the night before. 

In the gathering light of the new day, she saw the road behind them: a series of long switchbacks on the hillside. They’d covered very little distance last night. No wonder the men so easily caught up. 

Scraping and clinking nearby drew her attention. Filthy and unshaven, sweat stains blooming under his armpits, Sondersohn rummaged through the back of the Toyota like some kind of scavenging beast. He pulled out a small ax and dropped it on the ground. Then he grabbed cans of ham and fruit salad and began prying them open. 

“We need to eat, then clear this tree.” 

“What about Birhanu?” she asked. “We can’t leave him here.” 

He answered without a word, pointing past the downed tree in the direction of the site, the work, the discovery. Their future, her future. Then he climbed into the driver’s seat, where Birhanu sat moments before, to eat. 

“Come up front.” Sondersohn spoke through a mouthful of food, not turning around. 

Instead, she began walking away, uphill, back up the road the way they’d come. 

⧫

Josh Trapani is a scientist turned policy wonk who writes fiction and humor. He is senior editor at Issues in Science and Technology. Josh’s work has appeared in The Writing Disorder, The Del Sol Review, The Big Jewel, and other venues. He’s reviewed books for the Washington Independent Review of Books and peer-reviewed journals, including the publication Science. For more information see: www.linkedin.com/in/joshtrapani

Delmarva Review is a national literary review with strong local roots. Over its 15-year history, it  has published original prose and poetry from 490 authors in 42 states, the District of Columbia, and 16 foreign countries. Forty-six percent are from the Chesapeake and Delmarva region. Financial support includes tax-deductible contributions and a public grant from Talbot Arts with funds from the Maryland State Arts Council. The review is available worldwide in print and digital editions from Amazon.com and other major online booksellers, as well as regional specialty bookstores. Website: www.DelmarvaReview.org

 

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Author’s Note: “I wrote this poem after taking a class on how to write a cento. Looking for a source of words, I thought of the Sweets Construction Catalogue I had used when I worked in an architect’s office after college. ‘Sweets’ then was a large collection of three-ring binders but is now online. As I dipped into its pages, the poem began to form in my mind, moving readily from concept to completion.”

I Want to Order a Man
From the Sweets Catalog
     A Cento from Sweets.Construction.com

In the design phase, it’s critical to know
available testing information
Commit to crisp, modern styling

Order body components to coordinate
with your interior or exterior environment
Design for structural characteristics,

slim profile, and peace of mind
Make rugged and robust finishes resistant
to salt spray and the sea coast, 

capable of withstanding years of use
Focus on delivering consistent support,
more productive and comfortable components

No matter the size and shape of equipment,
assure consistent and versatile performance
Flexible mounting options in your design
make an excellent choice for demanding structures

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Maryland poet Fran Abrams has been published in numerous journals and more than a dozen anthologies. She won the 2021 Washington Writers’ Publishing House Winter Poetry Prize. Her first poetry book “I Rode the Second Wave: A Feminist Memoir” (Atmosphere Press) was published in November 2022. Her first chapbook, “The Poet Who Loves Pythagoras,” (Finishing Line Press) will be released in March 2023. Website: franabramspoetry.com.

Over its 15-year history, Delmarva Review has published new literary prose and poetry from 490 authors from 42 states, the District of Columbia, and 16 foreign countries. Forty-six percent are from the Chesapeake and Delmarva region. Financial support includes individual tax-deductible contributions and a grant from Talbot Arts with funds from the Maryland State Arts Council. Website: www.DelmarvaReview.org

 

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Author’s Note: “This poem virtually wrote itself when I was hole up writing in Marfa, Texas, a thin place, as in hardly separated from the source. One afternoon outside my back door I espied through the coke-bottle glass, a young girl who sat at a card table on her porch across the street happy as you please writing in that red bird notebook. I simply stood there in solidarity with another non-civilian.”

Authors

Out my back door
across the street
a little girl
writes in a notebook
with a red bird
on the front
a tender chimera
through the Coke-bottle glass
an unwritten poem. 

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King Grossman’s poems and short prose have appeared in Crack the Spine, The Round, Forge, Tiger’s Eye, Qwerty, Burningword, Ignatian, Pennsylvania Literary Journal, Midwest Quarterly, The Borfski Review, and other journals. His novel, Letters To Alice, has received several literary awards. He lives in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, with his wife Lisa, his dog Bogart, and a sun conure parrot named Sunny. 

Over its 15-year history, Delmarva Review has published new literary prose and poetry from 490 authors from 42 states, the District of Columbia, and 16 foreign countries. Forty-six percent are from the Chesapeake and Delmarva region. Financial support comes from tax-deductible contributions and a grant from Talbot Arts with funds from the Maryland State Arts Council. Website: www.DelmarvaReview.org

 

 

Editor’s Note: “Goodbye Mr. Kamali,” from the review’s 15th anniversary edition, has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize in fiction. 

