Albany RoadThe Literary & Art Magazine of Deerfield Academy

SPRING 2008

DEER F I E L D , MAS SACHU S E T T S

2 | ALBANY ROAD

EDITORS-IN-CHIEF

Julia Keller & Françoise de Saint Phalle

LITERARY EDITORS

Matt BuckleyKathryn ClinardBradley ElkmanJosh Krugman

LAYOUT

Kathryn ClinardKadie Ross

Françoise de Saint Phalle

ART EDITOR

Kadie Ross

FACULTY ADVISORS

Andrea Moorhead & Robert Moorhead

Albany Road would like to thank Mr. Scandling and the English Department for their

guidance and support as well all those who submitted to this issue.

SPRING 2008 | 3

from THE EDITORS

A FRESHMAN GIRL CAUGHT MY ARM ONE MORNING A FEW WEEKS AGO. I was mid-

stride, practically sprinting to class. My hair was soggy and dripped down my back,

and to my disappointment, spring was not as welcoming as I had hoped. Like me,

she was running late, and I was left shivering in the gray morning light. My fresh-

man friend beckoned me toward the side of the dorm. There against the ash-

colored clapboards was a lone bulb, a peep of yellow peeked out from beneath a

hazel tissue coat. By that afternoon, the daffodil had fully bloomed and the arms

of its tissue coat barely held on to the stem.

Every writer stores these images away, waiting for the perfect moment to

come along when they will revisit and tap into them for inspiration. However, it is

recreating the single fleeting moment—the image of spring’s hint of arrival, or the

urge to slam the door of that “close-it”—that is the challenge. It is not only the

ability to recognize these images in our lives, but the ability to capture the unique-

ness of these moment that helps writers create a true piece of writing.

May you too, enjoy these images and look for them in the hills.

-F.A.S.P. & J.K.

4 | ALBANY ROAD

INCOMPLETE. A statement in academia that seems to instantly condemn one to

failure, to a fatal ‘F’ etched in red ink on the top right corner of a paper. But in art,

such unfinished, imperfect presentation emulates an often unseen creativity, a

hidden attraction. We do not often celebrate the progress of creativity. We desire

instantaneous lines of genius and strokes of brilliance to stream from our fingers.

It is in the process, in fact, that the genuine vision of an artist—literary or acrylic—

becomes real.

In a world where so much is strictly absurd and so little is given due explanation,

I hope the pages of this issue offer a moment of authenticity, an account of the

creative process and a collection of the thoughts of yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

—CPR

SPRING 2008 | 5

6 | ALBANY ROAD

CONTENTS

PROSE

Sean Paul Ashley Faded Photograph 14

Shirley Akrasih Abandoned 16

Josh Krugman Isaac Parsons’ Story 29

Jennie Natenshon Emma Undressed 38

POETRY

Sean Paul Ashley Abandoned 9The City 15

Juliana Saussy Old Poet 10Midday Disturbance 13

Kimi Goffe Universe 20

Josh Krugman Incommunicado 34Oxford, Georgia 1962 36

Aaron Clayton-Dunn A Letter to a Distant Home 45

Ingrid Kapteyn We Keep Out Someof My Father’s Shoes 48

SPRING 2008 | 7

CONTENTS

ART

Joanne Huang Water Color Studies Cover

BondSutuntivorakoon Dreaming of Retirement 12

Lucy Drummond Beater 21

Carly Flynn Ballerina 22Kneeling Nude 47

Hannah Flato House Fly 23Water over Fingers 49

Julia Keller Benton 24

Alison Byrne Sunshine on a Rainy Day 25

Liz Emmanuel Nude Woman in Charcoal 26

Kristin Simmons Thalia’s Dream 27

Lucy Drummond Truck 28

Jun Taek Lim Inner Conflict 33

Annabel Prouty Trumpet 37

Austin Turner After Martin Lewis 44After Louis Orr 53

8 | ALBANY ROAD

SPRING 2008 | 9

SEAN PAUL ASHLEY

Abandoned

Discarded, Forlorn and creased, dangling flaccidly from twoslumped and slack wires, a pair of crinkled, cracked shoes withlimp laces leer at the chipped and crisscrossed curb. Raggedand ripped, they are skeletal shreds clothing the tattered, torncables. Shoes blackly hover over the road, grimly leering withstitched lace lips and hollow, haunted eyeholes surveying a

squalid, sooty slum of cardboard and zinc seething beneath theeerie stillness of soles.

10 | ALBANY ROAD

JULIANA SAUSSY

Old Poet

let’s run to remember his thick presence rawwith aching, and marmalade;his legs spotted like the egg sandwicheshe folds from rye, bending bread into breadthe way he presses old age into starched shirts.he is old in our remembering,pre-death. his corpse has not become him;his tongue not yet carved intoimprecision like the last time we seethe poet, splayed into crassness, the sliced offtongue a coiling broken apostrophe,rubbing itself into the asphalt, unformed words,something like sunshine—sickly spittle against cementlike disconnected worms—headstails,the slaughter of rain. we are not thinkingof the way his blood streaks like red ink,the editor’s pen. we are not thinkingof the air, still and thick, that ragged silenceweighed around the edges with stones—the flies lazybullets hanging in summer heat. instead, we rememberthis poet of hollow-boned poems, back-snappedby translation, couplets cradling the moon’s scarsand the supple scrape of river; the pruningof brambled russian tongues. we rememberhis sandwiches. the roast beef crumpledthin, his cellulite; his sentences sliced and stiltedand wrapped in butcher paper; a pristine painting-on(easter eggs 1930, the thin tonguesof brushes), horseradish and mustard—

SPRING 2008 | 11

JULIANA SAUSSY

to stimulate. two moldy doilies of bread;the slipping of silverintact, careful insertion, open-faceviewing, the sit,a wake of marmalade.

