Halflife, a collection of poems by Meghan O'Rourke

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The blue square of light
in the window across the street
never goes dark--

the cathodes, the cordage, the atoms
working the hem of dusk--
traveling past the cranes and the docks

and the soiled oyster beds, 
the trees loaded with radium, 
colors like guns, 

. . . 

I came through the sodium streets
past the diners, a minister idly turning his glass, 
service stations, gas, cars sharp in the light.

How long will the light go on?
Longer than you.  Still you ought to live like a city, 
rich and fierce at the center.

--From "Halflife," a poem by Meghan O'Rourke, first published in the magazine Poetry (September 2005) and reprinted in her collection Halflife (W.W. Norton & Company, 2007), pp. 23-24.

Two reports on true crime, and then some less-serious short stories

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Vincent Smothers thought that it would be a job like any other.  In the summer of 2007, he told me, his friend Marzell Black asked him for a gun for his mother's boyfriend.  Smothers didn't sell guns, and he told him so.  A few months later, Marzell amended his request, saying, "That dude who was looking for a gun?  He asked me how much he would have to pay to kill somebody."  A murder Smothers could handle.  "Marzell wasn't the killing type," he said.  "I told him, 'That's not something for you to do.  I'll talk to him and see what this is all about.'"
--From "The Hit Man's Tale," nonfiction by Nadya Labi, The New Yorker (October 15, 2012), pp. 58-67.

Amy Bishop, a neurobiologist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, sat down at the conference table just moments before the faculty meeting began.  It was three o'clock on February 12, 2010, and thirteen professors and staff members in the biology department had crowded into a windowless conference room on the third floor of the Shelby Center for Science and Technology.
--From "A Loaded Gun," nonfiction by Patrick Radden Keefe, The New Yorker (February 11 & 18, 2013), pp. 70-87.

Boog is very good at making words.  For example, last week he showed off his new picture at the Main Cave.  Everyone was expecting it to be a horse or a bear (all his pictures so far have been horses, bears, or a mix of horses and bears).  But this picture was not of any animal.  It was just a bunch of red streaks.  People were angry.  
          "I wanted animals," the Old Person said.  "Where are the animals?"
          It was bad situation.  I thought that Boog would lose his job or maybe be killed by stones.  But then Boog stood on a rock and spoke.
--From "I Love Girl," a story by Simon Rich from the Shouts & Murmurs column, The New Yorker (December 17, 2012), pp. 43-45.

The summer school assignment, the fucking fucking summer school third paper of ten, and if you didn't get at least a C on the first nine, you had to write eleven papers, the fucking teacher wadding up her big fat lips so they looked like a carnation, her lips that she'd use to pout at your inadequacy . . . this paper, to hold their interest, was supposed to be about Magical Realism, and although you didn't have to read all of the Márquez book the teacher sooooooo loved, she had distributed several paragraphs from the book in which weird things happened, and your paper was supposed to go on forever, like the writer, then have the clouds howl, or something.  

--From "What Magical Realism Would Be," the first story in The State We're In: Maine Stories, a collection by Ann Beattie (Scribner, 2015).

The Fall 2015 issue of the Apple Valley Review

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The Fall 2015 issue of the journal features short fiction by Sue Hyon Bae and Seyed Ali Shojaei; essays by Megan Taylor; poetry by Bethany Bowman, Arfah Daud, Marianne Koluda Hansen, Benny Andersen, Knud Sørensen, Darren C. Demaree, Danielle Hanson, Jennifer MacBain-Stephens, Richard Stolorow, José Angel Araguz, Carl Boon, Laura Lee Washburn, David Antonio Moody, Priscilla Atkins, Calvin Ahlgren, and Jack Cooper; and a cover photograph from the Westbury Court Garden by Pauline Eccles.

The Apple Valley Review is a semiannual online literary journal.  The current issue, previous issues, subscription information, and complete submission guidelines are available at www.applevalleyreview.com.

