The following are sample writings from the Spring

The following are sample writings from the Spring, 2002 issue of South Dakota Review.

Literary or Not: Transformative Boundaries, Lee Ann Roripaugh Poem: Strategies for Turning Away, Daniel Tobin

Story: Not as Thin But More Tangible, Bill Helfman

LEE ANN RORIPAUGH
TRANSFORMATIVE BOUNDARIES

Some days I fantasize about becoming an entomologist. I am a woman who loves insects, and last summer I finally began collecting mounted specimens, which now splash the walls of my little cottage on Elm Street with flurried bits of color, wing, shell, antennae, and tail. On one living-room wall there are South American Rainforest insects—a fierce Rhinoceros Beetle, chrome-plated Jewel Beetles, enormous cicadas with art deco window-paned wings, a four-inch beady-eyed twig insect, and a gigantic Harlequin Beetle whose intricately patterned pink-and-black lacquered shell looks like cloisonné. On the opposite wall, I also have a frame of South American lepidoptera—set in double-sided glass so that one can see both recto and verso sides. Inside, a shimmering metallic blue Morpho Butterfly with velvety brown eyespots on the undersides of its wings, and a variety of small, brilliantly-colored Callicores with dizzying figure-eight patterns on their hind wings. Perhaps my favorites, though, are the moths—particularly the silk moths, Saturnidae, with their plump bodies, feathery antennae, and beautiful wings that look as if they have been painted by hand. There is a marigold-yellow Comet Moth, Argema Mittrei, with rust-colored spots and extravagant six-inch plumes trailing off the ends of its hind wings; a pair of East Indian Moon Moths, Actias Selene—palest, creamiest green, with tulip-pink markings and fat, white furry bodies banded with a single maroon stripe; an American Io moth, Automeris Io, with mysterious dark eyes and buttery wings speckled in lavender; the Golden Emperor Moth, Katinka Lopei, with wings like a Mandarin yellow silk kimono, artfully embroidered with purple, pink, and magenta flourishes; and the largest moth in the world, the Japanese Yonaguni Moth, respectfully referred to as Yonaguni-san, whose eleven-inch wing spread is tinted in elegantly muted tones of gray, cream, brown, and pale blue. Soon, the weather will be warm enough that I can sit on my front stoop and watch the insects outside—fireflies, dragonflies, centipedes, Black Swallowtails, Monarch Butterflies, or perhaps the occasional Sphinx Moth that I sometimes mistake for a hummingbird.

I suppose that one of the things that fascinates me most about insects is their penchant for transformation—their ability to repeatedly transcend the boundaries of their old bodies, their old selves, so fearlessly and easily in order to become something marvelously strange and different. What I'm speaking of here is not, in fact, the women's magazine allure of the makeover, because it is not so much the after of the transformation that intrigues me—I find the before equally compelling—but, rather, the morphological crossing of boundaries. And there is something deliciously transgressive, something subversively expansive, I think, about these transformations, these boundary crossings. I recently acquired a web cam, which came with a variety of software that allowed me to edit and manipulate my digital images. One program in particular, called Funhouse, lets me replace a face in a pre-existing photographic image with my own. Fascinated, I spent an entire day decapitating my own head and repeatedly inserting it into different images to "try on" different identities—astronaut (a childhood dream!), roller derby queen (yet another childhood aspiration!), flapper bride, Victorian groom, champion boxer, and 1950's Muscle Beach beauty queen, to name just a few. Digitally costuming and cross-dressing myself, I was mutable and transcendent, and the possibilities seemed endless. Perhaps it is this same love of boundary crossing, of transformation and transcendence, that I love about writing and literature. Is it presumptuous to suggest that any sort of boundary crossing, whether literal or metaphorical, points to a concomitant shift in identity, a change in selfhood, however small? And would it also be presumptuous to suggest that to enter the realm of a poem, a story, a book, is a form of boundary crossing as well, that similarly carries a transformative potential? Many of the poems, stories, and essays in this spring issue of South Dakota Review explore themes of boundaries, boundary crossings, and transformative shifts in identities and selves. These boundaries and boundary crossings are literal and metaphorical, emotional and psychological, imaginary and intellectual. The boundaries represented in these works delineate gardens, properties, houses and rooms, genders, psychological landscapes, past from present, childhood from adulthood, the real from the ideal, as well as the living from the dead.

