By Nicholas Dinielli
[Scene: nighttime; late, and dark. The buzz of the overhead street light is an incessantly ringing doorbell, the arrival of a thousand unsolicited guests who refuses to accept that no one is home, or, rather: those who are home refuse to answer.] Dried up baby's breath scatters across the table when windows open. Morning, glorious Flowers planted evenly - an unfurled, blooming, immobility. Frozen, with a lost Terror, unable to cope - Vernacular bricks, a responsibility of preservation. Sunny Afternoons - I once had something to do - and children played There. Great-grandpa had dreams: a tenement couldn't last, it wouldn't sustain - Grandpa turned to crime as a form of expression, never writing well - he could hardly sing, although he beat up the guys who crooned on corners. Daddy: the last hope - he would be the redeemer, the one to succeed. "Move him up, northbound where trees outnumber people" the teachers engaged his affinity for numbers - (came from bookies who taught him to bet when business was slow.) then, he crafted his own codes and built a desktop. I am left with this legacy of binary in my own new form. faded nostalgia: the potential energy lingers in silence. Inherited space, a story of love and loss - the heirloom; gold cross.

Read Issue 17