NEW PAPERs

Peter Teal
    In Conversation With Anselm Kiefer


Julieta Caldas
   Angel Noise
   If Not


Jane Dabate
   Seasonal Dresses

SEASONAL DRESS: SUMMER

Downtown was wild. A slip must have slipped my mind. My dress was made entirely out of zippers. The bodice consisted of two thin parallels of zippers, stretched like suspenders over my shoulders and covering my breasts. Several zippers were wrapped horizontally around my hips to form a very short skirt, which was attached to the parallels with more zippers. It was a dress in a loose sense. I could feel the cold metal spines of each zipper against my shoulder blades, breasts, hips, delicately scratching me – a chill of contact. I looked terrific. 
       Then a man approached. I saw this happen slowly. He was inexcusably dapper with a stupid derby hat and a stupid cane. He gave an odd, wooden smile and reached out, like a lowlife, unzipping me from collarbone to navel, the zipper sliding down like a wet tear. He held on.
       “You can’t be serious,” he said, pinching the zipper’s pulltab like a nipple.
       “YOU can’t be serious,” I clocked the sucker square in the jaw.


SEASONAL DRESS: AUTUMN


Autumn was painful. I found myself cold on the streets, in between brownstones, in between boyfriends, begging my favourite professor to be my guarantor in a series of emails that would go unacknowledged. It was cold in every sense. Summer had passed. Nobody was saying: stay for the weekend! Or: the place is empty! Or: should I bring a towel? All anybody said was: it’s colder than it was, haven’t you noticed? Haven’t you felt the cold on your skin lately? Haven’t you reflected, on the one hand, on the thrilling novelty of its presence, but also, on the other, on its total familiarity and the horrible cycle of immanent darkness it suggests? These kinds of remarks made me feel violent. 
       I wanted a boyfriend, but I needed a scarf. The silkworms were a last resort. I visited their home, a mulberry tree in the park. While silkworms are renowned for their fine product, I will champion the extraordinary quality of their service all the way.
       I approached the tree with my hands up.
       “Before you say anything, I have no money,” I began. A hundred little white worms dropped from the branches with smiles on their faces.
       “Don’t worry, miss!” they sang. The chorus of their voices made me think of my grandmothers. I stood beneath the tree with my head up and eyes closed while they spun me a thick marigold scarf, wrapping it around my neck as they worked.
       When they were through, one silkworm said, “It looks like it was made for you!”
       And I said, “That’s because it was!”
       And we all laughed. I was warm.


SEASONAL DRESS: WINTER


I was walking in my fur coat to an opera that I knew nothing about. Forget the opera – I only went for someplace to wear my fur coat, which was perhaps the most spectacular garment on the Good Lord’s Green Earth. It was a floor-length coat of rust-coloured fox pelts with a few soft touches of cream and speckled gray. The deep collar was oversized and plush, brushing past my chin and whispering against my cheeks. I felt marvelously chic, like a movie star or a mafia wife. Then, to my surprise, a fox emerged from a shrub on the sidewalk, cackling viciously. 
       “Do… I… know… you?” she asked, unable to stifle her laughter between each word. She was obviously a teenager.
       “Um, no…” I frowned. Her fur was so similar to mine.
       “Stealing my look?” she snarled sarcastically.
       I had no idea how to respond. Honestly, I was certain that I looked better than she did. She was scurrying on the ground like vermin, her dusty fur tapering into paws, a snout, and other undesirable features. She was definitely cute, don't get me wrong, although she was pretty raggedy. I felt a stitch of pity.
       “You should take that off,” I advised her finally, “and I’m telling you this girl-to-girl.” She looked me up and down once more and then cackled like crazy some more as she scampered off.
       The opera was boring. That winter the fur became a bathrobe.


SEASONAL DRESS: SPRING


Was it right to spend so much time alone? Maybe not. But lounging in the garden was tremendously pleasurable. So I did! And the flowers! They were so beautiful… white and pink lilies, long petals that stretched and spilled from thin green stems. I began to tie the flowers together and then knit them into a thickly-latticed cloak of lilies that I draped over my naked body. The grace I enjoyed, all wrapped in flowers. Unmatched! 
       Through the garden, a figure of a man approached. He was tall and lean, wearing a fencing mask, cargo shorts, and no shirt. As he came closer, I saw in his hands a large plastic bottle full of live bees. The bottle buzzed and rumbled with the chaos of the hundreds of bees crammed inside. My gaze drifted between his fencing mask and his bee bottle. Clearly an eccentric spirit with some great reckless potential. Though I could not see his eyes, I could feel them on my body. Wordlessly, he opened the bottle, releasing the swarm. They pollinated my many lilies, which tickled but was ultimately pleasurable.
        “I’ve wanted to do that to you for so long,” he said.
Ulyses Razo
   Spring

  Personal Life

Zans Brady Kohn
   We Ran Away

    
T.C. Hell
   
Houses have creaked a long time                   

Colton Karpman (Founding Editor)
   Editor’s Note


Dilara Koz (Art Director)

Em Bauer (Illustrator)

Harry Lowther (Prose Editor)

Isaac Zamet (Poetry Editor)

William McGuire (Prose Editor)