12 | ALBANY ROAD

BOND SUTUNTIVORAKOON

Dreaming of Retirement

e

JULIANA SAUSSY

Midday Disturbance

a sweep of birds.we are at the thrift store,rush out. they come in a sudden blizzard:we still fingering clothes mustyas old tomes or old rain, dusty;they feathering light across skies likeiron kettles, doorknobs (25c), silver spoons.below, bundled and burdened with threadbarebags of dollar rags and too much wool,we raise our heavy heads to waveand, awed and simple, gazeinto that churn of birds.black. at night we are caughtstill pointing index-out, arrested.above, the skies fumbling and fazed,the birds tearing softly away,rustling from rooftopsto snow down across townwrinkled pages as slightand settled asfeathers.

SPRING 2008 | 13

SEAN PAUL ASHLEY

The Faded Photograph

THE PHOTOGRAPH WAS CRACKED and crinkled. Its edge was khaki yellowishstain. Oily whorls smudged the surface giving it a filmy appearance,distorting the face underneath. The man’s visage was that of a desecratedhouse. His eyes were cracked and splintered, red veins spavined across thefilmy brown surface. One eye was milky white, like a forlorn bulb weaklyglimmering in the window. His eyelids were earthy brown shutters stainedby the accumulated grime of years. The forehead was excessively creasedand furrowed with a raised terra cotta texture. Like shingles on a roof, theycrisscrossed his forehead. His eyebrows jutted out like hooded eaves furrywith fungus over his dull widows. His hair was like the grass outside thehouse.A wispy and dead brown receding sharply from the temples comingto rest in the middle as a white matted pad that feebly boasted: “Welcome”.His mouth was brown and chapped, a cracked door slightly ajar.

He used to fix his catatonic eyes on me, his lips quivering, andspeak in a hoarse and husky voice.

“Son, bring me a glass of water”I would slouch forward and thrust the cool brown glass at him.

Then I sauntered back into the house and sat on the sagging couch, andwatched as he rocked away on his creaking chair until dusk, watching thesunset. He would repeat that same phrase like an epitaph, engraved in hishead.

Now I stretch my veiny hand, quivering over the mound of dirt,and deposit the discolored photograph against the marble headstone. I walkslowly back to the porch and sit in the rocking chair. I can see the marbleheadstone from here. Only two lines were inscribed upon it proclaiming‘Loving Father’; yet they have long been smoothed down. The sun is settingslowly under the horizon, turning the mountains purple with shadow. Myson is bored; he fidgets and stares at the grass languishing in the sunlight.My gaze is fixed on the yellow square atop the mound. I am thirsty.

14 | ALBANY ROAD

SEAN PAUL ASHLEY

The City

Steel grey smoke weaves intricate chainsinto the cool velvet cloth of the sky:a black blanketover graffiti’s concrete pillow.The road is empty nowand the neon lights glimmer and fade into grey conformity.A taxi meanders past,lifting hollowed eyes in entreaty,slipping into the quicksand night.a sepulchral havenfor the gilded relics,pinpricks in the gloom,golden pools shimmer on cracked asphalt.Rivers of darkness sluice between them.The light flickers out, a broken chordtumbling away.

SPRING 2008 | 15

Shirley Akrasih

Abandoned

“Akua Shirley, Kofi Tri is ringing the bell. Hurry up and go greet him.”Almost four years had passed since David last stood in front of our

door. It felt like more than the door was separating us; more like years ofminimal communication—no phone calls, birthday cards, emails, or evena damn postcard.

“Okay, mommy, I’ll get it.”I sprinted down the stairs, almost burning my hands on the splin-

tered, wooden banister. I never thought I’d hear his name again, much moresee him. I glanced into the peephole to make sure it was actually him. Mymom’s eyesight wasn’t reliable, so for all I knew she could have mistakena statuesque Black man for a petite Asian woman! As I motioned to openthe door, my hands began to tremble.Yo, he cannot be chilling on the frontsteps right now.

The last time I saw him in this exact spot, he was making his finalgoodbyes before he headed off to join a naval base stationed on the otherside of the world. When he took off, I had just been promoted to the fourthgrade. At that age, I knew enough to realize that David joining the navymeant he was working to help protect us, whatever that meant. The navy hasto do with ships and large bodies of water. That Negro can’t even swim tosave his life and the only “ship” he’s been on was a ferry crossing theHudson from Jersey City to Manhattan, but he’ll be okay I guess. I knewenough to understand that Japan was way more than two hops and a skipaway frommy home. However, the prospect of David buying me the hottestPokémon memorabilia and the most up-to–date Sony walkman put memore at ease. The only thing I couldn’t wrap my mind around was, “Whydoes he want to leave in the first place?”