Author’s Note: “Growing up in a country under theocratic rule, I witnessed most Iranians suffering from religious and cultural cleansing, the root of Iranians’ ongoing uprisings today. Minorities, especially Jews and Baha’is, are in constant danger still. Here, I am a young girl hiding in a cupboard, listening. I discover the crime of my father’s friend: his refusal to convert to Islam, and the fate he will suffer for it.”

GOODBYE MR. KAMALI 

I WAS NINE YEARS OLD. I was imprisoned in a cupboard that smelled of dust and chalk and had sharp bulging surfaces that were scratching my hands. From time to time, I could hear murmuring outside: it was anxious and frightened murmuring. I could hear my mother’s voice; she was praying while the terrible sounds in the background were getting nearer and nearer. And it was that fear that sometimes made her change her accent. I felt as if I could even hear the sound of her heart pounding. 

Occasionally, there was a quiet period when the sounds subsided, and a terrifying silence would encompass the whole house. In that silence, you could even hear very clearly the uninterrupted singing of the cicadas on the tree in the middle of the courtyard. 

ALL THESE SOUNDS were in my ears, together with Mr. Kamali’s face coming and going in my head. He and his wife and daughter were standing outside the door when mother opened it. They had parked their car opposite the house, and as soon as the door was opened, he and his wife hastily greeted Mother, and Mr. Kamali asked where my father was. 

Mother said: “Please, do come in. Hassan has gone to Motel Ghoo today. He heard that his brother-in-law had an accident on Haraz Road on his way back from Tehran and has been taken to the hospital. And it is not certain that he will survive.” 

Mr. Kamali didn’t give mother another opportunity to insist on them coming in. He turned and walked toward the car. His wife and daughters followed him. As they were walking away, mother invited them several times to come in, but it seemed as if her words didn’t reach Mr. Kamali and his wife and daughters. They got into the car, and a few moments later, there was no sign of the car in the street. Father and Mr. Kamali were, according to my uncle, like Rumi and Shams. They were like one soul in two bodies. 

Not half an hour had passed since Mr. Kamali left when someone knocked on the door. Someone very agitated and anxious was banging on the door with the palm of his hand. As I went to open the door, mother stopped me and said, “When they knock on the door at this time of night, a little girl doesn’t go to the door. You just sit where you are sitting!” I didn’t sit where I was supposed to sit. I drew the curtain to see who mother and Jahan, who was right behind her, opened the door to. 

It was Mr. Kamali. He looked restless, moving from foot to foot, asking mother some questions that I couldn’t hear, but even from behind the curtain and at a distance it was obvious that there was no calmness in their voices and what they were talking about. 

After they closed the door, mother got hold of Jahan’s hand hastily and looked back a few times; then, looking very confused and distraught, she entered the hall and said very loudly, “All three of you, go and hide somewhere you can’t be seen.” 

Where? Our house didn’t have anywhere that was invisible. It was a house like any other house built for living in, and when they were building it, they didn’t make a place to hide for the people who lived there. 

Mother said, “It was Mr. Kamali. He said his wife and daughters are in serious danger. He said they are after him and maybe they have followed him to our house. So, they might come after us too.” 

And then, as if mother was talking to herself, she said, “No matter how much I insisted he should bring the girls here, he just wouldn’t have it.” 

Mother suddenly appeared to have remembered something. She turned to the three of us and said, “Get into the cupboard and close the door! No matter what sounds you hear, you must not come out of the cupboard!” 

AND NOW that I was sitting in the dark prison of the cupboard, I remembered that maybe what the man in the mosque was saying from behind the microphone was about us. Maybe somehow it was related to us. I couldn’t understand who he was talking about, but mother had understood it. She looked as if the sorrows of the whole world were weighing on her as she sat very anxiously on the stairs leading to the balcony and said, “They are inciting people again…” And she listened very carefully to what the man behind the microphone was saying. 

The muezzin of our local mosque was reciting verses from the Koran. He would stop from time to time and talk about the infidels. He appeared to have forgotten his usual job of reciting from the Koran. It was obvious that he was talking with great enmity and hatred about some people, but nobody knew who they were.

The darkness of the cupboard was like a long corridor. Through its darkness and silence, it was possible to hear the echoing sound of the breathing of Jahan and Navid. I was wondering where Mr. Kamali and his family went that night and what happened to them all night through to the morning. 

I remembered that a few days ago father was telling mother that Mr. Kamali had received a letter summoning him to report somewhere but didn’t say who had summoned him or where he had to go to report. Mother said, “Report to? It would be better if he ran away. He is not an ordinary person whose dismissal would satisfy the authorities. He was a member of the Circle. They are not joking with him. If he doesn’t become a Muslim, they will execute him. If he is lucky and survives, he will have to stay in prison a long time.” 

