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TheOne ot aRe v i e w

The Oneota Review Volume Forty-Five

Co-Editors Kate Koch and Ana Hafner

Editorial Board Emma Schlabach Jake Porter Jamie Linert Lizzie Garvin Katie Patyk Griffin Neal

Kaitlyn Buls Pharez Monney Taylor Romeo Bryce Hefty Jonathon Boyle Paige Gartzke

Faculty Advisor Lise Kildegaard

Published for Luther College by Johnson Printing of Rochester, MN

Table of Contents Cover – Reflections of prismatic: Lizzie Garvin 4 --I Have Seen the Angel of Mercy: Griffin Neal 4 -- After Hours: Katie Patyk 5 – Serpentis: Vicky Torillas 6 – There’s a Meth Problem in Oxford, NE: Ana Hafner 7 -- an ungulate ungulates: Anna Ryden 7 --Frogbutt: Martha Hall 8 -- Anthem for Doomed Youth: Eli Bowe 8 – Free Diving: Jeffrey Lackman 9 – Lotus springs from her every step: Megan Rachuy 10 – For a Senior in May: Linnea Peterson 11 – Skyscrapers: Nate Riley 11 – For Olav Hauge: Griffin Neal 12 – The Storm: Emma Brashear 12 – Untitled: Martha Hall 13 – August: Lucia Holte 14 – Untitled: Makeda Barkley 14 – Untitled: Makeda Barkley 15 – A Shakespearean love sonnet to D. variabilis: Jedidiah Nixon 15 – Fancy Man: Martha Hall 16 -- A Busy Street on a Quiet Morning: Lauren Eakes 17 -- Unnamed: Casey Weber 17 – Market day in Bambui: Frances Stevenson 18 – Vesuvius: Katie Patyk 18 – vanity: seeing double: Makeda Barkley 19 – In the Place Before the Sinking: Lauren Eakes 20 – Untitled: Makeda Barkley

20 – Untitled: Joschua Setiawan 21 – The street in Minneapolis: Jacob Warehime 23 – Emily: Ryan Koning 23 – Belief: Nate Riley 24 –Berlin at night: Lizzie Garvin 24 – I, Eye. Aye: Joschua Setiawan 25 – ANOTHER YEAR GONE: ARE YOU STILL HEADING TOWARD HELL?: Jake Porter 27 – “You cannot make homes out of human beings/someone should have told you that already”: Nora Felt 29 – to the late stranger at whose visitation I waited tables: Jake Porter 30 – Pretty Patches: Joschua Setiawan 31 – Scars: Johnathon Boyle 33 – consumed: Makeda Barkley 34 – Fingers Like Ours: Emma Schlabach 35 – Music and Film: 35 -- Driftless: Jerimiah Schrick 35 -- Sostenuto: Jamie Linert, Nick-Mike Hentges, Emma Deihl

I Have Seen the Angel of Mercy Griffin Neal I have seen the angel of mercy beyond this pale and disfigured windowpane and I have glimpsed the deepest abyssal mysteries beyond this dull membrane, and I have for an instant touched the lightest thread of the garment of the divine now it hides from me behind this twisted paper screen Which i would tear were I not afraid to find only throbbing red flesh behind Place me in my box and let me close my eyes cool my blood to stone and trap my thoughts between my quivering hands But let me leap out and fall to certain death in the womb of unending explosion and there rest tormented until the unthinkable arrives: some Hand i lack the strength to bite strokes my cheek like a dusty sigh and i wake up

After Hours Katie Patyk Three balconies up, arms perched on the mahogany, the black capped man bobs his head out of rhythm and beer bottles bounce to the beat that shocks the nicotine filled air. The green glow of stop lights on the sidewalks fill the spots taken out of the snow by our footsteps when we leave. As the flurries flood my face I feel the pulse of the drummer still moving through my body pumping in and out of me, coursing inside me, the cool December night air, the smoke mixing with the streetlights, the strange emptiness of these alleys fills me up, until I feel I might explode from the high of the night.