In only a matter of weeks, the first fireflies of the season will start to appear, and I'll be able to drive to the southeast side of Vermillion, where a grassy bank and small grove of trees lead down to the river—a place locals refer to as Lightning Bug Alley. The fireflies like it here, near the water. Having undergone a metamorphosis from softly glowing eggs, to glow-worm larvae that feed on the tender flesh of snails, to the adult flying beetles that now congregate here to mate, they flicker, flush, and pulse from dusk to midnight. Even though I'm always unsure of whether or not I'm trespassing (perhaps it doesn’t really matter to me), I like to walk halfway down to the river and stretch out on the grass to watch the fireflies. I give myself up to the night, and the air around me sizzles with a cascade of bioluminescent sparks. Sometimes there is a flash of lightning, and all of the fireflies will flash at once, in unison, like the simultaneous blinking of hundreds of tiny, phosphorescent eyes. And it is breathtaking. Simply breathtaking.

DANIEL TOBIN

STRATEGIES FOR TURNING AWAY

Morning. He nuzzles more deeply

into the pillow. White. White.

This is the first strategy,

to make of his face a stone,

worm's shelter, shelter of earth.

Already its heaviness prints the ground.

As he drives to work he envies

the pavement's infinite patience,

how it accepts anything—

traffic's incessant swish and moan,

blown tires, oil slicks, skid tracks,

a dead dog's mash of blood

and fur, earth's indifference

working up through the cracks,

the steamroller's slow, suffocating press.

Outside his office window

the lake churns like new cement,

each swift upsurge over the berm

a fanfare of spray slapping rock.

Like a writ that surfaces

years after it's composed,

he remembers how, in Eckhart,

the heart devises

out of its own earthly needs

strategies for turning away

from what it most desires—

the divine names inscribed

like a code through all things:

"light," and "good" and "beautiful."

And, welling at the bottom

of the self s dull pool, "ecstasy."

Once in a museum he saw a mask,

fierce visage of a god the man

who wore it would become amidst

dances, chants—an alchemy of words.

Though it's wrong to say the man

became the god and ceased

to be himself: who danced

in that distant village was a God-Man.

As in Goya where the colossus,

all gaping mouth and eyes,

tears through its own son's flesh

as through a smaller version of itself

so he pictures himself holding

the child he was in his hands,

its scream disappeared in echoes of ink,

the ripped-open body gnawed like a sleeve.

The evening news with its rattle-bag

of horrors, litanies of pain—

he always turns away,

flicks to another station

where a stunned man shambles

between mirrors, his likeness

a paper cut-out unfolded to infinity

so it's impossible to say

which is image, which is real.

He loves that film, how in the end

the camera pans over the warehouse,

vast jigsaw, until it lingers

on the beloved: discarded

childhood sleigh, the one piece

that would complete the puzzle.

That's when he realizes

the viewer is like the dead

who see everything whole,

his own life a whispered name

drifting like smoke above the furnace.

Bill Helfman

NOT AS THIN BUT MORE TANGIBLE

There is your smile; the freckles on your high cheek bones; your dark, kind eyes. There is your slender waist, smooth skin, and the way the soft nape of your neck feels on my lips. There is the pleasure in your voice whenever I call. There is the story you tell about your dad never accepting Father's Day presents, and how one year you give him cash instead, which in turn he spends on a gift for you. There is the fact that you have no butt, just like me. There is meeting your five year old daughter in the park, waiting for the library to open; your daughter playing with my dog while we sit on a redwood bench, by a garden of blue irises, sharing egg McMuffins and coffee lattes. There is our first kiss on Valentine's Day in a booth in the cafeteria at work, tentative at first, then not. There is the fact that you don't think you are beautiful but you are. There is your inability to be anything but polite. There is walking with you outside work, side by side, so close that our shoulders touch. There is wanting to keep moving straight ahead, instead of walking in circles. There is your call every afternoon with weather reports that always have more to do with mood than climate. There is the way that your beige ribbed sweater clings to your body, and the fact you hardly ever wear fingernail polish but always paint your toes. There is kissing you on the empty elevator right before you get off at your floor. There is sitting with you under the shade of a tall palm, blanket spread, ready with board games and refreshments, needing neither. There is the feeling with certainty that we must have known each other in a former life, having never before believed in reincarnation.

There is your husband. There is never seeing you on weekends. There is not having your home phone number. There is your indecision. There is you telling me at first that you are separated. There is calling your message at work on weekends just to hear your voice. There is waiting for your call on Saturday morning and talking until your kids wake. There is the time your sister arrives unexpectedly and you rush me in whispers off the phone. There is your own late night call to me, just to hear my voice. There is cooking extra and taking it in for you on Mondays. There is your believing you have no other choice. There is no arguing with you. There is you taking him back instead of taking me.

