by Chamber Four
I ordered a soy burger with extra pickles & a Sprite.
Suzie said, “See, you were just hungry.”
The doom waitress gave us our check & I burst
into laughter.
Suzie took my hand & we headed back
to our trusty Toyota. The cornstalk seat covers
made me itchy, but I could transcend time & space
in that little automobile.
Si, soy un bandido.
The hula dancer nodded in agreement,
& though she was burnt by the sun, she shook
her hips for us as we made for the desert.
The Accoutrements
By Robert Spiegel
This darkness has its own flavor,
a way of sifting through everything
that happened: each new baby
and all the accoutrements. Love and sky
of no help. When they married, everything
was pink and blue. First they were
her babies, then they were his babies.
Finally the stars entered the house.
You can watch them rise and fall.
No wonder it takes a life of song and folly.
Sometimes you can hardly breathe your way
in. Watching how it swells and fills the air.
By the time it was done, there wasn’t much
left—just a couple of nods while passing.
About the authors
Tunji Ajibade is a Communications Consultant and Literary Administrator. He lives in Abuja, Nigeria. He has published short stories, dramas and children stories—many of which have either been nominated, or won national literary awards. His short stories have been serially published online, in newspapers and journals such as Conte, Cyclamens, and Swords, as well as Untamed Ink.
David S. Atkinson received his MFA in writing from the University of Nebraska. His stories have appeared in (and/or are soon to be appearing in) Gray Sparrow, Children Churches and Daddies, Split Quarterly, Cannoli Pie, C4: The Chamber Four Lit Mag, Brave Blue Mice, Atticus Review, and Fine Lines. His book reviews have appeared in Gently Read Literature, The Rumpus, and All Things Pankish. The web site dedicated to his writing can be found at davidsatkinsonwriting.com. He currently serves as a reader for Gray Sparrow and in his non-literary time he works as a patent attorney in Denver.
Daniel Aristi was born in Spain in 1971—thus he is 40, and trying to get to grips with this fact. He has lived and worked in places such as Indonesia, Belgium, Bolivia and Bosnia, and is now in Botswana with his wife, Reshma, and their daughter, little Ria. Daniel writes whenever Ria goes to sleep. His work is forthcoming in The Mas Tequila Review and The Floorboard Review.
Neil Carpathios is the author of three full-length poetry collections: Playground of Flesh (Main Street Rag Press), At the Axis of Imponderables (winner of the Quercus Review Press Book Award), and Beyond the Bones (FutureCycle Press). He teaches and is Coordinator of Creative Writing at Shawnee State University in Portsmouth, Ohio.
Heather Elliott recently completed her MFA in Creative Writing at Minnesota State University, Mankato. Currently she’s back in her home state of Wisconsin, writing, adjusting to the world of work and plotting trips abroad.
Samantha Ten Eyck is an MFA student at Minnesota State University, Mankato. She studied screenwriting and creative writing at New York University, and is, lately, writing a lot of poetry.
Abigail Grindle graduated from Ball State University with a BA in Telecommunications. She likes to write fiction, read nonfiction, drink Dr. Pepper, and dance around like she’s being electrocuted. You can read her most recent work in Anatomy, (nano)Spector, and Prime Mincer.
Eliza Horn is from Cincinnati, OH. She has recently driven across the country to attend Arizona State University’s MFA program in fiction.
Hairee Lee’s fiction appears or is forthcoming in Medulla Review, Fractured West, Every Writer’s Resource, and Existere. Born in Seoul and raised in Toronto, she earned her creative writing MFA at Emerson College. Before pursuing graduate studies, she taught high school chemistry in London.
Christopher Linforth is the editor of The Anthem Guide to Short Fiction (Anthem Press, 2011). He also has work published in Denver Quarterly, Chicago Quarterly Review, Camas, RipRap, Permafrost, and other literary journals. He maintains a website at christopherlinforth.wordpress.com.