I ignored my nervousness and opened the door. I had to take halfa step back because I was startled by how much he towered over; he evenhad to bend down a bit to fit through my front door.

“Well, I’ll be damned. It’s really you.”

16 | ALBANY ROAD

SHIRLEY AKRASIH

“Hell yea. Here in the flesh.”Nobody expected David’s response; least of all my Uncle Isaac,

his father. “What are you going to do as a computer engineer? It’s either lawor medicine. Take it or leave it.” David had just come home for winter breakfrom his freshman year at Rutgers and he didn’t want to go back.My family considers getting an education to be the highest priority on everychild’s list, especially Uncle Isaac. Graduating from college is not enough;finishing grad school is the pinnacle.

“Mami Minyeteria.”“Yes, Uncle,” I replied.“When you get older, you are going to be a doctor or lawyer and

take care of all of us, right?”He and my father grew up together, and they both missed attending

the University of Ghana’s law school because of their financial situations—without extra money for bribes, nothing could happen. InAmerica, they be-lieved they had a chance to attend law school and receive their degrees,but different realities of life hit them. With wives and children to support,school was out of the question. Being a porter in a NYU apartment buildingdid not hold the same appeal as being a revered judge or politician inAccra,but my father learned to cope with his circumstances; my uncle didn’t.Uncle Isaac’s a painfully proud man and refused to do any job that madehim seem inferior.With the little money he earned from working as a librar-ian combined with the little money my aunt earned as a nursing assis-tant, he went to school and got not one, but two masters’ degrees, in Godonly knows what. Even with his two degrees, people still treat him, as hefrequently says, “like a fucking foreigner.” His tailored three- piece suitsand extensive vocabulary can’t exempt him from experiencing every immi-grant’s worst nightmare: “Sorry, sir, but you’re going to have to slowly re-peat yourself because I can’t understand a word you are saying.”

Uncle Isaac wanted to live vicariously through David, but he nevertook into account what David wanted. So David took his father’s proposaland left it all; joined the navy and moved his ass all the way to freakingSHIRLEY AKRASIH

SPRING 2008 | 17

18 | ALBANY ROAD

Japan. The problem is David never understood how much we all dependedon him somehow.We looked to him to be the “One.” My uncle just wantedDavid to fulfill the dreams he himself could not accomplish. The otheradults just wanted to have a doctor or lawyer in the family that they couldbrag about. I wanted David around because I needed a “big brother” to lookup to and depend on. I remember when he would take my sister and me toLiberty State Park when our parents had to work. On long summer days, hewould teach us how to ride bikes and fly kites. I remember when he wouldbake us little Ghanaian meat pies. He would use a fork to poke our initialsinto a pie so we wouldn’t argue over who got shafted with the smallest one.Even though he was a senior in high school while we were only inelementary school, he took care of us because we were his “little sisters.”

“Erade, yesu Christo,”mymom screamed, “I know your mother isso happy to see you.” She had to get on her tiptoes to kiss him on the cheek.“Ey maybe I need to be a soldier man too. It looks like they’ve been feedingyou with fufu and abenquayne soup.”

“Umm . . . Auntie, not quite, but its okay.”“So what has it been like 3, 4 years since we’ve last seen you.”“Yea, about 4 years I guess.”Actually it’s been 4 years, 3 months, and 2 days, but who’s count-

ing.I sat in the living room quietly as David conversed excitedly with

my mom about his trips to Tokyo and his adventures in Korea,Afghanistan,and Siberia.

Why isn’t he acknowledging the fact that while he was travellingthe eastern part of the globe, the rest of us were stuck here?

Suddenly, I exploded. “You were so busy in Tokyo that you didn’tcome to my confirmation.You missed my 8th grade andWight Foundationgraduations. You’ve never been to Deerfield. You’ve never taken medriving and you never sent me nann a card for my Sweet 16. Youabandoned me.”

Actually, I never even murmured any of that. I just sat there andnodded my head in response to his comments. I didn’t have the heart to tell

SHIRLEY AKRASIH

SPRING 2008 | 19

him how I really felt. Just as usual, I packed up my feelings and hid themin a corner, internalizing my pain and frustration, instead of just lettingloose.

It’s been almost 3 years since that conversation took place. Hecame home over winter break and he’s apparently “home to stay.” I shouldprobably talk to him about how I feel to prevent yet another ulcer fromforming. However, as frustrated as I have been with him sometimes, I’mjust glad to have him back.

20 | ALBANY ROAD

KIMI GOFFE

Universe

She looks upand is surprised to find starslike salt on a plate,as if she could sticka fingerinto the skythen lick the staroff her fingernail,run her tongue over her teethto clean them of residualcosmic matter.

The moon was stuckbetween her molarsand despiteher gum ball training,she almost chokedon the sun.

