RED CEDAR REVIEW
RED CEDAR REVIEW



RED CEDAR REVIEW

Vol. XV No. 1

Copyright 1982 by Red Cedar Review


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CONTENTS

Christine Stephens

Postcard: The Market From Church Yard, Walsall.........1

Ken Poyner

Native Wealth........................................................................2

Lyn Lifshin

We Are Not Serving.............................................................3

The House Is Full of Cats...................................................4

You’re Like A.......................................................................5

David James

How to Handle a Wife....................................................... 6

Norman Hindley

Sleep.......................................................................................9

Jean Battlo

Some Personal Notes........................................................12

J.W. Rivers

From the Scattered Poems of Esterhazy.......................14

John Norcross

The Flying Pigs of Altoona..............................................20

It’s Something Like the Smell of Chrysan.....................21

Dream of the Order Lepidoptera.....................................22

Any Motion Is an Offense Against the Inner Ear........23

John Gerlach

The Spirit That Moves Us.................................................24

Leonora Anderson-Smith

Catching Flounder: Self-Taught.......................................37

The Florist’s Wife Feasting...............................................40

Lynn Domina

Peter Ivanovich, the Russian Sword Swallower...............44

The Sky Goes Gray............................................................47

Beatings................................................................................49

Barbara Drake

The Duck Woman of Walla Walla....................................52

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Robert Tumey
Robert Tumey



Postcard: The Market From Church Yard, Walsall

People are under green awnings.

People are continents under green awnings.

The theory of continental drift exists.

People are potential theories of continental drift. 
Theories drift under green awnings.

The theories are multi-colored.

They are like confetti under green awnings.

The scattered confetti assumes the existence 
of people under green awnings.

Christine Stephens

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Native Wealth

I had to stop them from shooting

At the chickens again. For all my reason

I was still hit on the back of the head.

The yard is full of copper.

Do what I can, and yet tomorrow

They will be back, an inner-tube

Cut into dozens of slingshots, pennies

Carried in knapsacks strung like quivers

Across their backs. The flat,

Round money makes a poor projectile— 
Straining with air, drifting, a loss of power 
If landing flat, face down.

Marbles are by far the better ammunition. 
Even from the stream bed, small pebbles 
Make more damage, pass better across distance. 
The place is littered with pennies

And I hear the return of children, the metal 
Popping against the house, the like-to-like 
Clang on the shed’s tin roof.

Raking coin out of the garden,

From the fields, the chicken pen, off 
The porch, we are becoming rich.

Already the spare room and all the closets

Are full. A box of the matter

Is under the bed and soon that room

Too will be filled. I do not know

What to do with such wealth

But there is an old tire in the barn.

Ken Poyner


We Are Not Serving

meals at the Hotel 
Lifshin not light 
beverages even no 
tea to wet your 
lips before wet 
lips pull on you 
And then the wet 
lips there. No tea 
not even Lipton’s 
certainly not the 
imported brands 
or herb tea with 
all the caffeine 
out of them so 
you can go back 
to your hot tub 
and bed to sleep 
better than ever 
having gotten 
what was boiling 
in you out while 
the hotel stays 
up all night 
turns over not 
having spit out 
what it wanted to 
when it had to 
since you were 
the guest

lyn lifshin

3


The House Is Full of Cats

a cloud of fur blurs 
what’s between us 
like mold or fog 
Cats on the stoves 
where something 
should be cooking 
If i pick up a child 
or dog i pick them up 
like i would a cat 
and press your fur to me 
want you to sleep across 
my neck all night

I’ve heard your purr coming 
and waited for claws

The cats you can’t see 
see invisible bugs 
and scratch at the walls 
all night. Other cats 
come, all of them hungry 
And with all these cats 
i’m still waiting for 
the brown furry one 
planted under the plum 
to grow balls, furry 
apricot kittens long 
haired oranges

lyn lifshin

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You’re Like A

stick up in 
a town where any 
one could know 
my voice if I 
have to use it

I’m walking down 
Main St with 
only pearls on 
in a town where 
sailors are 
docking after 
7 years getting 
involved with 
you is like shop 
lifting 3 pair 
of glowing red 
wool pants under 
clear plastic 
jeans I forgot 
in the heady 
glow are 
transparent

lyn lifshin

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How to Handle a Wife

My wife wants to get pregnant 
right now.

She comes home from the stores 
with baby clothes, diapers, names.

If it’s a boy, Matthew;

a girl, Meagan.

I smile & laugh at her, 
thinking it’s cute.

Can we have a baby? she asks.

Sure, I say, in five years;

by then I might have a job.

Of course, she gets depressed, 
breaks dishes & won’t talk to me.

But after a couple of days

she starts coming in again with more 
clothes & bottles & baby food.

Our spare room is nearly full.

I smile & laugh about it.

I do want kids, you know, someday.

My wife walks around sticking her stomach out, 
asking me to pat it, to listen

for a heartbeat.

I smile & laugh.

Last week I found all of my drawers 
stuffed with baby clothes.

I tried a few things on,

just for the fun of it,

a little bonnet & some booties 
tied around my big toes.

Every night now

I dress up like this,

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let my wife cuddle me. 
I just smile about it all 
when she opens her shirt

& drops a breast in my mouth.

David James

7


Figure without caption.
Robert Tumey


Sleep

(A letter to Tumey

and some straight talk for the rest of you.)

Dear Robert,

I’ve a system now for sleep, better than buttermilk,

Beer or your woolen cap. You must fence

In an area 20 x 20 with No.12 hog wire,

And on bad nights put a pig in it,

One you’ve left the nuts on. He’ll be irritable,

Fast, and have good wind. At 6 months

Will weigh a hard 240. (If you add beef tallow

While graining him.)

Robert, get in the PEN. He’ll go to the farthest corner

And wait. He has good patience in danger

And adores the dark. Have a plan. But be prudent,

Don’t commit too quickly. Robert, I want you

To punish this pig. Manuever him, with a steady presence

Into the open. Seize the hind legs,

Get him over on his back and prepare the son-of-a-bitch

For pain. Push your knee into his sternum for balance.

From here you can go several ways. You may opt

To break his back. This takes great upper body strength

And to be honest I’ve never brought it off. You can

Try for the neck. It’s hard as a hydrant

And no blow I know will break it. Beware of his mouth Robert,

The bite is a crescent, takes weeks to heal

And the scar’s unspeakable. Twist

His nuts into a knot,

The squeal here is unnerving, the neighbors will talk,

But it’s satisfying

and remains a personal favorite. Just below is his bum,

The King-of-Clubs. Forget it. Buggery

Is counterproductive. Besides you’ll be exhausted.

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Release the pig. Treat him. (Mangoes and beer are good.) 
Clean up. And go to bed.