Ben Miller’s work has appeared in Best American Essays, and is forthcoming this fall in The Southwest Review and The Normal School. His awards include a creative writing fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. River Bend Album, a collection of essays exploring the urban Midwest, is forthcoming from Lookout Books in 2012.
A native of southern Wisconsin, Jason Newport is pursuing an MFA in creative writing at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. His short fiction has appeared in moonShine review, Zero Ducats, Constellation, and Potomac Review. His nonfiction has appeared in Chautauqua. He is currently working on a novel.
Tracy Hayes Odena received a BA in English from Southern Illinois University and an MFA in fiction writing from Columbia College Chicago. Her work has appeared in Hair Trigger 21, So to Speak: A Feminist Journal of Language and Art, and Gazelle Poets Anthology: Volume One. She is obsessed with clotheslines and is currently on the billionth rewrite of her first novel, Love’s Laundry. She lives in Illinois.
Kate Ruebenson graduated from Skidmore College in May 2011 with a BA in English Literature. She received honors on her senior capstone, a portfolio comprised of 20 pages of poetry. She has been published in Hanging Loose Press and Vantage Point. She has also participated in spoken word slams and readings at the Nuyorican Poet’s Cafe, Brooklyn Academy of Music, The Poetry Society (The Poetry Cafe, London), and The Bowery Poetry Club. She is currently living in Oakland, California while tutoring with 826 Valencia and applying to MFA programs in poetry.
Derold Sligh currently lives in the Detroit Metro area. He just recently returned to the U.S. from a year in Seoul, South Korea. He received a BA and MA from Central Michigan University and an MFA from San Diego State University. His collection of poems, titled American Still Life, was published in 2010 by Pudding House Press. His poetry has appeared in journals such as American Poetry Journal, Mythium, Konundrum Engine, Status Hat, and Central Review. He has taught creative writing workshops for San Diego State University, Gear Up and King/Chavez/Parks and was also a guest poet at the Theodore Roethke Memorial where he ran a workshop for African American fathers and sons.
Ron Spalletta is the recipient of a professional development grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Council and is a founding member of the Kitchen Table Poets in Boston, Massachusetts. He has previously been published in Slate and has been an author on papers in Fire Technology and the Polish Journal of Microbiology.
Robert Spiegel is a journalist who lives in New Mexico with kids who come and go and a border collie who stays. As well as writing poems, stories and plays, he has learned how to write about himself in third person. Sometimes he thinks he’s clever, but that passes fairly quickly. He’s not.
Airship ZPG-2 flew the last mission of the Navy’s lighter-than-air dirigible program the day Ed Tato was born. Felix The Cat and Friends, hosted by “Uncle Fred” Scott, broadcast for the last time, and pitcher Mutt Wilson died that same curious day. Ed’s been mourning ever since.
Joyce Tomlinson lives at the foot of the Cascade Mountains in Snoqualmie, Washington with her husband Gary and two dogs. After raising four kids she went back to school and earned her BA in Arts & Literature at Antioch University Seattle. In January she’ll enter the MFA program in Creative Non-Fiction at Pacific University in Oregon.
After growing up in Oakland and studying literature in Portland, Joshua Willey moved to China and commenced working a perennial series of day jobs. He’s currently shopping a novel about homelessness, and writing a novel about home.
David Williamson works in the shipping industry and lives with his wife and son in Virginia Beach. He
holds an MFA in fiction from Old Dominion University and has served on the editorial staff for The Florida Review and The Barely South Review. His screenplay Colby won the 2010 Virginia Screenwriting Competition. David is currently working on his first novel for middle grade readers.
About the publisher
Chamber Four is a resource for readers, dedicated to making reading more enjoyable and more rewarding. We feature essays about books, reading, the publishing industry, and ereader technology, and we highlight great reads in any medium and any genre. You can find us at ChamberFour.com, or email us at [email protected]. Chamber Four and ChamberFour.com are owned and operated by Chamber Four LLC (our lawyer makes us say that), and based in Cambridge, MA.