SPRING 2008 | 21

LUCY DRUMMOND

Beater

CARLY FLYNN

Ballerina

22 | ALBANY ROAD

HANNAH FLATO

House Fly

SPRING 2008 | 23

JULIA KELLER

Benton

24 | ALBANY ROAD

ALISON BYRNESunshine on a Rainy Day

SPRING 2008 | 25

26 | ALBANY ROAD

LIZ EMMANUEL

Nude Woman in Charcoal

SPRING 2008 | 27

KRISTIN SIMMONS

Thalia’s Dream

28 | ALBANY ROAD

LUCY DRUMMOND

Stitch

SPRING 2008 | 29

JOSHUA KRUGMAN

Isaac Parsons’ Story

INCIDENTALLY, THE DAY after Mrs. Parsons died of a stroke in her rockingchair in the sun porch, with the reflections of the putrid floral yellowwallpaper making her look even more dead than she was, her son, Zac,

robbed the five-and-ten down on the corner of Stravinsky and Main Streetsand was brought in to jail without a shirt on because he had been polishingthe antique cash-register of the store with his shirt (because he couldn’t forthe life of him open it to get the change out) when they arrested him, andthen they figured they should just handcuff the guy and not worry aboutthe shirt. Zac, though everyone agrees on his upstanding character, has beenknown to have quite a colorful tongue when he finds himself in a tight spot.This did not serve him well in court, when he sued the police departmentfor sexual harassment (because he was shirtless in the cruiser) and he claimsthe officers remarked on the meager size of his pectorals. He said severalelaborate words in his bluestreak of curses that even the reporter for theNorth Drearysville Gazetteer didn’t know, and so they are lost to us to thisday.

Isaac Parsons was quite tall but rather hunched, leaning everso-slightly forward so that it looked like he was walking fast, or purposefullyat least, even when he wasn’t. His cheeks were concave and feeble lookinglike the bellows of a bagpipe long out of use. He used to smoke a good dealwith the other boys his age, but they drove him away after he wouldn’tshoot someone’s beebee gun at a musk-turtle they’d nailed to a tree. Afterthat, he mostly did housework for his mother, but he worked part time(enough to by a pint of milk every two days) as a paper-boy for theGazetteer. He was the oldest on the staff, and thereby garnered some respectfrom the younger paperboys for a while, which was healthy for Zac, butthen they realized (when they retired one after the other at age twelve andthirteen) the nature of Zac’s position. He carried papers, but he lookedrather papery himself, like a big wind might just sweeeeeeep him off hisfeet silently (oh, so lightly) into the river where his would disintegrate. Thisis how papery Isaac was.

JOSHUA KRUGMAN

He was always rather quiet, but he had a notably high, unsteady,falsely emotional voice. People would always be surprised when he startedto speak, because he never spoke much, and because of his vocal peculiar-ity. So when Zac shouted at the judge, the old retired army-man, theHonorable Judge Sanders, a model citizen in Drearysville to be sure, withhis garlands of exploding curses, the whole audience of the court—andthere was quite an audience, becauseWhat else would one do on aWednes-day evening?—(which had been dozing as the Honorable Colonel Sandersread his lengthy denial of further legal proceedings) swiveled their headseversoslightly to stare with fixed fascination at the spectacle of Parsons’voice. People assumed afterwards, and after the few other times that he hadpublic fits of foul language, that the obviously salty, but almost entirelymystifying vocabulary could be attributed to his travels in his teens tovarious foreign countries, the accounts of which he would not reveal evento the very few who bothered to ask.

It was in the police station, still shirtless, after being caught robbingthe five-and-ten, that they told Zac that his mother was dead. They toldhim, and it was true, that the paper-boy had found her. Interestingly, hismother’s house wasn’t on his paper route. That was just the way it turnedout. Young Ishmael Tenor was the one with Emily Lane in his route and itwas a particularly undesirable route indeed since old Sgt. Caraway lived onthe corner and would no doubt either have a beebee gun pointed at you orbe doing voodoo when you walked by. The latter was known to cause back-pain, spontaneous orgasms, and violent hallucinogenic seizures, but that’sanother story. The police said Ishmael Tenor had gone onto the porch toturn off the lights because he knew how Mrs. Parsons was almost neuroticabout saving energy (and he happened to share her penchant for this cause),when he distinctly smelled burning chickpea-curry. The police saidIshmael was, at the time, “veritably famished,” as he put it, and was hopingMrs. Parsons would let him share a bite or two and give her the paperdirectly. The curry was indeed slightly scalded and poor Ishmael took it offthe burner, where it had been simmering, and, to reward himself for thisgood deed, served himself a somewhat heaping bowl of the steaming curry.

30 | ALBANY ROAD

JOSHUA KRUGMAN

He left it on the table and yelled to Mrs. Parsons, “Oh, Mrs. Parsons, thecurry’s ready! It’s practically charred on the bottom. The pan will be hellto clean! Mrs. Parsons, get it while it’s hot! It smells delicious! Oh, Mrs.Parsons!” It was at this moment that it struck Ishmael Tenor that perhapsMrs. Parsons was not in his immediate vicinity. He then began his searchfor her, and the sun-porch was the sixth place he looked after the upstairsbedroom, the upstairs bathroom, the downstairs bathroom, under thekitchen sink and in the basement. He was going to go into the garage next,but he found her on the sun-porch with a record of Isaac Stern playingProkofiev sonatas spinning idly on the dynasouric turntable. She had knit-ting on her lap, she was working on a sweater for her son in a Peruvianstyle her late husband had taught her. She was almost finished: she wasworking on the collar—the element, her husband had said, that tests truevirtuosity in the art of Peruvian knitting. She looked very dead.