Even in the hardest cases, where you fall, 
Sleep comes. And there are substantial 
Side benefits. After a number of bouts

You’ll find you dwell less on the deaf ends of aging, 
Childhood, old loves, dead friends, embolism, success, 
Madness, parents, oxygen debt, impotence, nerve gas, tits, 
bridge,

Queers, a world view. Some madness will fall away. The 
bone

In your voice will pass.

There’s a hitch however. The temptation to spend time 
With the pig. Lots of time. You’ll wash him, dust for mites 
As you would a beloved. Feed him chocolate tortes. A slack 
bellied

Pet with no piss in his hide. Guard against this. Think of 
his skull

As a cookie bowl. When you wrestle

Mention plans to pickle his prick, gamble with his hams. Have 
Him there when you kill his children, the sow. Remind him 
daily

Of DINA AN DARAAN (the dread Filipino Blood Dish, 
recipe’s enclosed).

Skip feedings. Hold back his water. Run him. All builds 
Desire in the PEN.

And that’s it Robert.

Sincerely.

Norman Hindley

10


Figure without caption.
Robert Turney


Some Personal Notes of a Modem American Intellectual 
on Wed. 12th, 1980, with reflections on Socrates, The 
Development of Ethical Man, Vonnegut’s Breakfast of 
Champions, East West Journal and The Disintegration of 
Standards and Principles of Western Civilization related 
to the Necessity to Give In

I did everything today I should not do.

I am not happy about it, Epicurus,

but I am not sad either, Sally.

I had breakfast with clumps of cholestrols.

I misspelled cholestreal in the poem

and did not check Webster for correction.

I had a huge califerious luncheon

though Webster does not scantion califerious.

I loved lunch.

With desert. Thick. Wads of whipped cream.

Blobs of it. Thick. Heaping and I had a second helping.

I had dinner.

Two desserts. Evening snacks. Junk.

Potatoe chips, four martinis.

I wallowed all day like the BadAss 
in one of Dante’s lowest mires.

Loved it.

I used whatever words I wanted with four letters.

More; I even lusted to the best of my sagging ability.

I did not smile at students.

I did not help my elderly mother find her glasses 

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or hand her her pills.

I did not take vitamins with iron or give the cat cream.

I did not bathe or powder or perfume; I seldom brush 
and I did not watch public tv.

Did in fact watch Real People

and some other sodom-gomorrahish sit-com.

I cannot learn to be wholly happy about this, Epicurus 
but I am not so sad about it either, Sally.

Jean Battlo

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From the Scattered Poems of Esterhazy

1. Family Picnic. Hungary, 1929.




I’ve heard that the dead make no noise.

Father was like that until today,

but now he talks even to Sasha the frog 
who’s buried in a bowl of potato salad 
to escape the July heat.

Father talks to keep from hearing Sandor Nagy 
who tells of being attacked the other day 
in the Black Forest by Nibelungen.

Father says he’d like to have a spear, 
creep beneath that loudmouth Nagy, 
thrust it into his ass hair.

Who invited Nagy anyhow?

Paprika’s getting into Sasha’s eyes, 
he springs from the bowl, 
scatters salad like manna, 
the original of which, Father explicates, 
was only matzo meal.

Sandor leapfrogs after Sasha into Lake Balaton. 
The picnic goes on—

Aunt Malvin cuts more potatoes,

Aunt Josie grinds paprika fruit, 
Uncle Oscar scours the lake 
for frogs for frog soup, 
Father sharpens a stick.

Silence settles in.

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2. Chicago Office, 1965.




I look down at Prudential Building 
from the Esterhazy Corporate Suite. 
Navy Pier’s a toothpick on the lake. 
Something’s in my bloodstream.

Agnes the new secretary comes in without knocking, 
startles my synaptic reflexes;

my lips tremble, my toes grow numb, 
paralysis creeps on little spirochete feet 
into my diaphragm and chest muscles.

It’s shellfish poison from butter clams, she says, 
it was on the envelopes you licked, 
in the New York strip you ate for lunch, 
even in your Listerine.

She starts to polish her nails.

3. After Hours. 1965




I pet Zoltan the piranha 
who playfully nips my hand.

Far below on Lake Michigan 
a smallcraft warning is in effect;

a summer thunderstorm rages at the eightieth floor 
of the Corporate Parking Lot.

I make a note to assemble a squall management team.

Agnes thumbs through my statistical analysis charts, 
a camera in her left breast photographs data 

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on improved alfalfa tolerance to salt stress on Roi Namur, 
replicated sudangrass hay in Texas, 
twenty-eight inch baby rainbow trout 
at the Esterhazy-Tennessee Hatcheries.

I take her into my observatory to mark Saturn’s rings, 
squeeze her breast; the lens in her nipple clicks: 
she has an image of Esterhazy among the stars.

4. Domestic Felicity. 1965




Poppyseed bread bakes in the microwave oven 
for my breakfast with camomile tea.

Agnes prepares head cheese and calf’s foot jelly 
for Thanksgiving dinner;

a golden butterball self-basting ptarmigan 
stuffed with kelp waits its turn.

Agnes makes avocado ice cream and cranberry parfaits 
as I check my electrolyte count.

She mops and scrubs,

cleans my TV screens with Endust on a cheese cloth 
so from my king size water bed I get clearer pictures 
of the Hungary-Bulgaria soccer match.

She’s an angel who sweeps through the suite 
with a broom from the Lions Club broom sale.

She feeds and grooms my Dobermans, 
drops mouth size pieces of barbecue 
into the tank for Zoltan, 
puts deer mice in the glassed-in garden 
for Mihaly the puff adder.

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She arranges my pillows, brings me my bread and tea, 
bellydances as I eat and watch Hungary 
thrust home its winning goal.

5. A Smell of Cabbage. 1981.




In a pot on my credenza stuffed cabbage is warming. 
Where did you come from? I ask.

From the old country, says Nagy, can’t you tell?

After so many years in Chicago

can you remember grape pickers 
crowding a hillside in October?

I see only my property on Lake Shore Drive, I tell him, 
my buildings in the Loop.

Remember the taste of homemade plum brandy? he says. 
The feel of dancing all night to gypsy music?

Nagy, I reply, you’re romantic and sentimental, 
that was another world.

Do you recall the wood carvings of the shepherds? 
Embroideries and homespuns of the village girls?

The cabbage smell tickles my nose.

Want some? he says, serving me.

As I eat he makes palacsinta on my desk, 
hums a folk tune from Matyos.

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I smell granaries,

see summer houses and cave baths.

It’s carnival time, men and women carry 
a yards-long horn to an icy lake,

blow until a blue forehead appears, and birds 
transform church towers into music boxes.

J. W. Rivers

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Figure without caption.
Robert Tumey


The Flying Pigs of Altoona

Suddenly the swine barn 
Is a wind sock and you

Hear the quick sound of buckets 
Kicked over. The pigs

Are flying nosing the high 
Tassels of corn wheeling over

Wheat in satisfied grunts. They move 
Into the sun and are dull colored lice 
Amok pointilist landscapes. They 
Have forgotten they are pigs and begin 
A steady climb through clouds 
Of insects. Hawks greet them 
And carve Poland China skin 
At the edge of forests.