Serpentis Vicky Torillas I slither Through the realms Of the unknown; I swam When I was meant To drown. Left to die By those Who feared me Shed my skin, Grew back the scales I lost in battle. I belong To the dirt Under my body, To the rivers, To the sky, By my father’s side. I become A mother, A father, A symbol Of life And death, The almighty Found In the normal, A double edged Sword Venomous savior. Cold-blooded, Cold-hearted, Natural killer. Big or small. Regardless -Lethal. 4

There’s a Meth Problem in Oxford, NE Ana Hafner Fuck sleep and tender painlessness, Copycat poetry about dewy spring apple blossoms, And ladybug laden greenery. There’s a milkweed song somewhere As bitter and ditch-bound as this town. And watch While pent up winter beats the proto-living shit Out of January, out of The half boarded store front, sagging, The thirty year old, hail-pocked limousine on the corner Of a dead Siamese cat street That makes us all too sad to walk down. And would you look At that bathtub filled with flat woven rugs In the old hospital yard, beside the pink tricycle, Beside front porches pouring out Flea-bit couches and Christmas trees and Dr. Pepper vending machines “Probably somebody could fix up That big old roadhouse by the train station.” We all park downtown, middle of the street. Groceries from the Oxford Market, With taxidermied animals affixed to the freezer section. A cardboarded window of the Suds ‘N’ Sweat Spews stale detergent smells streetward. The corrugated metal movie theater Playing a show a week for four bucks per. Then home, 1930s renovation, Great Depression woodwork restored. Dinner, coffee, gin rummy, television, dominoes. Then Dale stops by later to tell us something We already know.

an ungulate undulates Anna Ryden I watched a cow attempt flight today. its body rocking with every haphazard step. It was trying to race me. I watched the cow attempt to leap right into the sky and sail over the fence to join in my frenzy of quick legs and fast breath. In the end, though, the action prompted respiratory ailment, a cough, and turned the cow into an old man right before my eyes.

Frogbutt Martha Hall

Anthem for Doomed Youth Eli Bowe Lipstick stains on toilet paper; Kisses discarded in the trash; Not for me or any man. The light is come, now quench the taper. Refuse refuge of happy memory. With the sounds of Sunday morn (Showers and some brewing tea) One must pause to frown or smile. While over sips of Earl Grey The livers wait for death another day.

Free Diving Jeffrey Lackman She is going under it, the water of her own life, turning her feet to the wind and her face to the blue unfeeling openness in and through. She is shedding herself, becoming a downward-facing breath packaged in lungs, ribs, and skin— a soul unwrapped one pulsebeat at a time. She is reaching out to the sea floor and for a instant isn’t anything that is, gripping a handful of eternity. She is rising, releasing, the windy surface seething, She has touched the nameless nothing and comes up breathing.

Lotus springs from her every step Megan Rachuy “Lotus springs from her every step!” “步步生蓮！” - Emperor Xiao Baojuan The time has finally arrived, my family’s patience and earnings rewarded. The scent of herbs and the tang of blood tickle my nostrils as I first dip my feet into the basin’s heat. I feel the warmth envelope my toes and soothe the winter’s numbing touch. They soon turn red. Snow flutters down outside, landing soft as my fingers twitch with every harsh clip, clip, clip, meeting flesh. Sure fingers dig into my soles, massaging until they are pliant. I know what is coming next. “它们非常漂亮，对不对？”my mother asks. I look at them then, at the shoes, at the delicate vines of green twirling around clusters of berries and blue flowers embroidered on the vibrant red silk that will soon swaddle my feet. Yes, they are beautiful. A hand wraps around my toes and presses toward the sole until a symphony of snaps is heard— bone and ligaments and flesh manipulated into the seeds of the Golden Lotus, my cries only serving to water them. 8

But they are beautiful and Red. Power, fortune, eternal joy, and Beauty. A Beauty forever binding me to the Lotus that will spring from my every step.