This was a rather more lengthy explanation of events than IsaacParsons had wanted. He was becoming steadily more angry with the well-meaning police officers, trying to be as grave and respectful as possibleand failing nonetheless, but feeling that to do their job completely andcorrectly, they must relay each detail just as they had heard it from youngIshmael, so as to be relieved of their burden and not let anything fall throughthe wide floorboards of history.

“And Ishmael didn’t eat the curry,” said one of the two officers, “incase it’s any consolation.” Isaac just stared at the officers. His mother hadbeen old. It was no great shock really. But now he’d be cleaning the houseonly for himself. Perhaps her dresses should go to the Salvation Army, hethought. She had a lot of dresses. But they were old. No one would wantthem probably. “Say, can I get you a shirt,” one of the policemen said.

Zac, didn’t respond. “Just get him a shirt,” said the other, and thefirst one left, in search of a shirt. The shirt smelled like urine. Zac put it on.

“I’m taking this to court,” he said.“She’s dead, Zac, there’s nothing you can’t do about it, man,” said

one of the officers. They were both kneeling or squatting in front of Isaacin what they thought was a comforting position. They didn’t know what he

SPRING 2008 | 31

JOSHUA KRUGMAN

was talking about.So Zac took the officers to court for sexual harassment. The judge

threw the case out of court. Zac swore at the judge. Most people in theaudience didn’t know most of the words he said. They assumed he pickedthem up traveling. The owner of the five-and-ten dropped all charges andthanked Zac for polishing his cash register. “In light of the . . . em . . . familytragedy . . . ah . . . I’ve decided to drop all charges,” he said, and he expectedto be made out a hero or something because of it, but he wasn’t because noone much liked him anyway. They just went home, ate supper and went tobed, and the next morning, weren’t surprised that there were magnolia war-blers singing in the trees by the street, as they went from bed and ate break-fast.

For those of us who care to know, Isaac Parsons would never marryanyone worth a decent metaphor and would eat chickpea curry for breakfastevery day for a long long while.

32 | ALBANY ROAD

JUN TAEK LIM

Inner Conflict

SPRING 2008 | 33

JOSHUA KRUGMAN

Incommunicado

i.

bluebells—bells that areblue.i empty my pocketsand putmy hand in yours,and you just look at me likeyou usually do, and wego to some other partof the museum—museumsremind you of yourself.

ii.

you bury me yellingelvis presley’s tin-drum tantrum—the house is cold.i havea cold coat on but i’llmake you warmin boston-land tomorrow.

34 | ALBANY ROAD

JOSHUA KRUGMAN

iii.

i wrote you a letterwith thousands of sounds in it.it said to you what i wanted it to.

it had so many sounds)like thoughts,like waves breaking on the carpet.

SPRING 2008 | 35

JOSHUA KRUGMAN

Oxford, Georgia, 1962

Perambulating through the neighborhoodin the resurrected Chevy,we watch the dust-devils tempt the tired air.

We drag our fingers in the wakeof the ravishing automobile,our eyes—like glass marbles—repinefor painted steeples of weathervaneson yellowing victorian houses,full with dustfilled drapery and leaded glass—the spanish-moss of wisdom.

It was an executioner’s afternoon,low clouds, like exhaust.our minds were sneakers in new concrete.

36 | ALBANY ROAD

ANNABEL PROUTYTrumpet

SPRING 2008 | 37

JENNIE NATENSHON

Emma Undressed

THE LIGHT IN THE ROOM seemed to deflect off of the wedding cake,pass the newly Mrs.Weston’s bridal sheen and fixate on the mole inthe left quadrant of Captain Weston’s face. The effect illuminated

the flaw quite well, and Mr. Woodhouse mused on this as the cake washanded out to the wedding guests. He thought with great pain about the lifeMrs. Weston would embark on, with a moled husband. It is a truly unfor-tunate mistake on a rather fine painting he remarked to himself, but reallyMr.Woodhouse had never been a fan of the corporeal. And look, as he eatsthe cake, a fleck of frosting has wandered towards the direction of his mole,Mr. Woodhouse set his own confection down, it really was altogether torevolting a site for continued eating.

When Emma sat herself across from her father, he was closing hiseyes over a late night cup of tea, and yes, he was still picturing the mole.And when Miss. Taylor of the newly Mrs. Weston kissed it in the softnuptial bed, she looked at him and thought of her great luck.And when theservants had washed all the wedding silver and walked the short distanceto their country cottages, they fell into harder beds, already steeling them-selves for the draughty morning to come. And when Emma left her father,and retired to her room, her first night as a solitary woman, with no Miss.Taylor to discuss the cake, or the mole on the groom’s face, she opened herdiary to write. She wrote words, of the physical, of the romantic figure ofthe Victorian woman. Later, when she undressed in front of the lamplight,she turned away from the mirror, hiding her body from the inquisition ofher own eyes.