Made lacy they are mice

Squealing in the twine of dusk.

John Norcross

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It’s Something Like the Smell of Chrysan

It’s something like the smell of chrysan 
Themums that one tastes, minute fractions 
Of nerve toxins drifting in the air. Such 
Quantities are even too small to kill the two- 
Spotted spider mite as it leaves its web, or 
The people that prey on them from Rose 
Lake, Monroe, Collins, Klein, and Geneva. 
Time measured in generations confers 
Immunity, and we seed descendants of the 
Choicest toxin resistant strains, since 
It’s always better to poison deliberately 
Than to rely on the gratuitous poison 
Of friends.

John Norcross

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Dream of the Order Lepidoptera

A moth enters my side and begins laying

A white froth of eggs that are carried 
By blood into the body’s tissues. Soon 
I can see light through my hands, not just 
The red cats’ tongues at noon or the light 
Molded around the bones in my hands 
But sunlight and clouds. Circular stitches can’t 
Keep this out. What should have been thrown 
Out must remain.

Other moths enter my side and larvae 
Hatch, delicately eat along the pericardial 
Wall of the heart leaving deposits of pure glass, 
Emerge out wrists depositing more glass 
Which my skin tries to hide. Leopard frogs 
Stare through the holes in my wrists, palms, and feet 
And are burned by light condensed in lumps of glass.

Oh mother of pearl in fishnet stockings 
Stockings that press redly into your thighs, 
Let me see your fireflies and moths without 
The suffocation of skin cells eaten to glass, that will, 
Too slowly, darken to lavender in sunlight. Let me carve 
With cats’ tongues the shell in your thighs 
So that flesh can remain. Dissolve glass 
And I can breathe and hide from sunlight.

John Norcross

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Any Motion Is an Offense Against the Inner Ear

We cut bait for Bluefish, chum the 
Water until the bait is spit back, then 
Use long white strips of indestructible 
Squid, tinctured and hanging from treble 
Hooks. It’s soon all the same with me 
Too close to clouds falling away to the next 
Swell wishing for the leisurely sway of 
Weeds where the madrigals of oysters are 
In the movements of stems so fine and leafy, 
Dipping in plankton, that only its green 
Florescence reminds you of breathing in soft 
Scrapes on rough green shells

We twist open with fat handled knives that 
Hold easily rusted blades. This air is too thin 
Father when you twist strands of wire for 
Bluefish leader or push blades into the seam 
Of oysters. It’s too thin watching the tilt of 
Break waters wanting to forget the easy 
Regurgitation you tell me is Latin for what 
The movement of Bluefish is through the shifting 
Schools of menhaden.

John Norcross

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The Spirit That Moves Us

Back of the church is the tiniest ball field you ever saw. Without 
Hennebaker I’d of never seen anything like it. Wait till the 
GM hears, the little pink flowers crowding the fence, the kids— 
must be fifty of them swarming on the field, and me to see it all.

The GM didn’t know he had anything in Hennebaker when it 
started. When you pick up Hennebaker’s kind you don’t figure 
you get much. It was Vaughn we were after. We wanted somebody 
that’d kill himself for a ground ball, belly whop on razor 
blades and busted glass and come up throwing and we got him in 
Vaughn. We also got Hennebaker.

The GM calls utility infielders the alfalfa of the game. You 
don’t really use them, you just plant new ones every year and 
then plow them under. You don’t need them but a few times 
each year and sitting around rots them. When we got Hennebaker 
we figured we’d throw him under in a year or two and nobody 
would notice. A spindly kid with blue eyes like campaign 
buttons and curly blonde hair that popped out under his hat, 
Shirley Temple in a batting helmet. Hit .230 in Triple A the year 
before, and could sort of handle short, second, and third, which 
was his qualifications, so to speak. All we wanted was something 
that sat and didn’t cause trouble and got up when we needed it. 
I asked, I remember at that time I asked what was the boy’s temperament, 
and the GM said sweet, a regular peacemaker. Didn’t 
bother nobody, just read about God. A quieting influence, I believe 
the GM said, meaning I suppose not like Corbello or Wheat, 
and that was okay, a quieting influence. Nothing else worked, 
why not God.

Early on I had nothing to complain of. In May Hennebaker 
filled in for Dingley, who’d had the ball crack off his forehead 
running into second on a double play, just the kind of thing you 
figure your own second baseman could stay out of. Hennebaker 

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was around .180 for two weeks, but like I say, nothing to complain 
of. I didn’t mind the other business either, hanging around 
the clubhouse, trying to get the boys to read the Good Book. Nobody 
listened, not even Murillo who wanted everybody to love 
him and listened to everything. Nobody listened, because if spare 
parts infielders were giving out good advice, they wouldn’t be 
spare parts. What I am complaining of started in August.

Wheat and Barber and Bosford had been throwing good and 
we’d been right up with the front runners in June, first time for 
the club in six years. The GM croaked like a frog in a pond of 
flies. In July, six games back and on the way down, the croak got 
raspy. We had a game on National TV and he wanted to boom 
out in the worst way. It was one of those blue sky Saturdays 
made for baseball. Barber was on the mound, smooth and hard 
and getting everything out of his six-foot-five, looked like a big 
broom sweeping off the plate. We hadn’t had a win for a couple 
days, we were due. Vaughn was in the dirt twice at third, once 
left and once right, and each time he got his man. Crowd loved it. 
Vaughn was down on every play, down with his nose in the dirt, 
screaming hit it by me. In the dugout there was horsing and 
preening for the camera. Wheat and Corbello even talked to one 
another. Wheat put his arm around Corbello when he came back 
after a flyout to center that gave us the lead. Hennebaker was up 
and down the bench telling everybody how great they were and 
quoting Second Corinthians. Bosford wanted to know if he could 
let his tarantula loose, the folks on TV would love it, and I said it 
stayed in the box. I knew it had the stinger out, but I didn’t want 
one of the boys up to pinch-hit in the ninth reaching into the bat 
rack and finding it. Bosford said it would just sit on a helmet on 
the edge of the dugout and watch, but I told him a foul might kill 
it. Damn starters should stay in the bullpen the whole game, who 
cares what they do there.

A broken-bat liner led off the seventh. It died out to left— 
Barber jammed the man, didn’t let him get good wood on it. The 
next pitch was a fat-headed changeup going in, frozen rope going 

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out. Men on first and second, nobody out. Barber looked like he 
ate little baby apples. Two pitches into the seventh and I never 
thought about getting Weinstein up. No sense doing it then, time 
Weinstein was ready Barber would gas the fire on his own. Maybe 
if nobody got up Barber would think I believed in him. I couldn’t 
think straight anyway, Hennebaker was on a steady stream about 
Whom He Will Choose. It had nothing to do with the game.