I had heard these conversations so often in my childhood that I knew Mr. Kamali was a member of the Baha’i Circle. But I didn’t know what the Baha’i Circle was and why being a member of the Circle was a crime. I wished Mr. Kamali would escape and never report to anybody anywhere. 

In my view Mr. Kamali was a gallant and brave man who was confused about the dilemma of being or not being. And he was being pulled by the forces in both directions. He was confused and hesitant as to whether he should go or not, escape or not.

Mr. Kamali was brave, just like a blackbird. Like that blackbird we had seen that day in the garden; a blackbird that flew from one tree to another but never wanted to fly away; nor had it any intention of staying on a branch of a tree. It was Sizdah Bedar, and we all had gathered in Mr. Kamali’s garden. 

Jahan was throwing stones at the birds and the trees with his catapult. The blackbird came and perched on a branch and began to sing like no other bird! Mr. Kamali said, “These are called Tika in Mazandaran, but they are referred to as tuka in the books.” 

I remembered the book called A Tuka in a Cage. But in those days, when I had read it, I hadn’t paid any attention to who had written it. I never paid any attention to the authors because I was more interested in the stories than anything else. 

The story was about a tuka that had been trapped in a hunter’s cage. It pleads with every creature that passes the cage to help and rescue him. 

A COW, a beautiful green lizard that looks like a crocodile, a crow, and a few other animals… None of the animals can rescue it, even the lion, the king of the jungle. When the big strong animals tried to help with good intentions, all they did was almost 

break the cage and hurt the tuka. Each in its own way wanted to rescue it, but in the end, they couldn’t do anything, and finally, the poor tuka attacks the bars of the cage with its tired wings and makes some space between the bars and succeeds in saving itself. 

Later, I remembered a friend told me that the author of the story was Nima Yooshij.

But this tuka was flying from one tree to another, and Mr. Kamali was looking at it and smiling. Jahan never threw stones at the bird and only looked at it with amazement. 

They had said that if Mr. Kamali doesn’t report, they will destroy his house over his and his family’s heads by setting fire to it. These were the same people who had forgotten to broadcast the prayers and instead were cursing and insulting the infidels. 

Mr. Kamali moved his family from one place to another to find a permanent place for them. Nobody wanted to or was able to help them because they were in danger themselves. I think it was all these things that eventually made it inevitable that he 

surrendered to keep his family safe. And that, too, when they had set fire to the house and cut down all the trees in his garden. 

A TREMENDOUS AND FRIGHTENING SOUND shook the house. There was an uproar sound and the sound of feet jumping as a few people climbed over the wall and entered the courtyard. Mother said firmly “Hush” to us and pushed us into the cupboard. I think she hid herself somewhere on the other side of the room. 

I took Jahan’s hand and squeezed it. Navid was so small that sitting in one place was difficult for him. But now, he too was scared and didn’t move from where he was sitting. It was hot inside the cupboard, and Navid was sweating. Mother had put a few layers on him. She had thought just in case something dreadful happened and we had to run away, he wouldn’t be without any clothes. But where could we run to from here? The 

house had been surrounded. 

Navid said very quietly, “Water, water, I want water.” He was thirsty and wanted water. Jahan took off one of the jumpers Navid was wearing, but he said again, “Water, I want water.” 

Before Jahan realized what was happening, I had jumped out of the cupboard. I ran quietly behind the folded curtain hanging by the window and hid there. 

I wanted to see where they were. The kitchen had a net curtain. I wanted to know whether they could see me if I went into the kitchen. I pulled the curtain back a bit and had a very quick look at the courtyard. A few men holding large clubs were prowling around the courtyard. A couple of them threw stones at the guestroom windows, breaking the glass with a terrible crash. Another was walking on the wall and threw a large rock onto the roof of the house. Very hastily, I sat down by the window. Once again, that loud and horrifying sound echoed through the house. One of them said in a voice that wasn’t too loud, “They are hiding inside the house. They are afraid. They have switched off the light.”

That night, the moon was not shining. The courtyard was partially lighted by a streetlamp. When I looked carefully, I saw that they had covered half their faces with black cloth. Their voices were not familiar; I didn’t know any of them. They weren’t from our neighborhood. One of them said in a hoarse voice: “Their window has anti-theft bars.” And another one said: “We can’t get inside the house; let’s break the rest of the windows.”

They broke the windows by throwing large stones at them, and I was scared to go to the kitchen to get some water. I sat there, and from time to time, I would half stand and look at what was happening in the courtyard. One of the men jumped up and took hold of one of the window bars! I remember he was so close that I could hear his panting and wheezing breath. I was frightened and couldn’t move from where I was and was forced to watch the moments of that man’s insanity. 