An essay, three short stories, and a poem

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Does there come a day in every man's life when he looks around and says to himself, "I've got to weed out some of these owls"?
--From "Understanding Owls," a reflection by David Sedaris, The New Yorker (October 22, 2012), pp. 40-43.  (In a different form, this piece was later reprinted in Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls.)

Driving across the Utah desert on I-70, James hit a butterfly with his car.
--From "Mayfly," a short story by Kevin Canty, The New Yorker (January 28, 2013), pp. 64-69.

It was at the tube station that he met the Angolans who would arrange his marriage, exactly two years and three days after he had arrived in England; he kept count.
--From "Checking Out," a short story by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, The New Yorker (March 18, 2013), pp. 66-73.

I was grown up now, married, with a family of my own, but still the Ormsons wanted to see me, just like always. 
--From "Here's a Little Something to Remember Me By," a short story by Dan Chaon, first published in Other Voices and reprinted in his story collection Among the Missing (Ballantine/Random House, 2001), p. 160-186.

The dove brought news
of the end of the flood, an olive leaf
in her mouth, like a man holding a letter . . .  
--From "The Dove," a poem by Yehuda Amichai, translated from the Hebrew by Bernard Horn, The New Yorker (March 18, 2013), p. 63.

Postcard fiction, three poems, and a novel

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My Dad dropped me off in the car and went outside, talking on the phone with my mother.  They are fighting (L !!!!!!!).  Three reasons they're fighting: . . . 
--From "My Daughter's Diary Entry," postcard fiction by Margarita Meklina, First Class Literary Magazine (August 11, 2015).

pressed full-length against the screen unzipping it
for a better grip to help him help himself to the seed and the suet
slung high under the eave . . .
--From "Bear," a poem by Ellen Bryant Voigt, The New Yorker (November 26, 2012), p. 61.

We lived next to an all-boys' high school. 
My uncles wore its uniform before
they put on army fatigues.  I built
toad temples with crushed dandelions and dirt
and the schoolboys kicked them apart . . .  
--From "Raising Children," a poem by Sue Hyon Bae, Spires, Volume 21, Issue 1 (Spring 2011), p. 18.

The announcement arrived during dinner 
and we thought we would have to miss our evening tv shows
but our cab driver, bless his reckless heart, 
had his GPS rigged to our weeklies. . . 
--From "A Distant Relative's Wake," a poem by Sue Hyon Bae, Spires, Volume 20, Issue 2 (Fall 2010), pp. 31-32.

When I was a little girl of six or seven I was always scared when we passed the lions on our way out of town.  I was sure Lucifer felt as I did, for he always put on speed at that very place, and I did not realize until much later it was because my grandfather whipped him up sharply on the way down the gentle slope past the gateway where the lions were, and that was because Grandfather was an impatient man.  It was a well-known fact. 
        The lions were yellow and I sat at the rear of the trap dangling my legs, alone or with my brother Jesper, with my back towards Grandfather, watching the lions diminishing up there.  They turned their heads and stared at me with their yellow eyes.  They were made of stone, as were the plinths they lay on, but all the same their staring made my chest burn and gave me a hollow feeling inside.  I could not take my eyes off them.  Each time I tried to look down at the graveled road instead, I turned dizzy and felt I was falling.
        "They're coming!  They're coming!" shouted my brother, who knew all about those lions, and I looked up again and saw them coming.  They tore themselves free of the stone blocks and grew larger, and I jumped off the trap heedless of the speed, grazed my knees on the gravel and ran out into the nearest field.  There were roe deer and stags in the forest beyond the field, and I thought about that as I ran.  
        "Can't you leave the lass alone!" bellowed my grandfather. . . . 
--From To Siberia [Til Sibir], a novel by Per Petterson, translated from the Norwegian by Anne Born (Graywolf Press, 2008; Picador 2009).