The next man was their right fielder, a black kid up just a 
week. They said he hit the hard one like a ramrod, so we’d just 
been showing him that one outside and then junk in and out. The 
first time up he’d struck out on one at his ankles and the next he 
piddled down the line to Corbello at first, so we’d handled him 
okay. Vaughn was screaming and the black kid cranked the bat 
like he didn’t remember anything Barber’d done to him. I got 
Weinstein up and went out.

“You can go back,” Barber said. He was a foot taller than me, 
even bigger up on the hill. He flapped his glove and pawed the 
back of the mound. “I got him easy.”

I reminded him what we were throwing. He stayed busy with 
the dirt, not listening. Dillard didn’t say much, he just liked the 
mask on his head, so he could breathe and see better. I asked 
Barber what was he going to throw and he said he don’t know, 
it’ll come to him. The GM started this new thing, an inspiration 
program, and they’re all like that now, they say it’ll come to 
them, they got to be positive, they got to challenge. The curve 
I reminded him, the curve was going good, wasn’t it, and I looked 
at Dillard, who remembered he was in the conversation and said 
yes, the curve was going good. I got back and it started again, 
Barber staring in, the kid cranking up, Vaughn with his nose in the 
dirt. It wasn’t the curve that Barber threw, he brought it in there, 
his head full of that stuff about challenge them, and he did, he 
challenged the kid right down the middle and it went out to the 
seats just like the scouts said, a ramrod, at least there was that, the 
scouts were right, and it was 3-3. Hennebaker fell quiet, the Lord 
having shown Whom He Will Choose.

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By the time Weinstein was ready three more hitters drew the 
bead on Barber, Murillo booted one at short and Barber gave him 
the eye like it was Murillo’s fault he was coming out and we were 
down 5-3, the fast ball had nothing to do with it. Bottom of the 
ninth Corbello hit Wheat with his glove on his way back to the 
bench, probably didn’t mean it, but Wheat threw it back, I reminded 
them we were on National and all this would get picked 
up. There was distinctly less horsing around and chatter on the 
bench, except for Hennebaker, who was up again and telling 
everybody how great they were.

Corbello opened with a double. I was feeling more kindly toward 
him, but he stood on second like he just won the game, like 
it was over and we could all go home. He tugged on his golf 
gloves, called time, strutted around and stretched. I could imagine 
the little insert on the TV where he talked about his Mom’s 
cooking and showed his white teeth. I could see it running 
through his brain. They taped it before the game and I’d have 
bet anything he knew they were showing it. The fat hairball 
left-hander who’d been in since the sixth tried to dust off Vaughn, 
came in behind him, and we emptied out and I picked Vaughn out 
of the hairball’s face before he got himself thrown out. Nobody 
else was that hot about it, and the hairball had shame written all 
over him. He missed by a foot. I kept a clamp on Vaughn, 
wouldn’t let him swing at the pitch either, and I guessed right, 
Hairball couldn’t get it over anymore, we got two on. I sent in 
Carmichael for Dillard since Hairball had been coming sidearm on 
our left-handed hitters, and maybe old man Carmichael could still 
do it. He hit thirty homers one year in the American League, a 
lot of years at twenty pounds back, but he could still tear one up 
the middle. That’s what we needed to tie it up.

I get Carmichael up there, and he’s in the box, trying to remember 
what to do next, tap his cleats or rub the bat, it’s been so 
long he can’t remember, and their manager is up halfway to the 
mound waving his right hand. He hasn’t looked at Carmichael and 
hasn’t seen it’s all we can do to keep Carmichael upright. Hennebaker 
is up on the edge of the bench like baby bird waiting for the 

27


worm, and gets up swinging an imaginary bat to remind me he 
goes from the left. If he would have just sat down, I’d have told 
him he could go in. While their right-hander was loosening, I 
looked at Carmichael, trying to find his belt so he could hitch up 
his pants, and then I did tell Hennebaker to go up and do anything 
but take call strike three. Maybe the right-hander would 
be wilder than Hairball and we’d get lucky.

Hennebaker didn’t fool around, didn’t fuss over the bats, rub 
one into shape. He was in the box before Carmichael could get 
out, his gold curls squirting out from his helmet. I wanted him 
to hang back a little longer, give it some drama, it was the only 
thrill the crowd was going to get, unless their man put one on 
the screen. Hennebaker was up there waving the bat like he 
knew what to do with it, the little jerk, and the bench shook 
when Carmichael sat down.

As I remember, my head was in my hands and I was hoping 
the camera was on Hennebaker, when there was this roar. I 
looked back to the screen, but that’s not where the ball was, 
Vaughn was jumping up and down on his way to home plate and 
there were people reaching and scrambling out in the right field 
seats. The little piss-ant hit one out. He’d never hit a home run 
for us before, maybe never in his life, and he all but passed 
Vaughn on the way home. We won 6-5, and then the next thing 
they were all over me, Vaughn wanted to carry me off the field, 
that was all I needed, a third baseman with a hernia. Hennebaker 
hugged me, his blonde locks on my chest. Probably 
thought I liked him now, would give him a regular job. “The 
Lord did it,” he said. “God hit one out,” and probably He did 
because there’s no way Hennebaker could have done it himself. 
Sometimes the boys surprise you, and it ain’t a half bad job, 
even if you’re looking for another in October. Maybe this year 
we’d get past August and last into September. Maybe this was 
the year.

There were six men down from the Network with blue blazers 
and powder on their faces. They wanted Hennebaker on 

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the wrap-up, wanted to put a microphone under the little pecker 
and let him talk. Corbello thought it should be him on TV, 
thought his double started it all and he had an RBI and a single 
and played the whole game in the field and that ought to count 
for something. Next year he was going to play out his option 
and he was starting to get himself remembered. I was a little 
miffed, because I’d like the Network to talk to me. I was the 
one picked Hennebaker off the bench and put the bat in his 
hands. I could suck in my gut and wave to my grandchildren. 
The press came in and I told them I knew we weren’t down even 
after the seventh. These boys had a lot of spirit, and the papers 
shouldn’t forget to write about the job Corbello and Weinstein 
did, and Barber, he hung tough for six, and Hennebaker, well, 
that little guy was something else and we all had faith in him. It 
was a good thing the Network had Hennebaker back on the field 
all by himself for the interview, and away from the rest of them, 
Corbello, and Cokely, and Dillard, because it would have been a 
lot worse if they were there. It was a real embarrassment to 
National Television. The guy in his blazer with the big station 
medallion and a fist of papers and notes from somebody upstairs 
on Hennebaker’s average, how he came here in the Vaughn deal, 
how this was his first big league home run. All the stuff they 
thought of to start a shy kid talking. But they didn’t know 
about Hennebaker. They never know anything. They never ask, 
so it’s their own fault when they get burned like that, Hennebaker 
telling all those little kids about the Holy Ghost and the 
Archangel Gabriel. They tell me some of those folks at the TV 
station wanted to cut him off and go to the ground crew rolling 
out the tarp, or maybe a good razor commercial, but they were 
stuck with him. If they cut him off they’d get letters from the 
Bible belt, and they needed those people, all those Cornflake 
eaters, so they let him go. He witnessed the Lord and thanked 
the Network for the opportunity and said if there was any out 
there that had felt turned to Him by His works that day-they 
say Hennebaker lifted up two bats like swords beat into plough


29


shares—he said they should write to him, Hennebaker, care of the 
ballclub, and he would see that there was a follow-up visit from 
the Lord.

