Red Clay

2006·3.3 MB·English

SWEETBRIARCOLLEGE
3 2449 0473214 7
Red Clay
2006
Spring
"V
i
Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2010 with funding from
Lyrasis Members and Sloan Foundation
http://www.archive.org/details/redclay2006unse

CoverArt by SarahAnsani, "Close pin"
Red Clay
Spring 2006
Editor-in-Chief
Colleen Karaffa
Managing Editor
Kelsey Dellaporte
Stajf
Brandon Agnew
Sarah Ansani
Shavonne Clarke
Kathryn Crittenden
Angelica Guarino
Ginny Lightfoot
Julia Lockwood
Amber Lubeck
Laura Schaefer
LauraTanner
Julia Patt
Celeste Wackenhut
Art Editors
Kerry Buxton
KimWadelton
FacultyAdvisor
John Gregory Brown
Publishedby the studentsofSweetBriarCollege inVirginia.
Allworksremainthe propertyofthe author/artist.
Copyright 2006.
Printedby PIPPrinting. Lynchburg,Virginia.
SpecialthankstoMiriamChoiforherpublication advice andtothefaculty members
whousedtheircharismatic persuasiontohelpusgathersubmissions.

TABLE OF
CONTENTS
Poetrv
Jessica Baker Not a Place 1
Sarah Ansani One Last Time 8
Jessica Baker Japanese Beetles 19
Colleen Karaffa She Never Smells Like Rose 30
Brandon Agnew Letter to My Future Lover 38
Julia Patt Distance 40
Angelica Guarino Alive Again 41
Brandon Agnew Thoughts on Impending Death 54
Colleen Karaffa My Sister 80
Elizabeth Zuckerman The Thinker's Manifesto 94
Non-Fiction
Miriam Choi A Tint ofYellow 20
Colleen Karaffa Coming Back 44
Katherine Beach Closing 64
Fiction
Julia Patt Our Eulogy to the Grafitti Tree 10
Samantha Heckert Five Minutes 31
Ginny Lightfoot Wings 57
Julia Patt Insufficient Postage 82
Samantha Heckert Dem Bones 85
Ruth Mesfun Danausplexippus 91
Art,
Sarah Ansani Indian Sunflower 18
Cara Cherry Untitled 37
Jadrienne Brown Graveyard 39
Karliana Sakas Closed 43
Angelica Guarino ItAll Goes So Quickly 56
Karliana Sakas Horse Park 63
Jessica Cornelison In the Eyes ofAngels 84
Lynnsey Kraus Untitled 90
Michelle Degnin StillLife 93

Jessica Baker
Not a Place
I live here, in dorm room 331,
Where tigers and Chinese dragons
Hang on the wall, facing a dreamcatcher
Beside dried flowers that sit next to a
Basil plant that keeps losing leaves
Underneath a hammock - hung from the AC -
That represents my hope ofone day
Having a place to use it;
Where my mini fridge hums at 4 am
Until it wakes me up, alone,
Without even a snoring roommate.
I also live 3 hours north and a bit east,
Where my once-blue room is now green,
On the floor above the kitchen
Where my smiling dog begs perpetually
For food from my mother
But runs barking when a child
rings our doorbell and asks
For my sister, who stole my place
At the computer with the L-shaped desk.
But neither ofthese places are my home.
Home happens when Fm lying down
On my friend's rug with a pillow, and I have
A Fm
book that not really reading because
Fm
listening to the sound ofher typing.
Sarah Ansani
One Last Time
Nearly sixty, Buk is a simple man
waking dry as gin at 2:36pm. He drinks flat beer
as the sultry hips ofMarilyn Monroe
curve beyond the edges ofthe frame
on his wall. "She speaks to me," he says
to the naked broad spread out like Jesus on his bed.
"Am I more thanjust another stain on your bed?"
the broad named Bonnie asks. Buk guesses a real man
would blame the stains on love. Instead, he says,
"No, no. You'rejust another babe full ofbeer."
Somewhere a dusty piano displays the framed
photo ofBonnie, as blond as fame, like Marilyn Monroe.
Bonnie is envious ofMarilyn Monroe.
Closing her legs and mouth, she rises from bed
like a heavyjazz. The piano's dazzling frame
never creaked beneath the weight ofthis sensual woman
who sang "Happy Birthday" to men full ofbeer.
She puckers her lips, squints and says,
"It's not woman but womb that man craves." Buk says,
"No," to the scattered clothes, to Marilyn Monroe,
who sighs and shifts on a wall the color ofbeer.
"We crave voluptuous vices that lead us to beds
ofblankets or dirt—it's the same for all men,"
Buk replies as he winks at the vixen crawling from her frame,
legs first, followed by hips. Bonnie stares past the window frame.
Sometimes there is nothing more that needs to be said.
Bonnie thinks ofher husband, a respectable man
hunched over stiffened piano keys, as Marilyn Monroe,
8