The man on the wall, who was going this way and that, threw another large piece of rock onto the roof of the house. This time it seemed as if the ceiling was giving way; bits and pieces of cement and plaster fell into the courtyard. I was shaking and couldn’t move. 

A  hand gently touched my back, and for a moment I was taken back. It was Mother. She hugged me and very gently put her hand on my mouth. Very quietly, she said, “Didn’t I tell you not to come out of the cupboard?” I wanted to say Navid was thirsty, but she went on: “Hush, don’t talk and don’t move.” 

There was a loud sound of sawing. And now Mother, too, was curious to find out what was happening. From a narrow gap between the curtain and the window, we looked in the direction of the sound. They were hard at work cutting the trees down; they were cutting down our three-year-old orange trees. Each one of them was standing over a tree. One of them had lifted the lid of the well and was throwing the branches of the trees down it. At this moment, someone rushed hurriedly toward the well, taking his trousers down intending to urinate in the well. Mother put a hand in front of my eyes so I wouldn’t see what he was doing. 

The sky was cloudy and suddenly it began to rain. A sudden thunderclap was followed by a sound more terrible than the sound when the man had thrown pieces of rock on the rooftop and shook the ground. And a bolt of lightning landed just by the metal base of the water storage tank above the well. 

Mother took a deep breath and moved her hand away from my mouth. The man wearing black who had been ready to urinate in the well seemed to have changed his mind; he quickly pulled up his trousers and moved away from the well. A few moments later, torrential rain began to fall. There was thunder and heavy rain. Now the rest of the men wearing black in the courtyard seemed scared. They exchanged words and wanted to open the door. After Mr. Kamali had left, mother had locked the front door, securing it with several locks. And the door opening to the house itself had also been locked and secured with thick chains. Since the moment a few months ago, when the man behind the microphone had cursed the infidels in the mosque, father had arranged for bars to be installed in front of the windows. A big lock and thick chain were also installed to secure the entrance to the building. 

The men were getting anxious and began to shake the door, hoping it would open and they could leave, but the door wouldn’t open. They opened the top and bottom latches and realized that the door was locked from within. They stood by the wall and gave each other a leg up and jumped over the wall and away. 

I said to mum, “They’ve gone, can I go into the kitchen? Navid wants water.” 

She said: “Hush, maybe they haven’t all gone. Don’t talk. They will hear you. They are dangerous. I will take him water myself”

I didn’t talk but hid my face in my mother’s bosom. There was the sound of the muezzin calling people to prayers from the mosque, and I was so tired that I closed my eyes. 

When I opened my eyes, there was brilliant sunshine spreading over the ground, and the branches of the orange trees and the greens looked revived and fresh. A tuka flew away from the only tree that had been left in the garden. 

Like the other day in Mr. Kamali’s garden when the tuka flew away, and Mr. Kamali had told Jahan, “It was a good thing that you let it go and didn’t hit it with your catapult. These birds are created to make the world beautiful, and their meat is not edible. Humans have no right to hunt them; birds like canaries and bullfinches that sing for us. Even if you kill them, you will have to throw them away. Some birds are not for hunting.” 

Farther away, Mother was quietly gathering and sweeping up the pieces of shattered and broken glass from the ground. Between my shin and ankle there was a trace of blood from a stray piece of broken glass that I hadn’t even noticed. In the morning, when mother got up, she put some penicillin powder on it. From that cut, only a tiny and hardly visible line has remained. Just like the memory of that night. Only amusing dreams can be like that: men wearing black and intent on killing other people by  breaking windows and roofs and who were terrified by thunder and lightning. 

The following day, Mr. Kamali had gone to the mosque and had repeated all that they had asked him to say. Apparently, those scared men in black had achieved what they had set out to do. 

Later, Mr. Kamali returned to his house and garden and once again planted trees and never left the garden. The only man who brought him friendship and tranquility was my father, and whenever they met, whether when they were strolling in the garden or sitting and facing each other, their presence was enough without having to utter a word and break the silence. 

They had sent a message from where Mr. Kamali had worked saying that now you have renounced the religion of infidels, you can return to your previous job. 

But he hadn’t returned. Mr. Kamali, after leaving the mosque, had said goodbye to everybody and had migrated to his garden so the whole world would miss his presence. 

Goodbye, Mr. Kamali. 

