Description
Winner of the Spring 2023 Black River Chapbook Competition
Tales of longing and desire for escape, Horsemouth and Aquariumhead features imaginative and sometimes unsettling characters. Whether the characters yearn for a different, unknown life, or they wish themselves out of something else, Turner’s surreal yet relatable collection offers glimpses to the depths beneath, above, or in-between our own domestic realities. One woman purchases a train ticket to a town that may or may not actually exist. Another discovers her life’s purpose through a burgeoning friendship with earnest dry-cleaning bags. A failing circus is organized around the sole act of unstoppering bottles of laughter. Fairy tales told in cars that take only leaded gas, these twelve flash pieces give readers a sense of belonging in environments whose rules we do not know.
from “When the Girls Came Driving”
The Girls drove a caravan of matching 1970 Chevelles—all chestnut brown and speckled with glitter. The stripes down the hoods were black mica, and the chrome burnt my eyes with its silver. To look at them was to be inside a star; those cars sparkled so intensely that the transformer on the corner of Blight and Wan blew as they rolled by. Those of us waiting for The Girls were showered in white and orange sparks. We cheered as flames licked the wires. George the veterinarian had a smoldering mustache. Celia, I swear, Celia had a halo of lights in her hair, and as they winked out, they didn’t leave a single mark. She tells anyone who will listen that on that day, her scoliosis was finally cured. No one called to get the transformer fixed, because no one messed with an appearance by The Girls.
Usually, we smelled the shift in time before they arrived. The air would blow briny, a whiff of seaweed, a hint of dock rot, a taste of the center of the sun on our lips, and windows up and down the streets were thrown open. Women struggled into moth-eaten tube tops and Dr. Scholls sandals held together with duct tape; men girdled themselves into tiny shorts and old Sex Wax t-shirts. Sometimes people just came out naked, as naked with The Girls was always better than staying inside.
The girls the girls the girls are here the girls the girls the girls have come thegirlsthegirlsthegirlsthegirlsthegirls…the collective whisper built from our houses as we got ready; we couldn’t help but say it out loud as we brushed our hair and searched for our Bonne Bells. We felt the engines first, the thrumming engines of their cars beat in our breasts as we primped and hurried outside. The cars evaporated clouds from the sky with their heat; the sun burned and gleamed off their paint jobs like fire. We’d woozily clutch each other and gulp in the biggest breaths we could, as though inhaling the leaded gas and smoke could trap their essences within us. It was The Girls, you see. We did it for The Girls.
