Summertime is Here

Dear Readers,

Welcome to the final edition of the final issue of Parachute for the spring semester. This semester has been more than awesome for the magazine, and the feeling is bittersweet as we conclude for the summer. Among other things we've done this semester, we revamped the website, brought in new editors, and spread the word at various events on campus. Best of all, submissions are rolling in almost faster than we can keep up (almost)!

There are so many people to thank for our aforementioned success this semester; it's hard to know where to begin. First, thank you to the English Department and F.U.S.E. for supporting us and making all of this possible. Thank you to the staff of the Ivory Tower for being great friends and for allowing us to ride the coattails of their success at times.

Thank you to all the authors and artists who...

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Drifting on Pearls

She has been through things I have only dreamed
- Tears well in her eyes
Will you dance with me now?
- Somewhere between bliss and abyss
She smiles through tears dancing her private blue melody
Do you like the music?
- Love is like breathing
Take me somewhere

I hear her cry from the window
- Feel her pain through the partition
The heart knows the chance he'll change, not
- Lost in his violence

On her knees praying to a God she can't see
- Faith on ecstasy

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And Other Summer Days*

I wrote a book. Self-published it. But I'm too humble… too shy… too much of a fucking coward! to talk about it.

Got two copies of it in the mail. They (the people who keep calling until I give them money for something else) call them "galleys." I'm supposed to make sure that these galleys look the way that I want them to.

They do not. I made a typo on page sixty-four. Line six. Verb-noun agreement. Then on the back cover, there is the author's biography… Four months ago, it would have flawlessly told of what my life was like. So much can happen in December. And in January. In February. March. To make those changes would mean to give the company more of the money that I do not have.

I let my boyfriend (the boyfriend who is back at home not living as urgently as he should) have the hardcopy. I kept the paperback. Over the phone, he sat reading the poems aloud. I told him not to, several times. When has he ever listened?

The book is only sixty-seven pages. Of poems. Not one block of...

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The Dawn of Falling Banks and The Shadow of Money

         :

-- Fabio Sassi

Minneapolis -- A Suburban Perspective

Gravel broken from the asphalt cookie sheet lot pops
and grinds beneath my tires as I whip into a stall
and stop. The shadows rotate on an axis,
swiveling and crawling across the empty passenger seat.

My name's called from the pillbox apartment building
in front of me, but all I see is the sun's reflection,
stinging hot lemon in my eyes. A glint of hopeful
light - off of a jail bonds barred window - watches from across
the street because
it has nothing
better to do.

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The Last Job

          The hum of conversations and the chattering of rolling suitcases greeted Jason Hall as he stepped into the terminal at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport. Over the public address system, the flight attendant announced to the waiting passengers that the next scheduled flight would be leaving in roughly one hour. Jason's stomach rumbled with hunger. He strolled toward the terminal entrance, glancing at the restaurants in the concourse. Spying a sandwich vendor, he strode over to order. He pulled out his wallet, which he discovered was empty. He reached into the pocket of his khaki pants and found three dollars, not enough money for a sandwich.
          "Umm, one croissant and a water, please." Jason continued to the terminal entrance after thanking the vendor. He gazed at the snaking security line full of people waiting to be checked, his steely grey eyes darting between individuals in the crowd, studying their interactions.
          One man near his side of the queue caught his eye...

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