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Sepideh Zamani is a native of Iran and now lives in Maryland. She graduated from law school in 1999 and moved to the United States a year later. Her novels, short stories, and essays focus on immigration, gender inequality, and the lives of ethnic and religious minorities under cultural cleansing. Website: sepideh-zamani.com 

Over its 15-year history, Delmarva Review has published new literary prose and poetry from 490 authors from 42 states, the District of Columbia, and 16 foreign countries. Forty-six percent are from the Chesapeake and Delmarva region. Financial support comes from tax-deductible contributions and a grant from Talbot Arts with funds from the Maryland State Arts Council. Website: www.DelmarvaReview.org

 

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Editor’s Note: This poem, from the 15th anniversary edition of the Delmarva Review, has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

Author’s Note: Since I first looked into a kaleidoscope as a young child, I’ve been fascinated by and deeply curious about perception. How do we perceive the world and apprehend mystery? How do we know what we know about anything? Our limitations and the possibility of enlightenment always are juxtaposed, as they are in the poem. I’ve come to rely on poetry itself as a way of perceiving and knowing the world, other people, and the divine.

Now Only in Part

We are mostly dark energy, dark genome.
A high percentage of invisible. Visible is hardly anything.

Birds see extra spectra, colors our cones cannot bear.
The dragonfly has thousandfold eyes, sees you move before you move.

We see only in part, on the verge of night.

The black box mind makes semblances, scopes the far void,
peers in the deeps, signals, seeks, as in a mirror, dimly.

Instruments extend the sense. Peek through the keyhole of eyeball
to the optic disc, the flaring nerve roping down the well of perception.

In the seventeenth century a Dutch burgher magnified his semen, astonished to see
the little tadpoles of his seed. On the screen a cloudy nebula embryo, swirling.

Beyond sight, second sight. There is also, beholding.

As a child the poet Blake saw God’s head poking through a window,
angels in the trees. Visions of the third eye.

Wheels within wheels. The gleaming mystic rose.

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Marda Messick is a poet and theologian living in Tallahassee, Florida, on land that is the traditional territory of the Apalachee Nation and other indigenous peoples. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Christian Century and Literary Mama.

Over its 15-year history, Delmarva Review has published new literary prose and poetry from 490 authors from 42 states, the District of Columbia, and 16 foreign countries. Forty-six percent are from the Chesapeake and Delmarva region. Financial support is from tax-deductible contributions and a grant from Talbot Arts with funds from the Maryland State Arts Council. Website: www.DelmarvaReview.org

 

Author’s Note: I wrote “Lemon Ginger Tea” after spending a winter afternoon with my brother. We are both at really transitory moments in our lives and this felt especially true that day. Both our conversation and where we sat felt so indicative to me of both being in a liminal space together. In a lot of ways, I see the poem as being about brotherhood and being able to know someone’s life from that perspective. I use the “you” to try to convey that closeness to the reader so hopefully they can feel it too.

Lemon Ginger Tea

We sit in thread-bare red vinyl couches at deli’s front window.
It’s only four in the afternoon but outside the sky is already
tucking his knees into his chest.
Your last semester of college has just started
and I delight with you in that new beginning. Sometimes
I miss how each semester could give me
a whole new life. Take turns asking, “How are you?”
with more and more weight. Me: How have
you been sleeping? You: Do you like your job?
Me: Have you gone on a date with that girl?
You: I want to move to Germany but I know
I never will. Me: Where do you want to live?
You: Here I guess but it’s too expensive.

You eat your sesame bagel. I drink too-sweet ginger lemon tea—
ruined by my three yellow packets of over-sweetening.
The town outside is quiet. People parking beautiful cars
and their breath blooms from their lips. This has been
the coldest week of the year yet. I think of the word
“bitter” as you walk me to my car. The “bit” in that word
like the rows of wealthy people’s historic brick homes
that could close like teeth around any street.
In Bethlehem, historical markers populate the walkways.
“1801” and “1792” and “1845.” Remind me we are brothers.
I point at a house and I say, “Wouldn’t you love to live there?”
You say toward another, “And there too and there.”

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Robin Gow is a trans and queer poet and young adult/middle-grade author from rural Pennsylvania. They are the author of Our Lady of Perpetual Degeneracy (Tolsun Books, 2020), the chapbook Honeysuckle (Finishing Line Press, 2019), and a young adult novel, A Million Quiet Revolutions (2022, with FSG). Gow’s poetry has recently been published in Poetry, New Delta Review, and Washington Square Review.

Over its 15-year history, Delmarva Review has published new literary prose and poetry from 490 authors from 42 states, the District of Columbia, and 16 foreign countries. Forty-six percent are from the Chesapeake and Delmarva region. Financial support comes from tax-deductible contributions and a grant from Talbot Arts with funds from the Maryland State Arts Council. Website: www.DelmarvaReview.org

 

Author’s Note: “Rescue” was my first attempt at writing flash fiction when I craved something immediate and stark in between revisions of a novel. That initial dabble with flash years ago spawned a series of stories about women who reluctantly come to care for dogs. While most of the other pieces—flash fiction, short stories, and a novella—deal with connections between people or with nature, and some even have hopeful notes, my firstborn remains my favorite.

