Structural Tension
By Alexander Kafka
QuailBellMagazine.com
QuailBellMagazine.com
A Tea Party with DeathWriter/Director: Christine Stoddard Models: Erica Breig, Helen Georgia Stoddard, and Tia-Marie Brown QuailBellMagazine.com Dear Tragically Beautiful Young Soul, You are cordially invited to a tea party with Lady Death on the 31st of October, 2010. Please arrive at the clover-green hill overlooking the West part of the city by 3 p.m. Lady Death does not tolerate tardiness. Therefore, leave your “fashionably late” mentality tucked in your wardrobe, behind those rags you would never dare wear in public. For that matter, please dress in your finest black attire. Hats, gloves, and pearls, though not required, are encouraged. Lady Death expects cleanliness and even modesty. Sloppy wretches, in her almighty opinion, do not deserve coffins. Lastly, bring nothing more than your perfectly coiffed self. Food is not necessary as Lady Death does not eat. Wine, too, would go unappreciated. Lady Death drinks nothing but tea and blood. Please keep the aforementioned at the front of your mind. Lady Death deserves your full concentration—and she will ensure that she occupies every thought crawling through your head. May slimy skin, dry veins, and decaying eyes be in your future. Sincerely, Lady Death's Handmaiden             Squirrel SpiritBy Luna Lark QuailBellMagazine.com I should begin with an apology, Squirrel. I did not wish to take your life.
When the sky was green and the grass was blue, my mother used to read me Aesop's Fables. She'd sink into a deep velvet armchair and then unfold her glasses. Once bespectacled, she slowly turned the golden pages of her age-old tome so I could admire all the illustrations. I learned about the lion and the mouse, the fox and the crow, the frog and the ox...and many others. But after hearing “The Sportsman and the Squirrel,” I never imagined I would become the Sportsman. House of GlassBy Ruth Dominguez QuailBellMagazine.com i live in a glass house of rumors violent whispers from fiery tongues in the winter the ice perpetually creeps forward, inching slowly and retreating again from the heat as if oceans' tide during the night frost decorates the windows in icy formations of various fractions and angles and during sunrise they melt away peel away the clear view of snow the sun is my friend and enemy in my glass house i accept sunrays in their full force on cloudless days sunset is nostalgic and dusk is the haunting lonesome love of dying lovers i observe the sun's ever-changing color of the world from views in my glass house my pipes are glass and even my waste is delicately seeped in solar energy i flush, shower, and gargle in the sun in the evening i climb my winding-stair of glass comb my hair with a glass comb lay flat on my bed and wait for the sky to deepen and pierce with star-light my motion on the orbiting, rotating earth, is as a jagged clear crystal a fossil with life-breath victim of fog and storm sun's companion. Flower FaceBy Alexander Kafka QuailBellMagazine.com 
Bat GardenBy Luna Lark QuailBellMagazine.com 
The Quail's HeartBy Christine Stoddard QuailBellMagazine.com In a land neither here nor there roamed a stressed—some might say aggrieved--quail. If she had had thumbs, she would have twiddled them until they became raw. Instead, she had wings and she dared not twiddle them because she feared her feathers would fall out. That would not do for such a vain little creature. Thus she continued agonizing over the plight of motherhood with all of her feathers intact. If the quail could have hired a surrogate mother, she would've made the phone call right away. But such an option does not yet exist for quails. And even if it did, they would have to begin using phones and printing their own phone book first. Otherwise, how would anyone get in touch with a surrogate? The quail hated motherhood for several reasons. She did not look forward to her plump figure becoming even plumper. She also decided that, with a lifespan of only four or five years, it did not seem just that she should have to spend at least half of it tending to hungry, shrieking “goblins.” The quail did not want to find seed for anyone but herself. She figured she exercised enough as it was. After bitterly carrying 18 little eggs inside of herself for months, the quail laid them as quickly as could. With her lady parts still sore, she promptly left the eggs to attend a retreat. Being a quail, she had no nails and therefore did not consider getting a “mani” or “pedi”--, though, being as vain as she was, the quail would've if she could've. But sitting and complaining about motherhood to other animal mothers instead of to a nail technician seemed plain fine to her. Two-thirds a Love PoemBy Nick Chandler QuailBellMagazine.com If I could just touch your ankle. Like a light and hollowed breeze who’s breath tugs at your hem line Then, in a slip, recedes back into the new world, over old and fresh-built homes as it remembers itself, cold and ephemeral hungry and lost, as it grazes more feet and laps at the misty heated windows All Around UsBy Joey Tran QuailBellMagazine.com Belted SunBy Morgan Barbour Featuring Luna Lark QuailBellMagazine.com 
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