A Red Cherry on a White-tiled Floor by Maram al-Massri and poetry from RHINO

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I am the thief
of sweetmeats displayed in your shop.
My fingers became sticky
but I failed
to drop one
into my mouth.
--From A Red Cherry on a White-tiled Floor [Karazah hamra' 'alá balat abyad], a collection of poetry by Maram al-Massri, published in Arabic with an English translation by Khaled Mattawa (Bloodaxe Books, 2004; Copper Canyon Press, 2007).

As I wander alone on the river path of cinders and cigarettes I am afraid, as I am always afraid, when I spot a man on a bench up ahead, drinking.  
--From "Girls in a Skiff," a prose poem by Maureen O'Brien, RHINO (2015).

Mother is gone.  Only her things remain: 
heart locket in 10K gold engraved
w/cursive J; medium-sized Austrian 
crystal brooch—
--From "Inventory," a poem by Joe Eldridge, RHINO (2015).

When I met LL Cool J I had just quit Fatburger it was a Saturday morning  & not knowing how I would afford to pay for it I drove my new-used powder blue Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme with my sister to the Sam Goody's off Washington Blvd in South Central adjacent & we met our friend/ex-coworker Squeak who was 17 with glasses & 6 feet tall & nicknamed by the same ex-coworker who nicknamed me Twin 1 & my younger sister Twin 2 . . . 
--From "When I met LL Cool J I had just quit Fatburger," a poem by Khadijah Queen, RHINO (2015).

i'm bent over / the sidewalk weeping / outside the public theatre / you stand above me / horse built from a father's beer cans / you still have that other man's mouth on you / i can taste it / with the back of my hands / it's my fault / always is / i say do what you will / + your will is done / so what i was born drunk + mean with my teeth knocked out . . . 
--From "essay on crying in public," a piece by sam sax, RHINO (2015).

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

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Nine months and five days ago, at approximately nine o'clock on the evening of December 30, 2003, my husband, John Gregory Dunne, appeared to (or did) experience, at the table where he and I had just sat down to dinner in the living room of our apartment in New York, a sudden massive coronary event that caused his death.  Our only child, Quintana, had been for the previous five nights unconscious in an intensive care unit at Beth Israel Medical Center's Singer Division, at that time a hospital on East End Avenue (it closed in August 2004) more commonly known as "Beth Israel North" or "the old Doctors' Hospital," where what had seemed a case of December flu sufficiently severe to take her to an emergency room on Christmas morning had exploded into pneumonia and septic shock.  This is my attempt to make sense of the period that followed, weeks and then months that cut loose any fixed idea I had ever had about death, about illness, about probability and luck, about good fortune and bad, about marriage and children and memory, about grief, about the ways in which people do and do not deal with the fact that life ends, about the shallowness of sanity, about life itself.
--From The Year of Magical Thinking, a memoir by Joan Didion (Knopf/Random House/Vintage, 2006).  This passage is from pages 6 and 7 of the Vintage paperback.

        July 26 2010.
        Today would be her wedding anniversary.
        Seven years ago today we took the leis from the florist's boxes and shook the water in which they were packed onto the grass outside the Cathedral of St. John the Divine on Amsterdam Avenue.  The white peacock spread his fan.  The organ sounded.  She wove white stephanotis into the thick braid that hung down her back.  She dropped the tulle veil over her head and the stephanotis loosened and fell.  The plumeria blossom tattooed just below her shoulder showed through the tulle.  "Let's do it," she whispered.  
--From Blue Nights, a memoir by Joan Didion (Knopf/Random House/Vintage, 2011).  This passage is from page 5 of the Vintage paperback.

Children's voices in the orchard
Between the blossom- and the fruit-time: 
--From "New Hampshire," a poem by T.S. Eliot, referenced on page 163 of Blue Nights.  (The other poem mentioned there is "Domination of Black" by Wallace Stevens.)