Rescue

THE CHILLY FALL MORNING when she returned to the animal shelter came three years after the sweltering July day her husband first took her there with the girls. The heat then had magnified her sense of melting. 

“Come on, it’ll be fun,” her husband had said, petting the dog. Tilting his head toward the girls, who were six and nine at the time, their eager faces slightly green under fluorescent lights, he intoned, “They’ve been waiting.” 

She looked away from his gaze toward a framed poster on the wall of the small visitation room. At the front of the poster was a dog’s large snout, in focus, while slightly blurry children beamed with smiles in the background. She winced at the finality of a “forever home.” 

At her feet, an actual dog panted, its brown sheen wrinkly under its chin but smooth along its back. The creature looked more natural—more real—against the faded gray linoleum than did her family’s version of mammal, skin-covered and clothed. 

Three human years later, after the twice-daily doling out of food and the bagging of its excreted remains during so many walks, the wiping of paws at the front door, the baths where he shook dirty water onto her and the white tiles, and the incessant vacuuming that everyone complained was too loud, they were both older and slower entering the animal shelter. The dog settled on the tile floor, as if they planned to stay and chat. But the woman was brief. Left her husband’s phone number, saying he might be interested. 

The workers didn’t appear to understand, possibly expecting her to wait for paperwork. She dropped the leash at the dog’s side and pushed against the ridged metal bar to open the first of two heavy glass doors. 

“We’re not a day care!” the shelter worker called out after her. 

What a curious term. Imagine someone lifting your cares for the day and keeping them safe until you picked them up in the evening. Nothing gone, just held, like electrical current blocked temporarily by a plastic cover in a socket. 

The woman suspected that no one would follow her out of the building. She kept walking. 

Without being pulled along, her body felt airy, grounded only by the drag of her phone in one jacket pocket and keys in the other. 

As she walked home, she imagined doing more dramatic things to her older daughter’s doll than simply leaving her. She could dunk the plastic girl headfirst into the toilet, submerging the hair that had been recently chopped into uneven spikes. The doll had cost a small fortune before the girl declared her obsolete and declared her mother a cunt. Like father, like daughter. 

The woman might like to see the doll kick up her legs gloriously like the synchronized swimmer she longed to be. But no. She didn’t even enter her daughter’s room. She hesitated before deciding not to go into the younger’s either, as though she’d begun to press the pause button on an old tape player and then released the weight before the mechanism caught. Let it play until it ran out. 

She set her suitcase near the front door and almost grabbed a treat to throw into the dog’s crate before she switched to reach instead for a pen and a notepad. 

She wrote where to find the dog.

Where to find the woman would be anyone’s guess. 

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Jessica Claire Haney is a Northern Virginia-based writer, editor, and writing tutor. Her work has appeared in The Huffington Post, The Washington Post, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Gargoyle Magazine, Porcupine Literary, Washington Writers’ Publishing House, Earth’s Daughters, Scary Mommy, and anthologies, including the Grace & Gravity D.C. Women Writers series, and Written in Arlington.  Website: JessicaClaireHaney.com 

Delmarva Review publishes the most compelling fiction, nonfiction, and poetry selected from thousands of new submissions during the year. Designed to encourage outstanding new writing, the literary journal is an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit publication. Financial support comes from tax-deductible contributions and a grant from Talbot Arts with funds from the Maryland State Arts Council. Website: www.DelmarvaReview.org

Author’s Note: I live just outside of Baltimore, in a historically blue-collar neighborhood surrounded by water and wildlife. Sometimes it feels like living in a novel Gabriel Garcia Márquez and Kurt Vonnegut could have written together: filled with the magic and tragicomedy of the universe. As people and animals were dying around me, I wrote this narrative meditation on the disheartening matter-of-factness of transience and finding comfort in tiny acts of kindness and each new day.

 

The Entropy of Little Things

PEOPLE GIVE US LIVING THINGS. Things I don’t know how to take care of. It is customary when one moves into a new home. A shamrock hibernates, I learned. It is also not Irish, but South American: people just call it “shamrock” because of how the leaves are shaped. The tomato plants love the sun: both of ours grew tall and bore fruit, which we heartily consumed in salads. The hydrangea is supposed to go to a shady spot in the ground. You can alter the color of the flower petals by adding different chemicals to the soil. The oak saplings, which were a gift meant to be a reminder of their centenarian namesake at our previous house, did not make it through winter. You have to pluck the dead flowers off a petunia to make room for more. The coxcomb rallied itself after wilting away at first. The orchid has not blossomed since I got it as a birthday present but has three keikis; getting it to bloom again will be my next challenge. 