They were mad then, those folks at the station. They thought 
Hennebaker had put them on. Thought it was one of those baseball 
jokes like Bosford’s tarantula. After that the Network laid 
it pretty hard on the GM, told him no more games for the rest of 
the year whether we got rid of Hennebaker or not. I guess it 
griped them that God got all the free air time. That put the GM, 
as they say, between a rock and a hard place. He worked it out 
by having Hennebaker answer every letter that came in, but he 
wouldn’t give him stamps in case the Network said the club was 
on Hennebaker’s side. Hennebaker did it, and did it gladly. 
Said it was a task the Lord laid on him and he was grateful.

Wheat and Bosford and Barber and Dillard started breakfast 
prayer meetings. As far as I could see, it was nothing but Grace 
over pancakes, but they kept at it. There is something about 
pitchers that makes them crazier than other ballplayers. Maybe 
it’s not keeping busy enough, playing only every fourth or fifth 
game. And catchers aren’t a damn sight better. At first it didn’t 
seem as if the rest of them cared about it, except for Murillo, 
who went to the meetings and started to read his Bible in 
Spanish. He got collared three straight games and was thrown 
out at second the one time he got on from being hit in the head, 
and then he gave up and went back to just crossing himself before 
he stepped in the box. The next day he got four straight hits 
and stole two bases. I figured he’d stop going to the meetings, 
but he did go back. He said Faith had many paths. It looked 
like he was going to walk down them all.

The Breakfast Prayer Club didn’t keep Bosford from his 
tarantula. One night he let it out and Carmichael came back 
from the water cooler and put his fat ass down without looking. 
That was it for the tarantula. It didn’t have a stinger, so Carmichael 
came out of it all right. It was the first time he got his 
uniform dirty since we picked him up last September. The same 

30


night Vaughn made it one backhand dive too many. Jammed his 
cup for what they call in the papers a groin injury, and was going 
to be out two, three weeks.

Didn’t look like anything was going to go right again. We were 
ten games out, and the next night in St. Louis we were on the 
way to eleven. Wheat didn’t last the fourth inning. Part of it was 
a ground ball Corbello took to his right. He waited for Wheat to 
cover, then decided to make it himself, then saw he couldn’t get 
there and flipped to Wheat too late. That wasn’t all that chased 
Wheat, but all he remembered was the ground ball to first base, 
and so instead of sweetening up with a shower, he hung around 
for Corbello to make another mistake. Corbello did (at least 
Wheat thought he did). He didn’t dig out one of Murillo’s throws 
and Wheat said something about Mother’s cooking. Used to be 
the other bench rode you for that sort of thing, but we got 
it all on our own. We don’t fine them anymore. The GM calls 
it enlightened management.

They waited till the game was over, I give them that. Then 
Corbello went for Wheat with his hair dryer. When we cleaned it 
up, Corbello had a broken dryer, one part of his right ear hung 
free, he needed a shot at the hospital, and Wheat banged up the 
middle finger on his pitching hand and would be out for at least 
a turn.

The papers made a lot of that. Corbello’s fans wrote in for a 
piece of the ear (one fellow wanted a piece of Wheat’s), and it 
looked for a while like the rest of the team was going to line up 
behind either Wheat or Corbello. I told the two of them they’d 
be stepping into their jocks side by side the next few years, because 
nobody wanted either of them in trade. Then Hennebaker 
had Corbello and Wheat kneel down together to pray and ask 
forgiveness. The two of them bawled and turned over new leaves 
and the media went on about what Hennebaker had done for us, 
but what they didn’t know was the GM changed his enlightenment, 
and took a thousand from Corbello and a thousand from 
Wheat.

31


The GM didn’t mind that Hennebaker got all the press for 
that. In fact, I believe he liked the cover, but he wanted, he 
says, the little fellow under wraps awhile. He had to take a good 
deal of heat from the stockholders on, he says, our image. I 
didn’t feel there was a whole lot I could do. Everytime I called 
Hennebaker over, he’d give me another little green pocketsize 
Bible. I had five of them on my desk, and wasn’t getting any 
closer to talking to him. The whole thing was kind of catching 
on, and the Breakfast Prayer Club took to meeting for dinners.

Out in Chicago a week later we were down 4-1 in the top of 
the seventh, and Barber was throwing like he had piles. They 
didn’t have the tarp on in the morning when it rained, and Barber 
couldn’t stand up on the mound. Vaughn was on the bench, he 
couldn’t get comfortable, couldn’t sit still and had to hold himself 
in private, but no, he suited up, he wouldn’t stop suiting up. 
Next to him Corbello, out since the third inning with he says 
stomach problems, but he sat there holding himself like he’d 
caught something from Vaughn. It wasn’t the Corbello I know, 
the one who spends all his time running his hand through his hair 
to check for grease. And Carmichael, he’d taken over for Corbello 
in the third and blew a pick-off, the ball went in the stands and 
that cost us one more run. Hennebaker brought himself to my 
attention, up on the edge of the bench, itching to get in, and 
pretty soon he was up and down on parade so I’d see him. He’d 
pinch hit twice since the homer, struck out one time and popped 
up the other. Left five men on. It must have gone out of him 
licking envelopes. I figured he’d turned the Lord away with all 
that talk on TV, but Hennebaker said it didn’t matter when 
things went wrong. You had to trust the Lord. He would provide 
us part of His plan. This from Hennebaker who was still under 
.200.

Cokely, first man up, got a walk and Carmichael got hit in the 
tarantula killer. Dillard was due up next, but he’d jammed his 
ankle the night before, and I could see him legging out his standard 
one-hopper to third. Hennebaker stood in my face, smiling 
like he just heard his judgment decision. “Jesus Christ,” I said, 

32


forgetting myself, my finger in his chest, “you go up and you 
bunt.” There wasn’t going to be signals. Just move the runners 
around.

The first pitch he missed. Holding out the bat after a missed 
bunt is like standing over home with your pants down, but he 
backed up calm for the next one. This one he put in the air, a 
shade foul, the third baseman sliding on his belly, Cokely heading 
back to second with fifty feet to go, my heart down in my 
scrotum looking for company, and for a second the ball slides 
along in the mitt like a big scoop of vanilla, then flops out. The 
only way Hennebaker could bunt the next one was if we give 
him a canoe paddle, and they are not yet legal. I showed the hit 
sign.