On my way to meet you and your daughter at the library, I circle the block for parking and settle on a spot in front of a two‑story townhouse. It's brand new, painted sky blue; complete with a white picket fence and trailing multicolored roses. I could live here, I think, with you and your kids. My own daughter, now grown, would visit on holidays, bringing brightly wrapped presents tied with handsome ribbons and bows. We'd plant a vegetable garden with three kinds of tomatoes, chili peppers, yellow squash, and cilantro.

I walk toward the library, and notice a battered pickup with a camper shell. The truck is stopped in the middle of the street, arched part way into a parking space, the driver's elbow sticking out the window. A tired‑looking woman, in a faded flowery house dress and soiled white slippers, stands on the sidewalk, talking the driver through the logistics of parallel parking, into what is a space with plenty of room. The man behind the wheel, probably her husband, doesn't seem to be listening, and is staring out in front of him, toward the open road.

"I'm in the white lines," he says, clearly not, as he turns toward the woman, backing up for probably the umpteenth time, "and you can kiss my ass."

There is advice from my friend, Stuart. This is a man who refuses to go longer than forty‑eight hours without sex, even if it means last minute trips to Costco, scavenging the aisles. Stuart has been seeing a married woman, once a week for years, because, as he explains it, they are the same, just opposites, both incredibly oral people; and he's not talking communication here. Stuart tells me to sleep with you and to do it now. There is considering the source.

There is having your complete trust when we're alone in my house; you knowing I'd never go anywhere uninvited. There is wishing I was less trustworthy. There is my dog barking incessantly every time we hug, with no bribe of food or rawhide stopping him. There is lying in bed, my dog bumped to the floor and growling; conjuring your presence, settling for lovemaking in the abstract; not as good as the real thing, but having the advantage of being perfect every time.

We are sitting outside my house, at a white oval plastic table covered with a blue checkered table cloth. In the middle of the table, two cut roses, blood red, sit in a ceramic vase half-filled with water. We have to be back at work in half an hour. I've cooked you a quick omelet for lunch; the smoked salmon, sour cream, and dill filling oozes out the sides.

"Delicious," you say.

"I would ask you to marry me," I tell you.

You say nothing, stare at the plate, cutting a small piece of the omelet with your fork, rolling it in sour cream.

"I don't say anything I don't mean;" I say.

"I know," you say, still not looking up.

"Do you love me?" I ask.

"Don't make me answer that;" you say, and I don't.

"Toast?" I say instead, passing you a slice of Jewish rye.

The sun is hot and bright, and you take off your jean jacket. You're wearing a sleeveless blue satiny top. It takes all my self‑control to keep from reaching over to touch you; to take you in my arms and hug tight. My dog, tied at the porch, has enough rope to make it to the table, and sits on the ground beside you, barking, waiting for crumbs.

There is reminding myself about your husband. There is deciding he must have made the mistake husbands do. In the throes of a mid‑life fit, he lets his eyes, then his penis, wander. From the school of one strike and you're out, you take the kids and move forty miles and six cities away. He spends the next two years making amends until you relent; not because you trust him again but because your children want to be with their daddy.

There is imagining that he smokes; that you don't allow it in the house, and that he fills the patio with cigarettes smoked down to the butts. There is imagining that he has a pencil thin mustache, a receding hairline, the beginnings of a pot belly from daily beer. He drinks out of cans that he crushes with an electric compacter and then stores on the patio in large green garbage bags, which he cashes in bimonthly; keeping the proceeds in a cream‑colored ceramic pig on your living room fireplace mantel, the start of a college savings for your kids.

There is imagining that he doesn't talk, but that he treats you kindly, that he loves his daughters more than anything, that he works hard, and that he still loves you; although you can't say the same about still loving him. There is imagining you sleeping side by side, and him reaching over to touch you, and you lie, motionless, providing neither an invitation nor a rebuke. The sex is not good, but not bad either, and afterwards, for sometime, you think about what it would be like with me.

"I get a headache every evening," you tell me, "and by morning it's gone."

We're talking on the phone. It's Saturday. Your husband is out and kids still asleep.

"Classic," I say. "You're tormented."

"Maybe it's just a headache;" you say.

"Do we have any chance at all?" I ask.

"I can't see the future;" you say, hedging your bets.

"Why not?" I say, needing a prediction, even if it turns out wrong.

Back at work on Monday, we drive at lunch to a nearby park. We walk along a windy cobblestone path, under a long redwood arbor covered by purple wisteria intertwined with pale yellow banksia roses, that bloom in unison every spring. We hold hands as we walk. The path dead ends at the outside of a padlocked wrought iron gate, the other side of which is a garden with more than a dozen carefully tended rows of nothing but roses; a bright splash of rainbow colors set on a carpet of lush green lawn.

