Tag Archives: SUNY Fredonia

Writing Your Obituary and Wondering if You Would Like It

This is not the place                     to discuss the time you chucked

a Playboy magazine in my middle-schooler lap            just for a hoot. No,

here your love for ugly dogs and riding lawn mowers is not important.

I do not mention                        how often                  I picture      the last time

I saw you.                 Instead, I must write the            year you were born,

and the one in which             you ceased to exist. Then, I must fill in the years

with where you went to college and some of your hobbies,

but only       the boring ones. This is not the place              to tell of my dreams

where you lick gardens            clean of weeds                 by the light

of a setting moon.                         There is no place,            here,       to note

that I’ve only seen my father,                  your only son,            cry once

before, but now he listens to messages you left him weeks ago

and falls      into fountain.     How do I say this                         in a place

that does not care about            the bang                  of your voice,

your neck, seldom seen without             the snake of a scarf,      the smell

of your house,            your handwriting, slow wink, onyx rings,             how much

I wish       I had called,                                     I wish

I had called,             I wish I had called,                        the weight

of your hugs

and the size of your

                                                                                                                                    hands.

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 1 poem by Christian Wessels >>

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Rachel Beneway is a senior English Education major and creative writing minor at SUNY Fredonia. She has previously been published in Gandy Dancer and Fredonia’s literary magazine, The Trident. She would love to befriend Junie B. Jones.

A Reaction to the Doomsday Clock

January 22, 2015
—three minutes to midnight—
due to climate change.

In blue woods, one

tamarack tree snacks

on tattooed sun. Some

cut their    throats

to implore more 4x4s,

spreadsheets, keyboards.

In limbo,        frogs bite

dogs. The house

atop the falls    rains

        only tumbleweeds,

no seeds. Look out

your bay window.

Your flowers now

sound like hurricanes,

in this place     where clouds

mud streets        and rights

swing deep

in hot ruin.

Oceans are plastic, the sky

smells like science.

Kissing to bruise says

a watering can

spewing        gasoline

Wavering from the soft unsaid,

what demands

importance

is a torment.

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Rachel Beneway is a senior English education major and creative writing minor at SUNY Fredonia. She has previously been published in Gandy Dancer and Fredonia’s literary magazine, The Trident. She would love to befriend Junie B. Jones.

Tap Shoe Memento Mori

A vision of Carol Falkowitz, distinguished tap dancer

and colorful grandmother.

Violent slaps ring

off the dining room table’s

finished mahogany.

She matches the metal licks

            to the bold

                        in her hips,

and from it a rhythmic clink resurrects

into tune. Eyes sewn

shut; she lets the silver pulse

            groove              her.

            Her cracked skin

            and kinked frame feeling

for the days of stages and loud light—

an audience of hazy grins

and grabby eyes watch her

                        Cincinnati,

                        Cincinnati

                        ball-change.

Then, from the crimson-rimmed

hollow that is her mouth,

they’ll see, atop

her bubblegummed-tongue, rests

a knotted cherry stem.

Nodding in acceptance

of her lost dew, a

dead peachiness,

she’ll insist:

When I croak—

bury me with nothing but

metal slabs on my feet and a

teacup full of cherries

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Rachel Beneway is in the midst of her junior year at SUNY Fredonia where she studies English education and creative writing. When she manages to break away from the lives of fictional characters, she likes to spend her summers hiking up mountains and winters skiing down them. In a past life she was definitely best friends with Scout Finch. This is Rachel’s first publication.

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