By Amelia Liang

This is my drunk sestina.

I have to be drunk

to write anything of quality

or something like it. This blank page

is so terrifying. I’m glad for the drink

because otherwise I would write nothing

at all. I would think nothing

of myself, I wouldn’t be able to write this sestina

and now, with the drink

I’m uninhibited and a thousand thoughts come to mind and they, too, make me drunk

and full is the page

or half-full. I think of the quality,

the texture of your thighs, the qualities

you liked in me, now nothing

is coming to me with the tequila on the page

and unfinished is my sestina

despite all the images of your thighs and the curve of your hands, these make me drunk

in images of your breasts, your lips when you drink

lemonade, Belgian beer of quality

and you, off of nights on the porch, were drunk

of my lips on your knee, of moths in the light, of unnamed constellations, of nothing

these thoughts, these images make this sestina

on this no longer blank page

this filled page, a sheet, a page

of our history, we used to drink

together, not thinking of sestinas,

sonnets, equations, nail polish, just of the quality

of the beer, or wine, of nothing

and I, for one, would get drunk

off of the beauty of your face, our words, our silence, drunk

off of my words written on the pages

of my composition notebook, nothing

extraordinary, just a sip of the drink

you handed me on the porch, with those shadows under your cheekbones, something in that quality

of yours made me think, made me want to write this sestina.

And now I’m thoroughly drunk, writing your simple sestina

on this page, trying to create something of quality

and it isn’t nothing, but it’s just a drunk sestina. Hallelujah.

I’d really like to go down on your daughter, says I.

You could go down on her, says she, but you live so far away. She might expect this sort of thing all the time, and I don’t want you to disappoint. So you’ll have to move.

If I have to move to go down on your daughter, says I, I will move.

So I pack my things, go through the classifieds, visit, talk, end up getting a studio for $300 a month plus utilities just two blocks away from that gorgeous cunt.

I knock on the door.
I’d really like to go down on your daughter, says I.

You could go down on her, says she, but now is not a good time. You see, we didn’t tell you before, but now we’re in the witness protection program hiding from a fugitive who wants to kill us. We just found out that he has moved here, quiet near, and it worries us. You’d have to kill this man before you could go down on my daughter.

All right, says I, where can I find this man?

He lives just across the street, says she. I believe you actually know him.

I go across the street and knock on the door.

You are getting in the way of me getting ass, says I, so I’m going to have to kill you.

All right, says the man, I’m tired of life anyways.

The man gives me a gun and I shoot him and I re-cross the street and knock on the door.

I killed the man, says I. Now may I go down on your daughter?

I’d love to say yes, says she, but she’s most terribly upset. You see, she has just found out that her father, the astronaut, is not bringing back a moon rock for her. He says it’s too hard. He’s been telling her he’d get her one ever since she was a young girl, and now that it’s not happening, well, you understand how it might upset her. You’d have to get my daughter a moon rock before going down on her.

All right, says I, I’ll be back in a bit.

I go to the bookstore and I buy a bunch of books and I educate myself in physics. I build myself a rocket in my basement and I go to the moon and I get a rock and I put it in a little blue tin box and I bring it back. I knock on the door.

I got the moon rock, says I. Could I see your daughter?

She’s not in, says she, she’s out with some friends. But she should be back soon. I know you haven’t seen her in a while, would you like to sit and wait for her?

Yes, says I.

Would you like some lemonade or egg nog? says she.

No thank you, says I.

We wait for hours and it gets dark outside. Then there’s a phone call and she starts to cry.

What happened? says I.

She fell off a bridge and drowned, says she.

Which bridge? says I.

The bridge just outside of town, says she.

I walk to the bridge just outside of town with the little blue tin box with the moon rock inside in my pocket. It takes me a while because it is far away. When I get there I jump off the bridge. I am a very good diver because I was on the diving team in high school.

The water is cold and it is dark, but I find her.

Hello, says I.

Hello, says she.

It’s been a while, says I.

So it has, says she. She looks up to the surface of the water before saying, I heard that you moved for me, and that you killed a man for me and that you went to the moon for me.

I did, says I. I brought you back your moon rock. I take out the little blue tin box with the moon rock inside and give it to her. She opens it.

I know it doesn’t mean as much coming from me as it would from your father, says I, but I really wanted you to have it.

You’re right, says she, but it’s still very nice. I will carry it with me always.

Then she takes my hand and pulls me to her and kisses me very profoundly with her hand holding the back of my head. We take all our clothes off and I go down on her and she tastes really nice.

After it’s all over she says, well you’ve gone down on me.

Yes, I have, says I. Did you like it?

Yes, says she. Did you?

Yes, says I. What do we do now?

Well, says she, it’s getting very late, so you should go home. But visit me every once in a while, in a great while, and we’ll touch each other for a time down here in the cold and the dark. I’m sorry it had to turn out this way, but there’s nothing to be done.

I swim to the surface and walk home in the dark. It’s Christmas Eve and the lights are on the houses. It seems to me that there’s no one in them. There is no one in the street.

By Amelia Liang

Watching protesters on fifth and yamhill

on the good side of the river (not tracks)

I was struck by the unity of the crowd so earnest in the
sun, chanting,

holding signs with a grip more determined than that of a
prostitute

with a limp dick in her hand and rent to pay.

And I was brought back to the first political party

I was ever coerced into joining at age eight

when Samantha Ward, blonde, tiny and mean

captain of the kickball team, chose me to be on team red.

I remember being grateful for not being picked last

as I skipped over to the right side of the gym

(and it was, I was assured, the RIGHT side of the gym).

That’s where it all started.

So here I was again, on fifth and yamhill doing the same
thing

except this time it was team blue and there was yelling and
clever slogans and spliffs and thrill seekers and earnest dread-locked youth
with their predictable A in a circle

not A for antelope or aardvark A FOR ANARCHY!

and their As were in red, even though they erred on team
blue

if they had to and I know a good portion of them were hoping
to get arrested

and there was a good amount of contempt

for those who didn’t know that affluence was a sin but who
knew maybe we could save them from their happiness of golden crosses resting
between virginal breasts and we were all there

And there were bloody pictures of dead babies

and pictures of dead grown-ups and pictures of dead animals

and pictures of dead soldiers and lots and lots of smoke

and the police formed a line along a street and their horses
were shitting these wonderful pungent mounds all over the brick and that was
funny but yes we were all there

And I’m sure the communal sense of joy and euphoria was not
due

to the fact that we were making headway for the CAUSE because
let’s call a spade a spade we weren’t but because everyone was thinking

or at least realized in some way that in ten twenty thirty
forty

fifty sixty seventy eighty years

they would be in some stream-lined hospital dying

and even if they died alone childless loveless real-lifeless

they could think back to this present moment when they were part of something bigger
than themselves and say to themselves I did something I was there yes we were
all there

And we were all striving for this purity not racial

DEFINITELY not racial

but this purity in the sense that if this were a perfect
world

we’d be able to stand around in a circle and hold hands

because when you’re holding hands you can’t make a fist

and there was a lot of really earnest talk about the right
way to love

we’d be living in a perfect society

and no woman would shave her legs

and yeah there was a lot of that kind of sentiment going
around

in some form or another and we’d like to believe

that we were all on the same page that there was absolutely

no variation yes we were all there

we were all there

the lovers the haters the love to haters,

so close

together

as no two people should be,

thousands (or hundreds)

withnospaceatall

and enough energy to bomb Hiroshima

if you split us apart.

Amelia Liang is a Junior English Creative Writing major at Kalamazoo College. She is currently studying abroad in Dakar, Senegal.