He slipped his hands down to the nub, and I was about to get 
up when he started to crank on it, like he was throwing all of his 
weight into an axe. And in that second before he hit the ball, I 
wanted to go out, bum his ears, yank the bat from his hands. 
And then the bat makes that sound, the one you can pick out 
with fifty thousand screaming, and the ball rose. It landed in 
the tenth row in right. In the ninth we got two more and won it 
6-4.

The papers showed him bat in one hand, the other with his 
fingers up like the Pope’s. I didn’t want to read it. The GM was 
in my office the next morning.

“I can’t do nothing,” I said. “I got no control of what comes 
out when his mouth opens.”

“Isn’t that,” he said. “Isn’t that.” And then he got that look 
he had when he come up with the inspiration program. “How’s 
Vaughn,” he asked. He knew as well as I did. He heard what I 
heard.

“Limping somewhat,” I said.

“I don’t want to tell you what to do. What goes on between 
those white lines is all yours.” The gesture here indicates the 
shape of the lines. He wanted to send back the kid we brought 
up to take over for Vaughn. Needed more seasoning. “Henne- 

33


baker played third a whole year in Appleton, Wisconsin,” he 
said. This was no doubt five years ago and Class A, but I did not 
call him on it. Like everybody else then, he was wearing a smile.

“We can hardly, well, hardly keep him under a bushel basket,” 
the GM says, very pleased with himself.

And that is how Hennebaker came to play third down the 
stretch.

By the middle of September we were three and a half back. 
Hennebaker got one or two hits every day and a couple he sent 
out again, and he flopped around third in his version of Vaughn, 
though three or four times the ball came up to Corbello on the 
bounce, and this is not considered good form in most of your 
major leagues. It was his bat carrying us. It picked up everybody, 
even Vaughn, who hopped around to show he was ready, 
though his little steps to the water cooler give him away.

The clubhouse was a different place altogether. Used to be 
Hennebaker went from locker to locker with his mouth at work, 
and fellows would brush themselves off like a fly was buzzing by. 
Now there was three or four scribes with pads to catch what 
dropped. It kind of quieted the kid, and sometimes he didn’t 
want to do more than tie up his shoes. Corbello was a bit 
tweaked that the press was following the kid, and when Hennebaker 
comes dripping from the shower, he looked him over to see 
if it wasn’t done with some new muscles, but the kid was just 
bones. He didn’t seem to eat anymore, and he had this funny 
look like somebody ethered him.

And then in Philadelphia we won 4-2, though Hennebaker 
booted one, and he got up in the clubhouse. Had an announcement. 
Wheat wanted to know if he had Word we’d make it to the 
playoffs, but Dillard shut him down. Hennebaker cleared his 
throat. Had a message, he said. Somebody tittered, I believe the 
press. The Lord had laid a new calling on him, Hennebaker 
said. Given him a new mission. In Japan. Tomorrow. His last 
paycheck was going to the missionaries. He stepped off the 
bench and there was this hole where he stood a minute before.

34


For the next week I never see the GM but with his mouth in 
the phone. He wanted an international blockade. He wanted to 
talk to Hennebaker face to face. Henebaker could write his own 
ticket for next year. What he didn’t want for himself could go to 
the missions in Tanganyika. But it ended up, we did the rest on 
our own. In a way I was glad. Vaughn was about patched up, 
and if we made it to the playoffs I wanted to do it natural. I 
ask favors of nobody.

We dropped five of the next eight. The GM was still on the 
phone. People mostly thought he was after Hennebaker, but I 
know he was looking through Triple A, which had just closed up, 
to roust us an evangelical infielder. He got nothing. We finished 
third, eleven out.

Who’s going to find Hennebaker, the GM wanted to know, but 
no one could. He did turn up a new one the next year, a quiet 
Methodist boy from Missouri who played a little second, sprayed 
the ball around, but he was gone by August. Which was one 
month longer than me.

And so it is I come to this little church. The woman at the 
desk speaks about as good English as I’ve heard in a month. The 
Japanese is as polite to questions as you’d want, but it is generally 
tough catching the answer. “The deacon is in the rear having a 
word with youth,” she says. And he is. He’s on the field of 
flowers, and fifty kids, they make him a circle at the plate and 
hush. He lifts the bat. It’s Hennebaker, jabbering in tongues, 
waggling his hips, hefting the bat. Then he brings up one of the 
kids, gives the bat to him, bends over to guide his hands, and 
points to the arc of their phantom drive over the fence, past the 
flowers, over the roofs. The GM, well, maybe he don’t need to 
hear any more about Hennebaker after all.

John Gerlach

35


Figure without caption.
Robert Tumey


Catching Flounder: Self-Taught

(for Norman Hindley)

My father was a pilot out of Maxwell field. 
He’d fly home in a yellow Ford convertible, 
put me on the aquaplane between his legs.

His buddy Jim would tow us into the Gulf, 
toss cans of beer from the boat 
he’d reach up and catch with one hand.

I’d balance between his ankles, 
suck wake-spray salt and beer foam from my hair, 
sure some day I’d learn 
to catch a can of beer like that one handed.

Afternoons we’d crab,

tie chunks of beef bone to string, 
dangle them off the splintery dock.

I’d lie face down, 
watching crabs creep at the meat 
from the black nowhere of the water 
until he scooped them with the net 
I never learned to use.

Nights in the right season, 
we’d dig for soft-shells, 
the lanterns fragile ash mantle 
I wanted to touch so 
making holes in the dark water, 
shining crabs like deer, 
so father could spear them escaping their shells 
But he never took me fishing.

Then he’d be gone, 
mother on the phone: 
bad check, bad debt, overdue loan.

37


She’d lie on the chaise, 
long hair spread around her 
while I wrote alphabet letters on my slate, 
chalk soft in the ocean damp.

I knew you could make a word out of these letters 
if only you could get the trick of it.

I’d write letters and spell them out:

“f r p What does that spell?”

“s r d What does that spell?”

And she’d call back from the porch,

“Nothing. It doesn’t spell anything.”

One day I spelled j o b.

She cried and said it spelled Job.

She’d lie there, 
prostrate beauty queen 
turned to prayer by j o b.

It was boring as Sunday school,

set me to fishing: 
clothes-pole, string, bent pin.

I didn’t think of using bait.

But one day I did catch a fish, 
something pulled against the pole, 
I screamed “help.”

But no one came.

Somehow I dragged it onto the dock, 
a flounder must have hooked off the bottom 
by accident, both eyes looking cock-eyed 
up at me like someone smashed in the head 
but still gruesomely alive.

Norman,

this is where I want to start to lie, 
to say I found a stone, 
sharpened the edge, 
slit the poor one-sided fish, 
found sticks, 
made fire, 
cooked it, 
demonstrated your fisher’s skill.


slit the poor one-sided fish, 
found sticks, 
made fire, 
cooked it, 
demonstrated your fisher’s skill. 
I want to say it tasted delicious 
but I don’t remember what happened next. 
The phone words were AWOL and prison, 
we moved North,

my mother got a job at Harrison’s 
examining radiator holes.