For a Senior in May Linnea Peterson You took me down to the river And started skipping rocks. I stood by and watched, Not because I don’t know how to skip rocks But because you’ve already seen me do Enough things I’m bad at. You got a smooth gray stone All the way to the opposite bank And told me you want to stop Getting high on the weekends, Because last Sunday’s acid trip was Fun but honestly sort of awkward, And anyway it’s time to be an adult. Even though I don’t approve of the drugs, I almost responded, “That’s a shame,” Because being an adult means leaving, And damned if I’m ready to lose you.

Skyscrapers Nate Riley

For Olav Hauge Griffin Neal Don't worry, the train will carry us there through the brief twilight and the long night, through the dark pass and into the long blue valley. Relax, recline in your seat. or rest your head on my lap, and sleep, and dream about the next life.

The Storm Emma Brashear The sky outside is green and strange Laughter clinks together as bottle after bottle is dropped And I Sit silently in the corner Refusing what is offered I watch as my shadow tips back the bottle to catch the last drop As the first drop falls

Untitled Martha Hall

August Lucia Holte

Find your canoe she tells me, (it slightly scratched but few dents) annoyed that five minutes prior I told her the same. My canoe, my floating palace and balance place, my tree-lined river. She’s right of course, but my canoe has capsized, whisked downriver by the rising flood.

Oh water, bringer of life. * So I picture my handle bars instead: sun-tanned hands gripping twisted steel, gears whizzing as I fly by instead of float. I am a voyager of an unknown ocean, uncharted islands in peculiar places— sleeping trees lie sideways, roots seen by the sky. *

Oh water, bringer of life.

Untitled Anna Becker

A Shakespearean love sonnet to D. variabilis Jedidiah Nixon O Dermacentor variabilis, thy beauteous form from fair heav'n above. ornamented scutum of burnish'd brass, such perfection 'twould press a heart to love. I have beheld thy quests amidst tall grass, whilst you danced upon the verdant blade, chemosensilla waving, grace none may surpass. When you so sway, 'tis no wonder I stay. It seems as if thou art hated o'ermuch wherefore has man striven to thee defame? Thou art vector, not cause, yet still we thee judge. To be blinded by fear, this is our shame. Yet some, upon hearing thy offenders, will be moved to sing of thy splendors.

Fancy Man Martha Hall

A Busy Street On a Quiet Morning Lauren Eakes The streets are paved with blackberries, Seeds like cobblestones sprinkled about And juice dripping out the sides. Stuck in my teeth, stuck in my feet, Picking at the scenery because We finally have the time. You may not be here anymore, But the shadows of the trees, Like a rorschach test, Hold your silhouette hostage. I see you spinning in the window. No one quite knows why they Came here at this time, Obligation is an illusion, And of course I know least at all. We cough up coffee grounds and Build sandcastles from them. I guess, here we are, As the sun catches and artistic rebellion, I can only think about rivers, About belated first times. Almost is my favorite color. That was almost you that walked by.

Unnamed Casey Weber

Market day in Bambui Frances Stevenson

Vesuvius Katie Patyk Eruptions of shrill noise spew from your mouth Spreading red hot energy Covering, burying bodies beneath lava Leaving only ash behind You can’t know your own strength Or how your brightness dims others’ light But when the explosion stops I’ll be the obsidian underneath Rising from the spot A clouded powder keg That spits out smoke Into a grey, shadow filled world A monotone wasteland Colorless

vanity: seeing double Makeda Barkley 19

In the Place Before the Sinking Lauren Eakes I met a man in wool trousers, Leaning against exposed brick With his sport coat on his arm. The puffs of smoke from his cigarette Sang me a lullaby, the kind That you remember the tune of, But the only words you can recall Seem to be the most inconsequential . So they sang, “With lilies o’erspread”. I sat on the edge and dipped my feet in (they say it’s much easier than jumping). He came and sat with me, his trousers rolled, And flicked red hot stardust From the end of his smoke And then from the cuffs of his sleeves. I knew he wouldn’t have much to say, And as I looked past the cold And empty black of his eye sockets He spoke, calmly and distantly, “Be careful, they’re trying to kill you out there”. 20

I slipped.

