No Mark Spiral1. d4 | d5 Mark and I played our Gameboys \ 2. c4 | dxc4 everyone kept it secret from Baba Galya 3. e4 | e5 that she was going to die | we weren’t 4. Bxc4 | Qxd4 supposed to say “cancer” / but she knew anyway 5. Qxd4 | exd4 and kept that a secret from all of us – 6. Bxf7+ | Kxf7 as I won the fourth grade state championship 7. e5 | d3 Papa whispered “three months?” into 8. e6+ | Kf6 his phone \ she died and I locked Mark in a closet 9. Kd2 | Bb4+ crying with the lights off | ha ha ha / Papa 10. Kd1 | d2 assigned us 120 tactics a day and played online 11. e7 | dxc1Q+ chess until dawn in my bedroom | I was so scared 12. Ke2 | Qe3+ of seeing Baba Galya’s ghost / I loved Mark 13. Kd1| Qd2+ so much – ball lightning \ 14. Nxd2 | Ke5 and the space between us grew and 15. e8Q + | Ne7 grew | and years kept passing 16. Qxe7+ | Be6 in their orbits / their spirals – I am here \ trying to 17. Qxe6+ | Kd4 stand in the center but 18. Nb3+ | Kd3 it keeps pushing me out Available now, No Mark Spiral (Cutbank Press) is Rainie Oet ’16’s eighth chapbook.
FeaturesAnne ‘Woody’ Christian Tedeschi ’56Winter 2019I’ve had at least five lives, but my greatest love has always been painting…