Amarillo Bay 
 Volume 14 Number 2 

Amarillo Bay Contents
Volume 14 Number 2

We at Amarillo Bay are pleased to present the second issue of our fourteenth year, published on Monday, 21 May 2012. We hope you enjoy browsing through our extensive collection of fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry! (See the Works Lists to discover the over 560 works in our collection, including the ability to search through the issues.)


Fiction

Anonymous
   by Susan Gerry Susan Gerry

After graduating from Colby College in Waterville, Maine, Susan Gerry moved to Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico, where she worked for Servicio Linguistico Empresarial as an ESL teacher and translator. She now works for the Department of Human Services in Rockland, Maine, helping families transition from welfare into the work force. She has recently completed a literary mainstream novel, Carnival Mirrors, and is working on a second novel, Rogue Waves, and a collection of short stories. Her short fiction has appeared in Clapboard House and Amarillo Bay.

"My name is Evangeline, and I am an alcoholic."

For more years than she cared to remember, she had practiced these words before the gilt-framed mirror in her foyer. Contrite words, seasoned with a wistful touch of acceptance that her success in recovery was, indeed, contingent upon the intercession of a higher power. Or sometimes she would say "My name is Evangeline, and I am an addict." She spoke these words with more contrition (as it was also illegal), the tone of each phrase well-laced with the hope for recovery. Chin up, eyes lifted and inviting contact. Expression regretful, yet determined to confront the consequences of her past with courage. Who could have imagined the success of her performances? Who could have dreamed of the actress that lay sleeping inside her, ignored for so many years?

She'd once tried to become a member of Overeaters Anonymous, but that was too much of a stretch for a woman who at five feet eleven weighed in at barely 130 pounds. There they viewed her with suspicion and even a measure of hostility, despite her delicious low-cal artichoke risotto and warm asparagus and spinach salad. Her claim to struggle with her weight after losing more than one hundred pounds did not ring true. Their eyes crawled over her taut little body, seeking signs of past obesity and finding her wanting. Eventually she left OEA. It was a group whose envy (when they believed her story) and distrust and puzzlement (when they did not) left her feeling as rejected as her deceased husband's icy family ever had. It was as an alcoholic and addict that she finally found her niche.   Continue…

Beaver Pond
   by Dina Greenberg Dina Greenberg

Dina Greenberg's poetry, essays, short stories, and reviews have appeared in publications such as Bellevue Literary Review, Blood & Thunder, Chaffey Review, Schuylkill, Chronogram, Gemini Magazine, The Warwick Review, and Lalitamba. Ms. Greenberg was recently accepted to the MFA program at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington. Much of her published work may be accessed at dinagreenberg.com.

Jana spotted Kent and Barbara before they could pick her out among the other passengers in the little airport. They both looked tanned and healthy, outrageously so, Jana thought. Barbara's figure, athletic but never curvy, had settled into the solid, big-boned authority of middle age. She'd let her hair—still that same wild mass of shoulder-length curls—go completely gray, and a pair of artsy, beaded earrings hung boldly from each lobe. The effect of all of this, the gray hair, the bright turquoise and coral against her friend's tanned and weathered skin, seemed somewhat dramatic. Barbara had finally achieved that earth-mother look she'd been after since way back in college.

And Kent, perhaps a little heavier than the last time she'd visited, still managed to maintain his Nordic look of rugged handsomeness. The same blue eyes, intelligent and perpetually hinting at some private amusement, ranged over the group of travelers, and finally alighted on Jana's. A smile of unrestricted pleasure spread across his face before he threw his arm over his wife's shoulder and steered her in Jana's direction.

"Oh my God!" Barbara called, "The Yankee has arrived!" Jana felt fragile in her friend's crushing embrace. Then Barbara held Jana at arm's length, tipped her head back, and let loose the throaty laugh that had become her signature.

"Well, yes, I suppose I have," said Jana. "But, look who's talking. Remember, once a New Yorker, always a New Yorker."

"Aaah don't know 'bout that, pumpkin," Barbara fake-drawled.   Continue…

In the Interim
   by Anne Goodwin Anne Goodwin

Anne Goodwin's short fiction has been published online and in print. Her short story The Good News was published by Amarillo Bay in 2009. She is in the process of revising two novels: Underneath and Sugar and Snails. Her writing website is at annegoodwin.weebly.com.

One morning in late June, in the year before the century turned, the world stopped spinning for a moment, and Melissa Montgomery stepped off.

It had been a tough year. In January, her father had died. After a seventy-year love affair with cigarettes, his death was not unexpected, but Melissa had been close to him and not quite ready to watch him depart. In February, her best-friend, Gillian, the girl with whom she had shared handkerchiefs and wine gums since primary school, locked herself in the bathroom and swallowed five packets of aspirin and a bottle of gin. In March, they buried her mother. A blessing, some might say, after the gut-wrenching agony of widowhood. But still. And so on to April and the demise of the small business she had run from home, designing and printing letterheads and compliment slips for other small businesses run by other women from home. Gone bust through universal access to clipart and four months of inattention.