The Victorian woman’s body is no different than that of themedieval woman, or the Renaissance woman, or that even of the lateSumerian. Perhaps the depictions have changed, the interpretations, butunderneath the tunic, or the mantle or the damask jacquard fabric, thesinews and curves are completely ordinary. Emma thought on manybodies and her own as she lay under canopied skies. It had been a good

38 | ALBANY ROAD

JENNIE NATENSHON

thing she had done for the Westons. Perhaps their own figures weretogether now, beneath the sheets, fused as man and wife. It was a ratherpeculiar thought to Emma, not on the basis of its perhaps prying and rudecuriosity, but more on peculiarity of it. Just the night before, the then Miss.Taylor had come to Emma’s room, and taken up her horned brush, andteased out Emma’s hair, like she had always done since she was a child ofjust five. But tonight, Mrs.Weston was so far away from that canopy in thechildhood bed of EmmaWoodhouse.

It was hard to be perfect, because perfection and senses did notcomplement each other well. The taste of an apple, the smell of the stables,the feel of Mr. Knightley’s gloved hand taking her own smaller one, didn’tfit into the emotions that Emma allowed herself to feel. Occasionally,before bathing or dressing, she would steal a glance at her own image andwonder at its working. How under layers of fabric, corsets, lace, and frip-peries, she had a heart that beat(yearned?) blood that coursed, a body thatlived now and would one day die. But ah yes, Mr. Woodhouse had neverbeen fond of the corporeal, and neither was his daughter.

On the subject of Death and Mr. Woodhouse, the servants in theirhome wondered if it would ever find him. Not that they disliked him, he wasone of those papery old fellows, fine tempered and neurotic, you couldn’thelp but find him amiable and odd. But, he had the smell of something oldand withered a pungency that sometimes foretells death, sometimes not.How old was Mr. Woodhouse? They often wondered, cleaning the cham-berpots, underneath the stairs, stealing a moment in the stables. Time, likea black cat, was always there, ominous in the parlor, powerful in its terror,but disguised by the ticking of a gentle grandfather clock. Marching on,hurry up its time, but was time marching towards Emma? No matter herbeauty, rules said she must be married off soon, for if she didn’t she wouldlive forever with Mr. Woodhouse. One day they would seal off his room,and mourners would come, and then darkness for him. But for her, shewould go into the drawing room and look outside the big leaded window,and ask herself, is this when my life begins? Then she would ring thepetite silver bell and call for tea.

SPRING 2008 | 39

JENNIE NATENSHON

Ohh yes, yes, her speech grew more excited with each Ohhhh andSss, Mother and I are very excited to meet the younger Mr.Weston indeed!Or shall we say Churchill, I hear he is extremely handsome and an heir! Canyou believe it mother? No she can’t! Neither can I! Emma smiled politely,inwardly wishing someone would clip her on the ears, and she too wouldbe deaf like the elder Mrs. Bates. She sometimes looked at the wrinkledlittle woman and wondered on just how clever she really was. It would beeasy enough to feign deafness. . . . It wasn’t kind, Emma knew that, butreally it was like having tea with a woodchuck, perhaps not a woodchuck,but a very loud and chirping bird. Emma made these routine visits thatpassed as social calls, to the Bates, Mrs. Goddard, and newly the youngMiss. Smith, but Emma’s diary was the wiser. Perhaps they were her ownidea of goodwill, as she was a Woodhouse. It was always expected thatthose in a position of haughtiness do things that made them look lesshaughty than they truly were. Emma was just sore today on the subject ofMr. Churchill. In truth, she complained of them quietly, but rather likedthem publicly which is all that could be asked. But this conversation hadEmma’s usual perfection slightly unhinged. Yes, he would be interestingto meet, for there had been many looks and smiles when the subject of thisman arose, all pointed in Emma’s direction. No, she would maintain hercomposure, he was merely a figment, and she would finish out her dayswork, making her visits, caring for her father. She pushed away the imageof a young and dashing Mr. Churchill kissing her mouth in the stable; hetasted like apple, and she offered Miss. Bates another scone.

Straightening his clothes, he went to the washroom and called forthe woman who ran the place. She was a Madame, it was clear that thisestablishment, though pleasant in name, Felicities of London, had seenmany an unpleasant Englishman. She called for a maid, one of the homeliergirls who wouldn’t bring much business, to bring a fresh bowl of water sothat he could wash. He did feel dirty after these encounters, especially withLavender. She really was a beauty, eyes like two lagoons, no that wastoo trite; she had eyes like a tiled fountain outside of a Constanti- noplemosque. There, now he sounded as well taught and traveled as any

40 | ALBANY ROAD

JENNIE NATENSHON

Churchill heir should do. Pulling on his jacket, pocketing his handkerchief,he checked his watch for the time, six. The devil’s number. Hurry up nowits time to go Churchill. Rushing would whisk the guilt away. A man mustget his pleasure somewhere, and anyways, he was singing at church onSunday.