"Just like us," I say.

"How do you mean?" you say.

"We're on the outside looking in," I say.

"That's because the gate is locked," you say.

"Exactly," I say.

There is remembering how my own marriage ended with the help of another man. There is wanting you to know how it ended, so that you can remind me not to play that other man role in yours.

The morning my marriage ended, I approached my wife, kissing the nape of her neck from behind, not sure why; maybe it was the time of day, the hazy stream of morning light muting harsh realities, or simply the need for human contact. She responded by pushing her neck back into my lips, maybe for the same reasons.

It was unusual for either of us to be home in the middle of the day. Normally I would be at work, Sara at classes. When I approached her, she was at the vanity, combing her hair. And when she responded without cringing to my touch, I reached down with my hands, still kissing her neck, tracing the contours of her jeans. We made love right there, standing, half‑dressed, never making it to the bed.

When we first met, Sara was attracted by my braided belt and pony tail, and didn't notice my uncommunicativeness. When she finally realized I never talked, it was too late and we already were married. Things went from bad to worse when I had an affair with my therapist. This was not the kind of communication she had in mind, Sara told anyone who would listen.

Sara and I dressed quickly that morning, and then sat in the family room, coffee cups in hand, on opposite ends of the convertible sofa we had just bought, a sturdy choice in brown tweed with good springs.

"Will outlast your marriage," the saleswoman had said when we bought it.

"Could we see something with a longer warranty?" I had asked at that time.

"Consider these," the saleswoman had offered, clearing her throat, wiping any semblance of a smile from her face when she saw the wife was not amused, and pointing in the direction of an alcove toward the rear of the store. "Preowned," she announced.

"You mean used," I said.

"Oh no, this is of the highest quality, from the very best families; property sold from estates and divorces."

"Great, so we can carry on the tradition."

"Enough already," Sara said. "Let's just buy the goddamn sofa."

"We have to talk," Sara said, rising from the sofa to put her empty coffee cup in the sink, a clutter of unwashed dishes.

I had been with her for more than a decade, but the expression on her face at that moment was one I had never seen, the edge in her voice unfamiliar, and it made my heart speed, my temples throb.

What made things different for Sara was that she had met someone else with real promise, a man who already knew how to talk. Now she not only had reason to leave but somewhere to go.

"I think I want to separate," I heard her say, from her end of the sofa, eyes fixed on me, a determination in her voice. I said nothing at first, and felt my mind shutting down. I slumped on the sofa, first staring at her in disbelief, confusion, then just staring as if at a stranger, wondering who she was, trying to place her familiar looks.

"What?" was all that finally came out.

"I think I want to separate," she repeated.

"You think or you know?"

"I know."

"Why?" I asked the question, but already knew the reason, unspoken between us for quite sometime. And Sara knew that I knew this, and need not answer, and so she said nothing, arms wrapped tight around a throw pillow pulled into her chest.

"A trial separation;" she said, softening a bit, which gave me hope, but which I realized later was pity.

I called her nearly every day for months. I asked if the trial period was over yet, if the results were known, maybe published in the latest issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. I wanted to return, no questions asked, to continue as before, but better.

"Give me one more chance," I said.

"I've already given you a thousand," she said.

During this time, I came to the house when she wasn't home and mustered the courage to go into the bedroom. I surveyed the room's familiar landscape. There were the same pictures, dresser, bedspread; but everything had changed. I imagined the other man in the bed. Sara would be on her side; she always had to sleep on the right. The man replacing me would be on the left; the indentations I saw on the unmade bed no longer my own.

"Which road are we on?" I would ask.

"I don't know yet," would be her answer, until one day I finally stopped asking out loud, keeping the question to myself, unanswered, but decided nevertheless.

It's her departure that finally jarred loose my voice; too late for my marriage, but in time for you.

"Put your emotional energy where it will do some good," Stuart advises.

"You make her sound like an investment strategy;" I say.

"You want to spend the rest of your life alone with your calluses?" he asks.

"I don't use my hands," I say.

"Have you thought about what you would do if she were suddenly free and dear?" Stuart continues.

"Now you make her sound like a mortgage," I say.

"Let me walk you through it;" Stuart says. "The day she leaves her husband, is the day this fantasy crap ends. Have you thought about what it really would be like with her, day in and day out?"