May arrived. The daffodils had come and gone. New lambs had been bleating in the fields for weeks. Another death would have been obscene at that time of the year.

In May, Melissa's husband became a father. Sadly this event did not coincide with Melissa becoming a mother. Melissa had never been pregnant.

He found her a studio flat in a good part of town and erected a cot in the room where she used to file her tax returns. It had indeed been a tough year and, only halfway through, Melissa had had enough.   Continue…


Creative Nonfiction

Stepmother's Day
   by Matthew Stith Matthew Stith

Matthew Stith attends a community college where he started his studies at age fifteen. In the future, he plans to design games and write novels. His work will appear in the 2012 issue of Under the Clock Tower.

When our stepmother, Mandy, had been outside for more than half an hour, I knew something was wrong. When she was depressed, she usually would walk out of the apartment for a while, either for privacy or need of a less cramped space for a few minutes. But half an hour was a bad sign. My suspicions were confirmed when Dad told us that she was upset that we hadn't given her a Mother's Day card. He asked us to go apologize, and assure her that we were grateful for what she did as our second mother.   Continue…

Poetry

Angling in the Abstract
   by William Ogden Haynes William Ogden Haynes

William Ogden Haynes is a poet and author of short fiction from Alabama who was born in Michigan and grew up a military brat. He has published in literary journals such as California Quarterly, Quantum Poetry Magazine, Front Porch Review, Full of Crow, Indigo Rising, Forge, The Houston Literary Review, Bolts of Silk, Blue Lake Review, and PIF Magazine. He believes that the mark of good writing is that, at the end, people feel glad they read it. In a prior life he taught speech-language pathology at Auburn University and authored six major professional textbooks.

They reside unseen in the tackle box
As we cast, troll, jig and tie our knots.
We rarely speak of patience,
Buried beneath the sinkers, leaders,
Crankbaits and flies.   Continue…

Heat Wave
   by William Ogden Haynes William Ogden Haynes

William Ogden Haynes is a poet and author of short fiction from Alabama who was born in Michigan and grew up a military brat. He has published in literary journals such as California Quarterly, Quantum Poetry Magazine, Front Porch Review, Full of Crow, Indigo Rising, Forge, The Houston Literary Review, Bolts of Silk, Blue Lake Review, and PIF Magazine. He believes that the mark of good writing is that, at the end, people feel glad they read it. In a prior life he taught speech-language pathology at Auburn University and authored six major professional textbooks.

He lies naked in bed
Next to the half open window,
After a night too steamy for even a sheet.
He sits up and looks out at the new morning
Through peeling paint on the sash
And glazing torqued like frying bacon.
Rooftop silhouettes stand against
Another hazy summer sunrise
And steeples have already begun to squirm
In the searing heat.   Continue…

Benediction
   by Anne-Marie Cadwallader Anne-Marie Cadwallader

Born in the Philippines to a Spanish mother and a Texan father, Anne-Marie Cadwallader attended the University of Oregon and the University of Southern California. Eventually she settled in North Texas, where she lives her husband, five cats, and three dogs. After living in and traveling through multiple countries, she became an interior designer, realtor, and home stager; at the young age of sixty-one, she retired and devoted her time to writing, dancing, touring, and adventuring in the countryside.

Her work has appeared in Numinous: Spiritual Poetry.

The wave spread out crept up
Slid back
Came back and licked my toes;
Ran out regrouped—
All silently except for sighing
On crusted sediments of shells.
Finding my feet the water laps,
Beneath my soles the shell-sand moves,
Pulled out scooped out and running with
The tide.
Warm the water, smell of gulf sea grass and fish—
A hint of salt and warm—
Wash me, wash me now.   Continue…

Cottonwood Hymn
   by Kevin Heaton Kevin Heaton

Pushcart Prize nominee Kevin Heaton lives and writes in South Carolina. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in many publications, including Raleigh Review, Foundling Review, The Honey Land Review, and Mason's Road. His fourth chapbook, Chronicles, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press in early 2012. He is a Best of the Net 2011 nominee.

Late August, eclipsed moon—
silk-screened lunar light
that leavens shewbread—
                                           peace.

It's not yet white at the graying
temples of summer. Short-timer
hoppers spit shine the tallgrass.   Continue…

Just Beyond My Town
   by Kevin Heaton Kevin Heaton

Pushcart Prize nominee Kevin Heaton lives and writes in South Carolina. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in many publications, including Raleigh Review, Foundling Review, The Honey Land Review, and Mason's Road. His fourth chapbook, Chronicles, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press in early 2012. He is a Best of the Net 2011 nominee.