I obsess over these things I don’t know how to take care of. The feeling of responsibility is overwhelming. 

We live at the end of a dead-end street, tucked away between two marinas, in the shadow of Bethlehem Steel and its blue-collar pride and mesothelioma. Marsh wedges through our property. A wall of trees, reeds, and honeysuckle surrounds us in summer, illuminated by fireflies; when the leaves are gone in winter, we can see the water and the boats. Our neighbors have roosters and guinea hens. Snapping turtles knock on our door in the morning, fighting our brooms as we gently coax them back into the marsh. Our home is a humbling battleground between human hubris and nature’s quiet, relentless patience. 

“What’s that swimming in the pool?” my Storyteller said. 

It was a rabbit. With no idea how long it had been drowning, he scooped it up immediately and cradled it in a towel. We spent the day taking turns nursing it and making sure the Domestic Long Hair didn’t notice. 

The Domestic Long Hair brings us living things. Things I don’t know how to save. The fledgling dove, accompanied by the mother as they walked carefully around the backyard looking for bushes in which to grow out of its adolescence, left as an offering at our front door. Countless mice, which served as toys before meeting their doom, beyond help. Multiple rabbits, still alive and injured in various places on their frail bodies, which we tried to patch up and nurse and release, but were dead and cold in the morning as I opened the door to the back bedroom where we kept each one. Domestic cats have a kill rate of 32 percent, and they only eat 28 percent of the kills. But to be honest, we haven’t really had a success story. 

I’m a country girl. I grew up on a farm, waking up to the sound of pigs being led to slaughter. I held chickens in my arms, tracing the bend of their wings with my fingers. When the time came, I watched my grandmother chop their heads off for soup. It was a treat to be given a boiled chicken foot as a snack as I ran around the yard looking for my next adventure. I plucked fleas off cats and popped them between my fingernails; picked full ticks off dogs and threw them in the fire (that’s where they go). Drank milk straight from the cow’s udder. Slept in a room with the top of the armoire filled with pickled vegetables, my hands smelling of dill and peppercorn. There is no perfume that could match the smell of horses for me. I understand the beauty and cruelty of life’s cycle. “We are all consumers,” a friend said recently. 

But I’m a country girl with a PhD, and I have never killed for sustenance. I didn’t have it in me to become a veterinarian. I don’t know how to grow food. I wrote a dissertation about ships and sailors, but I have never sailed. I drive past the Church Hospital where Edgar Allan Poe died on my way to work every day and study words for a living. 

Cottontails don’t burrow, I found out. They nest. If they are the size of a softball, they can fend for themselves. The best thing you can do for one is leave it alone or send it back to nature as soon as possible. 

The rabbit spent the day sleeping in a box. His heart was beating fast, and his breathing was shallow. He also became a “he” to us during this time. As evening approached, I realized we wouldn’t be able to release him yet, which diminished his chances of survival. We put him in the Domestic Long Hair’s crate for the night, snuggled in a new towel. I left baby spinach leaves in one corner and a plastic lid of water in another. He moved around, ate, and left tiny droppings all over the crate. He rallied. He would make it through the night, and we would release him first thing in the morning. 

“It’s a hard world out there for the little things,” my Storyteller said as we buried him next to the garage the following day. It’s Raising Arizona, but it’s true. 

I had found the rabbit’s little body cold and stiff in the crate, his eyes half-open. He had moved during the night and looked surreally comfortable, deceptively at peace. He had eaten, drunk water, left more droppings. An image of still life, the little machine with its inputs and outputs, the entire assemblage looked insultingly animated. The defeat was overwhelming. I had woken up hopeful, willing him to be alive, planning to release him back into the wild, all the while blowing raspberries at the Domestic Long Hair, “Some apex predator you are, oblivious of prey right under your nose!” 

We buried the rabbit as Storyteller’s Stepmother made arrangements for home hospice, in the shadow of her New England pride and multiple myeloma. Five years into stem cell transplant and chemotherapy, she took back the reins. She stopped eating and was seeing people outside the living room window, drifting between worlds. She was asking her spouse to come with her. 

My Storyteller is grieving. I have never seen him so sad. He believes in Yeatsian gyres and that the memory of one’s returns makes one better. I believe in physics. Bodies in space. Atoms repelling and attracting. Quantum entanglement. Any spirituality that can be explained with particles and waves, I will take it. 

But it’s the entropy that kills me. The tendency of the universe toward disorder. Of warmer bodies to get colder until the system reaches equilibrium. Life seems to be a permanent Redshift to me, a constant, irreversible moving away from one another. 

