Geographies of New Mexico: a Dialogue– Spring Break, 2012

Poetry

By Ami Regier

I can feel the energy coming from the land.

This is where I bought parts for the truck.

There’s where I went rock crawling with the truck.

I didn’t get far from Myrtle Beach before breaking down on the side of the road.

Pointy toe cowboy boots are cockroach kickers because they go for the corner wham. New Mexico style is more the square toe.

This is the loop that we took coming back into Gallup from Zuni.

That’s a 550. It’s like a ton and a half.

That was a Charger. You can tell by the taillights.

Miata.

That’s a pretty Road King.

I drove my truck on top of that hill of caves and areas where squatters, homeless, partiers, trashburners were, where we went stargazing last night. Homeless may be living in the cliffdwellings now. See the stuffed teddy bear, a shoe.

Warning, the sign appears to say: proposing marriage in Canyon de Chelly may make you lightheaded.

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Homonyms: Extremely Confusing, Yet Absolutely Amusing

Photography

By Audra Miller

A Demonstration of Humanity

Personal Essays

By Claire Kohen

What more human an event than to weep?

A demonstration of the physiological and spiritual body as one.
Each taking turns determining the individual purpose of an outside stimulus.

Our conscious minds seem to believe in a symbiotic relationship between tears and despair, when, in fact, there is a tear for every occasion.
Sometimes one must weep when finding peace in the solitude of a sleepless night. Sometimes one must weep when experiencing the world and its need for chaos.
Sometimes a tear is present when there is no reason.
You don’t have to know why you cry, just know that it’s natural. Organic.

When you see someone cry, don’t mechanically comfort them or neglect to gaze upon their face. Don’t say in that syrupy-sweet but almost superior tone, “oh honey, everything will be alright,” and hand them a tissue. Look them in the eyes, through that precipitation of truth, and tell them that they are beautiful when they weep.

When you cry, don’t hide your tears in embarrassment or shame. Be faithful to your physiological and spiritual body and cry when it tells you to. Cry in the supermarket while picking an apple from the produce section. The people may look at you funny, but the vegetables will most likely join in your tears. Cry while walking in the woods alone. The rabbits probably won’t come up and give you a hug, but chances are the birds will add a melody to your performance of emotion. Cry anywhere. Anytime. Do not apologize. Own your tears, for they are the very essence of what makes you you. What makes you human. And that is beautiful.

Black and White Photography

Photography

By Lukas Butkus

The Trouble with Life Enrichment Is

Short Stories

By Marike Stucky

She looked at me as if to say, “Well duh, you little shit.”

I had asked this woman sitting on the curb, whose face was like a dried apricot—all orange and crinkly—if anyone was home at this time of day. Of course someone was home. This home was always occupied. The smoke drifting up from the woman’s cigarette seared my nostrils—I’m allergic to cigarette smoke—and drove me to action. I turned from the apricot woman and jogged up the steps leading to the house. Door. Handle. Open.

“Hello?” I asked into the dismal entryway of house number 314. There was a staircase filling the space to my right; a living room devoid of the living on my left. A few potted plants dotted the living room—they had long past died. There were some squashy arm chairs in there, all with horrible floral prints. I was standing in the foyer. I’d left footprints in the dust as I had traipsed in.

“Uh, Madge? You in here?”

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