Folks still know how to love
with all their clothes on:

A red-tailed hawk holds a jack
rabbit's foot on the moonlit brink
of his fraidy hole. I recall the muffled
shriek of a field mouse pleading from
halfway down a rat snake;
                   the prairie never shouts.   Continue…

Love During the Cultural Revolution
   by Bill Wolak Bill Wolak

Bill Wolak is a poet who has just published his third book of poetry entitled Archeology of Light. Recently he has been selected to be a featured reader at the 2011 Kritya International Poetry Festival in Nagpur, India.

During the Cultural Revolution, I wrote a love letter
and was considered a criminal; I composed a love poem
and was persecuted as a counter-revolutionary.
I was arrested for living with my boyfriend outside of wedlock.
After we married, they dumped us way out in the countryside,
domiciled in communes where we were forced to sleep
in gender-segregated barracks without books or music
and with only a single thirty-minute conjugal visit per week.   Continue…

No Casseroles
   by Ken Wheatcroft-Pardue Ken Wheatcroft-Pardue

Ken Wheatcroft-Pardue is an essayist, poet, short story writer, and high school English-as-a-Second Language teacher, living in obscurity in beautiful Fort Worth, Texas. When he's not teaching, he's usually writing. Most recently he has had poems published in Big Land, Big Sky, Big Hair: Best of the Texas Poetry Calendar, redriverreview.com, Illya's Honey, and The Texas Observer.

Besides that, his essays have appeared in The Texas Observer, The San Antonio Express-News, The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, The Dallas Peace Times, and The Fort Worth Weekly. Finally, stories of his have been published in Lynx Eye, Hardboiled, and the on-line literary journals Scrivener's Pen, SouthLit.com, Verdad.com, and The Write Room.

For godsakes, don't bring any casseroles over.
Send no condolences.
I hate Hallmark with a passion!   Continue…

Residues and Aftertastes
   by Anastasia Nikolis Anastasia Nikolis

Anastasia Nikolis holds a BA from Haverford College and will be starting work toward a PhD in Literature and Visual Culture at the University of Rochester. She currently works as the Managing Editor of the Journal of Popular Music Studies. Her first chapbook will be published by Aquillrelle Press in summer 2012.

We lie in the dust of those who came before us.
Filmy skins of past people's selves
roll in the sheets and sneak
kisses from our lips pursed tight
like balloon mouths
with the airings-out of past lives inside.   Continue…

To the Woman Driving a Suburban Who Abandoned Her Dog in Oakmont Park

   by Daniel Williams Daniel Williams

A closet poet, Dan Williams works at TCU, where he is Director of TCU Press and Professor of English.

She tried to follow you for several blocks, running
behind as you sped away, the old Asian couple tried
to wave you down, but you burst through stop signs,
doing sixty in a thirty. She kept running in the road
after you; until, panting, she slowed.   Continue…


Works List

Useful Links

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Works by Issue

Works are published the first Monday of February, the third Monday of May, the first Monday of August, and the first Monday of November.

2012, Volume 14 Number 4, 5 November 2012 — Future Issue
Number 3, 6 August 2012 — Future Issue

Number 2, 21 May 2012 — Current Issue
Number 1, 6 February 2012
2011, Volume 13 Number 4, 7 November 2011
Number 3, 1 August 2011
Number 2, 16 May 2011
Number 1, 7 February 2011
2010, Volume 12 Number 4, 1 November 2010
Number 3, 2 August 2010
Number 2, 17 May 2010
Number 1, 1 February 2010
2009, Volume 11 Number 4, 2 November 2009
Number 3, 3 August 2009
Number 2, 18 May 2009
Number 1, 2 February 2009
2008, Volume 10 Number 4, 3 November 2008
Number 4, 18 August 2008
Number 2, 19 May 2008
Number 1, 11 February 2008
2007, Volume 9 Number 4, 12 November 2007
Number 3, 6 August 2007
Number 2, 7 May 2007
Number 1, 5 February 2007
2006, Volume 8 Number 4, 6 November 2006
Number 3, 7 August 2006
Number 2, 8 May 2006
Number 1, 6 February 2006
2005, Volume 7 Number 4, 7 November 2005
Number 3, 8 August 2005
Number 2, 2 May 2005
Number 1, 7 February 2005
2004, Volume 6 Number 4, 1 October 2004
Number 3, 2 August 2004
Number 2, 3 May 2004
Number 1, 2 February 2004
2003, Volume 5 Number 4, 3 November 2003
Number 3, 4 August 2003
Number 2, 5 April 2003
Number 1, 3 February 2003
2002, Volume 4 Number 4, 4 November 2002
Number 3, 5 August, 2002
Number 2, 6 May 2002
Number 1, 4 February 2002
2001, Volume 3 Number 4, 5 November 2001
Number 3, 6 August 2001
Number 2, 7 May 2001
Number 1, 5 February 2001
2000, Volume 2 Number 4, 6 November 2000
Number 3, 7 August 2000
Number 2, 1 May 2000
Number 1, 7 February 2000
1999, Volume 1 Number 3, 1 November 1999
Number 2, 2 August 1999
Number 1, 3 May 1999