It was a delicate business with Emma and the elder Woodhouse.In a bed, not far from London, Knightley assessed his situation. It was nogreat shame to be an unmarried man of seven and thirty. Hurry up. In facthe fancied himself to be rather appealing. He rationalized all feelings ofloneliness and inadequacy, all products of one sole object. The diary wasmaddening. Thin and leather, bound with strips of deep crimson. It wasunlike any diary of a woman he had seen, more like a man’s fielding jour-nal. Inside, were thoughts so torturous, so closed, so flawed, just thinkingof it sent heat coursing through his body. Ah, to the untrained eye, Emmais perfect; surely you must think she is some sort of nymph.

Something in her quiet and deliberate coldness in affairs of herown, and the warmth she shared with the matters of others was infuriating.He had sunk his teeth into a warmed plum and drank it down with icedwine first when he was a man of eighteen. The combination of warmth andice had felt like a hot bath in the middle of a snowstorm.

There was something delicious in the swirl of cold and warm; ithad an untamable dynamism, an ancient balance he couldn’t convey. Emmahad been raised rather improperly, not to be all cold like women of her rankand situation were trained to be. The incongruity of her being made her sostriking. Every mole, and crease, and line on her body Knightley wanted toknow it, like a map a sailor can trace with his eyes closed. Each momentthat he was with her, his thoughts fell on the body beneath the dress, but itwasn’t solely lust, it was a knowledge he craved. A truth he couldn’tdiscover of her sitting in the parlor, or on the window seat in the drawingroom, it wasn’t even hidden in natures loins for he had pillaged the gardenmany a day searching for it.

Something had been criminally wrong with the lighting. The lardcandles gave off an excellent flame, so excellent that Harriet and Emma

SPRING 2008 | 41

JENNIE NATENSHON

had been able to sit and do their needlework even as the sunlight began toquit the sky. Knee-high, Emma had watched her mother arrange a dinnerparty, seating people this way and that, conversing with servants, andalways fussing about the lighting. Or, perhaps Mrs.Woodhouse had died fartoo long before Emma would have been able to seal her in memory. Nomatter, tonight the candles produced a flat and unflattering glow. The themewas apple, for there was so very much you could do with that simple fruit.Yet, the reflection cast by the lard made the poor Mrs. Bates look rather likea fat Granny Smith herself (Emma found herself quite delighted andappalled by this choice of lighting after all). It delighted Mr.Woodhouse noend that Mr.Weston’s mole was fully illuminated from this particular angle,giving him chance to show Emma, and having the added effect of puttinghim quite off his dinner. Hurry up now, it is time to eat! I hate to be rude,but the lovely food is getting cold, make your way to your seats, thank you.Knightley gazed in Emma’s direction, but turned his attention towards theyounger of the Bates, because to be sure she would illicit none of theprimal in him.

Harriet had one annoying hair between the arches of her eyebrows,and when Emma could no longer look at it with out the greatest of irritation,she reached over and plucked it out. Now, let me take this time to say, thatmaybe I have been a bit harsh on our poor Emma. But it is important toknow that she is neither perfect nor fatally flawed. Neither all kind, nor allcruel. She is a person, perhaps a more delicate one on the outside, with bet-ter turn of manners, and a prettier handle on the King’s English than say youor I. But, underneath her dress, she is a person, complex and messy, and itwould be atrocious of you, the reader, to expect her to be anything more,would it not?

Harriet gave a little yelp, but then smiled at Emma because sheknew finding husbands is what Emma does best. And Mr. Elton sat in hisgarden, thinking on just how lovely her golden hair was, the grandeur of herestate, and the poise of her carriage. Mr. Woodhouse sat at tea and talkedon things he found terribly interesting, and Mrs. Goddard thanked god thatHarriet had pretty eyes. Miss. Bates thought of other eyes, for she thought

42 | ALBANY ROAD

JENNIE NATENSHON

often and long on love, love lost, maybe it was love never been, but now,she had nothing else. Knightley and Emma took a turn of the garden, wherehe scolded her (he still couldn’t find it) when she was haughty, and she feltangry that she had no retort. In the stable, Tom, the horseman, gave Fanny,the milkmaid, the best kiss of her life, and afterwards they ate the apples shehad packed for her tea. Half a mile away, Miss. Taylor brought herhusband a cup of tea and kissed him in the left quadrant of his face. And inLondon, the dressmaker, poor herself, fitting Isabelle in the newest stylelooked at each woman whose body came through her shop and remarked,isn’t it odd that we are all the same?

SPRING 2008 | 43

AUSTIN TURNER

After Martin Lewis

44 | ALBANY ROAD

AARON CLAYTON-DUNN

Letter to a Distant Home

My dearest Alma,

It’s snowing outside and the sea is warm and soft.The parade of wind and waves has churned away,and cold confetti now drops on a barren street.The horizon is gone—grey sky melts into grey sea.Sea is sky and sky is sea;the sea is part of the heavens.And all smoothed over with silky snow.

I think the sea is in love with me.If I trudged through snow to the shoreand dove into the dark, dappled water,I hardly believe it would kill me.If it did, it would be as a child killsa pet bird, stroking too hard, out of love.