Ancient Greeks paid a lot of importance to how one died. The Iliad, I remember fondly, was little more than a collection of individual quests for the most noble, heroic death. It does decode one’s life in hindsight, doesn’t it? That first blood test, decades ago, when they told you there was a protein, element, or whatnot that would eventually show itself. The prophecy and its fulfillment. 

Should I not have fed him spinach? Or given him water— perhaps he was still suckling and I have no idea what size softballs are? Should we have released him right away? Or not had a pool in the first place? (We are not rich; it came with the house.) Different choices that in a different multiverse would have led to different outcomes raced through my brain as we both wiped away tears and Storyteller shoveled dirt on top of his little body wrapped in the towel in which he’d died. They are stress- ridden animals and can expire at the drop of a hat. There are many of them. There would be more. It’s the equilibrium of nature. 

The Domestic Long Hair kills for sustenance, but also for sport. We give him blues nicknames like Mudfoot and Waterbelly as he drags the marsh into the house. We also call him Mr. Murder. He doesn’t need us to survive, but he, too, is a little thing. There are so many big things out there that could hurt him. He will chase a rival cat up a tree and stare down a boxer three times his size, then hide in the closet at the faint sound of a lawnmower and meow frantically to be let in the house when Labor Day fireworks go off. 

That just might be the only thing I’m good at: taking care of apex predators because they take care of themselves. 

She never got in the hospital bed. She died in her recliner, with one of her cats in her lap. She wore jewelry to the last, shifting rings from the fingers of one hand to the other. As she passed, a bouquet of heart-shaped Mylar balloons in all colors of the rainbow floated from the kitchen, through the living room, and upstairs to the bedrooms. 

Jai Guru Deva, om
Nothing’s gonna change my world 

Nothing’s gonna change my world 

Nothing’s gonna change my world 

Nothing’s gonna change my world 

Two days later, I heard a familiar growl outside the front door. The Domestic Long Hair was wrestling another little thing, and I didn’t have it in me to look at the state of it. I did nevertheless—had to—with more instinct than anticipated: it was a baby rabbit, and it was still alive. I jumped, chasing the Domestic Long Hair all the way to the neighbor’s yard as he zig- zagged in front of me. (Storyteller was impressed by my speed.) In a moment of distracted growling at me, he let the rabbit go, and it ran away into the marsh. Our first success story. 

The Domestic Long Hair slept on Storyteller’s chest through the night, guarding him. One living thing left this world. Another got to spend one more day in it. 

I don’t know if that means that the system is in equilibrium. 

I’m a country girl, and I just want to be there for the little things. 

⧫

Martina Kado is director of publications at the Maryland Center for History and Culture, in Baltimore, where she serves as editor-in-chief of Maryland Historical Magazine. Researching maritime narratives for her PhD in English turned her life into a “traveling genre.” A Fulbright Fellow, translator, and flamenco dancer, she gets stir-crazy when exposed to only one language for too long. Her work has appeared in Atlantic Studies: Global Currents, Overland, and The Quill Magazine. Website: www.martinakado.com 

Delmarva Review, now in its sixteenth year, publishes the most compelling new prose  and poetry selected from thousands of submissions during the year. Designed to encourage outstanding new writing, the literary journal is nonprofit and independent. Financial support comes from tax-deductible contributions and a grant from Talbot Arts with funds from the Maryland State Arts Council. Website: www.DelmarvaReview.org

 

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Author’s Note: The poem tries to uncover the gnawing sense of loneliness and alienation that has become a characteristic feature of life in the cities. With every passing day, no matter how well we remain connected to the outside world through social media, there is always this sense of emptiness that devours us. This poem tries to capture that sense of angst and the problematics of belonging.

A Room Too Small for Sunsets

The toaster has thrown up.
The alarm that had been snoozed twice
And the coffee beans hard as immigration rules Lie scattered, waiting for
The perfect hangover
Before they walk toward
Their expiry dates.
In the room
Too small for sunsets
I sit by a window
And watch the city
Not on anybody’s map
Become a river.
The streets that play
Hide-and-seek with the traffic lights
Will come wandering inside my head
And set up tents.
In the end
I sleep with my fingers
On the zippers of the sky. 

♦ 

Sayan Aich Bhowmik is assistant professor of English at Shirakole College, in Kolkata, India. He is the coeditor of Plato’s Caves Online, a semi-academic blog on poetry, culture, and politics. His poems have appeared in South Florida Poetry Journal, Indian Ruminations, Kitaab, Scarlet Leaf Review and Dust Poetry Magazine, among others.

Delmarva Review publishes evocative poetry,  fiction, and nonfiction selected from thousands of new submissions during the year. Designed to encourage outstanding new writing, the literary journal is nonprofit and independent. Financial support comes from tax-deductible contributions and a grant from Talbot Arts with funds from the Maryland State Arts Council. Website: www.DelmarvaReview.org