My fish was never cleaned, never eaten, 
poor flattened bottom fish 
never made it to finnan haddie, 
just dragged off by someone’s cat 
or simply rotted.

I didn’t throw it back.

It didn’t give me a wish.

But Norman, I did catch it, 
did pull it out of the water, 
learned that when people say, 
“It spells nothing,” 
when you have no father 
to teach you how to fish, 
you grow fanatical for instruction 
yet miss the knack of taking it, 
start with a pole, 
a piece of string, 
a bent pin with no bait.

Leonora Anderson-Smith

39


The Florist’s Wife Feasting

“Admit it,”

I want to say to the florist’s wife,

“when you drank wine

from your boyfriend’s patent leather shoe

and nibbled his boutonniere,

you kept a piece of the fluted petal

inside your lip like Copenhagen,

not knowing you were starting a habit 
you couldn’t get rid of.”

Since you’ve been saying these things to me,

I’ve been imagining a woman

so taken by the scent of a carnation,

the band playing “taste your lips of wine/

anytime night or day”

that taste and smell gang up on her,

the scents of flowers call her like ghosts

now quickly put each petal into your mouth.

The florist’s wife

eats snapdragons like popcorn, 
scrapes gardenias with her teeth 
as if they were artichoke leaves.

She nibbles the edges of Queen Anne’s lace

and her tongue is long and thin 
from sticking it into calla lilies.

She puts bunches of lilacs into her mouth whole

like someone at an orgy 
swallowing a bunch of grapes at one gulp

though I can’t imagine them going down the throat 
just the waiting tongue

the open mouth

the purple French lilacs held over it.

40


“I saw you,” I want to say to her,

“at your grandmother’s funeral, 
picking the long hollow tubes off the pom-poms 
and eating them like little bananas.”

She marries the florist out of the worst motives, 
letting him think it’s his moustache she loves, 
or maybe they are the only motives: hunger 
and wanting as much as she can get 
of what she wants.

How shocked the florist is, and horror-stricken 
to find her stupified among geraniums, 
salmon petals dotting her lips.

They go on like this for awhile

like addicts of anything

and their lovers or spouses.

He tries to understand, ‘this is a disease.’

She buries half-gnawed stems in the compost heap.

He helps her cut down

to just one poppy a day,

like a wife finally buying for her husband

one pair of black panties from Frederick’s of Hollywood 
after coming upon him

trying to get into her lingerie.

She slips out of bed to nibble symbidiums.

Then Mary comes to my house with lilacs, 
picks one flower at a time 
and sucks to get the syrup out, 
heaping the blooms in front of her, 
stems stacking up 
on my kitchen table

like chicken bones. And she does this so ordinarily,

so differently from the florist’s wife,

41


who in her final burst of flower eating, 
driven mad by an opening rose, 
slips the key to the walk-in 
from around the sleeping florist’s neck 
and is found by him 
among pails that held gladiolas, 
buried in mangled leaves 
and snapped stems, 
hundreds of carnation boutonierres gone, 
flowers for six weddings and funerals devoured, 
leaving bits of green tape 
and the pearl headed pins 
from all the mother’s corsages 
scattered like the skeletons of lilacs 
Mary left, 
that warn me how I’ll gorge 
once I start to feast on flowers.

Leonora Anderson-Smith

42


Figure without caption.
Robert Tumey


Peter Ivanovich, The Russian Sword Swallower

After the famous 
Oriental singing poodles, 
and the tramp who juggled 
apples, saucers, 
then burnt his wrists with lit candles, 
after the youngest 
of the Calmelli family 
in scarlet leotards 
tumbled one hundred feet 
to the net 
when his wire snapped, 
we had our choice of freaks.

The tent with the half-man, half-woman 
swelled beside us, 
but I was afraid 
of the midget 
dribbling black spit into his handkerchief 
at the entrance, 
and my brother was afraid 
of what we would tell our parents.

Announcing his last show 
of the day,

Peter Ivanovich, 
the Russian sword swallower, 
didn’t look like a Russian, either; 
he looked like our father, 
unshaven, tight curls over his ears, 

44


and when he accepted our quarters, 
he smelled like our father did 
whenever he told our mother 
he’d forgotten the milk 
or he’d worked late 
or he must have lost the money.

The tent didn’t fill.

An old woman who bulged through a sequined dress 
harangued for silence.

Strutting into a red spotlight,

Peter Ivanovich

lit a torch, 
flipped it from hand to hand 
in front of his shaggy beard, 
behind his back, 
then crouched

and jumped back and across the lowered flame, 
his metal heels

clicking against the wooden floor.

Seconds later, as he balanced 
himself on his head, 
his skin taut around his gaping mouth, 
the fire hissing against his tongue.

Staggering toward us,

the torch bulging in his throat, 
he wanted me to rescue him, 
but when I rose, 
he removed it without flinching, 
and my brother said, 
“It’s just a show.”

Peter Ivanovich’s eyes 
were like the garter snake’s


I kept in my aquarium, 
watching us, 
when he said, “Get the knives out.”

The wrinkled woman handed him a velvet case 
with silver penknives, 
pearl-handled steak knives, 
a single gold carving knife.

As he swallowed them, singly and by pairs, 
my brother said, “They’re too small.

We could do that.”

Squinting through the light,

Peter Ivanovich 
ordered swords.

Refusing to caress 
them individually or display their jewels, 
he immediately chose 
a plain, military bayonet 
which didn’t belong with the others.

Clenching the handle 
with both fists, 
watching my face 
as I wanted to look skeptical, 
he thrust the bayonet down his throat, 
and his eyes grew large 
as he tumbled forward, 
grasping the air in front of me, 
gurgling a syllable like my name 
as a silver tip emerged from the back of his neck.

Lynn Domina

46


The Sky Goes Gray

Pigeons, though you don’t know yet 
that is what they are called 
and call them robins, 
remembering the rented house 
in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin 
with the birds which nested 
in the cherry tree, 
and your mother does not tell you they are called 
pigeons in Cincinnati, Ohio 
where your father has a job, 
perch on your window ledge.

Their eyes frighten you 
as you tilt your head back 
to rest your chin on the sill. 
The boy with the missing tooth 
who kicked your garbage can into the street 
has just told you the truth 
about Christmas, 
but you don’t know yet 
whether it is the truth.

You believe if you could catch

one pigeon, there would be enough food,

and your mother’s eyes would not look like the pigeon’s eyes 
when you ask why St. Nicholas 
brought the other girl in the grocery store 
the prettier dress.

When your father enters the room,

you try not to breathe

47


because he smells different now,

and you can still see

in your reflection

the red silhouette of his hand

on your cheek.