So here I sit with all the benefits:by the fire in my rocking chair,I lay a blanket on my lap,and look out the window.My mind dives into the hot, drunk seaand runs across that stretch of wet desert‘til water’s gone from beneath my toesand I run through sea and swim through air,lifted beyond that invisible horizon.My mind, soaring and leaping,strokes and stretches infinitelytoward the heavens and to the west.

SPRING 2008 | 45

AARON CLAYTON-DUNN

And I with all the benefits,my pleasure glazed with sea,my mind befits a childand my heart belongs to thee.

SPRING 2008 | 4646 | ALBANY ROAD

CARLY FLYNN

Kneeling Nude

SPRING 2008 | 47

INGRID KAPETYN

We Keep Out Some of My Father’s Shoes

We could barely close it that closet.Layers and towers of slippers and sneakerstoppled toward our open feetwhen we opened that close it.

We could barely close it that closet.Leathers and rubbers of soles and sizesthudded through the open doorwhen we tried to close it that opened it.

Then, we had to box it that closet.Layers and leathers and towers and rubbersdon’t fit in opened boxeseven when we leave alone close its.

We could barely box it that opened close it.

48 | ALBANY ROAD

HANNAH FLATO

Water over Fingers

SPRING 2008 | 49

CONTRIBUTORS’ NOTES

Shirley Akrasih is a four- year senior from Jersey City, NJ. She has livedon Mather I w/ Ms. Ellis for 3 years. She likes to sing acapella and danceto Baltimore Club Music. As you can tell from her story, she is Ghanaian-American and proud of it!"

Sean Paul Ashley is a junior who lives on Louis Marx II East. He is anavid reader though he wishes he could read more often. He hopes to be achampion Scrabble player some day. He respects F. Scott Fitzgerald andMiles Davis for being Kind of Blue. His favorite books are The Autobiog-raphy of Malcolm X and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

Aaron Clayton-Dunn is a Junior and a day student. He has also had poemspublished in Eaglebrook School's literary magazine, The Outlook.

Lucy Drummond is going to change the world.

Liz Emmanuel is a senior from Saint Louis Missouri. She never took anart class before Mr. Dickinson’s intro to art sophomore year, and has beenaddicted ever since.

Hannah Flato is a sophomore from San Antonio, Texas who lives onMacAlister 1 where her singing is banned from the hall.

Kimi Goffewas sleeping one night when the sky burst through her windowand she woke up and wrote a poem. Her most recent hook-ups include JorgeLuis Borges and Tim O’Brien, but her heart will always belong to PabloNeruda, whom she would marry if he were attractive and alive. Things shewill do in the next year: stop biting her nails, go to a young writers’ programwith The Kenyon Review and read the unity prayer at her brother’s wedding(which is what they give you when there are too many bridesmaids). Sheis from Kingston, Jamaica.

Joanne Huang is a four-year senior from Pohang, South Korea. She hasa 9-year-old brother, who sometimes confuses her with their mom. So far,

50 | ALBANY ROAD

SPRING 2008 | 51

she has had a dog, a cat, three gold fish, four birds, eight hamsters, and tworabbits. They all died within a year. She enjoys dancing and drawing, andshe spends most of her Saturdays and Sundays in the genetics lab.

Ingrid Kapteyn is a junior who recently moved fromAlbany Road to MainStreet, and who, despite her short stature, has very large feet. She oftenfinds peace slipping them into her father’s slippers.

Julia Keller is a senior from Concord, MA.

Joshua Krugman disembodied. he lives in the bowels of vowels.

Jun Taek Lim is a junior from Seoul, Korea. This piece “Inner Conflict,”was inspired by Dick Tracy.

Annabel Prouty is a junior from Greenwich, CT and lives on JL1 North.She has done art since sophomore year at Deerfield and planning on takingit senior year as well.

Kadie Ross is a senior from . . . a little bit of everywhere. She drew herselfas a bug and she’s not quite sure why. Maybe Kafka would understand.

Juliana Saussy often ponders the low-loping beauty of bovines. She hopesone day to find a stillness as complete and unvarnished as that of cows.Once, while visiting the dairy farm of her French godparents, she found alarge, creviced stone smooth as the sea and subsequently tried to take it onthe airplane. That would prove to be the first of many incidents in which hervarious carry-on baggages were deemed dangerous or otherwise inappro-priate by the airport crew.

Kristin Simmons has been working in impressionist painting as part of analternate study and hopes to pursue the arts further in college. Her favoriteartists include Monet, Jackson Pollack, Andy Warhol, and Roy Lichten-stein. She enjoys long walks on the beach and mint tea.

Bond Sutuntivorakoon is a senior from Bangkok, Thailand. His dreamprofession is to be a property development tycoon, hotelier, restaurateur,architect, and interior designer, but will probably become a corporate slaveand soulless yuppie.

Austin Turner is from Virginia, and is a senior. He has pursued art for allfour years at Deerfield. He lives in Doubleday dormitory.

52 | ALBANY ROAD

AUSTIN TURNER

After Louis Orr

SPRING 2008 | 53

P R I N T E D I N

T H E U N I T E D S T A T E S O F A M E R I C A

T I G E R P R E S S

N O R T H A M P T O N M A S S A C H U S E T T S

M A Y 2 0 0 8