There is this woman, Stuart proceeds to tell me, an available woman, who he thinks I should meet; and so I do. We arrange to meet in the lobby of a hotel, half way between our two jobs. We settle at an outdoor table by the pool, eight dollar glasses of cheap chardonnay set in front of us, like microphones. "I ride," the woman tells me. I think cowgirl, the open range; maybe motorcycles. "Dressage;" she says. "Side saddle?" I ask, not knowing much about horses. She shakes her head no. "Oh," I say. "National Velvet." "Yes," she says, and I have images of a young Elizabeth Taylor jumping over posts and gates, wearing a pointy hat, dressed in suede. "My dad took me on pony rides when I was a kid," I say. "You must have been quite the cowboy;" she says. "I suspect they were donkeys, though," I say. "More likely mules," she says. "I never got to hold the reins;" I say. "They just led you in circles?" she says. "Yes;" I say, "and at the pony ride too." The conversation goes well enough. The wine she spills, punctuating her remarks in favor of drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, only soaks one of my jacket sleeves. "Nice to meet you;" I say in the parking lot, not meaning it, shaking hands goodbye. "Her skirt was too short for her thighs," I tell Stuart afterwards. "It shows a lack of perspective. And I didn't like her energy policy."

"The point is;" Stuart tells me, "you could sleep with this woman and it wouldn't kill you."

"How do you know that?" I say.

You would think I finally would get it after my daughter crashes into the median divide, flipping end to end, landing vertical, spinning like a top, then rolling three times. She's on her way to Miami, three thousands miles away, when I get a call from the hospital. Miraculously, she's unhurt except for very sore shoulders, back, and head; the start of a black eye.

I call you, two floors away, but you're not there. I send you an email, telling you what happened; how thankful I am that she's alive, how utterly scared I was of what might have been. I go outside for air, and walk around in a daze; my mind spinning, my body refusing to stand still. I don't hear back from you for hours, and when I do, your email reply is barely a line. This is when I let myself imagine that what you really want to do, but can't, is run up the back stairs to my office, give me the hugs I need; be with me that evening to soothe the headache I surely will have; put your cool lips on my forehead, tell me stories, whisper in my ear that everything is OK.

The next day you walk with me at lunch, and we sit in my car, the windows rolled down for air. You hold my hand, stroking it gently, and my tears start to well. But we're in public, you're inhibited, and I have to hold back.

"You know I care about you, right?" you say before you leave.

"I know," I say."

“All I wish is to take you in my arms and hold you," you say.

"It's all I wish, too," I say, and at that moment I do start to get it.

"I'm not surprised;" Stuart tells me later. "The problem with illusions is that you can't always count on them being there."

A week later on a Saturday morning, my daughter safely home and in physical therapy for all her bumps and bruises, I'm in a coffee shop, waiting for my car to be tuned. I scan the room for empty tables while waiting in line for a cup of dark roast and a low fat scone. By the time I get my order, a table opens up by the window, behind a woman who I noticed when I first came in. She's sitting alone, book in lap, writing tablet on the table; holding a fine tip pen. I take out my own book, tablet, and same kind of pen. I sip my coffee, facing her back, waiting for her to turn around. I imagine that she will recognize me as a kindred spirit; that I will start the conversation with something witty, and if not that, then I'd talk about our identical pens. She will give me her phone number, and I will call her that very afternoon. We will go out that same evening and it will be wonderful. I keep thinking this all the way through the time she packs up her things and heads out the door; without a second look in my direction, without a word from me. "I couldn't think of the right opening," I report to Stuart afterwards. "Any opening is right," he says. "She was perfect;" I say, and feel foolish as soon as the words slip out. "They always are," Stuart says. "Especially the ones you never meet.”

There finally is allowing myself to consider that if we had each other in more than just short doses at a time, we would turn ordinary; becoming like that tired and cranky couple trying to park; unable to stay within the lines, telling each other to kiss our asses. At least this is what I tell myself to believe.

There is imagining that you will throw your husband out again, but that you also will take him back once more; and that maybe this will be the time it jars loose a voice in him worth hearing. And by giving him another chance, you may be giving him the thousand and one chances he needs to finally get it right.

There is imagining that I will move on; with a girlfriend, not as thin as you, but more tangible. She will love me, and maybe I will learn to love her too. You and I will continue to walk in circles outside work, side by side, but now our shoulders will remain wide apart, in no danger of touching. There will be no more kisses in empty elevators. The feeling that we must have known each other in a former life will linger, but with much less certainty. I will take up classical riding, learning to navigate the downward transition from canter to trot. And when you visit my house, my dog will be disinterested, spending his time in the far corner silently chewing a bone.

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