Untitled Makeda Barkley

Untitled Joschua Setiawan

The street in Minneapolis Jacob Warehime

burning up.

The street in Minneapolis

Here, nestled among skyscrapers, cardboard signs and theatre majors— planted in h parking ramps, taxicabs and sidewalk-weavers— hidden under hardhat smoke, billowed smog, a frenetic dusk and a frantic dawn, you are right; we are

where I fell in love with cigarette smoke, a bad joke, choked back laughter and, a little after midnight, something you wrote on the side of the overpass;

We are all 22

on fire— for now. Flaming, we run red lights speed walk crosswalks toy with trains and blow past busses. And when our laces— worn out from the speed— come undone, we throw the shoe away— afraid that if we take the time to tie, we will be extinguished. Barefooted we blaze through brazen h and golden dreams. We sidestep former flames gone up in steam. In this liminal glow Yes, we radiate!

on the radio spoke about the sun. It turns out our favorite ball of burning hot nuclear fusion is in fact burning up. The sun, along with its countless celestial sisters, only has so much gas to give. The biggest stars— the brightest burners of the bunch— will be the first to burst before finally imploding on themselves. However, the smaller, more modest stars will defiantly dim in to a hardened, dark mass of molecules— and in the

Last night a deep-voiced scientist 23

ensuing entropy the overpass in Minneapolis, should it last, will display a new sentence

corroded concreate;

Wasn’t it great to have burned at all? scribbled

upon its

Emily Ryan Koning

Belief 24

Nate Riley

Berlin at night Lizzie Garvin

I, Eye. Aye Joschua Setiawan 25

ANOTHER YEAR GONE: ARE YOU STILL HEADING TOWARD HELL? Jake Porter For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned. – Matthew 12:37 someday somewhere in the gallery of the Middle American Gothic will be an exhibit on the most underappreciated of Bible-Belt poetic forms, the pithy roadside church sign: it became a game for you and me curating snapshots of such theological conundrums as “UR ETERNAL HOME: SMOKING OR NON?” or “JESUS IS COMING, R U READY?” and we didn’t mean to mock, didn’t mean to be the haughty liberal northerners but when Silver Creek Pentecostal proclaimed: “GOD SENT THE FIRST VALENTINE 26

WITH TWO BOARDS AND THREE NAILS” we couldn’t keep from giggling, and somewhere I still have the two scraps of lumber you nailed together and gave to me with a chocolate heart: holy relics of God’s shitty junior-high shop project. still, we couldn’t write it off as if there was nothing beautiful in “I LOVE YOU. YOU’RE FORGIVEN. COME HOME. – GOD” and wasn’t the spirit of the Lord somehow upon us that night when, driving back to our dry county (“ALCOHOL IS THE DEVIL’S WATER”) from a two-hour round-trip beer run, we worked out anagrams in ballpoint on a bar napkin, redeeming Deer Run Baptist Church’s January damnation. Our designated driver pulled over, and as the headlights flashed around us we stumbled like Saul to the roadside, threw the sliding letters down into the dust and arranged them, as we had written: “ANOTHER YEAR GONE: ARE YOU STILL HEALING THE WORLD?”

“You cannot make homes out of human beings / someone should have told you that already” Nora Felt a tall suffering beautiful woman whose soul was too much for her own two hands the bread of which she baked daily with hints of rosemary and mango and too often missed sunsets while lamenting within heart hallways the bread that she gave daily for others to eat, not because she wanted them to have good bread but because she did not know how to not feed the hungry hearts of others. And it was true that at times 28

it was too much to give her soul that it became costly but she had decided on the seashores of a landlocked home that the mountains inside her needed climbers and she would let anyone willing to attempt to summit in and sometimes they just stayed at basecamp and ate bread and sometimes they danced on the summit and sometimes they fell with avalanches caused by the earthquakes of the heart and sometimes they shook rocks loose and altered the geography of her heart and sometimes it was good and sometimes it hurt and sometimes she thought of putting up preservation signs that read “fragile nature, do not disturb” of closing down the rocky rivers flowing in her veins and saying loudly “no more” but she knew deep within her that mountains need climbers and humans need lovers and she would keep baking bread with rosemary and mango and she would watch more sunsets 29

and never stop saying “welcome” to fearful and the fearless to the broken and the whole to the mountain climbers.