You notice the abandoned

gray feather

and imagine you are spinning

three times

as you recite the charm

you dreamed last night.

You try all afternoon

as the sky goes gray,

but you don’t get it right;

there is no pigeon in your palm,

no picnic basket of fruit from your own tree, 
and you know this vision of yourself 
hung in the window

will be between you and the world

the rest of your life.

Lynn Domina

48


Beatings

Passing a caravan 
of cattle trucks, 
I wince at the smell 
of urine, hay, 
the thought of spoiled milk 
left in the bam, 
the smell and thought 
of your house 
behind ours, 
my father a farmer 
whose callused hands 
folded around mine 
as he taught me to hold 
a freshly-hatched chicken, 
your father a drunk 
who once set fire to your hair 
and regularly cut your thighs 
with the broken neck 
of a liquor bottle.

After I touched the marks, 
still swollen with puss, 
my mother said your family wasn’t nice; 
my father said I shouldn’t tell anyone else.

My father didn’t drink.

His favorite tractor was a John Deere, 
the green one, 
greener than the frogs 
in the irrigation ditches,

49


greener even, than young com husks, 
and after he disengaged the plow, 
he would pull me to his lap, 
teaching me to steer, 
the evening light shattering 
on the hot green metal, 
teaching me to keep the tractor 
centered on the road 
unless the driver behind us 
wanted to pass, 
and to never, ever attempt 
to pass anyone myself,

but tonight the stench is too much,

the stench of your house, 
the stench of our barn, 
dark at twilight when my father 
would help me steer the tractor in, 
his hands over mine, 
dark when he would keep me there, 
dark so I couldn’t see his fingers, 
could only smell the soaked straw, 
could only feel the pressure 
against my unscarred thighs.

That first spring, he built the chicken coop, 
painted it green 
when I asked him to, 
bought me a bantam rooster, 
taught me to cradle 
the soft babies 
in my small hands.

That first spring, I named the brightest one 
after my father

50


and tucked it into my pocket 
when I walked to the fields 
to meet him 
for the drive home.

I should not have been surprised 
when you stole it, 
or when you returned it the next day, 
its down stained 
with blood

from the one leg 
you had sliced off.

Have you ever forgiven me 
for the soft parts of my life, 
or the father 
who bought them 
to apologize 
for the way he loved me?

Lynn Domina

51


The Duck Woman of Walla Walla

In Walla Walla 
in front of the White Temple 
First Baptist Church 
with the sign board announcing 
that Reverend so-and-so next Sunday 
will deliver a sermon 
on “God’s Style of Justice,” 
I’ve seen an old woman 
every day this week, 
an old woman with a stick.

There are ducks in the street, 
ducks’ that wander 
in the direction of the church 
from the pond which is across the street. 
The old woman 
looking rather like a duck 
if a duck wore a cap and sneakers, 
alternately chases the ducks 
and throws bread to them.

Yesterday it was a small branch she held, 
lightweight and brittle like herself;

today, it’s a split log, a piece of firewood 
which she holds diffidently— 
not like a club 
but dangling 
as if it were a handkerchief.

There are stories 
that she feeds the ducks, 
then once in a while—pow. 
Untrue, of course.

So what if once in a while

52


a duck disappears?

The way she holds her piece of wood 
lightly,

the way she chases the ducks

out of the way of cars,

you can tell she means to be kind 
and just.

Barbara Drake

53


CONTRIBUTORS’ NOTES

Jean Battlo teaches high school and collegiates history and 
humanities. Her poetry has appeared in Plucked Chicken, 
Modern Haiku, and East West Journal.

Lynn Domina has a B.A. in English from MSU and is a 
former RCR editor. She currently works in Merril, 
Michigan. Her work has appeared in Red Cedar Review 
before.

Barbara Drake is Professor of American Thought and Language 
at MSU. Her first book of poems Love at the 
Egyptian Theatre is in its 2nd printing. Her latest book 
is Life in a Gothic Novel.

John Gerlach is Associate Professor of English at Cleveland 
State University. His short stories have appeared in 
The Ohio Review, The Prairie Schooner, The North 
American Review, and Ascent.

Norman Hindley has had poetry in Cedar Rock, Ploughshares, 
Hawaii Review, and Tendril. He lives in Honolulu 
with his wife and son. (That’s him on page 36.) 
David James received his M.A. from Central Michigan University. 
He is married with one son now, and is presently 
Associate Director of Admissions for Siena Heights 
College.

Lyn Lifshin has a new book Ariadne's Thread from Harper 
and Row. Other books include The Hotel Lifshin, 
Reading Lips, and Want Ads.

John Norcross is a student at Michigan State University. 
His work has appeared in Washington Square Review.

Ken Poyner has previously published in Poet Lore, West 
Branch, Poetry Now, Calliape, and Red Cedar Review. 
He is currently impatiently awaiting the return of the 
large bluefish to the bay.

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J.W. Rivers was bom in Chicago in 1934 and attended 
Mexico City College. His new collection of poems is 
From Here and There.

Leonora Anderson-Smith has had poetry and fiction in 
Poets On, Happiness Holding Tank, and Red Cedar 
Review She has a new novel, Blood Tide, and a new 
book of short fiction, Moral Turpitude. She teaches 
part time at Michigan State.

Christine Stephens is currently a student at the University 
of Iowa. “Postcard” marks her first published poem.

Robert Turney is a photographer living in East Lansing who 
likes Wiedemann’s and loves the Rolling Stones.

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RED CEDAR REVIEW EDITORS

Paul Murphy 
Craig Cotter 
Rebecca Manery 
Robert Lyons

Brenda Miller

Deidre Pence

Kathy Crown

Typesetting and Layout by Craig Cotter and Paul Murphy.

RED CEDAR REVIEW is a biannual magazine of the literary 
arts published at Michigan State University. Manuscripts may 
be submitted to 325 Morrill Hall, MSU, East Lansing, MI 
48824. Please include return postage.

Our Thanks to MSU College of Arts and Letters, English 
Department, George Kooistra and University Publications, 
Albert Drake, Stephen O’Keefe, and other friends. A special 
thanks to Jim Cash who funded our annual creative writing 
contest. Red Cedar Review is partially funded by the 
ASMSU Funding Board.

Printing by Thomson-Shore, Inc. of Dexter, Michigan.

Back Issues of RCR....................................................................$2.50

One Issue of RCR........................................................................$2.50

One Year Subscription of RCR.................................................$2.50

Postcard Mysteries, fiction by Albert Drake...........................$2.50

Love at the Egyptian Theatre, poetry by Barbara Drake.... $2.50

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In This Issue:

Poems by:

Stephens

Poyner

Lifshin

James

Hindley

Battlo

Rivers

Norcross

Anderson-Smith

Domina

Drake

Fiction by:

Gerlach

Graphics by:

Turney

Vol. XV No. 1

Robert Tumey
Robert Tumey