Amarillo Bay Contents
Volume 4 Number 2

Current Issue

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We are pleased to present our current issue, published on Monday, March 6, 2002. We hope you enjoy browsing through our more than 100 pieces of fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry! (See the Previous Issues list to learn about all the works in our collection.)

Fiction

Assassinations
by Steve Sherwood
In the summer of 1963, the whole neighborhood gathered on a bluff above the Interstate to watch John and Jackie Kennedy drive by in their open limousine. The Kennedys were on their way to Air Force One after attending the graduation ceremony at the Air Force Academy. Four years later, Aldo still remembered Jackie's white dress and matching hat. And he remembered the color of John Kennedy's hair--tarnished copper--startling to a kid who knew the president only from black and white television images. Most of all, he remembered how Dominique Scabbone raised both her hands as if sighting down the barrel of a rifle and said, "Pow, pow, pow."

Rules of the Road
by Diane E. Dees
Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road?
Jane has the same dream several nights a week. She is abducted by women realtors in gold blazers, stuffed into an SUV, and taken to the "O'Reilly Factor" studio, where she is forced to talk about her abortion. The host says something to her about closure, and--keeping a promise to herself--she screams bloody murder. This causes her to wake up, but when she finally goes back to sleep, she dreams she is in a restaurant, where she sees O'Reilly in one of the booths. He is drinking coffee and eating a huge platter of scrambled eggs. He smiles at her, then the gold-blazered women come after her, only this time, they are led by the Pope, who is wearing a matching gold stole and trying to keep one hand on his hat so it doesn't fall off while he chases Jane.

Creative Nonfiction

Cruising Princeton
by David Brendan Hopes
When people ask whether I like to travel, the answer is generally "no." Vehicular motion has a narcotic effect on me. If I am riding, I sleep; if I am driving, I spend most of the time fighting sleep off. To observe this not especially profitable situation gives, however, an incomplete impression. I may not enjoy getting places, but being places is another matter. I am a mediocre traveler but an excellent arriver. The happiest moments of this life are those when I step onto the streets of a new city, it wholly unknown to me, and I to it, without a common past, with no history or worn edges, infinite possibility and fresh discovery not only possible but inevitable between us. The exhilaration, the absolute freedom of such moments is unknown to other circumstance. Nor does the new city need to be a great capital, though that helps, in the sense that great capitals usually keep more latitude for the undirected wanderings of an enraptured stranger. Being looked at in return sometimes--but by no means always--spoils the looking.

Road Notes
by W. Scott Olsen
Sometimes the road does not give you a story. More often than not, really, what you get is a scene, a something barely caught by the corner of your eye or the depth of your hearing. You pass a red car, or you hear a voice you'd swear was a best friend from high school, or you see some funky weather, but then you're on to something else. Every tenth of a mile marker, every gas station brings another setting, another cast of characters, another bit of dialogue and intrigue. But late at night, or perhaps even years later, the fast glimpses come back. Not like nightmare, or fantasy. Just the scene itself. And perhaps a hint of something larger-something horrid, or beautiful, or just so damn crazy there ought to be a song.

Poetry

How Thyme Cures Anthrax
by Steven Schroeder
My sister the herbalist said you could treat anthrax with thyme,
which led to a discussion of what to do with thyme
when you have a lot of terrorists on your hands.

Listen to Light
by Steven Schroeder
The mark of winter
mind is clarity
not cold, blue not white,
an edge of ice in winter
places even when
there is no snow

Night
by Nick Antosca
a ruined wind tries without strength to muscle us back the way we came,
but we refuse to linger or allow ourselves to be swept off
the sidewalk and into the street.

Room at Strada Lisabona
by Trevor Landers
In your spartan room
an unlikely lover
drains a bottle of Rigas Balsam

Turning
by Steven Schroeder
When the wisest words in the world are spoken
by dumb asses who stand their ground on treacherous
passes guarded by angels, it hardly seems fair
that Lot's wife should pay such a price for turning
to take one last homeward look

What the He Wolf Sees,
by Lee Schultz
I suppose, is how she runs
and how she pads the snow
on trails too soft to hold

When My Daughter Asks
by Lee Schultz
Weather Forecasts depend on reception.
There are only quick moments
of love, taste,
hot or cold,
and sleep.

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Previous Issues

All Works

Sorted by author name
Sorted by title

2002

Volume 4 Number 2, 6 May, 2002
Volume 4 Number 1, 4 February, 2002

2001

Volume 3 Number 4, 5 November, 2001
Volume 3 Number 3, 6 August, 2001
Volume 3 Number 2, 7 May, 2001
Volume 3 Number 1, 5 February, 2001

2000

Volume 2 Number 4, 6 November, 2000
Volume 2 Number 3, 7 August, 2000
Volume 2 Number 2, 1 May, 2000
Volume 2 Number 1, 7 February, 2000

1999

Volume 1 Number 3, 1 November, 1999
Volume 1 Number 2, 2 August, 1999
Volume 1 Number 1, 3 May, 1999