to the late stranger at whose visitation I waited tables Jake Porter after the last mourners left we unbuttoned our formal servers’ uniforms (severe but understated, like hip undertakers) we gathered the last of the empty beer bottles and limes resting on the rocks in finished vodka tonics (this was a Celebration of Life, after all, not some dreadful wake) and we started to break down the buffet, pulling up the white linen shrouds laid on each of fifteen tables, stacking one hundred and thirty-five chairs in rows like cemetery stones (at least twice that many came, but no one was counting) and one of us ascended to the mezzanine to extinguish eighteen tea-light candles (even though no one went up there all evening, not even to look down like from heaven on the receiving line that stretched past the doors like the sound of a muffled dirge) dearly departed, we wondered aloud what to do with the pamphlets no one had taken home, In Loving Memory left behind 30

(it felt callous to throw them out, do you mind that we buried them in stacks in a storeroom?) we worked with quiet tact, not getting in anyone’s way, giving your family their space, trying our best to be silent as shadows (pardon my reach, pardon my vulgar presence here) but before I clocked out and went down to the bar to celebrate life, I stopped, dear absent guest, dear beloved stranger– I picked up the fallen petals around the podium, (“in case anyone wants to say a word or two”) turned off the microphone that no one had used, mopped my brow from the kleenex box left there untouched, said a prayer that no one but you heard, and listened as the humming lights fell silent with the flip of a switch

Pretty Patches Joschua Setiawan

Scars Jonathon Boyle The crisp, late-Autumn air had been intoxicating as Rin had climbed the back of the stands, and the argument was temporarily forgotten. Rin sat perched on the uppermost railing of the stands, enthralled. Her vantage point high at the back of the seats was the result of her late arrival - father had demanded she stay at the smithy early that morning to finish a commission. After exhausting diplomatic avenues in a spectacular shouting match, Rin had resorted to more practical means: outrunning her father was simple, given his decades-old war wound. If the 32

words that had chased Rin faster than her father’s hobble were anything to go by, she would pay for this with days in the workshop. The drama unfolding below was everything that had been promised. Songs of steel on steel followed inspiring soliloquies, and though the mages in the wings were visible from her vantage point, the fire and lightning they wielded for dramatic effect was captivating. Riveted, Rin watched until the final climactic encounter heralded the curtain at intermission. Thunder rolled and lightning flashed until the heavy cloth touched the stage. The roar of applause was immediate, but something felt wrong. The smell of smoke had not faded, but grown stronger. Over the roar of an entire town, a faint, rhythmic, sound met Rin’s ears. Turning to face the town for the first time in more than an hour, Rin saw what those below could not: towers of smoke, climbing past the rooftops and trees of Tomiro. At the base of each column within the city, orange light danced. The entire western half of the city was ablaze. Rin stood, rooted to the railing in disbelief. As the applause died down the clanging bells from the guard towers became clearly audible, hidden until then by the din onstage. A shout from within the crowd jolted Rin from slack jawed horror into frantic action. Her thoughts raced as she descended the stands, leaping twice her height to the ground. The smithy was on the North side of Tomiro. From her vantage point atop the stands, Rin saw the fire spreading towards her home. Father would be deep within the workshop, his hearing protected from work and warning alike. The flames would be upon the workshop before the smells and sounds of the fire reached him. Rin had to get to him. The players had set up on a the hill just outside the Western gate. Rin ran, heedless of the shouts that followed her, closing the distance between herself and the gates to the city. The face of her father was not among the torrent of fleeing townspeople. The noise was deafening there, a cacophony of of bells, parents shouting, and children screaming. Already the air at the Eastern gate was hazy and hot, the wind urging the fire closer, raining ash upon the fleeing townspeople. Rin shoved her way past the crowd and down a side street, rushing for home. The baker’s house was there and then gone, the smell of warm bread replaced by acrid smoke. In the alchemist's’ garden, a fine layer of soot had already settled, and the market’s dry wooden stalls were kindling for the rain of embers. Ignoring the glass crunching underfoot, Rin rounded a corner, only a few streets from home. A gust of searing wind filled her lungs and eyes with ash, and she doubled over, unable to 33

draw breath. After a moment of panicked coughing, her head snapped up once more, and she was in hell. The pale Autumn sun was hidden behind bulging clouds of smoke, and the street bathed in hideous orange light, the stage for an infernal dance. Flames sprung from wood as smoke billowed from flame. The roar of the fire deafened her, smothering all else as it gorged upon the homes before Rin. The workshop was around the corner, and Rin flew, faster than she thought possible, ignoring the protestations of her lungs and legs. She rounded the corner, a stone’s throw from home. At the end of the street, the workshop was nearly consumed; orange light slithered along the eaves as a crash sounded from inside. Her father’s cane rested before the door, abandoned. Desperation filled Rin with manic energy, and she surged forward into a nightmare. Time slowed as she saw the flames dancing upon the storehouse in back. It was filled with supplies for their trade: tools, charcoal, iron, sulfur, black powder. Cold dread sunk like a thousand stones in Rin’s gut. A raw shout tore from her throat as she lunged forward, but not fast enough. The stones are tar, pulling at her feet, keeping her from flying to the workshop like wind. All had gone silent but for the rush of blood in her ears and the sound of a voice behind her. Then sound. Earth-shattering, all consuming thunder. Orange and white and yellow blossomed from the storehouse as fire meets powder. Rin was weightless, blind and deaf to all but the howl of scorching wind tossing her as a child flings a doll. The weightlessness ended abruptly, and white hot pain seared through her back. She tumbled once, twice, thrice, and knew no more. Around the corner, a wiry guard regained his feet. The explosion that had prompted his dive into the gutter had been replaced by a pillar of flame taller than the trees he climbed as a boy. He coughed, and shielded his face from the ash and heat with a gauntleted arm. The girl he had chased from the gates had disappeared around the corner ahead seconds ago. Through the smoke, neither she, nor the corner were visible. The man turned for the gates, paused, then turned towards the corner around which the girl had vanished. Physical burns were nothing compared to an eternity of it if he abandoned his duty and left her for dead. Staggering forward, he tripped over a heavy wooden beam wreathed in flame as he peered through the smoke. Cursing, the guard moved forward, before noticing singed green cloth at his feet. Lying in a heap beneath the beam was the smith’s daughter. The man heaved the blasted piece of wood away and lifted Rin onto his shoulders and made for the gates once more. Outside, he laid her into the healers cart. The back of her tunic was burned and ragged where the flame 34

and flying wood had torn into her. She lived, but would bear these scars the rest of her life.

consumed Makeda Barkley

Fingers Like Ours Emma Schlabach The tree line in the distance is the barrier Between what is ours and what is not. See the fingers of the trees waver in the sky, Testing the forbidden. Look how the bright band of light 35

Fuses with swaying fingertips. A band of light that makes me think Those fingers are on fire, Just like ours. Don’t you wish that our fingertips would glow just as bright? We are running to the hilltops to Thrust our hands heavenward, Radiating into realms we were told to forget. Because when our voices grow weary from shouting into the beyond, Our fingertips will speak louder than our words ever could. From fingers to hands to arms to bodies to minds, We will burn. Don’t bother searching for the match, Because we are already aflame.

Music and Film Submissions Driftless I and II Jerimiah Schrick

Sostenuto Jamie Linert Nick-Mike Hentges Emma Deihl 36

The Oneota Review 2017